The Self-Awareness and Self-Compassion Podcast
Ever need a word of encouragement and a story that feels like a warm hug for your soul? Join life coach Blaze Schwaller as she explores what it means to be imperfect, human, and striving for a fully engaged and colorful life in this series about stretching to reach your highest potential while honoring the full range of your emotions and experiences. Whether she's talking about crippling self-doubt or the joy of befriending feral cats, expect these poignant conversations to be your weekly boost of self-acceptance, humor, and motivation. Formerly the Full Spectrum Feeling Podcast.
The Self-Awareness and Self-Compassion Podcast
Mental Exertion And How Re-wiring your Self Concept and Knowledge Takes Calories
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
🌿 This podcast is now archived, but these conversations around self-awareness and self-compassion still matter deeply.
I now continue this work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, a seasonal approach to emotional regulation, burnout recovery, and building a steady, supportive relationship with yourself. Listen here.
Mental and physical exertion both take a lot of energy, but we often forget how much learning costs our energy reserves.
Back in 2008, I went to the first Illustration Master Class for a week in June, and it upleveled my artwork forever.
Being in that environment was inspiring and kept my brain working hard not only during that week but for the following two weeks, too. I would close my eyes and still be processing ideas and practicing new techniques in my mind. My dreams were filled with these processes, and all of that made me ravenous!
Mental exertion takes a lot of physical effort in our brains, but until I experienced that week, this reality hadn’t even occurred to me. Creating new neural connections takes an enormous amount of energy.
One way to take advantage of all the hard work your mind does when learning a new skill is to surround yourself with others who are equally excited about the topic you’re learning about.
There is something energetically strong about immersing yourself in an environment with others who possess the attitude and skill you desire, and who are able to see you and hold you as one of them. This helps you recreate your identity more quickly because you have that image reflected back to you by a community of others who have gone on the journey with you. It’s also super motivating.
If this episode supported you, you may enjoy my current work on Anchored & Alive with Blaze, where these ideas are explored through seasonal rhythms and deeper integration.
