Episode Transcript
Think meditation is hard? Do me a favor, take a slow deep breath in and now breathe out. Congratulations, you just meditated. Hi, I’m Krystal Jakosky, and this is Breathe In, Breathe Out: a Weekly Mindfulness and Meditation podcast for anyone ready to own their own shit and find a little peace while doing it.
Krystal Jakosky: Hello and welcome back to Breathe In, Breathe Out. I'm Krystal Jakosky. And as always, I am absolutely thrilled that you chose this moment today and that you are here with me, just taking a time out and breathing in what life has to offer you in this moment. Today I get to speak with Raychel Perman. She is a certified life and leadership coach, speaker, bestselling author, podcast co-host, and co-founder of Rayma Team. She shares her story of overcoming trauma and living with a mental health challenge and chronic pain to inspire others that are broken. This does not disqualify you from living and leading. Well, it actually prepares you, so hello and welcome. How are you today, Raychel?
Raychel Perman: I'm great. Thanks for having me. I'm doing well. I was telling you that we're in day four of a blizzard here in the Midwest. And so I'm ready to get my own shovel and get myself out of here because our roads haven't gotten plowed yet and I'm becoming a desperate woman. I just have to get out of this house. But other than that, I'm doing great.
Krystal Jakosky: Right. Oh, the contrast in our world, I'm enjoying 60-degree weather. So I just want to send that heat up to you and have it melt everything so that you can get out and enjoy a little bit more than what you're able to right now. Oh my gosh. So Raychel, tell me a little bit about yourself and your past and what brought you to be a leadership coach and just you.
Raychel Perman: Okay. If you ask my friends, they always tell you that I am funny and wise, but I also tell it like it is, and I am Midwest born and raised. I make my home in North Dakota with my husband and three great kids. We do have two fur babies who are really enjoying the snow. We are a blended family, so sometimes our house is really full, and then sometimes it's just me and my husband and the dogs, and I am obsessed with plants. So I'm really excited for the snow to leave because I was getting ready to plant. I have an obsession with the British Royal family and cute coffee mugs and I like to rock the boat. And so yes, I am an Amazon bestselling author, public speaker podcast, and host. I have a lot of different titles that I use and the entrepreneur bug actually hit me when I was 19.
That is when I technically became a beauty school dropout and I did that at 19. What I decided to do instead was to move to the big city of Minneapolis. I went to the beta Institute and actually finished just so I am a licensed aesthetician going on 20 years. That's when the entrepreneurial bug kind of hit me because working in the beauty industry, I didn't realize how much of that entrepreneurial spirit you were going to need to have. I created a sugar scrub company when I was 20 years old and still have it. I still have some clients that are asking me to never stop making it. You can't find it anywhere unless you know me. So that's kind of how the whole thing started.
I graduated in 2012 from college and decided I didn't want to stay in the beauty industry forever. So I went back to school and that's when I got into more of the traditional side of counseling. While I was getting my counseling degree, the school I was going to combine with one of the first coaching certification programs. So while I was getting my degree, I was also able to take classes at the same time to get my coaching certification, which I thought was great. So that's kind of where the career shifted. But honestly, I think while I was in the beauty industry and working in spas, there's something about getting somebody in a dark room on a table and its environment relaxed and they start talking to you and they start sharing their story. I think I really started practicing my counseling skills all the way back then.
So when I graduated, I thought II was going to go more to the traditional route and get my master's degree. At the time I was a board-certified biblical counselor in 2013 and I was helping a local church do counseling, but it was kind of more of a liaison between the staff and the pastor. Pastors don't get a ton of counseling training. So I was able to provide that. It was there that my best friend and I decided that we wanted to break out and do our own thing. She was a health coach at the time and I was really enjoying the coaching side as I started to transition into that even back then. So in 2014 my best friend and I co-founded our first company together, it was called Big Blue Couch Coaching. Then in 2019, we rebranded to Rayma Team so that we could position ourselves a little bit better in the lead leadership coaching space instead of the life and faith only coaching space. That's kind of how I got here. That's how I got multiple titles. We started the podcast show that we actually started as a local radio show. That's how that one started and now that's how I got most of my titles. So that brings me to today.
Krystal Jakosky: So a woman of many trades, right? But it's all those life experiences that bring us here. And, you know, we keep learning and growing. I think that all of those things that we've learned in the past we keep in our bucket and we're going to use that tool. And some of them we don't need. Here's a new one and it's shiny and it's exciting. And we keep growing because we love. I'm like you. I love learning. I love growing. I'm a sponge and I take it all in and then people just magically say, Hey, can you help me out with this? And yeah, sure. I gotcha. How about we work on this, let's work on that. And, I'm trained in massage therapy as well as Thai massage. There is this thing where people start to relax and they're on your table or they're on your mat. And they're just like, Ugh, that spot that you just released also released a whole bunch of emotion that they had been holding in about whatever this is over there. And they just have to talk about it to continue and complete that release. You do become a sort of sounding board and unintentionally a counselor. You don't try to counsel them at that moment.
Raychel Perman: It definitely happens, and I think in industries like that, but they're a hairstylist or it's somebody that's working in the spa industry, you become a trusted source for people. As I said, it was just kind of a training ground for what I did here at first, it used to be a funny joke that I was a beauty school dropout. Because I stopped cosmetology. That's what I did first. And I realized that I did not like that. I have a depth perception problem with my eyes and you can imagine how well that goes with cutting hair. I didn't really know that until I got there and everything that looked straight was not. So I would not have worked out well as a hairstylist.
