Samantha Pruitt: 0:22

Hey, superstars, welcome back Polly Mertens and Samantha Pruit here. What’s up beautiful humans? So what are we talking about today? We are talking about something that is going to elevate as it vibrates within the ears of these human beings. The title of today’s show is called “Raise your Standards, Sam Schraeg, and when we say raise your standards, what do we actually mean?

Polly Mertens: 0:48

Well, there’s a lot that goes into this, but if we take it back to the root of it, the root of it is how we see ourselves, like our worthiness. So, like our worthiness and our identity create the basis for all of our standards, whether they be personal standards, relationship standards, work standards, money standards, the standards I’m just giving you some examples. But it aligns with how you’re willing to feel, act, the people you’ll spend time with, the inputs into your life, your body, your activities. So it’s kind of an amalgamation of all of those things and it also can include your values and your goals.

Samantha Pruitt: 1:26

Yes, and in a real functional way for humans. What we mean is, in particular, when Polly says inputs, what we’re talking about is there are hidden or tangible inputs that actually come into your physical body and brain every second of the day, and there are ways that that inner energy or you can look at it even as nutrients or vibes or whatever you want to call it get into you. So inputs come in through your mouth, they come in through your eyes, they come in through your ears, and we’ll dig into each of those three specific things a little more detail as we progress on here. But when we talk about setting standards and examining the inputs of your life, really what are we asking people to do in consideration today for today’s show?

Polly Mertens: 2:21

Well, I think one of the key questions that we were talking about before we went on air is about standards have to do with what you’re accepting in your life, what you’re tolerating in your life, the different areas of your life, whether that be your personal standards, like your personal hygiene standards, your personal fitness standards, your personal money, income standards, the house you live in, the car you drive I gave you the example of the.

Polly Mertens: 2:49

So in the world of experiential marketing, which is marketing based on how people experience things. Anyway, one of the studies goes back to they find that people go to grocery stores. They shop at grocery stores that they feel most comfortable in, not that are the closest to them. So largely people will go to the most convenient gas station or maybe the one that on the way to work, it’s the best price, or something like that. But when it comes to grocery stores and you can tell the story of your gym, where we feel quote at home with and that tells us what’s your standard, what’s your standard for the food or the products or just the environment. So I think you have this with a gym that you go to and it’s like you drive across town for that thing.

Samantha Pruitt: 3:40

You drive for 25 minutes one way when I have five gyms in 85 mile radius, or something of that nature. Yeah, so a fast example that you’re alluding to is these environments that we put ourselves into are a reflection of our standards, so I love that food story that you told me that that’s that really scientific research that was done, that kind of just blew my brain and I was like, well, yeah, that’s totally me too, and it’s obviously you.

Samantha Pruitt: 4:09

Where we seek out spaces, environments, experiences are a reflection of directly correlated to our value system, our sense of self worth and our commitment to ourselves on the daily. Like we don’t just do these things in zombie state. Like we consciously and unconsciously make these choices every day, every moment.

Polly Mertens: 4:34

And I think it’s super important, where you just said, consciously or unconsciously, like we’re realizing, we’re about to drop some bombs into that, yeah, we’re realizing we’re at choice or we’re just realizing we’re in default mode and so we pick up.

Polly Mertens: 4:50

You know I would. If I ask people in a room you know to raise your hand how many people know and could write down what their top five or top 10 values are, I bet you less than 1% could do it right now. You know, maybe they could come up with their number one core value, but it would probably take some thinking and some more. You know it’s like hmm. So if you’re living your life deliberately meaning you have a live, you live an examined life, let’s call it like.

Polly Mertens: 5:14

You look at the way you’re operating in the world. Are you living deliberately because you can just sort of blow through life or you can design your life Right? So people, only when the finish line gets closer and closer in people’s life and they realize whoa, wake up, maybe I should do something here Do they start to examine their life, and I wish more people would take that, you know microscope out and just look at their life. But standards are a thing that are sort of operating behind the scenes, often largely picked up by the family of origin, the people we hang around with, the things that we are influenced by, you know, the culture, the religion, the media, things like that. I think an examined life for people that are living deliberately step back out of life and go wait a minute, right?

