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HOW TO FIND YOURSELF WHEN YOU ARE FEELING LOST with kacie main
I'm changing up things this week with my first guest interview. On this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Kacie Main, author of I Gave Up Men For Lent. She shares her journey of going within herself during a time of feeling lost and her realization of needing to fix herself first. Our conversation covers many topics but most important is the growth that comes when you stop blaming others and take accountability for yourself.
From what her family thinks about airing her dirty laundry to how her journey led her to better relationships, I know you will enjoy our conversation. Don't forget to stick around to the end where I give the tip of the day and your homework for the week. Let me know what you think.
You can find Kacie's latest book, I Gave Up Men For Lent, on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible. To learn more about Kacie and her work, please visit her website at KacieMain.com, or follow her on Twitter and Instagram @kaciemain_write
From what her family thinks about airing her dirty laundry to how her journey led her to better relationships, I know you will enjoy our conversation. Don't forget to stick around to the end where I give the tip of the day and your homework for the week. Let me know what you think.
You can find Kacie's latest book, I Gave Up Men For Lent, on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible. To learn more about Kacie and her work, please visit her website at KacieMain.com, or follow her on Twitter and Instagram @kaciemain_write
further reading
full transcript
Dr. Kristie: “As I put space between myself and what I thought was the root of my unhappiness, I began to uncover the fact that men weren’t my problem, I was my problem.”
This is a line from my guest on today’s show Kacie Main, author of a new book, I Gave Up Men for Lent. We discuss why you can still feel unhappy when everything looks great on paper, but you still feel lost and she gives great advice on how she was able to look in the mirror and find her sense of herself, versus blaming other people. So, stick around so you can learn how to go deep within to find who you really are, take accountability, and action so you can get the relationships you’re looking for.
Hey y’all and welcome to the Fix Yourself First with Dr. Kristie podcast. This is a show for people who are tired of waiting on others to change and ready to focus on themselves in order to improve their relationships.
I’ve learned from my personal and professional life as a psychotherapist and relationship expert that the only way to have a healthy relationship was when I realized I had to fix myself first, versus waiting on others to change.
Thank you for listening to my show. Go ahead and hit subscribe so you don’t miss any future ones.
Now, let’s get started.
Dr. Kristie: Welcome Kacie! I'm thrilled to have you on here for the first guest on the Fix Yourself First with Dr. Kristie podcast. Welcome.
Kacie: Thank you so much! I'm very excited to be the first guest.
Dr. Kristie: I know, isn’t it great to have you today and I want to talk about your experience, your journey, and your whole path of writing your book, I Gave Up Men for Lent, a story of a jaded, hopelessly romantic, health-conscious party girl’s search for meaning. That is a mouthful and it says so much.
Kacie: Yep.
Dr. Kristie: And today's launch day, right?
Kacie: It is yes. Yes, today is the day. It's been exciting and a little hectic. You know, I'm just, I'm new at all of this. I don't really know what I'm doing. So, the the e-book is up. I'm waiting for the the print and the audio to go up, but you know, I'm just trying to stay calm throughout all of it.
Dr. Kristie: Well the fact that you took the time out of your day today, on such a monumental day for you and your book, I really appreciate it and I know my listeners appreciated it as well; you sharing your story. So, why don't we start out by, tell me a little bit about you know your background. I've read your book. I've learned a bit about you. Tell me a little bit about why now, what led you to write this book?
Kacie: Oh, it's so funny. I'd love to have probably a better answer, but the truth is this book really kind of jumped out of me. It was in 2017. And I just, I don't know, I got to this point where I just felt really like, “blah” is the best word to describe it, and I guess, you know a more formal word would be apathetic, but I didn't even really realize it at the time. I felt disconnected and just not energized by life, which really confused me because I had a great life. You know, I have a wonderful family. I had a wonderful childhood. I don't have any traumas to speak of so to say, you know, and I had a good job and a cute apartment and so everything, you know on paper in my life was great, except the fact that I was single and I was 32 at the time.
That's really where I focus a lot of the negative energy. I just thought, you know, I can't get this whole relationship thing right. Like, I'm just I'm messing up and all the relationships, I'm choosing all the wrong men and it was all this this negativity. And so that's why I decided to give up men for Lent, almost as a kind of a trivial joke decision at the time. I just wanted a break from everything.
One night, I came across these old poems that I had written 10 years earlier and they described a lot of the same feelings that I was feeling and it was it was a very emotional experience for me. That was like, “Oh my gosh,” like, here's these things I wrote 10 years ago. I did nothing about it, other than scribble them on some paper and then continued living life how I was living in, and now ten years later shockingly, I feel the same way.
And so I just had this urge, like I need to write down what just happened. I got my computer out and I journaled and I've never even been a journaler, but I journaled what I just went through in finding the writings. And the next day, I had more thoughts and so I wrote those down and and I just decided I was like, I'm going to journal every day through Lent. It was probably a couple weeks into it that I realized it could be my book, but it wasn't so much that I sat down like, “I'm going to write a book.” I tried to do that before, but I didn't really know what I wanted to say. This time, it was more I still didn't know what I wanted to say, but it was more just documenting how I was feeling.
Dr. Kristie: Well, I think that’s your truth and that's what's so important, regardless of what comes out. You captured that real time and it takes a lot of guts and a lot of courage to do that. So, during that experience when you were looking back at journals from 10 years ago, and like you said, you had what should be, “the right life.” You were checking all the boxes, but something just didn't feel enough for you or it didn't feel like it was fulfilling enough for you. So you honor that truth. And I think that's why you embody this fix yourself first mentality so much.
Just to be honest, my best friend Lisa, when she introduced me to you and she's like, “You have got to meet this girl! She is amazing! She's a great writer!” I had a bit of a misconception at first, you know, I Gave Up Men For Lent, I automatically had this thought, “I wonder if she’s bashing men? She's saying all men are bad.” This misconception happened and then I looked at it, I looked at your subtitle and started getting into it and was like, “Oh my gosh!” This is what she's doing. She's focusing on herself. So, how did that journey go for you? Because I even think in the book you talk about, “I’m not the victim, I've been my own villain.” And that's a great realization.
Kacie: It was a huge realization. There were several big realizations that happened throughout the book, one being that I was never the victim in my relationships and I played that a lot. Like, oh you know, this boyfriend didn't choose me. He chose this other girl over me or he didn't pursue me. When I really sat and looked back through all those relationships, and especially I think to the point of writing them down for someone else to be able to read it, I then saw the part that I played, and the role that I played for more like an outsider's perspective. I realized, NO, I made a lot of choices in all those relationships that led to their demise and they all ended for various reasons. But, I was not the victim and so that was that was definitely a big realization
Then to piggyback off that, I always kind of played this, “Oh they weren’t choosing me,” but the realization I had in the book was that I wasn't choosing me. I wasn't choosing to be the person I wanted to be and to live the life I really wanted to live. That's because I just cared so much about what other people thought, from just kind of the mainstream norm of what’s cool, to expectations set from my family and my friends.
And that's where it got difficult because it's not a bad thing to care what your family and friends think, I mean those are the people that love you and know you, but if it's not in line with what you want for your life and you don't recognize that and honor that and kind of honor your own voice, then I think you can get to this point where I got where you're just like off track from where you want to be. Those are kind of my two big things that ultimately, I wasn't choosing me. Then, by default, no men were.
Dr. Kristie: Right, you looked at yourself in that way. I think so many people, not just women, but men struggle with that as well. It can go into that self deprivation, such as: “What's wrong with me? I'm not worthy. I'm not enough. Why didn't she choose me? Why didn't he choose me?” It can lead to some intense emotional feelings behind that. What advice would you give someone listening to this or reading your book? What would you tell them to listen to, to kind of take that journey that you did and to be brave enough to do that?
Kacie: I think the first thing is just even the act of listening to yourself in general, and in these days especially. That's just not easy to do. There are just so many distractions and that's what I ultimately did in the book. I gave up men was my first idea, but I didn't want to be that jaded girl that gave up men. So, I added in other things and this was really all just kind of an on-the-whim decision. I also gave up social media just because you know, it can make you feel bad about yourself sometimes. I gave up sweets and hard liquor because I'm a little bit of a vodka girl. What I realized was those are all just distractions.
Like you go out drinking or you're flipping through Facebook or Instagram, after eliminating all those I didn't have all these external things to focus on, I instead went internal. I think that’s step one. Intentionally take some time, and not everybody needs to give up a whole plethora of things for a month or whatever, but more find some time during the day, during the week, to just get quiet with yourself and get honest with yourself.
I think it starts really with baby steps. I would walk on the beach a lot and I would practice. Okay, “How do I hear my own inner voice? And how do I listen to that?” I would start with really trivial things. I'd have this idea, bend down and look at that shell, rather than just keep walking. Oh, you know, put a foot in the water and I would do that. I just tried to hear that voice in small ways at first.
Dr. Kristie: I like that you do that. You’re very intentional because our heads are spinning all the time and when you say, stop and look at that shell or put my foot in the water, you're doing it and connecting your body and your mind at the same time. And that’s really hard to do.
We don't get a lot of luxury to do that. You do that with a lot of intention and I'm wondering along that path, did you find that you were more grateful? And I say that because for me when I stopped, like okay, “Wow, this stuff around me is really amazing.” Were you able to connect with any gratitude in that way with the journey?
Kacie: I think I definitely was. It was slow at first and this is what I've realized,things start to happen very subtly at first, change can happen very slowly at first, and then you reach a point where you you kind of see all the change looking back on it. I don't know that I recognized the gratitude I was I was kind of tapping into at the time, but I've since realized it because now I hear that inner voice more. I do honor it more. Then, even little things, like I’ll walk outside and if the moon is out really bright, I'll just be like, “Oh my God, that's beautiful,” little things like that. That was not me three years ago, five years ago. I’d walk outside and be like whatever, but I'll catch myself in these like moments of awe that I never experienced before. I definitely attribute to that to being more intentional in paying attention to your surroundings and paying attention to yourself. Then, when you do that, you find a lot more beauty in the world, and in yourself for that matter.
Dr. Kristie: Absolutely. Absolutely. Let's talk a little bit about some of the book and the ideas that you had behind the experience. You shared a lot about dating and I know you’re protecting names and changing the names, but I'm wondering what did you learn about yourself in the dating world, going through this deprivation and internal Journey? What did you figure out, “Hey, you know, this is what I didn't realize about myself before when it came to dating.”
Kacie: I figured out one of my big patterns. I think we all have patterns. In the book I call it dicksand, and that’s from the movie, How to Be Single. It’s a play on quicksand, but I would just fall into a relationship and really lose who I was in an attempt to just be who they wanted me to be. I would also not ever really stop and think, “Do I want to be with this person or does it just feel good to be wanted by this person?”
It's like I would go where I was wanted, without stopping and thinking, “Is this really what I want?” Then, I would I would lose myself in that situation, that maybe I didn't even really want to be in in the first place. A lot of it for me was the pressure to be in a relationship and to find a husband. Now, I'm 34 years old and I'm still not married, but now I'm very comfortable with that.
Whereas, as I started to reach late 20s, early 30s, that pressure started to really..I felt it. Then, it was almost any man that I walked by, it would be like, “Oh, could he be the one? Like, is he the one?” Then, if there was interest, I immediately went down that road. I just never questioned anything and I lost myself in a lot of it.
Dr. Kristie: I know you brought up, “Is he the one?” because I think one of the things a lot of people think is that there is this one person out there. What do you think about that? Do you think you have that one person, that one soul mate, that you look for. What is your take on that through your experience?
Kacie: Why, I've gone back and forth with this. For a long time, my answer to this question would be that I think that there's several, and I don't even know how many I mean by several, but several people on this planet that you could live happily ever after with. Statistically speaking, it just makes sense.
I do think that there's probably one person out there that you would be the most happiest with. You could call that person your soulmate. But, if you never meet them, you wouldn't necessarily know that you're not as happy as you could be because you wouldn't have that reference point or comparison.
At this point in time in my life, I still generally believe that, but I also believe it really does come down to timing, in terms of yourself as well. I think that were only able to love to the point that we understand what love is.
If you can get really self-reflective, and be really honest with yourself, and fix yourself first, and being a good wholesome loving place with yourself, you're going to be able to love that much greater and that much deeper. That's going to make the relationship that you're in that much better. I really don't know that it ever has to do with the other person, so much as it always has to do with ourselves.
Dr. Kristie: Yeah, I completely agree with that. I know with my experience and you may have had the same thing, what I wanted in a relationship, what I was looking for my 20s and late 20s, that changed even for me. I'm older than you, but we change and as we get older what I want and need changes. When you look back at some of those relationships, even a longer-term relationship years ago, there's no way I would be with that person to realize it and it's because of me and how I was being. It wasn't them.
Kacie: Exactly. exactly.
Dr. Kristie: That's a hard dose of medicine to take. To say, “I was the one hurting people,” or “I was the one not doing the right thing because I wasn't speaking my truth or realizing who I was or taking that time to be intentional.” Has that been a similar experience for you?
Kacie: Yeah, it absolutely was. It's funny when I when I reflect back on some of my relationships and when I was in them at the time I was, and it might have been partly stubborn, like, no this is going to work. Now, I'm like, “Oh, if I had stayed with that person it would not have worked because I wasn't being true to me.” I would have reached this point, that I went through two years ago, eventually.
I really strongly believe that. I would have gone down this journey at some point in time. Maybe, it would have been later in life. I think that happens to a lot of people, but for me, all those relationships failing is what really catapulted my self-reflection journey. I think I would have gone through it regardless.
If I had stayed in any of those relationships that I was in before, I think we would have reached a really tough point because I would have all the sudden started to become a person that was different than the person they fell in love with and signed up to be with.
That’s why I think it is so important to figure out who you are because that's going to make yourself more authentic, but your relationship more authentic too. The more authentic your relationship and that bond and that love is, the better the chances are that it will be able to last forever.
Dr. Kristie: Can you share a couple of tips or, maybe even homework assignments you could give us to look at how you figuring out who you are and how writing and journaling has been really good for you.
I know that is something I recommend. I mean, I do it personally. It's really helpful for me. And I know it's kind of a similar journey. You've been writing since you were really little in the sense of just writing things. So, what would you say is a couple of tips when people are like, “Hey, I want to go through that journey. I want to figure out who I am.” What would you say is something somebody could do?
Kacie: I would absolutely recommend journaling. And journaling in kind of a free-form type way. I do it on the computer because I can type much faster than I can write, but some people may want to write and that’s fine. Do not worry about it being sentences. Do not worry about it being complete thoughts. You have to try and get into this mental space of I'm just going to say or write down anything that's going through my mind.
I think there's so much therapy in that because our thoughts move around so quickly in our head. It's almost like a ball of twine. They're just everywhere. To get them out on paper, even in that mess form, and then to go back through and read it and try and maybe clean it up into more sentences. That's where the therapy is. It's like seeing your thoughts and then trying to put them in a more linear, complete sense. It helps connect a lot of dots.
The second thing I would say, especially in this day and age, is take some time to unplug. Completely unplug and be by yourself. I have a goal this year in 2019 to do one weekend a month where I'm completely unplugged. I had my first one in January. I haven't done February yet. I just found a cheap little cabin on Airbnb and I went and I just turned off phone. I brought books. I brought a journal if I wanted the journal. I just was completely alone and I didn't talk to anybody. I was not connected on any level for a weekend. It was amazing.
It was hard at first because I'm like, “Oh my gosh, am I going to get bored?” But, ultimately it was great. So, I took a whole weekend and that's a little extreme. If they're not already in a self-reflective phase of life, that might be a little much. But, take 20 minutes, take an hour, at the end of the day, at the beginning of the day and do not have your phone. Do not talk to anybody and just sit and think. That's actually really hard for a lot of people do. You don't even have to meditate. You know, a lot of people say, “Oh, I'm trying to meditate, but I'm really terrible at meditating.” But, meditating, being by yourself, any of it, it's a practice and it's like a muscle you have to work out. If you can just do it for 15 minutes and then 30 minutes, it'll get easier.
I think we don't spend enough just quiet time alone. And if you're not doing that, you're never going to hear your own inner voice. So, carve out some of time and that would be a great time to journal also. Those would be definitely my two biggest pieces of advice.
Dr. Kristie: Those are great and it can be really hard. I even find if I'm waiting for a friend to meet up somewhere and I've got some down time, I'm checking something. I'm looking at emails versus even just sitting with myself. We are so attached and I could see where that would be a good reflection.
Okay, I have to ask, are your Lloyd's, Arlo’s, Shane's, are any of these guys that you've had through your journey, has anyone reached out and said, “Is that me? Is that one me because I feel that's why.” I have to know.
Kacie: There's one of them who knew I was writing the book and so he actually picked his own name. So, he's aware of it. The other three, I don't know. I have not heard from them. It’ll be interesting to see if I do. I don't know if they're aware of the book. We're not in contact anymore at all. We'll see.
Dr. Kristie: Let me tell you. Those that are not aware or that you've lost contact with for probably good reason, they will find you and you might not even know how they find you, but they'll follow you. I promise you it will happen. It's a really interesting thing. So, I had to ask that.
What about your family when they saw you doing this, when they see the book because you're so raw and honest and that's what I really love about this because you don't hold back and you put all the BS aside and just get real. How did your family take that? Especially, you know, knowing all the details?
Kacie: So, my mother read it first and it was a very emotional read from her. It was very difficult. My sister read it second and it was very difficult for her as well. I think, for the most part it was it was hard just to relive those time periods of my life that have really kind of torn us apart in a way. Not that we ever weren't speaking or anything, but we just weren't as close. So, it was hard for them for sure.
Ultimately, it ended up being a good thing because it then sparked better conversation between us about that time. I take a lot of the ownership of that because writing is clearly my preferred way to communicate some of my deepest thoughts. Throughout all those years and even still when they try and talk to me about serious or deeper topics or sensitive ones, I can get a little flustered and then, I can't always think straight or articulate what I'm trying to say and that's why I like writing as my outlet.
Being able to get what I thought out and how I felt in the book, just kind of like as a baseline of, “Okay, here's everything I think about.” It just helped us then have have better conversations about it. And I think it helps them understand me more.
My dad, god I love my dad. This is a book no father would necessarily want to read, but he was great. I mean he really was just very proud of me. I know there's stuff in there he would prefer to not know, but I think he's just too proud and excited right now to really focus on that stuff at all.
Dr. Kristie: So you doing this, you being honest, you being raw, you’ve given this gift to yourself with honor in that, as well as to the world, as actually connecting you in a different kind of way than with your family, than it would have before. So, you taking this risk of being honest improves your relationships.
Kacie: Yes, it really is. On my blog, I've named Real Talk and I talk a lot about real talk and I think there was this absence of it, even though I was very close. I've always been very close with my family and my friends, and this is where again I take ownership of it. I wasn't always being completely honest with how I felt about things. The book was step one of you know what, I'm done not saying things. I'm done suppressing feelings and I'm just going to put it all out there. Even while I was writing it, I would find myself thinking, “Oh, you can't,” or “Don't say that,” like that's gonna upset somebody. Then, I would stop myself and be like, “No.”
We just filter so much and part of it is we don't want to offend people or upset people and that's understandable, but a big part of it is we're afraid of how we're going to come across to other people. So, we're not being real and if you're not being real, you can't have real connection.
I think I just got to this point where, and the further along I go, it's just like, “I'm just gonna be real.” I was nervous about it, but it absolutely has improved all of my relationships. And some of the initial conversations were uncomfortable, but once you get over that hump, it's just like, “Okay, I don't have to put on any kind of face anymore.”
