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5-MINUTE FRIDAY: It's Time to Write a Really Important Letter · Hurdle with Emily Abbate

• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Hey, Hurdler's Emily A Bodie popping in with another installment
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: of five Minute Friday from Hurdle. As you know, on
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  Speaker 1: five Minute Friday, I tell a story, I offer you
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  Speaker 1: a thought prompt to take you into your weekend, and
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  Speaker 1: then give you my highlights of the week. Things that
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  Speaker 1: I thought were cool, whether they're awesome, things that businesses
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  Speaker 1: are doing, content picks, podcasts, shows to watch, movies, to see, articles,
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  Speaker 1: to read, you name it. It's kind of crazy when
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  Speaker 1: I take a step back and realize that we've been
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  Speaker 1: doing this social distancing, stay at home quarantine situation for
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  Speaker 1: almost two months now. I said to someone today that
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  Speaker 1: I know it's hard to see it this way, but
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  Speaker 1: I I feel like it's been a really unique opportunity
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  Speaker 1: to slow down and reflect a lot. Right. I've been
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  Speaker 1: reflecting about some of the things that used to be
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  Speaker 1: part of my routine that aren't now, and that includes traveling.
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  Speaker 1: So on that note, when I was a senior in college,
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  Speaker 1: I started dating someone that was in the military. We
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  Speaker 1: met about a month before he deployed to Afghanistan. It
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  Speaker 1: was his second tour. It was a really difficult time,
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  Speaker 1: of course for him, but also for me worrying about
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  Speaker 1: him as an infantry guy, living by my cell phone,
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  Speaker 1: hoping to hear from him at any minute, twenty four
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  Speaker 1: hours a day. That was my first introduction to love
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  Speaker 1: in a romantic way, really, this feeling that a piece
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  Speaker 1: of your heart is literally outside of your body. It
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  Speaker 1: was during this relationship that I started writing letters, not
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  Speaker 1: just sporadically. I would write letters whenever I was flying
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  Speaker 1: somewhere on a We dated during my first year of
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  Speaker 1: living in New York, and this was when work travel
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  Speaker 1: started to be a thing for me, and so I
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  Speaker 1: was on flights pretty often, and no matter where I
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  Speaker 1: was coming back from, my rule to myself soon to
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  Speaker 1: become tradition would be that I would write him a
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  Speaker 1: letter on every flight home. Now that relationship is long gone,
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  Speaker 1: admittedly I have been checked in on by every man
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  Speaker 1: I have ever dated in quarantine. I'm not sure how
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  Speaker 1: to feel about that anyway. The habit of writing letters, however,
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  Speaker 1: has remained, and whenever I'm on my way home, whether
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  Speaker 1: it's from our work trip or personal travel, I bring
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  Speaker 1: along the same notebook and I take the time to
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  Speaker 1: write down the things that maybe I'm not all that
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  Speaker 1: ready to say out loud. This letter could be to
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  Speaker 1: a friend that I'm writing. It could be to a
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  Speaker 1: love interest, a relationship, someone that I'm casually seeing, a
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  Speaker 1: family member. I've written to my parents. I mean, the
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  Speaker 1: list goes on. Now. I've never actually sent one of
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  Speaker 1: these letters, although I have definitely read I think at
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  Speaker 1: least maybe two of them to the person that it
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  Speaker 1: was meant for. Like I said, I have a notebook,
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  Speaker 1: and that notebook has about i'd say thirty to forty letters.
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  Speaker 1: It's something I've thought about publishing one day, or at
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  Speaker 1: least taking that idea or concept and turning into some
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  Speaker 1: sort of book. I digress. So the other day I
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  Speaker 1: was journaling and I thought to myself that it's been
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  Speaker 1: a while since I've written one of those letters, and
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  Speaker 1: there's something really special to be said for how cathartic
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  Speaker 1: they are. To get something off of your chest that
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  Speaker 1: makes it feel tight otherwise, to tell someone how you
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  Speaker 1: feel when maybe in real life it just doesn't feel possible,
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  Speaker 1: or maybe you feel as if there's just no point.
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  Speaker 1: I share this with you to lead you in to
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  Speaker 1: this week's prompt. Like I said, sometimes it's harder to
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  Speaker 1: say something than it is to write things down. And
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  Speaker 1: this week I had a moment where I thought to
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  Speaker 1: myself that I miss having this freedom to really dive
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  Speaker 1: into something that feels buried deep inside of me. And
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  Speaker 1: so I told myself that I was going to start
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  Speaker 1: trying to write one of these letters once a week.
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  Speaker 1: So now I invite you to do something similar. I
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  Speaker 1: want you this weekend to take ten minutes, just ten minutes,
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  Speaker 1: and write down the thing that's hard for you to say,
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  Speaker 1: write someone a letter. When you're done, take the time
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  Speaker 1: to read it out loud and ask yourself, how does
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  Speaker 1: this make you feel hearing it out loud? Does it
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  Speaker 1: make you want to change something? Does it make you
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  Speaker 1: want to reach out to someone? I'm curious. So after
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  Speaker 1: you're done writing, and after you've read it out loud,
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  Speaker 1: shoot me a note, shoot me a DM, an email,
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  Speaker 1: whatever works for you, and let me know what you
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  Speaker 1: thought of this exercise my highlights for the week. So
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  Speaker 1: this is, without a doubt, the nerdiest thing. But as
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: an entrepreneur, I'm always looking for hacks on how to
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  Speaker 1: better run my business. This sounds like an ad, but
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  Speaker 1: it is not. And I recently started using this free
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  Speaker 1: website called wave. It is for basically accounting needs or
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  Speaker 1: keeping your books together, so to speak. And what I
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  Speaker 1: love about it is it's super user friendly, and for
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  Speaker 1: the first time in over three years of being my
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  Speaker 1: own boss, I have a reasonable expectation about how much
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  Speaker 1: money will come in at a certain time, which sounds
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  Speaker 1: when I say it out loud, like something that I
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  Speaker 1: should have been keeping track up for quite some time.
