Reigniting The SPARK Within, With Carla White

This episode is a conversation with Carla White.  Carla is a Spark Igniter!

She’s on a mission to empower high performing 

women to heal emotional overwhelm &

exhaustion so they can finally give themselves

enthusiastic, unapologetic Permission to Play… to reignite the Spark within, find joy, and boost their energy using the power of FUN. She is a 4x international 

best-selling author, including her book Reignite

Your Spark & contributor to Chicken Soup for the Soul,

The Spirit of Canada. Carla is the creator of The Connection Club and Reignite Your Spark Retreat, held annually in the Canadian Rockies.  She hosts the Permission to Play Show

Another enlightening episode on how one can reignite their spark through play and find JOY once again. Carla´s work in the world is based on the proverb, ¨The body heals with play, the mind heals with laughter and the spirit heals with JOY.¨

She talks about how the natural state of human beings is JOY however, we have all experienced drama, trauma, and shitastrophies that if left unhealed will keep us from actually enJOYing our life adventures. 

Carla shares her personal experience and how she  got herself to where she is today and how she supports professional women in finding their JOY again through play.

I love her take on PLAY and how important it is for adults to still PLAY.  She also shares with us her ABC´s.

A-Allow what is coming up and let it be, don´t judge it.
B-Breathe-  This is our energy life source
C-Connect with soul, community, higher power, or support system.

She also chats with us about about the three components of PLAY:
1. Connection
2. Playfulness
3. Flow

Enjoy this episode and please let me know what you took away from this episode that can change what you are doing right now!

Please TEXT one person who you KNOW who will like this episode. Tell them that they NEED to listen to this podcast and to get back to you and tell you what they took away from it.

How to connect with Carla:

Website: https://www.carla-white.ca/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/carla.white.56808
IG: https://www.instagram.com/connectwithcarlawhite/profilecard/?igsh=YTh2Z3k1aXViNWxy

Drive-A-Logue link: https://drivealogue.com/?sca_ref=4141865.xLTkWKLvJW Put NJT in the coupon box for a 20% discount!

Lauren's Book, My Dad Died From ALS and How I Found Joy 30 Years Later
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B2J15M3Z

CONNECT WITH LAUREN AND HER FAMILY

Email: lauren@dailyjoy.us
IG: https://www.instagram.com/laurensdailyjoy/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/lauren.g.raymond

Transcript

*AI Transcribed*
00:08
Hello and welcome to Navigating Joy Together. My name is Lauren and I'm here with my family. Mark. Addison. Hunter and our dog Onyx. Each episode you will hear about our experiences with navigating joy together in our family, as well as tips you can bring back to your family. Thanks for spending time with us. Now let's get to it.

00:45
navigating joy together. Before we get to this week's episode I just wanted to give you a couple reminders. If you are looking for a research-based strategy to encourage meaningful conversations with your children I want you to check out Drive-A-Log. The mission of Drive-A-Log is to provide a vehicle for families across the country to have meaningful and brave conversations. You can order these decks of cards online and they come in different grade levels. There's one for grades two through five.

01:14
six through eight, nine through 12. And the benefits of these, kids are more likely to have honest conversations when they're not forced to have direct eye contact. You can make this a day-to-day conversation that's easier and provides a higher percent that your kids will talk to you when they are having challenges. The cars have questions about real life things that kids deal with, and sometimes those things are very difficult for parents to ask and start a conversation.

01:42
They also build connection and they are engaging and that conversation is proactive and they're definitely age appropriate so you just decide which deck you want. Go ahead and look on the show notes. The link is in the show notes and you can get your set of cards today. We love them. We've used them and it's just created wonderful conversations while we were driving.

02:08
You can also get a 20% discount if you put in NJT in the coupon code box. I'd love to hear what your thoughts are about them and how it works for you. The other thing I wanted to just remind you, if you haven't checked out my book that I wrote, it's on Amazon. It's a memoir called My Dad Died of ALS and How I Found Joy 30 Years Later. It's just my story about my dad being diagnosed with ALS when I was in eighth grade.

