Getting Comfortable with (& Learning how to DOMINATE) Discomfort ft. Christy Campbell | DFIO Ep.243
About today’s episode:
Today I’m talking to my friend, Christy Campbell. She’s been on the show before and we had such a great time (and great response) that I wanted to bring her back.
We talked about some different things today: we talked about Jiu-jitsu, getting uncomfortable, and how to get over the hesitancy of getting uncomfortable.
We got into a lot about how your new life is on the other side of resistance, on the other side of getting uncomfortable, and that's how you grow.
We covered how to go through and approach those periods of getting uncomfortable so you don’t take too big of a jump at once and derail yourself.
And finally, we brought this all back around to weight loss, how to get happy, and how to transform your life.
I know you’re going to get a LOT out of this episode!
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Intro
01:14 Sponsors
04:13 About today’s episode
06:11 Catching up with Christy
12:06 Getting uncomfortable
31:46 Personal Growth
45:56 Mental Wins and Overcoming
Transcript (click to expand)
Ep
. 243 Christy
Download 243 CHRISTY • 144KB
EP#243: Getting Comfortable with (& Learning how to DOMINATE) Discomfort ft. Christy Campbell
[music]
0:00:11.8 Jared Hamilton: What's going on, guys? Welcome back to another episode of Dieting from the Inside Out. If you are new to the show, welcome. My name is Jared Hamilton and I'm super pumped that you're in the house tonight. If you are a returning listener, I appreciate you as well. Thank you for coming back to the show and I got a really cool show planned ahead and this is going to be really, really good. I know you're going to get a lot of value from it, but few pieces of housekeeping. Number one, if you have not yet subscribed to the episode, I'm sorry, to the show, whether it be over on like Apple, Spotify, or even YouTube now, be sure and do that. If the platform you're listening to this on lets you write a review, it does way more than you think. And I would really, really appreciate a really good review if you get a lot of value out of the show. And again, like I've talked about before, the one ask that I have for you at this is to just share this with somebody, whether that be something like if you wanna shout it out on your story or that one person that you're going to be thinking about during the episode, like, "Oh, I bet they would like this a lot. I think this would help." Send it to them.
0:01:07.2 Jared Hamilton: That's how we get this information to more ears and I would really, really appreciate it if you did that. But let's finish up housekeeping. Big, big thank you to the sponsors of the show. Sponsor number one is FlexPro Meals. Guys, I love FlexPro so much. I talk about them all the time. Here's the thing, this is my biggest thing with FlexPro is having them in your corner, in your pocket, in your fridge, specifically, is gonna make things a lot easier for you because how unpredictable life is. I don't even have kids. I don't have to worry about running kids to soccer games or in school or anything like that in my day-to-day is crazy and I utilize them because there are so many times I can't, either I don't have time to make food. I didn't make enough time to make food. I'm traveling, I'm going all over the place or whatever's happening. With just having FlexPro in my corner and their meals on deck is so helpful for me, that way I can just lean into that and have the meals that are in line for my goals that keep me out of a drive-through, that are made by a chef that tastes really good and it's a no brainer.
0:02:05.6 Jared Hamilton: And then they're going to save me more money than going to the drive-through because it's cheaper than that. So definitely check out what they have to offer. Either go to flexpromeals.com or check out the link in the description because I think you will be blown away when you look at their menu. You're going to be like, "How the fuck do they make that food, that low calories or that affordable with that much protein," like the whole nine yards. So definitely check them out, but I wanna save you some more money, so be sure to use my code HamiltonTrained at checkout because if you do, it'll save you an additional 20%, which is a big deal. So that way it's even more of a no brainer to really help make this game way more convenient for you. Okay. Then sponsor number two is 1st Phorm. I actually don't have on one of their shirts today. [chuckle] This is actually my Arete Syndicate sweatshirt. I was at the Arete Syndicate live event over the weekend, but nonetheless, big thank you to 1st Phorm because keeping things on the supplement front taken care of. Guys, supplements are such an uncharted territory for most people.
0:03:01.3 Jared Hamilton: If you don't know, the supplement industry is extremely unregulated and just because you can get it really, really cheap on Amazon does not mean that's a good idea. It's one of those things that it's really easy to go the wrong route with supplements. It's easy to take the wrong stuff. It's easy to kind of be, to be honest with you, taken advantage of because a lot of the normal brands that you may find at Walmart just because it's more convenient to buy it there may not be the most accurate with the labels, may not have the safest ingredients, things like that. So be sure if you're gonna take supplements that you're getting it from somewhere that you know you can trust, that is reliable, that your money is actually going somewhere to get the quality that you need. And for me that is 1st Phorm. I can send all of our clients to 1st Phorm to get all their supplement needs taken care of with a clear conscience and knowing that they're going to be taken care of and it's the best stuff that they can take.
0:03:50.5 Jared Hamilton: But I do wanna save you money there as well. So if you're interested in that, go to the link below and I have a free priority shipping link if you wanna get anything from 1st Phorm from the supplement standpoint. So all that is down there. And if you have no idea where to start with supplements, I also have a supplement YouTube video basically giving you the rundown on what's good, what's bad, what to take, what not to take, what I take, that kind of thing. But nonetheless, let's get into today's episode of the podcast. I interviewed a really good friend of mine. Her name is Christy Campbell. Some of you guys may remember her. She has been on the podcast before, but it went over so well and there was so much value from that standpoint. I had her come on again and we talked about some different things. I know the first time we had her on, we talked a lot about her story and how she got started with all of her journey. But we got talking about a little bit different things.
0:04:37.3 Jared Hamilton: She told some stories she said she's never told anybody. And it was really, really cool. So like just even going through my notes, we talked about a lot. We talked about a lot of jiu-jitsu because she is a fellow blue belt. But specifically when she joined jiu-jitsu, it was because she really needed to get uncomfortable and to really step up her life and in her confidence and her ability to do it, whether everything from defend herself to being able to voice her opinion and basically be the person that she knows she should be. And jiu-jitsu was kind of the catalyst of that for her. So we talked about a lot. We talked about a lot of the parallels that goes from jiu-jitsu to life and to weight loss because there's a lot. We talked about a lot of how to get over the hesitancy of getting uncomfortable because the big premise in this episode that we got into was how your new life is on the other side of resistance, is on the other side of you getting a little bit uncomfortable. And then after you go through that, then you're going to have another uncomfortable situation, another one, and another one.
0:05:35.7 Jared Hamilton: But that's how you go through your exploration and how you grow through your life. We can't grow without resistance, without being uncomfortable. But we talked about how to go through that because we don't want you to go too big of a jump where you kind of derail yourself. But then we also brought all this back to weight loss, brought this all back to how to get happy, how to transform your life and how to be the person that is reaching their potential and that's gonna make their life better. So we got into a lot. So I'll quit talking now because I know I've already been going for almost six minutes and it's time to get Christy on here. But otherwise I will get her on now. Let me know if you have any questions. Be sure to stick around for the whole thing and I will talk to you in just a second. There we go. What's up? What's up, Christy? How are you? [chuckle]
0:06:14.6 Christy Campbell: Hi, Jared. It's good to see you this morning.
0:06:17.2 Jared Hamilton: You too. You too. I figured like if we're gonna bullshit, we need to just bullshit like with it recording, otherwise, that's where all the magic comes out.
0:06:25.9 Christy Campbell: Bullshit live because we were already bullshitting the second we got on here.
0:06:29.8 Jared Hamilton: [laughter] I know, I know it. What's up? I feel like I haven't seen you in a minute. How are things?
0:06:34.4 Christy Campbell: I know, things are good. I haven't seen you probably since the last time we were together in Arizona, maybe it would be my guess.
0:06:40.7 Jared Hamilton: Yeah.
0:06:41.9 Christy Campbell: Yeah, things are good, busy in my life. Right now, single mom in it. My kids' dad's deployed and so I've got three kiddos. So that's just like my normal chaos. So coaching, running my business, juggling my kids and my dogs, that's my life.
0:07:00.1 Jared Hamilton: Yeah, I get it. Which is why I respect the fuck out of you. And I don't know how, like mad props to all of that, which is why I think like your perspective on stuff is really valuable because how we will see people that are like in our worlds. They're like, "Well, I struggle because I'm busy." And it's like, that's cute. Are you single moming it because the husband's gone like defending the country. Oh, and three kids and two or three dogs and a CEO. Oh, and jiu-jitsu. And I like to have like my time alone. Yeah. You're a little busy 'cause you like worked overtime this week. That's cute. [chuckle]
0:07:32.8 Christy Campbell: Well, busy always feels relative. I mean there were times in my life that I didn't have quite such chaos and I still felt like I was super busy because we're in that moment and we feel like it. But I think it is kind of a unique season of my life where I really get to get scrappy around. [laughter] Like how to take care of myself, how to just do the things, how to feel like I'm growing, how to take care of my team and my clients and all of that. It definitely is a season for getting scrappy.
