Caitlin Crosby joins Julie Lyles Carr on this episode of the allmomdoes Podcast. How do we accept things we cannot change? What are the words that impress themselves on our hearts to help us walk through these moments? We have the power to choose which words we imprint on our hearts. Lean in today and learn to overcome the negative self-talk and give yourself the courage to keep going.
Listen to “#172 – Accepting the Things You Cannot Change With Caitlin Crosby” on Spreaker.
Interview Links:
- Follow Caitlin Crosby and The Giving Keys Online, Facebook, Instagram
- Pick up Caitlin’s new book Every Word Matters: The Key to An Intentional Life
Transcript:
Julie Lyles Carr: I’m Julie Lyles Carr. You’re listening to the allmomdoes podcast. Part of the Christian Parenting Podcast Network. Today on the allmomdoes podcast I am really thrilled for you to meet my new friend, Caitlin Crosby. She is someone that your me may be most familiar with because she started the whole giving key phenomenon. I mean, come on. We know what that is, right. And if we don’t, I’ll make sure that you do by the end of this conversation. Caitlin, thank you so much for being with us today.
Caitlin Crosby: Thank you so much for having me.
Julie Lyles Carr: So I think a lot of my listeners are going to know you because a few years ago, everybody who was in the know started showing up with a key around their neck. Now I got to tell you I’ve been wearing a key around my neck simply because I couldn’t keep up with my keys. So I had a big lanyard with a big wad of keys on it, but you did something far more aesthetically pleasing than that. Where [00:01:00] did the idea for the giving keys come from and what was its purpose beyond just being something that was beautiful.
Caitlin Crosby: Yeah. Um, so I grew up doing music and acting and entertainment. And so I was touring a lot, um, basically a different state every day. And when I was in New York, the hotel room key, I thought it was really interesting and cool. So I put around my necklace and, um, I ended up losing it and then I found it again in, you know, when I was in another state. And so I, I kept it around my necklace and went to a locksmith and I asked if they could engrave love your flaws on this key. Cause I had a website at the time, um, with Brie Larson, all about body image issues, and so, well, I started my first album 100 years ago was called Flaws, um, so it was just a way I think, from growing up in Los Angeles, a way to give myself therapy to kind of remind myself. So there was a song that was called imperfect is the new [00:02:00] perfect and you know, all that kind of stuff. And so all the keys, I had a locksmith engrave different different phrases like that, and hope and strength, love peace, faith, grace. And then I started making jewelry out of them with my cuticle, clippers and tweezers. And started selling them on tour of the merchandise tables. And then they started selling out more than my CDs. So I was like, okay, well, thank you for coming to my show and buying all these key necklaces. But I knew people were really resonating with the word so came up with this, pay it forward concept. So get a word that you need and then pass it on to someone who you feel needs it more than you and then tell them to pass it on to someone who needs it more than them. So it kind of trains you to not just think about yourself all the time and all the things that you need, but also just to keep your eyes open for other people that are hurting and going through something. And then I knew I wanted the money to go to some sort of charity or a cause.
And this was kind of before it was trendy to do so. Um, this was 13 years ago and, um, And I I’ve met this young couple that they were experiencing homelessness and they lived in a dumpster in a cardboard box of Hollywood Boulevard and it took them to dinner, fell in love with them, had my aha moment that I should pay them to engrave the keys instead of the locksmith.
And it’s just gone on and on and on from there. And we’ve been able to employ over 140 people that are trying to transition out of homelessness.
Julie Lyles Carr: I mean, how, how incredible. And I love hearing stories from people where you’re on a path and you think that life’s going to go this way and you’re doing the things you’re supposed to do to make life go that way. So you’re on the road, you’re touring, you’re doing the things. And just this moment of being open to something radically different. I mean, to see that with all the marketing strategy and all the things that we try to do to be in the right place at the right time and build the platform and all the things.
How incredible to see something just come out of left field that, that builds your life in a completely different way. Did it take you a bit to kind of embrace that based on the other dreams that you also have, or did you realize, Oh man, this is one of those trains coming into the station that no matter, no matter what I think I’m qualified to do, I need to get on it?
