This episode peels back the layers of internalized feelings and the liberating process of journaling. Discover the transformation that takes root when you stop projecting your feelings onto the world and start reflecting inward. I'll share how this shift in perspective has not only been cathartic but also a cornerstone in fortifying my personal growth — a metamorphosis that could very well resonate with your own journey towards self-awareness and healing.
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Shop our apparel! --> Love Your Body Now
Follow us on socials: @weareloveyourbodynow
This episode peels back the layers of internalized feelings and the liberating process of journaling. Discover the transformation that takes root when you stop projecting your feelings onto the world and start reflecting inward. I'll share how this shift in perspective has not only been cathartic but also a cornerstone in fortifying my personal growth — a metamorphosis that could very well resonate with your own journey towards self-awareness and healing.
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Shop our apparel! --> Love Your Body Now
Follow us on socials: @weareloveyourbodynow
Welcome to the Love your Body Now podcast, the podcast for women who are ready to feel confident in their body right now and redefine what health looks like for them. I'm Savannah, your host, and together we'll be having conversations about what it means to accept and love our bodies now, while simultaneously prioritizing our health journey. We'll be debunking beliefs that do not serve us and diving into misconceptions and unhealthy narratives in the fitness world, so that we can rebuild our foundation from a place of self-love. Hello, welcome back to the Love your Body Now podcast. I'm super excited to be recording today because it's been a minute since I've recorded. I always do batch recordings, so I'll record a few episodes that will release for the upcoming weeks and months, and then I'll go for a while without recording, and it's been a while. I made a post last week that our episode that was supposed to release last Monday didn't end up happening because it ended up getting deleted, which was super frustrating because it was actually an episode that I had recorded with a guest and I went to edit it about a week in advance or so and realized that it had been deleted. And it was so frustrating because I I just it's one thing for the episode to get deleted if it's just me, but to have recorded with someone else, and you know they gave me their time. It was just really frustrating that that happened and I had an upcoming event that was happening that weekend so there was no way for me, like I had no time, to record another episode.
Speaker 1:Before the following Monday, which, if you hadn't seen my posts, I was a vendor at a pop up event for the first time ever and it was so fun. I actually went out of town. I had a friend that I went and visited in Fort Worth and we did the event in Fort Worth. So I was able to make a trip out there and visit a friend and then also experience my first pop-up event as a vendor selling our Love your Body Now apparel. So it was really fun. It was an experience. I feel like I learned a lot and I got to network with really cool, incredible women.
Speaker 1:I actually ended up getting invited to attend slash speak at a couple of upcoming events this month in May. Both of them happen to be on May 18th and they were two separate ones, but I'm actually going to be at another event in Fresno where I will be speaking and also having my apparel available for purchase there. So I had to turn them down. I was super bummed because I was like, oh that. You know that's the whole reason. I wanted to start getting more involved in events and being a pop-up vendor because, you know, I just really wanted to start networking and connecting with new people and really pushing this brand out there and getting the name out there and spreading the message and the mission behind what Love your Body Now is. So that was super exciting and super uplifting to be able to experience that for my first event and just be able to connect with a lot of new people. So if we connected that weekend over in Fort Worth and you're listening to this episode, like thank you so much for your support and thank you for checking out this podcast, it's something that I am just so passionate about and love being able to spend time doing.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I am back recording and I for the first time in recording with a camera. I think last time I had mentioned in one of my episodes that I had like a lot of tech going on. I was recording in my office and if you're watching this, I have like such a mess going on in the background, but the last time I tried recording on an app and it ended up not working out. So my goal is to eventually get this podcast up on YouTube and that was one of the reasons why I purchased a camera for vlogging. You know, vlogging my experiences with becoming a vendor and being at pop-up events, experiences with becoming a vendor and being at pop-up events and then also trying to attempt to put the podcast up on YouTube. If you're someone who prefers to watch videos and, you know, be able to have like a visual of the person talking, so eventually it'll happen. I'm like trying not to overwhelm myself with too many different things all at once, but I have my setup right now. I have quite the setup and just hoping it all it all just works out and stays, and I'm recording in two different places, so it can kind of like distract me a little bit to make sure that both places are like working just fine. So hopefully nothing goes wrong.
