Facing Dementia: From Fear to Trust

[00:00:06] Hi, this is the Be Well with Dr. Michelle Greenwell podcast. Our heartwarming conversation is designed to lift you on your wellness journey. Grab your cup of tea and enjoy the podcast.

[00:00:26] Welcome back to Facing Dementia, where we explore awareness, empowerment, healing, and the possibilities that happen through conversations that invite us to see health and life through a different lens. I'm Dr. Michelle Greenwell, Complementary and Integrative Health. And today's conversation is one that I think you're going to really resonate with as many of us will do this and we really want to shine a light on it.

[00:00:53] What happens when you've done all the research on the illness that you have been diagnosed with or are facing? And when you've read all the books, you've changed your diet, you've learned the science, you studied the statistics, you made the lifestyle, adjustments, and yet you still find yourself living in that shadow of fear. Fear that maybe you missed something. Fear that you haven't done enough. Fear that something may happen anyway.

[00:01:21] And at some point there needs to be a turning point, a moment that determines, well, it becomes exhaustion. And then there's this determination that something needs to be different. And that's where research can become very overwhelming. And where your willpower will run dry. And that leads us to the deeper question that emerges. What if the next step isn't more information, but trust?

[00:01:47] Today, we're going to explore that powerful turning point with my dear guest, Lauren Wittig. Welcome back, Lauren. Always happy to be here. Love talking to you. Always. Lauren is an intuitive transformation mentor, award-winning author, founder of Heartlight Wellness and the Heartlight Women's Circles, and host of the Curious Wives Practical Spirituality in Action podcast.

[00:02:14] With a background in epitomology, Lauren beautifully bridges science and intuition, practical knowledge, and spiritual wisdom. And her personal journey navigating concerns around dementia risk has invited her into a profound self-discovery, not only about health, but around what it truly means to live fully in the present.

[00:02:37] Lauren, as we get started today, and our listeners probably know, I'm going to say, what's in your teacup? What did you bring today? I have Tulsi. It's a blend of two holy basils and another holy basil. So, I don't know. It's like, but it's one of my comfort teas. And I just, not that I'm feeling anxiety or anything today, I just wanted something comfortable. So, what I'm drinking.

[00:03:07] And it's supposed to be stress-relieving and energizing, which I can always use. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. It's, holy basil is full of so many wonderful opportunities. I'll say it that way, when you're looking at the spiritual essence of it and how it lifts us up and really moves us forward in a beautiful way. Yeah. Perfect. For those people that might be listening for the first time, you're just tuning in. Then we always have a cup of tea. We talk about it.

[00:03:36] And then I share a little bit about the spiritual essence of the herbs rather than their medicinal qualities. So, while you're listening, you're going to have the opportunity for a healing session. So, take the moment to make your own cup of tea. Have some water. You can infuse it with the energy that we're creating today. So, we have holy basil as one option. And then I'm going to add nature's diamonds. And this is a tea I made with my daughter for my birthday.

[00:04:06] So, my 60th birthday, which is a diamond birthday. So, I thought, how beautiful is that? And what I put into it was lots and lots of berries. But the affirmation is what I want to bring forward at the moment. Every, with every sip, I absorbed the radiant vitality of nature's diamonds.

[00:04:23] So, if you think about what you've seen outside, what you notice when it rains and the water is sparkling, when the sun hits the water, what are some of the diamonds that you see that you can be absorbing that radiant vitality from? This, I thought, was the perfect tea for this conversation because at its heart, we're discussing about reconnecting with nature. And not just the nature around us, but our own nature.

[00:04:51] The wisdom of our rhythms, our cycles, restoration, how we trust. And this blend brings us ingredients that reflect exactly what we need for this turning point. So, I'm going to bring forward Moringa. And I didn't know anything about Moringa until I went to put this blend together. And Moringa is a nourishment embodied. Spiritually, it reminds us that strength is cultivated from within.

[00:05:18] It offers resilience, restoration, and grounded vitality. Moringa asks, are you truly nourished or simply surviving? And this is a really good question to ask. Sometimes I think we all think we've eaten too much and sometimes we haven't eaten enough. Sometimes we don't have the nourishment we need. The next is lime. And lime brings brightness, clarity, purification, and emotional renewal.

[00:05:47] It cuts through heaviness and helps shift stagnant emotional energy. Spiritually, lime encourages release. So, to us it's whispering, let go of what no longer serves you. I had someone that I was chatting with yesterday. And she was saying how she had gotten rid of all of her favorite books. Things that, you know, usually we hold on to that last moment. And she said she felt so much lighter.

[00:06:17] Having known she gifted her favorite things to other people. And it's a different way of looking at things. But also, you know, how are things serving us? And the last is currents. Currents carry sweetness, restoration, abundance, and remembrance. They invite us to savor life. To reconnect with joy. To remember that vitality includes delight. And together this tea becomes an invitation.

