You Can Be Your True Self Even When Seasonal Affective Disorder Hits [Episode #660]

This week’s topic is: You Can Be Your True Self Even When Seasonal Affective Disorder Hits

We all know that there are these influences around us that we can’t control. And a big one is the seasons, the different rhythms and nature around us and the levels of light. It has an effect on our moods and our energy. This is because we are so interconnected with nature back to the Ayurveda Pancha Maha Bhuta theory, Pancha, meaning five.

And this philosophy means that the five elements found in nature, air, space, fire, earth, and water are the same elements found in our own bodies. So we are going to feel shifts as the seasons continue to shift around us. However, what we want to do is to develop tools and practices that will help us to stay centered, to feel grounded and to stay feeling just in touch with our own energy and feeling expansive and inspired throughout the year.

As we know, Seasonal Affective Disorder can make us overly tied to the seasons in the weather. And we don’t want to be overly tied. We want to perceive and understand that we’re part of this much larger cycle and find ways to shift our energy so that it doesn’t it doesn’t affect us in such a deep, deep way.

I have a member of my family that is very affected by Seasonal Affective Disorder. I have seen the effects of this firsthand as far as major changes in mood, even happiness, tending towards depression. I know this is a very, very serious topic and I want to shed some light and some ways to make this situation more easefull in your life and to not feel so controlled by it.

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]

Charlotte – France 

We’ve been getting some warmer days here and you’d think this would help with my mood. Do you have any tips to help with staying more positive and happy when the weather is so back and forth?

Emily – Nebraska

I’ve been told I have seasonal affective disorder and don’t want to take antidepressants. Do you have any suggestions that are from a holistic approach?

Ava – Belgium

Kimberly – have you ever suffered from the change in the weather? I go completely MIA and want to climb under the covers when there’s extreme changes and am not sure how to tell the difference between SAD or depression. Would love your help in any way possible! Xo

Peyton – Idaho 

I’ve been so negative and having trouble concentrating. What would you suggest I do to start narrowing down what the cause could be?

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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: 00:02 Hi, loves and welcome back to our Thursday, Q&A community show where our topic today is, You Can Be Your True Self Even When Seasonal Affective Disorder Hits. So we all know that there are these influences around us that we can’t control. And a big one is the seasons. A big one is the different rhythms and nature around us and the levels of light. And it has an effect on our moods and our energy. And this is because we are so interconnected with nature back to the AIC Pancho Mahata theory, Pancho, meaning five. And then philosophy means that the five elements found in nature, air space, fire earth, and water are the same elements found in our own bodies. So we are going to feel shifts as the seasons continue to shift around us. But what we wanna do is to develop tools and practices that will help us to stay centered, to feel grounded and to stay feeling just in touch with our own energy and feeling expansive and inspired throughout the year.

Kimberly: 01:19 Because as we know, season effective, um, effective disorder can make us overly tied to the seasons in the weather. And we don’t wanna be overly tied. We want to perceive and understand that we’re part of this much larger cycle, but like I said, we wanna find ways to shift our energy so that it doesn’t AF affect us in such a deep, deep way. I have a member of my family actually, that is very affected by seasonal effective disorder. So I have seen the effects of this firsthand as far as major changes in mood, even happiness, tending towards depression. So I’m know this is a very, very serious topic and I wanna shed some light, no pun intended, but I wanna shed some light on some ways to ease, to make this situation more useful in your life and to, um, not feel so controlled by it.

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Kimberly: 02:20 So I’m very, very excited for our show today, before we get into it, I just wanna leave a little reminder. You may have heard me say this before, but may this be the day that you do you have not yet written us a review on iTunes for our show, please go ahead and do so. It’s such an important and empowering way to support the show from your own voice, from your own energy, even if it’s just one send tense. So please do that. I thank you so much in advance. It really does mean a lot. So again, lots of gratitude there, please also be sure that you subscribe to our show and that way you don’t miss out on any of these community shows or interviews on Mondays. And please share the show with friends, family members, colleagues, anyone that you think would benefit from our community in our vibe, the world needs support.

