.JPG)
Coffee with a Twist!
Coffee with a Twist!
Revisiting Vision Boards for Personal Growth with Madame Ballou
Ever felt lost in the whirlwind of life, unable to prioritize your self-care and personal growth? Join me, Madame Ballou, as we take a moment to pause, breathe, and reflect on our life trajectory and the importance of self-care. In this raw, heartfelt conversation, we dive into the uncharted waters of revisiting our vision boards and tracking our progress, while emphasizing the importance of creating time for ourselves.
Have you ever connected your hair loss to your overall health? Listen as I bare my truth about my sudden hair loss and how it led me on a journey towards self-discovery and healing. Additionally, let's explore the magic of embracing personal challenges to overhaul our lifestyles. Hang on, as I share my August Workout Challenge experience and how subtle changes like increasing water intake and reducing coffee have drastically improved my health. Let's embark on this self-care journey together – because we're stronger together.
Thanks for listening coffee with a twist.
Email me at: coffeewitatwist@gmail.com
Hey guys, welcome to Coffee with the Twist. Excuse the noise in the background. I'm actually driving tonight while doing this podcast. You're here with Madame Baloo. Thanks for tuning in.
Speaker 1:It's actually Sunday night, it's about five minutes to ten and I'm out driving Eli around actually to go to sleep. He was being very cranky. He's been going through like this, I don't know, this weird phase now, almost like I don't know. Now when he gets tired he just gets super upset. It's just, it's like he does not want to go to sleep, which is fine, but the attitude, the mood, so typically riding him soothes him as well as puts him to sleep. I really am not in the mood to fight with him tonight. School starts back in about a week, so overall he's been doing really good with, like, getting back on his bedtime schedule. Just that some nights more rare, you know it's more rare than anything but some nights, like tonight, he just he's just really tired and makes him super cranky. So instead of us both just being in a bad mood or me not being able to get stuff done or what have you, or even be able to go to sleep myself, I said let me just take him for a ride. Soothes us both. So I said, well, I'm riding, so why not talk? Why not make an episode? So do excuse the noise in the background, like cars or you can hear me driving. But yeah, so it's August, august 13th to be exact, so I am your check-in, so we are eight months in to 2023.
Speaker 1:And, as you guys know, every New Year's Eve well, let me rephrase for the last, I'll say close to about four years for New Year's Eve, rather if people come over or not, but typically a couple of people, like a handful of people, come over and we just hang out and celebrate. But, as you guys know, every New Year's Eve, I push vision boards to the people that come to you all as well to make vision boards. Yes, I get having it in your head, you may still get things accomplished, but something about putting things down on paper and being able to see it, place it in a place, rather, if it's on your mirror, it depends on, you know, if you did a big vision board, of course, put it somewhere appropriate that you could still view it. And you know, make sure that you're reviewing it. You know, monthly, even every other month something You'd be surprised at what you are truly checking off. So I am your reminder to look at your vision board. If you haven't looked at it all year, that's fine, but you might be surprised you may have accomplished quite a few things on your board. So definitely, you know, take a look at your board, please. And if you have not been able to check anything off of your vision board, you still have a good four months left to try and accomplish a couple of those things. Check a couple of boxes off and don't overwhelm yourself. Take something small. Another tip, you know, even if it's sometimes maybe you got to start over. So you know, keep the vision board you have, but maybe if you got to do like a little small vision board at eight months in of small steps to get you to the bigger step Because if you did your vision board where you just did something real broad, that takes time, work, effort, you know a lot of little things that need to be in place for you to accomplish that big thing then you need to maybe revise.
Speaker 1:So I would suggest no-transcript of trashing your old vision board or adding to it. Just take like a piece of paper, regular letter size if you would like, and just take one of the accomplishments that you want, or one of the goals on your vision board that you want to accomplish in this last part of the year of 2023. And take that and then, on a piece of paper, write out the things that you need to do to get there. So that will give you some small things. So maybe weekly you're checking some things off of your paper that ultimately, by the time you look at it again, new Year's Eve, time of 2023, going into 2024, you may be checking some things off the box, and I'm a big bully once things start rolling. You know it might help in other areas. So I am your check-in.
Speaker 1:One of the other things you know that I haven't talked about a lot this year that I gosh. I used to always talk about every episode. I feel I always threw it in. There is self care. So again, your eight month check-in. How are you doing with your self care, including myself? So I'm speaking these things because I need to get my shit together, y'all.
