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: Facing Fear and Getting Your Life Back
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]
Sophia – Orange County, California
I’m afraid of failing and being rejected. How can I overcome these feelings?
Brooklyn – Lincoln, Nebraska
I worry so much about how I look to others and doing the right thing I feel I never experience joy and happiness fully. What are some tips to break this cycle of fear and feel happier?
Ruby – Wilmington, Delaware
I feel like I’m always trying to be perfect to avoid the uncomfortable feelings of conflict. It’s taking over my life and seems like a wasted way to live. Help!
Emery – Dodge City, Kansas
I’ve been told on many occasions that I micromanage – from home, to work, to food and vacations, you name it. I hate the idea of being a control-freak. I want to stop this cycle and start trusting that others. Where do I start?
Inspirational Thought Of The Week
Everything boils down to love or fear. What will you choose?
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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]
- How Foods Affect Your Mood
- 21 Quick and Easy Bad Mood Busters
- The Four Cornerstones
- Breaking Though Old Habits and Fears!
- Meditation For Healing
- Meditation Tips & Overcoming Anxiety!
- 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!:
- Transform Fear To Faith With Gabrielle Bernstein & Power Napping for Your Body & Beauty!
- The Importance Of Self-Care With Ruth Berhe & The Inflammation Weight-Gain Connection!
- On Air With Ella & Tips To Boost Your Mood!
- Elevate Your Mood With Charlynn Avery & The Truth About Yoga
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: Hi, Beauties. Welcome back to our Thursday Q&A podcast. I am very excited for our topic today which is Facing Fear and Getting Your Life Back. All of us deal with fear and it creeps in and if we don’t have tools and strategies to help get it under control, unfortunately it can really influence our decisions, our life path, our direction and we can start to feel really stressed, confused, depleted and not as happy and joyful and satisfied with our lives which is what I think we all really deserve. So this is a really great show and I am super excited to hear all your questions around this topic.
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Kimberly: It really helps to spread the knowledge and it can really help change other people’s lives. I thank you so much in advance and I also want to give you a little reminder, if you haven’t yet, subscribe to our show. That’s another really great way to stay tuned in to our community so that you are really at the forefront of hearing about all the new podcasts that come out, our interviews, our Q&As which is a really great way to promote your own self care and to keep your motivation up and your inspiration and to keep you really going with your best life and feeling good which is really what we want for you and really the goal of this feel good podcast. We also have our amazing Katelyn waiting patiently on the line. She is our general manager of Solluna and she has gathered the questions today. How are you doing, K? Thank you for being with us today as always.
Katelyn: Yes, I’m excited to be here. I’m really happy we’re talking about this topic as somebody that has dealt with a lot of fear in her life as you guys have heard me talk about. My worry, anxiety, fear has had a hold and in some ways still has a hold of my life that I’m still working through. I think some of the tips Kimberly shared with me privately we’ll share today and hopefully will help you beauties as it’s been helping me work through some of the stuff I go through with anxiety and not wanting to be rejected and fear of failure as we talk about with our perfectionism recovery.
Kimberly: And I’ll share very personally, you know, I love how authentic you are Kay when you speak about all of these things in your life too. One of the things that has been a source of fear for me, vulnerable area in my life I will say is relationships. I tend to, in the past, I’ve stayed in relationships far longer than it really felt good and I think there was this fear of what if I don’t find anybody else or what if nobody else will love me?
Katelyn: Yeah.
Kimberly: Or what if this is as good as it gets? That’s been something that has been part of my life. I will just share with you beauties now that I have shifted relationships and now here we are in October, I’m actually getting married in two weeks. It feels like the most authentic thing for me to choose this partner that I’ve been with now and it just feels so right. It feels like I’m really coming from love and there’s no fear as far as like, “I’m going to stay with this person because it’s easier or because we have this, this and this.” Versus, “Hey, I’m choosing love.” It’s a little bit scary to leave somebody, but on the other side if you really do stand in your truth and you don’t settle I really believe that’s when the big outrageous love comes in.
