EP #149: Why Your Limiting Beliefs are Holding You Back & Ways to Develop Greater Self-Worth with Karin Hadadan, Author & Founder of ICIETNU

Welcome back to another episode of Everyday Endorphins, a mental health podcast focused on the importance of finding joy and happiness in daily living. I'm your host Stella Stephanopoulos, and this week I got to really dive deep into what happens when we let our limiting beliefs take the wheel. It was such a pleasure getting to have Cudian Hadadon come onto the podcast. She is an author and the founder of a lifestyle brand that promotes living in the present moment. On the topic of being present, there is no shortage of information and knowledge that we can accumulate because it is something that I am still trying to figure out how to do, but it really was such a pleasure to get to sit down with her during this interview and focus on what actually happens when we let our belief system dictate the narratives that we tell ourselves in our brains. Oftentimes, we don't really anchor to our positive beliefs. We let our negative limiting beliefs that kind of operate in the subconscious start to dictate the behaviors that we bring to the surface. A lot of this manifests in self-sabotaging behavior, in perpetuating negative things and negative experiences in our lives because we are allowing for these deeper wounds and deeper negative beliefs to essentially dictate the course of what we do without even realizing it. So it was really interesting to kind of explore how Cudian figured out what her limiting beliefs were, how fear plays a deep role in the way that we behave and how she overcame a lot of those limiting beliefs through the power of journaling and writing. So there is just a lot of wisdom, I think, in this conversation. Hopefully, as you listen, you can start to reflect on ways that maybe you're not showing up for yourself in your most full expression or ways that you've been limiting yourself without even realizing it because I think once we can identify what those limiting beliefs are, we can start to gain awareness and once you have the awareness you can start to course-crack your action and change your mindset. It's all very powerful. Anyways, really excited to dive into this before we jump into the interview, reminder to like, rate, and review this podcast on whichever listening platform that you subscribe to. Thank you so much for coming on to Everyday Endorphins. It is so great to be sitting across from you virtually right now. Oh, thank you so much for having me. It's so crazy how we first met in our conversations today and now I'm just so excited to dive deeper with you and to be already been chatting for like 15 minutes about all these aligned topics. So I'm excited to share our conversation with your audience. I guess we'll put kind of how we met into context first so people can understand. So we met at your event with Amber Lien Light. So a few months ago and I was supposed to go to that with a friend and she couldn't make it and I was like, "Should I still go?" I don't know. And then I was like, "You know what Stella, just go. This is something that you're interested in. So go and see what it's about." And I'm so happy I did that because obviously it led me to you. And I also realized I had another connection there, which was a few other connections there, which was very cool. But I think that experience is just an example of the great things that happen when you put yourself outside of your comfort zone and when you do things for you and not on anyone else's timeline, like when you do something that you want to do for yourself. And that's actually something I've been thinking a lot about recently, which we can talk about later. But it's a goal of mine. But it's been like a goal that I'm trying to now work more towards is really just marching to the beat of my own drum and like doing what I want when I want to do it. So clearly it pays off because now we're here sitting together today. But I wanted to share that because I feel like a lot of people myself included sometimes, like we'll hold ourselves back from doing things that we want to do because we're afraid to go to a new place alone. But there's a lot of power than that. So much power, you will feel so confident in yourself and you will learn to deeper trust your own intuition because ultimately, the things that we want to do, especially if they are incredibly aligned, obviously they're going to serve us. Obviously it's going to be an environment that we feel magnetic or inspired in. So it's like overcoming that hurdle of, do I go to this alone? Like I don't know anyone and just pushing yourself a little bit out of your comfort zone in that initial instant because once you arrive at that place or that experience, you are no longer outside of your comfort zone. You're actually in a space that is incredibly aligned with who you are or who you want to be. And I throughout my 20s, I did the same thing as you where I said, okay, no, I don't have anyone to go with, but I'm just going to go myself. And it actually helped me in terms of going up to people and saying hi. And I feel like if I had my friends there with me, I would have not expanded in that way. I wouldn't have gone up to people. And it's like those minor conversations led to so many beautiful connections that I still have to this day. And now I sometimes prefer to do things alone because I don't know, I also just love my own company as weird as that sounds. So it's such a beautiful thing. And obviously that you were meant to be at my event. Your friend was meant to not be at the event for whatever reason, right? And it led to us chatting today and so much more for the future. So I'm happy you did that. Lots more for the future. But you make an interesting point that you enjoy your own company. A lot of people don't. And I think we're going to actually dive into that later today because there's a lot of things that in this life hold us back from fully embracing our true, I hate to say authentic selves, but like that's what it is. There's a lot of things that block us from diving deeper into really getting to know who we are. And I think that's actually a really great segue into the purpose of the event that you hosted with Amber Lyon around your book. And I'd love to have you share a little bit more about the book that you wrote. And we'll talk a little bit about your path and how you got interested in writing and everything that you're doing. But let's start with the book. Long story short, the reason why I even got into the mindful spiritual wellness space is because I was on a chronic illness journey all throughout my teens and my 20s. I'm 28 now. And about a year ago, I was diagnosed with endometriosis in 2023. I had surgery. I thought it was answered to my prayers. And after my surgery, I felt good for about a month. And then all of my symptoms came back. That led