Feed Your Body, Fuel Your Love Life

Hey, thanks for coming. Welcome to the Love Shack.

Hey, welcome to the Love Shack. A little place where we can get together and explore, explore fresh perspectives, eavesdrop on juicy conversations, and uncover mysteries that nobody talks about, but absolutely influence our relationships. If you are struggling in your marriage, just starting out in a new relationship, or are single and looking to do better next time, this is the show for you. It's great to be here with you today. My name is Stacy Bartley and I am here with my co host lover Tom. And together for the past decade, we've been teaching and loving on people from around the world with the sole purpose of helping individuals and couples to love more and fear less in their relationships, both with themselves and others. Quick shout out to our podcast listeners today.

Yes, you know Love Shack Live is live every Thursday, 1pm PST, but we also are on the podcast. Obviously that's who I'm talking to right now. But if you want to experience us live, that's a good opportunity to call into the show or text our show. We're live on Thursdays at KKNW up in beautiful Seattle. So if that's something that sounds good for you, please join us then.

Yeah. Wherever you are in this moment, thank you so much for listening in. It's great to be here with you inside the Love Shack. Today on our show, Tom and I are going to be joined by Mariola Porres of Healthy Living. With us, we're going to do a deep dive into the very first steps we we need to do to feed our bodies. Ooh. So that we can spark up some love and joy in life again. Guess what? I need you to brace yourself. Things are about to get really good. Ooh la la. We'll be right back with Mariola.

Are you tired of sitting on a couple's counselor's couch and feeling like you're just rehashing the past and and making no progress? Do you feel like you're holding on to your relationship but panicked you're losing your partner? It's time to learn how to deepen your connection. Finally resolve the arguments that keep coming up. Understand yourself and your partner and create the level of intimacy you've been dreaming of. It's time for love to tingle your toes again. Schedule your private session with relationship expert stacy bartley@staceybartley.com checkup.

Ready to learn the most important thing you can do to revitalize your relationship today? Go to stacybartley.com fairydust staceybartly.com fairydust this is the number one thing Stacy teaches her VIP clients that has the power to improve them Health of your relationship Today Learn how sprinkling a little fairy dust in your relationship can stop arguments in their tracks. Rekindle your spark and take your difficult conversations from the struggle bus to easy street.

Do you find yourself attempting to get your point across to friends and family and notice their feelings become hurt instead? Do you tend to feel misunderstood and taken for granted the majority of the time? Instead of listening to others in a conversation, do you find yourself formulating your next response to prove your point? Are you having a difficult time showing up to say anything but you think about doing it a lot? When we feel like we are being the jerk or the doormat in our relationships, we tend to criticize ourselves harshly. The reality is we've never been taught how to share ourselves effectively with those who we care about and love. Your skills as a salesperson, master negotiator, or expert debater will only lead you into a fight. Matters of the heart require different skills for a limited time, get half off the regular price of a communications workshop designed to help you gain the understanding and skills you need to navigate through your communications with others, giving you the ability and experience to feel heard, appreciated, and a sense that you matter to the people you care about the most. Get all the juicy details@staceybartley.com communication alternative.

Talk 1150 local talk for the Body, mind and Soul.

Oh, welcome back to the Love Shack. If you're just joining us, we're going to be having a special guest on today, Mariola Porres from Healthy Living. And today we're going to be diving into the topic of feeding your body because it fuels your your love life. Believe it or not, the reality is, is that we can only show up in our life as good as we feel physically and emotionally. And the reality is, when we feel crappy, we show up in our conversations and tasks like lovemaking crappy. It's common for us to reason, okay, okay, okay, I'm going to do better when I feel better, I swear. I just don't feel like it right now without realizing that chances are you're not going to feel better anytime soon. Why? Because how we feel stems from the thoughts that we think and the actions that we do or don't do. Now, before you lose all hope and throw in the towel and go, wow, okay, see, there's no hope for me. Please know that any of us as human beings can begin to turn how we feel around very quickly and all we need to do is begin to take care of our bodies and our minds better, step by step, simply, easily, right? It's simple things. And essentially applying some of these simple best practices of taking care of our bodies makes a huge difference when it comes to our ability to show up for ourselves, show up for our families, our loved ones, our friends, and the places that matter most to us. This alone is going to cause us to feel like living and loving again. So before I go on about this topic, which I'm very passionate about, I want to introduce our guest. After a 15 year career in global marketing, Mariola came face to face with not only losing her health due to burnout, but her relationships with herself and others. And on her own very own healing journey, she learned how crucial lifestyle is for optimal well being. Now, today, Mariola is going to share with us how she found hope in holistic restoration after being told that healing was absolutely not possible for her. She works currently for Beautiful Minds Medical where she mentors others to reach their optimal health and physical, mental, and emotional well being as well. She also has so many certifications under her belt that we don't have time to list them out here. But know she's also the founder of Be Healthy Living, where she facilitates and creates programs and wellness programs for Fortune 500 companies all around the world and has a particular passion for Latin America, which maybe she'll share with us. Mariola, welcome to the show. It is so wonderful to have you here and I just need to let everybody know too. This woman holds a very special place in my heart. She has been a wonderful friend and client and we've worked on many projects together. So it is always such a get to, to connect and share with you. So I'm just gonna. Let's step into your. Your story here. At one point in your life, I think most of us in our culture and country here in the United States of America would think that you had finally arrived, you had a great paying corporate job, you were traveling the world, you were engaged to be married. Right. You were making money, doing great things. Right? And basically you have the life that we're taught we're all pursuing and that we all sacrifice ourselves physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually to obtain. Right? And so we would think that you would be happy and so kind of bring us up to speed. Now, what happened?

