Hello Joy-seekers, meet Kristin Hutchison!
She is mom and a wife, and the host of her own podcast, Chicken in a Bag, where she chats with interesting people from all walks of life and experiences. She has also done local standup comedy in the Boston area, and she is a bartender. Kristin considers herself a helper, connecter, and communicator, and shares her amazing inspirations and insights on her Instagram, @KristinBeingKristin. She is all about being herself and wants to help others do the same.
We both connected on Instagram last fall, soon after I was inspired by one of her posts that my sister shared with me. I love that she describes herself in this way: "You’ll find me somewhere between, inspiring others, dodging negativity, and making things happen." It resonates 100% with what I've been trying to do with my life and my blog!
Kristin and I are both on a similar mission to help and heal, and I was so grateful to chat with her and dig deeper about the importance of human connection. Our conversation covered a variety of topics such as joy, healing, music, positive thinking, listening, openness, and embracing our personal powers. I am including Kristin's responses to a few of my questions below:
What does joy mean to you?
Joy to me is just like a feeling of happiness. When I think of the word joy I think of bright and light and celebration. It's kind of funny, my mom's name is Joyce and she's probably my biggest light and my biggest inspiration. So, for me, when I heard that question I was like, Oh God...my mom, because that's part of her name! I think joy is something that some people have an easier time embracing it, and some people have a harder time finding it, but I think that it's infectious. So, the more joy that you can find in your life and try to bring to others, people want to feel it. I just don't think a lot of people have the opportunity to feel joy.
Towards the end of 2021, my husband did get sick, and he did wind up in the hospital. I had to really tap into joy. I had to shut down fear, and everybody is just breathing into fear so easily. Fear is so easy, and fear doesn't bring out the best side of you. It makes you more reactive, and you go into fight or flight, so that if you're fearful, you want to fight, because you're just like, "I don't understand this, I'm scared." For me, when he was sick, I was like, I can't tap into fear. I have to go into faith. I have to go into this joy mind: light, bright, set the intention of what I'm going to accomplish...and I really had to tap into all that.
How do we heal the world? Where do we even start?
I think we have to get uncomfortable. I think that's the problem...we don't want to have uncomfortable conversations. I think we don't want to listen. I think people have had their feet so dug in. People have been in survival mode, so they are so invested and dug in to their beliefs that they don't even want to open up. There's just a lot of name-calling. We're putting people into categories. And I've never been comfortable with boxes or categories because I believe everybody is more than just a title...right? So, maybe I'm a mom, but I'm also a woman, a wife, a sister...you know what I mean? But I'm also a human. This is just my exterior, but inside me, I'm a lot of things: I'm fun, I'm loud, I'm crazy, I'm inquisitive, I'm curious. I'm a lot of other things.
This is really what brought me to comedy in the beginning. I was like, maybe if I can joke about certain things, I can open up that uncomfortable conversation. That's why I try to use humor because once you try to start a debate, people get so angry and they just shut down conversation. We can't heal and we can't help each other if we are just un-open to listen to each other and open our mind. We have to be more open to allow people to be comfortable to open up and ask questions. We can't just shut people down.
We have to get to know each other as people, not topics or categories above their head. And that's why we are not healing, because we are divided. We have a lot of work to do.
What important message or wisdom would you like to share with our listeners to send them off and inspire them for this year?
In life, everyone's always trying to worry about being somebody else, and I think that your greatest gift is being yourself. Remind yourself that being YOU is the greatest thing! Understand how powerful you are. You are a powerhouse whether you realize it or not. You just maybe haven't tapped into your superpower!
With all of the stuff you can see on a day-to-day basis, you're really deciding what channel you're watching. It's up to you to decide, what do you want to put into yourself? Because what you put into yourself is what you're gonna receive more of. So if you want to keep drinking all that doom and gloom and fear, you're gonna be a fearful person probably full of anxiety and not want to leave your house. But, if you want to say,"I want to heal my soul and I want to feel lighter, and I want to do this," then you take that in and that's what you're going to project and that's what you're gonna get more of. So I really believe what you speak into the universe is what you're gonna receive. Be mindful of what you're allowing your mind to hear. This is gonna be the year that you really have to decide, what am I going to do with my life...what am I going to play into?
I am so thrilled to share our conversation with you all because I truly believe it can spark a movement of healing and deeper connection. Even during these times of division and uncertainty, we can still find joy within ourselves and in others. We can find common ground, offer support, and heal together!
You can follow Kristin on YouTube to check out her latest Chicken in a Bag episodes!
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