Transcript
Join Gail Kraft and her guest host, Jolanda Logan, Marketing Strategist & Consultant. and founder of JoLo Sparkles Marketing as they discuss the concept of energy and that the way that we communicate and the way that we relate to each other is at an energetic level. We may create words in order to describe what we feel … what comes out of our mouths are never the same.
Listen as they discuss this topic from different points of view and help you understand how energy might work for you and when it’s time to make conscious choices that are supportive of your pursuit of happiness.
Gail: Hey everybody, Gail Kraft here with The Empowering Process podcast series and we have with us today for the Ask Me Anything segment Jolanda Logan and Jolanda is a marketing strategist and consultant, and she actually works on my editing. She does an amazing job, don’t you think?
Today we’re going to do an Ask Me Anything segment and it’s going to be around what is energy. Before we start Jolanda would you like to say hi to the folks?
Jolanda: Well, hello everyone. I’m so happy to be here and Gail thank you so much for having me. Energy is one of my all-time favorite topics. So, I’m really excited to hear what you have to say about it and the conversation we’ll have going around it.
Gail: No, I know. It’s just fantastic. Energy is everything. I just want to talk a little bit about that first and then we can get into a deeper dive. We all have gone, hopefully, at least through junior high school where we had science and you learned about this thing called an atom.
An atom is this little ball with energy going around it, little ions, and it moves. Then they tell you matter is made up of those atoms. Well guys, we’re matter. Therefore, we’re made up of atoms that are little energy centers. And so, be actually vibrate as the table vibrates, as the phone vibrates even when it’s not ringing, right?
Everything actually is in motion. It’s just how dense or not dense it is. So, everything is energy. You’ve learned that through science, right? Now we take that to yet another level because we’re an energy that is actually self-aware.
And it’s that self-aware piece that is confusing to us. The universe as we see it in the third dimension is energy. There is energy, oh God I can get really out there, I don’t think I want to go there.
Jolanda: Talk about the Sun and the Moon Gail.
Gail: Oh my gosh and the odd, right? But it’s true, the Sun is energy, the Moon is energy, everything is actually energy. And the way that we communicate and the way that we relate to each other is at an energetic level. We may put words in order to describe what we feel in the pictures we create in our mind.
What we feel in the pictures and what comes out of our mouths are never the same. Because we can’t describe completely and fully those feelings. We do the best we can with the language that we have been given. But it’s not complete.
Jolanda has heard me, and you have heard me from time to time say it’s just a knowing. I can’t explain something because it’s just a knowing. And with that it’s because of how I feel energetically and take it one more step with everything is energy and how we communicate is energetic before we communicate with our words.
I don’t even know where I was going to go with that so I’m going to stop because I’m not ready to go down that rabbit hole yet. But I have had people say to me, “I don’t understand what you mean when you say everything is energy” and that’s okay if you don’t understand what I mean when I say everything is energy.
Stick with us because we’re going to talk on different levels and Jolanda’s got some stories about how she uses energy with herself and with her family. So Jolanda, what do you think about when you think about everything is energy?
Jolanda: In the simplest form they say that calories are energy, right? Let’s say do I really want this 100-calorie snack because then I’m going to have to do a mile on the treadmill. Is that energy worth it, right? I think of that often where how much energy would I need for this to cancel out, is it really worth it?
But I say to my son all the time, I have a nine-year-old, and I want, and I’ve always said it to match people’s energy at least. I’ve just seen situations with him where an adult will see him at the martial arts academy and say, “Hey James, how you doing?” and he says, “Okay”.
Or he may be doesn’t look quickly up from his tablet and man does that cook mom’s goose. Because you have to think for him, he’s like, “What do you mean, I said hi?” but really, it’s so much more than that because you have now ruined that person’s excitement to talk to you or that perception of how the conversation might go.
To take the control away from what they were expecting in a negative way, it makes the situation fall flat where who knows what the potential of that interaction would have been. That’s an energy thing where I put out a lot of energy, so I understand I’m a lot.
If I was like, “Hey, how are you?” and somebody said, “Hey how are you?” I’d be like wow that’s excellent that just happened, but it doesn’t happen often. But I feel there’s a balance of energy. But you want to be able to show what level you’re working at, right?
I also professionally have a real– I’ve come to the realization that there is a certain point in my day that my energy’s gone. My energy is now I’ve given in to the couch, I’ve given into planning my bedtime routine, we’re done.
