Imagine Yourself Recharged: The Rewards of Relaxation are Real

Imagine your life infused with a healthy dose of RELAXATION!

Imagine your mind and body with your battery fully RECHARGED!

Imagine your world with a strong, REJUVENATED you in it!

We at Imagine Yourself, hereby grant you permission to take time out of your busy schedule and grab hold of a few precious moments to unwind, decompress, and RELAX. We promise that the world won’t stop spinning if you take a little break. In fact, taking a step back from it all can offer insight and new perspectives on how to be more productive, efficient, and creative. That way, you can be your best, most effective self, and you can work smarter, not harder.

Here’s a quick analogy. Just like you wouldn’t want to sleep on a hard, concrete floor, you don’t want to maintain a hard, rigid schedule. Let’s cushion your body with a soft bed to sleep on, and let’s cushion your schedule with some well-deserved downtime. Keep in mind, we’re not asking you to take a vacation to Fiji every weekend, but we are asking you to build in practical relaxation periods. It can be something as simple as a hot bubble bath lit with scented candles, chilling out on the back porch with a pitcher of cold lemonade, or even a good old-fashioned Sunday drive with the windows down. There are tons of great ways to relieve stress!

Remember: Life is a gift. Time is a way to dole out that gift in increments. Treasuring the little golden moments can be the difference between a stress-filled life and a peace-filled life.

Lay back, prop your feet up, and grab some “me” time as you listen in on this episode that promotes Relaxation and Rejuvenation.

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Sandy Kovach [00:00:01]:

Life can throw a lot at you, but imagine if your life were different, better, not because of what's coming at you, but because of what's coming from you. Let's get there together. Join us and imagine yourself.

Lanée Blaise [00:00:15]:

Inhale deeply. Exhale. What? I am Lanee.

Sandy Kovach [00:00:21]:

Lanae, you're gonna have to give me, like, a standard imagine yourself intro here because I'm a little bit confused because you Feel like you're doing yoga over there.

Lanée Blaise [00:00:29]:

Yes. I'm just so relaxed. I just wanna say welcome all to imagine yourself.

Sandy Kovach [00:00:37]:

Untangle yourself from the lotus position there and, put your headphones on. Yes. Because we are gonna imagine ourself, I know, relaxed. Right?

Lanée Blaise [00:00:44]:

Relaxed And recharged and rejuvenated. Because this morning, I was telling my daughter all about this, and she's like, oh, I need that.

Sandy Kovach [00:00:55]:

And your daughter's a college student. Exactly. So from college on up to retirees, there is a deficit in relaxation and re Charging.

Lanée Blaise [00:01:03]:

I think so. I think everybody who even has a speck of stress could use this episode today.

Sandy Kovach [00:01:08]:

Yeah. And I don't know anybody who doesn't have at least a speck and probably More like a big blob.

Lanée Blaise [00:01:13]:

And and if they don't have 1, maybe they need to help us. Yeah. We actually kinda wanted to concentrate on relaxation because, Sandy, it's almost the end of summer, and pretty soon, everybody's gonna be in high gear getting ready for fall, and lots of people getting ready for back to School season. So we thought this would be the perfect opportunity to take time out, get ourselves centered, And rejuvenated because before you know it, it's gonna be Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year's, and everybody will be all hectic. But at least if we take a little moment now

Sandy Kovach [00:01:47]:

Yes. Might be better. And who whenever anybody is listening to this, there's always stress. So we're recording this in late August. Take it to wherever you Need to take it. And I think stress is a year round kind of activity. Why is it though that we get so stressed out, you think?

Lanée Blaise [00:02:02]:

It is because we are of a culture that has us running that never ending marathon on a treadmill that never stops. And We've all talked about the hamster wheel correlation, but everything just keeps rolling and rolling and rolling, and you don't Wanna feel like you're missing out on a thing.

Sandy Kovach [00:02:23]:

I just saw too a survey that said 3 quarters of us often have days where we don't get any Downtime or Inspiration. So from sun up, hit the ground, all the way till you hit the Health the pillow.

Lanée Blaise [00:02:35]:

That's not the way it's meant to be. And I feel like that's not the most productive way we can get caught up into it. I know that we did a episode on being beautifully balanced. We did another one on not buying into that more, more, more mentality. And I think that we want to, today, promote Les, pull it back for your own good. We are going to write everyone a little prescription called relaxitussin.

