The Wake-Up Call: Embracing Massive Self-Care with Crystal Askew Lawson

[00:00:02] What you want when you want it, where you want it. This is the MESH. Hey, I'm Amy J. I'm a nationally board certified health and wellness coach and this is Healthy AF. In this podcast I'll be bringing you all things health.

[00:00:19] From the newest health strategies to how to tackle those personal roadblocks that just will not let you move forward. So buckle in. We're going to be inspired and instructed and dad gum, we're going to have a little fun on Healthy AF.

[00:00:36] Hey everybody and welcome to another episode of Healthy AF. I am so delighted to have here my friend Crystal, Askew Lawson. She has been a champion of mine for a little bit now and I have absolutely loved having her

[00:00:54] by my side, creating new things together and she's inspiring coach. And I am delighted to bring her here to you. Welcome Crystal. Thank you, Amy. I'm glad to be here.

[00:01:08] Yeah, for sure, for sure. This podcast will drop on July 1st. We have the brand new months sitting upon us. I thought it was great. Well, no, right. Ice cream and cookouts this month. Here you go.

[00:01:22] And I thought it would be great to kick it off with like who are you? What do you do? Tell us your story. I'll just I'll sit and listen. Oh my goodness! Who am I? Well, I am Crystal Askew Lawson. I am many things that I assign myself.

[00:01:42] I am a Health and Wellness Coach which is one of the things that love love to do. I'm also a wife and a mom and a grand mom if you can believe it. I'm a daughter, I'm a sister, I'm a friend, all the things right.

[00:02:01] And so I've really been on a journey to becoming to come into this point that I am. And I got started as a Health and Wellness Coach. Coming up on about 14 years ago. Wow. And what was cool? I have to say, that was the first school.

[00:02:24] That was the first school. Before it was cool, really knew where people are saying what in the world is that? Why is it important? Well, it was important for me personally.

[00:02:34] I first became a Health and Wellness Coach for me because the learning helped me to break away from some things, changed my mind, said about some things. And especially around my health and wellness, right? I was the typical superwoman, right?

[00:02:51] I got the kids, I got the husband, I got the house, I got the job, right? And I'm go, go, go, go. I can do everything, right? I can do it all. And I can do it as if I'm a computer and not a person.

[00:03:05] And you know, your body has the way God has a way of saying, hey, excuse me. Some's got to change here. And that change came from for me on a Sunday afternoon, driving up highway 40 year from a year 40 West.

[00:03:23] You know, I am and I fell asleep behind the wheel. Oh my gosh. And when I came to myself, first of all, I'm like, why is my card not moving? Second of all, I'm like, why are these poles and wires here?

[00:03:40] Those wires and poles that separate the East and Westbound Lane or the Northbound Lane? Take work. And gratefully, thankfully, I walked away from that. And without a scrap without a single scrap, I walked away from that.

[00:03:56] And what I walked away with was a newfound mindset about what it means to take care of yourself, right? Because before then, I was like sleep in very little exercise in very little, eat terrible. Like my main diet was Chick-fil-A, waffle fries and that lemonade.

[00:04:20] And then this crispy cream donut for dessert. No. That's what we just say in it makes me like nostalgic. It's a hot now, it's a hot now, it's my an on. Right? But I realized that I had to to make some changes.

[00:04:40] And then the real kicker came, you know, because what do we do when we're not feeling well? When something's like, all right, we go to the doctor, right? Because they're supposed to help us and they're supposed to have the answers. There's nothing I have nothing against doctors.

[00:04:51] They are good for what they are good for. And when you're looking for a holistic approach, I'm not one that wants to take a bunch of pills. I want to know, okay, so why am I? Why is this happening to me? What's the root cause?

[00:05:06] Let's get to that before you give me a pill. Because this pill could potentially call 15 other things and I've got to have 10 other pills for. And so I went to the doctor had all these tests on, and you know, they settled on.

[00:05:22] I had unspecified joint pain, which like what does that even mean? And they gave me a medication that was awful. It's like, okay, I'll take it because, you know, when you go to the doctor, you just take what they say take. You don't really read the things.

[00:05:38] I didn't read the thing until the next day when it were off, and I'm like, I can't I set up when I fall over. Right? I'm still I'm feeling worse than I was. I still have the joint pain, this unspecified like what is happening?

[00:05:51] And I called the doctor and I said, listen, this is what's happening. And was told immediately, well, you can't stop taking it. Oh. And I said, well, I appreciate, you know, what you've done for this, but I can't stop taking it.

[00:06:07] I can't stop taking my half. And so this is what I'm going to do. So I quit Chick-fil-A, cold turkey. I quit crispy cream, cold turkey and started to feel better, started to move, started to drink more water. You start to do basic things.

[00:06:23] I started to pay attention to what I was doing. What I was putting into my mouth, what I was thinking about all of those things. And so that was the beginning of me becoming a health and wellness coach. Because I practiced on myself, if you will.

