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Feeling stuck? Break free from anxiety, depression, and the patterns that hold you back. Join me as I share my recovery journey, along with practical coaching tools to help you grow stronger, feel capable, and create a life you love.
You are listening to break free with Becky, your go-to podcast for real talk, real tools and real freedom.
Hey, my beautiful friends. I'm excited to have you here today. I wanna talk about something that. It's been on my mind a lot, probably for a lot of years 'cause it's something I've really struggled with and I think it'll be a really exciting topic for you.
So I have been working really hard lately, really, really hard. I have added a lot of new responsibilities to my life and while I'm still keeping up on my normal responsibilities, I handle all of the ins and outs of my coaching practice everywhere from. You know, booking my clients to all the billing, to doing the actual coaching, of course, to supporting them over text, doing all the marketing, all the sales.
And I also have a second business where I teach group piano lessons, and I do all of that as well. I teach group piano lessons to children who are five to seven years old. I've done it for almost 14 years now. It's kind of a service that I just love to give my community. And it takes up a lot of time. It takes up a lot of work.
I have children, I have two kiddos. I have two dogs and a cat. They're all senior citizens. And we are getting woken up in the middle of the night multiple times right now with these, sweet little fur balls who just need extra support in the evening for their bladders and for different parts of their body.
I also have the normal house responsibilities, right. Cleaning, cooking and caring for my family. I also serve in my church. And now I've added this podcast in which it's a very short podcast, but it actually takes me quite a bit of work because I do all of it and I don't hire anyone to help me edit or, anything like that.
I'm also in the midst of launching my break free group and working on filling that, and it sounds like a lot, right? It's quite a bit, and occasionally it can feel like a lot, but lately I find myself. Just so energized by it. I have done more in the last, probably three to four weeks than than I have done maybe in the last year.
I find myself excited to wake up to work on my podcast, to serve my clients, to help my students, to help my little musicians and enjoy my family responsibilities and enjoy my dogs even when they wake me up in the middle of the night.
What I wanna explore today is what's the difference between when we're doing a lot and we feel energized and excited and lifted up, and when we're doing a lot or maybe even a little, and we feel drained and exhausted and depleted.
So we're gonna talk about the difference between physical and mental energy and how mental energy is the key to physical energy. And I'm gonna share a story with you on how I changed my physical energy with my thinking. How I use my brain to increase my energy. And of course I'm gonna share some tips with you on how you can start increasing your physical energy today by using your thoughts and your thinking.
Okay. So when I was 19 years old, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. I had a lot of body pain. That was during the part of my life where I had an eating disorder and things were, I was pretty tired, pretty depleted energy. Um, wasn't eating a lot anyway, but then I started having a lot of. Physical pain in my body and even more chronic fatigue, and I have felt tired for a very, very long time.
My pain level's often high with my skin and my muscles and my joints, but sometimes my fatigue can be really high as well. There are times when my energy feels fine and there are times when my energy is just gone and exhausted and I need to nap a lot. Even this last year, I had about a year and a half.
Where, I wasn't quite anemic. My doctor said I was one point away from being anemic, but I had very, very low iron, super, super low iron, and it took a year and a half for my iron levels to get back up to normal. Because my body wasn't absorbing the iron.
I was having some problems with my, my gut and my intestinal tract that was making my body not absorb the iron. And during that time, I probably napped three times a day. I was just so exhausted. I would just nap. And I'd get up and I'd do a little more, and I would nap and I would do a little more. And as my iron kinda started to level out, finally the nap started going away.
But I found that I was still tired. I had a lot of brain fog. I was tripping over my words. I found myself doing like funny things that I normally wouldn't do, just like silly little mix ups, and I was pretty concerned for my brain, but I went on a gut healing protocol and was able to heal the lining of my gut, and now the iron is able to absorb in my body and I feel so much better.
The reason why I'm telling you this is because I want you to know that I understand that physical energy is a real thing. Physical energy is highly affected by our body and what's going on in our body. It's affected by our sleep, our nutrition, what we're putting in our body is affected by the health of our body.
