“People love to fight for their limitations because that’s how we know ourselves to be... And then you get to know yourself at a deep level.” - Mary O’ Toole
No one knows us more than we know ourselves, right? Then how is it that oftentimes, it’s ourselves that we know the least? Shirley and Mary O’Toole go deep about the real benefits of understanding who you are. These ladies will open your mind to the possibilities of what you can create when you’re aligned with yourself. Get what you want with the invaluable guidance found in this episode. And as a bonus you will learn a little about magical Ireland!
Highlights:
04:00 Intuition To Go Back
08:00 Tuning-In To Energy
14:58 Balancing Yin and Yang
20:01 Harnessing The Masculinity In A Feminine Way
24:25 There’s something magical about Ireland
29:40 Get To Know Yourself Deeply
33:54 Breathing Is The Best Tool
Tweets:
Have you embraced your true self yet? Join in with @SfbaldwinOwens and Mary O’ Toole and learn how to get to know yourself deeply #intuition #emotions #fear #goal #getwhatyouwant
Quotes:
04:29 “I listen to my heart and my intuition.” - Mary O’ Toole
07:11 “It was worth moving through the fear.” - Mary O’ Toole
13:45 “We all just have stuff that we’ve picked up along the way that just needs to be redirected, and shifted, and transmuted out, so we can really know who we really are.” - Mary O’ Toole
15:32 “I found that having emotions was a weakness. That was what I believed at that time.” - Mary O’ Toole
21:18 “You can be firm. You can be direct. You can be powerful and confident and it all can come from this beautiful place who were divinely meant to be, like women.” - Shirley Owens
29:45 “Getting to know yourself and building that deeper relationship with you, for confidence and tuning in to yourself and getting your energy in alignment with you.” - Mary O’ Toole
30:21 “People love to fight for their limitations because that’s how we know ourselves to be... And then you get to know yourself at a deep level.” - Mary O’ Toole
31:44 “I try to live my life without regrets because I know everything happens for a reason. Everything is in divine flow.” - Mary O’ Toole
34:07 “If you can focus your mind on your breath, you can start to let go of your thoughts and your worries that’s going on in your head.” - Mary O’ Toole
Connect With Mary:
Mary O’Toole is an Irish native but has called the US her home for the past 23 years. In 2013, she created her first Ireland retreat and has been going strong since she stepped into the spiritual holistic world. In 2004, when her husband was deployed to Iraq, she started with the home yoga practice to help her cope with stress and anxiety. Quickly, she discovered the power of mindfulness and got curious. She followed an inner calling and left her corporate Human Resource position in 2009 to focus her full attention on helping people reconnect with their true selves. Mary serves as an Intuitive Coach, Healer, and Yoga Teacher. She's all about helping clients become their best self- physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. She has spent the last 12 years teaching and creating sacred space for clients to step into their brilliance. Mary is also a Laughter Yoga Leader and a Brown Belt Judo Champion. She co-created and ran a Judo club in Ireland for five years. Mary's mission is to help people reconnect with their inner light and develop an intimate relationship with their true essence.
Transcriptions
Shirley Owens: My guest today is Mary O'Toole. Mary is an Intuitive Coach, Healer, and Yoga Teacher.. She's all about helping clients become their best self, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. She's been teaching and creating sacred space for clients to step into her brilliance the past 12 years. Mary is an Irish Native but has called USA her home for the past 23 years. In 2013, she created her first Ireland Retreat and has been going strong since. She stepped into the spiritual holistic world in 2004 when her husband was deployed to Iraq. She started with the home yoga practice to help her cope with stress and anxiety. Quickly, she discovered the power of mindfulness and got curious. She followed an inner calling and left her corporate Human Resource position in 2009 to focus her full attention on helping people reconnect with their True Self. Mary is also a laughter yoga leader and a brown belt judo champion. She co-created and ran a judo club in Ireland for five years. Mary's mission is to people reconnect with their Inner Light Within and develop an intimate relationship with their true essence. Welcome Mary.
Mary O’Toole: Thank you.