Speaker 1:It's eight months in and my self care at the beginning started off very strong. I was doing what I need to do and here lately it's been slipping. I've been canceling appointments. I've been, you know, just not doing what I need to do, including my workouts, including just eating better, my juicing, my smoothies, my massages, my hair injections which I say that and I don't even think I've talked to y'all about that yet, but we'll get there. But yes, so I'm talking to y'all, but I'm really talking to me. I'm lacking, and if I'm lacking, I would like to think there's some other people out there lacking. So I am our wake up call, I am our reminder. We're eight months in. Let's try to finish the year 2023 strong and keep those good habits into the next year and add some additional habits.
Speaker 1:So for me, like just as small as like getting my hair done and when I say get my hair done, I don't mean like I know some people like go get the me. Mine is more like wash, deep condition, blow dry, like just so that I don't have to do it myself, but just little things like that. So to go back and if I try, I don't feel like talk to y'all about my hair a small little hair journey. So I won't make this one long, because this particular topic that I'm about to talk to about with my hair is actually not where this episode is supposed to be going, but I may have mentioned it. So about less. Now might be about a year, I'll say a year, why not?
Speaker 1:So for about the past year, a little under a year, for some reason, my hair, just like I woke up one day and I was like ball in a certain like towards the top of my head Not really sure why, I knew about. Like you know, I was slowly like having like some hairline issues you know no huge deal, but you know little things so like I had stopped doing like my crochet braids, I stopped doing a lot of that. Oh, wow, sorry to derail, but I'm out here on 81. And I have not been on 81 in a while, at least not at night, and they have installed street lights and, well, highway lights, whatever. It is very nice. Wow, that was very surprising, but anyway.
Speaker 1:So it's like I woke up, was it experiencing like hair loss, like when you comb your hair, stuff, like that hair falling out? It's like, literally, I woke up one day, literally, I had my hair done. It was like at my shoulders, looking good, beautiful, blah, blah, blah, and then, like within like two months later, it was like I had no hair. The back of my hair was like really short, especially on one side. Like one side was like it was like my whole right side up to my crown was just like broke off. It was really weird. To this day I don't fully know what happened. I do know around that time I was real stressed out and stuff like that and, yeah, I started bawling. You know I was like, oh, let's see what happens. You know nothing.
Speaker 1:So during that's when I started like, all right, maybe I need to start going back, you know, getting washed, deep conditions, blow dry. Stop doing it myself. Maybe I've burnt my hair or something, but I'm like to make it bald and I don't put chemicals in my hair, I don't get relaxers or anything like that, so this is all natural, so, anyway, so that's when I started going to get my hair done and for me it's more like a self-care thing, not like for looking good. It's more like what I was going for is literally for the deep conditions and a proper blow dry, meaning you know someone to truly be able to properly blow dry my hair without like pulling it out and roughness, things like that. So upon going with her, I was like looking at other things, I'm like, okay, that's not really working, like my hair felt good but like I'm like bold, I'm like feel like it's not getting better. So I was like, all right, what can I do? So I started doing some research and, of course, as you know, like everyone selling some type of oil and it may work, I don't know. I just I don't know my hair was gone, so it's like I need something to bring it back. So, anyways, I looked into hair injections, like like steroid injections. They do needles into the area.
Speaker 1:So, as you guys know, I live in less Virginia. So, of course, firstly, if you guys don't know, I am black American. So at first I was like, well, should I go to someone, a dermatologist, that's also black American as well, or at least darker skin or more ethnic, rather, if it's like Indian, whatever the area I live in, that's hard to find. So, you know, or I'll be traveling around. And I was like, well, don't get me wrong, I'm all for like doing what you got to do for your needs, but I also have to be realistic. Realistically, the places that were able to do this, that if I want someone that looks like me, I would have to travel like Baltimore, dc, silver Spring, stuff like that. It would be a chore. Would I keep that up? Probably not. So I was like, all right, realistically, that's not going to work for me right now, not in my current situation state, whatever.
Speaker 1:So I found a dermatologist near me. That isn't terribly far, I can go to out at lunch or certain small breaks. So that's what I did Research. They had good reviews, started going to them. I was like, you know, that way I at least wanted to go to someone, because if it's something that I can't, you know nothing I can do, then you know nothing I can do. Went to her. She said okay, she told me you know what she thought it was, or what she feels it is, and what in the steps we can do to try to regain it. So I started that journey and I have to say it does, it does help, it has been helping.
