➡ Peggy discusses the importance of remaining aware of your goals, avoiding self-made excuses that lead to stagnation, the need to self-analyze thoughts and feelings, the importance of taking time for self-reflection and focusing on positive aspects of life, despite any obstacles or negative responses from others. The aim is to empower oneself and reshape one’s narrative for personal growth and success.
➡ The text discusses the concept of “love languages,” a system for understanding how people express and perceive love with five categories: words of affirmation, acts of service, physical touch, giving gifts, and quality time. Knowing your love language can facilitate communication and improve relationships with yourself and others, and can contribute to personal growth and self-encouragement.
➡ The speaker is promoting a live webinar on overcoming procrastination, offering tips to assist individuals to overcome this issue that might be hindering their progress and encouraging them to share their talents and skills with others. This is available at thehealthyamerican.org under products and classes, and is set a price to be affordable for all.

Hey friends, Peggy hall back with you following up on our conversation about how to get unstuck. One of the things that came to mind for me is the importance of awareness. So often in my life, when I am just not paying attention to what I’m doing, I’m sort of on autopilot and I can let some important projects fall by the wayside. Some of my goals and dreams and hopes and desires suddenly take a backseat because I’m just sort of caught up in the day to day life.

And I’m not really aware that I’m putting some of those important things on the back burner. And then a lot of us can fall back on excuses such as, I’m too busy, I didn’t have the resources, I don’t have the money, my family doesn’t support me, I would never succeed anyway. And we just get stuck in certain areas of our life. And I asked you to let me know where you are stuck in your life.

And in fact, I want to bring up a couple of those comments. And there was a common thread of what one of our viewers, Crystal, calls it the tall poppy syndrome. I’ve heard of that before. And what I was talking about last week was that sometimes we’re stuck. Not because we don’t think that we can do something or we don’t have the skills, but because we might overshadow others, or we might feel out of step with our friends, or we might lose the friends if they can’t keep up with us.

Or people might think that we’re trying to be better than they are. And that was an interesting perspective to share, because often it seems that people are stuck because they don’t believe in themselves or they don’t have the resource, they don’t have the time. When in fact, when we dig deeper, it’s almost as if you are holding yourself back unknowingly or maybe even knowingly. So we set all that stage last week.

If you didn’t see the video, I’ll have a link for you below. And then my goal for this talk was to explore ways to actually get unstuck and to move ahead of that. So the number one from last week was to just be aware, get a pen and a piece of paper and write down the thoughts that come up. And sometimes you have to just be still and think about the thoughts.

Let me throw out something else that I think is an ill of our society, and that is people’s just like their addiction to entertainment. And it could be movies, it could be the Internet, social media, it could be music. A lot of people say, oh, I love music. I listen to it all the time. It helps me relax or it gives me energy. But if you don’t have any time during your day to just think and to be in stillness, then I would recommend that that’s something that you look at.

Podcasts are another way that people are constantly being entertained. I love podcasts. I love to learn. I love to go on YouTube. I love to watch videos about home decor and how to fix things and how to cook things that I’ll probably never cook. But for me, that is a way of relaxing and engaging my mind by learning something. But I’m also very aware of the fact that I need some time.

I need some time to hear my thoughts, to think my thoughts, to consider my thoughts, my feelings, what I want out of life. If you are constantly being bombarded with messages, even if you think that they are positive and you’re learning something, consider taking more time just to listen. Listen to yourself. Listen to your thoughts. That can be scary for people. They don’t want to just be there.

They may not like where their mind goes. It may go back to old memories. And I’ve got a video on this channel called you can change your past. And you do that by changing its meaning. So for those people that not only get addicted to entertainment, they get addicted to drugs, to alcohol, to gambling, to promiscuity, to overworking, to oversleeping, over drinking, all of these things that are a way of not feeling the feelings, not listening to the thoughts, trying to numb all of that out.

And they don’t necessarily, as I say, have to be that you had something bad happen to you other than society may say, well, who do you think you are? And you’re all that if you continue to succeed. So what I want to talk about is the next step. And the next step is after you look at those thoughts, you took some time to listen to them, to consider them without opinion or judgment.

This is not the time to berate yourself and say, oh, my gosh, I cannot believe how negative I am. That’s another negative thought. And I know it can get us into the spin cycle. So you look at it kind of dispassionately, almost as if you are looking at someone else’s information and you’re just looking at it with compassion, like, oh, I wonder why that keeps coming up. And let’s see where that’s coming from.

And then the next step is to authentically and sincerely consider feeling the feelings that are coming up from those thoughts and then looking for another thought that is actually going to help drive you forward and to give yourself permission to succeed, to excel, to accomplish, to contribute, to be and do what you want. And I don’t even know if that’s grammatically correct to get out of life what you want.

And my friends, it doesn’t have to be related to your age, to your marital situation, to your finances, to your job, to your health. I went through a period of blindness in my left eye. I had a completely detached retina. I’ve spoken about it on this channel as well. It was terrifying because your eye is basically like an organ of the brain. It is such a traumatic experience as I’ve experienced, and many people in my eyebuddies group have told me the same, that the brain actually has a meltdown.

