I’m sharing my thoughts about self-acceptance, the ebb and flow of life, and normalizing the valley periods that we all experience.
When you’re in a season of life that finds you stuck in the valley instead of rejoicing on the mountaintop, self-acceptance can be so challenging to embody. But, it’s not impossible. On today’s episode, I’m sharing my thoughts about self-acceptance, the ebb and flow of life, and normalizing the valley periods that we all experience.
It takes a lot of courage to sit with the discomfort and move through conditions that put us in the valley. Accidents, divorce, loss of a loved one, natural disasters, the list goes on and on with events that can trigger physiological, mental, and emotional breakdowns. But, when you resist the urge to emotional bypass and actually put in the work that’s required to overcome those challenges, that’s when you develop the muscle to reach the mountaintop.
When we allow ourselves to rest and relax, we have space for the self-acceptance that’s required during those low moments. Listen in to learn more about how you can support yourself during the ups and downs of life to become a more resilient human being.
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Dana Frost 00:07
Welcome to Vitally You, a podcast created to introduce you to the tools that will be your roadmap for feeling younger while growing older. I'm your host Dana frost, a wellness expert, life coach and energy medicine practitioner. Here's what you can expect conversations about vitality from the inside out with guest experts in the field of health, culture and spirituality, and solo episodes along the way from me where I do deep dives into the topics of aging, heart intelligence, energy, medicine, and your innate capacity to heal. If you want to feel younger, while growing older, this is the place for you.
Dana Frost 00:52
Hi, everybody, this is Dana frost, your host of the Vitaliy you podcast and I am coming to you this week for a solo episode to share about self acceptance and the ebb and flow of life and normalizing the valley periods or the shadows. I know this is a big, big topic. But first I want to do a check in. Okay. So podcasting is an interesting platform because there's really no immediate feedback. It's not like I hear you guys listening to me or I don't see faces. And so unless you know some of you have reached out to me, and that's been amazing. I really appreciate when I hear from you. It's just so helpful. So thank you. And if you're a regular listener, I am looking for a couple of trusted advisors, so that I can sharpen my Vitaliy you podcast. And I'll tell you, we would start with a 15 minute phone call, just to share what your insights are what you you know a few just to talk about this idea of having a trusted advisor, and how you might participate. And then your participation could be as little as regular feedback on the episodes and to the point of maybe participating in a group brainstorming session. So if you're interested, please email me.
Dana Frost 02:13
I also want to invite you to join me for a pre holiday indulgent self care daily ritual. Now I was inspired by Kristin Bowens episode about her health journey, and what she discovered about the healing properties of magnesium. She has something that she calls a 30 day magnesium, so challenge and she usually has that every January. Now I decided I wanted to do a 30 day magnesium soak ritual in November, as a prelude to the holidays. We know that magnesium relaxes the nervous system. It helps bring us out of fight and flight and into rest and heal. We know that the cell needs magnesium. And so wouldn't it feel nice to slip to like move into Thanksgiving with a sense of inner ease and peacefulness and feeling like you actually have taken care of yourself and that your cup runneth over. We tend at least I tended to sprint into the holidays and crash after the New Years. So it doesn't have to be that way. And I would love to help you rewrite your story. And I want to rewrite my own story. So join me for this magnesium soak. So why did I choose magnesium as this ritual for this self indulgent month long thing that we do together? Now one reason is that it's unique. I doubt any of you have done a 30 day magnesium soak. And the other reason is that the benefits are huge. Magnesium is essential for normal daily functions like muscle contraction and heart rhythms, among other vitally important processes. Now one of the many lessons I learned by burning out the electrical system of my heart in 2011. And that's exactly why I have a pacemaker. The electrical conduction of my heart does not work, that I learned that the important function of the heart rhythms, your heart rate variability is connected with your nervous system. And I've learned this through the practice of Heart Math and my training and Heart Math. I learned these tools that help moderate the heart rate rhythms through researched breathing techniques. And what this does, it creates coherent and resilient heart rate variability and this is a necessary component to nervous system health. And so this is really why I'm choosing the magnesium soak as a daily ritual is because magnesium is also tied to the electrical conduction of your heart. and your heart rate variability. Magnesium also aids in protein
Dana Frost 05:04
production, blood sugar and blood pressure control bone health, making DNA and creating energy. It is well known that the skin is the most efficient and effective method of absorbing magnesium. So magnesium soak, it's like just this perfect ritual for us to calm our nervous system for us to effectively and efficiently get the magnesium into our cell.
