Summary 

In this episode, I have master certified life coach Brig Johnson to discuss an incredibly relevant topic for high-achieving women: the fear of missing out (FOMO) and its surprising counterpart, the joy of missing out (JOMO). Dr. Venugopal shares some exciting updates about her podcast's upcoming evolution, reflecting on her mission to help professional working moms burn stress, lose fat, and feel unstoppable. We delve into a deep conversation about how high-achieving women often struggle with FOMO, particularly in social and professional settings, and how it can lead to actions and regrets that undermine their well-being. Brig introduces her concept of JOMO, explaining how understanding the root causes of our fears can lead to greater joy and fulfillment. 

Brig Johnson is a top-ranking Life and Wellbeing coach dedicated to empowering high-achieving Black women. With a unique blend of advanced coaching techniques and her background as a nurse anesthesiologist, Brig integrates deep understanding of the nervous system and it’s stress responses into her coaching. She addresses internalized barriers with a culturally centered, compassionate approach, helping her clients transform stress into success. Brig's innovative frameworks, such as the S.A.F.E.R. Method for Marginalized Identities and the C.A.R.E. Framework for Self-Compassion, guide her clients to not only overcome obstacles but also to thrive in their professional and personal lives and their health.

Brig’s Links:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/johnsonbrig/ 

Website: https://brigjohnson.com/ 

Podcast: https://brigjohnson.com/podcast/

Be sure to check out my private podcast and discover the steps to burn stress + fat for lasting weight loss here: https://www.theunstoppablemombrain.com/bodyreset

What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

• Updates about the future direction of my podcast and mission.
• How FOMO manifests in the lives of high-achieving women and its impact on their decisions and well-being.
• Brig Johnson's unique perspective on JOMO and how it can transform our approach to stress and life.
• Real-life scenarios and practical advice on how to apply the concept of JOMO to overcome FOMO.
• Insights into how high-achieving women can change their relationship with stress to live bigger, more fulfilling lives.

Listen to the Full Episode:

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Featured on the Show:

• Want to work with me? Learn about The Unstoppable Group by clicking here.
• Get access to my new private podcast by clicking here. 

• Brig's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/johnsonbrig/ 

•  Brig's Website: https://brigjohnson.com/ 

•  Brig's Podcast: https://brigjohnson.com/podcast/

Download the full transcript here.

• Priyanka Venugopal: Hey, this is Dr. Priyanka Venugopal. Welcome back to the podcast friends. I have so many little updates to share with you. And then we're getting into a wonderful conversation with my friend and master certified life coach, Brigg Johnson. So a couple of updates in just a few weeks. The pod is undergoing a little bit of an evolution. The Unstoppable Mom Brain has been the name of my business, it's been my mission. It's been, you know, my podcast and my Instagram and my website for as long as I can remember since 2020, since I basically started and. Over the years, I have really been thinking a lot about how I can really share what my mission is for high achieving professional working moms. And that is how to burn stress, how to lose fat, not just water weight, not your muscle mass, but actually have fat loss and how to feel unstoppable in your experience, how to drop drama from the random off plan moments. And I decided that the Unstoppable Mom Brain as a brand and as a business, while it's lovely, doesn't fully encompass what that mission really is. So in a few weeks, I'm going to be unveiling the brand new name of this podcast. And it is going to be, it's going to be really fun. It's going to be super simple. And also knowing that my mission is still unstoppable. My mission is still for all of you listening, all of the working moms out in the world to still have a sense of feeling unstoppable amidst handling and navigating your real life challenges. So I want to share that with you, that is coming in just a few weeks. And I'm really excited over the next few weeks. I have a really fun podcast series coming up that I want you to stay tuned for. So let me just paint a little bit of a picture for what today's podcast episode is all about, my friend, Brig and I we're at an event together. This was back in April, and we were talking just about The work that we both do, break is also a coach who coaches on stress. And I also love to talk to my clients and coach my clients on how to burn stress at the root. And we were talking about one of the biggest obstacles that women face is this fear of missing out FOMO, right? If you've heard of FOMO, if you're missing out or fear, you know, fear of missing out on joy, on connection, on relaxation, on, you know, on, on, Opportunities and sometimes our fear of missing out drives us to take actions that we sometimes later regret, you know, for the purposes of weight loss, it might lead us to eat snack, nibble, lick, bite foods over drink when we're not actually hungry. But it can really translate in so many different scenarios. And Brig was sharing just in passing at the time, this concept that she loves to talk about and teach, which she calls JOMO, which is the joy of missing out and you better believe I love a good concept. I love talking about new ways of thinking about the things that we are missing out on. And I ask Brigg if she would join me on a conversation on this podcast where we could really break down what is the fear of missing out really all about and how might there actually be a little bit of joy that we can start to experience if we want to turn around some of the behaviors that we end up regretting. So I hope you all really love this podcast conversation with my friend, Brig, and if you do, I want you to send me an email info@theunstoppablemombrain.com and share with me, what is your one biggest takeaway from this episode and how do you want it to start changing how you are losing weight, burning stress at the root and feeling more unstoppable in your life. Without further ado, I welcome Brig Johnson to the podcast. If you want to reach your ideal weight and create lightness for your body, you need to have simplicity, joy, and strategic decisions infused into your life. I'm a physician turned life and weight loss coach for ambitious working moms.

