Staying Calm When Life Gets Messy

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Welcome to spirited straight talk the podcast to help you thrive with the help of spirit. I’m Deb Shepard, psychic medium spiritual teacher and author. Each week I bring new

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Insights to help you heal

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From loss, connect with spirit and turn setbacks into triumphs. So let’s get started.

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I do believe 100% that we all wanna find in. We all desire it. We take these vacations. We hope to let everything go to pine. Find that place of serenity. Yet we continue to argue as the voices in our head, we battle, we negotiate. We look at the issues. We try to solve it. It keeps going round and round and round monkey, mind, monkey mind. So how do we find a way to stop battling our, our voices in our heads and calm the mind? It’s a big one, right? It is. And it’s something that we look at these masters, these monks that spend all these years in a monastery meditating.

2 (1m 11s):
And I always laugh because they have no spouse, no children, no job, no bills. Of course they can think about nothing. It’s the rest of us. That’s true on this planet that constantly have things going on. And in our society today, there’s technology in our hands, 24 7, whether it’s your watch or whether it’s your phone, your computer, all that technology. So how do we find that time where we’re not going back and forth? I thought about this, about being, you know, both of our sons, like the WWE worldwide, worldwide wrestling. Is that what it’s called? Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. I forget nowadays. I know it changed names. Yeah. So it’s all those fake battles.

2 (1m 52s):
Basically when our sons found out that it wasn’t real. I think it really it’s like finding out there’s no Santa Claus, right? Yeah. It was devastating. Devastating. It’s real. We’re like, no, it’s really not real. And, and that’s what you have to think about in your mind, this fight that’s going on. This dialogue that’s happening really is fake because we’re allowing it to take up our energy that we talk about all the time and it stresses out even more. And it’s the 2:00 AM monkey mind 2:00 AM. That drives me crazy. The most, the 2:00 AM you wake up and your brain’s all this chatter. Yeah. Like, oh my God, what do I have to do? Oh my God. Oh my God.

2 (2m 33s):
Okay. Bills and blah, blah. Gotta make those phone calls. I can’t forget to do that. Yeah. And by the time it’s 5 36, you go back to sleep and you have to get up, you know, in an hour, an hour. I don’t. But you do. Let’s be honest here. I don’t let that happen. I don’t have to get up. I’m just very focused sometimes. Right. Maybe because I have the monkey. I wake up with the monkey mind. Do you sometimes? Yeah. Well, would you put your monkeys in a cage? Tell him to go away. And this is not unusual these days. I know that people talk about how to de-stress themselves and they’re going to doctors and everyone’s feeling overwhelmed and our bodies are feeling it. I mean, that’s the biggest thing is our bodies are aware of it.

2 (3m 14s):
And I feel like we have a lot of guilt in our life about make sure you respond to somebody and make sure you don’t forget their birthday. You know, it’s all driven by guilt. It’s all driven. Yeah. And so those are the things that we keep doing is we keep overthinking it and beating ourselves up. Like I said, that’s why it’s that fake wrestlers in your head? Just name the wrestlers, sell tickets because they’re going on going back and forth. It’s your companion, it’s your companion. She said, name your name, your wrestlers. When you do that, it’s never a moment where you can find, find that piece. And as you know, one of my favorite meditations is blow, drying my hair and people are gonna think what, but my students know that because it’s that white noise.

2 (3m 58s):
I don’t, I’m not touching electronics. I’m just sitting there focused. And so if you’re a person that has that monkey mind, and you want to look for the Zen, you want to have that call me, you’ve gotta find a way to meditate and relax. And it may not be sitting quietly unless you’re a monk with no children’s spouse jobs or concerns. Right. They basically, they take a, a vow of silence. Some of them do. So I’m sure on, you know, there are times I can tune, I can shut that down, like I, for a short time. But as soon as I’m done, it’s gonna come back. Yes. You know? So I think meditating is one way.

