Dr. Joy Martina is my guest today and I credit her as a key part of my own personal growth in the last few years. She is a psychic psychologist with an incredible ability to help people see into themselves and find their own key for transformation. Dr. Joy teaches super practical, easy-to-use ways to turn limiting beliefs around and instead start living the life you were meant to live. We talk today about the power of your own personal intuition and how to start trusting your inner voice as a guide in life.
Joy’s methods may be a little woo, but they are based in tangible science, similar to other mind-body methods like tapping or meditation. I highly recommend her books including her most recent bestseller, How to Use Your Intuition to Change Your Life.
Let’s get into it!
Episode Highlights With Joy Martina
- How to train and strengthen intuition
- A tool called “The Switch” to release anger and pain
- Phrases like “I claim my power back and I give you your power back” and “The past stays in the past and I forgive you for the pain you’ve caused me”
- Tools like tapping for emotional release and balance
- How to love and accept yourself even when you don’t feel like it
- The powerful way we can influence the brain to support intuition
- Physical tools that let us access the unconscious mind
- Why owning responsibility holds the key to healing
- Ways to nurture these skills and build a strong foundation in your children from a young age
- Her 80/20 methods that give maximum results in just a few decisions a day
- Ways to start the day for emotional calm
Resources We Mention
- Joy Martina – Instagram
- How to Use Your Intuition to Change Your Life by Dr. Joy Martina
- Joyful Kids
- Heal Your Life by Louise Hay
More From Wellness Mama
- 309: How I Overcame Trauma (and Lost 50 Pounds)
- 313: The Tapping Solution to Reduce Anxiety, Stress, and Pain With Nick Ortner
- 360: Four Questions to Change Your Life & Doing The Work With Byron Katie
- 349: How to Be Your Best in High Stress Situations With Former Army Ranger and CIA Agent Jeff Banman
- 298: Getting Back to Happy With Marc and Angel Chernoff
- EFT: How Tapping & Emotional Freedom Technique Work
Did you enjoy this episode? Please drop a comment below or leave a review on iTunes to let us know. We value knowing what you think and this helps other moms find the podcast as well.
[toggle title=”Read Transcript”]
Child: Welcome to my Mommy’s podcast.
This podcast is brought to you by Wellnesse, my new personal care company that is based on the recipes I’ve been making at home in my kitchen for over a decade. Many “clean” products simply don’t work and this is why I have spent the last decade researching and perfecting recipes for products that not only eliminate toxic chemicals but contain ingredients that work better than their conventional alternatives and that nourish your body from the outside in. I’m so excited to finally share these products with you and wanted to tell you about our brand new dry shampoo! It can be used various ways. You can sprinkle it in clean hair to add volume and to extend time between washes, sprinkle it in hair that has not been washed in a day or two to absorb oil or sweat and you can work in to color treated hair to maintain color by not having to wash as often. It contains oil-absorbing kaolin clay and volume-boosting tapioca which work together to refresh hair at the roots. Lavender oil and cactus flower help to balance scalp and strands’ natural pH. We even added hibiscus for healthy hair growth. You can check it out and try it at wellnesse.com and my tip is to grab a bundle to save or subscribe and save as well!
This podcast is brought to you by Cacao Bliss, a delicious superfood drink created by previous podcast guest, Danette May. Many of us like chocolate, and certainly nothing feels better than being able to enjoy rich creamy chocolate and knowing that you’re doing something good for your body. But that isn’t the case with every type of chocolate. When it’s sourced well, chocolate and especially cacao can have many health benefits. It’s a great source of magnesium, can be very anti-inflammatory and even help balance hormones. In fact, some experts speculate that this is why we crave chocolate at certain times of the month. Cacao Bliss is one of the best sources of this that I have found. They start with 100% organic cacao beans that are naturally dried in the sun, maintaining their miraculous health benefits. And then they blend this with turmeric, MCT oil, coconut, sea salt, cinnamon, and black pepper. So not only does it taste delicious, but it makes you feel incredible as well. The result is this truly decadent healthy, but guilt-free chocolate that helps with cravings, it can be great for weight loss, for boosting energy, reducing inflammation, all in one simple drink that has become a relatively regular part of my life. And for those who are wondering it is paleo, gluten-free, keto, vegan and vegetarian safe. They have been making this for eight years. I’m a big fan. And as a listener of this podcast, you get an automatic 15% discount by going to earthechofoods.com/wellnessmama and you will have an automatic 15% discount.
Katie: Hello, and welcome to “The Wellness Mama Podcast”. I’m Katie from wellnessmama.com and wellnesse.com, my new line of personal care products that go beyond safe and nontoxic to actually benefit the body from the outside in. This episode is the answer to a lot of follow-up questions I have gotten about my own journey over the last couple of years of working through trauma and losing weight because I am here with someone who was one of the factors, one of the people that helped me along the way, Joy Martina. Dr. Joy Martina is a psychologist and founder of the Joyful Kids program. And I first found her and started working with her because she also has a program called Sleep Your Fat Away. And I thought that I have this version that of only I lost a certain amount of weight or was a certain size, then I would be happy. And that was the thing that took up a lot of my mental energy for a very long time. And through working with her and through a lot of my own inner work over the last couple of years, I realized that that was merely a symptom, but her work was instrumental for me in the beginning of that process. And in starting to let go of a lot of those layers. And a lot of what she does is help people turn deep seated, limiting beliefs on their head and to transform really swiftly and easily. And we walk through some of the ways that she does that in this episode, from things like learning to ask better, more empowering questions, which she explains in detail, to simple switches, including a method called the switch that you can use to instantly refresh and reframe your mental state. And even how we can start giving our kids the tools to live a calmer, happier life from the very beginning and give them the tools to work through emotions and hopefully never to get stuck in these patterns to begin with.
