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100: Celebrating 100 Episodes: 2 Self-Love Practices to Try for 100 Days · The Everyday Awesome Project

• 0:27
  Polly Mertens: Hey superstars, welcome back.
• 0:28
  Polly Mertens: Polly here.
• 0:29
  Polly Mertens: And Sam Pruitt.
• 0:31
  Polly Mertens: What's up, beautiful humans?
• 0:33
  Polly Mertens: I just want to say we're here to celebrate.
• 0:35
  Polly Mertens: Oh my gosh.
• 0:36
  Polly Mertens: Woohoo! Dance party in the house, hundredth episode, hundredth episode.
• 0:41
  Samantha Pruitt: Can you believe this, dude?
• 0:42
  Samantha Pruitt: And I'm standing because I have an injured back, but actually, this feels good to do a little bit of movement in my body.
• 0:48
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah.
• 0:48
  Samantha Pruitt: So sorry for the bad lighting and the weird background and the fact that I'm standing, but it is what it is.
• 0:53
  Samantha Pruitt: I'm in a process of healing a back injury, and you can listen to all that on prior episodes.
• 0:59
  Samantha Pruitt: But today it's about what, Polly?
• 1:02
  Polly Mertens: Celebrating and self-love, I would say.
• 1:05
  Polly Mertens: Oh yeah.
• 1:06
  Polly Mertens: Like the core, one of the core messages that we're all about, right?
• 1:11
  Samantha Pruitt: I really say it's the complete through line.
• 1:14
  Samantha Pruitt: It is the thread that we have carried through a hundred episodes.
• 1:19
  Samantha Pruitt: And even before we committed to this podcast, and we'll talk a little bit about what our experience has been, it's just who you and I are in the world.
• 1:27
  Samantha Pruitt: Self-investment, self-compassion, self-knowing and knowledge, really self-love.
• 1:34
  Samantha Pruitt: And it's just what we stand for.
• 1:36
  Samantha Pruitt: The literal, you could just tattoo it to our foreheads, and it's what we're about.
• 1:40
  Samantha Pruitt: And so for our audience, it's really if they get nothing else from our last hundred episodes or our future hundreds of episodes still to be coming.
• 1:49
  Samantha Pruitt: It's that that is the work.
• 1:51
  Samantha Pruitt: That is the work.
• 1:54
  Polly Mertens: You know, I look at it as like you gotta fill your own cup before you can give to other cups.
• 1:59
  Polly Mertens: You know, you've got to pour into yourself, you've got to well up yourself, whether it's boundaries or taking care of yourself, or you know, build that foundation, you know, from health and vitality to mental emotional fitness, you know, and growth and contribution, and then giving back, right?
• 2:17
  Polly Mertens: And there are seasons in our life where things get, you know, the the proportions of all of that look a little different, right?
• 2:24
  Polly Mertens: You know, how much we can invest in ourselves versus we have, you know, giving to children or giving to whatever, caring for loved ones or ailing ones or elderly or whatever it looks like.
• 2:34
  Polly Mertens: But the foundational core, if we're not taking care of, we don't have our mask on first, nothing's really gonna work out in the world.
• 2:42
  Polly Mertens: Our work is, you know, it's like like running on empty, like a gas, a car trying to go 100 miles an hour and just totally putting, you know, not changing the oil, not putting gas enough gas in the gas tank and just flooring it.
• 2:56
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 2:56
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah.
• 2:57
  Samantha Pruitt: Well, you know, a big story that people are telling themselves today is I'm exhausted, I'm overwhelmed, I'm this, I'm that, right?
• 3:03
  Samantha Pruitt: And we're not saying that those aren't real experiences that they're having too much on their plate, too much of a commitment, completely under-fueled, like we're talking about.
• 3:13
  Samantha Pruitt: You know, they don't have the health and the wellness programming and development underneath them in a physical or psychological way to facilitate this really big life they've committed to.
• 3:23
  Samantha Pruitt: But also, it's modern times are wearing us all down.
• 3:27
  Samantha Pruitt: So at the core of this message today, we're gonna give them two challenges.
• 3:32
  Samantha Pruitt: They will be hundred-day challenges, and we'll get into those in just a bit, but they are there to simply serve this need, to get reconnected with the self called you and give yourself some self-love.
• 3:46
  Samantha Pruitt: And they're short, simple, easy to facilitate daily rituals or habits that we'd like them to do for a hundred days.
• 3:55
  Samantha Pruitt: You've got one, I've got one.
• 3:56
  Samantha Pruitt: They can pick either, or they can do both if they want to be super radical.
• 4:00
  Samantha Pruitt: So we're gonna share that with them today.
• 4:04
  Samantha Pruitt: But before we do that, dude, we've taped a hundred episodes.
• 4:10
  Samantha Pruitt: It's total nuts.
• 4:13
  Samantha Pruitt: And you went back and looked at our first episode, which I think is hilarious.
• 4:16
  Samantha Pruitt: And now I've got to do that today.
• 4:18
  Samantha Pruitt: I haven't done that yet.
• 4:18
  Samantha Pruitt: And you even watched the video.
• 4:20
  Samantha Pruitt: Oh my gosh.
• 4:21
  Samantha Pruitt: By the way, we're on YouTube now.
• 4:23
  Samantha Pruitt: I should just drop that into the combo real quick.
• 4:26
  Samantha Pruitt: All our videos are loaded up on YouTube now, so go check it out, people.
• 4:29
  Samantha Pruitt: But what did you see in that first video that we shot the first episode?
• 4:33
  Polly Mertens: Our shiny little faces of excitement and like giddy playfulness, like, oh my God, look what we're creating, like, you know, just like that bubbly, you know, you know, like, oh, we have this gift for the world, and we're just excited and exuberant about it.
• 4:50
  Polly Mertens: And and we went out in nature where we love and you know, under the beautiful sky and the sun was setting, and it was like, and then we're like, that was too much work.
• 4:58
  Polly Mertens: What the hell?
• 4:59
  Polly Mertens: We're like, we're not doing it that way.
• 5:01
  Polly Mertens: That was what we're learning.
• 5:02
  Polly Mertens: It was like, if we have to do this for every episode with the current state of our lives, and I can what one of the things we were talking about is how you know some wonderful um podcasters out there who didn't keep, you know, they haven't made it to 100, you know, they they stopped at 50 or whatever it was.
• 5:18
  Polly Mertens: And I think if we had kept the format from the first episode alive, you know, like, oh, we have to, you know, be together.
• 5:27
  Samantha Pruitt: Be together and be this and be on location, right?
• 5:30
  Samantha Pruitt: Have the video and everything perfect, have the audio perfect, be somewhere really incredibly beautiful.
• 5:37
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean, we were sitting in the middle of the desert, literally.
• 5:40
  Polly Mertens: I mean, we had the hope treat.
• 5:41
  Polly Mertens: We were like, oh my god, we're gonna take this on the road and we'll do this.
• 5:44
  Polly Mertens: And then I was like, that sounds amazing.
• 5:45
  Polly Mertens: Then we failed, we did the first one and we're like, hold up.
• 5:49
  Polly Mertens: I don't think this is sustainable.
• 5:52
  Polly Mertens: You know, like we're the production crew and we're the beauty crew and we're the the director and all this and the editor.
• 5:59
  Polly Mertens: And it was like, yeah, I don't think we're gonna do it like that.
• 6:03
  Polly Mertens: So I think that could be on our future, you know, like that could definitely be like, you know, as we we grow and we evolve.
• 6:09
  Polly Mertens: You know, it's funny, I was um listening to a lot of YouTubers who say, just get started, you know, like if you don't like just start making, you have to make 500 crappy videos before you make, you know, you know what you're doing, kind of thing.
• 6:19
  Polly Mertens: And I was like, Yeah, so we're in that.
• 6:21
  Polly Mertens: You know, I look back at the videos I made when so when I was an eating disorder coach, that was my primary focus.
• 6:27
  Polly Mertens: So like I look back at some videos.
• 6:29
  Polly Mertens: I made like a hundred videos seven to nine years ago.
• 6:32
  Polly Mertens: If I look at those, and I was like, hey, I was so young.
• 6:35
  Polly Mertens: I was like, oh my god, look at me.
• 6:37
  Polly Mertens: Look at me, you know, just out there just sharing and you know, and doing all this stuff.
• 6:44
  Polly Mertens: And I was like, that's the phase.
• 6:45
  Polly Mertens: And we'll look back at this time and be like, look how young we were, and how you know we were so whatever, you know, full of ourselves or vibrant or you know, play whatever, you know.
• 6:57
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, yeah.
• 6:58
  Samantha Pruitt: Oh, that's so awesome.
• 7:00
  Samantha Pruitt: Well, here the reality is that you know, we do all of the things.
• 7:04
  Samantha Pruitt: We don't have an army of people behind us, we don't monetize this in any way, it's completely free, and it's basically free coaching, us in dialogue, free coaching for the world, which we feel passionate about delivering that and continuing to deliver that, but we don't make money doing this, right?
• 7:18
  Samantha Pruitt: We don't have ads and commercials, so it's a very different experience for the audience.
• 7:22
  Samantha Pruitt: A, it's incredibly authentic.
• 7:24
  Samantha Pruitt: It's you and I in conversation about a topic that is totally relevant to all humans, right?
• 7:32
  Samantha Pruitt: And we want to be of service in this way.
• 7:35
  Samantha Pruitt: We want to continue to provide this for people.
• 7:37
  Samantha Pruitt: We're very passionate about that.
• 7:39
  Samantha Pruitt: And us showing up for the audience, but really showing up for each other and ourselves is absolute pure freaking magic.
• 7:49
  Samantha Pruitt: And it has been so much fun.
• 7:52
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean, really, sure.
• 7:53
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay, it's been some work, but it's been incredibly fun because you and I haven't had this kind of really tight locked-in project together ever before.
• 8:02
  Samantha Pruitt: We've done things.
• 8:03
  Polly Mertens: Oh, this is totally selfish for me.
• 8:05
  Polly Mertens: Like, I'll just admit this flat out in case there was any hiding going on.
• 8:11
  Polly Mertens: I completely do this for selfish reasons to get to talk to you for an hour, whatever, you know, our chit chat.
• 8:16
  Polly Mertens: And just the the, you know, it's like I I've looked at uh episodes with Oprah, and I, or anyone like Ritual or whoever I admire, and I just see the evolution of who they are when you talk to people about things that that grow you, that you discover new things.
• 8:32
  Polly Mertens: It's like reading a hundred books, right?
