[0:00] Music.
[0:14] For another episode. I'm so happy you're here, by the way. I really enjoy recording these podcasts. It's also some of the hardest work that I do because figuring out what to talk about in each episode and putting together principles and concepts that have been foundational and honestly life-changing for me requires some deep thought and some deep thinking. And it requires me to get really still inside of myself. And honestly, I pray a lot for answers about what to talk about in these episodes. And so anyway, I just want to say that I really love creating these episodes for you and I hope that you're loving them. I would love to hear from you. If you have been listening to the podcast and loving it, if you would even just send me a DM and tell me what your favorite episode recently has been, that would mean the world to me. And also I just want to know who's listening so that I can create episodes for you. So please, please, please send Send me a DM on Instagram and tell me your favorite episode that you've loved recently.
[1:13] Today, I'm trying something a little bit different. And instead of writing out a full script for my podcast, where I usually have like an outline of exactly what I want to talk about, I am going completely scriptless, completely outlineless today because I want to just let it flow and let God's
[1:31] voice come through me and let my intuition speak through me. And so the principle that I want to talk about today has been, as always, so deeply meaningful to me, and that's being present as a mom, especially where we're getting close to the end of the summer. As much as I hate to say it out loud because I don't want to create scarcity around the summer for myself or for you, scarcity around time with your kids or the lack thereof, because I don't want to feed into that narrative, that story that your brain's already telling you that you don't have enough time with your kids or that you should have more of it or that you should be spending more time with your kids. But this episode, I guess, is a little bit of a personal check-in because I like to do this kind of like check-in with myself periodically to just see where I'm at on some of my presence practices that I like to and try to do very frequently daily.
[2:26] Sometimes I've noticed myself getting a little bit off track with them, especially if If there's something that I'm selling or if there's like an offer that I want to put out into the world, I catch myself getting a little bit, what's the opposite of present? Distracted, confused about what's the most important. And so I want to teach some practices that I do in my actual life that you can
[2:49] start to bring to your own life to help you feel and be more present in your life. Present with your life, present to your life. And so here are some practices that I found. The first thing that I think I wish I would have figured out sooner about presence is that all that presence is, is the lack of thoughts in your brain.
[3:15] I left an extra long pause there for emphasis because sometimes I'm like, oh, what does it mean to actually be present? I can be sitting next to my kids on the floor. Is that what presence looks like? Or what does it look like? What does it feel like? And so that principle to me, being present is having an empty mind. Feels so good to me because that's not my default. fault. My mind is very rarely empty. My brain really likes to think especially about my business and other things too. I like to think about my relationship with my husband and my kids and all this as moms. We have our constant running to-do list that's running in the background. And so I don't know about you, but before I started to learn these principles of presence and really practice them.
[4:08] Emphasis on the word practice. Before I really learned these principles, I found myself anytime I was like sitting down with one of my kids in a moment when what I really wanted was an empty brain, what my brain defaulted to was, oh, I can't remember. I can't forget to move over the laundry. Oh, I should just go empty the dishwasher and reload it really quick so that it can run while I'm sitting here and playing. I can't forget to pick up the dry cleaning. I I haven't done dry cleaning in years. I don't know why that example came to my mind. I can't forget to send that email. I can't forget to check in with this. Oh, I've got to go schedule my workout class on the gym app. Just like there's always something, always something in my mind that my brain feels like needs to be done in that moment. And it always seems to come to me in those moments when I want to be present with my kids. I was just thinking about this last night. I was helping my kids in the bathtub, and I really wanted to be present with my kids, but my brain was having a really hard time not thinking about something that I needed to do on my phone, on my to-do list.
[5:10] So let me share some quotes that I found about presence that I have found very useful. One of my favorite authors about presence is Eckhart Tolle, and he really emphasizes the importance of capturing and fully experiencing the now. And so I'm going to read some more quotes in just a minute to really talk about the now.
[5:32] But first, in order to be able to allow your brain to empty itself out, in order to allow it to feel like there is space in your brain that you're not being constantly bombarded by all the things that you could be or should be be doing or, you know, thoughts about who you should be, that you're not enough or that you're not good enough. All these self-doubts that when you let your brain just do its thing are usually probably the things rolling around in your brain. And so here are some quotes.