Kimberly: 03:13 There’s so many amazing souls out there that are struggling and confused. And if you think anybody would benefit, please just, um, share just as I’ve always loved to share, please share with them. And the last thing I’ll say before we get into our show is that my new book, you are more than you think you are practical enlightenment for everyday. Life is here. It is out. It is an amazing self-care to that. You can utilize. It is a way for learning how to tune into your truest self, your authentic expression, and from this deep place to elevate the levels of peace and confidence in abundance and creative power in your life. It’s my full playbook. And I can’t wait to share it with you. You, if you have bought the book, another call to reviews here, I’ll mention it here. I’ve created an incredible self-doubt surviving self-doubt toolkit that came from real life.

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Kimberly: 04:12 I had a real period of self-doubt a few weeks ago, actually. And so I created this little program of the food recipes that helped me move through and the meditations and the actual practices that really started with my body. And I had to shift the energy in my body before my mind could start moving some of that darkness and the self-doubt. So if you leave us a review for You Are More More Than You Think You Are – Practical Enlightenment For Everyday Life, on Amazon. You can screenshot that review and send it over. The information is mysolluna.com and we will send you straight away the surviving self-doubt toolkit, which I have to say, I will be using myself for the next time self-doubt hits. We are human. We are in and out of all these different cycles and all these different experiences. So what I’ve learned now is it’s really just about our tools and practices to keep moving forward, to keep healing the wounds, the triggers, the reactions to keep expanding in our fullest potential, but it does go down to the tools and practices and the awareness, the teaching.

Question #1 around the topic of: You Can Be Your True Self Even When Seasonal Affective Disorder Hits: We’ve been getting some warmer days here and you’d think this would help with my mood. Do you have any tips to help with staying more positive and happy when the weather is so back and forth?

Kimberly: 05:22 So check that out again, just, uh, write a review for the new book and head over to my SA luna.com. And there’ll be a page where you can upload it to get your kit. I’ll write my loves. Let’s get into our topic today. You can be your true self, even when seasonal effective disorder hits. So let’s get right into our first question, which comes right from Charlotte, who lives in France. Hello, my French love. I love France so much. I’ve been there many well, several times, but some extended periods and especially through Southern France. So I’m so happy. You’re part of our community and you write my love. We’ve been getting some warmer days here and there, and you’d think this would help me with my mood. Do you have any tips to help stay more positive and happy when the weather is so back and forth?

Kimberly: 06:17 So this does relate to the central concept of the book, which is true self and ego. So there’s our core, there’s this stable part of us that that means that we have access to this, a stable energy, okay? Like this very calm, wise, inspired and inspiring part of us. That feels what the Yogi say, what Paramahansa, Yogananda says this ever newness, this joy, that sort of bubbles up from inside of you. So we have access to that. And at the same time, when we over identify with the ego, it means that we will continue to have more fear and more struggle. The, so even when it comes to seasonal effective disorder, the ego is sensing things with the senses. So it means that we feel the weather. We see it for those rain is snow. We feel it. You can see what’s going on. You, you sense it in your body.

Kimberly: 07:16 You perceive the temperature changes. And so the only, only way to really move past and to create more resilience into that equanimity that even mindness, where we can still feel lightness and joy. When the weather sucks is to build it from the inside. We build it from the strengthening of our inner connection, to the true self, to this stable energy. We want that energy line to be strong so that when something starts to trigger us like, oh man, it’s gonna rain for five days in a row. It’s totally ruined my plans. There is that temporary disappointment. Of course we’re human. So you’re gonna have some sort of response, but it becomes disordered when it ruins your whole day, it becomes disordered where this frustration can HES for this, you know, prolonged period of time. And it really does mess with your day. You know, as you’re saying here, Charlotte, so what we wanna do is in the morning, in our morning practice, we wanna strengthen our energy so much that we go into the day with as much resilient as possible.

Kimberly: 08:22 It’s easier to come back when we’ve established a foundation than when you don’t have a foundation and you get really off and really moody, right? And then we have to come back over this mountain. So every day we create the foundation. Charlotte, every day you start to move through is flow of your Dina. Charia your daily practice so that your body starts to feel that sense of rhythm. And with rhythm comes a sense of relaxation and security. And with re relaxation and security comes this opening up of the energy and more joy and more peace. So it means that we are continuously starting to work on and say to ourselves, my happiness and my joy and my peace is not tied to what is outside of me. It’s not tied to my relationships a hundred percent. Of course we love our love loved ones, but you know, we can find our center again.

