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 Live The Perfectly Imperfect 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]
Adrian – Brisbee, Arizona
How can I get past what others view as the “ideal size”?
Jenna – Carmel, California
With so many fad diets out there, do you have any tips on how to feel comfortable in the choices we make to eat the Beauty Detox way? People can really make you feel bad about your choices.
Hayley – New Castle, Delaware
In order for me to start living a perfectly imperfect life, I need to know where to begin. Is it our thoughts first, our spirituality, or the way we eat and how much we exercise. I’d like to hit all areas without feeling overwhelmed. Suggestions?
Lauran – Logan, Colorado
I’m having difficulties with self-acceptance. Sounds like you’ve gone through this too Kimberly, and was hoping to get more advice on simple tools I can start using a little each day, so I don’t quit.
Inspirational Thought Of The Week
You are and you always will be in this lifetime, perfectly imperfect.
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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 to Like Yourself More, And How This Improves Your Health
- The Four Cornerstones
- How to Explain to Others What You Eat (You Don’t Need to Defend Yourself)
- 9 Tips for Helping Friends and Family Transition to Beauty Detox
- Improve Relationships with Carol Allen & The Amazing Benefits of Journaling!
- Embracing Change and Finding the Sunrise at the End of it
- Basic Tools And Techniques To Start A Meditation Practice (Video)
- Probiotics
- Detoxy
- Digestive Enzymes
- Feel Good Starter Kit
- FREE Gift: 7-Day Meditation Series (DIGITAL COURSE)
- Recipes For Your Perfectly Imperfect Life
- Be a part of the community Join the Feel Good Circle
- mysolluna.com/askkimberly
- Four Cornerstones FREE PDF: Text the word: feelgood (833) 744-0079
Other Podcasts you may enjoy!:
- Why Beauty & Self Love Are Connected!
- Does The Beauty Detox Lifestyle Provide Enough Protein?
- The Importance Of Self-Care With Ruth Berhe & The Inflammation Weight-Gain Connection!
- Cutting Out Expectations and Reducing Disappointments
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: Hey Beauties and welcome back to our Thursday Q&A podcast. Our topic today is how to live the perfectly imperfect life. This is a huge topic of interest for me and I think our whole community. I have shared with you guys, I am a recovering perfectionist. I think this facade of perfectionism is a huge cause of struggle and pain for a lot of us, whether it’s trying to uphold a certain image on social media or a certain exact body weight or however it manifests in your life. This was obviously a huge topic it was the topic of my last book, which is called Recipes for Your Perfectly Imperfect Life, that really came around this whole idea of being authentic, the healing of that and the effects on even bloating and inflammation and things that we may think are just physical entities, but actually are largely impacted by our mental patterns and by our emotions and mental health.
Leave a Review and Subscribe on Itunes
Kimberly: This is a big topic. I really cannot wait to hear your questions around this. I think this topic in particular is something we all need to talk about. This is where we can start to elevate our lives and to be happier people and more peaceful. Before we jump in, I just want to take a moment to remind you to please leave us a review on iTunes. These reviews you guys are so important, they help the show expand. They help other beauties like yourself find this information that we’re putting out with love. We put a lot of time and effort into the podcast. As you know, it’s free and it’s just a great way to give back. It’s a great way to exchange energy. Your review could just be a sentence, it could take one minute out of your day but if you could just head over to iTunes and leave us a review, would be amazing so huge thank you in advance.
Kimberly: Also, a little reminder to please subscribe to our Feel Good Podcast. It’s you know, we’re also busy and having to put this podcast in your life regularly and this is the reason that we put so much emphasis on regularity and rhythm, there’s Ayurvedic work, dinacharya, your daily routine and circadian rhythms is that’s how we really maintain optimal health and beauty. It’s not just one thing we do, it’s not being sporadic. It’s not this extreme I’m on and I’m off but just having the podcasts in your life, we believe is a way to keep your motivation up and your inspiration and to stay really connected to the community and to yourself. Please make sure that you subscribe in that way you always get all the info coming in, all the interviews. We have amazing experts that have so much wisdom to share and these Q&A podcasts.
Kimberly: All of that being said, I am going to welcome in our amazing, Katelyn, this beautiful soul who is with us every week. She’s the general manager of Solluna. She is one of the only people I’ve ever met that is incredibly organized and unbelievably creative at the same time. Sometimes those things don’t always go together so we love Katelyn so much and we appreciate her. Katelyn, thank you so much for being with us today as always and organizing the show.