Kimberly: I think when we’re authentic that’s when the opportunities come and we can start to have our outer doing in alignment with our inner being. If fear is ruling us then I think that we miss out, we lose out on the opportunities, on the big love, on the big life shifts and everything that could really light up our life in the biggest way. This is a big topic for me too, K, because I too have dealt with a lot of fear. For me the fear is more in my personal life I would say versus my professional life where I tend to write about what I want and go for different things. We all have different areas that we’re working through.
Katelyn: Mm-hmm (affirmative), yeah, totally and thank you for sharing your personal story. As you guys know, for me it took years with relationships. I think that’ll be a topic we’ll touch upon today for people because our personal lives and our professional lives take up a huge amount of time in our life and they’re important. We’ll see what the beauties are thinking as we dive in and get some tips and tricks.
Kimberly: Nice. Awesome, love.
Question 1: I’m afraid of failing and being rejected. How can I overcome these feelings.
Katelyn: Okay, so let’s see. So Sophia is living in Orange County, California and she’s asking, “I’m afraid of failing and being rejected. How can I overcome these feelings.”
Kimberly: Sophia, thank you so much for your question. Thank you for kicking this off. I think that this is something that we can all on some level, in some form really relate to. Nobody likes to feel rejected. Nobody likes to feel like they’ve failed of course. Again, like we spoke about, it could be in a relationship, it could be in a friendship, it could be in a job, it could be being rejected by family members. Whatever it is it comes from a very deep root I think and I think it could even a lot of times come from different aspects of our childhood and childhood wounds. I know for myself and Katelyn too, we are recovering perfectionists. I used to be so fearful around this idea of messing up that if I didn’t think I would be the best at something or I didn’t think I could really succeed, sometimes I wouldn’t even do it.
Kimberly: That’s where that missing out on life really starts to come into play because we’re letting the fear have such a big impact on our decisions. First of all, we just have to recognize that this is there. I think it’s a very real thing. I think if we dance around it and we don’t acknowledge it, like I didn’t really acknowledge that I was a perfectionist for a long time. I sort of thought that this was how it was, how it had to be. I think the fact, Sophia, first of all that you are getting this out of you and writing this question and even pondering this I think this is the first step in our healing. This idea of being rejected and failing means on some level that we are pinning our self worth on our outer achievements. It means that it feels fragile to us, it feels that we have to earn love.
Kimberly: It feels that we have to be a certain way, look a certain way, do a certain thing or amount of things in order to deserve love, to deserve acceptance. Again, I think this is actually really common, unfortunately. All our parents do our best, everybody is… teachers, whoever, caregivers, everybody around our child is doing our best but we pick up these ideas. Could be from the media, it could be from those around us, it could be from other kids, but I think this is a very widespread issue, one I call not-enoughness. It’s only when we can start to connect to our innermost essence, our innermost being and we can stay anchored in that then when we fail as we all do, by the way, and when we get rejected or what we perceive as rejections don’t feel as dire or as serious.
Kimberly: So let me give you an example. It used to really hurt me when I would get a blog comment about something, someone saying something like, “Oh, I don’t think you should be talking about whatever, black beans.” There’s always… someone will have a different opinion and if someone said it a little bit harsher or what I perceived as a rejection, I used to get actually upset. I would write these long comments back and try to convince them and get them to like me. I didn’t want to feel rejected. Honestly, this is a process that I think we can all go through day by day, week by week, year by year and here I am today and I’ve done so much work on connecting with myself. I’ve done that, again, through the lens of our four Solluna Cornerstones. I’ve incorporated a lot more grounding foods.
Kimberly: First of all, let me just say, now through working through the Four Cornerstones before I get into specifics, I feel so much more connected to myself that these things, these so called perceived slights, these comments, just interactions around, there’s always going to feel like, “Oh, people are judging me or rejecting me if we tune into it.” But since I feel so much more grounded in myself it really rolls off my back. I’m like, “Oh, they feel a little bit differently. That’s just how it is.” Sometimes it bothers me more than others if I’m feeling a little bit more vulnerable myself but it’s nothing like how it used to bother me. Do you remember, K? Because I would come running or crying to you depending on what it was. If somebody made a comment or said something that I took very personally about my work. Do you remember?
