Optimistic Minds: From Labels to Leadership with Dr. Mary Ann Mercer

Join us in this empowering episode as Dr. Mary Ann Mercer shares her incredible journey from being labeled as "damaged" to becoming a beacon of resilience and optimism, as well as a two time guest on Oprah. From her childhood struggles to being a sought-after psychologist and author, Dr. Mary Ann's story inspires us to break through obstacles and embrace our true potential. Discover practical tips to cultivate optimism, overcome challenges, and live a fulfilling life. Tune in and learn how to turn setbacks into stepping stones on the path to success.

About Mary:
Mary Ann V. Mercer, Psy.D., is an Author, Speaker, Psychologist & Intensive Coaching™
co-creator. Dr Mercer wrote the new book, “Bouncing Back from Difficult Times™.” She co-authored many books, including SPONTANEOUS OPTIMISM™: Proven Strategies for Health, Prosperity &; Happiness”. Dr. Mercer studied + practices techniques on healing and the mind-body connection. She is a Certified Awakening Dynamics® Practitioner, ThetaHealing® Practitioner and Movement Feedback Expert. Dr. Mercer’s unique background and experience will give you the tools and the edge you need to improve your life. Dr. Mercer appears on TV & Radio, including Oprah, Home & Family, plus Crook & Chase. She is quoted in many publications, including Self, Medium, Fitness, Health, Martha Stewart, Fitbit, & Redbook. She delivers speeches + workshops + co-founded the self-help website www.PositiveLifeAnswers.com

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Transcript

And it's Kristina Driscoll, host of the She's Brave Podcast. I'm so glad you're here with me. I did not start out brave at all, but I learned that we can do brave things one small step at a time. After caregiving for my husband and young son for 12 years, it was definitely time for my next chapter.  

 I want to get brave women's voices out there in the world and inspire women to find their own bravery within themselves. A year later, I'm in the top 2 percent of all podcasts globally. I've interviewed amazing women who have overcome and accomplished so much to live the life of their dreams. If they can do it, you can do it too. And so can I, let's go!     

Today's guest has an incredibly powerful story to tell us. When she was a little girl, she fell down the stairs in her home onto concrete and the doctors told her parents that she was “damaged”.

Ouch. In elementary school, she had a lot of trouble learning and she was put in what was called at that time, The slow learning group, teachers called her parents to tell them that she was slow. This little girl was just so incredibly humiliated, but she struggled through and in high school, she got into a lot of trouble.

But finally, a teacher named Joy began helping her learn after school, this teacher Believed in her. Someone finally believed in her. She got excited about learning  and she went to college. And  she even went on and got her PhD in clinical psychology and business psychology. Her name is Dr. Mary Ann Mercer.

She's written many books and she's been on the Oprah show twice. You guys, when she was a child, a lot of labels got slapped on her. Dr. Mary, I'm so glad you're here and don't ever let anyone slap labels on you.  Welcome, Marianne. Thank you for having me.

Yeah. So great to have you here, Dr. Mary, tell us a little bit about yourself.  Sure  I just had this passion that I wanted to improve my life, to make my life better, and I did not give up.  I found ways and talked to people and figured out what I needed to do. I had this vision for my life, and what's important to understand is when you have this vision and a clear picture of what you want for your life,  you can just break through all these types of obstacles.

You can be so successful in your life if you believe in yourself too. Optimistic people are like that naturally.

They are. And so you ended up with this PhD in psychology and  you married a fellow PhD psychologist and you've co written some books together. Yes. You became deeply curious about optimism and mindset and positivity.

Yes. And  you wrote this book  called Change Your Underwear and Change Your Life and you got invited on Oprah. Tell us more about that.  The invitation to be on Oprah came out of nowhere. The phone rang in the office. It was the head producer of the Oprah show saying. We would like to have you on a segment and it's like magic happened, but what really happened was you made yourself available.

I sent out some press releases to a magazine and somebody wrote a little blurb, really tiny blurb in Redbook magazine about my book and a producer saw it and they loved it.  They ran in by her and they said, let's do it.  I never sent my book to Victoria. Oprah's studio or her producers.

