There's that idea of coddling ourselves maybe to an extreme because we're so inundated on social media and all these other places with self care. As you just said before I hit record, it's imperative to have self care. And we've talked about self care a lot.

Yeah.

There also needs to be a balance and some discernment with that.

Well, it goes back to, like I've always said, that love and self care are not bubble baths and cuddles and softness. Sometimes it's hard stuff and it's pushing yourself and it's boundaries and it's grit and just like, pushing through. That's where you really grow.

There's a lot of stuff that's out there more for dudes, I guess younger men, which is great. I think that's a demographic that's struggling a lot with purpose. Ryan holiday's book. It's called The Obstacle is the Way. I have only read a third of it, which is enough to kind of get a taste. Reminds me a lot of the War of Art. Steven Pressfield so this idea of resistance and I'm fascinated by the idea of resistance. We were just talking about it, how, like, we both had a day today, yesterday, whatever, where we were like, oh, I just don't want to do I have to clean and I have to work. And you just hit this mud puddle of like, yes, and like a schlump. That's a great slumpy mood. And there is so much resistance there, it's almost palpable, where you have to literally pick yourself up and push yourself through it and go for a walk or take a shower or sit down and return a couple of emails or whatever the starting point is. And you always feel better. This was me yesterday. I was like, I took a long walk and I was like, I feel 100% better. It was still a bumpy day, but it was resistance.

It was a big old pile of it.

That was me this morning. I just felt gross. And I call it spiraling. Not like spiraling out of control, but a little bit. I just was like my head couldn't get on street, and I was just gross and eating bagels and everything's a mess. Everything's a mess. And the day is going along. I mean, it was like 10:00 and I got nothing done. I'm like, I'm not going to let this be my day, because I could have easily just been like, I'm going to sit on the couch, watch Dr. Phil. Yeah, but I was like, no. And I put my phone down, went upstairs, made my bed, got dressed, opened the shades. I'm like, okay, we're starting over.

And it doesn't have to be like a big act of shaking out of it. It's like lots of little steps. It's like a keep moving, just keep going, just keep going. Just drink a glass of water. Okay? Just go check the mail. Okay. Again, this is why this, I think, one of the most influential quotes I've ever heard, and it's in my head forever now, is that action isn't just the effect of motivation, it's also the cause of it. From Mark Manson it's just we are a lot of times sitting around waiting for the motivation bug to strike and really what we need to do is start the thing. I mean, almost all my hobbies, if I'm kind of like about it. For example, I'm designing these tarot cards, which is super fun. I love it. It's one of my favorite things to do. But I got really stuck on this last one that I've been working on and then I was away in Colorado this weekend, so it's been like over a week since I sat down and been working on them. And I don't feel the momentum that I felt before I left, but I know that if I just sit down, open up Photoshop, get my little tablet with my little stylus, and get all my stuff set up, that I'll start I'll start feeling into it again rather than waiting to feel into it.

And that's where hobbies go to die is like the waiting for the motivation. But I want to bring it back to what you brought up, which I think is really interesting is how do we discern between self care, rest, pushing too hard and needing to push through? What were your thoughts on that? Because you've kind of brought up the grit thing and I'm just really interested. I'm really interested in this because I do think that there's a huge amount of discernment in that, but it's also super important. Both are important.

I recently, like a couple of weekends ago, I had a weekend off. When I say weekend off, I mean my daughter was with her dad, so I had a weekend kid free and I really didn't have much work scheduled, so I was like, I'm going to clean all weekend. And I posted about it on Instagram. And some very well meaning good friends of mine are like, you just should rest, just rest, take it easy. And I'm like, I could and maybe I do need that. But then I'm like, no, that's not what I need. I felt so good. I got so much done, I set my week up for success. I guess I don't really know what the trick is to discernment on that other than you need to just kind of be in tune with yourself and check in. If you're go, go all the time and you're literally mentally collapsing and can't hold it together, rest, or maybe some gentle routine. But if you feel like, oh, I want to clean my windows, organize the drawer and the music on Ride That.

Wave, yeah, I think that's so interesting because sometimes I think a lot of our bodies hold. There's a huge difference, like you said, between just being burnt out and can't push myself and maybe needing to push through. And I think sometimes when we're maybe out of alignment in what we've been doing with our time, who we've been spending our time with, what we've sort of had to do lack of creative or social or deep connection. Time, all these things. We might have a lot of energy stored up in our bodies, but yet we're still hitting a wall because we're out of alignment. There's a beautiful book by Martha Beck called The Way of Integrity and it is so good. I want to just make sure that I didn't f that up. Let's see. Let's find it. Let's find it. I'm looking through my books. Yes. The Way of Integrity by Martha Beck. She talks a lot about this concept of, like, when we are out of integrity, meaning out of what out of alignment for us, like, what lights us up. We all have our own unique thing.

