Blossom Your Awesome Podcast Conscious Living With Kristen Manieri

Blossom Your Awesome Podcast Episode #136 Conscious Living With Kristen Manieri

Today on the show Mindfulness teacher and mindset shift coach Kristen Manieri joins us.

Kristen has been studying consciousness and conscious living for more than two decades.

She is the host of the 60 Mindful Minutes Podcast.

Check her out here -

https://kristenmanieri.com

To see more of my work  - blossomyourawesome.com

My YouTube

https://blossomyourawesome.com/mindfulness-1

Where I write and cover mindfulness and other things to help you Blossom Your Awesome.

Or follow me on instagram where I post fairly regularly and ask an inquisitive question or two weekly in hopes of getting you thinking about your life and going deeper with it.

My Instagram - i_go_by_skd

To support my work - my Patreon 

Transcript

Sue Dhillon:
Hi there, today on the show, Kristen Minary is here with us. Kristen, thank you so much for being here. Welcome to the show.

Kristen Manieri:
Thank you, Sue. I have to say, I love the name of your podcast. Blossom, you're awesome. I just think it just makes me just happy when I see it.

Sue Dhillon:
Oh, I love that. Thank you so much. That makes me happy to hear you say it makes you happy.

Kristen Manieri:
Yes.

Sue Dhillon:
So that is amazing. So Kristen, let's get into this. You are a mindfulness teacher, consciousness coach. You've been doing this for a couple of decades. You teach courses, awakened living, awakened mama, thrive course. Talk to us, give us the backstory on this, like how you got into this mindfulness space.

Kristen Manieri:
Sure. Well, I was in my twenties and just like a lot of people in their twenties, just doing the next step, you know, like finish school, get a job, then get another job, then get another job kind of thing. And, and wasn't really thinking a lot about what I wanted for my life. I was just doing whatever the next seemed like the next best thing was. And I started working for this company and it turned out that my new boss was a motivational speaker. And so my life started to be very steeped in personal development. I was introduced to this idea that we actually design our lives. They aren't just handed to us. We don't just sort of turn the key and just start living a life. We actually create it, or we can. We can create it by design. And so I worked with Richard and Sue, are their names, for quite a few years, and it just became this like... ground, this like an, you know, imagining like a garden where just all the right things started to get planted. And so when I left that company by probably like mid 2000s, I, it was already very familiar with me that I would be doing my own personal development. So I, you know, I read a lot, I love going to courses, I love going on retreats. And what I started to notice is that I was very lucky. to have just crossed paths with two people who were so steeped in personal development and were so passionate about it. That most of us are just living in our normal culture where we just watch TV and we go to bars and we go on vacations and those things are all great, but we don't really create a lot of time to reflect on how am I living, what matters to me, how am I growing, where am I at in my evolution, like am I actually participating in my evolution? And that really struck me as a, as a real shame, because I think that we, depending on what you believe, what happens in the next life, we can all agree that we at least only get this one for now, for now.

Sue Dhillon:
Thank you.

Kristen Manieri:
And what I, what I could see is that I want to make this life the best I possibly can, and to me, there's no better way to do that than to live very consciously. to live with a lot of awareness, to start to live very intentionally and very deliberately. So I guess as my evolution kept moving forward and more courses and more trainings and I end up getting my mindfulness teacher training and then getting trained as a coach and then a habits coach, all the pieces just started coming together and I was really felt called to teach and to coach and to bring people together. So. I don't know that that's really an uncommon story. I think you learn something and you just want to share it. You want to help help people. And by helping people, I learned so much from it. Like I continue to evolve and grow. So there wasn't like a light

Sue Dhillon:
You might

Kristen Manieri:
switch

Sue Dhillon:
go with

Kristen Manieri:
that

Sue Dhillon:
66.

Kristen Manieri:
got turned on. It was just a, it was just a slow burn for a while to, to where I am now.

Sue Dhillon:
Hmm, that's beautiful. And now, you know, tell us this idea of living consciously, I'm all about this. But for you, was there a sense of like prior to starting to be this way and living in a kind of a heightened state of presence? I mean, was there like a really obvious shift where it was like, wow, okay, this is what it means to live consciously? Could you sense and feel that like in a really prolific way?

