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THIS IS WE
The Transformational Power of Authentic Joy with Portia Chambers
Have you ever stood at the crossroads of success and satisfaction, wondering if there might be more to life than the highlight reels we share online? Join me, Portia Chambers, as I peel back the layers of my own transformational journey, revealing the raw and intimate process of redefining success and happiness. From a garage conversation with my husband that sparked a quest for deeper fulfillment to the challenges of rapid business growth and the empty pursuit of social media validation, this episode is a heartfelt narrative about reconnecting with what truly matters.
Venture into the realms of self-discovery with me as we explore the practices that illuminated my path—how meditation became the lighthouse in my storm, and why a simple jigsaw puzzle unlocked joy that had long been missing from my life. I'll recount the profound shifts within my family dynamics and the birth of the WE Experience from my commitment to personal evolution. It's a story that celebrates the beauty of solitude, the power of finding one's voice, and the heartwarming realization that there's immense fulfillment in sharing personal gifts beyond any digital approval.
Wrapping up, let's reflect on the art of stress management, the embrace of riverside solitude, and the importance of self-compassion. Together, we'll traverse the landscape of embracing life's scars as markers of our history while adopting a mindset unbound by limits. Looking ahead, I'm thrilled to share my excitement for new horizons, like sourdough baking adventures, expanding our WE Experience, and fostering connections on this very podcast. Tune in for a journey that's not just my own but echoes a universal quest for joy, contemplation, and the embrace of life's boundless opportunities.
Do you have a story to share? Interested in being a guest? Fill out our inquiry form and we will be in touch!
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Join me, portia Chambers, as I sit down with women just like you, sharing moments in their lives that shape them into who they are today Stories of motherhood, betrayal, transformation, love and loss, vulnerable conversations, deep connection and collective healing. Welcome to the this Is we podcast. Today's episode is going to sound a little bit different, and that is because it is a solo episode and you are going to be listening to my story. Portia Chambers, the founder of the we Experience my story of the past two years and my journey to self and to put into a little bit of context, I feel like I've lived a thousand lives over the last, you know, 37 years, and these last two years have been such a pivotal role in who I am and how I show up in the world and how I show up for my family and for you and everybody else. So I'm going to take you back to the end of 2021.
Speaker 1:And that was the year I had my boutique style social media agency. I had been running it for just over I want to say, two years at that point, and 2021 was a huge year for me, especially on paper. It was a big year for my business. It was the most amount of money that I have ever made in my life and you know, it was the year where I saw those numbers and felt nothing. I didn't feel what I thought I was going to feel when I felt successful. It was a time where I was feeling desperately alone and craving more connection with people. It was a time where I felt unstoppable and nothing could take me down. And, oh, was I wrong. So in October of 2021, I was talking to my husband in our garage and I said to him that I was happy, but I've been happier and I wanted to be happier, and that was a huge moment for me. I still remember it clear as day, because that was the moment where I decided to create change within my life and that I was ready to create change in my life.
Speaker 1:I was a person before my social media business that never showed up online. I was such a community being. I taught yoga to my local community. I had a spin studio that was in my home, so I had people visiting my home, you know, five days a week, sometimes twice a day, and we created this amazing, beautiful community, and saying goodbye to that business was probably one of the hardest things I have ever done, because it was something that I did not want to let go of, but that business is in the presence of every single business that I have done afterwards and especially through the, we experience that, that importance of community and listening to one another and hearing each other's stories. But, anyways, so I was a person prior to my social media business, being very connected into who I was, knew what I wanted to, how I knew how I wanted to show up every single day, who I wanted to be, and loved every aspect of my life and, of course, there were moments that were shitty and hard and and in all of those things, but I could tolerate them, I could handle them and my stress levels were just not at the capacity at what they were in 2021. Building a business as quickly as I did and not necessarily knowing what to do was hard. Yes, I had a coach. Yes, I had people helping me, but it's still very, very hard to delegate and figure out what you want to create while there are a million people talking at you and you're helping. I serve a lot of people and and at that time, the world was changing and it was shifting and a lot of people were feeling this stressors and pressure of that as well, and it was really, really hard to kind of be who I wanted to be in that in that time. So, october 2021, I told my husband I was happy, but not as happy as I wanted to be, and that is when life really started to shift. That is when I started to notice things in my body that I didn't notice before, things that were happening in my mind, in my heart, and it was hard to accept. My body was slowly starting to shut down. I was a person that was working out five days a week. I straightened at least three days a week. I spun once a week. I loved all of it. I loved every component of it. I still crave it every single day, but my body was tired, my mind was tired. I barely slept at night. I was clinging to other things to help me sleep, to help me get through my day, and I knew that all of those things were wrong, but yet I didn't want to give up. I didn't want to give up on this idea of what I thought I should be and this idea that I created for myself, this image that I created for myself, and I was a person that never showed up online prior to my social media business. It was never something that was top of mind. Like I said, I was such a community person I was in the community, talking to people rather than through Instagram or through Facebook and when I started that business, that's how I needed to show up and I did, and I just jumped in with both feet and I lost myself.