At first, it used to feel like such a huge failure because you had this one career and then you completely pivoted. But I think that's definitely one of the things in my past or my career past that has helped me to this day. There are other things that haven't. but that was really a training ground for me to learn how to communicate with people how to build that trust how to make people comfortable. People get really nervous when they come in the first time to a spa or to a coach and that's just kind of helping, it helped me a lot. With my people skills, definitely with selling all of that. So I'm proud of it now.
Krystal Jakosky: Yeah. It's creating you. You learned how to create that safe space for people to just come in and be able to do whatever work they needed to do. So congratulations and good job and I'm really, yeah. Woo, woo. Hats off to you. So you've been through a lot of transitions in life from just every different change to every different, new learning experience. So do you have tips on like how to transition? Have you got a little, you just know that this is a really fabulous way for people to recognize transition and what they're going through.
Raychel Perman: The first thing I always tell people when we talk about transition, and people can use a lot of different words for transitions in their life and it could be a good transition like starting a new job, maybe new to a new city, a baby is born, you're getting married or it can be a rough transition, like a divorce or you lost a job or the last few years, there's just a lot of loss that has nothing to do with death necessarily, but just change in general. One of the things that I have most definitely learned, and the first thing that I talk about when people ask me, is that we really do have to remember that we have choices. First of all, when this starts happening and the most important choice is to go through the process.
We can go through it kicking and screaming. We can go through it with eyes that are willing to see the beauty in change and in transition. But I think that first choice really determines how this season of your life is going to play out. I know there are definitely times where change happens or transitions happen that are negative or trauma-inducing or anything like that. Like you didn't ask for this, you don't want to go through it, and deciding to go through it is the last thing you want to do, but it really is a powerful choice. It puts the power back in the driver's seat where you should be. And even just that one choice of knowing, Hey, I get to choose how I'm going to see this, how I'm going to behave, what my thoughts are going to be like, what my attitude is going to be like.
That gives a lot of power, especially when there's so much unknown when we're going through a transition. So that's the first thing I would say is to be willing to go through the transition as graciously as you can. And that does not mean you don't get to kick and scream a little while you certainly get to be upset. When one of those transitions is hard, there's going be grief with that. There's grief with that. So the choice, I think, is the most important thing, knowing you have it and then being willing to make it so that you can actually learn what you need to, as you go through that transition.
Krystal Jakosky: Nice. I absolutely love that. I love the idea that it's almost like setting an intention for that transition. It's saying, okay, I'm here. This is going to happen. Do I want to be drug kicking and screaming and fighting the whole way? Or do I want to say, okay, how is this going to benefit me? How can I work through it? How can I be a little bit more gracious as I do it? And you're right. I absolutely experience that kicking and screaming experience, that upset and frustration because if you don't guys, it's just going to grow and be even more frustrating.
Raychel Perman: It's so true. Yeah. Yep.
Krystal Jakosky: Well, I love that. So did you do that in the beginning when you were going through all these transitions or did you have to learn that?
Raychel Perman: I grew up with parents that moved a lot. I don't even remember what the final number was, but at one point I counted, I think I was 25 or 26 right before my first daughter was born and I had moved 30 times in my lifetime. So I think in some ways I was born into this message of learning how to give this message, whether I wanted it or not on how to transition during change, it is actually very bizarre for me to not be moving and changing. That's actually something I've had to work on with the therapist, because it is normal and was hard for me, like learning how to stay in one spot, learning how to not move, just because I don't like this house anymore. It was crazy.
How many mindsets were brought into my life that was negative and unhealthy? So I think in some ways I was definitely groomed, you could maybe say into being able to change a lot, it does help that certain things you don't get attached to and you kind of expect change to come when it's happened a lot in your life compared to somebody that's maybe an adult by the time they have a big transition in their life. But like I said, in other ways, I think it was kind of forced upon me and I never really knew life without change. It created a lot of negativity in my own brain as well. And I think I did a lot of kicking and screaming. Especially when I became an adult and it felt like I had no choices or I was told this is what we were doing or where we were going or the change that was happening.
I think the first time that I actually took that power back and decided that you know what this is what's going to happen. I'm going to walk through it this time with some grace and figure out what I need to do is actually when I filed for divorce in 2017. Up until that point, every change in my life, every transition in my life had kind of been dictated by him and the alcoholism that he dealt with. So I think for me, that's kind of where that started to switch from change is being forced upon me to change can be a beautiful thing if I am willing to walk through it, if I am willing to look at it differently, if I'm willing to take the hard along with the good and that that's. I think that is where it really started to switch in my brain. I had to walk it out though, for sure.
Krystal Jakosky: Very similar stories actually, because I moved a lot when I was a kid as well. So I learned very early about the impermanence of absolutely everything, which meant that you just kind of were forced to go with the flow. You were forced to accept the next thing. And it wasn't until I was married and had two kids and then that gypsy aspect of life I've got to move. I hate this place. I’ve got to move. It was three years of being in one spot and then I thought I can't do this anymore. I have to move. I recognized it at that point and I was like, wait a minute. That's from my childhood from moving so often back then. And I don't have to bring that into my life now. Crazy transitions. And yet it also taught me that you don't cling to anything at all. As you said, you don't get really attached. So I often just didn't expect anything exciting to happen or follow through because there was never any guarantee that it was going to happen.
Raychel Perman: As you said gypsy life sucks. I've never thought about it that way, but it totally was. And like the idea of putting roots down and all of that was so foreign to me and my second husband, like my husband right now, he lived in two houses his entire lifetime. Moving in together was his third move. It's just such an opposite way of living from the gypsy lifestyle that you and I grew up in. I can almost go back to where I grew up. I don't even know which house to tell you I grew up in. I kind of have a town I've narrowed it down to, I grew up in the Midwest.
