Empowered Ease
Welcome to Empowered Ease, hosted by Jenn Ohlinger—a holistic coach,
& founder of The Moonflower Collective. Join us each week as we delve into the transformative stories of healers, health practitioners, and everyday women like you, challenging the patriarchal framework through empowerment and holistic healing. Through engaging storytelling, our podcast highlights each woman's unique journey toward embracing their feminine gifts, trusting their body, and prioritizing their mind, body, and soul. Discover how by empowering ourselves, we can pave the way for stronger relationships and a more balanced world. Women heal in community come find yours.
Empowered Ease
From Self-Doubt to Self-Love: Maria Paholik's Journey to Freedom
Hi!! I would love to hear from you!
Maria Paholik takes us on a deeply personal journey from people-pleasing to self-liberation in this heartfelt conversation about authenticity and worth. Eight years ago, Maria stood at her bedroom window, feeling completely lost despite outward appearances of success. That vulnerable moment when she asked the universe for help sparked a transformative path toward self-discovery and healing.
Through her work as a Heal Your Life workshop leader, Coach, and mindfulness meditation teacher, Maria now guides women to break free from the exhausting cycle of people-pleasing. She shares refreshingly practical strategies, like her simple yet powerful question: "When do you need the answer by?" This creates vital space between requests and responses, allowing us to check in with our true desires before automatically saying yes.
What makes Maria's approach unique is her recognition that healing isn't linear. Even after years of setting boundaries, she sometimes finds herself momentarily unable to say no. Rather than viewing this as failure, she embraces it as part of the spiral-like journey of growth—we revisit similar challenges throughout life but with increasingly gentle and effective responses each time.
Our conversation explores how many of our stressors come from self-imposed expectations rather than actual demands from others. Through client examples and personal anecdotes, Maria illustrates how small experiments in self-prioritization—like leaving dishes undone to put your feet up instead—can create profound shifts in wellbeing and identity.
Ready to begin your own journey toward self-love and authentic living? Maria offers practical starting points, including her free gift of 21 self-love letters delivered daily to your inbox. Her parting wisdom distills everything into one gentle reminder that might just change your life: be kind to yourself.
💐 Free Gift : 21 days of love letters to yourself
http://info.mariapaholik.com/loveletters
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Welcome to another episode of Empowered Ease, the podcast where we share stories of remarkable women who are making an impact in the world of healing. Today, I'm thrilled to announce our guest, maria Paholik. Maria is a dynamic Heal your Life workshop leader, coach and mindfulness meditation teacher. Her transformative journey from a life of people-pleasing and self-doubt to one of confident self-love and freedom is nothing short of inspiring. Eight years ago, maria found herself at a crossroads, feeling lost and questioning her self-worth. In a moment of deep vulnerability, she turned to the universe for guidance, leading her to the empowering teachings of Louise Hay and the practice of mindfulness. Through her transformation, maria discovered the power of changing her thoughts to change her reality. She embraced self-love and learned to set boundaries, creating a life filled with joy and authentic connections.
Speaker 1:Today, maria passionately guides women away from the cycle of people-pleasing, helping them to discover their true worth and live freely, without the need for external validation. In addition to her coaching, maria has also created an affirmation journal, which is available on Amazon. This tool assists her clients in carving their unique paths. Her vision is a world where kindness prevails, both to ourselves and to those around us. She firmly believes that self-love paves the way to peace and harmony, encouraging us to take responsibility for our healing and happiness. Join us as Maria shares her insights and experiences, offering a beacon of hope for those seeking to transform their lives. Let's dwell into her story of empowerment and dream of a kinder world. Welcome, maria. Tell us a little bit about yourself and where you are oh, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2:so I am originally from hungary and I am in the uk, so it's 10 o'clock ish at your place and, yes, look here in the afternoon. And well, I am a Heal your Life teacher and I'm a workshop leader and also a mindfulness meditation teacher. And if you don't know, or somebody doesn't know, what Heal your Life is, it's Louise Hay's work. And Louise Hay, just in a nutshell, she was big on self-love and mirror work, and she was also teaching how our beliefs and our thoughts create our reality. So this is what I do.
