This episode, I'm talking to an intentional living coach, who is insatiably curious about human behavior, and has a penchant for sweet potatoes and sunsets. She helps over workers and perfectionist, slow down and find balance by clarifying what truly matters to them. When not coaching, my guest devours books and podcasts takes many pictures of flowers and is improving her handle of the Japanese language. My guest is Julia De'Caneva I'm Aden Nepom. And this is the Changed P odcast.
Hello, Julia, welcome. And thank you for being on the Changed Podcast. Thank you for having me here. I'm so excited. I'm really excited to talk with you as an intentional living coach, I just have questions about like, what does that.. What do you mean by intentional living, that implies that people are walking through their lives living accidentally.
I mean, in some ways, I think people are, what I found in my own life as an over worker in my kind of in my youth was that I would just stay so busy. And I didn't have to deal with all of these other pieces of my life that I was really happy, having all the challenges at work. And I saw my co workers doing the same thing. And a lot of the times it was a product of not wanting to deal with big emotions or something scary that they wanted to dive into it, they want to write a book, but they are kind of afraid of failing. So for me intentional living, it was a kind of a concept that I ran into when I was working as a professional home organizer. And it's helping people be cleaner, and find storage solutions and having that process of purposefully keeping an item in your life because you either love it. Or it's serving you to live the life that you want to be living. And so just really kind of co-opted that as my philosophy for just living life in general. And and
I love that idea that sort of does this does this life choice spark joy?
Mmhm exactly. And a lot of people have trouble with sparking joy when it comes to things like your broom, or your vacuum or something sort of more utilitarian. Where I think it's important to say, oh, but I like I really enjoy being in a space that's clean. And that feels comfortable to me and helps me feel calm. So that item doesn't like make me want to sing from the rooftops,
but it may spark the environment in which you feel like singing. Do you find that there's a relationship between folks who have cluttered homes and folks who have cluttered work life balance?
There is there's sort of different categories. So you know, people often think a lot about orders, which is sort of its own sure mental health sort of psychology. But if I think about the people who are sort of habitually disorganized, they're really, really busy. And they have several children, and they have a house manager and a lot of people they're managing and it does, the state of their home always reflects how they feel about their actual life. There's always this sort of domino effect of when you clear out your space, and it feels calm, but you don't feel calm yet, then you have like a moment of panic, where you're like, What work do I need to do? I thought this would be it. And that's kind of what it was like, internal decluttering. Now that's now's the time, match your outside to your inside. And guess who are you?
I mean, if you do the internal decluttering does that seem to run over into people's physical space as well? Does it work the other way?
Yeah, it does. And I think physical decluttering is a little more accessible to people partly through Marie Kondo, and sort of the more mainstream acceptance of decluttering but it does domino effect. In and out, whichever you start with, you want the rest of it match. So if you feel calm on the inside, then you want your environment also feel calm, whatever that really looks like for you. Sometimes. people's own definition of sort of calm and declutter varies based on What they value? And if they love their collection of snow globes, or they want absolutely nothing on any surface that can be both are manifestations of people's like ultimate calm and like relaxation. Yeah,
it's interesting. Well, Julia out of curiosity, so you help people make these sort of life changes, how do you perceive change? In your own experience? Are you a person who, who really enjoys change? Are you a person who, you have strategies for when it shows up, but you have other feelings when it shows up as well? What are your thoughts about change?
Yeah, I would say if you asked me this, maybe 15 years ago, I would have been like, I hate change, and don't, nothing should change, I try to control the outcome of everything, like reaching perfectionism. And I was under a lot of pressure as a teenager. And now particularly, I would say, in the last two years, I'm just like, bring it home. I like moving. I like helping other people move house, I really enjoy anything that comes up. That's unexpected to me. Because for as much as I really like to know what's going on. And I ideally like to know, know it all in air quotes. It's so much more exciting. And it's just so much more of a robust human experience, when you don't know what's going to happen, because you don't know what's going to happen, right?
certainty is an illusion. It's true.
