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REIGNITE YOUR SPARK

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This week on The Midlife Makeover Show, we dive into this very topic with the incredible Rachel Marie Martin. As the heart behind findingjoy.net and a bestselling author, Rachel shares her journey of transformation and offers practical insights on how to rediscover happiness.

Having navigated through financial distress and a challenging divorce, she emerged stronger with a blended family and a renewed sense of purpose. Her latest book, “How to Get Your Spark Back,” is a guide for anyone feeling lost in the midlife shuffle, offering strategies to reignite passion and joy.

She shares how she found her spark by embracing the ebbs and flows of life and learning to listen to the whisper of her soul. Rachel also discusses the vibrational energy chart by David Hawkins and how understanding our emotional states can help us navigate through life’s ups and downs.

It’s about taking action, even when you don’t have the perfect plan, and being willing to pivot and adapt as life unfolds. Rachel encourages listeners to cultivate time for themselves, explore what truly lights them up, and embrace the discomfort of stepping out of their comfort zone.

So, if you’re ready to take control of your life and find joy in the journey, tune in to this inspiring episode. Your spark is waiting to be reignited, and Rachel Marie Martin is here to show you how.

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Rachel Marie Martin is the bestselling author of Mom Enough and Finding Joy

Wendy Valentine: Hey, hey, midlifers. Welcome back to the Midlife Makeover show. Today we have an incredible guest who truly embodies the power of transformation and finding joy in the midst of life’s challenges. I’m so excited to welcome Rachel Marie Martin to the show. Rachel is the heart and mind behind findingjoy.net and the bestselling author of Mom Enough, the brave Art of Motherhood, and her most recent book, how to get your Spark back, how to find happiness and reignite your life. I can’t wait to learn more about this book. Rachel’s work has touched millions worldwide and her content has been featured in the Huffington Post, the Today Show, Tiny Buddha, and more. As a mother of seven, oh, my gosh. She understands firsthand how easy it can be to lose your spark in the chaos of life. Today, she’s here to help us rediscover that spark and share her insights on how we can reignite our passion and happiness.

Rachel Marie Martin has seven children, ranging in age from 15 to 28

Let’s give a warm welcome to Rachel Marie Martin. Yay.

Rachel Marie Martin: Yay. I feel like I should be running down, running up the stage right now. Thank you. That was so kind. I want my kids to hear it. Like, listen, this is what people say.

Wendy Valentine: This is really who I am. when I’m not doing laundry.

Rachel Marie Martin: Right, right. Or when I’m not telling you, get your laundry folded. So.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah, exactly. Seven kids.

Rachel Marie Martin: Yeah, yeah. It’s a little girl. It’s girl. Yeah, yeah, I know.

Wendy Valentine: How old is the youngest?

Rachel Marie Martin: He is 15, and the oldest is 28.

Wendy Valentine: Oh, you’re almost nester.

Rachel Marie Martin: I know, I know. So I actually remarried and because I went through a really rough divorce about twelve years ago, and now I have a blended family, so I gained four more former bonus kids. And then a couple of our kids decided, let’s get married, like, separately. Oh, yeah.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah.

Rachel Marie Martin: And, so that gained us two more. And then my husband and I were like, you know what? We’re not busy enough. Let’s get a rescue dog. So. So we have a little rescue dog, too.

Wendy Valentine: So you’re busy?

Rachel Marie Martin: I’m busy. I’m busy. But, you know, sometimes I tell myself it’s not nearly as busy as when they were under five. That was a different story.

Wendy Valentine: Oh, gosh. I mean, the days, the days of the diapers. And remember how, like, you’d be so excited, like, I can’t wait until they can walk and talk. And then you’re like, oh, my God, why are they walking and talking?

Rachel Marie Martin: Yeah, yeah.

Wendy Valentine: Go back to laying on the floor.

Rachel Marie Martin: Yeah. We took our kids on a hike recently because we, we love to go hiking. And on this hike there, there’s a bunch of like, strollers because it was these trolls that were set up in a park. And I guess, that would call that a walk, not a hike. But anyway, my husband and I were like, oh my gosh, we forgot about strollers because all these parents are like trying to maneuver them through. So, yeah, it’s a good memory when.

Wendy Valentine: They get the big ones. Like, I’ve always felt so bad ones that no twins or triplets, and they’re like plowing.

Rachel Marie Martin: Yeah. Ah, yeah. The humbling moment for me as a runner is when somebody with a stroller passes me, I’m like, are you kidding me? I know how heavy those things are.

