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Host: Welcome to the Lifelong Wellness podcast, where we talk to wellness professionals from around the world to get their insights into healthier living. I’m your host, Wes Malik. I know you’ve heard it all before. The secret to living a healthier life is exercise, being mindful, and of course watching your diet. These seem like very basic principles, but sometimes we need help making well-informed, healthier choices. Unfortunately the information we often receive via social media and other sources may not be correct. That’s why it's so important to speak with professionals across the globe with different areas of expertise. Everyone that we showcase on our podcasts are considered experts in their fields. They have extensive exerperience in their industry, and in most cases have authored books and articles on their area of expertise.
For the next 45 minutes, we’re going to try to pick the brain of Aimee Bernstein, who is a psychotherapist, executive coach, and organization consultant who has been in practice for over 35 years. She teaches people to use their ‘inner map' in order to help reduce stress and enhance self-mastery. Aimee received her graduate degree in Counseling Psychology from Boston University and interned at the Massachusetts General Hospital under the auspices of Harvard Medical School. A fantastic musician and singer, she also practices Aikido, a martial art that teaches harmonious resolution of conflicts, psychology, and meditation. Aimee has also written a book about stress called, Stress Less. Achieve More.: Simple Ways to Turn Pressure into a Positive Force in Your Life. Let us welcome Aimee Bernstein to our podcast today. Aimee, welcome to the Lifelong Wellness podcast. How are you doing today?
Aimee: I’m doing really well. Thanks for having me as your guest.
Host: So, I understand that you’ve been practicing as a psychotherapist, an executive coach, and a mindfulness expert for over 35 years. You have a book out called Stress Less. Achieve More.: Simple Ways to Turn Pressure into a Positive Force in Your Life. Do you think people are more stressed out in, you know, the current generation, the last 4, 5 years, or so, than in previous generations or previous decades like the 70s, 80, 90s, possible the early 2000s. Do you think there’s more going on in people’s lives that are stressing people out?
Aimee: Yes, I do. I think that, in part, there are different expectations in their work environment but also there’s a different orientation that this generation has to deal with the pressures of life.
Host: So why is there such a rise in the number of people stressed and burnt out, let’s say?
Aimee: Because organizations expect more of them these days. You know, there is no work-life balance. Now they call it ‘work-life integration' and sometimes that works great, but for a lot of people, it doesn’t. This just means that they’re working on weekends as well as during the week. And there’s an expectation at work that you’re supposed to deal with multiple priorities and demands and get it all right. Be present in a way that other generations didn’t have as an expectation.
Host: You think there's more competition with other colleagues and employees and competition in general? That you have to be better than everyone else or be the best?
Aimee: I think that’s been throughout history. You know, that people have that kind of competition. I think it’s the workload is more on people. There’s not that sense of camaraderie that seems to be leaving the worksite, particularly as more people work from home. So, you know, having a best friend at work was a big deal. It energized you and made work more livable. These days work is just one demand after another. There are constant change initiatives. You see, it’s because we are in a period that is called VUCA. It was branded by the US Army Board College and it means Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous and those are the times we’re living on. So organizations who had to re-invent themselves on a continuous basis. What that means is that there’s all-new software that keeps on coming. Once you get used to one software, boom, here comes the next generation of it or there are new demands globally so procedures and systems have to change, expectations change. It’s the fast pace of change that is affecting people so much.
Host: So, how do we deal with this change?
Aimee: I think that you know, that is a very big question actually. From a corporate view, you need to create real emotional connectivity among people. You need to have networks at work. I mean, the list goes on in terms of corporations that you need. But in terms of people, because I think that’s what you were interested in if I’m correct.
Host: Yes.
