Breaking Free from the Hustle Culture with Megan Arneson

Have you ever felt like you're in a perpetual state of hustle, constantly pushing but never truly feeling satisfied? What if there was a different way to work and live - a way that marries intuition and flow instead of endless grind? In this episode, we have the pleasure of chatting with Megan Arneson, a coach who guides entrepreneurs to break free from the toxic hustle culture and guides them towards a life of intuitive flow. Tune in and discover ways to reimagine hustle culture.

Timestamps to help you navigate this episode:
(0:00) Intro
(0:20) FREE Self Love & Sweat MONTHLY Calendar
(1:52) From Hustle to Flow
(18:46) Recognizing and Listening to Body Whispers
(22:40) 25% OFF Snap Supplements with code LUNDEN25
(24:41) Release and Trust Your Inner Voice
(36:06) Balance and Self-Care in Busy Life
(45:03) Embrace Authenticity, Let Go of Hustle
(53:57) Reimagining Hustle Culture

Connect with Megan:
IG: @fuckthehustleofficial 

Transcript

Lunden Souza: 2:26

Welcome to Self Love and Sweat the podcast, the place where you'll get inspired to live your life unapologetically, embrace your perfect imperfections, break down barriers and do what sets your soul on fire. I'm your host, Lunden Souza. Hey, have you grabbed your free Self Love and Sweat monthly calendar yet? This this calendar is so amazing. It comes right in your inbox every single month to help you have a little nugget of wisdom, a sweaty workout, a mindset activity, just a little something, something to help keep you focused and motivated and keep that momentum towards your goals. So every day, when you get this calendar, you'll see a link that you can click that will lead to a podcast episode or a workout or something that will be very powerful and quick to read. And then you'll also see, on the top left corner of every single day, there's a little checkbox in the calendar and what that is is that's for your one thing. You can choose one thing every month, or it can be the same, something that you wanna implement and make this something that you can easily implement, like daily meditation or getting a certain amount of steps or water, for example, and staying hydrated and even taking your supplements. This can be something if you wanna get more regular doing a particular habit and routine. You can choose what that checkbox means. So if you want your self, love and sweat free monthly calendar delivered right to your inbox every month on the first of the month, go to lifelikelunden. com/calendar, fill out the form really quickly and you will have your calendar in your inbox within a few short minutes. That's lifelikelunden. com/calendar. Go, get yours for free and enjoy this episode.

Lunden Souza: 4:30

Welcome back to the podcast. Today we have Megan Arneson as our guest on the show. She is a coach that helps entrepreneurs bust the cycle of the hustle and step into intuitive flow. She's the host of the up and coming podcast Fuck the Hustle podcast, and she's been living the last six years as a full time digital nomad and spends a lot of her times outdoors, away from screens, embodying the Fuck the Hustle lifestyle as much as possible. Welcome to the show, megan. So great to have you.

Megan Arneson: 5:01

Thank you so much, Lunden. I'm honored to be here. I think this is gonna be a really fun conversation.

Lunden Souza: 5:07

Megan and I met through a mutual friend which who created a company called Naba that her and I are both creating master classes for, and so I had just the opportunity to connect with her quickly in person in Denver and also in Instagram land, which I love, because you're putting out such wonderful content to help remind us that we don't always have to do more to get to where we wanna go, or we don't always have to hustle and grind to get to that successful, blissful outcome that we might be looking for, and so my first question would be like what was that moment for you? When did it shift from maybe hustle to flow? Like when did you say Fuck the Hustle for yourself and decide to make that your message?

Megan Arneson: 5:53

Yeah, good question. So for me it has been. It's been one of those things where it's happened over and over and over again and like I kept not fully learning the lesson. And the first time was I was working a corporate job in San Francisco. It was my very first quote unquote real job and up until that point in my life I had just been doing everything that I was told I should do to be successful. I grew up in a family where, from the time I was five years old it was when you go to college, right. So it was like, okay, well, obviously that's a thing that you do. I didn't recognize that I had a choice. I was kind of groomed into this and so I had this job where I slowly I liked my job and I liked sort of the status that I got from it. I was 23, 24 years old and had been promoted in corporate communications and moved up to the 12th floor of the fancy office building and I had my own office. It wasn't exactly a corner office because the building was kind of a weird shape, but it was in a corner sort of with a view and I felt so fancy.

Megan Arneson: 7:28

And then 9-11 happened and I realized that life was too short. And, kind of leading up to that moment, I was starting to recognize that, like I was writing a newsletter for a corporation that had 13,000 employees, and my job was to make them feel good about the company that they work for, and I realized that I had access to information about what was going on behind the scenes, and my job, though, was to make it look better than it was, and I realized that, like, my role here is to lie to these people and be totally inauthentic, and it felt so icky, and it was kind of a slow realization, and then, all of a sudden, it was like life is too short, I don't wanna be here. I quit my job, I cashed in my 401K, I moved to the mountains of far, far Northern California, I moved in with my boyfriend, who was a fisheries biologist, and we lived on 50 acres in the middle of nowhere, in a little three bedroom log cabin, and, over time, it was amazing and wonderful. At the time, I was like I felt like such a rebel, and I was like my mom is totally gonna disapprove of this decision, as are all of my friends who, like my boss, even was like what are you doing? You are climbing the ladder, you are like living the dream that so many and I was like I don't care, like it's not authentic, it doesn't feel good. I'm just living, doing what I think I'm supposed to do. So I go to the mountains, you know. It's awesome in a lot of ways but also very isolating.