Wendy Valentine: Better up your game, girl.

Rachel Marie Martin: Right, right.

Wendy Valentine: So I was reading on your website, your about page.

Rachel Marie Martin: Mm.

Wendy Valentine: What a story. And I would love for you to take us back a little bit, to where maybe those times where you lost your spark.

You started writing online when you were in a messy, unhealthy marriage

Rachel Marie Martin: All right, well, so for the people that don’t know me, I started writing online, like 2005, actually. I tell people I was an early adopter, but I started writing, when I was in the middle of a really messy, unhealthy, complicated marriage. And I was a mom of young kids, and we had severe, severe financial distress. And women, we don’t typically like to talk about money. And part of my mission is, let’s talk about money. Let’s just bring it out in the open. Because when you hide, there’s no healing. It’s just, you’re just spending so much time hiding. And so I started writing online and started finding joy. And what ended up happening was, I tell people often, I started right at the perfect time in some ways, right when social media started to take off. And I remember thinking, well, that’s not my life. Like, I don’t understand how that toddler can sit on a white couch with a chocolate ice cream cone and everyone can look happy. Like, I don’t get that. I don’t. Because, I mean, I just, my life was chaos. And I remember one day writing a story, an article that was to the mom who felt like she was failing. And I had this, like, anxiousness in my heart. And a friend of mine was like, girl, you just need to hit submit. And I did. And then it went super viral. And I realized there’s a lot of women out there that are just looking for somebody to say, you’re not alone. Well, all of that story, you can lose, your spark in that way. And the thing about your spark is, I once had somebody ask me, is the greatest thing we can do, teach our kids to never lose their spark? And I said, no, no, no, because that’s perfectionism. Because it’s really. Yeah. As long as you’re living, you’ve got that spark, that ember ebbs and flows and ebbs and flows, and it’s your. It’s your job when you feel like, oh, my gosh, who am I now to figure out? How do I get it to reignite? How do I get it to be back to its full potential?

Wendy Valentine: Yeah. You and I talked about this earlier, and, I think. I think that it’s awareness is key, is knowing when, like, oh, crap, I now have a tiny little flames. Like, I need to, like, pour some gasoline on that thing and get that going again. and sometimes it happens without you even knowing it. Like, if you’re unconscious enough in going through your life and we’re all busy, especially, like, whether you’re raising kids or grandkids or you’ve got a career, just regular everyday life, you can lose your spark so easily.

Rachel Marie Martin: You can. I always think that it’s that feeling of numb. It’s that comfortably numb kind of state of being where you’re just like, it is what it is. And that phrase to me is like the warning light in the car. Wow. If I’m saying that, that means I’ve settled on myself and I. And, you know, I just don’t. I don’t want to be that. To be my story is. That’s what I realized one day is. Especially, even twelve years ago, when I was in that unhealthy marriage. And I had to not just reignite my spark, I had to go all in and figure things out and shake everything up. I didn’t want my story to be. I just settled. I just existed. I was bitter. And it meant becoming awake and aware and dealing with the hard emotions, but it also meant that I got to experience the good emotions again.

Wendy Valentine: Do you think it was in the rebuilding of your life that you found that spark when you brought that spark back and you found joy?

Rachel Marie Martin: I think I’ve gone through phases with bringing the spark back. the interesting thing about that is, for this book, I actually realized I had kind of. My spark was flickering and kind of dwindling a little bit after I had solved all that stuff, after I’d fixed my finances and I’d gotten remarried, and I had fixed on the external, every single thing was fixed. And then all of a sudden, I was like, oh, my gosh, who am I now? I remember seeing myself in the mirror and being like, I know that reflection. I get that I’m aging. I get the whole thing, but I don’t know her soul anymore. What does she like to do? And it happened to coincide with, I’m sure, lots of us, during the pandemic, when there was, for me, a lot of free time. I know that all those first responders who I’m so grateful for didn’t experience that, but for a lot of us, there was this time where we were left with ourselves. No more projects. My husband and I were like, we have no more projects. What are we going to do? And we just started thinking. I just started, actually, that introspection of, I don’t know who I am. I don’t know how to make peace or what. How do I. What do I do with this past that didn’t look like what I thought it would look like, but how do I go forward with this joy and vibrancy and going all in and knowing that when you hit midlife, that time takes a new. A new meaning?

Wendy Valentine: Oh, gosh, yes. Yeah, totally.