Sandy Kovach [00:03:01]:

I like Yeah.

Lanée Blaise [00:03:02]:

Just like Robitussin, but relaxitussin. And we're telling you, it's okay. We give you well deserved permission To sit and relax more often, and we won't judge you and we won't shame you because it's not a shameful thing.

Sandy Kovach [00:03:18]:

It's good for you. Right?

Lanée Blaise [00:03:19]:

It's good for your body. It's good for your mind. It's good for your productivity. It may seem like On a practical level or logical level that when you take time out or away, then that's taking Minutes that could be used towards productivity. Yeah. But what actually happens is you have the benefits That will give you the longevity that you need as far as health, as far as and, again, productivity too, because who can work Properly when you're not even healthy or you're laid up in the hospital because you,

Sandy Kovach [00:03:52]:

you know Right. Of course

Lanée Blaise [00:03:53]:

. Pressure, heart disease, all these things, Inflammation in the body, muscles tighten. All this stuff happens when you're stressed Okay. Along with, of course, The ability to lose weight.

Sandy Kovach [00:04:05]:

Oh, yeah. There's that thing too. The Yeah. Cortisol or whatever.

Lanée Blaise [00:04:09]:

That holds on to it. And that's Another one too where you were talking about people not getting enough downtime, but what about not getting enough sleep at night also?

Sandy Kovach [00:04:17]:

That falls into the same thing. But we're also talking about resting from the mental stimulation, from things that invade our bandwidth. And I think that with our devices in our hands constantly, and, I mean, you can't even stand in a grocery store line without wanting to pick up your phone and occupy that 2 minutes that you might be standing there with maybe a little story from your Facebook feed or responding to a comment on Twitter or, you know, whatever it is you're doing, you're filling every single moment. And I love audiobooks and everything like that, and I love podcast, but there's sometimes where Maybe even you need to turn all of that off and just have silence to collect your thoughts.

Lanée Blaise [00:05:00]:

There is a special aspect of silence that Allows for creative thoughts to happen, allows for restoration to occur, and we do need to consider training ourselves to not have to fill every single second, and statistics do show how people will check their phone even if there wasn't an alert. Right?

Sandy Kovach [00:05:20]:

Used to be,

Lanée Blaise [00:05:20]:

I think, that we would only check the phone if it was actively ringing or dinging or or something like that.

Sandy Kovach [00:05:26]:

Before social media and, now it's completely Different. I mean, I've tried turning off almost all of my no notifications, and I would recommend that people turn off as many notifications as possible because it does decrease it. Yeah. But, yeah, I will if I cannot stand in the grocery store line and not pull out my phone and see what's happening. Because God forbid that I stand there for 5 seconds In quiet contemplation mode. Or talking hello to the guy behind me. You

Lanée Blaise [00:05:53]:

know? Yeah. Like, because we talked about that last episode with loneliness. Just kind of saying hello to people and Getting to interact with your world, and your world doesn't have to be a device at all. Like, just natural interaction. I was reading some other things too about how overstimulation, kinda like you were saying, not just has its own issues with attention, but Overstimulation stresses and prematurely ages the brain.

Sandy Kovach [00:06:19]:

Oh my gosh.

Lanée Blaise [00:06:20]:

Yeah. So I really want us to concentrate on that Aspect 2.

Sandy Kovach [00:06:25]:

So you're talking about a lot of long term things which are huge. You're talking about blood pressure. You're talking about stress and affecting the weight. You're talking about aging the brain. But even on a daily, it drains your energy.

Lanée Blaise [00:06:38]:

Yeah. Oh my goodness. I've been watching this show on Netflix. It's a game show, And it's called Awake, the $1,000,000 game. The game show contestants are required to stay awake for 24 hours straight counting quarters.

Sandy Kovach [00:06:51]:

Oh my goodness.

Lanée Blaise [00:06:52]:

Yes. I know that sounds great. Okay. But they have to try watching this on TV? You're watching the little snippets And the little pieces in between and how they're trying to keep themselves away. But but that's just the first part. So you don't really see that whole chunk, but you get to see the real effects When they go to do ordinary activities, they have to compete. Things that should be normal, should be easy, and, oh my gosh, they are struggling. Because they're so sleep deprived, they can't think straight.