Kristen Manieri:
Yeah, I would say that when I started doing my morning centering practice, which was probably, gosh, I want to say like eight years ago now, like this idea that I started getting up early on purpose to go and sit with myself. And sometimes that looked like meditation. Sometimes it was journaling. Sometimes it was just sitting there and thinking. Sometimes it was reading a book, but just this idea that I would take 20 or 15 or 30 or sometimes 60 or 90, depending on what was going on in my life, that I would just set this time aside to go be with myself before the whole day happened, before the emails came in and my kids woke up and my husband woke up. And that was the real game changer for me because it would be like

Sue Dhillon:
you

Kristen Manieri:
starting your day off with a green juice. It's like you, you drink that thing and you're like, God, I feel so good. And now you have this experience of like, oh, this is what health and vitality feels like. And while you may still eat a Big

Sue Dhillon:
Thank

Kristen Manieri:
Mac

Sue Dhillon:
you.

Kristen Manieri:
a couple of hours later, you touched into the height of your well-being. You actually had a lived physiological experience of like, wow, I can actually feel this good. I can feel, and in my case with the morning centering practice, wow, I could actually feel this connected with myself. And again, while I may lose myself, again and again throughout the day, I at least started with this, what I would consider like the rudder was pointed in the direction that I wanted to be going in. I was, I at least started with my hands on the wheel navigating in the direction that I wanted to go in. And that just made all the difference in the world for me. That to me was like, um, they talk about there's keystone habits, like some habits that, that kind of impact a whole bunch of little habits. Like it's a big one that kind of seeps into a whole bunch of things. To me, that was a keystone habit that was such a game changer for me.

Sue Dhillon:
Hmm. I love that. That is so beautiful. And now, you know, this idea of centering, like, do you have some practical guidance? I know you do for listeners to get started with like a daily centering routine. What are some

Kristen Manieri:
Yeah,

Sue Dhillon:
tips you can offer?

Kristen Manieri:
I'd love to. And I do, I have a little free course on my website at christinminary.com and you can, I think it's five days. It's been a while since I created it, but it's evergreen content. So it's always valuable. But one of the places I really like to start is to go find your place. Like where's the little corner? Where's the chair? Where's the bench? Where's the pillow? Where is there, where is there a place in your home that you can make? just yours for this practice. I like to start there because I feel like when habits have a physical anchoring in our world, it's like a place where we put it. It's like this idea of like everything in its place. If you've got too much clutter, it means that not everything has somewhere that it goes. And once you figured out where does everything go, there seems to be more order. I find that with a daily centering practice. It's like, where can I put it physically in the world? Where does it go? So start there, figure out is it that chair, is it that couch? And then go get either that one you already have, it could be a laundry basket, it could be a wicker basket, or you might go to Marshall's or something like that and just buy something for like 10 bucks. And now that becomes kind of your home base. for that space, so you put your journal in there. If you use like a little kitchen timer for your meditation, if you have a favorite pen, you know, I'm a huge proponent. If you're in a journal, love your pen. Like really love the way it feels and love the way your handwriting looks. You might put little books of inspiration or little books of prayers or affirmations or quotes. There might be a favorite author that it doesn't matter what page you turn to, you know, like a Pema Children or something always like, oh, that was so good. There could be little like totems or token tokens, you know, like a thing, a rock you found when you're in Sedona or something like that, but this box becomes kind of your toolkit for like, this is, this is, this is what I do with my morning centering practice and that doesn't mean you do all of it. You might maybe sometimes do meditation if it feels right, or maybe sometimes you just sit and listen to music and you just sort of bullet out what's on your mind. But I feel like starting with the place and with that little toolbox, first of all, I think people like starting there. I think it's just like a fun little easy project that you can start off with. And then you start laying down the foundation of just going and sitting there like two minutes a day, just two minutes a day, same time every day. Just two minutes. You don't even have to do anything. You don't even have to take anything out of your toolbox. Just go sit there for two minutes and just get in that habit. If I get up. brush my teeth and make my tea, I go to my spot and it doesn't matter what's happening. It doesn't matter what time it is. I just, this is the order that I do things. So just keep it really, really, really small to start off with.

