1KHO 717: Release the Hope Molecules | Dr. Julia Garcia, The 5 Habits of Hope

Summary

Podcast Summary

Podcast: The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast
Episode: 1KHO 717 — Release the Hope Molecules | Dr. Julia Garcia, The 5 Habits of Hope
Date: February 21, 2026
Host: Jenny Erton
Guest: Dr. Julia Garcia

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Overview

This episode centers around the science and practice of hope, featuring Dr. Julia Garcia — psychologist, author, and spoken word artist — discussing insights from her book, The Five Habits of Hope: Stories and Strategies to Help You Find Your Way. The conversation dives deeply into how hope can be understood, nurtured, and fought for, especially in a tech-dominated world that leaves many isolated and emotionally stunted. Dr. Garcia shares personal stories, practical strategies, and the neuroscience underpinning hope, while highlighting its vital importance to mental health, family, and society at large.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Underestimated Power of Hope

• Hope is often dismissed as wishful thinking, but science shows it is crucial for setting goals, planning, motivation, and emotional regulation.
  • "I was actually one of those skeptics myself. I was like, oh, this can't be that serious. It can't be that effective and impactful...I started to really consider and take hope seriously when I realized what was happening when we don't have it."
    — Dr. Julia Garcia [01:00]
• Hopelessness underlies many issues — across age, background, or struggle.
  • In her work with hundreds of cities, feelings of pressure, loneliness, or abuse all boiled down to hopelessness as a common denominator. [01:26]

Dr. Garcia's Personal Journey

• Dr. Garcia shares about growing up in "survival mode" with no vision of a promising future, leading to emotional numbing and risk behaviors.
  • "I would do just about anything other than feel...I wasn't just like denying them or being defensive...I would not allow myself a process to process what I felt."
    — Dr. Julia Garcia [03:06]
• She eventually built a process to navigate emotions, received support, and found faith, which allowed her to thrive beyond mere survival.

Societal Shifts & The 'Loneliest Generation'

• The shift away from in-person interaction erodes essential relational skills and increases loneliness, which feeds hopelessness.
  • "The lonelier we're becoming, the more hopeless we're becoming. And so they're feeding off of each other."
    — Dr. Julia Garcia [05:53]
• Children and adolescents face a "national emergency" of soaring depression, anxiety, trauma, and suicidality, with hope being the strongest predictor of well-being. [07:10]

The Science: Hope Molecules

• Physical movement and nature engagement release “hope molecules” (dopamine, but in a healthy, self-generated way) and counteract the effects of despair.
  • "When we start to move our body, get out of our seats, get into nature, start to activate our senses, what we're doing is we're activating parts of our brain that hopelessness tries to shut down."
    — Dr. Julia Garcia [07:40]

Hope is Hard-Earned

• "Hope is not for the faint of heart, and it is something hard earned."
  — Jenny Erton [09:14]
• Dr. Garcia emphasizes that hope requires risk, effort, and vulnerability:
  • "There's a cost either way. There's a cost if we have hope, and there's a cost if we don't."
    — Dr. Julia Garcia [08:35]

The Habits of Hope (Selected Highlights)

1. Risk

• Risk means emotional exposure — allowing oneself to be seen, even if it means crying in front of someone.
  • "We apologize for getting real with how we feel. And that way, we can't...we can no longer deal."
    — Dr. Julia Garcia [10:07]
• “If we don’t risk, we reject our potential...there is a cost to you holding back depth and meaning in your relationships.”
  — Dr. Julia Garcia [20:27]

2. Release

• Expressive outlets (like spoken word poetry, singing, walking, dancing) are crucial for releasing suppressed emotions.
• Dr. Garcia shares her poem:
  • "You are worth being seen despite what anyone, even the madness inside of your mind will say. And that pain you feel, you don't have to deny is real. But pain is not a place we have to stay."
    — Dr. Julia Garcia [21:49]
• Release feels unnatural but is the most freeing and necessary for hope.

3. Receive

• Receiving positive experiences, gratitude, and even compliments is a skill to be learned, especially for those conditioned to brace for the negative.

  • "Get out of your own way. If you're gonna believe horrible things about yourself, believe the good, too, you know?"
    — Dr. Julia Garcia [34:48]

• Dr. Garcia briefly mentioned all five habits are covered in her book, each with prompts for practice.

