Inner Warmth: Stepping Outside of Time and the Fine Art of Taking a Bow (Part 2 of 2)

Katherine May's Book Wintering: (link to Amazon so you can see what it looks like:)
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Finding Inner Warmth

In this episode of the 'Warming the Soul' series, the discussion covers practical gift exchange ideas, such as giving a furry blanket and gourmet treats, and explores themes related to inner warmth and rest. The hosts recommend the book 'Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times' by Katherine May and share personal anecdotes about learning to prioritize rest and joy. They also delve into societal pressures around busyness, implementing 'rest-offs' among friends, and shifting perspectives to value happiness and ease over hard work. Additionally, they touch on concepts like non-competitive gratitude, the influence of mentors, child upbringing, and the importance of allowing oneself to receive appreciation.

00:00 Introduction to Warming the Soul

00:08 Gift Exchange Tips and Tricks

01:06 The Comfort of a Furry Blanket

01:42 The Power of Rest and Retreat

04:02 The Busy Life Experiment

06:04 Bragging About Rest and Self-Care

16:50 The Value of Happiness Over Hard Work

25:32 Lessons from the Dalai Lama

28:19 The Importance of Letting Go of Time

35:10 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Thank you joining us today, remember to LIKE and SUBSCRIBE to keep up to date with your tribe.

Connect with your Hosts!

Tava Baird: tavabaird.com or https://darkflowerbooks.etsy.com.

Jennifer Taylor: Willow Ridge Reiki and Healing Arts https://www.willowridgereiki.com/

Transcript

Tava Baird: [00:00:00] Welcome to part two of our discussion on Warming the Soul. We're so glad that you can join us. ....................................... So, Gift exchanges. I always know people who are going to gift exchanges and they go, I don't know what to get. As a veteran of many, many gift exchanges. You can never ever go wrong with a furry blanket. Every single store sells them from Target to Ross to whatever those fake furry blankets they have.

Tava Baird: And they've got them in a multitude of colors. They're never more than 20 bucks because they're machine washable. You take one of those in a bottle of wine and put them in a gift bag and watch people fight at the White Elephant Gift Exchange for that furry blanket and that bottle of wine. And if people don't drink you put in a big old container of gourmet hot chocolate and some shortbread cookies, and people will go to the mat for a furry blanket.

Tava Baird: It never disappoints. And the good news is. If it's a true white elephant gift exchange, you could technically steal your own gift back. Then you [00:01:00] get the furry blanket and the cocoa and the cookies. And I'm not saying I've done that before, but I've done that before. 

Jennifer Taylor: When I, isn't it interesting how the idea of like a furry blanket, like something that is just fuzzy and warm that we can wrap ourselves in.

Jennifer Taylor: It just feels so good. And I think it comes to that warming thing. It's like we're looking for something that gives us that inner warmth. And the idea of those things, I think is it's amazing. It is. It's really a universal kind of thing, especially, you know, this time of year, if you're living in the northern hemisphere.

Tava Baird: Yes, when it's so chilly. There is a really incredible book, and I don't know that I've mentioned it on the podcast before, but it's worth mentioning again. There is a book by Catherine May, and her first name is spelled with a K, and her last name is like the month of May. It's called Wintering, The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult [00:02:00] Times.

Tava Baird: I can see you laughing. I 

Jennifer Taylor: have that book pulled up before the podcast. I was like, oh, I'm going to pull up this as a resource because I want to be sure and mention it. I was like, no way. It's so good, isn't it? Yeah, 

Tava Baird: it's just fantastic. And it's a lovely thing too. I have not only read it, but I, Always buy multiple copies.

Tava Baird: And it's something to put in the furry blanket bag. Because everybody I have ever run into has loved this book. 

Jennifer Taylor: Yeah. in fact, I haven't read it, but my mom, when I was telling her about how, Samuel was telling me, I need to rest and rest until the spring. And I was saying, I think I'm not well versed in how to rest.

Jennifer Taylor: there seems to be the, you know, lay around in my pajamas and don't do anything. Or there's doing and I know that there's this whole world that I'm meant to [00:03:00] explore and do more of in this rest. And it's so funny because I could probably tell somebody else what to do or how to do it.