  Hey friends, welcome back to the podcast. Today I am joined by my good friend and master certified coach, Brig Johnson. She is a master coach, all about stress and how we can really arm ourselves with a lot of mindset skills and strategies to overcome some of the stresses that we're having to live bigger and better lives. I'm going to have Brig introduce herself and we're going to get into something that she told me a few months ago. It just caught my attention. I've been hounding her for the last few months. We have to talk about this on the podcast and I'm so glad that you're here, Brig. Welcome. I can't wait to talk to you about Jomo today, but let's get into it. Tell us about you. 

   

  Brig Johnson: Oh, good. I'm excited to be here too. And thank you for the invite. I always love talking with you. I just think our conversations always go on and on and they always leave me enlightened and thinking clearer and deeper. So I love it. So I'm Brig Johnson and I am a life and master coach for high achieving black women. And I help them reduce their stress in life in their relationships and in their health. So that's me. 

  Priyanka Venugopal: How did you, you know, cause I know we're going to be talking about FOMO and JOMO. Don't worry if you don't know those terms, we're going to define them. But before we get into that topic, because I think it's such a big one for high achieving women, we've feel like we're going to be missing out on something. We spent so much of our life in education, in working, in studying, that we have missed out on a lot of fun. Maybe in our youth, maybe we're trying to make up for it now. How did you get to stress as one of the things that, you know, high achieving women really need to address? And then we'll get into FOMO and JOMO.

  Brig Johnson: So good because you know, as a black woman myself, like going against and going up against big things that I wanted to do, even when I started, cause I'm a nurse and ethicist by practice and trade. And I remember going into like the interview and knowing that there were only a hundred slots for like, and they let it be known that they were like, if we have 1500 applicants and I'm like, Oh, right. So it was like, stress and then my reaction to stress. But what I started noticing as I got older was some of the stress was Wasn't related to what I was doing, but to what I was thinking. And I'm like, but I didn't want to demonize my thoughts. Like, I didn't want to like, Oh, I shouldn't be thinking that because I'm like, like, it would make sense that I'm thinking about some of the things cause you know how we take thought work and coaching and everything. And then we just use that as another tool to beat ourselves up against the head and say, I'm doing this wrong too. And I started noticing that and I was like, Oh, so what if I normalize it? And then what would that be? And then it started being, Oh, my body, my brain is just stressed about this thing is stressed about what people are going to say is stressed about this. And most of the things, procrastination, perfectionism. All of those are stress responses. And if we looked at it that way, instead of demonizing ourselves, what would happen? And so that's when I came up with not stress management, because stress management is like ticking off the box and making it balance, but stress mastery, which is understanding why I'm stressed at this. Normally it's a safety issue of some kind, bringing in our conditioning as a marginalized people or as women or gender or whatever. And also like using stress for us because just like in working out, like we intentionally stress our bodies out. So I'm not one of those that's like an advocate of a soft life or no stress or stress free. I'm like, no, we would be weak as can I cut some of your, I mean, maybe we'll I don't know. I guess we're going to work. I doubt we were cut. We will be very weak and I'll just get that out, but we will be very weak. If there were no stressors, there was no adaptation. The thing that makes us amazing as women, as marginalized identities is our ability to adapt. The thing that gets us is when we lack that ability. And when we don't know how to de stress our life, when we have insults or recover, then we lack that ability to adapt. And that's where I think the difference is on us creating the lives that we want is understanding life is going to happen and we're going to have a response to it. How do I recover from it? How do I perceive it? How do I experience it? What do I make it mean about me? 

