A four-minute meditation where she sits with her legs crossed, eyes closed, and listens to her thoughts to identify what's stressing her or what her body needs.
She thinks balance creates the illusion that one can do multiple things simultaneously, which is unrealistic. Instead, she advocates for prioritization, focusing on what’s most meaningful and impactful at the moment.
Her brother and sister-in-law, who have four young children, use a Roomba to clean crumbs and Alexa to manage morning routines, showing how small changes can save time and energy.
The show explores self-discovery, self-acceptance, and purposefulness through the metaphor of Black hair, with each episode featuring different hairstyles and interviews with women about personal growth and identity.
She recommends identifying personal go-to activities that recharge you, such as sitting by water, feeling the wind, enjoying a Starbucks tea, or taking a short nap, and ensuring you do them when needed.
She aims to raise $12,000 through her crowdfunding campaign to cover costs like photography, videography, and hairstyling for the show, with rewards ranging from shoutouts to exclusive podcast episodes.
Good day, good people. Welcome back. It's another episode of Imperfectly Phenomenal Woman. It has been a while, y'all. It's been a while. Thank you for giving me the grace to take a little mini break.
If you're new to this podcast, I am Lauren. I'm the host and the producer and I do all of the things. I'm a solo indie podcaster. And in each episode, I usually talk to different women about limiting beliefs that hold us back from living fully and authentically. And so this week, I'm going to do a solo episode and we're going to talk about the topic of honoring your energy.
And of course, this one is in my spirit because that's where I'm at right now, like trying to be mindful of my personal energy. So let's get into it. So let's talk about this limiting belief that you have to grind. You have to ignore your emotions and get the work done. Ignore your feelings and get the work done. Ignore what your body is telling you and get the work done. At the end of the day...
You just got to get the work done. And let me tell you, that is a limiting belief because you are human. Humans require rest. We do not have infinite energy. I want to talk a bit about what honoring my energy has been looking like lately. So first thing that I do in the morning, I have a pretty extensive morning routine. It's about an hour and a half to two hours. Honestly, it's a whole thing.
But one part of it is a four minute meditation. I literally sit for four minutes in my bed, legs crossed, eyes closed, and just listen to my thoughts.
I listen to my thoughts. I see what's coming up for me for that day. The things that typically come out or that come up are the things that have been stressing me out for some particular reason. And so if those things come up, that means that I need to address it that day so that I can release any stressful feelings around it. Another thing that typically comes up during that four minute meditation is stress.
Paying attention to what my body is feeling. I might notice that I'm hungry. I might notice that my back hurts. Like there's different things that I will notice about my body and what specific area is feeling a specific thing. And I always try to honor, I don't always do it, but honor whatever my body is feeling and be mindful of it and give my body what it needs.
So that four minutes helps me give my body what it needs. It helps me give my mind what it needs. It helps me give myself what I need throughout the day so I can really truly set my intentions. Because here's the next thing.
People try to tell you to figure out how to balance everything that you have going on. I think balance and this idea of balance is kind of misleading because it makes you think that you can really do multiple things at the same time. No, we're not balancing. We are prioritizing. Let's say that you have multiple things on your plate. For me, for example, and I'm just going to talk about creative projects that are on my plate for the most part. So I have...
Imperfectly Phenomenal Woman, this podcast. I have new growth, which is the new show that I'm making, the creative aspect of it. I have new growth fundraising that I'm doing.
I have another project that I'm working on called A Celebration of Wins and everything that goes along with that. I also have my full-time job. So all of these things, they require a lot of attention, but I don't have that much energy within me as one person to give. And we have to recognize that. Like we try to assume that we should be able to do everything. No, we don't have to do everything. You don't have to.
But what you do have to do is prioritize what's most meaningful and impactful to you and your community right now. And so if I were to say right now that I'm going to do the podcast and I am going to do new growth, I can't physically do those things. I can't even do the creative of new growth while simultaneously doing the fundraising for new growth. I literally just can't. I have to choose what
one thing right now and put my attention there so that I do not burn out and I do not deplete myself and end up in an unhealthy situation. So no, we are not going to balance. We are going to prioritize and we are going to focus. And then when we're at a place where we can pick things back up or it feels good in your spirit to do something like it does right now for me to get on this mic and do another podcast episode, it feels good in my spirit to
then I will. So we're not balancing, we're prioritizing. What is most important to you and just know that you can always come back to that other thing later or you can ask for help. Now here's an example with asking for help. So at work, we have a big conference coming up. Generally when that conference comes up, we work nonstop to the point where at the end of every day, I am mentally drained and cannot do anything but get my Starbucks. That's all. I can't do anything else and watch, do
Disney Channel original movies. That's all. I can't do anything else. And so me and my boss were talking today and we were like, where can we find some support? Because we're at the point where we need to get some stuff off of our plate. There's probably some stuff in your life if you are feeling overwhelmed that you need to get off of your plate. Where is there a resource for that? And so we identified an underutilized resource called
that we have and we said we are going to try to figure out how to engage them because we can't do it all. I cannot do it all. You cannot do it all. Where can you find efficiencies? Another thing that just popped in my mind was my brother and sister-in-law, they have four kids all under the age of nine.