Speaker 1:2021 was the year Portia lost herself. I lost my values, I lost my purpose, I lost sight of what was important to me. I lost what my not my identity, but what my variation of success was. I never made that much amount of like that amount of money before. Like I had said before, and I clung to that. I clung to how many followers I had. I clung to how many likes I got. Comments, saves, shares, like that is what was feeling at my cup every day External validation, external validation and I think at the time, it didn't feel wrong or bad or as if it was causing any damage or or anything to me. It felt great, I felt alive, I felt like this version of Portia was unleashed and I felt unstoppable. I felt that I was created for more, and I've always felt that way, but I really felt that this is what I was going to be and this is where I'm going to make my imprint on this world. And boy was I wrong. I, at the end of that year, I felt very angry and I apologize now for bouncing back and forth, because it's really hard to do this, talking only to yourself and trying to make sense of it all. I do have notes to keep me kind of in line, but there's so much to it, there's so much to this story.
Speaker 1:So as my body started to say I cannot work out anymore, as I started to sleep less and wake up and immediately looking at my phone at six am and immediately looking at my phone at 10 pm before I went to bed, it became hard, it it became really hard, and so I knew I needed to put some things in place and, just like anything else, that felt like an addiction. Not like anything else, it did feel like an addiction. I was addicted to my phone. I was addicted to the sensations that I was getting from looking at everything on my phone, especially being on social media, especially reading all of the DMs and everything like that, and don't get me wrong Like I was helping people and I was creating change and being a support system for people, but I was not doing that for myself. So the first thing I thought would be a great thing to start was gratitude, and boy was I wrong. So in November I bought a like $7 gratitude journal off Amazon and I thought I'm going to start daily gratitude and this is what is going to change. This is what is going to start the change that I want, and it didn't.
Speaker 1:I was so angry at myself, at my body, at everything for allowing me to get to the point where I was year like two, three years before going into, you know, the social media business. I never would have found myself here, and I was so mad that I got there that I dug a hole so deep that I could not get myself out of it. I was just clawing at the edges, hoping that something would help me get out, and it wasn't that easy. So I started with a gratitude journal and every day I found it harder and harder to find things to be grateful for, and I was pulling at strings and writing how I was feeling in those moments in that journal, and it was very evident that I was angry. It was very evident that I needed help. I needed to seek a therapist, that I needed to better understand what was happening in my body, to seek a nutritionist.
Speaker 1:At that point in time I did go to a doctor. My heart rate was really, really low. I had an apple watch at the time and I would get warnings every morning. I got up because my heart would beat at like 35 beats per minute and that's alarming. That's really scary to wake up every morning going like my body is screaming for help and I don't know how to help it. I went to a doctor. I got some tests on my heart and everything came back fine and they were telling me that I was fine and it was hard to get my heart to go back to normal and it was hard to hear because my cries for help were falling on deaf seers. So that really put a big kind of pause and dilemma in kind of the physical health of my journey, because I felt robbed. I felt as if no one is listening to me. I don't really know where to go from here. It was very overwhelming and you know Google is not your friend when you type in my heart rate is really low. What is wrong with me? Because it comes up with a lot of things that I knew weren't the cause of it.
Speaker 1:So I decided in December that I wanted to challenge myself to meditation. I knew that I needed to take small steps moving forward rather than big leaps moving forward, because everything felt so overwhelming. My brain was tired. It felt full and foggy. My body was screaming at me every single day. It was hard to get out of bed. It was like I was depressed, but I wasn't. My mind was going a mile, million miles a minute. My body, like I said, was like moving, like a slug, and then anybody that's listening to this that has a health background is immediately going to think this woman has adrenal fatigue. And you're right, I did have a adrenal fatigue. I was completely burnt out and there was a lot of things that added up to that moment, like the loss of my son.