02:36
and the four years that followed up until his death and even how life transpired since his death, which has been over 30 years. It's affected me in many ways. And one thing I did learn is that we can still find joy in suffering and in grief. And it took me a while to really find that true joy. And I talk about that in the book. So go and get it, share it with one person, just one person you know who might be struggling with something or...

03:04
has a family member who may have an illness or a terminal illness, there is some value in there and I would love and be grateful if you checked it out and you shared it with one person. I know that it will impact other people and give them some hope. The link to the book you can also find in the show notes as well. All right, now we will head over to this week's episode. In this week's episode, I have a fabulous conversation with Carla White.

03:34
Carla is a Spark, Igniter, and Transformation Catalyst. For over 30 years, she has helped people navigate crisis and chaos, first as a nurse, and then an actual firefighter. A certified success principles trainer, she was part of the Jack Canfield assisting team for over five years. Carla is also certified in women-centered coaching and an energy codes facilitator. Carla is a four times international bestselling author of Reignite Your Spark.

04:04
and a contributor to Chicken Soup for the Soul, the spirit of Canada. Carla toured Canada and the US with her hilarious one-woman show, Shut the F Up, Confessions of an Angry Housewife. Carla's on a mission through her coaching, retreats, and the Connection Club to guide high performing women to heal emotional overwhelm and exhaustion, to ignite innate power, passion, and play, so they can finally feel free to show up as their most joyful.

04:32
extraordinary, blossom self. I hope you enjoy this conversation and let's get started. Hi Carla, welcome to Navigating Joy Together. I'm so glad that you are here and I'm so excited for this conversation with you. Well, thanks for having me Lauren. I love the name of the podcast, like Navigating Joy Together. Amazing because that's what it's really all about, right, is being together and navigating that.

04:58
that joy. So I'm so excited to get into this conversation with you. Oh, good. Thank you. And thank you for that. It took us a while to try to figure out a name. And like you said, it's kind of what we do every day as a family is we just try to navigate joy. So it kind of fits. So thank you for that. Okay, well, why don't we just get started and just tell us a little bit about yourself what you do and what you do. Sure.

05:22
Let's say my love language is delicious coffee and fun conversations, epic travel, and really meaningful connections with people sprinkled with a little bit, well actually a lot of laughter. And I'm a transformation catalyst, which means really just that I help women and professional women actually.

05:50
find their joy again. And I consider myself a spark igniter. And my book is called Reignite Your Spark. And it's really all about my journey from depression and anxiety and high performing kind of angst and burnout that went to a place of finding my joy again. And the spark, what I call the spark is the essence that we all have inside of us of the goodness, the joy, those emotions that

06:19
just a part of being human. And so I help people to light that spark again when they've kind of lost it. Oh my God, this is gonna be so incredible. I can't wait to hear your ideas because I think we lose it very easily. And I am curious real quick, and I'm glad you brought up your personal experience because we will talk about that if that's okay.

06:41
Yeah. Do you find a lot of professional women just lose that? They must because they're so enthralled and then just focused on maybe their professional life. Well, I think that it's part of it is just becoming an adult, right? Like we get into this and this idea of, I know for me it was like, I consider myself a not so recovered perfectionist, high achiever. Like I like to think that.

07:10
Oh yes, I've got that all taken care of. But it's this idea, I think, as women that we often feel like we have to prove and improve our lives all the time and strive and achieve things just to kind of show our worth. And so we kind of get caught up in all of that and we're in this constant state of striving and...

07:38
trying to just, we were overwhelmed and exhausted. And it has a lot to do, which I figured out eventually, a lot to do with the nervous system. And I also talk a lot about drama, trauma, and catastrophes which happen in our life, which start to dampen that joy. So children are born, we're all born with that essence of joy in us. I mean, it's love and joy and babies and.

