The Puurlee Podcast with Nika Lawrie

How To Decrease The Risk Of A Health Breakdown With Toye Penny

• Toye Penny • Season 2021 • Episode 7

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This week Nika is joined by a health and wellness expert, Toye Penny, who works with Celebrity, Executive & CEO Moms. Toye created 'The Love You More Method' specifically designed as an intervention program for Celebrities, Executives, and CEO Moms so they can reduce the mental load, break the “Functioning Addiction” cycle, decrease the risk of a health breakdown, and more importantly save everyone around them. She shares some of her best tips with us in this episode! 

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Nika Lawrie:

Hey everybody, welcome to the show. I'm super excited. Today we have a wonderful guest who has a passion that is so similar to mine. I think it is amazing and I'm super excited to just learn from her and get her knowledge and share it with all of you as well. So please welcome my wonderful guest Toy. Welcome to the show.

Nika Lawrie:

Hi, yay, I'm excited to be here. Thank you for having me. Yeah, thanks so much for coming on. I'm really excited to have you. Yeah, thanks so much for coming on. I'm really excited to have you, yeah, so, tori, you have a really kind of interesting story and I really relate to it. Can you tell me a little bit about your backstory and how you became a certified holistic health strategist and just kind of what that looks like?

Toye Penny:

Sure, so it's sort of a. I'm going to try to make it brief as possible, but when I was young, when I was about nine years old, I lost my mother to lupus and, yes, so she passed away when I was nine, so I lost her. I didn't know my father until I was about 18 years old. So I grew up without either parent in my life and that was it was. It was a lot, you know, to handle growing up it was a lot to figure out.

Toye Penny:

And as I got older, there was some things that happened and that transpired in my life, and one of them were I was sexually abused at the age of 13. And then I became a teenage mom at the age of 16. I was pregnant at 16, had it at 17. So all of those things happened in my life and I was trying to figure out how am I going to handle all of this. And shortly after I gave birth to my daughter, I knew that I wanted to do something special and I knew that I had to provide for her, but I didn't know how. I didn't know. Okay, so what am I going to do? What am I going to do? So I remember holding this baby girl in my arms and I remember saying it's just me and you. And I remember saying I remember it was like a weight went off to massage therapy school and I became this massage therapist and I got hired at this luxury day spa. So it was really good. I was providing for my daughter.

Toye Penny:

We moved out of, I was raised by my grandmother, we moved out of my grandmother's house and I got my first apartment and all of this thing. But then I was there for about two years and the owner came to me and asked me if I wanted to buy the place. Oh, my goodness, I'm like okay, I knew that I wanted to be a business owner, but I didn't know that it was going to be this early, you know, and so I put together. I had a couple of clients who were attorneys. We bought her services. Next thing, you know, I'm 23 years old and I am now a business owner. I am a single mom and I have 15 employees and I have this luxury day spa and all of this just, all of a sudden, just came at me.

Nika Lawrie:

I know it's in the past, but congratulations, cause that's amazing.

Toye Penny:

Yes, no business background, no, nothing. It's like, oh my gosh, it just hit me. So I'm like, wow, so okay, so I'm trying to run this business and everything. And, um, my daughter and I wanted for nothing, y'all we was traveling and you know, I thought I was it and everything you know, and I built my first home from the ground up at the age of 24. I mean, we just did everything. So I was financially free, I was financially flexible. But here is where my downfall happened. I began to develop a facade for one a facade of.

Toye Penny:

You know, I have it going on. I am financially flexible and I carried everything like I have it going on, in this, in my work, you know, in my career, my daughter. I started losing relationship with my daughter by this time she's about eight or nine years old and I was really focusing on this business, growing this business and everything. So time was of the essence and we also started eating out every single day, like every day, every day, because I thought that I didn't have time. I didn't have time to cook, I didn't have time to prepare meals or whatever.