Samantha Pruitt: 6:01

Well, you know what’s so cool about what we’re doing at Every.

Polly Mertens: 6:03

Awesome Project.

Samantha Pruitt: 6:04

I believe, is that our people are awake. So we put out an energy into the space, collectively and individually, and we attract people who are awake, who have the curiosity, who want to be on the journey.

Polly Mertens: 6:22

So hallelujah for you whoever is listening for showing up to that.

Samantha Pruitt: 6:26

I want to drive home another point that what I have really seen a lot of working with people individually, as well as in organizations, corporations and otherwise is there seems to be a lack of understanding for how awareness and understanding for how the inputs we’re going to talk about either are building up their physical and mental health or breaking them down. So helping people become aware and then helping them examine those things to say am I building a body and a brain that I can be proud of? That’s going to get me at my highest performance in my daily life, my career path or am I?

Samantha Pruitt: 7:05

literally breaking it down through these choices and ultimately creating disease states in their mental health and their physical health.

Polly Mertens: 7:14

So what are some? When you say inputs, what are, what does that look like or what does that?

Samantha Pruitt: 7:18

mean.

Polly Mertens: 7:19

Yeah, how do you, how would you help people understand what I mean? You can kind of think like automatically okay, food, were we talking about food here?

Samantha Pruitt: 7:26

So we’re talking about three things. Food is one of them, but let’s think about it this way you’re a human with a body. Anyone who’s listening to this?

Samantha Pruitt: 7:34

probably is a human news alert, so this human body that you’re functioning in, that I hope that you take good care of them. We’re going to encourage you to do that. Has some ways. It takes in things into its cells which make up the human body trillions of cells. So one of the ways is through the mouth, another way is through the ears, another way is through the eyeballs. So let’s talk first about the mouth.

Polly Mertens: 8:02

And skin too. A lot of people forget how big an organ the skin is. But yeah, go ahead. Biggest organ in the body. Exactly, we wear it all day long and it reflects I mean people who have bad skin it’s actually an outer reflection of what’s going on in their inner body.

Samantha Pruitt: 8:18

Right, go ahead Side tangent, but the first one. Let’s talk about this because people can really wrap their brain around this. This is really everyday realities. So you have a mouth and you put things in it, and that’s how you sustain life in your body. So if you’re putting things in that mouth, what does that look like and how does that affect your building up or breaking down of your mental and physical health? You go first. How do you feel about that piece?

Polly Mertens: 8:47

Well, as soon as you said that, the first thing I thought of is that’s all based on standards. So what you reach for, tolerate, choose whatever you spoon in smoke, drink whatever you’re, however, you’re getting into your body, it’s based on your standard and it’s based on your identity, right?

Samantha Pruitt: 9:11

And.

Polly Mertens: 9:11

I know we can say will power and this and that and weak moments or whatever, but most of the time people are ingesting things that show you the standards that they’re living with.

Samantha Pruitt: 9:23

Well, all of the time, unless somebody is actually feeding you, you’re on a feeding tube because you are buying that food. Well, I’m thinking that in the world of addiction it doesn’t feel like a choice.

Polly Mertens: 9:35

That’s the only reason I say that is like when you’re kind of, let’s say, controlled by a substance, it sort of feels like you’re in charge. Yeah, it sort of feels like that substance is in charge, but other than like, let’s just leave that off to the side, you know, just kind of park that conversation separately. But yeah, you’re right, like everybody else. Yeah, you’re putting that donut in your body, you’re putting that piece of celery in your body, whichever it is right.

Samantha Pruitt: 10:01

And those people with the addiction. Please call us so we can have a conversation about that side?

Polly Mertens: 10:04

No yeah.

