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343: Speaking Up for Your Health Through Listening w/ Christine Miles

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We often talk about the importance of being your own best advocate when it comes to your health. But speaking up for yourself isn't always easy. Today, you'll learn how 'listening' can actually be the best avenue for speaking up for yourself when it comes to your health. Learn to listen, and in turn, learn to recognize your own needs with "the listening guru" Christine Miles.

Christine Miles is the founder and CEO of EQuipt, a training and consulting company, and author of the critically acclaimed and award winning book, "What Is It Costing You Not to Listen?".  She is recognized globally as 'the listening guru.’

Hi! I’m Sarah!

You deserve to live a healthy, happy life my friend. I’m here to help you find tools and information that help. I’m cheering you on. xo

👇👇 Hit play to listen now 👇👇

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Dive deeper:

  • Learn more about Christine Miles on her site HERE.

  • Find her on FB HERE

  • What does 6+ years of experience, thousands of hours of research, and an obsession with essential oils result in? THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO ESSENTIAL OILS, that’s what. Originally just for my Insiders, this guide literally has it all. And now you, yes you, can get this amazing resource for just $79. Click the link to stop worrying and start learning.

  • Got a recipe you want to share? Submit it to our DIY Dugout HERE

Hippie Days

From: TJ Cronley, Dayton, Ohio

Ingredients:

In a diffuser combine:

  • 4 drops Patchouli

  • 2 drops Fennel

  • 2 drops Orange

Directions:

 Didn’t come with directions, but I say, diffuse when you’re feeling nostalgic for some peace, love, and happiness

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Episode Transcript

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0 (2s): Listening, not imitation, may be the sincerest form of flattery. Joyce Brothers

2 (10s): Empowerment in Education. Two powerful elements that will help you break free of convention and transform your passion for wellness tool level beyond the status quo. The essential oil revolution where you're given the tools to supersede an ordinary, everyday lifestyle, inspiring speakers, DIY recipes, healthy living tips, and more. You'll discover it all here. So tune in and get ready for a wellness revolution.

0 (41s): Hello and welcome to the Essential Oil Revolution. I'm your host, Samantha Lee Wright. And today on our show we're gonna be talking about something quite extraordinary, and that is the power of listening. Now we talk a lot on this show about the importance of being your own health advocate if you're going through a health journey, or heck, if you're even just seeing your doctor for a regular checkup. You have to be an active participant in order to speak up and advocate for yourself. But part of that speaking up really is rooted first in listening on our show today, The listening guru herself, Christine Miles, is gonna share with us some tangible tools that we can use to be better listeners, not just for others, but for ourselves in order to take better care of our own health.

0 (1m 39s): That's in a minute, but first, let's pull a recipe out of our DIY out. Today's recipe comes from TJ Croley in Dayton, Ohio, and her recipe is called Hippie Days. To Make the Hippie Days Recipe in a Diffuser combine four drops peul, two drops f and two drops, orange essential oil. Just add it to your diffuser to create a nostalgic feeling of peace, love, and happiness. Thank you for your recipe, tj. If you have your own recipe that you'd like to submit to our dugout, simply email it to diy revolution oils podcast.com. BetterHelp

(2m 26s): This show is sponsored by Better Help Therapy. Online Life can throw many changes at you. So many transitions to navigate, and sometimes you feel like you're trying to figure it out all on your own. I recently went through a time where I felt like I just couldn't handle it all in, man did I wish life came with some sort of user manual. Unfortunately, life doesn't come with instructions, but when things aren't working for you, a trained therapist can help you figure out the cause of challenging emotions and help you learn productive coping skills, which makes therapy the closest thing to a guided tour of the complex engine called You. Better Help has connected over 3 million people with licensed therapists. BetterHelp

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(3m 53s): Thanks to Everly, well for their support of our show, there's so much that we all do to take care of our health with Everly. Well, you can take action today by taking one of their at-home lab tests or by adding their vitamins and supplements into your daily routine. Everly well is digital healthcare design for you all at an affordable and transparent price. With over 30 at-home lab tests, you'll be able to choose the test that makes the most sense for you to get the answers that you need. Like the test, I took the women's health test, or maybe a food sensitivity test. I had such a good experience taking their women's health test. EverlyWell

(4m 33s): How it works is Everly well ships products straight to you with everything needed in one package. To take your at home lab test, simply collect your sample and use the included prepaid shipping label to mail your test back to a certified lab. From there, your physician reviewed results get sent to your phone or device in just a few days. It was so convenient to be able to have those results with me. When I went to talk to my primary care physician, it was a starting ground that opened up a whole world of possibilities for next steps to take. It was so empowering and for listeners of the show, Everly Well is offering a special discount of 20% off an at home lab test at everly well.com/revolution. EverlyWell

(5m 16s): That's everly well.com/revolution for 20% off your next at home lab test everly well.com/revolution.

