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REW Karen Abrams | Unlock Your Power

You’re ALWAYS In The Driver’s Seat: 3 Keys To Unlock Your Power With Karen Abrams

REW Karen Abrams | Unlock Your Power

 

You have to avoid blaming others for what’s happening in your life because you’re always in the driver’s seat. It’s time to unlock your power and reclaim the life you desire and deserve. Listen to Moneeka Sawyer as she talks with Karen Abrams about unlocking your power and focusing on lightness and joy. Change is within you. What’s important is learning how to adapt, build resilience, and overcome challenges to embrace those changes. In this episode, Karen shares in-depth insights on believing in yourself while taking responsibility for the outcomes you’re experiencing. Tune in to learn more about confidence, self-worth, and shifting your beliefs.

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You’re ALWAYS In The Driver’s Seat: 3 Keys To Unlock Your Power With Karen Abrams

Real Estate Investing For Women

I am so excited to welcome to the show, Karen Abrams. Karen is a UCLA Educated Entrepreneur, Master Theta Healer, gifted intuitive, and international bestselling author. For many years, she has helped entrepreneurs and professionals with self-sabotaging habits to gain confidence, financial security, and personal fulfillment.

Karen works with clients worldwide to transform their subconscious beliefs and break free from trapped emotions, traumas, and limiting mindsets to build the financial and personal success they desire and deserve. She is known for integrating her energetic work with practical tools to bring about powerful results. Karen’s keen sense of humor, insights, and healing abilities have made her a rising star on radio, podcasts, and the international telesummit circuit in the Human Potential Movement. Karen, welcome to the show.

It’s so great to be back.

It’s so nice to see you. I met Karen in 2018 before the pandemic, and we’ve been keeping in touch. She did some sessions for me because I am a huge advocate of theta healing, and I learned it myself as a healer several years ago. I’ve been practicing my version of theta healing. I was so excited to see Karen’s focus and the way that she does it. She does it very differently than I do, which is awesome. It was healing for me because I got a completely different perspective on that. She was phenomenal. I wanted to share her with you. Karen, thanks for coming by to talk to my audience and share all your amazing wisdom.

Thank you so much. I’m so happy to be back in your happy space.

Thank you. Karen, let’s start by how did you become a healer. Give us the high-level version.

I watched a friend of mine change all of these major areas of her life with theta healing. I wanted to give you a background on her to know what was going on so you can relate to it. She’s a brilliant woman. She had a business degree from a great Ivy League school. She had big health issues that were very difficult for her to resolve. She had a long-term relationship that wasn’t going where she wanted it to go. She wasn’t making the money that she knew that she could.

She had a lot of self-sabotaging issues going on with her, like getting in fights with clients and her boss and all these things. Her friends were making $400,000 a year, and she was a fraction of that. She wasn’t able to turn it around by herself. She started working with the founder Vianna Stibal, who’s the Founder of ThetaHealing. I saw over a relatively short period of time that all of the areas of her life started to change in a big way. Her health got so much better. Her relationship transformed into the loving friendship that it was meant to be. She then started making money.

I went, “That’s interesting,” because that was an area that I was having a challenge with. When something like this work shows up so conventionally in somebody’s life, my antennas are like going, “What is that?” Vianna came out and did a beginning theta healing class. I love the class. I loved how she worked with the toughest people in the room. They changed in minutes with tough issues they were doing and looked years younger afterward.

Take a hundred percent responsibility for your life. That's where meaningful change happens. Click To Tweet

I remember after the class I felt like I could breathe. It was a three-day class. I remember walking through my apartment doing the breaststroke like, “What is this space in front of me?” I don’t even understand it. I had anxiety for a couple of years. I’ve been working with a therapist for a few years, and we got it down from an 11 to a 3, but a 3 still meant that I woke up every day terrified and that my heart was beating out of my chest every day. Nobody knew because I was like, “How’s it going?” I’ve got a great smile. I was like, “This is cool,” but what was happening was something very different on the inside.

I realized in that moment of appreciating all that space that my anxiety was gone. It was the first time in a couple of years that my body was out of fight or flight. It blew me away. I flipped out. I signed up for every single class I could take. I didn’t even know how to describe what I had been through and what it was. I knew I had to do it. I had to do it for myself, my family, and my friends. That’s as far as I got.

A few weeks after this, some of the symptoms started coming back. For anxiety, it’s a little bit, but by then, I was already in class and taking classes. I shifted away. You know when something in your life is an issue, and it’s up to here, and that slowly comes down until you stop noticing that it’s there and you go on with your life. That’s what happened. I can’t tell you the day that left, but I can tell you it did. I doubled my income. My relationships got better.

I believe that this changed the foundation of my life. I’m in a very happy marriage. We’ve been together for many years. We have a wonderful kid. We have a tight close relationship. Financially, everything’s going great. It worked out. There’s always growth to be made and things we need to do. I can’t say I’ve reached Nirvana, and I’m on the hilltop looking down, but I can say that life is amazing, and I have this tool with me all the time, and anytime I need it. I thank God for that.

I love that story. I love how you talk about, “It’s great, but there’s always room for more.” I was at a mastermind, and she said, “For us, there’s the yumminess of more.” You can be so excited, happy, and delighted with where you are, but there is this yumminess of more. What’s that next evolution? What’s that next level of joy or that next level of intimacy in our relationships? I also love how you were talking about yourself and how it started above your head. You bring your head down, and it starts up above your head, the stress levels, and then you bring it down until it disappears from your heart.

In a lot of theta healing, and I had this with many of my clients in the early days, they wouldn’t even remember what they had come to me for. You would do this session, and they would be like, “I feel great.” You have to remind them at the end of the session, “This is what you came for. You said you were at a 7, 8, 10, or 12 of 10.” They’re like, “What? That’s not even an issue.” You then try to talk to them next time, and they don’t even remember. For you, it was a process, and you remember the process. With Theta, sometimes it disappears, and it maybe not even a part of your memory base. If you remember it, it’s like it happened to somebody else.

I had that same experience myself. People would say, “Moneeka, do you remember when?” I’m like, “I don’t remember that pain, trauma, and all those things,” which is interesting. I don’t know if you do this, Karen, but I got into this habit of having people write it down. You don’t want them affirming bad things, but I would like them to write it down in their own handwriting what they were trying to fix, so I get to hand it to them and say, “This is what happened. Tell me what you notice in your life around that.” I don’t want to say magical because that takes it out of the realm of science, but it does feel in many cases.

REW Karen Abrams | Unlock Your Power

Unlock Your Power: A simple meditation allows you to connect to your inner wisdom source and also connect to your subconscious mind. When you make that connection, you’re able to access your bottom beliefs and change on the ones that really are messing with you and your life.

 

I agree. I remember I had a friend when I was taking all the classes. When we were towards the end of all of our education, she was like, “When I first met you, you didn’t even notice me,” I was, “That’s so weird. I don’t even understand that.” She’s like, “I remember we were eating together, and you were in your own world.”

Isn’t it funny? I understand. Tell us what theta healing is. Why don’t you describe it from your perspective?

It took me years to figure out how to do that. I don’t know if it did for you too.

It’s the thing with brainwaves.

When Vianna would describe it, I was so high in theta. I was like, “What did you say? I don’t understand.” What theta healing is a simple meditation that allows you to connect to your inner wisdom, source, whatever that name is for you, and also connect to your subconscious mind. When you make that connection, you’re able to access your bottom beliefs and change them, the ones that are messing with you and your life.

That is, “I’m nothing. I’m worthless. I’m unlovable. Nothing ever turns out for me.” With your permission, you can energetically shift these beliefs. Since we’re in the subconscious mind, we have access to all of these trapped emotions. There are things we’ve inherited, like trauma, anger, and betrayal. There are things that we went through of the same name, like sadness, grief, and all these things that have been there forever or for too long. When you’re in that theta state, your mind can talk to your body and help you release it. What gets replaced is unconditional love, understanding, and compassion.

What happens is when you take your most damaging beliefs and change them into your most powerful and positive ones, and when you replace these old toxic emotions with your most supportive ones, you start feeling better and lighter. You start making decisions in support of yourself. The dynamics in your relationships change in a loving way in your favor.

