How to Break Through Resistance with Christine Terrio

Jaclyn Mellone

Welcome to Go-To Gal episode number 186. As always, I’m your host, Jaclyn Mellone. Today, I’m joined with a guest, one who I’m just so excited to chat with and so excited to share it with you, but also she’s a different type of guest than what we typically have on the show. So first, our guest today, Christine, is one of my best friends from college. Her expertise is not in the business space, it is in the health space. Typically, we don’t have guests or talk much about health on the podcast. However, Christine recently took my podcast guest Plug-in Pitch Course. She did it actually back when we ran it to live a few months ago.

We’ve been talking a bunch about her business and seeing her success with that takeoff, but also just talking about mindset and how much it has to do with what I do and as to what she does, and just our own mindsets and business. I love talking with her about just anything, but it’s been really interesting having these conversations with her. And when we talked about having her come on the podcast and like, this would be something really interesting to share with our Go-To Gal community, with you. Well, Christine is a certified health coach. So much of her approach is really about mindset and prioritizing yourself, and how you’re taking care of yourself, and how you’re shifting your perspective of how you’re taking care of yourself.

We can take those same principles and we can actually take her framework and apply it to just about anything but certainly business too. As we’re approaching life and business, that has been in that right mental state is so important. So I’m super excited to share Christine with you today to jam on the mindset with her, and if you are feeling stuck or if you’re in that state of resistance, this episode is going to be especially timely for you. And I’m excited to help give you some of these ideas and tools and strategies to get out of that state because it’s not a fun place to be. All right, let me formally introduce you to Christine, and then we’ll dive right into this conversation.

Christine Terrio is a certified health coach with a passion for all things health and wellness, and a desire to age well. Christine helps women to take a new approach to healthy weight loss by ditching diets, prioritizing themselves, and filling up your cup first with things that bring you joy and feel good. Christine aims to empower clients to take their health into their own hands, build long-lasting sustainable habits to a healthier and happier life, and simply enjoy living life each and every day of their journey. All right, let’s get to it. Here’s my conversation with Christine.

Christine. I’m so excited to have you here today. Christine Terrio 

I’m so excited to be here. Thank you for having me, Jaclyn. 

Jaclyn Mellone 

Yes. All right. Before we get into you and what you are up to now, take us back in time. When you were growing up. What were you the Go-To Gal for back then? 

Christine Terrio 

I was the Go-To Gal for, I would say, I always organized, the playdates and the activities with friends, so I was always the go-to person to, we’ll go to great adventures at Six Flags or snowboarding and skiing, all the fun stuff, bike riding. I would say I was the go-to girl for organizing events like that, organizing, and activities. 

Jaclyn Mellone

Yes. And I definitely have seen that in you. 

Christine Terrio 

I love getting together with people. What can I say? 

Jaclyn Mellone

Yes, absolutely. So fast forward to today. Tell us what do you do and who do you help? 

Christine Terrio

I am a certified health coach and I help women overcome mindset obstacles, break away from unhealthy habits, kind of quiet that inner critic, and really get away from the distractions that aren’t serving them, so they can feel good, feel energized and get back to simply living and enjoying life.

As a side effect, weight loss is part of it. As we feel happier, if that is a goal of yours, weight loss is part of it, but it’s really what I’ve come to learn. It’s all about the mindset and it’s all about showing up and doing things that simply take care of you and make you feel good.

Jaclyn Mellone

Yes. Now, S.I.M.P.L.Y. seems to be a common, the main theme in this. Where does simpler, simple fit into your approach here? 

