Conscious Consumption: How Your Choices Impact Your Life

What have you consumed today, from the books you've read to the people you've hung out with, to the music you've listened to, even to the food that you've ingested, and I want you to think about the impact that those consumptions are having on your life? Are you consuming consciously? That is what today's episode is all about, so let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hello, my gorgeous friends. Welcome back to another episode of the School of Self-Image Podcast. This is an exciting week because I am preparing for the Week of Calm, which by the time you listen to this, it'll be about to happen. It is starting on, let's see, August the 21st. It is going to run for five days, and it is the most powerful workshop/retreat that I have ever taught.

In fact, I taught this once before right when COVID was happening, back in ... I'll never forget, March of 2020 is when COVID started causing things to shut down, and I'll never forget where I was when the world was shutting down, and I was freaking out like most people. I was like, "What is happening?" You know when they stop playing NBA games and we are restricting travel, and you know something major is happening, and so I didn't know what was going on, and I was feeling so much worry and anxiety for my loved ones, for my family, for my friends, for my clients. I was just thinking, "I hope we're all going to be okay."

After a month of just obsessing, and worrying, and being tied to the TV, as a lot of people were, I said to myself, "Okay, sister, enough is enough. This is not serving you or anyone," and I started to do a lot of deep work on finding calm and the chaos, and I turned that into a free week-long event that I called Week of Calm. And so many of you have reached out and said, "That was when I discovered you. That week changed my life. It helped me to approach the whole pandemic from a much more healthy way, like I ended up creating results I didn't even think I could create during a time of chaos," and I loved teaching that material, and I've grown so much since then.

That was, can you believe it, three years ago? How crazy is that? But it seems like the world's just going faster and faster, and crazy things are happening, and especially now more than ever, I feel like people are overwhelmed, worried, afraid of what's happening in the world, to the world, and more than ever, people need to know how to access calm. Calm is an energy that people are looking for, and so for those of you who are entrepreneurs, for those of you who are coaches, learning how to tap into calm will be a magnetic, magnetic energy that will draw people in because people are looking around right now for someone that can be an anchor for someone that can offer them a reprieve from the chaos. Children are needing this from their parents. Employees are needing this from their bosses.

People are needing calm in their lives, and if it's meant to be, it's up to me. That's what my mom always said. If it's meant to be, it's up to me, and so if you are needing calm right now, be the calm. Learn how to tap into your calm, and by you doing so, it's going to help so many people in your life, and I believe in the butterfly effect. I believe one person changing can have a ripple effect that can ripple out thousands and thousands of miles, and that's what I want this week to do.

The Week of Calm is meant to be that ripple effect. We get an amazing group of people together, all with the intention of creating more calm, more space, more joy, and the impact of that, I believe, is going to be immense. So if you want to be a part of that, if you want to learn these tools and techniques that continue to help me access calm and some crazy, chaotic circumstances, come and join me. You can go to schoolofselfimage.com/calm. It is absolutely free.

However, I do encourage you to join us as a VIP if it feels like a good fit for you. There are some extra perks to being a VIP, such as being able to keep the recordings, getting to come to some calm confessions in the afternoons with me and some special guests, as well as some other perks. So check it out and commit to cultivating your calm. It'll be one of the best gifts that you can give yourself and the people you love. schoolofselfimage.com/calm.

I hope to see you there. All right, my friends, let's dive into today's topic, which is all about conscious consumption. I've been sitting here for about two hours, waiting for the landscapers next door to finish up, and it looks like they're here for the day. So I was like, "Okay, let me just continue. Let me tap into my own calm and keep the show going," which is what we're doing.

I hope you don't hear too much of the noise, but it is present, but anywho, let's talk about conscious consumption. One of the key ways that I create calm is being very conscious about what I allow into my life. Anytime I go unconscious or I'm not mindful, I've noticed that my anxiety will creep up and I'll notice that I feel like I'm out of harmony with myself. It's one of the reasons why we talk about, within the School of Self-Image, environment, our surroundings so much because they have such an impact on how we think and how we feel, how we show up, and the results that we create. Our environment informs our self-image, and our self-image creates our entire lives.

