Redefining Hustle: Prioritizing Well-being and Happiness

Unlock the secrets to a balanced and fulfilling life as we welcome Dr. Wendy O'Connor, a trailblazing positive psychologist and success strategist for female entrepreneurs. Discover how Dr. Wendy transitioned from a clinical psychologist to a positive psychology coach, dedicated to guiding women from a state of good to great. Our conversation breaks down the stigmas of hustle culture, emphasizing the importance of balance, alignment, and self-care in achieving true success. Dr. Wendy’s journey, ignited by a spark in a seventh-grade classroom, leads us to explore how curiosity, authenticity, and vulnerability can be transformative forces in business and life.

In this episode, Dr. Wendy and I discuss the critical aspects of giving and receiving, and how embracing vulnerability can prevent burnout while fostering genuine fulfillment. Learn powerful tools for personal growth, such as self-awareness, permission, and accountability, and understand how these elements contribute to a more meaningful and balanced life. We delve into Dr. Wendy's strategies for designing a lifestyle around intentional self-care, ensuring abundant time for creativity and peace. Her insights on structuring workdays, incorporating daily self-care practices, and maintaining a sense of flow will inspire you to make intentional choices that align with your well-being and happiness.

Dr. Wendy’s wisdom extends to cultivating inner peace and self-trust, highlighting the importance of processing emotions and building resilience. As you listen, you'll gain invaluable insights into living life by design, trusting your intuition, and taking action on ideas that resonate. Dr. Wendy’s personal anecdotes and practical advice offer a roadmap for breaking free from societal pressures and cultivating a balanced, fulfilling life. Tune in for a heartfelt conversation that promises to empower and inspire you to prioritize your needs and embrace the journey towards inner peace and success.

Connect with Dr. Wendy O'Connor here:
https://www.drwendyoconnor.com/

Chapters

• 0:00 Breaking Stigmas
• 6:03 Thriving Through Positive Psychology and Coaching
• 11:20 Discovering Self-Awareness and Permission
• 21:24 Designing Lifestyle Around Self-Care
• 28:32 Cultivating Inner Peace and Self-Trust
• 35:10 Trusting Yourself and Taking Action
• 41:57 Spreading Kindness and Sharing Value

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the Lift One Self podcast, where we break mental health stigmas through conversations. I'm your host, nat Nat, and we dive into topics about trauma and how it impacts the nervous system. Yet we don't just leave you there. We share insights and tools of self-care, meditation and growth that help you be curious about your own biology. Your presence matters. Please like and subscribe to our podcast. Help our community grow. Let's get into this. Oh, and please remember to be kind to yourself.

Speaker 2: 0:36

Welcome to the Lift One Self podcast. I'm your host, Nat Nat, and today I have a special guest for the women listeners. But you men can listen also to find some insight of how you can support women. I want to welcome Dr Wendy O'Connor. Wendy, if you can introduce yourself to the listeners and let them know a little bit about who you are and what you want to bring forth in the world, Sure.

Speaker 3: 1:01

Thank you so much for having me. First of all, I'm very excited to be here. I'm Dr Wendy. I'm a positive psychologist and success strategist for female entrepreneurs, confidence building, and transitioned into the coaching world and now serve women all over the world, empowering them to live their best lives by design and to get out of this mindset that more is always better or the way to success is through hustle, and how to really embrace alignment as we build success and truly creating helping women create a sense of real balance and fulfillment along the way Right.

Speaker 2: 1:52

Before we dive into that, because I have a lot of questions and I'm sure the listeners have a lot of questions about wait, wait. I want to hear more about this. Would you join me in a mindful moment so that we can ground ourselves in our breath and open our hearts to the conversation? Absolutely, and for the listeners, as you always hear my safety spiel. I know most listen to a podcast while driving, so please don't close your eyes. Safety first, yet the other prompts you're able to do with whatever you're doing with your visual. So, wendy, I'll ask you to get comfortable in your seating and you're going to gently close your eyes and you're going to begin breathing in and out through your nose and you're going to bring your awareness to watching your breath go in and out through your nose. You're not going to try and control your breath, you're just going to let the awareness watch the rhythm of it, allowing it to bring you in the body. There may be some sensations or feelings coming up, and it's okay, let them surface.

Speaker 1: 3:00

You're safe to feel.

