Embracing love and becoming an embodiment of it every single day will allow you to understand your purpose and embark on a journey of deep self-discovery. This is what Christin Collins has done with her own life, which she shares in her award-winning book, be. love. She talks all about it with Zach Gurick and his guest co-host Sarah Owen, Shell Point’s Vice President of Business Development. Together, they discuss how to live a life centered on love, driven by purpose, and empowered by intention. Christin also explores the connection between emotional and physical health, as well as how this specific area is key to achieving personal transformation and improving overall well-being.
The information presented in Fully Alive is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition or treatment and before making changes to your health regimen. Guests’ opinions are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the podcast host, production team, or sponsors.
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The Power Of Embracing Love With Christin Collins
We have something special in store for you. I’m thrilled to be joined by Sarah Owen, Shell Point’s Vice President of Business Development who will be co-hosting this special episode with me. Sarah’s not only a brilliant leader herself but also a dear friend of our guest. Joining us is Christin Collins, the inspiring author of the award-winning book Be. Love., which was honored with a New York City Big Book Award for its profound message of personal transformation and healing.
Christin’s work invites us to look inward to realign with our true purpose and to lead lives anchored in love and intention. In this conversation, we’ll explore the powerful intersection of emotional and physical health and how aligning with our purpose and embracing love can radically transform our wellbeing and our longevity. Whether you’re seeking deeper meaning in your life, looking to improve your health from the inside out or just ready for an uplifting conversation, then this episode is for you. Let’s dive in.
Christin, thank you so much for being here. It’s such a privilege and honor. I’ve been excited to have this conversation with you and Sarah. Sarah is my cohost. If you read Christin’s book, Be. Love., if you read to the very end in the acknowledgments, you’ll see that Sarah is the Sarah that Christin mentions as her soul sister in the wind on her journey and an amazing partner with her and all of this. We’re super excited for you to be here as well, Sarah.
Writing ‘Be.Love’
Christin, I’m excited to have this amazing human on the show, who’s done so much great work and internal work and become this beaming light of love and being loved and truly embodied in the message that you wrote about. I’m so curious. What was the impetus for this book? I know you spent a couple years to stilling all of this down but what led you to do this work?
Thank you for having me and it is a true honor to share this opportunity with my soul sister, Sarah. She has seen in me things that I had yet to see myself, so thank you for your friendship. This book Be. Love. was a follow-on book to an original book I wrote called Her Phoenix Rising. After accidentally writing my first book, I promise you I did not want to write a second book. Writing books, I find to be very hard.
What was happening after I wrote Her Phoenix Rising, which was a collection of stories that were my a-ha moments in getting to know and love myself. I had people that would reach out. Some I knew well and some were strangers. They would ask, “What can I do?” My answer was, “I don’t know what you can do. I barely understand what I did.” I felt that I was doing a disservice to people who were interested in some self-discovery.
I challenge myself to use this technique of book writing to connect with what was that pathway, what was that occurred for me. As you mentioned, the challenge was distilling it. It was very challenging and it was two and a half years length for me to break it down to something that was bite-sized and tangible that I hope could serve as an offering for people to go on their own journey. They didn’t have to do it as a prescription but it was an offering that I reflected on that I did.
Thank you so much for doing the work because you have taken some big lofty concepts and distill it down into bite-sized chunks that we can do these practices and follow along with the GPS. I love how you started off with the big picture in the book then you give us these practical steps to take and you made an acronym. I can remember what each letter stands for and you can read the whole book in two hours.
That was the goal, because she wanted more words. She’s like, “You need more words” I said, “Why do I need more words? I want someone to get in an aircraft in Florida, and hit New York, or wherever they’re going, and have a complete experience.” If you ever got on a plane and read and then had to stop then you get back on the plane a week later, you can’t remember what the book was even about. I wanted to have like a two-hour bullet point. If someone was interested in a particular part of the book, they can go back and dive more into it.
You even left spaces for people to make notes, which is important because sometimes when you’re reading, you think, “I got to remember that for later.” You can use that space to journal or your reflections from the chapter. I wanted to circle back on something that you said about a few people ask you like, “How do I do this?” That is minimizing it.
Whenever I would be with Christin or I would talk about her first book, people would be hungry for it. They were reaching out to you and you were having so many one-on-one meetings with people. You were so open to talking to people but what influence did other people have on you when you finally got to that point that you’re like, “I have got to write this down?”
