477. Joy & Pain Share a Lane

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Welcome to the earn your happy podcast. I'm Lori Harder, founder of The Bliss Project, 3 Time Fitness World champion, fitness expert and cover model turned self love junkie, lifestyle entrepreneur and author. Each week I'll bring you a guest or a thought that will help you bust through your fears, connect to your soul and get focused and clear so you can elevate your life, business and relationships. We don't wait until we're ready for someone to tell us we're good enough. We take what we want and we anoint ourselves. Get ready to earn, own and earn. Unapologetically rock your happiness every single day. Are you with me? Here we go. Welcome back to the earn your happy podcast. And it's time for another quickie because there's always time to fit in inspiration. And it is well into January and I just want to acknowledge all of you for making it this far. Truly, you guys, I think that this is the point where we tend to be like, oh my gosh, am I really going to make this thing happen? I haven't done the things that I've wanted to do. I haven't stuck with all of the plans that I had. And I just want to say, hey, you're doing great. You're doing freaking awesome. And even just the acknowledgement of, okay, I let things slip like, now let's do redo that plan and get a little bit of reality going with how my life actually looks. Maybe we do less, right? Maybe we do one thing at a time. Maybe I don't start that business that diet and guitar lessons all at once. I'm speaking to my former self. So what is that one thing you can do that could support you in all other things? I just want you to take a second to just give yourself some grace. Because the older I get, the more I realize that grace is my best friend. It's truly the thing that is the only thing that lets me move into the person that I want to be and move into the life that I desire is to just stop and say, you know, you're doing the best that you can. I'm so freaking proud of you. You don't implement a million things all at once, right? That's not how we change. You do one thing at a time. So my new year is totally off to a completely different start than I thought. And honestly, the. The what I want to share with you today is my worst nightmare, one of my worst nightmares come true. And I'm starting a new business right now that I'm very excited about. I'll actually be talking about it in the next week or two where you are going to get to be involved. You get the opportunity to potentially invest in a company and usually that is set aside for people who are either investing large amounts or accredited investors. And I'm actually giving my community the opportunity to invest, which is going to be absolutely wild and insane because most companies do not do that because it's risky. So I'll be sharing more of that. But speaking of my worst nightmare coming true, while my wildest daydreams are coming true, I have lost my golden doodle puppy waffles. So this is a podcast that I've never wanted to record and it's not going to be all about that, I promise. So if you're in a really good place, stay there. It's just gonna make it better. If you're in a place where you have lost anything. My God, the stories that people have reached out to me on of losing their puppies, their friends, their loved ones, their moms, their dads, you guys, I understand for some of you, you may not understand having a a puppy and how much it can actually affect your day to day life, but I just feel deep sorrow for everyone who has lost something. And also what's coming up for me is just the fact that I was resisting losing something. The fact that I was resisting the day that this came, the fact that I was, it was my worst fear of a pain that I did not think that I would be able to manage. And for those of you just to understand, I mean, I work from home. My dog literally was my friend before I even had friends. I was extremely introverted. She was 13 and a half years old when I got her. I was in a totally different place. Nothing was happening. I was alone. I was moving from place to place with my husband. I did not have friends. She was my buddy, every single day, my walking buddy. She would relieve my stress. She was just many, many things for me. And I think that when you work from home and your dog is a part of your daily routine, such as walking, working by your feet all day, just all of the things. And especially when you share her with your community and people fall in love with her, it's like that love just expands and grows knowing how many people's days she brightened. So when it happened, my heart literally felt torn out of my chest. Especially since I won't completely share the story, but I was not there, which was horrendous. Having to run an event that was a dream come true while simultaneously having to Know that your husband was back home with this abrupt news and health issues with your dog. It was horrendous. And also teaching me the world's largest lessons of joy and grief exist together on the same highway. And they're not even going opposite directions. Joy and grief exist on the same one way road. It is a two lane one way road. And it all moves forward. And you can switch lanes, you can compartmentalize, but most of all, you have to experience it. You have to allow yourself to go there, you have to allow yourself to grieve, you have to allow yourself to cry whenever you want. And most of all, you have to allow yourself to be supported. Waffles is giving us so many gifts in the form of human beings. And I just think that that is the coolest thing. Looking at how our trajectory just of my past with her happened and how when we started out, she was really the only person I would have on speed dial. And obviously you guys, Waffles can't talk. So now looking at where we are now, my entire home is filled with flowers. My inbox is slammed with the most beautiful messages and stories from people of hope and faith and love and just reminding me of God's unconditional love and just massive support of people saying, hey, I've lost a pet. I know what that feels like. Most people don't understand, but here's what I want to tell you. All of these beautiful people coming out and into my life saying, I support you. I see you, sending you so much love. Take time to cry, take time to think of all the memories. And I will tell you, the more that I've cried about it, the more that I've let myself