Finding joy in life

SPYR.

Welcome back to the Kidney Stone Diet podcast, the show about reducing your kidney stone risk and living your best life. I'm your host and fellow student, Jeff Sarris.

And I'm Jill Harris, your kidney stone prevention nurse.

Nurse.

Nurse.

But, yeah. So, right before we jumped on, we were having a great conversation, so we're actually going to talk a little bit more about that right here and just perspective on things and having positive outlooks and whatnot.

Look, you know, lifestyle isn't just about low salt, low sugar. It's not just about making these dietary goals. Lifestyle is about, and this is what Jeff and I, we're so similar this way.

Our perspective is very similar.

Lifestyle is about, and this is why the tagline says, living your best life. It's also about having, what's going on up here? Now, unless you have organic depression, anxiety, I mean, unless you have emotional illness, this is a total separate thing, okay?

I'm just talking the average Jeff and Jill kind of person, to have the right perspective on life is so incredibly helpful. And we and I talk about this a lot in the Kidney Stone Prevention Course and the accountability calls.

It's like, there's information that's thrown at you. There's obstacles thrown at you every single day. So, this isn't about obstacles don't come up, cause they do every day.

Even though we're always surprised they come up, I don't know why, but they come up every single day.

And so, you can either say, "Oh shoot, here's another obstacle. Oh my god, why me?" You can keep saying these things or you can say, "Well, isn't this interesting? How am I going to deal with this?"

And we were both just saying it's like, it's not like we're laughing all day long every day, week after week, year after year, but it's about when things do go awry, what is your attitude first and foremost?

Because if you have a crappy attitude, it's very difficult to gather up tools and fix the, you know, problem at hand, right? Go ahead, Jeff.

Yeah, to pursue that, to sort of work through that obstacle. And it reminds me there's sort of a I don't know if it's a parable, what you would call it, but of it was like a I feel like it was something from like sort of Zen and whatnot, where the like the king or whatever puts a big boulder in front of the entryway into the city,

And it's you see one person show up, try to move it and leave, just disgusted. The next person show up, they bring another person, they try to move. They can't do it.

And then you see someone come along. They go into the woods, they find the biggest stick they can get, and they make a like a lever out of it to start to move that boulder,

And under the boulder is a bag of coins, of gold coins, and just a message that how the obstacle is the way to move through life, and where that obstacle lies in front of you. It's a very stoic perspective, but that obstacle is the thing.

Yeah, Ryan.

Ryan.

Ryan.

Yeah, so the title of his book, yeah, "Obstacle Is the Way." And, yeah, following and going through that obstacle and finding your way is that is the path. It's it's less about it's less about turning away and maybe looking at that as a negative and more being like, "Oh, this is where I'm going. This is where I'm following through."

And like we were talking about beforehand, we were talking about the just having that positive outlook. Like for me, that is like at the core. Like things, like you said, they go awry, but I've and again, this isn't like clinical depression or anything like.

Things that are different. But for just everyday things that happen, I've always looked at it as, "It always works out."

Because, like, sometimes it's a longer timeline. Like, who knows like how long we'll be going through certain things that are that are obstacles that appear in our way, but having that outlook, you start to see the good parts of whatever's going on and the other positives. But if we dwell on the negatives, it's so hard to it's so hard to get out of that space when it is under our control to get out of,

And it's so easy just to focus on, "Okay, this huge obstacle's in my way. This happened to me," or whatever it is versus, "Okay, this has happened. Now what?

What's next? Where are we going next?"

My first thing, after I'm crying in my bed, and pissed, and all the things, after all that, then I'm like, "All right, what am I supposed to learn from this? What's my takeaway here? What could I have done to avoid this?

What could I have done What First of all, I always take responsibility first, okay?"

I'm not saying that outside forces don't play into something, but wha- even if there is a negative outside force, how did I bring that into my life, number one? Because I am ultimately responsible for all the things that happen to me, really. You know?