Toye Penny:

So anyway, long story short, I came home from work one day. I got four slices of cold pizza, fed her, a chili cheese dog with all of the fixings, and she had some Doritos and everything. And I was something that hit me and said toy, something has got to give. So I immediately started looking for schools. I enrolled in this school, nutrition school, and I found out that your lifestyle was directly tied to your food, absolutely. And so I started putting two and two together and it hit me that all of those voids that I had had my mom passing away, my dad not being there, me being sexually abused, me being a teen mom has started manifesting through my fast food and it started manifesting through the way I was behaving in my businesses and in my life and my life as a mom and all of this, all these things.

Toye Penny:

So I'm like, wow. So I started putting, slowly but surely, putting my life back together again and y'all, it was like I just started pouring into myself and it was like I started attracting things. I knew that I wanted to get married. I knew that I wanted to set my life up for, you know, a husband and more kids and all of these things. So, as I was pouring into myself, I attracted this dude from the U S Virgin islands of St Thomas and, um, we were dating for a bit. He took me there for my birthday and on the plane ride back, y'all guy whispered in my ear and said sell your business. And I'm like what? And he's like sell your business.

Toye Penny:

So I was like, by this time I had owned it for seven years. And so I'm like, ok, I'm going to look for a broker. I found a broker. The broker found this lovely husband and wife couple. Next thing, you know, I was signing the paperwork and cash in my bank account and I was out of the door. So this is when toypennycom began. This is when I became a holistic health strategist. I, shortly after that, got married to the dude from the US Virgin Islands. Congratulations, thank you. We had a baby girl and then we had another baby girl, so we had two. In total, I have three daughters.

Toye Penny:

I have the oldest 21 years old. I have a five-year-old daughter and I have a two-year-old daughter oh, my goodness. So I'm trying to put all of this together. At the time, my oldest daughter is a teenager. I'm putting this heart together, mixing it with my new life and these kids and everything, and I began to feel that overwhelmed feeling. Again. I sat down and I said God, how can I maintain all of this and yet still maintain myself and y'all? Here's what he gave me when you are whole and complete within yourself, everything else falls into place. So I started creating the love you more method. And this is where it all began.

Nika Lawrie:

That's an amazing story, like so many, so many questions and just just amazing thing. But what a beautiful like circle, or not even a full circle, just like a transition. So I commend you for what you've been through and how far you've come. That's, that's amazing. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. So you now, with you, know the love me more, love you more method. You work with CEO moms. Can you tell me a little bit about what you mean about CEO? I think we can pull it out a little bit from your story, but can you elaborate on what you mean there?

Toye Penny:

I was the mom who was running this company, who was trying to be everything for everyone, trying to be a mom. I had shortcomings, I had boys, I had all of these things and I was trying to handle it all. So when I say CEO mom, I mean a mom who is running things like she owns a company. She is leading thousands of people, she is it don't even have to be thousands of people, it could be, you know, 10 people. She has a company, she, she can be an executive, she can just be a high performer. So that's what I mean by CEO mom. So I help celebrity executive and high-performing CEO moms.

Nika Lawrie:

Sounds very similar to my clientele as well, so I love it. So tell us a little bit about. So you have eight steps behind the Love you More method. Can you elaborate a little bit on what those eight steps are and why they're so important, right? So?

Toye Penny:

as you know, I know, you know you spend you with I in, so as you know we have our primary foods versus our secondary foods.

Toye Penny:

Our primary foods in in the love you more method is things like your mental and emotional peace, relationships that nurture your soul, never ending self-care, quality sleep, empowering physical activities, a thriving career. Those are your primary foods. And your secondary foods are the foods that you actually eat and put in your mouth, and I feel like those should align with you and your body. So, if you'd like to, we could break down. You know the the primary. I don't know if you want to run through that, we can.