We have to practice self-care. We have to create that time where we're at the top of the list, because it's easiest for us to break promises to ourselves. Click To Tweet

The cool thing at the end of all of that, which was cool enough already, is that those barriers to following the great advice that you’ve heard and to take the actions that you’ve needed to do to move your life forward will come down. You start moving forward with more ease and focus, like a new lightness and joy. That’s what I have noticed.

The way that I used to describe it is very technical. I was scientific. There are four different brainwaves, but theta is the deepest brainwave we have access to. It happens naturally in sleep, which is why we talk so much about it, where you get messages from the universe and your subconscious when you’re sleeping. I believe it’s the place we are in, REM. Is that true? Do I remember correctly?

It’s right when we’re accessing our dream state. It’s at that point when we’re starting to space out, and we don’t know where we are. We’re on the fence between two worlds.

That’s the dream state, so you’re already asleep. You’re already gone way past alpha which is the normal meditation state that we do. You’re about to go into REM. You’re already deeply asleep and about to go into this dream state. You’re wide open for the messages, but you’re not getting the messages, or your subconscious is getting the messages, or they’re working through those messages that you’ve delivered to it.

It’s this interesting place. I’ve done some interesting things. What happens when you’re in this place is your vibration rises, and you’re sending your vibration out into the world. Readers, I hope this isn’t too woo-woo for you, but this is how it works. You know that I’m all about bliss. You know that your vibration impacts what happens to you, what you’re delivering out into the world energetically, and how you receive and perceive things. That’s why we talk so much about bliss.

You can use theta to create that energetic field. It’s like a radio, where you’re receiving and delivering. You can deliver out into the world and have this impact. I would have these things that would happen. I would have a tenant in one of my houses that was having problems. I remember once I got a call from a tenant that said, “Moneeka, I have lost my job. I’m not going to be able to pay for three months.” I said, “That’s fine.” He’s been with me for a couple of years. “I’m not going to put pressure on you, but let’s see what we can do about this. I am very happy to continue to have you be my tenant.” He was not able to make it one month, but he made up for that.

What I had done is I did my own theta process on his healing around money. I did it remotely as a surrogate for him because he wasn’t open to it. He got a new job. The next time I saw him, he was uplifted. We can’t heal other people. I’m not trying to say that, but I was healing that business process or that business exchange of money.

REW Karen Abrams | Unlock Your Power

Unlock Your Power: When you take your most damaging beliefs and you change them into your most powerful and positive ones, and replace these old toxic emotions with your most supportive ones, you’ll start feeling better and lighter and you start making decisions in support of yourself.

 

I’ve done this many times when I want to find the perfect tenant. I ended up with a house empty on December 1st. That’s the worst time to find a new tenant. I did a theta process and had a tenant within two days. It’s so interesting that we can use this not just in our relationships, our money, and our beliefs, but it’s the energy we send out into the world and the expectation that we magnetize back to us. It is a phenomenal tool on so many levels. Does that resonate with what you’ve experienced, too?

Absolutely. I remember I had a business mentor who said, ‘”Business is one of the most powerful vehicles for self-improvement because whatever we do or don’t do, it comes back to us.” The other description of theta is it’s like focused prayer. We’re connecting to that energy that makes everything happen and putting something positive into the mix. When we were talking about a cycle, what you feel inside you emanates out, and then the universe reflects that back. When you go into worry, which is this focus on a bad outcome. “What if this happens?” If you went into that space, it’s like, “He’ll never be able to pay. This guy that I love, I have to kick out.”

We all have a reaction. That’s okay. We got to come back from that afterward and go, “What is this triggering?” Get to the deepest part of that. Maybe there was an original wound, something going on, or something about being disappointing because you’re a people pleaser. You get to the bottom of that, and it opens up that space also for somebody else to move freely.

Everybody’s got a role in the family like, “Here’s the black sheep. This is the one who never makes it and can’t rub two nickels together.” Every time you look or think of them, you have this low vibrational signal you send out, like, “It’s okay to stay this way. This is how I expect you to be.” When you open that up and get yourself out of the mix, it frees them up to do what they need to do.

They do their own path. The thing is, we don’t want to be infringing on someone else’s path. Everybody’s here for their own learning, growing, or whatever it is that they’re supposed to be doing. As long as we deliver angst, worry, or expectation, we’re delivering our interference into their path. I understand what you’re saying about that. The result that you get is not always what you expect.

Have Faith

The universe works in interesting ways. It’s not always exactly what you expect. The next step to that is having faith that it’s happening as it’s supposed to. It’s not necessarily how I expected, but as it’s supposed to be. That’s helped me to go through that theta process, too, when it didn’t happen instantaneously, but to know that, “This was the first step. Now, here’s the next step.” It’s like that.

Let’s say he didn’t get a job immediately, but something else happened so that you could go, “I found a grant for him.” You don’t know how it’s going to show up. Even at first, it looks like contrast and something that appears negative. It’s like, “Maybe the solution to that thing is the thing that’s going to get all of this done.”

Having “me” time is very important. You need to have something that keeps you grounded and center that takes you away from your day-to-day business. Click To Tweet

Everyone you bring here, I’ll take a good educated guess that they’ve had some major thing happen to them that caused them to do the amazing work they were doing. In the beginning, it was the worst thing ever or somewhere around there, but they made it the best thing ever. Was it really that? We don’t know what we’re looking at. When we judge it in one way, we’re holding it in a space too tight of a box, and we got to open that up.

We can talk about this forever. Let’s talk about the driver’s seat. You talk a lot about you can be in the driver’s seat of your life always. What do you mean by that?

We’re always in the driver’s seat, even if we feel like we’re in the passenger seat, because it’s your life. You’re living the consequences of your life all the time, whether you’ve got a bossy partner who makes all the decisions for you or you make them yourself. This is about you. I want to give you an example. There’s an amazing statistic out there that you probably know that women lose up to $1.5 million in lifetime earnings because they’re afraid to ask for a raise. When they ask for a raise, they typically ask for 30% less than men.

We live with those results. We live with that vacuum. If we don’t fill it, we have this income vacuum that won’t take care of us when we’re older, yet if we decide and know that we’re in the driver’s seat, we can change that around and fill that space with something that’s going to support us when we need it. When I think of real estate, is there any business that has more of that in it? The decisions you make, don’t make, and the actions you take and don’t take turn up in a property, no property, worst property, or in the best. As you said, the best tenant is a nightmare. All of those things are always going on. We have to know that in order for us to come from a different and more powerful place to create what we want to create.

That was so powerful. I want the readers to sink into that. You are in the driver’s seat. You may feel like you’re in the passenger seat. I’m going to repeat this because you said it so well. You may have a bossy partner that you think is in the driver’s seat, but you are driving the car, and that is your life. You picked that partner. In your car, that person is the backseat driver. They’re in the passenger seat in your life. Not your life together, whatever that looks like, but your life.

I released a panel where I talked about conscious leadership and how we’re all leaders. It’s that same thing. We’re all leaders in this thing that we’re calling our life. We’re making our own decisions, even if that decision is to turn over all of our power to somebody else. That’s a decision we make, and that is you being the leader in your own life. That is you being the driver in your own car.

“I’ve decided that I don’t want that responsibility. I’m going to turn it over to somebody else.” Maybe we haven’t made that consciously. That’s maybe how we’ve been trained to live in the world, but you are still making that choice. We always have a choice. We’re always a driver in our own world. As I said in that panel, we’re always the leader of our own life, which can show up in many different ways. Talk to me about being in the driver’s seat in a more meaningful way, rather than, “You just are.”

REW Karen Abrams | Unlock Your Power

Unlock Your Power: When you lose faith in yourself, it’s going to reflect back out in the outer world and show you in a dissatisfying deal and unsatisfying client, whatever that is.

 

Make Yourself A Priority

Here’s the way you can do this in meaningful and empowering ways. The first thing you need to do is take 100% responsibility for your life. That’s where meaningful change happens. If we don’t do that and you’re always like, “No, it’s not,” you can’t be the victim here. You’re the one who’s painting the picture, so that’s first. The second thing you have to do is you have to create me time. There has to be a place in your life where you’re at the top of the list. “I am a wife and a mother of a teenager. I am a daughter of an elderly parent with health issues.” I know when I’m 4th or 5th on the list. That has to happen sometimes, but we have to create that time where we’re at the top of the list because it’s easiest for us to break promises to ourselves.

