Practicing the Pause and Consciously Creating the Life You Desire with Katie Krimitsos

Paul Salter:

Hey, Katie, thank you so much for joining me today. How are you?

Katie Krimitsos:

Paul. I’m good. Thank you for having me here.

Paul Salter:

Absolutely. It’s small world, you’re probably like 20 miles away, and we did not learn that until today, so it’s so neat to hear I’m talking to a fellow Tampa person.

Katie Krimitsos:

I know. So nice.

Paul Salter:

Yeah. So next time, like we said, we’ll do this over coffee, but so grateful you are here because as I shared with you, I spent a lot of time deep diving before every episode I do to learn as much as I can to help you shine brightly. But there is just so much I have to learn from you. I already have learned by consuming your content. So really excited to get to share your expertise and experience with all our listeners today.

Katie Krimitsos:

Yeah. Well, thank you. I’m excited. I’m a little scared as to what you found though.

Paul Salter:

Well, I can’t reveal all of my secrets yet. We’ll see what happens in 20 minutes.

Katie Krimitsos:

What is out there in the info sphere about me?

Paul Salter:

All good things, I promise. All good things. So let’s begin here. Why don’t you help lay the foundation for today’s conversation? Tell our listeners a little bit more about you and specifically what it is you do.

Katie Krimitsos:

Yeah, so if you took a snapshot of my life right now, it would look like that I’m a mother of two. I have two little girls, seven and four, and I’m married to a very Greek man. My life is My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Me going into the Greek family, which is amazing and awesome, and I have an entire podcast network called the Women’s Meditation Network, and there are currently 10 podcasts that are a part of that network.

So my daily, regular life is sort of that dance, I’m going to call it, sometimes I call it a tension, but I’m going to call it a dance between making sure that I find time for all of the things that are very valuable to me in my life, my being present and being a great mom to my kids, growing this incredible business that I’m very, very passionate about, making sure that my relationship and the love that my husband feels is great. Making sure I’m taking care of myself, making sure that my body feels good, my mind feels good. I mean, all of those things. So those are kind of the big players in my life, and it’s just a matter of kind of dancing with all of those every day.

Paul Salter:

Yeah. So how did you arrive at this opportunity where you get to play into that dance on a daily basis?

Katie Krimitsos:

I would assume that if you ask anyone that they would say what I’m about to say, which is, I couldn’t tell you back then, but I was starting to plant all these seeds 20 years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago. The short story for, let’s just go with the business aspect of it, the short story is that I found out about… I was introduced to meditation when I was 19 years old, taking a yoga class at Arizona State, and the last five minutes were in [inaudible 00:03:05] opposition in a guided meditation. And I woke up from that going “What? That was really cool. That felt really neat.” I think probably for the first time in my life I felt like my mind was quieted, and so I just spent a lot of time seeking out… That was 1997, ’99, something like that. So I sought out a lot of meditation stuff.

I would go to the library and go check out meditation books and CDs back then. And once I moved out here to Tampa, would learn about the local Buddhist center and would go to meditation series classes there and just kind of learn more. Would participate with my friend who was putting on weekly guided meditation groups at our house that was incredibly informal, really powerful, and then eventually discovered podcasts and oh, on my phone, I can get access to guided meditations. That’s pretty cool. And so that all developed this love and a really just stable relationship with meditation in that I’ve never been a perfect meditator. I don’t think that there is such a thing. I’m not somebody who wakes up at every day at 5:00 AM to meditate on my meditation pillow with incense burning for 45 minutes. That’s not me. And so was just a part of my life.

And so, oh my goodness, in 2018, so almost five years ago, four and a half to five years ago, I had an entirely different business, which stemmed from a podcast. So I was in the podcasting arena. It was a very different business, and I found out that we were pregnant in April of that year. And in a heartbeat, I just knew that I didn’t want that business anymore and that, nope, I’m done with it. Which was very scary because I had loved it up until that point. And in the weeks that followed, I would go on a lot of walks with my husband just to try and figure out what am I doing? Because I don’t want this anymore, but do I? I don’t know. What else could I do? And so this idea of having and creating a guided meditation podcast for women was there. And I did enough research to realize that there was only one other podcast out there that if you searched meditation and women, there was one podcast and I was like, “How is this space not taken up already? I don’t believe this.”