Sue Dhillon:
I love that. That's such great practical guidance. And I know sometimes this idea of mindfulness and meditation can be so intimidating for beginners. And there's so many myths out there right about turning your brain off and all of this stuff. And people are like, I tried it, I just can't do it. And I love this idea of starting small, it just sounds inviting. So that's awesome. Thank you for that guidance. Now, you know, this idea, you are also a habit coach. So what's some guidance there on learning, you know, to, like you say, do it every day at the same time? Why do people struggle with forming habits and what's some guidance to make it more inviting or doable?

Kristen Manieri:
I think the main thing that causes us to struggle in habits is that we don't really understand kind of the science of habits, right? It's like if you're baking, baking is a great example because it's chemistry. Like if you do it wrong, you're not going to get the thing. You're not going to get the cookie or the bar or the pie or the whatever, right? Like you really do need to do a tablespoon of this and a half a cup of that. Like it has to be done like that. And I think habits are really interesting because we go in with a lot of motivation, a lot of enthusiasm. You know, if someone's listening and they're like, oh, I want to start having a daily centering practice, like they feel this rush of like excitement and like this fuel of like, oh, I want to do that. And it's unsustainable because... you'll maybe forget in a couple of days what I said and why that resonated so much with you and why that got you so excited or your, your sort of hedonic adaptation will set in, you know, we get, we just get bored of things. Once we've done something a few times, it doesn't give us as much pleasure as it did the first time we did it. So understanding that, that while we're using enthusiasm and motivation and willpower to try to get us to do things, we'll always fall short because those are not sustainable fuel sources. What sustains us is when something gets automated, when we actually no longer choose to do it, when it actually doesn't occur to us as a decision anymore. It just, it's just something that we do. And we, we know that that's true because if you look at your day, there's dozens, maybe even hundreds of things you do. with no free will, with no decision. You just do it because it's just always what you do, especially maybe you always just do it at that time. And this is especially true of our bad habits, right? Like if you're someone who just always has a bowl of ice cream after dinner, well, you can see that it just, it no longer really feels like a choice. And when you go to use willpower to un-choose to do the ice cream, Well, now you're in trouble because the brain has already got this really deeply grooved habit of like, I just eat ice cream after dinner. So I think the first thing is just noticing that if you're having a hard time starting a habit or stopping a habit, it's, it's, it's because of the way that we are designed as human beings, right? Like we're, we're, it's hard to break hat bad habits. because they're there, they're deeply wired into our brains. And it's hard to start good habits because it takes time and it takes some deliberation and it does not take willpower and motivation. So the key and a lot of the work that I do on habits comes from BJ Fogg who wrote Tiny Habits. The key is to

Sue Dhillon:
Three, two, one.

Kristen Manieri:
start with the smallest thing that you can possibly do for that habit. So let's say, for example, you wanted to go for a walk every day. What BJ Fogg would say is don't actually go for the walk for like the first two weeks. Just get up, go to the front door and put your shoes on. That's it. So the reason why we do that is because if you keep on going for the walk, eventually the body is gonna say, oh, this is hard, I don't wanna do this. Like, and now your enthusiasm has waned and now your brain's like, okay, let's use willpower. We'll use that to do the habit. But then after a while, it's like, oh, I'd rather sleep in. Oh, the weather's not great. Like something's going to get in the way. But if what

Sue Dhillon:
I

Kristen Manieri:
you've

Sue Dhillon:
think that

Kristen Manieri:
grooved

Sue Dhillon:
you're through

Kristen Manieri:
in is

Sue Dhillon:
with

Kristen Manieri:
like,

Sue Dhillon:
it.

Kristen Manieri:
I just

Sue Dhillon:
I

Kristen Manieri:
get

Sue Dhillon:
think

Kristen Manieri:
up

Sue Dhillon:
that you're

Kristen Manieri:
and I put

Sue Dhillon:
through

Kristen Manieri:
on my shoes.

Sue Dhillon:
with it.

