Episode # 14 Embracing the Storm: Finding Strength in Difficult Times

Kara discusses the importance of staying grounded and resilient during challenging times, emphasizing that we have the power to choose how we respond to our circumstances. She reflects on her own experiences of navigating through difficult situations, such as downsizing from a large home and dealing with significant stress as a property owner. The episode includes a journal exercise called "Weathering the Storm with Resilience," aimed at helping listeners ground themselves in gratitude, release pressure, and focus on what they can control. Throughout the conversation, Kara encourages listeners to celebrate small wins and create personal affirmations to remind themselves of their strength. By sharing her journey and practical strategies, Kara inspires her audience to find light in the darkness and build resilience in their lives.

Kara takes listeners on a transformative journey, sharing her personal experiences of overcoming adversity while emphasizing the importance of maintaining a positive mindset in the face of life's challenges. She reflects on a tumultuous period of her life when she transitioned from a spacious mansion to a significantly downsized and less appealing home. With vivid descriptions, she illustrates the stark contrast of her living conditions, filled with outdated decor and a sense of despair. However, rather than succumbing to defeat, Kara found inspiration in her situation, using it as a catalyst for change. She discusses the power of visualization and gratitude as tools for manifesting a desired future, encouraging listeners to hold onto their dreams amid chaos. Kara's narrative is not just about her personal renovation of a house; it is a metaphor for personal growth and resilience, showing that even in the darkest times, one can find the strength to rebuild and thrive.

Throughout the episode, Kara introduces practical exercises to help listeners navigate their struggles with resilience. She emphasizes the significance of gratitude, urging her audience to recognize the blessings in their lives, no matter how small. By focusing on gratitude, individuals can anchor themselves and shift their perspectives away from negativity. Furthermore, Kara encourages releasing pent-up emotions and stresses the importance of discussing feelings with trusted individuals, thereby fostering a healthier mental state. This segment is particularly valuable as it provides actionable steps for listeners to implement in their lives, reinforcing the episode's overarching theme of empowerment and self-care.

Kara concludes with a series of journaling prompts designed to facilitate self-reflection and growth. She invites her audience to identify what they can control in their lives, reminding them that while many aspects are outside their influence, there are always personal actions they can take to foster change. The episode is a powerful reminder that resilience is built through small, consistent actions and that individuals have the power to navigate through their storms. With her heartfelt storytelling and practical advice, Kara leaves listeners inspired to embrace their journeys, cultivate gratitude, and take proactive steps toward their dream lives.

Takeaways:

• Gratitude serves as an anchor during turbulent times, helping to shift your perspective.

• In difficult situations, focus on what you can control to regain a sense of power.

• Creating a resilience plan involves taking small, meaningful actions to keep moving forward.

• Holding a vision for your future can inspire you even when circumstances are discouraging.

• Releasing pressure allows you to express your feelings and reduce stress effectively.

• Celebrating small wins reinforces your progress and strengthens your motivation to continue.

Links referenced in this episode:

• designyourdreamlifetoday.com

Transcript:

 Hey there, I'm Kara and welcome to design your dream life podcast, where we dive in and explore how you can use practical personal development to uplevel your life, whether you are looking to have better or deeper relationships, fix your problems with money, learn to love yourself unconditionally, leave a dead end or high stress career, or just want more happiness in your life.

My friend, you are in the right place. Are you ready?

 Hello, my friends. Welcome to the Design Your Dream Life podcast. My name is Cara. I'm your host. I'm so glad you're here today. Today I am building upon episode 13 when I was, I had all of these stories coming to mind. And I remember talking about how to hold the when it feels like you're in a shit storm.

And remember in the last episode, if you haven't listened to it, maybe you want to go listen to it. Uh, I was saying how we lost our 7, 000 square foot mansion. We downsized into like, I would say like a 2, 000 square foot two story house, but it was like, I don't even know, 1965 threw up all over it and it had red velvet carpet and it had linoleum green flooring in the kitchen and a pink toilet and pink bathroom tile and purple as well.

It was just, it was so bad. And, and so when we're going to rebuild and we're going from this mansion into just what, just, yeah, it was horrible. Just everywhere you look, like, not only did I feel like a complete failure, it was just, It was so dusty and gloomy in there. It was just, there was so much work to do.

And I want to talk today about How I stayed grounded in the sense of I didn't let my environment hold me back from moving forward. I allowed it to inspire me and that is a choice that we all get to make and so while I was in this house, I was like, I kept holding the vision for what I wanted. I kept visualizing what did I want the kitchen to look like?

