Fun & Creativity are Energetic Fuel

This week on the podcast I am joined by guest Kelly Lupsha, a physical therapist and wellness advocate with over 30 years of experience. 

We also discuss how investing in our energy can help us activate a vibrant, abundant lifestyle—especially in midlife.

Here are 3 key takeaways:

• Fun is fundamental to energy and joy. Taking time to do things you enjoy and noticing that laughter is contagious—and surrounding yourself with uplifting people or practices can help you summon your best every day.
• Small habits create meaningful change: Meal prepping, prioritizing protein in the morning, and evening routines like making your bedroom a sleep sanctuary are simple steps that transform your daily energy.
• Creativity is energetic fuel: We both love essential oils and finding beauty in everyday moments. Taking a walk and looking for a beautiful flower not only lifts your energy but encourages you to be the “leader of your own health.”

Check out Kelly Lupsha’s energy challenge to learn how to upgrade your energy in just 30 minutes a day. Connect with Kelly Lupsha on Instagram or her podcast, Thriving in Midlife.

Links 

• Join Kelly's Group Coaching Program
• Kellie Lupsha, Thriving in Midlife Energy Upgrade Challenge March 2026
•  Podcast: Thriving in Midlife  

 Let's connect.

I am cheering for you!

Transcript

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in the morning, before I ever get up, I just have my thoughts of the day. Whose life I wanna bless, what do I wanna do? Who am I bringing into my life? What is my business going to bless And then hydrating immediately. A little bit. For me, it's just movement that I I always go out and get a walk with my dogs. And sometimes do a few stretches just getting the body moving. The mind needs to wake up. The body needs to wake up. We really need to nourish. Welcome to the Live A Vibrant Life podcast. I'm life coach Kelly Tibbitts and each week I'll be here to encourage and equip you with the tools you need to grow in self-awareness and invest your best energy in your dreams and your purpose. I believe self-awareness changes everything. Let's get started. Welcome to the Live A Vibrant Life podcast. I hope our time together today helps you live a brave, creative, purpose-filled life. Today we're going to be talking about energy. I have a guest today, kelly, please introduce yourself. Tell us a little bit about what you do and why you think understanding and investing in our energy is so important. Thank you so much for having me on, Kelly. My name is Kellie Lupsha. I have a podcast called Thriving in Midlife. It's always a pleasure to be with people, it really lights me up. I've really gone through my life. In the health and wellness field. I've been a physical therapist for over 30 years and I've really seen people chase symptoms. Look at the system. And the biggest system of the body that we can really move forward and control is the energy that we have in our life. In order to have energy and create energy that we're going to be talking so much about. Whatever we do, fun has to be the top of mind. Even though some things aren't that fun, right? Like, how can we make them fun? As a physical therapist, as I've treated clients, one little notch of that energy of what you're doing. And, Kelly, I'll back up as we're talking about this because I was a little bit like you, but I ran my life of, if I thought of fun. And I would rate it on a scale of zero to 10. My fun was like a four through six. Right? I just, it was somewhere in the middle. I didn't have a ton of fun. I did not have fun, but I didn't really even think about, yeah, the fun meter. Um, it was just, I gotta get to the life and the next thing and the next accomplishment or finish this project or whatever that may be. And so it's been a joy over this past 10 years to. Really pivot into living life to the fullest because that's why we're here. I agree. Even the download of my program was going to be about living a vibrant life instead of staying small, adding in all of these different pieces. And so fun has become something intentional. I even have, a phrase that guides the work of, rest until you feel like you have the energy for fun. And then do something fun before you work. Be filled up before you go and give out. So you talk about adding creativity to your work. Creativity was another part of me that was kept really small. And then I found The Artist Way by Julia Cameron. And my biggest takeaway was that the creative makes us creative. And my friend Whitney did a podcast today where she was reminding us creativity is not necessarily you're a painter or a sculptor. She's like, if you're a mom and you open the refrigerator and there's three ingredients and you come up with something for dinner. There's some creativity right there. So how has creativity shown up in your life as something that brings energy? That's so funny because I would, I would say that's a little bit like me, meaning I don't have the most gifted skills artistically. However, music I, I as a kid did like piano