Open-Ended Questions & Real-Time Transformation

• Dr. Garcia advocates for open-ended prompts for both oneself and children:
  • "Put yourself under the bus first before you expect them to do it." [18:51]
  • Ask: “Tell me something about your day that you felt you were discouraged in, and then it kind of turned around for you.”
• She demonstrates a group exercise with clenched fists to illustrate the cost of holding in emotions versus releasing and receiving support.
  • [41:50–43:16]

Childhood, Faith, and Reclaiming Connection

• Dr. Garcia discusses her joyful if chaotic childhood with six siblings, emphasizing the role of playful, outdoor experiences as formative for hope and resilience.
• Her journey to faith involved “risking” entry to church, coming late and leaving early for almost a year:
  • "It was the positioning. I was positioning myself to be open to receive...that habit of receiving was like, I said, it's really difficult for me personally… I was used to hard stuff. That stuff I'm like, let's fight, let's go. But the good stuff, that was hard for me to embrace, so I had to position myself for a long time."
    — Dr. Julia Garcia [38:00]

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• "Hope is found to be the single greatest predictor of physical, spiritual and mental well-being. If you have higher levels of hope, you have a greater ability to manage anxiety, stress, depression, and other mental health issues."
  — Jenny Erton [07:10]

• "We invented filters before social media invented filters."
  — Dr. Julia Garcia [28:09]

• On group work: "I do keynotes, but they're not traditional speeches...I'm facilitating and we're doing real stuff. We're practicing hope in real time through these different habits, through exercises and activities."
  — Dr. Julia Garcia [41:24]

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Key Timestamps

• [01:26] — Realizing importance of hope vs. hopelessness
• [03:06] — Dr. Garcia’s personal journey through hopelessness
• [05:53] — Societal shift, loneliness, and isolation as roots of hopelessness
• [07:40] — The neuroscience: hope molecules and movement
• [08:35] — The cost and effort involved in cultivating hope
• [09:52–11:32] — On risk: Apologizing for emotions, power of vulnerability
• [16:19] — Experiences working in prisons and high schools, creating space for emotional risk
• [18:51] — Using open-ended questions to facilitate real conversation
• [21:49] — Spoken word poetry as release
• [29:03] — Releasing emotions, why silence harms, and process prompts
• [34:43] — Receiving compliments and joy
• [36:43] — Faith journey, skepticism, and learning to receive at church
• [41:50–43:16] — Real-time transformation exercise (fists metaphor for release)
• [44:09] — Outdoor childhood memories
• [45:04] — Closing gratitude and reflection

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Episode Tone & Takeaways

This episode is honest, relatable, and hopeful, blending research, candid storytelling, and poetic insights. Dr. Garcia’s approach is compassionate but refuses to sugarcoat: hope is hard-won, requires active fighting and vulnerability, and must be continuously practiced — but it is always worth the struggle.

“Hope is not just found; it's fought for and fortified.”
— Jenny Erton [09:14]

Practical advice and real-world tools abound, making the episode a call to step out from isolation, into real connection and hands-on hope — for adults and children alike.

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How to Connect with Dr. Julia Garcia

• Website/Socials: Find Dr. Garcia as @Dr.JuliaGarcia on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and more.
• Book: The Five Habits of Hope: Stories and Strategies to Help You Find Your Way
• Speaking & Workshops: Dr. Garcia leads real-time transformation workshops for groups as small as 30 and as large as several thousand—contact links in show notes.

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Highly Recommended For:
Anyone feeling stuck, isolated, or looking to rekindle hope—in themselves, their children, or their community.

Transcript

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

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[Jenny Erton]

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[Dr. Julia Garcia]

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[Dr. Julia Garcia]

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[Jenny Erton]

Tap the banner to learn more. Welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside podcast. My name is Jenny Erton, the founder of 1000 Hours Outside. We're gonna be talking about the power of Hope today with Dr. Julia Garcia. Welcome.

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

Thank you so much for having me. I am so grateful to be here.

[Jenny Erton]

I don't think people talk about hope too much. You know, you say I hope a lot, I hope this, I hope that. But the actual sort of underpinnings of hope and how we increase it, why it matters. And do you think the same is true?

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

Yeah, definitely. I was actually one of those skeptics myself. I was like, oh, this can't be that serious. It can't be that effective and impactful and critical in, in being a parent, being all the things, all the roles that we play, it, it doesn't really matter that much. So I was one of the skeptics myself.

[Jenny Erton]

Yeah. So you have this book called the

[Podcast Sponsor/Ad Voice]

five Habits of Hope.

[Jenny Erton]

Stories and strategies to help you find your way. What changed for you when you realized actually this does matter?

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

You know, when I realize the science behind it and how it affects our brain and how hope actually activates the brain goal directed circuit. So what it's doing is it's not solving our problems, but it's helping us so that we can plan, motivate, have that motivation, emotional regulation. It's, I think, the most, if I actually flip this on its head. And I think what really clicked for me was when I realized how powerful hopelessness is actually when you don't have hope. And you know, my work with families, parents, students, educators, organizational leaders, what I've realized, I do these exercises where they do writing prompts. And one of the things that I was finding across hundreds of cities was that they were saying they felt hopeless and it didn't matter if they were struggling with pressure, with work or grades or roles, or if they were struggling with loneliness or even like abuse. All of it boiled down to this feeling of hopelessness and despair. So I started to really consider and take hope seriously when I realized what was happening. When we don't have it.

[Jenny Erton]

Yeah, when you feel like you're Totally stuck. And nothing can get you out of it.

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

Exactly.

[Jenny Erton]

So you've really had this story, this story arc of. Of also being in a place of hopelessness. So you say. I mean, you say, I never imagined being alive long enough to see my 20s. I mean, that's quite a statement of hopelessness. Can you talk about this growing up and always feeling like you're not enough?

