The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Melissa Crook, Founder & Host of The F.E.E.L Podcast, Thought Leader & Public Speaker

Episode Date: December 4, 2023

Melissa Crook, Founder & Host of The F.E.E.L Podcast, Thought Leader & Public Speaker Embracinglayers.com Melissa Crook is a woman in her 50’s who currently lives in Fresno, CA with the great love of her life, best friend, spouse, and father of their children, Brady Crook. Melissa loves her husband, her daughters, her son-in-law, the beach, the lake, sunsets, mountains (you can take a woman out of the Pacific Northwest (PNW), but you can’t take the PNW out of the woman ;) ), the WSU Cougs, the 49ers, the Dodgers, and the Olympics (especially track). She’s passionate, driven, loyal, fierce, and brave. She believes in justice, mercy, equality, and empathy for ALL. Melissa is available to speak to your group about the importance of women understanding their value and worthiness when it comes to prioritizing their self-care and overall health. She speaks to the steps she has used in her own experience to set healthy boundaries and embrace her beautiful and complex layers.

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You know, the people that come on the show, we handpick, and they bring stories of a lifetime to you. They bring, you know, what we always say, or I always say on the Chris Foss Show, stories are the owner's manual to life. I'm having some cups printed up. We're going to sell some shirts that say that. Because it's my quote, damn it.

At least I think it is. And so that's what you learn in the Chris Fossosh show that's what gives you the chris fosh show glow when you listen to it so make sure and check out the episodes you know for all the 15 years going on 16 years we've been doing this thousands of interviews i i learned something new from every guest there's always an epiphany i have on the show at least one or two some different ways of looking at it perspective and so if you're not getting that same thing, you stop doing whatever you're doing and actually listen to the show already. That or, I don't know. I don't, just keep listening until you get it. Because there's, I thought I knew everything and most people that know me know I know everything.

At least that's what they tell me. But they don't tell me that. They actually tell me the opposite. You're an idiot. And I'm like, I mean, you have tell me that. They actually tell me the opposite. You're an idiot. And I'm like, you have a point there. They also tell me I'm an asshole and I'm like, or they think I'm an asshole. And I'm like, if you think I'm an asshole, you're wrong because I am. Anyway, guys, enough jokes. We have an amazing young lady on the show with us today. She's going to be talking to us about her interesting health journey that she's been

through in her life and how she can improve the quality of yours and some of the things she's doing in a forthcoming book. Melissa Crook is on the show with us today. She has something she's into called the F-E-E-L or FEEL, Finding Empowerment Embracing Layers. I'm still trying to embrace my layers being a very overweight man. So I'm trying to get rid of some of my layers, but that's what the semaglutide or the, what is it called? It's called the oxy, whatever the hell. Not Oxycontin, people, the other thing. You know what I mean, the fat loss stuff. Anyway, she is a woman in her 50s who is working to normalize conversations for women surrounding self-care, emotional health,

boundaries, and embracing all of their beautiful and complex layers. She recognized the barriers that women face, particularly sisters in marginalized communities. She's working to create a safe space for everyone and host open conversations to support, learn, and grow. She has the Feel podcast, which is for women who are looking for supportive and authentic space to go on this journey together. Welcome to the show. How are you, Melissa? I'm great, Chris. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here today. Thanks for coming. We're excited to have you as well. Give us your dot coms. Where can people find you on the interwebs? Embracinglayers.com. That will have everything we do on there.

All the ways you can learn about us, connect with us on socials, be part of what we're doing. That's all there. Embracinglayers.com. There you go. So give us the 30,000 overview of what you do and how you do it there. What we do is I founded the Field Podcast in July of 2021 with Valencia San Luis and Abby Bacall. And that was out of my own journey of just getting to age 50 and hitting a wall. I ended up in the ER twice in a two week period and had every test on my body done and realized that this was connected to unprocessed emotions, unprocessed trauma that my body had

been storing up for all these years that I needed to move through and figure out. And I've lived all over the country. I know a lot of women and we as women tend to do this. We tend to hit a wall before we start taking care of ourselves. And there's a lot of narratives around that, that we could talk about all day. And we talk about those on the show what are the narratives that lead us here how do we get out of them how do we dispel the myths but i realized we got to start talking about this we've got to start prioritizing ourselves so that we can not only we're worth it we're valuable as we are and we can show up as our best selves in the world but also for our people we're not you're not getting the best of us and Self-care is not selfish.

It's actually beneficial for all of you in your life, but there's a lot of layers to that. We're talking more emotional layers than our physical layers, but hopefully you can dispel some of those physical layers as you move through some of the emotional stuff. Yeah. I've got some physical layers. There's one layer that's all tacos and there's another layer that's all pizzas and stuff like that. And those layers stack up a little more as we get older too. Those layers didn't stack up for me in my twenties and thirties, but boy, my forties and fifties, they'd like to show up. I think there's one layer called cake. Anyway, tell us about this. So one month you, you turned 50, you end up in the ER twice. Tell us about this. So one month, you turn 50.

You end up in the ER twice. Tell us what this experience is like, this cathartic moment that you went through. We had just moved to Lubbock, Texas. My husband had taken a job at Texas Tech University. So we had just moved to Lubbock, and we were in a hotel still waiting for our furniture to arrive from New York, where we'd moved from. And I had went and worked out. I got back. I took my shower. I was calm, getting ready. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, my heartbeat starts racing. I start feeling sweaty, dizzy. And I could just feel in my body, my blood pressure's got to be off too. I don't feel right. And I was sitting there going, and my husband had already left for work. And like I said, we'd been there for two weeks. I hadn't even started work yet. And I was like, I think I'm having a heart

attack or some kind of thing. And so I got myself down to the hotel lobby and the poor young college student working front desk. I'm like, hi, I'm a, you know, my name's Melissa Crook. I'm in room 605. I think I'm having a heart attack. Can you please call the ambulance? And he's like, what? And he kind of stuttered and didn't know what to do. And they're like, turns out for them, the hotel to call the ambulance.