[6:04] Learn to disidentify from your mind. One day you may catch yourself smiling at the voice in your head as you would smile at the antics of a child. This means that you no longer take the content of your mind that seriously. I love this so much because you've heard me talk about this in past episodes. I like to talk about my brain like it's a separate character in a story. That for me helps relieve some of the shame and awkward cringy feelings that I sometimes could let myself feel when I talk about the way that my brain thinks. And instead, it sort of just makes it like a silly extra character. Isn't my brain so funny that it likes to do this weird thing all the time? It's so funny. And so it kind of like makes it a little bit lighthearted. It releases some of the shame that you could easily feel about thoughts about your brain. And so I like this quote because it sort of was like, when you can separate yourself from the thoughts in your mind, it means that you no longer take your brain so seriously. You can sort of start to recognize, oh, these thoughts that are rolling around in my head are just thoughts. They're not because of me. They're not caused by anything that I did well or did wrong. They're just thoughts that just, they just come and they go like clouds in the sky. So that's one thing that I have that has really helped me is to separate myself, disidentify myself from my thoughts, from my brain. This is the next one.
[7:24] Not to be able to stop thinking is a dreadful affliction. But we don't realize this because almost everybody is suffering from it, so it is considered normal. That's also Eckhart Tolle.
[7:36] Not to be able to stop thinking is like, used to be really challenging for me. Once again, emphasis on the practice. And I think it's true that this has been normalized. I don't know if this is particularly common or challenging for women because we do have so many tasks on our list. Things that have to be done in order to run our households, in order to clothe ourselves, in order to have proper hygiene, in order to take care of our kids, to feed our kids, to clothe our kids. And so there's just a lot of boxes. There's just a lot of check boxes. And it's, I think women particularly feel this weight. But I want to talk about how to lift or how to release that pressure that so many of us are feeling constantly.
[8:22] And that pressure that we're feeling is often because our brain is looking forward to the future. Or my brain also does this, but it also looks back to the past. Past but what I really like about what Eckhart Tolle teaches is that both the past and the future are an illusion neither of them are real the only thing that we have that's real is this current moment that we're in I most of the time find my brain going to the future the example that I always think of is when I'm like rocking Drew at the end of a long day I'm just about to put him down to bed the lights are off the sound machine is running in the background we're just having a sweet little evening snuggle, or sometimes this happens right before nap time too.
[9:08] And left unchecked, what my brain will go to is the future. Okay, as soon as I put Drew down, I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that. And I can't forget this and I can't forget that.
[9:19] Eckhart Tolle teaches that that thought process that's happening where your brain is looking forward to anticipate the future, he calls it an anxiety gap, where it's like there's something that's going to happen in the future and I need to anticipate it right now or else something bad is going to happen, which is why our brains think about it so often and why it's so hard for brains
[9:39] to not think about all the things that we have to do. So here's what he says. Fear is always the fear that something might happen, not of something that is happening right now. You are in the here while your mind is in the future. This creates an anxiety gap. You can always cope with the present moment, but you cannot cope with something that is only a mind projection. You cannot cope with the future. And so this for me requires me to release the need or the belief or the thought that there's anything that I need to do. If I am rocking with Drew at the end of the night and my brain goes to, I need to do this or this or this, that to me is just like a warning signal that like my brain is believing something that's not true here. There are very few things that I need to do in that immediate moment. There's a lot of things that have to be done eventually, but very few that have to be done immediately.
[10:34] And so I like to bring my brain back to the present moment by remembering this moment that I have right now is all that I really have. And so I can release what I think could or should or needs to happen in the immediate future so that I can enjoy this present moment.
[10:52] Another quote, all fear is the fear of losing something and thereby becoming diminished and being less. These two movements obscure the fact that being cannot be given or taken away. Being in its fullness is already with you now.
[11:09] So yes, there are things that have to be done eventually, like feed your children. Honestly, that's one of the very few things that have to be done. And they, depending on what age your kids are, might actually be capable of doing that themselves. But I love this reminder that in order for you to be able to fully enjoy presence, presence is being. Presence is not related to or are connected to doing.
