Breaking free from unconscious agreements
Are you feeling stuck in your life? Do you feel like you're living on autopilot, following patterns and agreements you may not even know of? Princess Castleberry is here to help you unleash your inner power and break free from these unconscious agreements. As a TEDx Keynote Speaker, Wellness + Risk Consultant, Coach, and CEO of GO BEYOND WELL, Princess has the expertise and superpowers to guide you toward a life of fulfillment and wellness.
Princess Castleberry's journey began with the seeds of self-worth instilled in her by her mother and grandmother. They taught her to see life's possibilities and never abandon her dreams. These early lessons shaped Princess's worldview and motivated her to become an agent of change for others. Princess's ability to listen intentionally and analyze situations with wit and authenticity set her apart as a wellness and risk consultant.
Princess's work revolves around collective responsibility. She believes that we all hold power in every area of our lives and that we can make significant changes by coming together and collaborating. Princess emphasizes the damaging effects of scarcity and encourages her clients to take control of their circumstances. Understanding their inner power allows them to tap into their resilience and lead fulfilling lives.
Princess Castleberry is a force to be reckoned with. Through her work as a coach, consultant, and speaker, she has empowered countless individuals to break free from the mold and embrace their true power. Her message of collective responsibility and collaboration is particularly resonant in today's world, where many people feel isolated and disconnected. If you're ready to lead a life of wellness and fulfillment, join Princess on her journey to GO BEYOND WELL. Together, we can make a real difference in our lives and communities.
Check out more from Princess!
https://www.linkedin.com/in/princesscastleberry/
https://www.gobeyondwell.com/
https://www.facebook.com/PrincessGalloway
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[00:00:00] Melissa: Welcome to the Kindling Project Podcast. Our guest today, princess Castleberry, is a TEDx keynote speaker, a wellness and risk consultant coach, an author and c e o of Go Beyond well. She equips people to solve wellness challenges inside and outside of work, specializing in the interconnectedness of wellness and risk. Recognizing that any potential harm or loss to something of value can significantly impact our wellbeing. Her mission is to empower individuals to actively manage their wellness risks and lead better lives. Welcome, princess. We're so excited to have you.
[00:00:40] Princess: Thank you. Thank you both for having me today.
[00:00:42] Monica: You look beautiful by the way. You are meant to wear color.
[00:00:48] Princess: I listen, I'm a girl. I love color and you know, life is short and it's, I think I'm in Michigan, so it's spring is starting to spring, so I am too.
[00:00:58] Melissa: I heard you say I online somewhere that when you were kind of, struggling in corporate America, you found yourself wearing more and more drab colors. And I was thinking cuz I'm a creative director and maybe that's why I never even joined corporate America, like gray suits. It's just such a turnoff for me.
[00:01:16] Princess: Yeah, it was really it. And it's not all of corporate America obviously. But I started my career off in a very conservative industry. I started my internship in college and straight out of school in a commercial insurance brokerage firm. And if that's, you know, I know that concept of like, what is commercial insurance brokerage? The simplest way to explain it is that we we were the brokers, we were the big giant companies in between major insurance companies and other major corporations. And we help to broker and structure their global insurance programs. I know that sounds fascinating.
[00:01:53] Melissa: That's a lot of corporate speak for me.
[00:01:56] Princess: It's a lot of corporate speak, but that's what, you know, the simplest way is that we were the middle people between the big insurance companies and the big corporations. And we had to make sure that companies had programs in place that protected their people, protected their businesses. So I actually, I love that career. It's the career that raised me, that taught me so many skills. But that environment though, that particular side of the business was very difficult for me because it was ultra-conservative and everything from hair to dress to race and gender came into play for me in that environment. And so, in a way I'm incredibly fortunate to have had those experiences very early in my career. But for some people they can be very, that environment can be very damaging.
[00:02:44] Monica: So true. But before we dive into this amazing career that you've created for yourself, can we just talk about your name for a moment? Can we simmer in that? I mean, your mama, where did this princess come from?
[00:02:57] Princess: So my parents are actually two incredible people. I had teen parents and so, my birthday is actually Christmas Eve and so their original idea as wise teen parents was to name me Christmas Eve. And one of their friends said, okay, no, we're not naming her Christmas Eve. And it turned into like a funny moment. But. When they got serious and started thinking about names, they realized quickly that the names they were coming up with were all names of British princesses. And you're talking like, this is 1979, going into 1980. And so, they were thinking of these, you know, these princess names. And a friend of theirs just pointed that out and said, well, you know, a lot of people call their daughter Princess. Why don't you just name your daughter Princess? And that's what they named me. So they name me Princess, and a lot of people mistakenly assume that Castleberry is my family name, but that's actually my husband's last name. I married a guy. The running joke is, I'm only four feet you know, four foot 10. And the running joke that I tell my husband is that I was either gonna marry him or TaShawn Prince, who's like TaShawn Prince is two feet taller than me. And I said, I either wanna be Princess Castleberry or Princess Prince. One of you guys has to choose. So
[00:04:14] Melissa: I love that. I just love like, the synchronicity of all of that just feels like your life is in order in some way.
[00:04:21] Monica: It makes me think, are you gals watching that princess Charlotte on Netflix?
[00:04:26] Princess: I have to get into it. I have to get into it because I loved the first couple of seasons of Bridgerton I loved it so much. I don't watch a lot of television though. I haven't watched television regularly for about 10 years. so when I pick a show, it has to be amazing. So I want all the reviews to be in and then I'll watch it. I'm always the season behind. It's okay though.
[00:04:46] Melissa: My husband was gone this weekend. He took my son on the eighth grade Washington DC trip. So I had this extra TV time and I binged the princess Charlotte.
[00:04:56] Monica: I love what Shonda Rhimes is doing. Yeah, I love that she's bringing different groups and looks and faces to modern time fairy tales, which this is perfection to me. So Princess, now your mom was how old when she had you?
[00:05:10] Princess: So my mother, when I was born, my mother was 16 and in so many ways, I mean, that relationship just shaped my mindset so much. My mother was incredibly wise beyond her years, and I will tell you the I get a little choked up even thinking about this, but. The best thing that she ever did as a teen mom, and not to say that she did not make a ton of mistakes, but the very best thing that she did was when I was about 11, I asked her if she was my friend and she said no, I'm not your friend. And I was like, confused for a moment. I was a little baffled. And she said, no, I'm not your friend. I'm your mother. I'm way better than any friend you'll ever have in your life because I will love you unconditionally. I will support you until the day that I die. And she said, and unfortunately she said, even if you have amazing friendships, you will never find someone like this as a friend. So don't reduce me down to friendship. This is way deeper than that. And she said that to me and I paused. I took a real hard pause and I think that was the first time in my adolescence that I had really heard her passion for me. And that is something that has stuck with me for the rest of my life. That, I mean, a mother's love, it's an incredible feeling. But she was wise and she didn't, she lived, she was a woman of her word. She wasn't my buddy. She wasn't my sidekick. She was not my wing woman. She was the mother. I was the child. And I'm so grateful to have had a childhood. I had a childhood.
[00:06:45] Monica: That's beautiful princess. And I love that video of her dancing. I think you posted her playing basketball with your kiddos. I just thought that is the best. And I think for grandmothers, that's when they really get the joy of loving on their littles in the world without any of the pressures of being the parent. So, you know, I wonder at what point did it hit you? That, oh my, my mom at 15 was carrying me. And the vastness of that. That is a heavy load. A beautiful, obviously look at where you are, but do you remember the moment when you realized what your mother had done?
[00:07:23] Princess: Oh, for sure. When I had my child, my first child, I was 31, but it was honestly, I recognized her the most in that moment after having giving birth. But it was really after I got divorced. I was, I'm divorced from my first husband. So my sons are each of my husband's children. And it was the moment that I was divorced, which my divorce, my first divorce came at the end of a long relationship. We had gotten together really early in life in our college years. And we were together for about 10 years. So we were getting divorced at the end of a long relationship. But having a baby at the end of that relationship, it was that moment when I was single and I had this amazing day. I had an amazing day as a single mom. Like I was exhausted. But I looked around, the house was clean, the food was made. I was like, ready for the next day, and I felt exhausted, but I felt like, oh, I did that. And that's when it hit me that, wait a second, I'm feeling like I did that and I was, you know, 30 plus. And she did that at 15, and that's the first time it really hit me. These things that I'm doing and I'm celebrating. My mother taught me how to celebrate the moment. All the stuff that I'm celebrating in this moment. She did this and she was 15 years my junior. And that blew my mind. The amount of wisdom it takes the amount of clarity, calm, and commitment, it just, it blew my mind.
[00:08:56] Melissa: I don't know her, but I'm so proud of her. I can't, I had my kids in my thirties as well, and I mean, I feel like I'm sure I'm messing it up as much as a 15 year old, you know, I never, and there's no instruction manual for this job. So, Princess, we talked about your mom and your personal backstory being raised by a teenage mother and then having the kind of wisdom to look back at her decisions as you approach motherhood in your thirties, in addition to your personal backstory, you have a rich professional backstory. And that's a big part of your story and your career, and also how you exited corporate America and became the amazing wellness coach that you are today. So do you wanna tell us a little bit more about that backstory?
[00:09:42] Princess: Absolutely. Absolutely. So I wanna first frame it this way that, you know, my time in corporate America was an incredible time. It was checkered, it was a rollercoaster, full of experiences, but I had an amazing career, right? And I consider my coaching business today in my, in all the work that I do to be an extension of that. So 20 years ago, I started off as a summer intern at a commercial insurance brokerage firm. Had no clue what that was, but I was a part of this incredible program called Inroads. And Inroads was specifically set up to give people of color, students of color an opportunity to work in corporate America. So it was sort of like a matchmaking program where it took your skills, your interests coming out of high school and college. It matched you up with corporations that were looking for top talent among people of color. And so that's how I got that initial opportunity. So that in and of itself was a gift, right? To create this opportunity and to remove a societal barrier. And I got in, I had all kinds of experiences, right? I was part of graduate training programs. I got advanced training and insurance brokerage, like who had that from the west side? And I, and when I say west side, I mean west side of Detroit, you know, and so my career started off in this really conservative field, but it gave me an opportunity to recognize that I absolutely love business. I love people and I love all the processes and the exchanges of communication that happen in between them to make things go, to make people go, to make the business go and grow. And that's why I call my business Go beyond well, they, I love things that have action and momentum to them. And so, I needed to build that in my career. But those early challenges came because of all the isms, right? All the isms in intersections. And what I found, and I'm so happy I'm here today with a group of women. Because my biggest and earliest challenges came from women, either from a racial standpoint, a cultural standpoint, calling out everything from my tone of voice. Somebody told me, oh, you have a really deep voice. And I said, yeah, I'm a black woman. I was like we speak from the diaphragm. That's a cultural thing. And so my tone of voice was called out the speed and the authority that I spoke with was called out by women. The way I even got into makeup artistry. It was interesting because I used to not wear any makeup and I was young in my career, but I had women calling me sweetie, honey, baby, girl. and at a time when I was trying to assert myself. So that was one of the really interesting things to me. And one of my earliest memories was literally having my female boss. And she was a powerhouse in the company. She was actually someone I initially looked up to, but she Asked me one day, she says, how did you find out about this company? She wasn't familiar with my program. And she said, you know, she wanted to know my backstory. And she said, because you don't look like a risk manager. And so that moment, actually very early in my career, was about 23, 24 years old, that became a turning point for me because in the moment that she said that to me, I physically felt my chest like cave in. And I had other experiences leading up to that moment, these very subtle microaggressions, but that hit me like a truck. You know, you're telling me I don't look like something that I want to be. And it wasn't an inviting, you know, comment. And I paused and I asked her, I said, what did you mean by that? I said, what are you hoping to accomplish by saying that to me? And she was stunned. And she didn't have a good reason. And she says, well, I didn't mean, oh, I didn't mean anything. Now I could have let my mind run and say, oh, well no, you've meant something. And I could have internalized that. But because she said I didn't mean anything, I said, okay. I said, well, I take it as nothing. It was nothing. And she looked at me and she was shocked and I said, oh, there's something back there. But that's when I started realizing like, people have narratives, people have stories.
[00:13:51] Melissa: It's that unconscious bias. Even if she thinks that she didn't mean anything, you know, it's, IM embedded in our beliefs.
[00:13:59] Monica: So true. But I love Princess, that at that moment, instead of you taking it as victim and maybe getting smaller and playing to where she wanted to categorize you, you rose and reflected back on her and took your power back immediately in that conversation. Not all women can do that. So bravo to you.
[00:14:19] Melissa: That does take a certain amount of strength to speak up for yourself because I myself, when I have those sort of interactions that feel judgmental or a bias, I live with them and I replay them in my mind. Oh, I should have responded. I should have responded.
[00:14:35] Princess: Yeah. That's so common, right? Because when you get triggered, that's what it was. That's, I mean, it's, and triggers happen every day in every walk of life. Whether you're at work, you're at home with your friends, whatever. I was just triggered, and in that moment I did, I felt all those things that you're talking about, I felt the chest pain and I, and you know, the furrowing of the brow and all these feelings started to come out, but then you realize, okay, I can handle this a couple of different ways. If I internalize this, I'm gonna walk away feeling so much stress and pain. Right? You know, I take my self-awareness, I feel like, was a gift. That was a gift from my mother. It was a gift from God. I can't even claim that initially oh, I learned through meditation. The, all the methods and things that I teach today. I didn't learn it that way. I just had a resilience about me because I was raised, you know, somebody told me I was worth something and I believed it. Right? I believed it. It wasn't a joke. It wasn't just because my mom thought I was cute or I was her little princess. She's, she told me to go out into the world and make something. Well, guess what? You can't make something out of nothing. Things only come from things of value. Things are derivative of things of value. So if I had made it all the way to corporate America from the west side, I had, and before then I had made it through the top high school in my city. I made it through scholarship programs, college, studying abroad, learning another language. So who's gonna check me? Like who's gonna tell me? And I'm, you make it through so many things. And, but you know what I realize way later in life, I got, I'm like jumping 20 years. But as I retell that story, and I really sat back and reflected she wasn't wrong. Now I don't know her intent. Who cares? When she said, you don't look like a risk manager. As I reflect back the risk managers she herself didn't look like a risk manager of the day. Her ascension in corporate America was a bit of a, of an accomplishment as a woman. The risk managers were white men that were in their fifties. I was 24 year old black young woman from the west side of Detroit. I did not look like a risk manager. There wasn't anybody else there that looked like me. There was nobody else there with hair like this, with skin like this. There was nobody else there who spoke multiple languages. She, you know, she didn't mean it that way. She wasn't trying to compliment me. I realized I was like, she actually wasn't wrong. And what I find is that when we get challenged, right, as women, especially when we get challenged, if we shrink ourselves under the weight of that challenge, if we back out, if we exit, especially if we exit quietly, I'm not telling you not to exit, but if we exit quietly and nobody knows why, nothing changes for the other women that are still there. Nothing changes. You don't give people the opportunity to have perspective and to know you. So me challenging and standing up for myself gave everybody there an opportunity to know me, and that's important.
[00:17:45] Melissa: That's so important. Well, and for all three of us, it's probably still true that most of corporate America doesn't look like black women or a Latina woman or even a white woman like the three of us, I mean, are underrepresented in all kinds of ways. I mean, I regularly look at this data and I think, how is this still such a big problem? There aren't women on boards, there aren't enough women on boards, there aren't people of color on boards. Why are we still fighting?
[00:18:13] Princess: We back out of a lot of things, though. I honestly find, I mean, cuz one of the main things that I teach about is you know, I teach about collective responsibility. That's one of the values of my organization, collective responsibility for wellness. And we are part of it too. And so I knew at that early stage of my career, if I back out of this completely, if I don't continue to learn these skills, they'll never be a woman like me in this industry. And that was one of the reasons I stuck it out. And a, I loved what I was doing. I loved what I was learning, and so I just knew I needed to do it in a different environment. See, everybody doesn't get to play with me. I'm not a martyr. Okay. I'm not here as a sacrificial object. And so that environment just wasn't the environment for me. That leader was not the leader for me. And she found out when I resigned. Right. But I didn't leave the industry. She was surprised. She was surprised. And she, in that moment, it let me know that maybe her full heart, it wasn't malicious. But she has some growing to do, but I have some growing to do and I'm just not going to do it in this environment. She was going to have to figure that out, either on her own or with somebody else who was willing to stick it out with her because I wasn't. And I went on in my career and I did become a corporate risk manager. I built an incredible career over multiple disciplines and seeing seeing risk management through the lens of insurance programs, safety, business continuity, and disaster planning, employment law and compliance. Those are all the experiences that I've had over the 20 years, but seeing people and seeing data, and seeing relationships and communication and strategies across all those areas gave me an appreciation for how wellness and people's capacity to feel, think, process their own emotions throughout all those occurrences. That's the wellness is like the thread that just like weaves through my career and that happened very naturally. I didn't force that or have to study, you know, go get another, you know, master's degree or anything. It just occurred that if people are not well, there's so many things they can't do.
[00:20:29] Melissa: And don't you find that, like at the same time that you were having that awareness about wellness and the risk of not being well, that culturally, workplaces and nonprofits and the conversation around wellness is bubbling up in our country and in our culture. I mean, more and more I keep seeing, talk about workplace wellness or workplace retention or the risk of mental illness in the workplace. And so do you have a response to that? Is it just the pandemic, it's time is due? Like what is going on with this sort of big flux of wellness programs and conversations around wellbeing?
[00:21:05] Princess: I think so first off, wellness has always been an underlying catalyst for either success or detriment. Success or failure in the workplace, but the things that are the root cause are seldom recognized. Right. Until they're just, like you said, they're bubbling over, they're in everybody's faces. And the pandemic, the positive thing that came out of the pandemic was stillness. Okay. Every single thing that we witnessed from civil unrest to all the, you know, things, political actions, police actions, all these things had already been occurring, and they had been occurring very loudly for a subset of the population. The pandemic though, put people in a state of stillness like none other, like we've never experienced, we haven't experienced in a hundred years, Right. And so we were still, and we were quiet and all we could do was sit with our thoughts. After we figured out Zoom and we figured out teams or all the other platforms and we got back connected with our colleagues, we were still sitting and at home and having all these thoughts and emotions come up. And all of a sudden the lines between work and home literally got blurred. Right. And everybody was all of a sudden, in a constant state of dealing with their personal wellness challenges. People were passing away, you know, by the dozens. You remember your timeline? Yes. You know, so all the emotion and so you didn't have anywhere to express that, but work because we were getting connected back through work. And so that's when I think that people stopped pretending that people had ever left their problems at the door. I created this meme at one point that shows this woman, she's walking through the doors of her workplace with a bag, and the caption says, you need to care because no one truly ever leaves their problems at home. Right. That person is whole. How do you leave a whole crisis at the house? You know what I'm saying? If you're arguing with your spouse, if your children are becoming, you know, children go through phases. So if your kids are going through the mouthy disrespectful phase, if you are having what are these very typical and constant arguments with your spouse, if you're dealing with financial hardship, if you're dealing with not having your voice heard in the organizations you belong to, your church, wherever, you're dealing with all these challenges, your ability to overcome and work through and identify triggers and reframe and rebuild, that doesn't stop because you walk through the doors of a corporation and what are you magically healed for eight hours and they have all the same challenges. And so people bring all their wellness issues to work and that's why it's so evident now. It's people are, people see the connections and now they're starting to count the financial impact and that's what matters in business. when the money starts to get impacted,
[00:24:03] Melissa: now they have a bottom line about around it. Here at the Kindling project. I think we're more focused on inner narrative and personal wellness. I really like your theme about reframing, and I think that I listened to your TED Talk. I absolutely loved it. And I think this idea of unconscious agreements, I mean, just like we kind of a addressed unconscious bias with that first boss you had, I think our own internal unconscious agreements, they have such a massive impact on our lives and we aren't aware of them. For people who haven't heard your TED Talk, could you tell us a little bit more about your thoughts on that?
[00:24:37] Princess: Yeah. Thank you. That first off, that was An experience of a lifetime. So if anybody, like, go for it. If you're thinking about getting on that TEDx stage, get to know the people in your community that that host and lead your local TEDx. Start volunteering with them and get your voice out there and get on that stage if you can. That talk was really born out of a training initiative. I started a training initiative and I built a model with a mindfulness and meditation expert. She's a good friend of mine. Her name's Shante Hooks. Incredible incredible coach in her own right. But we built this model called Dare to Care because we had read this wonderful book. There's a book called the Four Agreements, Dom Miguel Ruiz. Right? And so we're, we were just one day on a call, just talking as girlfriends. She said, Hey, you know, what are you reading these days? And I said, I'm rereading the four agreements. And she said, oh man, I just finished reading that myself. And so we just started up a conversation about what our agreements were. And we both have these incredible, I mean, she's an incredible woman, but we both you know, we're divorced, we're mothers, and we have these incredible co-parenting relationships with our exes. And so that's how it started. Like yeah, how did you get there? What did you do? And so as we started to have this conversation, literally a model came out of it and we said, you know what? We're gonna start teaching people this because when we catch on to a good idea, we go with it. And when I had an opportunity to speak at TEDx, it was just natural. That's what I had just been working on. And I was invited to a, sort of a precursor to TEDx. There was a whole other event by the same host. It was an unofficial event. It was an a, an official TED event, but I had an opportunity to talk about whatever I wanted. And so I brought up the subject of breaking bad agreements. How do you do this? And the way you do it is you have to dare for yourself. And when you're in a position of power and privilege anywhere, it could be in your home. Everybody has relative power and privilege, whether you're home, workplace, society, wherever. But when you are in that position, you have to care for others. And so that, those acronyms turned into something incredible. But when you dare you define what your agreements are, just simply define them without judgment. Right. What do I believe? Just sit back and think about the things that you do. What do I clearly believe Because of how I'm behaving, right? They're not ideals. It's actual. How am I behaving? What am I doing? Define what do I believe and where it came from. Who made this stuff up for you? Because I'm looking at Monica and Melissa. Did either one of you name yourselves? Somebody said, you're Monica, you're Melissa. Somebody said at one point, you're a girl. And then they said, but you're going to become a woman. And they laid out all these rules and recommendations for how to be, and then if you, oh, you're going to become a mother. Oh, if now you're a mother, you need to do X, Y, and Z. So society, your family, your friends, television. Programming has been teaching you your agreements, but you have unconsciously agreed to the ones that you live out. And it's just taking time to define what those things are. Where did they come from, and if they still serve you well today.
[00:28:06] Monica: So Princess, how do you do that for women we like to call the sleeping beauties, who really don't even know what their inner voice sounds like, and don't even know how to put words to their alignment. How do you help empower women to find their voice, find their agreements, or at least dismiss the ones that they've been told and create their new ones.
[00:28:29] Princess: So even like through my coaching approach, right? If you think about sort of a typical wellness wheel, I took that wheel, and then I had to tweak it for myself, right? Because I'm a changer. And so I start people off with just self awareness and identity, right? So one of the things I help people do is just to identify, right? And there's so many ways to identify. And so I, I use some tools that are trusted, you know, research-based tools and I have people initially just go through, identify yourself. Who are you, right? In every aspect? Are you a woman? Are you cisgender? Are you what you know, however you categorize yourself. What race, religion, ethnicity are you we're speaking in? I teach in English obviously. So are you a native English speaker? all of these things. And we have people categorize themselves and then we have them answer a host of questions about their identities. Well, what did you first become aware of? What is most prominent to you today? When you notice other people, what aspect do you notice about them? First? And we use these tools to help people see themselves for the first time. And like you said, Monica, sometimes it's for the first time nobody's ever asked them these questions. When you ask a person a question like, Monica, what do you think is possible for your life if you were completely unstuck, unbothered and uninterrupted? People are like, nobody ever asked me that. Monica, if you could suspend fear, Melissa, if you could suspend the doubt that is nagging you, if you could just suspend it for a moment here with me. You don't have to even tell me, but I want you to write it down. Could you articulate what you want to be? If you give people that space and ask them they have something, and then when you show them that. All right. You have beliefs, you have possibilities. You have skills, and then you help them understand now what's interrupting that. And you help people get settled in on how they're showing up. And you show, put a mirror, it's like a proverbial mirror. You put that mirror up to them and let them see themselves the same way a makeup artist does. They finish you and what do they do? They stick a mirror in your face and say, now look at you.
[00:30:50] Melissa: Yeah. And sometimes you don't even see that person. You're like, who is that made up? You know, I've had this experience several times where I've had my hair and makeup done and it's like, is that me?
[00:31:01] Princess: And it is you! And it's, that's why even not to segway into artistry, but it's all the same to me. Everything that I'm talking about, I don't care. Risk management, wellness, makeup, it's all the exact same. The person has to see themselves. Now, I told y'all, these eyelashes are faker than, you know, but guess what? Guess what's real? These bones. But you know what I'm saying? What is real? What's real? You always, as you're painting someone, you have to leave, you can't paint a mask on someone because you have to put that mirror and they still have to see themselves. It's the same when it comes to wellness. You just help a person get present to the beauty, the possibility. What is to come. You help them get present to that, but you have to keep a part of the reality there or else a person will have that out-of-body sort of experience. This doesn't look like me. It's not comfortable. I can't keep this up. It's the same when it comes to wellness. So you don't, instead of being prescriptive and starting with what all the, you should've could've, you should have blah, blah, blah, that women get all the time. You need to be this type of mother. You better be this type of wife. You better lose this amount of weight. You have to be thin, you gotta be blah, blah, blah. Instead of telling women all these things, just ask a woman, who are you today? What are your possibilities? And if we identify a gap now we got strategies and ways to close up the gaps. Closing the gaps is just in the work.
[00:32:37] Melissa: It really hits me that every single woman that goes through that process and has that discovery, you know, our language here is about kind of finding your internal fire, but there's a, you know, a million ways to phrase it. It's a gift for everybody in her life. Having women be able to articulate their dreams and their passions and their true self is, it's a gift. And I was thinking too, when you were talking, this is maybe going back a few a few comments ago about one of your unconscious agreements was that black women had to work twice as hard. And when I heard you say that, I thought about three different black women that I have outside of the Kindling project, I have a branding and marketing agency who I have worked with and how all three of them, you know, not related to each other in any way, told me that almost in every meeting that they were told that they just had to work twice as hard or they had to be twice as good. And then I started to think, what are the really strong threads in my community? And I know that one of the things that I heard in so many white girls are told is to be nice. Don't be bossy. Right? It makes us terrible at negotiating for ourselves.
[00:33:46] Monica: I think ultimately what you're saying, princess and Melissa and all of us, even at the Kindling project, it's sort of the same thing like as women color or not, we still feel like we have to show up a certain way, and that's why we spend so much of our younger age coming up the careers, competing with each other, and there's no wonder why women are actually the ones who are making it harder for each other because we spend so much time pushing each other down, trying to make our name for ourselves. And now we've elevated the conversation and we're at a place I know we are. Melissa, you and I are very aligned. Princess, I have talked to you at length about this. We're no. There's no more competing. We're collaborators. We're uplifting each other. There's abundance. Together we are somewhat stronger and better. I think if we carry that message and we start spreading that and have that be the contagious message, I would rather stick to that narrative. Talk about narrative. I don't wanna simmer too much longer on what it was or what it should be, or what I was told, or this, that, or the other. I'm like, no. Okay, I get it. Those were the rules of engagement. I am no longer engaging with those rules. I, we are making our own rules now.
[00:35:00] Melissa: Right. But I think you're very far ahead emotionally and spiritually. I mean, you're a blogger and a writer and you've been journaling, but don't you think. For just the intersectionality of different kinds of women, it's useful to know that we all have gotten different messages to understand where we're coming from. I mean, that's, I guess, one, I guess that was sort of what I was getting around to.
[00:35:21] Princess: Yeah, that's the perspective of defining, right? That's the first part of daring is that you just have to pause long enough to define it, but just, you know, you define it, but to Monica's point, you don't get stuck in, right.
[00:35:31] Melissa: I don't wanna labor there, but it just, it kind of hit me of like, you know, even, we always like to say women supporting women, but maybe we need to start with just women understanding other women?
[00:35:43] Monica: Well, Compassion's always a beautiful place to start with, and also a place of, how can I serve you? How can I elevate you versus what's in it for me? For so much of what we do, it's like, well, what's in it for me? What's in it for me? I think we're really trying to move the dial. I know we are at the Kindling project by building a stage for all women to join us. Mel and I aren't interested in being some poster child for the, for a social movement. We actually want to be, just look at all these beautiful bright stars. Look at princess, look at our shine bright. Even on this video, I'm like, princess, you are like this glowing, beautiful goddess, and I wanna know you. I wanna learn from you. I wanna be inspired by you, and if you're willing to teach me, Thank you. Yes. Sign me up.
[00:36:27] Princess: And the answer to that is always like, yes, please. And when do we get started? Because one of the worst agreements, and this is not just an agreement that women have, but this is just a mindset issue in this country, is this mindset of lack. This mindset of scarcity. Right? And we learn it everywhere, right? We learn it when we talk about money, but that's scarcity. The scarcity mindset is why people think they don't have the money, time or energy to invest in the things that they want or the education they want. Scarcity mentality is why men are afraid to give up power. Why people are afraid of movements that move us toward equity, financial equity and opportunity equity between the races and the genders because they think that the pie is this little, and they're like, if I sacrifice anything, if I put somebody else first, I'm sacrificing myself, I'm martyring myself, and this world is set up on abundance. We have an abundance of things. The problem is that when people try to hoard abundance, people try to hoard resources and control things for everybody else. And we understand that without getting political or without having to go, you know, too far, we see those forces, we see those things. And it is, to be a person who has been pushed to the margins, it gets darn tiring to constantly be in the fight of justifying your presence of activating your voice. You're like, sometimes I don't wanna activate my voice, I just wanna show up. You know, and so that's why it's great to have other women that say, you know what? For this time period, I will take up your mantle and I will elevate your voice so that you don't have to always talk so loudly. You don't have to always be champion for self. We can be a champion for each other. And that's why I love the Kindling project. I was so excited to be a part of this.
[00:38:29] Melissa: I'm so glad that you got that message, cuz that's really our mission is to create those spaces. It's why we were doing this.
[00:38:35] Monica: So Princess, you talk a lot about affirmations and I think you use positive ones, which I love. And one of them is I trust myself in spite of any mistakes. Are you willing to share some of maybe mistakes you've made?
[00:38:47] Princess: Oh, for sure. Oh, how much time do we have on the mistakes? So, I have made a mistake of staying in certain friendships too long. I pride myself on being a great friend. I am a person. I'm very direct. So I don't want anybody who knows me for real to see this and be like, Girl, please. But I am super duper direct with people, but I am very loving and I'm very generous with them, right? One thing that I, a mistake that I made was just thinking that everybody deserved a chance. Everybody doesn't deserve a chance. That's why I said, everybody doesn't get to play with me anymore. Because sometimes even when you see people being abusive in multiple ways, abusing their boundaries, abusing their privilege with you, right? You give somebody access to you, you give them in information, and then you hear the information. You know, somebody's gossiping. You know that that people don't always have your best interest like you might be, you know, what if you call up your girlfriend and just say, Hey, I had a bad day with my husband, or I had, you know, we had this argument. If that person starts to instigate the argument, In favor of being your friend, then that person's not a friend of your family, not a friend of your relationship and what that union actually means to your children. And so things like that. I allowed certain relationships with women to cast a shadow on my relationship with my spouse. It is just, it can be so damaging to try to play with everybody. To have everybody in your circle. To not be discerning. Lack of discernment is a real detriment to women,
[00:40:41] Monica: right. You're right, princess. I always say that it's almost like a train station. Some you have to make stops and some people need to get off. So you make room for new people to get in. It's time to make room.
[00:40:53] Princess: But I do, I, to Melissa's question, I mean, I believe in affirmation and not just because it sounds good and it feels good, but because I take the time to study, what do affirmations do to the brain? Affirmations change your neural pathways. They strengthen connections in the parts of the brain that bring you joy, that boost your creativity, that give you the energy to make those additional connections. And so I want that, right? The world will interrupt you. Life will interrupt you. The pandemic was huge, but I'm talking about little things, getting into a fender bender on the way to work. You know, getting oil on your favorite silk dress in a spot that you can't see. This dress will never be worn again off camera. Interruptions happen in life, and we have these experiences that slow us down, but it's affirmation that lets us know that we're gonna keep going. Affirmation also creates an energy that pulls in other like-minded people. So this is a risk management strategy. I would love to share this one with you. It's called Protect the Present. The paragraph, it says, my present is all that I have. I love it because it holds all of the truth, possibilities, and promises for my life. My present is alive, well, fruitful and thriving. My present is the force that surrounds me daily. Momentum, peace, and clarity are always within my reach. Though some days I may have to reach further for them. I cannot rest in the future for rest that is required of me today. The acts of reaching and resting guarantee my growth until the next moment. I say that every day now.
[00:42:43] Monica: Well written. Yeah, princess, I mean, you really do talk about some of also your strengths and your talents and how valuable those are. I see strengths already in you. Can you share with what you think your strengths are or where you know, your strengths to be and your gifts?
[00:43:00] Princess: Yeah. You know, one of the gifts is honestly it helps me be a great risk manager and a listener. It's just being analytical. I am an analyst, you know, I hear things and I listen very well. And as I listen, I'm able to sort of dissect things and break them down and get to like, The root meaning, and that is a skill that has helped me in every aspect of my career. I am a good listener and sometimes it just helps to be funny and have a quick comeback. Women have to do a lot of defensive moves, right? We have to defend ourselves a lot more often than I wish we had to. But being quick witted is a strength of mine. Having the gift of words and knowing what to say that is a gift. And another strength, and I know this is like the most overused buzzword of our day, but authenticity, being authentic is a strength. If you can find that and you're willing to commit to it I'm all in. I'm all in on pre is what I say. I'm all in on pre, I'm okay with the woman looking back. Okay. Even when she doesn't have the lashes and the hair on. They're doing their thing today, but it's like, but even when they're not, I'm okay with the woman that's looking back at me and that authenticity is my number one strength. I'm showing up as me a hundred percent of the time because I want you to have an opportunity to love me, to see me, and I can't, you don't even have that possibility to change your narrative about me or women like me unless I show up in that strength. And so that's what I do. And some, most of the time, I will say 95% of the time it works and there's 5% of the population that's crazy and they don't like me.
[00:44:50] Melissa: I think of all the, all of the traits that you listed for yourself that I really admire in getting to know you this last month is the humor, because I think there's some grace in humor and I think it allows you to tread through some really difficult conversations in a way that's accessible. You know, I always feel like sometimes I'm a little too serious or, you know, a little too artsy or introverted for people, and I don't have that sort of grace. So it's super admirable that you're modeling that.
[00:45:16] Princess: I love to laugh. I mean, laughter it really is good for the whole body and the spirit. And sometimes you have to laugh. Sometimes I think things and I'm like, that is so wrong. You know, you think things and you're like, that was the wrong way to think about it, or, I feel so silly, and you just gotta laugh at that stuff. And here's the other thing. I really am goofy. Beyond funny, I'm a goofy slapstick comedy type of person. Like I can be annoyingly silly, but there's certain friends I can be that way with. Like even for a long time my, I told my husband, like for a long time he didn't even realize how goofy I was until he heard me on the phone with a best friend, like, like one of my best friends, we've been friends since I was, we were 14 and he heard us just talking about some like Ace Ventura or watching movies like Tropic Thunder, like just Dumb and Dumber. Like I can watch that on repeat, like that's my kind of movie, you know? And so that is it's funny to people though, because I have this very cerebral technical side and then, but no, give me the dumbest movie ever made the worst storyline. And if it's funny, I will roll laughing. It's just, I find humor in the funniest things. And it's okay. I just, I like to make, I like to make jokes.
[00:46:38] Melissa: It makes life easier. It softens the corners. I think I'm gonna put more laughter at the top of my self-care list starting today. Well, so we kind of talked about some strategies and we talked about some strengths. What about self-care tips? I know a lot of coaches get into exercise or healthy eating. I know that's huge for Monica and that's a big struggle for me. Do you have any self-care tips for our community?