Nika Lawrie:

Yeah, no, I think I think you know. For those who don't know what IIN is, it's a. It's the Institute of Integrated Nutrition and it's one of the world-leading health coaching schools, and both you and I have graduated from it. It's a wonderful school and I can't recommend it enough. But I love the concept that they teach that secondary food really is the nutrition that we're eating. It's the actual, you know food we put in our mouth and the stuff we drink, opposed to primary food, which is our kind of daily life, our activities, the things that surround us, and so I love, I think it's such an important concept to kind of divide out the two and understand how they support the holistic life.

Toye Penny:

Exactly and hands down like people. Now I think society thinks that you know, oh, I really want to be healthy. You know I want to be healthy, which you know they're pouring into their foods, and you know they might be working out and all this stuff, but deep within they are struggling with sleep or they're struggling with their mental and emotional peace. They're struggling with a lot of different areas and being healthy is not just eating healthy and working out. It's all of you know, it's all of it, it's everything. Yeah.

Nika Lawrie:

One of the things I always teach or talk about is that good health is more than food and exercise, so it really has to kind of broaden the picture of what we've been taught kind of by society. I love you. You tell a story on your website about how you were doing daily trips to the drive through. You were eating kind of unhealthy and you felt really sluggish and you really realized that these habits were also trickling down to your daughter and so I think, based off the story I read, it really seemed like that was one of the moments that kind of really encouraged you or motivated you to make those changes, not just for yourself, but so that you could be a good example for your, for your daughter. I think that's such a powerful story because I know I had the same kind of experience.

Toye Penny:

And I'm telling you, so that is the main reason why the Love you More method was created. It's so that you can pour into yourself, so that you can benefit and so that they can benefit and you can create a contagion effect of well-being for generations. So that was, that was the main reason why, and I'm telling y'all my daughter is 21 years old, my oldest daughter is 21 years old, and she eats out every single day.

Nika Lawrie:

Every single day. Yeah, I think you know. I think it's hard when you're in your early twenties. It's just kind of something that naturally comes. But I do, I've noticed that for myself. You know, when I make shifts that are better for me, I see my, my daughter, doing those shifts as well, even though it means she's young. She's only five, but you know, if I'm working out, she'll start kind of exercising and doing things next to me and I think, even if you don't see them immediately, they end up sticking with your children in the long run, like they always come in the back of the head now.

Nika Lawrie:

Oh, I probably should eat my broccoli, even though I don't like it, or you know what I mean, and so I think it does build up after a while.

Toye Penny:

Yeah, and they pick up on things that you aren't even aware that you do. You know, yes, you know they pick up on the smallest thing, and so that's why it's super important that you, you are setting that example for your children, because, um, you are all they have. Basically, I mean either you, or when they hit the world, I mean that's it. Yeah, and you don't want, you want, you don't want them to follow them. You know you want them to follow you.

Nika Lawrie:

Right.

Toye Penny:

Definitely so, yeah, so you are their prime example. So that is the reason why the Love you More method was created.

Nika Lawrie:

Can you talk a little bit about the connection between eating and performance, so kind of the energy that we have, the moods that we have, especially as moms, because I think a lot of times we get so we have so much on our shoulders and we feel like we don't have the energy. We kind of feel depressed or sluggish, like you had mentioned, those kinds of things. And what's the connection there between eating healthy and mood and energy?

Toye Penny:

Right. So I think right now we are in a world that is so much on the go, even though COVID has hit, and you know we are, you know all sitting down, we're zooming from home or whatever, but this world is still on the go and we are so eager to grab our Starbucks for energy, or grab you know grab something, and so we are just, you know, on the go, go, go, go go. And and I can relate because I was there you know I get it, I completely get it. And so a lot of us are grabbing you know fast food, or we are grabbing you know food that are not nourishing to our bodies and not creating fuel for us.