Samantha Pruitt: 10:05

Okay. So food you go to the grocery store, you spend your money on the thing value statement. You drive it home and you cook it and you spend time doing that value statement. And then you spoon or show?

Polly Mertens: 10:17

my into your mouth.

Samantha Pruitt: 10:18

How much of it how much of it at? A lot of time and what kind of environment, etc. So that’s a radical input that most of us do three to 10 times a day and you’re saying that directly aligns with the values of that human who made those choices values, identity, yeah, the worthiness all of it’s all interrelated. Okay, and I would say they’re making those choices and they’re either building up or breaking down their mental and physical health.

Polly Mertens: 10:46

So we would say, yeah, I like it as healthy or unhealthy standards, and then the harmful ones, you know. So healthier, unhealthy is this, and you know, enhancing my wellbeing or is this harming my wellbeing?

Samantha Pruitt: 11:00

So the first step is to take a look and be aware. Yeah Right, so I have some new rituals this last year I’ve done some work around food at the end of last year and I’m still doing it now and you’ve been a great influence in that way. So fun. But one of the things I do, for example, in the grocery stores, I carry one bag into my favorite grocery store. That, yes, I travel twice the distance to go to that grocery store, and sometimes I go even beyond that to get even higher quality products or whatever. But so I have some habits and things I’ve created for myself. So I became aware and then I decided to make some changes small, big, whatever based on my personal goals and my values, and then I created some systems around that.

Samantha Pruitt: 11:47

So, can you take somebody else on that journey around food in terms of, if they want to examine that, what would be a really simple way for them to do it? Just create awareness for them.

Polly Mertens: 11:59

Well, I would love to hear how you did it.

Samantha Pruitt: 12:01

So how did?

Polly Mertens: 12:02

you do it last year, so was there. So I think the first step you must have looked at were you having something going off the rails? Were you not feeling well? Were you frustrated? What brought about this?

Samantha Pruitt: 12:16

subtle awareness. Yeah, or did you have?

Polly Mertens: 12:18

a goal that you wanted to meet, or like somebody challenged you to something. Where did the first step of that come from for you?

Samantha Pruitt: 12:25

Yeah, so I’m a post-menopausal female 55 this year and over the course of the last couple years I’ve been doing a lot of work in education around hormones and stuff, so my body composition has changed because of all these reasons. It did make me become more aware of what I was taking in nutritionally and how that might impact my body composition. And most important for me is my physical performance as an athletic female.

Polly Mertens: 12:52

So I’m hearing three things. So you felt different in your body, like you just woke up and looked around at the body sack and went, oh, this is different than she’s looking a little different these days. The performance right, and that varies for people. Can you walk, can you run, can you lift Whatever, can you play with your kids? And then what was the third one? How you felt, like hormonally, like energy-wise.

Samantha Pruitt: 13:17

The third one was actually for my For education. You were getting education and kind of just starting to question and I dove into that education actually because of brain function. So I have a lot of people in my life and I’ve personally experienced anxiety and depression. I wanted to understand how holistically we could take a look at these arenas. And this is a whole other.

Polly Mertens: 13:39

I was just gonna say drop the name of the book.

Samantha Pruitt: 13:41

But in reading these books and educating myself in this space, it literally did blow my brain about how critical the nutritional element was to my mental health and the mental health of our society. So those were my main points, if you will. That drew me in.

Polly Mertens: 13:57

So it seemed like the root or the first Domino was the body didn’t feel good, the brain didn’t feel good, or something. It’s gonna get a little funky. Yeah, yeah, and you caught it, let’s say early enough, right, this wasn’t like you had a medical diagnosis of like dementia, not this time I’ve had those I’ve had those.

Samantha Pruitt: 14:17

I’ve had those. I’ve had those way go calls. I’m getting so much better at detecting things.