Yes, you get ill and stuff does happen, but you know what I'm saying.

And so, I think that my greatest growth has come from my worst experiences. Is this a is this a miracle that I'm saying this? Is this like, "Oh my god, I've never heard this?" No, I mean, if you think about it, people, honestly, it's like the hardest things that you have gone through have been your biggest eye-openers.

Just has, and it's the things that you learn the most from. So, you can't always have good, you can't always have bad, but you need the mix of it, because otherwise we'd never be able to appreciate one or the other. But, honest to God, I've like going through all my cancer stuff, I learned so much about myself.

More importantly, I learned about,

You know, boundaries I want in my life. I learned about what I don't want in my life going forward, what I do want more of in my life. From very simple things, to stop dusting candles, light them, to, you know, "I don't want this person in my life anymore, because it's bringing me negative energy." Those are all important decisions on living your best life, which is the tagline for this YouTube channel,

Because it is many times we are making unhealthy lifestyle choices because of the negativity that's going on in our life. So, instead of controlling it or trying to figure out a way, number one, if you can't do it on your own, to ask for help, whatever, you know, often we just we don't want to deal with it, and we want to deal with the negativity or the things that are going on in our life by eating Doritos,

You know, so there's a lot of stuffing down emotions with food. Listen, people, it's not just about giving somebody a pamphlet and say, "Here, do this." It's about, why are they not doing that? Why are they not doing that?

Eating healthy? Because food is used as a crutch, it's used as a coping skill, it's used for numbing out, it's used for temporary feeling good until you eat so much of something then you feel shame and guilt and go down that rabbit hole.

It's This is it's Listen. If it was just about me giving you a pamphlet, you wouldn't need me. I would be so bored after 23 years.

What would I talk about? It's about human nature. How do we deal with bad things?

Where do we get our coping skills from? How do we get healthy coping skills in our tool belt to get through whether it's healthy lifestyle, a bad relationship,

A terrible job, whatever it is, what can you learn from the experience? What can you learn to do differently? It's all of that.

That's what makes this so interesting to me. And then, also connecting to all of you, because that's what we're here, that's what we're here for, to connect with one another, honestly.

So, without that connection, life is super hard, right? It's all of that, Jeff. It's so much.

It's so big, right? We often forget this.

Yeah. And like when the bad things do happen, it gives It helps maybe nudge us to take a breath and get perspective on all of that. And like you said, you found the things that you do want to spend your time on.

It's Like actually the Like sort of the concept of time, like actual time itself, has always fascinated me, but like first it was just clocks. I've always really liked various clocks, and it's just something that I've been drawn to,

But I didn't realize, I think it's more just time itself that I find fascinating, and a clock is a visual representation of it, that when we do look at, "Okay, how am I spending my time?" Like maybe it's even like a job or whatever, where it's like, "This is the bulk of my life, but not where I want to be, not what I want to be doing," then maybe it's a moment to just reflect and see, "Okay, how can I how can I find the good,

Either in my situation or find a situation that provides more of what I need in my life?" We have so much more agency over things than I think we usually realize, that it's important to have to give ourselves space to contemplate and to consider like where we are and like how we want to be living.

I think that's I think that's brilliant, first of all, and I think about those kinds of things a lot. That's why I love you so much. It also can be something simple like this.

If somebody were to look at my life and see how much that Finn and I, my little dog, sit on the porch and look out at the neighborhood, Jeff and I were just talking about this, they'd be like, "She's she's wasting a lot of time."

Now, I've thought about this. I love sitting on my stoop. I love it.

It makes me happy. It's a It's a time in my day in between calls and my course where I can just take a few breaths, enjoy the nice weather, three days in Chicago, that we have it, and just be with my neighborhood, okay?

I talk to everybody that goes by. I feel like I'm the mayor. "Hi!

