Living Life Well Podcast

TranscriptWhat if the reason you’re exhausted is not just the result of how much you’re doing, but also when you are doing it?In this episode, we’re talking about natural cycles, lunar calendars, and why your ancestors were onto something powerful when they planned their lives around the moon and in harmony with nature.A lunar calendar tracks the moon’s 29-day cycle — from the stillness of the new moon, through the building energy of the first quarter, to the peak of the full moon, and back into the harvest phase of the last quarter.I want to introduce you to this concept of the lunar cycle not as something mystical, but as something genuinely practical. We’ll talk through the four main phases of the moon, what kind of energy each one carries, and how you can begin using a simple lunar calendar to bring more flow, more rest, and more intentionality into your everyday life.Kia ora and hello, welcome to the Living Life Well podcast. I’m Janine Lattimore, a wellbeing writer and coach providing information and inspiration to make daily health and happiness simple.What if exhaustion isn’t a personal failing, but a design flaw in modern life? For most of human history, people woke with the sun, rested with the seasons, and planned their months around the moon. Then, in the space of just a few generations, we traded all of that in for artificial light, air conditioning, and the relentless expectation of constant productivity. Our bodies haven’t forgotten what they evolved for though. They are still listening for rhythms that we have stopped paying attention to. This podcast is an invitation to return to attending to those natural rhythms.Your Body Never Left NatureThe human body developed in connection with nature. We are evolved mammals. It has only been in the last 200-300 years since the industrial revolution that human beings have been living life significantly disconnected from the natural world.Our biology still works best in connection with nature and in harmony with natural cycles. The mitochondria in our cells are powered by sunlight. Exposure to long wavelength red light from early morning sunlight improves mitochondrial function and cellular energy. Your body runs most effectively when your inner clock (circadian rhythm) is set according to the rising and setting of the sun. The electrical system of the human body is balanced when it connects to the earth. As we move about on this physical plane our bodies give and receive charge from the things we interact with and build up static charge. When we touch the earth, we dispel this positive charge into the negatively charged earth, ridding our body of static and balancing our electrical state.Nature Flows in CyclesMuch of the energy in nature moves in cycles and it is that which I want to focus on for this podcast. The seasons, tides, plant growth, the growth of the human body, and the orbit of the moon and planets all move through cycles of increase and decrease, ebb and flow, waxing and waning, new life to death. We can see this as a flow of energy from low to high to low. From rest and decay new life rises. Here is a summary of the key cycles in nature and how they connectThe seasonal cycle of winter, spring, summer, autumn can be seen to correlate tothe plant growth cycle of planting, growing, blooming and fruiting and setting seed.The moon cycle of new moon, first quarter, full moon, last quarterand the human development cycle of baby, child, adult, elder.I will put an infographic in the show notes that illustrates these cycles.Why Modern Life Exhausts UsI have always loved nature and desired to live in harmony with it. That can be challenging when you live in an industrialised city. One thing we can do though, is come back to living our lives in terms of natural cycles. Modern city life tends to create conditions where our minds and bodies are called to be constantly on or in action. Even when we sleep there is still a lot of artificial light around us which our bodies are reading. We can liken this to trying to live in a perpetual summer or state of growth and blooming, which uses a lot of energy without allowing for recharge. This exhausts us physically, mentally and emotionally. Natural cycles build in necessary restoration time and make no apology for it. We can shift to flowing with this on a monthly and daily basis.Rest is Part of the Process of ProductionA simple way to incorporate an element of natural flow into our daily lives is to set the intention to purposefully incorporate a regular time of rest and recharge into each day and each week. I have been doing this for the last few months with what I call “sacred Sunday”. I aim to keep Sundays free from work and I call it my choice day - it is the day I do what I want to do rather than what I need or have to do. My partner also has this as his rest day and we often do something recreational together. If a whole day of rest seems unmanageable for you, then you could plan in a morning or afternoon, or simply one hour a week that is your time to rest and be nourished. Begin with whatever you can. The important part is to start with doing something regularly. In terms of a daily rest break I plan in just a five minute meditation break. Sometimes I will sit in meditation for longer once I have begun, but five minutes feels manageable to me and that helps with motivation to do it every day. Even my busy brain can pause for only five minutes, and five minutes of pause and breathwork is enough to give my mind and body a mini reset.Working With the MoonThe next step I am taking in terms of incorporating a natural energy cycle into my life is by creating a daily planner that works in harmony with the lunar cycle. Human beings have done this throughout history and most traditional people groups have some form of lunar calendar. Here in New Zealand the Māori call theirs Maramataka. The names change, but there is a fairly consistent basic energy flow assigned to the phases of the moon.The new moon signals a time of rest, personal care and dreaming. As the moon grows through the first quarter the energy is one of building, working on projects and collaborating with people on tasks. The full moon brings a time of high energy where things are sent out into the world. It is the time of blooming and fruiting. Following the full moon is a time for harvest, and evaluation and preparation for the time of dreaming and visioning with the next new moon.The Moon Cycle and the Menstrual CycleIf you are a woman or have a female body, the energy of the moon can also be connected to the menstrual cycle. The new moon is connected with menstruation, and the full moon with ovulation. Menopausal women can use the lunar cycle for hormonal balance. Following the lunar flow of energy can help menopausal women to stay balanced hormonally as well as mentally and emotionally. If you want to read more about this, then I highly recommend John Gray’s book Beyond Mars and Venus.The Seasons as Symbols for the Lunar CycleAs shown in the infographic above, the phases of the moon can also be metaphorically linked to the seasons. The new moon equates to winter, the first quarter phase to spring, the full moon to summer and the last quarter phase to autumn. I find that making this connection helps me to understand the energy phases of the moon more fully.To take this and make it practical in terms of planning, here is an overview of the four main energy phases of the lunar cycle and what activities connect to that. A lunar calendar outlines what the phases of the moon are and when they occur, and knowing what activities connect to each phase gives you a balanced framework for managing your life.What to Do During Each Moon PhaseNew Moon: Rest, Visualise and Plan· Rest and nourish yourself. Build your energy reserves.· New moon energy is creatively fertile.· Plan, dream and plant seeds and intentions for the future.First Quarter: Build and Grow· Imagine and flesh out more of the details of your goals and visions.· Engage in creative research, building & productive work.· Focus on co-operation and collaboration.· Towards the end of this period take some time to review & edit your work.Full Moon: Embody and Release· A time for putting projects out into the world, pitching and selling.· Release projects that are not working or not aligned with your values into the earth.· Prioritise your closest relationships.· Engage in expressive outward creativity.Last Quarter: Harvest, Appreciate and Evaluate· Connect with friends and people you care about.· Look at your bank accounts, send out your invoices, and get paid.· Review, consolidate and celebrate.· Record and analyze data.· Restore, recharge, and reflect on what you’ve done over the past month in preparation of the New Moon. Check in with your goals and intentions.The simplest way to use this information is to mark the day of each new moon and full moon on a yearly or monthly calendar, and plan rest around the time of the new moon and high energy activities around the time of the full moon. If you engage in work or business planning, then you can use the full lunar cycle structure above to arrange activities.Creating Natural Rhythms in a Modern WorldReturning to natural cycles doesn’t require abandoning modern life. You can simply weave moments of intentional rhythm back into it. Start small: protect one hour of rest each week, or notice where the moon sits in its cycle, and let that awareness gently shape how you spend your energy. Allow rest to be seen as a natural and healthy part of the process of growth and success. Trust that it is okay to experience all seasons in your life because they each play an important role. Listen to Mother Nature, she knows what she is doing, and she knows what you need to thrive.Just One thingThis week’s “Just One Thing” action point to help you turn information into transformation through implementation is to reflect on how you could regularly incorporate blocks of rest into your week or day. This might be to have a “me time” hour scheduled for one evening every week, or it may be to listen to a five minute meditation in the car when you get home from work to regulate your nervous system before joining your partner or family. You could start setting aside Sundays as “sacred” rest days, or choose to eat your breakfast each morning while watching the birds and trees out the window.Chose just one thing that is manageable for you and then set the intention to do it regularly and keep returning to it - or adjust it if it isn’t working, because giving yourself permission to change your mind is also part of self-care.Thanks for listening to this episode of Living Life Well.If you found this interesting or helpful then please remember to like and subscribe, and leave a comment or review.This supports me and also helps other people find this information and benefit from it.Thank you for being part of the Living Life Well community.Wishing you a life lived fully and well.Aroha nui, much loveand I look forward to connecting again on the next episode.Bye for now. Get full access to Living Life Well at janinelattimore.substack.com/subscribe