Shirley Owens: I am so excited to talk to you today. I just got back from Ireland, I'm just so excited to talk to you because I love loved it there. I loved everything about it, and the people, and so, I think you're amazing already just from being there. So that's a lot, you have accomplished a lot, and I really want to learn a little bit more about you. I love that you are into judo. I also did judo for many years until I broke my back and had to quit, and like I said, I just got back from Ireland, and I'm just super excited. I'm going to stop talking and let you talk about yourself because I can't wait to hear more.
Mary O’Toole: Sure. Yeah. Judo is a huge part of my life. At one point, it helped me would self esteem, I don't know, there was this power that came through me naturally, and it was so much fun, and in your teenage years is so hard. It really helped me process all those emotions through and really get to know myself in a different level. So I wasn't doing judo until I was probably like 22, and then recently, like in March of this year, I stepped back on that after being off the mat for about 22 years. I don't know, I can just say the juices were flowing again. It was such a huge part of me. It was interesting.
Shirley Owens: Did you have obstacles that you had to overcome to set back on? What was that like?
Mary O’Toole: It was interesting because when I left Ireland, I left that piece maybe behind, which is a huge piece because I was competitive in it, and I was well known for it, and it was a huge piece of my life and I just left that behind. And I tried one class here once, but the schedules didn't work, and I wasn't really, I wasn't connecting with it. So it was like, two years ago that I saw some of my friends that I actually was leading the center with, go back to judo, was convincing me to go back. My intuition start to kick in. It was like, that has pulled to go back to it, and I was like, no, I've had so many reasons and excuses like, that was such a bad idea.
Shirley Owens: Oh, for sure.
Mary O’Toole: One was, I am way older and I forgot everything. And what? This is crazy. I don't have time. There was a lot of reasons why, but as I do in my life, my head gives me a million reasons not to do things, to keep me safe. I don't listen to it. I listened to my heart and to my intuition, and if it keeps popping up, which it did, I was like, okay, I am going to do this, and would support a friends, I chose a night that I would go back. I researched some spaces, and I found a place I really liked, and run by a woman, so that really helped.
“I listen to my heart and my intuition.” - Mary O’ Toole
Shirley Owens: Wow.
Mary O’Toole: Yes. And so, I chose the night to go, and that day I was nervous. There was a million reasons why I shouldn't go. My doodles who does way old, I didn't want to buy a new one. I'm like, Oh I was going to be, who got a place cause there's no suit. I had so many emotions come up. So many emotions come up. I chose not to speak to anybody because I would have been unkind, and I was super scared. I was really scared. I had a friend who coached me in the door. She's like, all you need to do is walk in the door and step inside, I was like, that was my mission, that was my goal. All I need to do is get to the door and step inside, I kept saying that to myself, and I kept breathing, and I stepped in, and it was scary. And I stepped in, and everybody was so kind, and they took it easy on me, and I got back on the mat, and I felt like myself, my true self again, I quickly got to know people. It was frustrating not to be able to remember a whole bunch of things, but there was a lot of things that came back really fast even that first night. And right after I left the class, I started crying. Everything released, so many emotions released and it was the best thing I did for myself. Not that I plan to be in competitions or anything, but to be doing something I love, it was a huge piece of my life. It was just an unbelievable feeling, a gift that I gave myself. So yes, so moved through that figure.
Shirley Owens: Wow, that's inspiring. I have many times thought about going back. Also, I've been out of a wheelchair. I was in a wheelchair for a year after I broke my back doing martial arts. And I keep wanting to go back, but it is so scary. Your body doesn't work the same.
Mary O’Toole: Yeah.
Shirley Owens: Yeah. Like, different places. Mine was also run by a woman whose father was a grand master in China. And so, you go there and the techniques are different, or the teaching method is different, and they call them different things. And I've gone to some boxing classes, a few little things, but I've never really stepped back into the full swing. And I think that it is a lot because of fear. And so, wow, that's inspiring.
Mary O’Toole: Thank you. It was worth it. It was worth moving through the fear, besides meeting amazing people, and it is you, right? They call things different things, and as like, so relearning all of that again, but there is some spark that comes through me, or came through me from just stepping back on the mat, even not doing anything but just stepping back in.
“It was worth moving through the fear.” - Mary O’ Toole
Shirley Owens: Wow.
Mary O’Toole: Yeah.
Shirley Owens: I love that. So you're also an intuitive coach, a healer, a yoga teacher. Tell me a little bit about each of those, and how they came about in your life.
