Expired Mindsets 🧠 w/ Dr.Charryse: “Wellness, Self-responsibility, and Love”

Hey, Kaidra Sphere. I hope you are all doing incredibly well today. It's another opportunity to come to learn to connect with one another. And as always, I'm excited to be here. Let me take a tip. Just pure water and electrolytes this morning. But you can pop in and tell me two things. One, where are you in the world? Because that is important. And what's in your cup? Hopefully it is something non alcoholic. We are a recovery free zone around here, but whatever it is, make sure that you are honoring the goodness that you need.

Fun fact. It is very helpful. One of the most helpful things that you can have when you first get up in the morning is 16oz of room temperature water with a little bit of lemon. Good morning, Maria. Hello. Speak wonderful for those who are joining me for the very first time. I'm Doctor Charryse Johnson, a licensed clinical mental health therapist, a mindfulness practitioner, and author. And I am here to be your pseudo BFF as a therapist, but really to talk to you about peace and harmony. And what does that look like in balance in your life and balance meaning how does it flow together?

Because true balance doesn't exist. Hello, Lindsey. Hello, Serena. Question of the morning. Where are you, right. In terms of location? Because I also live vicariously through all of you when you're like, oh, I'm in Hawaii. Oh, I'm in Canada. And I want you to rate your week as something that I haven't done in a while, y'all. This is hilarious. I just pulled this out of the Amazon bag, and I didn't have time to take the tag off, which is also why it's not iron. But that's hilarious. My clothes are outing me anyway.

Rate your where you are mentally. So mood wise, maybe even mood and food. Let's make a little congruency there, because I'm always going to talk about food. So one, meaning you're on the struggle bus, and ten, meaning considering where you are, you're doing the best you you possibly can. Joycelyn, are you laughing at me, girl? I know my husband is like, what else do you need to get delivered? But I'm, like, in defense of myself, I have a new partnership that would like for me to record content, and I can't wear the same thing, so.

And they have a different branding, so I needed to get something different. Oh, fun. Two weeks driving in a campervan in the Scottish Highlands. That sounds amazing. Let's get into the focus of the day, because what we don't want to do is get me talking about shopping. We need stock in Amazon. I do need stock in Amazon. I really, really do. Go get it, Audrey. Get your power lift in. I love it. I want to talk about wellness, self responsibility and love. Wellness, like life, is always going to be a question of balance.

I'm going to exchange the word balance for a word that I prefer, which means harmony. Wellness, like life, will always be a question of harmony. I use harmony because I think about the fact that you have to get various components to blend in order for it to be harmonious. If you're playing too many things that are close together, it doesn't sound well. If you're playing things in too many different keys, it clashes. And I feel like harmony is a much better analogy because balance leads us to believe that everything in our life is supposed to be equal, and that is not possible.

You're not going to be able to give equal effort to everything in your life, but it is your responsibility to determine how much effort do I need to give each of these components in my life so that your life flows through harmony, which means that you feel like you are showing up well and with compassion and with enjoyment in as many areas as possible. The other thing that I want you to consider is I want you to think of wellness like an energy system. We are an energy system. I constantly talk about as being a neuro biological system, a system, a nervous system.

And it's important to realize that true wellness isn't just going to focus on you as an individual. But we are individuals. But we also are energetic beings, and we have a collective exchange. We are constantly in connection with the people around us, with where people, the people that we work with. We're in an energetic exchange with nature. I want to give you a really great example. After I take another sip, I want you to think about the fact that we tend to feel better in nature. Has anyone been out in nature recently?

A hike? A walk, the beach? If you have, tell me a little bit about your experience. Because what we know is there's something about nature and being outside that energetically lifts us, just as we know. And Covid would be a really great example. When we're not able to get outside on a consistent basis and really nurture that exchange, we get low, we get dull, we get down. That was such a great example. Covid was of, we need to exchange with other people, and we need to exchange with other spaces in order for us to feel harmonious.

And I don't know many people that spend significant amount of time in nature and not feel their soul and their spirit lifted. Separate analogy. This fits in my head. You'll see if it fits in yours. I was watching a little video of some parents, and they were so excited because their baby was getting ready to take their first steps. And I just thought about that whole process, about how we get so excited. We're like, oh, my gosh. And we start clapping for them and cheering for them and all the things.

