How To Find Direction In Your Life [Episode #406]

Welcome to the Feel Good Podcast with Kimberly Snyder. Our goal is to help you be your most healthy, confident, beautiful and joyful! Our topics focus on health and wellness (physical, emotional/mental and spiritual), holistic nutrition, medicinal plants, natural rhythms and cycles, beauty, meditation, self care and rituals, spirituality and personal empowerment.

Feeling Good means we are healthy, balanced, peaceful, confident and joyful, right in the midst of our perfectly imperfect lives. Feeling Good requires us to tune in and nourish our whole selves, which is made up of the four Solluna Cornerstones: our food, our bodies, our emotional well-being and our spiritual growth. Feeling good naturally leads to also looking good, in a much more powerful way from glowing skin created from within, a beautifully healthy body, radiant energy, and a greater level of overall well-being and personal growth.

Thursday is our community show, where I cover a themed topic and answer four questions that come right from members of our community, just like you! We are here to support you in living your most beautiful, inspired and joyful life.

I’m your host, Kimberly Snyder, founder of Solluna, New York Times best-selling author and nutritionist. I’m so grateful and honored we found each other!

This week’s topic is: How To Find Direction In Your Life

Have you been wondering about this very topic? If you want to know the answer to this question and 3 more sent in by Beauties just like you, listen now to find out!

Remember you can submit your questions at https://mysolluna.com/askkimberly/

[Questions Answered]

Steph – Bay City, Michigan

The times have changed so much with how we gain insight and support that sometimes I don’t know where to find real, true direction. How do you know where to start and who you can trust for guidance in all avenues of life?

Eve – New York, NY

I’m not very religious, but lately I’m feeling like I need some spiritual direction to help guide me through some difficult times – recently lost a loved one. Where should I turn to help ease my heart and my mind so I can function again, without the guilt of wanting to feel happy?

Lydia – Clifton, Arizona

I have too many aspirations and no willpower to find my true calling. How did you know you wanted to start down this path with Beauty Detox and Solluna? Any tips on how to zone in on one specific goal?

Blair – Derby, Connecticut

It’s difficult for me to read through self-help books because of not knowing if they will really work for me. I’d like an alternative way to find guidance and direction to help me go through a whole “life-gut”. I want to improve everything from my physical self, to my emotions, and spiritually. It’s a lot, but I feel ready and just need the best sources out there that I can trust.

Inspirational Thought Of The Week

Affirmation: All I have to do is stay connected to my breath and move forward one step at a time. All I have to do is stay connected to my breath and move forward one step at a time. All I have to do is stay connected to my breath and move forward one step at a time.

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Want to know what to expect from other episodes of the “Feel Good Podcast with Kimberly Snyder”? My passion is to inspire and empower you to be your most authentic and beautiful self. We offer interviews with top experts, my personal philosophies and experiences, as well as answers to community-based questions around topics such as health, beauty, nutrition, yoga, spirituality and personal growth.

The intention of the Feel Good Podcast is to well…help you really Feel Good in your body, mind and spirit! Feeling Good means feeling peaceful, energized, whole, uniquely beautiful, confident and joyful, right in the midst of your perfectly imperfect life. This podcast is as informative and full of practical tips and take-aways as it is inspirational. I am here to support you in being your very best! I have so much love and gratitude for you. Thank you for tuning in and being part of the community :).

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[RESOURCES]

• Clarity and Support with Laura Powers & The Power of Probiotics
• Wellness Trends- True or False
• Navigating Relationships While Protecting Your Own Energy!
• Surviving Grief & Big Life Changes
• Embracing Change and Finding the Sunrise at the End of it
• My Personal Beauty Detox Journey: Never Seen Before & After Pics
• Finding Your True Passion With Satya Scainetti & Reducing Stress Through Chanting!
• Wonder Over Worry With Amber Rae
• How to Keep Motivation Going!
• Probiotics
• Detoxy
• Digestive Enzymes  
• Feel Good Starter Kit
• Recipes For Your Perfectly Imperfect Life
• Be a part of the community Join the Feel Good Circle

Other Podcasts you may enjoy!:

• Overcoming Fears and Healing Cancer with Elissa Goodman & How to Start a Yoga Practice
• Living Your Colors with Jennifer Butler and Superfoods Worth Trying
• Improve Relationships with Carol Allen & The Amazing Benefits of Journaling!
• Overcoming Grief with Kristin Meekhof & The Magic of Morning Rituals

Transcript: Note: The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate. This is due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.

