AUDIO TRANSCRIPTION
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Laurel Houston is an award-winning international keynote speaker and mentor. She is innovative and engaging on stage with groundbreaking content. She is a creator of body mapping, trauma informed breathwork facilitator. And by honing these skills in this area areas, Laurel has become a highly sought after expert in masculine and feminine energy. She has helped thousands regain their confidence in their relationships with their divine identity, power of influence, and reconnect to this sacred sexual experience that created Ency inside and out. Laurel utilizes balancing the masculine and feminine energy, body mapping and breath work to empower others to reunite, to reunite with their divine energy so that they can live a life that is tuned in and tuned on. I loved this podcast interview. I feel like I got so much out of it, and I know you guys will too. Welcome back to the Thriving Thyroid Podcast, where we choose to become empowered patients and take our health into our own hands.
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Hi, I'm Shannon Hansen, a Christian entrepreneur, a mom of three. And after dealing with my own health mysteries, I made it my mission to learn everything I could about the thyroid. I soon became certified as a holistic wellness practitioner, a functional nutrition practitioner, and a functional diagnostic practitioner. And so much more after that, I founded the Revolutionary Thyroid Program, the Handsome Method. As a health professional and a mom, I fully understand the importance of having a fun, simple, and sustainable plan for achieving a responsive thyroid. So I share actionable and practical strategies for developing a responsive thyroid so that the ambitious moms and women can gain freedom from fatigue and lose the thyroid weight once and for all. Each week, I will be here for you, along with my guest experts. We will be sharing simple and tangible tips that work for not only your thyroid, your hormones, your family, and your mindset, so that you can get back to living the life that you envision for yourself. Welcome to the Thriving Thyroid Podcast.
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All right, welcome to the th Thriving Thyroid Podcast. We have Laurel Houston with us today, and this is something very different than what we normally talk about on the podcast, so I'm really excited to have this conversation. So welcome, Laurel.
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Thank you.
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Yeah. So give everybody a little bit of a background as to who you are and what you do.
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Perfect. So like she said, my name is Laurel Houston, and from a academic standpoint, I have two degrees. One in communication, another in psychology with human development and through weird chain events. I was also a professor for a little while teaching anatomy and physiology. And then I have a total other side 20 years experience as a cosmetologist and as weird as those all sound they all merged together to create what I do now, which is a modality called body mapping. So I am a coach and mentor, and I do keynote speaking. But really what my goal is, is to teach people to love who they are inside and out. That is, if you get down to like my one sentence, I just want people to love who they are. And so there's, I use breathwork, I use body mapping to teach people how to see themselves differently, how to understand not body language, because that comes from the, the brain, but the language of their body, what message their body is trying to tell them. And that's the big thing about what I love to teach is are you listening to your body? What is your body trying to say to you?
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Yeah, and I love that. I remember listening to one of your classes several years ago, and this is kind of a side note on me growing up I was in high school and we were taking pictures and I felt like I looked so good or whatever, and there were, and I was with my best friend. We were standing in line and these girls behind us were like, wow, those girls are so pretty. They look like Barbie dolls, but they both have big noses. And I was like, that just kind of crushed me in a way. So I was like, when I graduate, I'm getting a nose job and you know, all the like <laugh>, whatever. And I remember, and then, you know, I got older and it was still there, but it wasn't as prevalent. And then listening to some of your classes, and this is kind of a side note to like what we were going to be talking about, but mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, I just remember thinking, I am perfectly designed.
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Yes, yes. Very much so.
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And that gave me like the confidence to be like, I don't need to change the way that I look for somebody else. Like they may think that I have a big note <laugh>, but like, I, like I am perfect the way that I am. So definitely a life-changing moment for me. <Laugh>
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Good in that regard.
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So
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Go ahead and Well, I would say, and that is actually one of the reasons why I created body mapping, because I, like so many people had that moment where I thought I was doing okay <laugh>, and then someone else's opinion, or us hearing those opinions so often that we took them on as our own opinion. And all of the sudden we thought we needed to change or be better or, and so I kind of had to find something that it was like, Hey, I need to learn to love what I look like. Cause at the time I didn't have the money for plastic surgery, so I was like, all right, my options are <laugh>. Yeah. And the beautiful part about body mapping it's based on your own body. So you use your own proportions and symmetry to measure your body against your body.
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And that's one of the things I love about it, because no matter how much we compare ourselves to someone else, we will always be wrong about who they are and about who we are. The premise of body mapping is, so for instance, your thumb from the tip of your thumb to the center of your knuckle measures your eye, and then your eye measures all of the other features on your face. And the cool part is, is that my thumb measures my eye, but it won't measure yours. So as soon as I compare my body to your body, I'm wrong about both of us.
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Yeah.
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And when body mapping, I actually tell people it's how to find your divine blueprint. It's, none of us came with a manual, but we all have a map on our body to help us exactly what you said, learn just how amazing we are, what our purpose is, that we have a divine influence and that we get to have really beautiful, amazing lives because we're far more perfect than we ever thought we were.
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Yeah. And I, I love that. I really do. So I work with a lot of the youth in our, in our church, and I'm like, if I could give you one thing <laugh>, it would be that, you know?
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Yeah.
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Anyways, I'm kind of derailing here. So let's go back to
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We're going exactly where we need to go. You're totally fine, <laugh>.
