Stop Chasing Balance and Learn to Live a Well Rounded Life You Love || with Geomyra Pollard

Where to start, how to surrender, and figure out what matters, then what matters the most.

Do you ever feel a bit like a hamster on a wheel? If you're exhausted from the juggling act that is "balance," it's time to try something different. You likely know what matters, but what matters the most? You might get your answer when you stop chasing balance, and learn to live a well rounded life.

Geomyra Pollard shares the very vulnerable reasons that she knew something had to give, which propelled her towards what she describes as living well rounded. Faced with losing her mother to cancer, entering new motherhood herself, plus her own health issues, Geomyra is no stranger to struggle. It's in how she's chosen to show up to her life that we can be inspired.

From mindset shifts, to permission to carve out space, and even a super practical tip you can do right away, you'll finish this episode ready to jump off the hamster wheel and into a life you love.

About a few other things...

Reclaim your creative power and rediscover who you actually are! If you’re ready to come back home to yourself, to be able to say that you know who you are and what matters to you, take my foundation course, “Finding Me.” It’s OK that you’ve lost parts of yourself along the way; but as you learn to anchor back into who you are and align your life to what matters to you, you’ll find that you have more strength, more fulfilment, and more creativity to bring to your important roles and responsibilities.

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SHOW NOTES
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Songs Credit: Pleasant Pictures Music Club

TRANSCRIPT

Monica: Geomyra Pollard. Welcome to the show.

Geomyra: Thank you for having me. I'm looking forward to our conversation.

Monica: Well, I've been digging into your podcast and everything you're doing. And I just think this is what my community needs. I get a lot of questions about balance. Like how do I, how do I get my balance, Monica? That's why I was so thrilled to have you on today because we're going to be kind of breaking this apart.

Just what balance really is and, and what women can do to, to really work on, not balance with something else I want you to introduce them to, but let's start by asking about that. Like why is balance and the way that we view balance something that women really can put aside and what could they be focusing more on?

Geomyra: Oh, I love this question. So I always say that balance doesn't exist. And I say that in the sense of, when it becomes a situation where you're trying to compare and put on the same level, work and family, and the way that my personal values and morals are set up is that family is always gonna come before work.

At the end of the day. If you have to make a decision, you're going to choose your family. And so when you think of trying to put them on even playing field, we're already setting ourselves up for failure because our family is always going to have one leg up. Right. So instead of just trying to chase balance and trying to chase the status quo, I decided years ago that I was going to do things a new way and try to live well-rounded.

And so my company business every day, Let me well-rounded with Geomyra and the idea behind it is that we can focus on what matters most, instead of trying to just focus on all the things, coming our way, all the things on our plates, how do we prioritize to focus on what matters most and more importantly, what matters most in this particular season?

Because seasons change. Things change. So we have to be able to pivot, shift, make adjustments so that the things that are our top priorities are always being taken care of and not just trying to be we're all over the place. So balance to me does not exist, but there are ways that we can live a more well-rounded life and not a life of trying to chase after that work-life balance. Long answer to your question. Again, I just want people to understand that trying to chase balance, we're setting ourselves up for failure.

Monica: I think that really is turning things on its head for good reason. And it's so refreshing to hear that because either way, we're going to be finding ourselves failing. If we think that's the way it has to look. we might as well do it our way. And that's what well-rounded seems like to me, I'm really curious more about what well-rounded looks like for you, but I actually first want to dig into the curiosity I have about your own story behind this.

Like, why did this become more of a focus for you?

Geomyra: For me I believe that it became more of a focus for a few, few reasons, actually. Let's see, my mother had passed away from cancer, breast cancer, and when she passed away, it was very sudden it was only an eight months battle. So it was a lot going on in that time. And I was also, I had also had my daughter.

So in that season I was a new mom and I was also caring for a cancer patient. And when you lose your parents, my mom was 50 when she passed away. And to me, that's young. So when you lose a parent that is young and you lose them in a sense where it feels sudden, you really start to think about, okay, how am I going to live my life?

