Ep 57. Live a Healthy, Strong, Vibrant Life

I am Kym Showers, and this is Reinvented After 40, episode number 57: Live a Healthy, Strong, Vibrant Life.

Hey, friends. Welcome to Reinvented After 40, a podcast for all you women in the second half of life who are ready to take responsibility for your own wellbeing and create a life you love living.

I’m your host, Kym Showers, and after spending the first 40 years of my life people-pleasing and following all the rules, I was exhausted and ready for a change. I reinvented myself. I stopped outsourcing my happiness. And I’ve been brave enough to live a different kind of life.

I’ll be here each week to help you do the same thing. It’s gonna be fun. Let’s go.

Hello, my friends, welcome back to the show. Happy autumn time, happy fall. If you’re like me, oh my gosh, I have been burning my favorite fall candle and it just gives me a certain kind of feeling. It’s just like all holidays all the time over here. That’s my favorite. I hung some of my party lights outside which makes me so happy. And then I have these twinkle lit white trees that I’m going to pull out of storage and put them up. And just let all the holiday feelings fill my house.

The magic is here, and I can’t stand it. It makes me feel so good. So, today I’m talking about you and me living a healthy, strong, vibrant life all of the time. It is so available to us, and I am an example of it. I would call my life healthy, strong, and vibrant. It’s exactly my intention. It’s exactly what I’ve created. It’s exactly the kind of life that I want to live. And it’s the life that I want you to live too. And I know if you’re following along with me you’re wanting this for yourself.

So, before I get into that I want to tell you a couple of really fun things. So, I have 40 reviews on my Apple podcast review page. So, 40 beautiful, kind, generous reviews of how all this podcast has inspired you, encouraged you, helped you to live a little bit better life every single day. And then I have something like 80 something, 87 or something like that, five stars. So those are two totally different things. There is a rating which is the stars, which I would love you to give me five stars.

And there is a review. And the review is a couple of sentences of how this podcast has helped you, or why you listen, or why you love it. So, both very positive and extremely helpful for me. I want so many more women to find this podcast and this is the way that it happens is by you following it, first of all, and then rating it, which is the five stars. And then reviewing it which is the kind words that would help other women be motivated to listen to it. So, this is what I decided to do.

I got the latest AirPods, I think they’re called 2nd Generation. They’re so spectacular. I use my AirPods every single day and I don’t even have these latest ones, but I have them for you. So, what I would love to do is to give them away to you. And the way that you can enter and win this little AirPod contest is for you to go to Apple Reviews, I think they only let you do it one time. So, if you’ve already given me a generous rating and review, I love, love, love you, and thank you, thank you, thank you.

But if you haven’t given me a rating and review, you can enter this contest by doing that. So, scroll down when you’re listening on Apple iTunes, on that little purple app. You scroll down on my page to the bottom of the page, and it gives you a place to put five stars. And you actually hit the fifth star. If you hit the first star it’ll only give me one star and you don’t get a chance to redo it. So hit the fifth star.

And then go to the little box and give me a review, the reason why you’re listening. And then that will automatically enter you into this contest that I am having to win a pair of these beautiful new AirPods. So, thank you for doing that and do that today. Let’s get this thing on the road and put your name in the hat, cross my fingers that you win the AirPods. And I’ll contact you and let you know and get them in the mail to you.

The second thing I want to tell you is if you are not living a healthy, strong, vibrant life and you would like to live a healthy, strong, vibrant life, my next coaching group start on Tuesday, November 1st at nine o’clock in the morning. We will meet every Tuesday at nine o’clock in the morning for one hour for the next six months. And you will absolutely change your life. There are four women in my little power groups. I have two spots left and I would love for you to take one of the spots. All you need to do is go to my website, kymshowerslifecoach.com, hit Work With Me.

It’s called Reinvented After 40 group coaching. You hit that, purchase the package. I will send you my Reinvented After 40 workbook that is so useful, so helpful, lifechanging on its own when you do the work. I will get that in the mail to you the minute that you sign up. And then we will just get to work starting on Tuesday, November 1st at nine o’clock in the morning. We’ll meet every single Tuesday at nine o’clock. So those two things, enter to win the new AirPods. And sign up and get in my next coaching group and change your life forever. You’re worth it. And changing your life is so much fun.

Alright, so here we go, today, living a healthy, strong, vibrant life starts with your habits. So, what I want to tell you is I haven’t been sick, physically sick, not one cold, nothing in three whole years. Isn’t that kind of crazy? I just took note of that in the last few weeks. I was like, “Oh my gosh.” Well, okay. So, the last time I was sick was thanksgiving of 2019. So, I haven’t had one thing wrong with me since thanksgiving of 2019. That’s kind of crazy for a 61 year old woman.

So here is the reason why. I know how to manage my thoughts, so I have a healthy mental life. I know how to manage my emotions, so I have a healthy emotional life. And I take extremely good care of my body so that I have a healthy physical life. Those three things together have given me the outcome if not being sick in three full years, not a cold. And I used to get sinus infections all of the time, not one sinus infection in three years. Nothing.

