Author: Elise Kindya

  • Taking A Step Back From Pressure And A Step Forward To Yourself

    Taking A Step Back From Pressure And A Step Forward To Yourself

    Listen on Spotify Here

    Society hampers us with loads of pressure on what we should be and should have accomplished at a certain age. We glorify a culture of nonstop grinding, thinking that there’s no other way to reach our goals. However, we still wonder why so many of us feel unfulfilled and burnt out despite pursuing our dreams. We do so much to please others without leaving anything for ourselves. But at the end of the day, is all the grind still worth it?

    In the tenth episode of Returning Home, Elise shares a personal story on resentment, burnout, and quitting. She sheds light on the constant pressure the world imposes on us to do more and give more. Without setting boundaries in this pursuit, feelings of resentment thrive. Finally, Elise highlights that prioritizing yourself should always come first — and there’s no shame in that decision. 

    If you want to know when to start taking a step back for yourself, then this episode is for you!

    Here are three reasons why you should listen to this episode:

    1. Learn where the mindset of wanting to do more comes from.
    2. Discover how you can free yourself from resentment and burnout.
    3. Understand the importance of recognizing your limitations and capabilities.

    Resources

    Episode Highlights

    [04:13] Taking Pressure Off Yourself

    • The world is constantly asking us for more of ourselves.
    • Start making yourself unavailable to things that no longer serve you.
    • Take a step back from all the things you’re “supposed to do.” and take a huge step toward self-care. 

    [05:51] Open Yourself Up to More Love

    • Love doesn’t equate to being productive for X amount of hours per day.
    • Embodying more love means living your life and connecting with your feelings and relationships.
    • Focus on your fulfillment and contentment instead of your work performance.
    • Prioritizing productivity goes back to our education and family values. The mindset of “staying productive” antagonizes having free time.

    [07:50] On Resentment

    • Resentment is an emotion opposite to joy, love, excitement, and contentment.
    • You can only start giving from your overflow when you fill yourself up with love and happiness.
    • Resentment comes from a place of scarcity, fear, and anger.

    [08:59] Quitting and Freeing Yourself from Resentment

    • Elise left her last full-time job four years ago.
    • Since she felt overwhelming resistance entering into her work, she put in her notice three months before her term ended. 
    • She transitioned to being a therapist in an outpatient office, but it didn’t work out as she expected.
    • The experience took her on a winding path, doing interesting jobs, training, and hobbies.

    Elise: “We need to see ourselves in this cycle of giving and receiving. Once we’ve given, it is time for us to receive, so that we can give and then receive and then give.”

    • Elise finally permitted herself to start her own therapy practice. It gave her more stability, control, and joy.

    [11:36] The Need to Do More

    • The need to be doing more is always in Elise’s mind. She feels the same even as she started a private practice.
    • She feels like she has been working more than a 9 to 5 because of the other things she’s trying to build.
    • There’s this notion in the wellness coaching and therapy community of needing to teach others what you are knowledgeable of.
    • Tune in to the full episode to hear about the conversation that became Elise’s breaking point!

    [15:47] How Resentment Builds Up

    • Elise’s nervous system is wired to fight and see the worst in people. Her predisposition is that she needs to protect herself.
    • She felt the need to keep pushing herself to feel valid and worthy.
    • Society is performative. It reinforces and encourages us to keep working until we’re exhausted.
    • Resentment built up over feeling rejected and not getting the reciprocation she wanted from her work.

    [17:53] Choosing Healing

    • Elise decided to quit spending her spare time trying to do multiple things for her business and prioritized healing.
    • She realized she was meant to be a therapist, space holder, and mentor. 
    • Inviting people who were not aligned with her in her space did not feel right.

    Elise: “The people who get it, get it, and the people who don’t, don’t.”

    • She’s not going to chase people who don’t appreciate or understand her work anymore.
    • She’s currently focusing on pouring into herself to get from a place of overflowing.

    [20:14] Setting a Boundary for Yourself

    • Elise has been feeling tired a lot lately, and she realized she didn’t need to feel this way.
    • She took two weeks off to remove herself from that place but ended up stressing about working most of that time.
    • Set boundaries by categorizing work into different priority levels. 
    • The thought of shedding out all her liabilities made her feel immediately better. But it almost made her fall back into that routine.
    • The root cause of falling into the cycle of performing is outside influence and pressure to be productive.

    [24:35] Recognize What’s Worth Doing

    • It’s important to recognize what’s worth doing. You get to decide and take responsibility for the quality of your life.
    • The online space has helped people see the limitless potential of having access to prospective customers. But we don’t need to be available to everyone all the time.
    • We all have limitations. It’s critical to recognize them to determine your capabilities and what you want in life.
    • Tune in to the full episode to hear Elise’s recipe analogy!

    [28:00] Recognize Your Limitations and Capacity

    • Tune in to the full podcast to hear about @thenapministry’s post that resonated with Elise!

    Elise: “You get to choose the quality of your life, and you don’t have to give, and give, and give until you’re there’s nothing left.”

    • You have to give for yourself first before giving to other people.
    • Get in touch with your limitations and capabilities. Then, you can reach your fullest potential.
    • You don’t have to do all the things outside pressure is telling you to do.

    [30:15] Quitting and Finding Peace

    • Elise is quitting to pursue what truly fulfills her without chasing anything anymore.
    • Live your life with the intention of experiencing true peace.
    • Give yourself permission to prioritize yourself and your well-being.
    • You can only give to other people from your overflow when you prioritize your joy, contentment, and quality of life.

    Enjoyed this Episode?

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    Leave an episode review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in to this episode, don’t forget to leave us a review. You can also share what you’ve learned today with your friends to help them embody their true, authentic selves. Anything is possible when you return home to yourself. 

    Have any questions or lightbulb moments? I’d love to hear from you! Feel free to hit me up on Instagram or send an email at elise@elisekindya.com. 

    Thank you so much for listening! For more episode updates, visit my website.

    Transcript

    Elise Kindya: You get to choose the quality of your life and you don’t have to give and give and give until there’s nothing left. There has to be something left for you. And actually, it should first be for you, and then other people come after that.

    Welcome to Returning Home, The Podcast. My name is Elise Kindya, and I am a trauma-informed and intuitive therapist. This podcast is a space that I have created for you to discover a deeper understanding and love for yourself, which leads to expanding what you think is possible in your own life.

    My goal is for you to feel excited to live your life as your full, authentic self. By listening to these episodes, you will learn things like how your brain works, my favorite resources for healing, stories from my own life, practices that you can press “play” on to add to your healing toolkit, and so much more.

    I invite you to return home to yourself in big and small ways to live the life you desire on your terms. You can live connected, empowered, and aligned. When you return home to yourself, anything is possible. I can’t wait to share all of my insights with you. Now let’s begin.

    Hello, and welcome back to Returning Home, The Podcast. This is Elise Kindya and I am the host of this podcast. I’m excited to be back. We are on episode 10 and that feels pretty exciting.

    I remember when I turned 10 and I was like, “I’m double digits!” I had piano lessons and I remember my teacher — we had a piano in our house — and my music teacher was at our house and I was sitting on the bench next to him and I’m like, “I’m double digits!” That just stuck out to me when I went to record this because now, my podcast is double digits in terms of episodes and I just thought that was funny.

    So like I had said on my last podcast episode, I’m going to start reading some of your reviews because I think that’s pretty fun. I’m going to read this review from A.Z., and I think this is Alex. We used to work together so I was excited when you reached out to me, Alex, and said that you’ve been loving my podcast, and I was excited to see your review come through. I’m going to read that here.

    Alex had said that she’s sharing this podcast with her therapist and with other friends and I so appreciate that. As you know, that’s how these kinds of projects grow: by word of mouth and by people liking the content, and then relating with it and sharing it with people when it really resonates, so thank you so much.

    Alex says, “Elise approaches her work with thoughtfulness, research-based strategies, and compassion. This podcast is incredible for anyone who is trying to heal from trauma or support a loved one trying to heal. She offers concrete strategies and tools that are very helpful. This pod is truly a game-changer for me.”

    Well, thank you so much for that. I really appreciate it and I’m glad that the content is resonating, and you’re finding it helpful. If you would like your review read on the air, go ahead and leave me a review.

    That was on Apple Podcasts and that’s the only way I know how to see reviews. I don’t know if Spotify keeps track of that stuff, but if you do write a review on a platform other than Apple Podcasts, you can always screen shoot it and DM it to me on Instagram. Go ahead and follow me there right now. My handle is my name, @elisekindya. I would love to read more of these on the air as I do more episodes, so thank you so much for that.

    With that being said, this episode is something that I’ve been writing about, thinking about, posting about, and just trying to spend a lot of time with this topic. It’s just really funny timing because it’s about quitting, it’s about stopping, it’s about making yourself unavailable to things that no longer serve you.

    It’s about taking pressure off of yourself to do more in this world that’s constantly asking us for more of ourselves, right? I know for myself, I’m very unconventional and I don’t like following rules. I don’t like doing things that I’m “supposed to do”. I don’t like when somebody tells me what to do. I’m like, “Okay, well, then how do I do the opposite of that?” I really don’t like that.

    I like being able to create my own flow and my own pace and do things the way I want to do them. Right now, where I am in my life, and in my work, I’m taking a huge step back from all of these structures, supposed tos and shoulds, and I’m taking a huge step toward myself and my self-care.

