What I Learned In My 20's: Self Love, Boundaries, Comparison & Trusting My Intuition

This episode explores personal growth and self-improvement, focusing on the lessons Mari Llewelyn learned about self-love, boundaries, comparison, and trusting her intuition during her twenties.

1. Embrace Self-Love: Moving beyond physical appearances to foster self-acceptance.
2. Set Clear Boundaries: Learning to say no to preserve personal energy and engage more authentically.
3. Reduce Comparisons: Limiting social media use to avoid negative self-comparisons.
4. Trust Your Intuition: Honoring personal experiences and insights in decision-making.
5. Seek Joy and Balance: Prioritizing activities that bring happiness and maintaining a balanced lifestyle.

1: Introduction

Mari introduces the theme of the episode and sets the stage for a deep dive into personal lessons from her twenties. Mari Llewelyn: "Turning 30 feels like a big milestone, and I'm more at peace than ever."

2: Self-Love and Acceptance

Discussion on self-acceptance, particularly in relation to body image and societal expectations. Mari Llewelyn: "I want to stop letting my skin dictate how I live my life."

3: Setting Boundaries

Mari talks about the importance of saying no and choosing engagements that truly matter to her. Mari Llewelyn: "I'm learning to say no to things that don't serve me, to save my energy for what truly matters."

4: Overcoming Comparisons

Mari reflects on her struggle with social media and her decision to engage with it less. Mari Llewelyn: "I'm over comparing myself on social media; it's time to focus on real life."

5: Trusting Intuition

Emphasizing the need to trust one's own judgment and experiences rather than overly relying on others' advice. Mari Llewelyn: "It's important to trust your own intuition, even when others offer different advice."

1. Practice Mindfulness: Engage in activities that keep you present and grounded.
2. Cultivate Healthy Relationships: Invest in relationships that are supportive and reciprocal.
3. Limit Social Media: Intentionally reduce time spent on platforms that lead to negative self-comparisons.
4. Regular Self-Reflection: Set aside time for personal reflection to understand your true needs and desires.
5. Seek Professional Guidance: Consider therapy or counseling to work through persistent personal challenges.

Ep. #105 I’m here today on the Pursuit of Wellness as a thirty year old! This milestone fills me with excitement and confidence as I embrace this new chapter. With a supportive community by my side and a harmonious balance between work and play, I'm ready to share the wisdom gained in my twenties and the aspirations shaping my thirties. Whether you're navigating your twenties or thirties like me, join me on this insightful episode as we explore growth, self-discovery, and the pursuit of wellness.

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Mari Llewelyn

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Mari Llewelyn
This is the pursuit of wellness podcast, and I'm your host, Mari Llewelyn.

Hi, guys. Welcome back to the show. My name is Mari, and I just turned 30 years old on May 2530. Feels like a big milestone. It feels like a big number.

When you tell people you're turning 30, it's like, oh, my gosh. How are you feeling? Are you nervous? You know, I've heard other people say that they have mental breakdowns or feel really stressed about the number. I didn't have that reaction.

Maybe it's delayed, but I feel really good about turning 30. I feel the most, like, confident and at peace and in love with myself than I ever have before. And I feel really different now than I did when I was turning 29. I think when I was turning 29, I was a lot more wrapped up in things that didn't truly matter, whether that was like, body image or, you know, the way I looked, or just feeling very, like, internally anxious and not really being in the moment. And turning 30 this year, I feel very, very present.

And I felt like, you know, something I've always wanted in my life was a good community. And I feel like now more than ever, I have that community that I've always wanted. I have some of the best friends I've ever had in my life. I feel a much more sense of balance as well. I don't feel like my whole life is work anymore.

I feel like I'm getting to know myself on such a deeper level. So in this episode, I really wanted to talk about things I'm leaving in my twenties and things that I want to bring into my thirties with some lessons I've made along the way or realizations I've had. And I thought this might be helpful because I know you guys listening. Many of you are between the age of like 25 to 35, you know, my age range. So without further ado, let's get into some of these lessons.

Let's start with things that I want to leave in my twenties. The top one being, and this might sound silly, fill in the blank for whatever this applies to in your life. But I said worrying about my skin. So skin could be body, could be anything, could be height, could be any sort of perception you might worry about worrying about my skin or what people think of me. I think a really good example is just like the amount of time and energy I've spent worrying about my skin and being vulnerable and not wearing makeup or being around people who might look at my skin or what they might think and not them not understanding I've spent so much time and energy and emotion worrying about that, and it has never mattered to anyone.