Kimberly Snyder: Hi Beauties and welcome back to our Thursday Q&A podcast, where our topic today is How to Find Direction in Your Life. Katelyn and I both have a lot to say about this topic because I think all of us go through periods and moments where we feel lost, we go in different directions, we feel confused. So we want to give you some real tools and strategies and foods that can really help you feel more grounded and to feel just more connected to yourself and the direction of your life.

Leave a Review and Subscribe on Itunes

Kimberly Snyder: So this is a really great topic. I am so excited to hear your questions around this topic. But before we jump in, I just want to give a little request. If you haven’t yet left us a review on iTunes, please do so today. This could be the day. If you’ve heard me say this before, I know it’s easy to put things off, but it just takes a moment or so. It’s free, it’s easy, and it truly is an amazing way to support our show. I thank you so much in advance.

Kimberly Snyder: And I just want to give you a little reminder, for your own motivation and just staying really connected to this information and to a healthy lifestyle, to please make sure that you subscribe to our podcast. That way, you don’t miss any of the interviews on Monday or the solocasts or any of our Q&A topics that we do every week and so you really stay in the flow, which is awesome. A great self-care thing to do for yourself.

Kimberly Snyder: All right. So all that being said, I hope that you are having a beautiful day so far. Get ready to sit back, chill, or if you’re going on a walk, just start to tune in. Give yourself this … I feel like when you’re listening to our podcast, you can really tune in to yourself and give yourself this really important self-care time.

Kimberly Snyder: So let’s hear … Oh, and Kate! Sorry, I’m just talking off by myself. I just recorded a podcast, so I’m in the mode of being solo. But we have our beautiful, amazing Katelyn with us on the phone, who is our general manager of Solluna. She is amazing. She is so strong and so inspiring to me. So Katelyn, thank you so much for being with us, my love. And last being a solocast. We’re doing Q&As. Thank you for gathering the questions.

Katelyn Hughes: Yeah. No, it’s great to be back this week and I’m really excited about this topic. As you said, we’ve both had some dramatic changes in the direction of our lives over the last few years. So to give insight and tools and tips to the beauties today, I’m excited to dive in and see your take with the four cornerstones. So we might as well just jump into Steph’s question if you’re ready.

Kimberly Snyder: Yes. Yes. I have a lot to say about this topic, but I’m going to weave them into the questions and the answers so we don’t have this massive intro and don’t get to the questions in time.

Question 1: How do you know where to start and who you can trust for guidance in all avenues of life?

Katelyn Hughes: I know. Okay. So Steph is living in Bay City, Michigan. “The times have changed so much with how we gain insight and support, but sometimes, I don’t know where to find real, true direction. How do you know where to start and who you can trust for guidance in all avenues of life?”

Kimberly Snyder: So Steph, thank you so much for your question. As I mentioned earlier, I think it’s really normal. I think it’s really common. I think it’s all of us, actually. It’s pretty ubiquitous that we all go in different directions, and feel confused, and don’t know where to start, and don’t know exactly … We don’t have the clarity yet. So I think a couple things just to kick us off, we all, every single one of us, has been granted this inner guidance, this voice, this gut, the intuition, our conscious, whatever word you want to use. We have a guiding light inside of us that will give us direction and will help us take the next step.

Kimberly Snyder: It doesn’t mean that we don’t make mistakes and it doesn’t mean that we don’t stumble or we don’t change course. But I really, really believe that when we are listening to ourselves, we aren’t as confused, we don’t run around in circles, because only our lives, our uniqueness, our journey, our pathway, is unique unto ourselves. So if we’re constantly trying to go outside ourselves to listen to different opinions and to get information and advice, then we may be going off track because everybody has such a different perspective and everybody’s path is so different.

Kimberly Snyder: What’s important about this is that sometimes, we may really feel it inside of us and we know that it’s right for us, but sometimes our friends or our family may feel like, “Oh gosh, this is not the right thing,” or doesn’t feel right to them, so they project it onto you. So I’ll give an example. I love the forest. I love being in nature. I love doing my beach walks every day. I just love being outside. So I’m considering moving from a more crowded Venice area, where I currently live in L.A., out a little bit farther into the mountains. And of course, a lot of friends are like, “Oh, I can’t believe you’re going to be so far. Why are you doing that?” So I tabled it, but it’s come back into my … It’s just come back to me, this feeling inside of me that that’s where I should actually live.