It's affected by how much movement we're getting. It's affected by whether or not we have chronic fatigue or low thyroid or Graves disease or low iron if we're anemic. It's all very real and it can be very draining on our physical and our mental health. So I want you to know that I understand that. And what I'm gonna teach today is directed more towards when we create exhaustion and and fatigue in our body by the way that we think.
But I do wanna offer that if you do struggle with chronic fatigue, if you have Graves disease, if you've got anything going on in your body, it creates less energy than you want. The skills that I'm gonna teach today can still help. They can still help when we have a physical diagnosis. It won't give you boundless energy.
You won't suddenly be able to like go without those naps, but it will lift you up and you will be able to do more than you think. Let me give you an example. When I was low with my iron, like I said, I was exhausted and I needed three naps a day, but I still got everything done that was within my power to get done because of the tools I'm gonna teach you today.
So I was able to use my brain to use my thinking. To be able to get myself to go when I felt so tired that I didn't wanna move, but I still needed the naps. Like I still needed to respect my body and I still needed to give it a lot of grace because there just wasn't the, the physical support in my body to keep going all day long.
I hope that makes sense. So I wanna give you a story about when I first kind of discovered how much power my brain has with my physical and mental energy. So this was many years ago, probably five years ago. I used to go grocery shopping and I hated grocery shopping. Like hated it with a passion. And every time I went grocery shopping, I felt so tired, like.
My eyes would burn. I would feel like I was going to shut my eyes in the grocery store. I remember times thinking I wanna lay on the grocery store floor and just take a nap. I felt so tired, like my posture was, you know, bent over. I was really like leaning on the grocery cart and it really came up and was very apparent every time I went grocery shopping.
I listened to an episode of a podcast, and I don't remember whose it was, but they were talking about how energy is created with our mind. I thought, well, I'm gonna test this out. I don't really believe that energy is created in the mind. I think I just have chronic fatigue problems and, and I'm very tired and I've got a lot of stress in my life.
But let me just play with this. So the next time I went to the grocery store, I started just thinking. It's possible I have more energy than I think. So as I'm walking along, I would just tell myself that thought in my brain, it's possible I have more energy than I think. And then I started saying, it's possible that my body is stronger than I think it's possible, that my body is stronger than I think.
And as I was going along, I started to feel just a little bit better. So I started thinking, I have energy. I have energy. I really do. It wasn't just words that I was saying, I was having to like really believe them. Like I do have energy. I do have energy. I started thinking about the times when I would go jogging or running or working out, and I'd feel so depleted, but I could use my brain to encourage myself, like just one more tree.
Just like run to the next tree. Just run to the next garbage can, and my body would keep going and going. So I started to believe that. I have more energy than I think I actually have energy. There's energy in my body here. And then I started to think about how would someone act who had a lot of energy?
If there was somebody here in the grocery store and they just had a lot of energy, how would they be walking around? What would their body look like? What would their face look like? Would they be slumped over and dragging their feet and halfway asleep like, like I was feeling? No, they'd, they'd be walking faster.
They'd have energy exuding from their body. They'd be standing up a little bit taller. And as I started thinking about this, I noticed that I started to walk a little bit faster. I just picked up my pace a little bit, kind of naturally, and I started to stand a little bit taller. And then I started noticing what was around me.
It was like I was waking up in the grocery store, like, oh, there's people in here and there's these, fun products over here. I've never noticed. And I noticed a little more pep in my step. And as I started walking faster and standing taller and getting a little more pep in my step, I naturally just started smiling at people and engaging with them and noticing them in the store, which gave me more energy.
As I viewed myself as someone with energy, I watched myself completely change. I went from slumped over halfway asleep, eyes just burning. I just remember my eyes would burn so bad, like they just felt so dry and so, so tired all the time. And I changed as I was telling myself those thoughts as I was using my inner dialogue to have this conversation with myself and I completely changed what I was doing.
Stood up taller, walked faster, started to smile more, started to engage with people. I created energy in my body and the craziest part was I had to practice that probably three or four times as I went back to the grocery store, every time I'd go back, at first I'd feel so tired, and then I would just start practicing those thoughts and really believing them, really feeling them in my body, not just saying them as like a platitude or a, or a sentence that goes across my brain, but really.
