All About The Joy
All About The Joy is a weekly hang-out with friends in the neighborhood! We share insight, advice, funny-isms and we choose to always try and find the positive, the silver lining, the "light" in all of it. AATJ comes from the simple concept that at the end of the day we all want to have more JOY than not. So, this is a cool place to unwind, have a laugh and share some time with friends!
All About The Joy
A Guide to Unconditional Love, Boundaries and Relationships with Guest Christy Holt
What if your relationship struggles aren't actually about the other person? What if the key to lasting happiness lies in recognizing that you're the common denominator in all your problems?
Christy Holt, the self-proclaimed "Happiness Hussy," joins us to share her transformative journey from people-pleasing and perfectionism to genuine self-acceptance. Drawing from her own experiences of divorce, parenting challenges, and personal growth, Christy reveals how taking "radical responsibility" for our lives can fundamentally change our relationships.
"You don't have a relationship problem, you have an identity problem," Christy challenges, unveiling how our conditioning—especially the "good girl" training many women receive—creates patterns of martyrdom and self-abandonment. She explains how physical illness, emotional distance, and relationship conflict often stem from a fundamental disconnection from ourselves.
The conversation takes powerful turns into boundary-setting, with Christy clarifying the difference between preferences ("you can't do that") and true boundaries ("if you raise your voice, I'll remove myself"). Her insights on unconditional love are particularly illuminating—far from accepting mistreatment, real unconditional love begins with self-compassion and includes healthy boundaries.
Throughout our discussion, Christy's infectious energy and compassionate wisdom shine through as she shares practical strategies from her CREATE method for reclaiming your authentic self. Whether you're struggling with people-pleasing, boundary issues, or relationship conflicts, her message carries a liberating truth: you don't need to become someone new—you need to come home to who you've always been.
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Music By Geovane Bruno, Moments, 3481
Editing by Team A-J
Host, Carmen Lezeth
DISCLAIMER: As always, please do your own research and understand that the opinions in this podcast and livestream are meant for entertainment purposes only. States and other areas may have different rules and regulations governing certain aspects discussed in this podcast. Nothing in our podcast or livestream is meant to be medical or legal advice. Please use common sense, and when in doubt, ask a professional for advice, assistance, help and guidance.
Hey everyone, welcome to All About the Joy. The private lounge. Cynthia's in the house, rick Cost is in the house and we are so happy to welcome our guest, christy Holt. How are you? We have been trying so hard to do this and so I'm so glad. I think this is the perfect time, though, for whatever reason, I had to cancel with you once and then you had a conflict, and it's all good. We're here now. I am just glad to have you on the show. I'm going to start with the first question, because this happiness, hussy, thingamajiggy had me floored when your people reached out to me. So I want to know where that comes from, because it's hilarious and cool and memorable, and I want to know how you got into this about someone who didn't really see me as all that positive.
Christy Holt:They kind of were, it was really a reflection of them. But my cousin kind of said to me in response to this, like, oh you, happiness, hussy. You like, how dare you be so positive? And I was like, oh my gosh, I'm yeah, I'm stealing that because, yeah, what better to represent the mission that I'm on to spread happiness throughout the world and to do that with just a little side of sass?
Cynthia Lopez:So yeah, I love that you know because, it is kind of cool, I like that, with the side of sass Turning a negative into a positive. I like that.
Carmen Lezeth:That's a cool tagline. Do you have that on your website? I didn't see that with a little side of sass.
Christy Holt:I don't know if I do, but I have a bunch of swear I call them sweary AF meditations that I've created and I think, I think I probably use that within my, my copy of those pages of the different sweary meditations, because they are, they're like you know, zen with a side of sass, basically.
Carmen Lezeth:Yeah, that's so cool and you can swear on this show because we all know I mean, I don't swear, I never swear she lies I'm the one you know closer to the lord and everything. So how did you get into this field? How did you become an expert in the work that you do? Because I find that story far, far more interesting than I thought I would.
Christy Holt:Yeah, you know, I think, like everyone else in the world, we just are on a journey. Right, we're on a journey, we're going through stuff, we're having all of these experiences and every single one of those experiences leads us to where we are today. And so, just like everybody else, I've been through some shit over the years and you know I've been married and divorced twice. I finally figured out the relationship thing, which is a big piece of it. You know I have struggled with anxiety and overthinking and overwhelm and perfectionism and people pleasing, just like everybody else, right.
Cynthia Lopez:Which I think we all do yeah.
Christy Holt:I mean, the conditioning is so heavy for especially women and and sorry this is, you know, might resonate a little bit, but I'm going to talk to the women just for a minute here, with the sort of good girl conditioning that we're meant to be nurturing at all costs.
Christy Holt:You know, men on the flip side have to be, you know, a good boy, but that looks different. That is more like being successful and winning at all costs, right, and being tough and strong, whereas women are almost conditioned to be the martyr in a lot of situations, right, we're kind of told that we should be nurturing and giving even if we don't have much left to give, and so that conditioning underlies a lot of the challenges that we often have as adults. And so I was dealing with a lot of that, and especially in my second marriage, I learned so much. First of all, that's where I became a parent, which I'll tell you what I don't know. If any of y'all have kids I'm sure some listeners out there do, I don't they are both the greatest challenge and the greatest gift, because we learn so much. I don't think that I have learned as much from anything else as I have from parenting, because it's a mirror reflection of yourself which is that a good thing?
Carmen Lezeth:Is that a good thing? I don't know.
Christy Holt:It's a good thing when it comes to, you know, promoting your growth, but it might not be comfortable a lot of the time and that's where that challenge piece comes from. But back to really, you know, the question of what you were asking in the first place is I kind of came to this like holy shit moment where I had this realization I'm the common denominator in all of these problems, right, and all the, all the things that I was perceiving my relationship with my kids, with my you know, everything that was going on around me. Basically, I realized, oh my gosh, it's me, and that was for a moment a little bit like, you know, kneecapping me. Oh my God, it's me.
Carmen Lezeth:I think so many times we blame everybody else, so we blame the circumstances or whatever. So it's really hard to come to that realization. But okay, go ahead. I'm sorry.
