Surviving the Side Hustle

From Childhood Challenges to Empowered Living: Lolita's Guide to Thriving

• Season 1 • Episode 76

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What if the key to overcoming stress and achieving well-being lies not in grand gestures, but in embracing small, intentional changes? Join us as we sit down with Lolita, a best-selling author and stress management coach, who shares her compelling journey from a tumultuous upbringing in Lithuania to discovering her path to the American dream. Lolita candidly recounts her personal battles with chronic stress and anxiety, rooted in her childhood experiences. She invites us to reconsider how we view productivity, revealing drug-free strategies that emphasize the power of self-regulation and recognizing inherited patterns. Through her insights, we learn that managing stress doesn't have to be overwhelming—it's about making small lifestyle tweaks that can lead to profound improvements in our mental health.

This episode goes beyond traditional self-care, urging us to take intentional breaks and recognize the societal pressures that often prioritize productivity over well-being. Lolita helps us uncover how deeply ingrained childhood patterns can manifest as burnout and overwork in adulthood. She discusses the human need for love and acceptance, and how we often chase achievements in search of self-worth. With strategies focused on gratitude, self-appreciation, and celebrating personal milestones, Lolita provides actionable advice to help break cycles of stress. Tune in as we explore ways to foster resilience and self-recognition, offering a roadmap to not just surviving, but thriving in a demanding world.

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Speaker 1:

what's up everybody today on the show we've got lolita. How are you doing calling in today from houston right is that?

Speaker 2:

I believe that's where you're located yes, well, thank you so much for inviting of course, of course.

Speaker 1:

um, I'm excited to kind of dive in and hear a little bit more about your story uh, maybe some struggles you've gone through and hear a little bit about your secrets that you've got. So my understanding is you're a best-selling author, stress management coach and a speaker and you focus on drug-free stress management and healing childhood trauma. I'm excited to dive in.

Speaker 2:

Well, it could be for those who just started listening in and they're like what she's going to talk about? Childhood trauma. I don't want to hear about it. Please don't get scared. We all have traumas, okay, just some of us have deeper, some of us more shallow, but I think human experience being born itself is very dramatic and traumatic. So, but as I say, stress should not be so stressful to manage.

Speaker 1:

As I say, stress should not be so stressful to manage. All right, I like that, all right. So how about we just dive in with? How did you get into stress management?

Speaker 2:

So for those who are listening in and they're trying to guess, where is my accent from, so I'm from Lithuania. I came 25 years ago to US and I came from my American dream because I heard that money, just you know, grows on trees. So I figured I'm just going to go to that forest. Well, but, all jokes aside, I knew that that was an opportunity for me to work and make money and have my American dream. And when I came here, I immediately started working, you know, as much as possible.

Speaker 2:

And when I, after college, I went to work for the corporate and hitting it it doesn't matter where you work, you could be burnout, stressed out, no matter where you work, you know you could be working for a big corporation or you can work for yourself. I think when you're working for yourself is even worse, because then you work 24-7. So I was working very hard, I was trying to prove myself to my supervisors, my parents, to anyone, and I'm like I can do this and I was working for 12 hours and whatever, and there was just physically not enough time to take care of myself. I mean, it's like what gym are you talking about? Or like healthy eating gym are you talking about, you know, or like healthy eating what are you talking about? To the point that it really influenced my body and my hormones and I had to be rushed to emergency room in like in my you know 30s and I'm like wait, I'm young, I'm not supposed to be getting sick. You know what is that? So, when pretty much I'm being told that it was happening because of my stress levels, I did learn a lot of new tricks and I implemented new habits, what they call a stress management bandages, like, oh, you need to exercise, you need to eat nutrition food and all this.

Speaker 2:

But I kind of felt like there was not enough, there was something missing, and at the time I already and I've been in coaching and stress management, all this thing over 10 years now I was reading a book about how to grow your coaching clients and the author said that she grew up with a father who was alcoholic. And it was like wait a minute, my dad was alcoholic. I had no idea. Apparently, I have a problem with that. So I realized that, because I grew up in this dysfunctional family, just in this dysfunctional environment, where I didn't feel safe because I mean, I don't know what my dad's going to be doing today. I was afraid to go back home after school, that apparently I always was in the state of anxiousness, and so that was my normal state, which is not normal state, it's constant survival.