When I went on Oprah and I was in a green room, this huge little truck went by with hundreds of packages on it. I said, what's that? They said, Oh, that's the daily mail of all the books being delivered to Oprah to try to get on her show. Unbelievable. So you're saying a truckload of books was arriving daily.

Daily. People would mail their book into Oprah hoping that she would read their book and have her, have them on the show.  And I didn't do that. I never sent her anything.  And it's the power of focus. You know, people have this picture that they're going to manifest  what they want for life.

They have a picture, a vision about it, but they don't know what to do after that. It's not going to be magic. You have to do the work. You have to put yourself out there and the strategy of it and the timing. Yeah, that was kind of magical.  But when it comes to manifesting, you have to do the work as well, but you do have to have a clear sense of yourself, where you want to go.

And there's ways to learn how to do that if it's not something you're naturally born with or have that desire in you, you can find that  and it can give you a clear sense of direction.  Yeah. Definitely. I love the title and you have another book that I absolutely love. It's called Spontaneous Optimism.

What do you think is the most important key to being optimistic?  The single most. an important skill that I have observed and also in my research for the book found that the difference between pessimistic and optimistic people is that optimistic people know how to problem solve. Problem solving is the key. Pessimistic people, they get into blaming, complaining. So optimistic people, not only do they have a clear picture of where they want to go, they work toward it and they have a clear sense of what to do. Instead of giving up. They just pick themselves up over and over again. And that's what I did in my life.

I have a question. I was recently listening to Mel Robbins interviewing Chet Shelton and it was a great interview. At one point they were talking about.  When you wake up in the morning and you are just so down, like you do not even want to get out of bed.  I think post COVID right now, we have a lot of people in that space. It's a big adjustment and a lot of people are really down right now.  One of the things that he said is,  get out of bed.

It's an act of defiance. I literally am so depressed. I can't move. So I'm going to be defiant. I'm going to practice an act of defiance  by getting out of bed.   I'm going to perform another act of defiance  by stepping outside and just stretching my feet and walking around for 10 minutes. I'm going to do an act of defiance of choosing.  Some fruit for breakfast that'll fuel my body. These little tiny little things sometimes need to  give us that little boost to get into  this thing that you're talking about, learning how to train your brain to be more optimistic. Some of us grew up with families that were  very negative, right?  Very worried.  That could be deeply programmed into your mind.

I know you talk about something called the rule of changing one thought at a time. Tell us more about that. Wow. I like that. There's so many things that come up in my mind when you're talking and optimism can be learned. And an example I have is a woman I started to work with. She was a little bit older and she was still blaming her father for her life.

And I'm like, why are you blaming him? Well, he was mean to me. I'm like, okay,  honored that feeling  she stayed stuck there. And I call that an agony. If you're going to stay stuck in anger at your parents. And not make a decision and decisions are really powerful.

You don't decide that this is your life now and you can do something about it.

You're going to stay stuck there. So having one thought at a time in your mind, I remember doing this on the radio show one time, and  I was explaining that Can only have one thought at a time in your mind and you can decide what's going to be. So if you monitor your thoughts and you hear that negativity of, you know, it's all my dad's fault, he just.

Catch yourself, observe, don't judge yourself, and then switch it. Okay, what can I do with that right now? What can I do for myself, for my life? Am I going to continue to suffer,  or am I going to rise above this?  It's really that easy. And if people would just learn that, that it's okay, yes, those things happen to you.

It's your life right now.  You can make a decision to be happier and more upbeat, or you can stay in suffering mode, which is  your choice.  Beautifully, beautifully said. You co authored the book Spontaneous Optimism. Love it, love it, love it. You have 60 tips to feel more upbeat and optimistic. Can you share a few, give us a little pointers here?  People want quick ways to feel better about themselves. In that kind of mode. And so we came up with, what do people do that are happier and optimistic about their lives? And we boiled it down to 60 second tips.

So there's no excuse. There's no excuse that I'm too busy because people say they're so busy right now and it's a horrible disease I call busy itis, which is like, stop doing that. Stop. 60 second technique. So what's one of them? Watch the words that you use.