to my first spiritual awakening where I realized it's actually my, at that point, obviously I had the disease up until that surgery. But at that point, my emotional state was causing disease-like symptoms. So the pressure I was putting on myself, the limiting beliefs, the constant need to do more and not good enough. And being type A, all these personality traits and me not allowing myself to process my emotions was leading to physical symptoms that mimicked what I had with the disease. And I was in such a rock bottom that I was like, there is no way. There's no way. I didn't accept it. I was like, there's no way I'm going through all of this without a deeper purpose. And that's what led me to really go inwards and heal from an emotional subconscious place and not just deal with the physical symptoms because that was very superficial. And so my entire book, The Unlimited Power Within You is that entire journey of my spiritual awakening. And all of the things that I was doing to heal on a deeper inner level that then led to my physical healing, that then led me to be the magnetic and full of light and really just love who I am. And so the book, what kind of talking about, like enjoying your own company, a lot of what I wrote about was how I didn't know how to love myself on a deep level. I mean, outwardly, I was like, yeah, I'm so cool. Like I'm an author and I have a good job. And I'm like, I love the way I look and but on a deep level, I didn't have unconditional love for my body, for my mind. There was a lot of inner resentment. And there was also a lot of limiting beliefs such as, I'm not good enough or I won't be successful unless I work really hard or things don't come easy to me or I'm not lovable. Like all of these limiting beliefs that were manifesting in in my health, in my love life, in my friendships, in my career. And so the book is really that journey of where I was when I was deep in my rock bottom. And the process of shedding those layers and conditions and patterns, behaviors, beliefs that I took from that traumatic experience through my health. And finally processing that trauma and then coming out on the other side and realizing I was built on the foundation of love. I'm full of light and love. And really a remembrance of who I was as a child prior to all of those experiences that made me feel unworthy, unlovable, not good enough, et cetera. And so the event that I hosted that you joined was a conversation panel with Amber in honor of that book. And so she asked such thoughtful questions of what did this passage mean or why did you structure it in these five chapters or what does unlimited mean to you and what does power within you mean to you. And it was a really beautiful conversation because it was the first time I really spoke about the dark nights of the soul and like all the things that I did and healed in my life. learned to allow me to write that book. And so my mission with it is anyone who gets our hands on it is to really remember how powerful we are and how everything you need, everything. Love, peace, freedom, joy, abundance is already inside of you. It's just removing those blocks and those layers that make you believe otherwise. And we were all born with love. We were born as magnetic worthy whole beings. And then we grow older and all these people that trigger us and condition us and dump things on us. We start to believe that we're not. And it's really coming back to who we always were. So that was kind of the theme of the event. And it was so beautiful to just meet people in my community, meet you. And hopefully inspire people in that room to really take their power back and realize that they are so limitless and that they can no matter what you are going through, no matter what suffering or challenge you're experiencing, that there is light at the end and what you will discover on your healing journey is that that light is not outside of you. It's really just the light inside of you that was dormant for so long that you relight. And that is what will carry you for the rest of your life. So there's so much like in what you just said that I am the wheels and my brain are spinning. So I think that even the process of writing that book was probably really healing. Oh my God. Yeah. Think through to reflect on your these experiences in your life, to reflect on how you went from point A to point B and like the muscle that you built to be able to release a lot of these limiting beliefs because life is going to just throw us with a series of challenges. And it's like, okay, you go through something hard. And then you come out on the other end. And then you feel great. But then it's like, oh, shit, like another thing's going to come up. When you learn from one experience, you're building that muscle to set you up for more success when inevitably the next difficult thing is going to hit. You know, it's a stagnant like or like a one off healing journey where you go from point A to point B. It's just like different iterations of like the same thing I think that shows itself in different ways throughout the course of our lives. And I think that writing in particular is a great exercise or opportunity to be able to reflect and look back on the way that you've grown and the skills that you've gained so that you can bring it into the next chapter of your life. And I know that you writing is a passion of yours. I mean, you've been writing for a very long period in your life and would love to hear a little bit more about how you got into writing in particular. And the second life that you live outside of your corporate job too. I started writing poetry when I was 16 February, second, 2013. And I know the date because it's literally the title of my note on my app of my phone. I started writing as a way to just document my life what I was feeling. I've always been creative when I was a kid. I was just art class was my favorite class. I was always a performer. I love being front and center. I loved doodling and drawing and painting. So that was always my authentic self, right? And I was 16 years old. I'm in high school going through some boy stuff and like wanting to be in college already and like live my life and whatnot. And so I started writing as a way to process and feel my emotions because I grew up in an immigrant household. God bless my parents, the most incredible family ever, truly, so much unconditional love. But they never were taught how to feel their emotions. Therefore, I wasn't fully taught how to feel my emotions. And so I think writing was this cathartic practice that I adopted at 16 to really understand what was going on inside and then transmuting that in two words that then allow me to articulate and understand, oh, like that's what that is. Or that's what that's trying to teach me. And so I started that when I was 16 and throughout high school, throughout college, I would always write in my notes