Pour Into Yourself

Your stomach hurts, your calendar is full, and the old version of you would still push through because “that’s what high performers do.” We start there and trace how one small decision to honor the body opens up a much bigger conversation about mindset, self-trust, and sustainable success. If you’re tired of living by a ruminating to-do list, this one will feel like a deep exhale. 

We unpack what it means to be incredible at checking boxes while still forgetting to check in with yourself. Awareness becomes the hinge point: noticing how we feel, asking better questions in the morning, and separating what our brain wants from what our body can actually handle. Along the way, we connect the dots between gentle self-leadership, habit change, and why self-care is not another task to “get done” but a way to live. 

Then we get practical about entrepreneurship and small business growth. We share how a difficult Q2 forced a deep dive into our operations, why outgrowing your systems is a sign your business is working, and how leaning on mentors and community helps you stop spiraling. The unexpected takeaway: when we release pressure, scarcity, and desperation, the business starts “businessing” again and abundance has room to show up. 

If you know you’re ready for a new emotional base camp, hit play. Subscribe, share this with a friend who’s been pushing too hard, and leave a review so more business owners can find these conversations. What’s one way you can honor yourself today?

Music Track: Building Dreams by Aylex Source: https://freetouse.com/music Copyright Free Background Music

Transcript

Planning A 150th Episode Celebration

Barb 0:15

Episode 147. Are we going to do something for 150? Three episodes in a way.

Lyssa 0:23

But are we going to what would we do? I don't know, but it does feel like a number that maybe should be celebrated. I don't know. It's one of those just like even numbers that people throw celebrations out there for.

Barb 0:33

Right? Like they do that on TV shows, or they used to when it's a TV show. Um, to do like I remember the big cakes, right? 100 episodes.

Lyssa 0:43

And maybe I want maybe I want a cake. You know what? I don't think there's a better way to do that. Sounds good. We're gonna have uh cake and mindset in episode 150. What a cup of us. I know, right? What's in your cup? Water. Water's in my cup too. Summertime. And that's okay. We have water today. I'm also like feeling my age a little bit in the aspect of like everything hurts my stomach, and I'm just like not feeling well. And I I want to honor my body. I want to honor all of the things that

Listening To Your Body Today

Lyssa 1:20

we've been talking about, that we've been expressing, how we want to be different, how we want to take care of ourselves. And I feel like if my stomach feels like this, and then I go add tequila, like, am I making the right decision? So it's like, yes, this is our business. Yes, we want to show up and like in this authentic way to have the margaritas while we're recording, but like my tummy hurts. And I have to do the grown-up thing and not do something that I know is just gonna make it worse.

Barb 1:48

I love that you brought that up because this morning we had to divide and conquer, schedule just demanded it. Um, so I drove into Slate for a tour, and then you took Oliver to camp and took some calls. Yep. Um, and I was listening to a song called I Honor Me. And like really hitting with the fact that we have accomplished so much. Yeah. We have just been accomplishing shit since like we were born, pretty much. It feels like I've just been checking off boxes since I was able to like check the box. So much, yes. And I never did it in an honoring way. Not until right this phase that we're in now when we're trying to learn how to be more gentle to ourselves and be more loving and understanding. And hey, how are you feeling today? You don't, your tummy doesn't feel good. Okay, so I'm not gonna do the thing that I know is gonna actually cause you more pain. Right. Because like I'm here for you, sister. You know, I love that. And that has been something that I'm starting to wrap my head around is how can I be kinder to me? How can I ask me questions? How are you feeling today? How were you feeling yesterday? What did you think about? I don't think about those things. My mental running conversations are always about what can I get done, right?

Lyssa 3:20

What box can I check off next? I wake up to a ruminating to-do list. That's what my mind, the moment that it is awake, I'm out of my dream state and I'm beginning to wake up. It is the instant, what do we have to do today? And like, I can't run like that anymore. I don't want to run like that anymore. And that's actually something that I take from our business coach. That's one of her morning routines, a part of her like guided morning routine is that she wakes up and she asks her body, what do you need from me today? Separating that out, understanding that your brain is going to want something that your body may not want, and giving that space and time to be like, are we on the same page or are we not on the same page? What's actually going to get done today? Because what does my body need me to do today? And today, my body needed me to not drink tequila. So I have to honor that. And I love that. I didn't see it as a way of like honoring myself, but that's that's exactly what it is. And I love that we're making those decisions. We are.