So, like I said, Dr. Joy was part of my journey in…through trauma and through weight loss over the last couple of years. I’ve gotten so many follow-up questions related to that episode that she is able to answer some of those questions today in this episode. So that is something that you could benefit from, I think you’ll really enjoy this episode as much as I enjoyed talking to Joy. Joy, welcome. Thanks for being here.
Joy: Well, I’m so delighted to be here with you.
Katie: I knew that I had to have you here and talk to you because I have shared a little bit about my own journey over the last couple of years and gotten so many follow-up questions that I knew I had to bring on the people who were part of that journey for me, and that certainly included you. I wanna go a little bit into my own journey that people have heard parts of that. But to start, I’d love to hear you explain just a little bit of your story and what you do for people who aren’t familiar with you yet.
Joy: So my name is Joy, and that kind of means to a lot of people that, you know, it would be an easy thing for me to always be happy and joyful. And, you know, most of the time I really am, but it was quite a path to get to where I am right now because I felt more depressed, and overwhelmed, and frustrated, and kind of in a treadmill before I was able to really discover what that name was in a way that it was also a gift to me. So finding my own joy really has been one of the most exciting journeys. And, you know, I’m still expanding on it because there’s no limit to joy. So part of that path has been, you know, helping other people find their joy, because I think, you know, we know from like commandments and stuff that we have the right to pursue our happiness, but that doesn’t mean that we necessarily find our joy. And, you know, there’s a difference between happiness and joy.
So that’s been a big part of my life and I’m really happy that I can now, you know, take all that I’ve learned and all the different things I’ve studied to a different level and kind of make it so simple that even kids get it, and kids can get it in less than five minutes. So I’m really happy to be on board here with you too and to share all the best tips that we have of, you know, what do you do when you’re feeling less than joyful? And if we look at the planet right now, we have a lot of that going on. We have suicide rates going through the roof. We have depression rates going through the roof. We have, you know, a lot of uncertainty. There’s a lot of fear. So I think this is a really timely topic.
Katie: I agree. And there’s so many things within that I think that we need to get into today. And to get a little bit vulnerable for those who maybe haven’t heard all the parts of my story, I over the last couple of years lost over 80 pounds, which I thought was the thing that I needed the most. And that was kind of all-encompassing in my life for the last 10 years. And then in doing so I realized that was only actually kind of a symptom of the thing that I actually needed to address. And you were part of that journey for me. You have a system designed to specifically help people release weight. And I thought that’s what I needed and that that was gonna fix my problems. And it very much was influential in that, but what I realized through our work and through the work I did myself was that the core thing was actually dealing with the inner trauma and the insecurities and the things inside of me, and that the weight was just an outward expression of that.
And I remember so specifically one of the first times we spoke and you had me do, I think you called it the switch and then you had me repeat after you. And you had me say something, whatever it was that I was upset about, even though, etc., etc., I love and respect myself and my voice broke and I almost couldn’t even make those words come out of my mouth and it’s so shocking to me to go, “Uh. Whoa. Like why does that feel so hard? And why does that feel so bad?” And why is it bringing up all of these emotions? And it really challenged me in a great way and then through that, we were able to work through things like intuition and limiting beliefs, releasing self-judgment, and so many other things. I am curious how you came to learn some of these techniques. I wanna go through a couple of them with people, but how did you come to find these?
Joy: Well, you know, ever since I’d say turned 18 and I was able to be the mistress of my own money, I spent all the extra cash that I had. And it wasn’t much because I was studying at that time too on these kinds of funky courses, whether it was hypnosis or homeopathy, or I don’t know, finding water in the ground to… I did so many different trainings to…what I didn’t know what I was actually looking for. I thought I was looking for happiness. I thought I was looking for ways to help myself, but what I was actually doing is I was training my intuition. Because you see, we can’t be happy if we’re not tuned into our intuition because when we’re not tuned into our intuition, we usually feel kind of lost, kind of confused, a little depressed, usually working on our self-worth. We don’t really love ourselves.
So I love how you said it. You know, you thought it was all about weight, but once we got into that journey, you realized, “Wow, this weight is so much more than just physical fat.” It’s, you know, as you were saying, it’s limiting beliefs about oneself. It’s the way that we’ve kind of shut down parts of ourselves because we no longer feel worthy to have it all. And I think what we’re doing right now is we’re all reawakening to that truth that yeah, we can actually, we are all. And if we are all and we all came from the same kind of source, whatever name you wanna give that, then we all have that right and ability to reconnect with that, what it is, our full potential or whatever name you wanna give it. And I love that through conversations that you’re offering on your podcast, we’re able to have these conversations and say, “Listen, it’s not so out there.” Intuition is not woo woo. It’s actually your highest intelligence, right? And if you wanna be tuned into that highest intelligence, you just have to follow a few simple steps to find that peace again in yourself to be able to tune in and hear that subtle voice. And the way that we usually run around on our little hamster wheels, we’re doing anything but stop and listen. Wouldn’t you agree?
Katie: Absolutely. Yeah. So let’s talk about that. How can we learn to foster that more? Because I think it’s somewhat of a human nature a little bit to have trouble with things we can’t easily like define or concretely see. And I think intuition is one of those that it is harder to define or it’s harder to feel. We certainly maybe can notice the times when we have felt something and then it lined up, but I feel like most people maybe have never tried to consciously improve their intuition or even know that that’s possible. So where do we begin?
Joy: Or even know what it is, right? So if we say it’s defined as the highest intelligence, right, people like Albert Einstein say that, we can say then, “Okay. So how do we get this intuitive hit? How do we just know?” Because intuition is just knowing without conscious reasoning. It’s not coming from experience, it’s coming from just knowing. You just suddenly know. And then it’s so hard to define, “Well, how does that knowing come to me?” So when I was listening to you, I noticed that you said the word feeling very many times, right? So that would give me insight just because of all the training I’ve done in psychology and whatever, is that you are a kinesthetic person. So for you to get your intuitive hit will most likely come in a feeling, but that’s not true for everyone. So an auditory type sort of like me will most likely get it more in a kind of message in a voice in the head, that knowing comes in a more hearing way, right? But then we have the visual people who, for instance, for whom intuition is saying, “I just saw it.” You know? “I could suddenly see it.”