2 (4m 40s):
If you can sit quietly and tune, absolutely turn everything off in your mind for a short time, which I think is great. And I, but you know, it’s gonna come back because as soon as you stop meditating, there it is again, monkey mind. Yeah. So this is different. Yeah. This gives you a little bit of break. And, and what you’re saying is we don’t always like our own voices. As you know, I don’t like to listen to my voice, but doing guided meditations, people really get a lot of that quietness. However, if you’re driving or at work or two o’clock in the morning, how do you calm that down during that time? I think part of it too, is when you get some bad news or you’re getting something that you’re distressed, that every phone call an email going through financials, financials, which we’ve been doing, where Dana’s been doing stressful.

2 (5m 29s):
Cause you’re looking at all these things and it just overwhelms you. And I think we’ve become critical too. And that was part of it today, when you were going through some of our financials about where we’re spending money, what we should be doing, you know, those kind of things. And it can weigh heavy on, on our souls and our hearts and things like that. So I think today we wanna find ways to help you get rid of the monkeys, not your circus, not your zoo, calm it down because, but that kind of is our circuit in zoo. It’s our household. Yeah. Don’t tell anybody that. But at the same time, when we need to calm it down to connect with our guides, connect with our loved ones to be able to center so that our reactions are not those major reactions, that we can actually tame the anger.

2 (6m 16s):
We can manage the stress where we don’t do things such as stress eating or drinking or whatever it is that it’s a tool shopping. That’s one of my re reliefs is like, you know, I’m really stressed. Let’s go to the store. Like that’s really helpful. But at the moment it helps and distracted for a moment. How about let’s go for a while. Yeah. Kids dead. Let’s do Dana. Okay. Let’s go swimming. That’s. So what we wanna do is, is turn these things around to give you those tools. And they’re quick tools that they’re prepared. You have them with you because if you’re in that state of mind where a lot’s going on and you’re very stressful and you just need to calm yourself down and take some deep breaths, of course, having this available, these things available.

2 (7m 1s):
So you can turn to them when you need it. And I was thinking about this. If we have a friend or family member or someone in their life, that’s going through some challenges, we send a card or take ’em out to eat, or we do something. We send ’em flowers to help them know that we really care and to calm things down, but we don’t do it for ourselves. So, you know, unless we go shopping and this doesn’t mean you have to buy yourself flowers, which is absolutely fine, or send yourself a card, which I think would be a great idea too, to put a couple cards in the mail and, and say, you know, you’re doing great those types of energy, but what we wanna do is how do we begin to change the news that we received or the things that are happening that we can’t control.

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And that’s really where that mindset of not being able to calm our mind is because things are coming at you all the time. And the only thing you can do is respond. So this is about learning how to respond to stress and respond to things that are overwhelming you. So you can get back into that place. What I teach in the, the solutions class is our sole solutions class is to be able to be in a meeting or in a situation with family to be able to calm yourself down. So you can hear your guys because the first thing we wanna do is we wanna defend ourselves or we wanna argue, or those type of things, and that doesn’t resolve it. The intention then is to be able to connect with your guide’s comments so that you can respond in a way that’s healthy and that you feel good about it.

2 (8m 33s):
And people know that you’re listening. Does that sound right to you sounds right to me. Okay. Since there’s so much noise going on in our lives, I think it’s taking that time beforehand to think about things when you’re in a good place, what things you love? Do you have a playlist on your, your phone or wherever it is that you can go back to? I mean, I know you have some favorite artists I do, and it, it can change and shift your mood. And I know music for most people is a game changer, you know? So there’s concerts and things like that, or it takes you back in time. So if music and songs are something that really help you then put a playlist together.

2 (9m 15s):
So you can go right to that, go to your car, go to your room, go to the bathroom. I don’t care. Play that, that list and begin to really let your soul feel it knowledge that yeah. You know how much I love humor and dad jokes because you know, because they’re fun. Well, maybe not for you. Well, they are, and I love TikTok. So that’s one of my weaknesses, but like, what are you doing? Definitely TikTok. Yeah. She says nothing. I’m researching. You say nothing because you don’t want me to know you’re on TikTok. It’s like, you don’t wanna be caught. Right. I’m doing, I’m doing spiritual research. I’ve had to calm to mind. So you were, to me is a go-to and Dana knows this.