Barb 4:32

We are it has become so aware, right? The fur I just finished reading the Atomic Habits book by James. And the first step to changing anything to starting anything is awareness. We started this podcast because our awareness was like being and we just had to

From To-Do Brain To Self-Kindness

Barb 4:55

share. And I am very much aware that I don't pause and like drop in the way that I've learned that I can do, right? When I'm with Shanna, when we're in community with other people, I can do it. And now I'm starting to realize, well, I actually want to feel that way every day. Right. I don't just want like a one charge one day a week and then run unempty the other six days.

Lyssa 5:26

Yeah. It's the understanding that we could bring this home and do it. It definitely was something that was like, no, if I want to feel this way, I got to go to a class, I got to go to a circle, I gotta do these things. And while it is amazing to be in community because we love that, and there's nothing like that type of energy, this connection finally that we have made that like we can bring this home and we could actually be that person that we are in circle in our own homes has completely just like glass shattered. And now I just feel I don't know, I I feel the ease of honoring myself. Whereas before it was hard. And I always had to make time and I always had to put it on the to-do list, or else I didn't do it. And now I don't even see it that way. It's like the no, this is not something that I do, this is who I am. And I feel that transition coming, and I know that the more that we work with like Shannon and Melissa, like that is gonna be an easier switch for us.

Barb 6:27

I'm excited. I'm excited for that. I'm excited to integrate those two pieces because I know it is gonna be huge for us. We are so good at checking boxes. We've shared that already. You can see from the five years that we've been in business, we've been fucking checking all the boxes off. And how much more powerful is that gonna get when we actually tend to ourselves and check off all the boxes. Right. So I'm I'm glad that you shared that. That was fucking beautiful. Look at us in game.

Lyssa 7:04

I know, right? I love it. Right off the gate, right off the gate. I don't need tequila for that.

Barb 7:09

But we we do. We find ourselves at in the beginning of quarter two, we found ourselves very low. We were low spirit, low energy, low everything. The business just was not businessing.

Lyssa 7:28

Everything was low. Everything literally was low, and therefore we were, we were vibing very low. And it was not, it wasn't an easy time.

Barb 7:38

No. And now that we've, I feel like we're past the bump, right? Every, everybody knows every hero story has the bump. Yeah. And we did a lot of work. We did a lot of mental, internal, emotional, um, operational, like all of the shoals. All of them, all the shoals to get past the bump. And I feel it. I feel the roller coaster about to hit the tippy top, and we are about to come down on the wildest ride yet because August is in fact crazy, and I can't wait. Yeah. And let's take a second to go back and look at those poor sad baby angels.

Lyssa 8:27

Poor unfortunate souls. And say, look, we did it. We kept going. No, but really, I think that's, you know, again, honoring ourselves includes honoring our past selves. And I think that we do need to honor them. Q2, Barlisa, was going through it. They were low, they were in the thick of it. They didn't, they didn't know what was gonna happen to their business because it got a little scary for a moment, right? Like we were feeling new things, and those are not always easy things for us to do. And so it it definitely had us in a different state. And those are the moments where people call it quits. Those are the moments

Bringing The Calm Home

Lyssa 9:10

where people say, I can't do this anymore. I don't want to feel this way. And they take an exit ramp. And we didn't do that. We kept going, we stayed straight. We knew that as long as we continued, that we were going to come out of it. And we have. Now we're here, and I want to honor our past selves for being able to stick through it, not take an exit ramp and just keep going because now we get to live out a really awesome Q3.