Quite different than if you break your arm or break your foot. I’ve broken my foot before. This is a very different type of traumatic experience when you have vision problems or you lose your eyesight. I could have gone so negative in all of this with good reason. And I’m sure people would have agreed with me if I was worried about never being able to see. And what if it happened to my other eye and my life is over? Why did this happen to me and all those kinds of things? Again, I’ve covered that in great detail, how I dealt with it.

But the point is, I took control of my thoughts, and even when I was facing this possibility of not being able to see as I was accustomed, I was seeing all sorts of other things after the surgeries and stuff, interesting light shows and all of that. And I kept telling myself that regardless of my vision, I could still feel love. It’s true. Love has nothing to do with your vision.

Your finances, even your relationships has nothing to do with your job. You can still feel joy regardless of any other deficits in your life. I could still pet the soft, silky fur of my dog and cat. Nothing was going to take that away, eyesight or no eyesight. So putting up these obstacles that I don’t have the money, I’m too old, nobody supports me, I don’t have the time, I’m not good enough, I don’t know how to do it.

All of these phrases that you’re telling yourself are feeding that being stuck. So consider rephrasing how you want to talk to yourself. I know it kind of sounds like pop psychology and everything, but I think it’s the most important thing is what you say to yourself, because it’s what is going on in your mind most of the time. So many people, myself included. It stings. I admit it.

It stings when somebody makes a comment about something they didn’t like that I said or didn’t like my snarkiness or my appearance or whatever. Trust me, I’ve gotten all the comments and I don’t even bring that to the attention of others because why would I do that other than to just let you know now that, yes, it does sting what people say, but I’m not going to put my self worth into their hands.

And what I have to say can far overshadow what other people have to say. So why don’t I feed myself the messages that I want to hear from others? It’s a wonderful exercise to take out your pen or pencil. This is actually my eyebrow pencil. It’s the one I happen to have right here. And you can make a list of words of encouragement that you would love to hear, words of encouragement that maybe you never got from your family, your friends, your spouse, your coworkers, your boss, society.

Things that you wanted to hear, such as fill in the blank. Maybe you want to be validated for your accomplishments. Maybe you want someone to comment on your appearance, on your cooking skills, on your intellect, on your ability as a mother or a friend or a father or what have you. So what type of encouragement would you like to get? There’s a wonderful book that’s called the Love Languages, and if you haven’t read it, I don’t think I’ve actually read it, but I’ve heard about it so much and I’ve gone to classes on it and I’ve seen things online and so forth.

Maybe I did read it some time ago, but there are basically four different love languages, and you need to understand these because this is how you can actually talk to yourself. What is the language that you use for yourself? So one of the love languages is words of affirmation. And when pastor David and I have gone through the love languages to determine what is his and what is mine like, are we speaking the same language here? And it turns out we say it.

Let me give you the info, because it’s quite interesting. The four love languages are words of affirmation, right. That’s telling somebody, oh, I really appreciate you. It’s so great that you do this and that and you just verbally encourage the person. Another one. And these are not in any particular order. Another one is spending time together. All right. So when you’re together, the togetherness, doing activities, and that’s another of the love languages.

Another one is actually physical touch. So cuddling, hugging, it doesn’t need to mean complete intimacy. But are you a person that likes to hug? Do you like to snuggle up to somebody? That kind of thing. And then another one. Actually, there’s more than four because there is giving gifts as a sign of love and then there is doing acts of service and there might even be another. But these are the ones that come to mind.

And the reason I’m bringing this to your attention now is because we can choose the kind of language that we give ourself and what better way to do that, and also let others know what your love language is and endeavor to find out what theirs is by having these conversations or maybe even reading the book and sharing it. So here’s just a quick know I like to digress sometimes from the topic at hand.

And if you’d like to learn more about this, I think pastor david and I will do this in one of our q a sessions for our supporters, those who have donated to us, those who are a paid subscriber to substac or pagiel Tv or have sent a donation. We do a monthly live q a webinar where we help you with what you’re struggling with. And then we also have a theme for that call.

And the call usually it’s supposed to last an hour. Sometimes it goes about hour and a half or 2 hours because there’s so much to cover. It’s the last Saturday of every month. If you have donated and you weren’t invited, please email my assistant. Use the email support@thehealthyamerican. org so it’s such a great thing to talk about this love language, and we had a little friction because for me, my first love language let me know in a comment below what you think mine is, and I would also love to know what yours is.

And maybe there’s more love languages. We don’t have to be limited to what they teach in the book. One of my main my top two love languages include acts of service. That means when my husband does something for me, it shows me that he loves me. When he empties the dishwasher and gets my oil changed in the car and gets my car washed and takes teddy out. If I’m working on something, all of that says to me loud and clear, I love you.

