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In this episode of The Art of Imperfect Adulting, Amy Stone speaks with Meryl Hayton about embracing radical inner change, following intuition, and reinventing life after decades in the same career. Based in a vibrant beach community in New Jersey, Meryl shares her journey from salon owner to inner peace specialist, exploring the intersection of spirituality, self-development, and creating a life aligned with her deepest desires. Listeners will discover the power of small, intuitive decisions, overcoming fear of the unknown, and practical steps for transforming burnout into renewed purpose and joy.

About Meryl Hayton:

Meryl Hayton is an Inner Peace Specialist, Advanced Certified Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) Practitioner, Reiki Practitioner, and Registered Yoga Teacher (RYT-500). As the creator of The Clearing Method, Meryl has spent years refining an integrative approach to healing that addresses the mind, body, and subtle energy field.

Main Topics Covered:

• How following intuition—rather than logistics—drove Meryl's biggest life changes and career reinvention.
• The emotional challenges of closing a 28-year brick-and-mortar business and saying goodbye to loyal clients.
• Discovering and integrating practices like yoga, energy healing, and EFT tapping for personal transformation and supporting others.
• Facing financial fear, letting go of security, and building trust in uncertainty during major transitions.
• The physical and emotional tolls of service work, and the necessity of self-care and boundary setting.
• The power of micro-decisions and support—from yoga teachers to business coaches—to make impossible-seeming dreams (like moving to the Jersey Shore) attainable.
• How Meryl’s daily life and mindset shifted from fear to freedom, connection, and self-trust after embracing her new path.
• Why sharing her story is essential for inspiring others to take courageous steps toward their own growth, even when the path is messy and non-linear.

Quote from the Episode:

"You really do have a choice, right? You do have a choice to stay stuck where you're at, or you have the choice to take the leap to really what you want to do or be." — Meryl Hayton

Timestamps:00:00 Intro & Amy welcomes Meryl Hayton; New Jersey beach life and what home means01:17 Meryl’s career origins—creativity, familial expectations, and early choices after loss04:07 The impact of her father’s passing and reorienting career ambition06:57 Realizations: grief, intuition, and how loss shaped her freedom08:21 Building a salon business from scratch and sustaining it for nearly three decades10:11 The decision to close the salon, burnout, and the journey to becoming a yoga teacher12:27 Spiritual awakening, training in mind-body medicine, and discovering EFT tapping16:01 The sequence: closing the salon, a physical injury, and learning to trust the next right step18:07 Turning dreams into reality—testing life at the shore and finally making the big move22:22 How long change really takes: fears, financial worries, loyalty, and letting go27:44 Why the salon industry can be so physically and emotionally taxing29:49 Transitioning fully to coaching, energy healing, and yoga instruction29:53 How life, mindset, and relationships look now—living from trust, joy, and abundance33:58 Why sharing this journey matters: inspiring others to take leaps, big and small35:04 Identifying the very first small step that set transformation in motion36:03 Meryl Hayton’s special offer: The Clearing Method Workbook and how to connect37:00 Show & Tell: podcast recommendation (“Wiser Than Me” with Julia Louis-Dreyfus)38:26 Unsupervised online shopping and the magic of cacao ceremonies41:18 Amy’s wrap-up, audience invitation, and show credits

ABOUT THE SHOW: The Art of Imperfect Adulting shares authentic conversations with and for women about the choices and decisions that shape a life. These are the choices that nobody gives you an instruction book to handle. Topics include: career reinvention, divorce and starting over, caregiving for aging parents, getting sober, menopause, and healing from abuse and trauma and more. These are stories of lived experience, not advice because there's a difference between being told what to do and hearing how someone else actually navigated a similar crossroads.

CONNECT WITH THE GUEST: https://www.merylhayton.com/

MERYL'S SPECIAL OFFER:The Clearing Method Workbook - A Self Care Guide to Happier Healthier Relationships and More Joy in Your Life. It's free for everyone with a $47 value because of its evergreen life long use.

https://mailchi.mp/bd554dfe90df/ycy7syhk6b

Note from the show: Guest offers are almost always limited-time and limited quantity. If you have any trouble redeeming the offer please reach out directly to the guest for support.

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This is The Art of Imperfect Adulting. I'm your host,

Amy Stone. I share stories from real people who have already

been through some hard stuff. Why? So that you don't feel

alone while you're busy figuring out your own life. Let's do

this. Hello,

friends. My guest today is Meryl Hayton.

Welcome to the show, Meryl.