Kristen Manieri:
I just get up, I put on my shoes. I just go to the door and I put on my shoes. Now there's nothing, there's no friction to that habit. Like anyone can just go and put on their shoes. Your body's isn't going to have to use a lot of resources for that action. But then it becomes this thing. It's like, oh, weird. Here I am again. I have my shoes on. Well, then maybe you might walk to the end of your driveway and then walk back and you do that for two weeks. So nobody wants to start habits like that because we want to do the thing where I'm walking a mile a day or I got my 10,000 steps, like we're in such a hurry to get that final result that we S we try to use willpower and we try to use enthusiasm and those things run out. And then we don't, we don't have the result, but if you can build it very, very, very slowly and it takes patience and it takes almost some humility of just being with yourself and being like, yeah, I, I know they seem silly, but this is actually what works. We know this works with habit building. Then you start having these habitual sustained actions that your body doesn't want to fight against you to do putting on your shoes. And now you have this automated behavior of like, I'm just going to put on my shoes. So I hope that makes sense. I know it, there's a lot of moving parts.

Sue Dhillon:
No, that did. That made really perfect sense. Because I, you know, in this idea of, I think, overwhelm versus kind of forming that habit minus the overwhelm, right? Where like you say that the whole walk is like becomes this whole other thing like, oh my God, I got to go for this walk versus just starting to kind of cultivate the practice. And now question, next question, Kristen. So, you know, being more present with stuff, like learning to actually, okay, so you form that habit, but then enjoying it, right? The walking meditation, being mindful with it. And how do we cultivate that?

Kristen Manieri:
Yeah, it's such a paradox, right? That we want to use habit, let's say specifically around mindfulness, right? Is we want to be able to create a habit of meditating every day or just sitting with ourselves. I don't even really love the word meditation. Like just being with ourselves quietly. Right. And, and what we know about effective habit is as soon as it becomes kind of automated, well, now we've hit it. Like now that's the Holy grail of habit. I don't. I just do it unconsciously without awareness. There I am meditating again. But what we're saying around mindfulness habits is like, oh no, but we wanna bring presence to those habits, which is the opposite of what the brain is doing. The brain is saying, no, no, no, let's go unconscious. And then we just do this thing without any resources, without any energy, we just sleepwalk through it. But we don't wanna sleepwalk through our mindfulness practices. It's a paradox. So... For me, because I know the habit of just being there with myself in the morning, that is an automatic sleepwalking. It's just what I do. I just go and do this thing in the morning. But what I change is what I'm doing because then that sort of delights the part of my brain that pays attention and likes novelty and is like, oh, what are we doing now? So I change up my morning routine, my morning centering practice quite a lot. I'll go months without formally, you know, quote unquote meditating. And I'll do something else. I'll on the insight timer app that I have, they have awesome courses. So sometimes I'll just do courses for a while, or I'll listen to an audio book or I'll read a book or I will journal or I'll, I'll be in a course. So I'll use that morning centering practice to kind of work on that or I'll make lists or if I'm coaching with someone, like if I'm getting coached, I might use that to journal. Like To me, what works for me is the novelty. When I change it up,

Sue Dhillon:
Thank

Kristen Manieri:
my

Sue Dhillon:
you.

Kristen Manieri:
brain goes, ooh, what are we doing now? And then that automatically has me bring more presence to it.

Sue Dhillon:
Oh, that is beautiful. I love that. Again, you just make it sound so inviting, you know, versus like, Oh my god, I gotta do this

Kristen Manieri:
Hmm.

Sue Dhillon:
every day. Right. And now

Kristen Manieri:
Well...

Sue Dhillon:
and I think people as far as mindfulness and that whole thing goes, I think a lot of people like you say, you're just want to sit with yourself and be in that space. But I think people are afraid of their own thoughts or

Kristen Manieri:
Hmm

Sue Dhillon:
you know, what's going to come up for them. So how does one get to this point where you invite that and you welcome it and you get that it's a beautiful thing and you're learning to be in presence and accept versus reject or fight it, right?