2 (9m 59s):
If I’ve had just a lot going on, or I’ve had a really long day of a lot of grief, people going through some really hard times and you try not to take it on, but it does affect you, you know, that stress and those emotions. And so I have my go-to for movies. Yeah. And you’re like, okay, let’s watch this movie. Let’s sit down. And, and those are good things. Or even the songs from of the playlist from that movie is always like, always that, what movie is that from? Where’s it, you know, that’s bridesmaids. So yes. To the dress. So, you know, restaurant music, my big FRA Greek wedding, some other ones, mine is practical. Magic. Yeah. What’s the one about the dating, the dating, you know, it’s will, will Smith.

2 (10m 44s):
Oh, you’re talking about hitch hitch. Oh yeah. Hitch. Yeah. So those are my ones that proposal, the proposal. Yeah. You know, romantic comedies, I guess, with all the funny little one liners there. So that’s, for me during those things, one of the things I wrote down here for fun was actually purchased some of these get a voodoo doll, little, teeny, tiny, little cute little dolls. Yeah. These are not real voodoo. They’re just called voodoo dolls, but there’s nothing wrong with finding a way to release your energy. We’ve had those, our students that did the 50 50 assignment assignment. So those of you that are not familiar, I pair people up in this class and they each have to do an assignment that is sort of spiritual or something like that.

2 (11m 29s):
And both individuals can only do 50% of the project. They can’t do more. They can’t do less. And it’s really learning how to not try to do it all, but allow the universe to show up, allow other people to show up, to really learn what partnership is like. Well, this one, these, these two in this last year here went to smash it. I don’t know if that’s what’s really called. Is that what it’s called? Smash it. Yeah. And basically you go in with goggles and gear to go and smash plates and smash stuff, smash stuff. Yeah. And they said it was just really relieving. It just, it just relieved so much stress. And so maybe you have, you know, it’s gonna be a really rough week, you know, that maybe relatives came in or there was a review where you had to deal with some stuff at work, have reservations at the end of the week.

2 (12m 18s):
Yeah. Yeah. Have it already set up, ask some friends to go and just say, act throwing or throwing. Yeah. Whatever. You’re do fancy. Now I could see me breaking dishes, but acting. I don’t think you would ever let me in the room. Well, Hey, you know, throwing those axis, you know, for sure that that would not be the people behind me. It’s like bowling, you know the bowling. Yeah. With you, I’d be scared. It would fly backwards. So you’d have to be in the room by yourself with something behind you to catch it, but have reservations for some of these things. Have it set up knowing that the days ahead of you will be stressful, but you wanna calm yourself.

2 (13m 2s):
It’s not only something to look forward to, but it will release that stress. A lot of people like to exercise, including you. So that to me is something that is really important. I’m that tourist, I wanna sit in the middle of the field and not move, but I try really hard to exercise. Cause you know, they can run really fast. I’m sure they’re running the bulls. So this is something too, if that is your go to habit planned around you, or even if you have weights or you brought me that trampoline, get on the trampoline, jump around a little bit. Yeah. Have some fun, a little rebounder. Yeah. If you are at work, if there is stairs, take the stairs, walk around the building, walk through it, whatever you can to disperse energy and let your mind unwind walking outdoors of course is fabulous.

2 (13m 54s):
But if you can’t do that, even if it’s taking five or 10 minutes and in moving that energy, maybe you go buy a candy bar. Yeah. Cuz chocolate, what’s good for it. Raises your serotonin levels anyway. So, so what happens with that voice in our mind, it’s, we’re really trying to find comfort and we are talking to ourselves, but we’re not getting there. So when you are going through that process of your two fighters in your head, the companions, your companions, think about it or write it down. Are you feeling guilt? Are you feeling shame, regret, anger?

