WEBVTT
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This program is designed to provide general information with regards
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to the subject matters covered. This information is given with
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the understanding that neither the hosts, guests, sponsors, or station
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are engaged in rendering any specific and personal medical, financial,
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legal counseling, professional service, or any advice. You should seek
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the services of competent professionals before applying or trying any
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suggested ideas.
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At the end of the day, it's not about what
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you have or even what you've accomplished. It's about what
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you've done with those accomplishments. It's about who you've lifted up,
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who you've made better. It's about what you've given back.
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Denzel Washington, welcome to Inspire Vision. Our sole purpose is
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to elevate the lives of others and to inspire you
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to do the same.
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Dominie, thank you for being on the show.
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Hi, doctor Doug, thank you so much for having me today.
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I'm happy to be here.
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I'm excited. This is going to be an interesting topic,
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and I know you focus on some very specific things,
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but what I love for you to do is share
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with the audience your journey that brought you to this
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point in time, where you've written a book and where
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you're doing what you're doing.
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So my journey really starts with my childhood. I was
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born to a teen mom and I've never met my
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biological father, and so I was born into a very
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traumatic situation. I had a very traumatic conception story, and
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for so long I had a lot of shame and
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a lot of guilt around, you know, being a team mom,
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never knowing my dad so much so that I hit
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it for a long time. People very close to me,
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friends and some family knew, but you know, close friends,
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things of that nature. They didn't really fully know my
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story up until just a few years ago. It was
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something that I never really talked about just because of
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the amount of shame and guilt that I held and
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growing up. Honestly, my mom and I didn't talk about
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it much either. It was the big elephant in the
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room that I think, you know, we both just had
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a really hard time having conversation about. I didn't learn
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until my thirtieth the year that I turned thirty, when
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I really like sat her down and demanded some answers,
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that she had still had a lot of her own
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unresolved trauma from the situation, and that was partly mostly
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why she never talked about it. And so it was
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just in the last like five or six years that
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I started doing the work to really uncover and understand
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how I got here, why I had held so much
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guilt and shame and unworthiness about not having my dad
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and being born to a team mom and being able
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to heal and work through that thing. I just got
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to a point in my life where for so long
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I had been numb.
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I had existed that way.
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I had swallowed a lot of emotions in the midst
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of trying to block out some things, and so you know,
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I numb the good and the bad in the midst
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of trying to just forget certain things. And so for
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a long time I was just on autopilot and existing
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and just really existing, not feeling happy, not feeling joyful,
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not really feeling like I was fulfilled or had purpose.
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And I got tired of living that way. I got
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tired of the autopilot. I got tired of working, waking
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up every day and going to work and feeling unfulfilled
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and just kind of feeling like I was just blowing
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in the wind. And so I started doing the work
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that a lot of times we don't want to do
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because it's hard. You got to go back and you know,
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find answers and deal with things that you closed the
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box on for decades. And so it's just in the
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last seven years that I've been really committed to my
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own healing journey, and I found that the more that
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I did my own work, the more that I wanted
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to help other people, and that I was being guided
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to help other people. I never saw myself being in
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the wellness industry. Sometimes I laugh when people ask me, well,
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what did you major in college? I was a fashion
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merchandising major. And so I've completely veered off from where
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I originally started and what I thought my life would be.
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And so I'm here today.
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You know, I started an organization called Move and Still,
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and I'm sure we'll talk about that. Moving Still provides,
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you know, stress management and wellness services, and everything that
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I do is really all about connection, community and change
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and helping people to do their guiding people to do
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their own healing work. And I've just found my way
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here today because of my own story and just having
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I would say, having the courage to begin to go
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back in to release the things that were holding me back.
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So that's a bit about me and who I am
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and how I got here.
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Great, Hey, thank you, that's a great, great story. You
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know what comes to my mind, and it's really a question,
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And I don't know if you've really looked at this,
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but I suspect you have. What is it about us
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as children that we create a perception for ourselves that
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brings about that guilt, that shame when we had nothing
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to do with what's going on. Have you looked at
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that to see why on earth you developed that guilt
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and shame?
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You know, I haven't done a ton of research about why,
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but I will say that I'm a parent and I'm
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raising a four in seven year old, so I can
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shed some light just based on what I'm observing as
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a parent. I think it's children. I've had to do
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a lot of forgiving of my own mom because I
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think I held such a i don't know, like an
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unrealistic expectation of what my mom, who my mom should
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have been to me. And then I realized once I
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became a mother that, wow, like I was holding her
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to a standard that was really hard and she's not perfect,
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she is human. She had me at sixteen, she was
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doing her best. But to answer your question, I have
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two girls, four and seven, and I see now the
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way that I can say something or I can do
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something and it can be completely misinterpreted. And so I
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think it's children, Like our brains aren't fully developed into
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twenty five and so we're trying to do our best
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to process and understand the world. Someone can say something
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to a child and it can be completely misinterpreted. So
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I think for me as a child, I just kind
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of was trying to make sense of what my life
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was and as a result of that and not having
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conversations and not having a lot of answers, I just
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bottle that down. It came a lot of guilt and shame,
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but I think that was just the way that I
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was able to interpret the situation. I think had my
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mom been more open to having conversation, it might have helped.