Oh, bye! Vincent's there!" He says hi. And I've asked myself, "Jill, are you happy sitting on this porch?" I question the things that I do, okay?

So, I'm like, "Am I wasting time? Is this silly? How am I going to feel like this on my deathbed?

Am I going to think, 'Boy, that was wasteful?' Nope, I'm not.

Because it brings me joy." And I always check in with myself. If I'm doing something that doesn't bring me joy, unless it's my taxes and I got to do it, I'm not doing it, cuz I'm almost 60 years old and I'm going to do things that bring me joy. And if that's sitting on my stoop with my little dog and watching my neighborhood go by, I'm doing that.

And I'm also not going to do things that don't bring me joy. Because as you said, time is fascinating and it goes like that. Oh, yeah.

It just goes like that. It's amazing to me, too. It's like, you know, we joke, "Oh, my god, it's already Friday.

Where'd the time go?"

But, people, where is the time going? How do you want to spend yours? Is it sitting on a stoop like me?

Don't let anyone tell you not to do that, if that brings you joy, but check in with yourself and make sure you're doing the things that bring you joy. Don't be a martyr, don't be doing things cuz nobody knows how to do it better. Teach them, then.

Delegate. Do things that bring you joy and don't do things that don't, right? Time is an amazing, fascinating thing.

I feel the same way as you.

Yeah, and I think that's such an important point, too, is it's for us. Like, a lot of times, we'll we'll sort of get caught up in thinking maybe, "Oh, this isn't how I'm supposed to be spending my time," but there is There truly is no supposed to be doing. Like, we are carving this out.

It's our own path. It's our own journey. And

If sitting on the porch is amazing to you, but someone else is like, that would just drive me nuts, like, "I don't want to do that," neither of you are right. You're right for yourselves, because that's that isn't what someone else wants to do. They don't want to live, maybe, in a cabin in the woods in Montana, but then someone else, that is their ultimate dream and perfect life.

And it's important to realize that, yeah, we each have our own path. We each have our own proclivities, and not to judge ourselves over something that we want and really find value in, if that doesn't jive with someone else.

100%. Nobody should judge what brings you joy. I think that's really important.

I've learned that in my life. That was an important lesson. To feel less than about doing something that brought me joy, don't judge my joy.

I'm going to make that a t-shirt: Do Not Judge My Joy. So, I'm I'm really sensitive to that.

So, when somebody tells me that something that may not bring me joy, I'm so happy that somebody's finding pieces of joy throughout their day, because life is so short. So, you if you could grab moments of joy and know that and appreciate it and go, "Man, this is my joy jam," then you just need to That's freaking amazing, because life is so short!

Just don't sit there all day long and not feel joy. You want to sit there all day long and feel joy, that's great! But check in with yourself.

Are you spending your life in enough ways that brings you enough joy? You ain't going to have joy every day filled with joy. That's not possible.

But are you grabbing your moments of it? Get it, pick it, find it!

It's your responsibility to find it, cultivate it, and do it! That's your responsibility. Don't blame your husband, don't blame your wife, don't blame your sister, don't blame your boss.

If you're not having joy in your life, get to stepping. That's your responsibility. I often find people, they're blaming that they don't have joy.

Go get it!

My father always taught me, "If you want something, you better go get it, cuz no one's no one's knocking on your door, Jill." I heard that my whole life. It irritated the hell out of me, but he's right. No one is knocking on my door.

So, if I want something, like 5,000 subscribers on YouTube, I ask for it every week in my Facebook group. I ask for it here on these videos. I ask for it in my newsletter,

And, God bless America, we got it, right? So, thank you for everyone that did that. But, it's true!

You don't get things. You have to work hard. You have to And that means joy, too.

So, if your life doesn't have joy, and you're not clinically or medically, you know, have emotional issues, if you're just the average person like Jeff and I,

Please, go get some, because it's wonderful to have joy in your life. I have Jeff. He brings me joy.