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So let's go back to like what is body mapping and how that plays a role with the thyroid?
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Cool. So like I said, it, it's based on measurements and symmetry on the external part of the body, but for things like organs and that kind of stuff, we really look at basically what is your body trying to tell you? And there are, there a virus can cause a cold that's proven. If I I got stung by a scorpion a little while ago and I got staph in the scorpion sting. And so the staph caused an infection. Like I didn't just miraculously get an infection for no reason something caused it. However, what symptoms did your body get? Because that is the language your body is trying to say, Hey, just so you know, this is what, what's happening here. So if you get a cold and you make out with your partner and I lose my voice and he gets a stuffy nose, there are emotional things that we are holding in our body that are causing those messages or symptoms to come up.
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And they're not good or bad, or right or wrong, they're just messages. And that's the big reason, probably the number one thing that I try to get people to understand is that symptoms are not bad. They're not positive or negative, they're just messages. And when you listen to those messages in pleasure, then your body doesn't try to give you messages through pain. But how many times have you been in a situation where things are going so good, you don't pay attention to what's around you, and then all of a sudden everything falls apart. So you're now very aware of the details of your life. Your body does the same thing as far as your thyroid is concerned. And since this is a thyroid podcast, I'm not gonna go too deep into the anatomy and physiology of it, but in a very, very short explanation, your thyroid is the brain to your hormones.
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It's the thing that tells your body, you start puberty, go through menopause. Hey, we're pregnant, we need these hormones. And so if you think of the, your thyroid of the, the brain of your hormones and your hormones are the things that transmit those messages. They're the things that go all throughout your body and say, function in this way. When your thyroid is emotionally struggling, usually the, the lifestyle or the action behind it was a dramatic change occurred that was unexpected. So I've wor, I've literally worked with thousands of women over the last 10 years, and I have yet to meet a woman who has thyroid issues. And as we talk about her past experiences, there was a dramatic unexpected change that happened in her life. Not all of them are bad though,
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Right?
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So one of 'em, I mean, one of her boyfriend proposed and they'd only been dating for like three months, but she knew it was, and so it was this really good Yes, yes, yes. I'm, I'm so in on this. It was just so unexpected. Versus I had another client that out of nowhere when she was in sixth grade, her parents moved to another country so that they could do service for their church. And she left all of her friends behind. And so she started having thyroid problems at a very young age. So your thyroid is about change. And one of the other reasons why women have a lot of thyroid issues when it comes to the mental emotional part of it is because women have, women are going into what I call decision fatigue. Have you ever heard of this before?
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No. I mean, I, I've not heard of it of it that way, but I know exactly what you're saying. And because I, I feel like I'm there right now. I just, so I have a one year old and we had three kids. We had a six year gap, and then we had a little surprise happen. And lately I've just been saying, I can't think for everybody.
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Yes.
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Like, if you could fill up your water bottle and carry it to the car instead of mom having to think about, okay, does everybody have their water bottle? It's a snacks or packed. Do I have diapers? Do I have wipes? Do I, you know, is this, what are we gonna be eating for dinner? Oh, wait, what about breakfast the next morning? Like, oh my gosh, <laugh>.
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Yes. That, that is decision fatigue. It is when and men get it too, but because they have different hormones than us, their body literally processes it in a different way. Yeah. So when women have to make, and the, and the other part of it is that women think cyclic and men think linear. And so, and it's actually one of, it's based on our hormones. So when you track a woman's menstrual cycle, she'll actually have a different problem solving skill based on where she's at in her cycle. And a lot of people don't realize that squirrel side note, but they did a, a 90 day brain scan on a thousand women every single day. And what they discovered was that during the four different phases of their cycle, they have four completely different brain scans, meaning a woman basically is four different women <laugh> during her cycle.
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And, and so there are times when you can make those fast decisions and then two weeks later you're like, I don't even wanna decide if I'm gonna brush my teeth or not. Like I'm on pure default right now if I don't already have the habit of it, it's not happening. And how dare you ask me to make a decision right now. So that, those are all things that decision fatigue kind of exacerbates. And how it ties to the thyroid is that when you make decisions only in your head, you actually cut out inspiration and intuition. Cuz intuition is felt in the body. Intuition usually comes from the heart. So a lot of times on a physiological, or excuse me, on a, on a more metaphysical, maybe like your chakras, when women are not using their heart for decision making, they're only using their head, nothing is feeding your throat.
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So no good energy is feeding your, your thyroid. It's all getting skipped. And what this does from an emotional perspective is it, it makes your thyroid get drained. It's like nothing is feeding us. We're not feeling loved, we're not feeling cared for. And then that shows up in a mental way too. No one supports me, no one is helping me. If I have to make one more decision, the decision is going to be that I'm never going to make a decision again. Like someone else, step up, <laugh>, and then we have our little mini meltdown, and those who love us go, what can we do to help? Just tell me what to do. And you go, oh my gosh. The thought of having to give you step by step instructions of how to complete this task is more exhaustive than me just taking a nap and then completing the task. Except I can't take a nap because I'm in such overwhelmed mentally that I couldn't actually fall asleep.
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Yeah.