Toye Penny:

And so one thing that I tell my clients each day and, as you know, you want to IIN is I don't care if you do anything else, you know, grab you a green, eat you a dark leafy green every single day. Yeah, and I don't care if it's in your eggs, I don't care if it's in your eggs, I don't care if it's in your sandwich, I don't care if it's in a smoothie or whatever. Eat your dark leafy green every single day and I promise you it will change your energy level, it will change your mindset. It will change how you carry out yourself in your workday.

Nika Lawrie:

Absolutely yeah, that's one of the things I often tell my clients as well is like work day Absolutely yeah, that's one of the things I often tell my clients as well is like start small and if you can only do one thing, just add one vegetable to your, to your meals a day, just one. Like don't even overthink it, just add one vegetable, because it's amazing how little people actually eat vegetables. You can go weeks without even eating one and not realize it, and I think it's a great small spot to start at.

Toye Penny:

And little do you know the food that you're eating is actually draining your energy? You know draining your energy, or you can't even think. You know, I remember having brain fog. I remember, you know being irritable. I remember being all of those things and I was just blaming it on. You know being irritable. I remember being all of those things and I was just blaming it on. You know, I don't know, that's how I was feeling you know, but little did I know. It was the food that I was pouring into my body.

Nika Lawrie:

Yeah, I remember. You know I would eat things Hopefully they don't get mad at me for mentioning their names but you know Olive Garden or Texas Roadhouse and you know, while they are so delicious those rolls, I know the rolls and the breadsticks yeah, even though they're like to die for delicious, my stomach would hurt so bad afterwards for hours and hours and I would be sluggish and I would feel awful. And you know, when I realized, wow, I probably shouldn't be eating this stuff anymore, like it took me a while to connect that I was feeling crappy after I'd eat these meals and once I realized that and I cut them out. You know I still have them from time to time, but it's so minimal now and and because I have so much other nutrition coming in, those meals don't bother me as much when I do eat them.

Nika Lawrie:

You know, and I also limit the portions that I'm eating in those times when I do, you know, a little bit too, but those rolls and those breadsticks she's right about that, yeah she's right about that. Y'all totally so. I'm super excited and I want to hear more about it. You have a new book coming out. Can you tell me a little bit about the book and what's in it? What can the readers expect to learn from it?

Toye Penny:

sure, um, yeah, I'm super excited about this book and it's called love them, love you more, and it's eight elements to redefine your priorities of health. So it's called love them, love you more, and it's eight elements to redefine your priorities of health. So it's basically the whole love you more method in writing. Um, I tell my story. I um this was a short version of the story that you heard, but I tell my story in the book in the beginning and then I go into, um, the whole, uh, primary foods and secondary foods, and then I break those down and then I give like examples of what you can do for each element and then I end the book with recipes. So I am super excited. It is now on pre-sale, also in the Love you More method.

Toye Penny:

So I decided that I was going to add lab work with my, with my, with my programs. So when you enroll in the programs, you also get a. You get a food sensitivity test, you get a gut health test, you get a sleep test and you get a blood type test and you also get a Ninja foodie multi-cooker. I am a brand ambassador for Ninja, ninja foodie and I've learned now I have mastered, how to make simple, healthy meals in the Ninja Foodie. And so I simply reached out to Ninja and they're like listen.

Toye Penny:

Well, I asked for an affiliate link and they're like listen, can you do our commercial? I did their commercial, they came out, shoot, shot at the house or whatever. And, um, now I'm on the commercial airing, so I'm brand ambassador for the ninja foodie, and so then, thank you. So now the ninja foodie comes with my program. So in the cooking class, when you, when we get to the secondary foods in the love you more method, now I, um, I teach you how to make simple, healthy food meals all in this ninja foodie. I love that.

Nika Lawrie:

That's such a great thing too, because, you know, making things healthy always seems like it's so cumbersome and time consuming and overwhelming, and I think a lot of people shy away from the kitchen because of that. You know it's easier to just run to the fast food restaurant than actually make a meal, but making it easy and fast and affordable is such a powerful tool to provide people.

Toye Penny:

Exactly.

