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Host Mike Domitrz dives into thought-provoking discussions on building mutually amazing relationships in all areas of our life and how we can take actions each day for further strengthening those relationships. From 1-on-1 interviews with top experts to group discussions with thought leaders to host Mike Domitrz personally sharing his expertise on current happenings in the world, each episode is an unique listening experiences. Your host Mike Domitrz is one of the most sought after experts, authors, and speakers in the world for helping organizations and institutions create a culture of respect for building mutually amazing relationships. Listeners love the passion Mike shares and the diversity of thought in guests he brings on his show. From sexual violence (sexual harassment and sexual assault) to dignity and respect in the workplace for all human beings, the conversation always aims to provide powerful takeaways for listeners.

Aug 22, 2018

Kirsty Spraggon shares how sharing her TRUTH revolutionized her life and now is impacting soo many more lives. Kirsty tells Mike the keys for HOW TO tell your truth and where to start (along with who to potentially start with).

* You are invited to join our community and conversations about each episode on FaceBook at https://www.facebook.com/MutuallyAmazingPodcast and join us on Twitter @CenterRespect or visit our website at http://www.MutuallyAmazingPodcast.com**

 

Kirsty SpraggonBIO: 
Kirsty is one of the most sought after inspirational speakers, most often booked to open or close a conference. She is known for her ability to shift the tone of an event, to help the audience connect with themselves— and others in a deeper, more meaningful way and to help clients foster a culture of vulnerability throughout their event and beyond.
 
She does this by modeling her own beautiful, heart-opening vulnerability.
 
Her ability to share moving, thought provoking and emotional topics with compassion, strength, and her signature Australian humor, helps the audience become comfortable with going, just a little deeper.
 
She is a truth teller, connector and a powerful storyteller with the rare ability to both inspire audiences and leave them with actionable strategies that have life changing results.
 
Kirsty’s courageous story has touched diverse audiences all over the world, including employees from Fortune 500 Companies & global brands. She is trusted by her clients to design and deliver interactive keynotes that inspire change, challenge thinking and accelerate personal and professional growth.
 
Kirsty’s own journey began as a truth seeker herself, looking for her freedom... she found it when, after almost 2 decades of living with a secret, she bravely shared her TRUTH with the world in a first of it’s kind TEDx talk titled ‘You’re Only as Sick as Your Secrets’. In speaking her truth, she released a ripple of healing into the world.
 
Links to Kirsty:
@KirstyTV on insta, youtube and FB.
http://www.kirstytv.com/
 
Book Recommendations:
When the body keeps the score - Bessel van der Kolk, M.D.
Oneness by Rasha.
 

READ THE FULL TRANSCRIPTION of the EPISODE HERE (or download the pdf):

**IMPORTANT: This podcast episode was transcribed by a 3rd party service and so errors can occur throughout the following pages:

Mike:                       Welcome to The Respect podcast, I'm your host Mike Domitrz from mikespeaks.com, where we help organizations of all sizes, educational institutions and the U.S. military create a culture of respect and respect is exactly what we discuss on this show, so let's get started.

Mike:                       Welcome to this episode of The Respect podcast, today we've got Kirsty Spraggon here, I want to let you know all about her. She is about ...she's been interviewing truth tellers for the past ten years and working on her documentary, The Truth Teller Project, has given Kirsty a unique perspective on truth. Her episodes have been seen my two million people in 120 countries, capturing emotionally raw and powerful stories from those who've endured some of the worst kinds of sexual abuse, risen up from trauma, overcome addiction and moved forward from shame and stigma. Thank you Kirsty so much for joining us.

Kirsty:                     Of course. Happy to be here.

Mike:                       Well we're thrilled to have you here. How do you feel that respect plays a part in the work you do as a truth teller?

Kirsty:                     Oh I mean, to me respect starts with self-respect, I think self leadership, self love, self respect, whichever word you want to use, it's like if you don't respect yourself ... this week we've been doing a class with people that's been going pretty deep and the amount of people who have self loathing, you know, that internal voice and criticism. You know next to me, that's disrespectful and harmful emotionally to ourselves to have that kind of thing going on. And then obviously I feel like in the bigger conversation of the work I do with interviews, it's respectful to our community, and to family members, to become truth tellers because when we hide who we are, we play a role in being part of the reason that things like mental health have a stigma. The reason that people don't share when they've been through a trauma. You become part of the problem when you don't open up and share.