If you want to be happy, healthy, wealthy and wise then you can subscribe for a weekly dose of inspiration and information from me. As my welcome gift to you, all subscribers receive a free copy of my short-cut guide Wired for Calm: Simple Nervous System Regulation for Everyday StressTranscriptHave you ever walked away from a conversation with someone you love feeling completely misunderstood, frustrated, or emotionally exhausted — not because of what was said, but because of how the conversation unfolded?Most relationship stress doesn’t come from one huge event. It builds slowly through small moments of disconnection: feeling unheard, making assumptions, avoiding difficult conversations, trying to fix each other, or silently expecting people to just know what we need. And the hard part is that most of us were never actually taught how to communicate in ways that create emotional safety and connection.In today’s episode, we’re going to explore five powerful tools to reduce stress in your relationships through healthier communication. We’ll talk about self-awareness, listening to understand instead of defend, asking clearly for what you need, becoming more comfortable with disagreement, and learning how to share the emotional and practical load of relationships more consciously.Because healthy communication isn’t about saying everything perfectly or never having conflict. It’s about creating relationships where both people feel safe enough to be honest, human, supported, and deeply understood.”Kia ora and hello, welcome to the Living Life Well podcast. I’m Janine Lattimore, a wellbeing writer and coach providing information and inspiration to make daily health and happiness simple.The Hidden Stress Building Inside RelationshipsRelationships don’t commonly fall apart because of one big moment. More often, stress builds quietly through misunderstandings, unspoken needs, assumptions, defensiveness, and the exhausting feeling of not being truly heard. Most of us were never taught how to communicate in ways that create emotional safety, connection, and mutual understanding. Instead, we react from habit, fear, overwhelm, or old emotional patterns. Healthy communication is not about saying the perfect thing or avoiding disagreement altogether. It is about learning how to understand yourself, understand each other, and create conversations that reduce stress rather than amplify it. When we do that, relationships stop feeling like battles to survive and start becoming places where both people can breathe, grow, and feel deeply supported.In this article I want to give you five tools to reduce stress in your relationships by improving the effectiveness of your communication. Interacting well with others begins with knowing yourself. This helps you to understand what you are bringing to the relationship and what you are needing from it. Without this knowledge people tend to see the external world as the source of everything that they experience and operate from a place of defensiveness or blame. Next comes the powerful reciprocity of listening to understand and asking for what you want. The key intention here is clarity. The other two things which I have added to this list are getting comfortable with disagreement and sharing the relationship load.Let’s dive in1. Know YourselfThere are three key things to get clear about yourself to reduce stress in relationships: what triggers you, what makes you happy and what you need. Come to know these things for your own personal growth and then also communicate them so that other people know it too. If you are living life on autopilot and are unconsciously reacting to everything that happens to you, then you will feel out of control and easily become stressed. Lack of clarity creates stress, for you, and by extension, in your relationships. Notice what things consistently lead to you feeling strong emotions of frustration, anger, fear, sadness or hurt. These are triggers for you. The more you know and understand yourself, the less likely you are to project your uncomfortable emotions onto your partner and blame them for what you are experiencing.Identify what sparks joy in you. This may seem obvious, but many adults become so lost in responsibility and work that if you ask them what they do for fun they cannot answer. Joy is life giving to ourselves and to our relationships. In my book The Great Life Planner I purposely chose to make the first question on the daily focus sheet “what fun would I like to have today?” because as adults we often forget to have fun or don’t make it a priority, and it needs to be for our own health and wellbeing and the wellbeing of our relationships. Consciously become aware of what you smile at, what you really enjoy and what stimulates laughter in you. Foster those things to build your own life-force and share them in your relationships. Laughter is one of the best remedies for stress.Knowing what you need is a little more complex because we have surface needs and underlying needs. Our underlying needs are often subconscious and you may not be aware of what they are unless you spend time in deep reflection. The other thing that complicates knowing our needs is when we believe that our needs are either a weakness or a burden, or that our needs don’t matter. A big sign that you have these beliefs is if you pride yourself on being self-sufficient or on going without. Our needs are what actually connect us. When you deny your own needs for any reason, then you disconnect from the parts of yourself that need love and support. You also block the flow of reciprocal energy within relationships. We all have needs. At the very minimum we have the basic needs for food, shelter and love. Yes, love is a basic need. People who experience high levels of loneliness or abandonment are not just affected mentally and emotionally, it also affects physical health. Part of coming to know your own needs is admitting that you have them - to yourself first and then by extension to others. Asking for help and receiving support does not make you weak, or a burden, it reduces stress on you, and also stress in your relationships because it builds mutual connection and support.2. Listen to UnderstandThere are three common responses to uncomfortable conversations in relationships; defend, blame or fix. When someone expresses dissatisfaction, disagreement or upset to us, most people deal with it by deflecting it with defence or blame, or minimising it by stating a solution. All three of these response types create increased stress within the relationship. To decrease stress, and increase connection take a metaphorical step back and set the intention of listening to the other person with curiosity to understand them rather than trying to fight or fix them.The foundation of this is an understanding that conflict is not an attack, it is an expression of unmet needs. Listening to identify and acknowledge the unmet need creates what we crave which is deep and meaningful connection. Listening to understand is not just about removing distractions and waiting your turn to speak, it is having the intention to deeply see and hear the other person.The next time someone close to you starts an uncomfortable conversation try using phrases like this:You are important to me.That sounds interesting, can you tell me more about . . ?How did you feel about . . ?What I heard is that you thought/felt . . . can you tell more about . . . ?What are your thoughts about that?Can you talk about that more please so that I can try and understand where you are coming from/your point of view?Can you say more about that?What do you mean by . . ?What is making this hard for you?Can you tell me what’s got you worried?What I think I hear you saying is . . .What do you think might be a next step for you regarding . . ?Remember, what happened is only the trigger. What is causing the issue is the thoughts and feelings each person is having in response to what happened. That is what you are actively listening to understand. When someone feels seen and heard in terms of their thoughts and feelings then they feel safe, and when your body feels safe, it turns off the stress alarm.Communicating in this way takes courage, and it often requires one person to initiate and model this new way of managing difficult conversations and conflict. When both parties share the aim of meeting each other with love though, then communicating in this way not only significantly reduces relationship stress, but fosters a depth of honesty and connection that is very fulfilling.3. Ask and ClarifyI have often heard statements like, “If you truly loved me then you would know what I want without me having to tell you.” Love does not make you a mind reader. Yes, when we care about someone we are tuned into what they express about what they like and don’t like, but we only know what they show or tell us, and we are always interpreting things from our own point of view. Even people with high levels of empathy cannot read the mind of their partner and know their unexpressed thoughts and needs. Empathic people may be able to make more emotionally intelligent assumptions, but they are still coming from their own perspective unless they are told otherwise.This is not only relevant in terms of gift-giving, but also in the ways that we desire to be loved and supported. I learned this in my body through a difficult experience. When I get overwhelmed, stressed and upset I need quiet, alone time and space to process before I can communicate about it. One of my former partners went through a very intense experience and so I gave him space to process, because that is what I would have wanted in the same situation. I thought I was being loving, but I was loving from my own framework, not his. To him, it felt like I abandoned him. Always ask the other person what they need and what would feel good to them in that moment, and be aware that that may also change. Asking rather than assuming can save a lot of stress in relationships. It may feel awkward at first, but it will become more natural the more you do it.You don’t need to wait for challenging situations either. You can be proactive and prevent stress. This comes back to the first tool of knowing yourself and communicating what you prefer and need in terms of love, support and living life. It also links to tool two and listening to understand. Sharing what you need can be an opening to curiously enquire how your partner responds in similar situations. For example, yesterday morning I asked my partner what he had planned for the day and then I paused because I reflected that it adds to my feeling of overwhelm when someone asks me that question and I am carrying a huge mental load of planning for my day. I explained that to my partner and then asked him, “is it the same for you?”The best way to communicate your thoughts and feelings is by using “I” statements such as:“I think . . .”“I feel . . . ““I experience . . .”“I need . . .”“I want/would like . . .”Speaking from your personal point of view is less confrontational, than making “you . . .” statements, and using these statement starters also helps you to clearly identify what your thoughts, feelings, desires and needs are.4. Get Comfortable with DisagreementWe don’t all agree and that makes for wonderful variety in the world, yet, many people feel a driving need to have others agree with them and that often leads to stress and conflict. If that is you, coming back to tool one, know yourself, consider why you need someone to agree with you. What are you making agreement mean for you? For example, typically, the need to be right stems from insecurity and a need for validation.“observe another’s truth without any obligation to claim it as [y]our own.” - Skott JonesIf you are in conversation with someone and they are very insistent about their point being correct, listening to understand can help them to feel heard and validated. You don’t necessarily have to agree with them or say that they are right. Simply acknowledging their point of view as heard and valid is usually enough for them to feel secure and safe. When you feel safe, your body switches from survival stress mode to relax and create mode, and you become more open to consider other points of view.Many people see disagreement as synonymous with conflict, but it doesn’t have to be. It all depends on how you frame it. What if you equated disagreement with variety and saw it as an opportunity to learn new information and be exposed to a different perspective? What if you let go of the polarity of one thing being right and everything else being wrong? What if multiple points of view all have value and what if having an understanding of multiple points of view increases your level of wisdom? When you look at disagreement through that lens, then it becomes something beneficial rather than stressful.5. Share the LoadSome people tend to take on more than their share of the mental and practical load within a relationship, and some people don’t take on enough, and both of those things can cause stress. People who tend to do more than their fair share in a relationship see themselves as giving, but in actual fact they are usually taking more responsibility and control from others. If you are someone who habitually does more than the other person in your relationships (and I will put my own hand up here), then take a step back and reflect on what is underlying that choice, because it is a choice. You are either choosing to do more, or choosing not to deal with the issue of negotiating for more equal load