August 7, 2025 • 44 mins
Grief has a way of cracking us open when we least expect it. This summer, the sudden loss of my beloved dog Nilla forced me to confront not only fresh pain but also unprocessed grief from my grandmother's passing thirteen years ago. The parallels between these losses revealed a deeper pattern—both represented the physical manifestation of protection and unconditional love disappearing from my life.
Through tears during cycle classes, long walks where emotions suddenly surfaced, and the forced stillness of recovering from bone graft surgery, I've been peeling back layers of myself that needed healing. Grief moves through our bodies differently, and for someone who typically processes emotion through movement, being physically still created an unexpected opportunity for emotional release.
What's fascinating about deep grief is how it illuminates other aspects of our lives needing attention. For me, it spotlighted my triggers around transparency and half-truths. Growing up with adults who "protected" me by withholding information created a fierce commitment to honesty in my adult life. When people aren't fully transparent with me now, my body immediately sounds alarms—what are they hiding and why? This reflection helped me recognize times when I wasn't honest with myself about my pain, my boundaries, or my needs.
As we navigate the second half of this numerologically significant 9-year—a year of endings before next year's fresh beginnings—I'm intentionally letting go of anything that weighs me down. Decluttering physical spaces, releasing emotional baggage, and being mindful about energy and time commitments creates space to receive what's next. The grief journey has taught me that acceptance doesn't fill the void left by loss, but instead creates room for memories and gratitude to take root.
What's weighing you down? What patterns, behaviors, objects, or relationships no longer serve you? Give yourself permission to let go—piece by piece—and open yourself to receive the love and experiences you deserve.
Thank you for joining me today. Please know that this podcast and the information shared is not to replace or supplement any mental health or personal wellness modalities provided by practitioners. It’s simply me, sharing my personal experiences and I appreciate you respecting and honoring my story and my guests. If something touched your heart please feel free to like, share and subscribe. Have a beautiful day full of gratitude, compassion and unconditional love.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
What's up you guys?
Welcome to this episode ofCrystal Clear.
I am excited to be back in thestudio today solo.
I feel like there's always adifferent vibration when I'm
here by myself, so it's nice.
I took a couple months off fromfilming front loaded my podcast
, but there's been a hell of alot of life going on in that
(00:22):
couple months.
So we're actually leaving today, tonight, in a couple hours,
for a trip Just my husband and I, which I think is long overdue,
much needed, but I wanted tojump on to just kind of A dump
out some of summer so I canleave it behind.
(00:43):
And because we've beenprocessing through a lot, I feel
like there's been a lot of lifehappening, there's been a lot
of transitions and just thingsfestering up that have given me
the opportunity to grow andevolve and like sit with it for
a while and really kind ofexplore where the mirrors are.
(01:06):
I don't know if anyone else isexperiencing this, and I know
that some are, because I havefriends that are kind of going
through similar not quite asparallel experiences, but just a
lot, a lot surfacing, which Ithink is on par of just like
we're in the second part of anine year in numerology and it's
(01:30):
like all about endings and nextyear is all about new
beginnings and fresh starts andfresh perspectives and I think
that's you know.
It's bittersweet for us andhonestly, it's been a roller
coaster.
It's been a roller coaster ofgrowth, evolution, like icky
shit too, like there's been someyuck that's come up, and a big
(01:53):
part of that in my personal lifeand for my family has been
grief.
We lost our dog unexpectedly inJune.
She was only seven years old.
So, which is really interesting, because intuitively at the
beginning of the year and I evenexpressed this to my husband I
(02:15):
was like I just don't, I don'tfeel like she has long, I don't.
I just had like something inthe pit of me that was like
spend more time with her, likelike pour more love into her,
because you know, when you havea family pet, especially if
seven years and you have such abusy life, you can take them for
granted for just being there,right, and and that doesn't hit
(02:37):
you until they're gone.
(02:59):
And you know, I was out of townand my husband was home at work
and our oldest was home andnon-responsive and lying on the
ground with like little foamaround her nostrils and some
weird liquid coming out of hermouth and, um, we still don't
really know what happened to herbecause you know they wouldn't
(03:22):
take her to again.
I wasn't there.
She wasn't taken to um DR to dolike autopsy, figure it out.
I just, you know, I don't thinkthey had the capacity to do
that.
But when Matt got home he saidit was I made him FaceTime her,
like I had to kind of see it formyself and it was really hard.
And um, yeah, I don't, it wasreally interesting because, a,
(03:50):
obviously I was in shock, I wasupset.
You go through all the.
My initial observation formyself is my initial feeling
with grief is anger.
So I think I immediately kindof just like.
So I think I immediately kindof just like like what?
Why?
Like you know, not like angryanyone, just like like upset,
like for not being there.
(04:10):
And of course I went throughthat like if I was home this
wouldn't have happened.
You know, it's just all theunfair things we do to ourselves
when something's out of ourcontrol, like that.
Um, I was in Cayman Islands withour two youngest and, um, it
was devastating.
And, uh, my daughter overheardthe conversation.
I wasn't even really able totell her in the way that there
(04:34):
was intentionality behind it and, um, you know, when you get a
dog, when you're seven years oldand they're half your life, um,
we've never really known ourhouse without her.
Um, it's really hard and Ithink the first time our kid,
(04:57):
like we've had to experiencewitnessing our kids suffer true
grief for the first time.
Like, my daughter has lost acouple of grandparents, but it
just it hits different when it'ssomething living in your home.
It's, you know, it's like itwas our man.
I was first baby together.
Right, it's our.
It was hard, it's still hard, um, the witnessing my kids
(05:21):
experience grief for the firsttime and feeling that
helplessness of like I can'thelp them, I can't fix them, I
can't do anything to make itbetter.
I just, you know it's right now.
I need to sit with them.
I need to sit with them, I needto love them through this and
(05:46):
also allow myself time and spaceto grieve as well.
And I'm going to be completelyhonest, I didn't really do that
the first day initially.
Obviously, it was very upset,more upset to see Tatum, upset.
We were out of town.
I chose not to, or we chose notto, tell our youngest son,
(06:08):
who's five, until we got homeBecause I don't think that a, we
had one more day left our tripand I didn't want to rob him of
that and I don't really think hewould have quite understood
either way.
So, you know, allowed space andtime for grief.
We had a really low key day.
You know, talked to her with myhusband and it was just, it was
(06:31):
weird.
It actually brought up a lot ofparallel feelings for me
because on my Nana, mygrandmother who raised me, when
she passed away 13 years ago, Iwas also out of town and I
didn't get to do like a propergoodbye and it was sudden and it
was.
It was very parallel and for me, what resonated in all of that
(06:53):
and I've done a lot ofprocessing since um in different
ways and realizing it was melosing the physical
manifestation of protection andsafety.
My dog, nilla, was my absoluteunconditional love, support and
(07:19):
protection, um, even more sothan my husband sometimes.
You know, she was with me andprotected me and gave me
emotional support through reallyhard times and trying times in
our life and relationship andmarriage.
And she was, she could feel meand she didn't.
(07:41):
You know she followed me inevery room, um, and I feel like
she was one of my little soul.
You know she followed me inevery room, um, and I feel like
she was one of my littlesoulmates.
You know, I was scrollingInstagram seven and a half years
ago and there she was justlooking and I'm like, oh, my God
, like I know we just moved intoour new house, but can I wire
this bully breed dealer inAlabama money?
(08:02):
And Matt's like, are you crazy?
And I'm like, no, I need her,she's perfect.
And so a month after we movedinto our new house, we purchased
her and it was one of the bestthings we could have done for
our family.
And so losing that was reallyhard and I've been able to sit
with it and realize and come toshifting it more to a.
(08:26):
I'm really glad we didn't haveto watch her suffer, in a sense,
and make the decision ourselfto put her down, because that's
it's honestly something I'venever had to do for an animal
and I don't I don't even know ifI could make a decision.
It's gotta be really reallyhard Um decision.
It's gotta be really, reallyhard Um be, you know, shifting.
(08:47):
I feel like I've I've been in aspace where I'm like okay,
universe, whatever.
Um, I'd really love a littlebit of less responsibility.
That's really not what I wasfricking asking for, though, so
(09:18):
coming to a place where I'm okaywith being okay with her not
there.
We've had a lot of travel and alot of busy stuff coming up.
You know, I feel like I wouldhave rather quit my job than
that happened, that's for sure,and really just coming to
acceptance with it.
But I have gone through someavoidance as well, like I.
(09:43):
You know, some things wereintentional.