[00:06:41] And then I learned as I talk to more people is I learned that number one self-care is like taboo. Still even today, even though it's talked about more and more, still a little bit taboo. And people didn't feel empowered to put themselves at the top of their list.

[00:06:59] And people also didn't feel empowered to push back on what the doctor was saying, to take an active role in their healthcare. And so all those things came together to create simple and complicated living. Because it's really simple. It's not easy. It's really simple.

[00:07:19] Right? You go to sleep. You drink your water. You eat your vegetables. Right? You move your body. Yeah. And you become self-aware. Right? You listen to when something makes you burp or something you eat or do or don't do. Makes you not sleep so well.

[00:07:41] Or your skin starts to do weird things. Right? All these are warning signs that are like flashing lights and hey, hey, pay attention to this. So I may have told you more than you wanted to know.

[00:07:53] And that is who I am. I'm passionate about, I'm passionate about self-care. I'm passionate about putting yourself at the top of the list. Okay. So it's not more than I wanted to know. And I can't believe that you fell asleep on our 40. That is so dangerous.

[00:08:11] If anyone doesn't know what our 40 is, it's in Raleigh 4 lanes, which is where Crystal was, She's in Raleigh. In most of the places, it's two lanes, only either side. You know, it's 70 mile an hour in some parts, 65 mile an hour in other parts.

[00:08:30] And my baby girls had an external an affordy and it was terrifying. So I can only imagine the wake up invitation. Exactly. That day, just start taking care of yourself. So tell me, okay, I've got two questions.

[00:08:52] Okay. And then is I was just listening actually to that book, a immunity to change today in the very beginning part of it. And it talks about like why people don't change. And it listed this study of like,

[00:09:06] people who go to the cardiologist and they are literally told by the cardiologist, hey, if you don't change in a lifestyle, you will be dying, like post-haste. And one out of seven people actually make changes. And it is scary and it's for me so normal.

[00:09:28] It's normal in my own life, like how many times have I known, like dude, if you keep doing this bad stuff is going to fall into your lap and long behold do I change? No, I do not.

[00:09:39] But bad stuff comes to me and I'm like, well, yes, I knew this was happening. Right? And my clients who come have experienced at time and time and time again that they know what to do. Like you said it's simple,

[00:09:53] but they don't maybe know how to get started, know how to be consistent, know how to shake their brains loose enough to start. So my question for you is, how did you do that?

[00:10:08] Did you do it all by yourself? Was it just like the invitation to wake up was rather large? What was going on? Well, the wake-up. So after the accident, right? Now I'm people what people might call weird and strange,

[00:10:28] right? I hop out of the car like, okay, what's going on? Call it tow truck. Let's go. I gotta keep doing stuff, right? Hey, okay. But put it in that. I actually don't think that's weird for like a lot

[00:10:42] of the women that I know. There is no pause button. There's no pause button. And I'll say, for all of humanity, right? We live in such reactionary times. Yes. That there's never a response. It's just a reaction like, oh this thing happens.

[00:11:02] Okay, next is this. This thing happens next is this. Absolutely. I totally live that way so I get it. Absolutely. Here was the defining moment and that experience. There were two defining moments in that experience. One was the highway patrol shows up,

[00:11:18] beginning the car. And he said, just the sweetest person ever. And he said, in the sweetest calmest voice, what happened? And I broke down in that moment. Like, because first of all, I don't know what happened. Like, I'm driving. I come off 95 off that exit.

[00:11:44] And then the next thing I'm sitting in a patrol, like. And so the reality hits, like anything could have happened. It's only by the grace of God that there was no traffic coming up at that point.

[00:11:58] None. Right? And then the other defined the moment was after I get home. And once I started crying at that point, I literally cried for three days straight. I cried on my phone with the insurance company.

[00:12:11] I was laying on the couch and I had these pictures of my girls. They were four and six at the time. And they were not waiting for myself. I had dropped them off at my mom's with my sister.

[00:12:25] Then along with my four-year-old nephew, who I had at the time as well. But I'm sitting on the couch looking at these two beautiful little faces. Thinking about what if they had been in the car with me? What if I wasn't sitting here looking at these pictures?

[00:12:45] Like all the things that, you know, and then realizing like all the things that I had been doing where I thought I was doing the right thing. Because this is what I've seen. This is what we see.

[00:12:57] This is what we see on TV. This is what we see our friends do. That's what we've seen our parents do. That you just go, go, go, go. And it was in that moment of this kind of change. It's got to change.

[00:13:12] And so did I do it by myself? Not really, right? A prayer, patience, faith, common sense. Finally kicked in. The common sense. Finally kicked in. Right? And then, you know, letting friends and family know what I was doing.

[00:13:31] Now I will tell you I said not really doing it by myself. This is a big chair. When you do a 360, not even a 180. When you do a 360 and you're doing things differently than people know you to be doing. It's difficult for them to watch.

[00:13:49] Right? It's difficult for them to say, wait, that's not really normally how you respond. That's not how you normally react. That's not that's, you're not normal. Like what's wrong with me? Nothing's wrong with me. It's what's getting right with me. It's what it is.