How am I gonna make an impact. How am I going to just make the best use of my days here on earth? Because losing my mom whose life was thriving up until that diagnosis, it just feels like, okay, a reminder that tomorrow's not promised. And so I decided, you know what? I need to shift some things. I need to figure out how I'm going to spend time with my family.

That was new at the time I, I was recently married, had a baby and I wanted them to make sure that they knew I was present. That they knew they were a priority, but I'm also a person that loves the work that I do. So I wanted to make sure that I was giving my clients the best attention and also just growing a business that I love so much.

So I had to make a decision on how I'm going to make all these components work together in a rhythm. I can do all the things that I love, take care of the people that I love and also nourish a business that I love. So that was one thing losing my mom. It was the eye-opener like, okay, we need to really figure out how we're going to make the days count.

And then for myself also I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and with that condition it also reminded me that I don't have the days, like I used to have where I could get up and just run around like Tasmanian devil and you know, just crazy the way I used to work. When I look back now, I literally have to listen to my body.

Listen to what I can do and what feels good and know that I have to surrender because every day is not going to be a good day. So when you know that some of your days are limited, it really makes you just come out with a bang on the days that you do feel good. So all of those things definitely impacted how I move and how I encourage other people to move, knowing that things can change at any moment.

Monica: Well, thank you for being so open with that really difficult time in your life and what you're still, you know, experiencing now with your health. And a lot of my, a lot of my community, that's a huge factor alone. Right? They're just their own health struggles and how it feels so limiting. I love the shift that you have been learning and sharing with us too, about listening, surrendering, and it doesn't mean it like all the hardships behind that goes away, but it just means it's different.

Geomyra: Absolutely. Yeah, I totally agree. And it is listening to your body, like, you know what. I may not be able to work out. Like I said, I want it to work out because physically it's hard to get out of the bed. I may not be able to do show up on social media the way I want to. So that has required me to think about how I batch my schedule, how I schedule appointments and just being upfront with people on what the limitations are so that it's communicating.

And even with my family, like, you know what, I'm not feeling that good. So my family knows when they need to kind of step up and not be so pampered and babied, because that's how I treat them. They're like, okay, we got it. We can take it from here. And that's important that you, you communicate where you you're struggling, where you lack, where you need assistance to tap other people in.

And I really, I'm still growing and learning, but you don't have to do life alone. You don't have to do business alone. You definitely just have to start to build your community of supporters as well.

Monica: That's balance to me. I had a friend, her name is crystal Lebeck. She talks about how balance is more of a teeter-totter. And that to me is just what you exemplified. It's it's a yin and yang, you know, it's, it's balancing out, it's asking for help. It's knowing your limitations. It's leaning in when you can and how you can, let's hear more though about your perspective of what well-rounded means and how that's different than how we typically perceive balance.

Geomyra: So I always tell people that all of us have a different definition

Monica: Oh, yeah.

Geomyra: a different way of how we live well-rounded. And the exercise that I like to do is just really taking a look at our lives, the things that are important to us or it, or the things that we want to incorporate more of.

And so when you, you think about all of those components, How does it make up your well-rounded, well lived well loved life. And for myself, family of course is important. The work that I do and how I serve as important, my faith is important to me. I'm really trying to make my health. Priority self care, like, you know, making sure I'm trying to stay cute and all things like that important. So making time for that hanging out with my friends, like making sure that my friends get to spend time with me because I am mom and wife and business owner, but I like to have a good time as well.

So for me, I just think about all of those things that are important to me and being able to fill those buckets again. When it feels good when it feels right. And when it feels like I'm available and then giving myself some grace to shift and move things around. Now, my friends and my family, they know that if I have the time, I'm going to make time for them.

And if I need to work on a big deadline or project or whatever, I communicate. So that they know that, Hey, I may not be available right now, but the next week I got you, we're going to spend some time together. Let's put a date on the calendar. And so I definitely tried to do that in business, a lot of things going on in business, but once this is launched or once this is over, We have a date we can celebrate, we can do more fun things.