Speaker 2:

So when I came here to this country and then I was totally burning myself down because I wanted to achieve those goals, they just added on top of it, and that's when my body said wait a minute. You know, we cannot do this anymore. And I think going to medication is the worst thing that you can do, because when you look at the nature, there is always something's happening that's stressful. I mean, when you walk on the path, you see the grass growing to the concrete. I mean I bet it was not an easy thing to grow, but it still did it. So I'm like, okay, I need to really investigate in things.

Speaker 2:

Or why is that we behave the way we behave? What are the patterns that we learn from our parents? How to manage that stress? That's really what's determining our health level.

Speaker 2:

So that's why I say when oh, you go do yoga, you know, like I mean, when you're with a client and they're complaining and you cannot really calm them down and you get yourself anxious and stressed out. There's no way you're going to tell them hey, can you hold a second, I'm going to run to my yoga class for 15 minutes and I'll be right back. So that means you. Hey, can you hold a second? I'm going to run to my yoga class for 15 minutes and I'll be right back. So that's me. You need to know how to self-regulate that moment. So there's a multiple layers that has to do with stress management. And then now I'm just, as you can tell, I'm very passionate about sharing to everyone that stress management should not be so stressful and we think it's just such a big thing that it has to be such a big thing to heal it. But it takes really few tweaks in your life that you can see the change immediately.

Speaker 1:

Now. So I got to ask. So I think you said it in the beginning the stress isn't bad, it's just like being able to manage it. Do people, do you? Because I imagine people are looking to just totally eliminate stress and I know there's different kinds of stress too. Can you share a little bit about that, maybe to help clarify for certain individuals who might not know, actually, that there are different kinds of stresses and things?

Speaker 2:

So living life without stress, that's like almost impossible, you know. And when they do, especially speaking events, I have some usually older gentlemen that come to me and they say I am stress free. And then they say well, how come you're wearing clothes? Well, because it's cold outside. Oh, you mean your body was stressing. That's why you put some clothes on, because being cold is also stressing to your body.

Speaker 2:

So there's no way to live without stress and we also need stress in order. For us, it's kind of like if you're tired, let's say you feel discomfort, and that's what the body says okay, you need to go and lay down and sleep now. It's just like a maintenance, it's like a warning sign, like, hey, you're doing something that does not agree with the body. Hence you need to go and help yourself in order to maintain your body Because, as we know, the body keeps the score, and obviously mental state as well. And for those, you know, who are thinking that we need and here's the hustle mentality in our society is like no, you need to go and you need to do it, you need to bulldoze yourself into success. I do. I agree with the part that nothing happens out of nowhere. You do need to make sure that you do your share. You put your timing. You need to do things.

Speaker 2:

But also you have to ask yourself why am I doing this? Whatever that you're doing it, is you're doing this because you cannot live without that thing, or you're doing this because that's what is going to be accepted by society, or accepted by your parents or by your spouse or whoever? Or is that you're like I want to make money, no matter what it's like? Is that's really true calling? Because you know, when we're doing something that we love doing, we can't be doing 10 hours and the time just passes by. It's like, oh my gosh, that was great.

Speaker 2:

Oh, what a time went, because you were enjoying this. So when you're doing this, your body takes this as hey, this is cool. So you're not really influencing the body. I was like, oh my God, this is so stressful. But body, I was like, oh my God, this is so stressful. But if you're doing something that is really disagree with you inside and then you're just bulldozing yourself into it, that you will see it in your body as later on, if you do not address it, will become as a disease, and when you're in the hospital, that's too late really to address it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah. Well, as humans we are pretty resilient and we can handle a lot of different things that life throws at us. But so that we don't get to that point where we are in the hospital, what are some of the common signs and signals that you might see from individuals who are like okay, maybe you should take this a little more serious and maybe you should start to pay attention or at least take a little more active approach to your stress management?

Speaker 2:

So everything starts with a little annoyance. It's like, oh, I really don't want to do this. And there is this inside voice that says, oh, the way I want to do things really doesn't agree with me, the way I want to do things really doesn't agree with me. So that means you need to ask yourself what is that? Is there that does not allow me to do this task? For example and this is where we really need to question ourselves, like what I don't like.

Speaker 2:

I don't like the way I'm going to do this thing, I don't like what it will bring me, I don't like whatever, because it could be multiple beliefs that let's say I don't want whatever, because it could be multiple beliefs that let's say, I don't want to be successful because everybody in my family are losers. So if I will be successful, then well, you know the fear of success. Then they will exclude me from the family and we humans like to be, like we need to belong to a group. So we become like this, fearful or fear of abandonment. So then we will hold ourselves back. So if there's something that you holding yourself back and you're stressing doing it, you really need to ask yourself why am I really doing this and we really need to find a way to do it. Also, it could be that maybe you don't need to do this. You just can delegate or hire somebody to do that task and do things that you like to do. It's all about how much of energy that you're putting in and the reason why that you're actually doing it.