[00:06:46] So we put all, there's more ingredients than that. But when we bring them together and we highlight them, then we can bring in the ability to nourish, to release, to receive. Take a breath. And as you hold your cup, noticing the warmth, noticing the aroma. And then asking yourself, what am I ready to stop carrying? And with that, let's begin. So, Lauren, thank you for coming.

[00:07:15] I think I should turn my cup around because this is my 60th mug. Oh, nice. Here we go. Cheers. Thank you for being here. All right. We're both hugging the mug too. Yeah. All right. So as we're thinking about what would we want to stop carrying, can you imagine how much lighter the load could be? So, Lauren, you shared something incredibly honest with me

[00:07:44] that you had reached the place where you felt tired of the worrying, tired of trying to prevent something that may or may not happen, tired of researching, tired of fear being the invisible companion that was floating around in the background. And instead, you were arriving at a place of trust, trusting what you've learned, trusting your body, trusting your intuition. I know that's such a big one. Trusting your inner wisdom.

[00:08:11] And that feels like this is a profound turning point for people choosing, this would sound weird, choosing illness or choosing living. And do you want to share a little bit about what all that has meant for you? Well, it's been a while since we had that conversation. So it's interesting looking back now because I was carrying a lot of anxiety around with me and a lot of stress.

[00:08:40] And those are two things that are not good for your brain. And so I was really getting tired of that. And I had taken three weeks in Hawaii in February. And I think I talked to you shortly after that. And that rest from constantly being worried about, you know, thinking about what should I be doing? Am I doing enough for my brain? Is this inevitable?

[00:09:07] Is it, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, voice in my head? And that piece was something I really wanted to bring back with me. And when you come back to your, you know, this is my office and this is where I spend a lot of my time. And so a lot of my worry happens in this place where I did a lot of my research as I was learning about the dementia and specifically the Alzheimer's gene.

[00:09:32] Because for those who maybe are coming in late to this series, I carry one copy of the Alzheimer's gene. And so I realized as I got back, I got stressed again. I was carrying anxiety. Should I need to add this? My doctor wanted me to add that. I, you know, I felt like I wasn't doing enough again. And I have, as you know, Michelle, I have made massive changes in my life in the last year and a half. And all for the good.

[00:10:00] I mean, really it has been all for the good. And so I realized that I was really tired of carrying that. And I was tired of searching, searching, searching. Is there anything else I should do? Am I doing enough? You know, and just not living in the moment, living in the doom future, I would call it. And it just, I couldn't carry it anymore. I just couldn't carry it anymore.

[00:10:29] Now, I apparently did because I've been sick quite a bit this spring. And I know as a healer that a lot of times when we're trapping things that are not in our highest good in our body, our body reacts to that. And so I was sick three times in about four months.

[00:10:47] So, but the idea of letting it go, I had to really get to a place where I could admit to myself that I didn't need to do any more research. That I didn't need more information coming at me. In part because it was repetitive now. And in part because I was overwhelmed. I think the last time we talked, it was about being overwhelmed.

[00:11:13] And I, you know, I felt like I couldn't process anything else because my head was too full of what was already there. And so at some point, and I couldn't tell you exactly which point because I think it was a combination of, you know, events. But eventually I came to the realization that what I want to do is I want to grow older, healthy and happy. That's my goal. Healthy and happy. As long as I can manage it.

[00:11:40] And if I do that, even if I get dementia, if I'm healthy and happy, winning. You know? And if I don't get dementia, then what the hell have I been doing wasting my time on all this stuff? So it's a combination of things. I never get to those decisions fast. I have to kind of mull them over, work through it, meditate on it. Maybe talk to some friends about it as I did with you.

[00:12:09] But eventually I got to the place where it was like, you know what? If I'm not having fun, what's the point? If I'm not happy, if I'm not happy, and you know, you can't be 100% of the time. But if I'm not primarily in my happy place, doing something fun, being creative, you know, enjoying time with friends. All of those things that are actually really good for your brain.

[00:12:33] But that I really have really improved my quality of life if I don't let that anxiety take over. And I chose to let go of it. And I do have my aunt. I talk about my aunt Alice a lot because she's the one out of five siblings that does not have dementia. And I went down to visit her in April or May, I guess.

[00:12:58] And she always says to me when I see her, she says, Lauren, you can't do anything about what's going to happen in the future other than what you're already doing. You just try to live a good life. And then, you know, your husband will take good care of you if you need it. The other thing she said to me is, you're much more like your grandmother than you are your mother. And your grandmother was sweet. Your mother was a pain in the ass. And so you're much more likely, if this were to happen, to be in that gentler kind of energy of it.

