Shownotes
In this episode, Stephanie sits down with Mindy Ruddock, a vibrant and inspirational figure who shares her journey of self-discovery and transformation as she navigated through burnout and found her true self at the age of 40. Mindy's story is a powerful testament to the magic of reconnecting with one's inner self through movement, mindfulness, and embracing one's unique path to wellness. Join us as Mindy opens up about her evolution from a professional dancer to a wellness coach, and how she rekindled her passion for life by embracing her witchy side and helping others find their own magic.
Episode Highlights:
- Mindy's early passion for dance and how it shaped her understanding of body, mind, and spirit integration.
- The pivotal moments of her life, including a challenging divorce at a young age and the physical setback of a torn calf muscle that steered her towards a new career in massage therapy and aesthetics.
- Mindy's deep dive into burnout during her tenure as a director of education, which led her to reevaluate her life and career choices.
- The transformative power of the COVID-19 pandemic for Mindy, which provided her the space to explore meditation, mindfulness, and eventually led her to embrace and publicly acknowledge her witchy identity.
In this episode, Mindy beautifully illustrates how midlife can be a period of profound transformation and rebirth. Through her story, you will be reminded of the importance of listening to your inner voice, trusting yourself, and the power of self-expression. Mindy's journey from the dance floor to leading her own wellness initiative showcases that it's never too late to rediscover your passions and realign your life with what truly matters to you.
If you enjoyed this episode, please remember to rate, follow, and review the Forty Drinks Podcast. Your feedback helps us bring more inspiring stories like Mindy's to you!
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Transcripts
Stephanie: Hi, Mindy. Thanks so much for joining me.
Mindy: Thank you so much for having me today.
Stephanie: I'm very excited to have this conversation. You have characterized yourself to me as a witchy woman. and I love that and I am a somewhat closeted witchy woman myself. So I'm very excited to delve into this conversation, but before we get started, tell me a little bit about your background and your journey up to 40.
Mindy: Um, Journey up to 40. Hmm, wow, not that it was that long ago, but I gotta take a minute to reflect. I did the typical high school. I'm from Massachusetts, decided to move out a little bit and went to college up in New Hampshire, up in Rindge, New Hampshire. I got my bachelor's degree in dance. I've always wanted
Stephanie: Did you dance as a child?
Mindy: Yes. I started dancing when I was five years old.
Stephanie: Okay. I started, I think I was seven, so, and I danced for about 20 years.
Mindy: Yeah, I, think I did the math recently with one of my karate students and I've danced for about, I danced continuously for about 25 ish years.
Stephanie: Wow. And what did you study growing up for dance and, and what did you specialize in as you went to college?
Mindy: Growing up was ballet, tap and jazz.
Stephanie: Yeah,
Mindy: 'cause that's what we did with those fancy jazz hands and those
Stephanie: Absolutely.
Mindy: And those funky tap
Mindy: steps.
Stephanie: Yep..
Mindy: Went off to college and got exposed to the world of modern dance.
Stephanie: Mm-hmm
Mindy: And learned how to connect my body, mind, and spirit and everything into the dance that I did.
Stephanie: Mm.
Mindy: And found a whole new world of movement, of dance,
Mindy: I mean, growing up ballet, tap jazz, they tell you the steps to do. You learn that step. You repeat that step.
Stephanie: Yes.
Mindy: That is it. Modern dance, you kind of, you do a little more improvisation. You do a little bit more following your intuition, following what your body wants, with some choreography thrown in.
Stephanie: Of course. And with technique.
Mindy: Yes, always with technique.
Stephanie: Of course.
Mindy: But that learning to let go and finding that intuition and learning the language of movement through my own body. Really. That's where I found my magic.
Stephanie: Wow.
Mindy: That's where I really, I mean college. I mean, we can all say college is where I learned about myself and I, I definitely can attest to that. Absolutely.
Stephanie: Okay. So you said you went to college in New Hampshire, which is up in my neck of the woods. Where'd you go?
Mindy: I went to Franklin Pierce in Rindge, New Hampshire.
Stephanie: Mm-hmm . And then from there, where did you launch to?