Speaker 1:

Could you share a little bit on some of the easy practices that you help individuals with when they first come into your world? What are some of the entry-level stress management tactics or practices that you introduce?

Speaker 2:

Just taking a simple break and putting yourself on a calendar. I already can feel a lot of listeners rolling their eyes at me right now, like when am I going to do this? I have clients who come to me. They're like I'm stressed out, burnout, I don't know what to do. I'm running three companies, I have five're like I'm stressed out, burnout, I don't know what to do. I'm running three companies, I have five kids and I'm a single mother. And I tell them well, you need to pencil yourself in the calendar. And they're like are you out of your mind? I don't have time for this. And then I'm like okay, why you don't have time for this? Because I have to take care of so many things. I with so many things. I'm like okay, so when you will be in the hospital, who's going to take care of all of those things? So the first thing is we need to understand that we need to take care of ourselves first in order to take care of everybody else, and we don't need to take a retreat every weekend although would that be nice, but like taking a single break. And I like this visual.

Speaker 2:

I read in some book somewhere. It says the teacher was holding the glass of water in front of the class and she was asking the students how heavy is it? And you know they were drawing random numbers and the teacher said it depends how long I'm going to hold it. That's the same as with stress and, like I mentioned, stress management should not be stressful.

Speaker 2:

Just giving yourself a little break and reward and doing something that you like will make a huge difference in your life. So, for example, we always have our phone on. How about if we put like a timer and then you know if you don't want to do it every hour, that's okay, maybe every few hours, and then whenever it rings, you're like okay, I'm going to close my eyes. If you're really working a lot with eyes, typing and stuff, and you just breathe in, breathe out and you give yourself one minute. Or you stand up, walk around, drink, just do a little break. Stand up, walk around, drink, just do a little break. That little break will help you in two ways. Number one you're just telling yourself that you're honoring your own needs. You are not abandoning yourself, meaning you're giving yourself trust in yourself. And that resilience meaning when you will be maybe stressing out about something in the future, you already have more confidence that you will be managing that better because you know you can rely on yourself.

Speaker 2:

Number two when you take a little break you give yourself. Well, it's a break. Uh, like you know, putting the glass down, you can do it all day long. So now, now, who? Those who? It's a very easy test, you know, this is what they tell my new clients, and I say all right, those who just and now, that's that's for those who are listening in. When I just said that you should take one minute, let's say every hour, how did that make you feel? If you thought to yourself, oh, that's easy to do, I totally can pencil this in in my schedule, that's great, let's do this.

Speaker 2:

But if you thought to yourself, well, this is stupid, or I don't even have one minute, then you need to ask yourself why. Why, taking care of my own needs is shameful. Do I believe that I'm going to look like I'm lazy? Am I afraid that somebody is going to see it and call me some names and say look at him, he's not working and all we hear hustling. Or you feel like I have to constantly perform and constantly be working, otherwise I will not be loved. So then it will be all those questions we need to ask ourselves, and then we'll go to the real issue of a burnout, which I call running after horizon. You never can reach a horizon. You keep running and running, and running and you need to ask yourself why am I running for?

Speaker 1:

wow, that's, that's some good stuff. Like it's like the uh uh pot of gold at the end of a rainbow never quite get there and catch it. Uh, I got it. So I'm so, I'm interested. Because what do you? I'm sure you work with individuals who different all different kinds of stress levels and intensities and different things and stressors. What do you? What do you do when you talk to somebody who is they've got so much stress and they've got so many different things going on, but they're like, nah, it's okay, cause I just binge watching Netflix, or that's okay, I have a couple of drinks every night, or or why can't I just take, like, some medicine or something like that?

Speaker 2:

You know, I hear a lot of when. You know I'm in some networking event, I'm talking with somebody who just meet me the first time, you know, and the question is so, what do you do? And I'm like, yeah, I'm a stress management coach or whatever. And they're like, oh, yeah, I just have a glass of wine at the end of the day and I'm fine. It's like, yeah, you know medicating yourself. This is great.