So in that moment I was like, I’m going to do it. I’m going to take up the space. And so launched that first podcast, had my second baby, and fast forward all of these years, now I have 10 podcasts that are a part of that network. And it’s really me not being a meditation expert, but being a fellow meditator and a writer. I’m a writer so I write all of these scripts. And so it’s really my writing that are really shaped in the form of a poem, and I just happen to package them in a meditation. And these poems of love get to go out into the universe and share a little bit more light and a little bit more love. So that’s really how I envision it, and that’s what sort of got me here to this moment.

Paul Salter:

And for everyone listening, you can’t see Katie, but she is beaming and shining brightly as she shares and talks about what it is she do, which I could tell just your love, your passion are shining through, which is so neat to see. And I’m curious because I think all across the internet, you might find 15 different answers to this question or definitions, but how would you define for our listener, what is meditation? And what is it perhaps not?

Katie Krimitsos:

I have a very broad definition of meditation, which I think is good because I don’t want it to be… I want be accessible to everyone, which is part of why I do what I do. I consider meditation a pause and a practicing of the pause. So if you think about meditation that way, yes, it can absolutely look like you sitting cross-legged, back straight hands in a nice posture on your knees, breathing in and breathing out. It can look like that, but it doesn’t have to. That’s actually not what my meditations typically look like. It could be you just sitting in a comfortable chair. It could be you taking a couple of extra breaths in the car before you walk into the house. It could be you going on a walk. My husband is a big walking meditator. That’s how he meditates. And he can’t sit still.

He needs to walk, he needs to move around. I’ve talked to many fellow athletes who say that their workout is their meditation, and because that’s the time… The commonality between it all is that it’s an opportunity for you to come into the present moment in some way. In meditation, it’s very popular. It’s a very powerful technique to use your breath. So we concentrate on the breath coming in, the breath going out. And what that does is it brings you into your body, which helps create a space between all those thoughts that are constantly running in our heads. And they’re not going to stop. They’re not going to stop. Our job is just to see that there’s a space between these thoughts and who we are and that we’re not our thoughts. And that gives us some power to not have to dive and glamour onto those thoughts and let those thoughts control who we are, what we do, all that sort of stuff.

So anything that allows us to come into presence, to create this gap, this space, so that we can practice being in that space. Because what happens in that space is as we can sort of separate ourselves from those thoughts, if you imagine they’re clouds passing in the sky. They’re always going to be there going to, there’s going to be days that are cloudy, some days that are clear, but there’s always going to be clouds. But if we can observe those clouds and see that we don’t have to go stand on those clouds, be part of those clouds, they don’t rule us. What ends up happening is this stillness is created, and in that stillness, we can actually hear our voice, we can hear ourselves, and we can separate that voice from the noise. I call it the noise versus the voice. This voice inside of us knows us, knows our path, knows the answer to every single question you possibly have about anything.

The noise outside is all the shoulds, all the expectations, all society, all people we love, whatever it is, it’s just all that talk, that head talk. And it’s not all bad, but it’s always talking. So the practice of meditation allows us to open this space so we can actually hear this voice and be able to separate it from the noise of the world, so then we can then direct our lives.

And in doing that, that is incredibly powerful because now you are creating a life of your own instead of living a scripted life, one that you know should do, one that is scripted for you. I mean, that’s a big giant answer to your question, but that is the core benefit of meditation, and that’s really what I believe meditation is.