Lanée Blaise [00:07:20]:

Their hand eye coordination is off. Their productivity is off. And that's the part like, I keep saying, I wanna give permission for us to step back because your productivity is in jeopardy. Your productivity is better if you take the time To rest and pull away a bit.

Sandy Kovach [00:07:36]:

You're right. It seems counterintuitive. We should feel like, hey. I can just push through and do all these things and multitask and be about everything. But now your body needs to rest and your brain needs to rest or it'll do just what you said.

Lanée Blaise [00:07:49]:

My gosh. I like this little show. I guess I'm promoting it, but it's called Women, and it's just really cute because you get to see these people. And it's for $1,000,000. And I'm guessing there is no chance that Netflix has to worry about this $1,000,000 because these people

Sandy Kovach [00:08:04]:

Oh, because Women do they have to do for the million?

Lanée Blaise [00:08:07]:

They have to do harder and harder activities. The funny part is the show will tell you what a regular Person who got enough rest and sleep, how they performed at that versus how these folks perform, and it's just off the charts different. Wow. Again, it reinforces the idea that we must take time to rest. Yeah. And, again, that give yourselves permission. It's not any real life hack or anything like that to it. It's just understanding that wouldn't it be better to have a recharged Battery than to have a battery that went all day and just died out and you have nothing left.

Sandy Kovach [00:08:44]:

Well, think of your phone. Okay. So you're A 100% in the morning, and maybe you have to charge it at some point over lunch or you're driving and you plug it in. One thing you don't wanna see is that under 20%. Well, think about yourself being not only under 20%, some people are like a 1%.

Lanée Blaise [00:09:02]:

And they got that warning. You know how you get that warning where things start beeping, and this can happen with hunger too. When you're overly hungry or overly tired and you get hangry and That Snickers bar commercial where people just start totally turning into other folks. That is an indicator that we're just doing too much, And we need to pull it back. I really do think, like you said, even with the phone, sometimes it's acting all wonky. It's all out of whack, and you have to Turn it off.

Sandy Kovach [00:09:28]:

Turn it off and turn it on.

Lanée Blaise [00:09:30]:

And then But but you have to wait. You have to turn it off. Wait a few minutes and then turn it back on. And that's what I think we have to do with ourselves.

Sandy Kovach [00:09:37]:

We have to be like a phone Or a computer. We have to restart.

Lanée Blaise [00:09:40]:

Yeah. Restart altogether. I have this quote by this wonderful woman. I love her. She's an author and speaker. Her name is Lysa TerKeurst, And her little quote was a depleted girl can quickly become a defeated girl Oh. Especially when she lets her emotions dictate her reactions. And I know for a Faith, I become a very different person when I am tired, worn out, sleep deprived, overwhelmed, overdoing it.

Lanée Blaise [00:10:06]:

My husband always threatens that he's gonna take a video camera and show everybody what a beast I am when I don't get any sleep.

Sandy Kovach [00:10:13]:

Oh, well, I think we Don't do that and put it on the website as an example of what not to do. On YouTube. On YouTube. Absolutely. Get we'll get a ton of hits off of that. Another great author, Maya Angelou, said something kind of similar. She said each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions are searched For each of us needs to withdraw from the CARES, which will not withdraw from us. So A day away is great, and we can talk about that.

Sandy Kovach [00:10:42]:

And we can talk about downtime for a day. We can talk about vacations. But Sometimes we don't have a vacation Yeah. Especially when you've got a 1000000 things going on in your life with your family, with your job. What can we do maybe to take a chunk out of our day? I do a feature on The Breeze on the radio station called Stress Busting Tips, and I've Come up with a bunch of these little things that I found. Everything from coloring is a stress reliever. Grabbing your kid's coloring book, or they even make Coloring books for grown ups where you can actually order them, and it's just art therapy. Or if you can legitimately draw, do that.

Sandy Kovach [00:11:20]:

But for me, I'm just gonna color.

Lanée Blaise [00:11:22]:

And see, I like even calling it that Art therapy. And you could do that side by side with your kids too. Everybody just kind of slows it down, quiets it down.