It's so true. And so yeah, and now I just really think it's thrilling and exciting. And I kind of can't wait to see what the next like change is going to be. And it also gives you an excuse to like, as a recovering perfectionist, like, give up on the trying to make the thing how you thought you wanted it to be like, let it just become what it's going to be.
It's such a real.
Oh, wow, I love that. Oh, gosh, that's really, that's a really lovely way to think about it. I often think of, you know, I'm really interested in the idea of the infinite game when it comes to business. And I apply it to projects as well. It's like you play until you lack the resources or the will to keep playing. And, to me what that means is not that like someday you're going to hate this and quit. It's the opposite. It's like, oh, let's just see how far we can take this or see how far this is fun to take, like, you know, his podcast is a great example. It's a project that started out of a sense of curiosity for me. And at this stage of the game. I'm just like, what comes next for this project? And at some point, that the podcast will feel complete to somebody to listeners to me to I don't know, if at some point it'll be complete, or it won't. Or I'll just do this for the rest of my life. But I don't know yet.
Yeah,
there's no way to know that
you can find out.
I'm never gonna say go Time will tell. Um, and it's also Yeah, it's just it's a fun. It's a fun thing too, as to notice as I build relationships with my listeners, and as I attract certain guests, and just what it is becoming is also really interesting to observe. So I love that idea that rather than trying to make something fit into a mold, you're going to just sort of like wait and see and discover and be in that place of openness. What a lovely, what a lovely thought. And well so, you mentioned earlier, like you've referred to this a couple of times when you were younger, you said but you strike me as, like you look rather youthful. You know, it's not it's not polite to ask a lady to reveal her age. So I won't do that. But when you say younger how, how, what do you mean, and how far back are we reaching? Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah,
it's all good. I graduated from high school in 2007. Yeah. No. Oh, okay.
so very young.
Yeah. Yeah, relatively speaking. Yes. Although I feel like because I've had such a progression in sort of life post college, I worked as a graphic designer and a web designer and then I worked also concurrently as a professional home organizer, and then have this break for cancer and then moved into coaching and so I sort of think of my youth As the partner is really still figuring out like being a human being I have not for the record figured out how to be a human being,
I have news for you, I have it, I take it on good authority from my elders, that there's no such thing as figuring it out. As long as you're breathing, we're still figuring it out. Yeah.
Yeah, I support that, again, let it unfold. So, yeah, I just think I probably mostly refers to my mindset of like, this kind of infinite, there's always tomorrow to do this other thing that I love, there's always more time where now I have this very finite sense of how precious life is. And you don't always get tomorrow. So what can you do today, that supports, you know, what you care about, and obviously plan for the future plan all the trips, I love a spreadsheet on my trip to Hawaii kind of thing. But just Oh, give it some space to, you know, exist without too much of grasping too much of the expectation. And then but also like, setting yourself up for a life that you enjoy all of the above. So yeah,
you know, the idea behind this whole show is, is to just really think about these moments that shape us in our lives, would you share a story from a fork in the road in your own experience?
Absolutely. And I have a kind of a two part story, but they're related. Okay, so I would be glad to share both of them with you.