Speaker 1:One of the problems for me, I mean it's not painful, but it's not really painless. It is working like the first set of injections, like it really, you know, really solid difference. Then, like the second set of injections, you still could see the, see the sorry. They're doing some road work. So I had to like see which way I can truly go. So that's why I had to, that's why I paused for a second, but anyways, the injections the first time boom saw started seeing results. It's like it needed that. So that was a good sign, because that she was like that's good, because it seems like we can stimulate it.
Speaker 1:The second time, still a little, you know, still some improvement, small, slow, but still some improvement. Then I got it done the third time and it seemed like it was not as much progression, it was like slowing down. So of course that's like very discouraging and stuff like that, but anyway. So then it was time for me to do my injections again. And this is where I'm saying like myself, care, and how I'm like lacking, I couldn't make it. I had a work thing that came up same day, similar time, and I just couldn't do it. So I was like you know, even though the appointments are like super quick, but something came up. So of course, unfortunately, I was supposed to have my injections done, see, august. I was supposed to have it done I believe it was last month, in July didn't get them done. It was either June, it might even been June. So I haven't had any injection since like June, probably before that, actually, now that I think about it. But anyways, she's so booked up that the next appointment's not to like set the middle of September. So you know, unfortunately, you know I didn't keep my appointment and you know I'm feeling it.
Speaker 1:So I've been like documenting, taking pictures and things just to see the progress. And something that's kind of cool is because I haven't had my injections done a while and then I'm looking at the pictures and I'm like, wow, there is a difference. Like even that period of time where I was feeling some like discouragement, like I don't feel it's like working anymore. This might be the best it'll be. But then when I'm looking at the pictures from when I started to currently now, like there is a difference. You don't get wrong. Right now I don't feel like there's any true progress going on.
Speaker 1:Like I feel like I still need those couple of injections, because it's like a whole series of injections that you do for the treatment program of it, if that's what you want to call it, before it's done. So overall there's been improvement, but with me not getting them done and shit over two and a half months, like I can tell that like it still needs it. Like I feel like I got to keep getting it done to at least more like peach fudge comes in, more growth comes in, then you know, keep it up and then it can probably stop, because it's not. What I'm getting done is not something that's long term, it's more short term. When I say long term, it's not like something out we getting done for years. At max I might get it done for a total of six to eight months, even maybe a year, and then that's kind of it, and then you stop, let it do its thing. If you need it again, you may, in a couple years or whatever, you come back and get it done again. So that's what I mean about part of myself.
Speaker 1:Care with that, because you we're all people, male or female. There are certain aspects about yourself as, especially as we age, different things like that that can make you kind of like insecure or feel a certain way about yourself. You know I don't like wearing legs. I feel they're very annoying. A lot of people wear wigs. They look beautiful and they look good on them. I don't really prefer it, but I also don't like wearing like rags, you know, like wrapping my hair and stuff like that. But I feel I have to because I'm like. I feel like it's just screaming bald. And then with, like, my weight gain, I feel like the short, my shorter hair doesn't look as good on my face because my face, you know, is fatter than normal. So it's just a couple of little things that me myself am going through that you know.
Speaker 1:I got to keep focus.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. That's, I got to keep myself care up. I got to keep my, my positive attitude up. I got it, you know, pushed through. My son has been doing really well with his speech and things like that. But now we're going through like he's going through the phase of like being more defiant and testing boundaries and stuff and doing things on purpose to get a rise out of you and the reason why. That is frustrating, at least for me. My son has a speech which I speak, spoke about this before and the thing is, since he's already in a sense abnormal by him doing certain behaviors, even though he knows exactly what he's doing, he's doing it on purpose type of thing.
Speaker 1:You have the society and you have the medical field that wants to like label, they want him label and for me I'm just not there. Why label something? That is a phase, it's not him as a being, it's not. He's doing these things on purpose to get the rise out of me or to get my reaction, whatever you want to call it. So why should that be labeled? So it's kind of hard. It's frustrating for me because it's like he doesn't know he's for. But it's frustrating because I'm being the best advocate I can be. But of course I'm looked upon as being in denial and things like that. I'm truly not. If I were in denial, he wouldn't be getting any of the assistance that I ensure that he gets. I wouldn't. I would be against it all. I'm not. What I'm against is people making me feel as if he's the only kid that does the things that he does, as if he's just so unique and what he's in the behaviors that he does, that it's just so unheard of that he has to be labeled with something instead of them listening to me and know and me knowing his needs. It's like, for instance, it's kind of like out.