There's a whole set of forms you have to fill out, giving them permission to call the ambulance. I'm like, I had texted my husband already. His office was like five minutes away. And I'm like, my husband's on his way. And he pulled, by the time I finished these forms, if I'm having a heart attack, I might be dead. So we're going to skip that. We're going to just have my husband take me. He took me and they're like, yeah, I mean, my, my blood pressure was like one 99 over one 50. It was insane. And I am,

I am like someone who's worked out my whole life. I've always had that, you know, in my normal years had that pretty one 20 over 80 steady kind of thing going on. My heart race was like 120 and they're like, Oh, okay.

We need to get you this calm down whatever this is they slap on all these things to check my heart and all this and i step into being there like six hours and they look at everything and they're like all your organs are fine we are gonna have to go see a cardiologist to make and wear something around for a month but every all your tests are coming back fine my. My, everything came down. And, and so that was that visit 10 days later, similar. I, we were, I was unpacking at our new home, similar thing happens. I go back to, I call my husband cause I I'm like, I don't think I should drive myself and go back to the ER. And there were a couple of other new symptoms this time. So they checked all those.

And at the end of it, there was a nurse's. I think that you've got, I'm going to give you the name of a doctor ended up being a functional medicine doctor. Like they're going to ask other questions that a typical ER or just a doctor in general is going to ask. And they might be able to help you dig into it.

So I wear the heart monitor thing. I go see the functional med doc and he's like, you got a lot of stuff going on here. And my husband at that point was like, so I think it might be time for therapy. I think it might be time to start unpacking all this is going on because I think you might be having anxiety attacks and because anxiety and panic attacks, those symptoms will mimic what a heart attack feels like. Which I did not know at that point. And I'm like, what do you mean? I'm not. He's been married for, at that point, it had been like 26 years.

He goes, you have more anxiety than you would like to own. I'm like, what's your point? The world is scary. There's a lot just say that. I'm like, what's your point? The world is scary. There's a lot to worry about. I'm not anxious. I'm on top of things. What do you mean? And he's like, yeah, there we go.

Exhibit. There you go. Exhibit A. So, yeah, so I got to the doctor. There was some hormone stuff going on at that age where those things start happening. But it was a lot of just getting some things balanced hormone-wise, some good supplements, but also starting to unpack my junk that I had stored up for all these years. And from childhood, from just different traumas

that happen in faith spaces, relationships, all these things. As women, we tend to feel like there's a primary emotion going on every day. And if we're going to function, we're going to let that primary emotion rule and take care of everybody else around us and everything else gets stopped and we'll deal with it later. We don't deal with it later

because there's never time to deal with it later. We fill our schedules. But when it comes to, we also are very uncomfortable sitting in the quiet. You get quiet too long and it gets uncomfortable schedules. But when it comes to, we also are very uncomfortable sitting in the quiet. We don't want to get quiet too long and it gets uncomfortable because those things start unfolding themselves. And I found all this out through my journey. And as I was going through it, I'm like, I'm not the only one going through this. And we got to start talking about this. People,

women should not end up at my age. I've been healthy my whole life. I should not have gotten here. So what can we do to get women in their 20s, 30s, 40s, or if you're 70, wherever you are in this journey, you deserve to live better than this. So let's start talking about it. Definitely. It's a couple of things there. You know, it's interesting, the more people we have on the show the the the journey of traumas and how trauma will and emotional damage and issues will manifest themselves physically in

the body it's like a poison yes the poison in the mind gets manifested into health issues cancer and other things and and so it's interesting how that works. It's also interesting, I was hearing one time, we had somebody on the show, or I can't, I'm blended in, I don't know if it was on the show or if it was something else that I heard, and it talked about how 50 is kind of an interesting age where we all kind of maturate to a point where we can see our past going really well. We've kind of spent a lot of time mastering life subconsciously, and we finally reached a point where it's starting to make sense to us.

I know males, we understand things more at age 50 about the nuances of stuff, you know, people interactions, things like that. I think women, you know, they get that a whole lot sooner when they're younger. And, you know, it was kind of interesting to me. I had a lot of lights go on when I hit 50 and 52, like a lot of awakening points where I'm like, holy crap, you know. Part of it is you can look back and you can see,

you know, this mess you've left behind. But there's also something that I believe someone said on the show recently that kind of struck me, or I heard it from some other show. But basically, your body, you may deal with trauma and you pack it away. And one of the reasons you hide it, I think it was on Sam Harris' show, and one of the reasons people bury their trauma is because at that point in their time they can't deal with it especially with childhood trauma and so they bury it sometimes they forget about it

and what happens is you reach a certain age where somewhere your body or your your mind your subconscious mind goes hey we think you're mature enough to try and take this on and it's an issue that you don't realize you have so here it is have fun with that um and that's kind of why and so i think i i don't know it's a curious stuff i don't i'm not a scientist that's all true but you kind of you kind of just reach a point where your body goes hey here's some that you is unresolved and maybe you're mature enough to deal with it now i think it's a maturity thing. It's also a safety thing. I think too,