Christy Holt:It's so much more comfortable to point the finger and blame someone else, because you know what that means. That means we don't have to change, which is very uncomfortable, right, and that's essentially where I was before I hit that realization. I was pointing fingers at my partner and wishing he was gonna change and hoping he was gonna change, and complaining to my friends that he wasn't doing what I thought he should be doing. But who was looking at me? Well, probably he was, but we were both. And so when I realized, like holy shit, like I'm actually the one who is in, you know, in all of these things, I mean, first of all, I recognize that this could go a couple of different ways.
Christy Holt:Number one you could go in the guilt and shame spiral on that one, and thankfully I didn't, because that's not helpful or productive. Instead, I took that sort of epiphany like come to Jesus, holy shit moment, if you will, and I thought I'm the one who can change this. Right. And that's where everything really started to shift was when I started taking what I now refer to as radical responsibility for how I was showing up, for how I was responding, for how I was creating the experiences that I was having, because everything goes through our own filter, our own perception. And if we start to recognize that, well, then we start taking back our power. And it never gave your power away. You can't. But you start to recognize. Well, hold on a minute, I'm actually, this is me, I'm creating this and I can shift it, which is much better than being stuck in that like blame situation, is that where you made a decision to deal with, or to the whole self-love thing.
Carmen Lezeth:Yeah Right, you started practicing and you created something. I mean, I don't want to jump ahead, um, but I was fascinated by how you came up with create method or something. Yeah, okay, so you're going to get to that, all right. Yeah, sure, she's going to be on the show talking herself. No ask away.
Cynthia Lopez:Ask away.
Rick Costa:This makes me think of people that they keep going from job to job to job and then they're like yeah, they were terrible there and they were terrible there and they were terrible there and they were terrible there and they were terrible. They'd be like sweetie, it's you, everybody's primary, it's you.
Christy Holt:Yeah, you know, in relationships people often say like it's not you, it's me, like legit, though it is like when you say it is you, because you are the one who is creating those circumstances, and that can be a really big wake up call to start to realize like it's me, which means both. Both you have to take accountability and responsibility for your behaviors, past and present, but also it empowers you to move forward in a way that you can choose right and really step into the life that you want. Instead of sort of living in this like autopilot, reactionary living based on your past experiences and memories, you can start to be in the present moment and choose a different path forward.
Cynthia Lopez:So yes, yeah, go ahead. Sorry, I'm actually a little curious because I know you were saying you know someone finally seeing that they're at fault. You know that they're that common denominator. How do you keep from spiraling and getting depressed and thinking, oh my God, it's my fault, and going down that bad rabbit hole rather than actually turning it around and making it a positive thing?
Christy Holt:Yeah, I mean great question, because a lot of people really do take that. The first thing I would say it's not about fault finding, it's not about blaming anyone. It's just simply about recognizing what you've contributed. And in my personal story I had a few moments and I'll share one of them they share actually quite often which is I'm going to use a metaphor you know, when you're driving home, you're driving in the car, but you're like off in dreamland. You're thinking about I don't know what you're driving in the car, but you're like off in dreamland. You're thinking about I don't know what you're making for dinner and the show you're gonna watch later.
Christy Holt:Whatever you're driving, you get home you don't remember stopping at a single light. How the hell did I get here? I don't remember driving really right, you were on me all the time, right and so that I had sort of a moment like that in my life where something happened in my relationship like holy, holy shit, like how did I get here? Like what have I missed? What have I tolerated, what have I put up with, what have I contributed to to get to this place where it was almost unrecognizable? And so all that to say it's not about blaming yourself, because I could blame myself for tolerating things or putting up with stuff or contributing, but that wouldn't be helpful, right.
Christy Holt:And so it's ultimately just about ownership and say, yeah, these are the patterns, and now that I'm aware of them, that actually puts me in this incredible position to move forward and choose differently. So it's not about fault or blame or guilt or shame or any of that. That will actually just keep you stuck in that, in that spiral, in that negative, in those repeating patterns. And is that what you help people do figure out their patterns? I mean, absolutely it's part of the work, and I'll say that the catalyst to shift from that blame and guilt and shame game is self-compassion. It's being able to give yourself grace, to say you know what I made a mistake, I'm only human. I didn't know then what I know right now, right, which is, which is where we get the guilt and shame from. We think we always should have known better, like oh, because I think I disagree.
Carmen Lezeth:No, I'm just kidding, but I do want to say look, I should have started at the beginning coachchristyholtcom, and that's coach C-O-A-C-H and Christy is C-H-R-I-S-T-Y-H-O-L-Tcom. That's where you can find her book Love Unstuck. Is that correct? You can find out so much information coachchristieholtcom Very important for everyone to know that. I have another question, but I almost don't want to stop you, but I did so. When you're helping people, is it only specifically for couples that you work with or do you work with individuals? What is the like prime persons that you want to work with on a?
Christy Holt:regular basis? Great question, I'm open to working with either. And because you mentioned it earlier, I do want to highlight for me I say this very quite often that I have a podcast episode myself all on this topic. What you don't I have a podcast episode myself, all on this topic. What you don't have is a relationship problem. What you do have is an identity problem and most of our external problems, the things that we perceive as being an issue with something outside of ourselves, it all comes back to that filter, that perception, that reaction.
Carmen Lezeth:I'm sorry. I think you need to say that again a little louder.
Christy Holt:That was a great quote, you don't have a relationship problem, you have an identity problem, right? And so, ultimately, while I am, I'm more than happy to work with couples and give them the tools and strategies that they need to, you know, create a relationship together that is not just surviving but truly thriving. Most of this work is almost on the individual level, at least, that is the foundation and building a relationship that is one of self-love and self-acceptance and self-compassion, because, after all we are, you know, we're just all humans doing this thing and living one step at a time. Like I said before, you know, I think we're always doing the very best that we can with the resources and understanding that we have at the time.
Christy Holt:And while it's easy to beat yourself up and, cynthia, to just kind of really, you know, drive home the point about the guilt and shame Awareness is a beautiful thing it's not there to remind you that you're a fuck up and that you did things wrong and that you should have, should have, could have, would have, whatever. It's there to illuminate a path forward. So, instead of saying I could have, would have, should have done this differently, it's an opportunity for you to recognize that you now have a new perspective. Now you see things differently, and that is really empowering, so that you can move forward with the new information, with the new perspective and do something different right, instead of staying stuck in those repeating patterns. And I will.