08:07
all of that and then we have these life experiences and that start to kind of pile on and it just gets harder to kind of go through those experiences, have the big emotions and then still go, oh wait a second, I'm not enjoying life anymore. And with my own journey, I found that it wasn't sort of a, I woke up one day and went, oh, hmm, I'm not happy, I'm...

08:36
it was like this gradual kind of progression to waking up or or maybe being asleep and kind of just going through the motions of life and understanding sort of where I was at. Like I was sitting on my back deck and

08:58
I remember I had three beautiful, healthy children who were running through the sprinkler and it was this perfect day of just, it was warm and sunny and the river was going behind the house and I've got my cute little playhouse that my husband built and these kids are running through the sprinkler and they're laughing and they're carrying on. And I had this moment where I...

09:25
I just was looking at all this joy and I didn't feel any of it. And I think that that's what happens often in our life is that we are so busy and we've got all of this going on around us that we don't notice those joyful moments. And in that moment, that was actually about...

09:49
the 10th year that I'd been treated for depression. And so I was on an antidepressant and the medication, while it helped me from being sort of in that low, low, it also kept me from experiencing the joy, the love and the joy that was around me. So that was kind of one of those pivotal moments that helped me see this isn't how I wanna live my life anymore. I don't know what or how I'm gonna do it.

10:19
But I need to find that joy again and be able to actually feel it, feel it in my heart and my body. And so that's been the journey. That's incredible. And I feel like when people do feel it inside, like you feel it. Like when I am tapped into it, like you can, like I feel like my heart wants to burst in a good way. I heard other people and they've shared their stories of how they've kind of transformed to focusing on finding more joy.

10:45
is that they have that realization moment. And I feel like sometimes for people, it's really hard to know when that moment is, and especially on their own. So I think that's incredible. Like just, I can picture these kids running through, you know, these young kids, I can picture the whole scene. And I think that's amazing that you were able to really identify, like, you don't wanna be, this isn't where you wanna be, and you're not feeling that. So what were your next steps after, and how did you kind of get to?

11:14
that place of bringing yourself out of it? One of the things that I immediately contacted my doctor and said that I wanted to be... I guess at that point, I kind of had this knowing. I come from the medical background. I was a nurse and then a firefighter and I had been out of the helping field because I stayed at home for 10 years with my children.

11:43
Coincidentally, you know, that's when I was treated for depression and anxiety. There's a whole bunch of beliefs and some stuff around that too, but I contacted my doctor and I said, is it possible to wean myself off of this? And what they had told me with depression was that, well, it's a chemical imbalance in your brain. That's what it is. And I just always felt like, no, there's something more to it.

12:13
the medication isn't the answer. So it was kind of this exploration of, okay, so now I'm off this medication, now what? How do I find this, find my way? And I kind of found it in an unusual way. I had discovered, I'd heard Jack Canfield speak when he was doing the tour for the Chicken Soup for the Soul and he just totally inspired me.

12:43
And I then 10 years later had or 10 or 15 years later saw him again. And he was talking about becoming a success principles trainer. And I thought, well, that's what I need. Like more training. So I applied and I was accepted to his year long success principle trainer.

13:08
experience which meant that I got to go to fantastic places in the US and um and study with him and then I was on his assisting team for five years and that first year where we thought that we were going to learn about success was actually uh a very cathartic year of really because like Jack said you can't just get up and help people transform their lives without

13:36
transforming your own life. And so we did a lot of processing of our emotions. And that's when I realized, oh, I was holding so much grief from things that had happened in my childhood. And it was a cathartic year of really looking at our emotional wellbeing, our psychological and emotional wellbeing. And that was really sort of the...

14:06
The process then that I started going down was, okay, so this is what I'm gonna learn how to do this and I'm going to, and I remember when I was writing my book, my editor had said to me, Karla, this personal development, it never ends. It is always there. And of course I rolled my eyes and thought.

