Latest / The Everyday Awesome Project / 16: Raise Your Standards: What You Watch, Hear, and Eat Shapes How You Feel

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16: Raise Your Standards: What You Watch, Hear, and Eat Shapes How You Feel · The Everyday Awesome Project

• 0:22
  Samantha Pruitt: Hey, superstars, welcome back Polly Mertens and Samantha Pruit here.
• 0:25
  Samantha Pruitt: What's up beautiful humans?
• 0:27
  Samantha Pruitt: So what are we talking about today?
• 0:29
  Samantha Pruitt: We are talking about something that is going to elevate as it vibrates within the ears of these human beings.
• 0:36
  Samantha Pruitt: The title of today's show is called "Raise your Standards, Sam Schraeg, and when we say raise your standards, what do we actually mean?
• 0:48
  Polly Mertens: Well, there's a lot that goes into this, but if we take it back to the root of it, the root of it is how we see ourselves, like our worthiness.
• 0:57
  Polly Mertens: So, like our worthiness and our identity create the basis for all of our standards, whether they be personal standards, relationship standards, work standards, money standards, the standards I'm just giving you some examples.
• 1:09
  Polly Mertens: But it aligns with how you're willing to feel, act, the people you'll spend time with, the inputs into your life, your body, your activities.
• 1:20
  Polly Mertens: So it's kind of an amalgamation of all of those things and it also can include your values and your goals.
• 1:26
  Samantha Pruitt: Yes, and in a real functional way for humans.
• 1:31
  Samantha Pruitt: What we mean is, in particular, when Polly says inputs, what we're talking about is there are hidden or tangible inputs that actually come into your physical body and brain every second of the day, and there are ways that that inner energy or you can look at it even as nutrients or vibes or whatever you want to call it get into you.
• 1:56
  Samantha Pruitt: So inputs come in through your mouth, they come in through your eyes, they come in through your ears, and we'll dig into each of those three specific things a little more detail as we progress on here.
• 2:08
  Samantha Pruitt: But when we talk about setting standards and examining the inputs of your life, really what are we asking people to do in consideration today for today's show?
• 2:21
  Polly Mertens: Well, I think one of the key questions that we were talking about before we went on air is about standards have to do with what you're accepting in your life, what you're tolerating in your life, the different areas of your life, whether that be your personal standards, like your personal hygiene standards, your personal fitness standards, your personal money, income standards, the house you live in, the car you drive I gave you the example of the.
• 2:49
  Polly Mertens: So in the world of experiential marketing, which is marketing based on how people experience things.
• 2:56
  Polly Mertens: Anyway, one of the studies goes back to they find that people go to grocery stores.
• 3:04
  Polly Mertens: They shop at grocery stores that they feel most comfortable in, not that are the closest to them.
• 3:09
  Polly Mertens: So largely people will go to the most convenient gas station or maybe the one that on the way to work, it's the best price, or something like that.
• 3:18
  Polly Mertens: But when it comes to grocery stores and you can tell the story of your gym, where we feel quote at home with and that tells us what's your standard, what's your standard for the food or the products or just the environment.
• 3:33
  Polly Mertens: So I think you have this with a gym that you go to and it's like you drive across town for that thing.
• 3:40
  Samantha Pruitt: You drive for 25 minutes one way when I have five gyms in 85 mile radius, or something of that nature.
• 3:47
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, so a fast example that you're alluding to is these environments that we put ourselves into are a reflection of our standards, so I love that food story that you told me that that's that really scientific research that was done, that kind of just blew my brain and I was like, well, yeah, that's totally me too, and it's obviously you.
• 4:09
  Samantha Pruitt: Where we seek out spaces, environments, experiences are a reflection of directly correlated to our value system, our sense of self worth and our commitment to ourselves on the daily.
• 4:25
  Samantha Pruitt: Like we don't just do these things in zombie state.
• 4:28
  Samantha Pruitt: Like we consciously and unconsciously make these choices every day, every moment.
• 4:34
  Polly Mertens: And I think it's super important, where you just said, consciously or unconsciously, like we're realizing, we're about to drop some bombs into that, yeah, we're realizing we're at choice or we're just realizing we're in default mode and so we pick up.
• 4:50
  Polly Mertens: You know I would.
• 4:51
  Polly Mertens: If I ask people in a room you know to raise your hand how many people know and could write down what their top five or top 10 values are, I bet you less than 1% could do it right now.
• 5:00
  Polly Mertens: You know, maybe they could come up with their number one core value, but it would probably take some thinking and some more.
• 5:05
  Polly Mertens: You know it's like hmm.
• 5:06
  Polly Mertens: So if you're living your life deliberately meaning you have a live, you live an examined life, let's call it like.
• 5:14
  Polly Mertens: You look at the way you're operating in the world.
• 5:16
  Polly Mertens: Are you living deliberately because you can just sort of blow through life or you can design your life Right?
• 5:23
  Polly Mertens: So people, only when the finish line gets closer and closer in people's life and they realize whoa, wake up, maybe I should do something here Do they start to examine their life, and I wish more people would take that, you know microscope out and just look at their life.
• 5:38
  Polly Mertens: But standards are a thing that are sort of operating behind the scenes, often largely picked up by the family of origin, the people we hang around with, the things that we are influenced by, you know, the culture, the religion, the media, things like that.