You’re the most important person in my life, and this is how I’m sacrificing to make your life easier. It is so powerful for me. Acts of service now imagine. So that’s my love language. And then imagine I just assume that that’s his love language. So when he comes home at the end of the day, I’m tidying up the kitchen because I want him to see how much I love him by having the house in order and doing the laundry.

And I’m not going to kiss him on the cheek and ask him how his day was. I’m busy doing things because it’s an act of service. And it wasn’t until we sat down and he explained to me that his love language was spending time together. So me in the kitchen doing things, thinking that I was showing him how much I loved him, was not having that effect at all.

He would much rather have a kitchen full of dirty dishes and the laundry undone and me sitting with him cuddling on the sofa, asking him about his day. That is his love language. So you are able, in this way of learning, to communicate and compromise and feed each other and affirm for the other person their love language. So circle back to how I even started talking about this one.

The other love language for me is words of affirmation. I really thrive, which is why I love my healthy Americans. It’s probably no guess, but I love it when people say, I appreciate you. What you’re doing has an impact. I’m so grateful for your positive value that you’re adding to my life. That is how I personally thrive. Now, perhaps I didn’t get the amount of encouragement and words of affirmation that I wanted or needed growing up.

I know that my dad’s love language was acts of service because he was always doing everything all around the house. I mean, he never sat down. And I know that for him doing things for me. And it’s interesting because that’s one of my love languages. But the words of affirmation, maybe from a boss, I needed it more. Maybe when I had clients that I was helping. I’m just being really honest and open here, and I would love for you to determine what is your love language and then use that for yourself, for your self encouragement.

So all the years that I berated myself, that I criticized myself for my appearance, for my. Whatever it may be, and again, it was probably overblown. I may have thought that I was disorganized, but to the outside world, I looked like Marie Kondo with everything color coordinated in my closet and facing the same direction. I couldn’t go to bed unless everything was folded and put away. But for my own standards, I just had that streak of perfectionism and I think that is also at the root of a lot of this.

And then there is the rebound of perfectionism. And you may see this with your children or your grandchildren or even a loved one where you’re like, wow, why can’t they get on the ball? And sometimes it’s a rebound effect that they fear that they’re not going to be perfect. So they don’t actually put forth the effort at all. But our topic at hand is how to take control of your words and your thoughts and to consider modifying them in a way that actually is going to match up with your love language.

Now, this issue of gifts, some people getting a gift, that’s like, now I know somebody loves me. So you could do that for yourself. You could buy yourself a gift, especially after maybe you’ve done a few things that you’ve wanted to get done. And you could keep a promise to yourself that after you complete x, y, and z, I’m going to give you myself a little gift. Or maybe take yourself out for lunch or do something nice for yourself.

The bottom line is here, friends, is that self criticism rarely works in the way we wish it did. It’s unfortunate that for many of us, our families, our friends, our society, our culture, our coworkers, our boss, our coaches, in particular, those that were in sports, a lot of the encouragement came through ridicule, through criticism, through all types of negative language. And you may be saying right now, hey, Peggy, I’m a champion ice skater.

And it was because my coach berated me. We don’t know that that’s why you’re the champion ice skater. You may have achieved that accomplishment sooner if you had been encouraged in a manner that was consistent with your love language. Notice none of the love languages were about criticism or ridicule or teasing. No place for that. So we don’t know that criticism actually helped with whatever it is you accomplished.

It’s possible that you could have accomplished much more in a much more enjoyable manner if there had been positive encouragement along the way. Don’t take my word for it. I’d like you to experiment. So for this week, you’re going to write down some phrases that you would like to hear, phrases that would encourage you, such as, keep going, you got this. I got your back. No matter what happens, you’re still worthy.

And some of my favorites. There’s always another way. I’m going to find it and just encourage your own self in a way that makes sense. I can’t give you the words. They need to be your words. So consider writing some down and then trying them on for size. And if they don’t feel authentic, then you can also use a little hop, skip and jump, such as I look forward to the time when I and fill in the blank.

And then that way it may help you feel a little bit more authentic. So get out, do something that you love. Give yourself those words of encouragement. And I know that there are brighter days ahead, and I can’t wait to see you in an upcoming video. Hey friends, before you go, I want to make sure that you know where you can sign up for my live private webinar all about how to stop procrastinating now.

If you can’t make it live, it will be recorded for you. Let me show you where you can sign up. That is over@thehealthyamerican. org. Click on products and classes. And right here, five ways to stop procrastinating now. Because it’s the holidays, I wanted to make sure that this was a price for the course that everybody could afford. So don’t procrastinate on signing up. It’s right here over@thehealthyamerican. org we are going to talk about the top ways that people are procrastinating on their dreams.

And I have identified five major areas with a couple of little bonus tips that I want to share with you. Ways that I have been able to be productive, effective, efficient. I know that you have God given gifts and talents and skills to share, and you want your life to be a blessing to others. Let me come alongside you step by step and help you stop procrastinating. Now the clock is ticking.

Our life is lived forward. So let’s roll up our sleeves, tackle these issues that are keeping you stuck so that you can share your gifts as intended. .