Kimberly: 09:18 If we go through a rough breakup, as I have been through, right, or whatever it is, our happiness and our joy, can’t be just tied to our job because our joy, our job can shift and change. Of course we can enjoy our job. We wanna enjoy what we’re doing here in the world, but there’s something deeper, the happiness and the joy and security comes from inside of you. And so it’s the same thing with weather. It’s something outside of us. It is definitely gonna have an effect and it will definitely inspire us. And hopefully we are shifting our food choices and our habits and our lifestyle in that particular season. And if you’re interested in that topic, we will link in the show notes to many other podcasts, especially with my teacher. Vaidya Jay, where you can learn about herbs and spices and foods and practices in that realm for how to really support yourself.

Kimberly: 10:07 And we actually have one specific for winter that we did last winter, which we’ll be sure to link to with some very practical information. But I will say love that in your morning practice, think of it as every day of new year’s. So how do you wanna feel every day? It says here you wanna feel more positive and more happy. So wanna support your life force, wanna support the energy going up. So in a practical sense, starting the day from a very, um, nurtured place, nourished place of hydration is gonna feel, feel better for your brain. It’s gonna feel better in your body. So drink lots of room, temperature, water, hot water with lemon. When you wake up, it’s also essential that you are supporting your gut health. So please take your, uh, two SBO Solluna Probiotics. Every day we shift worldwide, by the way.

Kimberly: 10:53 And so we know that effective prob are very powerful tool for creating a very healthy microbiome. And I say effective probiotics because so many out there are so expensive and they don’t even survive. Your stomach acid don’t even get me started. And they create all these, you know, high numbers that don’t, aren’t really in tune with nature. And with our bodies, our bodies need ratios, just like the right, the proper ratios of macronutrients, the proper, the proper ratios of oxygen and so on. And so we need the proper ratios of the strains to come into our body and with prebiotics and postbiotics and the probiotics to really create that beautiful harmonious balance.

Kimberly: 11:35 So hot water with lemon, hydration, probiotics, and then we move into the more intangible cornerstones with spiritual and the emotional. This is a very important place to set your energy Charlotte. So over and above any other step in the morning routine, we meditate. So please check out the free meditations over at the, the practical enlightenment meditations, which are part of the app. So when we tune in, we realize more and more, oh my gosh, this joy, this intuition, this, I can’t even put my words into it, this beautiful energy inside of me, let that start to fill you up, let you start to put in touch with that energy. So not so reliant on just sunshine. We need sunshine overall in our lives, but season to season the amount is gonna fluctuate. So we wanna empower ourselves by feeling the sun, feeling the light inside of us, start to build.

Kimberly: 12:27 And by the way, the hot water with lemon is also putting some sun energy in your body with these beautiful CI as fruits and the food that’s grown in the sun. It’s a way to connect to that energy still. And then after I, after I meditate, it’s a very important time. It’s a potent place. It’s a potent opportunity to really check in with your energy. So this is where I like to journal. I get out my journal and I think about my flow. I think about gratitude. I think out things I wanna let go of. And maybe part of that morning is practice and your journaling can only be two minutes. Charlotte, for me, it’s about 10 minutes. That’s what I have time for before I need to go into the day five, 10 minutes, but it really is about turning the mirror on the inside.

Kimberly: 13:09 Cuz otherwise we get swept up in our patterns and we can just get into that. You know, this sucks, this sucks, the complaining mind, the ego. So we wanna introspect. You wanna just take a little light and say, what’s going on in my energy right now? What can I let go of? If there’s some resentment still that the weather is bad or there’s some resentment for something that happened in a relationship or conversation the day before, whatever it is you wanna go into the day with your intention to feel positive and happy and joyful. So then we, the, the me, the journaling part is clearing bringing in gratitude as a powerful way to start the day on an up, all the good in my life. It makes us more receptive and open for more good to come in. So I would say Charlotte to focus more and more on your morning practice, and also please do read the book where you will learn more about vitality.

