Create The Best Me

Starting Over After Divorce (What YOU Need to Know)

• Carmen Hecox • Episode 126

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What does starting over after divorce truly look like, especially when you’re navigating midlife, menopause, and a world that says your best days are behind you? Today, I sit down with artist, yogi, and author Chrystal Rae for an honest conversation about picking up the pieces, finding love again (for yourself and others), and embracing every new beginning.

In Starting Over After Divorce (What YOU Need to Know), Chrystal opens up about how a near-death experience shifted her outlook on love, loss, and self-discovery. We dig into the raw emotions that come with divorce later in life, how menopause can be a launching pad, not a period of loss, and the importance of trusting your intuition (even when it’s hard).

Whether you’re in the thick of a breakup, finding your footing post-divorce, or seeking inspiration for your own reinvention, this episode delivers wisdom, hope, and actionable steps for starting over after divorce. 

5 Key Lessons from Starting Over After Divorce (What YOU Need to Know):

  1. Trust Your Inner Voice: Listening to your intuition is crucial when starting over after divorce, regardless of how tempting it may be to settle or silence it.
  2. Menopause Is a New Chapter, Not a Loss: The post-divorce, post-menopause stage can be one of freedom, joy, and self-reclamation.
  3. Let Grief Have Its Place Then Make Room for Gratitude: Feel your feelings, but don’t forget to look for small joys and practice gratitude daily.
  4. Release What No Longer Serves You: Letting go of people, possessions, and old stories creates space for new purpose and possibilities as you start over.
  5. Love is All That Matters, Especially Self-Love: Real transformation begins with embracing both your shadows and your light and loving yourself as you rebuild.

Call to Action:

👉 Drop a comment if you’re starting over after divorce, what are you most excited (or anxious) about in your next chapter? ✨ Subscribe so you don’t miss next week’s episode, another amazing episode created just for you. 

📕 Resources: 

