896. Why You Should Lean Into The Ebbs Of Life And Find Comfort In Stillness

You need those pauses and moments of stillness to come back to yourself rather than pumping heavy weight or running constantly non stop and doing it again every single day.

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. And today we are recording another episode of behind the Scenes of Building a Business. I'm sitting here with my most amazing co host, Lauren Kuhlman, who is also my chief of staff. You guys, we've got some big things to talk about today. Not only do we have these brand new big microphones that we're so excited to be talking into, and hopefully our voices both sound buttery smooth. What do you think, Lauren? Do you feel more buttery like a radio show midway dj?

Oh, yes, absolutely.

Oh, that was your best. Oh, yeah.

See, I'm gonna talk different.

Yuck roc. All right, you guys. So we are going to be talking about the ebbs and flows of life and how during the ebbs, so many of us, especially if you are a type A go getter, if you're kind of in that person who's known to be in hustle mode, how the ebbs can feel really torturous. The ebbs can feel like death. Belly. We were laughing before this, just calling, like, saying, damn it, ebb. Like when you're, when you're in an ebb. But it reminded us of the Stor Deb. So a lot of you listening may not know what the Deb store was, but Lauren, you remember what the DEB was like. When I first discovered the Deb, I literally was freaking out because I could get like six tops for like $42. It was insane. So what did you buy at the Deb? I just need to know before we talk about the important stuff.

So my sister got a lot more than I did at the Deb, but I went to the accessory section all the time, found the nail polish. I think that was my favorite thing of, like, going there and finding the most exotic, crazy colors of nail polish and whatever crazy accessories I could find to like decorate my room with and then myself with.

Oh, my God. I just remembered that they had this, like, accessory section as well. I loved it because you could get a purse for $8 or like $12.

Like, yes.

Like, so you guys, if you don't know what the DEB is, it was like the cheap shit store for, like, clothes that you could get. But at the time I thought it was the best clothes on earth and I could walk out with bags and bags for under a hundred bucks, like, and it would be all of my going out clothes. So I just so happened to discover Deb, when I was in, like, this going out phase, I had fake IDs. It was so great. And I would go every single Friday and get my hoe shirts. Like, I'd go get my whole clothes and column. Like, I was going for my whole outfit. So that's what the dev was for me. I was like, where's my sparkle butterfly top? Which is so crazy because now all that shit that I wore is back in. Like, literally, it's all back in.

Yep. And there's no Deb to go to to get it. There is a charlotte russe, though. I was literally just somewhere and I saw a charlotte russe. It might have been fashion square. And I was like, this is still here.

Oh, my gosh. I feel like you and I should just go in there one day with 50 bucks, see how far it gets us. And then whatever we find in there. Wait, I'm gonna pick out your outfit. You pick out my outfit. You have to be semi nice to each other because then we have to go somewhere and eat afterward. And I'm thinking either a Joe's Crab Shack or a TGI Fridays, because you.

Used to work there. And I actually somehow got the server shirt with my family that he was wearing. It was like that striped referee looking shirt.

You bought one?

No, I just got it for his own shirt. The waiter gave me a shirt. How?

The waiter gave you his shirt?

Yeah.

Did you have to pay for it?

Nope. I was just, like, with my family, high school, maybe something like that. Maybe not even. And asked if he could give me his shirt.

That is so creepy. That's mildly. That's like reverse. Like he should be trying to buy your socks or something. All right. You know, I don't think we were. We might have been in a solid ebb during that time while we were.

Shopping at the Deb and you were.

Collecting TGI Friday's armpit sweatshirts.

Yeah, but what did you do with it?

I'm so curious now.

I washed it and then I think I just kept it in my closet.

I wore it ever the weirdest thing I've ever heard. One of them.

I know. I don't know why I wanted it.

So bad, but I got it.

And then I don't have it anymore. If I did, I would wear it when we go to our.

Okay, so wait, this is helping. So you asked for the shirt like you wanted one of those shirts, and he said, you can have mine.