Aimee: It’s about recognizing that pressure and stress are not the same things. Pressure is the energy of change and it comes into your system to help you do the job or task. But it doesn’t matter whether the job is to stand up from a chair or whether the job is to climb a mountain. This energy and the amount needed for the job come to your system. Now, if you are a, make-believe 20-volt person and, you know, a 20-volt job comes into your system, here comes the energy for a 20-volt job, no problem. But if it’s a 50-volt job, now you’re going to get more energy and you’re not used to it. Your system is not used to it so you would experience this energy as pressing on your mind-body system. If you resist it or shut it down, you’re going to experience discomfort, distress, and if you keep it as a habit, as a pattern, you’re going to experience disease. But if you open and align with it, you will experience joy and aliveness and high performance. So, in my 20s I was a rock singer and we would perform as a group and we would perform, you know, the Fillmore West and other venues. Hundreds of thousands of people were there. And what I noticed with the musicians, as well as myself and others, is that you get this buzz of energy coming in. And if you just try to sit there and, you know, say, “Hey, no problem”, your performance is terrible. But if you’re vocalizing backstage, if you are walking, if you are exercising, if you are doing something that moves that energy around so that you can become more spacious in order for you to be able to meet that energy, to invite it, to accept it, your performance was great. And people notice, you know, if you are giving a presentation, if you’re running a race, if you’re playing basketball, there’s this juice that comes to your system, this energy. And how you handle it, whether you align with it and open to it is whether you enter the zone or the flow or whether you are just eaten up by it.
Host: I see. Pretty deep stuff. If I’m feeling stressed and things are bothering me at work, I could experience stress from many different things. You know, at home as well, possibly my financial status, you know, the stress of, you know, being cooped up at home these days. It could be many different things that could cause it. You know, what are the practical steps you would advise me if I’m feeling stressed at work?
Aimee: First thing, when people get stressed, what we tend to do is we go into our heads and we tell stories. You know, “Oh, I write this book. I’m so concerned. I’ll never got this stuff done. What am I going to do? I got a show coming up”, right? It just makes it worse. Plus, the thinking mind is a conditioned mind. It is a software program. So, your software program might be different than mine, no better no worse, you know?
Host: Right.
Aimee: But it keeps running the same stuff. So, you know, for some people, you know, “I don’t want to do this. I don’t want people telling me what to do. I want my freedom”. Yes, we get into this.
Host: Yes.
Aimee: Other people say, you know, “I have to achieve or else I’m nothing”. (laughing) I mean, everybody’s got their world view, the way that they think. And because that software program plays over and over and over, we believe it. And then of course we all have the need to be right. So, if I try to talk to you about, “Hey, you don’t have to believe all that stuff”, well, you’re probably going to clamp down on me and give me a lot of reasons why you should, right? The first thing we have to do is, don’t try to sell all of your problems from your thinking mind.
Host: Okay.
Aimee: You know, that’s great, you know. Trying to do drama from your thinking mind, perfect. Trying to do Math from your thinking mind, perfect. Sketch plan on something, perfect. But if you really want to deal with the pressure or to be creative, you need to get out of the thinking mind into the mind-body-energy field. Now, in the mind-body-energy field, that’s where you access your emotions, your sensations, and your intuition. Okay? So, in your mind-body-energy field as you relax into it, think of it like a waterfall or gravity, right? You go with gravity. You settle your energy down from your head down, all the way down into your feet. And I say to people who are very much mental kind of people, “Walk with elephant feet. Sense feel your elephant feet”. And it’s a silly little tool, but if you really felt elephant feet you would be, you’d get out of your head. Well, maybe not 100% but at least major percentage you’d get out of your head. And if you began to feel, “Oh, I've got roots, just like this strong tree”. Every human being has a root system. The stronger the root system, the more that tree can withstand hurricane winds, right?
Host: Right.
Aimee: So you want to feel under the ground. When you are under the ground, you now have the capacity to understand. You would now stand on your values. Okay, now tell me if I’m going too fast, but if I throw a rock into a pool or a lake or something like that, what would happen? Well, it would ripple, right?
Host: Yes.
Aimee: It would ripple.
Host: Yes.