• 5:53
  Polly Mertens: I think an examined life for people that are living deliberately step back out of life and go wait a minute, right?
• 6:01
  Samantha Pruitt: Well, you know what's so cool about what we're doing at Every.
• 6:03
  Polly Mertens: Awesome Project.
• 6:04
  Samantha Pruitt: I believe, is that our people are awake.
• 6:08
  Samantha Pruitt: So we put out an energy into the space, collectively and individually, and we attract people who are awake, who have the curiosity, who want to be on the journey.
• 6:22
  Polly Mertens: So hallelujah for you whoever is listening for showing up to that.
• 6:26
  Samantha Pruitt: I want to drive home another point that what I have really seen a lot of working with people individually, as well as in organizations, corporations and otherwise is there seems to be a lack of understanding for how awareness and understanding for how the inputs we're going to talk about either are building up their physical and mental health or breaking them down.
• 6:51
  Samantha Pruitt: So helping people become aware and then helping them examine those things to say am I building a body and a brain that I can be proud of?
• 7:01
  Samantha Pruitt: That's going to get me at my highest performance in my daily life, my career path or am I?
• 7:05
  Samantha Pruitt: literally breaking it down through these choices and ultimately creating disease states in their mental health and their physical health.
• 7:14
  Polly Mertens: So what are some?
• 7:14
  Polly Mertens: When you say inputs, what are, what does that look like or what does that?
• 7:18
  Samantha Pruitt: mean.
• 7:19
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, how do you, how would you help people understand what I mean?
• 7:22
  Polly Mertens: You can kind of think like automatically okay, food, were we talking about food here?
• 7:26
  Samantha Pruitt: So we're talking about three things.
• 7:27
  Samantha Pruitt: Food is one of them, but let's think about it this way you're a human with a body.
• 7:31
  Samantha Pruitt: Anyone who's listening to this?
• 7:34
  Samantha Pruitt: probably is a human news alert, so this human body that you're functioning in, that I hope that you take good care of them.
• 7:44
  Samantha Pruitt: We're going to encourage you to do that.
• 7:46
  Samantha Pruitt: Has some ways.
• 7:47
  Samantha Pruitt: It takes in things into its cells which make up the human body trillions of cells.
• 7:53
  Samantha Pruitt: So one of the ways is through the mouth, another way is through the ears, another way is through the eyeballs.
• 7:59
  Samantha Pruitt: So let's talk first about the mouth.
• 8:02
  Polly Mertens: And skin too.
• 8:03
  Polly Mertens: A lot of people forget how big an organ the skin is.
• 8:06
  Polly Mertens: But yeah, go ahead.
• 8:06
  Polly Mertens: Biggest organ in the body.
• 8:08
  Polly Mertens: Exactly, we wear it all day long and it reflects I mean people who have bad skin it's actually an outer reflection of what's going on in their inner body.
• 8:18
  Samantha Pruitt: Right, go ahead Side tangent, but the first one.
• 8:22
  Samantha Pruitt: Let's talk about this because people can really wrap their brain around this.
• 8:25
  Samantha Pruitt: This is really everyday realities.
• 8:27
  Samantha Pruitt: So you have a mouth and you put things in it, and that's how you sustain life in your body.
• 8:33
  Samantha Pruitt: So if you're putting things in that mouth, what does that look like and how does that affect your building up or breaking down of your mental and physical health?
• 8:45
  Samantha Pruitt: You go first.
• 8:46
  Samantha Pruitt: How do you feel about that piece?
• 8:47
  Polly Mertens: Well, as soon as you said that, the first thing I thought of is that's all based on standards.
• 8:52
  Polly Mertens: So what you reach for, tolerate, choose whatever you spoon in smoke, drink whatever you're, however, you're getting into your body, it's based on your standard and it's based on your identity, right?
• 9:11
  Samantha Pruitt: And.
• 9:11
  Polly Mertens: I know we can say will power and this and that and weak moments or whatever, but most of the time people are ingesting things that show you the standards that they're living with.
• 9:23
  Samantha Pruitt: Well, all of the time, unless somebody is actually feeding you, you're on a feeding tube because you are buying that food.
• 9:30
  Samantha Pruitt: Well, I'm thinking that in the world of addiction it doesn't feel like a choice.
• 9:35
  Polly Mertens: That's the only reason I say that is like when you're kind of, let's say, controlled by a substance, it sort of feels like you're in charge.
• 9:44
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, it sort of feels like that substance is in charge, but other than like, let's just leave that off to the side, you know, just kind of park that conversation separately.
• 9:52
  Polly Mertens: But yeah, you're right, like everybody else.
• 9:54
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, you're putting that donut in your body, you're putting that piece of celery in your body, whichever it is right.
• 10:01
  Samantha Pruitt: And those people with the addiction.
• 10:02
  Samantha Pruitt: Please call us so we can have a conversation about that side?
• 10:04
  Polly Mertens: No yeah.
• 10:05
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay.
• 10:05
  Samantha Pruitt: So food you go to the grocery store, you spend your money on the thing value statement.
• 10:11
  Samantha Pruitt: You drive it home and you cook it and you spend time doing that value statement.
• 10:15
  Samantha Pruitt: And then you spoon or show?
• 10:17
  Polly Mertens: my into your mouth.
• 10:18
  Samantha Pruitt: How much of it how much of it at?
