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The Therapy for Black Girls podcast is your space to explore mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves.
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I m your host, Dr. Joy Harden-Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia, and I can t wait for you to join the conversation every Wednesday.
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Listen to the Therapy for Black Girls podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Take good care, and we ll see you there.
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Bring a little optimism into your life with The Bright Side, a new kind of daily podcast from Hello Sunshine, hosted by me, Danielle Robay.
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And me, Simone Boyce.
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Every weekday, we re bringing you conversations about culture, the latest trends, inspiration, and so much more.
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I am so excited about this podcast, The Bright Side.
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You guys are giving people a chance to shine a light on their lives, shine a light on a little advice that they want to share.
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Listen to The Bright Side on America s number one podcast network, iHeart.
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Open your free iHeart app and search The Bright Side.
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Tune in to the new podcast, Stories from the Village of Nothing Much, like easy listening, but for fiction.
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If you ve overdosed on bad news, we invite you into a world where the glimmers of goodness in everyday life are all around you.
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I m Katharine Nicolai, and I m an architect of cozy.
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Come spend some time where everyone is welcome and the default is kindness.
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Listen, relax, enjoy.
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Listen to stories from the Village of Nothing Much on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Mental health is now talked about more than ever, which is awesome.
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I mean, I don t have to tell you that it s a primary focus of On Purpose.
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But on a day-to-day basis, many people don t know where to turn or which tools can help.
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Over the past couple of years, I ve been working with Calm to make mental wellness accessible and enjoyable, or as I like to say, fun and easy.
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Calm has all sorts of content to help you reduce anxiety and stress, build mindful habits, improve sleep, and generally feel better in your daily life.
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So many bite-sized options from the most knowledgeable experts in the world, along with renowned meditation teachers.
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You can also check out my 7-minute daily series to help you live more mindfully each and every day.
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Right now, listeners of On Purpose get 40% off a subscription to Calm Premium at calm.com forward slash j. That s c-a-l-m.com forward slash j-a-y for 40% off.
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Calm your mind, change your life.
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Stop sleeping with your phone near your bed.
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Allow yourself to wake up without your phone and sleep without your phone.
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Because guess what?
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We re also scrolling just before we go to bed.
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And then in the morning we do the same thing.
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Your brain has no ramp-up period.
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Your brain basically has no start-up mode.
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It has to go from zero to 60 miles per hour in three seconds like a sports car, a supercar.
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We are pressurizing our minds today to process as much as 74 gigabytes a day.
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Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world.
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Thanks to each and every one of you who come back every week to listen, learn and grow.
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Now, considering this is our last episode of 2023, I can t believe I m saying that.
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It s incredible how fast this year has gone.
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I m wishing and hoping that you have had a fulfilling and phenomenal year and despite the challenges and setbacks that you ve been able to navigate and find your way through that change.
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At the same time, I m sitting here recording this
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wanting to share with you just how grateful I am that you ve allowed me to join you on walks, that you ve allowed me to join you while you cook, that you ve allowed me to join you in the gym.
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I love seeing your stories.
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I love reading your reviews.
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And I want to thank you for making us one of the top five podcasts in the world, globally, on Spotify, and one of the top 10 on Apple.
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I want to encourage you to follow, like, subscribe on the app, share the podcast.
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It means the world to me.
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You did that.
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Share that news.
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And thank you so much for believing in On Purpose, for believing in me, trusting me.
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And I promise to continue to try and serve you to the best of my ability.
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And I m so excited for 2024.
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The growth this year has been phenomenal.
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And it s all thanks to you.
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Now, I want to share with you the key lessons that I m taking with me into 2024.
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Often at this time of year, I ll say, well, here are my big lessons of 2023.
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This is what I learned.
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And I did an episode like that on my birthday on the 6th of September.
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But today, I wanted to approach it differently.
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I wanted to share with you lessons that I m taking with me, that I m taking forward, that I believe are going to help me in the future.
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Really, that s the point of a lesson.
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The point of a lesson isn t, I learned that, great, thank you so much, now let s learn a new lesson.
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The point of a lesson is, now that I ve learned it, I m actually going to put it into practice.
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I m actually going to utilize it in the following year.
