10.16.2019
Episode 125: Julie Wald, Founder, CEO and Chief Wellness Officer of Namaste New York
Summary
Julie Wald, Founder, CEO and Chief Wellness Officer of Namaste New York, manages the challenges of running her business…and her life. She speaks about how you approach the inevitable highs and lows—especially the lows which can take the wind out of your sails in a flash, in any business or any situation. Julie has a wise acronym that she could one day make into a cross-stitched sampler (if she ever had the time): AFGO—Another F*cking Growth Opportunity.
Listen to our full conversation and learn about how Julie keeps her mind and body aligned (mostly) and gracefully navigates the inevitable speed bumps, always reminding herself that each one is an AFGO.
Transcript
| Jodi Katz | Hey everybody. Welcome back to WHERE BRAINS MEET BEAUTY®. I am super excited to be sitting across from Julie Wald. She is the Founder and Chief Wellness Officer of Namaste New York. Welcome to here Brains Meet Beauty™.. |
| Julie Wald | Thank you for having me. |
| Jodi Katz | We are sitting together in our podcast recording studio in our new office, and we were just talking about how many podcasts Julie's been on and if they've been face to face or over the phone. And you told me they've all been over the phone? |
| Julie Wald | Yes, yes, yes. This is really, really wonderful. So thanks for having me. |
| Jodi Katz | I used to do all of ours over the phone because I just didn't want to be hassled with the logistics of getting to be in the same room with people, which is the hardest part. And then I had ... One of my episodes, I recorded face to face because there were two people ,and how am I going to do two guests over the phone? It felt like it would be really insane. And after that, I'm like, "Oh, I'm never going back." |
| Julie Wald | It affects the quality of the connection and conversation, for sure. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. And that's what this is all about. |
| Julie Wald | Absolutely. |
| Jodi Katz | So we're here to get to know you and get to know what Namaste New York is all about, but let's start at the beginning of your career. Okay? So my guess is the beginning of your career, you did not think you'd end up as a chief wellness officer? |
| Julie Wald | No, I did not. Not even close. I actually thought I was on the road to be really a mind-body psychotherapist. That was my vision at the time. I started off as a clinical social worker working in medical environments, mental health environments, with children, adults, geriatric populations, severely mentally ill. Really the whole gamut. But being in the social work profession, I ended up in a lot of disenfranchised neighborhoods working with a lower income population who were really needing mental health support. And that was where my heart was and my passion, but it was stressful. |
| Jodi Katz | Tell me about those stresses. |
| Julie Wald | It was really intense for me at the time to hold the space for people who are in just a lot of pain for a lot of really good reasons, coming from very challenging backgrounds. I always say that our greatest strength, it can also be our greatest weakness. And in this case, I'm not sure that it was a weakness, but I think that part of what drove me to that career is that I'm a very heart driven person and open-hearted. And I think that I just took a lot with me. I took a lot home with me at night and started to feel the effects of holding that stress and that pain in my own self, and knew that I needed to find a way to process that in a healthy way. |
| Jodi Katz | So what does that look like, coming home and just feeling exhausted or talking about your clients to your friends nonstop? What does it look like when you bring your work home with you when you're a social worker? |
| Julie Wald | Yeah, good question. So it really looks like ... I picture it now, getting on the subway up in the Bronx, and making my way back downtown to my little downtown apartment at the time, and just starting initially to feel it in my body, just feel the stress in my body and the heaviness of all that I had taken in that day. And then at the time, I was young. I was living with roommates, and always respecting client confidentiality, but really needing to share some of what I heard. And then, it dawned on me that yes, my roommates were awesome and supportive, but to be honest, they didn't really know what to say. I mean, I was dealing with suicidal teenagers and adolescents, people who had gone through a lot of trauma and abuse, and that was something that I needed to process mentally and emotionally. But I also felt like I needed to move it through my body as well. And I got really into yoga and meditation and finding after work activities that helped me digest everything. |
| Jodi Katz | So why do you think you were able to transition this just to yoga and not to Swedish Fish? |