There was one particular woman who had reached out. I remember that we had shared a journey maybe like a decade before but it wasn’t like it was a close person. She said, “Can I buy you lunch? I want to pick your brain.” I was able to do that. At lunch, we covered so many different topics. I was confused by the end and her eyes got big. It was everything from nutrition to spirituality to relationships to employment. As I left that lunch, I thought, I bet you that poor person is more confused than she was.
That was the impetus for me to have the courage to try but also with the acronym thing. That was pretty funny because the concept of beloved Be. Love., be here now, reconnect to the love that’s already inside of you. That was the first step and I was starting to give speeches on that concept. Again, I wasn’t given any tools and I felt there was a disservice being done because that’s great to understand, be present, connect to who you are, and what you are but how do I do that? Those two things were the catalysts that I knew I had to at least try to distill it and offer that GPS.
Understanding Your Purpose In Life
We could go through the book itself or starting out on a macro high level and then dive down into if that’s okay. You start off talking about purpose and gratitude during those first couple chapters. I love that you said that having our purpose or as the Japanese called Ikigai, is the key to a long fulfilling life. You’ve identified your purpose and I love that Mark Twain quote that you use, “Two best days in life, the day you’re born and the day you found out why,” and why now. You’re living this amazing purpose. You distill it down to six words to inspire awakening starting with self. Maybe you could share for us a little bit how you got to those six words.
What was interesting, I was in healthcare. I was understanding that lifestyle affects your health. I was frustrated that we weren’t all talking about that. I couldn’t understand why we spent so much energy on repairing or medicating our health instead of getting into the root cause of healing it. In a conversation I was having with my boss at the time, it was a very heated conversation. We were taking some flack because we were talking about eating vegetables.
I didn’t realize that would be so upsetting to a lot of people but people were not pleased that I became a vegetable fan. In that conversation, I said, “It’s not just about what you eat.” I was asked, “What else is it?” I said, “It’s also about how much you move and you’re stress levels and your purpose.” My boss stopped and looked at me and said, “What do you mean by that?” I said, “Why do you get up every day? What is your point?” I don’t know where that came from when I said that. That came from within.
I realized, “Do I know why I get out of bed every morning?” I had this surface level understanding of purpose at that time and my purpose I thought was to help others. A lot of us feel that our purpose is to help others and there’s nothing wrong with that. I had to get deeper to the core of what that purpose meant. I took that hypnotherapy session to help me untether from consciousness and dive deeper. That 45-minute session turned into a four-hour session and I kept going, “I help others be well.”
It was just the longest process and then finally, it came through me. I inspire awakening but I don’t do it so somebody else benefits. I do it by embodying it myself. As soon as that came out of me, I exhaled and I’m like, “That is why I’m here. I am here to inspire awakening of self.” If that’s helpful to anyone else, that’s great but it’s not about you have to teach, lead, and serve others. You have to show up as is. That was so powerful. It was life changing.
What’s funny about that to me, Zach, as I listened to so much of what you’ve been sharing on your show and in public speaking about longevity. There’s so many things that Christin just said that lined up and resonated with that. I know at Shell Point, many times when people first moved to the community and we think about them starting this next chapter of their lives.
One of the biggest things they all talked about wanting to key into is like, “Now what? What’s my purpose at this chapter of my life?” All the things that you mentioned there can happen at any age. As you’ve been doing this work, Christin, have you seen tie this into longevity and how that manifests itself in that way?
It is interconnected. My personal experience was the stress and the actual physical reaction that I was having to not be in alignment. I made myself violently ill and had most of my life from not being present not knowing self and not loving self and had every autoimmune disease I think possible since I was born. I started with two autoimmune diseases when I was an infant and those showed up throughout my life and got more acute as time went on.
I applied people that don’t have a physical reaction but to have a healthy fully alive life and tying the mind-body connection to longevity, the calmer you are, the more embrace of your uniqueness that you are, the longer you will have a healthy life because you’re in flow and your physical body is in flow. You can calm your autonomic nervous system. Your systems all get into synchronicity and you have a much healthier experience, both mentally and physically.
The calmer you are and the more you embrace your uniqueness, you will have a healthier life because you are in flow with your physical body. Share on X
In the book, you do reference a lot of scientific studies, so you’re looking at data and showing how this all plays out in our bodies and in our health and you’ve lived it yourself, so thank you for doing that.
