Master Your Bliss Life

Narrator: 

You’re listening to Master Your Bliss Life. Join Kiera Masters and Lia Bliss as they dive into the magical, mysterious, and mundane elements of life, helping you to master your purpose and find your bliss.

Lia:

We’re just going to start. We’re never ready. Kiera’s looking at me like she wants to murder my face.

Kiera:

That’s because I’m on the verge of tears, but it’s fine.

Lia:

Cool. So, I just listened to, so we record these a couple of weeks out, and I listened to an episode. Cuz I go through and listen for quality control, right? I went through and listened to an episode that we just put out, and it was talking about feeding your soul and about how we’re moving into… like, we were in all this, you know, struggle. And we were in this survival mode for the last year or so. And that it’s been really hard. And then we talked about, things are on the up and up, things are turning. I was like screaming to you, what, two, three days ago last week? I was like, “I’m on the precipice! Things are happening! Woohoo!” And it’s the same for you, right? Things are happening. Like, big moves, big changes, big scary things. And then, because we are committed to you, dear hot girl… lots of boys listen to this. Hot man. Hot man walk. Hot girl walk.

Kiera:

Hot people.

Lia:

Hot people. Just all the hot people. We’re committed to authenticity. The second that things are on the up and up, and are good. When you are a person who has experienced trauma. And I don’t mean let’s have a faceoff to see who’s traumas are worse. I mean, anybody that’s had something hard happen to them. You, and I say you and I really mean we, and I really mean I, tend to aggressively self sabotage.

Kiera:

Oh yeah. Everybody does that.

Lia:

Everybody does that. And I’m talking aggressive. So I’m going to tell this little story. Once upon a time there was this girl and she was me. And… have I never started a story like that for you?

Kiera:

I’ve got my sad chocolate today.

Lia:

Sad chocolate. I mean, luckily it was just Halloween.

Kiera:

Yeah, after Halloween, you know.

Lia:

Have Halloween candy to fill the hole in my heart. So, once upon a time there was a girl and she was me. And, I’m going to take this way back. And she was dating John Hamm. If you listened to different episodes you’ll remember stories about John Hamm. That’s not his real name. But that’s his podcast name. John Hamm.

Kiera:

John Hamm.

Lia:

And he would tell me all the time that I’m amazing. And who doesn’t want to hear that? You’re amazing, you’re spectacular, you’re wonderful, you’re everything. You are going places. And this was before I had ever gone places. I was still very much trying to get to some degree of success. He was like, “I see all of your potential. You’re amazing, you’re incredible, you’re inspiring.”

Kiera:

You’re in that place where you just didn’t know which way to go.

Lia:

I didn’t know which way to go, but he was so supportive. And I was like so in love with him. And he was like, “You’re everything anyone could ever want. Except me. I don’t want to date you.” And I was like, “Nooooo. You’ll just come to realize that I am in fact wonderful and everything you’ve ever wanted.” Thank God that didn’t work out. Cuz not for me. Not the one for me. So. But that gets stored away in your memories and in your emotions and in your trauma. Like, it wasn’t a dramatic trauma, but it was a thing where I spent like a solid year being like, “If I just keep being awesome…” But I also didn’t have like, there was no friendship, there was no basis of trust. There was just. He would yell at me if I ever showed any signs of “weakness.” Where it was like, “You can’t be sad. You’re Lia and you’re amazing. You can’t be discouraged. You can’t have the normal range of human emotions. You’re too wonderful for that.” And it was really hard because I was also doing body building, and so I was in peak physical condition. And he would always be like, “Mmm but you could be smaller. You could be more fit. You could cut better.” You could this, you could that. And so it was this pedestalization, but then also negging. Where it was like, you’re amazing and wonderful, but you’re just not good enough. And so it was really conflicting and confusing and really really, like it really messes you up on your brains. Then, with my ex fiance, right? He just literally, we went from engaged and kind of in a, like, things weren’t ideal, but things were happening. We went from being engaged to never speaking again in a 10 day span. It took 10 days for him to completely self sabotage and blow up our entire life. And that was really shitty. So then fast forward. I meet this great guy. He’s super nice. It’s all lining up. Everything’s, like, he’s fun and he’s nice and I feel heard and seen and I trust him and all these things. And I catch feels. The dreaded…

Kiera:

Feelings.