| Julie Wald | Good question. I've always been drawn towards health and wellness, towards Eastern philosophy. It's always been a curious thing for me. I, more than anything, I think, wanted to be able to continue to fine-tune my instrument to be able to actually help people. And I guess at the time I didn't realize it, but I was wise enough to know that more self-destructive coping mechanisms wouldn't be the secret to success, especially if I was the one that was trying to be able to help people heal. I felt like really this work put me on my own healing journey. |
| Jodi Katz | So as you were talking about transitioning from a stressful day, getting on the subway, and going back home, it just made me think about being in my twenties, leaving work, and I would race home. Let's say I lived on the Upper East Side at this point. I was coming from Flatiron, and I would walk as fast as I could to the subway, get on that subway, and race as fast as I could, walk as fast as I could home. If I was make a pit stop at a store, I'd race through it. I would get home and I'd be sweating. And I don't know why I was doing that at the time. It was just my normal, but maybe it was all the pent-up stuff. Right? I didn't know what to do with it, so it just propelled me to walk as fast as I can, and I'm a pretty fast walker. And then I'd be racing home to do nothing. Right? So in retrospect, I'm like, "What was the race for? Why was I rushing?" But maybe it was all the stuff just bottled up from the day. |
| Julie Wald | Totally. You were processing it and needing to vent it out somehow. One of the things that I think about sometimes now is that I, at the time ... This was pre iPhone, so there really were no distractions for me. So I had to have this super intense day, get on the train, and then just sit with it. I mean, there was nothing to look at. I mean, maybe I carried a book with me at the time, but the truth was is I really had to be in my own skin and feel all the feels, as they say, around whatever transpired that day. And I think that now, it's a little bit different for people that were able to find, for better or worse, ways to distract ourselves from the feelings of our day. That's been on my mind a lot actually, thinking back to those days and how we had to hold things in a way that's different today. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. So is it working in our favor to pop open a screen as a distraction, or does it work against us? |
| Julie Wald | I mean, in my opinion, it works against us, but I also think that I'm not an extremist. So I think that everything in moderation. I do recognize that it's a new world. And I have teenage children, so I'm very tuned in to how the world has changed. And the fact that as much as having to sit with all of this was really powerful and pushed me to grow a tremendous amount, that creating enough space for that I think is important, but recognizing that the reality is that we do have all of these distractions in this day and age. So how we approach making space for processing our feelings may look very different today than it once did. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. So I'm now thinking about I'm coming off of a very stressful summer of work, some just good stress and some really bad stress. I really coped by stomping my feet and talking about it in therapy and stuff, but with catching up on my vice, which is The Real Housewives. And I was so grateful for the distraction. It made me so happy to dive down deep into the nonsense of these shows and fill my time with it. I knew I was consciously doing it. I wasn't just watching TV. I was like, "I'm doing this because it feels so good to me now, when I'm feeling sad or stressed or overwhelmed." And I really, I think for the first time, appreciated the distractions of entertainment. |
| Julie Wald | Absolutely. And I think that that's really valuable. I think that the key word there, that you said, is conscious. And just to the extent that we can recognize that these activities are just relaxing and they enable us to be entertained and get out of our own head for a little while, that's beautiful. And we need that some of the time. As long as we're conscious of what we're doing and it's not the only way that we're handling our day, then engaging and consuming in that way can really be okay. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. So I think of all the people on New Jersey transit watching TV shows on their phones. They make the commute joyful because they're catching up on something they really love. So let's talk about your career as a social worker. How did you transition from social work to doing what you're doing now? |