2 (5m 34s): Well, I'm here with Christine Miles, who is the founder and CEO of Equipped a training and consulting company and author of the critically acclaimed and award-winning book. What is it Costing You Not To Listen? She is recognized globally as the listening guru and I'm so excited to have her here with us on the show. Christine, welcome.

0 (5m 56s): How are you today?

4 (5m 58s): I'm doing great. Thanks for having me.

0 (5m 60s): Well, congratulations on all the success of the book. I think that you, you're doing such incredible work. So many of not just the world's problems, which are big enough, but when we look at the interpersonal problems that I think a lot of people are having with themselves with their health journey, a lot of people listen for because they're on a health journey. A lot of those problems can be tied into listening to others, but especially to yourself. And so I wanna start out with your thoughts on that and how your book, your work that you're doing relates to essential oils and health and wellness.

4 (6m 44s): Well, first of all, I appreciate what you just said because one of the things I often say is that the more I've focused on the problem of not listening, the more I've learned that listening does help solve most problems. It may not do all the solving, but it's a considerable amount of it. So thank you for that. And yeah, I mean I'm sure your listeners are wondering what the tie-in is, but I think it, it's such a logical and, and really even emotional one, because one, a lot of the work we do is really to help people learn how to listen. And we tend to think of that as outside of ourselves, but it's also really learning to tune into yourself and listen to yourself first, understand yourself, your own story so that you can better understand others as well.

4 (7m 26s): So in terms of, you know, taking time for yourself, tuning into what feels good and, and brings you comfort and and peace. And I think that's, that's a, a very important thing to listen to.

0 (7m 39s): Yeah, absolutely. When's the last time that you found that to be true for yourself?

4 (7m 46s): Yeah, that's, that's a, that's an everyday thing and you know, I wish I, I mean, I'm, I'm a really, I'm really good at listening and I think, you know, learning to listen to yourself, I think it's the life work, right? We have to understand ourselves and it's, it's not, it's never finished. So that's a daily, that's a daily thing, which is why I think it's so important to pause and make sure that we're, we're stopping. And some people meditate, some people exercise, some people, you know, do other things. But whatever it is that you're, you're taking time to ground yourself and pay attention to you is so important. One of the things that I realized and we all hopefully had some learnings from, from the pandemic, I mean, the work that I do is deeply personal and it's, it's heavily rooted in empathy.

4 (8m 31s): And so people have often said, Well, how do you, you know, how do you take all that in? And it's so much positive energy, but it can also be some difficult things as well. So one of the things I really learned is I, I'm a Pisces, I always liked water, but I learned the importance of why I spent so much time. Like, I like baths, I like showers, I like the smells of associated that cuz it's, it's literally, it's like a cleansing for me and a a decompression emotionally as well as physically. So that's something I really noticed how important it was, especially when I didn't have the outside world to distract me. And I've really tuned in to listen to that differently. So now I make sure that I don't just, it's not just a reaction, but it's something that I'm building into my, into my self care all the time.

0 (9m 16s): Do you do anything special with, in your bath, like essential oils, bath salts, things like that?

4 (9m 22s): I do a little bit of both. So bath salts for sure. And also I, I like, you know, very the, the eucalyptus. I love just the way that smell makes me feel and just understanding a little bit more the root of what that means. It really is about cleansing negative energy, so it makes sense that I'm drawn to that and it's just so soothing. And when I, you know, that's part of what I really enjoy is not only the, the the smell, but just the feel and, and how I feel when I'm, when I'm done having that, that moment and taking that time. And I try to just make sure that it's also, it's, it's a peaceful time that there's not a lot of distractions, that it's just time where that energy can really change. And I, I really do feel different after I, I take that moment.