That's the big realization that I've had. Even going on my birthday trip to Mexico, I spent so many days prior worrying about, what are people going to think when I don't have makeup on, when I'm swimming, when I'm in the ocean, when I'm on a boat? Not one person on the trip looked at my skin or made me feel uncomfortable. I felt just as good about myself without the makeup on. And that was a huge realization.

It was like, why did I spend all that time worrying? And I'm here now, and it hasn't come up once. So letting that go is a huge goal of mine and something that I. I want to leave in the past. I don't want to let my skin dictate the way I live my life anymore.

And it's easier said than done, for sure. Like, this is a. This is a habit that I'm going to have to practice, but I am over thinking about, you know, whether it's my skin or. This sounds silly, but I even feel this way about my voice sometimes. Like, people not understanding my accent or thinking that I have a weird.

Where is she from? Her accent's so mixed. Like, just thinking about, like, worrying too much about the perception of myself. I really want to leave that in the past and just be so present. My next point, doing things I don't actually want to do and.

Or saying no to things I do actually want to do. So I feel like these go hand in hand, having that pressure of saying yes to things that I know won't serve me or that I won't actually enjoy. I think sometimes I'm so enthusiastic about showing up for people I love and making friends and connecting that I'm. I put a lot of pressure on myself to say yes and show up regardless of my comfort level, because I want to make sure the relationship stays strong. But at the same time, I feel like the relationship will be stronger if I honor what I want to do and offer another suggestion.

So I want to get better at saying no in those situations, but then also saying yes when I really do want to do something. And this could be, you know, me holding myself back because I feel like my skin looks bad that day or, you know, me saying no to allowing myself to have fun. Like, if I really want to go horseback riding, but I feel guilty for taking off work, you know, like, I want to say yes to the things that mean a lot to me. And no to the things that won't serve me and just keep showing up in a way that feels really authentic to me. My next one, I want to leave obsessing in my twenties.

I think this is something, on a serious note that I've struggled with for a long time and have had a hard time labeling it. Not that it needs a label, but I do have a very obsessive personality in a way that takes away from my life. And I think it was largely born from. I think I've always kind of had it. But the fitness journey that I went on, although it was so positive and transformative, it also gave me this control that I became so obsessed with and brought me this feeling of safety.

And I think that I've kind of gone through life, like, fluttering from one obsession to the next. Whether it was like being obsessed with fitness, being obsessed with work, being obsessed with my skin, I'm always finding a new thing to fill my mind with. I think it's a method of distraction, because then I don't have to let the demons come in and focus on my pain and suffering. Like, I can think about whatever else, and not that I'm, like, in pain and suffering all the time, but I definitely do have some demons that will creep in, which is, I think, why I struggle being alone or struggle with not being busy. These are all methods of filling our minds.

So I am very intentionally working with my therapist on these OCD like tendencies that I have and things that I do as kind of impulse reactions to obsessing, whether it be with my skincare, I go on these deep spirals of researching that really doesn't benefit me in any way. So I'm trying to work on that because it's definitely taking away from my life. And also in that vein, like, overthinking when it comes to health, I think something I've realized, as passionate as I am about health and fitness, and I think I always will be, I'm obsessed with nutrition. It has completely changed my life. I think that there's a line between living the best you can and eating the best you can and exercising and taking care of yourself.

There's a line where it's like, okay, how much of my mental energy is. Is going into my health? Because I think I got to a point where I was so obsessed with my routine that it was actually kind of defeating the purpose because I was so stressed about checking every single box. Like, did I red light today? Did I sauna today?

Did I castor lpak today? Did I take every single supplement? Was every single meal perfect? Did I have too much caffeine? Was my sleep perfect?

Did I take my glutathione? Like, it was insane? And that defeats the purpose. Like, if I'm stressing myself out to the point where I'm like, my cortisol's up, my mind is consumed. I'm living this robotic lifestyle that isn't what health and wellness should be.

It should be about enjoyment. Like, the whole point of being a healthy person is to enjoy your life. So now it's like, where do I find these moments of joy and freedom in the day? Going outside and feeding my chickens is so. Makes me so happy.

It isn't something that's necessarily going to clear my skin or make me less bloated or it's not one of those, like, health things, but it makes me so happy that it's, like, that's worth doing, you know? And if. If I don't have time to sauna that day or I don't have time to even, like, make my own lunch that day, if I have to order it in. Okay, continue on. Like, let us continue.

It's more about consistency than it is about checking every box every day. And I realized that the freedom, there's so much joy in that freedom and saying, it's okay, let it go. You know, I want to embrace that a little bit more. Not telling people how I actually feel. I want to leave that in my twenties.