• 8:33
  Polly Mertens: Or having a hundred new conversations.
• 8:35
  Polly Mertens: Like there's something in you that that there's a different dimension to you, right?
• 8:40
  Polly Mertens: And so you pouring into me, me pouring into you, us pouring into the listeners, and what we create out of these.
• 8:47
  Polly Mertens: It's like I'm I'm just saying I'm totally selfish because I get to listen to you, you know, back and forth, and it just feeds me so much.
• 8:54
  Polly Mertens: So yeah.
• 8:55
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah.
• 8:55
  Samantha Pruitt: Likewise, my sister, likewise, absolutely a hundred percent.
• 8:58
  Samantha Pruitt: We learn something during the process every single episode.
• 9:02
  Samantha Pruitt: And yeah, a lot of that is just you and I being in dialogue, talking about hard shit called being a human.
• 9:08
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, right.
• 9:09
  Samantha Pruitt: And a lot of it comes from, yes, of course, we're professional coaches and we have a whole background in, you know, coaching humans in all these different capacities, but they're really personal experiences as well.
• 9:19
  Samantha Pruitt: We bring that to the table in a really authentic way.
• 9:21
  Samantha Pruitt: And I do think our audience really appreciates that.
• 9:24
  Samantha Pruitt: Um, that we don't show up and, you know, pose to be the experts of the thing and telling them what is right and wrong and all this stuff.
• 9:32
  Samantha Pruitt: We are here for creating a safe space and dialogue for people to understand themselves better and ultimately build a better life for themselves.
• 9:40
  Samantha Pruitt: That's what we want.
• 9:41
  Polly Mertens: You know, we're seekers too.
• 9:42
  Polly Mertens: I mean, you are such a walking, you know, just the consumer of more information on health and well-being than I have ever, and I am over here in the woo-woo, you know, like I watch just as many videos, and you know, you're reading all kinds of books on science and the mind and Dr.
• 9:56
  Polly Mertens: Gabor Mate and all that stuff, and I'm like watching near death experiences and like Alan Watts and Carol Cards reading too.
• 10:04
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, totally.
• 10:05
  Polly Mertens: What are we doing in our life?
• 10:06
  Polly Mertens: Are we doing ask humans and stuff?
• 10:09
  Polly Mertens: Okay, you know, and then we pay it for it, and then we want to share it, we want to contribute it.
• 10:14
  Polly Mertens: And so my my intention, my soul's work in this is that it benefits people that, you know, just like the people who we've learned from, we've discovered from.
• 10:23
  Polly Mertens: They took, they either got in the science lab and they did some work and they discovered something, or in the life of the lab of their own life, you know, they learned and they share, and we we take those nuggets and we pass them along.
• 10:36
  Polly Mertens: So thank you for being on this journey with us, as Samantha and I have fumbled in ups and downs and you know, probably bloopers along the way and whatever.
• 10:45
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, yeah.
• 10:46
  Samantha Pruitt: Thank you for not making me put on hair and makeup and getting dressed to come to this party because that just is not an authentic way of me in the world anyway.
• 10:55
  Samantha Pruitt: People really barely recognize me when I get dressed and put my hair and makeup on.
• 10:58
  Samantha Pruitt: They're like, that's not you, right?
• 11:00
  Samantha Pruitt: Or what's up there?
• 11:01
  Samantha Pruitt: So I so appreciate that our audience um doesn't have that expectation of me for sure.
• 11:08
  Samantha Pruitt: You know, you come much more beautified and have a great background, all that stuff.
• 11:12
  Samantha Pruitt: And I love that about you because you're a very creative person and that is a reflection of who you are in the world.
• 11:17
  Samantha Pruitt: Love that.
• 11:17
  Samantha Pruitt: But for me, I'm kind of, you know, not a shit show, but I sort of just roll with whatever my life is.
• 11:23
  Samantha Pruitt: And it could be I'm here today, and tomorrow I might be taping this from somewhere else and whatever, whatever.
• 11:29
  Samantha Pruitt: So I do love that we have that flexibility and that our audience is cool with that.
• 11:34
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 11:35
  Samantha Pruitt: And it's it's we're just committed to the work.
• 11:37
  Samantha Pruitt: Whatever.
• 11:37
  Samantha Pruitt: Exactly.
• 11:38
  Samantha Pruitt: We're committed to the work and we're committed to our audience doing the work with us.
• 11:43
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah.
• 11:44
  Samantha Pruitt: So let's um here's to the next hundred.
• 11:47
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, yeah.
• 11:48
  Samantha Pruitt: Come play with us.
• 11:49
  Samantha Pruitt: Stay tuned.
• 11:49
  Samantha Pruitt: Hi five.
• 11:50
  Samantha Pruitt: Hi five, babe.
• 11:51
  Samantha Pruitt: Yes, yes, sister, high five.
• 11:53
  Samantha Pruitt: Love you.
• 11:54
  Samantha Pruitt: All right, let's get busy on these challenges for people.
• 11:58
  Polly Mertens: Whoa, yeah.
• 11:59
  Polly Mertens: And just, you know, that when you hear the word challenges and like more to do.
• 12:02
  Polly Mertens: When we think about self-love and self-care, um, it's just as you would care for someone that you care about, you know, you make dinner for them, or you, you know, take them to the grocery store, or you brush their hair, or you whatever, you make their lunch or something like that.
• 12:21
  Polly Mertens: These are little gifts to you, right?
• 12:24
  Polly Mertens: So exactly.
• 12:25
  Polly Mertens: Think of it that way.
• 12:26
  Polly Mertens: Think of it that way.
• 12:27
  Samantha Pruitt: All right, tell us about yours.
• 12:28
  Samantha Pruitt: What are what are you up to?
• 12:29
  Samantha Pruitt: So, my hundred-day challenge is called a love letter challenge.
• 12:34
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay.
• 12:34
  Samantha Pruitt: So I came across this challenge.
• 12:38
  Samantha Pruitt: So I should back up the story a little bit.
• 12:41
  Samantha Pruitt: Um, I had a professional sports production company for 15 years.
• 12:45
  Samantha Pruitt: And even when I would send out emails to the audience, I would call them love letters.
• 12:49
  Samantha Pruitt: That's just how it's part of my messaging and who I am in the world for a really long time.
• 12:55
  Samantha Pruitt: But that was me writing love letters to other people, you know, my audience, my customers, my participants, and all of those things, you know, all, you know, whatever, 30,000 of them or whatever.
• 13:06
  Samantha Pruitt: But but this experience of writing a love letter to myself was new.
• 13:11
  Samantha Pruitt: And the way I found it is through one of my favorite authors, Elizabeth Gilbert.
• 13:15
  Samantha Pruitt: She's phenomenal.
• 13:16
  Samantha Pruitt: If you have not read any of her stuff, people Eat, Pray, Love, etc.
• 13:20
  Samantha Pruitt: But her latest book is All the Way to the River.
• 13:22
  Samantha Pruitt: And I was reading that, and it's about the story of her and her partner, it's about love, it's about addiction, it's about some really hardcore stuff.
• 13:30
  Samantha Pruitt: It's a very heavy read, but also in Elizabeth Gilbert's incredible tone and beauty.
• 13:37
  Samantha Pruitt: It's just, she still makes it funny and just really, really rich to enjoy.
• 13:40
  Samantha Pruitt: So I highly recommend that.
• 13:42
  Samantha Pruitt: She mentioned it very briefly somewhere in this read.
• 13:46
  Samantha Pruitt: Um, when I was done with the book, I went online and I actually looked for this project she's had going for years.
• 13:52
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay.
• 13:53
  Samantha Pruitt: She used to uh write a column called Deer Sugar.
• 13:56
  Samantha Pruitt: So this is a kickoff from that.
• 13:58
  Samantha Pruitt: And it's it's on Substack.
• 14:01
  Samantha Pruitt: So if people are on Substack, and I'm on Substack now, and I'm gonna start writing, so everybody should follow me.
• 14:06
  Samantha Pruitt: But she's on Substack with this project, and basically it is a love letter project.
• 14:12
  Samantha Pruitt: And the goal that she set for people was write a love letter to yourself, and then she basically shares these publicly.
• 14:19
  Samantha Pruitt: She shares her own, she shares other people's.
• 14:22
  Samantha Pruitt: Now that is hardcore bravery right there and vulnerability to write a love letter to yourself and then share it publicly.
• 14:29
  Samantha Pruitt: What the hell?
• 14:31
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay, so I'm not asking people to do that, and I didn't take that on, except maybe I'll share them at some point on Substack, but we'll see.
• 14:39
  Samantha Pruitt: But the way I created the project for myself, and I've been doing it for months now, and what I'd like to offer to our audience is write this love letter to yourself.
• 14:49
  Samantha Pruitt: It's completely private, okay, totally private.
• 14:52
  Samantha Pruitt: And the reason I want you to write this love letter to yourself is because what I have experienced, and you and I have talked about many times, you know, we've literally coached thousands of people, is that many, many times we find that people speak to themselves so harshly.
• 15:09
  Samantha Pruitt: The inner critic, the inner dialogue going on in a majority of humans is very negative.
• 15:15
  Samantha Pruitt: It's very judgmental, it's very harsh.
• 15:17
  Polly Mertens: And I just want to separate those words just a little bit.
• 15:20
  Polly Mertens: The way they speak to themselves, no, the way that their mind, the programmed mind, talks to them because they are the listener.
• 15:27
  Polly Mertens: They're not that they're not that mind, just you know, so yeah.
• 15:31
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 15:32
  Polly Mertens: Sometimes we forget that separation.
• 15:34
  Polly Mertens: Like you're the soul listening to the chatter in your mind, and the mind is just a whole nother little wacky animal sometimes.
• 15:41
  Polly Mertens: So sorry, go on.
• 15:42
  Samantha Pruitt: Well, actually, let's pick that apart for a second.
• 15:44
  Samantha Pruitt: So, how I kind of think about it, and I've spoken about this before, is like I have a good twin and an evil twin, right?
• 15:50
  Samantha Pruitt: So the evil twin is the one who's saying these things.
• 15:52
  Samantha Pruitt: So I do kind of put it in a third-party or third-person way, is my beautiful, innocent, pure self has nothing to do with these shenanigans.
• 16:04
  Samantha Pruitt: But this evil twin over here is incredibly opinionated, shows up on a regular basis, seems to have a lot to say, and she's very loud, by the way.
• 16:13
  Samantha Pruitt: And I continuously have to knock her off the shoulder and basically eliminate her or put her in the back of the bus or whatever the dynamic is, depending on what's going on.