Cynthia Lopez:I think it's great because I think it'll work not just with romantic relationships, but friendships too, and families, things like that, I mean.
Christy Holt:I don't want to sound like I can fix all of your problems, because I know my scope and I know you're in trouble now because that's what I'm like, but I will say that I do firmly believe that a lot of the problems that we perceive in our experience can be rectified by really building that solid relationship with yourself.
Christy Holt:This does mean unlearning conditioning. That's not helping you. It means unlearning all of the all of the things that other people told you that you could, should, would be that you didn't want to be you know. It means looking at those beliefs that you're carrying from wherever you might have picked them up. It means processing through unprocessed trauma. It means learning to hold space for your emotions so that they don't get trapped in your physical body. It means learning different skills and resourcing yourself so that you can respond right, so you can regulate your nervous system and respond versus reacting right, and this puts you in a really powerful position to deal with any kind of problems. And I do focus on relationships, but that's not to say that these, these tools are not going to help you in absolutely every potential relationship you have, including, for example, the relationship you have with your body or the relationship you have with money. Right, everything is relationship, and I wanted to also just touch on.
Christy Holt:you mentioned the create method, so I just wanted to kind of give like just like touch on that, because that is my signature system and it's not a linear system. It's not like step one, step two, step three it's an acronym, but all the pieces flow together because life is not linear. And so this is doing things like looking at your limiting beliefs right, it is looking at the way that you set your day up and you know, creating a routine for success. It means looking at how you're fueling your body, how you're hydrating, how you're moving your body to stay in shape and physically feel good. It is about thinking and dreaming bigger. It's about tapping into the authentic you and really creating a vision for the life that you want.
Christy Holt:And then it's taking all of that and bringing it from the knowledge state where, like, you know stuff and you're like that's cool and I know what I should be doing and actually embodying those pieces, so that you are having the lived experience that has aligned with that version of yourself that you really want to be. And I just want to say one last piece on this no, go right ahead, you don't have to become someone else. You're already that. You right here, right now. So sometimes we forget, we forget how powerful we are, we forget that we're whole. We we get duped into thinking that we're broken or something missing that needs fixing and healing. But truly what we need is to come home to ourselves and remember that we are whole.
Carmen Lezeth:I feel like you are and I hope you take this from the loving place it's coming from but I feel like you're a motivational, inspirational kind of speaker and I don't want to use guru in a bad way, but your energy is infectious, you know and the way in which you speak really comes from a place of like love. I can, yeah, you can feel it, yeah.
Cynthia Lopez:Right yeah, thank you.
Carmen Lezeth:Thank you for feeling me and seeing me. No, no, no, that's so true. So I kind of love that. I have to say this isn't what I expected, am I wrong? It's in a good way, hopefully. No, it's in a good way.
Carmen Lezeth:It's so hard, because when you don't know people like you know I'm lucky, because sometimes we have guests on that I do know, but so far the three people we've had on that I don't know I'm like, oh my God, this is the best. It's true though. This is so good. I hope you're enjoying yourself too. At the moment I have more questions, but I don't want to step on. Rick or Cindy, go ahead, okay, go ahead, okay, go ahead.
Rick Costa:I was going to say. One thing you said to me that's super fascinating is holding emotions in your body, and I believe people do do that. Not only do they do that, it causes them to get sick and they're like why am I sick all the time? Absolutely, Because you're holding all this. You've got to let it go.
Christy Holt:I mean I don't know cliche, but I mean it's easier said than done, right, when we haven't been given the tools we maybe haven't been modeled, healthy emotional expression. This is not, you know, it's something that's very healthy to do and we just often, many people, just don't know about it. And I want to just go back for one second, carmen, because I am nobody's guru and I love that.
Rick Costa:I didn't mean it that way.
Christy Holt:I didn't know what you meant, but I often do say I'm nobody's guru, because I don't think.
Christy Holt:I don't proclaim to have all the answers, I'm just a human on a journey like everybody else, right, and I'm really good at helping you find your answers. That's where the magic lies, it's not in someone else. Again, this is kind of this idea I'm broken and I need fixing and I need someone else to tell me what to do. No, you don't. You just need someone to recognize you and to love you and accept you in your wholeness and help you find your truths, your answers and your, your, whatever you're meant to do and be in and have within you. So yeah, I just wanted to touch on that.
Carmen Lezeth:Yeah, but I just think you, okay, I hear you, I'm not going to fight what you want, I don't feel like you're offering cookie cutter solutions, because again, everybody's different, everybody's situation is different.
Rick Costa:Everybody's different, response is different. So yeah, there is no one fits all.
Carmen Lezeth:Yeah, but if she has taken the time, I'm gonna talk like you're not here. She has taken the time and she has used her experience and she has studied this, like, like, I think there's something to be. This is your expertise and I'm not gonna allow you to kind of dismiss it like we have you on the show, cause I know you can help people. I feel helped already. I hear you, but I'm just going to push back just a tiny bit. But okay, I know the horrible word. I meant it more like sarcastically, but yeah, I know I think it's kind of looking. I'm going to be straight up, cause now I feel really comfortable.
Carmen Lezeth:I hate the word life coach. I cannot stand people who claim to be life coaches, cause I'm like you need to have had a life before you can call yourself a life coach and people who are actually life coaches are people like you know, um Gandhi, but they would never call themselves. He would never have said that. You know what I mean? Oprah would never walk around saying that she's a life coach or right. People have had a life and have done something extraordinary, whatever.
Carmen Lezeth:So I get annoyed and so I'm always a little bit hesitant. Yeah, but here you are. I don't call myself, I know you don't, but this is what I'm trying to say. The irony of ironies is is you have focused Cause. I think this is important too, as women. Right, you have focused on something, you've become an expert in something and you have a viable thing, that you're a service that you're providing that we need, especially in this country right now. We really need it, and I think that is important and I won't push it down, you know what I mean. Like, I'm just glad to meet you.
Carmen Lezeth:Um, I haven't shot with you guys too, so yeah, no, let me ask you this question about people pleasing, because some people, when you were younger, when you were younger, when you were younger, you know. I was always my cousin, by the way people pleasing is something that has always, uh, disturbed me, because I don't know where we learned that from, but can you talk a little bit about that because I know you mentioned that somewhere in my research of you.