Kimberly Snyder: I’m very lucky that I work from home, and John, my future husband, also works from home. So at this stage, it’s easy to move [Bubby 00:06:12] because he’s just started preschool. So anyways, I feel really good when I listen to myself. So with regards to your answer, Steph, I think that when something resonates … And it doesn’t mean we don’t have teachers. If a book really resonates with you and it has guidance for you or you have a teacher or someone that you really connect with, for me, that’s Yogananda, my guru … It’s also Eckhart Tolle, who I also really connect with. You’ll feel it. It’s not in your head. It’s not a thought. It’s a feeling inside of you. It’s like your gut just directs you.

Kimberly Snyder: And as you were mentioning Kate, I think that we need to look at this through the lens of the four cornerstones because this is such an important way of really clearing the way, clearing out confusion, so that we can move forward with more confidence and more clarity. By the way, clarity was one of our topics in our Solluna Circle a couple months ago. So we really went in depth about this. If you’re interested in checking out the Circle, it’s on our website too, where we talk about a theme every month.

Kimberly Snyder: So the cornerstones, again, are food, body, emotional wellbeing, and spiritual growth. And when we’re looking for direction, from a food perspective, I think it’s really important that we get more grounded into our body. So this is where cooked soup and stew, and sprouted gluten-free greens, and lots of fiber, and root vegetables, like beets and carrots, are going to help ground us into our body. Our body is where we feel things. Our body is our gut. Our gut is connected to our brain and our intuition and our skin and everything. So we don’t want to actually just get super flighty. We don’t want to feel … On the other hand, we also don’t want to feel clogged and weighed down and congested. So the best foods, as I mentioned, are easily digestible foods and very veggie forward. Only veggies have fiber. Fiber is also a very grounding nutrient.

Kimberly Snyder: And removing vegetable oil, as much as possible, and fried foods, and dairy, and things that clog us. If we’re clogged in our body, it’s very hard to hear our intuition and our messages because, again, our gut and our mind and everything are so connected. So from a food perspective, my top ones are everything I listed, especially the root vegetables, and foods like lentils, and black beans, and the soups, and the stews. We’re coming into winter, so that’s a really great time to practice that, bring that into your life.

Kimberly Snyder: From a body perspective, if we’re looking for direction, I think it’s really important that, again, we just start to feel our bodies, we start to feel really present. So anything like self-massage, or if you’re just going to massage your feet at the end of the day, or do a little bit of stretching like 10 minutes at the end of the day, and breathing, getting off your phone, and just really feeling your body, is going to also help you find when you’re in tune with yourself. When you are able to discern a message coming up saying, “Oh, that actually feels really good to me.” That clarity will give you the courage to sometimes make big moves. Katelyn and I have both been divorced. We’ve both had to make major life shifts in our relationships that didn’t feel right to us. And now, we’re both way happier. So giving yourself the space and connecting with those signals inside your body, [inaudible 00:09:47] practices, like self-massage, besides eating, are very helpful.

Kimberly Snyder: And then our third cornerstone is emotional wellbeing. So when we’re looking for direction, we really want to feel our feelings. We really want to allow them to come up and not be scared. Because when we push things down, and we’re inauthentic, and we pretend that we’re happy all the time, we actually are turning off our intuition. We’re turning off our signal. Sometimes we don’t want to hear if we get a feeling like, “Oh, this friend maybe isn’t super positive for me to be around,” or “Actually this guy isn’t my guy.” And having that openness of allowing the emotions to come up and you can feel them and process them, is really integral in finding direction.

Kimberly Snyder: And lastly, this is the most important, I think, in regards to this topic especially, is spiritual growth. So here’s where stillness, not religion, but connecting to spirit, meditation. When we can silent the outside noises, and all the media, and all the phone alerts, and all the stuff going on, when we are in stillness, we can hear ourselves more. How are we supposed to hear ourselves if it’s just noisy all the time? We don’t know what direction to go in. So the daily practice, even if it’s brief, but morning and evening. One minute minimum. Okay. 30 seconds minimum, but I say one minute, just to breathe, close your eyes. That’s the beginning of your practice of tuning inward. And to me, that’s one of the most important ways to create that connection.