Some of us thrive all day long in the sunshine. Some of us are like, no thank you, shade in a book, please, whatever it is. Some people need to go for a swim, some people need to go for a nap. It's not like right or wrong, but it is this being in integrity with yourself and checking in and going like, is this the best expression of myself? Is this something that's important to me, like having a clean space? You and I both really love that. And so because that is in integrity for you, the energy is there to support that when you have the opportunity if you're not burnt out.

Right.

And I think that our bodies can hold a tremendous amount of energy because if we're having fun or if we're falling in love and going on a bunch of late night dates or whatever, we have all sorts of energy. You have so much energy for stuff that you feel is important and in alignment for you, but the second that stops and you're just doing everything that you hate all the time, you might feel drained. Even if your body feels energetic to some degree, which I think is really interesting.

Yeah, it's kind of as simple as asking yourself, what do I feel like doing right now? And there's also something I want to touch on too. Is there's legitimate mental health illnesses that will get in the way of you being able to even do that? I've dealt with depression in my life and last year had a big flare up and for sure I could not keep my house clean. I could not go outside and enjoy it. So if you're noticing those things about yourself where like, this is not how I normally am, then that's something to maybe consider and check in on. But no, I was just going to say just asking yourself, like, what do I feel like doing? Not necessarily what do I have to do? But on that same note, there is also the piece of if you've made commitments in work or in life and you're just not feeling like you want to go through with it. You also sometimes need to push through those things. That's where some grit comes in. Yeah, it doesn't feel good either to break commitments.

No. This is such a fascinating space because you're right and I do want to reiterate that mental illness, physical illness, any kind of illness that is in the rest category, especially if it's unaddressed, that is where you seek help and take time and that's a different kind of pushing through. It's like really doing what you can to care for yourself, which can sometimes be the hardest thing ever in the moment. That's different. But if you are relatively feeling good, pretty well managed for the most part, and you're not in extreme trauma or struggle or recovery or whatever, I think this idea of resistance and pushing through that is honestly how we get some of our best work done. The only reason we're having a chat on this podcast right now is because I have pushed the resistance a few times when it comes to like I need to XYZ around this show and I don't feel like it. And it's been four years. Like anytime you do something every week for four years, you are going to have a stretch of weeks where you do not like it anymore and you don't want to do it anymore and you're sick of it and you can't remember why you started it and you don't know where it's going. If this sounds familiar to anybody with your photo business or anything else, it's like, yes, sometimes it is time to lay it down and that's a personal decision, but try doing the thing and see if any kind of momentum follows from that. And read The War of Art. It's becoming a more dated book now. But the concept is so powerful. I mean, it really is. Like we all have started hobbies and quit, and we've all tried to learn languages or tried to get in shape or, like there's just a bajillion things. And it's all this resistance thing that we psych ourselves out of doing, because I think we're becoming more adverse to the grit, like you said, in the name of, well, I just have to have a self care day.

And that's not me making self care days. But it's like maybe the reason you're not getting things done or you're not as accomplished in whatever hobby you love or language learning or whatever thing I just mentioned. Maybe it is like a little too much softness, a little too much, like really not having that push because we we have so much room and flexibility in in modern life to to choose the softer path because life is pretty easy to survive as far as, like, food and shelter and all that goes.

Yep. There was a quote that I heard and I don't know if we said it or how they said it, but it was kind of something along the lines of discipline is the path to freedom. And I think there's a lot of resistance to the word discipline. Sometimes that sounds gross, but really it's kind of like motivation is created in action or whatever you said, having those boundaries and discipline and kind of parenting yourself and being like, no, I'm doing this, this and that. It opens up, then space for freedom and a lot of other things because you have all this stuff taken care of and now you're free to go do all these other things. Yeah, and it feels good. It just feels good.

An interesting exercise that just popped in my head is this idea of think of the five things you're most proud of in your life. Whether it's raising a child or whether it's getting a college, like a doctorate or starting your business or whatever. Just if you think of five things, maybe three things, whatever. We're on a podcast. I bet you for everybody listening that all of those things were hard. All of the things that we're the most proud of that feel the best when we're on the other side of them, all of them are not easy. There's not a single thing. And it's not about like I'm a huge fan of Abraham and all of those teachings. I think ease is hugely important. But I think that the language around that of just like, feeling easeful in your day really is about being in alignment with yourself. It's really like when you're listening even to what's right for you and what's yours, whatever. And if you can follow that, if you have the privilege and time and whatever, I think that is the place where life, even the difficult things, become more easful. Because even though they take work, even though they take energy, even though they take a little pushing through resistance, a little grit, there's somehow some deep motivation there. There's energy stores that rise up to meet the challenge because it's something that you are in alignment with. And I know that sounds very basic, but we do so many things all day long, all the time that are not in alignment or we see someone else doing something.