Dana Frost 05:34
And the other thing that Kristin talked about is that we all have a personal magnesium burn rate. And she'd also talked about we need magnesium to saturate the cells. So this 30 Day Challenge is one way to replenish our magnesium burn rate and to saturate the cell. And that's done by soaking 20 to 45 minutes daily. I've been experimenting with this. And honestly, it's relaxing, you can easily do it under the table while you're working from your laptop. You can do it while you're watching a program. If you'd like to take a bath, you can add that magnesium to your bathwater. Now, I had never heard of a magnesium burn rate and tell Kristen's podcast episode. And I really can see as I look back on my health history, the correlation between my stress levels, my gut dysbiosis and the low I had very low magnesium. At that time, we know that your body doesn't store magnesium, so you'll eliminate it if you don't need it. Now I encourage you to test before the soak. Or you can also look at prior labs to see where your magnesium is were and then test afterwards so that you know what your magnesium is after the soap and that's going to help you determine if you need to supplement. Okay, so and then the other thing you can do is just follow your signs and symptoms so we know that magnesium is the fourth most abundant mineral in the body. Early signs of magnesium deficiency include fatigue, loss of appetite, nausea, constipation, vomiting, or weakness. And as magnesium gets worse, you might have other symptoms like abnormal heart rhythms, coronary spasms, numbness, muscle spasms and cramps, personality changes, seizures and tingling. If you're interested in the pre holiday 30 Day indulgent self care magnesium, so please email me, you will see the link to purchase your magnesium from Kristen's company with the Vitalii you discount code it is vitally you. And you'll want to purchase that as soon as possible because it's mid October.
Dana Frost 07:55
Okay, so let's get started on our conversation for this week. I've had several conversations that sparked my desire to talk about self acceptance, especially when we are in a season of life that finds us living in the valley instead of on the mountaintop, right? We all love being on the mountaintop, we like winning, and we prefer emotions that are fueling versus depleting. But life consists of both the valleys and the mountains. Now, the valley, sometimes it's just a bad day, like a bad day can be considered we were in the valley on that bad day. Most of the times we're thinking of it as a season, when we're in the valley, which might range from three months, three to four months, like a season and sometimes maybe two a year. Sometimes we are in a valley for a decade, we might have all the tools while we're in the valley. That was my case. And we may be using those tools. That was my case, but we're still in a valley. And we can also have the best lifestyle practices in place. We can have the best resources, we can have relationships that are working effectively, and yet we still might find ourselves in the valley. So why do we spend time in the valley? Why? Why is it that we have valleys and mountains and to be honest, it's just called life. Life is complex and complexities are not easily explained it for me I look through the functional nutrition lens. And I can refer to these valleys as triggers. Because the conditions that put us in the valley can trigger physiological, mental and emotional breakdowns. Things that would put us in a valley would be accidents, cars or broken bones divorce loss of a loved one. A global pandemic a traumatic event. Don't like rape or abuse. Or even we think about all the people in southwest Florida, a hurricane that literally wipes out your home and your livelihood, a move a life transition, like having a baby or an empty nest, the loss of a job to be human. And I know this is no surprise to any of my listeners, but to be human is to experience any and all of the above. Not one of us is immune from any of those life experiences. And we cannot self help, or therapy or spiritualize ourselves from these events that put us in a valley. So what happens when we're in the valley? Well, we might feel isolated, lonely, dark, we might be experiencing any of the emotions that are depleting, like grief, discouragement, depression, we might need to ask for help. But I can promise you the valleys are passed more easily. If we are in community or we have help, we might feel like our situation will never end. But I promise you it will. I also want to note that many times when we are in the valley, there is a goodness that is simultaneously residing alongside the reason we are in the valley. Examples might be neighbors and friends who provide acts of kindness. Maybe we're in the valley, but we're very well resourced. Maybe our community comes together to resource us. It might be that we are in the middle of a divorce, but our career is a refuge. Maybe we're in the valley, but we're led to a healer or a therapist or a modality that is supportive. Maybe we find refuge in a hobby during the time we're in a valley and our creativity takes off simultaneous to other things in life that are sucking. We modern humans are under this illusion that if we work hard enough, or if we google enough, we can solve ourselves out of the valley. Now more than twice this week, I have encouraged people who are in the valley currently towards this idea of acceptance. You know, we think that we can find a solution and walk ourselves out of the valley because it is f i n g uncomfortable. We just we will ourselves to get out of the valley because we don't like how we feel in the valley. And the modern instinct for instant gratification. And our lack of attention span due to constant stimulation is holding us captive from becoming who we are meant to be precisely because of the valley. We are designed to become a tour. Bad capital A S S superpowered humans, but we will not become super powered humans are self actualized by sidestepping the seasons in the valley. As much as we don't want to be in the valley. I believe it's only in the valley that our human is sharpened. Now, you'll hear people refer to sidestepping as spiritual bypassing, and I see them as one in the same. And what does that even mean? So instead of feeling the discomfort and being with it, we rationalize it. Oh, it's God's will. Or we substitute are depleting emotions with spiritual versus like, well, I can do all things to God who gives me strength? That's not feeling what we're feeling. Yes, it's, that's true. We can do all things through our higher power.
