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Unknown
Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. Today I have on Lilian, and she's here to share a story with us today to

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Unknown
I would like to tell you how my burnout led to curiosity and how I needed to hit

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bottom in order to figure it out, how I would rather leave the other half of my life.

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Unknown
I just turned 45, and in the past year or so, I have been really thinking about what that means for me because I came here as an immigrant to the United States, and I worked really hard for everything that I wanted in the past 21 years that I have been in this country, but I didn't want to keep going on the same pace that I was because I wanted and I deserved more easy.

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Unknown
My life. When you were so used to working hard and living your life in a way that you were pretty much a marching soldier. It's really challenging to look around and figure it out, that you can change the tone and you can change change the pace. And I have a business. I have owned a branding company for the past nine years, and having the business was even another excuse for me to keep telling myself that I needed to work hard.

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All these years of working really hard, studying and looking for ways to improve myself

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with no empathy for myself at all. I have to say, led to burnout. It led to getting to a point where I kept marching, and I kept walking without any regard for my body and for my mental health.

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Unknown
So the year of 2024 was really hard.

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It was already a year that I arrived in shambles because I was dealing with infertility issues. I was dealing with a little bit of

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Midlife crisis. I was in the middle of a construction of a housing my home town in Brazil. So when I started 2024, I didn't see that I needed to start fresh. It was just the beginning of my crumble

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in a way that I could, like, I needed more time.

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And I guess the universe had to show me in a hard way. Now I could shift days, otherwise I would pretty much die. By the middle of 2024, I started having all kind of

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issues with my health. I was getting a lot of old that would never be completely cured. I got a case of Covid. It almost killed me.

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I like was in bed for a month. I could barely talk.

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I had a lot of mental health issues. I was depressed and it and I could not realize 100% that I needed to rest. And then my body shut down

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and I started revisiting this. And mind you, I had the therapist the whole time. Imagine if I didn't have anybody.

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Unknown
My therapist kept telling me, you need to rest. You need to revisit your business. You need to figure it out. All you want to leave the rest of your life, because otherwise you will want to cut your life short. Pretty much. So we left like that August, September, when October came, I could barely think. By November I was in bed again.

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Unknown
So I decided to take the whole month. So I sold my month of November and the entire month of December to don't work at all. It turned out that I could figure it out. I could delegate more, which is something this. As women especially, we have a big problem delegating. I decided that I would delegate my business for the rest of the year, and I would think so.

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I could live my life with a little bit more lightness and with a little bit more joy. Because when you work too hard on yourself, you forget joy. And without joy, your inner child cannot survive and cannot flourish. And

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what is the point of life without happiness and without joy?

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It was

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during this time. Usually December is when I start thinking about the word of the year.

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For me,

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my word for 2024 was slow,

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and of course it didn't slow at all. It was like I didn't let it flow. So I decided to go instead of finding a word that would be very inspiring. And growing up, I decided to lead with my inner child and find a word that would find me half way that would let me meet my middle, my my inner child half way.

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Unknown
And their word was curiosity. And I am so glad that I picked curiosity because I didn't realize until then how much I missed myself. I really missed being in touch with my real self, because when you start trying to impress people, you become somebody that you are not. I came to this country, I wanted to be somebody and now I just want to come back to myself.

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Unknown
So how was the year of curiosity coming up for me?

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I came home one day, I would say two years ago, with a huge box full of all my diaries from the beginning, when I was nine years old, until I was 22 years old, and this box was just like in a dark closet somewhere in my house. Since then, led lead like I led with curiosity, and I decided to open this box and reconnect with my inner child and reconnect with my past life in Brazil.

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Unknown
And I started writing again. I've always had this passion for writing. I have been reading my diaries and I created a series called From the Beginning where I explore myself like beginning, which like every year I am writing right now about 1998, when the year I turned 18. And because I am reading this diary, I am deeply connected with the person that I was back then.