app pretty much like two to three times a week, just a poem or a passage or whatnot. Half of my first book Beauty and the Stillness is literally what I wrote when I was 16 to 25, which is really cool. And then during COVID, when world was locked down, I was at a different job. I was feeling pretty unfulfilled at that job. And I needed a creative outlet. And that's when I started to share my work online. That's when I started my Instagram page and my brand. And that led me to have an additional outlet to actually like commit to the practice of writing. And so now for me writing is truly second nature. It is, I do it every day throughout the day, even in my head, I'm like writing pastures and thoughts and newsletters and whatever. But it's really the thing that I do that I feel the most connected with myself and with the divine. I feel like now I've really like tapped into my spiritual gifts. And so when I write, especially my second book, this came through and this was part of that healing process of writing it. I really was channeling God's voice because sometimes I would write something and I would be like, where the fuck did this come from? Like I'm not that wise. I'm not that smart. And I realized it was really God speaking through me. And so a lot of my biggest downloads, my biggest revelations, my biggest breakthroughs, or my biggest aha moments come through when I'm writing. And I think just committing time every single day personally to hear what my subconscious mind is saying and have a place for it to go is in and of itself such a healing practice because we're all thinking a million thoughts where all of us have racing minds. And when we just allow our subconscious to flow through, we just start to detach from what's going on inside. And we also start to realize how much clarity and wisdom is inside of us. If only we give ourselves space to let that out. And so I think above anything else, I'm a writer at heart, I always have been. And it's truly the thing that brings me the most joy. It's the thing that I love doing the most by myself, talking about what we were saying before I love my own company. Like truly my favorite days are when I'm just by myself and I'm just writing. So that's how it all started. And that's kind of where I've arrived. And now I'm at a place where I'm exploring different mediums on how I share my writing. So I'm writing my first screenplay. I have my sub stack newsletter. So we're just kind of exploring all of the news with it. Oh, that's so exciting. Oh, that's amazing. Well, first I need to subscribe to the newsletter. I also started a sub stack about a year ago now, which I'll talk a little bit about because that's another link between the two of us. As far as the way our brains operate and where interests lie, I also love creative writing. I actually studied, I minored in creative writing in college. And I loved there was, there were two paths you could go down, you could go down literary journalism, I think was the first one or creative nonfiction. And I loved the creative nonfiction. In other words, it was you writing about yourself. And yeah, like I love doing that. It was so cathartic for me in college. And it actually created like dedicated time and space through assignments and deadlines and all the things. For me to reflect on things that I was thinking about and for me to process certain things that I didn't realize I needed to process, but to do it through developing my own craft as a writer. And that's something I miss actually about not being in school anymore. You know, yes, I have this sub stack and I write, you know, a newsletter about once a month, but these are all self-imposed deadlines. And it's through like the creative energy. It's not through like a class or something external to me. And I kind of miss having that structure because it definitely held me accountable. And I had prompts and different topics to write about. And now it's, it's very much like whatever's just going on up in my head that I want to share on the paper. I want to also go back to this point you made around giving yourself the space to translate what's going on in your brain onto paper. I think is incredibly powerful. And I see that playing out for me at least in two different scenarios or in two different ways. The first being like when you're going through something difficult journaling is like one of the most helpful ways to process what you're feeling because it is inherently through the act in creating that space to think and translate that onto paper. You get more clarity around what you're even you were even thinking to begin with. Sometimes I feel like we're so reactive like we feel in emotion and we just want to act on it or do something. But when you take a beat and you just write you're giving yourself the time to be really like intentional about how you then choose to act. And this can show up in so many ways. I've had experiences where I wanted to like tell someone off or like call them or see them and just like word vomit things. And then I thought you know what let me just write that person a letter and never get to them. But let me figure out what I want to say. And it's been incredibly helpful. Oh my god. I love that you said that because a lot of the things that I wrote in my second book, the unlimited power within you, there's five chapters and like I'll just quickly summarise this. The first chapter is awakening the self. The second is understanding the self. The third is forgot what the third is. I forgot what the third is. And then the fourth is freeing the self. And then the fifth is becoming the self. I should know that. That's so funny. Anyways, I started writing the awakening chapter and then midway through, I started writing the end of the book. And I didn't really know why I was doing that until in retrospect now I know what it was. It was actually me writing the future that I wanted to have. So I would write down what I actually wanted to experience in my life. What revelations I wanted to have. What beliefs I wanted to to have. And by doing that from like a higher self future state point of view, when I was reading my book and every time I would reread those chapters that didn't feel true in the moment, it was actually inspiring me to take action that related and resonated with that version of myself. And I actually started doing that in my journaling practice where I started writing in the future state or in the present state of experiences I want to have in the future. And just by doing like I got on the New York Times best selling list, right? Like just by writing that, I'm like, oh, I'm starting to believe that that is possible. And it's so mind blowing because when I periodically will go back to all of my journals and reread the entries. And I think this is one of the other reasons why I love it is of course it's cathartic in the moment when you're releasing and