Polly Mertens: 14:24

The guardrails are much tighter on your train or where you’re, you know you’re getting off track. If you will in your road, nice yeah, and I think that’s true for a lot of people is you know. So I like this little analogy where we’re going with this. So you know if you’re driving down the road and you know on the left and the right of the road you’ve got little bumpers that start to make noise like you’re going off the road and it keeps you from going into the ditch. I eat, the doctor, the breakdown surgery, whatever the relationship break up something right, so it’s noticing it.

Polly Mertens: 14:58

When there’s the bump, bump, bumps, yes, you know. And so you had a bump, bump, bump, hey, and you went wait a minute here, that’s right, and your standard is I deserve to feel good in my body. Hell yeah, I deserve to operate and have a high functioning body. Hell, yeah, right, like how you see yourself. So you started to take some actions. And then what did you do next? So you started readings.

Polly Mertens: 15:22

You started like well, what’s going on here? Maybe this is a hormonal thing, Maybe it’s brain, maybe it’s body chemistry, you know things like that.

Samantha Pruitt: 15:27

Yeah, and based on what I learned and also what I observed in myself, which I think is also really important too. Right, we can learn lots of things.

Samantha Pruitt: 15:33

We can hear everything. There’s a lot of information out there. So A I like science-based information. Okay, also, I want to see how it is for me. So again, I’m a 55 year old, post-menopausal female in the world. My life is not the same as everybody else’s and nobody’s is. So, taking all those things into consideration, I did examine my nutritional habits, made some changes there. I definitely examined and totally changed how I do my sports performance nutrition, and then I really took a look at other habits and rituals I had around my standards about the type of food that I purchased or maybe how I cooked it or how I was eating it, etc. So kind of just looked at the whole thing and made some changes around that food piece.

Polly Mertens: 16:18

And you know what I want to just point out. As you’re talking, I’m hearing two key words jump out at me, and it’s ownership, responsibility. Yeah Right, like you took ownership of your body, you took ownership of how you wanted to feel, your perform, whatever you’re like, oh, and you took responsibility for doing something Like I’m going to look into this, what am I doing to myself? I take responsibility that maybe I haven’t been feeding this body or treating this body as well, or even being aware that I should be looking at hormones more deeply because of my age or whatever effect, or you’ve got history of such and such in your family or whatever. So you said I’m going to take ownership and responsibility and start going from there.

Samantha Pruitt: 17:02

Feeding this body is my responsibility. So, except when you are a baby and your parent is in charge of getting you 100% of your nutrition beyond that and that’s not the people listening to this podcast, so let’s just make sure they heard that again Feeding ourselves is our responsibility, you know I can’t help but interject.

Polly Mertens: 17:25

I just know so many couples that and it won’t get back to this. But or won’t get back to this. But forgive me, I’m going to just poo poo because I’ve got a couple of women in my life that I see that I’m thinking of her right now that they say, oh, I can’t make a change in my diet because they won’t let me or my partner won’t let me, partner won’t eat this or whatever.

Samantha Pruitt: 17:47

And my kids won’t eat this yeah.

Polly Mertens: 17:49

So they eat poorly. They make you know, they allow the people in their life. I’m like, wait, don’t you do the cooking, wait, don’t you like, do the shopping? Okay, you know, and I think ownership and responsibility need to. They need to get back their hands on the wheel of that car.

Samantha Pruitt: 18:05

And for all the people who don’t do the shopping and the cooking because they have a partner or they’re in an environment that somebody’s doing with them Speak up.

Samantha Pruitt: 18:13

Hello, you’re putting it in your mouth and it’s really about having conversations. So we want to empower people today to set their own standards around these elements and have the conversations and make the changes, because this is your life. You get one body and one brain and this is your life. Okay, that was a little off the rails. Let’s talk about the next one, which is ears. This is a fascinating thing to me. We talked a little bit about I have some boundaries around this stuff so you and the next one who got a lot of boundaries around.

Samantha Pruitt: 18:44

But so when we talk about ears, we talk about the sound, the words, the noises and the vibration that comes into our body and into every cell. Again, trillions of sounds through your ears. What are your thoughts on that piece?