Christy Holt:So, yeah, definitely, I actually even have a whole whole free resource on people pleasing and I've actually a couple of podcast episodes dedicated to the topic. I think it's a really pervasive issue and a lot of times people don't recognize that what they're doing is people pleasing. So I kind of want to start with a couple of examples, just to make sure we're on the same page of what might look like people pleasing, because I think some people are like I'm not trying to please other people, but, subtly, you're doing stuff because you want them to like you, right? You're doing stuff because you want to be validated, you want to feel valued by someone else, you are maybe expecting a certain kind of response from someone, and so, in a subtle way, people pleasing can come off as a bit of a manipulation. Now, before people freak out because I said this before and people kind of freaked out about it, I don't mean like bad manipulation, like ill willed, necessarily I. I just mean you're behaving in a certain way to create a specified outcome that you'd like to see happen. Right, that is manipulation, in the same way that me moving this cup over here is manipulation, right, trying to create an outcome.
Christy Holt:I think, for the most part, a lot of the people tendencies come from childhood trauma.
Christy Holt:They come often from a parent child relationship where generally, probably by no fault of the parent on purpose again, no ill intent created this response from the child realizing I need to, you know, behave a certain way in order to get my needs met right, whether that be food or water or emotional needs, whatever that might look like.
Christy Holt:And so you know, maybe you were, I don't know, called out for being bad, being too loud, being too needy to whatever else, and you adjust yourself in response to that. Often this comes from childhood because well, I mean, it could happen later as well but because we don't really have the skills to move through those emotional responses, to process them, and they end up stuck in our bodies, right, like, like I was saying, that gets stuck in your body and you can have all kinds of things from disease to, you know, major major illness, major chronic pain. You can have a lot of different outcomes and sometimes it manifests smaller, and Gabor Mate has done some research showing some links between people pleasing and cancer. So we'll just you can go look that up. If you are a people pleaser, you might want to know that repressed anger and people pleasing can be a significant contributor to some of these serious illnesses.
Carmen Lezeth:Can I ask you a question, though? Why is people pleasing bad, people pleasing bad?
Christy Holt:Well, that's a great question. So to me, the real problem with it is is not that it's not. There's no problem with wanting to do nice things for other people. There's nothing wrong with wanting a positive outcome. The problem lies when we take it so far that we are sacrificing our own needs in the process and that we are acting in a way that is detrimental to ourselves. So I like to differentiate being nice quote, quote, unquote nice, which actually means to be pleasing and agreeable, versus being kind, which is sort of stemming from love and can be both kind for others and yourself. Right, and because of this sort of manipulative energy, it's almost like people pleasing requires us to contort ourselves into something that we're not in order to get that outcome Right. And when we're contorting ourselves and being someone that we're not, we create a dissonance within ourselves, we're not being authentic to ourselves and we actually create distance from ourselves and the things that we really want by creating this energetic gap Right.
Cynthia Lopez:My God, this is so deep.
Christy Holt:I'm going to kind of circle it back to the authenticity of like, the authentic piece, because people might think like it's no big deal, I'm people pleasing and I'm exhausted, what else am I going to do? Like, I got to take care of my family and I got to do all this stuff, but they're miserable, right, and this is actually the missing piece to your happiness and it's not finding the next, I don't know handbag or pair of shoes or whatever else you know, to make you happy in the moment. It's about really bringing you back to a state of inner happiness which is truly your foundational beingness, is your true nature, is to be happy and maybe, if happy doesn't resonate for you I often use happy, but maybe it's peace you know, maybe it's joy maybe it's I don't know whatever other word really resonates with you, but like this, the state of feeling good, like you call it what you like, but this inner feeling of just I'm going to be okay, you know, I feel that bring you to authenticity.
Christy Holt:Yeah, and chaos can be all around, right, but you can still feel that brings me to authenticity. Yeah, and chaos can be all around, right, but you can still feel that solid wholeness, that peace, that love, that joy within yourself and operate from that perspective. And that requires you to be in touch with you, to know who you are, to know what that feels like, right in that, that true you, that true nature of yourself that gives you the ability to understand where you end and where other people begin. Right, like that part too, and that's what I'm going to ask, yeah.
Rick Costa:I'll say, and it's kind of like, when you're such a people pleaser and I suffered from that too, because my dad was very abusive, physically, beat me and stuff, so I just didn't want to get beat, so I became a people pleaser it's like are you living for you? Are you living for them? Because it's like, if you're always on guard and everything like you can't relax, you can't be you, because you're always making sure they're okay. It's like what about you, though? What about me?
Carmen Lezeth:Yeah, yeah, Rick do you think? You're a people, pleaser.
Rick Costa:I'm aware of it, so I try not to be, but it's, you know, it's in the back of the head there still.
Christy Holt:Yeah, and that can really lead back to that identity piece, right when you are so busy performing so that you can create safety, you know in your environment and in your relationships that you forget who you are right and then you start to ask like, well, who am I? I don't know who I am outside of all of these performative things that I'm doing to create this experience, which I don't even like, I don't even enjoy it. It's just feel like I have to.
Carmen Lezeth:I think I'm performative at work, every single day, there's no doubt about it. Every single day. I'm so good at it and I'm very manipulative. I tell people all the time in my office I'm like listen, stop going to him this way. You need to manipulate the situation Like.
Carmen Lezeth:I say it straight up because if not, we'll just end up fighting with this man right One of my clients. Whatever God, I hope he never listens to this, but I mean. It mean also that part of it too. Like you, I mean everything you said. There's so much layers there, but it's all true?
Cynthia Lopez:yeah, absolutely I. I have a question. So, going back to the emotions, um, you said you work with couples and individuals. Do you ever see a better response from men or from women, or is it just kind of different Because you know it resonates with everyone differently?
Christy Holt:I think it's completely individual and, honestly, I think the key thing when looking at like how someone's going to respond is just their readiness and their willingness, because the truth is, you will not change anyone else. Like you can hope and wish and dream for all damn day long, the only person that you can change is yourself, and so this is probably very annoyingly and underlying theme of my work is that you can't change anyone else, so I will talk to you about those. You know circumstances that you may be experiencing conflict with your partner or feeling a. You know circumstances that you may be experiencing conflict with your partner or feeling a. You know a certain feeling towards your partner and I'm just like it's you.