and I played the saxophone and I was an athlete and. Um, that creativeness really for me is also bringing in the, the leadership component of it, of this. Kind of instead of like, I can't do it, or I only have three things in the refrigerator of, oh, well since I have this, then what can I do with it? That's the leadership mindset, and that's, as a woman, it's like you are the leader of your own health. You have to take that control. So when you start bringing in a little creativity into your work, it sometimes, for me, I like have extra signs up. Mm-hmm. I know I was at a, uh, a three day. A workshop retreat and we were doing some calligraphy and so we got to do our word in calligraphy, so I have it up on my bulletin board. Right? So kind of. Creating my, my office space, my surroundings to, to allow me to be brighter. Right. And whether it's some maybe essential oils, um, or at the end of the day, I can make sure it's like clean so I don't come into a cluttered space. Yeah. It allows me, when I sit down to do my work to have that like extra edge of creativity. But like you said, it doesn't have to be this masterpiece. It can just be something small. But I think. Allowing ourselves a little bit of time, a little bit of energy, some resources. So I've done small things now, like I have a little journal where I do some watercolor around a word, learning how to do some calligraphy. Um, all of these different tools have made me somebody who I think is. Receiving energy in a healthier way where I spent a lot of my life giving my energy away, and then I was resentful and overwhelmed and depleted, and I don't want that anymore. I wanna live this vibrant life. And I loved your third point. Notice the beauty on your walk. One of the first courses I created, one of the phrases that I had in the workbook was, from the color purple about how important it is to God that we would notice the purple things. And so in the spring, I always take the intentional energy to notice the purple that I might see. Whenever I go on a vacation, my favorite thing to do is go for a walk with my camera and take a picture of as many pretty things as I can. So where does noticing the beauty on walks and different parts of your life show up for you, and how does that bring that vibrant energy that fuels everything for you? Let me tell you, probably, I don't know, maybe 15, 17 years ago, I have these vivid memories that my husband called, he was driving, we were living in California at the time, and he was driving down towards San Diego. He stopped and pulls over and calls me. He says, the water what it looks like right now is so gorgeous and the sun is setting and he is trying to tell me all this. And I was like, why are you calling me? I'm busy. I'm, I don't even remember what I was doing other than I thought was thinking to myself, I'm so busy, who cares? And. After that, I thought like, that's so silly. He was trying to tell me this beautiful experience he was having and what he was seeing, and I couldn't even take the moment, even though I wasn't seeing it to like be there with him. And then I started to look at my life and I was like, oh my gosh. I live near the beach. I live in these beautiful places. I'm not even paying attention to the beauty. So again, kind of this big 10 year journey for me, going from my early forties to now, early fifties of, I make that a part every single day. Mm-hmm. When I'm driving somewhere, when I'm walking my dogs every single morning. That's the thing, how much I kind of sometimes go through the senses, right? Like, what am I smelling? What am I seeing? What am I tasting? What do I, how, what do I feel? Because we're all one, we're so connected, but we've learned to be disconnected and especially nature, I think, can make us have access to things that we don't in our side of our houses, and we're so much more connected to nature, but we've gotta allow it. And, and just to decide today, listening to the two of us talk, is there a small space in your life where you can begin to notice beauty? So, for instance, I moved my desk to where I moved it to because I can look out the window in the morning and watch the sunrise and. Again, it might seem silly to do that because maybe it doesn't fit right in the room, but it's such a gift every day to go and be able to look out the window as the sun is coming up to go for a walk with my camera and say, I'm going to find something pretty to invite other people. Right. Your husband calling you about the ocean. I, I notice that all the time when there's a really beautiful winter sunset, all of a sudden on Facebook, everyone will be like, go outside or. The Northern Lights came a few times this year and everyone's like, go out and enjoy it. So whether it's music or trying to find that creative spark, I'm also a big fan of essential oils. I try to use one every day to just really align my own energy, what I wanna feel today, and the oil can be very helpful there. And then you said move, sing, and laugh even in the little things and. It is funny, isn't it? How when somebody else is in that