14:32
Well, clearly you're doing it wrong because I'm just going to fix myself and then it'll all be great. Like I'll have all the joy and all the... I'll be like everything will be just perfect, which, you know, so delusional back then. But what I've discovered now is that it's not so much about personal development, so much as I call it personal discovery. Figuring out who we are.

15:02
and what our values are, what we want in the world, what's meaningful to us, what brings us joy. All of those has been an exploration. And some of that is through the success principles that I worked through, and some of it has been other healing work that I've done.

15:26
and I'm now have moved more over into the semantics and understanding the mind-body connection and that it's not all just about mindset, which everybody tells you that, because I really struggled with that for a long time, was that, why can't I just be happy? Why, like, I've got all of this going on in my head and for so long, I lived in my head. Like it was just.

15:52
about mindset and just do mantras. And I would look in the mirror and I do the mantras and it's like, that's not true. And so I've progressed and developed my consciousness to understand more about who I am and the energetics. And it really comes down to our emotions. And when we're talking about joy, it's all the other emotions that most of us

16:21
don't really want to feel. That we don't want to feel the sadness, we don't want to feel the anger, we don't want to feel those ones that just make us kind of feel crappy. And so for a long time, what I understood that I had done was I'd pushed all of that down and then it gets stuck in your body and then you have, you know, physical manifestation of those stuck emotions. And so that's been the work that I've sort of

16:50
progressed from the success principles, which was very sort of cerebral and mindset. But there was a lot of, Jack had actually introduced me to the silent meditation retreat. And that's actually what my book is written on is my experience of being this high achieving, uptight perfectionist.

17:15
that had to go and be silent for 10 days. And what that experience was like, I did actually find a way to legally talk at the but I had to have a very well, I ended up running out of the meditation room and throwing up and yeah, so there was a whole big story around that. But it was this, this moment of understanding.

17:45
my emotions better and how kind of this, how do we get to experiencing joy and how do we get to this happiness and how do we get to that. And I think some of the work that I do is that I help people feel and actually heal their lives so that they can get and the whole healing journey, it's interesting. I just shared a reel because it was so impactful.

18:15
that something about that we're not healing for, we're not healing the trauma and what I call drama, trauma and catastrophes. We're not healing that for that itself. We're healing it to have more capacity for joy. So, okay. There's so much that resonated with me and what you just said. So I wrote a memoir a couple of years ago. I had lost my dad to ALS when I was young and I

18:43
talked about in there, the same thing I would suppress all those feelings, right? Like everyone's like, Lauren's always so happy, you know, and what I learned 30 years later, it's when I wrote it, is all suppressing all that from what I've read. And I actually believe this, not everybody probably does, but does rob you of that true joy. Even though I was, I've had a good life since and there's a lot of great things happening, I just don't think I ever really felt that stuff because...

19:13
those feelings because I would suppress it. And when I was before I started writing it, my best friend had asked me as going through this coaching program and I had to send some specific questions to a few people who knew me really well. My best friend who went through that experience with me said, I don't know if you really feel sadness when you're sad. And it was like this huge like explosion, like, oh my gosh, she's absolutely right. Like, I don't, you know, so that's really fascinating.

19:42
That's crazy. Okay, so how do you find your own joy? It's a process. And it's also something that I used to used to talk about how, you know, like shift. And I still do this is still part of my my curriculum is talking about the the fear. So stop having intense fear today to start

20:09
having immense fun today is one of the ways that I have understood. I found this proverb a while ago that just spoke to me because I was doing comedy. It wasn't stand-up comedy. I did a show called Shut the Fuck Up Confessions of an Angry Housewife. You might have to beep that. It's all good. I'll just mark it as language.

