Moving through Midlife | Habit Stack & Movement Snacks for Midlife Moms, Parenting in Midlife | Fitness over 40

86 | Pause and Pivot may be all you need for Love with Lenora

February 13, 2023 Courtney McManus Episode 86
Moving through Midlife | Habit Stack & Movement Snacks for Midlife Moms, Parenting in Midlife | Fitness over 40
86 | Pause and Pivot may be all you need for Love with Lenora
Moving through Midlife
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Show Notes Transcript

Today I am speaking with Lenora a life coach and trauma healing practitioner about how we can begin to work on ourselves when we are ready for change and how practicing self love goes deeper than just self care.

Outline

What does self-love look like for you?
1:38

Do you want to change or is this a need?
7:07

Allow yourself to work in small increments.
9:10

Turn on music that will make you feel good.
14:26

How to create a spark in your relationship.
17:28

Tips and techniques to help you help yourself pause.
24:58

The power of pausing and pivoting in the morning.
28:37



You can find Lenora at:
Personal Success Coach & Communications Teacher - DTBHorizons

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Welcome to raising healthy humans. I am your host, Courtney, personal trainer and movement specialist and the founder of form fit community where I help busy moms feel better through movement. As a busy and sometimes overwhelmed mom of three myself, I understand that it can be difficult to find ways to live and raise healthy families. It is my goal to help to provide you with the information you need to help raise healthy humans. Hello, how are you today? I'm great, Courtney, how are you doing today? I'm good. I've had you on once before, but I'm having you back because you also help. Is it women specifically or people in as a success coach, right? That is correct. I actually work with men and women. And I often tell people that I help them. And I use a variety of evidence, evidence based techniques, but I help them solve, dissolve and resolve the things that are holding them back and keeping them stuck so that they can actually go out and live the life they want and explore the dreams that they have, and to accomplish the things that they have these really deep desires for. Okay, so this month, we are focusing on self love talk. And can you talk to us about like, what we can do to move into who we want to be? Absolutely. And so when it comes to self love, I think self love the the cultural media would have you think that self love is like a candle in a bubble bath. And that's, we're fixed. And that's not to me really what the case is, especially going through my own personal experiences. I struggled in my early 20s with anxiety with body dysmorphia, and eating issues and so many things that I did not feel like when I would look out into the media, they were like, Oh, here's a candle. Here's a bubble bath. I'm like, Okay, that's a band aid for something that is just not needed a band aid for. And I really started to dive deep into what did loving myself look for what did caring for myself look for, and really starting to, to ask a ton of questions, but also really looking for a lot of answers. So for when it comes to self love, what does it look like for you? How do you feel most loved? For for me, I feel that self love is a great thing. But that includes self care, that includes tough love that I give myself, and being able to also discipline myself to say, Okay, you might not feel completely energetic and rainbows and sunshine all the time. But what are the tools that I have to help myself get to where I want to go? And really building that toolkit, so that you know, you may have them, but be you know how to apply them. And I think that's what's really, really important when it comes to self love. How do you take care of yourself? And when you're not feeling very loving toward yourself? What do you do? And how do you get there? Okay, and you mentioned, like what brings us love? And as moms? It can be very difficult to answer that question. We spend so much time caring for everyone else and pleasing everyone else that I think that question is very difficult for us. And honestly, I'll tell you, from my standpoint, what I've noticed, is I didn't when my children were younger, it was harder for me to like, I didn't worry or think about that as much. But now that they've gotten older, and it's kind of like you're trying to figure out what your next step in life is. That's when it really starts to kind of come down on you like, oh, what's meant for me what? So how, how would you help someone who is dealing with that, who may not really know like, Okay, you say self love, I need to find what my love is, but how would they go about doing that? The first thing that I would I would recognize is and I personally feel that in the media and in the culture as women when we were when I was growing up, I was taught that I go to school, I get my degree, I'm going to get married, and then I'm going to have children. And there wasn't really this deeper understanding that we're seeing in 2020 2021, and so on and so forth. It's really had this incredible