Hello my beautiful people and welcome back to the moments podcast. I'm excited to record today.
I had no idea what I wanted to talk about, but I decided to open my journal from last year today.
And I read through a couple of the entries and the things that I wrote and the stories that I wrote and the people that I talked about.
And when I read my own journal entries, it's really easy for me to tell where my head was at.
Like I can tell when I'm writing about something genuinely versus when I'm kind of just writing about something to write about it.
Or I'm trying to fake the fact that I'm not okay and make it seem like I am or vice versa.
I don't know how to explain it. I just obviously I've known myself for 22 years.
I can tell what's going on when I look back to past versions of myself, but it kind of just got me thinking.
I wish I had a journal from 2021 because then I would really be thinking, but I just want this episode to remind you to check in with yourself every once in a while.
And when I say that, I don't mean check in with your present self because yes, of course do that.
I'm preaching to you to do that all the time and we always should.
But check in with the past versions of yourself like reflect on who you used to be, reflect on the different ways that you're growing, the different ways that you're evolving, the different changes that you've noticed in your mindset.
And then evaluate if you feel like you're at a better point in your life or if you're at a worse point in your life.
Either are okay because once again life is a way of sometimes you're surfing it and sometimes you're being held under it.
You never know what you're going to get.
But when we sit back and we reflect on like who we used to be, it gives us a lot of clarity on who we want to be moving forward.
And if you evaluate and realize that you used to be in a much better place, you can take, think back to that time, take the habits that you were applying to your life then and start reincorporating them now, slowly but surely.
And if you're in a better place, then just take note of what you're doing that's different.
And just having the awareness of these things that you're doing in your life and what you're spending your time doing and what you're prioritizing and who you're around at the good stages and the bad stages of your life.
These are things that you have to be aware of because when you are, it gets a lot easier to feel in control of your life.
It takes you from being in the passenger seat to the driver's seat and it's just very valuable.
So I want you to think about it because that's not something that went through my head until today when I was reading these different journal entries and I wish it was something that went through my head at the end of 2022 because that was kind of a hard time for me.
But I read the journal entries from the beginning of 2022 and realized that I was in such a great mental state.
And I know that I was. I can look back on that time period and think that I was actually happy.
And I wasn't stressed and I wasn't overwhelmed and I was just taking life one bite at a time instead of shoving the whole burger in my mouth.
And I noticed that life gets really hard for me and I go into my darkest of places when I put too much on my plate and when I try to like scarf it all down and eat it all at once.
And think about it in the sense if you need something that's like a literal metaphor, think about what happens when you haven't eaten all day and then you just completely stuff your face like you get so bloated and your stomach hurts and you get a headache and everything feels a mess.
That's what it feels like in real life when you put too much on your plate and you try to do it all at once.
We are humans. We're not robots and even if we were robots.
If you make them do too many things, they break down, right? You're a human.
Okay, you only have so much room in your mind to be doing everything all at once.
And I say that so passionately because I think that that's one of my biggest struggles and it probably always will be.
I'll blame it on my ADHD. But speaking of my ADHD, this is really fitting talking about it.
I have this, there's this doctor. His name is Dr. Ayman. I don't know if you guys have ever heard of him, but he's an absolute legend.
I listened to one of his TED Talks. You guys should totally go listen to it. Just search up Dr. Ayman TED Talk and I'm sure it's the first one.
He is a very smart guy. I think he's like a neuro, I don't know, something. He's very credible, very knowledgeable.
Awesome dude. And he's talking about the coolest things and he takes mental health and he talks about it in such a beautiful way.
He doesn't say that people who have struggles with their mental health or whatever it is that they're going through, whatever mental illness it is.
He's not the kind of doctor or psychiatry. He's not someone who'd be like, oh, take this drug or take this drug because it's actually really interesting.
When I found out this fact and I really thought about it, psychiatrists are the only doctors who don't actually study the part of the body that they're prescribing drugs for, right?