Thank you for noticing that.
Not just the woo-woo, as it used to be called.
I am so right brained that I’ve never needed the data. I am going to connect with what feels good for me, and that brings me joy. It’s like, “That feels good, so I’m going to do more of that.” In my corporate life, I found out that data is very powerful. When you’re left brain especially or if you’re making financial decisions, I get it right. It’s important.
Why? Probably Be. Love. took two and a half years to distill. I spent a lot of time researching and finding my favorites in each category that I wanted to shed light on. If a reader was interested in a specific part, they too could go ahead, explore and get much more into the work than what I was offering but it was enough if they were curious.
How Data Moved The Work Forward
How’s the data helped as you talk to the audiences? I know you do keynotes all over the world and you’re always talking to people. How have you seen data move the work forward because to your point, everybody didn’t always think about love, be loved, awareness, and emotions and think of data. How is it helped?
I can say, first and foremost, it has helped me, which is funny because now that I understand the neurology of it or the science of it. Now I know why it feels good and that just cements it even for someone like me who is super right brained, but then also bringing that in. My passion is not for scalability. I’m not worried about what corporation picks this up or what entity picks this up. I wish somebody had handed me this book years ago and it would pique my curiosity as I was ready.
I had this GPS to be able to try things or do further research on, but the data for those people or entities who are interested, its life altering. What I found is there’s a lot of new data, which is very exciting and there’s a lot of study that are happening that are supporting this work and I’m around them and involved with them. That’s very exciting. One of the books that I read was written by an oncologist at Yale New Haven in the ‘70s.
I was operated on at Yale New Haven in ‘90s and he was still on staff there. The fact that no one came into my room and asked me the questions that his book was about and it was written 15 or 20 years earlier. That blew my mind but when he wrote that book, people were not all warm and fuzzy to him. They weren’t abrasive of his work because it was counterintuitive to our current medical model. The data, the studying, the explanations have been around. It’s just that they haven’t been embraced.
What book was that?
Don’t quote me. That was Love, Miracles and Cancer. I want to say his name was Dr. Schwartz but let’s go back to that because I can’t remember exactly because I read about 60 books. I remember reading that and I was so angry because I was like, “This man was on staff and I never got this information,” many years ago.
I love that you were so intentional about finding a purpose and you went through an hour-long hypnotherapy session. Now you have truly distilled it down to these six words that you can easily follow. I imagine that acts as a filter through which you can say yes or no to opportunities.
It does. This is important for people who are curious about their purpose. That hypnotherapy session was a light switch, but there was a lot of contemplation and curiosity that occurred before. When I connected with the words, I didn’t understand what it meant. Isn’t that interesting? I knew it felt right, but I’m like, “What does that mean? I don’t know.” I grew into it just like Be. Love. felt so good but I didn’t get the whole thing and I spent years now growing into it. For your readers, if you’re curious about your purpose and you can just continue to ask as you get quiet. What is my point? Why am I here? What brings me joy? That’s something that you can grow into. Don’t be upset if it’s not an overnight thing.
Always growing into it. When you think you’ve got it is just when the next lesson comes along. Christin and I have talked about this a lot because she’s helped me realize that you don’t just brush your teeth once and your teeth are clean forever. It’s a practice of always growing, whether its purpose or any of the things that she mentions in the book. It’s not a one and done exercise.
Having A Beginner’s Mind
We’re all in such a mode in our world now that we want the quick dopamine hit or the quick fix and we don’t think about the practice of it and how many times you go back to something before you have an understanding. The understanding that you had may be different tomorrow. Talk a little bit about that, always having the beginner’s mind and always coming back to these concepts and these ideas.
I wasn’t happy about that in the beginning because I wanted to check the box and be like, “Great. I did the work and I have the answer.” It was frustrating in the beginning because the lessons keep showing up for you to hone your skill. You and I have talked about that a lot. It’s again about the embodiment and then the openness to how that is forever growing and changing. I like to think about it as an ascension, as like a cycle.
Every time I clang the bell on the way by, now I’d laugh at myself. I crack up. I’m like, “Here I go again.” I needed to be reminded because you get into a groove and you get into real life and you forget. I am a forever learner. I used to think I had all the answers and now I embraced that I have so many questions. I’m so curious about other people’s opinions and journeys and what’s in their minds so that I can learn and grow from their experience.
I see it in the longevity space too, Zach. Everybody’s looking for that one thing. What’s the supplement I can take? What’s the one thing I can do? I’ll just start getting at least seven hours of sleep at night. It’s just this one thing. Christin, through your work and even be Be. Love., it’s so many things working with each other and not one singular thing that’s the answer to this experience.
It’s been a challenging offering when people do want that prescription or that check mark or that external thing. Yet, when you see someone who’s in flow with their life and they know who they are and why they are and know how to show up from that place. I spent many years in what I call hibernation and it was during COVID, which made it easy. It’s one thing to be closed off from the real world and do this inner work and feel groovy.
How do you embody your uniqueness and show up amongst all the differences? When you can get to that side of it, the longevity piece, the stress reduction, and the letting go of the control or judgment or when you’re judged getting ramped up about that. All those things still happen every day, all day but now to aid longevity, it’s when I can be and be curious and be open and be understanding that we’re all having a different experience. People will be like, “Your skin looks great. What are you using that?”
It’s so weird that you said that because that’s exactly what I was thinking about like when you relieve stress. Are you dialed into your purpose? People will start telling you, “You look great. What have you been doing?” That’s so funny that you use that.
Even eating. I remember somebody asking me questions about eating and I was like, “I can’t explain this, too.” It was before Be. Love. When you are who you are and like who you are, I’m just not as hungry. I’m not trying to stuff or find some satiation. I care about myself more and trust me, I still eat plenty of things that are maybe not on the major food groups but I don’t eat as much of it and I don’t need it as much. Any consumption of any type. It does aid longevity because you’re in flow with who you are.
I imagine, too. Once we have distilled that purpose down but we can always be reinventing ourselves even as we go through the different seasons of life. I was talking with one of my good friends, Marv, who’s 86. He was telling me how at this season of his life, he’s developing a new persona and he still has the same purpose he probably did 40 years ago or 80 years ago but it’s expressed differently as we go through these different chapters and seasons. Have you noticed that?
Amen. If you haven’t read the interview with Marv, you need to because it was fantastic. Sometimes, when people start connecting with their purpose and they’re still employed or working, they think that they need to quit their job to be their purpose and I giggle, or maybe they have to find a different partner or spouse, because now they’re on point with their purpose. I’m like, “It’s about how you bring your purpose in your life? How does purpose show up through you in your job or in your community and your family?”
When something does change, whether that’s employment or your familial situation, or whatever it is. It’s this joy to be able to receive how you can show up from that place of wholeness and authenticity and what this next chapter could look and feel like. I became a Nema. Now I have a two year old and a one year old granddaughter.
My purpose of inspiring awakening is I have a whole new attitude now on the work that I do because I want to set as many trails as I can for my two granddaughters, but also just where my priorities are. When I get to spend time with them, inspiring awakening, starting with selfies, I am so present to being here with you. I have so much joy in this connectivity and that’s a new chapter that started a few years ago, so I agree with Marv.
Embracing The Science Of Gratitude
That’s great. Congratulations. I’m sure that gives you a lot of reasons to experience gratitude as well when you’re with your 2-years-old and 1-year-old grandchildren. That’s the next section of the book you talk about, gratitude and the importance that has in our lives and making that a lifestyle. Also, I love that you quote a lot of data about how there’s this science of gratitude. It lowers stress, anxiety, depression, blood pressure, enhances our immune function, and get better sleep. All of these things that we talked about are the combating the hallmarks of aging. Even just practicing gratitude is a factor in minimizing all of those things. Maybe we can shift gears and talk about gratitude a little bit.
I don’t want to throw things off but I would like to also tie in energy if we may, which is part of Be. Love., which is towards the end. With gratitude, any of us look at a given situation differently from public speaking. That’s besides death. That’s like the number two or tied for number one, fear, which cracks me up because I love connecting with the audience and feeling their energy. That’s a perception. I love it. Most people don’t like it.
Any situation can be positive or negative. We choose what we put energy into. If we want to look at our day and concentrate on all the things that we didn’t enjoy or when negative, then that’s on us. If we want to connect, what am I grateful for? They could be very simple things. They don’t have to be grandiose. We put ourselves in that mindset or that connectivity to the energy of gratitude.