Christine Terrio 

This S.I.M.P.L.Y., it all started with wanting to just, simple, wanted to break away from the complicated rules of being healthy from all the things that we read out there. One is saying one thing, once a year, another thing, and it’s like “What do I do?” So I was like “I need to break it down. I need to make it simple. But where S.I.M.P.L.Y. came in was, after working with clients and talking to them, and I’m going through my struggles and hearing their struggles, it wasn’t just what you ate. It wasn’t just the movement and the exercise. It was a mindset. It was how are you taking care of yourself. It was Setting Intentions to Motivate, Prioritize, and Love Yourself. That’s what S.I.M.P.L.Y stands for in my program. And when we do that, when we show up for ourselves and we love ourselves, we prioritize our health.

You know, we really get motivated to do so much more. So I always say that that’s my building blocks for creating health. And also if you’re starting a new business, it’s the building block to creating wealth. It’s the primary focus of what I do in my program.

Jaclyn Mellone 

I love a good acronym, and how you brought these altogether. But it is, you’re right. It’s so important to keep it simple because it is overwhelming and it seems like there are so many different options and methods and people preach about different things. And trying to sort through that all, especially all of the hell of the really aggressive messaging with diet culture. And you have really gone a very different direction than that, which I find very refreshing. 

But through our conversations, I know we found so much overlap, especially in the mindset side of things. I love how you say “health and wealth”, but it’s like “life and business” and they’re all the same. There is this central theme and your approach to living simply, it also applies to business and I think helps streamline mindset in just such a clear, simple, but also just very actionable way. So I’m excited to dive in more with you today on this because it’s an important topic to talk about. Even though we don’t talk much about health on this podcast, which I don’t know. If you want to hear more about health, let me know guys. But we don’t go too far down that rabbit hole if you will. 

As Go-To Gals, as personal brands, we’re the product. We’re the product. We’re the machine. We’re the printing press. We’re all the things, and taking care of ourselves is such an important part of that. And not just in certainly losing weight, doesn’t have anything to do with that.

But in terms of mindset and taking care of our body and our brain, so we feel our best, so we can show up our best, absolutely is a part of that. I know from firsthand experience when I’m not feeling good physically or mentally. It makes it really hard to maybe show up and do the work, but certainly to create. I would say for me, it hits me hardest with creating, showing up for clients.

I can pretty much always do that. I can always access that part of my brain, but the creative work that the writing or the videos, those, or even podcasting is hard when we’re not in that right frame of mind, or I should say mind, body, and spirit. For those who are listening, who are feeling stuck, because I do think, I do think that this type of work is evergreen, is something that we should do all the time to take care of ourselves.

But I think it’s the most important in those times when we’re feeling stuck and whether that’s we’re stuck because we want to make a big, big change or we don’t know what the change should be, or maybe we’re just stuck because we want things to be different or better but they’re not getting there. We don’t know what to do next.

Stuck can feel a lot of different ways. How would you define stuck? Or have you been stuck? Where does this start? ‘Cause I feel those times when we are stuck. That’s when I think this is the most important to be able to get us out of that place. How do you, what’s your approach to that?

Christine Terrio 

Yeah. Definitely, when you’re stuck or where you’ve hit a plateau in your business. I mean, I’m going through this S.I.M.P.L.Y method in my business and my growth there, so I feel the pains of when we’re not in that creative flow and we want to get back into it and it’s like, “How did I just get that flow and where did it go? How do I get it back?” Finding things that bring you joy, finding things that you enjoy doing for fun, breaking away for a little bit, and that goes back to what I’m known for. Getting together with your girlfriends and doing things, just to break away from that, sometimes when we get overwhelmed, we have all these thoughts that kind of stay in our head and keep us stuck there. So finding things to break away from that mindset for a little bit can get us back into our creative flow again. 

Jaclyn Mellone

Before we go into the, okay, how do we get out of it? I think you brought up a really good point that I want to make sure we land on because sometimes the first step to getting out of being stuck is figuring out what’s keeping you stuck. What do you find in terms of habits or mindset? What keeps people stuck? What keeps us there? Is there a science to this? Are there other things we should look for? If we’re feeling that, what’s keeping us there? 

