Happiness Hive Podcast Episode 77 - Catherine Bowyer - Life Clarity Hacks - Simple Steps to Clear the Fog
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[00:00:00] (Intro) βHi, welcome to the Happiness Hive podcast. I'm Catherine Bowyer, and I am completely fascinated by people and what motivates them. I've spent the past three and a half decades specializing in mindset and human behaviour, and I've helped thousands of people to create happy and amazing lives. And now I am super excited to be chatting with women from around the world who I have secret, and to be honest, not so secret crushes on. They're women who inspire me. I'm intrigued as to how they do life and what makes them tick. I want to find out their magic formula that makes them who they are. And at the end of the episode, I'd love for you to say, I'd like a little bit of what she's having. The conversations are real and raw. They're full of passion, inspiration, and lots of fun and nothing is off limits. So grab yourself a cuppa or pop on your trackie and go for a walk and join us for today's chat. [00:01:00] There may just be that pearl of wisdom you need to hear. So let's shimmy on over and get started.
[00:01:06] Hey, gorgeous. Welcome to this week's episode of the Happiness Hive Podcast. This week is one of the Quick Sticks Happiness Tips podcast. So it's shorter. Very conscious. My last solo EP about the debrief, my reflections from barley, that was a long one. This is gonna be a short little life clarity hacks and some simple steps to help clear the fog.
[00:01:37] Practical, you know, me, queen of practicality. When, when I'm talking about fog, it's that feeling of uncertainty when you're not sure that you're feeling maybe overwhelmed or lacking direction. You just kind of like feel like you're going around in circles a little bit. And couple, a couple of quick [00:02:00] little things that I do that, you know, when I do these little clarity hacks there's so many things, but I really wanna just zero in on just a few.
[00:02:09] I set intentions for my year. Now I know a lot of people choose their word for the year and they set their intention and I've been doing that for. A long time. I, I certainly have goals, but for me, intentions take the pressure off and it really is about what energy am I wanting? What is the essence of the year for me?
[00:02:35] So I started out this year, and if you wanna know more about this, we've got the, I've got the, New Year, fabulous next level year Workbook that you can get from the website. The website, we are just doing a little makeover on it at the moment, so if it's not up and running, when you are looking at it now, it won't be far away. Or just message me and I can send you a [00:03:00] copy, can let you know about the little workbook where I talk about intentions and goal setting and what you want for the year.
[00:03:06] But each year I, I set an intention and for this year it was about. Be and receive. So to be more of me, to really step more into who I am and just allow and receive instead of working so hard trying to force things to happen. If you've listened, if you wanna go back and listen to that episode, if you haven't already, the one about me, Reflections from Bali. There's a lot about that being me and moving into that energy of me.
[00:03:41] But anyway, there was that, that was the intention that I had set. They were my words. And then I was just in the kitchen. I think it might've just been, might've just been before we went to Bali. I was in the kitchen and I went, these words just came to me [00:04:00] and it was about lighten up.
[00:04:04] I wanna lighten up this year. We're, we're on a move, so we're doing the sea change and we've got a lot of stuff. We've been in our house for 25 years and we have a lot of stuff. So 25 years plus a lot of stuff, a lot, a lot of stuff to get rid of. And I've really resisted, I've really felt that that packing up is. There's just been a whole lot of resistance around it, but I really wanna lighten up, so get rid of a lot of stuff. I wanna lighten up my mood and heaviness. We've had a probably four, four or so years that's been tricky years. There's been a sort of heavy energy around it, so I really wanna lighten up.
[00:04:46] I wanna lighten up and not feel so, like I'm carrying the weight of the world. And that certainly came up in Bali as well about that playfulness energy. And also I've been wanting to lighten up my [00:05:00] physicalness and I have actually been shedding some weight and feel really good about it. So so the word lighten, the phrase lighten up came up and then it was like, I really wanna show up.
[00:05:11] I really wanna show up more as my authentic self this year, and so show up. And I went. Ooh, that's cool. Two Up words. And then I went, oh, I really wanna glow up as well. I wanna glow up and just shine my sparkliest, shiniest, brightest self. And I thought, wow, how cool is that? I lighten up, show up and glow up.
[00:05:38] So my intention for this year, suppose three things. Now, there's a lot of stuff underneath each of those things, but when I'm feeling uncertain, when I'm feeling overwhelmed, and I've been, if you've been following my journey on socials and stuff, I've had ups and downs the [00:06:00] energy this year, like I'm on a high, coming back from the beautiful time in Bali, beautiful start to the year, and then packing up the house, getting ready to sell.
[00:06:10] I felt overwhelmed and I've got a lot on my plate for my business as well. I've felt wobbly and so I've just got the, those three words for me are almost three phrases are like my North star. I don't have to remember all the nitty-gritty, but if I just go, just lighten up Catherine. It's like, yeah, okay. Just lighten the fuck up. Don't take things so seriously. It will all be okay.
[00:06:36] So there's a lot underneath each of those phrases, but the essence is when I'm feeling those days of being overwhelmed, it's just, just lighten up. Just don't take this all so seriously. Go outside, take Bostie for a walk, just chill out a little bit.