sharing. Underlying those choices is a need to control how things are done, and/or control the relationship itself in terms of earning worth and value to avoid conflict, rejection or abandonment. Know yourself. Exhausting yourself from taking on too much of the load in a relationship is not healthy for you or the relationship.It is also not healthy for the other person. While a few people may enjoy a free ride with a partner who does all the work, for most people it undermines them. It takes responsibility off them, which may appear helpful on the surface, but underneath it can reduce how capable and confident they feel about themselves. Their opportunities to develop skills are also restricted. This goes for parents who do too much for their children as well as people who do too much for their partners. Sharing the load is not just about fairness, it is about recognising the capability of both partners to do that work and carry that load. Being in a situation where your skills are undervalued or where you don’t feel like you can contribute meaningfully in ways that allow you to utilise and extend your skills, often leads to depression or stagnation and a loss of life-force within the relationship.On the flip side of that, if you are someone who tends to let your partner take more of the share of the load, then consider if there are ways that you could step up. Maybe you could initiate drying the dishes when your partner is washing them. Maybe you could set up a calendar reminder system for birthdays, anniversaries and other important dates. Maybe you could offer to take over looking after one of the household chores that they habitually do. Maybe you could decide what to have for dinner and organise it one day a week. You may not feel confident with how to do it when you start, but you will learn and get better as you do it, in the same way that your partner did.A note to the control freaks (in other words, a note to myself). Being comfortable with disagreement extends to letting it be okay for different people to do things in different ways. Your partner will not always agree with you and they will not do things in the same way as you. Resisting this fact and needing to be in control of everything leads to stress all round. Don’t sweat the small stuff and communicate your desires about the things that are truly important to you. Usually, it helps to communicate why it is important to you. For example, rather than saying “you need to put the dishwash brush in the dishwasher before you turn it on at night” which is very directive and likely to stimulate resistance (stress) in the other person leading to them not doing it or forgetting to do it, instead say something like, “I would like the dishbrush put into the dishwasher before it is turned on at night because it cleans and sanitises it thoroughly. It gets rid of any grease that otherwise leaves a film on the dishes when I use it to wash them the next day.”Moving From Conflict to ConnectionThe quality of our relationships is shaped less by perfection and more by the small ways we communicate with each other every day. Stress grows when people feel unseen, unheard, unsupported, controlled, or unable to express themselves honestly. Relationships thrive when both people feel acknowledged, respected, and safe. None of this requires perfection. It simply requires a willingness to slow down, communicate consciously, and meet each other with greater understanding. Easy shifts in the way we listen, ask, share, and support each other can profoundly transform the emotional climate of a relationship and turn stress and disconnection into trust, teamwork, and deeper love.Just One ThingThis week’s “Just One Thing” action point to help you turn information into transformation through implementation is to create twenty minutes of space for yourself and reflect on the following three “know yourself” questions:What are 3 things that stimulate fear, anger or hurt in you?What are 5 things that spark joy, delight or laughter for you?What are 3 things you need at the moment?Record your answers and notice what clarity that gives you in terms of understanding yourself.The next step would be to share these reflections with someone you are in a safe, close relationship with as a way of starting a curious conversation with them.Thanks for listening to this episode of Living Life WellI love FeedbackIf you try the just one thing action point for this week, I would love you know what happens for you. You can send me a direct message or add a comment.Wishing you a life lived fully and well.Aroha nui, much loveand I look forward to connecting again on the next episode.Bye for now. Get full access to Living Life Well at janinelattimore.substack.com/subscribe

Book LinksMastering Change10 steps to HappinessInformation and purchase links to all of my books are available through my website: janinelattimore.comWant More?If you want to be notified directly into your inbox when the next weekly episode lands, then click the subscribe button below. As a bonus, you will get access to a free copy of my short-cut guide Wired for Calm: Simple Nervous System Regulation for Everyday StressTranscriptI want to challenge something we’ve all been told. That busy is the problem. That if we could just slow down, say no more often, empty our calendars — we’d finally feel okay. But what if that’s wrong?What if busy isn’t your problem at all?What if the real issue is something much deeper?Kia ora and hello, welcome to the Living Life Well podcast. I’m Janine Lattimore, a wellbeing writer and coach providing information and inspiration to make daily health and happiness simple.We live in a culture that has a very complicated relationship with the word busy. On one hand, we wear it like a badge of honour — being busy signals that we’re important, productive, needed. On the other hand, the wellness world has spent the last decade telling us that busy is basically a modern disease — that we need to slow down, pause, be present.And I think both of those perspectives are missing something crucial.Because in my experience the problem is not really busyness. Most people who are exhausted, overwhelmed and depleted are not struggling because their lives are too full, they’re struggling because their lives are full of the wrong things.There’s a profound difference between a life that is full and a life that is overloaded. And that difference has nothing to do with how much you’re doing — and everything to do with whether what you’re doing is in alignment with what truly matters to you.”Here’s what we’re going to cover today:First, we’re going to examine the word busy — because I think when you look at what it actually means, you’ll see that it has two completely different faces. And understanding that distinction is the foundation of everything else we’ll talk about.Then we’re going to get into the concept of alignment — what it actually means to live in alignment with your authentic self because this term gets used a lot in personal development spaces, and I want to make it concrete and real and something you can actually work with.We’ll talk about the difference between what I call soul desires and ego desires — and why knowing which one is driving you changes absolutely everything about how your day feels.Then I’m going to share three powerful questions that will help you get clear on your authentic self — your values, your strengths, and how your creativity wants to be expressed — because without that self-knowledge, it’s very hard to find your way to alignment.And we’ll finish by talking about what I call balanced energy — the two factors that determine whether your full and active life feels nourishing or depleting.By the end of this episode, my hope is that you’ll walk away not just with a new way of thinking about busyness — but with a real, practical sense of where to start making shifts in your own life.Let’s get into itThe framing of “busy” in modern Western culture is interesting. In many areas of society being busy is seen as admirable. It can almost be elevated to a virtue when it is seen as the opposite of being lazy. Busy is often associated with being productive and working hard. On the flip side of this, we have the modern personal development movement which emphasizes pause and presence, and has almost demonized being busy.I think that the concept of “busy” has two sides, and when I Googled the definition of the word “busy” this was highlighted as the meaning was either being actively engaged, or crowded with activity. On one side we have the definition of busy as having too much to do and habitually overworking, and on the other side we have the concept of busy as being actively engaged in doing something. So, what makes the difference? What determines whether you are busy in a state of overwork and overwhelm, or busy in a state of engagement and aliveness?The difference, is whether or not what you are doing is in alignment with what is truly important to you.If you are busy and unhappy, overwhelmed, stressed and exhausted then the problem is probably not that you are busy, the problem is that you are unfulfilled.It is not a stuff problem; it is an alignment problem.Doing lots of stuff + unbalanced, unaligned energy > stress, overwhelm, exhaustionDoing lots of stuff + balanced, aligned energy > a rich and fulfilling lifeI don’t think that being busy in and of itself is a problem. Being busy and being stressed do not always go together. I am usually busy, but I phrase it in other ways because most of the time I am living intentionally in alignment with my highest self. The words I use instead are to say that my life is full or rich.The paramount issue is what the energy engine is underneath your work. What is driving you? Is it performing, trying to prove something, or fear of missing out, losing out or being rejected? Or is it purposeful and creative engagement with life?What does it actually mean to be in alignment?The idea of being in alignment with your authentic self, in other words having aligned energy, gets talked about a lot in personal development teachings, especially those with a spiritual aspect to them, but what does that actually mean. Alignment involves knowing and living your values, purpose and higher-self desires. Higher-self desires are those that are connected to your soul rather than your ego. Ego desires are to do with how you appear; the image you portray. They are driven by urgency and doing things for other people, and are about performance, competition and earning. Soul desires come from your inner knowing and feel open and expansive. Other terms for your higher-self desires are your passion or bliss. They are what you would do even if you didn’t get paid. It’s the person you love being and the things you love doing when no one is watching.Does living in alignment mean you just do what you want?I want to clarify that living in alignment with yourself does not mean that you only do things that you want to do, although I do invite you to notice any beliefs you have about not being allowed to do what you want. We grow up with a lot of unexamined adopted beliefs about this that can limit how much we allow ourselves to have (if you want to learn more about how to identify and shift your limiting beliefs then there is a chapter on that in my book 10 Steps to Happiness). Life also has responsibilities and curveballs for us to navigate. Alignment is not just about desire and preference; it is also about the perspective that we have when approaching all of life. Having a life philosophy that enables you to release resistance to challenge, and to flow with all aspects of life experience enables you to be in alignment within almost any circumstance.This doesn’t mean that you just passively accept everything that life throws at you. Being in alignment with yourself also gives you clarity about where and how to create meaningful boundaries for yourself. For me it comes back to the idea that is expressed well in the Christian Serenity Prayer by theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. Here is a simple non-religious form of that:Stay calm about the things you can’t control.Have the courage to change the things you can.and be wise enough to know the difference.Sometimes alignment comes through what you choose to do, and sometimes it comes by how you frame your perspective