Christine Terrio

Most of the time, it’s something where you’re saying “I can’t.” or “I don’t.” It starts with a negative, right? “Oh, I can’t do this.” or “I don’t know.” It starts with some type of negative phrase. So a lot of the time when I hear those thoughts come up in my own or in my own world, I write them down. And at night I’ll try to journal a little bit about them and validate them,” Are they true?” or “Is this just a belief that I have, lingering in my head that I have to quiet down?”

Some of the times when those negative thoughts and those limiting beliefs crowd our heads, we can’t hear that our intuition, we can’t hear that inner wisdom that really wants to come through. That’s why I say, pay attention to those thoughts that are coming in. Pay attention to what’s holding you back and, it could even be you’re procrastinating, right? You’re not taking any action and you’re making the choice not to take any action. And maybe there’s a fear behind that. There’s usually a fear or something kind of that unknown, that uncertainty that’s scaring you.

Journaling has been a really big help for me in getting through some of the stagnant stuff. Some of this feeling stuck and moving through it. You know, sometimes if we get stagnant, we start to feel down or feel like our self-confidence goes down a little bit. But you know, you want to pick that up again. Definitely figure out what it is you’re saying to yourself to validate it or get it out of your head. You know, “Is it true or not?” 

Jaclyn Mellone

Yes. I love how you say those negative thoughts. Her crowding our head and having this visual of all this stuff, all this negative stuff, that’s in the way. It’s literally noise in our head that’s drowning out that inner voice, that intuition, that guidance. When we’re feeling stuck a lot of times it is because we’re not able to turn in and see what we should do next and tap into that. And it’s interesting how you put, I guess. I absolutely can see how all of that negativity can be drowning out that guidance.

So clearing that out. That can be journaling. That can be talking it out, but getting it out and then sifting through, is it true? Is It not true? How do we make this, that reframing, if you will? It sounds like it’s a good start there. I liked how you brought up the procrastination piece, too. I will say for me, certainly, I’ve experienced all of this. But I think that procrastination and resistance are something where I notice it show up for me the most, probably if I’m starting to get stuck. I think it’s that Abraham Hicks has this analogy with a cork, like holding the cork underwater, and it’s like “If you just go a bit and it’ll pop up to the top. And sometimes the resistance is just so much that we don’t even realize how much it’s holding us back. When we’re in a state of resistance, I guess one just brings awareness to that. That could be something that’s keeping us stuck, do you have any tips for getting out of that resistance state?

Christine Terrio 

I would look at what it is that you’re stuck on. Maybe it’s a decision that you have to make, figuring out which direction to go, but just kind of just brainstorming. Brainstorming different ideas off, if you went, one way or the other, what would the next steps be after that?

I always say that either way. There’s no right or wrong decision. It’s part of the journey. It’s part of what’s next for you. You can try one way and maybe it didn’t get you as far as you thought it would go, and then you try the other way, and still, you’re going to learn something from both experiences and it’s still going to move you forward. Definitely, when it comes to procrastination, brainstorming, and looking out a few steps ahead, which way might lead to the path you want to be on, try it out. If it doesn’t work, try the other way. 

There’s no right or wrong. 

Jaclyn Mellone 

You say it so simply and logically. I’m the master procrastinator. We have a whole episode on this, so we don’t need to talk about it too much. There was a funny word that I saw recently and I think it was, was it procrasticleaning – although that’s a thing. But it was something about the tasks. I wish I could remember it. It was funny.

Christine Terrio

When it comes to the tasks if it’s a decision, brainstorm. When it comes to the task, I try to do those.

Jaclyn Mellone

Yeah. Let’s talk about the tasking goal. What I was going to say is when you’re procrastinating, doing one task and then you start doing all of these other tasks, like procrastinate. It’s like “procrastiproductivity” or something, I don’t know. There was this funny word. I can’t remember it. But yes, I can so relate to this. Here’s the thing, I really need to do that there’s that resistance on. And then I’ll be like “Oh, I’m not going to go do all these other things too.” That I don’t have that resistance with, right? So when we are resisting something, especially if it’s keeping us stuck, because if we were to do that thing, it could be moving us forward. Action brings clarity. What are the tips? Okay. We’re not stuck in decisions. We’re stuck in action for the task. Yeah. 