Well, first of all, thank you for having me here. And I also want to reciprocate your introduction by gratitude and the honor to be here with you all and for the space of sharing a little bit of my experience so that I can Bring hope to others in what true happiness is. And as you very well see said, I had a big portion of my life seeking career and I totally forgot about my health. But I didn't really understand what health meant. I thought health was physically being present or just the mere absence of illness in my body. And I discovered, unfortunately, the wrong way how really what health meant for me and what really is, which is a multidimensional concept of the mind, the body and the spirit. And I got to the point where, yeah, I was successfully and had the job and the position, but I was not happy. I was not balanced to the point that I was disconnected of my own body and I couldn't really pinpoint what was happening. So my physical health broke and that led me to burnout and leaving my career not by choice, but being forced because I could no longer perform or show up in doing my. The very basics of my job. And that really started a career path that led me to find my true purpose in life and in my true. I don't even know how to say it, but live up to that successful or happy life. But defined in very different ways than how the regular world defines it, which is what I do today.

It sounds like as your physical body maybe started to fail. Right. Was there a period of time like so many of us that we just kind of go numb and we just kind of think that if we continue on doing what we're doing that we're going to cross our fingers and just hope that this is going to go well. That's typically how we handle those kinds of things.

Absolutely. We self medicate with what we have available. Right. And we start engaging in all these different behaviors that kind of treat the symptoms, but not really the root. And that's what led me to complete breakdown in the long term.

And how did this affect your relationships with your partner at that time?

Well, it actually started breaking with my own self. I was not even aware of who I was anymore. I was completely disconnected from my body. I was stressed out. And that definitely affected my mental health, which later on in my journey I came to discover that I was struggling with depression and anxiety. And you know, when you start understanding what these conditions are beyond the labels and how stigmatized and how high discriminated these conditions are, you start to realize that this is something more common than. Than what we can ever imagine. And we are dealing with it, with what we have because there's not much education and support out there for us to come in and talk about these things. So definitely affected My relationship with myself and therefore everything around me. Spiritually, I lost my hope, I lost my faith. Professionally, I lost my confidence and my ability to navigate through the different demands of corporate life and most importantly, with my loved ones.

It's really true that when our bodies start to fail, right, they start to fail in all arenas, and we can only show up as good as we feel, as we had already stated. And I love that you brought up the mental health aspect of it, because all of us, at some point in time in our lives, are going to experience some kind of a mental health challenge, whether that's anxiety or depression. I feel like so many of us are struggling with that right now. And I would love for you to share with us your experience in recovery in regards to that delicate balance between our physical bodies and our emotional selves. Right. That there's such an intricate mesh there that when my physical body breaks down, it affects my mental health. And most people think that when I have a mental health challenge, I don't think to look to my physical body to support me with it. And I love how you talk about that. So please share a little with us about that.