• 10:20
  Samantha Pruitt: A lot of time and what kind of environment, etc.
• 10:23
  Samantha Pruitt: So that's a radical input that most of us do three to 10 times a day and you're saying that directly aligns with the values of that human who made those choices values, identity, yeah, the worthiness all of it's all interrelated.
• 10:38
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay, and I would say they're making those choices and they're either building up or breaking down their mental and physical health.
• 10:46
  Polly Mertens: So we would say, yeah, I like it as healthy or unhealthy standards, and then the harmful ones, you know.
• 10:53
  Polly Mertens: So healthier, unhealthy is this, and you know, enhancing my wellbeing or is this harming my wellbeing?
• 11:00
  Samantha Pruitt: So the first step is to take a look and be aware.
• 11:03
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah Right, so I have some new rituals this last year I've done some work around food at the end of last year and I'm still doing it now and you've been a great influence in that way.
• 11:13
  Samantha Pruitt: So fun.
• 11:14
  Samantha Pruitt: But one of the things I do, for example, in the grocery stores, I carry one bag into my favorite grocery store.
• 11:23
  Samantha Pruitt: That, yes, I travel twice the distance to go to that grocery store, and sometimes I go even beyond that to get even higher quality products or whatever.
• 11:30
  Samantha Pruitt: But so I have some habits and things I've created for myself.
• 11:36
  Samantha Pruitt: So I became aware and then I decided to make some changes small, big, whatever based on my personal goals and my values, and then I created some systems around that.
• 11:47
  Samantha Pruitt: So, can you take somebody else on that journey around food in terms of, if they want to examine that, what would be a really simple way for them to do it?
• 11:58
  Samantha Pruitt: Just create awareness for them.
• 11:59
  Polly Mertens: Well, I would love to hear how you did it.
• 12:01
  Samantha Pruitt: So how did?
• 12:02
  Polly Mertens: you do it last year, so was there.
• 12:04
  Polly Mertens: So I think the first step you must have looked at were you having something going off the rails?
• 12:12
  Polly Mertens: Were you not feeling well?
• 12:14
  Polly Mertens: Were you frustrated?
• 12:15
  Polly Mertens: What brought about this?
• 12:16
  Samantha Pruitt: subtle awareness.
• 12:17
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, or did you have?
• 12:18
  Polly Mertens: a goal that you wanted to meet, or like somebody challenged you to something.
• 12:21
  Polly Mertens: Where did the first step of that come from for you?
• 12:25
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, so I'm a post-menopausal female 55 this year and over the course of the last couple years I've been doing a lot of work in education around hormones and stuff, so my body composition has changed because of all these reasons.
• 12:38
  Samantha Pruitt: It did make me become more aware of what I was taking in nutritionally and how that might impact my body composition.
• 12:45
  Samantha Pruitt: And most important for me is my physical performance as an athletic female.
• 12:52
  Polly Mertens: So I'm hearing three things.
• 12:53
  Polly Mertens: So you felt different in your body, like you just woke up and looked around at the body sack and went, oh, this is different than she's looking a little different these days.
• 13:03
  Polly Mertens: The performance right, and that varies for people.
• 13:07
  Polly Mertens: Can you walk, can you run, can you lift Whatever, can you play with your kids?
• 13:11
  Polly Mertens: And then what was the third one?
• 13:13
  Polly Mertens: How you felt, like hormonally, like energy-wise.
• 13:17
  Samantha Pruitt: The third one was actually for my For education.
• 13:18
  Samantha Pruitt: You were getting education and kind of just starting to question and I dove into that education actually because of brain function.
• 13:27
  Samantha Pruitt: So I have a lot of people in my life and I've personally experienced anxiety and depression.
• 13:33
  Samantha Pruitt: I wanted to understand how holistically we could take a look at these arenas.
• 13:38
  Samantha Pruitt: And this is a whole other.
• 13:39
  Polly Mertens: I was just gonna say drop the name of the book.
• 13:41
  Samantha Pruitt: But in reading these books and educating myself in this space, it literally did blow my brain about how critical the nutritional element was to my mental health and the mental health of our society.
• 13:54
  Samantha Pruitt: So those were my main points, if you will.
• 13:56
  Samantha Pruitt: That drew me in.
• 13:57
  Polly Mertens: So it seemed like the root or the first Domino was the body didn't feel good, the brain didn't feel good, or something.
• 14:05
  Polly Mertens: It's gonna get a little funky.
• 14:05
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah, and you caught it, let's say early enough, right, this wasn't like you had a medical diagnosis of like dementia, not this time I've had those I've had those.
• 14:17
  Samantha Pruitt: I've had those.
• 14:17
  Samantha Pruitt: I've had those way go calls.
• 14:19
  Samantha Pruitt: I'm getting so much better at detecting things.
• 14:24
  Polly Mertens: The guardrails are much tighter on your train or where you're, you know you're getting off track.
• 14:31
  Polly Mertens: If you will in your road, nice yeah, and I think that's true for a lot of people is you know.
• 14:36
  Polly Mertens: So I like this little analogy where we're going with this.
• 14:39
  Polly Mertens: So you know if you're driving down the road and you know on the left and the right of the road you've got little bumpers that start to make noise like you're going off the road and it keeps you from going into the ditch.
