Things we dive into in this episode:
1. Embracing your feelings and living more fully (AKA aliveness!)
2. The power of reconnecting with energy, sensitivity, and creativity
3. Actionable steps to help you cultivate aliveness
📘Resources
Learn more on my website about my In New Year's Retreat and sign up with a discount when you complete the Alive in October Challenge
📌Episode Highlights
Aliveness = energy, sensitivity, and creativity
You have energy.
You have the physical energy in your body to be able to do the things that you need to do and some of the things that you want to do in your life.
You have the enthusiasm and the little spark and the inspiration to keep moving forward even when things feel a little bit challenging.
You have sensitivity.
You have all your feelings about things. You are in your body and sense when you're sad and sense when you're excited and sense when you're angry.
All of the best things in life are senses. Love is a sense that you feel in your body. It's not something you think in your brain. Self-confidence is a sense of self-confidence that you feel in your body, a sense of assuredness.
You have creativity.
You create something out of nothing.
You create and live the life that only you can live.
You operate from a place of creation rather than operating from a place of avoidance.
Alive in October Challenge - you can download the tracker here
Mindful Eating - Fuel your body with food AND let food be a delightful or grounding practice, instead of a chore
Eat: 3 meals that include carb + protein + fat + fiber!
Plate: put all your meals and snacks on a plate or in a bowl
Get present: take a deep breath or practice a lil gratitude before your first bite of food
Soak Up the “Sun” - Stop saving what you’re excited about for some arbitrary point in the future. Give yourself time (and permission) to lean in now
Joy dump: write about or talk to someone about anything you’re excited about, no matter how “little” or “basic” it is
Bliss break: put snack-size (or longer) moments for joy on your cal in the middle of your day (so it feels like a treat)
Wonder walk: take some steps around your hood and play some “I spy” or “what’s that?”or “wow that’s beautiful!”
Inner Child - Tap into the sense of creativity, presence, and unselfconscious play that we’re born with (and often conditioned out of)
Engage with little you: ask me for the meditation audio! or just look at a photo of yourself as a kid daily
Create: dance, sing, take a class just because, or make some sort of art/craft
Sleep like a baby: take a cozy nap like you would as a kid, go to bed earlier when you can, melt into REST
Relationships - You aren’t meant to go through life alone. Cultivate connection on a regular basis.
Send a pebble: bid for connection; send a friend a lil “love note,” a thank you, or meme that made you think of them
Phone call: call someone who helps you feel calm or laugh
Quality time: spend quality in-person time with someone
Emotional Release - Create spaces to feel life all the way. Remember that there’s so much beauty and relief that comes with feeling it ALL
Conscious release playlist: put on a playlist that brings you through joy, anger, and grief - then move intuitively to it
Journal: what would the emotion say if it sat down for tea with you?
Slow down: take space to engage with art, movies, TV, visuals, or nature that inspires you to access your emotions
Thanks for listening! 💖 Stay tuned to Caitie’s website for more episode updates and other exciting programs and resources.
Transcript
Caitie: I don't know about you, but I want to feel alive again. I don't know about you, but I looked at my calendar and saw it was October 1st and started thinking back to a lot of this year and was feeling like the last couple of months have felt slightly blurrier than I want them to feel. And I don't know about you, but I think that there are still three months left in this year. And I believe that I have the capacity to bring my sense of aliveness back, my sense of sensitivity and my sense of creativity and my sense of energy back. I feel like I've lost it a little bit, especially over the last couple of weeks.
So, I am here on the microphone today to invite you to join me in using the month of October to feel alive again. And don't worry, I'm not trying to sell you anything. I'm totally inviting you to join me in something for completely free in a completely casual way. But I'm super excited about it and I can't wait to get into it.
Before I do, let me officially welcome you back to the podcast. I have been gone for a little over two months. haven't published a new podcast episode and I'm so grateful to be back here on the microphone. And this is going to be a completely, completely from the heart special. I am not editing this episode. I'm not sending this episode to my editor. I'm not going to have my little theme music and introduction like I normally do because today is just an episode that I want to get out of my heart and onto the internet so that we can all start feeling more alive in October together.