Thank you for having me. Yes, absolutely. All right, so I

start all of my conversations with the same

2 warm-up questions. The first one is, what part of the world

do you call home, and what's something you love about

being there? Oh, I live at the beach in New

Jersey, so it's an amazing place to live.

It has, um, culture and music and I'm a

5-minute walk from the beach. I can bike to a lot of

action and activity, but I also— where I live is quiet,

so it's a perfect place to live. That is a ringing

endorsement. I love it. I love it. My next question is

a subtle way to ask how old you are. Which of the social

generation descriptions is the best match for you? Silent

Generation, Baby Boomer, Gen X, Millennial, or Gen Z?

I'm 57. I have no problem telling my age. Very

good. All right. Absolutely. All right. Very good. Okay. So

today we are going to talk about a time in your life when you

actually made, I think, a lot of changes at the same

time, Meryl. You closed a business and you moved. And

to tell the truth, that's pretty much all I know about the story so far.

The audience and I are going to get to know you together. Something the

audience of my show doesn't know unless they've been a guest is that I actually

have all of my prospective guests tell me what category of

conversation they think that their interview will fall

into. You selected spirituality and

inner growth. What's interesting to me about this is that you

actually could have chosen career reinvention or lifestyle and home.

Those two are options on the list. Right. So the first question I have is,

If you remember, or what you think today, why do you think that

spirituality and inner growth is the best category for this conversation?

Um, and I went through that exact— like,

exactly what you're asking me. I went through that in my mind and said, yeah,

I could pick these, but that's not really why I made the

decisions I made. I made the decisions I made because I

was following my intuition Or not following my

intuition, right? And learning how to follow my intuition.

So that's really why I chose this

category. I think that's a perfect answer. All right, so let's

back up and talk about what your life was like

before you did all of these things. I know because you told me

that you owned a nail salon for 28 years, and I want

to go back in time All the way to the start of

that and ask, how did you choose that as

your business all those years ago?

So growing up, I was creative and I liked

to play with my nails. You know, my babysitting money went to

buying nail stuff, and that's what I, you know, loved doing

on a Saturday afternoon with the TV on. I had all the stuff laid out

on my bed and I just wanted to play and, you know,

do my nails. And I thought that that would be like a

second career. But really,

you know, I was brought up in a

business-minded accounting type of a family.

Go to college, you know, go for business administration, get the

corporate job, blah, blah, blah. Right. And all the

time I was like, I don't really feel that,

but okay, I'm being led that way. And

unfortunately, when I was 17, my father died home alone with

me. It was very sudden. He had a heart attack.

And he was definitely the one that was— would, you know,

push more than my mother about that. He was a

CPA. He was very smart. He was always

pushing reading and scholastics and all that. And I was like, yeah,

you know, I just wanna be like, do the creative stuff. But,

um, so, you know, when I graduated high school, I

did, um, I went to college for a little while,

and, um, we were struggling a little bit

financially since my father had passed. So I

got a couple of jobs and ended up going to school at night. And

then I did get a corporate job in accounting, and I did work

there for 6 years. But at my 4-year mark, I

said, You know, can I go for this promotion? Should I go back

to college or should I go to cosmetology school like I really wanted to?

And I made the decision. And I remember standing in the

kitchen with my mother and I said, Mom, I

called William Paterson, which was where I was going to college. I called William Paterson

and I got my deposit back for the fall semester minus like

a $50 fee. And I'm going to take it and go to cosmetology

school. And she looked at me like— and she literally said,

What white Jewish woman is going to make money doing nails?

I mean, verbatim. I have said that line a thousand

times. And I was already doing— oh, go

ahead. No. So I think this is really interesting. I think

that— so 17, how

old were you? Were you 17 or 18 when you graduated from high school?

18. 18. So you were really— this was a huge

change in your life. This was— you were in grief. Your family was grieving.

Big change right before you went to college.

Mm-hmm. You had always liked

being creative, and it sounds like cosmetology and nails

was something you enjoyed and had some interest in as

a side hustle, or as just something you enjoyed.

How much of an impact do you think it was, since you mentioned

that your dad was the one who was big into go to

college, get the business degree, how much of an impact looking back all these decades

later Do you think that the

timing of him and the grieving and the memory and the,

you know, all of that had with you saying, all right, fine, I'm gonna go

to college like my dad wanted me to, instead of,

you know, he wasn't there for you to argue with him and say,

you know, I'd really rather go to cosmetology school?