Mike:                       So let's dive into that, truth teller, a lot of people who haven't heard that term before, may not be fully comprehend what you're referencing. So what does it mean to be a truth teller?

Kirsty:                     For me, it's just sharing your truths and there's big and small truths, you know there's big truths in terms of what we may have been through, abuse, addiction, depression. And then there's also small daily truths of "I'm just not enjoying this conversation right now." And standing up for what we believe in and sharing when we're uncomfortable in the moment. Or I'm not doing the work that I want to do in the world or I'm not happy in my relationship. So I think there's big and small truths down to the kind of [inaudible 00:02:54], individual conversations that we're in all day, every day. Do we share the truth? Are we coming from a place of authenticity? Are we feeling like we're being fully seen, that we can show up with all of who we are. Or is the culture that we're in making us feel like we have to hide some of that or is it our mindset and the self loathing and the tapes that we have playing in our head that are making us feel like we can't tell our truth.

Mike:                       So there's a lot of unpack there. You had mentioned whether you're having a conversation with someone, and you don't like where the conversation's going, will you say that? So are you recommending that if somebody is having a conversation with somebody, they don't like where it's going, they just go, "Hey, I don't like where this conversation is going."?

Kirsty:                     Yeah, I mean look, I was just watching a really great video around the Me Too movement with six men, I think it was ... the guy who manages Justin Bieber and some very high profile people, [inaudible 00:03:56], so these gentlemen were talking about how the Me Too movement is impacting them, how the conversation they're having and one of the interesting things they said is that every single one of them at some point, had been complicit in being around someone who has sexually harassed a woman. And when they were in college, they didn't have the courage ... or when they had, some of them had actually said something, so you know that's not cool and then they felt like they were then made fun of or isolated from the group and so again it comes back to when you have respect for yourself, you're okay with maybe this isn't my clique.

Kirsty:                     Maybe this isn't where I don't want to sell out my soul to do something that goes against my core values. And so I think that when we have that respect for ourself and we build our strengths, to tell our truth, then we become comfortable in all those situations. So yeah, totally I think that you've gotta build that muscle, it doesn't come easily and it's harder when you're younger to have that courage but yeah, you have to get to a point where you can just say in a conversation, or pull someone aside and say, "You know, I don't know where that behavior came from or what was going on but that really upset me, it's not something that I wanna be around or want to have a friend of mine engaging in."

Kirsty:                     Because otherwise, as the men said in this interview, really you're just as complicit as the perpetrator because they don't get to continue that behavior without everyone else giving them permission to.

Mike:                       Well I love that discussion, it's something that we talk to audiences about all over the world about how to intervene in those moments. How do you help people gain the skills and the confidence to be able to speak up for themselves, for others?

Kirsty:                     You know I think it's a journey, I think for me you know it certainly was, it's taken 20 years, I don't think it's something that any of us ... and I don't think you ever get there, I think it's a continual work in progress and the more I told my big truths, the more I found myself telling all those little truths. And so for me, it was kind of like one followed the other 'cause when you hide all the big stuff, then you're hiding all the little stuff and it's all compounded in shame and secretism and isolation and not wanting to be seen or found out or if anyone gets too close to you, so you know it shuts down vulnerability, we put up walls emotionally. We don't have as many friends, we maybe avoid people because when you have all that sort of big things going on that you're not telling anyone, it takes a lot of energy to ... it's like keeping a lid on a boiling pot of water so all your energy goes towards that.

Kirsty:                     I think once you get to a place where you can share some of those bigger truths, then you're more comfortable and confident with being able to have authentic conversations in your daily life. And it becomes a practice but in terms of how do we get to sharing those bigger truths first, you know that's working through the shame and the stigma. whether it's someone that's have an STD or they've been through sexual abuse or rape, or that they have addiction issues, you know it's finding support groups, finding safe places, journaling, gratitude lifts and starting to really do this inner work. You know I think that we value going to work and being at work so much and we do 50 to 70 hours a week some people and have no holidays and no time off and but yet when do we do this inner work? Deep inner work, we're not just talking about somebody who has something small going on, we're talking about those kinds of traumas, shame, stigmas, things that ... they're carrying a secret that has self loathing going on or they have depression or anxiety on a daily basis.