Nika Lawrie:

Yeah, so where can people find the book? Where can they link to pre-order it?

Toye Penny:

So you can go to love you more methodcom, or you can go to toy pennycom, so both sites have the book. It's on pre-order right now it's 1999. And we are looking at releasing mid to end of January and it's going to be in three places Barnes and Nobles, books a Million and Amazon when it releases.

Nika Lawrie:

Congratulations, I'm so excited for you. Can you tell me just a little bit more about the? I know you kind of touched on before, but the eight steps or the kind of the eight pillars that you really focus on in the book?

Toye Penny:

Right. So mental and emotional peace I think's very huge. Um, right now, um especially during this COVID, we have, um we have mental wellbeing like at an all time high. Right now it's crazy, like and I know that um working moms you know I don't care if you're a working mom or CEO mom like we are getting getting the brunt of this whole COVID thing. You know we're having to homeschool right now yeah it girl, it is unbelievable yeah.

Toye Penny:

It's a mess, you know. And then people with multiple kids, you know. And then you know they're trying to do, you know. You know all the school work. So now, not only are we running successful companies, we are now teachers, you know we're teachers, we're helping with homework, and you know, lord forbid, you got a husband.

Toye Penny:

Now you're trying to do, you know, trying to be a wife, and now you got a click. It's a lot, y'all it's a lot. And so our minds are all over the place, our, you know, our minds are all over the place. Suicide is at all time high, depression is at an all time high. I mean, it is crazy. It's crazy right now.

Toye Penny:

And so, mental and emotional peace, um, between that and a meaningful spiritual practice, y'all, I think those are the main two that has kept me and my clients going, you know, through this time. You know, of course, you got to add in the food and, as we talked about, that's secondary. But this mental and emotional peace, you know, if you're not at peace with your mind and your emotions, you can't do anything. You know you. You just can't. You can't be a mom, you can't run your company, you can't. You know you can't do anything, you can't do anything. And so, um, I, I always, I always say um, we tackle whatever it is bothering you. You know, I don't care if it's schooling, or you know, maybe you and your mom had an argument or something, or maybe you and your husband had an argument. Whatever it is keeping you up at night when you go through the Love you More method, we're basically strategizing how can we get rid of this? How can we, you know, or not really get rid of it, but how can we handle it, how can we cope with it?

Toye Penny:

And so, a lot of times, I tell people to read a motivational quote or a scripture or something. Each day, every single day, we start our day off with a quote or a scripture or something and throughout those, throughout your day, you are remembering that quote, you're remembering that scripture. You're remembering throughout the day. You know. So if Timmy spills his chocolate milk all over the floor, you know you're not falling off the, flying off the handle and cussing out everybody. You know you're not doing. Or if the lady at Starbucks, you know, has an attitude, you're not. You know getting an attitude back. You know. So our mental and emotional piece is everything. You know it's everything, and I don't. I hope you agreed with that, but I know, absolutely.

Nika Lawrie:

I think everything I mean, I think if you, if you're going to struggle in the mental emotional space, everything else is going to struggle, you're going to struggle in the mental emotional space, everything else is going to struggle. You're going to have a hard time in any other part of your life, whether that's your children, your business, your, your partner, whatever it is. So I absolutely agree with that. I think you know, one of the things that we miss as women is we feel guilty about taking time for ourselves to kind of reset and breathe, and so it's. It's really important to kind of let go of that guilt and understand. You know, like you said, put your mask on first. You know, if we're taking care of ourselves and you know, finding some time to prioritize our own health, our own wellbeing, we show up better for everybody else, and so it's. It's honestly a a benefit for everybody, opposed to something to feel guilty about.

Toye Penny:

Exactly, I completely agree and I think a lot of times we're not doing that.

Nika Lawrie:

Yeah.