[Podcast Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Yeah.

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

Wow. Thank you for even reading that, taking the time. No one has shared that with me on the other, you know, like me hearing back my writing in that way. So thank you for that. And, yeah, I think there are some people, if you're like myself, who kind of live in this survival mindset, and you don't really have vision for what success would be like, what the White House with the picket fence is, what that family dynamic is, because you're just, like, trying to make it through. And at some point, for me, I stopped trying because I felt hopeless. And so I started down this, what I call in the book, Feeling Detours, where I would do just about anything other than feel. And. And it led me to this place where I was numbing feelings. I wasn't just, like, denying them or being defensive about them or distracting myself from my feelings. I would not allow myself a process to process what I felt. And I kind of thought that things like anger or sadness were bad feelings. I didn't know yet that they were neutral, and it was what I did with them. And so it was a really tricky place because I stopped trying, and I was almost, like, waiting for it to happen. And that was in my early 20s when life just kind of rocked me. And so I never really thought I would. Yeah. Make it alive longer than that. And by the grace of God and just the support of family and getting help and all those things and learning a way to process my feelings and navigate back towards hope. I'm here today.

[Jenny Erton]

What a story. What a story. Julia. And so then you go on. You end up earning this PhD in psychology, and you.

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

I did drop out three times. I like to say that because I like to point out that the road is all over the place. Yeah.

[Jenny Erton]

Yeah. And now you're in the spot where you're really helping people. You're helping them to do, you know, a little bit of risk. Take a little bit of risk to grow. You even talk about a risk in your faith. You began to attend church regularly and pray and pour your shame and soul into the pews.

[Podcast Sponsor/Ad Voice]

You start to write.

[Jenny Erton]

You do spoken word poetry. I mean, all of these really cool Things coming from a spot of feeling like you're not going to be alive long enough to see your 20s. So you talk a lot in this book about and it's, it's a great read. It's a pretty quick read. Isn't that nice? Like when you need hope, you're like, okay, what are the five habits of hope? You know, again, open it up and just get what you need out of it. But you talk a lot about the societal shifts. The social shifts where we're not really spending time with people, a lot of times we're spending time behind a screen, we're interacting that way. We check our phones approximately every five minutes. This end of a non digital era, which is great wording. Can you talk about how the societal shifts have affected hope?

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

Yeah. So we are basically replacing a lot of the in person relationships. Those things we learned from those relationships, like conflict resolution, we learn even how to laugh really hard sometimes in front of someone. These embarrassing, maybe shameful things that we're practicing in real time. So these things about taking those risks and being all of ourselves alongside a peer, a friend, a family member, all of those things, those like really nitty gritty, messy things that we love about relationships, we're lacking and we're missing. And so we're increasingly feeling isolated and in isolation. You know, the surgeon General actually dubbed it like the loneliest generation of all time. So there's a lot of, there's, there's a lot of science even to back all of these things and studies. But in parallel with becoming lonely, the lonely generation spending less time in real time relationships, we're actually seeing that the parallel is despair is hopelessness is the lonelier we're becoming, the more hopeless we're becoming. And so they're kind of feeding off of each other and it's propelling this, this feeling of this can't get better. This is just how it is. And that's what breeds those feelings of hopelessness.

[Jenny Erton]

Yeah. So you say this is a national emergency. In child and adolescent mental health, there are soaring rates of depression, anxiety, trauma, loneliness and suicidality. Suicidality. Hope is found to be the single greatest predictor of physical, spiritual and mental well being. If you have higher levels of hope, you have a greater ability to manage anxiety, stress, depression and other mental health issues. You talk about hope molecules. Hope molecules. What are those?

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

Yeah, the hope molecules. It's kind of like when you work out and it feels really good. It's, it releases those dopamine hits and it's, it's different Than say, you would get the dopamine with the addiction to the algorithm or something like that. These are good, positive ones. So, yeah, it actually happens in our body when we start to move our body, get out of our seats, get. Get into nature, start to activate our senses. What we're doing is we're activating parts of our brain that, you know, hopelessness tries to shut down.

[Jenny Erton]

Yeah, Yeah. I love it, like, release the hope molecules. But you do say this, and I think this is important because since not many people are talking about hope, I don't think Julia, like, you don't. You don't really consider it too much. And then you're like, oh, yeah, I can be more hopeful. But you say, actually it's not free. It comes at a cost. It requires sacrifice. Can you talk about the effort of hope?

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

Yeah, I think there's a cost either way. Right. There's a cost if we have hope and there's a cost if we don't. And it's really about evaluating what our worth is. So there was a time where I felt worth less and therefore I wasn't investing into myself because I didn't think it mattered. I didn't think I mattered. I didn't think the outcome would change. So it's really the root of it is actually a value system that we have about our own inherent self worth, and it's finding a way to recognize what it currently is and what do we want it to be.

[Jenny Erton]

Hope is not for the faint of heart, and it is something hard earned. So you talk about there are hope blocks. There's different barriers that can keep us from feeling hopeful. But I'd love to talk about a couple of these habits of hope. We'll talk about a couple. And then people can pick up the book so that you can know all five of them. These are stories. Stories and strategies to help you find your way. Hope is not just found, it's fought for and fortified. One of them we talk about is risk. And you say that we apologize so much.

[Podcast Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Yeah.

[Jenny Erton]

Like, I'm so sorry, you know, and it is true. Can you talk about why risk would be a habit that would help us to increase our hope?

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

Yeah. No matter where I go, no matter the age demographic or the background of someone I'm working with, they tend to show emotion in front of me. And when it comes in, like a tear form, they always, if they're crying, they always say the same two words. I'm sure you know what they are.

[Jenny Erton]

Yeah.

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

They say, I'm sorry, say, I'm sorry. And in my poetic nature, I like to say we apologize for getting real with how we feel. And that way, we can't. We can no longer deal. When we do that, we're not allowing ourselves a process to process our feelings because we're associating certain feelings as bad. Don't do that. That one's not a good emotion. And then what we're doing is we are allowing fear to become more magnified, and so we're less likely to take that emotional risk. And it's not a risk of, like, you know, adrenaline, which I used to love to do. I've jumped out of some planes. But the emotional risk I'm talking about is when you allow yourself to be seen in front of someone, even if that means tears. And it's a safe space and you feel comfortable doing that. But when you allow yourself to. To cry in front of someone, sometimes I'll. I'll look someone in the eye afterwards and I'll ask if I could grab their hand and I'll be like, wait, your pulse is still. Yep. Your breath is still. Yep. You're still breathing. You survived this moment of you being seen in a way that maybe you would have beforehand felt shameful. And they chose to do it. And I like to say, like, I just come alongside people and hopefully just can support them in the ways that they want to start navigating their journey.

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[Jenny Erton]

You say, we apologize for being genuine. It's so true. You can just picture yourself doing it or picture being in other conversations. And you say this apology is symptomatic of a larger societal issue. So the story is. And there's a couple of them here, but that you talk about in this particular instance is going into prisons. So talk of talking about places where you would think that there is very little hope. And you went to one in particular in Michigan, which is cool because that's where we're at. Mm. And you talk about how there's often. In terms of risk, there's often this consensus that we don't want to burden anyone with our problems. And so then everything's bottled up, and this is a really hard way to live. So can you talk about a prison story? I know you have a lot of them, you know, a lot of different places, and it's. Whether it's with men or with women. And you're helping them to risk their emotional. The stories that they have.

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

Yeah, I think what's. What was shocking for me to experience, to go into a place. And I actually would say when you go into a high school and talk to teenagers from all kinds of demographics in cities and suburbans and farm areas and all, you name it, is kind of similar. What you're. You're. What you're walking into. You're like, they're gonna. They're gonna hate me. They're gonna be like, what are you trying to do, who you think you are? You know, so you kind of expect. Even educators and family members. I'm. I'm not calling anybody out, but myself included, I'm skeptical. You know, so we live in such a guru culture. Everyone's got advice and like, what are you trying to say to me? You know, so I would say that, you know, no matter where I go, I definitely feel that like, oh man, this is not going to be received right. But what I feel like is always shocking is no matter if I leave a prison or high school, when I walk away, I always wonder if I didn't help create that space with them, would they have ever had the opportunity to have that space to be seen like ever and feel connected? Yeah, because you know how many hours we're spending a day on the phone? It's upwards to 10. And then so many of those hours, I would say more than half are on some sort of social media app. And so when you think about the influence the world is having on our minds and how little we're being able to engage in real time, if you go into a community anywhere, whether it's a diner or a coffee shop, a library, whatever, you're actually going to see more people's heads down and on their phones. Then you are going to make eye contact with people. You're going to be running into people you're like, I always tell kids, I'm like, don't cross the street while looking at your phone. But I do it too, because the temptation, you know, there's an addiction there and it's just now a part of our life. So it's really about recognizing how powerful, how powerful you are. And when you realize you allowing yourself, taking that risk to be seen, to be heard, you shift the space that other people are in and those are the shifts we need to get back to a more balanced societal experience.

[Jenny Erton]

Yeah, the end of the non digital era. So when you go into these spaces, go into a prison, you go into high school, you go in to speak to people, it's. It seemed like one of the things that you do is you ask open ended questions and you allow the time for people to answer what an example or two of some open ended questions that you might ask.

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

Yeah, an open ended question. And I would say as a parent myself, this is one of the most helpful things that I do with my little preteen is asking open ended questions and beforehand even just sharing about something for myself as well. So I say put yourself under the bus first before you expect them to do it. Yeah, so like, hey, I really didn't want to get out of bed today. I was struggling, I felt really sick. But I had these, these work oblig. And then you know, I met this really fascinating person in a podcast interview and it turned into this beautiful, awesome day. And just starting there and then being like, tell me something about your day that you felt you were discouraged in, and then it kind of turned around for you.

[Podcast Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Yeah.

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

You know, so it's different than asking a question where it's like, huh?

[Jenny Erton]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So one of the questions you asked at the prison was, what does being tough mean to you? And you talk about how some people open up right away, and some people. It takes a really long time, but eventually they do and they'll share their experience. Maybe they're thinking about it or they're listening to what everybody else is saying. And you say we all need an outlet to feel. This is kind of like what you're talking about.

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

Yeah.

[Jenny Erton]

There's 10 hours on a phone. You don't have an outlet to feel. And the problem is, is we lack opportunities to do so. There isn't always the space to feel comfortable. And because of this, there are consequences. So there's great ideas for just taking a little bit of risk. And you say that if we don't risk, we reject our potential. Can you elaborate on that?

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

Yeah. I mean, remember, I shared before that there's a cost to everything. So there is a cost to you holding back depth and meaning in your relationships. And I believe one of the biggest costs is going to be that feeling of loneliness, of disconnection, which ultimately can be the route straight towards feeling despair and hopelessness. The lonelier we become, the more isolated we may become or feel like we need to be. Right. And so I think the biggest cost is the depth, the inherent internal desire for human connection.

[Jenny Erton]

So if you need more hope, one of the habits is to risk. That's one I want to talk about one more. And then, like I said, people can grab the book to learn the other ones. One of them is release. And you talk about. And I love this one because this is another thing that we're losing with all the time on our phones is we're losing these expressive outlets. We don't have time for them because we're scrolling. So one of your outlets is spoken word poetry.

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

Yes.

[Jenny Erton]

I've actually never heard that in person. I don't know too much about it. So I would love for you to talk about that part of your life and about how sharing this, your poetry out loud, really made some significant changes for you emotionally.

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

Yeah. Here we go. I'm gonna. I'm gonna just freeball here. You are worth being seen despite what anyone, even the madness inside of your mind will say. And that pain you feel, you don't have to deny is real. But pain is not a place we have to stay. That's just a little piece.

[Jenny Erton]

But is it something that you just. You kind of come up with on the spot?

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

No, I am not. But that one is one that I do often. I mean, I think of it. I do write all the time. But it started for me because I was uncomfortable and very ashamed to talk in therapy to friends, to family members. I was actually forced to see a counselor many times throughout my life. And I would be like, you're never gonna see me cry. You ain't gonna say you're not gonna crack me. It's not gonna happen. I hated talk therapy. I just didn't know how to talk. But I was in a position to speak into other people's lives about specific issues. And so to kind of dodge talking about myself. I wrote a five minute narrative poem describing a very, I would say, traumatic experience that I had. And it was all told through a story in a five minute poem that I memor. And that was how I used to share my story, was through this poem. I don't remember it anymore, but I said it for years because I just refused to share my story in a traditional format because I wasn't ready.

[Jenny Erton]

Yeah. How did you even find out about it?

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

I used to watch Def Jam Poetry back in the day, and I think that's what I loved. Emily Dickinson. I had this little pocketbook of Emily Dickinson's select poetry that as a young girl, I would just study her and Henry Thoreau. I don't know why I liked these 1900s hundred poet, but I did.

[Podcast Sponsor/Ad Voice]

A lot of people did.

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

I loved lyrics in music, so all kinds of genres of music. I would. I would download wherever I could find or write down the lyrics. So I always loved poetry. And then when I saw somebody perform, I was, like, fascinated. And then I gave it a try.

[Jenny Erton]

Yeah. So this is what you've chosen. And I'm sure you do a lot of things, but you talk about the spoken word, poetry.

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[Jenny Erton]

That's B E T T E R

[Podcast Sponsor/Ad Voice]

H E L P.com/1000hours there's something about the start of a new year that makes me want our home to feel more supportive, like it's actually helping us stay organized and focused instead of adding to the chaos. That's why I keep coming back to Wayfair. Wayfair truly has everything in one place, from bedding and bath essentials to storage solutions, to easy updates for kids rooms, living spaces, and work from home setups. Whether you're trying to simplify mornings, reset routines, or just make your space feel a little more peaceful, it's all there. One of the best updates we made recently was in our podcast studio. We received so many books from guests and they slowly had taken over every surface. We ordered shelving from Wayfair, and it was one of those changes that instantly made the space feel lighter and more intentional. The shelves fit the room perfectly, the style is clean and simple, and finally, everything has a place. It sounds small, but it made a huge difference in how the space feels when we walk in. That's what I love about Wayfair. The huge selection, the range of styles and price points, and how easy it is to find pieces that actually work for real life. If you're ready to get organized, refreshed, and back on track this new year for way less, head to Wayfair.com right now to shop all things home. That's W A Y F A I R.com Wayfair Every style, every home.

[Jenny Erton]

And that it was this catalyst to help you release a lifetime of suppressed emotions. You're finally able to breathe. You say relaxing isn't natural for me. I have to intentionally build practices to master it, which I think is probably most people's story.

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

Really? Because everyone seems so chill.