Lia:

Feelings. Dreaded.

Kiera:

The things that we try so hard to avoid.

Lia:

Right? We try so hard to avoid.

Kiera:

We want so badly but we also try so hard to avoid.

Lia:

Right, because that’s just life. Because the fear, because the echo of the previous – and I’m going to use the word abusive very loosely here – but like the runaround and the disregard and the just not being treated the way that you should be treated. Those echos still linger. And your mind and your body, your instincts are like, “That hurt. I’m not going to do that again.”

Kiera:

Yeah.

Lia:

And so this guy is like, “You’re incredible, you’re amazing, I am so blown away by the person that you are. I think you’re fantastic.” And I know the moment I got feels. The moment. Because I panicked. Desperately panicked. And then we were like let’s spend some time together, let’s do… so we went on a little trip. And in the way that we all do the thing, we take the experiences of our past and project them onto our present. For no reason – for no reason – because I mean, the reason is that we’re afraid. We’re afraid of that hurt again, right? You burn your hand on a stove, you don’t go near a stove. But then, maybe also you don’t make delicious dinners, and you miss out because that one time you got burned, now you’re not willing to do it again.

Kiera:

Yep.

Lia:

So naturally, because I am not a perfect person, I completely imploded that whole situation. I threw… it was my version of throwing 100 fireworks into the room. Just <sound effects>. Those are my firework sound effects. Thanks for listening.

Kiera:

And they were perfect fireworks. They were great.

Lia:

And it’s like, Oh. And he’s just like, “What the fuck?” I’m like <sound effects>. Cuz just, and I didn’t do anything crazy crazy, I just was like, basically like cut him off.

Kiera:

Yeah.

Lia:

Like shut it down, cut him off, and was like we’re done it’s over, close the door forever. Boom. And that is a fear response.

Kiera:

Yep.

Lia:

Because it’s like, if I were to be telling this to myself, right? It’s like, a person who you trust, who you feel seen and heard and valued by, you’re going to cut out of your life because you are now in a position to be sad? Like, it’s called being brave. And it’s hard to be brave. And so you blow up these potentially great relationships. I mean, I have a lot of people ask me all the time, “Why are you single? You’re so amazing.” And I’m like, I know. I know I am.

Kiera:

The reason is she hasn’t found the guy that vibrates on her frequency. On her level. That’s what it is.

Lia:

That’s what I… That’s the lie. That’s the lie that I tell myself. The truth is, because I cut people out before they get a chance to. Because when we are afraid, we want to have a sense of control. And if you are afraid then you are going to feel bad. Then you beat it to the punch. Right? And it’s a stupid, emotional, fear-based response where it’s like, I’m afraid that I’m going to… you know, oh I’m afraid… uh, it’s like being afraid of spiders and so you burn your whole house down. Like, there might be a spider in the house…

Kiera:

I’m afraid of spiders, but I wouldn’t burn my whole house down.

Lia:

Right? I think there’s a…

Kiera:

I saw one last night and I was like, Whyyyy?

Lia:

Right?

Kiera:

I don’t want to be that friend that, I’m like, If you just stay outside, you’d live.

Lia:

Right? But.

Kiera:

I’m not one of those people who gets it on a piece of paper and tries to make it outside. I can’t do that. What if it jumps on me?

Lia:

Right? But that would be like seeing a spider in your house – emotionally we do this – we see a spider in the house, we get a little freaked, and so we burn the house down. There can’t be any spiders in the house if theres no house at all. And that’s the emotional equivilant of what so many of us do – and by us I mean we and by we I mean I – do. Because, it’s like, I could get hurt. I know the second I caught feels because it was the second I was afraid.

Kiera:

Those walls just go <sound effect>.

Lia:

<sound effect> Right? It’s like, the panic button gets hit.

Kiera:
And you start looking for every reason to not see this person, to not like this person, and start picking apart the things that bother you just to pull yourself out of the situation. Or talk yourself out of your feeling.

