Reclaiming Your Hue
About:
At Reclaiming Your Hue, I am dedicated to empowering women to embrace and amplify their inherent brilliance. My mission is to inspire mothers and entrepreneurs to unlock their full potential and radiate their true selves.
I believe in nurturing both the entrepreneurial spirit and the nurturing essence of motherhood, recognizing that our light is not just for us but for the community we build and inspire. I am committed to providing support, resources, and a platform for women to not only reclaim their vibrancy but to also illuminate the paths for others.
My goal is to foster an environment where diminishing oneself is unnecessary, and where every woman is encouraged to shine boldly and without reservation, as we are all born to manifest the greatness within us. By liberating ourselves from our doubts, we collectively empower each other to live fearlessly and vibrantly!
Core Values of RYH:
Faith: Believing in the power of faith to guide and sustain us, trusting in our journey, and finding strength and resilience through spiritual connection and conviction.
Empowerment: Dedicated to empowering women to embrace and amplify their inherent brilliance, inspiring mothers and entrepreneurs to unlock their full potential and radiate their true selves.
Community and Support: Committed to nurturing both the entrepreneurial spirit and the nurturing essence of motherhood, recognizing that our light is for the community we build and inspire. Providing support, resources, and a platform for women to reclaim their vibrancy and illuminate paths for others.
Encouragement and Boldness: Fostering an environment where diminishing oneself is unnecessary, encouraging every woman to shine boldly and without reservation, manifesting the greatness within.
Fearlessness and Vibrancy: Liberating ourselves from doubts to collectively empower each other to live fearlessly and vibrantly, embracing and celebrating our inherent brilliance.
Reclaiming Your Hue
Ep. 53 with Katherine Gyolai | Founder, Find Love Safely
Love Finds a Way (Even When Tinder's Not an Option)
When Katherine's son with Down syndrome asked if he could download Tinder, her immediate "no" sparked a revolutionary idea. As a mother of four children with varying intellectual and developmental disabilities, Katherine recognized a critical void—adults with disabilities deserve safe paths to love and connection too.
Katherine's journey to founding Find Love Safely weaves through profound personal transformation. After years as a stay-at-home mom initially driven by a desire to "fix" her children's disabilities, she gradually discovered the grace of accepting them exactly as they are. Her path led through corporate America, coaching, and what she describes as "the darkest year of my life" in 2024—experiences that uniquely prepared her for her current mission.
Find Love Safely isn't just another dating app. It's old-school matchmaking with modern safeguards. Katherine personally meets every member and their guardian via Zoom before adding them to her database, ensuring authenticity and safety. The service has already created meaningful connections, with her son being the first success story, now happily in a relationship where they "have FaceTime dates every night where they sing worship songs to each other."
Beyond romance, the service creates vital socialization opportunities. "Our children were isolated, on their devices all the time and looking for connection online," one parent told Katherine. Now, members practice conversation skills, learn boundaries, and build confidence in real-world interactions. What began in the Twin Cities has quickly expanded to multiple locations nationwide, with Katherine providing not just matchmaking but also educational resources on dating etiquette, consent, and healthy relationships.
Join us for this powerful conversation about motherhood, resilience through life's valleys, and how one woman's empathetic understanding of a vulnerable population created a business that's changing lives. Follow Find Love Safely on social media or visit findlovesafely.com to learn more about this growing movement to help adults with intellectual disabilities find meaningful connection safely.
Connect with Katherine:
- Coaching: katherinegyolai.com
- Website: Find Love Safely
- Facebook: Find Love Safely
- Instagram: Find Love Safely
- YouTube: Find Love Safely
- Threads: Find Love Safely
Contact the Host, Kelly Kirk:
- Email: info.ryh7@gmail.com
Get Connected/Follow:
- IG: @ryh_pod & @thekelly.tanke.kirk
- Facebook: Reclaiming Your Hue Facebook Page
- YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/@RYHReclaimingYourHue
Credits:
- Editor: Joseph Kirk
- Music: Kristofer Tanke
Thanks for listening & cheers to Reclaiming Your Hue!
Good morning Catherine.
Speaker 2:Good morning Kelly.
Speaker 1:How are you?
Speaker 2:I am doing very well, thank you. How are you?
Speaker 1:I'm good. I just have to say I am so thrilled that you're here. And then we get to meet in person 5050, the individuals that I have on the podcast. 50% of the time. I've already met them, maybe one or two times. Some of them it's you know, maybe there's a little bit more of a longstanding relationship, but it's always so fun when I get connected to a guest. We have a zoom conversation about how the flow of the podcast interview will be, and then we finally get to meet in person. And I'm just having this moment of like how incredible is it.
Speaker 2:It's so fun. It's so fun and thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:You're so welcome. I'm really excited to dive in and hear more of your story, because I got just a briefing of it and I'm thrilled for you to share all of what you are doing and achieving with our listeners. So let's go ahead and dive in. Okay, Sounds great. I would love to first have you share with our listeners how it is that we got connected. I always think it's fun the connection points of how friendships and connections you know stem from, so would you mind sharing that?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. So we have a mutual friend, angie Herter. So we have a mutual friend, angie Herter. I was connected with her as I was looking into insurance options for the business that I just recently founded, and as I was sharing my story with her and describing the business a little bit, she said I think you need to meet my friend Kelly, and so then we were introduced through Angie.
Speaker 1:Oh, she's so wonderful and she is an incredible connector.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's funny.
Speaker 1:We've kind of done this back and forth, like, no, you, you're a better connect, you're a better connector, I'm like you just are, you're knocking it out of the park Angie and she's like I just really enjoy like knowing what people's stories are and then going, how could I not connect you with this person or that person and I, I feel that to my core, I understand that to my core.
Speaker 2:She's great at that and I'm so grateful that she introduced us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so did you know, angie?
Speaker 2:prior to exploring insurance options know Angie prior to exploring insurance options? No, no, so I was. As I was building my business, I was thinking about starting, of course, first with a lawyer to help me develop it and make sure it was developed properly. And all the paperwork was, was in order, because the business that I've started is very I need to make sure that, legally and liability wise, my I's are dotted and my T's are crossed. So I started with somebody I knew and I was mentioning insurance, and he said I happen to have an insurance person that I work with, and so then he introduced me to Angie, and then Angie invited me into her networking group and introduced me to you. So she's a wonderful connector.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, so beautiful. So, with that being said, you've kind of dropped little hints about what's happening with your business. But before we dive into that, can you share what came first for you? Was it motherhood or was it entrepreneurship in this venture with your business?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was motherhood for sure. So I graduated with a degree in journalism, advertising, from St Thomas, but really, ultimately, what I knew I wanted to be was a mother, and that was that was my end goal, and so I worked a little bit after getting my degree, but it was all just biding time until I could become a mother, and so I was married when I was 24. And actually that's the year that my oldest was born. We adopted him. He is my ex-husband's sister's biological son, and so he is. I was 24 when he was born and also 24 when I got married. Then we had three.
Speaker 2:We went on to have three more children of our own, and so I stayed at home with them for 10 years. When my youngest was four. I decided so in 2011,. I decided, we decided it was time for me to go back to work. I was excited to do that. I always had creative ventures that I did while I was a stay-at-home mom. I always needed an outlet, but nothing career or officially professional-wise until 2011 when I went back to work as a copywriter and sort of reentered the workforce in the marketing field.
Speaker 1:So motherhood definitely came first, Okay, wonderful, and I do just want to touch on a couple things. One that stay at home mom, like experience that you had. I've had many guests on who actually have had this period of time where they stayed at home with the kids and I do think it's it's interesting. So let me back up a second. I'm re listening to the next episode that's going to drop and we're talking about this shift that happens when you become a mom and it's this shift of identifying like I've got this bigger purpose now. That's either it's coming or it's here, and I realize there's just this shift that's happened, Like life is so much more than what it had been before, kind of pulling through some of the creativeness that you had. But there is most definitely and I've had confirmation of this from an individual who will be on the podcast in the future there's something that shifts with your brain, that creativity kicks in and it's.