I don’t want to break a promise to my kid because she looks at me and goes, “You promised.” I don’t want to do that to my partner. I don’t want to do that to other people and see that look, but I can’t see the look on my face, but it happens. What happens is if I become disappointed in myself and break promises, I lose faith in myself and my ability to carry out my promises, which breeds dissatisfaction. This brings us back to what we were talking about before, which is if that’s what’s going on inside, it’s going to reflect back out in the outer world and show you a dissatisfying deal and unsatisfying client, whatever that is. We want to have that me time. That’s very important.

You need to have something that keeps you grounded and centered that takes you away from your day-to-day business, “I’m doing emails. I’m doing calls. I’m with clients.” You have to have something that’s completely away from that. Meditation is very important to me. That helps you stay grounded and centered in the face of chaos if that happens. Since we had COVID, we know that can happen. When things are great, and the skies are blue, it helps you soar. You can be happy for no reason. What’s better than that?

You talked about 100% responsibility. I want to go back to that. I talk a lot about me time on this show. As a women’s show and as women, we are the masters of taking care of everybody else and letting ourselves down. Building that faith in our own selves and keeping our promises to ourselves is as important. The thing is to make promises that you can keep. You’re going to make a promise to your child that you’re going to keep. You’re going to make a promise to your partner that you know you can keep.

When you make promises to yourself, make sure you’re making promises you know you can keep. In other words, don’t say, “I’ve got no me-time for myself in three years. Now, every day, I’m going to have two hours for a bubble bath.” You’re never going to be able to live up to that. It’s like, “I can do a five-minute meditation now because I haven’t done anything for myself for so long. I’m trying to build those muscles,” but you need to make commitments to yourself that you can keep and then keep them because you need to learn how to trust yourself.

This is important in business, too, because when you’re out there and don’t trust yourself, how are you going to make your own decisions? You’re going to doubt everything that you do. You’re going to doubt your promises to others, your ability to make decisions, and your ability to deal with the consequences of those decisions. That’s the biggest fear of all. It’s, “I’m going to get this property. What if it turns out to be this nightmare, and I can’t deal with it?” If you trust yourself, you can deal with it. You want to build that trust. This piece of 100% responsibility is hard. Would you say that you found that this is the hardest piece?

Yes. People tend to identify with being a victim.

Meditation is very important and that helps you stay grounded and centered in the face of chaos if that happens. Click To Tweet

Blame is the ultimate self-victimization. “The economy is bad. We’re in inflation. I can’t buy a house. Look at interest rates have gone up. I hate the president. This country is going to hell,” whatever it is, I don’t believe those things. I’m saying that this is what I hear. There’s so much out there that can victimize us that we have no control over.

We can vote. Some of us get politically involved, but we feel victimized by that. That’s the macro level, but then in our own lives, it’s like, “My husband’s bossy. My children are needy. My dog always is at the hospital.” There are all these problems, “I don’t have control.” That is self-victimization. You don’t necessarily have control, but what you do have control over is how you choose to respond. That choice to respond is what you have to take 100% responsibility for.

When you make a choice, and then there’s an outcome, you can be victimized by, “I made that choice. It didn’t work out.” Make the decision or the choice that you see this outcome, “That wasn’t awesome. What other choice can I make that will bring a better outcome?” We feel victimized by what’s going on out there. We can if we choose to, or we can choose to respond in ways that support our own bliss and joy in our own lives.

I agree with that. One of the things that I talk about in a session, and I’m sure you know this too, is the difference between responsibility and blame. Blame is a judgment, and it puts you in a corner. You have to get out of the blame. “I can’t get out of that corner because I’m bad. I did a dumb thing. How could I be so blockheaded? I keep pelting myself in that corner.”

You have to get out and heal that. All responsibility is, “Yes, I’m here. I did this. Every decision I’ve made got me here. If I’m that powerful, I can go anywhere. I just ended up here, but I can go somewhere else.” It’s a little directional change. I always talk about it like if you had a cannon pointed at one village and put it 3 degrees West, it would eventually hit a whole other place. That’s what we do. We make these minor changes that down the road will become huge, and we’ll end up in a whole different wonderful place because of it.

They’re little course corrections.

We do them. It’s life.

REW Karen Abrams | Unlock Your Power

Unlock Your Power: If you don’t have a really great self-worth of your self-sabotaging, that’s what’s going to show up in properties. You’re not going to get the properties you want, but if you do that inner work to clear yourself up and be in that blissful, joyful space, then you’re going to create that on the outside world.

 

It’s the way that it is. I took a class on flying a helicopter. It was so hard. Part of it is because those propellers don’t have wings, so you’re in constant course correction. You can’t even hold it straight because it will go the wrong way. In our lives, that’s a fairly dramatic view, but it is true. I say this in my book, Choose Bliss. We’re constantly course-correcting. From the moment we wake up in the morning, we decide what time we’re getting up, whether we’re going to push the snooze button, what we’re going to do with that time when we get out of bed, which side we’re going to get out of the bed, “Are we going to push these sheets back? Am I going to pet the dog? Am I going to run to the restroom?”

In five minutes of the alarm going off, it’s all these choices that we’ve made. Most of them are not conscious choices, but I’m saying that we are constantly on course correct. Each one of those choices could have been different. I could have chosen not to snooze the alarm. I could have chosen I wanted to drink some water first instead of running to the restroom. There are a lot of choices that I could make, even in the first minutes of our day, that will course correct and set me up for success.

It’s a thing that we, as humans, are constantly doing. It’s something we do anyways. Why not see it as your responsibility and keep that course correct in a way that’s going to support you as best as you can? You see the consequences and the results. If they’re not what you like, you course-correct some more. You do something a little bit differently. Tell me some examples of some of your clients that have stepped into this power of full responsibility, being in the driver’s seat, and those things.

I’ll talk first with a client I have worked with a lot. She has a tutoring business. I worked with her for a long time. She was towards the beginning of her business. Her gift was to teach young children. She could speak their language and loved them, but she didn’t have a formal education. It created this insecurity because she was going into the educational business. At that space, the parents are college educated or higher, and all of this stuff, and she’s coming into these environments. She also had very serious health issues that affected her memory, concentration, focus, and energy, which could happen at any moment. She had to be taking care of herself constantly.

As we said, business is a motivation for self-improvement. “What’s happening this week? What’s going on with you?” It was the insecurity that was playing. We would work on what are the root causes of all of that right at this moment. She could learn from it, let it go, and be like, “Cool.” She could work with her clients better. If she had a health issue, it’s the same thing, “What does it remind you of? What’s the root issue?” We would do the same thing, find the root issues, heal them, and move on. She went from an upper 5-figure business to a 6-figure business to a 7-figure business. She is looking to create this as an 8-figure business, and I have no doubt that she will get there. You can see the evolution. It was cool.

We’ve got another one who is in a relationship. This couple was in that tough spot. We all have those years where they’re hard or something. They kept disappointing, angering, and triggering each other to the point where they fought all the time. They had a kid, so the kid is in the middle of this and is not having a great time here.

I saw them separately. It was like, “What is your partner triggering in you? What’s the wound your partner’s triggering you? Is it by saying, ‘Pass the salt,’ or, ‘You didn’t get that done?'” We found all of those root causes and healed them, which gave them each more compassion for themselves. They were no longer triggered by what the other person was saying because they were coming from a different place, and they got it. It saved their marriage. They turned into this tight little happy family unit. They’re thriving even now. It’s wonderful.

Your net worth only goes as high as your self-worth. Click To Tweet

I have one in real estate one that I wanted to share with you too. I was working with a guy in commercial real estate who had some issues with his dad. We all have an issue with a parent somewhere. We got to the root of that thing. We’re able to heal it. He was able to forgive and have this beautiful outcome with him. Right after that, he had this $10,000 deal fall in his lap that came out of nowhere in real estate. He was like, “Okay.” It opened up a space that he didn’t know was filled with this anger, resentment, and withholding of love. Those are some of the amazing things that have happened when you can open up and receive this stuff.

I love the relationship thing that can help with partners, business partners, negotiation, and all of that stuff. It’s amazing. First of all, readers, have you loved this? I love theta, and I love Karen. I hope you’ve loved it too. In EXTRA, we’re going to be doing a sample session, and the focus is going to be being money worthy. I’m looking forward to that. That will be fun. How can people get in touch with you?