evolution. So people are starting to essentially kind of wake up or start to go, Hey, wait, that's right. I don't have to give give give all the time. And I think the first thing that I would would suggest to people is be okay that you're not gonna figure it out in five minutes. It is truly a deeper understanding that you're having with yourself. And I help people communicate better with themselves and outwardly, obviously into the into the world, but really having this personal relationship and starting to explore saying, Okay, do I really like this? And if not, no problem was I taught to like this and do I really like it, or I was taught to like this, and I don't really like it. For me, I grew up thinking, um, exercise is a way to lose weight. That's what I really thought of exercise as. So when I, the underlining tone of that was, I have to exercise to lose weight, I'm then not good enough. And it must mean that I'm fat. And it must mean these other things that are going off in my head, which contributed to a limiting mindset of my own body, and how I perceived myself. So then when I really want to exercise, if these are the underlying tones of exercise, so I really worked inside, you know, okay, what do I like about my body? What do I like doing it? And does it look different than what I'm seeing out there? And if it does, right, no problem? What do I want it to look like instead, so may look like, going for a walk, it may look like doing yoga, it might not look like going for a five mile run that I have no desire to participate in? So to really explore that and say, What does caring for my body look like? And what do I want it to look like for me? Or even when you think about having that me time, that alone time? For some a bubble bath and a book and an for 20 minutes? is great, and they are thrilled for that? Phenomenal? Does it look like it's something else for you? Does it look like it's sleeping in? Or does it look like you just having a few minutes on the couch to yourself? Whatever it looks like, and to really start playing with it. When I do quiet my mind? What else is going on? Am I thinking about 45? Other things? Okay, the goal is to come back to me, what do I need in this moment? And we are trained as women, I think, give give, give, give, give no, no, your last. But really, we're starting to see a shift. And I think this is a good thing. We want to see that shift that says okay, I'm included to I'm not last I'm included to I happened to watch something where you were talking about on your YouTube channel about needing to change or wanting to change. So can you let us know because I feel like this is kind of like moving into that as to where we can go from here. Completely. And a huge thing, the first thing that I often suggest to my clients is do you want to change? Or is this a need? Now there's two totally different things wanting is like, yeah, get to it need is like it is a parent, and it is right now that something needs to resolve, but also to allow yourself permission to acknowledge the feeling that something isn't right. A lot of the time, we're quick to turn feelings off and stuff in other places. But once you acknowledge yourself permission, I I allow myself to feel my own sadness or my own frustration, my own anger, and be okay with it. And recognize I need to do something about it. Especially because, you know, we're as as women, we're naturally looking out to our, our family members and our friends. Are you okay? Are you okay? If you were your own friend and you went to the mirror? What would you say? What would you want to say to your friend that's feeling really lost or feeling really, as the last, everybody else comes first, and I'm just gonna do my best to get five hours of sleep, I hope and drudge myself out of out of bed the next day and pit repeat on the entire thing. Once you start to acknowledge that you would like this a part of your life. What else, allow yourself to go in small increments. If five minutes is all you have than five minutes is what you have and work with that work five minutes into your morning, five minutes into your afternoon, five minutes into your evening and explore what that looks like. For me, mine might be sitting quietly in my car and acknowledging before I transition to the next task, so Okay, I just left the kids at school. I'm getting go to work before I go to work. I'm going to take those five minutes and acknowledge my next intention. I'm going to go to work, what do I want to see when I go to work? What do I want to do? I want to see people that are laughing I want to have a good time. I want to feel productive. I want to get the five tasks that I have done verse feeling like you need to accomplish your entire month's work in that day of which we often bite off more than we can chew. And we think that way. So those would definitely be the great places to start looking at that, if that's something that somebody's wanting to explore. Okay, well, I feel like for many of us, it this wanting, we all say we want to do these different things. And until something goes wrong, that's when we actually start to dig in and make the change completely. Yeah. So working