People that are optimistic focus on solutions. People who are unhappy and pessimistic focus on complaining.  I challenge people to do what I call the one hour happiness challenge and just for one hour, observe yourself.

What words are you using? Are you using upbeat or upsetting words? If you can get into even a neutral territory, that's a win. Thank you.  I had coached a movie producer and a screenwriter and he was the most negative person, oh my gosh, in the world. And so I had him take a piece of paper and for an hour, how many times did he have these negative thoughts?

And there were like 50, 50 of them. So what we decided to do in a technique is just called mind shifting or switching. Just decrease it, even if it's one or two times less a day. Just keep building it like a muscle, catch yourself if you're just in that complaining mode, in that unhappy mode, and just switch your thoughts, so switch your words, it's like switching your thoughts.

You can rewire yourself. It's gonna happen.  It takes a little time. The 60 second techniques are a way to get yourself out of that. So watch the words that you use. Even watch the way you carry your body. Some people that come in. Here I am straightening up. Oh, yeah. Some people walk into my office, they're like looking down on the ground and taking shallow breaths  and not giving eye contact, and I say to them, before you can straighten out your head, you've got to straighten out your body.

Look up, out. When you look down, it really is. Makes your mood go down  when you're having kind of a down day and you walk into the grocery store and you're hunched over, you're looking down.

I'm like, you're just making it worse.  Absolutely. It's words and body posture. I feel hypnotic. You can hypnotize yourself into depression just by your body posture, your words. I did so much research to prove these things. One real simple example was a Harvard medical newsletter, and they found that people who smiled felt better as part of an experiment  than those who didn't.

They were also able to tolerate pain longer. And better than the people who didn't smile. It's so easy. I don't understand why psychologists haven't taught that  earlier in life. You can't change in easy ways and it doesn't have to be difficult. It doesn't have to be a lot of heavy lifting. Yeah. Yeah. Love it.

Love it.  I want to go to your latest, I believe this is Your latest book, Bouncing Back from Difficult Times. Oh, yes. Yes. And you wrote it during COVID.  During lockdown.  During lockdown. And how incredible for you to take  an opportunity and flip it on its head. You are the beautiful living, breathing example of a lot of people who went into isolation, fear, shut down.

And it opened you up. You went for a hike every day, and then you wrote your book. That is like the most beautiful example of you applying everything that you teach and that you're teaching to the world.   Thank you. I moved to this new house  a month before the lockdown.

So talk about timing and things.  If I'm not a good role model and practice what I do, I'm not good for anyone. If I don't take care of myself and balance my life, what evolved was I run a group on Wednesday nights and it kept growing because people were at home and they were isolating.

They weren't getting contact. So through the magic of zoom, we had these groups and it inspired me. That so many people were suffering and coming up with so many problems. If they were in a bad relationship, it got worse. If they had a bad family, things got worse. They needed to cope. So bless the hearts of the people who also taught me and coming on zoom and meeting with me during lockdown, it inspired me to create this.

And I started studying a little more resilient people. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. And resilience was the key. A lot of people fought this lockdown situation and resilient people, they accepted this is what is going on now, and there's nothing they can do to change it.

So they accepted this situation, they adapted to it, and then they figured out some ways to deal with it. They were more flexible for the people who didn't cope as well. They couldn't accept it. They didn't adapt, so adaptability and being flexible.

I had a lot of speeches that were canceled, so what am I going to do? I thought to myself,  write this book and help teach people how to come out of this on the other end. It's still, it's a process. The world is still recovering. And I noticed that because of the people that come to me, they really want to talk about it.

What do I do now? I was working with a woman. She was unhappy in her workplace before lockdown.  She was a hairdresser  trained from a company that did really well with natural products. So she was really doing well there, but she felt like the boss and the coworkers were taking advantage of her, pushing her to work more than she wanted to.

And she was thinking about starting her own business.  The lockdown gave her the perfect break from work where she decided during lockdown, I'm going to give them my notice and I'm going to move on. Then she opened her own studio and she's flourishing  because she figured out what to do during the time.