So part of what I do in my intuition training is also explain these different channels of information that we have because intuition is just another stream of information. It’s a stream of information that is coming from our highest knowledge. So it’s coming from the pure source and it’s accessible to every single one of us. So, you know, a 3-year-old can have just as an intuitive hit does as a 93-year-old. So it’s completely irrelative to what age you are, what cultural background do you come from. It is something that we all have.
So the question is more, how do I retrain that in me? And step one is that very simple, it’s stepping out of the buzz. It’s stepping out of this constant state of hyper-connection that we have, to social media to, I don’t know, the radio, the messages coming from our environment, our family, our peers. We are often so distracted by everything that’s going on that we forget to tune into who we are and what we want. I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had in all the coachings that I’ve done with women, especially, when I ask them, “Well, what is your desire?” And they’re like, “What? Desire? We can talk about goals maybe, but desire, that feels so intimate, that feels so vulnerable. And who am I to even know my desires,” and whatever, right? And want that. So once we get into the different stages, like first we step out of the buzz, but then we notice if we wanna step out of the buzz, we’re gonna have to say no to people. We’re gonna have to say no to appointments. We’re gonna have to say no to our phone and put it away. And that saying no, again, is something that many of us struggle with. And we haven’t learned that, “No, thank you,” is a complete sentence.
So step two, I call saying no gracefully because that is possible too. And then once we’ve said no and we learn to set boundaries, we take our space so that we can actually tune into intuition. Then I think a big part of what I’ve been helping people do is to forgive and release joyfully. I think so many of us are being programmed into the idea that letting go is something that’s hard, it’s something that’s expensive. And, you know, especially saying, “I’m working on myself and I’ve got to do all these things,” it’s usually…it involves a lot of grief, maybe and, you know, not such fun stuff. But I think that’s not true because once we’ve got the hit, once we’ve got the lesson, why did we have to go through all this stuff to be who we are today, it can actually be a joyful process.
So I share a bunch of tools, and resources, and also in the resource section of my book, actually, because I wanted it all to be really hands-on so that you know the best five tools to be able to help yourself once you’ve done the training. So once we’ve forgiven and we’ve released joyfully, we get to that juicy part of owning our desires. That’s where we actually step into that whole creation power of ourselves. So think second chakra, think…also sexual energy. Creative energy needs to be first inside of us. We need to own it to be able to say, “What is it that I really want in life? What does my heart want?” And once we’ve done that, then the first step is I call, tap into the universe. Then you really can train your brain to be that sender and receiver of specific frequencies that you wanna tune into. So not necessarily, I don’t know, the nagging, complaining, and the hypochondriac, but maybe you’d like to hear more uplifting news. Maybe you’d like to tune into what your life’s mission is or what you wanna believe is a legacy on this planet. So much more fun stuff. And those five steps are really easy for everyone to do, I think, because I’ve kind of spanned it out in a way that with every step, there’s a tool, there’s an insight. And yeah, it’s not rocket science. It really isn’t, but it can change your life.
Katie: Several points I wanna touch on there. I think the idea of desire and want is such an important thing as well, because often at least looking internally, I feel like it can be easy to identify the things we don’t like, or we don’t want, or that are problems, especially as women. But getting asked that question, what do you actually desire? What do you want? It threw me for a loop. And I’m relatively goal-oriented and I still was like, “What? I don’t know.” No one’s asked me that question before. Or maybe it’s that we, especially, as moms, maybe are so geared towards the needs of everyone else that it would be difficult to turn that lens inside. Do you have any tips for anyone listening who might have had that same experience I did, of not even really knowing how to figure out what we want?
Joy: Yeah. I would ask an empowering question. And that could be as simple as saying, “Why is it so easy for me to know what I want? Why is it so easy for me to tune into my desires and make them happen? Why is it so safe for me to know what I want?” You know, you can play with that, but you wanna ask an empowering question rather than, “What could possibly go wrong?” Right? So that’s the opposite of what we’re doing. By asking an empowering question, you’re making your brain come up with answers. So I like doing empowering questions throughout the day saying, “Why am I the luckiest person in this room? Why is it so easy for me to stay calm?” Right? Whatever it is, when you phrase it that way, your brain will come up with answers for you.
And the more answers you get, the more you tune into that state of possibility. And that’s what we wanna stay at. We wanna make sure that our own vibrations are as high as possible, that we’re positive that we’re in a…not necessarily always in a good mood, but that we’re feeling grateful, at least, because once we change our own energy, the way we go through the world, our attitude towards the word, our lens changes, our frequency changes. And then also the people that we attract change. So the circumstances change, synchronicity starts happening. So really, our main job in life is to make sure that we’re really taking care of ourselves so we then can take care of others.
Katie: That simple reframe I think is so important. And I underestimated how profound it would be until I started making that shift myself. I realized in my own journey that I had been asking the negative form of those questions for so long that it was almost just built-in. And I feel like our brains and our psyche, they’re there to protect us. And so I was asking, “Well, why can’t I lose the weight, and why am I such a failure at this?” And I was getting, of course, the answer is, “Well, let me tell you all the reasons for the question you asked.” And just that shift of like what we choose to focus on, it was drastic to me how much of a profound impact that had so quickly. And do you find with people it often can be as simple of just becoming aware of those questions and then making that conscious shift?
Joy: I would say, you know, Katie, 90% is awareness. Once we realize what’s happening, what we’re doing, it really is even as simple as just taking a breath and reframing. So, yeah, I would say awareness takes you most of the way. It’s then just doing. That’s the last bit, but that’s actually just 10%, 20% at most. First bit is the intention and the awareness.