Caitlin Crosby: Yeah. I think it was a little bit of both. I think growing up, I always wanted to help people in some way and be. You know, some sort of inspiration and just help people and use whatever platform I was doing at at the time. I just thought it was entertainment to talk about important issues in the world and injustices and everything from, I wanted to talk about, you know, drugs and sex and all the topics that, that yeah that I was passionate about. And, um, and I think I also grew up kind of one of the only Christians I knew in my community, I went to Beverly Hills high school. Um, I went to a bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah every Saturday in seventh grade. So I know the whole through has had all right, lady, I’ve always just been, and I was a philosophy major, so I, no matter what I did, I always everything, I wanted everything to have meaning and purpose and change the world in some way. Um, and so when the giving keys just took off, it was like open door, open door, open door. I was like, I will, I can’t deny that this is something that, you know, this is happening and that it’s happening and, you know, so I, I stopped being able to go on auditions cause I was gone all the time and I stopped being able to tour, but I also got nodules, so I couldn’t tour anymore because of that also.
But yeah, I mean, it was definitely, there was definitely a grieving process of kind of letting go of the dreams that I had and that I personally wanted, but I think it’s just about that humbling yourself and surrendering and accepting, yeah, accepting my favorite prayer, the serenity prayer, God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference. It was such a beautiful thing and it was so exciting when it was first blowing up so it wasn’t a whole lot of time.
Julie Lyles Carr: Right, right. But I do think there are times that. We live. And I certainly live within a dialogue within myself that if I just get my days planned enough and I commit enough to the thing that I want to see happen and if I do this, that, and the other, and I meet so many women who are in that frame, you know, we have such a, Oh, if you, if you’re willing to grind and hustle, then this and this, and this will be the obvious outcome. And sometimes it’s that journey of just taking the next step in the next step where stuff shows up.
But I love that you brought up, there can be a little bit of a grieving process because I do think sometimes we think maybe we failed a little bit if our life takes a different direction and maybe failure’s not part of that. What do you think.
Caitlin Crosby: Yeah, exactly. I think to be completely real. I think I still do have tinges of struggling with feeling that way.
Like, Oh, I wasn’t good enough. You know, I wasn’t this enough or that enough for the things that I quote unquote wanted to do or plan to do or my dreams. Um, but it just goes back to putting in the work of that, that surrender and the, and the trust and, and also differentiating how much of it is okay, you need to let that go to close the door, or, well, should I keep trying, maybe there’s a different season to, you know, so I’m going through this whole new season right now that’s been pretty challenging. And so it’s actually been the first time that I’ve picked up my guitar in a really, really long time in years. I mean, now that I’m a mother of two and through pregnancies and, you know, just being in survival mode for the last few years, have to like a baby and a toddler. I, yeah, I just don’t really have time to, let’s just write songs on my guitar, you know, good morning.
Yeah. Right. No sleep and whatever. So, but for the first time, because I am going through a challenging season right now. Um, I have picked up the guitar for the first time and, you know, in the back of my mind, I’m like, Oh, I wonder if I wonder if this is around again, you know? So I don’t know. Yeah.
Julie Lyles Carr: You know, I think it’s interesting that we do have seasons where sometimes it’s not that we are being told to completely put a dream down, just rather reframe it, let it have some time, let it be a little different. I can remember, particularly in the early days of motherhood, for me, I felt like if I didn’t get everything achieved and I don’t know why Caitlin these numbers get in your head, but I was like, man, if I don’t have this, this and this done by the time I’m 36, it’ll never happen.
Like, I don’t know why that number just, it’s not like there was some scriptures, you know that was the number, but that just became the number. And so there were things that I thought, Oh man, a little bit hasn’t happened by then. It’ll never happen. And so I love that wisdom of saying, you know, yeah, there are times you might have to lay it down for a little bit, but it’s okay to pick up the guitar again and take some baby steps.
I think that’s really beautiful. Now you are referencing this, you’ve been in this amazing season of writing a book and really wanting to encourage people and do these incredible things. And you got that manuscript completed, and we’re going to talk more about the content of that manuscript, but you got that manuscript completed and then you had a massive life change hit that you weren’t expecting that all of a sudden makes that manuscript read very differently. So, so what was that? So you went through this manuscript process and then something hit. And what was that?
Caitlin Crosby: Yeah, well, my first book came out last May, which was more of a memoir and more personal stories.