| Julie Wald | So as I said, I was really engaged in the journey of learning about myself through the lens of yoga and Eastern wisdom and meditation. And that ultimately evolved into me wanting to integrate that work into my work as a social worker. So I really recognized that so many of my clients didn't have the tools or the verbal skills or the awareness to be able to articulate themselves and use language as a way to process and heal, and that we needed to approach their journey from a multidimensional perspective. I went renegade as a clinical social worker and started integrating, with specific clients that I felt really needed a different type of approach, integrating this work into my sessions with them, my clinical sessions with them. I didn't tell my supervisors at the time. It was top secret, but I very deeply felt that this was the best use of the time that we had. And from there, I really ended up beginning to teach a little yoga and meditation, moonlighting early mornings and evenings, as a way to not only supplement my income, but just continue to evolve my skills in that realm. |
| Jodi Katz | So when you were incorporating these rogue techniques, you weren't doing yoga in your office with your clients? |
| Julie Wald | I was doing yoga in my office with my clients. I remember one client in particular. It was a 16 year old African American male who had been mandated to therapy for having a very aggressive outburst at a teacher. He actually threw a chair at a teacher. And I always say that if he happened to have a gun on him, he would have shot the gun. It was an impulse. And he was full of pain and full of rage, and rightfully so. He had had a horrible childhood and endured intense abuse and had drug-addicted parents and a father that had been incarcerated for most of his life. I'll never forget this kid. And he used to come into my office, and I'm just looking at him, thinking, "I have this opportunity to try to help this kid in some way, shape, or form, with the goal being that he doesn't hurt anybody else and that he doesn't hurt himself and that he can keep himself out of jail." And I just so clearly knew that the medium of clinical psychotherapy wasn't the key there. And so I had to get creative. I started really teaching him about how to build awareness in his body around some of the feelings and the sensations that would come up before he would do something that would get him into trouble and began to actually teach him yoga in my teeny tiny little ... Literally, my office was smaller than this little room that we're in right now. I had him doing handstands and CRO. It was partially to engage him and build trust and build relationship, which was really powerful, because that was just a lot more fun than feeling like you're being forced to talk when you're a 16 year old boy. But it also, simultaneously, was teaching him about how to use his body as a tool to calm himself and to work in a way that could keep him out of trouble and keep him from hurting people. |
| Jodi Katz | And how do you track progress for someone who doesn't want to talk to you? Are you able to see a difference? I guess, what metric do you use? Right? Six months later or a year later, however long you're spending with him from day one to the last day. |
| Julie Wald | Yeah. He was amazing. So it took a while for me to start to feel like he actually ... So he was mandated to come see me. Right? So if he didn't come see me, he would end up in juvie and be basically incarcerated. He had to come. But what ended up happening over time was that he began to look forward to the sessions. And I could tell that he looked forward to the sessions because he'd walk in, he'd say, "Hey, Ms. Julie!" And he'd give me a high five. He had a smile on his face. And that was the polar opposite of what the beginning of our work looked like, where he would literally walk into the office and not say anything and be completely silent for the entire time. That alone was so huge because even having a healthy, positive relationship with somebody that showed up every week and was happy to see you, meaning that I was happy to see him, for him, that was really powerful. It was the modeling of what that kind of a relationship could potentially look like, because he really wasn't able to even cultivate his relationships like that with teachers or really anybody in his community. And so it was really a gift for me that he was forced and mandated, because it gave me the opportunity to build this trust. And then over time, he ... For the duration of our work together, he stayed out of trouble. Now, I don't know where he is now and exactly what the ultimate outcomes were, but he was in no trouble in the year that we were together. Whereas before that, he had had continual, repeated problems. He was just constantly, constantly getting himself into very, very bad situations. And yeah, he told me that he used to do yoga in his bedroom, which was amazing. And I, even by the end, got him to do some very brief meditations and work with his breath, which was really, really powerful. And I have to think that we planted some seeds there that he could hopefully call on throughout the years. |