Christine Terrio

Yeah. I can be guilty of that sometimes. And when there’s that big task at hand, yes. You divert to all those smaller tasks to make you feel productive, and if they’re easier to get done and you steer away from the thing that you really need to get done. But like you said, it’s when you get that thing done. You’re moving forward and you’re taking action and it’s opening more doors and getting things done. Those are the things that have to get done first. Knock them out at the beginning of the day. Set a deadline and share it with somebody, “I’m going to do this by Friday and have them check in on you. “And I think for me, I could always use accountability. 

The more I share with my support and with my community, the more I hold myself to it. You’re procrastinating on doing a task. Have that accountability partner who will check in on you and make sure you’re getting it done.

Jaclyn Mellone

I love that tip. I need all the accountability. I think that’s what’s helped me the most is building and that accountability because that does light the fire for me. The whole “Eat the frog” thing, and it just never worked for me. I don’t know. I just can’t. I don’t like frogs. But for those of you that don’t know, there’s a book called Eat the Frog that talks about doing the big, hard thing first.

I don’t know if it’s my ADHD brain that it’s just too big of a mountain. I need to do the smaller things first. And then I build up that like dopamine and confidence or whatever it is to, to then tackle that bigger thing. I think it’s just that everyone’s going to be different in figuring out what works for you. But I think most of us are pretty good with accountability. I think most pains, like adding in that layer of accountability, and if we’re working for ourselves, sometimes we don’t have that default accountability.

Yeah, a hundred percent. When you’re starting your own business, it’s very hard to have that accountability when you don’t have a team or if you have a partner to support you. So definitely, reaching out to the community makes all the difference.

I came from the health coaching program. I came from, I built a huge community of other health coaches and we hold ourselves accountable and have weekly chats. Doing things like that really helps and networking with them and supporting each other because we’re all in this together.

And another thing I was going to say was, think of all the other frogs, all the other tasks that got in your way in the past that you ended up doing and reflect back. What was it that got you to complete those tasks? What was the reward from it?

It ends up being a lot easier when you’re doing it versus, this big, big mountain to climb that’s in your head. Looking back at things like” What were those big obstacles in the past where those big mountains that you had to climb in and that you did climb? And like “What was it that finally got you to?” And do it like there was a reward. Once you climbed up that mountain, you did it. You look back and say “Okay, I did it. “And when you do it again when you keep climbing these mountains, they become easier. They become smaller. They become hills. 

They become hills. Yes. They become slopes. I’m thinking totally random, but it’s just word association. When I was in high school, there was this little drop off-slope, if you will. Outside the school, you’d walk out. There’s a parking lot and a little green slope down. And we called it the “hill”. It was like the hill was technically not on school property.

You could smoke cigarettes at the hill. Maybe I smoked some cigarettes. It’s a little naughty in those days. So I would tell my mom about it. I’d be like “Oh yeah, I was up the hill hanging out with so-and-so. ” And then when my mom actually saw the hill, she’s like “It’s really not a hill, it’s just like a slope.” That’s what this is. She’s like “This is not like a hill. I was picturing a big, green pasture, like a hill that you guys are on. It’s just like a little dinky slope.” And with you saying that I’m like “That is totally cool with us. Like we thought we were so cool, on these like a “hill’ and it was just this little slope and that’s what this is.

We’re building things up to be these big mountains, these even the hills, right? And they could just be a little slope. So if we actually do them for what? Like, take them at the surface level, when we put all the emotion on top of it and the resistance and the fear and the limiting beliefs and all of that compiled on it makes them feel like those hills and mountains.