Megan Arneson: 9:41

Boyfriend didn't work out after a certain amount of time that's a whole separate story, so we won't go there today but eventually moved back to San Francisco feeling like, okay, I need to reinvent myself now and slowly got sucked back in after a couple of years. Next thing I know, you know, at first I came back I was an event planner. I was working for this guy doing very creative, high end events, and then I eventually I got a job for a corporate event planning company and then I got farmed out back to the financial district in San Francisco, dressing to the nines every day, wearing heels and suits and all of the stuff, and realized I was so deep in this and I didn't have a term for it at the time, but so deep in the hustle and the next thing that happened was I was getting on an airplane like every two weeks, working myself to the bone. Didn't feel like I had a choice. This company was not supportive of its employees as humans. We were just there to make them more money, so got super sick.

Megan Arneson: 11:04

I had strep throat and I didn't have time to go to the doctor and I didn't get to take a time like any time out. I didn't get to like I was accruing. What do you call it extra days? You know, if you work through the weekend like, you get extra vacation. What is the term for that?

Lunden Souza: 11:27

Over time, yeah, over time.

Megan Arneson: 11:30

Over time it was like there were these like accrual days, that like, and then you get to take you know you can take four weeks vacation instead of two if you, if you get enough of them, anyway comp days. So I had all these comp days and I wasn't given like I would request time off and they wouldn't give it to me. And so next thing, I know I'm like I'm living on dayquil and nightquil to get me through these events and it's awful. And I finally come home from one of them and I like I called in sick for like three or four days in a row. I was like I can't function. And I got back to work and they basically called me into this new marketing manager's office and he said I hear you've been underperforming and demoted me off the project that I was working on and put me on something that they knew was the opposite of what I was interested in. And I, without swearing at them, basically said fuck you, I'm out and went and started my own company doing green events at that time and you know, was like I have to, I have to create something different for myself.

Megan Arneson: 12:57

And so those were the two really sort of defining moments in my career that really I was like how did I get sucked back into this? And I think that's one of the things that happens for so many people is, you know, they get to a point of like I've had enough. But then society and our conditioning and all you know, all those voices in our heads and outside of us and all of the, the obligations that we think that we have, creep back in and we end up back in the same place. And it happened a couple more times after that, but I don't need to go into those stories. I think those two were were the most intense. And then what happened over time was like I would get really close and then I'd be like, oh my God, I'm starting to see the pattern, I'm getting it, so I'm getting myself out.

Lunden Souza: 13:54

Yeah, I love that you mentioned that seeing the pattern, and I love the two stories that you shared. I mean those really illustrate, yeah, pivotal moments where you're like I knew that I needed to shift but then I did shift and it was very easy to go back to that programming. I think that happens a lot. It's like we have the best intention, we have the awareness, but then that old programming is just so familiar and that autopilot and the route that we know is just so easy because we've done it so many times. And to have that awareness and switch that programming I really think is like the coolest part of life and the part that we really have to get on board with, because we're going to go back to maybe some of that hustle mentality or at least be able to recognize it faster and kind of pull out faster. I feel like that's what's at least been super helpful for me.

Lunden Souza: 14:44

But I remember growing up I didn't grow up. Me and a couple others went to college. I didn't really grow up with the pressure that I had to do that. My dad was a teacher and so it was kind of like I just knew I was going to do that. But I grew up in a family of entrepreneurs, of people who just worked and your work was your worth. And I remember one time being excited to tell my grandpa, while I was in school, full time at Long Beach State, that I was also working seven days a week, like I remember being, oh my gosh, I'm so excited to tell my grandpa I'm a full time student and I have a job, that I work seven days a week. I remember being like so proud of myself and so excited to tell him right, Because I just grew up thinking you have to work and do more and all of that.

Lunden Souza: 15:28

And it wasn't until, yeah, some you know stories just like not specifically, just like the ones you told, but you know the ones that are unique to my lifestyle, where you're like I can't do this and there has to be a better way, a way that I can find that works for me. That's not that same repeated pattern and I, you know you kind of saw the repeats. You're like, okay, I try to get out and I kind of loop back in. So how do you break that loop? What did you do specifically? And even now I think there's some loops. I've feel like I've done really a good job at changing and reframing, but they still creep in every now and then. So how did you break that loop and how do you recognize, before getting back in to kind of like that vortex, yeah, yeah, that's a great question.