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<Laugh>. So
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I feel like this conversation is just for me right now. <Laugh>
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No, it's, it is literally for every, every woman out there. And, and I wanna speak to both the, the science part of it, but also the, the energetic, the metaphysical, the, because I, I believe all of us to be a mind, a body and a spirit. And if you only focus on the physical thyroid, then you're spiritual, which is more of your emotional and your mental are still in dise. They're still kind of like, excuse me. Yeah. Could you please pay attention to us? So one of the things that actually helps the thyroid is to start speaking and saying what you mean and meaning what you say, and then holding true to it. I was in last night I had one of my group mentoring sessions, and this was the entire conversation. So I love that this came up again because I have these women that are like, I have good, I have a good husband and he has a good husband, but I'll have my meltdown moment. And then he'll be like, well, just tell me what you want me to do. And she's like, I don't wanna have to tell you anything. I want you to just look around the house and do something. How do you not see that that needs, like, how long has that pillow been on the ground that I've walked past 90 times in hopes that someone else will notice it bend over and pick it up and put it back on the couch?
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Yeah.
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So what this is doing to your thyroid in women, because we cycle monthly instead of men who cycle daily, the amount of testosterone that we get has to last throughout the entire month. Where with men, the amount of testosterone that they get repeats every single day. So this is why it's really easy for men to wake up early, get out of bed, accomplish a whole bunch of tasks, get out their dopamine hits, and then by five o'clock they're like zombie.
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Yeah.
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So with women, we get our, our hit of testosterone during right before ovulation, and we're like <laugh>. I start all sorts of new projects.
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Yeah. And I
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Have the energy to do it because you do. And then a week later you're like I'm such a horrible person.
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I'm not finishing anything. I procrastinated and I need more sleep and I just lack discipline. And I have,
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I have no motivation. You're not crazy and you're not lazy. You're cycling.
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Yeah.
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So if you continue to try to have the same schedule as as the hormone levels that allowed you to start the project, your body goes, we're outta testosterone. I guess we have to use adrenaline.
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Yeah.
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So then you go into what's called adrenal fatigue. And when you're in adrenal fatigue, you're literally in fight, flight, freeze or faw, which means you don't have your cognitive capacity and you can't make decisions.
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Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>.
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So to narrow that down and make it really simple, when you are trying to function beyond your energetic, meaning the level of energy you have, capacity, you are telling your body just push through. So then you continue to push through and a woman's body needs rest, it needs more sleep. And what it does to your thyroid is it make, because your thyroid is like, okay, so we're still in fight, fight or freeze. I'm still getting cortisol, we're releasing adrenaline. Ooh, here's a hit of dopamine. Hope you feel better now. Except every time we get a hit of dopamine, we don't get oxytocin. And oxytocin is the bonding hormone, and it's what helps us actually receive the support people are trying to give us.
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I, yeah. Okay. I feel this. It's just where I'm at right now with all the things in my life, because this is the busy April for my family is the busy season. Yeah. My husband works 60 to 80 hours a week. My kids are playing club softball, so that means he
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You're never home <laugh>.
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Yeah. We're never home. I have two kids doing that on top of church, on top of dance, on top of piano lessons. And I'm like, I'm exhausted. And because I can't do what you're saying, cycle with my cycle and rest at least leads to that burnout feeling of like, I can't make another decision. I just need, I just need a day off. You know? And as I've learned, I'm like, so my kids were supposed to go to school today, and two of them stayed home. And I'm like, okay, <laugh>, like, just one more thing. And it's fine. You hear them in the background, it's fine. But I was like, I was gonna take a nap today. You know, I had, I had scheduled in a nap because I knew that I needed that, right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> and I, I'll still take a nap. They're old enough where I can, okay. That's
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Literally what I was gonna say. I'm like laid out for you can still have, you can still have a nap, you know that right? <Laugh>? Yes. Yeah.
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Well, my one year old, I have to nap when she's napping. <Laugh>. I can't just, that's
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Bad. Her
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Wild. But you know, but I learned that and I've learned that it's okay to slow down versus most women think I just need to keep pushing. I just need to do more. I need to perform more, I need to see more. And if I was more, then I would have the love and acceptance of all of these other people around me. Mm-Hmm.
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<Affirmative>
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And
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How's that working?
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Yeah. <laugh>,
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How's that going for you? <Laugh>? So from a physiological perspective, women actually need oxytocin. And so the things to help us with that, and I'm gonna talk about the physical part of that. I'm gonna talk about the emotional and mental part of it, the things that a woman needs to create oxytocin, intimacy. So pleasure in the bedroom, but also outside the bedroom, touch without expectation. And so it's really funny because when a group of women get together, you can always tell who the affection depleted are because they touch everybody's arms as they talk to them. <Laugh>
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Interesting.
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They they'll lean, like if you're sitting in chairs, they'll slowly start leaning towards you until they're touching you and they won't even realize that they're touching you because women need physical touch. Physical touch helps us release oxytocin. And oxytocin is the number one needed hormone in women. And dopamine kills oxytocin. So when a woman is task driven, she's pressure driven instead of pleasure driven, she is actually killing the hormone that will help her heal and recover energetically.
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This is so good.