https://createthebestme.com/ep126

https://chrystalraesoul.com/

https://gaiaflowyoga.com/

Purchase “Love Letters to Your Soul” https://a.co/d/eFpxNNd  

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Imagine flying off an 80 foot cliff and waking up certain of one thing, love is all that matters. Crazy, right? Hang with me because by the end of today's chat you'll know exactly how that hair raising detour became the ultimate roadmap to a joy-filled midlife for my guests, Chrystal Rae, and for you too. In a minute we'll uncover the one simple question, Chrystal whispers to herself when life feels upside down and why it always puts her back on track. Why she swears yoga beats any wrinkle cream, and how a near death experience turned a Dallas mom, artists and Yogi into a walking love letter at 63. If you ever thought menopause means the best chapters are behind you, buckle up because by the end of this episode, you'll be itching to write your next act. Ready? Let's dive on in. Chrystal Rae, welcome to Create the Best Me. Let me say this is an honor and a privilege to have you on the show. Thank you so much Carmen, so nice to be here. I've been looking forward to it. Exactly, yes. So before we get into to what we are going to talk about today, which I think is the most important topic out there. Could you please tell the listeners a little bit about who you are and what you do? So I am an artist, a yogi, and a writer. I own three yoga studios, two yoga training centers here in Dallas, Texas. And I do big abstract paintings many are in the corporate world that I do paintings for cause they're really big. And I'm also a writer and I just finished a book called "Love Letters to Your Soul," which took me almost 25 years to write. It's, it's based on, it's some teachings that's based on a near death experience I had some time ago. And in this experience, I was in this divine presence and I was shown many different realities, but one of which I could come back and write a book and tell the world that love is all that matters. And my childhood was very dysfunctional. I think that's, I always call it the normal abnormal. And, and my marriage, my first marriage to my children's dad was not successful. So coming back and telling the world that love is all that matters felt like quite the exciting and noble mission that took me some time to prepare for it. So I had to do a lot of self-healing, self-work, and it's been a miraculous and beautiful journey, kind of like a, a rose blossoming, since that moment. Challenging in many, many ways, but, here I am almost 30 years later, I wrote the book. I'm excited. I did my own audio version of it. And the Kindles out. So that's what I'm doing, teaching yoga, writing books, and painting. I also have, two children that are adults and a boy that lives in, I should say a man. He's 38, so I guess that's a man, with two children of his own. A 10-year-old and an 8-year-old who have a grandma crush. My son, my grandson's like, has a grandma crush, and then my daughter lives in Florida and she rides horses and she's engaged to an Italian stallion. So life is good. It's a bit challenging, the last year was really challenging cause I just went through a divorce, which was unplanned obviously. I waited 28 years to get married. And I made a very bad decision and married the wrong person, which I think sometimes, you know, in life we don't listen to our intuition and we kind of like paint a pretty picture on top of what we want to see. And one thing I learned from this experience is that listen to your intuition. If it doesn't feel right, it's probably not right. Unfortunately it was a really bad decision but it turned out great. I'm free, I am empowered. It kind of stimulated in me, which is kind of surprising at 64 that this little girl that went through all these abandonment issues that I thought had healed and this horrible like experience that I had, they arose again the little girl, like another layer of healing. Which I'm actually grateful for, cause I didn't even know that was there. I was like, wait, I thought I healed all of that. And so one of the greatest joys of my life as far as like owning yoga studios and just being somebody who is invited to do speaking engagements and such is helping others. So I, I do this just kind of as a, a save a or just a personal offering, not as a profession. And based on my life experience, what I really focus on, and I know for your audience, what I'd like to focus on is, is really like from a more, consciousness level of how to experience life, a higher consciousness, or how to move through challenges, not just the personality and, you know, the therapy kind of stuff. Which I'm not really a, a therapist, but I always say I'll speak from my soul, to your soul, from the wisdom of, of the ages that's alive in me and alive in you too. And that's, that's how I, I give my service. And what I've been able to do since the car wreck. Which by the way the accident, it was off a cliff, which was 80 feet. We hit at 25 feet down. We flipped 10 more times, slammed into a wall of ice. And this is, nobody should have survived this. It was a miraculous survival. I mean, the, the guy that was driving had some minor injuries. My cousin unfortunately had some more severe injuries, but a miraculous recovery, all the same. Which is a really longer story, but what I'd like to say about it, just as a observation, is there's much more going on here that meets the eye, at least from my perspective. It's a loving universe and each soul is here for the bliss of its own experience. And that bliss includes dark skies, sunny days, blossoming and wilting, all of it included. Well, let me say Chrystal, first of all, you are a knockout. I cannot believe you said you are 64. And I understand why your grandson has a grandma crush. Cause you're beautiful. You're beautiful. I don't think anybody would even believe that one, you're 64. Two that you're old enough to even have grandchildren. Yeah, I always make the joke. I started when I was 20, but I really didn't. And what I love the most about you is that this near death experience taught you something. You were married to your children's father, it didn't work out. You didn't give up on the one thing that you were taught from that near death experience. You embrace love again even though you didn't listen to your intuition, because, because love had a I would say, had a greater stronghold over you. And even though it, your intuition should have, it was something you feel that you should have listened to, you learn something through that marriage that wasn't the right place to be. But you're still giving love. You know, you're still saying love is all you need. Love is all that matters for sure. But I think the lesson there, like if I could share with your particular audience, is that I think as we get older, there's this, especially if you're single and older, you kind of might feel like time is running out. And the truth is it is running out. Like you have probably less time in front of you than you have behind you. So every moment becomes more valuable. And so I think there is this, when I met this particular person, it was in the midst of