Megan Arneson: 16:18

So, yeah, I mean, unfortunately for me, breaking the loop took, you know, hitting rock bottom a couple more times and like getting into such deep adrenal fatigue and like having all kinds of autoimmune symptoms and all of that that you know. I finally, I think it kind of forced a spiritual awakening in me and I also started getting coaching. I found a therapist who was also a coach, who also did some energy work, and so I feel really lucky that that that was sort of my first introduction to that. I had been in therapy for years prior to that, like not fully understanding. I think it was kind of around that second break when I was working for the events planning company that I had some severe trauma that I wasn't even aware of and, like I remember, like the therapist couldn't, couldn't get there with me, and so when I found, you know, in the next round, when I found this new practitioner and and started opening up and started to sort of understand what coaching was and sort of how, to understand how I was creating a lot of my own reality, that was when I really started to be able to see the patterns and and sort of recognize, you know, kind of take a look back and see what are the, what are the circumstances that kept repeating themselves that would lead up to these issues.

Megan Arneson: 18:05

And by slowly unpacking that over time, I have now, you know, been able to to recognize in my own body, when I feel that tension coming up, there's something going on and it's something that happens that's beyond my mind's recognition. It really involves being deeply connected with myself, with my feelings, with my emotions and the signals that my body is sending me, and it gets really clear. You know there's tension, there's tightness. Usually for me it's like right in my solar plexus, and I have become so attuned to that, whereas before I was totally numb to anything that was happening in my body. But now I can feel it coming and that's the signal then to my brain to be like okay, wait a minute, let's take a breath here, slow down, reel it in, let's reassess Is this really what we want? Is this activity, you know, is this situation something that is drawing us closer to joy and freedom and you know the outcomes that we truly want, or is this one of those old patterns that is starting to creep in again?

Lunden Souza: 19:38

I like that you mentioned the physical spot that you feel. I often refer to it as like the whispers, because I remember I used to have really bad cystic acne. I had a lot of ways that my body was like screaming at me right Like banging at the door, I say. And now there's through this journey, which took, you know, some years and work and connection and excavation and stuff, to really be able to hear like the hey London, you know, and for me it's the heart space, but on my back it's like on my back, right behind my heart.

Lunden Souza: 20:13

That's the spot that I start to feel. And then, a little like if I'm, you know, doing too much or maybe haven't slept enough or I need to like, I just feel like a little scratch on the right side of my throat and that just came from feeling it, deciding that that might be a whisper, listening to that, and then it worked right. I don't, you know I mean maybe our bodies can you know for those listening that maybe, yeah, don't have a lot of experience with what it might be like to really tune in and just know, but it's like you might notice, like a precursor to some situation, when you feel stressed or you feel, you know, like things are just kind of off and you're like, oh yeah, if I really think about it, I start to feel maybe a feeling like me and you described in your gut, in your solar plexus or in your heart space, or some people it's in their back or their hips or whatever but to just decide like, okay, this might be a whisper, let me treat it like it's a whisper, let me listen, and then let me see what happens. And that's really what helped for me, because I noticed, okay, I feel these feelings, and then I keep going and then this little inkling in my throat turns into a sore throat. I can't talk, I lose my voice. This feeling in the back of my heart space turns into, like you know, those feelings of angst and just like do more, go, go, go. And so yeah, for those listening, I think it's great to. That's what makes us so unique and that's what I think some people get so frustrated because they want like well, if I feel this way, then that, or if I should do this, then that it's really we're so unique. Like your whisper is going to be different than my whisper versus somebody listening, and I think when we can get good at tuning into those whispers, that's kind of like that I don't know that inner knowing or that inner wisdom that then becomes recognizable Like don't you recognize it so much more now when it comes?

Lunden Souza: 22:00

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Lunden Souza: 22:57

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Megan Arneson: 23:57

Oh yeah, oh yeah, totally. And you know, one of the things that I have done in the past couple of years, you know, in addition to, like, I got certified as a life coach in 2018. And then I was like I want more right, Like it was. I like the foundation of that and I wanted to go deeper than mindset coaching, you know, like I wanted to go beyond the thoughts and the beliefs and because I was finding in myself that it was, it's my subconscious, it's my body, where all the I mean that's where the trauma is stored and you can't solve that from the level of the mind, right? So, as I was digging out more and more old trauma, right, recognizing when I was being triggered and whatnot, and recognizing when I had the cystic acne starting to come back up, and so what I'm learning is learning to really go deep and listen to, like, the voice of. You know, I call it the voice of my soul. One of my teachers calls it the inner voice. Right, it's the soul, consciousness, your higher self, and so I got certified as an inner voice facilitator and now that has become sort of the foundation, the rock of the work that I do with all of my clients, but before most of us can actually hear that voice, right and not, and really distinguish it from the voice, the incessant voice, chitter, chatter, voice of the mind we have to release. There's so much old emotion that is stuck in the body and there's layers of it, that kind of need to be released before we can truly feel that stillness and hear that intuition. And so, like I love hearing you, like I had a client who she would always talk about kind of the heart space behind the back as well, and she, she was like it feels like a hand, that's like pushing me all the time. You know it's pushing me to do things that I, I don't really truly want to do, but it's, it's, it feels incessant and I don't know how to get rid of it, aside from like going and doing, doing more. You know that's frantic feeling because she wanted to get, so she was trying to get away from the hand.