It was a great time to regroup and get in touch with what I need to do for myself. And I'm really proud of her.  That's awesome. So, you saw a lot of people in these group settings on zoom. Yeah. That's awesome. During lockdown, some of them were already naturally resilient, or they had developed it.

Um, some of them didn't. How?  For my listener out there who's saying to myself, Oh crap, I, I really don't consider myself a resilient person. What would you say to that person?  Okay. I would ask them to ask themselves some life changing questions. It's a good time to pause, and we had all paused, and some of us are still halfway unpaused.

Okay. It's a good time to ask yourself, what do you really want from your life right now?  What haven't I done? What can I change? Get in touch with your heart, not your head. And just ask yourself, what's going to light your fire in the morning? You brought up a good example of people not wanting to get out of bed in the morning.

If you find the answers to those questions I just asked,  just answer them truthfully and see where you're at and see if your life is supporting that or not. If you just take a moment to reflect.  and follow up on that, you'll find what will light your fire. Cause when you find your purpose in your life, it's going to light your fire.

So you're going to have a good reason to get out of bed in the morning. People who can't get out of bed in the morning don't have that flame lit inside. So they don't have a reason to get up. They don't have it yet, but they can. And that's why people don't get out of bed. They have nothing to look forward to and that spirals into that depression.

I'm not going to get out of bed. My solution for getting out of bed is find your passion and they'll light your fire.  That is beautiful.  What are some other little keys and tips on just getting even more resilient? Because things like starting a podcast, as you and I both know, it, it takes a lot of resilience and I feel like I've really developed my resiliency.

Wow. You're a great example of that as well. You reinvented yourself and I've reinvented myself a few times over as well.  I mean, it's a risk, but sometimes you have to step out of that comfort zone and take the risk and then crowd out those people who don't support you. The second time I was on Oprah, I told some friends and I quickly learned who was going to support me and who wasn't.

One of my friends said,  gee, that's nice, I guess.  And I'm like, Oh my gosh,  people aren't going to grow with you. So sometimes you have to step out there by yourself and not let what I call these emotional vampires  hold you back.   When you change and make changes, people feel that people feel your resilience and you either get jealous or it brings up what they feel that they didn't do for themselves in their lives.

Resilient, optimistic people have a really precise focus and sometimes you have to cut the cord.  So interesting. So in developing our resilience, sometimes our relationships are going to change. The people, we need to pay very close attention to who's around us and who's actually on our team.

Exactly. Exactly. And frankly, in my podcast journey, one of the things I put on my goals was to. I hook up with like minded people and lo and behold, what happened? You showed up in my life with your class  and I met some really amazing people and they're so supportive. And this is what you have to be open to.

Resilient people are flexible and open to trying new experiences. They really are brave, like optimistic people as well. The resilient people, they build upon that experience like a muscle and it just grows and then they have what I call reference points. I did it before, I can do it again.  That kind of outlook for their lives.

Right, right. And creating a safe space. Yes. I mean, we're kind of going a little bit off tangent, but what I realized in teaching my second podcasting class now is I needed to create a space where my students feel safe.  Exactly. They are given permission to experiment, to make mistakes, and they are supported no matter what.

Yeah.  That is a really important part of resilience on the podcasting journey, but really we could apply it to whatever project or thing or change that you want in your life. Look at who's supporting you. Look at who's surrounding you. Who are those safe people? Who are okay with you making mistakes and who are going to support you no matter what.

Yes. And this is really, I think it's on target with what we've been talking about today, because you have to surround yourself with like minded people. But also in my journey, I found these role models. My first role model was that high school teacher who just took the time and interests.

She's shed grace on me. In college, I met my next mentor who took me even further. You know, if we would just pause and share grace with people, just that supportiveness we're talking about in your groups and stuff like that, you can change the world. And this is important if you're a parent too, your children are watching you.

We had a whole chapter in our book on raising optimistic children. Oh, I am a role model for them. Yeah. You're a role model for them. They're watching you. Mm hmm. They are watching you and how you're handling things. So, you know what? That's part of why I started my podcast, because I had a lot of years of caregiving with a sick husband and raising a son.

