Bree: A few years ago, I left a very public position in my community to take a job in another city. And although I never actually moved to that city, I was largely out of the, uh,

I'm taking a minute here, cuz my, my thing was on. So, um, a few years ago I left a very public opinion in my com I'm messing up all over the place. Um,[00:00:00]

I have a little story about identity. So a few years ago, I left a very public position in my community to take a job in another city. And although I never actually moved to that city, I was largely out of the public eye in my town. And now more than three years later, I still run into people around town who hesitate.

When they see me and then they say something like, oh my goodness, what are you doing here? When did you move back? I mean, it's actually become a bit of a running joke with my family. Like how many times did somebody ask you when you moved back today? But the moment that really, really gets me about those interactions centers around [00:01:00] identity.

Because part of the reason they think I've moved or that there's even a moment of hesitation, that moment of hesitation before they make the remark is because there's a social identity that has shifted and that feels uncomfortable. People just don't know what to do with that. 

And it would be really easy to feel anxious about that moment of hesitation, because it is just about enough time for the dark thoughts to emerge. You know, the thoughts that like these people don't like me, or they're angry with me for something I can't remember that I did, but really the most likely scenario.

That there's a simple identity misplacement because before I [00:02:00] was known as X and who I am now, doesn't really fit with that. It's a mini crisis of identity and that's actually a subtle reason that a lot of people don't make transformative decisions in their. Because it is freaking scary to embrace a new identity, taking a new job or ending a relationship or having a kid is hard.

Not only because of the facts of that change, but also because we sort of know where we stand with our current identity and it can feel really daunting to grapple with the unknown

Who am I in this new paradigm? Am i still me And on a deeper level Will i be safe  . 

Bree: Who am I in this new paradigm? Am I still me? And on an even deeper level, will I be safe? Making bold moves is more than about doing a thing.

It is an act of courage. And if you're in the midst of that courageous act right now, oh my heart is with you. Or if you're just thinking about. Or trying to figure out how to respond to didn't you move I've got you seriously. I mean, seriously, DM me message me. Reach out to me. I, I would love to talk to you about it because I gotta be honest.

I loved my old identity, but this, this evolving version. is so much healthier. And that's what I want for you. And speaking of health today, I am talking to Dr. Elena Carrick, who trained as a pediatric doctor in the UK, and she now lives in Spain with her husband and her kids. And she's a health coach for women in their forties and fifties.

She has a great podcast. Fit and fabulous at 40 and beyond. And she has just published a new book. That's also a workbook. It's really great building, simple habits to a healthy me. And one of the things that came up in our conversation is that Dr. Arleena started her current career when a move to Spain with four kids under the age of four and a half led to a sort of identity crisis.

That was a catalyst for her professional shift in focus. I mean, it's amazing. Also in this episode, Dr. Alina explains her four pillars of health health also. And one of the Hmm. And one of the things that came up in our conversation is that she started her current career. When I moved to Spain with her four kids under the age of four and a half, God bless her led to a sort of identity crisis.

That was a catalyst for her professional shift in focus. Also in this episode, Dr. Elena explains her four pillars of health and offers some great steps for cultivating a healthier life on your own terms. I really enjoyed getting to know. And I think you will too enjoy the episode.

[00:03:00] Making bold moves is more than, about doing a thing. It is an act of courage. And if you are in the midst of that courageous act right now, or you're just thinking about it, or even just trying to figure out how to respond to didn't you move I've got you seriously, DM.

Because I've gotta be honest. I loved my old identity, but this, this evolving version is so much healthier. And that's what I want for you. And speaking of health today, I'm talking to Dr. Orlena Kerek, who trained as a pediatric doctor in the UK, and now lives in Spain with her husband and four kids. And she's a health coach for women in her forties and [00:04:00] fifties.

She has a great podcast, fit and fabulous at 40 and beyond. I'm gonna link it in the show notes and her book "building simple habits to a healthy me" is really, really great. it has some memoir, some science and a lot of practical implementation that you can use immediately. Really, really fabulous. And one of the things that came up in our conversation is that Dr.

Orlena started her current career when a move to Spain with four kids under the age of four and a half. God bless her led to a, sort of a, an identity crisis. That was a catalyst for her professional shift in focus. Also in this episode, Drena explains her four pillars of health and she offers some great steps for cultivating a healthier life on your own terms.

I really enjoyed getting to [00:05:00] know her, and I think you will too enjoy the episode. Um, I'm really, I'm really so excited. 

I was so excited to come across your materials. Not only because I think that you're doing really great work, but also because you live in a part of Spain, that is a dream come true. 

Orlena: If it's a dream country for us as well. And the thing about dreams coming true is that they become real life and your brain adapts to it.

And you have to go around, poking yourself and going, is this a dream or is this real life? And you have to remind yourself as well. Like, you know, I'm living my most amazing life. I have to say, like, I don't mean, oh, I've got a super yacht and stuff like that. I mean, I walk by the sea and go swimming in the sea and I walk in the woods and all of these amazing things.

Bree: Dr. Orlena, um, lives on the coast of Brava in Spain, and it just happens that my family is looking at the coast of Spain as the Costa Brava. And in fact, saw tuna, which is like the next town over from where you are. It 

Orlena: is. I want to go there seriously.

Like when I look at how we move to Spain and it's like a long story, but essentially I made zero plans and you know, on what level, of course I made plans because I knew what I wanted in life. And I made that decision to leave medicine and take that leap. I say with my eyes wide shut. But when we moved here, I didn't know her posts.