Mary O’Toole: Yes. So as I said, I had my judo background, so I was like a bit tough. And my softer side, we didn't come out as much. I mean, on the side, it was, I'm a very loving person. But I worked in human resources for years, and worked for a company that was laying people off every quarter. So you really couldn't be in your softer, had compassion for people that you had to stay focused on business, and be in what I call the yang energy a lot, that we have all have the beginning yang, the male and female energy in our bodies, and traits and stuff. And I was more in my yang, that's my comfort zone. But I was always an anxious person, and it was categorized as fearful person. But I've come to learn that I was super sensitive to energy, and I didn't know it. I was a sensitive child. So I stepped into human resources when I moved to the States. And that was a yang type of position. And I was an anxious person thinking I was just had anxiety, and I was a fearful person. And then when my husband got deployed to Iraq, the anxiety kick in 10,000 times stronger than ever before.
Shirley Owens: I can't even imagine.
Mary O’Toole: Right. And so, it was hard because I couldn't sleep, and then from not sleeping, I was getting sick. And I knew deep down I didn't want to go and take sleeping pills or anti anxiety pills. Cause I had tried that once [inaudible] to go to the dentist, and I found, what they did for me was, they numbed my body so I couldn't react. But deep inside, I still had the anxiety. I still had the feeling, I just couldn't react to it. And so, I didn't like that feeling for myself. And I'm like, I got to pick her something different out. And a coworker suggested try yoga. I had picked up a videotape from a store once to try it, and I tried it one's, Gosh, it's so boring. And so, for some unknown reason, I came home and I tried it that night, and I'm like, Oh, I don't think it's for me. But again, unknown reason, I kept doing it. And I remember one night, the beginning of the practice and the end of the practice, I just don't know where I went in the middle, but I felt amazing. There's no anxiety, I slept so well that night, the next day I was productive. I was like, what happened? And I don't have no memory where I was. I didn't black out or anything. I just felt really peaceful and felt really good. And I got like, what is that? So I got really curious about, Oh, what is going on? That was very powerful. And I practice going at home in my teeny one bedroom apartment until my mother came to visit and they're like, Oh, I use the excuse, I don't have space. So I stopped the practice, and what I noticed was unknown to me while I was practicing yoga, my eating habits changed, and my body had changed for the better. So I was craving fruits and vegetables, and eating healthy. I wasn't stressed, I could sleep better, and when I stopped the yoga, I noticed all those things that I did not know was changed, came back.
Shirley Owens: Wow.
Mary O’Toole: That was made me really curious about, what is up with this yoga stuff? There's something to it. So I kept the practice going at home until he came back from Iraq, and then there was way more stress, and I found a local yoga studio and then I kept practicing there, and then this energy pulled me into yoga teacher training, and I was shocked that was in yoga teacher training I've been just practicing at home, and it's only in the studio for a couple of months, and I did not intend to teach yoga. I just wanted to learn my own body and learn what's going on with this yoga stuff. I came out of that training, teaching yoga, connected to myself so deeply, reading you my own body, connected to my spiritual side, discovered energy healing, because of it, realized I was always sensitive to energy, and that was what was categorized as an anxiety. I'm an empath, I pick up people's energy and vibe all the time, and just learning to manage that, learning to work with that as a gift versus like, Oh, it's crippling me cause I can feel everybody's stuff. So that was a whole other world that opened up for me that it didn't know existed. Then over time I started to lose interest in my corporate job because I started teaching yoga, an opportunity came for my own little space to do some energy work, and people started booking appointments, and then I got pulled into this whole other field really quickly. And from there was the yoga, energy healing, and I always coached people, making resource. I've always helped people, and I realized I was a natural coach, a guide for people. And so, then I went and stepped into the whole coaching piece. And my coaching is more tuning into someone's energy, noticing where they're at, asking the questions so they can see themselves deep down, so they get to discover who they are. I can ask what happened with this friend, you know, last night, and there was a whole conversation. Maybe those emotions that came up for my client, and I'll go into topics that I know they don't want to go into, but guide them gently into it. So the energy, tuning energy for me is such an amazing tool to help people overcome fear, anxiety, lack of self love, or confidence within themselves. Because I find that we all just have stuff that we've picked up along the way that just needs to be redirected, and shifted, and transmuted out so we can really know who we really are.