    That even applies to this podcast. I’m getting off of a schedule with this. I’m just going to let inspiration come to me, flow with what feels right, and record episodes from there, instead of always having an episode coming out every two weeks. I am seeing this as an experiment.

    Something I’ve been saying for months — even longer than that — is I really want to open myself up to more love. For me, love doesn’t equal being productive for X amount of hours per day, making as many social media posts and podcast episodes and blog posts and having all these millions of things to do. Developing this program, hosting and facilitating this event.

    For me, embodying more love is going to mean living my life, hanging out with my friends, doing nice things for myself, getting closer with my partner, doing things that are solely based on how I feel, the people around me, and connecting, and not about, “How can I add more events and clients and projects to my work life?”

    I’ve really been reflecting on this. I have been so focused on my work performance instead of how I really felt, instead of how fulfilled I actually felt, or how content I actually felt. I focused so much more on performance, income, what job I have, license, training — all of that stuff.

    We get trained for this in kindergarten — preschool even — the values of our family and all of that kind of stuff. To have free time was like, “What the heck are you doing?” Now that I’ve created my life in a way that I can have a lot of free time, I am going to do that, I am going to spend my time feeling more free.

    I’m going to talk a little bit in this podcast about resentment and how resentment is an emotion that I was really experiencing to a deep extent. What I want to do is feel more joy, more love, more excitement, satisfaction, contentment.

    I don’t want to be in that place where I’m scraping at the bottom of the barrel. I want to know what it feels like to give from my overflow. I want to experience life where I am filling up so much with joy, love, excitement, satisfaction, contentment, happiness, that I have so much to give from this overflow.

    I have a few examples that I want to share with you that illustrate for me how I had been living so much from this resentment and scarcity and fear and anger place, and how I now want to step into this other side. I’m sharing this because I think it’s really interesting. I like hearing stories like this, and I hope that it’s helpful to you as well.

    When I think about quitting — as I’m recording this, it’s mid-February of 2022. Exactly four years ago, I left my last full-time job. I was working in a school, I put in my notice in November of the year before, and my last day was February 28.

    I just talked with a client today and I would say, if you are someone that has to put in your notice, give your two weeks. Don’t give three months. The three months between November and February, this time four years ago, was the hardest time. I felt resistance trying to walk into this job towards them. I just was like, “I cannot do this anymore.” Don’t do it.

    So this time, four years ago, I left my last full-time job. It was really scary. I left the job heading into something that I thought was going to work out. It ended up not working out, being a therapist in an outpatient office. I thought that was going to turn into full-time really fast and it didn’t. It was just like, “Oh my gosh. I just feel so burned out.”

    It took me on this winding path and I met so many cool people. I worked some different, interesting jobs, I got some training. In some other areas, like Reiki — that was really fulfilling to me. I did delve more into some hobbies at that time, but at a certain point, it was like, “I really need to not be doing this anymore.”

    But I remember being in that job four years ago, and just feeling so much resistance, feeling so much resentment, feeling like I gave so much and I wasn’t getting back what I was giving, right? We need to see ourselves in this cycle of giving and receiving: once we’ve given, it is time for us to receive so that we can give and then receive and then give. I just was feeling like I was giving, giving, giving and I was not receiving, and it was so disheartening and tiring. Man, I’m just so happy that time in my life is over.

    Then I finally gave myself permission to start my own therapy practice and that helped me to find a lot more stability. I’m able to have more control in my life and I’m doing what I enjoy, what I’m trained to do, what I’m meant to be doing. I get to choose my clients, I get to choose how much I work throughout the week and that’s been really helpful, but I always have it in my mind that I need to be doing more.

    Even when I was working that school job, I also was doing like a monthly group that I was doing with an agency. I was also doing these assessments for a foster care agency. I always have three jobs at a time so even from this place of, I was creating this life that I wanted in terms of my private practice, I still felt like I needed to have a membership, I needed to have a group, I needed to have bi-weekly, bi-monthly, evening events.

    If you follow me on Instagram, you see I’ve been trying to develop these things for a really long time. It’s possible that I’ve even DMed you about these things or maybe we’ve had a meeting about them. I did this thing over the last summer where I was doing these market research calls, just grinding. Even if I have 15 clients a week, 10, 15 clients a week, I still feel like I’m working more than a nine-to-five, because then I’m also trying to build all these other things.

    It just hasn’t taken off and I have been feeling for months now that I’m going to put that down. I was feeling very resentful about that. I’m in a place now, I have a little bit of space from it so I’m not feeling that way as much, but I was feeling really exhausted and burned out from that.

    There is this sense, and if you’re in the wellness coaching, even therapy community, there’s this thought of, “Well, since I know how to do something, I should teach others how to do it.” For me, what that means is, because I’m always learning ways to heal and I’m always getting trainings and taking classes and reading books, and even in my own healing work in my personal life, “Oh, since I know how to do all this stuff, I should put together some type of a course or a membership or a group and invite people to come.”

    I was doing that so much and it just felt like people weren’t signing up. People weren’t busting down my door. They’re not even liking my pictures on social media. It left me feeling really exhausted. I realized I don’t need to keep doing this.

    I had a conversation with somebody. It was this one conversation, but it had sounded like a few conversations that I’ve had, even in the last six months or so. But this one that I had recently was like the straw that broke the camel’s back. I was just like, “I’m freaking done.” I had kind of a breaking point and I got to the point where I said I was done, but I’m going to tell this little story.

    There was someone I was talking to; we were just talking about life and work and all this stuff and they were saying something that I posted on Instagram that they really liked. They thought it was really cool. I went to look because I was like, “I don’t think they liked this post on Instagram.” So I went and looked, and they hadn’t liked it, and it made me really angry.

    I stewed over it for a few days. I felt my feelings. I watched a couple of horror movies to be like, “I need to see things.” I’m really mad, right? So I need to just see people being angry and acting it out. When that didn’t work, because that was Friday-Saturday — that Sunday, I went to the gym and was working out really hard. Towards the end of my workout, I do the StairMaster at the end of my workout, and the feeling was still there. I was still just gripped in this feeling so I was like, “Okay, let me ask, what is this feeling?” The first word that came up was resentment.

    I know for me, my personal style when it comes to my nervous system: my nervous system is wired to fight. It is wired to see the worst in people; it is predisposed to think that I am being attacked and that I need to protect myself. So me trying so hard to make something happen in my business, and trying so hard to make these posts, and put myself out there, and be visible, and then make all these offerings, it felt like I kept trying so hard to make something happen that isn’t working and it’s keeping me in this really run-down place.

    It’s keeping me in this place where I’m asking for attention and not getting it. I’m asking for validation and I’m not getting it. I felt like I kept having to push myself to feel like I was valid, like I was worthy, like I was working hard enough. I was realizing as I was completing this workout, and this word resentment was coming up, I was like, “All of this self-care stuff that I talk about doing, I live it to a certain extent, except when it comes to my work.” Maybe some other areas too.

    I really push myself and I’m really hard on myself when it comes to my work and society is so performative. It just reinforces and encourages us to keep working until we’re exhausted. Like that saying, “Leave it all on the field.” I feel like I’ve just been kept in this trauma response.

    A lot of my trauma is relational as well so to feel like I’m constantly being rejected, like — putting out the membership, people don’t sign up; putting out the group, people don’t sign up; putting out the events, people don’t sign up. I felt like it was just rejection, rejection, rejection.

    I was feeling so much built-up resentment over all of this work that I was doing, and not getting any of that reciprocation that I wanted so I thought, “You know what, I’m quitting. I’m not going to spend every spare minute of my day trying to make these things happen in my business.” What I really want to do is do things — in all of that spare time — that are in service of my healing.

    As a therapist, I really feel like I need to do that. I’m meant to be a therapist. I’m meant to be a space holder and a mentor. That is what I want to be. Trying to invite people into a space with me that isn’t that feels — it just doesn’t really feel right to me at this point.

    There’s that thing going on on TikTok, and maybe I’m off on TikTok right now, and this isn’t a popular sound anymore, but there was this sound that was like, “The people who get it, get it and people who don’t, don’t,” and that’s just kind of where I was at.

    I’m like, “If people understand the offerings that I’m putting out there, and want to be in the healing space with me, and want to work with me as that person holding space for them, then they get it. And the people that don’t want that don’t have to get it.” I’m not going to chase the people that don’t want it anymore.

    That was the difference for me and realizing I don’t want to feel that resentment building up. I don’t want that in my experience anymore. I was asking myself, “What would I do with my time, if I wasn’t trying to prove myself as valid?” If my main focus is on myself and pouring into myself so that I’m actually able to give from a place of overflowing, what would that feel like? So that’s my experiment right now.

    I’m experimenting with joy, with overflow, with love, with putting myself first on that list. I decided in 2022, my word of the year is “abundance” and I’m focusing first on giving it all back to myself. I’m excited to see what I am like when I am actually in this place of overflowing and seeing what I have to offer from that place because I don’t know that I’ve ever really been at 100% before.

    Something I’ve noticed that I’m saying a lot recently, and over the last few months was, “I’m so tired.” I know that we are in winter and we do need to give ourselves a chance to chill and to relax, to recover, to replenish, but it was just with everything: “I’m so tired, I can’t do that.” Just doing the littlest things was taking so much of my energy and I realized I don’t have to feel this way. I’ve done some things over these last couple months to try to fill that back up and to not be in that place of “I’m so tired.” 

