271: The State of the World

You’re listening to the Vibrant Happy Women podcast, episode number 271. I’m going to be talking about the state of the world. Stay tuned.

Hi, I'm Jen Riday. This podcast is for women who want to feel more vibrant, happy, aligned, and alive. You'll gain the emotional, physical, and spiritual tools you need to get your sparkle back and ensure that depression, anxiety, and struggle don't rule your life. Welcome to the Vibrant Happy Women Podcast.

Hey my friends, Jen here. I want you to lean in, you as listeners get to hear some of my thoughts on the state of the world. I’m not publishing a book about this. I’m not going on TV shows to talk about this but I wanted to talk about it with you. I believe the world is changing. I can feel a shift energetically. I have astrology friends who say something has happened. I have other friends talking about down with the patriarchy. I see a lot of shifting, big changes in the world.

And the pandemic miraculously in many ways has been the pivot point to help us shift and swing to the other side of something. Now how about you? Let’s start by thinking about pre-pandemic self and post-pandemic self, who were you before the pandemic? And who are you now? What is different? Many of you might have learned to slow down, to connect more with family, to not want to be in the rat race.

It’s fascinating. I’ve been reading the news. I saw a Bloomberg article that said that people are resigning from their jobs in droves because they refuse to live with that level of stress and busyness anymore. Institutions are really changing, institutions of power, maybe for some of you listening they’re not changing fast enough.

But I find it fascinating as more and more people shift into the world of cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency or any currency being one of the big measuring sticks of power, money is power. It’s a decentralized form of power. There is not one government; there is not one person who holds all the crypto in the world. And it’s a flattening of power structures. So there’s that happening.

I’ve heard a lot of people on social media, and in books, and on TV shows talking about the patriarchy, letting go of structures and institutions of power that keep some people at the top and other people at the bottom. Now, these are all just big picture thoughts I think accompany this shift.

So coming back to the more specific view of our own lives how are you letting go of powerful ideas of what you should be doing, what a good mom should do, what a good wife should do, what a good employee should do? For example, a good employee should not cancel. A good employee should not call in sick. A good employee should work at least 50 hours a week or more. A good employee should hustle and grind.

A good mom shouldn’t sit down. A good mom should not nap. A good mom should cook beautiful chef level gourmet food. A good mom should have a home that looks like something from a 1950s TV show. And a good mom should be beautiful and thin. A good wife should be sexy, she should love sex. She should love all those things. She should be interesting and intelligent, and she should plan amazing dates, she should prepare amazing food. You get the idea. These shoulds come from structures of social power; social ideas that I think are shifting and changing.

Maybe, just maybe, this pandemic is a chance to leave all of that shoulding, all of the ideas that we should behave a certain way behind. And maybe the post-pandemic world, your post-pandemic self relies on how you’re feeling, a feminine energy instead of a masculine energy. Masculine energy is focused on results, the eye on the prize, specific narrow-minded focus toward a goal. And we need some of that, don’t get me wrong, and both men and women have masculine energy by the way. But we need the feminine energy too.

What if all of these changes and this pandemic are a signal, a big shift towards a time in this world of relying more on the feminine energy, being creative, being intuitive, listening to your body, honoring your feelings. Understanding that your feelings are communicating something and taking the time to listen to them. Understanding that we can feel the way we want to feel.

We don’t have to do anything, this decentralization of power; the crumbling of big powerful institutions gives us the chance to connect one-on-one with God, if you’re a believer in God, or with the universe to be very feminine. So feminine energy is flowing, letting things be easy, not driven by stress and achievement but more so by connection, creativity and flow.

So what would your post-pandemic self look like if you decided to let things be easy, to shift more into your feminine energy, at least for a time? Maybe you would, like many other people, resign from a job that was driving you to exhaustion. Maybe as a mom you would just throw out some bread, and PB&J, and apples for dinner because hey, carbs are carbs, protein is protein, let’s call it good. And by saying no to the gourmet meal maybe you could say yes to taking that walk after dinner and listening to your daughter share a poem she wrote that day.