COVID, and I was at a very vulnerable stage. I was, I felt like I was getting older. I felt like I really wanted a mate. I decided I would find a mate. I got on the dating apps. Because before that I wasn't really ready. It wasn't that I had given up on love. I had many wonderful relationships. But I wanted something more permanent. And I think what happened is that I kind of painted a picture on top of him of what I wanted him to be, first of all, because it served me. But I, my intuition knew that wasn't true, but I was like, and I think the gift of that is that I realized, and what I'd like to share is like to tell people don't settle. Like there is so much more. Like, I am dating somebody right now who's just like the most amazing person I've ever met. And I met him before I got married to this other man. And we reconnected afterwards. He was, he lives in New York, he's in Connecticut, and so it was like distance, but then our connection is so strong that we said, okay, let's just make it work. Like we're gonna make it work. Where this other one was more convenient. You see what I'm saying? It was like a very convenient and I was just like, I think I just settled. And, you know, you just can't do that in life no matter what age. And I think there's always more like, as we go through the different seasons of our life. Like we were talking earlier, like I love being in this post menopause stage of my life because I have so much more freedom. Freedom of consciousness to really be Chrystal. And, it was wonderful raising my children. It was wonderful going through the baby, making time of my life. I love children. I love to have my children. And I still enjoy when they call me or they need me. We always want that from our kids. But it gives me a lot of space right now to do the work that Chrystal needs to do on her own consciousness and to really be of service on the planet and to help others. And I get a lot from many women, younger than me, exactly what you were saying about kind of losing hope. And then feeling almost as if their body is betraying them with menopause or whatever because your brain fog and the gaining weight and gray hairs and saggy skin. But the inner beauty and the wisdom and the true beauty of the soul also rises as we get older. Like, I would not want to go back and lose the wisdom that I had. I'd rather be this age that I am. And that's one of the things that I really love about, about the yogic path, is that it's really helped me to tune into that consciousness that all pervasive love that I experience in this near death experience. And when I was in this experience, I mean, I remember being in this presence and being shown how much we are loved as children of the divine children, progeny of God, however you'd like to think about it. And there's not even word to describe how deeply loved and cared for; I felt held and cradled and loved, and I knew that I was never given more than I could handle. And the thing is, me like you, I can handle a lot. So I was given a lot, but I'm really grateful, like who knew at 64 that I, or 63 that I'd be starting over again, like literally starting my life over again, which is just fabulous. Like you get to do that at any time of your life. And the things that I can experience now and the gifts that I have to offer now, they weren't available to me in my forties or my thirties or my twenties. They are now. So, yeah, this is an exciting time. I think if, if I could give like a bit of advice to women going through this is; yes, it is a transition. It's like you're in a chrysalis, you know, when you're going into this pre menopause or what they call perimenopause and uh, menopause and then post menopause, all this stuff; you're in this chrysalis of change. But you come out lighter and brighter and more free than you ever were before. And it's not just hormonal, I think it's just, it's, it's almost consciousness too. And yeah, you do have to deal with the body. The body is something that you have to think about. I, I do suggest a good functional medicine doctor or, you know, allopathic doctor, somebody that can work with you with hormones, if that's something you're interested in. Something that I do that I, I just do some hormone creams and like changed my world. One of the things I found when I was doing too much of the testosterone is I started losing my hair. You have such beautiful hair. I lost half of it on testosterone. And I was like, oh my God, what's going on And I, I realized it was the testosterone. And so then I, I, my personal, instead of doing four little squeezes of it, cause it was like little clicks or whatever I do three and that was it, it stopped falling out. So that's why I like the creams cause you can kind of modulate. But I do have a really good functional medicine doctor. I get my blood work checked, all that stuff. So you do have to pay attention to the physical body. But from my perspective being that I believe that we are spiritual beings having a spiritual experience in a physical body. I think the reason we're here is to expand consciousness. And I think that every stage of our lives from, you know, adolescent, childhood to adolescents to middle age, and on, has different gifts and different offerings that you can't get at any other time. And I think in our youth oriented culture, so many people go and I, I thank you because you said, oh, you look like a model or did you used to model? And I was like, thank you for saying you look like a model, just because I'm a little older doesn't mean I'm not modeling, which I actually still do model. So it's, it's just nice that, that just because you're older doesn't mean you're not still doing the things that you enjoy doing. I'm lucky that I can still do that. And it's kind of like the in thing, the older model. I'm like, okay, cool. Cause I am the older model and I love being that. And I don't have a secret passage for like, aging well, except for keep your conscious, stay happy. You know, like, look for the good. And even on those gloomy days, like the dark nights of the soul, my secret sauce is that I, I just say, okay, I didn't know, I could feel so profoundly bad. I'm grateful to be alive and to be conscious and to have this extremes where I can actually feel like the heights of joy and the depths of sorrow. I can feel all of it. So this is one of the gifts that I got from the near death experience is that, that I was able to see that every moment of life, is a gift. And, and we're not here by default or by chance or random circumstance. We elected to be here. And I was told directly, and I wanna share this with you because it's like something so powerful to put this in the book, and it was actually told directly to me, which I feel like was meant directly to you. And it was that each soul is here for the bliss of its own existence. And that means you, and I was like me. I thought I was here to be a good mother, to be a good daughter, to be a good wife, to be a good ex-wife. I had like this ideal of life was like carried this heavy backpack of burdens and I was just weighted down. There was no joy. I didn't, I didn't smell, the roses much as us even see them. Everything was utilitarian. It was a means to