Me Time ✨ Finding Balance From Within

Hello, Sunday. Gina, Jules, dialing in here, this beautiful, sunny Sunday. Just giving everybody a few moments to dial in. Also just celebrating the fact that it's not raining today. That's a good thing. It's been running a lot here lately. So on today, on this beautiful Sunday. Hello, Elise, how are you doing today? Hello, everybody. Happy Sunday. It's nice to see you. It's nice to be here. Good morning. Good morning. I literally just raced in the door after teaching a spin class. Hi, Rick. How we doing today?

Happy Sunday. As you're coming on in, if you are a dad today, then I want to say, happy Father's Day and say hello and thank you for being a dad. If you are someone who has lost your dad, I lost my dad almost two years ago now. I would love to hear whether your dad is with us or if your dad has passed. If you have a fun memory or you have something that you'd like to share about your dad, I would love to hear it and celebrate that it's Father's Day today. So happy Father's Day to you. If you're a dad.

Fun story about my dad. I'll share one really quick. He. Every time I would call him on the phone, this is always my entire adult life. I think this to be true. Apparently, when I was a little girl, I would. I had long hair also, and I would hold my hair on my back and I'd stretch back to see and show my dad how long my hair was, because I could touch it, and I'd tilt my head all the way back. So every time I call my dad in my adult life, he would be like, hey, you look good. And I'd be like, we're not on FaceTime.

How do you know how I look? And he's like, don't you like my new haircut? And I could just hear in his voice that he was, like, really feeling fly about whatever haircut he had on that day. And he would always just be like, you look really good today. And I would just laugh every single time. And he would laugh every single time because we couldn't see each other. We weren't on FaceTime. But he would pretend that he could see me and see how good I looked. Or he would pretend that he was looking really fine.

And he'd be like, do you like my new shirt? And it was as if we were just sitting there together. And so on this Father's Day, sharing a fun memory with you about that, about my dad, I miss him a lot. So today, on me time, here's my first invitation for you in the chat. If you're not driving your car, what are you feeling right now? Like, what are you feeling? What emotion? What pain or ache? Maybe you have a knee pain. But what are you feeling today? If I were to share a word about how I feel, I would say conflicted.

I am using that word intentionally because I gave us the parameter of one word. But the reason why I would say I feel conflicted is I feel a lot of joy because I just got done teaching a spin class and I love the people that are in my classes and seeing my team. But I also feel like a heavy. A heavy void. I feel a void of not being able to call my dad and see what he's wearing today or have him tell me how fine he looks. So how are you feeling today? What's a word or a short phrase? All over the place.

I like Andy, how you just made a three word statement. One word. Clever. Nice work. All over the place. Yeah. So I can relate to that. This week I felt very scattered would be my word. I had a really hard time focusing on a lot of different things for no apparent reason. I just had a really hard time focusing. So I may have accomplished a lot and I may have not accomplished anything. I guess I really don't know. But here's what's great is on me time today. I really wanted to focus on kind of that finding balance within.

Elise, you feel emotional. If I were with you, I would give you a hug and I'd ask you to tell me more. But thank you for sharing. Thank you for sharing your words, you know, finding that balance. So when I think about today being a day about, you know, me time or ooh, Rick, you have determined. I like that word. My follow up question to you would be determined to do what or for what? My follow up question for Andy would be all over the place. What's going on? My follow up question for Elise, emotional.

What's happening? What are you feeling? What's inside right now? There's always another question, right? There's always another opportunity to lean in somewhere. But when we check in to find out where we're at, if we are feeling scattered or all over the place, how do we find some balance? How do we balance out that emotion? So I use the word conflicted very intentionally because I'm feeling all over the board as well. I feel conflicted with emotion. I feel a high amount of joy and I feel a high amount of sorrow.

So I feel conflicted on what should I be feeling right now, Amara. Jobless. I'm sorry to hear that. If there's something I can do to help in your transition, please ask. I would love to have a conversation with you if you wanted to. I worked with a lot of people to help them through those transitions, and those transitions can be hard. So thank you for sharing that. But when we, you know, when we think about that, all the things that we are right, maybe we are jobless, maybe we are feeling grief, maybe we're feeling a lot of emotion, maybe we are feeling determined.

How do we find that common state, that place inside of us that allows us to feel balanced? What does that feel like to you? What does that mean to you? If we have balance in our lives, we can help ourselves reduce stress. But when we're feeling conflicted with emotions, how do we find that balance? So I'll share a little story with you guys. In the last year, so I had a birthday a couple weeks ago and in between birthdays. So the year between my birthdays, I was so lucky. I was able to run four marathons in four countries on my quest to run six of the world major marathons.