Paul Salter:

That was beautiful, and I love how you prefaced your definition with you want to make it accessible to everybody. And I love how you went through various examples of how it looks different for everybody. And I think you, and please chime in here if you disagree, what matters most is the intentionality behind the way you see yourself meditating. I’m a big walker, whether it’s by my dog’s choice or my choice, maybe it’s a combination of both. But I love to walk as much as I love to sit still, but probably similar to your husband and most people, I struggle to just sit and be. I’m working on it, but if I can bring that intentionality elsewhere, I can still get some of those benefits you described. Correct?

Katie Krimitsos:

Exactly. Exactly. And if your intention is to pause, and really it’s the pausing of the mind or the pausing of the motion of life. If you’re willing to pause, this is a very hard thing for us to do because we are so in motion all the time. So to take a pause to slow down, however that looks is good. And there will always be great benefit from that.

Paul Salter:

I love that. Yeah. One of my mentors once shared something with me. She said, “You are a human being. You’re not a human doing. So slow down and stop doing all the time.” And again, working on it. But it always reigns top of my mind to help me make those better informed choices.

Katie Krimitsos:

Yep. So true.

Paul Salter:

Yeah. So you mentioned meditation is a tool to quiet your mind and really begin that journey inward to get to know yourself, to be able to connect and hear more clearly that voice that has all the answers. And when we take a step back, we spend more time with ourselves than anybody else in the world, yet it’s often that we know ourselves least. Why is that?

Katie Krimitsos:

Because of the noise, because it’s so loud, it’s so loud around us. At a very early age, I feel like we are born to be these self-expressive, beautiful souls in this human experience. And so we express ourselves and everything’s great, and we are who we are. And then there are points, and this is not with bad intention, but there are moments when as children we are told, “Nope, don’t be that. Nope, too much of this. Nope, too much of that.” And it’s okay, I get it. However, I feel like we can become accustomed to fitting into a box, to being told who we can or cannot be. And unless you’re somebody who very proactively fights that, it’s a journey to un-layer all of that stuff. And we all have stuff to un-layer. We’ve all been scripted in some ways, and that’s okay. It’s not the end of the world, but it takes work to take those layers off and really discover ourselves and having a desire to really discover ourselves.

So there are many of us out there who have trauma in our past or who have really dark stuff that has happened, and we may not want to get to know ourselves because there’s some hidden shit there that might not be so pretty and we don’t have the capacity to deal with it right now, or it’s just scary. But the pursuit of self-awareness is always worth it, always worth it because that’s our number one job here, is to know ourselves as best as we can, so that we can express ourselves and bring to this world what we are here to bring to it. And no one else can do that work for us.

Paul Salter:

I love that. Yeah, that was so well said. And one of the questions that comes top of mind is for someone who… What year are we? So about five years ago, I started to recognize, maybe four years ago, I’m on this path that maybe I didn’t write this narrative. I’m following in the people pleasing tendencies of parents expectations, the oldest of four, whatever pressure that brought either from myself or just from the perception of being the oldest. And I started to recognize, okay, I need to really unpack and start peeling back layers of the onion to see who I am at my core, not who everyone wants me to be. And knowing what I know now, I’m very grateful I had the courage, the support to push through some of that darkness, if you will. So for someone listening who knows, there is a lot of darkness back there, I’m not really sure if I want to take that first step. What words of encouragement would you share with her?

Katie Krimitsos:

I think that the initial thing that I would say is to, it’s okay to baby step into it and what really needs to exist there and what will exist the more you do it is an enormous amount of self-love. And I don’t want to just say that as a word that’s sort of like, “Yeah, yeah, self-love.” It’s not that. It is this deep sense of connection with self. And you know those people when you’re at an event and this person walks into the room and the entire room changes and lights up, and it’s not because they’re full of themselves, it’s not because they’re different, it’s just because they are so amazingly connected with themselves that they don’t care about anything that is not important to them, meaning they don’t need to be anything other than who they are. I’m sure you listening can point out people in your mind right now. Like, “Oh yeah, so and so.”

