mp3 version

Christina discusses her career shift from teaching to opening a coffee shop with her husband. She acknowledges the challenges and fears that come with making a change, but also highlights the importance of having a support system and reframing negative thoughts. She emphasizes the process of self-discovery and journaling to find the right direction. Christina, you are so welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much, Robin. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for coming on. I wanted us to sit down and have this chat because you have recently had a lot of shifts in your life. I remember when we met, you had mentioned that you were changing careers, you were building a house, and you had a lot of stuff going on. And I wanted to just sit down and have a conversation about that process in case there's anyone listening who might be in that same place who would love to maybe change their career and talk about kind of the struggles and stuff to come with, because I feel like we were just saying before this started, sometimes on Instagram, you can look at people and they're moving into this new career and they've changed jobs and it looks really easy and seamless, but it's not a lot of the time. There's a lot of stuff that comes with it. So I thought it'd be really good to have. Yeah, no, it's very true. Looking in at other people who have maybe done what I've done or something similar to it, you look in and you think, oh, it's really easy. I'm sure if everybody can do it, then so can I. Why not give it a go? And they're all great feelings to have. And if you didn't feel like that, you would never give anything a go. But it's a lot harder than it looks. It's definitely an awful lot harder than it looks. And it's been a huge, huge learning curve for me as well. And so a little bit of my story is I am a teacher and I was a teacher for nine years, nearly 10 years. And I kind of thought, well, if I can teach, I can do anything. Teaching is a really hard job and everybody talks about how stressful teaching is and how hard work teaching is. And I kind of thought, right, well, if I can do that, then I can apply everything that I know from that into something else. And yes, I can. But it's definitely not as easy as that. So I was teaching, as I said, for nine to 10 years. And I was actually teaching in a school quite a wee bit of a distance away from where I live. And so it was taking me well over an hour there and an hour back again every day. So it was taking its toll on me. And I live in the North of Ireland, so it's quite hard to get teaching jobs. I don't know what it's like down in the South, but it's very hard to get teaching jobs if you are not already in the school. So I was applying for jobs closer to where I was from and wasn't successful. And my husband, who owns a business himself, he owns a supermarket, and he had always wanted me to go into business with him. And that was always what his idea was. But I just wasn't so sure. And he then acquired a building that had two tenants in it. It was two sort of separate units. And it had two tenants and one of the tenants left. And he was on the lookout then for a new tenant. And then he just got a brainwave to say, well, what about we do something with it? Maybe we should open a coffee shop because we spend our weekends going to every coffee shop in the country. So he said that. What about we open our own coffee shop and you'll run it and you'll take everything that you know from teaching in terms of the creativity in that and put it into that. And I sort of thought, well, this is crazy. This is not right. But I actually went home and talked to my mom about it. And she was like, no, Christina, go do it. Go for it. You have to do it. And that was then the driving force then. And that all started around January time was when we had the idea for this. And I took a career break from teaching in June. So my job is still safe if I do ever want to go back to it. So I took my career break and we opened Brew India, our coffee shop, on the 25th of August. And it's going green for everything, but it's hard work. Yeah. And I love what you said there because I love when these type of podcasts and we talk about career changes and stuff, I remember when I was trying to change mine, I was working full time as a nurse and I used to go in every day and I'd be like, there's so much things that I would love to do myself, like to use my skills in a different way. But I was so afraid because you have rent to pay, you have all this stuff, especially if you grew up in a house. I remember my mom and dad being like, you get a good, solid job that'll get you a mortgage that you can always depend on. So that safety element kept me there for a really long time. And sometimes I think when you hear people talk about changing careers, it's almost like you have to jump off this cliff and quit everything and just completely go into it. Whereas you had said there that you have your teaching job, so you were able to take a career break. So that's almost like kind of a support network in the background for you to help you with the whole process. Definitely. Yeah. I have, in some respects, jumped off a cliff, but I know that there is something at the bottom there to catch me if it all fails and it doesn't work out. And I know I'm in a very privileged position because of that, because I do have a job that's safe for me at the end of it all. I also have a husband who owns a business, which I have now went into as well. So I'm kind of in both. I'm working in a coffee shop and running it, but I'm also making waves in his business too. So I have a wee bit of security there as well. So I do understand and I'm very conscious of the fact that I'm probably coming from quite a privileged position. But by the same respect, it's still very, very hard. I'm building a house, I have a huge mortgage, I've got bills. Right now, I'm not earning money from my coffee shop. I'm not. That's just the long and short of it. I'm not because I have a staff day. So looking in on it, you would think that, oh, she has it easy because her husband owns a business and she has a teaching job to fall back on. But it is still very, very hard and very tricky and very scary. Very, very scary. So scary. So scary. Especially when it's something new and you've come from kind of something that you've been in for so long. And I remember I still have... Our stories are very similar, actually. My husband has his own business and I do kind of all of the office-like business stuff. I do our accounting, I do our marketing, I do all of that kind of stuff. So that's like my kind of little support that I've been able to have on the side. And then when I was transitioning from nursing, I was doing it in the evenings initially. And then I would kind of try to reduce my hours when I went to part-time. And I would do it just to have that little bit of support. Because I found I was really panicky with what might happen. You know all these thoughts about what if it fails? What if it doesn't work out? And you have to just keep... It's very much a process of stepping through them all the time, isn't it? Yeah, it really is. It's very much a process, too, of rather than always thinking of, well, what if it doesn't work? What if it fails? What if I don't make enough money? What if I can't pay my mortgage? And my husband now is very, very good at thinking like this. He then will flip it and