Creative Status is a podcast about using creativity as a vehicle for improving your life by deconstructing ego, integrating the shadow self, and designing and manifesting a real life.
Every episode explores how the creative process can help you GROW REAL by moving towards wholeness in yourself by making the unconscious conscious.
In this episode of Creative Status, I sit down with Christy Freddo, the unstoppable force behind Best Life Mindset. Christy shares her remarkable journey of reinvention, taking us on a rollercoaster ride through her life’s transformational chapters and unpacking some of the insights and life lessons she learned along the way.
From the outside, Christy’s life seemed like a dream – a high-paying, glamorous corporate job, a decade-long marriage, and a social circle that admired her. But behind the scenes, she was battling toxicity in both her career and personal life, and she was hiding a 20-year struggle with alcoholism.
In just six months, Christy summoned the courage to break free from her gilded cage, escape an abusive marriage, and confront her addiction head-on. What followed was nothing short of a miraculous transformation. Within two years, she not only built her own successful business but also found a loving partner with whom she created a beautiful family. Christy traded cocktails for yoga and embarked on a journey towards her best life. If that isn’t a story of going from UNREAL to REAL LIFE then I don’t know what is.
Join us as Christy Freddo takes us through her heartwarming and empowering story of reinvention, sharing the strategies that helped her rise from the ashes and create the life she truly desired.
If you’re seeking inspiration to transform your own life, this episode is a must-listen. Tune in now and learn how to unlock your Best Life Mindset with Christy!
Listen using the player above or go to your favourite podcast player!
Thanks a bunch,
Oli
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Leave a voice message to share your thoughts and to be (maybe) featured on future episodes of the podcast: anchor.fm/creativestatus
Episode Links:
To download your free “Reinvention Roadmap” guided workbook discussed in today’s podcast, go to: https://www.bestlifemindset.com
Instagram: @best.life.mindset
Email Christy: christy@bestlifemindset.com
Creative Status Links:
The Creative Performance Transformation Lab: olianderson.co.uk/creativeperformance
Follow me on Instagram: instagram.com/olijanderson
My YouTube channel: youtube.com/olianderson
Get my books on Amazon: amazon.com/author/oli
7-Day Personality Transplant System Shock for Realness and Life Purpose: olianderson.co.uk/systemshock
Free one hour creative workshop to take your creative brand or project to the next level: olianderson.co.uk/creativeworkshop
Free 90-Day Journal Challenge: olianderson.co.uk/journal
The Law of Attraction for Realness (mini-course): olianderson.co.uk/lawofattraction
Show Transcript: Reinvention & REALNESS
Intro
Oli Anderson: Oh hi there, Oli Anderson here. You’re listening to Creative Status. This is a podcast about using the creative process to improve your life, ideally becoming more real in the process. Real means that you’re more connected to your true values, your true intentions, something intangible that you can give yourself to that’s going to allow you to transcend your ideas about yourself.
That all sounds marvelous. But anyway, today’s interview is with Christy Freddo. She is a coach who helps people to focus on their mindsets and she specializes in helping people to reinvent themselves. This is a conversation coming up about that exact topic in relation to realness and all the things we like to talk about over here, the creative process. Reinvention. We talk about how when we go on these journeys of reinvention, some of the ideas we might have at the start of the journey end up being totally different to the ones that we finish up with. There’s loads of amazing insight in here. The energy is really good. Sure, you’re going to get some value out of this.
Christy, thank you so much for your time. Everybody else, thanks for listening. If you want to have a conversation with me, you can go to ollianderson.co.uk slash talk. If this podcast helps you, please leave a review. I’m going to show up. Here’s the interview. Thanks a bunch. Boom.
Interview
Oli Anderson: Oh, hi there, Christy. Thank you so much for joining me on this episode of Creative Status. We are going to be talking about the underlying process that takes place when we reinvent ourselves. That’s kind of your specialty. Before we get into it, do you feel like introducing yourself, telling people what you’re all about, how you ended up working in this area anyway, and also what you want to get out of this conversation?
Christy Freddo: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. I am super excited to be here. I love everything that your podcast is about. It’s very aligned with the work that I do. I’m a transformational life coach. What that means is I work with people and help them break down their lives and see where they’re in alignment with their authentic selves and their core values, and then rebuild a life that is congruent with that, that they will love. I got into this because I had a transformation of my own that I actually never told anybody about for over a decade and am now telling that story in hopes of helping other people.