• 16:24
  Samantha Pruitt: Hold on.
• 16:25
  Samantha Pruitt: So that's how I kind of think of it.
• 16:28
  Samantha Pruitt: And if you're talking to somebody and they have a relationship, unfortunately, with their own inner critic, um, is that sort of how you would help explain it?
• 16:37
  Polly Mertens: Or well, yeah, yeah, I used to call her Miss Perfect, right?
• 16:40
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 16:41
  Polly Mertens: So I wrote a whole blog.
• 16:42
  Samantha Pruitt: You have a name for yours too.
• 16:43
  Samantha Pruitt: See, I have the evil twin, you have Miss Perfect.
• 16:46
  Samantha Pruitt: Ooh, okay.
• 16:48
  Polly Mertens: You know what came out to me is um the two sides of you, like you talked about, like a devil and an angel on your shoulders kind of thing, is like, guess what?
• 16:58
  Polly Mertens: Well, for me, I think most people their voice sounds like what they think of their voice sounds like, right?
• 17:03
  Polly Mertens: So we think it's all us.
• 17:05
  Polly Mertens: Like we think all the communication, quote, from our brain is us, whether it's polite, friendly, supportive, empowering, whatever, critical.
• 17:16
  Polly Mertens: Um, it's almost like I wish um each player, you know, there's this work called um uh family interfamily systems, which talks about like we have different, you know, personalities.
• 17:27
  Polly Mertens: Personalities, yeah, avatars inside of ourselves.
• 17:29
  Polly Mertens: We can label them or whatever.
• 17:31
  Polly Mertens: And it's like if they each came to us in a different voice, we could distinguish them.
• 17:37
  Polly Mertens: Like, oh, that's such and such, whatever.
• 17:40
  Polly Mertens: But you have to pay attention to what they're saying in order.
• 17:43
  Polly Mertens: I think, you know, I don't do this work, I'm I have a different belief about all that.
• 17:47
  Polly Mertens: But if they came to us with like a you know, a different voice, you know, we would go, oh, that's Aunt Myrtle.
• 17:54
  Polly Mertens: She was always mean to me, you know, or something like that, right?
• 17:57
  Polly Mertens: Then we could go, that's just Aunt Myrtle, and we'd like to write it off, like ignore her.
• 18:02
  Polly Mertens: But the evil twin or the good twin, whatever that you were talking about, they both sound like us.
• 18:08
  Polly Mertens: So we start to hear it, and we're like, oh, that's me.
• 18:10
  Polly Mertens: Okay, let me hear what it's saying.
• 18:12
  Polly Mertens: And then we go, we think it's us.
• 18:14
  Samantha Pruitt: So yeah, we think we have to pay attention.
• 18:17
  Samantha Pruitt: And I'm gonna even walk it back further a little bit into how these how this programming, this storytelling begins, right?
• 18:25
  Samantha Pruitt: So the human is born, and the minute they're born outside of their mother's body, first of all, there's conversation happening while they're in the womb, but I won't even get into that.
• 18:34
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay, so they've done that right on the DNA level.
• 18:39
  Samantha Pruitt: On the DNA level, dude.
• 18:41
  Samantha Pruitt: Mind-blowing science in this area, people.
• 18:43
  Samantha Pruitt: Mind-blowing.
• 18:44
  Samantha Pruitt: And if you're interested in that because you want to learn more about yourself and where you came from in terms of your genetics and all that jazz, or you're pregnant or thinking of getting pregnant, or currently pregnant, or whatever.
• 18:56
  Samantha Pruitt: Everybody came from a mother's body, okay?
• 18:59
  Samantha Pruitt: So now they've exited the womb and they're in the real world, and then this conversation begins with the newborn and the outside entities, which generally is their caretakers, it's mom and whoever is all there, right?
• 19:12
  Samantha Pruitt: The dialogue begins.
• 19:15
  Samantha Pruitt: The dialogue begins, and basically we're just little sponges, we're the most pure, innocent things, and all we know is I need to be fed, I need to be held, I need to be loved.
• 19:28
  Samantha Pruitt: That's it.
• 19:29
  Samantha Pruitt: It's the most simple, and every human, by the way, I'm still need that, and you still need that.
• 19:35
  Samantha Pruitt: This is just what we need, and all living beings, this is what they need, right?
• 19:39
  Samantha Pruitt: They need these very core, simple, foundational elements.
• 19:42
  Samantha Pruitt: Um, but then this conversation of dialogue begins between that, you know, I'm now outside the body, mom's body, and now I'm hearing things, and people are talking to me, and whatever.
• 19:52
  Samantha Pruitt: So you might have been brought up in an environment where it that dialogue, as you were being raised from a young child to a young adult to a grown adult today, you might have been raised in a family unit or in a community where it was very negative.
• 20:10
  Samantha Pruitt: Those imprints, those conversations, the dialogue was negative, okay, and harsh.
• 20:16
  Samantha Pruitt: And that is gonna be deeply ingrained in you.
• 20:20
  Samantha Pruitt: And you are gonna have to reprogram that shit.
• 20:22
  Samantha Pruitt: First of all, you're gonna have to understand that none of it was true.
• 20:26
  Samantha Pruitt: And you need to do the work to release it so you can move forward and change the conversation.
• 20:32
  Samantha Pruitt: Some people were raised in really great environments and had love and all this other unconditional, yummy things that we all long for, but then maybe now they've ended up in a work environment or a home environment with a partner or others where it's harsh and critical and negative, right?
• 20:48
  Samantha Pruitt: And so now they're being programmed later in life.
• 20:50
  Samantha Pruitt: Either way, most humans have some pretty warped programming around this, and that's how this happens.
• 20:59
  Samantha Pruitt: So don't feel like guilty, don't have shame about it, don't feel like you're broken, you know, nobody else has this negative inner dialogue.
• 21:06
  Samantha Pruitt: It's just me.
• 21:07
  Samantha Pruitt: Like, this is just life.
• 21:09
  Polly Mertens: Every so just life.
• 21:10
  Polly Mertens: So you know, so uh Tony Robbins has worked with I don't know, three million people or something like that, you know, had them in and he's had hundreds of these, you know, one-on-one conversations.
• 21:20
  Polly Mertens: I mean, thou whatever.
• 21:22
  Polly Mertens: And oh, he does them live, and he does and he's tested this all over the world, whatever.
• 21:27
  Polly Mertens: So people are walking around with two, let's call them core wounds, you might call it today, or whatever, but believe something like that.
• 21:33
  Polly Mertens: I'm not enough and I won't be loved.
• 21:37
  Polly Mertens: And if you think you don't have that, think again.
• 21:40
  Polly Mertens: It's the core, core, core of any walking human being, however much love or however little love, however much abuse, however little abuse you got.
• 21:49
  Polly Mertens: It's just a fun he says it exists in every human brain.
• 21:54
  Polly Mertens: I don't know if it's a survival thing, whatever it is.
• 21:56
  Polly Mertens: So don't blame your parents, don't blame your this, don't, you know, you didn't do anything wrong.
• 22:01
  Polly Mertens: We all got it.
• 22:01
  Polly Mertens: Like you said, the inner critic just has levels of uh intensity, I would say.
• 22:07
  Polly Mertens: Some people it's a little more intense, you know.
• 22:09
  Polly Mertens: And I would say, so I went through a reprogramming from myself probably like 10 years ago of flipping that dialogue, and now I have very little inner critic.
• 22:20
  Polly Mertens: Very like she does not talk to me like she's like miss perfect.
• 22:23
  Polly Mertens: Nope.
• 22:24
  Polly Mertens: No, like it's just you know, like I reprogrammed I'm amazing many years ago to to change the inner dialogue, you know, because of what I was walking around with was what you were talking about.
• 22:35
  Polly Mertens: Anyway, so yeah.
• 22:36
  Polly Mertens: So we all have it.
• 22:37
  Polly Mertens: Don't feel like you're you're pointing to it's normal, it's natural, it's not anything wrong with you, and work with it.
• 22:46
  Polly Mertens: And work with it.
• 22:47
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, yeah.
• 22:48
  Samantha Pruitt: And for some people, it can come out in behaviors.
• 22:51
  Samantha Pruitt: They might not see it as a dialogue per se, but their behaviors will reflect that.
• 22:56
  Polly Mertens: That's a belief system, that's an identity and a belief.
• 22:58
  Polly Mertens: So it's gonna drive the it's the lens through which you see the world.
• 23:01
  Polly Mertens: I'm not enough, and the you know, I won't be loved.
• 23:04
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 23:05
  Polly Mertens: Walk, you're just you're in it.
• 23:07
  Polly Mertens: It's like water in for a fish.
• 23:09
  Polly Mertens: You don't know you're in it, and so you swim around in the sea of I'm not enoughness, thinking that you know, this belief.
• 23:16
  Polly Mertens: Guess what?
• 23:17
  Polly Mertens: That's gonna show up unless you just flip the switch.
• 23:20
  Polly Mertens: You know, you you don't allow it, don't allow that to be the confines of how you operate in the world.
• 23:27
  Samantha Pruitt: And that wound can either be still an open wound, so anytime you touch it or anything, of course, it's gonna be excruciating.
• 23:33
  Samantha Pruitt: It can be a really old wound that is completely scarred over at this point.
• 23:37
  Samantha Pruitt: But the problem is scar tissue also keeps you stuck in place, is hard, is rigid, is also not serving you as you evolve in your life.
• 23:46
  Samantha Pruitt: It's holding you back.
• 23:47
  Samantha Pruitt: So, yeah, this is big work, and this is to, I think, fun challenges for people that we're gonna give them.
• 23:55
  Samantha Pruitt: So let me give them my challenge and then we'll get to move on to yours.
• 23:58
  Samantha Pruitt: Let's do it.
• 23:58
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay, people.
• 23:59
  Samantha Pruitt: All right, so first start by getting a journal.
• 24:02
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay, any type of journal, but you know, make it beautiful, pretty, colorful, fun, and a pen.
• 24:07
  Samantha Pruitt: I have a purple pen, but get a something that feels good to you in your hand because you're gonna actually be writing this.
• 24:14
  Samantha Pruitt: This is not something you're gonna touch on your phone.
• 24:16
  Samantha Pruitt: There's no digital element to this.
• 24:18
  Samantha Pruitt: It is you with a piece of paper, a notebook, and a pen.