he'll be like, well, what if it does? You have a 50-50 chance here. It'll either work or it'll not. Stop always thinking of, well, what if this goes wrong and this goes wrong? Start to think, well, what if it goes right? And then if you start to sort of frame your thinking in that way, you're going to take the right moves. You're going to move yourself in the right direction to make that work. You know, it's nearly like a subconscious thing that you're nearly manifesting it to happen as if you're constantly thinking the negative. And I'm always thinking the negative. So this is something that I'm really trying to work on. And if you're always thinking negatively, then you're going to push yourself in a direction where it's negative. And that's something that I'm definitely, definitely trying to work on. And so I am now getting myself to the stage where I'm thinking, well, what if this is going to go well? What if this is the right thing to do? Because no matter what, it is the right thing for me at this point in time because this is the journey that I'm on. And it is very much a massive, massive learning journey for me. Yeah. And I think that's so good for people listening to know that, firstly, if you're thinking of making a change or kind of gradually moving into something else, that you don't have to quit everything all at once. You can have your little bridge job or stay in your work and even start in the evenings or even little things. Like I remember, you know, when you're starting off and you don't really have clarity on what it is you want to do, I would just kind of sit and do a bit of journaling around stuff that I was interested in or what it might look like just to let my mind go to that place. Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of what I would have done as well. Way back at the start, like at one point I was thinking I wanted to open a clothes boutique. And then that's where the direction that I was going in. And then whenever I actually sat down and sort of thought about it, journaled it as well, like I would journal all the time, all the time. My house is just, you can see over here too, it's just coming down everywhere. And then I realised that no, that's not actually the area that I would want to go into. I'm a very sociable person. Like I like speaking to people. I like talking to people. I like being out and about. I like helping people. And it was whenever I started to think of all of those things and get all those things on paper, then I kind of realised the direction I wanted to go into was something sort of hospitality based, customer service based. And then that's how then this kind of came about. And then obviously with Conor as well, saying what could we do with this building? And then that's between the two of us, we came up with this idea and it has worked. And I even noticed as well, I would have been spending my days in school, like as you say, not going full hog into it right away. I'd have been spending my days in school and then I would have been coming home and doing bits and pieces for the coffee shop. Or I would have been taking my weekends and being in the coffee shop and doing a lot of the work myself. And then by doing that too, I was meeting people. They would be walking past and stopping in and saying hello. And during all that time, I actually came home one day and said to Conor, this is what I meant to do. Like I meant to be out with these people and talking to them. And I really enjoy getting to know people in the area and having the conversations with them. And, you know, that was never just all kept for me, but then was what I was supposed to be doing. Now, I do miss teaching. I really, really do miss teaching. I didn't think I would miss it as much as I do. I miss the kids so, so much. But I know I can always go back to it if my feelings sort of take over, that I really, really do want to go back to it. But at this moment in time, I'm very happy with what I'm doing. Yeah, I love that. I think that space is so important, isn't it, for you to have somewhere that maybe, especially in the beginning, that's not other people. Like if you have people in your life that might maybe be a bit fearful for you making the change, or maybe somebody who might not understand your desire to do something different. Your journal is such a safe space because there's no judgment. It's just like, OK, what do I feel like? What do I like? What would I enjoy? And it can be just for you. But at the same time, I always think my journal is where every idea or everything has kind of started coming to life. It's like the very first step. And then like you, I love that you were kind of doing it in the evenings and then on weekends and meeting people. And that kind of expanded your clarity on what it was you wanted to go into. Yeah, it definitely did. Going back to the journaling as well, I find my head is just buzzing all the time. There's a million and one different things going on in my head at one time. And I find with the journaling, getting it out on paper really gives you clarity. It moves it from in here where it wasn't about. Nothing's making sense. And I'm jumping from one thing that I need to do for, for example, the house that we're building, and then another thing I need to be doing for school, and then another thing that I need to be doing for the coffee shop. But getting it out onto paper made it make sense for me. And then I was able to then see it and then action it, rather than it just being in my head constantly. So I'm a huge advocate for journaling. Huge. And any sort of wee thing that happens in my life, whether it be personal, whether it be to work, whatever it may be, I'll journal about it. And I also find as well with the journaling, if I find it hard to explain how I'm feeling to, for example, Conor, and some like way back at the start, whenever I was really struggling with everything that was going on, I was saying it's very, very tough. He would have asked me quite a lot, you know, well, what is wrong? Or how can I help you? And I was never able to say, because I couldn't, I could not verbalize what was going on with me, but I could write it down. And I was able to write it down to him and hand it to him. And then he was able to read it. And he was like, okay, well, this is what's wrong. Now it makes sense. You know, so journaling has been a huge, huge, huge help for me in all of it. Really, really has. And can we talk maybe a little bit more about kind of maybe the doubts or the fears or those initial struggles that you experienced? I think it's so important to normalize them and like to have conversations about them. Yeah. The biggest fear and it's still an ongoing fear of a few big fears is the financial side of it. So I have pumped a lot of money between loans and personal money and family money, a lot of money into this. And then you have to worry, am I ever going to see a return on this? Am I ever going to be able to pay back all of these loans? Am I going to be able to make any money myself to pay everything else that I have got going on? I left a job that was a very well-paid job. It was a stable job. I was getting my paycheck every single month. I was getting my holiday pay. I was wondering if I was ever to get pregnant. I would have my return to pay. I would have my sick pay. I had all those things. And then I just left it. The complete unknown. So financially, there's a lot of fear there. A lot of fear. And