To fight for your soul means to be unapologetically yourself

There was. There was, five words that I saw on your about page that really stood out to me. Oh, I know. And it was, what your website was about. And it was. Those five words was, to fight for your soul. To fight for your soul. What does that mean to you, to fight for your soul?

Rachel Marie Martin: it means to be unapologetically yourself. Unapologetically. Ah, your soul. To me, the soul is one level deeper than your heart. A lot of times we say, oh, but, you know, deal with your heart, fight for your heart. But, the soul, to me, is who we were created to be. It’s the part that lights up. It’s this, that what, you know, that your. Your soul is alive when you just have that. That moment of being in congruency with your true self. And you’re the only one that can fight for your soul. Nobody else can. And I think it’s very easy to defer fighting for your own story onto other people. If they would just fix their stuff, then I’d be happy, or if that would get fixed. But it’s really an about face, figuring out yourself and. And going all in. You know, I would do that for my kids. I would do that for my friends. And then I was like, why am I not showing up for my own self in the same way?

Wendy Valentine: Yeah. Yeah. It’s. It’s owning yourself. It’s. It’s taking a stand for yourself and for your soul. I mean, I always think, like, I mean, the soul is like, intangible. And the things that we can’t see, I feel, are the most miraculous, the most amazing. But, like, we know when we really get connected with ourselves. And I think when we do fight for our soul, that brings that connection back and that flame just automatically grows, which is fascinating.

Rachel Marie Martin: It really is. I tell people that for me, music is one of those places where, when, I like my soul, if I go and listen to music, there are so many times where I’ll be hearing it and just tears will fall down. And I know that’s because it hits me at such a deep level. It’s where there’s this little voice where I can start to hear it and. But that means I have to be intentional about incorporating that into my life. Because it’s so easy to fill your life with chatter, with noise and all of that, and to not allow that. Souls, I call it a whisper because, because your soul is, it’s not like screaming at you all the time. It’s just this subtle whisper of like, hey, I’m here, or, this is important. Or you have those moments when you’re, you know, you’re taking a walk and it’s a perfect day and you just have that realization, like, like you can just take a breath. that to me is that congruency. And then you just move on again. It’s like a reminder of, of the potential there.

Wendy Valentine: I love what you said that about. like, I think you said something about like, teaching your children to never lose your spark. Because that’s to say, like, right, be a perfectionist. Or that life is just so easy and everything’s wonderful and you’re going to be shining 24/7 but I think it’s also like, it’s, it is appreciating those dark times.

Wendy Valentine: And just embracing the fact that, yep, my light’s a little down right now.

Rachel Marie Martin: Yeah, I really, I think that’s true because we have such a quick fix society. Like, oh, we want to go from being angry to being happy right away. And we never understand, like, I’m sure you already know about that kind of the vibrational chart. Like, you can’t move, there’s like the next level up, impossible in some ways to go. Now, granted, my, I like to point out to my kids that you can be in the worst, sit like irritation in the world. And then the phone rings and you’re like, hello. And I mean, there’s this possibility to switch, but that energy. Like, I always ask myself, what’s the next best emotion I can do? What is the next? And it gives us that permission to be human because m, otherwise that you’re. We’re always, like, battling. While I shouldn’t be feeling this way, or like, I’m feeling shame, and then I’m feeling shame about feeling shame, or I’m feeling guilt. Now I’m feeling guilty about feeling guilt. We just compounded versus going, okay, I’m actually experiencing this emotion. It’s just an emotion. It’s not me. I’m feeling an emotion. And adding that word feeling is powerful.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah. I was just talking about that vibrational frequency chart yesterday. David Hawkins. Yeah.

Rachel Marie Martin: Yeah. Game changer. I mean, it is worth just doing a quick search and seeing it, and you don’t even have to agree with all of it, but just the idea that. That there are just these states of energy and states of being like that, and it takes the pressure off of, like, needing life to be like a light switch, it’s. Sometimes it’s not that way. Yeah.

Wendy Valentine: And then also knowing that you have control over that dimmer switch.

Rachel Marie Martin: Yeah. Yeah.

Wendy Valentine: Like, if it was a kerosene. Yeah, it’s like, I know, right? Like, if it was a kerosene lamp, no one else controls that dial but you. Like, you’re the one that decides. And I’ll admit, someone in past relationships, I’d be like, oh, he’s making me dim my light. And this person over here, and I would point the finger, and I’m like, oh, s***, it’s me.

When I realized I was settling into being a victim of circumstances

I’m the one that controls my own light.