Speaker 1:But with today's episode I wanted to get into how you can start journaling in a way that is super effective and before you like maybe tune out, because I have tried and attempted journaling multiple times and I just like have never been able to get into it, and there's definitely a reason for it. There is a very special way that you can journal in a way that is like actually very, very effective, and that is what I want to share. So this episode may not be super long, but I think it'll be very helpful if you're someone who maybe is like me, who has attempted journaling and just like cannot get into it and like feels like, feels like it's very like what's point kind of mentality, because that's that was somewhat of the mentality that I had for a while with it Like I just like could not get myself into it and it felt like, kind of like a waste of time. So I'm going to share some of what has really worked for me and what has been super helpful, because in the past when I've tried journaling, you know, I've purchased notebooks, basically like blank notebooks, to just be able to like dump my thoughts and journal that way. I've also purchased guided journals where it like kind of like gives you prompts or, like you know, you can also record your daily activities or daily habits. I've bought all kinds of journals and I never really got into it, and this year recently, I've talked about it on multiple episodes in the podcast. That this year has just been like a whole new healing experience for me, where I have been very, very intentional with focusing on myself and the awareness in myself and really just trying to understand me and my triggers and things that I haven't processed and have avoided processing for so long, and journaling has really, really helped with this. I have also followed a few people who teach a lot about how to heal and do the inner work.
Speaker 1:So I read the book and I think I've referenced it before, but I read the book Lady Balls by oh shoot, her name is Myrna Mina, mina, mina, I think it's Mina. If you end up like really wanting to know who she is, just message me and I'll share with you, because she also has a YouTube channel. But I started with her book Lady Balls. She has two different books. I read them both, but the first book, lady Balls.
Speaker 1:It like transformed the way I thought and the way I understood myself and my own healing journey, and she does include a lot of journal prompts with it. I do believe that she has, like her physical book has, like you can actually write in it. I think I listens to the audible, so that makes it a little bit more challenging with journal prompts, but anytime she was like giving journal prompts at the end of chapters, I would pause and I would write them down and then I would use those prompts as time to like reflect and basically do the work. Because that's been the one thing that I haven't been doing or I wasn't doing for a really long time, where I would read these personal growth books personal journey, personal growth journey books that would include like homework or include prompts, and I was just kind of like yeah, yeah, yeah, like get on with the next chapter. And I would always just kind of like go over the prompting and everything.
Speaker 1:And with this book, lady Balls I don't know if it was just the content felt different. Maybe I was just in a different space of like receiving this information while I was reading it to then like past books before, but it really did change my perspective on journaling and I feel like it has helped me overcome a lot of triggers. At least I feel like I've better understood triggers, I've become a better person, like my relationships have improved. It just has been super impactful for me and I just want to pass along this information because I think it can help so many people because I think it can help so many people.
Speaker 1:And the biggest difference with what I was doing with journaling before versus what I use journaling for now is basically how deep I go with myself and what I was also doing before and my thought about what journaling looks like was you sit down at the end of your day and you just like write about your day and I thought that that's what like when people talk about journaling. I thought that that's what it meant and it can. You can definitely do that to process your day or like write out like all the things you're grateful for. That happened that day, definitely. But for me it was like, okay, I'm sitting down and I have to write about my day and like nothing really came out of it. It was like why am I like wasting my time like writing this stuff down?