• 24:22
  Polly Mertens: And this the writing, I don't know if Elizabeth shares that in hers, but it activates from a hypnotherapy perspective, it activates the different parts of your brain.
• 24:31
  Polly Mertens: So that's why you don't do it digital.
• 24:33
  Polly Mertens: Is different things are happening when you actually are in the form of writing.
• 24:37
  Polly Mertens: So yes, yes, don't resist this.
• 24:39
  Polly Mertens: Or if you've got resistance, just let it go and just do it, just do it anyway.
• 24:44
  Samantha Pruitt: Totally, totally.
• 24:44
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay, carve out a little bit of time every day.
• 24:47
  Samantha Pruitt: So it doesn't have to be much.
• 24:48
  Samantha Pruitt: This can literally be three to five minutes at any time of day that you are alone.
• 24:54
  Samantha Pruitt: So you need to be alone and you need to have space to allow emotions that might come up.
• 25:00
  Samantha Pruitt: So that's why you want to be alone and you want to be in a place where that feels comfortable to you.
• 25:06
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay.
• 25:06
  Samantha Pruitt: Not like let's go to Starbucks and sit down with all the chaotic Yahoo-ness going on in there and try and do this homework assignment.
• 25:13
  Samantha Pruitt: That's not the right environment.
• 25:14
  Samantha Pruitt: I'd rather you be sitting in your car on a park bench or in your bedroom or whatever that looks like.
• 25:19
  Samantha Pruitt: So I personally do it in the evening after I've unwound my entire day and I'm literally getting ready for bed and I'm decompressed and I've done all the other things I need to do for the day, and then whatever comes up comes up.
• 25:32
  Polly Mertens: Okay.
• 25:32
  Polly Mertens: And I just want to say, I think the first act of self-love is the first part of this.
• 25:38
  Polly Mertens: Just gifting yourself three minutes.
• 25:41
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 25:41
  Polly Mertens: Quiet time.
• 25:42
  Polly Mertens: Like people don't even do that anymore.
• 25:45
  Polly Mertens: So, like three minutes without gotta, gotta, gotta, this, that, you know, phone in hand, whatever.
• 25:52
  Samantha Pruitt: So that's or just, you know, they're so busy being in the service of others, like you mentioned earlier.
• 25:56
  Samantha Pruitt: You know, it's everybody else's needs met.
• 25:59
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 25:59
  Polly Mertens: So that the first step of the gift is that.
• 26:02
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, you're doing this for a hundred days.
• 26:04
  Samantha Pruitt: So we already mentioned that.
• 26:05
  Samantha Pruitt: You're gonna either write a full paragraph, okay?
• 26:09
  Samantha Pruitt: Not a huge thing, a full paragraph, or you can write a page.
• 26:13
  Samantha Pruitt: You could actually write multiple pages.
• 26:15
  Samantha Pruitt: But when I first started, uh, a paragraph was very hard.
• 26:18
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay.
• 26:18
  Samantha Pruitt: And I was already like, what I got, I what I gotta say here.
• 26:23
  Samantha Pruitt: This feels so awkward.
• 26:24
  Samantha Pruitt: This is weird, la la la, because you're talking to yourself, and I'll describe how this is gonna go.
• 26:28
  Samantha Pruitt: Uh, paragraph felt like plenty.
• 26:31
  Samantha Pruitt: So again, there's zero judgment.
• 26:33
  Samantha Pruitt: No one is gonna see this, no one is gonna read this, you don't have to share it with anybody.
• 26:36
  Samantha Pruitt: Um, so however much comes up for you.
• 26:39
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay.
• 26:40
  Samantha Pruitt: Obviously, we mentioned writing it by hand.
• 26:42
  Samantha Pruitt: Uh, this is not a confessional or a dissertation.
• 26:45
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay.
• 26:47
  Samantha Pruitt: No, it's not today.
• 26:50
  Samantha Pruitt: I ate this for breakfast, and then I went, this is not what that is.
• 26:53
  Samantha Pruitt: And it's also not, oh my gosh, I can't believe I did this thing.
• 26:56
  Samantha Pruitt: This is not a place to grade yourself, judge yourself, criticize yourself, take inventory of your day and all your imperfections and all that jazz.
• 27:06
  Samantha Pruitt: That is not what this is.
• 27:07
  Samantha Pruitt: And I do feel like unfortunately, journaling a lot, people will do those things.
• 27:12
  Samantha Pruitt: And to me, you're just doubling down on the negative, you're just absolutely inking in bad habits, bad behaviors, negative thoughts, and all this stuff.
• 27:22
  Samantha Pruitt: So, this is the polar opposite of that.
• 27:24
  Samantha Pruitt: Yep.
• 27:25
  Samantha Pruitt: And if I just called you out for doing some really toxic journaling, call me up and we'll have a conversation about it.
• 27:31
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay.
• 27:32
  Samantha Pruitt: All right.
• 27:33
  Samantha Pruitt: The next thing is really fun.
• 27:35
  Samantha Pruitt: You pick a nickname for yourself.
• 27:37
  Samantha Pruitt: Oh, okay, because you're writing this love letter to yourself.
• 27:41
  Polly Mertens: I was like, Elizabeth probably was dear sugar.
• 27:43
  Polly Mertens: Is that what is that what that means?
• 27:45
  Samantha Pruitt: She just calls herself love.
• 27:46
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah.
• 27:47
  Samantha Pruitt: Oh no, she has all these other things.
• 27:48
  Samantha Pruitt: Actually, I think she changed.
• 27:50
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, she doesn't use deer sugar anymore, but she uses all these little quips and cutie things, but it kind of rotates.
• 27:56
  Samantha Pruitt: It can be whatever the heck you want.
• 27:58
  Samantha Pruitt: So it can just be dear love or dear love of my life or dear one or whatever.
• 28:03
  Samantha Pruitt: It can be kind of nice and fluffy and generic like that.
• 28:06
  Samantha Pruitt: It can also be some nickname that you either feel positive alignment with that resonates with you, or one you just make up.
• 28:15
  Samantha Pruitt: Like it could be, yo, badass, hey, you know, you can say whatever.
• 28:20
  Samantha Pruitt: Um, for me, I picked little sister or little sister Sam.
• 28:25
  Samantha Pruitt: So I kind of go back and forth.
• 28:26
  Samantha Pruitt: A, I am the youngest child in my family, so I am technically the little sister.
• 28:31
  Samantha Pruitt: Um, also, this is really important for me.
• 28:35
  Samantha Pruitt: How would I speak to my little sister?
• 28:37
  Samantha Pruitt: How would I speak to another female in my life?
• 28:43
  Samantha Pruitt: And how would I relate to her?
• 28:45
  Samantha Pruitt: How would I want her to feel?
• 28:46
  Samantha Pruitt: How would I communicate with her?
• 28:48
  Samantha Pruitt: So, in me saying little sister, it brings a lot of connotation there that's really deep compassion and love and respect and all that kind of stuff.
• 28:56
  Samantha Pruitt: They're in your trink.
• 28:57
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay, so pick whatever nickname you want for yourself, and then you're gonna ask yourself this question so I'll use myself as an example so there's more clarity.
• 29:07
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, exactly.
• 29:09
  Samantha Pruitt: So, dear little sister Sam, what would you like me to know today?
• 29:14
  Samantha Pruitt: It's very simple.
• 29:17
  Samantha Pruitt: If that feels awkward, what would you like me to know today?
• 29:20
  Samantha Pruitt: It could be, dear sister Sam, what would you like to share with me today?
• 29:24
  Samantha Pruitt: And again, we're not sharing an inventory of what you did and all these litanyes of stuff.
• 29:31
  Samantha Pruitt: It is I'm gonna impart on myself deep love and compassion and some wisdom, some nuggets about how did I evolve today?
• 29:43
  Samantha Pruitt: So, like, today, these are examples I'll just give from my own life, not verbatim from my obviously love letters, but just kind of throw them at the wall.
• 29:52
  Samantha Pruitt: Um, I'm caring for some people who are ill right now.
• 29:55
  Samantha Pruitt: I've got a lot of stuff going on with my family, and I have a lot of stuff going on with my body.
• 29:59
  Samantha Pruitt: So I might say to myself, dear little sister Sam, you are an amazing caretaker.
• 30:05
  Samantha Pruitt: This is incredible how you're showing up for these loved ones and offering your gifts.
• 30:11
  Samantha Pruitt: Blah blah blah blah blah.
• 30:12
  Samantha Pruitt: Or it could be, dear little sister Sam, I know you're in pain.
• 30:17
  Samantha Pruitt: I know this hurts.
• 30:19
  Samantha Pruitt: Hurt this too will pass.
• 30:21
  Samantha Pruitt: You are strong.
• 30:23
  Samantha Pruitt: You're healthy.
• 30:24
  Samantha Pruitt: You know, it's something along those lines.
• 30:26
  Samantha Pruitt: So I'm imparting a great deal of compassion, love, and wisdom upon myself.
• 30:32
  Samantha Pruitt: And that is what the assignment is.
• 30:36
  Polly Mertens: Wow.
• 30:37
  Samantha Pruitt: Isn't that beautiful?
• 30:38
  Polly Mertens: Do you read it back or anything, or you just write it once and I just I just write it out.
• 30:44
  Samantha Pruitt: I also write the date and I write where I am because I move around a lot.
• 30:48
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 30:48
  Samantha Pruitt: And I don't know why I did that immediately.
• 30:50
  Samantha Pruitt: Um, but that's part of how my brain works.
• 30:53
  Samantha Pruitt: And then you sign it in your own name, and I write X's N's, you can write smiley faces, you can draw some art if you're feeling inspired at that moment.
• 31:02
  Samantha Pruitt: Um, whatever it, whatever it is.
• 31:04
  Samantha Pruitt: It's the learning or the reprogramming of speaking to yourself in a different voice than you're accustomed to.
• 31:12
  Samantha Pruitt: It's really mind-blowing to me how simple this is and how incredibly powerful this is.
• 31:22
  Polly Mertens: I was gonna say, what's what's what have you noticed?
• 31:24
  Polly Mertens: What what is what results are you seeing, or what how do you feel about it?
• 31:28
  Samantha Pruitt: Or honestly, since I have started doing this, I don't think the evil twin has visited me once.
• 31:35
  Samantha Pruitt: And that's kind of mind-blowing based on everything I'm currently under.
• 31:39
  Samantha Pruitt: I got a lot of things going on.
• 31:42
  Samantha Pruitt: And so the fact that she hasn't shown up and given me a spanking or talked negative to me is pretty miraculous.