[11:35] So if you can set down the need to do things, you will be able to enjoy being with your kids. You will be able to enjoy sitting and not doing anything. I know what you're all thinking. So many women that I coach are like, I can't remember the last time that I sat and watched a movie because my brain got like spun out in anxiety while I was sitting down because it kept telling me there's something else more productive that I should be doing instead. dead. Super common. Just really good for you to watch out for and be aware of because that means that your brain is believing that your doing this makes you more qualified or good, but the qualification and the goodness is already in you. You already have the fullness of it right now. There's one more author, writer who I want to talk about. Her name's Byron Katie, and she wrote the book Loving What Is, which is really beautiful if you find yourself struggling with anxiety. Actually, it's just beautiful for anyone because we all struggle with anxieties to different degrees. But there's seriously one sentence at the beginning of her book, Loving What Is, that low-key changed my life. And I talk about it frequently with my clients. This is the sentence. The only time we suffer is when we believe a thought that argues with what is.
[12:50] I'm going to say that again. The only time we suffer is when we believe a thought that argues with what is. Okay. When the mind is perfectly clear, what is, is what we want. So I really love this one, particularly for business owners, because if you are in a season where your business is feeling stressful, or if you are in a season where you feel like things should be happening differently than they are, I should be getting more sales. I should be having more people reach out to me. I should be, let me check my DMs to see if someone is reaching out to me. Let me check my email. Let me check Voxer. This is so sneaky. he.
[13:26] But when you can really settle with the truth that what's happening in my business right now is exactly what's supposed to be happening, that will help release the feeling that there is something that you need to be doing differently.
[13:37] What if what's happening in your business right now is exactly what's supposed to be happening? If your brain has been telling yourself, telling you, again, right? Your brain, the other character in the story, the other guy, if he is telling you, I don't know why I just called the brain a he. You know what I'm talking about. If your brain is telling you that there's something that should be happening differently in your business, it would make sense why that's creating an anxiety gap because it's making you feel like there's something else that you need to do in order to make the new thing, the better thing happen. But what's actually true is that the current moment that you have is perfect. And it's exactly what is supposed to be. And we know that because that's what it is. And so how could it be anything different? Byron Katie again, she says, if there is anything that you think shouldn't have happened, you're wrong. It should have happened because it did. And no thinking in the world can change that. This doesn't mean that you condone it or approve of it. It just means that you can see things without resistance.
[14:36] She says, I am a lover of what is because it hurts when I argue with reality. I wish every single business owner could read that and hear that and feel that and apply that to your business. If there's something that you think shouldn't have happened, you are wrong. It should have because it did. And of course, obviously there are unfortunate things that happen. Obviously there are things that happen out of your control. Does that mean that we like that or approve of it? No, it just means that we can see that that was exactly what was supposed to happen. And there's so much relief and peace to be found when you really lean into that. Okay, so back to what I was saying at the beginning. beginning presence is you without thoughts presence is you being without thinking or basically presence means stop thinking has been like the most helpful for me let's talk about being attached to your phone just for a second because i think every single business owner is guilty of this and i have been too and this is something that i constantly work on and watch for and catch my cell phone so that I can correct it very quickly.
[15:45] I mentioned this a little bit earlier, but this is so common and so sneaky that we become very attached to our phones because our brains like to think that inside of our phone somewhere is some kind of evidence that will prove that our business is working. Usually like DMs, comments, engagement, emails, likes, follows. And so if you're a business owner who's in the middle of like a building season where you are building an audience, you are building your email list, You are filling your weeks, your workload with amazing clients. It's so easy to let your brain constantly be seeking for the evidence that things are working.
[16:24] That's what's happening when we start picking up our phones constantly. I'm only calling this out because I do this. I used to do this so much and it still sneaks up on me. So I have to be really careful and watch for it. Something that I've been doing that I found very useful because I will have like a, for For example, I'll give you a very specific, I'm going to make this very real. Last night, like I mentioned, I was sitting by my kids in the bathtub and I had a thought, I need to get my phone. I had actually put it away for the night because that's one of my present practices I'm going to explain in just a minute. I had put it away for the night. I'd clocked out of my phone at 6 p.m., plugged it in. And I had a thought, I have to get in and schedule my workout class or else I won't be able to go to the class, right? That sneaky thought that makes you think there's something that I have to do immediately.