[00:14:07] Oh, it's so much weight. Let's repeat that for the people in the back. There's nothing wrong with you. It's what's getting right with you. Right? Because that name's not aware. And I don't want to step over what you said that for you and me,

[00:14:23] I know we probably know that it's important, but for other people, I think it gets stepped over a lot. You said you shared what you were going through with other people. Uh-huh. It's huge. It's huge. Because they do look at you and like, hmm, what's, you know?

[00:14:40] And if you've shared with them what you really want and why you're really doing it, and they have some inkling of what's going on. But be, they can support you. Hmm. Your best case scenario, they support you. Worst case scenario,

[00:14:56] they know you're not crazy because you're doing it. You know, they're not think you're crazy, but they know why you're being crazy. They know why. Yeah. Yeah. And that's a huge, having that support from our structures, our social structures. Right. As we decide to make massive 360-degree changes

[00:15:15] and 60 degree changes, even 50 degree changes. Okay, like just 40 degrees. Yeah, 45 degree like opening in the door. Yeah, sharing huge. I love that. Okay, so you've had a huge beer moment of what if my kids were in the car and what if I left my kids motherless?

[00:15:37] That's a, that is it a gift, that beer moment, that's a gift. Yes. And something brought you to share. And you leaned into your higher power. For sure, for sure. And I think you said earlier, you know, people know what to do. They just don't do it.

[00:15:59] And because we do, right, we don't have a heart this at a conference. I was at a couple of weeks ago. We don't have an information problem. We have an implementation problem. All right, so we have all the information that we need to do whatever it is

[00:16:18] that we need or desire to do. It's just implementing it. And there could be so many reasons there could be fear. There could be lack of support. There could be self doubt, right? Any number of reasons that keeps us from making the changes that we know

[00:16:37] we need, right? I think for me and what I've experienced and what I've seen, the biggest component is the willingness for people to share with their community or with their sphere. Right? The people that they're closest with and they don't share for fear of them,

[00:16:58] not understanding of them, not supporting. When in reality, the mere fact of you sharing that with you expressing this is what I need. This is what I'm gonna do to try to make it better is the beginning of the change process because you've acknowledged that you spoken it

[00:17:17] into existence. It's hit the ears of other people, not whether they do anything with it or about it or it really doesn't matter, right? It matters that you got it out and then from there you can move forward. And I'd even say just having,

[00:17:39] I am not going to share online. No, a big behavioral shift for me. I'm in that stage of change where I'm thinking about thinking about it. In fact, I've been thinking about thinking about it for a long time and now I'm sort of thinking about it.

[00:18:02] Oh, that's good, slightly though. It is exciting and it's funny. I have not shared it with anyone, within anyone. And it's a very uncomfortable little spot and whenever you know, okay, you know, we crystal. So, you know, I share just about everything with everybody, right?

[00:18:27] I'm not afraid for you to think I'm stupid. I'm not afraid for you to see me fail. I'm not afraid, you know, I've just lived too much life to be. And those specific shoe boxes, but for some reason that I haven't quite pinpointed this one

[00:18:44] is a tender, maybe it's tender enough or vulnerable enough that I'm just not quite ready to share. And while it's only in here and I tell my people is an idea that lives in your head will never become a reality

[00:19:02] until something happens out here, something has to happen out here. And speaking it into existence, saying those words out loud, that sometimes the very first step just saying like, hey, I'm thinking about thinking about making this change. Right? Yeah. I'm excited. I know.

[00:19:28] I'm kind of excited too, but we'll have to see maybe once I get through that whole process and it's a little less tender, I'll be ready to share. Because there is a total of... Do you have to sit with it, right?

[00:19:41] Even when the thinking, there are some changes that you're just like, I'm just going to do what I'm going to pull the trigger. Right, there's other ones like you're saying you have to you have to sit with it. Yeah. Because you know what you're releasing.

[00:19:55] Once you release it, it's like releasing the train from the station on downhill with no breaks, right? Yeah, yeah, for sure. Well, I'm so glad that you have made changes in your life. I want to know. So you said that self-care was something you were massively passionate about,

[00:20:19] and it relates to how you ended up having this very full life that was a go-go go that also put you asleep on a massive interstate. And you've made changes. What, how do you see self-care playing into where you got and where you are now?

[00:20:43] That's a great question. I see self-care as playing a major role in that because and I had to look back at one point to go forward. Right, let's mention that I got diagnosed with unspecified joint pain, which you know, it calls a lot of inflammation.

[00:21:04] It calls me to be tired. A whole bunch of things. And when I look back at that period where I'm like, wasn't very present with my kids, wasn't very present with anybody. Like I was physically in the space. You just tried to help him. Yes, yes.

[00:21:24] I mean there were times that I was, there were some great motherhood times. Like I would come home and if it was a rainy day, I'd have the children we'd pull it just barely into the driveway and pop out

[00:21:38] and I'd say put your feet in the curb where the water was rushing down the hill. Now that was a very present moment. It was a physically stimulating, you know, old water on your feet. So we were inside our bodies, you know, using our bodies to be present.