  Priyanka Venugopal: I, you know, I was, I forget when this was, I was talking to one of my clients who, and again, my clients are these high achieving professional working moms. And I often tell them you've signed up for the life of a high achiever. You've signed up for the life of a professional working mom, which means inadvertently you've signed up to experience some stress. And I say that because you've signed up. You love growth. My, you know, I think that anyone that's listening to this podcast loves growth. You love accomplishment. You love hitting that a plus the gold star. And if it was easy to do and everyone could do it, it makes sense. You might not have stress. So actually anyone listening to this podcast, we don't actually want a stress free life. What we actually want is our ability to manage the stress that we're experiencing, not feel out of control with it, not feel like it's running the show. But maybe if we change our relationship with stress, we can live bigger lives and maybe make bigger leaps forward. Yeah. I remember we were, I saw you on stage, there have been so many instances where I've seen Brig speaking on some stage or another and. Every time that you have shared a concept, I'm like, Brigg, we need to talk about this on the podcast. We have to talk about this conversation. I think you and I were talking in April. We were at an event together and we both, I think maybe it was our experience with Bev. Bev was on the podcast last week. She is one of our deep dive coaching instructors. Me and Brigg did deep dive coaching. And I think that that was pretty much it, probably where I started to get to know you outside of just this amazing speaker on stage and this amazing coach in the community. I was like, wow, me and Brigg really have a lot of similarities as it comes to how we want to engage with stress. And you said something in April when we met, we were talking about the fear of missing out and you said something about, you'd like turned it on its head and you said, Oh no, it's not the fear of missing out. It's the joy of missing out. But tell us a little bit before we get into the joy of missing out, what has been your experience with FOMO, the fear of missing out? Why do you think that this is a thing and how did you get to turning it over on its head? 

  Brig Johnson: When we think of fear, I always go to like, if you're thinking of fear, think of safety. There is something in there biological in our DNA that is telling us we're missing out on something and it's a big fear. So if it's a big fear, then they're either it's. It's pulling on the, on those tugs of, I don't belong. Maybe I don't belong as much as I did. Like if your friends don't invite you somewhere, maybe I don't, maybe that community isn't as strong for me as I thought, maybe they don't like me as much as I thought, which is a safety issue of belonging in a group. Right. And so understanding that, right. Or a FOMO of, I didn't get invited to the big party at the job. And that's where the promotions are going to happen from that relationship. So then there's that fear of, I may not be able to provide for my family, or I may miss an opportunity, our, our ability to contribute in the way that we want to is huge for us. And it is a, it is a, a primal need for us to be able to contribute, right? So belonging contribute relationship. It's the same thing. Like he didn't ask me out on a date, like our ability to feel love that intimacy, that is a safety issue too. So the joy of missing out is understanding those fears. And then like, And understanding what's driving those and then allowing ourselves to go, Oh no, baby, there's, if they don't want you, there's someone else. Or if this is happening and it's okay. Like, but to make it, to bring down the. Fear so much so that we can actually have a rational relationship in our brain about what we're actually missing out on. Cause most of the time, what we're actually missing out on, we really don't want to go to the happy hour with the other people while they getting drunk and talking, I don't, I really don't like, and I really did want to be in my bed at nine o'clock instead of being out with the girlfriends, I was tired. . 

  Priyanka Venugopal: Yeah. Yeah. I, you know, it's interesting. One of my clients was sharing with me this past week. She was saying that she would often find herself snacking and overeating at night because she had this fear of missing out. And she was like, she couldn't pinpoint what was the feeling, right? Like we talk a lot about like, how do you feel an emotion and, and not numb that feeling with, with food. But the reason she was having a hard time is because when I asked her fear of missing out on what? And she couldn't really pinpoint what it was. So what's interesting is sometimes FOMO, it's this really vague term. We don't even know what it is that we're afraid of missing out on. And I'm curious what you think about this, but in my experiences, it's, we're afraid of missing out on a feeling. I'm afraid of missing out on feeling satisfied. I'm feeling proud of myself, on feeling accomplished, on feeling some joy, right? Some, some play, some relaxation. I'm afraid of missing out on a feeling. Does not ever the food. Or the actual going out that we're actually afraid of missing out on. It's the feeling that we're afraid of missing out on.

  Brig Johnson: Yeah. I think on food, I used to do it very practical. Be like, Oh, like if you bought something and it's like, and you're actually a fool, but there's half of it and you're like, okay, but it's not going to be as good. Tomorrow as it is today. So, you know, I need to enjoy it now because it's just not going to be good. That's the fear of missing out because like when I do it tomorrow, it's not going to be the same. And my answer would always be, well, just go to the store and buy it again tomorrow. Like, is it actually a miss? Like there was a cake that I made and it took me forever to make it in such such as like, okay, then I would just give myself permission to doing the work, to make it again next week. It's like, especially if it's something that I don't normally like, I make a, a mean lasagna. Well, it takes me a long time to make that lasagna. So therefore I may make it. Only three times a year or one time a year. But on that, I'm like, I just give myself permissions. Like, you know what, if you want it again, I promise you, I will make it again. Like I answer that for myself. Like, so that it's like, we can have it again. It doesn't have to be once a year. 