Christy Holt:It's you at the, at the heart of it, it's you and so that's so annoying to hear and like, oh my gosh, like my partner is narcissistic and it's so toxic. No, listen, that may be, but we're going to talk about you right now, because talking about them is not going to change your circumstance. And trust me, girl, I know from firsthand experience. I did this for years. I can't wait. I got the T-shirt. So, yeah, I tell you that I want you to see something different in your outcome. It's going to be you who's going to have to decide to do something different.
Carmen Lezeth:Okay, there are two people who want to see that. I cannot wait to send it to send them the link, cannot wait.
Carmen Lezeth:I love that because it's true and I I say a similar thing when it comes to work. I'm like we can't change this producer, we cannot. Like we have people that we work with that are just they've been there for 30 years, they're idiots, you know what I mean. Like they're gonna we there's nothing I can do to change them and I'm like we need in their ways well, but I'm not going to fix somebody who is like in their 60s, like, and it's not my job you can't yeah without their permission, you know energy, because I'm like how can I fix, how can we do what we need to do over here so that we can get it done and move it through, because all we can do is change the way we do things.
Carmen Lezeth:Yeah, that's a really powerful thing, yeah.
Christy Holt:And how do you change how you respond to difficult situations and stubborn people or people that saying? F you isn't good like just f you it depends on the outcome that you want to have, right. I I do have a a podcast episode speaking about conflict, because it is something that people really encounter a lot and I think that a few key takeaways from that. You can obviously check out the episode about conflict for my conflict resolution yeah yeah, um, it's called advanced techniques for conflict resolution, I believe, or something like that.
Carmen Lezeth:I don't know, don't quote me on that I didn't write down the whole thing, but yeah, I listened to it. But go ahead yeah it.
Christy Holt:You know, having your intention for the interaction is really important, right? Because maybe, maybe fuck off is the right response If you actually want to decisively end that connection, yeah, maybe that's the right response. But if it's your partner and you don't really want to spend money to get a divorce, maybe that's not the best solution, right? In that case, a divorce, maybe that's not the best solution, right? So maybe in that case, you're going to, you know, go into the conversation and address it from the lens of love and compassion, from the perspective of an intention of maintaining connection above all else, right, remembering in those situations that you're on the same team, right, that you're not fighting against each other. You're problem solving together as a unit so that you can move together stronger. So, yeah, intention really matters and keeping that in mind is really important so that you can move through those difficult conflicts and get the outcomes that you ultimately do desire.
Rick Costa:Yeah, nobody can control somebody's reactions, you can only control your own.
Christy Holt:You control how you respond. That is you in your power, you controlling how you respond. I'll tell you, I have had many opportunities as of late to really witness my own growth from the last 10 years or even the last five years years. And it's amazing to have that new, that new understanding of like holy crap, like how far I've come. Because I have had circumstances recently where I think back like, ooh, like five, eight, 10 years ago, me would not have handled that well, right, I would have been devastated, I would have been an anxious mess, I would have been overwhelmed and right in a spiral, which is actually what my first book was about. It's about stopping the spiral so that you can respond rather than just react. And now I can sit there and be like, okay, like that's really interesting.
Christy Holt:Other people's emotional defensive outbursts or upset or challenge it, like I know where I end and I know where they begin. So I don't take their stuff on. I can hold space for them right, I can validate their experience. I don't have to, I don't have to fix it. That's not my job. My job if I'm going to have a job at all here would be to listen right, to hold space for them, to create an opportunity for them to problem solve their own problems with some support, maybe with some questions, right? And then I?
Christy Holt:My website is coach Christy Holt, but I really see myself more as a mentor and I call myself a happiness and love guide, cause coach feels like telling people what to do and that's really not how I roll.
Christy Holt:I don't like. I'm a firm believer of try this on right, try on this idea. Does it fit? Does it? How does it? You know how does it feel? What? What? You know what's different in your life if you were to try this on and wear it around for a little bit and if it doesn't fit, if it feels bad, you take it off and try something else on right. So I'm a firm believer of that approach and really just being there for people and allowing them the space to feel what they're going to feel, to express what they're going to express, express and holding my own boundaries for me, right, I'm not about to tolerate mistreatment either. This is also very closely linked to the people. Pleasing is boundary setting, because people pleasers generally don't have no boundaries, right they're like oh, do whatever you like, I don't know how to deal with you.
Christy Holt:Or if they do have boundaries, they have a lot of instances, maybe, of people just trampling all over them and they're not sure how to enforce them.
Christy Holt:They're not sure how to stand up for themselves. Yeah, I mean, boundaries are really this important, pivotal piece that interlock with the people pleasing, because often people who are people pleasing do not have a strong understanding of what their boundaries are. They do not know where they end and where other people begin. They can end up taking on emotions and problems of other people's like it's their own, carrying this heavy weight and instead, if they can learn to set healthy boundaries, it is actually a beautiful gift, not just for other people. It's not just about eliminating the problems and walling people out and protecting yourself. Boundaries are an invitation inward. They are a guidebook for those around you to show you, to show them, to give them directions on how you will most feel loved, respected and honored, and those who really truly want to be in a deep relationship with you are going to truly value knowing what it is that really feels good for you and what doesn't, so that they can act accordingly.
Carmen Lezeth:But people don don't. It's so funny because I say this differently than you do. But people like, want structure. People don't like when you show them your boundaries. Some people will accept it the people that want to be in your life. But I know for a fact people that I gave boundaries to and said I will not tolerate this are mad and angry and move away, and I'm like. To me that's a blessing. It's a blessing.
Christy Holt:It's a blessing, easy button right. And this is the thing I think people most worry about setting boundaries, because they don't want to lose people and they don't want to hurt people or offend people. But the thing is, most of the time those are the very people we really need the freaking boundaries for right, because they're the ones that trample all over our boundaries and mistreat us and we then we feel helpless to respond to that. The truth is, if we just set clear boundaries and I also just for anybody listening that's like not totally clear on what a boundary is and isn't. I want to give an example Okay, you can't do, that is not a boundary, that is a preference and that is a request. Maybe, at best, probably not going to go over very well, because actually you can't do. That really brings up like this counter will in people.