Barb 9:39

Like I'm so excited for the rest of the year. I'm I it's crazy how this is the rest of the year because the beginning of the year is like this wasn't it. Yeah. So I want to take a second to lay out what we did to share not step by step, but like overview of how we became the happiest girls after being the saddest. Well put we are so good at starting with the business, right? Because I don't want to start with the business. I don't want to look at mergers. It's crazy, obviously. So there's never the problem. You know, red flags have come up and things are getting worked on and dealt with. But we first started looking at the business and we did a deep dive into the business again. This is not the first time. No, it is not gonna be the last time. Never. And I'm comfortable saying that. I'm comfortable knowing that it's not supposed to be. If it's the last time, that means we don't have a business anymore. Right. So integrating that and letting it saturate. And immediately deep diving the business, we saw so much potential. So many things that could be cleaned up, changed, and uh tweaked because we were a year five business and not a year three business like the girls that uh first made those systems. So kudos to us for deep diving the business. Every business owner should deep dive their business multiple times a year.

Lyssa 11:23

It's that it's the part that it's like it's the one and done, you know. I actually noticed tangent. I noticed recently that I like to be a one and done. I want to do something and then I never want to do it again.

Barb 11:39

Yeah, back because I checked it.

Lyssa 11:40

Because I did it already, you know? And my fun little tangent story is that I my feet, they they've been crusty. I'm just gonna be honest. I'm gonna put my business out there like that. My feet was feeling crusty the other day, and I was like, you know what? I'm gonna lotion you just my feet. I'm gonna give you the time and attention. I'm gonna honor my feet in that moment, and I'm gonna put some lotion, I'm gonna moisturize them, I'm gonna give them a little massage, you know, and do the thing. And I did that, and it was beautiful, and I loved the moment that I gave myself. And then it was like two days later, and I was sitting on the couch and my feet touched each other, and I was like, ew, why are you so crusty? Like in my head, I immediately was like, I just lotioned you two days ago. Like, how dare you be dry again? And then I had to realize that, like, I'm the problem here. Why did I believe that because I put lotion on my feet one time, that all of a sudden I'm gonna have the softest feet in all the lands for the rest of my life? Like, why do I think that? Why do we think that because we do something one time that no, I did it, it's done, and now I'm never gonna have to do that again. That makes zero sense in real life, in personal life, and it sure as hell

The Q2 Low And Not Quitting

Lyssa 12:55

makes no sense in business life. You have to constantly be touching your business. You have to constantly be involved and make sure that everything is flowing the way that you want it to flow, while also understanding that that flow is going to be changing consistently. Ever flowing. It is ever flowing, and that's a beautiful thing to have an ever-flowing business. That means that we're in business, that means we're fluid, that means things are doing exactly what they're supposed to do. But to think that it's going to be easy or to think that I need to do something at point A and not at point B or C or D is just crazy. That's just crazy to think that we wouldn't have to put in that work. But when you're not necessarily making that connection, right? It can feel that way in the moment where you're just like, fuck, I'm five years into business and now I need to change everything. Like burn it all down. Yeah. You're just like, what am I supposed to do now? Like, I just spent five years building this, and then you're telling me it doesn't work anymore. What? Like that is it's a gut punch because you're just like, shit, I just did all of this work for five years to get to this point, and now you're telling me that I have to change it. And it was, it truly wasn't until we worked with our business coach where she was able to shift that and help us see that having to change your business is not a bad thing. That means that you worked through all of those systems so well that it got to its end of life, and now you get to build new systems. Now you get to see that your business outgrew your old systems. That's literally what you want, right? If your child is not growing at the proper rate, what do you do? You take them to the doctor, you say, My child is not growing the way that they're supposed to, and you take the necessary steps to get them better, to get them healthier. It's the same thing in the business. If you're not changing your systems, your business is not growing. That means your systems are the same, your business is staying the same. We don't want that. I have zero interest in my business staying the same. I want to keep growing, I want to keep serving. And in order to do that, I gotta change the things. And when she said it like that, when she approached it as like, no, you've just outgrown your systems. You're just a big girl now. And now you get to put on this system and wear this for a little while until you get, you know, even bigger and bigger. And then it was just like this, okay, this is the way that it goes. This is the connection that I needed to make to understand that this growth is a good thing. This change is a good thing. Because if I didn't change, then that would mean bad things for my business. So, like that, I think was truly the catalyst that was able to take us out of that funk that we were feeling of like, oh my God, what do we do here now?