Rachel Marie Martin: Yes. It’s so powerful. In my first book, I talked about the. When I realized I was settling into being a victim of circumstances. And that was very, like, jarring to me because I thought, oh, my gosh, I don’t want that. I absolutely don’t want that. Which means I have to take responsibility for this, even if I didn’t get myself into that spot.

One thing I love about midlife is that I feel like you’re still young

And in get your spark back, I start off with a story from doctor Seuss. It’s the Lorax. And it was the story, it was really about environmentalism, but. And taking care of things. But I. There is a certain point in this story where the kid is told, unless you care, you have to do this. And it wasn’t like, it’s not your fault. It’s all this stuff. It was like, you have to care enough right now, independent of everything on your timeline that happened to get you to this point to care enough about what’s on your timeline in front of you.

Wendy Valentine: Yes.

Rachel Marie Martin: And that’s my mind, that is where I am. Like, okay, that one little shift about what can I learn from the past? What can I let go of? Okay. And then moving forward.

Wendy Valentine: It’s one thing I love about midlife is that I feel like you’re. You’re old enough to know what worked and what did not work, but you’re still. Yeah. And then you’re still young enough to do something about it.

Rachel Marie Martin: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And you’re.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah.

Rachel Marie Martin: You also start to just not really care. Like, I don’t want to live a life of regret. Like, I just don’t want to be 75, 80 and go, wow, I wish I had tried that, knowing that the timeline that I get left is really much shorter than what I had before. Probably because I tell people I’m going to be 50 in February, and, wow, if I think of 50 as halfway, I’m a very blessed person to get to live to be 100. So it would be like, it would be silly of me to think, oh, this is even the midway. It’s more like, you know what I have. I just want to live these years with such joy and not caring so much about the stuff that I thought was important before.

Wendy Valentine: Fifties are great.

Rachel Marie Martin: I’m excited. Okay. I’m going to say I’m sort of excited. I’m like, I’m tiptoeing in. Tiptoeing. And I think turning the, the nines, 39, 29, 49 is. That’s harder because, you feel this pressure of, like, it’s the last year in my forties. What am I going to do?

Wendy Valentine: Yeah.

Rachel Marie Martin: So once you’re in, you’re like, yes, I’ve got ten years.

Wendy Valentine: Yes, I know. I always say I’m like, I’m just not getting started. I feel like I’m, for me, giving myself permission to shine and to turn up that dial full fricking blast. Like, I feel like I’m like, oh, finally. Well, like, I’m like, reborn, you know? Like, that’s how I feel, like, ah. Such a good feeling.

Rachel Marie Martin: Yeah. If you research people that have done stuff in their fifties, it’s amazing. I mean, it’s. And I just don’t know if it’s that you move from the pressures of what society thinks, the boxes of what we think we’re supposed to do, and then we have this waking up of like, oh, my gosh, I am not living in that box anymore. Nope. No, no, no.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah. Well, and I think, too, it’s like, think about your twenties, you know, it’s like you’re. You’re looking for that, you know, for that someone to marry, and then you’re having kids, you’re building a career, you’re building a household, you’re doing all that stuff. And then you get to, like, mid forties. You’re like, well, okay, check, check, check, check. You know, like, done that, been there, done that. Now what?

Rachel Marie Martin: Right? Or. Or you get to, like, I tell people all the time, nobody probably puts in their yearbook when they graduated from high school. You know, it’d be really great, is my life goal, is I want to go through financial ruin and a divorce when I’m 40. And yet so many of us have these stories that we get to that spot where we supposed to thinking. We think it’s supposed to be that, check, check, check. And we’re like, well, this is not. This is not what I signed up for. This isn’t what I expected. And then trying to, like, reconcile that with all that, those hopes and dreams and then reconciling it with, well, what do I want to do now?

Wendy Valentine: Yeah. And then sometimes we hang on.

Rachel Marie Martin: Yes.

Wendy Valentine: to what once was, and you’re trying to make it work with who you are and how you’ve evolved. And. I mean, I had my wake up call, my aha. Moment. I can remember thinking, like, wait a second. Like, I. I was giving myself a hard time saying, wendy, you should be content. What’s wrong with you? Just, you have a nice home. You got this. You got that, like, enough already. And then I thought, wait a minute. What’s the difference between. And I can remember looking at the definition, contentment versus complacency.

Rachel Marie Martin: Ooh, that’s good.

Wendy Valentine: I know. And I thought, s***, I’ve become complacent. That. I mean, I knew that little. My little flame was like, right, get that sucker going again.