Mindy: I lived in Ohio for a year and a half. Taught dance out there, moved home, made the next logical step and got married to my college sweetheart. That lasted a year and a half.
Stephanie: I was gonna say you were making a lot of faces when you said got married and you used air quotes with this, with college sweetheart. Just for those people who can't see there were, there was a face and air quotes.
Mindy: Yes.
Stephanie: Okay.
Mindy: Experienced that whole going through a divorce at a relatively young age. I think I was 24, 25.
Stephanie: mm-hmm
Mindy: Had to learn again, new things about myself. Had to realize that it was okay, what I was doing. There were words that, that are in my vocabulary now that hadn't entered my vocabulary yet. Self love and self care really weren't, I was just making my way through.
Stephanie: mm-hmm mm-hmm.
Mindy: I had two boys, then we got married?
Stephanie: Oh, okay.
Mindy: We got married a week after our youngest son turned one. We just celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary, couple weeks ago.
Stephanie: Congratulations.
Mindy: Thank you very much. And I continued dancing, I continued teaching. Teaching something I've loved. It's a part of me.
Mindy: It's a, a gift I was given that I wanted to pass on when unfortunately I tore my calf muscle. I was 39. Yeah, your body does not heal the way it did when you were a 20 year old in college. And I had a two year old and an eight month old at home.
Stephanie: Wow.
Mindy: So I was allowed to grieve my loss of dance.
Mindy: My husband was very amazing with that whole process. And I went to massage school and I started learning a whole new way to use my body knowledge. It was amazing. Taking my movement and body knowledge and transposing it into working with clients on the massage table. And when they would come in and they'd be like, oh, this spot right here hurts.
Mindy: And I could pinpoint that muscle and I could kind of play a puzzle in my head. I used to call my clients my puzzles, cuz I would try to figure them out. I was on a high now, because I'm doing what I love. I'm surrounded by people I love and my career and everything were just growing from there.
Mindy: I ended up also getting my aesthetics license. I became a skincare specialist. So now I'm understanding self care a little bit. I'm teaching it. I don't know if I'm practicing what I'm preaching all the time yet. So it's still, I'm still learning what I want and what I need. I do know at this point that I love taking baths and that is my downtime, and that's something I enjoy.
Stephanie: Mm-hmm
Mindy: I also became a member of the massage therapy licensed board. And I sat on the board for a couple years. I took a logical step in my career and became a teacher cuz I love teaching. So I started teaching massage and aesthetics and I became the director of education at a massage and aesthetic school. And then, I hit burnout.
Stephanie: No surprise, right?
Mindy: No surprise. but I was taking the next logical step. I was doing what was right. I was doing what I thought I needed to be doing for my journey, my life.
Stephanie: And I think that in that decade as well, in our thirties, we feel like we should be cranking on our careers and on the things that we're doing. And so we just, crank and and maybe don't listen well enough to ourselves.
Stephanie: Yeah, so massage and then teaching and aesthetics and then teaching and the state licensing board and being a mom to two young ones. I mean, that's a full plate for anyone.
Mindy: Yep. And two active boys. My sons are active in martial arts
Stephanie: Mm-hmm
Mindy: And they're 22 months apart. So they weren't necessarily always in the same classes. So, doing what most moms do while trying to juggle? Yeah, the burnout happened. School began at nine o'clock. I started finding myself there before seven, to get things done, to take care of things.
Mindy: I was eating lunch at my desk. I wasn't getting the support from my direct superior that I needed. I wasn't getting the training I needed. I love my sleep. I wasn't getting the sleep I needed and I just, I dulled.
Stephanie: Tell me what you mean by that.
Mindy: I feel like when you looked at me, I wasn't happy. I wasn't full of my typical spark. I'm a very energetic, outgoing person and I went very inward, but not inward in a way to reflect. Inward in a way to self- criticize, to hide, to deal with that inner critic. I'm a perfectionist. That's the Virgo in me. My magic was gone.
Stephanie: how did you know, I mean, other than your magic being gone, that that's a symptom. What did burnout feel like to you? How did you know? How were you able to determine that you were in burnout?