Speaker 2: 3:02

You're safe to let go, surrender the need to control, release the need to resist and just be Keeping the awareness on the breath and dropping deeper into the body. There may be some thoughts or to-do lists that have popped up in your mind, and that's okay. Gently bring your awareness back to your breath, creating space between the awareness and the thoughts and dropping deeper into your body, into the breath. Again, some thoughts may have popped back up. Bring your awareness back to your breath and begin again Dropping deeper Now, while still staying with your breath, at your own time and at your own pace. You're going to gently open your eyes while staying with the breath. How is your heart doing? Great, it feels, feels good. What got you into psychology?

Speaker 3: 4:29

I got into psychology in seventh grade, which is crazy to say now, because my daughter's in my oldest daughter's in sixth grade, so in a year from now she would have been me learning about psychology from her first psych teacher. And in one of these classes the teacher talked about if you became a psychologist, you could do these different things. And as soon as she talked about clinical psychology, I perked right up. The way she described it sold me because she said, as a clinical psychologist, you help people feel better, you listen to their problems and you help them create tools to feel happier and feel better. And I thought I can't believe you could get paid to do this. I already do this for my friends every day. This is amazing.

Speaker 3: 5:22

And I literally in that moment was like that's it, I want to be a psychologist. And I came home and I was like I'm going to be a psychologist, I'm no longer going to be a ballerina in Paris, I'm going to be a psychologist. And they were like okay, sounds good. And surprisingly I never wavered. It was never a question. It was never something else sounded better, it was never. Oh, I wonder if I really get what that means. It was just I'm going to be a psychologist, and so it is, and here we are, and what got you into the positivity in women?

Speaker 3: 5:58

Well, positive psychology came around much later in my experience with psychology. I started off as a clinical psychologist. I grew two thriving practices one in my town, one in another town nearby and really loved it for a good season of my career. I loved helping people. I loved helping people put their puzzles together, learn the tools to feel better, leaving my office feeling brighter, more hopeful. It was so fulfilling for a while.

Speaker 3: 6:28

But then I had three daughters 15 months apart and found myself with three little ones under two and life changed significantly, as you could imagine. And so so much of my energy felt like it was going out. It was going out, it was going out and I wasn't keeping up with it coming back to me. It felt like I'd wake up and I'd be giving to my babies and then I'd go to my office, I'd be giving to my patients and I'd come back just in time to get them in the tub or get them to bed and it just felt like all the giving and I love giving but it was too much. And so I started to come home and almost start to dread the next day, like I felt like I was in this period of languishing. I was checking the boxes. I was getting going through the motions, I'd wake up and serve. I'd go to bed and wake up and serve, and I started to talk to my husband at the time and say, I don't know, something's not right anymore. Something feels off Like this isn't it for me anymore. And instead of just being the person who would say, well, it is what it is. You know, you grew these businesses, you have people to serve Like this is what you went to school for, like this is what it is, get back to it. This is a season, you'll be fine.

Speaker 3: 7:45

I actually leaned into the curiosity around what's missing? What could be different? What's the problem here? Is there a problem here? Right, what is it?

Speaker 3: 7:55

And so in my own work, in the background, I started to think. I think I'm ready for something different, and I sat with myself and I asked myself a lot of questions and came across positive psychology. And it was this moment again that really clicked for me, which was, oh my goodness, I've spent so much of my years in my practices really helping people go from suffering to surviving, to functioning, to doing life, surviving to functioning to doing life. But what I'm feeling calls to do personally and professionally now is to help people actually go from good to great, go from surviving to thriving, and that's what I was working on behind the scenes. How do I go from surviving this life to thriving in this life when there's so many demands on me? So positive psychology came into the picture. I loved everything I read about it and I thought this is exactly what I want to do.

Speaker 3: 8:48

I want to now shift from serving people in this clinical capacity to coaching women who want to go from good to great, who it may not feel like life is so bad.

Speaker 3: 9:00

There's so many things to feel grateful for, there's a lot of wonderful things that exist in their lives, but they're like it's not quite it.

Speaker 3: 9:07

It's not what I thought, it's not how I imagined life would be, and I want to get to that place where I feel truly fulfilled and excited about my life. And brought that into the coaching world and that's how I started off as a coach was helping women thrive. It was like, okay, we're not about survival, we're not settling, we're going to thrive. And we're going to figure it out in every season of life, not just when it seems easy to thrive, but when it actually is going to be challenging but doable to thrive. And then what I started to notice was, over time, most of the women coming into my world turned out to be these entrepreneurial spirited women, these women that were really wanting to have it all and create it all, but not burn out and not feel like they had to sacrifice time and family and all the things, but they wanted to thrive. How do we blend them together? And that's how we got to me being a positive psychologist that serves entrepreneurs.