Like we got back from Cayman,the next weekend I had a trip
with my husband, and then thenext trip week I had a trip with
a kid.
I mean, it's literally I'vebeen traveling every week since
May with like little to nodowntime, um, until a few weeks
ago.
(10:03):
A couple of weeks ago, I hadbone graft surgery, so I had to
get like part of my jaw from theinside cut.
They shaved my bone, placed thebone shavings up here, stitched
it all back up.
I mean it was actually prettyhorrendous.
They kind of sugarcoated it.
If it was, yeah, I'm glad to beon the other side of it now.
(10:26):
However, that was the first timeI had actually been still
enough to process it, becauseprior to that, in between trips
and travel and camps andresponsibility, I found myself
going back to old patterns oftwo classes a day or always
(10:47):
needing to move my body, which Iknow for me means I have like
pent up energy and I need to getit out, which is healthy.
However, I found myself, youknow, I forced myself into
stillness at times.
I tried to get some goodmeditation and really getting
outside and doing some groundinggood meditation and really
(11:08):
getting outside and doing somegrounding but I really felt like
hyper, like I felt the energyin my body that it needed to
release, like, whether you know,so I'd be on a walk and all of
a sudden, just tears startflowing, like.
So I tried to make myself likecycle, like I'm getting a cycle
class and the momentum of classand I love it and it brings
something in my soul alive.
The soul that I am brings mealive.
(11:29):
I don't know there's somethingabout it that just feels so good
to me, but it would just pourout the tears and I allowed that
to happen and, to be honest, itmade me realize that I hadn't
fully processed my Nana's deathfrom 13 years ago and I think,
(11:49):
because there were so manyparallels, I was able to pull
some of that up and pull it outand gain another layer of
acceptance and clarity.
And you know, even though she'snot here in the physical body,
I know very much that she'sguiding and protecting and, you
(12:09):
know, I think sometimes, um, wedon't understand it in the
moment, but it's thosesituations that make us a bit
stronger.
And you know, everyone has adifferent perspective of this,
but I really like to think thatmy guides and angels and all the
things are guiding me andprotecting me along the way and
(12:32):
you can have all the acceptancein the world.
However, nothing will everreplace that connection and I
think that that's where the realgrief comes in.
When you lose someone, or a pet, or a family member or a friend
or someone that's close to yourheart, you can accept it and
you can move on, but I don'tthink anything will ever fill
(12:55):
that connection.
I don't think it's meant to.
I think what's meant to bethere are the memories and the
love that they poured into youand just instead of allowing
that to become a gaping hole ofgrief, fill it with love and
happy thoughts and gratitude forthe times you had and the
(13:15):
things you got to experiencetogether and you know how it
shaped you and how it molded youand that's really kind of how
that's taken a turn for me.
You know, after the processingand moving through it which
moving through pain and grief isjust the way my body likes to
(13:38):
move.
Like, when my man passed away, Iwas teaching 20 classes a week,
literally 20 group exerciseclasses a week.
I was taking every class.
I was like performing the classwith, with the participants.
So plenty of movement there andI think I probably got up to
about half that now.
But it also helped me to likedo more of like the cycle and
(13:58):
the Pilates and the walking andjust things that I was kind of
mindless with.
That I didn't have to think alot of my own on which I really
liked and which was reallyhelpful.
But when I had this surgery acouple weeks ago but when I had
this surgery a couple weeks ago,I had to be.
Still, my husband was out oftown.
My daughter was out of town,she was at a lacrosse camp.
(14:22):
He was in Vegas playing a WorldSeries of Poker.
He did really well, by the way.
He got in like top 9%, sothat's always kind of fun.
Fulfilling his dream is abucket list thing for him and I
love that for him.
So I go and schedule this bonegraft surgery when he's away.
It actually worked out great.
It was just me um had my homehelper helping with all the
(14:43):
things and my little guy and um.
But I had a lot of days at hometo be still and also realizing
that when I'm in physical pain,my body also wants to move.
So being up and organizingdrawers and closets and color
(15:06):
coordinating closets and justcleaning things out, like, yes,
it's productive energy, but attimes I would force myself to
just sit with it and be like,okay, you need to feel this,
like it's important, it's partof the process, and realizing
how much physical pain makes mefeel vulnerable and knowing that
(15:27):
that is definitely an area thatI am still healing and still
working through, because thereis something about being that
type of vulnerable that I don'tknow if it's mind or not, like
in my body just has a very hardtime accepting.
So I don't know if it'sconditioned, I don't know if
(15:48):
it's from lifetimes of pushingthrough, but it was.
It was really intense, um, butthen after a couple of days.
I really got to the point whereI was kind of excited for the
alone time I was nurturingmyself.
(16:08):
I actually felt really good,like the soft food diet I was
eating, like Greek yogurt andI'd put some like first of all,
one of my new favorite snacks isthe ratio of vanilla Greek
yogurt.
It's like protein yogurt andputting a scoop of coffee
protein powder in it.
It's so good, um, so, um, yeah,like soft diet and sweet
potatoes with some Greek yogurtat dinner.
(16:29):
Um, thank goodness my body canhandle dairy, otherwise I would
just be carbon it out.
Um, but no meat, no fish,nothing.
For like two weeks.
I actually felt really good.
I felt super lean, I didn'tfeel inflamed.
Um, I felt like my body neededthe rest because I had been
working it so much and so hardafter the loss of nilla that it
(16:51):
really just appreciated thedowntime.
And mentally too.
I'm not really one to watch TVand I went through seasons of
Nine Perfect Strangers, which isamazing, by the way, sirens
amazing, and I mean a few othershows.
I asked my girlfriends whatshows should I be watching?
(17:13):
And oh, daisy and the Six.
So good, we're going to StevieNicks in August and I like
totally felt the vibes of that.
But it was interesting.
It took me a few days but Iallowed myself to be there and
be in that vulnerable space andfeel the pain.
The pain not only the physicalpain, but I allowed myself to
(17:38):
feel the grief and go outsidewhere um Nilla is buried in our
yard.
We have 10 acres and she's out,um by a tree and I allowed
myself to.
I mean, the sunsets in Sarasotaright now are just amazing, so
I eased my way out.
I avoided it for a lot ofreasons because it just feels
real when I go out there and Iswear I still like I hear her
(18:03):
like little nails scratching thefloor sometimes when I'm
walking around or I still kindof expect for her to be there,
and at night, after I put Brodyto bed, I still almost make that
corner to go say goodnight toher.
And so it's definitely still um, very fresh and very raw.
It's only been a couple months.
(18:24):
Um, yeah, it's.
It's been very difficult, butit's been great to have so many
observations and opportunitiesto observe unhealed layers of
myself.
You know, until something likethis happens, you're not
necessarily peeling back thegrief layers.
It's hard to until youexperience it firsthand and
(18:46):
interestingly enough, I've reada bunch of books this year that
there was a theme around griefand I actually reached out to a
friend of mine who lost herdaughter, beth Knopic, and she
wrote this beautiful book and Iwould love to have her on
sometime.
But I reached out to her beforeany of this happened and I'm
like I just feel like grief is atheme.
(19:06):
I've been reading these booksand it turns into grief and how
people process it or don'tprocess it, and her books was
one of those.
Lisa Marie Presley's book wasanother that was co-written by
her daughter, and then PrinceHarry's book, spare, which is so
good and just talking aboutlike the, I don't know.
I was just really it was atheme and I guess this is why I
(19:31):
was thinking to myself it waspreparing us for you know,
something happened into myin-laws or my grandfather who
were in their eighties now, butI think it was really preparing
me for this and I don't evenknow if you can call it
preparing because I don't reallythink you're ever prepared for
it.
But yeah, so, wrapping up thelittle segment on that, I just
(19:56):
felt like I needed to get onhere, not only to share my
experience and how hard it is,but also to just complete the,
the processing.
I think that the one thing thatI know the podcast has done for
me is allowed me to verballyprocess and what that happens.
It's like when somethinghappens to you.
You know, you journal, um, youdo talk therapy.
(20:19):
The more you talk aboutsomething, the more you create a
narrative form around it andyou can release it from those
areas of your brain.
Then it stays stuck in thatamygdala like the fight flight
freeze the grief, freeze thegrief, the deep, the deep areas,
um, the more you can talk aboutit and express yourself, the
more it comes out and I'm likeyou know I'm not the person
(20:41):
that's gonna be like hey, guesswhat?
My dog died, blah, blah.
This is how it.
You know I'd, um, I've been alittle set back.