Kristen Manieri:
Yeah. Yeah. So it's such a great question. So I certainly wouldn't recommend that in like the first couple of weeks of your morning centering practice, you start journaling like about all your childhood wounds or the, you know, all of your worst breakups. Like it's not to say that those things can't come up for us, but that morning centering practice is like, imagine going to high tea with yourself. You know, like the ones where they put out the pretty sandwiches and have, like you, you would have that level of delight. Like you'd want to create that level of like indulgent, just special delight with yourself. So what would it look like? It doesn't, we don't, we don't have to get out the big shovel. Not only do we not have to do it at the early stages of our time with ourselves, our morning practice, Not only do we not need to do it sometimes, we could never do that. You could never ever, like when you go into the tool shed, you're just like, now I'm just leaving that big shovel there. I'm not willing or wanting to dig that deep. And I'm totally fine with that. So what, what would it look like? Does it look like having magazines and cutting out pictures of things to just make you happy and sticking them into like what you call a happiness journal? Does it look like. I have a lot of houseplants, probably almost 50 houseplants. Could it for me look like just puttering around my plants, you know, picking off some dead leaves, maybe moving the soil around, giving them a little more water? Could it look

Sue Dhillon:
It looks

Kristen Manieri:
like

Sue Dhillon:
like.

Kristen Manieri:
making lists? Some people get so much joy from making lists. In fact, there's journals you can buy, like the Book of Lists, there's books you can buy that just like my 10 favorite movies, my 10 favorite colors, like... The idea is not necessarily to be probing or excavating. And that could work too. Not, I'm not excluding that or taking that off the table, but for morning centering practice, like have the North star of it to just feel good. Like it just, I just feel good spending time with myself. And my hope is that the more someone does that. the more they're drawn to that throughout the day. So when they catch themselves at a dentist office, right, with a 10 minute wait, instead of just scrolling through Instagram or something like that, they maybe just grab a book from their person, just read for a bit, or they can just sit with themselves and think, maybe they can continue that list that they started in the morning of like their favorite vacations or their favorite people or their favorite sandwiches or whatever it was that they were. But the idea

Sue Dhillon:
Thank you.

Kristen Manieri:
is, is just that we become really acquainted with ourselves. Like we become friends with ourselves, we become an ally to ourselves. And so if any of your practice feels forced or... Like this is another thing I have to do. Don't do that. Take that off the list. I don't care if you collect stickers and you look through your sticker book for 10 minutes every day. The whole point is that you are aware that I am in here with me, that I have a relationship with this voice, with this soul, with this entity that is my, that is the me, the consciousness. And I spend a little time with her every day. Even if it's just for a few minutes, I say, oh yeah, I'm in here. I'm a person, I'm a consciousness in here. And I wanna connect with that. So yeah, make it fun, make it lovely.

Sue Dhillon:
Hmm, that is beautiful. And again, just sounds so much more inviting. I think it's all in the perspective, right?

Kristen Manieri:
Yeah. Yeah. Don't even, if it feels uncomfortable to sit cross-legged, don't sit cross-legged. Don't sit on the floor. Get a comfy blanket. Have a cozy pillow. Put on an infuser with like your diffuser with your favorite or you're gonna have a little roller of a essential oil that you say, or light a candle or like make it's yours. Like no, just because you saw somewhere that you're supposed to sit cross-legged and close your eyes and sit with your back. That's their thing. That's the way they want to do it. That's their journey. Go make it a beautiful, lovely date with yourself every day, just because why not? Why not spend a few minutes in this lifetime with yourself, being kind to yourself.

Sue Dhillon:
I love that a date with yourself. I have never heard it like that, but that is a great way to put it. Now talk to us about this idea of, and this is what you specialize in, this idea of living more deliberately and more consciously and with on purpose, with intention, because so many people are just kind of, you know, going through the motions.

Kristen Manieri:
Yeah.

Sue Dhillon:
Give us a little background on that and then some insights into doing that.