Mindy: I actually wasn't, it was my husband. He had to bring it up to me. Now, looking back, I can see everything that led to it, but in it, I was so blind to it. My boundaries were gone. I was checking emails in Maine at a karate tournament. Why? There was no need for that, but I thought I was going to get in trouble if I didn't. No boundaries existed. I was on edge. I was not a nice person. We will leave the word out of it, but I was definitely her.
Stephanie: Oh.
Mindy: Yeah, he had to really open my eyes. Like he didn't physically shake me, but he had to shake me. He had to make me realize what was going on and, at first, I didn't admit it.
Mindy: I'm like, no, that's not, you're not seeing that. I don't know what you're talking about. What do you mean? Oh, I'm doing everything I'm supposed to do. This is my job. These are my responsibilities. And then that light was shed on it and I'm like, oh, okay. Maybe there is some truth to this. Maybe there is some reality to what he's saying and yeah, he was right.
Stephanie: Mm. What kinds of things was he telling you about yourself that you didn't wanna hear?
Mindy: I was a brat. I was getting short with everyone. I was snapping at my sons for no reason. I was yelling a whole lot and I grew up with a yeller, so I don't like being a yeller.
Stephanie: Mm-hmm.
Mindy: So as soon as I started almost seeing the things, I didn't wanna be, that I was starting to become. Yeah and he said, all's I did was talk about work and it wasn't in a good way.
Stephanie: Yep.
Mindy: It was all the negatives. It was all the, this is what happened today. And that is what happened today instead of, oh, I enjoyed the day. Yeah.
Stephanie: Yeah. Yeah. So this was six or eight months before you turned 40, that you were coming up against this burnout and your husband trying to put a mirror in front of you.
Mindy: Absolutely. Absolutely. So I eventually, what ended up happening was on a Thursday evening, he helped me write my resignation letter. Friday morning. I let myself into my office as early as I always did, but snuck into my supervisor's office, put the letter on his desk. Had a video conference with the owner of the school, who mid- conversation said, all right. I was trying to save you, but we're turning this into your exit interview. Yep. You're doing what you need to do.
Mindy: And, I packed my office up in my car before anybody showed up and just waited... and left. I went back a couple days later cuz some of my students were graduating and I couldn't not say goodbye. Made an appointment with my boss at one of the spas I worked at, went back a couple days a week, started massaging on my own because I needed to do something. Started healing a little bit.
Mindy: The weekend before my birthday, I treated myself. A friend from college was doing a yoga retreat out in Western Mass and I went out for a couple days with one of my former coworkers and a couple people from college, spent time in nature flowing and starting to heal.
Mindy: That was Labor Day:Stephanie: Wow.
Mindy: A few weeks after that I started teaching karate.
Stephanie: Karate has not even been on the list of things you've told me. Is that something you had studied previously?
Mindy: No, no, my children took it and mom decided it sounded like fun. So I started taking it and then the teacher in me couldn't sit still.
in September of:Mindy: And the world stops and I'm in Massachusetts. So it stopped. It was a hard stop.
Stephanie: Yep.
Mindy: it was a very hard stop. And I'm a doer. I mean, you can tell by everything I've said so far, I'm a doer and here I am being forced to not do. And forced to kind of take some quiet time and be with my family, and now I'm really gonna start the healing process.
Mindy: I started meditating more. I started focusing on mindfulness. I took a course in mindfulness. I took a course in teaching meditation cuz now this side of the wellness world is, was really beginning to speak to me.
Stephanie: What do you mean by this side?
Mindy: The inward, the focus in, the finally practicing what I'm preaching.
Stephanie: Okay. Okay. So a lot of the things you had done previously were on the exterior of the body,
Mindy: Yeah.
Stephanie: and now you're starting to go inward.
Mindy: Yes. I focused on the, the massage, that side of the self care world. And now I can go inward and I can reconnect with my witchiness self and reconnect with my crystals. And I have time in the day to sit in nature. And I really started feeling like that lost 20 year old again. Like that 20 year old is no longer lost.
Mindy: I found her again. That girl that got to just move in college in dance. I started moving again. When I was, when I left the dance world, it broke my heart and I didn't move. And I didn't allow that side of myself to happen anymore. And movement reentered my life in a way. I had been a martial artist, but again, I'm following the steps that were taught to me. I'm going through the motion of what my instructor is telling me to do.