So living well-rounded is your version of a life that feels fulfilled and a life that is filled with things that matters most in a life that is filled with just joy, just all the things that bring you, joy, all the people that bring you joy hobbies, just all of the things that you get excited about.

And like I said earlier, the things you want to also incorporate more of, you got to make space for it, for sure.

Monica: I think that's often what's missing because we're just on that productivity train. Like we have to get more and more and more done, and well-rounded the way you just described it to me is often about slowing down and making space for things outside of being productive and checking things off the list, which is what makes life so fulfilling and joyful.

So I love those, those tenants to what well rounded and well loved. I liked that you said that too. So for women who not necessarily at square one, maybe they've already done some work on this, but they're feeling a little stuck and they're still feeling that inner tug of war of feeling like they should be doing more.

And they're lost more of the sense of feeling like they're not a hamster wheel on the, not a hamster on a wheel. Where would you advise? They start? What are some tips you have for them?

Geomyra: Well, first thing, I would say is girlfriend just surrender, like sit in peace and stillness, and really just take a look at your life and ask yourself in 10 years, 20 years, 30 years where these things matter. And it's kind of harsh. When I say I had a friend, I remember, and I said, you know, she's like, oh, I got to do this and do that for work.

And this and that. And I said, You know, if God forbid something happened to you, you got hit by bus, they would put your job up in posted and hire someone else. So you have to really think about how much energy and time you're giving to certain things, because it may not matter years down the line. And so the first thing is surrender and really think about the things that are important to you.

The things that are taking up your time and your space. Yes, we have to work. Yes. We have to make money. But it is the work that we're doing. Is it bringing us the joy? Is it making us feel good about how we show up and all the things there, but surrendering and just saying, this is not it, this is not working.

I do not like it. I deserve better is the first thing. And knowing that. You have to give yourself permission to let some things go and you have to give yourself permission to allow space for the things that you actually are yearning for. And this could be a space for love. This could be space for a family.

This could be space to pick up a hobby. Just things like that, like really think about where you need to carve out space so that you can do more of the things you love. But even with the space you got to carve out time. So what are the things that we need to like. What is something that is considered a time-suck, what is something that we need to take off our plate, but it's something that we need to eliminate and then make a list of all those things, because then now we're making space and time again for the things that we want to do more of.

So that we can, again, just show up and just live this life. And it's, I dunno, it's just one of those things where I'm like, It sounds easy. I know it's hard, but the first thing is you got to give yourself permission to just take that paper, ball it up, toss it, and start from scratch.

Monica: Okay. So this to me is what I think we get tripped on the easiest and actually the most deeply to letting go of the things that don't matter. It's really hard for women to differentiate. This is what matters yours is what matters most. So any tips on those women who are struggling to differentiate between what matters and what matters most, so they can do better about letting go.

Geomyra: That's a great question. I actually did a podcast episode on this recently on how to determine what matters most. And

Monica: I listened to that one. That's why I asked you,

Geomyra: I love it.

Monica: Wanted to know more.

Geomyra: I love it. What matters most? Like again, if, if you think about 10 years, 20 or 30 years, and when you're 80 years old, will these things matter? I know when I'm 75, my children will matter.

I know that the work that I do and how I show up and serve that, it's super important to me, how I pour into people. So I'm going to make sure I have time to curate just for my craft to make sure I'm learning and I'm growing and I'm pouring into people that matters to me. The things that, again, just feel like time sucks or like, eh, it just doesn't excite you when you think about showing up to do it.

That does not matter most at all. If you know that the say your doctor says, Hey, we need to get some things. That should definitely matter most and should definitely be something that is on your list of things to incorporate more of. But yes, a lot of these things we will say are important and we can even highlight it as a priority, but will it matter years down the line, if you do it or don't do it, it's something that we have to take inventory of.

