3 Things About Life I Think You Need to Hear Today
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Today, I have a few random thoughts about life that I want to share. I truly believe that embracing your real is directly correlated to living a healthy AND happy life... This is why I want to continue to share nuggets about life with you to help you embrace your real.
The first thing about life I thought you needed to hear today is that happiness is not the absence of problems, it is your ability to deal with problems. The truth is, we will always have problems, it is a part of life. If we are constantly waiting for our troubles to disappear, we will always be waiting to be happy.
The second thing I wanted to share with you is that uncertainty is where you find opportunities. Life is full of uncertainty. Literally, EVERYTHING in life is uncertain. That's why we need to learn to let go of our attachments to things and outcomes.
Lastly, you don’t need to “get back” to where you were. What you need is to “step forward” into what you are now. Embrace who you are NOW and strive to step forward into all that you can be daily. Let the past be the past, learn from it, appreciate it, but don’t try to go back. Forward is the way.
Capeesh?!
If you loved this episode, I highly recommend checking out Episode 92: The Science behind a Gratitude Practice (It’s Not as Cliche as You Think!).
TRANSCRIPT:
Hey, hey, beautiful human. Can I steal five minutes of your time? I have something super important to share with you, but I promise I'll be really quick. You're listening to my weekly bonus episode of Embrace Your Real, with me, Julie Ledbetter. I'm about to give you a quick tip for building your confidence, honoring your body and unconditionally loving your authentic self. Stay tuned, if you're ready to embrace reel, let's get in, let's go. Hello, and welcome back to the Embrace Your Real Podcast. I'm so grateful that you are here today. I have some random thoughts about life that I wanted to share with you. I believe that embracing your real is directly correlated to living a healthy and a happy life. And so I want to continue to share nuggets about life, that help you embrace your real in all aspects of your life. But before I dive into this bonus episode, I wanted to share this review.
It comes from Pam 1963 reach. She gave a five Star review and said, "I'm embracing myself. Thank you, Julie, for showing me a different way to look at food and life. I'm tired of dieting and being such a Debbie Downer. Laughing emoji. I appreciate your real self. Two heart emojis." First of all, I say the emoji part because who out there are emoji Queens? I know I am. I drive all the people in my life that I text on a daily basis, probably crazy, with one of them, probably being my husband, Joshua. Who's very, very particular and does not use emojis all the time like I do, but I love this so much. And I appreciate your honesty. And I'm so glad to hear that you're tired of dieting. If you've tuned into my podcast at all, you know that I'm not a fan of dieting. I don't believe they work. I don't believe that they're sustainable. And there are so many other ways to be able to reach your health and fitness goals, and overall, just feeling your most confident in your body, without dieting.
So, if you haven't tuned in to any of my other podcast episodes, be sure to scroll back in the library of all 207, 208 of them now. And I guarantee there's a podcast topic for you on that. And also, I'm so thankful that you're tired of being such a Debbie Downer. Listen, we all have our days, but I believe that we can choose to be happy, regardless of our external circumstances, which is exactly what I'm going to be talking about in a second. I'm so grateful for you, Pam, thank you for your review. If you haven't already left a rating and review on Apple Podcast, all you got to do is type in Embrace Your Real, hit subscribe, and then you can rate and review the podcast. That really does help us outreach the message of Embrace Your Real to more women. And it also encourages people, who maybe get recommended this podcast. They can go and look at the reviews and see how it is impacting your life.
So thank you in advance. I appreciate you. Let's dive into the episode. Number one, happiness is not the absence of problems. It's your ability to deal with problems. Ooh, let me say that again. Happiness is not the absence of problems. It's your ability to deal with problems. Listen, we will always have problems. That is a part of life. If we are constantly waiting for our problems to disappear, we will constantly be waiting to be happy. But if we learn to deal with our problems, then we can learn to not allow our problems to interfere with our happiness. Believe it or not, happiness and problems can coexist. Happiness has nothing to do with what does or doesn't happen to you. It has nothing to do with how big or small your problems are, but it has everything to do with your thoughts, your actions, and your perceptions. If you can control those three things, your thoughts, your actions, and your perceptions.
You will realize that happiness is always available to you. And on the topic of happiness, we need to stop thinking that happiness is any sort of destination. It is not a point of arrival or a place that we will get to. Happiness is a state of mind. It is something that we will always have available to us. Happiness has no conditions, no prerequisites. It's something that we can choose to be, at any moment in time. When we choose it, we can be in the worst mood ever, take a deep breath and instantly decide to be happy, instead. The easiest way to switch our mindset to happiness is by practicing gratitude. And I actually did an entire podcast episode on this that actually breaks down the science of gratitude and explains why it's not just a foo-foo habit, but it actually has powerful effects. I will link that episode in the show notes, but it's episode 192, The Science behind a Gratitude Practice.