Kirsty:                     When you have that sort of thing going on, it requires deep inner work and it may take you know a few hours every day or all weekend, and cause there will be times when you're just processing and you need down time or you need to go to therapy. Then you need that process and unpack all the comes up from that, you need to just go to the beach and be gentle with yourself and give you time to feel all the new things that are coming up and process through it.

Mike:                       And so you bring up something very good, you said our big truths, but that's always interesting because one person's big truth, to somebody else could feel like a small truth. It really depends on your view, but if it's big to you, it's big. That's all that matters and you speak about your big truths. So let's go back a little bit, where did this journey around truth and shame begin for you?

Kirsty:                     So for me, I had gotten herpes, a sexually transmitted disease in my early, sort of 19-20 and you know again, this plenty of people who are like, "Oh, it's like a pimple, what's the big deal?" So for them it isn't a secret and doesn't hold any shame. But in 2018, I still get weekly calls from people who are depressed and suicidal who are newly diagnosed. So there's still a massive amount of stigma around having an STD. And so everyone with whatever secret they have, it's not just the secret, it's all the way that it impacts your life. So having an STD means that you now have to have that conversation with someone that you just met and you're dating. So it takes away a piece of your freedom. So there's all these different pieces whether you've been through a miscarriage or abortion or a rape. And there's things within each of those that only someone who's ever been through it, really get that kind of ricochet and ripple effect of how it impacts them in terms of shame and sometimes it can be really insidious.

Kirsty:                     Like you don't even realize that this could impact you in so many ways and you're sort of in a shame vortex. But that takes work and time, like you usually you recognize it when you start isolating or numbing, using something to cope, whether is a couple glasses of wine, or drugs, you start engaging in behavior that isn't really loving to yourself and you feel a little bit out of control.

Kirsty:                     They're all signals for people to kind of go, "Oh wow, something is not working in my life here, I'm avoiding feelings, this is too painful, too uncomfortable to wanna sit in."

Mike:                       And so in that journey for you, what you recognized that, how did you get to that place of recognizing for you that, I am not in a place that I want to be. I need to take a step forward here, to get into the place where you did a TED talks on this specific topic that you thought you felt shame around. You did not want it to come out of the dark. How did you go to that place of now doing a TED talk where millions of people are going to see you sharing that story and for you, what was a big truth?

Kirsty:                     I think that you have to get to a place where the pain is worse than the fear, so I was miserable, I wasn't happy, I was isolating, I was numbing, I was engaging in behaviors that weren't really healthy or loving to myself. And I think that being a speaker and being in this world and growing up in sales, I'd listened to [inaudible 00:10:47] since I was 13 years old on the old cassette tapes so it okay. So I think I had this seed planted around dreaming big in the work space that you could dream big, that you could do anything that built my resilience and my confidence and I think that was for me, was important in a way that I didn't even know until much later. But it was always there, building and so for a while, I kept those things separate, you know success was camouflaging my unworthiness, I stayed so busy that I didn't have time, I was so distracted, busyness is another way to numb, over exercising, over working.

Kirsty:                     When we don't have any space or capacity when we're not meditating or sitting in [inaudible 00:11:28]. So then we don't have to hear our own voice and all of the misery. So for me, it was a long journey and it just happened that you know I was curious, I [inaudible 00:11:39] I was a truth seeker, I knew I was uncomfortable, I knew I was unhappy but I didn't really know what to do. But I would seek, I would seek out mentors, I would seek out courses, I was a conference junkie, I would seek out books. I was reading other peoples stories and I started the show and I was interviewing people but I wasn't telling my truth at that point and so then all of these things over the years, all these different modalities from [inaudible 00:12:03] to-

PART 1 OF 3 ENDS [00:12:04]

Kirsty:                     Over the years, always different modalities from EFT to therapy, all played a role in me building up my tools, my backpack, so that when I got to the place where I felt ready, and even on the day when I decided to share in the TEDx talk I wanted to vomit all day long. I was so nauseous and so ill for hours, so it doesn't mean that the fear ever fully goes away, you just get to a place where you're willing to hold its hand and take a leap any way.