Speaker 1:And the pivotal moment for me with journaling became all about using really strong and impactful questions to go deep with myself and get past like the surface level and use it to understand where my triggers were coming from or like when they were coming up. So, for example, if there was something that really bothered me throughout the day, whether it was something stupid, like if I got road rage or something, or if it was like me getting annoyed with my husband over something. That is like, why am I getting so like triggered by this, or why am I getting so annoyed? I would go to journaling before I would react anywhere. So, like if my normal tendency was I got triggered over something my husband did, instead of like projecting that to him and just like not really thinking twice about it, I would stop myself and I wouldn't really like react in the moment.
Speaker 1:It was kind of like any time an emotion came up for me, I would pause and then it was kind of like okay, I am not going to project anything out to anyone until I process this internally. So then in turn, I would go to my journal and I would kind of like write out the situation and like, just like, put it out there, like, write out the situation, write out how I'm feeling, and then I would say like, okay, like what? Why am I upset? And allow myself to like kind of like peel back the layers, because we all know that when we get upset over a really like little situation, that isn't like a big deal. We're kind of like okay, but like what's the real reason behind this?
Speaker 1:And then going deeper with that and what tends to come up is like you start to realize, like where this actually came up when in the past, or like maybe a specific incident happened or a situation happened and it taught you something, it made you believe something about yourself, whether you felt like maybe as a kid, you had to like work really hard to get anyone's attention and like you weren't like no one really paid attention to you, so you felt like you had to like work really hard to like receive um, receive attention or receive love, whatever. And now that's starting to come up in in ways in your daily life where maybe you do something around the house, maybe you clean something or whatever it may be, and then your husband comes home and he doesn't even notice or he doesn't say anything and that automatically triggers you because of that situation that happened back when you were younger, or repeated situations that happened back when you were younger. And normally it's like why would I get so triggered by this? But it's like there's a reason for it, and that's what journaling can allow you to do is go deeper with yourself and understand that and this is all, before you've ever even reacted and so you can start to understand and witness how journaling can truly impact your relationships, because you are no longer reacting to everything happening around you, because I think we've probably all heard the saying or heard people talk about there's a difference between reacting to life and like responding.
Speaker 1:And when you can have that internal awareness of yourself of like things happening to you, how do you react to them? Are you instantly triggered by stuff and you project that onto other people, or do you actually stop and sit with it and like question where the emotion's coming from, like why the emotion's even coming up, because that is when things start to get super powerful is when you can actually stop in the moment and use that time to better understand yourself. And I think that that's where, like, my relationships have improved as well, because normally, where I would just allow the emotion to just take over me to where I had, I was not in control anymore. That's like it's really awakening, because it's like I realized how often I just like lose control and I don't like I blame other people for things that upset me, but they don't know that things are going to upset me. They're just existing and going on with their day-to-day. It's like why did that specific action that they did, that had nothing to do with me, upset me so much?
Speaker 1:That's what can be so powerful when you start to journal about these things, because it allows you to again better understand yourself and increase your internal awareness of yourself and then move forward from it. So, if you like, get triggered by the same thing over and over again, but then, instead of reacting all the time, you actually give yourself the space and the time to process it and to understand it. That's when you can start to let things go and again like we may be reacting in situations that is a little bit like like overreacting to people that we have relationships with. That is hurting the relationship. And the more that we avoid internally processing things that are bottled up inside of us, the more we hurt other people and the more we project our own issues onto other people that really have nothing to do with them.
Speaker 1:And that is something that I learned not only through reading Lady Balls, but also like watching her videos on YouTube, because she just like talks so much about internal work and increasing your understanding of yourself to a point to where you are barely reacting to anything in life, you, of course, are allowed to feel emotions, and that is one of the things that she helps you understand is your emotions are valid and like, but it's kind of like different emotions that come up. It's like how, where are these coming from? Like, why do I feel this emotion? And it allows you to really reflect on that and it will automatically improve your relationships because you're no longer allowing that part of you to take over and you're basically taking back your own control and processing it. It's just like such a, it's such an interesting thing because even with journaling and I've started therapy this year working through some things that I was like they were coming up for me over and over and over again. And it's like, okay, like why is this coming up for me so much?