Monica: Listening to you. I'm reminding myself that the common denominator to all the things that matter most is you like it's ourselves. So if we're not prioritizing ourselves, if we're not even on the list, then our life, it will be perpetually out of balance. It will not be well-rounded.

Geomyra: Absolutely. Absolutely. If you're not putting yourself first top on that list and I encourage you to get a piece of paper and put me, or write your name. But highlighted, circle it, whatever. And then you build everything else around that. And then from there, if you're always at the top of the list and you're pouring into yourself and you're nurturing your health, all the things you put you first, everything else is about.

You know, but a lot of us will put ourselves last and we get the leftovers, the scraps, the pieces. And I don't think that's fair. I think if we definitely put ourselves first, then we can show up for other people. We can pour into other people. We can be there for them and support them in ways that is not possible when you put yourself last.

Monica: And even with that, I think one of the ways we discount ourselves from doing that as we think, oh, that just means I do a treat yourself like all day long and I don't do my responsibilities and really, it doesn't take that much time to pour into yourself. It doesn't have to even take money. Any ideas on that?

Yeah,

Geomyra: it's true because we need it. You think about that. It's it's last year I told myself I'm going to read for fun. I'm not going to read business books and force myself to listen to business podcasts and businesses. And I want to read things that are fun and light and easy because it was heavy, you know, during the pandemic.

So I gave myself permission to pause from the business education and to just read romcoms or fiction. And I love memoir. So. That is what is filled in my audible. But when you said things that don't cost money, the funny thing is my public library has free books, audible, and you know, what is it eBooks? So I've been taken advantage of that.

And that's my little treat when I'm in the car, I'm listening to those things. I get to escape into that world and it's something a little piece every day I get to do that. You know, working out, it definitely helps with my health. So went to two for one, you know, you can. Feel better. And also, again, it just makes me feel like I'm taking care of myself.

When I work out, when I'm doing things that just make me smile in an overall, but it doesn't have to cost you money to take care of yourself. And to your point, you don't have to have like a full spa day, like, oh, immediate, no, it's just a little something, a little treat throughout the day. It can be that extra piece of chocolate.

You can lock yourself in a room and just scroll social media, whatever it is. That just allows you a little bit of joy. Go for it.

Monica: One of the ways I try to remind myself of this as it's not going first doesn't mean I'm putting myself above everyone else. It's so I can be the foundation to everyone else and to everything else. And also even putting yourself first to me, it's just putting yourself first in the lineup.

So maybe even just taking five minutes for myself to meditate or to do a spiritual study or to, I don't know, scroll social media before you do everything else. That is still a way to put yourself first.

Geomyra: Absolutely. Absolutely. I couldn't agree more.

Monica: I love all the practical tips we were able to give them there. So I'm just going to review some of the tips you've given us overall, too. So surrender, give yourself permission to carve out space for yourself and to let go of what doesn't matter as much and prioritize yourself. Is there anything else that you would suggest for women who are ready to live a more well well-rounded life.

Geomyra: Something I'll always say is important is to communicate. If you have a team, if you run a business and you have a team or you have a partner at home, or you have children, You should definitely communicate to people where you need help. You should communicate to them like, you know what, I'm trying to live a life that looks like X, Y, and Z.

Here are some ways that I feel like I can do that. And here are ways where you can help me. Here are ways that we can do this together and, and make sure we're accountable so that we are able to do the things that bring us joy. I think if you communicate to the people that are in your inner circle, they will be like, okay, whatever I can do.

To make it so that you do get to do more of the things that you love because you deserve that. I think that's awesome. But a lot of the people in our lives don't understand. Sometimes we are struggling. They may not understand that we need help and they won't ever understand, unless we have a very candid, honest conversation with them that we don't always have it together, that we do fall short.

But most importantly, that you would love their help in this process as well.

Monica: And that's totally something I would have neglected, like altogether, just forgotten, like. Well on board.

Geomyra: Have?