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So I want to dive straight in, and this thing I think is going to resonate with a lot of you, and it s why it s my big lesson that I want to take into the new year.
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It s this idea of, well, let me ask you a question.
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How many of you
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stress about your health or being healthy?
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How many of you stress about meditation?
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How many of you stress about making sure you don t miss a day in your journal?
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How many of you stress to make sure that you read your affirmations out in the morning?
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How many of you stress that you re not getting to the gym enough or yoga enough or whatever else it may be?
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How many of you stress about
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well-being.
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What I ve realized is that in this world of wanting to be better, do better, grow more, learn more, which by the way is beautiful.
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It s a great way to live.
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I found that often in that journey, we start experiencing more stress.
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We start putting ourselves under greater pressure and stress.
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And we have to really understand stress as a spectrum.
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This is something that I m taking into 2024.
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It s huge.
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I want you to write it down right now.
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Take a screenshot.
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I want you to explain this to a friend.
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So I was learning about this idea of how it can be helpful to look at stress as a scale, as a spectrum, rather than I am stressed or I m not stressed.
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Really,
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there s actually a scale.
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At one end there s eustress, spelt e-u-s-t-r-e-s-s, eustress, and at the other end there s distress.
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Now let me explain these and define these for you.
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When you look at the word eustress, what it means is a positive form of stress having a beneficial effect on health, motivation, performance, and emotional well-being.
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During positive stress, eustress,
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such as working hard at work for a promotion or feeling like you got the reward of a vacation, feel-good chemicals called endorphins are released.
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Now, I don t think we talk about this a lot.
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What we talk about is at the other end of the spectrum, which is distress.
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And the definition of distress or the meaning of distress is great pain, anxiety, or sorrow, acute physical or mental suffering, affliction, trouble, et cetera, et cetera, right?
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Now, I think what we re used to experiencing
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And what we re used to referencing when we talk about stress is this idea of distress.
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So eustress helps you break through from your comfort zone.
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It helps you take on new challenges.
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It helps you find motivation.
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Whereas distress is the stress that makes you feel overwhelmed.
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It s what affects your mood.
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It s that negative type of stress that affects your sleep.
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It s almost like when you re stressing about sleeping well.
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Or you re stressing about the fact that you re stressed when you re not sleeping well.
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And that perpetuates itself.
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So I want to look at stress as a spectrum.
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And the lesson I m taking through is I need to make sure which level of stress I m putting myself under.
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This is about the stress you control, the stress you allow yourself to experience.
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Are you putting you stress onto yourself?
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Or are you putting yourself in positions of distress?
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Are you putting stress on yourself to feel better, to encourage yourself, to motivate yourself, to move yourself forward?
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Or are you putting stress on yourself, being critical of yourself, saying you re not getting enough done, you re too far behind, right?
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You haven t done enough this year.
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It s really, really interesting to me because
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Research suggests that chronic stress contributes to high blood pressure, promotes the formation of artery clogging deposits, and causes brain changes that may contribute to anxiety, depression, and addiction.
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And more preliminary research suggests that chronic stress may also contribute to obesity, both through direct mechanisms, causing people to eat more, or indirectly, decreasing sleep and exercise.
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Now, I know you re listening to me already going, Jay, this is stressing me out.
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How many of you are listening right now?
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And the reason I exposed you to that definition is because we re used to hearing something like that and putting ourselves under distress.
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So we hear that and our response is, oh, crap.
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Oh, my God.
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I m not sleeping enough.
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I m not exercising enough.
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I m not, not, not, not, not.
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Right.
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Whereas you stress is actually saying, well, when I work out, when I push myself to work out, I actually feel better afterwards.
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You know what?
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When I actually sleep earlier, I know that I ll be happier tomorrow.
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You re allowing yourself to recognize that success follows your stress, right?
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You have an understanding that when I
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do something that s stressful, it leads to me being successful.
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And when I say successful, I don t mean materially or financially.
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I m talking about the fact that you see an intrinsic reward in why you sleep early, in why you exercise.
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So it s now not, well, I don t sleep early enough.
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I don t work out enough.
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I don t eat healthy enough.
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It s actually saying, well, when I eat healthy, I feel better.
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My gut feels better.
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My digestion s better.
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I feel more energized.