Lia:

Yes. It’s self sabotage. Yes. And it’s not just relationships. It’s in work, too. Like, Oh no, I… let’s pretend you get a promotion. You get a promotion and you’re like, Oh man. The imposter syndrome is strong. The imposter syndrome is strong and so we get in this frenzy. It’s like becoming a werewolf. And all of a sudden you’re like, <sound effect> “I’m going to wreck this because I’m afraid that I will fail. And so if I’m going to fail, I’m going to fail on my own terms. And I will ruin it myself on purpose. Because then at least I’m in control of that.”

Kiera:

That’s the thing is control.

Lia:

It’s the fear, it’s the control. 

Kiera:

You’re not losing control of what’s going on.

Lia:

Yes. Because now someone else has control to hurt you. And so if you get rid of them, they can’t.

Kiera:

Yep.

Lia:

And then you’re the bad guy. That’s the villain era nobody needs. That’s the villain era nobody needs to sign up for. Ladies and gentlemen, it is not all love and light. It is sometimes… and it’s not all go fuck you. It’s not love and light and go fuck yourself. Because that’s also kind of toxic love and light. To be like, “I’m great, I’m wonderful, and if you don’t like it, get out.” And that’s why we’ll talk about this concept of shadow work. Shadow work and shadow self is this part of you that you don’t want to look at. Cuz you don’t want to admit where you are playing a major role in ruining your own goddamn life. And I have had to grapple with this over the last several days. And it is shitty. But if you don’t look at it… because it would be so easy for me in this point to be like, all of these really, really fake and stupid justifications that I’ve made for blowing the shit up, I could delusion myself into thinking that I’m in the right. Be like, Nope. I deserve this. I deserve that. It’s gonna be this.

Kiera:

Everybody can justify anything if they want to in their mind.

Lia:

Anybody can justify anything. And if you’re always going to justify why your behavior… If you are always going to justify your behavior, you are not learning. And you’re not growing.

Kiera:

Justify and make excuses. I think that keeps you from growing.

Lia:

That does keep you from growing. To be like, “It’s not my fault, it's a trauma response.”

Kiera:

Yeah.

Lia:

Is an excuse. And it IS my fault, it’s a trauma response. One that I can learn to not respond to. Because, I mean, fight or flight is a real thing. It’s actually fight, flight, freeze, and fawn. And I would suggest everyone go look it up. But obviously we know fight, right? You want to be combative. You want to just <sound effects>. Flight is what I did. Just ninja smoke bomb my way outta there and be like, “Fuck you.” Disappear. Um, freeze, where you litterally just don’t do anything and you just let things happen to you, and then you fall into victim mentality because you’re like, “Well, these things just happened to me.” That’s where the freeze aspect comes in. And then to fawn is very much, men do it and I know, I’ve had men do it to me, but mostly I have seen it as a feminine response.

Kiera:

Is says, immediately acting to try to please to avoid any conflict.

Lia:

Immediately acting to try to please. “Oh babe, Oh this. I’m just gonna be…” The worst thing I ever heard a man say about his future wife. This guy got engaged and he said… I said, “Why do you like her so much? Why do you love her? Why her?” And he said, “She’s so accommodating.” EW! She’s so accommodating. She’s just so nonconfrontational. This woman was fawning as a response.

Kiera:

And that shit’s gonna eventually blow up.

Lia:

Right. Cuz you can’t roll over. That’s doormat.

Kiera:
You can’t do it forever. It gets to this point where you’re just like…

Lia:

You can’t and you shouldn’t. It isn’t healthy. And these are all responses. These are not choices. And mastering… this is really what it comes down to… to MASTER your bliss life is to not respond, but to choose. And to be in the power of choice. You can’t be there all the time. Cuz I sure as hell was not this last week. Response, response, response. You freak out, you feel out of control, you lash out how, whatever, pick your poison. But, mastering your bliss life is all about putting yourself in a place of <sound effect>... putting yourself in a place of power and decision making. Luckily, sometimes you can salvage the situation. If you… even if you do find yourself in response, you can quickly take yourself out of that fear response mechanism and begin to choose your actions from a place of power and intention.