Rachel Marie Martin: Right.

Wendy Valentine: But I confused that with contentment and that I should basically settle.

You can’t live your life saying, I’m going to do that someday

Rachel Marie Martin: And I.

Wendy Valentine: But I knew deep down, right, like you were talking about earlier, your soul will whisper to you, and my soul was whispering, hey, girl, there’s more. You. You need to go get that. And in getting that, I think that’s what really, really turns up. The flame.

Rachel Marie Martin: Yeah. It’s the doing. That’s what I tell people. Because you could live your life saying, I’m going to do that someday. I mean, the word someday, it’s kind of dangerous because someday makes our brains. It’s the complacency. Like, I’m going to do it. Like, you’re like, look, it’s on the list, but it just keeps rolling over, rolling over, rolling over, and then all of a sudden that someday it’s gone, that opportunity. So I always say all those things that you’re doing, thinking, I’m going to do that someday. You have to do. You have to actually take action now. And taking action, for a lot of people, they’re like, well, I don’t even know who I am. I don’t know my spark. I have no idea. The action isn’t knowing the perfect plan. The action is taking action, not knowing what your spark is. But figure, the plan is I’m going to figure out what my spark is. It’s shifting it. Because if you’re waiting for, like, okay, I’m going to have the perfect 18 step program that I’m going to accomplish in three weeks. It’s never going to happen. It’s more about you deciding, what can I do today that brings me joy, happiness, purpose, all of that. And then doing it. Pushing yourself a little bit outside of comfortable.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah. You flip, one day to day one, like, yeah, yeah.

Rachel Marie Martin: Oh, that’s. That mean, that’s.

Wendy Valentine: That’s a good one. Someone write that down.

Rachel Marie Martin: Yeah, that is really good. That’s good. Oh, that’s good.

Wendy Valentine: Do you think you can.

Do you think your flame can be shining brightly even through adversity

Interesting question. Do you think your flame can be shining brightly even through a really s* time in life, through a big challenge, a big setback? Can your. Can your flame still be shining brightly? Or, does it go hand in hand? Is it like, okay.

Rachel Marie Martin: No, I think it depends. There’s moments in my life where it’s really been rough, but I feel so in line with who I am because I’m living out the principles of what I believe in and all of that. But I. I mean, I think there’s also times where it’s like, my kids will be like, aren’t you the finding joy mom? I’m like, come on. Come on. Stop reminding me of my own stuff. But if you allow that ebb and flow, and the reason I think it shines brightly is you just look at for some time, at some times are the people where you’re like, they’re like, lighthouse. They’re like, oh, my gosh. There’s something they’ve learned in that. And maybe they don’t even realize in the moment that their spark, their soul is shining super brightly at that moment, but afterwards, they could see it. And I think that’s part of it is just trying to be consistent and then, you know, knowing, you’re going to get off track, that’s the whole thing is, you know, you’re just never going to be perfect. And if you’re looking like, well, it got off track, failed again. It’s not failure. The failure is when you’re like, well, I’m not going to try again. It goes to one of my favorite quotes and saying is that fall, seven times, stand up eight. And I love it because it doesn’t say fall once. Figure it out. It’s like you’re going to fall, you’re going to stand up and it ends on standing up. And that to me is in order to stand up, you have to figure the courage, the bravery and the willpower to go, I’m going to stand up again. I’m not going to stay down.

Wendy Valentine: Well, and, like finding joy, it’s not found joy and you’re done, right? Yes.

Rachel Marie Martin: Yeah, that’s so true. I once had somebody say, did you ever find it? I’m like, I really believe it’s a lifestyle. It is a lifestyle of looking for joy.

And in this book I decided to talk about happiness because I feel like happiness got a bad reputation

And in this book I decided to talk about happiness because I feel like happiness got kind of a bad reputation for a while. Like it’s kind of selfish to be happy. And I thought, you know what? No, I get, and we all get one shot on this, this orb, that this earthly planet. And if I’m denying happiness, I’m denying one of the gifts of being human.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah.

Rachel Marie Martin: I decided, no, I’m going to reclaim happiness.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah, it’s what is it? God, what is her name? I always forget, but the quote of, what will you done? What will you do with your one wild and precious life?

Rachel Marie Martin: Oh, I love that. That’s so good.

Wendy Valentine: Says that it’s even on my website. I can’t remember. anyways, Mary Oliver, something like that. But yeah, like you get one life, that’s it.