And sometimes because I’m a freelancer and I’m always working on things I find that if I work within that time that’s when I make mistakes. That’s when it takes me 45 minutes to do something that I swear my energetic mind could have accomplished in 15, right?
So, I try to just keep control of my energy, where it goes, where I put it, and I’d like to be a good example to my son of that energy where you think you have none left but you absolutely pull a little more and keep going with what you’re trying to accomplish.
Gail: It’s really interesting because there’s that need to recharge versus the need to escape, right? Some people will get tired because they are avoiding the situation, avoiding life if you will. And that’s part of what depression is, right?
Jolanda: Yes.
Gail: It’s really a need to avoid. It’s really important to refresh your energy for sure. But that push and any personal trainer that you work with is going to say, “Oh come on Gail, one more push up” right? “You can do, Oh. But we’ve got five on the books, four more” right?
And I had one trainer who used to time things and go, “You can do anything for 20 seconds Gail. Anything for 20 seconds” and believe me 10 seconds feels like an eternity sometimes, right?
Jolanda: Yes.
Gail: But I would think that it’s only 20 seconds Gail, come on you can only do– right? Of course, he was not honest with his timing, it was usually 30 or 40 seconds.
Jolanda: Well and I can understand that too. Really its almost this thing that you don’t even realize you’re tapped into where perfect example if there’s– we’re doing a certain combo for two minutes in Muay Thai kickboxing we have a two-minute round and we’re going for it we’re going for it.
Man, you might start to slow down a little bit but when you hear there’s 30 seconds left, you’re like I can totally do 30 more seconds. So, you’re almost better than you were at the beginning because the fact that you’re about to be done it sparks that energy in you, right?
So, you weren’t even looking at the time, you were just going through what you were going through. But then to hear the time– I guess if he said, “All right a minute and 50 seconds left” it would be like, “Ugh”. This feels like I’ve been doing this forever. But it’s on the other side of it actually feeds the energy part.
Gail: Right, it’s always going on in your mind. Then feeding the energy this is a very interesting part of the work that I do when I do the soul realignment portion with clients is, we talk about where you get your energy source. Most of us get our energy source through, again I’ll get a little bit spiritual, whether you call it God the universe the vortex.
Call it whatever you want but we get our energy from somewhere, we’re getting charged from somewhere. And some people get their energy this way. They get their energy and because this is being recorded, I will say that you get your energy lateral, right?
Or horizontal I should say versus vertical, right? So usually, energy comes from your head and down through your feet and then it flows and then it goes circular. Some people get fed by other people’s energy. There’s no good and there’s no bad, it’s just how they receive their energy.
Now quite a few of my clients when I started out that’s how they got their energy. I was in the dance community. If you’re a performer and you’re on stage, where do you think they are getting their energy? From the crowd cheering them on, right? That feeds their soul.
And that’s not a bad thing. It’s just how they recharge in order to go through their life. Now, there are those who are vampires, energy suckers, right? Whose sole purpose is to pull on your energy. And you will know as soon as you’re in the vicinity you can feel that energy. They are someone you need to cut out of your life, right?
And if they’re part of your life and you can’t get rid of them then you need to have distance and figure out how to not allow your energy to be used in that way.
Jolanda: I think that energy it needs to be paid attention to, right? So, a situation just like you were talking about, you’re having a conversation with somebody and they’re one of those suckers and vampires, there’s a level of discomfort where you who you truly are knows that this is not for you, right?
So, to be in that situation where you don’t just say like, “Okay, you don’t have enough energy for me, I’m out of here” right? You still-
Gail: You’re an energy sucker.
Jolanda: -Yes. You get through the situation but then you’re obviously your body remembers that feeling, right? Your body remembers that discomfort. There’s that thing where people say they may not remember what you did or what you said but they will remember how you made them feel.
I think that the energy you can feel when it’s off. It really is a physical thing as well as an idea as well as mental. It really does affect you physically.
Gail: Absolutely. One of the things that I used to do when I was first, for quite a few years, in this coach world, if you will, is I supported motivational speakers. And that meant that when you signed in guess who was signing you in giving you your sticker? Guess who was cheering you on? Guess who was dancing to the music and getting you up? Right?
Who was getting the energy in the room to a level before the speaker came in? That’s the crew’s job, to manage the energy. So, knowing this is an up-energy time and then okay we’re now going into this segment of down energy time.
