The end of the month is here which means it's time for another deep stretch. On this episode, Taylor talks about integration. She defines integrate as combining things together to make a whole - bringing things full circle. One of Taylor's core intentions of Q2 was to be a receiver and participant in life. As a facilitator, coach, founder, partner, friend...the list goes on...she finds herself pouring out to her communities, while reminding herself of the care she too deserves. Sound familiar?
Welcome to Inner Warmup where your inner work begins. I'm Taylor Elyse Morrison, creator of Inner Workout, and you are normally our expert guest. But as we're nearing the end of the month, we're doing our deep stretch episode. This is also the first time that we're recording this live. And it's available to group chat members. So this is a new experiment. I'm trusting because our podcast editor is great, that it's going to sound good. But yeah, it's weird, like knowing that there's someone else here in real time, in a good way, because sometimes it feels like you're talking into a void when you're doing a podcast. So today's title is called Integrate. And it'll make more sense, by the end just come with me on the journey. So every quarter, I set these intentions for myself. Quarters makes sense forr me. Since I run a business, I think about things in quarters. And right now we're at the beginning of the first quarter, or of the first quarter of the third quarter. And a lot of times, the intentions that I set are things like, I want to accomplish this thing, or I want to achieve this goal, or I want to be able to say that I did this thing. So it was, the first quarter of this year, a lot of my focus was on getting the book done and making sure that there's enough words in the book and all of that good stuff. This quarter surprised me, because the way I went about things was different. I have like three core intentions for this quarter. And two of them don't really have to do with like checking off a box. The first intention that I have is to be both a receiver and to be a participant. And it probably comes as no surprise to you that I'm giving a lot in my life I'm giving as I run this business, we have live events for the group chat, that we're planning out what the calendar is going to be, and I show up, or Pariss shows up and being prepared to hold that space. I lead trainings for organizations, I do one on one coaching, I get to facilitate containers like the group chat. And it is so fulfilling, but it's also a lot of pouring out. And at this point, for those of you who have listened to that podcast for a while, I probably start to sound like a broken record because I just want you all to be so clear that I do this work, not because I'm amazing at it. But because I need it really, really deeply. And sometimes doing the work of talking to people about self care and personal development actually gets in the way of me receiving. And so this quarter, one of my intentions, is actually trying to participate, actually trying to make sure that I'm receiving. So when we have inner coworking in the group chat, instead of me thinking, Oh, it's just this thing that I'm supposed to, it's on the calendar, I need to go and make sure that other people have a good time, and making sure that I actually have something that I'm doing and that I'm getting to receive as well. I'm trying to use the practices that I teach and that I've been trained in, I'm trying to take the advice that I would give someone else in my position and ask for support.
It seems so simple. And yet for many of the people that I talk to, especially in my one on one work, we know intellectually, that we should be taking care of ourselves, that it's important to practice self care. And yet in practice, we're pleasing everyone else's needs before ourselves. And so one of my intention is just to make sure that I'm actually receiving because it's going to make it that much easier for me to give and to give from a place of authenticity. The other intention that I wanted to share, at least for this conversation was I have this intention to find systems that really work for me. I've mentioned in the newsletter, I think I've mentioned on the podcast as well, that I got diagnosed with ADHD. And it's made a lot of things make sense, particularly why it's been hard for me to find systems. I have been guilty of buying planners or getting excited about a software and thinking that it's going to solve all of my problems. And then it doesn't, either because it's missing something or because I get bored of using it or it's overwhelming. And instead of trying to squeeze myself into systems, something that I'm setting out to do this quarter is to make my own. And sometimes that's going to literally mean designing something from scratch. I actually have a couple of things that I've been working on that I'm building from scratch, I'm really thinking like, How does my brain work? When I am able to show up the way that I want to? How do I organize the information? And how can I put that in a way that is repeatable? So that's something that's happening. But sometimes it means taking something that's already been built, and figure out, Okay, where can this fit into my day, maybe this software they recommend that you do in the morning, but you know what, like, it works better for me to do it in the middle of the day or in the evening. Or I read about this practice in a book. And they say