Rachel Marie Martin: You do. You do. And to think that you’re supposed to have it figured out. No, no, like you would, I would tell our kids, just try, just try, whatever. Figure it out. You and like adapt. I have a kid that’s in college right now and I’m like, you know what, just make the best choice you have now. Chances are you’re going to adapt and move on and do something different. And the idea that, oh my gosh, I don’t know, I’m going to do something different. There’s no rules that at 50 that you can’t do that we’re like, so that that box is too small. Like, you know what? No. I’m going to do something completely different. I’m going to. I’m going to follow that dream that I thought was ridiculous when I was 20 and do it now.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah, yeah. You have to give yourself permission to pivot.

Rachel Marie Martin: Yeah, yeah, I love, I love the pivot.

You say fear is an indicator that you’re on the right track

Wendy Valentine: Do you think, you know, some people are scared of their light? Like, if they. If, like, okay, I’m gonna turn this knob up for you. I’m gonna actually turn the dial for you, and I’m gonna turn up your flame full blast so you can shine as much as you want to. Do you think a lot of people would be scared of that, to actually shine their light?

Rachel Marie Martin: Probably. At least if you’re like, the way I grew up, be humble, don’t be braggadocious. We have it confused with not being like, oh, look at me, look at me. But it’s not about, look at me, look at me. It’s more like, okay, I’m in my true essence of who I’m supposed to be. And the scared part, that fear part is just a misunderstanding of it. Or it’s the fear of if I’m too bright, I’m going to lose my friends. Or. And even other kind of irrational fear is if I’m too bright, it’s just like, then I’m going to have the other shoes going to drop. It’s not going to last. It’s like, too much alerting. And the thing with fears is, I wanted to put, you know, the song hello, darkness, my old friend. That little line, I wanted to put it in the book, which is really hard. You cannot put song. It’s just impossible. Because I wanted to talk about fear in that way. Hello, dark. Hello, fear, my old friend. And I. I really think fear, too, has gotten a negative versus. Okay, what is this? Actually? It’s like you said, awareness, alerting me to. And so often it’s not, oh, you should stop. It’s like, okay, so I’m afraid I’ll lose my friends. Well, then starting to wonder why. Like, actually starting to go down that path of wondering and then working to either reframe it or let it go.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah, I mean, dark. Dark times are normal. That’s part of life. The dark. Like, you wouldn’t know light if you didn’t know dark. You wouldn’t know happiness if you didn’t know sadness. It’s the dichotomy of life. It’s. It’s how we know. It’s like, just like you said, it’s the fight, or flight response that as we know, as human beings, like fear is a good thing. But we also have to know that it’s not like, okay, I shouldn’t do this because this is scary.

Rachel Marie Martin: Well, I think fear is an indicator I’m on the right track so often because instead of thinking, oh, like, wait a second, I’m feeling that because I’m pushing myself out of comfortable and then instead of being like, I should stop, it’s more like, no, no, no, girl, you need to go, just, do that.

Wendy Valentine: And a comfort zone is a beautiful place, but nothing ever grows there.

Rachel Marie Martin: No, no, no. In fact, my part of this year has been for me, of pushing myself out of my own comfort zone. And I mean, a, universe has met me in very, very surprising ways. But it’s every single time you do that, it’s like you’re like, oh my gosh, I did that. I survived. And then you learn something from it and then actually inspires other people. Like, okay, well, she did that. Maybe I should do it. Maybe I should try.

Wendy Valentine: I know. Yeah. I mean, the same way, like, a lot of people, like, how do I get the courage to do x, whatever that is? You get the courage just like you were talking about earlier. It’s by taking action. Like, I can’t give you a jar of courage and you can just open it up and be like, oh, thank you. Like, you fill up your jar of courage, I fill up mine, the listener fills up hers. Everybody fills up their own jar of courage. But you do that by, by doing scary s***.

Rachel Marie Martin: Yes. Well, because, okay, I always give people the analogy because I’m a runner is people will say to me, I could never be a runner. So first of all, pay attention. If you’re saying I could never, that’s an alert to you because never is a, it’s an all or nothing word and just to pay attention. But then I’ll say, and this is just an analogy, but I’ll say, well, could you run from your front door to the stop sign at the end of the block? And that’s it. And then they’re like, okay. And then I’m like, and the next day, if you run 5ft beyond that, and the next day 5ft, pretty soon running that stop sign is going to be like nothing. The problem is, is we think, okay, I’m going to be a runner. That means I got to go run 3 miles today versus recognizing, well, to get to 3 miles, I got to first be able to run to the stop sign and celebrating the doing of that first time of getting to the stop sign.