I'm not gonna say reclusive,because that's not the word, but
just kind of wanting to be inmy own space and my own element.
A lot of family stuff and kiddostuff.
This summer, like I said, I'mexcited to take a trip with my
(21:01):
husband.
I think it's long overdue.
It's been a whirlwind for himas well.
We've had some other familystuff going on.
We have a son that moved awayto a week and a half after he
found our dog.
So we had some concern therewith coping and you know he says
he's okay and um says that herather have happened and got to
(21:23):
say his goodbyes while he wasstill home rather than away.
But you know that's really hard, um, and you know, just to
segue into something else that Ifeel like it's been kind of a
theme this summer for me istransparency.
So I am a product of a crazychildhood, for lack of a better
(21:54):
word, you know, and I think Ithink we can all relate to this
in some way, shape or form likepeople not telling us the whole
truth.
And for me that's somethingthat I'm like no, because as you
all know, I'm probably anovershare when it comes to most
things.
But the biggest thing, like forme, for my integrity, for my
(22:15):
character, is to tell the wholetruth, and it doesn't even have
to be to everyone else, it's tomyself.
So you know, I remember beingyounger and you know my
grandmother saying my uncle wasaway at work camp.
He wasn't away at work camp,he's in prison.
You know my father's caraccident like people not telling
me the whole truth about that,which you know it's not
(22:39):
appropriate at a certain age, um, but there came a time where it
was, and when I ask questions,I want honest answers and I
think that sometimes people havea tendency to tell themselves
these stories over in their mindso much they believe their own
stories.
My mom is someone that did thatmy entire life, and so for me,
(23:05):
honesty is very important and Ifeel like there's been a theme
that's come up with people in mylife that you know they haven't
either fully disclosed all theinformation about, like planning
or events, or you know, likesituations with my children and
seeing the lack of transparencywith them, and that's a trigger
(23:27):
for me because it's like, no,they deserve the whole truth and
we all do right.
And so I think the first placemy, my mind and intuition leads
me when the lack of transparencyis there is like a my mind.
(23:48):
You know those PTSD patterns Iused to have there as much as
you heal and unravel.
I mean that's that's hardwiring for survival over 40
years now.
So immediately I go to what arethey hiding?
What is their motive and whyaren't they telling me?
And then my intuition kicks inand is like it's their own shit,
(24:12):
it's their own shame or guiltor whatever.
They're feeling behind it.
Or see, maybe they don't feelsafe, maybe I haven't been a
safe person for them in the pastbecause of you know my own ways
(24:32):
of not understanding or copingor judging them because of their
choices.
Again, I've talked about itquite a bit like those rigid
boundaries I had.
I even really was veryconflicted after surgery.
They told me to rotate Adviland Tylenol and they gave me
Vicodin and they gave me 15 ofthem.
(24:54):
For they said you know, thefirst two or three weeks after
surgery is going to be quitepainful.
You take them when you needthem.
And I really mentally, morally,struggled with that and it was
very interesting Like I had likequite a bit of resistance with
it and I talked to my life coachquite a bit, talked to my
husband a lot about it and Ithink it comes from I know part
(25:16):
of it comes from as a child.
Someone like I'm not a safeperson, like that person's not
safe because they're doing that,whether it was drugs or alcohol
or pills or whatever.
So for me it was like, oh mygosh, if I take this, I'm not
going to be a safe person for mykids, which is crazy because
it's you know, like you take one.
(25:37):
You take the recommend like.
I didn't even take therecommended dose.
I would take like one a day andthen rotate the Advil, tylenol
which I don't even take, adviland Tylenol, but for this, for
this procedure I had, it wasnecessary.
So I really morally struggledwith that and I probably
(26:05):
overshared all the time and Italked about it a lot.
And Matt's like you B, I set somany rigid boundaries on myself
as a child and a teenager and Imean, don't get me wrong, I was
no saint.
I tried plenty of thingsthroughout my life and but I
(26:28):
always there was never a time,unless I was completely sober
and healthy, that I didn't holdshame or guilt for trying
something, and that's nothealthy either.
And now my perspective on allof this is like if you're going
to do something, just do it.
You don't have to feel shameand guilt.
If there's shame and guilt tiedto it, then don't do it.
(26:49):
Listen to your inner self, yourinner you know whether it's
having a drink or whatever.
Like these are things I choosenot to do right now because I
know that they just don't reallyserve me as a person and my
purpose and my mission and mypassion right now.
But you know what, if I feellike I'm gonna have a cocktail,
I'm gonna have one and not feelguilty about it.
So I had to really work throughand dig deep on being able to
(27:12):
take this medication when Ineeded it because I was in
severe pain I mean, the surgerywas no joke and being okay with
it.
So that was another big kind ofobservation I went through and
so I encourage you, like, if youfeel you have some resistance
in your life somewhere likewhether it's to a person,
(27:34):
whether it's to a place, whetherit's to something, an activity,
a smell Smells are really bigfor me.
Really, try to go inward andpeel apart the layers, like,
okay, where was I when the smelltriggered me the first time and
where have I smelled it in mylife?
It's a really big one for me.
(27:56):
The smell of marijuana for meis a trigger because of my
stepdad my first stepdad there'sbeen like nine.
That's a trigger for me becausehe would smoke pot in the car
on the way to take us to school.
It's like then you get out andyou're embarrassed and you hold
a shame because it's likenothing you can do, and so the
(28:18):
smell of that is one that getsme, or like that, um, like stale
beer alcohol on the breathsmell.
It grosses me out.
Um, the sweaty smell of likepeople sweating out alcohol
grosses me out because it's likethose were common smells in my
childhood.
So in adulthood, like I can'thandle it, which is really
(28:40):
interesting, and now I don'thave to, yeah, so really
interesting.
And back to the transparency andthe half truth trigger.
Back to the transparency andthe half truth trigger.
So I've really been ponderingthis and going back to it all
(29:01):
and I think it really definitelystems from being a child and
people feeling like they'reprotecting me by not telling me
the whole truth, but they'rereally not, because I already
know.
Um, you know, I feel like in mymarriage when we stopped being
completely open and honest witheach other about everything for
(29:23):
a smidge.
There.
That's when chaos started andcause, you can feel it.
You can feel when your personis not being your person and you
know that transparency that is,that is a.
It has to be a hundred percentfor me.
Like, like you need to own yourstuff and I promise to own my
stuff and um, and yeah, it'sjust really interesting to me,
(29:49):
even with having teenagers, Ithink that my daughter and I
have a really open relationshipand I'm very grateful for that,
so we have that transparency.
So I think if, for some reason,I ever feel it slipping which
I'm sure it will at some pointin time I hope not, but
teenagers is inevitable I feellike you can always tell, you
(30:10):
always feel it.
I feel like, whether you knowfor a fact or not, you can
usually feel it.
And I think this really goesback to times in my life because
I think that anything thattriggers us is kind of somewhat
of a mirror and an area that weneed to heal.
I think this goes back to timesin my life where I wasn't
transparent with myself, flatout, like I wasn't being honest
(30:31):
with myself about how much painI was in or, um, maybe previous
relationships.
Like I wasn't honest withmyself when I wasn't being
fulfilled or heard or seen, um,I was continuing to give and
give and give in situationswhere I wasn't receiving, or I
(30:52):
felt like I was receiving fromrelationships that I wasn't
willing to give.
Or, you know, even when itcomes to I used to be the
epitome of an overexerciser,like exercising all the time,
like I wasn't admitting tomyself when I was tired and I
was exhausted and I didn't wantto push forward.
But I did it anyway.
(31:13):
But it wasn't from a place oftransparency and health.
It was from now realizing andall this stuff that's bubbled up
has made me realize I was doingthat from a place of pain.
There were things inside methat were painful, that I had
not faced, that maybe I didn'thave the tools at the time.
I didn't have the tools at thetime, I didn't have the courage
at the time, I didn't have thesupport at the time and until I
(31:37):
started allowing myself to peelback the layers and, you know,
chip down the walls and startedbeing completely brutally honest
and vulnerable and exposing myshit, especially to you guys,
has been so healing, I wasn'table to understand how important
(31:59):
transparency was to me.
I mean, we all know we've allsaid a little white lie or half
truth or, and it's like thatshit adds up it really does, and
what it does is it causes younot to trust yourself.
So, facing all of that andwhether it's a journal, I mean
(32:21):
it might not be appropriate toreach out to you know someone
when you were 15 and apologizeto them or whatever.
But what's helped me isunraveling a lot of it in my
journal and being able to facesome of the things and some of
the hard truths.