Sandy Kovach [00:11:31]:

Yeah.

Lanée Blaise [00:11:32]:

And it's still going back to the basics. Right? But to have that nondistraction time, and it doesn't have to be long.

Sandy Kovach [00:11:38]:

No. Not at all. And that's the thing. You're not really mentally concentrating on anything except maybe coloring in the lines.

Lanée Blaise [00:11:44]:

I like that. That, Sandy.

Sandy Kovach [00:11:47]:

Well, let's go out and get some coloring books. And here's another kid thing that you can do. Go and sit on a swing. Like, if you go to the park with your kids or You go to a park just as a grown up, I guess. Just make sure you're not pushing any kids' time off the swing. Wait a minute. It's my turn. But, yeah, ghost swinging or even just little Things like visualization, taking a moment to think about your favorite place in the world, like a great vacation or just even thinking about the ocean or just Downtime for a couple of minutes even, or I'm gonna incorporate the phone in this one.

Lanée Blaise [00:12:20]:

Okay. Well

Sandy Kovach [00:12:21]:

But you gotta make sure that you don't check Facebook after That's

Lanée Blaise [00:12:24]:

exactly.

Sandy Kovach [00:12:25]:

Pick up your phone and start looking at pictures of your family or a great vacation that you had or Oh, yeah. Pets. You know?

Lanée Blaise [00:12:33]:

Going back through your own photo album Yeah. Your own personal one.

Sandy Kovach [00:12:38]:

Flip through some photos that you love.

Lanée Blaise [00:12:40]:

Now that's kind of like that thing that you said not everybody has the time or the finances to take a vacation exactly when they want to take a vacation, But that's almost like a little memory vacation right there. Or like you said, with the visualizing places that you haven't been before, it is a form of getting away.

Sandy Kovach [00:12:57]:

It is. And, of course, we want to say that you need actual time for Inspiration as Health, whether it's going someplace or not. I'm not advocating that we never take vacations. I'm just saying Women we can't do it, sometimes there are things that we can do in

Lanée Blaise [00:13:12]:

the middle. Because Southwest Airlines always Reminds us wanna get away.

Sandy Kovach [00:13:14]:

We do wanna get away. Yeah. Yeah.

Lanée Blaise [00:13:16]:

But now what about this? I think that we're speaking of vacations. I have 2 components because the first component is maybe Consider your next vacation targeting relaxing vacations versus those go go go activity based on

Sandy Kovach [00:13:31]:

Yeah. You know? Because vacations can be just as Stressful If you're not careful. Between planning it and, like, rounding up the kids and doing this and doing that, and don't forget to pack this. Yeah.

Lanée Blaise [00:13:41]:

Well, my kids, every once in a while, they'd say that vacay, Lanee comes out. They love vacay, Lanee, because regular Lanee, even on vacation, is still very detailed and planned and what we're gonna do, and we wake up this and we do that. But vacay, Lanee, is fun and spontaneous, doesn't plan every detail. So vacay Lanee needs to come out a little more often in order to have a relaxing, sing happy vacation.

Sandy Kovach [00:14:09]:

But how often does she actually really come out?

Lanée Blaise [00:14:11]:

It kinda depends on the mindset. When you go on vacation, It's almost like when you do other things, the concept of being intentional is very popular now. Be intentional about making sure it's a relaxing vacation. To be fair, sometimes you're going to a wedding, and you know you're gonna be around a lot of people, and you've gotta dress up and do things. Other times, you're gonna go mountain biking or Hiking, things like that, and that's gonna be activity based. But sometimes you wanna plan 1 that has no rules, no time limits, no pressure. Yeah. And that's when vacaylinae comes out.

Sandy Kovach [00:14:46]:

Then for the record, I think I would like vacaylinae better too. So you've got the unplanned aspect of the vacation, and I've also heard people recommend, like, a short Inspiration, and you combine that with a whole unplanned think you could make it a impromptu 3 day weekend. They say just getting out of your normal routine and getting out of the normal surroundings that you have. Okay. So we're in the Detroit area. I know you're from Cleveland, but Cleveland to me is a vacation. And they've got the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and The house from, what's that Christmas movie? A Christmas Story. Yeah.

