IAM2381 – Yoga Teacher and Certified Life Coach Supports Mind, Body and Spirit Wellness

Mary Kearns holds a PhD in Developmental Psychology and has expertise in various healing practices, including yoga, Reiki, life coaching, and herbalism.

She founded Yourstellarself, a wellness business that combines Mind, Body, and Spirit wellness.

In 2017, Mary returned to her roots, combining her knowledge of mind-body-spirit healing into Yourstellarself through workshops, yoga, and energy healing.

Mary uses the “life wheel” concept to help clients assess their balance across multiple areas, including physical health, relationships, and mental well-being.

Mary mentions that she managed a bath and body product business with long working hours but always made time for sleep, family, and self-care, even in small increments.

She believes in blending scientific and mystical traditions to create a balanced approach to wellness.

Mary recommends completing tasks that take five minutes or less immediately, freeing up mental space for more important tasks and reducing stress.

Website: Yourstellarself

LinkedIn: Mary Hoyt Kearns, PhD

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Transcription:

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Mary Kearns Teaser 00:00

Really important to do for yourself because again, when you're at that point where you're stretched so thinly, you just are not your best for your business, for people in your life, for your clients.

Like, you need to take care of yourself in order to serve everyone else in the best way that you can.

Intro 00:19

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:46

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO Podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Mary Kearns of yourstellarself.com. Mary, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Mary Kearns 00:55

Thanks for having me, Gresham. It's great to be here.

Gresham Harkless 00:57

No problem. It's great to have you on. And what I want to do is just read a little bit more about Mary so you can hear about all the awesome things that she’s been doing.

And Mary Hoyt Kearns purpose in life is to help people discover and nourish their inner light and to teach them how to heal themselves.

She holds a PhD in Developmental Psychology from Fordham University with a focus on behavioral health.

She is a registered yoga teacher, certified life coach, Usui Reiki Master, and has studied herbalism, shamanism, past life, regression, mandalas for healing, and more.

She is the owner of Yourstellarself, whose mission is to bring light, love and healing to the world by supporting Mind, Body Spirit Wellness. Mary has been offering wellness workshops and talks on various Mind, Body, spirit topics since 2003. Mary, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

Mary Kearns 01:45

I am. Thank you.

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Gresham Harkless 01:47

No problem. Let's do it. So the first question I had was to hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story and what led you to start your business.

Mary Kearns 01:54

Oh, okay. Well, the first incarnation of this business I created right after I was done with my PhD. That was in 2002 and got my coaching training. I started doing workshops and different things like work, life balance, how to reduce stress.

Kind of integrated some mindfulness techniques into that. And then I got certified in Reiki in 2005 and started adding that to the mix.

By 2008, I kind of went in a different direction and turned to wellness through herbal bath and body products and teaching people about the importance of what you put on your skin and self care and all that.

I continued to do workshops, but I kind of left the more mind spirit side of it behind. And then in 2017, I got certified as a yoga teacher.

And that kind of reminded me of how much I loved the whole package, the mind, body, spirit. So combining movement with meditation, with mindfulness and self care, I kind of brought the old business back in a new form.

And so at the end of 2017, your seller self was reborn. And yes, so now I kind of combine all those different things and through workshops, through yoga lessons, through energy healing.

Gresham Harkless 03:08

Nice. I love that. And it kind of reminds me of the fact that sometimes I even think that you can kind of silo some of those things.

Like your health is just your, the way you're eating or the way that you're working out, but really, it's the way that you're feeling.

All these things are kind of, I guess the term would be holistic way to kind of look at your whole entire health. Is that correct?

Mary Kearns 03:27

Yeah. And one of the tools that I learned in coaching was something we called the life wheel, where you have people like there's a circle on a piece of paper and it's divided into like eight sections or so.

And people label it with different aspects of their life, like physical health, exercise, how well they're eating, how much sleep they're getting, things like that, things that are important.

And then they rate it on a scale of 0, which is the center of the circle, to 10, and then color it in as far as that scale so they can see how like, lumpy their wheel is, how out of balance.

At any given point it's really hard to have everything running smoothly. But within the over time, if you get some good routines, you can get kind of a smooth, balanced proportion of all those things.

Gresham Harkless 04:09

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Trying to maximize the most of our 24 hours as best as you can is always, I guess, kind of the goal and I guess incorrect me if I'm wrong.

Sometimes even if you know you're a little lumpy in the area, at least you're kind of more aware of exactly where you're lumpy at.

So maybe it might be like a short term thing where you understand that I might have to work, a lot more this time, but after this period is over, this month or whatever, I'm going to be able to spend more time with my family or spiritually or whatever those things. Do you find that happens a lot?

Mary Kearns 04:37

Yeah, and especially when I had the Bath and Body product business because it was a product and had all the things that come along with inventory and wholesale clients, retail clients and all that.

There were many times, especially around the holidays, when I had 14 hour days, seven days a week.