Speaker 2: 10:04

I love that you mentioned curiosity. A lot of people don't know that. A lot of their curiosity has been stunted. And you need curiosity to go into that unknown, the uncertainty, helping to regulate that nervous system so that you can actually face the fear, actually listen to the information that's coming up, actually feel your authentic emotions, which most of us don't even know. What is my authentic emotions? What am I actually feeling? Is it we're so habituated in patterns and reaction and secondary emotions, yet to be authentic to yourself. That is what lights you up and that's where the fuel just goes. And then you're wondering, like how am I just being able to, you know, give but also receive? I think that's the biggest point. Where I'm hearing in your message is yeah, it's very satisfying to be a giver because it's not vulnerable. You're just giving. Giving. Giving to receive put you in a vulnerable state that you have to interact with parts of yourself that are probably hidden in the shadows. What does that part look like for you and your clients in the aspect of receiving?

Speaker 3: 11:18

The vulnerability piece specifically. Yeah, vulnerability is non-negotiable when it comes to thriving, because we have to look inward and we need to become more self-aware and in that process and it's interesting because I'm often surprised when my clients are in this state of of building self-awareness how surprised they are with what they discover and and. But the things that we're discovering are not super deep seated, rooted things, they're like very basic things, and so there's an element of surprise with vulnerability and obviously discomfort with vulnerability. But the more that we build that self-awareness, then they're able to say, oh, my gosh, now I'm aware of something that I have power to change. What would that look like to do in a very aligned way for me? So vulnerability is the way I see it. Of course, and being in this world for so long, it's like, oh, that's just part of the deal, like you're going to get uncomfortable, but everything that we do to be better versions of us or to have better versions of our lives incorporates discomfort. So it's a non-negotiable, it's the way forward, it's the way, but it's really a useful tool that serves the women that I work with over and over and over again, in every area of life.

Speaker 3: 12:35

As soon as you start to build self-awareness over here. It's very common to see, all of a sudden, women are like, oh, I just realized this over here and this relationship here and this boundary I wish I could set here, and all of a sudden it's like popcorn and women are like there's so much that I'm aware of and it's the great and it's the challenging and the hard to face stuff, but it's like ah, there I am, oh, that's who I am. Okay, so now I have something to work with. Instead of in the beginning of this journey, for a lot of women it feels like I'm chasing it. I'm chasing it. Why don't I have it? I'm fighting for it. I'm fighting for it. Why don't I have it? What's not working? What's wrong with me? And I'll always say there's nothing wrong with you and there's nothing you're doing wrong. It's just that there's actually a disconnect from you to yourself.

Speaker 1: 13:23

That's all it's missing.

Speaker 3: 13:23

It's like this bridge, let's fill in that gap. And then, as soon as you have that awareness, it's like oh, okay, this whole world opens up a possibility.

Speaker 2: 13:36

What I see with my clients is the permission aspect. They have no idea that they can give themselves permission because we've been really conditioned. It's on the outside of us, because you know from young you had to ask permission for a lot and people just stay in that mindset. What does the permission aspect look like and how you engage your clients in giving themselves permission and taking back that authority for themselves?

Speaker 3: 14:00

It's funny you mentioned permission, because it's probably it's one of the biggest pillars of my work, and so my clients hear me talking about it and modeling it for them all the time. So permission is everything. It's the reminder of when I tell my story about how I went from this world to this world in my career, that that only happened because I gave myself permission to get curious, permission to be dissatisfied, permission to pivot, to change my mind. It's often an aha when I say to my clients your decisions aren't meant to be life sentences. I don't care what decision we're talking about your relationship, your work, your friendship, anything that you're like. Oh well, I'm in it. So I guess I'm in. It is not the way you have to live.

Speaker 3: 14:48

So that permission piece is everywhere. It's really about not only giving yourself permission to get creative, to dream again, to learn about yourself, but it's permission to change your mind and to pivot and to refine and to tinker and tweak in your life and feel like you get to do all of that. Because why wouldn't you? Why can't you? Because somebody told you here's the path. Well, you've already followed that path and you've seen where it's landed you and you're not satisfied. So let's do, let's break the rules, let's do it another way.