| Jodi Katz | And when did the seed for Namaste New York get planted? |
| Julie Wald | So somewhere within that time period, where I was doing this work as a social worker and moonlighting as a yoga and meditation teacher. Funny enough, while I was working with New York's most disenfranchised populations as a clinical social worker, I ended up as a yoga and meditation teacher, finding myself, through a series of connections, in the living rooms of captains of industry and celebrities and some of the most brilliant, successful, prominent New Yorkers. And so it was really intense because I used to ... Fast track a few years later, after I was going down to my apartment, venting to my girlfriends, next thing you know, I was getting on the subway and getting off on the Upper East Side and running up and down Park Avenue and 5th Avenue, teaching private yoga from 6:00 to 9:00 PM or from early mornings, 5:30 AM to 8:00 AM, kind of thing. And it really evolved from there. That was the beginning. And slowly, my personal practice became very robust. And I fell in love with that work and decided that it was time to pause my social work career because my husband and I had this idea for this business called Namaste New York. And that was back in 2003. I really took a leap of faith at that point, and we began then. |
| Jodi Katz | Number one, I'm amazed that the name Namaste New York wasn't taken by another business by then. Were you surprised by that too? |
| Julie Wald | Kind of, yeah. It was born out of a 9/11 sentiment actually. It was really about ... Namaste means, the light in me sees and honors the light in you. And so it was really about ... And interestingly, many of our clients and my personal clients at the very beginning were in the financial industry, and many of them were on a healing journey and, suddenly, were open to practices like yoga and meditation, where prior to the trauma of 9/11, I'm not sure that they would have really sought that out in the same way. That was really the inspiration of the name, was we're healing. New York is healing. We're healing. All these people are healing, and that's the purpose. |
| Jodi Katz | So is your husband in the business of the healing arts? |
| Julie Wald | He is. We still run our business together. He is our chief operating officer, and he is really runs ... He drives the ship. |
| Jodi Katz | He's a yoga teacher as well? |
| Julie Wald | He is also a yoga teacher. |
| Jodi Katz | And your kids, are they yoga enthusiasts? |
| Julie Wald | They're definitely yoga familiarists. They definitely speak the language. I've been pretty conscious not to shove it down their throats because I know enough about psychology and know that that wouldn't be the most effective approach. But I think as a parent, it's really about just modeling and sharing and inviting, and trusting that they're going to have their journey. And to the extent that a formal yoga practice is a part of that journey, would be amazing, but I'm also not the kind of person that thinks there's one answer. Is yoga the answer for everybody? Not necessarily. I think that these things are really personal journeys, and the most important thing is just to have an understanding about what's out there and to plant enough seeds that what needs to grow, can grow. |
| Jodi Katz | So let's talk about the fact that now you run a business that helps people heal through yoga, meditation, and other techniques, but you are also an entrepreneur. So I'm an entrepreneur, and my head is crazy often. Even with breathing and meditation and a lot of ... I have a village. Right? I have my therapist, I have my coach, I have my other coach. Right? |
| Julie Wald | I love you. |
| Jodi Katz | So it takes a village. You're in the shoes of your stressed out clientele. |
| Julie Wald | Oh yeah. It's really funny because I remember thinking ... Working with clients who seemingly had everything, they were successful and educated and wealthy and gorgeous clothes and healthy children, for the most part. And I'd think to myself, "Why are they struggling? Why is it so hard?" I was at a different stage of life at the time. And now, fast forward 20 years, and yeah, it is ... I am in the heart of it. I relate 100%. I am that person who needs a village, who needs a team, who needs to figure out how to support myself mentally and physically to continue to perform on the level that I want to business wise and take care of my family in the way that feels aligned with my personal integrity. And I never, in a million years ... If you had asked me back in the day if I would be an entrepreneur, I would have said, "Are you kidding? I'm not a business woman." But here I am, an entrepreneur and a business woman, and yes, the one thing that has been really interesting is that I have learned more about business than I ever thought that I would and really enjoyed it in a way that I don't think I ever dreamed would be possible. |