They have this exuberance, they have this glow where they just move through this world in a completely beautiful and smooth and flowing way. And so that is what’s on the other end of getting to know yourself and knowing that everything inside of you, everything that who you are is bigger and lighter than all of that darkness inside. It’s so much more powerful, so much more. There is always more love than darkness. And so I would always encourage anyone who’s timid about going there, is A. get whatever tools and help that you need in order to baby step into it. If that’s online therapy, if that is journaling, if that’s meditation, if that’s going on… Just making sure that you create the space and support that you need to step there in a way that is scary, but doable, and then just keep doing it.

And it gets easier and it gets easier, and you unpack more and you unpack more. And pretty soon it’s a natural thing for something to happen in the world. And now you automatically go into a space of like, Okay, how do I process this? How do I move through? What does this mean to me?” I have a very constant kind of thing that happens in my mind all throughout my day, and it’s always like, “What do I need right now? What do I need right now?” And sometimes it’s louder than others, but that guiding question is so important as we sort of move through our days and through our seasons, the highs, the lows. “What do I need right now?” And if you can get to a point where you can hear that voice automatically when things are tough, you’ve done it. You know how to take care of yourself, you will. That’s where all those answers then arise.

Paul Salter:

I love that. And it’s like you set me up beautifully with my next question. So you mentioned just this process of self-awareness and learning to cultivate just such innate, pure, genuine love for yourself. And when I was, like I said, doing my deep dive research and saw that you had written and spoken on this, my eyes lit up because I’ve talked about this to a limited extent, too, with my audience when it comes to the five love languages, but using them to cultivate self-love.

Like for me, I had that dot connection moment about a year ago and started sharing it with my community. We make such a big deal and put a priority on practicing these love languages with our significant other, but if our most important relationship is the relationship we have with ourselves, then it makes sense to follow suit and really enact in that way, in accordance with what our love language is to ourselves, as well. So tell us more about the power behind really finding out and utilizing our own personal self love, love language.

Katie Krimitsos:

Yeah. Oh, I love the five love languages. They’re so easy and beautiful to use in just about every aspect of your life. So the concept is that if you think about the fact that, let’s say Paul, you and I, you speak Spanish, I speak English. In order for us to really make a connection, in order for you to feel loved and connected to me, I need to speak in your language. I need to speak Spanish, right?

Paul Salter:

Si.

Katie Krimitsos:

Vice versa. In order for… Exactly [foreign language 00:19:35] in order for me to feel like you really have a deep desire to know me, to understand me, you need to speak in English. And so the love languages are the same way. And so I feel like it’s not the only, but it’s one really great tool to help make sense of how we are best fed. The author describes it as having a love tank.

And so if you imagine the tank of your car constantly needs gas in it, or the gas cars now do, but even actually for electric cars, whatever it is, there’s a full and then there’s an empty, right? And our job as the owners of these cars is to make sure it’s full or it absolutely doesn’t go on empty. So the same concept applies in love and relationships, whether that’s with others or with self. Where am I? Am I on full? Am I on empty? How much do I have in the reserves? And do I need to fill myself now?

And so that question of what do I need right now is very much, I’m on empty and what do I need right now? And it could be something as simple as like, “Oh my God, I’ve been running hard all day from meeting to meeting, my brain is full, it hurts. I’m about to go pick up the kids. What do I need right now? I have 20 minutes. I need to sit down and I need to stop, and I need to take 10 deep breaths.”

Sometimes that looks like a guided meditation. Sometimes it looks like 10 deep breaths. Sometimes it looks just sitting down and petting my bird. We have two birds. One is very, very cuddly. And so it’s like, I just need time. You know with pets. I mean that there’s something really magical in our interaction with pets too. So the idea is like, “What do I need right now and how can I fill that tank?” Because… I mean such an old cliche at this point, but if my tank is not full, not only am I going crazy for myself, but I absolutely cannot take care of others.

