073 - Rhythms and Mindset with Allie Casazza
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Our guest today is Allie Casazza:
Allie Casazza is the host of The Purpose Show - a top-rated podcast - and the creator of online courses that have earned her international attention for her fresh, practical lifestyle strategies for moms. Known as 'The Life Minimalist', she encourages and inspires women to pursue abundant life by creating space for what matters most. Allie and her husband, Brian, live with their four young children in Southern California wine country.
Resources from this episode:
Show Notes:
I've been following Allie Casazza for a little while now, and I love her heart, her work, her family, and all that her business stands for. We are passionate about so many of the same things, and I love her conviction about building a life that serves you, happening to your day, being the CEO of your own home, stepping into the authority that you have as a believer.
Listen, this episode gets hype. It's inspiring. It's challenging, and it's full of practical advice that will help you in your actual life. We're going to be talking about healthy rhythms and mindsets, and I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. I don't know if that's possible, but I hope you do.
Click play above to listen in, or read through our conversation below!
Nancy Ray: Allie, what a joy it is to have you on the Work and Play Podcast. Welcome. I would love for you to just take a minute and share a little bit about who you are, your family, and what you do.
Allie Casazza: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me, Nancy. I really appreciate it. I'm excited to talk with you. This is going to be so fun.
Nancy: I know. You too.
Allie: Yeah. Okay. My name is Allie. I have been married to my husband Brian for, oh my gosh, almost 13 years, I just realized that, and we have four kids. So my oldest is my only girl. She's 11, and then I've got three boys back-to-back-to-back. They are nine, eight, and five. That's my family. I live in Southern California, kind of in the wine country area. I grew up here. I love it here.
And in work, I have a business that helps women, especially moms, really just kind of take a look at their lives and how things are going and really simply, and just kind of step back and look at what is serving you, what is not, what needs to be pruned and released from your life so you have more time and energy for what really matters to you. Because of that and because of the work that I do, people have started calling me The Life Minimalist, which I love and I accept with gratitude.
I think it's perfect because it's like the perfect words or phrase to describe who I am and what I do with the women that I work with. That's who I am.
Nancy: I love that you said that because I literally was brainstorming this list right before we started this podcast, and I was like, okay, what are the words that come to my mind when I think of Allie? And I think it used to be like minimalism, right? Like home declutter, minimalism, but I just kept writing. I was like minimalist? Momma? Home school? Businesswoman? Podcaster? Now you're like all about mindset, and now you're going to be an author, and it really is. I think you've expanded to really encompass all of life because we're learning, and that's what I want to talk to you about today, is we're learning it's all connected.
It's not just one thing, but we are whole people. I just love that. I think you are a life minimalist, and I love that so much.
Allie: Yeah, thank you. That feels good. It's weird when you're in a business and you're evolving as a person, but you already built an audience that wants a specific thing from you, and you're like, "I don't want to just talk about that. I want to branch out." And to just do that boldly and then hear positive feedback is really helpful. So thank you.
Nancy: Yeah, absolutely. And I am one of your audience. I want you to know, I listen to your podcast.
Allie: You're in courses too, right?
Nancy: Oh, yeah, girl. I was just about to say that.
Allie: I recognize your name.
Nancy: I literally have bought your courses. I bought two of them with my own real money. I love them. They're great. I just love what you have to say, and I think my favorite thing about you is just the fact I'm like, I'm excited to have a conversation with her because I think you're the same person wherever you are. You're full of integrity. I don't feel like you're the kind of person who would ever put on a front. You just are who you are. We've never met before right now, but I feel like I'm about to have a conversation with a good friend that I can be very real with. And I think that's a gift.
Allie: Thank you.
Nancy: I'm really thankful for that in you.
Allie: Yeah, thank you so much.
Nancy: Today, I really want to talk about establishing healthy rhythms, and even more than that, healthy mindsets and how the two are really linked together. Because just as you said, you have built an audience on minimalism and on healthy rhythms and doing things in a way that's fulfilling and good and building a life that serves you. I'm excited because I think all of this is really going to resonate with my audience as it resonates with me, but I would love for you to just start by speaking to why rhythms are so important. Why is it so important to establish healthy rhythms in our lives?
Allie: I think to understand the importance, we have to make sure we understand what they are and how they work because that really... Everything stems from there. Rhythms are basically... They're more like habits than they are a routine. Honestly, call it whatever you want. It's just something that's serving you. It's something that you put into your day that you set up habitually so that you are burning, as I say it, less brain calories on the basic everyday decisions that are going to need to be done no matter what, regardless.
Rhythms are for the things that have to get done for your home and your family, the things that just need to be functioning for all of that to run smoothly. Here's what I mean by that. We have to have clean clothes to wear. Our kids have to have clean clothes to wear, and we have to have clean dishes to eat off of. We have to have food to eat, right? Those are all basic things that must be done. They must be ready all the time. What do we usually do? We usually react.
"Oh my gosh, you don't have any clean underwear for school today? Crap. I need to get on that now. Today I'm going to switch everything and react to this occurent and have a laundry and catch up, even if you have some kind of a routine. Because everyone has a routine, right? As my friend Kendra always says, everybody has a routine. It's just that's usually a routine of chaos. It's not an intentional routine.