| Jodi Katz | I put this idea of business and anything that I thought was business-y in this bucket. I'm like, "That's so not for me," a long time ago. Those things, those marketing terms, that are all about numbers and stuff, I'm like, "I don't touch that. I don't do that. Finance, I don't touch that." And then fast forward to where I am now, I'm like, "Oh, it'd be so cool to be an investment banking, helping brands acquire other brands." Right? That's actually ... Wow, I think I'm actually probably really well-suited to private equity or investment banking, when that used to feel so strange to me. |
| Julie Wald | It's so interesting. |
| Jodi Katz | Because you just learn that it's not about the number, right? Everything's about people. |
| Julie Wald | Totally. That's it. That's the bottom line. And yeah, I mean, I think that on an entrepreneurial path, as long as you can understand that you're surfing and that it can be intense and that there's inevitable highs and lows, but that through all of that, you are growing and stretching in ways that you never dreamed that you would, is inspiring and exciting. |
| Jodi Katz | So let's talk about that because it's like free therapy for you to be sitting here with me, so I'm going to take advantage of it. I still, to this day, have a hard time with the lows. The highs, I've worked really hard to honor them. I used to just ride right past them. A great thing that happened, I'd be like, "Good. It happened," and then I'd just move on. Now, we ring a bell, we do a little dance, we put a candle and cupcakes. We honor even small highs, just to imprint on my brain that good things happen all the time. But the lows catch me by surprise. Even though I know it's a roller coaster, I really keep forgetting that it's not all the swishy fast part of the roller coaster, where the wind is whipping through your hair and you're laughing. That there are times when I'm hanging upside down on the loop. Right? And I don't like that feeling. How can I get my body to accept that there are lows? |
| Julie Wald | I think it's expectation management. So really continually reminding yourself that the nature of life, the nature of the human experience is that there are highs and lows. And I saw that firsthand with my social work clients and my captain of industry clients. The most amazing thing was that they were equally as happy and as miserable. It had nothing to do with how much money they had. There was deep pain and incredible joy universally in those populations. And the light bulb was just like, "Oh, that's life." You can't escape that no matter how much money you have, no matter how educated you are, or whoever you are. The nature of life is that there are highs and lows and ups and downs. And those lows are really those growth opportunities. I had a therapist back in the day that was extraordinary, and she used to call it an AFGO. Am I allowed to swear? |
| Jodi Katz | Sure. |
| Julie Wald | Because she used to say it. AFGO stands for Another Fucking Growth Opportunity. So anytime that there was a situation where you're just thinking, "How is this happening? This is so hard and so painful," it's like, "Oh, this is an AFGO. This is another fucking growth opportunity. Great. Did I want this? No. Is this just inevitable? Absolutely." So that's helped. And then the other thing that I think about a lot is, just this idea of good luck and bad luck is all mixed up because you never know what's going to happen next. I actually read that. It's a Zen type of idea, and I- |
| Jodi Katz | Explain it to me. |
| Julie Wald | So good luck and bad luck is all mixed up because you never know what's going to happen next. So something bad happens, like maybe you miss your train, and then all of a sudden, you're so pissed and "How did that happen?" And then the next thing you know, your long lost friend that you haven't seen in 20 years shows up on the platform. It's kind of like we think we know. We think we know exactly where we should be, when we should be there, and we think we have everything under control, but we don't. And there are forces in life that are going to happen. And something's going to happen that's seemingly bad, but we really never know how that is going to shape our journey. It's like a terrible breakup. You break up with someone, and you think your life is over. And then the next thing you know, a door opens. You meet a human being. You find another opportunity somewhere far, far away that you never would have looked into had you not ended that relationship. So the truth is, is that we just don't know. Some of those really painful experiences are doors to some of the most amazing things that can happen in life. |