2 (14m 34s):
What is it that you are overthinking? Because that will help you alone. Just be able to shift that thought process and just understanding it. Yeah. Yeah. Because why do we keep doing this? And, and part of it, even with guilt, like you said, make sure you pay the bill, make sure you make that phone call. That’s all about not being enough or feeling guilty. If you don’t re you promise someone, you would do this and you don’t do it. So you don’t want to forget, especially guilt and shame guilt’s yeah. And especially if you forgot them a couple other times, I’ve done that where I forgot someone before and then I did it again. Oh that just beat yourself up. And that will again, will go into the monkey mind. Yeah. I’m just thinking about the peanuts, the cartoon, that’s what I’m getting.

2 (15m 16s):
That’s what we do to ourselves, which would probably be better than what we do. I even thinking about the cartoons or, or we have now on our phones, those emojis and you see the brain exploding. That’s what we’re doing. Yeah. When we can’t stay in the Zen moment or pull, pull in those rings, you know, kind of pull it back in so we can breathe and take care of ourselves and not feel that agitation. And you, and I know each other very well when we’re doing that, we feel the energy. I mean, earlier with you doing all the financials and, and putting things together and doing some research taxes, I can’t stand it. Who does? Right. That’s what I would say on the other side, there’s it must be happening cuz there’s no taxes or dieting, but we went for a walk and we talked, we had to, you had to motivate me.

2 (16m 2s):
I don’t mind going for a walk, but I wanted to come and get something done. And you’re like, oh, let’s go for a walk. Which you were right. Yeah. Changed my energy. Change your energy. And it doesn’t take much. And it’s not far cuz I won’t go that far. Right. You’ll complain halfway in a couple miles is great. Yeah, I’m done. Okay. Let’s go back in. It just helps us to, because we hold it tight. It’s like we’re squeezing it and we can’t breathe. And we’re we think the basic things of breathing would be easy, but we start doing that shallow breathing. And that’s why even our watches today, remind us, take a deep breath, breathe, smile. Those things. Yeah. So what is important about also the monkey mind or not finding the Zen is try not to control the outcome and that’s really why our minds start spinning is cuz we’re trying to get the best outcome possible.

2 (16m 56s):
Yeah. Yeah. There’s a difference between finding the solution and just going through and regurgitating the same process. And many times the process is old things that we’re thinking about. I should have done this. It could have done it that way. Why wasn’t I thinking that? And guilt, guilt. And so how do you release that so that your mind isn’t cuz you don’t wanna do it again in the future. Yeah. Well that memory is gonna be there. It’s embedded. So how do you not control the past and not worry about how you control the future? And if you’ve heard our podcasts in the past, it’s always about the only thing you can do is respond to a situation and be present and be present.

2 (17m 38s):
You cannot control if your mind is not calm, you cannot find a solution because it won’t respond the same. Yep. Is really a great trick. Yeah. And when people learn this, I think they finally realize how much easier it is because they’re not spending so much during, before and after. And that’s the payoff there it’s worth millions of dollars. And I think the releasing control is a big thing where that’s where we put all that energy because we’re looking for that solution. When I served in this journey, it was learning about funk and that’s where I found out my abilities. But I wanted to control that my husband got a career back of what he was doing in the past.

2 (18m 23s):
Well, obviously that failed. And I found out that I could do this work. So not that it turned out better, but for me it did where I’m now doing what I love and I’m passionate about. And I get to help a lot of people. Those types of things. Yes. But when you try to control it, you’re limiting the possibilities of what the universe can bring to you. And that’s what we talk about that exercise about the 50 50, because more can come when you work in partnership and that’s what happens. Can come easier, easier, good things can come easier. Absolutely. And better than usually imagine than you imagine. It’s like when I surrendered and met, you came better. See, see what happened to control it.