Kristen Manieri:
Hmm. Yeah. Well, I think the, how I can connect the dots is that when I spend time with myself every day and at a bare minimum, I want to have some idea of how I'm doing inside. Like, am I happy? Am I feeling peaceful? Am I, are there some things coming up that I'm excited about? Am I challenged? Like, am I feeling like I'm up to something right now? Am I, is there anything weighing on me? Like, I feel into like, what am I carrying around? Like, am I regretting something? Am I, excuse me, am I worried about anything? Am I stressed about anything? Like, I kind of do this kind of energetic, physiological, emotional check-in. What's, what's? This weather, right? Like what's the weather report of like inside Kristen today? And, and my, and my intention is that I like life should feel good. That's my belief. It's my opinion. And so if I'm feeling into like not feeling good, if I'm like, if I feeling worried or like, let's say I, I feel stressed about an interaction that I had with my daughter, she's 14. We have a lot of stressful interactions. I, what would it look like? So what it looks like to be living intentionally and living deliberately is to sense that I don't, I'm not okay with our, either our relationship or that interaction or just whatever the circumstances were and what intention and deliberate this looks like is like, I either create some change inside about it. So I make peace with that. She's just going through a tough time right now. And I. I'm very empathetic and I absorb a lot of her icky energy. And I just surrender to that, you know, like I bring compassion to it and just say, yeah, okay, she's got a lot buzzing for her emotionally and I'm absorbing it and that's okay. She's okay and I'm okay. And I have an intention just to be compassionate and to just bring peace and surrender to myself. Or I might decide, oh wow, there's a conversation to be had. I really got to... make a point of sitting down with her today and asking some more questions or sharing some feedback with her. Or I might decide, wow, I really see that if I had gotten ahead of that situation, if I had reorganized our weekend a little bit differently, or if I had seen, if I'd sort of seen that coming, then we would never even had that interaction. So then maybe I realized, you know what? I've got to do my laundry on Fridays. So I'm nowhere near the laundry room on Sundays and then she can just blow it up. And we don't have to have that, you know, kind of like friction together. Cause she just does laundry on Sundays. So see what I mean? So it starts with that check-in with myself. What, what, what am I feeling? What have I got going on? And then, and then I have a sense of agency about that. Like, what could I do to make this better? Because life should feel good. That is my guiding principle. Life should feel good. So what can I do to restore that? And I'll just really want to, I don't want to, to make sure to, what I want to make sure to highlight is that often the thing to do is not out there, it's in here. We, we, we think that I gotta go out. Everything's not good out here. So I have to fix what's out there and then I will feel good in here. That's often not the case. What's often the case is I need to feel good in here. And now whatever is happening

Sue Dhillon:
Thank you.

Kristen Manieri:
out there doesn't disrupt how I feel as much in here. So that first place to look is what can, how can I shift my perspective? How can I resource myself differently so that her static is less of an influence on my. inner peace. I just really underscore that because I don't know that always solving on the outside actually gets us anywhere spiritually. I think

Sue Dhillon:
Mm-hmm.

Kristen Manieri:
it's important that we see where we can do our inner work rather than always be fixing our outer circumstances.

Sue Dhillon:
I love that. That is such a beautiful practical guidance. And you're so right, like so many times we're just looking outside of ourselves for the answers, right? But those few minutes can give us a lot of insight. Now, Kristin, tell us, you know, for you, what is this idea of growing and evolving and spiritual growth? What does that look like and entail for you? where if someone is wanting to begin on that path, what do you recommend?

Kristen Manieri:
Hmm. You know, I, I, I'm a big reader, but that's just me. Right. So it's, it's something I love to do. I, I, I'm a, I'm a quote unquote good reader. Right. Like I read quickly and, and maybe I've developed that, right. Because reading is a skill and the more you do it, the better you get at it. But I'm quick to point out like, that's not for everybody. Like for some people, they grow in groups, right? Like, in yoga classes and a yoga teacher might just say something and that just sits, you know, it just stews in their pot all day long or, or it's a walk with a friend or it's a therapist or so I,

Sue Dhillon:
So when I

Kristen Manieri:
I want to be,

Sue Dhillon:
see a video.

