Life Filters: Problems to Progress

Feeling Fleabitten? It's Time to Reframe Your Filter!  #LivingLucky

Life throws us curveballs, and sometimes those curveballs have four legs and an insatiable itch. In this episode of Living Lucky® Podcast with Jason & Jana Banana, we get real about the unexpected flea fiasco that infested our home (and our emotions!), and how it sparked a powerful lesson that goes far beyond pet parenthood.

Here's what you'll discover:

• The Hidden Power of "Filters": We often neglect the unseen systems that keep our lives running smoothly. This episode explores the concept of "filters" and how examining them – physically (like that forgotten dishwasher filter!) and metaphorically (think: the news you consume) – can lead to a more positive and productive life.
• From Guilt to Growth: We delve into the emotional rollercoaster of pet ownership, the sting of guilt when things go wrong, and the importance of seeking outside perspectives to break free from self-blame.
• Living Lucky® Isn't About Perfection: We share our heartwarming initiative of distributing wheelchairs, demonstrating how to transform negativity into impactful action. This episode highlights the connection between living a fulfilling life and the positive impact you have on others.
• Challenges as Stepping Stones: Feeling overwhelmed? Learn how to reframe your perspective and see setbacks as opportunities for growth and contribution. We'll show you how to move beyond worry and take actionable steps that elevate your own life and the world around you.

This episode is packed with actionable takeaways to help you:

• Cultivate a proactive mindset that sees challenges as opportunities.
• Shift your focus from negativity to positive action.
• Embrace the power of giving back and experience the joy of helping others.
• Transform life's lessons into personal growth and a more fulfilling life.

Ready to ditch the negativity and start living lucky? Tune in and join Jason and Jana Banana on this transformative journey!  Don't forget to share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below!

P.S. Feeling inspired? Visit us at www.LivingLucky.com to join the Living Lucky® movement and start your journey to a more int

Transcript

Changing Filters

Jana Shelfer 0:00

Are you ready to create a life you crave? Let's spin that doom loop of negativity into an upward success cycle and start living lucky. Good morning. I'm Jana and this is my husband, Jason, and we are Living Lucky®. You are too.

Jana Shelfer 0:21

We're talking about filters. Today, we're really talking about fleas.

Jason Shelfer 0:27

There she is.

Jana Shelfer 0:28

Because we are changing our filters in everything. We're changing our filters in our ceilings, we're changing the filters in all of our In the dishwasher, in the washing machine in the dryer, in our vacuum cleaners.

Jason Shelfer 0:44

In the coffee maker Any kind of filter. We are, though.

Jana Shelfer 0:49

We're just cleaning it out, we're doing a deep clean. And one reason and we hate to admit this, In fact, when we found this out, I turned to Jason. I said promise me you're never going to tell anybody.

Jason Shelfer 1:04

One thing we love to do is air our dirty laundry.

Jana Shelfer 1:07

And then this morning he was like what do you want to talk about on the podcast? And I was like I don't know, I don't think we have anything to talk about. And then, after thinking about it, I was like, okay, we're going to keep this private, but our dog has fleas.

Jason Shelfer 1:30

You're so dirty.

Jana Shelfer 1:33

I feel, so badly because it's my fault. It is my fault. And here's the thing.

Jason Shelfer 1:41

You didn't give her the flea medicine.

Jana Shelfer 1:42

I didn't, and I purposely didn't give it to her. And here's why Because the last time we gave her the flea tick medicine she got very, very sick and we were going on a trip and our poor dog sitter had to deal with the aftermath of her being sick. She got the squirts, with the aftermath of her being sick.

Jason Shelfer 2:03

She got the squirts.

Jana Shelfer 2:04

So this time around I just opted not to give it to her. Now. Here in Florida, you're supposed to give your dog the flea tick medicine every three months.

Jason Shelfer 2:28

And in Florida especially, it's not a good thing to not give your dog flea tick medicine, especially if you live on a lake, yeah, in the summertime fleas are just rampant.

Jana Shelfer 2:33

We have a lake in the backyard and a pond in the front yard. There's fleas. There's gonna be fleas, yeah, and there's. And we have dogs. I mean, there's a dog in every household.

Jason Shelfer 2:46

It's funny that where we live on the lake, there are dogs on almost at least every other house.

Jana Shelfer 2:52

Dog. People live on lakes. That's just all there is to it, at any rate. Okay, so I went through this whole emotional process first of all. So there's a lot to unpack here, let me just start there. But I went through this whole emotional process of oh my gosh, it's my fault, I feel dirty, I feel ashamed, I feel embarrassed, guilty, and then I see our poor dog itching and scratching. And then I see our poor dog itching and scratching and I mean it took me two days to even take her to the vet. I was just trying to give her this cream for allergies because I thought it was the shampoo that the groomer was using.