I love him, and I am thrilled to be a business partner with him. I have all these people in my life that bring me different things that cultivate my personality and bring me love and joy.

And I have everybody here on YouTube. They bring me love and joy, on Facebook, all my social media brings me love and joy. "Jill, it's so nice you do all that." I get way more than I'm giving out, right?

I get joy! So, I think it's really important. Why do I have this silly 8-pound dog?

He brings me joy, right?

So, do the things, even though they're a pain in the ass at any given time, do the things that mostly bring you joy. I don't know, Jeff. We were going to do a whoozy, but I just this long enough, this video.

Do things that bring you joy.

Yeah, I mean, I think this is Absolutely, and I think it's an important topic because it is, it's sort of it's not kidney stone specific, but it's an important topic just for life, just in general, and something that we definitely think about and talk about like on our own, so yeah, I think this is a perfect a perfect little nugget to throw in into the stream of the rest of the kidney stone stuff, because it is, it's just

So important and to it's sort of to be you. The big thing is find who you want to be and be that person for yourself, not for anyone else, and just be you. What are you doing?

Oh my god, that makes me so happy. I mean, listen, I can't fake who I am. What you see here is exactly who I am.

What you see with Jeff is exactly. And again, why do we have our own businesses? Because we want to be exactly who we are, and we don't want anyone telling us differently.

When you can live your life from your essence, you are putting yourself in the world, and out in the world. And listen, lots of times, not everyone loves me. So, you when you put yourself out in the world, too, and really shine who you are, not everyone's loving you, but that's okay, because you love yourself enough that you really don't care.

You have to show up. You have to show up. You have to show up.

You. No nobody who you No, not your mother telling you who to be, not your husband tell-, not anybody telling you who to be, not a magazine telling you who to be. You have to understand, and that takes a lot of self-reflection.

"Who am I?

What brings me joy? How do I want to show up? Jill, why do you always wear athletic clothes?" Because I'm comfortable in it.

It's part of my image. If I wear my gym suits all the time, first of all, I got to go to the gym, because I'm wearing my outfit. I'm wearing my gear.

So, it's real easy for me to go It's real easy for me to go to the gym, because I'm already suited up.

But it's part of my identity. I am truly who I am at all of me, right? And so, so many of my patients, they tell me, "Look, I'm eating because my husband, he wants me to be this, but I just can't.

I'm not living my true life." Same thing what a man says about his wife, or a man and a man being together, whoever you are. Show up!

You show up! Don't let anyone tell you what you should be, who you should be, how you should be. Absolutely not!

It's so very important, because then joy is a lot easier to find, because you're coming from your beautiful heart, and your beautiful heart is so good enough. And then, you just get to spread joy. It's freaking amazing, people.

Take my word for it. I promise you.

Jeff, don't you feel it? I mean, it's magical. It's magical!

For sure.

Magical!

And the more joy you're finding for yourself, the more you're giving to others. Like, giving, like, reflecting joy out, so it's it's It can sound selfish to, like, "Oh, focus on you, focus," but, like, it's it's sort of like that airplane thing, where you're, "Put the mask on the air mask on yourself first, so you can help someone else." Like, we have to be in a good spot, and then we can give so much back to the people around us and people who need that, and even to see the to have that person to,

Not in a grandiose way, but to like lead them, to see like, "Oh, they are very joyous." Like, I hesitate to use the word "happy," cuz happiness and joy are two different things. Like, joy is a moment. Joy is something you can create, or

It's just a little different, but you can see someone who's joyous most of the time you interact with them, and that it rubs off. It makes a difference in other people's lives.

It does. So, so, and then I'm going to go off on this, too, a little bit. It's going to be a longer video.

Just hang on, buckle up. Here's the other thing. So, when I'm walking around the streets, people are like I wave.

I swear to God. I It makes me feel so happy to spread joy, because nobody looks at, especially in a city, nobody's looking in your eyes, no one's smiling.