Our job, we were around the room, is to bring the energy to where the speaker wanted it to go within that room. And I know that they loved having me there because I’m like you Jolanda, people know I’m coming an hour before I show up. The energies in the room. Uh, Gail must be on the way, yes, she is, right?
Jolanda: My fathers called me a tornado before actually. So, I know what you mean.
Gail: Right? Exactly. And my job was to manage that room. There was one speaker for a while the crew leader was very strategic where she wanted to place me. The speaker went, “No, I want her right there. I want her energy right there”, right?
And the crew leaders like, “But we have this gap over here” so she had probably two or three people right in a certain section in order to get the flow of the energy to be right. So, you guys watch the Tony Robbins film and watch what his crew does. Watch what he does.
Before he gets on stage, he’s on a trampoline. He’s getting his energy up right before he even comes. There are exercises and I’ll show them to you some time Jolanda that you can do the sole purpose is to get the energy up before you get out there.
So, no matter what’s going on you get to that point so that when you get on stage your energy is going out and you cannot count on the audience as you know feeding your energy. You have to push it out first and then get the circle to happen. That’s what the crew does is help with that flow.
So, if you don’t think everything is energy every motivational speaker that’s out there knows better. Right? And so, I have harvesting energy and that was part of the vampire sucking type thing. What do you do when you’re just tapped out and you have to go the extra mile?
Those who are in a nine to five job have to deal with that on a daily basis. Those of us who are fortunate to be entrepreneurs, I will think nothing of putting in a 20 minute to a half hour nap and I have a couch right here. I go lay down with a book, maybe a podcast, my own podcast, and just relax and take a 20-minute break to recharge.
When I was in corporate America, I’m a high burner, so, if you read my alchemy, you know I get up in the morning I’m ready to go but come two o’clock I’m toast. I start at four five o’clock in the morning, but at two o’clock I’m just about cooked.
So, if I’m in corporate America I can’t take that nap, right? I would have to push and honestly sometimes I could feel the pain of pushing through. If I can push through for 15 20 minutes, then I can get that second wind and be okay.
But the second I stop then it doesn’t matter what time of day it is, I can stop at four, I can stop at nine in the evening, the second I stop I crash and go to sleep. Because I’ve expended my energy. And so, it’s knowing who you are. Now some people pace it really well. I would imagine that you’re a pusher.
Jolanda: I am a pusher, but I’m also a napper. I never nap in my room, I’m a right on the couch let my cat join me for a quick nap. But there was a time where every day was okay if I wake up really early but when am I going to get my nap?
No, I’m not a kindergartner, I don’t need my nap. It’s just very lovely when I get one. So now they’re more of a luxury but I am yay nap all of the time. But yes, I am a pusher. So, let’s say I have an hour and a half I will look at that hour and a half and be like, “Oh that might not be a– no it is”.
To look at that time and say it might not be enough time, as soon as I start to think of that I’m like, but let’s see what happens. Especially when you’re working for yourself it’s so easy to put something off or to break promises to yourself that you had for the day because of whether its workload or other things you have going on.
And I’m not clocking in, nobodies around, I don’t have a boss that’s going to call me into his office because I missed something. So that’s been an adjustment and I do feel like I am on the better end of that now. Because like I said I look at time as more of a challenge rather than time is running out, those projects don’t go away and the only place they go to is to tomorrow.
They don’t go away. They might not be there right now because I put them aside and I’m not thinking about them. But I’m also someone Gail, and I’m not sure if you’re this way, but I’m somebody at 3:30 in the morning I’ll go, “Ah, did I send that?” or “Did I forget to mention the third bullet that I wanted to put in that email?”.
I will do that in the wee hours of the morning I will wake up. Then it’s almost like because my hearts beating so fast, I have the energy to just check on it or go and take care of it.
And now with technology it’s so easy for me to just look at my phone, look at the email, or whatever it might be.
I have a lot of programs on my phone if it’s some design aspect I can look at. But yes, I would say that I’m a pusher. I definitely push through that. There’s always later for rest, but naps are always great if you get one.
Gail: Honest to gosh I’ve had, I think, three breakdowns in my life because I didn’t honour the need to recharge. The first time I was 16. So, I got up at five six o’clock. I was at school by seven-seven thirty. I was out of school by one. At work by one thirty. Out of work at nine. Got home by nine thirty. Did my homework.