Katelyn: Yes, thank you. It’s a labor of love and we do have some help now, Nicol, give her a little shout out on the team that helps me stay organized. She has come on to help manage the show as it’s really grown so thank you to all you listeners that we’ve really expanded the podcast in 2019. We want to thank you for that, we’re up to Episode 414 today. We’ve been together for quite some time and we hope to keep being with you guys much, much longer.
Kimberly: I think Katelyn can share like it’s expanding, it’s growing, it’s amazing. We actually had an episode that was our record where we had 514,000 downloads.
Katelyn: Yes, it’s a huge show.
Kimberly: It just keeps growing and yes, we love Nicole you guys don’t get to hear her on the show but she is also … I feel so grateful to share with you guys we have this beautiful team of, John who’s by long term partner we love John. Then all women, and this beautiful circle is Solluna Circle within the circle of the team so strong and I love all the women that we get to work with and I respect them so much and they’re all unique and creative and wonderful. A little shout out to Nicole specifically because she is the one that books the guests and organizes everything and she’s also amazing.
Katelyn: Yeah. So she helps so I still have some creative juices with the organization and we hope you guys are loving the shows as we love your feedback so that’s why leaving a review is so important because we actually do go in and read them all and take in what you have to say to improve the show and improve the quality and give you guys exactly what you’re looking for.
Kimberly: Amazing K. Thank you.
Katelyn: Yay. Well, I just want to say congratulations, you had your wedding last weekend so we’re so happy to have you back here. I’m sure there’s a lot of buzzing going around now getting ready to move into your new home. So thank you for making the time.
Kimberly: Yes, I’m a married lady now. It’s amazing to talk about this right now because our lives are perfectly imperfect and I will share that I am divorced. I’ve had ups and downs in my love life for sure and I never thought it would be that way. My parents were married for over 40 years and that’s sort of my model and I always thought it was going to be simple. I always thought I would get married and have kids and be with someone forever and it’s just not the way it turned out for me. Again, this idea of like, oh, it should be this way but it’s this way.
Katelyn: Right.
Kimberly: If we compare ourselves to some standard, you know, life isn’t always … most often isn’t the way we think it’s going to be and it’s all perfectly imperfect. It’s easy to look again on social media, which I think has benefits but I think there’s a lot of draw backs especially for in a vulnerable place, and be like oh my God, look at these perfect families and Oh gosh, like I’m like a divorcee now or I should be this or I should be that. Also, my family, I’m half Filipina, in the Philippines, divorces still illegal.
Katelyn: Wow.
Kimberly: You can imagine, some of my relatives, it’s just like this big thing but I will say that it’s messy. My life is messy, it’s not what I expected it to be but I will say that I am the happiest I’ve ever been. And I say that because even though not everything looks perfect and even physically I’m not doing my hardcore yoga practice right now and I don’t have the same muscle tone and this and that, I feel like myself, I can relax into myself. I don’t feel like I have to hide everything anymore like I can just be me and I can share with you guys yeah, guess what I got divorced and I got remarried and that’s my life. It feels so freeing to be like yeah, guess what I’m not perfect and I’m not pretending to be perfect and there’s a real relief in that there’s a such an incredible release of repressed energy. I think that we don’t even realize how much energy it takes to put up these facades whether it’s oh, everything’s perfect and you pretend to your friends or on social media wherever it is, it’s like exhausted.
Katelyn: Yeah.
Kimberly: We’ll get into it in the show questions but yeah, guys, I just got married it’s to a guy that thank God I didn’t settle. I wanted to have certain connection and feel something in a certain way and life has a lot of twists and turns for me and then I was able to meet John when I did very randomly at a dinner party and we just hit it off and it was like this immediate click. I think sometimes you have to go through not relationships and learn before sometimes you meet the right relationship. Anyways, it’s not this like perfect path where I didn’t get married right away and then it was married the rest of my life. There’re ups and downs like I said but like I said I do feel myself and that’s what I would wish for all of you in your relationship or with your relationship with yourself starting is that you don’t have to beat yourself up all the time. That you can relax into yourself and relax into your unique light no matter what’s going on. No matter how messy your outer life looks like, no matter what your body shape looks like, no matter what’s going on in your work.