Megan Arneson: 26:52

So, yeah, that's one of the things that I think we're we're not taught to listen to our bodies, we're not taught to feel our feelings. You know, a little kid has a bad moment, you know, and they, they start crying and you're like here's an ice cream, you know. Or like here's your toy. Like we wanted to distract them from that.

Megan Arneson: 27:15

But over time, over many years, of not allowing those feelings to sort of work themselves out, we store all of that in our nervous systems and so until you start to go in and and release those layers, it can be really hard to to trust that you have intuition. You know, I feel like I've heard so many people say, well, I'm not very intuitive and I'm like, oh my God, but we all are. You know, we all have that innately within us. It's just that we've been, we've been taught not to trust it, and then we've been taught to trust our ego mind over it, and then we've been told not to feel our feelings. And so there's all this like I think of it as either like layers of junk piled on top or like like dirty pipes, clogged up pipes. I mean I just kind of need to clean them out gently and over time. All of a sudden you realize like there's so much more in there that's available to us.

Lunden Souza: 28:30

Yeah, yes, all that junk I call it the Tupperware in the back of the fridge, the one that you like put back there, and then over time it starts to stink and you keep opening the fridge and you're like, what is that? And then you finally find it and it's like moldy and you're like what? Oh, that was the lasagna from 1982 or whatever, or in arcade, right? Oh, that was that one situation when I was seven or 10 or a teenager or something, that it just got locked in, sealed and put in back of the fridge but no one put a date on it or labeled it or like decided what they would make it mean before they would put it away. And then it's, like, you know, stinking in there.

Lunden Souza: 29:05

And I love what you mentioned about your, the client that you were working with, and how that back, that hand, was almost in that back of her heart space, pushing her forward, and she had that awareness of it being maybe a whisper or something that she could feel and know, but she didn't know what else to do other than to follow that push of the hand, to go, do more, hustle more, all the things. And I really resonate with that because I was looking on Instagram or there was like a meme I saw the other day that was like continuously I can't remember specifically, but basically, you know, even though I had the awareness that work was my worth and that my family line, I wanted to break the, you know, it was still a trauma response for me to work right, like if I found myself in an uncomfortable situation, I'd still want to do more and I'd still want to work more and get more work done right, even in, let's say, I love my boyfriend. He's wonderful, we have these, we go deep in conversation, right, and I love that. I know that. I love that. But my physical body for a while, especially when we first started dating, when we would have these tough conversations, I'd have to be doing something. You know, I'd be like folding towels or cleaning or moving whatever. So we've been together for a couple of years and a few days ago we were having another one of those conversations and I was just sitting there not doing anything and afterwards I was like I'm so proud of myself.

Lunden Souza: 30:31

That was the first time that, like, my physical world and my internal were like matching, like it was congruent, right, and it went from needing to be like cleaning and doing stuff, versus then I would fold like little hand towels, like I just would start doing things while we would talk. And now I realized like, huh, I can just be and not do something. But that was it took a lot of steps right and I've been doing a lot of this work for years and even now I'm like, oh, I don't have to be doing something while we are having a tough conversation. I don't always have to be working or doing when something is challenging. I can feel through that now, but it takes a little bit of time. So with that client particularly, or somebody like that, how would you guide them to realize, okay, this can be a whisper and you know you're going with it, but how do you start to not go with it and still appreciate it? You know what I?

Megan Arneson: 31:25

mean yeah, yeah, yeah, so there's, and I think this is, you know, this is one of the challenges that I have with therapy in general, like talk therapy is. I've been working with a therapist recently. Actually, he's a therapist and he's also a shaman, so we're like we're doing some interesting things, but I feel like when he's got his therapist hat on, it kind of drives me nuts because, like he wants to find the story behind every emotion and wants me to talk it out and with my clients, I'm at this place where I don't believe that we have to understand specifically what caused it. To release it. You know Cool and so.

Megan Arneson: 32:19

So with her in particular, you know it's, it was really about like just physically allowing whatever the sensation is that hand, like, go and be with it, meet the hand, right, release your mind. Don't make up a story about it. We don't need to know where the hand came from or what it wants or any of that, right? All it wants from you, right? Energy is stands. Like emotions are energy in motion, right, and so when we don't process them, they get stuck so they're not in motion anymore, right? All it wanted from you in the first place was your attention, and so if you go there and you give it all of your attention, right, set the mind aside gently for now and just go to the hand, feel everything there is to feel about the hand, notice how big it is, what is the texture, what is the density, is it warm or cold? Does it have a color to it? Is there a vibration to it, like, be with it in its entirety.

