Day 207: Crystal Church

April 25, 2010 at 12:01 am, Category: Inspiration

“ … what comes right to my mind is to never give up, and I guess that life is always evolving and that it’s not like start and finish.  It’s start, climb one hill, kind of smooth out for a little while, and then life will present another challenge that instead of letting it knock you down and make you curl up in a ball and not function, you just say ‘Okay, well, here it is, what are my resources, what do I need to do to get through this?’”

.

.

Right click here to download…

.

Toni Reece: Thank you so much, Crystal, for agreeing to be part of the Project today, and before we begin, can you please introduce yourself?

Crystal Church: You bet.  Thank you, Toni.  My name is Crystal Church, and I heard about this Project through Rob Britt, and he referred me to you.

Toni: Well thank you for that.  And what do you do, Crystal?

Crystal: I am a brand-new life coach who is training and mentoring underneath Maia Berens, who is the founder of You University, and I am a full-time mom so I’ve got three kids that keep me very busy; they’re of various ages.  And then I also have another job as an appointment-setter for a timeshare company.

Toni: Well, you’ve got a lot going on there, don’t you?

Crystal: I do.  Keeps it exciting.

Toni: I’ll bet it does.  Now, Crystal, when you think of that word inspiration, who do you inspire and how does that happen?

Crystal: The first thing that comes to my mind is my kids, and that happens by me being authentic in how I act, what I say, what I do, role modeling to them what I’m learning in my own personal development, and doing it with just, you know, huge enthusiasm.

Toni: Can you give me an example of how you might have inspired your kids?

Crystal: Definitely.  My oldest is a girl.  She is 18, and so she’s getting ready to graduate, and I’ve always been very open and honest, you know, during my journeys.  And I’m a single parent, so there have been some trials and tribulations, and I think because of my hard work and my diligence and my desire to just keep learning and look within myself, I have inspired her to be the same way.

An example would be she just doesn’t take what she’s been told for face value.  If it doesn’t make sense in her mind, she does not have a problem challenging it and saying “Okay, that’s great that you feel that way, but this is how I feel,” and I think that is really empowering, especially for kids today.  They have no boundaries, they can do anything, and she knows that.  Yeah, she knows that.

Toni: That’s fantastic.  How do you think being that way and inspiring your kids to be that way helps them to explore their own potential?

Crystal: Well, they know because I’ve encouraged them.  I’ve just, you know, directly told them that they can do anything that they want to do, that there are no boundaries, that the people that did all the hard work before us, you know, have opened a lot of doors that they just need to go through if they want to, and I lead that example.  I, you know, I wasn’t happy in a relationship that, you know, maybe 50 years ago the woman would have stayed in, and I just said, you know, “I can do this.”  So I left and decided to basically show my kids that, you know, you can still have a healthy relationship with who you’re co-parenting with, but still have your independence and be successful with it.

Toni: But what I’m hearing from you is that even though you are setting the example and actually being that role model and letting them know they can do whatever they choose to do, there’s still a lot of hard work and a lot of things that you need to press through in order to get there.

Crystal: Oh definitely, yeah.  And what comes right to my mind is to never give up, and I guess that life is always evolving and that it’s not like start and finish.  It’s start, climb one hill, you know, kind of smooth out for a little while, and then, you know, life will present another challenge that instead of letting it knock you down and make you curl up in a ball and not function, you just say “Okay, well, here it is, what are my resources, what do I need to do to get through this?”

And then I also try to show them that each thing that just seems horrible and horrific, once you get through it, it’s like this huge learning experience that makes you a better human being, you know, if you don’t give up and you push through it.  My 18-year-old comes to mind because she’s getting ready to graduate and she’s a girl, and there’s drama, and each time I just try to listen, acknowledge that her feelings are real, but let her know that once she’s through it, she’ll look back and go “Wow, this is what I learned,” or you know, “Here’s the gift in this situation.”

Toni: Well thank you for sharing that.  Crystal, what do you need to be inspired?  What inspires you?

Crystal: Learning inspires me, totally.  Learning more about myself, learning more about my kids and how they operate, their human design, what makes them tick.  That really inspires me, or just connecting with another human being on a level where you’re like “Oh my gosh, yes, that’s right — I get it, you know?”  I guess the infamous “ah-ha” moment really inspires me.

