Theresa Puskar Edutainer, author, actress, international speaker, producer

Theresa has worked with worldwide famous authors, has done a one woman show, is considered an edutainer, extraordinaire. She discusses how purpose and passion are related.

Transcript

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
[Music] [Music] do [Music] well hello everyone good evening good morning good afternoon wherever you are in the world it’s dr janice hooker fortman with relationship matters i hope everyone is having a beautifully blessed day i am here in sunny chicago let me change that i am here in cold snowy chicago we had 11 inches of snow and we went down all the way to negative i think it was about 20 degrees 20 degrees below zero but i’m here it’s nice and warm in here and we’re going to have a fabulous show this evening i have a guest a special guest that all of you should know about this is one fantastic lady i’m going to tell you a little bit about her verbal and then i’m going to show you something that is going to knock your socks off her name is teresa pusser puskar she is a highly skilled transformational leader author and is the founder of edutainment productions she has several years as the keynote speaker and corporate trainer for fortune 500 companies she has written over 50 motivational books and study guides and has published seven children’s books when i grow up i want to be just like her her most recent books eight ways to declutter your brain which i really need and the good morning mind supports individuals and businesses alike in integrating joy conscious moments conscious communication inner integrity and mindfulness and your daily practices she’s a former director of the coaching programs at the leading motivational book publisher nightingale comic and she also created 80 programs for many you new york times best selling office now what else does she do she’s an accomplished television and stage actress she has a one woman show that was critically acclaimed and it’s called causeless joy and she’s also a little bit of a comedian i have to say that because she is but let me show you just a little bit more about this fabulous young lady [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] well good evening teresa

Theresa Puskar
good evening dr jan so wonderful to be here

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
and it’s wonderful to have you here look i got a comment already you know i think i struck a chord from one of my viewers marxie hill she says i need those tips on how to declutter my break you know i think everybody needs that especially you know during this time because there’s so much going on and and and club you know your brains and just boom boom boom boom boom just full of stuff some of the stuff nice stuff and some of the stuff we really don’t need so theresa you know i introduced you and and i i told so many things that you do did i leave anything out

Theresa Puskar
oh nothing no you’ve got it all too much cuddle brains and cluttered lives the first thing i want to ask you everybody has a journey so before you did and are doing all of these different things what were you doing before you became an educator and we’re going to talk about that because i want everybody to know what that means but what did you do before you became an edutainer

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
all right

Theresa Puskar
well i actually was born in toronto canada so i’m a canarican and just for the record my name is pushkar car yes but nobody gets it right if somebody gets it right i go into shock because there’s no h in there and years ago reminded me when i was an actress years ago in canada i said to one of the casting directors i think i should change my name you know it’s push cards it’s always spelt wrong it’s said wrong she says no no we remember it right strange so being born in canada i was born of a family of four girls so i have three sisters and i spent a lot of time up there in nature my passion was music and theater so i went into university and did some acting and some musical theater work from there i actually got a job at ibm of all places in marketing and i worked in marketing in ibm for a bit and then i ended up leaving that for the acting world because some professional opportunities came up and i have had a such a broad range of experience and so you know even as a teenager i was working constantly so i’ve i’ve dabbled in everything so i’m an expert at nothing and a dabbler in everything

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
no no you’re an expert in everything that you do i like believe me so what is you know what is an educator and because i never i looked it up in the dictionary and i couldn’t find it

Theresa Puskar
i appreciate i’m impressed with your research but actually edutainer is an educational entertainer so what i’ve noted is a lot of the programs that are out there for example emotional intelligence for kids i looked through the the portfolios i looked through the curriculum and a lot of them were pretty flat and if you’re going to affect your audience and if they’re gonna retain what you’re saying if you can do it with comedy and joy and connection retention is much better so as opposed to getting up in front of people i’m talking about the three c’s of communication or connection you know let’s all go to sleep but if you bring engagement and entertainment interaction and fun into the experience it’s remembered and it’s much more joyful for everybody selfishly including me

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
oh okay all right so what what came first once you became a professional so to speak what came first uh being an author is was that what came first