Everything from marriage to surgeries, to kids and to failures. And I love that. And that was super, super personal. But the new book that just came out a couple of weeks ago, I think a little bit more applicable to everybody. It’s not as personal, but we dive into all the words that are on the giving keys.
I’m then do a deeper dive into that. But still the content is very inspirational. And in the book it says Caitlin lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two kids. But after. That was, was printed. Um, my husband and I ended up getting separated. Um, Just in November and now I’m learning how to be a single mother for the first time, which honestly, this whole situation is my worst nightmare.
And I am literally living in my worst nightmare, but I’m actually weirdly okay and I think there’s such power in kind of facing our biggest fears and knowing that you are strong enough to get through it. And, you know, obviously I won’t go into details cause I want to honor Colin, but it wasn’t something that I wanted and he decided to go a different direction in his life.
And you know, it’s extremely sad and heartbreaking and hard for the kids. And that breaks my heart probably the most. So yeah, there’s a lot there, but I think it was such an interesting slash beautiful timely thing when I was recording the audio book of this new book and I was in the studio and because of everything that happened, we sold our house.
And so Colin came to the recording studio and had a notary person had to come there and meet us in the little kitchenette there at the studio. And we signed away our home, you know, the only home we’ve ever owned together. And I, I wasn’t ready to go right back into the recording booth because it was emotional and I was holding so much in, so we went out to the parking lot, Colin and I, and, and hugged.
And I. Bawled my eyes out, we both were bawling our eyes out, like holding each other crying. And then I finally went back into the booth and recorded the whole audio book of this book. And I realized how much I needed the words in this book. And I always knew that, but I really knew it. Then I was like, I really keep rereading my book over and over again because it is helping me so much.
Julie Lyles Carr: Right. The timeliness sometimes of those moments, we can’t, we can’t gloss over. We can’t pretend like it’s just some kind of serendipity, you know, I think there are those places where God can meet us in really interesting ways. Sometimes it’s through something we’ve written before and we find it a fresh, sometimes it’s through a photograph or a song or something that we see that really meets us in that moment and not in a trite cutesy way. I mean, just in a wow kind of way. You know, we have a lot of women who are experiencing what you’re experiencing right now. They’re, they’re coming through a relationship, a transition and early in a relationship. It’s not what they want. It doesn’t align with what they thought they were going to have.
It, it may not even align with where they originally started walking out a relationship with their partner and now one has chosen a different course of life and one is staying the same, man. I’m still trying to live this way. What I know this is still really fresh in, I know there will be a ton of wisdom that comes out the other side.
And I, and one of the things I don’t like sometimes in communities of faith is we take someone who’s very fresh into a transition and we try to milk too much wisdom from them without giving them the space to process and heal. All of that disclaimer, aside now I’m going to do it to you. Um, there you go.
There it is. But for women who are finding themselves newly in these stages of a transition that they don’t want out of a relationship, what are some of your early observations about surviving that. Surviving, that shock, surviving that immediate hit of grief.
Caitlin Crosby: Yeah. I mean, it’s very easy to let our mind runaway with us and start believing all the negative beliefs about ourselves and taking everything personally and, you know, thinking if I did this, this, this differently, or maybe I’m too this, or I’m not this enough for that and over that enough, um, you know, and that’s obviously very easy to go there when you are in a sense, uh, left or abandoned or whatever. So I had to get really serious about going to two different therapists a week.
And I’ve been doing a lot of affirmations, which my book actually dogs a lot about. So been taking a lot of notes in my own book, because there are all these journal prompts at the end, where I literally said, I think it was like preparing myself maybe subconsciously prophetically before it all happened.
Because in the book, I literally say things like, what are some negative beliefs you have. You have about yourself, write them, write them out here. Okay. Now cross them out. And now rewrite new positive beliefs about yourself that are the opposite of those things. And it’s like water to me right now. I have to do those things.
It’s not like a luxury of like, Oh, you can really practice mental health and this will really kind of help you a little bit. Do you want to try it? I was like, no, I have to do these things. I have to practice what I preach. I have to do the things in these books to get, to get me through. But then also I will say this is a revelation that’s more general that I think could maybe be for anybody in different hardships in life.