0 (10m 5s): Yeah, I always feel different after taking a essential oil bath or diffusing oils. Like, and I'm guilty about not listening to my own needs. A lot of times with that, you know, we have one of our diffusers kind of bounces around to different rooms in the house. I need to get some more diffusers. But you know, there was this one night where I was having a trouble sleeping. I was just laying in bed feeling sort of this anxiety kind of creeping up on me and I was like, Oh, I really need to go grab that diffuser. I need to put on like my go-tos like vti, lavender, maybe a little orange thrown in there or cedarwood for that anxiety.

0 (10m 46s): Just so calming. And I know that, I know that about myself, but sometimes I'll just completely ignore that self-care moment and go, eh, you know, I don't wanna go down, I don't wanna walk downstairs, I don't wanna go grab the diffuser, right. I'll just, I'll be fine. I'll fall asleep, you know, and then I'm up for the next hour being like, why didn't I just go grab that dang diffuser? You know? And yeah, so in the moments that I do, I stop and I listen and I say, No, this, this is my need right now. I'm gonna go do that thing. Same with like a bath, you know? Yes I can afford to take that time for myself and feel better, but that listening is not always easy.

0 (11m 28s): It's sometimes easier to just ignore it and stifle it's a great cost. So why do you, why do you think that so many of us are born really not knowing how to listen?

4 (11m 41s): Well, I think that we're, we're told, not taught. That's the first problem. So when we look back and we think about just our young lives, our parents tell us to listen. Teachers tell us to listen. There's a lot of that word thrown around, but we treat it like walking, like you have legs, so you learn to walk and if you have ears you'll learn to listen. The difference is that listening is really a skill hearing is, is what you're born with. If you don't have a disability, listening is a skill that needs to be developed. So we're kind of winging it and we're, you know, think about just the way we're raised emotionally sometimes that we're not necessarily raised with emotional language to listen to our own feelings, listen to our own heart as well as the listening to others.

4 (12m 24s): So it's, that's part of why we have those moments where we ignore and we just go, it'll be okay cuz that's habituated often not, not out of necessarily bad re for bad reasons or bad intentions, just because we're not tune tuning into those things or teaching children how to tune into those things. So it, it comes into adulthood. So just the fact that you recognize from that story that you shared that you were having some anxiety, that's step one, right? Then you that step too is you're obviously very expert at knowing exactly what will, will soothe that anxiety, that step two. So that's the second part of listening. And the third is really just to make sure, okay, this is, this is the need and I have to take that, that extra step.

4 (13m 8s): But we're just not habituated or taught to do that. Yeah.

0 (13m 11s): What, what are some approaches we can take with our own children or maybe if you're a teacher with your students, that we might not be thinking of, of this as a way to teach that listening?

4 (13m 26s): Well, this is my, this is what I call our listening mission. So I, I wrote the book, The book is called What is It Costing You Not To Listen? And while a large portion of who we serve are organizations to help them drive business results, the byproduct is that we're, we're having a lot of personal impact. And so our mission at my company is really to change the paradigm where we're focusing more on listening than just talking, telling and knowing. So, so when we talk about kids, that's really where the heart of it is for me. That if we only started to educate earlier in life and give kids the common language to listen to themselves and to others, I think the world would be a better place.

4 (14m 8s): So I, we had a client just a couple weeks ago doing a workshop. Now again, we're in a business workshop, but he shared a story of how he started using what we call, it's called the listening path, the path to understanding the, the tools that we provide on the path with his, with his three year old. And his three year old was then in turn starting to use those tools with him. And then the one and a half year old a couple weeks later has gotten involved. So he said the conversations are changing just at such a young age. So, so that's the first thing. We need to model it, right? We need to model how to listen in a way that is, and this is simple, not easy, but it's like skiing. If you learn when you're three versus you learn when you're 33, you're not as afraid on the, the slope.

4 (14m 52s): So, so part of it is really just starting to ask the right questions instead of giving the answers to our kids.

0 (15m 1s): Can you give an example of that?

4 (15m 3s): Yeah, sure. So, so I think one of the, there's a lot of enemies of listening to ourselves and others. Like what, what was your enemy the other night? Like, right, you told yourself a story, I'll just get, I'll just get through it, right? I'll just get, I'll get, I'm, I'm, I'm awake, I'm not sleeping. I know this is what I should do, but I'll be okay and an hour later you're still up. So the brain is really such an enemy of listening cuz we can talk ourselves out of things and it can really interfere. The other thing that can really interfere with listening is problem solving. And so I'll take that into the parent realm. We don't wanna see our kids in pain. And so when they have pain or joy for that matter, we tend to try to solve or shape the story instead of letting them really tell us what the story is.