Speaker 1:Propelling myself into a business, consistently showing up online, seeking outside validation or external validation, disconnecting with myself, disconnecting with my purpose and my mission, my values, my morals. All of that led to this, and so, december, I decided that I was going to start meditating. I was going to challenge myself to 30 days and see what would come out of that? Because, in my mind, I knew I needed to soften. I knew I needed to soften my jaw, my body, my shoulders and my mind. Did I say that already? I knew I needed to create space there that would allow me to take bigger steps forward, like finding a therapist, like finding a natural path, like being open to different avenues, or maybe taking a step back in my business, or whatever it may be. I knew I needed to create the space and, as somebody who has practiced yoga for a very long time, who is a yoga teacher and a Reiki practitioner, I knew that coming back to those routes were essential to my journey.
Speaker 1:So I started with five minutes in my meditation journey. I started on my Peloton app Ross Rayburn he was my guy that I listened to every single day, helped me stay grounded and after about two weeks I really started to notice the difference in myself, especially in my mind, especially in my heart and with my emotions. I found myself becoming a little bit more present in my everyday and started to notice and pick up on these small things, and sometimes those small things that I was picking up on were getting me more angry, but like how my body wasn't doing the things that I wanted it to do or react the way that I wanted it to react, but I knew that I was moving in the right direction, that light was slowly starting to be shed on the darkness that I created. And so, you know, 30 days turned into 60 days, which turned into 90 days, which turned into six months and ultimately it turned into a year, and meditation has been a huge component of my life.
Speaker 1:I talk about meditation frequently, anytime that I can. I try to share it with as many people as possible. Anytime anybody's looking for a free instructor to teach or to guide or to, you know, help other people, I am there. It is a gift that continuously keeps on giving. It is hard to get into, it is hard to stay consistent, but is a beautiful practice and you will learn so much about yourself. And that really was where everything started. So, at the end of December, I decided that I was going to dedicate 2022 to me. This was the year that I was going to realign with myself, better understand what was going on in my mind, in my heart, in my body, and figure out where I wanted to go next.
Speaker 1:At this point in my social media business, the universe really had my back and was listening for my cries for help and a lot of the work and clients that I had slowly fell off. Times had changed. People were getting back into the office and people just didn't need social media at the same capacity as they did and, lucky for me, it really allowed my plate to become empty. It was super, super full and it gave me space to breathe. It was hard to notice or understand that my income was going to change, something that I relied on so much for the year of 2021. But it didn't matter to me. It didn't matter that I was going to have to make the sacrifice. I talked about it a lot with my husband, the sacrifices that I was going to have to make for my well-being, and we were completely on board with this. And I am going to say that I am lucky and privileged enough that my husband is our breadwinner and really allows me to have this space to do the things that I need to do to be happy and fulfilled in my life. And I'm going to say this now because a lot of what I did in 2022 bled into my family the happiness, the fulfillment, the joy, the presence, everything the mindfulness bled into my family, without me even knowing, until I looked back and realized it, until I had conversations with my daughter and realized it that everything that I was doing for myself was not only helping myself, but was helping my family and our home and everything. So I don't know like.
Speaker 1:2022 was an interesting year. It was the year that the we Experience was birthed. It was the year that I had my first event. I had two events that year. I had a small little pop-up that I did in April. That was the first official we event and then I had our first we Gather in October of 2022.
Speaker 1:In that year, I knew I needed to find something that I enjoyed outside of my job and I knew that that was a crucial piece that I was missing because social media became something that I hated. I didn't enjoy it anymore. I didn't enjoy showing up anymore. I didn't want to help people with their social media anymore. All the things that I loved about it I stripped away from myself. No-transcript.
Speaker 1:I know, looking back, that that was the stepping stone to get me to where I am today. I think at the time I felt that that was my end. All might be all and that is where I was going to go, but in the same breath, I think I knew at my core that it wasn't. At that time I wanted to start a podcast, but I knew I didn't want to talk about social media. At that time I announced that I was having an event, but I knew I didn't want it to be about business. So I knew all of these things and yet was so lost in that discovery of what that was going to look like. And the year that I dedicated to myself was the year that the we Experience was born, and that was all through meditation and being still with myself.