doubts and things like that is my own confidence in my ability to do it. You know, I find that to be probably the biggest thing, even before the financial side of it. I find my own doubts in myself have been huge. You know, I have for the first month, even before we opened, I have been crying every single day, thinking I am not cut out for this. I can't do this. There's no way I am fit for this. I am a good teacher. I'm just going to stick to that. I know how to do that. That's safe for me. And I can just stay there. Whereas this was completely new. Completely new. And there are still things every single day that are new. So for example, running payroll. Running payroll, I nearly cried my eyes out the first time I did it because it just didn't make sense to me. None of it did. Whereas I think I've kind of now got myself to the stage where I'm looking back thinking, right, well, everything doesn't make sense to me at the start, but now it does. Like now I know how to do my order. Now I know how to do costers. I know how to run payroll. I know how to make rodents. And I didn't have a clue of it then at the start. Now I'm kind of getting myself into a way of thinking that if I am hit by something new, I'm like, right, well, no, I figured this out before. I can do it again. But it's trying to stop that wee feeling in your stomach, that anxious feeling that will creep up and trying to tell it that, no, hold on, you can do this. Just take a step back, chill for a wee second, go outside, get a wee bit of fresh air, take a few deep breaths, do all of those things that I know how to do to try and get myself back into the mindset where I can tackle it head on. So that would be, between the two of them, they are my biggest things in the financial side of it. And then my own doubts in myself, whether I'm actually fit for this or not. And I am very, very lucky that I have the commerce because anything I don't know, I'll just run to him. But then again, that's something too. This is just opening up a whole pile of stuff now. I would have been an extremely independent person and would have fought all my own battles and would have done everything by myself and wouldn't have needed anybody to help me. And now I am totally reliant on him. Well, I feel like I am. He'll not say that I am, but I feel like I'm very reliant on him to help me and to coach me through things. And that I find a wee bit hard as well. I'm having to rely on somebody else. And that's not a bad thing. It's fine having to rely on somebody else and having somebody else to help you. But it's because I was the person that did everything myself. I never needed any help. That's been a big shift for me. Yeah. And I love your mindset about being like, OK, well, I've figured stuff out before. Whatever comes up, I can figure it out again. And I feel like this conversation is so spot on. And even before this podcast, I went out. I always go to the beach when I'm stressed because my face, I feel like I can take a deep breath. Yeah. And I went out because on both sides, my husband is self-employed and then I have my wellness brand. And some days, I feel so overwhelmed with learning new things. Like you said, on his side, there's managing staff. There's the payroll. There's keeping on top of finances. There's doing all your VAT returns. And there's all this stuff. And I remember I just went earlier on. I was like, I actually feel like my head's going to explode because it feels like really heavy, especially when you're not used to doing all that kind of stuff. It's so new. It's, oh, what if I fuck this up? What if I don't do right? Yeah. But I don't think you can do this stuff without those thoughts. No, you can't. And I think if you were doing them without those thoughts too, it wouldn't be great either. I think there's a balance between it, between being aware of what if I fuck this up and not being aware of it. You need to find the balance because if you're somebody that's just coasting through this, not being aware of the mistakes that you've been making, that's when you're going to make mistakes. You know, there definitely is a fine balance, but I know I'm way, way on the opposite end. I'm on the scared to touch anything in case I make a mistake. That's where I am at at the minute. Scared to go anywhere near it. What I feel like as well, the only way that you can get confidence in anything is by taking the action because things feel so much scarier before we actually do it. So I've tried to convince myself, even if it's something new and I'm like, I have no idea. Like I didn't do business in secondary school. I did nursing. I have zero, like fuck all business skills sometimes. But I find that when something comes up and I'm like, okay, I'm really overwhelmed. I don't know how to do this. If I can just dip my toe in. So if it's like go online and do a bit of research on it and try and make a little bit of movement, like break it down. It helps me feel like, okay, if I can do that one step and then I'll learn about this next thing. Yeah. Yeah. As well, I find, because obviously I am in the shop as well. And so I'm trying to do the boat and the shop is a whole other ballgame as well, Conor, my husband's shop. And I'm just dipping my toe in and things there, you know, to make it feel like I have achieved something. It makes me feel like I am making moves in the direction that I want to go. And I know that it's been a shift for me as well because I am the ultimate perfectionist and I want everything to be perfect right there and then. And I'm a control freak. God help any of the girls who work for me. God love them. I'm such a control freak. But that's something that I have had to try and change ever so slightly that things aren't going to be perfect the first time. You know, I am learning in the same way as what you're saying there now. Like I don't have a clue about any of this sort of stuff. I am learning. I don't have to have it all figured out in a day and know exactly how every single thing works in a day. I can just dip my toe into it and figure it out as I go along rather than having to have it all perfect all in one go. And that's been hard for me to try and get to that stage because there is the fear there as well that something major is going to go wrong and the whole thing is going to come crashing down around me. But whenever in reality, it's not really. You know, that's not really going to happen. That's me being very logical about the whole thing. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's so good for everyone listening as well to know that if you are in that place where you're considering it or you want to dip your toe in or you want to see what options you might have, if you are feeling fear, if you're feeling doubt, if you have financial worries, if you are experiencing stuff that we are speaking about, it is so natural. It is so natural. It is so natural. And I think that's why podcasts like this are so good, because if you're listening to people talking about how great they are at business and how great they are at self-care and how they can go and meditate for 45 minutes and everything's great and wonderful, it's not real. It's not real life. And you're listening to that and then you're automatically thinking, right, well, I'm no good at that and I can't do that and I should never try to do anything like that because I just can't do it. Whenever the reality of the situation is most people are like you and I, that do have fears, that do have anxieties about it, that do feel the stresses about it, but that's OK and that's completely normal. And I think it's making it that wee bit more normal as well, talking about things like this on such an open platform. And that it's OK to feel like that and still go for it. You know, you don't have to feel like you have all of your ducks in a row and that you have to have everything together to be able then to take the next step. You can take the next step and still feel like you don't have a clue what's going on because that's the reality of the situation. One of the girls actually in work said to me that I'm like a swan in the top, underneath my legs are going like this. That's exactly what it's like on the surface. You have everything under control, but then underneath it is chaos. But you're still allowing yourself that bit that's above water to keep push yourself on, you know, that's pushing you on. You still have everything else going on underneath, but you're not letting that stop you. You know, and that's very much where I am at the minute. I have all this chaos going on underneath, but I'm still pushing on with it. I'm trying to make it work as best as I can. Yeah, that's so good. So good. And I also, like I've learned from my own journey as well, when it comes to things like this, I feel like it is so important to have little tools, little things that you can do because there's obviously like having the fears and the doubts and stuff. But sometimes if they feel so big and so scary that you're actually like, you know, when you're frozen with fear, you're like, I actually can't move forward with this. It's too scary. It's too overwhelming to have little things that you can do for yourself. And I wish I knew about them sooner. Yeah, yeah. I remember that when I opened the space, I remember we were emailing and you had sent me back letting me know that you had just started your own business and you were building your house and you had joined for your self-care. What role has self-care played on and off in the process of making that transition? It's been huge. It has. It's really been huge. It's something that has definitely been on and off. And so whenever I started all of this and I joined the space, I was very much in an area of my life where things were just starting, you know, and I was still teaching. I still was comfortable in my life and I had the time. I wasn't massively overwhelmed by things, so it was easy for me to sit down once a week and do meditation or do adrenaline. And I really did feel the benefits of it. Huge, huge benefits of it. My sleep and everything improved and my outlook and things improved, which is probably why I have done what I've done. If I didn't, if I wasn't doing all of those things back then, I don't know if I would have pushed on the way that I have with the business. So it definitely has had a massive, massive impact on my life. But then whenever things started to go crazy with opening Baroombia, opening the coffee shop, I just, I didn't have the same time or the same, it's wrong to say the same want because there was obviously the want there because I needed to do it. But it's nearly like, oh, but no, hold on. I have this and this and this to do and these things need to be done for me to be able to open next week. Meditating, that's way down the list of my priorities right now. I don't have half an hour that I can go and sit in a dark room and close my eyes and chill out. I don't have that time, which is the wrong way to think about it. Because if I had have just taken that half an hour, 30 minutes to chill out, everything else would have been easier and less overwhelming. And I know that. And that's why now, whenever I've kind of got myself in the swing of the business and how things work and I've got myself into routine again, I'm starting to get back into my self-care again. I know tonight, for example, we have our live meditation and I am doing everything that I can to make sure that I'm not sick. Journaling wise, I have my journaling again. Last week, maybe it was two weeks ago, I was finding things very overwhelming and everything was just coming at me at once. And I just went and took myself off for a walk. I just went out and did it. And I would never have done that. But I just needed to get fresh air. So I left and went for a walk. So I'm even starting to notice now myself that I'm becoming more aware of it now. You know, I'm more aware of whenever I'm not feeling so good. And that's, no, hold on, because you need to stop here and you need to chill out a wee second. You need to check in with yourself. You need to figure out what's going on here and you need to do something to make yourself feel a little bit better. Because unless I do, nothing else is going to work. And so I am starting to get back into it again. But that's not to say now that next week it could be a complete shit show again and not doing anything again. And I think that's maybe the reality for quite a lot of people. Again, going back to my point that I made before, you're just hearing people talk about self-care all the time and they get up at 5 a.m. in the morning and they journal and they meditate and you think you're awful because you're not doing that. You know, whenever everybody struggles with it, you know, I think everybody struggles with it. And I think hearing people say that they're struggling with it is very, very important to make you feel that you're not actually a bad person with self-care. You're not bad at looking after yourself just because you've gone off the wagon a wee bit. Yeah. You know, but like that's so natural. And I feel like that's nearly what throws so many of us off because we feel like unless we're not doing it perfectly and unless we're not showing up and doing something every day or every week, say we miss a few weeks of life is busy, that we have failed. And just to sack it all in, there's no point. But actually being consistent is being like, OK, I have time to do something this week. And then if you have three or four weeks where you don't, that's OK. But being like, I'm actually going to sit down now instead, it's kind of shifting away from that all or nothing. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it really is. The all or nothing approach wouldn't work with this because it's not possible. It's not possible with daily life and the daily struggles and the reality of daily life. You know, and as you say, if you feel like you've gone off the wagon and you're failed, you're never going to get back on it again because you feel like you failed. You know, so I definitely I don't feel like I have failed in terms of my self-care because I know that I can pick it up again. I know that I can do that. And I think as well, from being part of the space way, way back whenever I started, it has helped me become more aware of how I am feeling. Before I joined the space, I would have just pushed on and would have just had all these feelings going on and would have just thought, that's just me. That's just normal. That's the way I am. Whereas being part of the space has definitely made me more aware of, right, well, hold on. This isn't OK. You need to do something about this because, you know, you can feel better than this rather than just trying to push through things. And that's something that I've definitely become more aware of. And I'm just taking the time to slow down. It's definitely made