Mike:                       Before we dive into the TED talk and you having that moment on stage and revealing on stage, do you think there's a way, 'cause for your journey and many people that I meet around the world, for many of us, I think what you said was brilliant, that the pain has to outweigh the fear. That makes us make the step forward 'cause we don't want the pain anymore.

Mike:                       Is there a way for people to have this journey without having to get to that place? To that place of so hurt, so dark, that I've got to do something or else?

Kirsty:                     I'm going through a new journey right now and I'm in the process of healing that and figuring out what it all means, and I certainly am much more confident. It doesn't mean that you don't have the emotional pain when you have to sit with the memories, the trauma, when stuff is coming up for you. It doesn't mean that the pain disappears entirely, but I don't have the pain and the fear around sharing, around doing the work, around sitting in it all. Like I know that there's a process, I know that you have to kind of go through the fire to get to the other side, I know that it's going to feel worse before it feels better.

Kirsty:                     So you also build, and I think that this is the same with any skill in life, any entrepreneurial journey, you build like a frame of reference for success when you go through something. So having that early journey around shame taught me what the process looked like and that there was an end result, that yes it's going to be painful, yes it's going to be uncomfortable, but I'm going to be okay. Most of these voices are just in my head, most of the worries don't ever happen. And the same with business. You know there's this frame of reference, so whether you go skydiving, no matter what you do, you've got all this frame of reference for, I did this, this happened, this worked out and now I'm at the other side.

Kirsty:                     So for me, healing's kind of the same. I don't think anyone needs to wait until they get to that rock bottom. For some of us that dark night of the soul is part of the journey, but I think at any point you can choose to go, "Okay, how do I find resources, podcasts like this and mentors and courses and figure out how maybe somebody else has already gone through this." For me that's one of the reasons that I speak so much through other peoples stories and books, and in the interviews that I do, because then you're hearing from someone who's gone before you and you get to hear what helped them the most and how they got through it. So it gives you hope and wisdom. I think you always have to learn some of your own lessons, but it certainly helps to hear them from someone who's gone before you.

Mike:                       Yeah, when we created 'The Voices of Courage' E-Book, audio book and book, it's a book of survivors sharing their stories, and it's amazing how many people really find it powerful because through those other voices, through those 10 women and two men, they can see traces of themselves and in having that experience they also get to see these 12 people are living their lives. They're living and they're thriving and they can then see, because I relate to their journey, I can get there too. There is a path for me too.

Mike:                       So I think what you bring up there is so brilliant about finding others who've gone through this experience because the reality is, there are always people who have gone through what you've gone through. It may not be the exact same situation, but the same emotional pain on some level has been felt by other people before. Most of our pains are not truly unique. Research shows that, that we are not unique. The mistake is thinking that my pain is different than other peoples pain. That is what can cause you to stay in the dark versus recognizing, oh, I am having pain here that someone else has had too. Where are they? Where can I find them? Which is what you're referencing there, and I think that's so powerful for people to get.

Mike:                       The earlier you can do that, you may never have to get to that dark place, right? Because if you start to go, "I'm starting to feel pain or numbing about this topic, who else has gone through this?" You might be able to kick me out of that before I ever go to that dark place. So I think for people [inaudible 00:16:48] the same, the earlier you can seek and the earlier you can share, the more freedom you get quicker.

Kirsty:                     Exactly.

Mike:                       Now you shared on a massive level. You shared on a TED talk, where for some people it might be share with your best friend, start there.

Kirsty:                     Right, someone you trust, someone you feel safe with.

Mike:                       Share with someone you trust, exactly. Maybe it's a therapist, maybe it's a counselor, but someone you feel safe with.

Kirsty:                     Yeah, people often ask me how do I know? You're going to get it wrong. When you're younger obviously we're not as discerning and we're maybe not as tuned into our intuition, but certainly look for red flags. If you're going to tell someone, think about how do they talk and engage with you? Do they typically engage in gossip? Have they told you private information about other friends? Look at the person you're going to share this with so that you can do as much as possible to find a safe space.