| Jodi Katz | And how can I teach myself that when something that's "bad" happens, like we lose business. Right? We lose a client. How can I make it not feel ... I feel intellectually, these things are like, "It's not a big deal. There's more work to come. The universe is giving a chance to have a little more free time or clean up some organizational things or whatever." In my heart, it doesn't feel that way. In my heart, it feels really painful. How can I get my heart to catch up to where my head is, which is, like you said, an opportunity? Here's an opportunity to do something else at this moment or make room for something new. |
| Julie Wald | Yeah. I'm working on that, myself, a lot right now. It's a big one for me. I'm not necessarily one of those people that would say out loud, "Everything happens for a reason," even though I'm saying it right now, but it's not really part of my verbiage and normal day-to-day. But I do think that working on some feeling of trust. Just that word "trust" comes up for me a lot. I just have to trust. I just have to trust. I know that I'm leaving it all out on the field. I know that I'm working my butt off. I know that I'm really and truly doing the best that I can. And as long as I know that, then there's a letting go that naturally has to happen that is that trust. If I don't feel like I'm giving it my best, if I feel like I'm half-assing, if I feel like I'm not really ... That's a different conversation. But if I really feel like I've given it all that I've got, then I got to let go. I got to trust that this is the journey that I'm supposed to be on and that I don't know all the answers anyways. |
| Jodi Katz | So that's the word that my coach uses, like, "Jody, just trust. Just trust." So maybe this is the little reminder I needed. I've gotten better. I made a lot of progress. Things would happen, and I would really feel like the sky was falling. And now, things happen, and I'm like, "Okay." Sometimes it feels like a punch to the gut. Sometimes my fingers and my hands get a little tingly. Sometimes I'll lose sleep. But it doesn't feel as if I have to question everything I'm doing, like, "We're no good. We don't know what we're doing. There's no need for us." I used to really think an event happening meant I'm not worthy or I'm not talented. Right? And I've gotten away from that. Now I just want to get to be a little bit more at ease with the fact that there are highs and lows. |
| Julie Wald | Totally. And that it's okay to fail. It's okay to have situations that didn't turn out the way that you wanted them to and that that's just the nature of it. Any great, successful business person will tell you that failure is an inevitable part of that path. |
| Jodi Katz | Maybe I'll start ringing the bell when one of these AFGOs happens. |
| Julie Wald | I love it. |
| Jodi Katz | On the other side of all these AFGOs, now I'll use that, thank you for sharing it with me, is always something amazing. There's always a pot of gold or the rainbow or the fairy. They're always there at the end of this. I always see something clear and get a huge opportunity. But the going through it is still so uncomfortable. So maybe if I ring the bell, I'll remind myself that there is an AFGO. |
| Julie Wald | That's brilliant. I love that. And it's ... Oh shoot. I just lost my thought. I had a great thought about ... Oh! It's the small ... You mentioned it, and it made me think. The other thing that I do to help with those lows is those little high fives. And I think that when you have big goals and you're really working towards something big, it feels like you're climbing Mount Everest and it can feel very tedious and long. When you build into your consciousness and your routine the ability to celebrate the small wins, like somebody said yes. Was it the big yes, like the ultimate yes? Maybe not. But every little yes is also amazing. And so how can you continually give yourself those little high fives? You ring your bell and that helps. That helps that grind. |
| Jodi Katz | And I'm sure everybody wants to know what your process is. Are you waking up at four in the morning to meditate? Walk us through a little bit of what a day is like for you. |
| Julie Wald | Yeah. So I have kids that have to be up and running really early. And so therefore, I've had to put myself on a really early schedule, which is not natural for me. I'm not one of those super early morning people, but I've become one in this stage of my life. While it starts in the morning, it really starts the night before, at bedtime. So my routine is that I keep my phone plugged-in in my kitchen. I do not allow it into my bedroom in the evening hours. |
| Jodi Katz | Does your husband have his phone in the bedroom? |