“We all just have stuff that we’ve picked up along the way that just needs to be redirected, and shifted, and transmuted out, so we can really know who we really are.” - Mary O’ Toole
Shirley Owens: Wow. I really do understand the empath thing, I have that same issue. And like you, it was called anxiety for a lot of years, and people will say to me: "It's not you. It's not your stuff." And I'm like: "Wait, what do you mean?" But yeah, it's a great thing to create awareness around that and realize that you're not as crazy as you think you are, or as anxiety is just such a widely, easily used word for everything. It seems, especially to female. And I'm loving the conversation about the yin and yang because I do work a lot with women trying to come out of their masculine energy and really embrace feminine energy. I think it's super important. Tell me a little bit more about that, what do you feel like inside, and where does your power come from on both sides of that?
Mary O’Toole: Hmm, good question. So what I found when I was more in my yang side, that I was direct and firm, that's how it showed up for me, direct and firm, and I wouldn't go into my emotional side, especially in public. So I can tell you, and part of it's cultural, I can tell you the first time that I cried in public was when my husband was deployed to Iraq. So I kept my emotions hidden deep inside, and my physical body was tight all the time. I'd keep myself tied. I found that having emotions was a weakness, that was what I believed at the time. And I worked with a lot of men, so I wanted to be able to work with men professionally, understanding their language. So it was easy for me to just step into that yang side with all these engineers that I worked with, and they're all about data. So there was nothing soft, or emotional, or tuned into that emotional side about my life before I found this whole yoga practice. And when I started teaching yoga, and even in the yoga teacher training, I started to tap into the softer side of me. There was a very soft side that I didn't really know existed, that I didn't ever allow it to be seen. Maybe really close friends might have seen it, but I'm a very loving person, and caring, and now I can care and love enough to be firm and direct to help somebody. So I feel I have the balance now. So I went from super yang, and then I went into the yoga super yin, and for a while I kept both worlds separate. So I would be this person in my corporate job and then I'll be this other softer person, spiritual, what people would have described to me when they were taking class with a very spiritual person in the yoga world, separate for years. And then I started to blend as people in my corporate, because they couldn't believe I taught yoga. People in my yoga were complete, I was in corporate. That's how different of a person I was. But it's exhausting to show up. Use your energy to be this person here and that person there because you're never really yourself in any space.
“I found that having emotions was a weakness. That was what I believed at that time.” - Mary O’ Toole
Shirley Owens: Right.
Mary O’Toole: So as I did my own inner work, I started to release limiting beliefs or things I believed about myself, and started to allow myself to be seen as, this may be softer spiritual person, but yet that has maybe that business side too, start to blend the two safely. I felt pressure came off my body. It wasn't as tight. I wasn't as stressed. I didn't have to pretend to be anything. As I got started to get to know myself, I started to allow others to see me. But that took awhile, and it was actually the first retreat I did an Ireland in 2013, it was in my hometown. I had to put all together, there was no retreat center or hotel there, everything had to be put together, but that's when I started to blend the two sides because now I was allowing people into where I grew up, and meet some of my family members, and some of my friends, and those people got to know me as this yoga, holistic, spiritual person, and that's how it started to change for me.
Shirley Owens: Wow. So did you feel that, or do you feel, because I believe even in your feminine energy, very powerful and you can still, maybe appear to be have some yang in there, but do you feel that a lot of your feminine energy also runs that side of you? The powerful side, you know? Because you are more aligned with who you are, and you are more in touch with that part of you that you can also bring it out to be powerful, and to be firm and upfront, and that type of thing but still coming from a place of feminine.
Mary O’Toole: Yes. I think it's more powerful actually. And I remember being in the past, I would wait to get maybe angry or something to make a point and be firm. Now, I can talk about without anger, without anything other than compassion and love but clarity shows up. I'm way more clear about what I want to say, how it has an impact, I feel it's way more powerful. There's a softness to it. When I say direct, I don't mean, maybe what people might say direct and harsh, it's direct and caring.
Shirley Owens: Because you know exactly where it's coming from and why it's there.
