Posts in "come alive" Category — Page 4

Receive breathwork class is here!

One of the themes I’ve been working on for years now is receiving. I’ve had to learn to receive compliments and pleasure and kindness and fulfillment in ever-increasing amounts since falling in love with Bear three years ago.

If you’re like, RECEIVING, KRISTEN!? REALLY THAT’S YOUR PROBLEM!?? MUST BE NICE.

Stay with me.

Receiving sounds AWESOME in theory but is often tricky in practice.

How often do you let a compliment land instead of a.) doubting it or b.) returning it immediately to the person giving it?

Read: NOILIKEYOURSWEATERBETTER!!!!

Or: OHTHISOLDTHING,ITWAS$4ATTARGET.

Have you ever been embarrassed by accepting a gift because your inner asshole brain is freaking out that you didn’t bring a gift to give in return? Or that you brought the ‘wrong’ gift?

Do you distrust strangers who are being nice to you because you assume they want something?

To be perfectly frank: are you really all-the-way-down-okay with receiving oral sex from a partner?

All of those forms of receiving take work. (Or at least, they did for me.)

In a time of giving and giving and giving, it’s important to take a moment to receive.

To let the kindness of another person deeply affect you.

To let someone compliment your hair/shirt/heart/soul/work without batting down the praise or rushing to reciprocate it.

To enjoy all acts of kindness without keeping a running list of how you’re going to return the favor or even the score.

**Ultimately, the more we receive, the more energy and juice and love we have to give.**

I’m specifically talking about receiving more of the good stuff that has no limits here on earth: more joy, more delight, more wonder, and more awe. (See also: miserable people don’t leave joy in their wake.)

If you wanna do the work of getting more alive and more open — and therefore more able to receive love and joy and pleasure and energy — the Receive breathwork class will do the trick.

You’ll lie down and breathe with me.

You’ll relax for a bit afterwards.

And you’ll end with a heart just a tad more open than it is right now.

Introverts! You can do this class at home and without wearing shoes or pants or even clothes, if you want. All you need is a place to lie down, a pillow, and the breathwork recording.

Extroverts! Invite a friend or seven over and do it together! I might die from pure delight if you send me a photo of your meet-up afterward.

The Receive breathwork class is $22. Pick it up here.

It’s available via magical instantaneous download after checkout and is about an hour long.

25% of all breathwork proceeds are donated to Together Rising and/or Flying Kites.

If you’re ready to lean into your own discomfort and blow through a bunch of the stuff that means you shut down around people, don’t trust compliments, and/or hate getting gifts, please join me.

Curious about whether this is right for you? It’s priced so that experimenting doesn’t cost you much more than a yoga class. Give it a whirl.

Why breathwork? I talk all about my reasons for loving the practice here. This podcast episode also talks about my training and my love of breathwork: show your work.

P.S. If you want to release some more resentment you have toward those you love, BOOM this podcast is for you. Show your work!

come alive, make meaning

…in which I deem myself broken, again. ?

I used to write all my articles in about twenty minutes. I touted myself as a productive and efficient writer, popping off 1,000 words in no time flat.

And THEN.

As the depth of my writing increased over the years — going from ‘how to build an e-mail list in 15 minutes or less‘ to ‘reasons I cried in Hawaii‘ — from ‘how to hold a sale without breaking your brand‘ to ‘internal goals,’ my writing pace slowed. When it took longer to come up with the recent ‘get picky‘ than with ‘behind the scenes with every product I use in business,’ I was at wit’s end. (Tell me you see where this is going.)

Naturally, I blamed my depression.

Something must be wrong, right?

Something must have gone awry, right?

I must be broken, RIGHT?

Nah.

Depths take time to reach.

In relationships, in humans, in writing, in life.

It takes far more stillness, silence, and space to write now. When I come up from the depths, you’ll find things like ‘How to hermit without breaking your life.’ Or ‘The four kinds of tired.’

Those articles and podcasts aren’t popped off in quick, witty fashion, but dragged up from 100 meters down as I learn to hold my breath for longer and longer periods. This new phase of making is slower. So much slower. And deeper. So much deeper. With any luck, it’s also so much more rewarding for you to read and listen to and ponder, too. 😉

If you’ve been beating yourself up because your pace has slowed, your need for stillness has increased, or you can’t abide life without far more silence than ever before, consider that you’re moving into the depths.

Our culture loves the shallows and the instant. Our culture loves the quick fix, the four-hour work week, and the latest silver bullet/distraction.

The depths are, as Brene Brown puts it, where you’ll brave the wilderness. (ALSO buy Braving the Wilderness NOW, please. Five stars holy hell awesomeness awaits you!)

The depths are where I’m headed, personally and professionally, and I hope you’ll join me there.

Breathwork, my newest venture into the depths, the body, and fewer words than ever before, is here! It’s 1-on-1 work we do together in which I hang out and help you breathe, and you release an epic shit-ton of stuff you’ve been carrying around for weeks/months/years/decades. Check out 1-on-1 here. Try out a class for $22 here.