Nancy: That's so true.
Allie: Because we're routine by nature. But even if you have some kind of a positive routine, usually it's a little bit reactive. And rhythms really kind of are more like this, I've got to get all these things done all the time every week regardless, regardless of even like illness sometimes. You have to push through. Not everyone else is sick in your home, so you got to keep going. If you work or if you stay home, whatever your situation is, these are things that must get done for my family to be fed and clothed and for things to function smoothly.
There's also other things too, I'm just using food and clothing as an example. So instead of me being reactive and me having to think, "Okay, we're running low on clean underwear, I better do laundry," I'm going to say, "I'm going to set laundry into a rhythm." Where for me, because my family size is large and we are very busy, active family, I change clothes a few times a day for video shoots and stuff like that. There's just a lot of laundry. My kids get dirty. All that. I do a load of laundry pretty much every morning.
Okay? I get a load of laundry done. So, I'm going to set that into a rhythm where in the evening, (it used to be different, but this is what we’re doing now) I start a load of laundry. In the morning, I switch the load. And then after I have lunch, I finish the load. I fold the one that went into the dryer, and I put it all away.
So every day without me really having to think about it, I've got these little rhythms set up, and they're connected to anchor events. Okay? So the rhythm is getting the laundry done. The rhythm is putting a load in when I get ready for bed at night, switching the load after I wake up in the morning, and then finishing the load after I eat lunch.
Those are things that I'm usually home for, so I can attach those rhythms to the anchor event of going to bed, waking up, and eating food. Now I'm not making any decisions. Now I'm not reacting and trying to fill in the holes in my day of my family's laundry issues. I have so many good things to do with my brain. I'm running a company. I'm creating jobs. I'm raising the next generation. I've got purpose coming out of my ears.
I am here for my life and my purpose.
I have way better things to use my precious brain calories on each day than if I should do laundry or not.
I just set it in a rhythm and forget it. That's kind of what a rhythm looks like versus reacting, and same with dishes and food. I set up rhythms to plan our meals and rhythms for who's going to cook what night and rhythms for grocery shopping. Every Monday we have a grocery delivery come from Instacart that I ordered the night before. There's weekly rhythms. There's daily rhythms. There can even be seasonal rhythms. Whatever you need. But the point is I'm not in reactive mode anymore and I am setting things that must get done regardless into automation as if I'm a businesswoman for my personal life, because I am. I'm the CEO of my home.
Nancy: I feel like we all need to take that attitude about ourselves. And as moms, we are that. As the women in our home, we are that. We need to take our god given authority and show up and command our home and our life. But it's so true. I think just becoming a mother in general kind of wrecks you. You get this tiny baby and you're like, all of the rhythms and things that I have known for so long are now turned on its head, and then you have your rhythms change as your kids grow. I'm in that kind of middle ground of like, okay, I have one kid in diapers, one that was potty trained a little while ago, one that's about to go to kindergarten.
I think I remember you talking about this at some point where it used to be that your morning routine was like a 5:30 AM every single day thing and then later on you were sleeping in. You could get coffee and go out to the back porch because your kids could actually make breakfast for themselves, which is still mind-boggling to me. I'm not there yet. But can you speak a little bit to how... Rhythms are so important, but how it's also important to allow our rhythms to change and continue to address them so that they do work for us in the different seasons we're in.
Allie: I think it really all comes back to how are you feeling. Do you feel like there's more stress in your days all of a sudden? It probably goes back to what you're doing and how things in your life used to serve you, but they're not anymore, because we have all those people too. Your schedule will change. Your work will change. Things will shift in your life. You will change as a person. I mean, there's literally seasons where I am such an early bird and other seasons where I really feel like I want to be a night owl and I'm drawing more to that.
And I have to find a healthy balance as needed, but I'm going to go where my creative energy is flowing. If I feel like I'm inspired to work and it's 10:00 PM, I'm going to grab my laptop and get that email idea out. I'm going to do what I need to do because I'm not stuck in a season with my kids where they're little, they're not sleeping through the night. There was a season where I was really kind of I always say like happily tied to my kids because they were little. There was no like, "Hey, you need to go to bed because I said so, because you're six." They were babies and toddlers and it just didn't work that way.
Nancy: Right.
Allie: Then it was more around them for sure, but now it's not. Now it's more around me and they know my boundaries and they have their own kind of schedule. They have their own things to do. They make their own breakfast. We connect when it's lunch and dinner time together. It's just different. Not only are you evolving as a person, but your kids are also evolving. Your lifestyle is evolving. We get so stuck in motherhood thinking, "This is just the way it is," and it's not.
It literally is changing so fast and so often, it just doesn't feel that way when you're really bogged down in the mud of that season that you're in right now, Nancy. So it feels like, I can't even imagine that, and I'm thinking, my gosh, she is going to be out of that so fast because I'm on the other side.
Nancy: Right.
Allie: It's important to check in with how you're feeling. Are you feeling extra stressed right now? There's something in your rhythms that could give you freedom. You've just got to feel into what time of day is feeling stressful? When do you feel like you kind of start to lose it and your way more likely to snap at your kids? Usually it's around 3:00 or 4:00 in the afternoon. What could you do? How could you set something in a rhythm to alleviate that pressure? Maybe you stop cooking dinner at night. Maybe you just stop.
