Me Time ✨

Happy Sunday. I'm excited to be here with all of you. I missed last Sunday unintentionally. I was in Japan and I had forgotten to change my times on my calendar so I missed it. But we're here now. I flew back from Japan earlier today, landed at approximately 2:20 in the afternoon. And I'm excited to be back. So I'm gonna hold space for just a short period of time. Hello Jules, how are you today? Hello. Speak Wonder, how are you? Did you guys see me accidentally pop in on Tiffany's talk? I didn't realize that she was running long and I jumped in and I think I somehow intertwined with it.

It's always great to have you find selves here. Spreading magic with words and hearts and symbols. So today on me time, I just wanted to have a quick little conversation. I have been in Japan for the last 1213 days and I would tell you something kind of crazy. It's the first time that I can remember in almost eight years. Then I've gone on a vacation and literally I didn't have a work computer. I had my personal computer, which I can do a lot of work from, but I didn't have a client computer with me.

I actually did try to dial into my client site to answer some emails because we're in the middle of a project. I got kicked out of the email system because I was in Japan and it flagged me and thought it was spam. And then our indoor cycling studio. The team is so great at what they do that not one time did they reach out with any questions or problems. So I literally got to be just present in Japan. While I was there I ran a marathon. I had family fly in and it was really great. So Jules, today on this Sunday is having a great day with some creativity.

Painting a figurine. Speak Wonder. It sounds as if you are listening to some music by John Denver. I would say that it was a book, but I don't know that to be true. Sounds like it is a song. And so today what I wanted to talk about in me time are a couple of things. One, the art of pause. So taking that time to just allow yourself to check out. And how does that make you feel when you do? There's so many things in life that we can busy ourselves with. I know that I had a list of things I wanted to accomplish while I was gone.

But it felt as if we were on the go every moment of our awake time. Doesn't that happen sometimes when you're on vacation and you pay places you schedule in all of these things that you want to see and somehow you just find that you're tired when you get home, but not because you're doing the same things you do all the time. It's because you are so busy learning and exploring and connecting in new ways that when we invest all that time and energy in learning new things like learning new foods, learning about new cultures, learning about the history, learning about the history of wherever it is that you're traveling to, the sites that you see and looking at the tour books to see, what sites should you be seeing and what are the sites that maybe you want to see that aren't in the tourist guides?

So your mind is constantly active, or at least mine is or was. Over the last 12 days, I learned about the city of Kyoto and Tokyo and Kamakura and Nara and the history that ties all of these cities together in Japan and these islands. And I dove into some of the culture things and their history, but also in some of their day to day. I got uncomfortable because I don't know the language. And the number of times I felt like an idiot for only being able to say konnichiwa or arigato was a lot because I didn't know enough words that I could share.

And the number of times, luckily I could pull out my Google Translate to read the language so that I could have a conversation or response or typed in a message and hoped that Google translated it appropriately was significant. Because not all cultures need to speak English and I'm not there because I want them to cater to me. I'm there because I want to learn about them. So it was really, really humbling to be there and it was really joyful to be able to be so present a culture that I've heard about for so long.

Now, what was fascinating about this trip and a lot of times out here we might talk about our grieving process is this trip had a lot of significance to me, one I may have shared with many of you, or if you're new to me, you might not know this, but I like JC am doing a series of marathons. He's already accomplished this goal. I'm catching up. There's six major world marathons and I'm doing all of them for charity. And the reason why, it's not because I'm impatient and not trusting the process of going through lottery.

It's because when I lost my mom and dad, this seemed like the best way that I could grieve and I could still honor them. And Tokyo marathon was one of those on the list. And I knew that our dad was stationed in Japan, and he always had so many kind things to say about Japan. And so choosing to do these marathons, whether I do all six or not, I got to do the one that mattered the most, and that was Tokyo. I chose a charity that aligned with my mom's work. She was a nurse, a registered nurse, and her passion was working with children to help make sure that they had the medical attention that they need.

Specifically, she worked in the home with babies that had trachs. And so finding a charity that aligned with my mom, traveling to a country that brought such joy and memories of kindness and fondness to our dad seemed like the perfect place to go. And so what was great about it is my brother chose to come too, as did others. But specifically, I'm talking about this particular trip with relation to my brother and I, who both remember our dad in very different ways, and our mom, too. But it was so special to be able to go to some of these places and be there with my brother and have him look up at me and see tears in his eyes and have him say, dad was here.

And I didn't know if he meant, like, spiritually. He could feel our dad because I'm the spiritual one, meaning that, like, I'm so much more in tune with. I'm a Reiki master and an energy worker as one of the many hats I wear. And so for him to say that and see such emotion, for him, it was really touching. But what he meant by it was he was thinking logically how 60 years prior, our dad was in the same city, standing on the pond that we were standing by in Nara, and experiencing a place that he saw 60 years before us.

Or it was actually like, 65 years ago, to be honest, because my brother remembered stories that our dad had shared with him. Now, what was fascinating is I wanted to ask my brother what memories he was having, what the stories were, but I didn't. And it wasn't because I wasn't curious. It was because I could really see that those stories meant so much as the bond between him and our dad that I didn't want to intrude on that space. Now, I may ask him in the future, but in those moments when we were in Kamakura and we saw the second largest Buddha temple statue in the whole country and possibly the world, my brother said the same thing.