Great,
amazing. So the first I'll take you to October of 2018. I was 29. And I am standing in LAX airport. And my flight is slightly delayed. So there's that awkward period where people, everyone who is sitting, decided they should get up to go to the bathroom, and then everyone kind of loses their seats, and you're all sort of milling about, okay, so if you're not familiar with LAX, terminal six, maybe you are, there is the middle section of the terminal is sort of this circle, that's like two hallways that wraparound interior that have bathrooms and those little convenience shops and things. And so when you're at a gate on the outside edges of those hallways, you really are just in a hallway, and there's people milling around you both from your flight, but also people like running to get to their own connections, and things like that. So just me in LAX on my phone, talking on my phone, actually not looking at it, which is kind of funny for 2018. But people milling about, I'm on the phone, scheduling a needle biopsy at UCLA, for the lump that I've just found in my neck, which I've corroborated with an endocrinologist to, in fact, a BLM that I should be concerned about. So as I'm, you know, I took the opportunity in my delayed flight to like, get that out of the way. My appointment is scheduled for the morning after I get back. And that's when I'm supposed to go back to work. And so I immediately hop on my on my text phone, instead of on the real phone and tell my team which was about two people at that point. Like, Hey, guys, I think I said a little bit about having some doctor's appointments, but blah, blah, blah and updating them about it. And when I come back on Wednesday, I'm not going to be there in the morning because I have to get a new needle biopsy. I remember saying there's like a 50/50 chance that this lump is cancer and 50/50 benign. But either way, I'll definitely be having surgery at some point. So the needle biopsy is just necessary, find out what the next steps are. So I send that off. Of course there's a message that's a little much but I realized now that there's no good way to tell someone you have cancer. So it just pick the route that you feel comfortable with or that you know, they'll see and just go with it. So that was my my teammates responded back to me with like, Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, that must be really scary. And I was like, oh, like my heart is pounding right now. But I actually don't feel that scared about this. Like it's just happening whether I want it to or not to have a lump in my neck that hurts when I move my head. So like, I just like to take the route where that doesn't happen anymore. And like there isn't a version that I can go Back to so for me, that was like, the moment the first sorry, of cancer was like, Oh, yeah, I guess things really are different. But that was like the beginning of me just being like, let's go forward, we can only go forward.
So really then the second part of that, because that's the kind of change that like happens to you, of course, it grew in my own neck. But ignoring the intricacies of that. It wasn't something I asked for. But then fast forward to January after my surgery successful helpful, had to do a radiation treatment, which in the case of thyroid cancer is swallowing a radioactive iodine pill, which I did not know was a thing. So I walked into the hospital, I put parked my car through valet, and I walk in, and there's a very normal waiting room. And it's like the sitting waiting room that people are waiting to get like colonoscopies like girl just kind of bear together. And then there's this hallway behind the desk. And that's nuclear medicine, which I had never, ever thought about before that moment. And so I walk in, and the hallways actually really light and bright. There's a lot of big windows. And there's this chair at the end of the hallway, in front of one of the big windows with this awkward little table in front of it. And there's this little metal, it sort of looks like a tiny cookie jar, and sitting on the table in front of it. And I was like, oh, okay, I guess that's me. Like, I'm supposed to sit there. They were like, here's where you go. But before we open the container, which has the radioactive pill in it, do you have any questions? And I was like, Well, I guess, just so that I'm remembering correctly, because I had not eat salt or iodine for two weeks before the procedure. And I was like, when can I eat salt again, like sea salt. And they were like, oh, and a couple days, you know, once the half life is kind of over. And I was like, Oh, awesome. That's great. And one guy was like, Oh, I like I, I bet you're so excited to eat like pizza again. Like that's, that sounds amazing. And I was just kind of like, That's such a funny projection too. Because I was like, dude, I can't wait to eat salmon. I'm all about this fish life right now. And that it sounds like such a small moment. But for me, as someone like the meal train that my friends put together in November, before my surgery had been like, I listed out my favorite foods. And it was basically every combination of grains with dairy that you could possibly think of. So for me to be kind of a couple of months out of there and just being like, I just want and I kind of want vegetables and I want to put salt on the vegetable. It's like, that was just such a pivotal moment to me. And that was like the internal change than the the change within me as opposed to the thing that happened to me. And yeah, I think both of those just really stick with me a kind of every day. Really Yeah.
Those two distinct moments, the moment in the airport when you just were like, Oh, this might be a big deal. Yeah, and then this, second moment where you were like, Oh, I might be different now. Wow. Those are two really pivotal moments. I can we I want to go back to that moment in in the airport, I'm really struck by this image of it's relatable to me because prior to this year, I just was always working on the next client project and traveling as a you know, as a consultant and trainer and just was on the road a lot. And often multitasking at the gate waiting to board the plane is very relatable this idea that like, you just like, okay, it's on my to do list, I need to send this email, let them know, I'm not gonna be there Wednesday morning. And when like, you're a 50/50 shot, and then it did turn out that you did have cancer. And I just, I'm really struck by that. So you're one of your co workers then emailed you back and was like, really, they were really struck by what was happening. And that is when you realized, oh, something is happening.