We worked at the beach really. Like we just came and we looked at the entire of the Costa Brava or this area and serendipity, we ended up here in this most amazing little town, um, which is so close to loads of peaches. And that's, the tuner is beautiful and it's lovely. But if you want to live there, it's quite a long drive.

Like it's 20, it's a 20 minute windy road. And you know, we go there from time to time. It is beautiful and swimming there. Isn't it. But where we live is even 

Bree: better.

What you want to know is really that's right. Well, we all find our way to, I want to talk to you. You have a new book coming out, building simple habits to a healthy knee. Is that right? Yeah. Building simple building simple habits to a healthy me and. It's really a great tool. I, I have to say, I feel very lucky that I got to take a look at an advanced copy of it, and it really is.

Um, it's such an accessible, wonderful tool for people to use. . I love to start by taking a step back. We'll start by going backwards. And that is that you started your career uh, studying pediatric medicine. You write about it in the book and, and then you transitioned to being a health and wellness coach.

Orlena: Look, I'm giving you the secrets. I try not to tell everybody how amazing it is, where I live, because I don't want to say August. We have to share with other people. And I'm like who? I tried to keep it quiet, but. Yeah, no seriously. We've got the best bit, like the thing about our bed is with the right distance from Barcelona.

So we're an hour and a half from Barcelona by car. You can't really travel by train around here. Well, you can, but you have to use car to get to the train. Um, and we have so many beautiful little, like the beautiful little. Beaches like sat tuna. So tune is gorgeous, but it is like a 20 minute drive down that windy road.

Whereas where we have, we've got those little beaches, but like I cycled to them. They're 15 minutes, 10, 15 minutes from my house. So we've got a little town, which is 10, 15 minutes from. I could go to a different beach for like two weeks and you know, not get bored. So we've got this just amazing little bit.

It's not w we never go to Barcelona to be honest or hardly ever, particularly in the last few years, I don't think I've left bashed importer, but, um, yeah, I mean, it depends what you want, whether you want a holiday home but what I like about where we live is we've got the town, which has got life and re you know, like not people who want tourists, but then we've also got access to the beach, which we do lend the tourists from time to time.

But, you know, in reality, that's how people make money around here. So it brings a lot of money into the area, but, um, you know, like sad tuna, there's nobody there. It's, it's all tourists all the time. 

Bree: And I, I would imagine that you have a fairly large ex-pat community where you are too. 

Orlena: Um, well, I don't know very many of the ex-pats to be perfectly honest.

So we made a decision when we moved here, not to get involved. There are lots of people who have second homes, so lots of Brits used to have second homes, but now with Brexit, it's a bit, yeah. Difficult for people to come and go as they please. But there are still lots of people, but my kids go to the local schools and, um, they speak Catalan.

So we're more, you know, I think as well, the ex-pats has sort of more retired and most of them, not all of them, but most of them are older than us. And most of them don't live here all year round. Um, and you know, there are always like what our little town is really a multicultural little town. There's very like, there's lots of Romanians, lots of Eastern Europeans, lots of people from Morocco.

Um, lots of people from everywhere really. It's kind of a, sort of, there are people who live here all the time, but it's not. It's not Cantillon Catalan. If you go a little bit inland, you'll find those towns, which are, you know, thoroughbred catalogs who've been here and they're very Catalan villages, but ours is more, I tell you what, I'm just gonna turn off my notifications cause it's pinging.

But so yes. So do you come to Spain often? 

Bree: No, no, we don't. We used to live in Amsterdam and we went to Spain when we were in Amsterdam and now we're back in the states, but our younger daughter is about to graduate from high school and is looking at colleges in the UK. And we just, all, we all feel.

At home or suitably out of place. I guess when we, when we are in Europe in general, we really love, we really love Amsterdam, but it's hard on a body. Like it's hard on the cold dampness. It's just hard. You don't want to go. No, 

Orlena: we don't like cold dampness. Don't go to the 

Bree: UK. No, no, I don't want to, I have no desire to go to England , but anyway, um, you have such an interesting story of how [00:06:00] you. Turn to health and wellness coaching. And because you started your career by studying pediatric medicine. 

Orlena: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I studied in England. We have a different system from the UK, so you go and you study medicine. So my first we don't do pre-med and then medicine, you just go to university, you study medicine.

So actually I studied adult medicine and did about one term of children's medicine. And the reason I laugh at this is because kids are very, very different from adults. So I then. When I trained, when I finished my training, we start work at what we affectionately called houseplants, you know, like you're the youngest doctor, their real name is, um, a house officer.

But, you know, I was remember being called the house plant and then after my year or so as adults, I went off to Australia and that's really where I meandered into pediatrics and I loved pediatrics so much. Um, But kids bounce. They get really, really sick. And then they get really, really well, which is not what happens to adults.

Um, you know, most of, [00:07:00] or a lot of adult medicine is that sad decline of later ages. Um, which is very sad. And now with my health coach hat on, I'm like, oh my goodness. So much of that can be avoided. You know, obviously you can't prevent people from getting old, but you can. Really maximize your later years by leading a healthy life right now.

It has to start now. 

Bree: When is now? 

Orlena: right, right now, anybody who's listening, don't leave it a moment later because a moment later, you know, it never happens. People always go, oh, you know, I can understand why I always talk about when I see myself in, in the hospitals and looking around the adult wards and thinking if only I could take people back 20 years, they wouldn't be here.