  Priyanka Venugopal: Right. It's actually what you're speaking to actually kind of like what's coming up for me is this idea that I think this is especially true with high achieving women who have that all or nothing tendency, which is if I don't get it now, then I'm never going to get it. And so it makes a lot of sense that it triggers that scarcity or that fear that we're not going to get this again. And I would say, and I just say this because I remember like when I was on the diet rollercoaster, we had this very like indulgent restrictive cycle. So because we've told ourselves I'm never allowed to have enter the name of the food or the alcohol or whatever it is ever again, let me get it while I can. So we have this like squirreling motion of like, let me eat it while I can get it while I can, because I might not allow myself to have it again later. And kind of what you're saying in terms of speaking to that, it's like, what if we just made ourselves a promise that I can have it again next time? It's like just not a problem.

  Brig Johnson: Yeah. It's like understanding the, uh, again, it's like, understanding the reason for the, is it a safety issue? Is this all or none? Like what's the thing? And just slowing down enough to understand what are we doing here? Like, do we think our friends are never going to love us and we're going to be alone and we can't, we don't have the capacity to make another set of friends. Even if those friends go away, is this a safety issue or is this a. I like, it's not going to be as good tomorrow, whatever. Like we can go to the store and buy it. Like it's 45 minutes away. I got to eat it now. Like even on vacation, you know, it's like, this is the one restaurant and I'm never going to be here again. I'm like, okay. Like, right. Yeah. Yeah. Those kinds of things. What is it? And I think when we mindfully understand what's driving it, my approach is always, I don't need fixing. I need understanding. Right. And so I'm not trying to fix any of it. I'm just want to understand. So therefore I can take care of me because it's me that's going to take care of me. So I'm going to answer the safety issue. I'm going to answer the, Hey, does the restaurant that like, babe, can we come here again next year? Like what, what is it right? Like, what is it that my soul is needing? How can I understand myself? And give myself what I need that protects my wellbeing, right? Because that's basically the joy of missing out is I'm not missing. I'm actually providing for my wellbeing. I just need to understand what it is that I need. Right? 

  Priyanka Venugopal: Oh yeah. Okay. So I feel like I'm understanding this better. So the way that you're describing. The joy of missing out when you can get to the root cause of the thing you're actually worried about missing and you can actually answer and understand. Oh, it's just this. feeling that I want to have. It's just the safety that I want to have. It's this connection that I want to experience. That's the real thing I want and we can understand it and recognize it. There's a joy in understanding that experience because the food is never, was never actually doing it anyway. So when you, okay, I want to kind of go into a practical example. So I want you to imagine you're out like girls night. Right. Mm hmm. Friday night girls night. This is like such a common example. I see this coming up all the time. This has come up for me too. Mm hmm. Go out to girls night, everyone's grabbing, you know, we're getting a glass of wine or a round of margaritas. There's some chips and dip happening and you have decided you're going to enjoy your one glass of wine or your one margarita and now everyone's going for their second round. Right. Another picture of margaritas. And so you have this feeling in your mind, this thought, which is like, Oh, I don't want to miss out.

  Number one, I don't want to miss out on this fun experience. There's clearly like a collaborative feeling happening. Like there's jokes and laughter happening over alcohol or food. So number one, I don't want to miss out on that. Number two, I don't want to be the only one that's not having a second drink or partaking in the food. Okay. Bye. Number three, I feel like I'm going to not have as much fun. So if I'm sitting here sipping on my water, and everyone else is having the chips and having the margaritas, I am going to miss out on fun. How can we But take these, these three, I think these are really common, right? Very, very real fears of missing out on fun and connection and turn that into, there's a joy in missing out. Like I hear somebody be like, there's no way there's no joy. 

  Brig Johnson: And I, and all I see is joy in that, but here's the deal because there's the joy of understanding that connection was the most important thing. Right? There's a joy in understanding, like, and once you do it, because if you've ever done this before and you've done it and you've got done it enough where it's not awkward anymore, because I've even gone to friends and not like gone out to eat with friends and not ate because I already, I've already eaten. And the first time you do it, it's awkward and your brain is messing with you and like, Oh, you should just, and your friends are going, what are you doing? But they get used to it too. Like you become this person and we think that's that time lamps is stamped forever. You show up the next time your friends are going to eventually leave you alone. It's like, she's not eating right. They know it because that's who you are. If that's like, no, I already ate. I'm good. They will, they will stop eventually, but we never go through to the other side of that. And when you get there, Then you understand, Oh, it was about the connection. When you experience them without the alcohol or whatever, it's like, Oh, I didn't need alcohol. And there wasn't any missing out because you did have the one margarita. It's like you're, you're, you know, the brain is like, we don't have anything. Oh, really? So that one margarita wasn't enough. Like, right. Right. It's like that ability to have authority over your brain, like, and like instructed. It. Right is joyful. And then the second thing, the last thing I want to say on the joy of missing out is the joy also comes the next day when we get to celebrate ourselves intentionally. When we don't feel like we would, if we had had two drinks, when we get on and like see the consequence of it, there is a joy of that too, but because we don't celebrate those small little things. It doesn't get to be joyful. 