Maybe you crock pot it every day in the morning and it's just done for you, so you don't have that added pressure at a tough time of day to also create a healthy meal. You do that when you have high energy in the morning. You see kind of what I'm doing? You brainstorm through your problems and they literally don't exist anymore. You have control over your life. You're the boss. It doesn't matter what's always been done or what even you've always done or what your kids wish you would do. What's going to make you the best version of yourself for you and your family and your purpose?
Set that into automation whenever you can so that your brain calorie and your energy and your decision-making brain juice is used for what you really need it to be used on. And that is not, "Uh, what are we going to eat today? Do we even have clean clothes for tomorrow? Well, is the house picked up?" Don't waste time and mental energy on that.
Set it into automation and set yourself free.
Nancy: I think what I'm hearing too is it's really important to just take a step back and think. And that's hard to do sometimes because we get conditioned, and we condition ourselves. It's our own self that's doing this, but we just get into the rut or we do things a certain way and we think that they can't be done any other way. And I just want to give anybody listening the permission today for five minutes to step back and just ask yourself these questions. What's working for me in the season I'm in? What's not working for me? And what can I do about it to change that?
I think that's so good. Also, you totally read my mail because I have a crockpot dinner in my crockpot downstairs. It's literally something I've been doing so much more now, because it's just so stressful that time of day. Everyone's melting down. They're all three hungry and I'm just trying to hold them off until dinner, and I'm like, okay, it's one less thing I have to do. I think it's really important to recognize we have the capacity in our minds to create and establish these lives that we want, and it doesn't have to look the way that it's always looked before. And that's freeing. Just to hear that is freeing.
Allie: For sure. And this all goes back to what I'm always saying is becoming an action-taking, problem-solving woman rather than a woman who is reactive and kind of like in this subconscious victim mode. That's kind of the mentality is like, "Oh, well, it's just my season. Well, my kids are this. Well, you don't understand. I have this or this special needs kid, or this issue with my husband, or he's in the military, or he's always gone." Yes, I see you. You are so seen and so loved and so important. I see all of you. However, you have been given these things for a reason.
Do you want to be an action-taker, or do you want to solve the problems, or do you want to allow them to overwhelm you and take you down? You're stronger than that.
Coming at your life and your circumstances from an action-taking, problem-solving perspective rather than a “woe is me” perspective, that's your choice.
Life is hard. We all have things for sure. Some of us more than others, and some us more in different seasons than others. But what are you going to do about it? It's your choice and only you can control how you're thinking about things and what you're doing to make things better for you and your family.
Because the hard truth is... And I don't mean this to sound super negative, it's just what it is, is I always say, “no one's coming to get you.” It's on you. You've got to stand up, rise up, and decide right now that things get to be easy and good and fun for you. And automation in your life will do that for you. When you automate those things that have to get done, you are so freed up. You are such an amazing, confident CEO of your life. That you took action. You solved those problems yourself.
You took ownership over your life and over your days, and you showed up in a way that really freed you up. And now you're a better mom, a better wife, a better friend, a better daughter, a better, happier person. You're a better version of yourself. And so we have to think about it like that and get an aerial perspective over our lives and stop being in this place of, "Well, it's just too hard. Well, Allie just doesn't understand. Well, I have this," and decide, these are the cards I've been dealt, how am I going to take action here?
Nancy: 100%. And decision fatigue is a real thing. I mean, when we are bogged own by all the different decisions that we have to make every day, including all of the household tasks that are just flung at us it seems sometimes, that does become very reactionary. But what happens is our brains get tired of trying to decide what to do every day or how to solve this problem or how to take care of this need. When just a little bit of planning and thoughtfulness and, again, stepping into that mindset of I am CEO, I've been given a brain. I've been made in His image.
I can step into this role and own it and not be living in a pity party, because I really believe the enemy wants us to stay in the background, in a pity party, feeling bad for ourselves, when really we have such abundance right here, right now, but it all is this battlefield in our minds. Can you talk a little bit about how the rhythms that we set are tied to the mindset? Because I feel like you keep talking about, get out of the pity party, get out of this victim mentality, but that doesn't start with setting rhythms in our life.
That starts with our brains. That starts with our mindset. So speak a little bit to how rhythms and mindset are connected? What does this look like? Why is mindset so important?
Allie: Yeah. Mindset is important because it's everything. Everything stems from that. There's a lot of confusion I think in the Christian circle about the power of the mind and the power of what your mindset is about your life in general and the specific areas of your life. Your mindset about your marriage is a certain way, and that mindset you have about your relationship is helping you or hurting you from making decisions. You act out of that. You speak, and you think, and you act out of that mindset you have about your marriage. Let's keep this marriage example.
This is why when you're scrolling through Instagram and somebody posts a really powerful quote about marriage and just kind of like helps you check yourself and get a different perspective on how you've been acting and how you've been speaking with your spouse, you kind of feel like, I have a different perspective. It shifts you. And the rest of the day it kind of sticks with you and you notice how much you have not been in that mindset, how much your mindset has been off kilter.