0:08:03.4 Jared Hamilton: So I'm curious, I know this wasn't like the main point we were going to get into, but I think it's really relevant. How do you manage that? Like I think a lot of people resonate with their life is more chaotic than not and it's more unpredictable than stable. And when you have goals, whether it be like fitness, nutrition related goals or like in your case, you run a business that people rely on and you have kids that like you have to take care of in a home. How do you manage all of that like in pure chaos?
0:08:31.7 Christy Campbell: One is to just go ahead and ditch the belief system that things need to be perfect. So I have let go of that. Whether that's my house, whether it's like quality time, whether it is my workouts, whether it's the timeline that I thought something was gonna happen. If you just go ahead and let that go, it's probably not gonna be perfect. What it does is it gives you permission to do it imperfectly, [chuckle] which is better than being paralyzed and thinking like, "Well, we can't do that at all." And so I kind of apply that to all of these areas of my life. But it doesn't always feel good. And so I guess that's why I say that is because like there's times when I show up to the gym and I think, well, I would love to do 90 minutes. Like I wanna do all of these things and I get 45 minutes. That's all I get. I have to leave. I've got to go get the kids, I've got to go juggle something and 45 minutes doesn't always... That's so great, but in my mind, I made a concession.
0:09:31.7 Christy Campbell: I was like, "Well, something is better than nothing." And it would have been easier just to be like, "Well, I can't do what I wanna do, so I'm not going." So anyways, I apply that to all of the things. Like even with my kids, my boys are teenagers and sometimes I'm like a little quality time is better than no quality time. Like if we actually get to be together and pay attention. It's funny balance has come up in conversation multiple times for me over the past week and people are like, "How do you balance it all?" And I'm like, "I don't, I don't." Balance is a made up Pinterest idea in my mind.
0:10:12.5 Jared Hamilton: [laughter] I love that. [laughter]
0:10:14.1 Christy Campbell: It really is. It's like, "Oh, I've achieved balance. I have my perfect morning routine. I've got my quality time here. I shut my laptop at this time." None of those things are bad. It's just that balance is relative. To me, you could spend time with your kids, you can spend time at your job, you can spend time in the gym and it be BS time. You're not present, you're not focused, you're not getting anything out of it, you're not with the people that you're with, you're focused on the next thing, the next thing, the next thing. And if you think that like you can partition your life and spend two hours here, two hours here, two hours here, but show up as like the shell version of you, that's not balance either. I don't care what the time allocation looks like. So to me, balance looks a lot more like understanding your priorities and being intentional when you're living inside of them. So if it's like, if your kids are your priority but you can't spend... I cannot balance the amount of time that I spend with my kids with the amount of time that I spend coaching or working, that season is just not right now. They're at school, they're doing all the things. The time balance is off.
0:11:19.5 Christy Campbell: But if I can make the time that we do spend together less... We're not on our phones as much, we're actually having a conversation where we're laughing, we're doing something, well then that to me feels more like balance because I'm applying my intention, like attention to them in a real way. And the same thing with coaching or with house stuff or whatever. Again, it's like, do you wanna go through the motions or do you wanna be present with the things that are most important? So that's how I juggle it. I let go of perfection, just do the best that I can. And then I let go of the idea that we're supposed to be balanced because I think, again, that's made up and I try to focus on what are the things that are important and make it show up in a present kind of way.
0:12:04.8 Jared Hamilton: That's so good. That's so good. I think it's interesting. One thing that you said that I feel like no one does, it's so simple and we're like taught this from like the youngest age possible. I'm sure you say it to your kids, my parents said it to us kids. And when you said, I just do my best, but I see so many people like they're not doing their best when they say, "I'm an all or nothing person," and continue to make bad behavior. That's not your best. When they go, "Fuck it, I'm gonna start over Monday." Well, that's not your... Imagine if we did that with your marriage or with your kids? I was on Twitter the other day messing around and I made a tweet that said, "If you took your same attitude and... " Fuck, how do I word that? "If you took your same attitude and mentalities that you take in weight loss to the rest of your life, you wouldn't last 24 hours."
0:12:51.8 Christy Campbell: No, not at all. And most of us have examples in our lives where we've been successful in something and we can look back on that. Like maybe you got a degree, maybe you got your associate's degree or your bachelor's degree or some sort of credential or something that you look back on, you're like, "I was successful in that." I promise you, you did not show up every day perfect. You did not. In fact, like the belief system around that you had to let that go so that when you got that first C, you were like, "Oh, I gotta study, and like actually learn this," or I need to get some help from the teacher, or I'm gonna have to spend 30 minutes and put my classes in my calendar so I know where to go, it's not too hard to learn how to do that, it's just the thing that you do so that you can show up for your goal, but in fitness and nutrition, wellness, taking care of ourselves, we think it should feel automatic, or we can't do it, because we have days that don't look perfect, well, let's wait till later and we can do it when we can actually be perfect, but that doesn't apply anywhere else in our life.
0:13:51.2 Jared Hamilton: It never does, and I think it blows me away when people are so dead set on that, where they're like, "No, I'm a perfectionist, I'm an all or nothing person," I'm like, our lives thrive in balance in the only times we play the, "I have to have it all figured out now. I have to have the perfection card," is only when we're struggling or we're validating bad behavior, that's the only time we really whip that card out. Otherwise, if you look at the areas in our lives where we're crushing, we have the most amount of balance and flexibility and movement, you know what I mean?
0:14:20.9 Christy Campbell: Yeah, and it is easier to say, "Well, I'm not gonna do that until I can go all in, I'm not gonna do that until I can really apply myself," that is definitely the easier option, because you don't have to feel the discomfort of not doing it well. [chuckle] Like it's very uncomfortable so it's like, "Why would I wanna join a gym when I know when I go to class it's gonna be painful? Why not getting a little bit in better shape then I'm gonna join the gym, and then it'll be perfect 'cause I don't wanna feel that discomfort of having to change in the doing it time." And so it's like, "Well, maybe I can change beforehand and then I'll just do it," but that's just not how it works.
0:15:00.8 Jared Hamilton: Well, it's one of those things too, though, where like... What I try to tell people is when they do that, when they're like, "Well, I wanna wait till life slows down a little bit, thing balance out," but it's like you're literally programming your mind when things do get crazy again, because that's just how life goes, then you're just going to throw in the towel and like stop and regress and sabotage and the whole nine yards, like the whole old quote of, "Smooth sea is never made for a skilled sailor." You know what I mean?
0:15:25.3 Christy Campbell: Yeah, I love that quote.
0:15:26.9 Jared Hamilton: It's the best.
0:15:29.5 Christy Campbell: And so, I don't know. I get it, like when we have tons on our plate and we're thinking of, "How do I take care of myself better? How do I exercise more? How do I eat better? How do I... But I feel guilty if I neglect time with my kids or if I leave work on time so that I can do X, Y, and Z." And we tell ourselves all these things, it's very desirable to say, "Well, when I can go all in in this perfect season later, then it's gonna feel better." The problem is is that we're just not guaranteed a perfect season and it's very unlikely that it's gonna happen, and so like you said, it's much better to operate in the difficult seas, whatever that looks like.
0:16:12.7 Jared Hamilton: Yeah. [chuckle]
0:16:13.5 Christy Campbell: If your work is chaos and your kids are stressing you out and you've got financial stresses, well, guess what? You gotta learn how to take care of yourself in that season. Yeah, it'll be great if everything is smooth sailing. Awesome. You can probably do more then and really like excel and thrive. But in the hard seasons, we actually need self care more because then we can show up for those stressful moments. We can show up for our family that really, really needs us right now. We can show up for the health condition that's... If we're facing a health condition, we're like, "Well, I can't right now because this is going on." Well, yeah, more than ever right now you need to do it.
0:16:52.7 Jared Hamilton: Yeah, 100%. Like that's one of my biggest things. With like you and I, the biggest thing we're the biggest proponents of is coaching. It's what we sell and what we use as our tool to change lives. But like how many times do we hear someone who's like, "Well, I wanna wait to get... " Because coaching is a big deal. It's a big commitment. And it's like, "I wanna wait till life gets perfect and settles down before I invest in this." I'm like, "Based on what you're saying, it actually sounds like you need more support right now with all this bullshit going on. That sounds to me like it never been a better time than to go into chaos." You know what I mean? Is then having that support system and having yourself armed from all sides with this thing.
0:17:28.3 Christy Campbell: Yeah, it's difficult to see that in the moment, which is one of the most powerful things about having a coach or a support person in your life to kind of call you on that. But any action forward can feel scary in what we're talking about. We're kind of saying, "Isn't it easy just to go ahead and be imperfect?" No, it's not easy. [chuckle] You know what? Every single time we do it, I do it, it doesn't feel easy or automatic. In fact, it does feel uncomfortable. And so I think that's like the disclaimer that I would put on this is like it might feel uncomfortable and that's okay. In fact, usually that's a positive thing. We're very complacent. We'd like to go with the flow, stay in the status quo. And then we are aware of it in certain moments where we look and we say, "Well, I don't really like how this is going," but we have a really hard time changing that pattern because we're in that status quo. So the discomfort of imperfect action or the discomfort of taking a step forward for yourself and like making a commitment when it's not the right time is disrupting the status quo. You're right. It's changing something.