Sandy Kovach [00:15:21]:

I love the downtown and everything. So to me, that's like a really cool little getaway.

Lanée Blaise [00:15:24]:

It's only, like, 2 and a half hours away.

Sandy Kovach [00:15:26]:

So think about that maybe from where you are. You know? What's a little vacation that you can just kinda get away from your

Lanée Blaise [00:15:32]:

where you're at? And, also, I think that, mentally, that kinda makes you fall in love with yourself or fall in love with your spouse or fall in love with your life again. Because if we're not careful, We get in that cycle of wake up, get showered, get dressed, go to work, come home, get on your phone, Go to sleep and do that whole process over and over again.

Lanée Blaise [00:15:54]:

Yeah. Wouldn't it be a

Lanée Blaise [00:15:55]:

pitiful shame if we were given this life and we just worked constantly And we made Women, and we paid bills, and we got things completed, but we never got to enjoy any of the fruits of our labor, And we just wilted away from exhaustion and had unused potential because we never took time to step back and enjoy And even evaluate. Sometimes when you step back from things, you can see where you can tweak areas of your life and make things better. You can be a better spouse, a better parent, a better child, a better friend, a better worker, a better citizen. All of these things Actually, sometimes happen because a person stepped back for a moment.

Sandy Kovach [00:16:37]:

Yeah. When you're in the thick of things, how can you Properly evaluate. You're just busy worrying about your next item on your to do list or the next fire you need to put out or The next appointment we have to get to Yeah. And okay. So that's life, a lot of it. And you

Lanée Blaise [00:16:54]:

got your perspective.

Sandy Kovach [00:16:55]:

Absolutely. Some of the best ideas that I've ever Come up with have been Women I'm just taking a walk, not listening to anything. Silence. Yeah. This blogger, it looks like she's A PhD, and she has a website rural women's stories .com. I was just doing a Google search on some resting and relaxation, and she was talking about why we don't Have silence. She says maybe we stay overly engaged with activities both physical and mental because we don't want to connect with others. Perhaps we don't like our own company and want a constant diversion, or maybe it's just habit, one we have nurtured and endorsed.

Sandy Kovach [00:17:33]:

And that's from Jennifer Goble. We've kinda touched on some of these other things in our other podcast on loneliness. You know, we we get wrapped up in our devices or whatever.

Lanée Blaise [00:17:42]:

Connected To them than we are to other humans.

Sandy Kovach [00:17:45]:

Yeah. Or just wrapped up in our own stuff, and then that causes a disconnect between us and others. Perhaps we don't like our own company. That's kind of interesting.

Lanée Blaise [00:17:54]:

That's the one that stood out to me. My dad is always a proponent of, I'm gonna be my own best friend. Or when he's sitting in a room by himself, he's like, I'm with my very best friends right now.

Sandy Kovach [00:18:03]:

Love that. That I love your dad.

Lanée Blaise [00:18:05]:

Yeah. Yeah. And don't sweat the small stuff. Everything is small stuff. That's a cliche, But he tries to live by it, and he definitely does. You will just hear him sometimes chuckling a little bit, and I guess he's told himself a joke.

Sandy Kovach [00:18:18]:

He's not just okay. So he's not just laughing in his own jokes that he says out loud. He's telling himself a joke in his head and laughing.

Lanée Blaise [00:18:24]:

Because nobody else is in that room, and there's no TV on. He's just laughing. He's not a big phone person, and he's chuckling.

Sandy Kovach [00:18:30]:

Well, hey.

Lanée Blaise [00:18:30]:

Nothing wrong with a good job. With himself. It just we really gotta think about that, and that's what I was saying too about that different perspective. Sometimes you forget how fun you are. Sandy, you know? Remember how fun You are?

Sandy Kovach [00:18:44]:

Well, sometimes I like to laugh at myself when I do stupid things.

Lanée Blaise [00:18:48]:

That's fine too. Stupid things, fun things.

Sandy Kovach [00:18:50]:

But I've never told myself a joke to myself. You you I'm gonna try that.

Lanée Blaise [00:18:53]:

Try that. That'll get you back on on the path.