I mean, I've done this in my God, I've done a lot of different projects and businesses, and I've caught myself falling off track with what I envisioned because I'm like, oh, they're doing this thing, and so maybe I should be doing that thing. And then I try that thing, and it sucks because it's not in alignment for me. It's not my thing. And so the energy just drains away from it and it's not fun anymore.

Totally. And the other thing too, about pushing through and grit and stuff is that it gets easier. Not that life gets easier, but you're building a muscle 1000%. And when you know that you can handle hard things, and go through hard things and get through the other side. That builds confidence, and it just feels so good to just know that, okay, I've figured out that probably figure out the next hard thing that comes my way. And when hard things do come your way, it's just not as big of a doesn't take you down as much. I feel like at this point in my life, I'm pretty unbothered by everything. I'm just like, oh, I'll just figure it out. But it's not like a jaded. It's just kind of like a more calm, confident feeling of like, I know I can figure it out.

Yeah, this is such a tricky, tender, interesting, murky place because there's many fine lines that are intersecting.

Right, true.

There's like, mental physical health and burnout and real self care that's needed. And then there's like, extreme coddling of the self and societal coddling, like, you don't have to take care of yourself.

Take a break, don't worry.

And then nothing gets done because you're just on your phone on the couch all day and then ordering things from Amazon, which is fine once in a while, but I think we're wired as humans to do things and build things and make things and fuck up and then start over. And then that's our wiring. And growing food to eat, which we did forever until recently, is hard and making clothes and just whatever, all the things. People have been so much busier and harder at work, quote unquote, in previous centuries than than we are, for sure, in a lot of ways in our day to day lives. And I think we're substituting that for like we're trying to funnel that energy into work and other things, and sometimes we just funnel it into the wrong project or the wrong relationship or something, and it just drains us. But I think we're always searching for places to put our energy. We have a lot more energy than we give ourselves credit for. We just don't need to use it the same way as we used to. So I think we're in this weird period of time where we're a little bit confused. We're just kind of wandering around trying to run marathons and start businesses.

Yeah, because in the past, it was like, okay, you get up, you got to go tend to the chickens. You got to tend to the garden. There was a routine. There were things you had to do every day for survival. And I'm weird, but I lowkey wish that I grew up in that era. I mean, maybe I did in the past life, but that routine and just I don't know. Something about that. It just feels good. And now we don't have to do a lot of those things. So our energy goes to work, but sometimes we think we're a little scrambly and don't have to do with ourselves.

And some of us choose that life, which is wonderful and I think it's because it's sort of like I always liken it to going camping, because I don't have that situation, though I think in my future there will be chickens, but that's a different conversation. But when I go camping, like, up in the Boundary Waters, and you're portaging in all day, and then you're gathering wood and you're filtering water and you're making a fire and you're cooking food in a way that's awkward because there's hardly anything to cook with, and you don't have a stove and whatever. By the time your day is over and this is day after day, you've gone for hikes, you're looking for wood. It's this on repeat thing. It's this beautiful, exhausting rejuvenating time. It's like you're using your body in this way that feels like the way it's always been used in terms of historically, and it just feels really good because you're, like, working to survive. And I think because that's shifted for us in so many great ways. I'm not saying we should all, like I mean, we have so many amazing things available to us now, but there's a real struggle to figure out how to take this genetic coding that's millennia old and then plug it into 2023.

That's interesting you say that, because that's something that's been on my mind a lot of we have so many mundane tasks throughout the day. I have to do the dishes every day. And the way we used to live was also very mundane and the same thing over and over, and it's like, man, I got to go milk this cow again every day. But I have this realization of, like, I could either be miserable every time I do it, but I still have to do it, or I can figure out a way to actually just love this part of life. Like, I might spend 75% of my life just doing mundane tasks to survive.

Yeah.

And I think we are in this space now with social media and seeing all these amazing things around the world that we're missing out on that it feels like you get icky feeling or a grudging feeling about having to do these things, but really, it's what we're wired to be doing. And so creating some sort of rhythms in your life around doing these mundane tasks and finding ways to be grateful for them and not let them suck the energy out of you, I think is also important. That feels like a whole other conversation, but I needed to touch on that.