reflecting and to getting clarity on a state situation. But what is even more powerful is when you revisit your old journal entries and you read through what your past self wrote and the things that they were worried about and the things that were keeping them up at night or the challenges they were experiencing. And you're reading it a year or two years later and you're like, oh my gosh, like that's what I was worried about back then. Or that was the moment I changed my life or that was the catalyst for me taking the leap or that relationship that I was in that wasn't serving me was actually what was the the experience I needed to have to remember my worthiness. And so I do it for my present day self, but I also do it for my future self. And I also do it for my past self because it's like I remember who I was and what I was going through. And now it's like I'm a different person. And I want to document this as well. So it's such a beautiful practice. And I think a lot of people are overwhelmed. Like I don't know how to journal like what prompt should I ask myself like where do I start? And it's so simple. You literally just get a pen and a paper and you just start writing whatever is on your mind. It doesn't have to be poetic. It doesn't have to be beautiful. It's just let your subconscious mind come through. And the practice in and of itself is the most beautiful thing you could do for your mind body and soul. So I could not agree more. I'm going to say something that I'm probably going to regret immediately after saying it. But it's like it's like you're making data informed decisions by having things from past present. And then like what you're looking towards in the future. You know, this is me putting obviously like the corporate hat on. But like if you think about your life as I don't know a business or a company or something outside of you, if you like de-identify with who you know, your identity or you don't attach to who you are and you can see yourself like objectively. And you want to continuously elevate that human. You need like reference points and you need aspirations. And it's actually very similar to the work that I do in my day job for other companies, which is funny now that I think about it. But I've also noticed a similar experience where I've looked back at old notes that I've written on my phone from like when I was in high school. I'm like, Oh my God. Like what it's but it's it's embarrassing in the fact that I'm like, Oh God, that's kind of cringey. But then I have a good deeper sense of compassion for that previous version of myself because I didn't realize at the time a lot of like the struggles that I was facing. Like I didn't even have an awareness to it at that point in my life. And now I can look back and see that. And I'm like, Oh, that poor like 15 year old girl had a lot of insecurities that she didn't even realize that she had. And yet she was able to do a lot in her life. And it got me to where I am now. And I'm sure that in five years, I'm going to look back at this moment in my life and feel a similar way. And it's kind of trippy also to even have a podcast, you know, these episodes are out there forever. I don't listen to my interviews. Like obviously I do when they're edited and whatnot and I post them. But I'm not sitting here right now listening to an episode I recorded in 2021. And I'd probably think, Oh my God, what was I saying? But but that what got you here today, right? You start to feel so much grace and compassion and gratitude for the previous versions of yourself. And I think one of the things I really struggled with most of my life was nothing was ever enough. So like I would arrive somewhere that I prayed for. And I'm like, Okay, like I healed that thing, but like I still want this thing. Or like I got to number five on Amazon, but it's not number one. So like I got to work harder. And now I'm like, Oh my God, cutting. Remember where you were a year ago when you were writing this book and how sad you were and how broken you felt and look at where you are right now. And I think when you go back to that 16 year old version of yourself or the 2021 version of you when you were starting the podcast, one day you will relisten and you're going to be like, Hell yeah, like that girl put herself out there. Like yes, she wasn't speaking that well or maybe whatever it is, right? Or maybe she wasn't as great of an interviewer, but the reason why you're great at interviewing now is because that version of you put herself out there and that was practice each time you showed up to do an interview, you were practicing to become better and better and better. And same thing for me, I've been practicing writing every single day. So of course, my writing now is really powerful and really good. But I can look back to all versions of myself and truly feel so much pride and love. And that also reminds me to give that same compassion and love to this version of myself, even if my reality isn't everything I want it to be. It's like, I know that there's a future version of myself looking back on this moment and feeling so much pride and compassion and love. So let me give that to myself in the present moment. And I truly do believe that true unconditional self love from within is the foundational pillar for everything. That is the lens in which you see everything through and that is the place in which you take every action from. So if you truly feel that on a deep level, then you will be living in alignment. So I just wanted to say that. Yeah, I love that. That's so spot on. There's an anecdote that I want to share that I came into my mind as you were explaining kind of the phenomena of like life being a continuous practice of perfecting our craft, right? So I remember when I partnered with Aloe two years ago for an event, I had so much pride in that my name, my brand was like right next to the Aloe brand. That was huge for me, just starting the podcast and all that. And I remember coming off such a high from that event truly like it sold out 60 plus people on the rooftop. It just felt really rewarding to be like, I did this. Like I was the one that did the heavy work and I made this come to life. It was all on my own effort, my own ability to be persistent to follow up. It took a year to bring this to life. And in theory, you didn't have to take that long, but it did. And I did it. And I was very proud myself to, you know, it's like in those moments, you prove to yourself that you can do what you're set your mind to do because then you see it happen and you're like, okay, this goes me confidence. I can do the next thing. What I didn't share was the come down after that. And thinking to myself, well, what do I do next? Like what's going to top this and feeling kind of paralyzed because I was like, well, now I just hit peak. What's next? The most famous guest ever coming onto my podcast. And it's that type of