It’s pretty easy. You can go to my website, which is ThinkTheta.com. Contact me from there. I have my phone number and my email there, which is [email protected], so it’s easy for you to reach me.

She also has a free gift which is at BlissfulInvestor.com/Theta. Can you tell us a little bit about what the gift is?

This is a theta meditation that I call Enough Already. This is about letting you know what it feels like to have all of your needs met. When you come to the table with all of your needs met, you have the discernment to know what’s in front of you. “Is this a good deal? Is this a bad deal?” You’re not coming from that vacuum of fear, worry, or insecurity. You’re coming from this place of being completely sated and going, “That sounds great. That’s good. I’m going to pass on that.”

The more you fill yourself up with everything you need and the feeling of it, the more you will create it in the outside world. It’s wonderful. I also suggest very wholeheartedly that you do this right before you go to bed because whatever you end your evening with, it’s going to marinate in your subconscious mind for another eight hours. You might as well get the most bang for your free buck here.

I love that. You can go to BlissfulInvestor.com/Theta. You can take a look at that, but thank you so much for that gift.

REW Karen Abrams | Unlock Your Power

Unlock Your Power: Life happens for you, not to you. That’s going to help you react in ways that are really constructive and help you move into that space of creating the outcomes that you really desire.

 

You are so welcome.

Are you ready for our three rapid-fire questions?

I am.

Give us one super tip on getting started investing in real estate.

Regain Self-Worth

You got to remember this. Your net worth only goes as high as your self-worth. As we’ve been talking about before, if you don’t have great self-worth and if you’re self-sabotaging, that’s what’s going to show up. You’re not going to get the properties you want, but if you do that inner work to clear yourself up and be in that blissful and joyful space, then you’re going to create that in the outside world. It’s going to come to you.

What is one strategy for being successful as a real estate investor?

That is about getting comfortable with change. As we learned from COVID, we need to be able to pivot. We might not have to pivot all the way around, but enough to make that happen. Change is always with us. We saw a global version of it. We’ll never know if that could happen again, but knowing that you’re comfortable with it is going to build your resilience. If it builds your resilience, it’s also going to be this place that’s fodder for more creativity. Creativity is the mother of invention. It’s great.

It also gives you confidence that you can handle anything like what we were talking about. What is one daily practice that you do that contributes to your personal success?

I’m going to give you two because I already gave you the one that’s the biggie, which is meditation. Meditation saves me. When COVID hit and everything shut down, it’s the thing that saved me from staying calm and go, “What needs to get done?” This is the new little thing I wanted to give you. We also need little energetic practices. I always say metaphorically, “Stub our toe,” and we go, “Ouch,” and it starts to ruin our day. We need to be able to shift back into that positive energy.

Get comfortable with change. We need to be able to pivot. Click To Tweet

Here’s one easy thing that you can do anytime that happens to you. Let’s say something bad happens right at the moment, and you don’t get this client, or a deal falls through. At that moment, close your eyes and say, “Thank you,” and then ask the question, “How does it get any better than this?” What happens is when you go into the thank you, you’re going into gratitude. That’s the receiving mode. When you are grateful, you can’t be mad because you’re grateful. Even when it happens, it’s getting you out of anger or those things. You just keep saying it.

That, “How does it get any better than this,” is training your brain at that moment. Instead of saying, “What could be worse?” which is a lot of places we go to and get pessimistic quickly, you’re focusing on what’s going to be the better thing that happens next. That’s going to bring about a better outcome and bring about your actions, which will manifest a better outcome. It’s an easy thing you can have in your pocket at any time. It’s great. I use it all the time.

That’s so interesting. I love that. I’m going to try that. This has been so amazing. Karen, do you have parting words for my readers?

One of the most important things to remember is an old saying, but it’s a good one, “Life happens for you, not to you.” That’s going to help you react in ways that are constructive and help you move into that space of creating the outcomes that you desire. As I was saying, we don’t know if this event changed our whole life and, on that day, which might’ve been the worst day of our life, turned into the best thing that ever happened to us. When you remember that in the moment of something going on, it could change the way you react to it. What you were saying, and as a mentor of mine said, “How you react will determine your existence.”

There are so many tweetable quotes in this show. Thank you so much, Karen. That was so valuable. Readers, stay tuned. We’ve got more in EXTRA. We’re going to be doing a sample theta on being money worthy, which I love. If you are subscribed to EXTRA, stay tuned. If you are not, go to RealEstateInvestingForWomenEXTRA.com, and you can get this there for free for the first few days. After that, you can subscribe if you feel like it’s valuable content.

For those of you that are leaving us, thank you so much for joining Karen and me for this portion of the show. You know how much I appreciate you. I look forward to seeing you next time and until then, remember goals without action are just dreams. Get out there, take action, and create the life your heart deeply desires. I’ll see you next episode.

 

Important Links

 

About Karen Abrams

REW Karen Abrams | Unlock Your PowerKaren Abrams is a UCLA educated, entrepreneur, Master Theta Healer, relationship expert, and gifted intuitive. She is also an award-winning international bestselling author. She works with professional women to transform their subconscious beliefs and self-sabotaging behaviors to create new habits, mindsets and actions that bring about personal and financial fulfillment. Graduated in psychology.

Karen has honed the skills critical to Theta Healing, and as a student of meditation, her insight and intuition allow her to identify and pinpoint root causes of long-standing issues to create new understandings, forgiveness and strong inner resources. She has worked with thousands of clients worldwide who are at a crossroads in their lives- helping them heal the underlying causes of their issues and get clarity and understanding on how to move forward from there. Karen is dedicated to helping women break free from living in survival mode so they can bring about fulfilled, healthy and balanced lives.

 

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Learn how to create a consistent income stream by only working 5 hours a month the Blissful Investor Way.

Grab my FREE guide at http://www.BlissfulInvestor.com

REW 91 | Financial Freedom

Financial Freedom And Bliss With Caterina Rando – Real Estate Women

REW 91 | Financial Freedom

 

You deserve to enjoy your life, but sometimes, you just can’t feel that sense of fulfillment no matter how hard you try. You could not get the feeling of ultimate happiness you’ve always dreamed of because of different circumstances or tragedies. So, it’s time to explore the possibilities. In this episode of Expand Your Fempire with Caterina Rando, Moneeka Sawyer shares the key things that helped her overcome the challenges and trials in her life that made her stronger, braver, and wiser. As Monica attains financial freedom and wealth, it helps her reach her goals and experience bliss in her life. Tune in to learn how to acquire yours!

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Listen to the podcast here

 

Financial Freedom And Bliss With Caterina Rando – Real Estate Women

Real Estate Investing For Women

As you might imagine, as a podcaster, I am often invited to be on other people’s shows, which I love. It is such an honor and it is so much fun. Every once in a while, I am on a show that is so good. We cover stuff that I haven’t covered elsewhere and sometimes I want to share those conversations with you. This conversation that I had with a good friend of mine, Caterina Rando, is one of those conversations. I thought this might be exactly what you need as we were heading into the New Year, so I wanted to share it with you. Here is the episode with me and Caterina. I hope you enjoy it.

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Welcome back to another episode of the Expand Your Fempire Show. I am extra blissing to be with you because I have the Blissful Millionaire, Moneeka Sawyer, as my very special guest on this episode. She is a dear friend, a TEDx speaker and a real estate mogul. What I want you to know about Moneeka is that she embodies bliss and lights up every room she walks into. You cannot be with her and not leave blissing. Moneeka, thank you for being here.

Thank you so much for having me. You made me blush. That was so cool.

We have been to Hawaii and on other adventures together. You are always so wonderful to be with. You are a leader. You don’t just teach about bliss and you not only live your bliss, but you bliss every room that you are in. I am so happy to have you. Let me have you share a little bit about your entrepreneurial journey because you are living an amazing life. You travel all the time and you have financial freedom. How did you get from that blissing little girl to where you are?

REW 91 | Financial Freedom

Financial Freedom: Bliss is that deep sense of joy and contentment with life so that you know that anything that comes your way, you can handle it emotionally.

