Dear Lovely Universe

This week on Dear Lovely Universe is a really awesome interview with our Ericka Thomas from the Work IN podcast! In this episode, we discuss shaking off stress, tension, and anxiety with trauma release and yoga.  

Ericka Thomas is a certified trauma release exercise provider, 200 RYT with an emphasis on trauma-informed yoga, Health coach, and nutrition specialist. She is the owner and founder of Elemental Kinetics, an online studio that fuses trauma release exercise, functional fitness, and the principles of yoga to literally shake off the effects of stress for long-lasting resilience.  

Ericka offers courses, private sessions, and corporate programming and is the host of The Work IN podcast to bring new perspectives on wellness and find natural ways to move out of stress, tension, and anxiety. Ericka has 23+ years of experience in the fitness industry from independent contractor to entrepreneur and can speak to the shifting, changing wellness landscape from real world to virtual world, scaling from hobby to career, and surviving and thriving beyond the burnout of perfectionism.  

Stress injury is a growing epidemic that goes far beyond the trauma of war. She deeply believes in the healing power of the human nervous system and that we, as providers, have a responsibility to educate our clients and include nervous system care within fitness and wellness practices.

Thank you so much for tuning into this episode today! I hope you learned something new and are able to use the information discussed to bring about positive changes in your life if that is what you desire.

You may find and connect with Ericka at elementalkinetics.com/inquiry, elementalkinetics.com/freeresources, and elementalkinetics.com/services.

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with someone who might also appreciate this content. It is the only way that this podcast grows as I do not buy ads or promotions. Plus, when someone likes something, it would make sense to support their mission. So, if you receive value from Dear Lovely Universe I request that you please share it with your friends and family, join my incredible community on Instagram @dearlovelyuniverse, and if you’re on Apple Podcasts, I would really appreciate a review and rating.  

Next week’s Friday episode is an interview with Darcy Luoma,  Darcy Luoma is a Master Certified Coach, dynamic facilitator, and inspiring motivational speaker. She has worked as Director for a U.S. Senator, Deputy Transition Director for a Governor, and on the national advance team for two U.S. presidential campaigns. As the owner and CEO of Darcy Luoma Coaching & Consulting, LLC, she’s worked in 48 industries with 210 organizations and more than 500 individual clients to create high-performing people and teams. The media has named Darcy the region’s favorite executive-and-life coach four times. Darcy balances her thriving business with raising her two energetic teenage daughters, adventure travel, and competing in triathlons.

As always, thank you so much again for tuning in and supporting the show. I want to acknowledge how truly incredible my community is! Have a wonderful rest of your day and talk to you soon!

Self-love tip: Contemplate how you will not only celebrate wins but also celebrate all of the steps you are taking every day to get closer to our wins! Sometimes our minds can get wrapped up in a distant future, thinking about how great it would be if only we had this thing that we want so badly. When we do that, we are really pulling ourselves away from the present moment and the groundedness that will eventually take us to that place. Come back to the present moment. Celebrate the progress that you are making. 

Sometimes we can put so much pressure on ourselves for everything that we do. When I first began writing blogs, I put pressure on myself to write one full blog every single day. I got so burned out from that. I realized that something had to change and so I changed my view from being that I have to achieve this one big thing to the perspective of “as long as I am getting closer to my goals” then this day has been successful. So rather than a tangible outcome of what I need to do, I made it something more digestible. 

Trust me, it’s understandable to want to be so much further than you are. That can actually be a good thing, it exemplifies that you are passionate about your personal development and growth! The key here is figuring out how to do it in a way that is positively constructive for you and not exhausting you. 

Here are a few ideas that I’ve come up with and I highly suggest that you come up with your own! 

1. Cook a great meal.
2. Paint your nails, wash your hair, take a bath, etc.
3. Simply telling yourself that you are doing incredible and acknowledging your hard work.
4. Doing a relaxing meditation that feels great for you.
5. Taking in deep and pleasurable breaths.
6. Allowing yourself to take a break.
7. Come up with your own!

My self-love question this week comes from Scott, he asked “When pivoting career directions, how does one stay confident in their course?”

Thank you so much for asking this question, Scott. The first thing that comes to mind for me is to remember why you started. What is motivating you to make this change? And when it gets hard, what will keep you motivated? Usually, when people are doing something for someone else, that can be a really powerful motivator. Sometimes, doing things only for material gain or your own ego can be exhausting. I recommend creating a list of 21 reasons why you want this so much. Really dig deep into yourself.

Another thing that I recommend is to have a definite outcome goal and action plan. If you aren’t 1000% sure where you are going, it will be a lot harder to be confident in your course. When you know what your outcome goal is, you’re able to plan out what will take you there. I recently purchased a best self journal where it is a 13-week tracker. You begin with 3 outcome goals, then digest those goals into weeks, then into days. All of these actions are tied to your outcome goal. Good questions to ask yourself are “Who do you want to become?” and “What can I do to get to where I want to go?”.

Lastly, I’m not sure what your faith is or looks like, but honestly, for me, the biggest thing is trusting in God to help me. A lot of people feel called in their hearts to do something and aren’t sure how to get there. That calling is your purpose. You were born with special gifts and talents to achieve that. When you are living out your purpose for the highest good of all, God definitely wants to help you. Trust and believe in that. Also, when you feel that God is supporting you, you will come from a place of abundance. This is important because  the energy that you go into your work with dictates a lot. Energy can be felt by others, you just can’t really hide it. The more that you work from a place of love and abundance, the better that work will feel for you, and the better results that you will yield.

The last thing that I want to mention is to figuratively ‘take the stairs’. For example, rather than focusing on instant gratification and numbers, try to focus more on creating and nurturing meaningful connections. Focus on the big picture!

I hope this was helpful! Please share this with someone who you feel could benefit from learning this information. Much love and talk with you next week!