And this is hard for me because I do think I'm someone who avoids confrontation and has a hard time expressing my emotion. I'm getting a little bit better at, like, showing up authentically and saying, hey, I'm having a hard time today. I'm sad because of x, y, and z, you know, whatever it may be. I think just to think of it from my perspective, if I hung out with a friend and she was like, hey, I'm struggling with this right now. It creates a bond that's so much stronger because you feel like, when we're vulnerable with other people, that's what allows true connection to happen.

You know? Like, if we show up pretending to be on cloud nine or as perfect every single time we see someone, you never get to know the true version of them or the true version of you. That vulnerability needs to be there. And I have a hard time with vulnerability, to be honest. I think, like, people would be surprised to hear that because I'm so vulnerable on my show.

And I think it's because, like, when I'm recording, I'm not looking at anyone in the eyes like it's just me and fi in the room usually. And I feel so comfortable with fi, but like, to look in someone's eyes and say, hey, like, I'm having a hard time today is actually quite difficult for me. And I think that's for various reasons, but I really wanna work on that because I think, like, to have true friendship and connection, you need to be able to say what's bothering you.

I am someone who has tried a lot of different skincare. I'm very acne prone, very sensitive, and I was over the moon when I found clear stem. I've become really close with the founders, Danielle and Kayleigh. They've been on the show twice now, and they are so knowledgeable when it comes to acne because they've both dealt with acne as well. I feel like when you've had acne, you know, you really only trust people who have also had acne because otherwise people don't understand.

Clear stamp is the first skincare line that combines all three categories, anti acne, anti aging, and clean, meaning free of hormone disruptors and pore clogging fillers. This means a lot to me because a lot of products claim that they are clean, but actually are poor clogging, and that would have a detrimental effect on my skin. Personally. They have become such a staple in my routine. I absolutely love the gentle cleanser.

I use the hello, sunshine sunscreen every day. I love the moisturizers. And now I use their new hair care products. Hair care is really important because it gets all over our faces in the shower. The shampoo and conditioner is absolutely amazing.

I am obsessed and I also love the body lotion. I get a lot of questions about what body lotion I use because I lotion every single day with my spray tan, but I don't want it to clog my pores. So their body lotion is perfect. Plus, I'm always recommending their acne lab test. I think this is such an innovative new moment that I've seen in skincare, and I really think that acne is coming from an inner problem.

And I love the fact that they address this. They are helping thousands of people get to the root cause of their acne through comprehensive lab testing and lifestyle based recommendations. You guys can visit clearstemskincare.com and use code pow pow at checkout for 20% off your first purchase. Again, that's code pow pow for 20% off your first purchase on clearstemskincare.com. i have to be honest with you guys, I am not a numbers person.

Greg is really like the finance numbers person in our household. Thank goodness I have him. And also, thank goodness I have rocket money because I have so many subscriptions on my phone that I completely forget about. Like, I'm paying for apps that I do not use, and I'm paying twice for things without even realizing. And that's where I found Rocket money.

They cancel subscriptions for you that that would have been time consuming otherwise. And they also alert you when there's an increase in subscription price or something that you may have not even noticed. Rocket money is a personal finance app that finds and cancels your unwanted subscriptions and monitors your spending and helps you lower bills so you can grow your savings. So freaking important at this stage in our lives, guys, I don't know if you're, you know, my age, around 30 or in your twenties. I feel like a lot of us are wanting to buy houses or saving up for.

For maybe an engagement ring. I don't know, wherever you're at in your life, I feel like saving money is such an important piece of the puzzle. With Rocket money, I have full control over my subscriptions and a clear view of my expenses. Rocket Money has over 5 million users and has saved a total of $500 million in canceled subscriptions, saving members up to $740 a year using all of the app's features. Stop wasting money on things you don't use.

Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to rocketmoney.com. pow. That's rocketmoney. Rocketmoney.com. pow.

I think you guys have heard me mention eight sleep a bunch of times by now. It is a crucial part of mine and my husband's sleep routine. Every night we keep the room at 67 degrees. We have all the lights off. We had red light bulbs by our bed.

We have, you know, sound playing, and then we have our eight sleep on. Our eight sleep has really changed the game. I think it's a huge reason why I have such a high hrV. My HRV is like 195 to 200 every single night. And I think this is a huge reason.