    For example, over the holidays, I took off two full weeks from work. By work, I mean I took off two weeks from seeing clients. I didn’t see any clients in those two weeks, but most of the time, I was stressed about working.

    I was thinking about what I needed to do. I was thinking about all the things that needed to be lined up and in place. I needed to delegate tasks, I needed to have pictures and videos and content, and post on social media, and invite people to my events, and my membership, and all this different stuff.

    Then I would get feedback from people that they see my stuff and they like it, but that they don’t actually take the time to like it and it would be this burning anger inside of me. So I decided I can’t do that anymore. I don’t want to spend my time doing that.

    I was saying I was so tired, and in the time that I even tried to give myself to not feel tired, I was still stressing myself out about work, right? There have been pieces over this time that I’ve been getting peeled back, falling away, so I set this boundary for myself. I said, “Okay, I’m going to just put all these things down that aren’t these certain things for work,” and I categorize them.

    They have different levels of priority for me and anything that wasn’t the most important and the thing that pays my bills, I’m not doing it anymore. When I set that boundary for myself, when I told myself, “Okay, the only thing I’m going to focus on is X, Y, and Z,” and all this other stuff is just — I’m not doing it for 2022 or I’m going to give myself some kind of a time limit on some of these things.

    I immediately felt better when I thought about putting down all that other stuff and it was funny, because then I was thinking, “Okay, well, this decision, it does kind of make me smaller and makes me work less hard, less hours, it makes me less visible,” but I still felt better when I made the decision. But then once I felt better, I almost convinced myself to fall back into this place of, “You know what? No, I can just do it. I can just push through, and I can just do all of these things. And I’m going to keep going because I feel better now,” and, “Okay, I have the energy again.”

    I thought it was so funny because why would I go keep going down this road that was burning me out and making me tired and making me resentful instead of doing the thing that actually felt like I was experiencing some level of freedom and excitement and hope for the future?

    When I think about it, it really is because of this outside influence, this pressure to perform, this pressure to do well, to be productive. If you know how to do something, you should just teach it, and then you can make money. That’s not a good enough reason for me anymore.

    I don’t need to be making millions and millions of dollars. I think I just need to be happy with the life that I have, and continue to be happy with my life, and build from the inside out, and we’ll see what happens from there. But I was giving from this place of total burnout and lack and resentment and scarcity, and that is not what I want to do. 

    It’s funny because we play these mind tricks on ourselves and we make ourselves think that we freed up some space, and then we fill it back with the same thing that was taking away our life force. It’s really important to be able to recognize what’s worth doing, right? It’s your life.

    I talked about this in another podcast episode: you get to decide your life, the quality of your life, taking responsibility for what that means. I think there’s this thought in this space — especially online — the online space, the internet has really exponentially helped people see there’s this limitless potential out there.

    There’s the internet and there’s 10 billion people on the planet, and there’s all these potential “customers”, right? So we think that all of us should have access to all people at all times and I think that we need to step away from that thought process. You don’t need to be available to all people all the time, and you don’t need to try to access all people all the time.

    Even though we think we have this limitless potential — and maybe in the 5D, in the 12D world, maybe your soul has limitless potential — but then you chose to — well, depending on what you believe, but you’re here now, in this 3D body on planet Earth in the year 2022, or whenever you’re listening to this, so you don’t actually have limitless potential.

    You have the body that you’re in right now in the circumstances where you were born. You have your ego, you have your name, you have your personality, where you were born, your family you were born into, the geographical location you’re in, the socio-economic status and the class that you were born into, the race, the gender slash whatever you want to call it, the identity that you have, right? You do have limitations. I have limitations. And it’s okay.

    It’s a good thing to recognize what these limitations are because then you can see, given these parameters and these boundaries, what you are capable of in this life.

    What do you want to do with your life? What don’t you want to do with your life, right? It’s like the analogy of a recipe. If I want to make filet mignon and potatoes and a side salad for dinner tonight, I can’t pull out the flour, and the cocoa powder, and the butter, and the eggs and try to — I can make a chocolate cake with that, but I can’t make filet mignon and potatoes. You have to take the ingredients that you have and make it work.

    Grow where you’re planted, make the thing that you’re meant to make. You don’t have to be all these millions of things. You don’t have to pull yourself so thin and be spread so thin and getting pulled in every direction. You can choose the thing that you want to do with your life and do that and be happy about that and not be pressured to do so much. You really don’t owe other people all of that effort and all that labor.

    I don’t know if it’s because so much of my thought process recently is about resting. I’ve been seeing so much of The Nap Ministry’s posts on Instagram. Definitely follow them if you don’t. I’m sure you already do, but there was a post this morning — and like I said, I’m recording this in like early-mid-February — where she was like, “What makes you think that I want to collaborate? What makes you think that I want to offer you more of my labor? What makes you think I want to fill up my calendar with all these requests? I don’t.” And I’m just like, “Yeah, me neither.” It was just really resonating.

    You get to choose the quality of your life and you don’t have to give and give and give until there’s nothing left. There has to be something left for you and, actually, it should first be for you and then other people come after that.

    I think that it’s really important to understand, like I said about the recipe analogy, what are your ingredients? What are the limitations? What is your actual capacity? Really get in touch with what that is right now and understand that it’s not bad to be limited. It’s actually in understanding what your capacity is and what your capabilities are, that you’re going to reach your fullest potential.

    Once you recognize your limits, your boundaries, where you start and someone else begins, then you’re going to be able to reach your fullest potential. Just because you don’t have some kind of god complex or you’re Beyonce or something — I mean, maybe you are, and if you are Beyonce listening to this, hello, congratulations — but you don’t have to be on that level. If you want to be, that’s your business, but you don’t have to.

    Social media and all of this outside pressure. I feel it makes us think that we have to do all these things. You don’t, and I don’t, and I’m not.

    All of this to say that I’m quitting again. I have quit so many jobs, I can’t even tell you. I’m quitting again, but this time, it’s in order to pursue what truly lights me up and fulfills me. I’m not chasing anything anymore. I’m living from this place of living my life with the intention of experiencing true peace. I am excited to see what comes through for me in this experiment.

    I want to know what true love, joy, excitement, contentment, satisfaction, happiness, overflow — I am so excited to experience that. So with that, I just want to say thank you so much for tuning into this episode. I really hope you got something out of it. I hope that my story helps to make you feel less alone. If you’re in this place of feeling really burnt out, tired, over it, I’m right there with you. I hope you felt that as I was telling you my story today.

    I think it’s really important that you give yourself permission to prioritize yourself and your own well-being. You are a part of this world, you are meant to thrive just like everybody else is meant to thrive. The same way when you’re in the airport, on the airplane and they say, “Put your oxygen mask on first before helping people around you,” prioritize your joy and your contentment and the quality of your life first. Then you can give to other people from your overflow.

    This isn’t to say, stark individualism and fuck everybody else. It’s to say, you matter, you freaking matter. There is nothing controversial about that. I’m sorry, if somebody wants to make that controversial, there’s a comment section I guess you could go to, but it’s not. You have to prioritize yourself. You are allowed to prioritize yourself. I’m giving you permission and I am doing it right now first.

    This podcast is going to be a little bit quiet. I won’t be putting out new episodes for at least a month. Who knows what’s going to happen over this next time where I’ve taken some time off and put myself first and foremost. In the meantime, I’m going to be posting on social media less, but definitely go over there.

    If this resonated for you, please come and start up a conversation with me in my DMs — although it might take me a while to get back. My name over there, again, is my name, @elisekindya. If this episode resonated for you, please leave me a review, and the next time that I record an episode, hopefully, I will read your review out loud on the air.

    If this episode resonated, please feel free to share it with somebody in your life that you think needs to hear it. Take really good care of yourself. Thank you so much for tuning in and I will look forward to connecting with you next time.

  • The Compound Effect: Turning Small Habits Into Big Changes

    The Compound Effect: Turning Small Habits Into Big Changes

    Listen on Spotify Here

    Goal setting is the navigator toward significant achievements in life. As we organize our goals, the urge to accomplish them quickly and easily could be tempting. Impatience and restlessness become the inner nemesis that blinds us from discerning our present accomplishments. But think about where you were five years ago: would you be able to be where you are now without your “little” and “trivial” accumulated effort?

    In the ninth episode of Returning Home, Elise delves into the concept of compound effect and how it manifests in life. She guides you through exercises that will help you look back, reflect, and start taking inspired action for your future self. Through this, you’ll be able to get in touch with yourself and why you’re enough. She reiterates the importance of being gentle with yourself and giving yourself credit.

    If you want to learn how the compound effect works in your life, then this episode is for you!

    Here are three reasons why you should listen to this episode:

    1. Learn the concept of the compound effect.
    2. Discover why it’s critical to recognize and acknowledge that you’re enough.
    3. Connect with your past and future self.

    Resources

    Episode Highlights

    [03:55] Compound Effect

    • Small actions, if done consistently, create huge results.
    • We often get caught up in wanting to make a big change and seeing results instantly.
    • The compound effect revolves around consistency and intentionality.
    • Our life is the destination we’re trying to seek. It’s the small everyday actions and attitudes that we hold.

    Elise: “Your mind, the way that you think, the way you see the world, the glasses that you put on, and that’s how you see the world — your perspective — that is the journey and the destination.”