So let me just do a little brief intro though, even though I'm not putting the official jingle music on today. Welcome to another episode of Whole, Full, & Alive, the podcast helping you feed yourself, feel yourself and be yourself. I'm your host, Caitie Corradino. I'm a registered-dietitian nutritionist, body image counselor, a yoga teacher, a reiki healer, a breathwork practitioner, and a human being based in Lisbon, Portugal, for right now. I'm a bit of a traveler and I've got some developments to where I'll be based next.
I love, I love talking to you through this platform. I love sharing no bullshit stories and actionable tools to help you feel more whole, more full, and more alive. Aliveness is the main theme of today's episode. I am gonna tell you today how you can join me in my Alive in October experiment that I'm running personally for myself, but decided to make it a community thing literally yesterday. And let's just get into it. Let's just, let's just go for it.
So why am I jumping on the microphone on a non edited episode to start talking about aliveness and to invite you to join me in feeling more alive this October? Because I noticed recently that I've been getting into a little bit of a survival mode. And when I say survival mode, I mean like, I've been spending a little bit more, I've been spending a little bit more time in my head, a little bit more time trying to scan for threats and dive into anxiety about the future instead of being present to what is in front of me, which is a lot of good things. And I think what's triggered me to get back into survival mode is a lot of really valid triggers. I've had some financial uncertainty come up recently. That's just kind of the, you know, par for the course when you're an entrepreneur, but it has been particularly, particularly rocky recently with some unpredicted expenses that I had come up. And I've also had some really big shifts, transitions and challenges in my family, things going on in my immediate family unit that have rocked me a little bit. And I've faced some really challenging moments in my career recently. I'm really helping clients in a deeper way than I have before, than ever before. I think I go deeper every year into my career. That's only, I think, also par for the course when you're a clinician, you're just going to go a little deeper every year. So I've been holding space for some really big stuff with clients. And I think having financial instability and having some family challenges and having some to hold some really heavy stuff during my client sessions recently has brought me into a place where I feel like I am just kind of moving through the day more than I'm living in the day.
And this is not in alignment with my values in the slightest. And this is not why I live the life that I live. I didn't choose to become an entrepreneur and build this business and travel and, you know, move out of New York City where I'm originally from to just kind of be where I am right now and not appreciate it fully. And I'm going to guess that whatever it is you've decided to do in your life, the place you decided to live, the partner you've decided to be with, the career path you're on, I'm gonna guess that if it's in alignment with your values, you didn't choose it to not enjoy it. You didn't choose it to not experience it. You didn't choose it to not be in it. And if you feel like the last couple of weeks or any part of this year has been a little blurry for you, I wanna invite you to join me in the pursuit of feeling more alive again.
So, I think I've defined what it means to not be alive pretty decently now. I just mean like it means to be numb, it means to be anxious, it means to be not really living in your day, it means to be kind of just more in survival mode. But let's define what it means to feel alive again. I think feeling alive is made up of three parts. Feeling alive means one, you have energy. You have energy, you have the physical energy in your body to be able to do the things that you need to do and some of the things that you want to do in your life. I think energy also means that you have the enthusiasm and the little spark and the inspiration to keep moving forward even when things feel a little bit challenging. So that's part one of aliveness is getting energy.
I think part two of aliveness is connecting with a sense of sensitivity is what I wanna say. I don't know about you, but I used to be shamed for being really sensitive as a kid. I used to be shamed for crying a lot. I used to be shamed for being a little bit nerdy and excited about things. I want to reclaim sensitivity and remind you that to be truly fully alive is to be sensitive. It's to have all your feelings about things. It's to really be in your body and sense when you're sad and sense when you're excited and sense when you're angry. Because all of the best things in life are senses. Like, I think a lot of us want to have love in our lives. Love is a sense that you feel in your body. It's not something you think in your brain. I think a lot of us want to have self-confidence. Self-confidence is a sense of self-confidence that you feel in your body, a sense of assuredness. And if we're not sensing anything at all, we don't get to access these sought after senses. So being more alive is about restoring sensitivity.
And the third thing that constitutes aliveness is creativity. And I don't just mean like painting a picture or writing a song. Those can be part of creativity, you know, creating something from nothing. But when I say creativity, I also mean like creating your life, creating and living the life that only you can live and operating from a place of creation rather than operating from a place of avoidance. And what I mean by that is, are you waking up on a regular basis and texting your friends because you want to create a better relationship with them? Or are you waking up every day and texting your friends because you want to avoid them being mad at you? Right. Operating from a place of creation is important. Creating your life rather than avoiding problems to totally different things.