Jennifer Taylor: But when when it's yourself, it's just everything sometimes goes out the window. And she had sent me this. And it was on, Facebook. And so they had had a description of the different types of things that she was talks about in the book. And I thought that is exactly, part of what it is that I need to do.

Jennifer Taylor: It's like the talking about, the power of Pause and,how nature draws in and you've kind of facing the darkness to find the light, like going ahead and looking at those things that had been plaguing us, that we've been ignoring. And, nature as sanctuary and self compassion and savoring things and redefining productivity.

Jennifer Taylor: And, comfort rituals and finding your wintering practices and things. And I was like, Oh, this is exactly what I need. 

Tava Baird: It's fantastic. And it's hard to do [00:04:00] when you think about it. I actually am. in the middle of conducting a little experiment and I hope I do have some people who I know listen to the podcast that are part of this experiment and they're unaware.

Tava Baird: So I hope they don't catch on when I talk about this. But, I realized the other day I was out with a group of female friends and We get together and the first thing that happens is we all basically start talking about how insanely busy we are. Oh my God, I'm so busy. I have to do this and this and this.

Tava Baird: we're all saying what our schedules are. And I know I'm guilty of that. I have left you countless Marcos you probably didn't need to listen to that were literally just me telling you how busy I was, right? And then I got together with another friend who is dear, but I realized. We almost try to one up each other when we meet on how busy we are.

Tava Baird: Like I'll say, Oh, I've got like nine things in the next two days. And then she'll add, yeah, I've got that. And then I also picked up an extra shift. And [00:05:00] the next thing I know most of our conversation is just us moaning about how overextended we are. Which is something in our control for the most part because a lot of the things that are on our list We said yes to doing that when the other day I thought our society is very competitive and we make people at work feel guilty for taking vacation or for, God forbid, giving birth and wanting time at home with their children. 

Tava Baird: these are things that we end up having to fight for. You see people all the time going, Oh, I just won't go on vacation or, I'm going on vacation, but I'll be available by phone. No, it's vacation. And when you normalize that level of dizziness, then the people who actually do want a healthy life where they take that time feel pressured to not do so.

Tava Baird: And I started thinking, Oh man, I'm part of the problem here. [00:06:00] All I do is talk about, I've got so much to do. I, and so instead, I decided what I was going to do when I ran into these people next time was I was going to brag about how I had rested and see. If that changed the dynamic, see, if they would then start trying to one up me on rest.

Tava Baird: I love it. If they start saying, Oh, you know, I need to do more of that. I actually would love to have a rest off with a lot of my female friends, because it seems especially like at the holidays, a lot of the burden to make things merry and bright I love it. falls on the women in the family. I'm not saying all of it, but a lot of it does.

Tava Baird: that article I was mentioning earlier during our last episode about the woman who spends Thanksgiving and Christmas by herself. She noticed that in her workplace,when [00:07:00] there was a holiday get together, if the Male employees said, no, I can't make it. Nobody bugged them about it afterwards, but that if she said, no, I can't make it, they would put her down as attending anyway and start asking her if she wanted to come over and over again.

Tava Baird: Well, I can drive you. Well, I can meet you there. Oh, come on. Just come for a little time. And she started thinking, why do those guys, why is their no respected but my no isn't right. Okay. Okay. And she just started noticing this and like the whole idea of her mom having a break down, after Christmas every year.

Tava Baird: And so I'm like, what would happen if I tried to change that? If instead of whenever I got together with friends, I told them how busy I was, which does nothing but up their stress level and mine. Instead I told them at least three ways I had been a total and absolute slacker. I think I'm afraid to..... I think, I think they'll think less of me.

Tava Baird: If I'm not a doer, doer, [00:08:00] doer, doer, if I'm not the miracle person who can pull everything off and Oh, I'm so amazing. Who will I be if I do less? That's what's can be a scary thing when a lot of our communication and identity is built on being super woman. 

Jennifer Taylor: Yeah. And I, one of the things, I love your experiment by the way.

Jennifer Taylor: I think that's a really awesome thing because it like instantly gives the other person permission to go, Oh, either state something that they did for themselves and you can validate each other for that or goes, Oh my gosh, you rested. it gives me permission to rest you know?

Jennifer Taylor: I think that's so wonderful. there's a book, it talks about, women in the way that we're conditioned to interact with each other and that it's so much is based on competition. And one of the things that one of my dear friends has.