Mike:                       I love that advice about looking ...

Kirsty:                     And that they're open minded.

Mike:                       Yeah, that's brilliant. Look at the track record of the person.

Kirsty:                     And if you maybe shared something else with them and just see how they respond. It doesn't even have to be about you, but just talk about something that's going on in the news and see how they respond. If they're critical of similar things, then they may not be a healthy place for you to share either. If you're not going to get something positive from them or they're going to be judgemental, you've got to make sure that you look at why you're telling this person and are they a safe place and are they going to be able to provide some comfort or insight.

Mike:                       I love that. So now that you're at the TED talk, you're about to share publicly this truth for you that could be painful, that there's been shame around for years, but now you're ready to talk. So a couple of questions. 1. What was that like to share on such a massive level? Now in the room there, there's a few 100. There's not a million people live, but there's a few 100 and that's pressure, but then you know it's going to be out to the world, so what was it like to do that? What was the response and what a journey has that taken you on since?

Kirsty:                     Okay, a lot of questions there. What was it like? I'll start with that. It was hard. As you said, even on that day I still wasn't ready and it was challenging because I had so much anxiety and nausea that I couldn't tell, am I supposed to do this or is the fact that I'm having this response telling me that I shouldn't be? Am I going to make the biggest mistake of my life? What is this going to do for my career? I'm this motivational speaker in corporate world and here I am doing a TEDx talk on herpes and what if someone finds it online, it's out there forever. All those things were going through my head.

Kirsty:                     But there was this deep inner knowing that it was time. It was time to set myself free, it was time to share my truth, it was time to stop feeling like a fraud, I just knew on some level that this was what was going to lead to my freedom. And I had enough experience and frame of reference with other experiences that when I listened to myself and my inner knowing and my guidance system, that I had always ended up better off that I had always ... it had led to success in some way, shape or form.

Kirsty:                     So I knew that I had a feeling that everything was going to work out even though I had all those fear voices and tapes playing, I was able to be rational around them and ignore them and push through. Once I got the words out, like maybe a minute in or something to the talk, I felt like just a weight had lifted. It was like, "Ah, it's done now, I can just talk." And I don't think I realized, in my head at the time I thought that the fact that I could do the TEDx talk was like, "I'm done, I'm healed, I'm at this place finally." I felt like the work was done and I didn't realize that it was only just beginning. That sharing the truth was like opening up this huge part of my heart and vulnerability in myself that I didn't know and that there was going to be a freedom ... it just shifted so many things.

Kirsty:                     It was like when the real work began. Okay, now you've gotta look at ... now you've shifted the secret or the thing that you hold shame around, but what about the 20 years of damage done in terms of the way you think and behave and show up in relationships and intimacy and all the other things, the tape that you've been running. So then you have to start doing the work to repair all of that and pull off each of those pieces individually and take a look at them and work through them.

Mike:                       What I love about that is the fact that it reminds us all that if you're going to transform that doesn't mean you go back to how you were yesterday. Transformation means I'm different then I ever was before and I'm not the person I was before. I'm a different human being now. So with that awakening, I now feel everything, I now know who my true self is so I can notice I don't want to be the past 20 years, which means I have work every day. I don't just have work for the next week, I don't just have work for the next few months, I have work every day of my life for the rest of my life to be that pure truest self I want to be. That's what you're referencing?

Kirsty:                     Yes exactly.

Mike:                       So how did people react to that? What did you hear as you gave this sharing experience through the TEDx talk?

Kirsty:                     The feedback was immediate. As I walked off stage they had lined up, full crew behind, and were giving me high fives as I walked past. One of my best friends was outside when I came off and I just said, "Oh my gosh, that's either going to be the stupidest thing I ever did or the bravest thing." And I got to talk to quite a few people who were at the event. And then it took three months for it to go off online on the TEDx site, so in that time I was able to hear from people that they had seen this video and that it had opened them up to share other kinds of truth, and since then have received thousands of messages and emails. So it definitely changed the trajectory of my career. I've shifted in a lot of ways.