Sandy Kovach [00:18:57]:

But so your dad was a big proponent, you said, of Being comfortable with yourself. But do you think it's a problem that we try to get away from ourselves a little bit, or we're not comfortable with our own thoughts, and that's why we have to Constantly go on social media or watch TV.

Lanée Blaise [00:19:14]:

For some people, that may be the case, but in other cases, Sandy, I bet it's not even that deep. I bet it's even just to the point where we have gotten desensitized or so used to getting on an escape method That we've forgotten how important it is to sit with ourselves.

Sandy Kovach [00:19:34]:

Yeah. More like habit. Like, that's the other thing she said. Yeah. Yeah. I'm a prime example of that with I can be distracted by one thing, and I've talked about this before. On my phone, I get an alert for one thing, and then I'm down another rabbit hole Yes. On Twitter or something that I didn't even mean to pick up.

Lanée Blaise [00:19:49]:

And that is just something that we are suffering with. That may be the new normal, and I Don't like to say that. I mean, of course, we can always try to buck the system and change at least within ourselves. That's the whole purpose of this podcast is to Focus on some of the things that we are doing that maybe we don't need to just go along with the flow and go with the rest of the crowd on that angle. And we may become very special individuals by not going that route. Yeah. I'm almost wondering if we should have, like, a new segment on the show called, have you heard about this? Because I like it. There's so many, like, Fellow humans and news stories or celebrities, and they have these great examples of how to do things or not to do things in life.

Lanée Blaise [00:20:33]:

I just feel like it can be very helpful to us because I was looking around, and I found a great example that should be inspiring, especially for those of us who have a creative dream that really needs to see the light of day. It incorporates all those elements of taking time out and taking silence Things like that. And it's from JK Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter dynasty. Yeah. That the whole book series. She kind of had to take A different route. It's not like she just totally quit her job and just shut herself in a room and just began to write those books, but she did notice that She wasn't getting very far. She'd gotten, like, 3 chapters done total and was at a standstill.

Lanée Blaise [00:21:14]:

So she ended up moving to Portugal, And she became a teacher for 3 years where she would teach English as a foreign language in Portugal. So that was what was paying the bills. Right? But it was also not the most demanding job, so it was relaxing enough and gave enough time in the evenings To allow her time to write and create that world of Harry Potter, and it also because it gave her a different perspective and a different change of view. She was inspired by the culture and the history and the beauty of Portugal itself as she began framing the setting of the stories.

Sandy Kovach [00:21:50]:

And all of that imagination, the whole Harry Potter world, it's an industry.

Lanée Blaise [00:21:54]:

Yes. But think Women you say the word imagination, It grew. She built it out of her Health, looking at her surroundings, and I just think that, again, if she had not taken that time out in a way and to do something different. She wouldn't have that.

Sandy Kovach [00:22:11]:

Such a great story and a great reminder about how valuable Downtime can be.

Lanée Blaise [00:22:17]:

There's some people who say I'll sleep when I'm dead. And I just I can't buy into that because I'm starting to think that those are the people who might Find out that that happened sooner than they would anticipated. Yeah. Yeah. I don't want that to happen. And like you mentioned with looking at beauty, I've been reading this amazing, very short book called Seed Folks. It's a fictional book, but it was Inspiration an article that explained that the ancient Egyptians would prescribe walking through a garden to cure madness. Excuse me?

Sandy Kovach [00:22:48]:

Yes. Okay.

Lanée Blaise [00:22:50]:

How do you like that? I love that. And that's the part where you'd go back to basics. Right? And some of the stress busters that you were mentioning before, getting outside, getting that fresh air, taking a walk, or in this case, walking through a garden to cure Madness.

Sandy Kovach [00:23:07]:

And there was a recent study from U of M, and they actually called it a nature pill. And it was I think they had, like, Vacations where it needed to be for, like, 15 or 20 minutes. You couldn't exercise. You could walk, but you couldn't strenuously exercise. Or you could sit, but you couldn't be on your phone. And it had to be just someplace in nature. Yes. And that was the nature pill that sounds exactly what you're talking about.

