The Beaty and Deceit of Vacation with Dayna Pitzer

Dayna's Masterclass: https://dayna-pitzer.mykajabi.com/small-steps-quiet-mind-waitlist-1 Nicole Schroeder Transformative Coaching: https://www.nstransformativecoaching.com All right, everybody. Welcome back to the Restored and Aligned Woman podcast. We have the pleasure today of having a guest speaker and her name is Dana Pitzer. And we are going to be talking about the beauty and the deceit of vacation. Dana, can you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what's going on here? Dayna (00:28.515) Yeah, hi, thank you. Again, Dana Pitzer. I am very excited but also nervous to be here today. And I recently have put out a newsletter of my own to some of my clients and individuals that follow me. And I got really good responses from it. And it's about... the things that we don't really think about with vacations. But backstory first, I am a licensed independent social worker and I've been doing that for about 20 years. And just recently in January, I started creating a program and trying to reach out to more people. I do work in private practice where I see adults who struggle with anxiety and over thinking, mental exhaustion, kind of all the things that you probably talk about as well. And that's why I thought I'm gonna reach out to Nicole because I feel like this would be a great pairing for us to kind of bounce back and forth this topic. Dayna (01:55.349) you It resonates so much. It's something that we do. mean, whether it's, you know, a big vacation, a staycation, we kind of put ourselves in these situations where we build it up and then we also kind of come down from it. So I really wanted to just kind of sit here and kind of go over the it is it's it's a beautiful thing and it's also a deceitful thing that kind of fools us. but it came from a recent vacation myself and recognizing I didn't really practice what I preach to start out and I caught myself. And I think that's the beauty too of what I was able to put in my newsletter is how I caught myself and that is actually what I teach and not giving ourselves enough grace. So you know I really wanted to share this with other people but I also wanted your perception from you know the the medical and and holistic standpoint too. Nicole (03:04.538) Absolutely. I feel blessed that you reached out and thankful that we have the opportunity to join forces and bring something valuable to the world. I wanted to ask, so you create, did you mention you're creator of the small steps in the quiet mind? Dayna (03:20.929) Yes, and I probably totally skipped over that because you know, I'm getting nervous and fast talking. So yeah, back in January, I kind of put a name to what I do and it came from years of clients telling me like, you need to put this down in a download so I have it or you need to put this down in and I just really always ignored that because know, hate therapists are self-conscious as well. You know, I absolutely can sit in front of my clients and, you know, feel comfortable and confident in that to dive into like making a whole program seemed really, really scary to me. But in January I did it and I created Small Steps Quiet Mind and it's meant to be more of like a coaching program, like you're clinical things that are teachable, but you're not diagnosing, you're not going into theory, you're not going into root cause. I literally made a step-by-step program and walking through and simplifying. How do I quiet my mind? Because so many of us, no matter what we're dealing with, whether it's depression or anxiety or grief or trauma, our thoughts are a big part of that. And we oftentimes don't know where to start. We freeze, we become overwhelmed. And to help guide someone into simplifying that into smaller actionable steps was really my goal. Nicole (05:08.942) Mm-hmm. Dayna (05:10.05) So it's an eight week program and it kicked off earlier this year and I have another round coming up at the end of the month and it's going well so far. Thanks. Nicole (05:22.98) Fantastic. I love that you that you named that no matter what, you know, diagnosis or what might be going on, we all are, you know, struggling and we have these thoughts that we have that impact our overall health and wellness and in our day to day, you know, even from minute to minute, our thoughts can have a great impact on our health and our life and being able to call those thoughts out to slow down and. really hear what you're saying and be aware and understand what to do in that moment because how many times are we in kind of a, you know, just a cycle. and I mean, I'm sure you've experienced that a lot in your, can you talk to that a little bit? Dayna (06:19.907) Absolutely, absolutely. think one of the biggest things and the reason why I wanted to call it Small Steps is because I also