Yeah, Well, I think what really forced me to take a look into this was the fact that I was no longer capable to continue the route that I was going. Definitely I was doing life fully in all its areas. And then I was forced to stop and reconsider and really think what's happening here. And I was very overwhelmed to see that there were so many areas broken. Didn't even know where to start. So I started with the foundations of health, which is the physical part. And I use the analogy of a car. You know, if a car is overheated, if it doesn't have the right fuel, if it has the windows unclean and we can't really see through, the tires, don't have air, you know, the very basics of the car, then the car will not move anywhere. So I started saying, okay, what is it that I need to start with? And I started with sleep. That was where I struggled a lot. You know, not having good sleep really reduced my capacity to perform in all the other areas in my life. So I started just being mindful of the little things per what I was learning, you know, physically. So I started researching. I started learning what was out there. That was not only treating the symptoms, but. But that I could also change in my lifestyle. And I believe that health is. That is the way we live, the environment where we're in. It's not the lack of medication that we need in our bodies. It's how we live our life and how we violate the health laws that we're designed by. Right. So I started with that physically taking care of the basics. And then the more my body started to recover with little things. And I did three steps, which is what I share through healthy living, which is remove, then nourish, and then regenerate. So first we need to make sure to look at what's affecting us that we need to detox from. Right. And then you replace that with something better. So healthy replacement, instead of coping with sugar and going to sugar to get that energy, how can I replace that with a better habit? Right. Like maybe doing some exercise, Although I was burnt out. So exercise didn't really do it for me. It was rest and then allow my body to regenerate as a result of me making those little tiny changes. After I established those foundations physically, then my body increased its capacity to go an additional step, which is mental. And my brain started working a bit better. I started to remembering things more. I started to understand and connect things more. And that capacity of applying that learning into my own life. And that was given and was possible because I was taking care of my physical health by little things like sleeping better or drinking water. Those are very overlooked things that make huge differences. And I didn't even get into the diet until later on because a lot of people think, oh, you know, diet, but that's a huge one. So first it's just kind of getting started with a little bit, and then little by little, you add more things. But then that opened up my mental capability to see where I was. And learning about mental health really helped me to see the root causes of depression and anxiety, which usually they come together. If you develop anxiety, eventually you'll have depression or the other way around. And when you look at the underlying causes, a lot of it is the things we deal with today, like nutrition, not grieving properly with a loss. A medical condition can also hit our emotional state. So understanding that really helped me to then take an additional step, which was the emotional work and being mindful, really understanding what condition I was in. And this is where then it leads to the spiritual health, which in my opinion, was what really got me over and gave me the breakthrough. And when I talk about spirituality, I talk about values like forgiveness, like we have to forgive ourselves and give each other and ourselves grace over guilt and things like having hope again and accepting where I am and asking for help. And as I started incorporating these values, that's when I started seeing the complete transformation in my health.

So let's kind of break some of this down. I love that. A couple of things I'm just going to point out here on this journey together for our listeners is, number one, when I need to pause and I'm struggling, right. There's going to be certain signs that we can look for. And I remember on my own health journey, raising my hand and asking my teacher, how do I know when it's time to take better care of myself and to detox and to regenerate? And that's, I think, maybe a question that might be on the minds of our listeners. And so I really want to dive into that and then we can move into that four pillars because, you know, we don't recognize and realize that if you're dragging your fanny, right, you can't get out of bed or, or you don't feel happy or inspired. And I, and I use that word lightly, happy, because happy can be such an overarching sometimes feeling like an unattainable goal. How about if we just shoot for, you know, inner peace? Like there's just a place in your space where you have a place of peace. Would you agree with that?

Absolutely.

Yeah. So. So maybe that's happy. Right? That's. Let's just use that as the description for happy. Right. And so I'm. I'm feeling. What else? Help me out here, guys. Confused. I'm feeling tired. I'm feeling lethargic. I'm forgetful. I'm over committing. I'm feeling scrambled. I'm flatline, flatline.

Overwhelmed.

Overwhelmed.

Overwhelmed.

I'm. I'm. I'm worrying. I get so stressed out. My heart rate goes so fast. I can't. Right. I can't function. Right. I find myself paralyzed or not enough. I feel like I'm not good enough.

So I think. Martyl, I love what you said, though. Many times when we get to this place that you have. Thank you for having the courage to share that with us. When we have, like, literally the enormity, we. When our clients sometimes come to us or oftentimes in this place. And Stacy, we always remind people, look, we're going to take this one step at a time. So I really love how you had to realize. Yes. That none of us can take everything on at once. And I think oftentimes when we get to this place of really difficult, we think it's all got to happen at once. So how were you able to realize that you just had. Like you said, you started to use the wonderful analogy Of a car, you had to start at the most basic level first. What led you to that realization and understanding?

Well, understanding that everything in our life is interconnected, that every piece of my life will affect another piece. And in that way, throughout the different expressions of who we are and by understanding and you know, when you're burnt out, you're highly fatigued, so you even need to define wellness and health and self care very differently from what you see advertised out there. Right. It's not doing the two hour gym workout every day and having the right diet and being able to do all these things like that for me felt far out of reach. So for me was, what is self care? So that is just stretching and resting and really stopping.

Right.

