¶ Gratitude and Work-Life Balance
People who are feeling frustrated , overwhelmed like this lady was , feeling like there's nothing to be grateful for . What's the first thing that they might be able to do to begin to change their mindset ?
We have all these little things to be grateful for . All the time and we don't pay attention . And when we are feeling grateful , it's such a high vibration . It raises us up , it fills up our heart , it expands us out .
Instead of being all contracted in fear and stress about what's happening in the world , we're more expanded out and from that space to be more vibrant , intuitive beautiful and empowered in their life .
So come on , let's vibe . Well , as I've said before , and I will continue to say , we are living in interesting times , and one of the things that I find most interesting is how everybody seems to be dealing with what's happening , and there's two schools of thought .
Some people think that we should just feed into our lesser angels and let them have it , and there's others that want to feed into our greater angels and find a way to kind of coexist , even though we might be polarized in some areas of our lives . And that's why I'm so glad to have our discussion with Arlene Cohen-Miller .
She just brings a wealth of training and experience to help you compassionately and wholeheartedly lead yourself and create a life that works and feels right for you .
And I think that , as her , she's a work-life balance coach and a professional certified coach from the International Coaching Federation , and I think you know , arlene , it makes such a huge difference to be able to operate and be able to maneuver what's going on from a positive perspective instead of a negative one , because , lord knows , we can certainly stay in the
negativity . So I am so glad to have you here on the Vibe Living podcast . Welcome .
Thank you , that was a lovely introduction . I appreciate that .
Oh , you're quite welcome . I have to ask you first of all , how did you get into the whole idea of work-life balance ? First of all , you know you're a lawyer . That , right there alone tells me a lot . My first husband was a lawyer and work-life balance is like no , just non-existent . So that right there could have been a motivator .
But how did you get so passionate about that topic ?
Yeah well , I graduated from law school , I was married to my ex-husband was in medical school at the same time , and we moved from Lexington , kentucky , where he was in medical school I was in law school up to Cleveland , ohio so that he could do his residency up there , and so all of our family was in Kentucky .
All of my peers from law school were in Kentucky or Indiana , and after a couple of years I opened my own business on a little main street in Lakewood , ohio , the west side of the Cuyahoga River , and immediately found out that I was pregnant and so I had no tribe there and there were no coaches .
Then you could you had , you could have count , you could have a counselor , you could have a psychologist , but that really wasn't what I needed .
So I had to like we're my own tribe and figure out how the heck am I gonna get this business off the ground , be a mother without you know the kind of support that I was used to , you know , family , parents , peers , nothing there and so I sort of did it from scratch .
It wasn't easy , and I guess that's why I became so passionate about , you know , helping people with work-life balance and I bring in that word harmony as well , because I don't really like the feeling of the scales of justice , because it feels to me like work-life balance is more about being flexible and adaptable , because we're constantly changing and evolving and
growing and so if we try to balance everything out , we're going to feel like we're doing something wrong .
This is true and it's interesting because some people might , because we're going to talk about gratitude today . I'm just going to let everybody this is what we're going to be talking about . And the reason why ? Because we could have talked about so many different things .
But the reason why is that I know that gratitude or operating in gratitude ushers in a certain kind of energy that can kind of eradicate that negative energy . But what does fostering gratitude or operating in gratitude have to do with work-life balance ?
Everything .
It has everything to do with everything in our life , because if we're coming from a space not of head gratitude , where I'm writing this gratitude list and I'm doing this little checklist and we're grateful for all this , that doesn't change anything when we're really , really truly grateful for the blessings in our life and starting with , like the foundations you know ,
I have a roof over my head , I have a nice bed to sleep in , I have heat , I have running water , I have food in the fridge , in the pantry , I have people that love me and I love them If we start with , instead of looking for things to be grateful for and just knowing that we already have so many things in our life to be grateful for .
I love this comfy chair . I sit in all the time . It's my workstation . You know all those little things are . I'm having this conversation with you and there's all the pretty pictures of your family on the wall . It just makes me smile . We have all these little things to be grateful for all the time and we don't pay attention .