What did I want the dining room to look like? What What kind of flooring did I want to replace the red velvet yuckiness? Um, and room by room, we had saved money. We did it and we completely renovated the house. I mean, the before and after is just phenomenal. My husband is super handy and I'm a visionary, so I have the vision and he makes the vision come to life and he does such wonderful work.

And it was absolutely beautiful. And what's really amazing is even when we were in that house, I, then we moved to this house and this house is much bigger. It's in a different city and a much nicer area. And it's so funny because even when you are in a place and you are trying to dream of the future, but you're not where you want to be.

gratitude has always just served me so, so very well. And I think also too, if you're going through a hard time, you know, you have to identify, like for me, I remember when we were going through the midst of just, I feel like hell, um, and losing the apartment buildings, you guys, it was so bad. Like here we were in our twenties and our one one apartment building.

It was the coldest winter day in history and we had somebody break into our boiler unit and they tampered with it and broke it. And We had boughten this as a rundown building and we were slowly renovating it. So the original tenants that were in there were amazed because they're like, you're finally doing stuff.

We put all new windows. We put all new doors. We were working on like just so many renovations, but some of the newer people were troublemakers. And they just thought we were, um, like just, what do they call it? Slumlords. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, like there's only so much we can do. We're just doing it the best that we can.

And anyways, on this extremely cool day, someone broke in and tampered with the boiler and broke it. No one could fix it. And I remember calling my dad and my dad helping. And we literally bought all the heaters at the Home Depot. Everyone had. Heaters in their unit because the heating was all gone and then one of the tenants Was saying like we're shit like we should have we should be fixing this and I'm like, oh my god We're trying like we're giving everyone heaters and uh, and so they ended up calling I don't know who they called if they called the health unit if they called whatever but the fire um the firemen showed up and said, this is a fire hazard.

You have to evacuate. You have to shut down this building. You have to, and then, and just imagine this someone in their twenties, right? They're like, you have to put all these people up in a hotel. You have to pay for it. And plus you have to pay for security 24 seven outside the building. And I have like, no money coming in because I'm like, I can't refinance this building and I have no heat and they're saying I need a whole new system and then they were quoting me at the time to, um, it was ridiculous, like it was like 150, 000 or something like that and the insurance company was saying, well, you have to pay it and we'll do an investigation and we'll We need to see if it was actually tampered with or da da da.

Um, cause if not, then we won't pay for it. And then when they came in, they're like, there's asbestos everywhere. It was just like, it was such a nightmare. And I remember even having to deal with city officials and I, uh, we were in the press. The thing is, is that nobody knew that we were so young. So my husband showed up the night that they were evacuated and he had his ball cap on the press were there and all that, but nobody even thought that this guy could be the owner.

So he was never even approached. That was kind of funny. He could kind of like sneak in and sneak out without being noticed. But it was just like, there was so much going on. Um, we had threats against our family, threats against our children. It was just, it was a horrible, very scary time. And I will say this, like, You know, it's funny.

People sometimes will judge you like they're like, these people are so rich, they're hard. And it's like, Oh my gosh, like get a grip. Like we are doing the best that we can. We've done it like, you know, but anyways, in that hellish time. Um, I remember I had a song and my husband's a huge country person and it was Rodney Atkins going through hell.

Google it. Oh my gosh. If you're going through a hard time, I just, I remember the lyrics to this day. Like if you're going through hell, um, you can just, yeah, for me, that song just, oh man. And then I also had a quote that was on my desk and I don't know where it is and I don't know if it got, Oh, there it is.

I'm not going to get up, but somebody had moved it. Maybe it was cleaning my desk, but it was, um, something along the lines of like not waiting for the storm to pass, but learning to dance in the rain. And that to me is so powerful when you're going through hell, like. You have to learn and try and find the light in the darkness.

And so I want to do a quick exercise and I love doing these exercises on the podcast, so I hope you guys enjoy hearing the exercises and I hope you're getting value from doing them. So here's a journal exercise called Weathering the Storm with Resilience. So our goal here is to help you stay grounded, release stress, and take meaningful action even during tough times.

And I feel like there are a lot of people who are going through a lot of stuff right now. There's a lot of uncertainty in the world. There's a lot of hardship. So step one, I want you to ground yourself in gratitude for me. Gratitude was just something that has really changed my life. No matter what, like there is always something to be grateful for.

I don't care where you are, what's going on. If you are alive, you have something to be grateful for. There is somebody else in the world going through something much, much worse than you. So, when the storm is a raging, gratitude can act as your anchor. So, you can do something like, even in the middle of this storm, I am grateful for Blank.

These things remind me of my strength and my resilience, right? And I want you to list at least three to five things you're grateful for, no matter how small they are. Like they can be just so little, but by focusing on something that you're grateful for. So remember in the last episode, when Sean, my husband was saying to me like, Oh my gosh, like we have a loving marriage.