But understanding that when I did one thing in favor of that, everything else was radically impacted. So with the smallest investment in the right place, I started seeing how my body started increasing capacity in all its levels. I was gaining awareness of what works, what doesn't, what needs to change. I was taking steps forward and backwards because I was like, this is maybe too high, too hard. This might work better for me. And we all need to go through that journey of what works for me. There's no one prescription out there on how we all need to optimize our health. It's what works for you. And then getting that feedback and acting in relation to that is what really gives you the headway to gain momentum and feel you are moving. And then the little by little is the compounded power of tiny gains. Right? One good thing every day, Just one good thing. If you add one positive thing every day for 365, there's a formula actually that shows we become 37 times better in a year. And one thing. Can we all do one thing better? Absolutely we can. It's just committing to that one thing rather than comparing ourselves with all the things we need to, to have under control. Because that's, that's not really how it works.

I love that you pointed out that this is a personal journey because you know when you know that you're kind of starting to burn out and things aren't going so well. Number one, where we're really slow to admit it, right. It usually takes us to a place, like you were saying burnout. I know, it did me too. Right. When my, my started to feel like it was falling apart, it gets to a threshold of pain that is enormous before we finally go, okay, I'll do it. Okay, fine, right. Because we try and skirt it, but that then you have to settle into A your own personal journey. I know for myself. You know, you start reading blogs and, and you start doing Google searches and such, and it's like, go to the gym. Just like you said, two hours. It's like, eat raw, eat vegan, do the paleo, right? You know, run. It's an hour. You know, the common mantra is an hour in the gym, right? The right diet, and you're gonna. You're gonna feel better. And just like you had said, that might be the absolute wrong place to begin. Right? And there's. I think there's a lot of guilt and shame that this can become a perpetual cycle where it's like, oh, my gosh, I can't do that. It's worse than I thought, right? I'm never going to get this right. And I start to feel more and more overwhelmed with my dilemma. Instead of being able to just give myself, as you said, the grace to sit down and go, it's going to be okay. I'm going to figure this out piece by piece. And I. And I love that you said you started with the basics, like sleep. I go really sleep. Sleep can affect all of that. That's like the one teeny tiny thing I can do to turn this whole thing around. That's sweet. That's great news, right?

But, you know, there's an additional component there as we make choices in working on the physical foundations, which is our mindset. Another huge one for me was gratitude, was shifting my mind to what I had versus what I was lacking. And I think that's a key for success when we want to move to make positive changes is what is it that I'm gaining? And what can I learn even from this pain? Because all that pain and all that burnout and all the things that I had to lose as a result of, you know, this constant running gave me wisdom in how to do life better and more fully. So it is also really defining a lot of the things we think. Because when we put ourselves in so much pressure and that guilt that just leads to. For us to not even want to try it anymore because it becomes our reality, we then start believing, oh, yeah, I cannot do this. I fail here, I fail there. No one really wins. But when we are like, okay, I'm going to do this little thing, and we start seeing how that pays off, everything starts moving towards that positive direction. It's amazing.

I so agree. As I look back at a point in time where my own life collapsed, you know, and I'm. I'm working, running some businesses, going to School and my body is starting to fail me, right. I'm starting to forget, I'm overwhelmed. I've missing meetings. I, you know, those are kind of, those were kind of the first signs for me. And then at home with my children and the needs and the demands there, I remember laying in my bed feeling completely horrible about the fact that I knew I did not have the emotional energy to show up and be present, to hear their conversations, to, to hear the support that they needed. Right. And, and I would try and like shortcut it and just like handle it and put it to bed, but I really wasn't present there. So of course, no wonder my relationships with others started to break down with not only myself but, you know, my kids and, and my partner at the time. And I keep thinking, okay, we're just going to go to bed early tonight and we'll have a better day tomorrow. Right. Without doing that. Right. Look into what are the components of our lives that need and deserve our attention so that we can show up better. I'd love for you to kind of go into the pillars of what are those so we can start to kind of assess, okay, this is where I am today. And, and what are the things that contribute to a well balanced life, right. I might say, you know, money, Money for most of us is at the top. And then I have my health and then I have my relationships. But there's more to it than that. And you've kind of poked at that a little. Let's kind of maybe do a deep dive into those pillars, right?

Well, I think it boils down to two main points, which is the why, why does having this conversation matter today? Why making the changes in our life matter? It all boils down to connection. There's two types of connection is connection with the values we strongly believe and live by. Everybody has a different way of expressing these. For me, it's God, my relationship with him and how I, I derive from him. Sustenance, meaning, purpose, strength. And then how can I then share that with others? So it's a connection spiritually and then a connection with one another. And that becomes the reason why all the other things and all that effort and work make sense.