[00:13:26] And I really took that in because I was thinking, yeah, that is true. I am much more like my grandmother than my mother. Thank goodness. But also, if I can be happy and healthy, I mean, that's why am I stressing over all this stuff, which is ruining my happy, healthy here, now. Exactly. So it's been, you know, it's not a one and done. I still have those moments.

[00:13:55] But I have really been aware of noticing those moments of anxiety or fear or I really should do this. I should have the bad case of the shoulds and the oughts. I should ought to do this. I should do this.

[00:14:09] But when I noticed that tape going in my head, what I've started doing is going, okay, what could I do right now that would be pleasurable or fun or just help me move my body to move that energy around? And I do it. I'm trusting that intuition that I can redirect this. And here are three different ways I could do it, depending on the time of day and how freaking hot it is outside in Virginia in June.

[00:14:40] And I've been doing that very successfully to the point where I notice it almost immediately. And I do a turn. I turn my attention somewhere else. And each time I do that, the voice gets a little quieter. So that's my practice now. Wow. Wow. Isn't that... I don't even know how to respond to this exactly.

[00:15:07] Because I was thinking about those people who end up with a diagnosis where then their life just becomes doctor appointment, test, results, test, doctor. And they're here. We're in a rural area. So it means lots of big drives, expense, et cetera. And that becomes the life.

[00:15:30] And what you have is there's nothing there yet that you have to do something like that. So you have this opportunity to really change that moment. Yeah. And so I just wanted to shine a light a little bit on that because some people are going to end up in that hamster wheel of appointments. Mm-hmm.

[00:15:55] And that becomes similar to what you've experienced with diving into all the research and trying to keep up with it. And how beautiful to be able to say, I'm just going to step off this hamster wheel and let the hamster wheel go. Yeah. That's it. Yeah.

[00:16:14] And it's not to say that I'm not taking my supplements and, you know, being mindful of what I eat and trying to make sure I move every day and, you know, all those health things, all those lifestyle things. Mm-hmm. But I am not, I'm not interested in doing any more research. I'm not interested in dragging myself through all of that anymore. In large part because I feel like I kind of got what I needed. Yeah. And I have the support that I needed. And, you know, so there's all of that.

[00:16:46] Yeah. Yeah. So it's, yeah, no, I totally lost my snack on the mic. Conversation there. That's okay. That's okay. I was, I was just thinking about coming back to that living in the moment piece. Oh, yeah. And that joy that we all forget as we, because yes, we are still going to try to eat right. We are still going to try to get the best rest, all of us. Mm-hmm.

[00:17:15] In particular, as we're getting older, that becomes more so. You want to do a better job than, you know, before when you didn't have so many. You get away within your 30s. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. But then you have, then you have realizing I'm already doing those things. So why not? And we had talked about the joy calendar, I think last time. And I'm very, I have gone deep into that.

[00:17:42] But I, when I get to those points where it's like, God, I don't feel like doing anything. I remind myself, I really enjoy that thing. Whether it's walking my dog or pickleball on a hot day or, you know, or just sitting quietly and crocheting. You know, I, there's all kinds of different things that I have added in as a regular piece of my days. And it's just, yeah, it's, again, I lost, I'm losing the chat, the conversation.

[00:18:13] I am sorry. It's okay. And I'm glad you brought up the joy calendar again, because I didn't actually make one, but my husband and I really talked about how friends' birthdays come and go, because you've the calendar for all the family things you need to remember. But we actually don't have a calendar for all our friends. And so paying attention to some of their highlights and adding that in.

[00:18:40] And I also have started to, people ask me about, you know, you're so busy with the tea company, and that must be hard to do all the packaging. And it's like, as soon as I open up all of those herbs to mix the next blend, and I smell it, and I see it, and the colors, it's like you. I still have to do the work, but the joy is, and then I just sit with it now.

[00:19:08] And then I kind of putz around, which is rather than get in there and get it done, I actually go and make the cup of tea. And then I sit with the herbs a little bit, and it takes me a little longer. But the whole piece is, when I finish, I have packaging that I look at that's filled with joy, too. Yeah. And so I've changed what I'm doing. That you're sharing with people as you do that, going from maybe a suppress, I don't

[00:19:35] have much time, whatever, to I'm just going to enjoy this entire experience. That makes a huge difference. And I have seen that just in my travels through other groups of people. The happier I am, the more joy I bring to the rest of the group. And I have seen it again and again and again, partly because I'm a wise ass sometimes. I can make people laugh.

[00:20:01] But I do try to remember that the better I take care of my mental health and my energetic health, the more I bring to the world without really trying. I just am minding my own business. And that helps when I run into other people. I still have a few people I work with as a healer, and it makes a huge difference in my interactions with them.