And when we are feeling grateful it was just . It's such a high vibration . It raises us up , it fills up our heart , it expands us out . Instead of being all contracted in fear and stress about what's happening in the world , we're more expanded out and from that space , so much more is possible .
I have to share something with you . When you're talking about the simple things , I had a client once who was suffering from anxiety and really felt like everything in her life was falling apart , and I said , well , just try to think of one thing that you're grateful for , just one thing .
And I challenged you to do that for our next meeting , which was a week later . Next meeting , nothing on the journal . Couldn't think of anything and I said , well , okay , I mean , there's got to be something in your life , however small , that you're grateful for . And she says , well , my nail polish doesn't chip . I said , okay , write that down .
I know it was a small thing , but that was the space that she was in . Right , that was a small thing . But then she said , oh , you mean things like that . And I said , yeah , and so she started , you know , journaling the simple things . Like you said , that was like about six years ago .
She now has because she stays in touch with me , she sends me a card every Christmas and she is now up to something like 20 journals of gratitude , and because I have found that what you think about , what you ponder on , really does come to pass .
And next thing , you know , all these other things start happening that you can be grateful for , and that's why I wanted to talk about that . So , for people who are feeling frustrated , overwhelmed , like this lady was , feeling like there's nothing to be grateful for , what's the first thing that they might be able to do to begin to change their mindset ?
for me , when I feel like that , when I feel really stressed , I say get the heck away from your computer and your cell phone . Put it down , maybe . Go outside and just enjoy and appreciate nature . There's someplace like that .
It's not too cold like it is right now , or maybe there's just a friend you'd like to have lunch with , or there's some activity that you love to do . You know , I , for me , my yoga practice is like my saving grace . When I was younger , I liked to run , just I . It just helps me to physiologically move my body .
You know , some of my friends love knitting or gardening , or it can be anything playing the guitar , music , listening to music , dancing around your house , whatever it is that takes you out of what you're focusing on .
Because when you're focusing on how bad you feel , you're working with , you're not working with the law of attraction , which is what you focus on , is what you get in your life , which is what gratitude gives you , which is what you're talking about .
When you're focusing on all those things you're grateful for , then you get more things to be grateful for when you're really doing it from the heart . And so I really agree , focus on one thing . It might be like you know , I feel really grubby . I'm going to go take a hot shower and just really really enjoy that shower .
I mean , how many people don't have running water on this planet ?
We get to have a hot shower or bath anytime we want , I can remember a time oh , this was maybe about 13 or 14 years ago where there was something going on and they had to cut off the water , and the water was going to be cut off for longer than what they told us .
Otherwise we would have gone to a hotel and by about the third hour , you know and it was actually we were out of water for like 10 hours , but by the third hour I was going nuts . I kept going to turn on , you know , because these are things you automatically think about .
But it taught me something about being grateful for those things that you just automatically take for granted . And you know , I know that a lot of times we can get cranky and irritable about things that are going on in our lives and it's almost like we need a reset sometimes in how we're thinking .
Any suggestions on how we can reset our mindset or refresh our batteries and move on to something else ?
I don't know . I just I was going to give you one of my typical tips and tools , but this feels like a more feeling experience that might help your audience . When I was 32 , my son was two and I was pregnant and I had a really bad miscarriage and I ended up in the hospital for a week , you know , like all this blood coming out of me .
My mother flew up to help me , bring my son to see me . I wasn't going to die or anything , it was just . It was heartbreaking , it was difficult and I had just my business was still in this infancy , I couldn't do anything with it and it was .
It's like I had this epiphany , you know , about how precious life is , even though I had lost , I mean , the child , never really attached , so it was never really there and it was something to go through , but I just like , well , you know I'm here , life goes on without me . What do I really want to do with my life ?
And it really , you know , and my mother just being there and bringing my son to me every day . There was so much in that love to be grateful for and the whole experience is what , wow , arlene , what do you really want to do with your life . What's really important for you Are you going to focus on ?