[00:21:58] While times I say people find your feet, you know, find your feet. But like if that happened, I don't know, every time it rained hard. But without thundering and lightning, and that was the time that I was present.

[00:22:15] We were lots of other times that it was just, uh, go, go, go, do, do, do. Right. Right. Yeah, it's just a matter of being, it'd be a present. Right. Yet once I, once I decided to make the change, the train started rolling.

[00:22:31] Right. Then I could look and we were, I was doing things that before I was like, I'm just too tired. We're just going to sit. I'm just going to sit here like, no, go over there and do whatever. God, please, right here.

[00:22:43] We're taking the house because mom, I don't know, don't break anything. Don't hurt anybody, right? Just going to be five. One year, like if I'm hearing them, then I'll have to go.

[00:22:57] Or maybe they're sleep. Who knows, right? And this got to be a certain pitch of the cry. Something broken or bleeding. I should go. But other than that, right? And so just looking back to look, to move forward, right?

[00:23:11] To say, how do I want to show up? How do I want to feel? How do I want to be present? And what does that do for the people that I'm with when I'm fully present?

[00:23:23] And so looking at that now, now I have as amazing as I thought my life was before the accident. Right? Because to that point, I was living the American dream, right? Whatever that is or apparently a nightmare. But anyway, and now it's just so much

[00:23:46] richer and fuller right now. Because I get to choose, right? I get to choose what I'm doing, how I show up, where I show up versus making choices based on what society or my friend group

[00:24:02] or other people or they, the infamous they, whatever they said, I should be doing, right? And the other thing that was really, that really helped me, you know, if you've been on an

[00:24:17] airplane and they have that speech about the mass drop and down. Right? And I looked at that differently after the accident versus before. Right? When they said, that mass drops down.

[00:24:29] And you put your mask on first. I'm like, what's rude? I'm not going to knock my kids mask on, right? And right? Yeah, after before that was before the accident, after the accident,

[00:24:40] like because I didn't put my mask on, I jeopardized. Yeah, my kids future. I jeopardized my husband's future, right? Of me not, not being there because I did not care enough about them to take

[00:24:57] better care of me. So now I use that analogy all the time. Put your mask on first. Otherwise, you're going to be passed out and on the other person, they're all both out of here. Right?

[00:25:09] So you have to put your mask on first. And so I go beyond self care to extreme self care. Like what's the extreme? Okay. Okay, share. I know my supreme self care is what course. And it could be different for everybody, for me is getting a massage,

[00:25:32] it's getting a facial, it's going to see the chiropractor which people are like, oh, say the chiropractor. Woo, woo, woo, whatever. If you get a good chiropractor and a good massage

[00:25:43] therapist, life is, it can be really great for you eating well. Right? Finding a hobby like I love to garden. I love to dance. I love to laugh. Right? All the things. And I am so silly as someone

[00:26:01] have called me. And I love it because I can just start laughing for no reason at all. Right? Just like one of the things in my present moments with the kids, I would do like let's just have a

[00:26:15] laugh party. Like we're just going laugh for no reason. Oh wow, mom that is way out there. Yeah. And you start laughing. It's almost like have you ever seen a movie or what? It's somebody starts running and then everybody else starts running. They don't know why they're running.

[00:26:28] They don't see somebody running that away. We better laugh and it's the same way. It is. I've done that in the workshops where like they're like, okay, just start laughing. And you're an even like I feel like I'm fairly uninhibited, fairly. And I feel so embarrassed

[00:26:49] with the just start laughing. I'm like, oh God, this feels weird. I don't want to do this. And about two seconds in, it's big belly. Yes, yes, girl. Exactly. That's internal exercise.

[00:27:02] Left is internal exercise. Yeah, you see when they're playing in the door, when you hear a song come on just start dancing. That my husband is not a fan. He's like, because people really look at you weird when you're just dancing in the grocery store,

[00:27:18] like or wherever. I mean, it comes in the most inconvenient time. Sometimes it comes out before I know it is coming out. One day I was in the convenient for. What's that? Who's an inconvenient for, though? Well occasionally it's inconvenient for me. I was going to say,

[00:27:38] I was in a gun store one time. My former husband had a lot of stuff. And so I would take that back and forth. There wasn't a gun store where we lived. And so I would be the kind of runner back and forth

[00:27:54] and I'm in that store, which was not a super comfortable place for me. And that's what made it inconvenient. I think it wasn't a comfortable place for me as long as I did like a pivot turn

[00:28:10] all the time. Oh, and somebody said to me, like, oh, you get into, and I was like, oh yeah. But yeah, I guess that was a comfort mechanism. And I was bought. So, not always convenient but it just popped right out when it pops out. Hey, I'll take,

[00:28:32] because that for me is myself, Kia. Yep. Like if if my body I'm a big mover, you know, I need to have a autogree before we started that sometimes I kicked the desk during the podcast or hit

[00:28:47] the model or, you know, I'm away from the mic, close to my hands, flailing. You know, I need to be up and moving. And so when I structured my business and my work day and how I was going

[00:29:01] to like, I've got a place outside that I can stand up under the shade and do coaching sessions or work, I do have a swivel, a swivel chair, you know, a stool. I've got a crawl. Sometimes when

[00:29:15] I work with my virtual assistant, I'm up and moving and like cleaning off the porch, while I'm talking and creating and they're capturing that. Because that's how I take care of me.