Paul Salter:

And for so many of our wonderful listeners out there, they are busy moms or just busy women trying to get as much done as possible in the same 24 hours a day we all have. And one of the biggest challenges I often discuss and converse with those I work with is there’s not enough time in the day. I am the lowest on my priority list. So for someone listening who resonates that, how would you recommend they start learning to utilize the power of the love languages with themselves?

Katie Krimitsos:

I would… Oh man, I’m nodding because I feel that. I feel that. I’m speaking this, and also I am absolutely not perfect at this, right? There’s so many responsibilities to take care of, and I absolutely go through seasons of burnout where I’m like, “Oh my God, I don’t even know how to… I need some time by myself. I need to go figure it. I need quiet so I can hear what I need.”

So I think using the love languages allows you to really identify what language do I need to speak to myself? So the love languages are words of affirmation. I.e. somebody telling you, “Oh, you’re so beautiful. Oh, I love you.” What fills your tank? Right? Quality time. So actually spending actual time and moments with someone else or yourself. Gifts. I think the gifts is another one.

Acts of service. And then I always forget the fifth one. Oh, physical touch. So between all of those, we get fed by all of these. We feel loved by all of these. But there’s a one in particular that really fills your tank. And the way that you typically would know this is if somebody took it away from you. Mine is quality time. So that is my primary love language in relation to me and those that I love and actually with myself too. So if I took away quality time that I have with my husband, would I feel loved with him? Would I feel like he loves me? Would I feel loved and fulfilled? Would my tank feel… Or would it be painful? If he stopped giving me gifts? Yeah, okay, not a big deal. “That’s cool when you give it to me, but I don’t really care.”

Like that ain’t my love language. Words of affirmation. Does he tell me, “Yes, I’m so proud of you, I love you.” Absolutely. That feels good. But if he took that away, it’s a big deal, but not really that big of a deal. But if he and I took away quality time, I would feel devastated. I would be, “Are we getting divorced? What’s going on?”

So in relation to self, it’s that. Identify what your love language is. How do you feel most loved by yourself? Maybe it is gifts. Maybe you give yourself the gift of buying something or going and getting your toes done or whatever it may… That’s one thing. Or maybe it’s quality time with yourself. For me, I need that every day. That is a mandatory thing every day that I have to have. Or is it physical touch? Do you need to make sure that you are having a massage and you are feeling that way?

All of these things are very real, very valid. So the idea is to figure out what it is for yourself and then do it. Step into it. Go try doing that thing out for yourself and see how it feels. And you’ll know that it works because you’ll come back and you’ll feel so refreshed and you’ll wonder to yourself, “Wow, that was only two hours ago I felt burnt out, like, oh my God, I can’t look another human in the eye. I just had an hour of whatever this thing was, and I feel like I can rule the world.” Your tank literally goes from empty to full and you’re just like, “Yes, I’m on it.” So it’s a very powerful and actually very simple practice.

Paul Salter:

What are some examples you could share with how to utilize, for instance, the quality time love language? What are some ways that you practice that or that others listening could begin to practice that?

Katie Krimitsos:

For me, that means time by myself. It means alone time. So I definitely have time when I’m in relation with my kids and my husband and all the people I love. But for me, it’s just alone time. So that could be something as simple as me sitting outside in the chair, letting the sun shine on my face, feet in the dirt. It could be something as simple as that. It could be me taking time to journal. It could be me going on a walk. It could be me go… I call them Katie retreats. I go on Katie retreats, and I will go away for a night or two where it’s just me by myself. Sometimes I’m at the beach, sometimes I’m just at wherever I need to be, but I’m by myself and I don’t have any other responsibilities other than taking care of me and doing…

And sometimes I work and sometimes I don’t. And I have to let go of what does this need to be? What do I need to accomplish here? No, I don’t need to accomplish anything. I just need the quality time with myself just to be here, just to listen to this voice that has been so overrun by the noise of the motion of life that I can’t hear myself. So yeah, those are just some… From super basic to really wonderful, really spending time with yourself. It could be something as… I’m here in Tampa, so we have Busch Gardens and the zoo. If you love doing those things, go do those things by yourself, whatever that might be. It could be, quality time could be spending time with a girlfriend who makes you belly laugh all the time, because that feels good. The idea is just go out and practice some of these things.

