Oh My Goodness! Episode 1 Transcript: Welcome to “Oh My Goodness!”

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Hey, friends, I'm Aj, Smit, and welcome to Oh my goodness!

This is a podcast to dive into everything that makes us go, "Oh my goodness!"

Maybe something really big and heavy happened, perhaps something really exciting happened. Maybe something feels off, you're frustrated, or I don't know what to do next.

I am Aj Smit. I go by the joy Weaver. I do energy work, life coaching, card readings, Red Tents, and sacred spaces. I help people tap into their inner knowing, connect to their higher power, and figure out their next right steps in a way that feels aligned and embodied for them.

This podcast is meant to give you the tools to do the same thing: I help my one-on-one clients, people in tents, and people in retreats. In here, we're going to have meditations. We will have musings like, okay, let's break down bravery. Let's break down curiosity. Let's figure out how we navigate CREATIVITY WITHOUT the shame and without the burden of it having to be perfect or nothing working right.

I see you doing your best. I see you doing the next right thing and feeling frustrated that your dreams didn't come to fruition the way you wanted them to. I see you excited and grateful for the moments of connection you have and the delight you find, and soaking in the joy where you see it. And I see you in the isn't there more to this? Isn't there more juice we can suck out of life? Isn't there a more grounding connection I can have with my inner knowing and living in deeper, purpose-filled goodness?

Isn't there more joy, wonder, and delight to have? So often, we set goals, and we're like, are they smart, but Are they fun? Not every goal has to be a serious one. But are you having any fun? Are you having any delight, wonder, Joy?

Sometimes life is hard. We have hard seasons that are brutal and strip us to our core. I'm like, does this work? Is this working for us? Nope, okay, what about this friendship? Okay, let's calibrate here, right? And other seasons are ones where we're like, "Oh, okay, I get a break, or this is my nesting season. Don't message me. Don't talk to me."

We go through these different seasons. Sometimes, we know something is possible, but we don't understand the tool or how to do it. So, I'm here to give you tangible tools, tricks, ideas, ways, and things that have helped me and others. Sometimes, it's going to be a language thing like Brene Brown. The story I'm making up in my head is x, y, z, right? Or it might be like Mel Robbins has her 5321, and it also might be, Hey, did you pause? Did you tune in? Did you ask?

Because I believe our bodies know right, and I think that your soul is intrinsically good, whether you believe in God, the universe, God, Spirit, or flow. It doesn't matter. On this podcast, I believe there's a force greater than ourselves, and we are here for a purpose, individually. Each person is here in this moment in time, not by mistake. And if that's true, then wouldn't it stand to reason that when you were brought into this world, there was, they're here, cool, just like I dreamed it. And you have a soul; you have these nudges. And, maybe you're like, Aj, I do not know what you're talking about with any nudges.

Have you ever wanted to do something that you're like, oh, let's go see that, that like curiosity, that like lights you up inside, or seen a sunset or a mountain or a river or your friends laughing? You're just like, this is the goodness. That's your soul, your body, being like, Yes, I was meant to nourish and receive this and be in it, right? So how do we weave that intentionally into our lives? That's what I'm here for. It is to help us live lives that are aligned, rooted, grounded, embodied, cozy, and delightful.

So whether you're feeling like a feisty potato day today, or a sparkly potato today, or you're just like, Aj, I don't even know where I'm at, that's okay. It's all welcome here. As Mama Gena says, your whole 88 keys of expression, right? The Good, the hard, the bad, the sad, the ugly, the happy, the joy so often we think we either have to feel this or that, well, they're suffering, so I can't have joy, or this bad thing happened in my day, and this good thing happened, but it doesn't really count. But what if we could have our hands open to both? What if we can hold both and. What if we remember that this life is navigating a whole adventure?

I'm also a military spouse, and we move about every three years at each base. And I think about a base like a video game level, right? Each base is a level with people to meet, things to do, people to collaborate with, dream about, learn, see, and have adventures. It is my choice whether I do those things or not, but either way, those three years will go by, and then it's time for the next space, the next level, and whether or not I'm ready depends on what I do now in this space. And sometimes there are things that I don't all get to, that I wish I did, and things I'm like, I did not realize I was going to be learning, and I wish somebody would have warned me if he prepared me. But okay, how do I want to show up next? Right?

Maybe you're not a military spouse; perhaps you've never moved in your life. Maybe you're like, oh, Aj, I'm a nomad. I move every month. You can apply things you learn here and in your everyday life to nourish yourself and show up in a way that feels good. Because I don't know about you, sometimes I look around and wonder, how are we doing this? There are better ways. There are better ways. And although I don't know about you, sometimes I'm like, if everybody could just XYZ, it would all be great, but we can't do that, right, that whole Free Will situation.

So what can you do? How can you show up in your life in a way that is in alignment? What were you created to do and show up as? As far as I know, my role here and what feels revealed is to be almost like a maintainer. For a flight in the Air Force, they have maintainers. And so when the planes come in, they get checked, right? They get refueled, they get wiped down. Broken pipes get fixed, and then updates are given to the pilots. And so that's what I'm here as, as a maintainer of souls, energy, encouragement that you can come here after a hard day or a great day and celebrate.

I've got maracas to shake in celebration for you, give you some hype, and also hold you and wrap you in a soft blanket in reality, in my home, or energetically, right? Because sometimes when we come in after a big flight, after a big day, after a big year, we're like, something's wrong, but I don't know what. I can't put my finger on it, right? And then sometimes we start to shame spiral because we don't know what's going on.