Megan Arneson: 33:38

And once you have fully felt it, it might release itself. And it did right, like eventually it just kind of like dissipated off into the ether and now that's energy that's been released that can be recycled or reused for something else, for something you know that's more beneficial to somebody else. You know you don't need to keep it. It's not yours necessarily to hold on to anymore and we don't have to make a story about it. And you know the hand came back a few times after that. But she knew what to do with it and when she did it on her own, you know and it released and over time, like you know, there was no more pushy hand after she had practiced that enough.

Lunden Souza: 34:34

So yeah, like the idea of changing the yeah, the submodalities of it, of like what does it look like? What does it feel like, what size is it? The texture and like, because sometimes we have these feelings and we would never, unless we do this work that you and I love to do in our coaching, most people aren't thinking to bring anything else than, oh, this feels either uncomfortable or I don't like this feeling, or I always get this feeling versus being like okay, well, what might it look like? Do you want to give it a name? Like? What is it Like? Just kind of get to know it a little bit more. And it's like just with people or situations, a new job, whatever. After you get to know it more, you become more comfortable with it and you become, yeah, closer with it. It's not as scary. It's like the monster shadow under the bed when you just open up the closet and you turn on the lights and it's like you know there it is.

Lunden Souza: 35:24

And I love that you mentioned that, because I think you know anyone listening now, who might feel like okay, I'm in this hustle. You know there's a lot of women I know that, listen that have kids too, right, who have like families and kids and full time, jobs and houses and all these things to provide for, and they're in this hustle, right, and they're listening to this podcast. Maybe, or they come across my Instagram or yours or whatever, and something stops them in their tracks to be like, oh, I don't want this life, right, I don't want to be this way, but I don't really know how to stop and kind of redirect. I think that's a really good thing to do for those listening. You might have a specific physical sensation in your body that you get when you know you're stressed out or when you're hustling, or maybe it's something that you realize. It just kind of hangs out and lingers and you always, I remember feeling like this continuous feeling of that, of that feeling on the back of my heart. It was almost like a spear went through and it just was continuous and I just was always feeling it.

Lunden Souza: 36:22

So I think if anyone listening you know that's a good place to start is sit with that feeling and ask it like, hey, you have anything to tell me? What does it look like, what does it feel like, and just spend some time getting to know it, cause often what we do is we hustle it away or we drink or we get high or whatever, to like turn off that feeling or to turn off needing to deal with it. But if you can just see it like, oh, I'm getting to know a friend, or let me pretend like this is the person I met at the grocery store, like I'm just going to go up to them with curiosity, I think that's a very powerful tool that someone listening could do you know, right after they listen to this podcast. Do you have any other specific tools that you feel like are helpful for somebody listening today? Right, if they're in that spot where it's like oh, I know I don't want to be hustling, but what can I do now? What would be some other helpful strategies?

Megan Arneson: 37:15

Yeah Well, I actually I don't even want to necessarily go to a different strategy. I want to keep digging on this one a little bit because you know, I think I think part of what perpetuates the hustle is us trying to get away from the feeling that we have labeled as negative. And when you sit with it, yes, it's probably going to be uncomfortable, but once you've done this a couple of times, you start to recognize that it's okay, it's not unsafe and you can handle it. And once you have taught your mind that you can handle any emotion that comes up, the emotions are no longer negative or positive, it's just energy, right. And then you can use that energy. You can. You can focus it toward what you want to create. Does that make?

Lunden Souza: 38:20

sense, yeah, but how do we do that? So we find we have that moment where we get to know maybe we get like stirred up, are we going to feel like some physical energy? Sometimes I feel like after I do that, I like to like go for a walk or like move my body a little bit. You know how do we utilize and recognize to use it for something that's not numbing out or not. You know doing more.

Megan Arneson: 38:44

Right, Right, Well, yeah, so great. And again, that's going to be different for everyone, right, and different in the moment, depending on what's coming up. But, like, listen to your body and give it what it wants. After that, right, so you've, you've processed it, you've allowed it and it's, and it's releasing. And now, yeah, are you called to go for a walk? Do you need to go get in the bathtub? Right, Like, what is it that is going to be?

Megan Arneson: 39:13

Ask yourself what is most nourishing to me right now? How can I, you know, how can I best take care of myself? And you know, of course, if you're a busy mom and you've got kids downstairs screaming at you and like stuff going on and appointments and soccer practice and all the things, right, You're going to tell yourself I don't have time for this. But if you can give yourself even just a few more minutes and you can, you can train the people around you to respect that. That.

Megan Arneson: 39:47

I call it the bubble, because we all need that bubble for ourselves, and until we take care of ourselves, right, we, it's really hard for us to actually take care of anyone else. Well, so I actually think that's kind of like the, the foundation or the cornerstone of you know, being able to provide for others is when we do give ourselves that space to process. But so, once that's done, if you, you know, if you feel so inspired and you want to sort of turn it right, then the next piece is to ask yourself what is it that I truly, truly want in this moment? Right, and for me it's usually how do I want to feel? Right. And once I understand how I want to feel, then okay, what do I need to do to create that feeling? Is it a thought? Is it an action? Like what is it? And then I will go do that for myself.