[00:20:29] So that joy calendar has really become a tool for me. I have a different color for joyful things and things I absolutely have to do. So as long as I have a couple of purple blocks on my calendar, because I have it all on my computer, then I know I'm going to have a good day. You know, so. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And the more purple on my calendar, the better. So I don't put things like spend an hour crocheting or, you know, rub the dog's belly for an hour

[00:20:58] while I'm watching TV or that kind of thing. Yeah. But even those little things of, I'm being very careful not to time constraint myself. Um, so even before I sat down here to talk to you, I had about an hour and I knew the dog needed to walk. And I needed to put on a decent shirt, you know, get my equipment set up. And I just kind of went, okay, I'm going to take 15 minutes for the dog walk. And I told her that.

[00:21:27] I talked to my dog all the time. So we're just going to take a short walk, but I promise we'll take a long one later. Um, and we got that done very efficiently. And then I came, everything just, I wasn't stressed about it. It's like, I got plenty of time. And if I don't, Michelle will understand if I need another five minutes. And so I just have really taken that piece of stress out. And a lot of it is because I'm looking at what's going to be joyful when I do it, not what, what's the time constraint of that.

[00:21:56] And that's another way of flipping my way of thinking about things. That has really taken, taken a big hold on me in the last month or two. And I was thinking about when I look at my work calendar, I actually look for the spaces now. So instead of looking at, okay, here's all my appointments, which I do, you know, what have I got?

[00:22:19] But I usually try to work, um, work into the week, work ahead and then backtrack so that I get all the things prepared that need to happen. And so that I can move gently into each activity through the week. But what I've started to do is, yes, I have, you know, the paperwork done for this and the script done for that. And I've sent out the Zoom link. But then I go, what are the spaces in there? And then how do I want to fill the spaces?

[00:22:45] And I hadn't realized till just now I've done that because before it would have been, got to get the list done. And then now that I got the list done, I feel pretty good because I did most of the stuff on the list. But now I have the list there, but then I have this space, this joy space. And what did I fill it with? And I find myself being more, instead of, I didn't get everything done on my list, which usually, you know, because the list is always really long.

[00:23:14] Instead of like, I'm so pleased that I accomplished this piece or that I was able to put my hand in there or spend more time thinking about. And that's shifted what's happening in the stress world around the activities I need to do. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. I love seeing blank spaces on my calendar. It's like, ooh, what do I get to do with that space? You know? Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

[00:23:44] So we have then this idea of trust. And then we've got the fear factor. So trust and fear. So now that you've moved out of the fear space, moved over to the trust space, how does it feel trusting your body? It feels really good because it is the normal way that I would move through the world. I mean, I have enough, you know, awareness of what's going on in my body.

[00:24:12] In fact, doctors usually say, you're very different from most of my patients. But I have that feeling energetically. And I also know how to connect with really the voice of my body when I remember to do it. but it's so I'm and I was thinking about why I trust my intuition so much and I really this is

[00:24:38] going to sound funny I traced it back to Nancy Drew remember the mysteries yes because when I was a kid I was in a stressful family we moved a lot not for any good reasons you never knew when the bomb was going to go off between my parents you know this kind of stuff and and I didn't have names for what I was feeling but when you read fiction particularly you get the emotional life

[00:25:06] as well as the you know the what's happening part of it and it's usually named now I'd have to go back and see how well Nancy Drew does that but this was my where my brain went so but see you know seeing the the description of the physical things that are going on when you're say sad and what it looks like to somebody else and then having it named as you know Nancy was so sad that

[00:25:31] she had missed the clue or you know whatever it was I think it began to build a vocabulary for me that helped me understand what was going on inside and the other thing that came later a good bit later because it was high school really was I had a class where we had to keep a journal and it was an acting class and we were supposed to be like observing our environments and then

[00:25:56] you know how did that make us feel and that's where I really started to put that into action and I realized that I often didn't know what I was feeling till I got it out of my body onto a piece of paper where I could read it and see it and then I could name it you know because I've read it in Nancy Drew or whatever the bazillions of books I had read since then I had read it I understood that this this description here is what I just wrote there and therefore it must be anxiety or it must be fear

[00:26:25] or whatever um and then another clue for me that has really strengthened my my trust in my intuition is that when I am agreeing to something that I don't that doesn't feel right to me you know it doesn't at a soul level really I get very teary and I often go why am I so teary and then I have to look back at what was just happening and go okay I'm really not all right with that I was trying to

[00:26:51] go along to get along be the nice person you know and I've learned to really um I don't do that very much anymore because I'm really um uh I think I'm living more authentically than I ever have and so I don't get myself in those places of sure I'll do that when it's the last thing in the world I want to do but I'm being nice you know um so so I have had these opportunities to begin to trust my

[00:27:18] intuition or my inner knowing of myself um and to be able to label them and I don't know that I ever taught my kids to do that but I you know I should have but um being able to name it often gives you a way to to give it a perspective on it oh I'm afraid what am I afraid of you know as opposed to my gut is so hard in knots I just can't even breathe do anything with that you know consciously I can't