It’s a game changer. I love to wake up in the morning and I’m so comfortable. I’m so blessed. The temperature is so nice. All the things just in that waking moment set my stage for how I want my data unfold. When I go to bed at night, I think of at least three things that I want to say thank you for. On both sides of my restorative sleep, I’m teeing myself up for a good night of sleep by connecting with gratitude and throughout the day when I can. Why did I asked, if we could tie that to energy? We are energy. We are matter that is very dense and slow energy.
When we are angry, jealous, or judging, those are very heavy dense energetic emotions. When we’re sitting in that space as energy, guess what we’re attracting? More of the same. When we put ourselves with high vibing energy emotions, that is what we attract. Gratitude is one of the most beautiful high vibing energetic emotions that we can have. When we connect to gratitude, we attract and we see a very different experience than if we’re going to sit in that heaviness and density.
Gratitude is one of the most beautiful, high-vibing, and energetic emotions we can have. Share on X
I like that always pair that, Christin, with feel your feelings. Sometimes, we start to confuse gratitude. It’s almost like a false presence of ourselves where we’re feeling angry or jealous or disappointed and we don’t acknowledge that. We don’t sit in it and we try to paint over it a little bit. It’s in your book and you live it in your life. You’ve created spaces for me and other people to be able to come and authentically be like, “This is it. This is what I’m feeling.” You never try to pep talk anybody out of it. You’re like, “Be there for as long as you want.” Can you talk about that fine line because society has turned gratitude in some ways into this pep talk emotion that then covers up what the real situation is.
For many years, I pep talk my way through life. I did not connect with negative emotions and I was a professional dissociate to control my environment. I couldn’t understand why I was sick and why my inflammation was over 100% and that was because I had completely not processed. I dissociated. The work that I’ve done for the past years has been this concept of feel your feelings because if you push them away or stuff them or dissociate from them, you’re not processing them. The awareness that we didn’t come to this life to just be happy. The book isn’t called be happy. There are going to be moments of great happiness and there’s going to be moments of great sorrow.
The first sentence of the two sentences on the cover is Be. To your point, life’s going to throw your curve balls and that’s going to be an opportunity to work out, feel, and hone your skill at grief or sadness or anger. It makes your recovery time back to the middle faster, the more time you allow yourself to embrace it. When I’m sad or upset or whatever that emotion is, I’m not happy about it but I’m like, “I don’t know why but I’m just very sad.”
I’m going to hug my sadness and say, “I feel you and thank you. What are you trying to show me? What is this emotion? Thank you for being in my world so that I can pause and contemplate what is showing up in my world? What are my lessons? What do I want to change about me? What do I want to change about my life?” On the flip side, the same is true with joy. I was a very swingy person. I was either happy or not. Now, I’m just super namaste. I allow myself to feel whatever it is, I thank you for visiting and I exhale it and that age or longevity a lot.
You’re even cultivating gratitude in those times of anger, sorrow, frustration, or whatever. One of my favorite authors talks about the two things that transform us the most. What you just said? Its great love or great suffering what changes us and allows us to become more and more of our true self.
It’s funny. This just came through me. There’s an awesome employee at Shell Point I’m great friends with and have had a lot of deep conversations with. Prior to joining the team, she was expressing to me a situation at work and it was a hard situation. She is going on and on about this person at work. After a very long dialogue about this person, I looked at her and said, “You’re welcome.” She said, “What do you mean you’re welcome?”
I said, “You’re welcome. He is gifting you the opportunity to know who you are and why you are and get comfortable in that and that maybe it’s time for a change.” I love doing that to people when they’re just amped up. I’m like, “You’re welcome.” That’s a great opportunity to learn because if it’s just roses all the time, we don’t get that workout.
If life is just roses all the time, we do not get that internal workout. Share on X
How To Love Yourself
That’s amazing. We can maybe go through and we’re already talking about these but just so the readers understand the acronym of breathing, emotions or expressing emotions, as we’ve just discussed, letting go, opening your heart, visualization and energy and then prioritizing at the end of that. That’s the GPS system, if you will Be.Love. We’ve already started talking about energy and emotions. Maybe we can talk a little bit about breath.
I’d love to. As I already cited, connecting with the opportunity to be present and know who you are and why you are. Connect to the love that’s already inside of you. You’re never ever going to find that satiation and homeless out there.