You know, sometimes we’re put in positions where it’s reactive

Wendy Valentine: You know, I was thinking too, is like, sometimes we’re put in positions where it’s a reactive place in our life where we have to, like, we get served with divorce papers, like out of the blue. Oh, holy s***. That puts you into this reactive mode where you are forced to make changes in your life. And sometimes you’re. You do changes proactively where you’re. Maybe you’re the one serving the divorce papers, right. So it’s kind of interesting, but either, either way, you got to get up and go. You gotta. You got, you have to go all out, because otherwise, if you stay, if you ignore what you need to do, then you’re not gonna change. Your life won’t change.

Rachel Marie Martin: No. And actually it just compounds. It’s like ignoring a bill just. It’s gonna compound and compound and it’s gonna get so big and bigger and bigger, and then it’s gonna get to the point where it feels almost completely overwhelming. So I always think about that too. Like, okay, it’s doing the hard stuff first. Okay. Getting it off the list. Just. Just being willing and then what’s. So. It’s so freeing when you do that. It’s just this. A moment of like, okay, I survived that. I, can. I can do the next thing.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah. I even think too, as mothers, it’s like, my gosh, we should at least congratulate ourselves on the fact that. Of being a mother, like, that’s hard.

Rachel Marie Martin: Yes, it is.

Wendy Valentine: Delivering a child, you know, I think we forget to celebrate ourselves. The hardship that we’ve been through in life. It might be everyday things, but it’s still hard.

Rachel Marie Martin: I would say parenting little kids was one of the hardest things because, I mean, or when they were just young, because you could just go from what it was just constant. Go from one thing to the other thing to the other thing. And what you did five minutes ago would be on. I mean, it was so much giving of self without any, like, anything given back in a way, and. Or it felt unseen. I just felt unseen. And that was my thing when I. When I would write to moms, was, I see you. I see how you. You did all this stuff on the hardest day of your life and it really matters. And that. Yeah. It’s that celebration of motherhood in the way that those little tiny things matter so incredibly much.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah. I love talking to you.

Rachel Marie Martin: I like talking. This is fun. This is super fun.

Wendy Valentine: Good stuff.

Self care is giving yourself permission to be wherever you are at in your life

So if someone’s out there listening and they are in this place in their life, they’re stuck. Don’t know where to turn, don’t know what to do. What are some few steps they can take where they can kind of start to turn up the dial on that. On that lamp?

Rachel Marie Martin: Well, first of all, to know they’re not alone. I think that aloneness is like turning the dial down when you feel that is to know you’re not the only one here. And to honor the bravery it takes to say, you know what? I’m stuck. I don’t think we actually give ourselves the kudos for that moment when we’re like, I don’t know who I am anymore, but I want to do something that is huge. It’s the most vulnerable moment because you’re given a choice. And when you step into the choice of this is what I’m feeling, it means you’re actually doing something to fix it because you’re acknowledging that emotion. So the first couple things I tell people are, ah, just start to cultivate time in your day where it’s about something that you like, and it might not. It might even be, I don’t know what it is, but I’m going to take a walk today, or I’m going to get. I’m going to go a different way home, or I’m going to get myself a cup of coffee, or I’m going to listen to music. But you have to be intentional about creating that time. We’re really, really good at being intentional about making sure everybody else gets stuff done and it’s focusing and flipping it onto. Okay, I am going to be intentional about taking time for myself and then being okay with the results. Maybe it was, like, awkward or uncomfortable or you didn’t really like that, then instead of thinking, well, that was a failure, at least you learned. Okay, yeah, I am not doing spin class because I learned. I don’t like that. But if you don’t try, you don’t know. That’s the thing. Unless you step into something, you just. You’re deciding no beforehand and, give yourself the grace and the permission to actually try it so that you can decide yes or no.

Wendy Valentine: I mean, to me, that’s. That’s self care right there, you know? I know self care is like, such a big phrase that could mean so many things from, you know, taking a bath to getting a massage. But to me, it’s like, it is giving yourself permission to be wherever you are at in your life. It’s okay.

Rachel Marie Martin: It’s totally.

Wendy Valentine: Okay.