| Julie Wald | This is an ongoing thing because he likes to read on his iPad at night. And so he's kind of sitting on an iPad reading. I have an addictive personality. So if I have my phone there, there's no way that I'm not falling down the rabbit hole. And so I just know myself well enough to say, "This is not something that needs to be in my bed." So that stays in my kitchen. I set an old-school Amazon alarm clock that I bought on Amazon. It's a travel alarm clock. And it's set for 5:30 in the morning. I have a bedtime of 10:00. I can just about get my 14 year old to go to bed by then. I wake up at 5:30. I make myself ... I'm obsessed with this drink called MUD\WTR right now. It's a mix between all of these mushrooms and some chai tea and some cacao. I love coffee too. I'm not anti-coffee by any stretch, but this is feeling really nourishing to me right now. So I drink this drink and I- |
| Jodi Katz | Do you make it yourself? |
| Julie Wald | I make it ... I mean, it's a powder. |
| Jodi Katz | Oh, okay. |
| Julie Wald | Yeah. I'm plugging this cool company. So I make this drink, and I bring my drink onto my yoga mat. And I basically just sit there, and drink my drink, and start to roll around a little bit, and stretch, and breathe. It is not checking the fitness box by any stretch of the imagination. It's really just waking up, stretching, moving, drinking. It feels very nurturing. It feels pretty feminine to me. It feels good. And then once I finish my drink, I meditate. And I sit, and I'm a mindfulness kind of girl, but that changes depending. Sometimes I do more of a metta meditation, which is love and kindness meditation, depending on what I'm needing. But I really think of that morning practice as my mirror. It helps me tune in to where I'm at and feel, what am I entering the day with? Am I anxious? Am I tired? Am I excited? Where am I? And sometimes I'm worrying about one, two, or three kids or I'm having feelings towards my husband or whatever it might be. And it's just really good to get that data. It's like looking in the internal mirror, I like to say. I'm looking in the mirror. I'm thinking and noticing what's on my plate. And then it helps me be much less reactionary, particularly from the hours of 6:15 to 7:00, when I'm trying to get three kids ready and out the door, which can result in screaming and other impulsive behavior. If I'm able to tune in and recognize how I'm entering the day, I find that I'm much more centered during that period of my day, along with my work day, but- |
| Jodi Katz | So you just talked about different types of meditations. Do you use a meditation app or are these just things that are in your head? How do you do this? |
| Julie Wald | Both. So I've been practicing meditation for many, many, many, many years. I started back in the 90s. I meditate mostly on my own, although I love meditation apps and I think that they can be a really supportive tool for people. And I use them personally when I'm really feeling like I need some inspiration or some support around my practice. So they're really a tool, but I don't always use them. I would say it's an occasional app experience. And sometimes, just because of my job, I like to do some market research and understand what's going on out there, so that's another component. So I dip into those tools as well. But usually my meditation is somewhere between 10 and 20 minutes. And after that, sometimes I'll do a little bit more yoga, depending on the day. I may jump on my elliptical for a few minutes or try to break a sweat. After that, it's hitting the ground running with three kids and getting everybody out the door. |
| Jodi Katz | Do teenagers make their own breakfast? |
| Julie Wald | Some might. Mine doesn't. I try to put a lot of options out on the table in the morning and then they can make their breakfast from what's on the table. I put a little yogurt, I put a little granola, I put some hard boiled eggs, I put some veggies and fruit, and they make their plate. |
| Jodi Katz | That's a good idea. |
| Julie Wald | Yeah. I find that the more conversation you can remove around meals, when things are served family style, and there are options out on the table, then it can eliminate some of that stress. |
| Jodi Katz | We are going to have to wrap up. But my husband spoiled my kids when they're very, very little, and every breakfast has to be a hot, elaborate breakfast. And I can't get them out of this. It's impossible. I put a bowl of just fruit salad in front of them. I got shunned. I got ignored. My son wouldn't even look at me. |
| Julie Wald | Oh no. They want pancakes and eggs. |
| Jodi Katz | And jelly rolls and French toast. Yeah, it's a little crazy in our house for breakfast, but we have a system down now, and they're not babies anymore, which makes it easier. Well, thank you so much for sharing all your wisdom with us today. It was so incredible to get to know you. And for our listeners, I hope you enjoyed this interview with Julie. Please subscribe to our series on iTunes. And for updates about the show, follow us on Instagram @WhereBrainsMeetBeautyPodcast. Thanks, Julie. |
| Julie Wald | Thank you. |
Want to sponsor the pod?
Available On:
