Hello Joy-seekers, meet Kriste O'Brien!
Kriste is a wife and mom of three, including two college students. She lives in New Hampshire with her family and enjoys hiking in the White Mountains, as well as checking out the latest concerts. She is a fellow Emerson alumna, and first-time author! Her book, Fat Mom on a Mountain, chronicles her journey to losing 50 pounds in 50 weeks, by her milestone 50th birthday, while facing her fears by climbing Half Dome at Yosemite.
Kriste and I also used to be co-workers!
I enjoyed reading her book as it was so well-written, funny, heartfelt, and relatable. The voice of self-doubt that she expressed throughout her book is something we all have and that I've personally experienced too. The way Kriste kept moving forward, despite the negative voices in her head, to make positive changes for herself and achieve her goals is so inspiring. My biggest takeaways were to be patient with ourselves and show forgiveness on our own journeys to transformation, keep getting back up each time we fall, and to celebrate each baby step we take along the way.
Our conversation covered a variety of topics such as joy, the importance of goal-setting and taking steps to get out of our comfort zone, self-acceptance, motivational playlists, and finding our cheerleaders. I hope that you all feel motivated to keep moving forward, and to keep showing up, even if you have self-doubt or are scared about what the outcome will be. I am including Kriste's responses to a few of my questions below:
What does joy mean to you and how did you discover it more on your journey to turning 50?
We have a lot of joy in our lives in the everyday, so I get joy everyday by FaceTiming with my kids who are away at school or seeing my son come off his high school bus and I haven't seen him all day. Those are little joys. Really, for me personally, I get joy in setting goals or challenging myself and then trying to accomplish it and getting to the point where I can look back and say, oh I did that! Even if it was something little, something that scares me and getting out of my comfort zone, I get joy from that personally. The other joy I get is showing other people that they can do big things as well. So, somehow over my journey in writing the book...the more I wrote, the joy became not only for myself, but also for every woman turning 50 who is overweight!
What was it like to break the patterns and the thoughts that were no longer serving you? And putting yourself first?
I think the word patterns is a pretty strong word, because as I was writing and looking back at my childhood, events that happened, who makes me "me," there are some strong patterns there that go deep, and some of those insecurities, they're not going away. I can try and fight them. The insecurities when I went to the writer's group, and I didn't feel like I fit in, or the insecurities when I was at the REI group of women who were much younger than me...I think the way to combat that is to acknowledge it. This problem is going to be with me for a while. And I don't know if I can ever really embrace it or break through it, but I can live with it. I can acknowledge it, and adapt to it, and just be like, it's ok that I'm an introvert, or it's ok that I have these fears. I'm still going to do it. Fake it till you make it! Sometimes when you're pretending to do something you can surprise yourself and you actually do it!
And putting myself first: I did a lot of the book for me, but as things got scary and I wanted to turn away from what I was trying to accomplish in the 50 weeks, I have two teenage girls, and they're watching me. So, it was very hard for me to put my family on hold for weekends I'd have to hike, or spending money on just myself because, especially as a mother, you just don't do that. You don't go buy brand new things for yourself. But I remembered that the kids are watching me and so that was helping me put myself first, because I want my children to put themselves first sometimes too...it's ok to do that. I wanted to teach them that lesson by showing them, not just talking at them about it.
Tell me about finding your team of cheerleaders and how much it meant to you.
They say to surround yourself with people that are doing what you want to do, and they will bring you up to a better part of yourself. For example, you brought up Katie (daughter) and the airplane. She's not afraid of flying. She loves flying, and she talked me through that, and helped me through that, and seeing it through her eyes made it so much better. My husband Tony is not afraid of heights. It's hard for him to understand how scared I am, but he sees it, he witnesses it first-hand. We'll go hiking together, and I can't go to the edge of the mountain when he and the kids are looking over it. So, surrounding myself with those kinds of people got me up to a point where they acknowledged that I have the fear, but they're helping me past it. My friend Katie who did a lot of hiking... she was like my logistics manager. I didn't know what I was doing with all of the gear that they listed that I bring. There's nothing like having somebody right in front of you saying,"You know what? You don't need that. You do need this..."
And the two co-workers who were on diets were just my cheerleaders for holding me accountable to sticking to it (diet). That was a missing piece. You can do things for yourself, but when you're having support from others, they lift you up, but they're also holding you accountable for getting past what you need to get past, trying to accomplish your goal, checking in with you. We all need that. There's not a whole lot that we can accomplish completely on our own. I kept their (cheerleaders) voices in my head when I was in Yosemite because I was truly alone. I definitely recommend looking closer at who is there when you're not at your best, and holding onto those people because they're the ones who are going to get you to be the best "you."
I'm so grateful for my chat with Kriste and to listen to her share more of her story.
You can learn more about Kriste's journey to 50 on her website for Fat Mom on a Mountain and you can purchase her book on Amazon!
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