of what you are required to do. Wisdom, which is also a form of alignment, guides you to know when to flow in acceptance, and when to actively create what you want.Invest time to know yourselfThere is a quote from 13th-century Persian poet Rumi that reads:When I run after what I think I want, my days are a furnace of distress and anxiety;If I sit in my own place of patience, what I need flows to me, and without any pain.From this I understand that what I want also wants me, is looking for me and attracting me.There is a great secret in this for anyone who can grasp it.One surefire way to live an unfulfilled life is to be constantly in a rush reacting to life. The key to fulfilment, is to give yourself time and space to become clear on what your values, purpose and highest desires are. Clear energy of thought, emotion and action that is in alignment with your soul is powerful and attractive.Three questions that reveal your authentic selfHere are three questions that will help you to come to know the key aspects of your authentic self:1. What are your top 10 values?Think about experiences you have had where you have felt high levels of joy, pride, or frustration. Things that give you a lot of joy or pride are connected directly to your values. Conditions that make you feel angry or frustrated indicate what your important boundaries are, in other words, what values have been denied or disrespected.I will put an image displaying a list of 36 common values in the show notes - this will give you some more ideas to identify your own values.2. What are your top 10 innate gifts and practiced strengths?Fulfilment happens when you are moving in your strengths. This is not to say that challenge and learning are not purposeful too, but we feel our best when we are living from our strengths. What do you do that feels easy or which you do well without a great deal of effort? What skills or characteristics do other people thank or compliment you for? What do you enjoy doing?3. How do you like to be creative?Creativity is the expression of our lifeforce. It is not just about making art. Creativity can be expressed in many ways such as ideas, variation, movement, problem solving, gardening, cooking, exploring and playing.Coming to know these aspects of yourself will help you to identify what is truly important to you, which is the aligned energy half of the equation of living a fulfilling life. The other half is having balanced energy.What is balanced energy?There are two aspects to having balanced energy, and balance is as important as alignment. The two aspects are capacity and creativity. Capacity means how resourced are you to do what you are doing. You can have a lot of capacity and be working from a place of unaligned energy and you will probably still be okay. Conversely, if you are living in alignment with your authentic self but work beyond your physical, mental or emotional capacity then you will experience stress and exhaustion.The second factor that needs to be balanced is creativity. You can be operating in alignment with your values and strengths and still stagnate and become unfulfilled if you are doing the same things day after day. Stagnation is the opposite of creation and occurs when there is an absence of movement and new energy. When you suppress or do not allow space for your creativity, then you begin to stagnate and stop growing, progressing, and developing. Creativity allows energy to move within you and around you and nourishes your mind and body.Balanced aligned energy is where you are well resourced physically, mentally and emotionally, and creatively expressing your values, strengths and desires. Different people need different levels of resources at different times, and need to live with different levels of creatively to feel satisfied. Maybe the real question is,“What allows your life force to flow most abundantly?”The recipe for a rich and fulfilling lifeBusyness itself is not the enemy. When what you are doing reflects your authentic values, strengths, and deeper desires, then a full and active life becomes a source of energy rather than a drain on it. The key is investing time in genuinely knowing yourself: what you value, where your gifts lie, and how your creativity wants to be expressed. Pair that self-knowledge with keeping your energy balanced in terms of personal capacity and creative variety, and busyness transforms from overwhelm into aliveness. The issue isn’t how much you are doing, but how much of what you are doing is meaningful to you.Just One ThingThis week’s “Just One Thing” action point to help you turn information into transformation through implementation is to reflect on and record responses for the three questions that reveal your authentic self:1. What are your top 10 values?2. What are your top 10 innate gifts and practiced strengths?3. How do you like to be creative?If you want to take this to the next level, you can get my ebook Mastering Change which includes a reflection journal. This will guide you to deeper clarity about what is truly driving your current thoughts, feelings and actions, and to identify meaningful change and give you the keys to successfully transform yourself and your life in the ways that you want.I will put the links to more information about my books in the show notes.Thanks for listening to this episode of Living Life WellI love FeedbackLet me know your thoughts about the episode or any questions that you may have about how to live your life with meaning and purpose.Wishing you a life lived fully and well.Aroha nui, much loveand I look forward to connecting again on the next episode.Bye for now. Get full access to Living Life Well at janinelattimore.substack.com/subscribe

Want More Inspiration, Information & Fun?If you want to be happy, healthy, wealthy and wise then you can subscribe for a weekly dose of inspiration and information from me. As my welcome gift to you, all subscribers receive a free copy of my short-cut guide Wired for Calm: Simple Nervous System Regulation for Everyday StressTranscriptHave you ever noticed how your mind moves from one thing to fix… to the next?You solve one problem, tick something off your list, maybe even have a moment where things feel okay—and then almost immediately, your attention shifts again. What’s not right yet? What needs improving? What could go wrong?For many of us, this way of thinking feels completely normal. It can even feel productive, responsible… like we’re doing what we’re supposed to do to build a better life.But what if this constant drive to fix, improve, and optimise is actually creating a quiet sense of pressure underneath everything?What if life starts to feel less like something to experience… and more like something to maintain?In this episode, I explore the causes and downsides of a “fixing mindset” and introduce a different way of relating to your life—one that isn’t about giving up growth, but about stepping out of the constant feeling that something is wrong.Because maybe… you don’t need fixing in the way you’ve been led to believe.Kia ora and hello, welcome to the Living Life Well podcast. I’m Janine Lattimore, a wellbeing writer and coach providing information and inspiration to make daily health and happiness simple.What if the very habit that’s meant to improve your life is quietly making it harder to enjoy? Many of us live with a mind that is always scanning for the next problem to solve, the next thing to fix, and the next way to be better. It can feel productive and responsible, but beneath that often sits a subtle tension, and a sense that something isn’t right. This way of thinking can lead you to get stuck in an endless loop of fixing and controlling, where you feel constantly anxious, incomplete and not enough. I want you to know that you are not broken. Let me tell you why this is happening and how you can feel satisfied with yourself and your life.The Pattern of Always Looking for What’s WrongThere is a common pattern of thinking that people experience where the mind consistently focuses on the next problem to solve or the next thing to fix. In this state moments that are good or enjoyable are only briefly noticed before your attention quickly shifts to what might go wrong or what needs improvement. This habit of thinking can be linked to personality characteristics and is also a familiar pattern for people who are trained to analyze, improve and achieve. There is also a link between this and experiencing high levels of fear, anxiety and a need to control your life.When Self-Improvement Turns into Subtle DissatisfactionMany people fall into this way of thinking and it can be seen to be responsible and productive. The idea of needing to improve and become a better version of yourself flows through a lot of success oriented personal development teaching. While this problem-fixing mindset may help people to achieve more, it can also lead to a constant underlying dissatisfaction with life and with yourself, and an ongoing feeling of discontent in the striving for constant improvement.You Find What You Are Looking ForWhen your mental filter is set to look for problems, then that is what you will perceive in your experience. If you are focused on what you think you need to fix, then that is what you will actually create more of. I know that may sound a bit crazy, but that is the way it works from a biological, science and spiritual energy perspective. I give a full breakdown of how this principle of attraction works in my book The Great Life Planner, but here is a summarized overview.Why Your Brain Is Wired to Find ProblemsFirstly, the biological perspective. There is an area in your brain called the reticular activating system (RAS). Your RAS filters what sensory information is let into your conscious mind because you take in a great deal more information from your senses than your conscious mind is able to process. Your RAS filters are set in terms of survival and safety first, and then in terms of your conscious focus and your beliefs. Problems and things that need to be fixed are potential survival and safety threats, therefore they get prioritized by your RAS and by the limbic area of your brain which connects to your subconscious beliefs and activates your stress response. The focus of your RAS and limbic system is to monitor the threat rather than look for a solution. Creating solutions and new ways of doing things is the domain of the pre-frontal cortex area of your brain and that gets down-regulated if your body does not feel safe. If you are constantly aware of problems and things that need to be fixed, then your body will be in survival and stress mode rather than in a relaxed, safe state.The Energy You Carry Shapes What You ExperienceThe science aspect of this connects with physics. One of concepts of physics is that everything is energy and that all energy vibrates at a particular frequency. All vibrations transport their energy by waves. Two of the vibrational waves our brains and bodies emit are thought and emotional waves. These generate electromagnetic fields that extend beyond your physical body. Energy frequencies resonate with (connect with) other frequencies that are on the same frequency spectrum level. This means that the energy that you send out through your thoughts and emotions connects with similar energy in other people and the world around you. If you are thinking about problems and what could go wrong, and feeling fear and anxiety, then you will connect to and attract more of that into your field of experience.Spiritual energy concepts echo those of physics and usually frame it as the law of attraction or the law of resonance. These also state that “like attracts like” in terms of energy. What I will expand on in terms of this is that there is often a difference between the energy your subconscious mind and body are emitting, compared to the thought energy of your conscious mind. For example, your conscious mind may think I’ll start exercising to fix my weight issue. Your conscious mind chooses the creative solution, but it is rooted in thinking that you have a problem that needs to be fixed. You will also have a lot of subconscious beliefs and patterns of thought, emotion and behaviour connected to your current state which is why it is your current reality. The result of this is that you have one part of your energy directed towards the