2 (19m 3s):
Also I think if we look at what are mine is doing, so we talked about the monkey mind and the, the fighters and the roommates and all those type of things. But we are prepared a lot of times if, if we have a car accident or there’s a fire in the kitchen, we have things accessible to help put out that fire. And that’s basically what your brain is doing. So in my opinion, if you wanna really calm the mind and you want to do this often and not use all that energy, then be prepared and have a bag of tricks is what I was thinking. And a bag of, you know, I’m thinking is Mary Poppins, you know how Mary Poppins sugar, you know, you look with that bag and she had a solution.

2 (19m 46s):
And how many women do you know that walk around with that huge person. They have everything you would ever need. They have the, so this is your bag of tricks, bags of tricks because you could go to that person and go, I need Kleenex. I need tweezers. I need a bandaid. I need Tylenol, whatever it is that person has it. And so, and we also have those kits for when there’s a, an injury, what do they call those emergency kits? We have them, but we don’t use it when we’re under stress. So we’re gonna talk about the bag of tricks. Okay. And so you’re saying create your own bag of tricks, create your own bag of tricks. I would encourage you to have them in your car when at home, if you’re in an office where it’s stressful, have one there bag of tricks, doesn’t have to be a physical thing.

2 (20m 33s):
No, absolutely not. Absolutely not, but why not? You can, it can be right. Yeah. So some of this would be, if you have a friend where they’re always positive and you just call ’em up and say, Hey, can you, you just gimme five minutes of your ear because we do feel bad. Don’t gimme a solution. Just let me talk to you for five minutes and cheer me on. That’s all I want, have that person and be there for them as well. So, you know, make an arrangement when those things are happening, but only spend five minutes and don’t become the victim. Don’t become the victim and don’t look for a solution at that time. Just be excited about it. The one that’s the most difficult for people is to record that story and then listen to it.

2 (21m 15s):
You don’t wanna hear, see if you wanna carry that story. And I’ve talked about this many, many times, what energy do you wanna give your story? Right? And when you listen to it, you are realizing what your brain is doing and how it makes your body feel. And that’s really a key. If you think that you wanna find ways to calm that mind and you really wanna do an actual bag of tricks, I’m gonna give you some ideas, but be creative, whatever works for you. So these are just some ideas that I think would be helpful. One of them is to have some quarters in a bag or whatever, because remember we took the kids out the other day and they were just so excited about getting gumballs and candy in the little machine, the quarter, well used to be a penny that tells you I, right?

2 (22m 0s):
Oh yeah. But even having that and giving it to kids to see their joy and that you made someone’s day better can actually make you feel relieved and hearing kids with their laughter. It is. I mean, when our kids start, it’s joyful, it’s joyful. And you’re really trying to grit that energy again. So you wouldn’t think that having quarters around would be that pleasurable, but it really does help all of us. This would not be the bag, but this would be something to remember. Unless you wanted to put something in the bag to remind you is smile at people, give compliments because it does change your day. When you see someone go, oh well thank you because you paid attention. So that’s the pain for you feel their joy.

2 (22m 40s):
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. That’s what the kids too. It might be asking yourself questions. You know, one of my favorite apps is get Gavin and it’s about open ended questions because we need to stop thinking about the problem and start thinking of something else. So how do we get distracted without being squirrel? So do you put some of these questions? Do you have an app on your phone that allows you to sit there for 10 minutes and calm your mind, start thinking, where would I wanna live? If it wasn’t here? What did I wanna do when I was eight years old? What was my fantasy thing? You know, those kind of things will help you calm your mind. If you have candles, take a hot bath, comfy socks, of course make so make a calming kit, calming kit.

2 (23m 26s):
Yeah. Thank you for bringing that out. A calming kit. Even if, if you’re in a place, carry your teabags with you. That’s calming. I mean, there’s some of that stuff out there oils, cuz you’re a big oil girl. Yeah. Oils and lotions. Some that are really calming that you can put in your kit would be lavender, frankincense, sandalwood, cl Sage. Those are some good calming oils that you can use to help calm your mind quickly. And it just kind of gives you that sense of peace, right? Just from using oil. Just if someone’s bathing it they’re pointing depends on the day I might do that. Absolutely.