Theresa Puskar
well what happened is i spent years as an actress one of toronto’s casting directors said to me teresa if you’re not getting more television work here in toronto in the next six months you need to move to vancouver because you’re telling it you’re not getting enough work here so i moved to vancouver and i ended up doing the acting and directing work for quite some time i got the x5 millennium a bunch of tv stuff but the world of acting is kind of crazy high highs and low lows you get the gig you don’t get anything yet it’s just nutsy and one day i was looking in christian northrop’s book women’s bodies woman’s minds i had some issues and when i looked up the issue it said if you’re an emotional abusive career or with your career relationship if you were an abusive situation and i reflected i wasn’t in a relationship at the time and i thought this acting stuff is crazy it’s just so insecure highs and lows so i said okay universe here’s the deal i will give up the acting but i want something that’s using my creativity using my directing skills in the healing arts integrating spirituality psychology i mean i kind of put it out there magically because as you know the world when you set a powerful intention and when you conspire with the universe stuff happens and delicious synchronicities so months later i was dating a man from chicago and couldn’t convince him to move to the pacific northwest to beautiful vancouver so i was moving to chicago and i was doing training as a counselor clear mind international and they were having an event in chicago and they needed counselors to come down for a weekend workshop that nightingale conan was sponsoring and nightingale conant at the time was the world’s largest motivational book um publisher so i went down they said theresa will you come down with us and help council on the weekend so i walked the halls of nightingale conan for the week before we were promoting and went i’m supposed to be here i just know it so after the weekend it went and a couple months later i was moving to vancouver a couple months later i i i actually soon after the weekend i called the president of dyngelconan so i’m going to come work for you theresa we’re downsizing we don’t have a job that’s okay i’m going to come work for you but we we we couldn’t pay you i said i don’t care i’m going to come work for you i don’t know where i got so bold but i was so sure so they said well come down in april when you come and so i was at a shoot for sonia shoketa psychic for an infomercial and they said we want you to start our coaching programs i knew nothing about the programs i was not a copywriter and they they said here’s your office just do it so i started writing coffee and hiring coaches and doing the sales t i did all the sales myself to start but anyway it was kind of getting thrown in there but following that guidance the intuition which i always suggest to all of those i’m working with is when that gut feeling comes and bubbles so that took me out of the acting world and i said i’ll go back to acting but on my terms no more cattle calls and agents and strange auditions for beer commercials i do my way and so i ended up writing a one-woman show a couple years ago and touring with that so but that was the start of that aspect of things so at nightingale i became director of coaching then i became a producer and i produced all my favorite authors i got to be in studio with them and do q a interviews and pull their material from them so i got to work with all my favorite new york times best-selling authors i mean man i couldn’t believe they were paying me to do this and from that i started writing the curriculums the study guides and then i got to the point where a lot of the authors were saying tracy should be on the other side here why are you not writing your own books so i was writing for a time a place called gildan media at the time writing curriculums and then g and d media and a couple years ago i said you got any more work for me and they said why don’t you pitch your own books so a couple years i pitched a couple of my own books and that’s how i got to the eight ways to declutter your brain and the good morning mind

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
oh okay you know what when you said intention uh and purpose and passion uh because this particular series i’m doing is all about purpose and passion and and sometimes you you it’s almost like you fall into your purpose you know but it’s also that listening and listening to the universe because things come to you you don’t know why but they come to you for a reason so your your books are are mostly motivational

Theresa Puskar
mm-hmm

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
okay all right okay now i keep getting you know uh i have a lot of fans that come and they ask questions and it’s all about helping to declutter your brain please teresa help me to organize my brain as sandy says that’s me so and then uh now marcy here asked a question she said did anyone ever tell you that you were doing too much in your creative pursuits even though you were on your divine creative path

Theresa Puskar
that’s that’s an excellent question marcy excellent

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
great question mark

Theresa Puskar
yes i do do too much and i’ve been of two minds it’s like there’s so much area of expertise and yet there’s so much going on and some have said it all fits under the same umbrella tree so don’t worry about it and others especially marketing getting your target audience is like just go one specific and just take all the initiative there so marcy has a good question i’m still asking myself that question but i try not to let it clutter my brain too much right now i’m going the direction i’m going

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
yeah okay all right and now you also and arthur author of children’s books so tell me tell me about them