Jennifer Taylor: Kind of [00:09:00] implemented. And I realized I need to get back to it because we were really good about it for a while, like in, in Marcos and in conversations and what this, other person advocates is that you, say like three brags to the other person as a part of your conversation. okay, so, all right, my three brags are, and it could be, I got everything done on that list today and I felt really good.

Jennifer Taylor: And this, my brag to her. And I was so proud because she's always talking to me about, prioritizing pleasure and how important it is to prioritize our own pleasure. And I'm typically not super good about it. And I was so proud of myself. I had this massive inspiration of there was this shower gel when we went to visit my sister in law 

Jennifer Taylor: they were using it as hand soap and it smelled so good. I was like, oh my gosh, it's felt like being at a spa every time I washed my hands. And I was like, This is [00:10:00] amazing. I took a picture of the label. I was like, I've got to get this. And then I got home and I found out it was 50 for like a, you know, a little squirt pump bottle of this stuff.

Jennifer Taylor: and I had instantly stopped. I was like, nope, not going to do it. I cannot spend 50 for hand soap in one bathroom. I just can't do it. And then, but it has been bothering me ever since. And finally, one day I was like, I'm going to do it. This is an act of honoring myself and bringing myself pleasure.

Jennifer Taylor: The amount of pleasure I got from washing my hands,was just insane. And I thought, I am worthy of this and I'm going to splurge and I'm going to do this. it was funny because first I thought I'm going to put it on my, Christmas list for my husband. Cause we put a few things aside of Oh, if you know, need something or somebody needs something or whatever.

Jennifer Taylor: And then I thought, no, that's not the same. That's still saying I won't buy this for myself, but I'll let [00:11:00] somebody else buy it for me for some sort of special occasion. And I thought, no, it is really important that I buy this for myself and state I am worth the prioritizing and the pleasure that it will bring me is valuable.

Jennifer Taylor: And so I ordered it and I was so proud of myself. And so I went on, on a mark. I was like, I have a brag. I bought 50 shower gel to use as a hand soap because it will bring me pleasure. And I'm so excited. And she was so proud of me, but I think I love the idea of brags because it does. It's amazing how many of our, um, our interactions with friends tend to be this, I need you to know that I'm working really hard, that I'm doing something really important.

Jennifer Taylor: And I think especially those of us that are not working a job outside of the house, there seems to be a sense of, I haven't been out at work all day or doing [00:12:00] all these other things. And so I need to kind of prove to you that I'm doing something worthwhile. And in that tends to be the list of stuff that we have to do, or the list of bad things.

Jennifer Taylor: And it's so amazing how it shifts our conversations to start with that three brags. And we're it's like you're saying something good about yourself, or it's, just that I prioritized myself and I did something or I accomplished something, you know, I got this done and I'm so excited or I brought this through and I didn't think it was possible for me to do something like that.

Jennifer Taylor: But I highly recommend that you institute that with your friends and make it where it's like, nope, you have to brag on yourself. you can't brag on your children or something that happened, It has to be something you did. And again, it's not about your accomplishments, but it's like, this is something I'm proud of and myself, or this is something I want to bring forth.

Jennifer Taylor: And it's, it's a really wonderful practice. 

Tava Baird: I [00:13:00] love that so much because I know I was very much raised to believe you shouldn't brag because people will think you're uppity and so what quickly happened is I fell into this routine of work all the time never enjoy the benefit of having worked all the time you know like to be able to say yes thank you I did a good job because what would people think of you right And so saying, I have to tell you three things it gives you license to do that.

Tava Baird: And to say, you know what, I work really hard and I am a good and kind and loving person. And I did something well, and I just love that it, puts you out there where you need to do that, where you get to enjoy the fruits of your labor. Right? I think about I was a children's theater director for years and years.

Tava Baird: And I had such a hard time accepting compliments after the show. I mean, it would make me nervous because people would come [00:14:00] down and say, wow, you know, you did a lovely job. And I would respond with, Oh yes, the children worked really hard. You know what? I worked really hard to the whole crew worked really hard.