think a lot of people don't get help because they think that it's going to be this big daunting project, you know, and they may not seek help because they may think I'm too far gone or this is just me. And, you know, I am definitely a lot of the things that I teach is because I suffer from anxiety myself. I always thought it was profession induced. I haven't always just worked in private practice. I worked in a lot of really stressful jobs and you know my mental health would struggle. I would be the over thinker. I would be the worrywart, the steward, the worrying so much about other people, forgetting to take care of myself. And when I, the way I approach it for me and what works for me is I have to divide things up into the literally the smallest things sometimes or else I can talk myself. am I can talk myself out of anything. And so I have to reach small. I really have to reach sometimes for a low bar. And I think that's where people don't give themselves enough credit or grace is they they think it has to be big. They think that they have to approach it in this big complicated way or change. Nicole (07:54.958) Mm-hmm. Dayna (08:08.197) a ton of things at once and you don't. You just you don't and I want people to give themselves grace and know that they're worth working on themselves and that's where I really tend to hone in on being okay to slow down and go small. Nicole (08:22.234) Hmm. Nicole (08:29.646) What advice would you give people? Like, how do they hear their thoughts? You know, they have these thoughts and these emotions. They're in this bit of a anxious storm. How can people start to hear what they're thinking? Dayna (08:47.235) So in the topic of my newsletter, the beauty and the deceit of vacations, I really took that and I noticed in myself how my body was starting to feel. before vacation, also during and then after. And that's kind of where like the newsletter took me and I was taking notes throughout this whole thing. to start to really hear your mind, you also need to think about your body. And what I teach and what I love for people to start to connect is that we are a whole person. Our mind and our body are not separate. A lot of times, when we are going through something, our body is speaking to us long before our thoughts are. Nicole (09:48.96) Mmm. Dayna (09:49.827) And so part of this is I really try to get people to connect with their body again. And instead of when it starts to alarm, that's typically when we start to freak out, right? Like, and we don't think about what that actually means. And I really try to get people to connect that my body's talking to me. It's trying to tell me something. And then if we don't catch it, that's when our thoughts really start to pick up. And I started to notice this like when I was getting ready for vacation. I was really excited. know, the thing on the calendar that you're looking forward to really gives us a lot of motivation and we can do a lot of things. Dopamine is wonderful, right? on the calendar gave me lot of dopamine and I am suddenly really like action oriented and I'm you know getting all the things done and doing all doing everything and then I started to recognize I was I was starting to have to do this thing that is usually a first tell for me where I would gasp for air I wasn't Breathing like I adrenaline was taking over I was having to stop and gasp for air and so that was like a check for me of Like this is a slippery slope for me because if I'm gasping for air Whether it's for a good thing or not. I'm gonna start to get anxious because my my heart is gonna start to race I'm starting to You know and then I'm gonna wonder why, what's going on, and I'm gonna overanalyze, right? So I started to think about, what am I doing? I'm really excited to go, so of course there's some energy there because you're excited, but. Dayna (12:04.125) That gasping for breath made me stop and I recognized I also was trying to, know, this whole program is like social media to me, like posting and getting followers was never a thing for me and now I'm like needing to, you know, do that and... I was rushing around also trying to like schedule things for when I'm gone and I recognized that that was just making me extremely anxious and so I just like nope not doing it not doing it and needed I so I put a post out there and I'm like I'm I'm going on vacation and I may or not see you. If I want to post, I will. And this is me kind of saving the moment, like kind of thing. I immediately felt great to get like that off my back. And had I not recognized my body warning sign. I would have completed all those things. I would have completed all those things and I would have felt horrible and I would have been stressed out going in on vacation. And so for me, I recognized the way my body was talking to me before