Speaker 1:there's so much that stems from that, right, yeah, and so it's of no surprise that I hear you saying like I've. I had this kind of creative, like creativeness that was pulling through when I was staying at home. That's right, but staying at home with the children is also a full time job. Let's with the children is also a full-time job.
Speaker 2:Let's, let's be very clear.
Speaker 1:I like to say it's like there's there's usually a a natural or maybe um, undiscussed division of conquering things between husband, wife or a significant others, and like usually there's somebody who kind of takes on the CEO of the household, right, right, well, as a stay at home, mom, you're really like taking that full on, that's right. Yeah, schedules like depending on how old each like child is, what their needs are, I mean, it's just a whole thing. So could you speak to that experience of being at home with your children?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yes, it was so gratifying and wonderful and necessary and difficult and painful and and frustrating and all of the things. Um, so my three oldest children all have a disability of some kind and and it's both intellectual and developmental disabilities. I'm happy to go into that as we have our conversation. Um, but my, my job, not only in in being home with them before they were school age, was also very much to get them into therapies to take them to their therapy appointments to work on what they worked on in therapy at home and to continue to practice those.
Speaker 2:I took that really seriously. I was probably too intense about it I I look back now and think that I embrace this mentality of I need to fix them and that is hard for me to realize now because they don't need to be fixed. But I felt very much like it is my job as the stay at home mom to set them up as best I can in life and I feel really proud. I think I did that. I did a good job of that, but in the meantime I lost some of the enjoyment that could have come with in just enjoying my kids who they are at that age.
Speaker 1:Yeah, enjoying my kids who they are at that age yeah, so I remember us talking about this when we had first connected and that in sharing that, how powerful it was to have the recognition of what that looks like Right, but um. But then also understanding like you can't go back and and reverse time and um, how can you provide some grace for yourself? And that so like.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about grace yeah, in this circumstance, because you, you do have children with disabilities and that presents challenges, obvious challenges for them in how they are growing and thriving in this world. But then, as the caretaker to, as mom, like that, providing some grace for yourself through all of that, how how has that looked for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, as I've. As I've grown older, I've realized that I I looked at my children at the time as an extension of me and so when they were not acting quote unquote normal in society, I felt that that was a reflection on my ability to parent and that was deeply difficult for me. And that's, I think, when I talk about wishing that I could have just enjoyed them more for who they were and their quirks and their uniqueness. That's a little bit of what I'm talking about. But I made it about their behavior being a reflection on me and that I was not doing an adequate job parenting. And that's not true and it's not a reflection of me. Of course. See them as now. They've gone off, they all are doing their different things, they're at different stages of their lives and they're all doing really well and they are not extensions of me, they are their own people.
Speaker 2:And to be able to come to peace, come. You know, I look. I think about grace. Grace is a great word. I've had to do a lot in my journey of self-reflection and introspection and healing. Quite honestly, um, I've had to do a lot to give myself grace and forgiveness over not showing up as a mother the way that I would today as a 48 year old woman. But how can you do that? How can you show up at 30 the way that you would show up at 40? You just can't.
Speaker 1:So it takes an evolution. That's right, it takes growing and having the failures truth be told in motherhood and life to really be able to reflect, to actually have the reflection on it, like when you think about reflecting, it's in in both the peaks and the valleys of life. But more oftentimes than not that reflection is happening as we're coming out of the valley.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, yes and that means that it may not be the like a ultimate failure by any stretch of the imagination, but there's something that just didn't quite go the way that we anticipated it to, and how can we then reflect on it? And so, that's right, different ways, but this is just the way my heart is compelling us to go is talk through what the journey of like that self reflection looked like for you.
Speaker 2:Gosh therapy, lots of therapy, which is whoever? If somebody is not in there, you should be in therapy or you should be go through a therapy journey. It's transformative, it's healing. I don't think it's a sign of weakness. In fact, I think it's a sign of strength If you can, if you can look to others to say help me, help me think through this, help me talk through this, help me process this, what happened? So there's that. There is the forgiveness that our Lord gives us, that I've had to.
Speaker 2:If I ever struggle to forgive myself, I always think who am I to think that I don't? God forgives me? And I'm making it. I just Kelly, I'm making it sound like I was.
Speaker 2:I was not a terrible mother, I was a I'm a really good mother, but it is.
Speaker 2:But you, I, I am, and my kids are.
Speaker 2:I have a great relationship with my children and they're in really good places, and so I I feel really, really good about my journey of motherhood, and I think there's this expectation on us to get it right.
Speaker 2:We're supposed to inherently be good at this, at being a mother. We're supposed to just know what to do, and we're supposed to put our own baggage aside to be able to show up for our kids in the way that they need, and a lot of times we get that right, and sometimes we don't get that right, and I'm somebody who has a long history of being hard on myself, and so when I talk about this and forgiveness and I'm talking about forgiveness for little things, just not showing, I'm talking about forgiveness for little things just not showing I'm talking about forgiveness for not showing up perfectly, because I wish I could have and I can't, and and so it's almost a journey of embracing this idea that and and and I thought, you know, I thought motherhood would be easy. I was voted class mom, isn't that? All you need is to what a badge of honor right In my small little Catholic school.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I just I took for granted that it would be easy and it wasn't, and that was a real wake up call for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I. I feel it's an important injection into our conversation right now that this quite possibly this into motherhood and talking like literally.
Speaker 1:You are talking about those invisible things that are going on in our own heads. Most of us as women not all, but most of us are are feeling this obligation, this like we've got to do it all, and the mom guilt that comes along with that, because the expectation of what others or society or, you know, significant others, feel we should be doing, versus how we are actually showing up, even though we are showing up the best that we can in those moments. And you know, sometimes it just takes living those years and going through the, the hiccups, the speed bumps, to realize the speed bumps, to realize, well, one, how like silly is it to have these expectations, that like, sometimes we're putting the expectations on ourselves, and that in itself is not silly. It's just what happens when you're working through the onion layers of like how you can actually show up or how you feel like you should be showing up, and then how others are perceiving it too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you just unpacked a lot there, yeah.
Speaker 2:I just was. I had a thought as you were talking. It's almost like in in the labor, you know, in in the hospital room after you've given birth to your baby. I wish somebody would hand you a book or somebody would come in and say to you hey, you're going to screw up, you have no idea how many times. It's a lot and just be okay with that now. Be okay with that right now, because there is this pressure's. Nobody talks about it and nobody says I mean, I guess we're starting to now, but, um, there's pressure to do it right and to raise these kids who are really really well, well, um, uh, adjusted and and set up to handle everything. And it just I don't know If we could embrace more willingly this idea that we're all going to kind of mess it up, mm-hmm, we're all going to mess it up a little differently. It might allow us to remove or alleviate some of the self judgment that we mothers put on ourselves.
Speaker 1:So good, yeah, it was more in a corporate setting so to speak and can you contextualize for us, like the when that was and then how long you were doing that until you had? You know what I like to call the epiphany?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so went back into the workforce in 2011. And tried to sort of figure that out. We thought, going back by we, I mean my ex husband and I thought that going back full-time would be doable. That ended up being really hard. I don't think. Yeah, it was just too much. It was too much to go from zero to 40 for us, for our family and what my children needed.
Speaker 2:And then had, you know, moved, moved up in my career and in different organizations, from you know, fortune five companies to boutique agencies, and always in this marketing sphere. Yeah, I like marketing, but I have to feel like I can get behind the mission of it. That is crucial to my actual enjoyment or satisfaction at a job. So that was a journey of discovery for me throughout my career and so worked at lots of really, really great places, had some wonderful jobs, and then in 2024 was I tell people it was the hardest, it was the most difficult year of my 48 years of being on this planet and really, really a dark time for me. And one of the dark things in my life at that time led me to leave corporate America and just say this isn't for me anymore. It has served its purpose in my life in really great ways, and I'm tired of being scared to take that leap into entrepreneurship and I just felt that's where you know the Lord was leading me. In that way, it was almost like he shoved me out. He almost needed to shove me out of corporate America in order for me to listen and he did that and I listened. Finally, and I have been certified as a coach and so I had always thought about going back and really jumping into coaching full time, and so, in the fall, I decided to do that, to jump into coaching full time as an individual and executive and team coach. And I was doing that and I was pursuing that and that was going well, and I was getting the certifications the International Coaching Federation certification, which is sort of the gold standard in coaching.