Yeah, because for me it was I also I had a little bit of a runway no pun intended. And I'm the one that found the lump in my throat. So yeah, I knew going in like it's 50/50 but like, I would be shocked if it's not actually cancerous. And so I was very people kept telling me like you're so matter of fact about it. And it didn't strike me that I should be really upset about it. Of course, I also had the luxury of a kind of cancer, thyroid cancer, that does allow you a little bit of space, like a little bit of time, because there's some people where it's like, you get your cancer diagnosis, and the next day you have surgery, and I put mine off for about three weeks after I got the biopsy results. And that was fine, and nothing happened and nothing spread as far as we can tell. So from my perspective, it all felt like just the next step that needed to happen, like on that sort of to do list and other people were like, freaking out in the meantime. And so, but I think it was a really important piece to say, Oh, well, they're really concerned about this. And they're concerned about me, and like, maybe I should pay more attention to my health. And maybe I should really be, I don't need to be experienced in this in a different way than I am. But maybe my awareness isn't open to all of the pieces of this in a way that kind of encompass the whole experience.
Yeah. And so during the experience, was there ever a point at which you felt afraid? Or the whole time was it, just, I'm just gonna do the next step? I'm just gonna do the next step, which, you know, I've spoken to people who have had that experience. In fact, one of the guests on the show his first time through, he had cancer twice. The first time through was just like that. He just was doing the next thing. And he wasn't really thinking about it ever.
Yeah, I would say I felt very chill about all of it. Until when I went back for the full pathology, they're like, we'll call you if it's not good. And so then when you make it to the when I got into the appointment, no one had called me and I was like, Okay, great. Let's find out more. But then the nurse walked in and said, "Oh, they didn't call you?" And I was like, why did they need to call me It turns out I had 20% of the cells or 10%. I can't remember. I think it was 10. Were really aggressive cells. And that's very unusual, particularly in women and people under 70. So overachieving cancer cells over here, you know, yeah. Let's say it runs very deep in my DNA, apparently. So I think that was the first moment where I felt disappointed. And kind of saddened by the fact that like, it wasn't just going to be something that was going to tie up neatly. This was going to become like my everyday experience. And I think part of that is like every three months, I get bloodwork and every year I get an ultrasound. So there are these constant, like checkpoints that I call my cancer cadence now, but what's been so beautiful about that is I had one night that I googled tall cells because those were the aggressive cells had a minor, like anxiety freakout like adrenaline. And I was like, yeah, never again, I
wait, but it was really did you have the anxiety freakout as a result of googling or prior to googling,
because of googling it, because people would tall cell cancers, the mortality rate is really bleak. And, you know, my doctors had been saying, like, if you have a recurrence, which I call a continuation, because it would just be a continuation, right of growth, but it, it may be, it'll be in five years, it could be in 40 years, and maybe it's never, but like, you know, at some point, it's not necessarily going to be the thing that kills me, basically.
You know, it's interesting. So my mother survived breast cancer A few years ago, two years ago, three years ago, which runs in my family, and some of my family members have the brca gene, and some of them don't, I haven't gotten tested because I'm kind of like, well, either I'm going to get that or I'm not totally, um, but also, what was really notable to me was at the time, I felt so powerless to help this, you know, this person that I care about, even though I was helping as much as I could, you know, she was on our own journey. And during that time, I went and talked to my dad about some of the feelings that were coming up and He was like, You don't know that this will kill her. Or that she'll recover. He's like, there's a million possibilities. And that's part of the beauty and the sadness of life on this planet, you know, he was like, she could get over it, and then get hit by a bus, she could get hit by a bus before she has a chance to get over it, she could a piano could drop on her head. If you've watched cartoons, then you know how often that happens.
I know constantly,
things are always dropping out on on cartoons, and bits. You know, the idea that safety, longevity consistency, all these things are, their illusions that we we spend so much energy seeking. When the reality is, as you mentioned, we have what's happening right now. And you also mentioned before you shared these stories, that you have a different understanding now of the preciousness of life. Can you talk about that a little bit?