[00:47:01] Princess: Absolutely. And I've been, I was thinking about this even this morning. I said I gotta I have to record this. But something that I add to a lot of my sessions is a practice called P M r, progressive Muscle Relaxation. Have you ever heard of P M R? Google It because I want the world to know. So p Progressive muscle relaxation is a practice that's been around for decades, I mean decades upon decades. And it is a way to naturally relieve stress from the body. these are very simple movements, and it's a combination of mindfulness and deep breathing, right? So if I gave you just the simplest exercise, it would be to squeeze your fist like you're squeezing lemons, not to the point of pain, but as you squeeze to breathe in deeply for five seconds, and now just exhale and let it all out. So relax your hands. Do you feel that tension coming outta your body just in that one movement? Like, you probably can still feel it, right? It the, when you release it and you exhale for 10 seconds, that sensation will go throughout your hands and arms and you will feel where the tension is built up. And so progressive muscle relaxation is the act of tensing and releasing individual muscle groups one at a time. So you do your hands, you do your, you know, you can do your arms when you do your eyebrows, you raise them, stretch your cheeks. There's other movements where you tense your thigh and you inhale and then you let it go. There's another movement where you curl your toes downward for five seconds and then you release. So as you go throughout, it takes about 15 to 20 minutes to go through each muscle group of major muscle, group of the body. But when you do that, You, your body will tingle and you feel all these sensations. And what it starts to let you know is where the tension is built up and it teaches you, it it's a mindfulness exercise for the body. It creates muscle memory and it teaches your body what it means to feel tense and what it means to feel relaxed. So what will start to happen to you throughout your day? You'll be talking and then all of a sudden you'll be like, wait a second. I feel my back tensing up. and it's just like a reminder to relax. Most of us throughout the day are actually, we hold our breath all day, especially women. Don't get on camera. And then you try to hold your stomach in, you're trying to keep your abs contracted it, you can actually, you can contract your abs and breathe at the same time. I'm contracting my abs right now and I sound completely normal, but most people don't do that. They go. Yeah, and then Melissa and Monica and then they take these very short, labored breaths and nobody takes the time to go, (inhaling, exhaling) and when you let everything melt, then you realize, oh, wait a second. I didn't let my back really relax because I was still trying to sit in this very poised manner. When you do PMR daily, I do it. Try to do it twice a day. 15 minutes in the morning, 15 minutes at night. When you do P M R and you train your muscle groups to recognize the tension, they will automatically relax this practice I learned of it because my mother's a breast cancer survivor. My mother had breast cancer 11 years ago when she was only 48 years old when she got diagnosed. And we, she was, she went through chemo and radiation, the traditional treatments, but we also had her in holistic treatment. And that's how we learned about P M R. So, P M R is used by Carmanos as part of cancer treatment. It is used to treat headaches, insomnia. And relief, all types of stress. And actually as part of my when I teach burnout strategies which is actually I'm gonna be doing that in a couple of days when I teach people how to burnout proof their teams, I include a session of P M R because what I find with burnout is the the more the source of the burnout is outside of your control. People start to feel helpless, right? If what's really driving them over the edge is so far outside of their control, they feel like there's nothing they can do. And I have them turn completely inward into the body to do something that they can do by themselves. As a way to naturally relieve stress. It takes your cortisol levels down and it improves an opportunity for your brain to function more properly.
[00:51:36] Melissa: I'm gonna look it up. I think I can do it. Ugh, this has been such an amazing conversation.
[00:51:41] Monica: Well, I still have a couple more questions, if you don't mind. Tell me something. I hear a lot of themes. First of all, you are a fantastic public speaker. You go do workshops on burnout. You also talk about alignment as you progress and are thinking forward to your future, where do you see yourself going? Do you prefer doing large public speaking events. Do you prefer one-on-one? What gets your fire going?
[00:52:07] Princess: Thank you for that question. So, my life today falls into three buckets. I am a big stage keynote speaker. I do host workshops for companies all sizes, but mainly people, you know, audiences of like 80 plus 80 on the small side.
[00:52:22] And then obviously I do coaching and all of my coaching today is one-on-one. And I do that because a there's a huge demand for it. People ask for it, and I'd love to connect with individual women to help them achieve those goals. But if you ask me what bucket, where are you going with this? I'm going to the stage. Okay? I'm going to the stage. My hashtag that I made up a couple years ago was hashtag arena P because I wanna be on an arena side stage, and I have something to talk about. I have, you know, messages to share and information to get out there to people and all of that was born, I'll tell you this quick little story. I was an early adopter at Amazon, right? I'm a I'm still an early adopter of technology. I use chat G p T all the time. I wish I was an early adopter on the investment side. I would like be filthy rich right now. But I was an early user of Amazon, right? And I was, so, I've had my account for over 20 years and I started ordering books and things. The very first book that I bought when I was in college off of Amazon was how to become a motivational speaker. And then I spent 20 years taking detours, building other careers because I did not think that I had a story that was worth telling. Bad agreement. Bad agreement. But really, you know, being, I have younger siblings. I did not even mention my siblings. I have these incredible younger siblings. My mother did not have another child until she was 30. Lesson learned. Okay? She poured herself into me so much. And so I had her all to myself for 14 years. And then I have a brother who turns 30 this year, and we have a little sister who she's about to turn 23. She graduated from college last year. Thinking about my siblings and thinking about this life that we led. I. Just started to be less fearless because I'm around these super young people. They have no fear. My siblings have no fear. That's why I brought them up, because I've seen them go out and just do these amazing things, and they didn't grow up with all the same norms. And we're from different generations. I'm 20 and a half years older than my sister, so her way of thinking blew my mind. So having access to some younger people that are young, but wise and intelligent is a game changer. You have to keep people of multiple ages around you. I have a best friend who is 60, and then I got my little sister who's almost 23 years old, all in my circle, right, informing my decisions. And it's just time to get that message on the stage, get those messages on the stage because I waited for so long, just being afraid. And now I'm looking at my friends that are getting into their sixties and starting to retire, and now wanting to be more entrepreneurial. And then looking at somebody like my sister and my brother that are like, Hey, I'm not waiting for anybody. I'm doing it today. It just spurs me to not wait any longer. We don't have any other time, but the present.