Aimee: The water would open. Well, if you bring your attention down into your feet under the ground, what happens is the energy begins to open. You become more spacious. The field around you begins to expand. So, it’s as if each of us has this bubble, energetic bubble, we’re in this energy field, right? And if it’s too small, we’re not creative. We can’t get things done, we’re too pressured. But as soon as you center ground and then extend your energy, just radiate like the sun, 360 degrees around you. Think of something that makes you laugh, you know, or that just opens up that field. Now, what happens is, you now have more space. Okay, now you’re more comfortable. Now, if you are hanging out and really playing the game, you would say to yourself, “Okay, here’s my problem. I want to know what’s the next thing I need to write for my show”. Okay, now you don’t go into your thinking mind, you just hang out in that energy field. You’d fill that circle around you then you put your energy, your attention rather, beyond that circle, right? Because in actuality there are no boundaries that you should mind. So, if you put your attention outside of that, oh, now you’re connecting with the universal field where Einstein said, “All ideas exist”. So, instead of little Aimee trying to figure out this creative whatever I got to do, now it’s Aimee connects with something larger by hanging out there. I post the question and then I start getting clues. Now, not maybe initially but maybe it’s when I go home at night and I’m taking my shower or, you know when I go to bed and I’m sleeping. It’s when you are relaxed that you begin to connect with this universal field and that’s where creativity is sparked. How am I doing here?
Host: Fantastic. I mean, I’m learning so much as you speak. I am actually taking notes and I’m going to try to apply these to my life whenever I feel stressed out or I feel I’m up against a mental block or something and, yeah. I might need some help to do it in the beginning. If I do, where can I find that help?
Aimee: Well, you can contact me at [email protected]. And I also have some meditations. I just created a series of four meditations. One is to get you from your head, into your mind-body-energy field. The second is to open your heart. The third is to take you even deeper and even higher so you really expand. And the fourth one is to spark creative solutions. So, you know, I have these meditations and this is available for people to buy.
Host: That’s awesome, thank you. Now, do you think there’s a lot of stress and people are stressed and burnt out because they’re multi-tasking way too much? In our house I think it’s the same story all across America, all across the world, we’re tethered to our phones, we’re stuck to our devices, and we have this real urgent need to know what’s going on with other people’s lives and around the world. So, we become voracious content consumers and we’ll consume anything and just keep flipping through our phone. I could be wrong.
Aimee: No, you’re right. You’re right because we are data-driven, you know? Information, information, information, but it’s not really information it’s really data. To really be informed you've got to go in. (laughing)
Host: Right.
Aimee: And once you go in and you’re informed, then you become formidable. This whole thing of, “What is somebody else doing? Oh, there’s this person on Facebook and she’s in Greece having a great vacation”. (laughing) You know or whatever.
Host: Yes.
Aimee: How do I compare to somebody else, you know? Am I an Instagram star? You know, it’s all about out there and how do I compare out there? And the bottom line is you’ll probably never get satisfied as soon as you’re comparing yourself out there, you know? And what you’ve just done is you’ve given your power away. So, you know, all this stuff of multi-tasking and the phone gripping me and the computer and this Zoom call and that, I mean it’s…wait a second. Where is this leading you? Is this where you want to be? If not, take yourself back. Start with you first, have your own center. If you don’t have a center inside of you, you’re basically powerless. You’re an easy mark in some way. I learn this in Aikido. You know, three guys are coming to attack me. If I don’t have a center in me, I’m doomed. You know, they can slaughter me.
Host: Right.
Aimee: It’s about, you know… In relationships, it’s the same thing. “Oh, I love him so much”, and all of a sudden my center is in him. He’s my reason to be. He’s the one that makes me happy, you know? What now, he leaves? (laughing) Now, where are you? You’ve given yourself away. That’s not the way to love.
Host: So, the center should be you.
Aimee: The center is always you. The center is always you. Now, it doesn’t have to be just me, me, me, me, me, you know? Once you have that center, once you have that point of reference inside yourself, that vertical up-down, that’s just you, you are strong. Now, it begins to open up, just like the lake that I was talking about when you threw a rock in it. It begins to open up. Now, my field is bigger, my energetic field, my intentional field, now it can include you. Now, I can embrace you energetically. You know, it’s like you meet somebody new. Before they even open their mouth, you are sensing their vibe, right? You know, are they a negative person? You know that immediately even though they didn’t say anything. You know, they’re just too contracted, too tensed, too in their heads. Or are they kind of glowing and shining and, you know, is there the sense of positive around them., you know? It’s called the Contagion Theory. You walk into a room and people are negative, you pick it up, you become toxic. You walk into the room and people are positive, you become elevated, uplifted, you know? We share that with each other. So, it starts with the center, and then you open and you embrace others with your energy.