So in October, I am committed to restoring my sensitivity, I am committed to restoring my energy levels, and I am committed to restoring my creative juices, my creative power, my creative flow and operating from a place of creation rather than from a place of avoidance. And I've created a list of things that I'm going to try to do on a regular basis that I know will help me cultivate this like full body aliveness and I'm going to share that list of things with you and I'm going to invite you to join me to join me in practicing these things throughout the month of October. I created a little tracker for myself that I will also share with you and you can put it somewhere where you can access it on a daily basis and you can see how many boxes are you able to tick on the aliveness tracker for that day. The goal is to get five boxes ticked every day. That's my goal. Maybe your goal is to get just one of the boxes ticked or two of the boxes ticked or all of the boxes ticked, go off. But I really do believe that if we can tick at least five of the items that I'm about to list out to you, we can end October feeling really alive again.
And it's important to note that the aliveness challenge is not the happiness challenge. The aliveness challenge is not how to be more happy in October. It's how to be more alive in October. So some of the things on this list are going to incite maybe some of the more difficult emotions. Some of the things on this list might incite you to confront some things you're feeling sad about. Some of the items on this list might ask you to work through a challenge that you're having in one of your relationships. Like, this isn't the let's get happy in October, it's the let's feel alive in October. And remember that feeling alive is feeling it all. So some of this stuff is gonna incite some, yeah, some sparkly, fuzzy, happy emotions for you. And other items on this list might ask you to confront other emotions and that's because that's what it means to be alive, to restore our energy, our sensitivity, and our creativity. We have to allow ourselves to access the full range of our aliveness, which isn't just the positive emotions, quote unquote, it's some of the quote unquote negative emotions as well. That's what makes life beautiful and artful and worth living.
So what is on this list? What am I gonna do to feel more alive in October? I've broken this down into five categories of habits because I feel like there are five areas of life that help me really tap into my aliveness. So these five areas are mindful eating, which we can kind of guess what that's about, but we'll go into it. Soaking up the sun, which is really leaning into the sunshine when I can and the sunshine being a metaphorical thing, not a literal thing. Connecting to my inner child. Relationships building meaningful relationships and having room for emotional release.
So let's start with mindful eating. I think this is no surprise to anyone that I would put this at the top of the list because I am a dietician. The mindful eating items are number one, eat. Eat three meals a day that include carbs, proteins, fats, and fiber. I'm going to smash this one. As a dietitian, I don't forget to eat my three meals per day. It's been a high value for me for a long time and pretty much no matter what, I do not waiver from that. So I am going to be fueling my body with food every day, three meals a day. Item two, under mindful eating or action two to feel more alive is to plate all your meals, put all your meals and all your snacks on a plate or in a bowl. I don't always smash this one. Sometimes I am eating, especially snacks, just like straight out of the refrigerator, straight out of the box. And that's not to shame myself, but it definitely doesn't make my eating experiences very grounding and eating should be a delightful or grounding experience. It shouldn't be something that I need to do in a rush because that makes my digestion wonky and I don't enjoy the food as much. And so plating is important. It also helps us kind of be mindful of our portion sizes and have an understanding of how much we're eating. And no, I'm not advocating for portion restriction. I'm advocating for learning about yourself and being like, okay, this portion did satisfy me. This portion didn't satisfy me. If we don't put our food on a plate, we'll never know what satisfies us.
Item number three under mindful eating is get present. So this is taking a deep breath or practicing a little gratitude before your first bite of food at as many meals as you can. So can you look at that plate of food or that bowl of a snack that's in front of you and say, wow, like so many things had to fall into place for this food to get in front of me. I'm so grateful to have this food in front of me or to have had the time to prepare this for myself. Or you just drop the gratitude and you just take a deep breath and then start eating. So that is area one. I know that if I practice more mindful eating, that is going to help me feel more alive in October.