Kimberly Snyder: And then, Steph, as I mentioned, it’s not that you have to do it all on your own. Then you’ll be more in tune when a book resonates, or a teacher, or a path, or whatever comes up for you. You’ll be able to feel more strongly that it is for you when you connect more with yourself and your body.

Katelyn Hughes: I love hearing these answers in the form of the four cornerstones because I feel like it’s such a robust answer. And they’re really applicable to each area of your life, whether it’s something like, “What can I eat today? What can I handle?” Right? Because sometimes we can’t handle doing every single area. And it’s like, “What could I manage today?” And I agree. Big life changes have been happening for me, and not letting other people get in your head. With just recently getting engaged and trying to plan my wedding, some friends and family were like, “Oh, it’s too soon,” and were getting in my head. I got all upset. And I was crying and feeling judged and all these different guilt and shame.

Katelyn Hughes: What you just said really stood out to me, is just going with my gut and knowing what’s true for me. And not everybody ever knows your true journey of what you’re going through. They just know the outside lens looking in on what they think they know. So sometimes, we want friends’ opinions or family’s opinions, and sometimes they’re not warranted. So I agree with you 100%. From my personal experience, sharing in today’s show, don’t always have to listen to outside opinions because sometimes they make you feel worse.

Kimberly Snyder: Oh my gosh. Kate, thank you so much for saying that. And sometimes we share with friends and family, and in your case, Kate, they poo poo your direction and make you feel bad. And sometimes we don’t say anything, but we’re scared of being judged. So it’s that fear is still influencing us. And I know for me, it was not easy to leave my last relationship, and there was a lot of things in the mix: moving, living situation, Bubby, all sorts of things. But now, I can say that I am in the happiest relationship and the happiest moment. It’s more than happy. It’s joyful. I feel clear. I feel … It’s not that everything’s perfect every day, but I feel clear and I feel really connected to my path right now. I know it’s the right thing for me.

Kimberly Snyder: In the past, I’ve stayed in relationships far longer than I knew was the right time. I thought about maybe making transitions, but I stayed, and I stayed, and I stayed. All I can say now, when we’re talking about this topic of finding direction, is if you really have, especially a reoccurring feeling inside of you, please do not ignore that because it is universe, God, whatever word you want to use, speaking through that inner feeling, that impetus that is your guiding light. We really have to trust that and to tune into it and to make space for it. But please don’t ignore that because that’s where the answers are. That’s where the truth is, I believe. We really want to honor that.

Katelyn Hughes: Yes. That’s a big overall lesson for today. Remember that as we go through the show, beauties: listen to yourself.

Question 2: Where should I turn to help ease my heart and mind so I can function again without the guilt of wanting to feel happy?

Katelyn Hughes: Okay. So let’s see what Eve from New York, New York is thinking. “I’m not very religious, but lately, I’m feeling like I need some spiritual direction to help guide me through some difficult times. I recently lost a loved one. Where should I turn to help ease my heart and mind so I can function again without the guilt of wanting to feel happy?”

Kimberly Snyder: Oh, Eve, thank you so much for your question, beauty. I am sending you a big virtual hug. I know that it is hard to go through the loss of a loved one. I know that grief is not easy, and I certainly send you a lot of love.

Kimberly Snyder: I heard a monk say once: in times of great trials, like losing a loved one or just a big event in your life, there’s this interesting dualism, where in one hand, we’ve gone through all this suffering and this extreme pain. But as this monk said, those are actually the transitions, those are the junctures where we can be the closest to spirit. We can make incredible leaps of personal growth and really move forward and heal a lot within us. And that was my personal experience when I lost my mother about two years ago.

Kimberly Snyder: So I will speak personally that when she passed, it was very sudden. It was shocking. It was very sad. And then I started to heal my heart, and I started to get strong. It was like this big … Imagine the biggest spring cleaning you could ever have, like every part of your life. It was in the midst of that, the aftermath, that I actually did leave my last relationship. I did do a lot of self work, and I started going really deep in my practice and in my meditation. I was able to come out, about five months later, strong, like the strongest I’ve ever been.

Kimberly Snyder: So I would say, Eve, for me, the book … I talk about this book a lot. The one that has helped me a lot is called Letting Go by Dr. David Hawkins. He has some simple practices and ones that I reference in our latest book, called Recipes for Your Perfectly Imperfect Life. So to me, it’s a practice about letting the grief come up, letting the feelings come up, and then releasing them, again, from your body so that they don’t get trapped and stored.