Kimberly: 13:58 There’s a chapter called you are a powerhouse. And we learn about again, how to tune in, tap into this energy inside of us so that yes, the weather’s going on. And it’s certainly gonna, you know, shift the things that we can and can’t do outside, or lifestyle’s gonna shift a bit, but we build the inner energy and with a building of the inner energy comes more and more resilience to what’s happening outside of us, including the weather. So thank you so much. My love for your question and keep, stay connected to me. Keep the questions coming. I’d love to hear how you’re doing. Thank you so much.

Question #2 around the topic of: You Can Be Your True Self Even When Seasonal Affective Disorder Hits: I’ve been told I have seasonal affective disorder and don’t want to take antidepressants. Do you have any suggestions that are from a holistic approach?

Kimberly: And our next question comes from Emily, who lives in Nebraska? Hello, my Midwestern beauty. She writes, are you right? I’ve been told I have seasonal effective disorder and I don’t want to take antidepressants. Do you have any suggestions that are from a holistic approach?

Kimberly: 14:51 Emily? Thank you so much. My love thousands, millions of people are affected by this. So I definitely to just know for sh you know, straight off the bat that you are not alone. And I personally have some people close to me, two people now that I think in particular that are very close to me that also suffer from this. So there’s a couple things here. Um, number one, you know, professional help may be warranted sometimes. So it’s a personal choice whether therapy’s needed or any sort of medication. You know, I just wanna say that it’s a little disclaimer here just to see what’s right for you. You could talk to your doctor through those different backs of tools as well. What I will share with here is, um, in working with a family member and helping them move through in a holistic way was number one, a light box.

Kimberly: 15:46 And we also did a pretty in depth article a little while ago about seasonal effective disorder. And there’s a link to some products and light boxes and things. So we’ll put that in the show notes as well, but there are, there is some, you know, light boxes and, and different tools that they’re building now that really can create help. You create that vitamin D, which is a hormone and that light, you can put it on your desk where you’re working. And so it, and simulate some of that sun energy that does change us on a, you know, a, a biochemical level. So at least you’re adding in some of that actual light. Number two is healthy. Omega three fatty acid, healthy fats are so important to your brain health. So I take an algae based DHA E PA supplement every day. It is a plant-based alternative to fish oil and the fish, by the way, get their DHA.

Kimberly: 16:41 They get their healthy fats, their omega-3 from eating algae. So we can go straight to the source. We go straight to the algae and especially in wintertime, I definitely recommend taking this supplement and, or, you know, I L so eat chia seeds almost every day, which is also a great source of omega three fats as our FLA seeds. But you wanna make sure those healthy fats are also in your body. So I’m actually sort of flowing through the four cornerstones. So food wise, I would say, you know, make sure you’re eating healthy fats, also eat lots of colorful foods that are just exciting and stimulate different parts of your mind and color is the type of vibration that’s here on earth. So please, you know, bright, fresh foods like the lemons I mentioned earlier that are part of that sun energy BodyWise is taking your algae based health, um, uh, supplements.

Kimberly: 17:40 And also, as I mentioned before, your SBO Solluna, probiotics are really important. Also sleep falls into, um, sorry, not to rush through the probiotics are so important because the neurotransmitters in your gut are part of what creates our moods and our levels of ability to feel happiness. So you really wanna maintain your gut health every day because otherwise stress and sugar and other factors can wipe it out next with body. Wanna make sure you’re sleeping well, because we all know when we don’t sleep well. It’s really hard to feel good on a regular daily basis. So sleep is a really important part of our lifestyle as well. And then exercise, you wanna move your body. Emily, just, you know, getting walking is such a great way to move the circulation, including to your, and to give yourself a little boost or cardio, if you’re into biking or running or jogging or anything like that, but find a way of moving your body.

Kimberly: 18:37 That feels good. And it’s so great for mental health, which leads me to the next cornerstone, which is emotional wellbeing and mental health. And I will say the community is so when it’s dark and cold out, we have a wonderful online community that you can explore called the Solluna Circle, where we do everything virtually, including our zoom, our live zooms, every month, we get to see each other and our daily support group community in any form that feels good to you. Emily is gonna be wonderful. So, you know, just stay connected to friends and family and the ways that feel good to you, FaceTimes conversations, dinners, whatever it is. And then meditation is the way to remove our over identification with labels and external things like of weather, and also just the mind chatter. So then again, meditation as the most important part of our lifestyle, really, although it all works synergistically, but from a spiritual perspective, when we meditate and we connect in, as I said to Charlotte earlier, we become less and less tied to what’s happening us.