happy, laughing, joyful energy, it's like the ripple effect and other people get drawn into it. Is there any specific practice? Are there people that you connect with on a regular basis? Is it a workout class? Where did you begin to add this into your own life? All of this really, unfolded for me when, like I said, I finally paused and was like, oh my God, I've gotta make a shift in life or. You know, it's just Groundhog's Day, every single day. The best one of my mentors is Brennan Burchard, and he says, we're in the middle of maybe a project or we're at work and in life, maybe throughout the day there are, you have certain, like different pivots, you leave home, you go maybe have coffee with a friend, or you're at the office and every time you do, you have the ability to like, bring the energy says. And summon your best. And I realized that if I could summon my best by me, you know, smiling a little bit more, moving a little bit more, when I summon my best, the people around me wanted to summon their best. Yeah. And so it's in, I, I go to yoga, it's in my yoga class. Uh, my husband and I play pickleball. You see that on the pickleball court. It's, it's really like, if you can bring it into life. It is just truly amazing when people are like, oh, you live here? What have you? What are you doing? And I'm like, well, I don't have this. Vacation day, but within my day, I have these beautiful moments within the day, even in the little things that it's just, it makes such a difference. I, I agree. My middle daughter just moved to California, and I would say that's the most powerful part about her is how she constantly brings the smile, the joy, the laugh, wherever she goes. Has such an impact on the people around her. So your question was, how can I make this more fun? Because joy isn't just created, right? It's waiting for you right here, right now, and. For me this year, I have, you know, my word of the year of abundance. I've been doing Word of the Year since 2015. I have that calligraphy on my wall of my first one, and I noticed I can break the word of the year into smaller bites. And so for January, my word was warm. And it doesn't sound the same as fun, but it felt very much the same to me. So we have a sauna. I could make myself a cup of tea, but I was being intentional with how can I make my life a little better? Right? Joy's just not going to come to me. I'm going to make these moments. So you are constantly asking yourself in these pivots, how can I make this a little more fun? How can I add a little bit more joy? Is there anything that comes to mind January, February, 2026 that you've done and you realize that brought some joy, that brought some fun? You know, my word for the year is energetic, but one of, um, my friends kind of challenged me and so kind of for this leaving, leaving January and into February, and here we are kind of like moving, leaving the year of the snake and moving into the fire horse right. Of, of being bolder. And so the word audacity came. Mm. Because I thought, I think so many women are playing small in so many ways. And they don't understand that we have to step out in brave and bold in this audacity of ourselves to say, I am worth it. Yeah. I'm going to do these small things'cause I'm really worth it. This first month of of the year, I'll say was not resetting, but really realigning fully to what I want in my life, in my business, in my relationships. I have a whole bunch of travel that's coming up, and so I wanted to be really clear of enjoying all of that. By strategic kind of allowing and being me to be brave and bold now is setting up what's about to come in the next six months to unfold. I love that. Part of what I share in my coaching program is we don't have to make goals in January. We can start slow and we can resettle. Especially this year, I like you have really been connecting with the year of the snake and what am I shedding to get ready for this year of the horse that's coming in. What you pay attention to, you see more of. But it feels like it's everywhere this year. I feel very connected and aligned with you there. Something else you share on your Facebook that I really liked is you started making small shifts like protein and smart snacks and I don't know. I only discovered protein for breakfast a couple years ago, but my goodness, what a difference than starting off my day with carbs. I don't know how, I didn't know this, but tell me a little bit about how that helped you. Absolutely. You know, if you look at the media, the commercials, the televisions, certainly from like our moms raising us. It all of a sudden became, oh, here we're going to make all this box food and make it simpler and easier for you. And somehow all of us started thinking, oh yeah, cereal and poptarts and bagels were supposed to be what we started our day with because that's what the world inundated us. And then enter, right? Like enter the internet and social media, and now we have. Uh, information at our fingertips we're like, oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. The body wasn't made for