I love that. And so there's a spiritual component, whatever that might be for you, right. That kind of gives us that hope and fills our hearts again, right? With okay, this might be possible, maybe I am capable, I could turn this around and then we can look at our emotional selves. Right. How am I feeling emotionally? What's my typical day to Day experience, right? Is it fatigue? Is it, is it overwhelm? Is it frustration? Is it. Right. Anxiety, Is it depression? Or maybe a wonderful apple pie of all of it, Right, right. And then I have my physical body, right? And we're going to just get into basics here. You know, am I sleeping? Am I pooping? That's an important one, right? I ideally want to flow there, right? Food in, food out, right. Take what I need, let the rest go. Is my body supporting me? Right. Do I have energy? And then the relational. Right. Am I able to show up and advocate for what I need? Am I giving myself credit? Do I. Right. Nurture myself by feeling like I'm valuable, I'm appreciated, I matter in my own life to myself first? And then what about our relationships with others? How are they doing? Right? Can I reach out? Can I be available? Can I contribute in. Right. Am I interested in doing that? And when we don't feel like we're firing on all cylinders, right. I like to say, you know, showing up for ourselves and getting clear and complete with our own selves is a full time job for most of us human beings. I mean, that takes a tremendous amount of effort. And so when it comes to putting it together in our relationships and support of others, if we're depleted there, you can start to understand and see, see in these areas we're talking about why it's so challenging for us to then be there for somebody else.

Yeah, I mean, I know from my own experience, I mean, let's just think about it. I would bet, I would assert, I love that word, assert. I would assert, I know for myself, if I'm not firing, I love that, on all cylinders, then my want to just connect and engage with others diminishes. I mean, they're directly correlated. Just ask yourself, you know, and then on the opposite, when I'm feeling, you know, I'm having a good day, feeling I'm in a good place, you know, firing on all cylinders, you know, life just has a sweeter spring to it. I mean, they really are inherently connected. It's not that hard for us to figure that out and feel it, experience it. So hence when we start having those big breakdowns, it all just starts to be dominoed. Everything seems to be connected.

Absolutely.

I totally agree. I would like to now dive into maybe some simple things that we can do in each of these four pillars so that as we look at them, right. We can give our listeners some little simple things that we can do. Wherever you are in that category, Right. When we come right back. We're going to take a break for a minute. We'll be right back with Mariola.

Foreign. Do you feel like your love life is on life support? It's time for a turbocharged relationship resuscitation with an alternative to marriage counseling. Head over to staceybartley.com to learn more about their proprietary programs their clients use to save their relationships. S-T A C I B A R T L E Y.com Visit stacybartly.com today Are you tired of sitting on a couple's counselor's couch and feeling like you're just rehashing the past and making no progress? Do you feel like you're holding on to your relationship but panicked you're losing your partner? It's time to learn how to deepen your connection. Finally resolve the arguments that keep coming up. Understand yourself and your partner and create the level of intimacy you've been dreaming of. It's time for love to tingle your toes again. Schedule your private session with relationship expert stacey bartley@staceybartley.com checkup.

Do you find yourself attempting to get your point across to friends and family and notice their feelings become hurt instead? Do you tend to feel misunderstood and take it for granted the majority of the time? Instead of listening to others in a conversation, do you find yourself formulating your next response to prove your point? Are you having a difficult time showing up to say anything but you think about doing it a lot? When we feel like we are being the jerk or the doormat in our relationships, we tend to criticize ourselves harshly. The reality is we've never been taught how to share ourselves effectively with those who we care about and love. Your skills as a salesperson, master negotiator, or expert debater will only lead you into a fight. Matters of the heart require different skills for a limited time. Get half off the regular price of a communications workshop designed to help you gain the understanding and skills you need to navigate through your communications with others, giving you the ability and experience to feel heard, heard, appreciated, and a sense that you matter to the people you care about the most. Get all the juicy details@staceybartley.com communication.

Ready to learn the most important thing you can do to revitalize your relationship today? Go to stacybartley.com fairydust stacybartley.com this is the number one thing Stacy teaches her VIP clients that has the power to improve the health of your relationship today. Learn how sprinkling a little fairy dust in your relationship can stop arguments in their tracks. Rekindle your spark and take your difficult conversations from the struggle bus to easy.

Street.

Alternative Talk 1150 Talk Radio for.

