Episode 104 - Exercise For The End of The Year

I want to leave you with this last podcast for the end of the year so that you can jump start and empower yourself for the next year. So this exercise, if you have a minute, grab a pen and paper, grab a cup of tea and start by reflecting everything in 2023 that you've done, accomplished, conquered, overcame, you know, whether scratched or unscathed, but all these things that you've done, and write them all out. Like, this is the time for you to put yourself in review of 2023.

I love doing this, I really do. I love, you know, crossing out things. I'm old school that way, like I still have lists that I write and use notepads for, and I cross them out and, you know, whether it's grocery shopping or whether it's goals or whether it's people I need to call or whether it's you know, tasks that are looming and that I need to take care of. I write everything down, because then it's an actionable item.

And there's science actually behind this. When we write something down, just like journaling, when we write something down and we cross it out, then it's complete and it's done. And it's so fulfilling, so fulfilling to just cross it out. Whether it's something you bought or something that you've taken care of. I'm an action taker, if you don't know this by now, I take lots of action and I love just conquering the next thing and the next thing and the next thing, because That's the evolution, right? That's the evolution of self. That's the evolution of being your best self. That's the wanting to become your best self. And we can't do that until we reflect on the previous year or even the previous years and decades.

So here recently for the Thanksgiving holiday, which was in November for the US I went back home and my mom had asked me to clean out all this extra stuff that I had in her storage area. And you know, there's photo albums and there's all these journals from ever since I was a kid, like first grade, first grade journals, all different types of things. It was really, humbling and very neat to see, you know, what the five year old me, what the 10 year old me was saying during this time. But it was also beautiful to reflect and to see how far I've come. How far I've come to, you know, shaping and becoming, you know, my best self.

And in all honesty, I feel like I have so much more to go, so much more to do, but at the same time, there's that grace and that compassion and that, okay, let's just sit for a minute.

Let's take this one moment in time and recognize. All the things that we've gone through, all the things that we've accomplished, all the things that we've, again, overcome. Because life is filled with twists and turns, as you know, ups and downs, and it's not a straight, linear road. It's not. And so, the beauty of it is the resilience. The beauty is coming out of it and saying: Okay, what have I learned? What have I gained? What have I garnered? Where am I going?

And to see this in a tangible way, as, as looking back through these photo albums. Which I'll tell you, most of them I tossed, if not all. And I'll tell you why in a minute, but most of them I tossed, the journals too. You know, there's no need to keep stuff. Like, I'm very minimalist in that sense. I don't like a lot of stuff. But there's no need to keep it, you know, and at the same time, like those memories are, are within my heart and within my head and that's it. I've grown and you don't need a constant reminder of, of all these things that might have been good, bad or ugly.

So the first point of this exercise is to reflect and to write down and to give yourself a huge hug and celebration because most of the time we don't take the time to do that, and also we don't take the time to acknowledge ourselves. And many times we're looking for acknowledgement from others, you know, we're looking for the good job, Johanna, good job, Nancy, good job, you know, from everybody else, but really we need to be recognizing ourselves that: Yeah, I killed it, Yeah, I crushed my goals. You know what I mean?

We need to be celebrating ourselves. For anything and everything that we've accomplished, even if it's something so small that you don't think is a big deal, make it a big deal because you accomplished it. And that's the point of goals and goal setting is accomplishing things. So the first part of this exercise is to reflect, reflect back and reflect on how far you've come. Because. More than likely, you've come a long way more than likely, you've changed in many ways more than one. And for those of you who've done the Hair N' Heal program, I can guarantee that you've changed in many ways. And the transformation was huge.

As I look back in just like the last couple of weeks and months of all the interviews I have done, from clients from a year ago, from current clients who see hair growth in 3 weeks, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 5 weeks, people who've been alopecia universalis or totalis or people with telogen effluvium. I had this lady who she was losing hair, just diffused telogen effluvium type for 5 years straight. She couldn't stop it, she did the program and boom, week 3, week 4, it stopped and it turned into hair growth. And then, you know, the cycle continues into hair growth.