0:18:43.1 Jared Hamilton: Yeah. Well, my thing, it's... Actually one of my favorite books is, I just bought his second book to... The piggyback book to his first book by Steven Pressfield. It's called The War of Art. One of my favorite books...
0:18:53.2 Christy Campbell: Yeah I love that book.
0:18:55.1 Jared Hamilton: Not the art of war for those listening, The War of Art, but the whole premise is the resistance is not just required to do whatever your thing is, but we need to take that as a sign that we're going in the right way, 'cause I was actually thinking about this. I was walking home from the gym. I live a five minute walk from the gym I go to. So I always just walk over there and I was walking back yesterday and it got... We get these, the shower thoughts or workout thoughts or meditation thoughts or whatever. And it's everything we want has to have its form of resistance. We can't learn patience without feeling impatient. We can't grow muscle without things being heavy. We can't learn grit without difficult situations. You can't become a skilled sailor without really rough waters, right? We can't learn peace without chaos, right? We can't learn balance without imbalance. So I just think it's a segue very nicely into what we were actually gonna talk about, which is the concept of getting uncomfortable and how getting uncomfortable is required in the level, we'll call it the resistance, is necessary for your next evolution of whatever it is you're trying to do.
0:20:00.3 Christy Campbell: Yeah. It was a perfect transition. We didn't even set it up to be that way.
[laughter]
0:20:02.8 Jared Hamilton: I didn't know we were going to talk about the first half of this. This is what I love about you and just this and we can just, it just went off and I'm like, "Oh, this is fire. I want to press pause on what we had planned and talk about this bullshit."
[laughter]
0:20:16.6 Christy Campbell: But they go together. When we were messaging, we've been talking about this for a while about doing a podcast around jiu-jitsu and what that is. And I think for me, it's funny because we're talking about the resistance, we're talking about getting uncomfortable, but jiu-jitsu was one of those things for me big time.
0:20:38.2 Jared Hamilton: Oh yeah. I didn't know you... For the longest time. Christie and I knew each other, but we didn't know each other did jiu-jitsu, but we're both blue belts in jiu-jitsu and both train. But I would love to hear your journey with that on like going off of like how it was extra uncomfortable for you and all that kind of stuff.
0:20:54.4 Christy Campbell: So my fitness origin story, I think is relevant in regards to jiu-jitsu because before I became a coach, I had actually, found myself 40 pounds overweight, completely stuck. I'd had 10 knee surgeries. I was, had my first two kids and I was...
0:21:15.2 Jared Hamilton: That's so... Like 10. I'm interrupting you, 10. That is ungodly to even think about.
0:21:22.3 Christy Campbell: And though they were not for me like injuring myself, if you're like thinking to yourself, "Christie, what is wrong with you? Why would you continue to do this?"
[laughter]
0:21:28.5 Christy Campbell: It was when I was active duty Navy and they misdiagnosed an issue with my knee which happens, but they did one ACL reconstruction that "failed" but really they had done it incorrectly. And then that one mistake surgery turned into four ACL reconstructions all on my left knee. And then a series of additional surgeries, micro fractures, bone grafts, all of the things to try to fix that initial mistake. And so...
0:22:00.7 Jared Hamilton: Fuck.
0:22:00.8 Christy Campbell: Yeah, it was something. And so I found myself in my late twenties, 40 to 50 pounds overweight. My baby weight had become my body weight. It wasn't postpartum anymore. This was like a couple of years after I'd had my son and I had always been an athletic kid. And so now I found myself thinking, "Well, I'm never gonna be able to do anything anymore." The stories that I was telling myself was, "Well, I can't exercise. I can't do this stuff. I can't do this."
0:22:28.6 Christy Campbell: So then what am I going to do? And I was searching for diets. And so I tried all of these different diets trying to lose the weight. None of them really worked. I lost and gained the same 5 to 10 pounds over and over again. And I was starting to accept that, "Well, this is what mom life must be. This is what it feels like to have kids. Like you just give up. You just never get to feel good in your skin again. You're gonna wear clothes that 'look nice' but you're never going to feel confident." And I was feeling like there was a part of me that was sort of buried in there that, I couldn't get in touch with anymore. It was like that piece of me was gone. And instead I was happy as a mom and I was happy as a professional and happy in these other places, but not happy in my skin. I would hide in pictures. I was always feeling like the chubby girl. And so this is like the stuck place that I was with my knee and my journey to becoming a coach was actually finding a coach who wasn't... He wasn't any famous person on the internet or anything like that.
0:23:31.8 Christy Campbell: He was just a really good personal trainer who helped me exercise. He taught me how to lift weights. He taught me how to eat better. He gave me the basics that nobody had. He created a community and a space that I could show up and do the work. And he really saw in me what I couldn't see in myself. So he really broke down a lot of these like mental barriers that I had around exercise because I didn't think I could do it. And I had sort of thought to myself, "Well, genetically, I'm going to be... I must be a fat person." So I had these belief systems around that and he helped me kind of prove those wrong. And in that year that we worked together, I lost the 40 pounds or more. And so yes, my body transformed, but he really gave me that piece back of me that felt like me again. So I started doing things. So the reason I'm telling you this is because I started doing bootcamp classes. I started going to CrossFit. I became a personal trainer and started coaching people. And I started doing things that I never thought I could do relating to my body because of my knee.
0:24:40.7 Christy Campbell: And because of the fitness level that I had been at when I was super stuck, I didn't think I could ever do a pull up. So working on a pull up felt very empowering. I didn't think I could ever lift heavy weights. And so working on lifting heavy weights felt incredible. All of those things started to become like this game. But there was always this funny thing that I had always thought about martial arts and I'd always wished, especially as I got in better shape, that I could defend myself or that I could do something with my fitness. But ironically, I was telling myself the exact same story that I used to tell myself around exercise. I was like, "I can't do jiu-jitsu or martial arts because of my knee." And so I was like, "You've had all these surgeries. You cannot do that. It's too dangerous for you. You're gonna blow out your knee. It's not possible, and you can't do it." And so I was still, funny enough, had this real limiting belief system around jiu-jitsu and I'd wanted to do it for a long time.
0:25:46.8 Christy Campbell: Not just because it was martial arts, but actually because I've always had this sort of deep internalized fear around not just violence, 'cause I'm sure everybody's afraid of violence, but I've always been intimidated with confrontation. I've always been one of those girls that if they get into an argument, they start to cry. Like it's just like that default setting. I've always felt physically backwards when it comes to... If somebody grabs you instead of going... I would go the wrong way. [laughter] I would do the wrong thing and I knew it. And so like there was always this weird thing in my head where I was like, "You are completely physically incapable of defending yourself and you're afraid of people." Meanwhile, good for you, you can do 10 pull ups.
0:26:34.3 Christy Campbell: Like I had this weird disconnect. [laughter] So it wasn't just my knee. It was actually a mental fear of being terrible at something, but also physically tested in a way that felt terrifying. So I guess the answer to your question is I had been thinking about it for a very long time. And when we moved out to Washington state, the CrossFit gym that I used to coach at had a jiu-jitsu gym on top, and my friend, Greg Anderson, runs that gym. And at the time I was pregnant with my daughter and I enrolled my boys in the kids class. So I would just go up there and sit and watch.
0:27:15.7 Jared Hamilton: Kids jiu-jitsu?
0:27:17.9 Christy Campbell: Kids jiu-jitsu. Yup. They had adult jiu-jitsu too, but I was only watching the kids class because I was taking my boys 'cause I was like, "Well, they're gonna do it. I can't do it 'cause of my knee and I can't do it 'cause I'm pregnant and I can't do it because I'm afraid, but my kids are gonna do it." So I put my boys in it and I was just watching, watching, watching. And I... After I had my daughter, I was like three months postpartum. So definitely not my fittest self.
0:27:46.2 Jared Hamilton: Barely cleared. [laughter]
0:27:48.0 Christy Campbell: Barely cleared. And I was, certainly probably about 30 pounds heavier than I am right now 'cause I'm still postpartum. And I just decided that I would try, I was like, "Well, maybe I'll put my foot on the mat and I'm just gonna do kids class," is what I told myself. I'm just gonna do kids class. So I would practice whatever the kids are doing and then I would roll with the one adult woman instructor at the end. I would do one roll and nothing crazy. And I did kids class for awhile. And that was my entry. But if I can be a 100% honest, what happened for me with jiu-jitsu is I got into a confrontation, which never happens for me by the way. I have less than five of these sort of instances in my life, but someone was being awful to my middle child, an adult. And I was feeling it happen as it was happening, but then I wasn't doing anything at first. So it was one of those moments where like this can't be happening. The things that he was saying to my kid and I was feeling it go down and then all of a sudden I told him stop and that's enough, it's over. Like no more... 'Cause he was basically just berating my kid, kind of like a dress down. Like sort of what happens to somebody in the Marines. Like an adult level, like "You'll fucking never matter, blah, blah... "
0:29:18.9 Jared Hamilton: Wow.