The easiest way to explain it is I grew up in the Midwest. We were all over, but Midwest has been home. So yeah, I get that. It's a lot when it's just forced upon you first because you don't have choices as a kid. And then noticing when that mindset starts coming in and you're like just bored. I don't have to move. I don't actually have to pick up and move every two years or every year or anything like that. This is okay. You can stay in one house and build a home and create expectations. That was weird.
Even planting grass. All of it was just such a big thing for me. When I filed for a divorce, I moved out of the house that my first husband and I had built with our kids and moved into an apartment. I thought I was never coming back. About one year after moving into the apartment, this house would not sell. It would not sell for anything. We had so many people going through it. We had neighbors' houses but selling this house would not sell. What is going on? I am a person of faith. And I know that it was God who was talking to me audibly. And he was saying, I want you to offer some money to your ex-husband to buy him out of the house.
It was like such a low amount. He said I want you to move back. I told him I'm not moving back. That's a house where a lot of bad things happened. I can't live there. I slept on it and I heard it again. I'm saying, okay, but I offered the deal. And I said, here's what I can give you. What do you think? And he said, sure, I'll take it. So I bought the house back kicking and screaming. This was one of those transitions where I didn't want to live in this house. It's been four years now. I've lived in this house longer than I've lived anywhere in my life because it was three years before the divorce that we built the house.
So I've never lived anywhere this long. And knowing when those trauma responses come up I want to move. Right now it comes to I want to rearrange the furniture. That's how I've channeled it. I've started planting things outside, getting outside, and putting things in the yard feels permanent to me, even though I know it's not, but perennials. They feel permanent. That's part of my healing process, putting actual legit roots down in the ground. They're like, it's okay. You can stay here and grow where you're planted here. It's definitely a learning process.
Krystal Jakosky: I love the absolute literal symbolism that you have thereof, I am intentionally putting roots down. I am intentionally saying, no, no, no, no. Here's a flower. Here's a plant that is going to come back every single year. And I am going to be here to see it. It's that conscious awareness. It's that intention saying No, no, no. I see it. I'm going to work with it. I'm going to move forward. I call Colorado home because I have lived in Colorado for 22 years now, but I've lived in four different homes since moving to Colorado. So I'm here at this one and I keep saying, I am going to die here. This is it. I'm not moving again. I'm absolutely done. So I'm like you, I've been planting and I've been building and I've been creating in this space and making it feel even more like home. This is it I'm done. This is my happy place. I'm going to create something where I'm excited to be here for much longer and thrive. Right?
Raychel Perman: Yep. I was shocked. It happens slowly. I don't think it happens overnight. With these kinds of transitions where all of a sudden the home did kind of go from the house that I was going to raise the kids in because that's what they needed. I can't pinpoint when that happened, but it definitely did. And it definitely created a different atmosphere in the home. It created. There were friends and family that have come into the house. It's just so different. It just feels different. There's nothing really different. The paint is different. There's some new furniture, but there was no major change. We didn't tear down any walls or anything like that. It really is the same house.
And I'm proud of that transition. I think of the hardest ones I've ever gone through, but I think that's one that I'm most proud of too. The one where it is kind of kicking and screaming. There was a lot of grief coming back here and I had to deal with it. There is that saying of you can't heal in the same place that you were hurt. I could not wrap my brain around the idea that I could process and heal, and my kids could heal in this same place where a lot of hurt happened. I think it's just been a miracle to watch it actually play out because I was convinced that this was not what was good for the kids. I was not sure that this was going to be what was good and best for me. It really has turned into my safe space instead of the place I always wanted to leave.
Krystal Jakosky: Yeah. I really commend you for that because I think, and I would hope I could be absolutely wrong, but my impression would be that healing in that space that caused so much turmoil and upset means that you're even stronger and more grounded and more rooted because you faced it head-on. You faced it in that spot. Getting out of it sometimes can be like running away. Not always, absolutely not always. Sometimes it can be like running away and saying, I'm not going to do that. And other times choosing to stand in that and choosing to heal and face it is inspirational. I would guess that it makes you stronger, that healing, and more solid in your growth. So I commend you for choosing to follow that action.
Raychel Perman: I read "Eat, Pray, Love" about that time. It was so old already by then, by Elizabeth Gilbert. I joked that I was doing eat pray, love Midwest edition, where you don't get to live. Like you don't get to go to Italy and Bali and find yourself for a year. I was in a dumpy apartment trying to make ends meet, putting groceries on credit cards, and then moving back to the place that I never wanted to be in again. I thought this was "Eat, Pray, Love."
Krystal Jakosky: Exactly. But the mosquitoes still exist here and they eat you alive. Here you go.
Raychel Perman: Always be that glamorous. I think that year away in the apartment was actually really a good transition for both me and the kids at the time, just to get some healing outside of the space. It's definitely been the one that I was kicking and screaming the most. I think when it came to the actual divorce, I was ready. I had been ready. It was time, it was way past time for us to call an end to that situation. For him to go could help all of these things. So that it is easier to move back into the house. That was much more difficult than actually deciding to file for the divorce.
Krystal Jakosky: Yeah. Wow. Hats off to you.
Raychel Perman: I don't recommend it for everybody. It's just, that's what happened with me.
Krystal Jakosky: Yeah. So you've got stress management. You've been just dealing with life. You've been through all of these ridiculous transitions. Ridiculous is the wrong word. I totally apologize. It's ridiculous in the bigness of them.
Raychel Perman: The amount is ridiculous.