And then we become adults and don't want to go walking. So something that was once viewed as this incredible privilege because everyone can't walk. And sometimes walking is delayed for some people, or not even possible. But it's something that is so significant that we celebrate. And then depending upon where we are later in life, we may get to a point that we completely overlook the privilege of that aspect of wellness. So, question for reflection for you. Where are you overlooking or minimizing your ability to live well?

Where are you taking for granted the fact that you can move in all different ways and talking yourself out of doing something that someone else may give anything to do? Food for thought. When you utilize the concept of self responsibility in your vision of what it means to be, well, here's some things that I wanna point out. It allows you to flow from the belief that wellness is something to be cultivated. It's also important that self responsibility is something that we view through a lens of compassion and love.

If we don't have compassion and love mixed with that self responsibility, then being responsible for ourselves will feel like a burden. But when you look at self responsibility through the right lens, then it transforms burden into opportunity. Second key point for you to reflect on during this time or after we're done, where are you looking at caring for yourself as a burden instead of an opportunity? And I'm going to take a sip for you. Meal prep, cardio, strength training, flexibility. Were you viewing those as a burden?

Oh, I don't have time for that. I don't feel like it. Your feelings and self responsibility need to work together, but they're not always going to. Self responsibility will exist in the healthy land of wellness, whether you feel like it or not, because you don't see taking care of yourself as a burden. Like I want to hold here for a moment. We got time. I can split this into two parts. Do you view yourself as a burden? And while I'm on it, let me say this. There are seasons in our life where self responsibility has become more of a burden than it was intended to be because of our choices.

When we don't make consistent choices that support our energetic system. When we don't take full responsibility for all that we are, then we move into a place where it does feel like a burden because it's harder to breathe, we're out of shape, we've changed our palate, and our appetite is not directed towards the things that would give us the greatest amount of energy. Our appetite might be directed towards the things that actually bring us the most amount of comfort. And if that's where we are, then, yeah, you're going to feel like a burden.

But the good news is you have an opportunity right now, in this moment and every moment forward, to wake up and decide for yourself. Taking care of me is not a burden. It is something that you can embrace. It's something that is an opportunity to go, hey, let's see what I can do today. Let's see what my body is capable of today. I even love that framework. Don't go into the day thinking it has to be a certain way or I failed. Because again, that's a very small, finite, very rigidly defined view of wellness.

Let's see what my body is capable of today and then honor that and respect that. Because that is self responsibility. You know that you're responsible for making sure that you continue to move and move well, but you're doing it through a compassionate lens of let's see what can happen today. And you love your body through what it's capable of doing. Because what we're capable of doing physically is going to look different each day, each month, each year, each season, depending upon injured, non injured, where your weight is, where your flexibility is, where your stress level is, where your mental health is, all the things, key point of wellness, self responsibility and love.

You are not a burden, you are an opportunity. But you have to see yourself that way because I get tell you that all the time and it doesn't make sense unless you choose to do it. Here's the other thing about self responsibility and love. If we don't place those things together, then we resign ourselves to be helpless victims of dis ease. Point number where are you considering yourself more helpless than you really are? I'm going to sit. Where have you become a victim in your own life? Where are you telling yourself, oh my gosh, this is so hard.

Okay, so how can you compassionately care for yourself through that hard and keep trying? When we don't own self responsibility and love in our umbrella of wellness, we resign ourselves to helpless victims. Oh, I've always been this way. And perhaps you've always been that way because you've chosen not to address what way you are. Nothing works if you don't. I have this conversation with people all the time in a very loving and appropriate way. Is it that that thing that you're relying on isn't working for you?

Or is it that you are not working? Question for reflection, how hard am I really working in my own life? Because sometimes the habit is to work very hard for other people and not for ourselves. We negotiate how much time and energy we have left over for ourselves, but we make sure that everyone else gets our best, and that is not a harmonious exchange of wisdom. I want to wrap us up with giving you four components of self responsibility and four examples of love. Four examples of self responsibility.

Number one, discovering your real needs and finding ways to meet them. Key point your real needs. How will you know the difference between a real need and a counterfeit need? A counterfeit need is something that will not satisfy you. It is something that you will participate in, but you have to continue to do more and more trying to get your needs met. So it is an empty promise. It is a very short lived experience. It makes you feel good in the moment, but comes with consequence. That is how you know that you are meeting a surface level need versus a real need and meeting it.

Just like some of you have heard me say, what are you hungry for? Because you may find that the food that you're taking in isn't really the need. The true need, is love, is belonging, is value, is purpose. So being able to identify your real need, needs and meeting them. Number two, making choices and living creatures courageously in the midst of uncertainty. It is so much easier to live well when things are going well. Not a problem. We're flowing. Everything is great. We wake up with energy and joy and compassion and all that, until uncertainty comes.