that. Actually, let's just go back to real, whole food and starting the day with protein is, yeah, that's like a big aha, but people think I have to, I can't do it because I have to make such a big change, a big goal. And really I tell people, listen, instead of thinking about goals, just like I was talking about symptoms and look at systems instead is. You wanna make a resolution to yourself, you wanna change your identity that, Hey, I'm a well person. Mm-hmm. So you don't always need a goal every year, resolutions every year? No. No, because I am this well person. I am well and wellbeing and health and happiness. Therefore, in my life, what are the things that I do to align with my identity? And these are these small things is not every Sunday.'cause now in my household, it's just my husband and I, but pretty much like we meal prep. So I've got healthy things, I've got my food ready to go. I don't even necessarily have to think about it because it's already been done. Yep. And that's where I think people fail is. They don't plan or prepare, so then they're eating whatever. Then they're making maybe bad choices. Then they think, oh, well I'll just eat this today and I'll figure it out later. Instead of just saying, oh no. Because honestly, with all those, like truly within days, right, is you will have fewer crashes, steadier energy, clearer thinking, better mood. And all of that generates energy because then you sleep better. When you sleep better, that's when your body repairs and restores and you wake up like, oh, I, I nourish myself. Right? And you had that just because of the few habits that you did earlier in the day. And when you stack those small habits together, you're like, oh, I stood on MyPlate. That one's kind of fun. I'll do it again. Oh, I actually went for a 10 minute walk today after my vibe plate. That was really great. Now that you have that positive mood from walking in Sunshine, you're like, oh, I think I'm going to make a better choice when I'm having breakfast. Right. So, right. It's this little cycle and then you're like, I am well, I can be. Well, I am. This is fantastic. Yeah. I think a few years ago, one of the big intentions, atomic habits, you know, making an identity shift was, I wanna be strong. At 75, like that was my, I, I wanna make decisions on purpose, but I really was shocked at how energetically different I felt removing carbs from my life. Part of it was I became a little gluten intolerant, so I had to drop some things from my life. But changing to protein first thing in the morning. I really found that to be one of the biggest shifts for me. And again, I just lived most of my life not paying attention to it. Then I had three kids. We were too busy. I didn't know about, you know, meal prepping and getting ahead of it and, and then I finally started to do it and one of the best parts is my girls all began to help cooking. And they would put on the music, and then when they got their own apartments, they'd put on the music and they'd open their bottle of wine and they'd make it into something special. So small shifts like what do you want to be in 10 years? You don't have to change everything, but something like, have some smart snacks ready to go, have some protein at the beginning of the day. Nothing huge, but something small and simple on repeat creates these differences. And the whole reason that you wanted to have a conversation is. Energy is just as important to you as it is to me. I think we have emotional, mental, physical, spiritual energy. I think it moves during the day and there are things we can do on purpose to increase our energy, and there are things we can notice that really deplete our energy and we need a tool. I talk about it like running a marathon. If you're going to run a marathon, you're going to prepare, you're going to go do it, you're going to recover. If you're going to go be with people who are emotionally draining, you need to prepare and then you go do it because you love them and that's why you're with them. And then you need to recover. What are some of the simple habits you've seen that have helped you? Make your energy last and not just up and crashing, because I think without intention, a lot of people end up hitting these, you know, low points during the day where they just crash and then we use a tool that's not helpful. Right. For me it was Diet Coke for a lot of years. Um, what, what have you found are these simple habits that really help your energy to last? Uh, such a great question, Kelly. And again, none of it's rocket science, you guys, but I, the very first thing I tell everybody is you need to learn to sleep like a boss. Yeah. Like that is your job. And it's not just the eight hours in your bed, but. You have to have a wind down routine and you need to like indulge and love it. And so like when we moved a couple years ago, I bought new bedding. We painted this beautiful mirror on the back wall. So like It's like a hotel room, right? Yeah. So you want to go there and you can't wait. And it's luxurious. But that also means I cut out eating three