Barb 15:54

And dare I say, was phase two, right? We first do this beautiful thing where we have to understand the problem. Because how can I talk about it if I don't understand what the problem is? So that's where our deep dive came in. And then after we say, Oh, here's all the things that are wrong, and we see that list and we're like, oh shit, we spiral even lower. Yeah. And we call on community and we call on resources to help get us out of that downward spiral

Deep Diving The Business Systems

Barb 16:25

of holy shit, I have to burn this all down because I'm in it and I feel that way. But the person outside is like, well, let's take a second crazy. Let's not burn it all down because you have something really great here and help spiral us back upward. Yeah. So that's where the wonderful Ray Ann Lackatina came in to help us figure out what we viewed as huge problems and figured out how to make them. Oh, these are just opportunities. Um, and we leaned on Erica. Yeah. We leaned on Erica hard because you have been in business for 21 years. So that means you have had to feel this.

Lyssa 17:07

So, like, tell me everything you know right now. Seriously, though. We literally were going to all the people that we knew who were in business longer than five years and being like, So at five years, tell me everything. How did you feel? What did you do? Why did you do it? Give me the play-by-play, please. Because I just right, that's what we always do. We seek community, we seek to not feel alone because that by itself just helps release so much. And so it was just like, please tell me that I'm not alone in this. Please tell me that I'm not the only business, you know, five-year business that is just like feeling the stretch. That's what it was. I felt, I felt so stretched. Like there were just so many things for us to do. And I'm like, I am one person. This is one business, and I have like one event this month. What do you mean? What do you even mean?

Barb 18:01

So we leaned on community and across the board heard a similar story, a similar throughout the years of having to evolve and change systems and build. And we grounded in that. Yeah. And there's again so much power in knowing that you're not the only one. Shit, it's not just my business. It's other people too. And for Erica to be in business that long and know, like, okay, yeah, this is ever flowing for you too. It must be ever flowing for everyone. And that is something that I accept now. Yeah. And I'm okay with because that is the name of the game. We didn't know that before this.

Lyssa 18:46

Yeah, no, but really though, and that awareness, it helps to just truly release all of that pressure, right? Like you said, Erica's been in business for 21 years and she's still flowing in this manner. There's still ups and downs. So it's almost like I get to now just release that pressure of feeling like I have to have it all figured out today because I don't, because guess what? Next year it's gonna change anyways. So is it that serious? It's really not that serious. And learning to just truly be comfortable with change, uh, I think is going to be the key that helps us continue to grow. Because as long as we get right, that's what they say. Like the only constant in life is change. Like if we just get comfortable with that, then we're golden. Then there's there's no need to freak out every single year when we're like, oh, that has to change. Crap, we've been doing everything wrong this whole time. Like, no, that's completely normal. That means we outgrew something. We just need to buy a new pair of shoes. It's totally fine. Let's move on. And that refractory period, right? That ability for us to like not spiral anymore and just bounce right back and be like, nope, this is normal. It's okay. It's gonna still feel sucky. I'm still gonna feel the feelings, right? Because again, we have to honor those emotions in our body, but I don't have to live in them. And that's like what we were doing in Kingdom. We lived in them for a good three months. We were just like not happy at all.

Barb 20:14

We were the saddest little girls, as you said, you know? So we leaned in to community to resources, and what we did after, I guess what we learned during that time also was that we were not ready. Our vessel, our container, our bucket, whatever visual helps, wasn't ready for the next level. We were fighting too much, we were not trusting, not believing. We were low, we were vibrating, the frequency was very minimal. Yeah, and we had to not only climb out of that, which you know, Erica ran, everyone helped a little bit with that, and we had to do work in this goddess gathering the timing, right? I just want to come back to the timing of our lives is just everything is laid out truly beautifully, and that's why we keep walking, that's why it's easier to keep walking because they're I don't see they're not coincidences. Never the path is there, so I must walk it. And we poured into ourselves. We have started this podcast with I want to honor myself in a different way, right? I want to grow me, my vessel, my capacity for joy, my capacity for love, my capacity for a fucking abundance. Yeah, no, I'm not greedy, I'm abundant, and that's okay. Yeah. Instead of shrinking and worrying and all of that stuff that doesn't feel good in the Body. Right. We are currently in the process of relearning that I don't have to feel those things to get what I want. Yeah. In the past, that's how we operated. I still got the things that I want. I'm so cognizant of that now. When I go back and I replay the story of Barb, that's what I call the life.

unknown 22:23

I love it.