Toye Penny:

You know whether we think it's selfish, or whether you know we're so busy doing other things, um, whether it's running the business or attending the clients. Or you know we're so busy doing other things, whether it's running the business or attending the clients, or you know going to meetings, or you know homeschooling, or trying to be the wife or whatever it is. We're so busy doing the other things that at the end of the day, we're exhausted. We're exhausted. Then we start drinking. You know overly drinking. We're popping pills. We're thinking about, you know, suicide.

Toye Penny:

I mean, you know it all just comes running down on us and because of me growing up without my mom, I know that our kids are better with us here they are better with us here.

Toye Penny:

They are better with us here. A few of my I like target, I tell, I like to give people examples of, like Kate Spade and Whitney Houston. You know those two ladies were powerful women. You know they were. You know leading thousands of people, women, you know they were, you know leading thousands of people. They were moms, you know they were wives, they were, you know they were. They were all of that and more. And both of them are not here today. Yeah, and, and I could say it was primary food. I'm sure they was, you know, eating healthy every now and then or whatever, or what they thought was healthy or whatever. But our primary food, our mental and emotional piece, was off and if you look at it right now, just like Whitney Houston, like her daughter is no longer here because of the example that she set for her daughter. So I'm telling y'all, it's real, it's real. You have to pour into yourself first, because if you don't, your children will reap the benefits of what you're doing to yourself.

Nika Lawrie:

Like it's real, yes, absolutely. What are some of the tips or advice that you would give for somebody who kind of wants to work on this or isn't sure how to prioritize themselves or often feels guilty, maybe about, you know, spending time or money or something on themselves, as opposed to their kids or their family?

Toye Penny:

Um, well, if this is, if, if what you just heard is not enough, I'm telling you you have to look back and I always talk about. This is very hard to talk about, but I always talk about paying attention to like, okay. So a few days ago, I went to a funeral, y'all, and I, um, thank you. Um, I went to a funeral, but I was there and I pictured myself in this casket and I picture and I asked myself what legacy am I leaving behind? Yeah, and it's really hard, I'm telling you, it's the hardest thing, but you have to ask yourself that you, sometimes you just have to get real with yourself and you have to ask yourself what legacy am I leaving behind? A lot of us want to leave a financial legacy for our kids or whatever, but what legacy? Is it a legacy of anger? Is it a legacy of deceit? Is it a legacy of depression? What legacy? And you have to often ask yourself that and if it's an answer that you don't like, change it. You're still here.

Nika Lawrie:

Change it. That is such a powerful motivator, or just thought to consider it makes me think of Brendan Burchard. He's a high performance coach. He's kind of famous in the personal development world, but he talks about that. He tells a story about how I think he was like 18 or 19, and he got into a devastatingly bad car accident with one of his buddies they were kids driving too fast and crashed the car and he near-death experience. He tells a story, I think, about God speaking to him or giving him information in that moment and that affecting him. But what he learned from that was that his life could have been taken at that moment and he would have left without having any legacy, made any real impact on the world. He was so young and so he talks about. He has, I think, three L's. I'm drawing a blank on one of them, but one of them is making sure he focuses on love and so having loving relationships with the family and with his wife and his kids and and with his community and that kind of thing. But the second thing is that he spends his life thinking about the legacy he wants to leave behind and how important it is to wake up every day and make that decision.

Nika Lawrie:

Like you said, you know, am I going to make a good impact today? Am I going to do something I'm proud of today? Is this working towards my goal, my legacy that I want to leave behind? Or am I going to wake up today angry and feeling like crap and yelling at people and, you know, depressed, like always? Like? Am I just going to go through the same negative routine over and over and over again? I love you can. Even if you haven't been through a life-changing experience, you can still do it by. You know, looking at yourself being in a coffin or something, and you know, what does that look like?

Toye Penny:

It's rough, it's I and I know it. I know it's a rough, you know visualization for yourself. But I'm telling you, you, you have to look at it like that.