you are in a safe enough space where it's time to unpack this and your nervous system is just kind of alerting your nervous system and your brain will not allow you to unpack things until it feels like it's safe enough. So all those coping mechanisms. And that's where we get into the, I get into the embracing layers piece because we tend to beat ourselves up for mistakes, choices, avenues. We went down and it's like, that's what you knew at the time. That's what you had available to you at the time. So those were coping mechanisms, but our nervous system doesn't always know,

wait a minute. So something other situation mimics that I was in a new town, a new move, a lot of change. So my nervous system, even though I've moved several times, I was without kids moving for the first time. There were some different variables there. And all of a sudden, the lack of safety alarms went off and it took a while to impact that. But you've got to retrain your nervous system. And then as you let your nervous system know we're in a safe space here, your mind and your brain will start unfolding stuff. And how far you get into it and heal really depends on what level of discomfort

you're ready to sit in. If you're ready to face it, if you're ready to like, okay, there's some coping mechanisms that are unhealthy here, I need to make a shift. And I just decided, I mean, I had some kind of things going off in my head three years earlier, in my late 40s, they were like, I am not as content as I should be. I am not as at peace. I'm looking at my life, all these things are happening. But I've got this angst. this, I lived very like always on point, like nothing's going to surprise me. Nothing's going to get me very hypervigilant.

And because of the spaces I had come up in and I'm not going to be surprised. I'm like, I don't need to, what's happening here. And that, and which, you know, and I started writing at that point, but I was still, there was still a lot left to impact. And I for me, I had to get into therapy. I had to have some help in unpacking all of this. This was I was not ever going to get to that point if I didn't get in some very specific therapy, start talking through this, identifying these things, acknowledging them. You can't adjust things you haven't acknowledged or don't even know are there. And as I acknowledged one thing and let that heal, I used EMDR in my process with my therapist. That is a process that worked really well for me. It's not hypnotism, but it's kind of in that family. If you Google EMDR, I'm not going to give a justification, scientific, justified scientific explanation here.

But it was very helpful for me and helped me kind of tap in and impact that stuff and figure out where it came from. So all of a sudden, when my body was amping up, I could identify, oh, OK, this is from that experience. And my body thinks that I'm having that experience now. So I need to do some breathing exercises, go for a walk, do some yoga, just, or just talk to myself and be like, we're not here. It's okay. We're safe. And retrain my nervous system that that's, you know, but if anything mimics that, it'll, you know, come up and these swings were continuing to come up for me. And it was just a lot of stuffed stuff that I hadn't unpacked and linked.

And when you start making those links, and that can be hard in the beginning. I mean, a practice I use every day is to inform what I need that day. I write down all the emotions I'm feeling. We have a very, I think, in our society, unhealthy relationship with how we identify emotions. We consider them good or bad. I have learned they're not good or bad. They're actually, they're clues. They're indicators.

Now what you do with them can be good or bad, depending on what your responses are. And if you don't have some tools, you may respond badly and maybe just not even know what's happening. But I'll sit down, and this is a practice I started about a year and a half two years ago i just name everything i'm feeling that day and i think we have to realize we can we are nuanced people we are we can feel a lot of things at one time because i used to get really cringy when people would tell me all the time to be grateful you just need to be more grateful you just think i'm like and i was just like like, I, that would make me, I'm like, shut up.

Freaking tell me what to be. And I even coined it on our podcast. We have an episode called weaponized gratitude. And it's just about all those times that people told you to be thankful and shut up. And, um, and so that's, so you can check that out on race.com and go, but it was just, I had to like really get into that. What's behind this? And it was that I had, you know, for me, and I think a lot of people in our generation heard, I heard if I started crying as a kid, dry it up, dry it up.

You don't have anything to cry about. Emotions, uncomfortable emotions were not welcome. And so I learned at a very early, in my space that I was in. So I learned at a very early age, not welcome here. And the people that were around me, my younger, I was the oldest. So younger brother, don't do that. That's going to really fire things up in this situation. Calm down. So all that stuff got stuffed and I had to realize, I had things, I had grievance. I lost my cousin when he, I had things I had grievance. You know, I lost my cousin when he I was six. He was two in a tragic accident. I've never grieved that.

I was there as the child to make all the adults feel better. But there was no place for my grief in that. And I, you know, so those I'm just giving a few examples of if you don't process this stuff, don't dupe yourself into thinking it won't come up later. It will. There's a book called The Body Keeps the Score and it does. And that's what happened to me. But it happens to a lot of us. And it happens. You know, women are expected to kind of do all the things. Our society, our culture has created a space where you do all the things, be all the things all at one time. But don't you dare take a moment for yourself because that's selfish and

there's no time for that. And so it's like that, the joke is on the culture of the joke is on everyone on us. That's not a sustainable way to live. And, and so stopping dealing with those emotions, you know, like I said, as a kid, whatever environment you were in, your face space, your workspace, your relationships, allowing yourself to be and giving yourself grace.

But if you don't do it, so if you're feeling a little funky, I think it comes up a lot in midlife because we just get to a point where, like you said earlier, we know enough about our life and there's things we just don't care about anymore. I just don't care what that person thinks of me. They drain my energy. And I don't need to keep that relationship alive. It's not healthy for me anymore. And I just don't care because it's too much of a cost for me. Or that job. Or that faith space.