Theresa Puskar
i wrote the terry series seven children’s books based on emotional intelligence a couple years before i actually had my daughter and they were i wrote them for myself to be honest with you i wrote them for little terry so they are books that are actually rhyme and they’re about for example the first one the trouble with terry is all children and parents so the trouble with terry is a story about how terry mirrors mom in her behaviors and so when terry mirrors mom it’s a mom’s opportunity to embrace terry because often what triggers us in another individual what pushes our buttons are the very things in ourselves that we deny so for example if the viewers want to think about somebody who really annoys you if you are really looking deep into yourself you will see that it’s a an aspect of yourself you’ve denied and you can say no there’s no way i’m like that i’m exactly the opposite well that’s part of the denial let’s go and beat so extremely the other way so the trouble with terry is about honoring that child that pushes our buttons honoring that human being that does and then at the end of each of the books i have exercises and experiential techniques for the parents to take the kids through et cetera i have another one called no computer games today it’s time to go out and play i have another one called love our differences about diversity i have no teasing please i have another one called was jesus ever a little boy because i was brought up catholic and you know i heard about this baby and then suddenly he’s third being on the cross soon after and i went what about the little boy so it also you know we explore what that little boy was alike how he was so connected to nature and such a wonderful imagination uh so i’ve done seven books and they’ve been such a joy such a joy

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
look i said in the beginning when i grew up i want to be just like you i got you now that first book the trouble with terry you struck a chord because i’ve been told that before you know like if someone really really annoys you it’s something that just you know oh i can’t stand this person this this really gets on my nerves that it’s really you that and and that’s hard and that’s hard to accept that’s a book for children but that’s an excellent book for adults because that’s something that that i think like you said denial i think that’s something that that we definitely do not because when we see something another person that we don’t like we don’t want to think that that’s me no no no no no no

Theresa Puskar
that’s what as you fall in love with yourself you will have more patience with that person and as you have more patience with that person you will fall in love with you so if i can share a story with you doctor jan i oh years ago i was working at nightingale conan and the boss i was working from home i got to work as a producer and writer i was doing my stuff on my laptop after several years of working from home the president called me into his office he said theresa you’re going to have to come into the office every day it was up in niles illinois i was living in westmont it was quite a jaunt during rush hour and immediately i got frustrated i got angry i started thinking of all the things that he frustrated about i didn’t like about them and i went therese really is that gonna work so i said to him would you give me a week and i come back in and we can discuss this and he said yeah so for the week i decided i could not change him all i could do was change my mind about him and that reactivity i mean of course he was doing what he needed to do for the company i said to him why are you not happy with the quality of my work he said no no no you’re great he’s our best workers but other staff want to work from home so he was doing what he didn’t hope was right so i sat for the week and every day i wrote out traits about this man that i really respected appreciated and loved every single day i wrote and wrote and this is a note for your viewers to try this with who triggers you a week later dr jan i walk into his office he looks at me and goes theresa what have you done i said what he said i have never seen you so calm i’ve never said get out of my office keep doing what you’re doing the other little worry about the others just keep doing what you’re doing all i did was check my mind about him and focus on that which i was grateful for and that which i appreciate it and it can be if you’re in a divorce if you’re in i’m very happily unmarried my husband is one of my best friends now so it’s work but it’s well worth the effort

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
that’s excellent excellent excellent advice you know when i was in corporate america that would have come in handy

Theresa Puskar
i incorporated that i used to be a corporate trainer i did a lot of that

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
so okay so with your corporate training for the fortune 500 companies is that the so what exactly kind of training did did you do

Theresa Puskar
i did customer care i did leadership i did conflict resolution i did a lot of different apps training as well but my favorites were going i worked for a sam sales my favorite job was sam zell’s company uh and i used to travel resorts 450 resorts throughout the us so i got to go to these beautiful resorts and i would train but again it was more about engaging the the audience and working with the staff but customer care conflict resolution especially leadership but it’s all from a internal perspective

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
okay oh okay okay so i’ve i’ve got to go to a brief commercial and gonna come like right back and i want you to tell me about your book causeless joy i i i love that title and so i just you know i i want you to kind of expound a little bit on that how can you do that all right so don’t go away we shall be right back [Music] do [Music] all right we are back with teresa pushkar so tell us about causeless joy