If I could teach them how to lead a healthy life, those people, they wouldn't be here. So you're standing here making that decision right now. And yet people don't make facts decision. They never make that decision. They leave it, they leave it, they leave it for all kinds of reasons. One of them being [00:08:00] habits, one of them being essentially, this is the way society lives, life.

And another reason being, well, we put it off for, you know, I'm fine now. I don't see what's going to happen to me in 20 years time. But you know, it's a bit like brushing your teeth. We know that if you brush your teeth, you're far more likely to have. Healthy teeth that, and you don't need to go to the dentist and you don't need to have fittings if you look after your teeth, but if you don't brush your teeth, you pretty much know.

As I'm always saying to my children, you know, your teeth are going to turn black and fall out. And that is literally what is going to happen to them. And it can happen more quickly if you eat a high sugar diet or more slowly, if you don't eat a high sugar diet, but we know that that's what happens. We do brush our teeth because we're in the habit of brushing our teeth.

It's, you know, socially acceptable thing to do yet. Looking after ourselves, isn't ingrained into our society has healthy habits essentially. 

Bree: So how did you get from Australia?[00:09:00] To Spain to, to then instilling these I'm sure that, so you have four children, I'm sure that you're instilling these healthy habits in your family.

What did that journey look like for you both on a personal level, a health level and a professional level? What did that look like? 

Orlena: Yeah. So from Australia, I went back to the UK. So Australia was like a little working holiday to me. And I kind of realized that as much as I loved it, I was itching to get back on the career ladder in the UK, which is in hindsight to kind of a little bit strange because I never, I never finished.

I didn't like carry on in my career. And so I went back, I did pediatrics. I started having children and, you know, I did a healthy life, but I. Super focused on health. Um, I ate lots of vegetables. I did minimal exercise. I think when you're in your twenties and thirties, you have what I call fitness of youth.

You know, you, you can run and you can do things. Even if you're not consciously training, I would cycle to work. If I could, depending on how far I had to commute, um, or walk again, you know, that would be my preferred thing, but often I had to [00:10:00] drive to work. Um, and then I had children and long story short, we ended up moving to Spain.

Um, partly because, you know, I always wanted to travel and that was part of my reason for going into medicine. And partly because I got to that stage again, which was like, well, when is this going to happen? If you don't make it happen now it's not going to happen. So we moved to Spain with my eyes wide shut, I thought I could just come here and work, but that didn't really happen.

And then I had twins when we moved to Spain and I found myself a mother in a strange country with kids, four kids under four and a half. And I turned and you know, it was lovely on one level. It was, oh my goodness. I'm on holiday. Um, it's fabulous. The sun, the sand. Everything's amazing, but you know, what did is partly a state of mind, but you know, you don't have all of those work things to do.

And so on another level, it wasn't holiday. It was my life and somehow I'd lost my identity. Um, so I turned to the internet to try and like basically do something. I had no idea what I was going to do. Um, and I started writing about how to look [00:11:00] after kids at the age of one. And in the meantime, I could see that my children were sort of developing picky eating habits and that, you know, one of the things that I'm really used to see as a pediatric doctor was tummy pains.

And I would always see these mothers and say, oh, you know, the good news is. This is constipation. You don't have to take any medicine. All you need to do is eat a diet high in vegetables. It's going to be so easy. It's going to be fabulous. And me thinking obviously is great. They don't need medicines and this poor mother going, how, how do I do that kind of thing?

Um, and as a mother, I realized that actually it's not as easy, you know, you present healthy foods and, you know, I would do, for example, Vegetables and pasta and my kids would eat out the pasta and leave all the vegetables. And then one day my three-year-old sitting on the toilet, tears streaming down his face, and I'm mortified to find out that he's constipated.

And you know, it was a bit of a wake up call really? Oh my goodness. My own children are constipated. And you know, I did a lot of work on picky eating. And how do [00:12:00] we teach children healthy, eating? The good news is, it's all about demonstrating it. Um, that's also the bad news because so many people don't demonstrate healthy eating, but you know, if there's one thing I can say it is, if you lead a healthy life, if you eat healthily, your children are just going to copy that.

And that was one of the reasons really why I transitioned into helping mothers, um, because a lot of them really were standing there going, I want my kids to eat healthily, but I don't really eat healthily. And. That's a really impossible place to be in. Um, so that was my, was that a short enough story?

Bree: It's a good story. It, it, it totally makes sense. And that social modeling that we do as parents and, you know, we, we. We're aware of it behaviourally but so often we forget that our health choices are also being modeled to our children. So I love that you, that you transitioned in that way because it's creating generations of healthier [00:13:00] folks, rather than just focusing on the children it really strikes me that it came out of a little bit of an identity crisis, like, because that's real, you 

Orlena: know, so I think for me, you know, you've read my book and so, you know that I teach four pillars. And so the four pillars I teach are healthy eating and, you know, I pretty much had that down.

Pat I've always read. I mean, we did change how we ate quite a lot. Like as I started looking into nutrition, I'm realized, oh, I actually eat quite a lot of refined carbohydrates. That was the normal I've been brought up in what I call the carbohydrate era, you know, breakfast cereal for breakfast, bread sandwich for lunch, and then pasta or something to dinner.

And that was standard for us. Luckily for me, my mum always had vegetables. So. I think that was very protective for me in that I just grew up with this habit of always eating fruit and vegetables. But so, you know, I, as I say, I modified quite a lot looking at all the information. That's such amazing information that's coming out in the last 10, 15 years.