it allowed my thoughts to really grasp. The part about in my my newsletter during vacation. I also was going in on vacation after I have taken a whole year to like try and fix my gut. I had a lot of gut issues and I have had to really overhaul like suddenly at the age of Dayna (14:07.587) When I was told this, I was 42, but suddenly at the age of 42, I'm intolerant to gluten. And this rocked my life. I am an Italian girl who loves her bread or pasta or things. Dayna (14:25.865) Going on vacation was really hard even though I've had a year where like I've been doing really well. Vacation was really hard because I was out of my element and not in a lot of that control and so like for the first couple of days I feel like I did really good and then I just it It's in everything and I couldn't control it. And I ended up having, I think, gluten every day, probably in something. And I started to feel really bad. My stomach hurt. I literally looked like I was having a baby. I would joke with my husband, but like deep inside, like my thoughts were starting because I... I wasn't correlating also my body was talking to me. I was so focused on my thoughts at that point in vacation that I was starting to like feel down, self-conscious. the... because I ignored the bloating and the sluggish and suddenly I'm feeling inflamed when I hadn't felt inflamed in a year. And so I was so focused on all of these things that I didn't really make any actions and my thoughts started. here you go again, you you've wrecked all your progress, here you are in, you know, Hawaii and now you look like you're nine months pregnant in this bathing suit. Like it was horrible. And then I caught myself. Dayna (16:05.759) after all the thoughts. after all of that, and I really had to get a grasp and I just made some small action with things and of course it didn't fix the moment, but what... What we do is I was allowing my thoughts, and I know everyone else probably does this too, I was allowing my thoughts to write a script for the next six months. I was allowing my feelings to seem like they were facts, when in reality I didn't ruin anything. I didn't gain 20 pounds on a week's vacation. None of that happened, but I was convincing myself that it did. And so I just took some small each day. made some actionable steps to try and get out of my thoughts and move more and, you know, have grace with myself that, you know, I was doing my best. I'm not ruining anything. I'm probably doing a lot better than what I would have done a couple years ago. Nicole (17:02.042) . Nicole (17:14.01) Mm-hmm. Dayna (17:19.148) And then I also had to apply that when I came home. Nicole (17:23.894) Dana, can we slow down just a little bit? I want to go back to before you went on vacation, when you were having those, having those, you were having physical symptoms. And so, and those symptoms can differ for everybody. You know, some people can have, you know, like you were talking about the gasping. Dayna (17:29.506) Yeah. Dayna (17:35.712) for sure, yes. Dayna (17:43.051) Mm-hmm. Nicole (17:50.414) What other symptoms would you say other people feel? I feel like some people. Nicole (17:58.01) run themselves and they kind of get that hamster wheel kind of feeling and then just feel completely depleted or pain. Dayna (18:11.139) Mm-hmm. Yeah, so I if I hadn't have cotton at the gasp I would have ran myself as well. it's like overloading a schedule can also, so behavioral can be a symptom. Overloading your schedule and trying to get everything done. But the physical stuff, the gasping for air for me is a very early sign. Some people, their early signs may even be like feeling tension in their jaw because they don't realize that they've been tense. And so now my jaw hurts or tension in their shoulders because they may carry maybe the high shoulders. Yeah. Nicole (19:02.794) I definitely attest to those two. I do both of those. And no matter what it is, I think if the important thing is starting to slow down and take a moment to sit with yourself. As I feel in our culture today, we just go, go, go, go, go. And we don't even. Dayna (19:16.867) Mm-hmm. Absolutely, absolutely. Nicole (19:30.178) hear our bodies or our minds until both of them are screaming, right? We don't hear the small gasps. We don't hear the, you know, we don't connect the shoulder discomfort to our mind because, you know, instead somebody might go to the doctor or something, you know, they have shoulder pain and then they get a medication or, you know, some other treatment to treat the shoulder discomfort to cover it, but it's not. Dayna (19:35.767) Mm-hmm. Dayna (20:01.143) You know, if someone is experiencing more like gastro, like people forget that that's anxiety too. It be, it can be anxiety. You know, the first check of like nausea, stomach cramping, bloating, burping, can