4 (15m 53s): And so one of the ways to do that is really to start asking different questions. And I'll give a real simple example of that. And one is just to say, tell me more that when you know, how was your day or what's happening, when kids start to open up, we tend to talk back with them rather than to ask them to share more. So if we just respond with, tell me more, it's amazing what they will tell you.

0 (16m 20s): That's a really great, like what I call one-liner in parenting. Like I, I took a parenting class once and they sort of had you walk away with these really simple one-liners that were almost like this arsenal of power to me of like, oh, like these one, like I would write them on little post-its around my house to remind myself about the power of those words. And it really made a huge difference. And that was, that was one of them, you know, tell me more and such a powerful, like you said, simple but not easy because we do have that impulse of oh, I'm the adult, I've got the wisdom. I know what, like, let me just shove my wisdom into your brain.

0 (17m 3s): But that doesn't, that doesn't work. Wisdom has to be earned, right? They have to learn things on their own. So I love that. I really love that.

4 (17m 10s): Well it's, it's easy to like, so especially when our kids open up a little bit, we wanna engage in the conversation. I think, again, I problem solving and wanting to provide wisdom is a really helpful thing to wanna do and filled with amazing intention as parents, as siblings, as brothers and sisters and as salespeople and leaders. It's just that you said something really important is that that has to be earned because human nature is, we don't like to be told what to do. And when we start telling people rebel e even if it's not expressed inside their, their rebelling, because the earning comes from understanding first.

4 (17m 53s): So when you understand your kids or your whomever you're speaking with in a more profound way, you actually earn the right then to share that wisdom. And that's really what we, what we're focused on so that the conversation and the dialogue reaches a new dimension. So the, tell me more is the beginning just one of the six most powerful questions that, that engages the conversation and the person that's talking for you to be able to understand more before you start telling.

0 (18m 25s): I'm curious if this work applies a lot in the healthcare industry when it comes to caregivers. Have you worked much with doctors or nurses or different practitioners? I'm curious how aware they are about those gaps in listening and if these tools could be applied in those scenarios really easily.

4 (18m 45s): I I really appreciate that connection more than, you know, I, so one part of my story, so I start, I'll just take you back. I, I started listening differently when I was five cuz I had a mother who had mental health issues that stem from losing her mother from, from childbirth. Her mother died from childbirth. So she was set up for some psychological issues. The reason I started to listen differently is it was my job to understand that what people saw on the surface, this very warm and beautiful, charismatic loving woman had a deep seated pain that most people didn't see. And I started to see that early and understand that there's a lot more going on below the surface and that it's been a single thread to my success throughout my, my personal and professional life.

4 (19m 27s): If anywhere I succeeded, it was because I had, I had that, that skill. So how

0 (19m 33s): Young were you when you started picking up on

4 (19m 35s): That? I can remember as early as five noticing things that, you know, having some sh some snapshot memories where I was tuning in differently. I also had a father and, and my mother was very, her language around emotion was really good, as was my, my father. So, so there was definitely more than just it being expected. The, there were, it was, there was a, there was time taken to really listen, to understand. So I was, I I've pretty much deconstructed and, and systematized what I was taught as a kid. So that it, it doesn't have to be intuitive that it's very practical and applicable. So, so that's, that's where it comes from for me and why it's so important that I think, again, I know that most of us aren't taught because I could see the difference between myself and even my peers from a pretty young age based on the kinds of things I was able to attend to and listen to.

4 (20m 30s): So one of the things that happened to me in the course of my lifetime, I was 28 and I was, my career was on an up an upward trajectory and I was playing competitive field hockey at the time and I was in an auto accident, which rendered me with a pretty serious injury. I had chronic pain for three years. Mm. Tried out for the US hockey team and then I, I went acute one day. I could pull my shorts up after three years of, you know, chronic pain went acute. So one of the things that I learned, I spent a lot of time in the medical space, had surgeries, spent a lot of time with doctors and you know, one of the things that doctors need to be able to do very quickly is get to root cause and the patient has a lot of the answers.