2 (24m 6s):
One of the things oh we sell to on our, our side is the beads and things like that that are calming. So certain rocks and stones that you wear. Yeah. You have your, your line of Mala beads that people can look at. There’s a couple of them that are very calming, right? One is the white highlight. For example, it’s, it’s a white bracelet and stone itself is a very calming stone. So having it on your skin, wearing it and even saying a mantra for each bead, whether it’s, I am calm, I am calm or I am safe. I am safe. I am safe. That can help. And if it doesn’t really work, you can throw it at the individuals that are driving you crazy. Just kidding. Dad joke.

2 (24m 46s):
One of the things I thought would be fun would be to go to a dollar store or wherever that’s inexpensive and buy some little gifts for yourself, buy seven or eight little gifts and wrap them up. So you don’t know what they are and when you need to go and you’re in that place, open one of those gifts to be a surprise. Cause we’d like to have gifts. Yeah. And we’re like, okay, what? I didn’t remember what I wrapped. I didn’t remember what I got. Wouldn’t it be fun? And I’ve seen this in stores, but where you can go into a store and they have little gift things that you can buy. It’s already pre wrap. Oh, I love it. And then you open it whenever you need a little lift or a little yeah. Isn’t that great.

2 (25m 27s):
That would be fun. That would be fun. One of the, well of course Oracle cards, right? Yeah. You know, you read your Oracle cards, read your Oracle cards. Yeah. I thought about a stress ball. You know, they even have those dammit dolls where you can throw it. You’re don’t even know if they do this, make these anymore, but the candy cigarettes, you know, if they make those anymore yeah. About buy and would you do C well, I’m just thinking have a, have a candy cigarette and like pass it around me. Go don’t because cigarette smoking really was to help stress right back in the day, like in the day. And I think people still use nicotine to help them stress, but it would be kind of fun to say, yeah, I’m really stressful.

2 (26m 7s):
Mean as a joke, as a joke and say at the meeting, we’re all stressful. So everyone have a candy cigarette right now. We’re all stressed out, all stressed out. But again, to bring in that humor and allow ourselves to, that would be funny. That would be fun. An office meeting to have everybody with a candy candy cigarette for white boxes for everyone. So have a smoke. We do. We’re not promoting smoking. No, we’re not, but it’s candy. Okay. It’s one of those things that it changes the vibration. Yeah. And that’s what you’re trying to do because if, if you’re in a meeting and you and I used to be in corporate America and everyone’s thinking about the deadline and how we’re gonna get this gig and what’s the bottom line and the timeframe and all the problems, everyone sits there and thinking, okay, how are we gonna do this?

2 (26m 51s):
And how are we gonna work together? So in my opinion, having something like the giving everyone a stress ball or the candy cigarette would just kind of bring a little bit of lightness to it. Humor. Yeah. Humor, humor. So that would be the other thing of course breathing is for free. Yeah. And remember specific ways of breathing though. Explain that because you’ve been studying this. I am, I’m studying, breathwork basically in order to calm yourself down, I would say take a deep breath. And when you let it out, count to 10, let it out slowly, count to 10. As you let it out, do that 10 times by your 10th breath of breathing in deeply and letting the air out for count of 10, you, you will calm yourself.

2 (27m 37s):
The oxygen will change. Yeah. And then how you feel then you can have through your candy cigarette. So basically we want you to calm your mind because it will take because you can take control of your life. That’s really the purpose of this. And we always wanna remind everybody to go to the website because you can get my free dream kit. If you get onto our email list and follow us, continue to follow us on the spirit of straight talk we’re here. We enjoy it, fun topics. And we just hope that you enjoy it and are getting some insights from us. Thank you once again.

1 (28m 17s):
Thank you for listening to today’s episode. I hope it inspired you. If you enjoyed our conversation, make sure you subscribe so that you get notified of new episodes and let’s get connected. Visit Deb she.com for more insights, support workshops and a book session with me. And finally, always remember your loved ones in spirit are just a thought away, even though they’re on the other side, they’re always by your side.