And so these are huge wins for a lot of people, but there's a lot of other wins that are happening in our lives that potentially, you know, a) You don't share with me, but b) You know, we hold private and we hold dear to ourselves. So, as I said, the first part of this exercise is to reflect back and to see how far you've come. You can use 2023 as the status quo, but you can go as far back as from birth.

Because when I did that quick exercise at home with, you know, taking out and throwing out all the journals and all the photo albums, I threw out the photo albums because, you know, back in the day, just a quick here of aging myself you couldn't select pictures cause there was no such thing as an iPhone. The iPhone came out when I was in my twenties. And so because of this when you had your role of film, you had to develop all of it. And so there's a lot of pictures that were bad pictures or pictures that were nonsense that were just like of walls or, you know, just not nonsense, just I don't know how to explain it just nonsense that made no sense or relevance to the picture to the time, but they were there in the photo album.

Now it's so much easier where you can select pictures, keep them, frame them, print only the ones you want before you had to print them all and pay for all of them. So it was that type of thing where it's so much more efficient and effective now to select, print what you want and discard anything else that you don't want. But anyways, that's probably why I tossed out most of the photo albums because they were nonsense. But in any case. Looking back and seeing how far you've come is a great, great exercise, especially towards the end of the year, but then also giving gratitude, huge gratitude, huge thanks.

Because without you being the person that you were being and becoming the person that you're becoming. You wouldn't have been able to grow, to overcome, to accomplish, to have resilience, to have more tenacity or anything else that you needed, maybe strength in these times of, you know, challenges in these times of need in this time of alopecia. It has created a new you in a very different way for the moms and the parents who do my program. I know it's changed you as well.

So the next thing what we're going to look at is: Okay, how are we going to approach 2024? Because I got to tell you, I already have my long list of big, hairy, scary goals that I want to accomplish. And those big, hairy, scary goals are not just for my health, but they're all for my overall well being, maybe things I want to do or experience. Maybe it's a retreat I want to go to, or maybe it's, you know, just something that I want to do. For example, I want to create that nonprofit, so I'm in the midst of starting paperwork and, you know, doing the research and all these other things that are needed before you start, you know, a new entity, and in this case, it's a nonprofit, right?

And so these are all these things that I want to do to push the needle forward, but we also need to look back and see how can we work backwards. So let's say you have a goal of losing 10 pounds, let's say, or 20 pounds or the last 5 pounds of your baby weight postpartum or anything else, or, you know, like I said, grow your hair, right? How can we work backwards? And I would say that many times doing things on our own is

one way and doing things with the help of somebody who's been there done that is a lot easier. And I'll say this even from experience, you know, when I wanted to lose the 50 pounds that I had gained with my first child postpartum 50 pounds. Woohoo!

Yeah, I was just like, how am I going to do this? Now, I know diet and lifestyle, but to get there quicker, to get there faster, I got a personal trainer and I met with them maybe 2-3 times a week. And guess what? In 9 months. Boom. All the baby weight was gone. Like, the diet piece, I had it. But it was like, the exercise and, and everything else, and the accountability. I gotta say, accountability is huge, huge, huge, when you want to take on a big endeavor. And I will say, you know, in my 20s and in my 20s and in my teens, I could easily fluctuate 10-20 pounds with like, no big deal.

And, it's kinda true what they say, right? As you get older, it's harder to lose weight. I know, I know the reason behind this and I make this very easy inside the program if that's one of your goals, but going back to this 50 pounds that I had gained during my pregnancy, I also had a 10 pound baby. So, you know, it kind of evened out, but in the, in the big scenario of this, like I knew that if I wanted quicker results, I needed a) The accountability and b) The expertise.

Because one thing is you going into the gym yourself and trying to lose weight and going on the treadmill and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. But potentially you're wasting your time and you're not being as efficient. And for those of you who know and understand that time is money, it's so valuable. Imagine having to deal with hair loss for more than 5-10 years when you can nip it in the butt in 2 months or in less than 2 months. Imagine that or imagine it in my case, losing the weight, not having to wait for 2-3 years to lose the way and getting it done in 9 months. It took me 9 months to gain it. And it took me 9 months to lose it. But guess what? I'm back to normal. I'm back to my normal. And that's huge because I'm a results driven person.