4 (21m 15s): And so I I, I became passionate about this, this aspect of the field and have seen doctors and and only basically go to doctors who listen well cuz that's how my problem got solved by the ones that included me in the conversation in a different way. So, so this is very powerful. I have a upper cervical chiropractor that I see he's one of 200 in the country and we trained his staff on this. He said it has been game changing the way because it's not usually the event that people come in with. That is where the problem started. It usually happens long before that. And so when you participate with the patient and understanding that, it makes a big difference.

4 (21m 57s): So, so my hope is that we'll be able to help doctors in, in the future do more of this because I think patients matter of course. And the way they go in and diagnose and understand is so important to get to the real, the real issues so things don't get missed. And that we also look at the other side of health and not just throwing tests at it and solutions, but there's a wellness component to this as well that we're problem solving on the wrong things. And I was, I I live that journey.

0 (22m 29s): Yeah. What was the root in the end? Was it the car crash or was there kind of more to it than that that got slowly drawn out through that listening?

4 (22m 39s): Yeah, it, it was from the accident. So I, I had a compression fracture that went undiagnosed. I went to some of the best doctors in, in the field and they missed it. And you know, it, it, some of that, some of that is just because of the, you know, where it was. And I, I just had to really go to find the right doctors. But I also, it was really a physical therapist that I had that unlocked everything, that put all the pieces of the puzzle together because he did listen differently and he did look beyond what was just being expressed symptomatically. He went back in my story and if it were not for him, I don't, the problems wouldn't have been solved.

4 (23m 19s): It took a long time as it was to unravel it, but he was the linchpin and he was really guiding the doctors and me more than even the doctors. So, and he and I, again, you know, the other thing is I think, and this is my own bias, is that, that you really need to look at all aspects of the, the person and the system and not just the typical, I mean, when you say back injury, neck injury to somebody, somebody a a doctor, they have you very much in a very narrow box, right? And there's a lot of different ways to get help and I've gotten a lot of help post surgeries that I wish I knew about prior to having surgeries because it, it, it probably would've helped prevent some of it.

0 (24m 0s): Yeah, I love this story. I mean, I I hate that you had to go through all of that, but what a great illustration of the power of listening and the power of, like what you said, the the patient usually has the answer somewhere inside of them. Right? And we, we teach that a lot here on the show is to be a very, very active participant in your health journey. I think in today's modern healthcare, you, you have to be an active participant or so much can get missed so much can go unnoticed, untreated, just yes, and being smart about choosing your doctors, right?

0 (24m 47s): Like I try to teach my, when I taught childbirth classes, I try to teach my my students, you know, you're the customer here, right? You're the one that's paying for a service. So don't be afraid to speak up and for yourself and say, you know, I just didn't really like this doctor for, for whatever reason. It's okay to, to move around and really settle into somewhere where you feel like you're getting the kind of service that you deserve. And that can't happen unless you're advocating for yourself.

4 (25m 21s): And that, and I could not agree more, and it's just such a hard thing to do to, to advocate for yourself, to be your own advocate because, and even when you have somebody with you, I think even though that's such an important part of this is because they're the expert. I mean, I remember when I got pretty friendly with some of my doctors because, and I had a doctor, a medical doctor who was in Maryland. I needed to have a procedure to try to prevent surgery that had to happen in pa the pa the Pennsylvania doctor had never done the procedure. My Maryland doctor came unpaid to the, or he couldn't touch me because he wasn't licensed in PA and talked, talked the Pennsylvania doctor through the procedure just so I could have this at he charged.

4 (26m 6s): Nothing did it outta the kindness. So there's really good, these are the kinds of doctors that I ended up with. But you know, I think, I think that one of the things that the best way you can advocate for yourself is just ask, is the doctor listening to me? I think even if you just ask yourself that question, is he or she listening to me? And if the answer is no, you're probably not in the right place because that's just a basic litmus. We think that the most credentialed doctors are the best ones. And while those credentials are important, it's also how they, how they view the patient.

4 (26m 47s): And, and I found from my experience, the ones that listened in a way that they, I participated in the answers and, and the exploration is how I actually found the solve. I I see a doctor now that does prolotherapy and p r p, you know, alternative medicines to help promote healing. I'm sure you're familiar. And I had a, I had a secondary thing happen. I had a, a muscle tear and I went in, his name's Dr. Brian Scheel, and he's very innovative. And I said, Look, doc, I think I figured out what my problem is. I had Googled it, I had looked on YouTube and I had narrowed it down to this muscle. And he listened to every aspect of what I had to say, and he said, You might be right, but how about if I now also ultrasound it, check it out, make sure, et cetera, et cetera, just to make sure we get the right spot.