Huge impact. I, in my

40s, I'll say in my early 40s, Right around the time when

I became a yoga teacher, um, I did have

this like

enlightenment thought

of my dad passing actually kind of

let me live the life I really

wanted to. Okay.

In a way. Yeah. Because if he hadn't, you

think you would have stayed? Definitely.

It's very interesting. There is this whole thing, right? Like a lot of us,

there's waves of it, you know, 30s, 40s, 50s,

60s, you know, and these sort of check-ins with who we are.

But there is this sort of cycle where, and this is not a judgment,

we don't know what we want to do forever when we're 20. And so a

lot of people do fine-tune that, and it's funny how it does

Sometimes it cycles back to, you know, hey, I'm going to

reset to what I was really into when I was younger. But

you reset just 4 years after starting school for the

first time. You go to cosmetology school. So, and

then you, you start your own nail salon and you

run a brick-and-mortar business for 28 years. Do I have that

right? Yeah, I started

at 21, working part-time while still in the

corporate job. I did that for 2 more years, and

then I left corporate completely, and I worked for

someone for, um, a couple of years.

Okay. Um, not full-time, like part-time and 1 year

full-time, and then I wanted to really be on my own. So,

um, yeah, from You know, 21, I was still

kind of doing it a little part-time for myself. And then by

24, I had my own, um,

you know, it was like renting space, right? No, absolutely.

Doing my own thing. And then eventually I had a few employees and it was

a small business, but, uh, yeah, it was,

it was good for maybe 20 of those, you know, 30

years or so. So I just wanna pause and

focus on the fact that I think it's a massive achievement to run a

brick-and-mortar business for 20 years. And so I just wanted

to make sure I touched on that because I, as a person, am

very impressed by that. It's something you did and you lived it.

So I think it's easy when we do things to be like, oh, it's this

little thing. But that is a big deal. You did it. And so

I wanted to— when I was coming up with the questions, I thought to myself,

I thought, you know what, I wanna make sure That I say this

because it takes a lot of work to run a small business. It takes a

very hard— a lot of work to, you know, pay the rent and to get

the clientele and to do all that, to have the employees, to figure it out.

Yeah. And so I wanted to make sure I said that. But at some

point you do decide to close the business, and

my first question about that is how long ago

did you do this? How long ago did you close down the nail salon?

2018, so 8 years ago. All right, so it's been 8 years.

So 2018, I was curious because I didn't know the year. I was curious

about if there were any other things going on in the world or in your

life that were leading up to

making your decision at that point to close the business. Yeah, oh sure.

Um, well, in 2012 I became a yoga teacher because

I was practicing yoga for many, many years at that time.

Um, like more than 10 years by that time.

And I was doing that because of

the repetitive motion and all the years of sitting in the salon.

Mm-hmm. I needed to do something to help my body and my

mind and everything feel better because I was the type that would,

you know, I was a gym rat. I would do all the hardcore type

classes and the hard cardio and that's

not really what my body needed. I needed to really learn the proper

self-care for myself. So yoga was the start of

that for me. And I was inspired by one of my

teachers to become a teacher because she knew, she heard me talk about, I

want to get out of the salon somehow, I want to cut down my hours.

And she says, I think you should become a yoga teacher. And I thought she

was nuts. And I called the

the, you know, the teacher of the teacher training program.

Yeah. And, um, and I said, yeah, maybe that does

sound good to me. And I joined the

training and, um, I got my 200 hours. And then I did

immediately, I started to teach yoga and I cut down in the salon. And

that started me on this— it was another,

um, 5-year journey for me to my next level of

yoga teacher training. So I did another 300 hours, but within that

time I did a lot of other training for yoga, and

I knew in 2017 I wanted to close my business.

So I took the, you know, okay, I'm gonna— what's gonna happen in this

next year? And I took some time and

I studied. I mean, I had been not practicing, but going

for energy healing for myself and getting massages

and, um, you know. Practicing yoga,

teaching yoga, you know. I was like really building my spiritual practice,

and I was, um, surrounded by a

lot of spiritual people. I was very lucky to be surrounded by a lot of

spiritual people at that time— shamans, friends, you know,

teaching me a lot about spirituality and pushing books and podcasts and all

the things my way. And, uh, I

found, um, in a catalog,

um, a mind-body medicine practitioner. And I said, oh, that's

interesting. How can I get trained in that? And I just started researching

it. And then I don't know where you are in the world, Amy. Where do

you live? I am due south of you in South Florida.