on, you know, what you're saying is working on just finding almost like finding the little things. And when you were saying, like taking five minutes before, you're basically creating the intention for what you want for that day. And I think that's important, because I feel like, this is not only myself, I see this in clients of mine, I see this in family members of mine, we get caught up in the negative narrative. And when you were talking about, like, the intention, and taking five minutes before you go into work, everything that you would have said was a positive thing I want to see, you know, these people in their happiness, and I want to do this. So how can we? Is that something we create? Or is this something where, you know, like one of those situations, are you looking for the good in the day, or the bad in the day type thing completely. And I love that you pointed that out. So as humans, we are naturally wired to sort for negative. So this is an eight, we didn't come out of a cave and go, Wow, it's so not yet here, we came out and went, Oh, my God was gonna eat me. And that's simply how we are wired, it is a defense mechanism. Now, the fact that we know that sorting for the negative is how we are wired. I encourage people to really acknowledge it, and then pivot, we can come out with a list faster than you can possibly imagine for things that are negative, especially because if we grow up in a negative environment, we quite literally wire our brain connections to be more negative, and we focus on the negative and people will tell me, Oh, will you have rose colored glasses on, I don't have rose colored glasses on, I make a very distinct choice to say I could focus on that I could focus on the news. And I could focus on all these things that are going array and a right. Or I can make that attention that distinct pivot and turn my attention to positive. And I love to do this, especially this is one of the tools in my, in my toolkit, when I noticed that I'm sometimes not having a great moment. And that's okay, so I acknowledged it, I gave myself permission to say, Hey, I'm feeling this way. It's okay, I'm not gonna pretend, what do I want to do? Now what happens with our emotions, we have a thought that causes an emotion, our emotions have momentum, so the more negative we are, and if you've ever stubbed your toe, first five minutes out of bed, and you go, this is how the day's gonna go, you kind of just open that gateway that says, Okay, send in the negative dream. And it builds momentum, just like a rock rolling downhill or a train speeding down the hill, there's momentum. The good thing is there is momentum for your positive states, too. This is why the good gets better, the worse gets worse. This is why there's momentum. And as you're focused on the positive, more things will connect to the positive. What I do is, I've mentioned I acknowledge it, I gave myself permission to choose again, and I will then start to focus on things that are positive. Now, if I'm, for example, I wake up sometimes, and I'm a bit tired, and I don't necessarily want to jump into my workout. Okay, no problem. What do I do? I quite literally start talking to myself at 430 in the morning, about positive things. I'm grateful that I have a roof over my head. I'm grateful that I can stand here, my pajamas and fold my laundry. I'm grateful that I can move my body, things like that. But when you say it out loud, you're then saying it with your voice out loud. You're hearing it in your voice, and you're going to pick up momentum. And before you know it, it takes on speed and that's a good thing. Another great trick if you're really kind of stuck in that negative state, turn on music that will make you feel good. I love music from the 80s It's so it just energizes you and it pumps you up and it really helps quite literally shift your energy. And that's what we're doing when we're in those negative states, we're intentionally shifting our energy to a positive and it makes all the difference in your day. Okay, and will this then, in turn make you want to work out? Yeah, actually it does, because I'm really like, so for me, I'm standing there folding laundry in my pajamas. And as I'm doing doing that, I'm tight from sleeping. And now I'm starting to stretch more, and I'm like, This feels good. I can move my body. And then when you start to turn on music, you start to, you start to feel that energy more and you feel better in your body, and then you're like, your workout goes much, much easier. Versus I don't want to do this, I don't want to do this, which side of the drum Do you want to be? Right? It goes to something that I like to recommend to clients is just start for five minutes, like we can do. And honestly, I actually heard something about how creating habits quite literally only takes practicing it one minute, every single day. And if you can just do it for one minute, then you're actually giving that positive neuro like connection. So you could even go to one minute, and just say, if you just start, just move your body for one minute, then most of us enjoy it and keep going. It's this weekend, I went for a walk around the neighborhood, got on the