And like I said, I will link it in the show notes that you can easily go listen, after this episode. Number two, uncertainty is where you find opportunity. Life is full of uncertainty. Literally everything in life is uncertain. Even the most certain things can be taken from us. That's why we need to learn to let go of our attachment to things and outcomes. We need to focus on being the best that we can with what we have, and be open to what happens next. I know it's our natural response to try to control the outcomes in our lives, but that doesn't allow God to do his work. We need to be courageous enough to surrender the uncertainty and to sit in the discomfort of it all. And to let go of our attachment to a particular outcome and trust that God will bring us what we need. And, no, this doesn't mean that we need to just sit back and relax.
We still need to work and give it our all, but we need to put our energy into the process, not the outcome and trust that if we give our all in the process, that God will provide the outcome that we need. If we aren't open to uncertainty, we close ourselves off to opportunity. For example, in my life, starting my business with Josh before we were married and quitting my salon job, brought a lot of uncertainty. I can tell you, I was so stressed, because my salon job was my secure job. It was the job right out of college. It was the job that I thought I would be in for the next decade or two of my life. But because I was able to accept that uncertainty and invest in the process, the most amazing opportunities open themselves up. And honestly, you guys, it's more than I could have ever imagined, but it all started with complete uncertainty and just accepting that and then investing in the process.
Seriously, when we accept uncertainty, supernatural things can happen. I want you to remember this, all the best possibilities live in the unknown. And as hard as it may be, we need uncertainty in our lives. It's how God leads us to the life that will make us most fulfilled. Of course, there might be things that we want, but ultimately we don't get. Because at the end of the day, it's not what we want, but it's what we need. And ultimately God will bring what we need in our life, because that is what's most important. Number three, you don't need to quote, get back to where you were. You need to step forward into where you are right now. If you think you need to get your old body back or need to get your old routine back or need to get whatever it is back. Do you? Do you actually need to get it back. My thoughts' here that we're always changing, we're always evolving.
My body, my mind, my spirit, my wants, my needs. Literally everything about us is constantly evolving, and we should allow ourselves to evolve. Just because we were a certain way at one point or did something a certain way at one point, doesn't mean that we need to be that way or do that thing, again. We don't need to go back and I don't believe we should go back, in certain circumstances. I think that we should embrace what we've evolved into. We should embrace who we are now, what our needs, what our wants are now and cater to that. We need to learn to step into what we are now and grow from there. We should always be moving forward in our growth and focusing on the growth in front of us, not what is behind us. We can, of course, reflect. I think there is great power in reflection, but we should use that reflection as means to step forward, not as means to go back to anything.
Embrace who you are right now and strive to step forward in all that you can be, daily. Let the past be in the past. Learn from it. Appreciate it. But don't try to go back, forward is the way. All right, so there you have it. Those are my three thoughts about life that I thought you might need to hear today. I'm going to repeat them for those of you list people, myself included. I love a good list to write down, so that I remember these truths. Number one, happiness is not the absence of problems. It's your ability to deal with problems. Number two, uncertainty is where you find opportunity. And number three, you don't need to get back to where you were. You need to step forward into what you are right now. Again, the episode that I talked about earlier, episode 192, The Science behind a Gratitude Practice.
I will go ahead and link that in the show notes below, so that you can easily go tune in now. I would love to hear your thoughts about this. I would love to know which one of these thoughts really hit you hard, that you feel like you want to focus on and meditate on and maybe journal about or think about more. So we shared a screenshot of this, you can post it up on your social media platforms. Tag me, Julia Ledbetter. I love connecting with you guys. If you have a girlfriend or someone in your life that you feel like would really benefit from this episode, I just ask that you share it out with them. You can easily copy the link, by copying the URL and sending to them in a text message or a direct message. I really appreciate you guys spreading the message of Embrace Your Real, so that we can all learn to become more real and embrace more real in our life. I love you so much. I mean it, and I'll talk to you in the next episode.
All right, sister. That's all I got for you today. But I have two things that I need you to do. First thing, if you are not already following me on the gram, be sure to do so, juliealedbetter. Yes, it's with an A in the middle. For that daily, post-workout real talk, healthy tips and tricks and honest accountability, to keep your mind and heart in check. The second thing, be sure to subscribe to Apple Podcast, to never miss an episode. Thank you so much for joining me. It means the absolute world. And I'm going to leave you with one last thought. The most beautiful women that I have met in my life are the ones who are completely confident and secure in being authentically themselves. Remember that beauty goes so much deeper than the surface. So go out there and embrace your reel, because you're worth it.