  Priyanka Venugopal: Right. I love that you're actually sharing that because this is actually one of those things where, you know, when you hit a goal, this is like high achievers across the board, they'll even lose the pound and they don't recognize it at all. They just move on to the next thing. And so I think kind of what you're describing is just catching like in that social setting, right? You have your one drink, you have your glass of wine or your margarita, and then you. Actually give yourself that experience of stopping and recognizing. I just want to have connection here. You experience joy on the other side of it. I think what you're saying is we just never get to the other side. We never even experienced it. 

   

  Brig Johnson: Right. Or when we get to the other side, we don't, we don't give it language. We don't tell ourselves what we just did. Right. We don't direct our brain to say, Hey, this is what happened. This is what, this is what we experienced. Wasn't that amazing? We don't give that narrative. We listen to our brain. I was like, if we talk to our brain more than we listen to it and direct it. Right? Yeah. 

  Priyanka Venugopal: I, you know, I think one of the other things I was just thinking about is when we, and this has been my own experience, cause I've always kind of self identified as an awkward introvert at least before, you know, in my younger years, especially it's, it's changed as I've gotten older, but still to this day, I'm like, I'm so awkward. I'm an introvert when I meet people for the first time. And I used to feel. Like, you know, if I just had something in my hands, I'm talking about social gatherings. If I had like a plate of food or if I had a drink in my hand, somehow I felt less awkward because I had something to do with my body, with my hands. And that led to overeating, over drinking. And I realized, kind of speaking to your point, I had just wanted to feel belonging and connection and have conversation, but actually the food and the alcohol was preventing me from actually Talking and actually being curious and getting to know people and actually forget getting to know people. People couldn't get to know me because of that experience, which I just think is so fascinating to understand that. And I, and I, you tell me what this is true, but to get there, there's discomfort. There is an uncomfortable space friends, like if you're listening to this, this is not just like, you know, I mean, I think being aware of it is important, but also acknowledging that there is discomfort with that.

  Brig Johnson: Yeah, totally. And signing up for it. Like, it's like, yeah, there's a discomfort with this and I'm signing up for it. Just like you would if you went to the gym, there is a discomfort to lifting heavier weights. Nor do you go to the bar, I'm going to deadlift tomorrow, probably, nor will I start my deadlift with 150 pounds. I'm going to just lift the bar with nothing on it, warm up with that. Right. And then I'm going to put on a 10 pound. I'm going to lift with that. Like, okay. I'm doing okay. And then I'm going to go up the same thing for us with these things, but we expect ourselves to just go in. And not feel awkward. And that's not true, but you do become the person where one 45, one 50 is your warmup, right? Like if you keep doing it, our brain doesn't change. If that's the way it happens in going to the gym. I, we don't have a separate brain for doing this type work. It's the same brain. We don't have a separate nervous system that like conforms to working out in the gym and building muscle to building new identities. It's the same nervous system, meaning it's the same practice. Right. I love that. Repetition. Right? We do it on reps. We do repetition and then we slowly work our way up. It's the same system. It's not a different, like we don't go get a new brain and nervous system when we want to do big, like it's the same system.

  Priyanka Venugopal: Yeah. I think one of the biggest. You know, obstacles for high achieving women is that we think if I don't get it right away and and by right and right away, you know, this is like kind of vapor we can each kind of think about the goal that we have. But if I don't, you know, lose the weight right away if I don't deadlift within X number of weeks. If I don't get the promotion, if I don't get the job, if I don't get this, you know, massive achievement in a really short amount of time, then I must not be capable. I must not be able to do this. I must, I'll probably never get there. I'll fail at this. It's like such a strong negative bias for especially high achieving women. And then I think what ends up happening is we never put the reps in. It's like we have the most convenient story to not put in our full effort and putting in the reps to get there. 