It's not aligned with how you really want to be, but things happen, circumstances happen, words were exchanged, things occurred in your marriage that formed your mindset because you were not in ownership of it. You were allowing your mindset to be shaped by circumstances. We have a mindset about our marriage, our children, our motherhood, ourselves, our body, our wellness. You can heal yourself with prayer and the power of the mind. This is my strategy for living, giving it to God and saying, "I am open to receiving the good you have for me in my marriage. Show me the goodness I have to be grateful for."
And he does and that shapes my mindset from what it was before, being ungrateful, nitpicking at everything, feeling like I'm not being helped enough by my husband, blah, blah, blah, whatever lie it was that day. Mindset is everything. I don't really understand the disconnect with the whole mind and Christian thing, but I've dealt with it my whole life, and it really is just... It's not serving anyone to not admit that we have been made in the image of the most powerful creator, the ultimate creator, God. He is the ultimate source of abundance and love, and we are literally formed from his image.
And He wants to co-create a good life with us. He doesn't tell us that we're worthless and nothing and stupid and powerless, and we just have to reach out to him for everything. No. He says, "You are a daughter of the king, and you are made in my image. You have been given this power. The power of life and death is in the tongue. Guard your heart. Watch your thoughts. As a man thinketh, so is he." It's over and over and over again. So honestly, I get upset when I hear about this disconnect because it's total junk. It's not serving anybody. So that is there. That's the reality.
And if we know that and we admit that and we accept it, then we can say, "Okay. My life is feeling messy. I'm feeling a little depressed. I'm feeling really low. I'm feeling really behind all the time. I'm not enjoying my motherhood," like whatever your recognized feelings are, look at them, give them a name, admit that they're your feelings, and then ask, where is this coming from?
What stories have I been told or have I been telling myself in my mindset that have given me the mindset I have about this part of my life?
And everything comes back to stories, because the stories that you tell yourself in your mind that motherhood has to be hard, if it's not hard, then you're not doing a good enough job. I work with a lot of women that have issues with a relative, like a mother-in-law will make them feel like if you're not on your feet all day, if you're not cooking home-cooked meals, if you're not doing everything this way, then you're feeling, "I never did that that way when I had a husband." We have these little situations that are different for each of us depending on our family and our upbringing and our stories.
These stories echo in us. They form our mindset. So then you don't do things that way. You don't do things the way this relative says you should do them, or you think you should do them. You can't meet these impossible standards and internal expectations, so that formed your mindset to be, "I'm failing." And when that's your subconscious mindset, that affects you. You carry that every day. And because motherhood is so loud and noisy, it's really hard to tap into what's going on in the unconscious side of your brain, right?
That takes stillness and awareness, but we can call on the Holy Spirit to bring those things to life for us, and we can hear this podcast episode and be grateful for the opportunity to recognize this issue and learn. And then create that five minute space in the shower even and just stand there and ask God to show you. Where is my mindset off in my role as a mom or as a business owner or whatever it is for you? Mindset is everything. Everything stems from that and that's where rhythms and mindset are connected.
If you have a mindset of: okay, I see my stories. I'm going to rewrite them. I'm giving them up. I'm giving them to God. I'm rewriting them. We're going to go a different way. I'm now an action-taker. I'm a problem-solver, and I'm coming at my life from that mindset.
That's the motivation to even create rhythms. No one wants to create rhythms when they're feeling depressed and they fail every day, right? That's where the tie is in my opinion.
Nancy: I feel like in my early 30s, so right now I'm 33, I have been learning everything that you've been saying from the Lord like over and over and over again. Like Him teaching me: Your mind, that's where the battle is. That's where it starts. That is where scripture talks about taking every thought captive for Christ. Just saying all that out loud, I feel so inspired and convicted to not mess around with this. It's a big deal for us to really analyze what are the thoughts we're thinking. Have you read that book by Caroline Leaf, Switch On Your Brain? Have you heard of that?
Allie: Oh yeah. I've read it a couple times. So good.
Nancy: So good. Yeah, so good. And I love that she talks about so many things that you've said, but that we were made in the image of God, and he gave us a brilliant brain. And we need to use that brain. We shouldn't just set it aside. I don't know what it... I agree with you. There's something weird about our Christian culture, and I think there is like this... I don't know.
Allie: Like a disconnect.
Nancy: It is a disconnect. I know you talked about affirmations, and I know we've talked about... That's an important part of training your mind is speaking things out loud, because sometimes your ears need to hear it for your mind to believe it.
Allie: Absolutely.
Nancy: But I feel like in the Christian world, affirmations can be viewed as like hokey or new age-y or weird. Did you ever think that they were weird? And can you just talk about the importance of actually not just thinking it, not just working on your mind quietly, but saying those things out loud as a believer, what does that do?
Allie: Well, first of all, I've gone through a lot on this particular journey for me and my faith, because I was raised... I wasn't just raised Christian. I was raised in a very, very overly religious traditional Christian religion. Not really as much by my parents, but at the school I went to. And that's where I spent most of my time because our school days were really, really long because it was private school. It was longer than usual, and you're there Monday through Friday. That's where I grew up. I really struggled coming out of this. I had a lot of issues. I had some depression.