[00:27:46] decide to do something about that other than you know or maybe if I take a pill or something it'll be fine um but I because I can name what I'm feeling then I can do something about it I can make a choice about how do I want to deal with this do I need to say no do I need to go well I can't do that but I could do this for you you know there's just options that come up that if I'm not aware of what it is I'm

[00:28:12] feeling I can't make any choices about it so I think that long term I was 66 years old I was reading Nancy Drew when I was like not um but that long opportunity to really learn that my intuition was right or that I was externally not in alignment with whatever was going on inside um has really

[00:28:40] helped me to understand what those feelings are and how I can bring them forth and I still resort now and then to journaling when I'm really in a you know a hard place um I would just get pen and paper out and or typewriter I tend to I'm not typewriter we don't have those anymore showing my age um you know computer and and just let it flow out of me and often I don't even bother

[00:29:08] to read it again once it's out of me so I think that's where I get a deep deep trust of my intuition and where I recognize it because it's telling me about what's going on within me um and uh and I get knowing steep knowings all the time for myself and for other people when I'm working with them so I have had too many experiences of that and then have it validated almost immediately you know to

[00:29:35] not trust it that's just um so interesting because I know when you and I talked about this episode and the conversation on it you know it's like leaving the research um starting to listen to that intuition the end of willpower and it's like it's none of that it's about the depth of

[00:29:58] living it's about the multi-dimensional opportunities and that intuition allows you to dive into just such a beautiful pool of of experience and before we were reading about it as kids to find it and understand it and live it in our imagination but then to be able to bring that to reality yeah and be able to

[00:30:21] live that way it's uh so free and definitely light yeah and and I would say even more than freeing it's empowering I'm not a victim of whatever might happen to me in the future I'm empowered in this moment to choose how I want to react to that or I want to not react to that is really where where I am

[00:30:45] now you know so um yeah so it is it's very empowering it is very freeing um and it's something that we are not taught as children in our generation my generation anyway um but I do think it's one of the real big values of reading fiction as you get that both the visual and the emotional part of it

[00:31:09] usually mm-hmm I as you were describing Nancy Drew and I was like instantly you know read all of those uh-huh but also um I was thinking when I was a little bit younger it was uh Laura Ingalls Wilder oh yeah yep and that was the same that same kind of ideas came out of that um but then I moved into

[00:31:34] the Lucy Maud Montgomery and um what what we have of and uh Green Gables and Charlotte's friendships Charlotte's web yeah yeah so interesting and yeah we lived in that fantasy world but we never think about bringing the fantasy world to us yeah in our living space yeah there and there's actually

[00:32:00] been research I haven't seen it recently but there's research about how reading fiction makes people more empathetic and compassionate so and I think you really hit the nose on the head about not being able to name emotions or not being able to understand situations and reactions to situations but to be able to experience them through the imagination and then have them in the background

[00:32:25] because our our brain and body don't know whether it was real or not real it's just knowledge and to be able to bring that forward and have that experience ready even if you didn't have it as a real experience but you definitely had it through your imagination yep absolutely beautiful wow okay so as we're

[00:32:49] thinking about that that really flips around some of the conversation so when we're when people do that deep dive into research it's looking at um statistics it's looking at a population uh responses certain protocols set up but each of us is so individual and so that ability to live in the present moment and

[00:33:13] to bring in the joy and the multi-dimensional way of living completely changes what happens with an illness or what happens with how you move forward i guess healthy healthy and joyful as you said um but it also takes away that need to have the willpower and i just wanted to bring willpower forward again because

[00:33:40] so many people will you know i'll eat better i'm gonna be in bed by 10 o'clock i'm going to and you have rules that you give yourself and it works for like the first week or two when you have you know normal things happening for you but then life gets there and all of a sudden 11 o'clock at night was a little bit later and you didn't sleep in but you could have slept in and you know so rather than

[00:34:07] that willpower of trying to put the rules in place that you're going to be well because of the rules be able to let all of that go and then go to that place of joy because tonight i'm staying up late and i'm going to enjoy the bonfire and i'm going to sleep in in the morning or i'm going to take a nap tomorrow and that's okay yep just really making those choices so um i wanted to bring that forward

[00:34:33] because willpower so many people then berate themselves for not being able to hold on to it right it's not i don't have a strong willpower i'm afraid none of us do none of us do but we're always looking for the joy right willpower is when you put the rules in place they're not always there with joy joy and so you're searching for the joy that's where you really want to go yeah yeah and even with sleep

[00:35:00] i i want to wake up happy in the morning and i'm good i can get really grumpy if i don't get a good night's sleep so i mean even in those ways i'm more motivated to you know go to bed a little earlier i allow myself to read until 10 o'clock and then you know and then it slides out and and i'll sleep for having good night's sleep pretty regularly so it's you know it's not just the the big things but