be anxiety. so slowing down and thinking about what's going on in my moment, what am I doing, what's going on? And looking at what your body is trying to tell you, like, hey, I need attention. So the first step wouldn't be to fix your problem that you're dealing with. The first step would actually be your body needs you. Nicole (20:55.438) to stop and listen, just scan, like what is going on? What is my body trying to tell me? Exactly. Dayna (20:55.597) Your body needs you. Yeah. Yeah. Your body needs you. And I think. Perfect example too is like you're saying like, hey, hey, slow down. When I get nervous, I am a quick talker. And so you notice that like, hey, let's backtrack. I can get totally carried away because I am nervous right now. And so that's a cue of, take a beat Dana. Nicole (21:35.13) I think you're doing great. I would like to talk a little bit. You mentioned gastro and anxiety and connection to emotions. I want to talk specifically about gastro on vacation because you talked about all the different foods. You couldn't follow your typical diet. Not only is that part of Dayna (21:36.439) Thank you. Dayna (21:43.894) Is there? Dayna (21:59.373) Mm-hmm. Nicole (22:03.778) you know, a different diet, different... Everything's different and your body's like inside, like consciously we're aware like this is okay, we wanted to do this, this is gonna be fun. However, our bodies are inside kind of in a fight or flight, like we're not sure what's going on here. And then that slows everything down, which... Dayna (22:15.885) Yeah. Nicole (22:30.18) just by itself kind of creates inflammation and bloating. Dayna (22:33.547) Yeah, absolutely. you know, I had to have some moments with myself in saying too, like your body isn't used. It's not that you did anything wrong. Your body's not used to this. You haven't had this in a year. Like, and that's like the grace too that I'm talking about. Like, of course it's going to react. Of course it's going to react. And it is saying like, what are you doing? What are you doing? probably could have paced myself a little bit better. But you know, I mean, there's just so many tasty things out there and I kind of leaned into it and... I also was just like, you know what? Be thankful that you're not allergic. Be thankful that you don't get sick every time that you have, like you're having bloating, it's showing you like physically, like this is the reason why you do this. Like, so when I finally wrapped my head around it and it wasn't like the whole vacation that I was like, you know, a pity party. actually forced me to move around more. Like everything in me wanted to like just be you know a bum on the beach and do nothing because I'm like my body hurts I look terrible and then I was like hey. you tell all of your clients to do the opposite. So, you know, we walked more, we did active things to help with that, but... Dayna (24:20.445) One of my biggest takeaways was the grace I keep talking about is recognizing that these moments don't have to be horrible like failures. Like I actually really appreciated like and why I kept some notes because my thoughts just waxed and waned and what I came from it was you do these things at home on a daily basis. because it supports you. You know, and I, in my newsletter, really wanted to make a point in saying like your routines are not rules. They are not these rules that, you know, should shame you, but there's a reason why you do them and they make me feel good. I do them because it makes me feel good. So it was a nice reminder and motivator. as to why I've established some of these things over the years that really helped support me. And that's the evidence. I wasn't doing them anymore and I felt bad. So like the support was gone. So I started to feel rough. So it was a really good teaching moment, I think for myself. Dayna (25:45.749) And when I came home, I tried to remind myself of that as well. And not overloading, I think that we all, when we know that our vacation is ending and we are ready to go back home, we think we need to get back into all of the things. And like in part of this, we don't have a control like with work, like yes, we're gonna have to get all back in or all back into the kids schedule or whatever that is. But some of the stuff for ourselves that we've built as habits that we recognize or supports. I came in with a very different approach this time and I wasn't going to try to do everything at once. I actually broke it up into weeks and I said, you know, first week I'm home, I really need to focus on this inflammation and my gut. Because that's where I'm feeling most uncomfortable. And so I did my best at like doing small manageable things there. And then also trying to catch up on not sleep, not oversleeping, but just being more pattern in, you know, my