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So when women can look and, and I'm not saying that you sit around your house on the couch like a princess and say, I'm just going into flow. I'm just being in feminine energy. I'm doing nothing now. That's not what I'm saying. I still, I have three children. We homeschool. I have a, a, a multi six figure business with multiple employees. I don't sit on my couch and wait for the universe to deliver beautiful things to my door, <laugh>. But I also look at the list of things I have to do today. And I say, how, okay, here's my first question. What of these do I have to do?
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And of the things that I have to do, how can I make them be done in pleasure instead of pressure? So part of this is, okay, if it's pressure driven, I have to hurry and clean the kitchen. This is the only time I have today to clean the kitchen. I've gotta hurry and get it done. Versus pleasure. I get to clean the kitchen because I am someone who deserves to live in a house that's clean and I now have joy cleaning my kitchen because I am not a slob and I want a clean kitchen. The, the neutral part of this is the dishes can sit because having dirty dishes does not mean anything about whether or not I am a good housekeeper wife or mother. It means I chose to not do dishes right now cuz I'm tired.
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That was a big shift that I had to make a few years ago because I feel like if my kitchen is messy, my entire house is messy. And I used to not be able to go to sleep until all the things were Well, as a mom, all the things never get done. <Laugh>. No. There's always stuff to be, to be doing. And my sleep, I was sleeping. All my kids are joining us now.
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You're good. <Laugh>, I always have kids home <laugh>. Yeah.
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I was sleeping three to four hours a night, and so I was exhausted and it wrecked my hormones, it wrecked my health. It made me a not a very happy, nice person. And so I had to get to the point where you, what you were talking about in that neutral sense where it's like there can be this in my sink, there can be things on my countertop and it doesn't make me a bad person. It doesn't make me a bad man. Someone else. Yeah. My work is infinite and it's for me. And my kids are good.
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So here you're okay. So No, you're good. One of the things that I was gonna say is that one of the reasons why women have this programming, and I'm gonna do a, a really short history lesson, and the very first thing I want to say when I tell this story is that I will never agree that in order to elevate or lift women, we have to push men down. Now with that being said, we have millenniums worth of training and programming and societal expectations about a man's role versus a woman's role. I get that just because that's the expectation doesn't actually mean that it's the good or right thing <laugh>. So
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Yeah, no, I love that.
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When when I say this, no, that I am not saying this to demean men because there were women who did this too. But throughout time you had corrupt, I used that word intentionally, corrupt men and women who learned. If we can make women feel exhausted and burned out, they're easier to control. If women feel that they're worth that their entire identity is based on what they can offer a man, then they're easier to con contain. And when you can contain and control a woman, you can contain and control a society. And so, I mean, even if, even if I don't go into women were property and women couldn't even have their own ba credit card until the 1970s. Leaving all of that aside, when people learned if a woman was in burnout, if she was in pressure and not pleasure, she is controllable. If she is pleasure led, masculine energy thrives on pleasing the feminine. So when a woman is in pleasure led actions, she controls and inspires the people around her. And so a simple way of saying that is when you as a woman who has influence over your children, over your spouse, over your neighbors, over your community, over your church, whoever, if you are a woman who understands that the mere fact that you are a woman, you have influence over others. If you want that influence to inspire and build confidence in others, you take action through what will bring me pleasure, joy, peace, calm, instead of if I do enough, I will one day be enough.
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Yeah. That's so good. And that is something that I think I was raised in a home where like your word was dictated on how much you could produce
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Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>,
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Right? How much you could do, how much you could contribute what you were doing. And that's been really hard to try to let go of because, but I think the more that I talk to women, the more I'm like, oh you too. You know? Yes. It's like, and we're all walking around looking at other people thinking, wow, they got all their stuff together when they're sitting there feeling the exact same way as we are. And my daughter like <laugh>, these words were not my own words. My daughter was like, I just don't feel like I fit in. And I was like, welcome to being 12. I guarantee all of the other girls on your softball team and your church group and your class, they all feel the same way. And you not feeling like you fit in is going to come within yourself and feel like finding that connection for yourself and not waiting for other people to do it. And I was like, wow, this is not me <laugh> like this is, I mean, it was something that I needed to hear just as much as her, but I think it's important for us to know that we're not alone feeling, feeling like we're alone. <Laugh>. You know,
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My, my oldest is a, an 11 year old girl as well. And when she came to me with that and what you said was beautiful and so true and when you're listening to this on a podcast, people pause, rewind and re-listen to what she just said because it is gold. The other piece to this that I told my daughter was, has it ever occurred to you that maybe you don't fit in just because you were born to stand out and lead?
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Oh, I love that.
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And I think that we try to to teach people yes, you're, you're one of us, which is a beautiful message because women are a, we, we need community, women are gatherers, we're collectors, <laugh>, we want that. But no matter what the group is, and and you can watch this, we want someone who will stand up, stand out and say, here's what we're doing. And she can be inspiring or she can be a not nice person, <laugh>, right? And you either, you either have a group of women that are doing good or you have a group of women who are minions to a corrupt individual.