A orthopedic, I'm pretty sure that's a bone doctor. Hopefully I'm not pulling that out of my butt.
They study bones. You get an x-ray if you break your hand and then they fix it.
A psychiatrist takes symptoms and prescribe drugs for those symptoms. And to me, I've never been a fan of that. Not a big pharma girl.
I basically lost my grandpa to drugs, not like recreational use, to drugs that work prescribed to him.
And it's such a sad thing. It's really scary because you're given one drug and then, oh, that one doesn't work.
Let's just throw this one on top of it or this one too. And that's not to say I'm against all medication.
I think there's a lot of cases where medication is very, very valuable to people and it can make a huge difference and save lives and change lives.
But I'm just kind of hesitant about it. So that being said, let me get back on track here.
Dr. Ayman studies the brain. He does brain scan imaging. And it absolutely fascinates me.
I wish you guys could see the smile on my face when I talk about this guy.
Anyone I talk to about him, I get obsessed. I could listen to him talk all the time. I listen to him on a podcast with Jay Shetty.
And I know I get really excited about it because I talk really fast. And I never noticed how fast I can talk until I was on the phone with my grandma.
And she's like, Lexi, slow down. And I was like, I'm sorry. I'm doing my best. There's a lot going on.
So he does brain image scanning. And he looks at people who are struggling with something or even if they're not struggling with something, you can get your brain scanned.
It's pretty expensive. But I think it's the coolest thing in the world. And it should be normalized.
Psychiatrists should be studying the brain if they're going to be prescribed in drugs because there's seven different types of ADHD.
Each type of ADHD should be if you're going to take drugs to fix it should be looked at differently and should be given the proper drugs.
And you can't figure out what type of ADHD you have just from talking about your symptoms because if someone has anxious type ADHD, they're going to need a certain drug.
Wait, I totally weren't that wrong. Someone with like a certain type of ADHD has symptoms might be the same symptoms as someone with ADHD.
But a different kind. You kind of get what I'm saying. I hope. Point here is he does this and he can tell you exactly what it is that your brain is lacking what it's very strong in, what it's weakened, what neuro transmitters are firing the most and the least
and which parts of your brain are the most developed and the least developed. And you go in for like three different appointments. They scan your brain a few different times.
The first time they scan your brain, they make you do all these cognitive tests so that they can see what your brain looks like when you're trying to be alert and when you're trying to be focused.
Then the next time you go in, they kind of have you, I'm pretty sure it's meditate or something along those lines because they want to see what your brain looks like when you're trying to rest and relax and clear your mind in a sense.
And my therapist actually did this and I've yet to hear all about her experience. I need to call her and get that update. But her and I have been talking about this for months.
And I think that I'm going to do it because it is just so fascinating to me. And the doctor, Dr. Ayman, after the brain scan, you're given an evaluation and a treatment plan.
And this treatment plan doesn't include drugs. It includes things that are going to naturally make your brain healthier. And when we take care of our brain, we have to realize that our brain is the reason that we are able to do all things.
Our brain controls so much of what we feel and what we think and what we do, what we struggle with. But 99% of the time we don't think about that and we don't take care of our brains.
We eat processed junk food and you know I'm a soul food lover. I love some McDonald's, some Chick-fil-A's and junk food. But none of that is good for the brain. And I still believe that things are okay in moderation.
But if you're paying attention to what is good for your brain, for example, blueberries are really high in antioxidants. If you're eating enough blueberries, you're going to help something else in your brain light up and your brain is essentially going to be healthier.
Point is, I love the way that he does the treatment plans because they are things that we can do and we can change in our everyday life to make us feel better.
And in a lot of cases, just taking care of your brain right can change everything that you've struggled with when it comes to your mental health.
And I want to do it also because I've always wondered about my ADHD and I think that it would bring me so much comfort to see it in real life and to just know that I'm not creating it.
And I just know that I'm not crazy and that I'm not making things up in my head and obviously it doesn't change anything.