hours before I went to bed. I don't have stressful conversations with my husband before we go to bed. You start turning down your screens. You have this as a rhythm'cause your body needs to know, oh, I'm starting to wind down. Therefore, the processes happen. If you go, go, go, go, go and expect yourself to fall straight asleep and sleep well, you're fooling yourself. Oh yeah. So that when I sort of making that shift and I did find out through my genetics and my genes, is I actually need. A little more sleep than the average person. And then I allowed myself that permission. I used to get mad at myself, like, why aren't you jumping outta bed at 6:00 AM then I realized, oh, my genes say I need more. Oh my gosh. Give yourself permission, Kelly. Like, that's so fine. So sleeping has been that sleep routine as well as a wake up routine because. You have such a short, span in the morning seconds, right? Four to seven seconds or something that your mind is going to shift and you're going to have the same day as you had yesterday if you didn't make an intentional change. So in the morning, before I ever get up, right, I just have my thoughts of the day, whose life I wanna bless, what do I wanna do? Who am I bringing into my life? What is my business going to bless for people? And then hydrating immediately. And a little bit, whatever that is. I'm not saying this could be your exercise time. For me, it's just movement that I I always go out and get a little walk with my dogs and I always get on my vibe plate and sometimes do a few stretches just getting the body moving. So the mind needs to wake up. The body needs to wake up. We really need to nourish. Um, and then I'll say my, my other one big thing that I implemented. Probably about when I hit 50, so it's been about three years, and really this past year I did it more than ever is once we hit 40, our muscle mass starts to decline and it's just biology period. So if we're not doing something to combat that muscle loss. We are literally losing strength. And muscle is your energetic currency, it's your metabolic currency. So typically us for women, like we never lifted weights. We thought that was a guy thing, or we would build, I don't want big, bulky muscles. And so US women just didn't do it. And we ended up like aerobics and biking and cycling and now that is the number one. If you do weight training, strength training, two to three times a week. One, you stop the muscle loss, but two, if you can start to build back, your energy will go through the roof. Because muscle creates that metabolic engine that gives us this energy currency. So really sleeping. I, I was already eating clean and I'm too like gluten-free, dairy-free. Everybody doesn't have to be, but I think if you can be forward thinking in your food of just eating whole real food, um, sleep and lifting were the two things as I started aging that I took seriously. And literally my energy is like, I can walk into a room and people go, I want what you have. Yeah. Yeah. No, I noticed that myself. I have a really good evening, wind down routine. I do, you know, um, Epsom salt bath every night with candles and, and it's. Part of it, I think is the routineness. Like my body knows, okay, it's this and that. Um, right when I hit perimenopause and I didn't know I was, I joined a great gym, started lifting weights and didn't experience any of the emotional, you know, normal hormonal stuff that you experienced because of. The fact that I was going to the gym 3, 4, 5 days a week, lifting weights. So some of the things we can do are not just for today, they're like for future you. Right? And so to decide in advance that one of the most important things we could do today is decide that our va, you know, I loved how Taylor Swift said it, like, your energy is so valuable. And so there are small things you can do. We're not saying flip everything over in your life. There are small things you can do. Evening rituals. My morning ritual, I live in New England, it's very cold, very dark, so I have a nice warm robe and I have a little tiny light that I turn on. I come sit over here, do some of that stretching, some of that meditation, and I don't have to decide to get up. I have it all planned and ready to go because you don't feel any better if you hit the alarm three times, right? You're just late. So deciding your morning, your evening, deciding some of these healthier things like nutrition. And I wanna hear about your vibration plate really quickly before we end.'cause I've seen this everywhere and you're the first person I've talked to that has one. What, how'd you discover this? Yeah, you know, I mean, I think it's my background as a physical therapist that I knew that sort of movement is so good for you on so many levels of accessing your nervous system, getting blood flow, supporting your lymphatics. Um, making your muscles hold you in static positions. There's just so many positive benefits that it, it can help your, uh, GI tract, right, and your bowel movements in the morning. It like, there's literally so many benefits and, uh, so I