Yeah, I mean, I think it totally ties into the experience of cancer. But I also had the experience of one of my organizing clients in 2016, her husband passed away unexpectedly. And I was there to kind of help pick up the pieces, like organizing puzzles. And I was like, gosh, like he loved his work. But also, there were a lot of things still on his sort of, to do list for life. And I was just like, Wow, I've been working 75 hours a week for the last five years with nary a vacation. And so that was kind of the first seed of like, there are so many pieces of my life that I I love that I haven't been doing because I've only been working. And so then partnering that then with getting cancer, it's like, oh, yeah, I don't I don't have any idea why I was operating under the illusion that I was going to definitely live like a full life in the air quotes, as people love to say, you know, genetically speaking, my grandparents all passed in their 80s. I have one grandma who just turned 95, she's still alive, like, okay, genetically speaking, the outlook looks great. But to your point with, I say this all the time now is like, I can get hit by a bus tomorrow. Like, in one second, everything could be different. And so I want to stop living my life as though I get another moment to redo this thing. And it doesn't mean that I don't sit around watching Netflix, and I you know, because I enjoy that I like the learning of it and the experience. So, but it's just making sure that that doesn't consume my life or that I'm not spending my time on things that don't matter to me. Yeah, and it just, you know, I'm, I'm obsessed with mortality now. Maybe to the chagrin of most people, although I found some other people with a similar curiosity. And I think there's no better way to find clarity than to be like, if you had six weeks to live. What on your to do list matters to you today?
Yeah. Yeah, that's super interesting. Yeah, I often think about, you know, there's there's different buckets for prioritizing things. There's the things that seem urgent and important. They seem that way, whether they are or not as little but urgency and importance, right? This is the stuff that's like important but not urgent, urgent, but not important, not urgent, not important. These, like all these categories. And when you sit down and actually think about where you want to put your energy, most people are putting most of their energy on urgency, whether it's important or not. And then all this stuff that sits in the important but not urgent category gets ignored. But the thing is, is that's the really important stuff. You got to get to that stuff that's so important. This urgent stuff is super not important. And so it's, you know, it's, I think when you phrase it that way, like you've got six weeks, where are you now, putting your energy probably let a lot of that urgent, unimportant stuff slide.
Yeah. And again, it's a beautiful thing to like, plan for the future and have these big dreams and goals and hopes. It's not like a sort of nihilistic approach. It's really just like, There are only a certain number of hours in each day. And how can you make sure that you were spending those hours doing what matters to you? And yeah,
I love that. You mentioned this moment of this guy being like, you're going to be so excited to have pizza, aren't you? And you're like, No, I want salmon and realizing something has shifted inside. So what, what are those? Obviously, this perspective has come from this experience, but at least it sounds that way. But what are some of the other noticeable changes that resulted from this chunk of your experience in this life?
Yeah, I mean, without being too sweeping, I would say everything.
exaggerate, but like everything.
Yeah, everything No, and a lot of ways, my apartment is still the same. I've been here for five years, my husband and I are, we've been married for four. But we've been together for almost 13 years, and my family is still present in my life. And a lot of my friends are still the same, like, the kind of obvious variables have all stayed the same. But the way that I think about every moment, and the idea that I think of life as a series of present moments, like, that's blowing, like, as I said, younger means mind, because that's, I was so linear in my like, you go to high school, you go to college, you do the things and it just lines up. And now it's like, oh, okay, so with that in mind, too. I have, I started studying Japanese right after my radio iodine because it's something I've always wanted to do. And I started, I learned to sew clothing. And like, I've just been trying to do all these things that I kept saying, that wouldn't be so interesting to know. Or I'd love to try that later. And now I'm like, I'm going to do it. Now. I'm going to look up the course. And I'm going to start like ASAP when I can. Yeah. not overdo it, though, because I might over worker tendency can get in the way of slowness. Yeah.
Yes. Yeah, I, I definitely find that overworking. And perfectionism can easily translate to leisure time, where it was previously applied to work. How do you strike that balance?