Polly Mertens: 19:00

Well, it’s one of the most direct connections we have to the subconscious. So if we think about where the mind interprets through, all of our body interprets through our five senses. Basically, I think we have more senses than that because we have more bodies, but let’s just hone it in on those five senses. What you’re listening to is one of the fastest paths into the subconscious mind. So what are you feeding the subconscious mind? And the subconscious mind does have a filter, so it’s not like you’re a wide open doorway.

Polly Mertens: 19:32

Some people do but repetition, repetition, intensity, frequency, so how often you’re hearing those things, looking at those things, and when you take the emotional input at the same time. So let’s just say you’re A lot of people go to movies or watch television. You know so, if you see it, feel it and hear it, that’s three inputs at least that are going in and that creates an emotion. You know, like that creates a response, chemical response in the body and it starts to remember that. And if you keep doing that, so like about, you know, like. So the worst case for this you and I are big like anti-news watching or horror movies, or, you know, seeing people get killed on the screen or things that just don’t feel good, right, but to your point, auditory is one of the fastest inputs into the subconscious mind.

Samantha Pruitt: 20:24

I am not surprised at all because I’m so sensitive here and people think I’m kind of odd. But I gave you an example earlier of sometimes I can go into a store and the music is jarring me it’s literally jarring me and I leave the store. Or, like I gave another example, pulling up to a stoplight and the person next to me has her windows down and it’s full crank some rap, with noises and sounds.

Polly Mertens: 20:46

It’s just a different frequency. Yeah, exactly.

Samantha Pruitt: 20:49

And I literally have to roll up my windows and I want to run the red light, like I’m repelled away from those noises that cause a really negative vibration within me. I respond to that, do you?

Polly Mertens: 21:02

Yeah, I have to pay attention to it. You know, I think people just sort of allow inputs. You know, like, passively, they sit in conversations that they should get up and leave. Oh, that’s a great example, right, that’s a great example.

Samantha Pruitt: 21:14

That’s a great example.

Polly Mertens: 21:16

Yes, People dumping their daily dump list on them. Oh hey, can I get your ear for an hour To just listen to garbage? Now, I mean absolutely, Is it. If you have a friend that is in need, that’s totally different, you know. Okay, but people just sometimes put themselves in situations way more often than they need to hear things that they shouldn’t be hearing. You know when?

Samantha Pruitt: 21:45

people are talking crap. They’re literally shoveling crap into your body through your ears, eyes, whatever, yeah.

Polly Mertens: 21:52

I have had to have some conversations with people in my life and I say you know, in our calls I won’t tolerate, blame, complain or justify. Those are three of my no-go’s. So if I hear that more than you know, one or two times it’s like call’s over you know, and we might not talk for six months.

Polly Mertens: 22:09

I’m like no blame, complain or justifying, you know, I just keep it on a positive note or keep it in the direction. Now that’s not like, oh, you can’t talk about real stuff, but overall right. So that’s my personal standard. Like you were talking about the boundaries, like you roll up your windows, you leave a conversation, leave a table, and I mean the big thing. That really bugs me. You know, as you and I are both huge social justice people is. You know, when you hear people degrading others or it could be animals for me too you know, like animals, other people, anything social justice related, if you will. What are you tolerating? You know what you know. Should you speak up, should you leave that conversation?

Samantha Pruitt: 22:49

Don’t participate, things like that and what does that do? Those sounds as they come into your system. How do they?

Polly Mertens: 22:58

I think that’s for a whole nother body.

Samantha Pruitt: 23:02

You know, you and I because they do. I guess we just want to point out to people do you? Understand that those words, those sounds come into yourselves and they change the physical makeup of your body and brain. I mean we have to be honest, they do.