And uncertainty can bring in a whole host of emotions. But the true test of your mindset around wellness is who are you in uncertainty? Little question on the side, who am I in uncertainty? Do you still act with self responsibility and love when you are uncertain and maybe anxious or fearful? Number three, create the life you want, rather than just reacting to whatever comes your way. Number four, for examples of self responsibility. Expressing yourself, both your ideas and feelings, in ways that effectively communicate to other people who you are and what you know.

That is self responsibility means not playing small. It means not going into situations and deciding that you are going to dial yourself down because you don't want other people to think you're too much. You're a lot. You were made that way, that's who you're intended to be. If you diminish that, you are not being responsible for your true self, and you're definitely not acting love. You need to be. Somebody needs to hear this. I need you to be 200% of who you are. You know why? Because being fully yourself is going to let you know the people that belong in your life and the people that don't.

If someone feels like you're too much, it's because they're not enough to see your value and to see your greatness. So you need to fall back and know, these are not my people. You might tolerate them depending upon the dynamic love. Four examples of love. Number one, responding to life's challenges as opportunities for growth rather than as problems. You can have a problem, but you don't have to respond to everything as a problem. So there is this aspect of knowing, hey, you love yourself enough that even when there are problems, you're still responding to your life through the lens of self responsibility and love.

Which means you are still anchored into your habits, the way you nourish yourself, your sleep patterns, your reflection patterns, your personal growth. That doesn't change when life brings problems. Because if that changes every time life brings a problem, consistency will not exist in your life. So you have to anchor in in the mistake of even really difficult storms. Number two, caring for all aspects of yourself. Sometimes we do a phenomenal job cognitively. Your mind is sharp, it is on it, but you're not doing so great with your body.

Sometimes we do a really great job with our body and we feel like, oh, my goodness, I feel as physically fit as I ever have. But your mind is trash. Sometimes our body is in a decent place. We've worked on our mind, but our spirit is low. You can have a mind that's cognitively intelligent and a spirit that is broken. I'm gonna sip on that. So, love means you fully address body, mind and spirit and what it means to exist in harmony and alignment in all of those elements. One of the most challenging aspects to how we're seen is we often want to be viewed in this perfect, which doesn't exist body.

Because if we're really honest, the belief is if I look good on the outside, then no one will really know how I feel on the inside. No, they won't, but you will. And that will eventually show, and that will eventually come to the surface, and you can have the ideal body for yourself. But if your spirit and your mind are filled with unrest, it will not matter, nor will it be as enjoyable. Number three, experience yourself as your own best friend. That means you have to be able to center your own needs and not push them to the side in order to meet the needs of everyone else.

And number four, be truthful with yourself. One of my favorite sayings, you can treat your truth, or you can treat your lie right. It's up to you to decide. They will both take you in very different directions if you decide not to be truthful to yourself. Yes, I know I gave you a mouthful this morning. It is what I do right. We know that some days I'm gonna come in and do my very best to try to, like, give you this little nugget. But other days, I'm like, I don't know when the next time you're gonna be back here.

So I need to give you enough nourishment that you can operate off of it until the next time we meet again. Here's what I encourage. I encourage you, if you've taken notes, to go back through those notes and really read through and answer those reflection questions with yourself. Discuss them with a friend, with a partner, whoever's in your life, or reflect on them yourself. But really ask yourself these questions over the next week. It doesn't have to be something that you do today. The second thing that I would encourage you to do, because a big part of changing your view of wellness or updating your view of wellness and understanding the role of self responsibility and love is also looking at where you need to be saying yes in your life.

m. did a really great live not too long that talks about finding your yes and saying yes. Go listen to it and couple that message with what I've shared today and go where do you need to begin? Saying yes to yourself and seeing self responsibility as not a burden, but as an opportunity and learning to love yourself more because it will require you to say yes to yourself and no to other people. And the third and most important thing that I need you to do, I need you to own the day. I need you to leave this moment and remind yourself that you are capable of every single thing that you desire if you do the work.

Because knowledge is not power without application. All right, I hope you all have an amazing, incredible week. I will be in town this Friday. Had a little snafu with travel last Friday. So if you typically join me on Fridays for if your plate get talk, be ready, because I am. And I will see you then. Have a phenomenal phenomenal rest of the day.