Host: It’s true. It’s a very weird concept but you can tell what a person is like, positive or negative, without even speaking to them. You’re right. You walk into the room and you can sense it. Some people are in tune to it, some people are in tune to that feeling.
Aimee: I must say, excuse me for a second, Wes. That’s because of where they center their attention. If they’re in their heads, they’re not going to be that intuitive. If they’re in their mind-body-energy field, every single one of us has that intuition.
Host: And we can direct and we can focus it if we are in our mind and body?
Aimee: That’s right.
Host: Now, in your book, Stress Less. Achieve More.: Simple Ways to Turn Pressure into a Positive Force in Your Life, you made a distinct differentiation between pressure and stress and you talked a little bit about it right in the beginning about 20 minutes ago. Can you elaborate on what the distinction is between these two things?
Aimee: Yes. Pressure is the energy of change that is there to help you. It’s a gift for you. It’s what you really are. You’re an energy being living in an energy world. And I know that sounds boo-boo to a lot of people, but hey, Einstein said the same thing, “It’s all energy, it’s all there is to it”. Quantum physicists say the chair you’re sitting on looks solid, feel solid, uh-uh, it’s particles and waves and motion. You are an energetic being, okay? So, here’s this energy that’s coming into your system. If you open to it, hey, you’re alive. You feel good, you’re joyful, you perform well. Stress, though, is the resistance to that energy.
Host: Okay.
Aimee: It’s the closing down to say no to it. And what happens, you know, when I was younger I met some hot guy and he invited me out for date night and I was so happy within, you know. And then the day of the date, in the afternoon I’d go, “Oh, I don’t want to go. I just feel like reading a book, staying home”.
Host: Right.
Aimee: Now, when I was younger, I would cancel the date. Then I realized, I learned, “Oh, no. That’s the 180-degree turn.” See, if this energy’s coming into your system and it’s a lot, you know, you can open to it or you’ll think, “Oh, I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to”.
Host: Right.
Aimee: “I don’t want to” is a big one. “I don’t want to”, right?
Host: Right.
Aimee: So, you go the opposite way. It’s a misunderstanding of the message of the energy.
Host: Okay.
Aimee: If the energy is pressed, if there’s a lot going on and it’s pressing on you in that maybe state, say yes. If it’s a yes, say yes. If it’s a no, say no.
Host: Sounds very simple. (laughing) Is it, though? Is it as simple as that, though?
Aimee: Yes, but you know, Bruce Lee said, “Under duress, we do not rise to our expectations. We fall to our level of training.”
Host: Oh.
Aimee: You have to practice.
Host: Right.
Aimee: You see, one of the things I think Lady Gaga has it right, you know, we live in the world of shallow. Where you get this little idea or this little piece of data or whatever it is, “Okay, that’s it. I’m done. I got it”. No, you didn’t get it. You didn’t take your deep dive. It’s the deep dive where you connect with what makes you the most human. It’s the deep dive that opens you up into your health, into your well-being, into your high performance. Unless you practice, it is just words. That’s all it is.
Host: During our mission of finding out how to live a healthy life, we talked about the same things over and over but in different ways with different people and we focus on minute details of the exercise, we’ve covered meditation, health, what to eat, what not to eat. And these are things, there’s a multitude of articles out there. We’ve been bombarded by information on social media all the time from organizations companies, what to do, what not to do. You’ll probably in the course of a day, you’ll come across one article or story that somebody says, “This person did this to achieve this”, is one of those, you know, clickbait kind of articles and you’re like, “Oh, okay. What did that person do?” That person ate watermelon for like two weeks and they lost so much weight. I’m jesting, of course, but that is what the article is about. So, we tend to focus on these things, exercise, meditation, a healthy diet, sleep 8 hours, etc. But in your book, you say, “Often that’s not enough”. What more do we need to do?