Mindy: During the pandemic, I went in and I locked myself in the karate school. And I cranked the music. And I moved. And I cried. And I healed.
Stephanie: Tell me what that felt like.
Mindy: I'm gonna cry again right now.
Stephanie: Okay.
Mindy: It was, it was amazing. It was so powerful to remind myself I was capable of those things. I have a thing, I think a lot of us end up doing it. We, we think people think one thing of us. And moving and doing that, I was allowed to let that go. And I was allowed to say it doesn't matter what you think of me cuz you haven't told me. If you really have an issue with what I'm doing, how I'm living my life, then you're gonna say something to me. I can't think you have an issue with me.
Stephanie: Right.
Mindy: And , that was a turning point for me. I started using affirmations a lot and the one that really spoke out to me was, "I trust myself."
Stephanie: I feel like when you start using that one it's it's an affirmation, you, you almost start that one trying to convince yourself you believe it. That one takes a while to settle in usually.
Mindy: That one, I, I started using it to keep the little annoying brat that sits on my shoulder quiet. That little imposter who talks you out of everything. Who is the one telling you all these people think these things about you. But that's no, I, I have to trust myself. I have to follow my intuition, not the voice on my shoulder, but the voice in my head, the voice in my heart.
Stephanie: Mm-hmm
Mindy: And once, now those walls start coming down again and all those unnecessary boundaries I put up could heal and respond, and finally, relax.
Stephanie: Like, what? What kind of unnecessary boundaries did you feel like you were harboring?
Mindy: I have a tendency of keeping people at arms length. I'm an open book. I have no problem sharing my story, but I'm not always the first to be like, "oh, come in."
Mindy: I have a, a friend, he posted something on Facebook during the pandemic. And he said, we need to say the words "I love you" more. And I realized I only say it to my husband and my children and my close family members.
Mindy: I don't share those words. That's not for everybody else. And then I was like, but why aren't they for everybody else? Why can't anybody feel my love? And that, that was big. That was like a whew. Okay. Yep. Didn't realize that one was in there.
Stephanie: Yeah. I wanna go back to you, locking yourself in the karate studio and turning on some music. When you say you moved, can I assume that you were dancing?
Mindy: Yes, I was.
Stephanie: And did you go back to something you had worked on previously or did something new bubble out of you? I'm I'm just curious as a former dancer myself,
Mindy: It was just intuitive, natural movement. I put on a couple songs by Casey Musgraves. I use Butterflies and Umbrella. And then I have a feeling some Miley Cyrus Climb came on. All those inspirational, I could sit and listen to them all day long songs. Now I'm finally moving to them. And I did. I climbed that mountain.
Mindy: I climbed that ladder. I came down, the colors were beautiful and it was just, yeah, I just moved. I didn't jump so much cuz I'm older now and jumping hurts. But I, I definitely just kind of let my body, I learned what my body moves like as a 40 year old. I knew what she moved like as a 20 year old. And I, I wanted to try to revisit some of those moves, but they were not happening.
Stephanie: I can only imagine. Yeah. It's interesting. When, when I was dancing as a kid it was ballet and jazz for me. And then, when I went to college, there was a modern dance company on campus. And so just to keep dancing, I joined that. And at the same time I went to college in Boston. You know, you could take adult classes over at Boston Ballet.
Stephanie: So I did that for a couple of years. That was always fun. But I remember being in an environment of modern dance and I just, it just, I could not, I could not connect. I literally was like, just tell me what to do. What do you want me to do? I want you to improvise. No, no, no, but what, what would I see everybody else improvising. Where would you like me to be? What would, what do you want me to do? I just, and it's so interesting that you say, that when you got to college and were doing the modern dance, it really helped you connect with your intuition and I know for a fact that my intuition was not available to me at that period of time.
Stephanie: So, no wonder improvisation and modern dance was not something that I was really resonating with.
Mindy: And modern dance is not for everyone, just like meditating and yoga aren't for everyone. It takes, a special, crazy mind. I guess.