Um, pillar number two [00:14:00] is exercise that lights you up and COVID has been my friend there. I, you know, I was active before that. Thanks to my kids. I started swimming. But in the last couple of years, I've really increased the amount of exercise that I do because I think those few weeks of being, um, confined, we were confined in Spain, but we weren't allowed out of our houses at all.

And it just basically opened my eyes to how amazing it is that you can move your body. And I now don't take that for granted anymore. I did back then, you know, just, oh, I can go for a walk, but then when it's taken away from me, you begin to see, oh my goodness, it's really difficult to get movement into your day when you're confined to your house.

Um, pillar number three is delicious, healthy sleep. And then pillar number four is emotional wellness, and there's so much involved in that emotional wellness piece. Um, with the people I work with, you know, emotional eating relationship with food, stress levels are really important, but going back to my identity crisis, that was really where I.

Did a lot of work on my own emotions and realize that, oh [00:15:00] my goodness, emotions don't fall out of the sky. Um, that I had some control in how I turned up. You know, I could see myself being this grumpy mother essentially, you know, I kind of had it all. I. Four beautiful children. I had living in Spain. I had an amazing husband and yet, somehow I was grumpy and dissatisfied, partly because I was struggling with this whole, Hey, I used to be adopter now.

What am I doing? Basically, nothing. Um, well, nothing other than the whole mothering bit, but you know, I think it really just, you know, I devoured every single self-help book I could get and there's so many of them around and it made me really start looking at how I see things and how I think about things.

And I always think about it as like, you know, you can spiral up or you can spiral downwards and you have to lay this foundation things don't change. Immediately, but you have to start making small changes and then more small changes and you build up and you build up until suddenly you get to this place where you [00:16:00] realize, oh my goodness, my life truly is amazing.

And I really have created everything I want to, including my own business and writing books and all of those things and that I can do something new and different, but you need those tools. And so that's why I think that emotional. Pillar is super important. So that's what I help my clients with. So for me, it was a slightly different journey, but the tools and the emotions are still exactly the same.

Bree: Love it. I love it. So you and I both work with, with humans, primarily women who are going through major transitions in their lives, right? The physical, the emotional, the professional they're in that place. Right. And. Uh, you just discussed the four pillars, but what, what are some of the things that you think, what are like if right now, as we are talking, uh, what are some quick, immediate suggestions that you can [00:17:00] have for people who are feeling stuck and on the verge of making a big change?

Orlena: Yeah, that's a really interesting question. And I think. So many things spring to mind. One thing I think is really being open to this idea of. You can create whatever you want and whatever you choose to create is going to be amazing. So when I look back to, you know, me giving up my career, I think a lot of it was number one, not wanting to let go let go of that career.

Like I'd worked very hard for that grit. I think so many exams, honestly, and I really enjoyed it. So I think part of that was not being ready to let go, but also part of it was that fear of stepping into. Oh, my goodness. I'm going to be a business person. I'm going to create a business as opposed to oh, a business.

You know, a job is just handed to you, but once you can get to that stage of whatever happens, it's going to be amazing. And you know, this comes down to decision-making that humans do not like making decisions. We like to think we have, [00:18:00] we want to keep our choices open, but actually the human brain finds it really difficult to make a decision.

And, you know, you can see quite often that we get so wrapped up in the decision. Oh, is this the right decision? But one way of looking at it is, you know, I'm going to choose chocolate ice cream or vanilla ice cream. And either of those options is going to be amazing. I'm going to really enjoy the chocolate ice cream, or I'm going to really enjoy the, the, the vanilla ice cream.

It's not like, oh, I'm going to love one. I'm going to hate one. I have to choose the right one. I think it's just this idea of. You can make it awesome and you can definitely make it awesome. When you start to see the awesome in the small things of living, it's not, oh my goodness. I've got my super yacht and all of these things, it's the small things in life, you know, holding your child's hand or seeing the sun and just really, really absorbing how amazing our lives are and the amazing things that we can do and enjoying those.

And, you know, if you're sitting in that place going [00:19:00] at, just can't see it happening, you can change and you can't get there. 

Bree: Yeah. It makes me think I, I had Lyme disease and, uh, and it was chronic Lyme. So I was, I was very sick for a long time and there was no cure in sight. Right. One of those like immune system going haywire and nothing to do, and I couldn't hold a pen.

Or a pencil and I was, um, bedbound for a bit of time and finding a smile. I just began by Anne and I had great medical care. I will say this, I had great medical care. They were throwing everything. They could add it, but at a low point, just a tasting, something fresh. Every day and focusing on that taste, um, meditating on what felt good in my body, taking the time to really focus on it was easy to feel [00:20:00] pain.

So I had to make a concerted effort to focus on what felt good. And my body and doing those small things, it sounds so small and it was, and it didn't immediately cause an overnight shift, but it did allow for a little more space to keep making the next decision and the next decision and the next decision.

You know, you choose the chocolate ice cream, but then you choose the chocolate ice cream. When you go for a walk on the beach while you're having the chocolate ice cream, and then you're watching the sunset and then you're feeling like things lead to things. And so I love that your exploration of making the next right choice for you, no matter how small it is, leads to the next thing.

And that's not necessarily. Uh, law of attraction, you're drawing in all the amazing things too, you know, it's that you are taking action and making choices in your life[00:21:00] to spiral upwards despite all up. 

Orlena: Exactly, exactly. And I think, you know, going back to that, once you've made your decision of what you want.