an end to, you know, get through the day. In that moment when I was shown that we're here for bliss, like the smallest things like an ant crawling on the ground became this exquisite work of art. And the beauty of a cloudy day and the rain and tears and laughter, and a baby being born and an old man dying. Like the whole myriad of life experiences became this, this really collage of, of bliss that I had never, never knew. Cause I think one misconception, especially in the spiritual, realm or community, is that people think because you are a spiritual or a spiritually oriented person, that you're no longer going to suffer. Well, I wish that were true, or do I? The truth is, I think when you move into a more spiritually oriented place in your life is that you, you actually feel all your feelings more intensely. Because you no longer avoid, run, numb, freeze. You actually lean in instead of leaning out, leaning into the discomfort. And question why is this happening? What am I supposed to learn here? And how can I throw this in the fire of love and let it be fuel for my transformation? Like I know everything that's happening, especially if it's really sticky and really hard, that that's gonna be really good fuel for the fire. So I have this saying, Carmen, that I say, throw all opposites, like good and bad into the fire of love until only love is left. And when you can do that, and if you can do that even in a moment, that's when you start to really see that we are born of love for the purpose of love, and shall return to love as more love. Meanwhile, we have to leave our footsteps in the sand. And it can be rocky, it can be stormy, it can be whatever it is. But the simplest way to stay, like keep your consciousness happy or, to stay lighter, not let life weigh you down, is to simply move from gratitude to count your blessings. And it could start as something that's like, I'm grateful for my teeth. I'm grateful that I can hear, I'm grateful for the sky and on and on. And then it starts to move out to bigger things, to, to the people in my life, to this beautiful planet, to my ability to love, to feel pain, to understand others, to be there, whatever. You can just start filling in the blank. So this gratitude for the myriad of life experience is really been something that I think especially post menopause, when you start to feel, and I remember when I lost my period in particular feeling like like somehow I was no longer a valid woman, like my function had been terminated. And it was a minute of feeling this and also like a signal, like you're getting old, like the old word. And I had to, I had to sit through that fire and, and realize it is true. And it's wonderful because number one, I'm in a different season in my life and things are changing, so it's fine. Like so many things fall away as you get older. Like I remember as a younger woman, I would go into a store and I would buy something like a, a dress or a shirt or something, I had to wear it out. Like I wanted to wear it, I was so excited to wear it out. And then a recent, I was cleaning out my closet, and there's things that still have the price tags on it. Like stuff doesn't mean anything anymore. What matters is relationship. What matters is like your legacy of love, that you can leave and, it doesn't matter how many cars. You know, this man that I just divorced and we had this beautiful 10,000 square foot home. We had this beautiful gardens and you know, he begged me to stay, but there was no way I could stay with what he did. But I lost my home. I lost, like, I lost everything. I lost my security that I had before him because I gave up my alimony to get married without a prenup. Please don't ever do that. Because in my mind, like why do I need a prenup? I'm not getting divorced. I will not be getting divorced. I just like to say, you know, you may be getting divorced, you just never know. And and either way, I mean, it's just better to take good care of yourself. I wish I had better counsel on that one too, but it's okay. Like, I'm ready to start over. I'm starting my life over. I am blossoming. My wings are coming out, and this is an amazing time in my life. I am letting go of things naturally that are just been cluttering my consciousness. So one thing that people think about consciousness is they think that you're going to become enlightened. From my perspective, our starting point is enlightenment. We're born of love for the purpose of love. Like our divinity is this radiance. What happens is that we come into this world of contrast, choice, and change for the purpose of having the experience of experience and to know ourselves; others, and even the divide more profoundly through this forgetfulness that we have. And we have these things that block the light, whether it's traumas, dramas, or just life circumstances. Circumstances of our country, wars, dilemmas, you know, poverty, plagues, sickness, all this stuff that the shadows, they block the light. And one of our, our gifts, and, and this planet is free, will. Like the most important gift that we have is free will we get to choose. And I love this quote, I can't remember who said it, but it's two men were behind prison bars. One saw the mud, the other saw the stars. So from my perspective, that's our world. Like there's mud and there's stars. It's all there, it's all available. And it's up to us what we get to focus on. And in a magnetic universe, what we focus on, we get more of. So in the later stages of our lives post menopause, what we get to focus on is all the gifts that we can leave, all the things that we can, share with the planet before we ourselves leave the planet. And so it's like every moment is so precious, as I said, we have more time behind us than in front of us. So if I'm 64, I don't think I'm gonna be living to be 128. I just don't think so. Never know. But so let's say, you know, I have a good 20, 30 years left to really share. So I told one of my students the other day, I was like, she's like 50, and I'm like, yeah, just think about this; like when I was 10, you were just born, I could change your diapers. She goes, yeah, but in the future I can change yours. I was like, touche. That's so funny. But it is true, we're here for each other. We are better together. Like, there's different seasons of your life, but we're here to share and help each other. But this is what menopause is for me. It is just new beginnings and an opportunity to have more consciousness and share my gifts with wisdom and light and this holistic approach, not just from the physical body, but this energetic space of opening that happens after I'm no longer in this, hormonal cycle of baby making. Yeah, and what I love about your story, where you talked about that, you know, when you first lost your period. You felt this feeling of losing something, but instead of dwelling on losing something, you decided to embrace it and look at the richest behind what you have to gain. And you have nurtured that richness and you created things through those richness. And not only that, but you've also, instead of, cause I know like a lot of women when I was in corporate America and these women were like 15 years older than me, they