[00:29:28] I say, okay, what do I need? What permission do I need to be my best creative self? Well, I need permission to get up and move around because that's how this girl rolls. So, yeah, well, thank you. Yeah. So, I think sometimes it's the things that we don't

[00:29:45] think about. Like, I need permission to, I need permission not to take that casserole over when I hear that somebody's in the hospital because the default mode for my Southern woman up bringing is, well, you ought to take casserole, right? I'm sorry. You're up on a year off,

[00:30:13] the casserole with 24 hours. And you're right, that is a Southern woman default. You're from your and it doesn't matter what else you got going on, you stopped dropping casserole. Stop dropping casserole. And it's not that I don't casserole. Like, objects and

[00:30:30] chicken and chilotas do a Sunday school member who had a, who had a surgery like, but the stopping the pause to choose, you also said that word. Yes, yes. The stopping to choose

[00:30:46] does it work for me? Is my oxygen mask on so that I can oxygen mask casserole somebody else? Right. You know, and go from there. You know, not just the societal expectations for me who expectations cultural expectations. Right. Self-actations. Yeah, the thing that the word

[00:31:10] in that that I, that came up that popped up or illuminated for me was permission. Girl, please. Who do you need permission from? Right. And it's really how we're trained, how we're raised, right? They get permission. Like you got to get permission or validation

[00:31:33] from somebody else. We never ever get taught to validate ourselves. We never get taught that what we say, what we think, what we believe is enough for who we are, which I think is the

[00:31:49] is a disservice to society. Right. We're all, we all are creative beings. We all are healthy and happy and whole. We all are filled with everything that we need to be successful for life and godliness as

[00:32:04] the Bible would say. Right. We have everything. We come here fully equipped and somewhere between birth and probably around 35, maybe 40, maybe 45. Right. We're like, wait a minute. Well, whose life have I been living? And now it's time for me to start, you know,

[00:32:26] give them myself permission to take care of myself without guilt. Well, even to have feelings, you know, I was working with the client the other day and she was sharing how she sort of had this

[00:32:42] momentary feeling. And she said to me, I was saying like, well, you know, where do you want to focus this session? And she said to me, like, well, I'm feeling this way, but I know that it's just because of

[00:32:57] this and this and you know, tomorrow I'm going to be fine. And I've got this and this and this to do and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, hmm, hang on. And so usually when I coach,

[00:33:09] I take my zoom screen and put it small up at the top and then I have my other window open so that I can type in notes as I'm, you know, for clients so well pulled to read your notes after. So I said,

[00:33:23] uh, hang on a minute. Not my zoom screen big, right? So I have my whole, I did. And I came right up into that and I said, hey, I give you permission to feel, you know, and she just started, yeah, she just started crying.

[00:33:46] And it just all sort of started coming out and I was like, I give you permission to be whatever way you are and it wasn't Amy Chang given it to her right? It was her own self. You were holding

[00:33:58] space for her to give herself that. I did. I laid out that welcome map because we don't do that. And that for me is the kind of self care that allows me then to drop my plastic credit card

[00:34:16] over at my car for Azure, you know, to take scheduled time out of my day to work with my energy worker. I'm working doing some body code work this afternoon and I am thrilled death about it.

[00:34:28] I look forward to hearing about that. How we speak best together. And so like, but I don't even know that I need those things if I don't give my self permission to stop and feel what it

[00:34:43] is that I am feeling and not rush through it and not gloss over. She wanted to do gloss over. Like, oh yeah, I feel really poopy stinks to think right now. But tomorrow I'm going to, you know,

[00:34:56] like, you know, there's no honoring. There's just no honoring in glossing over that experience and not very helped be there because it's telling us something. And so is that a weirdness? Yeah, I mean that that that wake up invitation on 40 was telling me something.

[00:35:20] Tell me something girl. Number one. You need to knock Chris. Oh, you need it. And the interesting thing about that, you know, not to belay really point. Interesting thing about that before I left

[00:35:34] my sister's house. My sister said, you know, she always called me sweetie. She was like, sweetie, you should just lay down, just sit down, have something to eat. Just press them in and I was like,

[00:35:45] no, no, I got to go because I got to do that. And so you's that's how it ends up right? You know, like, and sometimes other people will notice things and they'll try to coach you or tell you

[00:36:00] or warn you or say, hey, why don't you think about this? Help with this you're out. Help with this. It's around the world. Help me out. She was trying to help me out. And I didn't listen.

