Discover what it truly means to embrace change as we delve into a life-altering journey with Christy Markgraf. Can you imagine experiencing a traumatic car accident and finding yourself on an unexpected path of self-discovery? Christy's resilience and commitment to her mental health through therapy are nothing short of inspiring. You'll hear her share about how to find the right therapist, and how it can make a world of difference in processing and understanding our traumatic experiences.
Join us as we navigate the intricacies of Christy's healing process. She courageously confronts her childhood traumas and learns the importance of setting boundaries - a pivotal step towards her independence. Christy's journey is testament to the transformative power of therapy, fostering growth and cultivating strength and self-assuredness. Prepare to be moved and inspired to take charge of your own healing journey.
Connect with Christi on Insta! —> @christimarkgraf
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Shop our apparel! --> Love Your Body Now
Follow us on Insta: @loveyourbodynow.podcast
Discover what it truly means to embrace change as we delve into a life-altering journey with Christy Markgraf. Can you imagine experiencing a traumatic car accident and finding yourself on an unexpected path of self-discovery? Christy's resilience and commitment to her mental health through therapy are nothing short of inspiring. You'll hear her share about how to find the right therapist, and how it can make a world of difference in processing and understanding our traumatic experiences.
Join us as we navigate the intricacies of Christy's healing process. She courageously confronts her childhood traumas and learns the importance of setting boundaries - a pivotal step towards her independence. Christy's journey is testament to the transformative power of therapy, fostering growth and cultivating strength and self-assuredness. Prepare to be moved and inspired to take charge of your own healing journey.
Connect with Christi on Insta! —> @christimarkgraf
* * * * * * * * *
Shop our apparel! --> Love Your Body Now
Follow us on Insta: @loveyourbodynow.podcast
Today we have on the podcast a special guest, Christy Markroff.
Speaker 1:And I actually know Christy through where I currently work and she has become a very good friend of mine and it's super cool because we actually live like really close to each other here in San Antonio and, yeah, it's just been great to really get to know Christy and hear her talk about her journey.
Speaker 1:This is why I was so excited to invite her and have her come on to the podcast to share a little bit about her journey. She went through something very dramatic and she's told me about it and she always comes back to her therapy, Like she always is sharing with me about her experience in therapy and basically how much it has like transformed her life, and it really just wanted me. It made me want to have her come onto the platform and share about it with all of you, because it's inspiring to see how much it has truly impacted her and to see her in her journey now and talk about where she was when she started. And I think that we all could benefit from learning from her and her story and even going to therapy, and she shares the value in it and why it is so important, what she has learned and steps that you can take to start therapy if you are considering it or have been thinking of it. So, without further ado, let's dive in.
Speaker 2:Your body will just tense up. You don't even realize it until you realize that you were tense. And she worked me through a head to toe tension exercise that I used frequently.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Love your Body Now podcast, the podcast for women who are ready to feel confident in their body right now and redefine what health looks like for them. I'm Savannah, your host, and together we'll be having conversations about what it means to accept and love our bodies now, while simultaneously prioritizing our health journey. We'll be debunking beliefs that do not serve us and diving into misconceptions and unhealthy narratives in the fitness world, so that we can rebuild our foundation from a place of self-love. Okay, christy, thank you so much for being on the podcast today.
Speaker 1:Just for context, christy and I are sitting in my car right now recording. We're outside of a Starbucks right now and we are recording in the car because we just went to grab some coffee and just have some time to chat with each other. But I met Christy through work and fortunately we live pretty close to each other here in San Antonio, which is super cool to have a friend close by now. But more importantly, we want to jump into the conversation about therapy and just the impact that it can have on our overall health and well-being. Christy is going to share about how it has helped and impacted her, and she actually went through something traumatic. We'll talk about the importance of therapy as well, especially dealing with traumatic events, and even traumatic events that we dealt with growing up as a kid. So, christy, I'll let you take over and just share a little bit about who you are and you know, starting off, before we jump into everything. Just sharing about who you are, what you do and, if you could, a fun fact about yourself.