I had a disconnect with who is God and what am I then? I was taught that we are lowly, and we are basically just worms. We're nothing, and we can't do anything for ourselves. There's nothing within us. Everything is just God. Well, yes, God is everything, but He also adores us and He made us in His image. And we are fearfully and wonderfully made. And He wants to be in us, with us, through us, beaming out of every part of our body and working with us in our lives. I mean, some things were thrown around about that, but the main teaching was very harsh.
For me, I as a person have opened up to God made a living earth. Everything has energy. The stars are alive. They're in the shapes of people and things that are on earth. He connected the sky and the earth. Everything, the planets, the sun, in perfect harmony. This is intentional. We serve an intentional God. Nothing is by mistake. I do believe in things like essential oils, that the earth has healing elements, rocks and crystals, everything. He created an energetic alive beautiful world to heal us, inspire us, connect with us.
And when it comes to our words and our thoughts, do you really think that he would create this earth like this with all of these healing elements, all this beauty, all of the things that restore our physical bodies, these beautiful amazing tasty berries and leaves and all these things, and then be like, "Oh, but your words don't really matter though. Just come to me, I'll handle it."
Nancy: When he actually spoke those things into existence with words.
Allie: Exactly. We're made in his image and everything that is was spoken out. And I think that even in looking at scripture, it's very clear that he spoke, and it's a lot of annunciation on that God spoke and that God breathed. Throughout scripture, there's an annunciation on when God spoke and when he breathed. Our breath has power. You can literally calm yourself down and dissipate anxiety by breathing. And so I think in the Christian community, there's this tendency to look outward and hope like, "God, please hear me. Please hear me. I need help."
And God is like, "My beautiful child, fearfully and wonderfully made, breathe. Look inside yourself. I am here with you. I am in you. I am through you. I am here. Breathe. Use the power that I have given you. Come to me and I will give you rest. Speak life. The power of life and death is in the tongue. Speak life." So for me, knowing all of these things, I have realized how powerful my thoughts are, how powerful the words that I say are, and I have decided to use them for good. So even just this morning, I spent about 20 minutes solid working through positive words over the different areas of my life.
Sometimes I do one specific area if I'm struggling. Like right now my biggest focus is healing a hormonal disorder that I've had since I was 17. I've really been convicted in my walk with God to stop looking to the doctors, stop allowing them to threaten me with surgeries and medicine. I know I can be healed. I know that a homeopathic way is the right way for me, and I am using my words as a part of that for sure. Speaking things out like, because I am made in the image of God, I speak my hormones into perfect balance. In Jesus' name, my hormones are in perfect harmony.
I am balanced. I am well. I am whole. I am healthy and fit and strong. It is easy for me to make healthy food choices. It is easy for me to move my body every day. I get so much sunshine. My hormones have to balance. I sit in the sun. I sit with the face of God turned toward me and my hormones are in perfect harmony because he says, "Yes, they are." What I just said was incredibly powerful. You can't argue that that... No one can argue like, I didn't feel anything. That's nothing. If there's something we can do, do it. Do this over your motherhood. I have affirmations for each of my kids.
I see their strength, I see their struggles, and I speak life over all of that. We're adopting right now. We're going to be adopting a child from the foster care system that basically lost all hope. I don't know who she is yet, and we've had to pause paperwork while we finish our taxes for this year, because self-employment and adoption don't go super well together. They're like hunting us down for anything they can find. "Make sure you fill this out." We're dealing with doing with all that.
But as I wait, as the taxes get filed, you bet I am speaking life over that little girl, because I know she's already born and I know she exists. And I'm saying things like, she will know me when she sees me. Even now wherever she is, whatever trouble she's in, she feels my love right now. She feels the love of her God right now. Come on. This is so much more powerful than just muttering a prayer passively, because that's what you were taught to do, and not feeling any power. Taking it back to even the mundane things, I am the CEO of my life. I am the CEO of my home.
I run my home with grace and ease and confidence. I am an action-taker. I am a problem-solver. My brain is powerful, and I use it to bring peace into my families, existent into my home. Our home is a place where brokenness is healed. Our home is a place where joy exudes through every window, every opening. There is just joy. And that's really powerful, so yes to affirmations. I speak life over my family, over myself, over my business, over my daughter who's out there somewhere, over my bio kids, over everything constantly.
And you know what else happens is this is where people get uncomfortable, and I'm going to just take us there because I feel like God's encouraging me to do that.
Nancy: Yeah, do it.
Allie: You can edit this out if you hate it.
Nancy: No, no, no. Go for it.
Allie: Okay. So here's the thing that happens. Nancy, you tell me. As I was speaking out affirmations, did you feel anything in yourself kind of like rising up, like rising higher as I was speaking?
Nancy: Oh, I'm like almost in tears, Allie. I feel like something shifts in the spiritual realm when those words are spoken. And I'm like literally in the verge of tears, and I bet people listening will feel the same way, because it's like you're taking the authority that God has intended for us all along.
Allie: Exactly. Exactly. Here's the thing, let's look at science for just one second. In the words of Dr. Caroline Leaf, since you brought her up, and in my experience, the more scientists try to learn and discover things, the more science echo scripture. And scripture has been saying what science is "revealing" for centuries. They're married to each other. What science shows us is already in scripture. This new study in Time Magazine about the power of words, this is scriptural. The power of meditation, it will take your anxiety, the power of meditating and stillness, this is scriptural.