Kiera:

Absolutely. My dog is getting pissed off at me.

Lia:

The dog’s growling. The dog… see? We don’t have to be just dogs. We don’t have to just respond. We don’t need to use our animal brains. So, Kiera, thoughts, concerns, hopes dreams. After that storytime.

Kiera:

I loved it. I loved hearing everything about it. You know, after everything we talked about yesterday, you and I. Our private discussion. I feel like you’ve slept on it and kind of come to a little better place than what you were yesterday.

Lia:

AKA, was I a psycho bitch yesterday? Yes.

Kiera:

Maybe a little bit.

Lia:

Yes I was.

Kiera:

Do I want to go to the extreme of saying what you slept on? Nah.

Lia:

I said, just put me under a medical induced coma. See if I had gone…

Kiera:

And I said, Yeah, for a day or two would be great. And she says, For a year. That’s a little extreme.

Lia:

For a year. I would like to go under a medically induced coma for a year. I was watching a stand up, I can’t remember who it was. I was like rage stand up comedy watching? And one of the girls was talking about how she suffers from a myriad of mental health diagnoses that she’s struggled to get like a good diagnosis and then get a good medication situation going on.

Kiera:

A plan?

Lia:

Yeah. Like a plan. And she said that it was a struggle because when she was young she was having panic attacks and told her dad. And he just looked at her and was like, “When you feel this way, get as far away from the people you love as possible.” And she’s like, “That’s the advice you give to a werewolf!” I was like, God I… Yes, that’s exactly how I feel. Just chain me up for a couple of days. But that’s the thing. We, it is animalistic to respond. That’s a part of our life saving pain avoiding… But as fully conscious beings, we get to choose whether we’re going to keep choosing that.

Kiera:

Yeah.

Lia:

But yeah a medically induced coma sounds awesome.

Kiera:
Still? Even after a day or two?

Lia:

Still. I mean, I’m just tired now. Yes. Maybe it would. Get me through the holidays.

Kiera:

Maybe for a day or two that would be awesome. Get some real good sleep.

Lia:

Get me through the holidays. It’s fine. But in contrast to… I mean, what’s so cool about this is growth is not linear. And while there are some days where we show up here and we are just like, “Yes! Yes! Yes! Everything is awesome and we’re part of a team! Everything is awesome! Everything is awesome!”

Kiera:
That’s how we feel. But not everyday.

Lia:

But and then there’s other days where, Damn I messed up.

Kiera:
We’re human.

Lia:

As you should give yourself grace to be.

Kiera:

Yep.

Lia:

Cuz being a human’s hard.

Kiera:

Yep. And to explain my tears when I got on.

Lia:

Your sad chocolate day.

Kiera:

I literally just, I didn’t sleep well last night. My stomach was really upset. I don’t think I fell asleep until two. Woke up at six, got my son to the doctor’s and it’s just been this ongoing issue that he’s been having, so we’ve been trying to figure it out. And it was just a really exhausting, emotionally and mentally exhausting for both of us.

Lia:

Yeah.

Kiera:

Yeah I just, I’m kind of in that space of like, Yeah, a medically induced coma sounds fantastic. Today.

Lia:

Cuz things aren’t, I mean, in my book I talk about the six relationships. Your relationship with yourself, your higher power, your tribe, your network, your money, and your time. And, while those are six things that we can focus on to try to bring us to our bliss life and if we master them, we are going to be happy, that’s also six things that can really bring us some stress.

Kiera:

Yes.

Lia:

And so, it comes down to there are good days and there are bad days.

Kiera:

And that’s normal and that’s ok.

Lia:

And that’s ok.

Kiera:

It’s just about, pushing through and persevering. I’m going to eat my chocolate now.

Lia:

And sometimes not pushing through. That’s like, because I feel like… oh what… I was was watching, I watch a lot of tv.

Kiera:

I mean don’t give up. You know? But like…

Lia:

Right. Don’t give up. And so often we have these action words, right? Like push, keep, go, move, progress. Like it’s all about the effort.

Kiera:

And sometimes you just don’t want to do that.

Lia:

And sometimes the effort in being ok is no effort.