Kimberly: 19:53 We become more resilient from the inside. So check out all these tools and strategies, like I said, Emily, and again, if you, uh, you know, some therapy, if not pharmaceuticals, like all of this is something that is part of the conversation with your doctor, your healthcare provider, but in a larger sense as well, these four cornerstones is something you can always work to incorporate. And it’s always so powerful when we really take self care into our hands from this holistic way where we honor ourselves as whole beings, and then we move forward with that whole being self care and approach. So thank you so much my love and again, and please do keep in touch with me because I’d love to hear how else I can support you and how you are doing on your journey.

All right. My loves. We’re gonna take a short break. And when we come back, we’ll have two more questions for you on staying connected to your true self. Even as season shift and seasonal effective disorder comes in, be right back.

Break

Kimberly: 21:10 All right. My loves, we are back from our break and we have two more questions for you on this topic. It’s a big one. It’s an important one. And it just shows how useful our lifestyle is, because whether we’re talking about losing weight or we’re talking about getting past, like what we’re talking about, today’s seasonal effective disorder, or creating your highest success in life, or killing your relationship with food. When we take holistic four cornerstone approach, we always get the best results. And through all these different issues, the ones that I named admit and infinite others, we can also start to feel more and more secure that even though we don’t mean we may not feel completely, uh, in tune with it all the time, there is this resource always with us, the true self, there is that stable, calm wise center that we can access more and more underneath the noise and the mind chatter and the fear.

Kimberly: 22:09 So for me, when I started to realize that it was inside of me, even though I, I wasn’t always in there, I was an ego still a lot of the time, it was so empowering and I could see the light I could see there was, it was there. And so there was a path of getting towards it, which again, come down to the daily tools and practices that I’m sharing here with you. Some of them I’m sharing with you today, morning, practice meditation, so on and so forth.

Question #3 around the topic of: You Can Be Your True Self Even When Seasonal Affective Disorder Hits: Kimberly – have you ever suffered from the change in the weather? I go completely MIA and want to climb under the covers when there’s extreme changes and am not sure how to tell the difference between SAD or depression. Would love your help in any way possible! Xo

Kimberly: So let’s get into our first question back from the break, which from Ava, who lives in Belgium, another European beauty, thanking my love. We are so excited to have you here. Love and connection, supersedes distance. We are all connected, no matter where we are love transcends and Ava rights. Kimberly, have you ever suffered from the change in the weather?

Kimberly: 23:01 I go completely Mia and I want to climb under the covers when there is extreme changes. And I am not sure how to tell the difference between seasonal effective disorder or depression. I would love your help in any way possible. Eva. Thank you so much. My love, thank you for sharing with us and being vulnerable about some of your struggles here. I have definitely, definitely. Um, I dunno if I call it seasonal effective disorder, but I used to be one of those people that lived in New York city and I would complain about the weather all the time. So I’m someone that definitely feels the effect of weather. It is one of the reasons that I eventually moved to Southern California and Hawaii. There is no, um, mistaking that I have chosen more places because it feels good to me. But at the same time, I still have to spend time in cold places.

Kimberly: 23:54 And I lived in New York for many years and I grew up in Connecticut. And so the answer is, yes, I have. I understand what it feels like and the frustration, because it is out of our control, which brings up an important word control, right? We can’t control it. So sometimes we can start to feel helpless, or like you mentioned here, Ava, move towards depression. When we’re like, I have no power here. This weather’s relentless. It’s all around me. I don’t feel good in my body. So first I wanna say that depression of course is a very, very serious illness. And we will link in the show notes to some other podcasts that I have done with depression, experts, some psychiatrists and psychologists that specialize in that field. It can shed more information about distinguishing depression. Although I will say that from those conversations, I know that one of the characteristics is, is prolonged and continual feelings of that helplessness.