Stephanie: Yes. Yes. Now when they choreographed modern dance, I was happy to do it. We did a couple of shows and you know, that was great, but yeah, I remember, and I loved, you know, whatever once or twice a week, you'd go in for a class and it was half ballet, you know, ballet warm up and, you know, that was always great for me. I loved it, but but I, I have a vivid memory of an improvisation day where they were like to put on some music and was like, oh no, I, I was useless. It was like, like hysterically useless. Not hysterically. Meaning it was hysterical how useless I was.
Mindy: I gotcha.
Stephanie: Yeah, yeah. But I also, much like you, you know, stopped moving at, actually mine was more recently. But you know, five or six years ago, I I got diagnosed with Lyme disease and have been struggling with that ever since. Five years before that actually right around the time I was 40, I found aerial circus. And I started doing silks, studying on aerial silks, and just fell absolutely head over heels in love with it. And of course it's funny, right? Being the 40 year old in the room of all the 20 somethings and early 30 somethings and seeing them being able to do X, Y, and Z. And you know, a little bit more limited than them, but still just loving it. And I had to give that up a couple of years ago, so I, I understand that sadness of giving up a form of movement that you love so much.
[Intermission]
Mindy: It's been interesting, through the pandemic I've been able to take a few different courses and things like that. And I actually got my 200 hour yoga teacher certification and now I teach yoga.
Stephanie: mm-hmm
Mindy: And the style of yoga I teach is, I call it slow flow. Instead of one breath per pose, it's four breaths per pose. It's much nicer to my former dancer body, but it allows me to do some of those moves that I did because I'm slower to get into them and slower to get out of them.
Mindy: And it's funny, people close to me are like, you? Slow? And I'm like, "Well, I also teach Tai Chi now, too, so yes." Yes. This healing, this taking the time for me has real- made me realize- I do have more than one speed. I do have more than one pattern of movement, I guess.
Stephanie: I love that. You have more than one speed, meaning for several decades, let's call them your twenties and your thirties, your speed was
Mindy: Go!
Stephanie: all the way. Yeah, it was, it was do it all and do it great.
Mindy: Yep. Absolutely. And I mean, not just, not just physically, not in just the things I did in my life, but my thought processes. The way I, I processed anything I did, the way I cooked dinner, the way I, I did everything, and now I'm like, okay so, so what if it takes me a little bit longer to do something? And I'm okay with that.
Mindy: I actually would rather take a little bit longer to do something now. Where before it was like, no, if I don't get this done now I'm not doing it right. And now it's like, what is right?
Stephanie: That is consistent with a lot of other folks that I've talked to around, who says? Whose authority? Who am I living up to?
Mindy: It's not right. Like.
Stephanie: And was this something that you were conscious about shedding, or was it something that you realized after you did it and you sort were looking backwards? I'm just curious around the thought process of getting from go, to slow flow.
Mindy: It, it's kind of a, a reflection back now that as I'm working with more women. I I'm a women's wellness coach and I work with women through burnout. I kind of help them identify, but I, I don't touch that side of it. I deal with the healing. I deal with the internalizing of it and reflecting on with my clients, what they're entering into, kind of forced me to reflect on what I went through and where I am now.
Mindy: When I create a program or I have a night at the dojo, I call it Mojo at the Dojo. It's two hours. It's a physical release. Typically yoga, can be punching bags, depends on where we're going with it, in the middle there's kind of like a group coaching, and at the end, we'd meditate.
Mindy: But as I'm creating those nights, I'm going through the process of everything. So if I'm creating a night, say on confidence and I'm writing my script, I'm taking myself through the class. So I'm experiencing it before they do. So then when they experience it, I can reflect a little bit differently,
Mindy: I can say, "Oh, when I read this quote, this is what I feel. How do you feel now that I'm reading this quote?" Or something along those lines. And it's working with other women has helped me continue my process. Thankfully, it hasn't really brought anything to the surface that I was like, "Oh, yeah, kinda pushed that away."
Mindy: But it definitely has allowed me to reprocess, to revisit, and to slow flow. To sit with things for a little while.
Stephanie: That sounds a lot like when I turned 40, I had 40 drinks with 40 people in 40 different places. And a lot of those people that I met with were folks who had known me at different parts of my life, and who maybe I hadn't seen in five or 10 or 15 years.