Exactly.  And when it was all done and over with, I said to myself, I need to demonstrate to my son. That life goes on, that I'm resilient, that I can be happy again, and I can do things. And the only way I can talk myself blue in the face, but really what I need to do is show him.  I'm going to show him how to recreate himself by making a new version of me, you know?

Precisely. That's exactly it. I love your story. And during lockdown, children watched how their parents handled the stress of lockdown and the parents who practiced resilience and optimism, their children did so much better than the parents who just sat down in front of the TV, didn't interact with them, didn't encourage them.

Those children are depressed and they still are now. So your children are watching, as well as your coworkers.  You can be a role model for everyone in your life. I love your story of different people that helped you along the way and different yes. It's like we cannot underestimate  those small acts of kindness.

I just interviewed an incredible woman yesterday. Her name is Kimberly Bryant.  And she founded a non profit called Black Girls Code because she is 56  and was very bright in math and engineering. And so in high school, the counselor said, Hey, you have to go to college, like you need to go. And then in college, she was at Vanderbilt.

Everybody was a genius. And she flunked. An exam, and a lot of people would have just said, that's it, like, I'm not cut out for engineering, I can't do this,  but her teacher, her, it was a TA, it wasn't even the professor, he sat her down, and he said, this one failure of this one exam does not define who you are at all.

And she ended up getting an A in the class. And then she goes on and to this day, there's still like 14 percent of women engineers in the world.  And she founded this huge organization, has, has helped over a million young girls get into coding, computers, engineering. And it was so profound to me that it came down to a pivotal moment of a teacher's assistant  saying, I believe in you.

Exactly so. Yeah. Bye. Bye. It's crazy, right?   Live my whole life that way. And sometimes I'm like, it doesn't matter what I'm doing today. What matters is  can I make somebody's day better today?

You know, like whoever I'm interacting with, can I somehow like to make their day a little bit better? Because I don't know where that ripple effect is, where is that going to go? I like that. It is a ripple effect.  It's a domino effect. Do you want to cause a pessimistic domino effect or an optimistic one, and that's what you're talking about.

Yeah. It is. It affects every single person. And then when you don't think you have made a difference. And you'd get this email or this call saying, Oh my gosh, last night was amazing. One of my group members reached out to me this morning and said, I'm receiving it now. He said, I'm receiving all the goodness that he blocked.

And that's what I live for, hearing that. You, you're such a beautiful, Dr. Marianne, you're such a beautiful example of somebody who found themselves, somebody  who overcame the labels, somebody who has dedicated your entire life to helping others.  It's incredible. Thank you. It's so beautiful.  I just want to say thank you for being you.

Thank you for being here. Thank you for helping so many. Of us, millions of people writing your books and being on Oprah and doing your speeches and going into businesses. A big passion of yours now too is changing the work environment, helping those supervisors and managers, helping people to communicate better, helping people be, have a more vibrant, happy, productive working life, all of these things you've done in your life.

And you're not even close to being done. No, not at all.  When people ask me, when are you going to be done, I'm like, that word doesn't exist in my vocabulary.  And that is,  like, the, like, if you can live, I think one of the most beautiful, most incredible happy life that you could ever have is the life where you live.

A hundred percent, you find your purpose and you live it till the day you die. I've got to tell you a quick story. So in the nineties,  we didn't have podcasts and we had new dimensions of radio on PBS  and they'd interview different people about mindset, positivity,  and all that stuff. And they had Louise Hay on and she was in her early seventies at the time.

And the interviewer asked her. Well, Louise, like you're in your 70s. When are you going to retire?  She said, I'm never going to retire.  This is not even work for me. This is who I am. I have 20 to 25 plus years of work to do. She called it work, but she didn't mean it that way. She just meant I  have things to do.

And she was so passionate about it. And then I remember she passed away in her early nineties, just the same day that Wayne Dyer did. And I went right on cue. She never stopped. She kept going. No!  My bed in Arizona right now. Really? I just came across this woman. She's a physician. She's 102.  What? And she's, and she's just released her new book?

Yeah, I think she calls herself. I'll have to look it up. I, I don't recall it right now, but I think she calls herself like Dr. B. Glad, but she wrote with a book on what she's done in her life to live a hundred years. She's my new role model.  . Yeah.  I think that, uh, even when I was a kid, there was this idea of , you work and then you retire and you rest.