Speaker 1:So, going back to finding something that I loved outside of my work, and really that is a hobby. I was a person that had no hobbies and you might be listening and thinking oh my gosh, I have no hobbies and honestly, it's not hard to find a hobby. I know when I first started puzzling, that is my hobby and my hobbies have now changed. I still puzzle, not as much as I used to, but I still have other little hobbies that I do to this day. It's not that hard to find. I think you have to be open to the idea of finding something outside of your job, outside of your relationships, outside of your children, that light you up and really embracing the fact that this is for you and that you do not need to feel guilty for going to a pottery class or going to a yoga class, or maybe your hobbies are going out for coffee once a week with a girlfriend or just by yourself or doing things alone. Things don't necessarily need to look like the traditional things like crocheting, puzzling, baking, pottery, painting. They can look completely different, like learning how to do your hair or doing your nails yourself every single week or having a full skin care routine. Those are things that you take care, that you do for yourself, and they make you feel really good. There's time away from, maybe, your family, maybe it's from your partner, from your job, and it allows you to reconnect with yourself.
Speaker 1:I stumbled into puzzling. I bought a puzzle for my family for Christmas and ended up doing it myself, and I loved it. I loved being able to sit there alone with my thoughts, as scary as that was at times. I loved that I could listen to music while I was doing it or listen to a podcast. I loved that I could do it for five minutes and feel incredible, or I could sit there and do it for an hour and feel incredible too. I loved it. I loved that I could walk by it and put a few pieces together and feel accomplished in something. I loved how it made my brain feel. I felt I love problem solving. I got to use parts of my brain that I hadn't used in so long and it felt so good to do so.
Speaker 1:A big component of my journey to self was finding a hobby and meditation. I would say those two go hand in hand, and those two things ultimately bring you back to who you are, bring you back to that connection with yourself, and you can immediately feel the differences from when you show up to meditate and from the moment you're done meditating, or the moment you show up to do your hobby, whatever that looks like, and then the moment you are done. I think it really sparked something in me to continue to try new things, because I stopped doing that. I felt like social media was the thing for me and I didn't need to know anything else and I didn't need to try new things. And I was wrong. I was really, really wrong in that and through 2022, I worked with the natural path and really started to hunker down what was happening in my body and working through everything and everything like that, and I had the capacity to find a therapist and that really changed me. That really really helped me.
Speaker 1:I can't remember it was early on in the year that I found my therapist and it really opened my eyes and allowed me to take the connection that I already started to create with myself to a deeper level and really understand why, if a certain instance came up or something had happened in our family maybe something happened with my husband or my daughter why I reacted the way that I reacted, or why, when someone said something to me, why I instantly felt this way, or why I was still continuously feeling lonely and yet being surrounded by so many people. Where did that stem from? Why were all of these things happening to me? More or less, they weren't happening to me, they're happening for me, but in those moments you feel like all of those things are happening to you and I'm grateful for everything that I've learned through those years and what has taught me, because I think I have become such a better I don't even want to say a better version of myself, because I don't think I was in a bad version of myself. Then I didn't feel that way, necessarily. There was moments I think I did, but overall 2021, I didn't feel like every day I was a bad version of myself. It really allowed me to open my eyes up to the capacity that I had and the abilities that I had within myself and the strength and the courage and the vulnerability that I give myself every single day, and so I really embraced all of it.
Speaker 1:And 2022 was the year I embraced being alone and as much as I felt lonely, I knew I needed to be alone. I knew I needed to be alone in a space that was not in my home. So I was really grateful to have this beautiful home that I could go and visit, that was on the water, that you may see in my stories from time to time, and it's just like my safe haven, where I can go and disconnect from the world and have a fire and be by the water and not have to worry about anything. Solitude became something that I really needed and with that, I really had to voice it and I really found 2020, 2022 to be the year I found my voice.
Speaker 1:Ask anybody especially prior to 2019, especially when I was teaching yoga, how tight my throat chakra is. And for those that may be listening that aren't spiritual, your, your throat chakra is located in your throat and when it's in, a chakra is an energy and it's usually spinning and moving. But when it's not spinning and moving, it's, it's clogged, it's stagnant and the energy there can't go. And so I giggle when I say my throat chakra, because your throat is all about speaking your truth, and always, always, a person that bit my tongue and I think that's what got me into the problem, into my situation as well is that I was a people pleaser and I often bit my tongue and often just was like sure, whatever you want, whatever you think, even like knowing at the back of my mind, that's not going to work and we're going to have to do this all over again or whatever it may be. I was just like sure yes, yes, yes. There wasn't a lot of no is coming out of my mouth and my throat chakra was very it was very closed and evident of that. And so so, as I started to speak with my therapist, I really started to speak my truth.