Polly Mertens: 23:17

The science is there, and I think what’s also a part of this that you and I touched upon at me we’ll just talk about it briefly is even the words we’re saying to ourselves. Let’s call it the self-talk. We wouldn’t say that that’s coming in through our ears, but you do kind of hear it. You know what I mean. It’s like it’s a conversation with yourself. You’re not hearing it from the outside, but you are hearing it from the inside. So what are your standards for your own internal dialogue, your own self-talk, your own? You know bitching about the world or bitching about other people, or allowing that, you know nasty person in your you know your mind to complain about, you degrade you, those sorts of things, right? So raising your standards in that inner conversation?

Samantha Pruitt: 24:02

This is because I play a lot in the you know sports and physical fitness arena. You do, too, and you have a unique way of doing your workouts, where you do listen to something, you intake some particular material, especially when you’re going to a challenging workout and you really want to take yourself to the next level. Can you talk about that? Because most people have earbuds on when they’re doing activities and I have a different story about mine, but I want to hear yours.

Polly Mertens: 24:32

Yeah, I’m not even quite sure how this relates to standards, but I totally appreciate you bringing this up so you know like you talk about. You go to the gym that you want, whatever. So, like when I’m going in for a workout, the place that I’m now at, in terms of how I want to perform and what I want to get out of a workout, I’m very time-based. I’m like max effort, minimal time, right, and I listen to a lot of I.

Polly Mertens: 24:59

So I learn I like I, I use my own. I YouTube Google, whatever you call it. I YouTube search for motivational, inspirational type conversations, videos, and they’re like pounding into my head, like crushing it. You know you’re a champion, whatever, and I soar you know. So like I want Do you have a favorite?

Polly Mertens: 25:20

Yeah, Well, like motorbird, yeah, I’ve got like three. Maybe I’ll drop them in the show notes, yeah, yeah, yeah. So there’s like a handful that I will allow to go into my and and the Be selective. And you know what’s interesting? And there’s science behind this. We don’t have to go into it deeply, but what the person is thinking and saying to themselves, let’s, let’s say, let’s just take a brief example and this isn’t scientific, but there is science behind how this works is if you are saying, let’s say you’re, you’re trying to lift a dumbbell, right, and normally let’s say, without thinking, kind of thinking about it, you can, and I’m just going to use a women’s weight, 15 pounds, you can just sort of bicep curl 15 pounds.

Polly Mertens: 25:58

If you start saying to yourself I, I, you’re ugly, I hate you, you know, just start like a lower vibration, self-talk, like literally, your muscles will respond and you can’t, you can’t lift, you can’t lift as much. The opposite is true. Also, I utilize these empowering conversations that are being fed into my that, I feed into my mind, so I can be stronger. Like I get up there and I’m like I put it you know, I put it more than I think I can lift and I go, let me see if I can do it right, Cause that’s the state that I’m in, based on what I’m listening to, or, like you said, auditorially when I’m taking in.

Samantha Pruitt: 26:35

Yeah, that’s fun. Peptalk is a fun app people can check out. That’s why, just based on what you’re doing, I thought I would investigate a little bit. Peptalk for me interesting with the audio and doing activity, especially in ultra running or ultra distance any of the things. I prefer not to have audio inputs, not just for safety out on the trail, on the road. Those are obvious things people should have awareness on, but I prefer to have awareness about what’s going on in my own body and brain and be able to process through thoughts and emotions by myself. In those opportunities and sometimes later in a race, I might put in music if I’m in a super deep pain cave, but in my last couple of ultras the reverse happened. I had that music ready.

Polly Mertens: 27:23

I was ready like I gotta fire myself up.

Samantha Pruitt: 27:24

I gotta get in and kind of suck it up mindset. I put the earbuds in and I couldn’t handle the energy to be clear, the energy that was coming into my body through my ears while I was in such an extreme circumstance. It caused overload and I actually rejected them, took them out and didn’t wear them at all, isn’t?

Polly Mertens: 27:48

that fascinating, for makes full sense, makes full sense, yeah, so I think you know. So was there another one more, one more Visual.