Dr. Kristie: Right. You get to drop your mask. No more sugar coating. It’s just what it is.
Kacie: Yes.
Dr. Kristie: Once that initial gates pass where you can do that, it really opens so much up. So, that makes sense.
Kacie: Right. It's funny because we want that from other people. We want other people to be honest with us and tell us how they feel. That was a huge theme and one of my relationships in the book with Shane was that I just I wanted to know how he felt, but I wasn't always saying how I felt. So again, it really does always come back to fixing yourself first and being honest with yourself.
For the most part, changes you want to see in other people, I found, are really the changes you need to make in yourself. If you can look at what are my issues in my relationships and then turn that to yourself, that's the work you need to do.
Dr. Kristie: That would be a great homework assignment for listeners. Look at those things that you don't like in your relationship and put as a mirror in front of you and ask yourself, “Am I changing these things for myself?” I need to do this if I'm going to expect somebody else to because it comes to expectations, right?
Kacie: Yep. Yep.
Dr. Kristie: Having the expectation from one person, but then you not being able to deliver it. I think we all get caught in that. Let me ask you along those lines, what do you think is a biggest mistake, let’s do men first, what do you think is the biggest mistake men make in relationships?
Kacie: I think not sharing their feelings and I think there's a million reasons for that. One, they might not be in touch with them. Two, for whatever reason society has kind of created this allowance that women are the emotional ones and men aren’t, and I don't believe that. I think a lot of times they feel like they can't or they don't have to share their emotions, or even necessarily have emotions for that part, and they might think life is easier for them without all the emotions, but I would argue it's not as much fun or it's not as meaningful.
I think what I've seen, you know, the biggest mistake for men, is that they're not sharing their real, raw emotions. Maybe because they're not in touch with them or maybe because they're just choosing not to or are afraid to.
Dr. Kristie: Okay, so same question with women. What do you think the biggest mistake women make?
Kacie: We're just always trying to please everybody else. We can couch that in this like, “I'm very selfless,” like that's a good thing. Actually, I no longer think that’s a good thing because if you're not taking care of yourself first, then no one is getting the best version of you.
That's what you're trying to do, give yourself to others, the great noble thing, but you're not necessarily giving your best self to others, which would be the greatest thing to do and you can only do that when you take care of yourself first. That comes down to to all aspects of life. I think women, we focus too much on everybody else and not not enough on ourselves.
Dr. Kristie: Yeah, I completely agree with that and I'm thinking too because Lent’s coming up, right? What is it? March.. When’s Lent?
Kacie: I'm not sure. It changes every year. It’s sometime in March.
Dr. Kristie: I mean we're ahead of the game, but it's coming up soon. If there's somebody listening that said, “Hey, I want to give up something for Lent.” I know, as you said, it's a personal journey and figure out what you want to do, but once you give up something, a couple of days into it when you really want to go back to it, what is maybe a piece of advice to help motivate people to stay on that journey of abstinence or whatever?
Kacie: The reason I love the giving up something for Lent thing is because, it's what 40 something days, I learned it's actually more than 40 days because I guess Sundays don't count. There’s like 46 days or something, When I got to day like 40, I'm like, “Wait a minute..”
Dr. Kristie: “I thought I was done.”
Kacie: It’s 40 something days. You can do anything for 40 something days. I think too often were like, “Oh, I'm giving this up,” and we put that in this concept of totality and that's not it. That's why even in some form of meditation they recommend that you put a timer because that creates this safe space for you mentally be like, “Okay, I'm just going to sit here for 15 minutes. And that's it. I can't sit here for too long. The dinger will go off in 15 minutes.” It's kind of the same concept. It’s just 40 however many days.
If you just remind yourself that, “I'm not giving this up forever. It's just until Easter and I can do that,” because you can. You can do anything for a short period of time.
Dr. Kristie: There you go. There's inspiration for whatever anybody wants to give up and there's that start and end time. Having that end time for really important.
Kacie: Yes.
Dr. Kristie: You got to know what you're working towards.
Kacie: Yep.
Dr. Kristie: So, what do you want people to take away from the book? When they read this, what is the biggest takeaway you want them to know?
Kacie: My real hope for the book is that some question I ask myself along the way, and I think I asked myself a million questions in that book, that it sparks in them what was sparked in me. And that is this, “Okay, am I really happy and I mean really happy and am I living my life?” Just because you have a quote-unquote great life, doesn't mean you necessarily feel completely fulfilled in it, and that's okay.
And if you don't, what are ways that you want to change it? It looks different for everybody and I don't necessarily have all the answers, but I do believe that we have all the answers for ourselves. We just have to go a little bit inward and be honest with ourselves. My hope is that my book just sparks that journey for people.
Dr. Kristie: Love it. Absolutely. Well, it definitely does. So tell us where we can find the book. Where can they go to get their copy of the ebook or the print book?
Kacie: Right now on Amazon. As of today, the e-book is is up there. The audio should go live any minute now. I guess Audibles a little bit behind, but by the time this airs, I think that all the versions should be up on Amazon.
Dr. Kristie: Great. Well, we'll make sure we add it so that folks can find it. Highly recommended it. I can't wait to check out the Audible edition too, that'll be awesome.
And also, you've got a great blog with that Real Talk. I was checking out some of that and I love your quotes and the motivation behind that.
Kacie: Thank you.
Dr. Kristie: I really appreciate you being here on the show today and sharing your journey that I think so many individuals go through and your raw and honesty. Is there anything in closing that you want folks to know?
Kacie: I would just say to be patient with yourself. I can be a very competitive and driven person, which in a lot of ways is a good thing, but what I found when it comes to the big changes in your life and the and the growth, you have to find this happy balance between accepting and being happy with where you currently are, yet also wanting to make whatever changes you need to make. That's not an easy balance to find and it all comes down to being patient with yourself, which is also just being kinder to yourself and just recognizing it's a journey that never ends. So, just enjoy it.
Dr. Kristie: Very good. I'll take that to heart too. I could definitely work on my patience. Alright, well Kacie thank you so much for being here on your launch day. Congratulations on the book. Everybody is going to love reading this and learn a lot about it. So, hopefully we'll get to talk again soon.
Kacie: Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much.
Dr. Kristie: All right. Thanks.
Tip of the Day
I hope you learned a lot from listening to Kacie’s journey of how she was able to connect with others after looking at her own behaviors and actions.
So, the Tip of the Day is to do whatever you need to do to take care of yourself first. If you don’t, you can continue to take care of those around you.
Homework
So that’s the homework for this week. Remember, that you are enough and as you feel more empowered every day, you are one step closer to creating the life you deserve.