thinking. It's the hedonic treadmill when we feel like we need to keep chasing and chasing and chasing onto the next, next, next. And as I reflect on kind of my journey, I think the approach that I had initially subconsciously taken with interviewing and the podcast was like doing these interviews and pursuit of like the next big thing and thinking that it was a stepping stone, a stepping stone, a stepping stone until I hit the peak. And then that's where it's going to land forever. But that's not how life works. Like this is also me thinking out loud, but realizing as well, you know, not everyone has to have a podcast to feel this way. It's how we set goals and intention in our lives. You're going to feel like shit, honestly, if you're stuck in that repetitive hedonic treadmill cycle because you're never going to feel a sense of happiness or fulfillment from what you're doing because you're just going to feel like whatever you do is not good enough or you want the next thing. And now the reframe that I've taken and this goes back to your point on like continuously building your skill set and growing is that I don't see the interviews that I host now as a means to an end. I see it as something that like truly excites me. There's no other way I'd want to spend my Saturday morning than sitting here across, you know, the computer screen with you or another guest and actually building towards something I love. And I now see this as no longer and means to an end and the end being what the rest of my life is going to look like. I see it as something that's continuously building me into that person that I want to become that I'm also trying to give myself grace to change and adapt and be different at different points in my life depending on what my circumstances look like. And I just wanted to share that because I feel like the crux of what I'm trying to communicate here is how do we get ourselves off of this hedonic treadmill because you don't have to have a podcast to experience this feeling in life. And I would love to hear from you as well. Like, you know, you mentioned earlier, you have this limiting belief on not being good enough and that ties into this. So where have you seen this show up in your life and how have you started to make the mindset changes and cognitive reframes to elevate yourself out of that? So I'll previs. When I discovered this was this was last October, I was in a toxic situation that should have never gone as long as it did, right? I was feeling really sick. I wasn't fulfilled by my career. And there were certain friendships that were somewhere really strong and somewhere not serving me. So there was these four different areas. in my life that I wasn't fully satisfied or happy. I was listening to a podcast, it was the No Thice of Podcasts. He was interviewing Marissa Peer and she's a renowned psychologist therapist and she believes that the number one limiting belief that everyone has is that I'm not good enough. And I listened to the episode and I was like, what is she talking about? Like, I don't feel bad. But then it got me thinking like, wait, what if that is true? Because I don't know, like maybe that's what's holding me back. And I was so desperate to find answers that I was ready to try anything. A couple of weeks later, I went to a breathwork journey in New York City and I started to visualize a lot of experiences in my teenage years where that I'm not good enough belief stemmed from. And it actually came when I was in high school, I was talking to a guy and he like, chose a girl over me. And so what I took away from that without my the awareness and wisdom that I have now was I'm not good enough. And that's why he chose her over me. And that's where it stemmed from. That one little experience. And I will say, I don't even think about this. It's not about the guy. It's the meaning I took about that experience. So what happened? I go into college. And anytime I'm not chosen, the belief I took was I'm not good enough. In my career, in job opportunities, in friend groups, in relationships, in opportunities, everything. Like I always took, if I'm not chosen, I'm not good enough. I'm not lovable. I'm not worthy of that. So that was where I discovered it. And so I did a lot of breathwork journeys to revisit those experiences. I did a lot of hypnosis, a lot of meditation. And I would literally place myself back in those experiences as if I was reliving it and start to rewire what I took away from that. And I did a lot of journaling on this of like, what about that experience? Didn't make me feel good enough. How can I rewire this? What's in a more empowering belief that I could have taken away? How do I give my previous self more compassion and love? What was going on in her life that made her believe that? And I was unpacking all of this this time last year. And a few months after I started unpacking it, or while I was unpacking it, it was really funny because it was a test. It was a full-on test. I mentioned this earlier. My first book, Beauty and the Stillness, went viral on TikTok. It's sort to number five on Amazon bestseller's list. In retrospect, that's fucking amazing, right? Like this was eight months after my release. Like, oh my god, number five on Amazon. At the time, I, nothing was ever good enough. I was perfectionist and I wanted to be the best at everything. I saw number five on Amazon. I was on there for about three weeks and I was like, literally keeping tabs. Like, when is it going to go to number one? When is it going to go number one? It never surpassed number five. Rather than basking in that massive, incredible achievement, I was like, it's not number one. Okay, gotta, gotta work harder, I guess. Gotta keep going viral on TikTok. Gotta create more content. Gotta, you know, do more because I'm up there yet. And then once I started to unravel this limiting belief, I realized what a shitty thing that was. Like five years ago, if I told my 22-year-old self that you're going to publish a book and it's going to go number five on Amazon, she would be like jumping up and down. And there I was feeling not good enough. And that made me realize, wait a minute, I have really, really big goals. I have very big dreams. And if this thing isn't enough, if number five on Amazon enough, I know if I don't figure this limiting belief out and make it an empowering conviction that the day that I do get on the New York Times best-selling list, that's also not going to be enough. And where is a joy in that? So that taught me a really, really big life lesson that when you get what you want in your life, whether that's the dream job, the dream relationship, the dream home, the dream career, whatever it is, you will be so happy. Of course you will. You will feel joy anytime you walk into your dream home or you hang out with your dream partner or have walk into the office, right? Like, of course, you're going to