Theresa Puskar
all right well causeless joy was actually my one woman show okay causeless joy several years ago i heard about when i was producing at nightingale conant one of the authors ron roth had gone to india and he encouraged he took all his staff i kept hearing about this place called oneness university in india so in the back of my mind i thought someday i’m gonna go there i went in 2012-13 and i was there for a month called the deepening process and what this place was its non-denomination and it honors all traditions and it’s basically trying to get you more connected having a deeper process with whatever you call source or your divine and i had some incredible experiences there and then i ended up taking a writing course in chicago a chicago dramatist and my writing professor my teacher arlene malinowski said theresa you got to incorporate india into the show because what the show was is actually four fairy tale princesses i meet up with them in my meditations in india and they they kind of read me the riot act and they tell me their stories where they were victims of their own of themselves and that i have to stop playing victims so for example the first character [Music] rapunzel sees this german hiker girl and she says to me telisa i put myself up in that tower nobody else put me up there and you got to stop this isolating yourself singing and then the second one was cinderella she was a little french princess very sexy cinderella and cinderella did not want to marry the prince she liked hiding away and she was obsessive compulsive clean out so she was very very happy in that world and so she told me you know stop your obsessive compulsive behaviors then i meet up with queenie and the queen is an old lady queenie’s princess in the pink when cleaning tells me she’s just too darn sensitive takes everything too personally and so queenie says teresa you gotta stop taking things so personally and then the final character who’s probably my favorite is belle from beauty and the beast belle is a hedonist she’s overweight she loves herself just the way she is and at the end she’s irish and at the end of the show she hands me a mirror and she says you look in that mirror and you love what you see and i’m a work in progress i have a hard time doing that but the so the show was very self-exposing it integrated this incredible journey through india so i take people to the streets of india and then i morph into these characters that i see in my meditations where the causeless joy steps in when you get to the point where you are able to first of all let me tell the watchers forget about quieting your mind your mind will never be quiet you can do practices and techniques to watch and observe the mind what happens is after you’ve meditated or spent time doing some internal work what happens is there’s a part of you that’s a witness that starts watching the drama that you’re in unfold and as you watch that drama you’re able to navigate it from a little bit more of a distant perspective you’re in it and you’re observing and shifting it so causeless joy happens when you get to the point where you are so connected with that divine part of yourself when you are so connected with gratitude and with a sense of joy about your life this joy bubbles up inside now when i first went to india i have to say the first week i’m in this temple and there’s people from all over the world and we’re sitting and meditating and i hear these cackles and they sounded like monkeys i was like what the heck and i got really annoyed and what somebody said to me was they’re experiencing causeless joy and i thought they sound like they got to be put in the lonely band they were crazy and after months and months and months of cultivating that sense of oneness that sense of owning and loving myself it starts to bubble up so it’s that experience when you hear wonderful music you love it’s that experience like when you see a little baby or a child and they are so present and they say and you just fall in love with them but this can start to happen this joy for no reason at all just because causeless joy because you are so filled with gratitude and passion love connection

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
and so if i want to experience causeless joy do i have to be in a quiet place and and bring it up how can how can i and and my viewers how can we experience that

