Life can be hectic for everyone! Do you ever stand back and look at your life and realize you’re happy but you’re not finding joy in your life? True joy in your heart, your soul, your everyday life? Then today’s podcast is for you! Today, I talk about a recent experience I had and how it helped me see how important finding joy in your life really is. It’s important for you, your family, your home and relationships! So, let’s talk how finding joy in your life can help you to rock your wellness!
Disclaimer: This podcast does not constitute medical advice. You should always speak to your doctor before changing your nutrition or exercise habits.
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FINDING JOY IN YOUR LIFE – EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Lauren Chante 0:58 Finding Joy in your Life
Hello rockstars! I am in such amazing energy right now and I’m so excited to share the story in this episode with you so I’m just gonna get right into it. This episode is about the importance of finding joy in your life. I’m recording this right after I just got back from Scottsdale, Arizona visiting my bestie Allie Casazza. If you guys follow me on Instagram, you probably saw like a major photobomb in my stories. We were obsessive! We had so much fun and had the best weekend ever. And I just really had to share so much around this trip so I’m just gonna go for it.
Lauren Chante 1:24
This is the first time I’ve been away without my husband or kids in seven years. The last trip that I took seven years ago, I did this solo trip to Morocco. It was just me for four days and then I met up my husband and I’d actually never done a girls trip before ever. So this is my first girls trip, my first time away from kids in seven years and I really have known for a while that I needed to do something like this and that I needed to implement something more regular into my life of doing this but I don’t know if it just didn’t work out until now or if really, honestly, I was making excuses because it required me brushing up against a lot of my mom guilt and my marriage guilt in order to make this happen.
Lauren Chante 2:00
So, interestingly, like the morning I was going to leave I was actually like super stressed out and super anxious, worried about how everything’s gonna go without me while I was gone and really feeling the responsibility, the weight of the responsibility that I carry in my home and in my family’s life. And it kind of hit me in that moment before I left that, oh my god, like I’m just feeling this because I’m about to leave but I truly feel the weight of this responsibility every single day of my life since I had children. I feel this every single day. I just never take a moment to pause and to recognize that I’m feeling this responsibility.
Lauren Chante 2:31
And I had this goal for myself, when I went to Ali’s, that like I was going to feel an actual physical shift in my body like I was going to feel my nervous system just relax and I was just gonna feel different somehow and I wasn’t really sure how it was going to pan out because I haven’t done this before but I’m doing this episode because I’m on the other side of that right now. And I feel like it’s so important and powerful to share it while I’m in this energy.
Lauren Chante 2:52
It is important to know also that I went away for three days and I did not talk to my kids at all. I didn’t call, I didn’t text, I didn’t do anything. I really just let myself be in my own energy and focused on myself and to spend time with Ali because I’m a huge believer in the power of female friendship. It’s something that I know as an extrovert I really need. I know it’s also something that I’ve been kind of thirsty for because since we moved to New York from San Diego. I’ve really struggled to make female friends. I could do a whole other episode on making friends because I know a lot of people struggle with it and struggle with feeling alone.
Lauren Chante 3:23
And just as like a little side note here, guys, like I had to get to the point where I recognized that if friendship wasn’t going well for me here, I had to go to the people who were making an effort with me and who were making an effort to not forget me or to include me in their lives and for my own health and wellbeing. I was going to need to drop some coin and make some people in my home life uncomfortable by like watching my kids or making things more difficult because mom was gone. I was going to need to create some uncomfortable shifts in my life in order to bring friendship back into my life because I know how important it is for me and how important these friendships are important to me. They’re important to finding joy in your life!
Lauren Chante 3:55
Now on top of that, I needed some space. I was in a burnt out place in terms of parenting, like snapping at my kids a lot. And I have a lot of amazing tools in my toolbox but it just wasn’t getting better. Right. So we went, I had the most amazing weekend with her hanging out in Scottsdale. We did like all these things that I usually don’t get to do like sit in bed and watch TV for hours at a time without anybody needing anything from you.
Lauren Chante 4:16 We went out dancing one night, we ate out for every single meal, we did not cook or clean up a single dish for the entire three days. So literally three meals a day we went out to a restaurant. It was amazing! I am, like, in tears still thinking about it because now I’m home and I’m cooking! And it was so good! And by the end of that weekend, I just felt like, I just felt like a light had been turned back on in me. My smile is brighter, my skin is clearer. My body just feels different.
Lauren Chante 4:47
Like I feel so much peace and it’s funny because I came home and I immediately had my kids by myself again because my husband was traveling and our trips kind of like overlapped. I had my three kids again. It was crazy. And I got home and the girls were acting like psychopaths and it just literally did not bother me. Like, my son came up to me and he’s like, are you gonna do something about them? I was like wait, like they’re literally not bothering me right now. How is this happening? Like, I feel like they could have drawn all over my house in permanent marker and I would have been fine. Like I would have been like okay. We’ll just clean it. We’ll paint it. Because guys, I was so chill. I was so chill. It was amazing. My body just felt so good.