 

Thank you so much for asking that. It is a journey that is a little bit unexpected. It is not something people would expect to hear from me when they meet me. I was not a blissing little girl. I was a tormented, bullied little girl because I lived in what you might call a Lily-White community in Ohio and was the only person that was not White. I’m Indian so I got bullied and treated very badly. From a very young age, my journey, passion, and the thing that I focused on most were how was I going to be happy because people were not kind. I was like, “Could I be happy?” That journey towards bliss started as a very young girl trying to survive and figure out how to be happy.

The journey went on for many years. We have eventually moved to California, but things didn’t get much better. In high school and college, I became a people-pleaser. I wanted to make other people happy because I thought other people being happy would make me happy if they liked me. How many of us girls can relate to that? We were like, “If they like me, I will be happy.” Horrible bullying happened were things that boys do to girls happened. Eventually, I left for college and found that no matter how hard I tried, it didn’t get better. I put my strong face forward. I always had a big smile. I was always the nicest person in a room and people were so unkind.

The one thing that kept me sane through most of my life was I was a dancer. I started dancing when I was five. All of you ladies know exercise helps with the endorphins, our confidence and keeping us strong. Plus, I loved it, so it was my anchor throughout my entire life. I got in this car accident when I was 21. I became a cripple and lost my legs.

I did not lose them but I couldn’t use them anymore, so I even lost dance. At that point, I fell into such an incredible depression. I wanted it to be over. I had been depressed and in bed crying for a week. I remember one morning, I woke up and I heard my mom’s voice in my head. My mom says, “Moneeka, get out of bed. Get some air so you will feel better.” I pushed the covers over my head, swung my legs over the side of the bed and tried to stand up. My legs were so weak that I fell to the ground.

At that moment, I sat there crying and prayed. I said, “God, I can’t keep doing this, so either bring me home or teach me how to live.” About an hour later, a girlfriend called me, who I hadn’t heard about for years. I tell her frequently that God sent her to me at that moment. She turned me on to a coach and that coach is the man that saved my life because he taught me that we are all born in these little blissful bundles of joy. We come into the world so full of excitement of being alive, learning, and experiencing. We were blissing, and then life teaches us that it is hard and bliss is okay. He told me that my journey and all the study that I had done were going to serve me. He was going to help me get back to where I needed to go, and so we did.

It all starts with the decision. I wrote a book called Choose Bliss, and the reason I say choose bliss is because it always starts with a choice. Bliss is a choice and it started with a choice. It didn’t mean that the journey was easy, but it meant that the journey started, I was committed to it, and therefore, it could happen. That is how the whole bliss thing started for me.

We are all born in these little blissful bundles of joy. We come into this world full of the excitement of being alive, learning, and experience.

The first thing you did with your coach, did you choose bliss? Was that the first step?

I chose to live, which was not the first step and then the next choice was to try to find happiness. At that time, it was this very basic, “I didn’t want to be miserable.” Sometimes, the first step is to not be something. As we worked together, I expanded so great because it was truly in my heart to experience bliss. Also, I want your audience to know how I define bliss. Bliss is not being happy all the time. Bliss is that deep sense of joy and contentment with life so that you know that anything that comes your way, you can handle it emotionally. It is emotional mastery and resilience. That wasn’t where I started but that is where I wanted to go.

He hired me on as an executive coach underneath him and I found that there were all these people that I worked with that were multi-millionaires. I would go into their offices. They had a great job and a beautiful wife. At that time, all the executives were men. They have these beautiful children and beautiful homes in the Silicon Valley but they were miserable, so I became the Bliss Coach.

I took what I had learned through my own experience and taught them how to bring their passion, motivation and bliss back into their lives. I could only reach so many people in coaching or speaking, so I wrote a book called Choose Bliss. That is where I grounded this idea of bliss, where I defined what we were looking for and the specific steps on how to get there based on my experience with myself and my clients.

You know that I am a huge fan of focusing on bliss and I host the Bliss Retreat, which I’m looking forward to. For someone reading who wants more bliss and does not have it, let’s keep it out of business. We are going to go to business shortly. How do they bliss more in their life? What tips do you have for them?

I have already said that it is a choice and I know that sounds trite. We hear this all the time. I want to be clear. Learn from what has happened to me. There has been abuse and a lot of horrible things that have happened in my life. The thing that I realized is that I was not going to be able to be a happy person unless I was willing to get past that somehow. The very first thing is to understand that bliss is a choice and here is the next piece of that. We can’t control what happens out there in the world. We can’t control other people, what happens to us or what people do to us, but we must always control how we choose to respond. That is the ultimate key to living a life of bliss. That is the start. After that, we have got some techniques. There are many in the book, so take a look at it.

I do tend to agree about choosing bliss. What I also have seen and know is that for women entrepreneurs who are the women that I focus on and our key audience here, one thing that can impact your bliss is when you are struggling financially. You are concerned about whether you can pay your bills and if you can deliver what you promised to your clients because your financial situation is challenging.

People may be in that situation. What I also know about you is that you have created financial freedom for yourself. I would like to shine the spotlight a little bit on that because that is a place where you are like, “I choose bliss but if I can’t pay my bills, it is hard to keep choosing bliss for a lot of people.” Can you talk a little bit about your financial freedom journey? Let’s give some super tips to our audience.

REW 91 | Financial Freedom

Financial Freedom: We can’t control what happens out there in the world, and we can’t control other people, but we can control how we choose to respond.

 

That is what my TEDx is about. My TEDx is called Who is the Boss of You? It is about living a life of choice. At the age of 21, when I got out of school and looked for my first job, I was lucky enough to recognize that if I wanted to be free, marry the man that I wanted, and have the life that I wanted or be able to live in choice. I had to have the financial wherewithal to make that happen, so I wasn’t desperate to get married, get a job or sell myself into society. For me, it became this journey very early on that financial freedom was the key to my freedom and choice in life.

It is interesting because part of why TED wanted me to talk about this is because it is so controversial. People do not want to recognize that money is an important piece of freedom. It is not necessarily happiness, but freedom often leads us to happiness. Money buys us freedom. Freedom buys us choices. Choices can buy us happiness. For me, my big focus is empowering women so that they understand that they need to focus on money.

It is not the most important thing in the world but it is certainly important, and a lot of women want to ignore it or turn their back on it. They feel somehow wrong if they are focusing on the money. I will back up a little bit and say that you don’t want to be selling services to someone that they don’t need. Money is a king but money should be the thing that sets your foundation so that you can be of service in the biggest, best way possible.

For me, I found that I did that through real estate. I had my businesses and I was in corporate. My side hustle was real estate. Even in the very beginning or when I wasn’t wealthy, the one thing that I knew was I would always be okay because I had this asset. Whether the bills were bothering me or what was going on, I knew that I was always going to be okay. As that asset grew and I grew that side hustle that I paid very little attention to, the freedom came within 10 to 15 years. I knew that I would never have to worry about money, so whether I was coaching, speaking, or whatever it was that I was doing, I didn’t have to struggle to make money. I knew I was taking care of it. I could do what I felt was right and give my very best.

Freedom often leads us to happiness, but money buys us freedom. Freedom buys us choices, and choices can buy us happiness.

I want to jump back for a second, Moneeka. We need to shine the spotlight that women can make a living or a business doing what they love that may or may not be their source of wealth. I also have some real estate and I call it my old lady money because I believe that as long as I can give a talk, I can come home with clients. There may also be a day when I can’t give a talk or I don’t want to come home with clients. That is what my real estate is for. It does provide this feeling of security and the feeling of knowing that you are going to be okay financially, thus giving us more freedom. Real estate is not the only solution.

I do emphasize with my clients the importance of creating financial surplus and looking at how to create financial surplus so that they are okay with those things that are unexpected. I do feel that a lot of women who don’t value money as a high value have their attention on serving and helping, which is great. We want to be sure, though, that we were filling our cup first so we were not trying to give from an empty cup, and therefore, we can also be enjoying our journey more. What are your thoughts?

I want to highlight that. You cannot pour a cup of tea out of a pot if the pot is empty. Your life is that cup and what is inside you is the tea. You’re the pot. If you are empty, there is nothing to give. You can go out there, keep trying and pushing, but that is why we have sickness and disease, why women get very depressed and on medications because we were not taking care of ourselves. This is not just a trite talk about self-care and building yourself up. It is real. The most courageous thing that we can do is to take care of ourselves. People think it is the opposite. You take care of others and then that takes care of you.