[17:10] So I went and grabbed my phone and I brought it back sitting next to the bathtub with my kids. And I was on my phone doing stuff. I don't even know what I was doing. Next thing I knew it was five minutes later and I hadn't been on my phone for five minutes, but I hadn't even like done the thing that I picked up my phone to do. And so I want you to just be watchful of when your brain is seeking for validation that things are working, working because it would be really easy for you to seek for that validation outside of you and to use likes, comments, emails, DMs to prove to your brain that your business is working. But the other option that you have is just to choose to believe that your business is always working. And also I would pair with that, choose to believe that after 6 p.m. There is nothing you can do that will move your business forward faster. I think that's what my brain likes to think is like, oh, I can like respond to someone sooner, then they might get back to me sooner. And so that's why I have to pick up my phone at 6 p.m. No, I want all of us, everyone listening to this in this community, I want our new presence practice to be that we put our phones away at 6 p.m. And we don't pick them up until the next day, or at least to work on your business. If you want to do like a little doom scroll after your kids are in bed, I do that every once in a while too.
[18:26] But as far as like picking up your phone for the purpose of doing something for your business, there is nothing you can do after 6 p.m. that will move your business forward faster. There just isn't. And so if you can release that feeling or that thought or that belief or that craving or honestly addiction to think that if you can get back to people more quickly,
[18:47] you will be able, you will make yourself available to be present. isn't. Okay, let's talk about a couple of some of my actual things that I do. I just mentioned one of them, which is I put my phone away at 6 p.m. I plug it in so that it's away from me. I have not perfected this ability to turn off my brain. So the next best thing that really helps me do that is take the temptation, my phone, and remove it so that it is not visible to my eyeballs. It is not within my arm's reach. Sometimes if I like, you know, if I'm downstairs in the basement playing with my kids and I don't want to walk all the way upstairs and plug it in, I will literally slide it across the carpet so that it's like at least six feet away from me. Because if it's not right next to me, then I don't have the temptation to pick it up a million times and just like spontaneously out of habit, check Instagram.
[19:40] It drives me crazy when I do this and it probably drives you crazy too. And I wanted to solve for this problem. So those are a couple of things that I've done that's been very useful. The next thing that I do that is very useful is I intentionally build what I like to call a silence session into my day at some point. I am really working on like making over my mornings right now. I haven't perfected them yet. One day I'll make a podcast episode when I figure out what exactly I want my mornings to look like. I'm kind of enjoying just like lazy, slow mornings in the summer right now. And I give myself permission to enjoy the way they are right now. I give you permission to enjoy yours the way they are right now because, you know, we've all heard of the miracle morning, wake up at 5 a.m., do all the things. If that's already working for you, that's amazing. If you're not quite there yet, that's cool too. We can build up to that. But coming back to this silence session, this is a five-minute session that I intentionally build into my day, whether it's in the morning. Honestly, it's really challenging to get this in in the middle of the day unless my nanny's here. So usually it's either in the morning or the evening after my kids are in bed. And it looks like at least five minutes of me sitting with no input and with no output. Sometimes I will put a journal next to me because I have really good thoughts during these sessions. But, As much as I can, I try to avoid the need to fill that time with anything.
[21:04] Honestly, this has been one of the most transformational things that I've done because I think it helps me just like do a little micro daily detox. We have so many inputs, especially if you're a mom with kids. There are innumerable inputs. It would be impossible to count the number of inputs trying to come into to our ears and our minds at a given moment. I have also found myself feeling like if I have like five free minutes, I should be filling that time with reading my scriptures, with reading a book, with listening to a podcast, right? And so when I intentionally create this five-minute session, it's like there are no inputs allowed. There are no headphones allowed. It really helps me be able to like separate myself from the constant need, the constant craving, the constant urge, the constant addiction to have information coming in or putting out information. Because if you're a business owner, you do a lot of outputs as well with your marketing, with the content you create, with the clients that you serve. So this session has like a little protective bubble around it where nothing is allowed to come in and nothing is allowed to go out. The only thing that is allowed is for you to be able to transmute all the lessons and thoughts and feelings that you've been feeling today, whether you realize it or not, let them come to the surface, let them come out. out if they need to. I cry all the time during these stillness sessions because it's just finally that moment where my nervous system is able to come to rest and let my emotions come to the surface.