20:36
Which was a bit of an issue for my husband who doesn't swear and my parents who were like, what? But it was just, it got people's attention. But I, for a long time, I did sort of that, oh yes, like it's all about healing with humor and finding joy and ha ha ha. And it was almost like this bypass where I didn't want to go back to feeling those deep

21:04
feelings of grief and loss. So the proverb that I found was that the body heals with play, the mind heals with laughter, and the spirit heals with joy. And that resonated so much with me that that's how I'm relearning how to live my life that way, because there's so much in me that is like I'm having to learn how to not.

21:32
get into my perfection a spiral and not sort of get back into that exhaustion and overwhelm and burnout. And so some of it for me is giving myself permission to play. And that's the name of the podcast that I'm launching here is giving ourselves permission to feel the joy and to find the happiness. And I think

22:00
so many times. I had a, I went through when I was working with a coach, I had discovered that I had cherophobia, which is the fear of being happy. I, it was like, how can I be happy when there's so much our family had experienced, not one, but two tragedies. My brother was killed when he was 14. And then my niece,

22:28
30 years later was killed on a family ski trip at Christmas time. And so these experiences happen. For a long time I recognized that I wouldn't let myself feel that joy or have those experiences because I felt like somehow I was dishonoring the pain that everybody else had.

22:58
what I finally realized is that stepping into that, that's not a disservice, but it there's, I don't know, unpacking this is a little bit, I hadn't really intended to talk about this, so it's funny that it's coming up, but I've recognized that I really needed to take a look at what are those feelings that I've suppressed.

23:26
And I do, I have a number of sort of techniques and tools and things that I use when I feel like, okay, I'm down in that spiral. And I do the, like on a scale of one to 10, what's my mood? And somebody said, I use that in my training. And somebody said, so what

23:50
What number should we be at? Of course, 10 is love and joy and all of that. And one is like shame and blame and all of the other less desirable emotions. And I said, I can be anywhere on the scale at multiple times a day because we're human beings. What happens is some of it's with positive psychology, but this idea that, oh my gosh, we need to be.

24:17
euphoric and happy and excited all the time. And I recognize for my own nervous system, that just felt exhausting to do that. And so I needed to address some of those other lower vibrational kind of emotions that were going on. And I used to say, you know, like shift out of it and shift to have a better thought and all of that. And it really is now I invite

24:45
my clients to just stay in play and sit with the sadness, allow yourself. And I do things like, for me, dance has always been a, I don't know, I just love dance. I say, don't exercise, I dance. Um, but I didn't realize that that is actually so healing to our nervous system is that movement in the, because it's the shaking, but it's also.

25:14
just something that brings me joy. And so it is kind of finding those, okay, so what are my, I have a joy list and what are the things that bring me joy? And so I don't bypass it if I have the, there's something coming up for me. And I can tell you that as a creator and as somebody who's out there as a leader in this,

25:43
It's not that I don't experience sadness and doubts and worry. I think this whole idea of imposter syndrome, it's like, okay, we all have it and we all experience it. It's bringing down the timeline of when you're in that, that spiral. And, uh, sometimes it takes me a moment of, I mean, it used to be whoever

26:08
said that it was a dark night of the soul was underestimating the timeline because my first one was like 10 years long. But now it is recognizing, oh, okay, what is this sadness in me or what, you know, and being okay with that. And I talk about, I give sort of a pointer is when you have something come up, like the...

26:34
the feelings there, something that you're resisting, which I'm really learning a lot about my resistance and resistance to experiencing joy. And what I recommend is following the ABCs. So allow whatever's coming up to come up.

26:59
let it be okay, don't judge it that I should have been over this by now or I mean, I can't believe that like, what is this instead of and some people say, you know, name it to claim it, I think. But actually doing energy work, it's more the sensations and in your body, like just noticing, embracing, acknowledging, okay, so what is this? And

27:28
being okay with whatever it does. We don't have to, as soon as we sort of label it, oh, this is sadness, then we go into story of, okay, well, what am I sad about? Like, why is this? So there's different healing techniques, but one of it is just allow it and whatever comes up, if there's tears that come up or there's anger or screaming that comes up, I mean, clearly you wanna do this in a safe environment.