One exercise I really love doing is getting clarity on what you want your life to look like. And I'm a very. Great believer in creating a vision of what you want. And it's almost like you're driving along the road. So you've created this vision of five years time. This is what I want. And for me, when I'm talking to my clients, I'm talking about health and wellness and, you know, women say, I want to have a body that I'm proud of, and I want to be able to wear those clothes.

And I want that inner confidence and all of those things. Movement and just, you know, it happening without having to think about it. So that's your vision for five years time, and you want to keep that alive and it might be that you don't a hundred percent know what that vision is. So for me thinking about, okay, I'm going to create a business.

I didn't, I didn't do this when thinking about it. [00:22:00] So it's a tool that I use now, but I could have thought, okay, I'm going to create. Uh, business in which I'm helping people and working flexible hours and creating transformation in people's lives, you know, all of that kind of detail without it specifically being, oh, this is the group that you have when you meet on Wednesday at this time, without all of those details, but just that idea.

And so the idea is you've got that. Motivation that you're working towards. And yet it's like driving as well. You're looking at the distance, but you're also looking at exactly what's in front of the car because you don't want to run out, run over somebody who steps in front of you. And so that's like enjoying your every single moment that happens enjoying this time that we have now, but keeping an eye on the future because that's what you're working towards.

Bree: So helpful, so important. And also. Not difficult to do, right. It just takes focus. Um, So it will focus in accountability and, 

Orlena: and keeping going and keeping it. But it's a useful tool to keep you going. And yes, I [00:23:00] think accountability for any change that you want is really helpful. The studies that show that it's really, really helpful.

You know, if you want to make changes, I always talk about the rickety bridge, you know, Um, coming up with a new word, which is the chasm of chaos, you know, like basically life happens. You're standing here. You want to make these changes. You want to get to the other side of the chasm of chaos, but the chasm of chaos always happens.

And there's this kind of rickety bridge that you have to go across. And what happens on that rickety bridge is life. And you get pinged back to all your old habits and systems and routines, and that's when you go, it doesn't work, I'm broken. And I always say, no. You're fine, you but human body, but a human brain.

This is what happens. This is how it's supposed to be. Um, but yeah, people just end up going, okay, I've taken a couple of steps and I can't get across. And now I'm back where I started, but you just have to keep going and you just have to keep going. 

Bree: You talk in your book about acorn habits and Oak tree habits.

Can you, can you tell us a little bit about [00:24:00] that and why habits are important? 

Orlena: Yeah. So habits essentially are things that we do without thinking, and they are a double edge sword. And the reason we have habits is because they're super efficient. So going back to, you know, talking about how our brain makes decisions, making decisions is really energy.

It uses a lot of energy if your brain, and we don't like to make decisions. It's really efficient for us to have habits. Like, can you imagine if you had to wake up every single morning and think, oh, there's this toothbrush thing, what do I do with this? Okay. I just need to go and get the instructions.

Okay. This book is going. I'm going to read a book and it's going to tell me how to brush my teeth. Now, if you had to do that every single day, you would probably never brush your teeth and then your teeth would turn black and for. But that isn't what happens. We just do it without thinking, you just find yourself brushing your teeth.

It's in your routine. You just do it once, twice, three times a day. However many times you do it. And so that's the great thing about habits, but the thing about habits is our brain [00:25:00] doesn't care. What habit we have to our brain. It's the same. Whether you're brushing your teeth or sitting on your couch or going for a walk, it's just exactly the same.

So. It is great to have habits, but you have to have them intentionally. You have to choose habits that are going to serve your healthy living. And the great thing about that is once you've got those habits, you just live a healthy life without thinking about it. It's just like, Hey, this is, this is what I, what I do.

And so coming back to our kids, When we teach our children when they develop these healthy habits. Exactly. Like I said, at the beginning, you know, I grew up eating vegetables and that's just what I did. I didn't think, oh my goodness, I'm eating really healthy. I just ate vegetables because that's what my mother gave me.

And that's what I got used to doing. So. Sorry. I realize that's an entirely. What and what your written question was 

Bree: the difference between acorn habits and Oak 

Orlena: tree? Yes. Okay. So then it's January the first and you decide I'm going to make some new habits. My new year's resolution is going to be, I'm going to walk around the block [00:26:00] and you are thinking about your habit and you're walking around the block and you're walking around the block and you're thinking I'm doing so well.

This habit is great. I'm really putting effort into making my habits. Now by the second week of February, you've entered into the chasm of chaos. Again, AKA life life happens and you've entirely forgotten about your habit, except your habit was never a habit. It was, you know, this acorn habit you were thinking about it the whole time.

So it wasn't a habit. You were building this habit. It's not a habit until you look away and you forget that you're doing it. And then five years later on, you'd look back and you go, oh, that new years I did build that habit of walking around the block. I just entirely forgot about it, but I've been doing it now for five years.

And so it's truly a habit when you stop thinking about it. And that's what I think confuses people is they go, oh, I, you know, I just can't create new habits. Well, you can, but you just [00:27:00] haven't, you haven't gone far enough yet. You've got what I call this acorn habit. And you've mistaken it for a proper habit, a big eight, eight Oak tree habit.

Bree: Yeah. And that's, and so your book is really designed to help people. Turn ideas into acorn habits, into Oak tree 

Orlena: habits. Exactly, exactly, exactly. And another thing that I see, so the book has got, um, habit trackers in it and you know, one of the things that I see is our brains adapt so quickly. So you start off and you think, okay, I'm going to be really, really good.