Somebody walked with me the other day. They're like, "Why does everyone say hi to you?" I said, "First of all, I sit on my porch a lot, and they know me from that, and even if they don't want to know me, they do because I talk to them." And I said, "But the other thing is," she's like, "you know, but when we go to the grocery store, they're always talking to you." Because I'm putting myself out there first.

You think if I didn't do what I do, people would talk to me? No! They would ignore me like everyone ignores each other.

I don't believe in that. When we are out in the world, we should spread a little joy if we can, because you get it back, of course, but it just feels good to make somebody smile. That's very important to me.

Now, here's the other thing. Ladies, listen up! "Jill, that's a little sexist." I'm just telling you what my experience is.

There is not a day goes by, not one day in all these years, that I'm not talking to somebody that says, "I can't meal prep, I can't take care of my things, I can't get to the gym, I'm taking care of my whole family." Ladies, stop being a martyr. This is what we do.

We're giving and giving and giving, and then we walk around bitter and angry and like this.

That. That's how we feel inside.

We can't do that anymore. "But, Jill, how am I going to find the time when everybody needs something?" Delegate it out and don't do all the things you think you're supposed to be doing. Something has to give, because if you're not healthy, and health begins here, if you're not happy, and yes, I agree with Jeff, if you're not content, I like that feel that a lot better.

More content than not, joyful, feeling like, "I love giving, because I'm giving to myself first." That is, again, my responsibility. That's nobody else's responsibility. I must make the time in order to be able to show up how I want to show up every day, and if that's taking an hour in the morning for myself, and if that means I'm waking up earlier, then I'm doing it, because I want that hour to look at whatever I want to do: read,

TikTok, laugh, write emails, whatever I want to do, journal, whatever I want to do. So, we have to show up for ourselves, so we can show up for other people. And I find that women, you know, society puts a lot of pressure on us to get everything done: work, being a mother, you know, cooking, all of it.

So,

We have to find the time somewhere, so illness doesn't take it later, because, somehow, time opens up when we can't, when we're ill. It just does. So, please, for your emotional health and physical well-being, and to be able to make healthy lifestyle choices, it's very important to fuel yourself up before you go filling the needs of everybody else up in your life.

It's very important, and believe me when I say, I understand that it's hard,

But I really want you to find, even if it's 15 minutes, it's important for you to do that. And that's specifically for women, because, in my experience, that's who's complaining about it the most, and it's important.

Yeah, it's so important for us, just.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's important thing to talk about.

Yeah, and some Sometimes, you just have to learn the hard way. I feel like I learned that the hard way. I wasted a lot of time not learning that lesson.

I've learned it now, and I'll never give that I've learned it. I'm done. It's part of my core being, right?

So, I'll never go back, never,

For sure.

Never. Yeah, it's important.

And just you walking around town waving and saying hi, just I wanted to throw one little thing in, like, Amara and I, literally, like, mostly her, but we're walking around. Whenever we see someone with a dog, like, she'll usually, like, wave and say hi to the dog, just because, like, it's like happiness. I don't know.

There's something about it, but it's like, people may think, like, "Who's this, like, goofy person doing this?" But who cares? Like, this is

It doesn't matter if, like, this brings joy to her, to us, to just our experience, and like, if you look up at the owner, usually they have a big smile on their face, too. It's like, "Oh, like, they love my dog, my whatever." And,

Absolutely.

Yeah, it's it's whatever brings you.

It's unbridled joy. We all need that in our life. It's so, you know, once we get older, and I just mean 20, we just I mean, look at children.

Why are they so fascinating to watch? Cuz they're like, or they're crying in the middle of Jules, the grocery store. It's like, can you imagine as an adult just, you know, was having a tantrum in the tampon aisle?