So you had me thinking because having a list of things like “What are those things that I’ve done?” Not just to be like” Pat myself on the back.” Like, “Yeah. Jaclyn. You can do hard things.” But also, to start seeing the patterns of what was it that got me through to be able to do it likely, a hard deadline or just a lot of outside pressure. But maybe there’s some other magic that we could uncover.

I’m going to make this list. I think that’s a really good idea. Let’s keep some data that we’ve done this and how did it work and start to see what we can extract from that. 

Christine Terrio

And also connecting with that rewarding feeling after, because you feel good after you accomplish that task and you see all the positive actions that come after it. It gives you that momentum to keep moving forward. 

Jaclyn Mellone

This could be like a short circuit in my brain. I don’t always think logically, intellectually, I’m like “Yes, yes, that is very smart.” And I know that good things come from dumb things or whatever. But sometimes it’s hard for me to actually feel that. Maybe that’s part of something that I struggle with. When you picture that done feeling, what does that feel like, or what does that look like for you? I feel like I’m like “What is it like to be human Christine?” But no, I’m curious because is there something there that I just need to listen into closer or I don’t know.

Because I think there is a disconnect there for me and I think you could be onto something that I’m, it sounds very obvious, but I think I’m missing. 

Christine Terrio

Let me ask you, do you celebrate your wins? 

Jaclyn Mellone

Yes, like bigger wins, I celebrate and I do. There are certain things that when I do them, I feel like that dopamine rush of like “I got that done, but that doesn’t happen with everything I get done, but certain things, so maybe I need to keep track of what are those things that get that done?

I think there is a feeling in my body that I could be more in tune with that finished, accomplished, checked off the list feeling. I also am a “words of affirmation” person. I think that celebrating in your love language is good. So as I say this, I’m like “Maybe I need somebody else to tell me a good job for getting it done.” Maybe that I need to build that into the accountability that someone has. It’s not just that I checked it off the list, but maybe it’s the outside. Like I need Stacey to vox me, like “You did it, Jaclyn. “It sounded like a child, but I mean, that’s probably a good way to motivate me. 

But yeah, I don’t know. I need to look into this more, ’cause it’s not second nature for me. I definitely celebrate the bigger things, but just with the little day-to-day things, or even those like middle-sized hills of resistance, I don’t have a celebration plan for that, you know? 

Christine Terrio

Yeah. And they could be small celebrations. They could just be a happy dance or something that’s just going to bring that dopamine level up just a little bit to make you feel good about it. And then, I don’t know. I feel like sometimes we do the task, we do the thing. And we go onto the next thing and we don’t take that pause.

We don’t take that, that moment to just say “Okay, I did it. “Whatever I was just resisting, I did it, celebrated it. And then go onto the next thing. And I noticed that with myself. When you’re switching to the tasks that are easier to get done and avoiding that resistant one, you also don’t feel like you’ve accomplished as much because you have that resistance building up. It’s celebrating when that resistance is there and you’re pushing through it and you have your accountability partner or whatever works for you, you know? Happy to help them complete that task, celebrating it. I think it just helps feel that sense of accomplishment.

Jaclyn Mellone

So how do you celebrate? I know you mentioned happy dances. Is that what you do to celebrate? Is there a different way that you celebrate? 

Christine Terrio

Sometimes it is an immediate happy dance. Like it’s that dopamine is flowing and you want to get that energy going in your body. Sometimes it’s just sharing it with a friend like, “Hey, I just did X, Y, Z.”

And getting that recognition back, like “Good job!”. Sometimes it’s treating yourself. Maybe it’s if you’re into massages, maybe it’s going for a massage. Or if it’s a bigger task or if it’s a little task, maybe it’s going, celebrating with your girlfriends and just having a girls’ night.

It doesn’t have to be a celebratory dinner, but just going out and having a girls’ night or a night with your husband or date night. Kind of just that breakaway to say, “Okay, I just accomplished this, I get to relax. I get to have fun. I get to enjoy it.” Because sometimes we forget to do that. 