Those of you who are close tome know I'm like the queen of
(32:42):
hard truthing.
I'm not going to sugarcoat andtell you what you want to hear.
I don't do that to myself, andthat's the biggest reason.
I really like to be honest withmyself and recently I've had a
lot of opportunities to do that.
So I think that that's why thistransparency thing is coming up
(33:05):
, and it's been some people thatare pretty close to me and I
think it was part of the grief,part of the overmoving my body
and a lot of the themes thatwere resurfacing over a 13-year
time span really allowed me todig it up and process it and
work through it and to tail infrom this some things I've done
(33:28):
in the meantime, because I justreally needed to shift gears.
I really needed to start beingmore intentional about my
nervous system.
I was dysregulated, completelydysregulated.
Not only did I have grief goingon, I also had physical pain,
which just regulates yournervous system.
You know we're traveling a lot,so the instability of that.
(33:49):
So finding time to go outsideand breathe.
We went to a convention center.
My husband had an event and Ihad to go outside and walk laps
around the parking lot in thebuilding.
I needed to get sunshine andfresh air and be outside in my
own energy field to pull in allthe goodness of the sunshine and
the trees and the breeze andlistening to the birds, and I
(34:10):
just treated myself to a retreat, actually, with some really
beautiful ladies.
This lady named Jessica Bracedid the most intense, impactful
breathwork session.
She does 90 breathwork.
Her name is Jessica Brace.
She has some stuff on YouTube Iliterally want to go.
She has a ladies conferenceactually coming up, I think in
August, but I want to go getcertified in this.
(34:32):
It was one of the mostimpactful, intense experiences
I've experienced in my healingjourney Just total reset.
It was amazing.
I really did a lot ofdecluttering and just getting
rid of old stuff when I was homerecovering from surgery and
just cleaning out stuff thatneeded to be cleaned out, like
(34:52):
organizing drawers, like for methat there is something to and
energetically there is somethingto, because if you have a lot
of clutter and chaos going on inyour home.
It's a reflection of what couldbe going on inside of you.
So everything has a place.
You know, making things, makingsure things when you take them
out we put them back.
We don't leave the bag sittingon the chair for three days just
(35:13):
because it landed there.
On Friday we unpack it.
I went through all of my bagsand all of everything and just
took everything out and justeliminated a lot of baggage and
it felt really good to do thatand I feel like with getting rid
of old baggage, it just makesyou feel so much lighter.
So I think going into this newhalf of the year the second half
(35:39):
of the year is really I mean,we're going into the end of our
9-year Next year is all aboutnew beginnings and just starting
fresh and I want to be veryintentional about that.
I want to continue to workthrough and let go of anything
old and heavy that's weighing medown, even things like, you
(36:03):
know, shoes that are clunky andheavy.
It's like why am I?
Why am I wearing that Likeeveryone's on this weighted vest
trend?
And I'm like why am I wearingthat?
Like I never was on thisweighted vest trend?
And I'm like why, like, why arewe weighing ourselves down as
we're walking?
For me, walking is such a freelike.
I want to feel light and freeand I mean more praise to you,
(36:28):
vesters.
I am not one of those girls.
I do not like to be weigheddown by anything.
I feel like I've worked so hardto release stuff and it's like
energetically.
Why are we weighing ourselvesdown?
Because I feel like my goal hasbeen just releasing all the
things so I can feel lighter.
So that's been reallyinteresting and just allowing
myself to have more downtime.
(36:49):
Like I said, just a little lessresponsibility.
Right now we have a few moreweeks until the kids go back to
school and um, just being veryintentional with that time it's
a new season.
We only have three kids in ourhouse.
We used to have four ones atcollege.
Just being mindful of time andenergy and um and my community
(37:13):
outreach, life and career, umevents are a big deal and so a
ton of events in the fall andthe spring.
But you know I can do thatdifferently, like maybe this
year we can help and we can um,we can support, but I don't
necessarily have to be there inthe physical to show up Like I
can show up in other ways, and Ithink it's really important for
(37:36):
me to be transparent withmyself that that is what I need
in the season.
Like I, I love you know Ireally.
It was yesterday.
Actually, with all this going on, I've really had to be
intentional about my gratitudepractices in my mind, because
(37:56):
when you have a bunch of thingsdifferent things happening back
to back to back, it can be veryeasy to get into those.
Oh my gosh, I can't believethis just happened.
Like I literally got a parkingticket on the way here.
I was three minutes over, orlike before I came to film my
podcast, and it's like you knowwhat, whatever, instead of
(38:16):
having the oh my god, this ontop of everything else, like
it's not about the glass halfempty, it's about you know what.
I'm just grateful that itwasn't anything bigger than that
, Right?
So yesterday I went on agratitude walk.
I went for four and a halfmiles and the entire time I was
literally out loud talking aboutthe things I'm grateful for,
(38:37):
what I love, about the peoplethat I love, like what I enjoy
most about my life.
We did an exercise it was theicky guy chart um with Bree
Sweezy Sweezy, I believe, is hername name, which was really
great.
It's a retreat I went to onSunday and we had to list, like,
(38:57):
what we love, what we're goodat, what we could get paid for
and what people think that we'regreat at or what we get
complimented for, and it was areally amazing exercise to do
because it was something that Ithink that, a I really needed
but B it really reeled me in on.
I am absolutely in alignmentwith all the things that I love,
(39:23):
all the passions, the missionsand the purpose, whether it's
community outreach and providingresources or podcasting and
sharing my truths, myvulnerability and providing
resources and retreats.
I'm hosting my first crystalclear retreat away in Sedona
this October and it's likeyou're just holding space for
people to get to the next levelfor them and whatever that means
(39:47):
for them, and I realized I'mdoing that in so many different
avenues of my life and it's abeautiful life.
I mean it really is, and I'mnot saying it in a boastful or
bragging way.
There's always room forimprovement, but I think doing
this exercise was so importantbecause it really allowed me to
(40:08):
intercept any of that like lowvibration energy and just circle
back to the gratitude Likelisten, chris, like you're on
your way, you are doing it, youhave everything's in alignment.
You just need to keepnavigating through.
I think sometimes we can get socaught up in the what's next and
I have to do something more andsomething bigger and do this,
(40:31):
and our friends calling aboutall these different ideas and
I'm like I think I'm good.
I think I want to marinate herefor a little while and allow
myself to enjoy this chapter.
It's a beautiful chapter.
It can change at any moment.
I mean, my little guy lost twoteeth already this summer and
I'm like what is happening?
Time is flying.
My daughter has her first realrelationship and I'm like what
(40:51):
is happening, like time isflying.
My daughter has a little, herfirst like real relationship and
it's the most beautifulexperience and it's so healthy
and I'm just you know,reflecting on Wow, you've broken
a lot of those cycles.
Like she's so secure withherself.
She had a opportunity to gospend some time with family and
realizing the dynamics aredifferent than they are at home
(41:12):
and that's okay.
But she's able to see differentdynamics and understand that
you know where growth is neededor healing is needed in other
areas and to protect her ownenergy when she is in those
situations and I'm just sograteful for that.
And it's like this is allpaying off, like it's it has the
(41:33):
trickle effect, like seeing myfriends really doing great
things with their life and notpersonalizing their spouse's
things anymore and, you know,making healthier choices and
we're all just kind of evolvingand growing in different ways
and, um, it's just reallybeautiful to see and it just
makes me super grateful and Ijust hope all of you appreciate
(41:56):
this as much as I do.
Like it's really a gift and anhonor to be able to share my
life with you and I do itbecause you know we all a we all
have our shit be.
We all have our shit be.
It's so healthy for me to beable to to share and have that
(42:17):
level of vulnerability and lety'all know that like I see you,
I feel you, I hear you, you'renot alone.
Um, you know, knowing there'sso many resources out there and
just, I did a resilient retreat,I facilitated a program.
Um, I do a journaling programthere every month and our theme
was letting go of things that nolonger serve us and creating
space for new.
(42:37):
So I feel like that isdefinitely my theme for the rest
of this year, especially beinga 9-year.
Letting go of what no longerserves you, what patterns, what
behaviors, what people, whatobjects, what places, what is it
in your life that's weighingyou down, that's pulling you
down, that's not serving youwell, like, give yourself
(42:57):
permission to let it go.
And it might be hard, it mightbe very hard, and you don't have
to do it all at once.
You can peel it back, you cando it piece by piece.
Peace, but also, once you letit go, giving yourself
permission and inviting yourselfto open up to receive.