Yeah, well, now on my to do list, which I always have to write by hand, because that's the only way my brain will remember it. I specifically write in like I have, I do yoga at 10am on a Wednesday, Friday. And every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, my to do list at 10am Yoga. And then between my some calls in the afternoon, alright, walk. And then I'll write out the food that I planned to make that day so that I love the sensation of checking things off a to do list. And it turns out, it doesn't have to be work related to be super satisfying. It can still be like shower check. And just giving myself a little bit of space. And, you know, I meditate every morning. So the first thing I do is even if I feel like I want to like dive into writing a blog post is just be still fine. I'll get to those things later. So that kind of constant coming back? Yeah, that's my that's my jam. No.
Well, um, I have really enjoyed hearing your stories and thoughts, I will definitely be sharing your link to your blog and other resources to listeners in the show notes. But as we're bringing to this conversation to a close, what is it that you would like people to take away from this conversation? What do you want people to know? That's a good question.
I think what I would love for people to pause and think about is, a lot of people know someone who had cancer or some other kind of big life change. And now they quote, like, eat weird food and do these weird things. And I think it's not a coincidence that my fellow cancer survivors like we, I don't eat sugar, like refined sugar, I should say and like these other elements, it's it's not because we're weird. It's because we're trying to live as long as we can. And it wasn't supporting the way my body like, could help me. The takeaway is not to stop eating sugar. That's not my takeaway. Please do this.
I just wrote it down. Don't eat sugar,
no sugar. Just being mindful. I think the takeaway is like, you always think that it won't be you to get cancer. To have this big thing happen, but like, that's how all of the rest of us got here is, we didn't know that would be us either. And gratefully, a lot of people won't have this huge crash-bang-pivotal, like your, you know, rug pulled out from under your moment other than the pandemic. But just pay attention to yourself, learn to listen to your body and learn to listen to your own opinions on things. Because you're constantly fed a lot of external noise. And what that external noise, even for me, so if it doesn't resonate with you, it's still kind of noise. Figure out what it can teach you about being your like, true self and where you find wellness and help and, and reflections. So, yeah, it's kind of a rambling wave, really, just to say, like, have awareness and consider the fact that it could be you. And what do you want to do to support yourself? You know, to support yourself, yeah.
Well said. Yeah, well, that last bit for sure. Like, really
cut up the other part
we'll see. I don't know. It's kind of charming. All of that, just to say, I like it anyway. W ell, Julia, thank you so much for your time, I deeply appreciate you spending time with me and having this conversation. And I really enjoyed it.
Likewise It was really a fruitful conversation, your insights, and your curiosity.
I've said it before. And I will probably say it again. Don't let disease tragedy or an unexpected wrench in your plans be the important wake up call that you need to notice that your life is happening right now. And there are no guarantees. The idea that we can truly create safety for guarantee our own longevity is an illusion. And perhaps I'm reminding myself more than you because I don't know, if you're like me, then you need constant reminders. I like working and I like checking things off of a task list. And I like adding things to my plate. But the reward for hard work seems often to be more work and the tipping point is really easy to miss. And then all of a sudden, doing things that bring me joy can translate into my shoulders, trying to support the entire weight of my body by climbing up into my ears. If life is about balancing contrasting forces, then perhaps this is it: Live like there might not be a tomorrow. But also like there might be. Enjoy today as if it's your last, but set your future self up to enjoy tomorrow as well. Know what you want and know what you need, and know how to recognize the difference between them. Because theoretically, we get one shot at this life. So let's make the most of it. I want to hear from you. have thoughts feelings, sarcastic remarks or a story to share based on listening to this episode? Help me keep the conversation going. join the Facebook group www.facebook.com/groups/changehub.
Thank you for listening to the change podcast. Special thanks to my family for their love, support and patience to all of the amazing changed podcast Patreon page members who I couldn't do this without art of change skills for life. And Patreon member producer Dr. Rick Kirschner.
I'm Aden Nepom. And I wish you the kind of experiences in life you're excited to tell stories