Paul Salter:

Yeah, I think again, that circles back to what we kicked off the conversation with. There’s got to be an element of intentionality. If that’s there, it can look 15 different ways between you and me and everyone listening, as long as the intention is there to fill your own personal cup up.

Katie Krimitsos:

Yep, exactly.

Paul Salter:

So let’s move to another one of the love languages, affirmations, words of affirmations. But you just did a brilliant job explaining what those examples are in more of a romantic partnership, but for ourselves, do self-love affirmations carry true weight, have any potential to truly make a difference on how we feel about ourselves? What are your thoughts on that?

Katie Krimitsos:

I tend to be in the middle of the road in this, meaning I’m definitely not the person who… There are people out there who are like, “Affirmations don’t work, no way, whatever.” And then there are people who are like, “Affirmations transform my life, and you can listen to 20 of them every single day, and they really do it.”

I’m sort of somewhere in the middle where I see the power of affirmations in that I don’t have a belief that like, “Oh, I’m going to read or hear or say all these affirmations that will then immediately get rid of all the negative thoughts in my head and I’ll be Miss Positive for the day. That ain’t how it works. But I do believe in the practice… So one of my podcasts is called Daily Affirmations, and it’s literally that it is one affirmation per day. There’s a little bit of guidance to calm you down, and then we just say the affirmation three times very slowly.

Then there’s four minutes of music just so you get to be in the juice of that affirmation and you get to see what comes up for you. So I think that they are powerful and you find what works for you. If hearing those affirmations and those words come back at you about, “I am beautiful, I am powerful, I take up space, I’m allowed to be here.” If those things really fill you, then do more go with it. So yeah, I think that they’re incredibly powerful for those who get the power out of them.

Paul Salter:

Well, and I agree, I kind of find myself middle of the road, I think I lean more towards they are beneficial, but intentionality seems to be a theme of this conversation and putting in the energy. I mean, anyone can look at themselves in the mirror and half-ass through some set of affirmations, but if you slow down to be and truly cultivate that energy and emotion behind it, it does have the potential to profoundly impact your life so long as you’re consistent with it.

Katie Krimitsos:

Yeah.

Paul Salter:

So one of the sentences I kept coming across as I was putting all my notes together for our conversation today was just utilizing… You took us on this journey of the power of meditation to really know thy self and going into what it looks like to discover ourselves to then begin practicing self care, and then ultimately to consciously create a life that we love. Tell us more about that.

Katie Krimitsos:

Oh boy. I feel like this is the beating heart of the work that I do and actually how I live my life. I feel like creating a life you love is so much more than just those words. It is literally being able to get to know who you are, what your values are at any given moment, because values and importances might change during seasons, but getting to know yourself so that you can then take action on what you discover about yourself, and in that action you end up creating, you create life. And I’m going to give you a really fun but funny example of this. So in my twenties, I was… Going to college, I took my first women’s studies class and gendered communications and it… Like, game over that changed my life. I was like a raving feminist. And in my college years in my twenties, I was very much an angry feminist.

I was very angry about all of this stuff. And in that anger, I started to own this story called, “I don’t ever need to get married. I don’t need to ever need to have kids because society tells me that that’s what I’m supposed to do.” So that got anchored in there somewhere. Fast forward, I have met my current husband now, and we’re dating, it’s been, I don’t know, a year? Year and a half I think, that we’ve been dating. And it is just from the moment I met him, I knew he was the one, like, “okay, this is the guy.” And in my head I made it, okay, “Okay, we’ll just be together forever. I don’t need to get married.” It was this soft thought in there. I didn’t run towards marriage with him. It was just like, “Yeah, of course we’re soulmates. We’re just going to be together forever.”