Speaker 1:Beautiful, I love that. So all the way in the UK, do you work with people all over then, regardless of where they are, virtually? Yes, I work online. I love that Beautifully. Okay, so self-love and confidence and freedom from people pleasing.
Speaker 2:So what got you into this kind of work? Well, so yeah, freedom. So I have always been big on freedom, ever since I was a child, you know. I didn't like hierarchy and stuff, so that was one part of it. But I also used to feel super lost and many times I just wished that I wasn't around because I was experiencing so many challenging emotions and also because I thought that something was wrong with me.
Speaker 2:I became a people pleaser, so I thought, if I behave in a certain way, you know, if I, if I please people around me, if I do what they, what I think they want me to do, then I will be loved. So, yeah, and, and one day I realized actually I felt most of my life up until like seven, eight years ago, I felt lost, as I mentioned. But but there was a time when, you know, when I felt really like completely lost and I didn't know what to do with my life. And on the outside everything was fine, but deep inside, something was missing, but I just didn't know what it was. And I was stood in the, in the bedroom window one night and I was like universe, send me help.
Speaker 2:And this is what where everything began, really. So I started looking into workshops and I found the workshop. And then I found another one and I went to an energy healing and the healer asked me so what do you need right now in your life? And I said self-love. And this is where everything started. So I started looking into self-love, what it actually means, and I just started connecting back with myself and this is what actually was missing. I was looking on the outside and because this work helped me so, so much and I realized I'm not the only one who is struggling with these things, yeah, it sort of became became my mission to help others to find their own freedom and to start loving themselves.
Speaker 1:That's beautiful, that's so beautiful. I think that that is the struggle for the majority of people out there right now, if not everyone at some point in their life is learning how to love ourselves really, right, right, it's kind of hard to even learn where to start. Like, what do I need? Because we're all so programmed, I think, especially as women, to disconnect from what we need in the moment and be the like, neutral pleaser, the easy person. So I feel like that's kind of I don't know, you didn't grow up in the same place. I did, obviously, and have a very.
Speaker 1:You've been in two different countries, but I feel like, definitely, here and in a lot of cultures, you know, women are taught to be seen, not heard, to be like really to manage the emotions of others, to make things better, to make things easy, to make things inviting, and in doing that, we deny what, whatever is going on for us in the moment. So that can keep us very disconnected from what our feelings are and from care and from caring for ourselves. So I think this is such important work. So I know you, you focus mainly on people pleasing, which I think is a huge. It's just one layer in all of this, right, because it all that's just one symptom of the lack of self-love. So when you're working with people with self-love, where do you start? How do you start to to get people to turn inwards and pay attention to themselves? Because Because a lot of us are we're putting everybody else's needs first.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, it really depends, because everyone's journey is completely different.
Speaker 1:I love that.
Speaker 2:So some people, just like myself, I didn't even know what I was missing, right, so I didn't even know where to start. I just knew I had to start somewhere. So what I was doing, I went actually once I made sort of the decision that I'm, I'm just gonna do something. Things started popping up on Facebook some local events, and this is where I started, and and and they just kept popping up. So I also believe, once, once we sort of make a decision, things just start. They just start coming to us and we can, we can choose things.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So like, once people have people need to decide they want to make that change, then they'll start opportunities for you. You said started to appear and you think that'll have. I agree with that totally. Like, if you've heard of, like a confirmation bias, right, when your brain decides something, then it looks for confirmation that that's true. So if you tell yourself I am going to work on self-love, I'm going to heal the relationship I have with myself, I'm going to work on taking this negative talk of people-pleasing and I'm going to work on putting myself first, then we start seeing opportunities or workshops. Things start like that we may just gloss over before we notice them now and we gives us that opportunity to take advantage. So I think that's really good advice. What do you see like any patterns in the people that you're working with? Like, is there a certain kind of woman that is drawn to you that you think really benefits from this?