Speaker 2:And a few months before that actually was probably about a year ago now my son with Down syndrome, who is now 21, asked me if he could download Tinder. So this is happening while I'm building my business. And I said, oh my gosh, no, please never ask me that again. That's terrifying. He's never asked me that again. That's terrifying, no. And so I began this quest to help him find a safe way to date, and that's what leads us to what I'm doing now, which is a journey that you know it is. It's not something I set out to do, it's not something I. It really landed in my lap and it felt like this is the right time to be pursuing this. I have the ability, I have pursuing this. I have the ability, I have the expertise, I have the life history, I have the time, I have the business knowledge like this, this. I am set up to do this, and so that's what I did.
Speaker 2:Oh in January. Yeah, I launched it in January. I know we're really teasing, right, we're really teasing what this is.
Speaker 1:We totally are and you haven't. And I want to actually sorry listeners. We're going to just set that down for a second, because Catherine just shared a lot of information and I do want to. I want to dive into some of those crevices of those dark moments, if you're willing and able to share some of that. You shared something so beautiful before we hit record about the dark moments that you've experienced. And let's start there. Yeah, do you remember what it was?
Speaker 2:that you said yeah.
Speaker 1:Say it.
Speaker 2:Well I, it's so incredible. Was it about the vulnerability part, or was it about the so many dark, dark moments?
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, let's, let's try to, let's try to unpack both of them.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, well, yeah, so I had said to Kelly before we record that I'm at my best when I'm vulnerable and transparent. That is when you get the best of me, it's when I'm the most comfortable, it is how I prefer to enter into every conversation and every relationship, and so that's, it's when I'm the most comfortable, it is how I prefer to enter into every conversation and every relationship, and so, um, that's that's really in my comfort zone, and where I'm actually most comfortable is being vulnerable. And then the other thing I said because, um, for for we guests, kelly sends over a list of just sort of prompts for us to be thinking about in terms of the conversation and the direction that it will go, and one of the prompts is to think about dark moments in your life and what the darkest moment is. And my thought was I've had a lot of those and I don't know which one to pick. I mentioned 2024 as being the darkest year of my life.
Speaker 2:In many times changed my trajectory. I am a big believer in God and a follower of Jesus, and so you can hear that in how I talk, and so I am a believer that every twist and turn is a gift. Truly, it's hard in the moment, but it's ultimately a gift, and it is preparing you for the next thing in your life, and so I'm grateful for all of them. But there's a lot of them, and there's some dark times.
Speaker 1:I took a shift with how I approached interviewing the guests and it wasn't too long after I started the podcast. Um, on a Sunday, when we were at church and what was what was being spoken to us was, you know, the I am totally drawing a blank on the Bible verse I think it's a Psalms Bible verse of like going through the valleys and I was like, oh, this is what we're talking about. Like, this is what I'm talking about is how we ebb and flow and have like had these experiences as moms and as entrepreneurs, and the ups and downs, and I'm like it's the peaks and it's the valleys. And then I had some epiphanies from there. But that's kind of how I'm. I like tied it into asking, like, what has that deep, dark valley looked like for you? Because I know, and you know this too, and it is. It's pretty crummy to understand that this is how life is, but when you go through those valleys is when the transformation happens.
Speaker 1:That's right, it's so crummy to have to think about it that way, but for us, as believers and followers of God and Jesus, we know we have the ultimate backing, that's right To the ultimate strength behind us, and that is. There's something so powerful about that in just going, I don't have to draw all the strength from myself. I don't have to do it. No.
Speaker 2:I can't do it. I can't do it Right, if left to my own devices, I will not do it.
Speaker 1:Right, I won't do it. Well, I won't do it, right, I will. I would be a puddle, that's right.
Speaker 2:That's right. I mean, I can't do it. And and Kelly, I'm going to show you a tattoo. Sorry, listeners, you're not able to see this but it says can you read it?
Speaker 1:I'll read it. Yeah, you turned my wailing into dancing.
Speaker 2:Psalm 31, verse 11. Yeah, because that's what he does. He turns our wailing into dancing, and he's done it time and time and time again. I'm thankful for all the dark moments in my life, because it has taught me really to lean on him and that there is hope and light at the end of it. So you asked about some of my dark moments. You want me to kind of go through some of them.
Speaker 1:I, I think what would you like. Because you shared that 2024? So far. Yeah has probably been the most challenging. Why don't we dive into that, and would you be willing to share a little bit more about what that's looked like?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. So I had two things happen in my life in 2024, that one of them alone would have been traumatic in itself and the two of them together leveled me, just absolutely leveled me, to give sort of high level, without going into a lot of detail. I had a very difficult time and really a falling out with my youngest child and it was traumatic. It was deeply, deeply traumatic and I wanted to control the outcome. I wanted to fix it and I want the pain to go away and I want the suffering to go away. So I'm going to quick do what I need to do to fix it. And I didn't do that. I waited, I waited on God, I waited on. I just allowed things to unfold in their own timing. It was absolutely excruciating. I had panic, I had fear that it would never be okay again, that we would never heal that.
Speaker 2:You go to the extremes of what could possibly come of such a falling out and the shame gosh you talk about motherhood. Shame, my goodness. Right it's. Am I doing the right thing? It's a lot. I am grateful to say that almost a year later, he and I are probably better than we've ever been. So praise God for that. And it's not without a lot of work, it's not without a lot of on everybody's part and not without a lot of difficult, difficult times, but we are in a good place and I can look back on it and say, whatever gifts I was, that we were all given as a result of that, thank you. Thank you, lord, for the growth that happened, for the, the hard times, because I, who knows what that set him up to be able to handle later on in life, who knows what that set me up later to be able to handle later on in life. So that was one of them.
Speaker 2:And then the other one I sort of alluded to with corporate America, that I was in a job that was really really great until it wasn't, and the it wasn't part happened when my experience of it was that I felt deeply, deeply betrayed by people I trusted and I realized I'm a very trusting person by nature. That's just my default Good, bad, indifferent, right. Sometimes it's lots of times it serves me, sometimes it doesn't, and this was a time that it didn't and I was betrayed in a way that for me as an empath, was again traumatic, really, really bad, and I won't. Yeah, that's, I think, together, the two of them, which happened around the same time. It was amazing I could get dressed in the morning. Honestly, it was really, really hard and I'm through it and what has come of that deep trauma and pain. 2025 so far has been the best year of my life.
Speaker 1:Love that. Yeah that's incredible and what an impactful share that you just presented to the listeners. I'm sure that they're craving a little bit more, but I can tell that this is something that is. It really is one of those kind of deep wound like cuts.
Speaker 1:And so what I am thinking about, as you had shared, that, is the resilience that was built up through all that you had to navigate through in that timeframe, in conjunction to so many other words that we could use through all of that. But I love that you leaned in to trusting God's will and process through all of it, because that is challenging, it's all I had.
Speaker 2:It's all I could do. It's all I could do. I couldn't change what was happening. I wanted to get in there and fix both of them and change it, and I wanted to scream from the rooftops this is not who I am. What you're saying about me corporate. This is not who I am. You're not. You know, I wanted to. Just I wanted to do all of that so badly and I couldn't, and it wouldn't have mattered, and the only thing I had truly was to remember that I'm a daughter of the King. That's all I had, and that he's going to take care of me Because I couldn't do it. I was not in a situation of being able to save myself.
Speaker 1:I was not in a situation of being able to save myself. All I had was was relying on the fact that this is so hard. Now I know he will use it for good, I know he is refining me in some way. I trust that deeply. And it sucks. It sucks so so much. It's really hard, yeah, yeah. And again, all I keep thinking about is just the learning process that we go through in moments like that, and so I want to beg the question, like, in doing this reflection backwards on all of that, what had you learned through all of it that you then took and allowed you to be able to move forward in the direction that you are in now?
Speaker 2:oh, that's a really good question. I don't know, know. My first response is that I don't know. I guess I don't know yet what I've learned, which sounds really strange. I think that when I say God sort of shoved me out of corporate America, saying like, um, you're not, this isn't for you, this isn't, this isn't where I want you, this isn't where you're, I need you anymore, I need you to go off and do this other thing. Um, that's that was. That was a big part of it. I just believe that he, he picked me up and moved me where he wants me.
Speaker 2:In terms of what I learned, it was probably, no, not probably. It was the first time in my life that I can remember where I really relinquished everything to God Like I really again, I can't say it enough I had no other choice. I couldn't fix it on my own. I had nothing else but to look to him and I don't know that I had ever experienced. I learned throughout all of this was I wonder if he didn't have to get me to that place so that I would truly learn to resistance. You go up against and in in the moment it doesn't feel that way, but when you look back you go. Oh, my word, there was so much resistance.
Speaker 1:There was just so much, whether it was tension or it was like there was resistance there, and all you keep saying is like God pushed me into a different direction. And that is, I mean that, truly like. For some people their guidance is not of God but it's of the universe, right, and the universe kind of pushes them and that energy shift happens for them. For us, we say God was literally like showing us the little breadcrumbs over here. It just took us having to see, you know, the forest through the trees, as people like to say.
Speaker 2:That's right, that's right, yes, yes and go.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, my word.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh, my word.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But it doesn't come without having to go through the mud and the ick.
Speaker 2:It's so muddy, yeah, and you always want to think, oh, maybe that's the last time I'll have to go through something. Think, oh, maybe that's the last time I'll have to go through something, maybe I've done my time and we're good. Now, right, we're good. No, that's not how that works, and there will be more, and I'll fight it again when there is more. That will be my default. It always is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's you. You're building up the resilience and you used a really beautiful word, and that is refinement.
Speaker 1:Like there was a refining that was happening, whether it was just to build that stronger foundation for yourself or the posture of your heart in how you make decisions, moving forward or handle circumstances when they come about. That all plays such a vital role in motherhood and in business. I am curious. So the coaching came about just this past year and talk myself and the listeners through how that like came to your heart, how you decided you know this is I want to be able to support others in this endeavor of life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like so many of us during COVID, I had sort of an existential crisis of what am I doing?
Speaker 1:What am I?
Speaker 2:doing here on earth? How am I making the world a better place? So I took what is what's called the StrengthsFinder assessment Now it's called CliftonStrengths. It's by Gallup, and I was able to. When I saw the results of that, it was just like you know, Catherine, this is who you are Like. You've got to face this. This is who you are, and it was all really good things. I mean, of course, because it's 34 strengths.
Speaker 2:The strengths test is based on 34 strengths. They aren't weaknesses, and so I was able to see this is who I am. This is what energizes me. This is what I'm good at.
Speaker 2:Empathy is my number one, so deeply empathetic. That is a difficult one to have, because you are constantly absorbing the emotions of the people around you, whether you want to or not, whether you need to or not, whether it's valuable to you or not, and it makes me a really great listener. And and, and you know when, when people are talking to me, they feel like I. They can feel I'm listening because I am. I am. And so then there were other. You know four other strengths. One of them is belief, and belief tells me that I've got to do work that is meaningful for me, that being content with my life and doing work that aligns with my values is more important than money.
Speaker 2:So I'm looking at these things that really define me and who I am, and I'm now able to see, at this time, these this is who I am, I'm, I'm, I'm playing in this other space of marketing that I is fine and has been good to me, but is ultimately not where I I get my energy. So how can I, if I'm going to make a pivot and I'm going to do something different with my life, how can I do something that more closely aligns with really who I am? I'd always thought about being a therapist. I love going to therapy, I love talking about therapy. I would go to therapy every week if I could. I just like I, just I love everything about it. It's part of that vulnerability, that transparency that I really enjoy, and so I thought about that. But that didn't quite feel right, and so, in 2022, I actually went through a program to become certified as a coach.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so actually 2020 back further it does it does further than recent.
Speaker 2:So 2022, I was, I was, uh, I had become, I'd gone through a program, became certified as a coach, was building my coaching business at that time when I got a call from a company and it was a great opportunity. It was supposed to be a contract gig. I liked it so much that it is where I begged them to let me stay. It was a really great gig. It was great to say I led a team at this well-known company in Minnesota. It's also the place that I talk about as being difficult with my 2024. So I'm a little bit sensitive about saying the name because I don't want to be disparaging. And it was really, really wonderful for the time that I was there and up until it wasn't. But so I it was great, I was really enjoying life, thought I would retire there. I took the job I at that time, in 2022, I stopped pursuing the coaching full time and took the role because my husband was between jobs and so between the two of us we were depleting our savings and so we said, okay, this is an opportunity that, again, I felt God dropped in my lap. I was not looking for, but it happened and we needed it and it was perfect and it was saving, it was life-giving for us in lots and lots of ways. So I had paused the coaching in pursuit of that job. So then, when I had decided to leave that job this fall, I said I think you know, I'm tired of being afraid to pursue this, I'm tired of being afraid of being an entrepreneur. It's clear to me that this company is not where I belong anymore, and so is this the time to take that leap and go and pursue that journey. And so I did that.
Speaker 2:I have coaching clients. I love, love, love coaching. I love it. If this other thing that we'll talk about didn't drop into my lap, I would still be pursuing that full time and I am still doing lots of coaching and pursuing coaching. I enjoy it tremendously. I love working with teams. I love working with individuals. My heart is really for women who are in some kind of shift in their life, whether they are currently staying home with their children and they're thinking about going back to work. I love to dive deep and peel back some layers of where is that coming from? How do we find your voice in all of this? I love to help women find their own voice and their own desires.
Speaker 2:I think that men certainly have their own set of narratives and messages that they've received right. It's not just women Men get it too right. I'm supposed to provide. Received right. It's not just women men get it too right. I'm supposed to provide, I'm supposed to be this, I'm supposed to be that. And we, because we are women and so we can identify with the messages women receive and the narratives women experience, and so I can identify with those and I love helping women unpack that. And imposter syndrome is an example. I hear it all the time in the women that I coach. All you know all the time. And so what's behind that? Where's that coming from? And you can't just say, oh, don't have imposter syndrome, you're awesome, look how great you are. Okay, but that's, that's not gonna, that's not how we deal with that?
Speaker 1:No, it's usually, we unpack it. Yeah, we unpack it and find out what's behind it Out of curiosity does it like in doing that unpacking with these women, Are you finding that it stems like from childhood, or is it like one given experience that all of a sudden changed something Like talk, talk me through that.
Speaker 2:I find that it is a long series of sometimes subliminal and sometimes very obvious messages that we receive as women. So often that's in childhood. My messages that I received in childhood were you're probably wrong in the other person's right, especially if they're a man. You should defer to that. I also received some messages around you're too much, you're too dramatic, you're too sensitive, you are, you take things too personally. And actually those things are true. This is part of the strengths, this is part of that strengths assessment. Why it was so liberating for me? Because, yes, those things are true. They are closely tied to, they are connect. They are actually connected to the thing that I love about myself, which is that I'm empathetic.
Speaker 2:So, yes, I'm I, I can take things personally. Yeah that's a shadow side of something I love about myself, which is I care deeply, I'm a nurturer, I'm a caretaker, I'm a natural caretaker.
Speaker 1:We have a lot of parallels.
Speaker 2:Do we?
Speaker 1:I'm very, very confident that that is a strength of mine. Okay, which empath?
Speaker 1:yeah, I do like I. I notice that when I'm having the interviews with my guests, like when they go into their moments of the darkness, right, like sharing those moments, I am like right there with you, but I'm also reliving it through the lens of my deepest, darkest moments, and so I have to remind myself you're the host, stay right here. And so it's a learned thing for me to go. It's wonderful to be able to do that, because you can empathize or sympathize, whatever really is being called to in that specific moment. Right, but right, how can you like encourage yourself to not go and overhear so much more off of the railroad tracks?
Speaker 2:with it, right?
Speaker 1:yes, so I'm sure that those are the conversations you're having, yes, which is likely very challenging.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:The individual you know, who's receiving that? But then those aha moments and the breakthroughs of like I mean, yeah, like people have told me that I'm a lot but like how can I hone in on that and kind of pull through the greatness of who I am and that shining like star?