Christy Holt:They're like I'm not, so then they like even more, want to do it, so you can't do that or anything like that is not a boundary. Now another an example of a boundary would be if you raise your voice when we're having a conversation, I will remove myself until we can speak calmly. This is about you and your response. So I think a lot of people are like ah, I said boundaries and people just don't listen. Are you setting a true boundary or are you just telling people your preferences and then getting mad because they don't see the preferences the same, because you're not going to control that person? You can let them know your preference, and that's fine too, but you have an expectation that everybody else is going to be like oh I see things exactly the same and I'm going to do exactly what you want. That would be crazy, because we wouldn't want to be in that flip side where someone tells us how to behave all the time.
Carmen Lezeth:Right. So I want to go back to this part that you said, where, oh man, I just had a moment. Oh, you were just saying something and it just splashed in my head. We're going to have to edit this out too.
Christy Holt:No, we're real humans here.
Carmen Lezeth:When you talked about the reason why people don't like to set up boundaries is because they're afraid of losing people. I think that's a powerful thing, cause I remember having a conversation Rick, you and I had a conversation about this kind of same thing with individuals in our lives that we needed to cut out, and it was a hard conversation, but I think a lot of that is. But if I don't keep them, then I'm losing friends, I'm losing people in my life to interact with.
Rick Costa:Yeah, another great example too is, I've said I, I know distinctly, cause it hit me hard. You were talking about um, christy, thanksgiving and setting boundaries at that time, and that's family, you know, and it's not like, oh, associations or like friends, like kind of almost sort of can't avoid them, and it's like, how do you balance? I don't want to tick them off, but you talked about Thanksgiving as an example.
Christy Holt:We're talking about boundaries and that really hit home for me, if you remember, I don't know I'm talking about that, but that for me at home, yeah, I mean it is hard because often we don't want to set boundaries because we don't want to damage the relationship. But I think that means we're coming at boundaries from a warped sense, because boundaries aren't meant to be. You can't do this to me and you're going to ruin our relationship by doing this. It's simply saying, if you do this thing, I'm going to respond in this way, just so that I can honor my needs. It doesn't make you an asshole. I mean, sometimes I guess maybe it doesn't. But some people are going to be how they're going to be and instead of getting upset that they're not being how we want them to be, we just manage our response to it right.
Christy Holt:We decide this is the action that I'm going to take and so for Thanksgiving, we don't want to maybe spend all day doing something with family. We want to limit it to a couple of hours. We don't say I can't believe you're having dinner and I'm can't, you can't have that and you can't tell me what to do and I'm not going to do that. You just say you know what I? I would be happy to come for two hours, after which I need to go home and have a nap because we have another commitment in the evening, and that's just what I need for me. And it's really hard for people to come up with a lot of counter will when we frame it that way, right, it's easy when we're like, well, you can't, you know you've got to do this and I can't stand it when you do that and these are my preferences, Of course they're going to come back. You would do the same, right, If someone started to tell you you can't do something you kind of want to, just kind of want to do it.
Carmen Lezeth:It's kind of like oh how you, even though you don't want them around you, like you're saying, you're still going to go put yourself in a situation. Thanksgiving was a great example You're still going to go put yourself in a situation. I mean, maybe you're not, but he just said it's very difficult, so he has to.
Christy Holt:I mean that's like a very personal decision, but I would say, if you had a real toxic family, I think it would be fully within your right to say it's in my best interest to honor myself and not be in the presence of these people, because that's what I've been doing for years.
Carmen Lezeth:Thank you, I just want it to be validated. I want to make sure it goes on my mind.
Christy Holt:You got to listen to your heart right. You're the only one who knows what's really best for you, at the core of it. And, yeah, we can lose track of our identity and we can lose track of what's really good for us, because trauma, when trauma is less about the severity of the trauma itself, it's more in the processing and how we moved through it afterwards and the completing the cycle of trauma, so that we can move forward and not carry that trauma into. You know our future experiences and interactions. But you have to stand up for yourself, because I think that people get really sucked into this idea of like, well, if you know unconditional love, I fully believe unconditional love completely exists. And I have a lot of people that would argue with me that you can't do that because what if people mistreat you? Well, I would argue that that is not unconditional love any longer.
Carmen Lezeth:Exactly Right, you answered the question.
Christy Holt:Unconditional love does not exist apart from boundaries. They come part and parcel together because unconditional love goes both ways. Right, it's respect, and I think that the people that came at me when I said something along that effect like you know, unconditional love is real the people that kind of came at me were like, well, like what if he's being toxic? Well then I would say you're not unconditionally loving yourself for remaining in that relationship. Yeah Right, this has got to go both ways. We, we both need to set healthy boundaries with one another. We both need to openly communicate those things and we both need to come at it. Yes, with standards, and yeah, we're probably going to have some expectations. But if we can find someone who we can love and accept as they are as a human being and really approach you know, being together as a partnership where we're learning and we're growing together, and generally approach one another with loving, kindness and minus the assumptions and judgments, and just do life together, we can really do this in a very peaceful way and we can.
Carmen Lezeth:But I mean I think it sounds good, but I don't think it it's. I mean it sounds great but the truth is it doesn't. It's not that easy, like even if, because people get into those moments where they they cross those boundaries or they don't accept that person's boundaries, or do you know but that's where you step in and maybe try to help people right, like, where do you step in to help couples or people dealing with their family members or whatever? When, when, how do you step into it? I guess is the question.
Christy Holt:I'll say this really ties back to what we talked about earlier. I will step in when you are ready to make a change and you're not quite sure how to go about it. You know, maybe you recognize like I'm not here to help people that are, like, really stuck in the shit, and I have a huge amount of compassion for them. But what I have observed from my own experience firsthand is that when you're buried in the in the muck, you are not looking to change. Right, you were, you were kind of buried in the muck, and so I want someone who's at least reaching out the muck ready to say I'm going to take responsibility for myself, I'm going to do the things that I can to change. Maybe they've had sort of a bit of a realization that this attempts to change everyone else in the circumstances is is is growing tired, right, it's right, you child, they're kind of fucking over it.
Christy Holt:And they actually want real change and they're willing to do that. Not that easy part, and I'll say it doesn't have to be that damn hard. It feels like when you're in the muck. It feels like it's impossible Because you can't see.
Carmen Lezeth:You just can't see.
Christy Holt:And so you know, just need someone to help have some eyes for you, to have some belief, to hold some space for you and some hope for you.