It was really out of balance. So I would always make sure, just knowing what I know about how important it is to get enough sleep.

I never went without at least six or seven hours of sleep. I always made sure that I made time for my family and to eat right. Which is not always that easy when you're working crazy hours like that.

But it's just sometimes it's a matter of just taking 10 minutes here, 20 minutes there to do what you need to do for yourself to bring it back and remember it.

So, yeah, it's not always easy, but life isn't always like that either, where it's constant, constant. There's always a light at the end of the tunnel too. Usually there is. So.

And then at times I found that if it felt too out of control, it meant that I had to let go of something.

Maybe I was doing some volunteer work that I really didn't have time for, but I was feeling guilty about saying no.

Or maybe I had a client who was really super demanding, disproportionate to what they were worth, so I let them go.

So that's the other part of balance I found was kind of constantly reassessing, like what made sense right now, what. What brought me joy, and let go into things that didn't.

Gresham Harkless 05:54

Yeah, no, that's extremely powerful. It's funny, I go. I find myself going through that exact same thing where sometimes I try to push through things.

That's my default is just kind of push through them. And sometimes, you know, when you're just tired and exhausted and you're overextended, sometimes you just have to maybe face the fact, which is what you might have done in the first place.

At least in my case, where I needed to cut that thing out, I didn't necessarily need to just push through it.

That needed to come off my plate or that, that time reached its end and I needed to accept that. And that was the difficult thing I was kind of facing.

Mary Kearns 06:21

Sometimes it's really important to do for yourself because again, when you're at that point where you're stretched so thinly, you just are not your best for your business, for people in your life, for your clients.

Like, you need to take care of yourself in order to serve everyone else in the best way that you can.

Gresham Harkless 06:41

Exactly, exactly. I remind myself to put my own oxygen mask on because that'll help me serve everybody else. I have to tell myself that over and over again.

I know you touched on it a little bit, but I wanted to hear a little bit more about what you're doing to kind of help support the clients that you're working with and what you feel kind of set you apart and makes you unique.

Mary Kearns 06:56

Well, I guess I'll start with the unique part. I'd say it's my combination of backgrounds. It's kind of unique in that I have a scientific background. The PhD is a research degree.

So I'm really familiar with the research process and the science behind a lot of what I teach or most of what I teach.

And I always am continually learning about it, even the more esoteric stuff, what is the science behind it.

And I have the solid psychology background, too. So combining that with the more esoteric stuff like energy medicine, shamanism, past life regression.

And again, bringing it all together in a way that, as when clients said, I have just the right balance of scientific fact and mysticism. Yeah.

And so I think that's kind of different in that I've walked in both worlds and I feel comfortable in both worlds, and I feel that they can complement each other.

Just like traditional western medicine and complementary medicine, like acupuncture and western medicine can work together really beautifully to create something better than either one by itself.

It's the same, too, with this mind body stuff. I think we have a lot to learn from both traditions or both areas.

Gresham Harkless 08:05

Yeah. I think that's a great example of kind of like your secret sauce. Because a lot of times people are either, like you said, one or the other. They're in one camp or they're in the other camp.

But the ability to be able to kind of navigate and talk to people on both levels where somebody might be more scientific and they want to know the facts and figures behind everything.

So you can have that communication, somebody might be a little bit more esoteric, and you can have more of that.

That vibe type, I guess, conversation as well. So being able to kind of communicate both of huge.

Mary Kearns 08:33

Yeah, yeah. And it's nice. And I feel like over the last 10 years, there's a lot more receptivity of the more mystical. I mean, it's always been out there, like, oh, forever.

But in terms of the general public's receptivity, it's really nice that people are more open to all these different areas, because again, like I said, I think the mystical side and the scientific side, both have a lot to offer.

And you're right. And it appeals to different ways of thinking too. So I think it all boils down to the same thing essentially too.

Like we have labels for this and that phenomenon or procedure or process, but it all kind of boils down to the same essence.

Gresham Harkless 09:12

Yeah, yeah, I would definitely agree with that. Do you find that. Do you feel like people are, I guess, more amenable to kind of understanding or accepting the more esoteric because there is more scientific fact and research that has, caught up with it? I guess so to speak in terms.

Mary Kearns 09:29

Maybe too some people, but other people are just more open and they, they want something bigger than what science has been able to offer.

Gresham Harkless 09:38

That's very powerful.

Mary Kearns 09:39

It's limited and there's so many things, say these multi thousand year old healing traditions. For the longest time western science would say, oh well, there's no proof that that works.

But tens of thousands of years of shamanism or a couple thousand years of oriental medicine has shown that it does work, even if there was no scientific paper.

So there's partly that, like you said, that there is not a science backing it, but it's also that people are just more open and willing to not just accept what one small group says. This is truth.

Gresham Harkless 10:10

Yeah, no, that's absolutely powerful. And I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack.

And this might be an Apple book or a habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient.