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I really want you to take this deeply on board because I think so many of us are living in spaces of distress and not recognizing just how tiresome it can be to keep stressing yourself out.
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We keep letting stress get the better of us or stress gets the best of us because we put ourselves under distress.
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And I ve realized
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Whether it s my work goals, my financial goals, my spiritual goals, my emotional goals, I have recognized that putting myself under distress only makes me less productive, less effective, and less impactful.
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How many times this year, be honest with me, how many times this year did you put yourself under too much stress?
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Raise your hands, nod your heads.
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How many times this year, be honest with me, did you not allow yourself the benefit of the doubt?
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How many times did you not cut yourself some slack?
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How many times did you make yourself feel worse?
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What I ve found is that guilt blocks growth.
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Guilt does not lead to growth.
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Guilt blocks growth.
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You may have that instant response of, I want to be better.
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Notice how that s a positive statement versus I m not good enough.
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Notice how you re saying the same thing, but you re not, right?
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Look at that sentence.
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I want to be better.
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I am going to be better versus I m not good enough.
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How do you think your mind and your body react to those statements?
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When you look at the common internal causes of stress, there s a natural pessimism, a negative outlook on life.
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Hence the statement, I m not good enough.
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What you ll realize is that we re all living in one of these two modalities.
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We re either living in new stress or distress, right?
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So if you re in distress, you re saying, I m not good enough.
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I m going to be negative about stuff.
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If you re living in eustress, you re saying, you know what, I m going to use stress to motivate me.
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I recognize the value of it.
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Another common internal cause of stress is the inability to accept uncertainty.
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Now, here s what we do.
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When we put ourselves in distress, we re basically saying there should have been a certain result.
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There should have been a defined conclusive result.
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And without a defined conclusive result,
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We re like, well, we must be failures.
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We must be wrong.
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The Therapy for Black Girls podcast is an NAACP and Webby Award winning podcast dedicated to all things mental health, personal development, and all of the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves.
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Here, we have the conversations that help black women decipher how their past inform who they are today.
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and use that information to decide who they want to be moving forward.
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We chat about things like how to establish routines that center self-care, what burnout looks and feels like, and defining what aspects of our lives are making us happy and what parts are holding us back.
1
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I m your host, Dr. Joy Harden-Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia.
1
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And I can t wait for you to join the conversation every Wednesday.
1
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Listen to the Therapy for Black Girls podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
1
SPEAKER_01
Take good care, and we ll see you there.
1
SPEAKER_02
Tune in to the new podcast, Stories from the Village of Nothing Much, like easy listening, but for fiction.
1
SPEAKER_02
If you ve overdosed on bad news, we invite you into a world where the glimmers of goodness in everyday life are all around you.
1
SPEAKER_02
I m Katherine Nicolai, and you might know me from the Bedtime Story podcast, Nothing Much Happens.
1
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I m an architect of cozy, and I invite you to come spend some time where everyone is welcome and kindness is the default.
1
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When you tune in, you ll hear stories about bakeries and walks in the woods, a favorite booth at the diner on a blustery autumn day, cats and dogs, unrescued goats and donkeys, old houses, bookshops, beaches where kites fly, and pretty stones are found.
1
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I have so many stories to tell you, and they are all designed to help you feel good and feel connected to what is good in the world.
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Listen, relax, enjoy.
1
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Listen to stories from the Village of Nothing Much on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
1
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Something that makes me crazy is when people say, well, I had this career before, but it was a waste.
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And that s where the perspective shift comes.
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That it s not a waste, that everything you ve done has built you to where you are now.
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This is She Pivots.
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the podcast where we explore the inspiring pivots women have made and dig deeper into the personal reasons behind them.
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Join me, Emily Tish Sussman, every Wednesday on She Pivots, as I sit down with inspiring women like Misty Copeland, Brooke Shields, Vanessa Hudgens, and so many more.
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We dive into how these women made their pivot and their mindset shifts that happened as a result.
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It s a podcast about women, their stories, and how their pivot became their success.
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Listen to She Pivots on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Another common internal cause is rigid thinking, a lack of flexibility.
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This one s really, really interesting to me because often we think that rigid routines and patterns are good for us.
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And by the way, they are good for us.
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Having a morning routine is fantastic.