That was just such an a-ha moment to me, where what I was looking for was myself, the love of self. It’s interesting to see culture talk about and embrace what self-love or self-care looks like. It does sometimes mean a manicure or pedicure or eating vegetables or whatever. To me, that authenticity of getting comfortable in your own skin. That, to me, is self-love but then how do we do that? I went on my whiteboard and I wrote down be love and the first step in that is to simply breathe.
The book does cover some of the science of breath and breath work is the most marvelous thing. We breathe all day, every day. It’s free. It’s a tool we have all the time. We can do it at work and not look weird. How do we take five deep breaths and what can transition with five deep breaths has been life altering? When I was in Corporate America, I started all of my meetings with five deep breaths. At first, the staff was like, “Alright,” but then it just centered us. It centered us in self and centered as a group. It just calmed us all down.
I love breath work and that is the first step to being present. To our point about dissociating from emotions, the second point E in Be. Love. is experience. A lot of times, we don’t want to just sit and breathe because we don’t want to have to come up with what comes up. There are tools in there on things you can do when those emotions come up to process them. It’s all about the processing of emotions. How do we process that? The period in Be. Love. stands for pause. It’s not rushing through the process of experiencing that emotion as we breathe.
The L stands for Let It Go. Exhale it out. Breathe It Out. That is the cadence, the practice that takes a little bit longer in the beginning but then the time shortens. When I allow myself to just feel that emotion, that I’m not happy but yet here it is. I breathe it in and I let it run through my body. I experienced it and sat with it and I exhaled it out. It takes less time and less toll on the body to process it.
Don’t you think the let it go, though, is the one that sometimes you have to do over and over again that it’s not the one and done?
The whole process culminates with the letting go. That’s the newest because at least for me, I enjoyed hanging on to stuff. I enjoyed my story.
You could eat lunch off of that every single day if you needed to.
That person or that happened to me.
Especially when you got to share it with somebody else. “Let me just tell you about that.”
The letting go in that cycle was the most interesting part of the four-part process, the hardest part and they went in order because experiencing was hard until it wasn’t. Pausing with it was hard until it wasn’t. Letting go was hard until it wasn’t and I can say I still process the letting go. Sometimes it’s an hour and sometimes it’s two days. I still have to process. It’s not a late switch.
From there, though, and this is the active embodiment that I’m working on, the second half of Be. Love. We live our lives from ego from our consciousness and that’s such a small percentage of our actual experience. About 90% of our lives are processed in our subconscious minds. When we do this process of breathing, experiencing, pausing and letting go, we create space to get out of the intensity of our ego and our conscious minds and get into our subconscious minds.
From there, we have three brains in our body. We have our brain, our heart brain and our gut brain. We can drop out of this intense ego into our heart. O stands for opening up your heart and connecting with your heart because there is nothing more beautiful than living a life from your heart instead of your conscious ego.
O stands for opening your heart, which I am actively continuing my journey of. V is vision cast from there. Not from the brain, but from your heart. What does it feel like to be loved? What does love look and feel like in this situation? What brings my heart joy and not my ego joy? V is for vision cast. E, as we talked about, is energy. I had a turning point in my life when I understood the energy aspect and I couldn’t understand why we didn’t learn this in elementary school because this is mind blowing to me and completely changed my life that we are all interconnected.
We are all energy. I just happened to be this piece of slowed matter. You’re that piece. This is a table. Getting that open-heartedness to embrace this co-energy has been transformative to me, then the final period prioritizing. How are you living your life? Not staying in a cocoon and hibernating, but how are you getting out into the world and prioritizing your day, your experience, your relationships, and your decision-making so that you can be on the alignment with your heart.
How To Spend Your Days
Maybe you can share a couple of those priorities? You give us ten priorities at the end that you’re working through each day. Would you mind sharing it for our readers?
I don’t mind at all. I would love to. I’ve gotten clear on how I want to spend my days. I have a rule that 80% of my day needs to be spent on my heart focused decisions, what’s important to me from my heart. I used to say yes to everything and I know many of us, we want to say yes because we want to be nice or we want to be helpful or we don’t want to disappoint someone. In actuality, when it’s not authentically connected to my purpose, I’m doing a disservice to self and to the other person.