Lunden Souza: 40:49

Yeah, and walking bath that you mentioned, those are good ones. This morning in my meditation yeah, it was wonderful, pretty cool, and afterwards usually I'll go for a walk, make coffee and just kind of. But I just laid back on this couch behind me and grabbed the pillow which was the part of me that I was working on and like hugged it in the fetal position and just curled up for like a half an hour, maybe an hour, I don't really know how long it was. I was like I don't even want to move, I just want to like take that part that I was, you know, focusing on and nurturing in my meditation and just hug onto it and hold it and I just got into this ball, put the blanket around me. I never did that before Like in that fashion. Of course I've curled up you know whatever on the couch, but never has that happened before. But it did today, right, and that's kind of what I needed.

Lunden Souza: 41:38

And I just, yeah, I had slept nine hours already so I knew I was arrested. It was just like I needed that, that loving child kind of fetal position, nurturing position, and it wasn't like I don't know. You know we sometimes judge a lot am I supposed to do this? Is this what I? And it's like I didn't. It just came and then I put my body in that position right, I didn't question it of, like you know, that will come up sometimes like, oh, what does my body? And as we're practicing listening, we're gonna have to practice listening right. So it's like we might hear a walk. Okay, we go for a walk, we get outside five minutes and we're actually I wanna lay on the couch or actually I wanna do a bath. You know, just kind of practice listening in. And that was I love that you shared that to just kind of do what your body feels like doing. Next, presuming you have time or whatever. I didn't have anything to do afterwards, that was pressing. I did have that time to lay and just kind of curl up.

Lunden Souza: 42:30

And then the other point that I wanna mention is my friend and business partner, amanda, who I love. She has two kids and then she does her a car. So when she pulls up to her house she stays in the car, I think 20 or 30 minutes to just do her car thing and her husband knows, or like the babysitter if they're watching their kids. They know, hey, when I pull up I'm not home yet. Like I'm in that space. And it's funny because she said her neighbor came up to her one time and like knocked on the window and was like, are you okay? I see you sitting in your car a lot. And she's like, actually I'm great because I sit in my car a lot. You know, this is my mom time, whether it's sending emails or texts or getting stuff done work related that she doesn't normally get to get done when her young children are, you know, wanting all the things from her, and so I'm not a mom and I just sometimes just with myself on my own. It gives me so much more respect for parents and for people who are taking care of others, you know. So I always like to acknowledge that because I know a lot of my listeners are parents.

Lunden Souza: 43:30

But you know that car moment, and I love what you said about teaching people kind of how to treat you. To know, hey, when you know so-and-so gets home, they're in their car. You know, in fact, my boyfriend did that yesterday. He pulled in and he was still in the car and I heard the garage open. So I went there, I opened the door but he was just sitting in the car and I was like, oh, he probably just needs, like you know, five or 10 minutes in the car or whatever. So I didn't like, hey, what are you doing? I just kind of went back up and realized, you know, he's just taken a little, you know, a car break, and so I think we sometimes think, oh, I have to carve out this old moment and I need to, you know, have my incense and my, you know meditation chair. It's like, you know, you can just kind of be in your car for five or 10 minutes, you know, after running an errand or when you get home, just to do some of that visualization, spending time with some of those feelings and just kind of getting more acquainted with that stillness. Because if not, we're just like go, go, go.

Lunden Souza: 44:21

And you and I were talking about this before we started the podcast, about how we really like to be alone.

Lunden Souza: 44:27

But in some cases people can't be alone because that alone time can be scary, like there's a lot of things that sometimes people don't want to face in that and you and I we meditate and kind of do our thing.

Lunden Souza: 44:41

And but I remember being at a I think it was like a workshop and we did maybe like a 20 minute meditation. It was just like a cool thing I got to go to in San Jose and I remember the girl next to me, we were talking afterwards and she goes I don't remember the last time I sat with myself like that for 20 minutes straight, you know, and I was like yeah, it's profound, huh, because I personally take one to two hours for meditation a day. That's just my jam, that's what I love to do. But it was so beautiful the way she recognized it Cause I think a lot of people can relate of, like I don't remember the last time I just sat with me for one minute, two minutes, let alone you know, 20 or whatever. But yeah, it can be a little scary when we're not used to it. That alone time, right.

Megan Arneson: 45:26

Yeah, yeah, and I think we put so much pressure on ourselves. You know it's like to like make the perfect meditation space, you know, and like have to light the candles and burn the Palo Santo and like pull the cards and, you know, make it dark and make, or, you know, or whatever it is that you're doing. Like we put so much pressure on ourselves to like make it right, and I think one of the things that's just kind of missing is like every moment, every day, can be a spiritual moment or a moment of connection with self or source. It doesn't have to be some big ritual. The rituals are great, you know, and the beautiful spaces are amazing, but that's totally not necessary in order to cultivate connection, and so, like I love to encourage people to just drop expectations about that and not have to make it be some big thing. You know, it can be anytime, any moment in your car, you know.