Kimberly: You have a light inside of you that is indistinguishable, in one word. You cannot put it out, you can’t add to it. All the stuff on the outside is nice, we can have the best clothes, and we can have the best fit body but the inner light is what we want to connect to, that’s the perfect part of the perfectly imperfect. There’s a perfect part of us and then there’s the imperfect part. The imperfect part is the humanness, the changing aging body, the jobs that will go up and down, the financial stress that might go up and down all this stuff outside. But the perfect part is the soul, your life, the fact that you’re sitting here and listening to this, you’re breathing, you’re alive.
Kimberly: You are unique being and you have something to offer that nobody else can and so when we tune into that, then we can acknowledge the perfectly imperfect parts of our life, we can share, we can be vulnerable, we can be honest, we don’t have to pretend we don’t have to hide. We’re more real and people feel that deep connection and it starts to open up doors telling you guys it’s true. You start to call in more, there’s more that will flow to you when you relax into yourself.
Katelyn: Well, thank you for sharing all that. I think that was the perfect intro for this show. To have a little background and for you to open up. I think when other people open up it allows other people to feel open and that there’s a space for them to share. So we know we can actually have a two way conversation with everybody listening but know that we’re opening up this space for you to have conversations with other people in your life and be open and share about your perfectly imperfect life that feels good for you.
Kimberly: Yes, and K, one thing I have been craving is that more of a two way conversation so I just want to tell you guys that we have the Solluna Circle, which you’ve probably heard me talk about, I’m very passionate about it. We had an in person one in Dallas, we have them in LA. We have our online Circle, which is where we journal together, there’s elixirs and recipes and foods and practices and meditations around the theme. And we’re to start adding a live Q&A ask session every month so I can hear from you guys and I will answer you in real time and we can sit together like in a virtual circle and have that conversation. I wanted to plant that seed, I love you guys. I want to sit more together and visit, as they say in the south, I love that term so just check that out we’ll have information on our website about that.
Question 1: How can I get past what others view as the ideal size?
Katelyn: Awesome, glad you brought that up. Okay, guys, so without further ado we will jump into the questions for today. Kicking off the show is Adrian from Brisbane, Arizona. How can I get past what others view as the ideal size?
Kimberly: Adrian, thank you so much for your question. I totally get where you’re coming from because I used to also be obsessed with imagery and Ads and magazines and body types and feeling like my thighs should be more straight instead of puffing out and my arms and it gets very specific when we look at what’s considered ideal. Of course, in this day and age, there’s a lot with huge booties and it always changes and it always shifts and there’s always this stuff that’s coming through culturally that’s, revered and then it shifts and it turns. This goes back to what I touched on a little bit earlier, that is the heart of the book, which is really understand like really starting to accept that you are … this is the dualism of life. You are two things always at the same time. You are perfect and you will always be imperfect. If you pin your self worth on the external, which again could be size, it could be your skin, it could be your hair, if you’re having a perfect blowout day or bad hair day, it could be on how much money you’re making. It could be on whether you got that job, if you’re a dancer or model or whatever, or you didn’t. Your self esteem will go up and down like the wind unfortunately, and you will always feel bad about yourself because that’s not sustainable.
Kimberly: We can’t look for oranges on an apple tree, is just never going to give it to us, The only way the only way I could get past the ideal size was tuning into my own energy and to myself, and this is where our Four Solluna Cornerstones are here to really support you in that. First is food and the way we look at food is nourishment and wholeness and the bio energetics of food and how foods can make you feel elevated or calm or supported or soothed. And really proper food combining and everything we talk about from a food perspective.
Kimberly: Body wise, we talked a lot about gut health, and that’s why we have our SBO Probiotics and we talk about your proper skin. I think the more we connect with our bodies, and we balance our bodies, you know, good sleep, then gut health, moving in ways that feel good, we start to connect and we tune in, and it just feels really nourishing and it feels good. It starts to be less and less about just numbers and how many classes we’re doing, but how we feel in our body day to day and that’s very helpful when our gut is balanced, which affects our neurotransmitters and our feel good brain chemicals. When we move in ways that make us feel strong and fit and we sleep enough hours so we don’t feel grumpy and cranky.