  Brig Johnson: Yeah. And my answer to that is, you're right. But I want us to understand why that is there, why that narrative is there, which is like, Oh, I have to get it right and maybe I'm not supposed to do it and everything. That is our conditioning. And until we understand that, And understand that that was taught to us. That's actually not correct. The person who takes five hours to learn two plus two equals four, or the person who learns two plus two equals four in 30 minutes, two years later, you cannot tell the difference. Right. They, two plus two is always going to equal four. Once they learn it, they learn it. There's no distinction. Like you cannot go in a kindergarten room and go, Oh, that was the kid that walked at seven months. And here's the kid that walked at 13 months. You can't tell the difference, but yet somewhere the perfection of, I've got to get it right. And I got to get it right. The first time has been conditioned to us because it was never allowed for us to be To have mistakes. It was never allowed for us to not have all the answers. If we spoke up, we better have all of the answers, especially if you're a woman in this world. Like if you spoke up in medical school in the 1960s, you had to know all, cause they were going to grill you. Right. So it's like, it wasn't even allowed for us to make mistakes. So therefore now we've taken that. And on ourselves and all we have to do is see that. And so I will usually ask myself, Oh, so you're not allowed to make mistakes. Oh, you have to get it right. A hundred percent. The first time what our conditioning has done is it's dehumanized us and we get to offer our humaneness back, which means humans make mistakes, humans figure it out. That is the way I get to my bigger thing is. I do something, I get data and feedback. I figure out that didn't work. I gained weight, didn't lose weight. I don't make it mean anything. I use that data to do something different. And that's how we get to our goal. Yeah. But we've been told it's this beautiful, straight, upwardly projected line that always rises up. And that is our problem. Not not human at all. Yeah, our life isn't the problem. We make our life the problem. Our problem is the line, right? 

  Priyanka Venugopal: I know it's also kind of interesting. And just to validate anyone that's listening to this, that's experienced this feeling of like, I'm not, and we talk about this on the podcast all the time. So if you're a listener, you've heard me say this before, but if that's ever been you. Because it's still me to this day, right? I still notice that desire to get it right quickly, to get it right the first time. This is normal human. I think your brain is designed to want to win. However, it's also, I think, just so validating to know that it was rewarded for you at some point along your journey. So I know for me, when I was a kid, if I got the right answer, I got a smile from a parent. I got, you know, a good job from a teacher and that created a feeling of safety, belonging, love, like Priyanka, you're getting it right. So it makes sense that we have developed these rules that we've taken the conditioning so deeply and it can feel disconcerting to let it go. Yeah. 

  Brig Johnson: But we also have to understand, like, it wasn't even, it's the conditioning, but it's also combined with when we add in like Puritan beliefs with it too, like, like God, like God punishes those who don't do it. So if the doors open, if the Red Seas part, it must be that this is the way I'm supposed to go. And if it doesn't, then, um, Maybe I'm going outside of God, universe, whatever your religion is. But usually there is a religious part of it too. Like good equals easy. Right? And if it's not easy, then it must be, I'm not, this is not the plan for me. So it's totally out of our hands. Right. And it's like, Oh, we just have to understand that messaging and decide whether or not we agree with that messaging or not.

  Priyanka Venugopal: You know, and I think that even kind of just bringing this back to this idea of Jomo and the joy of even catching and acknowledging these, these, this conditioning, I think that, and you tell me, Brig, this has been my experience with my clients. I think that there's such a feeling of freedom and liberation in our minds when we start to realize, oh, that's not a truth that, that, that conditioning is not, it's, it's a rule that I somehow adopted many years ago without realizing it. And wait a second, I can actually choose to unsubscribe from that conditioning. And I think that that's kind of the beauty of coaching, coaching, and really the mindset piece of showing our clients these rules that they've adopted, the conditioning that we've adopted, that's actually creating a very, very small experience and like living with a lot of scarcity and fear.

   

  Brig Johnson: Yeah. I also want to bring up another point, if I may, about Jomo. And that's the understanding that every time we say yes to something, that means we have to say no to something else, right? So we may say yes to, yes, I want the margarita. Then we're saying no to whatever, like if we're not staying on our plan, we're saying no to the goal. But it's like, if we say yes to this opportunity, do you want to take this position? Yes. Then when the next position comes. We have to say no to that, right? So there is joy of saying no. It's like, is it a hell? Yes. If it's not, it's a no. Right. And so that's the joy of missing out too, because I get to say yes to the things I really want to say yes to by saying no and honoring my FOMO. Like, no, it's not. 

  Priyanka Venugopal: And maybe that, that's also what touches on what might be hard for some women who have a hard time saying no to responsibility, to taking on more tasks, to doing more. I think that this is again, such a high achiever women's issue where we want to say yes to so many things. So maybe that's also part of why it feels hard.

  Brig Johnson: Yeah, because if we say no, then maybe we're selfish or we got to manage other people's feelings for us and everything, but understanding our conditioning of our value for us as women for so many times has been what other people think of us, not what we think or what we can do for them or how we make other people feel and think. And when we really understand that's how our value, whether we are considered good mom, like think of all the things. And I know you probably talk about this all the time on a podcast, but like what a good mom would do. Right. It's it's other people, what other people think and feel about us. Right. And sometimes what a good, like I get to decide what a good mom is. And for me, I had to, I had to dismantle. The trope of the good black woman for me and a lot of my clients too, or the good, whatever, because it's like, Oh, she gets up and she does this. And like, she's toils and she's like, she just works and she puts him first and she denies everything. And she takes a second job to put her kids through school. And like, where's her dream, where's her thing. And so there is. We just have to understand the conditioning of caretaking and how much caretaking has been woven into the fabric of what makes us who we are. women such a thing called good and we get to decide if I even want to take that on. 