I'm going to create this new habit. So, you know, for some of my clients that might be, I'm not going to eat ice cream after dinner. And you think, okay, um, this is great, but I'm eating ice cream after dinner, 30 times, you know, every single day, 30 days after a month, fast forward two months. And you're only doing it once.

A week, but that is a huge improvement on every single day, except our brains are designed to look at the [00:28:00] negative things. And so you're there beating yourself up about that once a week that you're doing, instead of seeing the progress that you've made and, you know, I can take Xavian different examples, but that is always what happens.

Um, coaching session. Number two, people always come with a long list of failures and it's like, no, wait a minute. I know that you've been making changes because I've been talking to you all week and I know that you've done things differently. So why are you telling me all the negative things that you haven't done?

Why aren't you telling me? And it's just essentially human nature. This is what we do. We always focus on the negative. So that going back to the habit tracker, it shows you if. Uh, mark over every time you've done your habit, you can see that you fill up your pages more and more so you can look back and go, okay.

I was walking around the block for 10 minutes every other day, and now I'm doing the 20 minutes every single day. That's a lot more than when I started. 

Bree: That's great. That's great. It's really helpful, really useful. And I'm excited [00:29:00] to see what happens when people begin to make use of this book and I'll put the link to it in the show notes.

 So with my clients, we.  uh, a new way of, uh, of eating with your family. Really approach making significant changes in our lives by accessing or becoming aware of these seven different paths that we use or channels. Sometimes we call them paths, sometimes channels, sometimes ways to really creating change.

And that can be a new fitness regime, a new, I know that you are a proponent of a plant-based diet  uh, , or it can be something as big as launching a huge activist campaign, right. Or launching a new business.

Can we take a rapid fire, look at the seven different channels and you can let us know how they've influenced you as a change maker, because. You've made changes in your life, but your career changes are [00:30:00] to help people change their lives. It's like exponential change going on for you. 

Orlena: Yes, this sounds fun.

Bree: Great. So we'll just do it rapid buyer. So the first channel is emotional. 

Orlena: Oh emotion. I've, you know, I've always loved emotions as I look back on my life.

I think for me, emotions have always been. Interesting. And I've always kind of enjoyed emotions. And I think that you should, you should enjoy the good bits, the happy bits, but you should enjoy the, the sad bits as well. Like that's what makes us human basically is emotions. I love this. Which is we, am I going to say, let me get this mic.

We are emotional beings who think rather than thinking beings who feel emotions. And I think that really sums up humans in that we like to think we're logical, but we're not really, we just do things because of emotions. And I think for me from a personal level, the biggest thing that I have learned is I get to choose my emotions.

And they're not all the time that a hundred percent, but you can really [00:31:00] influence. How you choose to turn up, you know, if you're feeling sad, set and feel sadness for a little bit and then go, okay, I've enjoyed feeling sad and now I'm going to do something else. And I think for me, knowing that you can control your emotions.

Just think if everybody knew that I think it would just solve so many issues in the world. 

Bree: And I was just talking to my daughter about this the other day, we were talking about how. We feel that the measure of real health and contentment for ourselves is being able to feel the full spectrum of emotions without drowning in them.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's turn to the other side of that then, which is the, uh, analytical, 

Orlena: yeah, no, Analytical is something that I love. I personally love understanding how something works. And so I always think it's really good to take a step back and to understand what's going on, you know, a bit like having explained to you how habits work [00:32:00] and realizing that what happens to people is they get stuck in this area.

But once you step back and go, okay, I can understand this. Now you can then. Make huge progress because you can go, okay, I know this, like, it doesn't feel great and I feel stuck, but I just need to keep going and I'm going to come out the other side. So I always like to understand how things work, particularly with my clients, because then I can help them.

But it's really useful to be able to understand what's going on so that you can go through the process. 

Bree: Absolutely. The next one is intuitive. 

Orlena: Yes, that's another really fabulous one. And, um, if people are in like really connected, I think that's amazing. It's something that I have to practice, um, being intuitive.

Like for me, what happens is I get this at a whisper of an intuition and then sometimes like, ignore it. And then I realize. You knew and you ignored it anyhow. So it's really allowing that to open up. Um, my mom has this amazing game that you can play. [00:33:00] It's like one of those card games, but it asks you the most ridiculous questions that you have no idea about.

And the number of times my instinct is to say. The right one and then I don't, my analytical brain comes in and goes, oh, it's that one. So yeah, it's something that personally I'm working on, but I think everyone should learn to listen to their intuition. 

Bree: With all of these seven paths, we're going to be at different stages at different points in our lives, on them.

And they do interplay just as you said, that you can use the analytical to sort of titrate. Our relationship to emotions, right. To our emotional self. It's the same with, with, uh, with intuitive, and sometimes we have greater access to it, and sometimes we have less access to. We also live in a world that values say the analytical and that operates on the emotional so much, that they often are much louder than the intuitive, which is that whisper.

It's hard [00:34:00] to hear her whisper when the drums are 

Orlena: going. Exactly. I think that's very, I think that's very true. And I think, you know, doing things like meditation and taking time to just relax and do nothing or being nature. I, you know, I think when we have kids, we stopped doing nothing before we have kids.

I see my kids like hanging around all day and I'm like, what are you kids doing? And they're like, I don't know, they'll bounce a ball against a wall, like 500 times, like who has time to do that. And I look back to when I was a student and I would have, you know, a free session. I would go hang out with my friends.