Thanks for listening to my show. Your support means the world to me. Remember, you can always be a guest on this show to get your questions answered or you can email me your questions on my website. If you enjoyed the show, please consider giving it a review on iTunes and downloading all of the episodes. You can access all of the information I discussed today in the show notes at KristieOverstreet.com/podcast.
Until next time...
This is a line from my guest on today’s show Kacie Main, author of a new book, I Gave Up Men for Lent. We discuss why you can still feel unhappy when everything looks great on paper, but you still feel lost and she gives great advice on how she was able to look in the mirror and find her sense of herself, versus blaming other people. So, stick around so you can learn how to go deep within to find who you really are, take accountability, and action so you can get the relationships you’re looking for.
Hey y’all and welcome to the Fix Yourself First with Dr. Kristie podcast. This is a show for people who are tired of waiting on others to change and ready to focus on themselves in order to improve their relationships.
I’ve learned from my personal and professional life as a psychotherapist and relationship expert that the only way to have a healthy relationship was when I realized I had to fix myself first, versus waiting on others to change.
Thank you for listening to my show. Go ahead and hit subscribe so you don’t miss any future ones.
Now, let’s get started.
Dr. Kristie: Welcome Kacie! I'm thrilled to have you on here for the first guest on the Fix Yourself First with Dr. Kristie podcast. Welcome.
Kacie: Thank you so much! I'm very excited to be the first guest.
Dr. Kristie: I know, isn’t it great to have you today and I want to talk about your experience, your journey, and your whole path of writing your book, I Gave Up Men for Lent, a story of a jaded, hopelessly romantic, health-conscious party girl’s search for meaning. That is a mouthful and it says so much.
Kacie: Yep.
Dr. Kristie: And today's launch day, right?
Kacie: It is yes. Yes, today is the day. It's been exciting and a little hectic. You know, I'm just, I'm new at all of this. I don't really know what I'm doing. So, the the e-book is up. I'm waiting for the the print and the audio to go up, but you know, I'm just trying to stay calm throughout all of it.
Dr. Kristie: Well the fact that you took the time out of your day today, on such a monumental day for you and your book, I really appreciate it and I know my listeners appreciated it as well; you sharing your story. So, why don't we start out by, tell me a little bit about you know your background. I've read your book. I've learned a bit about you. Tell me a little bit about why now, what led you to write this book?
Kacie: Oh, it's so funny. I'd love to have probably a better answer, but the truth is this book really kind of jumped out of me. It was in 2017. And I just, I don't know, I got to this point where I just felt really like, “blah” is the best word to describe it, and I guess, you know a more formal word would be apathetic, but I didn't even really realize it at the time. I felt disconnected and just not energized by life, which really confused me because I had a great life. You know, I have a wonderful family. I had a wonderful childhood. I don't have any traumas to speak of so to say, you know, and I had a good job and a cute apartment and so everything, you know on paper in my life was great, except the fact that I was single and I was 32 at the time.
That's really where I focus a lot of the negative energy. I just thought, you know, I can't get this whole relationship thing right. Like, I'm just I'm messing up and all the relationships, I'm choosing all the wrong men and it was all this this negativity. And so that's why I decided to give up men for Lent, almost as a kind of a trivial joke decision at the time. I just wanted a break from everything.
One night, I came across these old poems that I had written 10 years earlier and they described a lot of the same feelings that I was feeling and it was it was a very emotional experience for me. That was like, “Oh my gosh,” like, here's these things I wrote 10 years ago. I did nothing about it, other than scribble them on some paper and then continued living life how I was living in, and now ten years later shockingly, I feel the same way.
And so I just had this urge, like I need to write down what just happened. I got my computer out and I journaled and I've never even been a journaler, but I journaled what I just went through in finding the writings. And the next day, I had more thoughts and so I wrote those down and and I just decided I was like, I'm going to journal every day through Lent. It was probably a couple weeks into it that I realized it could be my book, but it wasn't so much that I sat down like, “I'm going to write a book.” I tried to do that before, but I didn't really know what I wanted to say. This time, it was more I still didn't know what I wanted to say, but it was more just documenting how I was feeling.
Dr. Kristie: Well, I think that’s your truth and that's what's so important, regardless of what comes out. You captured that real time and it takes a lot of guts and a lot of courage to do that. So, during that experience when you were looking back at journals from 10 years ago, and like you said, you had what should be, “the right life.” You were checking all the boxes, but something just didn't feel enough for you or it didn't feel like it was fulfilling enough for you. So you honor that truth. And I think that's why you embody this fix yourself first mentality so much.
Just to be honest, my best friend Lisa, when she introduced me to you and she's like, “You have got to meet this girl! She is amazing! She's a great writer!” I had a bit of a misconception at first, you know, I Gave Up Men For Lent, I automatically had this thought, “I wonder if she’s bashing men? She's saying all men are bad.” This misconception happened and then I looked at it, I looked at your subtitle and started getting into it and was like, “Oh my gosh!” This is what she's doing. She's focusing on herself. So, how did that journey go for you? Because I even think in the book you talk about, “I’m not the victim, I've been my own villain.” And that's a great realization.
Kacie: It was a huge realization. There were several big realizations that happened throughout the book, one being that I was never the victim in my relationships and I played that a lot. Like, oh you know, this boyfriend didn't choose me. He chose this other girl over me or he didn't pursue me. When I really sat and looked back through all those relationships, and especially I think to the point of writing them down for someone else to be able to read it, I then saw the part that I played, and the role that I played for more like an outsider's perspective. I realized, NO, I made a lot of choices in all those relationships that led to their demise and they all ended for various reasons. But, I was not the victim and so that was that was definitely a big realization
Then to piggyback off that, I always kind of played this, “Oh they weren’t choosing me,” but the realization I had in the book was that I wasn't choosing me. I wasn't choosing to be the person I wanted to be and to live the life I really wanted to live. That's because I just cared so much about what other people thought, from just kind of the mainstream norm of what’s cool, to expectations set from my family and my friends.
And that's where it got difficult because it's not a bad thing to care what your family and friends think, I mean those are the people that love you and know you, but if it's not in line with what you want for your life and you don't recognize that and honor that and kind of honor your own voice, then I think you can get to this point where I got where you're just like off track from where you want to be. Those are kind of my two big things that ultimately, I wasn't choosing me. Then, by default, no men were.
Dr. Kristie: Right, you looked at yourself in that way. I think so many people, not just women, but men struggle with that as well. It can go into that self deprivation, such as: “What's wrong with me? I'm not worthy. I'm not enough. Why didn't she choose me? Why didn't he choose me?” It can lead to some intense emotional feelings behind that. What advice would you give someone listening to this or reading your book? What would you tell them to listen to, to kind of take that journey that you did and to be brave enough to do that?