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But if you stress that you missed a day of your morning routine, or maybe you stress because you missed a aspect of your morning routine, right?
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You re doing the whole thing, you re meditating, you re working out, you re journaling, and then one day you missed journaling.
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all of a sudden, you re throwing it all out.
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You re saying, oh, gosh, like, just messed up.
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One day, you got called into work early.
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One day, you had to stay up late for work.
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One day, and all of a sudden, you re going, God, I just wanted to be able to stick to my program.
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I don t have any flexibility, right?
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That actually causes more stress.
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us having this belief that I have to do the same exact thing every day, which by the way, isn t realistic.
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I want to ask you, what activity could you say you have done every day of your life forever without fail?
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It s probably breathing, brushing your teeth and showering.
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And even that third one for some of you may be questionable, but
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Hopefully we brush our teeth every day, we breathe of course every day, and we shower every day.
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Those are three things that you can say yes, I ve done those three things pretty much every day of my life.
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Beyond that, what else?
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Eating of course, drinking water of course, the obvious things.
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But beyond that, if you took away the basic necessities, sleeping,
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If you took away the basic necessities, what could you say you ve done every single day of your life?
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It s very hard.
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And so when we get into these rigid routines and patterns and we say to ourselves, for the rest of my life, I m going to do this every day, every single day, I have to do this because if I don t do this, I m not going to feel good.
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I m not going to feel at my best if I don t do this.
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Notice how different that is to a mindset of saying, I feel better when I do this versus I m not going to feel at my best if I don t do this.
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That s distress.
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You stress is, I always feel better when I do this.
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I m happy when I do this.
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I get to do this.
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Notice how rigid thinking actually just compounds stress.
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So I m not saying don t have rigid patterns.
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I m saying have a different relationship with your rigid patterns.
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Have a different relationship with your morning routine.
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It s not a must.
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It s not a I have to.
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It s not a if I don t.
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It s a I get to.
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It s a this makes me better.
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It s a imagine what s possible.
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As soon as you see that rigid thinking and lack of flexibility leading to negative self-talk, start to become really mindful.
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Another common internal cause of stress is unrealistic expectations or perfectionism.
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Now, people often look at perfectionism as something to strive for.
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It almost makes you feel like you care more, right?
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I ve often had people say to me, well, Jay, if you don t believe in perfectionism, does that mean you don t care?
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And what I ve realized is actually caring too much can make what I m creating worse.
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It can actually make me more anxious.
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It can actually make me less able to do the thing.
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I ll give you an example even with On Purpose.
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If I m extra stressed about a guest I m about to have on,
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I actually believe I have a worse conversation.
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I feel that I have better conversations when I ve prepared enough but not over-prepared.
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And that s the word I want to share with you.
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I want you to look at your life as how can you prepare but not over-prepare?
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How can you create but not over-create?
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How can you think but not over-think?
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Notice how it s when we add the word over, over-think, over-compensate.
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Right?
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Over prepared.
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That s when we re like, well, that s a bit over the top.
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That s the feeling.
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So when it comes to deepening, developing a healthier relationship with our perfectionist mindset, I m not saying, see, this is what we do as humans.
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We oscillate between two extremes.
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We go, oh, well, I wasn t, I was a perfectionist.
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Now I m just going to do whatever comes out.
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I m just going to be quick.
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And by the way, that is the process to get back to the middle.
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So if you meet a friend or if you find yourself oscillating,
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between two different extremes, chances are you re actually trying to find your middle.
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You re actually trying to find your center.
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And finding your center is a beautiful thing.
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So I ll give an example.
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If you re someone who was a people pleaser, and now you re setting really high boundaries.
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And often when we see our friends do this, we go, oh God, they re like overcompensating.
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But no, we almost have to do that in the beginning.
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If you were someone who s a perfectionist, you might just need to fail every day.
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Right?
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You might just need to fail every day.
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You might need to take on a mini thing every day that allows you to break through that desire to be perfect and make everything add up and make everything stack up.
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Notice how we have to almost move from one extreme to the other to find ourselves in the middle.
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In order to develop a healthy relationship with anything in the world, we have to find our center.
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we have to find the middle.
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But in order to find the middle, we often have to swing from left to right a few times.
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And as we swing more and more, we start to settle in the middle.