solution (exercising more), but the majority of your energy will come from everything else that is going on in your body: the stress response to seeing your weight issue as a threat, your RAS and nervous system scanning for anything connected to that threat, and your habitual automatic patterns of thought, emotion and behaviour that connect to your current state.Why Trying to Fix Everything Can Keep You StuckObviously, all this makes it very hard to change your current reality and is possibly how trying to fix everything is ruining your life. As I say that I am aware of the irony in my creating a podcast telling you how to fix a problem that is caused by trying to fix problems. However, I do want to give you three things that will help. The first is accepting all of the experience of life as okay. The second is to choose your self-worth, and the third is to foster safety and regulation in your nervous system.What If Life Isn’t a Problem to Solve?A fixing pattern of thought can come from believing that everything has to be good, positive or perfect all of the time. We can compare it to the idea of wanting to live in perpetual Summer. The reframe to this is letting go of resistance, and accepting the natural flow and cycles of life. Energy reserves are depleted if they are running on high all the time. Death and life are intertwined in a circle, as are light and darkness, and all have value and purpose. What if life isn’t a series of problems to be solved, but a variety of experiences to be lived. What if death, darkness, and emptiness were not something going wrong, but equal experiences with life, light and fullness. It’s mainly our survival based limbic system that resists discomfort. On top of that we have been trained to label uncomfortable sensations and emotions as negative or bad, and to live with certain ideas of what is right and what is wrong. What if some of the conditions that you thought of as things going wrong and needing to be fixed, you could choose to label as simply another form of experience? Maybe you could ask yourself, “what if this is not a problem to be solved, but an experience to be had?”Self-worth is a ChoiceAt the core of a constant need to fix and be better is a sense of not-enoughness. My interest in health and personal development was initially sparked by a driving desire to fix myself. One of the first healing declarations I made when I embarked on my journey to truly loving myself in my mid-forties was: “There is nothing wrong with me. I don’t need to be fixed.” It took me a lot of courage to say, and I had to work through the fear of other people judging me for stating it. I had spent a lifetime up until that point thinking there was a lot wrong with me, and that belief had been fostered by a critical father and perpetuated by critical partners. Another thing that happens when we focus on our perceived flaws and think we need to be fixed is that we tend to project that, and also try to fix other people, usually under the guise of helping them.This is not to say that everyone is perfect in the sense of being all good, but you are perfectly you. The idea of accepting all of the experience of life can be applied to us as people as well. The variety of your characteristics, abilities and understanding is the unique and valuable expression of who you are. Your self-worth is something you choose to recognise, not something you have to earn. If you believe that you have to earn your worth, then you will get stuck in the problem fixing loop and never feel good enough. Believing you are enough is a choice, and an acceptance of the value of all life experience.Creating Safety and Calming the Nervous SystemA nervous system stuck in survival and stress will gravitate towards potential threats and things that are wrong. This often becomes a self-perpetuating loop. Breaking it is a matter of consciously creating conditions where your body can relax, reset and rewire. It starts in the body. When your body feels safety, then your mind will follow, but you cannot think your way into nervous system regulation. Switching off your inner stress alarm, signals the body to stop being hyper-vigilant about scanning for threat and allows your mind to open to creating something new.If you want to learn some easy ways to create safety within your body and a simple overview of what nervous system regulation actually is, then you can subscribe to my Substack publication and get my free short-cut guide: Wired for Calm – I will put the link in the podcast notes (if you are already a subscriber and missed out on getting the guide, then message me and I will send you the download link).Please understand that I am not saying that it is wrong to want moreThe desire for healing or to be more is not wrong. I think it is the calling of our soul to evolve and expand. What is important is the underlying reason for that. Is it coming from a place of not-enoughness and a perceived need to earn acceptance and worth, or is it coming from a place of exploration of what could be. Do you want to be better out of a desire to experience more and evolve, or because you think you are not good enough as you are?Cultivate an Expansive View of LifeSatisfaction does not come from fixing more, but from relating to life differently. When you begin to accept the full spectrum of your experience as meaningful, choose to recognise your innate self-worth, and create safety within your body, something softens. The urgency to constantly improve starts to loosen its grip, and in its place comes a steadier sense of being. From here, growth doesn’t disappear, rather it becomes more natural, more curious, and far less pressured. Life is no longer an endless series of problems to solve, but a landscape to move through, experience, and enjoy as it is unfolding.Just One ThingThis week’s “Just One Thing” action point to help you turn information into transformation through implementation is to practice physiological sighing, also known as cyclic sighing. This is a relaxation breathwork practice that you can do pretty much anywhere, any time and other people may not even notice you doing it. It is very quick and easy and has been scientifically shown to effectively reset your body’s nervous system when you are experiencing stress.To take a physiological sigh, breathe in through your nose, preferably slowly and fully consciously using your diaphragm, then take another small inhale through the nose before exhaling long and slow through the mouth as if you were letting out a big sigh of relief. So you are inhaling through the nose in two steps and then doing a long exhale through the mouth. Sometimes when I do this my body releases sound with the exhale as well. Releasing your voice in this way can add to the relaxation effect.This method uses the body’s natural sigh reflex to quickly calm the autonomic nervous system and reduce stress. The long exhale slows down the heart rate and lowers blood pressure. Another benefit is that it helps to balance oxygen and carbon dioxide levels in the blood which can improve your energy levels and increase mental clarity.Thanks for listening to this episode of Living Life WellI love FeedbackIf you try the just one thing action point for this week, I would love you know what happens for you. You can send me a direct message or add a comment.Wishing you a life lived fully and well.Aroha nui, much loveand I look forward to connecting again on the next episode.Bye for now. Get full access to Living Life Well at janinelattimore.substack.com/subscribe

TranscriptHave you ever decided to make a positive change in your life… felt excited, motivated, ready to go—and then suddenly everything seemed to go wrong? Plans fall apart, obstacles show up, and you start wondering if you’ve made a mistake… or if you should just go back to how things were.If you’ve ever felt that way, you’re not alone—and more importantly, there’s nothing wrong with you.In today’s episode, we’re going to explore why this happens. Why change often feels hardest right after you begin, what’s really going on beneath the surface, and how those moments that feel like setbacks may actually be part of the process that’s moving you forward.Because what if the resistance you’re feeling… isn’t there to stop you—but to help you step into something new?Kia ora and hello, welcome to the Living Life Well podcast. I’m Janine Lattimore, a wellbeing writer and coach providing information and inspiration to make daily health and happiness simple.I talk a lot about putting information into practice and starting new habits and so I think it is important to talk about something that commonly happens when you decide to make a positive change - things go wrong.It often looks like this: you decide to change your life and at first, it feels exciting, empowering, full of possibility. You set a new intention, take action, and begin moving forward. Then, things start to unravel. Plans fall apart, obstacles appear, motivation dips, and what felt clear now feels uncertain. This can knock you back and sometimes even physically prevent you from proceeding. It can feel like you’ve hit a wall and may cause you to rethink your decision, or wonder if you are being tested, or if the Universe is trying to show you that this isn’t the right path for you. However, what if this experience isn’t a sign that something has gone wrong, but rather evidence that something is actually working?This experience is very common, in fact, I would even go so far as to say that it is normal. In this article I am going to look at why it happens in terms of three key things:* momentum and resistance* subconscious beliefs and identity* challenge as a catalyst for growthKey number 1: Momentum and ResistanceWhy It Feels Harder Before It Gets EasierWhen you are driving a car, the faster you are going, in other words the more momentum you have flowing, the harder it is to change direction. It is the same in life. If you have a lot of momentum around doing something and then you change direction to do something else, then there will be challenges in terms of shifting the momentum. Momentum is created by what we think, feel and do habitually and by the routine flow of life around us. This includes the regular patterns of thought and behaviour of other people that we interact with. There is a physical aspect to this and an energetic aspect. I think of it in terms of a game we used to play in swimming pools when I was a kid. My friends and I would decide that we were going to create a whirlpool and would all start walking in the same direction around the inner edges of the pool. At first it was really hard to move against the stationary force of the water and to get it to start moving in the direction we wanted. There was a lot of resistance. As we kept going, momentum started to build and the water began to move with us. Eventually, so much momentum built up that the water began carrying us and we could simply float along with it. Then, someone would decide that we were going to change direction and start moving the water the opposite way. At first, it felt nearly impossible and the water would sweep us off our feet and push us backwards because it had even more momentum now it was moving than when it was stationary. When we persisted though, the water would eventually begin to slow down in that direction and then, with more focused effort on our part, shift and begin to sluggishly move in the other direction. Again, as we kept going, the momentum in the new direction built up until the water was once again carrying us along with the flow.When we have been thinking a certain way and doing things in a certain way, then we have developed a momentum of physical and energetic force in that direction. Physically our life will be set up to support that way of behaviour and mentally our thoughts will be organised around that way of thinking. If we decide to change that direction, then we will meet resistance. The more momentum we have going in the direction that we want to shift, the more resistance we will experience.Being Clear Increases Your Energy Force for ChangeThere are some things that you can do which can increase the energy force behind the new direction you want to move in, so that you have more strength to stand and direct the shift of momentum. One of these is being very clear in your decision for