Oh, in South Florida. Oh. Um, so there's

a yoga center for, um,

meditation and health in Massachusetts called the Kripalu Center. Yeah, in the

Berkshires. Sure. Yep. And I got their

catalog and I opened the catalog right to an Intro to Mind-Body Medicine class.

And I said, oh, well, I guess I'm going to take that. And I was

in this, my 300-hour yoga teacher training, and I knew I was gonna close

in a year. And I said, oh, all this is just lining up for me.

And I went to take the class and she taught, part of her

class was she talked about EFT tapping,

Emotional Freedom Technique. So that's where I was first introduced to it.

And then I was like, um, and my

yoga teacher at the time, she specifically said,

like, I know why you're here, you know, taking this training, you know, to,

um, advance your education in yoga and the traditions

and all that, but what else do you really want to learn? And I said,

I really want to learn how to bring in

self-development and worthiness and self-love and

acceptance into my yoga classes and work around those themes.

So this was perfect for me. And she said, oh, we're going to put a

workshop together for you. So my first ever workshop was called I Am

Enough. And I did a little yoga, a little mantra, a

little chanting, meditation, some tapping.

And it— and I still teach that, I Am Enough. I

still sometimes teach that today. It's morphed into something different, but,

um, yeah. So that's what I learned. And I took this

course, and then I was like, okay, I'm, I'm

And then I had a whole nother

awakening at that point, which we'll get into. Very good. That is a good segue.

That is a good segue. That's very good. So it sounds to me like you

were definitely on a bit of a personal journey,

discovery, and leaning into yourself. One of the things

listening to you describe that, that I was reminded of

is, because it's not— it seems sometimes you might think that yoga

training is like spiritual boot camp, spin instructor training or like

just an easy certification. But yoga training is

a big investment in time and effort. Yeah. And

I've known many people who have gone through that, but it takes a

long time, it's financially expensive, and you did

several layers of that. So that is a piece of this for sure. At some

point you decide to move from where you were in northern New Jersey

to Central Jersey on the shore. So

the question I had, which is not like— so walk me through how this

happened. Was it while you were shutting down the salon or

did you— was it— did one come before the other? How did those 2

things line up in sequence? Yeah. So in

2018, literally, I mean, it's like my anniversary just

passed. It was August 31st that I closed. Um, and

I did bring some clients to my home. And I

thought, oh, you know, in a few months I'm going to have this coaching business,

whatever that means. Energy heal— I don't— I wasn't even an energy healer yet, but,

you know, I just thought I was going to have this business. And that's not

exactly how it happens. Um, but, uh,

uh, yeah, so after a month I fell and I broke my wrist and I

couldn't work at all. I mean, even for a few weeks I couldn't drive. I

needed people to come help me do everything in my house. I, you know, Yeah.

Um, so I wasn't even able to teach yoga for a few weeks, but

the coach that taught the class that I took a year

before at Kripalu was doing this practitioner

training, um, that I was planning on

taking, but it was a very big investment, and now I'm not

making any money, right? But I just knew I had to

do it. And, um, I was walking on the treadmill

reading this book Um, I wish I could

remember the name of the book right now, but it was about—

it was about money. Um, you know, like attracting money or

something. And with my, you know, arm in a cast,

I'm, you know, walking as fast as I can, and, you know, and I'm reading

this book, and I said, I have to close this book right now and reach

out to, um, the coach. And I knew

I had already missed the first session that they had.

And she says, absolutely, jump in. It's recorded. You know,

you didn't miss much, right? So I do. I jump in.

It's like a 6-month training that I did online. And while I

did that, I, you know, rehabbed and I

completely let go of doing nails and,

you know, got back into teaching more yoga. And then, I mean,

I came down to the Jersey Shore my entire life from when I was

a baby. Until I moved here. Every summer— I

didn't live here at the summer, but I would rent places, or my family

did, or we did day trips. And so I was very familiar with the shore.

I love the beach, um, and the ocean, and it was a

total dream of mine and that I never ever thought could happen.

And I was working with a marketing business coach, and

she was doing her sessions with me on Zoom looking at the

beach. And I said, oh boy, you know, would love to do that. And

she says, well, why can't you? You know, and I came up with the list

of excuses about why I couldn't. And she said,

she said, you know, why don't you just rent any Airbnb, even if

it's for a short period of time, and just, you know, put the

dream and the action together of

being down there and moving down there. And I said, okay, I'll do that.