Barb 22:24

I see that I have always gotten what I wanted because I can check the boxes until I get the thing. I'm so good at it. And it's always come from a place of lack. And it's always come from a place of scarcity and fear and sadness when it I know now it doesn't have to.

Lyssa 22:45

Yeah. There used to be a struggle behind it. I used to have to feel like I was pulling at teeth to get the things that I want. I used to grasp

Community Support And Normalizing Change

Lyssa 22:55

at things to be like, no, I know I want that. And it used to just be just out of reach for me. And I never understood what that gap was. And it is. It's that ability to go back and look and say, yeah, I did get everything that I want. And it was really hard to get there. And now I'm getting everything that I want. And I'm actually not even doing anything to get it. I'm just simply believing that I deserve it. And I allow the universe to bring it to me. I just trust the timing of my life and know that things are going to line up the way that they're supposed to line up, when they're supposed to line up, and that that is what is gonna take me to the next level. The gifts are all in front of us. We just have to have the awareness to see that. And that has been the biggest game changer, I think, is just like appreciating the moment and understanding that I I don't have to make these things happen. They're actually already happening. And so if I don't chase them with this shame, desperation, angst, they actually just arrived to me. So yes, I did get everything that I want, but that's because I was chasing that shit. I was running after it, I was lunging, I was grasping, and then now all of the things that I need and want that fulfill me the most just fall into my lap with peace. And I I'm not doing anything except living. Like that was a huge, huge takeaway that we were able to connect. It was actually when we got back from the goddess gathering, we were just like, you know, inquiries were popping off and like things were coming through, right? We were feeling that abundance, like our business was we noticed, right? The business took a turn. And we were like, okay, this is the business that we know. This is the business that feels good. This is homemade events. Like now I feel it. And we went back and we were like, okay, what is it that we did differently? And it was kind of funny because we didn't do anything tangible. We didn't do anything on the to-do list. We actually hadn't touched the to-do, the to-do list because we had the goddess gathering, because we had all of these other things that were already scheduled. We hadn't even gotten a chance to look at it yet. But what happened was we had released that pressure. We had released our desperation. We had said, we're gonna be fine, we're gonna make this happen. We have no other choice than to be successful in this life, and therefore we will be. We sat with those feelings, we knew that they were gonna come and we released the pressure, and it was like the floodgates opened. We didn't do anything differently on paper, and we did everything differently energetically and like look at what pours in. All we did was pour into ourselves, all we did was actually take time away from the business and focused on how we felt on the inside, and the business changed. That's undeniable. That evidence was so clear through July, and I think that is just the testament to show like what the end of the year looks like because, like, at this point, August is like packed, September, full weddings in October, loving all of it. Another goddess gathering, you know, like here for all of it. We're even getting inquiries in November, which never happens. Yeah, and yet now they're coming through. All I did was just believe that I deserve it. I believe that my business deserves it. I believe that my I'm here in service of others, and that is why we created this business, and we are going to help others create core memories. That's what our purpose is. And to release that pressure, now the universe is like, yeah, that's absolutely your purpose.

Releasing Pressure And Receiving Abundance

Lyssa 26:55

Go help this person make a core memory and this person and this person and this person. And I can't fucking wait. August is gonna be popping. We are going to be on such a high. I have no doubts. Literally from August 1st to August 30th, we like we have a packed month, and I'm so fucking ready for it.