feel super happy. But you could also feel so much joy as you are on the path of getting there. Because if you don't feel joy throughout the journey, what's going to happen is you're going to arrive and you're going to have the dream thing that you wanted and you're not going to feel good about it. You're going to realize it wasn't actually about the thing. It wasn't about the dream home or the partner or the job. It was simply feeling satisfied and fulfillment and peace from within. So you can feel that in the present moment. And I think that just all comes down to a really simple premise that the present moment is all you ever have. So the future experience of you getting on the New York Times best selling list, Codding, that's going to be the present in that moment. So can you feel what that feels like now? Can you feel pride for all of the efforts you're putting in now knowing that one day you will arrive there? And so now I keep tabs on my Amazon rankings because of course I want to know how my book is performing. And literally just two days ago it was 700 number 750. And I was like, hell yeah, like 750. That means people are buying it. That means it's creating an impact. Amazing that I'm even on the rankings, right? And then I check today and it's in the hundreds. I'm like, great, but my satisfaction and my pride and my joy don't differ if I'm at 100 or 750. It's the same. And it goes back to what you said about intention. When I started my brain, when I started publishing my books, my only intention was it wasn't about money, it wasn't about fame, it was truly I want to create an impact. I want to make people feel seen. I want to make people feel inspired or understood. And so regardless of where I stand on the rankings or how much money I make from my books, if I'm able to do that every single day, whether that's through an Instagram post or a DM or someone's reading my book, then that to me is enough because my intention is being satisfied. And that's what all of this is truly about for me. So that was my personal journey with that I'm not good enough belief when it comes to my career. But once I started to really start to feel worthiness from within, I walked away from that toxic relationship. I cut chords because I was like, not serving me. I know I'm worth more than this. I revaluated how I should open my career. I put better boundaries at work. I asked for what I really wanted. And so it started to show up in not just the career area, but also in the love, the friendships. You know, I started speaking my truth. I started telling people, hey, I'm not people pleasing anymore. I'm going to say what's on my mind because I feel like I'm good for that. I'm worthy enough to show up as who I really am. And so that's the beauty of rewiring those limiting beliefs. And I want anyone who is listening that if you feel that, that is so normal and so human because the truth is a lot of our programming and most of our limiting beliefs stem from our childhood from the ages of like four to 22, let's say when we're young, our brains aren't developed. So we have an experience and it could be as simple as your kid and you want to get a toy and your mom is like not today and you take away that like I'm not lovable that my mom's not buying me this toy right now. Like it's simple things like that that aren't trauma like air quote big trauma, but as a child, like that was pretty traumatic for a four year old, right? And so you're not broken. Nothing is wrong with you. It's simply we were so young at the time that we didn't know what to take away from those experiences, what meaning we received, but we're old enough now we have the tools now to go back and rewire and really truly believe that we are whole, we are worthy and we are beings that deserve fulfillment, joy and inner peace, but the underlying thing the message behind all this is all of that is within yourself. So you can't outsource that wisdom, you cannot source that experience. And the practices that I mentioned hypnosis meditation journaling, breathwork, all of those downloads didn't come from a teacher or a spiritual guide or a shaman. It was literally I placed myself in the environment. I did the right things that all of that wisdom came from within me. That was a mouthful. So I'll take a breath now. Well, first I just want to share that as I heard you talk about everything you just said, I just like feel very lucky to be having this conversation right now, truthfully. And it is a reminder in life that things happen in the timing that it should. Because I don't think I would have been able to have this discourse with you two years ago, truthfully, like I was not in the right headspace to have this kind of conversation. I probably wouldn't even be able to articulate half of what we're talking about two years ago. So a little revelation I just had is a reminder that things come to you when they're meant to in life. So don't force anything because things will naturally happen as they will and people will come into your environment when they're meant to. So that's a quick little side note, but a takeaway that I just had. Yes. And then there were two other things that I wanted to share. The first being as you were describing the rankings of your book and that hedonic treadmill effect and always wanting the next big thing. Those big things don't just like freeze in time. Life continues to move on. So when you have that, it's not like you can just like hold on to it forever. And time is frozen in that moment. Life is going to continue to move on. And so something I've realized is like not letting my ego be so tied up into those external achievements because life keeps moving. So you feel so stuck in something that you've wanted for so long and then you get it. You have to learn to like depersonalize yourself a little bit from it to not attach so tightly to that thing because life's going to continue to progress and move on. And when you can gain that sort of clarity or awareness, you learn really the true value of presence because those are quick moments in time and then time keeps moving. And so to fully soak that up is to be fully aware and present in that moment. And then for the next day to be fully aware and present in that moment, so on and so forth, because as I said, life keeps moving on. And back to your point around, these practices like mindfulness and breathwork and meditation, those are all fantastic tools to strengthen the neural pathways in your brain so that you can stay present. It is all practices you can do to allow yourself to be in that present moment. And when I really think about it for myself at least, I am not that present. I really want to be present and I talk about it a lot and I really working on it, but it is actually hard for me to be present. And I'll take this as an example, like we are sitting here right now and it is a Saturday afternoon. This is my life