Katie: Yeah. Exactly. I think the other one I had, the thing that I always had in my head was, “Oh, if only,” whatever the thing was, “then I will be happy. If only I lose the weight, then I will be happy.” And it was that reframe of realizing, “Or I could actually just choose to be happy and to accept myself right now.” And the irony was when that shift happened, everything else that I thought was the goal became so much easier. But it became a result versus a goal.
Joy: Beautiful. Beautiful.
Katie: So you also mentioned forgiveness. And I think this is an important one. And especially right now, you mentioned the world is so uncertain and tensions are so high. And I find people in a state like this, it’s easy to get angry and short-tempered with those you love most or the people online, or to have things from the past that are unforgiven kind of rear their head and become problems again. And I love that you say, you know, why does forgiveness have to be hard? Why can’t it just be easy? But I think it is something that a lot of people struggle with. And from my own journey, I know I can say that I did, having sexual trauma in my past, it was a hard thing…or I felt like it was a hard thing to forgive until I did it. How do you help people move toward a place of forgiveness, especially when there is very much a tangible thing that they struggle to forgive?
Joy: Absolutely. And it is. I, myself, I think this is why I’m now such an expert on forgiveness because I struggled so many years myself. What shifted it most for me was to realize that when I’m not forgiving, I’m usually in a state of anger and resentment, in some level, even if I’ve suppressed it down as much as I could, right? And that anger is an energy, a frequency in my body that is harming me most. So realizing that the one I’m harming most is me by not forgiving, made me decide, “Okay. I have to change this. I have to just stop doing something about it.” Rather than just keeping it as a mental conversation in my head, which we know can lead us down a bunch of rabbit holes, I need to start putting it into practice. So I love the power of ritual, the ritual of writing it all down in a letter that you never send and then burn, very powerful, but you’ve got to get it out of your system.
The ritual of creating a playlist for rage, a playlist for grief, and really songs that get you ticking and then taking three minutes for each emotion to really move it through the body. Imagine you’re this 2-year-old toddler, and you’re having a tantrum. You put your music on full blast, go into a safe room, get a friend to join you, even more powerful, a sister, for instance, and then move that energy through your body with your breath. You can do anything as long as you stay safe. So punch some cushions, roll around on the ground, but get it out, especially as women, but I would say really, men too. These emotions, they’re physical feelings that we have in our bodies. So it’s much easier to let go of a physical feeling with a physical action. So doing a kind of session like that, a release session is very helpful.
The third thing I would do is send the person that you need to forgive a letter of gratitude. And I know this won’t be the first thing you’d like to do, but it will be the first step. You’ll be ready for that because you will realize that that person was actually a teacher you never paid, but that you got assigned to learn a certain lesson. He made you, or she made you stronger than you were, for sure. So find that lesson and see what good actually happened even though that event that’s in the past was incredibly painful, most likely. And then when you can find that, find something that you can appreciate about that other person. There is something, always, always, something beautiful in that person, something that you’re grateful for. And then maybe write them a letter, send them a gift. You could send them a gift without even seeing who it is by, but it’s even more powerful if you stamped it. Send them something to show that gratitude and then be done with it.
The next time you notice yourself going into negative cycles of thoughts about this person or blaming, you know, saying, “Oh, it’s all because of that,” claim that responsibility back, do that switch. You know, you’ll find the tool of the switch. It’s like karate chop on our YouTube channel, for instance. It’s free. Right? And then do something to shift that habit of thinking negatively and going back into the past and realize that you could just…imagine grabbing these huge scissors and cutting all those links and saying, “You know, I’m done. The past is in the past. I’m in the here and now and only love can connect us.” That’s the mantra that I always use.
So forgiveness mantra, maybe we have time to share that. You could write it down if you wanted to. Imagine being in a safe place, connect to your heart, do whatever it takes to get there.
And then imagine looking this other person in the eyes and then saying, “I claim my power back.” And take a breath. And then you say, “I give you your power back. I claim my freedom back.” Take another breath. And then you say, “I give you your freedom back.” And then you say, “The past stays in the past. I forgive you for all the pain and suffering you have caused me and I ask for forgiveness for all the pain and suffering I caused you. Only love can connect us. I wish you well, just as I wish myself well.” And then imagine snapping those cords, burning them, cutting them, and reconnecting to yourself, to your core. And that core is beautiful. It’s filled with love and that other person then no longer has their tentacles on you. So cutting karmic links like that can be a very powerful process. And I suggest doing that. You know, until you realize you really can wish upon the other what you wish upon yourself, because then we’re done. Then we’re truly done with forgiveness when we can say, you know, “I see you and I wish you well.”
Katie: I love that. And it makes me think of a quote that I have printed out in my office as a reminder. And it says, forgiveness is setting the prisoner free, and realizing the prisoner was yourself. That it’s a gift we give to ourselves and also hopefully to the other person, but whether they accept it or not, it’s a gift that we have to give them.
Joy: That’s their problem, right. Yeah.
Katie: Exactly. And it is amazing how those things, and making those shifts in my mind, it brought so much freedom in relationships with other people. And like I wasn’t as attached to the ideas of what other people thought about me or other people’s opinions. And I could actually realize things like it’s not their job to like me, it’s my job to like me, and let me just start there. I also love that you brought up the feeling it and movement and whether it’s rage and hitting the pillow because I think sometimes it’s easy to try to like be always in control of our emotions and stamp those things down and, you know, have a solid front. And the book, “The Body Keeps the Score,” really brought this point home for me, illustrating how we actually, our body physically can manifest these emotions that we don’t deal with. And I certainly saw that in my own life and how we often think like, “Okay. If I need to fix all these inner things, my body will fix itself.” But often, it can go the other way too, that if you do the movement and address the physical side, it can help you address the inner emotional side as well. And that I think is kind of some of the idea behind things like tapping or using movement as part of that therapy. And I love that you brought this up, almost like that rage therapy or like letting those emotions have their place and letting them come out and thanking them. You also, I believe, do some versions of tapping as well. Is that right?