Well, about a year, year and a half into it, we go to a road trip up to Savannah, Georgia, and we’re just walking around town and I just start vomiting all of these thoughts on him of, “I just feel like I want to get married to you, but I don’t know, I didn’t ever think I needed to get married. I don’t know about that.” And just total not organized or thought out thoughts. My poor boyfriend at the time is just like, “Oh my God, this girl’s crazy.” He goes off, kind of gives me a break. Fast forward over the next day or two, what ended up coming out was, I’m just feeling this massive knowing of, we need to be married. I can’t explain why that is. And I had to deconstruct that from the expectations of being married, from my own personal beliefs that I don’t have to be, that I’m never going to be married.

I had to completely unwind all of that crap so that I could get at the heart of what was actually real for me. I want to be married to this man, not for any other reason than I want to be married to… I’m tired of being his girlfriend. That’s not it. That’s not what we have. We have this. And so once we got through all that crap and we worked that out, he’s like, “Let’s do it. Let’s go.”

And it was great. So I say that because there are so many people, things, voices in our own heads telling us what we should do, how our lives should look, and sometimes that voice is your past self who is no longer relevant or who’s no longer good for you. And so doing this work to un-layer all of that stuff and actually get at the beating heart of whatever it is that we truly are feeling or getting a little inkling for this little… We’re starting to start hearing this little hum, this little whisper over and over again.

Our job is to get to know that whisper, to hear it, so that she’s actually kind of yelling and screaming at us, so we can hear it loud and clear. But we can’t do that until we do this work to spend time with ourselves and un-layer all that crap and get down to actually who we are and what is important for us, and therefore what we want to create with that thought. So now I have this life with this amazing, my soulmate husband. I’m not going to pretend that we have anything perfect. No one does, but we have a damn good relationship and we have this amazing life that we have built together. And none of it would’ve been possible had I not been willing to un-layer all of that crap. And if I would’ve allowed my old versions of what was true for 20-year-old Katie to live into my 30-year-old Katie at that time.

And so it’s this knowing that we’re always evolving. So we always have to do this work of getting quiet with ourselves so we can hear over and over again, how is this true for me? How is this true for me? The example I gave before about starting the women’s meditation network. I already had a business. I was very successful. It was great. And so as soon as I sort of heard that voice, as soon as I got pregnant, and I heard that voice of like, “Nope, you’re done with this.” And I was like, “Oh no, that doesn’t feel good at all. That feels scary and so risky.” That business was paying our bills. And all of a sudden I’m saying, “Just kidding. I don’t want that anymore,” and I don’t have anything in front of me to go to. But with the willingness to look inside and do that self inquiry and really peel apart what is it that I really want?

I guarantee you will find an answer in there that is solid and one that you will not question. One that just, you know it is rooted in you. It has been growing roots in you, you know it. So when you find it, you’re like, “Yes,” and it could be very scary, but if you take a baby step towards that, it’ll start to grow. It’ll start to blossom. And the more you allow it to do that, the stronger it gets. And the more that you allow yourself to practice this listening and this taking action on your intuition, your inner voice, whatever you want to call it, the stronger that muscle will get. So you’ll be more confident the next time, 10 years from now, when that voice is speaking to you again, you’ll be like, “Oh yeah, I know this voice. I got her. I got you, girl, I’m going to do it.” No questioning. No, “No.” The more you practice this, the better you get at it so that the moment intuition starts to whisper, you know. “I’m listening, where are we going? Let’s do this.”

Paul Salter:

I love that. Such a wonderful answer. I really like that you said it’s an ongoing process because we keep venturing into new chapters of life that bring new priorities, new challenges, core values might shift. Love languages, just to circle back, might even change over time as well. So there’s always this guaranteed constant level of change, which means you need to have this constant level of awareness looking within to evaluate what do you need right now? So it’s so well said. And to wrap up such a beautiful conversation for that busy woman listening right now who is really resonating with what you’re sharing, but still is just frustrated or uncertain about where to start on her journey of self-awareness, where would you direct her attention?