Speaker 2:So there is yeah, there are patterns, and I think one of the more like sort of the biggest ones are guilt um um, and what you also mentioned, like oh, you know, I have to put everybody else before me because it's selfish if I look after myself and sometimes, yeah, so sometimes it's easier to break that barrier, Sometimes it's a little bit, a little bit more difficult. So what I? What I always suggest people or women to do, and if they really want to make a change, is start start with with a very small step. So just recently or a couple of months ago, I had a chat with somebody and I asked her what, what is it that she really wanted for herself? And she said I think she said that she wants to be more peaceful, let's you less stressful.
Speaker 2:So I'm like, okay, so what's worrying you? And so on and so on. And she sort of picked a really big thing about worrying about her child. So I said that is probably too big of a step for you to just let go of that worry Too broad, yeah. But then I said so maybe you can. So she's like okay, but I can't relax until everything's done in the house. You know she needs to do the dishes and she needs to look after the household, she needs to do the chores whatsoever. So I just suggested to her that maybe just leave the dishes and put your feet up, you know, at the end of the day, and experiment, see what happens. And a few months after I actually asked her like how's, how's everything going? And she said she started looking into meditations.
Speaker 1:She started, uh, doing some sort of exercises and everything, and then you know she's feeling a lot better what I love, that like I feel, like with um, with my clients, like we, I do something similar where you know, when we first start setting goals, we make sure to set goals that were positive.
Speaker 1:We can win, you know, like it's not, you cannot set a goal that you're going to lose in the beginning because we're overwhelmed, we're tired, we're, you know, whatever you know, life is life and we're just learning these skills. So I want to, I encourage people to set goals that they know they'll win, because celebrating yourself, celebrating those wins, is a huge piece of it. Right, that's self-confidence, but also seeing that you can do it, seeing like maybe that wasn't, maybe it wasn't, it gives. I think it gives you. I don't know what the word I'm looking for is, but like motivation, encouragement, like you know, to to try something new, to try something different. Maybe that did make a big difference, maybe it didn't, but the fact that you were able to stick to one goal about yourself, you know that's reaffirming that relationship.
Speaker 2:So and also what, what? So what if I also had to ask her? Well, well, I didn't have to ask her, but I asked her like, okay, so what would your husband say? You know which? Would he be worried if she's going down? Well, I don't think he would care that much, okay, so you know? Sort of like is it really an expectation from somebody else, or are we putting this stress?
Speaker 1:Oh, good point. Yeah, the, the unneeded expectations that we put on ourselves. That, like you know, it's funny. Me and my best friend were having this conversation the other day and not in any way trying to put our mothers down, but we were talking about small little things that are ingrained in us from our parents, like, and it was about cleaning the house, because this is, I feel, like a lot of women feel, ownership. I work full time.
Speaker 1:My mom did not, but if we like, I and she's a girl's girl now, but I back in the day I don't think she was as much, but I remember some of the judgment she as she was a full-time mom that she would make against other women who didn't keep their house clean, or just the way it was talked about back then and I can't say necessarily it was her talking about other women or the way she talked about herself, about when people were coming over. But if people are coming to my home or my husband has someone over when I'm at work and he didn't clean up and there's dishes in the sink, like this is how the conversation started. I was like you had people over in the sink was full of dishes. Why did you not do those. You know, I'm like how I'm so embarrassed and so I'm talking to my best friend about this and she's telling me about, like, how her mom did the same thing, her thing. But she's like do you think about your husband, think about his friend? Do you think they even went in your kitchen? Do you think they even went in your kitchen? Like, to be honest, they probably never left the TV.
Speaker 1:He's like, do you think they even saw that? They didn't see any of that. Men, don't see that. I'm like you're so right. I was so like upset with my husband stressed out, causing myself all this stupid worry at work. And when I got home and then I got home on a day, I was normally tired and I cleaned everything after his friend was here, which wouldn't even made a difference she's like what are you doing? Like I don't know, but it is weird. We put these expectations on ourself and I had never taken the time to look at where it came from before, and the minute I did, I let it go because I was like that's stupid. You're right, they didn't notice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so interesting you're saying this because when I moved in with my ex-boyfriend straight away, I started doing all the chores and everything and only so, so many years later, I'm like what the hell was I doing? Right, like why, why did?
Speaker 1:why did I jump onto this chore straight away and then right, like I'll do this for you, let me take care of this.