• 14:49
  Polly Mertens: I eat, the doctor, the breakdown surgery, whatever the relationship break up something right, so it's noticing it.
• 14:58
  Polly Mertens: When there's the bump, bump, bumps, yes, you know.
• 15:01
  Polly Mertens: And so you had a bump, bump, bump, hey, and you went wait a minute here, that's right, and your standard is I deserve to feel good in my body.
• 15:11
  Polly Mertens: Hell yeah, I deserve to operate and have a high functioning body.
• 15:14
  Polly Mertens: Hell, yeah, right, like how you see yourself.
• 15:17
  Polly Mertens: So you started to take some actions.
• 15:19
  Polly Mertens: And then what did you do next?
• 15:20
  Polly Mertens: So you started readings.
• 15:22
  Polly Mertens: You started like well, what's going on here?
• 15:23
  Polly Mertens: Maybe this is a hormonal thing, Maybe it's brain, maybe it's body chemistry, you know things like that.
• 15:27
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, and based on what I learned and also what I observed in myself, which I think is also really important too.
• 15:32
  Samantha Pruitt: Right, we can learn lots of things.
• 15:33
  Samantha Pruitt: We can hear everything.
• 15:34
  Samantha Pruitt: There's a lot of information out there.
• 15:35
  Samantha Pruitt: So A I like science-based information.
• 15:38
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay, also, I want to see how it is for me.
• 15:42
  Samantha Pruitt: So again, I'm a 55 year old, post-menopausal female in the world.
• 15:48
  Samantha Pruitt: My life is not the same as everybody else's and nobody's is.
• 15:51
  Samantha Pruitt: So, taking all those things into consideration, I did examine my nutritional habits, made some changes there.
• 15:57
  Samantha Pruitt: I definitely examined and totally changed how I do my sports performance nutrition, and then I really took a look at other habits and rituals I had around my standards about the type of food that I purchased or maybe how I cooked it or how I was eating it, etc.
• 16:14
  Samantha Pruitt: So kind of just looked at the whole thing and made some changes around that food piece.
• 16:18
  Polly Mertens: And you know what I want to just point out.
• 16:19
  Polly Mertens: As you're talking, I'm hearing two key words jump out at me, and it's ownership, responsibility.
• 16:26
  Polly Mertens: Yeah Right, like you took ownership of your body, you took ownership of how you wanted to feel, your perform, whatever you're like, oh, and you took responsibility for doing something Like I'm going to look into this, what am I doing to myself?
• 16:40
  Polly Mertens: I take responsibility that maybe I haven't been feeding this body or treating this body as well, or even being aware that I should be looking at hormones more deeply because of my age or whatever effect, or you've got history of such and such in your family or whatever.
• 16:57
  Polly Mertens: So you said I'm going to take ownership and responsibility and start going from there.
• 17:02
  Samantha Pruitt: Feeding this body is my responsibility.
• 17:05
  Samantha Pruitt: So, except when you are a baby and your parent is in charge of getting you 100% of your nutrition beyond that and that's not the people listening to this podcast, so let's just make sure they heard that again Feeding ourselves is our responsibility, you know I can't help but interject.
• 17:25
  Polly Mertens: I just know so many couples that and it won't get back to this.
• 17:28
  Polly Mertens: But or won't get back to this.
• 17:30
  Polly Mertens: But forgive me, I'm going to just poo poo because I've got a couple of women in my life that I see that I'm thinking of her right now that they say, oh, I can't make a change in my diet because they won't let me or my partner won't let me, partner won't eat this or whatever.
• 17:47
  Samantha Pruitt: And my kids won't eat this yeah.
• 17:49
  Polly Mertens: So they eat poorly.
• 17:51
  Polly Mertens: They make you know, they allow the people in their life.
• 17:54
  Polly Mertens: I'm like, wait, don't you do the cooking, wait, don't you like, do the shopping?
• 17:57
  Polly Mertens: Okay, you know, and I think ownership and responsibility need to.
• 18:02
  Polly Mertens: They need to get back their hands on the wheel of that car.
• 18:05
  Samantha Pruitt: And for all the people who don't do the shopping and the cooking because they have a partner or they're in an environment that somebody's doing with them Speak up.
• 18:13
  Samantha Pruitt: Hello, you're putting it in your mouth and it's really about having conversations.
• 18:17
  Samantha Pruitt: So we want to empower people today to set their own standards around these elements and have the conversations and make the changes, because this is your life.
• 18:27
  Samantha Pruitt: You get one body and one brain and this is your life.
• 18:32
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay, that was a little off the rails.
• 18:34
  Samantha Pruitt: Let's talk about the next one, which is ears.
• 18:36
  Samantha Pruitt: This is a fascinating thing to me.
• 18:38
  Samantha Pruitt: We talked a little bit about I have some boundaries around this stuff so you and the next one who got a lot of boundaries around.
• 18:44
  Samantha Pruitt: But so when we talk about ears, we talk about the sound, the words, the noises and the vibration that comes into our body and into every cell.
• 18:55
  Samantha Pruitt: Again, trillions of sounds through your ears.
• 18:58
  Samantha Pruitt: What are your thoughts on that piece?
• 19:00
  Polly Mertens: Well, it's one of the most direct connections we have to the subconscious.
• 19:03
  Polly Mertens: So if we think about where the mind interprets through, all of our body interprets through our five senses.