• 31:50
  Samantha Pruitt: Um but then the other things in terms of takeaways, it's just a different way.
• 31:56
  Samantha Pruitt: I feel like I've put on almost different glasses about how I see myself moving around in the space and how I show up not for others, okay, because I'm damn good at doing that, but how I'm showing up for myself, okay, and that's radical.
• 32:15
  Samantha Pruitt: This is a radical act here, a radical act of self-love.
• 32:20
  Polly Mertens: And that's what I want for everybody, and it's reprogramming you, yeah, which is just yeah.
• 32:25
  Polly Mertens: So yeah, I think I'm gonna take this on too.
• 32:27
  Polly Mertens: And I just want to say, as the habit coach, so you know, when we go, oh, three to five minutes, oh, write as many pages.
• 32:32
  Polly Mertens: Okay, the the habit coach here has one piece of advice for five days.
• 32:37
  Polly Mertens: Your only assignment is one minute.
• 32:40
  Polly Mertens: Ah, yeah, one minute, one minute.
• 32:43
  Polly Mertens: Just just get out the paper, set aside the time, get the pen and the journal, and write for one minute.
• 32:50
  Polly Mertens: If you write more, great, but your only assignment for five days is commitment to one minute.
• 32:55
  Polly Mertens: And then and to help it is to lock it to some other thing you do, right?
• 33:02
  Samantha Pruitt: Brushing your teeth, or getting your pajamas on.
• 33:05
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, or like right, like you do right before you shut off the lights, or first thing when you get up before you get out of bed, you know, or when you have your morning coffee at your table by yourself, not out at, like you said, whatever.
• 33:17
  Polly Mertens: Or or or or, but just the commitment is as small as one minute and a journal and a pen, and write anything.
• 33:24
  Polly Mertens: And even if you flub it or whatever and you can't remember what to write, just giving yourself that gift and committing to that, just the act of it will get you into that habit more than like, oh, I didn't write enough, or I don't have time for three minutes.
• 33:38
  Samantha Pruitt: You know, so many people want to build better relationships with others, you know, deeper connection, more richer relationships with others.
• 33:46
  Samantha Pruitt: You cannot until you have done that with yourself.
• 33:51
  Samantha Pruitt: That connection won't be there.
• 33:54
  Samantha Pruitt: It's impossible.
• 33:55
  Samantha Pruitt: If you literally don't have this feeling within your own physical and emotional body, spiritual body with yourself, you're not gonna be able to show up and do that with anybody.
• 34:07
  Samantha Pruitt: So let's just start here.
• 34:09
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay.
• 34:10
  Samantha Pruitt: Take it on.
• 34:11
  Polly Mertens: That's it, baby.
• 34:12
  Polly Mertens: So good.
• 34:13
  Polly Mertens: Let's go.
• 34:14
  Polly Mertens: Okay, all right.
• 34:15
  Polly Mertens: So you guys in on that, and I'll share with you my offering.
• 34:20
  Polly Mertens: So let's do it.
• 34:22
  Polly Mertens: This is a little different, and there's no writing or let's say outward doing or whatever.
• 34:28
  Polly Mertens: This is an inward journey, you and you, right?
• 34:30
  Polly Mertens: And this all exists inside of your own landscape, your inner landscape.
• 34:34
  Polly Mertens: So um the practice is from the work, there's a place called the Heart Math Institute.
• 34:40
  Polly Mertens: And they've been studying what they call heart coherence.
• 34:43
  Polly Mertens: So you were asking me, like, coherence, that's such a weird word, right?
• 34:46
  Polly Mertens: So um, if you if you've ever seen what's called an EKG, which is like the heartbeat on like a little machine, a monitor, if someone's in the hospital and it's like blip, blip, blip, boop, you know, you can cut it.
• 34:57
  Samantha Pruitt: I just had mine done the other day, I was telling you.
• 35:00
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 35:00
  Polly Mertens: So a heart that's in coherence or a heart that is beating at peace, right?
• 35:06
  Polly Mertens: We're not in like mania or fear or something like that.
• 35:10
  Polly Mertens: It just has this nice rhythmic beat to it, right?
• 35:13
  Polly Mertens: So that's the heart's beat is measured on an EKG.
• 35:17
  Polly Mertens: The brain's beat or its frequency, right?
• 35:21
  Polly Mertens: Those are both frequencies of vibration, is measured on an EEG, right?
• 35:25
  Polly Mertens: So when what the brain is operating at, because if you like we can feel our heartbeat, you know, we can't hear, we can't feel our brain thinking or the frequency of it, but you can hook yourself up to an EEG and you know when you're like out of whatever, right?
• 35:40
  Polly Mertens: So there is a through the vagus nerve, we've talked about that, go back and listen to those episodes.
• 35:45
  Polly Mertens: The vagus nerve connects the brain and your heart.
• 35:48
  Polly Mertens: Yes, there is a brain in your heart.
• 35:49
  Polly Mertens: We've talked about that before, and there's a brain in your head, and that vagus and in your gut, but we're just talking right now for those two.
• 35:56
  Polly Mertens: There's actually more called neurocyte.
• 36:00
  Polly Mertens: Neurosceptors.
• 36:03
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, so another word, but the the cells that signal there's a brain, there's 40,000 in your heart.
• 36:09
  Polly Mertens: That's literally more that's in your brain.
• 36:12
  Polly Mertens: Like, what?
• 36:13
  Polly Mertens: So like you have more brain cells in your heart than you have in your and you're when you're born as your little fetus is forming, there is no brain when the heart starts beating.
• 36:26
  Polly Mertens: The heart is beating before the brains developed.
• 36:30
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah.
• 36:30
  Samantha Pruitt: What?
• 36:32
  Polly Mertens: So you that think you're like your brain is running the show.
• 36:35
  Polly Mertens: I'm sorry.
• 36:36
  Polly Mertens: That's not the order that evolution has it.
• 36:39
  Polly Mertens: That's not the order that we if we and what you're what you're talking about is like letters from love is letters from your heart, right?
• 36:47
  Polly Mertens: So this is how to get you in the practice of getting that angry out of your head.
• 36:52
  Polly Mertens: Getting out of your head, getting that angry ant up there, right?
• 36:55
  Polly Mertens: Whatever, like all these thoughts.
• 36:56
  Polly Mertens: So we a lot of people like, and I love this little analogy, is like, we think we live in this little box called our brain, you know, like up in our head, and this whole thing down below our neck is like, what's that?
• 37:07
  Polly Mertens: Right?
• 37:08
  Polly Mertens: Like some people have no relationship to what's below their neck.
• 37:11
  Samantha Pruitt: Oh, dude, many people are completely disconnected from their body below the neck.
• 37:16
  Samantha Pruitt: Like this is this is me.
• 37:17
  Polly Mertens: I'm I'm up here in this thing called my head.
• 37:20
  Polly Mertens: Well, there is a brain and a mind up there, and it has a beat and a frequency, right?
• 37:25
  Polly Mertens: And so the brain in your heart, though, has way more wisdom, you know, if you go back to ancient traditions.
• 37:30
  Polly Mertens: So just knowing that before you had a brain, you had a heart, and there's a lot of heart in brain in your heart.
• 37:37
  Polly Mertens: So this practice is designed to help when even before, you know, I like to say get out ahead of it.
• 37:43
  Polly Mertens: You know, some people are like, How do I like calm down when I'm all anxious and stuff?
• 37:47
  Polly Mertens: It's like, well, don't get there.
• 37:48
  Polly Mertens: Like, like, like intercept that shit, I would say it's like right.
• 37:53
  Polly Mertens: And you know, people who meditate for decades and stuff, they start to find that space.
• 37:59
  Polly Mertens: I think what I've heard about meditation is it gives you that gap, that space between impulse and response, right?
• 38:05
  Polly Mertens: And you know, all this stuff.
• 38:06
  Polly Mertens: So not the more you meditate, it's not like, oh, meditate for 20 hours and you'll never whatever, right?
• 38:12
  Polly Mertens: Like, but people who meditate have an expansion because they've been able to kind of disconnect, if you will, that quiet the mind, right?
• 38:21
  Polly Mertens: The practice of quieting the mind, just distinguishing the mind from and the words, and we were just talking about the inner critic.
• 38:28
  Polly Mertens: Um, so heart coherence, and I'll give you a practice, right?
• 38:31
  Polly Mertens: So um they have a and there's a lot online that you can learn more about this.
• 38:36
  Polly Mertens: I actually did a video.
• 38:37
  Polly Mertens: So if you want an actual, yep.
• 38:39
  Polly Mertens: So we'll link to that.
• 38:41
  Polly Mertens: So my video explains a lot more.
• 38:43
  Polly Mertens: Like right now, I'm sharing some about it.
• 38:45
  Polly Mertens: And I mean, the the medical, like, like hormones get better, long jet, like anti-aging, like doing this is not just because it feels good, but it does, but a lot of other health benefits.
• 38:56
  Polly Mertens: It's it's miraculous.
• 38:57
  Polly Mertens: So go to my video for that.
• 38:59
  Polly Mertens: But I'll give you the steps.
• 39:00
  Polly Mertens: And if you want to guide it, like you want to have me walk you through it, like here, do this, do this, do this, watch that video, and I'll I actually give you the three-minute process.
• 39:08
  Polly Mertens: Um, walk you through.
• 39:09
  Polly Mertens: Where's where's the video up?
• 39:11
  Samantha Pruitt: On what channel?
• 39:12
  Polly Mertens: It's on the my Get Busy Thriving um YouTube channel.
• 39:15
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 39:15
  Polly Mertens: YouTube.
• 39:16
  Polly Mertens: Okay, got it.
• 39:16
  Polly Mertens: I'm holding to that.
• 39:17
  Polly Mertens: So so three steps.
• 39:20
  Polly Mertens: First step is just send your attention from your head into your heart, right?
• 39:26
  Polly Mertens: And that's one step some people don't even know.
• 39:28
  Polly Mertens: And so one of the best ways is when you put your hand on your body over your heart, instantly your attention starts to go down there.
• 39:35
  Polly Mertens: Like, what's what's going on down there?
• 39:37
  Polly Mertens: Right.
• 39:37
  Polly Mertens: So, and some people you could do like in prayer if you want, hand over your heart, both hands over your heart, whatever feels good, just that just tells you, hey, we're we're down here now, like we're down here.
• 39:46
  Polly Mertens: So first step is going down in your heart.
• 39:50
  Polly Mertens: You might still have some noise up there, whatever.