I mean, you know, so it's just for me, it's just so funny to watch children. They are who they are, and you may say, "Well, yeah, Jill, you are a little immature." I think, you know, once I read the name Jill meant "childlike," and I don't mean I don't think that's immature. I think there's part of my essence is just I it just doesn't care what really people think.

It's like I am who I am, and if I get to bring a smile on somebody else's face, well,

That's the best thing in the world. I mean, who wouldn't want to do that, right? So, I don't know.

I think that's great about Amara.

And bringing up childlike, like I have a friend who, like I talk to him every so often. We're doing, like, NFT stuff and everything. He's a great artist, but he's told me, I don't know, every time we talk, he's essentially like, "I love that you are You have a childlike curiosity." He's like, "Not childish, but childlike." And it's just funny.

I didn't know that Jill meant "childlike," but it is something I think the curiosity, like, that's why you see

Like young children with that, like, unbridled enthusiasm for certain things, cuz it's like, "What is this? Like, I want to know. Like, this is fun.

This is exciting." And it is hard to retain that as an adult because we do have so many responsibilities and it's a lot of times it's the self-imposed expectations of an adult acts like this,

But what if an adult acted a little more like that childlike curi- curiosity? Not childish in a way that is off-putting, or like maybe like not self-aware, but keeping that interest and wanting to pursue things and being like, "I've never Why is this tree in my backyard so big? How did it get so big?

What's Why does this look a little different than the other two?" Like, just things, there's so many different

Things that we would have done when we were younger that maybe we feel like we shouldn't be doing now. Even climbing that tree. Like, why can't an adult climb a tree?

Just you do what brings you joy and pursue what you want to pursue.

Jeff, that's so true. So, the other day, I used to love climbing trees when I was little. No one's surprised by that.

And the other day, and remember, I'm almost 60, I was like, "Damn, that's a good tree climber. That's a good tree-climbing tree right there." And I'm like, "Jill, y- you can't. You just can't climb the tree.

You are old now. You're on Medicare, for Pete's sake, almost. Come on." So, but I So, because,

And the first thing that came up to me, and what you're saying, there's always a reason why I am riffing off you, is the fear of falling, right? So that is what happens to us, you know. We just get We start being afraid, somebody's going to judge us if we act like this, or we're going to look silly, or whatever.

So then, we become what we think an adult is supposed to come, and I'm like, "Oh, my god, that'd be any more boring."

I mean, we just need to be a little bit, you know, it's helpful. It's just life is more interesting if you do look at it as everything's kind of weird and funny, and "Hey, what is that? And who are you?

And what," you know, I mean, that's just how I fly, you know? I don't know.

Yeah, for sure. Well, yeah, I think this is an awesome episode. This is a longer one.

Thank you, everyone, for sticking around, but this is just so important to both of us. I think that comes through, as well, because this was a Yeah, this is something that means a lot to just to both of us. But, yeah, if you have a question, we will obviously get back to kidney stone-specific related things,

But that number again is 773-789-8763 and you can leave a voicemail and we will feature you on a future episode. And if you to dive into more kidney stone related things, definitely subscribe to the YouTube channel right here or wherever you're listening to your podcast. If you're on YouTube, hit that little bell to get notified, leave a comment below, and let us know if you're new here or if you have any questions or

Sort of where how you look at joy and where you find joy in your life, because I think we all should and do find joy in different ways, and I think it's really valuable to see how we differ in that way and maybe something we haven't considered before could enrich our lives because you left that comment, and we were like, "Oh, yeah.

I wish I should be doing that again. I haven't done that in a long time," or whatever it is.

Jeff, I was I was going to ask the audience same thing. Where do you cultivate joy, because if we all pull together as a community, it can spark a whole bunch of different ideas, and we can get more joy. Wouldn't that be wonderful?

There's no such thing as too much joy.

Yeah, absolutely. But, yeah, with that, I think we'll wrap. Thank you again for listening, and we will see you next week.

Thanks for indulging us, everybody. Bye!