The body, mind and soul. Hey, welcome back. It's great to have you with us. Hey, we've got Mariola in the house. If you're just joining us. We've been talking about our how our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well being really affects our ability to show up for ourselves and for others. It really does affect our love lives. And this is why we wanted to bring this conversation to you today. And so we're just going to get ready to jump into exploring the four pillars of our lives. Right. The first one we've talked about is emotional. The second one we've talked about is physical. There's a spiritual component as well and there's a mental health component. And these four pillars of our lives need to look be looked at separately because each one has an effect on the other. And so if we find ourselves feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, we recognize that one of these areas isn't working so well. I want to give you some ideas and some suggestions in regards to some simple things that you can do in each of these pillars. And by the way, I just want to throw this out there as human beings. I don't know that we've disclosed this yet, Mario and Tom, but we're mess making machines. Oh, and you're never going to get this. You're never going to get balance in all four areas at the same time. It's going to be a life project and it's going to be something that's a part of life. Just like eating and pooping and sleeping. We got to do it every day, folks. I mean, ideally. Right? Ideally, if it happens every day, things go a lot better. And so it is with each of these pillars. And so it's something that we can always reflect on, Right. It's something that maybe we all need to check in with. Right. Most days. How am I doing here? And what are these simple little things that I can do to maybe get back into balance or to maintain a sense or a feeling of balance? Yes. So I'll go first. Let's all together decide where we're at right now in those four pillars of emotional, mental, physical and spiritual. Like let's look inside, let's, let's practice. Like take a breath, sit your butt down. I love to say that because we're running around thinking that if we do more, we're going to get ahead of the curve. No, you're just going to run over the edge. So how about together we all sit down and just simply take a breath and think, okay, if I were to evaluate myself in this moment in those four areas of my life, where would I feel like maybe I need a little more focus than maybe the other two or three? There's usually, okay, Tom, you're first.

I know 2021 is going to be a big frame repair for those that know me closely, make fun of me when I walk because I need some frame repair. I literally have some physical components that are flat, wore out. So that's going to be you and I talk often that that's really affecting the quality of my life.

So your category would be physical? Yes, it's time to focus some awareness and on your physical and kind of take some steps.

They're done. Wore out.

Yeah, it's true. We've pushed that as far as we can.

How about you?

I would say for me, it's more of the spiritual category where I need to spend more time just connecting with nature, trusting myself, you know, having faith, developing a sense of trust inside of myself and life and the process, you know, and breathe a sigh of relief. I. In this last year, I think, like so many of us have spun up in anxiety a bit, right? And thinking, oh my gosh, right, Somebody do something. And so I noticed that, you know, that's where I feel like I get out of balance right now is definitely in my more spiritual category. Four pillar. What about you, Mariola?

I think for me, given the circumstances of the shutdowns, again with COVID would be the social category under the emotional. So being more intentional in connecting with people and providing a space for vulnerability so that we can edify one another and encourage one another because we all need it so much.

I so agree. So share with us. You have a beautiful acronym that I would love for you to share with us that kind of help us kind of navigate or know the best ways to navigate through this and some simple things that in each category that right now, today, we can embark on, right, to just make that little teeny tiny turn that gets the accumulative payoff that we're all feeling like we need and deserve.

Absolutely. Well, the way I like to see lifestyle is a well rounded concept. And we developed here at Beautiful Minds, an acronym to help people remember what lifestyle is about. So it's called Choose Life. It's easy to remember, and it also invites us to step in and choose to live every day. And each letter stands for one principle, one health principle that will get us to that objective. So the first one is C for connection. We talk about showing up, being positive, and also investing time and experience so that we can define what we can trust and what we can't. And then being open and vulnerable. So connection is key, is the center point of everything, is to stay connected, followed by H of hydration. And why is hydration important? Well, more than 90, 80% of our bodies are made out of water. So we really need water in our life. O for optimism. How important gratitude is. And starting our everyday with that, it just changes our mindset. The other O for choose is oxygen. And taking a deep breath like you just invited us can really help us to go into neutral and stop running and fighting or flying, right?

Yes.

The S for self control. So balance. And when I talk about balance, I like to talk about it taking the approach of balance in a balanced way. Because sometimes wanting to be in balance can get us out of balance. So always in a balanced way. E for exercise. And exercise beyond. Also our bodies is the mental exercise we need every day to retrain our brains and get them to think positive. We think more than 70,000 thoughts every day and 85% of those are negative. Imagine how intentional we need to be to exercise our brain out of that. Right? So that would be choose and then life. The L for light. And that would be the natural light, the sunlight that gives us all those happy hormones that our brain needs. And also for us to sleep better and gives us the vitamin D that is crucial for our physical and especially our mental health. The eye is internal clock. And that just talks about our sleep cycle. And also taking a break once a week, taking one day off and go and recreate in the things we love the most. That has been proven that really optimizes our health throughout the way we've been created. And then F for food. And food means not only what we eat, but also how we feed the avenues of our life, what we listen to, what we talk, what we hear, what we see. All those things are part of the food we take every day. And E for environment, which is what englobes everything environment. I mean, just changing the places where we are so that they support the incorporation of all these other letters. So choose life.