Here’s to coming up for air and then plunging right back in, friend.

come alive, listen to the podcast

The four kinds of tired (and how they affect your life).

Most people I meet live in a constant state of describing themselves as ‘tired.’

We use that word like it means just one thing, but when we go one sentence into “Tell me about being tired,” we find wildly varying circumstances.

There’s the entrepreneurial kind that’s been working itself to the bone for weeks on end.
There’s the comparison kind that scrolls through Instagram all day and comes up short on inspiration.
There’s the actual, physical kind that sleep and hydration can fix.
There’s oh-here-we-go-again when a life pattern repeats tired.
There’s just-had-a-freaking-newborn tired.
There’s the particular sort of exhaustion that’s born of death, of a relationship ending, or of raising a toddler.

There are many, many shapes and textures to exhaustion, but not all forms are created equal.

Yes, you’re tired. But you don’t have to stay that way.

When we get a handle on the type of exhausted we are and the ways we can regain energy for that particular type of tired, we get a firmer grasp on our sense of selves, our souls, and our truest work.

(We also eat 80% less sugar and binge-watch Netflix with 30% less frequency. OR AT LEAST I DO.)

In this episode of That’s What She Said, I’ll walk you through questions that push you deeper into your own interiors, facing the sorts of fatigue you’re feeling with gentle inquiry and with ways to come up for a breath of fresh air in your own life.

This episode contains: no judgement, no supplement recommendations, and no life hacks. It’s full of food for thought, new lenses for your everyday activities, and why Instagram is really, really awful for you. (Hint: it has nothing to do with algorithms or the Evil Zuckerberg Empire!)

P.S. Closely related: how to hermit without breaking your life.

come alive, listen to the podcast

Get picky.

Imagine, for a moment, that you’re walking down the street and see a sign for Free Tattoos.

You’ve been pinning tattoos for months and you have so many ideas for a new tattoo! You really want one and this person is giving them away for FREE!

So you go and get it, right?

Because free beats not free, right?

UH NO.

We both know you don’t take a free tattoo because um, lives-on-your-body-forever equals I-want-to-pay-for-expertise-and-artistry, thank you very much.

We’re incredibly careful about what we put on our bodies if we know it’s going to stick around forever.

Most of us are even careful about what we put into our bodies. (I’m assuming you don’t live exclusively on Diet Coke and Doritos, thus indicating some level of careful-ness.)

But what about we put into our minds?

All of the things we consume — social media feeds, movies, books, TV shows, online ephemera, music, podcasts, classes, videos, and courses — become part of our hearts and minds.

We pretend that consuming violence or the latest dystopian series doesn’t lead to nightmares, and we convince ourselves that consuming exclusively mopey sad stuff doesn’t lead to our own sadness.

We even pretend Facebook is a happy, shiny place that makes our lives better! (Or at least, I pretended all those things for a long time! This is what happened when I quit.)

Further. We download endless (shitty, shitty) free stuff and hope it will turn our business/life/marriage/relationship/soul around.

It took me a good solid five years of being in business to get a handle on the Downloading of ALL the Free.

I wish someone had said this to me:

You’re allowed to get pickier.

I was raised in a family where cleaning your plate was a cardinal virtue. Read: override your body’s signal that you’re full.

I shopped exclusively in thrift stores until I got a job of my own at age 15, so I was also raised to deal with too-short sleeves and much-too-big clothing that made me feel ‘meh’ on the daily. Read: override the desire to wear clothing on the outside that matches your insides.

Free always beat not-free — the family picnic table was garbage-picked and lasted from age 7 until I went to college — and that lesson went all the way to my core.

Free beat cheap, and cheap always beat ‘wasting money’ on anything expensive.

Getting pickier (or picky, of any kind, nevermind the -ier) has been extremely difficult for me.

It has taken years to learn to try a piece of clothing on first, see if it fits and if I love it, and then to check the price tag.

It’s taken even longer to ask, ‘Would I pay twice as much for this?’ before I’m willing to take it out of the store.

Being picky is how to build a wardrobe you adore.

Being picky is, of course, how to build a business you adore, too.

When you listen to the advice of everyone and their brother because they have an X-figure business, or because you ‘should’ learn about a topic, or because he, she, or they are really popular right now, you’re not being picky.

You’re allowing your brain to be influenced by people you don’t adore. (YUP I’m using the word *adore* on purpose.)

Adoration makes it easy to answer these questions:

⚡️ If every free thing you downloaded was going to be tattooed on your arm, how much would you consume?

⚡️ If every podcast jingle you heard or guest you listened to was going to live in your dreams for the next seven nights in a row, how many episodes would you listen in on?

⚡️ If every free report, PDF, or video promising some kind of silver bullet was going to be streamed straight to the ears of everyone you adore, how much would you listen to before having mercy on their ears?

⚡️ If every free online course, PDF, book, video, e-mail drip, or webinar you’ve ever downloaded zapped $20 out of your bank account right now, would you be instantly broke?