(43:19):
Because once we releasesomething heavy, we don't have
to fill the space, but we can beopen to receive the love and
the worthiness and the kindnessand the experiences that we
deserve.
And I am going to leave you guyswith that today.
It's just it's always an honorto talk to you guys and I just
(43:41):
wanted to kind of do my summerdump for lack of a better word
and, you know, share someexperiences, because it got
pretty heavy for a little whileand I feel like I'm on the other
side of it and it feels goodand you know always here.
If you guys need to reach out,process anything, go to my
(44:01):
crystalclearcom website, reachout to me on Instagram, Facebook
, all the things Like alwayshere to process, looking forward
to some really greatcollaborations and future
retreats, to coming up in thefall, like a girlfriend of mine,
um Timmy Valencenti, who um wason my podcast, I think we might
get something in the works fora fun Florida retreat and um
(44:25):
really just looking forward tothis new space of honoring,
moving forward, honoring pullingback and enjoying the flow.
Have a great day.
What's up you guys?
Welcome to this episode ofCrystal Clear.
I am excited to be back in thestudio today solo.
I feel like there's always adifferent vibration when I'm
here by myself, so it's nice.
I took a couple months off fromfilming front loaded my podcast
, but there's been a hell of alot of life going on in that
(00:22):
couple months.
So we're actually leaving today, tonight, in a couple hours,
for a trip Just my husband and I, which I think is long overdue,
much needed, but I wanted tojump on to just kind of A dump
out some of summer so I canleave it behind.
(00:43):
And because we've beenprocessing through a lot, I feel
like there's been a lot of lifehappening, there's been a lot
of transitions and just thingsfestering up that have given me
the opportunity to grow andevolve and like sit with it for
a while and really kind ofexplore where the mirrors are.
(01:06):
I don't know if anyone else isexperiencing this, and I know
that some are, because I havefriends that are kind of going
through similar not quite asparallel experiences, but just a
lot, a lot surfacing, which Ithink is on par of just like
we're in the second part of anine year in numerology and it's
(01:30):
like all about endings and nextyear is all about new
beginnings and fresh starts andfresh perspectives and I think
that's you know.
It's bittersweet for us andhonestly, it's been a roller
coaster.
It's been a roller coaster ofgrowth, evolution, like icky
shit too, like there's been someyuck that's come up, and a big
(01:53):
part of that in my personal lifeand for my family has been
grief.
We lost our dog unexpectedly inJune.
She was only seven years old.
So, which is really interesting, because intuitively at the
beginning of the year and I evenexpressed this to my husband I
(02:15):
was like I just don't, I don'tfeel like she has long, I don't.
I just had like something inthe pit of me that was like
spend more time with her, likelike pour more love into her,
because you know, when you havea family pet, especially if
seven years and you have such abusy life, you can take them for
granted for just being there,right, and and that doesn't hit
(02:37):
you until they're gone.
(02:59):
And you know, I was out of townand my husband was home at work
and our oldest was home andnon-responsive and lying on the
ground with like little foamaround her nostrils and some
weird liquid coming out of hermouth and, um, we still don't
really know what happened to herbecause you know they wouldn't
(03:22):
take her to again.
I wasn't there.
She wasn't taken to um DR to dolike autopsy, figure it out.
I just, you know, I don't thinkthey had the capacity to do
that.
But when Matt got home he saidit was I made him FaceTime her,
like I had to kind of see it formyself and it was really hard.
And um, yeah, I don't, it wasreally interesting because, a,
(03:50):
obviously I was in shock, I wasupset.
You go through all the.
My initial observation formyself is my initial feeling
with grief is anger.
So I think I immediately kindof just like.
So I think I immediately kindof just like like what?
Why?
Like you know, not like angryanyone, just like like upset,
like for not being there.
(04:10):
And of course I went throughthat like if I was home this
wouldn't have happened.
You know, it's just all theunfair things we do to ourselves
when something's out of ourcontrol, like that.
Um, I was in Cayman Islands withour two youngest and, um, it
was devastating.
And, uh, my daughter overheardthe conversation.
I wasn't even really able totell her in the way that there
(04:34):
was intentionality behind it and, um, you know, when you get a
dog, when you're seven years oldand they're half your life, um,
we've never really known ourhouse without her.
Um, it's really hard and Ithink the first time our kid,
(04:57):
like we've had to experiencewitnessing our kids suffer true
grief for the first time.
Like, my daughter has lost acouple of grandparents, but it
just it hits different when it'ssomething living in your home.
It's, you know, it's like itwas our man.
I was first baby together.
Right, it's our.
It was hard, it's still hard, um, the witnessing my kids
(05:21):
experience grief for the firsttime and feeling that
helplessness of like I can'thelp them, I can't fix them, I
can't do anything to make itbetter.
I just, you know it's right now.
I need to sit with them.
I need to sit with them, I needto love them through this and
(05:46):
also allow myself time and spaceto grieve as well.
And I'm going to be completelyhonest, I didn't really do that
the first day initially.
Obviously, it was very upset,more upset to see Tatum, upset.
We were out of town.
I chose not to, or we chose notto, tell our youngest son,
(06:08):
who's five, until we got homeBecause I don't think that a, we
had one more day left our tripand I didn't want to rob him of
that and I don't really think hewould have quite understood
either way.
So, you know, allowed space andtime for grief.
We had a really low key day.
You know, talked to her with myhusband and it was just, it was
(06:31):
weird.
It actually brought up a lot ofparallel feelings for me
because on my Nana, mygrandmother who raised me, when
she passed away 13 years ago, Iwas also out of town and I
didn't get to do like a propergoodbye and it was sudden and it
was.
It was very parallel and for me, what resonated in all of that
(06:53):
and I've done a lot ofprocessing since um in different
ways and realizing it was melosing the physical
manifestation of protection andsafety.
My dog, nilla, was my absoluteunconditional love, support and
(07:19):
protection, um, even more sothan my husband sometimes.
You know, she was with me andprotected me and gave me
emotional support through reallyhard times and trying times in
our life and relationship andmarriage.
And she was, she could feel meand she didn't.
(07:41):
You know she followed me inevery room, um, and I feel like
she was one of my little soul.
You know she followed me inevery room, um, and I feel like
she was one of my littlesoulmates.
You know, I was scrollingInstagram seven and a half years
ago and there she was justlooking and I'm like, oh, my God
, like I know we just moved intoour new house, but can I wire
this bully breed dealer inAlabama money?
(08:02):
And Matt's like, are you crazy?
And I'm like, no, I need her,she's perfect.
And so a month after we movedinto our new house, we purchased
her and it was one of the bestthings we could have done for
our family.
And so losing that was reallyhard and I've been able to sit
with it and realize and come toshifting it more to a.
(08:26):
I'm really glad we didn't haveto watch her suffer, in a sense,
and make the decision ourselfto put her down, because that's
it's honestly something I'venever had to do for an animal
and I don't I don't even know ifI could make a decision.
It's gotta be really reallyhard Um decision.
It's gotta be really, reallyhard Um be, you know, shifting.
(08:47):
I feel like I've I've been in aspace where I'm like okay,
universe, whatever.
Um, I'd really love a littlebit of less responsibility.
That's really not what I wasfricking asking for, though, so
(09:18):
coming to a place where I'm okaywith being okay with her not
there.
We've had a lot of travel and alot of busy stuff coming up.
You know, I feel like I wouldhave rather quit my job than
that happened, that's for sure,and really just coming to
acceptance with it.
But I have gone through someavoidance as well, like I.
(09:43):
You know, some things wereintentional.
Like we got back from Cayman,the next weekend I had a trip
with my husband, and then thenext trip week I had a trip with
a kid.
I mean, it's literally I'vebeen traveling every week since
May with like little to nodowntime, um, until a few weeks
ago.
(10:03):
A couple of weeks ago, I hadbone graft surgery, so I had to
get like part of my jaw from theinside cut.
They shaved my bone, placed thebone shavings up here, stitched
it all back up.
I mean it was actually prettyhorrendous.
They kind of sugarcoated it.
If it was, yeah, I'm glad to beon the other side of it now.
(10:26):
However, that was the first timeI had actually been still
enough to process it, becauseprior to that, in between trips
and travel and camps andresponsibility, I found myself
going back to old patterns oftwo classes a day or always
(10:47):
needing to move my body, which Iknow for me means I have like
pent up energy and I need to getit out, which is healthy.
However, I found myself, youknow, I forced myself into
stillness at times.