But what if you just haven't learned it yet?

What if we bring in some play, some like kindergarten style learning here of you just haven't discovered this yet, just like you take extra classes in high school or in college, and you're like, "I could take a watercolor course. Oh, I could learn how to talk to my body. Oh, I could learn how to use vulnerability and creativity to express myself and process some things I haven't processed in a while." Right?

We don't know these things until we know them. So can we be easy and gentle with ourselves, or tender and gentle, as my mentor likes to say, as we learn and grow? And that's what I'm here for. Is that when your plane comes in, whether you're working with me or whether you're listening just for yourself, to be like, "Okay, let's dive in, that you're like, Oh, okay. Oh, I can tune in. Oh, here's what does this look like? Okay, my body feels like tense here," and then we learn how to ask and then how to move with that.

I'm here for your tools. I'm here for your learning. I'm here for your thriving. I believe all ships rise in high tide and that we're human, learning, and growing, and these things take practice.

I've been in the space of growth, self-confidence, and all that jazz for 15, almost plus now years, 18 years, and running sacred spaces like Red Tents for about nine years, and doing one-on-one work for about five years and then working in nonprofits, after school, programs, schools, businesses, in different facets for about 17 years. And so I've seen a whole spectrum from three-year-olds to 65-year-olds. And nothing's new under the sun.

We often think, "I'm the only one," or "nobody else would understand." But we're all very human with very similar emotions, doing our best to process it, sort it, understand it. I often joke that our brains are hoarders who hold on to stories or try to process and sort things in real-time. It's like the programs are only as good as the training or the programming we include. And so sometimes we gotta rewrite some code. Sometimes we gotta be like, Oh, that's a shady code that's not working for me, and figure out a new way of thinking about things, of replacing thoughts.

I've learned from many people: Julia Wells, Haley Reese, Mama Gena, Mary Grace, and the Messy Healer. And read like a fiend. I love book recommendations, so you will always walk away with book recommendations.

If you want to watch the YouTube video of these, I will post them on my The Joy Weaver YouTube page, and I'll post the transcripts on my blog in case that feels more supportive because you are worthy of goodness. (Look at you here reading the transcript of the podcast! I love it!)

I'm starting this podcast because I often go on my Facebook page and do live, but things get lost, right? And sometimes, when we need a resource or tool, we're like, "Hey, I'm struggling with XYZ. Where do I go? What can I find?" We feel stuck.

So this podcast is meant for you to have a way to search, "Okay, how do I listen? How do I have some intuition? Okay, how do I sort through something that feels sticky right now? What are three options for when it's loud in my brain?"

This isn't therapy or things like that, but it is a place for you to get some clarity and find some rest. I'm going to throw some meditations in here as well, as well as some voice memo-style podcasts of encouragement. So if you have a hard day and you're like, I need some hype vibes, there will be short, little three-minute hype up like you got this look at you beast mode before you go do a presentation or a job or a cozy, you did your best. I'm so proud of you. Tomorrow's a new day, kind of little clips you can listen to whenever needed.

I'm here for you to remember that you are doing your best, even on days when you're like, No, Aj, I didn't. What if your capacity was only 40% today, and you gave 40%, or what if your capacity was 40%? You're like, I had to give 30 just so I could get home and get into bed like that counts as doing your best, and if we take some of the shame and guilt off of it and look at the world around us.

The perspective I'm coming from is that of a white American woman who has been married for 15 and a half years now, kind of open and spiritually wise. I grew up Evangelical, and in 2016, I was kind of deconstructing, and now things are a bit more open that way. I'm also ADHD combined type, and I've been sober for three and a half years now, so I get the ups and downs that we go through.

We've moved every three years. For the last 12 years, roughly, I've started my business from scratch about five times. I switched my business about seven times or added different things or marketing. So if you're like, okay, but this is different, or this is changing, or this is transitioning, or like, it's just so loud in here, can't think straight, like, I understand, and sometimes we can't fix it, right?

Sometimes we're like, "But I listen to this one meditation, everything should be better," but if things have been hard for 10 years, maybe it's going to take us more than a day to feel entirely better. So what if we think about it as opening up a door like at night when it's night in your room, and the hallway light is on? Do you remember growing up, and maybe the hallway light was on?

If you crack the door, a little bit of light comes in your room and it opens it up, and you're like, Okay, I can see now that's what we're working with, is these little 1% shifts of like, oh, there's a little bit more space in my body to feel or think or breathe. Oh, okay, I can try this, right? It's a practice we're learning. Of course, we're not good at certain things and haven't done them before. The first time I did henna versus now, that's a nine-year difference. Of course, it's going to be different.

So these things take time. They take practice. And I believe in you. I believe in your willingness to show up for yourself and try new things. So, that's what you can get from this podcast. I am stoked to start this, share goodness, and see how it unfurls. This is a nudge I've had for a couple of years now, and finally, it was like Mufasa Vibes, "IT IS TIME."

So, if you like Disney references, maraca moments, encouragement, and want a hype woman who has your back, this podcast is for you. If you have any questions or you're like, Oh, hey, I would love a voicemail-style podcast on XYZ, a meditation on this, or something I'd love for you to cover. Please send me a message at thejoyweaver@gmail.com or a message on Instagram, or Facebook, because I'm here for you.

I'm here for your thriving.

So sing your soul song, friends, and have a marvelous day.