Speaker 2:that's right, you are, that's right, right, right, right. And how can I recognize that? That it is? It's not an isolated feature or characteristic about myself. It is connected, it is tied to something that, again, that I love about myself and that I don't want to change. And so, really, it's about mitigating the times that I take things personally or being able to say, oh, I'm taking that personally right now. Okay, that's tied to my empathy, that's okay, it's not bad. I'm not a bad person for taking it personally. How do I manage that? Or what do I need to notice that's happening for me right now, that I am taking that personally, and do I? Should I really be taking that personally?
Speaker 1:You spoke it so much more eloquently than I did.
Speaker 2:That's what I was getting.
Speaker 1:Okay, good, good, good oh my gosh, I love it, though I think it's so incredible that to be able to sit down and have these conversations with women especially, you know, being that you're a mom and you're an entrepreneur a a mompreneur, as I like to say and perhaps having those conversations with other mompreneurs too, you're like, hey, I got it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure, I totally get it.
Speaker 1:I'm right there with you, um and and let me talk through this with you so that you can it I can help you. Have the tools in your toolbox to be able to work through some of those narratives, peel back the onion layers and have those breakthrough moments.
Speaker 2:That's so cool yeah.
Speaker 1:So you're still doing the coaching still doing the coaching. However, our highly anticipated moment of sharing the other business venture that you have, which is, which is it's called Find Love Safely.
Speaker 2:It is a personalized matchmaking service for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. So it is not an app, it is not an online service. Lots of people when I talk to them about it, they think, oh, are you going to create an app for it and and how do we get to this app? And I'm I say nope, nope, nope. So again, you know, my son asked if he could download tinder and that was off the table for lots of reasons. And you know, people with disabilities are are really, really susceptible to online scamming. I mean, the most of us are, all of us are.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And so much more clever to. That's right. That's right.
Speaker 2:And yeah, and if you, it's easy to prey on a 19-year-old boy with photos that look a certain way right and say I really think you're cute and to draw them in. That I mean, it's just, it's an easy, it's too easy and it makes me really sad.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So my mission in life is to get this the disabled population off the internet, off of them trying off those dating sites to try to meet somebody and actually have them connect with real people and create those friendships and those relationships. So we, you know, just just to give you some, I think it helps to talk through the process of how it works so that you can kind of understand what makes it different. So people submit an intake form. That's just the first step for becoming a Find Love Safely member. It just gets me on your radar or gets you on my radar, and then we have a meeting where I meet every single member and their parent or guardian on a zoom call. So I am meeting with every single person who becomes part of the database.
Speaker 2:So it's really like old school match making. It's like a matchmaking service and I'm meeting with the member and I'm meeting with their parent or guardian, and so I'm able to make sure that they are who they say they are, I'm able to learn more about what they're looking for, I'm able to make sure they have their parent or guardian support and it also gives them a chance to ask me any questions. And nobody is eligible for matches in my service until I've had that conversation with you and your support person, and then, once I learn a little bit more about you, I'm able to match you with other people in my database based on age, based on the ability, the level of functioning and the level of ability that each person has, and what I've seen is that there have been relationships that have been formed, romantic relationships. My son is the first success story.
Speaker 1:I was going to ask. I mean, he was the guinea pig. He's the guinea pig.
Speaker 2:And he is completely in love. Yeah, oh, my word, completely in love. She's darling. She is a wonderful fit for him. She's darling, she is a wonderful fit for him. They have FaceTime dates every night where they sing worship songs to each other. Kelly Get out, you know. They. They cook meals together, they have push up contests together All of the sun face time. So they sort of date every day, ok. And then when it works with our schedules, her family and her family is wonderful and her parents are very supportive and we, you know, we'll get them together. So they have a date coming up this Saturday. It'll be like their fifth date, fifth or sixth date, I think, and they are just, it's just so beautiful. It's just so beautiful.
Speaker 2:There've been others who have met friends. I, you know, I get, I get emails from parents who just say you have, you have no idea what you're doing for this community. It's beyond this matchmaking. You are creating connection in a way.
Speaker 2:Our children were isolated, our children were on their devices all the time and looking for connection online, and what's happening now is they are meeting new people and they're practicing those skills. So you can go to years and years of speech therapy, but until you're practicing, sitting across the table from somebody who you don't know and you have to try to make conversation with, until you have to practice that it doesn't really become real right. I mean, you can go to speech therapy every week for 10 years and what we're doing is putting them in situations of meeting new people and talking to new people and learning how to have that conversation and learning to be an active listener and learning to be a good friend and how to identify when somebody is not a healthy person for you, and so that's what the new business is, and it just really fell in my lap. I launched in January. It's been so successful that I'm actually actually we have two new locations. One is Myrtle Beach and one is San Francisco.
Speaker 1:Wow yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'm speaking in Oklahoma City next week, and so I imagine, and have already set it up, that that will be the fourth location is the Oklahoma City area.
Speaker 1:I've got a couple different directions that I want to go to. Okay, so two follow up questions. Sure, this the first that I was consciously thinking about. After you shared what you are doing in coaching right, and then starting this business, it fell in your lap. How incredible and thank the Lord for that.
Speaker 1:Because this is, it's so completely evident, Like you lit up when you were talking about serving women in the capacity that you are coaching, but you are shining and it's so evident that, like this is a beautiful mission that God has put on you to continue to grow and serve that community. So the question that is, that was a very long winded way of me getting to this question of, like, what have you pulled through from the skills of coaching into this business? It's I, it's like glaringly evident to me. But let's talk the listeners to this, because I think that this is kind of important.
Speaker 1:Okay in how these businesses can tie together.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Well, I think again empathy comes to mind. I also have relator. For those of you out there who on who, who know strengths in the strengths world, my strengths are empathy, relator, individualization, connectedness and belief. So you know empathy.
Speaker 2:I really can empathize with these members and their guardians, their parents. I, you know, have four children, four stepchildren, and four of those have a developmental or intellectual disability, and so I really really can empathize with this. Why isn't there anything out there that can help my kid? My kid is saying that he wants to date or she wants to date or she's looking for friends, and why is nothing out there that is specific for this? And so I have. You know, somebody asked me the other day what's your favorite moment in, what's the best part of what you do? I was actually speaking at Bethel University at their BUILD program it is a program for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities and one of the students asked me what's your favorite part of what you do? And one of the students asked me what's your favorite part of what you do?
Speaker 2:And I said my favorite part is when I see the relief on both the member and the guardian or the parent's face when they know that their son or daughter is about to have their world opened up to them in a way that they didn't know was possible before. That's my favorite moment when I can see that relief. And so certainly you know the coaching how it relates is I can enter their journeys pretty easily, that's that's the range of functioning and the range of abilities in my own children, in my own family is pretty wide, and so I'm able to meet them where they are, to understand them, to draw out of them, to make them comfortable, to really get their story, and it's wonderfully gratifying. Yeah, so you, but you said you could see the connection between coaching and find love safely in the matchmaking.
Speaker 1:You literally just.
Speaker 2:Is that what it was? What you're thinking?
Speaker 1:Well, the empath part the empathy. Part of it was like that was going to be. One of my questions is like being an empath, how do you see that fitting in all that you're doing with this new business and I just it's incredible. It's so incredible. Also, it's so neat to see and hear this convergence of who you are at the core, which is a mother and being able to serve your child and children right.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:It's all of them. That's right and you get to do that through a business model that is. It's evident that it is seeing success, because you can see that it's starting to like, it's starting to spread, and that's so cool. This like being able to merge them. I love it.
Speaker 2:It's amazing. I always tell people that find love safely. Checks all the boxes for me, all of them, all of them. It's an untapped market. Nobody's doing this. There's nothing like this that exists anywhere. And you know, love on the Spectrum just came out with season three. If you don't watch it yet, I highly encourage you to watch it. It's the most uplifting show that is on television right now. It's beautiful, it's just so. It's beautiful. This is an untapped market. This is a need. We think that because somebody has an extra chromosome or they have a disability of some kind, that love and friendship and relationship isn't on their radar? Of course it is. Of course it is. They're human. They're human beings like the rest of us. They want that, that connection. We're made to be connected, we're made to be in relationship with each other, and so that's no different for people with disabilities. And yet it's hard enough, kelly, for you and I to know how to be in relationships. Sometimes, right, that's hard enough for you and I to figure out right.
Speaker 2:It's hard. It's a tough thing, and so if you have a disability on top of that, especially something like autism, where you may not read social cues the way that other people do, and so you're not picking up on things or you're not understanding, maybe I'm talking too much, maybe I'm talking too little, or maybe I'm making too much eye contact or not enough eye contact. Right, there's these nuances of it just being difficult to be a human in a relationship, and yet it's what we all crave, and so part of my service also is creating these videos for members, and where I talk to the members in the videos about things like how to choose what to wear on our first date. So for you and I, we might just what we feel good in, but for somebody with autism, for example, they may have some sensory issues, and so there may be a shirt or something that feels really uncomfortable to them and is going to distract them throughout the entire date, and they should not wear that shirt on that date. So that's actually rule number one is what I say in my videos is make sure it's something that you can be comfortable in.
Speaker 2:Don't wear high heels if you're used to wearing sneakers. So there's things like that. There's what do you say to somebody on a first? What's the first thing you say to them? Well, first, smile, give them a big smile. These are things you and I learn just by sort of being in society sometimes, but they're they're not givens for everybody, and so that's a lot of where my coaching comes into play too.
Speaker 1:I'm speechless. I'm speechless and it's so cool to hear the varying aspects of above and beyond that and then, in the support of them being able to go and successfully have this, you know, sit down date with somebody else, like there's all of these things, that kind of the lead up to that amazing, like story.
Speaker 2:That's right. That's about to unfold, yeah, yeah impactful.
Speaker 2:Thank you yeah, I also have a guardian blog for those who are the caretakers and how they can support their members. And then I also do events in the Twin Cities area. Um, we have one coming up. I think it will be it'll actually have occurred before this airs, but um, we have. Our next event is on setting boundaries consent. That's a big passion for me. How do you say no? How do you learn to say no comfortably and confidently as women? That can be really hard for us, and so I just want, I really want this community to be comfortable saying no, thank you, I don't want to do that. I don't want to give you my phone number or that makes me uncomfortable. No, right, I just. That's such. An important piece of this is, as you're entering relationship, in being able to set your boundaries and let the other person know what you're comfortable with and what you're not, and then also being able and willing to walk away.
Speaker 1:Wow, it's so. I am going to be carefully watching this journey with the business and seeing the evolution of it, because I just think it's so. One like the easiest word to use is how sweet is it? But it goes so much deeper. It really is, and you hit the nail on the head that this is about human connection and that we all deserve a fighting chance of having human connection in some way, shape or form, or capacity, yeah, capacity, yeah, and that doesn't stop with this community or in population of vulnerable children slash adults, that's right right, I mean in this case it's adults it's adults.
Speaker 2:Yep, right, right, right yeah it's so impactful well, and if there's that void, right, if we're craving connection and we're craving relationship and friendship and and all of those things, and we're craving relationship and friendship and and all of those things and we don't have it, there's a void there and that void is going to be very easily filled by, uh, someone who does not have good intentions online is what I'm thinking specifically about.
Speaker 1:Right, there's a void and somebody online can come fill it and, um, easily like I mean, it's just so like that is you think about how, um, even the younger and younger that kids are exposed to, like having a cell phone and being able to tap into social media settings Um, it's, it's starting at such a young age and, yeah, I, I'm glad that there's you're shifting the narrative on what that can look like, because it's really important and yeah, yeah, two of my children were scammed online, um, before I started.
Speaker 2:Find love safely, um, so, so this is really it's. It's a business born out of, out of. I care so deeply about fixing this problem. Right, I'm a fixer. We talked about that with my kids and I see a problem and I want to. I want to fix it and this is this is the right time in my life to be doing that, and that's where I think God patiently set me up and put me through these things, to be able to set me up really beautifully for this time in my life. It's like Esther for such a time as this.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, so I hope that I want there to be a find love safely in every major city in the United States. I don't know why there can't be. There can be. That is my goal, that's what I'm working toward and I just want to fill this void that this community has. It's hard to get out. It's hard, you know, many of them don't drive right, so they're relying on their, their caregiver, their parents to take them places and have so you and I can get in the car and go have a social opportunity if we want. They can't always do that Right, so it's even more isolating for them. The world is an even more isolating place for them, and so online is their outlet, and I want to change that.
Speaker 1:Again, I'm going to be carefully following along with this to see how it continues to evolve, and I love that you've set that intention to let God allow his will to work through all of this right and like to have everything unfold. I almost use the word manifesting, but we know better than that.
Speaker 2:That's right, that's right yeah.
Speaker 1:We know better than that Out of curiosity, because you are such an empathetic, empath person. It's a major skill of yours right. But on the on the flip side of that coin is taking on those emotions that that others are going through right, and so where I'm going with this is talk me through what. What has self care looked like for you? I see that you're wearing an aura ring.
Speaker 2:I am.
Speaker 1:That's cool. We can talk off air a little bit more about that and the experience, but talk the listeners through that self-care especially for you and I as empaths, it's really important that we are taking care of ourselves and I think, just generally speaking as as moms and taking on business adventures, there has to be a self care component to it and sort of the that are and are. So what does that look like for Catherine?
Speaker 2:I would say when I was home with my children and I talk about those creative outlets, like I made and sold handbags for a while, and then I like right now I make candles and I have made jewelry and sold jewelry before. So I what I love to do is is see something that I want to buy and then think about how I can make it for cheaper than that.
Speaker 2:So, that's truly, that's. That's my model. That's my model for how I choose, how I select creative endeavors. So when I was a, when I was home with my children, that was my outlet is the creative I to be creating something. I always had some sort of entrepreneurial business associated with it. I was always trying to monetize it nothing crazy by any means, but enough that it made me feel good about what I was doing and loved it Today. So today, my creative outlet is building the business.
Speaker 2:I love, love, love building business, love building business. That's been such a joyful thing for me and I can get so wrapped up into it. I don't have achiever as super high. That is one of the strengths where you work, work, work and you need to be productive and you need to be busy and achievement feels good and busyness feels good and every day starts at zero when you want to be productive. I don't have that. I don't do busy for busy sake, but I do, uh, get very sucked in to the creativity that comes with build, the solving of the problems. That is exhilarating for me. Um, so what I do for self-care, um, I do yoga, hot yoga. I'm kind of a hot yoga snob.
Speaker 2:I do not want room temp yoga. It needs to be hot.
Speaker 2:Sweat it out.
Speaker 2:That's right. Yeah, I need to feel like I have sweat in order for me to call it a workout. I am really good about shutting off when I shut off, and so if that's at 5.30, I find that my most brain active time is about 1 to 6 pm. I'm slow to get ramped up in the morning. It takes me a while. I'm kind of I'll dilly dally, I'll find things to do to procrastinate. My brain's not very active in the morning, very active in the afternoon, and I have to work hard to be able to shut it off around dinnertime. And I do shut it off around dinnertime and then I'm done.
Speaker 2:The evenings are for my husband and I, period, full stop, end of story. That's what my evenings are, and so we really come together at the end of the day. And there's no phones. There's no. You know, if I'm working, it is a. It's the exception, not the rule, and it's something that it's because he's doing something and we've decided, okay, this might be a good time for me to work, but otherwise our evenings are for each other.
Speaker 2:We do our devotional together, we talk about our days, we connect, and so that is really crucial to my self care Because it gives me a moment to really shut off what happens in my day and be present for him and be the wife that I want to be for him and have the marriage that I want to be for him and have the marriage that I want to have.
Speaker 2:That, you know, above everything else, my marriage is my priority and so I make that. You know, my kids are out of the house and we have his kids in the house two of his kids and so we spend time with them. But you know, at the end of the day, my marriage and my relationship with my husband is my priority, no matter what happens with the business. All of that is fleeting, but my husband is not, and so we that is that's where I, the evenings are for us and for him to build our marriage, to strengthen our marriage, to connect, to come together in our marriage, to connect, to come together. When I don't have that time, we both miss it.
Speaker 1:We feel it, it starts to erode our relationship a little bit. So we're really intentional about that time. I love it because you're touching on, without actually saying it, how you've created borders and boundaries for yourself. Now my follow up question to that is is that something that you always innately had as a skill set, or was it built over time?
Speaker 2:It was built over time and it was built specifically with my husband now. So I would not say I had that in my first marriage at all. That was not something that we necessarily prioritized in the same way that we do now. I think again. That's wisdom, that's age, that's growth, that's realizing that you're not infallible and realizing that you're not. If you don't for the garden, it's going to die right. If you don't, if you don't, if you don't, if you don't water it, if you don't fertilize it, it's not going to be what you want it to be, it's not going to be fruitful. So I did not always have that. By any means. It is something that I've learned over time in this marriage. It was very it was important to my husband that we feel we connect in that way and that we continue to make each other feel like priorities in our lives because we are, and so that's something I've learned over time and I'm so grateful for that.
Speaker 1:Your statement about gardening like and watering the garden is hitting so hard for me. I'm giggling because I understand it fully. Like this is so true about nearly everything we do in life. Yeah, nearly everything we do in life Nearly everything we do in life and because this podcast is all about motherhood and entrepreneurship, I mean, wow, are you knocking out of the park with that? It's so I'm giggling because it's just. There could not be something more true than that statement, so thank you for sharing that.
Speaker 1:That was quite a nice little like drop of ray of sunshine in the bucket for people to hear. This is your second marriage.
Speaker 2:It is.
Speaker 1:And are you willing and open to talking about, like, when that divorce happened and, um, you know how you got to the place where you're at now with the blending families four kids of your own, four kids of his own. Let's uh, let's talk through that timeline.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, so I got divorced in 2013. Um, um, I can look back now and you know, at the time when I got divorced, I would say it was really important to me to come out looking like a victim. That was a very pivotal, that was a crucial part of my story at that time. I look back on that and regret that I could have divorced much more gracefully than I did. So I can look back on my marriage and realize I certainly was not a victim.
Speaker 2:I contributed to the demise of our marriage and I didn't realize that quite as clearly as when I got married again and married to my current husband. I started to see, or started to behave in ways that I would, that I behaved before just thinking well, this is just what people do and this is my way and my husband, you know, one of the things I used to do a lot is tantrum, and so I would, you know, not like a two year old, but essentially it would be look like stonewalling or it would look like I'm going to give you the silent treatment and and certainly did that plenty in my first marriage. And then, when I started trying to do that in my second marriage, my husband looked at me and he's like, yeah, that's not, this isn't going to work for me, you're not going to do that and I really had this. It's almost like lots of those little moments were revelations for me to look back and say, oh, I've been doing that my whole life. Look back and say, oh, I've been doing that my whole life.
Speaker 2:That has contributed to the demise of lots of relationships in my life. Is that stonewalling, or that tantruming, or that needing to have my way or partaking, whatever name it? So, yeah, I digress. See, this is what I'm saying. I love to go right to the deep stuff and you're just asking for a timeline and I'm getting into all the things that I like this full therapy.
Speaker 2:Disclosure.
Speaker 1:Um so can I just say I do just want to interject here for just a second. I apologize that I'm interrupting, but I think it's important for the listeners to understand that, like this is life, this is real life, and when we can have these aha moments and realizations, whether we get to that point ourselves or somebody in our lives has to allow the recognition to come to us, um and through their communication, while their communication lines. This is real life, and I'm so thankful that you are going there, because that's where the learning can happen through the listener's lens. Right, yeah?
Speaker 2:thank you, you're welcome, thank you.
Speaker 1:So go ahead.
Speaker 2:Okay, so 2013, got divorced. Thank you, so go ahead. Okay, so 2013 got divorced, dated from 2013 to 2016. My husband now his name is Kevin, and he and I had been friends for many years. We were family friends and when his marriage fell apart, we were very quick to come together because we had known each other.
Speaker 2:We'd family friends, and when his marriage fell apart, we were very quick to come together because we had known each other, we'd been friends, and so it happened really quickly when we did come together in 2016. We got married in 2017. You know, everybody wants so badly for our story to be like the Brady Bunch and for it to be a coming together of two families and sibling. You know, all of a sudden, the four are like eight siblings and it's just love and it's a and that's not our story. That's some of our story, but it's not it's. People want to just think and jump to this idea that, oh, holidays must be so great.
Speaker 2:There's pain that comes with divorce. There is a lot of pain that comes with divorce, and there is figuring out. Wait a minute, I didn't ask for four more siblings, I didn't ask for this. Um, there's, there's, you know it's. It's difficult. Blending families is difficult, and if anybody glorifies it or makes you know, then they're either not telling the truth or they had a much different experience than I did. It can be, it can be beautiful and it can be really difficult, and that, I would say, was the. The most growing pain aspect of my, of my marriage to Kevin, has been around this, the blending of the families. It's not about, you know, we don't ever run into issues about do we have different beliefs on things or do we parent differently or do it? It's not that. It's about the blending of the families and it's about making sure I'm not keeping score and thinking well, you did that with your kid, but you don't do that with my kid.
Speaker 2:Right these things that we do to keep score and that we don't even know that we're doing until it's happening. Married since 2017. So it'll be our eight year anniversary. Everybody is doing really well right now and someday they may be dear, dear friends. Some different periods of different combinations of them are friends and spend time together and enjoy being together, and I am so proud. One of the most proud things of my entire life has been how my husband and I have worked through the difficult times and the difficult aspects of blending family.
Speaker 1:Mm, I parallel with us. I mean, this was something that we had um communicated about in our initial conversation and perhaps bonded over, as well as the blending of the families. And, um, while it certainly wasn't four and four, I mean, I came in and I had two bonus boys, you know, right out the gate, and the blending was more so in um the dogs. It's silly, as it sounds like there was that, but um, you know, and then when Maddie arrived, our daughter, it was like how, how does the oldest fit in all of this now? Like, what's his part, what's the now you?
Speaker 1:know, the youngest who was? He was always the youngest of, you know, between him and his brother, but then also within all of the cousins too. He was the baby of the entire family, and now that's not him anymore. Right and so like what does the blending of all of that look like? And, dynamically, the shifts in who they are Right.
Speaker 2:That's right, that's right.
Speaker 1:It is. It's an evolution, it's a change, it's. It's sorrowful, it's amazing, it's it's incredible, it's challenging and I mean I wouldn't have it any other way, catherine. I really wouldn't. Yeah, yeah, but I love that you state like anybody who's glorifying it either isn't telling the full truth, or perhaps there's like, maybe their story is is as so, but like there is challenges. There's never not challenges in life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right. So, yep, yeah, it's, it's, um, it's yeah, you said it really well it's, it's, uh, it's difficult and it is gratifying and it is rewarding and it is painful and it is frustrating. It's all those things, it's all like everything in life. I mean, you know, we, we love to think that we get to go through life avoiding suffering, right? Oh, it's such a natural tendency. How do I avoid suffering? That is so ingrained in us and that is not anybody's story. And yet we fight suffering every time it comes yet we fight suffering every time it comes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think, instead to embrace the suffering, because it is just always going to be a part of our life in the suffering itself, maybe just a little bit and maybe it's a lot of it, and that's where the traumatic experiences come into place, right, but then it's the evolution of self through all of that to go kind of come full circle to the business.
Speaker 1:The beginning of our conversation was this right, the more that you can embrace the ick and the suffering that's going to come along with having those, those dark moments, the valleys that you're going to go through, the more you embrace it, work to grow through it, work to understand and seek the understanding of why this stuff has happened, like I'm thinking about how you did the reflection from your first marriage into the second marriage and the recognition piece of like how you handled circumstances right, how it had it had worked for some time over here until it didn't work yeah, right, that's right and then how recognizing that over here, in this different circumstance, has allowed you to grow as a wife and in partnership with your husband and being able to serve one another in the best way possible.
Speaker 1:It isn't going to be perfect, but the things like having that dedicated time together is filling both of your cups right and then, as husband and wife, being able to come back to the family and model that for them so that they can see that and how they then seek their partner Right.