Mary O’Toole: Yes, yes. You're speaking from your truth and your best interest, and theirs as well. So it's not like you are wrong and I'm right. It's not you did something wrong and now I'm really upset. Here's what how I'm experiencing this. And there's a different tone to that, for sure.
Shirley Owens: I love this cause you and I have not had a conversation before, but everything that you are saying is what I say, it's what I believe, and I really am just loving your explanation of the same thing because it is, it really is. You can be firm, you can be direct, you can be powerful and confident, and it all can come from this beautiful place of who we were divinely meant to be like women, right? And I just love that you're talking about this because I think in our world, or I know in our world that women feel that they have to step into a masculine energy to compete with men, or to be in a world with men when we can come from a much more powerful place when we just stand our ground as women and be in feminine energy, but be powerful in that.
“You can be firm. You can be direct. You can be powerful and confident and it all can come from this beautiful place who were divinely meant to be, like women.” - Shirley Owens
Mary O’Toole: Right, and unapologetic about it.
Shirley Owens: For sure. And I love that you have experienced both worlds and you're realizing that yes you can, we all have a little bit of that other energy in us, but we harness it in a different way. So like we harness the masculine in a feminine way and it shows up completely different in the world. Yeah, I love this. I would love to hear about your, and this is just like selfishly and personally, so hopefully everybody else gets something from it too. I want to hear about your retreat in Ireland, and why go there? Because I just came from there, it is a beautifully magical place. And from me, there aren't words to explain or describe what it feels like to actually be there. But I feel that just energy itself, every kind of energy was stronger there for me. And the green was a different color than we see here. So it's hard to say, Hey, it is green there, like it's green everywhere, but it's not green like we see green. And I feel like everything there was, it's magical but not magical like we see here. I actually felt better. I had hip surgery eight months ago. I have to have a replacement coming up soon, and I limp all the time. I forgot my crutches when we got there, and I think in the 10 days I was there, I climbed a thousand steps, hike so many miles, walked hundreds of miles, we did so much back road stuff that everybody is like: "How did you even do that?" But I swear in my mind, like I felt better, even in my pain, I was like, I don't care, I'm in Ireland, I'm going to see this. And I pushed through it so much easier than I do in daily life. And so, now I'm back here hurting, limping, and I'm like, I can't explain why. My sister just asked me yesterday like: "What was it about Ireland?" So I want to know about your retreats. I know obviously you're Irish, you're from there, go away is beautiful, but there has to be something else besides just going back to your town that you decided to do a retreat there.
Mary O’Toole: Yes. So I don't believe I decided, I felt I was pulled there. It's the energy of Ireland, for sure. It's a very different energy than you would experience here. To me, there's a depth to it. My energy and energy of the spaces I go to just blend so well together, and I feel that's really important. I just felt a pull to do, bring groups back to Ireland in some form. And I know when I did the yoga teacher training, that was the first thing I thought of was doing a retreat. And I sat on that for a long time. I'm like, how do I do this? Who's going to go? Magical is the only word that can describe it, and it's really hard to explain. Even have people trying to give me testimonials on these retreats and they just don't know how to explain it. What happens for people, how they experience it, most people come from very fast paced environment in US, and we really slow it down when we go on our retreat to Ireland. So I offer these retreats twice a year on an Island off the coast of Galway, which is the West of Ireland. Very basic environment really. There are three islands, and we'd go to the biggest one, the large one, and we get the ferry in and all that. And we stay in one spot that has everything in one spot. So when I first put the retreats together, I had to put everything together, like schedule it all out, and I'm like, well this is not how I wanted to retreat, I want it to be spacious, and downtime, and be with group or not be with a group. Whatever you choose, that's right for you. And the first four of them were scheduled out, and people loved it, and it was great. I get started getting a vision of a place with a fireplace, and I'm like, Oh, that would be wonderful. And intuitively, out playing with my dog in the yard, I got the idea of this place, and I researched it, and this place that we go to didn't even have a website, and saw they one page, and I just trusted my gut and went there. So we're on an Island, it's stone walls, it is surrounded by ocean, it is touristy, but not touristy like the US touristy because after a couple of hours, everyone's gone and the place is so quiet. The air is so fresh, it's daylight longer, the oceans there, the beach is right there, the people are super friendly, it's quiet at night to sleep so well, the food is so flavorful and tastes so magnificent, it's like we all drool over the food.