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With some of the feelings that I was feeling.
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And so for me as a parent now, I really
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try to in the midst of recently like separating and
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divorcing from my partner and like that being a major
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life change, I try to have conversations with my children
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because otherwise what happens is that kids try to make
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sense of the world on their own and oftentimes it's
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not reality, but it's the way that their little brains
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interpret and try to make sense of things.
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Well, And as you have conversations, do you find that
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oftentimes you pick up on the fact that they have
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created a different perception of what you actually intended to
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be or to say yes, and you're able, how do
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you overcome that? How do you help them to change
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that perception when you recognize that they've developed that.
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So I have found that really just explaining it, which
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can be hard, right, you're trying to explain life and
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adult concepts to children. I have a foreign seven year old,
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and sometimes when they say things, it's like, wow, that's
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that's really not how things are, but that's how you
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perceive it. Just to give you an example, when my
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husband when my ex husband and I separated and we
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were going through the divorce process, it was of course
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like a major life transition for all of us, our
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family co parenting and splitting that way, my youngest daughter,
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who I think at the time we were having this conversation,
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she was about three, so she was a little bit younger.
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She's almost five now, but I remember her saying.
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That you don't love me anymore because you don't love
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Daddy anymore. And so I had to explain, well, I'm
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always going to love you, and it's not that I
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don't love Daddy anymore. Mommy and Daddy have just decided
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that we aren't going to be together, but I will
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always loved you.
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Know, he's your dad. We were together for a long time.
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So I had to explain to her that just.
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Because two people aren't together, that doesn't mean that I
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don't love that person anymore, and it also doesn't change
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the love I have for you. The last thing I'll
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add here is that I've noticed that my children oftentimes
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there's this like limited understanding of what love is, and
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they think, well, if you love my sister, then you
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can't love me, and it's just like that's not the
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way life works. And so for me, it's been a
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lot of just trying to explain things to them in
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a way that is easy for them to understand with
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their you know, very limited minds right now. But children
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are also very resilient and are able to figure things out,
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and so I think conversation just in general is really
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helpful for not internalizing some of the emotions that you
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often see that as adults were trying to, you know,
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unlearn and release in parents.
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I hope you're listening to this because that's some of
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the best sage advice that I think any parent can have,
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is that communication and that conversation that they can have
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with their kids. So you mentioned move and Still. Can
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you explain what that is?
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Yeah, So the name is literally, I would say, the
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premise of the business right movement and stillness, and so
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move and Still.
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I started in twenty twenty two.
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It was shortly after stepping away from online coaching, so
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I started coaching in the middle. Like in the height
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of COVID, I had gone through a ninety day process
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of focusing every day on my mind, my body, and
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my spirit. I started that in March of twenty twenty two,
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and after that ninety day period, the idea for the
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idea for that ninety day challenge came to me during
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a meditation. And it was at a point where I
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was unemployed, not as a result directly of COVID, but
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I had walked away from my job thinking that I
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was just going to take a slightly longer maternity leave
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after having my daughter in September, and then COVID happened
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in March, and so it wasn't a great time to
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be entering the workforce, and so I found myself unemployed,
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not really having a plan. I was having difficulties in
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my marriage, and to say like my life was feeling
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like it was in shambles is a bit of an understatement.
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So I just did the only thing that I knew
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how to do at that time, and oftentimes today it's
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the only thing I know how to do.
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I got still. I couldn't figure it out.
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You know, I'm overthinker, and I I tried to figure
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it out on my own and nothing was working. There
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weren't any answers coming to me. So I got still,
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and in the midst of that stillness, I heard this
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whisper say, focus every day for the next ninety days
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on your mind, your body, and your spirit. And I
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did that, and at the end of that ninety days,
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Doctor Doug, I was.
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A completely different person.
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Physically, I'd lost maybe about fifteen pounds or so, but
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the biggest transformation was how I felt spiritually and emotionally.
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I felt like I was alive and awake for the
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first time. And for me, it was like Wow, I
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had no idea that I was existing in this kind
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of state of numbness. And even at that point I
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had already been doing personal development work and growth work,
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but this was like a new heightened level of awareness
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and awakening. And so I started coaching shortly after that
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time because I wanted everyone to feel what I had
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been feeling. I quickly burned out in the coaching industry.
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I quickly also was realizing that clients were coming to
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me for health and wellness and nutrition. Women, very educated women,
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very you know, successful women, but they were all very
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stressed out. Again, this was the middle of COVID. They
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were balancing full time roles with school and families and
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all of these things. And it no longer was about
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a meal plan or you know, what you needed to
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eat or how you needed to work out. It was
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looking at their stress levels and really trying to understand