I wouldn't ever do anything, you know, super productive in those times. Now as an adult, I find, you know, as a parent that we have just this agenda, which is like from here to here to here to here that we hardly ever take time just to do nothing. And I think it is something that we need to remember 

Bree: to do.

Oh, I agree. I think boredom is the biggest gift we can give ourselves these days. I really do. Hard to get. It's a big one. It's [00:35:00] expensive boredom 

Orlena: and he's constantly confined red. It's Easter holidays. Now. He's like, I'm bored. And I'm like, wow, what do you want me to do? Practice? 

Bree: Uh, my mother-in-law used to say, uh, There are never boring moments.

Only boring people.

Orlena: I think it just means I don't know what I want to do. And I'm like, well, if you don't know what you want to do, I surely don't know what you want to do. 

Bree: Okay. The next path is spiritual. Hmm. 

Orlena: I think for me, this ties very much into meditation and. Thinking about the universe. I have to confess thinking about the universe scares me a little bit.

When I think about the size of the universe and the brain just goes, yeah, no, it's not going to work. Is it? Um, it's like a big question, mark, just file this and that. I don't know, but I think it ties back to that intuition as well and having some kind of. Guide or higher sense or something else? I don't know what, I'm not sure.

I answered that very clearly. 

Bree: I think you answered it honestly it's [00:36:00] easy to feel overwhelmed by the unknown and spirituality by its very nature. Um, is sort of trusting in the unknown that it is unknowable to us because we are finite in our understanding.

Orlena: Right? Exactly. Exactly. And for me, my brain just goes big question, mark, but I think there is also another. Idea which goes back to this, you know, I can make amazing things happen, but just having faith, um, in an it, you know, it can be an external force if you want to be an external force, but the things are gonna work out okay for you in the end.

And obviously we all have a limited amount of time on the planet, so it's not like we're ever going to avoid death, but that during that time I've got these amazing moments and. For me right now, everything is okay. I've got four children who are safe and I've got a house and like, what more do we want?

And I know that we've been [00:37:00] through scary times. We've been through COVID and I know a lot of people, you know, thinking about political situations in the world go through much worse, but right now I'm safe and that's amazing. 

Bree: Yeah. Being in the, now being in the now. The next one is 

Orlena: creative. I love creative.

And I think creative is so, so many, many different things, you know, like we think of creative as creating a picture or something, but it doesn't have to be like an object of art. It can be. Creating other things. So for me, I think about, I've created a space for my clients to come and transform their life.

And that is creativity. And, you know, doing podcasts that is creative as well. Um, I kind of love creatively. I do, you know, and this may sound a bit strange. The Alina of 20 years ago would be like, what are you saying? But I find cleaning my house creative as well. I'm almost like I have, well, I ha I have to do a bit of backstory.

I have just created my dream home and it's taken me five years to do [00:38:00] this, but you know, the same kind of thing. I put this vision out into the future of, I want my dream home and we've moved into our dream home. And now I love going and cleaning the windows and thinking, wow, I've got this amazing home, which is perfect for my family.

It's the right size for our family. And this is what I'm doing. I'm sort of polishing it. I'm keeping this creation alive, 

Bree: uh what a beautiful gift to yourself and to your family. 

Orlena: And when you come to the Costa Brava, you can come and say, 

Bree: I will take you up on that.

The next one is related to cleaning windows physical. 

Orlena: I love physical. I love physical for me. You know, I say, people here have dogs and they go, oh, I have to walk my dog. And I'm like, wait a minute. What about yourself? Your body is made to move. And so many people say to me, oh, I don't have time. I'm too tired to exercise.

And I think you've got this the wrong way around exercise is what gives your body energy. And I think you need to find exercise that likes you. [00:39:00] Not all your exercise needs to light you up. My exercise that lights me up is swimming in the sea. The Mediterranean, as you know, is amazing to swim in. Um, oh, it's, it is just in the summer.

I see stingrays. I see octopuses. I see more ales, beautiful fish. Um, it is just amazing, but I also go walking and it doesn't light me up in the same way, but it is truly, you know, beautiful at this time of year. It's green and lush here, so it doesn't have to be complicated. But it is just about replenishing yourself when you move and your body needs that movement.

You know, if we look at our analytical minds now research shows that we need movement and it helps us with, um, you know, muscle strength and bone strength and heart strength and, you know, helps keep our lungs healthy. So all of it, it's just so important. It's got a whole pillar by itself. It's pillar number two,

Bree: you know, I, I also want. To take a step back. It's a good time to do this. I think because one of the things that I liked in your book was that you admitted that you weren't a very [00:40:00] sporty, 

Orlena: don't know if I tell this story in my book, I have to reread my book, but I recently had my, one of my really good school friends came and stayed and I haven't seen them for literally like two years.

So it was so lovely to see her, but, you know, we've been friends since we were nine. I think we used to play netball at school and we would choose to be on the opposite team. They didn't do sport very well when I was at school. Like if you weren't in the, the team, the school team for every single sport, then basically you didn't do anything.

So when we practice, she would be the goal shooter. And I would be the goalkeeper on the opposite side, which basically meant we spent the entire lesson just standing next to each other, chatting and. That was my sports education was like picking goalkeepers so that I could chat to my best mate for 45.

So yeah, I think I was sports phobic, you know, like I look back now and I think. Well, just I'm so heartbroken that that's how, like now I understand how sport is amazing and it's part of leading a healthy life, but that wasn't what it was taught. It was taught as [00:41:00] the school has to win. We're really competitive school is going to, you know, we show our prowess by winning sports and that was it.