Monica: so I had a thought and it's kind of a no-brainer, but it's also not. And it's a well-rounded life is still not a perfect life. So it doesn't mean like, Hey, everything will be better and easy, but why does it, why does it still change things?

Even if life isn't perfect and totally easy. Why does it still matter that we're, we're, we're seeking for a more well-rounded life.

Geomyra: I feel like as long as you are just making an effort and showing up it's much better than the life that we currently live, you know, most likely, and you make a great point. It's not always going to be perfect. It's not always going to be in sync, but if you don't try, you won't, you won't ever get closer to your version of what's ideal.

So you also have to make space for sometimes done is better than perfect. You have to make some space to make adjustments. You know, we may go into this, like I'm going to do this and my time is going to be here. But life happens and you have to be okay with that. And sometimes things work out even better in the, in the process, but no, it is not perfect, but you have to at least try, you have to at least try to make it better than how we started.

Monica: So Geomyra, I'm thinking what has changed for you then? What is different? I mean, You're still going through a lot. I'm sure you're still grieving your mom still dealing with health issues, kids, business. What has changed for you after, you know, after years of working on it?

Geomyra: What's changed for me, such a great question, is I adjusted how I do work. I adjusted my programs as far as I'm a business coach. So for me, I had to adjust how I serve. I still serve, I still show up. I still make an impact, but I had to do it in a different way.

My husband is amazing. And he, we have this thing he's been doing this and her daughter was to what's called snack party where once a week they have a date. And now my son's involved because he's of age. And so that's a day for me. I know on Tuesdays, I don't have to do anything. I don't have to cook. I don't have to clean.

That can be my late day to work, but we figured out a way that I'm off duty. And so. It works out that I'd know that that's a day I can take appointments or whatever it is. So that was us realizing, like, how can we make this work so that I have intentional time, but for me, you know, things are always ebbs and flows.

It, it definitely. Whatever season I'm in more work, less work holidays, whatever it is there going to be things that, that change. And for me, I'm always just paying attention to what needs to be shifted before it gets way out of hand. If I'm working too much, I'm like, whoa, maybe I need to put those dates on the calendar.

If I'm just feeling like I'm not where I want to be in business, I might need to figure that out.

Monica: Yeah, it seems like a well-rounded life as an intuitive life. Love that permission. You've given us to pay attention, just pay attention to our circumstances, our season what's going on inside our bodies, everything just live intuitively Geomyra. This has been amazing. If there, if there was one small way women could get started on this, what would you suggest?

Geomyra: small way schedule, look at your schedule, open up your calendar, open up your planner, your Google, your I, Cal whatever calendar you use. See how your hours and your minutes and your days are spent and ask yourself where those things matter. Ask yourself, do those things on your calendar, bring you joy.

Do they allow you to serve? Do they make you a better person? Does it make you the people around you feel good and supported and loved? And if it's just filled with. Noise and nonsense, as I say, we need to make some adjustments.

Monica: Beautiful. That's a really practical way for them to begin. Thank you. All right, Geomyra, where do you think you would like people to go if they're interested in and joining your community and learning more from.

Geomyra: Well first, thank you so much for allowing me the space to just talk about something I'm super passionate about. geomyra.com, G E O M Y R a.com is my website. It'll take you to all the things that we're working on. We're launching some exciting things, too on Instagram. I am living well-rounded, come say hi.

If you listen to the show, I would love to connect with you there. And then my podcasts living well-rounded we're closing out season six, season seven is launching soon. So catch up and again, come say hi over on Instagram.

Monica: Well, I love everything you stand for and the intention behind everything you do, I'm learning so much from you. And I'm really grateful to have had this time with you today. Thank you.

Geomyra: Thank you. Same here.

Monica: demira Pollard. Welcome to the show. Do I, should I do it one more time? I feel like I ruined Pollard.

Geomyra: No, no parlor parlor Pollard.

Monica: I'll do it. I'll do it one more time. Cause I messed up right after that. Anyway.