Krystal Jakosky: Some by choice and some not by choice and let's face it. Most of them were by choice. Most of all of our transitions are by choice in one way or another, even a no choice is a choice. You have developed along with your partner. We talked about your podcast that you started as a radio show, but the two of you, was it the two of you that started this Art of the P.A.U.S.E.?
Raychel Perman: Yes. So it actually was something that my best friend Mandy was born with, cystic fibrosis. So when we started the company, my health journey to why I have chronic pain and all that I hadn't even started then. So Art of the P.A.U.S.E. really came out of her learning how to, um, you know, make sure that she had the energy that she needed to actually live the life that she wanted. It was just a way that she developed. Then we started sharing with our clients and over the last decade have just honed it down into this really good stress management tool that we've brought into schools, we've brought it into companies. We use it, of course, one on one with our own clients. What we really noticed is that it was a way for people that had invisible illnesses or chronic diseases or things that you don't look like you're sick on the outside and you're still well enough to actually do things: work and all of that kind of thing.
How do you do that? Like, how do you make sure that when there are seasons of sickness or seasons where health needs to be the priority, how do you not let all the other things fall? What happens if they do? It really started as her leaning into this process of growing and, building her dreams while managing this illness. Then I started to have some more health challenges show up. Of course, during a lot of this transition, especially in the last 10 years, it's become a lifestyle more than anything. It's the Art of the P.A.U.S.E. is a way to really manage stress because there's no way we can get rid of it. There are stressors literally every single day, big stressors and little ones. Just pretending like it's not there is not good.
It was one of the things that we definitely saw clients do quite a bit. They were starting to get burned out. They were starting to have health challenges. They were starting to have all kinds of things, and this was way before the pandemic even started. Since all of that, it's become one of the capstone trainings that we do. Lifestyle for Mandy and me now. It's definitely one that I love to share with clients and speaking on stage and anything else where I can share it.
Krystal Jakosky: So do you want to share what exactly that is with us?
Raychel Perman: Our P.A.U.S.E. is actually the P.A.U.S.E. an acronym. As I said, it really is a stress management tool and it's a lifetime tool. So it's not a one-time thing. There's deep breathing and meditation and all of that kind of great stuff for when you're feeling very stressed at the moment. So the P stands for pay attention to your emotions. One of the things that I have really noticed over the years, not only with myself, but with my clients is that women have a really hard time knowing what emotions they're feeling and, we could buddy trail to a whole different topic of why that is based on society, based on what we've been told from our families of origin. Based on this idea we always have to be nice and sweet and calm and all of these adjectives don't always describe us all the time.
We don't know what to do with feeling angry. We don't know what to do with feeling frustrated or we don't even know what stress feels like in our own bodies because it's different for everyone. So that P and it's in order on purpose. So it's an acronym, but it is in order because learning how to pay attention to your own emotions, knowing what kind of emotions are going to trigger a spiral into who knows what even sometimes paying attention to whether are you upset because you have literally not eaten for eight hours. And that piece alone, that empowering piece of teaching people how to pay attention to their emotions first has been super life-giving for me. It's something I totally have to work on. I think when you've gone through trauma, you don't know what your emotions are like. You know you're feeling something, but you're not sure what it is.
It's hard to even put a name to it. That's the first step, paying attention to your emotions is how you're going to know that your body is feeling stressed before it needs to be dealt with. You do then have the health problems or all the things that we see from all the studies. How stress affects our heart and our brain. It affects literally everything. So learning how to see it and feel it and what it sounds like in our own bodies, whether sweaty palms or you get shaky or all kinds of things, heart palpitations. What does it feel like before your body goes into overdrive of stress?
Krystal Jakosky: I'm here with bated breath because paying attention is absolutely something that I talk to people about all the time. The way that you are able to manage anything that you have going on is that you are paying attention, that you recognize that you're checking in. I talk about the four bodies, spiritual, mental, physical, and emotional. If you check in with all of those and say, Hey, where am I at really? What do I need? How do I fix that? Paying it all starts with you because nobody else knows what you're going through, especially when we are trained to hide our emotions. So, absolutely.
Raychel Perman: We get so good at it. And you know, one of the things that we definitely try to make stress feel like is that you're not alone. So we use a lot of things from, there's actually an American Institute of stress. We're so stressed that there's an American Institute that just studies stress and the top four things that people will feel like the physical symptoms are fatigue headache, upset stomach, and muscle tension. Those are going to be the four things that are most common for people to feel. Other things can be teeth grinding. Sometimes they can be a change in appetite. Then psychologically, it's that irritability. 50% of the people that they've studied for however long that they've had this Institute, irritability and anger are the number one psychological symptoms of stress and too much stress in your body. So we have to deal with it.
Krystal Jakosky: I know, I know. I think sometimes when I'm too stressed, I start to get foggy. I can't remember stuff. Then I know I need to take a break so that I can refocus because there's a problem here.
Raychel Perman: Which leads beautifully into a time to rest. One of the things that Mandy and I have taught our clients is the importance of a rest day. Now, most people think a rest day is going to be sleeping all day. don't have time to nap all day. What we've learned over the last decade is rest can look like sleep, but it can also look like having fun. It can look like filling up your tank in any way that you can. So some people don't sleep, but some people could use a nap once in a while, or we challenge our clients to take a 24-hour rest day, every single week.
It sounds impossible. And most of them don't like to do it. There have been seasons where I can do, then there's been seasons where I can rest two to three hours. So it's more about the importance of blocking out time to rest when you're not working on your business. You're not working on the home. You are simply just being. You're either enjoying an activity, not like being outside in the garden or planting a flat, (that can sometimes count as rest) if it's filling for you if you love to do it. So it's definitely something that is unique for every person, but sleep is so important. If you are seeing those signs of stress, sleep is one of the best ways because it's the time when the body is going to relax and repair itself and do some of the work it needs to do.