I didn't ask. I asked for his specifically, but I think. I think it was more so. Because it was a challenge. So I was like, I'm going to ask for his shirt. And I was like, he's not going to give it to me.

I literally can't believe it. This is crazy. I'm going to challenge my kids with weird shit like that. Okay, you're gonna need to get our server shirt for 500 bucks.

I know I should have. I should have gotten paid to do that, but I just thought of it and was like, I'm just gonna ask for a shirt.

All right. I can't wait to hear more weird stories as I get to know you better through the years. Okay, so ebbs and flows of life. You know, Lauren and I were chatting before this, and I was asking her just different points in her life where maybe there has been an ebb, meaning there's been that time where you're. You're not feeling motivated. Maybe no ideas are coming in. Maybe you're just not feeling like yourself. Maybe it's a time when a big chapter has closed, or maybe you're in a season of winter. And, you know, I feel like a lot of people who are in an ebb, whenever we're in it, we're always trying to get out of it. Like, it's a bad thing. Like, this must not be right. I must be in a wrong spot. So, Lauren, can you either remember a time where there's been an ebb or something that you've done to kind of, like, move through one?

I'm thinking of two. One. It's hard because anytime, like you said that you're not feeling motivated or you're feeling in this, you should be doing more thing. This isn't okay. I need to get out of this super fast. I try to pull myself out of it really fast, but I'm getting to the point where I'm trying to acknowledge it and just sit in it a little bit longer. But one recent that came up was actually when I was sick. So I feel like y' all get in an ebb when you're sick and you think you need to be doing more and all of that. So that's a good example of, like, everything's still gonna get done. And you just feel so grateful when you're out of that ebb, too, to be like, okay, actually, I feel normal again. I know nothing's wrong with me. There's going to be a couple of days where I'm not going to get as much done and accomplished and feel as accomplished. But, you know, that's temporary because I even thought like, am I ever going to be back to normal? Like, something is just off and I don't feel like me. And I don't know if it's ever going to come back. And I don't know why I think those thoughts. But you get back into your groove and you have to have that time to like, check back in with you and be like, is everything still aligned? Do I feel where I'm supposed to be? And hopefully it's a yes, but if not, you can redirect as well. So my second one was years ago, 10 or so years ago, I was in like a not as busy phase of my life, even with work. And it allowed me to like, really check in with myself and explore. And I found so much self development. I got into working out, eating clean, like so much stuff in this ebb that I got to explore, like, who I was, what I loved. And then I kept following those things that felt good. So it opened me up to like the next job. And I was like, oh, that actually worked. So I'm going to like, embrace the ebb again. And every time it comes up to me, embrace it as much as possible, I have to tell myself to sit in it. Because something's going to keep opening up where you check back in and you say, are you aligned or are you not? And like, follow those things that feel good. Because it kept leading me to better and better and better things and a healthier and healthier and healthier person. That felt a lot better too. And just new things kept just coming into my life. So the ebb actually was more accomplishing than grinding in something that was getting me kind of nowhere.

Yeah, I love that you pointed that out. Cause it's so easy to jump back into something that, you know, I've done that multiple times back in the day with. With fitness and competing. Like, I kind of knew it was coming to a close. And whenever an ebb would come, which it would come maybe after like a big event, right. And I'm like, just, I don't know what to go for. I don't know who I am. I don't know. Because you don't. You kind of are like defining. When I was younger, I was defining myself by these things that I was doing. So you feel like when you don't have something coming up or something big, it's like, I don't know who I am if I don't have this thing that I'm preparing for. And you can get really lost in an ebb. Exc. Ebb is the place where you're found, truly, it's where you find yourself. Every single time one comes now, I'm like, okay, this is really uncomfortable because I don't feel valuable because I'm not hustling or applying myself to something, like, super hard or seeing a result. Right. We're not seeing a lot of results in an EB we're not feeling good. We're not motivated. We feel like, you know, really mania. Monotonous. And that's a big sign, too.