Lunden Souza: 46:36

Yes, creating those moments, wherever you are, cause when we try to set the stage to make it perfect, it's like no one. You can't do that all the time. When you can, great. When you can draw a bath and light the candles and create that full, you know ambiance for yourself, go for it. But don't not take the time just because you feel like you have to have that full setup so powerful.

Megan Arneson: 46:59

Yeah.

Lunden Souza: 47:00

What do you think I we didn't learn this in school. Like, I didn't learn these skills until I was 30. And my niece is four and a half and I love her so much and I'm doing my best to drop the seeds and just, yeah, help her understand some of the things that I think would be so valuable to have known when you know, before I was 10, for example, when do you like, do you envision this being taught in schools? Like, what's your kind of dream for how we can help the younger generation, or teach you know that the youth, that they don't have to do it the way that we did? Like, do you have a vision for that? Or do you focus more on adults? Or like what do you think?

Megan Arneson: 47:41

Yeah, yeah, I mean I definitely focus more on adults, but you know I have enough here. Who's my favorite human on the planet? So I totally, you know, I know and it's and it's, yeah, ooh, I'm getting a little emotional because I watch him. He's so magical and he's so connected and he's so, he is such a feeler and my brother, his father, his father is like totally shut down emotionally and so and it's really hard for me to watch, you know like I connect with this kid so deeply and we don't even have to share words, you know, and then his dad walks in the room and he like freezes up and it's like a totally different kind of person, you know, and, yeah, I think it's it's so important to model for kids that it's okay to feel your feelings.

Megan Arneson: 48:47

You know my brother is constantly telling him not to, you know, not to react, don't get emotional. Like that is not what cowboys do, you know. And it's really challenging for me to watch. And you know, when it's just he and I, there is all kinds of opening up, you know, and so and he's, he's a strong kid and I know he's going to be fine.

Megan Arneson: 49:14

I think one of the things that we we have to do collectively as a society is stop trying to mold them into something you know and just let them be, but also just modeling how to feel your feelings right, how to do everything that we just talked about, that we didn't learn right, that I'm still, you know, peeling back layers on every day and will be probably for the rest of my life. I mean, I think that's part of what this whole journey is about is like learning those lessons, and for you know, for for me, this is definitely a big one and it's and it's a lifetime process. But being the example of how to do that and showing that it's safe and that it's okay is super important. But we can't do that unless we're fully embodying that.

Lunden Souza: 50:11

Yes, you're so right. Being that model is is everything for our youth, for adults, for people way older than us too. It's right. We can really use our actions instead of telling people you should stop hustling or you need to be more in flow, whatever, we can just model what that looks like. But I have a similar feeling to where there was just certain things where I was like, yeah, I can't intervene, I just like I had my, my things to unpack as I got older. Everybody's going to have those things, so need not interfere and just model that.

Lunden Souza: 50:45

And I think you know the family I grew up in was like work, we believe this, this is how we do it, this is right, this is wrong. Very like this is how we do it. And I never saw any adults that like believed otherwise or would show that they believed otherwise. So for me, for my niece, I just want to show her. Sometimes she'll ask me questions like oh, this is this way right, because that's just. I know that's how she learned it, because that's how I learned it right. And I was like well, actually I don't know, but I kind of think this, you know, and I just do it in my little child voice, how her and I talk, you know, and I just I want her to see that there could be like critical thinking happening surrounding things that I'm not, I just took for face value, like we just do this, you do this, this is this, you know, and I'm like, well, I mean, okay, yes, I, you know that can work and there's a lot of other possibilities or ways to do them right. And so, in the topic of hustle or flow or whatever, just being able to be that example of we don't have to work, you know, 24, seven, all the time, we can, you know, have those moments and pockets of joy and be present, not be elsewhere, thinking about you know what work we need to get done. What work we need to get done are to do list all the things.

Lunden Souza: 51:53

And so, yeah, I just I just share that, because I share that it's just kind of my goal to model that like people can be different and that's okay, because I didn't really get that growing up a ton and I, yeah, I love that we're both aunties and have that that vibrance for them and at the same time, you know, it's not our children and even if it was, we can't really fully interfere with their full experience. And so I just I get excited when I talk to people like you and just others parents, not parents, whatever who have that goal of just like being themselves and exuding that to the fullest and just working on authenticity and being open and authentic to themselves and then letting the world see that, because I think oftentimes we just try to be a certain type of way, you know, insert the like awkward, you know, whatever school picture you take, like we got to all be like this way and this pose, in this direction and and it really isn't that way. Yeah, and it's, yeah, so wonderful.