I allow myself up to and 20% is probably high but 20% of my time each week, I can put in that box of its not in alignment or part of my prioritization but I know why I’m saying yes. The other 80% of the time, I need to prioritize and focus on what my purpose is and how I’m living my life through that purpose, game changer when you start charting that in a calendar. Sarah, I think you can speak to that because that’s an exercise we’ve worked on together.
That 20% is such a great thing because we sometimes romanticize words like purpose, gratitude and coming from the heart. We have the tendency to do that in society. When you get down to your daily calendar, the 80% is easier because that decision is so easy but the 20% is the step that you used to resent doing in a lot of ways. You would be like, “Oh.”
How many of us have agreed to go to something and then you wake up the morning of the thing that you said you were going to go to and you think, “Why did I say yes to that?” It’s because it never came from the 80% to begin with. It came from whatever other reason. Suddenly, your whole day is basically ruined because you’re just dreading going. When you’re at the thing, you’re thinking, “How long until I can get out of here?”
How do you show up energetically?
You show up terrible.
No one even wants to be with you because you’re so low vibing.
Nobody wants to be anywhere near me. I do have a small group of friends where they know they can call me that morning and say, “I’m not coming,” and I’m like, “No problem,” but that’s a very small group. There’s freedom when you recognize, “The 80% that I love is great but this 20%, I can just have a feeling about it.” You’re saying, “I’m going because I want to show up for that person or I’m going because it’s important for this reason or that.”
Suddenly, you don’t resent it as much anymore but the key to what you’re saying is how do you track it and how do you, every time before you say yes, go back to the pause and pause for a minute and decide what is it that that I want to do here? I honestly think you could write another book called the 80/20 Rule and it would be another smash award-winning book.
Knowing why you said yes and when I do show up, I know why I’m there. It feels so good and then we can show off our super high energy. I think this is one of the techniques, it becomes so much easier when you’re present to be able to connect to that gratitude or even connect with nature. I’ll go out and go for a beautiful walk in my neighborhood but I normally would be like on the phone or multitasking and not truly present.
Life becomes so much easier when you are present and able to connect to that gratitude and even with nature. Share on X
I went for a beautiful walk in my neighborhood and I saw the tiniest little bunny rabbit. I was like, “Is that a bunny?” It was so small and it brought my heart such joy. Prioritizing self-care through, “I’m going to go breathe fresh air and take a walk in nature and connect to the joy and the energy of Mother Earth.” Not, “I’m going to go work out because I have to. I’m also going to do four other things while I’m working out.”
Something as simple as that. When you prioritize what brings your heart joy, you get better sleep and you show up more vibrantly. You don’t have to redo a lot of work or say you’re sorry to a bunch of people for mistakes that you’ve made along the way. It’s amazing how much more productive I am when I prioritize from the heart.
What Christin’s Average Day Looks Like
We know how you start your day by saying thank you and being in gratitude. We know how you end your day. What does a day in the life of Christin look like? Walk us through your average day and how do you follow your own practices?
That’s all the life that I want and I have built from the heart is I love variety. I am definitely not in line to fiber. I’m experiential so I love different experiences. The shift in how I’m embodying my own medicine is again the intentionality in where I’m putting my energy. I’ve gotten very comfortable with saying no. I’m not excited and proud when I have to say no but I just know-know. My days incorporate time that I’m spending on something that brings me joy but even the work that I’m doing and I’m saying yes to has to bring me joy.
I have created this life where I get to support a bunch of different organizations that have asked me to come in and assess how they’re operating, who they are, why they are, or how they’re connecting to their audience, customer, patient, or whatever the case may be. Zach, I have to tell you, and Sarah knows this from walking with me. What’s super interesting is, for the past few years, I have not gone out to seek any opportunities. They seem to show up because, energetically, that’s what’s being put out there and then I contemplate and it has to be a, “Heck yes. I want to put energy into this.”
When I do say yes, whether it’s a one hour or one relationship, I have almost five years long with an entity that I support, but each day is different. It’s balanced and makes sure that I have enough time to spend with family. If one day is stinky and there is no family time and then you know a couple days later there’s going to be a lot of family time. Prioritization is for sure.
It sounds like you’ve been able to quiet that ego with mind and live from an open hearted space and then life just unfolds. That’s the key if we can get to that place and quiet our small self, our egoic self then we can live from that place and energetically life can unfold and we can truly live out our purpose day-to-day.