Joy: Absolutely. Yeah. We call it emotional balance tapping. It’s neuro-linguistic. Well, we combine neuro-linguistic programming, so NLP, with the tapping. So we tap certain acupressure points on the body. They’re usually the endpoints of meridians. So there’s highways in the body. And then we say magical sentences to ourselves. Things like, “I love and accept myself, even when I feel scared. And I love and accept myself when I now choose to feel brave.” You know, we’ve put together these mantras, affirmations, incantations, as you like. And when you connect those to these energy points in the body, you’re doing a very powerful trick on your brain. We didn’t talk about the influence of the brain so much to intuition or this, what we’re doing, but we did in a way, because we said that, you know, sometimes you can consciously want something but then inside everything in, you says, “Oh no, we’re not doing this. This is scary.” Right?
And that is that difference between the conscious and the unconscious mind. And when we’re tapping, we are getting right into the unconscious mind. And that’s really powerful because you see the conscious mind is otherwise that controlling part that’s kind of the filter to the unconscious mind. And we think usually, as humans, that we are our conscious mind, but we’re not because if you think through your conscious mind, you’re gonna go nuts because your conscious mind will think whatever it wants, right? It’ll go down gazillion rabbit holes all day. So there’s a higher part of you that is always watching over this. And everything that has ever happened to you in this lifetime, past lifetimes, whatever you believe, is stored in your unconscious mind. So all limiting beliefs, everything that maybe ever had an impact on you has shaped this unconscious mind, but because the conscious mind, always hovering over and protecting it, it’s kind of hard to get into the unconscious mind unless you’re deeply relaxed in hypnosis or distracting the conscious mind with tapping.
So by tapping these points and saying the affirmations or incantations, you’re already maxing out the conscious mind, which means that all the information will go into your unconscious mind. And that’s how the power of tapping actually works. You’re not only de-stressing the body by sending that tapping energy through an energy highway in the body and de-stressing the organ, but you’re also, with the power of your affirmations, getting right into that biggest part of your brain. And, you know, those 80% that your unconscious mind makes up is actually running the show. So part of the job I feel that we have as a human is to tidy up in our unconscious mind and to get those two minds aligned again with where we really wanna go, and where we really wanna go is where our heart’s desires lie.
Katie: Such an eloquent explanation. And certainly, one of the areas that this seems to present itself is in things like weight struggles. And that was, like I said, the reason I found you and connected with you in the first place and I thought that was gonna be the big benefit and I realized, like I said, that that was merely a symptom, but I know from sharing my story that this is a story that many women share and that there does seem to be a link of like, at least in my case, that past trauma and the link to weight and being able to use these tools, I know you have a program and a book that I’ll link to called “Sleep Your Fat Away” that is kind of designed to do this, to access that subconscious. From what I’ve read, we assume, like you said, that we’re so much our conscious mind, but truly so much of everything…like our subconscious is actually much larger than our conscious mind. And so, we’re doing all this work in this little part of our conscious mind thinking we can will ourselves to do these things or whatever, but we’re not addressing this gigantic underground garden in the subconscious that is controlling all these things that happen in the conscious.
Joy: Yeah. It’s like making a horse drink water. You can make it drink water if it happens to be thirsty in that moment, but most of the times, again, a struggle.
Katie: For women who…because this is certainly one of the most common follow-up questions I get after sharing my own weight loss and also all the inner work that accompanied it was, you know, people ask, “How do I start? If I also am struggling with my weight, where do I start?”
Joy: Well, I would start by watching the free webinar. You go to sleepyourfataway.org and then check out how the system works. I explain it there. And then you can sign up for the virtual boot camp. And it’s really simple because we designed the app. It’s really beautiful. You have it right on your phone. And then it’s as simple as every single day, you take a 20-minute power nap. Now, believe it or not, that is the hardest bit for people to do, is taking that 20-minute break. So guess why in the intuition program, that’s step one. So if you’re willing to do that and hit Play on your phone and listen to me talking to your unconscious mind for 20 minutes a day, all you’ll ever then have to do is tap one point above your lips and below your nose before you eat, take a few breaths, eat slowly and consciously, eat whatever you want, but eat it slowly and consciously. And then at night time, you listen to some audio trainings that I’ve made there, like guided meditation sleep programs, and you sleep to those because you see in the nighttime, when your conscious mind is asleep, your unconscious mind is wide awake so it’s the perfect time to train the brain. So you just have it on at a barely audible level. It’s just like a whisper in the background. And a lot of people tell me their sleep quality improves. They sleep deeper. They don’t need as much sleep. So, you know, the side effects so far, as what I know, only beneficial.
Katie: What about people who… So for me the trauma was very much in the past and the weight was an expression that I had to address in the current. But the acute thing was in the past. What about people who are still facing some version of the acute thing right now, whether it be a health challenge or a relationship dynamic or something that is causing current and acute issues in their lives? Because I often hear from those people, kind of the idea that like, “Well, that’s great that you could work through that, but I have this, and this, and this that are out of my control or…”
Joy: Yeah. Well, that’s what we always think, right? We always will think that it’s due to forces outside of our control that we’re in the situation that we are. I’m sorry, but no, we have literally created every single thing in our life because it is supposed to be helping us in some ways. So we are the creators of our life and we have to own responsibility for that, even if we don’t like where we are right now. So after having done that, saying, “Yeah. Okay. I claim that. I’m ready. I’m now gonna create a life that I really do want.” Then if we are still facing all that stress, so it’s like the repercussions of our past decisions, what we need is we need tools to deal with that stress because stress is always gonna be part of our lives more or less, but, you know, we’ll always have challenges.
So that’s why, you know, especially my Joyful Kids program, I’m so hard on teaching, even the little ones, simple tools to manage stress because we can do that. The only thing we truly can control is ourselves. So when we start claiming that responsibility and help ourselves deal with the stress that we’re facing, those challenges don’t seem so insurmountable anymore. We will actually discover, “Wow, you know, step by step, I’m getting there. And I don’t have to be perfect. I just have to do my best.” And the rest is more about relaxing than doing more. Really, if I’ve learned one thing in weight loss, it’s usually the ones that are struggling most, say they are just too busy, feel totally overwhelmed in life, and are just doing too much.