Katelyn: No, I do and the personal work it takes, it’s hard when we feel criticized or if we feel rejected. I think at our core we all want to be loved and we want to feel accepted. That’s our nature I think as human beings. For sure, thank you for sharing that vulnerability. I was thinking of times that I’ve been rejected or didn’t do a project or whatever, there’s a criticism on something. I think everybody who’s listening could probably imagine that happening. I get flushed in the face when that happens so there’s that physical body reaction where your palms get sweaty and your heart races and stuff like that. You get this reaction where it’s really affecting you. I have a lot of trouble with people affecting me and trying to keep them from affecting my happiness because somebody could say something and then it messes up my whole day.
Kimberly: Oh, yeah.
Katelyn: Then as you mentioned, that does start to affect your life where it’s like, I can’t live like this based on what everybody else thinks.
Kimberly: I think especially as women, we’re pleasers. We want all our friends to like us. We don’t want any drama. We want our boyfriend or our husbands to be happy. We want our children to… it’s just endless, all the ways we try to please. I was so much in that boat.
Katelyn: Yes.
Kimberly: For me, again, through this connection, deeper connection with myself where I know that things are going to happen in the outside and people are in different places energetically and vibrationally and not everybody is going to agree with me and not everybody is going to get me. But instead of being so rocked by that, the connection with myself is the shelter that I have against all of this stuff on the outside in the outside world where it comes, but it doesn’t have to feel like it’s knocking over the house. So if you think about it as the analogy of really strengthening the foundation of ourself, your own house, putting yourself in the earth, in the ground. So this house may have winds pushing against it, it may have all sorts of things around it, but your house is strong.
Kimberly: So from the four Solluna Cornerstones, food-wise, I have just incorporated a lot of grounding foods, a lot more hot foods, by the way than I used to have a couple of years ago. For me, when I say hot foods I mean soups and stews are almost my nightly dinner whereas in the past I might have a salad with a couple of things on top, I find really grounding foods, I put a lot of ginger, cumin, turmeric, just earthy spices that promote circulation so I can feel the warmth of my body. I can feel the strength of my body. I also have a lot more black beans and lentils now than I did five years ago. Grounding foods, root vegetables like carrots I have almost daily. So for me, all of these sorts of grounding foods mixed in with the glowing green smoothie which is obviously lighter and some of our other foods, but making sure that for me it’s really dinnertime as I’ve always talked about in our light to heavy principle.
Kimberly: Having grounded foods allows me to feel more strong and connected with myself and sure of myself. From a body perspective, I would say the biggest thing for me in connecting inside is breath work, or one of the biggest things. So whenever I remember or even leave a little note for yourself that says, “Breathe.” Just notice when you’re withholding breath and oxygen from yourself and just take some deep breaths in and out and settle into your body. Just pause whatever you’re doing. I always say to you, K, we’re going to do some mini-meditations now. Close your eyes, close down your computer for a moment. There’s a whirlwind. If we get swept up into it, even swept up into text messages and text chains and email chains and social media, we are pulled, pulled, pulled. That is the time to reset where you breath in and out through your nose all the way down into your belly. Feel your body. Feel that connection that you have to yourself.
Kimberly: Emotionally for me, this is where journaling and introspection are critical to our well being. If we’re bothered by something over and over again and we don’t really stop to think, “Hey, what is the root of this or why does this really bother me?” Which is a concept that I talk about in Recipes for Your Perfectly Imperfect Life, that’s the shadow work. That’s where you really know yourself. If we don’t really know ourselves, we are not going to be fully strong in ourselves. So Joseph Campbell talks about the hero’s journey and basically there’s different iterations but it’s this idea that we need to go into the dark so to speak which isn’t scary and the bad parts. It’s exploration. It’s like this wound is here. I’m always triggered when someone says X, Y, Z. The shadow work is peeling back the layers. Why does this bother me? Sitting with it. Even if it’s uncomfortable, that becomes the source of our greatest power.
Kimberly: We start to unlock more knowledge and wisdom about ourselves. In the hero’s journey it’s this idea where the hero has to go down, down, down to the bottom of the lake and at the bottom of the lake is the sword. Then the hero has to fetch the sword at the very, very bottom and kind of come back up and there’s challenges as he comes up, but as he arise back up, or she in a lot of our cases. He or she comes to the surface of the lake with the sword, with the pearl, with the knowledge, with this ability. The sword is very symbolic in many cultures. Durga has a sword for cutting through self doubt and ego and delusion and things that are not who we really are. But the hero has to go down.