Yeah, no, but it's that presence. It's that, like, I'm folding a laundry right now, and this is okay, like, instead of chasing the social media image of, like, but I'm not jumping off a cliff in Spain into the ocean or whatever. Being content in your day to day and recognizing that all these little pieces create your little life, your beautiful little home and your little family and your life. I mean, I say little because it's just in comparison to the whole world. It is. But there can be a lot of joy in those things. And I think, yeah, that is a different conversation, but it's also part of this back to this way of maybe coping with that resistance, meeting the resistance with some gratitude and just some presence and just some this is what I'm doing right now, period. I'm just doing this and that's okay. Everyone folds laundry. Most people. Not everyone, but most people fold their laundry.

Nobody else folds their laundry. Yeah.

It's almost like finding the beauty in such small tasks can be really powerful. Really powerful.

And if you're really struggling with that, my best advice is to take a long social media break.

Yeah.

Because we have never in history ever have had access to what every single other person in the world is doing. And so we're constantly like, I want to live in that alleyway in Italy. I want to go to the beach. And it's just so not natural. So it can make you feel very.

Or if you're me, you simultaneously realize how many elephants are trapped in wells and birds getting hit by cars and dogs that are like and I'm like, I can't, I got to just because it's too much.

Yeah. It is more than we are supposed to handle.

And if you can bring all of that energy one of the things I use in my one on one tarot readings that I borrowed from a friend of mine, Kelly thank you. Is this we do, like, a few breaths and then it's imagine your energy like a reverse firework. So just like, all your energy is going everywhere. These are your thoughts, your dreams. I wish I was doing that, and I got to do this and got to pick up the kids and get groceries. If you can just take all those little threads of energy like a firework when it explodes and push the reverse button on the video and just, like, bring them all back to you for just a minute. Just bring them all back to you. That can be just such a healing thing. And by shutting off the social media and just getting quiet, maybe just folding some socks for a little while, you'll probably actually feel a little bit better, because then you are operating from this whole place that you're meant to operate from. And the ideas of, like, what should I do next? Or what am I meant to do? And all this stuff, like, you start getting little pings of ideas and inspiration in that space. Folding talks can be magical, people.

Yeah. Like, bringing it back to what we talked about earlier, if you're like, I don't know how to get into alignment because I don't know what I want. Once you eliminate those distractions, that's when you can start to really feel like what you want. Yeah. And sometimes it takes a while, days, couple weeks of just consistent quieting, the noise and listening to yourself. But usually you start to feel pretty quickly kind of that return.

And maybe that is the answer to this murky place where this fine line is like returning to yourself in order to make better decisions. And even the stuff that feels hard right now might still feel hard, but you know that that's what you want to do, so you're going to do it rather than like when you're not aligned with it. You're kind. Of like I mean, we've all done that, where there's a thing that some days we fly through and other days we just cannot bear to do it. And that's generally this idea of listening to yourself sometimes, again, yeah, we have to do stuff, but the hard stuff becomes easier when you are operating from that place.

What a beautiful way to tie that all together.

It's a fascinating topic, though, this idea of resistance.

That was a good one. Yeah.

And this idea that motivation doesn't just show up, that sometimes you have to act, buy the watercolors and sit down and paint something. Even if you have no idea what you're doing, you might get so inspired. Like, my guitar has been hanging on my wall way more than it should be, and every time I pick it up, which is less than I used to, I'm like, this was so much fun. And then I'll play for days on end and then sometimes it'll get put back down because I don't play professional or any kind of music with people anymore. So there isn't really that external push to like, I got to practice this for the gig or whatever, but it still sparks that little fire to do the thing. Even if I just stare at it and feel not a whole lot of anything. If it's something that you have aligned with in the past, chances are just putting on the running shoes or picking up the guitar or whatever it is, or getting seats for the garden or whatever will get you through that resistance.

Yes. If I had sat around all morning waiting for motivation to come to get me to do something, I would have been sitting there all day in my pajamas and that it took me taking action of like, no, get up, do this, do this, do this. And now I just feel so much better.

Yeah.

Pushing through. There is some magic to it, for sure.

There is. This is such a great topic. I just want to talk about it all day, but we should probably go.

Okay.

And again, I just want to reiterate because I think it's important, hugely important, that all of the things you mentioned, mental health, physical health, just trauma, whatever, grief, I'm in that space these days, those things. Be gentle with yourself and get help and all of that. I mean, we're not saying just push through your trauma. That's not what we're saying. So I just want to make sure that that is clear. But if you're feeling a bit of the malaise and you're just scrolling endlessly on the couch, chances are you need to get up and go for a walk. Go around the block, go get the mail.

Cut to the Malaysia.

Going to get the mail is better than not going to get the mail. Go sit on your front step. I don't like, take tiny, tiny steps, but it's going to inspire you to want to take bigger ones.

It really does.

All right. Thanks, Audrey. This is so fun.

Yeah, that was a good one.

Yeah. As always. And we're just going to have the long goodbye now.

Okay. Goodbye.

Goodbye.

Goodbye.

Goodbye.