It can only do when you're sleeping. I'm a huge fan of naps. That is literally how I have survived. When I started having chronic pain, when I started having more of the symptoms show up for some of the mental health stuff, when I got diagnosed with PTSD and depression, sleep has been one of my favorite coping skills and I don't sleep the day away. That is not healthy. When you have depression, that's a sign that you probably should talk to a doctor, but taking a nap has been really important. And it is one of the things that we teach. So allow time to rest.
Krystal Jakosky: I have a t-shirt that says a nap team captain.
Raychel Perman: I love it.
Krystal Jakosky: I absolutely love naps. I think they're beyond fantastic. And with my work colleagues, I will literally say can you have a meeting in five minutes? And I say, no, I need 15 because I need a nap and then I can go do that. So I absolutely love naps and the ironic thing is that the length of my nap lets me know how much I've been pushing.
Raychel Perman: Woo, that's good.
Krystal Jakosky: Yeah. Normally my naps are 10 to 15 minutes and then I wake up and I am just ready to go, go, go. Totally rejuvenated and able to function. If my nap is 20, 30, 40 minutes long, I know that I've been pushing too hard and I need to do a little bit of extra self-care so that I can reboot because keeping that up is just going to make my tank and it's not going to serve anybody at all.
Raychel Perman: That's such a great point. I love that. Yeah.
Krystal Jakosky: And I love to allow time to rest. I tell all of my people, whether it be my podcast listeners or the people who are following me elsewhere, like Instagram and whatnot, that self-care is what brings you joy. It doesn't mean you have to rest. It doesn't mean you have to sleep. It's what brings you joy. What brings you absolutely 100% present at this moment. And a lot of people don't even know what that is, to begin with. They don’t know, I don't do anything. I say that's bullshit. No, no, no, no. I want you to go home and I want you to make a list of all the things that you really enjoy. It might be standing wood, it might be chopping vegetables. It might be just walking barefoot in the grass, whatever it is that works for you. Forget everybody else's judgment. If it works for you and makes you happy, let's start putting an intention behind that, and then it's going to be rest. Then it's going to be healing and rejuvenating. You're going to feel absolutely fantastic. So first off recognize that there's an issue. Second off, give yourself a break.
Raychel Perman: Right? Exactly. All right. So the U in P.A.U.S.E. is to utilize stolen moments. So what we realized over the years is that sometimes there are going to be seasons where you can't do a full day of rest or you can't do a full day of finding joy and having fun. But utilizing a stolen moment. So a stole moment is going to be anything from riding, driving in your car, commuting to standing and, even waiting for the doctor to anything where you're just kind of waiting. There's just this pause in your day where you might be doing something with your hands, but your brain is not actively doing anything or working. And one of the things that we tell people is when these moments come up, you utilize them for those moments of joy, for those moments that make you happy or relieve stress.
So that can be anything from listening to a podcast while you are driving. Or, some people really do enjoy music, but other people kind of tune it out. They're not even listening to it. So it's a way to kind of activate your brain. So you are utilizing that moment and not letting it just go away. I am a big fan of podcasts and I think the only way that I ever get all of them in, during the week is because I do listen to them when I'm driving. I'm also a big fan of audiobooks, especially when my kids are in the car, it's a great way to stop the fighting sometimes in the vehicle, but also they're just this little sponge in the back of the vehicle, listening to great books.
They are listening to podcasts. They're just absorbing everything in and around me. And so I do really take this one seriously and make sure that I have music that calms me. I have apps on my phone that if I'm feeling anxious, I can put my earbuds in and listen to brainwave-type music and all of that kind of stuff. It's definitely things that I've noticed over the last 10 years that my kids now do much more naturally, they understand the importance of rest. And, you know, if mom is napping or, anything like that, They have grown up with this idea of even though we don't nap anymore, it's important to rest. It's important to pause. It's important to feed your mind with truth and feed your mind with joy and feed your mind with happiness in those moments where you could just sit and slump for a while or you could actually help yourself to feel better. And a lot of that stuff does relieve your stress. Just sitting in the car sometimes listening to music, as I said for me. So for me, it just becomes another stolen moment. But that's what you mean to utilize those moments in your life that could be stolen from you, but it could even be cooking. It could be anything where your hands are busy, but your brain is kind willing, and ready to absorb information.
Krystal Jakosky: I absolutely love that. I love that you listen to books and stuff in the car that the kid too. I was just talking about this concept with another friend and I said we could teach kids compassion and understanding if we start much younger and say, mom needs a break, or dad needs a break. So we're literally teaching them that self-care is really important. Emotions are absolutely valid and it's okay to speak up and say, this is where I'm at, which completely changes the dialogue from what we used to have to a new, more aware, compassionate way of being. I absolutely love that. In fact, I used to suffer from migraines a lot. I mean, I would have five migraines in nine days. I would be laid flat and totally taken out of the game.
And, the day I was late for my kids' school to pick them up and they were in kindergarten and first grade. When I woke up, when I got there, I was so apologetic. I'm so sorry guys. My son looked at me and he said, it's okay. I figured you just had another migraine and you were napping. Don't worry about it, mom, you can take care of yourself. With that compassion right there I knew I would be a mom because my son understands that compassion. Absolutely beautiful. I love where you're going with that and how you're pulling that out.