Kimberly: So as it applies to us, I think when something bothers you, in this case, if you’re really fearful of something, this idea of getting it on paper and maybe exploring what’s the worst thing that can happen? If somebody says something mean, is that the worst thing? Is the worst thing that this person doesn’t like you? Then sitting with that and think, “You know what? If I did my best, if I am in my truth, maybe that person isn’t going to be the closest friend to me anymore.” Or if I go for this job and I go through three interviews and I fail, I don’t get the job and that’s the worst thing, I probably learned a lot through the interview process. At least I tried and then I’ll go for another interview.
Kimberly: I just think maybe playing out worst case and sitting with it and looking at it and thinking about what is it that bothers me such? What is the root? Sometimes I think why was I so obsessed with being skinny? It’s not just about skinny. What does skinny mean? Skinny means people think I’m pretty. Why do I care if people think I’m pretty? Then it means that people will like me more and guys will like and girls will want to be my friend. It’s like actually I want to be liked, I want to be accepted, I want to be loved. When we can really see, oh, that’s what it’s all about then we can say, but I can be liked for me. I can start to unravel those stories. It doesn’t happen instantly. For me this is process, for all of us it’s a process but I’m telling you guys, journaling, processing this emotional well being, third cornerstone is so powerful because that is a big part of the shadow work and knowing ourselves.
Kimberly: When we know ourselves we start to get really comfortable with ourselves and then we come into our fullest power and then we’re unstoppable. Then when people make these comments or the rejection starts to come in we’re not as thrown off. Finally, the fourth cornerstone is really spiritual growth, a spiritual connection. That’s where the time is spent that’s so valuable in stillness, in meditation and nature. Where we can really breathe and just connect with who we are inside of ourselves and the more that we have that time it will start to feel really joyful. It will start to feel expansive.
Kimberly: Again, we’re not as rocked as much from outside opinions and the outside world. Again, we have a lot of support for this in the journaling and everything in the Solluna Circle which we’ll include in the show notes. This is something I’m really passionate about. It’s super easy to enter. It’s around five bucks a month but I feel so passionate about this offering because I really do want you to feel good and I want you to understand and to live and breathe this idea of wellness as a lifestyle not just what we eat and how we exercise but again taking care of our inner world and our self connection and our spiritual growth and emotions. Again, I think that’s so important.
Katelyn: That’s why our tagline is nourish your whole self and feel good, right, because it’s this journey that we’re going on through the four cornerstones and it doesn’t happen overnight. I think it’s so great to break them down in that way for everybody, no matter where you are you can start with one cornerstone and reflect on that and then you have your checklist of things to go through when you need support.
Kimberly: Yes, thank you, Kay. It’s true.
Katelyn: I like to draw on a piece of paper four quadrants and then I write them down and work it like that when I’m journaling.
Kimberly: Me too. I love it. I love the visual of the… there’s a stability to four. For most of us, there’s one cornerstone that we tend to have to put more work into so this visual, this idea, the concept of it I think can really help you in your life because maybe you’re overfocusing on food and body and you actually need to spend more energy sorting through your emotions about something or nurturing yourself in that way and that way it starts to be more clear when you can see it.
Question 2: I worry so much about how I look to others and doing the right thing. I feel I never experience joy and happiness fully. What are some tips to break the cycle of fear and feel happier?
Katelyn: Yeah, that’s true. Okay, guys, let’s see what Brooklyn from Lincoln, Nebraska, is thinking. I worry so much about how I look to others and doing the right thing. I feel I never experience joy and happiness fully. What are some tips to break the cycle of fear and feel happier?
Kimberly: Brooklyn, thank you so much for your question. I send you lots of love, sister, from my heart to yours because I really… I can feel it. I can feel that when we put so much emphasis on our external, whether it’s our look, how we look physically or our achievements, it’s always going to go up and down. We’re always going to have bad hair days and we’re going to age. We’re going to go up and down in our careers and it really does diminish joy and happiness. So everything that I spoke about at length with Sophia, first of all, I have to say, obviously this applies to you as well, Brooklyn, the idea of the four cornerstones and grounding in. What
Katelyn and I were just talking about, really thinking about what areas that you need to focus on. Our natural state is not fear. Our natural state is peace and joy. I 100% believe that.