And, um, I would say, let's see, I started doing

that December of 2020. So, okay. I was already

2 years in, and I started getting my certifications in EFT tapping during

this time, doing a lot more of my own healing work and still teaching a

lot of yoga, leading workshops, and all that was what I was

doing. And then December of 2020, I just started looking

for the Airbnbs down here And in July of

2021, I was renting an Airbnb down here

in the town where I'm living now, and I had never

ever come to this specific town. Never came to this town.

I was nearby this town, never came to the town. Um,

and I came here and I said, oh my, I, I had no

idea that what I was missing out on. And, um,

Yeah, so 6 months later, I was moved in December of

2021, moved into where I'm living now, and it's

been an amazing journey. I'm totally living my

dream I never thought could happen. I am in a beautiful relationship with a

man I never thought I would ever meet. We've been together for a year,

and, um, yeah, life just keeps getting better and better.

That is a beautiful story. That is a beautiful story. So The

reason that I wanted to ask that about the move and

the connection was because I

was trying to figure out, I was trying to figure out the timeframe

and the sequence of it and how it sort of went and

whether or not they were one decision or two decisions

or a bunch of little decisions. So let's see if I understand. So

you had the salon, it was good, but you had

another passion and so you knew that you wanted to

lean more into the mind-body connection, energy healing,

and yoga. And you had a plan to

make that change. Then you had a physical injury,

the breaking of your wrist. Was it winter when you broke your wrist? I'm

just curious. Did you like slip on the ice? No, it was

the end of September. So only a month after I closed my salon. Oh,

so you closed your salon, you were working at home. Okay, so you closed your

salon. That's an independent decision. And so at that

point, you were sort of working from home

and doing yoga with— were you doing yoga lessons in other people's studios

and on your own? Is that what— is that happening? Everywhere.

Everywhere you can. I worked at studios. I worked at places. I saw

clients privately. I did online classes. Yeah, like, you

know, 4 or 5 classes or so a week. And then I was doing these

workshops. Okay. And then the

dream of being at the Jersey Shore Or the affinity for the Jersey

Shore. Jersey Shore is really beautiful if anybody has not been there.

Connects to positive childhood and

associations from your whole life, but you lean into

your intuition with the support of a marketing

coach and you begin to spend more time there and then you commit to being

there full-time. Is that how that worked?

Yeah. All right. So you would say these are all different decisions? Each one of

these is their own decisions that sort of cascades through to creating the life that

you have today? Yes. All right. That's what it sounds like to me too.

I just didn't want to assume because

it's very good. Okay. So when you—

I just thought that that might be helpful for people to

understand in the audience. How long, just for people, this is another

question that's not— It's only sort of related, but I was curious about how long

would you say that it actually took you to close down

the nail salon business that you'd had for over 2

decades? How long was it from the idea like, hey, I don't really want to

be doing this anymore, I think I want to do something else, to when you

had your final nail client? How long was that process?

Oh, a very long time.

Because I was afraid. I lived in an

incredible amount of fear, um, around money and

fear of, you know, I mean, that's

really what it came down to, you know. It's like fear around money and,

you know, who was I going to be without doing nails and letting go of

the clients, saying, you know, goodbye to people who had supported me

for— most of my clients had supported me for 10 to

over 20 years people were with me, and I

am, you know, very, very loyal. So it was

very hard for me to do. I believe it. And I would

say, um, I probably was talking

about change a few years before I even

became a yoga teacher. Okay. And that because I

was burnt out, you know, my body was burnt out.

And I just didn't know what else to do or where to— what, you know,

and I just kept following the little breadcrumbs, you know, following

the path. And I didn't, um, I don't think

that I'd ever thought about— I can remember when I

learned many, many years ago, um, a friend of mine who

was a massage therapist was telling me how physical that job was,

and I had just never thought about it. The second you think about it, you

realize it. I don't think I realized until talking to you

But how physical the nail salon job would be. But of

course, you're sitting in a low chair for some of that. You're leaning

over a small workspace. The

repetitive motion you mentioned and then the fine

motor skills. I can understand that. And then the logistics.

One of the reasons that I brought this up is I just have this instinct

that it's going to be helpful to somebody out there. Because for people who are

patrons of businesses, you don't realize necessarily how long it takes.

To start it up or to close it down? Because there's also a logistics

side of it. Do you still have like all the— do you have like a

closet somewhere that just has all of the stuff for doing people's

nails? Or was there a season where you were getting rid of the

inventory and doing all this stuff?