4 (27m 36s): I said, Well, that's probably a good idea. Yeah,

0 (27m 38s): But he

4 (27m 38s): Let me, let me talk all it through. As it turned out, it was the muscle behind the one, ah, that I thought it was. But he let me be, he let me throw that dart. And then he went from there. He didn't say, I'm the doctor, I know what I'm doing. You don't know what you're talking about. I listen to my body, I pay attention, I try to tune and he knows that about me. And then we, we, we mapped it out together and thankfully, you know, I I got the help for that and I'm, that that problem was able to be resolved. So, so it's so, it's so important. But again, he, it's, it's the listening part and, and being listened to by the doctors. I, i, another doctor that would come in and say, What are your questions? I, I'd have them written down and he'd go right for my notebook, what are they,

0 (28m 23s): He'd

4 (28m 24s): Make that about me, not about him. So, yeah. So, you know, that's, that's part of it. So I think sometimes we have to not expect that people know how to listen, but we can go in and, and at least shape them how to listen to us.

0 (28m 39s): I love that. So what, what other a are there for us for listening? You had mentioned there was the six powerful sa sayings, is that what you called them? Six questions, six powerful questions. You know, that we, we talked about one. Do you wanna share some of what those other questions are or other aids that you teach for helping with listening?

4 (29m 1s): Yeah, sure. So, so the analogy that we use and I, I shared in the book and, and, and by the way, the last third of the book is really the listening path. So they're all the tools that I'm, I'm talking about some of these right now if anybody's interested. So, so we call these six most powerful questions, the compass. So the analogy is, you wouldn't go hiking in the woods or backpacking for three weeks to try to get from one side of the mountain to the other, going in without any supplies, right? You would take food, you would take a water filter, you would take, you know, lots of things so that you were safe and you could stay fed and, and survive. And we go into conversations and into situations where we don't have the tools, so we're not prepared and we're just winging it.

4 (29m 43s): And it, that's part of why it doesn't end well. So, so the compass, as we call it, it's the, it's how to make sure you don't get lost in the conversation are these six most powerful questions. And one of them, as I said, was, tell me more. The, the other one that I think this is really, really important when it comes to listening to yourself, and especially as it relates to mental and physical health, is we, we tend to start in the middle of the movie. So when we, when we watch a movie, if we start 20 minutes in, or you know, 30 minutes in, what happens? We, we tend to feel confused and lost. We're disoriented, we're not sure where this thing began and we're trying to get grounded and who's that and who are the characters and what's happening?

4 (30m 27s): The same thing happens with ourselves. And when we're in conversations, we tend to start right where we are now and instead of at the beginning. And so one of the things we have to say to ourselves or to others is, take me back to the beginning. Where did this start? So you were feeling anxious that night in bed. One of the questions might be, Wait a minute, let me, let me go back. When did, when did this start? And you orient yourself to where it began. That answer might be childhood for that night. That answer might be, it started at three after I had a phone call, or it started after I ate something weird or whatever. But when you ask that question, your mind will fill in the blank.

4 (31m 8s): And when you know where it began, it's a lot easier to figure out what you need to do next. So take me back to the beginning is a really important question.

0 (31m 17s): I love that. Well, do you wanna share one more tool and then we'll move on to our closing questions?

4 (31m 23s): Sure, sure. So, so in conversation, I'll take it outside of just the, the individual and into a conversation, one of the most underutilized tools in listening is making sure that we actually understand one another. So, and, and this is talked about usually in terms of, you know, repeat back what you hear from when you, when you're listening, we call this the flashlight or a reflection of what you heard. So rather than just the words, when I, when you and I are talking, it's more about me summarizing kind of the story back to you of what I heard. And about 10 to to 90 seconds. So that not only did you say it, but you know that I heard it.

4 (32m 7s): And that's one of the steps that is missing in conversation. So even with your kids, we tend to say, they say something, we respond rather than your, your child says something and, and you've said, Tell me more. And then you go, Let me see, I think this is what you said, and you repeat it back. That's a very powerful way to connect with the people that we love because then they know we're listening in a different way when we, when we actually take the time to reflect it back.