Jason Shelfer 3:41

Typically that's what it is, because when we travel we take her to the groomer so that the dog sitter has a nice fluffy little fur ball to cuddle up with when she's here. And sometimes the shampoo is sensitive, depending on which shampoo they use, and she comes home and she's like, okay, well, I'm not used to having this, and she's a little itchy and it goes away in a couple of days. Well, this lasted a week.

Jana Shelfer 4:07

So now we are.

Jason Shelfer 4:10

And then the vet says nope, she's got fleas.

Jana Shelfer 4:12

And so now because I am a little anal, I think, is the word I am changing all of the filters in the house. Changing all of the filters in the house, which is a good reminder of sometimes we just need to filter what is coming into our environment.

Jason Shelfer 4:33

Into our lives. Yeah, and sometimes you don't mean to let something into your life and you just need to check your filters and check what you're letting in. Yes, right.

Jana Shelfer 4:44

Yes.

Jason Shelfer 4:51

And then we're always cultivating what we want in and just tweaking our filters a little bit. So it's perfectly fine and perfectly normal and having the awareness, and we had the vet point out what we allowed in, which is another huge awareness, because we didn't know.

Jana Shelfer 5:06

You don't know what you don't know right. Sometimes you need an outsider to actually point out your blind spots.

Jason Shelfer 5:14

And if we didn't know what was hurting Tater, hurting our dog, then it could have to run out through the family.

Jana Shelfer 5:25

I mean, I literally thought it was just allergies. I thought she had some sort of reaction to the shampoo from the groomer and I literally was just going to let her itch it out for a while.

Jason Shelfer 5:38

And if we had let her itch it out, if we didn't get an outside coach the vet then the fleas would have gotten worse. They would have put eggs and larvae all over the house and then the fleas would have gotten on us. They would have gotten in literally everything. They would have hatched Okay.

Jana Shelfer 5:55

But let me ask you this Just the thought of fleas, don't you? Sometimes find yourself now scratching yourself going. I don't know, maybe they're on me.

Jason Shelfer 6:10

It reminds me of like third grade, when somebody would come to school with lice in my head. I know, and we all would start scratching.

Jana Shelfer 6:16

No, at my school they would actually have someone from the health department, would have us all stand in line. And go through your hair like monkeys apartment would have us all stand in line, go through your hair like monkeys, and then they would pick through your hair and then they would say okay, and I won't even say names, I'll say I'll just make one up.

Jana Shelfer 6:35

I'll say toby oh, you got to pick a toby, right toby you need to go over to the the office and we all knew what that meant we all knew what that meant. If toby needed to go to the office, that meant toby had life everybody else can stay in class. Yeah, right like that was so rude. Toby, you're in quarantine and then they would literally put their hands in alcohol for the next person. And I mean, and I was thinking, well, I just, I was standing right behind toby this whole time, I hugging and kissing.

Jana Shelfer 7:13

Well, I sat by toby on the bus and I was in with toby in music class, like I wore toby has it and then in a small town, word gets out. So if Toby's family has, they got to move, well, I mean it gets around, because now all of a sudden they're at the pharmacist getting all of the shampoos and the Clippers. Yeah, all of the siblings of Toby come to school the next day with short hair.

Jason Shelfer 7:48

Why does Toby's sister, Michelle, not have any hair?

Jana Shelfer 7:54

And their dog is all shaved and it feels dirty. There's a dirty connotation.

Jana Shelfer 8:02

When really there shouldn't be.

Jason Shelfer 8:04

That's just a story, it's just a thing, it's just a thing, and we're a thing, it's just a thing, and we're allowing things through our filters all the time. We turn on the news and we allow violence and scare tactics and all these things into our brains, into our minds, into our hearts, and then we go out and act on it, and so there's all these things. Our, our minds and our bodies are our gardens I know, but there is a connotation.

Jana Shelfer 8:34

When somebody has some sort of well, let's just use lice for an example it's the meanings that we put on it. Yes, why do we do that?

Jason Shelfer 8:47

Because a lot of times it hasn't happened to us and it's just one of those things where we think.

Jana Shelfer 8:54

We've been taught that, We've been conditioned that though. Oh that's because lice likes dirty heads, dirty hair, dirty people.

Jason Shelfer 9:08

It's just something that happens. It can happen to anybody.

Jana Shelfer 9:10

It can happen to anybody. It doesn't necessarily mean you're dirty.

Jason Shelfer 9:15

No.

Jana Shelfer 9:15

Right or does it. No, it doesn't. I don't know. I don't even know what I'm talking about.