Barb 27:14

Yeah. And this is what walking the path is. There's going to be parts of the path that are really questionable. Like, should we be walking on this path? Are there ticks? Could we get Lyme disease? No, baby. And walking through, anyways, to get to the beautiful meadow filled with all of the flowers and the birch chirping. Oh my God, tangent squirrels.

Lyssa 27:43

The fucking squirrels. I didn't know. I so what's funny is that I posted it up, right? And while I expected most people to know, I was kind of shocked that literally everyone, everyone knew except for us. So we were on the outskirts of that.

Barb 27:57

I grew up in the city and we had squirrels, obviously, right? We had squirrels. But like squirrels weren't just out there chilling. No. They're not just like talking to each other. No. And these squirrels were probably at war, I feel like. I'm I'm gonna say it. I didn't think squirrels made noises. I was like, wow, they're mute. Like they're just quiet animals. They just make noise when they like eat. Yeah. No.

Lyssa 28:27

Frightening sounds come out of squirrels. I never knew that that sound was a squirrel. I'd heard it before, right? Because you can't not hear it. So, like, definitely heard it. But I just always assumed it was a bird. Anytime I hear some weird chirping kind of noise that comes up in a tree where I can't see, I'm gonna assume bird. Yep. Never in my life did I think squirrel. And to watch the squirrels make those noises at each other. They was they were fighting. No, they were mad.

Barb 28:56

They were mad noises.

Lyssa 28:57

Real communication coming through. Fuck you up, is what they were saying. I I think that's exactly what they were saying. And uh yeah, I'm forever changed for sure.

Barb 29:08

I just, you know, that whole journey that we just shared, like what a transformational journey. And then there are still moments in time where I'm just sitting in the backyard with my best friend talking about my business, and I learned something about nature that I'm like, the whole time? The whole time. Yeah. The whole time since there were squirrels here, yeah, I've been making that noise.

Lyssa 29:32

I didn't know. You know what's funny is I took taking your son to camp this morning, and uh, we were walking in, and as we were walking in, he asked, Um, what do you think are the smartest animals or the dumbest? He was like, Who do you think are what do you think are the dumbest animals on the planet? Um, and I like thought about it for a second, and I almost said like dodo bird, just because like, you know, they use it, whatever. And then I thought longer and I was like, humans. Humans are literally the dumbest animals on the planet. And I am gonna stand behind that. I'm gonna double down on it right now because I was 37 years old before I even knew what a squirrel sounded like, before we even knew that squirrel made sounds. So, yes, humans by far dumbest animals on the planet.

Barb 30:17

So humbled yet again and took it right on the chin. I was like, okay, well, squirrels make noise. Business is businessing, this is life, and I'm just grateful to be here. It's truly an honor to learn new things from Mother Nature, and it's

Squirrel Sounds And A New Base Camp

Barb 30:35

truly an honor to continue to grow our capacity for life because at the end of the day, this is the only one we get. The only one that I remember at least, right? This is the one that I get. And I want to make sure that going forward, I am different to me and different to the people around me and different to the all of the people that ever come into contact with me.

Lyssa 31:06

I'm I'm excited to hold this frequency. We, you know, had a long history of vibrating very low. And, you know, we just went and talked about how we were just vibrating low, you know, a few months ago, right? It's an ebb and flow. And I'm just excited that I now have the awareness of what that means. I have the awareness of how that feels in my body, and I have the knowledge and resources to get myself back to where I want to be and to know where my vibe feels best. Like and honoring that. It's a new base camp. Yes.

Barb 31:46

Like it's a new emotional base camp because I know that I don't have to anymore. Yeah. I don't have to choose that. Yeah. I want to choose this new base camp, this new base camp that honors me, that does all of the things in service to myself and

Where To Follow And Connect

Barb 32:05

then to others.

Lyssa 32:06

That was very beautifully said. I think we're gonna wrap it up on that. That was sexy. All right. This is where we're gonna love and leave our friends. This is the part where you do all the things. You can like and follow and subscribe. You can follow us on Instagram and YouTube at Marks and Mindset Podcast. And if you're local to the ROC and you want to party with us at Home in Events ROC. Until next time. Bye.

Barb 32:28

I'm the liver colour kind stuff.