Went to bed. Up at six. Right? And I still dated and had fun on the weekends. Right? And I worked at a five and dime store. I was at the cash register, and someone was checking out. All they wanted me to do was take a $10 bill and break it into fives and ones and I started bawling my eyes out.
I was so exhausted. And my poor boss came over, “Are you okay?” and I couldn’t even talk, right? So sent to the break room, he took care of the transaction, right? I couldn’t even leave the break room. At the end of the shift, I went home, and I was in bed for three days in a ball crying. So exhausted.
I’ve pushed myself a couple of times since then and I know the feeling when I’m getting too much but it’s because you cram that stuff into the hour and a half so that you can have the next hour and a half to cram something else in, right?
Jolanda: Yes if it’s perpetual it’s definitely not sustainable for sure. And you’re talking about you ended up crying and just the exhaustion and the emotions take over you. I learned when my son was very young if there is a tantrum coming, I think about when was the– did he sleep well last night or did he give us problems at bedtime and he stayed up late, whatever that might be.
But really a lot of times he needs a snack and a juice. Give him a snack and a juice and he’s kind of that energy. So, the calories the energy food equals fuel and all that. But as a child you now can look back and analyse what was going on in that situation.
But at 16 you had no idea. You were just– you lost it, you lost control. So, I think of that with even younger children, they don’t know how to handle their emotions, they just know they’re going to get yelled at back because they’re being a little–
It’s not the best them they can be. And that’s all I ever ask of my son. I don’t ask him to just be this robot of a child but be the best James you can be and a lot of that has to do with balancing that energy. Making sure he’s tip top.
And that responsibility’s still mine. At nine years old I haven’t necessarily found out where I end, and he begins. He still definitely needs me but less than before, right? So hopefully those are tricks that he’ll okay I’m starting to lose it, what do I need right now? I need an apple right now, stat.
Gail: You’ll have to teach him that. I will say that the energetic bond between a mother and their child is the hardest one to disengage from. I used to say, and I still do actually, the hardest thing for a parent to do is to let go when it’s time to let go and to know when it’s time to let go.
My son, my daughter and I she apologized when she was 25.
Jolanda: Don’t we all apologize to our moms in our twenties?
Gail: For being a teenager, yes. And thank goodness. But my son, the boys are different, and he would not ever knowingly hurt me. And at one point he was out of college, and he was working where I was working. I was planning on moving to California but hadn’t said anything yet. It had been on my mind for years.
It’s just waiting for him for that– it’s time, right? We were at lunch, and he said I have something to say to you mom. I said, “What’s that hun?” he says it’s time to cut the apron strings.” And the poor boy, my response was, “Oh thank God. Now I can go to California”.
Right? And he was like, “What do you mean? You’re not crushed? You’re not upset?” I’ve been waiting for this, right?
Jolanda: That’s just so funny because what if he wanted to tell you that two years ago and thought you weren’t ready, right? How long had he been wanting to tell you that? Oh, that’s too funny, yes.
Gail: So yes, I thought that was very brave of him to come up with me. But again, it’s that energy between a parent and a child that is an amazing connection and that gets on to a whole other subject that we’ll talk at some other time and that’s called attachments.
Attachments are created at birth because you need attachments to survive. But when you detach from being a suckling child it means you need to detach your attachments and we don’t. We hang on to our attachments and we expect people to honour those attachments and love is not an attachment.
If you need someone to fulfill you, that’s an attachment, that’s not love. And that’s a whole other conversation. We could go on forever. So, thank you Jolanda for everything is energy and understanding what energy is. This was a great conversation and Jolanda is, again, she is my marketing person.
She does my video editing, and she is Jolanda Logan, marketing-
Jolanda: Strategist and consultant.
Gail: I did call you specialist.
Jolanda: Yes. So, there’s a lot of strategy and consulting that goes into marketing. It’s not just a Facebook ad, right? So, I can be reached at marketing@jolosparkles.com. My website is jolosparkles.com. I offer free consultations and I am a long-time marketing professional that is now specialising in small businesses.
Gail: And she’s amazing and if this episode brought anything up for you then by all means comment and we’ll create another video for you, another podcast. And if this was amazing to you share it out. If you know somebody who this might actually bring meaning to share it with them.
We’d love to hear from you. We love your comments. And by all means subscribe so you don’t miss any episodes. Everybody, Gail Kraft, The Empowering Process. Bye-bye. Thank you.
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