Lunden Souza: 52:45

I want to talk a little about your, your up and coming podcast. Maybe someone listening to it at the moment your podcast might already be out, but at the time of recording it's, it's being being birthed, it's happening, it's, it's being created. So why did you decide to create the podcast podcast called fuck the hustle but what specifically will you be sharing in that space and tell us more about that?

Megan Arneson: 53:09

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, um.

Megan Arneson: 53:12

So, fuck, the hustle came to me in a while.

Megan Arneson: 53:16

I was deep in conversation with my soul consciousness one day, you know, deep in meditation and, and it was like it was one of those moments where you know, when you get like a full body, yes, where you've got like chills head to toe and it's just like you just feel so alive. It was that and and and you know, I had sort of uncovered this, this pattern, and I had heard the word hustle culture and I was like, oh, that's a thing that people are like talking about now, like it's not just me, and and I had been reading a lot of books about, you know, flow, state and and kind of studying that kind of stuff. Just nerd, because it's interesting, you know, not because I thought I was going to share it, and so, not too long after that I don't know if you remember this app that got really popular during, kind of toward the end of 2020 and early 2021, like end of COVID, lockdowns and whatever you know people were just so hungry for more connection and so there was this app called clubhouse.

Megan Arneson: 54:37

Yeah, it was all over it Uh huh, yeah, so fun and, like you know, you could hop on there in the middle of the night and just like Eve's drop on some of the most fascinating conversations. But then it became a thing like learning how to moderate a room and a panel of people and like and and sort of run it so that it was a, so that it was a constructive conversation and not just complete chaos, and so the rooms were just mad houses or they were locked down so that people couldn't participate and it was very one way conversation. Anyway, I kind of got into like, how do I? Like I really want to learn how to do this. And so I was like, hey, I want to have a conversation called fuck the hustle, who's interested? And a whole bunch of people were very excited about the topic, and so I said, all right, so I'm going to talk about this. I want to have a conversation called fuck the hustle, who's interested? And a whole bunch of people were very excited about the topic, and so I said, all right, so I'm going to host a weekly room called fuck the hustle and let's have a panel and see how many people show up and and like, how many variations on this topic can we extract from this?

Megan Arneson: 56:13

And I did it every week for six months and it was great, it was amazing. People showed up, they all had stuff to share, they all had stories and I went, okay, this definitely needs to be a podcast. It was an idea in my mind and I think I'd mentioned it but, like I wasn't sure how serious I was about it. But I was like, let's test it in in real time with real people and see if it's a thing. And it most definitely was. And so then it was like, okay, now I need to launch the podcast. And I've had several moments of being like, okay, I'm ready to launch the podcast, like last year, last March, I was going to launch the podcast and then my entire life blew up and I needed to go deal with life. So now we're coming a year later.

Megan Arneson: 57:03

So much has evolved and now it's time to to really dive in and it's going to cover everything from sort of the patriarchal roots of of hustle culture to, you know, kind of more of what we've been talking about is like the emotional sort of drive of that, and we're a lot of this. You know hustle originates and what it creates in us, how it affects our health and what we can do about it. So, trying to come at it from every angle, I like to look at everything from like, a systems thinking point of view, and so you know, talking to two experts from everybody, from you know psychologists like, and you know people who talk about like celebration to like real people who have experienced deep burnout, and you know sex coaches, which is, you know, another part of my journey that's, that's evolving right now, talking about how all of this plays into this, this sort of toxicity that a lot of us are experiencing. I would say almost everybody kind of knows what it feels like, at least, and how to create more states of flow flow for ourselves.

Lunden Souza: 58:27

And so wonderful. I'm excited to listen. I'm excited to follow your journey further your flow journey and for those of you listening, check out fuck the hustle podcast. I'm going to say available wherever you listen to podcast, because I'm assuming you'll put it on most platforms and if you aren't, I'm going to teach you how.

Lunden Souza: 58:48

so you will, yeah, and check out what Megan you know is sharing and has to offer. I just feel like, yeah, this message really hits home for me and, yeah, like I said, I'll be happy when other people you know learn this information to and hopefully it's before they're in their 30s, like me, because I just think this is so valuable and stuff that we could, you know, learn, learn so much sooner. So, thank you for what you do and for bringing this message to the world. We appreciate you so much. Is there anything else you want to share? Before we finish, is there something you feel called to say or do you feel complete?

Megan Arneson: 59:23

No, I feel really good. Thank you so much for having me here, and I can't wait to interview you on fuck the hustle, because I know you have some hustle stories to tell, so we'll look forward to unpack those then.

Lunden Souza: 59:37

Oh yeah, so many, so many. Thank you guys for listening. Thank you again for being the light you are in this world, and we'll see you guys at the next episode. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of self love and sweat the podcast. Hey, do me a favor Wherever you're listening to this podcast, give us a review this really helps a lot and share this with a friend. I'm only one person and with your help, we can really spread the message of self love and sweat and change more lives all around the world. I'm Lunden Souza, reminding you that you deserve a life full of passion, presence and purpose, fueled by self love and sweat. This podcast is a hit spot. Austria production.