• 39:52
  Polly Mertens: And then we get into some breathing, right?
• 39:54
  Polly Mertens: So to slow down thoughts, separate from those thoughts, we'll do, I would say three to five, depending on what stage you're in when you go into this.
• 40:03
  Polly Mertens: And first thing in the morning, you're probably calm already, so you don't need to go into like 10 deep breaths.
• 40:08
  Polly Mertens: But if you're, you know, amped up, maybe do it for longer.
• 40:12
  Polly Mertens: But the the breath is a little bit focused and it's more a longer exhale than an inhale.
• 40:21
  Polly Mertens: So if you if you typically breathe like a three second slow in breath and breathe out for five, or if you breathe in for four, breathe out for six, or you know, something like that.
• 40:30
  Polly Mertens: I love to say the fast way for me is if I just take a nice slow breath in and I make a nice long sigh out, I'm in.
• 40:39
  Polly Mertens: So for me, it would look like, you know.
• 40:42
  Polly Mertens: And I love like the feeling of like like hearing myself do it also, because it just signals to the body, because what it's doing to the nervous system, that vagus nerve, is like there's no lions, there's no tigers, there's no bears, there's no emails, there's no whatever.
• 40:59
  Polly Mertens: Like I'm right here right now, all is well.
• 41:01
  Polly Mertens: If I can breathe out longer than in, I'm in a I'm in a calm state.
• 41:06
  Polly Mertens: Everything is okay around me.
• 41:08
  Polly Mertens: I'm safe.
• 41:09
  Polly Mertens: So do that for three breaths.
• 41:11
  Polly Mertens: So hand on heart.
• 41:13
  Polly Mertens: And then you want to just find yourself down in your heart.
• 41:18
  Polly Mertens: And once you're down there with eyes closed, we go into um just replaying moments that you're grateful for.
• 41:25
  Polly Mertens: It could be something you're grateful for right now, like I'm so grateful my body as well.
• 41:29
  Polly Mertens: It could be remembering something from the past, like a time with a loved one, whatever you can find to appreciate.
• 41:37
  Polly Mertens: It could be um, you know, you saw the sun come up this morning.
• 41:40
  Polly Mertens: It could be anything, right?
• 41:42
  Polly Mertens: So just at least a moment to three minutes in gratitude.
• 41:47
  Polly Mertens: So it's just and I like to do like I think of a moment, and so what I I prompt people in that exercise is um, where were you?
• 42:00
  Polly Mertens: Who were you with?
• 42:01
  Polly Mertens: What did you hear?
• 42:03
  Polly Mertens: What did you see?
• 42:04
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, what did you feel?
• 42:06
  Polly Mertens: You know, what was there, who was with you, kind of thing, right?
• 42:10
  Polly Mertens: Because most times probably with someone, right?
• 42:12
  Polly Mertens: You know, because we have so much gratitude and interactions.
• 42:15
  Polly Mertens: If it's just you and your kitty cat, or if it's you in the sunrise, or just you this morning because you, you know, you've you've been in some pain or something and you're feeling better, it's you and you, right?
• 42:24
  Polly Mertens: Or you just remember your love your love letter writing from the night before.
• 42:27
  Polly Mertens: Like, wow, I'm really grateful I gave myself that time.
• 42:30
  Polly Mertens: Whatever it is.
• 42:31
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah.
• 42:31
  Samantha Pruitt: So you would uh you have uh this prompt and walkthrough in the video series on Get Busy Thriving's YouTube channel.
• 42:38
  Samantha Pruitt: But if I was just by myself doing it, what would be the one question?
• 42:41
  Samantha Pruitt: Because I probably couldn't remember all of those prompts, but what's like the the big question?
• 42:45
  Samantha Pruitt: So it's three steps.
• 42:47
  Polly Mertens: Okay.
• 42:47
  Polly Mertens: I'll just give you the three steps in order.
• 42:49
  Polly Mertens: So put your hand on your heart, step one, breathe out for three breaths, you know, the long sigh out.
• 42:56
  Polly Mertens: And then what are you grateful for?
• 42:58
  Samantha Pruitt: Remember it's what are you grateful for?
• 43:00
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, remember something that you're great, a moment past long time ago, right now.
• 43:06
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 43:06
  Polly Mertens: So get down into your heart, slow your breath down, just kind of calm yourself down, if you will, signal you're okay.
• 43:14
  Polly Mertens: And then the third step is gratitude, go into gratitude.
• 43:17
  Polly Mertens: And I would say, man, I love to just swim around in that state.
• 43:20
  Polly Mertens: You know, I'll like remember three and then I'll remember some more.
• 43:25
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, you're really good at remembering these things.
• 43:27
  Samantha Pruitt: Most of us are gonna be like, uh it's a practice.
• 43:31
  Polly Mertens: I found that, you know, the first time like I was leading, I was leading um my group through it uh last week, and one woman was like, it took me a while to think of something because unless you're in the practice of gratitude, yeah, you're not quick on the recall right there, you know.
• 43:46
  Polly Mertens: And so we want to be quick on the recall to have those, like I can, and here's what I shared in that group was after doing this for it's coming up on a decade now, after doing this for a long time, I am now present in the moment of gratitude.
• 44:04
  Polly Mertens: So one thing that happens is um when I lost my kitty cat, or she passed away a few years ago, when I knew she was sick and leading up to it, I was like, Oh, I want to get some videos of her because you know she's not gonna be around.
• 44:16
  Polly Mertens: And I so appreciate those videos because I get to look back at them and I get to be in them again.
• 44:23
  Polly Mertens: And I have two kitty cats now.
• 44:25
  Polly Mertens: I'll be like recording a video with them, and like I just am so moved as I'm grateful now.
• 44:32
  Polly Mertens: Exactly.
• 44:34
  Polly Mertens: Gratitude is present now, it's not something I have to reflect on.
• 44:38
  Polly Mertens: And I'm like in it, and I'm in my reality, walking around, just like grateful for this and grateful for this, you know.
• 44:45
  Samantha Pruitt: So I'm it's your surface, it's on the surface, it's it's in your operating system, but it's like a primary element of your operating system on the daily, rather than some program way down here that you don't use anymore that's now you know expired and whatever all like it's got spider webs on it, dust got dusted off.
• 45:05
  Polly Mertens: Oh, yeah.
• 45:05
  Polly Mertens: What was that?
• 45:06
  Polly Mertens: Things that I what are those things in my life that I who do I appreciate in my life?
• 45:12
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, yeah, totally.
• 45:14
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, you know, and it's this reminder also of this fleeting moment in time, the impermanence of it all, right?
• 45:22
  Samantha Pruitt: If we are not generating that gratitude, you know, if we're not building that muscle and utilizing it every day as part of your operating system, it goes to sleep.
• 45:32
  Samantha Pruitt: It's not there.
• 45:33
  Samantha Pruitt: And then what happens is something really major and incredibly painful happens, and then you're struggling to breathe through it and find your sense of balance if you can just every day be in it, knowing that this moment is impermanent.
• 45:49
  Polly Mertens: And I would say the master, the Buddha, right, is the one who whatever shows up and it comes wrapped in a turd, you still look at it and go, I'm so grateful for this moment.
• 46:01
  Polly Mertens: This this my hot hotel reservation got canceled, my car ran out of this, my son is doing this, whatever, like detergent.
• 46:10
  Samantha Pruitt: I'm having this every 10 minutes right now.
• 46:12
  Samantha Pruitt: I'm like, what in the hell is going on?
• 46:16
  Polly Mertens: And the master, the master is like, Oh, thank you.
• 46:19
  Polly Mertens: Oh, thank you.
• 46:20
  Polly Mertens: Um, you know, so you know, you and I were talking about this with um Linda and Terry, two close friends of mine, who have the itchy rashy thing, right?
• 46:27
  Polly Mertens: And we were talking about your pain in a we there's an episode called Talk to Your Pain that we did a couple weeks ago, where you were like, Oh, you know, just like you were, I mean, you're still in it, but you were so fresh.
• 46:39
  Polly Mertens: And it was like level nine, you know, and like the mastery is like getting to that level where I'm like grateful for that to be alive, to have this physical body.
• 46:50
  Polly Mertens: And that takes a lot of work, but this is the doorway to that level of mastery, should you choose it.
• 46:56
  Polly Mertens: So I do this each morning.
• 46:58
  Polly Mertens: It's a part of my morning ritual.
• 47:00
  Polly Mertens: Highly recommend.
• 47:01
  Polly Mertens: I'm actually, you know, what's funny?
• 47:02
  Polly Mertens: So just today, as we were preparing for this, I set an hourly reminder.
• 47:06
  Polly Mertens: Every hour, I have this little um, and it's already happened once or twice since we started, or not like earlier this morning.
• 47:13
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, I wrote, um, and this is just how I like to phrase it, because I would say what my life has been looking like is like you said, like a lot of overwhelm and out there and lots to-dos, and you know, the hustle or whatever you want to label it.
• 47:28
  Polly Mertens: And this heart coherence for me, and this is part of what I'm bringing to my program in December, right?
• 47:34
  Polly Mertens: This is what I'm teaching, like a core essence of what I'm teaching in December is return to the light is the name of the program.
• 47:42
  Polly Mertens: And the light is your inner light.
• 47:43
  Polly Mertens: That's that inner you, right?
• 47:45
  Polly Mertens: And this act of coming back to you, right?
• 47:49
  Polly Mertens: You talk about it in like love letters to you, like coming from that place of.
• 47:54
  Polly Mertens: So when I'm doing this today, like every hour have these, and then so the first one I, you know, you can label your alarms on your phone and it says whatever funny things or whatever, like call so-and-so.
• 48:03
  Polly Mertens: Mine's like, remember who you really are, and have a little heart next to it.
• 48:06
  Polly Mertens: And so, like, it went off, it went off at 8 a.m.
• 48:08
  Polly Mertens: And I like paused what I was doing.
• 48:10
  Polly Mertens: I was like doing something, and I was like, okay, I'm just gonna put my so I did not three minutes or whatever, but I just let me get re-centered, re-grounded in it.
• 48:17
  Polly Mertens: And so every hour this today, because I was like, I want to supercharge this stuff, like why not?
• 48:23
  Polly Mertens: You know, I mean, one minute a day in a day that can look very blurry and very busy and very whatever you want to call it, it feels so good, you know.
• 48:35
  Samantha Pruitt: Oh my gosh, hell yeah, it does.
• 48:36
  Samantha Pruitt: It's a natural state of our being.