I tried to get some goodmeditation and really getting
outside and doing some groundinggood meditation and really
(11:08):
getting outside and doing somegrounding but I really felt like
hyper, like I felt the energyin my body that it needed to
release, like, whether you know,so I'd be on a walk and all of
a sudden, just tears startflowing, like.
So I tried to make myself likecycle, like I'm getting a cycle
class and the momentum of classand I love it and it brings
something in my soul alive.
The soul that I am brings mealive.
(11:29):
I don't know there's somethingabout it that just feels so good
to me, but it would just pourout the tears and I allowed that
to happen and, to be honest, itmade me realize that I hadn't
fully processed my Nana's deathfrom 13 years ago and I think,
(11:49):
because there were so manyparallels, I was able to pull
some of that up and pull it outand gain another layer of
acceptance and clarity.
And you know, even though she'snot here in the physical body,
I know very much that she'sguiding and protecting and, you
(12:09):
know, I think sometimes, um, wedon't understand it in the
moment, but it's thosesituations that make us a bit
stronger.
And you know, everyone has adifferent perspective of this,
but I really like to think thatmy guides and angels and all the
things are guiding me andprotecting me along the way and
(12:32):
you can have all the acceptancein the world.
However, nothing will everreplace that connection and I
think that that's where the realgrief comes in.
When you lose someone, or a pet, or a family member or a friend
or someone that's close to yourheart, you can accept it and
you can move on, but I don'tthink anything will ever fill
(12:55):
that connection.
I don't think it's meant to.
I think what's meant to bethere are the memories and the
love that they poured into youand just instead of allowing
that to become a gaping hole ofgrief, fill it with love and
happy thoughts and gratitude forthe times you had and the
(13:15):
things you got to experiencetogether and you know how it
shaped you and how it molded youand that's really kind of how
that's taken a turn for me.
You know, after the processingand moving through it which
moving through pain and grief isjust the way my body likes to
(13:38):
move.
Like, when my man passed away, Iwas teaching 20 classes a week,
literally 20 group exerciseclasses a week.
I was taking every class.
I was like performing the classwith, with the participants.
So plenty of movement there andI think I probably got up to
about half that now.
But it also helped me to likedo more of like the cycle and
(13:58):
the Pilates and the walking andjust things that I was kind of
mindless with.
That I didn't have to think alot of my own on which I really
liked and which was reallyhelpful.
But when I had this surgery acouple weeks ago but when I had
this surgery a couple weeks ago,I had to be.
Still, my husband was out oftown.
My daughter was out of town,she was at a lacrosse camp.
(14:22):
He was in Vegas playing a WorldSeries of Poker.
He did really well, by the way.
He got in like top 9%, sothat's always kind of fun.
Fulfilling his dream is abucket list thing for him and I
love that for him.
So I go and schedule this bonegraft surgery when he's away.
It actually worked out great.
It was just me um had my homehelper helping with all the
(14:43):
things and my little guy and um.
But I had a lot of days at hometo be still and also realizing
that when I'm in physical pain,my body also wants to move.
So being up and organizingdrawers and closets and color
(15:06):
coordinating closets and justcleaning things out, like, yes,
it's productive energy, but attimes I would force myself to
just sit with it and be like,okay, you need to feel this,
like it's important, it's partof the process, and realizing
how much physical pain makes mefeel vulnerable and knowing that
(15:27):
that is definitely an area thatI am still healing and still
working through, because thereis something about being that
type of vulnerable that I don'tknow if it's mind or not, like
in my body just has a very hardtime accepting.
So I don't know if it'sconditioned, I don't know if
(15:48):
it's from lifetimes of pushingthrough, but it was.
It was really intense, um, butthen after a couple of days.
I really got to the point whereI was kind of excited for the
alone time I was nurturingmyself.
(16:08):
I actually felt really good,like the soft food diet I was
eating, like Greek yogurt andI'd put some like first of all,
one of my new favorite snacks isthe ratio of vanilla Greek
yogurt.
It's like protein yogurt andputting a scoop of coffee
protein powder in it.
It's so good, um, so, um, yeah,like soft diet and sweet
potatoes with some Greek yogurtat dinner.
(16:29):
Um, thank goodness my body canhandle dairy, otherwise I would
just be carbon it out.
Um, but no meat, no fish,nothing.
For like two weeks.
I actually felt really good.
I felt super lean, I didn'tfeel inflamed.
Um, I felt like my body neededthe rest because I had been
working it so much and so hardafter the loss of nilla that it
(16:51):
really just appreciated thedowntime.
And mentally too.
I'm not really one to watch TVand I went through seasons of
Nine Perfect Strangers, which isamazing, by the way, sirens
amazing, and I mean a few othershows.
I asked my girlfriends whatshows should I be watching?
(17:13):
And oh, daisy and the Six.
So good, we're going to StevieNicks in August and I like
totally felt the vibes of that.
But it was interesting.
It took me a few days but Iallowed myself to be there and
be in that vulnerable space andfeel the pain.
The pain not only the physicalpain, but I allowed myself to
(17:38):
feel the grief and go outsidewhere um Nilla is buried in our
yard.
We have 10 acres and she's out,um by a tree and I allowed
myself to.
I mean, the sunsets in Sarasotaright now are just amazing, so
I eased my way out.
I avoided it for a lot ofreasons because it just feels
real when I go out there and Iswear I still like I hear her
(18:03):
like little nails scratching thefloor sometimes when I'm
walking around or I still kindof expect for her to be there,
and at night, after I put Brodyto bed, I still almost make that
corner to go say goodnight toher.
And so it's definitely still um, very fresh and very raw.
It's only been a couple months.
(18:24):
Um, yeah, it's.
It's been very difficult, butit's been great to have so many
observations and opportunitiesto observe unhealed layers of
myself.
You know, until something likethis happens, you're not
necessarily peeling back thegrief layers.
It's hard to until youexperience it firsthand and
(18:46):
interestingly enough, I've reada bunch of books this year that
there was a theme around griefand I actually reached out to a
friend of mine who lost herdaughter, beth Knopic, and she
wrote this beautiful book and Iwould love to have her on
sometime.
But I reached out to her beforeany of this happened and I'm
like I just feel like grief is atheme.
(19:06):
I've been reading these booksand it turns into grief and how
people process it or don'tprocess it, and her books was
one of those.
Lisa Marie Presley's book wasanother that was co-written by
her daughter, and then PrinceHarry's book, spare, which is so
good and just talking aboutlike the, I don't know.
I was just really it was atheme and I guess this is why I
(19:31):
was thinking to myself it waspreparing us for you know,
something happened into myin-laws or my grandfather who
were in their eighties now, butI think it was really preparing
me for this and I don't evenknow if you can call it
preparing because I don't reallythink you're ever prepared for
it.
But yeah, so, wrapping up thelittle segment on that, I just
(19:56):
felt like I needed to get onhere, not only to share my
experience and how hard it is,but also to just complete the,
the processing.
I think that the one thing thatI know the podcast has done for
me is allowed me to verballyprocess and what that happens.
It's like when somethinghappens to you.
You know, you journal, um, youdo talk therapy.
(20:19):
The more you talk aboutsomething, the more you create a
narrative form around it andyou can release it from those
areas of your brain.
Then it stays stuck in thatamygdala like the fight flight
freeze the grief, freeze thegrief, the deep, the deep areas,
um, the more you can talk aboutit and express yourself, the
more it comes out and I'm likeyou know I'm not the person
(20:41):
that's gonna be like hey, guesswhat?
My dog died, blah, blah.
This is how it.
You know I'd, um, I've been alittle set back.
I'm not gonna say reclusive,because that's not the word, but
just kind of wanting to be inmy own space and my own element.
A lot of family stuff and kiddostuff.
This summer, like I said, I'mexcited to take a trip with my
(21:01):
husband.
I think it's long overdue.
It's been a whirlwind for himas well.
We've had some other familystuff going on.
We have a son that moved awayto a week and a half after he
found our dog.
So we had some concern therewith coping and you know he says
he's okay and um says that herather have happened and got to
(21:23):
say his goodbyes while he wasstill home rather than away.
But you know that's really hard, um, and you know, just to
segue into something else that Ifeel like it's been kind of a
theme this summer for me istransparency.
So I am a product of a crazychildhood, for lack of a better
(21:54):
word, you know, and I think Ithink we can all relate to this
in some way, shape or form likepeople not telling us the whole
truth.
And for me that's somethingthat I'm like no, because as you
all know, I'm probably anovershare when it comes to most
things.