Speaker 2:Why was he doing that for you, no, yeah, and, but perhaps he didn't even expect me at the beginning, right, but then it all. But then, because we're all human beings, right?
Speaker 1:so if somebody starts doing things for us, we just take it for them yeah, we that you created that expectation and that's not his fault if you, if, like you don't have time to get to it, stressing you out. He never asked you to do that. And I find the same thing in my relationship too. My husband's like I would be fine without this. I never asked you to do that. I'm like, but I need to feel comfortable. And he's like well, that's what needs addressed, right?
Speaker 2:like yeah, like what do you? What do you mean? I'm doing this for you. But even though you never asked, but I'm like for you and you know, then I get, then I got offended like how, why, why are you not, uh, you know, appreciating me or something I've done?
Speaker 1:yeah, so we're really kind of doing it a little bit for ourselves, right.
Speaker 2:I think so. Yes, well, that's that's.
Speaker 1:That's my personal experience yeah, no, I think you're right too, sorry, go on. No, I just said I agree with you. I think you're right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because sometimes so, about people pleasing yes. So sometimes I think our environment has certain expectations, but sometimes we have the self-imposed expectations, what we think, that this person well, well, I think this person wants me to be like this or behave in a certain way, and it may not even be true. Sometimes it's true, sometimes it isn't.
Speaker 1:This is yeah yeah, some of the times it comes from, like our subconscious programming things that we didn't even choose, but just how we saw things done when we were at a small age. We just expect that's the way everyone sees the world or the roles everyone thinks people are taking. That's just not true. Yeah, yeah, I love that perspective because I think we all need another person to see it right Like it's not. Those aren't things that we usually identify on our own. We need a little help, we need an outside perspective to really question those things about ourselves.
Speaker 1:I think so yes question those things about ourselves. I think so, yes, so, with this people pleasing and, um, what are the dangers if we don't address this? Do you think, like, where does this lead people? Because I feel like a lot of people are in this, a lot of women and they're, and they are suffering. They just maybe aren't identifying that this may be one of their struggles yeah, so what are the dangers?
Speaker 2:burnout yeah uh, disconnection from oneself, so okay. So my example you know, when I? I used to think, oh, I'm such, I'm such an easy person, right? Um, yeah, I, I don't want to take up much space, and but then where, where am I? And then I go. And also, when you start doing things for other people, you can become really resentful and also there are. No, the relationships are not necessarily genuine either. It can be transactional. You know, I'm doing something. It's not the same for every single person. Sometimes it's for approval, sometimes it's because I am afraid to say no. Sometimes I don't even know what I need yeah, so that's really the individualization of it.
Speaker 1:You really have to figure out where your hold-ups are. So what do you what once you healed from all this? What are the some? What are some of the um things you noticed about from all this? What are the? What are some of the things you noticed about, like the really? Or for your clients too, what are some of the things, once you see people addressing these issues that they start to notice about their lives, that changes in a good way. What are some of the positive effects of starting to put yourself first, starting to love yourself and and freeing yourself from some of these people-pleasing activities? What are some of the things you think your clients and yourself have experienced?
Speaker 2:Well, first of all, it's like you know, you start taking a moment, or even more moments for yourself and really asking like, okay, so what do I need right now? Who am I actually like? What are my likes or dislikes, what are my preferences, right? So it's just what I think people are pleasing, and that was again my experience. Um, but there are other people as well. You know, oh, can you do this for me, somebody, can you do this for me? Somebody comes, can you do this for me, or whatever, straight away, yes, yes, of course, not not even thinking about it, it's just a reaction straight away.
Speaker 1:Yeah, women have a really hard time saying no, right, even if the answer is not. And even when we do say no, we, if we have, if we are able to say no, we have so many excuses. You know, like we have to say so much to to defend our no, even though no is like a full sentence. So I love that you're saying that, because I feel like a lot of us we overwhelm ourselves or we'll say yes from like the place of ourselves that has all the energy, like that we say yes from our best version of ourselves and we don't realize, like we're not all the way.