You know, seeing it just kind of makes it nothing changes. But at least I know, right? And I can figure out which type it is that I'm struggling with and what things I can do that can naturally help me with my focus and my memory and my struggle to be responsible and my struggle to get things done and just everything.
Quick intermission, I've told you about it before and I'm happy to tell you all about it again. This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp.
We deserve to take care of ourselves. We deserve to spend time with ourselves. We deserve to figure out all of the different things that we're feeling and going through.
And I am the world's biggest advocate for therapy, changed my life. I've been going for almost two years now and I see the world completely different, which is why I will constantly recommend it from the bottom of my heart.
And I think BetterHelp is such a great place to start because you're going to be saving money. You can do it online. You're matched with a therapist. You can change that person if you don't completely align with them.
And there's so much room for whatever it is that you need.
We get caught up on taking care of other people or people pleasing and you deserve to just take care of yourself. And therapy is such a great way to do so.
So if you've been thinking about it, I really, really want you to give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online. It's designed to be convenient and you can find more balance with BetterHelp.
So visit BetterHelp.com slash moments today and you'll get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, h-e-l-p dot com slash moments. There's a reason I keep telling you guys about this and I really, really, really recommend you checking it out. Okay, I love you. Now back to the podcast.
I want to do a whole episode on just my experience with ADHD because I think it's becoming, there actually was a study and I couldn't tell you any of the details of it.
I want to work on remembering the details of studies and sharing them with you guys, like the actual statistics, but can't. It's the ADHD. I'm just kidding.
Anyways, it was the study that talks about how the rate of people with ADHD is increasing and it's kind of, do you guys hear the fire truck? That's my grandma stopping by to say hello.
I love when that happens. It's so special. Where was I? So more and more people are having ADHD and more and more adults are realizing that they have undiagnosed, untreated ADHD.
And I just think it's a cool thing to talk about. I also think in this day and age, our attention spans are just getting shorter and shorter and it's leading a lot of people to believe that they have ADHD, but society is just making it harder for all of us to focus.
And I will take that to the grave. Like it is so, there's too many things to focus on that it feels impossible to focus. And it's actually crazy.
I'm taking a course right now on Coursera. It's called the science of well-being and it talks about all these different studies that are just fascinating.
And I've now been talking for 11 minutes about nothing that has to do with the topic. I'm so sorry that I do this to you guys, but I can't help it. It's just how we roll.
Anyways, I'm getting a brain scan and I can't freakin' wait to get it because everything that I learn and all of the tips that I take from my brain scan and I apply to my life, I'm going to share every detail with you. If you have any interest in it, I'm going to tell you all about it.
I'm probably not going to shut up about it because I already can't shut up about it. And it kind of took me a while to justify spending that kind of money on something like this.
But then I sat with myself for a bit and I really thought down to the fact that I was considering spending thousands of dollars, sorry if you guys hear Leah, she's scratching in the back, thousands of dollars to alter my body.
I wanted to get a chin, you know, where they suck the fat from your double chin or I've thought about a boob job before.
Like I've thought about all these different surgeries to alter what I look like.
And to me it's really important not to fall into that trap of doing that because I do try to constantly remind myself that I am uniquely made just the way that I am.
I don't need to do any crazy surgery to be good enough for anyone or to be good enough for myself.
I just need to learn to love myself.
And of course that's so much easier said than done in a society that kind of makes us feel the opposite 24-7.
But all that being said, I have heavily considered doing surgeries like this.
And if I'm going to spend that kind of money, I think it would be really, really dope to spend it on something that is not only going to help me understand me more, but also be something where I gain all this knowledge that I can share with people around me and hope everyone who wants to listen,
I can make their lives a little bit better or even make myself better and then make me more enjoyable to be around.
I don't know for like my mom, my best friends, whenever I'm in a bad mood.
Maybe I can find a way to work on that and be a little bit less stressful to be around, which isn't often I hope.
But you get the point.
I think it's really cool.
I think that you guys should all look up Dr. Ayman.
