Ep.62- Ditch the Perfectly Curated Instagram Life

In this episode, Lia explains why finding your bliss isn't about appearances but actually living your bliss, even if that means other people might think your life is boring. Focus on creating a life that gives you joy from the inside out instead of solely focusing on looking joyful and exciting from the outside perspective. Lia also discusses the importance of paying attention to cycles in your life and learning to embrace the parts that include rest, recovery, and enjoyment. 

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Podcast Producer: Kimberly Smith

Transcript

You're listening to Master your Bliss life, join Lia Bliss as she dives into the magical, mysterious, and mundane elements of life, helping you master your purpose and find your bliss.

Lia:

Hello, all my hot people walking. Hot people walking. I have a very good friend of mine who has been sending me updates of his hot guy walk. And with my boyfriend and I, we've been doing every evening, we go on like a hot couple walk. And so it's not just for the girlies, although it's for the girlies. It really is. It's for the girlies. The hot walk. The hot people walk however you want to move. 

Even yesterday I was at working at a psychic fair and doing some events. I was doing a lot of mini-coaching sessions. And one thing that came up with more than one person that I sat with was this idea of, yeah, I know that if I just go outside for 30 minutes, a lot of my life will change. 

A big goal that I have during my coaching sessions is to have people exit with action items. Let's have an action item. It's not just, oh yeah, I feel better, or I think this is what I want. It's what action steps can I take? What one thing can I do tomorrow that's going to take me a little bit closer to that bliss life? 

And one that came up for many people was going on a 30-minute walk, being outside for 30 minutes, and it was for a whole bunch of different reasons, but that was one thing. So I felt reinvigorated in the efforts of the hot girl walk because it does make a huge difference in our lives. 

So I'm proud of you hot people walking. Get out there shaking that thing. But what I wanted to talk about today, a lot of things, a couple of things. 

Psychic fair, that was super fun. It's always funny to get your tarot cards read or have somebody kind of get into your energetic field in that way. And especially I sat down with a girl first who did shadow reading. And she has a deck. Let me grab she I bought her deck. It's called the Oracle deck shadow work. Her name is Ankora Rose. You can find the shadow goddess deck. It's lovely. I'll put a link to her instagram. But become a goddess in your shadows. And some of the things that came up were that I wasn't looking, I was a little bit tunnel visioned. But this idea that the world is your oyster, and I think that's true for each and every single one of us. The world is your oyster. And you have limitless possibility to create the life of your dreams. That's the whole point of mastering your bliss life. You have the chance and the opportunity, nay, the obligation to go out and do and live and create the life of your dreams. Why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't you. You have the opportunity. 

But a lot of things have been changing in my life. And so to illustrate this point, my instagram has been slacking because I've been busy, but we'll get to my thoughts on the instagram in a moment, but because I've been so busy, because I had a bunch of big changes happen now. Creating your bliss life and moving towards the thing that's right for you takes moving. Just move. Just move in the direction. 

I often talk about this idea of the Emerald City. It's in the distance, it's hazy, you can't quite see what it is, but you know, that's the direction of the goal and the life that you want to live. And when you come to a fork in the road, it's easy to know which direction to pick, which opportunities to say yes to, which way to go. Because one path will take you closer to your Emerald City, your bliss life, and one path may take you away from it. Ankhara Rose talks about this quite a bit in one of her books, and I'll have to get that in the show notes as well. Talks about that when you are hermically aligned, when you're on your path of dharma, it's like a freeway and things you should be moving pretty quickly. Things should be moving forward. There shouldn't be too much resistance when you're on your correct path. 

Now, over the winter, during my birthday, february, March, April, I was dead set, and I mean dead set on getting a new job and moving to San Diego. That was going to happen. I was manifesting it. I said, I am not going to spend one more winter in Utah with this snow. I'm done. I'm out. See you later, alligator. I'm done. So I started taking steps. I started making moves to make that happen. I was applying for these jobs and I had a really good in for this really great company that I wanted to work for. And I was selling my furniture. I was decluttering. I got rid of dozens of boxes of things. I do this what I like to call the 27 fling boogie, where you just get rid of 27 things every single day. 27 things. It's easy at first, it gets harder, and then it's very Marie Kondo, right? Is it sparking joy? Is it making you happy? Do you really need that? Do you really need that? I've been looking at minimalism things. I'm into that. I love decluttering, having a clean space, but I was making moves. Oh, I'm going to move. I'm not going to bring this musty, dusty couch with me. I'm going to get rid of that. Oh, I'm going to get rid of all these things. I'm going to clear out my space. I'm going to minimalize, I'm going to eliminate, because my plan is to move to San Diego. 