She helps other people figure that out, too. That’s the bonus we all get.
It’s been a long journey and I’m a forever practitioner. As Sarah said, you don’t brush your teeth once and you’re good to go. I do get jealous when other people that I get to connect with seem to figure it out in a week. I’m like, “That’s great. You already have the concept and you’ve embraced it.” It took me five years, but showing up in life and being curious and when things are not going. I told Sarah this, I said, “It’s so funny what’s happening. I just didn’t see this coming,” and she’s laughing. She’s like, “Of course, you didn’t see it coming.”
I thought for so long that I knew and I could work and create what I felt the journey would be and I did that. Again, because my conscious mind is such a small percentage of what’s available, I was mimicking and minimizing what possibly could be happening. I realized if I got in flow with who I was and why I am and showed up with curiosity and non-judgment, then I’m going to attract things. That happened and I’ll give you a great example.
There’s an Institute in Virginia called the Monroe Institute. I had just started warming up to doing some research on them and I was like, “That’s going to be my next iteration.” I want to use their platform to help me continue my growth. Out of literally nowhere, and I do mean nowhere, a friend of mine screenshot a posting that they put on Instagram about some work they wanted done. She said to me, “That’s you.” I was like, “The Monroe Institute? They’d never hire me.”
I sent them an email with my little resume, got on an aircraft and flew somewhere. By the time I landed, they’re calling me up and they’re like, “Can you have four interviews?” I was like, “What’s happening?” Within three weeks, I ended up joining the team at Monroe. I never, in my wildest dreams, could have thought of working with Monroe. That never would have crossed my radar. That’s a cool example of something that showed up in my life completely unexpected. That is changing my trajectory.
You didn’t intentionally seek out and it just came to you.
Opposite. In the interview process, I just was authentic. This is who I am, this is my experience, and this is what I can bring you. If that’s good, then let’s do this. If not, it’s okay. Do you know how many times you try to go get a job and you try to go get a job? There’s just so many more things that are coming in because I’m not trying.
What work are you doing there?
I am the director of transformational impact.
That sounds fun.
It’s like when Be. Love. showed up and I was like, “What does that mean?” I grew into it. I’m growing into that role so I’m helping Monroe because they’re so smart and the work that they do with sound healing and sound science. I’m helping them understand how they can connect with their customer base in a more meaningful fashion and we are having a blast.
It sounds amazing.
Thank you.
Episode Wrap-up And Closing Words
Thank you so much for the amazing work that you’ve done to go through this own process yourself and be willing to share that with the world and the amazing difference that you’re making in so many lives. It’s such a gift to have you here and have this conversation and have Sarah. Both two amazing people. I’m excited for our readers to read this. It’s such a gift, honor, and a privilege to be with you.
I would like to thank you. I love the work that you’re doing. I love the audience that you attract. These are folks who are curious and to be fully alive. What is my point? What am I going after? What am I putting my energy, my focus, and my attention into? How is that affecting my health, my happiness, and my relationships?
You have this variety of folks who come in and talk about that. I applaud and appreciate you holding space for that but I also applaud and appreciate your readers because they’re curious about it. I don’t want to just exist and crank out the paycheck or the next chapter of my life and check the box. I want to be fully alive and that’s very different than just unfocused, unprioritized, and ego-driven life. Thank you.
Strive to be fully alive rather than living an unfocused, unprioritized, and ego-driven life. Share on X
Thank you so much for being here. This has been fun.
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What a powerful conversation. A huge thank you to Christin Collins for sharing her heart, her story, and her insights into how love, purpose, and emotional alignment can profoundly impact our health and the way we live. Also, thank you to Sarah Owen for cohosting and for being an inspiration to all of us who have the privilege of knowing you. If this episode resonated with you, I highly encourage you to pick up a copy of Christin’s award-winning book, Be. Love. You can also read her first book, Her Phoenix Rising. Both are amazing resources.
Be. Love. is more than just a read. It’s an invitation to rediscover yourself and reconnect with what truly matters in life. You can also learn more about Christin and her work by visiting her website at ChristinCollins.com and be sure to follow her on social media for daily inspiration and updates on upcoming events, retreats and talks that she’ll be giving. To the rest of you and our show community, thank you for tuning in and continuing this journey toward living fully alive. Until next time. Stay curious, stay connected and above all, be loved.