But the biggest thing, like forme, for my integrity, for my
(22:15):
character, is to tell the wholetruth, and it doesn't even have
to be to everyone else, it's tomyself.
So you know, I remember beingyounger and you know my
grandmother saying my uncle wasaway at work camp.
He wasn't away at work camp,he's in prison.
You know my father's caraccident like people not telling
me the whole truth about that,which you know it's not
(22:39):
appropriate at a certain age, um, but there came a time where it
was, and when I ask questions,I want honest answers and I
think that sometimes people havea tendency to tell themselves
these stories over in their mindso much they believe their own
stories.
My mom is someone that did thatmy entire life, and so for me,
(23:05):
honesty is very important and Ifeel like there's been a theme
that's come up with people in mylife that you know they haven't
either fully disclosed all theinformation about, like planning
or events, or you know, likesituations with my children and
seeing the lack of transparencywith them, and that's a trigger
(23:27):
for me because it's like, no,they deserve the whole truth and
we all do right.
And so I think the first placemy, my mind and intuition leads
me when the lack of transparencyis there is like a my mind.
(23:48):
You know those PTSD patterns Iused to have there as much as
you heal and unravel.
I mean that's that's hardwiring for survival over 40
years now.
So immediately I go to what arethey hiding?
What is their motive and whyaren't they telling me?
And then my intuition kicks inand is like it's their own shit,
(24:12):
it's their own shame or guiltor whatever.
They're feeling behind it.
Or see, maybe they don't feelsafe, maybe I haven't been a
safe person for them in the pastbecause of you know my own ways
(24:32):
of not understanding or copingor judging them because of their
choices.
Again, I've talked about itquite a bit like those rigid
boundaries I had.
I even really was veryconflicted after surgery.
They told me to rotate Adviland Tylenol and they gave me
Vicodin and they gave me 15 ofthem.
(24:54):
For they said you know, thefirst two or three weeks after
surgery is going to be quitepainful.
You take them when you needthem.
And I really mentally, morally,struggled with that and it was
very interesting Like I had likequite a bit of resistance with
it and I talked to my life coachquite a bit, talked to my
husband a lot about it and Ithink it comes from I know part
(25:16):
of it comes from as a child.
Someone like I'm not a safeperson, like that person's not
safe because they're doing that,whether it was drugs or alcohol
or pills or whatever.
So for me it was like, oh mygosh, if I take this, I'm not
going to be a safe person for mykids, which is crazy because
it's you know, like you take one.
(25:37):
You take the recommend like.
I didn't even take therecommended dose.
I would take like one a day andthen rotate the Advil, tylenol
which I don't even take, adviland Tylenol, but for this, for
this procedure I had, it wasnecessary.
So I really morally struggledwith that and I probably
(26:05):
overshared all the time and Italked about it a lot.
And Matt's like you B, I set somany rigid boundaries on myself
as a child and a teenager and Imean, don't get me wrong, I was
no saint.
I tried plenty of thingsthroughout my life and but I
(26:28):
always there was never a time,unless I was completely sober
and healthy, that I didn't holdshame or guilt for trying
something, and that's nothealthy either.
And now my perspective on allof this is like if you're going
to do something, just do it.
You don't have to feel shameand guilt.
If there's shame and guilt tiedto it, then don't do it.
(26:49):
Listen to your inner self, yourinner you know whether it's
having a drink or whatever.
Like these are things I choosenot to do right now because I
know that they just don't reallyserve me as a person and my
purpose and my mission and mypassion right now.
But you know what, if I feellike I'm gonna have a cocktail,
I'm gonna have one and not feelguilty about it.
So I had to really work throughand dig deep on being able to
(27:12):
take this medication when Ineeded it because I was in
severe pain I mean, the surgerywas no joke and being okay with
it.
So that was another big kind ofobservation I went through and
so I encourage you, like, if youfeel you have some resistance
in your life somewhere likewhether it's to a person,
(27:34):
whether it's to a place, whetherit's to something, an activity,
a smell Smells are really bigfor me.
Really, try to go inward andpeel apart the layers, like,
okay, where was I when the smelltriggered me the first time and
where have I smelled it in mylife?
It's a really big one for me.
(27:56):
The smell of marijuana for meis a trigger because of my
stepdad my first stepdad there'sbeen like nine.
That's a trigger for me becausehe would smoke pot in the car
on the way to take us to school.
It's like then you get out andyou're embarrassed and you hold
a shame because it's likenothing you can do, and so the
(28:18):
smell of that is one that getsme, or like that, um, like stale
beer alcohol on the breathsmell.
It grosses me out.
Um, the sweaty smell of likepeople sweating out alcohol
grosses me out because it's likethose were common smells in my
childhood.
So in adulthood, like I can'thandle it, which is really
(28:40):
interesting, and now I don'thave to, yeah, so really
interesting.
And back to the transparency andthe half truth trigger.
Back to the transparency andthe half truth trigger.
So I've really been ponderingthis and going back to it all
(29:01):
and I think it really definitelystems from being a child and
people feeling like they'reprotecting me by not telling me
the whole truth, but they'rereally not, because I already
know.
Um, you know, I feel like in mymarriage when we stopped being
completely open and honest witheach other about everything for
(29:23):
a smidge.
There.
That's when chaos started andcause, you can feel it.
You can feel when your personis not being your person and you
know that transparency that is,that is a.
It has to be a hundred percentfor me.
Like, like you need to own yourstuff and I promise to own my
stuff and um, and yeah, it'sjust really interesting to me,
(29:49):
even with having teenagers, Ithink that my daughter and I
have a really open relationshipand I'm very grateful for that,
so we have that transparency.
So I think if, for some reason,I ever feel it slipping which
I'm sure it will at some pointin time I hope not, but
teenagers is inevitable I feellike you can always tell, you
(30:10):
always feel it.
I feel like, whether you knowfor a fact or not, you can
usually feel it.
And I think this really goesback to times in my life because
I think that anything thattriggers us is kind of somewhat
of a mirror and an area that weneed to heal.
I think this goes back to timesin my life where I wasn't
transparent with myself, flatout, like I wasn't being honest
(30:31):
with myself about how much painI was in or, um, maybe previous
relationships.
Like I wasn't honest withmyself when I wasn't being
fulfilled or heard or seen, um,I was continuing to give and
give and give in situationswhere I wasn't receiving, or I
(30:52):
felt like I was receiving fromrelationships that I wasn't
willing to give.
Or, you know, even when itcomes to I used to be the
epitome of an overexerciser,like exercising all the time,
like I wasn't admitting tomyself when I was tired and I
was exhausted and I didn't wantto push forward.
But I did it anyway.
(31:13):
But it wasn't from a place oftransparency and health.
It was from now realizing andall this stuff that's bubbled up
has made me realize I was doingthat from a place of pain.
There were things inside methat were painful, that I had
not faced, that maybe I didn'thave the tools at the time.
I didn't have the tools at thetime, I didn't have the courage
at the time, I didn't have thesupport at the time and until I
(31:37):
started allowing myself to peelback the layers and, you know,
chip down the walls and startedbeing completely brutally honest
and vulnerable and exposing myshit, especially to you guys,
has been so healing, I wasn'table to understand how important
(31:59):
transparency was to me.
I mean, we all know we've allsaid a little white lie or half
truth or, and it's like thatshit adds up it really does, and
what it does is it causes younot to trust yourself.
So, facing all of that andwhether it's a journal, I mean
(32:21):
it might not be appropriate toreach out to you know someone
when you were 15 and apologizeto them or whatever.
But what's helped me isunraveling a lot of it in my
journal and being able to facesome of the things and some of
the hard truths.
Those of you who are close tome know I'm like the queen of
(32:42):
hard truthing.
I'm not going to sugarcoat andtell you what you want to hear.
I don't do that to myself, andthat's the biggest reason.
I really like to be honest withmyself and recently I've had a
lot of opportunities to do that.
So I think that that's why thistransparency thing is coming up
(33:05):
, and it's been some people thatare pretty close to me and I
think it was part of the grief,part of the overmoving my body
and a lot of the themes thatwere resurfacing over a 13-year
time span really allowed me todig it up and process it and
work through it and to tail infrom this some things I've done
(33:28):
in the meantime, because I justreally needed to shift gears.
I really needed to start beingmore intentional about my
nervous system.
I was dysregulated, completelydysregulated.
Not only did I have grief goingon, I also had physical pain,
which just regulates yournervous system.
You know we're traveling a lot,so the instability of that.
(33:49):
So finding time to go outsideand breathe.
We went to a convention center.