Their buzzworthy sleep technology, called the pod, can be added to your existing mattress, like a fitted sheet to automatically cool down and warm up each side of the bed and in turn, improve your sleep quality dramatically. Athletes, business, entrepreneurs, and celebrities all swear by the pod, and so do I. You can change the temperature on each side so me and my husband can have different temperatures if we want to. And I have exciting news because the pod just got an upgrade. Eight sleep has launched their newest generation of the pod, the pod four ultra.

It cools, heats, and now elevates automatically. It is clinically proven to give you up to 1 hour more of quality sleep per night. It can cool each side of the bed down to 20 degrees fahrenheit below room temperature, keeping you and your partner cool even in a heat wave. There's nothing like it on the market, and I think this is perfect for summer. I've done a couple episodes now where we talk about sleep quality with Todd Anderson and he talks about the importance of temperature, and I really feel like it's changed the game for us.

I tend to sleep through the whole night and wake up with the best hrv ready for the day. Head to eightsleep.com pow and use code pow pow to get $350 off the pod for Ultra. They are currently shipping to the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Europe, and Australia.

Scrolling and comparing. Leaving it in my twenties. Like, ugh. So over it. So, so, so over it.

I mentioned that a few times on here. Um, like, some people don't struggle with this as much I do. I find that when I'm on social media, like, I leave feeling icky. I leave feeling, like, not good about myself. I don't like how much time it takes for me.

I'm just over it. Like, on my trip, I barely touched it. And I love that and I love deleting it when I feel like I need to. It doesn't serve me that much. Like, I would much rather listen to a podcast or watch a YouTube video than I would scroll.

And it's so overwhelming. It's so saturated. There's so much content that I'm like, ah. Like, this is so much so. I'm really evaluating that relationship in my thirties, and, you know, everyone's at a different point in their journey.

Like, I will say for my career, being on there 24/7 was, like, a huge reason for my success. Like, posting stories all the time, creating content. I used to love, love, love it, and I do like making content now. I'm a very creative person. I enjoy it, but I get more enjoyment on here than I do on Instagram.

So I think things have evolved for me, and our business is not as reliant on me posting on Instagram 24/7 so I just want to say, like, it has been amazing for me in my career, but I want to reevaluate that. The last one I have is taking other people's advice over my own intuition. I think I struggle with this a little bit. And that's an interesting thing to say when you have a podcast. I think this is a realization I've had about myself through having a podcast because I have so many amazing guests on this show, so many experts, so much advice.

But as we all know, in the health industry, everyone's opinion's a little bit different. You know, like, whether it's on nutrition hormone, like, everyone comes on here and everyone says slightly different things. And I think I would leave each conversation feeling like, oh, my gosh, like, I need to do everything that person just said. Like, let me try implementing all of it at once. Knowing deep down, like, hey, you know what works for you?

Like, you know what makes you feel good? And I wish not. I wish, like, I plan on tapping into my own self confidence and self intuition and being like, you know, and that was something that I showed myself on my fitness journey. Like, whenever I tried to emulate someone's diet on from Instagram. Exactly.

It never worked for me. What works for me is what I've figured out for me personally, you know? So I need to hear everyone out and take from it what I think might work and try things that sound good to me but throwing out everything I know that works for me just because someone said otherwise, that's not how health and wellness works. And learning to tap into my intuition, what I know best is something that I want to bring into my thirties. Let's talk about what I want to bring into my thirties.

We just discussed everything I want to leave in my twenties, so this is what I want to add. Okay. And these are things that I've already been sprinkling in, more play, more fun. And I know, like, your twenties are for fun, but I feel like I have more fun now than ever, I think, because I know what I love doing now. I know I love my horseback riding, my chickens, my friends walking around the lake, going out, out to dinners.

Like, I know what's fun for me now, and I feel like I now have the freedom to do that. Like, I'm not chained to my desk building a business, necessarily. We are still very much super involved with bloom and growing, but I have the time to play and have fun, and I've never felt more happy than I do right now because I think I allow myself to do that reading. I've been very into reading lately. I'm reading demon copperhead right now, which is amazing.

A lot of people are reading it, I think, like a Pulitzer Prize winner. Very interesting. I'm learning a lot from it, I think reading novels that aren't necessarily, like, self help or educational. Like, sometimes it's purely just for fun. And I grew up reading a ton.

Like, my whole childhood I was reading constantly, and it feels like I'm tapping back into that. And I think it makes me a better version of myself. It's also a really nice wind down before bed trying more creative recipes. I think I can get a little stuck in my ways when it comes to food, and I end up making the same thing all the time. And I love cooking, and I really have gotten into, like, fun baking.