The last month that I had the salon, I just called the

local nail places that were near me and I just said, I'm

closing my business. You know, come here, this is what I have. And I just

sold some products, and then I only kept what I knew I needed

for the people who were coming to my house. And, you know, and I

still have my stuff. Like, this is, this is my office, but I literally

can take my computer, which I'm actually going to do tonight. I'm going to take

my computer off of here. I'm going to put all my nail stuff on. I

only do my own nails, nobody else's. And that, that's actually what I'm

doing tonight. I was wondering, I wasn't going to ask you during the interview, but

I was in the back of my head. I was very curious if you still

do your own nails. I would have assumed that you would. Yes. But

that is very, very good. Okay, so, and I was just

helpful, I was thinking in my head that

in my own life, sometimes when people see me make a decision,

they think they may not understand exactly what I'm doing, but that's because they don't

know that there was another reason, there was something else going on, which is

why I made a decision. Like, so sometimes when you move, people are like, oh,

why would you do that? Or you'll go on a trip and they're like, why

would you go there? Because they don't know, well, I might have family there or

I grew up there or whatever it is. And so that's the reason I'm picking

those questions apart for the people, for me and the people in the

audience to understand. All right. So,

yeah. Well, if I can, I just wanted to share one thing, you

know, else about the salon world. You know,

it's just kind of known

that You work yourself to the bone. You don't schedule any breaks.

You shovel in. Hold on, I gotta go to the bathroom. You run to the

bathroom, you come back, right? You maybe you take a sip of your water, you

know, you run into the kitchen. I'm just gonna go take a bite of my

food, right? You run into the kitchen and you shovel in a bite here. That's

like the salon world. Yeah. And my body could— I could not take that

anymore. So when I first started to wake up about that,

Right. And I started to just schedule myself a lunch break

and take longer times to do my clients, you

know, just to make it a little easier so I didn't have to rush so

much between, because that in and of itself is just

constant tension in your body.

So there was a lot that I had to, you know,

rewire and let go of. Yeah. No, I, I'm

hearing you tell it, it makes Complete sense. All right, so today

you are you. So you are an inner peace

specialist. Did you come up with that title, or is that from? Okay, so I

didn't know if it was something from the training. So inner peace specialist,

advanced certified emotional freedom techniques EFT

practitioner, Reiki practitioner, and a registered

yoga teacher. So when you moved to the shore,

was the plan to go all in on this business,

or was it something where you were also doing? Like

changing your lifestyle for working less, semi-retirement,

anything like that?

Um, I had— was already, um, my certifications in

tapping, um, I already

had like level 1 and 2 done, and I was accredited also,

which was a long process. Um,

I was already— I already had all that when I moved down here. And I

already had my business going. Okay. Um, yeah,

so I was seeing clients privately, I was teaching workshops, I was, you know, a

vendor at events doing free workshops, and, you know, like doing all the

things, all the marketing, you know, all the things.

Um, and, uh, I took a break for— from

teaching yoga for about a year, and then I went back to it. And I

only teach one yoga class a week. That's a very, very Tiny

part of my business. It's mostly

coaching and energy healing. Okay, and so when you moved, it was really just

doing that from a different location. It was. All right, very

good. Okay, so let's talk about this. We've talked a lot about what

life was like when you were running the salon, the things

that influenced your decision to make this change. What

has changed in your daily life as a result of

closing the salon, getting the certifications, and moving to?

a new location?

Um, I, I just live life from a much different

energy now. I live life from a trusting energy.

I'm always supported and guided and protected.

Um, there's, uh, my boyfriend started this—

well, he didn't start it, but he told me he learned this— there's always parking

spaces. And I mean, literally everywhere we go,

there's always a parking space, no matter how crowded, you know, any

place is. Uh, you think you're gonna go to, um, you know,

we're gonna go to a concert, there's never gonna be parking. Most people might think

that, right? But we think, nope, there's always a parking space and we always

get a parking space. So my mindset and my energy

is completely different from the person who I was.

Um, like I said, I used to live in a lot of fear, a lot

of worry, and a lot of doubt. And I have

let go of so many layers of that. So I'm a

lot lighter as a person, and my life is a lot

more fun. Um, and

just richer. My life is a lot richer. I have tons of friends

down here. Not that I didn't have friends where I lived, but there's

just a lot more to do down here. It's a lot more

active and

Yeah, it's just my life is just so much better. Okay, so

following up on that question, it's still the same sort of question, but I'm going

to ask you a deeper layer of it.