Kirsty:                     The work that I was doing in corporate and am incorporating a lot more of this because you can't go professionally where you won't to go personally. So this stuff shows up as CEO's of fortune five hundred companies and where our past shows up in our present, those past behaviors of being bullied or abused, if we don't heal them can show up dysfunctionally in the workplace. So it's definitely influenced a lot of what I do and it's much more rewarding for me to be able to help people work through this tougher stuff.

Mike:                       And you and I have talked about this before. The fact that what you were sharing about was such a personal situation. A sexually transmitted disease or infection is very personal and people think, "Well that's not going to relate to the corporate world." But yet companies are coming to you, organizations are coming to you as you just referenced saying, "Hey can you share this message with our people?" Could you explain how that fits, how that aligns? You made a little reference there just now about, hey if we don't have these truths affect us in the workplace, so can we dab a little deeper into that?

Kirsty:                     Yeah, like I said, you can't go professionally where you won't go ...

PART 2 OF 3 ENDS [00:24:04]

Kirsty:                     Yeah, I mean like Em said, you can't go professionally where you won't go personally. So, an example would be I was working with a CEO who ... he had built as a solo entrepreneur a $30 million company. And we were talking about the past showing up in the present. And one of the behaviors that he had noticed as a leader is he felt anxiety around always getting it wrong.

Kirsty:                     Now, you can imagine, as leader of a $30 million business, you have to make some decisions and not be afraid that you're always going to get it wrong. And that would have a serious impact on his work and his leadership style. And when we looked at that and where it had come from, it was back to about age two or three. His father was an alcoholic, and so he was constantly as a child being made to feel wrong, to step on eggshells, to never know which father was going to show up at home at night. And to be feeling like he disappointed him, that he got everything wrong, that nothing was ever right.

Kirsty:                     And so most organizations don't have these kinds of conversations, or don't allow the space for it. But when you do, it's amazing what comes up. And then they just have these aha moments and they're like, "Wow, I never thought that that might be connected. That might my past is showing up in my present." And so I think there's a lot of ways that looking at truth telling ... because it's not about my personal story, and I say that to clients. Sometimes I don't even go into that, it really depends on the situations. But it's not about the individual, because every single person we know statistically, the numbers show us, that in every room of CEO's that I work with and leadership groups and conferences, there are pretty much one in three to one in five of every person in that room, whether it's addiction, rape, trauma, depression, suicide. It's one in three to one in five for most things.

Kirsty:                     And so every single person in that room has been impacted by something. And that's what it's about, looking at where personally something has gone on for you, and how if you haven't healed that, cleared that, worked through that, it might be showing up in self loathing, in maybe not being the person who'll speak up in the boardroom, or ask for a pay rise, or share ideas. So maybe you become more closed off. Or for others it can be hyper aggressiveness, bullying and putting up defenses in that way. Or, like myself, success camouflaged all of my unworthiness, and so staying hyper busy and busy in every way, talking fast, eating fast, being on the go. Like I was just the most frenetic masculine energy kind of person. And now, being able to be more into my truth self and to feel like I can have that femininity, that I can slow down. That I can connect in meaningful ways, that I don't have to get pulled into other people's energy or agenda.

Kirsty:                     It's like all of that is important in showing up as our best self and being able to be creative, and to be an amazing person and leader at home and at work.

Mike:                       Well, and it's such a freedom that it gives you, versus feeling like you're living by others, right? By this pressure, by this guilt, by this shame, by these expectations. I can just be, I can just be present.

Mike:                       Now, earlier you mentioned meditation and giving yourself time for that. What are the practices that you utilize in your life to make sure that you're honoring that space of being you in your thoughts and your feelings, and not numbing by staying busy? Because most of us do it, and some of you might be thinking, "Well, I don't really keep myself busy," but if we watched you, you'd be looking at your phone right now if someone wasn't engaging you, which is an exact form of keeping busy.

Mike:                       So, it's not keeping busy as in you have to be in motion, it's that the mind or the body has to keep busy. It could be either or both. So, what are ways you help yourself? You mentioned meditation, what are some ways?