Whatever it is. That neighborhood gathering. whatever it is, we just care less than we did in our 20s and 30s when we were trying out to impress the world and make our way. And so that allows space for us to start uncovering things. That's been my experience and a lot of women I know too. There you go. So what does it look like to, as you call it, feel? F.E.E.L. for those who are in the audience that can't see this. What is that concept of feel look like? And what are some of these layers? Give some examples of what the layers are. Okay. So I wanted, when we started this podcast, I wanted it, I knew that one of my big issues for me was allowing room to feel everything, but I wanted it to mean something. There's a lot of stuff out there about

feel this, feel that. What does it mean? And for me, it meant, and this was work with my co-founders and our family members of what does this mean as we wanted to create something unique to us. And it's finding empowerment, embracing layers, and that's finding your empowerment, finding your inner strength, believing in your value. And for us, and for me, that really goes back to embracing your layers, which means accepting all those aspects of yourself for what they are. I think we need to take a little bit more of a neutral stance towards the choices we've made and really get into why we made them instead of just crucifying ourselves for the bad choices. Take them for what

they're worth, learn from them, own the mistakes, but don't let them identify us. Don't let them deplete our value. And we have a really hard time with that, especially in a social media world. You see all the bright, shiny things that no one wants to talk about the other stuff, but that's all part of what makes us who we are. And it doesn't mean you have to love it, but just at least acknowledge it, make space for it, own it and move forward and just keep moving forward. For my experience, the layers look like confidently setting healthy boundaries, seeing the connection between your emotional health and physical health. I had that personal experience.

I thought I didn't deal with my emotional health and it started showing up physically. My body started screaming at me. And sometimes when our bodies, we get diseases or issues or sick or anything, we get mad at our bodies. Our bodies are letting us down. No, your bodies are crying for help. Your bodies are letting you know something needs to be dealt with. It looks like how can we support ourselves and other women and living

unapologetically? We have a very scarcity mindset. We're in competition all the time. And we don't realize that when I get successes, that makes more room for your successes. And I want you to come with me on this. I'm not trying to kick you off the ladder, but I think a lot of corporate America and those things, and to a certain degree, women in the workplace and how they're viewed, they've kind of been sold this narrative. There's only room for so much.

There's not room for all of you. And I don't think that's true. I think the more space we create meets more space and invitation. It's how you approach it. And if you approach it that way so how do we show there's a rising tide for a rising tide lifts all boats yeah yeah exactly that that and so yeah it's that living out of our own expectations versus other people's expectations if you're i think that's what happens a lot in life too you realize you went to college you the degree, you became whatever you became, the doctor, the lawyer, the attorney,

the foundation, founder, whatever it is you became. Was that based out of your own expectations or your parents' expectations or family pressures or what that is? And a lot of times we'll hit that point. We're like, wait a minute. I have not been living out of my own expectations. And then, you know, what are your why? What are your values? We say yes to everything so many times as women. We don't stop and ask, does that align with who I am? Does that align with what I care about? What do I have time for? Or am I just people pleasing here because

I'm afraid to upset somebody? So identifying those why and those values, and then that will inform if you can get a hold of those things, those healthy boundaries, communicating those, living out of those expectations, it's going to make for a healthier you. You're going to make space for you in your self-care because you're going to have boundaries around your time. You're going to be living out of who you are. And it's also going to make for healthier relationships. You're going to show up better when you feel better, when you've identified who you are. And you're going to have people respond and react to according to how they see you play out. You may see a shift in your relationships because all of a sudden, all those people you were saying yes to all the time. If you start creating some boundaries with them, they may not like it.

I mean, they may they may not want to see you shift. And so sometimes you get it can be a lesson. It can be hard. And that's why, you know, this is an engagement practice. This mean this is not for women that want a quick fix. You're going to have to engage with this. Ask yourself some hard questions. But it start in and about, you know, I open all of our podcasts with women introduced by their character traits, not by what they do, because we don't know who

we are. We identify by our labels and our titles and our list of accomplishments. But if any of those things go away and you're taking a value hit, then that's time to stop and talk to yourself. Wait a minute. This is what I do, but but who am i and how does who i am inform what i'm doing because if you're terribly unhappy what you're doing it might be time to sit down and look at your character traits and be like wait a minute what's informing this um and so that all is tied into feel finding and through these practices i found in minor experience I brought on. We just dropped our 75th episode last week. And we've had and women are coming on saying, yes, I agree. And the thing is, is that the people that come on the show, we have all ages, all demographics, all backgrounds, faith spaces, all that, because I really want women to be able to go to our website and find someone they can connect with.

So the other thing about it is no one has arrived. We are on a continual journey. You're going to continue to unpack your layers, but you've got to make room to feel. If you don't make room to feel, you cannot operate as a robot. It's going to be very difficult to do this well in a healthy way. Definitely. I mean, it makes all the difference to think. So there's a lot to unpack there. Let me try and dial back and see if I can go through some of it. One of the things you mentioned is being able to look at different emotional traumas that you had and how you felt like you were in that place again that maybe was in the past. And your brain was thinking, hey, we're in that environment. that maybe was in the past and and your brain was thinking

hey we're in that environment it was creating that fight or flight i believe yeah experience for you and i i think i remember where i was getting some of this data from it was the sam harris show and arthur c brooks was on it um wrote a book with oprah winfrey called build a life you want yeah science of getting happier but one of the things if i recall rightly i could be wrong on wrote a book with Oprah Winfrey called Build the Life You Want, The Art and Science of Getting Happier. But one of the things, if I recall rightly, I could be wrong on this, but someone can message me if I'm not. But he talked about that. And basically, you need to take that, and I think this is what you went through,