Kimberly: I think we come into the world, this drop of consciousness, this baby that’s trusting and alive and bright and then over time we have things happen to us and we start to develop more fears and we start to get more blocked. We have wounds and we hold onto past pain. This is really the root of fear. It’s almost like we need to go in and pull out the weeds of fear. Now, besides what I talked about this idea of breaking the cycle of fear is first of all, the exercise of writing down some things that you want to achieve. Whether it’s a new job or if you’re feeling fear about moving out on your own away from your friends or whatever it is.
Kimberly: Then I want you to really contemplate what is the worst thing that could happen if I go down this route? So you can start to say, “Hey, even if that happened, life would still go on. I’d still be breathing and still be fine.” I think it’s important to explore that so that you’re… not that you’re attracting it in but you’re playing it out so that you don’t have to be fearful about it. It’s not this big unknown. You can sit and breathe through it and be like, actually I’d still be okay. Second of all, I think that baby steps are very, very helpful. So you get that confidence, you know, what some people call task completion.
Kimberly: You start to exercise your muscles so to speak of really being able to tune into yourself and know, “Hey, look at what I did.” Maybe it’s just this one step of sending an email or, “Hey, I did it. I did a weekend trip by myself. I don’t have to be scared about traveling by myself.” Whatever it is, or half a day and you’re trying to build up to doing a yoga retreat by yourself, whatever it is. Little steps will start to give you that confidence. It’s like little steps when we change our diet. I don’t usually overhaul someone’s whole entire diet unless that goes with their personality. For most people, it’s like, “Oh, I’m going to have hot water with lemon first before I have my coffee. Oh, I’m going to replace lentils with fish some dinners. That’s pretty filling so I don’t just have to have fish.” Just these little steps start to really build. Here at Solluna we always say, small, simple steps that really start to add up.
Kimberly: I think the same thing here. When we’re trying to break the cycle of fear, like if you lay out your goals and then you give yourself little baby steps that work towards your goals as you start to check them off the box then you’ll start to realize that all of this fear is unfounded, right? We’re all just trying things and shifting and doing our best in the world. We take steps and then we kind of take two steps forward and we go one step back but the fear is paralyzing. FDR saying, “There’s nothing to fear but fear itself.” It’s true. That is the state of paralysis, decision paralysis where we don’t want to do anything anymore and then we end up in our own little obsessive world. It’s like, “Oh my god, all these things that seemed so scary actually aren’t scary. They don’t have to control me anymore.” As we start to unlock more and more of these little baby steps we can start to open up an expanse and eventually get past the fear.
Katelyn: I love task completion. I was actually giggling inside as you were explaining the last step and as always before we take the break I like to suggest a little something to do. Today I was thinking you guys could write down maybe three things like baby steps that you want to work on. One thing I’ll add in is I’m trying to reboot and lose weight for my wedding because I’ve recently gained weight and I haven’t been following beauty detox 100%. I started having my glowing green smoothie again today and that felt really good. That’s one of my checked boxes. If you guys want to think of a baby step as we head into our break here that would be lovely. Them Kimberly will be back and answer the last two questions.
Break
Kimberly: Hi beauties, we are back from our break and we’re talking about facing fear and getting your life back. I can’t wait to hear what your other questions are. This idea of facing fear I think is so healing because then we realize that we don’t have to be controlled by anything. We realize that we are all so much stronger than we give ourselves credit for. I’ll say that I was talking about relationships earlier as being a really big source of fear. Another fear I had in my life I want to share with you briefly is the fear of losing loved ones. I think probably all of us have that fear. When my mom got sick and she was diagnosed with cancer it was like this shock because my mom has been organic, mostly vegan, plant based., you know, been that kind of person that’s been using shower filters for 20 years.