Raychel Perman: Yes, I'm trying to. Every generation has a chance to do it differently. I started having nerve pain and all kinds of crazy symptoms about three years ago. Still to this day, there's not an official diagnosis. What I have is peripheral neuropathy, but usually, that's a secondary, something to do with diabetes or something to do with cancer treatment, honestly, it can just happen as you get older, but I'm not old enough to have nerve pain like that. The way that my kids are so compassionate about the days where the pain is above what my coping skills can handle, what the medication I need to be on for pain relief can handle, how much they understand that now, and how it doesn't happen nearly as often as it used to. We've got a better hold on some of the pain management.
Watching them kind of just understand this because they had seen it modeled. It was really a cool moment for me as a mom. I did have some mom guilt for sure when I couldn’t get to the games. I couldn't get to what I needed to. There was a good year when I couldn't walk very well. We had to have conversations about do we need to put a lift on our stairs? I mean, it got a little scary for a while there. I definitely had to deal with the guilt of some of that, but those kids have turned out to be so compassionate and understanding of their own emotions and rest and, taking these moments when mom is available and feeling good and not wasting those. So those have kind of become utilizing stolen moments for me has definitely become when my kids are home, because now that I share them all of a sudden, my time with them is in half.
That really makes you think differently about the time that you have with them and how what you are doing during that time. So utilized still in moments has definitely been one that has evolved over the years for me, but I think it's one of my favorites. Once you get past that kind pay attention to your emotions and allow your time to rest and then you can start saying, okay, what is it that I actually like to do, want to do? How can I feel in those moments of joy?
Krystal Jakosky: Yeah. One of my favorites, I love to connect with family and friends and I want to do that on the phone, but I often don't have time when I'm at home because when I'm at home, everybody else is checking in. So if I'm in the car and I know I'm going to be in the car for 20 or 30 minutes, I'll call somebody, Hey, I'm in the car. I just want to check in with you, what's going on? How can we chat? How can we connect?
Raychel Perman: That is a great way to utilize this stole moment. I love it. Right?
Krystal Jakosky: Because then I feel great because I finally got to connect with them and, we were able to really support each other in whatever was going on. That is the stolen moment that I absolutely love to take advantage of on occasion. So yeah, stolen moments. Love it.
Raychel Perman: Okay. That's awesome. We always have these great ones that come from the audiences where we can get a great idea. We share them when we get new ones with another audience. So I'm going to put that one in there. It's a great idea. So the S for P.A.U.S.E. is to say no, and usually what we're coming down to is the person who's over-committed in their schedule or the person who is the people pleaser. The person who just really has a hard time putting out those boundaries. Even sometimes when our entrepreneurs come in and they don't even have work hours set up, if they're working from home or they have a designated office space, as sometimes it's not always saying no to a commitment that you made that you might need to, but it might be saying no, just to say this is my boundary.
Raychel Perman: This is where my boundary ends, and this is where yours begins, and learning how to do that is definitely a part of this learning. How to pause and release stress. Because we take on way more stress than we need to, we take on other people's stress when we don't know how to say no in the appropriate space and in the appropriate way. Sometimes it can be literally as simple as we give them a script of how to get out of something that somebody's asked them to do, especially the things that I think we struggle with the most are a good thing. Like it's something we really want to do. There is no time in our schedule for it. It's going to be much more of a commitment than we want it to be, but it's like that struggle between good and great.
Raychel Perman: That's where I see most women struggle. It's easier to say no to something you really don't want to do. Especially if you've done some of the personal growth and you're not as much of a people pleaser, as you might have been in the past, it's easier for you to say no, that's just not going to work for me. But it's really learning that skill of how to say no to the good so that you have time for the great and figuring out priorities can be a part of that too.
Krystal Jakosky: Yeah. I think people forget, or maybe it's just not out there saying no is actually saying yes to you.
Raychel Perman: Yeah. It is definitely saying yes, something that is probably better. That is hard to do. Especially the younger we are the harder this is. I think it definitely gets easier as we age because we have some experience of knowing what it's like to say no to the good. When you have some experience you can look back on, it makes it easier every time you have to say no. Sometimes when we were presenting this, I wonder if I have everything? It's been a really long time since there's been something that I have to say no to. I've gotten good at it over the years and I think it's just practice. A lot of this stuff just comes down to just practicing it every day, every moment that you have an opportunity to just check in, and what am I feeling right now?
What is my body feeling? What am I thinking? Right our lack of self-awareness can really cause a lot of problems when it comes to stress and releasing stress and transitions all of that stuff, I think. And, and you're going through transitions. This is one of the most important tools that I use in checking in with myself, making sure that I have rest utilizing those moments when I am by myself to do the healing that I need to do, and saying no to the things that are not serving me right now. The E in P.A.U.S.E. is really the thing that gives the clincher. That's embracing the truth that you're worth it. And it's the truth that you are worth taking care of yourself, that you are worth taking up space in this world that you are worth being in.
Just the simple act of taking care of your health, taking care of your mind and your soul. That's definitely the thing I think many, many women struggle with is this idea that they're worth the time that it takes. I mean, a 24-hour rest day can feel like the worst feeling for some women because they just simply can't wrap their brains around the idea yet that they're worth 24 hours of joy. They are worth 24 hours of rest, 24 hours where they're not working or consuming or doing anything like that. So it takes a while. Definitely, as I said, this is a lifestyle. This is not an overnight thing. Embracing that truth, that you're worth it. And I remember it was probably maybe a month or two after I had filed for divorce.