Kimberly Snyder: This is not about religion. It’s about … Again, our fourth cornerstone is connecting to the essence. When we connect to the essence, it’s not just about us. We get out of this limited mentality that we’re the small self, and we start to go into the vastness, the openness, the unlimited potential. And my experience of going deep into meditation after my mom passed was this realization, this very deep realization, that there is no beginning and there is no end. There is no death. I mean, death of the physical body. But I do believe, as Einstein said, “Matter is neither created nor destroyed.” I think we change form. I think we go to other realms. I think we don’t understand everything that happens. But I do know that I’ve had some pretty incredible experiences with my mom since she passed and really feeling her presence.

Kimberly Snyder: So for me, connecting inward, finding a support group. Again, I’ll throw out, we have the Solluna Circle, where we certainly talk about a lot of different topics, like grief and getting past really real big things and moving through them and getting hope and love and personal growth. Yeah, just having that time and giving yourself space. And I mentioned to Steph in the first question, with that time and with that space and tuning in and giving yourself time to meditate and just feel, you’ll start to read books. You’ll start to get out and about. And I think you will start to find more spiritual direction. Yogis always say, “When you are ready, when you are calling authentically for teachings, for direction spiritually, the teacher will always show up.” It could be in the form of a book.

Kimberly Snyder: Another one that I highly recommend is Autobiography of a Yogi, all the books by Yogananda. I felt really lost. I was at the point in my life where it was fun, and I was roaming around the world, when I was backpacking, but I was spiritually confused. I was raised Catholic, but then I wasn’t sure if that was the path for me. I was spending a long time in all these Buddhist countries, and I didn’t know what was going on. And then when I read Yogananda’s book, which is about universality, and the connection, the message of love that’s at the heart of all true religions, and that you can meditate, and you can really connect with yourself and everybody else, that was really a huge turning point in my life. This was around when I wrote The Beauty Detox Solution.

Kimberly Snyder: So not only did it connect me with myself, but it really was the launching pad for my books and my philosophy and everything else. So those are the few books that I recommend. I think getting into a meditation practice will be so healing for you and your nervous system and just helping you reset and get perspective. We have free meditations here, or obviously, there’s tons of apps now. There’s one called The Breathing Room, which is by Krishnaji and Preethaji, who were on our podcast. They’re amazing. They also have a great book called The Four Sacred Secrets. So you can check out some of their meditations too on that app, which I also love.

Kimberly Snyder: So I think, Eve, just giving yourself some space. If you can get away for a little bit of a healing trip somewhere in nature. Get out of Manhattan and go to nature, just for a weekend or a few days. Breathe. Do some meditation. Let yourself ground in and then let the healing come as it will. And it will come. It will come in waves. It will go its own pace and its own direction. But sending you so much love, sister. I know this is a very difficult time.

Katelyn Hughes: I’m glad we’re addressing the spiritual growth cornerstone in this way. A lot of people tend to get confused about what spiritual growth means or how to apply it in their life. Does it have that religious connotation? Or can they be a part of it? And what does it mean? We recently had an awesome event in the city that I was part of, and we were explaining our four cornerstones to a bunch of different media and press and influencers. People’s eyes would light up when we would go through the cornerstones and explaining what emotional wellbeing and spiritual growth and that those areas are missing from a lot of people’s lives.

Katelyn Hughes: As you say, we started with food, and then it transformed into body. But people aren’t paying attention to these other areas and that’s why they don’t always feel whole. So I think it’s great that we took a little time today for the beauties to understand this in a bigger way because it is confusing.

Kimberly Snyder: It is confusing, and we will be giving more offerings around this. But if you think about our spirit, our essence, it really just boils down to being connected with who we really are underneath the surface, beyond what we look like, beyond our jobs, beyond our personality, beyond what we do in the world. There is this essence, a true and good essence, inside each of us. So whatever practices … We talk a lot about nature. We talk a lot about meditation. These are all just different practices to connect and to remember who we really are. So it’s not so important the exact methodology that you’re following your practices, but more that you’re doing something consistently in your life, just like you make your GGS, just like you take your probiotics, just like you brush your hair, for some of us. I don’t really brush mine.