Dana Frost 13:51
And yes, we are designed to be in the valley as much as the mountaintop but don't use it as an excuse to not feel or to not be real about what we really feel. And I've shared before in the podcast that when I was doing my life coach training, this is the first time I realized that I was a spiritual bypasser and Dr. Martha Beck called me on the carpet on this one and you can listen to my previous episodes to learn more about that. But what we do we detach from true feelings. Well, this is what the Buddhists do. They detach from to feelings because they've got this practice of detachment. I'm not even sure I believe in detachment from outcome but I don't believe detachment in relationships or detachment in life. This can be spiritual bypassing, we also we move through situations where we've been offended or whatever with a false sense of forgiveness. And I you know, I have shared on the podcast forgiveness is a powerful healing modality it actually had we have to have a forgiveness practice, but we don't skip to forgiveness before we felt what we really feel. The other thing we do is we happify depleting emotions with false positivity. And honestly, this next thing I'm going to mention, I think is the most damaging. We justify that the reason we're in the valley by blaming others, this is victim consciousness, grown capital A S. 's adults, still blaming their parents and their upbringing, when they're in their 60s. They're still referencing their upbringing as the reason why this or that is the way it is. If we are adults, and I'm gonna just say if you're 30 years old, and you're still blaming your parents, you need to seek help, so that you can make peace with your past. Because the valleys are not because of our upbringing. The valleys are there, one because we're human, and we live on this earth plane. And to they're intended to support our maturation process. Victim Consciousness will keep you stuck as an adolescent who wants to be 16? No, well, I don't want to be 16. Let's face it. There's always something for us to learn when life feels hard. And can we simply sit with that discomfort? Can you sit with yourself and accept yourself even when you don't like the outcomes? Or your own behavior? Or you're not achieving what you thought you could achieve? Or would achieve? Can you just sit with that? Or can you sit and I should say, with the acceptance of your body that may not be functioning the way that you want it to be at this time? Can you accept it, even if it's not serving you the way that you want it to serve you. Whatever is happening with your body, it is happening to get your attention. And there is a message from your body about your life. When you feel betrayed by your body. I will tell you, I need to take a sip of my green tea. It takes a lot of courage to sit with that truth and seek wisdom and insights. It takes a lot of courage to sit with the discomfort. Because the tendency is to get out ASAP. That's our tendency get out we don't like pain, we're supposed to move away from pain. And we think we can get out by researching solutions win
Dana Frost 17:24
most of the time getting out is done. When we relax and rest, who sits at the lap their laptop, researching solutions through Google and feels relaxed. Oh no, we don't feel relaxed. We are totally tense. Our shoulders are tense, our muscles are tense, our faces tense, our eyes are tense, we have hyper focus, not soft focus. I've talked about that before. But fighting or resistance also requires too much energy. If we relax and let go, there's nothing for the system to constrict around, and the whole system relaxes. It's an energetic shift that actually allows us to move out of the valley. True self acceptance is accepting ourselves again, and again, every single day, regardless of external circumstances, that we live in a culture that is always fighting against something. As a matter of fact, if you don't join in the fight does your you might be shamed on social media. Modern Culture calls us to be against something instead of being for something you need to be against whatever it is, instead of focusing on what we're for. And I believe this cultural way, is creating the polarity and tension that we all feel. So my invitation is will you relax and accept wherever you are. That doesn't mean that you lack hope. For another set of circumstances or focus on possibility by all means, hope and possibility are the wind beneath our wings when we are in the valley. In the valley is when we cling to hope and possibility. If we choose to be a victim, hope and possibility escape us if we sit in the seat of judgment of others because we don't agree with them, or we want cultural circumstances to be different. hope and possibility also escape us. We make it to the mountain because we have become super women and super men. Mountains are hard to climb for a reason. Not everyone can reach the mountains. You need grit and grace to be on the mountaintop. But grit and grace are both built in the valley. The valley I've got full body goosebumps are where we carry water and chop wood. carrying water and chopping Wood those are the activities in the valley. Those help us gain the necessary muscles muscles in the body and muscles in the heart to haul our capital A S S, up the mountain, one step at a time. That's where we go from, I don't know the valleys, not at sea level. But let's say we go from, you know, 1000 elevation to 10,000 elevation.
Dana Frost 20:29
Are you with me? I hope so. I would love to see you in the valley and on the mountain. I want to tell you that today, feeling younger while growing older feels like self acceptance. And I want to thank you for being with me on the vital you podcast. Thank you. It means so much that you would spend these 30 minutes every week with me. Please consider joining me for the 30 day magnesium self indulgent, daily ritual. You will find the details in the show notes. All you have to do is email me if you're interested in joining me and purchase your magnesium. If you haven't subscribed and downloaded or left a review, please do so that my little podcast can move forward in the pod traffic jam and until next week. As always, I am streaming love from my heart to yours