Stephanie: And so through those conversations with them, they were reflecting back things at me that I didn't know, or had forgotten or had buried. And so, I'm really relating to what you're saying about why I created a lesson for someone else, but by going through it myself, I got some of the benefit of, what I was trying to achieve for them.
Stephanie: And it wasn't quite as conscious and thought out, what I did, but but there was, there was a similarity to that of being with other people and having reflections and having conversations and then coming to breakthroughs and "Aha moments."
Mindy: So I can, I can actually even more relate to that, cuz during the pandemic, I actually came officially, fully out of the broom closet. And in coming out of the broom closet - witch world - I reopened myself back up to people in my life. I started a group on Facebook for women. I call it "The Positivity Project", cuz everything went negative and I wasn't going down that road again.
Mindy: And it started connecting people I knew from elementary school and college and they're reflecting back, "Oh no, Mindy. This was always the way I remembered you." My fourth grade teacher is in the group, and she's like, "but this is how I remembered you." And it's like, "Your memories of me are not what I remember of me." is
Stephanie: Oh my god.
Mindy: And it is amazing.
Stephanie: Tell me about this. Tell me about your fourth grade teacher. What did she say to you?
Mindy: She has always told me that good things come in small packages. I am five feet tall. I am short. In fourth grade I probably weighed maybe 40 pounds. So she used to always tell me, "Mindy, good things come in, small packages, bad weeds grow fast. Do not worry about what other people think of you."
Mindy: I'll post a picture of my sons, and she's like, "I knew you had this in you." And I'm like, "I wish I knew I had this in me." And I actually sent her a message a while back saying, thank you for being there the way you were and the way you continue to be. I, I sell crystals and stuff and she actually has purchased from me for family members and different things.
Mindy: And it's just amazing to know that the Mindy in fourth grade, she still sees now. And probably, hopefully, sees even more, cuz that in between period, that that Mindy was hidden for so long. But, yeah, it's just, it's crazy.
Stephanie: Yeah. So one of my drinks was with two girls that I went to grammar school with. We were very, very good friends in grammar school and through high school. . And I, I moved to this rural town outside Manchester. My family moved there when I was in second grade. So I met one of the girls. I met Karen in second grade. And then Ginny moved into town the summer before fourth grade. So same era as you're talking about. And the story that Ginny told me when we had our drink was, and back up two steps. Where I lived, in this very rural neighborhood, I have two younger brothers and the neighborhood was all boys.
Stephanie: So lots of boy energy, which was fine and great. And they were friends. Um, but somehow I heard that there was a family with three girls that had moved in up the street. And this is where Ginny comes in. She tells me, one day I put my dog on a leash and said, I was gonna take the dog for a walk and I walked up to the street and basically was loitering out in front of their driveway until, some parent saw me and said, "Go outside girls and go meet this person." Apparently I was very obvious about it. So she's telling me this story and we're sort of laughing and haha.
Stephanie: And it, it stuck in my brain. So later when I got home, I, I looked it up and the, the distance between my house and her house was almost a mile and a half. I was 10. I was 10. And so the thing that I didn't know, as an adult, as a 40 year old, I knew that I was sort of wild and outlandish and bold and adventurous in my twenties, and in my thirties. I did not know I had it that far back. I did not know that it was fully ingrained and on board with me as a human being, versus something, I just decided in my twenties, " You know, I'm gonna be bold and adventurous." Oh no, I always was. So yeah. Yeah. So fourth grade remembrances for the win. Huh?
Mindy: Right? Crazy.
Stephanie: Maybe we should teach all of our fourth graders that, that you're, you're just your truest self in fourth grade.
Mindy: You might not be wrong. Absolutely.
Stephanie: Yeah. So tell me a little bit about you. You said you came out of the broom closet and you're a witchy woman. I is this new? Tell me where this comes from. Tell me how...
Mindy: This, this started coming about my freshman year of college. I met a girl in my hallway who opened my eyes. I don't classify myself any particular religious following. just follow my intuition and do what feels right. And she kind of laid down the groundwork and really opened my eyes to the alternative side of things, the metaphysical world.