change, both in terms of what the change will be and your commitment to the change. If you are not fully committed to the change, or feel a lot of fear around it, or are not clear about exactly what the change will be, then that reduces the amount of energy force you are sending out to shift the current momentum. Alternatively, it can create a push-pull energy where part of you wants the change, but part of you doesn’t.Smaller Steps Encounter Less ResistanceIn line with this, breaking down large goals into small specific single action steps can give you clarity. This increases the force of your energy to create change and also reduces the momentum you are moving against. It takes a lot less energy to create a whirlpool in a small pool than in a big one. However, breaking goals down into small steps isn’t just like creating whirlpools in small pools, it is like flowing water downhill through a cascading series of vortexes where the energy created in the first vortex flows into and amplifies the second and continues to build with each step taken.Having Support Builds Your MomentumAnother thing that can increase the energy force behind the new direction you want to move in is having support. It takes a lot of work for just one person to move the water in a pool, and the momentum energy created will be less. On top of that, if other people around you are not moving in the same direction as you, then they will create resistance and become obstacles. Sometimes people are not moving with you simply because they don’t know what direction you want to go. When this is the case, share your goals and ask for help rather than trying to do it all alone. There are also likely to be people in your life who actively move against you. This might be energetically through their doubt and fear, or more directly through criticism and blocking. Try and avoid swimming with them, and get in a pool where there are supportive people moving in the same direction as you.Key Number 2: Subconscious Beliefs and IdentityWhy Your Mind Tries to Pull You Back to the FamiliarWhen you start to do something different that is “out of character” for you, then your subconscious mind goes, “Hey! That’s not who we are, we don’t do that, something is wrong - we need to get back to our familiar patterns so that we are safe.” To your subconscious mind any change, even positive ones, are viewed as a potential threat, and the more uncertainty or unknown factors there are to that change, then the stronger your subconscious warning bells will ring. Here’s the thing, your subconscious warning bells do not always sound like a clear alarm. You may experience them as fear or anxiety, or you may experience them as physical symptoms of stress, or as self-sabotage. Physical symptoms of stress can include muscle tension, lowered immunity, headaches, gut issues, brain fog or even anger. This can make it more likely for you to injure yourself, or get sick, or have difficulty thinking clearly and creating solutions. Self-sabotage is your subconscious mind’s way of getting you back to what is familiar because that is what it knows as safe. Your subconscious mind is closely tied to your primal brain and your body and its focus is to ensure your survival. Your higher evolution is connected to the newer frontal cortex part of your brain, and that largely goes offline when your body moves into a stress state.You can mitigate this by showing your subconscious mind that the change you want to make is safe and by making it feel familiar. I give you a number of different ways that you can do this in my ebook Mastering Change, and also in my book The Great Life Planner.Key Number 3: Challenge as a Catalyst for GrowthReframing Challenges as a Bridge, not a BlockIt is common to see challenge as a bad thing, as something going wrong and therefore as a block. What if challenge was not a negative thing, but a positive part of the change process. Sometimes, this is described in terms of the Universe or God testing you, but I prefer not to use the word “test” as it implies that we have to grow in some way to reach a level of acceptance i.e. that we are not already enough. However, change does often require us to learn new things and to shift our perception of our identity (i.e. to become someone new). The best catalyst for growth, is challenge. I consistently have experiences in my life where something appearing to go wrong leads me to learn something helpful. Many of the challenges we face when beginning to move in a new positive direction are not indicators that we are off our path, but are in fact part of the path. They are like the weights that help you build the muscles you need, or the door you have to work out how to open because you need that skill to get where you want to go. They are bridges, not blocks, and the higher the level of development you are moving to, the greater the challenge needed to prompt you to expand.Challenges and Clearing Subconscious Limiting BeliefsThere is also another aspect to this, which is described in the well-known quote by Carl Jung“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate,”Often, the challenges that come up for us are an opportunity for us to perceive what limiting subconscious beliefs we have and to make the unconscious conscious so that we can effectively transform. We can also think of it as energy that will hold you back coming up to be cleared. When our subconscious patterns of thought and behaviour remain hidden from our conscious awareness, then they drive our actions and reality on autopilot. It is like having an unknown default setting operating on a document you are typing in. You may consciously try and change the font or layout, but until you clear the default settings, then any changes you make will not be saved and will be over-ridden. When this occurs in life, it is often seen as “fate” or something external to us directing our life, but it is actually our own unconscious beliefs acting as the driver.How to identify and clear these subconscious drivers is a complex topic beyond the scope of this article. I provide a lot of information about how to do it in my book The Great Life Planner.From Setbacks to Strength: Seeing Challenge DifferentlyWhen things go wrong as you begin to make a positive change, it’s easy to interpret that as failure or a sign to turn back, but more often than not, it’s a natural and necessary part of the process. You are shifting momentum, stretching beyond familiar identity patterns, and being invited to grow in ways that support your next level. The obstacles you encounter are not there to stop you, rather they are there to strengthen you, refine your direction, and bring awareness to what needs to change beneath the surface. If you can stay steady, committed, and open to learning, you’ll find that what once felt like resistance becomes the very force that carries you forward.Just One ThingThis week’s “Just One Thing” action point to help you turn information into transformation through implementation is to choose one change or new habit that you have been thinking about making and seek support to do it. This might be sharing your intention with someone, asking a friend to take action with you or joining an online or in person group who are doing what you want to do. Getting support is one of the most effective ways to build momentum towards your desire because it can help you in multiple ways. It can provide encouragement, it can provide information and resources and it can provide accountability. This is my key tactic for motivating myself to take action, especially when I have had an intention sitting in my head for a while that I am having difficulty putting into practice. Sharing it with someone else gives me the extra nudge I need to commit and start moving on it.Thanks for listening to this episode of Living Life WellI love FeedbackIf you try the just one thing action point for this week, I would love you know what happens for you. You can send me a direct message or add a comment.Wishing you a life lived fully and well.Aroha nui, much loveand I look forward to connecting again on the next episode.Bye for now.Want More?If you want to be notified directly into your inbox when the next weekly episode lands then click the subscribe button below. As a bonus, you will get access to a free copy of my short-cut guide Wired for Calm: Simple Nervous System Regulation for Everyday Stress Get full access to Living Life Well at janinelattimore.substack.com/subscribe

TranscriptWhat if one simple mindset shift could calm your body, quiet self-doubt, and make change feel natural instead of overwhelming?We’re often told that growth comes from pushing harder, trying more, and staying disciplined.But what if real, lasting change actually begins in a completely different place?The philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson once said,“All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make, the better.”And what if that simple idea holds the key… not just to growth,but to feeling calmer, more confident, and more in control of your life?In today’s episode, we’re exploring the growth mindset and how seeing life as experimentation can actually regulate your nervous system, reduce stress, and make change feel safe, natural, and even enjoyable.Because when your body feels safe…growth doesn’t feel like pressure.It feels like possibility.Kia ora and hello, welcome to the Living Life Well podcast. I’m Janine Lattimore, a wellbeing writer and coach providing information and inspiration to make daily health and happiness simple.If I was going to choose one mindset as the most powerful way of approaching life, it would be a growth mindset. My son once said to me that I was like a living embodiment of the growth mindset, I think he was referring to my repeatedly telling him that he can learn anything through practice, but I took it as one of the highest compliments.The growth mindset concept was formed in the early 2000’s by Stanford University professor Carol Dweck. Here is the concept in a nutshell:What is a Growth MindsetAbilities can be developed through effort, learning, and persistence as opposed to being innate or fixed.Key points:* Challenges help you grow* Effort builds ability* Mistakes are feedback, not failure* You can improve with practiceTo put it in my own even smaller nutshell, having a growth mindset is about seeing all experience as experimentation and playing with life.It is a mindset that encourages creativity, skill development and the valuing of effort rather than just end achievement. However, there is another reason that having a growth mindset is powerful and that is to do with how it influences your nervous system.To effectively learn, change and form new habits we need to be in a relaxed mode of being. Your nervous system needs to be functioning primarily from the parasympathetic division and your brain needs to be operating largely in an alpha or gamma brainwave state. Having a growth mindset helps to regulate your nervous system and facilitate this calm learning state in three main ways: by reducing threat, providing a clear next step and promoting curiosity.A Growth Mindset Reduces Threat and Fosters SafetyWhen you label outcomes as “success” or “failure” then your brain, especially the parts that are connected with ensuring your safety, can connect this with judgement or a risk to your identity or social belonging and therefore interpret failure or success as a threat. Please note, while we often consciously fear failure the most, our body can also interpret success as a threat if it involves significant change to your social or physical environment.The part of your brain that acts as its emotional and stress-processing centre is called the limbic system. When your limbic system perceives a threat, then it initiates a fight-or-flight response via stress hormones like cortisol.If your limbic system perceives success or failure as a threat, then it activates the sympathetic division of your autonomic nervous system and puts your body into a stress state. When your body is in an ongoing or highly intense stress state, then it becomes difficult for you to learn. What happens in these situations is that your body switches into emergency mode and down-regulates all the systems that are not linked to immediate survival. This includes the parts of your brain which