    [05:50] On Transformation 

    • There is no transformation waiting for your future self. What you need is a transformation in your perspective of yourself.
    • Understand that you are already enough.

    Elise: “Taking small steps every day in the direction of your dreams is what is going to make the difference between success and prolonging your success.”

    • You’re already a success because you’re living and breathing on this planet.

    [07:34] The Result of the Compound Effect

    • The compound effect is what got you to where you are today, regardless of your intention and thoughts.
    • It’s not thinking about a future goal or a quantum leap you want to make; it’s about where you already are.
    • Look back on the goals you’ve had over the last five years. You have the result of the compound effect right now working in your life.

    [09:41] Giving Yourself Appreciation and Acknowledgment

    • Acknowledge and come to peace with the fact that we will all die one day.
    • Your present moment is the only moment that will be.
    • Appreciate yourself for all you’ve accomplished and achieved, including getting through each day living.

    Elise: “You’re gonna have good days, and you’re gonna have bad days. Life is 50% positive, and it’s 50% negative — plus or minus based on whether you’re a pessimist or an optimist, and it’s really not a judgment on that.”

    • Both pain and pleasure are inevitable in this lifetime. They’re available depending on your level of trauma.

    [11:43] Getting in Touch with Happiness 

    • Having chemical or hormonal imbalance conditions makes it difficult to feel happy and optimistic.
    • There are evidence-based practices that can help you get in touch with your happiness.
    • We have an individual power to make our lives what we want them to be.

    [13:14] The Piece of the Puzzle

    • We are part of a larger system.
    • There are a lot of personal and societal issues that play a role in our mental health condition.
    • We can’t separate ourselves from the puzzle of society. We are an individual piece that is part of the whole.

    [15:01] The Process of Individuation

    • We have an individual right to sovereignty, power to affect change, and the ability to look back and reflect.
    • Looking back in the past allows you to take the next step towards your goal or start a new phase.

    Elise: “We are on this journey of life, and each step that you take on the journey is part of you reaching your destination.”

    • Deciding to be the type of person you want to be is reaching the end goal you want to be at.
    • The present moment is a gift. Your values and aspirations get to be part of this gift.
    • There is a reason why and how you’ve reached the place you’re at. There were steps, processes, and events behind it.

    [18:02] See Your Future Self: Being in Your Old Age Exercise

    • Picture your future self at 90 years old: what goals would you have wanted to achieve?
    • What would you like your future self to be savoring at that time? What kind of memories and experiences would you like to have built up?
    • Listen to the episode if you want to learn more about the reflections you need to incorporate for the exercise.

    [19:48] Start Today

    • Starting today, you can live the version of yourself that you’d desire in the next decades.
    • Identify the steps you can take to get started on both far-off and short-term goals.
    • “Goals” can refer to the quality of life you want or the type of person you want to be.
    • Think about how you can continue recognizing that the compound effect that has worked in your life will continue to work.
    • You can live the life you want to have; you are already doing it every day.

    [21:19] You’re Doing Enough

    • You already incorporate your values into your day-to-day life. 
    • You can invite more in from a place of excitement and abundance.
    • You cannot give from an empty cup and expect to feel joy about it. 
    • Recognize that what you already have is enough. Find a way to believe it if you don’t.
    • Don’t settle; your life will become enough as you intentionally build it to be that way.

    [23:38] Returning Home to Yourself

    • Would the version of yourself five years ago be happy with where you are today? Tune in to the full episode to hear Elise’s answer!
    • Blurring out what happened in between the result can help you get in touch with your past self.
    • Don’t be afraid of the inner work. It transforms in a way that’s beautiful, authentic, purposeful, and intentional.
    • Returning home to yourself is a transformation you need to make.

    [27:00] Key Takeaways

    • Be gentle with yourself and give yourself the credit you deserve. Commit to living in accordance with your values.
    • Accumulate inspired action. Then, it will lead to the compound effect.
    • Know where you’re going even if you don’t have the entire map.
    • You can make quantum leaps by recognizing and claiming your desires, searching and recognizing opportunities, taking action, and celebrating.
    • See the little moments in your life as an opportunity to celebrate your power to design your life.

    Enjoyed this Episode on Compound Effect?

    If you enjoyed this podcast, please make sure to subscribe and share it!

    Leave an episode review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in to this episode, don’t forget to leave us a review. You can also share what you’ve learned today with your friends to help them embody their true, authentic selves. Anything is possible when you return home — even to your future self. 

    Have any questions or lightbulb moments? I’d love to hear from you! Feel free to hit me up on Instagram or send an email at elise@elisekindya.com. 

    Thank you so much for listening! For more episode updates, visit my website.

    Transcript

    Elise Kindya: What I want you to get from this today is being more gentle with yourself. Giving yourself the credit you deserve, and commit to living in accordance with your values. Once you have your sights set on something, on a goal perhaps, or a way that you aspire to be, then you can take inspired action. 

    Welcome to Returning Home The Podcast. My name is Elise Kindya, and I am a trauma informed and intuitive therapist. This podcast is a space that I have created for you to discover a deeper understanding and love for yourself, which leads to expanding what you think is possible in your own life. My goal is for you to feel excited to live your life as your full, authentic self. 

    By listening to these episodes, you will learn things, like how your brain works, my favorite resources for healing stories from my own life, practices that you can press play on to add to your healing toolkit, and so much more. 

    I invite you to return home to yourself in big and small ways to live the life you desire on your terms. You can live connected, empowered and aligned. When you return home to yourself, anything is possible. I can’t wait to share all of my insights with you. Now let’s begin. 

    Hello, and welcome back to Returning Home The Podcast. My name is Elise Kindya. I’m a licensed clinical social worker and I am the host of this podcast. And I’m going to start out this episode today by doing something a little bit different. 

    I’m going to read one of the reviews that I’ve gotten on my podcast. This is from the Apple podcast app. That is where these reviews are the most visible to me. I would love so much to read more of these. If you are listening to the podcast and you’ve enjoyed it, I urge you to leave a review, and I will try to get to all of them on the podcast, you know, just like one by one. It is really fun to see these come in. 

    This was the first review I ever got, and it’s from somebody named Thrill Holla. I don’t know who this is. If this is you, please reach out. I would love to connect, just to say thank you because this is awesome. It was left like the first day that my podcast was out. So that was really cool. 

    So the review says — well, it’s a five-star review, first of all. Thank you. And it says, “Looking forward to hearing more from Elise on this medium on healing from childhood trauma and breaking harmful cycles. The explanation on brain development in the first episode was really neat to learn and easy to digest, instead of feeling too “heavy” (I crack me up). I’m looking forward to more episodes and learning more to help with my own healing.” Thank you so much Thriller Holla for this review.

    Elise: Yes. I hope that in the time that has passed since you left that review, you have learned so much more about trauma and ways to heal from trauma. Today is going to be something like that. Interesting segue. But again, if you would like a review, read on my podcast, please go ahead and leave one on the Apple podcast app. Yeah, I’m sure there are other ways to do it too. You could maybe do it on Spotify; I don’t really know how to do that. But if you screenshoot it and email it to me, I would be happy to read it as well. Definitely, make sure to do that if you are interested. 

    Something kind of, again, like more personal interest to me, but I also find a lot of value in talking about this in the therapy room, is the compound effect. So that is what I’m going to delve into today. It’s something that I think about a lot, like even when I’m just at the gym, and I’m like, doing that last rep of bicep curls, or like I’m doing that last three minutes on the stairmaster or something. And I’m like, “FML.” I’m like, “No, this is for a reason. The more consistently I do this, the better my life is going to be.”

    I want to talk about this more in depth here today. Just to preface this by saying I believe in the compound effect. I believe that small actions done consistently make for huge results. I think that a lot of times though, we get really caught up in the wanting to make a quantum leap — we want to make a big change and we want to see those results instantly. What I want to talk about what the compound effect is that it is the way to get big quantum leap results. 

    But you have to be consistent, and you have to be really clear with what you are trying to achieve. I really believe that our life is the destination that we’re trying to seek. The journey is the destination — you will hear me say that all the time. I’m probably gonna say it a bunch of times in this episode. I say it on social media a lot.

    I really believe that the destination we’re seeking is in the small everyday actions and attitudes that we hold. Your mind, the way that you think, the way you see the world, the glasses that you put on — that’s how you see the world, your perspective. That is the journey and the destination. 

    I talk about this a lot, too. There isn’t some big transformation that’s waiting for you. You don’t need to transform your whole life. I feel like I see this so much on — coaches talk about this, and even some therapists, “Transform! Make a big change.” I’m like, “No! What you need is a transformation in your perspective of yourself.” I mean, if you have a bad attitude, if your perspective sucks, then yeah. I mean, maybe you need to change that. Maybe that would be a good transformation to make. But who you are fundamentally as a human being, doesn’t need a huge transformation. 

    What you need to understand and what needs to transform is your understanding of: “You are already enough.” I believe that taking small steps every day in the direction of your dreams is what is going to make the difference between success and prolonging your success.

    Like even if you don’t take any steps towards your success, you’re already a success. Because you’re living and breathing on this planet. I’m going to get a little bit into depression in a little while, which I think gets very lost in this messaging, and especially from like, coaches who are not really — a lot of people are in trauma informed, right? There’s a big gap, I think, in this like coaching / mental health space that I’m hoping to kind of fill in. I’m definitely that trauma-informed-mental-health-is-real type of person. 