you need to take that experience, that emotion, and be able to disable the emotional electricity that's connected to it and disempower that so it doesn't have that sort of firing on you. And you can tell your brain, like you said, I'm not connected to that anymore. There was a few things you unpacked. I think you referenced that society might be representative of some of them. One of them was the competition between women and all the things that go on with them the workplace etc etc and i've seen that in a lot of a lot of my a lot of the women i've been involved with their their competitive nature and and how they do things a lot of a lot of this comes down women's competitive nature their their nesting habits their their multitasking

you know you guys have a much bigger memory brain center than we do and it and these are all features not bugs and they're there for a reason i mean you guys are are designed to be hyper vigilant your nest to make sure there's you know there's nothing there's nothing that can hurt the children you know you guys's whole bio nature is very different than men's. You know, it all comes down to hunter-gatherer. This is all cavemanship really when it comes down to it. We really like to think we're advanced and we're not.

And so how can women, like, for example, the competitive thing, that's a nature thing. That's a female nature thing. You guys are gatherers and you guys compete for the best gatherers for the propagation of the species and your children in your nest. And you're going to be competitive, hyper with other women to get the best resources. That's just how everything we do is to propagate the species. So how do you, how do you balance that or disengage that? Because I've seen that competitive cutthroat nature that women have towards each other, even as they smile at each other,

how do you, how do you unpack those layers or resolve those issues? Or, you know, how do you, how do you, how do you, is there a way to do that?

First of all, I think we have to prescribe to the idea that we're better together. The more we're working together, the more of us trying to find those good resources together, the more we're going to find you as a singular person can only move the bar so far. That's just, you know, if you are a woman in a space, a workspace with 12 men, it's going to be very, you're just going to be limited to what you can do. But if they, if you can get in there and make space and invite other women into the space, you're going to move the needle together farther, better. It's just, but I think that that's not what we've been told.

We've been told we get to fight and women have to quit fighting like men fight and start using our tools and our gifts of engagement and how we connect with people and how relationships are important to us to connect rather than, and show up as women show up, not feeling like we have to show up as a man. That's my, that is what I have viewed. And that if we work together, we're going to collect more good. We're going to find more good resources because more of us are going to be out there together, bringing it back. So instead of just finding those few enough good things for your pod right here, we're going to find a lot more good things because we're going to cover more ground. We're going to get more of our voices heard. We're going to find more resources. And that just opens up more bounty for everyone.

That is what I have found has worked for me. So it's starting with being, but you got to be comfortable in your own skin first as a woman. If there are insecurities and fears that are built into that, you got to unravel that. You're not going to be able to not feel threatened and to be willing to invite people in until you're okay in your own skin and your own value. And that means that if I lose this job tomorrow in this C-suite executive, I'm no less valuable than I was the day before. I might need a paycheck soon. That condo payment might be hard to make. But my value, who I am, my why for existing, that's all still there. so you got to get to that space first and it's very difficult to do it's very difficult because people know us that's the first thing somebody

asks you when they meet you so what do you do so what do you do and for women they feel like to justify their value in this world they've got to have a laundry list of all their accomplishments or they won't be seen as worthy or valuable and And I've learned, I've got to get to a place where I'm good. You know, I'm, you know, I had, I'm good. This is, this is, I'm, I'm passionate. I am, I am fiery. I'm loyal. That's who I am. That's who you're going to get. And I'm going to invite other people in. I love relationships, but you have to get okay with that stuff. And if you're not okay with that stuff, if you feel like your value is only true, intrinsic, inherent, based on knocking everybody down as you go up, you're not inviting anybody to come with you because you're fearful. You're scared.

You're scared of losing that. And so it starts with our own journey of getting good with ourselves before we can feel OK. And that's hard because there's a lot of voices around us. I mean, it's still women still aren't paid equally in the workplace. You know, this is still a true thing in America in a lot of spaces. It's getting better. It's improved. Opportunities are way better than they've been. They've never been better, but I think we can continue doing increases opportunities if we show up together as a unit rather than as singular people. I would, I would, we've had several people on the show about the money thing. I, on, when I was younger, I studied Harvard business review and Harvard business put forth these things. And I remember, and this is in the 80s, I remember reading this thing that one of the challenges that women had was because of

their cattiness and their competitiveness with each otherness. And that, you know, competing for resources, like I said, it's a feature, not a bug. And I think it's important that we need to start identifying what is behavior by nature and biology as opposed to blaming society for everything. Because society, I've never seen a billboard saying, hey, you should act this way or be this way. Women's value to society is part of their nature. I mean, that's how they're valued. They're seen very differently than men. Men were based upon performance

and, and building things. Women are based upon beauty and their value and how society sees them and their image. And, and we don't have that, you know, I mean, some of the things you've described as, as not caring about your image anymore, that's very masculine. That's a masculine trait, not a feminine trait. But one thing i heard from one of the early leaders of feminism is she said one of the problems that women have nowadays is it used to be they were very women are communal communal by nature they're very egalitarian they they're very social you know when you guys get together you talk you know men we just hang out and it used to be that in the tribe and all comes back to cave and stuff you know women would get together and they would have

the elder women that would guide them and and teach them and talk and they would do stuff together and and they you know the dopamine goes up you know all that chemical stuff that increases happiness and joy and fulfillment and being a community. And, you know, now we, you know, we live in this thing where everyone's separated, you know, you're not even living close to your relatives anymore. You know, you don't have the elder women to guide the younger women and say, you know, that's probably not going to be something that's going to be a behavior that's going to work well for you. You know, now we just got TikTok telling women to go out and have hot girl summers and rack up