Speaker 2:We get the best version of ourselves like you know, a quarter of the time we're here so we can't make decisions from that energy place yeah, yeah, definitely, and also so what I would recommend people do is, instead of saying that, yeah, straight away, it's just take a moment, and what I started doing myself and this is what I recommend people do, but they can find everybody can find their own little tools. You know, they can start practicing with something and then whatever comes to them and they find it better than they can do. That, of course. But it's like you know, I started asking like okay, so when do you need the answer by? And they say I started asking like okay, so when do you need the answer by? And they say, I don't know, in two days. I'm like, okay, I will come back to you in two days.
Speaker 1:That's good. Give yourself a little space to think about it, to check in to see if it's something you really want to do.
Speaker 2:Yes, because I think so A lot of people. When there are other people around around, we pick up on their energy and their stuff. So, especially for me, I need to be away from everyone else and to really check in with myself. Okay, so what is it that I actually want? And I think that's very, that's very similar to a lot of people as well, so they really have to be on their own to actually understand themselves and know what they want and yeah, and it's much easier than saying no, isn't it?
Speaker 1:like you know, it's not having to say no the first time. It's giving yourself like a little buffer, like, well, how much time do you need, or can I get back to you? When do I need to get back to you by? I love that. So it's almost like a practice is getting to know yes, yes, so it's, and exactly.
Speaker 2:It's not like you have to say no straight away and again some, some people are okay to say no straight and and no as a full sentence. That's hard though it is to me still, because I don't want the other person to feel rejected or feel or take it personal. So, yeah, I make it a longer sentence.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 2:An easier one to digest, yes, but again my brother, he has boundaries and he's like no, I'm like how rude.
Speaker 1:Right, right, well, okay, I know men are a lot easier, or well, the majority of men, I feel like that's a little easier, for it's more socially acceptable for men to just say no than it is, or at least we feel that way. Whether it is or not, I feel like that, so I love that.
Speaker 2:But yeah, it's good. I think it's a good point that you said that. Well, that is it true or is it not? I don't know, but it seems like it.
Speaker 1:It sure does. Yeah, yeah, it really does. But I, you know we're. I think that you know our brains just work differently Sometimes that might be one of the advantages of the male brain, so I, so I don't want to forget to mention this, but I know you. You gave a free gift for our listeners. Do you want to explain a little bit about what? And it will be in the show notes. So just if you just click on the episode anywhere you're viewing it, it should be in the show description, the link to this.
Speaker 2:But oh, thank you. Yes, I'm super excited about this. I only sort of released it about a week ago, and if you sign up I think it's only your first name and email address you will be receiving 21 um self-love letters oh, I love that yes, and it's, um, the way, the way the, the emails arrive, so when, well, uh, like a self-love letter every single day for 21 days and the picture will be your name.
Speaker 2:So it's almost like the, the way I sort of worded it, or put it that imagine that your most loving, your most, your kindest and wisest part of yourself is sending these letters to you and your name will be the signature. So it's almost like you were receiving it from yourself, not from me. Oh, that's beautiful.
Speaker 1:So a free gift of 21 self-love letters that you'll get delivered daily via email address to you. I love that. That's beautiful. Okay, so that will be in the show notes. So if people are listening to this and really connecting, like yeah, this is me, I don't know Like, and then they're confused on even where to start, what advice would you give them on where to start with this?
Speaker 2:it's not where you are at really. So, yes, I had somebody asking the same, I asked the same question and I was like, just look at books, you know, and the right things will, will come. So if you, if you don't know what you want to change in your life, or just start searching for something like, or even search self-love and see what comes up, and things will just unfold. Or find a coach straight away.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so just start. That's what I'm hearing. Just start any way that you feel drawn to. So just start, because once you start, you get the ball rolling.
Speaker 2:Definitely so sometimes. Sometimes when I have a chat with somebody, I would, I would recommend the book, but but then I say if it doesn't resonate with you, it doesn't matter, just find something else. Right started. So the the sort of the intention is already there and the action has been taken and the rest will come. Slowly, it's always unfolding. It's not like I have arrived and I have nothing else to do, right life is a process.