Kirsty:                     The biggest thing is that I started a daily energy management chart. So, I wrote a whole list of things, whether it's using essential oils, staged smudging, salt bath showers, things that clear energy. And so I started looking at, for me, whenever I went into anxiety, it was actually energetic sensitivity. That I would become so overwhelmed and so tired, and drained easily by big groups of people, for me it was more about managing my energy.

Kirsty:                     So, now what I'll do, on Saturday is a good example, I went on a road trip with some friends to San Diego, it's a three hour drive. So, by the time we drove down there, we stopped, we had lunch with some people, then we went to the beach, then we drove to the next house and we had dinner. By the end of the day, I wasn't enjoying myself. I'd lost my joy of having those conversations. What I should have done is at 2 or 3 O'Clock gone and had half an hour to lay down, to meditate, to just be by myself. And just collect back my sense of self, and not feel so pulled, so drained, so tired from everybody else's energy, and all the connections and the conversations.

Kirsty:                     And so I'm getting much better at that. I really am conscious to, I call it pressing pause, in the middle of the day. So for me, it's by about one or two O'Clock, I found when I was using this chart, I would monitor my numbers. So, every two hours for a week or two, good for people to do this, at 8 AM, 10 AM, 12 O'Clock, 4 O'Clock, 6 O'Clock, that kind of thing, just to check in on a scale of one to ten, one being that I'm feeling really low, and ten being I'm the highest vibration that I could possibly be. And then I would notice that I would start at a ten, and I would drop down to an eight, or a seven, or a six.

Kirsty:                     And if I didn't catch it by the time it was about a six or a seven, by the end of the day I would be at a two, and the next day I would start lower. And it would be cumulative, and by the end of the week I couldn't catch back up.

Kirsty:                     So, I found by pressing pause at about 2 O'Clock when I'd find those numbers were dropping a little bit, at about a six or a seven, I can go do a five minute meditation, a ten minute run around the block, lay down even and have a little cat nap. Whatever it is, I have a great stress hypnosis CD I use, and I love the insight timer App, and the liberal weight series, it's beautiful. So, it can be something very short and simple with a lot of deep breathing. And I can bring myself back to center, and I can bring my numbers back up to an eight, or a nine, or a ten, very quickly if I press pause in the middle of the day.

Kirsty:                     So that for me has probably been the biggest shift in noticing that I'm like a runaway train, and if I don't press pause and I don't notice it, I'm going to end up more depleted and more exhausted over the coming days, and not be able to bring myself back to center as easily.

Kirsty:                     And then for me, what are those things I have a list at the bottom of the page on my chart of the things that bring me back to center fast? And so going to the beach, putting my feet in the water, within 20 minutes if you're close enough to be able to do that. What are those things for you? Is it watching the sunset, is it watching your kids play? Is it being away from your kids? Meditation?

Kirsty:                     So, finding two or three things that are your quick go to that I can use to press pause and gather myself really fast. I mean I love journaling, gratitude lists are proven, the research behind gratitude lists and how they can affect us emotionally is there. As with exercise. So, for people suffering with anxiety and mental health, the first thing I say to them is, "Are you exercising? Are you eating right? Are you not drinking alcohol? Are you doing gratitude lists?" This takes inner work, it doesn't shift on its own. It takes work and homework for you to learn these skills.

Kirsty:                     And then they get easier and they become a natural part of your day. But it's frustrates me how many people I meet who want to go on medication, who are so desperate, but they're not doing any of these things.

Mike:                       Well, what we're going to do is we're going to provide everyone a link to that chart so that they can be able to see this and utilize this, because it's such a great tool that you provide. So that's wonderful.

Mike:                       I want to thank you Kirsty, because you've given us so much wisdom here, and so much skills that we can use to find our truth, to speak our truths, and to be aware of our energy levels. So, thank you so much.

Kirsty:                     My pleasure.

Mike:                       For all of our listeners, you can find Kirsty at kirstytv.com, it's that easy. Kirstytv.com. She also has two books she really recommends, I'm going to have those in the show notes, so you've got to go see the show notes to find out what those are. You can always do that at respectpodcast.com, or on iTunes right in your show notes.

Mike:                       Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Respect podcast, which was sponsored by the Date Save Project, at datesaveproject.org. And remember, you can always find me at mikespeaks.com.

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