Well, unbeknownst to me, the universe wanted me to take those steps moving forward. Because it felt right. It was a hell yes. It was a hell yes. And I truly believe that you should move exactly towards the thing that you want until it's a hell no. Until the universe says, uh uh, not for you, and you can move kind of simultaneously in two directions. So I was really like, I'm going to move to San Diego. I'm going to get this job. I'm going to do it. 

Then the job market took a shit, and all of the companies that I was applying at were on hiring freezes. Then without the job, I wasn't in a place where I was comfortable financially. Moving to San Diego, one of the most expensive cities in the country, wasn't comfortable with that. Then my son expressed his because it was going to be this long distance co parenting situation. He expressed his major dissatisfaction with that idea. And then I reengaged with the great white buffalo, right? The one that got away and ended up dating him seriously. And now that's a whole thing, and it's like, oh, okay, the universe said, get ready to move, but it's not the direction that you think, because then pretty quickly, one of my I have three younger siblings and one younger half sibling. Two of my younger siblings ended up needing to move in with me. Well, it's a good thing I had got rid of a bunch of shit, because now I had space to be able to support and hold that space for my family. And this focus on family came in really strong. All of these changes, all of these reassessment of goals, and I think so many times we feel embarrassed. We feel embarrassed when we set an intention, and we tell people, because I told everybody, moving to San Diego. I'm moving to San Diego. I am moving to San Diego. Well, guess what? That's not happening. It's not happening, and it's not happening anytime soon. It could happen, but it's not happening today. It's not happening this year, probably. It's probably not happening. As far as San Diego goes. Moving out of Utah, higher probability. But because I was moving forward and because I was taking action and because it was aligned action, the universe was able to put me in a place where the right things would happen at the right times. Working with dad boss that's picked up, things have been moving and grooving. Things are looking excellent, and all of a sudden, everything's kind of just settled into this beautiful, perfect alignment. 

But it wouldn't have been this way if I hadn't done the legwork, if I hadn't been taking forward motion. So I took a lot of forward motion, and then all of a sudden, everything just settled in really nicely and effectively, and all the things that I wanted were coming to me, just not in the ways that I thought that they would, which is why my instagram is so boring right now. And that's a real struggle, because for a long time, I was posting twice a day. I was posting on Instagram twice a day. I was taking trips. I was making moves. I was having that romanticized life. I was doing things. And now, in retrospect, I realize how much of that was filling in for missing pieces of my life. Missing parts. And I've talked to my friends, my partner, all of my people about this. Where the hardest part of my day? Because I work from home, and I'm a part time mom, so I've got my son half the time. But some days it really was wake up, go to the gym, go to sit down at my office for work, sit down, like, move 10ft from my desk to my couch, watch Netflix, and then go to bed. And let me tell you, that is a deeply unfulfilling life. Deeply unfulfilling. Now I have my romantic girl evenings where I put on my satin jammies and I paint and I watch Jane Austen movies, and that's very fun, but I can't do that every night, so it loses some of its magic. And I have a robust and fulfilling set of female friendships, but they all have lives. They've got boyfriends and husbands and kids and careers and passions. And it's not like in your 20s when you can just call up your friends, be like, hey, what are you doing? Nothing. What are you doing? You want to come over? Yeah. Okay. That sounds awesome now, but it's just not the reality of the world that I'm living in. And I feel like the 04:00 p.m. To, like, 09:10 p.m. Part of my day was really just lonely, and I would lament to a lot of my friends, like, this is just a really hard part of my day because I don't want to go spend money. I feel like if I leave my house, I'm going to go spend $100. Like, everything costs $100 now if I go out and try to live a life right? 

I'm trying to be a responsible adult. And now I was so focused on that. That was such a thing. That was a hardship for me that now I've got this incredibly fulfilling romantic relationship. Incredibly fulfilling. Oh, my gosh. I could go on and on, but got this incredibly fulfilling romantic relationship, and now I've got this kind of full house. There's people around now. I've got my siblings, my son's around. It's summertime. There's activities. And I'm realizing, oh, this is what was missing. If I had moved, I would have been in the exact same place. Wake up, go to the gym, go to work, go home. I maybe would have thrown in a beach hot girl walk like I love, but it really wouldn't have fulfilled the thing that I wanted. But I was moving toward I was taking action. I was making moves, and the moves that I was making towards what I thought was aligned, which felt aligned and for all intents and purposes was didn't. It wasn't towards the end that I thought it was going to be because I knew what my Emerald City looked like. I'm very clear about what that looks like. But now I get the chance to experience another element of it, which is very exciting, but also makes for a very boring instagram. Could just sit around in my joy, go on hot couple walks at night and play with the dogs and be full of happiness. 