But the Christian community has such a disconnection with all of those things. And I really think it's just the Western Christianity, the modern Christianity has become so afraid because of the new age movement. And there's this massive disconnect and like, "Okay, this is woo-woo. This is new age. This is weird, but this is Christian, and this is the way we do things, and this is the way that it's okay, and this is what's not." I think that that's one of the biggest things... That's like a crime that we as Christians could do, is to be close-minded and not look at what scripture is saying.
Look at how do you feel when you sit with your legs crossed and your palms up and you breathe? You feel good. How do you feel when words are spoken by you, your own voice, over your life? That's what I was about to say, is when I was speaking, I felt inside of myself something rising higher. I felt like I was rising up, and I know you felt that too. Everything is energy. Okay? So call it energy, call it vibrations, whatever is comfortable for you. Whatever is uncomfortable, find a different word. It's just words. It's just verbiage. But the fact is that everything is energy.
We live in a living, breathing world.
We live in living, breathing bodies until they're not anymore, right? Words have power. Did you know that if you speak negatively to a plant it will die? And if you speak positively to it, it will grow faster and get greener? It's literally...
Nancy: That's hilarious. I did not know that.
Allie: It's literally proven. When I do that and I'm speaking these words, your energy, it's rising. Your energy is rising. You're raising that inner beautiful vibration because you're a living human being. When you speak affirmations, it's not just like, "Wow, I feel good." You literally change your chemistry. You're changing DNA. Words can literally change DNA. This is the power of God in us. So we've got to wake up and we've got to stop these stories of, "That's weird. I think I read that in a new age thing." Everything can be new age. You can make anything weird. Anything can be too much.
Anything can be taken too far. Of course. But we've got to take this power that God's given us and we've got to use it to, how can I run my home better? How can I be a better version of myself for the people that I love? How can I make things simpler for myself? I'm going to speak out life and joy and abundance and ease because I have that power and I'm going to use it, instead of just sitting on it and acting like it doesn't exist and not using it.
Nancy: I think the visual that I'm getting is just being this conduit of energy for the Holy Spirit. I think new age would say, "It's energy or vibrations," or whatever, because they don't have they don't have the context to know that that's... No. The Lord is alive and real. And when I start to feel that and my spirit rise up, kind of like you're talking, I'm like, that's the spirit of God in us. I was literally reading I think it was 2 Corinthians 4, maybe 1 Corinthians 4, I don't know, one of those, where it literally says we can have the mind of Christ and the Holy Spirit is the only one who knows the thoughts of God...
I'm going to paraphrase this. This is Nancy's version of the bible. Who can know the thoughts of a man except that man's spirit? Only that man knows his thoughts. But guess what? The Holy Spirit knows the thoughts of God. Scripture actually says this. The Holy Spirit knows the deep thoughts of God. And guess what? That Holy Spirit lives in us and can reveal to us those thoughts. And then it ends out the chapter, you have the mind of Christ, and I was just like blown away. Holy cow. We actually get access to what the Lord is thinking and saying over the world, over things that are happening, over us, over specifically our family, our children, our husband, our lives.
And if we hear something from him, why would we just let that fall silent? Why wouldn't we speak that and share that and move in that, or do the thing he said for us to do? I think it boils down to focusing the language and the energy, vibrations, whatever, that kind of weirds me out. That feels weird to me. But if I focus on...
Allie: The thing with new age is that it ends there. That's it.
Nancy: That's true.
Allie: Because here's the facts, it's just the verbiage that makes people uncomfortable, and I used to be that way too and it's okay, but there is energy. The world is alive. And if you look at things under a microscope, they are vibrating because of the atoms. It's just science.
Nancy: Yeah, it's just what it is. That's just fact. Right.
Allie: It's just the fact. Right. So we don't need to be freaked out about it, but in new age it's like, raise your vibration. For what? For what? Because it ends there and it's empty and it's all about self. But for us, we know who is the Creator. We know that we are made in His image. We know who we worship. We open our arms up and we say, "God, use me. Raise this vibration in me. Use my energy. Give me more. I want to go higher so I can be better for my family. I can show up for the people of the world. I can use my message. Help me, use me, and raise me up higher." It doesn't end there for us.
It goes into eternity because we know. To me, that's the biggest difference is that it ends there. It's like, for what? Raise it for what? For my own self to smile a little bit more today? That's so empty.
Nancy: Yeah, for you to feel good. Right. It's like, okay, it's nice to feel good, but there's got to be more, and there is more with the Lord. He's an actual person. He's an actual being, and he's the creator and the source of all of this energy and life that we feel and can partake in. The more that we talk, Allie, I feel like man, the enemy is just scared running, and it's because we're speaking it out loud. My prayer is that in my own life, as I come away from this conversation and anybody who listens to it, that you'd be encouraged and just convicted and inspired to take hold of the fullness of the Holy Spirit that is yours.
The relationship of God that is ours and that we can speak it. And it might feel uncomfortable at first, but just speaking those words out loud and owning it in your home, because something does change in the spirit and in the atmosphere when we do that. As my pastor used to say, we become thermostats instead of thermometers.