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So when you talk to your daughter next time she says, I just don't feel like I fit in. Say maybe you don't fit in cuz you're supposed to stand out because you are allowed to be seen. Your words matter and it is safe for you to be heard and everything you ever, everything else you said, and everyone else feels like they're an oddball, everyone else feels like, oh my gosh, I don't fit in. Everyone else has those same, are you kidding me right now? Moments, I mean even as a mom this will sound weird, but when we moved, I live in southern Utah and we moved in the first it like three weeks after going to church. I'm a cosmetologist and or I by, I was a cosmetologist for 20 years and I really enjoyed doing hair. So my eight and six year old boys still get their hair done. And I had four different people come up to me in comparison and say, oh my gosh, your family always looks so put together. I'm so jealous. Which gave me the opportunity to share one of my favorite things. I'm glad you were jealous because jealousy is your spirit trying to tell you you're already a vibrational match for the thing you desire.
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Oh, I love that.
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And which is different than greed or covetness. Like when you're greedy you're like, because I want that. I don't want you to have that. Jealousy is I see that you have that and I want that too. And when you have that feeling, when you look at another woman and you go, oh my gosh, she's beautiful. You are jealous of her beauty because your spirit is trying to say, do you not recognize your beautiful too? You are craving the very thing that you are.
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Would you say like it's a knowing that you're already that beautiful,
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I think
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Like your spirit knowing that or how
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Oh absolutely. Your spirit already knows that your spirit is is the one part of you that's perfect <laugh>. It's why we get so frustrated and we shut her down. Cuz we are like, do you remember this fleshy thing that you're housed in? It cannot do what you just suggested <laugh>. Yeah. Yeah. So, but your spirit is, is there to help you rediscover. You're not becoming anything. If you pull a carrot out of the ground, it's not going to miraculously become an onion because you change its location. You're not becoming anything new. You are just uncovering what other people buried you in. So if you think of yourself as a carrot that just got pulled out of the ground and it's dirty and it has value, even though it has dirt on it already. I mean someone planted that carrot for a reason. They wanted it. So the mere fact that you exist, you're already a desirable person. You're already wanted, you're already good enough. Even with the dirt on you, you still have value because people are like, woo, look at my beautiful carrots. And personal development is about you, you know, getting, getting washed off and discovering I've, I've always been this, I just got buried and forgot. Yeah. Got buried in other people's expectations. Got buried in my own mind chatter.
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So to go back to your original question cause I totally squire No, no
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Problem. That's ok. I don't even remember what my question was. So
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With decision making and with women that are in burnout, it is that will this bring me pleasure and joy and peace or do I feel like I have to do this or I am unworthy of love, acceptance and support because that's a head decision
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And your head is a calculator, your head is a clock, your heart is a compass. And when you ask your heart for a direction, you get it. And when you ask a clock for direction, you get deadlines, you get statistics, you get comparison, and then you're confused. So the best advice that I can give women that's very, very simple that may not be easy for you is what does your heart want you to do today? Because honestly, like one of the things this morning bec and I realize I have the luxury of this cause I homeschool my kids, so we don't have a morning deadline, but all my kids woke up before me, they all crawled in bed with me and we snuggled for like 15 minutes. And they told me about the bike ride they went on yesterday and they told me about the butterfly that they found that was coming out of its chrysalis and they stared at it for an hour and watched the process. And then my six-year-old got bored and I mean we just talked and I started my day with oxytocin and all of a sudden I had a level of energy that seven years ago I prayed for so that I could get out of bed and finish my to-dos.
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Yeah. <Laugh>.
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And, and so that is what my heart wanted in that moment. And my stomach was like, we're hungry. And I was like, that's nice. I'm snuggling my kiddos <laugh>.
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Yes. You can wait for a minute.
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Yeah.
(00:36:02):
<Laugh>, I,
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We have access. I love
(00:36:04):
That
(00:36:04):
We have access to food. I promise you'll get some right now. I want hugs and, and I feel like so many women have been shamed for wanting to follow their heart's desires that now that they're, they're afraid to follow it or they have disappointment. They've said, this is what, and this actually affects the thyra too. They have voiced what they've wanted but they've done it through demand or unexpressed expectations and then they didn't get what they wanted. And so now they have disappointment and they're like, see no one listens to me. They listened. They just didn't hear your message cuz you weren't clear with it.
(00:36:46):
Yeah. That is something that I have been learning like more recently cause I've been doing like my own human design and things like that and I'm like, oh this is so good because one of the things, one of my takeaways is I need to voice what I need. Right? I need help or to my husband. How can I expect my husband to know that I need a help if I don't tell him? Right.
(00:37:11):
He has no idea.
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He has no idea.
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And it's not cuz he is stupid, it's because he has a different thought process.
(00:37:17):
Yes. So I, in recent time I've been walking up to him and be like, I just need a hug and he will stop whatever he's doing and he will hug me and he will hold me. And it's beautiful and it's wonderful and it's exactly what I need, but I have to learn to communicate that with him and with my kids. I told them I needed help watching babies since they decided to stay home. And this is their version of watching the baby <laugh> hanging out with mom. And it's fine because I chose this right? Like I chose to work from home. I chose to be able to be present with my kids when they needed me. And so, well some of it is like, be quiet cuz I can't focus on what I'm thinking. The other part of me is like I love that I have this capability.
(00:38:08):
Yeah.
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And as like a, a bigger picture, like this is what I chose and I'm happy with that decision.
(00:38:16):
So you just spoken to something without realizing that you've spoken to something. So I wanna go there for just a minute if I can. When we create a story that takes a lot of decision making power <laugh>. And so, and I'm gonna use myself as an example cuz I've been where you are. Like I said, my oldest is 11 and my youngest is six, which means that in my decade long business I birthed, I was pregnant with hg puking my guts out till I popped blood vessels. Imp peed my pants twice. So while building my business, I conceived <laugh> newborn, two of my three children.