Speaker 3: 15:19

So permission is a big buzzword in my world because it's just like it's such an empowering word. And you're right. People forget that they have that permission. They just think, oh, I guess I wake up tomorrow and I do my nine to five because that's what I do. Or I guess I wake up tomorrow and I stay married because that's what I do, or I guess I. And there's this very passive experience that a lot of people go through life the way they live is more on default than what I call by design. So permission is a huge piece of living your life actually by design.

Speaker 2: 15:48

Yeah, another part that I think people don't recognize will put a block from being connected into self, because that's the whole journey. You know a lot of people will say like, oh, I want to build a new person and it's like, well, really healing is removing the layers of pain to be that greatness that's already inside you. You know trauma, the experience is how you interpreted it, and then you separate it from self. The whole journey of trauma is to reconnect into self so that you can be in that vulnerability. Yet your defense mechanisms of your nervous system has create a barrier, a protection, and it feels like a prison. Yet it's recognizing oh, I have the power to disarm these defense mechanisms in my nervous system. Yet you have to find safety in your body again.

Speaker 2: 16:41

One thing that goes in default is the blame game, which has no power but it feels like movement. How I give a visual is it's that rocking chair. You're moving but you're not getting anywhere. And it feels like you're getting somewhere but you're realizing like, oh, like you said at the beginning, why isn't anything changing? How do you help your clients recognize when their mind is going into the blame rather than the accountability within themselves?

Speaker 3: 17:11

I'll be honest with you, it doesn't come up much. Okay, I just think it's the way that. I just think it's the way that the dynamics are in the spaces that I create with clients. It doesn't come up a lot. There's not a lot of women coming into my space, and I think it's because of the way that it's designed, like I design a space that is absolutely about taking radical responsibility and an empowered approach to living your life, so there's not a lot of women coming in being like, well, this is the problem, or that person's a problem, or this was the. There's a lot of women asking what I would call like in the work that I'm doing, like the right questions how do I become the better me in this situation, given the circumstances or given my life? Like how do I rise, how do I overcome, how do I build strength, how do I build resilience, how do I build emotional intelligence? How do I? And so it doesn't actually come up a lot. But it's funny you mentioned it the way that you did because it reminded me.

Speaker 3: 18:10

This morning, with my daughter, I witnessed my 10 year old doing this, and so she the last couple of days, has forgotten her dance backpack all around town, been chasing this, this backpack, around town, and last night again she forgot it at dance and this morning I could tell she's getting upset that it's not in the house and I'm thinking she's not allowing the truth to be revealed. She's not saying that it's at dance, she just doesn't want to feel the shame or the upset internally because it's at dance and she forgot it there and so she was getting tearful and I had said to her it's okay that you forgot it there. So cause she wanted to blame her sister for not remembering to grab it and I was. I said to her we all forget, I forgot to bring it here. You forgot to take it here, your was. I said to her we all forget, I forgot to bring it here. You forgot to take it here, your sister. Every. It's okay to feel uncomfortable, but there's nothing wrong, you're all right, it's fine, you're safe in this, and it's an interesting journey to just witness in people of like you just don't want to feel uncomfortable, you don't want to feel embarrassed, or you don't want to feel ashamed, or you don't want to feel uncomfortable. You don't want to feel embarrassed, or you don't want to feel ashamed, or you don't want to feel bad and so we just need to put it somewhere else. And it was a funny live moment. I just recognized that this morning.

Speaker 3: 19:22

But in terms of my clients it doesn't come up very much. Of course, circumstances come up every single day of upsetting challenges a hundred percent. But it's really about, like, as quickly as we can, getting unhooking from a mindset that there needs to be a blame and it's really about hooking into the mindset of how do I handle it, how do I navigate? How do I move through it quicker? How do I get back to my highway? How do I do it? Because I don't have time for this. Life is short. I want to live now. That's kind of the vibe.

Speaker 2: 19:52

Okay, what does your self-care look like? Because you said, you know, when we're just ourselves and we're not in that role of parenting, we have all kinds of freedom and there's not things that are affecting your schedule, your energy demands and everything else. So then, when you go into parenting how I see parenting is the highest spiritual practice you can learn about yourself, because your children reflect so much to you that you may have, like you know, not wanted to see. And then, or you're like, recognize, oh, this is what I was going through when I was a child and nobody knew how to hold the space, and now I can even go deeper within myself to release it and hold that space. Or, you know, challenge and fight your way through whatever we do Now, recognizing, being in this parenting, and rather than you just going with the default, you stopped, you said, and you went into curiosity, which then recognize I have my own needs, like I am so giving, giving, giving.