Of.

Of an ebb is like, okay. Ebbs come when you're doing a lot of the same. I don't know if that's the case for you, but that's typically for me, like, when I do a lot of the same routine, the same energy, the same people, the same places. It's kind of like we forget that a river likes to flow, and we forget that energy loves a change. The more that you change, essentially, the more energy moves around and it gets switched up and it grows and all of that fun stuff. So inst. Wishing an ebb away, it's saying it's really being like, okay, this is a great opportunity for me, just like you said, Lauren, to ask myself, like, okay, wasn't exciting me anymore. What doesn't feel aligned or what within my life. Like, for me right now, I love light pink, but me working on light pink at home all day long does not make me love it. Me going to a workspace and me connecting with people and me getting out into the world and talking about it is what lights me up around that. So it can essentially be the same thing that just needs a different container. So we don't want to just, like, burn everything down all the time, because that's definitely a personality trait that a lot of us can have as well. Like, I'm getting bored or, oh, no, why did I get into this? This is the wrong thing. No, it might just need to look a little bit different than it does right now. Like, I know even for you, Lauren, like, checking in and making sure your work style still feels okay, and the workload or who you're working with or what you're doing, like, these are really important factors because things can change. So in an ebb, it's just asking you to, number one, give yourself grace and let yourself be there. Because it has so many answers, just like the DEB has so many ho flows, like, you're gonna get an answer. It's like a plethora of answers in the ebb. And so really just being like, okay, there's stuff here for me. I just need to ask the right questions and have grace. And sometimes an ebb is meant to last a lot longer because it's meant to just, like, keep clearing away everything. Like, oh, I don't feel motivated again. Okay, well, maybe it's deeper than that. Maybe I need to create some new relationships. Maybe there's some unhealed trauma that, like, actually has to be looked at that I've been avoiding for so long. But I'm not going to be able to get out of this ebb until I look at it. Like, there's a lot of things that an ebb offers you, essentially, an ebb. I'm just comparing it to, like a winter, you know, when.

Yeah.

When you're just in a winter season. And I know even when you were sick. And that's such a good point because some people, you know, you were sick for a long period of time, but not a long period of time where some people are truly like, you know, have an illness or disease or things like that. Where it's like, I so feel for the people who have been having health issues or who have something like that because it is a very long season where you don't feel like yourself. And that can be a big period of darkness for people in their lives. And I know especially for achievers, let alone anyone who wants to be out and living, that can be a time where it's really, really challenging. We just have to say, okay, when in your life are you going to maybe just, like, be able to take this time and this grace to just let it be okay? And if any, if I've learned anything from those periods of life, which, again, I haven't gone through super long ones. But when. When we were sick that whole month of January last year, it was. It was actually over a month. I remember just saying, like, everything will get done, everything will work out. And you just have to have faith that this is, like, being timed perfectly for you and that there's something bigger here for you. And even if you can't freaking it, you actually have to hold on to some belief, even if it feels made up, that there's something here for you. Have you ever had that?

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Yeah. And what it is bringing up is kind of like, you can't push yourself in the gym so hard without resting and recovering. You can't just go, go, go, go, go. And kind of like the meditation point too. If, like, the stillness is so hard and so uncomfortable. Maybe not for some people, but for some people where you're like, I got to be busy. Go, go, go all the time. And then people are like, but meditation is so good. It unlocks a lot of things. And, like, it's actually really productive. Even though you're just sitting there laying there doing nothing at all, it unlocks and moves a lot of things out. It's kind of like an eb. So you need those pauses and moments of stillness to come back to yourself rather than pumping heavy weight or running constantly non stop and doing it again every single day. So I think about it, and that can cause injury too. So I think about it in that way where if I do push myself too hard, it's gonna force me to slow down some way. And hopefully it's not in the way of an injury. It's in the way of you choosing to slow down and you actually recognizing that your body needs some recovery because you feel like you just got hit by a semi truck when you woke up the next morning in bed and then you go and do it again or you potentially injure yourself or get sick, or you actually acknowledge how you feel and, like, take an off day and discover, like, what magic unfolds in that off day for you too.