wake up and go to bedtime. I'm a very routine person with that. And the time change just like rocked my world. And then the next week I asked added in more of like the disciplined like lifting that I was doing. I was doing, you know, strength training before I left. And I of course didn't do any of that on vacation. I didn't lift once. Like, you know. So. Dayna (27:29.633) That second week, I also didn't expect myself to go back to the normal schedule. I just was like, you know what? I'm gonna do walking and maybe I'll lift once a week. And then that third week, I pretty much told myself I wanna be back on my routine. Nicole (27:48.474) I think what you're saying is giving yourself grace, slowing down, loving yourself, giving yourself, I mean, if this was somebody else or one of your clients, we're so hard on ourselves sometimes, yet. And so thinking about it, like treating yourself like you would treat your best friend or your mom, because we deserve that too. So just... Dayna (27:54.839) Yes. Dayna (28:11.212) Mm-hmm. Nicole (28:17.53) pausing and having that grace and loving ourselves, but, and then also setting those small, tangible, being realistic about what you can accomplish in this moment is very valuable. Dayna (28:31.298) Yeah. Dayna (28:38.787) Yeah, I tell my clients all of the time or I don't tell them, I ask them, like, would you talk to your friend that way? And they're like, no. I'm like, so why are you talking to yourself that way? Like we are horrible to ourselves. And so yes, I was catching myself doing that and like that grace, I'm doing a much better job I feel like in my... my present of giving myself grace with a lot of things. trying to switch it, make it smaller, make it doable. But just telling myself, I didn't undo anything. I took a pause and I recognized that pause, though, was fabulous and wonderful and I had a great vacation. I learned a lot about my body. And so that pause, even though I didn't feel great the whole time, was actually pretty valuable. Nicole (29:45.028) Something that keeps coming to mind as you're talking is something one of my pastor's wife says, her name is Kathy Addis. She says, feelings are fickle and cannot be trusted. Which is so true. mean, sometimes we have feelings that, you can be, but just realizing that feelings are not absolute. They, you know, They need to be evaluated. Like, why am I feeling this way? Is this a true feeling? And how you're feeling about your body? Like, this is, I didn't ruin everything. didn't, I can pause and redirect, you know, it's a new day. I can choose better, you know, I lived a little on vacation. I relaxed, I ate some good food. There were some consequences, but. It's a new day, I'm home and now I can get back to my routine that supports my body for long term. Right? Dayna (30:50.785) Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's a wonderful way to put it, that feelings can be fickle. know, there's coming, you know, from my clinical mindset, you know, there's, there's a thinking error. There's one of those distortions that really muddle things up and it's called emotional reasoning. And that's when we just, we inherently, we try to make our feelings fact or we believe that they are fact. are sometimes, but that's the point. They are sometimes, they are not all the time. And so that pause that we keep talking about and that grace that we keep talking about, that's the period that we have to give ourselves to be able to calm down and transition to be able to get to a place to be able to decide, is this factual? Or is this me, you know, being self-conscious? Is this me having guilt and shame because of other things going on in my life? You know, or is this something I truly do need to work on? And what are my actionable things? But you can't do that when you're stuck in the storm. Nicole (32:16.59) I also want to point out when we have physical things going on in our body, it is really hard to... Nicole (32:26.392) I mean, our physical body affects our mind and our mind affects our body. And sometimes when we are tired, malnourished, we're having blood sugar crashes. All of those things affect our emotions and our thoughts. And... wisdom and growth as people grow start to realize that. But it's important to realize that because my mom used to always tell me, you're so tired, you're just tired. And it would frustrate me. Like, mom, I'm not tired, I'm fine, right? Dayna (33:03.331) And now it's like, the wisdom. Nicole (33:06.094) Yes, like, and now I'm telling my kids the same thing, like, because, you know, they'll come to me, their whole world is falling apart, this is going wrong and this is going wrong, and they didn't, they only slept two hours the night before, whatever. And I actually let my 13-year-old, he was like, Mom, can I have an all-nighter? And usually