Okay. So I have an idea to write another book one day. I know it’s not there yet at all, but it’s probably not going to be called this, but my idea is to call it chain link fence, or chain link fences, because. In my first book, I talk about how from our house, you could see this chain link fence in the distance, covering the freeway and how I was not appreciating all the beauty that I had in my front yard, like our avocado tree and our good neighbors and our lemon tree, because I was just focusing on this chain link fence that I hated with all the trash and I was like, Ugh, you know, and then I had, you know, the end of the book, it comes. Around saying like, all that really matters is love and family and this and that and to not focus on that, blah, blah, blah, blah. So, because everything happened so fast, I had to find a sublease. We were actually about to move to Nashville.
We sold our house. We were about to move to Nashville, but then everything happened. So I ended up having to find something really quick to move into. So I ended up moving into this house that has its own chain link fence on the side, which is, I was like, Oh God, that was like a, literally a chapter in my last book about how I was struggling with it, seeing it from, and now I’m from my bed in my room there’s like a big window. The whole wall is a window and it’s covered with curtain right now. But when you open the curtain, I just see a chain link fence is like surrounding this freaking house that I’m living at. And I’m like, Oh my goodness. So at first I was cringing about it. Like, again, this was my worst nightmare that’s happening, but you know what?
Now I’m like, who cares? And it was this really funny thing at Christmas time when everyone was sending me Christmas cards, if their perfect Christmas cards and their perfect color, coordinated outfits and their perfect Christmas trees and their, you know, decorations. And I literally just sent my friends a picture of my chain link fence with like my kids with like a diaper on and, you know, and just like their clothes like dirty clothes and towels hanging over at drying. And, and I was like, Merry Christmas. This is my Christmas card, me and my, you know, single mom vibes, chain link fence. And so it was a joke, but now I’m like, I kind of weirdly love it because I think it’s a foreshadowing of everything that happens in our life.
Like to face it. That we can handle these things. And when you are living in your worst fears and I mean, this is a little dramatic, but I have been thinking about like my parents, you know, they’re going to pass away and everyone is going to pass away and I hate thinking about that, but it’s like, I have this biggest fear, like when that’s going to happen, that I won’t be able to handle it, but I’m just kind of like, you know what this happened and this happened and this happened and this happened and it’s going to be hard, but I will get through it and you will get through it.
We will get through it. We are overcomers. We can face our fears. We can live in it and we can thrive and shine and, and like release our old skin. And, and, and as so many of my friends have been saying, Caitlin, you seem happier than you have in a really long time like you’re finally yourself and he seemed like this big weight lifted off you.
And. And so I I’m seeing all these great things come from this time. I’m weirdly filled with joy. It’s so strange, but I think it’s because I now see that there are so many possibilities and God, what are you doing? What can you do from this season and what I’m going to learn from it. And yeah, that was a really long answer.
Julie Lyles Carr: But, but so, but so important and so profound because I do think that sometimes we think something is in the distance, you know, it’s something we don’t even want to look at. It’s something in the distance we don’t ever want to have to see it up close. And, and when it comes and we have to face it, you know, there is a choice there to decide, to continue to deny it’s happening or to focus on it in the, in the context of, I don’t want this there. I don’t want this there. I don’t want this there. Or there can be that embracing of, man in this situation and your scenario, that chain link fence keeps your baby safe right now, keeps them in the yard. I mean, there are these things that we do try to keep and, and we don’t have the control. I mean, we know that academically Caitlin, you know that I know that, but still we forget, we think we can control a lot of things we can’t and how we handle them when they actually are literally in our, in our front view mirror right out the window from us, tells us a lot about how we really are leaning into trust.
I think that’s part of the conversation that’s really tough in these situations because when you’ve had trust in a person, a relationship, a church, a job, or whatever, the thing is that then the wheels come off rebuilding that place of trust can be really hard and it can be hard, hard to rebuild it with ourselves because, well, gosh, I trusted myself to think this was a good situation and things are going to be okay.
So Caitlin in the context of, of that you have a mode that you talk about going into, and this phrase really resonated with me because I do think as women, and I think particularly as women with kids, we can have things come way closer than we ever wanted. We can have chain link fences that come way closer than we ever wanted, but there is, there’s a mode that we can activate into.