Kimberly Snyder: But whatever it is that you do, it’s the same thing. You want to really nurture and honor the spiritual side of your life because, as you say, Kate, if you don’t do that, you will always feel disconnected. You will always feel that you are not enough. You will always be searching and seeking the next piece of fashion, or the next diet, or the next 10 more pounds to lose, or whatever it is. There’s always going to feel like this void. And when we connect inside to ourselves, which it connects us, by the way, to everyone else because we’re all connected and oneness is the truth. So we start to not feel isolated. We start to not feel alone. We start not to feel, “I’m not enough.” We start to feel like, “Wow, I have everything. I actually am whole and complete.”

Kimberly Snyder: And this is a journey, of course, and it takes time. There’s levels of progress, and sometimes we have quantum leaps, and sometimes we feel like we’re going backwards. But I 100% believe and stand by, we do need to treat this as a regular practice. It’s part of our lifestyle for wellness. Whatever that practice may look like, I do think it’s super important.

Break

Katelyn Hughes: I love that. So beauties, as we head into our short break here, think about something that you like about yourself, that you are enough for. So think about that. And Kimberly will be back in just a few moments to answer the last two questions.

Kimberly Snyder: All right beauties. I hope that you are enjoying this topic about finding direction in life. I think that we can all come together to support each other. We all are super confused, let’s be real. We’re doing our best. We’re stumbling through life. There’s going to be a lot of twists and turns, but we’re here. We’re here as a community. We’re here to share what has helped us so far and what works. So with that being said, Kate, I am excited to hear the last two questions today.

Question 3: How did you know you wanted to start down the path with Beauty Detox and Solluna? And do you have any tips on how to zone in on one specific goal?

Katelyn Hughes: Yeah. So we have Lydia, who’s living in Clifton, Arizona. “I have too many aspirations and no willpower to find my true calling. How did you know you wanted to start down the path with Beauty Detox and Solluna? And do you have any tips on how to zone in on one specific goal?”

Kimberly Snyder: So Lydia, I think this is a really great question. The issue with direction is, there can be infinite paths. Right? It’s like these rabbit holes here and there, and then it just takes you in different ways. I know I have a friend who is in L.A. and she is a pretty good photographer, but then she also loves interior design, and then she also loves creating travel itineraries. There’s four or five things and she actually … To your point, Lydia, she has a very hard time moving forward with any of those directions because she kind of is here, there, and there. So I think a lot … There’s a lot I have to say about this.

Kimberly Snyder: Number one, how we do anything is how we do everything. So to me, this boils down to, first of all, connecting with what is your why, what is your purpose, what is it that you really want to put all your energy and your life force behind. Connecting with that, which we talked about so far, and listening to yourself and finding time for space, finding time for that passion to rise up. Now, number two is boiling it down with focus. So you may say, “Oh, there’s four or five things that have come up.” Right? And I will say, “Okay. Keep sitting with it. Keep sitting with it.” And sometimes, some of those things come up and you start to really intuit that maybe that’s just a hobby or maybe that’s a passing interest, but it’s not your deep, deep why or your deep, deep passion.

Kimberly Snyder: So you may start to narrow it down to two, let’s say. And then you start to get really focused. I think you just pick a direction, and you go with it, and you go deep into it, and you start to plan, and you start to take steps every day, even if they’re small steps, like researching or making a uncomfortable call or an email or whatever it is. Pick the direction that feels, to you right now, the most … The one that you’re the most passionate about. If you continue to focus on that one and pour your heart into it and really put your direction into it, you will find, within a couple months, a few weeks, “Oh, yeah, this is it. I feel amazing doing this.”

Kimberly Snyder: Again, back to your gut, back to really clean eating and digestive health. So you feel your gut literally in your physical body, as well as that feeling in your heart, in your body, inside of you internally, that’s helping to guide you. And listen, if you made a error, if you were like, “Oh, it should’ve been the other option,” then change directions and go that way. But I say, it’s better to listen, narrow down, pick one, and go with it, than try to do four or five things all the time and doing none of them really, really well. Again, we all make mistakes or learnings. I don’t even really like the word “mistake” because I think everything’s part of our journey and our experience.

Kimberly Snyder: But I think that we may go in different directions and try different things, but at least you will start exercising that muscle of focus and willpower. That will serve you and that will take you farther. And then you will feel like, “Oh, I really explored this and now I can move on,” versus, “Hey, I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know what I’m doing. Maybe I should do this and maybe I should do that,” and you end up doing nothing.