• 48:39
  Samantha Pruitt: That's so interesting how you're doing it like that and have added it throughout the day now, because what immediately came to my mind is, you know, I'm running in and out of doctor's offices.
• 48:48
  Samantha Pruitt: I'm literally driving three hours to doctor's appointments, coming back and whatever, I'm gonna end up having back surgery.
• 48:53
  Samantha Pruitt: But in the process of navigating all of this over the last several months, I'm finding myself in these really weird places.
• 49:00
  Samantha Pruitt: A, I'm not somebody that goes to the doctor because I don't get injured and sick, right?
• 49:05
  Samantha Pruitt: Like, so just the fact that I've been in this really this last year because of gut infection, um, in these places more often, and I find them not to be great many times.
• 49:18
  Polly Mertens: The environment vibration is kind of loose.
• 49:20
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, the vibe is not good.
• 49:22
  Samantha Pruitt: So I'm having to literally like stop and close my eyes and like center myself and be like whether I'm in like the elevator or I go into the bathroom, or even before the doctors come into the room the other day.
• 49:35
  Samantha Pruitt: You know, I was standing there in pain, waiting for this doctor to come in and they were late or whatever.
• 49:39
  Samantha Pruitt: You know, I'm just like, okay.
• 49:41
  Samantha Pruitt: This is a practice that you can integrate into whatever daily chaos you currently might be living in, weird work environments, weird home environments, your car.
• 49:52
  Samantha Pruitt: Don't close your eyes, please.
• 49:54
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay.
• 49:54
  Samantha Pruitt: But like this grounding, this recentering back into yourself and your truth in your heart is incredible.
• 50:04
  Samantha Pruitt: What an incredible gift for us to give ourselves that throughout the day.
• 50:10
  Polly Mertens: Well, you know, two things as you said that I just wanted to touch upon.
• 50:13
  Polly Mertens: One, I was thinking about that video.
• 50:14
  Polly Mertens: I remember I was out hiking uh in this beautiful area, and you shared um the Buddhist teacher That Nich.
• 50:21
  Polly Mertens: Um Tik Nan Han.
• 50:23
  Polly Mertens: Ticknonhan, thank you.
• 50:24
  Polly Mertens: I have trouble losing it.
• 50:25
  Polly Mertens: Tick Tik Nan Han.
• 50:26
  Polly Mertens: So one of his really core messages, like he talks about drinking his tea in the present moment, right?
• 50:32
  Polly Mertens: Like just really being like I re I rewashed it.
• 50:35
  Polly Mertens: Some something, you know, it popped up on a YouTube or whatever.
• 50:38
  Polly Mertens: And he was just like with that tea.
• 50:41
  Polly Mertens: And I was like, whoa, he's like really fucking present right now.
• 50:44
  Polly Mertens: And I was like, that's like what this is, right?
• 50:48
  Polly Mertens: Like just coming back.
• 50:49
  Polly Mertens: And I just remembered, like, so the they say, and who knows, that when the soul enters the body, you have a heartbeat.
• 50:56
  Polly Mertens: And when the soul leaves the body, you have no heartbeat.
• 51:00
  Polly Mertens: And so if you just come back to your heart and your heartbeat, there you are.
• 51:05
  Polly Mertens: Like that's the you that's there from first heartbeat to last heartbeat.
• 51:09
  Polly Mertens: There you are.
• 51:10
  Polly Mertens: And like, so I would say like my tip for the fourth step, we talked about the three steps.
• 51:14
  Polly Mertens: If you want to go into a fourth step, is to then visualize, use that energy, that space that you create, that inner landscape, that like you connected to you, you, right?
• 51:26
  Polly Mertens: Like the big you.
• 51:27
  Polly Mertens: Um to then visualize what where are you going?
• 51:31
  Polly Mertens: Like what's something that you're creating, like you know, a dream, uh a wish, uh, whatever you want to call it, and call it in, like picture that from that place, not this distracted, frantic, whatever, you know, but you know, use that space, that doorway that you've just entered to to take yourself on a little journey into the timeline that you want to create for yourself.
• 51:55
  Samantha Pruitt: And make friends with your heartbeat.
• 51:57
  Samantha Pruitt: So, as somebody who's health, fitness, wellness, all that coaching and an athlete and all these things, for years, we've looked at our heart rate as a tool for training, right?
• 52:07
  Samantha Pruitt: So we would read heart rate, heart rate zones, all these things.
• 52:10
  Samantha Pruitt: And there seems to be this sort of underlying fear with people around actually recognizing what their heart is doing, the ups and the downs, the recovery and the peaks, et cetera.
• 52:22
  Samantha Pruitt: And people are conditioned through Western medicine to be like fearful if their heart rate goes too high and their blood pressure does this and all these things, right?
• 52:30
  Samantha Pruitt: There's this kind of um precarious relationship with the heartbeat.
• 52:35
  Samantha Pruitt: And what I found going through menopause is I would have like hot flashes, and my heart rate would do weird pitter patterns and all these things, and it would be fear-inducing.
• 52:44
  Samantha Pruitt: My nervous system would start to ramp up, right?
• 52:46
  Samantha Pruitt: And because I can literally hear my heart rate.
• 52:48
  Samantha Pruitt: So if I lay down, I can literally hear my heart.
• 52:51
  Samantha Pruitt: Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't.
• 52:53
  Samantha Pruitt: And I could probably do it right now, you know.
• 52:55
  Samantha Pruitt: Most people can if they're really in tune with that.
• 52:58
  Samantha Pruitt: That's us, it's there to keep us alive.
• 53:03
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, and the way you were just expressing that is so beautiful and elegant, and that reconnection to that beating heart inside your body that you are solely responsible for caring for physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
• 53:21
  Samantha Pruitt: Whoa, dude, that's a full-time job.
• 53:24
  Samantha Pruitt: People need to get busy doing that.
• 53:25
  Samantha Pruitt: That's so good, or less busy, is how I want to say like it's like you need to get present to doing that.
• 53:32
  Polly Mertens: Just return, just return to the most simplest element of who you are, there you go, and come from there and and then go out into the world from you, that part of you.
• 53:43
  Polly Mertens: You're not up in this head.
• 53:45
  Polly Mertens: That's there, it's talking to you, it's programmed, whatever.
• 53:48
  Polly Mertens: You know, use it, great.
• 53:49
  Polly Mertens: You know, it's got some ideas, it's got some whatever.
• 53:51
  Polly Mertens: But like the answer.
• 53:53
  Polly Mertens: But does it though?
• 53:54
  Polly Mertens: It gets you into a lot of trouble.
• 53:55
  Polly Mertens: Well, it's you know it's a search engine that's been programmed a certain way and it sees things through a certain lens, you know, and just like Chat GBT or AI, you know, it gives you answers that it thinks, you know.
• 54:07
  Polly Mertens: Uh-huh.
• 54:08
  Samantha Pruitt: Not always.
• 54:08
  Samantha Pruitt: But the heart knows.
• 54:10
  Samantha Pruitt: Exactly.
• 54:11
  Samantha Pruitt: The heart's been with you before anything else.
• 54:14
  Samantha Pruitt: It's the origins of you.
• 54:17
  Polly Mertens: There's there's there's, I would say, wisdom, and and if I think life force comes through that part of our body, you know, when we we feel empty.
• 54:27
  Polly Mertens: You know, like you people like I used to talk about like this emptiness in my chest, like a hole in the soul is what I would call it.
• 54:33
  Polly Mertens: Because I was so like I didn't get it.
• 54:35
  Polly Mertens: You know, I was wrapped up in, you know, eating disorder and depression and all that stuff.
• 54:40
  Polly Mertens: So of course it felt now it feels so full here, right?
• 54:44
  Polly Mertens: Like, and I I when I I don't know your experience, but like when I connect with someone, it's like my heart just goes, like it just is like woo, you know, it like opens from the door of light just opens out onto this person.
• 54:58
  Polly Mertens: You just sort of like want to swoop them up with love and compassion or whatever.
• 55:03
  Polly Mertens: So it's it's like an expression of us through this physical body, if you will, but we're more than that too, you know, our energy and so yeah.
• 55:14
  Samantha Pruitt: And if you find you're doing the opposite of that of closing off to others and to the world and to your experience, it's because you're closed off to yourself.
• 55:21
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, yeah.
• 55:23
  Polly Mertens: Or, you know, some of it's like protecting.
• 55:25
  Polly Mertens: Like what's what are you what thoughts are you having that you're under threat or you know, like closing off, closing doors, protecting, locking that shit down.
• 55:34
  Samantha Pruitt: Sometimes, yeah.
• 55:36
  Samantha Pruitt: So, all right.
• 55:38
  Samantha Pruitt: This was good, lady.
• 55:39
  Samantha Pruitt: A hundredth episode.
• 55:40
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay, what's going on?
• 55:41
  Samantha Pruitt: You've got a program right now that is currently available for registration.
• 55:46
  Polly Mertens: Yes, get after it.
• 55:47
  Polly Mertens: You guys, I'm after just doing this with you and that video that I made on YouTube, go check it out because I love walking people through.
• 55:52
  Polly Mertens: You know, this I gave you a little bit, but I was telling you about it.
• 55:55
  Polly Mertens: We didn't do it.
• 55:56
  Polly Mertens: So go go do that, you know, um, enjoy that.
• 55:59
  Polly Mertens: And then in December, this is for the ladies out there.
• 56:03
  Polly Mertens: So um, I'm inviting in for three weeks in December of 2025, depending on when you're listening to this, December 2nd, 9th, and 16th.
• 56:12
  Polly Mertens: We will gather for two hours each night.
• 56:15
  Polly Mertens: We will tap into that space.
• 56:18
  Polly Mertens: Like I will walk you through, take you deep inside of yourself where there's like this stillness, this connectedness, this oneness.
• 56:25
  Polly Mertens: And first night, we're gonna complete the year, right?
• 56:28
  Polly Mertens: Like you're gonna like put a nice, beautiful bow on all that you the wisdom, the upset, the pains, the all of it, you know, bring out your phone, whatever it is to like honor the year, right?
• 56:39
  Polly Mertens: Put a bow on it, complete it.
• 56:41
  Polly Mertens: Next night, it's a week later, it's once a week, right?
• 56:44
  Polly Mertens: We'll go into tap you back into that heart.
• 56:47
  Polly Mertens: And I talked about like open that doorway to where you want to go.
• 56:49
  Polly Mertens: So everybody's in a different season of life, right?
• 56:53
  Polly Mertens: There's summer, winter, spring, fall.