We have our healthy kids like. There's so much to be happy about, right? And so switching your perspective is just It's so powerful. So I encourage you to do that. If you're going through a rough time, if you're having a hard day, how can you switch out of that and get into gratitude? Get in there as soon as you can because nobody likes feeling mad or miserable or frustrated or just being the victim.

Nobody likes feeling those things. So how do we move out of those feelings. So then step two is releasing the pressure. So stress builds when we hold everything inside. So you want to give yourself permission to let it out. And so right now I feel blank. What's weighing on me the most is blank. And if I could talk to someone I trust, I would tell them blank.

So this step helps listeners. It just, it helps you shit. I'm gonna go. Banana.

So step two is releasing the pressure. Stress builds when we hold everything inside, so we want to give yourself permission to let it out, but I also want to give you permission to release, like remember when I was talking to um, Release the outcome, detach from the outcome. Remember what I was saying in the last episode, I was on the ferry at the top and I just was like, I don't think I'm going to get a client.

That was me just like releasing. I was just like, I said to my husband, like, I don't think it's going to work. And I released all the pressure I honestly did in that moment. I released it all, led it up to the universe. I'm outsourcing it to the universe. You know, I'm handing that out. over to you and I'm releasing it.

So notice that you have the power to release that at any time. But the journal prompt that I want to tell you is right now I feel blank. What's weighing on me is and say what it is. And if I could talk to someone I trust, I would tell them blank. What would you tell them? Gosh, what do you want to release?

What do you want to give yourself permission to just let go? And then step three is to focus on what you can control. Listen, there are so many things we can't control and I always say that to my kids. I'm like, okay, well, what can we control? Like, I can't control anyone else. I cannot control how they respond.

I can't control what they say to me. All I can control is myself and how I show up the words that I say. So even in chaos, I'm Things are within your control, but you need to identify them. So an easy journal prompt would be, I cannot control blank, but I can control blank. Right? So one small action I will take today to feel more in control is what?

What would that be? Right? Because let me tell you something, you could do the small actions you could do, Go for a walk. You could send an email. You could do a journaling exercise where you're writing a letter to something you need to let go of and one of my favorite things is then lighting it on fire and letting the ashes burn.

And obviously do that in a safe space. We do not want fires anywhere. Absolutely, but I will tell you that is a powerful, powerful exercise just to see that that's happening. So again, please do that in a safe space over a fire pit. Um, I've even actually lit it in front, like above the toilet and then just let it drop into the toilet.

Or you could rip it up into a bunch of pieces. Also an option. So then step four would be to build your resilience plan, create a simple action plan to keep you moving forward, even if it's small, just getting even little steps are okay. So you could say in a journal prompt, when I feel overwhelmed, I'm going to take a break.

Bye. Blank. I will prioritize my energy by focusing on blank. This week I will celebrate progress by blank. And I think what is so important here, you guys, is always to celebrate the small wins. So, and I know I am guilty of this too. Like sometimes I don't even celebrate my big wins. Uh, I actually, I set milestones now even for my business and I get objects.

And so for me right now, I have one. I have this aura ring, I don't know if any of you know what the aura ring is, but it tracks your steps and your sleeps, and I've had it for a long time, for many years. It's one of the original versions. And I remember I wanted this so long and my original goal was when my business first hit 10k a month, I would buy this and I didn't.

I totally forgot about it. By the time I bought this ring, my, I had bought it, I think my first 20k or 25k a month. And so every time I look down at this ring, I remember how powerful I am. And that first 20k I'm like, Oh my God, like I created that. And it's a little reminder to me. So I love setting those.

Setting those intentions as well, like I set milestones and then when I hit them I buy little things that I want that will remind me of the power that I am and the force that I am, that I created this, I created this result and this is a token of my, it's almost like my own little trophy. Uh, step number five is going to be ending with an affirmation.

So you can craft a personal affirmation to remind yourself of your strength. So you can say something like this, my affirmation for this storm is blank. It reminds me that blank, I will repeat it every time I feel discouraged. So examples, I can do hard things one step at a time. This storm is temporary, but my strength is permanent.

And. You know, you could do things like that. Like I firmly, firmly believe that you have the power to navigate through anything and even though it might not seem it at the time in the middle of the storm, I promise you, you are capable of doing anything. You can do hard things and with that my friends, that's today's episode.

Bye! I want you to make sure, if you haven't gone to designyourdreamlifetoday. com, go there and check out our free gifts section, see if there's any goodies or amazing offers, and hopefully the Design Your Dream Life e book and audio book are out. If they're not out by the time this drops, just keep your eye out on it.

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