I just think it's fascinating to learn new things.
And I think that knowledge is cool. And I think that part of the reason I feel so obsessed with it is because I missed a couple years of a college experience.
And I miss taking notes and I miss learning.
And while I might not be that good at remembering all of the things that I learn, I think if I hear them enough times, eventually they'll stick in my mind.
And that's pretty freaking cool.
I just love it.
And I think people are fascinating and things are fascinating. And the brain is my favorite thing in the whole entire world and mark my words at some point in my life.
I am going to be a freaking brain nerd and I'm going to be able to tell you everything about it.
And I'm going to be just like Dr. Ayman. He's my biggest inspiration right now.
Now back to what we were talking about.
Also life update.
Botta house. Insane. I can't wait to do it and to decorate it with my mom and my dad and my best friend and my boyfriend. That's crazy. Still not used to it.
You guys are keeping my secret very well. Thank you very much. I love you with my whole heart.
You guys are real ones. And it's just going to be a really special project. Me and my mom love to do this kind of stuff.
It's going to be so fun, so cozy. And a great thing to do for the next six months.
Leah got a trainer today. That's another update. And I'm going to Disney World.
But by the time this podcast comes out, I will already be home from Disney World.
Now what were you talking about?
Noticing your growth. Noticing the things that have changed in your life.
When I look back to who I was, let's say high school, let's say college, there are so many things that are similar about me and so many characteristics of my mindset that haven't changed.
And probably will never change. And I like to consider those my base, my root.
Like from the root of my mindset, I'm always going to be looking at the positive.
That being said, sometimes all the things around the roots, like all the weeds that grow, are not the good weeds.
Like they're the weeds that kill the garden. And that's when I noticed that I might be happy and I might be trying to be happy, but everything else I was doing in my life in this college or those high school times
was slowly making that happiness root get smaller and smaller and smaller.
I just tried to make a metaphor and I don't think it worked.
Point is, you're always going to be the same person to your core.
But what you're surrounding yourself with is going to affect everything around that core.
And that's why you're going to go through different phases of different feelings.
And I just kind of want to read you some of my old journal entries.
And I kind of want you to interpret them however you will.
Some of these might be a little bit more personal. I'm going to look through and re-pre-read them before I read them to you.
But just know that we're all going to grow. We're all going to change.
And also just know that you need to start a journal. And you need to just write things down because I read through this thing and I am just blown away by the different things I felt and the different things I experienced.
And when it comes to those experiences and those memories, I probably wouldn't remember them if they weren't written down.
And it's a really cool special thing to just reflect and be nostalgic.
And I think that's another key factor I want you to take away from this episode is to just allow yourself to appreciate the past.
And know that appreciating the past is very different than being stuck in the past.
And I've touched on this before, but when I look back to, let's say the first few months I was in Hawaii back in 2012,
I was in Hawaii back in 2021. I had a really hard time. I was really not okay.
And for a long time, I couldn't look back on those times in Hawaii without having this sickening gut feeling like I was going to have to feel that pain all over again.
And the more time that's passed, time heals everything. I can now look back on that time and simply appreciate the great memories that came from it, the lessons I learned from it.
And understand that I would not be who I am and where I am today if I didn't have those experiences.
And that reminder in itself just kind of helps me understand that it's always going to get better.
It is always going to get better. And every single emotion that I have to feel and challenge that I have to face and heartbreak I have to go through is only going to shape who I'm going to be in the future.
And it hasn't let me down yet. And I'm grateful for it.
So I just have faith that it's going to continue to be that same way.
Okay, let me find a journal entry and let me read it to you.
I'm going to read you this one because it's just absolutely crazy.
I remember one of the biggest things that I was struggling with when I was living in Hawaii.
And I think most of 2021 and the beginning of 2022 was that I never had a place that felt like home or a place that felt safe or a place that felt safe.
Or a place that felt secure and my own.