would look at me and they'd say, oh, just wait till you hit menopause. You are going, you know, they sold it as something negative. You're going to hate it. And you're not doing that. Mm Your saying, look what you look at all this beautiful things you have to look forward to. Because you're feeding love, love to these people that are younger than you. You're nurturing, you're feeding them, you're, planting seeds of love instead of negative. Mm. Mm-hmm. And when I think about love, love is not relational, you know, like intimate type of thing. It's deeper than that. It's about loving myself, first loving myself. And then loving people exactly where they are at, not changing them into somebody I think they should be. And I think you did that when you married this person that your instinct said, you know, I shouldn't, you love them where he was at. And right or wrong, you still, you, you shared that love. That love that this near-death experience taught you that your purpose is to love. And you need to continue to love others. So I, all of that is true. Carmen, the one thing I would say though is when the menopause came on, there was this sadness and letting go. And I think that's okay. I think it's okay for people to feel whatever it is they're gonna feel. I don't think there's a, I mean, maybe some women huge celebration about it. But I do think that there is, there has to be this consciousness of like, I guess if you're only associated with your physical beingness and you don't ever wanna get old, it's gonna be a very sad time. But if you can expand your consciousness a bit to see that you are not your body. You're not your circumstances. You're not anything that's transient, you are this and so much more. And you make peace with your own mortality, at some point you have to. Because, you know, one of the nice things about aging is again, a gradual letting go of things that really don't matter. Like, I remember how foolish I was as a younger woman in the vanities that I had and the things that I valued that are insignificant. And how I overlooked, like the most important things in my life is, to your point, love, how can I love, how can I learn? And when I talk about the word love, like you, you said it's not necessarily just intimacy or just an intimate partner, I think that's included. The best, you know, being the love girl. The best definition that I ever found related to love, and I always challenge anyone and everyone to give a better definition of love, comes from a little Indian sage who had a near death experience himself when he was 17 years old. He was dead for 45 minutes. Observing his body above his body. And he recognized if that's my body and my body is dead, like rigor mortis is dead and I'm up here, then who am I? And he went back into his body and miraculous things happen. And, in his book, he never wrote a book, but his disciples wrote his words. One of the disciples asked him, he said, master, his name by the way, is Ramana Maharshi, who's now passed. But he lived in this mountain in Ashram. And he said, master, what is love? And his answer was so precise and so succinct that it's the most beautiful answer I've ever I could've ever imagined. Because I was always looking for, since I was told, tell the world love is all that matters. Well, I, I need to understand what love is if I'm gonna say this. So his answer was, love is the pure light of undifferentiated consciousness. So let's unwrap that. So love is, first of all, love is, is, it's a verb, right? And pure light, meaning not tarnished, no defects, pure light. Of undifferentiated like no opposites consciousness. So we talk about, throw both positive and negative into the fire of love, and only love is left. That's where I got this saying because love is the pure light of undifferentiated consciousness. Now let's take this to the ideal of an intimate partner, like a husband or a mate or a child or a parent or someone that you care about. What I call intimacy in-to-me-see is the level of closeness that I have with this particular person. For example, with a husband, hopefully you have a level of intimacy that you don't share with others. Unless you have some kind of arrangement, I don't know. But hopefully you have a, an intimate relationship or with your child, like you have a level of in-to-me-see that you may not share with the entire world. But from the yogi perspective or from Ramana, he says, when you get to this level of higher consciousness, that child will be like your child. All people will be the same; your brother, my brother, your father. However, still there will be people even in Ramana's life who were closer to him and that were more dear to him, only because they were in his circle, not because he loved them more, but because of the in-to-me-see. So I think it's valid to say, you know, when you give someone your attention, you share your vibration. You know that whole, if I look at you, you exist. If I don't look at you, you don't exist. You know, looking through in physics. So you're either a particle or a wave. For those of you who understand physics. So meaning basically when we see each other, we bring each other into existence by giving each other energy or attention. So the more attention I give you, and, and this is energy, is neutral. So let's say that I really dislike someone and I spent like, or a certain political person, you know, not that that would ever happen. But, or a certain thing happening in the universe that I don't like. An institution, a job, a boss or whoever, if all I do is think about that all day, that's a certain amount of energy which we would call love if there's only love, but it's going in the wrong direction. But there, I love that person more than even my own child if I think about them all day, even though that energy's moving in the direction of a downward spiral. So when we love someone, what we do is we give them, we share with them our energy and our attention. And the more I love someone, the more energy or more shared space we're gonna have. But again, from a universal perspective, when we say the pure light of undifferentiated consciousness, the ultimate expression of love and the love of the masters and all the avatars and, teachers from Jesus to Buddha to, you know, Krishna, to Shiva, whoever, whatever you wanna call it. For me, it's all universal love. But that love is always this undifferentiated consciousness that loves all beings equally irrespective of their good or bad behavior. Because this is a temporal world. So if we are eternal beings, let's just imagine that we are, meaning that we've existed from the beginning of time and we'll exist till the end of time, which will never happen cause there is no end. So this 89 years, 100 years, 120 years, whatever it is that we have here. Compared to infinity is a speck is less than a speck. So that this little bitty things that we do here, they're important. They're important to our life, they shift the compass. I say, if you wanna change your life, change the smallest little things. Like you start with the small things and it shifts the compass. Shifts the compass so that when you get to the big crossroads like menopause, big crossroad. You're