Speaker 2: 20:55

Recognize I have my own needs, like I am so giving, giving, giving. Yet I have my own needs and I really have to practice what I'm offering to other people. So what does that self-care look for you? To make sure that you hold this space of energy that you can serve all the roles that you're in right now and not picking is a career or family life, that you can have the both.

Speaker 3: 21:18

Yeah, that's the thing for me. I'd get really like charged up by it because it will never be one or the other. I designed my business to support the lifestyle that I wanted to live. That's how I thought about it. I reverse engineered. If I want to live this way, meaning abundance of time, right. Meaning just freedom of thought, creative space, just like meandering thoughts.

Speaker 3: 21:41

If I wanted to feel flowy in my day, I was going to have to design that in my business. I couldn't expect that I was going to like see clients all day long and then take a five minute breath before I take the kids all around the world for activities all afternoon. And so for me it was just like from the start of the shift I knew what I wanted different. So in clinical space it was like OK, I would see patients back to back to back to back all day long. Time is money. Can't take time for sickness, can't take time for vacation, because you pay for it twice. In my head I was always like, ah, I'm going to lose all that money for a day and then I'm also going to pay all that money for vacation. I'm not taking it, and it just felt like this trap I was stuck in. So as soon as I shifted to coaching, I knew everything was going to change. I was going to take calls only on the days that I wanted to, which for me is midweek. I was going to leave calls, call free days on Mondays and Fridays. I was going to not have any calls the last week of every month. I was like I'm just going to dream up this whole dream business and then create it and see what happens. And so that's where so much of my self-care gets built into.

Speaker 3: 22:45

The day is because there's abundance of time. I take walks every day and look at nature and contemplate fall coming and trees changing leaves, and I think about fun ideas of what I want to put out into the world. Next I have a mamapreneur, a little mini mind coming up. That was just this fun idea of like, oh, wouldn't it be so great just to serve the mamas in this one little space that we could have a sacred space together, and so creative thought and imagination and fantasy. And then there's lots of times for seeing girlfriends and going out for a little dates and seeing my husband. So self-care for me is actually protecting time. It's really about waking up every day and really wanting two things to happen. One I love to serve and to crush it. I love to end a day being like that was a masterpiece of a day. I'm so proud and I'm so excited for the ripple effect of whatever we just created together. And then the other piece of is happiness. It's curating happiness every single day.

Speaker 3: 23:43

So self-care for me is not going on like some big excursions. It's often like a bubble bath in the middle of the day, a workout whenever I want to, walking outside to get some fresh air, to recalibrate. You know it's a reality TV at two o'clock on a Tuesday because I can and it's about letting that time feel very intentional. That's what it is for me. So it's not the like. The self-care is the meditations or the breath work although some days it is. It's really about living the lifestyle that feels flowy and fulfilling. Every single day my oxygen mask feels like it's always on, at least until three o'clock when I have to pick up 700 children and drive them around the world, but like it feels like it's just built in. It's not a thing. I'm like what's my self today? It's just how do I live my life?

Speaker 2: 24:36

Yeah, to support that energy level, though the term that I always use with everybody is time is a tool, not a toy, and many of us have not accessed time as a tool. We think that we have to earn time and it's like no, no, no, no, this is your life and you don't know when it's going to end. You don't you try to support your body, your health, in the best way so that you can be in time and really be aware of it and be present with it, not in the past and future of trying to, you know, kind of a disassociation of what's right here and what you can take action with. Yet really using that time as a tool and I love the way that you have embodied that like in the way speaking it, you're like I embody it and I understand the energy that comes back, the loop and the, the feedback loop that comes in, that of the giving and the receiving, so that they're for me, and I also think about the seasons.

Speaker 3: 25:36

I feel different in different seasons. So when it's late in the morning, earlier in the day the summer season I'm up at five and I'm at the gym and I get my workout out of the way and it feels amazing. But then fall comes and it's darker and it's cooler, and so often my workouts are later in the day and I didn't just stick to a rigid schedule because I should keep a 5am workout, because only 5am people are successful. It's like I can work out anytime, like what aligns for me and winter too. And the other thing I do that is like the most silly, benign thing, but it makes a huge difference. For me and I just started this this this week is when fall, winter comes.