Lauren Chante 5:40
This really weird thing happened over the weekend, too. And I kept telling Allie this. I just was not that hungry. Like I’m usually a huge eater. I have a big appetite. I’m a tall person, I’m 5′ 10″, so like I require a lot of food especially with how much activity I do. I just did not really feel like eating that much this weekend.
Lauren Chante 6:39 And it’s kind of continued since I got home. And I’m recognizing that part of that has to do with my nervous system being so relaxed. My body being naturally energized. So without really even meaning to, we went for maybe like a mile walk each day that I was there and then we went dancing on Saturday night which obviously is a ton of calorie burn because, guys, I take the dance floor seriously. I take it very seriously. Anyways, I got distracted!
Lauren Chante 6:59
It wasn’t really like I went and had a super fitness weekend and I swear my clothes are fitting more loosely. More of my abs are showing . I’m feeling more energetic. It just goes to show there’s so much that goes into how your body looks and feels that has nothing to do with exercising consistently and eating healthy meals. Nothing to do with it. So I really want you guys to know that. Like taking care of your body is about so much more and this is proof of that for me for sure.
Lauren Chante 7:22
On top of that, on my business or creative side because I consider my business and my podcast to be a creative endeavor. I have been so energized with content and ideas. Inspiration for making videos and doing programs and things that I can do to help my clients. I have not experienced this level of inspiration in, I feel like months.
Lauren Chante 7:41 And all in all, Ali and I were voice messaging earlier and we were sharing experience. She shared a similar experience she had in the past. This feeling that I’m having right now. This patience that I’m having with my children, this health and vibrance that I’m feeling in my body, this stroke of inspiration that I’m having in my work. It took any last bit of mom guilt that I had. Any last lingering guilt I had about inconveniencing my husband or inconveniencing my mother-in-law, who helped with the kids, and absolutely shattered it. It was like taking a sledgehammer to it.
Lauren Chante 8:09
I will never feel guilty about doing this again. In fact, like I’m trying to figure out how to structure my life so I can do this every few months because it is so life giving. I even sat down and I talked to my son and asked him, “Do you notice mom’s different since I went away?”. He said, yeah, I can tell you’re a lot more relaxed and like you’re more patient with us. I asked if it would bother him if I did this more often. Maybe I went away every couple months, maybe once a month? I just leave you guys with dad for the weekend to chill and do your thing. And he’s said no, I can tell if makes you feel really good. And I could tell that you’re like really patient with us and it was great.
Lauren Chante 8:40 So like, I just I have no words. I have no words for what an amazing experience this weekend was.
Lauren Chante 8:45
Now, I do want to pause and recognize that doing this can rub up against people in your current life. Like maybe you have a spouse who’s not ready to do this. Maybe he’s not super evolved when it comes to understanding the importance of taking care of yourself and the multiple ways that you need to take care of yourself. Or maybe he doesn’t understand the importance of people having space yet. Maybe he struggles with having kids on his own.
Lauren Chante 9:09 There’s a lot of things that could be coming up with that. I want you guys to know that you may be shying away from the discomfort of doing what you know you need to do to take care of yourself because you don’t want to have to deal with the discomfort of like an argument or daily life or like having to figure out the childcare.
Lauren Chante 9:25
But I’m telling you, do it because they will see, they will see what an impact it makes on you. And honestly when you come back from that trip or that weekend away, even if it’s just like getting a hotel in your town, you will be able to articulate how valuable the experience was for you in such a powerful way that like you will change any doubt of anybody in your family or any lingering issues that you might have with that.
Lauren Chante 9:45
So I just felt like that was important to say that because I know it can be big and scary . If you’re like me and you’ve spent seven years literally being available for every other person at every moment of every day. The people in your life are used to that. They expect that from you and so it can be a little sudden when we make that change.
Lauren Chante 9:59
I’m not sure at which point in the season I’m releasing this episode but there either has been or will be an episode with an amazing marriage therapist named Rebecca Hustad. You need to listen to it if this is like a point of challenge for you but yeah, that’s it! I’m so happy right now guys, I’m so happy! I feel so good in my body, so good in my mind, so good in my heart, so good spiritually, like I am just filled with so much joy.
Lauren Chante 10:18
I’m a Christian, but I’m not saying this to force religion on anybody. I just want to share my perspective for something that’s a truth for me. And in the Bible, like they talk about joy. They talk about having joy in your life and I don’t think I realized until this weekend. How I was happy, and I was at peace, but I wasn’t truly inviting joy into my heart and into my life and into my home. Now that I’ve rekindled my relationship with joy it is, I just understand why it’s biblical. I understand why God wants that for us because it is a completely different state of being than just going through the motions and just going through life and being happy and being fine. You’ll be in a completely different state of being when you start finding joy in your life!
Thank you for listening to my podcast on finding joy in your life! I hope this message resonated with you and you truly start looking and finding joy in your life!