Speaker 2:Right, and I think it's been a really important turning point for my husband and I to realize and really insist upon God being the center of our marriage. At the center of our marriage, he is at the core, he is the third person in our marriage. Without that, life is hard, right, it's just hard, and with that and with that life is hard. But when you know that he is there, walking alongside you and cheering for you, that that makes all the difference and that's been a really big, important part of my of my marriage.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's. It's an aha moment that I had just recently in starting discipleship with a. I would consider her a mentor. Now she's you know, she's twice my age, just about and she shared with me sort of this like like the flow chart of what it looks like to live your life through God, and it's like God is always first, yeah, and then what comes next is your husband or wife, and then what's next is the family, and then what's next is the community. And that's what the flow chart should look like. That's right. How are you making decisions through that?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:How are you having conversations in that flow?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's right, that one hit hard for me, yeah.
Speaker 1:I was like Ooh, very interesting.
Speaker 2:Very interesting and not popular. No, it's not socially popular to elevate our spouse above our children. Right, correct? We are supposed to. You know our lives. I think for many of us our children become our lives, and it's easy to take your partner for granted that they're just always going to be there and that you don't need to nurture that relationship because they're not going anywhere and they're in it too and they're tired at the end of the day too. So it's not very popular to say my husband is the priority in my life. God, god, is always the priority. Right, that's the assumed, and then after that is my marriage. My husband is a. That's not super popular to say, but it is certainly biblical.
Speaker 1:It certainly is. Like I said, I had this just like whoa and I like I think I said aha moment. It was certainly an aha moment, but then there was this whoa impact after the fact, like how does that actually look for you, Kelly?
Speaker 1:there's been a lot of backwards in like how I seek um understanding and circumstances, or like why did this happen and I go to the community first, versus like seeking understanding from God first and then having the conversation with my now husband and then you know. Then the rest of the community comes after the fact. So fascinating.
Speaker 2:Yeah, how do you, how do you think you're doing on that?
Speaker 1:Much better now in understanding what that flowchart is than I had, and this moment couldn't have happened more than six months ago, eight months ago, probably about eight months ago.
Speaker 2:Good for you.
Speaker 1:It's a learning curve for me, and it isn't to say that when I was having a tough time, that I wasn't ever talking to my husband or having those moments of prayer, it's just now. I'm actively thinking about how it does have to be. How am I seeking understanding from God first, yeah, and then how am I having that conversation, that particular like insight from what I'm experiencing here, and then talking through that with my husband, and then, if I'm still not finding clarity, which I never have gotten to that point, catherine, right, right right and it may not be on your timeline that you get the clarity that you desire.
Speaker 1:Right, exactly. So there you just had a little bit of a.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I had my like therapy.
Speaker 2:Right, we should come back and we can do a coaching session and record it.
Speaker 1:I'm going to take you up on that, We'll record it. Oh man, that would record it. I'm going to take you up on that, We'll record it. Oh man, that would be juicy.
Speaker 1:I'm sure, but anyways, this is not about me, this is about you. But I do want to start to land the plane. I think that we've had some really great intentional conversations. We've talked through a lot of vulnerable moments, and so I thank you for that. Vulnerable moments, and so I thank you for that. But as we start to land the plane here, one of my prevailing questions is what is a piece of?
Speaker 1:advice that you would give a younger version of yourself, knowing all that you know. Now I feel like you've shared some really incredible, incredible testaments, but in this moment, what's coming to mind?
Speaker 2:In this moment, what, what, the what, just the whole the Spirit just gave me Love them, just love them, just just love them. Love them, my children, when I was, you know, just that's all that you need to do Really. You don't need to do really, uh, you don't need to fix them, you don't need to uh worry, you don't need to have fear for the future, you don't need to, you know, fill in the blank, you just need to love them. That's what I would tell myself. Now I look back and I think I don't know how 30 year old me could have pulled that off. You know, 48 year old me can. Probably, maybe, maybe on a good day, right, but that's, that's the, that's the advice I would give myself.
Speaker 1:It's good, it's so good. I do feel like there's some of that that can pull through, just in the grand context of life. Yeah, just love.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's really what we learn as disciples of Jesus, right? That's right, it's like to lead with love, and I think that that is more powerful than you think it is. Catherine, catherine, yeah, so yeah, just like in what you are sharing for advice. What's advice that you would give a woman that's listening right now, who's nibbling on the edge of an idea or stepping into entrepreneurship?
Speaker 2:What's the advice?
Speaker 1:that you would give that woman right now.
Speaker 2:Well, always, my advice is to first seek the Lord and pray about it, and I would also say that I would encourage that person to not let fear hold them back, that assume success, but also know that failure is a very important part of the story and of the journey and that if that's ultimately what were to happen, then that shapes you for what's next, that prepares you for what's next. So, as far as women thinking about becoming entrepreneurs and taking that leap, stop letting fear of the unknown hold you back is what I would say.
Speaker 1:Boom mic drop. I love it. What would? Who would be a good connection for you right now.
Speaker 2:Like who would I like to meet or who would I like to be connected? I would love to be um connected with anybody who can help spread the word about find love safely, in whatever way that looks like, whether that's a media connection, we find that we get a boost in in members when we have, you know, a spot on a television segment or on a podcast. If you can tell your friends, tell your family about this new service, I want it to get to as many people as possible and I want to help as many people as possible. This feels much more like a ministry to me than a business. It feels like I. It gives me such a wonderfully gratifying feeling of serving the children that I think God loves most.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I know he loves all of us, but he has a special place in his heart for this population. So I think, just spreading the word Again, I want this to go nationally, so anybody that can help me make that happen it's really just me right now. I hire contractors for the cities that we're in, but I am interested in growing it and so, however, somebody could help me grow, find love safely. I would be really grateful.
Speaker 1:What a wonderful ask, so specific too. So it's good. I am sure that there's somebody who's listening right now. That would be a key connection for you, so I just want to make this connection. The name of this podcast is Reclaiming your Hue, and we talked a little bit about that. I believe we did. So I just want to take this moment. How you share about your business and what you're doing to allow this vulnerable community, so to speak, and being able to find love, and find love safely, it's, it's powerful, and so I commend you for it. I think it's so cool and I had to make that tie, and so Thank you.
Speaker 1:I'm really excited to just see how this continues to unfold, how it spreads nationally. I can feel it coming and I'm sort of like, did I just have the next like owner of Spanx on my podcast.
Speaker 2:Like she doesn't even realize it, like so cool. I had a friend call me a future love mogul, which I kind of like the idea of love being a love mogul yeah, it's, it's really cool, yeah it's amazing.
Speaker 1:I want to thank you for being on the podcast. My last question for you is how can people find you and get connected to you?
Speaker 2:So if you're looking for coaching, I would love to coach you, I'd love to coach your teams that you can find me just at CatherineJolaicom, so I'll spell that and I'm sure you'll have notes right. But it's a hard last name.
Speaker 1:So, catherinejolaicom, I'll spell that and.
Speaker 2:I'm sure you'll have notes right, but it's a hard last name, so katherinejolaicom. I'll let you read the notes that Kelly adds to the podcast. And then, for find love safely, it is just findlovesafelycom and you can spread the word and share that link out. Everything is on there. We have FAQs, we have event details, we have the video resources, we've got the blog, we've got the locations that we're in signing up, and so that will be your, your source, your resource for find love safely. We're also find love safely is also on Facebook, instagram threads, linkedin and YouTube, so follow us there to get updates, and we've quite an active social social media presence, so follow us there to get updates.
Speaker 1:I will be sure to drop all of that information into the show notes so that people can get connected to you in one way, shape or form, whether it be through coaching or to seek these services as well, whether they're a caretaker or they are that person that is seeking love. So, catherine, thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you for carving out time.
Speaker 1:I appreciate it. You dropped so many great gold nuggets of information for people who are listening, and so thank you so much and I hope you have a great day.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me, kelly. This was really a pleasure. I appreciate the invitation and I could talk to you all day, so maybe we will. Have a great day. All right, thanks you too. Bye.