Speaker 1:I started to speak up more at things that I believed in, just in my home just with my husband, you know, started to talk a bit, a bit more about my needs, what I needed right now, you know, talking with that, with my daughter, with my husband at the time I was gonna say my husband at the time we're still married but really speaking up for myself and saying I need help. I need help with these things, I need help cleaning the house, I need help doing the dishes. To add a little bit of context, I have been a stay at home mom for my whole life. My daughter is 16. I have been home with her for her whole life. It was very important for us that I would stay home with her. It was something that we talked about and you know, anybody that's listening, that is a stay at home mom or even stays home with their children part time, can understand that a lot of things.
Speaker 1:The role starts to evolve and you start to take on more tasks and there's guilt sometimes where there shouldn't be guilt, and you tend to do more and you tend to be a yes person and you tend to please and through that, your needs and your wants kind of get dismissed along the way because you're just focused on your children. You're focused on your partner, the household and everything in between and yourself is lost. And that is kind of where I found myself as a person that Didn't necessarily always put myself first. When I started my social media business, I really felt like I put myself last. I was the last person that needed help, I was the last person that needed a vacation or anything like that. I was okay, I was pushing through and I think a lot of it was.
Speaker 1:It was hard, it was hard to tell my clients that I was going to be away and you know, and stick to that and not feel guilty and all of the other feelings that come with it. Like you're like, oh, I read the message and now I'm sitting here stewing about it, like I should message them back, and it's like, oh, if I just message them back, it will go away. And then they message you back and it's just, it's just, it's no good, it's no good. So I really started to speak my truth and talk about what I needed and to voice that my needs had nothing to do with anybody else other than myself. And and yeah, it was.
Speaker 1:And as I started to move through 2022, I slowly started to feel lighter. I was able to walk longer distances. I was able to accept what was going on in my body, what was going on in my heart, what was going on in my mind, knowing that it wasn't my fault that I got there yes, I did get myself there, but I didn't knowingly get myself there at the same point and that I was doing all of the right things for me. I was going to therapy regularly, I was meditating daily, I was creating little pockets for myself that I could enjoy again. I was enjoying moving slow and being present, which was really, really hard to embrace. And, as you know, 2022 came to an end. I stopped seeing social media clients.
Speaker 1:I really started to focus on the we experience and started to shift my direction a little bit more and how I wanted to show up in this world and the purpose that I wanted to have and I think we're always seeking purpose and I often think our purpose is right in front of us and we want it to be something else. I think I wanted my purpose to be social media, but I knew that I was wrong and it was obvious. It was obvious that everything, all these other things that I wanted to start, never aligned with that. I was like I didn't want my event to be aligned with business or social media. I didn't want my podcast to talk about social media. Like I knew that and yet I just didn't want to open my eyes wide enough to see that and to accept that, because I felt that that was what my purpose was in that moment. But I honestly think my purpose now is just sharing. I think it is sharing my gifts to everybody being able to hold space for people to share their stories, to hold space at large capacities like events to gather people together. My purpose is service and sharing that with everybody. But anyways, we're not talking about that.
Speaker 1:So, as 2022 started to come to an end, I found a new love. I found sourdough and I don't talk about this often, but making sourdough, I don't want to say changed my life, but it really allowed me to challenge myself. It worked my brain in a very different capacity. I was not much of a baker before that. I baked cookies. That was a huge thing that I did over COVID, I think. I baked cookies every single weekend, which was insanity and then stopped baking for a little bit and I found love in baking cookies, but not the same love as making sourdough, working with your hands and creating something, and there's different components to it. It's very scientific and anything can make it not work or make it work better, and I loved the challenge of it. I loved doing it, making bread every single week and not knowing necessarily what the outcome was going to be, and realizing that I'm going to learn something from that experience. So we're going to go into 2023 now, and this is all about coming back. This is about dipping my toes into creating what I want for my life and what I envision for my life, and finding the space to do that.