[00:06:55] Show up. That's really important for me in absolutely [00:07:00] showing up in my business, but showing up for my family and showing up for my friends and showing up for myself. So that's a really powerful phrase. And also glowing up is just living my most glorious life as my most glorious self. And so when I'm feeling that uncertainty, they help me to get back on track and I don't have to overcomplicate it with just like, oh, what's the list of things I have to do under it?
[00:07:25] The energy of those helps me to get back into alignment. So that might be something you can do is have those intentions. Share it in the comments, what your intentions are for the year. And when we are talking about up, I've got this. Fun, fun little thing that I'm working on at the moment. I won't, I won't spill the whole beans on it, but it's about an experiment. 'cause I'm just experimenting with this and that helps me to lighten up as well because if I just set this goal going, I have [00:08:00] to achieve this puts too much pressure on things. So the essence of lightening up this beautiful experiment is happening and this beautiful experiment is forming into something that I wanna help you to come on this experiment as well.
[00:08:15] So anyway keep your eyes peeled for what that experiment might be. And then there's another little activity, and this is really powerful. So maybe listen to me now as I share it, but or do it real time. If you've got a pen and paper with you, do it now as I'm sharing it because don't put too much thought into it. Really good if you do it spontaneously. If you can't do it now, if you're driving or walking or something, come back and replay and then just do it spontaneously.
[00:08:49] So what I want you to do is to picture yourself in 12 months time and what is it that you are wanting for life that so before you picked yourself in [00:09:00] 12 months, think about what you want in life, then picture yourself in 12 months time having not achieved it.
[00:09:07] So you haven't actually achieved what you wanted to achieve. And what I want you to do is to write down and describe the version of you that led you to 12 months time not achieving what it was that you set out to achieve all the things, the type of person that you were, that led you to not doing the thing or things that you wanted to achieve.
[00:09:39] It might be that you didn't know how to. You faffed about doing other stuff. You put other people's needs ahead of your own. You didn't really want the thing that you wanted to do. You just, all the, the things that you were doing as a person, [00:10:00] the version of you that led you to not getting what you wanted.
[00:10:05] So press pause now if you're doing that real time.
[00:10:11] Now what I want you to do is to come back to now, and I now want you to think about 12 months time that you have achieved all the things that you wanted to achieve in that 12 month period, and describe the version of you that actually led you to achieving what you wanted to achieve. That she got clarity, that she focused on what she wanted, that she trusted and she believed she sought out assistance. She set up some really great habits to help her to get there. She allowed herself to, to dream big. She [00:11:00] just whatever those bits were of the version of you that actually achieved what it was that you set out to achieve.
[00:11:12] So I press pause, kind of, I was pausing for you. Sorry. But now you're back. Think about. What is it that you need to do to be the person that actually achieves what you wanna achieve? So do you wanna be, and really think about and hopefully, the answer is you wanna be the person that achieves. But think about those two versions of you, the one who actually achieved and the one who didn't, and what were the differences there?
[00:11:51] Which version do you wanna be and what do you need to do to be that version of you? [00:12:00] What do you need to do to be that version of you who achieves what you want to achieve?
[00:12:09] You've got the answers within you, gorgeous. And even you might think about this, oh, you know, whatever comes to you. First of all, they're probably pretty key things for you to work on.
[00:12:20] But also ask yourself what else? What else? What else? Does that version of me that didn't achieve the stuff, what else is she doing? What else is the version of me who did achieve the things? What else does she do? And what else do I need to do to be that version of me who achieves what it is that I wanna achieve?
[00:12:46] So powerful. And it's not actually, this is not rocket science. Sometimes we get lost in the complexity of making things harder than they need to be. And each [00:13:00] day it's about consciously choosing which version of you is gonna show up. Because if you just rock up and know that you are a, like you give up if things get hard, you need to do some stuff to not be that version of you because you know the outcome is that you're not gonna achieve this stuff.
[00:13:20] So consciously, every day, think about the version of you that's gonna show up. And my up experiments are about showing up. I'm conscious about how I wanna show up. It's one of my guiding lights. And you know what? Every day, no, I don't show up how I want to. Some days take me by surprise and it's just like, man, what's going on here?
[00:13:50] But I've got the tools and the resources to move through that pretty quickly now and not stay stuck and my guiding lights of lighten up, [00:14:00] show up and glow up. They help me to get back on track and they help when I'm feeling uncertain, overwhelmed, and lacking direction to get back on track with things.
[00:14:08] So I'd love to hear, I'd love to hear, what your intentions are. I would love also to hear about the version of you who who achieve stuff and also to comment to rate, review this podcast, share it with girlfriends. I would love, love, love for us to get the message into a wider audience, just so we can make this world a more beautiful place to live. Nothing more than that. So anyway, hugs, happiness, and have a beautiful day. Bye.
[00:14:50] Thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed the episode. You can spread the love by sharing it with a friend so she can have a little bit of what we had today. And [00:15:00] don't forget to rate and review, so we can get it into as many hearts and ears as possible. You can keep the conversation going over on my socials at The Happiness Hive. And if you'd like more high vibe happiness in your life, come and join me in our community of inspired and motivated women, where you'll have everything that you need to be truly happy and bounce out of bed every day, living and loving your best and most beautiful life. To find out more, pop over to the Happiness Hive website and click on the link Working with Catherine. Until next time, big hugs and happiness.