My guess is that you’d be down about $2,480 and out at least two full work weeks of time. Do you feel that you’ve gotten $2,480 worth of value from all those downloads? Can you remember a single one that changed your business or your being? (Not including all the wonders you get in the Fuck Yah Club, of course? ;))

You’re allowed to get pickier.

Instead of consuming the voices (and downloads and classes and ALL THE THINGS) of ten to fifty people you sort of like, listen in on a handful of people you absolutely adore. Pay close attention to them *and only them* for a few months.

Pay attention to the changes that come about when you get pickier.

See if the way you feel about the world shifts when you narrow your consumption of mental stimuli from everything ever to a few trusted voices and a handful of their best (read: paid) materials. Related: how to quit Facebook and Reclaim your energy, become a quitter.

See if you use and value that which you pay for any more than that which you nab for free.

And see if you can begin to be even pickier with your preferences.

See if it helps to unfollow her, and unsubscribe from him, and stop paying any attention to Oprah’s SuperSoul 100 just because they made it onto that list.

If someone doesn’t make you vibrate with truth to the core of your being, stop listening to them.

If *I* don’t make you vibrate with truth to the core of your being, stop listening to me!

I want to talk to and reach and work with and help only those people who trust me with nothing less than their freaking souls — and if some part of you doesn’t trust me all the way down to your core, it’s okay to stop giving me any attention.

I dare you to curate your social media feeds, your downloads, your podcasts, your e-mail lists, and your book selections as consciously as you curate your groceries, your beauty products, your clothing choices, and your household items.

We deserve better than an endless stream of free reports and $x,000-making silver bullets.

We deserve soul and wonder, awe and delight.

We deserve to do our work in the world with as much joy as possible, and we deserve to do it with people who bring out the best in us.

Hugs,
K

TL; DR The ‘Free is Better’ belief is untrue. My best work is incredibly intimate and costs money because (I run a business and) it takes a huge portion of my time and energy to create.

Your best work isn’t free, either.

P.S. This is an episode of the That’s What She Said podcast, and I’ll read the whole dealio to you right here:

If you’d like to listen to another podcast like this one, I recommend Input and getting way more done.

come alive, listen to the podcast

Kim Anami on becoming a well-fucked woman.

Want to increase your libido, feel sexier, and enjoy sex more? OF COURSE YOU DO. Click through for tons of tips that will improve your sex life. #libido #sexualhealth

Growing up as a devout Catholic, I took sex to be something I would do once I was married. I wouldn’t necessarily enjoy it, and I wouldn’t think about it too often until then. Case closed.

That ignoring tactic worked really well until I wanted to have sex. The decrees you internalize when you’re eight, ten, and twelve are no match for the feelings cascading through your body once you hit puberty.

I stuffed all those desires down like the good girl I was.

I got through high school without so much as a single kiss because obviously I was far above the needs of mere mortals and horny teenagers. (Also I was completely disconnected from my body.)

I was years into a relationship before I finally rounded all the sexual bases.

When I got married, it was to the safest guy I’d ever met, and also to a guy I had very little sexual chemistry with, so it wasn’t long before monthly sex became quarterly sex became ‘Okay, our *goal* is to have quarterly sex.’ I blamed myself for this turn of events and sunk deeper into an ‘I’m broken’ sort of despair.

I even thought I was asexual for a while.

Then I found Kim Anami.

Her Well-Fucked Woman salon shifted me into a world where I was capable of taking delight in myself and in pleasure, with or without a partner. I did the jade egg practice, I massaged my body slowly and with great love, I got down with my bad self, and I took up every challenge in the course with great enthusiasm.

IT WAS AWESOME. (I still didn’t want to do my husband. But the class was awesome.)

Today, I’m interviewing the brilliant and rebellious Kim Anami, and together we dive deeply into feminine sexuality in the present day.

Brilliant = helping women see themselves and their bodies in an entirely different, freeing light

Rebellious = she’s got 102k Instagram followers who follow #thingsIliftwithmyvagina

I hope you’ll listen whether you’re having no sex, all the sex, or just a little sex; whether you’re partnered or single; and whether you’re eighteen or eighty.

The world needs more well-fucked women.

Let Kim help you get there with this free video series. (And before you’re like, OH NO, KRISTEN, NOT A FREE VIDEO SERIES — just Kim’s free freaking newsletter has caused breakthroughs and tears and a-has in my world. This is good shit.)

In this interview, we’re talking:

how to tune into your body even if you avoid being in it on any given day
the three kinds of sexual conditioning that work against women everywhere, all the time
viewing sexual energy as life force energy to fuel your creative endeavors
the three kinds of orgasms (yup, THREE), and why you need all of ’em to thrive
the importance of reclaiming sex as medicine
the kegel myth and why modern kegels are useless
the dangers of shutting off from your body
the FUKME epidemic that’s rampant around the world, and how to get rid of it 😉

Enjoy our conversation!

Take a look at the Well-Fucked Woman video series.

Hugs,

P.S. Feeling disconnected from your physical being? Hate having a body? The long journey to the body parts one and two are just for you. (Oh, and fuck shame.)