And there was no self care involved, no life skills involved. I think schools have changed a bit now. Yeah. I just kind of think it was the wrong reasons. 

Bree: I, I totally, I know that feeling I had, even though the United States has much more physical education than the UK schools have, or, or then most of the European primary schools and secondary schools, I think at least.

I was just very bad at sports. I was super uncoordinated and in my head, I was just a dreamy little creative kid who didn't really care about lacrosse. Right. And then when I was a junior in high school, I had a fantastic. Physical education [00:42:00] teacher. Cathy LaDuke at my boarding school. She passed away recently.

So I've been thinking about her a lot because we had to play sports at my boarding school we had to, and it was torture for me. I hated it hated every minute of it, but tennis was one of the sports that I. Signed up to play and she let me, she said, you know, you can be the person who just hits the ball back and forth with your friend on the tennis court.

You can sit there with your best mate with your best friend and just hit the ball back and forth because at least you're moving, you're moving and at that's how I'm going to get you. To move your body. That's okay. It doesn't have to be about winning. And that was completely revelatory for me because it made it fun to have it be truly recreational and not competitive.

Orlena: I would say now at the age [00:43:00] of 47, Physically fitter than I have ever been before. And I, you know, I'm not competitive. Sit here. They do lots of swimming competitions, and I just go, why would I want to do this main competition?

So too many people in the sea you're getting in my way. And I normally have this entire seat myself and two other people. In fact, if there's more than five people in my swimming group, I'm a bit like there's too many people here. Um, but you know, I don't do it. Um, well, I do do it to keep fit. It's not that I don't do it just to keep fit, but it's not a chore to do it.

And it also as well, you don't have to do heaps and heaps of grueling exercise. I do a seven minute workout in the morning. I love my seven minute workout. And I think if nothing else happens today, I've done a seven minute workout. I've moved my body a little bit, but I always think it's really, really easy to leave a sedentary lifestyle.

And you know, these days we're all at computers. It's so easy to not move your body at all. But the flip side is once you've got into the habit of it, it's really easy to move your body and enjoy moving your body. 

Bree: And now we've reached the last one.[00:44:00] And that's social, 

Orlena: social, social is part of my pillar for actually, human beings are social.

Coming back to emotions and thinking about emotions and social beings. We have these things called mirror neurons, and you can see it playing out in your family. My children. Highly highly emotional and like highly strong, I would say. And they express their emotions by screaming.

And I think that's partly because I've got four so close together. But partly because they're sort of allowed to do that, but you know, what happens is you have a child who's screaming next to you. Who's upset and anxious and you can be in a calm and beautiful mood. And then you start paying attention to this, you know, without that sort of inner strength and suddenly your emotions have taken on their emotions and it almost sort of ricochets around the family.

Um, So, yeah, social social is amazing, but, and we need social activity. In fact, in the UK, they have a minister of loneliness because they realized [00:45:00] that, um, it's a big factor, particularly for elderly people, as people get more isolated and it actually is a risk factor for being on well, 

Bree: that's incredible that they have the.

But they have, um, minister of loneliness. That's this very sweet. It is very sweet. 

Orlena: The minister does. But 

Bree: I also think with social, I, uh, one of the things that I do with my clients when they're taking on a project that seems a little out of reach and it's fun when they seem a little bit out of reach, right.

That's why we do them. That's why we reach for them I. Have them look for people who have done some parts of that, that they can use as examples, that they can see how they behave and hopefully that they can sometimes it's parasocial right. Sometimes it's, uh, someone of a certain status or notoriety.

Who they recognize as being someone who's done something that they appreciate and they never get to meet them. They can only bear witness. We're [00:46:00] not engaging the mirror neurons fully there, but when they can sit down and talk and have a conversation. Like this, like talking with you and, and seeing you, uh, share about how you have become increasingly fit with time.

And then if we were in space together, bearing witness to that and picking up on your energy and that way, uh, it's, it's a great way to go. So it's not necessarily just working towards the screaming children picking up on the negative emotions, but also picking up on. The, uh, adaptive, I won't say positive, but the more adaptive habits and choices too.

Orlena: Definitely, definitely. 

Bree: I would love to know how can the listeners get in touch with you? How can they find you, tell us about how we can get in touch with 

Orlena: thank you so much for asking. So I have a podcast which is fit and fabulous at 40 and beyond. And I have an amazing Facebook group actually, which is full of amazing people.

And how do you ask [00:47:00] me a year ago? I probably would have said I hate Facebook groups, but my Facebook group is amazing and full of amazing women. Um, and of course my book, um, which is available on Amazon. 

onderful 

Bree: uh, enjoy your swim.

Orlena: I'm a 

Bree: little bit jealous. 

Orlena: Well, thank you so much for having me. And one day, when you come back to the Costa Brava, we can swim in the sea together. That sounds 

Bree: marvelous.

Here are my key takeaways from this conversation with Dr. Elena Carrick. Number one, Dr. Elena talked about acorn habits and Oak tree habits. Take a look at your habits. How many of them have really graduated to Oak tree status? And where are the acorns that you need to continue to cultivate? number two, when you feel like you're not making changes quickly enough, really take the time to note the progress that you are making to combat the negative bias.

Number three, sometime this week, maybe even [00:48:00] today, or maybe even as soon as you stop listening to this podcast, take a few moments to just do nothing. give yourself that space to silence the beating drums of expectation and give your intuitive self, a little room to expand.