Carmen Lezeth:Can we talk about unconditional love again? Because I'm one of those people that I think everyone believes that they practice unconditional love, but we do not. It's very rare. It's very rare Unconditional love, yeah, and I mean that's my, my perspective, because I don't think we actually practice it ourselves and I think it goes back to what you're saying. You could tell me if I'm wrong. It's because we don't know ourselves well enough and we don't have any boundaries or we don't set those. I mean, tell me what you think, cause that's why, when you said unconditional love, I was like cause people always say that, but it's not true.
Christy Holt:Yeah, and, like I said, it's not. You know, unconditional love is not without any sort of boundaries. Or, you know, you still want to match the people that are closest in your life. You still want them to be a good match, right A?
Cynthia Lopez:good alignment for you.
Christy Holt:But I think unconditional love can be extended to other people. And it's not like you're saying, hey, everything they do is perfect and great, and I agree with it. That's not unconditional love either. It's just simply saying they're having their experience right. It's it's born of every moment of life that they've lived up until now and you will have never any idea of what that all entails. And so just being able to say, like I really can't know what has led to this person being in this place right here and right now, and just having compassion, like even the wildest people I can still look at and be like Ooh, like what have they been through that?
Carmen Lezeth:I've.
Carmen Lezeth:I can give an example of the perfect kind of unconditional love I can.
Carmen Lezeth:So I know of a father whose daughter was a drug addict and he had to make the decision for the family to let her go. And it took every like to let her go because she'd been in rehab, he's helped her so much or whatever, and people were so upset with him, other people in the family were so upset with him and I remember thinking like see, that's unconditional love, because he knows there's nothing else he can do. He has to let her do what she has to do and just let her know I'm here when you're ready. And it's the weird thing because we think it's the opposite, like he's supposed to be the you know, and and I remember thinking to myself like I don't think I could, I don't even got no children, and I was like in pain watching this happen. But it was the right thing to do because, oh, thank God, or whatever you believe in universe, she, you know, she's fine, fine, and I think she's 20 years sober you know I should say not sober.
Carmen Lezeth:I guess sober is for both, but you know what I mean?
Christy Holt:20, 20 years something sometimes what we really need is someone to freaking trust us to do what's right for us. Right and I'll. Okay, well, okay, well, guilty confession here I love me some reality TV like love is blind. Okay, I love this shit because I love watching humans. It's fascinating, okay. But before I dive into that, I digress, cause I just wanted to also say that unconditional love is not something that you just create for people out there. It starts within, and if you do not feel unconditional love and acceptance for yourself, you're going to have a hard fucking time experiencing it when it comes to other people.
Christy Holt:Because everything we think about other people is really a mirror reflection of what's inside of us. Think about other people is really a mirror reflection of what's inside of us. Everything we witness in them is a mirror reflecting it back to us so that we can see and learn about ourselves. And so we'll leave that there. Unconditional love starts within, so if you can learn to unconditionally love and accept yourself, you will start to see unconditional love and acceptance play out in the world around you. The reality TV. I just find people so fascinating. I I love watching them just kind of do their thing and I don't actually know why I was going down this road, but where was I going to go with that?
Carmen Lezeth:Love is blind is one of them. You were saying. You said you like watching people be human, you like to think it's. Oh, because I was talking about.
Christy Holt:It was the trust piece that I wanted to say. What I observed on Love is Blind is that the parents that felt really controlling over their child potentially getting married on this quick timeline and they're you know about it. There were problems in most of those relationships and, of course, there's a problem coming when the people who claim to love you the most don't trust you to know what's right for you. And I get it. It's a crazy scenario to talk about getting married in like six weeks or however whatever.
Christy Holt:It's a very interesting scenario, but what really struck me as a parent is that if I was in this situation my kid was on this show show and I was the parent in here the thing that I want them to know the most is that I unconditionally love and accept them and trust them to know what's right for them. Period, not to proclaim that I know because I'm what, because I'm older, I know what's right for them in their heart. That's preposterous. So that's what I wanted to say is really this this trusting people is a big piece of what I do Because, like I said, I don't think that people are broken, that they that they're. You know there's something wrong with them. I trust them to know they may have just gotten off track and by trusting them to know at the heart of things, we can team, we tag team together and find their way, you are a much better person than I am.
Carmen Lezeth:Yeah.
Cynthia Lopez:Right, you already know.
Carmen Lezeth:I'm like, okay, we interviewing you, so I'm gonna be kind, you know what I mean. I love where you're coming from, though it's so much to think about. It really is. Rick, were you going to say something?
Rick Costa:I'll never forget my father again. The abusive one said let's say in the future. We were mad at each other and we didn't talk for 20 years. And then I saw you on the street. Somebody had just beat the crap out of you. You don't think I'm going to go there pick you up. You know you came for me. How could I deny you and all that? But yeah, I believe in unconditional love I don't know that's unconditional love.
Carmen Lezeth:I disagree.
Christy Holt:It can be severely limited, yeah, by the amount of love we have for ourselves. Right, and I think that my argument to people who say that I don't believe in or I haven't felt it or I haven't been in that experience on the receiving end, my invitation is to go deeper into the love that you have with yourself, because the more you can feel within yourself, the more you can recognize and feel and experience this love.
Carmen Lezeth:I'm going to get into a second hour, which we cannot, but let me just Unconditional love. And the man is beating his son on a regular basis, right? It's a little too twisted. You can't call that unconditional love, rick, I'm just sorry. I know the story of your father, right? You've talked about it on the podcast. So he was an abusive man. It does, and we understand he had a lot of alcoholism issues. This is all on our podcast. I'm not revealing anything that he hasn't shared, and to me it's like no, that's not unconditional love, that's something else. You know what I mean. That might be a bond between son and father and some duty or whatever, but if you love someone, you don't hurt them that way, and it's not and I've said this before the physical pain isn't the issue, it was the emotional pain that we are still dealing with on our podcast on a regular basis. You know what I mean, which I'm fine with, but that's why I know it's so not unconditional love, I'm sorry.
Christy Holt:Argument and and I'm not I don't think that any of that negates what I'm saying, because I don't think everyone is creating or experiencing unconditional love or extending it.
Carmen Lezeth:I'm not, I'm not arguing with you. I was arguing with him, but I know what you're saying. I'm trying to tell Rick that's not unconditional love. Don't get it twisted.