Aimee: The first thing that you need to do is to recognize your energetic habits, your patterns, you know. Are you the kind of person that as soon as the pressure comes on, you fight, you resist? Or are you the kind of person that when pressure comes on you, you collapse and you go into, “Oh, why is this always happening to me?”, you become a victim. Or are you the kind of person that when the pressure comes on you, you space out? You know, I had a client who, whenever the pressure would come on her she would just go shopping. She was a hell of a shopper. No great deals.
Host: Right.
Aimee: You know, at 65 years old, she had a heart attack because she didn’t know that the stress was building up in her body, in her system, in her heart. She was so in her head, spaced out, “Let me put my attention somewhere else”, that she just ignored what was going on in herself. I’m suggesting to people that when the pressure comes on you, that you’d say yes to it, that you open and invite it, that you welcome it. You know, that’s the first piece, you know what is your habit. And then not to beat yourself up, but to accept it as your starting place. Okay, now once you have a starting place, what is it like to be in the center? What is that feeling like? You know, I do this little practice with people where they stand… Imagine pretending there’s a vertical something that goes down through their body from above their heads down into the ground. And I have them stand there and feel what’s that like. What’s it like to be in the center? Okay, then I ask them to lean forward physically. Okay, what’s that like? What does your sense feel? ”Oh, my back’s beginning to hurt”. “Oh, I feel like I’m so frontally oriented. I’m into everything out there”. Everything is about, the reality is everything out there. Okay, what do I like? What do I dislike? “I dislike the stress I’m beginning to feel, I’m beginning to feel…” Okay, come on back to the center. Okay, stand in the center and just relax, let your energy settle down into the ground. Okay, then we lean back, we do the same thing, then we come back to the center, then we go forward just a little bit. The game is, the practice is to recognize what center feels like so that when you start going all center, you can come back. You don’t wait until you’re so far off center that you go and want to kick the dog or something, you know. (laughing) You want to catch yourself. That’s mastery. Do you see? I want to teach people self-mastery. You know, that’s the real game because once you have a sense of that self-mastery, life opens up in unexpected ways. You find the beauty of being, you find that joy that does not depend on anything outside of you. You find a purpose. So, for me, the game is taking the deep dive in and to begin to practice little by little. Am I off? Come back to the center. Now, everybody does something that they’re in the center.
Host: Right.
Aimee: So, for me when I was singing, oh, I’m on center. You know, when I was learning Aikido, my teacher used to make me sing.
Host: Oh, yes?
Aimee: Yes. Like when I do different, you know when someone would attack, yes, we sing, when they attack me. You know, it might be somebody who hates… He can do a hook shot, just he is so centered. You know, or note the person when he sits down in the computer, man, he is centered. When you pick up your baby, ”Oh, I’m really centered. I’m open. My field is open, I’m embracing my baby. I feel really good”. That’s the place.
Host: Right.
Aimee: That’s the place. You want to map it out, you want an inner map. That’s why I called it “Open mind adventures” because you want an inner map to take you into this inner journey, this adventure inside. I promise there is nothing as fascinating as what is inside you. And you are perfect. (laughing)
Host: Tell us more about the inner map. What is the inner map? How do we access it? What benefits do we have of being aware of our inner map?
Aimee: Okay, to access it, this is what I learned from my teacher, Robert Nadeau, who is an 8th Dan Aikido master.
Host: Okay.