Speaker 3: 26:12

I do not enjoy driving the kiddos around and then coming home and starting to cook dinner. It just drives me a little bit bonkers. It's like one more thing that takes 20 steps to get done and then clean up and then serve and then. So I've actually started to do dinner prep or dinner cooking during my flowy day, so that when we're home together at night it doesn't feel like I just started a new project of have tos. It's done and we reheat it or we crock, pocket pot it or whatever. And it's like these little things.

Speaker 3: 26:43

This is the thing I think a lot of people have this misconception that to live a thriving life means that they are. They own a house in Bali and they're there six months of the year and they work one hour a month. And that's not it. It's the little, tiny mini joys, it's the micro moments and it's the accommodations to honor ourselves that really make us truly fulfilled. And so there are people out there that never would think oh my gosh, I never thought about prepping my dinner in the daytime, when it's light out and it's not dark and depressing, or in the morning, when I first get, and those tiny shifts can go such a long way in protecting your energy.

Speaker 3: 27:21

But I also talk a lot about the energy generators in your day. So it's like making sure there's time for the things that generate the good vibes that you want to be feeling, and there's days you're going to organically feel full of those, and there's days you're going to need to intentionally infuse your days with those, and that's okay too. So a lot of times, I think people will think, oh, I don't know, I didn't sleep well, today it might not be a good day. I guess it just is what it is. Instead of thinking like okay, tonight I'm going to work on sleeping better, but how do I want today to feel? Do I want today to feel icky or tired or exhausted, or do I actually want to generate some energy and feel different today, like I have that power and I have that choice and that's really cool.

Speaker 2: 28:03

Yeah, I just put a little short clip this morning on social media because what activates me are sunsets and sunrises. So when I'm feeling overwhelmed, at the end of the day it's like go, and I go by the water and watch the sunset so I can just let everything melt away and cultivate that inner peace, because it's not the setting. Like you said, living in Bali, yeah, those are great things that activate and they feel good. Yet really the activation of inner peace is within yourself and regulating that nervous system and being honest with yourself. Feel your feelings Like to go through it. You have to feel you want to do healing. You're going to have to feel to let these charges out of your body. Does it suck? Yeah, sometimes it sucks, yet cultivate that inner peace for you. Find those spaces and places that will help you to cultivate that inner peace and activate that choice, like you have a choice of how you're going to perceive and interact.

Speaker 2: 29:02

I almost died 10 years ago with lesions in my brain and my cerebellum, so I had to learn too. I was told I wasn't going to walk and all this, and I had twin boys that were four years old and I was a solo parent. So it's like, okay, we're doing paper plates, like I don't have the capacity for washing dishes and doing all this. They're paper, so it's hitting my recycling. It's not like it's styrofoam. But working with you know the beliefs and everything else and I think you know it's being a mad scientist with yourself what bothers you. It's okay to find out what works for you. As you said, the 5 am when people can't meet, that they think they're doing something wrong and it's like you may just be a nocturnal creature and that's okay.

Speaker 2: 29:49

Not all humans are the same. Find what works for you instead of trying to put yourself in the box that somebody else has created. Find what works for you instead of trying to put yourself in the box that somebody else has created. Find what works for you and what will cultivate, because the best feeling we can get is the energy transfer that we give when we're open and delighted and we have to pick up our children. It's such a different experience and, as you said, it's like I got to do what dinner and then serve, and all this it's like it drains your neural energy. So it's like find what works with you Again, that permission that it doesn't have to look like everybody else. Find what works for your environment. But a lot of people they don't know how to do that.

Speaker 3: 30:33

Well, they just never even started to realize it was an option, and that's the thing I often find fascinating. I guess again, when you're in this world for a while, you're like what do you mean?

Speaker 3: 30:41

you didn't realize you have the choice you know what, what, like. How did it get removed from your, your brain of like, I have choices, I have options I have. I can say no, I can say yes, like it's just these basic things, but they make the biggest difference. So, yeah, relearning to connect with yourself, relearning to give yourself permission, learning that decisions aren't life sentences, learning to honor your truth and who you are and that gets to be perfect, that gets to be incredible. You get to live the life that you want as a result of honoring your truth. These are really powerful ideas that just keep being relived every day.