And for those of you who are listening to me, I know you want your hair back, but you got to go with something that's tried and true that gets you results in less time. That's the only way you're going to cut the struggle, cut the tears, cut the fears, cut the anxiety, the depression, the angst, the worry, the crying in the bathroom on the floor, it just, it cuts everything in less than half and coming to this, I wanted to go ahead and mention that there was somebody who was following me for a minute, probably for over a year now. She's been following me 2 years now and she never worked with me, we messaged here and there, but in any case, she's come to find out and had a clue about her child's alopecia and granted, it's been more than 2 years now that she's been following me.

So potentially, you know, her child's alopecia has been more than two years or maybe more than that and the problem is with that is that when you try to do things yourself, it takes longer and It's affecting you and your family and of course that child mentally and emotionally and physically and having gone through alopecia myself, for those of you who don't know who are new to me, I had alopecia areata, it was going into alopecia totalis, I also had telogen effluvium, so I had 2 different types of alopecia all at the same

time and lost over 50% of my hair, I had a big extra inch of forehead. I had, you know, eyelashes, eyebrows being lost, it was messing with me on so many levels, you know, and the worst part is that it permeates into every aspect of our lives. It really does.

It also permeates into our activities and hobbies. You know, you can look back at the podcast episode where I interviewed Jason and he's a 50 year old man who stopped boating for 2 years, stopped going in the water for 2 years, started wearing hats all of a sudden because, you know, he had over 19 spots all over his head and you start thinking, you know, how is this going to enable me to do what I need to do on a daily basis? Like go to work, like, you know, do my normal activities. And so this is part of the push in wanting you to heal faster, a) Because you can, and b) Because you can cut the struggle, the pain and the suffering in less time.

But the other side of this is that you can be a better version of yourself. In less time as well and controlling the alopecia is is key to all this. It's key. So the next step in planning for 2024 is, you know, creating that list of hairy scary goals, and it should scare you should make you a little nervous. You know, it should make you a little nervous because when we push ourselves outside our comfort zone, that means we're growing. That means we're reaching something for, for more, right? As I see my toddler grow, he's actually a quite big toddler, and he's taller and you know, bigger in general compared to his counterparts, but he's also stretching himself, stretching himself and not just walking earlier, but he's also trying to climb things and he's stretching himself.

He's, you know, pushing himself out of the comfort zone when he's on the playground. Mind you, he's 2 years old. So he's. On the side of the playground where all the bigger kids are the 8 year olds, the 10 year olds, and he's climbing and trying to do everything that they're doing. And some things he can do and he can accomplish it, sometimes he needs a little spotting or, you know, help from mom. And sometimes it's out of his league. He can't do the monkey bars right now, it's just not possible because, you know, he's not long enough or strong enough to hold himself. So the monkey bars are out of the question.

But the thing is, it's like, as children, we naturally push ourselves. We naturally get outside of our comfort zone. We start exploring our world, whether that's the confines of, of school or home, but we naturally start climbing furniture, bouncing on beds. You know what I mean? Children naturally do this, but for some reason, as adults, some of us, inhibit ourselves from doing that. And the purpose of being alive is to grow, learn, and be our best. It really is and I would actually say grow, learn, be our best, and give back.

That's probably another aspect of why we're on this earth, in my opinion, right? To grow, learn, give back, and be our best. And this all takes an evolution of sorts, but it also, you know, pushes us out of our comfort zone because in comfort, nothing grows, it all stays static, it all stays stagnant. So, for example, if you haven't done anything for your hair loss, in the last year? Nothing. Because you've been in analysis paralysis trying to think: Oh, am I going to do acupuncture? Am I going to do chiropractic care? Am I going to do the laser cap? Am I going to do the Hair N' Heal program? What am I going to do?

And you've just been in analysis paralysis and haven't done anything. More than likely you've seen more hair loss, more than likely you've seen a decline in health, mentally, emotionally, and physically, and more than likely You know, it's gotten you stuck, stuck, like in quicksand, because guess what? Things are not going to get better. Things only get worse when you don't do anything about it. That's really the reality to it. And so in this manner, even if it's baby steps, but you're moving towards that goal, but you're moving towards the action, whether for example, in my weight loss situation, postpartum, if I had to say no to ice cream, or no to chocolates, or no to this, or no to that, then I would, because the bigger goal was to lose weight.