That is so good. You just reminded me of a time in my life where I pushed so hard that I got to a place where for an entire year I was like, I am so unmotivated and nothing is interesting to me. Like, nothing. I was so burnt out at that point. I had probably done so much self development that for like seven years straight, I read so many books I was reading. This may not sound like a lot to people or it might sound like a ton to others, but I was reading like two to four books, personal development books a month. I was going to all these different seminars. I was listening to podcasts in between that. I was. It was like, so nonstop with, like, all the things I was learning and then with all of the events that I was doing and traveling to and speaking and all the things that I was launching that I Hit a wall so hard that for a solid year, I couldn't listen to a podcast. I couldn't read a book. I didn't want to go to an event I didn't want to talk about. I didn't want to hear anything about positive things. I literally remember, like, hitting this wall so hard. It was after a bliss project that I had just put on. And on the way home, I literally was like, I need some fucking, like, hardcore. I don't even know, like, death metal or rap. Like, I wanted the opposite so bad. I wanted just something that felt opposite of, like, hustling and personal development and doing good. And I never experienced that in my life. And I don't mean, like, doing. I didn't want to go be a bad person. I just wanted to know numb out. And that was the first time I realized that there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. And I was like, I have no contrast of trying to be better. Like, I have no. I'm not even letting an ebb come. So in the resistance of an ebb, I got hit so hard with an ebb because I didn't let the natural ones come. I didn't want to sit in the discomfort of, like, not launching something or not doing something or not personally developing. And I will tell you, it was like, I've never experienced something. Like, it's like looking at something that you love in your life and being so turned off by it just overnight. And we don't want to get to that place, right? That's called burnout. And what happens is you will want to leave your life.

You.

I wanted to run from my life. I wanted to live on an island with nobody. And I wanted to listen to, I.

Don'T know, hardcore rap, which is totally not you. I mean, in some ways, like, maybe for a day or two, not all the time.

Definitely not something I always tune in too now.

Yes. So that is like, when you get to that extreme, it's like you're turning into this, like, person that you're not at all, and you're checked out and you're like, wait, why do I hate this thing that I loved? It's not necessarily that. It's that you totally burnt yourself out and, like, you're hating it for the reason of being so into it and not giving yourself any break that you're starting to resent it because you're not even tuned into who you are or what you feel anymore. So know that you should not be grinding 247 because you love Something so much because you're gonna lose track of all of the other things that are coming in and like the nuggets that are coming along the way that could help give you realizations or open doors for some great idea to come in for your business or your personal life that you're just shutting out because your head is down in your laptop and you're grinding from 5am to midnight.

Oh, my gosh. Well, I absolutely love these conversations with you. You guys, I hope that you got your own nugget. Would you dip your nuggets in sweet and sour or honey? Which one were you?

Ketchup.

Well, I don't know how I feel about that. I mean, I thought I loved you, but I'm not sure if we can do ketchup. Just kidding. I can absolutely do ketchup. But honey or honey mustard is just kind of the jam anyway, I'm gonna let that be okay. I'm gonna let that pass by. You do eggs and ketchup, don't you?

Of course. Yes. Everything in ketchup. I'm actually out right now and I was like, do I actually go to the store just for ketchup? Right now I was looking on Amazon like, what's.

Yes, you do.

And now I know what to.

I need to get you a catch up monthly membership. Catch up of the month. So. Great.

Thanks. That would save me some trips.

Christmas gift. Christmas bonus time. It's gonna be easy. Okay. I always love these conversations with you. You guys, I hope that you have some brain cells left and that we actually helped you throughout this conversation. And you got to see yourself in the conversation. And until next time, we will see you next week. Bye, everyone.

Bye.