Shirley Owens: Are you talking about Inis Mór?
Mary O’Toole: Yes.
Shirley Owens: Okay. Okay. I'm getting it. I'm feeling it. I'm getting it all.
Mary O’Toole: Yes. And the other two islands are just as beautiful, even more beautiful. It's just harder to get to.
Shirley Owens: Yeah.
Mary O’Toole: Inis Mór, yeah.
Shirley Owens: Oh, wow.
Mary O’Toole: Well, we just spent five days there connecting to the energy, going to the old forts. I do morning yoga practices with them, and evening yoga practices, and in between there's a little bit of coaching that goes on, and we hike and walk, or people take naps and rest.
Shirley Owens: Wow.
Mary O’Toole: Yeah. And we just tune into ourselves and let the energy work on us, and just be spacious for five days before we hit back into real life.
Shirley Owens: I can't even imagine because I went there on a girl's trip and I didn't have a ton of intention, you know? I did put out that I wanted to love myself more. I wanted to have some bigger ideas of what I want to do with my podcast, with my books, what I want to put out into the world. But I would say that I came back with the word healed, like healing happens and it happened there. And when you say, talk about like the slowed down life, everything is slow there. The streets are tiny. We just kept saying like, is there a city here somewhere? We flew in and out of Dublin, but we only, the very last night we went into Dublin for a couple hours, and I was like, Oh, this is taking everything that I just loved away. It's just a city, it's just another city. But every part of where we were, and we drove all over the country, the whole like middle to southern part of the country, and it was just, yeah, I think healing is such a great word. I don't know if it's just all the oxygen from other greenery, the energy of the people. So much love, and kindness, and compassion, and empathy, and I felt so safe there, everything was just beautiful. It just seemed very simplified compared to what we live. So anyway, I just wanted to ask you about that because I love, I love, love that. And if there's anyone who might be considering that doesn't quite know whether they're going to go or not, hopefully they'll listen to this because I love it. It's in my heart. It has my heart forever.
Mary O’Toole: Good, it's beautiful.
Shirley Owens: So tell me, do you have an actual like coaching practice outside of your retreats, and your yoga?
Mary O’Toole: Yes I do. I have a private coaching clients that I work with for different reasons, usually people come to me for different reasons, but it all comes to getting to know yourself and building that deeper relationship with you for confidence, and tuning into yourself, and getting your energy in alignment with you. So I usually work with people in a six month program, a one-to-one, and so we dive deep into what's going on with them and patterns that they want to change. And we go to the root of those things, just trying to change behaviors, we get right into the energy piece of it.
“Getting to know yourself and building that deeper relationship with you, for confidence and tuning in to yourself and getting your energy in alignment with you.” - Mary O’ Toole
Shirley Owens: And then the behaviors kind of changed naturally, right?
Mary O’Toole: They shift. Yes. It takes a while. People love to fight for their limitations--
Shirley Owens: Oh, they do.
Mary O’Toole: Because that's how we know ourselves to be for most of our lives. And then you get to know yourself at a deep level like, that was my experience, and like who am I now? And it's interesting when it's happened for me, I see my clients, when you start to do an internal shift within yourself and get to know yourself, and you're like, Oh, simple things, those around you get a little frightened and they want to hang on to the old version of you.
“People love to fight for their limitations because that’s how we know ourselves to be... And then you get to know yourself at a deep level.” - Mary O’ Toole
Shirley Owens: Yes. So not only do we want to hold on to it, others want to hold on to it.
Mary O’Toole: Yes. And then when you are done and moving forward, and are into this other version of yourself, you'll still find people in your life for a while that still want to hold onto that older version of you. And it's interesting to watch. I work with people to process through all of that, to reach their goals and desires.
Shirley Owens: I love it.
Mary O’Toole: Yeah.
Shirley Owens: So tell me, I always like to ask two questions. I used to have a list of questions and then I'm like, no, I love these conversations that are just candid and we kind of just go everywhere. But I do love to ask these two questions and one is, is there anything that you would change? Or do you have any regrets?