And so while we do work on mindset a lot, we do it through the lens of our environment as well. There was a study done by Harvard, where they realized that the number one predictor of someone's success is what they refer to as your reference group, the people that you look at and reference as to what you should be doing with your life, with what's possible, and it's why you start to put yourself in different rooms around different people, you increase what is possible for you because you're consuming different ideas, different thoughts, different energies. And so if you want to change your life, one of the quickest and fastest ways to do it is to start consciously consuming what you want to become. If you want to become healthy, consume healthy people, healthy ideas, healthy books, healthy foods, and you will become healthy. If you want to become wealthy, put yourself in wealthy environments where you're consuming wealthy ideas, wealthy energies, wealthy perspectives, and you'll notice that your wealth starts to increase just by being in those different environments.

It is that powerful. I've talked about it many times, but for those of you who may be new to me and you don't know a lot about my story, I grew up in the deep South, and the deep South is notorious, unfortunately for obesity. And so I remember growing up and hearing things like, "You need to be healthy," and the way they translate healthy is you got to be big. In fact, I remember coming home after I'd moved to Colorado, and my mom was like, "Girl, you look sick." I actually didn't.

I was just a normal weight, and I'd been hiking and being outside a lot, but to my mom, she's used to having some meat on the bones, and so growing up in the deep South, that was my reference group. I often saw people that were on the healthier side, like the way my mom translates it, and so it makes sense why my self-image over time was like, "That's who you become," and the crazy thing is that I watched it happen with women after they had children. So in the South, it was very common, like once you have a child, you start putting on a lot of weight, and so that's what I did. I was consuming that with my senses, like what I saw, what was surrounding me, that's what I was consuming, and I became overweight, but then, I moved to Colorado and I was consuming different things. I was consuming podcasts around health and wellness, and I was consuming people ...

That sounds weird, but I was consuming the ideas and the lifestyle of the people that I was around, and it became so much easier to lose and maintain weight in a healthy way by being in a very healthy environment, and I've seen this happen too with money. When you grow up in a trailer and you grew up where there are really no examples in your family of people that have gone on to create wealth, that becomes your reference group, and so I had to change my reference group to be those people who were more innovative, more entrepreneurial in order to be able to expand my own self-image, and so again, if you are struggling in some area of your life right now, I want you to notice what you're consuming in your environment. When it comes to consumption, there are basically two types. There are mental consumptions, so information via reading, learning, media, interactions, the people you hang out with, they give you mental inputs. Like you think about what are their thoughts, and perspectives, and ideas, and if you hang out with them long enough, you'll find that you start to adopt a lot of those as your own.

Now, if they are healthy, and they're good, and they're aligned with the future that you want, this is a beautiful thing. You don't have to sit around and do a lot of thought work. It just starts happening. I realize, for me now, this has been one of the things that I've consistently done that has helped me to grow relatively quickly in some areas of my life. Other areas, it took a little bit longer, but I do realize if I would've placed myself in certain environments where the consumptions would be different, I could have fast-tracked certain areas of my growth, but in some areas, it's been pretty fast, and it's because I put myself in these environments. I've placed myself around people, I've consumed books, listened to podcasts, I put myself in certain environments that instantly shook me up to potential new perspectives and new ways of thinking, and therefore fast-tracked my growth and my experience in those areas.

And so paying attention to the people that you're around, the media that you're consuming, I want you all just to scroll through your Instagram and ask yourself, "Is this what I want to become?" Notice a post, notice how it feels, and ask yourself, "Do I want to become this?," and if not, you need to unfollow, you need to block, do whatever you need to do. You need to protect your consumptions. You need to protect your peace, you need to protect yourself by being very conscious about what you consume. The way I like to think about it is imagine that you have this beautiful house, and it's all white furniture, white carpet, white walls.

It's just pristine, and then you open up the door and you let any Joe Blow, just walk in with his dirty shoes, putting them up on the sofa, and you don't say anything. That's how a lot of us are consuming. We have this pristine mind that is up to us to take care of, but we're just letting any old person walk in, offer us thoughts, ideas that don't fit with what we want to create, make us feel terrible, and all we have to do is close the door, and when someone comes up to it, they knock, and you open it. You're like, "Do I want this person to come into my house?," and you get to say no. You get to decide what you consume, and so we have mental consumptions, and then we have physical consumptions. These are the foods and the drinks that we consume.