triple digit body counts. Then we have other women that are going, I don't know that that was the right thing for me to do because I really can't fall in love anymore and I have emotional damage from it. So there's a lot of this going on, but I think what you're doing, it seems like you're trying to rebuild that community where women can have that community where they can, you know, they can at least recognize some of the competitive nature. You know, I've been single all my life and every girlfriend I ever had comes home. And I think just about every man can attest this that I know that's married, you know, our wives or girlfriends will come home and what they'll describe about what they say are their friends

or the people at work are this sort of things where i would just go why don't you just murder them because that's what i do as a man i mean that's usually how i get them to stop it i just go why don't you just go kill fucking betsy just just kill just murder betsy they're like it's not that bad and i'm like j Christ, you talk about your friends. Like I talk about my enemies, but you know, but you understand that the nature of, of women and competitors,

and it's a feature, not a bug. I mean, I think it's important people recognize that, Hey, there's a reason this is here for the propagation of species. Women compete with other women for the best DNA for the highest quality resources they can get because they're trying to give their children the best shot at the future. We're just animals breeding for the universe at this point.

That's what it wants. So, thereby we go. So, let's get into some other stuff as we round out. So how have you kind of reached a point where you're doing current self-care practices? How have you developed and gotten into your own I'm feeling and that informs what I need that day. So if I'm feeling anxious, excited, I might need more of a super hit workout, cardio workout, something that's going to really work that stuff out. You know, boxing work, something that's going to really work that stuff out. If I'm tired and I'm drained, I just might need a good stretch. I might need some yoga to just kind of work out. I might be sore from a workout the day before,

or I may just need, if my anxiety is really ramped up and that HIIT workout didn't work, like I'm nervous about a new project that's coming or dealing with a hard relative or whatever it is, then sometimes on those days, I'll do used box breathing exercises where I'll just stop once an hour. Yeah, so you take two minutes, stop once an hour.

You can Google box breathing. It's that four, seven, eight practice. And I'll put my timer on and for two minutes and that resets my nervous system. But it starts with me every day. I gotta see where I'm at and what do I need today. Now, there's some practice. I try to walk daily because I know for my physical health and getting outside is important for me.

So there's some things that are just I always try to do every day. But then within that, do I need something different? Do I just need to read? You know, whatever it is. But it starts for me with acknowledging what I'm feeling and then forming my self-care around that. There you go. I like what you said there earlier. You said, you know, deciding what I need for the day or feeling where I'm at.

I don't have that exact what you said, but you basically are doing a self-awareness practice from what it sounds like to me. And going, you know, where am I at? How, how, what do I need? And, you know, the one thing about self-care is, and, and, and God bless mothers and, and, and women, because they, they serve so many of us to eat last, you know, all that sort of thing. You know, mom was always so busy cooking and taking care of you and, and she takes care of herself last.

And the problem is if, if your personal bucket isn't full, if your self-care isn't full, if you aren't full, it's hard to give to others. And if you're constantly giving, your bucket's always empty. And I think that's where a lot of things that go out and some of that I believe is based in nature, but also I think it's important that we look at nature and go, okay, there's probably a better way to process this.

It's more stable. Because a lot of the nature we've talked about on the show, and I've said that it's a feature, not a bug. These were okay when we lived in caveman times. Right. But we're not living in caveman times where you can kind of, I don't think you were kicking back in the caveman times. But, you know, times were simpler. Let's put it that way. You didn't have a corporate boss and you didn't have 50,000 things coming at you and kids in schools and these millions of things that go on every day for modern world. We're overloaded.

Both men and women, we're substantially overloaded. And then social media on top of that and all this crazy stuff. One thing that's important, too, that I remember hearing this feminist gal talk about, she talked about how one of the reasons women really seem to have a lot of, they really seem to enjoy events like the Women's March and some of these marches where they get together, events where they get back together, is there's a symbiotic thing that we have where being within each other's reach, and part of it's with the brain.

So when we're looking through 2D screens like this, we're not seeing the full features and body language of each other. But there's a whole different way our brain processes stuff when we're physically of each other. Yeah. But there's a whole different way our brain processes stuff when we're physically near each other. And we can see our whole bodies, body language and process. Like we're still not designed for these 2D screens. You know, we're looking at these things all day long. And so there's so much of a more of a dopamine, serotonin,

you know, all that stuff that goes on when we're together as people, in person, as humans. And I think we need more of that. Yeah, it just, it creates the community. And that's exactly, and we gain strength from that. When we gather together, we feel like we're fighting for the same thing. We're on the same page together. And as you mentioned earlier, the way things used to be set up with learning from the generations ahead of us, that's so powerful. And that's why we have women of all ages and backgrounds on our show as part of this, because we can all learn from each other. We need that wisdom, but we also need, I think the older people can learn from the youngers too, because listen,

the youngers have been through things that we haven't been through. My, my daughters had to go to school during COVID. No one, no one, none of my 70 year old friends had to go to school during a pandemic. I mean, so there's, I think it's being, but that continual, I can learn from you. I, the multi-generational relationships are so important. It's so important to see and honor what's been done before us and the wisdom that is garnered from that. And it's also so important to see what's coming and the energy within it. Encourage that, affirm that. I'm a big, big fan of mentorship. Take those skills, take those things you've learned, offer them up, help the