Kimberly: 24:56 So you just wanna notice the patterns and start to discern, you know, what’s, what’s going on. And again, some outside help maybe warranted here, Ava, whether it’s a seeing someone that can help you as well. I just wanna say that at the top of the question, um, number two is I think everything that we have been talking about so far very much does apply to what you’re saying here. When we are hyper tuned to the external world, we are susceptible to stress from the outside world, whether it’s political change, environmental change, like seasons things that other people are doing, you know, like in our worlds, in our lives, on social media, whatever it is.

Kimberly: 25:46 So the stability that we’re looking for, the security, the resilience has to come from inside of us. There’s no other way, right? Over time. Yes. Maybe we can move our jobs and go to a place where we love the weather, if it bothers us that much. But I know a lot of, you know, people that love where they live, it’s just, you know, certain months are a bit. So again, we wanna create that inner resilience, that inner light, that inner fire. So everything I was mentioning earlier, especially to Emily about a holistic approach, I think is really important here. Everything from the foods, the omega3 fats, the community aspect, and the meditation is such an important way to shift your energy. So remember that ultimately transformation comes from the inside out. Yonda says that underneath everything, our moods, the weather, everything that’s going on, everything underneath is this underlying energy matrix.

Kimberly: 26:50 And so we don’t have to try to control everything on the outside world. We can’t, and it just creates more frustration. So instead we work with our inner energy and that will build, that will build lightness and joy. And you’ll start to feel this light on the inside. And again, that’s why I think connection is so important when we go outside of ourselves. It’s it’s in ways that feel good, like really deep connection that we start to build in our friendships and with our loved ones, we start to be, we partake in events and situations that feel inspiring to us. We follow inspiring people on social media, or we watch inspiring things and inspiring music, whatever it is. Another thing I wanna say here is that a very powerful way to change your vibration is music and sound. So for me, mantras chanting is a big part of my life.

Kimberly: 27:42 That vibe of listening to something uplifting can really impart an energy transmission inside of you. So some of the artists I listen to I’ve had on here, like Krishna Das, MC Yogi. There’s so many, I list a few, there’s a little section about this and the mantra section of the book. So remember that music is a, a very powerful way. Besides the light box, I talked about this light box from a sensory experience and the music just having chanting or music, classic, whatever kind of music makes you feel, calm, relaxed, uplifted. So nothing jarring, you know, was it yesterday? I went into the garage where my husband and works out with Mo it was before school. I was coming to say hi, it was seven in the morning. And he was playing this really loud jarring music. I just gave him a kiss. And I said, Hey, where to go out for a walk?

Kimberly: 28:37 He’s like, why aren’t you gonna hang out? And I was like, music too jarring for me right now. I don’t wanna go into my day like this because we become more aware are as stewards of our own energy, we start to it become seamless. I could feel my heart racing. I could feel just a little bit of tension building inside of me. It doesn’t feel good. That kind of music. Right. So anyways, as it relates here, just having music playing in the background, as you move through your day or listening to it as part of your, your practice after meditation, while you’re journaling or whatever it is, is another great way. Ava, besides everything we’ve talked about to lift your frequency and your energy. So again, you’re not so tied to the outside world, including tied to the weather. So keep in touch with me my love and let me know how you’re doing and how else we can support you. Thank you so much.

Question #4 around the topic of: You Can Be Your True Self Even When Seasonal Affective Disorder Hits: I’ve been so negative and having trouble concentrating. What would you suggest I do to start narrowing down what the cause could be? 

Kimberly: All right. And our next question comes from Peyton. Hello. My love you live in Idaho, my coast up here, sending you love. I bet it’s a bit chillier in Idaho and you write, I’ve been seeing, so I’ve been so negative and I’m having trouble concentrating. What would you suggest I do to start narrowing down what the cause could be?

Kimberly: 29:52 So I think Peyton, it’s important that we realize that we as humans tend to project energy and negativity out sometimes when we don’t feel good inside. Right? So I will say that there, this is multifactorial. There could be many different things that are causing you to feel, um, you know, less than positive, right? So we could say, oh, it’s this, this, this person’s bothering me so much. It could be that one thing or, you know, this one situation. And sometimes we need to handle that situation, put up a healthy boundary, you know, figure out what it is. But sometimes it’s a more general thing inside of us. Like some darkness that we’re feeling, which is means that the light, the light isn’t, there could be triggered by the weather, which is what we’ve been talking about here. It could just be, you know, in between the seasons a lot is kicked up and moving through our bodies.