Toni: How did you step through your own fear to make the decisions that you’ve spoken about earlier in regards to a relationship, in regards to setting that example for your kids?  It must not have been easy.  We all go through decision-making processes that are very difficult and sometimes they’re pretty scary – how did you get past that?

Crystal: That is a really good question.  I have to say that I think that it’s just part of my inner design, for one, to be very almost stubborn, that I’m just not going to let this get me down, but it also is like a cycle within me.  I put up with what doesn’t feel right for a certain amount of time, and then I just don’t feel comfortable in my skin, and I say something has to change.

And once I reach that point of something has to change, then I become very goal-oriented.  “Okay, this is what I need to do.  I need to, you know, have money.  I need to have a plan.  I need to have support in place,” and then I begin to make lists of those goals and check off the list when I accomplish this, this, and this.  And then what looked like this huge feat that wasn’t doable, all of a sudden is, you know, I’m checking off all the little things that make the big feat doable.

Toni: It’s interesting because you spoke to doing that for the support that you give to your kids when you help them to explore their own potential, that you show them that they need resources in order to accomplish something, and again that list-making.  What do I need?  What do I have to plan?  What do I have to do?  And it sounds as though instead of being stopped by your own fear, you really kind of marched through it by finding the resources that you needed and the goals that you needed to meet, and you just went ahead and did it.

Crystal: And too, realizing that I can’t do it alone — and that’s where the resources come in — and I try to encourage them in the same way.  Because I am the single parent in this family structure, I let them know right away, I’m not always going to be here.  I will try, and I’m not always going to have the answers, but, you know, the internet is huge, your school is huge, you know, books, reading, self-exploration, you know, your grandma, your grandpa.  I just think that, you know, it’s huge for them to be able to trust the people around them as well and get from them what they need.  It’s almost like teaching them collaboration at an early age.

Toni: That’s fantastic.  So how do you continue to explore your own potential?

Crystal: The life coaching is huge.  When I met Maia on Twitter, connected with her and just felt this instant rapport, I was completely open to the concept she talked about.  And so just working through my own obstacles and moving forward through them and learning how it applies to life, how I can apply it to my kids, those types of things.

Toni: So really, your own personal development correlates right back to how you help your kids?

Crystal: It does.  It’s like this big, huge circle.  Instead of it feeling like a job or something that I have to work at, it’s just part of how I’m living.

Toni: You’ve internalized it, rather than making it something that you have to do.

Crystal: Yeah; and then it doesn’t feel like “Oh my gosh, now I have this and I have, you know” … and that to me is the greatest gift that I can give them.  Because if they learn to live that way, then all of the cycles that were, you know, going on in my family before, you know, I started looking at personal development are stopped right here and now.  Abuse cycles, drug and alcohol, you know, those types of things, are stopped, because I’m not only changing myself and how I operate, but I’m teaching them to do the same so that they don’t repeat things that were just given to me by growing up in a certain family.

Toni: You really did stop that cycle by reaching out to the resources that you needed, and that collaboration that you spoke of, and it almost sounds as though there is a bit of a collaboration between you and your kids.

Crystal: There is, and I just got goose bumps thinking about that, because there totally is.  I … and maybe this is what makes our relationship strong, but I really value what they have to say to me when I talk to them about a situation.  Which is hard sometimes, because, you know, I’m human and sometimes I’m like “Okay, look, I’m the mom, here’s the way it is.”  But because of the way I’m bringing them up they’ll say “Okay, you’re the mom and you are our mom, but it does matter what we have to say – could you just listen to me for a minute on what I’m trying to say?” They really back in, and like okay … and then I listen, and usually it’s brilliant and I’m just like “Wow, you’re right.”

Toni: It sounds to me the lessons that you are giving, and particularly that word that now is what’s come out for me in this interview is that word collaboration, and it really becomes a win-win, and for you to inspire your kids but also in turn be inspired by them, and to learn for yourself, but then also teach what you’ve been learning is amazing, and so I cannot thank you enough for sharing this information with us today.  We wish you the best of success, Crystal, with what you’re doing.

Crystal: Thank you, Toni.

Toni: You are quite welcome.  Take care of yourself.

___________________________________________________________

For more information about Crystal Church:  www.allaboutlifecoaching.com

.