Speaker 1:To use this analogy, let's say you go to someone's house first time. You go there and you might only be there 10 minutes, 20 minutes, whatever you go. When you go, the house is a mess, right, whatever, not a big deal. You go again it's a mess. You go. Another time it's clean. Another time it's clean, another time it's clean. Another time it's clean, you go, another time it's clean. So nine times out of ten, those first two times that you went were probably like a one-off of you know being dirty, in a sense that they typically keep their house on the cleaner side.
Speaker 1:So I use that analogy because when we go to a doctor's appointment or certain points you gotta remember they're only in there with them at max an hour I'll say max an hour, a lot of times less than that and they're catching him, possibly when he's in this phase of oh, I want to scream, or I want to do this, or I want to do that Pick, or picked up a new habit or a new Thing that he learned at school or from someone you know, from someone else. I'm not saying that they all come from that. Some of them are just him you know, meeting him and the boundaries he wants to test. So you're in there with me, with my child for like one hour and all of a sudden it's some particular diagnosis that no normal kid defiles or defies or or Screams or have tantrum. You know what I mean like I just can't, I Cannot allow a labeling to happen for someone that's only around my kid For 30 minutes you know what I mean out of the whole year, you know. So that's something that I'm like. I'm always finding you you know what I mean and Doing the best that I can with that.
Speaker 1:And it is frustrating as a parent or as an advocate of someone because you know, then you get they'll might be good, good all week, and then you give him in this and it's like get them here, let's say the doctor, and then they just want to Act. Oh, totally different when you're just like, so it's just. You know, I just feel that I'm typically always Heightened. I'm a heightened Individual All the time, especially when it comes to my kid. My, my emotions of it, the whole experience of it's very heightened. So but, yeah, so that's why you know I, my stress level Once upon a time was, was pretty high, and it was higher even during that time because, like, for it was discouraging, like his speech was just never coming. It's like we're doing all this stuff and it's still nothing and um, but definitely have been seeing progress here lately, like a lot of good progress. So I'm definitely happy about that.
Speaker 1:But you know, that's always in the back of my mind and I think that's also, um, probably why getting some funk some some weeks. I'm in, I'm in a, I'm in a mood, I'm just, you know, I don't feel like working out, I don't feel, you know, my brain is just elsewhere. It's like, you know, I just I just want things to get to level out. I guess is what I'm saying. You know, I'm just I do a lot of running around, you know, taking my son to like speech and I got him tutoring and different, just different things. It's just, you know, I never Get really any me time to settle and settle my my mind. So I'm working towards it, I'm working to be better with that, I'm working to Get those things. So All of that long-drawn story, but, um, but yes, so please, self-care, getting back to your goals and you know I'm kind of glad I went off topic a little because I Just want you guys to know, like, what I'm on here saying about like getting back in tune with your goals and and your self-care. I hope the stories that I just kind of went over shows I'm right there with you, I'm not just Saying it, I need to do the same. I need to check my. I'm checking myself. So you know, let's, let's definitely you know, do that. So for me and hopefully you guys will join this challenge as well.
Speaker 1:So my job, every August they do like a month of Workouts, like you pick whatever workout you want, it don't have to be nothing Hard. If you want to just go take a walk, that's fine. Any type of movement, that's at least, you know, 15 to 30 minutes or more. Our start tomorrow. So August 14th, it'll be for one month. We, you start Moving, walking, exercise and you record it for us. We use our slack channel. We have a health slack channel.
Speaker 1:You go in there. You say, you put on there hey, you know, this is what you did today, done long, and Every week there will be a winner. You know, brother fits, one winner, two winners, some weeks might be four winners, things like that. And my job, they give like some really good stuff away. So every week will be winners and and it goes by how many things look. So you have five entries. Basically, if you work out every day, it's like five and try to and I gotta make sure I might it might be seven entries. I think it's more than just the weekday, so whatever, but the goal is to get you up and moving some way somehow. So you record it, you send it and then at the end of the month, the end of the one month, so 14 through, like September 14th at the end of the one month There'll be, I think, just one grand prize winner, so which is great. So, of course, a few Logging things in there 30 days, you know, 30 workouts, you know you have a higher chance of winning.
Speaker 1:So I was like this will be a great time to take the opportunity to kind of reset myself, and not just with the working out or movement, just even my eating habits, like. So I got the stuff I need to do, like my shakes and my juice scene, stuff like that. So I need to start implementing that. I'm a huge coffee drinker, as you guys know, even with the title of my podcast, so my coffee intake I really really, really, really, really really need to To reduce that, even though I found a better, much better, cleaner Creamer, because that was one of the things like I was like you know I the creamer Scott, so much crap in it and you know stuff like that. So I finally found one. That is good, but still I drink a lot of coffee. So I'm trying to.