0:29:21.4 Christy Campbell: You are done. This is over. And again, I don't have very many confrontations with people just in general. I feel very fortunate, but in this moment, it was full on, like you are out of line. You've lost your mind. Get away from me and get away from my kid. And he came back at me with that same aggressive energy. And it was one of those moments where again, nothing escalated. It felt like, one, it was a verbal altercation, but I also felt physically threatened.
0:29:55.1 Jared Hamilton: Sure.
0:29:57.1 Christy Campbell: And I felt like my kid was threatened and I felt like I was weak in that moment because I was afraid to stand up for him sooner. And I felt like in the confrontation that I was upset rather than sure and nervous rather than confident. And it triggered something in my brain and I was like, screw this. And after that I went to adult class.
0:30:23.5 Jared Hamilton: I love that so much.
0:30:25.2 Christy Campbell: And I've been going for three years now. And so...
0:30:32.0 Jared Hamilton: Got that blue belt.
0:30:33.0 Christy Campbell: Yeah. I got that blue belt last year and it... I don't know that that... I don't think I've ever shared that as the reason that I transitioned. I've never even told Greg that. He'll probably laugh when I tell him as the reason that I transitioned from kids class to adult class. But for me then it became a personal journey. It didn't become something that, "Oh, I should be learning this." It was like, "No, there's a piece of you that needs to grow. And this is a place, a setting in which you can do that." You can feel tested, you can feel challenged, you can develop that calm. You can grow and do things that you probably don't think your knee can do. But that's how I started. I had always wanted to, I didn't think I could. I put my tail in the water and then understanding that piece of me that felt, not that it felt weak, it just felt like I had done nothing about it for my whole life. I had just accepted feeling kind of like intimidated.
0:31:38.0 Jared Hamilton: That's correct. That's an amazing story though. That's so good where it's like you had that moment where you're like, "Alright, this is it. Enough is enough." Now I'm curious, like if you don't mind me... Wait, so if that was the moment, so that was about three years ago then, that moment with the gentleman, right?
0:31:52.7 Christy Campbell: Yeah. Three and a half years. Yeah.
0:31:54.9 Jared Hamilton: So Christie, now if that situation arose again, do you feel like it would be handled very differently because of how much you've grown in who you are now?
0:32:04.8 Christy Campbell: Still work in progress.
0:32:06.3 Jared Hamilton: Sure. Absolutely.
0:32:08.8 Christy Campbell: That piece of me is still there. The piece of me that has a hard time standing up for herself or rocking the boat in a room, that piece of me, I still feel that piece. But yeah, I do feel different. Jiu-jitsu has given me a different... And again, I'm not... I don't think that I can... It's almost exactly the opposite. I don't think I can beat up a bunch of dudes. In fact, it's exactly the opposite. I understand bodies differently now. I feel bodies differently. I'm more aware of you and where you're at around me than I ever was before. I also can look at somebody and be like, "They probably could do nothing," or, "Uh-oh."
0:32:53.9 Christy Campbell: It's just a different energy now. So in some ways I just feel people differently from Jiu-jitsu. And so, yeah, this is something I'm continuing to work on. And I would like to believe that that piece of me that is standing up for herself sooner or not afraid of people is getting stronger, but I've had to nurture it. Like, to be honest, Jiu-jitsu has been a big part of that transition for me because I think when I very first started doing CrossFit and weightlifting and those kinds of things, there were those moments there too, because I didn't think I could do it. And then I was doing it. And so it was like building confidence, but I had been complacent inside that space for years because it was no longer... I mean, it was challenging. There were hard days, but there was no longer like the push yourself outside of your comfort zone, really grow kind of moments. I really contribute the last couple of years of that growth and change to both Jiu-jitsu and... Man, Greg's going to be happy with me 'cause I'm freaking plugging the shit out of his stuff.
0:33:57.4 Jared Hamilton: Send him this episode. Yeah.
[laughter]
0:33:58.7 Christy Campbell: But I attended this thing called Guns and Gis.
0:34:04.4 Jared Hamilton: I was about to ask you if it was that guy. I was about to ask you if it was the Guns and Gis guy.
0:34:10.0 Christy Campbell: Yeah. So earlier this year in February, there's Greg Anderson, my friend who owns the Jiu-jitsu gym that I train at. He put on an event with another Greg. So don't get confused, in...
0:34:19.9 Jared Hamilton: Greg squared.
0:34:21.0 Christy Campbell: In New Orleans called Guns and Gis. And it was those two plus a man named João who's a like eight time world champion Jiu-jitsu person. And then they put on this event called Guns and Gis and I was like, "Sounds like fun, but no, no, thank you." "I don't like guns. I've never... I haven't shot a gun in over a decade since I was in the Navy. Even when I was in the Navy, I was terrified of it, not going." And I didn't even want to entertain the idea of going. It's like Jiu-jitsu and gun camp for a weekend.
0:34:54.7 Jared Hamilton: Sounds glorious. Throw some cigars in there and we'll call it a day.
0:34:58.0 Christy Campbell: Yeah. And I was like, no, but it came up a couple of times and a friend of mine who trains with me and training partners and peer pressure can be positive. And she was like, "Will you go with me?" She was going to go and I was like, "I don't know, I don't think so." And Greg started encouraging me and I was like, "You know what, whatever, I'll go for her." Honest to God, I was like, "I'll go for her. She doesn't travel a lot. I travel all the time, whatever." Terrified. Okay. So as I'm packing the gun, I literally am like shaking 'cause I don't know how to touch it. Really scared of this situation. And so went to this Guns and Gis thing and the Gi part, I was like, okay, I'm good. You know, there was a lot of white belts there. So I was like, "I'm good. I'm blue belt. At least I know what the heck's going on."
0:35:49.0 Jared Hamilton: Beat up on all these motherfuckers?
0:35:51.6 Christy Campbell: I was like, "At least I'm not the baby beginner here." But the guns part, I mean, there was a lot of police there. There was a lot of SWAT there who were attending the camp. And then the instructors are these like really high level people. And I was like, "I can't even pick up this thing without being terrified. And we were drawing from a holster and we were going to be doing all sorts of things like dealing with malfunctions. And I mean, you name it, it was not just at a range where you're just picking it up in front of you and shooting. Like we were actually gonna manipulate the gun and do situational things. But the very first time we had to draw and shoot, there wasn't like a lot of hand holding practice. There were a lot of instructors there to help keep everybody safe, but it was like safety lesson. Here's what we're doing. Everybody line up. We're doing it. It was like into the fire and I'm shaking. Like my hands are physically shaking. And that's so rare for, I mean, you've seen me, I've talked in front of like a lot of people and I get...
0:36:50.4 Jared Hamilton: Yeah.
0:36:51.8 Christy Campbell: But I don't like physically shake. And I was shaking and... But I did the, whatever we were supposed to do... It was probably like a couple of shots or something. And I put the gun back in the holster and Greg Anderson comes over and he's like, "Are you good?" 'Cause he's never seen me like that.
0:37:09.2 Jared Hamilton: Yeah.
0:37:10.4 Christy Campbell: And I was like, "Yeah, it's adrenaline." I was like, "I'm nervous. I'm scared." I was like, but I'm doing it. I'm scared. And my eyes filled up with tears 'cause that's what happens.
0:37:20.5 Jared Hamilton: Yeah. My wife is like that. Yeah, I totally get it.
0:37:23.8 Christy Campbell: And I'm like, "I'm not crying. I'm just... " It's just an adrenaline dump from like the fear and also like the anxiety, the apprehension. And so I'm trying to cover up my eyes, my fucking safety goggles, trying to like plug my ears. I'm like... I'm a hot mess.
0:37:37.4 Jared Hamilton: Why am I like this? [chuckle]
0:37:42.9 Christy Campbell: But I guess the reason I say that is because this whole story is about, this is yet another example of pushing through fear in a setting in which it was set up for me to be successful. There were people there who were going to teach me, who were going to push me and help me, who were going to challenge me. But also I had to do my own work. Like nobody was going to do that for me. Nobody was going to get me there. Nobody was going to have me participate. And the confidence that I got from doing that, particularly around the firearm stuff. I mean, it was kind of life changing. So the combination of both of those things, I mean, by the end of the weekend, I actually got most improved shooter award.
0:38:26.1 Jared Hamilton: That's amazing.
0:38:27.3 Christy Campbell: 'Cause I was shooting really well by the end of the weekend.
0:38:29.9 Jared Hamilton: I love that.
0:38:30.7 Christy Campbell: So I guess I tell you that I think that even though joining Jiu-Jitsu three years ago, there was that switch. It's like, it's continued to be something that I've had to work on this piece of me that I want to grow and become better and doing the Guns and Gis camp. I ended up doing a second one.