And in April, April, that's crazy April 22nd, which is just about a year ago, I moved into the duplex that I'm in now, which is basically a mini house attached to another mini house.
And moving in here was the greatest thing I could have ever done for my mental health.
Genuinely creating a space that just felt like my own has been so cool.
But I'm just reading this and it's so cool to watch it come full circle. I'm going to read it to you.
I officially live on my own. And also I talk to my journal like it's, I don't know, like I'm in a Disney show.
So just pretend it's not like that, okay? I know it's cringy.
I officially live on my own. This is such a weird and crazy chapter of my life.
I'm so freaking hyped. One thing I've learned about myself in the past few years is that I love to be alone.
I love to dance around the room, talk to myself, and be able to make videos with no one listening.
I'm so grateful for this chapter because lately I feel my life has been moving 100 miles per hour.
There's so much I've been doing and want to be doing.
I just feel I haven't had a peaceful place for my mind to settle and focus in a year and a half.
I have a really great feeling about this chapter. And she was right.
She was definitely right. This chapter has been amazing.
Wow, almost a year of living in here. Crazy.
And this one's kind of sad. I want to give the version of me that wrote this a really big hug because I remember how she was feeling and what she was going through.
And I just want to tell her that it's going to be okay. You're going to make it out on the other side.
But I'm going to read it to you just so that you know if you are at a state in your life where you're feeling like this or you're going through this, it's going to pass.
I promise you.
Why does it have to be so hard? Excuse my language. I think there's bad words.
Why do I feel so good one day and so fucking sad the next?
Why do I have such a hard time doing literally anything? What is wrong with me?
I can't be good enough for anyone else or for myself.
I can't be productive. I can't take care of myself. I can't keep track of anything.
I can't be lovable. I can't be pretty enough. I feel so hurt.
I feel so negative. I need stability. I want to be happy always, not sometimes.
I want friends that are real always, not sometimes. God, please hear me. Why do I feel like this? Why do I feel like a failure sometimes? Why is everyone better than me?
If I could tell myself something while I was feeling that, I would just tell myself that it's okay to feel insecure and to feel a lot of those different feelings.
But to sit there and say, I can't do this, I can't do that, is going to make it very, very clear to the world and to the universe and to God and to whatever energy you're putting out that you can't.
You could say, I'm struggling. You could say, I'm trying to figure out why, but don't say I can't.
Don't ever call yourself incapable because I can pinky promise you that you are 110% capable and it might not be right now in this point in your life, but it will be eventually.
You are capable and it will pass and it did pass for me and I remember sitting in Hawaii in the tree house that I was living and writing that, bawling my eyes out.
And then I have one after that that I'm not going to read because it's just a little bit more deep and it's a little bit more personal and as much as I want to share with you guys every single detail of my life.
Unfortunately, there are things that I have to keep to myself, so I'm not going to read it, but just don't get sadder than that one just was.
But the month before that, let me read you a different journal entry.
Okay, I had titled this one newness. This is a feeling I've never felt before. It's different from happiness.
Well yes, I feel happy. I feel more me than I've ever felt in my life. I'm securing myself, but more importantly, securing my thoughts.
I'm aware of all my emotions. I lost where it was. I'm aware of all my emotions, all of my feelings, and can simply understand what used to be such chaos in my mind.
I can't pinpoint where the sense of self came from, but it is here. I am grateful. This is the life. Life is good in life.
It's crazy to think that one week I felt that and the next I felt like the journal entry I just read to you before.
It's just a true reminder that we're going to have ups and downs. And the sooner that you can come to peace with that, the sooner those downs feel a little bit less down because you know in the back of your mind and you know in your heart.
That eventually it's going to be even better. Quick intermission. I'm really excited to tell you about this brand. I've never told you about it before, but I did a call with them and I was absolutely fascinated and I think that this is the coolest brand and I can't wait to share it with you.
So many of us are at the age where we're having sex and we're getting to know people and we're meeting new people and that can be scary and it can be dangerous and every once in a while things happen condoms break.