Toye Penny:

You really do and I'm telling you, if that's not motivation enough, you know you, you have we, we, we were giving as moms, we were given a job. It's our job, it's our duty to to provide and be there for our children, you know, and make them better than what we are. You know that's our job. So you have to pour into yourself. I mean, you have to, you have to and I believe that when you have children, you have to and I believe that when you have children it becomes more about you.

Toye Penny:

So I remember when I first had my daughter and everybody's like, oh, it ain't about you, no more. Yeah, yeah, I remember that, like I remember, and it is to a certain degree, but I have learned over the years it became more about me. Because when it becomes more about me and this is not a selfish type way I'm looking at it because when it becomes more about you, then they I relate to that too.

Nika Lawrie:

I remember when my daughter was she was probably about 10 months old or so I was really depressed, really having a hard time, wasn't taking care of my body, you know, still had, you know, 10, 15 pounds left over from having her, just felt really sluggish. I was laying on the couch watching Law Order SVU. It was a Saturday marathon and I had watched it the whole day. My daughter was asleep on my chest and I remember having this kind of breakthrough moment of you know, kind of a divine moment or something, where I had this feeling of I'm going to die if I don't get up right now and do something Like I am going to die, if I don't get up right now and do something like I am going to die. And I wasn't like I was going to die in that exact moment. Like you know, I wasn't being attacked or something, but it was.

Nika Lawrie:

It was this moment of if you do not change your life, you are going to die a sad, miserable death and you're not going to get out of this cycle. And so I literally got up, I laid my daughter down and I started doing jumping jacks because I didn't know what else to do. I just knew I had to get up and move, otherwise that was going to be it, and so I think you know it's really important to understand, as moms, that, like you're saying it, it really is you have to take care of yourself and you have to prioritize yourself so that you can be the best mother possible. Otherwise you're going to get stuck, you're going to die, you're going to be unhappy and and ultimately, hurt your kids.

Toye Penny:

Exactly. And how did you feel like after you did those jumping jacks?

Nika Lawrie:

Like like energized, like you know, when you work out and you get kind of that. That that energy that like um, you know it, you work out and you get kind of that that. That energy that, like you know it's the endorphins is what it really is, but it just feels good and you know, you start to have that kind of energy flow through you and eventually it became so addicting that you just kind of keep going with it. But yeah, I think it's such a powerful thing.

Toye Penny:

Yeah, I think so too, man. That is crazy, and I'm glad that you had that. You know I'm glad that you realized, that you know it was crazy.

Nika Lawrie:

I don't. I don't know why it happened, but it just hit me and it hit me really hard. So but it was a kind of a life-changing moment, you know, and it and it led me on this path of health and wellness. It's something I'd always kind of been interested in, but I'd always kind of put it on the side and you know I was doing other things. But it's really, it was the moment that really sparked me being on this path, and I would never change it for the world.

Toye Penny:

I'm so glad, girl me neither.

Nika Lawrie:

Ah, right, yeah, so what are the? What are? So we we've talked about, you know, mental, emotional awareness. What are some of the other, the other seven um priorities?

Toye Penny:

Um, so we said mentally, mentally, mentally, emotional peace. We said a meaningful spiritual practice. Uh, never ending self-care. I think this is a, this is a a big one.

Toye Penny:

A lot of times and and don't get me wrong, like people, I think in 2020, people overuse this word like, oh, you know self-care and you know, I just, I just think self-care is so over you because it's more than self-care is, is things that you do, you know for yourself, it's it's things that you do for yourself, but, um, we forget about the inner. You know the things that we really need to deal with. You know, and a lot of us don't think of that as self-care. You know, yeah, um, self-care is more than getting your hair done and your nails done. You know things like that. You know what I'm saying, and so I just think people are like oh, you know, we just need to self-care. We didn't, you know whatever, and so I think it's being overused.