Jason Shelfer 9:20

I'm just trying to rationalize the flag that the fact that my dog has fleas and I feel extremely guilty about it it's one of those things where you hope it doesn't happen to you because it is an inconvenience and it's it's, I'm it's itchy, it's. It's one of those things that you don't like. I'm itching my neck right now because I feel like my skin is crawling.

Jana Shelfer 9:42

I know Stop.

Jason Shelfer 9:44

But we start thinking about those things.

Jana Shelfer 9:47

It's like when you think about a lemon, your mouth starts watering.

Jason Shelfer 9:51

Oh, that's true, it's the meaning that you put on things and you just don't want to have to go through it. I know, and when we watch the news we don't want to have to go through it. I know, and when we watch the news we don't want to have to go through what other people are going through. So we put all this meaning on what they're going through and we try to avoid it.

Jana Shelfer 10:09

So let's ask ourselves better questions. Let's start changing the script within. How is this serving us? The script within how is this serving us? Tater having fleas is helping us become aware. It is helping us clean our environment. I mean just cleaning our dishwasher.

Jason Shelfer 10:36

this morning that was an eye opener, wasn't it? Yeah, I haven't cleaned the dishwasher filter in months and I will tell you, when we got the dishwasher I didn't really know there was a dishwasher filter. Like that's just me being real, like that's being me, not being manly, I guess, because I think a lot of men know there's a dishwasher filter.

Jana Shelfer 10:55

Yeah.

Jana Shelfer 10:57

I didn't there's a dishwasher filter. Yeah, I didn't, and I know that I have. Actually, in January, I was going to have the house deep, deep cleaned and then, when I had it quoted to have it deep, deep cleaned, I was like, oh, we can just get by with surface cleaning, but maybe I will go ahead and have it deep, deep cleaned, I think and I want to get back to the topic of the bad things that happen, like the fleas or the news.

Jason Shelfer 11:25

I think one of the questions that it subconsciously plants in our heads is what would I be like if something like that was happening to me?

Jana Shelfer 11:34

Well, there's an unconscious bias going on. That's what we're really talking about. So I think in our minds.

Jason Shelfer 11:40

We see the news and we see something bad happening to someone else and our question is what if that happened to me? So we start seeing in our heads and in our subconscious that what I don't want instead of what we want. So when we don't put our filters up, when we allow that in our subconscious starts thinking what if that happens to me? And we don't want that because we don't even want the idea of what if that happens to me. What we want to do is focus on what we do want, because when we focus on what we do want, we start getting. What we want to do is focus on what we do want, because when we focus on what we do want, we start getting what we want.

Jana Shelfer 12:22

Right, and once we start putting the negative or the don't want, then we start reverse, manifesting.

Jason Shelfer 12:29

Yeah, and it's a big difference we realized when we stopped watching the news. Our lives got better because we were able to focus entirely on what we want.

Jana Shelfer 12:40

We are a little ignorant sometimes when we go to parties and people are like so what do you think about the war in Ukraine? We're like what?

Living Lucky

Jason Shelfer 12:47

do you think about all the anger in the world? What do you think about all the sadness? Well, we're kind of living our best lives right now and we're helping people.

Jana Shelfer 12:57

Jason's like is this a joke? Is there a punchline coming? This is the thing.

Jason Shelfer 13:03

We are helping people in the world. We've delivered over 550 wheelchairs to people who are stuck in life without a wheelchair. We're helping people in the world and we're living our best lives, so you can make a difference in the world.

Jana Shelfer 13:17

So there is a correlation, is what you're saying?

Jason Shelfer 13:23

It's like where do you want to put your focus? The people that are angry, the people that are sad and upset? I don't think they're doing anything about the world, they're just worrying.

Jana Shelfer 13:37

And when you get stuck in the worry, that's where you end up staying and creating more worry, yes, they sit in front.

Jason Shelfer 13:45

They sit in front of their television.

Jana Shelfer 13:46

Yes, just stewing so I guess let's just pull this, they're stuck in their filter let's pull this all together. Let's put a button on this. Okay, let's just put a button on this and let's just end this by saying when something like this happens, like when your dog gets fleas, the question to ask is how lucky am I?

Jason Shelfer 14:11

yeah, and what's my next meaningful step?

Jana Shelfer 14:13

what? What good can come of this? What is this teaching me? How is this serving me? Yeah, what can I learn from this? What do I want come of this? What is this teaching me? How is this serving me? What can I learn from this?

Jason Shelfer 14:23

What do I want out of this? And?

Jana Shelfer 14:24

one thing I have learned is I'm going to stock up on the tea flick medicine, Flea tick medicine not tea flick, I'll flick a tea, huh.

Jana Shelfer 14:38

Thanks for joining us. I hope you got a couple laughs this morning. Keep Living Lucky® a bye-bye. If the idea of living lucky appeals to you, visit us at www. living lucky. com.