Day 154: Cindy Laverty
“… the goal is to really try to have people embrace the uniqueness and the beauty of who they are — whether they think that’s a perfect image or not — but to embrace that and be okay with feelings and being honest and forthright in your beliefs and what it is that you want to do and try to pursue that in whatever way they can.”
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Toni Reece: Thank you so much, Cindy, for agreeing to be part of the Project today, and before we begin, can you please introduce yourself?
Cindy Laverty: Yes, I’m Cindy Laverty and I am the founder of the CARE Company in Los Angeles, and I am a radio talk host. The show is called The Cindy Laverty Show, and it’s the first commercial radio show dedicated to the subject of care.
Toni: Well, congratulations.
Cindy: Thank you.
Toni: So Cindy, when you think about that word inspiration, who do you think that you inspire and how do you do that?
Cindy: Well of course my goal is to always inspire my listeners by bringing them new ways of looking at care in their lives and how instead of recoiling from the idea of care how we can embrace care in our personal lives so we care better for ourselves so we can ultimately care better for each other. I believe that we are all caregivers for each other, so instead of looking at care as possibly something we don’t want to embrace, maybe we can open our hearts and embrace that.
Toni: How do you do that? How do you get that message across that by embracing care we will be able to care more for others? How does that happen?
Cindy: Well I’m very blessed, because I have this lovely forum of having a radio show every week, and it, you know, it streams live on the internet and it airs, you know, three times a week, so I get to have that forum. But what I try to do is to find people, ideas, concepts that we don’t always think of in terms of care, and when I can find people who embrace this subject in ways that we haven’t always looked at it, then I think it becomes inspiring; so it’s usually, you know, it’s an interview process on the radio show. I also write and I speak to audiences about topics that are troubling in our lives that we have to look at from a different perspective. So, you know, I’m blessed that I have this forum to do this.
Toni: When you’re … let’s say when you’re talking to someone, you have a guest on your radio show or the work that you do and you’re teaching others to care better for themselves or to embrace that care, what do you think then that that might translate into helping someone explore their potential in a different way? What happens?
Cindy: When I’m speaking to people, I’m a big believer that we need to have some kind of a plan for ourselves. So I try not to just speak about things in sort of esoteric terms, but rather in terms of, okay, there are steps that we can take that perhaps we didn’t learn about in school, you know, when we were learning reading, writing, and arithmetic. I’m not sure we learned about setting boundaries for ourselves and learning personal care without being told that that’s selfish, so I try to give people some concrete formal ideas on actually how to create the life that you want while living in your own personal integrity.
I’m really passionate about this subject, so I think that comes through because, you know, I wasn’t always good at this. I can honestly tell you that a few years ago, several years ago, I had no idea how to care for myself, and I had to learn that pretty far into my adult life. And personal experience, I think, is sometimes more powerful than having a degree in telling people what to do.
Toni: I agree with you on that point as well, but what I’m hearing from you … your answer to the potential is that if you are sharing your experience or you are asking questions in a way that you can help people to create the life that they want, by taking the first step of learning to care for themselves, I can only imagine the doors then that would open for people that aren’t currently taking care of themselves when they start to do that mentally and physically based on the work that you do. I can only imagine then what’s possible for their potential.
Cindy: Well, we all have the potential and the possibility of creating a life that we want. It doesn’t always unfold in ways that we think it’s going to. It doesn’t always arrive at our doorstep in a neat little gift box tied with a pretty bow, but it’s there. And I think for me, the goal is to really try to have people embrace the uniqueness and the beauty of who they are — whether they think that’s a perfect image or not — but to embrace that and be okay with feelings and being honest and forthright in your beliefs and what it is that you want to do and try to pursue that in whatever way they can.
Toni: So what inspires you?
Cindy: Oh my gosh – so many things inspire me. I am inspired … well, you know, I try to get inspired by myself. You know, when I’m having a day where I’m feeling pretty uninspired, I go and I sit in the silence, and I try to listen to my soul because I feel like my soul speaks to me in volumes, only it’s always very quiet. I think that’s true for all of us. People who are living their lives in what appear to be adverse situations but always seem to emerge and live in the life inspire me.
And then I’m inspired by just the tiniest littlest things, you know? Somebody reaching a hand out to someone and helping them across the street if they need it. You know, when you’ve decided to live your life to talk about care and redefining care in America, I think you get to look for little things that make a big difference.
Toni: Yeah, that word “care” can mean things that are just done every single day as random acts of kindness to, you know, the things that we do by just going to a doctor or a dentist or, you know, care can mean so many things on so many levels.
Cindy: Yeah, and I think it’s great for people to think of themselves as “You know what? Yeah, I’m a caregiver. I’m a caregiver to my family” or “I’m a caregiver to my pet” or whatever. It’s a good thing.
Toni: So when you … during the times that you need to be inspired and you’re looking for that inspiration, are there tools or methodologies that you tend to reach for consistently?
Cindy: Yes, there are. The first thing I do is I usually try to, you know, get quiet, meditate, focus on what’s going on inside of me. That’s step number one. I get out into nature a lot. I’ll take a hike, and I’ll be quiet, and I’ll be by myself. And I might not necessarily tell anybody where I’m going. Or I will go to the beach, and I will sit on the beach and watch the ocean which is, you know, ever-changing and ever-moving, and it can be calm and still and quiet, and yet there’s always movement.
I read great authors. I have authors who are very special to me. Or I listen to music. I just try to get away from the hectic life that we all so often are leading and sort of reconnect with the simplicity of the soul. It’s simple and yet it’s so complex, and I think our society today drives us away from that.
Toni: Cindy, you made a comment during the interview that you weren’t always like this, that it’s taken you a while to get there, and there’s a lot of people who are listening and reading the interviews and they may be in the same place as far as, you know, “I’d like to be a little more … give myself more self-care and be more aware and create that life that I know that I want to live, and so here’s a woman that shows up on the Project that’s saying, ‘You know, I wasn’t always like that.’” So where … was there a turning point for you, was there an evolution? Is there a way that you can describe … I know we have a short amount of time, but is there a way that you can describe how you came to that place?
Cindy: Yes. There was an evolution for me. I was asked by my ex-father-in-law to check on his wife and pay his bills when he had open heart surgery at the age of 83. I agreed to do that. There were all kinds of complications, and I was thrown into a situation that I knew nothing about and chaos was reigning supreme in my life. I was forever tired, I was forever exhausted, I felt unappreciated, I was snappy, I wasn’t sleeping – all symptoms that my soul was just screaming at me, and I wasn’t listening because I thought I have to do everything. I do everything for everybody else. I give, give, give, give; but the person who I forgot to give to was me.
And one day I literally almost had, you know, like a total breakdown in a doctor’s office with him while I was caring for him and I just went “I gotta get outta here for a couple of days. I’ve got to just go check in with myself. I’ve got to check in with my soul.” And I started reading, and I started meditating, and I just knew I had to do a different thing. It wasn’t that I had to … it was that I must do it, or I was going to lose myself. And I think when your “have-tos” become your “musts,” then things actually change for you.
So I started with little baby steps. I took time out for myself in the morning. I didn’t feel the need to get up and make breakfast for everybody in the family. I said “You know what? You guys can all make your own breakfast, you’re all adults.” So I did that; so that was my time to go for a walk or that was my time to sit in quiet and have a cup of tea and read. And then I would start my day.
And so I just did this in little, tiny, incremental steps, and one day I took the big step and I went “You know what? I’m not going to go to that house today, I’m going to take care of me and I’m not going to feel guilty about it.” Because when you’re a caregiver, it’s a 7-day-a-week, 365-days-a-year job.
And so if you’re completely depleted, you’re no good for anybody. You’re not good for yourself, you’re not good for your family, and you’re certainly not good for the person for whom you’re caring. So I … and then I got okay with being a little bit selfish. I was okay with that, and I think when you get okay with the fact that you have to care for yourself, things just become a lot easier.
Toni: I can hear that you gave yourself the oxygen first.
Cindy: I did. But I wasn’t always doing that.
Toni: Right, right. And that … thank you so very much for sharing that. So how do you take all of this now, this awareness, this work, this wonderful journey that you’re on now, and how do you continue to explore your own potential?
Cindy: Well, I push myself a lot. I write a lot. I either journal, or I write articles. When something comes to me, I explore the different sides of it and then I usually write about it. Writing for me is a great relief, and I continue to try to meet people who are always challenging me, you know?
I did something this year that I’ve never done before, and I reached out and I asked somebody to be my business mentor. I actually reached out and asked for a support system, and the amazing thing is that I was terrified to do this because I was the girl who could do everything, you know? I reached out, not to friends necessarily, but to people who I knew would push me, who would challenge me, who would keep me centered. And the amazing thing is that every single person who I reached out to I got this resounding “Yes.”
And so when I need inspiration or when I need to get challenged or I need somebody who’s not going to say “Oh yes, Cindy, I think that’s a really good idea.” I need somebody who can say “Yeah, I’m not sure that’s a good idea.” I reach out to these people, and so they keep me looking for inspiration. They keep me growing. They keep me on my toes, so to speak.
Toni: It’s amazing when you speak of reaching out and helping … reaching out and asking for help is also such an amazing example of self-care.
Cindy: Yes, and you know I didn’t know that it would be until I actually had the lovely fortune and privilege of experiencing equine therapy, because I was having this woman on my show and somehow, you know, through the course of our time together this is what came up. She said “Do you have a really good support system?” and I was like “Well, yeah.” And she said “Really, do you?” And so there I was, and so she really gave that assignment to do before I had her on my show.
I took the time to figure out who these people would be and what I would ask each of them to do, and there were only like five of them, but it’s powerful. Asking – actually asking – for support and saying “I can’t do it all myself and I need you” – people love to be needed.
Toni: Oh they do, and they love to help. You know, there’s many, many people who love to help. Well, I’ll tell you, Cindy, you have given so much great information for those of us who know we need to do a little bit better in the self-care arena for ourselves, but also how powerful that is because by doing that, you can help people take care of themselves better. And that’s the message that you’ve given through this and also sharing your personal journey of turning it into “This is what I must do for your own self-care and survival.” That’s powerful, and we can’t thank you enough for sharing that on the Get Inspired! Project.
Cindy: Oh, Toni, I thank you, and I honor you for the work that you’re doing.
Toni: Thank you, Cindy, and we will post at the bottom of your interview how to find your radio show as well as learn a little bit about your business. So thank you again, Cindy, for being part of the Project.
Cindy: Thank you, Toni.
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For more information about Cindy Laverty: www.cindylavertyshow.com
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