He said. He told me how our dad had talked about this statue and he remembered those conversations. Now I have different memories of stories that our dad shared. But together we got to walk in a space in a community and experience a people, a culture that meant so much to our dad. So, hello, as you're dialing in today. And so what I want to offer in is that suggestion of how might we simply next time you go on a trip or you go on a walk or go on a vacation, leave the things behind that you don't need to carry.

For me, this trip, it was my work computer. Now, again, I said I had a computer with me because I did have the intention of doing some writing and building out a class that I'm creating and writing up some stuff for a podcast that I'm going to launch. But I didn't do any of that because I was sitting in so much energy of just love and compassion for a culture and a community that I wanted to sink it all in and a connection to my brother that I haven't had in. Well, we're close, but we hadn't ever had that kind of connection before.

So I wanted to enter in this other topic into me time today about purpose, passion and purpose. So I'm going to leave that little phrase out there for a future date because I have something percolating in the background and some of it is coming from a book that I've read recently. And so I'm going to hold the book up here. I'll take a photo of it as well. Ikigai. So it's a Japanese secret to a long and happy life. Now, I've had this book on my shelf for probably over a year. I've had it for a long time.

And so when I was digging through and exploring what book I wanted to take with me on my trip, it seemed apropos that I would choose this book. And so I was flying 12 hour flight where for over 8 hours of the flight, you don't have WI fi because you're over the ocean. Whatever would we do without WI fi? Well, pray tell, you can go watch some movies, you can take a nap, you can write, you can do many things when you disconnect from your phone and your computer. And you could hear the humble oh man.

As people lost their WI fi. Or did you download the movie or the book or the podcast? Maybe you didn't. But I have my book. And what I love about this book is there's a city, specifically in Japan, Okinawa, where there have been studies done on the longevity of life for people that live in this particular city. So on a per capita basis, they have a higher Percentage of people who are 99 years of age or older compared to any other place in the world. Now, think about that. 99 years, that's a long life.

It's a happy life. It's a good life. And these people are still healthy. And throughout this book, what the intention is and what this. Icky guy. Icky guy. I'm still working on it. Practice is about. Is about finding purpose. Now, we can create purpose through many things. We can create purpose in our work. So if you have a job that you love, you could throw yourself into that purpose. If you have children, you can throw yourself into. The purpose of living is to create a life for your children.

Right. Your family. So there are many ways that we can look at this, but when they talk about this study, they talk about this practice. In this book, the one question that keeps sticking out to me that I've highlighted is, what is the meaning of my life? How many times have we read things and it said, what is the meaning of life? And you get into this philosophical conversation about what is it? And you can dabble into religion, you can dabble into universe, God, nature, all of these things. But when you change that question just slightly, what is the meaning of my life?

What is my purpose? It strips away any other connection. It strips away the connection of me being a sister or partner or a wife or a husband or a brother or a parent or child. It takes all of those names out and it strips it back into you and your soul or whatever you believe, your spirit, your inner knowing, your guide, what is the meaning of my life? So I'm going to leave that question out there. I'm not going to answer that question for you yet, but we'll come back to it. So on this day where we're talking about me time and really starting to understand, you know, and I want to say this, too, Jules, I'm proud of you, because when I first came in here talking about me time, we all started with these ideas that every day, every minute had to be planned for something.

And I shared with you when I started this topic that I'm doing it intentionally because we don't often take enough time to refill our own buckets. And if my bucket is drained, how can I give anything to anybody else around me? I can't. I don't have anything left. So, Jules, you're saying today that you're taking Sunday to be creative today. I love that. Look how far we've come. So I'm pulling us through to that next level, and I'm asking you the simple question, what is the meaning of your life?

We don't have to have that answer. We don't even have to have that conversation. And if you don't know, that is great because think about what we have left to explore. Now I might say I might know the meaning of my life. I have a purpose statement that I use. You know, my purpose statement is to create an intersection point where people can bring out the best of themselves in their lives, in their careers and their communities. Like that is what I believe to be my purpose. Is that the meaning of my life?

When I pause and ask myself that question, I don't know. So I'm just presenting that out here for you guys today. If anybody wants to join me in a little book club this month, I'm going to post a photo of this in the comments. And what I'm gonna do is, and I haven't ever done this before is I'm gonna post out a date that I'm gonna have this book read by and I'm gonna put in a little live stream, pop in and we can have a little conversation about the book. Or at very least I'll pop it into a comment section to see what your thoughts are on the book so we can have our own little virtual book club.

But in me time, really understanding what is your ikigai? What is that for you? And also how might we continue to listen to the John Denver songs that bring us joy, to take the trip that connects us to someone who's passed so that we can feel them in the moment today and share that story, share that experience. So on this beautiful Sunday, I just offer in that little concept for you. And now this girl is probably going to hit the sack soon because I've been up for a really long time because I've been into the future and now I've come back to the past and we've sprung forward in a time.

So what I mean by that is, is Tokyo or Japan is 15 hours into the future. So I flew backwards in time and with daylight savings we lost an hour of time. So I really have no clue what day it is. I don't even know what time it is. So I'm gonna peace out. I'll see you here on Monday at 9am for leading with authenticity. And I'm gonna post this in the comments. I'm gonna pick a date and anybody that wants to join me in a little book club, let's do it. As you can see, it's a tiny book and if I look at the pages.

It's less than 200. It's like 185. Easy peasy. Don't sweat. Come join me for a read. I hope you have the best day. AJ12. Thanks for joining in. Speak Wonder Jewels. Always a blessing to see all of you. Have a best Sunday night, and we'll talk to y'all soon.