The bigger goal was to get back into the clothes that I was fitting into before I got pregnant, because guess what, I didn't want to buy bigger sized clothes, I just didn't. I didn't want 2-3 different wardrobes with different size clothing, that's not me. I just want one size of clothing, maybe with just a little bit of a variation depending on the dress or the pants or whatever, but that's it. You know what I mean? I just want one size clothing for everything. I don't want to go with all these four or five different size clothing. And depending on the day or the week or the month, then I get to choose between them all. That's not what I'm looking for. Now I've controlled my weight, just like I've controlled my hair loss and both can be done, all of it can be done.

So it's up to you and it's up to us to take that initiative and to say, okay, I'm going to push myself out of my comfort zone, out of this box of stagnation so I can move forward in my goals. And again, a lot of times it's working backwards. So for example, with, let's say, let's go ahead and use my weight loss situation again.

So working backwards, what did this mean? So I would set a date because setting a date makes things come to life, makes things come to reality. So, for example, if you wanted to start the Hair N' Heal program January 1st, well then, sign up right before. And say: Okay, I want to sign up and this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to do the intake form here. I'm going to, you know, get the recommendations to here. And, you know, schedule it out make time. And so the same thing happens when we have any goal, whether it's to learn a new skill, to lose weight or anything else.

So in my postpartum situation, you know, I had a newborn and my husband and I made sure that I could go to the gym at 6AM before my husband went to work. So 2-3 times a week I would wake up at 5:30 in the morning to go to the gym at 6, be done by 7, be home by 7:15 at the most and have him be able to go to work, and then I could, you know, stay home, shower, eat, and then on top of it, he would make me a protein shake right after my workout. And so, you know, try to work backwards and see how this will fit into scheduling, into your life, into everything else, your goals, I mean, right?

We need to work our goals into our lives, whether that is waking up a little bit earlier to tackle the day and get it done and also understanding who you are. Like for me, I have tons of energy in the morning. I have lots of energy in the morning, but towards the afternoon at night is the worst. I do not want to get off you know, go to the gym or

anything in the afternoon or at night because that's when I start to wind down, but that's my temperament, that's my type of personality and that's my chronotype. Actually, there's a book about this. It's called chronotypes and the author places people, there's like 4 different types of chronotypes and I'm the lion.

So the majority of people are bears. I'll just give you a little synopsis here. The majority of people are bears, which means that they have peak energy from like 11AM to 2PM but they like to sleep in. These are bears, lions are early wake, you know, they're people who wake up early and who have the most energy and their peak brain capacity is in the morning but then towards the afternoon they start winding down. Then you have dolphins and you have the night wolves who have their peak energy at night.

And not during the day. They like to sleep in, maybe towards the afternoon. As well, wake up around noon or 1 in the afternoon. And then you have dolphins, and dolphins are people who thrive on like 3-4 hours sleep. And their peak time for like thinking and doing things and planning is like 3-4 in the morning. But this is a very, very small percentage. So that's, In a very quick nutshell, that's Chronotypes, the book, and this is a great book to understand yourself a little bit more and to see how and where you thrive and what, in what capacity do you thrive and what's best for you, what type of environment, whether that's a work environment or a work at home environment, what does, what this looks like for you, so I recommend that book, but in any case understanding yourself and how you can work your goals into your lifestyle, right?

So as I mentioned, you know, my husband had to get out the door by like 7:30-8:00 o'clock at the latest. And so I make sure that I would go to the gym and hit my goal of completing the gym. And then the rest of it was on me, right? The food, the lifestyle, everything else was on me in order to lose weight because going to the gym alone is not going to help me lose weight, it has to incorporate everything, right? There's normally many pieces to goal setting and to achieving our goals.

So even in hair loss, it's not just you attending coaching calls and talking to me, but it's also the intake form. It's also my recommendations. It's also going through the program. It's also, you know, all these other things that are incorporated to it. And so working backwards and seeing how you can implement this and how important it is because when you make yourself a priority, you make it happen, you know, and if there's anything that I've learned throughout life and throughout my 40+ years of age is that putting yourself first is not necessarily saying no to others, but it's making you a better vessel for others.