Kacie: I think the first thing is just even the act of listening to yourself in general, and in these days especially. That's just not easy to do. There are just so many distractions and that's what I ultimately did in the book. I gave up men was my first idea, but I didn't want to be that jaded girl that gave up men. So, I added in other things and this was really all just kind of an on-the-whim decision. I also gave up social media just because you know, it can make you feel bad about yourself sometimes. I gave up sweets and hard liquor because I'm a little bit of a vodka girl. What I realized was those are all just distractions.
Like you go out drinking or you're flipping through Facebook or Instagram, after eliminating all those I didn't have all these external things to focus on, I instead went internal. I think that’s step one. Intentionally take some time, and not everybody needs to give up a whole plethora of things for a month or whatever, but more find some time during the day, during the week, to just get quiet with yourself and get honest with yourself.
I think it starts really with baby steps. I would walk on the beach a lot and I would practice. Okay, “How do I hear my own inner voice? And how do I listen to that?” I would start with really trivial things. I'd have this idea, bend down and look at that shell, rather than just keep walking. Oh, you know, put a foot in the water and I would do that. I just tried to hear that voice in small ways at first.
Dr. Kristie: I like that you do that. You’re very intentional because our heads are spinning all the time and when you say, stop and look at that shell or put my foot in the water, you're doing it and connecting your body and your mind at the same time. And that’s really hard to do.
We don't get a lot of luxury to do that. You do that with a lot of intention and I'm wondering along that path, did you find that you were more grateful? And I say that because for me when I stopped, like okay, “Wow, this stuff around me is really amazing.” Were you able to connect with any gratitude in that way with the journey?
Kacie: I think I definitely was. It was slow at first and this is what I've realized,things start to happen very subtly at first, change can happen very slowly at first, and then you reach a point where you you kind of see all the change looking back on it. I don't know that I recognized the gratitude I was I was kind of tapping into at the time, but I've since realized it because now I hear that inner voice more. I do honor it more. Then, even little things, like I’ll walk outside and if the moon is out really bright, I'll just be like, “Oh my God, that's beautiful,” little things like that. That was not me three years ago, five years ago. I’d walk outside and be like whatever, but I'll catch myself in these like moments of awe that I never experienced before. I definitely attribute to that to being more intentional in paying attention to your surroundings and paying attention to yourself. Then, when you do that, you find a lot more beauty in the world, and in yourself for that matter.
Dr. Kristie: Absolutely. Absolutely. Let's talk a little bit about some of the book and the ideas that you had behind the experience. You shared a lot about dating and I know you’re protecting names and changing the names, but I'm wondering what did you learn about yourself in the dating world, going through this deprivation and internal Journey? What did you figure out, “Hey, you know, this is what I didn't realize about myself before when it came to dating.”
Kacie: I figured out one of my big patterns. I think we all have patterns. In the book I call it dicksand, and that’s from the movie, How to Be Single. It’s a play on quicksand, but I would just fall into a relationship and really lose who I was in an attempt to just be who they wanted me to be. I would also not ever really stop and think, “Do I want to be with this person or does it just feel good to be wanted by this person?”
It's like I would go where I was wanted, without stopping and thinking, “Is this really what I want?” Then, I would I would lose myself in that situation, that maybe I didn't even really want to be in in the first place. A lot of it for me was the pressure to be in a relationship and to find a husband. Now, I'm 34 years old and I'm still not married, but now I'm very comfortable with that.
Whereas, as I started to reach late 20s, early 30s, that pressure started to really..I felt it. Then, it was almost any man that I walked by, it would be like, “Oh, could he be the one? Like, is he the one?” Then, if there was interest, I immediately went down that road. I just never questioned anything and I lost myself in a lot of it.
Dr. Kristie: I know you brought up, “Is he the one?” because I think one of the things a lot of people think is that there is this one person out there. What do you think about that? Do you think you have that one person, that one soul mate, that you look for. What is your take on that through your experience?
Kacie: Why, I've gone back and forth with this. For a long time, my answer to this question would be that I think that there's several, and I don't even know how many I mean by several, but several people on this planet that you could live happily ever after with. Statistically speaking, it just makes sense.
I do think that there's probably one person out there that you would be the most happiest with. You could call that person your soulmate. But, if you never meet them, you wouldn't necessarily know that you're not as happy as you could be because you wouldn't have that reference point or comparison.
At this point in time in my life, I still generally believe that, but I also believe it really does come down to timing, in terms of yourself as well. I think that were only able to love to the point that we understand what love is.
If you can get really self-reflective, and be really honest with yourself, and fix yourself first, and being a good wholesome loving place with yourself, you're going to be able to love that much greater and that much deeper. That's going to make the relationship that you're in that much better. I really don't know that it ever has to do with the other person, so much as it always has to do with ourselves.
Dr. Kristie: Yeah, I completely agree with that. I know with my experience and you may have had the same thing, what I wanted in a relationship, what I was looking for my 20s and late 20s, that changed even for me. I'm older than you, but we change and as we get older what I want and need changes. When you look back at some of those relationships, even a longer-term relationship years ago, there's no way I would be with that person to realize it and it's because of me and how I was being. It wasn't them.
Kacie: Exactly. exactly.
Dr. Kristie: That's a hard dose of medicine to take. To say, “I was the one hurting people,” or “I was the one not doing the right thing because I wasn't speaking my truth or realizing who I was or taking that time to be intentional.” Has that been a similar experience for you?
Kacie: Yeah, it absolutely was. It's funny when I when I reflect back on some of my relationships and when I was in them at the time I was, and it might have been partly stubborn, like, no this is going to work. Now, I'm like, “Oh, if I had stayed with that person it would not have worked because I wasn't being true to me.” I would have reached this point, that I went through two years ago, eventually.
I really strongly believe that. I would have gone down this journey at some point in time. Maybe, it would have been later in life. I think that happens to a lot of people, but for me, all those relationships failing is what really catapulted my self-reflection journey. I think I would have gone through it regardless.
If I had stayed in any of those relationships that I was in before, I think we would have reached a really tough point because I would have all the sudden started to become a person that was different than the person they fell in love with and signed up to be with.
That’s why I think it is so important to figure out who you are because that's going to make yourself more authentic, but your relationship more authentic too. The more authentic your relationship and that bond and that love is, the better the chances are that it will be able to last forever.
Dr. Kristie: Can you share a couple of tips or, maybe even homework assignments you could give us to look at how you figuring out who you are and how writing and journaling has been really good for you.