And I’m not saying people should hit this mode too early. I think we got to grieve. I think we got a process. I think we got to do the things, but, talk to me about what that mode is and how you found the strength and the trust to engage it for your own betterment survival and for your kids.
Caitlin Crosby: Yeah, it is warrior mode and that actually my word of the year, every year, I choose a word to focus on and this year my word is warrior. I mean, I have everything with warrior on it. Bracelets, earrings, key chains, you name it. We’re making t-shirts now, but giving keys the same warrior on it. And then I just started this thing called warrior chats every Monday, where I interview someone on Instagram live.
And it has been so incredible gaining all this wisdom from all these women that have overcome so much. And I asked them all, what does being a warrior mean to you? What does mental health mean to you? And then what are some tips for everybody to kind of overcome life’s challenges and to start the week off in warrior status?
And it’s been so interesting having women on there that have lost limbs that are going through stage four cancer and have no hair when one woman was literally postponed her chemo treatment and she was doing the interview from outside the hospital and was about to go in and the answer she had, she said, which has been kind of my new go-to answer for this question is to really sit in the grief and feel the feelings instead of trying to pray them away.
But the being a warrior is is letting yourself feel the harsh reality of the pain of grieving certain hard things in life and letting yourself go there and cry and feel it all and not numb it and not try to fix it and not try to get to the next season, and that’s the only way we’ll really heal. That is being a warrior.
So, yeah, I, there’s so many different definitions that people have been sharing, which, which I love and I’m still learning, but right. That’s my new favorite.
Julie Lyles Carr: You know, and what I love in that is that it’s not saying, and I think there’s profound wisdom in this. You’re not saying that there’s a period of grief and then you switch toward your mode.
I mean, it feels like to me, what, the wisdom that you’re receiving from people who have, are going through and have been through some tough stuff, is it’s all part and parcel. But it’s just continuing to show up the best you can every day, feel it and, and continue to move forward in the feelings. I think sometimes we allow emotion to just stop us cold, or we think that that’s a place where we just have to be in a pause mode.
So I love this idea of, yeah. I mean, feel it feel the feelings and, and that’s part of the mode. That’s, it’s learning to be in embracing that.
Caitlin Crosby: I will say I actually didn’t think about this, but I think that. Answer only really works when you are going through a, a trauma and a hard situation, but then to not get stuck there and stay there and like, just feel the feelings all the time forever about the situation and never kind of like, Oh, okay, now it’s time to send, to move on.
I think that that mostly for like a really hard situation that someone is going through to not live in denial about it. But then I was just thinking about how I think there can be people that may be, went through something hard, a long, long time ago. And they do get stuck feeling the sad, depressed, like feelings and harping on it and talking about it.
And it’s kind of like, Oh, okay, let’s start a new chapter and you don’t need to grieve it anymore actually.
Julie Lyles Carr: Right. Right. I mean, it’s that whole thing of, are you camping and hiking through, are you actually starting to lay down plumbing and electricity and you know, curves? There’s a big difference. Yeah. So in your new book, which is “Every Word Matters – The Key To An Intentional Life.”
I love words. I’m a wordsmith, I’m a writer, all the things you clearly, words mean so much to you. And yet Caitlin sometimes even in, in wanting to be really intentional with our words and powerful with our words, we can see people get kind of woo, woo with it. I mean, so how do we stay in a lane that is really healthy and what we’re speaking over our lives. And yet still being really supple to go where God’s going to lead to let him correct us in certain things to gain wisdom. Because if we get too fixated in some dialogue in some word, and we’re just so determined, it’s gotta be this way, well, then sometimes we can miss some of the other words that might be sent our way.
So how do you navigate that? Because I’m so with you that I think words are so important. Um, I don’t ever want them to become something that eliminates my ability to see a new movement or a new direction. So how do you do that?
Caitlin Crosby: Yeah, I think it’s really about finding that balance and not getting too extreme into anything either way, as far as like I’m going to become just a words person and just meditate on words all day long, or, you know, a little too heavily into, or woo woo, like you said, but I think it’s being open and really kind of training ourselves to always have our hands open, to receive and our ears open to hear and what’s happening and what God is saying and where he’s leading and looking for the little nuggets.