that you should do it daily. But the only way it's going to be sustainable for me is to do it weekly, I want to do a lot more of that experimentation and to just feel really grounded and rooted in the things that work for me, again, so I can show up and do the things that I love with the people that I love. And I wanted to share these intentions, because in my mind, they have something in common, which is this element of integration. I told you at the top that's called Integrate. And integration is really just combining things together so that they make a whole. And I love the word combining in this situation. Because I think it moves us beyond solely consuming, which is the way that our society is structured right now. But it's really easy for us to consume podcasts or for us to consume a book, or to be in conversation with someone and consume what works for them. And then just have it mentally, that we've got the head knowledge of how to do that, or to want to take what works for that person and just like retrofit it into our lives. But this act of combination of integration is how we actually make things real. It's a big part of how I would argue we do the inner work. And it could be combining different things. It could be combining learning and practice. So we try to do that on Inner Warmup, where there's like reflection, there's actually time for consumption and reflection. So that's another one we could have. There's like consuming and reflecting. Or in the way we do Camp Clarity, we're learning about concepts. And then immediately we're like practicing them and trying to put things together, can be combining insight with action. Like you have an "aha" moment when you're reading something. And then you think, Okay, here's how I can apply it in my life today. Or this week. It also could be combining self and community. Something that I'm really aware of as we're doing this work, especially, just getting to hang out with the people in the Inner Workout Community, is that we can be the people who, even if we are in community, we're showing up in the community with the intention to serve.
And so, when we think about integrating, it's like, okay, Where are the places where I actually can combine with the community and it's not me as this, there's the community, and I'm just showing up and I'm giving something to the community, but I'm actually a part of it. I'm giving and I'm receiving. So what I want you to be thinking about is what do you need to integrate? Like, what is the knowledge that is beneath the surface? What is the thing that you have been meaning to do? What is I mean, there's so many things. What's that "aha" moment that you had like two weeks ago that you said you were going to journal about, or you said you were going to act on and you didn't? What is that thing for you? So we won't do the full pause like we normally do since it is a Deep Stretch episode, but I will, after I'm done with this, pause so that for a live recording, we can have a convo about it if you want. And yeah, just think about what that would look like for you. We're also going to give you some space to integrate. So we're doing the deep stretch episode a little bit early, because we're taking August off. Don't worry, there will still be something that you can listen to you in your headphones and I will tell you all about that next week. So have a heads up, but we as a team are going to be taking some time to integrate, we're going to give you some space to integrate. And, yeah, we're also going to be sharing something that could help you get to a place of integration with some support as well.
So I'm gonna end it there. I really hope that you will pause and take a moment. I'm just always so mindful of the fact as someone who runs a company where we put all of this content out there, and I hear people say that it's useful, and that it's meaningful to them. But the deepest, like, the deepest desire of my heart, is that people are actually integrating this and making it their own and taking action on it. Rather than just feeling like, Okay, well, I heard that thing about taking care of myself, I heard that thing about being kinder to myself, but how are you making that real in your own life, and it isn't from a place of like, these are achievements to unlock, and you'll be a better self carer if you do that, it's just from this place of our intention is to help you make self care and personal development actually happen in your life. And that has to be a partnership. So we want to hold these spaces for you. And I hope that you will choose to enter in. And before you go into whatever you have next, going on in your day that you will pause and really identify what that thing is that you can integrate. If you're in the Group Chat, you can tell us about it there, we'll still be around, we'll still be on Instagram stories, too. We just won't be having this space on the podcast for the month of August. So that's all I've got for you today. My mind is still thinking of the ways that I want to show up as the receiver and the participant and in exploring the systems and processes for my own ADHD, so I can integrate some things that I know about myself, but can actually take care of myself better. So I've got my own integration to do. And so do you. If you made it all the way to the end, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for your time and thank you for the expertise that you share in your reflection and take care