[22:31] These sessions have been deeply transformational and impactful for me. Like I said, I haven't created this big, huge, crazy, amazing routine around it. It's just a five-minute thing. Very often, it's the five minutes before I go get Drew out of his bed in the morning, or it's five minutes before I go to sleep and I just lay in my bed.
[22:51] Sometimes I'll put my hands on my heart just because that feels good. Sometimes I'll close my eyes, but it's just being silent, being Kaylin, and it feels really good. I would highly recommend.
[23:03] The next presence practice that I want to share is journaling.
[23:06] If you aren't already spending time with a journal, I would also add that on, have it stack that onto the silence session. Even if it's just a quick five minute, whatever, two minute, three minute, five minute thing to let yourself get out some thought in your brain, record it on a piece of paper so that it can be on the piece of paper instead of being in your brain. I can see this image in my head of my head being full of thoughts, like polka dots or like marbles or whatever. It's just like, it's just full of thoughts. And so something that can really help me be present is to get those thoughts out somehow. And one of the best ways to do that is by talking or by writing, writing it down on a piece of paper. And the more thoughts I can get out, the more space there is instead of me feeling like I have to like, I have to quiet them. Like I don't have to quiet them because they're not in there anymore.
[23:56] I also really like to keep, I do keep a to-do list on my phone, but mostly the purpose for it is so that I can, when my brain thinks, oh, I've got to remember to do that, I can write it down somewhere so I don't have to keep holding on to it. I don't have to keep reminiscing it or remembering it so that my brain doesn't forget it. I know it's recorded somewhere. So the next time I look at my list, it's going to be there. I like to do this, especially before I go to sleep when my brain is like racing with all the things I need to do. I'll just get out my phone and type all the things that are coming to my mind out on a list. So I know they're or recorded somewhere, I don't have to keep my brain on top of, I don't have to hold my brain responsible to remembering them. I can empty it out. That really helps me be able to rest and relax.
[24:38] I want to talk about one more, which is one of my favorites. It's a really quick one, especially when you're with your kids. I don't remember where I learned this. I wish I could remember so I could give the proper person proper credit, but I don't remember what they called it. I like to call it feeling gravity. If I catch myself spinning in anxiety or thoughts about the future, all the things that I need to do for my family or for my business, especially in those moments when I'm with my kids and I don't want to be thinking about all those things, I want to be with them. I don't want my brain to be somewhere else. I like to do this gravity practice. And literally the practice is that you stop and notice where you can feel gravity on your body in this moment.
[25:18] This one helps me so much because it will like instantly quiet my mind. It will instantly get me to focus on something else besides the thoughts in my head. So like right now I'm sitting in my chair in my office, so I can feel gravity on the bottoms of my feet. I have my leg tucked up under my leg, my other leg, so I can feel gravity there. I can feel it in my bum. I can feel it on my wrist a little bit because they're resting on my desk. That's a really quick one that I do to help bring me right back instantly to the present moments that I don't lose out on it, so that I don't forget the most important thing, which is that I'm already enough. I'm already good enough. There's nothing else I can do or say that would make me more enough. There's nothing that I have to prove to anyone. And so because of that, I can relax. I can chill. I can release. I can surrender to this present moment and really let myself fully be with myself or with my spouse or with my kids or with a friend or a family member or whoever I'm with in that moment. Because I think we owe it to ourselves and I think we owe it to the people around us to give them the best, most present version of ourselves.
[26:29] I hope you love this episode. I love these presence practices and I want to hear from you. If you try some of them, which ones are your favorite? Send me a DM and let me know.
[27:19] Music.