other people, bring them with you. And because it's through that community that we are stronger and better and healthier. I mean, everyone knows we are healthier when we come together and do that. That's the idea is let's create a community for these conversations, for this safe space where people can come in and have these things and know someone's there supporting them. And where there's somebody with resources that they didn't know about before, that might be helpful for me. Because we all have to figure out our own way for this. You talked about my self-care earlier. It's different for everybody. I need things differently than some of my friends or girlfriends need. What works for them to work

out their anxiety may not work out for me. So you also got to be patient within the process, but by listening, learning, you might hear something, learn something that can be helpful and beneficial, but it's just the affirmation and encouragement that we gain is so uplifting. And it's how we, we're better together. We're better together. Definitely. Definitely. It's the world we live in is so disjointed. And now people don't even really get together anymore. They don't go out to eat. They don't. I was just hearing some studies recently that, you know, they're going to be probably, you know, a lot of diners and restaurants and, you know, places that maybe have fast food and they have a side area where people can eat,

those are sitting empty now because people just aren't coming back from the thing. And yet we have depression higher than ever and everything else. And we need to be together more. And that's the other thing, too. We're not together in the office, too. Yeah, yeah. We're really starting to suffer because we're not around other human beings and our brains actually need that from the people we've had on the show who are the scientists that

talk about all this stuff i forget what they're called but but we need that interaction that's why we feel so good when we get together with somebody over lunch or dinner breakfast we hang out you know we do the whole thing and we have less of that now than ever before but community is so important and then as you mentioned earlier you touched on knowing that we're not alone sharing each other's stories knowing that we're not alone uh that there are people that have resources around us that survived whatever sort of cathartic moments we won't go through and so having that journey is great so tell us more about what you do on your website, some of the offerings you do. Evidently, you're trying to build that community or you have built that community, et cetera, et cetera.

Okay. So if you go to embracingladiers.com, you're going to find a sources page. That's where you can go to find the sources that all of our guests have shared that help them, either how they can help you or things that they use that can be helpful to you for whatever it is you're looking for sources of books, podcasts, exercises, journaling, whatever it is, you know, guests offer that. So sources page is a big, it's a great resource. We also have our social media is all on there. So you can follow us on social media and engage. We have a very engaged Instagram Instagram group we're growing our LinkedIn more and more on our Facebook those are the really three primary we have tick-tock that's starting to grow

more and more to we're reaching people over that we're working on our YouTube page but we have a substack community so if you really want to interact with us in conversation you can get the link to our sub stack community. That's where our sub sub stack subscribers get all of our links to our blogs. First, they get our newsletters first, any new thing that we've got coming up previews. They will be the first ones that have a chance to be part of our launch group for our book that's coming out in February. So, and, but that's where week, you can go look at the blog, and we give ways to engage with each episode on there. So after you've listened to an episode

and read the blog about the background, there's ways to engage where that you really you're sitting here asking yourself questions, you can comment in the sub stack and give feedback or just say I'm struggling with this. Does anybody have any insights on that? So that's really that sub stack community is where you can go and get, it gets a little more personal, more specific to each episode and each thing that's going on. And those are the big ways. If we have a contact form, if you want to be a guest, you think I've got something to offer here. I'd like to talk to her and see about being a guest. If you would like me to come talk to you about what we've talked about today and talk to your group and present, use the contact form. If you want to know about more about a radio show that's coming up, go to the contact form.

Those are all the different ways you can engage through that. But I really encourage you to start following us in and, because that's how you're part of the community. You can listen to the episodes, but if you don't engage with us on social media, engage with us in the sub stack, I can't unfortunately be with you in the room everywhere every day, but we will be, you know, that's just not how this works worldwide, but, but bringing people in that's the, all of that is there on embracing layers.com. We have several tabs that are linked to that. It gives history of us. You can learnlayers.com. We have several tabs that are linked to that. It gives history of us. You can learn more about our staff.

You can learn about my why, why I'm doing this, all those things. It's right there. And if you scope put embracing layers in or if you Google embracing layers, it's going to automatically lead you to our different social media platforms. There you go. You guys ever do anything with self-accountability? We do. I mean, a lot of that comes up in the conversation. I mean, you have to be accountable for the things you've done, haven't done, felt, haven't felt, and then accept that. Okay, listen, I really messed up there. I was really bad in that relationship.

I treated them really poorly. And instead of just stopping there and crucifying yourself, like, okay, what was that rooted in? Why did I do that? So I can make sure I don't do that again. Where did that come from? Was it a product of the environment? Was it a product of something I experienced? Was it my own fear?

What was that? Trauma? Yeah, trauma, whatever. Unravel that so that you can heal it and not do it again. But you can't do any of this work without the accountability and your peace and owning that you get to decide how well you're going to live your life. At the end of the day, we always have a choice. We don't have it end of the day, we always have a choice. We don't have it in a circumstance. We don't have a choice. Life happens. It comes. There are things every day that happen to us that we don't choose, but you do get to choose how you show up in it. You do get to choose how you respond or don't respond. You do get to choose who you engage with and choose to have in your life. Those are all

choices. So I'm really like the word victim. I get a little cringy about, you know, because yes, in a moment when things happen, absolutely a victim, but what are you doing from there to move forward from that and heal from it? And, and because that doesn't change your value, you're still valuable. So what are you going to do to get, you know, if you're not feeling valuable from that horrible thing that happened to you and that situation, you had no control over it. You now have a choice of what you do with that. And it's okay to sit in it for a while. It's okay to, because I think sometimes we have to be careful with the accountability that we don't sit in the muck

first and feel it because we don't feel the sadness, feel the anger, feel all that. It's going to creep up later. So sit in it, figure out the root of it, but then keep moving forward. Heal from it. Be better. Keep learning. I think we've got to get rid of this idea that we get to a certain age and we're done learning. We can't learn anymore.