27:56
Um, and, uh, and then breathe. The other thing I do a lot of breath work and have focused on that now, because that is our energy, our life source, right? Is our breath breathing. And when we're, when we're tight and constricted and tense and in fight or flight, we don't breathe deeply. And so that keeps us in that, that, uh, um, fighter flight and our physiology then. So it's.

28:26
taking a deep breath and just pausing to take a deep breath. And I also talk about the power of the pause and how, okay, know when you need to like take a break. Like I've been taking a break pretty much from social media because I was working through some of my own things and I knew that, okay, I just need the pause. And then C is to connect. And that's to connect with your soul, connect with your...

28:55
community, your support system, connect with a higher power, whatever that is for you. And it's really just coming home to myself. When I really tune in and come home to myself, then that's when I can find that joy again. But I do have to process the other emotions that are there.

29:19
I don't think people know, well, I never really knew how to do that either. So I don't think we know how to do that. So when you work with your clients, I'm assuming it's probably hard for them to initially do that. And then the play piece is so fascinating to me because as adults, we do not play enough by any means. And so is that hard for them when you're working with them and how do they learn to just let themselves like play and have fun? And sometimes we have little kids or kids as easy. I really try to chat.

29:48
happen to my kids when they're playing. I'm like, I'm just going to go play with them. Everything else can wait. But if you don't have kids or maybe your kids are gone, like how do you do that on your own? It is, that's where finding community I think is really important. And I'm going to be launching the Connection Club, which is about bringing more joy and play and fun and also the healing aspect of it because that's the piece that I feel so many of us need to heal that.

30:17
sort of the emotions of the past that we haven't done in order to get to this place. And I talk a lot about letting go and just throwing caution to the wind. And it is something that honestly for me, that's been like the whole idea of play. And it's a it's a relearning for me to how do how do I make it?

30:45
fun and the power of fun, part of, uh, there's three components to true fun is, uh, connection, playfulness and flow. I think those are the three anyway. And so it's like, okay, how do I get into a flow state as a creator and how do I play and how to, and, and it's, it's taken me like, I am by no means an expert at any of this.

31:12
is because it's part of my process that I'm learning to give myself permission to play and to have fun and to recognize it. And so that's why I'm sort of starting the Connection Club so that I've got an opportunity to come together with other women so that we can have those meaningful moments, but also like just have fun and laugh and enjoy each other's company and...

31:40
and learn how so many of my friends would say, well, I don't know how to relax. And it's like, stick with me, I know, but I don't. I mean, I do, but that's been the process, right? This learning how to be fun again. And I was doing some research and I came across this like,

32:03
childhood joys for people over 50. And it's like, which I'm over 50. And I was like, okay, let me see what are they. And the third one on there was ride a bike. Well, I just got back from the red California redwoods and my husband who is a biker rented me an e-bike and we did 75 kilometers in one day. And I bruised my tailbone.

32:31
I was not relaxed. I did not have fun. It was not playful. So, you know, like, it's, I think, and I think that that's it is that we all have our own experiences and going back to kind of childhood things when we were joyful is

32:58
And for some people this is hard because they have had significant trauma in their childhood. And our subconscious is developing from the time we're born until about age nine. So I mean there's so much in our body that we experience that we don't understand why am I procrastinating or why am I doing this. But it has a lot to do with your nervous system and your nervous system regulation.

33:28
like learning to play, it's like being curious and just sort of opening up. And yeah, it's all an experiment to see just how much fun can we really have. And it's finding those moments, right? It is. And this is a perfect segue to what I want to quickly share with you about childhood joys that I've held onto for a long time. However, I have to say two things.

33:57
even though that may have not been a completely joyful experience for you, you're laughing about it now when you talk about it. So there's got to be something there, but good job. There was a story about me standing in there because I bruised my tailbone. So then I had to go and buy a donut cushion, which that's what we call them.