Speaker 1:Yeah, being able to journal through something that happened maybe like almost 10 years ago, I can, and you know, like this anger that I was holding onto or this like frustration that I was holding onto from a specific situation that happened 10 years ago, and being able to work through it and say like this is how I felt in that moment, and but then, at the same time, like also looking at the perspective of, maybe the other person or like whatever, whatever frustrations that you have about the situation, being able to look at it and try to see it from their lens and I know like therapy and journaling specifically helped me let go of something that I was holding on to internally that I didn't really even realize I was holding on to, but it was like anytime the memory came up in my head or the thought came up, it was like I was getting angry, like feeling frustration and it was over something that happened like 10 years ago and it's like why can't I just let this go? And what really helped me was basically admitting the feelings that I felt in that moment was super powerful for me, because I didn't even realize that I had felt those things. It was just kind of like unprocessed emotions and when you allow yourself to like go deeper with it and put it down on paper, like constantly peeling back the layers, it's like, oh, I didn't realize, like I had felt betrayed or whatever it may be and that's why I had so much anger for this person and in this situation. But then I was also able to see it from their lens of like well, in their situation, they felt like they were protecting me in the only way they knew how, and, although it may not have been right, like the right decision, they were just doing the best they could in the specific situation that we were in and it allowed me to feel peaceful and to let it go. And it's like we don't realize how many other triggers come up from a very specific situation and so it's just super powerful.
Speaker 1:And this, this other thing that I want to share, that's not necessarily about journaling, but that has really helped me heal through a lot of things and it's like kind of it's interesting to admit, admit because it's like why was this so hard for me? But it's like when these things would come up in my mind and I was working through them through journaling, if I would feel the emotion all over again a lot of times, my natural reaction was to suppress it and to basically just kind of like tell it to go away rather than just feel it, and like recognizing when your body needs to let out emotion, because there is no language for the body. The body just releases different emotions in its own way. But it is true that the body does carry emotions and if you don't find a way to process them or release them or let them go through your body and feel it and then just let it go. It kind of like stays there and it lingers. And that's where a lot of us can start to become super disconnected with our bodies. And that's kind of how I had felt and was trying to relearn, how to trust my body again and reconnect with it. And a lot of that had to do with processing emotions, feeling emotions but also letting like emotions go through my body and releasing them in whatever way felt right.
Speaker 1:Sometimes that felt like crying and it was like I don't have to understand why I'm crying, like there was a couple of weeks ago where I was working out and I just felt like so much. It just felt like a lot of bottled emotions in my body and I didn't even really know where it was coming from. It just was like a lot of emotions and frustration and like anxiety in my body and I was like I just need to release this, like I don't. I don't even know why I'm feeling this way. And the way that I did that was through movement, like I was exercising and really just like pushing myself in my exercise to like just move my body physically, and sometimes that looks like dancing too. I don't, I can't explain why, but it was just like allowing my body to dance and move however it flows, like it's there's just no thinking to it, like allowing it to do what it needs to do, and then sometimes I will cry after a workout.
Speaker 1:It is so interesting and rejuvenating and freeing to allow myself the space to do that, rather than what naturally I would tend to do is like if I felt like I had to cry, but I didn't really understand why. It was just like you know, don't do that, like don't cry over nothing, like you have nothing to cry over. Why are you crying? And it was kind of like I would just suppress it and not really allow my my body to release whatever it needed to release, and I think that that's what can be so powerful is the moment you start to tune into your body and not try to understand everything or try to rationalize what it is like pulling you to do. It just knows what to do sometimes, and sometimes that's crying.
Speaker 1:Sometimes it's going for a run or a walk, sometimes it's dancing, sometimes it's singing, like for me, singing feels, so I don't know how to explain. It's like dancing If you love to dance or if you used to dance. It's just like this expression of the body that I can't explain. I don't really understand it. It's almost like art. You know how people express themselves through their art. That's kind of how singing is for me and dancing I'm not saying it looks pretty or sounds good, but it's getting over that hump of caring so much about expectations and again like trying to make everything be perfect and look a perfect way and just releasing those expectations and just allowing the body to express or release. And that's where movement and just like connecting with your body in that way can come from and how healing it can be.