• 19:13
  Polly Mertens: Basically, I think we have more senses than that because we have more bodies, but let's just hone it in on those five senses.
• 19:19
  Polly Mertens: What you're listening to is one of the fastest paths into the subconscious mind.
• 19:24
  Polly Mertens: So what are you feeding the subconscious mind?
• 19:27
  Polly Mertens: And the subconscious mind does have a filter, so it's not like you're a wide open doorway.
• 19:32
  Polly Mertens: Some people do but repetition, repetition, intensity, frequency, so how often you're hearing those things, looking at those things, and when you take the emotional input at the same time.
• 19:45
  Polly Mertens: So let's just say you're A lot of people go to movies or watch television.
• 19:49
  Polly Mertens: You know so, if you see it, feel it and hear it, that's three inputs at least that are going in and that creates an emotion.
• 19:57
  Polly Mertens: You know, like that creates a response, chemical response in the body and it starts to remember that.
• 20:02
  Polly Mertens: And if you keep doing that, so like about, you know, like.
• 20:05
  Polly Mertens: So the worst case for this you and I are big like anti-news watching or horror movies, or, you know, seeing people get killed on the screen or things that just don't feel good, right, but to your point, auditory is one of the fastest inputs into the subconscious mind.
• 20:24
  Samantha Pruitt: I am not surprised at all because I'm so sensitive here and people think I'm kind of odd.
• 20:28
  Samantha Pruitt: But I gave you an example earlier of sometimes I can go into a store and the music is jarring me it's literally jarring me and I leave the store.
• 20:37
  Samantha Pruitt: Or, like I gave another example, pulling up to a stoplight and the person next to me has her windows down and it's full crank some rap, with noises and sounds.
• 20:46
  Polly Mertens: It's just a different frequency.
• 20:48
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, exactly.
• 20:49
  Samantha Pruitt: And I literally have to roll up my windows and I want to run the red light, like I'm repelled away from those noises that cause a really negative vibration within me.
• 21:00
  Samantha Pruitt: I respond to that, do you?
• 21:02
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, I have to pay attention to it.
• 21:04
  Polly Mertens: You know, I think people just sort of allow inputs.
• 21:07
  Polly Mertens: You know, like, passively, they sit in conversations that they should get up and leave.
• 21:12
  Polly Mertens: Oh, that's a great example, right, that's a great example.
• 21:14
  Samantha Pruitt: That's a great example.
• 21:16
  Polly Mertens: Yes, People dumping their daily dump list on them.
• 21:20
  Polly Mertens: Oh hey, can I get your ear for an hour To just listen to garbage?
• 21:29
  Polly Mertens: Now, I mean absolutely, Is it.
• 21:31
  Polly Mertens: If you have a friend that is in need, that's totally different, you know.
• 21:35
  Polly Mertens: Okay, but people just sometimes put themselves in situations way more often than they need to hear things that they shouldn't be hearing.
• 21:44
  Polly Mertens: You know when?
• 21:45
  Samantha Pruitt: people are talking crap.
• 21:46
  Samantha Pruitt: They're literally shoveling crap into your body through your ears, eyes, whatever, yeah.
• 21:52
  Polly Mertens: I have had to have some conversations with people in my life and I say you know, in our calls I won't tolerate, blame, complain or justify.
• 21:59
  Polly Mertens: Those are three of my no-go's.
• 22:01
  Polly Mertens: So if I hear that more than you know, one or two times it's like call's over you know, and we might not talk for six months.
• 22:09
  Polly Mertens: I'm like no blame, complain or justifying, you know, I just keep it on a positive note or keep it in the direction.
• 22:15
  Polly Mertens: Now that's not like, oh, you can't talk about real stuff, but overall right.
• 22:20
  Polly Mertens: So that's my personal standard.
• 22:22
  Polly Mertens: Like you were talking about the boundaries, like you roll up your windows, you leave a conversation, leave a table, and I mean the big thing.
• 22:28
  Polly Mertens: That really bugs me.
• 22:29
  Polly Mertens: You know, as you and I are both huge social justice people is.
• 22:32
  Polly Mertens: You know, when you hear people degrading others or it could be animals for me too you know, like animals, other people, anything social justice related, if you will.
• 22:43
  Polly Mertens: What are you tolerating?
• 22:45
  Polly Mertens: You know what you know.
• 22:46
  Polly Mertens: Should you speak up, should you leave that conversation?
• 22:49
  Samantha Pruitt: Don't participate, things like that and what does that do?
• 22:51
  Samantha Pruitt: Those sounds as they come into your system.
• 22:56
  Samantha Pruitt: How do they?
• 22:58
  Polly Mertens: I think that's for a whole nother body.
• 23:02
  Samantha Pruitt: You know, you and I because they do.
• 23:03
  Samantha Pruitt: I guess we just want to point out to people do you?
• 23:05
  Samantha Pruitt: Understand that those words, those sounds come into yourselves and they change the physical makeup of your body and brain.
• 23:15
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean we have to be honest, they do.
• 23:17
  Polly Mertens: The science is there, and I think what's also a part of this that you and I touched upon at me we'll just talk about it briefly is even the words we're saying to ourselves.
• 23:26
  Polly Mertens: Let's call it the self-talk.
• 23:27
  Polly Mertens: We wouldn't say that that's coming in through our ears, but you do kind of hear it.