[Jenny Erton]

You think so? I think nobody is relaxing. They're on their phones. So, like, they're not relaxed there. But you say that release is the most challenging practice, but also the most freeing. What makes it so challenging?

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

Because my temptation to withhold. Because everything about releasing feels unnatural. Because I'm not. I. I never did it. I spent a lifetime not doing it. Not talking about things like expressing myself fully. I would limit myself. I always had this double, triple, quadruple consciousness of what other people were thinking, then what those people were thinking about the other people thinking. And then, you know, it's like this loop of, like in this. So many hats you're wearing. And then guises you have on and filters that you have. We. We invented filters before social media invented filters. Okay, we knew. We knew what filtering was before it was on social media. And all of that was how I operated. I was always hesitating. And so in order to be free of that, it was like I had to constantly first Meet the temptation.

[Jenny Erton]

So you just are making sure that you have an outlet. And you have this wonderful page in this book called the Five Habits of Hope that has a bunch of ideas, release, practice ideas. And I think these are really important. Whether it's calling a loved one or daily devotions or singing, you know, singing real loud, alone time, dancing, walking in nature, that the self expression can add to our hope. It alleviates the stress of loneliness and it heals. So it's really important to read about especially for our kids too. Do they have an opportunity to release? Do they have opportunities to risk? And there are other ideas in the

[Podcast Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Five Habits of Hope.

[Jenny Erton]

You have done some really cool things. Really cool things.

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

Julia. Thank you.

[Jenny Erton]

You know, skydiving. Okay, go ahead.

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

On the kids thing, one of the things my. One of my children were navigating anger and we allowed them to do spitballs. And at some point we had to slow down with the spitballs because the wall got a little bit too, too much. But it was. We let them choose a way to help release some of their anger because we want them to. We want to teach and model ourselves as well. It's. We have to identify that we can only hold so many emotions within our body before they start to be suppressed and they start to hold us back.

[Jenny Erton]

Yeah.

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

And that's where we see the stress become an attack on someone else or ourselves, or the discouragement and defeat turn into despair and the spiral happening. So it's just constantly revisiting, like what. What's a process to help process this feeling? And the simplest way I can say this is you can ask yourself, why am I staying silent about it? It's a very simple prompt. You can just ask yourself, like if you're struggling right now, just ask yourself, why am I staying silent about it? And that will start to rotate some of the thoughts. And what I like to say is, what it does is it helps start to re shift the neural pathways in our mind that are on this like repeat mode. And it interrupts it. And if you interrupt it enough, you start to reroute it. So these prompts, these habits are because each, each habit in the book is accompanied with a prompt. And each of them are just to help us break the traditional route our mind is taking so that we can actually intentionally build the pathways in our mind in a way that we, we desire.

[Jenny Erton]

It's so helpful. It's so helpful for our everyday living. And if you're feeling hopeless, obviously it's very practical for shifting things. So you talk about how you Had a cousin who passed away from an overdose. And, I mean, this is just obviously incredibly strong emotions. Rage and sadness and confusion, and then you end up with a. An assortment of substances and blacking out. And now, you know, you read your story and you're like, okay, you already brought it up. You're like, you've gone skydiving. You've. You know, you've ridden the waves in Hawaii. You. You've been in the sunsets of Dubai, dancing in Acapulco.

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

Yes.

[Jenny Erton]

Can you talk about the cool things that you've done and what was your path toward? Because, you know, it's one thing to be like, okay, and get myself out of this hopeless spot. It's another thing to say I'm gonna really embrace life and do these pretty exceptional things.

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

Yeah. I'm just so incredibly freaking blessed. I'm gonna be straight with you. I'm so blessed because I've had the opportunity to travel the world and see and experience and taste and feel the sunsets in different parts of the world and taste really exotic foods that I would never taste before. And I think the difference, though, is even if I got to do that back when I was struggling, the difference is, is I actually felt it all. I was present for it. I was. I allowed myself. I was available to the experience as opposed to. I'm doing it, and it's really cool, but I don't feel anything. And I was at a place for so long where even if I got to go to London or Dubai or Paris, I wouldn't have actually. It wouldn't have felt really like much because I was so hollow inside. There was such, like, a dark hole. So I think the biggest transformation for me is having allowed myself to build a process, to navigate all feelings that I have so that I could be free, that I could experience these really cool journeys around the world and even locally. I love local stuff. I love local vibes. And it's really about the permission, I would say. And that's habit number four, really, is to receive things, receive joy, receive love, receive fun, adventure. And receiving is really difficult to do when you have a lot of walls up.

[Jenny Erton]

Yeah.

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

And so being able to do those experiences, what made the difference was being able to receive the joy. The hard parts of it, the lack of sleep, all the things, you know, being able to receive and be free.

[Podcast Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Yeah.

[Jenny Erton]

The little bit of fear, Right. Of. Of riding waves in the ocean or skydiving.

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

I'm terrified of whales. I really am. I know it's a strange. If anyone's out there terrified of whales. Please, Holla. Because I'm terrified. I don't know why, but I am.