Speaker 1:We're always getting there. I've heard it described as a spiral. I love it. I think it's like this rising woman or wild woman sister, I don't know if you've heard it, but it's like um, and it's really hard to put it on paper because when you see the spiral it looks flat, but really, if you see it, it's like three-dimensional in and what it represents is that like we're always addressing the same issues. We're always coming back to them. It's just that they're a little different, a little lighter each time we touch back on them. But we never really truly get rid of things. We just see them differently. We develop our relationship with our, with our stuff, a little differently, with our, our baggage, with our subconscious programming or childhood or whatever it is. However you see it, we always revisit it, but just in like a different way. Each time we discover something new about it and I've started to experience that for myself, like so much. That's beautiful.
Speaker 2:Yes, and that's my experience as well, and you know, that's why, for example, when it's being said, being said oh, how to set boundaries without guilt or without, uh, without without whatever emotion we are talking about, and I don't like saying that personally, because my experience that guilt can arise anytime. It doesn't matter how long I have been doing this, how long I have been setting those boundaries, it can still arise. And actually I had an experience not so long ago where I just no, couldn't leave my mouth. I was frozen there and I went back into like my head like 20 years ago, like when I couldn't say no, and I was like, oh, my god, what, what's happened here? Right, and then I walked away and I'm like, okay, I need to come back to this person and actually explain what happened and say the no.
Speaker 1:Then yeah, well, I agree with you. Like you know, every day is different and now, like I'm in my forties, and hormone dips and hormones cycles, as I enter this like reprogramming of my hormone system, of like this perimenopause stage, days are different, how I feel, completely different, depending on where I'm at in that cycle and you know things like depression and stuff sneaks up which I don't surprise. So I do feel differently on different days, intensely, and I think that's common for women in this age group. So just to know that, it's reassuring to know, I think and also a little daunting if you haven't started addressing these issues that they never truly go away. We just get a little different, our relationship with them changes, it softens a little bit and it gets easier and we know ourselves a little better. But you know there's so much power in that and we know ourselves a little better.
Speaker 2:But you know, there's so much power in that, yeah, yeah, definitely. And also once you so what you were saying, our relationship or our relation to these things are changing and they soften and maybe we don't even take ourselves that seriously and stuff. But also when you develop your tools, to me, this is where the power is really, because it's it's not like that maybe, maybe an emotion will never arise. We don't know right, we just don't know, yeah, when it will arise, then, oh, okay, I see you, you know it's okay for this emotion to be here and what do I do with it? Yeah, so it's, it's not like I I need to get rid of it or something's wrong with me for feeling this way.
Speaker 1:it's just how I, how I nurture myself and I can in the in um in this process yeah, and we can't really nurture ourselves if we don't know ourselves. I mean, we can, but we can't. You know, our nurturing gets so much more effective when we develop the relationship with ourselves and learn, maybe, what triggers what things require different things from us. I definitely am more into this healing journey I've gotten for myself. I've realized like, depending on what the stressor is, depending on what is triggering me, it requires a different response. Sometimes things that I do for myself are more effective in different circumstances and that sounds confusing, but I think that as we develop the relationships with ourselves, it becomes so much more powerful the healing that we can do. I don't know if that makes sense. It might be a little confusing, but hopefully you're catching on to what I'm saying here.
Speaker 2:I think, yeah, I think I get it, but you can correct me if I didn't. But, for example, for me some days, okay, I just need to do, I just need to go to the mirror and talk to myself kindly, but that. But some days it's not the middle world that I do, I just sit down and, I don't know, have a cup of tea in in silence.
Speaker 1:So, whatever I feel I need that moment yeah, and really it's the checking in with yourself that kind of tells you that and that's you know. There are times where I do a much better job checking in with myself throughout the day than others. But when I find myself, when I am checking in with myself, what I'm asking myself? When I'm like, okay, just where am I at right now? I'm asking myself usually, what do I need right now? Is there something I need right now? Because if I can calm down, slow down enough, I usually tell exactly what it is. You know what I mean? There's something screaming. I just have to slow down and pay attention and check in to see what it is, and sometimes it's nothing. That's what I needed. I needed to slow down, just breathe for a second and be like, yep, doing the right thing, doing everything I can right now, nothing else I can do, and then I can let go of whatever stress is going on, because I know.