enable you to be creative, to long term plan and to learn new things. It limits memory activity and tunnels your focus into scanning for threats. In this state, your capacity to set and achieve goals or move forward into positive change and growth is very limited. This is why people who are experiencing a lot of fear or anxiety are often very resistant to change - either good or bad.Why Experimentation Feels Safe to the BodyIf you want to be happy and successful then you need to be in a baseline parasympathetic nervous system state most of the time and be able to move easily in and out of activation into stress, because short bursts of stress can heighten concentration and physical ability in the short term, and that can be helpful. Having a growth mindset can help to regulate your nervous system in this way because when you reframe experience as experimentation and success and failure as learning data then the message that you send to your nervous system is:“I am safe to try, safe to learn, and safe to continue.”Although we can subconsciously fear success, fear of failure is the threat people are most aware of. Re-framing your thinking and choosing to believe that failure is simply one learning outcome of a life experiment and an opportunity for new ideas and growth, results in making mistakes and getting things wrong being less of a threat.When nothing is labelled as failure:* your nervous system doesn’t brace for danger* there is less cortisol and stress activation in your body* you stay in a more regulated, responsive stateSafety Comes From Having A Clear PathYour nervous system doesn’t need you to succeed. It needs you to feel safe enough to take the next step.Another thing that signals threat to your nervous system is the unknown. The nervous system likes certainty. Certainty is familiar and what is familiar feels safe because you know how to navigate it. When you see failure as an end, then it can create anxiety and fear about what comes next. Seeing mistakes, errors and failures as simply part of a learning continuum of finding out information, removes that element of uncertainty. Whether something succeeds or fails you will receive information from the experience that will inform and guide your next step. Interpreting things this way helps you to feel a sense of control and reduces anxiety and overwhelm concerning what to do next.Moving From Rigid Reactivity to Creative CuriosityA growth mindset shifts the brain from emotional reactivity into cognitive curiosity. When you are operating from your limbic brain in a stress state your thinking is very rigid. It is also possible to have a fixed mindset which is the opposite of a growth mindset. A fixed mindset believes that intelligence and ability are innate and cannot be changed. A common example of this is believing that being artistic is a skill that you are born with, and that you either have it or you don’t. While it is true that some people have a greater artistic skill than others, this is probably more the result of natural interest than natural skill. People who have a natural interest in being artistic tend to practice it a lot from a young age. We can learn artistic and creative skills in the same way that other skills can be learned. It is not just a “God-given” ability. Adopting a growth mindset and believing that intelligence and talent can be grown through practice and effort, opens you to be curious, to take positive risks, and to be creative. This reduces emotional shut-down, anxiety and stress, and allows your nervous system to move into a regulated state.Create Safety. Unlock Growth. Transform Your LifeWhen you approach living your life as experimentation, then your nervous system can relax. There is no failure, only information. Every outcome tells you something useful, and from that, your next step becomes clear. Instead of bracing for judgment or getting stuck in self-doubt, you stay in motion and feel curious, responsive, and grounded. The body feels safer when it knows: No matter what happens, I am safe and I know how to move forward. Success and failure stop being threats. They simply become signals guiding your next step. This is what makes a growth mindset particularly powerful. It regulates your nervous system as well as opening your mind which makes complete transformation possible.Just One ThingThis week’s “Just One Thing” action point to help you turn information into transformation through implementation is to notice what your thought patterns are when you make a mistake or get something wrong. Then, ask yourself: If this was an experiment, what information could I collect from this, and, based on that information, what is my next step going to be?Thanks for listening to this episode of Living Life WellI love FeedbackIf you try the just one thing action point for this week, I would love you know what happens for you. You can send me a direct message or add a comment to the article.Wishing you a life lived fully and well.Aroha nui, much loveand I look forward to connecting again on the next episode.Bye for now.Want More Inspiration, Information & Fun?If you want to be happy, healthy, wealthy and wise then you can subscribe for a weekly dose of inspiration and information from me. As my welcome gift to you, all subscribers receive a free copy of my short-cut guide Wired for Calm: Simple Nervous System Regulation for Everyday Stress Get full access to Living Life Well at janinelattimore.substack.com/subscribe

April Abundance ChallengeApril Abundance ChallengeListen to the 6 minute guided meditation daily in the morning every day for the entire month of April. I started 1 April NZ time, but you can start 1 April in your time zone or join in any time over the month.Link to the meditation recording on SubstackLink to the meditation recording on YouTubeLink to the chat thread on SubstackTranscriptChecking your phone first thing in the morning might be one of the fastest ways to increase your stress.If your days feel rushed, reactive, or overwhelming then your morning might be the real problem.What if I told you that how you spend the first five minutes of your morning could reduce your stress, enhance your focus, and even improve how you sleep at night? In today’s episode I am going to give you 7 quick and easy things you can do to start your day feeling calm, clear and energised.Let’s Start with Great Energy – welcome to episode one of the Living Life Well podcast.Kia ora and hello, I’m Janine Lattimore, a wellbeing writer and coach providing information and inspiration to make daily health and happiness simple.As this is episode one, I thought it would be appropriate to talk about starting with great energy, and particularly, how to start your day with great energy.What You Do in the First 5 Minutes of Your Day Matters More Than You ThinkHow you start your morning sets the tone for the rest of your day. How are you typically starting yours? Do you direct it with intention, or react to whatever the people and environment around you dictate?How are you setting your physical, mental and emotional energy in the morning? What are you giving your focus to because what you give your attention to plays a big part in whether you set your nervous system for stress or resilience.Do you nourish yourself well before you begin to give out to the world around you, or do you get up and run on cortisol and caffeine - and sugar?The majority of people launch into their day on autopilot responding to the agendas of other people through messages and emails, or the questions and needs of those in their household, or to the world through news bulletins.What if you started your day with first tuning into yourself and what is important to you and then flowed out into the world from there?What if you could take some small steps towards that?It doesn’t need to take long. Starting your day well doesn’t require a complicated optimal morning routine. It may only take five minutes to ground and centre yourself in your own energy. That small shift can reduce stress, increase the clarity of your thinking and connect you with your inner peace. It can also decrease feelings of resentment, rush and overwhelm that you then try to relieve through things like comfort eating, quick fix shopping or a few extra glasses of wine later in the day.There are a number of things that you can do nourish yourself first thing in the morning that only take a few minutes or make positive use of downtime like when you are driving. I have listed seven ideas below and one even gives you back more time.7 Easy Ways to Reclaim Your Time, Energy, and Attention1. Leave Your Phone OffI know that suggesting that you don’t check your phone first thing in the morning may actually stimulate a state of fear in some people, but doing this can have a big positive impact on how you feel starting your day. At least don’t check emails, social media and general chat groups, and only check personal messages if it may be something truly important. This one takes no time at all and actually gives you more time in the morning and you won’t get stuck in a scroll loop. When you check your phone in the morning as soon as, or soon after, you wake up, then you are setting your life by other people’s agendas; their messages, their thoughts, their demands for your attention and energy, and their topics. One of the easiest ways to feel better in the morning is to leave your phone off until you have prepared for the day. It’s okay, the world will wait. We survived very well before the internet and mobile phones were invented, and grounding yourself into your own energy first can increase productivity.2. Tune Into Your BodyWhen you wake up, before doing anything else, put your hand/s over your heart Chakra in the centre of your chest, breathe through your nose into your lower ribs and diaphragm, and notice what you are thinking and feeling from the perspective of your inner observer. Notice sensations in your body, notice thoughts come and go (if one feels important then you could write it down and then come back to noticing). Pause before moving into action for your day and let your body feel that pause. This gives you the sense of starting your day with mental space, rather than launching straight into action and rush.3. Engage With A Heart MassageIf you haven’t engaged in self massage before then this may feel strange at first, but it can be a beautiful way to soothe your heart and ground yourself. I usually do this after I have had my shower in the morning. Put some moisturiser on your hands and torso and then place your hands on your navel (bellybutton). Breathe in consciously through your nose as you massage with the palms of your hands up from your navel, between your breasts and then out to the sides round your breasts and back to the navel like you are drawing a heart shape on your chest. Breathe in as you massage up the body and exhale as you massage back down your body. Repeat this 3 or more times and then reverse the flow of the massage coming up the sides and then down through the middle and into the navel. You may like to begin and/or finish with placing one hand on your navel and one hand on your heart and taking a few slow conscious breaths into your diaphragm. I understand that many people don’t like the way their belly or breasts look and may not want to touch them. If it makes you really uncomfortable, then don’t do this practice. However, this can be an effective way of beginning to love and accept your body more. If you find it hard to touch yourself lovingly in this way then what you can do is love yourself for whatever you are feeling as you touch your body and let it be okay. For example, you can love yourself for feeling ugly. You can love yourself for feeling disgusted. You can love yourself for feeling sad. You can offer yourself love and acceptance for whatever you are feeling and let it be okay to feel that. When you let go of judgement and resistance to your feelings whatever they may be, then it opens you to integrating and transforming that part of you. It seems simple but can be very powerful. I explain this concept more in Step 6 in my book 10 Steps to Happiness.4. Prioritise Pleasure in Your To-Do ListIf you write a daily to-do list, add in at least one thing for enjoyment or pleasure and aim to do it early in the day so that it doesn’t get squeezed out in terms of time and