[00:35:29] little things too can be is it going to bring you joy to have you know have the coffee pot already clean in the morning when you get up yeah it's on a timer it's ready to go yeah yeah yeah and uh and i'm doing a lot of those little things now too it's like literally i i come out when i have remembered to clean the we have a french press and so it's always got to be cleaned out and when i've remembered to

[00:35:56] clean it out and and get it all set up for the next morning and i come out and it's all there i go oh i already did that that's awesome and it's my day off to such a lovely place because i'm kind of laughing at myself for being so happy over the coffee pot being clean it takes like four minutes to fix it it's like so yeah um yeah so it's uh it's little things like that too um i'm i have decided

[00:36:21] that i'm going to try to do one granny square a day with my with my crocheting which takes me about 20 minutes or so and it's like oh i've got i've got a few minutes i could do my granny square and i get it's such a meditative kind of thing to crochet that it's like a lovely little you know um what do i want to call it like a place in the middle of the desert um just the oasis oasis thank you

[00:36:48] it's just in the middle of a day that might otherwise be a little more busy than i want to be but um it's like i can take 20 minutes and and listen to some music and crochet for 20 minutes you know and it's like little things but they're make me so happy um so yeah so even those little things i'm looking at as does this make me happy and if so i'm much more motivated to do something about it

[00:37:16] yeah so um you know it's been really really hot here and i was hoping to play pickleball yesterday because we had a drop in the temperature it was it was still like kissing 90 but that was a big drop from where we've been um and there's a group that i play with and we usually meet about 3 30 in the afternoon monday wednesday friday and so i'm i'm on the app saying hey anybody else want to play at 3 30 and i got two other people but you got to have four total to play and i was so disappointed

[00:37:47] i had to go for a walk with my dog you know okay so i'm going to get outside in this heat which i'd rather have fun at pickleball than watch my dog hunt moles um but but it was it's just those little things that um i look forward to now that i never did before um i was never uh i need to go do something outdoors in the summertime person ever but if it's fun i don't care i'll get sweaty

[00:38:18] so all these little things are adding up and supporting the bigger things um and there's still some things that i keep coming back to i you know i should do this or that like my doctor wants me to learn a second another language i kind of speak french um but another language or pick up an instrument i used to play the flute don't i don't have any interest in that anymore and there's something about that that is not aligning with me right now like i could see how both would be kind of

[00:38:47] fun to do or interesting to do but i it's and i finally realized i was thinking about that this morning is why am i you know not jumping on one of these and you know there i had reasons for both why i might not be interested in doing them but it came down to i've been told i should choose one of these so it was not a choose something you want to do it was a choose one of these two things and

[00:39:15] neither one of them has lightened me up yeah so i'm so i'm waiting even though i know that both of those are good for your brain and all that stuff it's like the right thing has not come along yet and i'll know when it does if it does and if not then i don't worry about it you know so yeah all kinds of fun little ways to get your joy into your day it lifts everything else up even those little

[00:39:42] things and in this next part i wanted to bring in the bioenergetic wellness formula which i've talked about before but what you've just done is kind of flipped it right upside down for me i keep doing so should i so thanks for that because what i had in my notes and in my thought

[00:40:07] was this approach using the bioenergetic wellness formula allows us to explore where our stress is stored systems are overloaded which energy is depleted so we're looking for all those things but the other side of that formula is we have a goal on the other side and that's that wellness goal so we're looking at all these things that negate that goal in a way and so i just realized as we're

[00:40:35] talking about the joy calendar and we're talking about how we fill the days and where we put the spaces in that's what we want to be looking at that's the piece and yeah and when we go back to the research in the medical model which is you know breaking things down to find what is the problem and and at that nugget and we can complement it by not being there not being inside of the science of that but going

[00:41:04] alongside it to say in what way can i now live more joyously as a result of that's being taken care of and i get to be over here so thank you for that so if i knew we always have this while we're talking for those people that might not have heard

[00:41:30] me talk about the formula before in my dissertation work i was trying to find in specialized kinesiology which is the words that's used around the world in canada we say bioenergetic wellness but i wanted to what are the defining pieces that makes this modality so successful

[00:41:52] and it is the goal setting and intention and what we have just talked about is our intention is to live with health wellness and joy and so we've brought all that in place so that is the goal and we can have sub goals or we can have variations on those goals daily which is fine but then what is our awareness so usually we're looking at where's the stress in the body um what do you notice in the

[00:42:19] joints etc and then how does it change but if we're now looking at where is the joy where are the spaces in our life how are we filling the spaces that's a different look yeah yeah it's the same with when i work with people with doing energy work um i'm looking for where the blocks are and where the the traumas are and where the pain is and but how cool would it be to maybe work on that some but then come back