Kimberly: She was the last person that I thought of my circle of loved ones would actually get sick. It was this big fear of losing her. Like, “Oh my god. Not my mom.” I would pray, I would be like, “Okay, but not my mom. Not my mom.” Then when it became clear that she was going to transition it was really crazy, K. It was like, “Oh my god, all my fears are coming true. This is happening. This train is moving and we can’t stop the train.” Of course, this is a big loss and I say with compassion anybody else that’s been through losing a parent, particularly losing your mother, but I will say that that’s when I learned how strong I was. I was managing things. I was talking to the doctors. My dad was a mess so I was the one that was really holding everything together and Bubby wasn’t even a year old. Anyways, I faced that fear and I went through it.
Kimberly: I think, again, on the other side I felt my strength and of course I miss her and if I had to choose obviously I wouldn’t have lost her but I feel this closeness and this connection and this bigger connection with myself having gone through something like that. The most dire, terrible things that we can imagine that can happen to us in life I really believe, this is my own spiritual belief, I don’t think God or the universe, whatever word you want to use. I don’t think that we’re given things that we can’t really handle. I think that we can really go into our depth, go into ourselves, get the strength and bring that out of ourselves. I just wanted to share that before we get into the next two questions.
Katelyn: Thank you. I think it’s important when we share our personal experiences because everybody has I think that fear. I know I do. I haven’t gone through something like that but it’s good to know that hearing other people that get through it so when it does come up you can relate back to that.
Kimberly: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Question 3: I feel like I’m always trying to be perfect to avoid the uncomfortable feelings of conflict. It’s taking over my life and it seems like a wasted way to live. Help!
Katelyn: So we have Ruby from Wilmington, Delaware. I feel like I’m always trying to be perfect to avoid the uncomfortable feelings of conflict. It’s taking over my life and it seems like a wasted way to live. Help.
Kimberly: Ruby, thank you so much for your question. I think a lot of us want to avoid conflict. I know for me uncomfortable conversations are something that really… are something that I really try to avoid. As a writer sometimes I’ll be like, “Oh, let’s just message about it. I’ll get my thoughts out.” But it’s really me avoiding the conflict to be honest.
Katelyn: Right.
Kimberly: It’s not comfortable. So when it boils down to it though, there can be so-called perceived conflicts all across our life but maybe we don’t have to see it as conflict. Maybe there’s a way to see it as speaking our truth. It doesn’t have to get heated. It doesn’t have to be mean. It doesn’t have to feel like we’re not being ourself. I think there’s a way, going back to what we talked about in the first question with Sophia to stay so rooted and grounded in ourself that even when something comes up we start to feel… we can still feel connected. We can start to feel kind. Work wise in running Solluna, as you know well, K, sometimes I would get upset about a team member. Like I expected this and then they wouldn’t listen and this happened. I would come crying to you or John instead of facing it.
Kimberly: Then I would get angry but it would be passive aggressive and it was all weird. That doesn’t feel good. To your point, Ruby, that feels like avoidance or repression or suppression, all these different things. Instead now if I can stay connected to me and then if I stay connected to me it means I’m staying more connected to you, the person that I may have to approach about a so-called issue or whatever. I can see the person underneath the behavior so there’s still this connection which really feels good. Instead of being like, “Oh, how am I going to deal with this? It feels gross.” I can be like, “Oh, Jenny, it’s kind of a bummer because we talked about you doing it this way and after we talked I thought it was going to look like this but now this happened so it doesn’t feel that great to me because I thought we talked about it. I want to talk to you. How do you feel? What do you think about it?” If I can approach it more like that where I feel calm and I’m expressing myself but I’m doing it in a connected way-
Katelyn: Right.
Kimberly: -then I don’t have as much fear about approaching people. I used to think that it was either hey, we’re having this conversation, we have the same opinion, we’re on the same way or it’s going to turn into a mess and I want to avoid that. Actually, like I said, there’s a way to approach these topics from a place of connection and then it doesn’t feel so fearful and stressful.
Katelyn: Yeah. I deal with that a lot too. I hate conflict. It puts a pain in my stomach. I won’t want to confront somebody or say something because I’ll be worried about what their reaction will be or it goes back to that self love we talked about. Will they be mad at me or will they think I’m not good and this and that. I think that’s such a great way to put a tip in of just staying calm and knowing that the other person’s reaction isn’t a reflection of us and it’s okay to talk about things and it’s okay that people don’t feel the same way that we feel about it because that’s the way the world goes.