Kimberly: Our third Solluna Cornerstone is emotional well being. It’s very important that we feel our feelings, that we express ourselves, that we journal like we do in the Circle, that you have tools, whether it’s community, a trusted friend, ways to process your emotions. There’s a lot of tips and tools, specific tools in the new book Recipe for Your Perfectly Imperfect Life. If we don’t, then we often hyper focus on the ideal size Adrian. This is one thing about the Cornerstones, I find that if we don’t balance one, we often over balance another so if our mental health is out of whack, if we are not processing our feelings, if we don’t have healthy emotions, then we often hyper fixate on our bodies. And that’s something that I used to do in the past as a recovering perfectionist I was really hard on myself, not really talked to anybody about it, I felt lonely.I was a latchkey kid for many years, and I would come home and I don’t know just kind of like, sit there with myself and not express it and not show it to friends or my parents or anything. It came out in eating disorders and a lot of obsession over my body. Emotional well being is the third Cornerstone, very important.
Kimberly: Then the fourth is spiritual growth and this is how we connect to that perfect part of us. If we don’t nourish it, just like we need to have enough protein in the body, we need to have vitamin C, we need a certain level of antioxidants to ward off stress, to ward off free radicals. It’s nourishment that we need. It’s the same thing with our spiritual growth, which isn’t about religion. It’s about connecting to our spirit. It’s connecting to the part of us below the surface so that stillness, time in nature, meditation. We nurture that with different meditations every month, practices, all the ways that your individual practices for that and we certainly have a lot of offerings for you to take advantage of. But again, the more we connect to that, that helps us to not be as fixated on the ideal size as society says, that helps us to get past body shame, that helps us to not feel self doubt all the time. Thinking about it Adrian, through the lens of the Four Cornerstones, and really seeing where you could add some extra nourishment and some practice practices for yourself, I think is the way out of those trappings of what society says and hyper fixation on weight and body, which such a tiny little part of us.
Kimberly: We all want to look good, of course, like we care about how we look, but we can do it in a way that’s not so stressful. We can do it in a way that actually makes it easier to become fit and closer to our ideal way. We can do it and enjoy life and we don’t have to be wound up and feel bad all the time. I really don’t think we have to feel bad and I want you to feel good. I want everybody to feel good and that is possible again through our Four Cornerstone lifestyle.
Katelyn: Speaking of the Four Cornerstones, you brought it up last week. If you guys missed last week’s episode, I’m going to say it again today, that we do have a Four Cornerstones’ guide. It’s absolutely free. You can access it by texting so the number you would text is 555888 and text the word feelgood. One word, feelgood to that number and you’ll get a link to download our amazing Four Cornerstones guide. If you were intrigued by anything Kimberly was just saying when she was explaining each Cornerstone, we really dive deep in this guide and help you really immerse yourself in the lifestyle and get started.
Kimberly: I love it K, thank you.
Katelyn: Of course.
Kimberly: Yeah, it’s just it’s free, it’s easy. We started this texting thing in Dallas, where I was speaking at a conference and it worked really well. And I love the numbers by the way. 555, the reason I’ll share with you guys, I love angels. I love this idea of just spirit all around us and 555 is said to be an angel number of great changes coming. Anyways, I think this idea if you’re listening to this, and you’re like, I’m ready for change. I’m ready to start feeling good, I’m ready to enjoy life more. I’m ready to feel good and look good and all of that, check out this guide, I think you guys will really like it and it has a lot of information in it for you.
Question 2: With so many fad diets out there, do you have any tips on how to feel comfortable in the choices we make to eat The Beauty Detox Solluna way? People can really make you feel bad about your choices.
Katelyn: Yes. So let’s see what Jenna from Carmel, California is thinking. With so many fad diets out there, do you have any tips on how to feel comfortable in the choices we make to eat The Beauty Detox Solluna way? People can really make you feel bad about your choices sometimes.
Kimberly: Jenna, thank you so much for your question. I think, first of all, I think that if someone can influence you to make you feel bad, then we need to work on strengthening the foundation of the house because nobody can make us feel bad. We allow ourselves to feel bad by the influences of others. Again, people saying this, I know it’s not easy, but this is my perspective, like, when friends and family members or people around us are like, “No, no, this way, this way.” It’s still external, it’s still not how you feel in your body. It’s not about you, it’s often about them and they not feeling happy about their choices.
Kimberly: I always say when someone feel … if someone’s going to like get touchy, or be weird, or speak out a lot, let’s say if someone’s plant based and they’re like, oh, and they get so angry and it’s like, why do you care what I’m eating that much? What is threatening to you about being plant based? Do you feel bad about eating a lot of meat or what is this bringing up for you? It’s often someone projecting, they want to reinforce that they’re doing something right. Or maybe there’s something in their mind, it’s going to open up especially with the, in this example, the rain forest fires, like, oh my gosh, is all being caused because of cattle and people eating a lot of meat, the environment is hurting, from all the eating any animal products, quite literally, and quite simply.