right now. This discourse is what's happening in my life right now. Why would I be thinking about yesterday or what I'm doing in two hours from now? Like the practice of just being fully focused and like immersed in the moment you're in does this crazy psychological thing where it actually stretches time and it creates more abundance because you're able to more fully soak up what's around you and who's with you and what you're doing. Rather than worrying or thinking about what's happening next or what happened before, those distractions like pull us away from being in the moment. I think to be fully in the moment is where you can actually create those really deep beautiful connections with yourself and with other people. So it's all very interconnected. And again, back to like our earlier point around you know learning how to enjoy spending time with yourself. There's a lot of discomfort that comes from being outside of your comfort zone, but a lot of it is like our brains are being taken out of the present moment. What can you do to bring yourself back to you and to your body and staying grounded? And so yeah, I just, I feel like right now an intention that I have for myself is really kind of thinking about new ways that I can cultivate a sense of presence in my life. Something that I remind myself frequently every single day is a simple truth. If you were meant to be somewhere else, if you were meant to experiencing something else, you would already be there, right? If I was meant to be a New York Times best-selling author by now, I would be there. It's not my time yet. I know it's coming. I have no doubt in my mind that that will happen in the future. It's not my time yet, right? If I was meant to be with the love of my life, I would already be with him. God would have already made that happen. Again, it's not my time for it. There's a time for everything, a practice that I do because I used to really live in the past and the future. Like I never was in the present moment. I'm now at a place where I'm truly like either in the present or I'm like future tripping. So my pitfall is I'm always thinking about what's next, what's next, what's next. In order for me to really ground myself in the present moment, I do a few things. One is I truly try to use all five of my senses. So like I'm sitting in this chair, right? If I want to be present, it's like what am I hearing? And that means I'm focusing on what's coming out of your mouth. What am I seeing? I'm looking at the screen, right? What does it feel like sitting in this chair? My legs touching the chair. What am I smelling? Right? So like using all five of my senses to be like this is where my body and my mind are at. This is what I'm focused on. The trouble, though, is when we are in an experience where we don't want to be in the present moment, right? We're having an argument with someone that we love or we're at a job and we just don't want to be there anymore. It's like we don't want to be present. It's not fulfilling us. I experience that often as well. However, I'm sure all of us have had many experiences in life where you were fully present, sitting at the dinner table with your girlfriends and you're just like cackling and laughing and just eating and having the time of your life you've done it before. You've been present. And so what environments naturally allow you to be present that you feel so much joy in and how can you create more space for that? So I'll give you an example. For my birthday a couple of weeks ago, usually I do like a big party and I get a big dinner table and like I do the whole thing. This year, I was like, that's not the environment I want to be in because I don't feel present in that. I'm always like thinking like what's everyone, everyone having a good time? Like what pictures did I take? Like, you know, I don't want to do that. So this year I went to Upstate New York with my best friend. We were three nights up there. On the last day I spent the morning by myself, because she drove separately, but I was so present. Like I was literally just where I was exploring, eating, laughing in the car driving. And I realized that that type of environment of like true stillness in a slow environment, it was like Upstate New York not much is happening. We're in a cute little cozy hotel. It's like, well, duh, I want to be present because I love this. This is so aligned with who I am. Now, another thing that I will mention, I want to just quickly speak on people not enjoying their own company. It's kind of all ties together. I was talking to my friend about this literally the other day and she was saying how she's going through something right now and it's so interesting because her love language is quality time and she's in a place where she just kind of wants to isolate herself right now. She's like, I don't want to hang out with anyone. I don't want to do anything. I just want to let be by myself. And she was like, I hate that. I'm not like giving space for my love language. And I was like, babe, no, you're giving the love language to yourself by being alone. You're giving yourself quality time. And that is the foundation of true freedom and inner peace. So I think for anyone who is listening, if you struggle with truly enjoying your own company, look at your love languages and think what are ways I can give this to myself in solitude. So let's say physical touch is one of them for you. Like take a warm bath, go to a sauna, do like a whole little face mask self-care night. If it's quality time, take yourself to a movie by yourself. If it's words of affirmation, it's like every morning, look at yourself in the mirror and tell yourself those affirmations that you really want to believe. And slowly you start to build a really beautiful loving relationship with yourself. And when that happens, you will know which environments you feel the most present in. And you will take yourself out of those environments that make you look on your phone or make you think about the past or think about the future. And that is truly the greatest gift that we can give to one another. And look, I'm human. Obviously I'm daydreaming about me, you know, doing all the things I want to do while I'm at work at my desk typing emails, right? Like that's so human. But it's like how quickly can you bounce back from that mental space to where you are? And over time, the more you practice that habit of like let me use all my five senses right now, that bounce back rate turns from two hours to 20 minutes, 20 minutes to 30 seconds. That's kind of where I'm at right now. So it's possible for all of us. Yes, I love that you said that because that is something I really try to communicate is how quick can we bounce back? Because it is like, yes, we are human and we'll think these things. And yet we can also have this wisdom. And so sometimes our human quality is overpower the wisdom that we know is, you