[00:42:47] and go okay where are the spaces that are holding joy that you could bring out and and and sort of amplify you know yeah with aware but by being aware of them you know so i love it thank you i learned something too and then you along that is there's um you've got the awareness but then you have an activation you're going to do something to bring it forward so as you were describing pickleball

[00:43:16] and walking with the dog um i was just thinking about tai chi because when i you know there's just no interruption of my tai chi that's what i do on certain days and that's the way it is same as your schedule and what you enjoy doing and you can go into tai chi with all the aches and complaints but always i come out it's like going through the car wash you come out the other side and there's the

[00:43:41] rainbow and it's like oh i feel so much better my joints are open but instead of thinking about we need to look at this we need to define it and we need to restore it we're not thinking about that we're going to enjoy all of the movement and then on the other side as you walk out the door and it's like here i am shiny and new and how lovely yeah yeah yeah that's um i often tell people that the

[00:44:09] one thing i can guarantee is that you will be more relaxed when you leave me you know and that's that's you know and that's never been all the only thing they got but that's the one thing i can guarantee you know because because that's what the that work does for them but um yeah it's it's you're i'm choosing not to look at do i want to be out in the 85 degree humid you know weather today um playing with my friends and then i'm like yeah i want to be playing with my friends i don't care how

[00:44:38] hot it is i'll take my water and my electrolytes and i will have a towel to wipe my face with but we're gonna have fun and it gets me out there every time if i have to motivate myself to go take a long walk in the heat by myself probably not gonna happen so yeah it's very much that looking for what is it that brings me joy in this

[00:45:03] that makes me want to do that and really motivates me to do it as opposed to i really need some exercise and i committed to pickleball today out in the heat and i really don't want to go yeah very different energy that you're bringing to it and you can choose that i mean i say that like it's easy but it gets easier with practice where i can go god it's going to be so hot today and i

[00:45:30] don't like heat but then i go oh but i always have fun with that group you know so off i go yeah yeah and then that brings forward because connection with others is so important for healing and so you've already set up the network of people that are going to inspire you into healing and that communication is part of the formula as well so that's just so important and when i'm not at

[00:45:58] my tai chi class and i i lead it so i'm instructing but if i can't be there then they all know whoever shows up it's the job of the group to talk to each other to figure out how to practice together and i'm always delighted when i hear how it unfolds somebody's always going to try to point to someone else you be the teacher because i don't want to be the teacher but it's this collective

[00:46:23] conversation but they're learning and the healing that comes out of that is so profound and the choice could easily be the teacher's not showing up so i'm not going yeah and you fill it up with something else but if you approach it from you know it's it's my responsibility to be there and let's nurture each other it's completely different yeah absolutely absolutely okay so i appreciate

[00:46:48] one more thing you said which takes us to the end of the formula which is intuition and you commented that the more you're doing this and the more you make those kind of decisions intuitively it just becomes really easy to make those decisions yeah and i just wanted to bring that forward so people are thinking about oh you know i can't do that this is going to be hard those kinds of decisions i have trouble making it it's it is a process of learning but it's a process of learning that

[00:47:18] rewards us so incredibly that we're more apt to stay involved with it yeah yeah yeah and it teaches you to trust yourself you know the more you the more you take the chance on that decision that maybe you're like i don't know um but you feel like you should do it you know you're like your gut is saying yeah go ahead um then the more you do that you'll get that feedback and that will make you trust it more

[00:47:47] and more and more and more and you can do little things again you know just little things should i take the dog out now or an hour from now i'm really feeling like it's like 30 minutes okay i'll do it in 30 minutes and then sure enough you run into your friends out there their dogs it's like you just you see a beautiful hawk you know something magical happens when you just

[00:48:13] kind of pay attention to what your body is saying yeah i'm not ready now but 30 minutes yeah so it's it's worth listening to yeah and so true and then as people think about well they don't have intuition but it's just something you cultivate i think people don't realize it's just cultivated so

[00:48:38] begin with the small steps and then it grows and like you said to be able to bring joy to a room full of people that having come to have a conversation with you was a relaxing experience and something that rejuvenated them to go back to wherever they're going next um instead of quick get that conversation done and then boom off we go yeah yeah yeah yeah

[00:49:06] well you and i it's funny because we we tried to record this this one this episode several times it was just good but we always know the timing is going to be perfect and i just i think it's so beautiful we were going to be able to talk about the topic but you were in the middle of it yeah and now you're on the other side of it and you're seeing the rewards of it and the gold within

[00:49:30] it and and it's just like there's no effort it's just there that's just how it is and again it's not that i don't still get some anxiousness or some fear coming in creeping in but i'm noticing it i'm acknowledging it very quickly now and making a conscious choice of what else could i be doing instead of fretting over that you know and um and then it becomes kind of fun it's like oh what would