Kimberly: When someone doesn’t feel good about what they’re doing, that’s when they’re going to start to project and go outward because otherwise why would they do that? Why would they care? I mean, if I’m around someone and they are eating meat, I don’t really say anything. Unless they asked me I’m not going to sit there and preach and I’m not going to push my way, because I respect everybody’s opinion. Now, I may say what I believe, especially if they asked me, I will say it and point to resources if they’re open to it, but I don’t get like angry and weird about it.
Kimberly: First of all, I would say to strengthen the foundation, like I said, and just tune into yourself. I head back to the Four Cornerstones, do your practices, get stress out on paper, balance your emotions, meditate, connect with yourself and then when it comes up, like oh, I’m doing, keto, or I’m doing whatever, all these diets out there, paleo or this and that, it’s just like, oh, well, I feel really good eating this way. My digestion feels better, my energy feels better so I’m doing this and it feels good to me. So you make it specific about your feeling in your body, it’s not about them doing something wrong. It’s not about making sweeping generalizations, it’s totally about you.
Kimberly: That kind of sets the boundary of, I’m taking care of me and you can do what’s best for you. We can both live and respect and it’s okay to be different. And I think you just keep it simple, you put up those healthy boundaries. Again, you build that from being really clear with yourself, that strong foundation of being connected to your own body and your own feelings and that’s where it stems from.
Katelyn: I love that it reminds me of the conversation we were having last week about being in flow, being in our hearts and not being so rigid. I used to be pretty rigid, when I would try to talk to people about the way I choose to eat and it would kind of cause a little bit of a rift with people and as I started to just live more in flow and use the suggestions that you just mentioned, of just saying, this is the way I like to eat or I feel good eating this way, then there’s not as much of a backlash that could be said opposed to almost passing judgment on other people’s choices and making it seem like my choice was better than their choice. I think having that balance of living a life in flow will help you to not worry so much about what people think of your choices and also what you think about other people’s choices.
Kimberly: Beautiful K.
Katelyn: All right.
Kimberly: Thank you.
Break
Katelyn: Yeah, of course. Well, beauties, it’s that time of the show where we are going to take a short break, and then Kimberly will be back to answer the last two questions.
Kimberly: All right, beauties, we are back from our break. We have two more questions for you guys on this topic that I think we can all resonate with. Our perfectly imperfect lives. Let’s be real, let’s cut through the BS, we’re not perfect on the outside. We’re perfect on the inside because we’re these souls but our lives are never going to be perfect so let’s stop pretending that they’re perfect.
Katelyn: Yeah.
Kimberly: Easier said than done of course, it takes a lot of courage to be vulnerable, to be authentic to trust that you can be yourself. Again, that’s the journey that I’ve been on and sharing about getting remarried and just messiness in my life, but it’s felt freeing and I’ve never felt happier.
Katelyn: That’s beautiful. I was just thinking as you were talking, how we always encourage everybody to journal and I was thinking a good exercise this week, as we always like to tell people things to do at home to be interactive, is to write down in your journal, something that you’re holding back that you haven’t wanted to tell people or maybe you feel fearful of, or you felt shame around because it is imperfect and I think that’s freeing.
Kimberly: Yes.
Katelyn: Kimberly shared in the beginning of the show, something she’s been through as you guys know, I’ve also been divorced and life doesn’t always go in the way we want it to go and I think that that can be freeing so that was just something I was thinking of we could share with the beauties to do on this week’s episode.
Kimberly: Mm-hmm (affirmative) And you know K, another thing that I talk about all the time now, I never used to. This last book, Recipes for Your Perfectly Imperfect Life, is my fifth book and it is the first time I talk about having eating disorders. I remember thinking about it in the past with some other books, and I was like, “Oh god, no, I don’t want people to know about that.” It was like this dark skeleton in my closet.
Katelyn: Right.
Kimberly: It was this dark part of my life. I was bulimarexic. I wouldn’t say anorexic but I controlled, I was like more of a strict dieter. Then when I would get hungry because I was running and I was doing track and cross country. I would actually throw up in my room and I would get these pots, it was very calculating. I’ll get a pot from the kitchen and I would throw up in the pot, and I would hide it under my bed and when everybody was asleep, I would go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and flush it down the toilet and wash out the pot and put it back in the kitchen. It was very hidden, it felt like oh my god, I have all these secrets and I honestly, I didn’t go to counseling, it just faded away. I mean, I didn’t talk about this part, I went to college and ended up going the other way and getting a bunch of weight and eating a bunch of pizza and drinking a lot of beer.