And it's funny because people ask, oh, did you travel alone? Did you go with people? And I would tell them, two of the races I traveled by myself and two of them I had people with me, but only one of them did I have somebody with me the whole time. So I'll go backwards to go forwards. So the reason why I bring up this story is like, in that past, in that year, I had so much purpose. I had so much purpose that I didn't allow myself to process a lot because I was always in training mode. So I didn't really drink any alcohol.

I ate really healthy. I was very focused on my nutrition. I worked out with a trainer. So once a week I would be really determined. Your word, Rick. To do my strength training with a coach. And I'll pop into the chat my Instagram. You can send me a note there. If you're on Instagram, it's ereambag30. You can send me a note there. But I was diligent, right? I did all my nutrition, I worked out with my trainer, I taught five spin classes. I did every long run. So I was very, very focused on this process, this thing that was very physical, but it was very emotional as well.

And what is fascinating about it is it was the only way that I could think of to one, help me work through a lot of grief because so many people look to me to be A leader. They rely on me as the person that they come to when they need something. And this was like my thing that I could do where I didn't have to be emotional in front of everybody that I know. There are many long runs that I took that I would hear a song. There's one song in particular by Coldplay that gets me not every time, but it gets me often.

And I'll hear some songs. Music can move you. And I'll be in my runs and. And sometimes I just start crying, like, really big crying. You know, the kind of cry that you're embarrassed to do in public. Yeah. Picture me, that girl on a run, sweaty, all of the things. And I'm having like a major meltdown, major cry, major breakdown. But here's what was great about that, is doing all of these runs, traveling to these different countries. I got to feel everything. So there was a period of time where I didn't allow myself to feel anything, which is so not me.

I'm a very emotional person. I'm a total Gemini. I feel the spectrums of all of the emotions. And there was a period of time where I was like, it was too much because people. My perception, my belief, what I believed to be true was that everybody needed me to be strong. But what the real truth was is everybody needed me as they always see me, which is authentic and a feeler and emotional. They didn't need a different version or my perception of a different version of who I was. And so when I did these runs and I chose to do these runs, it was the first time that I could let everybody just kind of see me.

And I allowed myself to do that. I allowed myself to cry in my spin class as I'm teaching the class if I needed to. I allowed myself to have a major meltdown while I was doing a 20 mile run and complaining about everything. Like this is how rational? Rational, but irrational. I mean, I'd be complaining about not having enough water. I had plenty of water. I'd be complaining about my shoes. My shoes are great. I complain before I get started that it was too cold. Yeah, it was cold, but I've ran in cold before, so who cares?

You buck up and you move on and you do the thing right. So I had it all, like, it was all there, but. But I allowed myself to feel it all. And I mentioned that I traveled to some of the marathons by myself. So I traveled to Berlin by myself. I like to travel alone, not because I don't like traveling with people, but because I feel Like, I can find myself. And I had saved a bunch of money to make sure that I could do all of this. And so I went there to do the marathon. But here's what was great. While I was there, I felt my mom.

And now, if you haven't been with me before, I lost my mom and dad within the last two and a half years. My mom passed away roughly a year after my dad. But two weeks before, I was running a marathon in New York City for charity. So I decided to run the world's six major marathons, all for charity. So when I was in Berlin, I found my mom in really unique, really interesting ways. I don't know if even I could explain it or I don't think I have enough time on a long this stream to explain it. And then I went to Chicago, and I felt so much anxiety in Chicago, and my husband was there, and my friends were there, and it was like we were there, right?

And I just felt anxious the whole time. I didn't like the marathon. It was too crowded. It was too much city, and I felt disconnected from everything. But that was like my. You know, when you think about the spectrum of emotions, that was the one that I was just kind of, like, frustrated about. And then I went to Tokyo in Japan for the next one, and that one, I got to go by myself first. So I took a few days. I went there by myself first so I could just discover. But I also. Every time I did these marathons, I took a little altar for my mom and dad.

And what that allowed me to do was have time to feel before I had to be. I got to feel all the emotions about my mom and dad, about the journey. I got to feel the presence of this space. Our dad had traveled to Japan, and so I knew that we would be experiencing some of our dad energy while we were there. And my brother had flown in as well, and family had flown in as well. And I got to feel that first because I knew when everybody arrived, then I kind of had to be the sister and, like, make sure I was a little bit more on.