  Priyanka Venugopal: Yeah. There's these two fairly overlapping concepts. One is what you're talking about right now. The conditioning that women have gotten, how we've been raised to achieve more, do more work, say yes to everything. And then there's this other piece that we're talking about, which is like the fear of missing out on joy and connection and pleasure and belonging. And I think a big overlap ends up being because we have gone so far down the road of this conditioning, we have missed out. Yes. And we just acknowledge, like, I think that so many professional working moms have missed out on the rest, belonging, connection, pleasure, joy, we have missed out. So. The fear of missing out is a rea lthing, and I think kind of what we're talking about is like, what if we could acknowledge what got us here? What was the conditioning that led us to missing out on some of these really core values that I think we want for ourself? And how can we start to answer the truth of that? And listen, if we do this work, we get to pass this on. This is like, Generational work. I always say like moms are the gateway to their families. This gets to be one of the things if you want to pass this on to your children be we have to go first 

  Brig Johnson: Yeah, so good. Yeah, I totally agree with that. I totally agree with that and I think that comes from us Step into, into like our, like we narrate, like, okay, I acknowledge, I listened to those parts of me. That's like, yes, we have, and I'm going to do better. It's, it's listening and answering. I think we do a lot. We do really good at, in self development of listening to, because a lot of people say, listen to that part, you know, whatever, but where's the answer. And this is the answer. This is what I'm going to do. This is how I'm going to meet this need. I'm going to say, I'm going to have one margarita. No, I'm not going to say you can't drink anything, but we're still on this. So this is my answer. We're going to have one. We're going to enjoy it. And we're going to get a Topo Chico with a lime the rest of the day. And we're going to connect, but until we can, Narrate and take over and say, this is the plan. I've heard you. Now here's the plan. 

  Priyanka Venugopal: Yeah. That's the joy. This is so good. And actually this, I mean, I know we're like going into a whole different concept, but one other thing that I know that has come up so much for my clients especially is urges and cravings, right? So you eat on, you eat on a plan. You know, we have a quote. First of all, we have a quote unquote plan. Mm-Hmm. . You eat on the plan and then you notice urges and cravings to snack and nibble. Mm-Hmm. . And one of the concepts that I was teaching my clients recently was. If you have not purposely planned in rest, relaxation, joy, pleasure, like truly, you're taxing your brains all the time. You're expecting yourself to critically think at work, to manage your kids, to handle all kinds of life. You're taxing yourself all the time. If you have been winging your rest, relaxation, and pleasure, your brain will steal it. And it comes in the form of FOMO. That FOMO is going to be so strong, like, I deserve a break. I deserve a break because you do deserve a break. I just wanted to tie that in because I find that it is such a compellingly strong feeling that I'm missing out on pleasure. And the answer is you are. You probably have been. And how do you want to answer for that? In a way that's deep, like truly, deeply satisfying.

  Brig Johnson: Right. That takes your wellbeing into an account. Yeah. And don't forget to celebrate it when you do do that. Yes. It becomes who you are, right? So it's mindfully understanding. If you want to know like a three step process, it would literally be mindfully understanding. Is this all or nothing? Is this safety? Is this because I FOMO coming up? Right? Right. And then, then it would be like, how can I answer it with taking my wellbeing into account? Right. And then what is my answer to this? I hear you now, this is what we're going to do. Here's my plan. And then celebrate intentional celebrating, like, look at us doing it. Like I would literally be celebrating myself as I'm drinking a Topo Chico, see, look at this. This is, I would be narrating it as if I was watching me in a video. And there needed to be a narrator. It's like, Oh, she ordered it. Look at her. She's ordering her go. Look at her go. Oh, look at you. You doing another sip. Like, see, this isn't bad. Like you, he, he, he, ha, ha, ha. See, this really isn't that bad. Like I would narrate it. 

  Priyanka Venugopal: That's such a, and anyone that's listening to this, like it might feel a little silly in your mind to do this step, but really it's, it's how you start changing your inner monologue. So rather than thinking, I can't believe I'm not allowed to have a second margarita, or I can't believe that I'm not allowing myself to eat more chips and have all the fun. You're like, Oh, look at you go. The things you following through on what you said, you're, this is amazing. Like it just changes your inner monologue, which is huge. 