me more aware of being able to do that. And I am much better at doing that now. Much, much better. It's like it takes you off autopilot because I used to feel like that as well. I was so used to feeling the same way all the time, like always anxious, always overwhelmed, always stressed. But I was like, this is just my norm. This is just how I feel all the time. Like there's no difference. And then when I started to dip my toe into different tools and noticing a shift in how I felt, I was like, oh, I actually don't have to feel this way all the time. And at the beginning, that was like a few minutes here or there, a walk, whatever it was. But essentially, and what I've realized that what we're doing with all this stuff is we're grounding ourselves. You're kind of regulating your nervous system. So in that chaos that you feel, like the stress in your body or like the overwhelm, those few minutes, whether it's your walk, whether it's your meditation or your journaling, you're regulating yourself. So it actually helps you go back to whatever you're doing with your feet on the ground, back in your body. You're not, I find I'm just not as frantic. Like I know now, like with today, I needed to sit down. I really didn't have time for an hour's walk, but I was like, I'll go for this walk. I'm going to sit down. I'm going to get nothing done because I'm so overwhelmed. I've learned to bring in, and it could even be, it doesn't have to be something long. It could be a few deep breaths. It can be like washing your hands, like just coming back to the moment and then doing your stuff. Yeah. I know I find, I find getting very overwhelmed by something, that's whenever everything goes wrong. You know, whenever you're frantic, everything then goes wrong and it just makes everything a hundred times worse. So if I do get myself into a state, and I'm not saying that I do this every time because there are times that I get myself into a state and then I just do what I always would have done before and push through it and made all the mistakes and did all the chaos. But I do try even just walking outside and taking three deep breaths outside and then going back in again. Even sometimes all it is, is just removing myself from maybe if I'm sitting at the desk on the computer, removing myself from there and going and getting a drink of water and coming back again. And that's all it will take to kind of get myself settled again. What I found as well is writing out everything that I need to get done, like nearly a brain dump. So I'm probably getting overwhelmed sometimes because of all these different things to do. So I find that taking myself away from where I'm getting overwhelmed, going to somewhere else, writing everything down and then prioritising them, numbering them. I actually have a book sitting here that I've done about half an hour ago and sorting it all out. It just then clears my mind to then be able to actually take it one step at a time. And I think that's something that I've learned in this space as well, is taking it one step at a time. You use the bridge technology where we have ourselves the same bridge and then our goal or what we want to achieve is at the other side. And it's just taking one little step each time. And I'm definitely doing that more often. And that's what I'm trying to do whenever I get overwhelmed, is writing everything down step by step and then just taking it one step at a time. And if I don't get to the end, it's OK. I can just pick it up again another time. Yeah. And I was about to ask you, was there any tools in particular that helped that you found? Because different things kind of stick with different people. Was there anything you mentioned the bridge? Yeah, that would be the main one. The bridge. Try not to get everything done one time. Getting it out of my head, on paper, and then thinking systematically through it really, really helps me. And what I have found from the space as well is during our meditation, before I would have joined space, I would have tried to do meditation and I would have just thought, no, I'm really bad at them because my mind does not shut off. I'd be thinking about that's why I'm there the whole time through meditation and not one bit of meditating that's happened. But now with the space, I know now that that's OK. It's not easy, but it's OK because I've now kind of got myself to a point where when I'm meditating, yes, all the same thoughts are still going on in my head, but I'm not trying to catch up with them. Whenever I'm meditating, I'm now lying still or sitting still and I'm seeing all my thoughts and watching all my thoughts happen, but I'm not trying until, right, well, I need to go and do that now and then going and doing it because I know at that point in time I'm sitting doing a meditation. So I'm seeing everything happening and watching all of my thoughts happening in my head, but I'm not doing any action there to catch up with them. And that helps an awful lot to relax me and to sort of ground me and help me not be as frantic and not be jumping from one thing to another because I'm just watching them happening. You're awareness, you're being the observer, which is for so many of us, we feel like we are our thoughts, we are like our mind, but actually you're the one who hears them. And that noise, yes, some days it can be really loud, but you can watch them, you can let them come and go. All the thoughts don't have to mean something. They're not all true. But I think that's where so much of our anxiety and stuff comes from. When we don't have that separation to be able to watch them, then we're in them all the time and then our body comes into them and then we get stressed when we're thinking of that thought. And I love that you said that because I know for so many of you probably listening, you're probably like, oh, I'm so shit at meditating. I can't quiet my mind. But that's not the goal. Your goal is to be able to be the watcher. Yeah. The goal, and I always would have thought that the goal of meditation was to be able to lie down and close your eyes and not think about anything and just completely relax. Whenever I now know, that's not the goal. The goal is, yes, to relax and try and quieten your mind, but it's your mind that's impossible. You're always going to have something there. And then you start thinking about thinking and it takes off. It's a spiral. Yeah, it's a spiral. And to know that that's okay and to know that all you have to do whenever you're meditating is just be aware that that's happening and that's enough. That has helped me so much. It's helped me want to meditate more. Before, I wouldn't have wanted to meditate because I would have just thought, no, there's no point in that. I can't do it. So what's the point in giving half an hour of my day up to do that? Whereas now, I know that I can actually do it. Even though my thoughts are going mad, I'm still meditating. I'm still doing it. I'm still reaping the benefits of it. Yeah, I love that. And for everyone listening, we were chatting about that little bridge visualization. So all you can do is in your journal, and I'm so bad at art, my bridges look terrible. For anything that I want to bring in, if I have a goal or say one of my husband's goals, I want to buy a house. Being self-employed, I don't know when that's going to happen. But it's on the other side of my bridge and I am on the opposite side. And one step at a time, we can move towards it. But