0 (32m 37s): And there's really no better feeling in my opinion, than the feeling of being listened to. And I think a lot of people can, can agree with that. It's sort of sometimes why we fall in love with certain people. Why we wanna be friends with certain people, or just why we wanna spend more time around others is when we truly feel listened to, then we also feel understood. And I think that that's really at the core of our needs.

4 (33m 5s): I call it the gift of understanding. It's, it is the gift that you give to others, and then ultimately you usually receive as a, as a result of giving that gift. Vegamour

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4 (35m 7s): Well, Christine, this has been so amazing. I think that we've walked away, I've personally walked away with so many tools and new insights into this that I'll use as a parent and I'll use as someone, you know, advocating for myself for health and wellness and self-care. So thank you so much for sharing all of these tools with us, and I hope that people will check out your book after this.

0 (35m 31s): What is it costing you not to listen before you go, we always love to ask our guests a couple closing questions. And the first just gives us an insight into sort of how you stay healthy day to day. Are there any self care practices you try to do every day to stay healthy?

4 (35m 52s): Well, mine may not be your typical, but it's definitely, it's definitely me. So, so I grew up in Hershey in a lot of open space, Hershey, Pennsylvania, chocolate town usa. So I, as a kid, I spent a lot of time hitting a ball, playing with a ball. So one of the things I I find completely trans transcending is when I hit a ball. So whether that's tennis or golf or ping pong or it, it's play for me. And it's also just everything else kind of melts away. So I often say I'm like a golden retriever, like, don't make me just go out for a run, but if you throw a ball, I'll chase it all day to get in shape.

4 (36m 32s): Yeah. So, so I

0 (36m 34s): Relate to that. Yeah, ball therapy.

4 (36m 37s): So, so that's one of the things I I, I, again, I've learned about myself, it's meditative for me to have that focus. So, so I really try to build that into my, my my working out and the way I go about things. And fortunately it took about 10 years, believe it or not, after my injury, but I've worked my way back to that thanks to the help of some of these very amazing doctors and going with both traditional and nontraditional medicines. So, so every day that's just a, that's just joy for me that I'm even able to do it.

0 (37m 7s): Hmm. And finally, what's just one thing that we should all ditch completely and replace with something healthier today?

4 (37m 15s): I thought about this a little bit. I think we need to ditch saying yes when we really wanna say no.

0 (37m 23s): That's a really good

4 (37m 24s): Line. That's part, that's part of listening. It's like, if you wanna say no, I think that's a, that's the, that's a voice we need to listen to more often because it's okay to do that.

0 (37m 36s): Yeah, I just did that the other day. I was really proud of myself

4 (37m 39s): Actually. It's hard. It's really hard because we wanna give and, and people understand. You know, when I wrote the book last year, I said no to more things in my life than I ever have. I said, and I had a good reason, but I just started, I said, I'm saying no to everything. And you know what? People got it. Yeah, you're a parent. Hey, for right now I'm taking two months and I'm saying no to everything. Yeah,

0 (37m 60s): Yeah. And then, And then maybe later you can have a big yes day, right?

4 (38m 3s): Absolutely. Absolutely.

0 (38m 5s): I love that. Well, for people who want to get more involved with the work that you're doing, what's the best way for them to become a part of your world?

4 (38m 13s): Well, they can find us on the company website, which is equipped people.com and follow me on social media at C Miles Listens.

0 (38m 25s): Fabulous. Well, thank you again, Christine Miles, for coming here and spending time with us on the Essential Oil Revolution. We appreciate you and we appreciate the wisdom you shared with us. Thank you. Thank you. The essential oil revolution is created by me, Samantha Lee Wright, thank you so much for listening. If you want to help other people find the show, the best way to do that is to leave us a rating and review in whichever app you're listening in. And to share it with someone that you know could benefit from today's interview. Just hit that little square button with the arrow pointing up. That's the share button. You can copy the link and people can listen through their phones on their computers or on our website, revolution oils podcast.com.

0 (39m 11s): Oh, you can even listen on your Alexa app. Just say, Alexa play the Essential Oil Revolution podcast. We'll be back next week with a new episode of the Essential Oil Revolution. In the meantime, keep on learning, keep on discovering, and most importantly, keep on treating yourself well. You are worth it.

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