feel, the better I feel. And I think this relates to so much like allow yourself to feel those things and then also focus on the joy. You can also switch lanes and not feel guilty about finding joy in different parts of your day or different parts of your life or in the memories. Because I do think that sometimes we can get caught in thinking that we feel guilt over actually seeing joy or feeling joy in the beginning stages of losing something or something going wrong. And I think that that joy is such a gift and that it's important to let joy wash over you just as much as grieving wash over you. And I know that we are not referring to human beings, but also I'm sure that this relates somewhat to losing someone. And I have fortunately not lost any immediate family members. So I am also dreading when that time comes. And I'm sure that I will get on this podcast and speak about something completely different in a completely different way. But I just want to send my love to anybody who is having a little bit of a tough new year, because that's okay, too. And joy and pain, whether it's grief or pain, joy and pain also exist on the same highway. And it's truly so important to experience both. And I know that something is happening in my heart right now, and it is expanding to the extent that I have been able to experience pain and loss. I'm also on the other end noticing that my heart is expanding in love. It wants to love more. It wants to love bigger, and it wants to make room for other people, other animals. And I think that's because I am allowing it to. And I'm not feeling guilty about the fact that we are just endless channels of love. Endless channels of love. And I will continue to share Waffles wisdom because she has given me so much through the years. And I just want to remind you that if you are in pain right now or you feel bad or your business is not going how you want or your goals are not going how you want, that's a part of it. That is a part of it. I think that we all need to speak about it a lot more. Because, yes, I'm building this freaking awesome business of my dreams, but I am so uncomfortable and it's so painful while simultaneously being the coolest thing I've ever done. I question myself daily. I question who I am, what I'm thinking, if I'm smart enough, because I definitely don't feel smart enough. And then I say, this is how it feels. Like this is it. This is how it feels. And if you want something, you will figure it out and you will sit in that fire, because everybody knows that. I love the fire analogy. It's the only way to transform. It's the only way to expand. It's the only way to grow. Because sitting in a lukewarm tub gets you nothing. It gets you no movement. It gets you lethargy. It gets you not moving forward on your purpose. And as human beings, we are meant to grow. We are meant to feel. We are meant to be supported by friends, family in our community. So find those people. I'll tell you what. I will never, ever, ever isolate myself during hard times again. It's important to take those times alone. But it's so important. I'm finding that even when I don't want to, to go and be around people, because people help people and friends and family. Are like the salve for a broken heart. So go be, let yourself be, support. Let yourself get to know people. Let yourself be supported by a stranger's message. Like let that in, let that in. And Moving forward into 2020, support yourself, support yourself through tribe and through people. Because never before has it meant so much as building this business and and simultaneously losing something and just also struggling with moving forward. So I'm leaning in. I'm calling on friends, I'm calling on people I don't know and I'm stepping in and I'm stepping up and all of it feels like a mix of beautiful emotions. Like a rainbow of freaking emotions.

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So I feel you guys, I. I feel all of you and I think that this year has such beautiful energy to it. I can tell you that much that no matter what I'm going through, this year is like the most supportive year that I can recall feeling. So let yourself lean into that thought and know that it's the best year for you to take leaps on things that you don't know or understand and let yourself find communities. Never before have I seen this many supportive communities. Masterminds, coaching events, retreats popping up for people, for women, for anyone who wants to start something new, anyone who wants to meet someone new. So if you are in victim mode right now, that's okay. I want you to just give yourself grace and say, hey, this was serving a purpose. I see this. It's probably the exact feeling of the people I'm going to serve in the future. But don't sit in that. Go support yourself. Because we can only be and feel supported to the extent that we are willing to support ourselves. And our dreams will only happen to the extent that we are willing to support ourselves. So I'm sending you so much love and it means the world to me if you share this podcast. It's the only way it's getting out, you guys, is through your stories, through sending it to friends, through text messaging. And it all means so much if you put what you got out of this so your friends know if it's for them if it's for them. So if you haven't yet subscribed, rated or reviewed, that is pretty much the life of a podcast. So that would mean the world if you just took a second, if you've gotten anything out of this podcast podcast to go and do that. And I just want to tell you that I adore every single one of you. It means the world to me. I feel connected whenever you share whatever it is and wherever you're at and how it impacted you. And as always, I love hearing different topics of what you're looking for. So until next time guys, earn your happy. Bye everyone. Thank you guys so much for spending this time with me on the earn your happy podcast. I am so glad that you stopped by. If you could take one second to share this episode with someone you think would love it, that would be absolutely amazing and we would be forever grateful. Also, please leave us a review if you feel so moved by going to itunes and leaving us an honest thought, an honest comment. Tell us what you think, tell us what you want to hear more of. It would really help us out on our journey to helping thousands and thousands of people. Until then, don't forget to earn your happy. Thanks again guys. Bye Bye.