Kimberly: Somehow, like swung the other way, until I got balanced but that was the part that I was like, ooh, people are going to know that I sat in my room and made myself throw up. The reality is millions and millions of girls have bulimia and we’re all struggling like we’re all doing our best on the journey. We have ups and downs and since I’ve talked about it publicly, now I talk about it almost all the time like it all lights up like in the Texas talk I brought it up and-
Katelyn: Yeah, like it’s free.
Kimberly: Why did I feel like I had to hide that? Why do we judge ourselves so much and then think other people are going to judge us? Being real and being kind, I think, are just some of the most attractive qualities and all that judgment we think we’re going to be met with, when we’re real to people they want to be connected. People want to be, they like vulnerability, people like it when you’re honest with them. Instead of being met with judgment, you’re almost always be met with compassion and love and then you don’t have to hide these like so called dark skeletons in your closet. It’s just like we’re all we all have stuff.
Kimberly: Anyways, I like your exercise K and then there’s something you feel like you’ve been hiding from your friends or your boyfriend or whatever, and it’s taking up a lot of energy just trying to hide it, it might be a really beautiful freeing practice for you to figure out the healthy, right way for you to release it into the world or to that person, you know, whatever.
Question 3: In order for me to start living a perfectly imperfect life, I need to know where to begin. Is it our thoughts first, or spirituality, the way we eat or how much we exercise? I’d like to hit all these areas without feeling so overwhelmed. Do you have any suggestions?
Katelyn: Yes, do whatever feels good. I love that. I think this is a perfect segue into Haley’s question and she’s living in New Castle, Delaware. In order for me to start living a perfectly imperfect life, I need to know where to begin. Is it our thoughts first, or spirituality, the way we eat or how much we exercise? I’d like to hit all these areas without feeling so overwhelmed. Do you have any suggestions?
Kimberly: Haley, I love this question. So what I would say to you is to get out a piece of paper and to draw a rectangle or square whatever organically comes to you but something with four sides, probably a square. Then you could put food in one corner number one, body in the second one, third is emotional well being and fourth is spiritual growth. You can spend some time with this like if you do this on a big eight by 10 piece of paper, you can just write a couple notes about your feelings about where you currently stand in those areas. Maybe you’ve been really hard on yourself with food, maybe you’ve been beating yourself up unless you work out like two hours a day. Maybe you are pretty good about feeling your feelings, but you don’t have any spiritual practice or any way to be in touch with yourself, whether that’s taking more walks in nature or meditating or whatever it is.
Kimberly: I think it’s important to do an inventory of your life right now and you can even grade yourself, you can be like, I’m doing pretty well with the food right now but in order to accept myself and to start feeling good, I really do need to be more in touch with the perfect part of me because all I do is focus on imperfections. Maybe I really need to just focus, my number one thing this month is to get into some kind of meditation practice, whether it’s five minutes or three minutes or whatever, morning and night ideally.
Kimberly: You could look at this and you could be like, I’m doing pretty well in these areas but I’m just not really feeling my feelings, I feel numb a lot or it could be body, it could be whatever it is. I think it’s good to grade yourself and the part that comes in third or fourth, I would say is where you want to begin because balance is, it’s like I always say, when I look at my to do list, I say, oh my gosh, sometimes I get overwhelmed, but I do the most important thing first and once that checks off, everything feels more balanced.
Kimberly: Instead of focusing more energy on food, if you’re already pretty good. It’s like, let’s close up the hole or put some, try to close this gushing dam a little bit with some energy and some of our resources and nourishment, whether it’s whatever Cornerstone it in, and then you’ll start to feel more balanced in your life and that will help you determine organically, which other area to focus in, or what next practice to bring in into your life.
Katelyn: I love that idea of drawing it out on paper, that’s something will create for you guys in the future that you’ll be able to print out and download and use it and that’s a great idea so more to come there.
Kimberly: K, if you had to say what your weakest Cornerstone is right now, what would you say?