[Jenny Erton]

They're very big. Yeah. So in order to receive, you have to risk you. Also, in the receiving, you talked about struggling to receive a compliment.

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

Yeah. I'm sure everyone listening can relate to that.

[Jenny Erton]

It. Yeah. What's your advice?

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

Oh, get out of your own way. We gotta get out of our own way. You know, I think people say fake it till you make it in, like, sometimes the wrong context. I'm like, yeah, if you're gonna believe horrible things about yourself, believe the good, too, you know?

[Jenny Erton]

Yes. Yeah. I love that. You have to receive it. Okay. Talk about being one of six children.

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

Yes. Never had my own bathroom. That's the real story.

[Jenny Erton]

Yeah. No, nobody's got that many bathrooms. Yeah, that's a. That's a. Well, I. We've got five kids, so I'm like, what is the experience like for them?

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

Oh, I could tell you. No. Yeah.

[Jenny Erton]

Oh, does that. Are you still close or, like.

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

Yeah, it's so much fun. I mean, there you have built in lifelong friends, and even if you struggle and you're apart for different seasons for different reasons, and there's just something that bonds siblings that is undescribable, really. And if you don't have siblings, that's cool, too, because cousins, man. My son was raised with a cousin, and I, you know, I mentioned my cousin in the book, and we were very, very close. I thought they were like a sibling to me. So, you know, cousins are great, too, or just if it's a neighbor who becomes, like, family. But it's really about having those. Those peers that you can be your. Your wacky self and grow up with. And, yeah, it's wild, it's chaotic, but it's the best journey.

[Podcast Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Yeah.

[Jenny Erton]

I'd love to just hit one last topic as we're wrapping up here, but you talk about your faith in the book. Yeah. So, you know, you have this really dark period. You end up getting suspended from your college sports team. They send you to mandatory counseling. You're feeling worthless. Even after doing the counseling, you're still feeling worthless. Hope feels as elusive as the wind. And then you say that your hope in Jesus is what set you free. I'd love for you to tell people about your faith.

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

Thank you. I'm. I don't usually get to share too much about it, so thank you for asking. I was like. I was a skeptic about hope. I was just as much, if not more. I thought that people who believed were a certain type of person and that I could never be like that. Like, I felt like people who believed and had faith were perfect. And they sounded a certain way, they looked a certain way. I was like, there's absolutely no way someone like me could ever be like that. And so I really counted myself out for a long time. And, you know, I think the biggest thing I did was I was curious. I stayed curious. And I would. There was this. I'll get. I'll tell a story for you if that's cool. If you want to have story time.

[Jenny Erton]

I love story time.

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

Story time. I haven't shared this story yet, so this is going to be fun. But I. I had woken up from a blackout, and I had all these messages on my phone of people I met that I don't remember, that I did not want to stay in contact with. And I'm like, okay, I'm done. I. Something needs to shift. So I remember I had all my books, my Emily Dickinson, my Henley, Like, Henry threw all my journals, and I laid them all out on the floor and I just, like, read and I passed out. And then I. When I woke up in the morning, I said, I'm gonna Google good church in. And then in the city I was in, and whatever comes up, I'm just gonna go. I promised myself I would go. I didn't know Google worked with, like, where you're located. So I didn't know that at the time. This was way back when. And then I went. I went to the first church that popped up. It happened to be not too far from where I grew up. And I went and. And I sat in the back. I was freaked out. I was like, all these people be waving around, jumping around, saying, what is happening? I was freaking out. And so I decided, okay, I'll go again. And I was already in the speaking industry, so to me, it was like a little bit like speaking. So I'm like, I can kind of dig this. I'll just take some notes on my. On, like, speaking and stuff. And so it was kind of the way God spoke to me. And then basically for a little less than a year, I went late and left early because I wanted no one to talk to me. But it was the positioning. I was positioning myself to be open to receive. I was not ready. And it took me a long time. But that habit of receiving was like. I said, it's really difficult for me personally because I struggled to receive even good stuff, right? So I was used to hard stuff. That stuff I'm like, let's fight, let's go. But the good stuff, that was hard for me to embrace, so I had to position myself for a long time, and it took. Took a while. And, yeah, I gave my life to christ in my mid-20s.

[Jenny Erton]

Ah, isn't that interesting? Like, when you talk about these five habits of hope that probably all of them would have been woven in, at least at times, because that's giving you time to reflect, it's giving you time to receive. Like you talked about, you're risking. You're certainly risking, right? You're like, I'm going to this place. I'm gonna go in by myself. I'm gonna sit in the back. I'm gonna come late, I'm gonna leave early. And you're possibly releasing, you know, different things along the way that are hurtful or things that you have to work through. And then it's a. It's a repurpose. You say, nothing in our journey is wasted if it serves a larger purpose. What a beautiful book. A lot of messages in here to pull people out of hopelessness. Can you let people know where they can find you? Journey with Dr. J. And you come in and you do a lot of. It's really unique. Like you say, my office is 30,000ft in the air. I'm flying from place to place.

