Welcome to Krystal Rowe Impact, a space dedicated to

empowering you to be the change that your bloodline has been waiting

for. Join me and together, let's inspire change. Kia

ora whanau and welcome to the Krystal Rowe Impact podcast. And

today we're going to be talking about embracing vulnerability. And

I'm going to share a story about the first time

I was vulnerable to social media through

my business. And it was back in the time where

we had this amazing global pandemic and

everything just shut down. And at the time I

was a single mom with seven kids at home trying

to start up my business. and it had only been

about eight months before this global pandemic

started to kick in and I freaked out. I

didn't know what was happening, I was ignoring all the signs until

I went to the supermarket and I couldn't buy anything

because there was nothing there and then everything was limited and

it was crazy and everything was just this like hurricane of

a of a season just unfolding within a

really short period of time. And what

happened for me and my family is that we went

into isolation, probably just like most people, and

I shut the doors to my business. And through that time,

my real estate actually said that we could go

on this like government grant where they paid 30% and

the rest of the balance, as long as I paid my outgoings, which was

like a hundred bucks for the month, we would be able to worry about that

once this global pandemic had passed and everything

would be fine. However, things shifted within

that real estate. And then a new lady came in

and she literally demanded $7,000 in seven

days. And I just freaked out.

I had no dollars to my name. I

had seven children that I had to take care of

while we were still locked up at home. And I

just had no idea what to do. And I rang one of my best friends

and I said to him, This is what they're telling

me, I'm going to lose my shop, what am I going to do?

And he literally said to me, you need to get

your face on your socials and tell

everybody what's happening. Become vulnerable, be

real and ask for help. And

I thought to myself, How the heck am

I going to do that? I cannot be seen

by the public eye. I cannot share

my failure. I can't share my debt. I

can't share where I'm at. And

maybe my pride got in the way or whatever

you want to call it. I took a moment and

I was so distraught and I thought, you know what, I need help.

So I did. I did a live and

I did a flyer that was a fundraiser.

And I said that I am just going to cook for three days straight,

show up and buy everything that you can from me

and I'm just going to continue to cook until I

can come up with this money. And the

beautiful thing of the vulnerability that

I shared and I allowed myself to be seen was

people really showed up for me. I

remember opening the doors thinking, oh my gosh, how am

I going to do this? Still anticipating the

worst. And I had

a beautiful old lady walk up to my counter and

she had an envelope on it and there was nothing written on it. And

I opened it up and it had a little card with a butterfly on

it and it said, you're doing great. And it had a hundred dollars

in it. And from there, it just carried on.

People were showing up. They were purchasing food

and, you know, they were leaving their tips or

like they were leaving their change. And before you

knew it, day two rolled in and there were just people

showing up left, right and center. And it was because

I was able to be vulnerable and say, you know what? I'm

not okay, I need help, and in order to

save the Cuzzies Cafe, I need

to show you that things aren't okay. And what that taught

me as well, in that moment, was it's okay to not

be okay. It's okay to ask for help. And

when we actually show up in our most vulnerable state,

our most authentic state, That's where

the magic happens, and that's where the growth actually takes

place. And cutting to the

chase, I did actually manage to cook

$7,000 worth of food within like two and a half days, and we raised

the money to pay the real estate, and as lovely as

she was once I paid for it, It

was just such an amazing experience. My first

experience of being truly vulnerable, not

just so much on social media, but with myself

as well, and being able to give myself permission

to be vulnerable in that situation allowed others

to as well. It actually allowed so many more

people to say, you know what, this global pandemic has

really been hard for me and I'm not OK. And

from that, the support that I received trickled

out into the community as well. And people were able to

show up for all types of people, all types

of situations and experiences. So that was a beauty that

came from my experience of embracing vulnerability and

actually being able to set that example for my children too,

to say, you know what, when you don't feel okay, it's okay to

show it. It's okay to be vulnerable in

a safe space, and it's okay to be seen, and

it's okay to be heard when we're not feeling great. And

I think that's the most important lesson that

I've learned, is that it's normal. It's

normal to feel all kinds of emotions, whether they're good or bad.

We're allowed to, if we give ourself permission to,

embrace and be consumed by

our feelings so that we can share our true authentic self.

And that's the beauty of being vulnerable, is that we get to be our true authentic self

and show that side. My biggest takeaway from being vulnerable

is that it's normal to feel, and it's normal to express, and

it's normal to be truly authentic in our

feelings, no matter what they are. So I encourage

you today to find yourself in your most vulnerable

state, share with somebody that's close to you, and just

embrace being vulnerable. Feel the power,

feel the empowerment of becoming vulnerable with

yourself and with others. So it's so beautiful when we actually

give ourselves permission to embrace the vulnerability

that we can feel sometimes. Sometimes we want to shy away

from it, from social or cultural limiting beliefs. The

don't say that, don't do that, don't look this way. But

when we actually give ourselves permission to

be our true authentic self, it's operating

from the most vulnerable space, and that's where the

magic really happens, where the growth happens. When we

start to show our true self and be vulnerable in

the presence of others, we actually inspire

others to do the same. We're actually giving others

the permission to become vulnerable. We're giving

others the permission to feel and

we're actually changing the trajectory of

society and allowing it to be okay to

not be okay. We're allowing feelings to

be normal and vulnerability to be accepted. Thank

you so much for listening to the Krystal Road Impact podcast.

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