Speaker 2:Okay, my name is Christy Mark Graff and I was born and raised in Houston, texas. My husband and I moved to San Antonio, texas, and the summer of 2020, the height of COVID craziness we married right out of high school in 1999, so, yes, I'm aged a little bit here. We are high school sweethearts. We have no children, but we've been together now 27 years, so we've grown up together, learned together, and my profession is accounting. I do accounting work not tax accounting, just accounting numbers. It is what pays the bills and brings me enjoyment during the day. Outside of work, I enjoy helping others, serving with others, enjoy the companionship and friendship of others and just spending time with them exercising. I'm not a crazy exercise nut, but I do love taking care of my body mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually. So, yeah, that's a little bit about myself.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, thank you for sharing and let's go ahead and just dive right into it and go ahead and just share a little bit about your story and your journey. I know you've been through a lot and you definitely had a journey, but you've also come a really long way. Feel free to share that. And what really led your decision to going to therapy, because I feel like a lot of people know that it's beneficial and that we all should do it. Whatever we all say myself included like oh yeah, I need to go to therapy, I need to see a therapist but what it really led to you deciding that this is something you needed and actually taking initiative in that.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, thank you for inviting me on first of all. So therapy I decided to go to therapy after a big traumatic car accident.
Speaker 1:my husband and I had in 2015.
Speaker 2:The car rolled over and he lost part of his right arm. That led us into a journey. A couple years later I think it was 2018-2019 is when I actually started therapy. What brought me to decide to go to therapy was I couldn't do this journey, this new journey, life-altering journey, on my own. The mental, physical, emotional impact that this traumatic accident brought onto myself and my husband.
Speaker 2:It brought me to a point in 2019 that I realized I could not do this on my own. I can't walk daily life without help. And it wasn't that I could not talk to friends and family, but friends and family couldn't really see it from my perspective and where I was at mentally, in my head and emotionally. So I had a friend that actually said therapy, recommended this therapist, and I actually went to two therapists One therapist I tried out. She started me out on my journey but didn't really have the skills maybe to really push me to what was going on in my life.
Speaker 2:So I found the second therapist, and that's something about therapies you need to find a therapist that you can completely trust with anything that you can spill your your life pretty much too and not be in fear of judgment or condemnation or of them telling you that you're wrong, because that's not what therapy is about. It's not about saying what you did wrong, why you did it wrong, but taking your traumas, taking your history, taking what you grew up with because we all had trauma as a child in some form or fashion taking what you grew up with and what you're living in and processing through it, helping you look at it in a different light and figuring out okay, how do I make this awful thing turn into something better and how can I grow from it, how can I learn from it? How can I feel better? Yeah, that's sorry. That's kind of a start and it's a little bit dragged on.
Speaker 1:No, no, I mean, it's all really really helpful and something that, like, made me want to ask. So I didn't realize that it had been a couple of years after your accident before you actually started going to therapy. So one of my questions are like, what were you experiencing as far as debilitating symptoms of your overall life that really led to okay, this is really impacting my ability to function in day to day at this point like what were some of the things that you were battling that really led to you almost being forced to seek out more help that you were experiencing at that time?
Speaker 2:Well, one of the things is I was just driving the car when we were in our car accident and nobody else was involved, it was just one car. I lost control and we flipped over and it was one of the things was my shame in my oh, what's the word? It's not my, it was my shame, but also my guilt I guess guilt's the right word my guilt that I felt for me. I was driving the car. I had guilt that it was my fault and it was a guilt that turned into pain, that turned into fear and frustration. I was in fear of driving that somebody that I may cause an accident or somebody else may hit me, it's.
Speaker 2:I had a fear of driving. I had a fear of getting on the road. I felt like I was driving super slow because not just this car accident but also other car accidents within those years of the major car accident I had blacked out while I was driving and ran into the back of an 18-wheeler. That gave me fear of driving. I was sightswiped a year after, almost a year after a major accident which it brought me another fear about driving. So all of these little accidents and this major accident put a huge fear into how I drove and if I was capable driving, or even getting in the car and actually driving myself anywhere not just not other people, but myself. I was in constant fear. So that, and then the depression that, decrying the anxiety, the lack of sleep I would sleep only two or three hours a night.
Speaker 2:So it was kind of a point to where it was a quality of life decision. My quality of life was going down. I didn't like where it was going and I was not at a point of wanting to commit suicide. But I did think about what would life be like if I wasn't here, what would life be like if my husband didn't have to deal with this? And it's I didn't like. Those thoughts were coming into my head.