[00:36:12] And so that's what happens. But now I'm waiting for her with them myself. I mean to be fair, none of us listen. Right? Like, that's the same thing with that cardiologist who can tell you what

[00:36:25] to do. You know, I mean, you're ready for it when you're ready for it. You're ready when you're ready. And everybody has their awake and awakening invitation in different forms. You know, it could be that haka-less brawl. It could be that huff and in puff and

[00:36:42] it through the Walmart parking lot. It could be the car accident. It could be the, you know, whatever it is for sure. For sure. And we have to give ourselves grace all day long. Right?

[00:36:55] Like I said, give yourself grace. Give yourself permission to just be. We're human beings, not human doing, right? You probably heard that before. Human beings. And so what does it look like to

[00:37:12] just be? Right? What if you just stop? What if you just took a whole day, a Sabbath day? Were you didn't do anything? Do nothing. And to be clear that doesn't mean not doing anything.

[00:37:27] It means, you know, do it like right. There are days. I still struggle with this little bit where I get on my bike and I go down to the beach. And of course, I've got all my doing. Right? I've got my journal.

[00:37:39] I've got my devotional readings. I've got my phone, to listen to music or podcast or a meditation. And I've got my shaboo me because you know, I can be up in the shed or, you know, like,

[00:37:49] and I've got my chair and I've got my, and sometimes I like to dig. I do. I play at the beach. And there are days when I just go and I just sit and I always say,

[00:38:01] yeah, nothing really moves me to, no, no, no, my play is moving me at the moment. And there are times that I fight it in my head like, well, I mean, should I go for a walk? Should I get in the

[00:38:11] water? Should I dig something? I don't know. It's like a mother talking to a child. Amy, do you want to play crayons? Do you want to get out the play dough? Do you want to take an happy one? And I'm just like,

[00:38:21] you know, it's pretty good. They just meet sin here. Being present with yourself. Yeah. And the world around me watching the children and children on the beach watching the grown-up children on the beach. That's fun for sure for sure. And it's taken me 51 years to get here

[00:38:43] and awakening invitations. Oh, well, I like to welcome people to the other side. Yeah, I still have friends that look at me like, what are you doing? Like, how are you doing that? Like,

[00:38:57] why are you not doing XYZ? Because I don't want to. Yeah. And it's okay not to want to. It's in this okay that you want to, right? We're all 5 in the morning. Whatever you need in this

[00:39:14] moment, that's probably what you should take because if you have too many times where you force yourself into moments that you really don't want or even need to be in,

[00:39:30] it's going to turn out. You might fall asleep at whatever. You know, it might not be on a busy highway, right? Your fall asleep and wake up moment may come in in a different form. Yeah. But the

[00:39:42] more you suppress who you are and what you want. The worst the explosion will be when it found because it's going to come out like your true self is going to come out somewhere at some point.

[00:40:00] Right? And why not why not just let it be? Let's let it just let that be your default being you. Yeah, I can't tell you the joy that it brings up when you say like, you don't have to do

[00:40:12] that I just feel like, so like, ah, yeah, you don't have to. Yeah, wait, you said you don't have to force yourself and I'm thinking that the massive jump between forcing yourself and giving yourself permission. Some massive jump because it's just so foreign. It's a

[00:40:34] foreign thought. Because like I said, we've been raised, we've been conditioned if you will, right? You've got to go to school and you've got to sit here for eight hours and then when

[00:40:45] they stay as time for you to go play, then you go play. Then when they stay as time to stop playing then you stop playing and then you have to come back. Right? Think about if we allowed kids

[00:40:58] to or if we took the time to learn what kids a child's learning style really is. Yes. Some kids are cool sitting with that structure. I'm going to sit here for eight hours. I'm

[00:41:13] going to play for a half an hour. I'm going to nap whatever that is and some just need like you were saying earlier, they need to move. They need to kick the desk. They need to, right? And it's not

[00:41:22] that they're being disruptive and unfortunately I've learned this when my kids were way older, right? It's not that they're being disruptive because their kids and they don't know but they come here like I said earlier, they come here with everything that they need and as parents we're

[00:41:42] me. I must speak for myself. I'm trying to make the many versions of me instead of allowing them to be all that movement, right? All that quiet time in the corner, whatever they were expressing,

[00:41:53] that they were expressing them, they're true self. And I missed it in some regards. Now once I learned better, I did better and there was always very ill sufficient now and sometimes I'm like

[00:42:09] they're like well mom you said I did go on a bachelor business. I love how old are they now? They are 28 and 26. 28 and 26 and how old's the grand baby? The grand baby is

[00:42:28] I guess he would be 22 months. He'll be 22 and a half, 20, I don't know 23 months. He'll be two and August in his sister will be here in August so I'm really excited. Wow you're gonna have

[00:42:44] a full play. Okay so let's talk about something really quick because we have something in July that needs to happen. How many of these are baby comes in August? Absolutely absolutely. Now everybody all

[00:42:56] about what we will first of all like start from the beginning and how this happened. How this event came to be? It's how how this partnership came to come. This is part of it. Oh you

[00:43:09] won't maybe tell the story? I'm gonna report you job. Okay so we met the crystal and baby flagship came to get back. We met when I was speaking and decided like oh we've got to keep doing this.