Like, you guys know I made bagels recently. I need to send you guys the recipe because people keep asking me. It's from the Eric Kaiser cookbook called, like, bread or something. I will post it on my instagram. Just go, follow me.

But, yeah, I want to keep doing that because I really get so much enjoyment out of it. And my husband loves eating. So every time I make something, he's like, please keep cooking. I'm like, okay, I will. So I want to do more creative recipes and have fun with our food.

I said this a little bit before, but trusting my gut and intuition, and I kind of have a hard time with this, I think, because, like, really being still and being like, okay, like, what do I want? Like, where is my gut taking me? Can be difficult when your life's, like, really crazy and noisy and you have a lot of opinions. But I really want to keep tapping into that prioritizing family slash my chosen family. So when I mean that, I mean, like, my blood relatives, my in laws, my parents, whatever.

And chosen family, being like, our community here in Austin, our friends, I think, like, nothing in life is more important than your relationships. And that's something I've been so focused on lately and celebrating holidays together, making moments out of everything. Why not just get dinner on a weeknight? Because we feel like it. I really think being present with people and connecting is so freaking important.

And also just thinking ahead and wanting to have kids, I'm thinking about, okay, well, I want them to be around their grandparents a lot. We should spend more time in new York and make sure we make that a priority. You know, my dad's moving to Switzerland right now. I want to make sure they go to Switzerland a lot to see him and people visit us. So that's a big part of my life right now, diving deeper into therapy and healing.

You know, I mentioned the obsessive part of my personality earlier, and I want to kind of, you know, I want to dive deeper on that and kind of figure out the deeper meaning behind it and why I'm the way I am and, you know, just work on it because I think my life will be better from it. And I've gone through, like, ebbs and flows with my therapy. I feel like I'm pretty consistent with it, but I'm not always diving deep, deep, deep, which is fine. Like, I think that's what therapy should be. It's kind of like you go in and out of epiphanies and really working on things.

But I feel like I'm in a moment where I'm ready to work on things. Nature. Just realizing how much joy nature brings me, like my chickens, my horse, being outside. I'm actually going to a ranch in Wyoming this weekend to go ride and hike and just have the best time. And I get so much joy out of that.

It brings me so much peace. And it's always been a big part of my life. I've always loved animals. It's core to who I am. Greg and I are actually spending the entire month of August in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and I could not be more excited.

And I just feel like that'll be a really healing time for me. No phone while socializing and having true eye contact and true presence with people. I know that kind of goes without saying, but I want to be really intentional. And whenever I am with people, I barely touch my phone, to be honest. Like, I'm so in the moment, but I think, like, leaving my phone in the car or literally not even taking out of my bag when I'm with people, even with Greg, I think, like, there is so much value in that.

And I know when people do that with me, I feel so seen. And again, it goes back to the connection. Like, I think it's so important working on positive self talk. This is a constant for me because I tend to, you know, just have, like, negative thoughts creep in. I want to be kinder to myself and learn to start the day on a really good note.

I'm loving gratitude practices and working on the positive talk around my skin and my body and my health and my fertility and just having this realization about how mean I can be in my own head and trying to fix that. And then the last one is forgiveness. I'm a pretty forgiving person in general. I don't think I'm a grudge holder by any means, but I just think, like, taking inventory of, okay, like, what are some situations or things that I've held onto and what do I want to let go because life's short and relationships are so important to me and family is important to me and having self forgiveness, I think this is something that we all need to keep in mind and, you know, work on moving forward. So guys, those are the things I want to leave in my twenties and bring into my thirties.

I really hope that was helpful for any of you. Let me know if you also are turning 30 soon or maybe some things you learned when you turned 30. And I'm so excited for this new decade. I can't wait to see what it will bring. I love you guys so much.

Just a reminder to subscribe or follow the show. Leave a review and I will see you in the next episode. Bye. Thanks for joining us on the pursuit of Wellness podcast. To support this show, please rate and review and share with your loved ones.

If you want to be reminded of new episodes, click the subscribe button on your preferred podcast or video player. You can sign up for my newsletter to receive my favorites@mariloellan.com dot. It will be be linked in the show notes. This is a wellness out loud production produced by Drake Peterson, Fiona Attucks and Kelly Kyle. This show is edited by Mike Fry and our video is recorded by Luis Vargas.

You can also watch the full video of each episode on our YouTube channel at Mario Fitness. Love you pal girls and pal boys. See you next time. The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for individual medical and mental health advice and does not constitute a provider patient relationship.

As always, talk to your doctor or health team team.