Believing like I do really have energy stores in my body. I do really have reserves in my body that I haven't tapped into yet. And after about the fourth trip, I was just no longer tired of the grocery store anymore. My eyes don't burn every time I walk in the grocery store. I just have purpose, I'm ready to go.
Let's get the shopping done. I talk to the people at the checkout line. I know them. Like I'm just, it's just a completely different experience. Okay, so here's the, the takeaway. Your mental energy, your thoughts, they can either drain your physical energy or they can increase it. There is a direct correlation between what you're thinking in your brain and how your body physically feels.
So let me give you an example. Okay? I'll give you another example. So I want you to think about. I don't know. Let's do a, let's do something we all can relate to, uh, maybe like hosting a party. Let's say you're gonna have a party at your house and you're behind schedule, and the thoughts that are running through your brain are things like, my house isn't clean.
I don't have enough time to get ready. There's too much to do. I'm tired, I'm exhausted. Nobody's helping me. Do I have to do everything myself? That's usually my question that I ask. Am I the only one that has to do this? Why do I have to do everything? That's where I tend to go to and remember, those thoughts are gonna create feelings in your body.
Every time you have a thought, you create a feeling in your body. All a feeling is, is a chemical reaction to a thought. And if you're thinking things like, my house isn't clean, I don't have enough time to get ready, there's too much to do. You might feel anxious or panicked if you start thinking, I'm tired, I'm exhausted.
Think about how that feels in your body. I'm tired, I'm exhausted. I'm so depleted. I just need a nap. Just saying those words, I, I literally feel exhaustion in my body. That's the emotion that comes up. And I feel a physical sensation of exhaustion as well.
And if you start thinking thoughts like, nobody's helping me, do I have to do everything myself? You're probably gonna feel something like resentment. Okay, so when you're feeling anxious, panic, resentment, and exhaustion. In your body, you will release a cocktail of chemicals like adrenaline and cortisol.
Cortisol is your stress hormone, right? You are gonna release. Lots of cortisol, lots of adrenaline, and that will drain your physical energy, adrenaline, cortisol in high levels, in constant levels. It is so draining to our physical energy, to our bodies. And then we wanna notice our behavior, right? Because our feelings drive our behavior.
So notice if you're feeling anxious and panicked. You're probably running around the house, cleaning, preparing, you're in a rush. Like you're thinking fast. You're moving fast. And I know for myself, if I'm thinking fast and I'm moving fast, I am more likely to make silly mistakes.
Like I might drop things or I might mess up a recipe or I might, I don't know, accidentally break something because I'm just trying to go so fast. I just make mistakes. And if I'm feeling resentment or exhaustion because I'm thinking thoughts like I'm tired, I'm exhausted, do I have to do everything myself?
Then I might shut down. I might avoid getting ready for the day. I might avoid getting ready for the party. I might start scrolling on my phone. I might check out. I might lash out in anger. I might blame others around me 'cause they're not helping me. And if I'm doing all of this, when the party starts, guess how I'm gonna feel Completely exhausted or completely wired.
Just depends on your body and how you process all of that. You're either gonna arrive to the party exhausted or like so wired. You can't settle down and you can't even enjoy it. Do you see how that all comes from your thoughts? My house isn't clean. I don't have enough time. There's too much to do. I'm tired, I'm exhausted.
Nobody's helping me. Do I have to do everything myself? That's causes the cascade of all of those emotions, and then we end up exhausted and completely wired and we can't enjoy our own party versus if we're hosting a party and we're behind on schedule. So same circumstance, same situation.
And you deliberately and purposefully feed yourself thoughts, like, I have the energy to get done what I need to get done. I really do. I really have the energy to get done what I need to get done. I'm capable of getting this done and I'm gonna have a great time tonight.
If you really believe that, I really do. I have those reserves. I have those wells inside of me to get done what I need to get done. I am capable of getting this done. There's no one better than me to get this done. I'm gonna get it done and I'm gonna have a great time tonight. Or maybe your thoughts are like, this is gonna be so much fun.
Let's go. You feel confident and energized and motivated, and remember that confidence and energy and that motivation comes from the thoughts that you're thinking. I have the energy to get done what I need to get done. I'm capable of getting this done. I'm the best person to do it. We're gonna have so much fun.