Yes. And I think the new model today is that you don't work. You just live your life to your greatest potential. Like you just do it.  Absolutely. I mean, it's such a stereotype and it still exists that once you hit like 65 or whatever, you're done. I worked for myself for such a long time, but I created a life where I enjoyed myself along the way.

Most people work hard, suffer, and then they enjoy their lives when they retire, if they live that long. I had fun along the way. I had time. My husband and I would take  different trips a year and enjoy life. To keep us going. And we didn't put our happiness on hold. That is just the key. And I do think that the younger generation has some wisdom, you know, that we didn't have in that they really look for a lot more balance.

Like how did I work? Like even my assistant Courtney, who you've met, I love watching her because  we're working on creating this life where she, she loves her life. Like she loves all the stuff she does for me, but she loves, she's got balance. That's it. She wants to love every minute of her life. Like we want that.

That's what we want. We can do that. And remember, if you weren't born upbeat and optimistic, you can learn how to, if you haven't enjoyed your life, you can enjoy it. Look at changing your underwear, changing your life. It has lots of examples of how to enjoy your lives. You can do it. Yeah. , give us a couple, give us a couple of tips on that book.

How to enjoy your life. The segment we did on Oprah was actually underwear. And we talked about how certain underwear makes you feel really good about yourself and certain types didn't. So she did an experiment with people in the audience and she did, she bought them new underwear. I love it. And she had them come back.

And the women were like, yeah, when we changed her underwear, her mood improved. Ones that are frumpy, dopey underwear, they have this exciting under, the colors, the cuts. And it just was a mood booster for them. So she did an experiment to see if I was right or not, or my husband and I were right, and we were, cause we have all these women lined up saying, yeah, it's a metaphor, you can change your life.

Sometimes it's just a matter of changing underwear. It was just that kind of simple, fun little thing they do. Oh my gosh. That is an  awesome story. She just, I mean, some of the stuff that she did, that's what made her so great. She wasn't afraid to go outside the box. Still is. Absolutely. She's just always like, I'm going outside the box. And of all the things she wanted to do, a hundred and something tips in there, she wanted to do that one.

 Love it so much.  Change doesn't have to be painful. Yeah. It can be fun. It can be easy. Just accept these tips that we're giving you and try it. Beautiful. It's not going to hurt you. Beautifully said. Dr. Marianne, this conversation has been so uplifting and I feel like , we've learned some very simple and easy hacks, like they're not that hard to do.

We can do it. We can do it. That being said, are there any last words of advice that you'd like to give my audience?  I want to give them permission.  It's important just to be persistent. So you're going to hit roadblocks, you're going to stumble and fall, and the biggest difference between someone who succeeds and doesn't is that they just pick themselves one more time.

So just be aware. Yeah, you're going to hit roadblocks, whether real or imagined.  Just , pick yourself up over and over again. I just want you to hear that in your head when you leave here today. Yeah, I had obstacles. I had to pick myself up. Yeah, and it's okay. Yeah, just be aware of that.

Keep yourself up over and over Beautifully said beautifully said and I think a lot of that has to do also with pacing. I'm bringing it up again Trent Shelton, but in this interview I learned a lot from it. He was talking about pacing  and he said that one of our big huge problems with social media is that we're just You. We're always comparing ourselves to everyone else.

And the thing is, we all have a different pace and we need to learn how to listen to that voice inside and honor our pace. And if we can just honor our pace and work at our own pace and not compare. And if that means getting off social media, get off social media. I gave you guys that advice. I said, get off.

If you're like, I'm freaking out that your podcast classmate is doing this thing and you're not doing it. Stop. They're not you. They're going to do it differently. You're going to do it at different times, different paces. It's all different. It's all okay. And I think we've lost some of that. I think we need to get back to pacing ourselves.

Yeah. And I think the coming off of lockdown, what we learned from lockdown as psychologists is that people are giving themselves more permission now to question life,  to take a break. I took a break last week. I didn't have a podcast last week. I didn't do any marketing just to recharge myself and it's okay.