spin bike, and it was like, Ah, just do like 10 minutes and 10 minutes turned into almost a half an hour, because I was listening to music and I was enjoying the ride. And that time you've got it. built momentum. Yeah, yep, complete. So just working on that. Um, and I would say as well, and you can speak into this further, if you'd like that sometimes going back to this whole self love. If you are down in a, say a negative spiral. Sometimes you have to fake it. You know, like just sometimes you have to create the positive energy. Yeah, the positive energy before you feel it, for sure. Completely, completely. And that's so beautifully said. Two points, you raise that were so awesome. When you when you're wanting to change that state of you are negative, shaking, it is a great way, pretend you're in a much better mood. And I actually was speaking with another woman. And she said that she and her husband, especially when they were in the car, and the kids were having a screaming fighter fight in the back in the car, and they're on a long car drive, she said my husband and I would roll down the windows, and we would force ourselves to laugh. And it would help us quite literally get that energy going. But also then they started to laugh very genuinely. And it's such a happy, funny memory for them at this point. So they were faking it completely. They were not in the mood, they were like, Oh my God, I don't want to be in the car. And because they acknowledged it, they chose something else. And they did something that generated humor, they generated energy in a positive way. And they had a positive results. completely awesome. And I love that you also mentioned about doing it for one minute, especially because what you can then do is start to build more trust with yourself. You do it for just one minute and you say, Okay, five times this week, I'm going to show up and do this for one minute. You start to build trust with yourself, you start to build confidence with yourself. And then that continues to build upon itself. There was one person, I heard this story, I'm pretty sure I heard it on Instagram and he wanted to start going to the gym and he wanted to start working out. But he knew had he started to lift a weight, he would just stop going immediately. He held himself to go into the gym, walking in the door and being there for five minutes. And he did that day in day after day after to build that habit of just showing up and going and then he said, Okay, I'm gonna stand there for six minutes and I'm gonna lift a weight for one minute and just build that trust with himself and allowed his body to really come to a great point that said, I can do this, I'm okay. I don't have to run out the door. And it really just started to build upon itself. So building habits is a phenomenal point of self love, build those self love habits. They might not all B with a blanket and that's okay. You touched on something else. And I feel like I want to kind of go there as well just because I noticed that you work in relationships as well, right? And you mentioned about the couple, and I'm just thinking like how many times, again, we set the intention, it's all in, you can change. And I don't mean this with every relationship, there are some unhealthy relationships out there. But for many of us, you know, bringing children into the equation can change the relationship. But it doesn't mean that you and your partner are not no longer compatible. But with this in setting the intention, sometimes if we change the way we look at the relationship, the relationship will change as well, completely. When we change the way that we look at anything, things will change. Right? Yeah. Right. Absolutely. So for those of us who maybe want to create a spark, during this time of year, what can we do in this relationship, like if we notice that we're not as connected to our partner as we nor as we had been in the past, completely, and especially during during this time of year, because then people sometimes feel obligated to go out and get Valentine's Day things when they might not really be feeling it? And then you're like, well, thanks. So thanks for the card. That wasn't what it was like the last three months. But that's great to, to really acknowledge what you want in that relationship, and what does your partner want, because in some cases, it does come to a point where they no longer want the same thing, and that's okay. But assuming you both wanted the same thing, and you're trying to reconnect, what are some other ways that can that you can reconnect? Now I'm gonna go from story of, let's say, the woman does not feel all that great in her body, she gave birth a couple of months ago, we got hormones going all over the place, and she's just not feeling it. That's okay. But to find ways to reconnect and say and tell your significant other that you're with that says that sex is not going to be on the table right? Now. We're going to put that away for a smidge of time. And we're just going to both need to be okay. We're going to put it over there. What are some other ways that we want to have fun? What else do we want to do? Even though we can't we might not be able to get