Kimberly: 30:54 There could be some stagnation sluggishness in your GI tract or, or in your lymphatic system. So there’s many different factors. But what I, I do recommend as far as narrowing down or figuring out how to concentrate is to start working with the cornerstones. First of all, in this holistic approach of food, body, emotional wellbeing and spiritual growth. And then I would also create more time to reflect and to journal and to be where, okay, as I move through my day, people, you know, talk about keeping a food journal for me, it’s a bit more expansive than that. Like, yes, I’m eating this, but what triggered me to want to eat that? Right. So I sort of journal about my triggers, my reactions, oh, you know, my, my breath got really fast around here. What bent? Oh, okay. Like this triggered my not being seen wound for my childhood or whatever it is.

Kimberly: 31:51 So I think awareness is such a powerful tool. No one can give you all the answers, Peyton, except for yourself. So you just wanna see what’s coming up. Sometimes it could be an old wound, you know, a bigger that’s coming up for the light to come into it and to be healed. Darkness is just where the light hasn’t been shown yet. So in the new book, you are more than you think you are. I take you through some practices and I’ll share that the sun moon practice was really powerful me, powerful for me personally, in moving past some negativity, because it takes us into seeing our behaviors, our qualities positively and not so positively. And it brought up a lot of shame in me for things that I had done, that I felt bad for qualities that I exhibit sometimes like impatience, that I don’t wanna exhibit, but it’s, you know, we’re human.

Kimberly: 32:43 And so when I started to only move past, beating myself up and holding onto a lot of guilt and shame, my focus levels got really high. Cause I could just be there instead of all the mind chatter. And I also just started feeling a lot more positive. So the practices are there for you to really take a deep dive Peyton. And as you move through, you know, often what what’s blocking our full energy and concentration is some sort of fear, fear, and all it’s pervasive forms, fear not being good enough fear of being seen, not being seen. So the, your fearlessness chapter in the book will, I think will also help speak to you because in our natural state, we are free. We are creative. We are just moving through life. So negativity and cons and trouble concentrating means that something is plaguing our natural state.

Thought of the Week

Kimberly: 33:37 And often fear is part of that. I would sit with that one love and do the practices, especially in part one of the book and whole and fearlessness to help support you in lifting your energy and your entire life. So thank you my love for being part of our community. And as always, please keep in touch with me. Our quote of the week is part of our over are all conversation today. It is one of my favorite quotes from Paramahansa Yogananda and speaking of fearlessness, this is on page 17 of the new book. Chapter two, you are fearlessness. The quote is, “Darkness may reign in a cave for thousands of years, but bring in the light, and the darkness vanishes as though it had never been.” Bring in the light and the darkness vanishes as though it had never been. So if there’s a lot of darkness seasonally around you, physically environmentally around you, we find the light inside the strength that comes from meditation tuning in taking care of ourselves.

Kimberly: 34:46 And the power of that is that we realize more and more that we do not have to be tied to the outside world for our happiness and our peace. So my heart goes to you, if you’re, if you’re challenged by this, if you’re struggling with this, I know it can be, it can feel very long and very difficult, but spring is around the corner. The light is coming more and more each day, the light is growing. And at the inside of you see this as an opportunity to sit in some of the darkness and breathe your way through to the lights, see what you can let go of, see what you’re so tied to and go into that space of, of wow expansion and wonder and do the practices and see what unfolds in your life. I’m always here to support you. Thank you so much for being part of our community. I will be back here Monday for our next Q and a podcast. Uh, sorry. Our interview podcast. Ha so have a lovely weekend. I’ll see you on social as well at _KimberlySnyder. And please do check out the show notes at mysolluna.com for recipes, especially with this topic. Other articles, articles that we’ve written and, um, podcasts about depression and so on. It’s gonna be great show notes this week. So thank you so much, sending you so much love and see you back here soon. Namaste.