Kimberly: For sure.
Katelyn: Everybody has an opinion and if we try to manage that we’ll never win.
Kimberly: Mm-hmm (affirmative), exactly.
Question 4: I’ve been told on many occasions that I micro-manage. From home to work to food to vacations, you name it. I hate the idea of being a control freak. I want to stop the cycle and start trusting others. Where do I start?
Katelyn: Okay, guys. So we have one more question from Emery from Dodge City, Kansas. I’ve been told on many occasions that I micro-manage. From home to work to food to vacations, you name it. I hate the idea of being a control freak. I want to stop the cycle and start trusting others. Where do I start?
Kimberly: Emery, thank you so much for your question. There’s so much wisdom in your question because you brought up the magic word which is trust. This is something that is so applicable to me, to many of us. Micromanage means control and control means we’re trying to feel safe. If we’re trying to feel safe it means that we don’t really trust life. We can grow up in a world where it’s like it’s safe and sometimes bad things happen or we can grow up from the perspective of there’s a lot of bad stuff that could happen and so you don’t really feel safe. Again, I think there’s some deep roots here that a lot of us have developed. We could have picked it up from anywhere in our childhood, from coaches to school to teachers, whatever, parents. It’s not blaming, it’s just acknowledging, “Hey, everybody is doing their best but by the way this is a real thing. This is something I want to work through.”
Kimberly: The fact that you’re asking this, Emery, means you can feel it. You want to trust more. It’s come to a head. I think that’s a really positive thing, the fact that you’re even acknowledging this as something that… you know, you’re at the point to let go of controlling which is where I’ve gotten to in my journey. I didn’t realize I was a control freak for a long time either. Bubby has… being a mother and having a child has really taught me a lot about letting go and letting things be messy and letting things not always be so perfect. For me, this goes back though, the root of everything and many other things which I’ll get to in a moment. The thing is how do we develop more trust, more trust of life, more trust of the world.
Kimberly: For me, again, it’s not that everything’s going to work out the way that you want it to. We don’t really know what’s going to happen but what we do know is that we have the power of the present moment. Trust, if we can be right here and breathe. We can obsess over the future, we can obsess over the past and that’s part of that micromanaging and being a control freak. Like, “Well, I had to do this and this and this because in the future it’s going to be like this and this step is going to lead to this. If I do this then I’m going to get the promotion 10 steps down or if I go like this then I’m going to be able to have the perfect vacation or whatever it is.” Versus actually starting to foster a relationship with being more present. So, Emery, this is where… I’ve been doing some Instagram stories about this idea of really setting up your space for stillness, for meditation.
Kimberly: For me, scent is very, very powerful so when I sit down to meditate I almost always now light my frankincense incense which is my favorite scent. It’s this hundred million year old tree that is believed by the rishis and sages to really help with meditation. So I light my scent, I light a candle so there’s a visual, there’s a scent. I sit in the same place. Then that helps me, you know, when I’m breathing something it’s hard not to have that make you feel more present because it’s like, “Oh, this smell is coming in. That wasn’t in there a moment ago.” Again, these little tips, these little things that you can start to pull in to this moment can be very, very powerful. This is an exercise in presence.
Kimberly: Controlling is an exercise of I’ve got to let go. I’ve worried about everything in the future. I can’t control it. What I can do is show up in my fullest light right now, show up in my fullest energy in this moment. If you find yourself starting to go down the path of, “Oh my god, 10 steps ahead and four days into the vacation…”, just start to train yourself to breathe as we spoke about earlier. Take some deep breaths. Get into the moment and remind yourself, “Hey, I’ve done some planning. That’s the best I can do. Right now, I’m going to be present. I’m going to be really talking to whoever I’m talking to. I’m going to take some deep breaths. I’m going to enjoy this moment.” And that morning and night meditation, starting the day and ending the day in a point of presence even if it’s a minute. Maybe pursuing some of our guided meditations. We have free ones over at Solluna or there’s tons of meditation apps.