Theresa Puskar
how can you experience it it’s a matter of okay when i was in my early 20s i’m going to get emotional here but i knew my commitment was to fall deeply in love with myself we are all so hard on ourselves so critical of ourselves we are walking around with the chains of guilt and what i would have shoulda could have done and so at that early age i made a commitment to fall in love with me and don’t kid yourself i still got a long way to go it’s a journey but what happens is in time as you work on falling in love accepting yourself appreciating yourself knowing that if you could have done better at that moment you would have done better so we got to give ourselves a break and when we start to do that and when we start to cultivate a personal relationship with that creative source energy whatever anybody wants to call it you call it god you call it buddha you call it christ you call it universal consciousness it doesn’t matter what we call it but when you start getting connected to that and the biggest biggest way to fear that causeless joy is through gratitude you know allowing gratitude thinking of all that you’re grateful for in your life letting it bubble up and in time as you would cultivate that relationship and start to laugh at yourself as you start to see your foibles you know that’s why even doing television or doing live i’ve yeah i teach on camera technique i take at teach acting technique and what i suggest is this when you’re on stage if you make a mistake with confidence and you walk around you go oh my god i mucked up and you laugh the audience laughs with you and they love you even more i actually had an actor friend michael he was in a show in toronto with kim cattrell a british farce and i went to see michael and halfway through the show he totally breaks character loses it all spews coffee right across the stage it was hilarious and that error made the show well i went back to see him months later he did the same thing he actually plotted that area that endeared the audience to him so in our lives the parallel if we are able to look at our lives and look at ourselves with a sense of joy and humor acknowledging ourselves for where we’ve been you know and accepting where we are we start to fall into that bubble of joy and love but also really just committing to gratitude you know you cannot be depressed and grateful at the same time right that’s very scary right so going to that place every day and it doesn’t mean denying feelings i have also another thing i really want to share that’s important dr jam which is i think it’s not about putting rose-colored glasses over everything and say i’m not going to feel this it’s the exact opposite we spend our lives avoiding pain physical emotional all pain we all want a quick fix the trick is to go into the pain and i’ve been so grace to have worked and produced with many enlightened authors and many of them have said to me teresa if you actually can go into pain consciously and surrender to it it actually can be very uplifting it can be blissful so it’s about feeling your feelings now i spent years in therapy i did every kind of process i spent probably in i bet you even maybe i know tens of thousands a lot of money on my own self-development and i would psychoanalyze everything why do i do this my mother my father my teacher and after years of all this it’s gotten to the point now i’ll start to well up with tears it doesn’t matter where they’re coming from and i’ll give those tears a moment and i’ll feel into what i’m feeling and then i move on and as you allow yourself to feel the joys the pleasures the pains all of it the shame everything it’s like the onion that starts to get peeled away those layers on the outside so it’s a matter of feeling into your feelings accepting that you’re doing the best they can you can the way you are and then committing to a deeper connection with whatever source is and with yourself that’s a big mouthful

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
yeah but but i mean it is so relevant and and so inspiring me and so you know it’s true how we don’t want to face our pain we run we run away from and i mean when i’m talking about pain i’m not talking about physical pain you know i’m talking about that emotional pain you know and sometimes you hear people when when you are trying to feel that pain and go in there and accept it you hear people say oh get over it

Theresa Puskar
yes it’s their discomfort what can drive me crazy when i’m having a cry somebody if i’m in a prosperous you know for example a woman’s circle somebody hands me kleenex it’s like let me cry it’s their discomfort with the emotion when somebody do you get over it when somebody says you don’t cry it’s okay they’re uncomfortable and the best you can do for your friends that are grieving the best you can do for those you love who are in pain is to just sit with them yeah acknowledge them and say i see your tears there’s nothing you have to do just to be present with them is really really key and there’s another thing too i want to share that it’s it’s a realization that’s come to me more recently is that we wonder why affirmations don’t work those that are doing their emotional work we’ve been in the world of affirmations come here and say a thousand times i love myself i love myself we got lots of money i got lots of money got there by man and then we wonder why it doesn’t work i finally figured it out this year i’ve done a lot of work through the quarantine with my teachers at ecam and the point is when we go and we we set intentions or prayers in a place of anxiety obsession depression and lower energy it doesn’t work so when i talked before about allowing yourself to get into that higher state thinking of the things you are most grateful for thinking of people joy experiences that fill your heart then when you are in this beautiful state then then you go and set your intentions and you experience them in your mind’s eye as if they’re happening in the present moment you feel you taste you smell but do it when you’re in that heightened state because the universe delivers what we have so if you’re miserable and you’re whiny and you’re saying i’m miserable the universe says okay i’ll give you more miserable and obsession this is really key if you’re obsessed and you come from a place of neediness that’s really extreme universe here’s needy so it’s focusing on what’s working and it’s and again i’m not saying don’t acknowledge the pain acknowledge it feel it give yourself the time to do the screaming the yelling the punching pillows have a good cry and then allow yourself to go to a better feeling place and from that place set the intention