0:38:48.8 Jared Hamilton: I was just gonna say, didn't you do a second one? That's awesome. [chuckle]
0:38:51.0 Christy Campbell: I did. I did a second one, which was a rifle. And again, I was less scared, but I'd never shot a rifle.
0:38:57.2 Jared Hamilton: That's awesome.
0:39:00.3 Christy Campbell: I guess it was just building a piece of me up that I can do things that are scary. And that working through that like extreme discomfort is very empowering.
0:39:13.0 Jared Hamilton: Yeah, it's such a big deal. Again, I think we... It's impossible to get the thing that we want without having something to overcome. Like not necessarily everyone needs this massive story of overcoming, but like you can't become confident without having something that you have to overcome or you can't become patient without impatience, the whole nine yards. It's just... That's something I truly believe.
0:39:34.3 Christy Campbell: And we tend to operate in the spaces we are comfortable and succeed in those places. And so even though like for some people coaching someone would be terrifying, like leading a workout class that might be terrifying to someone. I had done hundreds and hundreds of reps of that. I mean, I can do it in my sleep. And so if you give me 10 people, if you give me 50 people, I'm very comfortable doing that. And so it would be very easy for me to just stay in that place and, "Oh, it looks like Christie's so confident," and "Oh, look at like her skillset around exercise," or whatever in that setting. That's true.
0:40:15.9 Christy Campbell: But there was also like a unwillingness to really tap into the things that I feel like were limiting me. And so they're not that everybody needs to do jiu-jitsu or shoot to grow. But for me, those were things that I was very aware of that were scary and I was avoiding them even though I was also drawn to why can't I do those things? And so yeah, I think we have to find our own way and we're like, "Well, Christie, you told us you have 10 knee surgeries."
0:40:58.6 Christy Campbell: My knee actually doesn't bend past 90, so my heel doesn't get anywhere close to my butt, nowhere close. There's a hard stop there. And if you know anything about jiu-jitsu and grappling, that can be problematic because you're actually going to slide your leg in front of people and heel to butt is just a normal thing in martial arts. And there are things in jiu-jitsu that I can't do yet or that I have to kind of adjust to be my game and I'll try it the way that they teach it in the class. But then sometimes it just doesn't work for the way that my leg works. And so then I have to adjust and modify, but that is the work. That is the thing that you do. And so it's not an all or nothing like to circle back with what we were talking about before. There's no way to show up and do it perfect like everyone else is doing. Certainly not in jiu-jitsu, you're pretty terrible at everything.
0:41:55.6 Jared Hamilton: No, absolutely. Well, my... Even I was in practice last night and one of them, one of the more the... We were doing back takes from mount, it was a little more basic of a class, but we were doing back takes from mount and then he said, "Alright, for the advanced guys, I want you guys to go in like body triangles and did all this stuff." And I'm like... And he's like, s"Some of you guys are going to be attribute dependent with this." And it's like, there's a ton that I still can't do even without like... I have to be careful with my surgery knee 'cause like the whole like heel to butt thing, I tore my knee because I had a wrestler or a guy that likes to... That has a real wrestling vibe to his game. He went to pass my guard and he just shoved my heel up my own ass and my meniscus went...
[vocalization]
0:42:37.5 Christy Campbell: Oh, no.
0:42:39.1 Jared Hamilton: And it like, yeah, it was the worst. And then it went back and me being the true meathead that I am, I went, "It's fine." I slapped hands again and then he did it again. [chuckle] But like even to that, like there's still so many things because of me, like I'm... I have a 6'3 torso, but like I bet your daughter has longer legs than me. Like my inseam is 25 inches, but I have like power lifter thighs and calves. Like that, like pants shopping is one of the worst things in the world for me. So there's so much in jiu-jitsu. I can't triangle anyone bigger than a child, for example.
0:43:12.7 Jared Hamilton: So the... But the thing like to allude to what you were saying that I love most with kind of the mindset jiu-jitsu gives you is you have no choice but to be resourceful and go, "Okay, what can I do?" Not playing, "Oh, I'm going to suck forever at jiu-jitsu, coach hates me because I can't do triangles or whatever." It's what can I do? My knees fucked up. I can't go past 90 because I've had 10 fucking knee surgeries, but what can I do? But then that skillset and that mentality translates to everything else, you and your partner are fighting. Okay. Well, what can we do? All right. The kids got a teacher that hates him at school. Okay. What can we do? Maybe we need to go to the principal or whatever. I think that mentality just floods everywhere.
0:43:51.0 Christy Campbell: Yeah. I love that you said that because I do think it's crossover. It's like, "Well, here is an actual true thing that is an obstacle." We can't just pretend that those things don't exist. They do. But on the other hand, how can I still make this work or what do I need to do to really address this obstacle? 'Cause that's the thing like, it's a mixture in jiu-jitsu that I've learned with my knee of working around it and then working on it. Boom. Because sometimes I have to just say, "Okay, well I'm going to find my own way. That's not going to work for me." And then other times I'm like, "Well, let me spend some time here and let's see." And I've actually found that that mindset has shifted for me a little bit too because in the beginning, my first year or two, I was more of the mindset, well, like, I'm not going to be able to do that. There's a thing in jiu-jitsu essentially called like butterfly guard. For those of you guys that are listening that you're like hooking your feet and essentially your ankles into someone's legs. And so...
0:44:55.9 Jared Hamilton: Like up in their crotch.
0:44:57.2 Christy Campbell: Yeah, like up in their crotch. And so what it's doing to your legs is it's essentially pushing down on your ankle and closing your knee joint. And so like I just described, I have a hard stop. It's almost like the end of, if you put your shoulder over your head, you have a hard stop somewhere. That's what it feels like closing my knee joint. There's a hard stop. And so putting my foot underneath someone's body weight and letting them push down is terrifying. And so I, for at least the beginning of the first year or two, I was like, "Well, I can't do butterfly guard with my left leg. Not happening." Now what's funny is I can do it. It just looks different than other people and I don't do it often because it's still a little sketch, but I can do it in and I also can do a sweep from there. I didn't think I could. There are just things that I've slowly like allowed myself to say, "Well maybe you can," you know?
0:45:54.5 Jared Hamilton: Yeah, no doubt. I love that so much. That's what's interesting. And I think this is the thing people miss out that they don't realize these mental things like the mental wins, how to become mentally kind of in this line that what we're saying is tied up physically. Like I think people say, "Oh, I need to get my mindset fixed or I need my inner game fixed or I need to be more confident. I need to be more cool with getting uncomfortable," but everyone wants to like just meditate on that. I'm the biggest fan of meditation, but we cannot get...
0:46:22.1 Jared Hamilton: Too often, we cannot get mentally where we want to be without getting physically uncomfortable. Because like think about when, at the Guns and Gis, you were physically shaking, fear, we feel it in the body, right? Like I always say, like if I'm trying to teach you to be like, get over your fear of heights, we have to require... That requires getting on something tall, right? We can be sent as fuck at the bottom of a ladder, but like, "Okay, how can we start to climb up, handle that uncomfortable feeling in your stomach?"
0:46:45.9 Jared Hamilton: It's because even like from a neuroscience level, I think it's Dr. Joe Dispenza talks about how the physical body is considered the unconscious mind because we store stress and trauma and fear and anxiety in our actual physical body. So until we get our physical body in a place aligned with the mental state is we can't ever get those two to be coherent with each other.
0:47:07.4 Christy Campbell: It's so funny that you said heights because that is the other, that is the next frontier for me.
0:47:13.5 Jared Hamilton: Skydiving, let's go. [laughter]
0:47:15.9 Christy Campbell: No, I can't, I'm not there yet. It's like the idea of, I have... I love hiking and there have been so many hikes that I've done to the top of a mountain that I've not gone to the summit or the lookout because I'm terrified of heights. And so I enjoy views. That's fine. But like deep drop offs are, I mean immediately pit my stomach. And so I've actually made some commitments to myself based off of a lot of these changes that we're talking about that I want to climb Mount Rainier, which is one of our big mountains here. It's not like a hike. This would be a actual climbing situation.
0:47:56.7 Jared Hamilton: If you fall, you're going to die.
0:47:58.5 Christy Campbell: Well, it would take... We'll take two or three... I think it takes two days potentially, maybe three because you have to get to a base camp and then you do a summit and it's a glacier mountain. So you have to do a little bit of like rope work and stuff. I don't know how to do that yet. Like I'm talking about it and somebody who knows is probably like, "She doesn't know what she's talking about." You're right. [laughter] I don't. It is something that I want to learn because I want to conquer that fear. And there are a lot of stories that I tell myself around this that I'm aware of. I can hear myself tell myself these stories like, "Oh, your knee can't do that. It'll be too hard or you'll be too slow." Like whatever friends actually can do this and know how to do it. They're not going to want to go with you because you're going to be slow or what if you get too cold because it's cold there. [chuckle]
0:48:51.2 Christy Campbell: So like what if you get too cold? You hate being cold. Like what if you get too cold or like what if a glacier hits you and squashes you and now you can't be a mom to your kids? Like you probably should wait until your kids are grown. So at least then they don't need you in case you fall off the side of this mountain. Like these are the stories that are in my head.