I know that is something I recommend. I mean, I do it personally. It's really helpful for me. And I know it's kind of a similar journey. You've been writing since you were really little in the sense of just writing things. So, what would you say is a couple of tips when people are like, “Hey, I want to go through that journey. I want to figure out who I am.” What would you say is something somebody could do?
Kacie: I would absolutely recommend journaling. And journaling in kind of a free-form type way. I do it on the computer because I can type much faster than I can write, but some people may want to write and that’s fine. Do not worry about it being sentences. Do not worry about it being complete thoughts. You have to try and get into this mental space of I'm just going to say or write down anything that's going through my mind.
I think there's so much therapy in that because our thoughts move around so quickly in our head. It's almost like a ball of twine. They're just everywhere. To get them out on paper, even in that mess form, and then to go back through and read it and try and maybe clean it up into more sentences. That's where the therapy is. It's like seeing your thoughts and then trying to put them in a more linear, complete sense. It helps connect a lot of dots.
The second thing I would say, especially in this day and age, is take some time to unplug. Completely unplug and be by yourself. I have a goal this year in 2019 to do one weekend a month where I'm completely unplugged. I had my first one in January. I haven't done February yet. I just found a cheap little cabin on Airbnb and I went and I just turned off phone. I brought books. I brought a journal if I wanted the journal. I just was completely alone and I didn't talk to anybody. I was not connected on any level for a weekend. It was amazing.
It was hard at first because I'm like, “Oh my gosh, am I going to get bored?” But, ultimately it was great. So, I took a whole weekend and that's a little extreme. If they're not already in a self-reflective phase of life, that might be a little much. But, take 20 minutes, take an hour, at the end of the day, at the beginning of the day and do not have your phone. Do not talk to anybody and just sit and think. That's actually really hard for a lot of people do. You don't even have to meditate. You know, a lot of people say, “Oh, I'm trying to meditate, but I'm really terrible at meditating.” But, meditating, being by yourself, any of it, it's a practice and it's like a muscle you have to work out. If you can just do it for 15 minutes and then 30 minutes, it'll get easier.
I think we don't spend enough just quiet time alone. And if you're not doing that, you're never going to hear your own inner voice. So, carve out some of time and that would be a great time to journal also. Those would be definitely my two biggest pieces of advice.
Dr. Kristie: Those are great and it can be really hard. I even find if I'm waiting for a friend to meet up somewhere and I've got some down time, I'm checking something. I'm looking at emails versus even just sitting with myself. We are so attached and I could see where that would be a good reflection.
Okay, I have to ask, are your Lloyd's, Arlo’s, Shane's, are any of these guys that you've had through your journey, has anyone reached out and said, “Is that me? Is that one me because I feel that's why.” I have to know.
Kacie: There's one of them who knew I was writing the book and so he actually picked his own name. So, he's aware of it. The other three, I don't know. I have not heard from them. It’ll be interesting to see if I do. I don't know if they're aware of the book. We're not in contact anymore at all. We'll see.
Dr. Kristie: Let me tell you. Those that are not aware or that you've lost contact with for probably good reason, they will find you and you might not even know how they find you, but they'll follow you. I promise you it will happen. It's a really interesting thing. So, I had to ask that.
What about your family when they saw you doing this, when they see the book because you're so raw and honest and that's what I really love about this because you don't hold back and you put all the BS aside and just get real. How did your family take that? Especially, you know, knowing all the details?
Kacie: So, my mother read it first and it was a very emotional read from her. It was very difficult. My sister read it second and it was very difficult for her as well. I think, for the most part it was it was hard just to relive those time periods of my life that have really kind of torn us apart in a way. Not that we ever weren't speaking or anything, but we just weren't as close. So, it was hard for them for sure.
Ultimately, it ended up being a good thing because it then sparked better conversation between us about that time. I take a lot of the ownership of that because writing is clearly my preferred way to communicate some of my deepest thoughts. Throughout all those years and even still when they try and talk to me about serious or deeper topics or sensitive ones, I can get a little flustered and then, I can't always think straight or articulate what I'm trying to say and that's why I like writing as my outlet.
Being able to get what I thought out and how I felt in the book, just kind of like as a baseline of, “Okay, here's everything I think about.” It just helped us then have have better conversations about it. And I think it helps them understand me more.
My dad, god I love my dad. This is a book no father would necessarily want to read, but he was great. I mean he really was just very proud of me. I know there's stuff in there he would prefer to not know, but I think he's just too proud and excited right now to really focus on that stuff at all.
Dr. Kristie: So you doing this, you being honest, you being raw, you’ve given this gift to yourself with honor in that, as well as to the world, as actually connecting you in a different kind of way than with your family, than it would have before. So, you taking this risk of being honest improves your relationships.
Kacie: Yes, it really is. On my blog, I've named Real Talk and I talk a lot about real talk and I think there was this absence of it, even though I was very close. I've always been very close with my family and my friends, and this is where again I take ownership of it. I wasn't always being completely honest with how I felt about things. The book was step one of you know what, I'm done not saying things. I'm done suppressing feelings and I'm just going to put it all out there. Even while I was writing it, I would find myself thinking, “Oh, you can't,” or “Don't say that,” like that's gonna upset somebody. Then, I would stop myself and be like, “No.”
We just filter so much and part of it is we don't want to offend people or upset people and that's understandable, but a big part of it is we're afraid of how we're going to come across to other people. So, we're not being real and if you're not being real, you can't have real connection.
I think I just got to this point where, and the further along I go, it's just like, “I'm just gonna be real.” I was nervous about it, but it absolutely has improved all of my relationships. And some of the initial conversations were uncomfortable, but once you get over that hump, it's just like, “Okay, I don't have to put on any kind of face anymore.”
Dr. Kristie: Right. You get to drop your mask. No more sugar coating. It’s just what it is.
Kacie: Yes.
Dr. Kristie: Once that initial gates pass where you can do that, it really opens so much up. So, that makes sense.
Kacie: Right. It's funny because we want that from other people. We want other people to be honest with us and tell us how they feel. That was a huge theme and one of my relationships in the book with Shane was that I just I wanted to know how he felt, but I wasn't always saying how I felt. So again, it really does always come back to fixing yourself first and being honest with yourself.
For the most part, changes you want to see in other people, I found, are really the changes you need to make in yourself. If you can look at what are my issues in my relationships and then turn that to yourself, that's the work you need to do.
Dr. Kristie: That would be a great homework assignment for listeners. Look at those things that you don't like in your relationship and put as a mirror in front of you and ask yourself, “Am I changing these things for myself?” I need to do this if I'm going to expect somebody else to because it comes to expectations, right?
Kacie: Yep. Yep.