I love that. E for environment. Sometimes we don't think of environment as being something that affects those four pillars that we've talked about about. Right? And yet environment can have such a huge impact on us. Right. Just the thought of having something like sensuous that feels good to us to touch. Right? Or something that stimulates our sense of sight, that's beautiful and inspiring, right? Or the sounds of music. These are all the things that come to my mind when we talk about environment. Right? Playing music that uplifts us and causes us to feel just a teeny tiny bit better. Right. On the scale. Those are all valuable, important parts of our environment that sometimes we don't think contribute to, well, being, right. Our overall ability to show up for ourselves and to show up for others.

Well. And just think about all of us around the world, how much our environments have been affected and changed. My gosh. I mean, so perhaps the inability to. To take part in what you just so wonderfully described that makes such a big difference. Maybe because our children are home now from, you know, schooling at home, and my partner and I are working together. So all of these places where we maybe had little opportunities to do some of those things are no longer in place. So talk about environment. I mean, and the different sides of how that is literally colliding, you know, really, that. I agree. That's. That's a big one. I think now more so than ever before.

I so agree. And I, And I loved the. I can't remember who said it, but it's not so much work at home as work with home, right? And as we do these things, right, and trying to keep all of these, you know, proverbial balls in the air, it's our self care that starts to get pushed to the back burner, right. Unintentionally or sometimes intentionally without realizing, okay. It's only a matter of time before we're going to lose our ability to show up fully, you know, for ourselves and for others. And, and that's why I thought it was so important to have this conversation with you, Mariola, today. Because, you know, it's so counterintuitive to think that when the wills are coming off, right? When clients show up in my office, you know, and they're wondering how to manage the stress, the kids, their relationship, their marriage, their needs are not getting met. And you say, okay, it's to. Time. Time to slow down and it's time to get sleep and it's time to look at your diet, and it's time to look at what you're inputting as far as your thoughts, feelings and emotions. What are they? You know, it's not uncommon for me to get a look and a stare like, are you kidding me? Like, did you just hear what I just said? Right? They're doing that, you know? No, they're doing that. And it's like, time out, time out, time out because we don't realize, like we have said a number of times now, that everything kind of collapses into everything. Right. And we've got to start looking at ourselves on this, this journey physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

So Mario, I mean I love that breakdown of choose life. So share with us. I mean we could spend many shows really breaking that down. But give us, give us and the listeners some, some. How does one. Okay. I mean those are all. Obviously I don't think anyone would just disagree of the importance of the definition of that acronym or the breakdown. But you know, how do we give us something that's going to, we can put into our life when we, when we finish listening to this episode or here on this radio show, maybe it's.

Easiest to kind of take the four pillars and say, okay, what are some simple things using this acronym that we could use if say, well let's go, let's maybe take them one by one. What are some simple things that we could do right now, today with this acronym to manage our physical well being?

So it all depends on the person. Right. What they're ready for and what they feel motivated to get started. But I would just try to practice two to three self care habits every day. Just choose something you want to stop doing, something you want to start doing and something you want to maintain. What that looks like depends on you and where your areas of development are.

I love that. And some, some simple places that you could consider would be like sleep. Right. Would be like rest is probably a huge one. Right. Going for a walk, breathing, drinking some water.

Yeah.

Practice your gratitude or have a healthy breakfast every morning. Just start your day and have a breakfast thinking that's going to be the fuel to get you started for the day. Or reach out to someone and do you know an act of kindness. That way you get out of your mind and you start serving and then as you start doing these things, you start feeling better and adding more things that go along that same line.

Yeah. And those are great suggestions for like the emotional category. Right. Doing something from somebody else, having your heart attuned to gratitude, reading or listening to something that's inspiring. Right.

Positive affirmations. Right.

Positive affirmation.

Yeah, some affirmation and acknowledge ourselves for just giving it a try.

Yeah. Connecting with somebody that always makes us smile like you. Right. As far as spiritually goes. Right. My favorite place to to go is, is in the nature. You know, kind of talk with the trees and breathe in some oxygen as part of your acronym there. For those of you who Are inclined to pray or have a prayer on your heart or to meditate or. Or to maybe just sit down and breathe. Right. Helps connect us to the spiritual aspects of ourselves. And what super tips do you have for the mental? Right. Stimulate our mental.

Well, I would say learn something new. Develop your creativity in that way. Also engage in 3D. Work with our hands. We spend so much time in computers and our TVs, our screens, but we forget to go out and do some farming. Cutting the grass, washing dishes, putting together a pot, also with the family. These things really help our mental, mental health. Also adding flaxseed, for example, in our meals, like really fertilize that brain so that we can help it work better. Hydration helps a lot for mental health. We overlook that. And just eating good foods for that brain to operate.

Well, that's so great.

Engage with the 3D.

I love.

Never heard that.

That's incredible right there. Engage with the 3D. Wow.