Speaker 1:I've done everything I need to be doing, so.
Speaker 2:I love that, actually, when you know that, oh, this is the only thing I needed right now, and that's it. It's only complicated.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sometimes that is it right, like I'm doing the right things we like. We need to affirm ourselves right. I'm doing everything I can do. There's nothing else to be done. I love that, so on. We kind of touched about this, but this is a perfect time to ask you this question, because I ask everybody that comes on like what is your go-to um, self-nurture or self-care, that, when things get rough, that you find yourself doing to get yourself back on track or get yourself feeling like you again?
Speaker 2:so like do you mean? Like um, like a physical?
Speaker 1:physical. It can be anything. Honestly, everyone has said something a little different, so whatever makes you feel like you, that is your go-to thing when things are hard. So it can be anything really.
Speaker 2:So I love going for walks and sometimes, when things are really difficult, I just feel called to touch a tree or something and I feel that helps. It's almost like like yeah, the tree is nurturing, or sometimes it's almost like giving a message and yeah, this is what I needed and it depends sometimes. Sometimes I can still experience loops.
Speaker 2:you know that I'm just going in circles and I'm stressing my but it's like the, the reminding of myself that you know, whatever happens, I, I'm still worthy, um, I still love myself, and sort of using affirmations as well, sometimes journaling oh yeah, journaling's a great one yeah, and just write and and writing and also it's like okay, um, really recognizing what is actually going on, what's the emotion, and go underneath it, like okay, what's underneath, what's what's really going on, and start working with that yeah, trying to trying to drive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally, because I feel like sometimes what we're feeling in the moment and we know it. Sometimes we know that this is not really what I'm upset about, it's something else that I've been holding on to all day. Or sometimes we don't know it and that little pause helps us know, like I'm not mad at this person right now. The situation normally would not frustrate me this much. What is happening right now? And that little check-in is the answer. I love that. That's beautiful advice. So if people are hearing this and they're like this is me, I need, I need more of this in my life and they want to learn more about you.
Speaker 2:Where can, where can our, my listeners go to find more information?
Speaker 1:So they can check me out on Facebook. I share a lot of like. I have a lot of posts, you know, and sharing my own story as well, and they, if they would like to get in touch with me, they can. Just what's the word? Friend me. Yeah, do you know? Your handle off the top of your head what your Facebook is, because some people don't want to click on the show notes. They'll just remember. Or you can say your website, what's your website?
Speaker 2:my full name, so maria paholikcom.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'm going to spell your last name, so people know Maria P-A-H-O-L-I-K. Right? Yes, how do you pronounce it again? Poholik, poholik. I hope I didn't butcher it in the intro. I tried really hard. I even looked it up on Google Speaks, like how do you pronounce this last name? Oh, thank you, I'm used to it anyway, yeah, my last name. Well, now, my last name now is Olinger, which is my husband's last name, but the one before that, my maiden last name, is Heidenfelder, which is just really long.
Speaker 1:So people mispronounce it because I think they just get overwhelmed. So I totally understand that. Well, it's been such a pleasure talking to you, maria. I think this is a really relevant issue for so many women, so many women right now, and it's just part of our culture and a lot of cultures out there today. This patriarchal setup we have really ingrains from a small age, for women especially. But for us to disconnect from our emotions and ourselves and so many of us as we get older, this work to reconnect is so important and a huge part of the struggle, so it's so powerful. Are there any words that you would like to leave us with today or any thoughts?
Speaker 2:So if I could leave the whole world with one message, then it's just be kind to yourself. That's the only thing I could.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. We didn't really talk on that this much, but in reading your website, yeah, I know kindness to yourself and to others. It's a big, it's very prevalent on your site and I love that so much, so I'm a huge proponent for that as well. Um, so thank you so much for the work you do and for, like, just sharing your beautiful light and, um, and if you ever come out with anything new or doing a new program, we'd love to have you back on to hear about it.
Speaker 2:So thank you. Thank you so so much for having me. Yes, bye.