Dr. Kristie: Having the expectation from one person, but then you not being able to deliver it. I think we all get caught in that. Let me ask you along those lines, what do you think is a biggest mistake, let’s do men first, what do you think is the biggest mistake men make in relationships?
Kacie: I think not sharing their feelings and I think there's a million reasons for that. One, they might not be in touch with them. Two, for whatever reason society has kind of created this allowance that women are the emotional ones and men aren’t, and I don't believe that. I think a lot of times they feel like they can't or they don't have to share their emotions, or even necessarily have emotions for that part, and they might think life is easier for them without all the emotions, but I would argue it's not as much fun or it's not as meaningful.
I think what I've seen, you know, the biggest mistake for men, is that they're not sharing their real, raw emotions. Maybe because they're not in touch with them or maybe because they're just choosing not to or are afraid to.
Dr. Kristie: Okay, so same question with women. What do you think the biggest mistake women make?
Kacie: We're just always trying to please everybody else. We can couch that in this like, “I'm very selfless,” like that's a good thing. Actually, I no longer think that’s a good thing because if you're not taking care of yourself first, then no one is getting the best version of you.
That's what you're trying to do, give yourself to others, the great noble thing, but you're not necessarily giving your best self to others, which would be the greatest thing to do and you can only do that when you take care of yourself first. That comes down to to all aspects of life. I think women, we focus too much on everybody else and not not enough on ourselves.
Dr. Kristie: Yeah, I completely agree with that and I'm thinking too because Lent’s coming up, right? What is it? March.. When’s Lent?
Kacie: I'm not sure. It changes every year. It’s sometime in March.
Dr. Kristie: I mean we're ahead of the game, but it's coming up soon. If there's somebody listening that said, “Hey, I want to give up something for Lent.” I know, as you said, it's a personal journey and figure out what you want to do, but once you give up something, a couple of days into it when you really want to go back to it, what is maybe a piece of advice to help motivate people to stay on that journey of abstinence or whatever?
Kacie: The reason I love the giving up something for Lent thing is because, it's what 40 something days, I learned it's actually more than 40 days because I guess Sundays don't count. There’s like 46 days or something, When I got to day like 40, I'm like, “Wait a minute..”
Dr. Kristie: “I thought I was done.”
Kacie: It’s 40 something days. You can do anything for 40 something days. I think too often were like, “Oh, I'm giving this up,” and we put that in this concept of totality and that's not it. That's why even in some form of meditation they recommend that you put a timer because that creates this safe space for you mentally be like, “Okay, I'm just going to sit here for 15 minutes. And that's it. I can't sit here for too long. The dinger will go off in 15 minutes.” It's kind of the same concept. It’s just 40 however many days.
If you just remind yourself that, “I'm not giving this up forever. It's just until Easter and I can do that,” because you can. You can do anything for a short period of time.
Dr. Kristie: There you go. There's inspiration for whatever anybody wants to give up and there's that start and end time. Having that end time for really important.
Kacie: Yes.
Dr. Kristie: You got to know what you're working towards.
Kacie: Yep.
Dr. Kristie: So, what do you want people to take away from the book? When they read this, what is the biggest takeaway you want them to know?
Kacie: My real hope for the book is that some question I ask myself along the way, and I think I asked myself a million questions in that book, that it sparks in them what was sparked in me. And that is this, “Okay, am I really happy and I mean really happy and am I living my life?” Just because you have a quote-unquote great life, doesn't mean you necessarily feel completely fulfilled in it, and that's okay.
And if you don't, what are ways that you want to change it? It looks different for everybody and I don't necessarily have all the answers, but I do believe that we have all the answers for ourselves. We just have to go a little bit inward and be honest with ourselves. My hope is that my book just sparks that journey for people.
Dr. Kristie: Love it. Absolutely. Well, it definitely does. So tell us where we can find the book. Where can they go to get their copy of the ebook or the print book?
Kacie: Right now on Amazon. As of today, the e-book is is up there. The audio should go live any minute now. I guess Audibles a little bit behind, but by the time this airs, I think that all the versions should be up on Amazon.
Dr. Kristie: Great. Well, we'll make sure we add it so that folks can find it. Highly recommended it. I can't wait to check out the Audible edition too, that'll be awesome.
And also, you've got a great blog with that Real Talk. I was checking out some of that and I love your quotes and the motivation behind that.
Kacie: Thank you.
Dr. Kristie: I really appreciate you being here on the show today and sharing your journey that I think so many individuals go through and your raw and honesty. Is there anything in closing that you want folks to know?
Kacie: I would just say to be patient with yourself. I can be a very competitive and driven person, which in a lot of ways is a good thing, but what I found when it comes to the big changes in your life and the and the growth, you have to find this happy balance between accepting and being happy with where you currently are, yet also wanting to make whatever changes you need to make. That's not an easy balance to find and it all comes down to being patient with yourself, which is also just being kinder to yourself and just recognizing it's a journey that never ends. So, just enjoy it.
Dr. Kristie: Very good. I'll take that to heart too. I could definitely work on my patience. Alright, well Kacie thank you so much for being here on your launch day. Congratulations on the book. Everybody is going to love reading this and learn a lot about it. So, hopefully we'll get to talk again soon.
Kacie: Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much.
Dr. Kristie: All right. Thanks.
Tip of the Day
I hope you learned a lot from listening to Kacie’s journey of how she was able to connect with others after looking at her own behaviors and actions.
So, the Tip of the Day is to do whatever you need to do to take care of yourself first. If you don’t, you can continue to take care of those around you.
Homework
- Is there something you want or need to give up? Maybe it’s a behavior, person, a commitment, a relationship, friendship, vice. If so, what is it?
- Set a start date and an end date for it, similar to what Kacie did. If you are giving up an unhealthy friendship or relationship, you just need a start date.
- Now, write out your plan of how you will do it AND what tools you will use when you start craving the thing you gave up. Just like Kacie talked about, those first few days will be the hardest. What support will you rely on?
So that’s the homework for this week. Remember, that you are enough and as you feel more empowered every day, you are one step closer to creating the life you deserve.
Thanks for listening to my show. Your support means the world to me. Remember, you can always be a guest on this show to get your questions answered or you can email me your questions on my website. If you enjoyed the show, please consider giving it a review on iTunes and downloading all of the episodes. You can access all of the information I discussed today in the show notes at KristieOverstreet.com/podcast.
Until next time...
Disclaimer: The Fix Yourself First with Dr. Kristie podcast represents the opinions of Dr. Kristie Overstreet and her guests to the show. The content here should not be taken as behavioral health or medical advice. The content here is for informational and educational purposes only. Statements made on this podcast and information presented on this site are not intended to diagnose, cure, treat or prevent any behavioral health or medical issues. Please consult your healthcare professional for any questions.
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