34:18
the packaging says it's an invalid pillow and it's like well do I need a 16 inch or an 18 inch invalid pillow so I've pulled this thing out in the drugstore and I've got it up against my butt and I'm like oh okay so good news I'm only a 16 inch invalid pillow so it's that's some of just how I cope with life too is how like it's a funny story right is after the healing

34:46
is when you can find the humor in it. So yeah, definitely. The second thing that just made me think of this a few weeks ago, we're obviously on summer break and a few weeks ago, you know, it's 9.30, my husband works construction in the summer. So he has long hours. We both are wanting to get ready to bed for bed. Our kids are outside playing in the dark and they come in like, we need to do a water balloon fight. And we're like, it's 9.30, like it's our bedtime. And the husband was like, I do not want to do this. Like he was so adamant. And I was like,

35:16
kind of like, okay, I'll try it right now, but it's 930. Like we're ready for bed. Yeah. And we went out there and it was so much fun. I mean, it was like maybe 10 minutes and we had a blast. It was such an impromptu thing and we just went out like didn't expect this and

35:36
It was so fun. It was so fun. So we bought tons more water balloons. We haven't done another one yet, but it was just such a fun thing. It was that's play, right? Like we just went and played with them. It was a blast. Yeah. Yeah. And I love that, that you did do that and had that capacity because for so many of us that we wouldn't make that time. Yeah. And, and so it is, you get to

36:04
when you recognize that and you go and do it and you're, oh my gosh, that was so much fun. So much fun. And I really try, you know, these kids, as you know, grow up so fast and I'm, you know, we're two years out from our oldest, possibly going to college. And so I've, we really tried to just put things aside that don't need to be done right now and spend the time with them because they want to spend the time with us right now. And they're gonna be gone. She's gonna be gone soon. And then...

36:33
my son's going to be gone after that. You know, and it's, I don't want to look back and miss all this time that we could have done things with them. And so, um, the business is a work in progress. I mean, believe, you know, as an adult, you're like, I've got 10 million things to do, so, but it's worth it for sure. Okay. So God, this was in 2018. I used to subscribe to daily Elm. I don't know if you're familiar with it, but, um, and I printed this out and I used to share this a lot when I would do like parenting, joyful parenting classes. But I.

37:02
This is something I've never thrown away since I got it because I love it so much. It's called Remembering Childhood Joys and the author was Madison Taylor. And I won't read the whole thing, but there's just a few things that when you talked about, just when I looked at your proverb, proverb that you shared, this is the first thing I thought of. You know, but something she says in here is fun isn't something that is given or done to you. It is something that you allow yourself to experience.

37:30
which I think is so powerful. And she talks about, you know, as adults, we get caught up in all the grownup business and we forget about being fully present in our lives in the moment, which can rob us of all that fun. And then she talks about when, you know, think about when you were a child and the experience of just pure delight would come naturally for most children, right? And try to call those back to you to bring them back into your present life.

37:58
And then maybe, you know, build on it or see how you can maybe emulate it or do something a little different. But I just love like this last part. She says, pure fun happens when we are fully engaged with ourselves and our world in each moment. It is the spontaneous delight that bubbles out of us when we let go long enough to bring it through. It is the experience of natural organic pleasure that springs up from our bellies, through our souls, up through our faces and down to our toes.

38:25
We've naturally known how to have pure fun since we were babies and the flicker of lights caused us to jump to attention from their sheer enjoyment of being able to see from the sheer enjoyment of being able to see. Approach your life today with the knowledge that pure fun isn't something that is given or done to you rather is something that you allow yourself to experience. I just love it. I love that. I love that. Would you send me a copy of that? I'd love to share it as well. Yes, I will definitely.

38:52
Yes. Yeah, it's powerful for sure. This has been such an incredible conversation and I could talk to you forever, but we don't have forever tonight. So I would love for you just to share, if you want to share a little bit more about some of your other books and where people can find you and how they can get support from you. Absolutely. I'm just sort of in the process of...