Kimberly Snyder: So for me … And I’ll just say lastly, personally, Lydia, you asked how did I find out about this path. So it started with … I mean, it’s always been in there. I was thinking about being a doctor at one point. I had a science and math scholarship to college. I wasn’t passionate about working in a hospital, as I did one summer. But when I started learning about food and then I started healing my body, it was such a passionate fire inside of me, that I would talk to everybody about it. And I wasn’t getting paid, of course. I was just … I would talk to the people at the grocery store. I would talk to people in line behind me at the grocery store. It was pouring out of me. I tried to get an office job. I worked for L’Oreal when I moved back to New York for three months. And it was just so clear.

Kimberly Snyder: So I picked a direction. I was like, “I can’t do this. I’m so passionate about this.” Again, I think it’s staying connected to yourself, trying something. Don’t be paralyzed. There’s something called decision paralysis. If you don’t do anything, Lydia, then nothing happens. So again, just pick something and you will very quickly figure out if you need to go in a different direction or not.

Katelyn Hughes: Yeah. I couldn’t agree more. I think a lot of times, people look at the end vision. She mentioned Solluna, and if you were to look at the end vision of Solluna, back a decade or so ago, we wouldn’t know where you were going to go. Right? Solluna is the birth of day after day serving the mission, working towards spreading what we do. I could say that even in my life. I wouldn’t have imagined in anybody’s life, not even with career, but just even with your family or just personal development, if you look a month, six months, a year down the road, we don’t really know what’s going to happen. But we know if we do things, as you talked about earlier in the show, consistently, then we can see progress happen.

Katelyn Hughes: And I forget who says it. It’s a common quote, that “Done is better than” … Oh, shoot. Now I’m forgetting.

Kimberly Snyder: Oh, yeah. I know what you’re talking about, Kate. It’s like, “60 or 80% is better than waiting for perfection” or something like that.

Katelyn Hughes: Something like that. Yeah. It’s a perfectionist. Because as you guys know, Kim and I struggle with our perfectionism. So I’m always having to pull up these inspirational quotes on Instagram and help myself. But just basically saying that, it being almost done or semi-perfect is better than not having anything at all. And I think that paralysis that you were talking about really is a systemic problem with people. So I think that’s a great tip for everybody to think about when you’re thinking about direction.

Kimberly Snyder: Mm-hmm (affirmative). That’s great. Great add, Kate. Thank you for that.

Question 4: I’d like an alternative way to find guidance and direction to help me through the whole life gut. I want to improve everything, from my physical self to my emotions and spirituality. It’s a lot, but I really feel ready and just feel I need the best sources out there that I can trust.

Katelyn Hughes: Yeah. Okay. So let’s go into our last question from Blair, who’s living in Derby, Connecticut. “It’s difficult for me to read through self-help books because of not knowing if they will really work for me. I’d like an alternative way to find guidance and direction to help me through the whole life gut. I want to improve everything, from my physical self to my emotions and spirituality. It’s a lot, but I really feel ready and just feel I need the best sources out there that I can trust.”

Kimberly Snyder: Blair, this is an awesome question, and congratulations for feeling that readiness and knowing in your gut that you are ready for a big shift, for a clean out, for reviving yourself and your life. So I will, again, bring this back to the four cornerstones. And first of all, I get you. I hear you, about books. I have read thousands of books about all sorts of topics in spirituality and self-help and nutrition and all sorts of things. So sometimes, we get confused when we read so many books because a lot of them are conflicting. So you don’t necessarily have to go out and buy 10 new books.

Kimberly Snyder: I think that if we look at our cornerstones, food, body, emotions, and spiritual growth, I think that you can approach it two ways. Number one is, what is the cornerstone that I feel is the most lacking in my life right now or that needs the most love? So it could be, “I’ve really fallen off the wagon with my diet.” And to that regard, I say, start with the morning of. Get back on track with your hot water lemon, your GGS, your probiotics, your meditations, so on and so forth. Or you could say, “Okay. I’m going to put more energy now into taking care of my body. I’m going to try that yoga class I’ve always wanted. I’m actually going to make my sleep elixir every night. I’m going to have an evening routine.” Whatever.