know, the right path. But again, it's not letting like our human tendencies or the things that are on autopilot be in the driver's seat of our life. It's coming back quickly to that awareness. It's coming back quicker to the wisdom that we have and holding space for that. So I love what you just shared there because I think a lot of things in self development and podcasts and the wellness space, whatever, like none of our words are gospel. Number one and number two, it's all from lived experience in no way. Would I ever try to communicate that I'm like, quote unquote better than someone because I have this kind of awareness because yes, like I have this kind of awareness and I still struggle with a lot of things. And it doesn't mean that the awareness completely overrides that. But it's again, that ability to bounce back, come back to yourself quicker, being present with yourself. And I think we need to do a part two because we could probably talk for another hour. But I want to kind of wrap the interview here and transition to the topic of happiness, which again is really the premise of everyday and orphans finding things that bring you joy in life. So my final questions to you are first, how do you define happiness? And second, what is something that brings you a bit of endorphins every day? I think for me, happiness is when I truly feel child like joy. And I've done a lot of inner child healing over the past year and truly trying to remember like what was my spirit before all of the trauma that I've had in my life. What unites every single human being is that when we were all kids, zero to seven years old, we just did whatever we wanted to do. Like we would giggle and laugh and we had boundaries. Like if we wanted something, we would say that we wanted it, right? We would march to the beat of our own drum. We would try new hobbies, see what works if we didn't like it. We're not like, oh, I'm not good at that. It's like, I just didn't like it, you know? And for the things that we did love, we would create so much space and room for it. So now, for me, happiness is feeling that child like wonder and joy every single day, because that's the vibration I want to walk on. And if I can feel that, then I know everything is going to feel happy to me, whether I'm stuck in traffic, I'm like, I'm good. Like this is fun. Like I'm listening to more podcasts now and whatever. Or if I'm trying a new hobby, like I tried horseback riding last year for literally two sessions, I loved it. I just didn't have the time to commit to it. My goal here isn't to be be a equestrian writer, whatever it's even called, I just wanted to do something, I always wanted to do when I was a kid and I felt so happy doing that. And I was so unattached to it. So I would say that's what it is for me. It's childlike wonder and joy and really just allowing my inner child to play with everything that I do in life. And one thing I wanna know is what you said of being aware of something and not following that because we're human. I really do believe it's one thing to be aware of something and another to embody it. So I will say when I was writing my book, that's when I started to become aware of all of the truths that I wrote about, divine timing, the unlimited power within you, healing, life lessons, whatever. Only now am I starting to really embody what I had written. And that just takes time. Like you need life experiences to strengthen that trust also like you mentioned earlier. So awareness though is that first step. And then from there on once you're aware of it, you have the choice to change things. So that was the answer to your first question and now I'm fully blanking on what the last one was. It's the theme of the podcast what brings you into your friends. - Yeah, yeah. - It sounds kind of geeky, but I genuinely look forward to my morning meditations every day. The guy literally go to bed being like, "Yeah, I can't wait to do it." It's less about the meditation, but I love my slow mornings overall. I don't go on my phone for the first hour or so. I mean, I do a little bit like when I'm drinking my coffee, I'll play the New York Times games and I'll just quickly scroll on social media for about 10 minutes. But 90% of my morning is me stretching, meditating, journaling and that. And I truly feel so much joy when I do that. And it just sets the tone for the day. It's an active self love. It's quieting my mind, planting these seeds, getting the vision to follow my dreams, documenting who I am, who I'm becoming. And that just makes me feel so good. But overall, I think it's just like being with people that I love, honestly. I think that is, it's so simple, but human connection, love, platonic, romantic, family, whatever it is. That just makes me feel so alive. And that's something that I will never take for granted. And outside of our goals and our dreams, the most important thing truly is just people like love and connection. And so I create space for that every day and that's my everyday endorphin, I would say. Oh, I love it. I mean, that is really the common thread across most people's answers to that question is a sense of connectedness to other people and to oneself. And I aspire to have your morning routine. I have not meditated in the morning and I can't tell you how long it's been. And maybe this was a sign for me to like do that. But a slow morning is a really nice morning. And I kind of had that this morning as well. It's snowed and it stuck and I went outside and I went for a quick walk and I got this great coffee. And now I'm having a great conversation and I feel connected to someone. So when you start your day off on like a good foot, it really sets the tone for the rest of the day. And I love that. Thank you so much for coming onto the podcast. This was incredible. We must schedule a part two sometime. And I can't wait to see the ways that we continue to stay connected and collaborate together. So thank you. This was absolutely wonderful. Thank you so much. And thank you for asking such thoughtful questions and allowing me to go and so many different tangents that somehow connected with each other. Such a pleasure. And yes, we're going to create beautiful things and experiences together. Thanks for tuning into this episode of Everyday Endorphins. If you liked what you heard and you want to continue to follow along, make sure to like, rate, review, and subscribe to this podcast on whichever listening platform you prefer. You can also follow along on Instagram, on TikTok, and subscribe to my substack, where I not only talk about episode recaps or events that have happened that month, but I get to dive a little bit deeper into my own perspective and philosophy, on joy, and happiness, and living a good life. Thanks again for tuning in and reminder to keep spreading endorphins and finding the things in life that bring you joy. Until next time. (upbeat music)