Welcome to Crystal Row 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 Crystal Row Impact podcast. And

today we're going to be talking about life beyond burnout and

redefining success. So I'm gonna take you on a little journey with

me as I remember the biggest breakdown of

my life, to the point where I actually had

to take three weeks off work. Just completely shut

the cafe with no idea what was going

to be around the corner or what I was going to come back to. But

I just knew that I needed to take that time.

I was already past beyond. I was already past burnout

and I was completely in my. shutdown

phase. And that's exactly what I did. I

took time to process

and I just couldn't do it anymore. And for

somebody to have so much responsibility to

just completely shut off and shut down was

huge. And I knew that there would be a negative

impact. But what I didn't

realize was that I was going to create a

newfound success for myself. I was redefining success

in the way that I never knew possible. I

kind of looked at my life like I had to tick all these

boxes and I had to do all these things and I had to reach

certain heights before I was good enough,

before I could be successful, before

I could just take control of my

life and actually start living. I literally

was just in survival mode, existing. And

for those of you that operate from that place of

pure existence, you'll know what I mean when

enough is enough and when the burnout

is just around the corner. For me, when

I've reached that place, I literally just

caved. I just lay

on my couch and I just couldn't move. And

that was the point when I realized, you know what, I need to shut everything

down before there's no other option.

And so I did. I closed for three weeks.

I had no time limit. I just knew that I had to take

time for myself to rediscover where I wanted

to go with my business, if I still wanted it. And

I remember at this point in time, I just wanted to sell

the shop, sell everything that I owned and hit

the road. And I wanted to take my kids and

I just wanted to travel because I couldn't get back to

New Zealand. So in

my past, I like to run away a lot. I run

away when it gets hard and I was

so set in finding

a way through this challenging time. But my

soul just wanted to find something,

whether it was purpose or peace, I

just knew that within the

next chapter of my life, I needed to find both

purpose and peace. Over those three weeks, I

experienced a lot of numbness, a lot of

tears, and a lot of doubt,

and a lot of failure. But through that

and from that, I actually created

somebody that now looks at success

as being able to get up each day and

find the joy in the little things. to

be able to embrace my children with loving open arms.

And although that seems and sounds like something

we should do naturally for our children, I

was at a point where I couldn't embrace

them wholeheartedly. Yes, I could give them a hug and a kiss, but

my heart was so full and it was at

its most capacity of

carrying the weight and the burden of life that I

had nothing else to give. And so when

I realized that I could put that weight and

the pressure down and actually truly

redefine success as in putting

my family first. Mother Teresa says, if

you want to change the world, go home and love your family. And

for me, even now, I'm like, I

love that so much because It

starts at the home. It starts in the home. And if

we can just always remember that. Our

job is to love the ones that are close to us. And

if they feel that love and

that safety, then that's all

the success that I need in this world. The success that

I have redefined for myself doesn't lie in my bank

balance or the car that I drive or the home that I have. It

actually lies in how the ones that

I love the most feel. And as long as they

feel loved and happy and

empowered, then I know that I've done

a good job. If there's one thing that I've learned the most that

defines success for me is that it

lies in the love that I have for my family and

how they receive it and how they respond to it.

So redefining success for myself was

the moment that I realized that the love that I give

to my family is the most important.

But to be able to give the love to my family, I had to give love to

myself because we can't give from an empty cup. And

so successful me is loving myself enough

to love my family wholeheartedly, for them to

truly feel it, not by just the words, but by

the action and the energy that I give. One thing I learned about

redefining success for myself was

that I don't need to be perfect, that

I don't need to tick all the boxes, and that

success actually lies within the worth that

I have for myself. You can't give from an empty cup. So

you've got to fill your cup first, and then you can fill everybody

else's around you. Thanks for listening, whānau, and if you enjoyed this

podcast, make sure you give us a five-star review on

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