out of a house, we have a three month old that's, that's still up at night, and we can't get away? No problem. How else do you want to connect? What else do you want to do? Do you sit down when you and really acknowledge, hey, here are five things that I thought of Here are five things that you thought of, let's look at them together and find ways to come together and go in with the fact that you both want what's best for both of you. And you both have the same intention of wanting to be in that relationship. If things have changed, it's a completely different story. If one of you is wanting the relationship, and one of you isn't, that's a that's an indifferent component. But to even openly say, you know, what, let's, let's just call it out, we're going to talk about the pink elephant things have been a little off, can we can we talk about it. And absolutely, you know, in that Mac component when when that relationship is off, emotions are heightened. A lot is going on. And one of the things that I love to share with people, especially when you're in the middle of a site, watch your tone. So those softer you can become, and not to quite literally elevate it into a screaming match. Because don't forget that those emotional states, they have momentum, when you can watch your posture and your breathing. And also when you can watch your tone of voice and soften and really come down in that voice. So that way you're talking to somebody. And even if somebody's getting really, really heightened, a great phrase that I learned is, talk to me, like I'm someone you love, and remind people that you are there with them, that you love them, and that you truly want what's best for everybody involved in that relationship, not just for the two that are in that relationship, but the whole family. And it really does impact people. And I am a big supporter of talking as as openly as you can, but to also understand when somebody shares with you. And they're being vulnerable, that does not give you the right to use that against them in the heat of a fight. Truly Be careful and kind with what you say I used to work in a nursing home and I loved loved talking to these older people that would share their pearls of wisdom and I would say what did you learn from your years of marriage? And one of them in particular, she said, once you say it, you can't take it back. And that is a very true statement. Yes. Do you have any tips or techniques to help? Pause? I do this all the time. And it's not just with my husband, it's with my children too sometimes. And even with friends just talking to people, just very quick to say, rather than sit and pause before speaking completely, especially because, you know, as as we get older, we start to notice, ah, I'm getting into that moment of where I'm about to lose my bananas, and it's gonna be pretty good to read. I hands down, it's happened to me. And I honestly stand there and I go, Okay, I know me, I know, I'm getting upset. I'm human. It's okay. How do I want to carry out the rest of this conversation? What's your outcome? Do you want to have a screaming match? Which is entirely possible? Or have you had enough screaming matches, where you're then going to be able to say, You know what, we're gonna come back to this, I don't want to talk about this right now, I want to make sure that when we have this conversation, I'm careful with my word choices. Because I don't want this to escalate further. And if we continue, right now, it's going to escalate. And we both know, it's not necessarily going to end with rainbows and sunshine. And to really understand also, these are, these are skills that can be practiced, I promise you, for example, I used to be a big Doorslammer, when I was angry, doors of all sorts, were getting slammed. And my husband in the midst of a fight pointed out the doorframe is breaking menorah. And I had to then also realize, a I'm breaking my own house and be maybe not the best expression of my anger. So now this is going back a number of years, I've gotten much better, I don't slam things. I'm now to the point that I can actually, he and I have acknowledged, there is an art to fighting, there is an art to having a disagreement, we both need to practice, and really have that emotional control so that we don't hurt each other, unintentionally, but intentionally in the middle of the fight. Because once emotions calmed down, and you're like, Oh, I'm sorry for what I said. And that's a very normal thing. But at the same time, we don't want it to be this normal thing where we have a screaming match. So we really practiced saying, let's pause, let's pivot, we know the direction this can go. But we don't want to. So we're gonna pivot to something else, we'll come back to this and really allow yourself to acknowledge it, but also take your foot off the gas. And then recognize I intentionally did that, I could have done this. But I exercise emotional control. I exercised respect for myself, respect for my spouse, respect for my house in some cases, and allowed myself to come back to it. And then especially when I first got married, they said, Don't go to bed angry. It's a nice thought. It might not, in the