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  Speaker 1: But I'm finally on it. It was one of my
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  Speaker 1: big to do list items to check off during this
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  Speaker 1: time at home, and it feels really good. So I
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  Speaker 1: want to share my new secret of sorts, my new
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  Speaker 1: hack with all of you. It's called Wave. Check it out.
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  Speaker 1: Also shout out this week to Lulu Lemon. I ordered
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  Speaker 1: a belt bag a fannyback for my mom for Mother's Day.
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  Speaker 1: She's seen me with my fanny packs over the last
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  Speaker 1: few years and has wanted one herself, and I thought
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  Speaker 1: that Mother's Day would be the perfect opportunity to get
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  Speaker 1: her one of her own, so I ordered her one
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  Speaker 1: of their belt bags and I did it on Monday
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  Speaker 1: of this week. The package was at her doorstep by
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  Speaker 1: Wednesday afternoon, which says something. Because I can't tell you
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  Speaker 1: how many things that I have ordered over the last
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  Speaker 1: couple months. To be honest with you, way too much
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  Speaker 1: ordering has been done over the last couple months, and
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  Speaker 1: some of these things that I have wanted in a
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  Speaker 1: rather efficient manner have literally taken four weeks to arrive.
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  Speaker 1: So big props to Lululemon. My mom loves her belt bag.
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  Speaker 1: And on that note, a huge, huge, Happy Mother's Day
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  Speaker 1: to all of the mamas listening to Five Minute Friday
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  Speaker 1: this week. Next highlight for the week, a company called
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  Speaker 1: Remind Me What Matters is inviting users to mail themselves
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  Speaker 1: or a family member or a friend a postcard that
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  Speaker 1: will arrive a few months into the future. Now, the
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  Speaker 1: card is only a dollar, and the rest of the
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  Speaker 1: proceeds they go to one of the fu charities that
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  Speaker 1: they've selected. And I super dig this. I think it's
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  Speaker 1: so cool, just this idea of not knowing when the
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  Speaker 1: card is going to show up, and what a cool
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  Speaker 1: thing to either give someone you care about or even
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  Speaker 1: send to yourself. I mean, maybe right now, think about
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  Speaker 1: what you're gonna want to hear in three, four, five
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  Speaker 1: months from now. Maybe you don't know what that is,
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  Speaker 1: but you have an opportunity to send yourself a note
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  Speaker 1: in the future or someone you love, and I think
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  Speaker 1: that's just pretty awesome. Again, the company is called Remind
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  Speaker 1: Me What Matters, and all of the links to everything
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  Speaker 1: I'm talking about in this highlight section as always in
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  Speaker 1: the show notes. Also from a content highlight perspective, I
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: asked my Instagram followers with some of their favorite other
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  Speaker 1: podcasts are to listen to, and I am so excited
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: to dig into a bunch of the recommendations. As you know,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: I've been walking a lot more. I've been trying to
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  Speaker 1: get out to do some of that for at least least,
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  Speaker 1: you know, thirty minutes in the morning before I'm inside
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  Speaker 1: all day. And so a few of the recommendations that
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: you all sent over Crime Junkie, the Happiness Lab, Unlocking
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  Speaker 1: Us with Brene Brown, which I have highlighted on the
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  Speaker 1: pod before, Bad on Paper, Dax Shepherd's Armchair Expert, and
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: today a friend send another one the Ezra Klein Show
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  Speaker 1: from Fox. Some good stuff to get us started. And admittedly,
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  Speaker 1: while we are talking content, I have a confession. I
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  Speaker 1: watched Too Hot to Handle on Netflix, and while it
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  Speaker 1: was almost pathetically entertaining, it has nothing on Love is Blind.
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  Speaker 1: So if you're looking for a little bit of mindless TV,
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  Speaker 1: something that gets your mind off of whatever else is
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  Speaker 1: going on. There you go. You are welcome, and that's it.
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  Speaker 1: I do want to flag that I've been getting a
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: lot of requests to host another intro to podcasting webinar,
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  Speaker 1: and so what I'm going to do is actually make
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  Speaker 1: a downloadable guide that you'll be able to snap. I
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: get from the Hurdle website, so stay tuned for more
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  Speaker 1: details on that. As many of you know, I read
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  Speaker 1: from the meditation book Journey to the Heart every morning
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  Speaker 1: and today's verse about loving yourself really hit home for me,
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  Speaker 1: and I think it'll hit home for you too, So
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  Speaker 1: I'm finishing with some words from the book again. It
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  Speaker 1: is called Journey to the Heart. This situation will change,
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  Speaker 1: This time will pass, and the magic will return, so
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  Speaker 1: will joy and faith, and you will feel connected again.
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  Speaker 1: But the first thing to do is love yourself and
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  Speaker 1: the good you want will follow. At Emily Body at
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: Hurdle Podcast Another Hurdle Conquered. Catch you guys next time.