Speaker 2:So I knew at that point okay, I've got to make a change. It's either you got to do something about it or you don't. And I knew I was not going to take that no option. So I said, yes, I've got to figure out. So I talked to my GP and she said here's a therapist. That initial therapist got me started on the sense, the senses and feeling your senses smelling, touching, hearing, tasting things. That gave me the ability to drive again. That distracted my thoughts and by hearing, by smelling, by touching, by tasting, so I could drive, could focus on the moment and not focus on the surrounding and what could happen or what did happen. But that led me into finding another therapist to actually deal with the emotional aspect of my issues.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, my gosh, that's crazy. I didn't realize that you had gotten into. Well, I remember you mentioning the one where you fell asleep or not fell asleep, you were in pain.
Speaker 2:Yes, I was in pain. You were in pain when you hit the 18th one. The pain hit so badly that it made me black out.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, I mean that's crazy and it reminds me of that saying it happens in threes kind of yeah, no, it did.
Speaker 1:It was like boom, boom, boom, like all of these things happening. I mean I can't imagine. I fear going through an accident and I haven't really ever gone through an actual accident where I was injured and shit happened, just hit the fan. But it's kind of crazy that you went through that so many times, like I mean how traumatic that would be and then just trying to continue living. I mean you have to drive, you have to, and I mean we live in Texas, so it's scary driving here For sure. That's wow.
Speaker 1:And then the learning, the form of. I feel like it's like a form of meditation when you focus on all of the senses and can really bring yourself back into the present moment. So for you to be able to learn that very quickly after starting therapy with your first therapist and being able I mean Christy has shared this with me before I'm like I get so frustrated driving in this traffic and she's like, have you tried the five senses? And I'm like I guess I'll try it and try to relax myself. But it's true, because when you are focused on those things and taking away the like where your brain can go down in a spiral of thoughts and fears and frustrations because it can't do both at the same time. And that's the cool thing about when you bring yourself back to the present moment, whether it's through breath work or through focusing on all of the things that you're seeing and feeling and hearing and smelling, like just those little tools that you learned from therapy right when you went, and maybe it validating like I'm in the right place, like this is already like helping me and I'm learning things that I didn't know before.
Speaker 1:And you mentioned something before about needing a therapist and having someone to where you can feel comfortable sharing anything with. And I'm really curious how that went for you and like you got to that point because I always think about, okay, if I went to therapy, like how do you dive in? You know? Like okay, like here I'm gonna word bomb it all over you and here's all my emotions, because when I think about doing that, I'm like I don't even know where to start. I don't even like, does the therapist ask me a question and just probe stuff from me? Like, at what point do you, I mean, were you comfortable right away speaking everything, or did it take some time to really feel like you could trust this stranger, essentially, and tell them all of the things that you've been dealing with.
Speaker 2:It definitely took me time to trust them. The first therapist when she taught me about the senses, I thought she was crazy. I'm like, oh really, you want me to sit there and touch my steering wheel and feel the different textures? Okay, I didn't believe it would work, but it actually did. I still, to this day, keep a bottle of lavender spray in my center console. So if I'm getting anxious, if I'm getting stressed, I will just spray that on my floorboard and then smell and it actually does distract whatever is going on in my head or in my body and it will bring me back to focus and bring me back to center.
Speaker 2:She also taught me to how to work on my breathing, how to work on me tensing up. She really didn't dive into, initially, feelings, she worked on the body and the mind. So she had me, for instance, close my eyes and start breathing, just bringing myself into center and breathing, figuring out how to breathe, how to feel my breathing, how to work through my breathing. And then she worked through how you tense up. When you get nervous or when you get scared or anxious, you, your body, will just tense up. You don't even realize until you relax that you were tense. And she worked me through a head to toe tension exercise that I used frequently. I don't use it so much anymore because I've gotten through several years of therapy and have learned new skills and worked through it.
Speaker 2:But it started out with mind and not so much emotion but mind and body getting to feel myself and who I was. And when I started going to the second therapist she really asked the questions. First she kind of led the show. We walked in. I was like, okay, I don't, I don't know what I'm gonna say, I don't know how I'm gonna say it. So she started the questions. She starts with basic questions who are you, what do you do for a living, what are your joys, what are your fears, what are your frustrations? And then she kind of led into okay, what's the timeline of your life? What do you remember as a child to now? What are some major events and timelines in your life? In doing this timeline it also brought back childhood traumas. I didn't even realize I was suppressing that. I knew. I didn't even know I had to work through. But these childhood traumas brought to light that it is in some ways affecting my current life and my current relationships because of these childhood traumas that I went through. It was affecting me and now and my relationships now.