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I want you to ask yourself with stress, how many of you go through this with stress, where you stress yourself out, and then you take it really easy.
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And then when you take it really easy, you re like, Oh, no, I m taking it too easy on myself, or I need to stress myself out again.
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That s where we re living our unhealthy relationship with anything in the world.
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Even with our partners, it s like I see my partner every day, I don t need to see my partner all year, right?
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It s that middle path.
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It s that middle ground the Buddha used to talk about finding your center.
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This has been a big, big lesson I m taking into next year, finding my center with everything I do, trying not to be an extremist.
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but trying to find my center.
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But actually, I take that back, using being an extremist to find my center, not avoiding being an extremist.
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And by the way, when I say extremist, I mean the idea of, I m being really healthy, I m being really unhealthy.
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I may have to use that in order to find the middle.
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And by the way, if I judge myself for saying, oh my gosh, I ve been too stressed out recently, or I m not pushing myself enough recently, that is that process of finding your center.
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Find your center.
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Now, I wanted to raise this because I think a lot of us don t recognize something about how all of us are experiencing lots of different stress.
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And I wanted to raise this because there are 10 stressful life events.
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According to a study, they found that these are the top stressful life events for adults.
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Number one, death of a spouse.
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Naturally, going through the death of a spouse can be one of the most stressful events of your life.
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It affects children if you have them.
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It affects a relationship you ve developed.
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It reflects a sense of identity.
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It impacts your ability to think about your future.
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There s so much that is affected by that.
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If you ve been through that this year, I want to send my prayers and love to you.
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But please, please, please, I want you to give yourself some grace.
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Number two on the list is divorce.
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I feel like divorce has become so common these days that we ve become somewhat desensitized to it.
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We just assume that if someone s divorced, it s like, yeah, you know, people get divorced, get on with it.
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And it s like, I ve interviewed people on the podcast this year about going through divorces and how difficult and challenging it is.
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It s so challenging emotionally, mentally, spiritually, from a family point of view.
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Another one that s on this list is death of a close family member.
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Of course, so many people went through this during COVID.
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And of course, this is a regular occurrence for so many of us around the world.
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And what I find is that we have this get up and go attitude where we almost want to walk it off, shake it off, right.
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So I get up the next day and move on.
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And often we even put on a brave face, we have to put on a brave face for family members, for children, for friends, whatever it may be.
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And it s not that easy.
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Next on the list is injury or illness.
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Natural for that to be there.
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Next is job, sorry, next is marriage.
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Marriage is one of the most stressful life events.
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Moving in with someone is one of the most stressful life events.
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but we underplay these things and we say what s wrong with me what am i doing wrong why is everyone else getting it right i m sharing all of these with you to help you realize that if you ve been going through stress this year it s natural it s normal and i don t want you to look at it as a weakness i don t want you to think of it as i m so weak i m so lost right the next one is job loss
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of course makes sense, and then retirement as well.
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Maybe you have a family member, a parent going through retirement, and maybe they ve been acting a bit different.
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I m also sharing these because I want you to be more compassionate to other people.
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This is a big lesson I m always taking into 2024, is this idea of recognizing how different people deal with stress.
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Noticing how unique and personal your relationship with stress is, and how unique everyone else s relationship with stress is.
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I was talking to somebody else the other day and they were talking to me about how one of their family members is struggling with their health and the other family member is in denial.
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And I was saying that, well, their sense of denial is coming from a sense of fear and care.
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It s not coming from a place of hatred or disregard or being negligent.
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It s actually coming from a place of they re so worried or scared to accept the truth.
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And we don t often think about it like that.
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This idea of we re so scared of people, the way they deal with stress.
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So let s move towards eustress.
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Now, a couple of things that have really helped me in my journey with stress is, first of all, making a list of all the core triggers that I regularly experience of stress.
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A lot of people think that avoiding stress or not thinking about it makes it better, but actually exploring it and getting to know it better
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is actually what makes all the difference.
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So when I m not feeling stressed, I ll make a list of what are the things that regularly stress me out.
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It could be a person, it could be a place, it could be a project.
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Now I ll create a response that s going to help me deal with that.
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Right?
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I m going to create a plan to help me deal with that.
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So let s say I get stressed when I m invited to a social event.