Samantha Pruitt: 27:58

You touched on it earlier, so eyeballs, eyeballs, eyeballs. Yeah, what am I looking at on TV?

Polly Mertens: 28:05

you know, on my phone, whatever in my room? What am I already? In my purse, in my car, In my bathroom? The trash, whatever you know.

Samantha Pruitt: 28:15

And taking all of that in and recognizing that when you’re putting things in through your eyeballs again, there is a standard. What am I willing to expose myself to, if you will? What am I willing to expose these eyeballs to today that are either building health in my body and mind or actually breaking down and generating disease states. And you mentioned that yourself. About the news specifically, you and I are not news participating human beings, but just in general, the media.

Samantha Pruitt: 28:50

Right, we have to have awareness and there’s lots of shows out there and different things that are incredibly violent against animals, against humans, against you know, they’re just atrocities. The planet, yeah, the planet, yeah, for sure, and putting that into your brain every day. We are asking people to become aware and perhaps examine if those are standards they wanna live their life by, because that’s basically what they’re telling their brain. I accept inhumane acts, degradation of other humans, this kind of toxic input. I accept it into me.

Polly Mertens: 29:26

I think you can, you know, relate this. So, as we’re talking about standards, we started with talking about the food standards, like what are you willing to consume? You know through your mouth, smoke, drink, eat. What have you? And the same holds true for what are your standards, for what are you willing to expose your eyes to?

Samantha Pruitt: 29:43

right.

Polly Mertens: 29:44

And all of those things, all of those inputs affect your state, like how you feel in your day, in your life, in your body. So, just as you can affect what you reach for in terms of what you put on the plate or your fork or in your mug, you can look at what stations you tune into auditorially, what podcasts you listen to, what visuals you know those sorts of things. So good vibes yeah, examin’ it now, so all right, so how?

Samantha Pruitt: 30:13

do we help yeah?

Polly Mertens: 30:14

tools, how do we help? So you gave some example of how you went through it, for how you started to change, upgrade your standards. So what did that look like for you? When you talked about? You know you had some hormonal, some physical. What did you notice that you shifted or changed from last year to this year, and how are you taking that forward?

Samantha Pruitt: 30:36

So in the what I put in my mouth, I definitely examined how I go shopping, where I go shopping and what I purchase. So if I’m investing my time and energy and money into those things that are gonna eventually make their way into my mouth, I have really become much more aware and conscientious about making choices that align with my values. So this is no judgment around. How you know, are you on, are you?

Polly Mertens: 31:02

whatever this diet or whatever.

Samantha Pruitt: 31:03

It’s not about that at all. I don’t think that way about like the polarized, you know. So awareness and making choices for me.

Polly Mertens: 31:13

And same years, I already was pretty tapped into and I already have great sensitivity and boundaries there and I would say you probably what you may notice, like and I don’t know how you prefer, but like you know how they say that people are either visual, audio or kinesthetic. So you might be auditory, you know, since you’re so energetically triggered by audio, that might be how you learn or listen or take in more information, you know, and some people are more kinesthetic, you know, so they energetically feel it, or something like they go into a room that can really feel the vibration of people and stuff like that.

Samantha Pruitt: 31:45

I have that too, though, and I’ve literally left rooms. I definitely have left many gyms, and when a pandemic happened and I moved here and I was looking for, went to a lot of different gyms, and so I’m where I am now, because literally walking into that gym created the vibration that is to my standard, and I wanted to help contribute to raising that vibration, and so that’s how I feel about it.

Polly Mertens: 32:09

So I think, if we look at this, as you know, standards are what are minimally acceptable to you. Okay, let’s just say, like that’s your minimum, your baseline. So you know, what are you tolerating or settling for are great examples to, as you look at, an examined life. So how are you allowing yourself to feel? What activities are you allowing yourself to do or not? Do you know? Are they healthy or unhealthy? You know, are those standards, you know, encouraging your wellbeing or are they taking away from your wellbeing, or are they harmful?