    Yeah, we’re going to definitely talk about that. But what I want you to do right now is — okay, so I’m recording this podcast episode on Thursday, January 20, 2022. What I want you to do is understand that the compound effect is what got you to where you are today, regardless of your intention, and regardless of your thoughts about that. All of the days leading up to today, got you here, right?

    This isn’t even thinking about a future goal that you want to achieve, a future result that you want, a quantum leap you want to make. It’s about where you already are. If you were to stand here today — when you’re listening to this episode, it might already be February of 2022. But regardless, I mean, we’re still in the beginning of the year, right? But if you look back on the last five years, maybe, and any goals that you had over those last five years, and where you are today, I’m sure that you can say that you’ve achieved some goals, right? You’ve already probably moved on past through some of those goals that you wanted to achieve. 

    You’ve probably taken a lot of action towards them, and you’re already gone — they’re already gone out of your mind. You’re already maintained. Maybe you’re maintaining them at this point; maybe you’ve stopped working towards those goals all together; maybe you’ve picked up some new goals to work on. But you have the result right now of the compound effect already working in your life. I just want you to sit with that for a minute, and let that sink in. Let the kind of gravity of that be here with you now.

    It’s not good or bad. It’s not like we’re judging the results that you have. It’s just to say that it is already working, right? Like I said, the journey is the destination — our life is the destination. You’re gonna keep wanting things, and you’re going to keep trying to achieve things probably until you die and all of us are going to die one day. 

    That’s one thing that I really think that we need to appreciate. We really need to acknowledge — we really need to come to peace with that fact in life. This is the only January 20, 2021, or whatever date you’re listening to this. This is the only date that will be of this day and time. Sure, maybe time is an illusion. But I mean, we operate in this kind of — in the calendar, right? This is the only time that there is.

    Taking the bull by the horns, so to say. But really getting a sense of appreciating yourself for all that you’ve already done. You’ve already accomplished so much. You’ve already achieved so much. Aside from achieving, just appreciating yourself for getting through the day, living. We are in a pandemic, right? We are living through COVID.

    There’s a lot going on. Something I like to tell my clients a lot is, “You’re gonna have good days, and you’re gonna have bad days. Life is 50% positive, and it’s 50% negative — plus or minus based on whether you’re a pessimist or an optimist.” It’s really not a judgment on that, right? You’re not going to avoid pain in this lifetime. Pain is inevitable. Hopefully, you can’t avoid pleasure in this lifetime either, right? It’s all here; it’s all available, depending on your level of trauma — being open to those opportunities, seeing them in front of you, seeing what’s available to you. This is maybe where I want to get into talking a little bit about depression. 

    Because of course, if you’re suffering from a mental illness, like depression — maybe that’s not the right way to put it. If you have a condition such as, a chemical imbalance or a hormonal imbalance that is making it difficult for you to see the color in life and to feel happy and to feel optimistic, then that is something to address. There are evidence based practices out there that you can do to help you get more in touch with your happiness and with your pleasure. 

    Just like a little personal share: I am right now kind of coming to grips with… Oh, I’ve been in kind of a depressive state. This winter has been pretty rough. Like, I’m finally coming to terms with the fact that I have been depressed for a few months now, and I’m taking action right now, based on this realization — some things that I need to do. But I’m just sharing that to say, there is — sometimes we do fall into these states, and we do have these feelings, and we still can kind of move through that.

    Cause I believe in empowerment. I believe in our individual power to make our lives what we want it to be. That’s kind of the whole point of this podcast episode, right? Yes, we are part of a bigger system. 

    So we are — there are individual things about me that kind of make me more prone to depression, like my biochemistry, my hormones, my diet, my exercise, the generational trauma that was passed down to me by my parents, and my grandparents being immigrants, living in poverty — Things like that get passed down behaviorally, also biologically. 

    That’s kind of separate from me, right? That’s not my individual doing. I’m telling you all of this because I want you to hear your story in this as well, right? It’s not all you if you have some type of like a mental — I really hate to use the word, disorder. But do you know what I’m saying? 

    Because we’re also living in the 2020s. We live in a world with COVID, in a pandemic, under late stage capitalism, with our government that is not supporting us. We live with racism; we live with sexism, misogyny. We have all kinds of issues going on in our society right now. Poverty — there’s such big political splits, huge divides between people. 

    Yes, you can make individual strides towards these things, and we are all interconnected. We can’t really separate ourselves out from this whole puzzle. Yes, we are one individual piece of it, and we are part of a whole. 

    That’s just kind of like my perspective on — it’s like my life philosophy. I mean, it’s like my approach to everything, so it’s gonna get kind of tied in here. But what I want to say is, given all of that, I believe in the process of individuation. I’m a therapist. I believe in that. I believe in your individual right to sovereignty. I believe in the ability and the power that you have in your life to affect change. 

    I believe in your ability to see all of what you’ve already accomplished, how that has accumulated to where you are today, and to look at those results. If you look back, and you can say, “Wow, I’m so proud of myself.” Like how I had asked you at the beginning of this podcast episode, to maybe look back over the last five years and say, “Okay, yeah, those are some goals that I had set out for myself. And yeah, I’ve already achieved them. And yeah, I’ve already blown past them.” Or, “Okay, well, I look back, and I really wish I had done some things differently.” Or, you know, “I recognize that I didn’t have a certain resource. And maybe that’s why that didn’t pan out.” You know, all of that is okay. 

    Here you are today. It’s an opportunity for you that maybe you’ve had a realization, right? You can now take this opportunity to take the next step towards your goal, to see yourself starting that next phase or that next leg of your journey, because we are on this journey of life. Each step that you take on the journey is part of you reaching your destination — you making a decision to be the type of person you want to be is you reaching the end goal that you want to be at, right? 

    You know how they say that, right? Like the present moment, it’s a gift. They call it the present — it’s a gift. It’s happening right now. You’re invited to be in this moment. What does feel good and important for you right now? What are you celebrating that you’ve already done? Where do you want to take it? What do you want to move forward with? You know, taking some stock of your values — what are your values in life? What type of person are you? What type of person do you aspire to be? All of that gets to be here in this present moment. 

    Taking into account the compound effect and how you got to the place that you’re at. There is a reason, It’s not just willy nilly. Things just happen, right? I mean, they do, but there were steps and there was a process, and there were events that happened in your life. And maybe some circumstances that happened in your life that made things kind of go was the way that they went. 

    All of that — coming to terms with all of that is what this moment here is offering to you. Another exercise I’d like for you to think about is thinking about being in your old age. 

    Maybe you can picture yourself at 90 years old. If you’re sitting in your home, next to a cozy fire in a rocking chair with a blanket, reflecting on your life. What would you hope that you would have accomplished? What kind of life? What kind of quality of life do you wish that you would have had? What goals would you have wanted to achieve? Maybe they’re really short-term goals, and maybe others would take decades to achieve. Other goals in your life might not totally depend on your effort, but they still affect you and your quality of life. 

    But thinking about this older version of yourself, what would you like to be savoring at that time? Think about that. What kind of memories would you like to have built up? What kind of experiences would you like to have had? What kind of community do you want to build? What kind of relationship with yourself? What kind of relationship with a spouse or a partner? Do you want children? 

    What about work? Do you want to build a business? Or do you want to stay at home and raise your kids? Do you want to move to a commune? Do you want to travel the world? Do you want to dive deep into spirituality? What is it that makes you come alive? What makes you excited? What turns you on? What makes you happy? What is the reason you’re here, right? 

    Getting really clear about that. And knowing that when you jump it back to today. So, if you’re picturing your ninety year-old self — maybe that’s in 40 years; maybe that’s in 60 years; maybe that’s in 70 years. All of those memories and all of that life experience that you would like to have had in that amount of time from now, you can start today to live that version of yourself. 

    What is one step you can take to get started on those far-off goals? What are some of the shorter term goals that you can achieve now — and I don’t even mean to say goals; I mean to say like quality of life. I mean to say, the type of person that you want to be, the type of person that you are, taking in what you’ve already accomplished. 

    What we talked about at the beginning of this episode — all of the ways that the compound effect already has worked in your life, how can you continue to recognize that they work, and they will continue to work as you live your life? 

    This is the destination. Me saying this to you is to help you understand or let it seem possible for you that you can live the type of life you want, and to recognize how you are already doing it a lot of the time. To respect yourself and respect your capabilities. 

    You know, think about just how you live your day to day life. What’s your daily routine? How do you live on a moment by moment basis? How do your days pan out? How are you already living in a way that highlights your values? That is the type of life you want to be living.

    Like how do you already incorporate these things into your day-to-day life? Let yourself be proud of how you’re already doing that — that’s already enough. Let that be enough. I’m taking a pause and take a deep breath here with you because I want you to let that sink in. Like it’s already enough. The thing about living the life that we live now — when you want more, you can invite more in from a place of excitement and abundance, not in a way of beating yourself up; not in a way where what you already have isn’t enough.

    Inviting more in just to invite more in like, “I have a lot of good stuff. Look at all this good stuff. Oh my gosh, and I’m going to go out and I’m going to share it.” Here I am on this podcast talking about it because I have filled myself up enough to be able to talk about it. I’m going to talk about this on a later podcast episode about, you know, quitting, about resentment and about giving from that place of overflow. 

    We cannot give from an empty cup. We can’t dredge up — scrape the bottom of the barrel of our well and expect to give and to and to feel joy about that. No, you have to fill up so that you are overflowing and you have enough to give. 