Or it was unprotected or you forgot to take your birth control. It happens and it's human and you shouldn't feel bad about it. Julie is an FDA approved morning after pill that helps stop pregnancy before it starts.
When it comes to things like this, I personally believe that women deserve products that are easy in every single way, easy to find, easy to take, easier to relate to and easy to understand.
Julie stops your body from releasing an egg using the same active ingredient as plan B or other morning after pills.
It works best when you take it right away or within 72 hours of having unprotected sex and it's illegal in all 50 states.
You don't need an ID or a prescription or you just got to get it.
And Julie is super cool too because it's a morning after brand that's working to increase access to emergency contraception for women all across the country.
And every time you purchase one Julie pill, the company donates to someone in need.
And they partner with over 25 organizations across the country to provide donations.
So check it out. You can go to JulieCare.co to learn more or find Julie at your nearest CVS, Target or Walmart today. That's JulieCare.co.
It's awesome. Check it out. I really, really love everything that this brand stands for and it just makes all of our lives a little bit easier and a little bit simpler.
So check it out and back to the podcast.
Now I want to read you another one. Last year was really good at kind of writing these.
I call them more pieces versus journal entries because they're not poems, but anyways, let me read you one.
You probably heard me read it last year if you've been around for long enough because I do remember really liking it.
But a letter to myself, I know how you're feeling.
I know that in some moments you take all your own advice. You live in the now, you focus on the good and you just trust right where you are.
And I know that every so often you backtrack. You dwell on the hurt, the stress and the anxieties that are out of your control.
You put more on your plate than you can handle and you get yourself down when you can't complete it.
You think everything must be perfect and everyone must like you. You feel like you're never doing enough but also like you're doing too much.
You focus so much on finding balance that you lose the balance completely. You lack self control. You get in your head and you simply get lost.
And when this happens, it feels like all progress is lost. But look how much you've grown. Look what you've accomplished. Look how much you've healed.
This is awareness. It sometimes feels like a curse because you can so easily understand what you're feeling, but find it impossible to see the solution.
But not so long ago, you couldn't do that.
You spent month after month feeling heavy, feeling hurt, and not knowing why.
Awareness is a blessing. Awareness is growth. You deserve to feel proud of this. You are a human. You are okay.
Everything is happening as it's supposed to. Feeling is not supposed to be linear. We are supposed to keep learning each day.
I love you. Be kind to yourself.
And yeah, that one still hits the spot. I think that one still feels true for a lot of us.
We have all this growth. And then when we feel ourselves backtrack, we think that all the growth is gone. But it's really not. It's not at all.
My therapist was actually talking to me about this last week when I saw her. She was explaining to me that that's how I get in my head.
And maybe that's just a methane. Maybe that's not an all of a thing. Whatever it is.
She said, you've been putting in the work to make these progressions on your mindset and your just way of life in general and your understanding of life and all of its meaning and its beauty.
And just because you lose it sometimes, it doesn't mean that year of work that you put in went away.
It's the same way that you can remember song lyrics from a song that came out in 2008 or 2002 depending on how old you are.
The things stick. The knowledge sticks. And sometimes it just gets a little bit clouded up by everything else going on.
But it's still there and your progress isn't lost. And whatever chapter you're at in your life, just know that.
And know that when you look back on those, let's say, better versions of yourself, know that that girl is still in there. She didn't go away. She's not gone.
She's just kind of like taking a nap maybe, right? Whatever way that you want to look at it. Just know. She's still in there.
And you will always be her and she will always be part of you. And this also goes for the same things that maybe aren't so good.
A lot of the things that you've struggled with your whole life, if you're someone who has avoided your emotions for a really long time and would just have these overwhelming breakdowns of emotion, that's what happens to me at least.
Sometimes it's still going to happen because that girl is still in there and you can put in the work to not have her show up.
But every once in a while she will. And just be okay with that. And love that. And learn to simply learn to appreciate.