I went to my regular doctor. It was for my yearly exam or whatever. It had been a while since I had been in. I wasn't doing great. It was only a few months after the divorce, I was losing a lot of weight. I was under an enormous amount of stress and all that. I remember as she was talking to me, her voice kind of lowered. I was concerned. She did about 80 tests. I'm sure that didn't come out great. And she said I want you to promise me from this point forward that you're going to take care of yourself first. Nobody had ever really said that to me at a moment when I was really learning that skill.
Seeing it come to play in real life and not making decisions based on what somebody else was going to do or how somebody else was going to react. That's just kind of floated in the back of my head ever since. When I started going through a lot of the medical stuff, and when you have a medical condition come up, that nobody knows what is. You are all over the place to all kinds of different doctors, your poked and prodded and everything comes back that you know all the blood tests you're healthy and everything is fantastic. And you're clearly not, I can't even walk up my own stairs. But I did have a doctor that I just loved. At one point he just looked at me and said, you know, you don't have to live like this life can be better.
All you have to do is be willing to ask for help. And the help at that point was getting on the depression meant that I needed to get on. Like I had been fighting that tooth and nail to not have to be on it. It's just those moments that you can lean back on and just kind of be like, you know what? I am worth taking care of my health. I am worth taking care of me when it comes to my mental and my emotional stability. And that's what this whole Art of the P.A.U.S.E. is about because the beautiful thing about it is you don't have to embrace the truth, the truth that you're worth it first before you can get started, it kind of naturally builds along with it. So it's not like you have to just jump into this thing of all of these counseling sessions or journal sessions to embrace the truth that you're worth it. You honestly get started with P and all of a sudden over, you know, not all of a sudden over time. You start to see the worth, you start to see the value in what it is that you're doing and it's not so hard anymore to see that you are worth taking care of that your health and your life matter and it's worth taking care of.
Krystal Jakosky: Okay. I love that. I tell people little steps, just take a little step, a tiny step. What tiny step can you take right now towards where you want to be, and then take another tiny step. Then take another tiny step. Whether that's on your one year, five years, 10-year goals, whatever that is just a tiny step. And that's what P.A.U.S.E. is doing. Take a tiny step and just pay attention right now. Just pay attention. Maybe keep a journal, maybe write down what you're going through and keep track of your emotions during the day, whatever it is, just start paying attention and then allow yourself to recognize that this is your problem. Now I'm going to say, it's okay, I'm going to rest. And whether it's physical rest, mental rest, emotional rest, whatever area you decide, I'm going to rest in this and you can work up to a 24-hour period. You don't have to do it all at once.
Raychel Perman: They're great when you can have them. But we also know the reality of life and it's not always that easy to do, but it's fantastic when you can.
Krystal Jakosky: You might start with five minutes. You say this is my five minutes and then, you know, a week later it's 10 minutes, you can build up to that. Then utilizing the stolen moments is so fantastic and so easy. It's just another one of those little steps. I love how the whole thing just builds on each other and then says no, which is saying yes. And just recognizing whether or not you really want to do that. I have a friend who is so like, hi, everything's great. And I'm like, yes, everything's great. Then she's like, will you help me with this. Because she's all excited, I think, yes, I'll do it. Then later, oh shit, I don't necessarily want to do that.
Raychel Perman: I do that.
Krystal Jakosky: Right. So I've learned with her.
Raychel Perman: And they're like, no, I don't want to do this.
Krystal Jakosky: In that moment, in that energy with her, you say yes, it sounds like so much fun because you're riding the wave with your friend, and then later you say, what the hell did I just agree to? That is so far outside my comfort zone. So I am with her. I've learned how to say, let me check into it and I'll call you back, or let me check into it and I'll get back to you. It's worked because she's like, okay, great. Just let me know if you're into it. Then after the wave has gone, I can sit with it and say, how do I really feel about this without someone else's emotions, just taking me along. So saying no can literally be taking a pause, P.
Raychel Perman: Yep. Not responding right away.
Krystal Jakosky: Exactly. Then just embrace the U. I love that. That's the last thing because everything else just naturally builds up to it and brings you this, oh, wait a minute. I am worth it. And I've been giving myself that. This is fantastic. And I am absolutely valid in this space. And, you've been giving it to yourself all along. That is so beautiful and impressive.
Raychel Perman: I mean, honest, like we wait till we all feel like we're worth it. We're not going to, it's going to take, how long has it already taken? I mean, most of the time, by the time our clients come to us, it's been decades that they haven't been taking care of themselves. And how much longer do we need to wait for that. The beautiful thing is you do this at the same time that you're learning how to embrace the truth. That you're worth it. Maybe it is going to take counseling. Maybe it is going to take therapy. Maybe it's going to take some major steps, but you can do an art deposit at the same time. It fits into any lifestyle. A common question I always get with this one is how do I do this when my kids are little?
I love that you brought that up. You could just do this 20 minutes at a time, like legit. My littlest was six months old when we started this company and she's going to be 10 this summer. So I lived this out with them when they were little and their dad was gone half the year with his job. So I was a part-time single parent. And I had to figure out how to survive with three kids. I was in school still at the time and trying to build the first parts of this business that we have now. And that's what I would do. So as they started to transition out of nap time when one of the other ones was sleeping, I would set timers for like 10 minutes, I think that is how I started.
You had to stay in your room for 10 minutes. You did not have to sleep. I didn't even really care what you did. It just had to be quiet. You couldn't be on a screen and mama is going to be in her room and you guys are going to be in your room. We would start at 10 minutes. Over time we got up to about an hour. Usually when the kids were little, even when they weren't napping, they could stay in their room, they would play, and they would read their books. As they got older, now I can nap. And you know, they're fine. It is so weird to be at that level of parenting. But it works, they're so busy all the time and they do need these moments of rest.