39:16
I don't know whether you call it rebranding, but I was laugh with Carla and I'm now on Instagram and Facebook as connect with Carla. And I think it's actually connect with Carla White because apparently there's a lot of Carla's. So let's connect with Carla White. And you can also find me, if you put in laughwithcarla.com, you will be taken to my website, but probably you've got show notes. We can put my website in there. My community,

39:46
I'm sort of doing some changes there too, but I've got a newsletter that I call Soulbrew and that goes out and it's really just about helping high performing professional women to heal their overwhelm and exhaustion so that they can finally give themselves unapologetic permission to play so that they love the life they're waking up to and they can finally feel free to be their most joyful.

40:14
extraordinary floss themselves. Oh my gosh, that is so beautiful. That's really what I have found sort of my mission has been to work with other high performing women to do all of that so that they can show up for themselves, show up for their babies, show up for their families. Because when we help each other rise, it will really just change the world.

40:44
we need more happy, lit up, joyful people in the world. And if I can do anything to help, I do some one-on-one coaching and I've got other programs, but if they wanna get in my community, then they can hear all about those. That sounds wonderful. Yes, I'll put all that information in the show notes for sure.

41:09
And is there, I mean, what you said was incredible, but is there anything or one last thought you want to leave with the audience? The most important thing that I have discovered and that I encourage people is to be more you. Like, accept and love all of you. All of the, all of those heart emotions, all of the, the, the joy, the, you know,

41:38
all of those, it's all a part of the human experience is to have all of those emotions. So when you can navigate those, navigate all the emotions, then you'll be able to navigate yourself to joy. I love that. I am going to write that down for myself. I love it. I can read that all the time. Oh my gosh. Thank you so much. This has been really powerful and I've learned a lot.

42:05
I know all the people that work with you are probably so blessed and I hope more people find you because I think it is definitely a need out there for everybody. So that is great. Thank you so much for your time this evening. I really appreciate it. Well, thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure, a pleasure to meet you and to see what you're doing in the world. And thank you for bringing.

42:28
joy and these experiences to other people through your podcast. Yes. Thank you. It's fun. These conversations light me up. So just as you said, right? It's so fulfilling to have just conversations with people about this and then knowing that other people will listen to them. So awesome. Thank you, Carla. You have a wonderful rest of your evening. You too. I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Carla. I thought it was so powerful and

42:57
I really just keep thinking about when I hear this episode, how she talks about really staying and sitting with the sadness, if you have sadness or frustration, and to allow yourself to do that. How she talks about dance is so healing to our nervous systems, mantras, making sure that we feel that though and getting really in depth with those. Her ABCs allowing what's coming up for you and don't judge it, but just allow that to happen and to come.

43:26
Breathe, right? That's the energy and life source she said. And breathing is really important and it really makes a difference. I do a lot of breathing just to calm myself or to take a break if I need to. And then of course connecting with your soul or a community or some sort of higher power or a support system. We all have something or someone or people we can connect with. And then her three components of play, connection, playfulness, and flow.

43:55
So powerful. I would really love to hear what you took away from this. So you can email me at lauren at dailyjoy.us. You can find me on Instagram, Lauren's Daily Joy or Facebook, Lauren Goldman-Raymond. And I'm going to challenge you. If you liked any of the episodes we have done or this one specifically, please text it to somebody, tell them you have a podcast recommendation. You want them to listen to it.

44:24
text them the link and then tell them to get back to you so you can hear what they think. I would be so, so grateful if you could do that. Just one person is all I'm asking. Thank you so much. I hope you have a fantastic, joyful day and I am outta here. Did you enjoy your time with us today? If you did, please give us a review on Apple Podcast. Your review will make navigating joy together much more fun and we would be truly grateful if you would share this with others.

44:52
who you know would gain value from our podcast. Thank you again and we look forward to sharing our next episode with you in two weeks.