Christy Holt:That moment, maybe that you were giving us the example, maybe some element of unconditional love with the, the father son bond, and I think everyone is capable of experiencing and feeling and giving unconditional love. Many people are limited, like I said, by the way that they connect with themselves really prohibits them from creating and giving and treating other people with kindness, even because they're not treating themselves with kindness. Right it's I have so much compassion for, for both parties in situations of abuse, because both people are really struggling and it's not. I'm not by any means condoning the behavior. I am not. It's not acceptable and nobody deserves to be treated that way.
Christy Holt:But in order to be the abuser, you have gone through some shit and you haven't healed it, and I have a great deal of ever led to that way. But in order to be the abuser, you have gone through some shit and you haven't healed it, and I have a great deal of ever led to that moment. And for the person on the receiving end, of course, I have a huge amount of compassion and I wouldn't say like, oh, just blanket, that falls under any sort of like unconditional love. I think everyone's capable, but not everyone is actually living it and that's that's hard. It's definitely hard to watch in those situations.
Carmen Lezeth:And because I love you, rick, I, I and again, I'm not saying I'm right, but I won't keep quiet when I hear you lying about some, that you're not lying, that's the wrong word. But when I hear you look at, I was really angry when you told me this whole story, when you talked about this, cynthia, you were on the show too and we had this whole conversation about this and I was pissed because I didn't know to the extent the abuse you had. You know little by little or whatever, but I would not be your friend if I didn't tell you the truth and I'm not going to let you give him another pass. I'm not, I'm not Um cause I think I, I think unconditional love. This is where you and I may disagree, and you're the expert on this, you know and you're the person we're interviewing.
Christy Holt:I don't even have all the answers.
Carmen Lezeth:So this is a good conversation about unconditional love. Is that everybody wants it? Very little people practice it. It's really hard. Unconditional love is so hard it is being able to let go of your child, who is falling through the cracks and trusting like what you said, that they're going to get through it. I've never been a parent and even when I said it right now I get like tingly, like oh my God, like I can't imagine being able to do that. You know, like I can't imagine being able to do that. You know that to me is rare. It's not as often. But I do agree with you that if we practice it more, if we recognize it in ourselves, we can probably see it more in other people. That I agree with and I'm going to work on that.
Christy Holt:And I think that ego is a big piece that keeps us from having that experience, because we want to be right, we want to, you know, express ourselves in this way of being right and holding up all these things. But that's a protective measure as well, this idea that we're separate and apart from all of the things that were broken, that we have to survive. By all of these means we can really just like sit in this state of being, this stillness of being here right now and observing what's going on around the world and not having to react to it, not having to control it. Like that ego is, like that need to kind of control the outcomes. Right, like this, this father wanting, I'm sure, he having to control it.
Christy Holt:Like that ego is like that need to kind of control the outcomes. Right, like this, this father wanting, I'm sure, he wanted to control the outcome. He wanted his child to be safe and healthy and strong and all of these things and at peace. But sometimes we have to let go of control and trust that things are going to work out and that that's like an ego battle. Right, because our ego says, well, we need to be in control so that we can feel safe.
Carmen Lezeth:That's me all the delusion. My ego is right here. Right here, in case y'all can't hear my ego is right here. Hey, I admit my. I don't even think it's a weakness. I think it's something to be working on. But I think there's also the other side of it where you lack some ego. You know, like you got to have a healthy balance of everything.
Christy Holt:I don't think bad.
Carmen Lezeth:You know when.
Christy Holt:I'm. When I'm saying ego, I don't mean like egotistical, conceited at all. That's really the personality trait kind of apart from the ego. But the ego is kind of like this the safety mechanism that's driving the bus right, that wants us to feel like we're in control, because that makes us feel quote unquote safe. Ultimately it wants to keep us in what is certain and what is familiar, more than it wants us to actually feel good or have positive experiences. So it'll keep us in that safety zone.
Carmen Lezeth:So it keeps us telling ourselves a story that may not be true. Is that what you?
Christy Holt:mean Absolutely yeah, I got you, yeah, and having coping mechanisms to keep us reacting in the similar ways because similar feels quote unquote safe, better, yeah, it doesn't actually mean it's good for you, right?
Christy Holt:We all know, we've all had experiences like this where we will be in a pattern and it's very familiar, it's very certain we know what the outcome is going to be, but we don't want that outcome.
Christy Holt:We actually know we want a different outcome, but we have a really hard time breaking that pattern because it's it feels kind of safe in the way that we know what to expect, whereas stepping outside, you know, moving outside our comfort zone and trying something that has an uncertain outcome feels very scary, which is where a guide and a mentor or a coach or a therapist or someone who's been through some stuff can really just be there, like I like to say I'm I'm like a mentor for like a whole ass human, I'm like the link arms and we'll do this together, because I don't have answers you do, but I'm here to walk with, with you, to help you go through this journey and uncover those things that you're meant to uncover, and step outside your comfort zone, just like a little bit at a time, baby steps so that now I want to talk a little bit about your book, because we're past the hour mark.
Carmen Lezeth:But your book we can get it at your website, but is it also on Amazon? I think it's also on Amazon.
Christy Holt:It's pretty well all over the place. You can find it all over the place. You can find a whole bunch of links for it at loveunstuckcom.
Carmen Lezeth:There's a website, there's a website loveunstuckcom as well as coachchristyholtcom. Yeah, and Love Unstuck is primarily about what we just discussed, right?
Christy Holt:now right. It's about creating healthy and happy relationships from the inside out, and so it is your manual to loving yourself back to life, so that you can then build on that foundation to create incredible, thriving relationships with other people.
Carmen Lezeth:Will you come back on the show? Yeah, I'm going to have you back on and um Rick's going to shoot me later, but we can edit it out if you want. I'm not going to, um, it's just been so much fun and so interesting. I was not what I was expecting and I love when that happens.
Christy Holt:Totally curious what you were expecting, but we'll save that for another time.
Carmen Lezeth:Thank you for being on the show and again we'll have you back on. This was so much fun. Everyone again, please visit loveunstuckcom, coachchristyholtcom, and we will be back again next week, as always. And remember, at the end of the day, it really is all about the joy.
Cynthia Lopez:Bye everyone.
Carmen Lezeth:Bye everyone. Thanks for stopping by. All about the joy be better and stay beautiful. Folks have a sweet day.