I have lived for the last three years the healthiest, strongest, most vibrant life possible. And I want you to do the same thing. You have to look at your habits. Your habits create your days. Your days add up and become your life. So healthy habits give you a healthy, strong, vibrant life. You have to have healthy thought habits. You have to have healthy emotional habits. And you have to have healthy physical habits. So, I am all about the habits and you know this about me.

And maybe I sound like a broken record, but I don’t even care because I know how important it is. Listen, all my clients right now, I have been just kind of leaning in and pressing in on the fact, this is just a fact, if you get up every morning and you have an exercise that you go and do. You go and move your body and if you add resistance training to that cardio exercise, and you do that at least 30 minutes every morning you will absolutely create a healthy, strong, vibrant life.

Your days will change because your brain chemistry changes if you exercise every day, you start thinking more open creative, positive thoughts. It’s just the facts of life, so you have to know this. So, what you have to know with this is what you want, there’s your brain and then there’s you. What you want is not what your brain wants. Your brain does not want you to get up and exercise every morning. So, you just have to know that. It’s okay, your brain’s just doing its job. Your brain does not think exercise is important.

Your brain thinks it takes energy and your brain really would rather have you stay in bed. But you have to learn to manage your thoughts and overcome your brain so that you do what you said you’re going to do, not what your brain wants you to do. So, I am challenging you for the next 90 days to get up and exercise for at least 30 minutes, including cardio and resistance training, which means add some muscle building training in there, pushups, lifting weights, any kind of resistance training. So, consistency is the key to this. We have to do it consistently every single day.

I rarely take a break. I am the most consistent person I know when it comes to all the things that matter most to me. Part of that is managing my thoughts and knowing, and being the kind of woman who I can trust to do what she says she’s going to do. When I consistently I put my schedule on my little notepad at the end of every day for the following day, every detail that’s important to me then I know I’m going to do to set myself up to win, to live a healthy, strong, vibrant life each day, I put it on my notepad.

And I can tell you for sure, if I’m not home my husband, all he has to do is look at notepad to know exactly where I am. He knows if it’s my swim day, if I’m swimming, if I’m working out with my trainer at 6:30, if I’m taking five o’clock Orangetheory class in the morning or if I’m taking the 6:15. Even though I pretty much do the same things every week, you guys, I write it down every single day no matter what so that my brain knows for sure this is what we’re doing. It creates so much less resistance now.

My brain just doesn’t resist that much anymore because my brain is retrained to know this for sure is what we’re going to do. So, fighting against it is useless, it doesn’t matter, my brain cannot talk me out of it. This is just part of what we do, just like I get up in the morning and have coffee. I set my alarm before I go to bed every night. I get up when I say I’m going to get up. I do what I say I’m going to do. I’m the kind of woman who trusts herself. I take myself at my word.

I was telling my clients this week, it’s so fun to be around people and I am intentionally around people who I trust, and it hasn’t always been that way. So, I like to take people at their word and the people I take at their word are the people that I trust. And the people that I trust are honest, and clear, and forthright. And they’re not people pleasers, they’re not codependent, they’re not telling me what I want to hear. They’re telling me what the truth is which I so appreciate.

And I’ve become so much like that. I am just not a people pleaser anymore. I’m not going to tell people what they want to hear. I’m just going to be clear, direct, and forthright because I’m the kind of woman you can take at her word. And I’m the kind of woman that I can take at my word. I don’t secretly tell lies behind my own back. I do what I say I’m going to do. This is really important, for those of you who haven’t learned how to be honest with yourself I want you to start being really honest with yourself. If you’re not doing what you say you’re going to do, be aware of that and accept it, and be okay with it.

And then take that as your first step, I want to be the kind of woman who doesn’t lie to herself, and then doesn’t beat herself up afterwards for lying to herself. So, let’s just be clear, direct, and honest with ourselves first, and without being unkind, without being mean to ourselves and shaming ourselves. Just know that’s our brain’s kind of default is to go to self-doubt, and to go to shame, and to go to dang it, why am I not good enough, and why am I not the person that I want to be?

So those aren’t useful questions and all but just get way more curious about hey, this is what I want to work on now, what am I doing? Where am I now? And what is the thought that I can think? What is the feeling that will drive the action so I can take the action to become the kind of woman who trusts herself, who has her own back, who does what she says she’s going to do, who follows through on the habits that she’s set up for herself every single day?

So, if you want to be the kind of woman who lives a healthy, strong, vibrant life, mentally, emotionally, and physically every single day, you have to be honest with yourself first. And you’ve got to get up and exercise every morning no matter what, even if it’s just 15 minutes, I don’t even care. Move your body, break a sweat, and then get on with your day.

And pay attention to how much that consistency, getting up early in the morning and exercising, getting on your Peloton, going for a run, finding a pool, and swimming laps. Going to Orangetheory, going to yoga, going to Pilates, going to any kind of exercise class, going to cycling. Even if you have a home gym, oh my gosh, get up and get your body moving, and popping, and stretching. Do that every single day and watch what happens to your relationship with yourself mentally, emotionally, and physically.

It starts changing everything because I find most clarity when I’m exercising in the morning and then that opens up my entire day to where I am in a very high energy mode. And then what I want to tell you also is I have such a good balance. So don’t think I’m high energy all day every day because I’m not. So, this is what I wanted it to tell you too, it’s so funny, is that I’m very balanced, so I am really steady and good with my rest. I go to bed early every night, I get a really solid eight to nine hours sleep every night which is so important and so fun for me.

So, at the beginning, I don’t even know, I think it was the springtime, I was looking for a show to watch, a series that I had never watched before, that had a lot of episodes because you know what I love to do? After a very full healthy, strong, vibrant day, where I have just checked off all my to-do’s, I’ve been so productive, I love to get my pillow, and get my blanket that my friend gave me when I moved into this house, my cozy blanket. And I love to lay on my beautiful down filled white sofa, that I can see the ocean from. And I love to watch a show.

You know what that feels like to me? That just feels like full bliss to me, to look forward to that and to actually do that. It is so restful, completely restful. And I’ll watch three or four episodes of a show. So, you know what I committed to that I had never watched before? Gray’s Anatomy, you know why? Because I’d been hearing for so many years how good it is. If you’re a Gray’s Anatomy fan then you probably agree with me right now. But I had never watched it before d which it was so exciting to me because it has 18 seasons.

And you know what season I’m on right now? 18, I’m in the middle of the 18th season. I have been in Gray’s Anatomy land for a good portion of this year. And it has been so fun. I have loved every single episode. I feel like they’re all my friends and it has given me, like I love to have something to look forward to in the evenings when I’m not social. So, I do a couple of social things a week, but I don’t like doing social things more than that. I like to leave my early evenings to just be quiet and to watch my show. It is my choice.

I don’t really read books anymore. I used it do a ton of reading to fill those gaps but right now I just decided I’m going to watch this show. And I mean I’m basically a doctor now. So, if you need any medical advice I’m your girl. The reason I’m telling you this is that I get to create my days, and this feels like a real productive, healthy, restful balance for me to give me the exact healthy, strong, vibrant life that I’m always creating for myself. So, there’s no beating myself up for watching too much TV. I do not think that I do.

It’s actually my choice and it’s actually really good for me. So, I just want you to know, I think about myself, my productivity in a very useful way. And I want you to think about your life, yourself, your days, your productivity, and the things that you enjoy that bring you peace and rest in a very healthy way. You’re choosing it, so never beat yourself up for it. Beating ourselves up and being unkind to ourselves and our brain, not useful ever.

So just learning how to be kind, and generous, and positive to ourselves and our brain, learning how to genuinely be our number one advocate, our number one validator, our number one best, best, best friend is extremely useful in moving forward. That’s what we’re all about, our future, today and moving forward that’s what we’re thinking about. We do not spend very much time on the past intentionally because the past doesn’t get us where we want to go.

We’re always future focused, future oriented, future thinking, what am I doing today that gives me this healthy, strong, vibrant life? What are my habits? What are my thought habits? What are my emotional habits? What ae my physical habits that are going to get me the life I want, not only today but tomorrow, and next week, and next month, and next year? So, I just want you to know that anything you can imagine you can create for yourself, you just have to know where you are now, clean up your habits, clean up your thought habits, clean up the habits that you take every day.

If your mornings aren’t set up the night before, I want you to set up your mornings the night before. Our mornings for sure are what determine our success during the day. I like to think about it that way and that’s what motivates me every single day. And just know, you get to decide that. I am just here to give you ideas, but there is an infinite number of ways to live a healthy, strong, vibrant life. And you get to decide what that looks like, what makes you feel the best version of you, the most excited about getting up, the most connected to your best people, the most productive during the day.

That’s what we want and it’s all available to us. So do not let your brain talk you out of it. Do not listen to people who are critical about life, who help limit you in your possibilities. You might have people in your life who are a little critical of you when you’re living outside of their comfort zone. They want to keep you a little bit small and kind of pull you back into their area of comfort. But don’t listen to them, you get to decide what that is. You’ve got to stop people pleasing.

You’ve got to stop codependent relationships if you want to grow, if you want to live the life of your dreams, the life that you know is possible for you, your healthiest, your strongest, your most vibrant life. It is available to you my friend, right here, right now this day. So yay, I love you so much for showing up. Please share this episode with your family and friends, anybody that you know would benefit from this, which is every woman on the planet. We’ve got to know what’s possible for us in the second half of life.

And what I know for sure now at 61 years old is the second half of life is even more fun, more exciting, more alive, more filled with possibilities, more sure, more peace filled. And I want you to know that I worry so much less and have so much less anxiety in the second half of life because of the way that I choose to manage my thoughts and my emotions every single day. And I want the same thing for you. Alright, so don’t forget about signing up for my next group, that starts November 1st, check that out on my website. DM me if you have questions.

And then don’t forget about rating and reviewing this podcast and entering my contest to win these new beautiful AirPods just in time to listen to the rest of my podcast for the rest of the year. Alright, I love you, and I will see you next Thursday.

Thanks for listening to Reinvented After 40. If you want more information or resources from the podcast, please visit KymShowersLifeCoach.com.