As women, we do get so much from giving to others. It does feed us but remember, you are first because if there is nothing left in you, there is nothing left to give. It does matter financially. Part of filling yourself up is making yourself feel safe, taking care of your bills, and making sure that everything is paid so that you can be solid in the world that you are safe because that matters. Women don’t want to pay attention to that. Money has gotten a stigma. That is what I think but it’s not. It is a girl thing too. We need the money to make our lives work, safe and stable.

Moneeka, you have been kind enough over the years to support our charities through the community. We have our charities that support women and girls. You have organizations that you are involved with supporting youth and education. When we take time away from our business to do our philanthropy, we can’t do that consistently if we are struggling. One of the things that financial ease does is it gives you a choice to take some of your time and invest that time in the causes that you care about, and that has been extremely rewarding.

I remember one day I was sitting in traffic near the Bay Bridge in the Bay Area. I was high vibration blissing in my car even though I was in traffic because we had raised $10,000 for one of our charities. Another way to bliss in your life is when you are helping other people. You are not able to do that consistently when you do not have financial ease.

The other thing, though, is that during the pandemic, I haven’t been able to kiss or hug all my ladies. As a result, I have been sending them cards and note cards. We have made this bliss roll-on aromatherapy that we gave everybody. I have spent so much money on postage, and fortunately, everybody knows I have a crush on my mailman, Antonio, who gives me excellent service.

Here is the thing. You can’t do all those little special things when you are stressed financially. The other thing is it impacts your ability to think about the future and what possibilities you can create for yourself in your life when you have no resources. I love what you were saying that when you have financial freedom, it gives you a choice for your whole life. That is what we want for our audience. Moneeka, let’s talk to the audience. They are reading and saying, “I get it.” What steps do we want them to take?

REW 91 | Financial Freedom

Financial Freedom: You cannot pour a cup of tea out of a pot if the pot is empty. Your life is that cup and what’s inside you is the tea. If you’re empty, there’s nothing to give.

 

First, decide if both of these pieces are important to you. We have been talking about bliss and wealth. It does start with a choice. Choose that it is important for you. It is a choice and it starts as simple as that. The first thing is you are going to have a relationship with the joy in your life and with money that brings you joy. That is why I call myself the Blissful Millionaire because the focus is on keeping even the conversation about money joyful. It supports all that bliss in my life not just by giving me freedom, but the actual process is a blissful one.

The next step is to find one little step in each of those areas that you can take. Don’t allow it to be overwhelming. You can eat a big chocolate cake but it takes one bite at a time. What is that bite going to be on the bliss side and also on the wealth side? Beginning steps should have something to do with your relationship, those ideas in your own life, and the role that they play for you. Make a decision, find what that first step is, and then take that first action towards achieving that first step.

You have a way of making me feel like there are so many possibilities. You have shared with our audience your phenomenal book, Choose Bliss, which I highly recommend. How can everyone connect with you? Is there any excitement that you want to share that you are up to?

Go to BlissfulInvestor.com. You will find all my books there and my show, Real Estate Investing for Women. If you are interested a little bit, peaked on that. We have a blog. You will find out all kinds of information there. I did a TED Talk called Who is the Boss of You? It is about this journey of financial freedom to creating a blissful life so you can look that up. It is on TED.com under Moneeka Sawyer. I will eventually have it loaded up on my website. That is what’s been going on.

You bliss every conversation that you are in. You bliss me out to be with you. Readers, we want you to have more bliss in your business and life. Choose bliss, get more bliss and do that through selling more, serving more, and the thing that will bliss you out the most uplifting more lives.

 

Important Links

 

About Caterina Rando

Caterina Rando is a master certified coach, business strategist and author of the national best-seller Learn to Power Think from Chronicle Books 2002. Caterina is also the creator of two live events, The Sought After Speaker Summit and the Business Breakthrough Summit.

 

 

 

 

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To see this program in video:

Search on Roku for Real Estate Investing 4 Women or go to this link: https://blissfulinvestor.com/biroku

On YouTube go to Real Estate Investing for Women

Optimize Your Bliss Even Now! With Dr. Maegan Renee & Francois Braine-Bonnaire

REW 4 | Optimize Bliss

 

It’s a challenge to keep sane with all the toxicity in the world that surrounds us, pandemic or no pandemic. Tune in to this episode to learn how you can practice self-care, optimize your bliss and achieve a balanced and stress-free life. Joining Moneeka Sawyer for this is the power couple of life optimization, Francois Braine-Bonnaire and Dr. Maegan Renee, co-founders of ToBeOptimized.com. Between the two of them, Francois and Maegan possess a wealth of knowledge and experience in counseling, consulting and life coaching. Among other specializations, they are also experts on social media detox, for which they have created a method and written a book, both of which are covered in this episode.

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Listen to the podcast here

 

Optimize Your Bliss Even Now! With Dr. Maegan Renee & Francois Braine-Bonnaire

We have our wonderful friend, Francois Braine-Bonnaire, and his incredibly lovely wife, Dr. Maegan Renee. Dr. Maegan Renee is a Licensed Professional Counselor and holds a PhD in Counselor Education and Supervision. She is the Owner of M.R. Counseling and Consulting and Cofounder of ToBeOptimized.com. She has presented on topics of mental health at national conferences around the country. She has publications on topics such as social isolation, early childhood mental health, and social media detox. She has many years of experience in the field of counseling, working with children, adolescents and adults. She also is the social-emotional coordinator for Florida Atlantic University.

Francois is a real estate investor and an international serial entrepreneur and certified life coach. Born and raised in Paris, France, he holds dual French and American citizenship. He is the Cofounder of ToBeOptimized.com and co-author of 21 Day Social Media Detox Journal with Dr. Maegan Renee. He’s also a contributing author of the book, Real Estate Investing for Women: Expert Conversations to Increase Wealth and Happiness the Blissful Way with me.

With the Turnkey Real Estate business founded in 2010, that continues to grow. He has helped more than 200 families from 15 countries around the world to successfully invest in more than 600 rental properties in the United States. He has a passion for helping people through both real estate investment and life coaching. He comes from a place of the heart. I love this transition that he’s making to also help with life coaching, because you could tell, even when he was talking about investing, he’s about empowering people to make their blissful lives possible. Welcome back, Francois and it’s nice to meet you, Maegan, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Moneeka. It’s great to be here and meet you as well.

Maegan, could you tell us about who you are and how you’ve gotten to where you are?

I am born and raised in Alabama. I grew up in a small rural town and grew up to two parents who worked at a blue jean factory. Growing up, we did not have a lot of resources, and the school I attended did not have counseling resources. It was quite a challenging experience that molded who I am. I’ll be talking about how I got on the path of counseling. When I was in school, I experienced a lot of bullying, low self-esteem. I don’t know that many people escape middle school without those experiences. With those adversities, I decided one day, “I wanted an education.” I was the first in my family to get a college education. I knew I wanted to help youth, teens, and adults that had gone through experiences similar to my own or other adversities in life. I started volunteering at a young age, working with individuals through therapeutic horseback riding. My path went into Special Education Counseling and my PhD in Counseling because I wanted to give back on a larger scale and work with our future counselors and training them.

I went through a huge amount of bullying also. My sister-in-law is blonde, gorgeous, tall, she was one of the popular kids, which I never had the benefit of. I had a conversation with her and she said to me, “High school was hard because I never felt like I fit in.” Even the popular kids have this same issue. It shows up differently in our lives, but it still shows up. I was a colored person in a white community. I got bullied because of that, but we’ve all had these experiences and it’s valuable. This work as adults. Success cannot happen unless we feel supported and we are able to lift our own self-esteem and because of that history for all of us, sometimes it becomes a little difficult. The work you are doing is important. Talk to me about that piece, mental health in business and in life. Why and how can that be important?

I like to use an analogy that seems to reach a lot of people when it comes to mental health and self-care. For some people, they almost feel guilty about self-care and doing things that are for them. I like to talk about the fact that when you get on an airplane, one of the first things they do, when they talk about the emergency procedures, they say, “If there is a need for a mask, put the mask on yourself. Because if you pass out, you’re not going to be able to help the person closest to you.” It’s like that in mental health and self-care too. If you’re not taking care of yourself first, then you’re not going to be able to take care of those closest to you. When we can reframe it that way, especially for women, we can realize that, “This is an act of self-kindness to myself, but also to those I’m closest with.”