I think that's been my biggest 2023 life tip that has just changed everything about the way I feel. And every second of my life feels different because of it.
No matter how shitty it is, there's something to appreciate in everything. We are alive. Now, Leah's drinking water. I'm sorry if you hear that in the background.
I just found this. This, this is funny to me. This is just another sign that the waves are real and we're all human. And you know, the more work we put in, the less dramatic they'll be. At least, that's what I've noticed recently.
I still have my waves of ups and downs, but the good waves are outweighing the bad ones right now. And it's really cool.
But this was May 14th, 2022. Life feels so comforting right now. Like it's giving me a hug. I needed this hug so badly. I feel joy, passion, love and connection in my soul. There's even more good coming. It's on the way.
Okay, this is May 16th, 2022. I fell into the sleep in, phone trap, stuff my face right when I wake up kind of morning on a Monday. It's not ideal. I have a lot of work to do. Now, the choice is mine. Am I going to let that ruin my day? Probably. I'm having a bad day.
It just goes to show. Like, you can't, you don't always have control over how you're going to feel, how you're going to wake up feeling, but you do have control of what you do with the rest of the day. And you can choose. I talked about this in a coffee talk the other day.
Because I woke up having a really bad morning. I overslept. I had to change my appointment because I was late. I really wanted to go to the sunrise. And the worst part is I couldn't wake up at 6am and I went to bed at like 8 at 8pm. I slept for 10 hours. Anyways, I was pissed the morning when I woke up and I was super puffy, just really frustrated, really overwhelmed. It was a Monday. And I told myself that I had no choice.
I didn't give myself the option to stay in bed, to scroll on my phone, to sit there and rot because that's all I wanted to do was to just... nothing. All day. And then deal with my problems at a later date.
But I knew that ultimately that's only going to make me feel worse. Like, you really got to ask yourself, is this going to make me feel worse? Or is this going to make me feel better? And you can apply that to every single thing in your life.
But I got up. I did what I needed to do. And my day was able to completely do a 180. Everything turned around. It ended up being a great productive day because I made the decision to make it better. I did not let my thoughts control the decision. I did not let my thoughts control the day. I detached from them. And then I controlled those bitches. Seriously.
I mean, actually, if you detach, this is a practice that I'm always practicing. And this is one of those that can be really good. And it can also be bad because it also leads me to detach from good emotions. Anyways, what I mean by this is I have lost a lot of things in my life.
Important, expensive things that I shouldn't be losing. But I try so hard to be responsible. And it's sometimes a really, really big struggle with me.
And I blame it on the ADHD. And I know that that's why it is. And for the longest time, I absolutely destroyed myself over the things that I would lose. And my parents would destroy me too. Which obviously, you know, no one wants to deal with a child that has to lose their car keys when they got out of the car five minutes ago.
Or the girl who leaves the keys inside the locked car or the girl who put them in the trunk and then thought she lost them in the ocean. Like, I was trouble for my parents, especially when it was their money at stake. Now it's my money, so it's more on me. But I've lost a lot of things. And I've lost a lot of money.
And I'm not sure if you guys remember, I spent a few thousand dollars on a camera that I had saved up for and I was so excited for. And I took care of that thing like it was my baby. Until I didn't. I left it on top of a car.
And we drove away. And it nearly fell off a cliff. And the whole thing was destroyed. So I think that that was the moment for me. I mean, I brought my eyes out, don't get me wrong.
But I learned that I simply had to detach from that emotion. Like, I couldn't change it. There was nothing I could have done in that moment. You know, it was already too late. The damage was done.
And when you can just detach from that and detach from those negative, sad thoughts and those self degrading thoughts, maybe you'll get a little bit better because it gets a little bit easier. And I actually am just realizing now I've been a lot since I did that.
Since I stopped degrading myself for being incapable and irresponsible, I've been a little bit more capable and responsible. Interesting how that works. Goes to show that when we believe in ourselves, things get better. We get better. We grow as people. It's wild.