number of years that I've been married, which is over a decade, there are times where we go to bed angry. But the nice thing is, is that when you go to sleep, momentum stops, and you can then have that reprieve to your brain, your chemical hormonal balance changes. And you can start again, completely different world. Yes. 100%. Agree. I mean, and when you wake up in the morning, you might not even real, like, you may realize it's not even worth it. Because it does it changes, you're refreshed. You're thinking differently. A lot of times we're tired, or Yeah. So it just changes how we assess the whole situation when you wake up in the morning, completely, completely. And these are just things that we practice over time and people can and I heard it somewhere pause and pivot. So now I've I've adopted this also, you pause in that moment, just like you did when I when I was talking about the story of you dropped the kids off at the car, and you're intentionally sitting in your car for five minutes, you've paused, you took that time to breathe, you took that time for yourself, you took that time to set the intention, whatever that time was, You paused and you pivoted to something else. You know you can keep spiraling you know you can keep going down and just go pear through the day and then be all flustered by the end of it. Because you didn't quite literally give yourself that time. The culture really supports going as hard as you can for as long as you can on caffeine. And really just keep grinding the culture support is that it's not in our best human design. So I encourage people to really explore what they want for themselves, what works for them, because what works for them might not work for the other person. And it might not work for me, but this might work for me. And to really come up with your own formula, your own combination of what you want. Okay, well, and I think that's a great place to leave. Because no matter where we are with this, whether it's the self love, whether it's a relationship with your significant other or your children or something like that, the pausing rethinking, yeah, yeah, choosing a different story that you're telling yourself completely. Yeah. Completely. And even doing that, even if you you know, allow yourself permission to say, Okay, I feel really angry right now. And I kind of want to scream. That's okay. It does not make you a bad person. It does not make you this awful creature that shouldn't be banished from the earth. It doesn't at all, it makes you human. And the fact that you noticed it, you observed it and you chose again, huge difference world of a difference. X Excellent. Can you tell listeners where they can find you? Oh, absolutely. My website is DTB horizons.com, I'm on YouTube and Facebook and all those social media links. And I work with people when they feel like they're stuck with whether it's Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or anxiety, eating disorders, relationships that they don't feel satisfied, and I work with them on things that are important to them. And I help them clear out with no they no longer need so that they can move in the direction that they want. And you use you mentioned hypnosis and you use alternatives as well. Okay, absolutely. So I am I am a certified hypnotist. I am also a certified holographic memory resolution practitioner, which is a small, small clip that is your Body Keeps the Score of everything that you've been through. So trauma gets locked in our body and I help people release that from their body. Interesting. I'm going to have to have you back on again. Because I'm sure that goes into the pains that we hold on to in our barn and if so, very, very much that. Okay. She'll be back again. Because I have a slew of questions about that. But, um, let our listeners know, like, if there's one thing they can do for themselves today, what would you recommend? If you're if you're stuck in a bad mood, pause, choose again, turn on some music, get movin and groovin. It's a very good way to really shift your mood. And if anybody does have questions, I offer a free consultation so you can simply reach out to me and see if I may be able to help you in any way possible. Perfect. Thank you so much for taking time out of your day for this. Thank you so much, Courtney. Thank you for taking time out of your day to listen to our podcast. I hope you found this information valuable and hope that you can immediately use some of the information that was provided. Make sure to check out the show notes for all the links that we discussed today. We would also love for you to come join us over on our moms raising healthy humans community on Facebook to provide us with information moving forward with the podcast. We also provide you with a monthly focus to help you and your family live a healthier and more fulfilling life. And if you're interested in diving deeper with us, we offer different memberships to participate in so that you can get to know us on a more personal level. We offer monthly challenges, live events on demand and live workouts, meal plans and so much more. Just head to form fit online.com to learn more. And as always make sure to keep moving