Jaclyn Mellone

Well, you definitely have me thinking. And I feel like, for the bigger things, I’ve definitely worked that in. But I think that there’s, I think you’re onto something with these smaller things throughout the week. And then I could be smarter or more intentional. And I don’t know if it’s systematized or what we’re onto here, but it’s something where it’s worked in or like this is what’s going to happen, or this is how I’m going to check it off and share it and make it a little bit more formal, thoughtful. Whatever we’re going to call it. 

Because with those other things that do, I don’t really feel that rush and I think it would really help, so thank you. I think we’re onto something here and hopefully, hopefully, if you’re listening and you struggle with these, like middle-of-the-road tasks and procrastination or just resistance or I don’t know, just like existential dread to do them. Slightly dramatic. I like how you’ve structured this because I think it really can get us over that hump and train our brains to maybe not give us such a hard time, but doing something similar the next time around.

Christine Terrio

And sometimes when I say setting intentions, it makes me think like we always set a yearly goal for our business but I do monthly goals, too. I’ll pick three monthly goals that I want to accomplish, personal or related to the business. And those are the medium wins too, that you can celebrate, and that could be broken down to weekly as well. 

Jaclyn Mellone

Definitely. No, I think taking the time to be intentional, that really helps. So earlier in the conversation, you mentioned your acronym for S.I.M.P.L.Y, will you walk us through that because that is also your methodology for how to do this. And I think we’ve talked about some of these points, but I’d love to hear you explain how it all works together for us thinking of getting unstuck.

Christine Terrio

Yes. One more step, we tend to not feel good, right? We tend to feel down when the dopamine is not really coming in. And we just feel like we’ve plateaued and it’s finding that spark to snap us out of that funk, to get us back into that creative flow that we enjoy being in. It’s like peaks and valleys. It comes up and down. It ebbs and it flows. And I’m like “How do I just stay up here? How do I stay up in that high flowing creative zone?”

Finding things that motivate you internally, not just externally, but like what fulfills you? What satisfies you? What are your values? What are your strengths and really zoning in on those? When we are motivated internally, we are more likely to achieve that thing. Because sometimes we might have an external motivation that okay, I want to get this because of something that’s not really going to fulfill us. when we get there, it’s not as satisfying. What really lights you up? What feels good to you? What fills you up? Those are the things that you want to get clear on. When we set intentions, when we know what our values are, when we know what fulfills us, then we can show up and do the work that way. know what we want to prioritize.

Going into the P of Prioritizing, prioritizing you, prioritizing your health, your wealth. What is it that you need to get done? What is it that’s going to make you feel good? What is it that is going to bring you joy? And what do you need to accomplish? What is it? Sometimes we say we’re so busy, we can’t do all the things, but we always have time for that Netflix show. We always have time for all these different distractions. Maybe it’s social media, maybe it’s different distractions that might not be bringing you to your goal.

Sometimes it’s just taking an audit of how you’re spending your day, and finding different ways to be a little bit more efficient with your time and streamlining things and really, zoning in on “What do I need to get done today to accomplish my goal? What do I need to get done today to get to that next level?”

And then letting the distractions fall at the backend. I think when you’re willing to go all-in is when that priority comes up. You’re willing to do the work. The desire is there, the motivation’s there, the willingness is there. You don’t let yourself off the hook, right?

You’re not going to complain. You’re not going to blame anything else. You’re going to really be there and do the work. And that’s because you have that core set of values and strengths and that motivation behind you to move forward, checking in with yourself and making sure you’re ready to take that next step.

Christine Terrio

The last one is to love yourself. And I notice and feel as women, we tend to love everybody else and make sure everybody else is taken care of before ourselves. And that leaves us burnt out a lot of times.