Oli Anderson: Wow. That sounds very intriguing. Maybe we can talk about that a little bit. Before we do, what do you want to get out of this conversation? What’s going to make this a good conversation for you personally?
Christy Freddo: Well, I would love to be able to talk about the concept of reinvention overall. As I said, I reinvented myself and really love my life now after being miserable for so many years. I’d love to be able to help people do that. I would love to be able to talk a little bit about finding the authentic self because I feel that we live in a culture and society that does not allow us to live our authentic self truthfully. I feel like that is the key to everything, to being happy.
Oli: Okay. Well, I think you’re definitely in the right place. Let’s get right into it then. This whole idea of reinvention, I think a lot of us go through stages in our lives, especially if we’re miserable or things don’t feel like they’re as real as they could be, to use one of my favorite words.
We reach a point where we think, right, basically, it’s now or never. I have to change my life. I have to become a different version of myself. Otherwise, I’m just going to keep feeling this friction, frustration and misery, whatever. Before we get onto the actual reinvention process, I guess, how do people reach that point, do you think, where they think that a reinvention is necessary in the first place?
Christy: Well, some people hit rock bottom and it’s an easy decision, right? You know that you have to do something else. For other people, I think it’s a nagging feeling that you’re not as happy as you could be. Something’s just not right. For other people, I think it’s maybe one area of your life is making you a little bit miserable and you want to change that. I think it probably looks different for everyone, but if you’re listening to this podcast, then you probably know you want to do something a little bit different.
Oli: Do you think even though there’s these different reasons for wanting to reinvent yourself and change your life, the underlying structure is the same in all of those cases when you boil it down to the basics? If so, what is the underlying structure, I guess, of the reinvention process as a whole, if that’s not too massive a question?
Christy: I think it all goes back to being in alignment with your authentic self, with authenticity, with those core values. If you’re on a job that you really don’t feel aligned with, that you’re not feeling fulfilled with, for example, it could be that it’s a job that focuses on things that are not aligned with your core values. It could be about making a lot of money.
That’s not what you’re really about, but you got into it because that particular career, maybe being an accountant or whatever it is that you do, being a lawyer, is something that your parents told you would be a great career and it would be stable. Now you’re in a career and you’re thinking, I don’t feel fulfilled, but I make a ton of money. And I believe that asking yourself questions like, if every job paid the same, what would I be doing, helps you realize if you’re in the right situation.
I do think the underlying situation is always that you’re not really living your authentic self. If you’re wondering what your authentic self, who is my authentic self, you usually have to go pretty far back into your childhood or your young adulthood and think about what were things that made me happy then? What did I want to do then?
Oli: That’s totally how I see things as well. Everything I do in my coaching practice is basically about that. We’re either making unreal choices, which leads to us being miserable, or we make real choices, which allow us to feel good as much as possible. Obviously, bad things are still going to happen. Something seems to happen in most people’s lives where they don’t realize how much power of choice they have over their own lives.
To go back to your example, some people, for whatever reason, they stop believing in themselves or they don’t even know what their true values and intentions are and they end up on a path where they’re just kind of blindly following what society is telling them to do. It’s that classic thing, go to university or whatever, get a nine-to-five job, have kids, blah, blah, drop dead. Because they haven’t thought about the intricacies of that, what that looks like, then they end up choosing a way of getting the things we all need, like a family and everything. They choose a way to go about supporting their family, let’s say.
That’s unreal to them. That’s where they feel this nagging feeling you talk about, the void inside themselves, which I think is the real self screaming from the unconscious to try and be brought back to the surface. Part of reinventing ourselves is just about realizing that, okay, instead of making these unreal choices, if we do the kind of inner work you’re talking about, figure out our values and everything, then we can start making real choices that are aligned with something that’s actually true about us.
The reinvention process ultimately, it seems, is about shifting into a different reality, basically, even though I think, let’s not go down that road, but shifting into a different version of our lives that is a reflection of real choices. Is there something there in the way that you see all this?
Christy: Absolutely. I think you know when you are in alignment or you’re on the right track to being in alignment with your true self, because everything will start aligning. Sorry, I’m using that word a lot, but it’s the key word, right? But everything, when you’re in alignment, the universe aligns with you. Things start to become easier going in that direction.
There is a magnetic pull toward what that thing is that you should be doing, that you really want to be doing that will lead you in the right direction. You really have to pay attention to your intuition and really follow that. I mean, it’s almost like lead with your heart, follow with your heart, not necessarily with your head. Your head can guide you to some interesting places sometimes if you don’t let it balance out with that magnetic energy, with that intuition.
Oli: When people are making these unreal choices that I’m talking about, which is just going against their true self or their realness, ultimately, what they’re doing is they’re trying to force life through unreal ideas and an unreal identity that they’ve picked up to kind of feel safe. It starts out with safety, but it normally turns to complacency. But when they shift into the way of being that you’re talking about, where we’re starting to be aligned, we’re no longer forcing things.
One of the things I’ve noticed with my clients and in my own life is when we’re making real choices, part of that is realizing that we can’t choose everything. And there are certain real things about us, like certain creative urges, certain values, certain goals and intentions and blah, blah, blah. There are certain things that are so real that we have no choice but to go with them, to follow them where they’re going to lead us to. And the reason I say we have no choice is because with reality, ultimately, you can’t choose what is real. You can just choose to work with it or to try and go against it, to resist it or to distort your view of it with the ego stuff that we all have.
But when you start choosing to trust and go with those things that are real, your true values and intentions, blah, blah, blah, blah, that’s when things kind of start working out without you really doing anything, if you know what I mean. And it’s because what’s inside you is kind of supported for whatever reason by what’s outside of you as well. I know I’m ranting and raving because I’m getting excited, but does that make sense to you?
Ultimately, when you are aligned, the barrier between the inner and outer world is paper thin, basically, if there even is a barrier. But you can only get there by choosing to go with it, if that makes sense.
Christy: Absolutely. When your authentic self, your thoughts and your actions are all in alignment and you’re moving forward, that’s inspired action. And when you have inspired action, the universe helps reorganize things in a way that helps you get where you’re trying to go.
Oli: Yeah. So it’s reinvention in a real sense about getting to the place where you, first of all, you know what the inspired actions you need to take are, but also you can trust the process of taking them. And if so, two questions for you, because I’m talking too much, sorry. One, how do we know what inspired action actually is versus just action for the sake of doing things? And two, how do we trust the process?
Because a lot of the time I’ve noticed inspired actions are going to seem way bigger than what we think we’re capable of when the impetus to do them first arises or the inspiration?
Christy: I think inspired action can be any movement in the direction that you’re being pulled, as long as your authentic self, your thoughts are all in alignment. So I don’t know if it always has to be a huge action at first, I think it can be small steps. And if you’re trusting the process, as you mentioned, if you can trust you will be led, then you can get comfortable with a little bit of, for lack of a better word, limbo as you’re getting from point A to point B.
I think that when you focus on the how too much, how are you going to get from where you are today to where you want to go, that you mess it up. You self-sabotage a little bit. I think you just need to focus on where you’re going and taking those steps and trusting the process and trusting you’ll be led and you will get there. Now, that’s not to say that there aren’t strategies to taking those small actions.
In my life, I practice with affirmations and meditation and manifesting and a lot of other things. And I suggest those things to my clients, but ultimately you have to have movement. You have to have movement in the right direction and not focus as much on the how. So if you want to change careers, you can really self-sabotage yourself by thinking, but then what if I don’t make enough money and how will I pay my bills and how will I go back to school and how will I do all of these things, instead of just focusing on that’s what I’m going to do. And today I’m going to research different programs for what I want to do. And every day, just having those actions because the how will overwhelm you and it will come into play as long as you have that inspired action.
Oli: Yeah. Like that’s the key thing, I think. Like the how, it’s not totally up to us, is it? Because ultimately nothing is. Like if we think, okay, I want to do a certain thing. So I want to get a new career or whatever. I’m going to put a strategy in place to do this. So I’ve got the plan, the how. As I start moving forward, the plan is never actually what happens because it’s that old saying, you know, the map is not the territory. And so it gets to the point where we have to learn to move forward, exactly like you’re saying, and to let go of the map, whilst paradoxically still kind of holding onto the map, but constantly redrawing things on it or updating it as we move forward.
And you eventually get to the point where you realize you just have to let go. And I think that’s where most people kind of trip up because they go into these journeys. And I suppose, you know, this is the process of reinvention that we’re still talking about ultimately. We say, okay, my life now is not what I want it to be. If I get this new career or whatever, then everything’s going to be fine. So I now have to close the gap between where I am now in this job that I’ve found myself in because of unreal choices to where I want to be, which is a career aligned with my real choices. I want to close that gap, but there’s the niggling new reality that not all of the things that are going to happen on that journey are under my control.
And I think maybe I’m making it too complicated, right? But at the start of these journeys where we want to change our lives, we can be in a very controlling place because we’re like, right, I’ve woken up, I’ve raised awareness. I realize this is not the life that I want. So now I’m going to try and control everything in order to change it. But as we traverse the territory to actually change, there’s that element of surrender or letting go and, you know, trusting the process, like we keep saying, how can we work with that, the need to change our lives and control things, but at the same time to give up control in order to get where we want, we actually want to be. Do you see what I’m saying?
Chirsty: Yes. It’s not an easy thing for any of us to do. Right. And that’s not what we were taught to do growing up. It was make a plan, make, you know, put steps in place. And I’m not saying you shouldn’t have a plan and you shouldn’t have steps, but they’re going to change along the way. As you said, the map, you’re going to redraw it. And a lot of times where you want to go, where your final destination is in your mind, your ideal destination, it’s going to change too along the way. And usually I’ve found is going to be something better than you originally even imagined. So if you can just really trust the process, you can get to places that you, better than you even ever imagined.
Oli: So this idea of trust is something that just always comes up on this podcast, because when you get to the fundamental level of how we relate to life itself or reality or whatever you want to call it, the only way you can have a successful relationship with it is to trust. So I guess the question is when we, when I say that, what are we actually trusting? Like, where does that trust go?
Like, where does it come from? How can we do it? Because I totally agree with everything they say. Like I live in the same way. But when I try and explain this to people, oh, you know, you just need to trust. Like it is very counterintuitive. Like you’ve said, like our whole lives have been conditioned not to trust and to take life into our own hands. So I guess what I’m saying is what are some methods you’ve learned to help people trust in this way?
Christy: So I think one of the first things is you have to just consciously say, I’m giving this up to the universe. I trust that I will be led or I’m giving it up to my higher power or whatever it is that is your paradigm of thinking. And then one of the tools that can be very helpful is manifesting within the world of, manifesting within the world of meditation. That’s a tongue twister.
But if you can really spend time in meditation, manifesting and thinking about that future destination, that future you, what you’re doing, how you feel, what you’re wearing, what things look like in your new world, and you can find peace in knowing you’re going to be there because you can see it and you can feel it in a daily meditation and you have affirmations about it that maybe you’re saying every day.
And from that peace of knowing that you are going to get there, it’s a little bit easier to let go of the how because you can feel it and you can feel that energy drawing you toward where you want to go. And that makes it a little easier to give up the day-to-day how to power and just know that as long as you’re taking actions each day, that the universe will guide you in what those actions are.
Oli: Yeah. I love what you said about meditation. Like I’ve found that as well. Like when you go deep into meditation, you ultimately find yourself in a very, very real place where you, to keep it simple, I guess, to keep it brief, you’re connected to wholeness. And I think that’s ultimately what this all boils down to. We’re either living life in a way where we think we’re fragmented and disconnected from everything, in which case we end up making those unreal choices we were talking about, or we have a taste and experience of wholeness inside ourselves that allows us to connect deeply to life itself and to trust life because we know that that connection is there.
But one thing I’ve noticed with, you know, manifestation and all this kind of stuff, which it does work, I believe, one thing I’ve found is it only works if the things you’re trying to bring into your life are connected to that wholeness as well. So, for example, I think a lot of the time when people are at the start of these transformational journeys we’re talking about, they’ve been making these unreal choices because they basically identify with an unreal version of themselves for emotional reasons and social conditioning.
When they’re in that early stage, they might learn about the law of attraction or something, and they’ll say to themselves, right, I need to close my eyes and meditate and try and manifest a new Lamborghini or something because this Lamborghini is going to basically fill the void inside me and it’s going to, you know, solve all my problems basically. But because they’re only trying to bring that into their lives, to fill a void that doesn’t exist in the first place, it’s actually completely unreal and it has no connection to wholeness in any way, shape or form.
And so they probably won’t be able to get that because they’re not chasing it for the right reasons, i.e. the real reasons. And so then, because they never get it, they lose faith in life and these natural laws like the law of attraction and everything, because they’ve gone about it in the wrong way. And I think that’s why before we get to that stage where we’re trying to manifest the life we want and blah, blah, blah, we have to do the inner work.
We have to look at our ego, raise awareness. We have to integrate the shadow, accept ourselves, accept life, how it works, blah, blah, blah. And then we have a solid foundation to truly be connected to life and then to actually try and bring things into our lives that are truly meant for us. Not just what we think we deserve or we think is meant for us to fill the void, like I would say, the things that are actually on our path. So I guess all I want to know is what do you think about that whole idea?
Christy: Oh, I absolutely agree. I don’t think that manifesting is going to work if it’s not in alignment with who you are at the core. I think the Lamborghini example was a great example. So I worked in corporate America for many years, and I was so miserable by the end. And I realized that part of it was I was out of alignment. It was a job where it was very glamorous. I traveled internationally. I made a lot of money. And I was so miserable in that job because those weren’t the things that I really wanted in life. I’ve realized at this point in my life, all I really want and all I’ve ever wanted since I was a child is the opportunity to be myself and not have to edit myself.
And in that job, because it was corporate America, you had to dress a certain way, act a certain way, do things a certain way. And I don’t want to edit myself. I want to be free. And when you are allowed to be free, it changes the way that you feel completely every day when you wake up because you don’t have to force yourself into a box or force yourself into a suit if you’re not a suit-wearing kind of person, which I’m not. I’m not anymore. I remember when I left that job. It was so amazing.
And I got rid of everything that had to do with that job. I gave away over $10,000 worth of suits. I gave away all the jewelry that I had ever bought with the money that I had had from that job. I traded a $2,000 aquamarine and diamond ring for a loaf of homemade zucchini bread from somebody who was admiring it. It was like a bonfire of the vanities, right? And I think that that’s sometimes what you have to do to get back into who you are, because you can get so far off track and you’re so miserable. And sometimes it’s not necessarily the company that you’re working for. It’s that you’re completely out of alignment.
Oli: Yeah. Yeah. What you just said about all you really wanted since you were a little kid was to just be yourself. That’s basically it. Ultimately, that’s all we should want, if we want to use the word should. It’s a total cliche, but as long as we are being true to ourselves, then everything actually does just work out. And it sounds so simple. And if people are in the early stages of these journeys, these transformations, they’re probably rolling their eyes thinking, oh my God, yeah, just be yourself.
But it actually is true, because when you put yourself on that path, you realize that your ideas about yourself are not who you are. You can transcend those ideas, and then you can start living in this way that you’re talking about, where you’re aligned. So I just wanted to throw that out there, because it basically is that simple. Just be yourself. If you are in that place where you’re meditating, trying to manifest, that’s ultimately probably the way to get the best results. Try to manifest who you really are, something like that. But anyway, is this a good point in the conversation for you to share your story, if you want to? Because I’m assuming it’s going to bring a lot of these kind of lessons and things together, but only if you want to.
Christy: Absolutely. It’s about your authentic self, but it’s also about once you just get down a path, and you’re in that day to day, and you don’t know how to get out, and you need transformation, and you need reinvention, and you don’t really know how to do that at first. So in 2011, in a span of six months, I had that corporate job that I talked about, and that was making me miserable. I was able to get out of that with enough savings to be able to have some time off to reflect and really figure out who I was, what I wanted, why I was so unhappy, what would make me happy.
In a span of six months from the day that I left that job, I also realized I was an alcoholic, not just a heavy drinker, got sober, realized I was in an abusive marriage that was really unacceptable, and got out of that abusive marriage. So I made those three huge changes in six months’ time and really had no idea where I was going from there, and spent about a year, which not everybody has the luxury to do that, but I had the savings to be able to do that, and spent that year figuring out who am I really, what do I really want to do with my life, what would make me truly fulfilled and happy.
In two years’ time from the first decision that I made, which was to leave that job, I had completely reinvented myself. I had become an entrepreneur with a successful business that allowed me to make decisions and do things only in alignment with my core values and my authentic self. From everything that’s really small that we’ve talked about, from being able to wear casual clothes every day to not having anybody tell me how I have to act, what I can post on Facebook. I’ve been told before that I should have put on more makeup before a meeting to look more polished, to not have to deal with those little things, but also to not ever be told again that I had to lay somebody off for reasons I didn’t agree with, not have to deal with the greed of other people to be able to make decisions based on what I thought was really the right thing for everyone involved.
I also had met the man that I would later marry and blend a family with, so had a new relationship that has been wonderful with a man who I like to laugh and say he’s like Ward Cleaver. He’s just like the greatest guy ever. He’s like something from a TV sitcom from the 50s. He’s amazing.
All of those things were done while also getting to be sober for the first time since I was probably 16. It was quite the reinvention, but the funny part about it was that I started this new life. I moved to a new city, and I never told anybody in my new life. I pretty much cut ties with everyone from the old life and never told anybody while I was going through all this or in the new life about what was happening or what had happened because I was so ashamed because of the stigma around those things. So I spent the last decade hiding all of those things that went on and feeling ashamed. Then recently, in a moment of quiet, I realized those are not things to be ashamed of.
Those are victories to be celebrated. Those are the types of things that people need to know about to help destigmatize things. People realize these things happen, and you can get help, and you don’t have to sit alone in the shadows and deal with these things. You can get help. By being quiet, it was being part of the problem, and I wasn’t living my authentic self. It was so freeing to be able to tell my true story. I wrote an e-book that talks about the strategies I used to reinvent myself, but it also tells my story.
When my husband read my book, my husband now of nine years, he was asking me so many questions. He was like, you really did this? You really went to an outpatient intensive alcohol program? You did these things? I had no idea because I just told everybody in my new life, I just don’t drink. Oh, I’m divorced. It just didn’t work out. I used to have this great job, but I left to have more time with my kid, which that part is true. But I kept it all hidden. That’s a terrible way to live. I’m now trying to tell people that it’s okay to talk about who you really are and what you’ve really been through. In fact, it might inspire and help some other people.
Oli: That’s all amazing. Thank you for sharing that. And it’s actually, it is a textbook case of the kind of things we’ve been talking about. So at the start of that journey, you were living a very unreal life. You were trying to uphold a lot of illusions that you bought into about how life is supposed to be and blah, blah, blah. Then you started to wake up. You stepped away from that job. You stepped away from unreal relationships and so on and so forth.
And then you got to this final place where you realized you could reclaim even more of your power by sharing the actual truth about your story and what you’ve been through and all the lessons you learned along the way. And I think if you hadn’t shared or started sharing the story, okay, you would still have reinvented yourself to some extent, but you wouldn’t have actually completed the process. Because I think the last chapter, shall we say, or the last lesson that we learn on these journeys of reinvention is acceptance.
And if you don’t share what you’ve been through, or you feel like you can’t because you’re judging it or whatever, then you’re not accepting who you truly are. And so is there something there? Ultimately, one of the best ways for us to reclaim our lives when we’re reinventing our lives is to share things. And if so, I suppose, how can people use that in a practical way to speed up the reinvention process or to avoid falling into some of those traps that we mentioned where they are trying to reinvent themselves, but actually they’re doing it in such a way where it’s their ego, their false identity that is motivating the reinvention. So actually it ends up perpetuating the problem.
There’s something there, I think, about how sharing, it’s not necessarily a shortcut, but it ensures you’re on the right path, something like that.
Christy: Absolutely. And that’s the only way you can really be free. And the only way that you can really feel free, which is a very different experience. You’re only as sick as your secrets. It’s funny because, you know, putting it all out there is of course scary because you’re, you know, you’re vulnerable and society does not accept a lot of these things.
And actually, so I own a spa in Dallas, a successful spa, in addition to my coaching business. And I decided to cross promote the businesses on my social media and my email list and whatnot to say essentially the spa is also offering services to help you inside. We’re not just about, you know, we’re inside and out helping you feel your best. And in that, I told my story in like two sentences of, you know, this is what I’ve been through. And this is, you know, this is why I want to help people. And the head of my marketing agency called me and said essentially that I had destroyed my brand by doing that, that people wanted to see me as a strong, successful woman.
They did not care about my baggage, that I should not have aired my dirty laundry, that it was so horrible that it was people might think that I had been hacked. So that’s the attitude that people have, right? That your life, your true authentic life is something that needs to be hidden. And that’s in 2023. And I thought we’d come a lot farther than that with authenticity and whatnot. So the next day I woke up and I severed my contract with that company because we’re not in alignment on where I am. I want to be my authentic self. I want to help other people. I want other people to be able to be authentic. And if they can’t get that, they can’t represent my marketing for email business.
Oli: Yeah. It sounds like, sorry, to some extent that was probably projection on the part of that person, whoever they were, like probably the only reason they can say that to you is because they’re not being authentic with themselves ultimately. And they’re projecting it. Yeah. They’re trying to control you so that they can keep hiding from themselves. So they’ve probably got some secrets of their own. Just out of curiosity, like when you started sharing this stuff, did it have a positive impact on your business after all?
Christy: I don’t think it had an effect either way. I just wanted to put it out there for my clients to say, we want to help you in all the aspects of your life. We definitely got some people who were interested in moving forward and talking about those different strategies that you can use to transform your life and whatnot. I don’t know if it had a positive impact on my actual spa business, but it didn’t have a negative impact either. It wasn’t like anybody was like, I can’t come here anymore because you have baggage. And just the idea that anybody would think of that as baggage, it’s just such a…
And I get that people think it’s baggage, which is why I kept it quiet from everyone, including my husband for 10 years. But it’s just funny when you see it once you’ve come out and you’re living your authentic life and you’re being honest and you’re free and somebody says that, you’re like, oh, that’s so sad. You’re trying to put me back in a box and not let me tell the truth and be a pretender. And I just think that the society we live in, if you think about social media, when social media was relatively new, I had a counselor who I was telling that I was upset that my corporate job didn’t like a post that I had made because it didn’t make me look good.
As a director in that company. And that I felt like that was horrible and an overreach. And she said, a counselor said to me, well, I think Facebook and social media should be for PR. You should be showing who you want people to think you are. And I’m like, my gosh, you’re a counselor of all people. You should know the importance of being authentic in every way in your life. So I mean, you’re fighting against that every day in every way. I mean, we tell our kids when they’re nervous about going out to a party or a new school or whatever, just be yourself. Everyone will love you. But that’s not really true, is it? I mean, it’s not really true. You spend most of your life making the decision between being accepted or being authentic.
Oli: Yeah. I think when people say be yourself, a lot of the time, the people who are saying that, they’re actually not being themselves anyway, because they’re basically at the start of these journeys without realizing these transformational journeys where they’re kind of locked inside themselves. And so sometimes when we say be yourself, okay, it’s just a nice thing that makes people feel better, but it actually has nothing to do with what you’re talking about, which is constantly moving in alignment towards deeper and deeper acceptance of yourself, other people by extension and life itself.
And so there’s something really important in everything you’re saying, especially this thing about sharing, because ultimately, one thing I found is like when we go through these transformational journeys and we reinvent ourselves, you get to the point where all of the ideas you had about yourself at the start, kind of, you know, this slip away like a snake shedding its skin or whatever, and you’re left with something that is much more authentic, much more real. But in that realness and authenticity, it’s not about just you as an individual, it’s about your connection to others.
Like ultimately, you transcend your ideas of yourself as an independent thing, so that you realize you’re interdependent. And because you’ve done this inner work and everything, you have more to give other people and then you can connect to them on a deeper level. But if you add sharing to that, sharing is ultimately a gift. Because if you get to the point you’re now at, where you can have ownership over your story, without it just been about the, you know, the highlight reel or any of that stuff, you have ownership, that means you’re giving people permission, not that they need it, but they kind of do if they’re stuck inside themselves.
You’re giving them permission or you’re leading the way for them to take ownership over their own lives as well. And I think if there’s resistance to you sharing things that seem a bit dark or a bit too rough around the edges or whatever it is, it shows that there’s room for people to grow, like I kind of said about the projection and everything.
So can we say that to kind of summarize this whole conversation, you know, we started off just talking about reinvention and transformation, but ultimately, we all need to get to that place where we own our story and we can share it. And ideally, that’s going to allow other people, if they need to, to reinvent themselves too. Or something.
Christy: Absolutely. I mean, and your experiences and your life is a part of who you are. And if you are hiding that, you know, you’re only as sick as your secrets. You know, I don’t know. I mean, I don’t think you can really be your authentic self and be in alignment with your authentic self if you’re hiding parts of who you are. Because I mean, when you’re telling people, oh, I just don’t drink. People in my family drink a lot and I just thought it was better if I don’t drink. I mean, I’m telling a full lie.
That’s not why I don’t drink. I mean, that’s true, but it’s not. And that’s how I justified it, was there was truth in it, but I’m not being my authentic self. And what does that say to the people in there who are thinking, you know, at that party that are thinking they have a drinking problem and that they maybe would like to get help and whatnot by telling people, oh, I’m an alcoholic, you know, I don’t drink. Then maybe those people can think, well, she seems like a successful, normal, happy person. Maybe if I don’t drink, I could still be a successful, happy, normal person. And maybe I could actually call her and ask her, you know, about that experience and talk to her and get help for myself.
Oli: Yeah. Like I think that’s the realest way to share. Like you’re sharing in a way that it can help others if they want it. I think sometimes there is a bit of a trap, like we can share things, but we’re doing it in a way that, you know, it allows us to kind of lapse into a victim mentality or to reinforce our own ego stuff or to keep hiding or whatever. We’re sharing a story, but we’re doing it to get attention or something rather than just to share, to just actually connect to people on a deep level. Like, is there something there about how, how do you fine tune your sharing ability? So you are doing it in that realest possible way.
Christy: Well, I think it’s, you know, just by being honest and then that allows the people you’re talking to, to be honest. And then you can create a different kind of relationship with people, you know, stronger, elevated, you know, highest self relationships, which feel a lot different than relationships where even with your good friends or your best friends, you’re pretending. I mean, that’s our society right now is we’re all the great pretenders.
And, you know, if you, you can’t really have a very deep relationship if you’re holding back and not telling the, you know, the, the secrets of your life and the reality of your life. And you’re just telling everybody, oh, it’s great. And, oh, my daughter just went to homecoming and, you know, everything’s so fantastic. And she made all A’s and whatever. Well, did I also tell them about the fact that she, you know, had some mental health issues that she struggled with and overcame? Because that might be super helpful for people who also are hiding the fact they have a kiddo with mental health issues that they’re trying to overcome.
Oli: Yeah. And this comes back to what you said about your secrets will make you sick. And the reason that is true is because the only reason you wouldn’t be honest is because you’re not in alignment. That’s why the sharing thing brings this whole conversation full circle in a way. Because you can only share something real if you’ve done that work you’re talking about to be in alignment in the first place.
So we’ve been talking a long time. It’s gone quick. I always end up saying that. But how would you sum up this conversation? Like, have you got any final words of wisdom to kind of, you know, knock this out of the park or whatever? And can you tell people where they can download your ebook or get a copy of it and all your other contact information that you want to share?
Christy: Absolutely. I think that if I could leave people with any one thing, it’s, you know, don’t be ashamed of anything in your life. Don’t hide anything in your life. Don’t stay on a path because it’s the path that you’ve been on. It’s never too late to reinvent yourself. It’s never too late to make a change. Don’t double down on a bad decision just because you’ve been doing it for a while.
And that brings me actually to what I have as a giveaway for everybody who’s listening today, which is called the Reinvention Roadmap, which is really a guided journey of everything we’ve talked about today that leads you through self-reflection to think about where you’re in alignment with yourself and your true self and where you’re not and where you’re happy in your life and where you’re not and where you might want to go and start taking action to go in that direction. You can get that at bestlifemindset.com. I know that’ll be in the notes for the podcast.
So you can also find us on Facebook and Instagram for tips, Best Life Mindset. And my email is also included in the podcast notes. And I’m always happy to answer any questions or if somebody wants to shoot me any kind of trouble, I’m happy to help troubleshoot it.
Oli: Awesome. So I’ll share all that stuff, like you said. Ultimately, I think what we’ve been saying is reinventing yourself is actually letting go of the unreal self or the unreal version of ourselves so we can find acceptance, be aligned, and then just live an amazing life.
So I think everything you’ve shared is so important and just thank you for your time. This has been awesome. Thank you so much.
Christy: This has been a great conversation. I got a lot out of listening to you and your insights. So thank you.
Oli: Thank you again.
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