And one thing that was nuts within their household, of course, was the amount of crumbs that were on the ground. These kids cannot keep nothing on their plate. That's just how it works with the kids, you know? So they got a Roomba. They were like, we are tired of sweeping. We are tired. We will get this little robot and this little robot is going to pick up all these crumbs. The kids have to turn it on after we eat. That's it. Efficiencies. They said, okay.
we not about to wake all these kids up in the morning alexa turn this like let them know at this particular time set this alarm so that the first time that they need to wake up we'll go and we'll give them a hug we'll wake them up but the second time that's a reminder it's going to be alexa because i'm going to be in here cooking breakfast by that point so efficiencies at one point they were like we are saving the planet we will not use all these paper plates
And once that baby number four came, they said, okay, paper plates it is. Paper plates it is. So in your life where you can find deficiencies...
Find the efficiencies. And maybe they don't look exactly like what you want right now, but just know that you can go back and you can shift later. So we talked about those four minute meditations of being aware of how you feel mentally, physically, emotionally. After that, figuring out your priorities, not balancing necessarily, but just prioritizing. Choose something, say yes to something and say no to other things. You have to say no, you cannot do it all.
All right, good people. So look, I am making a new show. It's called New Growth. Y'all have probably already seen it on social media, at least see my concept video. So the show is about the process of self-discovery, self-acceptance, and purposefulness.
is full action told through the metaphor of black hair. It's going to be a limited series, five to six episodes, 20 to 30 minutes each. I will likely post it on YouTube when it's done. But here's the thing. I cannot make this show without your help. Because did you know that your favorite shows, I'm trying to make this a Netflix style. So think video, not podcast.
But your favorite Netflix show costs about a million dollars per episode to make. Now let me tell you something I ain't got to.
I don't got it. So what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to raise $30,000 to make these episodes. So we got to pay photographers. We got to pay videographers. We got to pay to get my hair done. I'm getting my hair done in each episode in a different style to show my process of self-discovery and also interviewing women in each episode about their experience with personal growth and identity. But we need the funds out here.
So I got a crowdfunding campaign going on and for that one, I'm trying to raise $12,000. So if you want to be a gem and help me out, any amount is appreciated. You can buy me a coffee for like $5. There's also really great rewards. Like at the $50 level, you get a podcast toolkit that tells you everything that I did to create my podcast.
The $100 level, you get this really dope playlist. You get an exclusive podcast episode along with a booklet about reframing limiting beliefs. There's a lot of rewards on there that you can get. Even $25 level, I give you a shout out on social. I'll leave the link in the show notes. ifundwomen.com backslash projects backslash new-growth-video-series
Right now I'm recording this on Wednesday, August 16th. I have six days left in this campaign. So don't delay. Just go do it now. Support now. My goal with this show is to help Black women's spirits flourish as much as our curls do. I want everyone to be able to live life more fully as the truest essence of themselves. So go click the link in the show notes and contribute.
Thanks, girl. All right, let's get back to the episode. Now let's talk about what happens if you do become depleted. Because it happens to me often, very often. Just because I'm at that point in my job, like I mentioned, we have this conference coming up at the end of the day. I'm drained, drained.
It's important to know what recharges you and what fills you up. I think for me, and I'm going to speak for myself, I really am like a battery. Like I cannot remain at full capacity forever. You can't, you become drained as you do things, right? And so it is important to literally recharge. As humans, we were literally designed like this. We were designed to rest. We have to rest. We sleep. If you don't sleep well,
You will go nuts. You will probably die if you do not sleep. Your body needs it to recharge and to remain healthy. Even our maker depends on like what you believe. I'm a God girly over here. So God said, rest on the Sabbath day. My man's literally said, if you don't rest on the Sabbath day, you are breaking the law and you should be killed. Yes, it's dramatic and it goes hard, but it goes to show that rest is important to
Now, please note, I'm still in the Old Testament, so I don't know what the New Testament say about the Sabbath, but that's what the Old Testament say for where I'm at so far. But you have to know what recharges you. So for me, that is going and sitting by the water, looking at how the water ripples, recharges me.
Feeling wind on my skin recharges me. Sitting in the sun recharges me. Getting my Starbucks teas recharges me. A chocolate cake pop, good little recharge. A 10 minute nap, that was 100% needed today. Good little recharge. What recharges you? Have a toolkit of your go-to things to recharge and make sure you do them when you are aware of how you feel.
Awareness of your feelings is key. Do not ignore how you feel. I heard Tracee Ellis Ross, she was talking about, she was talking, I think, to Oprah. And she was saying that becoming more aware to her has looked like going to the bathroom when she realizes she has to pee. Like she used to hold it, but now she's trying to honor her body and listen to herself. And so going to the bathroom is the way that she does that when she knows that she needs to.
So listen to yourself, honor yourself, do the things that your body's mind and spirit need you to do. And honestly, I think that's it for now. You do not have infinite energy. Do not beat yourself up about that. Like we just talked about, one, check in with yourself. Two, prioritize what's important. Say yes to the things that you want to say yes to and no to the things that you cannot do. You have your plate is full, girl. Say that to anybody that's around you. Say that to your boss.
Say that to your kids. I know you got to feed them. Of course, prioritize that kind of stuff. Say that to your family. Say that to those extracurriculars, especially the ones that you don't get paid for. It's okay to pause and come back to it. And that third thing of when you do get depleted, know how you recharge and allow yourself to do it. You have to do it. You have to stay healthy and you have to do what you have to do for your mind, body, and spirit.
As always, I appreciate you for tuning in. If you want to connect, feel free to DM me. Shout out to the girl from Poland who sent me that DM. Let me know that my podcast reached Europe. Shout out to you. And I hope y'all have a lovely week. Farewell.