Speaker 1:And when you partner I wouldn't say partner, but when you do that with journaling, that's when you can start to release a lot of things that you probably don't even really know, that you're carrying and hanging on to. And I mean I go back to journaling a lot when I feel like my brain is going on and on about a problem or I'm worrying about something the same thing over and over again. Worrying about something, the same thing over and over again, just like allowing myself to dump it out on paper and look at it for what it is. I mean, sometimes it just helps, just like writing it down, dumping it and getting it out of your head, but other times it takes some okay, like where is this stemming from? And just allowing yourself to go deeper and try to figure out. I think it's coming from this If you're worrying about something or stressing about something that maybe hasn't happened yet, your body and your mind is always trying to protect you. So maybe there was a problem that happened or a situation that happened when you were younger that you're trying to prevent from happening again, and that's why you're so stressed, that's why you're so worried. So, just allowing yourself to listen to what your body needs, whether it's movement, whether it's crying, whether it's some form of expression and releasing, whether it's journaling, sometimes it helps just talking it out as well.
Speaker 1:I know for me, like with therapy, there are things that I have not said out loud, that you know. I just felt like I couldn't talk to anyone because I didn't it either. You know they, I didn't want them to know the situation or it. You know, I didn't want to feel judged and I felt like they would maybe view me differently. There's just all things that we, you know. There's things that we carry from life that we don't feel comfortable sharing, and I think that that's one of the other things that can be super powerful with therapy is having someone who doesn't know you, who doesn't know all your friends and family or where you came from. They're basically just another person that can listen to what you have to say without judgment and help you process it a little bit more from an outside perspective, and it's been way more powerful than I thought it would be Like.
Speaker 1:Even the therapist that I work with now. She's great, but you know, it's not like she does a whole lot more than what I already do for myself, and what I mean by that is like I have a lot of self-awareness as it is. So even when I'm talking to her, I feel like I'm constantly sharing, you know, the awareness I have about the situation, but sometimes I just don't understand where the emotion's coming from or why I feel that way, and she'll just provide one question that'll help turn the light bulb on or it'll help shift something in me, and that's what can be so powerful about therapy is they may not do a whole lot, but sometimes just being able to talk to someone about something that you can't, don't feel comfortable talking to anyone about about and you're not going to have judgment and their only goal is to really help you process your emotions, whereas if you're talking to a friend or family member about a situation, they're going to project their own beliefs about the situation and I feel like sometimes it can be biased and it may be more challenging to process through, because if you have a biased opinion on you, it's not going to be as helpful to move forward and move through that. So I hope that this was helpful and if you have any questions about the author that I was talking about or her YouTube channel, let me know.
Speaker 1:But she has been super impactful with my healing journey this year. I was for a good while. I was like binging all of her content and just like learning so much and like just I don't know bringing my consciousness to the next level, if you know what I mean, and it's been so helpful with me really becoming the person that I want to become and showing up as her and doing things for me and listening to my body and listening to what I need. It's been a really great almost half year. It's crazy to even say that, but these last five months of healing have been probably like the most progress I've made in like four years, and that's that's saying a lot. So if you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out to me and I look forward to chatting with you in the next episode.
Speaker 1:Bye, thank you so much for tuning into today's episode. You have no idea how grateful I am to have you as one of the Love your Body Now listeners. If you are loving this podcast, it would mean the world to me if you subscribed and left a review. This helps me get the message out to more women just like you, who are also committed to their journey. And if you love this episode, please be sure to share it with someone who you know needs to hear today's message. Together, we can help more women recognize their self-worth and build their confidence from a much deeper place, just like you're doing right now. Let's help change the world, one woman at a time. All right, talk to you soon, friend.