Speaker 2:So it's not what you see on TV. It's not a lay on the couch and the doctor is grilling you and you're boo-hooing and crying and screaming and yelling. You do have boo-hooing, you do have crying, you do have screaming. Sometimes you do have yelling, but not at the therapist, at the situation, not at a person, at the situation that you're living through, working through feeling. And that's another thing.
Speaker 2:The therapist taught me how to feel. Again, I didn't realize I was suppressing my feelings, I wasn't crying, I wasn't getting angry, I wasn't having certain emotions and I didn't realize I was not having those emotions and feelings. So she told me it's okay to feel. You need to feel, you need to work through. If you're angry, work through that anger. She gave me skills to work through the anger and the fear and the crying and the hurt.
Speaker 2:She they teach you boundaries you didn't even know you could have, and not boundaries with not so much well, it's boundaries with yourself, but also with other people. It makes you realize that you're not the only one in this world dealing with this, that or the other, but you're also there's also other people in this world that are going through stuff, going through stuff right now, and that you're not alone. Sometimes, when you think about going to therapy, that you think you're alone and nobody else is dealing with this. And how could a therapist really help me out on this? They find a way to really dive into who you are, help you to feel, help you to realize that. They also help me realize that I don't need to be, that I'm an independent person.
Speaker 2:Nothing bad to my marriage and my husband. But I, early on in our marriage, relied on him, counted on him for everything, and I realized I can be my own person, that I don't necessarily need him, but I want him in my life. I can do this on my own but I choose and I want to do it with him. But doing life with a person, even a non-spouse, you have to figure out how to live you first. You gotta make you whole first and to this day I would not. I will probably have my therapist as long as she's doing therapy, because she every single session brings me to light and brings me to a new piece and understanding and direction, and she knows who I am, she. I've been with her for so many years now. But she has grown and figured out who I am and taught me and supported me and been there with me and not so much physically held my hand but mentally held my hand, carried me and taught me skills to better my life.
Speaker 1:That's really cool that you were able to find someone that was able to really go on that journey with you and support you in the exact way that you needed at that time. And I think it's cool too that the other therapist that you work with obviously she specialized more in mind body awareness, which is important. But I do wonder how you began to realize that the first therapist wasn't the one for you and also how you were like like you knew that maybe you just needed to see another therapist and try someone new. Because I think for a lot of people I hear who try therapy, they kind of give up after trying because they're like oh, it wasn't for me and it could be for a lot of different factors. Maybe the person's not open to it, they're very closed off by it.
Speaker 1:Therapist starts asking hard questions and then they're like yeah, no, I'm not doing that. And they don't really. They choose not to see the value in it. But how do you know if it's because the therapist isn't the right therapist for you? And how do you know to maybe seek out someone else Like what was it like for you and what advice would you give for someone else who maybe has tried it before and they're like yeah, no, it wasn't for me. You know, I didn't get anything out of it. Blah, blah, blah. I mean usually the people who say that don't try it for very long. But I'm curious to hear your take on that.
Speaker 2:Well, the first therapist. She was very beneficial, I won't take that away from her. She was a more mind, body, spirit type of therapist. But I realized she wasn't giving me enough of the emotional and mental help I needed. I felt like I wasn't progressing in my mental or emotional journey. I felt like I was still stuck in this, I guess, blaming myself for things. I couldn't get past that. I couldn't get past the fact that I was controlling in certain aspects of my marriage and in my life and I was appreciative of her mind, body, breathing techniques. But it wasn't enough. I realized after a couple months I wasn't progressing. I was still feeling this heavy emotion, heavy, heavy fear and frustration and hurt and I realized I needed more than just the mind breathing techniques. I needed medication as well. She didn't provide medication. I was heavily, heavily against medicating myself. I was like I don't need any depressions, I don't need sleep medicine. But it became a quality of life decision that I needed more out of a therapist. She wasn't providing enough and I realized that I still couldn't do this on my own and my family and friends were supportive, but not supportive in the way I really needed to grow and move past this hurdle that I was continuously bumping up against. So I was recommended another therapist and I tried them and she didn't provide any of the mind, breathing, body techniques. She dove right into the emotion part of it and that was hard.