All of the sort of coach trainings that I've done

have had a very much an introspective

part of it. It's like you're learning about how to do the thing, but you

always apply it to— I always apply it to myself. So

Of these changes of mindset and shedding the

layers and moving through your day-to-day life in

different energy, do you think that some of that

would have happened if you had done some of the trainings but stayed in the

salon business and stayed in Northern Jersey? Or do you think

that it— so that's actually, that's the question. Do you think

that with the trainings you might have experienced, you would have experienced a

shift if you had kept the same salon job? Or is it

Part and parcel with moving?

I don't think that it would have been as good as it is. Okay.

I think that I would have had a lot of shifts. Okay. You know,

in mindset and energy if I stayed in the salon. Sure.

But yeah, it wouldn't have been as good as living here.

Yeah. No way. It's now Yeah, I felt

very like, you know, trapped by land where I

lived. And, you know, there's just such a sense of

freedom, more freedom living down here, being— I'm a

5-minute walk to the water, you know, the ocean and the sand. And,

you know, I just— yeah, there's nothing better than that.

It's not a great question, I will admit that. But it's that— it's trying to

figure out, you know, there's that saying where people are like, wherever you go, there

you are. And so there's always the question of

Like what are the things that are actually making the difference? So that was the

reason I asked, but it's impossible to answer when you do—

they always say only change one thing at a time so you know what's making

the difference, but I have a lot of trouble applying that in my own life.

When I want to make changes, even if I'm trying to do one thing at

a time, the reality is I'm doing several things all at the same time.

It's hard to figure out what sometimes works. All right, so—

You could have done all of this and never shared your

story about it. This is the question behind the story in a lot of the

conversations that I have with my guests. What is—

how would you describe the reason that you like to

share your story about making these changes, discovering how to

lean more into your intuition? And the other side of that

question is, what are you hoping that people who are listening and

watching this will feel or learn from your story?

Um, well, what I hope that people will be inspired to do

is to take chances, because you really do have a

choice, right? You do have a choice to stay stuck where you're at, or you

have the choice to take the leap to really what you want to do or

be. Um, and,

you know, and why I want to share my story is because I

think it's like you said, like just having this podcast, it's important for people to

know that it wasn't some, I woke up one day

and my life was just easy and, you know, oh yeah, I'm just going to

close this. It was like some, you know, easy journey of getting

here. It wasn't. But I had the drive

within to keep going and figuring it out.

So You know,

yeah. And the way— so what would you say is the very first thing? If

you were to go back and think about the beginning, what do you think the

very first decision you might have made to get

you on this path? Do you think it was to go to a yoga class,

or was it maybe take the yoga certification? What would you say is the first

decision that you made? It was because

I needed to do something different physically for my body.

That's why. That's why. And so signing up to do the yoga class as

a student. All right, the first little step. All right, that

is a good answer. All right, so we're gonna begin to wrap up this conversation,

even though I could quiz you for hours and hours on how you did this.

I enjoy talking to you. People in the audience can find

information about you and how to connect with you at your website, which is

merylhayton.com. And the

information for that, including a special offer I'm gonna mention in a

second, is in the show description or the show notes wherever you're listening or

watching. to the episode. I also encourage everybody in the audience to

visit imperfectadulting.com and get yourself onto the email list,

because then the links for how to connect with the guests and find their special

offers just comes right into your inbox, and it's very, very nice. Meryl, you gave

us a special offer for the audience, which is the Clearing Method

Workbook, a self-care guide to happier, healthier

relationships and more joy in your life. Who doesn't want more joy?

It's a $47 value, but the link in the

show description, in the show notes, makes the I wanna thank you

very much for that generous offer for the people in the audience.

You ready to do the final 2 questions and wrap this up?

I'm ready. All right, let's do it. All right, number 1,

show and tell. Can you share with us—

this is just a personal recommendation— a book, a TV show, a podcast,

a movie, something that you would recommend to somebody else that they might

enjoy? And I give bonus points, bonus imaginary points and gold stars if the suggestion

comes from another woman creator. Just because I

like to, you know, share the wealth of women who are out there doing cool

things. Well, I do

love Julia Louise Dreyfus.

Okay. She has a great podcast and it's

funny. She's funny. She's very funny. She's

funny. Wise Woman?

Is that something with wise in it? It's called Wiser Than Me.

Wiser Than Me. Julia Louise Dreyfus. Yes.