We set the temperature instead of being reactive to whatever temperatures are on our way.
Allie: I love that he said that. I love when I hear pastors talking about this and it's helping people. You have ownership over so much. You're not nothing. You're not weak and frail and can't do anything. People are ruining and changing the world at the same time. It has different sides. We have ownership over that. But when we involve our creator and we involve God in what we're doing, in what we do have ownership over, that's where there's power, that's where real change happens, and that's where heaven meets earth. And we can be a part of that. This all goes back to home. It really does.
This is why I get so fired up about it because it's not about having a cleaner home that just runs itself and like, "Oh, my life is so easy and fluffy. Now I don't have much stress." It's about purpose. It's about taking control of your mindset, deciding what you want, deciding what you're here for, deciding what you're called to, and aligning the little tiny things, like laundry and dishes, in your day to serve you so that you have more time for purpose. You have more time for what matters. You're more available for the people that you love the most, the people that God gave you to raise and spend your life with.
It's so much deeper. There's so much mindset stuff. This is why I never talk about the super tiny minuscule details of home stuff, because it's like this is the means to an end. We're here to declutter and get stuff out of our way so that we can live on purpose. I don't care about many jeans you have. I care about are you spending the amount of time in your home that feels good to you, or can you say that with integrity, or is it running you? Is it taking all your time and you're stressed out?
Something's off kilter and something has to be shifted to align with this relationship with God that we're talking about, with this mindset that we have ownership over, and with our purpose that we're here to live out.
Nancy: Totally. Yup, 100%. All right. So coming back to rhythms and then I'm going to close with just kind of a few fun questions.
Allie: Sure.
Nancy: Just because I'm curious. Can you just share two or three rhythms in your life, in your season right now that are vital for you and the health of your family? What's working for you? I know you shared affirmations in the morning.
Allie: Mm-hmm. And the laundry one.
Nancy: Yeah, and the laundry one. Yup, I love that one. I do a little laundry a day too, but I like how you even broke it down to like, I put it in at night. It runs in the morning. I switch it over, and then I...
Allie: Like when.
Nancy: Yeah, when. Getting specific. I don't do that, and I'm like, when do I put it away? It piles up. So that's super helpful. Any other like maybe two more rhythms or anything that you can speak to that's helpful for you right now?
Allie: Yeah. One thing that I started doing a couple months ago, which I don't think I'm ever going to let go of, it's...okay, well I'll give a spiritual one and then I'll give a practical one.
Nancy: Perfect.
Allie: The kind of more spiritual internal one is I've been grabbing my journal and just writing out... I look at my calendar, I look at my task list, and I write out what's on my plate today. I write it all out. I look at it, and I ask, does anything need to be pruned? Do I need to let anything go? If I do or if not, then the next step is, God, this is my day. Thank you for giving me this day. I am ready for magic. I am ready for abundance. I am ready for purpose in this day.
And then I imagine myself giving this day over to God and I imagine it going really, really well down to every last detail, what I'm going to eat, how am I going to interact with kids, when I'm going to play with them, when I'm going to be productive, when I'm going to get my rhythms done. I imagine it, and it really... I feel that ownership when I do that. It's almost like I'm blessing my day before it actually happens.
Nancy: Yeah. Yup.
Allie: That's been really, really cool for me, and I noticed a big difference in my days when I do that. And then a more practical one, I talk about Sunday night prep in The Unburdened course, and that is still... My gosh, it's been years. I think we've been doing Sunday night prep as a weekly rhythm for about six years now, maybe even a little more. That was my first ever rhythm that I ever set, and that was when I realized, "This is amazing. This really helps me." So Sunday night prep is every Sunday night... We don't have a specific time. Just after we've eaten dinner and after dinner is cleaned up.
We sit down, actually the whole family now that my kids are older, and we go over the calendar. We go over the week. We ask how everyone's feeling, what is everyone wanting to get out of this week, how can we make things lighter, when are we going to have family night, what does everyone want to do this week. And usually my son will say, "I want to play Mario with you, mom." Okay, let's get that on the calendar. Bella will say, "I would really love to go swimming at Mimi and Poppy's house." Okay, let's pick a day to do that, or better yet, let's pick three days to do that.
We open up and we talk. Everyone gets their expectations out on the table, and we get real about what can and can't happen. We just get on the same page. And then the kids go play and Brian and I talk for about another 20 minutes or so and just kind of like set expectations with each other as a couple. When is date night going to be? How is the schedule looking? Is there anything overlapping that looks a little stressful? Could we have Barbara—she's our family assistant, she helps us so much—Can we have Barbara here during that time to kind of help ease the load, or could she pick up Emmett that day?
We just go over all the little things, and we basically never argue because there's no expectations and there's no miscommunication.
It's beautiful. It's like smooth sailing because of Sunday night prep.
Nancy: I love that, and it's because you've been proactive. I mean, you were proactive before everything started happening and kind of spiraling out of control, which is how it can feel when you don't have that Sunday night prep. That's amazing. I also love just hearing what it's like with older kids, because I'm like, my brain can't go there yet. It's so hard to imagine them all having little opinions, and I'm like, oh my gosh, this is going to be so fun one day. Just thinking about that. So great. Okay. Can you tell me about your book?