Lanée Blaise [00:23:32]:

I'm thinking even if you take nothing else away from today, you at least remind yourself About how important the beauty of nature is and how we are humans that come from nature, and we need to be out in nature. Even for those from a religious perspective, the Sabbath day, Sunday or in some cases, Saturday, that is the day that you are supposed to Unwind and be with family and be with god and be with yourself and your spirit and revitalize yourself. Mhmm. And that is something that Maybe we take for granted nowadays because you do have the television doesn't turn off at midnight like it used to, and everything is open Every day of the week and

Sandy Kovach [00:24:16]:

That's right. Back in the day, things were different.

Lanée Blaise [00:24:18]:

Exactly. And there's always ways to receive mail and email and everything, But Sabbath is meant to help humans re up. Re up and redo. Every once in a while, I'm able to practice what I'm preaching over here. And, you know, and my family will take a weekend or just a Sunday, and we really will use it as it's meant to be used. And we'll enjoy the outdoors. We'll eat dinner slowly instead of just scruffing it down and watching our TV or cell phone while we do it. We talk to each other.

Lanée Blaise [00:24:51]:

We have a little family prayer circle time. We laugh together. We call and check-in on grandma and family members, And we have nothing that we're supposed to do. We have no obligations for that day, and we always feel so great and so restored On that Monday, sometimes we even really take it to the next level and especially, like, maybe over Thanksgiving break where you get that whole

Sandy Kovach [00:25:13]:

Yeah.

Lanée Blaise [00:25:13]:

Thursday off, Friday off, stuff like We say we're going Women. And all my little friends are like, what are you talking about? I said, oh, I'm sorry. We can't do anything with you that weekend because we're going within. Like, where are you going?

Sandy Kovach [00:25:23]:

We're within.

Lanée Blaise [00:25:25]:

Within. And that's that part where we're gonna especially when it's cold here in Michigan sometimes, we're gonna stay in, and we're gonna be grateful for our lives and ourselves, and we're not gonna let anyone Take that piece away from us or take us away from just spending family time together.

Sandy Kovach [00:25:43]:

I love that. Yeah. That sounds like it's good for your Health, and it's good for your family relationships as well.

Lanée Blaise [00:25:48]:

Good for the body, good for the mind, good for the soul, good for the family, good for the marriage, good for all of of it. You know, the way you see yourself, and like you said, it does start to make you realize that you are your own good company also. You don't need so much External stuff to make you happy. My mom called it personal peace day. I like it. Is it takeaway time?

Sandy Kovach [00:26:08]:

I'm gonna Close with a quote before I hand it to you Yeah. For takeaways. It's from Ralph Waldo Emerson. The first wealth is health. We all need to work, but if that is put over our health, our mental health, and our spiritual health, and our physical health, all of which stress will mess with, then what do

Lanée Blaise [00:26:30]:

we have left? I want all of you listening to help us Post on Imagine Yourself podcast Facebook page or even on Imagine Yourself podcast website or on Twitter or somehow, please let us know How you relax, how you recharge, how it ends up benefiting you, when was the last time you did something relaxing and wonderful, but just share with us

Sandy Kovach [00:26:57]:

so that we can pass along the tips to others. Yeah. And our email address is imagine yourself podcast at gmail.com. And And if you're forgetting all this stuff, all you need to really remember is our website, and it's got links to all of our social networks, our email, Really everything on there.

Lanée Blaise [00:27:12]:

We just want to get some connection here because we need fresh ideas ourselves. And the more we talk about it, The more we start to lift up and and get better. And please don't let summer slip by without Taking these chances that you do have, especially when you live in cold areas, to be outside, you know, on your way driving home from work, roll down the windows and let that fresh air sing at the top of your lungs passionately, look crazy, you know, Or or mark on your calendar, put it on your phone schedule to, schedule a relaxing bubble bath or listen to a calm app or breathe app or 10% happier Inspiration app to just kinda get yourself down and breathe. Go outside, sit under a tree, do old School stuff, just let the breeze catch you because we get this one life to savor. We get this one life to live. And Before fall starts and before winter starts and before back to school starts, let's get ourselves right. Alright. So imagine yourself Blissfully, peacefully, deliciously relaxed.

Sandy Kovach [00:28:19]:

Thanks for listening. Now we'd like to hear from you. Got an idea for the show? Wanna share your story or just say hello? Make sure you connect with us. You can do that at imagine yourself podcast.com, And we'll talk to you again next time when we have something new to imagine.

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