    Recognizing that what you already have is so enough, and if you don’t believe that, then find a way to believe it. I don’t mean just by settling; I mean by building your life in such a way that it does become enough. Your life will become enough as you intentionally build it to be that way. Thinking back towards that version of yourself from five years ago, like we talked about before, would that version of you be happy with where you are today? Like if they could just kind of look through some kind of magic binoculars or something, and they could catch a glimpse of where they would be where you would be today. 

    I think about myself, and I have to do this with myself because if I could have — me five years ago, what would that have been? What was five years ago? I’m good at math — 2017. Me at this time in 2017, I was working in a school working towards my LCSW. If I could have seen that I would have my own therapy practice and I’d be working from home, I think I’d be doing freaking cartwheels, and I can’t do cartwheels. 

    I think I would be on top of the world. I think I would be ecstatic. If I had to see all the trials and tribulations that I went through to get there, maybe that would have been scary. But that is the journey, right? That’s like the hero’s journey. You don’t necessarily see all of those scary steps in between. Maybe if you saw them, you wouldn’t want to take them. But that’s not how it goes, right? But yes if I, five years ago, could see where I am right now in 2022, I would be like, “Oh my God, yes! Okay.” So me just showing up, going to my supervision appointments, taking my LCSW — spending all summer studying for the exam to get my LCSW. Taking the test and then all the things that have happened since then. 

    I feel like, “Okay, yeah, I guess I’m gonna do it.” But yeah, I would be so excited to see, to kind of blur out all of what happened in between and just see the result. Yeah, I’d be really excited. 

    That might be a practice for you to get in touch with that version of yourself, maybe five years ago, if they could see where you’re at today, and just be like, “Okay, yeah, cool. That’s great.” Or, maybe they’d be disappointed, and that’s your work for you to do, and it’s all okay. Don’t be scared of that. Do not be afraid of that inner work. That inner work is — that’s the transformation that we’re talking about, okay?

    We’re not talking about changing who you are, changing her name, changing where you’re from — all of these things where it’s inner work does transform, but in a way that’s really beautiful and really authentic and really purposeful and intentional. It’s not like, “Boop, snap, fingers, done!” It’s, “Okay, I’m actually transforming into who I’m truly meant to be — who am I underneath all this trauma.” I talked about this in the previous podcast episode about healing the inner child. It’s kind of like that. 

    These are the transformations we need to make is — returning home to ourselves. Hello, the name of my podcast is Returning Home, right? This is what I want you to do. This is all that matters. 

    What I want you to get from this today is being more gentle with yourself. Giving yourself the credit you deserve, and commit to living in accordance with your values. Once you have your sights set on something — on a goal perhaps, or a way that you aspire to be, then you can take inspired action. 

    Once you take that step, then you are accumulating action, and that leads to the compound effect, right? That’s what we’re here to do. That’s what I’m here to tell you. All you need to do is just know where you’re going, give yourself a little bit of a map. You don’t need to have the full map, but just have a sense of like, “Who am I? What are my values?” How would somebody with these values act and then go and do it.

    That’s how you make quantum leaps. Recognizing your desires, claiming them, looking for opportunities for them to show up, recognizing when those opportunities come up and take the action, and then celebrating. You already do this many times a day. You choose what you’re going to eat, you pick out your outfit, you call someone, text someone on the phone, you do your job. It’s all about these little choices that you’ve made. 

    Starting to see these little moments in your life as an opportunity to celebrate your power to design your life is that kind of special place that I want you to get to after listening to today’s episode. 

    That is pretty much what I have for you on this topic today. I hope that it was helpful. I hope it was insightful. It has been — the compound effect has been something for me that has really helped me in a lot of areas. Like I said, I was at the gym and I’m like, “Okay, these last three reps of this dumbbell exercise or 10 more seconds of these Russian twists or three more minutes on the Stairmaster.” 

    There is the saying in fitness where you work out to failure, where you do it ‘til you can’t do it anymore. And it’s in those last reps that the transformation quote unquote, so to say is “happening,” like that’s where your results are going to come from. So you know, not quitting before the miracle, letting your life be enough, letting the results you’ve already gotten be enough, and recognizing where you’ve been, what you’ve already done celebrating yourself for that — that is huge. You have to give yourself credit. 

    Know that as you do that, that’s the destination that you’re trying to reach. That’s your life. That’s the quality of your life. I hope that this is making sense. I hope that you enjoyed it. If you did, I would so much appreciate if you could rate and review my podcasts on Apple Podcasts. That’s just the easiest way for me to see who’s listening and what’s up. 

    Again, I’m always in my social media story, polling you all to see what you want to hear about next on the podcast. I’ll be putting a poll in my Instagram story soon. Definitely make sure that you’re checking that out. Well, I know I’m saying this out of time, you could be looking or listening to this at any time. Go follow me on Instagram at Elise Kindya.

    Make sure you check my story out because that’s where I go to ask what you all want to hear about on my podcast. I just love keeping the conversation going. Please also share this podcast with someone that you think might need to hear it. If they need this message today. That’s how I can keep the good stuff coming to you — by you interacting, letting me know that this is giving you life, this is helping you out, this is something you want to hear. 

    I really appreciate hearing from you when the inspiration strikes you. Please get out there, go use the compound effect, go see how it’s working in your life. I swear it’s already working. 

    You don’t need to transform; you just need to return home to yourself and let your life be enough. From that place, from giving from the overflow is how you can find more joy and happiness. Thank you so much for being here with me today. I so appreciate it. I look forward to connecting with you next time.

  • Saying No to Parenthood: Reasons Behind Being Childless by Choice

    Saying No to Parenthood: Reasons Behind Being Childless by Choice

    Listen on Spotify Here

    The insistent pressure of settling down and starting a family can be crippling to many of us. People, especially women, are often expected to become parents and are criticized when they choose not to be. But raising kids takes a lot of responsibility, time, energy, effort — and not everyone is ready to commit to the sacrifices that parenthood demands.

    In the eighth episode of Returning Home, Elise shares the reasons behind her decision to remain childless. Here, she highlights the importance of “freedom” and “living life on her own terms.” She hopes her journey will help you reflect on your priorities in life and whether having children is something you truly want – and that there’s nothing wrong if you don’t.

    If you want to learn more about the decision of being child-free, this episode is for you!

    Here are three reasons why you should listen to this episode:

    1. Discover what it means to be childless by choice.
    2. Find out the possible reasons — and Elise’s reasons — for choosing to be childless.
    3. Reflect on your perspectives and priorities on becoming a parent.

    Resources

    Episode Highlights

    [02:12] Choosing to Be Childless

    • Currently, Elise feels good about her decision of being childless.
    • Change is constant; she might change her mind in the future but doesn’t see herself having kids right now
    • Growing up, she used to think about having kids.
    • Becoming a parent and starting a family someday are expected from almost everyone.

    [05:29] Why People Choose Not to Have Kids

    • Raising kids takes a lot of responsibility, and not everyone is ready for them.
    • Some people might just not want to have children.
    • You should live life on your own terms.  
    • Capitalism is another reason people decide not to have kids since living in a capitalist society is both time and energy-consuming.

     

    Elise: “Everybody’s on their last limb on their last thread on their last nerve, right? Like it’s just this constant grind… And it makes me think of trauma. Because trauma is too much too fast too soon. And it seems like there’s this whole hustle of raising kids.”

    • The world we currently live in and its cultural and social expectations influenced Elise’s decision to be childless.

    [10:24] Healing Trauma

    • Elise thinks having kids right now will impede her journey of trauma healing and set her back to a place of scarcity.
    • The inflexibility of time due to constant work may activate trauma and lead to burnout.
    • Trauma can be passed on through biological tissues, resulting in generational trauma.

    [14:43] Other Reasons for Being Childless

    • Climate change, population increase, and industrialization are detrimental to our planet and have become a problem for future generations. 

     

    • Elise worries about her kids’ safety and quality of life in such a damaged world if she chooses to have children.

     

    • She wants to enjoy her time and not deal with the anxieties that having a child entails.

     

    • Some people are childless by choice because they want to experience certain things in life that parenting would take away from them.

    [19:23] Treasuring Your Freedom

    • Most people adore cute babies without realizing that they will grow up to develop their own personalities, behavior, and personal issues.
    • Elise believes that dealing with children would strip away most of her freedom.
    • Essentially, she enjoys her alone time and refuses the idea of children trespassing into her space.
    • You can choose the battles you want to fight and make empowered decisions in your life.

    [24:04] Knowing Your Priorities

    • Her decision could change, but choosing to be childless feels true to her.
    • It’s important for Elise to prioritize herself, her health, and other aspects of her life — she is her priority right now.
    • She still struggles with putting herself first sometimes.
    • For a long time, Elise didn’t put herself first, which made her unhappy.

     

    Elise: “For me, what it means to be childless by choice is to put myself first, all the time, every single day, no matter what because I didn’t do that for a really, really long time. And it made me extremely unhappy.”

    [25:43] The Choice is Yours

    • Having kids will probably make her feel resentful.
    • While exploring other possibilities, she is grateful that her life unfolds in such a way that led her to this perspective.
    • Your life is unfolding the way it’s meant to unfold.