So why is instagram like that? Why does it have such a grip on us, on this idea that I got to keep doing things so I can show off my life or, oh, my life is boring now. No one's going to care. And I can't be the only one that has this internal thought process that, oh, what am I doing? What things bring me joy. And sometimes it's not the romanticizing life. It's understanding that life is deeply unromantic in its public vision, right? To put a lens on it, I'm not living in a Wes Anderson movie. It's not always going to be picture perfect and absolutely beautiful. But what's amazing is that when I'm not working on cultivating the image of having a fun life, I get to actually have a really satisfying and fun and fulfilled life because just sitting around playing board games or we've been doing a different kind of kind of more high end fancy cocktail. Once a week, we try a cocktail of the week, go eat all the ingredients and then try to perfect it. And it's been very fun learning how to cook. Actually, I think I'm a pretty good cook. But then you meet a really good cook and you're like, oh, okay, I can cook like four things. Really good, but not everything. 

And for all of the hot people walking, I think it all comes down to the same thing. Am I trying to curate a life that's beautiful on the outside? Am I moving towards things that are actually making me happy? Or am I just looking for these instagrammable moments? Instagrammable moments are fine, are lovely, but also necessarily not realistic. 

There's a woman I've encountered who tends to overdramatize things and while glamorize your life, romanticize every part of it. I totally believe that my friends and I are planning on dressing up in Barbie couture and going to see the Barbie movie, right? A beautiful, romanticized version of life, right? But it's not every day. And we're not looking to create these made for TV moments or I mean, life isn't reality TV. So often we see these lifestyles being portrayed that are dramatic in ways that don't need to be dramatic. There doesn't need to be a scene, right? There doesn't need to be a scene around everything. There doesn't need to be a big to do. Sometimes life just gets to be what it is and sometimes boring is more fun and more beautiful than the perfectly curated Instagram life. And I am not the first person to talk about, oh, Instagram's not real life.

Yeah. No shit, Lia. We know. Yes, thank you. Instagram's not real life. But there's that next layer of observing other people and reminding yourself, okay, that's their curated version of their life, but also sitting down and reminding yourself a curated version of my own life isn't necessarily what's going to bring me joy. Yes, there are moments of joy and ecstasy and may I say bliss in our lives, but they don't have to be big and bold and every moment perfectly captured during golden hour. I traveled a ton over the last two years, and it's been excellent. And I've got some trips coming up. I've got some work trips coming up, and there's some work that's been going on. 

Another big part of the reason that I have been so not focused on the curation of a perfect Instagram life is because things come in seasons. And I did this beautiful, huge, long, five hour meditation with one of my dear friends who will be on the podcast very shortly. But we talked about kind of the seven it was about the seven directions, and I've talked about this before. But in essence, you have to have a period of rest, and you have to have a period of play. And then there's time for work, and there's time for maximum manifestation and attraction and motion, and things are going, going. But then you also have to look at the shadows. You have to take time to work on yourself. And I'm finding that's even true as a couple, we have to do work. And we often say we're going to work hard to keep it easy versus working when it's hard. We're going to do the hard work to keep the relationship easy. But it is work. You have to do the work. You have to do work on yourself, do the work in your relationships. And then you have to rest. You have to go into hibernation mode and rest. And I have found that this last month and a half of my life has been very much this rest and recuperate and enjoyment. I used to think rest was I used to resist rest. I resisted the idea of rest because it felt unproductive. And then I was shown the concept of just fun. You can rest in fun. 

You don't have to say, we're going to go to the store. Okay, check. We got a lot of things. Let's go. Let's go home and get this done. Let's do it. Accomplish, accomplish, accomplish. This checkbox attitude, this Instagrammable life, this get things done. This type A push, push, push, push, push. That you can accomplish things in a spirit of rest and ease. A couple of years ago, my kind of mantra for the year, and it's carried on through several years, has been wealth joy and ease. My goal is to have wealth, joy and ease. And I really focused a lot on the wealth part for a lot of years. I want to get to a place where I have enough financial abundance to be able to go and chase the joy and chase the ease. But chasing ease is kind of counterintuitive. You have to allow ease. You can chase joy, you can go and work hard to get the things that are joyful to you. But when it comes to ease, you just have to sit back and allow it to come. 