Mary Kearns 10:22

Yeah, I was thinking about that. I know in other podcasts that you've done with people, they've had really great apps and books and things, but I think the one thing that I've used for a long time that works really well for me is the five minute rule.

So if something comes across my desk, my to do list that'll take five minutes or less to do, I do it immediately and then it's off.

And by doing that, some people might say that's less efficient rather than letting them build up and do them all at once.

But I just find if I shoot something off and it's off my desk out of my mind, then it just leaves more room for the bigger stuff that needs more concentration. Yeah, my personal hack.

Gresham Harkless 10:59

Yeah, no, I love that hack. And it's funny that you say that because I sometimes will try to push it off to a later time at my designated time, but I mentally know that I'm still have it in my head.

So it kind of doesn't leave that place. Like if you could have just, did that very quickly, you could have got it off your plate and now you're not even worried about it. But it still holds a place even when you sometimes put it in that special place.

Mary Kearns 11:20

Yeah, that's what I always say. I have like a limited amount of ram. The more I can just like offload stuff, the easier it is because you're right, it's constantly running in the back.

Gresham Harkless 11:31

Exactly, exactly. And speaking of ram, you're speaking my language now, so I appreciate that analogy.

And now I wanted to ask you for what I created call a CEO nugget. And this is a word of wisdom or piece of advice or if you can hop into a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

Mary Kearns 11:46

I would say the self care thing that we were talking about earlier, learning to say no to the things that really drain you and taking time every day, even if it's just 10 minutes or so to just sit and in silence, like meditate.

A lot of the biggest CEOs do that. They will meditate every day. Steve Jobs is huge.I think having that time for self care, just a designated time just for you, is super important.

And I would have definitely. And I think my younger self knew that. One of the things that I would have told my younger self though is it's okay to delegate.

Like, you don't have to be a control freak and micromanage or just oversee everything. As a solopreneur.

Solopreneur. Much of my life I was used to wearing all the hats, but sometimes someone else will be a lot better at doing what I'm doing.

So feeling trusting enough to let go, let someone else do it. I would have told myself, yeah, do that, do that more.

Gresham Harkless 12:41

Yeah, it's funny, it's always a fine line because, you want to make sure that you have that level of excellence that you always put forth.

But at the same time, sometimes you have to find people that are maybe better at certain aspects and you're able to empower them to be able to be their best selves as well.

But it's also hard to kind of make that sometimes easier said than done. At least in my case it has been.

Mary Kearns 13:01

Oh yeah, it is. It's hard.

Gresham Harkless 13:04

Exactly. So now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO.

And we're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. So I want to ask you, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Mary Kearns 13:15

I think a big part of it was like I was just saying that wearing many hats, at least as a solopreneur and even when I've had employees, I've kind of been the decision maker, the maestro.

But along with that, I guess the most important thing for me has always been in my business to honor the triple bottom line kind of philosophy or sustainable business philosophy that every decision I make, every purchase I make.

I want to try to make sure that I'm keeping people, plan and profit in mind so that trying to balance that always like walking my values through my work, through what I create and staying true to that.

Gresham Harkless 13:56

Nice. Well, I absolutely love that definition and I find that a lot with what I like to call and phrase healthy CEOs. People that are in like that sports, fitness and wellness industry, they have that triple bottom line approach that it's about profits, about growing their business, it's about doing those things, but it's also about making the world a better place, which is why I admire healthy CEOs so much.

Mary Kearns 14:15

Cool.

Gresham Harkless 14:17

Yes. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, Mary, I truly appreciate you for taking some time out.

I wanted to pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you wanted to tell us about your business, your background and anything else you can think of. And then of course, how best people can get a hold of you.

Mary Kearns 14:30

First of all, thank you so much for having me on the show. I love the show and I love what you're doing to support entrepreneurs and CEOs and other business people sort of getting at the heart of what we're doing. So thank you.

Gresham Harkless 14:44

You're welcome.

Mary Kearns 14:44

Yeah, there is a wellness Expo coming up in March. I'll be one of the presenters called exploreexpo.org and it'll be a day of just all different types of holistic practitioners with workshops and demos and stuff.

So I'll be one of the speakers. You can go to the exploreexpo.org website and my website, yourstellarself.com that's where I list my workshops and things as they come up.

So I guess that that was the main thing. Just people can feel free to contact me if they want. My info is on the website. Thank you for having me here.

Gresham Harkless 15:18

No problem. Thank you for taking some time out and all the awesome things that you're doing.

We'll make sure to have the links in the show notes as well so that everybody can follow up with you and see all the awesome things you're working on and you're doing.

So Mary, I truly appreciate you again for all the awesome work you're doing and I hope you phenomenal rest of the day.

Mary Kearns 15:32

It was nice to see you.

Outro 15:34

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by CB Nation and Blue16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community.

Check out the latest and greatest apps, books and habits to level up your business at CEOhacks.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.

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