Speaker 1:With tomorrow coming, my goal is to stick to the one pot. The one pot, see, say, the one cup a day, rather fits in the morning, evening. I gotta pick whatever. It's just gonna be once a day and In my water intake to be the rest of the day, because the thing is I don't drink as enough borders I should, because I'll have two and three cups of coffee and I'm good. So that's my goal, even if it's one. My one cup in the morning that's fine, but the rest of the day will be water. And the other thing that I'm trying to do to incorporate some things is every night to have a cup of tea Before bed, things like that, or hot water, and then on top of it I'm trying to replace not really fully replaced, but have like a smoothie or juice, but full of nutrients and stuff a day as one of my meals, because I'm not eating enough greens and stuff. So there's a couple of things that I'm gonna use tomorrow to jump start, to kick start, um, and you know. So that's part of it.
Speaker 1:Then also just like certain routines that I want to like get back into place with my son With his like activities and his speech, stuff of like. We have some things at home that I've, that I've purchased, that are like on the TV's called Gemini and stuff. So I used to do that have him watch that every morning while we're getting ready. That's something during the summer, like I locked on. I just felt like All school year he's doing school, he's doing speech, he has a lot going on, so I kind of wanted to give him the summer off. So I need there's things I need to start putting back into our Routine. That helps us both, helps him as well, and you know, to move forward with that.
Speaker 1:So this week is the reset week. So, please, guys, Do what I'm doing as well and let's, you know, let's kickstart it, let's start back, let's realign ourselves and, you know, figure this out. We got a few months left in the 2023 year. Let's finish it off strong. I'm not saying that, won't we won't, you know, lack in some areas. That's fine, but let's, you know, let's be better than what we were last month. And if this is Not you meaning you've been doing good all year, well, I commend you. Good job, I'm telling you good job, Especially when summer hits like, you can easily get off track because you know the kids are home, you know it's a different routine and everything just looks different.
Speaker 1:The food, everything is just different. You're in a different mindset. So now that we're getting off of summer break, we're about to go into fall, which is crazy, you know. Let's just try to find ways to reset ourselves, ways to, you know, get ourselves back on track, because we know we want to, we know we need to. I know I need to. It's a need Because if I continue at the rate I'm going and it won't be good and I know that. So, like I said, even though I'm speaking to y'all, trust and believe this is my check-in as well.
Speaker 1:So Monday, august 14th, guys, let's Make a path to become a new us, to start the journey of the new us, no matter what that looks like. It doesn't have to even be with the things I mentioned. They could even be with relationships, and I'm not talking boy for girl, I'm just relationships in general friendships, marriages, whatever. Want to make things stronger. If you want to eliminate some folks, hey, declutter and is declutter, and you know what I mean. Or if you want to Be a better friend or, if you want to like, enhance your relationship, if you want to give more to them, nothing's wrong with that. Let's. Let's use my jobs Workout more than challenge be the start of something for us for the rest of the year. Let's use that to start.
Speaker 1:You know it's it's never a good time to start. You just got to do it, so I hope that this reaches you guys. I hope I've encouraged you all and empowered you. I know you guys can do it. I know I can do it. We just got to be reminded. You know we live once, so let's make the best of it. It's not always the easiest thing to do, but once we get started Think about this Once we get started tomorrow on August 14th, and we keep up these habits, I get some weeks, some months slightly different, but if we can keep up the main habits, even add some to it.
Speaker 1:Just imagine a year from now, august 14th, 2024, and you look back, you like man I'm glad I kept this up. You don't want to be the person next year, august 14th of 2024 or you're looking back and, like man, I wish I man, look how far I would have been if I would have started then, rather than saving your money, just anything, anything that you've been kind of wanting to do, that you haven't started yet Listen to my words and use Monday August 14th as your starting point. And if you so happen to not listen to, this took Tuesday August 15th, that's fine. Start then. Start next week, use this one as your starting point and let's finish the year off strong guys. Let's do that. We owe it to ourselves to do this. So I've done a ton of talking, so I'm gonna end it here. Guys, feel empowered, embrace this. I hope you guys listen to my words. I hope you guys use my words. Hope you guys start this journey with me tomorrow. Thank you so much for tuning in. You're here with madame blue coffee with a twist.