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Unknown
And I'm writing music. I'm writing poetry. I am writing stories based on that. I am more curious about what my body can do. Maybe all these old stories. Oh, you cannot do yoga. Oh, you are not flexible. How about we try? How about we go out there and we try different things?

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I've been trying different things with my body.

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I have been having conversations that I have been avoiding and that has been deeply healing for me.

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I have been befriending people that I never thought that we would have something in common and turn out the way we do. And I just keep going, like exploring different things that have not been on my radar. But what is possible if you just put down all your beliefs and look around to what can be good for you and what maybe like sometimes one experience that you have can open all this, all the doors.

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Unknown
And I am so glad that I have been doing this this year. It completely changed the way I do things and I've vowed to myself that for the next ten years, curiosity is going to be the ark and all the words of the year are going to be aligned with curiosity, because I finally found my inner child again, and I'm not gonna let her go this time.

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Unknown
There is a beautiful story. Lillian, thank you so much for sharing that.

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Unknown
When you were mentioning curiosity as your word of the year, I did have the thought that curiosity is kind of a lifestyle and I love you and it that, that it's going to be your word of the decade, I guess now and then it will be the underlying theme of kind of everything you do going forward, right?

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Unknown
Yes, absolutely. Is curiosity and, joy, I will do my best to I am I have a kind of a serious, studious personality. So it doesn't come, you know, have some people. It's is just how they are. Like, I have friends that we get to a park. They are 40 something. They go plant trees. This is not me, you know, but, I get to incorporate that because the heads, the likeness and the the happiness that you need to have is beyond the line of your life.

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Unknown
I totally agree, and I can relate to that completely because I feel the same way about me. Like I wish that I was more fun. I have so many friends that are so full of life and I'm like, I wish I could be a little bit more like them, but

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you're right, just experience or just living life with curiosity and just looking at everything with curious eyes I think can really start to open those doors for us.

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Unknown
I'm really intrigued by your diaries that you kept when you were younger. I think that's so fascinating, because that is your basically the most transformative years of your life. Like when you're 10 to 22, you said,

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Unknown
that's crazy. So when you are reviewing these, are you noticed that

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were you a different person? Are you still the same person, like, did you have to suppress this person?

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And now you're trying to become this person again?

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Unknown
Yes, I, I feel that my core is the same. A lot of the questions like, you know, when you were 18, 17, you were not that deep necessarily. But as I read, I understand the environment that I was in, the people that I used to hang out with, the things, the questions that I used to ask myself, it's pretty much the same person.

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Unknown
I am very proud of that girl. That girl like she pushed me to be where I am right now. Although dreams that I had to become like this woman that I am right now. However, I didn't give her all the space that I could. There are a lot of hobbies that I let go in order to work more and to become somebody that I thought that would be more successful.

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Unknown
So I am like, for example, poetry.

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Unknown
I have a Bachelor of Arts, pretty much literature in languages. So I was completely obsessed by that. And I am bringing this back into my life. I opened a new Substack, I started writing there, and I want to keep this going because I feel that when I give space from writing, when I give space to like, I used to write silly songs and like, if every time I'll get a crush, I'll write a song about it, you know, all these things.

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Unknown
As a teenager, I'm doing this again for different situations, and that's the that's the bread for my soul that has been missing. And I am no longer pushing these under the bed. I want this girl to be fully here and yes, maybe a little wiser. I have more experience under my belt. I own that company. There are so many things going on,

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Unknown
but they get to be added as layers, not removing the other person completely.

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Unknown
We cannot be raised our our babies. We, we are that person and it like everything else, it's like clothes, like we are adding those levels that we get to show them or not, depending on the situation that we are. Of course we if we are professional, we are not going to get like all silly all the time. But there are times that we get to be our full selves and and I'm like our inner child.

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Unknown
They they think us for that,

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Unknown
have you been able to bring the curiosity and the creativity into your work as well? Absolutely. Especially nowadays when we have so many tools.