There's been a lot of work for me personally on the balance of the feminine and masculine energies and I have really been blessed with a lot of opportunities and a lot of amazing people who are giving me the chance. And because I did the work, it's not up to other people, but because I did the work, I'm now in a position to experience these relationships where I get to fall into ease and not push, push, push. Go, go. Try, try. 

And yet I'm still making progress towards that Emerald City, towards that bliss life. Because it's about enjoying the journey along the way. Oh, that's so cliche. Hate that. It's so cliche but it's so true. You have to enjoy the journey and you can't just run from one instagrammable moment to the next instagrammable moment. Sometimes you just lay on the couch and watch the NBA finals and make the cocktail of the week because that is what brings joy. And that's not an instagrammable moment. That's just me in goblin mode, feeling happy and relaxed. Snuggling puppies. 

That's the update. That's the tea, that's the skinny. That's what all the hot people need to know. Go out and walk, but also chill out, man. I'm recording this just so this will come out the day before summer solstice. Summer solstice is on Wednesday, the 21 June, longest day of the year. Go outside. Just lay in the grass, be outside. Take your hot girl walk. Take your hot couple walk. Take your hot guy walk. Looking at you, oboe. Take your walk, get your sunshine. And remember that ease isn't something that you can chase, that you don't need to create these made for reality TV moments. Life is not a scene. 

Life is just a series of beautiful cycles because we live in a very religiously heavy place in the world. I try to encourage and educate my son on general Christianity and things like that, but it's not something we actively participate in. And I tell know Marshall, what, what does mom worship? Mom worship cycles. And if that's not goddess energy, bliss life. Bliss magic. It's understanding that everything comes in a cycle. There's going to be times when you are so super productive that you are killing it and you feel completely unstoppable. And then there's going to be times when you are going to allow ease to come to you. There's going to be times when you are in deep hibernation and you are replenishing your stores of energy for the next big push. There's going to be times where it's simply play. But play is progress. Play is a part of your bliss life. I'm going to say that to every single person. Play is a part of your bliss life. You can chase the things that make you happy. You can chase the success and the attainment and the wealth and the joy, but you have to let the ease phone and playing is a part of that forward progress. So play more, do more, go outside, be happy for me that I now have a full house. 

We joke around that I now have six boys because I have my son, and then I have my romantic partner, and then he's got four male pets that we are thoroughly involved with. And so between the four pets and the two boys, I'm like, well, okay, I am now in charge of six boys, and then I've got two siblings at home. So I've got some full, full house going on over here, and I'm just going to let it be joyful and fun and easy. No stress, no mess, no fuss, no butts, no coconuts. How's that saying go? I don't know. I don't friggin know. 

This episode, like every episode, is sponsored by Lunar Herbals, which has been saving my life lately, because somehow my body said, acid be gone. And for like two weeks, I was drinking coffee every morning. I was drinking iced coffee like we do in the summer, because I am a girl. I'm a white woman who drinks iced coffee. It's like a rite of passage. But coffee started to hurt me. We had to break up. I had to break up with coffee because my body said no more. I was in attunement and listening. And so I've been supplementing all of my coffee with Lunar Herbals. The Elixir of Bliss is a coffee replacement. It is divine, and it's so good for you. It's so good for you. So as I've been enjoying and playing, and probably, they say fat and happy, been probably eating too much junk food and probably drinking a little too much, but now it's Lunar Herbals Elixir of Bliss in the morning, elixir of Love midday, and Elixir of Rest at night. I also have been juicing carrot juice, celery juice, apple juice, and ginger, all in my juicer. That game changer. Game changers. But check out Lunarbals.com. You can use the code, Leah. L-I-A the number ten, so L-I-A 10 for $10 off. I think it's $10 off. I'll have to go check. You get a discount with my code. You can get a discount if you're using my code. So go check them out. 

Go outside, go on your hot person walk. I love you. I'm proud of you. You're doing great. And I mean that. I am proud of you if you are doing one thing every single day to get you closer to your bliss life. I'm proud of you because it's so easy to not try. But you deserve more. And we'll get into more about deserving and working hard and making changes. But for today, enjoy your walk. I love you so much. I'm so proud of you. Come find me on Instagram. I promise I'll start posting more, even if it's, quote unquote boring. Give you an insight into the not boring, boring things that I'm doing, if I like it, at least. And connect with me. If you want to be a guest on the podcast, send me a message. I would love to chat with you about all things bliss life, bliss luck, bliss magic, and we'll see you real soon. Bye.

Ending:

You have been listening to master your bliss life. Make sure to check out the show notes for any relevant links and follow Leah on Instagram and LinkedIn.