I know you just got a book deal, and I want to hear all about it because I personally am going to read it and buy it or read all of them. Just tell me about it. I'm excited to hear.
Allie: Yeah, thank you. Yes. This has been such a long time coming. I shared a blog post, the journey, and I even left out a bunch of stuff because it's just such a long story. But we're finally here. I'm so excited. I signed a deal with HarperCollins, Nelson Division. The first book is going to be really about step one in my philosophy, which is decluttering your home. It's called Declutter Like A Mother, and it's going to come out in early fall of 2021. It's actually a four-book book deal, so there's a lot coming.
Nancy: So exciting.
Allie: I know. I'm so excited. The second trade book, which a trade book is the ones that are just regular books, there’s chapters and you just read them. The other two are a gift book, which is a coffee table book, and a kid's book, which I'm really excited about.
Nancy: Oh my gosh, Allie, this is so exciting.
Allie: So exciting. No one's ever asked me about this, so this is the time I shared all of that part of it publicly. So thank you for asking. The second trade book is all about what we talked about today, like your mindset and rhythms and your life, not so much just your home and getting rid of purging clutter. I'm super excited.
Nancy: I am already going to buy all of them. I'm really excited about every single one.
Allie: Thank you.
Nancy: Seriously, what a fun adventure you're on. And not just that, but you are living in your purpose and what God has put inside you. And I think that's the most exciting part of this is these books will help women and change lives. And I'm just really excited to get my hands on them. Yay!
Allie: Thank you.
Nancy: I'm really, really pumped.
Allie: Me too.
Nancy: I've got three quick questions to close out, and these are questions just to learn a little bit more about you and things that you love. What's a book that you're loving right now or that you've loved in the last year that you've read?
Allie: Let me think. I would say The Joy of Missing Out by my friend Tonya Dalton.
Nancy: I've heard of that book. I haven't read it yet.
Allie: It's so good. We just aired two back-to-back episodes with her on my podcast, and we also did a book club. So if you're listening to this and you want to literally, I mean, just really pick up your life and take it to another level, order the book. But while you wait for it to come, go to The Purpose Show, listen to Tonya Dalton's two episodes, and then go into the free Facebook group and you can watch the extra conversations I had with her. They are so worth your time. It will really make you feel something, like inspired and encouraged and give you action steps to just clean up what's happening heavy in your life.
Nancy: I love that so much. A product that you're loving. This can be anything, like personal, professional, whatever. Any product in your life that you're loving.
Allie: I have it right here. The brand is Playa, P-L-A-Y-A, and it's a Southern California beach wave spray. So I've been sleeping in braids and then spraying it in my hair and scrunching it a little bit. And it just creates these really tussled natural waves for summer. I can't stop. It's amazing.
Nancy: I am so excited to try that because literally when we... We did a brief Zoom call before and the first thing I said to you when I saw you was like, "Hey, Allie, oh, I love your hair." It was so cute, so I really want to try it now.
Allie: I love it. Thank you.
Nancy: I know. Okay. This last question is, how do you maintain a healthy soul and a fulfilling life? That's kind of a loaded question I know.
Allie: Yeah, no, it's okay. I think it's pause. The word pause just comes up for me when you asked me that.
Just creating pause in the middle of the day, at the end of the day.
Taking a drive and just breathing, not listening to music or not listening to a podcast and just breathing. Getting in the shower for a little bit extra longer and just standing there and just pausing. I love standing in the shower and when I see the water washing off of me onto the floor, I'm imaging stress, worry, heaviness, expectations of others that have been put on me, just washing off of me. Those little pauses are so powerful for us.
Nancy: So good. I love it. Okay. Now tell my listeners where can they find you.
Allie: I will send you guys over to Instagram to connect with me personally and just kind of see what's going on on my corner of the internet every day. You can just search Allie Casazza and it's the one with the verification badge. I think there was a couple of weird pages recently that weren't really me, so the blue badge one.
Nancy: That's good. That's good to look for. I'll leave a link to that in the show notes as well, and allieaasazza.com, as well as your podcast, The Purpose Show. Love that as well.
Allie: Thank you.
Nancy: I'm just so excited. Thank you, Allie. What a joy and honor it was to have you on this podcast today. I feel like the Lord kind of took it in a way that he wanted it to go, and I'm way more excited about it now than I was even in the beginning. I'm just so pumped. I'm going to re-listen to it myself if I'm ever having a hard day or I feel like I need a pep talk of like, "You are the CEO of your own life, Nancy." I know my listeners are going to feel the same way, but truly thank you so much. What a joy it was to have you on.
Allie: Thank you so much for having me.
The Work & Play Cornerstore
Today I'm going to be adding Allie's favorite things: a book she's recently read called JOMO: The Joy of Missing Out, as well as her fun Playa beach hair spray, which is really good for curls. If you do choose to purchase through the links here, I do get a small commission from anything bought which continues to help me bring this podcast to you. And it's just fun to hear what other people love!
John 10:10 says that we are called to live an abundant life. The enemy comes to steal and kill and destroy, but Jesus said, "I've come that you might have life and have it to the full."
I hope this episode reminded you of that today.