Katie: Such a great point. And I’m glad that you mentioned the kid aspect because that’s one thing I thought of often as I was learning these lessons in my own life is how can I, as a parent, best prepare my kids to have these tools from an early age, because we always, you know, think those things, how wonderful would it be if I had known this so long ago, but we can give that gift to our children. So talk to me about the Joyful Kids program and maybe some strategies we can use with our children at different ages to help them have these tools from the beginning.
Joy: Yay. Yes. This is my hot pet passion project right now because I had the same feeling. I was seeing that, you know, the ones that are most vulnerable in our society are the kids. And at the same time, they’re our new leaders. So what are we doing? Right? We’re traumatizing our kids, I think, like never before. And I won’t go into why and whatever, we all know why, all the things that are happening, right? But how do we help kids most? And how can we help them no matter where they are, what religion they come from, what social background they come from? So I have put everything that I have learned that works with adults into this program and made it that it’s suitable for kids. And you know, the fun part of it was that I had to make it that simple.
So there are five steps to finding your joy. And step one is becoming aware of the emotion that you’re feeling right now. So with children, I might use a different languaging around that, but you see, I try to work without labels with things like emojis that help children identify the feeling that they have because when we’re working with very young children, for instance, they often don’t know what angry means, or sad, or frustrated, all those words. So we start already kind of programming and giving them different words for different feelings. So in this program, we start out with assessing, you know, what am I feeling right now? Then in step two, I say, “Okay, how big is this feeling? Is it tiny? Is it small? Is it medium? Is it large? Is it extra large? How big is it right now? What do you feel right now?” Right?
So by doing that already, I am helping the child or anybody who’s doing it really become centered in themselves, becoming aware of, “What is going on in me right now?” Right? And then we go to the next step and we say, “Okay. So what’s our intention? This is how we feel right now. What do we really want?” And then the children will say, “I wanna feel happy again. I wanna feel loved again. I want this, I want that.” Right? So the tuning in to the goal to what is it…their desire, right? And after that, I teach them how to set a clear intention because I feel that is so important that we teach our children that setting goals, and intentions, and, you know, listening to our desires is part of life and it’s part of creating life. So after we’ve set our intention, we do the five.
So I took five points that we tap from an, you know, an emotional balance. We tap up to 13 points, but I took the 5 basic points that I know will help children rebalance the energy in their body systems. So I took the systems from traditional Chinese medicine, the five elements, and I’ve worked at this five-step procedure of tapping five different points and saying nice things to yourself. So in the children’s program, we often say to ourselves, “I’m powerful. I’m loved. I’m safe. I’m free.” You know, anchoring them on the positive beliefs that we want to have as humans to be able to have a successful life. And then after we’ve tapped our points, we go to our happy place. And that’s where I teach children the power of visualization. So, you know, defining and creating your own happy place, so your safe place inside of yourself, a place that you can go to when you go to sleep at night, when you’re feeling unsafe, when anything’s going on, where, you know, I don’t know how to deal with this right now, you always have the option to go to your happy place. And by doing this, we’re actually teaching how to manifest. Because if you go into your happy place, you’re in good vibrations and you’re thinking about all the things you wanna see happen in life, your goals, your dreams, your desires, you are sending out that frequency. You’re being that radio. You’re being that channel for all that good. And the shift that happens in children is just so awesomely quick, usually. You see, they’re not as bunged up or as layered over with all this conditioning that we usually have going on when we’re older. But as kids, it’s much quicker for them. Once they get it, they get it and they’re passionate about it. So, yeah, the Joyful Kids program is something I would love to see thousands and thousands of children practice on this planet and teach each other so that we can really rise as a global community.
Katie: Yeah. Kids are wonderful. I feel like they don’t have all those years of practice of asking the negative questions or protecting themselves from those things. And I think right now, like I think you’re right, the kids are definitely suffering. I think all of us are suffering in a lot of ways and a pattern I’ve noticed or that seem to be true for me and I notice in other people as well is a lot of people have a core question and these seem to develop around childhood or a core limiting belief or a core filter. A lot of times it seems to be something along the lines of I’m not good enough, or I’m not lovable, or I’m not worthy. And we spend our lives trying to get an answer to that question or to feel lovable, or good enough, or worthy, or whatever it is. Do you have any techniques right…for right now, especially, I feel like times like these maybe tend to intensify those things when there’s extra stress. Do you have any tools for kind of figuring out and addressing those core questions that we have? And do those develop in childhood?
Joy: They definitely do. They definitely develop in childhood for most of the time because the first seven years of childhood, we’re in the programming years. Our brain is in such a deeply relaxed brainwave state that we’re kind of without filter. We will take onboard anything that appears, our surrounding says to us with enough emotional impact, right? So all that conditioning is what’s usually blocking us from being our most wonderful selves as adults. So the tools that I really would recommend, because they’re just the quickest to create that change are really the tapping tools. Check out the five elements tapping on our YouTube channel. Check out the switch. You know, if you just learn one tapping technique, learn the switch. You’ll find it on YouTube. And then every single time you catch yourself being negative towards yourself or others, stop, take a breath, tap your point, and say something nice to yourself.
It could be anything from, “I am love. I have purpose. All is well. I am safe. I am free.” You know, go in your creative vortex there of all the good things you could do or say to yourself. But just do that. Do that and do it every day. At least do it just before you go to bed. Make that your bedtime routine, is to forgive yourself for whatever you think you did wrong that day. Forgive yourself for not living up to your standards. Forgive others for not being their perfect selves either, and go to sleep in a good space. Listen to brain training at night. You know, you can choose any meditation you like. If you like the messaging, you like the voice, then go to sleep with it and have it on at a barely audible level and feed your brain the stuff that you really want it to have and not the junk that other people are feeding it.