0:49:09.7 Jared Hamilton: Here is... That's interesting though. And I'm so glad you're being so open about this because I was just doing a training on this the other day where part... We have the defense mechanism in our brain is we unconsciously build these stories and narratives and then we buy into them to keep us held back because our brain views unsafe and death and all that stuff.
0:49:28.0 Jared Hamilton: But like there's such, you're so self aware. The fact that you're realizing this, most people don't think about what they think about. They assume every thought they think is true, so they never make it to the mountain. But the fact that you're like, okay, I know my brain's doing it's weird thing 'cause it's scared and it's building this fucking story that's not going to happen. I know my friends don't... On paper my friends don't feel like that, but in my brain it built this fucking narrative that Jason or Tom or Phil or whoever you're going with is like, "Oh, fuck Christy. I hate her secretly." Like, you know what I mean?
0:50:01.2 Christy Campbell: She's too slow, why did we agree to this?
0:50:04.4 Jared Hamilton: Right. One of the ways that I'll teach is we do this all the time. Like whenever we start doubting, 'cause doubting is so dangerous. Like we've all had that moment where we like leave our house and as we're driving away, we go, "Did I lock my door?" And then you go, "Wait, what if I didn't? What if someone breaks into my house? What if someone breaks into my house and skins my cat and then cooks it on my own stove and then feeds it to my dog and then like puts its bones in my kid's pillowcase." And it's like, and then now you're like actually buying into this elaborate narrative that's not even logically driven, but like it's allowed you to stress out and freak out and take your mental bandwidth. So I think it's fascinating that you're already seeing that and already aware of that. That's amazing.
0:50:50.9 Christy Campbell: Yeah. And I think when people are like, "Well I do that too, but what am I supposed to do about it?" I'll tell you what I do about it. I start to put wheels in motion for things that I can't... That I basically make decisions in advance of allowing my fear to stop me. So being aware that I want to do this, but I don't want to do it because I've... All of these are fears and they're legit fears. I'm not just like making these up. These are legit fears. What I did is commit to multiple people, even just saying it out loud to you is intentionally verbalizing what will happen so that I can start to make it happen even before I'm ready. And so I've talked to two friends who do mountaineering and I've said like, "Is this something you would do with me? What do I need to do to start preparing? What time of year will it need to be?" So I'm starting to make it real even before it's real. So that way I just need to identify the next step. So we've identified the time of year that this would happen.
0:51:52.3 Christy Campbell: I know who can go with me. Now I need to know... The really, the next step is like, what are the skills that I need to learn to be able to do this safely? And then I need to find a class through REI or whatever and go sign up for that class. Like I'm not just going to like teleport to July of next year and decide, "Okay, I'm going to climb this mountain today." I probably won't because I'll have legitimate reasons why, I have no plans, I have no guide, I have no training, whatever. Those are the actual legitimate reasons. So like, let's start to address those legitimate things now.
0:52:26.8 Christy Campbell: And chip away, before I have to do the big thing, is taking an REI class hard? No, it's not, like it's not nearly as hard as climbing a glacier mountain. So why not start with taking the REI class on mountaineering? Like why not just start with buying the appropriate jacket that I'm going to need? Like start doing those things that's going to put me in that position so that then in that moment I've created the scenario almost like Guns and Gis where I made myself get on the airplane, pack the gun, show up, put myself in a setting with people who are going to keep me safe, show me what to do, but then all I had to do is actually do it.
0:53:07.6 Jared Hamilton: That's so good. I think it's interesting, because we always hear it all the time, but it's just true that the best thing to stop all these emotions is just action, right? Because staying stagnant and letting these toxic thoughts fester and just like grow and just mutilate almost, is what's going to make it even worse. But like the best thing for like anxiety is that action, or fear or worry is that action. Because now you're becoming more... You're not just moving towards this becoming... Into becoming real, but it's also like, you're also getting this in the back of your head, this level of certainty of like, "Oh no, my jacket will keep me warm." "Oh, that actually makes a lot of sense. Maybe this isn't as big of a scary thing as I thought until I get up there," where it's just making it... It's just putting the plan in motion. I love that so much.
0:53:52.8 Christy Campbell: You know what's funny is it's not, it doesn't have to be climbing a mountain or shooting a gun or doing jiu-jitsu. I mean, if you remember back to the beginning of this podcast and this story, the impossibly hard thing for me at first was just showing up to this bootcamp class, that felt terrifying. I couldn't do it. I couldn't do a pushup. I had all of the stories around my knee that I would never be able to exercise again. I was 45 pounds overweight. I didn't know the coach. Like there were so many things that made that hard, but the action of showing up was the beginning of the change.
0:54:28.3 Christy Campbell: And so I don't want someone to think about this and think, "Well, I'm not climbing a mountain." I don't need you to, I just need you to conquer the next frontier for you. Yeah. What is it for you that you're telling yourself stories about that you're unwilling to take an action about because of those stories? And it could just be as simple as like scheduling the consult at the gym down the street so that you actually go. So the action, the hard thing's going to be going to do that first class. But the thing that you definitely can do is schedule that consult. Like that's the first step. Now it's real. Now you might want to tell somebody, "Hey, I'm going to start going to the gym next week." Like verbalize it out loud, just like I'm doing on this podcast.
0:55:08.0 Christy Campbell: Then you might need to get some sneakers. So like go buy some shoes that you could actually do at class that feel good and look good and you're like happy about it. Now you're all set. Like it's exactly the same scenario. It's just you're conquering this frontier for you. And the reason that I think you and I are so passionate about exercise, nutrition, fitness, all of that is because it is one of the primary core places that you can fundamentally change your life because...
0:55:34.8 Jared Hamilton: It's the gateway.
0:55:37.9 Christy Campbell: It's the gateway because showing up to bootcamp class, that's its own thing. Like that was conquering something for me, but it was a physical thing where I felt very disconnected from the person that I thought that I should be and I felt very unhappy in my skin. So you're damn right that carried over, even if I didn't think it did into how I showed up as a mom, how I showed up as a professional, how I showed up, whatever. And so when people are like, "Oh, well how did you decide to build your own business or launch a coaching program that's very different than most of the coaching programs out there? Or how did you, how did you feel confident enough to do that?" Well, I started doing things like that, like show up to bootcamp class when I was terrified.
0:56:21.8 Jared Hamilton: It scales.
0:56:23.3 Christy Campbell: And it becomes who you are. And so that's why after doing fitness and starting my company and building my team and all that good stuff, which I'm still very much working on, I found myself complacent again and I wasn't pushing into the hard things in the stories that I was telling myself. And so then jiu-jitsu and then also becoming comfortable with firearms was the next frontier and it still will be. It's something I'm going to have to commit to practicing and then climbing mountains is going to be next. It's the thing that I'm gonna do. And then maybe, you know what? Those confidences from doing that are gonna translate into an even better coaching program that I can offer or an even bolder opportunity to stand on stage and talk to people, or scaling my company to really make the impact that I want to, it will cross over. And so if you're listening to this and you're like, "Who cares about if I show up to the gym class next week?" Your whole life could depend on it. Because you...
0:57:26.1 Jared Hamilton: Absolutely.
0:57:27.0 Christy Campbell: You are opening doors for yourself and getting out of your own way and conquering your own bullshit.
0:57:32.2 Jared Hamilton: What you just said reminds me of, there's an image floating around on social media of this, where it's itty bitty domino and the next one is a slightly bigger, just slightly bigger, but enough for the little one can knock over the slightly bigger one. It's like, let's say 10% bigger. Then there's another one's 10% bigger, 10% bigger, 10% bigger. And it's like in the final domino is like the size of a skyscraper. Like it's at scale like that. And there's no way the little one could knock over that massive one, but the little one knocked over the 10% bigger one. Then that knocked over the 10% bigger one and that knocked over the 10% bigger one. And at scale, because of the tipping point that little one did, it did the domino effect and it's got slightly larger. And before you know it, it's totally practical that the skyscraper one fell over because imagine what your life would look like if you never went to bootcamp. You would never... Like let alone you, let alone the ripple effect of your clients, your team, your kids, there's so many things going on around that are just like caught not taught that kind of stuff that from the ripple effect of, Christy, just go into bootcamp. But you know what I mean? Because of that tipping point.