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Unknown
I believe in AI mostly as a tool for creativity other than replacing, a position on replacing your thinking. So using AI has been, for me one of the ways to lead with creativity. My company, especially because I work with some beauty companies that need packaging. So the way that you reimagine the texture of a leaf of a banana leaf, for example, with AI so that it can become something that you can touch on the packaging, all this little things that sometimes you start brainstorming, but then as you do your research, you cannot is limited what you can find.

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Unknown
And when you work with AI, you can hear about other sources and how people in different corners of the world doing things and then integrating this if it makes sense to your work. And not only that, sometimes companies come to me and they think they want one thing that is a very specific box, and I get to like open up the box completely and show them, look around.

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Unknown
There are so many other things that we can do in order to show your personality and show who you are. And that's beautiful. Like sometimes you get to hold people's hands and show them all the things that they they are not used to. And I also want other people to do that for me. We can only know like enough and like it's I always welcome other people's perspectives in order to add to my creativity and to my curiosity.

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Unknown
Because you don't know what you don't know. It's just like you're blind to. Exactly. You have no idea what. Yeah. What's not. How does someone that's not used to thinking in a curiosity mindset start to incorporate more of that into their work and or just daily life?

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Unknown
Oh, that's a very interesting question, and I am glad that you asked.

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Unknown
When I started this journey in the end of the year, I was so dry, so dry, I could not do anything. I was crying every day and I didn't even know how to move past that space. So I, I thought to myself, if you can find one activity, one activity that brings you a little bit of joy in from there, maybe you can find like the doors with that open little by little for you.

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Unknown
For me, there was coloring. I do a lot of like I have tossed this entire chair here is full of coloring books, so I just call it. I start coloring books, to show to like, just have some little joy. These ones are actually empty because I just brought, just about them, but just at coloring, I started coloring things like silly trees.

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Unknown
Girls from canes. And little by little, I started, like, I started also doodling a little bit. And then I started creating song lyrics. So one thing is sparked, another one and another one. You are not gonna open the gate and things will flood to you because you will dry. You might be dry, but if you let a little things that quickly, then you will want to see the volume of the water start up a little bit, and then things will start slow in the normal pace for you.

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Unknown
But if you can find the one thing that might lead to curiosity and creativity, maybe you go on a walk. Maybe you are not used to going in a walk. And instead of bringing your phone and listening to music, listen to the birds. Or maybe you go to a yoga class or meditation class. Maybe you want to cook, some times I find that if I want to just rest my nervous system, I'm not a great cook.

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Unknown
But I still go to the kitchen. I start thinking what my grandmother used to cook with me when I was a child, and I start with creating those recipes. And then I sit down. I invite a friend, we talk about the recipe, we eat the cake, and these little things. They add up.

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Unknown
So I guess my next question would be, is this a daily practice for you, or does it become a daily practice?

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Unknown
Or is this just like, is it like meditation kind of where you just like as soon as you notice, you just kind of tune in? How does it work to start to build it a little bit more?

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Unknown
In all honesty, in the beginning I forced myself to sit on this very desk and call her every day at 6 a.m. I would sit here and I would call her like I wanted to start creating a habit, and it worked.

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Unknown
But everybody's different, right? And now I don't follow every day. But every day I do something creative. Or at least I do a little meditation for five minutes in the morning, and I let that be. If my day is a little hectic, but if you can find a little something, even if it's two minutes every day to take care of your soul to feed your creativity, I highly recommend that because it's your sacred space.

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Unknown
I relate to what you said about feeling like dry and, trying to find the things that kind of light you up and bring you the joy and make you feel like you're living there again. So lately, for me, that has been dance.

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Unknown
And this podcasting, but dance especially because it also gets the body moving as well. And I'm sure, you know, like any time you get your body moving, you can also just physically shake off the, the, the feeling, the energy might not. Well,

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Unknown
so, I was having a really hard time with work in early spring, and I actually made the decision to dance less because I was so stressed out with work.

