S2. E34. What do you want, really?

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[00:00:20] Natalie: This is a time to check in with yourself and just acknowledge how you're doing. A moment to pause, reflect, and ground yourself. On a scale of 1 to 10, how do you feel right now? Did you fill your cup today? What did you do for your wellness?

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[00:01:17] Natalie: I'm also so excited to be relaunching this podcast after being on summer hiatus and I'm also setting goals for my personal life as well as my business. And of course, my public speaking engagements are picking up.

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[00:01:56] Natalie: It's really hard to think about our well being and how we might be filling our cups if we don't even know what it is that we want. We might fill our cups with coffee and then realize after taking a sip, we actually wanted kombucha. And now we have to throw out the coffee and start again. What does that lead to?

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[00:02:38] Natalie: And by the end of the episode, you'll have clarity and tools to begin pursuing a life that feels fulfilling, aligned, and truly yours.

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[00:03:12] Natalie: Some of the areas you might want to ask yourself about is what do I want in my career, my health, my spirituality, my finances, my family, my friendships, my personal life.

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[00:03:46] Natalie: It could be for our families, our jobs, our communities, but we're often so busy doing things for everybody else that we neglect to check in with ourselves and we lose track of our own desires. And the thing is, when you disconnect from what you want, your wellbeing suffers. We're filling everybody else's cup, but we're never stopping to refill our own.

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[00:04:30] Natalie: So I'm asking you, what do you want? What makes you feel alive, excited, and fulfilled? This isn't just about material things or career goals or aspirations. It's about alignment at the core with your values and your purpose. So now once we figure out why it's important to answer this question, we need to identify what are the barriers that would get in the way of identifying what we want.

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[00:05:18] Natalie: Well, actually I'm in recovery and I hope you'll get here too It's a great place to be another reason why we might face a barrier is because There's just a lot of noise. This I think is a big one. I actually think it's bigger than the fear one I think life is just noisy people are not used to having quiet To really sit and focus on themselves and their own thoughts and their own desires There are always so many external influences It might be family, social media, society, work, friends.

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[00:06:11] Natalie: But then when you stop and think about it, you're like, is it, is this actually the life I want? And that's why it's so important to make that space for reflection. Lastly, I would say it's just a lack of time. Sometimes we're so busy focusing on survival, just getting through the day, just getting from morning to night, taking care of all the responsibilities, crossing things off the to do list.

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[00:07:02] Natalie: The first is to create quiet time for reflection. I honestly think that if you can get quiet time away, it is so restorative and so eye opening. You can do this in different ways. You can go for a walk, or you can just sit in a room with your door closed and your phone far away from you. Whatever it is that you can get that quiet, undistracted time to just think.

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[00:07:48] Natalie: It's okay. You can scratch things out after you can move things around. You can put arrows and you know, you can manipulate the answers after, but for now, you just want to get everything out. You just want to give a mic to your inner voice and really give it the spotlight for a bit. You can also just journal.

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[00:08:32] Natalie: But if you're not used to surfacing your voice so often, it might be easier to think about it through an imaginary friend. It's all good. We all have imaginary friends. If you're struggling to answer those questions, then maybe start with some higher level questions like what excites me? What would my dream day look like?

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[00:09:14] Natalie: And I believe that the body often gives you clues about what you want. So I want you to think about the last time that you felt like an inner tingle where you were actually excited, you were joyful. Okay. And then I want you to think about times where you just felt calm, like you felt safe. You felt at ease and you felt comfortable.

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[00:10:00] Natalie: And then those might be activities that you need to stop doing because they're not in alignment with what you actually want. So pay attention to your body and start tuning into those signals because they will really guide you and be your North Star. And the last tip I have for you is to take small steps towards what you want.

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[00:10:42] Natalie: Okay, can you do something that gives you 10 minutes a day for yourself? And what activity would you use during that time? Would you want to do reading or meditating or working out, or do you want to just sit there on your couch and look at the wall? There's no judgment from me. It's about what you want.

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[00:11:21] Natalie: There are so many women out there who are just interested in pursuing career changes. And I've even had a lot of people ask me about my own career change. They're wondering how do they make that happen? And so if you're interested, just take the first step. That might just be updating your resume or looking up company reviews on Glassdoor.

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[00:12:08] Natalie: But there's a shift that happens when you say it out loud. I want this and I'm going after it. It sends a message to your brain that you're serious. And then guess what? Things will just start to happen because you spoke it into being. So I want you to declare what you want.

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[00:12:38] Natalie: If you've gotten this far, well, you have an idea of what you want. So the only other question I have for you is what are you going to do about it? This week, I want you to reflect on what you want, but then also think about what are the action steps you can take towards making those things a reality. And don't worry about rushing the process.

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[00:13:19] Natalie: Please remember to subscribe to this podcast. It helps more people find it and spread the message of wellness. Take care of yourself, prioritize your well being, and give yourself grace. Until next time, continue to serve yourself, your loved ones, and your community from a full cup.