Maegan, I love that analogy. One of the things that’s interesting about that is everybody uses it. I’ve heard that ten times on my show. Why? Because it’s relevant. Ladies, this analogy is given because it’s real. What happens is we hear that and we go, “Yes.” Instead of saying that, hear us. Your self-care is not selfish. It’s one of the most selfless things that you can do because it empowers you then to take care of the people that you care about most. You can give from an empty cup. Many of us women discover this, we can get from an empty cup, but only for so long, we collapse and we become a burden on the people we love. None of us ever want to do that. Keep yourself lifted and filled up so that you never become a burden on the people you most want to take care of. It’s imperative that you take care of yourself and that you get your oxygen first. In social distancing, many of us are going crazy. Let’s talk about self-care and how to keep ourselves sane in this circumstance and environment.

If you're not taking care of yourself first, then you're not going to be able to take care of those closest to you. Click To Tweet

There are many things you can do. First of all, getting in touch with a life coach. Many are offering virtual counseling sessions. Telehealth is not a brand-new thing, but it has not been utilized in the way it’s being utilized now. I can speak about virtual counseling because I’ve done it before. Francois has done virtual life coaching. I feel that people can establish an authentic relationship with the person they’re working with even through Zoom or phone calls. People are feeling such a lack of control in their lives. If you are a perfectionist, if you are a hard worker, this does not go well. I can’t control imperfectionism.

Pausing for a moment and thinking about the things you can control, what are the areas in your life you have some control over? For example, what time do you wake up? That’s important. What did you eat for breakfast? How you’re spending your time throughout the day? Are you creating a schedule for yourself? Are you building in time to stop working? Are you putting some boundaries around work? It’s hard to do. For example saying, “At 5:00 on this day, I’m going to stop and that’s my time to go have a bubble bath or listen to my favorite podcasts or go on a walk.” It’s important to pay attention to what you have control of and how your boundaries are surrounding work, especially in working from home.

We can’t control what’s happening out there in the world, but we can always control how we choose to respond. This is a theory or concept and you grounded that beautifully about these are specific steps and there in choose bliss also. Your morning routine is imperative. I’m guilty of this also. I’m crazy about my husband. I love every moment that I get with him. When he’s home, I’m completely distracted. I want to sleep-in in the morning. I want to cuddle more, reading later at night. We have this beautiful life, but the reality is that we can have a beautiful life without disrupting everything else. He’s re-implemented his workout schedule at 7:00 in the morning. I’ve reimplemented my morning routine. It changes life to feeling like it’s more in control. I love being in the flow, but unless you put some boundaries around your work life, that flow starts to feel not as yummy. It starts to feel like interference and even you can start to resent it.

It is time to ground our work-life since we’re at home. Ground that so that then we do have yummy time with our lovely partners or our children or doing those things that we want. The morning routine is such a key part of that. When you wake up, make sure you do eat breakfast, make sure you do get those workouts in, plan time with your spouse. Even though David and I are in each other’s faces all the time, we still have a date night every single week. That’s the night that we do something special. I do dinner in a nicer way, I have a tablecloth, we watch a movie. Doing those things is important. The other thing that I wanted to touch on is this idea of getting counseling remotely.

Much of the time we think that we have to go into an office and we can’t do that. This whole idea of doing things on Zoom or the phone can feel uncomfortable. I see it all the time in my own coaching practice. Once you do the first one, especially when you’re talking to someone like Maegan or Francois who are kind and open, you’ll feel their energy right through the video. Once you have that connection, you do it once, you can then pursue it further and it can help to support your life. Like with anything else, the action is the key until you take that first step, nothing else happens. Make sure that you identify the things that are going to support you and then take action towards pursuing them.

Looking at that with the life coach perspective, I would say that even when we are experiencing, keeping in mind something that can be the backbone of your wellbeing is your life balance. For those who are not super familiar with the concept of life balance, it’s the fact of considering that in your life, you have seven different key compartments in your life. Those being your social and your family relationships. That’s one. One would be everything related to your career and/or education aspirations. Number three will be money and personal finance. Number four would be mental, emotional, and spiritual health. Number five would be health and leisure. Number six would be everything related to your daily life responsibilities, which are important. Number seven is contribution and giving back to society as you do well, Moneeka.

If someone is focusing because it’s all about work or money. Chances are that by doing so that this person is going to neglect. Also, come back to the amount of ease our lives, like personal life, personal relationship, staying in shape in order to get rid of stress, any physical activities, having a romance life. When if you focus on one compact amount of your life, your life is going to be unbalanced. Without a doubt, it’s going to be extremely detrimental to your wellbeing, but also to your success in general. Even during the specific circumstance we are going through, it is possible to keep your life balance in a good way to dedicate the amount of time that each compact amount of your life needs to feel well to succeed in your life.

I got a text from a close friend of mine and he said to me, “I’m at home.” The kids, one of them is at college and one of them is staying with her mom. He’s alone in the house and he runs his own business. He’s working 14 to 16 hours a day because he’s got all this time. For the first two weeks, he was like, “I got all this time. I can get caught up.” After four weeks of doing that, he wrote to me, “Something has to give, I’m feeling hollow.” As excited as we are about our work and our mission and whatever it is that we want to be doing out there in the world. It’s only one piece of who you are. Immediately, I wrote back to him to start running again.

He loves to run. It makes his heart sing. Get out there and start running. It’s something you can still do. Create some Zoom connections, whether it’s a therapist or what about, we’re doing game nights on Zoom every Thursday night, come join our game night. Have Zoom conversations with your parents or FaceTime. Maybe you can help them figure out the technology. Create some interactions that will fill you up because they’re important. They’re such a big piece of who we are and they take a little bit of time. They take your mind off of the work and they put you back into being a human being rather than a working machine.

REW 4 | Optimize Bliss

Optimize Bliss: Life balance can be the backbone of your well-being.

 

People would benefit from limiting their exposure to the news. Figure out the day and make sure you’re checking a reliable source. Another thing is we can connect, not just through social media. A lot of people think, “If I’m on Instagram or Facebook, I’m going to have those genuine connections with my friends or family.” Those are passive interactions. Not only that, it also increases your exposure to sometimes false news about the pandemic and what’s going on. You can’t control what you’re seeing unless you’re removing people that you don’t like their feeds. A more active way to get engaged is to schedule a happy hour with your friends, schedule a game night, you go play Yahtzee over Zoom.

I used to be part of a lot of these happiness groups. I’m known as Miss Bliss. Everybody wanted me in their group when this whole thing started. The conversation was all about the news and what is feeling bad and, “My kids are freaking out.” Eventually, I would say something to the effect of as global leaders, we are responsible for the global conversation. That global conversation needs to be uplifting. There’s plenty pulling us down. Let’s focus more on what’s going right than what’s going wrong. I got kicked out of most of those groups. That’s okay. I’m still part of a couple of them.

I want to be part of groups that are engaged in the uplifting of our lives. One of the key factors that I say over again, watch the news once a day, you need to be aware and vigilant so that you know what you need to be doing. You also need to stay positive and blissful. How do you do that? When you’re watching the news, take the pieces that support you and let go of all those pieces that create drama and upset because that drama and upset serves no purpose. It brings you down and brings it into your home. Instead, take what serves you, take what’s important for you to know. For me, I do want to know the numbers in Santa Clara County because it makes me feel good that they’re going down, but when they were going up, I wasn’t checking that. My husband gives me an executive summary. Make sure that whatever you’re taking in serves you in what you’re trying to create in your life. If I can say, try to create bliss, it’s much more fun than fear.

I love that you have this perspective that in some ways, we can control what we’re focusing on and thinking about that. That aligns with what both Francois and I do when we’re working with individuals, it practices what’s called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. You can’t change the situation always, but you can change certain ways you view it. For example, taking what you can from the news that serves you and trying to let go of that doesn’t.