[00:55:23] Monica: So that's so true. And I was listening to Simon Syk. I had the pleasure of hearing him in person this past weekend, and he went back to talk about how most people in organizations can tell you what they do, but they can't tell you why they do it. And Melissa and I talk about all the time, like we, you have to know your why. Not only personal, but professionally, they might be a little different. But I'm curious, what is your why for your business?
[00:55:48] Princess: Yeah, the why for my business is honestly that people deserve to live better lives, whether it's inside or outside of work. I honestly feel that if somebody is going to give their time, talent, and their present to a profession, that they deserve to be well. Right. And that's really it. I mean, and that the why is that, you know, we all have a collective responsibility in ensuring the wellness of our, not only ourselves, I have a collective responsibility for your wellness. Right? Making sure I was on time today, how much would I have stressed you out if I didn't show up today? Right? Just even the simplest interactions, having that connection with other people and just knowing that you have an impact on them and a collective responsibility.
[00:56:40] Melissa: For sure. You know, the connection or the connectivity that you're describing, there's such a hunger for it. There's such a hunger for it. I mean, Monica and I are finding, you know, we've had a couple events recently and, you know, pulled up into the parking lot with these nerves of like, is anybody gonna come? Right? And then 40 amazing women show up at 7:00 PM on a Wednesday. It's not necessarily because of us or because of the kindling project. It's that hunger for connection.
[00:57:09] Princess: It's really the whole society, because the number one, this is the number one global wellness challenge. Number one global wellness challenge is loneliness. And I'm telling you, without any, you know, without any empirical data in front of me, that lack of connection, that lack of empathy, that lack of belonging is why in this country we're seeing a massive amounts of violence.
[00:57:36] Melissa: A true community is gonna have a diversity of ideas in ages and people. And so if we only show up in communities that are like-minded, we'd get lonelier.
[00:57:47] Princess: My grandmother passed away when she was 59. So this is the, and I was 12, she was 59, I was 12. So my mother being 59 is the scary, this is scariest year for me. But my grandmother used to say about anything, anything you were worried about, anything that you were even hopeful for, just keep living and you'll get there. And that's it. Just if you keep living, you'll get there. Wherever. Wherever there is, whatever that possibility is, whatever that hope is, that destination, if you keep living, you'll get there. And that's why, that's part of my why as well. So people can just live, like live long enough to get there.
[00:58:27] Melissa: That is. Thank you so much. Thanks for sharing all your words of wisdom and encouragement and your princess isms as Monica called em. You know, my nickname when I was growing up, my family called me the Queen. I don't know if it was always a compliment. I mean, it might've been side compliment in some ways, but I just love this sort of royal thing that we have going on here. So one of the things we do at the end of some of our podcasts is we give you a chance to give a shout out to somebody who puts kindling on your fire.
[00:58:56] Princess: Okay. Oh, that's a, now that's pressure. So first off, thank you both, but somebody who puts kindling on my fire I would say, I am gonna group them together. Is my family, my core my husband, my, my two sons. They do it for me. I get to live with three amazing guys. They're not perfect. I'm not perfect with them, but we do love each other and they support everything that I do, even down to, Hey, I'm quitting my job, or, Hey, I got this high profile client and I'm leaving that relationship. I can go pursue other things. I have an incredibly supportive family and I could not do this work without them.
[00:59:37] Melissa: Oh, we love that. How about you, Monica? I know you had a fantastic week. We can have a whole podcast about it with some change makers.
[00:59:45] Monica: For sure. So, but I'm still gonna stick to my husband on this because he's, if it weren't for him to give me the space to go find who I am and to really spark the, and ignite the fire inside of me I couldn't do any of this cuz I have, you know, two almost grown boys and a family and so forth. So, shout out to my incredibly handsome and special and perfect and my eyes husband.
[01:00:10] Melissa: Aw. Okay. So my shout out this week is to my mother's, to my mom and my mother-in-law. This last few days of getting ready to graduate my daughter, the four of us are going on a girls trip to Paris. We're taking her to Paris for her high school graduation. It's me and my daughter and the two grandmas and. I really just have an appreciation for motherhood and the mothers that have been there for me, the opportunity to be a mother. So shout out to moms. I know we're a little past Mother's Day, but it's on my heart. It's every day. Yeah,
[01:00:44] Monica: every day. Yeah. And we can't sign off though, princess, really quickly, where do, how do people work with you and where do they find you?
[01:00:50] Princess: Yeah. The best place to find me is on my website, www.gobeyondwell.com. I am all over LinkedIn. I bet you, I bet you if you look for a Princess Castleberry, you're gonna find only one of me.
[01:01:04] Melissa: Do you have an event coming up that people can sign up for?
[01:01:08] Princess: So I just wrapped up an awesome event, but the recording of that event is going to be on my website.
[01:01:14] It was called Unstuck Unbothered, and Uninterrupted. Comes with a fabulous playbook. But the other huge thing going on right now is I am launching the next cohort of my coaching program. So even though I have people in a cohort, the sessions where we meet our individual, that program is called Gomentum. It is an eight week I call it an eight week wellness retreat, where we focus on several aspects of your wellness. Everything from your self-awareness to your mindset, finances, relationships, communication, career in all the way down to your personal appearance. We do a fantastic makeover at the end by, with the artistry of yours truly because appearance is a huge part of wellness. And that program launches, the next cohort is on June 5th, so there's an opportunity to do an informational session, learn more at the website. So that's just go beyond well.com/coaching. Can learn all about gomentum. And this time around I'm actually offering some of the sessions as individual sessions because that was a request the last time for some women that were having a a hard time affording the whole program,
[01:02:25] Melissa: Oh, fantastic. All right, ladies, go check out Princess on all those channels. You can also join Princess Monica and myself in our private Facebook group, the Kindling Project, ignite. We can continue this conversation, you can give us your thoughts and feedback, and as always,
[01:02:42] Monica: it only takes one spark to ignite the fire within.