Category number two is soaking up the sun. So this is all about stop saving what you're excited about for some arbitrary point in the future. It's about giving yourself the time and the permission to lean in right now. So three ways we can do this. Number one is you can do a joy dump. You might write about or talk to someone about anything you're excited about, no matter how little or basic it is. In fact, the little or basic things are even better. What TV show are you loving? What book are you loving? What musical artist are you loving? What candle are you loving? What are you loving? Let's talk about it. And let's not put any limits on our sense of enthusiasm about it. If you are a Swiftie, go be a Swiftie in your journal or to your coworker and talk about Taylor Swift. If you are a Ted Lasso fan like me, talk about how they just confirmed that they're gonna do another season and I'm so excited about it. If you love flowers or plants or whatever, joy dump it.
Number two for soaking up the sun is taking what I call a bliss break. So this means put a snack size or longer if you have it, moment of joy in your calendar for some point in the middle of your day. It has to be the middle of the day. It can't be like end of the day reward. A bliss break is a middle of the day treat. Even if you're working in an office, can you have your bliss break where you just like eat a little square of chocolate and step away from your computer or you go for a walk outside or you just open the window and stare out or you pull up a really funny YouTube video and watch it. Take your bliss breaks. I mean, sometimes if I have like a particularly spacious day where I have like two hours between clients, I'll take a bath and eat chocolate in the bath. And for some reason, when I do that in the middle of the day, it's so much sweeter than when I do it at the end of the day. It's gotta really feel like a treat. What is your bliss break? Know that you're allowed to have bliss in the middle of the day. You don't have to save your joy for some arbitrary metric of the future or some arbitrary moment when you've got enough done. What is your bliss break? I'm very excited for my bliss breaks.
And then number three for soaking up the sun is taking what I call a wonder walk. Can you take some steps around your neighborhood and play some I Spy or what's that or wow, that's fucking beautiful. Look at that thing. That's a wonder walk is like walking around your neighborhood like you're a little kid with eyeballs for the first time and noticing what you notice and trying to find some beauty looking just like hunting for beautiful things that's soaking up the sun. So we're eating mindfully. We're soaking up the sun.
Category number three is your inner child. How can you get in touch with your inner child this October? Action number one would be engage with little you. So you could do this in two ways. You might do an inner child meditation. Feel free to ask me for an inner child meditation. I recorded one and I'm happy to send it to you if you email me or DM me on Instagram, or just look at a photo of yourself as a kid every day. And that's a super easy one. Put a photo of yourself as a kid on the mirror, wherever you can see it and remember that that kid is you.
Item number two for connecting to your inner child is create. So you might just dance or sing or take an art class just because, or make some sort of art or craft. Just create something just because you're creating it. Sing your version of a song just because you want to. Make up a stupid dance in your kitchen just because you want to, not because you're going to perform it or take a video of it.
You know, this is something I struggle with a lot because I love to post my kitchen dance breaks on Instagram, just as a way to be like, I want everyone to do this for themselves. I have so much fun when I'm doing it, but then I can't record it every day because sometimes it's like, okay, this is no longer for me. This is for like an audience and it doesn't, it's not as authentic and it doesn't come off in the same way. I don't have as much fun with it. So I have to like only record it every couple of days. Otherwise it's, it doesn't hit the same. so you've got to create the thing just for you, at least sometimes.
And then inner child action item number three is sleep like a baby. Take a cozy nap like you would as a kid. Go to bed earlier when you can. And just like melt into rest, like a little kid would after they've been out playing all day. We lose touch with that sometimes. Give yourself that permission to fall into cozy rest, at least some days of the week. Again, we're not checking off every item on this list every single day. We're gonna go for at least five. And it'll make sense when you see it all listed out.
Let's move into the next category. Relationships. We aren't meant to go through life alone. So to feel more alive, to feel more in touch with our feelings, to feel more in touch with our creativity, to feel more in touch with a sense of energy and inspiration, we've got to have connection on a pretty regular basis. So here are three ways you can connect to feel more alive. Number one is send a pebble. I found this terminology from, gosh, what's his name, Adam Grant. A pebble is basically just a bid for connection. So it might be as simple as sending a meme that made you think of someone to them, or it might be sending a friend a little love note, like a little love text, like, I love you, and I appreciate this about you. Or it might be sending a thank you to someone for something. Send a pebble. Lowest hanging fruit of relationships, in my opinion.