prepared for that. You're prepared because these small changes, like if you choose like to put the bottle down, you choose to not smoke the cigarette. You choose to to be kind, when you could be cruel, to stay, when you could run all the things, these little choices that we make, lead you to different crossroads that wouldn't be available had you made less radiant choices. Not because you're not less loved, but because this is a free will environment paradigm. And so this is what you get to do. So at every moment, this is what's exciting. Like you wanna live a long life so that you can learn more, love more, and serve more. So the longer we can live, the better it is for our soul. And the more that we can share our radiance and our light with the planet. And again, in every stage of our life, we have different gifts to offer. Like now, the wisdom I have at 64 is so much more full and rich than what I had at 40 or 30 or 20 and so on and so forth. So it's exciting time, it's exciting to have grandchildren, to have the freedom in my own body. To to create space for the things that I wanna do before I leave the planet and create space for, relationships that, that I wanna nurture and love, whether it's with a significant other or a friend or my children or my colleagues or my students. Like everything equal. People ask me, what do you do for fun? I'm like, I enjoy my life. I just enjoy being alive. I'm not looking for something out there to make me happy. From the world that I came from, which was a very affluent world, when I was married in the past, I saw many, many women in particular trying to fill up their cup with stuff, with jewelry, with trips, with prestige, with power, with, and they were just unfulfilled. And luckily for me, because I have had this near death experience, I never really bought into that. And I always say I've walked away from more money than most people will ever even imagine in my life. Because I can't be bought, I can't be sold. I am not my stuff. And by the way, as I, we talked about, you're gonna be giving it all away anyway. You know, there's always a benefit to everything, one of the benefits is when I first got married, three years ago, I had a house where I had lived for 28 years with a pool and a garden and lots of stuff. And so there was a big purging. And I remember I put a bunch of stuff in my garage and the gardener said, he said, señoría, this feels like a wake. And I was like, whoa, it really does. Like, there's this times in your life where you just, like, it's almost like a death, like you're letting go. And there was like space opening up and then this, horrible experience of this marriage. And there was even more letting go. I had like four storages full of stuff, which I was like, do I wanna pay to store this stuff? Or do I just wanna give it to people that it can serve? And so I made a lot of people happy. I gave away stuff. I sold stuff. I just got rid of stuff. And the person that's the most happy about that is me because that stuff doesn't own me. I mean, I am free. I am free of everything and eventually I'll be free of even the physical body when it's time for me to let this go. But meanwhile, like the question is how to live a loving, fulfilling life at all the different stages of your life. And in particular for the conversation today in that time of your life when we're moving away from the youthful time. But I mean, it's not like you're gonna lose vitality. I somehow feel more vital now than I did back then. Cause I felt like I was more weighed down back then in my forties and my fifties. There was a heavier weight. It's almost like a freedom when you let go of stuff. And it's so wonderful to be alive. But I think this is why; is because you started early on, you became a yogi. So that is teaching, conditioning your body to love yourself. To go deeper and understand that, things do not create happiness. They create happiness when you first get it and you're excited and it's all flashy and glowy and everything. But once that shiny syndrome goes away, you're back to where you were before. And so when you became a yogi, when you started, doing these yoga classes and stuff, you started detoxifying your body. Building your body, creating strength in the soul and strength in your physique. And so now here you are in your sixties and you're stronger spiritually, physically, and mentally. And you realize that these things that most of us would say, oh, I wish I had the things that she had are empty. It's just a bunch of empty stuff. But you found that there were people out there that maybe needed it. Needed those things, you know, because they weren't as fortunate as you, and that gave you joy. Mm-hmm. It opened up space too. And, and you're right, the funny thing about yoga path is like when I had this near-death experience; I haven't gone into the whole experience. But one of the things that happened is that I got to the hospital and they told me that, by the way, my cousin's name is Carmen. They told me that Carmen was going to die. And I said, I had had this divine expression of presence and I been shown different timelines. And I was like, no, no, no, she's not gonna die. And I walked over to Carmen, I kind of pushed my way through the emergency room and it put my hand on her and it was like a ripple of lightning to me and to her. She kind of rippled on the gurney and I was like, oh, okay, she's gonna be fine. It was just this weird thing. And then they pulled me away. It's a bigger story, but they took x-rays of my neck and they told me on the first x-ray Carmen, your neck is broken. I was like, no, I'm sorry, that wasn't in my timeline when I saw. So what I was shown about timelines, I'll share a little bit about it; is that we have, wherever you're at currently on a timeline of your life, just to the right and just to the left, you have different paths and it goes on and on and on. And the one you're most likely to lean toward is where your consciousness is. Like it could be brighter, could be less bright. But these are possibilities. And what I mean by timelines is that in the loving universe all outcomes are already complete. There's nothing new in the universe. So this timeline you are on is already complete. If you don't change anything, you'll stay on this timeline it will complete itself. And you're just getting to have that experience. But you could jump up two or three notches and have a totally different experience, or you could slip down a couple notches and have, again, another different experience, it's also complete. So when they said your neck is broken, I said, no, no, no. And they said, no, look here on your X-ray, it's broken. I said, no, you need to take that x-ray again. And I put my hand on my neck and I had that same like warmth going through me. Like my hand was hot on my neck. I said, you need to take that again. So they took two, three, and four x-rays. Until finally they had me sign away. Like, we're not responsible. We can't explain this. It's broken here. It's not broken here. So what I'm saying about that is like there is something mystical and magical happening, not only what we do, but you are, you are held and supported and loved in a degree that you