Katelyn: I’ve been actually, I’ve like not calling it regressed but I’ve definitely regressed around food and I’ve gained weight. That’s something I feel like I’m trying to focus around because I had been working a lot in the other areas and just for different reasons in my life, I kind of had put food on the back burner. So I’m using the skills I’ve learned in my emotional and spiritual practice to kind of help fuel me to get back on track where I feel more like self love for myself than I have in the past and I was hard on myself but just trying to get a little bit healthier right now and just kind of work on the balance a little bit. How about you?
Kimberly: I think for me I’m always working on the emotional part because I am a very passionate person and sometimes I can just get agitated about something or like I kind of just, it swings a little bit you know what I mean?
Katelyn: Yeah.
Kimberly: I’m working on … I’ve been journaling a lot I had this pause like I usually journal a lot, but then I kind of took a break so I’m working on I would say that’s my Cornerstone and like healthy communication skills. I’m always working on and like, my partner John is, now husband, is very passionate too so just like the best way to communicate with him because he can sometimes take things the way that no I’m not meaning them or like we can just kind of like push each others buttons sometimes. Just like working on staying calm, and again, the healthy communication ways so things don’t get misinterpreted. That’s like again, when you come into a new marriage or a new partnership, I think that brings up like, how do we work together? Really work together here. So yeah, so I always say that that’s, probably like my biggest one.
Katelyn: That’s beautiful. Thank you. I’m glad we got to share hopefully guys it inspires you to take out a piece of paper or maybe share with a friend, you could do the same exercise that K and I kind of did here, you could sit with a friend and you could both share what you’re going through and that’s a nice way to kind of communicate and open up about it.
Question 4: I’m having difficulties with self acceptance. It sounds like you’ve gone through this too Kimberly and I was hoping to get more advice on simple tools I can start using each day so I don’t quit.
Katelyn: All right. Well, we’re rounding out the show here with a question from Lauren, and she’s living in Logan, Colorado. I’m having difficulties with self acceptance. It sounds like you’ve gone through this too Kimberly and I was hoping to get more advice on simple tools I can start using each day so I don’t quit.
Kimberly: Yes, Lauren, thank you so much for your question. I have deeply struggled with self acceptance and I love that we can talk about this in our Circle here on the podcast and share with each other. Going back to the Cornerstones, because again, I think this is so foundational, we really have to wrap our head around this. We accept ourselves when we accept our totality and our wholeness. And so you probably heard before your whole and complete as you are. It doesn’t mean, I’m whole when I look a certain way or when I make a certain amount of money, or when I finally get married and have kids one day. That’s not it. It’s like self acceptance is the wholeness in all it’s messy, glory, it’s the now. It’s being here with yourself and saying, “Oh, I have this and I have this and I look like this but underneath it all there is that light that undistinguishable light that cannot be added to and it can’t be taken away from, it just is.”
Kimberly: You just are a light being and there’s layers to us. Beyond the physical, there’s mysterious, the consciousness, the energy behind the processes, the beating heart, the breathing, everything, your soul. And when you connect with that, which is beyond your outer humaneness and your messiness, that’s when real self acceptance starts to happen. For me, it was taking some of this energy I have so much energy. Taking, redirecting it, we talk about the Beauty Detox Solution about redirecting beauty energy. If you guys remember anybody that’s read that book, and we talk about not making digestion so heavy, and then we redirect it to cleaning our blood or to rebuilding the collagen in our skin or all these other processes.
Kimberly: It’s the same thing if we add Four Cornerstones if we’re just like focusing on like, “Oh, I don’t accept myself, maybe I need to be skinnier and maybe I need to eat better, maybe I’m missing this, maybe I need to jump on this fad or do this or this.” No, it’s not that, self acceptance has to happen because we’re never going to be perfect. It has to happen, its messiness, whatever state we are now. To me, the Cornerstone that really gives us that, they all work together but it is the spiritual growth.
Kimberly: The simple tools I will give you Lauren, is to start with spending time with a practice and this is not have to be time consuming, it could be one minute of breathing in the morning, three minute meditation. Again, we have led meditations for you guys, which are like seven minutes, five minutes, like very doable. And just getting comfortable just being with your raw, vulnerable, real self and getting to know her and to love her and to be compassionate with her and to see her in her light and to see her in neat goodness. And to see that she comes from light and she is light and she is love and maybe she’s made a lot of mistakes as we all have. Maybe she is struggling right now, maybe she doesn’t look the way that whatever ideal image in society says but underneath that all there is that light, which can never be put out.