Number two is have a phone call with someone who helps you feel calm or someone who helps you laugh. I know that my little brother is gonna make me laugh no matter what. Even if we're talking about something tragic, like I know he's gonna make me laugh. If I need to laugh, I will do what I can to get him on the phone. And I know that my friend Nicole is gonna help me feel calm no matter what. And if I need a sense of calmness, I can call her on the phone and even if she's in a tailspin of her own, we have this like co-regulating relationship and my phone calls, even if they're five minutes are really valuable to me, make space for that.
And number three, of course, is just quality time, spend quality in-person time with someone. And I would say try to keep this to one-on-one hangouts because sometimes when you're in a group, we don't get the same level of quality as we do when we hang out one-on-one with someone. So try to have more one-on-one hangs with people. It's not to cancel the group chat, like definitely hang out in groups. That's also really beautiful and amazing to have community, but don't forget that quality one-on-one time, like is really where it's at.
And the last thing I want to say about relationships before I move on to the last category is that we can't control other people. Like there's definitely an element of surrender that's required in this category more than the others. Mindful eating, we're kind of staying in our own lane. Soaking up the sun, we can kind of do that on our own. Inner child, we can also do that on our own. In relationships, we obviously require other people. It takes two people to have a relationship and we can't control other people. There is a sense of surrender that is required in relationship. We don't know how our pebbling is going to go. We don't know how our phone call is going to go, always. We don't know how our quality time is going to go. Challenges can come up. Arguments can come up. Disagreements can come up. Other people might be in their triggered states and not everyone is a constant in our life. If we're really lucky to have people that we can rely on and have really open, honest, flowy communication with, then that's great. We don't always have that. We don't always have access to those people.
So what I will say about the relationship thing is that we have to be open to some of the kinks in the hose when it comes to relationship so that we can then access the sense of aliveness and learning about ourselves and growth that comes from relationship. And remember that even in those kinks in the hose moments, there still is a lot of value in that. And if you let yourself lean into the discomfort of it and what you can learn from it, you certainly will be feeling more alive by the end of the month.
The last category for our live in October challenge is emotional release. I know I have not been giving myself enough space for the last couple of weeks to feel my emotions, especially about the things that have gone wrong for me over the last couple of weeks. I haven't been having any of my feelings about it. I've been really trying to white-knuckle my way through it. I've been trying to be like, okay, well, what do we have to do about this? What's next? Especially when it comes to my business and finances and things like that. I'm like, all right, well, here we go. What's next? and that's not fair to me. And I'm treating myself like a robot and I'm a human with feelings, with grief, with anger, with frustration, and I need a space to vent that out. So I commit to doing these three things under emotional release.
The first thing is to create a conscious emotional release playlist. Put on a playlist that brings you through a sense of joy, a sense of anger, and a sense of grief in that order and move intuitively to that playlist. So put on like three songs in a row that will bring you joy and just dance around to them. Three songs that help you access anger and punch your pillows and move around in a way that, you know, helps you release anchor and frustration. then three songs that help you access grief, sadness, processing, tears. And I encourage you to, you know, lock your door and light a candle and really create an intentional space to put on this playlist. I promise you, you will feel something. You will feel a release, a relief in this practice, if you let yourself really go for it, if you create the playlist, put it on the speaker, lock the door, let yourself move through it. Let me know how that goes.
Item number two in the conscious emotional release is journaling. And the prompts that I like to use most with emotions is what would this emotion say if it sat down for tea with me? So if I'm feeling angry, I try to imagine I'm sitting at the kitchen table and anger comes in to chat with me and anger says, I'm so mad that blah, blah, blah. And I'm so mad that this and I'm so mad that that and I'm so mad that that and I just let myself vent in my journal. Maybe fear comes in and it says, I'm afraid that blah, blah, blah. And maybe joy comes in and it says, hey, like I love when this and I love when that and I'm so grateful that that let your emotions come through for tea with you and see how goes.
And then number three is to just slow down and engage with art or movies or TV or some sort of visuals or nature that inspires you to access your emotion. So maybe you just slow down and like watch a movie that you know helps you have a good cry. Like what's your good cry movie? What's your good cry TV show? Maybe you watch a movie that helps you access a sense of joy, like a comfort movie. That's cool too. Maybe you look at a piece of art that helps you cultivate a sense of rage or anger, or maybe you just get into nature and you see what comes through when you slow down and sit in nature. Give yourself that.