(00:38:59):
Yeah.
(00:39:00):
And at first I would have these experiences where, you know, I would be working on a, with a client on Zoom before Zoom was cool and everyone else was using it and you know, my baby would start crying in the background and I would make a story about, oh my gosh, this is so unprofessional they can hear my baby. Instead of, wow, my baby needs help. I'm gonna tell my client I'll be right back. I've gotta go get my baby. And so the story is what put me into shame and embarrassment because my client, who was also a mom who also had a newborn, was the one that actually had to say to me, you're good if we need to pause by you get your baby. That's what I should have been embarrassed about. The fact that I was so worried about someone else's opinion, <laugh>, that I was neglecting my child. And so I learned a lot from that moment because I went, no, I am never going to let the fear and the story I created in my head about what I think other people are thinking have more power over me than my own heart.
(00:39:57):
And, and when women are making decisions and they're, because we're talking about decision making, but there is a physiological response that's happening in a woman's body. And when you make decisions that are things like, how can I increase oxytocin in my day so that I actually have the energy to do my have-tos? Cuz I still think I have to accomplish something in order to be worthy of love. <Laugh>. It's, it's a step-by-step process. Ladies, <laugh>, you won't get there overnight. I'm not gonna try to pretend that you are, but if you can start to say, what can I, how can I feel more love today instead of what can I do to feel more love today? Very different. Yeah. How can I feel more love today? I can walk out to my husband and say, babe, I would love a hug.
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Yeah,
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I can. And most
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Husbands would do it at a drop of a hat. Oh, you wanna hug? Yeah, sure. Like, but they, they don't, if we have this expectation and it's not communicated, how can we hold them to that standard and that that was a mistake that I was doing for a long time and I would get frustrated with him and he is like, but I'm doing everything. You know,
(00:41:15):
You're doing all of, you're doing all of my explicit instructions, but what about my implied that you're a man and you didn't even notice <laugh>. Yes,
(00:41:22):
<Laugh>, yes. And my, I will say my husband, I know a lot of people say this, my husband is hands down, he has this very special gift of looking around and seeing what needs to be done and doing it. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> and someti. I used to complain because I'm like, he doesn't, like, why can't he just sit down and give me a hug? Or why can't he sit down and be with me? And that was like, he, his love language is service and so he's like, I'm serving you. I see that the pillow is on the floor and there's dishes in the sink and I am capable of doing it when I know that you've been home all day with the kids running around doing all these extra things. And I can do that. And I'm like, I just need you to be with me <laugh>. You know? So
(00:42:13):
But you, I mean that not to turn this into a total relationship, but that's, I mean, I only talk about three things. I talk about bodies, intimacy and money. So <laugh> Yeah. But with your relationship with your husband in his mind, and I think that this is is true for a lot of husbands, they're like, I thought I was helping.
(00:42:31):
Yeah.
(00:42:32):
I thought I was doing exactly what you needed because we will give love the way we want to receive love and we will only receive the level of love at which we love ourselves. Okay. I'm gonna say that again, <laugh>, we will only receive love from others at the same level of love we give to ourselves. Yeah. And so this is why for me, I, when I was learning to love and appreciate my body, when I actually started accepting body parts that I'd been like, oh, we're just gonna pretend like that's not there. Cause I don't like it. <Laugh>.
(00:43:07):
Yeah. Yeah.
(00:43:08):
So the first part was I needed to accept my body, then I needed to listen to my body. And then it was very, very easy to love my body. And the more I loved my body, the less I required other people to validate my body. And so, and, and I guess the reason why this is coming up, when you have thyroid issues, you do have weight gain, you do have mood swings, you have all of the physical symptoms that come along with it, that sometimes you feel like my body has betrayed me.
(00:43:40):
Yes.
(00:43:41):
Your body didn't betray you. Your body functioned at the level of capacity you allowed it to function at. Instead of processing the unexpressed change or unexpected change and expressing how you felt about this change, without shame, without judgment, that's what shut your thigh right down because something happened and you didn't talk about it in truth. Yeah. And so it didn't just shut your throat down, it then shut your heart down. And once your heart gets shut down, your, your solar plexus, which is where we hold confidence, our personal power, that gets shut down. And when your confidence and personal power gets shut down, it shuts down your sacl, which is our creativity, it's our connections, our connection to God, to source to spirit, whatever your word is. And when that is shut down, our root chakra, which is where safety is housed, takes over and everything we do is focused on will I feel safe. This is why when someone else tries to help and they pick up the pillow and you go, thank you for picking up the pillow. And then you immediately go behind him and turn it
(00:44:52):
And fluff it and
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<Laugh> and fluff it and, and finish the task. Because if I feel out of control in here, I'm going to try to take mass control of out here.
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Yeah.
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And one of the things that my husband and I learned and that I would love to share is he has become aware of when I am in anxiousness even more than I am aware of it at this point as a defense mechanism, probably, I don't know, <laugh> probably. But when I am sensing and having those moments of anxiousness, he has learned to come up to me, he will ask are, do you want to be touched right now? If I do, then I'll say Yes, please hold me. If I don't, he will actually take a step back because if women have any type of abuse, trauma, proximity doesn't calm them, it exacerbates the fight. Fight freeze.