Um, all the people that she interviews are older than her, which is

on purpose. And she does—

it's, you know, the podcast is only audio, but she's actually

videotaping it. So she's telling you what she's seeing

sometimes with the person she's talking to. Yeah. And then at the end—

well, she always starts with something funny and personal that has to do with the

person who she's bringing on. And then at the end, she brings her mother on,

like the guest goes off camera and then the mother comes on

and then they have this really cute conversation. Her

mother is adorable. That is very—

I highly recommend those. That is an excellent suggestion. I love it. That is an

excellent suggestion. Next one up, I call this final

section unsupervised online shopping inspired by my friend

Julia. who thought she was ordering one set of canned soup and

ordered 6 by accident. What is the most recent thing

that you bought online?

I do cacao ceremonies,

you know, either here at my place or out, and I bought these

really cute little wooden cups.

Okay. For the cacao ceremonies. So is that like a cacao ceremony?

Is that like a tea ceremony? Tell me more about what a cacao ceremony is.

I don't think I know what that is. So I buy

ceremonial cacao, which is the cocoa,

you know, sourced cocoa bean. And, um, it's from

Guatemala and it is sourced by hand

with, um, families and farms and it

creates sustainability for them also in

Guatemala. You know, it's a big source of their

income. And it's

sourced with love. And like I said, it's sourced by hand from beginning

to end. And it comes in like a 1-pound block.

And you can buy them in 3 blocks, you know,

however many you want. And then you cut it.

And I have a special scale that I weigh it.

And I usually do 30

grams per person for each cup.

And then I do coconut milk, water. You can find recipes

online. I add a little cinnamon and cardamom, a little

pinch of salt and a little maple syrup. And I brew

it for about an hour and a half and it gets really thick. It's

so good. And then we drink it as we're setting

intentions. Very nice. And the cacao

itself is a vasodilator, so it opens up your blood

vessels to your heart. And it's supposed to be that you're

not only drinking the energy from how it was sourced,

but you're creating your own energy with the cacao as you're setting

intentions and opening up your heart and, and your energy

with it. That is, that is spectacular. Once

upon a time, a friend of mine had a— we were on a road trip

And we were in the store and he picked up a— it was cocoa,

not cacao, but he picked up a chocolate bar for this— we were in the

road trip, we're all trapped in the car together and he picked it up and

it was 90% cocoa. And this

is my first experience with

not having milk chocolate or Cadbury. So he passes it

around, this is delicious, and so on and so forth. And we were all in

the car and we were like, not actually

what we were expecting, not as delicious. And I was thinking about that when you

talked about the maple syrup. Yeah, it is bitter. It is

bitter. It is bitter. This has been a real pleasure, Meryl. I want to say

thank you very much for being my guest today on the show.

You're welcome. Thanks for having me. Thank

you for joining me today. I hope you enjoyed the show. Before

I go, I want to encourage you to become a bigger part of the

conversation. Please

subscribe wherever you're listening or watching the show. That

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That is the real way new people discover it. If you feel

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sure to head over to imperfectadulting.com and

sign up for the email community. I call this the Village.

You'll get some free stuff right away, and you'll begin to get the

weekly emails that I send. This includes the links for

special offers from any guests on the show and cool stuff I put together

for the community. There's a lot more going on than just this show,

and the only way to find out is to get the emails. Plus, you're

busy. You don't have time or desire to follow every single tidbit

on social media, and you don't have to because I'm happy to send it to

you. If you have a story you'd like to share with the audience, I

have an open application for guests. Guess where you'll find it? That's right,

on the website and in the emails. And that's a wrap for this

episode. Until next time, remember that the journey is

the destination. Ralph Waldo Emerson said that, not me. Well,

until just now. I did just say it. But what I want you to hear

today is that if your adulting journey isn't going the way you expected,

that just may not mean you're lost. It may mean that you're just on your

way. And now the fine print. The Art of Imperfect

Adulting podcast and streaming video show is a copyrighted

work created and produced by Amy Stone at Amy Says So. The

music was written and produced by Todd Thompson at Dharma Bomb

Studios. All rights are reserved. Anything expressed on

this show is offered as entertainment. And the views of the guests may

not always represent the ideas and viewpoints of the host. That's

me. Amy Stone does not intend to hold myself herself

out to provide professional advice or recommendations of any kind. In

the end, you and you alone need to make those kinds of decisions

based on your personal and individual situation, needs,

circumstances, and comfort level. Yeah, it's a little weird for me to talk

about myself in the third person. But you get the idea. This is Amy Stone,

signing off.