• 23:32
  Polly Mertens: You know what I mean.
• 23:33
  Polly Mertens: It's like it's a conversation with yourself.
• 23:35
  Polly Mertens: You're not hearing it from the outside, but you are hearing it from the inside.
• 23:38
  Polly Mertens: So what are your standards for your own internal dialogue, your own self-talk, your own?
• 23:43
  Polly Mertens: You know bitching about the world or bitching about other people, or allowing that, you know nasty person in your you know your mind to complain about, you degrade you, those sorts of things, right?
• 23:58
  Polly Mertens: So raising your standards in that inner conversation?
• 24:02
  Samantha Pruitt: This is because I play a lot in the you know sports and physical fitness arena.
• 24:07
  Samantha Pruitt: You do, too, and you have a unique way of doing your workouts, where you do listen to something, you intake some particular material, especially when you're going to a challenging workout and you really want to take yourself to the next level.
• 24:24
  Samantha Pruitt: Can you talk about that?
• 24:25
  Samantha Pruitt: Because most people have earbuds on when they're doing activities and I have a different story about mine, but I want to hear yours.
• 24:32
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, I'm not even quite sure how this relates to standards, but I totally appreciate you bringing this up so you know like you talk about.
• 24:40
  Polly Mertens: You go to the gym that you want, whatever.
• 24:41
  Polly Mertens: So, like when I'm going in for a workout, the place that I'm now at, in terms of how I want to perform and what I want to get out of a workout, I'm very time-based.
• 24:51
  Polly Mertens: I'm like max effort, minimal time, right, and I listen to a lot of I.
• 24:59
  Polly Mertens: So I learn I like I, I use my own.
• 25:01
  Polly Mertens: I YouTube Google, whatever you call it.
• 25:03
  Polly Mertens: I YouTube search for motivational, inspirational type conversations, videos, and they're like pounding into my head, like crushing it.
• 25:13
  Polly Mertens: You know you're a champion, whatever, and I soar you know.
• 25:18
  Polly Mertens: So like I want Do you have a favorite?
• 25:20
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, Well, like motorbird, yeah, I've got like three.
• 25:22
  Polly Mertens: Maybe I'll drop them in the show notes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 25:24
  Polly Mertens: So there's like a handful that I will allow to go into my and and the Be selective.
• 25:30
  Polly Mertens: And you know what's interesting?
• 25:31
  Polly Mertens: And there's science behind this.
• 25:32
  Polly Mertens: We don't have to go into it deeply, but what the person is thinking and saying to themselves, let's, let's say, let's just take a brief example and this isn't scientific, but there is science behind how this works is if you are saying, let's say you're, you're trying to lift a dumbbell, right, and normally let's say, without thinking, kind of thinking about it, you can, and I'm just going to use a women's weight, 15 pounds, you can just sort of bicep curl 15 pounds.
• 25:58
  Polly Mertens: If you start saying to yourself I, I, you're ugly, I hate you, you know, just start like a lower vibration, self-talk, like literally, your muscles will respond and you can't, you can't lift, you can't lift as much.
• 26:11
  Polly Mertens: The opposite is true.
• 26:13
  Polly Mertens: Also, I utilize these empowering conversations that are being fed into my that, I feed into my mind, so I can be stronger.
• 26:22
  Polly Mertens: Like I get up there and I'm like I put it you know, I put it more than I think I can lift and I go, let me see if I can do it right, Cause that's the state that I'm in, based on what I'm listening to, or, like you said, auditorially when I'm taking in.
• 26:35
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, that's fun.
• 26:36
  Samantha Pruitt: Peptalk is a fun app people can check out.
• 26:39
  Samantha Pruitt: That's why, just based on what you're doing, I thought I would investigate a little bit.
• 26:42
  Samantha Pruitt: Peptalk for me interesting with the audio and doing activity, especially in ultra running or ultra distance any of the things.
• 26:50
  Samantha Pruitt: I prefer not to have audio inputs, not just for safety out on the trail, on the road.
• 26:58
  Samantha Pruitt: Those are obvious things people should have awareness on, but I prefer to have awareness about what's going on in my own body and brain and be able to process through thoughts and emotions by myself.
• 27:10
  Samantha Pruitt: In those opportunities and sometimes later in a race, I might put in music if I'm in a super deep pain cave, but in my last couple of ultras the reverse happened.
• 27:21
  Samantha Pruitt: I had that music ready.
• 27:23
  Polly Mertens: I was ready like I gotta fire myself up.
• 27:24
  Samantha Pruitt: I gotta get in and kind of suck it up mindset.
• 27:27
  Samantha Pruitt: I put the earbuds in and I couldn't handle the energy to be clear, the energy that was coming into my body through my ears while I was in such an extreme circumstance.
• 27:42
  Samantha Pruitt: It caused overload and I actually rejected them, took them out and didn't wear them at all, isn't?
• 27:48
  Polly Mertens: that fascinating, for makes full sense, makes full sense, yeah, so I think you know.
• 27:54
  Polly Mertens: So was there another one more, one more Visual.
• 27:58
  Samantha Pruitt: You touched on it earlier, so eyeballs, eyeballs, eyeballs.
• 28:00
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, what am I looking at on TV?
• 28:05
  Polly Mertens: you know, on my phone, whatever in my room?