Going back, we didn’t really talk about the sandwich yet but filling your cup. You know, fill in your cup first. What do you need to get through the day with the energy and the goodness so that you can show up for yourself and everybody else, making sure that you prioritize and you schedule time for you is also a key component?

Because if you’re always saying yes and doing the things for everybody else that really depletes our energy, that really burns us out at the end of the day. Making time to get in tune with yourself and know what it is. As for me, I know I need some downtime and alone time sometimes, just to decompress and refocus.

I make sure to plan a little bit of time each day, whether it’s a 20-minute walk or something just to have that, to reset and that’s not negotiable. That’s something that’s part of my routine. That’s something that I need. And I always say, “If you’re going to say yes to somebody else, and it’s going to take away something, you said yes to yourself to really think about it.”

Because when you say yes to somebody else and you take away something, you are going to say yes to yourself, you don’t feel good about it, right? You’re like, “Oh, I just helped so-and-so.” right? Now, I’m tired. Nobody wins there. You’re not your best self for that friend or that person.

And you’re not your best self for yourself. Knowing what your limits are, knowing how much you can have on your plate, and taking care of yourself. I think going in my own journey, changing my mindset and when I was kind of a little bit lost and I felt a little bit down, it was like “Okay, What’s going to light me up?” And I started doing those little things and paying attention to just practicing gratitude and having that positive mindset to really reshape and rewire the way I was thinking about things. And it all started when I started taking care of myself and checking in with myself and making sure I was okay. So definitely, tune in with yourself in the morning, mid-day, at the end of the day, make sure you’re feeling okay. 

Jaclyn Mellone

When you say tune in with yourself, what does that look like for you or your clients? I’m sure it’s not the same for everyone, but for someone who’s never done that before, what would that look like? 

Christine Terrio

Yes. Just pay attention to how you’re feeling throughout the day. Sometimes, we get so busy doing these tasks and trying to get down through the checklist, we forget to come up for air. We forget to breathe. We forget to just see if there’s tension in your shoulder and your jaw and your fist. Sometimes we hold our stress in our bodies. And kind of doing a body scan will help say “Okay, I’m a little stressed. I need to just take a few deep breaths and a few deep belly breaths in and out.” Change that energy and push out the tension that might be building up in the day. 

Jaclyn Mellone

There are meditations too, that we’ll do that body check for you. It’ll just say it and you can just close your eyes and breathe in and listen to the directions. And I think that that helps too. These are creating habits and it adds that extra layer. I didn’t even know of accountability, but it makes it where someone is prompting you to do that, where, which certainly helps. 

Christine Terrio

Definitely set a timer. If it’s something that you need to be to build more mindfulness too and bring more awareness to. I noticed, when I was in my last job, I was very stressed. I would hold my tension in my jaw. I would clench my teeth. So that was where I kind of held that tension, that energy. And I had to come back and “Okay, I got to take a few deep breaths.” 

Maybe it’s a little bit higher today, so I have to go for a little bit of a walk.” Do those things that are going to break that energy out of your body because you need to get it out, so you can go back to that flowing creative energy that helps grow your business. It helps get you to do the things, to keep the business running. 

Jaclyn Mellone

Exactly. Now one last thing, ’cause I know we’re just about out of time here, but you had mentioned before knowing your limits in certain places. For those of us that are in that place, that we’re feeling stuck or overwhelmed or whatever that is, that it likely is a result of, maybe not knowing that or meaning to redraw those lines. As we’re working our way out of that, how do we navigate that? I realize this is a big question but is there a first step to figuring out what I need every day or what is too much for me? How do we navigate, figuring out where those boundaries are? 

Christine Terrio

I would say, it goes. Paying attention to yourself, paying attention to your body, like “Do you feel like you’re holding tension anywhere in your body? ” But also it’s trial and error. It’s trying different things. Trying meditation, trying journaling, going for a walk. What makes you feel good at the end of the day?