Speaker 2:

But also we need to realize that in our society, to say I'm stressed out and burnout is like a badge of honor. It's like, oh, then you are sacrificing yourself. Good for you. And it's like, at the end of the day, no, it's not really good for you, because if you get sick, your family and the people around you will be really suffering. Also, for example, let's say there is a parent who continuously working, and working, and working. There is a damage caused to kids not being there for them. So then you're already influencing the relationship between you and your child or between your loved ones, because you're not there for them. Just because you're a workaholic, and you think like, especially for men, because, uh, men's stress levels are regulated by testosterone, and uh, it's like, well, when I have more money, I have a status, you know. Then I'm worthy to be loved.

Speaker 2:

And I love the Dr Gabor Mate I'm probably pronouncing his name wrong. I love how he explained. He said when you were growing up, if you are not appreciated and seen for who you are and just love just the way you are, you're goofy, you're whatever. If you didn't get that approval from your parents and validation, you will think, okay, they don't love me, I'm not lovable, so I need to be fed. I don't want to die, so I'm going to become useful, I will become funny, I will become successful, I'm going to perform, I'm going to be this, I'm going to become the proof that I'm worthy of keeping it. I'm worthy of keeping it, I'm worthy of being fed.

Speaker 2:

So then we grew up into adulthood and there's a lot of this bulldozing. It's like we all want to be loved and appreciated who we want to be, no matter what country we live, no matter religion, color, no matter. That's a human need to be accepted and loved and seen for who we are. So if we come from the environment that we will be loved only when we're successful, when we have this trophy, when we have something else, then we're going to run towards the horizon in order to be loved and seen and appreciated. But the sad part is that even though we already got those rewards, it's never enough, because having a reward is not really giving us that self-worth and being seen and appreciated and loved, and that's where the true burnout happens.

Speaker 1:

Wow, yeah, so you really dive in a lot deeper than just stress management techniques. You're going into like psychology, mindset stuff and and a lot of things with your clients, aren't you? So?

Speaker 2:

yeah, compasses a lot and everything is, um, everything is serves its purpose. So, when you know, that's the one of the questions that some kind of don't like, when I start asking and I guess I'm really shooting myself on the foot here for those who want to book a session with me, I always say, you know, they complain, complain and they say, well, how is that serving you? It's like no, it's not serving me. What are you talking about? Like no, no, there is a reason why you're doing this, because we always. There's always a reason why we do things. Even, you know, I say it's kind of tragic, but they say we're eager to kill ourselves in order to survive.

Speaker 1:

Wow, wow, I had to sit with that for a second there, that's, that's, that's true.

Speaker 2:

We are really, uh, go, go, go, go, just to kind of ruin ourselves but talking about, like other stress management things, especially for those who are really burnt out and running after that horizon, it is very important already to reward yourself and acknowledge how far you already went through and how many things you experienced, how far you're already up to that mountain. And it's the sad part is that for those who and I'm one of them, that's why I know what I'm talking about you know like you keep going and going and going, but then when you do something and you think, oh, it's worthless, you know it's like, for example, I'm a four times bestselling author, right For me. It's like people are like, oh my gosh, you did this. I'm like, yeah, okay, well, that's fine, but that's not good because we need to put that in ourselves and say, wow, we need to take credits, we need to celebrate ourselves and somebody who comes from the environment where they've not been seen and celebrated.

Speaker 2:

The sad part is that we parent ourselves the same way as our parents parented us. So how your parents talk to you, you're talking to yourself. So when you do not appreciate yourself and you do not really give yourself reward and credit, you're like continuously running to fill that gap, when it's actually you already have something that you just need to start appreciating yourself. So one of the things that I ask my clients to do in the first hour before our first session, I say sit down and write it down, all of the things that you already accomplished and I learned this from Jack Canfield. It's not like mind strategy, but it's so important because you need to take credit for it and you need to look at that list and remind yourself how many things already you know went over like even fears, like oh, I was afraid of flying. Now I don't Even small things, like now I'm walking around the block and I'm not used to do that and appreciating already how much you already accomplished that no-transcript.

Speaker 1:

So I got two questions that I kind of want to dive in, because I was somebody where it was for the longest time. It was uncomfortable for me to kind of brag about myself or like to at least acknowledge certain things, so like whenever stuff would come up or somebody would show appreciation to me. It was uncomfortable for me and it was easier for me to just dismiss it and kind of move on to. The next thing is is that similar to to just not like, not show, not getting the appreciation, because it was almost for me?