Let's go that generates feelings like confidence, motivation, determination, feeling energized in our bodies. From there, if we're feeling those emotions, we're going to get done what we need to get done. We might enroll some help. We're gonna get busy. We might roll up our sleeves, we might turn on some music, we might put on a really awesome podcast and we get to work.
And the result we create for ourselves is, we get the work done and we do it with great energy, which means we're gonna arrive at the party with great energy. 'cause we've kept our minds in such a powerful mental space. So here's what we need to know is our thoughts create emotions, and those emotions are going to affect our energy.
They're gonna affect how we feel physically in our body. And remember, an emotion is just simply a chemical reaction to a thought. I think it's echo, echo to heart that talks about this, that emotion is just simply a chemical reaction to a thought. If you have a thought like that's not fair, you might feel anger in your body, and that's just the chemical response to that thought.
You release some adrenaline, and this is so important to understand because our negative and our stressful thoughts, they create tension and stress and fatigue in our body. They physically exhaust our body because of the, the hormones they're releasing, the chemicals they're releasing. And if we have positive.
Powerful, helpful thoughts. We feel more calm, we feel more focused. We feel more vitality. We feel more powerful. We feel a lot more powerful. We feel empowered, which is gonna release things like dopamine and serotonin in our body, which are gonna lift us up. So one visualization you can think about that might help is if you think of yourself like a battery.
Just think about your thoughts as charging or depleting your battery. When you have powerful positive thoughts, it's going to charge your battery, it's going to increase the battery that's in your body, and when you have negative, stressful thoughts, it is going to drain the battery.
And this is not magic, okay? This is not woo. This is just how. The brain response. I think it's also really cool to understand that we have the subconscious in our brain, and it listens and obeys to our thoughts. It can't tell the difference between what's real and what's not real.
So when we tell it something like, I'm tired, our subconscious is like, oh, okay. Let's make the body tired. We have lots of examples of this in so many different books where people use their brains to change how they physically feel and what they can do with their body. So like in, uh, for example, in the book, Psycho-Cybernetics.
Psycho-Cybernetics, okay, I think it's Dr. Maxwell Malts, I believe is the author. This book was written in like the 1960s. It's an awesome book. I love it so much. The language is a little funny because it was written so long ago, but he talks about an experiment where subjects were instructed to focus their attention on the spot, on their forehead and imagine the spot becoming warm.
Just use your imagination to make the spot warm. And the cool thing is, is that the exercise led many of the participants to even. Notice that sensation, that area of their body was warm. They're like, oh, I do feel it. And then they took a temperature of that area and discovered that that area in their body had gone up temperature wise as well.
Okay. So our mind has an incredible ability to influence our body sensations through what we're imagining and thinking in our brain. And there are so many. And, experiments that back this up, there is a huge mind body connection. So we gotta really watch what we tell ourselves in our brain. If we're walking around telling ourselves we're tired, we're gonna feel tired, it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
So I remember when I was first learning this, I had watched, I can't remember what it was. It was a training that I took where it was for my son who was autistic, and they were giving an analogy about spoons. And they said, imagine that your son has, 10 spoons. And this represents his energy for the day.
And every time he gets in the shower or has a sensory experience that is too big, it depletes his spoons. And then as his spoons go down, he doesn't get any more spoons. So for the long time, that was such a useful analogy for me because I was thinking, okay, every time I ask him to do something, he's losing a spoon.
He's losing his energy, and then we have to find ways to, to help him when his spoons get too low. And it became this kind of funny way in our family to just be like, my spoons are low. It was a way of saying, I'm exhausted, I'm tired. I can't take anymore. Instead of saying my battery's low, we're like, my spoons are low.
And I remember tying this to my, my coach, Bev Aaron. And telling her, Bev, I just don't have any spoons. I'm so tired. I'm napping three times a day. I'm exhausted. My eyes are just burning. I don't have any spoons. They're just not there. And I sort of felt like this, this is a funny visual, but I felt like a hedgehog.
That was trying to grasp onto all of my spoons and hold them. And so nobody could take my spoons because I was so tired. I was like, no, I need my spoons. I need my spoons. I can't help you, and I can't help you with your homework, and I can't help you with your, piano. And I can't do the dishes because I'm just low on spoons and I've gotta hold the spoons that I, that I have because I'm so scared of my energy being gone.