Aimee: And he was a pioneer in the field of consciousness. Stanford physicists used to call him in to talk about what they’re discovering and how it jives with what he was discovering as he went inside himself. (laughing) So, what I learned was, the first thing is, where is my attention? Is my attention out there or is it in here? So, we would do little practice of putting your attention out there. Okay, now close your eyes, bring your attention back kind of like when you’re fishing, you know, you wipe the wheel back and the line comes back in. Okay, now it comes back in through your eyes, it drops down inside of you. You know you feel your butt in the chair, you feel your feet on the floor. Okay, now it’s inside me. This is what it feels like. Okay, now I put it outside me then I kind of bring it back inside me. So, I get used to having my attention inside me. You know, when I was in my 20s, my attention would always be outside in another person. That was my habit. So, when I began to learn this stuff, as I began to pull my attention back inside myself, it felt like there’s too much distance between me and the other person. I had to get used to it, you know. That was the first place, where is my attention? Okay, that’s a choice and practice. Okay, now I bring that back in. Oh, now there’s the center in up-down. I take the elevator down from my penthouse, which is my head. The penthouse in my head, I have a great view, I have great ideas, I can see the girl walking down the street. I can tell you what she’s wearing but I can’t smell her perfume. I don’t sense that little click that she does, that flirtatious click that she does with the guy that’s walking past her, you know? Because I’m in my head. So, I bring my attention back. Okay, now I take the elevator down and down through my body or what I’m calling center into the basement or sub-basement under the ground. Okay? So, from the center I get grounded. What does it feel like to be grounded? Now, I offer people simple metaphors that they can play with. I know I guess this is like your watermelon thing or something but, you know, to be centered means center is if within the body, is the place that divides the two halves. So, there’s front and then there’s the back of me.
Host: Okay.
Aimee: Most people today, are frontally oriented. So, what we want to do is we want to get a sense of the back so as to help them center. I’ll say, imagine pretending you have angel wings growing out of your shoulder blades, big wide angel wings that extend beyond your physical body on the side. Well, you start feeling angel wings, “Oh, now I got a sense on my back”, you know. Okay, you want it to drop it down a little bit more? Okay. Now, imagine pretending you have a big dragon tail coming from the lower back. You know, imagine pretending that is lying on the floor really heavy behind you. Okay, what does that do to you? “Oh, all of a sudden I start sinking into the chair more or I start feeling more grounded”. Right? Because most of us are not only frontally oriented, the top head of us is what gathers our attention. We don’t even remember we have feet most of us. You know?
Host: Yes.
Aimee: So okay, attention, bring my attention back into a center, let it go down into the ground, and then it beats back up and the energy extends and I become more spacious. In that spaciousness like radiating 360-degree like the sun, my presence is larger, my capacity to do work is larger, and my confidence is greater. Size matters.
Host: That is a great explanation. There’s a lot to take in and a lot to absorb there.
Aimee: Yes.
Host: Now, in your book, you described all these things. You also talked about self-love and you described it as the key to dreaming big, stressing less, and achieving more. It’s very few people dream large or dream big. Our aspirations are limited by reality saying, “Oh, but I can’t do this” and there’s a lot of negative thoughts behind dreaming big. And what is self-love? Why is it important?
Aimee: Yes. I guess to answer a lot of your questions about self-love. Self, when I’m talking about self, I’m not talking about little “s”. I’m talking about the big “s”. Okay? I’m not talking about narcissism or entitlement or selfishness.
Host: Okay.
Aimee: Okay? I’m talking about the essence of who you really are.
Host: Right.
Aimee: Who we really are, you know, which is this big “s”. Self, pure consciousness. The condition to mind gives us messages based on not only our personality but also on what we were taught by our parents, our teachers, our religious leaders, you know, our friends.
Host: Yes.
Aimee: So, you know, take a look. You think that “I can’t be a millionaire”. My parents weren’t. Maybe your parents were struggling just to put food on the table and to make sure that they can send you to college or something. You know, say you go, “It’s too big a leap.” You don’t have that as a reality in your computer, you know, in your mental computer, your software.
Host: Yes.