0:58:45.6 Christy Campbell: And it's opening... It's making life fulfilling and rich and happy in a way that you can't expect when you're still stuck in your own bullshit. And so it would have been everybody in my life probably would have endorsed me saying I can't go to bootcamp because of my knee. Because they would have heard me say like, I've had all these knee surgeries, I have to wear this brace and what if I have X, Y, and Z happen and then I have to do it... I have to have more surgery. And they would have been like, "You're right. You probably shouldn't go. Why don't you just go do a cycling class or something like that or a swim class that's less scary. That's less... " Everybody would have validated that safety choice. And so often we actually need to just look internally and decide what it is that we want. Like what is the life that we want? And then it's okay if everybody else doesn't understand, because they probably won't. Especially if they're gonna tell you, "Hey, it's fine. You really do have a stressful time at work right now. Hey, it's fine. You have a lot of kids," or like, "Hey, it's fine. You're taking care of your parent or your so-and-so who really needs you right now, don't beat yourself up. You don't need to do anything." That is just validating your own stories. And again, those things are real. My knee is real. I can't ignore it, but it's also keep... It also had the potential to keep me stuck and stagnant for my entire life.
1:00:25.5 Jared Hamilton: Yeah, without a doubt. And the thing is for those listening, your bootcamp moment, your whatever, it could be on such a small level. I know people who their breakthrough moment, on that, is something as simple as asking the waiter to make a special, like, "Hey, you guys always... I'd really, my salad dressing be on the side and you guys always put it on the salad, but I'd really like it this way." Or like, I have friends who order a water with lime, not water with lemon, but they're like, "I don't want to, they give me the lemon," and it's that, it's the same fear response. It's the same, I don't want to come across as that person. Right. There's another meme floating around that I've seen that like this waiter brings this person a burger with glass in it and they're like, "It's fine. I don't wanna be a bother." And they eat the glass burger, because of the people-pleasing stuff or they don't wanna be uncomfortable.
1:01:18.2 Jared Hamilton: But I think everyone listening to this on whatever level you're at should be, find your thing that you, what's gonna be your start of your tipping point. I know people who's... They're big, like they have a horrendous relationship with exercise or they're scared shitless to go to the gym. And like step one, just go sign up for a membership and leave. Don't even work out that day. Or they feel like they got to go in and do all the things. I have a friend right now. She's like going to a planet fitness. She's really intimidated and kind of overwhelmed with stuff. And she's like, I just signed up online. Didn't even go in. I'm like, "Great. You got your membership." Now, when she goes in, I'm like, "Just go walk on the treadmill." I know you wanna go do the weights and do the machines, but just start with the treadmill like one or two days a week, only 20 minutes. She's like, "But that's not enough." And I'm like, "Yeah, exactly. That's the point." It's getting you in there. And then it's like exposure therapy. Then one thing leads to another and leads to another in like it all started with signing up online and then just a 20-minute treadmill walk 'cause everyone can press start, you know, and it's those kinds of things.
1:02:21.4 Christy Campbell: Yeah. Whatever it is for you, that is the next step is what you need to focus on. And we also get in this place where we start looking at other people's domino. We're like, "Well, that's what mine should be." Right? No. And it is truly your individual next step and so, I mean it could in like, like you were saying, Jared, it could be as simple as like asking your boss to consider you for the promotion.
1:02:52.3 Jared Hamilton: Yeah.
1:02:53.4 Christy Campbell: It could be telling somebody no, they're not gonna get to treat you like that. It could just be you actively choosing to step away from your desk rather than sit there during lunch because everyone expects you to be at your desk during lunch, even though that's your time and going ahead and going for a walk and eating a real lunch. Like these are small things that can lead to the bigger ones because when you start doing the small ones, then you're gonna seek the opportunities for those more big milestones, because that bootcamp class was a big milestone for me. It wasn't a little one.
1:03:26.3 Christy Campbell: It's funny 'cause in retrospect, like I'm telling the story and it seems smaller than potentially joining jiu-jitsu or climbing a mountain or something, but it wasn't smaller. It was very big for me to go there. It was terrifying to feel like I couldn't do any of the things in the class or that people were going to judge me or look at me or that I was gonna hurt my knee and have more surgeries. I mean, I was... I had all of these fears and at the same time my kids were little when I did that. They were not quite two and not quite four. My husband was deployed and so it was not a great time to do that. And so there was just a lot of things that made it very hard to do that step. And so I don't want anyone to listen to this and downplay what their heart is. And again...
1:04:19.3 Jared Hamilton: That's such a good point to bring up.
1:04:20.6 Christy Campbell: You never have to climb a mountain if you don't want to. It's about building the life that you want. And so what is that? I've thought about climbing mountains my whole life. I've watched every mountaineering movie there is. I've watched all of them. Everything about Everest, about K2, about all the guys who do the alpinists, like all of that shit. I've obsessively watched that for years believing that I can't climb a mountain because I'm afraid of heights and because I have a busted knee and because I don't know how. So this isn't just like randomly picking something because you could pick something. This is something that I want. It's just, am I going to do something about it or not? And so in jiu-jitsu was the same. I had thought about it for a long time. I wanted to do it. I just didn't think I could.
1:05:11.2 Jared Hamilton: Yeah. That's such a big deal. Fuck, that's so good. Man, Christy, this has been the best fucking conversation ever.
1:05:17.8 Christy Campbell: This has been really fun.
1:05:19.6 Jared Hamilton: I can't believe we've been going an hour already. Let's... We can just go forever.
1:05:24.4 Christy Campbell: I know.
1:05:25.5 Jared Hamilton: This is so good. I really appreciate you getting so vulnerable on some of these stories. Like I'd never even heard half of these. And then you're like, "I've never even told Greg that or whatever." That's so good. But I think like, I think it just helps from other people being able to relate to that more 'cause they're like, "Yep, I feel like that. Yep. That's happened. Oh, yep. I think those same thoughts," and it's like, "Oh, maybe I'm not alone in this. Alright, maybe I should do what Christy said to do."
1:05:44.9 Christy Campbell: Yeah, Sometimes I don't even know that I'm gonna say something until it's like that moment.
1:05:50.1 Jared Hamilton: It's the best.
1:05:50.2 Christy Campbell: And then I'm like, "Should I just tell the like surface version of the story? Should I tell you like the real thing that's actually what it was?" So, yeah, now you know.
1:06:01.4 Jared Hamilton: I love it. Alright. Well, where can people find you that are like, "Fuck, this is badass as shit. Where can I learn more about this and all this stuff?" Where can people find you?
1:06:09.2 Christy Campbell: The two places best to connect with me are first on Instagram, @christymaecampbell. I try to share my life on there daily. Like I'm in My Stories every day. And so if you wanna talk and connect, I don't have some kind of gigantic following. So if you follow me, it actually matters to me and I wanna know what's up with you. Like you can tag me in your very first bootcamp class and I will care. Like I want to... I wanna connect with you on Instagram. So follow me and let's connect there. And then the other place is I do a short form podcast. It's 10-15 minutes. It's every Monday through Friday. It's called Fitme Coffee Talk. And I give you, I'm drinking my coffee and I share a little bit of a, either perspective shift or an idea or something tangible that you can use in your day. And it's intended to be something you can digest quickly in the morning, like as you're getting ready or you're driving or you're like making kid lunches or whatever it is that you're doing, but then it'll actually matter in that day. And so if you wanna check that out, it's called Fitme Coffee Talk.
1:07:06.3 Jared Hamilton: I love that. I'll put all that in the show notes. Good stuff. Well, Christy, thank you so much for doing this. It is always a joy. I appreciate the fuck out of you.
1:07:13.9 Christy Campbell: You too, Jared. Thank you so much. This was really fun.
1:07:17.3 Jared Hamilton: And welcome back. Thank you so much for sticking around for the whole entire episode. I really, really appreciate it. I know if you stuck around this long, you got a lot of value out of this. I hope you got some ideas and some strategies and the tactics on like an idea of how big of a deal it is for you to get uncomfortable, for you to get outside your comfort zone, for you to embrace that resistance and how to ultimately change your life. So I really appreciate you being here. Be sure if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe to the podcast and be sure to also send this to a friend that you think would benefit from this a lot. But also definitely you'll want to check out the show notes and you'll want to check out, actually I have a whole bunch of stuff for you to check out. We now have the actual podcast website that's up. Just go to dietingfromtheinsideout.com and we have all the show notes. We have a blog there that kind of consolidates a lot of the episodes. We've got some other resources for you there. I know you'll love that.
1:08:05.5 Jared Hamilton: And then I also have in the description right here below, I have access to, if you're not already following, be sure and follow my other socials like my short form content, like the Instagram, the TikTok, the YouTube Shorts, that kind of thing. That way where you're getting the right kind of inputs into your normal scroll feed. But then also if you are going through this weight loss journey, this transformation journey, and you're just a little lost and you're like, "I'm not sure where to go, I'm not sure what to do." Be sure and check out, and I have a link down there as well, my fat loss checklist. It's my totally free five-day email course that's gonna just guide you through the A to Z's of weight loss and how to go about this the right way where your life doesn't suck, where you don't have to dive into diet culture and all of that. So a lot of people have benefited from that. Then also be sure and check out my Fat Loss Simplified Community because if you do not have a support system, you're missing one of the core pillars to being successful with this.