[00:43:25] And so you supported me while I was creating a speaking event in Hickory about spirituality and self care and I said I'll support you when you when you start doing yours in Raleigh.

[00:43:43] Yeah. I'm not a speaking event coming up in Raleigh. If you're local it's on July 13 but that's the only detail I'm gonna say because this is Crystal's show. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness so

[00:43:56] I'm so excited so meeting Amy was another pivotal moment. Oh so I had listened to her speak and we realized that she's a health coach. I'm a health coach. There's enough coaching out here for

[00:44:19] everybody, right? There's a demographic that Amy can tap into that I can't. One that I can tap into that she can't so we started talking let's do this thing, right and and so one of the

[00:44:33] things that is exciting for me is because even though I'm just the totally evolved person I still have things that I'm just not so evolved at. One of them is like doing creating events. I told

[00:44:48] Amy I said you know what yes I'll support you in that and then we're like we've map out this whole gear thing like we're gonna do this and we're gonna do this and I'm like I'll do it in July and I'm like

[00:44:59] oh my god I said I was gonna do it in July. Oh my goodness what's happening? Because I wouldn't do it. I'm not in it. You shared it you put it in your own. I put it into the world. Yes. I told you

[00:45:11] when you picked that date, when you picked it to do it I said girl the day I picked the date and put it in the event bright I had diarrhea like three times and you were like oh you're like then you pick

[00:45:22] that date and you were like oh is all I felt like I went through a yeah and I'm good and so anyway on July the 13th from 11 to 2 here in Raleigh we are going to have what I'm called a mid-summer

[00:45:38] sizzle self-care right because I know if you're anything like me the summertime is a busy time. You're visiting you said that the beginning barbecues and ice cream and barbecues right and swimming pools and trips to the beach and vacations and all and you're doing all of these things

[00:46:03] and self-care sometimes fall to the waistline right so it's just like a mid-summer reminder that hey you still need to be working out you still need to be drinking your water you still need

[00:46:16] to see your chiropractor or all the things that you've been doing because before you were too busy you're doing because kids were in school and work blah blah blah now you're too busy because

[00:46:26] you're too busy having fun which is not a bad thing and then there'll be a focus on summer summer specific self-care and I just came off vacation and so this is going to be really heightened

[00:46:39] for me because I got a sunburn because I was having so much fun in the sun on vacation that I did not reapply my sunscreen girl right so it's a hooking effect

[00:46:57] gonna be very timely it's it's not a rookie mistake it is a rookie mistake I'm not a rookie and it's a rookie mistake so we are going to give away some prizes have raffle

[00:47:08] and give away some prizes and the wonderful Amy Chang is going to be our guest speaker yay so I'm super excited we will have some vendors that will share and contribute to the raffle prizes and will also be raising money for an organization called Christave's

[00:47:31] hearts and tell us some little things about foundation and this is an organization that focuses on heart health for especially in the African American community because we tend to go to

[00:47:47] the doctor less we tend to ignore the size more of heart disease and and so this is okay not thinking okay just to put the reality out there also there's like less education yeah it's historically there has been less education about all forms of health care

[00:48:11] into the African community and there's less access yeah in the African American community and there's also been studies done that are good studies not teeny tiny ones that document like the delay of tape takes you black person entering

[00:48:32] in through the ED to get care compared to a white person entering into the ED especially when it comes to cardiovascular stuff yeah so all those things I'm really grateful that we're doing

[00:48:45] this particular charity if you don't know whenever Christle and I put on the thing when we do a thing what we do with things you know when Christle and I have playtop we send all the proceeds to

[00:48:58] a charity because it's one way we can use our gift to support right just cutting a check with making a difference in people's lives and in that specific nonprofit and bring awareness to that

[00:49:11] nonprofit and build the coffers and bring awareness and use a gift that we've been giving given of coaching absolutely so it's a really great way for us to contribute and I'm super excited to do

[00:49:25] this one because it is in my background right like I worked in the cathode like I know about those studies and it's a it's a spot that's been missing and I'm glad that there are somebody who

[00:49:38] and well there's lots of people now I think the more awareness is there absolutely absolutely absolutely be supportive of that absolutely yes so that's what we're going to do we're going to have some laughs we're gonna have some fun meet some new people maybe do some spontaneous laughing

[00:49:58] oh god I'll do it I mean you know I'm not going to enjoy it it'll be fine no no like give me 30 seconds then it's just like any other thing like you dread going

[00:50:13] but as soon as you get there it's gonna be fine it's gonna be fine yes that is my motto in life it's gonna be fine it's gonna be what hey I went zipline for the first time

[00:50:24] everything is possible and here you are you survived I didn't drop out of the sky well that's that light you did that for the very first time it was first terrifying because I said I wasn't gonna do it like I was like just wipe that all