can't even imagine by this divine force, by whatever verbiage you wanna call it. And you are here for bliss. You are here to experience yourself in shadow and light. And to find your way and remember who you really are. And to have this myriad experiences because it brings you joy like you are here for joy. And part of your joy, like for me, was going through the dark night of the soul again in my sixties so that I could realize this is happening to other people. And it's easy to forget. You know, I had a really horrible childhood, it was very traumatic, but that was so many years ago. And it brought me back to, oh, there's people who are going through this and I can have compassion for them, and I can show them that yes, you can. Basically I beat the odds in my own life because if you look at science, people who come from dysfunctional, alcoholic parents, who were abused, you know, like I went to school with bald spots and bruises and all this stuff. I mean, you typically end up in a different space than I did. Like basically odds are you're gonna have a drinking problem. You might end up on the street, you're probably not gonna finish school, blah, blah, blah. I beat those odds. And the way that I did it was one simple thing, love. I just chose to see the good in life, even in my parents. I said, you know, you can't expect someone to be, something that they're not. It's like you, you want the caterpillar to be a butterfly, but it's not gonna be a butterfly to it's supposed to be. And so I always had the wisdom somehow within me, to to know that what I focused on was so important. And you know, it's a different life. Like, you know, you can either be a victim or be a victorious. And you could see anything in your life as like I've met people who are super negative. They could win a hundred million dollars in the lottery and they'd be like, oh yeah, but I gotta pay taxes. I'll pay the taxes on a hundred million, no problem, I'll be happy about it. Give it to me. Or people who are angry, they always find more reasons to be angry or people who are sad, they're always find a reason to be sad. It's not that I'm trying to be dis-compassionate, I just wanna empower. Like you, only you; and I always say this to my students, only, only you have this power to save you. Even if you believe you have to go to Jesus or to Buddha or whoever, you have to take those footsteps. You have to take the path. You have to save yourself. And so we become our own heroes in a dis-heroic journey of our lives. And the amazing thing is when you take care of yourself, everybody wants to help you. When you're looking for other people to take care of you, everybody shies away because it's like a sucking energy. You know, like if a beautiful, powerful actress came up to you and said, oh, I just need a place to stay tonight. You probably say, okay, come on in, you could stay the whole week, you know, whoever this person may be that you admire. But then if a homeless person who smells bad and has bugs and whatever, wants to sleep in your house, I doubt you would say yes. And it's not because you're superficial, it's all energy. There's a sucking energy and there's a vibrant energy. So, as you move along your path in life, you become more self-reliant, which means you get more help, which is just kind of ironic and funny. The more you look out with this, I don't know, leechy kind of energy, the less help you're gonna get. And the more you fulfill your own needs, and again, like we talked about earlier, it's never outside of you. It's always that inner joy, the inner wisdom, the inner love, the returning back to the light and the truth of who you really are. And recognizing that you are held and love. I mean, the miracle of the sun rising and setting every day for you, you know, for you. Like how amazing. Like people don't realize it that is happening like a pebble under your foot. The flower that you just catch it glance of that brightens your day. Like all the little miracles every day that we just; I mean, I was completely, one to overlook all of this before I had this profound experience. There's no judgment on it. But one of the gifts that I get to share is that you don't have to have a near death experience to see the radiant beauty of your own life. And to choose to see the good and to be the good. If you didn't have somebody to do that, for you to be kind to you, but you get to be that. You get to be the one to give hope to humanity by the little things that we do. So the gift is as Chrystal heals and there's still more, more heal. I'm not cooked, I'm not done, like I'm still dealing with my own things. Which I hope I continue to grow throughout my life. So that's the goal is like to share the love and the light at every season of my life in particular this season. Because to your point, it's like for me, like the most balanced and centered and grounded that I've ever felt in my entire life, which is amazing. And I really, one thing I wanna say is like my children's dad, he's remarried and he's very happy and I have no desire to be with him. But this is the man that I truly loved. You know, that I really, my soul was so happy and we're still really good friends to this day. I love his new wife. I love him. We have shared grandchildren. So even though our relationship didn't work out because whatever the dynamics were the love was real, and I loved that. And even this last relationship, at least to your point, when I married him, even though I overlooked a lot of the bad things, one thing that I did know is that I did love him. And I do think if you love someone, you can't say, oh, I don't love him anymore. You can say, I dislike you. I still always love you, but I really dislike you, what you did to me, or how you live your life. And I have a boundary for that. But I, I'll always love him. I shared, a marriage with him. My body, my soul, my heart for three, five years altogether. So there's no regret on that. It didn't turn out exactly as I wanted, but it did, teach me something I need to know about myself. Which is this thing that we're talking about. I think it was this subconscious thing about being older and I need to find someone. No, you don't. You really don't. Like most women will outlive their husband by 10 years anyway. So, you don't need to find someone. You need to find yourself and then share that with someone. And I don't think I would be who I am had I not had all these good and bad experiences that have like formed me into this being of light that I am for many people in my own world. Where I get to share the message of unconditional love and just remind people that love is truly all that matter and that's why we're here. And the little random acts of kindness, those are the things that are gonna be like pinnacle. So when I was in this out-of-body-experience and near death experience, one of the things I was shown was like a 360 degree panoramic view of my life from the moment of my birth to that very moment. But not only that, like the ripple of every kind and unkind act, I was shown how there was a consequence to everything I did in my life. And it wasn't a judgment or a punishment, it was just a result of energy. And so with that