I say no, but one night I was like, okay, sure, fine, do it. Dayna (33:17.089) Yeah. Nicole (33:34.778) And he actually noticed everything that I had been telling him. You know, he actually got sick. He was tired and emotional and just his day did not go as well. And, I don't know, within the next 48 hours, I had him go to bed a little bit early and he slept, I don't even remember how long, a really long time. And he told me, Mom, that was incredible. Dayna (33:56.003) Yeah. Dayna (34:04.407) I love that he got that from one experience too. And I think that that's great that you were like, yep, okay, we're gonna test it out. And the fact that he made those connections that quick is, I mean, wonderful. Nicole (34:08.868) Thank Dayna (34:21.219) What kind of complicates things is when we do this over and over and over again and we don't actually isolate the situation to see that it was the sleeping that did that. And so when we reach adults and we have all of these habits that we've been doing for a long time, there are... sometimes quite a few things that kind of create the storm. And so, you know, being able to recognize that we oftentimes have a few different things that keep us steady, know, balanced our baseline. And those typically are like sleeping, eating, water, movement, the basics, you know, the basics. And usually, Sometimes people get so frustrated with me when they first start therapy with me because I'm like, well, what have you eaten today? Like, what have you, what have you drank today? And they're like, what's that have to do with anything? Like a lot actually, like you just told me you had like maybe eight ounces of water today. And, you know, so kind of going back to like the whole theme of this is Nicole (35:38.65) right. Dayna (35:46.839) You know, before we get carried away into our thoughts and into our feelings, we really do need to do ourselves a favor and ask ourselves, like the questions that we need to ask. Have I slept? Have I eaten? Have I had water? Not liquid, have I had water? Have I moved at all today? You know, what might my nervous system need? After you ask yourself those questions, you then need to ask, what do I need? What do I need? You know, in your son's case, was, he needed sleep. And that was great. You could isolate it to, it was literally asleep. But you know, sometimes it's not as easy to unravel that. And it kind of just feels like this big jumbled, yarn ball, you know, and so we sometimes have to do a few things to get it straightened out. Nicole (36:50.581) I just want to point out and encourage everyone that awareness and getting to know your body and listening to it is a journey. It's a process. And like you said, unraveling that ball. Once you... Dayna (37:01.603) Mm-hmm. Nicole (37:09.05) start doing those things and you start to know your body and to understand your body and your mind, all of those things become a little bit easier every day. Like you had said, I know I was gasping. Like you knew that was your cue. Dayna (37:19.597) Mm-hmm. Dayna (37:27.683) Yeah, and because I, you know, on vacation, I kind of chose to ignore what my, when my body was first talking to me, I chose to ignore it because I was really enjoying my indulgences. So I was choosing to ignore. And what I didn't realize was how bad it was going to feel. And so my mind just, because I ignored all those things, my mind started to just create a story. It started to create a story. And I say a story because, I mean, it really was very convincing. that I was a failure, that I screwed up, that I ruined a year's worth of work. Like was very convincing. And so, you one thing in my newsletter that I wrote that I... really think like just kind of wraps this all into one is a difficult day becomes evidence. A setback becomes a prediction. A feeling becomes fact. And so I recognized I was starting to do that one of the nights. And that's when I kind of, know, because I ignored my body. I did catch it when it came to my thoughts and for some people that might be a little late and it might take a lot longer to calm down, but it doesn't mean you can't. But I recognized I didn't need to solve my entire life in that moment because of a bloated stomach. Dayna (39:22.787) And so I really, really needed to just like shift out of that. And I walked down to the pool, I went in the pool, I grabbed my book, I read a book, I took a shower, and I let it go. I chose to let it go. The resets, you know, I allowed myself to think about other things. Nicole (39:23.354) you Nicole (39:45.54) Can I just, you said I allowed myself to let it go. That I feel is very powerful. Because we can, we have that power to let it go. And I'm not sure that, like just saying that and bringing that to awareness I think is really powerful. We have the power to let things go. Dayna (39:49.485) Mm-hmm. Dayna (39:57.473) Mm-hmm. Dayna (40:11.107) Yeah, that statement itself, I know is a lot easier said than done. And that's why we build supports. That's why we invest in ourselves and give ourselves grace so that we can get to the point of... when we catch it and we recognize and are able to like go back and say, okay, I didn't, I wasn't doing this. I didn't do that. And I know the reason why I feel this way. We're able. to bring our guard down so, you know, we can let it go. We can recognize that if I get off this bed and stop ruminating in this and go do something else, you're able to let it go because you're able to recognize that that doing something else typically alleviates that feeling, that symptom. and we can start to recognize that mind and body connection and we can let it go a lot easier. Nicole (41:29.068) And you so you mentioned instead of sitting there ruminating on that stopping that thought process. And so what would be the difference between almost stuffing or distraction and what you just said? Dayna (41:47.651) So yeah, that's a very good question. So stuffing is when we almost want to deny something is going on. And so we just don't deal with it at all and we trudge on, right? So. shifting the focus, your intention with that is recognizing that I'm feeling this, my body is saying this, I can't deal with it right now, right now. So I need to go do something else and that something else, if your body is talking to you, it needs to be go take care of your body. So in that moment, I chose those things that I did because I knew with how deep my thoughts were, I did need a book because I needed something else to occupy my mind. The swimming was because of movement. And then the shower for me is this imagery of like kind of washing off and starting new. And so nothing about that is stuffing because I'm taking care of myself. and it's going to make me able to respond because there really wasn't like a threat or like a problem going on that I needed to fix that I was ignoring. It was literally like I was, you know, sitting there stewing and shaming myself and so the problem was the problem was me. Dayna (43:29.804) But stuffing would be just like mainly denial. I don't wanna feel this. I don't wanna address it and I trudge on. Nicole (43:40.164) Thank you for that clarification. So, is, I'm not gonna ever deal with this. I don't want to deal with it. I'm just going to shove it down and distract myself. Whereas self-care in a way is, I acknowledge this feeling. It's not healthy to do this right now or I don't want to handle this right now. So I am going to... move my body, go talk to a friend, or whatever. Am I understanding that right? Dayna (44:14.965) Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Nicole (44:17.198) Okay. This has been such a great conversation and as I was reflecting on this episode, two passages from the Bible came to mind, one being Mark 631, where Jesus tells his disciples to come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest. Nicole (44:41.398) Sometimes it's so hard for people. I know it's hard for me. I am a go go go go go but even Jesus Jesus recognizes the importance of rest and he even calls us to rest and so recognizing the importance of stepping away from the busyness of life and just taking that pause He also reminds us in Matthew 11, 28 through 30 that while physical rest is important, the deepest rest we can long for is found in him. Come to me, all who are weary in burden, and I will give you rest. You will find rest for your souls. Dayna (45:21.207) I'm gonna chime in here and I think that that, like, you you bringing up rest and one of the notes that I made from the vacation and the experience of was that we don't have to earn rest. And so, you know, bringing up those passages, I think that that's exactly what I was feeling too, was I felt like I had to do all of these things so that I could go on vacation and rest when that's, we don't have to earn it. We deserve it. Nicole (45:54.714) Absolutely, absolutely. We need it and we do deserve it. And on another point, sometimes people may take a vacation to escape and they think a vacation is going to fix what's maybe going wrong in their life or something that they don't like in their life when actually, I personally feel that that can be found in Christ and along with healthy rhythms, intentional living. and that intentional living and healthy rhythms, as we've talked about this whole episode, can truly start to heal someone holistically. Dayna (46:37.827) You know, this vacation itself, like I've gone on, this wasn't like it was my first vacation. It's just the first time I decided, I guess for myself, to take that grace and to treat myself differently. this vacation reminded me that, Awareness creates the opportunity to respond differently