My husband had an event and Ihad to go outside and walk laps
around the parking lot in thebuilding.
I needed to get sunshine andfresh air and be outside in my
own energy field to pull in allthe goodness of the sunshine and
the trees and the breeze andlistening to the birds, and I
(34:10):
just treated myself to a retreat, actually, with some really
beautiful ladies.
This lady named Jessica Bracedid the most intense, impactful
breathwork session.
She does 90 breathwork.
Her name is Jessica Brace.
She has some stuff on YouTube Iliterally want to go.
She has a ladies conferenceactually coming up, I think in
August, but I want to go getcertified in this.
(34:32):
It was one of the mostimpactful, intense experiences
I've experienced in my healingjourney Just total reset.
It was amazing.
I really did a lot ofdecluttering and just getting
rid of old stuff when I was homerecovering from surgery and
just cleaning out stuff thatneeded to be cleaned out, like
(34:52):
organizing drawers, like for methat there is something to and
energetically there is somethingto, because if you have a lot
of clutter and chaos going on inyour home.
It's a reflection of what couldbe going on inside of you.
So everything has a place.
You know, making things, makingsure things when you take them
out we put them back.
We don't leave the bag sittingon the chair for three days just
(35:13):
because it landed there.
On Friday we unpack it.
I went through all of my bagsand all of everything and just
took everything out and justeliminated a lot of baggage and
it felt really good to do thatand I feel like with getting rid
of old baggage, it just makesyou feel so much lighter.
So I think going into this newhalf of the year the second half
(35:39):
of the year is really I mean,we're going into the end of our
9-year Next year is all aboutnew beginnings and just starting
fresh and I want to be veryintentional about that.
I want to continue to workthrough and let go of anything
old and heavy that's weighing medown, even things like, you
(36:03):
know, shoes that are clunky andheavy.
It's like why am I?
Why am I wearing that Likeeveryone's on this weighted vest
trend?
And I'm like why am I wearingthat?
Like I never was on thisweighted vest trend?
And I'm like why, like, why arewe weighing ourselves down as
we're walking?
For me, walking is such a freelike.
I want to feel light and freeand I mean more praise to you,
(36:28):
vesters.
I am not one of those girls.
I do not like to be weigheddown by anything.
I feel like I've worked so hardto release stuff and it's like
energetically.
Why are we weighing ourselvesdown?
Because I feel like my goal hasbeen just releasing all the
things so I can feel lighter.
So that's been reallyinteresting and just allowing
myself to have more downtime.
(36:49):
Like I said, just a little lessresponsibility.
Right now we have a few moreweeks until the kids go back to
school and um, just being veryintentional with that time it's
a new season.
We only have three kids in ourhouse.
We used to have four ones atcollege.
Just being mindful of time andenergy and um and my community
(37:13):
outreach, life and career, umevents are a big deal and so a
ton of events in the fall andthe spring.
But you know I can do thatdifferently, like maybe this
year we can help and we can um,we can support, but I don't
necessarily have to be there inthe physical to show up Like I
can show up in other ways, and Ithink it's really important for
(37:36):
me to be transparent withmyself that that is what I need
in the season.
Like I, I love you know Ireally.
It was yesterday.
Actually, with all this going on, I've really had to be
intentional about my gratitudepractices in my mind, because
(37:56):
when you have a bunch of thingsdifferent things happening back
to back to back, it can be veryeasy to get into those.
Oh my gosh, I can't believethis just happened.
Like I literally got a parkingticket on the way here.
I was three minutes over, orlike before I came to film my
podcast, and it's like you knowwhat, whatever, instead of
(38:16):
having the oh my god, this ontop of everything else, like
it's not about the glass halfempty, it's about you know what.
I'm just grateful that itwasn't anything bigger than that
, Right?
So yesterday I went on agratitude walk.
I went for four and a halfmiles and the entire time I was
literally out loud talking aboutthe things I'm grateful for,
(38:37):
what I love, about the peoplethat I love, like what I enjoy
most about my life.
We did an exercise it was theicky guy chart um with Bree
Sweezy Sweezy, I believe, is hername name, which was really
great.
It's a retreat I went to onSunday and we had to list, like,
(38:57):
what we love, what we're goodat, what we could get paid for
and what people think that we'regreat at or what we get
complimented for, and it was areally amazing exercise to do
because it was something that Ithink that, a I really needed
but B it really reeled me in on.
I am absolutely in alignmentwith all the things that I love,
(39:23):
all the passions, the missionsand the purpose, whether it's
community outreach and providingresources or podcasting and
sharing my truths, myvulnerability and providing
resources and retreats.
I'm hosting my first crystalclear retreat away in Sedona
this October and it's likeyou're just holding space for
people to get to the next levelfor them and whatever that means
(39:47):
for them, and I realized I'mdoing that in so many different
avenues of my life and it's abeautiful life.
I mean it really is, and I'mnot saying it in a boastful or
bragging way.
There's always room forimprovement, but I think doing
this exercise was so importantbecause it really allowed me to
(40:08):
intercept any of that like lowvibration energy and just circle
back to the gratitude Likelisten, chris, like you're on
your way, you are doing it, youhave everything's in alignment.
You just need to keepnavigating through.
I think sometimes we can get socaught up in the what's next and
I have to do something more andsomething bigger and do this,
(40:31):
and our friends calling aboutall these different ideas and
I'm like I think I'm good.
I think I want to marinate herefor a little while and allow
myself to enjoy this chapter.
It's a beautiful chapter.
It can change at any moment.
I mean, my little guy lost twoteeth already this summer and
I'm like what is happening?
Time is flying.
My daughter has her first realrelationship and I'm like what
(40:51):
is happening, like time isflying.
My daughter has a little, herfirst like real relationship and
it's the most beautifulexperience and it's so healthy
and I'm just you know,reflecting on Wow, you've broken
a lot of those cycles.
Like she's so secure withherself.
She had a opportunity to gospend some time with family and
realizing the dynamics aredifferent than they are at home
(41:12):
and that's okay.
But she's able to see differentdynamics and understand that
you know where growth is neededor healing is needed in other
areas and to protect her ownenergy when she is in those
situations and I'm just sograteful for that.
And it's like this is allpaying off, like it's it has the
(41:33):
trickle effect, like seeing myfriends really doing great
things with their life and notpersonalizing their spouse's
things anymore and, you know,making healthier choices and
we're all just kind of evolvingand growing in different ways
and, um, it's just reallybeautiful to see and it just
makes me super grateful and Ijust hope all of you appreciate
(41:56):
this as much as I do.
Like it's really a gift and anhonor to be able to share my
life with you and I do itbecause you know we all a we all
have our shit be.
We all have our shit be.
It's so healthy for me to beable to to share and have that
(42:17):
level of vulnerability and lety'all know that like I see you,
I feel you, I hear you, you'renot alone.
Um, you know, knowing there'sso many resources out there and
just, I did a resilient retreat,I facilitated a program.
Um, I do a journaling programthere every month and our theme
was letting go of things that nolonger serve us and creating
space for new.
(42:37):
So I feel like that isdefinitely my theme for the rest
of this year, especially beinga 9-year.
Letting go of what no longerserves you, what patterns, what
behaviors, what people, whatobjects, what places, what is it
in your life that's weighingyou down, that's pulling you
down, that's not serving youwell, like, give yourself
(42:57):
permission to let it go.
And it might be hard, it mightbe very hard, and you don't have
to do it all at once.
You can peel it back, you cando it piece by piece.
Peace, but also, once you letit go, giving yourself
permission and inviting yourselfto open up to receive.
(43:19):
Because once we releasesomething heavy, we don't have
to fill the space, but we can beopen to receive the love and
the worthiness and the kindnessand the experiences that we
deserve.
And I am going to leave you guyswith that today.
It's just it's always an honorto talk to you guys and I just
(43:41):
wanted to kind of do my summerdump for lack of a better word
and, you know, share someexperiences, because it got
pretty heavy for a little whileand I feel like I'm on the other
side of it and it feels goodand you know always here.
If you guys need to reach out,process anything, go to my
(44:01):
crystalclearcom website, reachout to me on Instagram, Facebook
, all the things Like alwayshere to process, looking forward
to some really greatcollaborations and future
retreats, to coming up in thefall, like a girlfriend of mine,
um Timmy Valencenti, who um wason my podcast, I think we might
get something in the works fora fun Florida retreat and um
(44:25):
really just looking forward tothis new space of honoring,
moving forward, honoring pullingback and enjoying the flow.
Have a great day.
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