Kimberly: Whatever resonates with you, it doesn’t matter. Find a way to get that into your life. If you don’t meditate often, let’s say it’s like once a month, it’s very hard to foster that as a tool for meditation. It’s more like even if we do a little bit at a time, a minute here, a minute there, the consistency like we were saying earlier I think with Brooklyn’s question about building up this muscle. We start to understand it more, what it means to be present. The more present we are the less we feel like we have to micromanage everything and the less we have to control because we realize that there is so much fullness. There is so much beauty in this moment that if we are showing up in this moment we don’t have to worry so much about everything else. Coming from someone who has been a control freak, who has worried a lot about the past and the future, of course, I still do by the way.
Kimberly: This is a journey. I am on it. I’ve been really getting some bad nights of sleep lately because there’s so much going on right now. We are moving. We are getting married. There’s just a ton of things on my mind and I haven’t been sleeping well but I know I have the tool when I’m up at 3:00 in the morning to calm myself down is to breathe and to do some sort of mini meditation even lying down in my bed. To remind myself, the knowing, “Hey, you’re not going to be able to control everything so don’t think that you can.” That’s not the goal. The goal is can I breathe now? Can I be here now? That is the way out, Emery. I really think so. Then also another practical exercise is writing down aspects of things and seeing what’s the most important and then letting go of the rest. For me, the most important thing about our wedding is the spiritual part in the ceremony.
Kimberly: We have a monk from the self realization fellowship coming and we’re doing some really cool things, releasing doves and so on and so forth. To me, I’m like, “That’s set up.” So maybe every detail of the wedding might not be perfect, but as long as I’ve put energy into the bigger stuff I could feel good about that and then that becomes the practice of letting go. That’s a whole other subject, but the book that we always recommend for this is by Dr. David Hawkins, Letting Go. He describes that drop. That feeling like oh my god, control, control, control. Then you literally just decide, I’m going to let it go. It almost feels like a weight. You drop down into your body. It’s pretty amazing. This idea of being present and then consciously letting go and then consciously focusing on the bigger details are all ways to get past this.
Katelyn: So many amazing tips in today’s show. I’m sure a lot of beauties are going to want to listen to this one twice to make sure they got everything. We will have awesome show notes over on mysolluna.com linking to blogs and other resources that dig into this topic a little bit more. Before we let you run, as always do you have an inspirational thought of the week for us?
Thought of the Week
Kimberly: Yes, for sure, K. Here it is, beauties. I think this is the perfect one to leave with you that you can ruminate over and just let it settle into your subconscious, into your conscious, just think about it, feel into it. Everything boils down to love or fear. What will you choose? So everything really is either one or the other when it boils down to it. So when we’re coming from fear, it means that we are not coming from connection and love and oneness, connection with ourselves and connection with other people. Fear is the biggest block. Fear blocks our life, what we achieve hourly, but it also has a physical effect. It’s stressful. It affects our hormones, our adrenals. Everything is affected by fear. So choosing love, choosing to be in love with life versus always being right or always being successful or only trying things that you can so-called control being in safety and with relationships. Choosing love over fear is the goal here. That is the life changer and where can we look at something, a situation through the lens of love versus fear?
Katelyn: Beautiful, K. Well, thank you so much for those thoughts and today’s show. As always, beauties, we love to hear from you. If you can head over to mysolluna.com/askkimberly, fill out that form, we want to keep getting your topics and thoughts so we can keep the show as relevant to you as possible.
Kimberly: Awesome, K. Thank you so much for gathering the questions. Love you lots, appreciate you so much, and beauties, we love you too. We are so grateful for our community, for our space to be real and authentic and really go into these topics which effect our day to day, how we feel about ourselves and how we feel about life. You know, it’s great to be skinny if that’s what you want. It’s great to have great skin. These are all parts of the lifestyle. You know having health and our beauty, but that’s not it. That’s not all there is to it. There really is our experience of life, how we feel on a deeper level.
Kimberly: You know, what K said earlier, our tagline, nourish your whole self and feel good. So thank you for being on this journey with us. We appreciate you so much. Please keep the questions coming as K mentioned. We love to hear what you are thinking and wondering about. Remember we also have daily inspiration for you at @_kimberlysnyder on Instagram. So sending you lots and lots of love. Be sure to check out the show notes over at mysolluna.com and we will see you back here in just a few days on Monday for our next interview podcast. Till then, take care and so much love.
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