Kristen Manieri:
I want to be clear not to be very prescriptive. Like reading really works for me and I read a lot and I spend a lot of time journaling. But I, I think for us all to figure out our own way to grow, because I feel strongly that we reflect the natural world. We are part of the natural world. We don't think we are, because we're the almighty humans, but we are filled with microorganisms and cells, just like all the other things that we're surrounded with. And what we know to be true is when you look out in the natural world. Everything is striving to grow. We were in Alaska last summer and you would drive by these like, like these cliffs with these sheer cliffs of rock. And there would be a tree growing on the side of like how it even found any soil was beyond me, but somehow it managed to grow into like this massive, massive tree. Or you see walking down the sidewalk, you'll see this one weed that managed poke its way

Sue Dhillon:
It's a

Kristen Manieri:
through

Sue Dhillon:
waste

Kristen Manieri:
the

Sue Dhillon:
of

Kristen Manieri:
cement.

Sue Dhillon:
heat. It's a waste of heat.

Kristen Manieri:
So we

Sue Dhillon:
It's a

Kristen Manieri:
see

Sue Dhillon:
waste of heat.

Kristen Manieri:
so much evidence in the natural world that we must grow, like it's actually in our DNA to grow. And

Sue Dhillon:
And if you

Kristen Manieri:
to just

Sue Dhillon:
do,

Kristen Manieri:
recognize

Sue Dhillon:
just make it.

Kristen Manieri:
that I am designed to grow. It is actually how we're designed. We're designed to grow. And when we stop growing, we do the opposite of thriving. We actually get smaller, we get sick, we shrink. And to just even notice like, okay, is it true for me that I am designed to grow? Where do I see evidence of that? And what would growth look like for me? Like for some people it would be, I just take a different way home every time. That just feels like growth to me. Or I, I forced myself to say something kind to the checkout person because that feels like growth to me. It's, it's this thing that I do that is a millimeter more than I was yesterday. Not in these quantum leaps. The animal kingdom, the natural world doesn't grow in quantum leaps. Well, maybe bamboo. But most things,

Sue Dhillon:
I'm sorry.

Kristen Manieri:
unless you're watching one of those, like those quick motion cameras that shows like how fast it went, and they don't grow like that. They're growing so slowly, and so are we. But I think we were kind of addicted to these quantum leaps. So I would say put, set the quantum leaps aside and start to see how can I grow. a millimeter today, like just a millimeter. I watch a documentary instead of what I normally watch.

Sue Dhillon:
Good luck.

Kristen Manieri:
I read one page of a book. I go for a walk with a friend. I just sit outside and look at the world. To me, that is just feeling into, do I feel it? Do I feel this drive to grow? And if so, what would growing look like to me? And make that very individualized.

Sue Dhillon:
Mm, I love that. That's beautiful. And again, kind of minus the overwhelm, right? Because it's just those little baby steps to start cultivating that practice. And growth is a lifelong journey. I think we, you know, a lot of times people think there's some destination, but like you

Kristen Manieri:
Yeah.

Sue Dhillon:
say, it's different for everyone. And it's a never ending journey. That is so beautiful, Kristin. Now, so a couple of things. First of all, you have been so awesome and so insightful and you've had just so much wisdom to share here. And I just thank you so much for your time today.

Kristen Manieri:
Thank you. I've loved this too. Thank you very much.

Sue Dhillon:
going to be sure to have links to all your stuff for people. And now in closing, if there were just one message you would like to leave everyone

Kristen Manieri:
Bye.

Sue Dhillon:
with, your hope for everyone out there, what would that message be?

Kristen Manieri:
Just be kind to yourself. Like we're all doing the best that we can and to have self-compassion, to me that's the bedrock of everything. You know, we think once I achieve this or do this or stop doing that, then I'll love myself. But it doesn't work like that, unfortunately, or maybe fortunately. It must start on a foundation of our own care and love for ourselves. So... That can't be bypassed. It really can't. We have to start with self-love. And I highly recommend taking Kristin Neff's mindful self-compassion course, or reading her book at least, she writes with Chris Germer. What a game

Sue Dhillon:
Thank

Kristen Manieri:
changer

Sue Dhillon:
you.

Kristen Manieri:
in terms of our outlook on our growth, that it must be paired with self-compassion. So yeah, love yourself more. Be kind, kind to yourself.

Sue Dhillon:
I love that closing message. That was an awesome close. Thank you so much.

Kristen Manieri:
You're welcome. Thank you.

Sue Dhillon:
Thank you.