Aimee: So, you think it’s too much. “I can’t do this. I’m not good enough”. So, we limit who we are, but the self is abundant. The self already has everything, has everything they need. It’s not about trying to improve the little self, it’s about stepping into the bigger self where you have access to your intuition, your sensations, all of that. And your energy’s extended, you’re connected with something larger than yourself. You know, I notice, for example, I had a girlfriend who in her 20s married a guy who liked to play it big. So he would, you know, he'd buy a limousine, he would buy fancy cars or they would live in great houses, you know, he was always trying to… He never really had the money. He was always playing the game to make it look as if he did have it, you know what I mean? (laughing) But she got used to living in fancy houses and driving fancy cars, so that became her reality. So she expected that. I didn’t have that. So, for me to take the next step was incremental, it wasn’t exponential because I didn’t have that experience. You want to shift your consciousness, your vibration in order to match whatever it is that you want to bring into your life. So, that means that you need to come into yourself and to do the things that connect you with that self. So, for example, I say self-care, you know. Okay, do you create boundaries for yourself or you just give yourself away? You know, do you take time for yourself, put wide spaces in your calendar?
Host: Right.
Aimee: Do you meditate? Do you exercise? Okay, self-care. Then there is self-acceptance. Do you accept yourself, the good, the bad, the ugly? Do you understand what your shadow side is? Instead of just projecting it on other people, do you understand that you have it, too? Can you face it honestly? Stark naked honestly. And then can you graciously accept it? You have to like it and you graciously accept it. You know, then there is self-compassion. When you fail, when you think you’re not good enough, do you say cancel? Do you love yourself? “It’s okay, Aimee”. Do you treat yourself like a really kind, gentle momma or grandpa or father? You know, or you just beat yourself up because when you were young your daddy, your mommy, or somebody said, “No, come on. You got to get a man” or you know, “Women of this age need to do blah, blah!”.
Host: Right.
Aimee: Have you taken those messages so in that you can’t even hear yourself and you’re just beating yourself up? Are you empowered? Do you self-empower yourself? Do you have the courage to just put yourself out there and check it out, experience, you know? I mean, there’s a lot of aspects of self-love, but to begin to what. How do I take care of me? Do I put myself first? See, we are taught in this society to love others, right? That’s the way our religious teachers, our parents, our, you know, have taught us. That’s a good person to love others, take care of others. Very few people were taught to take care and love themselves, you know? Some people were taught, “Oh, don’t trust anybody and you know it’s a doggy dog world and you take care of yourself first”. But that’s what like this attitude of, you know, entitlement or protectiveness or I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about just love. You know, when your heart beats, the breath goes out, the love goes out and then the love comes in. It’s a toupee. Everything in life is a toupee. The waves go out, the waves come in. Love goes out, love comes in. We all have imbalances. Some people are really good in loving others, but we’re not so good at loving ourselves. Other people can love ourselves, but we don’t really love others. We sure are imbalance. As you play with, love comes out, love comes in. You know, you start striking up and do balances if you really let that breath, that love come deeply into your heart. If you really let that vibration, that radiation, really stand out.
Host: Aimee, thank you so much for explaining that in wonderful detail. We can find you at openmindadventures.com.
Aimee: Yes.
Host: And your book is available in several different languages. It’s called, Stress Less. Achieve More.: Simple Ways to Turn Pressure into a Positive Force in Your Life. Where can we find your book?
Aimee: Yes. You know, you can go online also. I have a website for my book which is www.stresslessachievemore.com. But you can also buy the book at Amazon or Barnes & Noble or any major retailer has the book. I also want to let people know that if you’re interested in this work, you know, I do have a series I’m creating with the energy practices and the meditations that will be available in the next couple of months that they can purchase. And the other thing that I am doing right now which might be interesting to people is, right now we’re in an evolutionary shift where this energy is coming into our system and our consciousness is meant to be upgraded, but we’re struggling a lot with the pressure of the times right now. So, I’m creating a coaching, group coaching at Mastermind Group called, The War of the More. And the intent is to help you shift into the next best version of yourself. So, it’s not only self-awareness but it’s also energy practices, embodiment practices that help you actually make that shift. So, if anybody is interested, you know, you can contact me at [email protected] and I’ll send you some information.
Host: Thank you so much, that’s fantastic. I hope people do get in touch with you for that. And once again, thank you for being on the Lifelong Wellness podcast today.
Aimee: Thank you so much. Wes. I really appreciate your time.
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