Samantha Pruitt: 32:41

You know like, are you?

Polly Mertens: 32:42

actually inflicting harm upon yourself? How about the people in your life? So what are your standards for the people that you will be around? Who?

Samantha Pruitt: 32:50

expose yourself to.

Polly Mertens: 32:51

The places that you go, like you talked about your grocery store, your gym, things like that. Places could be the places that you’ve chosen the car that you drive, the clothes that you wear, the house that you live in, things like that. And then activities what are you doing or not doing?

Samantha Pruitt: 33:05

So you know, I would just say you know we can just lay this out there it feels overwhelming.

Polly Mertens: 33:11

There’s so much. Well, I would say, start with the areas that you’re feeling some frustration breakdown Like for you it was last year. You’re like, hmm, not getting the performance that I want, don’t feel so good in my body, right. So what area of your life, if you were to examine?

Samantha Pruitt: 33:25

it feels imbalanced feels or no longer feels good. Yeah, it’s not, you deserve to feel good?

Polly Mertens: 33:31

Exactly, we would think so. So that’s a good place to start Is where don’t I feel good, energized or good or improved, in the series what’s what? Where’s a breakdown? And it might be super obvious, like people might have some freaking clearing stop signs, you know, or red lights going off and their car, their house or the relationship or their body or whatever. But so examining something in your life that’s not, and start with that, right, and there’s tools and resources we can help people if they want coaching on. You know, I don’t feel good in a lot of areas of my life or I’ve just, you know we talked in other episodes about, like the breakdowns and, you know, blowing up our old life and our old identity.

Samantha Pruitt: 34:12

And we’ve been doing this in the business space with a couple groups we’re working with currently and the team created inside of their team culture inside of their company culture yes.

Polly Mertens: 34:23

So this translates 100 percent.

Samantha Pruitt: 34:25

Yes, it does 100 percent.

Polly Mertens: 34:26

Standards exist within companies that, just as they exist within families and communities, culturally, and your personal right. So start with yourself, though I have a feeling a lot of people should probably be taking a longer look at themselves. But if it’s your business or something you see, maybe it’s a standard thing, right. So what are you tolerating If you’re not getting the results that you want? Things don’t feel good in a certain area, people aren’t driving communications, breaking down whatever. So start with the examining it, yeah. And then you know what would you like it to be? What would you know as you examine and oftentimes you know this can be so clear it could be well, this sucks, so what’s the opposite of that? You know. So what would you like it to be? What would be the standard or the value that you want to create for yourself, right.

Polly Mertens: 35:09

And then it comes to a decision you know like for you, I’m going to eat this much, I’m not going to eat this much, I’m going to shop here, I’m not going to shop, whatever you know. So it’s a decision. And then it’s daily decisions thereafter, right. So, like you, reinforce that next decision. Like, this is my new standard for myself, for the people I live with, I work with, whatever, and then it’s the daily decisions to reinforce that new standard. So I think we should wrap this party up, close it up, yeah, so let’s, let’s leave you with one thing.

Polly Mertens: 35:42

One thing if you get nothing out of this, but one thing we hope you got a lot out of this. The one thing I would say is pause and ask yourself what am I tolerating? And since I’m living a deliberately lived life, what update or upgrade am I going to make to my personal standards? Right?

Samantha Pruitt: 36:01

Exactly, exactly, and I would just put out my question that I prompt earlier to the audience was you know, do you have awareness around how these inputs are affecting your mental and physical health? Are you making choices that are building up your mental and physical health or breaking them down? For sure, for sure.

Polly Mertens: 36:24

All right. Well, let’s wrap this up, my dear. Anything you want to leave them with, I do. I have something.

Samantha Pruitt: 36:29

I might say today hey, beautiful humans, how your body and life feel are way more important than how it looks.

Polly Mertens: 36:37

And every day is your opportunity to find your awesome.

Samantha Pruitt: 36:40

Okay, let’s do this.