Speaker 2:Therapy and mental health is hard. It is very hard. It is a daily get up, figure things out. Some days are good, some days are bad, some days are ugly. Still to this day I will admit that every day is a work. So you have to be able to be willing to want to do the hard, want to get through this, realize that I know there is another place for me and a better place.
Speaker 2:But therapy it's a two person thing, as your therapist and you do. You can't just go to therapy and say, hey, here's all my problems, fix them. Because he or she does not have that magic wand that can say here you go, all fixed and better, go on with your life. It'll be peachy, keen. No, that's not the way it works. You've got to be able to hear the hard, hear what the therapist has to say and try, just try some of the things and when you go back to your next session tell them this thing didn't work, sorry, I tried it. This did not work. We need to do something else. Be honest with them. Don't just take what they say and expect it to fix and help you, because one thing, what works for one person, may not work for another. So you've got to be open in that way too. You got to be open to trying things but also admitting that what you've tried doesn't work.
Speaker 2:Journaling has helped me in so many ways, but I know some people that journaling does not do a thing for them. So you have to be willing to okay, I'll try this. But you also have to say this doesn't work. We've got to try something else. And you've got to be willing to hear the therapist out as far as okay, I think you need to come to therapy once a week, twice a week or once a month, once every two weeks.
Speaker 2:I have started out having therapy once a week, then it went to once every two weeks, three weeks and then once a month, and I was on once a month for a while and then I was going through life, because it still happens and it will continue to happen until the day you die. But she was like I think you need to come back to every two weeks and I said, okay, and I'm following her schedule because I've grown to a place where I can trust her. And how do you trust a person? It's through time. You can't just instantly walk into a relationship or conversation and say oh, I trust you with all my life and heart and soul. That doesn't work. You got to be willing to try. You got to be willing to be open and step out of your comfort zone, step out of your box. Realize that if you want to make a change, you've got to take that step and try and make that change. It's not going to change for you. You have to aid in your change.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's almost like sometimes people getting to the point where the like staying the same hurts more than making a change Cause obviously making a change hurts as well and is challenging and is hard and that's why a lot of people don't do it and sometimes it just gets to the point where people realize that staying the same hurts more than doing the hard things to make a change, and it kind of sounds like that was the season of life that you were in and fortunately you've found someone that really knows you well enough to like, knows how to guide you in the exact way that you need it. And I'm curious, like what you said, you've learned a lot of tools and how to work through things. Is there anything that you can share that, like, you really lean on and has really worked well for you, that you've learned from therapy?
Speaker 2:Self care is the biggest thing.
Speaker 2:I had no self-care prior to therapy. I did not take time for myself. I did not even ask myself what am I feeling? So self-care is a huge. Self-care can be a lot of things. It can be rest, it can be focusing on your mental and emotional this is something she told me currency. You look at emotional and energy as a currency. You wake up in the morning with a certain amount and once it's gone, it's gone and it doesn't replenish until you go back to sleep. So you have to be mindful of how you spend your energy and how you spend your emotions, what you allow it to be spent on and who you allow it to be spent on.
Speaker 2:I've learned these tools. I've learned that there's an acronym. I've also learned it's MEDSRX Meditation, exercise, diet, sleep which sleep is so, so, so, so huge in so many ways and then Relationships, and the X is Supplements. That acronym has held me through a lot of things. I go back to the basic of this acronym Meditation. It's not me sitting in a room with my knees crossed or legs crossed and saying, closing my eyes and breathing, and, hmm, it's me meditating quietly with God and spiritually meditating with Him. I exercise every day. Some people think I'm crazy for doing that, but it's self-care to me. That's something that brings me peace and brings me joy, which is part of self-care. And Worth Worth is huge too, finding Worth for yourself. What does Worth look like to you? What does it mean to you? It's different to everybody else. Diet is huge. I've gone to, I will have ice cream, I will have cookies, I will have cake, I will have sweets, but I focus on a healthy, good, nutritional diet. And what may look good for you may not look good for me, and you got to find that. Find what your body will help you to function with mentally and physically. And again, sleep is so, so, so important.