     

    Elise: “If you’re listening to this, your life is unfolding how it’s meant to unfold. And the desires that you have are meant to be there, and the type of life you want to have is possible for you. And so you get to make these decisions from an empowered and informed place.”

    • Life doesn’t come with rules, so don’t let anybody tell you what to do.
    • If you want to know more about being childless by choice, search relevant hashtags on Instagram and look for podcasts.

    Enjoyed this Episode on Visualization?

    If you enjoyed this podcast, please make sure to subscribe and share it!

    Leave an episode review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in to this episode, don’t forget to leave us a review. You can also share what you’ve learned today with your friends to help them embody their true, authentic selves. Anything is possible when you return home to yourself. 

    Have any questions or lightbulb moments? I’d love to hear from you! Feel free to hit me up on Instagram or send an email at elise@elisekindya.com. 

    Thank you so much for listening! For more episode updates, visit my website.

    Transcript

    Elise Kindya: When I think about my reasons for not wanting to have kids or being childless by choice, one of the guiding words of my life is freedom. That is something that means a lot to me and helps me make decisions — like does something help me to feel more or less free? When I think about kids, I think about the opposite of that. That is part of why I choose not to because I want to embody freedom, I want to embody like — living life on my terms. 

    Welcome to Returning Home: The Podcast. My name is Elise Kindya, and I am a trauma-informed and intuitive therapist. This podcast is a space that I have created for you to discover a deeper understanding and love for yourself which leads to expanding what you think is possible in your own life. My goal is for you to feel excited to live your life as your full, authentic self. 

    By listening to these episodes, you will learn things like how your brain works, my favorite resources for healing, stories from my own life, practices that you can press play on to add to your healing toolkit, and so much more. I invite you to return home to yourself in big and small ways to live the life you desire on your terms. You can live connected, empowered, and aligned. When you return home to yourself, anything is possible. I can’t wait to share all of my insights with you. Now, let’s begin. 

    Hello, and welcome back to Returning Home: The Podcast. This is Elise Kindya, and I am the host of this podcast. I’m a licensed clinical social worker. Today, I want to talk about something that is more of like personal interest to me, and something that I’ve been kind of chatting with people about on social media. It sounds like it’s a podcast episode that people are interested in and wanting to dive into. I want to talk a little bit about — 

    I’m 35, about to be 36, and I have chosen to be childless. I think a lot of people in my generation are also making this choice. It’s something that I’ve been talking about on my social media, and just wanted to hop on the podcast, and talk a little bit about what I’m learning and what I’m hearing about. I want to say that, of course, this is where I’m at in my life right now. It might change. Who’s to say the only constant in life is change, of course? We keep evolving and growing. 

    But I will say that right now, this is a choice that I do feel really good about. I know some people that follow me on Instagram and that we’ve been talking in the DMS — there are other people that feel similarly. I want to preface this also by saying if you’re one of my friends, or clients, or somebody that I know listening to this podcast that does have kids, this is in no way an attack on you, or anything like that. This is just something in my own life, this is a choice that I’ve made, and I want to speak to it. 

    I know that there are other people out there that are making similar choices. Again, no shade. Nothing like this has nothing to do with anybody personally besides me. This is just a choice I’m making for my own life. But like I said, this could always change. Maybe in a few years, I’ll wake up and be like, “I’m ready for this now.” But I haven’t felt that way in my adulthood. 

    I do know as a kid, I used to think about having kids. I think as girls, maybe we’re socialized that way. That’s one of the toys that we received — is like a baby, right? When I was — I forget what age. Maybe I was in first grade, I received a baby bassinet for Christmas or something. 

    It was this really pretty pink — like deep pink, magenta kind of color, velvet — really pretty baby carriage, and had tons of different baby dolls and toys, and things like that. It’s always something that’s put on kids as — put on girl children — as like something to aspire to. “You’re going to be a mommy.”

    As a kid, I think I wanted that because like what do we really know about life and choice, and all of that when we’re kids? Not a whole lot. It’s an expectation. As I’ve gotten older, who’s to say — and this is something I’ll explore in this episode around what’s choice and what kind of life circumstance, the state of the world. But that desire definitely is not present in my life right now. 

    As I’ve been talking with people in my DMs, I’m learning a lot about why other people don’t have the same desire. There are some people that say things like, “I don’t understand why people want kids. I don’t like kids. It’s not something I’ve ever wanted.” I mean, I think that we see — I don’t know if you’ve ever looked up any of those hashtags like #ChildlessbyChoice and #CoolAuntie, and things like that. 

    But raising kids comes with a lot of yucky stuff you have to deal with. I was saying this to a client recently, where I was like, “I’ve seen how the sausage gets made, and I’m good.” I used to be a counselor in a school, as well as doing intensive in-home counseling, and I was a nanny and a babysitter. I was babysitting from the age of 12, all the way up through — even when I was in grad school, I would find babysitting jobs just to make ends meet. 

    I’ve like seen kids in lots of different settings, in lots of different stages, and lots of with different needs that they have. It’s just like, “I’ve seen how the sausage gets made.” And I’m like, “So good.” I think a lot of people can relate on that. It’s like — they’re changing the diapers, and potty training, and throwing up, and the bottles, and the food and then this and that — it’s just not for everybody. 

    A lot of people are saying like, “I want to live life on my terms.” Whatever that means to you. I definitely think that there’s something to be said for making time for travel and hobbies, and making our schedules the way that we want them to be, taking vacations that aren’t just on school holidays, being able to set your life up in a way that has you at the center.

    This kind of like leads into another topic. But I don’t even know that the way that life is set up right now is how it’s supposed to be — like how we start school in September, and we work through until Christmas, winter break kind of thing. Then, pick back up, and then work until the spring. Take spring break, and then work until the summer and take summer break. 

    It doesn’t have to be like that. Society isn’t necessarily set up in a way that’s really serving anyone, let alone kids, let alone families. But another reason that I think people aren’t having kids right now is capitalism. It’s not possible in — but maybe that’s overstepping, maybe it’s possible for some people. But what I have seen, and with the people I work with, and even people that are in my social orbit, and just me having to eyes and like, I can see what’s going on. It doesn’t seem to be working too well to have family and work, and all of these things going on. 

    It always seems like there’s a scarcity of time. There’s a scarcity of energy. Everybody’s on their last limb, on their last thread, on their last nerve. It’s just this constant grind. I really do think that it’s so fast, it’s so much, it’s so “ba-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da”. It makes me think of trauma because trauma is too much, too fast, too soon. It seems like there’s this whole hustle of raising kids. There’s this, and this, and this, and this, and this. It’s not slow, it’s really fast and it’s really overwhelming. 

    All that I hear is sleep deprivation and overwhelm, and that’s not good for your body. That’s not really good for anybody. That’s definitely one of the reasons I am choosing not to have kids is the environment that we live in right now — the society we live in, the cultural expectations, the cultural conditioning, what kids are or are not learning in school. We really don’t have — not that I need to have control over another person, but there isn’t a lot of… 

    I hear parents say this like, “Well, I don’t want my kid exposed to this or this.” I mean, there’s this whole conversation in our country right now are on critical race theory and people not wanting their kids exposed to that. It’s like, “What the heck are you talking about?” First of all, I don’t want my kids exposed to people like you. What? 

    That’s just not a battle that I want to fight, and I don’t want to think about that every single day. This is going to be coming on a later podcast episode. But something that I’m getting in touch with right now with myself is healing trauma at a deeper level. Like I said, I’m going to unfold a little bit more around that like what that means. 

    But I know for me, if I were to choose to have kids right now, I would be going backwards in my journey to heal trauma because I’m just finally peeling some layers of this onion that I haven’t had access to before, and I’m finally having access to them. I know that having kids would just set me all the way back to the beginning of that cycle of that journey. 

    I do think that living in this system that we live in with work, and sick days, and sick time, and sick leave, and PTO, and vacation time, and, “You can only take this many days off”, and “There’s only this much flexibility” — I think it’s really burning people out into this. Maybe, it’s not necessarily trauma, but it’s definitely activating. It’s definitely making people question their resources. Even time is a resource, and people are finding that that feels really scarce. 

    It brings to mind the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The very basic, most foundational need of all people is to have safety, security, housing, food, clothing, water. What I see is this — I don’t want to say a lack of those things, but from what I’ve seen, and heard, and experienced, and witnessed, and been a part of firsthand having kids, I think sets would set me into a place of, “I don’t have enough — there’s not enough time, there’s not enough of this, there’s not enough of that.” Already on that the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. 

    I want to get to the top, I don’t want to be at the bottom. This is maybe a privilege that I have that I’m able to see that and to see, “Okay, I’m like in the middle. I’m approaching the top. I’m doing what I need to do.” And I can choose to not set myself back. Again, this is a very personal opinion of mine. I’m not saying that everybody has to agree with me, or everybody has the same experience as me. They don’t. 

    But this is something that I’ve noticed in my own kind of thinking around this and journey around this. I do think there is a sense of — and I’ve talked about this before of trauma can be passed on through biological tissue, like through your body to your child’s body. You might have seen this image that was going around — it was like a couple of years ago at this point — but the egg that made you was inside of the fetus that your mother was inside of your grandmother. 

    Whatever happened to your grandmother’s body while she was pregnant with your mother is inside of some of that DNA that is now flowing in your body. It’s possible. This is why we have generational trauma — not the only reason. There’s a lot of reasons why there’s generational trauma, but this is one of the reasons. The way that I think about that is like I don’t know enough about that to want to keep passing that down. 