  Brig Johnson: Yeah. It's a concept I call Morgan Freeman. It is, you know, how we watched National Geographic and Morgan Freeman's voices, like in the deer is such a, like, we watch stuff and like, we're enthralled with it. Right. Because it's like, there's a narration of telling us what's going on. And I think for a lot of women, Even high achieving women, we're missing the narration and we're looking to others to narrate. We're looking to our success to narrate. We're looking to the scale to narrate. We're looking, we're actually look to our kids to narrate whether or not we're, I'm like, you want to, you want a 16 year old telling you you're a good mother. No, right. They don't get to narrate at this time. Like when they're in their thirties, maybe right. But you don't get the scale. 

   

  Priyanka Venugopal: Like the scale is telling you that you did a good job. No, the scale does not get to tell you that your child does not get to tell you that. 

  Brig Johnson: But that's the conditioning, right? Like, like we have been taught like other good girl, pastors, teachers, mom, don't a mom, father, friends, everybody gets to the media gets to tell us we did a good job or narrates. No. 

  Priyanka Venugopal: A big piece of this is we're just so used to external validation. So in changing that, doing the Morgan Freeman approach, it's like practicing the muscle of internal validation. It's everything. 

  Brig Johnson: Morgan Freeman that shit. 

  Priyanka Venugopal: Morgan Freeman it. I love it, Brigg. Oh, this is such a good conversation. I am so glad that we got to talk about JOMO and FOMO. And anyone, seriously, when you listen to the podcast and you feel like, oh yeah, that's me. They're talking about me. I want you to know you're not alone. That's why we're having this conversation. It is to really bring light To validate your experience and also to give you insight that it can change that we're all, we have so much capacity to change. That's what we're here to talk about. And if you love this podcast episode, if you took something away from it, I would love for you to tag both me and Brig over on Instagram. Brig, share your Instagram handle so we can tag you. 

  Brig Johnson: Johnson Brig, easy. 

  Priyanka Venugopal: Love it. And how can we all find you? How can we get to know more about you? 

  Brig Johnson: Yeah, I'm Johnson Brig on IG, Brig Johnson on Facebook and LinkedIn. And I have a podcast that is going to be rebranded. So by the time this happens, it would have already happened. And it is called the Black Women's Stress Solutions Podcast. 

  Priyanka Venugopal: I love it. We're going to put links to everything. What was it? Tell us the former name, just in case. Normally Breakthrough with Brig. 

  Brig Johnson: Breakthrough with Brig. 

  Priyanka Venugopal: We're going to have all of Brig's information in the show notes page, and I hope you all love this concept. I just, it bit me like a bug in April when you were talking about Jomo, and I'm like, hey, I actually want some more Jomo in my own life. So this has been such a great conversation, Brig. Thank you so much.

  Brig Johnson: I do want to admit one thing. Yeah, I do want to admit one thing. I can't take credit for Jomo. I think I saw it as an IG something and I, and I felt the same way. I was like, Oh yes, Joy. I don't know who it was, but I just saw Jomo and I was like, yes. 

  Priyanka Venugopal: It is one of those things that landed. 

   

  Brig Johnson: Yeah. I didn't I come up with a, I came up with Morgan Freeman, that shit. 

  Priyanka Venugopal: Yes, you did. And everybody now gets to benefit from it. I love it. Awesome. You guys, we will see you next week. Bye. Bye. I hope you all enjoyed this conversation with master certified coach Brig Johnson. She is such awesome, a dear friend who I love having these conversations with. And I think one of my most favorite things to do whenever I'm having these podcast conversations with either my friends, my peers, my coaches, or my mentors is these are the real kinds of conversations that I am actually having with some of my coaching peers. And I think it is just so incredibly fun to share this perspective, different perspectives on the podcast. I know that all of you are listening because you feel this desire to feel a little bit better to feel a little bit less stressed, less overwhelmed. You want to hit more goals in your life and you know that you're not here for a stress free life, but you also know that there are more tools and opportunities for you to turn it around. If you know that coaching is a part of your journey, if you know that you want to learn how to burn stress, To lose the weight you want, you want a process that is proven and that really drops drama from the journey once and for all. Then I invite you to join me and work with me in the Unstoppable group, which is my six month intimate small group coaching program. If this is at all interesting to you, I want you to send me an email info@theunstoppablemombrain.com and I will reply. I'm going to ask you a couple of questions and we'll set up a time to talk to see if this is a group for you. And if it is, we'll get you in. I hope you guys all have an amazing week and keep a lookout for some changes coming to the podcast. See you next time. Bye. Thanks for listening to the Unstoppable Mom Brain Podcast. It's been an honor spending this time with you and your brilliant brain. If you want more resources or information from the show, head on over to theunstoppablemombrain.com.