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
theresa are you a coach

Theresa Puskar
i am i’m like i said to her coaching at nightingale i mean

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
no i i know that but i mean do you get clients individual clients other than uh conan knight nightingale conan

Theresa Puskar
i do i do i like to for me you know what’s really hard dr jan right now is not taking people through process with you with all those years as a producer at nightingale conant you know it’s the authors have their antidotes their stories and their practical exercises but we i always wanted to take them through something and which is how now i have a business that i love to do which is when i left nightingale i asked myself what do i love that i’m going to miss most is about audiobook producing and it was pulling people’s soul message and helping them tell their story so what i’ve now done is i’ve developed a program and a technique where people within two weeks can have their book written by me so what we do we meet for a couple of sessions i write an outline it’s q a because i hate scripting i want to be in the moment with them because often some juicy stuff comes it’s beyond that write an outline we get that we go into the studio for a weekend and i take total care of them all they have to do is answer my questions about their process all of that and the producer in me takes over so now we need an experiential exercise and even we can create it right there in the studio if need be so it’s about helping them and within the last lady it was 10 days and she goes i can’t believe i’ve got an audio book a book a workbook all of this from two you know in 10 days with these that’s something i love to do because people all have messages not everybody’s a really good writer there’s a many people really good communicators but they’re not writers so this is a way to help them where they don’t even have to lift the pen or type a word so yeah

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
wow well you know i called causeless joy a book i’m listening to the universe even though it’s stage play you know bubbling in me is a book like the shack or the alchemist

Theresa Puskar
yeah

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
a spiritual fiction but it’s so it’s a story narrative i’ve done so much motivational books and i’ve been in that world for so long and i love it but books like the alchemist or the shack to have somebody engage and entertain and for me to go to that place of imagination and actually write a story that helps people evolve i’m thinking that might be my next one

Theresa Puskar
okay all righty okay we’re listening i’m hearing i’m here and i hear you almost joy right

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
so i have to go to a quick commercial don’t go away we’ll be right back because when we come back i want some tips on how to declutter my brain we’ll be right back from right to left and every angle in between know what i mean in this day and age so many seem like they lost inside a world and held captive in a dream a glimpse of mediocracy sacred for the team and even though this path is long and this place is unforeseen gotta keep your feet moving filling spaces in between seeing places in your dreams if you complace them by your means by all means go back to sleep the path is steep there’s no rest for the weary if you intend to reach peaks it gets deep come on it’s infinite we still climbing yes yes you are and thanks for the positive vibes but i still got a mountain to climb just take it one step at a time till i fall i’m gonna ride till i die i’ll never give in yo if i wanna survive not gonna swallow my pride i’ll never [Music] now if you would like to advertise on this show with eye-catching videos and increase your visibility you can contact jh fortman and associates at 1-877-677-7325 or you can email me at jan4now125 gmail.com we are back with teresa all right teresa declutter my brain

Theresa Puskar
all right i’m gonna put my glasses on here so my book it wasted the cloud of your brain i’m gonna just outline there’s eight steps but in the book and i also have an audio book i actually have i think 27 different experiential exercises because again for me it’s not about you just being inspired and reading it’s about moving you forward so what i’ve done is created the beginning of each chapter a profile so you know the questionnaire do you do this how much do you do that to give you a sense of where you are compared to where you want to be and then at the end i have experiential exercises to help move you through so the first there’s eight steps the first is ruthless self-examination ruthless ruthless oh in a in a kind way dr jen you know i’ve done like i said years of therapy years of self-examination work and i thought i had it figured out but after going to india i learned that i was fooling myself quite often and when you go to that place of ruthless salmon and self-examination so for example one might say to me you know you’ve done so much you’re so courageous and i’m thinking no i still see how fear runs my life i see how much i stop you know myself from moving forward so it’s going within and being really really brutally honest i have an example i dragged my daughter out to a a function of a spiritual seminar a psycho spiritual one and she was sweet but she fell asleep and i’m going but i’m here for her good i’m here because i love my girl i’m here because i want the best for her ruthless self-examination hold on teresa go deep focus what’s really going on you’re here for you you’re here because you want to feel better as a mom and you’re here because yes you love your daughter you want the best for her but if you are going to be ruthless with yourself and honest the truth is you want to feel like a good parent and you want to worry less and you want your brain less cluttered with your worries about your daughter so that is an example of ruthless self-examination and then you got to give yourself a break and say okay i love myself you see that’s where the causes joy comes in dr jen when i saw that i started to laugh i got hysterical thinking it’s all about me it’s about me so being able to see that and then let yourself off the hook and the second step is committing to inner integrity you know there’s outer integrity but inner integrity goes even deeper and we’ve all done things we felt uncomfortable with that like for example manipulation i’ll say people are manipulative they drive me crazy these manipulative people and then it’s like okay stop theresa so when i see somebody cutting me off on the road for example all right teresa when have you cut people off when have you been rude when have you been impatient right inner integrity the third one is actually stepping out of victimhood and owning our issues which is really hard to do they made me they got in my way if they didn’t