Mindy: And I dabbled with it. I worked with it. I meditated always, but didn't connect a lot of that stuff. They were separate. I had a box in my room that I kept my goodies in that no one else could see. Even when I was old enough with my own apartment, it was a box, literally in the closet, that no one else could see that I would pull out.
Mindy: My crystals lived in there. When I needed them, I would pull 'em out. And then that box slowly got closed off and that box got pushed further, further into the closet. And Mom things happened and not lighting a candle around a baby and all that mindset came in and I would dabble with things here and there.
Mindy: And I would definitely ground myself in nature and I would spend time and stuff, but I wasn't fully immersed anymore. Where during the pandemic, I was allowed to take that time. I completely re-did my office. It was a craft room previous, and now it was gonna be turned into a room where I could spend time that wasn't my bedroom and I am 360 degrees surrounded by crystals at this moment in time. They're no longer in the closet.
Mindy: I have a big bowl for burning different incense and herbs. I have my moon waters everywhere. I'm loud and I'm proud and it's not quiet anymore.
Mindy: I actually create a monthly subscription box. Witchy Wellness is what I call it, and I make almost all the products in it. So I'm getting my hands back into the making of things, the crafting of things, that adding my intentions and my energy and my thoughts and my spells. I guess you could say? My poems, all that stuff back into all this, and now I feel even more complete and balanced and fully aligned. Living and doing what I'm supposed to be doing.
Mindy: I mean, don't get me wrong, I have my hiccups. We all have our moments and whatnot, and I've also now learned that I don't judge those moments. I let them happen. I don't stress over those moments. Those too shall pass.
Stephanie: Right.
Mindy: And I post what I wanna post on social media, and you can unfollow me. It's my life and I'm finally ready to live it.
Stephanie: What made you finally ready to live it?
Mindy: There was one day where I just had to say it out loud. I started out with sending an email or a message to a few people I know saying, listen, you've probably already know, always known this about me, but I've recently learned something about myself. That I have this intuitive level of healing that I do. And I sent it to people who were close to me, clients, different people like that.
Mindy: And they actually, yeah, they responded back and they're like, "Yeah, You're finally realizing this?" And it was interesting. I sent it to my brother and he, he was like, good. You can finally really start helping people and doing what you do. And I wasn't expecting to be so accepted and everybody to be so okay with it, because in my head, that judgment of what other people thought was still there. I wasn't fully trusting yet. Yeah, I just started really speaking my truth, using my true voice and not just being loud.
Stephanie: I love that. And is that recent or is that throughout the last couple of years? Is,
Mindy: That's throughout the last couple years, but has gotten even a little bolder. It's even a little more, not in your face because that is not the type of person I am. But now I set up at, I do popups at different events around and stuff, and I wear a little boho witch's hat. And I have a pentagram necklace and I'm decked out and I'm still Mindy. Now everybody can finally see more of me. Instead of
Stephanie: And that feel?
Mindy: Feels amazing. I've been getting a lot of "You're glowing" comments lately from people, and that's really cool because I had mentioned I was dull before. So now to hear that I'm glowing, I'm like, okay, something's right.
Stephanie: Something's absolutely right. Yeah, I resonate so much with all the stuff you're saying. I'm curious, in your twenties and your thirties, how do you think you would have felt about showing these parts of yourself? Would you have been able to? I mean, I know you didn't, but, and I didn't either.
Stephanie: So I'm curious, you know, as you look back, like what would've happened if I had shown myself during those times?
Mindy: I was scared out of my mind. Even when I started massage school, to show people close to me that I had an interest in an alternative profession. I'm not made to do a nine to five, which I eventually learned when I be became the director of education. And I burned out. I've, I'm not physically the type of person made to do a nine to five, sit in my office job.
Mindy: I'm a helper. I'm a teacher. I'm a doer. And my career paths have always kind of spoken to that.
Stephanie: Yeah,
Mindy: Except when I became director of education.
Stephanie: It's so interesting. The strength of the pull of traditional. This has come up in almost every conversation, but the strength of should and us feeling like we should match a picture in somebody else's head.
Mindy: Yeah,
Stephanie: Or we should meet somebody else's expectations.