Kimberly Snyder: Emotionally … I think this is a big missing one for a lot of us. That and the spirituality one is, “Hey, I’m going to process. I’m going to do some work. I’m going to join a community.” Again, the Solluna Circle is really designed for this. “I’m going to journal.” Whatever it is, whatever I’m doing to take care of my mental health and me emotionally. Or fourthly, spiritually, I’m going to commit to my meditation practice. I’m going to clear clutter from my house. I’m going to create a little meditation corner in my room, in my bedroom, whatever.

Kimberly Snyder: So one avenue is to pick one cornerstone, and to clean it up, and then to move to the next one. The other approach is what we do in the Circle, where we look at all the cornerstones through the lens of clarity, courage, confidence, whatever our topic is, and we do one or two things in each of the cornerstones. So for instance, I’m going to drink hot water with lemon every day. Food. Boom. I’m going to do a three minute Abhyanga self-massage every day. Body. Boom. Number three, emotional wellbeing. I’m going to spend at least three to five minutes a day journaling and processing my feelings. And number four, spiritually, I’m going to meditate one minute in the morning and one minute at night every day.

Kimberly Snyder: So I think that you will get the best results, Blair, when you really look at it through those lens. Just me working in wellness now for over a decade, working with so many different people and different types of people and different personalities, I think that this organizational system of the cornerstones is really effective, because it forces us to look at areas that we may not be willing initially to look at or we’re not as connected to, like emotions. We can start to put some thought and love and planning in for ourself, and that’s where I think we can make big life changes. We can also start to get clear that, “Hey, I’m over obsessing about my body. I’m over obsessing about food. And these are pretty good right now, and I’m avoiding the other parts, but that doesn’t feel good. I’m actually not feeling my full power.” Because without the parts that we don’t see, without the emotions and the connection to spirit inside of us, then we’ll still feel empty.

Kimberly Snyder: So I would encourage you, Blair, to do that exercise and maybe just write down the four cornerstones and how you want to approach it. Then you can start feeling resources that you need within it. So for instance, who resonates with you for meditation? What recipes or what do you want to do with food? How do you want to take care of your body? So on and so forth. Once you identify and stay connected to your gut through the whole process, as you choose sources that you can trust, that have your best interests at heart, that love you, that are there for you, then I think you start to filter out some of the not helpful sources. You just move forward with a lot more clarity.

Katelyn Hughes: And we have so many resources over on MySolluna.com. Today, in the show notes, as Kimberly was talking, I was taking some notes. So we’ll link to some recipes and blogs that are relevant to the content we were talking about today, if you wanted to dive in more and get more information while you’re digging into your cornerstone research, Blair, and everybody else who’s listening. And before we let Kimberly go, as always, do you have a thought of the week for us?

Thought of the Week

Kimberly Snyder: I do, Kate. So this is related to our topic, of course. If you’re not driving, you could just close your eyes for a moment. Our quote this week is in the form of an affirmation, and it is: All I have to do is stay connected to my breath and move forward one step at a time. All I have to do is stay connected to my breath and move forward one step at a time. This is the most boiled down, the most simple way of looking at presence. It seems so simple, and it’s like, “But what about this? And what about this?” I promise you, if you are that connected to the moment, and you’re feeling your breath, and all this intuition we’re talking about, that will give you direction, and give you confidence, and give you clarity, if you really just stay connected to this moment and you approach life as it comes … This is very Eckhart Tolle, by the way.

Kimberly Snyder: But it’s just this breath, then this breath, and I can get through here. And you’re not just lost in the mire of anxiety and overthinking and worrying and all the things that crop up. If we can just be with our breath moment to moment, then we’re going to start to see incredible shifts and incredible revelations about our own direction that will start to emerge.

Kimberly Snyder: So I’ll leave you with that thought. Connecting with your breath, connecting with your amazing self. I am so grateful for our time together. Thank you, amazing beauties, who submitted your questions. And for you, beauty, that’s listening to this and maybe there’s something that’s on your mind, I promise you that probably many other beauties have the same thought or the same question. So you can leave your questions over on our website, MySolluna.com, in the podcast section.

Kimberly Snyder: Thank you so much, Kate, my love, for gathering the questions and for being with us today. And beauties, thank you for tuning in, and congratulations on doing something really wonderful for yourself, which is staying connected to the community, staying connected to inspiration and positivity. I love you. I am always here for you. I am listening, so let me know how else we can support you. Otherwise, we will be back here on Monday for our next interview podcast. Until then, take care and so much love.