Speaker 1:So January was really when I started to start making sourdough and I started sharing it on my social media and people were always, you know, sending me some DMs and commenting and doing different things, and it made me feel really good. But I didn't, I didn't need that. I didn't need that outside validation anymore. I was. I just loved the comments as they were. It didn't didn't make me bake more or bake less or anything like that. It just was like okay, people are seeing the love that I am, you know, bringing forth into this world, and I started to see that other people were sharing their sourdough love and somebody had shared that they were selling their sourdough and I thought, oh my gosh, I'm going to do that. So I decided to do that and created this little hobby business because it's still a hobby and I I loved the challenges that it brought me and I just slowly started to sell it and see where that went.
Speaker 1:And I went to this. My husband and I went to this French French bakery and a Beaverton and I loved the bagels there and had a bagel and I remember eating it, thinking I could do this, I could do this and I could make it better. And that was when I started to experiment with sourdough and I started to look up some videos and find some recipes and hone in on how I wanted to make my sourdough bagels. And honestly, this was just for myself. I just wanted to challenge myself in a different way that was outside of the we experience and you know that I could bring into my home. That was delicious and enjoyable and exciting to do and and for me the best part of anything is is watching the joy on people's faces. Like that is where I feel fulfilled. That's why I love running events, that's why I love doing podcasts, that's why I love baking. It's because I can see visually how their experience is going, whether they are loving it, whether they are like loathing it, whatever it may be, I can see it and that's what really fills me up People enjoying something that I made, that I brought into this earth, that I dreamed about. That is what fills my cup up every single day.
Speaker 1:And I started making bagels and people were hounding me to sell them, to sell them, to sell them. So I honed in on that craft and figured out how I could make them as perfect as I could and I started selling them and, oh my gosh, did it take off? But I had learned so much from my social media business and I was so reconnected with myself that it didn't take off in an uncontrollable way. I really allowed myself to feel into what was right and what was wrong in this particular business, and I don't even want to say it's a business, it's a hobby, I'm sticking to it. And a lot of people were like you need to open a bakery, you need to do this, you need to do that, and the Porsche from 2021, 2020, 2019 would have been like yes, you're right and I'm going to go do that and I'm going to prove everybody wrong, and the Porsche of 2022 was like, yeah, no, I like what I'm doing right now. I like what it's what it gives me right now if it fills me in every ounce of my being, and I like what it does. I like that it allows me to have space to do other things that I love to do, like the we experience, like recording a podcast, like creating events, and I don't want to hinder that, and so it just.
Speaker 1:It just has been a very interesting two years and, don't get me wrong, there are times where I find myself slipping back into my old ways, not being able to handle stress, while trying to convince myself I am ready when I am not. And I'm all about like, I'm all about pushing outside of your comfort zone and and challenging yourself and trying new things. Like that is my freaking motto. But I think you have to do it when it's right for you, and I mean that in a way where you're not pushing all of the things that you work so hard to get or to where you are right now to do that. So I wasn't going to sacrifice all the things that I have done in 2022, 2022, then to redo it all over again in 2020, 2023 when opening a bakery.
Speaker 1:I knew I did not have the capacity to do that. I also knew that I wanted to do other things too, as much as I wanted to have a bakery, and how amazing and cool that had been and how I can mingle and mash the two things together with events and baking, and I could have this space where I could do it all, and I still very much dream about it. I knew deep down that I did not have the capacity to do that and I knew that I wasn't fully there yet. My body was still seeking and crying out for help when I would overdo it, when I would be stressed out. I knew that my nervous system wasn't quite regulated yet. I was still very much in my fight or flight and I could get there very easily, and sometimes it would take some time for me to come back down, and so I wanted to continue to honor myself, but not push myself outside of my comfort zone, but really understand the moments into which I wanted to do that, and making those moments about me and not about somebody else or their opinions or anything like that. So it has really allowed me.
Speaker 1:The last two years have really allowed me to see the world in a different light. It has reminded me of the importance of being connected to myself and how the deeper the connection is, the more I can hear, the more I can settle, the more I can sink in and enjoy those quiet moments. It has reminded me the importance of my voice and sharing my voice with others, whether it be through a podcast or sharing my needs with my husband or a friend, or a parent or my daughter. It has allowed me to enjoy the slow moments without feeling anxious, as if I need to do more, and that was a big thing for me this expectation that I put on myself that I needed to be more, that I needed to do more, and it's hard. It is hard to continue to run after an expectation that shouldn't even be there. It has allowed me to embrace and nurture and love the relationships that I had and currently have. It reminded me of who is always by my side, who is my constant, and those that are not, and that we're only there to ride on my coattails. And it has reminded me that every day is different and that I cannot wake up every day with the expectation that it's going to be like yesterday or to anticipate what it's going to be like tomorrow, that all I can do is live and breathe and be in this moment as I am, and enjoy what comes at me, even if it is hard and stressful and heavy, knowing that there is a lesson and experience, a story to be had within those moments.