And I think even for instance, my therapist had said something about a butterfly and transforming from the caterpillar to the chrysalis, to the butterfly and, and now all of a sudden they’re just popping up everywhere. She calls them synchronicities. But look for the synchronicity. She’s like, I really believe God is in the synchronicities and the breadcrumbs.
And so I think following those things, whether it’s seeing a butterfly and I listened to my morning devotionals, and sometimes they resonate and sometimes they don’t, but you know, just being open to receive all the goodness and not getting stuck in like any kind of rigid way. But I mean, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with trying to re-brainwash ourselves with good things, whether it’s scriptures or affirmations or, you know, thoughts that God would have about it us.
Julie Lyles Carr: Right. Right. And, you know, there’s so much in the book of Proverbs about how words, what we speak over ourselves, what we think, what comes out of our mouth, how it does deeply define us and deeply defines our perspective and how we frame things. And so I love that with this love, for words that you have, you are helping promote that.
Of course they’re giving keys, but then also helping us be more intentional to think about the way that we are speaking to ourselves and what we are saying. For yourself, what do you think as you watch women is you watch women who may be walking through a similar season that you are, what are some of the words that don’t help us?
What are some of the lies that we tell ourselves? And I know some of these lies can be very common and have been unpacked maybe to ad nauseum, you know, or, you know, am I worthy? Am I I’m unworthy? I’m not attractive enough. I’m not all these things, but do you see something beneath that? Do you think there are words that lay underneath that, that maybe we just haven’t done a deep enough excavation to really understand why we sometimes have these negative things that we really feel over ourselves at times?
Caitlin Crosby: That’s a really, really good question. Um, I thought it was really interesting that our top seller for giving keys is the word strength. And, you know, we have dozens of words and we have for over a decade. And so I googled, I thought I probably knew the, the, the answer to this, which is the opposite of strength is weak, but I wanted to Google it to make sure I was like, what is the opposite of strength?
And it said weak. So I thought it was really interesting that if that’s the number, one thing that people want is strength then that means that’s the number one thing that people feel, weak. From a Christian. Point of view, obviously there’s the scriptures of, you know, and our weakness, you are made strong and it’s in our weakness state, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And I think sometimes Christians, myself included can fall into this trap of being like, Oh, I’m so weak, you know, so God, you can be strong, but then it’s like, we also don’t then ever think that we’re strong at all. And that we’d like literally see ourselves as like these weak people. And that’s something that I really struggled with.
I remember years ago I was running the giving keys and at that point we had like 80 employees and I was so stressed all the time and I felt so incapable and incompetent to be able to be a boss of these people twice my age. And I was like, I need to wear collared shirts and show up in this boardroom and say smart things and be a leader, but I don’t know how to be a leader and just like draw things and create things and think too much.
So my director of marketing at the time said yeah, this campaign at the time it was called the, I am campaign. I am brave. I am strong. I am this. I am that I’m fearless. And, and, uh, I was like, Ooh, I need, I am strong. And she was like, Oh yeah, that’s perfect because you are so strong. And I was like, Oh no, no, no, I’m getting that word because I do not feel strong.
I feel so week, like the weakest person ever, like, I feel. So weak then I cried and she’s like, Oh my God, that blows my mind. I would think that the, I think you’re the strongest person I’ve ever I’ve ever met. And I was like, what it blew my mind cause I, and I think it’s because I did kind of. I think going back to my point of saying that sometimes I think Christians can get stuck in that narrative where we go a little too extreme, again, that word extreme of like, Oh, I’m no, I’m just, we can, God’s the one that’s strong, but it’s like why, but maybe it’s okay for us to be a little strong too.
Like when we don’t, that doesn’t want us to be like these, like, Hey, wait, I can’t do anything whiny weak. You know? People’s like, no, like, put your shoulders back like you. Yes. You have God’s strength inside of you have you. And he’s he has made you strong and there is some strength in there. Like it’s not just your, just like a piece of you know, you know, and I think that’s also why I think a lot of Christians sometimes can struggle with confidence, which again is, I think it’s all about the balance. Like we, obviously, we don’t want to be prideful. Like I’m so strong and I’m so amazing and magical and smart and whatever, but it’s like that balance of wanting to have a little confidence in, in who we are and who God has made us to be like holistically.