That's okay. Yep. I give permission to the listeners to do that. You need to take the break. It almost makes me realize, like in building a business or accomplishing whatever you want to accomplish, maybe that's one of the big keys too. And that's why a lot of people are failing is we're just doing way too much comparison, you know, with the rest of the world, an entire planet full of people.

Comparison. Like, that's overload. A hundred years ago, we were comparing ourselves to the 50 people that lived in our village. Like, that's too hard. We'd have had anybody else to compare to. But it's really just us. And to just learn how to pace ourselves, and like what you talked about earlier, really enjoy the journey.

And by pacing ourselves, we then can enjoy the journey, which then allows us to continue and not give up.  Absolutely. It's so recharging to take a break. My former mentor passed away about five years ago.  One of the things he taught me was just the phrase, enjoy life. So I went out and bought a flag, but I hung up in front of the house and all I said was enjoy life.

And every time I looked out my office window and saw it, it was just a reminder. It's like, yeah. I mean, some people do their best work when they leave the office and take a break. I had my husband leave the office and take a break, made an appointment for him to go to afternoon tea by himself, and he sat there, pulled out his journal, and he did the most creative writing for a half hour, because you just have to lead the environment sometimes.

And you don't need that, and that's okay. It's not a failing type of situation. Yeah. I heard you. Oof. Yeah. And I think you're right. Maybe one of the greatest lessons we can take from lockdown is  By slowing our pace,  we're allowing in that creativity as well, because literally if we're on our phones 24/7, there's no room for creativity.

There's no room for joy. There's no room for imagination. Right? Exactly. Yeah. The silence that I teach in my group is still an example. I started a while ago taking yin yoga, which is different from regular yoga.

Yin yoga is that you do meditation, you do stretches on the floor that you have to hold for three minutes. Oh,  and when I started, I was like, uh, you're like, how am I going to do this? Is it time? Is it time yet? The teacher said, Dr. Mary, be present.  I'm like,  my body wanted to go a hundred miles an hour. I learned how to be still.

And that stillness is where I find peace, recharging myself. And sometimes whatever downloads from the universe comes to me.  And it's just an example of just that simple practice of going to the class has been really an amazing part of my recent journey in terms of just be still, calm the body down, sit still.

If you don't know how to meditate, breathe. Just do something. Mm hmm. I love it so much. Oh my gosh.  This conversation has been so rich and so pertinent, like, so relevant to what we're Okay. Where we are. I know my listeners are going to want to reach out to you. How can we find you?  I have a website called Positive Life Answers and you can go to the website.

All the books that we talked about are in my online store and they can reach me through the contact form there or join my email list. You can sign up for my Positive Life Answers newsletter, which is free, no strings attached. Or look me up on your favorite podcast platforms, simply called Positive Life Answers,  and they can hear stuff because repetition of hearing these things is the best way to learn.

So maybe pick something. Thanks for that reminder because that's something too, we live in a very much of a quick fix society. And I think that repetition is actually  really important. Uh, we need to hear things definitely more than once.  Yes. Yeah. So, if you listen to this episode a couple of times, because most people won't absorb everything.

Totally agree. Because they may have blocks that say, Oh, that's kind of hard for me. But the next time they listen to it, they might pick up another tip or two. So, totally agree. And it does take repetition.

Thank you so much for having me. Dr. Mary, for coming on my podcast. For sharing your wisdom, your light, your incredible story, what a beautiful journey. And it has been, and it is gonna be for another 50 years or so. That's the, I'm gonna make it to two thank you so much. Thank you.  Thank you for creating this environment in this podcast based today to bring this out to everyone. I appreciate what you do.

Hey, brave friends. Thanks so much for taking time out of your busy life to listen to today's episode. I love learning about what makes you brave. I'm here with you. I see you, I hear you, and I want to hear from you. I want to know how you are showing up as brave and resilient and authentic.

Connect with me on Instagram @shesbravepodcast, or check out my website at www.shesbravepodcast.com. If you're interested in learning more about podcasting, join my Facebook group, www.facebook.com/groups/podcastmasteryjourney. I'm sending you guys so much love until next time, keep being brave.