• 56:55
  Polly Mertens: So we're not all like, woo-hoo, I'm going into this like big bang up year.
• 56:59
  Polly Mertens: Some people might like, I need some more self-care.
• 57:01
  Polly Mertens: I need to pull back and take care of me.
• 57:04
  Polly Mertens: I need to go bigger.
• 57:05
  Polly Mertens: I need to whatever that year looks like.
• 57:07
  Polly Mertens: So that process that I'll walk people through will give them clarity of what their season is and the intention of their heart for where they want to go in the next year.
• 57:17
  Polly Mertens: So you get clarity from a different place.
• 57:19
  Polly Mertens: This isn't like, let me think of my goals and my commitments and my must-dos and, you know, let me make a big list.
• 57:27
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah.
• 57:27
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 57:28
  Polly Mertens: This is not a goal setting workshop.
• 57:30
  Polly Mertens: This is not a let's that, you know, now, are some intentions going to come out of it?
• 57:34
  Polly Mertens: Are you going to get some clarity on some things you want to get up to and some commitments you want to have?
• 57:38
  Polly Mertens: Hell yes, that is absolutely going to happen.
• 57:42
  Polly Mertens: Right.
• 57:42
  Polly Mertens: Like, I'm looking forward to seeing the things that from people's hearts they want to get up to.
• 57:47
  Polly Mertens: Like, I can't wait for the shares when they're like, oh my God, I just got like the ladies in my group right now, they're like, I came into this group, you know, we we're in our second round of getting together.
• 57:58
  Polly Mertens: She's like, I came into this group thinking I was going to start this and this business, whatever.
• 58:01
  Polly Mertens: She goes, I can't believe I just bought a house yesterday.
• 58:03
  Polly Mertens: You know, like, yeah, yeah.
• 58:05
  Polly Mertens: She goes, and I'm so excited.
• 58:07
  Polly Mertens: And I'm like, this feels like my path, and it's happened so serendipitously.
• 58:10
  Polly Mertens: And I'm just like, amazing, you know, like whatever your path is on, like you'll get clear from your heart, not have to's and shoulds, and what is everybody else up to, but like your inner guidance will begin to be your compass for you.
• 58:25
  Polly Mertens: So that's the next one.
• 58:26
  Polly Mertens: And then the third night is deepening these rituals.
• 58:29
  Polly Mertens: So, like really honoring and respecting yourself and creating rituals so you can do this on the daily.
• 58:35
  Polly Mertens: You know, like we're giving people like, hey, take it on as a challenge.
• 58:38
  Polly Mertens: This is like, you will get into the practice of it and you will won't want to not, won't want to not do it.
• 58:43
  Polly Mertens: You'll be like, oh my God, yeah, I'm gonna do this.
• 58:45
  Polly Mertens: And then in you know, 2026, we're gonna get back together and like re-practice it, like re-presence people to this energy so they can be like, oh my God, you know, like having done this, you know, with myself, for myself, this gift we're talking about, what's opened up?
• 59:00
  Polly Mertens: What are you discovering?
• 59:01
  Polly Mertens: And then go back in and like really, you know, I I love doing it with myself, and it's so yummy when it's guided.
• 59:08
  Polly Mertens: I gotta tell you, you know, like when you have a beautiful, like I create sacred space for people and take them through, and like you just are like cradled in, like, oh, here you go.
• 59:19
  Polly Mertens: Here's you know, it's so yummy, so yummy.
• 59:22
  Samantha Pruitt: So yeah, and it's cool you're doing it in a group setting because people can bear witness to one another, which is really an incredibly beautiful piece of this work as well, right?
• 59:31
  Polly Mertens: That that energy of women supporting women and seeing each other and sharing and hearing, and then you know, three weeks in the middle of what can sometimes be a very chaotic time of year, this gift is so rich to get, you know, like pull yourself away for you, give yourself this gift.
• 59:48
  Polly Mertens: I mean, what a I mean, the price is like nothing.
• 59:51
  Polly Mertens: It's like just you know, that's nothing.
• 59:53
  Polly Mertens: It's the time, the sacred time.
• 59:55
  Polly Mertens: That's the investment, right?
• 59:56
  Polly Mertens: It's really an investment for you.
• 59:58
  Samantha Pruitt: So um It's an early Christmas present to yourself.
• 1:00:01
  Polly Mertens: And I was like, gosh, give what do you, you know?
• 1:00:03
  Polly Mertens: I don't know what you're planning to give your friends, but like, hey, give this stuff out, like give them tickets.
• 1:00:07
  Samantha Pruitt: Exactly.
• 1:00:08
  Samantha Pruitt: That's what I'm thinking.
• 1:00:09
  Samantha Pruitt: Like gift this to somebody.
• 1:00:11
  Samantha Pruitt: Can they do that?
• 1:00:12
  Samantha Pruitt: Is that a thing?
• 1:00:12
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah.
• 1:00:14
  Polly Mertens: Hell yeah.
• 1:00:14
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:00:15
  Polly Mertens: Like gift it to your friend.
• 1:00:16
  Polly Mertens: Like, oh yeah, instead of giving them a I don't know.
• 1:00:19
  Polly Mertens: Tickets to this.
• 1:00:19
  Polly Mertens: Totch key.
• 1:00:20
  Polly Mertens: No, dude.
• 1:00:21
  Polly Mertens: People just candle or here.
• 1:00:25
  Polly Mertens: Here's your heart.
• 1:00:27
  Polly Mertens: Candle is not self-care.
• 1:00:28
  Polly Mertens: Okay.
• 1:00:29
  Polly Mertens: Here's your heart and all of your dreams and your heart's intention.
• 1:00:32
  Polly Mertens: Let me give you some of that.
• 1:00:33
  Samantha Pruitt: Oh my God.
• 1:00:34
  Samantha Pruitt: And set you up for success for the next year.
• 1:00:37
  Samantha Pruitt: For sure.
• 1:00:38
  Samantha Pruitt: And that's on sale now, and we'll drop a link to that, obviously.
• 1:00:42
  Samantha Pruitt: Yes.
• 1:00:42
  Samantha Pruitt: Um, also, you and I are getting together on Monday to talk about our programs for 2026.
• 1:00:48
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay.
• 1:00:49
  Polly Mertens: OMG.
• 1:00:50
  Polly Mertens: We're going, yeah.
• 1:00:51
  Polly Mertens: So you guys, Samantha, we've got some stuff up our sleeve.
• 1:00:54
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 1:00:55
  Polly Mertens: You have had some shifts in your life, you know, with so we were just talking about this right now.
• 1:00:59
  Polly Mertens: You weren't able to be in Iron Man because the back, right?
• 1:01:02
  Polly Mertens: And you're going to have this procedure.
• 1:01:03
  Polly Mertens: And so you've got this time to create you know new programs and get new certifications.
• 1:01:08
  Polly Mertens: So you guys, look out.
• 1:01:10
  Polly Mertens: It's it's on fire over here.
• 1:01:12
  Samantha Pruitt: It's pretty crazy what's about to go down.
• 1:01:15
  Samantha Pruitt: Exactly.
• 1:01:16
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah.
• 1:01:16
  Samantha Pruitt: I'm so excited for 2026.
• 1:01:19
  Samantha Pruitt: 2025 and I broke up a while ago.
• 1:01:23
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean, way, way long time ago, long time ago.
• 1:01:26
  Samantha Pruitt: We just were not the right fit.
• 1:01:28
  Samantha Pruitt: It was like a dating app, and I swiped the wrong way.
• 1:01:31
  Samantha Pruitt: I don't know what happened.
• 1:01:32
  Samantha Pruitt: Anyway, so we broke up a while ago.
• 1:01:35
  Samantha Pruitt: I've already moved into 2026.
• 1:01:37
  Samantha Pruitt: And so incredibly fired up for what you and I are going to create together.
• 1:01:42
  Samantha Pruitt: And we're going to bring in some other collaborators too.
• 1:01:44
  Samantha Pruitt: But you and I are the coaches for the programs, and we'll kind of lighten things up for people.
• 1:01:49
  Samantha Pruitt: But there'll be a lot of different opportunities for people to partake in this work that we've talked about today, but also in health and fitness work, you know, relationship work, issues around yeah, all kinds, all things called life and being a human.
• 1:02:06
  Polly Mertens: And we are welcoming in.
• 1:02:07
  Polly Mertens: So we are looking to do um being on other podcasts.
• 1:02:11
  Polly Mertens: So if you have any podcasts to share with us that you think we would that'd be like you, you guys need to have Sam Polly on, like hello, like tomorrow.
• 1:02:17
  Polly Mertens: And then any guests for us that you think would be valuable for you to us to you know bring on in here.
• 1:02:23
  Polly Mertens: So we're opening up like 100th episode.
• 1:02:26
  Polly Mertens: We're like, all right, we're gonna do it, we're gonna blow up 2026.
• 1:02:29
  Polly Mertens: It's gonna be a like by the 200th episode, it's gonna be unrecognizable.
• 1:02:33
  Samantha Pruitt: Unrecognizable.
• 1:02:34
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:02:35
  Samantha Pruitt: We've built this great foundation and we're ready to move forward and we want to take our audience with us, which we will be.
• 1:02:40
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, you guys are coming.
• 1:02:42
  Samantha Pruitt: Wow, let's go, let's go.
• 1:02:44
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay, lady, we should have cake or something.
• 1:02:46
  Samantha Pruitt: Should we go eat cake right now?
• 1:02:47
  Samantha Pruitt: Here, here's your here, make a wish.
• 1:02:50
  Samantha Pruitt: Glitter, throw some glitter at it.
• 1:02:55
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, maybe we'll see if we can do some editing to like throw in some sparkles or something.
• 1:02:59
  Samantha Pruitt: I don't know.
• 1:03:00
  Samantha Pruitt: Totally cure the sparkles.
• 1:03:01
  Samantha Pruitt: Sparkles, gosh.
• 1:03:02
  Samantha Pruitt: Exactly, exactly.
• 1:03:04
  Samantha Pruitt: What do we want to tell these people before we wrap this up?
• 1:03:07
  Polly Mertens: What is the final like reminder?
• 1:03:09
  Polly Mertens: You know, from your heart, my heart to theirs.
• 1:03:11
  Polly Mertens: What do you what do we always tell them?
• 1:03:14
  Samantha Pruitt: How your life feels is more important than how it looks.
• 1:03:18
  Polly Mertens: And every day is your opportunity to find your awesome thing.
• 1:03:23
  Samantha Pruitt: All right, let's go see you next time.