What does that mean? It means that if I get to do a little bit of self care, meaning healing my alopecia or, you know, eating a great meal or taking a nap or you know, going to the gym in order to accomplish the goal of losing the weight or being a better mom, then I do become a better mom for my child and a better wife for my husband and, you know, a better person for Alopecia Angel and a better mentor for all my clients.

And so the thing is, it's like it all starts with us and, you know, they really say that if you want to make an impact, start within your own community. You know, sometimes we don't make impacts with gum blazing all around the world, all of a sudden, sometimes it's just home within our own neighborhood, within our own community, but being your best self is what's needed in order to share that love, share that inspiration, share the progress, share the growth, share the evolution with others. And so the big, hairy, scary goals are fantastic. So dream big, put those on.

And if you're a parent listening to this, like do this with your child, more than likely you have a child any children, whether they went through alopecia or not, and then, you know, help them achieve these goals. But like, see that not all goals are going to be super easy to accomplish. Painting the house. It sounds easy, but at the same time, there's work involved, right? You got to buy the paint, you got to buy the tools, and then you got to put in the elbow grease to actually paint the house, right? So, it sounds easy, but it also takes time. It also takes making this a priority instead of watching football or instead of going to another activity or grandma's house. We got to stay home and paint the house or hire someone to do it or something of this nature.

But you see any goal we want, it's all going to have multiple steps to it. Some less others more, but at the end of the day, it'll all be worth it and you are worth it. And this is my final thought for the year is that wherever you are on the goal spectrum, whether you've accomplished 50% of your 2023 goals, or maybe even just 10% or 80% or 90%, wherever you are still congratulate yourself, still give yourself a huge round of applause and a huge hug and pat on the back because you've accomplished, even if it's just one thing, you've accomplished it.

Next year there's more to do and next year we can do more, but it all takes the right mindset, the right motivation, and also the right purpose. For example, my why in healing my alopecia is because I didn't want to go bald. I always had big curly hair. Why would I just go all of a sudden? So the reason of going throughout this route was first and foremost my fertility if you didn't know, but then also because I wanted to have children and not have those medications affect my fertility or babies in the future.

And due to this was my why the higher purpose of getting my hair back wasn't for necessarily vanity, but it was for healing myself and to do it naturally so that I can be 100% guaranteed that none of those medications would affect my baby, my future babies. And it didn't, and I healed and I got so much better, so much healthier, my fertility upgraded, everything upgraded. And that's the power that we have when we attach a purpose to it. And then once I saw that it was possible for me and for others, I was just like: Okay, the world needs to know. And boom, that's how Alopecia Angel was born.

So at the same time, it's possible for you to achieve those hairy, scary goals. It's possible to reflect back and give yourself a round of applause and have gratitude for this past year and, you know, be hopeful and excited for what's to come because what's to come is only better. But that starts with mindset that starts with putting yourself as a

priority. And that's also knowing and understanding that you are worthy. You are absolutely 100% worthy of your healing. You are worthy of any goal you want to have, because remember everything you want, wants you to.

So I wish you and your families a happy, healthy, hairy 2024 and beyond and lots of love and happiness to you and to yours and for all my program participants and for all my clients: Thank you, thank you, thank you. And I can't wait to make next year even better and bigger. For more healing across the world in more than 66 countries and, you know, seeing the start of this nonprofit and so much more, I can't wait to really create a bigger impact for people with alopecia because many times we're not given the option or even the idea that it's possible to heal naturally. And in reality, it's the only way to heal. It really is.

At least for me, it's the only way to heal where you actually have control, take control and never have to see alopecia again. That's the promise, that's the guarantee. Once you take control, there's no going back. So you can do this, I'm with you all the way, every step. And I'm here to answer any questions or concerns you may have. If you have anything that you'd like to say or share, please let us know, write us at [email protected] you can find more on our website, alopeciaangel.com. Get inspired with all the, all the recent and all the past interviews that we've had with parents, with adults and children from our healing program.

We're here to help you overcome your alopecia once and for all. Take care.