Speaker 2:Through this journey of my mental health, I wasn't sleeping. I had to be put on sleep medication, which I'm thankfully now starting to come off of and it's going good. But sleep is huge. My brain would not shut off through all of this mental and emotional and physical trauma and stress. I wouldn't shut down. I had to figure out how to mechanically shut myself down so I could sleep and get rest. And you know the other thing my therapist taught me if you can't sleep, sometimes rest. Rest is beneficial. Sometimes you just have to rest and shut down, turn off your TV, turn off your phone, turn off your computer. Just rest, rest, listen to music, rest reading a book, rest sitting outside in the cool air or a hot air, if you like, hot air. That's so important, focusing on your sleep and rest. I can't stress that enough.
Speaker 2:If you don't sleep, everything else will fall apart in your life, and sleep has. I see it time and time again with myself. Sleep has such a huge impact on my mental health. I will feel more down, I will feel more anxious, I will feel more stressed if I don't get my sleep. And you got to find out what that perfect hour of sleep is. I know if I get less than six hours of sleep I'm useless to you and myself and everybody else. So those are, I know I'm kind of carrying on here. So these are some of the helpful tips and tools that my therapist has taught me Boundaries.
Speaker 2:Boundaries are huge, not just physical but mental boundaries. You got to know when you got to put a pause on a conversation and revisit it. You got to know when you got to feel comfortable with setting your boundaries in a relationship, in any relationship, not just your spouse, but with family, with friends. These are my boundaries, this is what I enjoy, this is what I will not do. This is what I'm here for you for. So yeah, that's. I don't know if I answered your questions completely, but yeah, you did.
Speaker 1:I'm curious, like on that last one with the boundaries. I mean, I know for a lot of people who struggle with people pleasing, like myself I mean you've even shared with me here you know like you should set your boundaries with this or whatever but like how? I mean, were you always comfortable setting boundaries, or was it like a muscle you had to learn and how did you grow comfortable with it? Or what kind of advice would you give to someone who really struggles with setting boundaries because maybe they've always been the person who takes care of others and you know really, just like once, everyone else to be happy and really does it at the sacrifice of their own happiness? Like how would you, what kind of advice would you give or how did you deal with it?
Speaker 2:Boundaries was a learned skill. I had to learn how to set boundaries. It did not come easily to me at first. It was a struggle to set boundaries, just in the fear of what was to come if I set these boundaries, what hard feelings and reactions I would have with setting these boundaries. But I learned through setting these boundaries that it's not just good for me but it's good for that other person in that relationship with me. It may not may. It will be hard to set them because I still am to this day. I'm working on it.
Speaker 2:One of the things I continue to work on is control. I used to be very controlling. Want things a certain way, people please. I wanted to make sure everybody was happy before myself. I had to learn the hard way.
Speaker 2:People are saying this is my limit and if you cross that limit, this is the consequence that will happen. It's not you hope that consequence will never have to be brought to light, but it's there in front of that person to say, okay, here's what I'm allowing in my life as a limit. If you cross this boundary, this is what's going to happen and if it happens, you work through it. That's why you have a therapist that helps you work through it. Say, hey, I tried this boundary, it didn't work. Or my therapist, when trying to set boundaries in my life. She had to repeat this boundary or boundaries to me several sessions for me to really get it and understand that it's not just for me, but it's also for the other person in your relationships, not for just your mental health, but their mental health, not just for your physical, it's for your family, it's for your friends, it's for your surroundings, it's your boundaries are sort of your safe zone. You need to feel comfortable in yourself, like Savannah's podcast Love your Body Now, feel comfortable in your body now.
Speaker 2:And that includes setting boundaries. It is hard, it is very hard, to set boundaries and you have to work at it and you have to be strong. You have to build and grow strength to keep those boundaries, to not be in fear of, well, I'll just let it happen this time, or, oh, it's okay for this time, I will set that boundary next time, don't. It's hard to break that cycle of telling yourself it'll be better next time, we'll fix it next time, it'll change next time. No, it needs to change now. You don't know how much time you have in this world, so be happy with yourself now, find your peace and your inner joy now. Yeah, that's kind of what I have on boundaries.
Speaker 1:That's good, I mean, I think a lot of people struggle with setting boundaries and, you know, have that fear and sometimes maybe it just comes to well, what's the worst case scenario in this situation? If I set this boundary, sometimes it helps, just like, really like thinking it through okay, worst case scenario if this happens, okay, that's actually not that bad. Or, you know, if that does happen, well, that says more about that person than me and maybe I'm better off or whatever. So I think that was really helpful. And I am curious I know you had said earlier that therapy was something that helped you learn that you know you're your own individual and before you used to be super dependent on your husband and you kind of had to learn how to be your own person.