    I don’t want to be part of that continual cycle. I definitely think healing is possible in this lifetime for everybody. I think if I were to have kids, that would just be like a whole another level of healing that they would need to do too. I don’t want to do it. I just don’t want to do it. I think kind of going towards the in the same vein of society not being the type of environment that I want to raise a kid in, the planet — although we have such a beautiful planet, we also have climate change. It’s a really real problem. 

    We have an increasing population on Earth and not an increasing space of Earth. Earth is still the same size as it was when there were like a million people on it. Now, there’s over a billion. I think this is tied in with capitalism. For whatever reason, the Earth isn’t a priority to the people in charge. They’re prioritizing money and production of goods over the Earth. That is going to be very detrimental to human life. 

    I believe in science. I think it’s really amazing when you see a — there’s this… I don’t know if it’s some type of a time-lapse or what it is, but it’s an image of the earth and what the Earth looked like for the millions of years it was here before humans, and then as humans lived here for a few 100,000 years. But then when the Industrial Revolution hits and the amount of damage that has been done to the earth in such a short amount of time, and how it’s just going, and going, and going — it just feels like it feels a little hopeless. 

    For me, if I were to have kids, and they had kids, and they had kids, and they had kids — I would worry about their safety. I would worry about their quality of life living on this planet. That’s just not a thing that I want to enter into or expose myself to. It’s just, “Okay, I’m good.” I don’t need to fight that battle. I don’t need to do all those mental gymnastics. I don’t need that guilt on my heart or on my conscience. 

    Some people, maybe they don’t think about that. Maybe that’s not something — or maybe they do and if that’s something that you think about, and you have a way for coping with that, I would love to hear that. I would love to know more about how you cope with that. I’ve mentioned this on the podcast before, I’m an Aquarius. I am in my head 99.9999% of the time — that’s an over-exaggeration, but somewhere in there — I would think about something like this. 

    It’s not a priority. For me is, if I’m already here, and I’m already like a human taking up space, I just kind of want to enjoy my time and not think about, “Wow, what’s the like repercussions of like all of this I’m producing — whether it’s kids and all their waste, and all of that. Then, they have to be here with all of the corporations that are producing billions of tons of methane gas and all this other stuff, and whatever. You know what I’m saying? 

    It’s just not something — I’m just kind of taking myself out of that equation. Maybe, that’s selfish. I mean, I’m okay with being selfish for that reason. That’s okay with me. When I heard from some other people on my Instagram, they were saying they were childless by choice because they want to experience certain things in life that parenting would take them away from — like not being able to do this one thing full force, 100%-all-in. 

    Because being a parent, clearly your attention and your responsibility is kind of occupied over there I totally respect that. That’s something that I’m dealing with as well in my life. One person responded that they like dogs better than kids — which I think is really funny. I think something that we have to remember is that children are whole people. A baby is born and sure, babies are freaking cute until they vomit or poop, and then goodbye. 

    But babies are so cute — they’re supposed to be cute because if they weren’t, then nobody would actually take care of them. It’s an evolutionary advance that they’re cute like they’re supposed to be. It’s meant to be that way. But what I think some people forget is that babies grow up into toddlers. Then, they will become school-aged kids, and then they become middle schoolers. 

    Oh, my God. No offense if you’re in middle school listening to this, talk to me in five years. Then, they become high school students, and then they’re adults. Babies don’t stay babies forever. I don’t know if people forget that. Your child, your cute little baby is going to grow into a toddler, and then they’re going to grow into a middle schooler. I mean, a 13-year-old girl is — no offense again — but, oh, my God. I can remember myself at 13, and I apologize to all of my teachers in school and to all of the kids in my class. That was the worst time ever. 

    Thinking about having to share my personal space with any other type of offspring — like older than a very small infant. Even that, I would be sleep deprived, so then I would still be miserable. I can’t imagine it. I don’t want to give up my freedom in that way. I really enjoy being alone. If you look at my astrological chart, most of my planets are in the 12th house, which means I love me some alone time. I could be by myself for a long time and that would be fine. 

    I kind of think of my home as my safe haven. I think that I would feel really — I don’t want to say it would feel like an invasion. That feels a little bit harsh. But I think it would be really difficult for me to share my space with children. I like things to kind of be a certain way. I’m not a neat freak by any means. There are a few things out of place. But overall, I take care of my stuff. I put it back where it goes. I like that kind of vibe. 

    I remember myself as a kid, you couldn’t walk in my room when I was in middle school. I’m so ashamed of this — my mom wanted to get the wooden floors refinished in the house, and she was like, “Hey, Elise. You need to clean your room so that we can get the floors refinished.” I was like, “I don’t think so. I don’t think I’m going to be doing that.” And I didn’t. That was the kind of kid I was. 

    Those are not battles that I’m trying to fight. It’s not that serious to me to like… If you’re someone that has kids, loves kids, wants kids, is planning to have more kids — I would just love to hear why? I guess I think about myself as a kid, and I’m like, “Oh, Lord.” That was a lot. 

    I know on the previous podcast episode, I talked about inner child healing. Still on that journey, for sure. But this is part of me making empowered decisions in my life. It’s like, “Oh, I can choose. I have the choice, and I’m choosing not to go down that road.” I mean, I think when I think about my reasons for not wanting to have kids or being childless by choice, one of the guiding words of my life is freedom. That is something that means a lot to me and helps me make decisions like — does something helped me to feel more or less free? 

    When I think about kids, I think about the opposite of that. That is part of why I choose not to because I want to embody freedom, I want to embody like — living life on my terms, going where I want to go, doing what I want to do, making my schedule the way that I want it to be. I choose freedom for myself.

    Like I said, this could change. Like I said, I’m going on this whole other layer of my own trauma healing journey. Maybe, once I get through this layer and the next few, maybe this will change. But right now, I’m feeling pretty solid in that decision. It feels from a place of truth for me. For me, it’s really important to take care of myself —  like my mental health, my physical health, and other aspects of my life right now are the top priority in my life. 

    As I say that, I envision a list, there is a hierarchy of who is most important in my life. I am number one on the top of that list. It used to not be that way. There are days that I struggle with that. But that is my aspiration right now in life. My goal is to make it so that that never changes. Like I always see myself as number one on the top of my list from now until the day that I die. 

    That is how I’m choosing to go forward. For me, what it means to be childless by choice is to put myself first all the time, every single day, no matter what because I didn’t do that for a really, really long time, and it made me extremely unhappy. Something else that I’ll talk about on a future podcast episode is this — is the feeling of resentment and how that has played out in my life, and how I don’t want to feel that on a regular basis. 

    I know for me, that would be probably the leading emotion in my life if I were to have kids, I would feel very resentful. Maybe that means I’m less evolved than people who are parents. I don’t know. I’m okay with exploring what’s good for me. I have to say I am really grateful to be able to have the choice, to have the perspective that I have now in life and the experiences that I’ve had that have led me to this point, that have led me to this perspective. I’m really grateful and thankful that this is how it’s unfolded for me. 

    I think for you, if you’re listening to this, your life is unfolding how it’s meant to unfold. The desires that you have are meant to be there, and the type of life you want to have is possible for you. You get to make these decisions from an empowered and informed place. 

    There’s no rush, there’s no rules. Nobody’s telling you you have to do one thing or the other. Nobody’s telling you you have to agree with them. I’m not making this episode in hopes to persuade anybody to not have kids. I’m not making this episode to shame anybody who has had kids. I’m making this episode to speak my truth on why I haven’t. 

    Then, for people that maybe are also thinking about these things, I just want to provide a place where maybe you’re going to hear something that you don’t normally hear. It’s not really talked about that much. As I was — this idea just kind of came to me in the last few days, and I went on Instagram and searched the hashtag #ChildlessbyChoice. If you are childless-curious, or whatever you want to call it, maybe search that hashtag on Instagram. 

    There’s tons of  — there’s podcasts, there’s people. I saw somebody that’s like a childless coach, there are people out there talking about this. It’s not super popular, and I’m sure if you’re my age — like I said, I’m 35 — you probably are seeing a lot of people posting that they’re pregnant, that they’re having kids, you’re going to baby showers, all of this stuff. If you’re wondering, “What the heck? Why?” Maybe search that hashtag out and see if you find some kind of messaging that resonates for you.

    These are some of the reasons I’m considering or that I’ve considered, and I have decided not to have kids and wanted to share some of the feedback that I got in my DMs and in my polls when I put this out in my story recently. Thank you so much for joining me on this episode. I hope that you got a lot out of it. If you know somebody that is wondering about having kids or not, go ahead and share this episode with them. 

    If you got something out of listening to this episode today, I would so much appreciate if you could rate my podcast by scrolling down and just clicking on the stars. If you want to even leave a review, that really helps in getting this message out there to more people. Make sure to follow me on Instagram. My handle is my name — so @elisekindya. I don’t talk about being childless a lot on Instagram, but maybe it’s something I’ll talk about more. 

    So if this is a topic that you are interested in, please feel free to give me a follow and send a DM or something. I think that this is a really interesting topic to think about. I do think that as millennials, we’re like — all these expectations were put on us, and now we’re waking up like, “Oh, wait! What?” I can’t even afford to do that, let alone like the desire to do that. I think it’s a funny time to be alive for sure. Again, I so much appreciate you being here, and I will look forward to catching you on the next episode.