purposely put it in my bathroom. I kind of tuck it under this little, uh, counter, and every morning I pull it out. I know this sounds so funny, but if you're going to stand there for two minutes and brush your teeth anyways, well then I might as well stand on it anyways. That's brilliant, brilliant. I pull it out, I, I brush my teeth. There's my first two minutes, and then I have a little, like, lymphatic program that I do. So that's say like another five minutes. Then I take myself through just a little, maybe two, three minutes of breath work. I try to get in just maybe like 10 or 20 squats, and before I know it, I'm on MyPlate for 10 or 15 minutes and I'm, I'm good to go. Like, I'm like, all right. Ugh. So it's, it's, yeah, it, there's a lot of health benefits I would highly suggest suggested. I'm excited to look more into it. It was showing up everywhere. And now to meet you, I'm pretty excited. So I know you and I were not alone in this going up and down the. Emotional, mental, physical energy rollercoaster. One of the things that changed my life is that gym that I was going to, you know, my kids were still home. It was hard for me to put myself first, and one of the coaches one day said, you know, Kelly, you're worth 30 minutes. And it sounds so simple, but it was really profound for me to decide to prioritize myself and put some energy into this. I think everybody's worth 30 minutes, and you are going to be doing an energy challenge where you're inviting people to spend 30 minutes. On repeat to learn and apply some things. Tell me a little bit about your challenge. Yes. And you know, we, from social media and from podcasts and everything, we get so much information and sometimes we're not implementing the information and sometimes we need to hear that information two and three and four and five, or maybe even 10 times before we're like, oh, finally it hit me over the head. I need to change. And so, um, my partner, Dr. Heidi Zeal, she's a naturopath and functional medicine doctor, we are putting on this. Energy upgrade challenge. And the challenge is, is exactly that, Kelly, of you are worth it. Your life can be dramatically different with some small things to really upgrade your energy because that's what we are. So we're going to be walking you through some daily lessons of a variety of things, of how does your body generate energy. Biologically, what is even happening? What are the things we need to do to keep that on point? And then we're going to allow you time to implement and of course, always have some great question and answer, but. Our thought is is it's great, Cal, if you and I have energy and a few of us have energy, but what if we had a hundred women raise their energy or 200 or a thousand or 10,000? Could you imagine the change in the world that we have together? Kind of that. You know, a rising tide raises all ships. So it doesn't serve me any good if I keep my knowledge. I wanna give my knowledge away so that together, this energy is a ripple effect. And like we just talked about, here comes this fire horse. So we're like, get ready to hold on. So we wanna teach you like what to do yourself to hold on. And the last thing I'll add in it is, you were right. What? Like what do you wanna do at 75? I tell women, okay, wherever age you are today. What do you wanna do in 20 years from now? You wanna be able to travel, you wanna be able to lift up your suitcases, take your grandkids, you wanna ski down a mountain, whatever that may be, paint that beautiful picture. And from there, we need to reverse engineer your life to get you there. And this energy upgrade is going to be one of those big things that we're going to help reverse engineer so that you will have that energy in 20 years. I love that so much. I'm looking forward to attending. I'm so excited to hear more. I'll be sure to link, um, that information. But, um, how else could people connect with you before the challenge begins? Yeah, the best two places really is come find me over on Instagram. My name is Kellie Lupsha and I'm literally the only one because of my uniqueness of an ie. Kellie. You can find me on Instagram. And then the other way is I have a podcast called Thriving in Midlife. You can come find and hang out with me over there as well. It'd be so lovely to meet you. I love reaching out to, if you send me a message on Instagram, I will literally personally get back to you. I love connecting with, um, I don't even say my audience. I say my friends. I love that. Right. It's really my friends. Oh, well thank you so much for being here today. I'm so excited to have connected with you and to learn all of this. Such a pleasure, Kelly. Thank you for joining the Live A Vibrant Life podcast. I hope our time together encourage you and will equip you with the tools you need to move into the vibrant life you desire. I'm here to help you live a brave, creative, purpose-filled life. And if you'd like to learn more. You can follow me on Instagram or Facebook, Kelly tibbits life coach, or visit my website kelly tibbits.com. I look forward to connecting again soon.