[00:50:46] off the agenda I'll just sit here and wait until the group comes back and then I'll pick up and do all the other things so what had to choose to do that I mean Paul's app what did we do it

[00:50:58] we got this package that this excursion package that had ziplining do buggy rides horseback riding you know I had a lazy river and a lagoon and all these things and so I wanted to do horseback

[00:51:13] right that was my one objective so I said I will wait you know I'll sit out on the ziplining part of it and then I'll wait for the horseback riding and we get there and they said okay your

[00:51:29] group is gonna do ziplining first then to do buggy then the horseback right like now let's go like there was an option not and I'm like oh my god I was and I was with one of my nieces

[00:51:45] who just graduated high school and she had also made the determination that she wasn't gonna do it so we had a plan we were gonna sit together and we're gonna wait for the recipe group to come back and

[00:51:55] when they said that we both looked at each other and we were like okay let's go now I'm thinking okay I'm 57 almost she's 17 I'm like I can't you know I got a step up

[00:52:11] so you know and on the walk and you know getting dressed but not the getting the harness on and getting the helmet on everything you know we started to encourage each other she's like

[00:52:21] come on until we can do this I'm like yes we could do this we could do we're gonna do it and we did you know so the first one was the scariest one right we also didn't know that there were six lines we were gonna zip six times

[00:52:37] before we landed in water right and so we didn't know until we were going up to the first one because I'm thinking okay it's just gonna be one was one and done they're like oh no you got five

[00:52:51] more after this so now it was a lot of fun you know and then I actually shifted my perspective I'm up here now I don't think wait out is down so then I shifted my perspective

[00:53:07] and then I was able to say well this is amazing to be sitting over the trees so you started enjoying it so I started to enjoy it but I did pray a lot and I did get a little closer to

[00:53:23] my savior just being honest I'm like Lord don't let me drop out of this guy please hold me up oh that's perfect well you know we said in the very beginning one thing the help you make changes is sharing it with other people and sharing with other

[00:53:43] your higher power okay yeah and that's what happened and then just doing it why who that Michael Jordan just do it yeah I just had a client today I've worked with her for three months she's my youngest client ever she's 22 and I worked

[00:53:58] with her with my intern and we had a closing session and I said okay so what is the thing that you are taking with you out of this experience into your you know future you know growth

[00:54:12] that you want to take and she said just push through it and I was like done deal that needs to be on a t-shirt girlfriend yeah just push through it just push through it and and on or zip right through

[00:54:27] it a self care permission and choice absolutely and I think that's the paradox that we live in I think sometimes we think if we're self care we're going to be selfish I think if we think

[00:54:41] that we're going to listen to our bodies and stop when we need to we're going to be complacent you know like there's a lot of when when you said you said something about like there's reasons

[00:54:53] why people don't do what they think and it could be fear and all of it lives right there all of it lives right there yeah and that's why we have jobs yeah absolutely

[00:55:05] and that's why we're making a pusher mom help we're here to help you change your mind so your mind can push your body to do the things that you want to do yeah that you're really

[00:55:16] committed to doing but you're really committed to do it but it helped you find your passion like I mean you given you given you permission as Amy said earlier to live your passion and your passion is just being a badass auntie slot now

[00:55:34] we got to the end she was like who I'm glad we did that I'm like I'm glad we did too and I'm glad we got to do it together but it was exciting yeah okay so I want to just say thank you

[00:55:47] so very much you're welcome on you so for those of you I was supposed to say this I think in the beginning and I forgot it's me what I and all of July at Healthy Life helped him when

[00:56:00] this coaching is freedom from self limiting beliefs I love it yes and that's part of our self-care and that's part of what as us move forward and clearly my friend Crystal just celebrates with freedom from self limiting beliefs and yeah absolutely thank you for having me

[00:56:23] it's been a pleasure yeah I mean we'll do it again we may have to cut this one in half I don't know all right if you'd like to get in touch with Crystal tell them how to get in touch with you

[00:56:35] and we'll put it in the show notes yes you can find me on my website Crystal asks you loss in that or you can find me on the Insta as some people call it at simply uncomplicated SM I took out the

[00:56:54] valves okay yeah man I hate that about Instagram I'm like I don't know who this person is it's like right instead I don't know anybody got me answered and then I'm like oh that's my next door neighbor

[00:57:08] yes yes so I'll provide my link tree that'll have all my links and you can find it so it's well yeah don't get all that in the show and yeah and you can show up if you are in

[00:57:19] Raleigh on July I think it's your own sound out and we'll see you then if you loved this podcast if you've got something from it if you felt inspired please like subscribe share it with a friend

[00:57:36] above all things um try new things and give yourself some grace for whatever you learn as you're just moving forward and we'll see you next time on Healthy A. yeah thank you so much

[00:57:54] for listening to this episode of the Healthy A F podcast I hope that it has helped you create a new possibility for your help and since you've been the action to go get it if you want more information

[00:58:06] if you want to connect with me visit my website at my Healthy Life.co and don't forget to hit the subscribe button so that each new Healthy A F episode will be sent directly to you.

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