Sometimes when I have a great day, I try to take notice of that too, and say, “What did I do today that made it so great?” And then try to repeat that. so it’s bringing awareness just here every day. Sometimes I’ll do it. You can even do a time audit of every 15 minutes going through your week, just noting things down, like what made you feel good or what moment satisfied you or rewarded you. What made you feel stressed? You know, taking notice of both sides and paying attention to going throughout your day and seeing, “What were your successes? What made you feel good that day? Maybe you feel stressed that day and take notice of it so that you can build that awareness. 

It does take practice. It does take time. It’s not going to happen all at once. But it’s this evolving, exploration, it’s this evolving discovery of yourself and what works for you and that’s also going to evolve over time. And when you go through the different seasons of your life, it’s going to change.

I always take notice of “What was a good day and what made it a good day? What might’ve been a not-so-good day? What made it not-so-good and figuring out what works for you? I know that at the end of the day, I like to go for a walk, when it’s about sunset time, go by the water and go for a walk.

That wraps up my day and brings me peace again. Just that being in nature, being outside, getting that vitamin D that makes me feel good. It’s all about mindfulness and awareness and paying attention to the small things and the details. 

Jaclyn Mellone

Yes, and it sounds like this is an experiment. Collecting our data and really taking that time to be mindful each day, but to take notes and reflect, start to look at this. I think it’s very disarming to look at something as an experiment, right? It’s not about getting it right. It’s just approaching it with that energy of “Let’s try to figure this out. Let’s see. Let’s get curious about it.” And I think I know one of the things I found when I went really deep into this, I think when I was really struggling with my mental health last year was when I’m mindlessly scrolling, but it’s not filling my cup, but laughter was really healing for me. Whether it was watching and I’m obsessed with Hamilton.

Things with Hamilton always make me happy, but even now I’ve been watching, I am in love. But this comedian, not like “in love” love, but he’s my favorite comedian.

I haven’t had a favorite comedian in a long time, but we’ve been watching, I don’t even know. I probably, for him to be my favorite comedian, I should probably know how to say his name out loud, but I think it’s Nate Bargatze or Bargatzey, I don’t know. I really don’t know how to correctly pronounce his name. I probably should. He’s so funny. And sometimes I’ll just take a break, I’ll go on YouTube and find old videos of him, and I just like full-body laughs and he’s so good. And that is for me, it brings joy and I don’t know, the dopamine rush of the laughter and I get so much more from that than just the mindless scroll.

Christine Terrio

Yeah. And that could just lay down to such a downward spiral that scrolls. 

Jaclyn Mellone

People tend to share their best moments and their worst moments on social oftentimes, right? And it’s like scrolling roulette because you don’t know it.

And it could be someone who you’d want to support with something that you may not be prepared to handle the heaviness of something that’s about to be shared in your feed, too. What I’ve realized for me is that scrolling makes me feel very out of control of what I’m consuming. And if I’m looking to be intentional about when I’m consuming, it’s hard to do. But balancing that with also feeling like,” Well, I want to stay connected.” It’s a delicate balance.

I certainly have not figured out how to do that delicate balance yet. Still trying on that one. All right. Well, I know we have to wrap up. Is there anything else that you wanted to share before we wrap up? 

Christine Terrio

Just simply live. I would just say. Go set those intentions to motivate yourself, prioritize yourself, and love yourself. We’re all in this together. It’s all just about exploring and it’s just a part of our journey. There’s no destination. Just enjoy it. 

Jaclyn Mellone

I love that reminder. There’s no destination. We really do need to enjoy the journey. Oh, all right. It’s Christine. This is very inspiring. Hey! Yeah. You have my wheels turning for sure, so thank you for sharing. How can we stay in touch with you? 

Christine Terrio

So you can follow me on instagram@simplylivingjourney or visit me on my website at simplylivingjourney.com. 

Jaclyn Mellone

All right. Amazing. Thank you so, so much.