Tava Baird: We all worked hard. I mean, I Something in me just couldn't say, yes, I did. Thank you. And the last night that I was on stage after my final show, it was a real challenge because I walked out. And a lot of the families in the audience I taught their kids for years and they'd been in previous shows.

Tava Baird: And now some of their kids were seniors in high school or going to college. And I walked out on stage to, you know, end the show and make announcements. And the audience gave me a standing ovation. It's one thing to have somebody say, Wow, you did a good job. When there's 300 people clapping for you. Like, something inside me went, oh my god, and I wanted so badly to turn around and just run backstage because that's what, that's the [00:15:00] way I was raised to believe I should react.

Tava Baird: And I thought, you know what, screw it, but I took a bow. It was the first, like, big bow I think I had ever taken. In, you know, well over a decade of working on this show and I was proud of myself that I was able to accept appreciation and praise. And more importantly, I was showing the kids on stage that it's okay to accept appreciation and praise.

Tava Baird: we have to remember there are always little eyes watching us and what we do really does form how the next generation thinks of themselves. that's how humans work. When they're little, to the big ones and see, what am I doing? think about how many people, are simply parenting the way their parents did, because that's what they know.

Tava Baird: That's what they saw, whether it's good or not good, or how many people are the way their parents were in relationships, because that's what they were exposed to. So, you know, I [00:16:00] love that. I'm going to brag about three things. I think it's absolutely incredible. 

Jennifer Taylor: Yeah, I really love it and I was surprised at how hard it was at the beginning because it also forces you to look at yourself and say, what have I done?

Jennifer Taylor: What am I proud of? You know? And it could be, man, dinner last night was awesome. I made dinner and it was really good. Or, you know, it can be little tiny things, but it's amazing how. It shifts the perspective of the way you look at yourself and it really shifts the relationship that you have and how your conversations go and helps to bring it into a really different, new kind of place and something that you were saying, I was thinking about I did, I worked really hard, I worked really hard.

Jennifer Taylor: I did this, I work really hard. And I was thinking that something in our society to that we tend to equate with worth like if it's, if it was [00:17:00] hard, if I worked really hard, then I have earned the value of whatever it is, then it's a more valuable thing. that it's more, respectable and respected.

Jennifer Taylor: And that this is what it's supposed to be. So when I was high school and stuff, I was trying to decide, what am I going to be? What do I want to do? And there was always that idea of if you're going to be a professional, if you're going to make something of yourself and your life, you'll be a doctor, a lawyer, you know, one of these kind of basic things.

Jennifer Taylor: And those were at least in our culture at that time, those were like the highest things. you'll be a sort of a doctor or lawyer if you want to make something of yourself. And I went to college thinking, okay, I'm going to be a doctor. I want to help people and I love science. So that's what I want to do.

Jennifer Taylor: I was at college and it was really, really hard. And there were certain things in the chemistry that just, it just did not work with my [00:18:00] brain. It was just constant grinding of something and I was miserable and I was depressed and at the same time I was taking an art class and a music class and I got the first A plus that this art teacher had given, he said, in years.

Jennifer Taylor: I'm sure I got an A in the music class, but I didn't value it. Because it was easy. It came easily. It didn't feel like there was a lot to be done, and I spent a lot of hours doing it, but it didn't feel like work. Now, the science classes, I got, you know, low B's and I think C's in it, and, but I was working so hard.

Jennifer Taylor: I was trying so hard, and I still, at that time, couldn't see that I needed to follow the things that just flowed from me. That being in that flow and the things that came easily [00:19:00] were my gifts. They were my talents. That was what I was meant to be here doing. And the things that felt like grinding it out were me just swimming upstream and stubbornly deciding and then I ended up switching colleges and had that sort of epiphany to some extent in the middle of it of, you know, I don't need to be doing this.

Jennifer Taylor: I hate these classes and ended up majoring in art and dance. it continues to come back to me that if something is really hard, a lot of times it's because I am not in alignment with it. It's not what I am aligned to be doing and there is a way of grace and ease that is different.

Jennifer Taylor: Even if it's something that has to be done, it maybe needs to be approached in a different way. And it's so interesting that, we value so much hard work and that's so much of the cultures that we've come up with. It's all about hard work and grinding it out. But I think we would all be much healthier and much more [00:20:00] efficient and effective if we looked at What comes easily, how can I do this with grace and ease as opposed to grinding it out?