[Podcast Sponsor/Ad Voice]

You do a lot of group work?

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

Yes, I am. I'm actually going to be flying out immediately after this. I'm heading to the D.C. area, where I'll be working with high school students at a conference. And after that, I'll be working with educators and parents and families, and I get to work with organizational leaders as well. So I come in and I do keynotes, but they're not traditional speeches. So what I like to do is real time transformation, where I'm facilitating and we're doing. We're doing real stuff. We're practicing hope in real time through these different habits, through different exercises and activities. Because I'm like, you can. You can learn about it, but we're going to practice it while I'm here. So that's what we do. And I do that all over the country. And I love what I do. I also have children that I am always, always wanting to. To be so present for and also keep pursuing things and them to see and to know their mama is a passionate person. So it is. If y' all have tips, keep sending them my way, too, because I don't know it. All right. I'm still figuring it out how to. How to do all the Things. And stay aligned with my values and beliefs. So I'm always working on it. It's a journey, which is why I call it journey with Dr. J. Yeah. And, yeah, you can find me on YouTube anywhere with Dr. Julia Garcia. Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, you know, all the things.

[Jenny Erton]

Things. All the things. And the book is called the Five Habits of Hope. What's an example of something that you do that's a real time transfer, A real time transformation?

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

Real time transformation. Okay, let's do it together. So you're gonna. If you're physically able, you're going to grab both of your hands. Go ahead. Grab both of you. Yeah. And then you're going to separate them. And I want you to think about a time that you struggled and didn't open up about. It could have been years ago, yesterday, right now. Think about time you struggled and you just didn't open up about it. You kept it in. It's all yours. You were hoarding. Okay, Now. Now you got it in your head.

[Jenny Erton]

Yep.

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

Now, as a representation of this, what we're gonna do is we're gonna squeeze our fists really tight. Okay. Now, if it was a really difficult struggle, you're gonna squeeze even tighter. But don't hurt yourself. I have nails. Some people will start shaking. I'm like, don't bleed. If you pierce the skin, you're gonna have to let it go. Okay. So start squeezing. And now if I said we're gonna keep doing this, like, while you're. If you're listening to this, driving, brushing your teeth, whatever, you're gonna keep doing this. So you're trying to eat a sandwich, you keep those fists, all right? You eat the sandwich with the fist. And most people. Let me see your hands. Yep. Most people will figure it out. They'll get on their phone, they'll use their knuckles, they'll use their nose. They'll, like. If I were to, say, keep doing this right, they would figure out how to keep functioning in this limited capacity.

[Jenny Erton]

Wow, that's a really powerful parallel.

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

Can we do all the things while holding all the things in? Yes, you probably can.

[Jenny Erton]

Yeah.

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

But the question is, on the count of three. One, two, three. We're gonna release. One, two, three, release. How'd that feel?

[Jenny Erton]

Yeah, good. Yeah. It feels freeing. It feels hopeful.

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

Yeah. And you. But you have. There's a tension to release, even.

[Jenny Erton]

Yeah.

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

There's a tension there because you're so used to being independent, doing it all yourself. I've got this. I'll figure it out. And so that literally Starts to make us more limited even though we can do it. But we have to allow ourselves to open up and then receive.

[Jenny Erton]

Yeah. What an experience for people all over the world that you're flying in to do this. You say groups of people as few as 30 or numbering in the thousands. So if people are interested, I'll make sure I'll put all the links in the show notes. But they could bring you in to their group as well. Julie, we always end our show with the same question. The question is what's a favorite memory from your childhood that was outside

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

Favorite? Many. I have so many. Honestly, some of them I'm getting physically hurt all the time. But you know, I was an athlete most of my life and the smell of grass, it just takes me back to all the memories. The smell of like I'm from the desert so it's like not really a green grass. It's like a this like a horse crisp like.

[Jenny Erton]

Yeah.

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

Chop up your legs kind of grass. But the smell of it just takes me back to all the memories of being free.

[Jenny Erton]

Yeah. What sport did you play in college?

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

I played soccer in college, but I played several sports in high school.

[Jenny Erton]

Yeah. Oh, what a life. Six siblings. Now you've gone and done all this stuff all over the world and helping people to find hope when they are hopeless. The book is called the Five Habits of Hope. Stories and strategies to help you find your way. Dr. Julia Garcia, thanks for being here.

[Dr. Julia Garcia]

Yeah, thank you so much. And I just want to say really quick if it's okay. That was one of the most thoughtful interviews I've had and I've done so I've done so many and it was so thoughtful the way that you interwove the book and tied it into your mission as well with the audience. I just appreciate it so much. I was not expecting so much of. Yeah. That parallel to happen in that. Yeah. You intertwining it so. And take for taking the time to do that. It really meant a lot. Thank you so much for having me. Well, the holidays have come and gone once again.

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[Dr. Julia Garcia]

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[Dr. Julia Garcia]

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[Dr. Julia Garcia]

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[Dr. Julia Garcia]

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