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Yeah.
(00:45:52):
And so I spent six years in a very, very abusive relationship and that is part of the conversation we've had. So he always asks for permission to touch me. The second piece is whether he's touching me or not, he'll look me in the eyes and say, you are safe, I choose you.
(00:46:11):
Aww.
(00:46:12):
And as silly as that sounds, as I'm freaking out over dishes not being done, that is the core of what if I do enough, then I am enough and I will finally be loved for who I am. So for him to say, and I choose you, all of a sudden the pillow on the, on the floor doesn't matter because that pillow isn't determining whether or not he loves me will protect me or choose me. So if, if there are men listening to this, if you wanna calm your wife down quickly, when she is irrational, look at her and say, I will protect you. I choose you. And the first time you say this, she'll go, what the? What? <laugh>,
(00:46:53):
<Laugh>
(00:46:55):
Look at her again and say, I am here. I choose you. I will protect you. Because when women feel unsafe, they will protect themselves by any means necessary. So if she is reminded, I am here to protect you, you are safe, I choose you, there is a portion of her brain that will turn back on, which is called rational thinking <laugh>, because now she's safe. So she can connect and because she can connect to you, her sense of personal power and presence comes back and then her heart turns back on and then her voice turns back on and then she'll say something like this thank you
(00:47:40):
<Laugh>.
(00:47:41):
And you'll know when you turned her back on because this sound will come out. Because she's clearing the pathway. <Laugh>.
(00:47:50):
Ah, okay. I'm gonna have to pay attention to when I did that <laugh>.
(00:47:54):
And if it is an excitement, it won't be, if it won't be a it'll be a, ah, thanks women express energy through their voice. Men do it through their arms.
(00:48:07):
Oh, okay.
(00:48:08):
This is why men are always like fist bump hitting their chest. Like they're, it's all about their arms for them and women, it's about our voice. And so when we feel like our words don't matter, no one listens to us. When you are in that place, the best advice that I can give you is when you hear yourself saying, no one ever listens to me. Take a deep breath, go in a room by yourself and ask your body, what are you trying to tell me that I'm not hearing? When a woman feels unheard, it's because she's not listening to her own needs. Period. It's not about the dysfunctionality of the people you live with. It's not about their age, it's not about their attention level, it's not about their gender. If you are constantly feeling unheard, it's because you're not listening to yourself. You're not listening to your intuition, you're not listening to your body.
(00:49:04):
Can I, I wanna share something. I don't normally talk about this. I mean I talk about this in my coaching group because it makes sense to them, but I feel like I need to share it now. So one of the big things that I see with my clients is they are not eating enough calories. They're skipping breakfast or skipping lunch or skipping meals. And I'm totally guilty of this. And so we're not, I you're not nurturing yourself even if it's just water, even if it's a meal, what a snack. Like whatever. Or if you are grabbing food, you're grabbing fast, easy, convenient food because I don't have time to, to sit down and eat a meal. I don't have time to sleep. I don't have time to move my body. I don't have time to go sit out in the sun and read a book because, and that is once my women can start prioritizing even just eating a meal and nourishing themselves a little bit more.
(00:50:06):
Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>
(00:50:08):
Things shift.
(00:50:09):
Yes. Because there's a, like I said, I have a background in psychology and there was a, a psychologist named Maslow, and he created Maslow's hierarchy of human needs. And the short version of this pyramid is your brain has a hierarchy of what it focuses on. And if you try to get it to focus on the top of the pyramid, but the bottom of the pyramid has crumbled, it won't. The base of the pyramid is physical, food, water, shelter, breath, temperature reproduction. The next level above that is safety. Routines, rules, consistency, security. That's all safety trust. Then it goes to a sense of belonging. That's connection. That's intimacy. Then it goes to success and, and esteem. These are accomplishments, then it goes to self-actualization. I know who I am and I'm secure in that if your bottom exactly what you just said, if your brain thinks it's dying because your body is hungry, it doesn't care about your goals and it sure doesn't care about your relationship.
(00:51:15):
Yeah.
(00:51:16):
Because it physically can't focus on it. You. And so by skipping meals, by going into dehydration, by being in sleep deprivation, you are starting your day in fight flight freezer, faw. And it is directly affecting whether or not you can make decisions from a chemical level, from a physiological level. Not even like a, oh, I'm worthy of this decision. I can, I don't have to prove myself. I can have this from a very, very basic, can I make the decision? No, the only thing your brain cares about is whether or not it's going to live. And I just slept for eight hours, <laugh>, I laugh, I just slept for eight hours, <laugh>, I need a drink, I need some food, I need to pee.
(00:52:05):
And when you deny your body, it actually inhibits you from connecting to your spirit, from connecting to your heart, from connecting to inspiration. So on a a, a side note to go along with this, when you are creating routines, schedules, patterns, if they deprive your physical needs, your body and your brain will be sabotage. So for example, if you're trying to create a routine around exercise, but in order to exercise when an expert has told you to exercise, so you need to wake up at five o'clock in the morning and exercise. If you are in a constant state of sleep deprivation so that you can exercise that routine will not be sustainable because your brain recognizes that sleep deprivation is killing you. You're not lazy. It's not that you're undedicated or undisciplined, it's that your brain is like, exercise is killing us through sleep deprivation.