Speaker 1:One of the questions that were asked in the stories was what works best when I feel stressed, and I think it depends on what the stress is. I think, if it's something that is weighing on my mind, meditation, as much as it feels counteractive, it's like you're going to sit there and think about it the entire time, it works. I had something on my mind yesterday and it was eating me alive, and it was one of those things that you just wanted to call somebody and seek validation for. I just wanted somebody to say hey, portia, yes, you are in the right. But I knew I didn't need that. I knew I didn't need to call anybody. I just needed to allow myself to experience what was going on and just move past it. And so I meditated and I know, when I sat down on my cushion and meditated and closed my eyes, I said the intention of this meditation is to breathe through everything that you are feeling right now. At the end of those 10 minutes, I felt significantly better and it was not on my mind and I was like skipping away after, and I felt so content, I felt so happy.
Speaker 1:When I feel overwhelmed, as if my brain is full and I just do not have the capacity to have another conversation, what works best is solitude. I remove myself completely from my house, I go to my little space on the river and I hang out there. Whether it's for a day, whether it's for a night, I go there and I allow myself to be still. I give myself the permission to do nothing. If I choose to do nothing, or to do everything. If I choose to do everything, I bring all of my things. In case I want to work, I bring the things. In case I want to have a nice bath and give myself a pampering afternoon, I bring a book. I have some movies lined up. If I just want to lay in bed and watch TV, I bring it all and I allow myself just to feel and move into what I need at that time, knowing that nothing is right and that nothing is wrong. And when my body feels stressed, when I feel as if I should be doing more but know that I'm at my limits. That is when I slow down, that is when I carve out time just for myself to be still and kind of.
Speaker 1:The same mindset when I go to my little place on the river is these next two hours is for me to do whatever I want, with no expectation, no list, no, nothing. I can sit and puzzle for two hours. I can read my book for two hours. I can dance in my kitchen. I could bake something. I could sit on my computer. I could scroll on TikTok for two hours. There's nothing right and there's nothing wrong to do in this time. Allow yourself to be still, allow yourself to breathe and enjoy it. Whatever you are doing, be present in what you are doing, and often that works.
Speaker 1:And I think, if you are listening to this and some of this is resonating with you, it's all about taking one small step. It's never about understanding when the end game is, and I think that's what I went into it. I thought 2022 was going to be the year I would fully come back to myself. I'll be able to work out by the end of the year, I will be healed and I was wrong. I still haven't been able to work out fully and feel strong and where I once was, and I've come to accept that. I've come to understand that it's going to take time and as long as I know that, I know that I'm in the right space.
Speaker 1:If I feel as if I'm getting ahead of myself or I'm talking down to myself, making myself feel ashamed for not being able to do it, then I know that I need to recheck in. I know I need to meditate, maybe call up a therapist, call up my friend and have a discussion or just talk to my husband about it. But at the end of the day, through all of this, I had to decide that I needed a change. No one told me what I should and should not be doing and if they did, it fell on deaf ears, because I know my body the best. As much as I wanted to escape and leave and close my eyes and plug my ears and be like nothing is wrong, I knew it wouldn't have worked. I knew it would have been a bandaid to a gaping wound that needed to be healed. And the scars are here and they will be left, and that is okay because they are a reminder of everything that I had went through. All of the challenges that I went through, all of the conversations that I had with myself lie within those scars and I'm able to reflect and understand and find myself reignited to see what is next within my life.
Speaker 1:So 2024 is a year where I am limitless, where I say yes to the things that fill me up, where I step outside of my comfort zone and see where I end up and challenge myself in new and exciting ways in all different areas of my life, not just my business. So my life is now broken up into three components. I have my sourdough and I want to challenge and create different things, in that I have the we experience, where I want to grow and create more events. I have the podcast, where I want to connect with more people and listen to the stories and hold space for everyone. So life is a very interesting thing and the one thing that I have learned through all of it is that it's far more enjoyable when you are present, when you realize that you are breathing, that you are a human being on a giant floating rock in space and that ultimately, at the end of the day, nothing really matters but you and the joy that you bring into your life.