Now you're going to be doing the dishes with no problem.

But no, that's a tremendous distinction there. That is so spot on, too.

Yeah. I so agree. Those things that we do or create or build. You know, Tom and I, in our work, we talk a lot about play and novelty, which kind of plugs right into the creativity and working with our hands. And recently we decided to try out painting, and it was such a blast. And we don't. Neither one of us paint. Right. But just had this inkling to kind of say, I think let's try this out. It'll be great. And it's an interesting experience where all of a sudden novelty and play kind of flushes out so many of the pillars all in one swoop. Right. It's something we get to learn and do differently with our physical bodies. And emotionally, you're kind of putting your heart on a canvas or in a poem or in a piece of clay or on a coloring book. Right. Mentally, it's. It's stimulating us. It's kind of like it brings it all full circle. And spiritually, you feel like you've really, like, expressed yourself and explored yourself. You know, you're kind of on a high when it's all said and done. So I love that engagement.

Engage with the 3D.

You know, one of my favorite things to do that 3D work with my clients is doing vision boards like getting magazine scissors, paper, crayons, and just cut whatever speaks to you. And then you put together a vision board of what is it that you visualize in your life. And you can do that also as you work into the changes that you want to work and explore, like, what pillar do you want to choose? And then just bring that to experience expression through images. And then you put it somewhere home, somewhere, you know, near where you are in your home, so that you're reminded about what is it that you want to work on and where to start. You get a lot of ideas just by doing that.

Oh, gosh, that's so incredible. Well, so gosh darn it, it's time for us to kind of wrap things up. But I want to ask you, is there something that you wanted to touch on today that maybe we didn't bring up or you feel like would be valuable as we part here today?

I think overall is just asking ourselves the why we must have something that will help us not come up with all these excuses. Because I found myself there, like, why is it that I'm doing what I'm doing? And it has to come from what matters to you most. And really identifying and connecting to that why is what will help you get going and find that motivation every day to change your life holistically.

Oh, that's so great. And Mariola has a really special gift for us today that I'm going to let her tell you about for all of our listeners. Go ahead, take it away. You've got a wonderful surprise for us.

Oh, well, that's a daily tracker, a Taking care of Me sheet that we put together for, you know, those that want to get started and don't really know where. We were able to pick the most important things from. The Choose Life acronym and put them in a checklist format so that you can track which ones you're doing or which ones you want to add every day. And the more you do of these, the better you will feel and the faster, too. So we were very careful in choosing those wellness habits for you to download and print them every week and try to keep track of these things so that you start building those foundations physically in your health.

That's beautiful. You can get this download at our website, staceybartley.com and go to the podcast and it will be in the show notes for the podcast on our website. You can download it for free. So that's incredible. Those are some simple, easy ways that you can absolutely get started. Started in all that we've talked about. Put it into motion, implement it into your life. Right. We've had the conversation. Hopefully we've inspired you to take a little bit of action. And I want you to see and understand it doesn't have to be big stuff, just little teeny tiny steps that start to move the needle and help us feel a little bit better with inside of ourselves so that we can show up more for ourselves and for others and create more of the experiences that matter to us most. It's been such a wonderful gift to be here with you, Marielle. Any final thoughts before we say goodbye?

Well, thank you all and really let's work together in changing the way we define success and health through a life well lived and through our example with one another. So thank you so much for having me. It was a great joy and I hope to see you soon some other time.

Oh, that's so great. And again you can go to our website staceybartley.com to get that download. That is a special surprise and gift from Mariola to all of our listeners today. I want to give a little quick preview in regards to what's coming up next week. We're going to have our family, the family that is closest to me that I live with, the Bartley crew, is going to be coming to you on Thanksgiving Day in a pre recorded show where we're going to talk about the good, the bad and the challenging dynamics of living as a family. So stay tuned to next week. It'll be great. It's going to be an incredible show. I don't know. Well, we'll just leave it at that, shall we? No more to be said and thank you again to all of our listeners and for all of those who have shared this live episode with us today. It's my pleasure to create the show and to share it with all of you. And if you've enjoyed today's show, we're going to ask that you please share it with others and that you see, subscribe and review the show. We want to get better. We want to hear from you. We want to engage with our listeners. If you have any questions, you absolutely can email them in, you can text them to us. That text number, let me just kind of dig it out here for a minute, is 601207-0080. If you have questions or comments that come up after the show, please feel free to email us or text us. You can get our email address from the website. We really do want to hear from you. And so our song, as we do every week to close out this episode, is an oldie but a goodie. It's helping us all remember that we can take a small step in the direction we want to go to essentially free ourselves in some small way. Any moment that we choose to. It's my pleasure to share with you, Chaka Khan. Free yourself.