Not because they asked me to be that, but because that's my expectation of what I think they need. So I changed a little bit there. And then I did the last one in London, and my dad and mom sent me a gift in London, and what they sent me was a connection to my nephew, who's been going through a lot of mental health issues. But when I was in London, I felt pure joy. But I discovered this. This one little coin that My nephew had sent to me, and I found it in the British Museum of Arts. He had sent me photos of this coin, and I found it there.

Like, what are the odds? There are so many items in this museum. But my mom and dad sent me that connection because I needed a little bit of hope. And I needed, at that moment, just a reminder that everything was going to be okay. And they sent me that gift. And I know that it was them, because there's no other way that all of the coincidences that happened before I got to London could have possibly happened without them. And so when I think about today and I think about, you know, finding our balance, it's about finding the space.

To me, it's about finding the space to say, I'm determined and I'm sad, or I'm determined and I'm happy, I'm jobless and I'm free. It's about emotional and grounded. There's. There's always going to be the spectrum. And so for me, it's about how might we find the balance inside of all of that emotion to say, what is our true north? What do I need right now? Not what does everybody expect of me, or what do I perceive everybody needs from me? At the end of the day, the most human thing I think we can do is to authentically show up with where we're at in that moment.

Because what I've learned is, and I'm stubborn, so I'm really stubborn. But what I've learned is, is that along the way, the more I share, the more I inspire someone else to feel safe in their sharing as well. And I work in a community. I have a couple of different jobs, but a few of them are about emotionally healing or spiritually healing. And one of them is about physically mental. Right. So one is a spin studio, one is sound baths. Very different experiences. But what I found is that I'm inviting people often to let go, but at the same time, I'm holding on.

So I needed to allow myself to let go, to give the people around me the space to hold me. Because for so long I've held them. And I realized and found in those moments when I was able to reach out to share my emotion, one, I gave them permission, my team permission to do the same. And two, I gave my team permission to hold me. And that was a gift for them because they see me being so strong all the time, that when I needed something the most, they felt joy and happiness because they could give back to me.

And I wasn't just always giving to them. So when we're in these spaces of searching and we're looking to find that balance, right? So finding balance from within can be as simple as saying, where am I today? And am I off balance? Am I on balance? Do I need something else? Do I need to ask for help? And when I discovered that, when I started giving myself permission to say, I'm not okay today, and I didn't have to hide that, when I gave myself that permission, it was a gift to someone else. And it was hard.

It was hard to be able to say, not good today. How are you doing? I'm not good. And it's scary to say that out loud, but. But what I did is I got comfortable in the space that I'm in right now so that I can hold a different type of space for the people around me. Because now I'm attaching to my own emotions again and feeling again. I'm allowing myself to be connected to the earth around me, to people around me, to feel the energies that are around me so that I can feel whole. And even on the days like today and it's Father's Day, and I feel so much sadness inside.

I feel grateful that I can say that out loud and not feel like I have to push that down, But I also feel grateful that I can feel sad and joy at the same time. And through the middle of that, I get to discover myself. So I hope this makes sense. And I hope if it resonates with you, that you feel like you can share or take something away. But finding balance from within, to me, really means understanding where I'm at and how do I get back to my own normal. How do I rediscover who I am again? And that might not happen every day, and that is okay.

But as long as we are understanding where we're at, as long as we can find community that we can share, because it's inside community that we can heal. And as we give ourselves permission to rediscover what our new balance might look like for us, My new norm looks different today than it did two years ago. So what does that look like today? And is it what I want it to be yet? Maybe. Or maybe I have some more things I want to tweak. We are an evolution of learners, and we will consistently and constantly evolve.

And nothing that happens today will be repeated. Today is its own entity. It's its own thing. But what we can do every day is we can figure out, what does that look like within us to feel whole. What do the motions look like in us today to feel fulfilled, to feel all the feels and to feel grounded in that. So my invitation to you today is feel it all. If you're a dad, happy Father's Day. If you're missing your dad, your dad has passed. Do something to remember them today if that were the relationship that supported you.

But no matter what, go inside so that you can present more of you to us outside. Sending you all the love today. I hope you have a great day. If you're in Minneapolis, head on over to the Stone Arch Bridge Festival. Go check out some local artists. I always love going to the festivals to see all the art that people have and the gifts they have and the emotions that they can bring out of me just through art. I hope you all have a great day. I'll be back here tomorrow. We'll do some professional development chatter, leading with authenticity and I look forward to talking to you soon.

Enjoy the rest of your day and do something for you.