• 28:09
  Polly Mertens: What am I already?
• 28:09
  Polly Mertens: In my purse, in my car, In my bathroom?
• 28:13
  Polly Mertens: The trash, whatever you know.
• 28:15
  Samantha Pruitt: And taking all of that in and recognizing that when you're putting things in through your eyeballs again, there is a standard.
• 28:23
  Samantha Pruitt: What am I willing to expose myself to, if you will?
• 28:26
  Samantha Pruitt: What am I willing to expose these eyeballs to today that are either building health in my body and mind or actually breaking down and generating disease states.
• 28:39
  Samantha Pruitt: And you mentioned that yourself.
• 28:41
  Samantha Pruitt: About the news specifically, you and I are not news participating human beings, but just in general, the media.
• 28:50
  Samantha Pruitt: Right, we have to have awareness and there's lots of shows out there and different things that are incredibly violent against animals, against humans, against you know, they're just atrocities.
• 29:00
  Samantha Pruitt: The planet, yeah, the planet, yeah, for sure, and putting that into your brain every day.
• 29:06
  Samantha Pruitt: We are asking people to become aware and perhaps examine if those are standards they wanna live their life by, because that's basically what they're telling their brain.
• 29:18
  Samantha Pruitt: I accept inhumane acts, degradation of other humans, this kind of toxic input.
• 29:25
  Samantha Pruitt: I accept it into me.
• 29:26
  Polly Mertens: I think you can, you know, relate this.
• 29:28
  Polly Mertens: So, as we're talking about standards, we started with talking about the food standards, like what are you willing to consume?
• 29:34
  Polly Mertens: You know through your mouth, smoke, drink, eat.
• 29:36
  Polly Mertens: What have you?
• 29:37
  Polly Mertens: And the same holds true for what are your standards, for what are you willing to expose your eyes to?
• 29:43
  Samantha Pruitt: right.
• 29:44
  Polly Mertens: And all of those things, all of those inputs affect your state, like how you feel in your day, in your life, in your body.
• 29:53
  Polly Mertens: So, just as you can affect what you reach for in terms of what you put on the plate or your fork or in your mug, you can look at what stations you tune into auditorially, what podcasts you listen to, what visuals you know those sorts of things.
• 30:08
  Polly Mertens: So good vibes yeah, examin' it now, so all right, so how?
• 30:13
  Samantha Pruitt: do we help yeah?
• 30:14
  Polly Mertens: tools, how do we help?
• 30:15
  Polly Mertens: So you gave some example of how you went through it, for how you started to change, upgrade your standards.
• 30:23
  Polly Mertens: So what did that look like for you?
• 30:25
  Polly Mertens: When you talked about?
• 30:26
  Polly Mertens: You know you had some hormonal, some physical.
• 30:29
  Polly Mertens: What did you notice that you shifted or changed from last year to this year, and how are you taking that forward?
• 30:36
  Samantha Pruitt: So in the what I put in my mouth, I definitely examined how I go shopping, where I go shopping and what I purchase.
• 30:44
  Samantha Pruitt: So if I'm investing my time and energy and money into those things that are gonna eventually make their way into my mouth, I have really become much more aware and conscientious about making choices that align with my values.
• 30:57
  Samantha Pruitt: So this is no judgment around.
• 30:59
  Samantha Pruitt: How you know, are you on, are you?
• 31:02
  Polly Mertens: whatever this diet or whatever.
• 31:03
  Samantha Pruitt: It's not about that at all.
• 31:05
  Samantha Pruitt: I don't think that way about like the polarized, you know.
• 31:09
  Samantha Pruitt: So awareness and making choices for me.
• 31:13
  Polly Mertens: And same years, I already was pretty tapped into and I already have great sensitivity and boundaries there and I would say you probably what you may notice, like and I don't know how you prefer, but like you know how they say that people are either visual, audio or kinesthetic.
• 31:28
  Polly Mertens: So you might be auditory, you know, since you're so energetically triggered by audio, that might be how you learn or listen or take in more information, you know, and some people are more kinesthetic, you know, so they energetically feel it, or something like they go into a room that can really feel the vibration of people and stuff like that.
• 31:45
  Samantha Pruitt: I have that too, though, and I've literally left rooms.
• 31:48
  Samantha Pruitt: I definitely have left many gyms, and when a pandemic happened and I moved here and I was looking for, went to a lot of different gyms, and so I'm where I am now, because literally walking into that gym created the vibration that is to my standard, and I wanted to help contribute to raising that vibration, and so that's how I feel about it.
• 32:09
  Polly Mertens: So I think, if we look at this, as you know, standards are what are minimally acceptable to you.
• 32:14
  Polly Mertens: Okay, let's just say, like that's your minimum, your baseline.
• 32:18
  Polly Mertens: So you know, what are you tolerating or settling for are great examples to, as you look at, an examined life.
• 32:25
  Polly Mertens: So how are you allowing yourself to feel?
• 32:29
  Polly Mertens: What activities are you allowing yourself to do or not?
• 32:32
  Polly Mertens: Do you know?
• 32:33
  Polly Mertens: Are they healthy or unhealthy?
• 32:34
  Polly Mertens: You know, are those standards, you know, encouraging your wellbeing or are they taking away from your wellbeing, or are they harmful?