Mindy: I should take this position cuz it makes sense. When there was no logic to it.
Stephanie: Or it was all logic. There was no feeling to it.
Mindy: Yeah. True. Mm-hmm
Stephanie: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I, I just resonate with this so much. Tell me, I think when I was looking, you launched your wellness company, it's called The Wellness Path. You launched that during the pandemic, is that right?
Mindy: Yes.
Stephanie: Tell me a little bit about what you do.
Mindy: Just before the pandemic, I opened up and I did my first Mojo at the Dojo event. And I actually invited a coach in to do a portion of it because I didn't have the confidence in myself, and I didn't know I had that part of myself to do yet. I was about to do my second one, which would've been 100% me and we literally, it was the Friday we locked out.
Mindy: So I obviously canceled.
Stephanie: Mm-hmm
Mindy: And I sat with my husband and I was like this side of the wellness industry, the not physical side, the more internal side of the wellness industry is absolutely speaking so loudly to me right now. And I just feel like there is a place for me to help these women. I call myself a finder of magic. That spark, that joy, that light that is inside each and every single one of us. But goes out sometimes. Now that I have found mine, I feel I am here to help other women rediscover that.
Mindy: To find that, and to journey back to that place. It exists in each and every single one of us. I sometimes compare it to a pilot light. It's there, but it's not always super strong depending on what we need it for, but it it's time that we, I guess we don't do the shoulds. We don't necessarily follow along with what we're supposed to do.
Mindy: There's more to the world. When we're little kids, when we are those fourth graders who walk that mile and a half to their new friend's house, we have no care in the world, we just do. But as we get older, we're told don't do. Don't go do that. Yes, do this. And I'm at a point in my life where I am ready to help other women do. Do for you.
Mindy: Don't, don't think of it as being selfish that I don't even like that word associated with self care because it's not in any way, shape or form. We need to be on our list. We don't, I mean, not all women can make themselves their number one on their list. And that is okay.
Stephanie: Yeah.
Mindy: Cuz we don't have, there's other things. My, my list is always changing.
Stephanie: Right,
Mindy: Who's where, and it should, it shouldn't be this, this, this.
Stephanie: I had a friend once who said "balance is an illusion. What's probably a little bit more meaningful to strive for is harmony." Meaning the list changes and some days, and some weeks, or some eras, you know, work needs everything or the kids need everything or home needs everything or your marriage needs everything, but, you know, and that's fine, but it's that harmony around the different elements of your life and being able to understand and be flexible enough to let them change positions on the list.
Mindy: I say a lot of times, give yourself grace. Give yourself the okay to shift.
Stephanie: Yep.
Mindy: And that makes a big difference. And that's kind of where The Wellness Path, I called it The Wellness path, because everyone's path to wellness is different, is my little catch. But it, I mean, it's so true, it's not just a saying everyone's path is different.
Mindy: Yours might have some parallels as we have found ours does, but it could have some completely, way off the cuff, but you can still relate and generalize. I'm huge on commonalities when I'm working with people, especially large groups. And when it comes down to it and you strip it all away, the commonality that I work with is women.
Mindy: If you can't connect with other people, then just strip it down to the commonality. Okay. We're women, we're mothers. We have children. How old are your children? How old are, like that whole and everybody starts relaxing and settling down and you realize we are all on a very similar journey.
Stephanie: Right, right. Well, Mindy, this has been an amazing conversation. I, I so appreciate you sharing so generously about your story, about your burnout and about your path back from that to finding you. If our listeners wanna find you, how would they do that?
Mindy: I've made it relatively easy.
Stephanie: Good. I love that.
Mindy: So, my email is thewellnesspathwwc@gmail.com. My website is that same beginning, thewellnesspathwwc.com and all my social media, Instagram and Facebook is thewellnesspathWWC.
Stephanie: Easy.
Mindy: Yeah, I, that took me a while to figure that out though.
Stephanie: Well, you got there and now you've got this great consistency. And so thewellnesspathWWC on any platform, anywhere is how you find Mindy. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate you sharing so generously with me and I wish you the very best.
Mindy: Thank you so much. I appreciate your time.
Stephanie: It's my pleasure.