[00:49:58] i like to do now you know so um and sometimes it's just simply i'd like to empty the dishwasher now you know but it's still it's like a consciousness of what you're feeling and being able to name it helps um and acknowledging that it's true that it's real and that you have the right to choose to

[00:50:25] stay there if that's what you need to do to process it but you also have the right and frankly the strength everybody's got the strength to go what else could i be doing instead of ruminating over this thing and it's amazing how fast you can start to catch yourself once you start doing that and it totally changes your energy so on that wellness journey as people are listening and you're thinking about

[00:50:53] the small changes you might want to be making then just knowing that you don't know where this is going to lead you and which is what's happened with our conversations you know we don't know where it's going to go but we've each discovery has been so interesting and has led us to um just find more

[00:51:14] richness and uh yeah okay well now that we've fully shifted that whole piece the formula is completely transformed and i've got to think about what that's going to mean moving forward um i would i wanted to close with a little bit of a meditation so for everybody listening it would be very easy to stop listening to the podcast and carry on with your day and you probably carry on with it the same way

[00:51:43] but rather than do that let's invite you into settling into the ideas and maybe some pictures will come up of how you want to make those first small changes um or what it would feel like if you made a change and once you've made that change what would it feel like for the people around you and what they bring to the table so if you have some tea beside you or you've got your water infused

[00:52:10] just have a sip and bring that close to you and just bring those herbs back in and if you've got both feet on the floor where you're lucky enough you could lie down you can hold on to the tea if you wish continue to smell it but take a slow breath in and then let it exhale if you want to leave your

[00:52:37] eyes open that's great if you want to close them that's fine too and take another breath in and notice how that breath is actually not just in your lungs but it's filling up every joint it's filling up the space around your body and it's bringing a vibrancy to the space that surrounds you and as you're

[00:53:01] breathing in consider the nourishment that you provide yourself every day in many ways and as you breathe out any fear anxiety tightness let it go nature plays such an important role for us so let's

[00:53:24] imagine standing in nature that the sunlight filtering through leaves the fresh air is surrounding you the earth is steady beneath your feet you feel the grass you feel the the bumps the divots the soil the rocks beneath you but they're soft they're not hard

[00:53:53] you feel that support you know that you're here you're not in yesterday you're not in tomorrow you're here if you ask yourself what have i already done

[00:54:13] well and then if you consider what can you release what does your body need from you today let your

[00:54:55] shoulders soften like a jaw relax let your breath even you do not need to know everything you do not need to control every possibility you don't need to carry tomorrow today in this moment you are enough

[00:55:25] with each breath you are safe and in this life you're invited to live fully you take one more breath

[00:55:47] exhale that joy that vibrancy that wellness and then as you come back to the present allow your your gaze to raise or your eyes to open you'll find your water your tea and now

[00:56:14] with our conversation today with every sip you absorb the radiant vitality of nature's diamonds that was lovely this just seems to just soften right out doesn't it does yeah i feel very just relaxed and

[00:56:44] present lauren thank you for another incredible conversation and realizations um you have me i'm gonna have to go back and really think about what i'm writing and how i'm writing the way i want to express some of the ideas um moving them out of that

[00:57:07] your modality into that trust so thank you for that you're welcome and if today's episode resonated with you then something that i don't talk about too often but i should is you can explore more if you go to my website greenwellcenter.com and there you'll have a pop-up window which is going to bring you the top eight stress releasers

[00:57:34] this is a great resource that you can add to your toolbox similar to how easily we brought in the breath and focusing into nature and these tools you can just put them in the toolbox and when you need a moment to just calm everything back down they'll be there for you you can learn a little bit more about bioenergetic wellness while you're going to be building some resiliency awareness and vitality

[00:58:00] so please enjoy using that and feel free to pass it forward to others that can benefit and until next time lauren i wish you a wonderful summer full of vibrancy and energy now that those holds are all behind us so i'll say us since it was both of us having the challenges so beautiful

[00:58:24] thank you so much well thank you as always it's just such a pleasure to have these conversations with you until next time everyone be well and take care thank you for listening to be well with dr michelle greenwell there are a couple of resources i want to just point out when you go to the website

[00:58:51] greenwellcenter.com you'll have a pop-up window that pop-up gives you the top eight easy stress releasers that you can use every day that's something you can put beside your computer the bathroom mirror beside the bedside table a great resource also my youtube channel it is full of playlists with all kinds of different ways that you can activate energy and bring vitality into your

[00:59:17] day you can find that when you go to youtube at michelle greenwell and last if you're a link tree person link tree l-i-n-k-t-r dot ee slash greenwell center that has all my resources in one spot those are for intricate little things that you can't get everywhere and it's a wonderful way for me to be

[00:59:43] able to share all the different aspects of the kind of work i do so thank you for listening be sure to drink that tea and if you want to have the tea blend that was shared in the podcast today then be sure to check out kbretton tea dot ca have a wonderful day