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Okay, great.
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What am I going to do in order to make that social event more meaningful, more purposeful, more thoughtful, more valuable?
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Am I going to seek one person in the networking space to make sure I connect deeply?
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Am I going to practice breathwork before I leave?
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Am I going to make sure that I ve thought about my outfit two weeks in advance, not two hours in advance?
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What can I do to support myself in the common occurrences of that situation?
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I find preparing for stress when you re not stressed
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is much better than trying to solve stress when you are stressed.
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A lot of us wait till we re stressed to have to solve it.
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The second thing that s made a huge difference in my life, a big, big, big difference, is not sleeping with my phone near my bed.
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This has been a game changer.
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I know I ve said it before, but I m saying it again.
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Stop sleeping with your phone near your bed.
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In 2024, leave that phone in another room,
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Get a real alarm clock.
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Allow yourself to wake up without your phone and sleep without your phone.
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Because guess what?
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We re also scrolling just before we go to bed.
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So not only do we get to bed 30 minutes later, we re also going to bed with all of those ideas.
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And then in the morning we do the same thing.
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Your brain has no ramp-up period.
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Your brain basically has no start-up mode.
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It has to go from zero to 60 miles per hour in three seconds like a sports car, a supercar.
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And it s not trained to do that.
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We are pressurizing our minds today to process as much as 74 gigabytes a day.
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And ultimately, what I m really sharing here is this idea of knowing when to be harder on yourself and when to let go.
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This is wisdom, knowing when to push yourself and when to hold back.
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And here s what I ll say to you.
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If you can push yourself positively towards a goal you love,
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With motivation, that s brilliant.
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If you re starting to push yourself out of negativity, condescending language, negative self-talk, that s when you need to hold back.
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I want to thank you so much for listening to today s episode.
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I hope that stress and your relationship with stress is deeply improved in 2024.
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Everything we share here is to help you positively work on yourself,
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not negatively hold yourself back.
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I promise you that 2024 or an On Purpose is going to be an even more phenomenal year.
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I want to thank you for following, for subscribing, for leaving a review.
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I promise you there are so many exciting guests, so many more solos.
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Thank you for trusting me.
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I am wishing you
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an amazing end to 2023, and I m praying, meditating, and wishing for you to have an abundant, joyful, and phenomenal 2024.
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Challenges will come, but we ll navigate those together.
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Stresses will come.
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But we ll navigate those together.
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Know that I m here to help you be directed, guided, and find that inner voice within.
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And I ll always be here on On Purpose every Monday and Friday.
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I m so grateful to those of you who listen to us every day.
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Appreciate you deeply.
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Sending you so much love to you and your family and your loved ones from my heart to theirs.
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Thank you so much.
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Signing off.
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And see you in 2024.
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This episode is brought to you by Masterclass, and I ve got some exciting news.
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This month, my Masterclass on Navigating Change is live on the Masterclass platform.
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Go to masterclass.com forward slash navigate change to tune in now.
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Tune in to the new podcast, Stories from the Village of Nothing Much.
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Like, easy listening, but for fiction.
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If you ve overdosed on bad news, we invite you into a world where the glimmers of goodness in everyday life are all around you.
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I m Catherine Nicholai, and I m an architect of cozy.
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Come spend some time where everyone is welcome and the default is kindness.
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Listen, relax, enjoy.
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Listen to stories from the village of nothing much on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
3
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Get emotional with me, Radhi Devlukia, in my new podcast, A Really Good Cry.
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We re going to be talking with some of my best friends.
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I didn t know we were going to go there on this.
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people that I admire.
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When we say listen to your body, really tune in to what s going on.
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Authors of books that have changed my life.
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Now you re talking about sympathy, which is different than empathy, right?
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Never forget, it s okay to cry, as long as you make it a really good one.
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Listen to A Really Good Cry with Radhi Devlukia on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Something that makes me crazy is when people say, well, I had this career before, but it was a waste.
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And that s where the perspective shift comes, that it s not a waste, that everything you ve done has built you to where you are now.
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This is She Pivots, the podcast where we explore the inspiring pivots women have made and dig deeper into the personal reasons behind them.
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Join me, Emily Tish Sussman, every Wednesday on She Pivots.
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Listen to She Pivots on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.