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
right there is someone who is i’m not going to call his name but there is someone who i know is looking at this show and repeat that please

Theresa Puskar
it’s our relationship with ourselves ultimately so every time we see them out there out there all that is is a reflection of what’s going on in here and sometimes it sucks sometimes we really hate it so next time you feel a victim of a situation ask yourself what part am i playing in this you know my divorce was ugly and i don’t know if you’ve heard of byron katie i had a feeling i was working and i said i just heard about this workshop she was doing in new york and two weeks before i said to my boss i got to go to new york again it was trusting that instinct and i knew i was going to be on this woman’s stage and she chose maybe four people all weekend and she grilled me for two hours about my divorce and said and what’s your part in this and where have you been out of integrity and i have never felt so i got on the elevator and i just wanted to die i mean i felt so exposed but that’s about i kept playing victim to him and then i i pulled off and i thought yes we have our reasons yes injustices but i had to ask myself where am i not in integrity in this marriage yes i can be emotional yes i can be difficult to live with and so i had to look at where i was making them the victim right and so again that’s all part of it as soon as you feel like you’re and it’s one of the hardest i think it’s one of the hardest things i still play that game but i know better you know it’s like when i feel like a victim how have i put myself here and what’s the message what’s the relationship i have to have with myself in order to fall deeper in love with who i am yeah and then step four is finding the courage to build intimate relationships intimacy it’s different than um it’s it’s deeper it’s showing up with all of ourselves it’s allowing yourself to be raw it’s again being able to look somebody in the eye and the i’m sorry can be so hard for people and in the business world you say i made a mistake i’m sorry you think you look bad as a manager if somebody says to me i am sorry i mucked up i say what a confident person thank you and what integrity right so it’s building relationships on a much deeper level and i for example i thought my heart was wide open and i’ve seen more recently especially with the quarantine how close my heart has been how guarded i’ve been and so it’s building relationships with others but again even more so with ourselves if we don’t love the heck out of ourselves we can’t love anybody else very true and then this fifth step is asking for help how many of us are afraid to ask for help we don’t want to be a burden we don’t want to put people off we don’t want it takes courage to ask for help and when you think of it when you don’t ask your friends and loved ones for help you’re denying them an opportunity to be there for you and often what i do is i stop think to myself if my friend who was in this situation and she called on me and asked for help how would i feel what i feel burdened what i feel she owes me no it’s a privilege and an honor to help but i think many of us are all about i’ll do it myself i’ll take care of myself i don’t want to ask for help so that’s the fifth step and the sixth is say yes process and this is something i created that i fall in love with you know there’s rhonda uh rhonda oh shonda rhimes yes michael singer but it’s about saying yes to ourselves and so i have a say yes process i’ve created it helps people open their hearts and say yes to the gifts of their lives and yes to to good stuff coming in and then the seventh step is choosing that attitude of gratitude i’ve already talked a bit about how powerful gratitude is the eighth step is expecting the unexpected and how when you expect the unexpected and the more you do this work the more synchronicities happen in your life and man oh man it’s like christmas just about every single day it’s just constant wonderful things just molding and happening you go how did that ever happen just like nightingale conan the fact that i put out that decrease so clearly universe this is what i want the fact that all the steps got into that place got me to that place where there i was and i became the director of coaching and i started producing i was reading and listening to self-help books and audios since i was in college so it was perfect so aligning yourself with this just makes those miracles happen and now this is the stuff in the book to help people