What's happened has happened. I can't change. I'm just going to be a grump the rest're done learning. We can't learn anymore. What's happened has happened. I can't change. I'm just going to be a grump the rest of my life. But that's a choice. That's a choice. And is that really how you want to show up for you? Is that really how you want to show up for your people? And, you know, so that's for,

so it's this whole thing is wrapped in accountability about the choices you make to decide what kind of life you want to live and be in the choices you have within that how you want to perceive the kind of relationships you want to have the spaces you want to be in yeah and i think i think one of the challenges is and it comes into nature that you know the the value is based for the society gives is based upon image and and and so people want to defer taking accountability from certain things because they're worried about their image and their value

in society and how they'll be valued and and so that that seems to become a thing and we've gotten this into this victim victimhood competition society where everyone's trying to out victimize each other if you if you read most you know news things nowadays that you know aren't off they're kind of off news you know you'll read about some celebrity or whatever the hell and you it always starts out with this victim oh i was a victim of this and i you're like i think you put yourself in that situation there sometimes you do and sometimes you don't i mean sometimes you don i mean regardless moving forward from that you've got you know and you know that can be hard if that happened to you when you're five years old your choices are limited but at some point you know

when you're 25 and this stuff's coming up in therapy or it's coming up in your relationships you then have a choice to decide which way you're going to go are you going to continue to make these bad choices and use that as a crutch or an excuse to make these bad choices? Are you going to let you're going to get to the root of that, heal it and be better for it? See your value because hurt people hurt people. I mean, that's just what it is. And, you know, and so it's so you have to decide what you're going to do with that because bad life is hard. Bad stuff happens. Life is not fair.

There are groups and people and societies that get things happening to them that aren't fair, that are wrong. So it's then, okay, am I going to just sit and be discouraged and not allow myself to live a life and use, I can't live a life. I'm always treated badly. Both things can be true. You can always be treated badly because of X, but you can also choose, okay, how am I going to make this better? How am I going to still live my best life within this? Yes, this is true, but also, and I think that's the other thing too, is we, if we decide if I move from this, that I'm saying that's not true anymore. No, that's still true. I mean, that's not any less true,

but you are now chosen to live your best, healthiest life, heal, not let that situation hold you back and make you feel bad. You've decided to take that and move forward with it and be the best version of yourself you can be exactly you stop using it as your identity it's probably right yes identity absolutely 100 100 i've seen a few things in life yeah and that's what some people do they take their victimhood and they use it as an identity and for many times it's it's an attention and validation thing. It's a way to get more attention and validation. And it's an interest in the economy.

So a final question for you, because I think these are an interesting thing whenever I hear somebody ask it. What would you tell your 25-year-old self? I would tell my 25-year-old self to quit worrying about what everybody else thinks. Just quit. You're not going to please everybody. So what do you, what do you need? What do you care about?

What is, what is your priority? What are you passionate about? And then the people that love you and are for you are going to show up and be with you. And if the others don't show up and be with you, then they're probably not something that's healthy to have in your life anyway, but quit worrying about all that. Everybody else's thoughts and what saying no is going to mean. If they value it all, it's not going to be that big of a deal. And if they don't value, then you, again,

probably don't want them around anyway. So that would, that would be what I would tell my, because I spent so much time trying to keep everybody happy and balance all the balls. I didn't want to disappoint anyone. And I, you know, because, and that can, you know, if you're doing that, that came out of a fear of, if I don't show up this way for everybody, I won't be loved. I am only valued for how I service and show up in these ways. So if I don't do that, and if that's how your life is working, you need to really look at who's in your life and why. That's what I would tell my 25-year-old self. There you go.

There you go. It's been very insightful and a wonderful story and overcoming that you can share with others. Melissa, thank you very much for coming on the show. Absolutely. Thanks, Chris, for the opportunity. I appreciate it. There you go. Give us your dot coms. And I think give us a plug for the title of your book if you have the title. Yeah. Yeah. Embracing layers dot com. Our book

Embracing Layers and Apologetically. It's for that woman who doesn't want to listen to a podcast. She'd rather read a book. It's got very actionable steps based on our first four seasons, ways to engage, inviting you into the community, but just a different avenue that will come out hopefully sometime February, 2024. It'll be called embracing layers. And apologetically, it'll be available on, on Amazon. You'll be able to find it there. Our embracing layers radio show kicks off January 1st 360 talk radio network for women app. it out there and then the field pop embracing layers the field podcast is on apple podcast you can search us there you can search us on spotify

and again embracing layers.com is going to have links to all of that there you go it's going to be wonderful and creating a community is so important i think we need more communities and maybe we all need to get together more and quit. You know, all this stuff is just breaking our brains by not being in person and seeing each other. And,

and I think it's a, it's a good thing to, to, I don't know, maybe we need to get in the streets and unite over something more often. Yeah. So there you go. Thank you very much,

Melissa, for coming on the show. You bet. Thanks, Chris. There you go. And thanks for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, LinkedIn.com, Fortress, Chris, Melissa, for coming on the show. You bet. Thanks, Chris. There you go. And thanks to our audience for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com, 4chesschrisfoss, linkedin.com, 4chesschrisfoss,

chrisfoss1 on the tickety-tockety. Subscribe to the big LinkedIn newsletter. That thing's crazy over there and the 130,000 LinkedIn as well. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe, and we'll see you next time.