Kiera:

I mean, I didn’t want to get on the podcast today. But, I said let’s schedule it tomorrow, for tomorrow, and she like sends me a link. I’m like maybe she just wants to talk to me, so I get on and she fucking pushes record.

Lia:

Yep.

Kiera:
Bitch.

Lia:

Because…

Kiera:

I love you.

Lia:

We don’t feel it every day. But we can show up. We can keep showing up and keep doing the work. Literal and figurative. Even when we don’t feel like it. And it doesn’t have to be the same level of effort. You can’t give 110% 110% of the time. But you should give 1% everyday. I saw it mathematically. It was like, 1.00 times 365 is 365. But, 1.01 times 365 is a huge improvement. 

Kiera:

I like that.

Lia:

Just one percent every day. That’s all you have to do. And some days you’re going to give 100%. And some days you’re going to give 1%. As long as you give something. And that something might just be eating chocolate and having soup. It’s hot soup season. I’m looking for hot soups in my area. Hot local soups. Ready to meet me.

Kiera:

That’s how you’re going to spend your nights?

Lia:

Have fun with my hot soup. But I did say that this season of The Bachelorette has come to a close.

Kiera:

We’re going to take a season break.

Lia:

We’re going to take a season break. Regularly scheduled Bachelorette is taking a break. Because sometimes you don’t have to give it 100%. You don’t have to, I often get asked, and Kiera’s been around because she gets asked the same thing, “How do you do it all? You run a company, you run a podcast, you do sales, you have children, you date, you go to the gym, you have thriving female friendships, you stay up to date on TV shows, your house is clean. Like, how do you do it all?” And the best advice I have ever gotten, that I’ve carried with me for years when it comes to this, was from my first personal trainer. And she said, “You can have everything you want. You just can’t have it all at the same time.”

Kiera:
Yeah.

Lia:

Sometimes you’re going to focus… like, balance is bullshit. You can’t have everything perfectly balanced. But you can try 1% in everything. Maybe one of those relationships gets a little bit more energy for a little while. Maybe you’re focused on your career for a couple of months. And then maybe you…

Kiera:

Maybe the house doesn’t get clean today. Clean it tomorrow.

Lia:

Yeah. But it… and maybe it does next week. Maybe you only clean it every two weeks when your cleaning lady comes. That’s like me. So, that, not to be a downer on this gloomy, gloomy season. Kiera’s dog is the cutest.

Kiera:

You can’t hear her? I think.

Lia:

She thinks she’s providing mental and emotional support at well. I was told, stop trying to count on people just get a dog. I would advise against that.

Kiera:

Unless you really have the time for it, it’s probably a good idea.

Lia:

Yeah. People won’t let you down, just check your expectations of other people. And check your self sabotaging habits. Really take a look at where you’ve played a part in not being the greatest. Because that’s where all the lessons are. We learn all these things about ourselves when we find where we’ve failed. Whether we failed ourselves, failed people we care about, doesn’t matter. That’s what the lessons are. That’s where the growth is. That’s where the self mastery comes in. And that’s where the love comes, too. Because we love you. We love ourselves, even in these moments of like self annihilation. It’s ok. Enjoy your hot girl walk. Enjoy cleaning your house. Or laying on the couch and eating leftover Halloween candy that’s probably still hanging around.

Kiera:

Well, it’s only been a day. Well, by the time this posts.

Lia:

By the time they listen to this it’ll be more than a day. It might be after Thanksgiving. We don’t know how this works.

Kiera:

Yeah. We don’t manage that part, we just record.

Lia:

We’re just the talent. That’s self-important. Ok. A big shout out to Kimberly, who is the podcast manager, who has been bringing these melodic voices to you through whatever listening app you have. Share this because we believe authenticity really helps people.

Kiera:

Yes.

Lia:

And if this is helping you, please share it with somebody that this also could be beneficial for. Because we love you and we want you to love the people around you. And we’ll see you all real soon.

Kiera:

Bye.

Narrator: 

You have been listening to Master Your Bliss Life. Make sure to check out the show notes for any relevant links and follow Kiera and Lia on Instagram and LinkedIn.