Jennifer Taylor: And then if we can learn to brag to each other about it, like I had all this stuff and I was trying to figure out how I was going to do it. And then I decided I'm going to just relax and I'm going to give half of that to the angels and everything just worked out. how cool would it be to be talking to each other about those kinds of things?

Tava Baird: Yes, there. This reminds me of something I had. I had many mentors when I was at the Montessori school, but one of them, Michael, said something once that just rocked my world. And he said, do you ever listen to adults when they talk to kids and ask them what they want to be when they grow up? He said, they say, what do you want to be when you grow up?

Tava Baird: And the kids go, an astronaut, a doctor, a lawyer, a horse trainer. And he said, do you know what the correct [00:21:00] answer to that question is? Happy. An adult says to a child, what do you want to be when you grow up? The correct answer is happy. It's not your occupation. What you do to pay the bills is not who you are. When we I think it is.

Tava Baird: We identify ourselves by our occupation and that leads me back to what you were saying before about how hard it is when you are at home. You're working just as hard as someone outside, sometimes harder. You know, if you're raising children and you're running a business, you're doing all these things, trying to keep the house clean and everybody fed.

Tava Baird: And when we get together with our friends and they say, how are you? How much of that list that we give them is us trying to say, look, I am worthy of your love. I work hard too. And when we make love contingent on how hard people [00:22:00] work, we make approval dependant on that. our entire society is turned towards who's the richest, whether they earned it themselves or not.

Tava Baird: Right. But we somehow or another think that wealth is a virtue, and that it is the benefit of hard work. A lot of generational wealth, the person themselves did not do a lot of work for that. They inherited it, but we still give it this beautiful glow. Because somebody ahead of that must have worked hard, right?

Tava Baird: And the real answer, you know, what do you want to be when you grow up? Is happy, harmonious, at peace with other people, spreading love. Doesn't matter whether I am the meter reader. on the street or a CEO, we lose sight of that quite a bit. I think. 

Jennifer Taylor: Yeah. I love happy as the answer.

Jennifer Taylor: And really that's at the basis of all of what we're [00:23:00] so many times we're striving to get to. It's like, well, if I, if I do this, if I achieve this, if I buy that, if I have this, If I get that reward, I will be happy. but after you ask enough questions about, well, why do you want to be that?

Jennifer Taylor: we think it will bring us happiness. And if we can start from the foundation of happiness, everything's going to flow in a much different way we tend to think,society says, if I have that job, if I have that home, if I have that car, you know, I'll be happy.

Jennifer Taylor: If we work backwards from happiness, everything is going to be really different. And like you were talking about working hard, there are all these different studies and things that talk about that. The people that are, you know, the, and the 1 percent of, the highest earning them, richest people in the world are not working harder [00:24:00] than, the everyday person who is, working with their hands, who is, really doing all the jobs that are keeping our country running, they are working harder.

Jennifer Taylor: and longer hours than the people that are making the absolute most money. And a lot of times it's not necessarily that they inherited it, but that they have structured things to where they're not working so hard. Other people are doing things. So, there's definitely that, disparity between what we think of and what people talk about as, you know, well, they worked hard.

Jennifer Taylor: It's not about who worked harder. It's about How it was done and, when it comes to money, a lot of it is also based in,what sort of advantages and what sort of positions were people in.certainly, there's all of that, which we don't need to get into.but I really encourage us all to just look at how can I be in the flow?

Jennifer Taylor: of things and be, you know, just be [00:25:00] guided to that by following what makes me happy. And it's amazing. There are so many incredible stories of people ending up in jobs that you wouldn't have even thought could be a job. It's such a niche little thing, but it was somebody following their bliss. They were just following their joy and doing it.

Jennifer Taylor: And the more we can do that throughout our lives. stop placing the focus on the hard work, but flowing with, what's naturally trying to come forth and how can we work with that? 

Tava Baird: Several years back, I read this really neat article and it was an interview with someone who is one of the, for lack of a better term, travel handlers for the Dalai Lama.

Tava Baird: Right. The Dalai Lama travels to different countries. And when he does that, there is a small army of people that are security and making sure he gets to the airport on time and the hotels and translators and getting him, to meet with world leaders and all of these different [00:26:00] things.