if I was to think of it as, okay, I have a goal to buy a house and I don't have a process to break it down for myself, I feel overwhelmed. I feel like I'm not getting anywhere. I feel stuck. And there's so many things that I haven't got in place for that to happen. So I don't really move towards it at all. So when you have your bridge, you're just stepping one at a time. And especially on those days, like we were talking about when you were saying the fears and the doubts and all that stuff that comes up, you don't have to get to the other side that day. You just take one step. And if that step is just getting to the end of the day, that's fine. At least you've moved in that direction. You're better to take a tiny, tiny step forward than staying in one place. And if you're thinking about, I have to achieve that today, the end goal today, you are more than likely going to stay in one place because that's too hard to jump from where you're at to where you want to be. It's a massive, massive jump to take. And then you're just staying where you're at and you're not moving anywhere. Whereas at least if you do little, small, tiny steps, you are getting there slowly, but surely you will eventually get there. And that's where we were with the coffee shop. I had the idea in January and I had the goal then was to open the coffee shop. But I didn't just jump from here to there right away. It was so many little, tiny, tiny steps, really small steps, but it took me there. And it was those small steps that was the reason why I got there. It wasn't because I tried to do everything all in one go. And if I had tried to do everything all in one go, for example, my plan was to open the coffee shop by the first week of July. I don't know who I thought I was leaving school at the end of June and opening a coffee shop by the first week of July. I don't know how I ever thought that that was going to be possible. But that was my aim. And obviously, then whenever it came to it, I realised, no, there's no way because I have so many little steps that I need to take. I can't just jump from here to there and get it done. Then it won't be done right either. You know, you'll have missed things and things will be half done. You're better to take the small steps and do it right rather than jumping forward a million steps and then having to go back on yourself because things were wrong or you suffered because of it. And that's a huge, huge thing. But if you do go too quick at something or if you try to do it all in one go, you're going to be the one that's going to suffer. You know, you're the one that's maybe not sleeping or not looking after yourself because you're trying to do everything. And so it's so important to just take the small steps and not to beat yourself up because you're just taking small steps. Now, I find like I'm great and wonderful and all this stuff. I wish I would take some of my own advice. But it's easy to say all of these things and then whenever it comes into practice, it doesn't actually happen. But I'm getting there with it, you know, I do have the awareness of it now. It's just something that I just work on, try to work on every day. Yeah, there's a constant work in progress. Yeah. Constant. Would you have any advice for someone listening who is thinking about changing careers or thinking of whipping out their journal tonight and having a browse of ideas and stuff? What would you tell yourself? I would say, don't put yourself down a rabbit hole that, no, this can't work or all the negatives of it or why you shouldn't do it. Try to think of all the reasons why you should, because if you think of all the reasons why you should, you're more than likely going to take the leap and take the jump. If it is something that you really, really are thinking about, think about the positives of it. It's a hard one because I know I had a safety net. So that would be something that I would encourage as well, is to work out how you could have a safety net, because that will make things easier. I don't know what it would be like to take a leap and jump without a safety net, so I can't advise on that. So I know, obviously, I said before, I'm in a privileged position whereby I could take a career break and there are so many jobs out there that can't. But maybe your safety net might be that you will start to put money aside every month from your wages to give yourself five months worth of money that will tide you over. You find as well that you need less money than you actually think you do, because I find that as long as I have paid my mortgage and I'm paying my bills, that's all the money I need right now. You know, my shopping, different things like going out and things like that, you don't need to do any of those things whenever you are opening your own business because that takes your priority, you know. So I would say trying to figure out some form of safety net just to make yourself feel a little bit more content, because I know if I didn't have a safety net, I wouldn't feel as content as what I am right now. And if it is something that you're constantly thinking about and something that is taking up a lot of your time throughout the day, thinking about what else could I do, what I'm not happy here. At one point, I was thinking of becoming a radiographer, you know. I was not unhappy in my job, but I just wanted to change. And I was actually getting an x-ray on my ankle and I started thinking maybe I could be a radiographer. And it was at that point I realised, OK, no, you need to do something here. This is telling you that you have to look about something and do some sort of a change to see if it will work out for you. So if it is something that you're thinking about a lot, go for it. Go for it. It's not going to be the end of the world if it doesn't work out. Get over, as well, something that I am trying to do, is try to get over the embarrassment of a failure. You know, that's something that I'm really struggling with at the minute, that if Bermuda isn't successful and in a year's time I have to close it, I would just die of the fear of what people would think, you know, and what people are saying about you, and just no control over that. You know, people are going to be saying something regardless of what happens with it, whether it's successful or whether it fails. So try not to think about other people and what other people will think, because they're going to think it anyway. You have to do what's right for you. So if it is something that you are thinking about a lot, get your safety net, some sort of a safety net, and just jump in head first. And you never know what could happen. And it could open up doors into something completely different. You know, with my journey, I opened up my business, but that has in turn led me moving into my husband's business, as well. So I can have both of those things. And that was something that we had talked about, but was never really on my radar. Whereas now it is. Now it's something that I really enjoy doing, and I want to be part of his business as well. And you don't know where it could take you. And don't limit yourself with a thing or fear of, well, I can't do that. There's no way I could do that. Don't limit yourself. You're fit for anything. And you're capable of doing anything as long as you put your mind to it. So good. I love that you said about the fear of failing, because I actually, sometimes I do in my journaling, it's like, OK, face the worst case scenario. And I journal around, OK, what is the worst case scenario and how would I cope with this if it happened? So whether it's like the whole thing fails, I mess it up, nothing goes right, how would I cope with that? And then I come up with literally a list of stuff that I can do if it does fail. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. To try and strengthen the trust that, OK, I am taking a risk, but also I'll be fine if it does. If it fails, it's OK. Yeah. And that's the thing. If my business fails, I have done that too. I have thought about, oh, well, what if this fails? And I have done the same thing. I have listed out everything that I can do if it does fail. And it's all there. I know that I'm going to be OK. It will be fine. The big thing, just like I said before, is the thought of what other people are thinking of you and how you weren't able to make it a success. But as long as you know yourself that you did everything in your power to make it a success, and for whatever reason it wasn't, then that's all you need to do. You're the person that is going to be living with it. So you're the person that you need to make sure that you've done everything that you can. You have not let other people hold you back, not let other people's beliefs and opinions hold you back, that you've just went for it. And something, actually, I would have taught a lot of the children in my class, because I find after Covid, children were getting very anxious and very scared and weren't resilient at all, you know, in certain things, and going to sports days, and they were scared to take part in races and that. And I would have always just told them, feel fear and do it anyway. Feel fear and do it anyway. And that was something that I tried to instil in them. And then every day now I'm just telling myself, feel fear and do it anyway, because you know, you just have to do it. What would you do if you weren't afraid and just go do that thing? Yeah, exactly. And there are so many people in this world that aren't afraid and just go for it. And they are the people who are making moves and who are being successful because they're just taking the risk. But that's something that is just so, so, so, so hard to do. But there is ways around it. Definitely. And I love that you said, they will probably be my exact pieces of advice. Your safety net. So if you can't have like a bridge job or something on the side while you're doing it, to have that safety net of like six months, you spend a bit of time putting some money away and go, okay, I can afford to pay my rent while I look for a job if this doesn't work out or whatever. Or like I did, get a bridge job. So like I remember at one stage, I was working some nights so I could do my own bits on my days off during the day and have a bit more time. Or like when I was a GP nurse, I would switch down to part-time and then try to do my stuff in the other half the time because I wasn't ready. I was too afraid with the financial side of it. To just go fully in. Yeah. Which I think stops so many of us. So if you feel that way, that's totally understandable. But like Christina said, your safety net or a little bridge job or something that you know is there, you can subconsciously check in, okay, I have something there that I can fall back on if this doesn't work. And then one step at a time, get out your journal tonight, write down your ideas, your things you're interested in. And write down things that you're good at as well. Things that you know in terms of your personality and the type of person you are. The things you are good at. And that maybe can guide you into where you could go. Yeah. And where you start, like you said, is not generally where you'll end up. Mine started off looking very different to where I was now. But the more I got used to practicing, being more authentic and listening to my interests and what lit me up, it gradually changed. But it had to start with what felt easiest as well. So it felt easier for me to do my little nutrition clinic at the beginning on the side. Because if you had said to Robin like six years ago, oh, you're going to do like a wellness business and you're going to teach meditation, then you're going to do all this stuff. I'd be like, no, I'm not. No way I am doing that. Whereas now it feels so right. But I wasn't ready back then. But I just needed to gradually move towards, gradually go with my heart. Yeah. Yeah. And that is it. Just taking one step, you don't know where the next one's going to go, you know. But you'll never know unless you take the first step. You know, if you just stay where you're at, you never know where you could end up and whether you could be so much happier where you end up. You know, like right now, and where I'm at, although it is so, so hard and I am finding it quite difficult, especially at the start, I am happier now than what I was before. It's funny, me and Connor actually were talking about it the other night. Like I don't have the Sunday night dread anymore. Which I find bad. There's no Sunday night dread. And like I love going to school and seeing the children and seeing all my friends in school. Like I miss the girls in school so much. But I don't have that Sunday night dread anymore because I feel like I'm on a path now that's more enjoyable. I don't know. I don't know how to describe it. I don't know. But I just, I don't have that Sunday night dread. Maybe it's because I'm working every single day. There's no such thing as a Sunday night anymore. But I think if you have a Sunday night dread, that's maybe something to look at then as well. Why am I having that? And if I shifted something or changed something here, would it stop that from happening? Or, you know, there's always room for change. You don't have to be stuck in one thing forever, you know, in one job forever. And I would have always thought that. I thought I'll go to uni, I'll get my teaching degree, I'll get my job, I'll get a permanent job and that's me. And seemingly, you're saying if you had a younger Robin six years ago, if you had a me two years ago, there'd be no way what I'd be doing what I'm doing. You'd still be a teacher, you know. There's no way that this would have even entered into my radar. And it's just funny how the way life can take you, you know. Yeah. And I think it's a good idea. Sorry, go on. And just, if you let life take you, it's just funny how it can take you in the right direction. Oh, absolutely. And I think as well, what we mentioned at the beginning, it's important if it is, especially when it's something new, unless you obviously had your husband or your partner or whoever to talk to about it. Keep it to yourself while you're kind of brainstorming, because sometimes when you have fears from other people or maybe they have grown up and they're like, oh, well, like you have to just stay where you are. Like, why would you that's stupid, that's not secure. You don't need those fears at the beginning. You don't, whenever you already have all your own. Yeah. You nearly need to have a sort of concrete in your own mind that, no, this is what I'm going to do. Because if you don't have that concrete in your own mind, and then you start hearing other people's opinions, then you're going to start to waver. I think once you have it completely concrete in your head, this is what I'm going to do. Other people's opinions factor into that because you're just going to do it anyway, because you've got yourself fully committed to it. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. One person that you can trust or your journal and then take it from there, I think, is really important. What are your goals for your business? Do you have anything that you're working for? Keep it afloat. I would love to grow it, that I could look into having a second one or maybe another version of it. So right now, Broome Via is a coffee shop, and it's a brunch sort of style cafe. So it's hitting a certain demographic. I would then want to, rather than replicating it and putting it somewhere else, I would want to do the family version of Broome Via, where people will bring their kids to, and there'll be birthday parties and things like that. And it's obviously me being the teacher, that's the way my head's going. And also doing a Broome Via that could be for older people, like a social club for older people on a Tuesday and a Wednesday afternoon when they come and they get tea and scones and that sort of element, rather than trying to fit every demographic into the one, having it developed that there are separate areas and separate entities for different types of people. I'd love to extend it as well, that we could have like a tapas section of a restaurant as well and open up in evenings and things like that. And I'd love as well for me and Conor to do things with the shop as well and bring it up a level as well. And I don't know how I'll ever be able to help with that because I don't have a clue what I'm doing. Those are the goals. Yeah, those are the goals. And the main thing though is, I'm saying all these things, but the main thing is that I'm happy whenever I'm doing it. I didn't leave a job that I was happy in and that I enjoyed, go and then do a job that I'm not happy in. I want to be happy going to work every day and I want to feel fulfilled whenever I'm going there. I want to feel content. And I'm coming to the stage where I want to start a family and we're building our house. I want to feel happy every day and feel content every day and feel fulfilled every day. And your job is such a huge, huge part of that because it's where you spend the majority of your day. Especially whenever you're self-employed, you spend most of your day doing it. So I want to make sure that it's always going to be enjoyable for me. And the time that it starts to be difficult again is the time that I need to start looking at it again and thinking, right, well, what do I need to change here to ensure that this isn't going to go down a road that I don't want it to go? You're intentionally creating it the way you want it to be. Yeah. Which I think is so great because we're not really taught that we can do that with things. I was listening to a podcast this morning and they were talking about careers and she was like, you don't think it's mad that we grow up and you go to school and then you have to at 18 pick a course that you do that's going to be your job for life. And if you don't stay at that job, even if you don't like it, that's stupid. And you do that until you're able to retire just so you can pay your bills and then you have your bit of retirement and then we die. And then you're gone. Yeah. It's crazy. It's completely crazy. Like I have so many people who say to me, what about your degree? What about the degree that you worked really hard for? And you're like, it's still there. I'm still happy, it's not gone. Yeah. I don't want to spend the rest of my life doing the same thing every day without ever trying something new. And there are people that do think that you're not wise for doing it. You know, but like I said before, you just kind of have to hear them but move on anyway because it's something that you want to do. But it is. It's crazy that you go to school and you get your qualification and then you work in the same job. And if you don't stay in that job, then you're considered to be failed at that job for whatever reason. And then you retire and then you're gone. You know, which is mad. Especially I find in a job like the job that I was in, everybody stays in teaching. You know, it's very rare that somebody will move out of it because it's a secure job and it's got great holidays and you work nine to three every day even though you don't, you work longer than that. But people think that. And to see it's safe. So very rarely do people leave it. But it's OK to break through that every so often and change it up every so often. I was going to say from two people that have left very traditional jobs that are deemed secure and like get a mortgage and retirement and all that kind of stuff, if you want to dip your toes in something else, do it. You can. Yeah, you can. Definitely. Don't live your life regretting it, not trying it. Yeah. You know, because you can always go back. Absolutely. And I love that. I always find with podcasts and stuff, and I especially during my transition, I would fill my mind with stuff like this, stuff that expanded me. So like listening to people who have done it before, listening to the positive stories, listening to the tips, because it helps you build your trust and you seek to believe that it's possible for you too. Yeah. Yeah. That's what you need to be hearing. You know, you need to be hearing about people going and doing it and having success with it rather than because the news and Twitter and everything's just always doom and gloom. It's always about the cost of living crisis and places closing and businesses shutting and things like that. And if you're constantly taking all that information and you'll never move forward in what you want to do because the fear will hold you back because you're listening to the negative things all the time. Whereas things like this will help you sort of see the other side. And I would have found that I would have seen a lot of quotes and things like that on Instagram about taking the risk and taking a leap and things like that. And those were things that would always kind of pushed me on or seeing people on Instagram like yourself as well, like doing it. You know, people who are in similar situations to me, like with you, the government job, the secure job and going and doing it. That was kind of like it was inspiration nearly to go and do it myself. And hearing things like that and seeing things like that and things that push you on because you see that it is possible. Yeah. And if you're listening to this, thinking about it, we're rooting for you too. Yes, we are. Tell us, where can we find Brew and BF for anyone who might be in the area? So we are based in a wee small village called Otter in County Tyrone. But you can find us on Instagram at Brew and BF. So it's B-R-E-W for brew as in coffee and then and A-N-D and B-F-B-I-A which is the Irish word for food. So Brew and BF and we're on Facebook as well. We're trying to get into the TikTok world, but I'm 31 and I don't know how to work it. TikTok kind of scares me. My God, I don't have a clue how to do it. The comments in TikTok are lurid. Like you just don't know what people are going to say. My mental health is not ready for this. No, it can't. It's too much. It is too much, definitely. So Instagram is where I'm basing everything on for now. Yeah, Instagram is nice. Christine, thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me, Robyn. I love that. Thank you. You're such a good speaker. Oh, I know. I don't know. You are so good. I was like, Jesus Christ.