Rachel Marie Martin: Right. And allow yourself to wonder about. About your story. I talk about, when I was a kid, we used to go fishing because I grew up in Minnesota, so that was, like, pastime. It’s like. And, one of the things that when you go fishing is sometimes if there’s a hot spot, you would leave a, like a marker in the lake and it would kind of bob around, and then you could go back a couple days later and find it. Well, in our lives, I really believe that we have these little markers floating in our timeline of stuff that lights us up, of times where we felt good, or all of that. And we can start to contemplate and start to look and go and to look for those again, to try to find them, because it gives those little markers, gives us a glimpse into our soul. Those are the times where, you know, we were congruent with ourselves. And so that takes time. It just takes a little bit of introspection and being willing to do that and being willing to sit down and be with your own thoughts again. I really. I know that it’s challenging in today’s world to do that, or it’s scary. Like, I don’t have time to think, but unless you actually start to contemplate and wonder, you’re just. It’s so much external and finding your spark a lot. Is this internal part as well. It’s the doing and the contemplating.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah. And I always think of the butterfly coming out of the cocoon, relating that to coming out of a, tough time in life. And you probably know this, but, like, if you were to cut the cocoon, cut off the top of the cocoon and pull the butterfly out, the butterfly would be deformed and it would die. So the butterfly actually has to suffer and push through the cocoon to actually fly. So we have to think about these times. Like, even though you might be in a rough spot in life, it’s okay. And pushing through that, oh, my gosh, that’s the most magical part of it all.

Rachel Marie Martin: It is. It is. And you look at any type of progress in that way in life. Like, to get out of the earth’s atmosphere, you have to escape velocity, which means you have to go, like, you’re burning up on the outside. And then you emerge out there and you have to go to be willing to be. It’s almost refined by it all and to keep pushing, keep pushing through because, you know, you don’t get to the other side where somebody says, hey, can you help me? Or can you tell your story unless you are willing to start, like, you just don’t get to that spot. And so just be. It’s like being willing to be a beginner. Okay. And that’s okay. You can be a beginner, however old you are.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah. And every expert was once a beginner.

Rachel Marie Martin: Ah, absolutely. That, that’s exactly it. And there’s like a fitness influencer that I like. I think her name is. Wrote about her. A little blip. Joan McDonald. And she started weight training when she was in her seventies and ended up just changing her whole life and getting.

Wendy Valentine: On the part of her. Yeah.

Rachel Marie Martin: Yes.

Rachel: Life is constantly figuring out what to do next

Getting on the COVID of like, women’s health or something. And I thought, okay, she can lift heavy things and she’s done it. And she was so vulnerable about it. She documents it on instagram. I’m like, that is so cool. But it inspires anybody. I’m like, if she could lift stuff, if she can do that, I can do it.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we’re a work in progress. We’re never done.

Rachel Marie Martin: Amen. I know. I don’t want to be done. That’s the thing. I think, I was doing on my book tour, somebody said, well, what is your advice for retirement? And I said, you have to get rid of that. We have to get rid of that word. Like, it means done. We’re not doing anything. I said, I really believe life is constantly figuring out what to do next. My grandfather, after he retired, he was home for a couple years and he didn’t like it. So he went and got a part time job working at the hardware store, and it lit him up. he loved it. And I thought he didn’t go because of the money. He went because he got to do what he loved. He got to help people doing projects.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah, I know. That’s what’s cool. Like, you can try anything and see if you like it. You never know.

Rachel Marie Martin: Right, right. We got a lot of tools during that time, too, so that’s great.

Wendy Valentine: This is so good. How can we, how can we get a copy of your book so it’s.

Rachel Marie Martin: Available wherever books are sold? Amazon books, a million, Barnes and noble, and always your independent bookstore. Yes.

Wendy Valentine: Those little bitty bookstores.

Rachel Marie Martin: I’m so grateful for them. I am. So they, I’ll tell you that they have some of the most fun, book launch, book signing things. They’re super invested in you.

Wendy Valentine: Thank you so much. and your website is findingjoy.net, right?

Rachel Marie Martin: That is my website. And a lot of people find me on Facebook finding joy blog. Type that in. There’s a little blue check mark. Meta’s decided I am actually real.

Wendy Valentine: Are you official?

Rachel Marie Martin: I’m official, and I became official in 2016, so that blue check mark has been there a while.

Wendy Valentine: Oh, my gosh. Thank you so much, Rachel.

Rachel Marie Martin: Thank you. It was super fun.

Wendy Valentine: Thank you, everyone. Have a great day. Get your spark back, and, get a copy of her book, too.

Rachel Marie Martin: Bye.

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