with more compassion, more patience, you know that's where you know I go in like those small things at a time and having you know grace with ourselves. Nicole (47:22.572) I just had a thought. Can't remember what it was. just poof gone. So I guess reflecting, you said this was the first time you just kind of had that awareness and stepped back. How was that different for you overall? Dayna (47:24.034) Yeah. Well, that's OK. That happens to me all the time. Yeah. Dayna (47:46.403) I think overall, don't know if I like having struggled with anxiety for a long time. I feel like I have gotten to a place where I take care of myself, but I guess I didn't always take the opportunity to be aware of. why these things were happening. I sometimes did like maybe float around in life knowing like, oh, I need to do this. And instead of looking at it, you know, a little bit more in depth and recognizing, wait a minute, I... I tell people this all the time. When I'm looking at other people's situations, you're able to look into it with a microscope and you're able to see it with the bird's eye view and you can pinpoint out these things. And that's therapy and coaching is wonderful because we always need different perspectives. But once you practice something so much, you can take on the perspective yourself. And I really think that the shift of me creating the program that I did and walking people step by step, it's also helped me to slow down and you know kind of bring some of those things back to the forefront and because I wanted to take that information back to other people, I was able to like look at it differently and it really helped me. Nicole (49:24.986) 100%, you know, we've both created these courses and these programs because we feel we want to create more value and help people. But it is such a blessing and, you know, a true reward to be able to going through these courses. We learn so much about ourselves and it's been such a humbling. Dayna (49:33.963) Yeah. Dayna (49:47.512) Yeah. It's been very high. I've had a lot of crash out moments. Nicole (49:54.29) Yes, yes. And just learning and true transformation for for myself that the even so just going through this process allows us to be better at what we do and to be better humans. Dayna (50:01.048) Mm-hmm. Dayna (50:09.731) Yeah. Dayna (50:13.603) I agree. Nicole (50:15.62) Thayn, it's been such a pleasure to have you on here. I've enjoyed our conversation and I hope that we can do it again one day. where can people find you? Where can our listeners find you? Dayna (50:28.259) Hey, yeah. I enjoyed this so much, even though I was so nervous coming in. I really enjoyed it and I feel like you do such a nice job at helping me through it. You gave me such encouraging messages up until this point, right? So it was very helpful. Right now, I mean, for me, People can find me under social media, Dana Alpitzer. Very unique, right? My name. But within that, I create our Small Steps Quiet Mind program. I'm running that a few times a year and I actually have one coming up at the end of the month. But next week, July 22nd, I'm doing a free master class and I'm really excited about it. And I'm taking some of the things that we've spoken about today and implementing that into the master class. So I have a download that I made. It's called Regulate in Real Life and it helps break regulation down into you know small steps and so the master class will be about that download so the class is free the downloads free and you got an hour with me there will be a Q &A at the end and then also a nice little like if you stay till the end I have a nice little offer for people who stay. Nicole (52:09.26) sounds amazing and so beneficial. You're truly going to bless people with this. So go check it out everyone. Dayna (52:16.141) Thank you. Thank you. So yeah, it's called Can't Turn Your Brain Off? Here's What You Might Be Getting Wrong. And so I have that advertised on my social media page. And I don't know if we're able to put some kind of link here, but yeah, go. Nicole (52:37.208) Yeah, we can put the link in the show notes. Dayna (52:39.617) Okay, cool. Cool. I had a blast today and I really love what you're bringing in and making available for women. And I think that for you and I, we both have that same passion and the courses and your podcast is really to be able to reach more. That's the reason is when you work one to one, like that's so valuable, but also you wanna like help more. Nicole (53:16.31) Yes, you're so limited when you can, because there's only so much time in a day. And this, by doing this, this just allows unlimited, unlimited. Dayna (53:19.073) Yeah. Yes. Dayna (53:29.623) Thank you very much for what you do and for having me. Nicole (53:32.674) Yes, thank you, Dana. Till next time. Dayna (53:35.875) Until next time.