Mary O’Toole: Yeah, so I tried to live my life without regret because I know everything happens for a reason, and everything is in divine flow. The one thing that nudges at me is that, when I was doing judo, very few women at the time were doing judo in Ireland, I was one of the few, and I was going from my black belt, and you had to have X number of points for it and half of that you had to fight for with another woman, and I'd go show up to do the fighting and there wouldn't be another woman there. So it taken me a long time to go through it. Now it's almost more than halfway through when I decided to leave Ireland and come to the US. At the time at peace with that, I wasn't going to wait around for a year because I didn't know if would take me a year, six months, two years, it depends on how many women would show up, and so I left it. I stayed at brown belt and I walked away from continuing the black belt piece. But there is a piece of me, that like, Oh, I wish, I wish I didn't do that. So that's a little regret, I guess that I have, but I try not to because I know everything happens for a reason.
“I try to live my life without regrets because I know everything happens for a reason. Everything is in divine flow.” - Mary O’ Toole
Shirley Owens: Right. And who you are, and what you're teaching comes from partially from a piece of that, I'm sure.
Mary O’Toole: Yes. Yes. It's like, I always like to remind people of, you know, are you at peace with your decisions? How does that feel, and how you gonna feel about that? So, yeah, but it's just a little for me, just a little regret. Maybe wait, be patient, maybe liberal longer to complete that.
Shirley Owens: I for sure get that.
Mary O’Toole: Yeah.
Shirley Owens: And my other question is, I love to leave my listeners with something that they can start with today to get what they want to further their process or even to begin their journey. So do you have a piece of advice that you could leave today that would have somebody aware, and thinking, and just starting today.
Mary O’Toole: Yes. So I always tell people that their breath is the best tool, best app that they could ever find. It brings you back into the moment and the present moment. When you start focusing on your breathing, you'll come back to the present moment. If you can focus your mind on your breath, you can start to let go of the thoughts and worries that's going on in your head. So someone is having anxiety, if someone's feeling a bit of a panic, or stressed about something, if you can pause even for two minutes, set the timer on your phone and just focus on your breath, and just notice your breath, and bring your mind to your breath. That will shift your energy and calm you down. And you can do that anywhere. You can do that on a plane. You can do that at the airport. You can do that driving and traffic. Don't close your eyes though. You can do that anywhere. And that has been my big goat too for me. Like I always remind myself to come back to my breath when I find I'm stressed, or can't think, or anxiety starts to kick in. I would come back to the breath, so that's the first thing. The other thing that I want to tell people, what you do first thing in the morning matters. When I shifted my morning routine from getting up, watching the news, checking my email, rushing, running out the door, when I shifted from that to taking time, and it started off with 15 minutes in the morning to not do any of that, not check my email, not look at the news, listen to the news, get up, brush your teeth, whatever you do, grab your tea or coffee and sit 10 to 15 minutes, again, back connected to the breath, I like to connect to my coffee, I love the of coffee, I love the mug in my hand and just breathe, that's kind of my meditative morning thing. Just taking the time to start off that way has shifted so many of my clients day. So you start off slow, you get intentionally get focused. It doesn't take long, 10 to 15 minutes, it changes your whole day. Even if your challenge, you've stressed, you're worried, you can manage it way better than if you roll out of bed and start running out the door.
“If you can focus your mind on your breath, you can start to let go of your thoughts and your worries that’s going on in your head.” - Mary O’ Toole
Shirley Owens: Yeah, that's great. And honestly it will become your favorite part of the day, right?
Mary O’Toole: Yes. Yes. You look forward to it.
Shirley Owens: Yeah. Well, thank you Mary. I feel like you've been so insightful today, and I've really enjoyed talking to you, and I love that you just happened to book the week after I got back from Ireland and we were able to connect on that too. So thanks so much for being here and for all of your insights. Can you leave us with all of your information, cause I'm sure a lot of people would like to connect with you, and I'd love to know how to do that.
Mary O’Toole: Yes, absolutely. Well, it was my pleasure to be here and to inspire and help anybody who's listening to be their best self, and to really get to know themselves. My website is thelightwithinwellness.com, and you can email me at mary@thelightwithinwellness.com.
Shirley Owens: Awesome. Okay, well, thank you. Thanks so much. I just loved having you on the Get What You Want Podcast.
Mary O’Toole: Thank you so much
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