You know , this one loss , you know , yes , let's feel through it , but it just gave me this feeling of like , wow , this is heartbreaking . You know the world is going on without me while I'm in the hospital . Let's do something more with the life when there is more gratitude and more appreciation for everything that's there .
And , I don't know , maybe this story will help some of your listeners go . Well , I've had that kind of experience maybe not the same one where something's happened and it's been really difficult or devastating or challenging , and we made it through it to the other side , and it can really give us appreciation . We have this life .
Let's work with it positively , let's bring in the gratitude . It's not like we're ignoring all those other feelings . We're feeling them , we're letting them move through us , but we're focusing on what we're moving towards and that's being really thankful and grateful for our life and what we have in it .
Absolutely , and when we get back , I've got another question to ask you that really I need to know about . So we're going to take a break and we'll be right back . Ladies , are you ready to vibe your life ? The Vibe Wellness Woman Network is your go-to space for holistic health , empowerment and community , created just for women over 40 .
Inside you'll find expert-led workshops , wellness challenges and exclusive coaching , and a sisterhood that supports your journey to being vibrant , intuitive , beautiful and empowered . Join today and get access to fitness tips , spiritual renewal , menopause support and more all designed to help you thrive in midlife and beyond .
Visit thevibewellnesswomannetworkcom and start your journey to wellness today .
Okay , we were just talking before the break about , you know , gratitude and everything else , but here's another thing that kind of will feed into it , because I think this can happen if you don't ever exercise gratitude and I have struggled with it running my business for 18 years how do you avoid burnout ?
It's such a basic question but I'm sure , inquiring minds all of us want to know , especially in midlife , because I think we get burned out in a lot of things in midlife because we've been doing a lot of things for a long time . How do we ?
avoid it . Well , I think it's really , really simple
¶ Self-Care and Prioritizing Women's Needs
. It's like when I was an attorney at my desk as a young attorney , I ignored my own voice . It's like I would get to the office , you know , and I would leave early to pick up my son from school and maybe do some work at home .
I sort of rearranged my schedule , but I would do like a couple of projects or a couple of things that were really important on my desk and my the human bit of me was going we need a break , we need a break , we need a break .
We've done some stuff and I go oh , I mean , this wouldn't be outside , this would be inside my head where I just would plow through it . I wouldn't listen to my own knowing .
So , if we do a couple of things , it's important to stop , acknowledge ourselves for what we have completed , especially if we've taken care of those things that we really didn't want to do at the top of our list . We got them done .
Acknowledge it either , celebrate it kind of a little happy dance inside , or maybe do something for ourselves later on and take a break , even if it's 5 , 10 or 15 or 20 minutes , just to refresh ourselves , get ourselves away from , like the computer , which is not the best energy for us .
Maybe just go sit outside or do something that sort of is relaxed or chill thing for us just to decompress , breathe and then come back . Or sometimes , if we're really stressed out , maybe we take an hour and do something . You know we do , we listen to ourselves , we listen to our own , knowing there's no science to it .
The problem is that oftentimes we're telling ourselves what we need to do and we're just going no , no , no , no , no , it's all okay . Does that make sense ?
Yes , it does . And that reminds me of something else , because I think that one of the messaging I want to do for 2025 is the importance of women making themselves a high priority . I mean a really high priority .
Number one on your to-do list should be you , absolutely , especially at the stage of life , because for such a long time we've been pouring out to other people , we have so many roles that we play , and you know mother , wife , daughter , sister , neighbor , you know employee all these different things that we do , and everybody , because we have a tendency to be the
nurturers with their . You know , hands open towards you , I help you , help me , you know , and you're trying to follow suit , to take care of the people that you care about .
But somewhere along the line , we put ourselves so far on the back burner that when we're ready and we know we need to address it , it's difficult for us to find ourselves again in the right way without feeling selfish or guilty . So what do you say about that , when women feel selfish and guilty about the idea of taking some time for themselves ?
Well , here's the bottom line . The bottom common sense line is that we cannot give from an empty cup . We have to do things every single day to fill ourselves up with love , and I like to visualize it as a cup . I'm filling up with love and then there's this overflow coming out of the cup and that's what I'm sharing with other people .