Tava Baird: And the guy was talking about how extremely frustrating the first few weeks of working for the Dalai Lama were. Because Dalai Lama doesn't really see things materially. I mean, the guy wears the same thing every day. And he also does not operate on the same time scale we do.

Tava Baird: So for example, they'd be coming out of an airport and the Dalai Lama would see a child And the child would walk up and start talking to him and then the child's mother would come over and the Dalai Lama would just sit down and start having a deep conversation with this mother and this child and all of his handlers are shifting like the car is waiting and we've got to go meet the president and you know the security team and they're all into these logistics and they were so wrapped up in time working with someone who time basically he's just gotten rid of the concept he would tell them Right?

Tava Baird: Wherever I am right now [00:27:00] is where I am supposed to be. It's where my work is. I'm here for a reason. And he would say it was absolutely maddening until you finally, and you can't, you know, yell at the Dalai Lama, right? You know, but, and the Dalai Lama was clearly aware that some people were going through this and he would go, yes, yes, yes, I know.

Tava Baird: And just keep talking to the mother and the child. the guy would say he just took his sweet time, but then he realized the Dalai Lama is a spiritual leader. He thinks he's supposed to be in place to respond to people with divine grace, that it doesn't matter.

Tava Baird: Who's waiting for him. Dalai Lama said that would work itself out. like that world leader had something else he was going to need to put his attention to during that time. And he said it wasn't until he got to the point where he could just breathe and accept that wherever they were at that [00:28:00] time was the right place.

Tava Baird: No matter how long it took, it didn't matter because they were where they needed to be with grace. He said, once I could let go of the concept of time, everything fell into place. Now a lot of us don't have the schedule of the Dalai Lama, but I remember after reading this article, um, I was a teacher at the time and the children would arrive for school at about seven 45, eight in the morning and they would leave at three.

Tava Baird: And I started thinking rather than having to hit every single mark with a group of 25 children, right? You look up and you go, it's 1130. It's time for lunch. And what do you do? You start stressing. I've got to get the, the kids hands washed and have them sit down and have their lunch boxes. And we say our blessing and then we eat and then we're cleaned up instead of having [00:29:00] 10, 000 little tiny points during the day.

Tava Baird: What if I just accept that these children are coming in at eight. And they're leaving at three, and whatever happens between eight and three is gonna happen when it happens. If we get to lunch 15 minutes late, so what? No one's waiting outside to pick them up, they're still with me. If we go out to the playground 20 minutes early because the children need it and it's a beautiful day, so what about the schedule?

Tava Baird: They're still in my care,nothing changed? Once I could drop All of those little tiny increments, how things were supposed to go. The only deadline I had to hit was at 3 p. m. they needed to be outside and ready to go for the parents to pick them up. That was it. I had one goal to hit, time wise, and my stress level dropped so much.

Tava Baird: And I remember the other teachers that I worked with were still, I could watch them. He's freaking out. We were supposed to be outside three minutes ago. You know what? Little Mary and [00:30:00] Johnny need help with tying their shoes. I am in this moment helping them tie their shoes. That's a lesson right there.

Tava Baird: It's an interaction. Learning to tie your shoes is going to affect you for the rest of your life. That is much more important than whether or not we hit the playground gate on the nose. And it just let everything move into its own time. So there might be places in your day where you can do that. You know, where can I get rid of the concept of time and therefore let a lot of my frustration and worry go?

Jennifer Taylor: Yeah. That reminds me When, our two older children were little and toddlers and the idea of, wait till the last minute and then it's like, all right, we've got to go down, we've got to get our shoes on and get our coats and we've got to get out the door, we're going to be late.

Jennifer Taylor: And those times we were exponentially later because I [00:31:00] was stressed. there was the sense of this very, very tight timeline. And. You know, a toddler would just throw an absolute fit and refuse to put her shoes on no matter what, there was no shoe that was going to go on those feet.

Jennifer Taylor: I realized. She was resisting the being rushed. Like, you cannot rush a toddler. Because they're in the Dalai Lama sort of state. there is no such thing as time. I don't know how to read a clock. And why would it matter? if I want to sing a song and play with a bug as I partially tie my shoe or have you put it on and then that's what we're going to do.