energy. You can also prioritize your list in terms of what is most important to you rather than what is important to other people. (If you are the type of person who likes to plan out their day then there are more suggestions of how you can do this in an empowered way in my book The Great Life Planner.5. Use Commute Time to BreatheAbout two years ago, I decided not to listen to the radio in the car when I was driving to work in the morning and to do breathwork practices instead. It took me a week or two to get used to the quiet of not having the radio on, but after a while that tranquil, breathing time before work started to feel really good in my body. I felt a lot more peaceful and centred coming into the work day. I realised how much the radio had been stimulating my nervous system and distracting my brain. Now I do this practice whenever I am driving alone. I enjoy that muted me-time when I am driving and it is an opportunity and reminder to me to practice breathing well.6. Play Your SoundtrackThere are two aspects to this. For many people, music uplifts and energises them so just playing music you enjoy in the morning can help you start the day feeling good. The second aspect is to play your own curated playlist rather than listening to the radio or a random top hits playlist. The content on the radio is set to other people’s agendas and also contains advertisements and news which can move you emotionally in ways that may not be positive or beneficial. Be conscious of the soundtrack you are living your life to, and choose positive music that you like.Small Habits Shape Your Self-Belief, Choices, and ProductivityStarting your day with good energy does not require you to overhaul your whole morning routine or add in things that will take a lot of space in what is often already a small amount of time to get ready in the morning. The key is to intentionally set your energy first. It is like taking a pause to acknowledge yourself. That small action whispers to your subconscious — “you are important and you are worth spending time and energy on.” When you consciously show yourself love, even in these small ways, it creates a shift; a new neural pathway; an opening for something new; the curiosity of, “if I can let myself have this then what else can I let myself have that I need or desire?” Often you do not need to even change what you are doing, but just how you are doing it.Start with just one thing; just one small change in your morning routine. Keep it simple because that keeps it manageable and makes it more likely that you will maintain the change over time.Lastly, here’s the seventh option for Just One Simple Practice that you can do this week to start your day with great energyYou can join my April Abundance Challenge. This simply involves listening to a six minute guided meditation every day early in the morning. The best time to listen to it is when you wake up because that is when you brain is still in a receiving brainwave state.The meditation is designed to align your mental and emotional energy with abundance. It includes affirmation statements and energy alignment elements from Napoleon Hill’s teaching combined with elements to open your mind and body to relax and receive.If you don’t know who Napoleon Hill was, he was an American author and pioneer of the self-help genre, and is best known for his 1937 best-selling book Think and Grow Rich.If you want to join me in this, here are the details:April Abundance ChallengeListen to the 6 minute guided meditation daily in the morning every day for the entire month of April. I started 1 April NZ time, but you can start 1 April in your time zone or join in any time over the month.Link to the meditation recording on SubstackLink to the meditation recording on YouTubeLink to the chat thread on SubstackI Love FeedbackIf you try any of these suggestions for starting your day with great energy then I would love to hear any feedback from you about your experience.Wishing you a life lived fully and wellAroha nui, much loveand I look forward to connecting again on the next episodeBye for now.Living Life Well is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Living Life Well at janinelattimore.substack.com/subscribe

This meditation is designed to be listened to early every morning on a regular basis as a way of aligning your mental and emotional energy with abundance.  The meditation includes affirmation statements and energy alignment elements from Napoleon Hill’s teaching combined with elements to open your mind and body to relax and receive. Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) was an American author and pioneer of the self-help genre, best known for his 1937 best-seller Think and Grow Rich. Born in Virginia, he developed his "Philosophy of Achievement" by studying successful people. Get full access to Living Life Well at janinelattimore.substack.com/subscribe

Breathing is one of the fundamental aspects of life and when we do it correctly, it maintains the health and wellbeing of our whole mind and body. Conversely, when we breathe poorly and have poor breathing habits, it can lead to a host of issues like:* poor posture* muscle tension and back pain* fatigue* brain fog* anxiety* high blood pressureIn this video I demonstrate correct breathing posture and function and explain why instructions to “breathe into your belly” may actually be harmful.Benefits of the 28 Day Breath ChallengeI also explain three variations that you can do around diaphragmatic breathing and listening to your body for the 28 Day Breath Challenge which starts tomorrow. The basic action of this challenge is to stop and simply breathe and listen to your body for at least five minutes every day for 28 days. Here are some of the benefits you can get from doing this:* it provides a daily reset break for your nervous system* it is an opportunity to practice correct posture and breathing* it is an opportunity to listen to your body and notice what is going on with it* it is an opportunity to develop your connection to your body, or in other words, your relationship with your ultimate life partner* it creates a rest break* it may help you feel more relaxed and peaceful* it signals to your subconscious that you are worth taking time for and being cared for* it creates conditions for healingThat is a lot of benefit for just five minutes a day of your time.The Best Time is NowI’ll be honest, I am doing this for me, because I have been intending to do it for a long time, but doing it as a challenge gives me extra accountability and a motivational push. I am inviting you to join me. There is no right time to start doing this. In fact, the more you think that you don’t have time, the more it is a signal that you are over-extending yourself and need to make this time for your self-care.Breathing PostureThis practice is best done either seated on a meditation stool or cushion, or lying on the floor. When lying on the floor either have your knees bent and feet flat on the floor, or your lower legs resting on a chair and your pelvis and thighs at about a ninety degree angle, as per the photos below. If you are lying on the floor, place a rolled up hand towel or similar sized support under the back curve or your neck so that your chin is resting straight up towards the ceiling. These positions help to open your chest and relax your back and abdomen so that you can breathe freely. Three Variations for the ChallengeHere are the three variations for the breath practice that I talk about in the video.Variation 1Instruction Focus: Breathing in and out through the nose. Breathe in through the nose towards the back of the head (rather than up), lightly, slowly, and gently, and then let the exhale flow lightly, slowly and gently out through your nose.Body Listening: Noticing the BreathGuide your inner awareness into your body and observe your body breathing. Notice, the feel of the breath, how and where your body moves as you breathe, how your body feels as you breathe e.g. does it feel easy or do you notice places of tension or tightness. Simply observe what is happening in your body without having to interpret it or give it meaning.Once you feel comfortable with this and can do it without having to give it your full attention then you can try variation 2.Variation 2Instruction Focus: Diaphragmatic BreathingBreathe in and out through your nose as for variation 1. Place one hand on your upper chest at the base of your throat and one on your lower ribs. When you inhale, let your diaphragm contract down, and your mid and lower ribcage expand outwards to the front, back and sides. The movement may be small, even barely noticeable. Once the inhale feels complete, then let the diaphragm and the ribs come back to rest. The aim is to expand out and open space within the chest for the inhale, and then come back to rest for the exhale. Again, let the breath be light, slow and gentle. There should be almost no movement in the neck area. Focus the movement in the mid and lower rib area. If you feel your neck muscles tense then you are probably breathing in too hard. Soften the breath.Body Listening: Noticing the BreathGuide your inner awareness into your body and observe your body breathing. Notice, the feel of the breath, how and where your body moves as you breathe, how your body feels as you breathe e.g. does it feel easy or do you notice places of tension or tightness. Simply observe what is happening in your body without having to interpret it or give it meaning.Once you feel comfortable with this and can do it without having to give it your full attention then you can try variation 3.Variation 3Instruction Focus: Diaphragmatic BreathingBody Listening: Noticing SensationSensations are the language of the body. Your body expresses itself through sensory activation and information for example:* Temperature (hot, cold, warm)* Tension or relaxation* Indication to move* Itching, throbbing, pulsing,* Pain e.g. static or moving, increasing, decreasing, sharp or diffuse acheIn this variation you are not just noticing the sensation connected to breathing, but any sensations that arise in your body. When you notice a sensation (if you feel more than one start with the strongest, or any one), bring your inner awareness and attention to it and observe it. I think of it like having a conversation where I am affirming that I see and hear what my body is expressing. That’s all. As for variation 2, simply observe what is happening in your body without having to interpret it or give it meaning.If you feel pain, the instinctive response is to contract around it and try not to feel it. If it feels okay, imagine opening an area of space around the pain for it to fully express instead. This can feel scary, but in my experience what usually happens when you do this is the pain may intensify, but then a shift will happen. The sensation may change or it may decrease. Try it, and I would be interested to hear any feedback on what you experience.It Starts TomorrowI will be starting the 28 Day Breath Challenge tomorrow at 12pm on March 1 New Zealand time. I am aware that is a day early for many people in other parts of the world. You can start with me, or start on March 1 in your time zone. I will go live on Substack at this time every day to do my five minutes of breathing and listening. Obviously this won’t be very interesting to watch, but you can do it with me, or you can use the live as a timer to do it at another time.I recommend doing your five minute breath pause at the same time or in the same point of your daily routine every day to make it easier to remember to do it and to help your body feel comfortable with relaxing at this time so that it starts to relax faster because it feels familiar.Another tip, I play a music track that is about five minutes long as a timer while I do the practice because I find phone alarms a bit jarring to my nervous system. If you would like to do the challenge with me, then I have set up a chat thread (see below) where you can say “hello” and we can encourage each other and share tips or things that are happening for us through the practice.Aroha nui, much love, JanineLiving Life Well is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Living Life Well at janinelattimore.substack.com/subscribe

Get full access to Living Life Well at janinelattimore.substack.com/subscribe