It's the products that we put on our bodies, and so everything has energy. The foods we eat, the people that we hang out with, what we watch on TV, it all has an energetic frequency, and we have to be mindful, "Is this thing that I'm consuming a frequency that's bringing me down, or is it bringing me up? Does this frequency belong in my future?," and if it doesn't, it's up to you to say no to it, to close the door and say, "You are uninvited." One of the things that we've been doing within the School of Self-Image is teaching the Slim Self-Image method to our platinum members. These are members who are annual members.

One of the concepts that I teach in that program is consuming sexy foods, and we talk about what sexy foods are, but when I think of sexy, I think of vibrant, I think of sensual, I think of aliveness. I think of just being turned on with life. This applies not only to food, but the music you listen to, the people you hang out with. Are the people you're around making you excited about your life? Are they giving you ideas and perspectives that wake you up and make you feel vibrant, and make you feel like you are unstoppable?

Are the books you're reading, are they expanding your mind? Are they offering you new ideas? Are they exciting? Everything around you, you are consuming through your senses, through your taste, through your ears, your eyes, your touch, your smell. You're consuming life at all times.

The question becomes, "Do you want to become that thing that you're consuming?," because if you don't, you need to stop consuming it. I think about Marie Kondo, and when she's doing her whole Marie Kondo method, I think the question she asks is like to hold everything, and ask yourself, "Does it spark joy?" When you think about what you're consuming, what I love to ask is, "Does this serve or belong in my future?" Such a good question. "Does this serve or belong in my future? Is the future me downing three bottles of champagne a night?"

You probably don't need to do it now. "Is the future me hanging out with this person?" If not, maybe if I want to create and design my future on purpose, maybe I need to not hang out with this person. "Is the future me wearing that thing? Am I consuming that item and bringing it into my closet?"

If not, maybe I need to get rid of it, and that brings me to the last point that I want to make. One of the things that I have come to understand is that a beautiful life has more to do with what you subtract than what you add. As we begin to let go of the things that don't serve us, as we stop consuming the unhealthy ideas, the unhealthy foods, the unhealthy products, what we're left with is, I feel like space, and also, we're left with beauty. We're left with what serves us, and of course, we're going to want to add new things in, but a lot of times we're adding, adding, adding without letting anything go, and I'm just a big proponent of decluttering your life mentally, emotionally, and physically. Studies have shown that people are transformed by letting go of things that don't serve them any longer, and so one of the takeaways that I want you to have from this episode is to think about what you are ready to stop consuming.

First of all, the first step is to begin to notice what you're currently consuming and how it feels. "How is it serving your life, and does it serve or belong in your future?," and if not, those are some of the things that you can begin to let go. The power of conscious consumption is not just in what you choose to add, but often, in what you courageously choose to let go. So what are you ready to let go of, my friends? What are you ready to stop consuming?

I'd love to know. Come find me on Instagram, @schoolofselfimage, and let's talk about it. Have a beautiful, beautiful week, my friends, and I will see you in next week's episode. Cheers. Hey, before you go, I want to invite you to join us for a truly transformative experience called the Week of Calm.

In a world filled with challenges from a turbulent economy to personal struggles, it's so easy to be overwhelmed and lose sight of our own well-being. Stress takes its toll on our bodies and our minds, leaving us drained and disconnected, but it doesn't have to be this way, my friend. During the Week of Calm, you will learn powerful lessons and insights that will equip you to navigate any storm with grace and resilience. You'll understand how your mind works and discover effective strategies to combat worry and panic. This mini retreat is not a luxury reserved for select few.

It's accessible to everyone and can truly be life-changing. By choosing calm as a daily decision, you will unlock a superpower that empowers you to build an extraordinary life that you love, and here's the best part, it is absolutely free. You can join us by visiting schoolofselfimage.com/calm. Until next time, stay calm and take care.