Speaker 3: 31:17

Every day, I wake up and I'm like who do I want to be today? What are the choices I want to make today? How do I want to feel today? And most people don't ever ask themselves a single question about themselves in the morning. They just get up and serve and feed and go to work and go through the grind and the daily motions, but they're not asking the curious questions about where's my power today? How do I want to feel? I get to choose.

Speaker 3: 31:40

This is my life and, as a parent, I think when we think about parents, so much goes out to our children. I'm a twin mama too. So it's so much goes out to our kiddos. And there's this thought that comes up sometimes in my mind because my daughters will say something and I'm thinking it's my life too. It's my life too. This is a thought. It's my life too.

Speaker 3: 32:01

It's not just about you, or you're answering to a boss, or you have a coworkers that are challenging whatever it is. It's like it's your life too. You're not just meant to just plop into a box and serve this role because someone said to you're meant to actually wake up every morning and decide what your life is for, what your life is about, what you want it to look like, feel like and be like. You get to decide those things, but for a lot of people that can feel like too big and overwhelming and just like I can't touch it. I'm just going to go to work and do my thing because it's easier, but that's also hard. Going to work to satisfy it's hard. Choosing a new life is hard. Which hard do we choose?

Speaker 2: 32:50

Right, exactly. And for the twins, now that they're 14, I have that same mind, because I, you know, twin life is a whole different scenario and more and more I've been expressing, like I'm a human being, you know, like I am not, this role of super mom, that, like I'm a human being that has feelings, that wants to be respected, that wants to be respected. That's not just going to fly off the wind, because you need, like I'm a human being, recognize that I want to expand their self-awareness also and not just have this identity of what you know, the role of mother, like I'm a human being. So don't put me on this pedestal please, so that I can advocate, because I think that's important, that we start to learn that sometimes we only see people in the role, we don't see the human being and we don't ask questions about it, because you know, we all have that selfishness and self-absorbed aspect of wanting to get your way.

Speaker 2: 33:45

So what is this role? How can it serve me? Rather than expand the self-awareness and see outside of yourself that there's another person in front of you that has their sense of the world, I want to bring you into a reflective question. I want to ask you to bring this awareness now and go back to your 18-year-old self, and you have three words to tell your 18-year-old self to carry you to the journey to now. What would they be?

Speaker 3: 34:16

three words that are meant to do what exactly to carry?

Speaker 2: 34:22

Yeah, to carry her. There may be things that you didn't. I don't think so, because you seem to have been designing your world. Yet a lot of people see their 18 year old and they wish that they could have said certain things to help them throughout the journey.

Speaker 3: 34:36

So my three words are one word repeated three times, and that is trust, trust, trust. I would have loved and forget 18. Cause that's actually when things really shifted for me. That's when I broke free and never looked back. That's when I started designing, because before that it was not that existence for my first 18 years. And so I would love the trust advice at 10 and 12 and 14 and six students over to date and on.

Speaker 3: 35:10

But the idea is just trust yourself, trust yourself, listen to yourself, trust yourself Like. There's so many years of our lives or chapters of our lives where we are like just responding and reacting to everybody else and not tapping into who we are, who we're meant to be and what we want life to feel like, and so for me it would have been like I would have wanted to whisper in her ear throughout her entire life Trust yourself. It's like it's trust yourself and like go, trust yourself and move. Trust yourself and lean's. Like it's trust yourself and like go, trust yourself and move. Trust yourself and lean in and like just trust what. What's coming up for you, whether it's warning signs, whether it's like messages that you're not sure what they mean, whether, like whatever it is, it's like just keep trusting you because you've got this and you're going to figure it out, and it's right around the corner actually. So like you're almost there, I love it.

Speaker 2: 36:02

I yeah what I knew when I went with this reflective it's like you've been designing your world and you've allowed your curiosity to be untethered. So to really use that guiding point and seeing that you have been trusting yourself, which is part of helping people, because they come to realize like, oh, I don't trust myself, I don't know how to listen to my intuition, I don't know how to listen to what my needs are, I don't know how to access the permission and choices. And that requires you to trust yourself and allow the trusting. Sometimes people think trusting is everything's going to go my way, or abundance is everything's going to go my way, or, you know, abundance is everything's going to go my way. And it's like no trust in yourself that when it gets messy, when there's mistakes, that you're not going to separate from yourself and you're going to build the resilience of finding new ways and pivot and you know, find the answers and feel your emotions, not shut them down Like embarrassment.