And I was telling this to my coach, Bev, and she looked at me and she said, Becky, there are no spoons.
What in my head, I was like, no, there are spoons. I have a certain amount of energy in my body, and if other people take it, I'm not gonna have any left. Becky, there are no spoons. Your energy is created in your mind and your energy is limitless. This is what she's telling me and I. I was like, Nope, that's not true.
That is not true. I only have so much physical energy and I don't believe you. But because she's an amazing coach, she kept working with me and I was like, okay, I just wanna play with this. I had such a hard time with it and I didn't believe it for a very long time. But I started noticing as I changed my thoughts as I went to the grocery store and started saying, I have energy, I have capacity, I have more energy than I think I did Watch my body actually start to respond and change,
and as I've really started watching my thoughts and reversing them, as soon as I find the ones that are draining me, like as soon as I notice it, I'll just be like, oh, there it is. It's draining me and I reverse it. I'm finding that I have far more energy than I ever thought possible. I accomplish more in a day now than I used to in a week.
I accomplish more in a week than I do in a month. It is crazy. I used to refer to myself as a sloth, and sometimes I do as like a joke. I'm like, oh, I'm a sloth. I'm just really slow. I take a long time, if I was gonna do a painting project, like paint a wall, it'd take me maybe like nine months to finally gather the supplies and, and start working on it.
Oh, I'm just a sloth. But now I just get so much done and I feel so fulfilled and energized by it. For example, today I got my kids to school. I wrote a newsletter and posted on Facebook about the group I'm launching. I wrote a podcast. Now I'm recording the podcast, and when I'm done, I'm gonna edit it.
I'm gonna prep the show notes. I'm gonna schedule it for release. I'm gonna write a post for it. Then I'm gonna prep my music lessons. I'm gonna teach two hours of group piano. I'm gonna make my family dinner, and then tonight I have plans to prep my lesson that I'm gonna give in church this week. And when I say it out loud, I think it, in the past it would've sounded really exhausting, but now when I say it out loud, I'm like, that's awesome.
Like you're killing it. It's so cool. It's so cool to watch how I can use my brain to increase my energy. And admittedly, sometimes, most of the time, almost every time when I hit about 5:36 PM I am depleted and tired, and dinner's about the last thing I wanna do. That's an area I still wanna work on.
Overcoming and overcoming the obstacle. I know there's gonna be a point in which I cook dinner and I'm excited about it. I'm just gonna keep working on it, but really, even when I hit that 6:00 PM tired, I only need about 15 minutes. I need to lay down for 15 minutes, relax my body, give myself a physical break, respect my body's exhaustion, and give my brain a little break, and then I'm ready to go again.
Not because I'm pushing, not because I'm hustling, right? If I was pushing or hustling, that would create exhaustion. If I was denying my my body's need for a nap, that would create exhaustion. I'm creating energy because I am supporting my body with my brain power. I am literally creating energy with my mind.
I'm feeding myself thoughts all day long. And recognizing that I have so much energy than I realized, I have so much more energy than I know I'm capable of. So much more than I think my brain and my body can do more than I realize. These are the thoughts I tell myself. I have the energy, I have the capacity, and I love to remind myself that working and and doing things, it fills me up.
This is what fills me up. This is what lights me up. It fills me up. It's not what drains me. My brain loves to tell me that working and, sitting down on the computer or going to teach lessons or even going to coach sometimes. And my brain loves to say, you're gonna be tired. It's gonna drain you.
And I'm like, no, no, no. I gotta answer it back. This is what fills me up. Your brain is gonna give you all kinds of thoughts and it's totally okay. What you have to pay attention to is how you answer it back. That's the important part. How you answer your brain back is far more important than what your brain says.
I do remember a time when, we took my son to, I don't remember what it's called, but we went, we went into a, dome and we watched a video on space and one of the things they talked about in spaces that were all made from the stars. And they showed how the, the big bang happened and then how we were created from stars.
And I love thinking about that. 'cause whenever I think about my energy, I'm like, my energy is limitless. I am made from the stars. I'm made from the stars. How cool is that? My energy is completely limitless. So I wanna give you some practical tips to take away and just try out on your own.