Toye Penny:

So I use never ending self-care because it ties into, you know, the whole love you more method, and when I say never ending, I mean it needs to be never ending. I mean once a day doing something. And I say something because in the other elements, we are doing the deeper work you know already. So I'm saying now we're doing the something every single day for yourself and it needs to be never ending. And a lot of times we are either pouring into the company, we're pouring into, you know, the book, we're pouring into our clients. I think it needs to be never ending. You know, not once a week. You know, oh, sunday self-care, you know not once a week, not, you know two days a week. It needs to be never ending, yeah, yeah.

Nika Lawrie:

I think too. I see it a lot where you know people think, like you were saying, the self-care is like getting your nails done or getting our hair done or things like that, and what that really comes back down to is not that that's not great, and if that makes you feel good in the moment, go for it. But the issue is that it's basically the same thing as like going shopping. It's a, it's a brief moment of gratification and it's not going to really make any lasting change in your life, whereas you know, if you reset your thought on self-care as self-care is eating the carrot or you know going for 20 minute walk or you know doing something like that you know you can add in all the other fun self-care things too. But you know self-care is really about the the ins and outs. You know and I think mental health is a big factor in that too working through past traumas and hardships you've been through and kind of making peace with those things too.

Toye Penny:

Exactly, exactly, and so a lot of those are. You know they're, they're underlining things. You know that we just don't address. Maybe we you know a lot of us we don't want to, we don't want to. You know that we just don't address. Maybe we you know a lot of us we don't want to, we don't want to, you know, address those things or even the negative things about our own self. You know we don't want to address those and so it's hard. But that's why it's, you know, that's why it's called loving you more. You have to do the work. You got to do the work.

Nika Lawrie:

Yeah, yeah, I love that. Well, I have one more question for you, but before I get to that, I want to just commend you for all the work that you're doing, for the lives that you're changing, for the information you're sharing and just your experience in general, cause I think it's amazing and it needs to be celebrated. So, thank you for all you're doing.

Toye Penny:

Thank you. Yeah, it was rough.

Nika Lawrie:

Yeah, I can only imagine. I am so just amazed and you've just you've done such an incredible thing, so what a cool story to have. Thank you, yeah. So actually I have two questions. So the second to last question is where can the listeners connect with you, when can everybody find you?

Toye Penny:

So I'm on LinkedIn, I'm on Facebook, I'm finally re again on Instagram at Toy Penny. All of them are on Toy Penny On the day of the book pre-sales girl. Instagram shut my account down, so I had to like completely start over. I'm like no, so yeah, they shut my account down, so I had to like completely start over. I'm like no, so yeah, they shut my account down, and so, anyway, I am finally back on Instagram, so you can definitely follow me there and, like I said, linkedin and Facebook and Twitter, all at.

Nika Lawrie:

Toy Penny Perfect and I'll. I'll link to things in the show notes too. Twitter I'll let toy penny Perfect and I'll I'll link to things in the show notes too. Okay, Thank you. So my last question for you, toy, is what advice do you have for someone who either wants to change their life, change the world?

Toye Penny:

or change their community. Um, I always like to leave people with this. Listen, we are bad stewards over our lives If we are doing things that will potentially take us away from our family, our friends and society. And we may mother well, we may wife well, we may do all of those things we may teach. We may you know, we may do all of those things we may teach. We may you know, we may do all of those things Very good, but if we are not pouring into ourselves y'all.

Toye Penny:

We are bad stewards and so I know that, because you're listening here today that you're not. You don't want to be a bad steward and you're not a bad steward. So I think the most important thing to do is love you more.

Nika Lawrie:

Love that. It was beautiful, yeah, yeah, awesome. Well, toy, thank you so much for just sharing all this great information, and I'm so excited for your book launch. It's going to be amazing. I hope everyone goes and buys the book. So congratulations, thank you. Thank you. Big shout out to Toy. I'm so grateful to have her on the show. I hope you loved that as much as I did. As always, my dear friend, I am here for you, so let me know how I can support you, and I'm wishing you the happiest and healthiest hustle. See you soon.

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