Speaker 2: 36:58

I have one of my it's like we have the same language. I have one of my twins that embarrassment. He does everything in his power not to feel it and I'm like you're creating more chaos for yourself than allowing that just to come through you and you know you're impacting your mental state because of this feeling. Yet for him it just feels so debilitating and I keep showing him my errors and my mistakes and how I, you know, process the big emotions, because modeling is the biggest thing that helps with this journey.

Speaker 2: 37:31

Yet it's our emotions that, once we can really feel those big emotions, oh, there's such an opening I found in my own life, such an opening to really, you know, walk in this world that you're not so concerned about what others are doing or thinking. It's like it's about how I'm feeling and what I want to create and how I'm using this time as a tool and maximizing it to the best of my ability. I know the listeners are like okay enough, nat, nat, where can I find Dr Wendy O'Connor and what does she have to offer right now? Because some may be like mama aunt from Newark, like what is that Like?

Speaker 1: 38:13

I want to find out more.

Speaker 2: 38:14

Can you let the listeners know where they can connect with you?

Speaker 3: 38:18

Of course, I mostly hang out on Instagram at Dr Wendy O'Connor. Come say hi. I love meeting everybody and I hang out a little bit everywhere, but that's my main place, so come on over and introduce yourself there. And yes, I serve female entrepreneurs in several different ways, so it's really about where you're at right now. There's this mom I'm, many of mine I'm doing. That's going to be amazing, and I have a membership so you can come in and binge all the programs that I've created over the last several years and come in and get mentorship and coaching on creating success through alignment. And yeah, it's just, it's actually. There's always something new going on, so it's a fun space to just come and hang out and see what fits for you.

Speaker 2: 38:59

Thank you. Thank you for you know giving us the most valuable thing in life, which is time and being here and sharing that gift with myself and the listeners, and what you are creating in the world that you are showing people there's a different way that you can actually take action with your life and design it in the way that you need to. Is there something that you would want to leave the listeners that would activate something for them?

Speaker 3: 39:35

Like something that I share, like I'm saying, or something that they can tap into after our episode, whatever you feel called to.

Speaker 3: 39:43

Oh, that's a great question. I feel every day this call, so I will share it here. Which is, whatever it is that you take with you from this episode, remember your life gets to be by design. It doesn't matter what season of life you're in. There is always something that we have power over, control over and influence on, that can make life feel better and make ourselves feel more powerful and stronger, and as a leader of our lives, not a follower. And so whatever it was today that landed for you, take it and run with it. Don't let it be the thing that sounded like a cool idea and then it just disappears into the thin air. Let it be the thing you actually take action on and start to create reality around in your life today.

Speaker 2: 40:35

Yeah, At any time in this conversation. If there was any inclination, any tug, any curiosity, as Wendy just said, connect with her. There's a reason why your limbic system was trying to signal to you that there was something there that just activated you. So listen to your body, listen to that limbic system that's showing you there's a different way and she has some verbiage to give you and the tools to give you to design this life that you know there's more than what you are actually living in right now. So again, thank you for your time, Thank you for your gifts, Thank you for what you're creating in the world.

Speaker 2: 41:17

I greatly appreciate you and you know the playfulness that you've instilled. You know, once we can walk the talk that we're, you know, displaying, because it's really great to have theories and we all understand the academic of all theories and philosophy. Yet when you have lived experience, it's so much relatable that the people are like, oh, this is possible because somebody is actually creating this and going through the fears and all these kinds of different things. But you've shown a different blueprint that people can create their own blueprint. So thank you so much, Wendy.

Speaker 3: 41:55

Thank you for having me.

Speaker 2: 41:56

It's been great. Please remember to be kind to yourself.

Speaker 1: 42:01

Hey, you made it all the way here. I appreciate you and your time. If you found value in this conversation, please share it out. If there was somebody that popped into your mind, take action and share it out with them. It possibly may not be them that will benefit. It's that they know somebody that will benefit from listening to this conversation. So please take action and share out the podcast. You can find us on social media on Facebook, instagram and TikTok under Lift One Self, and if you want to inquire about the work that I do and the services that I provide to people, come over on my website, come into a discovery call liftoneselfcom. Until next time, please remember to be kind and gentle with yourself. You matter.