Julie Lyles Carr: Right. Right. And, you know, in speaking about words and the importance of words, what’s interesting in the verse you were talking about, you know, when I’m weak, then he is strong is the, when I am weak. Like on the occasions when I’m feeling weak, God shows up in strength for me, and I can emulate his strength because I am made in his image.
Like we miss that little descriptor, which is really interesting. And when is different than an I am statement, right? I mean, an I am versus a when. It’s different, but we miss it sometimes. I think I just love, I love you knowing that that’s the top selling key and understanding that the felt need underneath it is ergo, people feel weak so they want the key, the key that says strength. That’s really, really cool. Really amazing.
Caitlin Crosby: Good call out there.
Julie Lyles Carr: So for you moving forward, I know that you’re, you’re all in the throws of book launch and getting the book out and we’ll make sure that we get that in the show notes for listeners.
Every word matters the key to an intentional life, but what are you thinking of in terms of next steps right now for you? Because I mean, As an author as also being an author, the whole process of getting the book finished, getting it, launched all that it can be so consuming and to have this kind of relational shift moving out of your house, all these things happen in the middle of that.
Massive. So it’s no wonder if you perhaps feel like you’ve just been in a survival mode for several months now. What do you think is on the horizon for you? What are you aiming for at this point that has you excited and has you thinking forward? Not skipping the hard stuff, but coming through a season, that’s been really tough.
What are you looking toward?
Caitlin Crosby: Yeah, I think. It’s so true. I feel like, because it has been a little bit of a storm season. I, I oftentimes don’t feel the good things that are happening. Like my friend yesterday said like, have you gone to the bookstore yet? Cause she’s like, where are the books being sold? And I was like, Oh, everywhere, Barnes and Noble, Target, blah, blah, blah.
Amazon. And, and she said, well, have you gone done that whole thing where are you going to bookstore and hold it and see it. And I was like, no…
Julie Lyles Carr: Go smell the baby, go smell the baby’s head Caitlin.
Caitlin Crosby: I knew that, but I, I haven’t, I haven’t slowed down enough and like given myself that time and I should. And I think because, you know, I was relying before on my husband providing for us and taking care of us.
And now I’m trying to figure out what that. Is going to look like, and me having to start a whole new life providing for myself and the kids and not knowing what that’s gonna look like and feeling, you know, scared and pressure and confusion mixed with being excited that I feel like, Oh, well maybe God has more things for me.
You know, then I thought, because I was kind of thinking, okay, I’m going to shift into, you know, Being in, in mom mode, which is great, not just being a mom, but that’s the hardest job I’ve ever had. But now I do have to dream again, you know, and I have to find a way to kind of whether it’s start another additional career type of situation or, I mean, I mean, my dream dream dream would be that warrior chats that I’m doing just on the instagram, I’ve done seven so far and interviewing these women. And because I’ve been thinking about what do I really enjoy? Like, I would love to write more books for sure. But I also, that would kind of be my dream to have like a real show, like the warrior chat show on some sort of, I know the Chip and Joanna Gaines have, have their new, uh, Magnolia and the network.
Julie Lyles Carr: Yeah.
Caitlin Crosby: I mean, something like that. That is. Putting good content out in the world and it’s inspirational in a new way. That would be kind of like a big dream to look ahead to.
Julie Lyles Carr: Right? Absolutely. Well, Caitlin, you’re just amazing, such a delight. Love your heart, your vulnerability. I just wish you all the best.
Thanks so much for all of the heart and wisdom, honesty, and just great words. Thanks so much for that.
Caitlin Crosby: Thank you so much for having me.
Julie Lyles Carr: You’ll find more from this episode on the show notes, be sure and check them out at all. Mom does.com and wanted to ask you a big favor, be sure and go to wherever you are listening to this podcast and give us a five-star rating and review.
It really helps us get the word out about the podcast. Can’t wait to see you next time on the allmomdoes podcast.
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allmomdoes Podcast with Julie Lyles Carr is designed to equip and encourage you for the kids you’re raising, the marriages you’re nurturing, the work you’re building, all in the day and age in which you live. We aim to cover ALL mom does. allmomdoes Podcast was previously known as The Modern Motherhood Podcast.
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