And as parents, um, being able to utilize this, not only for yourself but also for your family is such a beautiful gift to be able to do. But yes, the timer, because then they know it's going to end. Like it's not this never-ending thing. They're like, oh no, I'm stuck in my room forever and mom's never coming out and I’ve got to go find her. Then they know it's 10 minutes. If you have to start with five it's better than nothing. It's just working on these itty bitty baby steps like you said. And eventually, you get to the point that this just becomes a part of it. You notice when you don't do it, that's how you know something's working when is the last time I had a rest day? When is the last time I like checking in with myself? When is the last time I remember to eat every few hours? And then you can easily go back into this lifestyle again, anytime you need it without the guilt or shame. Just start paying attention again and doing these steps and releasing some of the stress.
Krystal Jakosky: This is an acronym that everybody needs to have, like on their kitchen fridge or on their bathroom counter, or a little reminder on your phone that says, P.A.U.S.E., here we go, take a break. It's absolutely fantastic. And I love it. I am so glad that you've been with us so that you could share this with us because it is hugely important and unbelievably beneficial. I love that it's such simple bite-size pieces that people can apply in really easy ways to their lives. Little bit by little bit, doesn't have to be 20. It can be five minutes. So thank you so much. Is there anything else that you really want to share with our listeners?
Raychel Perman: I feel like I've shared a lot.
Krystal Jakosky: I know.
Raychel Perman: Just the encouragement to start with P: paying attention to your emotions is a great place to start. One of the things that we often recommend is setting a timer on your phone every few hours, just to check-in, especially if you are going through a time right now, there were stresses really high, or you're going through a storm. You're going through a transition in your life. I literally had a time around my phone that went off every three hours that just said, remember to eat. So it can be as simple as just checking in with yourself set at that time or on your phone to check-in, in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening, how am I feeling right now? Start practicing. Even if you're going through anything, this is a great time to start practicing. And just, how am I feeling right now? What emotion would I call? What am I feeling right now? That's a perfect way to start and it takes two minutes to do. You can write it down in a journal if you want, but you don't even have to do that. You could just think about it and start practicing the different emotions and naming them and what you're feeling like.
Krystal Jakosky: Yeah, absolutely. I love it. Oh, thank you.
Raychel Perman: You're welcome.
Krystal Jakosky: A couple of little questions before you go, uh, green or orange?
Raychel Perman: Ooh, green.
Krystal Jakosky: City or country?
Raychel Perman: City.
Krystal Jakosky: Large groups or personal time?
Raychel Perman: Mm. Usually personal time.
Krystal Jakosky: Pine trees or salty ocean air?
Raychel Jakosky: Ooh, salty ocean air.
Krystal Jakosky: Which season and why?
Raychel Perman: Fall? It always sounds so weird, but I had this fascination with the process of death, and dying and falling are always that time. That reminds me that even though things can look like they're dead and they're dying and winter is coming, there's always going to be spring around the corner. Sounds like spring should be my favorite, but fall reminds me that even though we're going through transitions, good days are coming.
Krystal Jakosky: Yeah. Oh, I love that. And my last question, you may have already answered it, but I still wanna ask this question. What is your favorite kind of self-care, maybe it's unique and different, but what is your favorite kind of self-care and why?
Raychel Perman: Okay. My favorite kind of self-care right now is what I call redneck hot tubing. So in the middle of the pandemic is when I started having all of this pain and, it was not in the budget to buy a hot tub or anything like that. We started doing research on a portable hot tub. And you know, it was a 10th of the price of a regular hot tub. And my husband said, listen, if it works for one year we'll use it. And it's in our garage and we have Christmas lights up around it. It's my favorite thing to do is redneck hot tubing. And so that is my oddball, but best way that I do self-care right now, is mostly it's just so fun and it's in our garage and we have friends over sometimes. I am in there probably five nights outta seven before I go to bed. It's good for me to fall asleep.
Krystal Jakosky: Oh, I love it. Do you have one of those blow-up Palm trees that go in?
Raychel Perman: We don't, but we have talked about actually building walls around it in the garage. We have this kooky design in our garage. Because I have a hard time, I have sensory processing things. And so too, as my kids and we always have the wind in North Dakota and I don't like being out in the hot tub when it's windy. Well, there are three days out of the year that it's not windy. So we might actually just leave the hot tub in the garage and build walls around it. And then I probably will. I could have Tiki things and we could build all this stuff and it's not on the 10-year plan until then it'll just sit in the back of the garage with the Christmas lights.
Krystal Jakosky: I love it. That is fantastic. Thank you so much for being here with us, Raychel, I just have another question. How can people find you?
Raychel Perman: Well, the easiest way to find me is probably on Instagram. That's probably where I spend most of my time when it comes to social media. So my handle is Raychel Perman, R A Y C H E L P E R M A N. And our company website is www.raymateam.com R A Y M A T E A M.com. And that's where you can find out how to work with me. Any of the products coming up or are courses coming up and events, all of that stuff will be there, but hit me up on Instagram. That's where you're going to be able to really find me the easiest. And I do, it's me and my DMs, if you want to talk or see the information that I have on there, that's the easiest way to find me.
Krystal Jakosky: Fabulous. Okay guys, put it into practice, P.A.U.S.E., and enjoy life. And until next time, we'll see you here on Breathe In, Breathe Out.
I hope this moment of self-care and healing brought you some hope and peace. I’m @krystaljakosky on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube and I hope you check us out and follow along for more content coming soon. I look forward to being with you again here on Breathe In, Breathe Out. Until next time, take care.