Katie Krimitsos:

Oh, I have a good answer for that. Start with Mini Moments Of Mindfulness. Mini Moments Of Mindfulness. If meditation is looking way too structured and scary, and another giant thing I need to do, add it to the mountain. Start with little Mini Moments Of Mindfulness and Mini Moments Of Mindfulness are incorporating mindfulness, moments of pausing, into your normal day. And so even the busiest of us can do this, meaning it might look like you taking a shower and instead of your brain going to all the things you have to do for the day in the shower, take a moment, take two deep breaths and notice the water falling upon you. And in that noticing, A, you get really in tune with body. And so i.e. out of your mind a little more, and in that noticing, you can’t help but have this kind of tricklings of appreciation and gratitude coming up like, Wow, thank you for the shower. Not everyone gets a hot shower every single day. This is really amazing. That feels so good.”

And then you just kind of have that, right? Just that. Driving your kids to school, when you come home and you park before you go into the house, or you’ve just gone out to do the grocery shopping. Kids are at home with whoever, and you come home and before you go into the house, take five deep breaths. That’s it, five deep breaths. Conscious breaths, meaning you’re counting, you’re aware of one breath in, one breath out, one inhale, one exhale, and just keep going and doing five deep breaths. That’s it. And what it does is it physiologically kind of resets you, right? Physiologically you’ve stopped the moving train and you sort of rest for a second. Psychologically and spiritually and emotionally, what it does is it slows down all of that racing stuff and all that racing stuff oftentimes just makes a bunch of clouds and it makes it’s hazy and unclear.

So in even a brief moment of mindfulness, you’re allowing that haze to sort of clear for just a moment. So just these practices over and over again just allow you to sort of, again, open that space, have a little pause, and pretty soon you’re sprinkling this into your entire day and you’re just feeling that. So pretty soon when your kids are going nuts, it’s about to be dinnertime and your husband’s nowhere around. He’s talking on the phone outside and your young one is screaming at you, your other one is running around doing something that she shouldn’t do. In that moment, instead of losing your shit, which hands up I absolutely do still and have done before. Instead, you could just take three deep breaths in and be able to handle the situation and actually see what the situation is so you can handle it with presence and grace instead of the crazy Tasmanian Devil mom.

Which again, been there. I still do that every once in a while. So it just allows us to then create a new energy in our days and with all these little Mini Moments Of Mindfulness.

Paul Salter:

It’s such a wonderful answer. Thank you for sharing that.

Katie Krimitsos:

Thank you.

Paul Salter:

Yeah. So where can our listeners go to connect with you, learn more from you, work with you, all of that wonderful stuff?

Katie Krimitsos:

Yeah, so you’re listening to this on a podcast player. So whatever podcast player you’re listening to, just go type in Meditation For Women. All of my 10 podcasts will come up. Go choose any one of them or multiple ones that just really sing to you. So Sleep Meditation For Women, Morning Meditation For Women, Daily Affirmations, all of that stuff. And go listen there. There’s meditations galore there. They are meant to be a giant library of meditations for you to listen to and to be able to access any time you want for free.

Paul Salter:

Wonderful. Well, thank you for all of the fantastic work you do and for joining me today. I really enjoyed this conversation.

Katie Krimitsos:

Me too, Paul, thank you so much.

Paul Salter:

You are welcome. For everybody listening, thank you so much for being here and joining us for this conversation today. We definitely hope you found it valuable. And if you know somebody, a family member, a loved one or friend who would also enjoy this conversation, make it a priority to share it with him or her. And if you haven’t done so already, just 30 seconds is all it takes to leave a genuine, honest rating and review on Apple Podcast or wherever you are listening to today’s episode. Thank you again for being here. Have a wonderful rest of your day. And as always, screw the scale.