Kimberly: My biggest advice to you Lauren is the only way to touch that I know of is these stillness meditation practices, it could be walking in nature because there is the stillness that emanates from nature and the steady rhythms. Until I started having a practice, which wasn’t really until I got back from my around the world trip and it didn’t happen overnight where I started to accept myself, but that was the number one tool. And then from there, I would sit, I would journal, I would start to know myself because I didn’t really know myself and I wasn’t comfortable with myself. I was always surrounded with people, friends, clients, there was always noise or I would be watching something or something in the background music, but self acceptance comes from being in touch with that realness that beautiful being that you are.
Kimberly: Again, we have lots of resources or check out some of the meditation apps out there. There’s amazing ones available to you. I will say, don’t quit, just spend a little bit of time with yourself every day, whether it’s one minute or three minute meditations or whatever it is, and build up from there, and your self esteem will start to grow, your self acceptance will start to grow because you will realize, finally, you’re more and more. It’s like this Lotus unfolding, that you’re so much more than what you look like and you’re so much more than all these external things that we pin our self worth to. But it’s this knowingness that has to come deep from inside of you, you can’t be bought.
Kimberly: It just comes from inside so you have to do the work. And that comes like little bits and bobs every day meditations, a steadiness to that and really making that a focal point of your morning practice, besides drinking hot water with lemon and drinking GGS and all these other parts. Really spending that grounding time with yourself and that will pay in dividends, that will pay in energy and balance and hormonal balance by the way, and relaxation and a light in your eyes and even better skin, and healthier microbiome and all sorts of things because everything is so connected, like we talked about last week in our mind body connection podcast.
Kimberly: That’s my biggest piece of advice Lauren and I would love for you to join our circle or Solluna Circle online, we talk about self acceptance every single month, we’re going to start doing our webinar Q&A time together, so we will sit together. And I can hopefully give you some real one on love to a conversation more of that so that could be really healthy resource for you. Then again, just any sort of stillness tools that speak to you would be really wonderful.
Thought of the Week
Katelyn: Beautiful, and as always, before we let you go, is there anything you want to share to round out the show for the quote of the week?
Kimberly: Yes. So it’s a little bit of a summary of what we’ve been talking about, but I obviously love this term, perfect imperfect. That’s why it’s in the book title. And it says, here it is guys, I’ll just say it, “You are and you always will be in this lifetime, perfectly imperfect.” And what I mean by that is the duality again, it’s this acceptance, oh, I’m imperfect, it’s okay but the same time, it’s understanding when you tap into that perfect part of you, you will feel all the things that you wanted to feel from making the outside perfect, but you could never get to.
Kimberly: That’s when you feel your real power. That’s when you feel your real beauty. That’s when you connect to that’s so magnetically attractive. You don’t have to grasp and push as much. That’s when it all starts to flow, when you realize you are you will always be perfectly imperfect. You are always perfect, you don’t have to add to it, you don’t have to grasp for it, you don’t have to fight for it but you’re also always imperfect and you’re never going to look always perfect and life isn’t going to be perfect on the outside. It’s always going to be messy but you’re both and when we wrap our mind around that, life starts to be a lot more easeful, a lot more peaceful, and we just have more fun. That’s what I want to leave you guys with. I love you as always, we love you too.
Kimberly: Katelyn, thank you so much for gathering everything, you can leave all your questions over at mysolluna.com. Where is it K, mysolluna.com?
Katelyn: Slash ask Kimberly.
Kimberly: That, thank you, I should know it by now, slash ask Kimberly. We love hearing all your thoughts and what you need support on, we are here for you. We have tons of resources, we love you deeply. We do believe in community, we believe in the Circle. We believe in oneness so let us know how we can support you.
Kimberly: As I mentioned earlier, please make sure to subscribe, it’s a really beautiful self care practice to do for yourself. We also have daily inspiration for you on Instagram and our handle is @_kimberlysnyder. We will see you back here in just a few days on Monday for our next interview podcast. Till then have a lovely, lovely weekend. Take care of yourself, make some nice hot chocolate with some coconut milk or hot milk, some ginger tea, get cozy, spend some time journaling and meditating. And we love you lots see you here in just a few days.
Kimberly: Yay.
Katelyn: Awesome.
so happy to have this podcast in my life.
There is so much wisdom and love being shared!
thank you for sharing and sending this out in the world
Thank you so much Britt. You and the community are why I love doing this show – to be a support for one another, knowing you’re never alone. Sending you so much love! ;)