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Unknown
But

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Unknown
this is a great reminder that even if I feel stressed and there's no time on the calendar and I'm just completely overwhelmed if it's giving me energy or not giving the energy, if it's like filling my, you know, life and fun cup, it should also be prioritized, even if I'm tired and I don't feel like going at the beginning.

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Unknown
You feel that especially when you're tired and you're not feeling it. And I hear you, I have this. I try to do at least, half an hour of like, I am old fashioned. I love a DVD on the on the TV half an hour, you know, like, cardio. And when I'm exhausted and cranky, I really push myself to go and do it.

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Unknown
I feel so much better after. Like, the movement of the energy through your body and the release of all those feelings that are trapped on your body. It's it's insane how this works. And it works, right? It's not only about sitting down and and working through a meditation. I agree with you 100%. Moving your body brings a lot of benefits when it comes to creativity.

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Unknown
Do you feel that it also helps the creativity flow better as well?

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Unknown
Yes. Every time I go on a walk, I come back with way more ideas that when I when I lift it, they look like you see something different, you see something unexpected and it is your body you like only you were walking through. Like unless something happens during the walk, the goal is that you are going to come back more relaxed in relaxation invites creative.

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Unknown
So why not.

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Unknown
we've covered so much and there has been so much information on this in this podcast for someone that's looking to bring more curiosity and creativity into their lives.

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Unknown
Is there anything else you feel you need to add to someone that's embarking on this journey for the first time?

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Unknown
Yes, I would say be kind to yourself because sometimes we want the results right away. I am the kind of person I used to be merciless with myself, my hardest critic. And that's not how you invite creativity in your life.

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Unknown
You get to hug yourself, hold yourself,

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Unknown
let yourself know that you are okay no matter what, because creativity only flows from safety. You cannot be in war with yourself and expect flowers. You get to sit down, hug yourself, let yourself cry a little. If you need, release, a little bit of resentment, release tension. And when you are a little bit calmer, then you get to create.

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Unknown
Be kind because

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Unknown
things are not going to come right away. But if you are patient and you are kind with yourself, you will want to see the difference.

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Unknown
That's a very powerful insight. I've never heard it put that way that, where did you say creativity only flows from safety?

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Unknown
But when you say it, it makes so much sense because I think this was a download.

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Unknown
Because I didn't like I didn't think about it. I just think

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Unknown
beautiful, beautiful. If people want to find out more about you or they love this conversation and they want to continue it with you, where can people find you? Lillian.

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Unknown
They can find me, on at Lillian santini.com. And they can also find me at figments Dot club, where that's the place where I write, where I post my music, where I post my diary series so you can find me there.

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Unknown
Thank you for having me. You so much. I will also link those two links in the description or the show notes wherever you're listening. Yeah. Lovely. Lovely story. Lillian, thank you so much for coming on and sharing today. Thank you.

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Unknown
If you live in Windsor, Essex County area

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Unknown
then you should know that I host an open mic live storytelling event the last Saturday of every month at Alo Lounge on Erie Street in Little Italy from 5 to 7 p.m..

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Unknown
If you don't know what open mic storytelling is, while I encourage anyone to come up and share their story,

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have different themes. Every month. The event celebrates connection, our humanness, our emotions,

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Unknown
It gives us space to really express ourselves and to have people listen. Because I feels like

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Unknown
we don't really get too much of this

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Unknown
anymore.

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Unknown
It is essentially a gathering of the souls and sharing a little part of ourselves with each other, whether it be a funny story, a sad story, a happy story, a romantic story, any story that is yours

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Unknown
you can share

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Unknown
and I'm loving the community that is coming from this event. So

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Unknown
come to the event. I hope to see you there. You can purchase tickets at tales of the town aka.