For many people, seeing somebody with a mask on, when they go to the grocery store, they’re walking down the street can be very scary and frightening. People have this thought of, “This is scary and this is so bad.” What if we reframed it and said, “Look at all these people trying to take care of their health and protect others. Look at us all coming together as a community to not think about ourselves, but I’m putting a mask on because there may be a person who’s more susceptible to this.” That’s a beautiful reframe that you’re still acknowledging the reality of the situation, but you’re taking a more blissful view on it.

I went to the grocery store and we realized that afterward, I was full of anger. I could visualize, it was like black, gooey, horrible anger that was completely taking over. What I was noticing is that I was wearing a mask because it was important to me that if I’m a carrier that I do not infect anybody else, but only 50% of the people in the grocery store were wearing masks. This is a place that we have to go to, we need to eat. Only 50% of the people are taking responsibility for whether they’re spreading or not. It filled me with anger because I’m about social consciousness. I sat with that and I thought, “What can I do about this?”

Instead of being a victim and being angry, I went on Amazon and I bought myself a full-face mask. What this does is it keeps my eyes, nose and mouth protected. I can’t send anything out but now, I’m also protecting myself so nobody can infect me. Certainly, if they’re standing closer than six feet, they cough on my back or whatever, I’m still exposed. The most important part is my face. It looks weird and people look at me strangely, but it empowered me in a place of being angry and victimized.

It empowered me, “I’m not angry, I’m protected.” I can stand as an example in a safe way or wherever I am of taking care of myself. I moved from anger to empowerment. As you’re out there and you’re seeing this and you’re feeling, “I’m scared.” It is a scary time, but we can reframe every piece of that experience to empower ourselves to feel better and it’s supercritical because I was focusing on the 50% that was not wearing the mask, I should and can focus on 50% that is, and it’s increasing all the time.

We’re seeing a great increase and people seem to be taking things more seriously. That’s a beautiful thing to see that people are being more socially aware.

You can't change the situation always, but you can change certain way you view it. Click To Tweet

I would say that we can look at the situation in two different ways. It’s extremely helpful. I love to see everyday people being more respectful of what’s going on by being more self-conscious and protecting not only themselves but others. It’s evolving in a good way.

When we go into EXTRA, I want to do a deep dive into behavioral cognitive psychology. It’s one of my go-to, so I can’t wait for that conversation. Can you give some real specific tips that people can use to improve the bliss in their lives?

It’s a wonderful opportunity to keep on learning. We are all stuck at home with too much time in our hands. A life lesson that I’ve seen for all times, keep on your learning, all your lifelong, you can read books, you can listen to podcasts. With Dr. Maegan Renee, we have started to take online classes on different topics. It could be topics in which you want to become an expert in or it can be a brand-new topic, something you don’t know anything about because it’s rewarding to be always joyous and to keep on learning. It’s helpful to spend some time because we have too much time on our hands, but also, that’s something we should keep after what’s going on to keep on using our brain and in my opinion, that’s a wonderful recipe for wellbeing, but also for success.

It’s fun to do these things together. If you can’t, you can still do it on Zoom with somebody, but learning how to make homemade salsa. I have a few tips too. One, gratitude journal. There’s a lot out there that you can order online there. I love the One-Minute Gratitude Journal. It’s literally one minute, there are a lot of us who are and have busy schedules. There are also five-minute journals. You can create your own. There are apps out there, but I’d encourage people to step away from the screen and to write down or draw a picture or get creative, take a picture of something that makes you happy and to have that moment of gratitude and to start your day off that way.

Practicing with self-compassion. We are good at giving compassion to others, “You made a mistake? It’s okay. I made a mistake, let me beat myself up for half-an-hour mentally.” There is some great information out there. There are some great leaders in this field. A lot of people wonder like, “What is self-compassion?” It’s not self-pity, nor self-esteem, it’s acknowledging that you are human and you are going to have experiences that are not ideal, that are difficult and acknowledging that as a human, there are other humans that are going through this suffering with you.

You’re not isolated in this experience and being forgiving of yourself, especially keeping in mind, it’s not the time to be the perfect parent, spouse and employee. We’re living under conditions that nobody has all the answers to or knows exactly how to navigate. Putting undue pressure on yourself to perform better in any of those areas is not practicing self-compassion. It could be valuable to take a step back and say, “Am I being kind to myself? Am I talking to myself the way I would talk to a friend or am I being a lot harsher? If I am, maybe I need to try practicing talking to myself as though I would a friend or a partner.”

We are allowing grace for each other. I love the beauty of schedules are getting mixed up. Things are going weird all around us. We’re allowing grace for each other but we’re not as much allowing grace for ourselves. I love the way that you said that compassion for yourself is not weakness, nor selfish, it’s grace. It’s the same grace that every human being deserves and you deserve it too. Whether are you getting it from anybody else is irrelevant. It’s important that you give it to yourself. Are there any other tips you’d like to offer before we sign off on this part of the show?

I would say that on ToBeOptimized.com, one of our products besides counseling and life coaching is this Social Media Detox. That’s something very important because indeed that social media platform is engineered for you to get totally addicted to it. There’s no other word and to spend a lot of time on that. We wrote this journal in order to help people to go through the journey of making better boundaries with social media, but also, quitting for a long period of time or quitting forever, or using it in a better way. That’s something special. We are proud of it. We have done it ourselves. The benefits of not using our using social media, a component of your business, sleeping better, less anxiety, no social side comparison, they are complex. It’s beneficial.

What I wanted to offer to your audience is something special is that if people are visiting our website ToBeOptimized.com, they will be able to access the Journal that they can structure. It’s affordable. It’s $25 and they can buy it for themselves or their children or their best friend or even the employees. If you consider that you have no problem with boundaries with social media, that’s wonderful, but we are 100% sure that you know someone who has a problem with social media. You can buy the Journal and if you do that, we will offer a 30-minute free session with either Dr. Meagan Renee for the consulting part or if people want to work on life coaching, that would be with me.

REW 4 | Optimize Bliss

Social Media Detox Method and Journal

 

We consider it to be optimized. There is no better investment than an investment in yourself. $25 and you get more than $100 value that you could use for you or for the people you love. Social Media Detox is a good start to optimize the life balance and because it’s taking so much time that you are not going to give to something else. If some people among your audience interested in starting the journey of consulting or life coaching, we are happy to offer that to them.

If you’re thinking about, “I need a little bit of support around this or that,” this is an amazing opportunity for you to take advantage of some time with some heartfelt professionals. Thank you for that, Maegan and Francois. That website again is ToBeOptimized.com. Thank you for all that you’ve offered in this portion of the show. It’s been fun.

Thank you for having us. It’s always a pleasure.

It’s fun for us too. It’s something we look forward to.

In EXTRA, we’re going to be talking about behavioral cognitive therapy and it’s a tool that I use all the time to stay blissful. You’ve got to check this out. Please subscribe to RealEstateInvestingForWomenExtra.com. You get the first seven days for free. You can go out there and hear all this juicy stuff. If you decide that you love it, you can stay in it. If not, at least you’ve got some good deep dive tips to improve your bliss. Thank you for joining us for this portion of the show. Remember, bliss is your birthright. Choose to live your bliss every single day. I’ll see you next time. Bye.

 

Important Links

 

About Dr. Maegan Renee

Dr. Maegan Renee is a licensed professional counselor and holds a PhD in Counselor Education & Supervision. She is the owner of M.R. Counseling and Consulting and co-founder of www.ToBeOptimized.com. She has presented on topics of mental health at national conferences around the country. She has publications on topics such as social isolation, early childhood mental health, and social media detox. Dr. Renee has 11 years of experience in the field of counseling working with children, adolescents, and adults.

 

 

About Francois Braine-Bonnaire

Francois Braine-Bonnaire is a real-estate investor, an international serial entrepreneur, and certified life coach. Born and raised in Paris (France), Francois holds dual French and American Citizenship. He is the co-founder of www.ToBeOptimized.com and co-author of a: “21 Day Social Media Detox Journal” with Dr. Maegan Renee. He is also a contributing author of the book: “Real Estate Investing for Women: Expert Conversations to Increase Wealth and Happiness the Blissful Way” with me (Moneeka Sawyer). With a turnkey real estate business founded in 2010 that continues to grow, Francois has helped more than 200 families from 15 countries around the world to successfully invest in more than 600 rental properties in the USA. Francois has a passion for helping people through both real-estate investments and life coaching.

 

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