(00:53:09):
Yeah. <laugh>
(00:53:10):
And sleep deprivation. Oh, I've been there. Sleep deprivation is more important than movement and weight loss. And so your brain will say you need to take a nap and you're hitting your snooze button. The other thing this goes back to when I was talking about men versus women. Physiologically most personal development techniques were created to, to make men more masculine because that's their natural state, to be the provider, be the protector. And when you have a woman who follows traditional personal development tactics like a miracle morning, she is being put into a masculine state of provider and protector instead of nurture, healer. And it will make her more tired and overwhelmed faster.
(00:54:05):
Yeah.
(00:54:06):
So one of the things that I say to my clients is, if you want to have a miracle morning, but five o'clock is too early for you, then don't wake up at five o'clock. And don't shame yourself for not being able to get outta bed on a consistent routine. Because depending on where you are in your cycle, five o'clock could be easy. And then two weeks later you're like, I can barely drag myself out of bed at seven. It's because you have different hormone levels and you need more sleep.
(00:54:29):
Yeah.
(00:54:30):
Men don't have that monthly cycle. They have a daily one. So I guess with that, stop shaming yourself for not being able to do what the experts have said. Especially since the majority of medical research that has been done about health and fitness was done on test subjects that were male between the ages of 18 and 24. So with the highest levels of testosterone, a man housed throughout his lifetime is when they said, if you wanna exercise and be healthy, this is the routine you should follow. Where for women, that's the fastest way to put you into a cortisol response and get your body to hold estrogen. And when you hold estrogen, you don't release weight.
(00:55:10):
Yeah.
(00:55:11):
So,
(00:55:12):
Yeah. No, this is so good. I could talk to you probably all day long. <Laugh>. and so let's, let's wrap this up. So what is one or two takeaways that you feel like the listeners should have?
(00:55:31):
So first start choosing your day through what will bring me joy, pleasure instead of pressure. Because when you make pleasure based decisions, you get a different chemical response than when you make pressure decisions. Secondly, start listening to your body. If you want to feel heard, if you want to feel like you can communicate your needs to others, then you need to honor your own needs. So when you need to go to the bathroom, go to the bathroom when you need to drink, drink water. When you're hungry, eat food. When you are tense, take a deep breath, start honoring your body because you're going to rebuild trust with your body. What this would look like in a day-to-day. Okay, here's what I wanna put into action. In the morning, you can look at your list or you can look around your house and as you make your list in your head of all the things you need to do, as you make your list, pay attention to how your body reacts to the list.
(00:56:34):
Wow. So if you're reading your list and your list says, pick up kids from school, and you go, oh, I gotta see my kids. And then you, it says, do laundry and your body goes, don't do laundry that day. You don't have the energy or the capacity to do it. And if you're like, but if I don't do laundry that day, then we won't have any, I'm sure there's at least one other person in your house that can help with laundry and they won't do it the way you would do it, but the task would still be completed. Get back in tune with the language of your body. Does your body feel expanded? That's a yes. Or does it feel contracted? Like death and dismemberment is about to occur. If I have to clean another bathroom, then don't clean a bathroom that day. <Laugh>. And that doesn't make you lazy and that doesn't make that you undeserving of a good life. You're already worthy, you're already deserving, you're already enough. And that will never change.
(00:57:31):
I love that. That's so wonderful. Thank you Laurel for being on. I really appreciate it. This was, I feel like this conversation was equally for me, <laugh> as the listeners, just because I'm, I'm, I'm in the grind of some of these things and I, I do know like mentally things will end. I know like when April ends, it's like, oh, okay, now I can rest. You know, now I have the help. And things have actually, okay, this is another side note. Things have actually improved this time with my husband's schedule because I have been able to communicate with him. Like, when we're at softball games, I need you to just sit and be with me <laugh>, you know, like, hold my hand or whatever. Because we're at the baseball fields, like he's just ended a long workday and he wa we've always prioritized the kids, right?
(00:58:31):
So normally he'll take them to the park while they're warming up or whatever. And now we stand there together while they play. But we're spending that time together, which is something that I need, which brings our relationship better. But one, it took me a long time to realize what that need was. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. And two, it took me time to figure out how that was going. So even though we're in a busy season for us, things are getting better because I am learning to communicate my means. So, alright. Well thank you guys so much. Oh, and where can people follow you and
(00:59:07):
Oh yes. I'm on Instagram and Facebook on Instagram Reflections inside and out. That's also my Facebook page for those that are like, I want to know more about body mapping. I have a free Facebook group, she's gonna put that into the description. But if you go to groups on Facebook and you go to body mapping with Laurel, you'll see my free Facebook group. I've got ton of content in there, <laugh>. So and it, and just to give back. So if that is something that calls you, that you feel like, yeah, I want, I want to learn more about this, then I would love to have you join us.
(00:59:45):
Yeah, perfect. Everything will be linked up in the show notes so you guys can go check her out. And thank you so much for being here.
(00:59:55):
Thank you.
(00:59:59):
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(01:03:44):
Way before you go, please subscribe. If you found value in today's episode. Leave us a review and share on Instagram and please tag us. We love your
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