Quick little intermission. I've told you about it before and I can't wait to tell you about it again. I'm telling you guys about Alamo moves, which is the best thing in the world. I'm someone who is really bad at planning out my day and scheduling a workout. So I use Alamo moves because it makes my life easy. I can do it at literally any time that I want to.
And they offer so many different kinds of classes. Like I could do a hit workout. I could do Pilates. I could do yoga. I could do a breathing practice. They even have a freaking gua sha routine, which I should probably be using.
They have nutrition classes and they have a hundred new classes added every single month, which is awesome. I don't know how they can pull that off, but I'm amazed.
You can also download the classes, take them to the beach, take them outside, do them wherever you want. You don't have to be a Wi-Fi because you can just download them.
And it's also not just me that's loving Alamo moves. It was voted the best wellness app of 2022 by Insta magazine and the best yoga app of 2023 by Women's Health. So you know I'm not making this up. It's really, really great.
And for a limited time, Alamo moves is offering you guys a free 30 day trial plus get this 50% off an annual membership, but you can only get it by going to alamoose.com and use code moments in all caps.
That's a l o moves.com and all caps code moments to get a 30 day free trial and 50% off an annual membership.
So the next time you're stressed and overwhelmed and you need a little bit of a meditation, you can use alamoose or the next time you want to go move your body, go use alamoose.
I promise you're going to love it. I'm genuinely obsessed with it. So go check it out.
Okay, I'm going to read you one more journal entry and this time I'm going to read you a journal entry from this year's journal.
Scratch that. I'm actually not because most of this year's journal entries are more storytelling and I don't want to like say names and I don't know they're just not exactly what I want to read, but I will tell you what the basis of each of them are.
I read this journal in comparison to reading last year's journal. Last year's journal is a lot of I and a lot of struggle and a lot of hurt and don't get me wrong. There's also gratitude and appreciation in there, but it's very different than the way that I read it in this year's journal.
This year, my journal is all about we and about appreciation and about the good things that are going on in my life. And I just simply believe that I don't know what shifted in my brain. I really couldn't tell you.
But the word in there that is there constantly and I think if you guys have been listening to the podcast since let's say, I think I really started to feel a shift in myself around Christmas time my birthday time.
The word is peace and I don't know if I just slowed down the amount of things that I had going on in my life and re evaluated my time management and made more time for peaceful things and for myself.
And I traveled a little bit less and I did my best to take on a little bit less of a workload. Peace is the word I keep writing. Peace, trust and gratitude.
And I strongly believe that those are the words of 2023 that are going to carry me through this year and that have made me feel so okay and content and happy.
And it's a cool feeling and I have a really hard time explaining it or explaining how I got to it because I don't know. I guess all the work and all the journaling and all the trying to figure things out in my brain has been helping.
Or it's the different little things that I've been doing to physically make my brain happier and stronger like eating more blueberries and making sure I get my antioxidants and making sure I take time to meditate and walk and exercise and sweat.
All of these things make a difference and you might not be able to figure it out right away.
But one thing that's going to help you do that is by looking at all the different versions of yourself that you've been in the past and just noticing who you were, who you are and then thinking about who you want to be and taking the best trades from those two people
and applying them to your future and see what happens and just play around with it and know that it's an everlasting journey and you're going to continue to change and evolve and we're all just going to keep growing.
But all we got to do is just appreciate every step of the way.
Okay, I'm going to leave it at that.
But I really love you guys and I really am so grateful for you and I couldn't do any of this without you guys.
And again, I really appreciate you guys sticking around for my rambles and I have a hard time believing the fact that I even have a podcast because of the way that my brain just doesn't work sometimes.
But I just want to say thank you guys for sticking around and yeah, we'll talk soon. We'll talk next Monday.
I hope that you have the best freaking week ever.
Know that it's in your control and you have the power and you deserve to love yourself and love this life and do something this week that makes you feel bliss.
Go paint on a canvas.
Whatever it may be.
Okay, I love you.