Speaker 2:

it was like having too much attention or too much appreciation towards me made me feel uncomfortable yeah, well, that's really comes from, um, being like fear of of exclusion, fear of abandonment because you're different, especially if somebody grows up with the siblings and you know like parents say, no, we need to be all the same, everybody gets the same and like for procrastination why there are so many people, and I myself too, like you mentioned, I just sit on and watch netflix for like six episodes, you know, till three o'clock in the morning because I don't want to finish the email they want to send something.

Speaker 2:

It isn't, it is. It is not that we lazy, it is serving as the purpose of if you, let's see, did something amazing good when you were a child and you were not being celebrated, rewarded or worse, you've been kind of put into shame that you were better than your brother, you were better than your sister and you just not being rewarded but actually punished, you will be afraid to finish those tasks that will put you farther ahead, because you don't want to be punished, you don't want to be shamed, you don't want to be different, because that also comes to a loyalty to your tribe. Otherwise, if you're different, you'd be excluded and hence you die wow, yeah, that that makes a lot of sense actually.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for for bringing attention to that and clearing that up. Um, you we, before we forward that first question, first part there started talking about how you have clients who are interested in working with you. Kind of sit down and kind of writing out like a list of achievements and things like that. Um, I do something very similar every morning, except it's gratitude. So how does that fit into everything?

Speaker 2:

Oh, that's definitely you know. Since you already mentioned the first thing we wake up, we need to immediately go into gratitude, because that just sets the rest of the day for something amazing. And you know, I was just listening yesterday to Jordan Spence and he said if you are grateful for 15 minutes a day, or like three times a week, it's like immediately giving yourself a shot and your immune system immediately gets stronger, so you'll get less colds and flus, because that's the high vibration, that's being appreciative, that's, you know, having a positive talk with yourself. And the best thing is having a bad expectation. And what comes to stress management, the worries, all of those stressing out about the future, it is because we are afraid that we will not be able to control it. Hence it will hurt us. We don't feel safe. But if you feel gratitude, what you already have, you're just giving yourself. You know, being more trustworthy and trusting in your own abilities, that you will face, no matter what will happen. So the more grateful you are, the less you'll be worried about the future.

Speaker 1:

Wow, that's awesome. So the more grateful, the more gratitude that you practice really helps build the resilience so that you can handle more stuff and then you can go and be more successful and then just be more grateful for it and then it's kind of like a cheat code right there. I like that. That's awesome. Well, Lilia, I feel like you're sharing so much information, so much great tactics and strategies and just great information. I really appreciate you sharing all this stuff with us. Where do people go and are you picking on new clients? Are you available for people who are interested to kind of share some time with you?

Speaker 2:

Yes, so I do get. I have a one-on-one coaching. You're welcome to go to my website beamazingyoucom and book a session. I also started three or four months ago a podcast called From Stress to Success Blueprint. It's on Spotify and YouTube. It's every episode every single day, under 10 minutes. For those who like eh, I don't really want to go into my chahutrama now doing one-on-one sessions and on my podcast I just share some. You know it's a deep dive but with very targeted tips and tricks and it's under 10 minutes because, to be honest, you know everybody's busy and we don't have time listening for two hours podcast. So I know that and I always just give like this little bite. And for those who love books, I published a book seven years ago, chris stress, while you work. Also last year I published stress management for adult children of alcoholics and actually just last week accompanying book stress management journal for adult children of alcoholics just came live on Amazon.

Speaker 1:

Wow, awesome, awesome, awesome. There you go. Yeah, I definitely love the shorter podcast. It helps, it's easier to digest, it's easier to just zoom, trade up, and then I end up getting stressed out. If I start to digest, it's easier to just zoom, trade up, and then I end up getting stressed out if I start to see there's too many podcasts. Then I'm like, oh, I don't have enough time to listen to this whole two hour thing. So I love it when it's a little bit shorter. That's awesome. Well, I seriously appreciate so much. This was a powerful episode and I really love all of this stuff here. But before I let you go, I got to ask you if you were to drop everything all your tips, all your strategies, everything you know down into one piece of advice for somebody to help them reduce their stress. What would that be?

Speaker 2:

I would say don't be ashamed of putting your self-love first, because when you feel yourself, then you can feel others.

Speaker 1:

Boom, I love that. Yeah, can't pour from a cup. I love that. Well thank you so much. This was great, really powerful episode. I appreciate it and I appreciate you taking the time to spend with me today to get this recorded. Thank you so much. Thank you for inviting All right guys, that's it Powerful episode, Talk to you guys the time to spend with me today to get this recorded. Thank you so much. Thank you for inviting All right guys. That's it, Powerful episode. Talk to you guys next time. Peace, peace, peace.