But my cup is always filled up with love , love . If we don't do that , the cup is going to get empty .
We're going to get frustrated , angry , upset , we're going to probably take it out on other people , then feel guilty and then go back into the doormat I have to please everybody mode and so it's going to be this cycle of going around and around and around , and it's not . It's not good for us , it's not good for the people that we love and care about .
So the bottom line is that this myth about guilt and selfishness that has come out from somewhere that either we've imposed on ourselves or has been imposed on us , and feel like it's being passed down genetically from generation to generation .
Generation to generation , right we can say no way .
I'm stopping that right here . Right now . I'm going to experience and model something different .
I so agree with you . You know it's interesting because we do have these cycles that can be generational , but we can be the stopgap measure for that . We can stop that cycle
¶ Creating Generational Wealth and Wellness
. I know my daughters and I were talking about generational wealth and kinds of things that we want to do moving forward , and their feeling was that one of the things they wanted to do was to begin the cycle of generational wealth by purchasing property together as a sister unit . I have four daughters . They're all in their well . One just turned 40 .
The rest are in their 30s , and the idea was to find a place that they could call their community home , so that if anybody needs a place to stay when they're in between homes or whatever , they'll have this place .
And the whole idea was to break the cycle of me being anxious about the what ifs and everything else , because I believe that anxiety has a tendency to run in my family , and so that's their stopgap measure in terms of financial anxiety . But I love what you said about that , that . You know we really owe it to ourselves .
And you know what , if you get stuck on the idea of taking time for yourself , look at it this way You're doing that so that you can continue to be there for everybody else If you just can't do it for yourself . But my hope is that over time women will begin that journey of not having to justify or rationalize it . I mean , no is a complete sentence .
We don't have to say the reason why or , you know , go into self-recommendation . Once we said no , which is something that I used to do . You know , as I said , my daughter's in my 30s and I still had umbilical cords tied to all of them until the baby girl moved so far away with her children that it was just impossible for me to be a helicopter parent .
It's ridiculous . And my other three were in different states too , but I was still . You know , I had to let that go . And once I really realized that , that I was being a helicopter parent to adult children , I realized that this is crazy .
Let me be grateful that they are adults and taking care of themselves and doing just great , instead of wondering about what's going to go wrong . You know , I think we sometimes have a tendency to want to control the outcome .
Yeah , and worrying is praying for what we don't want to have happen , because I can remember my grandmother , my mother's mother , saying to me that it's my job to worry about you and I'm like , don't do that .
Isn't that something that's so funny . You're right , you do hear older people say that , or the parents say that and all that , and the reality is that's kind of I don't want to say wrong thinking , but there's a better way to put it , and I'm so glad you came on to the Vibe Wellness . Vibe Wellness Journey .
My goodness , wellness Journey was my other podcast , the Vibe Living Podcast , and I want to tell all of our listeners , if you're feeling out of balance and feeling guilty , anxious and stressed and you're wondering , okay , where do I go from here , considering , you know , getting in touch with Arlene .
The name of her company is JewelConsultancycom and her links are there on the show page along with her other social media links . It's been delightful having you here . I'm glad we connected , got the time zone correct . I'm sorry we connected , got the time zone correct , all of that . I'm sorry about that . Oh no , that's okay .
It happens more times than you think and this is so funny because sometimes we forget to say PST because , believe it or not , not everybody lives in my world . This is a global operation we have going here , but it's been wonderful having you and thank you so much , thank you .
My pleasure .
And going here , but it's been wonderful having you and thank you so much . Thank you , my pleasure , and thank you to all of you who are listening .
I am so happy that you decided to stop by because I know there's a lot of podcasts that are out there , but I would really appreciate if you would take the time to you know , like , share and subscribe and comment . Let me know the other kinds of topics that you would like to see on the Vibe Living podcast . Thanks so much for listening .
Have a fantastic day and don't forget to vibe . Bye-bye everybody . Thanks for listening to the vibe living Podcast and don't forget to subscribe , like and comment and share this podcast . Have a fantastic day and don't forget the vibe . Bye-bye everybody .