Speaker 1:And I'm wondering what that looks like for you in your marriage. Just, I mean, I feel like I can kind of be that way too. You know super dependent, but also it's like, okay, you know I need to make sure that I do the things that I want to do and pour into myself and, like you said, self care. And what did that I mean? Did you have to have a conversation or was it something that was just like you just started doing and it was like working out better for you guys. Like, what did that process look like? Because I think sometimes we can always like we can get comfortable in our relationships and we get tired because life is busy and you know, we just stop doing the things that we enjoy and we just we kind of numb ourselves and we kind of just do whatever. I mean I I'm kind of going on a tangent, but I'm curious like what that looks like for you, or if it was really even a conversation at all.
Speaker 2:Self care was both it was me doing and me expressing to my husband what I needed. Now I, through the therapy, I learned that I need to make myself whole before I can be there for anybody else, and part of making myself whole is focusing on my self care, focusing on my feelings, not that I'm I'm not thinking about or respecting my husband's feelings and his needs and desires, but also focusing on my realizing that I have needs and desires and wants that may not be his and that's okay. I had to realize that. That's okay. I can do things that he may not want to do and he can do things that I don't want to do. It it was me. I had to figure out what I wanted, what self care looked like for me. Was it exercising, was it sleeping in? Was it going for a walk? Was it going to therapy, was it going to to a concert? I had to figure out what that self care looked like for me first, before I can express it to him, what it was like for me to do, what it what it was for me. And then, once I figured out what that self care looks like for me, I communicated that with my husband. I said look I said this is what I feel like will make me, make me a better person for me and make me a better person for you in our relationship. And he respected that. He has always told me his desire in our relationship is for me to be happy and that's the same with me for him. I want him to be happy and that may mean me going to church without him or that may mean that I get up and exercise at 4am when he's like you're crazy, I'm going to sleep in and get my sleep. Well, that's his self care. He wants to sleep in. That's how he. He finds his, his, his happy spot, his peace, his joy is by sleeping in. My time, my me time, my happiness, my joy, my self care, is getting up and exercising morning before I go to work. It's me coming home spending some playtime with the dog before I, you know, do our evening things before we relax. It's.
Speaker 2:It was like I said, a learned and then a communicated, and then he. I guess I was a little fear that, hey, I'm wanting to do this, I'm including you, but you don't have to do it if you don't want to. I was a little fear that he would be like, well, you're just leaving me sitting here on the sideline, you know? Okay, you go do your thing and I'll just wait here. It wasn't that at all when I communicated with him. This is what I feel like will make me happy. He's like, okay, do it, I want you to be happy. And in this he's learned that our relationship has grown to be better by me finding me again, by me finding myself care, taking care of myself, him taking care of himself and and figuring out what his self care looks like. So, yeah, it was a communicated and a learned process.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that sometimes we can get caught up in this belief that our spouse or our partners have to want to do the things that you want to do and enjoy the things because obviously, like, we want to enjoy them with them, right, like that, ideally, is like what we want.
Speaker 1:But sometimes it can be a hard realization that they may not like the things that you like, they may not be in the same season as you to like you know the season of growth that you're in.
Speaker 1:I know I've been in situations like that where it's like I'm going through the season, I want to go through it with you, but then they're just not in that season with you and sometimes, like I know, for me personally, like feeling frustrated or feeling like but I want to do this with you, type of feeling and I think it's super big of you and anyone who kind of realizes you know like they don't have to do some of these things with me, like I can do these things on my own, I can be independent, I can pour into myself and enjoy them. And that's okay as long as everyone in the relationship is growing to some extent and not just completely staying the same, but like in their own way, right? I mean, everyone processes things in their own way. We all, we all evolve, we all change and it sounds like with you you're, you make it a priority to always have communication and that's so huge Like that goes such a long way to prioritize communication so that you're always hopefully seeing things eye to eye with whatever you're going through.
Speaker 2:Yeah, communication is so huge. I've learned that in our marriage we still work on our communication, obviously, like everybody does. But communication is huge. We don't. We've never tiptoed around each other. We've always been direct and honest, but in a respectful way. You know that hurt my feelings. Or I appreciate you doing that, I enjoy you doing that or sharing that with me. Or hey, go go have your fun at that concert. That music's not for me, but you go enjoy that. If that's what you want to do, enjoy it. It brings me joy that you are finding your joy with that.