By letting go of the past ways of doing things, by saying no to that rat race what can we say yes to now as we move forward? So why not take a deep breath, put your hand on your heart. I’m going to ask you a simple question and listen closely to your heart, to your body’s wisdom, to your thoughts and find the answer. And if you don’t get the answer right now, take some time later and meditate or pray and find that answer, or journal.

And here’s the question, deep breath. Who do you want to be and how do you want to live after the pandemic? Who do you want to be, how do you want to live after the pandemic? Bonus question, that might take this even deeper, how do you want to feel after the pandemic? What feeling would you like to be predominant in your life? If stress and exhaustion was your predominant feeling pre-pandemic, which is true for many, many people, what do you want to feel post-pandemic?

And taking what you know about thought tables, which I’ve discussed many times on this podcast, based on cognitive behavioral therapy we know that everything we feel is generated from a thought. So maybe before the pandemic you thought: I need to get this all done. I have to hurry, my kids need to achieve or they’re not going to be good enough, they’re never going to have a job. I have to prove myself. I have to do it all.

Stressful thoughts generate stressful emotions. And when you feel stressed you’re probably not connecting and probably not having all the results you could have. What do we want to think instead to generate peace, love, connection? What do we need to think to generate peace, and love, and calm? Maybe love is everything in my life right now, or all good things are coming my way, or I choose to let life be easy. I put people ahead of achievements every day.

You get to decide. You choose that thought that generates the best feeling for you. And when you feel good, when you feel positive, when you feel hopeful or excited you will probably take actions that are positive, that help you connect, that help you generate the results you want in your life, and maybe that looks like more connection, more togetherness, more downtime, more energy, more fun. This can be your post-pandemic world. It’s all dependent on your thoughts.

What are you thinking every day? What are you believing? A belief is simply a thought you have thought a lot of times? Maybe it’s time to let go of past beliefs that you need to achieve to prove you’re worthy. Maybe you’re worthy because you exist. Maybe your kids are worthy because they exist and all you really need to do is love them and let everything else be easy. You choose your thoughts, which will generate feelings, help you to drive your actions and behave in certain ways, and give you the result you want.

If you were tired of that result of exhaustion and stress pre-pandemic, create a new way, uplevel your thoughts. And if you need help with this, we do this all day long in the Vibrant Happy Women Club, the place to be if you want to unearth and recreate that new post-pandemic version of yourself, a version of yourself that allows, and lets things be easy and fun, and connective. And who can easily let go of guilt and the shoulds that have kept us and so many women stuck for generations.

Additionally as you get really good at shifting into this feminine energy, this creative and easy energy, you’ll be inspired, inspired to understand what your purpose is, who you are meant to help, how you are meant to contribute during your time on Earth. And you can start to create space to do those things, to be who you were meant to be, rather than just a cog in an exhausting machine that wasn’t working anymore.

So these are my thoughts on the world and my challenge to you is to listen and decide who you want to be post-pandemic, who you want to be after the pandemic, how do you want to feel? What do you need to think in order to feel that way? What do you need to believe in order to feel that way? A belief is a choice, it is simply a thought that you choose to think many times and you get to create that for yourself. I choose my beliefs based on how they make me feel. I encourage you to do the same.

Who are you going to be after the pandemic? I can’t wait to find out. Send me an email if you’d like and tell me what you’re discovering. You can do that at support@jenriday.com. And of course if you want help reinventing the new post-pandemic you, join us in the Vibrant Happy Women Club. I’ll help you figure out how to generate new feelings which will drive new behaviors and get you new results.

Alright my friends, those were my thoughts on the world. What do you think? Share your thoughts with me at support@jenriday.com. I would love to hear. Thank you so much for listening. I’ll see you again next time, until then, make it a vibrant and happy, amazing week. Take care.

If you enjoy this podcast, you have to check out the Vibrant Happy Women Club. It’s my monthly group coaching program where we take all this material to the next level and to get you the results that will blow your mind. Join me in the Vibrant Happy Women Club at jenriday.com/join.