• 32:41
  Samantha Pruitt: You know like, are you?
• 32:42
  Polly Mertens: actually inflicting harm upon yourself?
• 32:44
  Polly Mertens: How about the people in your life?
• 32:46
  Polly Mertens: So what are your standards for the people that you will be around?
• 32:49
  Polly Mertens: Who?
• 32:50
  Samantha Pruitt: expose yourself to.
• 32:51
  Polly Mertens: The places that you go, like you talked about your grocery store, your gym, things like that.
• 32:54
  Polly Mertens: Places could be the places that you've chosen the car that you drive, the clothes that you wear, the house that you live in, things like that.
• 33:02
  Polly Mertens: And then activities what are you doing or not doing?
• 33:05
  Samantha Pruitt: So you know, I would just say you know we can just lay this out there it feels overwhelming.
• 33:11
  Polly Mertens: There's so much.
• 33:12
  Polly Mertens: Well, I would say, start with the areas that you're feeling some frustration breakdown Like for you it was last year.
• 33:17
  Polly Mertens: You're like, hmm, not getting the performance that I want, don't feel so good in my body, right.
• 33:21
  Polly Mertens: So what area of your life, if you were to examine?
• 33:25
  Samantha Pruitt: it feels imbalanced feels or no longer feels good.
• 33:29
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, it's not, you deserve to feel good?
• 33:31
  Polly Mertens: Exactly, we would think so.
• 33:33
  Polly Mertens: So that's a good place to start Is where don't I feel good, energized or good or improved, in the series what's what?
• 33:41
  Polly Mertens: Where's a breakdown?
• 33:42
  Polly Mertens: And it might be super obvious, like people might have some freaking clearing stop signs, you know, or red lights going off and their car, their house or the relationship or their body or whatever.
• 33:51
  Polly Mertens: But so examining something in your life that's not, and start with that, right, and there's tools and resources we can help people if they want coaching on.
• 34:01
  Polly Mertens: You know, I don't feel good in a lot of areas of my life or I've just, you know we talked in other episodes about, like the breakdowns and, you know, blowing up our old life and our old identity.
• 34:12
  Samantha Pruitt: And we've been doing this in the business space with a couple groups we're working with currently and the team created inside of their team culture inside of their company culture yes.
• 34:23
  Polly Mertens: So this translates 100 percent.
• 34:25
  Samantha Pruitt: Yes, it does 100 percent.
• 34:26
  Polly Mertens: Standards exist within companies that, just as they exist within families and communities, culturally, and your personal right.
• 34:35
  Polly Mertens: So start with yourself, though I have a feeling a lot of people should probably be taking a longer look at themselves.
• 34:40
  Polly Mertens: But if it's your business or something you see, maybe it's a standard thing, right.
• 34:43
  Polly Mertens: So what are you tolerating If you're not getting the results that you want?
• 34:46
  Polly Mertens: Things don't feel good in a certain area, people aren't driving communications, breaking down whatever.
• 34:50
  Polly Mertens: So start with the examining it, yeah.
• 34:53
  Polly Mertens: And then you know what would you like it to be?
• 34:55
  Polly Mertens: What would you know as you examine and oftentimes you know this can be so clear it could be well, this sucks, so what's the opposite of that?
• 35:03
  Polly Mertens: You know.
• 35:03
  Polly Mertens: So what would you like it to be?
• 35:04
  Polly Mertens: What would be the standard or the value that you want to create for yourself, right.
• 35:09
  Polly Mertens: And then it comes to a decision you know like for you, I'm going to eat this much, I'm not going to eat this much, I'm going to shop here, I'm not going to shop, whatever you know.
• 35:17
  Polly Mertens: So it's a decision.
• 35:18
  Polly Mertens: And then it's daily decisions thereafter, right.
• 35:23
  Polly Mertens: So, like you, reinforce that next decision.
• 35:26
  Polly Mertens: Like, this is my new standard for myself, for the people I live with, I work with, whatever, and then it's the daily decisions to reinforce that new standard.
• 35:35
  Polly Mertens: So I think we should wrap this party up, close it up, yeah, so let's, let's leave you with one thing.
• 35:42
  Polly Mertens: One thing if you get nothing out of this, but one thing we hope you got a lot out of this.
• 35:46
  Polly Mertens: The one thing I would say is pause and ask yourself what am I tolerating?
• 35:53
  Polly Mertens: And since I'm living a deliberately lived life, what update or upgrade am I going to make to my personal standards?
• 36:01
  Polly Mertens: Right?
• 36:01
  Samantha Pruitt: Exactly, exactly, and I would just put out my question that I prompt earlier to the audience was you know, do you have awareness around how these inputs are affecting your mental and physical health?
• 36:17
  Samantha Pruitt: Are you making choices that are building up your mental and physical health or breaking them down?
• 36:23
  Samantha Pruitt: For sure, for sure.
• 36:24
  Polly Mertens: All right.
• 36:25
  Polly Mertens: Well, let's wrap this up, my dear.
• 36:26
  Polly Mertens: Anything you want to leave them with, I do.
• 36:28
  Polly Mertens: I have something.
• 36:29
  Samantha Pruitt: I might say today hey, beautiful humans, how your body and life feel are way more important than how it looks.
• 36:37
  Polly Mertens: And every day is your opportunity to find your awesome.
• 36:40
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay, let's do this.