1:08:53.7 Jared Hamilton: I'm not saying everyone has to do coaching, but it's the one of the reasons that coaching is one of the biggest ROI's of your transformation you can do is because you have a support system, making sure that you're taken care of, that you're being held accountable. But if you don't have coaching, like let's say it's just not feasible right now, or let's just say you don't right now and you're not sure where to get started with that, you'll want to be part of my Fat Loss Simplified Community. That way you have a ground zero, a home base where you can go to to get loved on, to get support, to get encouraged, to get your questions answered and to get more mental inputs into your brain so you have better outputs and that way you can keep crushing and doing really, really well. Now with that being said though, if you wanna take your support to the next level and you want to apply for coaching, I will leave a link down in the description as well because you are a podcast listener. I have a special deal for podcast listeners only right now where basically if you essentially get accepted into coaching from the podcast, I'm gonna give you essentially like $4000-ish worth in free stuff.
1:09:53.3 Jared Hamilton: But the thing is though, before we can dive into coaching, you have to apply because at the end of the day there's only a certain kind of person we work with. Just because you have a credit card, doesn't mean you get accepted into coaching and we have to make sure this is a good fit on both sides. So if you want to apply for coaching, go hit the link down there in the description, that way you can schedule your call with my team. But then assuming, let's say, you were to get accepted because you're coming from the podcast, I'm giving you about $4000 worth of free stuff that a bunch of other people have to pay for. So just to incentivize that, to show you how much I appreciate people making decisions from the podcast. But otherwise I appreciate the fuck out of you. Thank you so much for being here and I will talk to you next week on next week's episode. I'll see you later.
[music]
Episode Synopsis:
Catching Up:
Christy is currently juggling a lot in her life. With her kid’s dad deployed overseas, she’s got her hands full taking care of their three kids, their dogs, running her business, and maintaining her hobbies—like Jiu-jitsu. With Christy’s life being more chaotic than in the past, she is learning more about how to take care of herself, her team, and her clients.
One of the ways she has dealt with the increase in competing responsibilities in her life is by letting go of the need to do things perfectly and applying that across the different areas of her life. By allowing yourself to do things imperfectly, you can negate being paralyzed or deciding that if you cannot do something perfectly you can’t do it at all.
Though, it doesn’t always feel good, for example, there are times when Christy will want to go to the gym for 90 minutes, but she only has 45 minutes. That 45 minutes may not be what she wanted, but it’s still good, and it’s a whole lot better than making the easier decision of not going at all.
She doesn’t try to achieve “balance,” because balance is relative. To Christy, you can create the perfect schedule, but if you show up to work, the gym, family time, or whatever else as a shell of yourself, that’s not balanced either.
She considers being balanced as understanding your priorities and being intentional with them. Applying her attention in each moment and being present.
Getting Uncomfortable:
Christy points out that the times in life that you’ve been successful, you did not show up every day perfectly, but for some reason when it comes to health and weight loss, people think it should be automatic. Because of that idea, when things can’t be done perfectly they feel like they can’t do it—but that doesn’t apply anywhere else in life.
Jared finds that people play the “I’m a perfectionist” card when they are struggling and validating bad behavior. In areas of life where we’re crushing, we tend to have the most flexibility and movement.
Christy agrees that people make the decision to not do something when they can’t be perfect or go all-in because it’s easier than the discomfort of not doing things well.
People will think something like, “why join a gym when it will be painful? I’ll get in a little better shape and THEN join a gym.”
This happens because they don’t want to change and be uncomfortable in the moment, so they feel compelled to try to make a change before.
When Jared comes across people who want to wait until life slows down or “balances out,” they are setting themselves up to throw in the towel when life gets chaotic again—which it inevitably will.
Christy understands that when there is a lot on one’s plate, it’s can be very desirable to just push things off until you have a perfect season for it. Realistically, however, that perfect season is not likely to come about.
She finds that it’s much better to learn how to operate within those “difficult seas.”
Taking time for self-care during those hard times allows you to show up for the competing interests within your life. Being imperfect isn’t easy—and it feels uncomfortable—but it’s a positive thing because that discomfort breaks the status quo.
For Christy, Jiu-jitsu was one of the things that required her to get uncomfortable. Going back to before she became a fitness coach, Christy was completely stuck. She was 40 lbs overweight, had gone through multiple knee surgeries, had two kids, and found herself in her late twenties—after having always been athletic as a kid—thinking she wasn’t going to be able to exercise again.
She tried a variety of diets, lost and gained the same 5 lbs over and over, and thought this was just what mom life was—that you didn’t get to feel good in your own skin or feel confident.
She was happy as a mom and as a professional, but was stuck and felt like the “chubby girl” so much that she would hide in pictures, etc.
She found a personal trainer who taught her how to lift weights, how to eat better, and created a community and a space where she could show up and do the work. He saw the potential in her that she couldn’t see herself.
This personal trainer helped break down the mental barriers she had.
In the year they worked together she lost 40 lbs and subsequently started going to Crossfit, got certified, and started training people.
Something she had always wanted to do was martial arts but she had the same limiting beliefs—despite the great shape she had gotten into. Christy believed that she would blow out her knee and that jiu-jitsu was not something that was possible for her to get into.
She has also always been timid in confrontation and believed that she was incapable of physically defending herself. She enrolled her boys in a kids’ jiu-jitsu class and eventually decided that she would try doing the kids’ class, which is how she got started.
One day, she ended up in a confrontation with someone who was being awful to her middle child. This was an adult who was being verbally abusive to her kid.
She told him to stop and he turned his verbal assault on her.
During that confrontation, she felt scared and unsure, but it made her realize there was a place where she needed to grow and it pushed her to go to the adult jiu-jitsu class. It became a personal journey for her.
Personal Growth:
While the part of Christy that causes her to have a hard time standing up for herself is still there, jiu-jitsu has taught her to feel the presence of others differently. She is still nurturing the part of herself that is afraid. She attributes a lot of her recent personal growth to jiu-jitsu.
Earlier this year, Christy attended an event called “Guns & Gis.” She initially didn’t want to even entertain the idea of attending but ended up going because a friend asked her to accompany her.
She was terrified of the gun—so much so that she would shake when handling it—but she pushed through her fear.
She was in an environment that was set up for her to be successful—there were instructors there and people around her to support her, but she still had to do her own work. Building those parts of herself up and getting through those things that are scary has helped her grow and become more confident.
Jared truly believes that you cannot grow without having something to overcome—the idea that you can’t become patient without impatience.
Christy finds that people tend to operate within the spaces they are most comfortable and succeed in those areas. She, for example, is very comfortable with leading fitness classes. But by doing those things that were outside of her comfort zone, she has been able to grow.
It doesn’t have to be all-or-nothing and it doesn’t have to be perfect.
In jiu-jitsu, she has limitations because her knee doesn’t bend past 90 degrees, but she tries things the way they are taught at first and works around the things she can’t do.
Jared has found that the mentality of, “Okay, I can’t do this thing, but what can I do is…”—something that he has experienced, himself, in jiu-jitsu—translates into other areas of life, as well.
Mental Wins:
Jared often finds that you can’t mentally get where you want to be without becoming physically uncomfortable. Too often, people just want to meditate on the idea of fixing their inner game.
Fear is something you feel in the body and you have to get your physical body aligned with your mental state.
Christy, for example, loves hiking but is terrified of heights. She will avoid summits because of this fear.
One of the things she wants to do is climb Mount Rainier, which is a multi-day trip. She has all kinds of stories she tells herself surrounding her fear of heights and climbing a mountain—her knee can’t handle it, she could get injured, etc.
She also realizes that these stories aren’t real.
Jared just did a training where he talked about this defense mechanism—where you create these stories.
He uses the example of driving away from your house, wondering if you locked your door, and then creating and buying into this elaborate narrative of what might happen because you drove off and forgot to lock your door.
The story causes you to stress out even though it isn’t driven by any kind of logic.
What Christy does about these narratives is make decisions in advance. She will verbalize her plans, ask her friends who are into mountaineering, find a class, and sign up for it. She starts by addressing her legitimate concerns—like taking a class on mountaineering, buying the right jacket, etc.— then, she is creating a scenario and surrounding herself with people, just like with Guns and Gis, where she can be successful. All she has to do is actually do it.
Christy emphasizes that these things that get you out of your comfort zone don’t have to be climbing a mountain or doing jiu-jitsu. At the very beginning for her, it was simply going to a fitness class.
You just need to take the first step in whatever it is that you are struggling with. If you want to get in shape but are afraid to go to the gym, one thing you can do is schedule a consultation at that gym. Going is the hard part, but you can accomplish that first step. You can then verbalize it out loud, tell people you're going to the gym, buy yourself some new sneakers, etc.
When you show up for things despite being terrified, it carries over into other areas of your life, builds your confidence, and opens doors. You have to look internally and decide what the life you want truly is.
In closing, Jared points out that your moment of overcoming can be as small as asking for your salad dressing on the side—you just need to find your tipping point. Christy reiterates that it’s your individual next step that you need to focus on to build the life you want.
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