So the emotional release part is all about creating spaces to feel life all the way. Remembering that there's so much beauty and relief that comes with really feeling it all. And if you want to feel more alive in October, it's not just about feeling happy all the time, it's about releasing all of the emotions that human beings are designed to feel.
Your human body is a feeling machine. And when you suppress your feelings, you start to feel kind of crunched up and tense and maybe even like anxious thoughts start firing off. Like for me, I've been noticing I'm feeling more anxiety lately. And I think it's because I haven't taken enough space to feel and I'm just stuck in this sort of like anxious loop. And I know that having more conscious emotional release is really, really going to help me.
So, I encourage you to join me in this alive in October challenge. We are going to work together. I'm going be posting about this on my Instagram stories pretty much every day, just to keep myself accountable and to invite everyone to keep joining. We are going to feel alive by practicing these things that increase our energy, our sensitivity and our creativity. So after you've listened to this episode, you can start the challenge by setting reminders on your calendar to check in with the Aliveness Tracker that you're going to download or just download the tracker and print it out and put it somewhere where you're going to see it like every day. Maybe it's in your bathroom or your bedroom or at your desk. and keep score. Each box counts as one point. So can you get at least five points every day? Feel free to post that on your Instagram stories if you want to and tag me or just DM me.
And then at the end of October, all I ask is that you email me caitie@fullsoulnutrition.com or you post on social media about your experience with this challenge. So either email me, DM me or post about your experience with this challenge. And if I receive a message from you, I will send you a link for a free reiki and meditation session that will be designed just for you based on your reflection. So, I want to give you a free gift if you participate with this, I will use your reflection to create a custom meditation session for you.
And you will also be gifted $200 off my next retreat. So if you want to come join us this New Year's in Portugal, we are going to eat, move, breathe, adventure and heal in an amazing community. It is going to be the best way to end 2024 and start 2025. I promise. And you can have $200 off this retreat if you do this alive in October challenge. I would love to have some people who want to do this kind of thing on the retreat with us in Portugal. You can come meet me here.
Okay. I think that's all. guess, you know what? No. One more thing I want to say is that something I love about all of these action items is that all of them are kind of free of expectation. About they're free of expecting things to go a certain way. I was speaking with my friend Diana yesterday and I was having like a little bit of my, one of my anxiety episodes and Diana basically encouraged me to find peace by letting go of expectation. And it reminded me of one of my favorite quotes that I haven't thought about in a while, which is, the opposite of expectation is seeing the beauty in all things.
I did an entire podcast episode just on expectations, by the way. You could probably find it. But I think what's cool about this alive in October challenge is that we don't need to know how it's gonna go when we engage with our inner child. We don't need to know how it's gonna go when we send a pebble to a friend. We don't need to know how it's gonna go when we go on our wonder walk and we don't need to know how it's going to go when we take a deep breath before we begin eating. But what we do know is that we will feel more alive and more present if we do all these things. More alive and more present doesn't necessarily mean I will be very happy and I will make a ton of money. But we do know that we'll feel more present, more creative, more sensitive, more energized. We can let life kind of carry us from there.
I think I've been very attached to the future needing to look a certain way recently and I'm missing what's in front of me right now. And if I can let go of my expectations of what the future is gonna look like, the rest of 2024 isn't gonna feel like a blip, it's gonna feel like three months that I was really present for and I will be able to see the beauty in no matter what way things turn out because I'm releasing expectations and not placing my sense of mental health or satisfaction in things turning out a certain way. I'm letting myself feel present to what's here now and trusting that you know, just one thing at a time will take me all the way to what's next. Yeah.
I was a little stream of conscious-y either, but I hope you're as excited to feel more alive in October as I am. I'm officially back on the microphone. Welcome back to Whole, Full, & Alive. I'm so excited to be here every month for a From the Heart episode, an interview episode with a guest and a Q & A episode. Three episodes every month and a re-release every month of an old episode. So we do get weekly episodes now starting this week. I am so grateful that you're tuning in. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a five star rating on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your pods. And yeah, let's feel more alive. I really believe in you. I believe in me. I believe in us. And we're not going to miss this October. We're going to be here for it. All right, take a deep breath. Have a peaceful rest of your day.
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