Katie: That’s a great practical tip, I think, as well right now is with so much uncertainty and negativity in the world right now, I think one tip that I found helpful is to be really cognizant of the inputs that you’re allowing in. And for me that means I don’t watch any mainstream news whatsoever because it is so focused on the stress and the negative and I saw zero benefit from that. It affected my mental state.
This podcast is brought to you by Wellnesse, my new personal care company that is based on the recipes I’ve been making at home in my kitchen for over a decade. Many “clean” products simply don’t work and this is why I have spent the last decade researching and perfecting recipes for products that not only eliminate toxic chemicals but contain ingredients that work better than their conventional alternatives and that nourish your body from the outside in. I’m so excited to finally share these products with you and wanted to tell you about our brand new dry shampoo! It can be used various ways. You can sprinkle it in clean hair to add volume and to extend time between washes, sprinkle it in hair that has not been washed in a day or two to absorb oil or sweat and you can work in to color treated hair to maintain color by not having to wash as often. It contains oil-absorbing kaolin clay and volume-boosting tapioca which work together to refresh hair at the roots. Lavender oil and cactus flower help to balance scalp and strands’ natural pH. We even added hibiscus for healthy hair growth. You can check it out and try it at wellnesse.com and my tip is to grab a bundle to save or subscribe and save as well!
This podcast is brought to you by Cacao Bliss, a delicious superfood drink created by previous podcast guest, Danette May. Many of us like chocolate, and certainly nothing feels better than being able to enjoy rich creamy chocolate and knowing that you’re doing something good for your body. But that isn’t the case with every type of chocolate. When it’s sourced well, chocolate and especially cacao can have many health benefits. It’s a great source of magnesium, can be very anti-inflammatory and even help balance hormones. In fact, some experts speculate that this is why we crave chocolate at certain times of the month. Cacao Bliss is one of the best sources of this that I have found. They start with 100% organic cacao beans that are naturally dried in the sun, maintaining their miraculous health benefits. And then they blend this with turmeric, MCT oil, coconut, sea salt, cinnamon, and black pepper. So not only does it taste delicious, but it makes you feel incredible as well. The result is this truly decadent healthy, but guilt-free chocolate that helps with cravings, it can be great for weight loss, for boosting energy, reducing inflammation, all in one simple drink that has become a relatively regular part of my life. And for those who are wondering it is paleo, gluten-free, keto, vegan and vegetarian safe. They have been making this for eight years. I’m a big fan. And as a listener of this podcast, you get an automatic 15% discount by going to earthechofoods.com/wellnessmama and you will have an automatic 15% discount.
Another thing that at least looking at myself right now, I’ve noticed that times like this, I think any of us who have had tendencies to be control freaks, times like this can make that very difficult.
Joy: Yes. I’m glad you’re mentioning the control. It popped up in our conversation beforehand, and that’s maybe the hardest part of this whole journey, is realizing that you really do only have control over yourself, and that is already hard. I mean, try controlling your mind just for a day, just for an hour, just for 10 minutes. Right? But we’re so striving at one side. We’re so programmed to strive for control and safety that we’ve forgotten to honor the other part of that paradigm. And the other part of that paradigm is adventure and creativity. So we have to find balance between those two. And we can only find that if we’re willing to give up that control. You know, there are so many quotes that are saying, “Make a good plan. That’s the best way to make God laugh.” Right? You can only set an intention. You can work on yourself, be in a good space, and then do the best you can. One step after the other. Focus on one thing. And don’t try and do it all at the same time. I think that’s where we get most lost.
Katie: Yeah. That’s a good point. And yeah, realizing it’s not an easy lesson, but there’s a freedom in that realization that we don’t control…true, like you said, anything, except for our own selves and our own response to the things that happen to us. We don’t control the things that happen to us. We don’t control other people, not even our children. I think that can be a tough one for mothers, but even from the very beginning, I mean, if you need proof, look at a 2-year-old and try to control a 2-year-old, it doesn’t work.
Joy: Yeah. Try and make it sleep. Try and make it poop. Try and make it eat. You can’t right?
Katie: Exactly. That one definitely reared its head for me at the beginning of lockdown. The first week, I couldn’t figure out why I was angry and wanted to just constantly work out. I wasn’t hungry and I wanted to like punch something, like kind of that rage thing. I was like, “Where is this coming from?” And I realized it went back to that idea of control and feeling safe when we have that illusion of control. And I had vowed in one of those past traumatic moment that I will feel safe by never feeling helpless again. And here I was faced with a thing that was bigger than me that I couldn’t control that made me feel helpless. And I had to then use that as a way to face this thing. And I think hopefully I have emerged better on the other side.
Joy: Certainly you also need to recognize the anger and just to calm your feelings there a bit, is, you know, you weren’t only feeling your anger, you were feeling the anger that was going on globally as well, that people were angry. People are angry. I mean, that part is not getting better. And I think that’s where a lot of empaths under us really can struggle, is keeping that apart saying, “Is this my anger or is it somebody else’s anger right now?” So that’s why I think it’s really important to take this time now, to have clear boundaries so that, you know… Dealing with yourself is enough. You’ve got to at least do that before you start solving other people’s problems.
Katie: What about any specific starting points for people who can recognize that maybe they struggle the most with self-judgment or with…we touched on it a little bit, but excuses. And so when things come up kind of answering those questions of, “Well, this is why I can’t, and this thing is bad, and this thing out of my control is the reason.” I’m sure like everything else, awareness is the first step, but where would you have people start for those kinds of things if they maybe can recognize that’s a problem, but don’t even know where to begin?
Joy: I like that. I think from my point of view, excuses actually usually come from a lack of self-worth. I don’t actually believe I am worth it. So I think looking at that part and saying, “Okay. So what if I was? What if I could do this? How would I feel to have achieved that, to be in that state?” And every day, connect more to where you actually wanna go. I call it creating your quantum self, creating that blueprint of the you, the best version of you that’s there. It’s out there and it’s waiting for you in the future for you to finally connect with. And then every night before you go to sleep, just imagine, I don’t know, getting in a spaceship, get on, I don’t know, your flying unicorn, get on a cloud, or just imagine beaming yourself there.