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
where can we get your book and i have here sarah crawley she says that she thinks she has your book

Theresa Puskar
oh god i hope she’s enjoying it

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
so where can where can we get your book

Theresa Puskar
you can get my book at amazon uh barnes and nobles you can contact me at theresapushcar gmail.com if you want a signed copy of both that that one and the good morning minds my other one good morning mind is about if you struggle with uh confrontation or how to communicate successfully with others personally and at work i do examples of what i call three kinds of communication the first being communication from the head and the ego being communication from the heart and i actually do examples of it i have off actors who i came and did the audiobook with and then actually the third example is even higher place communication from a place of being more awaken so it’s all about cultivating a sense of dignity a conscious environment wherever you work and whatever you do so if you yeah theresa pushkar t h e r e s a p u s no h p u s k a r gmail.com i’d be happy to send you a signed copy otherwise i’m running across the screen and and at the bottom of the screen so you people i’m keeping it down there so you have time to write it down so you can get booked now i have we got about four minutes and someone sent this question in what is the primary principle that guides your life

Theresa Puskar
primary principle is living in joy letting go surrendering and living in joy laughing as much as i can and loving as much as i can so the primary principle for me what was most important is finding that joy place and it i i teach preschool too i was teaching is being finding that something else you do theresa okay i had a program called power princesses and superheroes where i got into you are a super hero i got into characters with kids and we do storytelling and puppetry and magic and all of that and it was all around developing their sense of self love so um it’s about finding a child in ourselves again knowing that we are innocent anything we’ve done we are not guilty we are born innocent and underneath all of the yuck it’s just yuck it’s just the ego and the personality underneath all of that we are all children living in the playground of life together it’s been a pleasure out here with you dr janet

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
you know theresa okay uh i met you and uh you know we would see each other in passing or um you know on different uh networking sites and and and i am just so amazed by you and i am just so grateful that you came on my show you have opened my eyes my mind and my heart and my soul to so many things what i am going to do is i’m listening to you and i i talk about relationship and relationship matters and and the most important relationship that we have and i’m glad you said you talked about it is the relationship with ourselves because if we don’t have an authentic real truthful relationship with ourselves how can we have a true authentic relationship with someone else and and i mean you really hold that in uh and i always say you know people say things and sometimes you kind of gloss over it and but that struck me and that also struck me which i’ve heard before about seeing things in other people and one of the things is and i’m but i i know it’s me is i cannot stand people who are controlling now i’ve been told i’m controlling especially about uh my husband is sitting over here you know but oh you gotta control it no i don’t and i don’t like people who are controlling but that’s something like you say love this in me accept it in me and i can accept it in other people absolutely teresa thank you so very very much for coming on my show this evening relationship matters you have been an awesome guest this hour has flown it feels like three minutes so yes yes yes yes and and i facebook friends relationship matter viewers you must you must contact teresa pushkar at theresapushcar gmail.com or go to www.theresapuscar.com thank you so much theresa you have a very blessed the rest of your day

Theresa Puskar
thank you you too dr jen it’s been a pleasure absolute pleasure

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
all right it’s it’s it’s and i oh my goodness i i gotta put these on right quick from from marcy that says thanks teresa and then awesome guests thank you teresa it’s it’s it’s it’s been a what is a plum pleasing pleasure i love it all righty good night bye-bye i have really in look i think i probably enjoyed my this show probably more so than my views but i want to thank everyone who tuned in today this morning this afternoon this evening wherever you are in the world continue to watch relationship matters now this is a shameless plug for me i have been nominated for the honorary global woman of 2021 and i need your votes so go to global woman and look for the 2021 nominees follow the prompts go down to honorary global woman click it look for me and vote for me that’s my shameless plug so everyone be blessed and definitely definitely stay safe [Music] you

Global Keynote Speaker & Corporate Trainer

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman “Speaker for All Occasions” is an authentic keynote speaker, corporate trainer, author, life coach, and motivational and inspirational speaker for organizations and companies as well as individuals around the globe. Dr. Fortman gives real world solutions in powerful, engaging and memorable presentations.