I want you to think about what are the thoughts that deplete your energy? What's going on up in your brain that depletes your energy? For me, it was, I'm tired, I'm exhausted. I can't handle it. I can't adult right now. I'm overwhelmed. I don't know what to do.
All of those types of thoughts were so depleting to me, but I want you to get to know your thoughts that deplete your energy. And one of the best ways to do this is to notice when you have an energy dip, and then just ask yourself, what am I thinking right now? I'm filling this energy dip. I'm feeling exhausted in my body, what is going on in my brain?
And then just put pen to paper and do a thought download. Just write down what are the exact thoughts that are going in my brain. I'm tired, I'm exhausted. I'm overwhelmed. Nobody's helping me. I didn't get much sleep last night. The dogs kept me up all night. Like, what are we thinking? That's creating the exhaustion.
And then ask yourself, , once you've identified the thoughts, just check in. Is this thought increasing my energy or draining it? Just notice it. You don't have to stop thinking if you don't want to. We just wanna notice awareness is everything.
And then if you want, you can try this reframe that I learned from Ed Mylet Love Ed Millet's podcast. It's the Ed Millet show. This is one of my favorite reframes and I use it all the time. So what you do is you identify the emotion that you're currently feeling.
And then you identify the emotion that you want to feel. And for some of us we're not really used to identifying emotions. Emotions and feelings. I'm talking about, anger, sadness, frustration, joy, happy, like those are emotions. That's what we're feeling. The one word feelings.
So you identify the one word feeling that you're having. And then you identify how you want to feel, and then you insert it into the sentence. I choose to feel blank instead of blank. So one of my favorite ones when I'm feeling physically depleted is I will say, I choose to feel energized instead of exhausted.
And it becomes a choice. I choose to feel energized instead of exhausted, and something happens right there when you make that choice. No, I'm gonna feel energized instead of exhausted. Your brain and your body will go to work starting to create energy for you. And you will notice you're gonna walk a little faster.
You're gonna stand up a little taller, maybe you're gonna go get yourself a big drink of water to, put some energy into your body. Maybe you're gonna do five junk jumping jacks or do a little, quick breathing exercise to get some energy in your body. But once you make the choice to choose to feel energized instead of exhausted, you will start to.
Respond and act in a way that is going to increase your energy.
I love to use this sentence for other things, like I choose to feel energized instead of depleted, or I choose to feel gratitude instead of anger. I choose to feel joy instead of depression.
It's not about denying yourself or positive toxicity. That wouldn't help, right? If we're being so positive that we're denying our emotions, or if we're denying the way our body feels, we're just gonna create more exhaustion in our body.
This is about truly believing and feeling in my body. That I can be energized instead of exhausted. I can create that emotion for myself. I can learn how to generate emotions for myself. I don't have to be in the emotion that's currently in my body. It is so powerful. Okay, so just remember your energy.
It comes from your mind, also comes from your body. Your mind has so much power over it. Even when you have physical things that are going on in your body, you can still generate energy with the way that you're thinking. 100%. All right, so you still have a few days left to join. Break free. If I have my notes correctly, registration closes on September 30th. So we have a few more days left, and I'm telling you, if you wanna feel more alive, stronger, more awake to your life, and if you're ready to stop struggling with the same thing over and over and over, i'd love to have you join me. I'd love to have you join me. It's gonna be a transformational experience, and if you're not sure if it's right for you, you can go to my website, becky garner coaching.com, and you can book a console and I'd love to chat with you about it.
No pressure. Just there to see if this is a great decision for you or not. Click on the link in the show notes below for more details and otherwise, I will see you next week. Bye.
Thanks so much for listening to the podcast. If you're stuck and ready for change, grab my free course. Get unstuck@beckygarnercoaching.com slash stuck. It goes straight to the heart of what's keeping you stuck and gives you real tools to shift you out of it. Once again, that's becky garner coaching.com/stuck.
If this episode helped you today, don't keep it to yourself. Follow the show, leave a review or share it with someone else. And remember, you're stronger than you think, and you're more powerful than you know, and I truly believe that. I'll see you next time.