Jennifer Taylor: I've noticed the same thing with horses. There's a, as saying, you know, take the time it takes. So it takes less time and it's really entirely based in the rather than coming in with this sense of, All right, I've got five minutes. I need to hurry up, grab the saddle. We need to get the girth on.

Jennifer Taylor: We need to get this stuff up, brush them up, get them off. And then we need to be out [00:32:00] there for the lesson. Or we need to, we need to get on the horse and head out there. The horses respond the same way the toddler would. If they feel rushed and they feel, and you're just sort of going through the motions and you're tense and you're trying to do it, they will make it.

Jennifer Taylor: infinitely more difficult for you. They won't pick up their feet. They will continue to shake offthe saddle pad as you're trying to get it on and then get, you know, get the saddle on. They will resist it as much as possible. And sometimes that ends up leading to things that actually can become Unsafe by the time you're writing them and it will take so it will actually take a lot more time But if you just stop and breathe and say, all right, i'm going to take my time I'm going to connect with you.

Jennifer Taylor: i'm just going to do what I need to do We're gonna brush you off. I'm going to do it at a pace that feels relaxed. You'll actually end up being on that horse [00:33:00] and things will go so much better, so much faster than if you come in with your own agenda and in that focus on the time.

Jennifer Taylor: And it's the same way with the kids. When I would allow a little bit more time and go down and it would just be like, all right, let's get our shoes on. And I, no matter how much I wanted to push the whole thing, I would just try and relax and be like, okay. it inevitably everything flowed more because they didn't feel this pressure and this intensity and it's amazing how many things if we can just let go of it we think we're making things go faster and we think we're staying on time but i feel like the universe responds to us the same way the horses and the toddlers do you know it's that when because when we are attempting it, we're, um, approaching things with that sense of limit and there's a limited amount of time we have to go, when we're just sort of plowing through [00:34:00] life with this sense of, we just have to get it done.

Jennifer Taylor: Life pushes back because that's not how it works. But when we relax into it and take the time it takes, so it takes less time, we just, flow into that. Everything is different. And it's so interesting. It really wasn't until I was halfway through that story that it dawned on me that, Oh my gosh, that really is.

Jennifer Taylor: how the universe reacts And you will hit every stoplight on the way to the thing. the more stressed you get, the more tractor pulls in front of you. And at least out where, out where Tava and I live, you can be significantly slowed down by a tractor.

Jennifer Taylor: Or farm equipment, yeah, farm equipment going 10 miles an hour. Yeah, that's our form of like rush hour out here. but it never fails when you're really in that rushed, pushed kind of hurry, stuff like that happens. And when you just relax, all of a sudden everything just flows. 

Tava Baird: It reminds me of a quote from Lord of [00:35:00] the Rings.

Tava Baird: I think it's Gandalf. And he says, a wizard is never early nor late. He arrives precisely when he means to. Yes. I love that. And so we can all be wizards. Well, I'm looking at the time and I'm thinking we might want to. book end this with a lovely song. we came here with just a little idea and look what happened to us today.

Tava Baird: We arrived precisely where we needed to. 

Jennifer Taylor: Exactly. I love that. 

Tava Baird: [00:36:00] [00:37:00] 

Tava Baird: Thank you so much. Your voice sounded like one of the Crystal Bowls today. 

Jennifer Taylor: it was different. I could hear it in my ears. There was this very different, almost metallic kind of sound. It reminded me somewhat of the Archangel Michael's sword sound, but it was broader and different.

Jennifer Taylor: Yeah. I was thinking, I wonder what it is that they're bringing through. I'd invited Samuel and Michael both to come through, but yeah, there was something, there was a very different quality in there thatI was hearing. I'm glad you could hear it too. Cause I was thinking, I'd always wonder, is it only sounding that way in my head?

Jennifer Taylor: No, it reminded me of when you were playing the [00:38:00] bowls. Yeah. Very interesting.

Jennifer Taylor: Thank you so 

Tava Baird: much. Thank you so much for listening, everybody. We have such a good time doing this with you. And until next time, we hope you stay warm, timeless, and cozy. 

Jennifer Taylor: Absolutely. And strive for grace and ease more so than effort. 

Tava Baird: And we are so, so grateful for all of you. Happy holidays, however you may spend them and have a blessed winter until 

next time.