Just imagine you could go visit that quantum self, that best version of you every night before you go to sleep and review the day and then ask yourself, “What is my highest priority right now? What is that one thing that I need to do?” And then allow your quantum self to give you the answer. You know, so often we get stuck in our own minds that we forget that we have the ability to connect to that higher mind. Call it the higher self. I don’t mind what you call it, but really train yourself in thinking in those possibilities and then allow yourself to daydream. Every time you’re waiting somewhere, you have time to spend, it can be just a minute, connect back to that best version of you and imagine what that version of you would do now. What would they see? What would they act out on?
And I think that that has been very helpful to me, to keep that, not only that connection going, but also to kind of coach myself to be the best version of myself and to keep asking myself, you know, “What is the most important thing for me to do right now?” Meaning me, to do right now, because there are a lot of things that need to be done right now, but what do I need to do right now? And that for me is I would now call it maybe reading the work of Jacob Liberman and, you know, all the research that’s coming out on light, I would now say that that intuition, that force that we call the greater one of us, actually is just light. And when we align with that light and we recognize that light in ourselves, that light starts leading us. And that’s when the struggle stops and the flow begins. And I think that’s what all of us are actually looking for, is that feeling of being in the flow of life rather than struggling with it.
Katie: Yeah. That’s a wonderful way to put it. Do you have any other tips for… I love that as an evening routine. For a morning routine, especially in the more chaotic time, like how can we start the day on the best foot?
Joy: Well, my favorite way of starting a day is before I open my eyes, I think of at least three things that I’m grateful for. And that could be as simple as I’m grateful in my warm, soft bed. I’m grateful I had a good night’s sleep. I’m grateful for my kids, whatever. So I go into a bit of gratitude and then I set my intention for the day. And the way that I do that is I do a Christallin command, and this is a technique we teach. And I also teach children. And it’s very, very simple. All you do is you close your eyes and then you roll your eyes up as if you’re looking through the crown of your head and you keep your eyes rolled up there. And then you say inside of yourself, “Even if I don’t know how to make this day the best day today, to be my best self, to be most loving, most connected, most wise, whatever, even if I don’t know how, all I do know is that it is so now. And I delete, delete, delete anything that could stop me and I download, download, download everything I need to do so now with grace, ease, and joy. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So it is, so it shall be, or something even better.” And then I let it go. And then I get up. That way I start my day with a clear intention and not according to somebody else’s agenda.
Katie: I love that phrase. I’ve heard you say it several times, it’s about with grace and joy. And I love it also because that tie in to your name and your family with that.
Joy: That is a coincidence. Yes. That is true. But, you know, it makes a difference because yeah, we can want something, go for something, but then usually at what price? So by putting in, “I want it with grace, ease, and joy,” I circumnavigate that whole scenario.
Katie: I love that. And you’ve mentioned so many of your resources. I will make sure I link to all of the videos you’ve mentioned and to your programs and books at wellnessmama.fm. So if you guys are listening while you’re exercising or driving, those can all be found there. Don’t worry about writing them down while you’re doing those things. And I’m so glad that you were here. I think this is super, super helpful. I’ve loved using things like the switch with my kids because we certainly, like I said, we can’t control them, but that is a really great tool that I found can help be a pattern interrupt for them when they get in one of those negative cycles and help them take a deep breath and reframe and move through it as well. And a question I love…well, a couple that I love to ask toward the end of interviews, the first being other than your own, if there are any books that have really dramatically influenced your life and if so, what they are and why?
Joy: Well, I would like to mention Louise Hay and “Heal Your Life” because that was my first Google book, I’d call it. And it really helped me see that connection between emotions and our bodies, our thoughts, and our bodies. It’s a simple, beautiful book. I love that one.
Katie: I love it. I will make sure I link to that one in the show notes as well. And then another question I love to ask, and I’m curious of your response to is if you had to guess, what would you call out as the kind of the 80/20 of most effective things that you do in your life or things that lead to the most positive results, the things that you practice, whether it’s on a daily basis or not that lead to the most positive for you in your life?
Joy: I would say sitting in the morning in silence, meditating in the morning, that’s…that and pranayama have been the biggest shift to me, apart from all the other things I teach. But really having that daily practice. And you were talking about excuses. I mean, my brain comes up with a bunch of excuses in the morning where it’s like, “Nah. I’m not gonna do it today. I’ll do it tomorrow,” whatever. But when you’re saying, “No. I’m committing. I’m doing this every single day because do I have 10, 15 minutes? Yes, I do. I always do.” So I would say those two tools, meditation and pranayama, and doing it in the morning before you start out into the world, I think is the most powerful practice that I have.
Katie: I love that. I think that’s a perfect place to wrap up. We’ve talked about so many things that were influential in my journey. Like I said, I’ll make sure that we link to them so that people can find you and keep learning from you. Where can people find you online if they want to start learning right now?
Joy: Well, if they’re on Facebook, join The Joy Tribe. It’s a free Facebook group for those interested in spreading joy. And online that you can find me on joymartina.com or quantummultiversity.com.
Katie: Wonderful. I will include those links as well. Joy, thank you so much for being part of my journey and also for being here and sharing today.
Joy: Thank you so much, Katie. It’s a pleasure.
Katie: And thank you as always for listening, for sharing one of your most valuable resources, your time with both of us today. We’re so grateful that you did, and I hope that you will join me again on the next episode of The Wellness Mama Podcast.
If you’re enjoying these interviews, would you please take two minutes to leave a rating or review on iTunes for me? Doing this helps more people to find the podcast, which means even more moms and families could benefit from the information. I really appreciate your time, and thanks as always for listening.[/toggle]
Leave a Reply