Speaker 2:Communicating that with your spouse or your friend or your family members is so huge. You know we fear. Sometimes we get tense, we're like, oh, they're going to think we're crazy. Or oh, this, they're not going to like this. Or I think sometimes when we step out of our what if thinks and actually just communicate that you'll see that they're in the same boat. They may feel the same way and if you just start that conversation they'd be like, oh, I was feeling the same way. I'm glad you said something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's so true. Well, there's one more question that I want to ask you, which is for anyone who's thinking about therapy or has thought about going to therapy what advice or, you know, what tips would you give on how that they they can get started? Because obviously it's not. You know, here's the instructions of how you do this. Like, obviously, finding a therapist, doing all those things, taking those steps, is work and sometimes not knowing, like, how to navigate that. And you know, feel free to share what advice or tips you would give for someone who's really considering it and thinking about taking steps towards that Well, I know therapy is very private for some people.
Speaker 2:So talking to a friend or family member saying, hey, you know a therapist may be a little hard for you. That's okay. Maybe start out with your insurance. Look at your insurance policy and see what kind of local therapists are in your area. Do research on them, you know, do. Do they? Have they been around? Have they done this a while? The? If you feel like communicating with your family or friends about it, say, ask them. Say, hey, do you know of a therapist? You don't have to get into details with them. Say, hey, I'm looking at therapy. Do you know of a therapist or anybody that's going to a therapist? And leave it simple like that. I think it was a friend that turned me on, or even your general practitioner. Initially, my first therapist was through my general practitioner. I asked her if she knew a therapist that she could recommend me to. And when you're seeing your, your doctor, it's usually a private interaction with them, so it's just between you and your doctor. It's confidential. They're not going to go tell your spouse or your friends or your family, hey, so and so is going to therapy.
Speaker 2:Therapy is not as bad as what it sounds it therapy is good for you. Everybody, I think, should be doing therapy, is it's not. It helps you manage and live this crazy life that we all live in. It helps us navigate through this journey that Some days, some weeks, some months, some years are very, very hard. It doesn't. It doesn't give you that pop and ooh, you know, everything's fixed and simple Again. It helps you navigate through life, and how. So yeah, I would guess, just if you're not comfortable with talking to people about it, look on your insurance. Talk to your doctor. You're, you're, you're trusted doctor. It doesn't even have to be your general practitioner. There are doctors talk to each other. So Talk to your. If you see it gynecologist, if you see a Gastronologist, whatever, just say, hey, do you recommend? You have a therapist that you could recommend to me? That's where I started, and then it turned into a friend or a acquaintance. Actually, that referred me to my second therapist that I still see today. So, yeah, there's a few options there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, even just starting to ask the question from people Kind of can be a good way to lead you to their next step. You know, maybe it's not where you'll end up, but at least it's a step in the direction that you need. So, christie, thank you for sharing your journey and a lot of what you've learned. It's been super valuable. Is there anything else that maybe I didn't ask you or that you want to share to end the conversation, Thank you for having me, and I don't.
Speaker 2:I Don't mind sharing my social information. I'm on Facebook. I'm on Instagram Savannah will tag it in her post if she wants to that I'm here if you want to ask me questions about therapy outside of the the big, what wide world that we live in. I don't have all the answers, I'm still figuring things out and life out myself, but I don't mind helping guide you in a direction. I know my therapist. I see her virtually. I don't even see her in person. I started out seeing her in person and then my husband and I moved to San Antonio. She's in Houston and I still see her virtually. My appointment with her yesterday was over the telephone, not over a video, so it can be doable in all kinds of different ways. If you don't feel comfortable going in person, doctor therapists do it virtually. Now you don't even have to step out of your bed if you don't want to. So yeah, that's. That's pretty much all I have for you.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, thank you so much, christy. We appreciate you having you on and everyone listening today. Have a great day. Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode. You have no idea how grateful I am to have you as one of the love your body now listeners. If you are loving this podcast, it would mean the world to me if you subscribed and left a review. This helps me get the message out to more women just like you who are also committed to their journey. And if you love this episode, please be sure to share it with someone who you know needs to hear today's message. Together, we can help more women recognize their self-worth and build their confidence from a much deeper place, just like you're doing right now. Let's help change the world, one woman at a time. All right, talk to you soon, friend.