knowledge, when I came back I'm a lot more careful of what I do with my energy. Like what I do with I'm still human, someone cuts me off on the freeway, I still get angry. But I bring myself back to breath, back to center. And yes, you're right about yoga. Yeah. Chrystal, what are three pieces of advice that you would give that woman in midlife who's maybe in menopause, perimenopause, or post menopause and has kind of sort of maybe given up on love or maybe has a different perspective on love? What advice would you give her to embrace love and spread love? I think the most important thing, the first thing that comes to mind is that we have to love ourselves first. And what that means is embrace the shadow and the light. That darkest part of yourself that you wouldn't expose to anybody. You have to love that, that part of you as much as the most radiant part. It's a nice kind of cliche thing to say, but that means that you just really have to sit down and kind of make peace with yourself. And forgive yourself and also celebrate yourself. The second piece of advice is that things are going to change. Your body is going to change. Your mind is going to change. You will eventually give up this body. And that change is gonna happen no matter if you like it or you don't like it. So educate yourself to the degree you can and take better care of yourself. And I think a lot of it is not only like, can I get to a functional medicine doctor or this or that. It's common sense, drink more water, eat fresh fruits, less processed food, get in nature. Have a sacred routine for yourself, whether it's prayer, meditation, walks in nature, bubble bath, you know, whatever it is. Like, take better care of yourself, make peace with yourself. And then the third, and probably the most important is to have a higher power. And to trust in that higher power to take care of you, to hold you, to support you, to guide you. So, in a lot of traditions, even in the AA community, which I was familiar with my mom, they say, you know, surrender it to higher power. And I think in the end we all have to do that in our lives because there's so many things in our lives we cannot control. We cannot control the circumstances. We can't control other people. We can't control even sometimes our own health, no matter how healthy we are. I mean, sometimes the body just gives up. So you have to to surrender. And trust in something divine, something good, something, something beautiful, something loving. Because the alternative is the opposite of that, which will lead you down a very different path. So yeah, that would be my recommendation. So, you know, make peace with the shadow and the light. Celebrate the light. Take better care of yourself and trust in a divine power, watching over that, even these words finding you is to remind you how deeply loved and cared for you are, and you're not alone. I mean, I feel like so many times, especially older people who've lost a mate or their children move away and their in midlife, empty nesters, and they can feel very, very alone. You are not alone. You've never been alone. It's an impossibility to be alone, we're all connected, like on an energetic field. There is no distance between you and me, the table, the tree, the everything. But when you recognize that there is a divine force that created you, that loves you unconditionally, that gave you love you so much, gave you free will, that you get to choose your own footsteps in the sand toward or away from the light. That's a kind of an amazing love. And so you don't have to do it alone. Like there's forums like this, like podcasts, and people who are out there like celebrating life and pointing to the light and if that finds you, it's cause it's meant for you. Very good Chrystal, where can people learn more about you or begin to work with you? So my website is chrystalraesoul.com and that's probably the best place to find me. Or you can email me at ChrystalRaeSoul@gmail.com. And yes, I do work privately, I do talks and again, my book is out also, so you can go to Amazon and find my book. Soon the audiobook, I'm really excited about the audiobook because I think when you read your own words, there's an energetic residence, that's transferred that can't be conveyed in any other way. So I was really excited to be the narrator of my own book and it was a big learning curve, that's for sure. I had a wonderful producer here at CakeMix Studios in Dallas. I'll give him a little cause he was so good. But yeah, you can find me at Chrystal Rae Soul or Crystal Rae Soul at gmail or find me at Gaia Flow too at my studio. Come do some yoga with me. Gaia Flow Yoga, Gaia, GAIA Flow Yoga in Dallas, Texas. So we have three studios currently in Dallas. And two yoga teacher training centers. I've taught over 2000 teachers at this point, or students to be teachers. And so that's, that's one of the gifts I really love to do is from all parts of the world, people from Germany and, Israel, and I have got people in Japan, teachers who've come to train with me. So it's, it's been quite the journey. Really, really fun to share the love. So our logo at the yoga studio is on the door, is "love is why." And people say, why, what? And I say why, everything. Love is why everything. That's the answer. That's the solution. That's all that matters. It's why we exist. It's the truth. So one of the things I'd love to leave with you and your audience is that one of the things that I ask myself all the time, is, especially when things are challenging, not that they're ever challenging is simple question. What would love do? What would love say? What would love be? And then I do my best to do that. And sometimes I fail and sometimes I succeed. But I always say, I'll leave this planet with a big E for effort. But that's always my question. What would love do? What would love say? What would love be? And most of the time it's the opposite of what my instinct or anger or a rage or whatever. So it's just a moment of reflection to make a better choice. Yeah. Well, Chrystal, thank you so much for coming on the show. I will make sure to include your links in the show notes so that people know how to connect with you. And the people are in the Dallas area, they can join you for a class. A little class, little yoga. All right. Well thanks for coming on. You're welcome. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure. And there it is, the cliffhanger solved that one simple question Chrystal lives by, what would love do? When she asked every hurdle shrinks and every possibility expands, and now it's yours to use. Today you watched love leap off a cliff, land on the yoga mat and prove that midlife is less of a finish line and more of a launching pad. If you're eager to learn more or connect with Chrystal, head on over to createthebestme.com/ep126. You'll find links to her book, podcast, and all of the soul fueling goodies we mentioned. Don't forget new stories, new inspiration, and the same safe place next Thursday, right here. Until then, keep dreaming big. Take care of yourself. And remember, you are beautiful, strong, and capable of creating the best version of yourself. Thank you for watching. Catch you next week. Bye for now.