Latest / Project Candor: Ordinary People. Unexpected Stories / The Story That Serves Your Future with Kristen Crabtree | Ship's Log #48

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The Story That Serves Your Future with Kristen Crabtree | Ship's Log #48 · Project Candor: Ordinary People. Unexpected Stories

• 0:00
  Kristen: The bear that had been chasing me finally became scarier than the abyss that was in front of me.
• 0:07
  Kristen: And so I just had to take the leap into the abyss because I just couldn't keep running from the bear any longer.
• 0:31
  Jeanne: Welcome to Project Candor.
• 0:33
  Jeanne: I'm your host, Jeanne Andersen, and this is the show where ordinary people tell unexpected stories, the kind of stories that make you think, make you laugh, and sometimes make you realize you're not as alone as you thought.
• 0:44
  Jeanne: Let's get into it.
• 0:46
  Jeanne: My guest today spent decades being uh steady, dependable, and invisible until she decided to remember who she actually was.
• 0:55
  Jeanne: After 22 years in a psychologically abusive marriage, she didn't reach for a self-help book.
• 1:02
  Jeanne: She built her own path back.
• 1:04
  Jeanne: She's a certified divorce coach, the creator of the Paramour Paradox Self-Recovery Framework, and the author of a book that is unlike anything I've come across.
• 1:15
  Jeanne: Please welcome Kristen Crabtree.
• 1:18
  Kristen: Thank you, Jeanne.
• 1:19
  Kristen: It's good to be here.
• 1:20
  Jeanne: Thank you.
• 1:21
  Jeanne: Well, yeah, I'm so glad you're here.
• 1:23
  Jeanne: And um, we just are gonna have such a good time today because what they don't know is that you've got some fantastic stories coming up when we get to two truths and a lie.
• 1:35
  Kristen: Excellent.
• 1:36
  Jeanne: Um, so anyway, uh let's get started first with our questions, if you don't mind, and then we'll transition to the two truths and a lie.
• 1:44
  Jeanne: Sure.
• 1:45
  Jeanne: Sure.
• 1:46
  Jeanne: So you describe yourself as someone who spent decades being steady, dependable, and invisible.
• 1:53
  Jeanne: Take me back.
• 1:54
  Jeanne: When did that start?
• 1:55
  Jeanne: Was there a moment early in your life where you first learned to make yourself smaller?
• 2:01
  Kristen: Yeah, I mean, for sure, there was a moment that I hate going into my story for a long period of time because, you know, so many people want to hear the story.
• 2:14
  Kristen: The the good thing about the story is it gives people a context because I seem really awesome right now, and I am really awesome right now, but um life definitely wasn't always that way.
• 2:25
  Kristen: And so the story helps to put that in perspective.
• 2:28
  Kristen: Um, I was sexually assaulted at 13 and raped at 15.
• 2:32
  Kristen: And I would have to say that the sexual assault is what really uh started, uh shifted, you know, things for me because I no longer felt safe.
• 2:42
  Kristen: I never understood what boundaries were, um, I didn't think I was worth anything.
• 2:48
  Kristen: And so as you know, time went on, that just built into part of who I was.
• 2:54
  Kristen: And um my psychologically abusive marriage, um my wife weaponized the earlier assaults um to make me believe that I could only be safe and stable if I was in a relationship with her.
• 3:10
  Kristen: Um, she was actually a retired police officer.
• 3:13
  Kristen: And so, you know, she could keep me safe, right?
• 3:17
  Kristen: And um she was financially stable, and I was um coming out of a manic episode um where uh I ran up a $60,000 debt, and this is back, you know, 25 years ago, so that was a lot of money.
• 3:33
  Kristen: And um, so I had filed bankruptcy.
• 3:36
  Kristen: So I could only be safe and stable if I was with her.
• 3:40
  Kristen: And so I learned um to forgive a lot of unforgivable behavior to um stay safe.
• 3:52
  Jeanne: There's a lot that you said there to unpack.
• 3:55
  Jeanne: What what do you think uh her motivation was?
• 4:00
  Jeanne: She just like to control.
• 4:01
  Jeanne: Is that why she wanted to bring up your past?
• 4:05
  Kristen: So, well, I honestly don't know like how much of that type of behavior, and I don't just mean her, you know, there's a ton of people out there in the world who, you know, are manipulative and controlling, and I don't know how much of it is conscious and how much of it is just so much a part of who they are that they don't even know they're doing it.
• 4:25
  Kristen: Um so you know, I I I don't know the answer to that.
• 4:29
  Kristen: And I've actually gotten to such an amazing um place of healing that like it honestly I I forgive isn't even the right word.
• 4:40
  Kristen: Like it's fine.
• 4:41
  Kristen: It it's fine, isn't right, because that's like dismissive.
• 4:44
  Kristen: It's um I actually value everything that I've been through because and I'm not just saying that, like I truly, truly, truly value it because it's put me into a a place where I can really provide uh healing and um guidance, you know, to other people and change their lives.
• 5:08
  Kristen: And how amazing is that, you know.
• 5:12
  Jeanne: Yeah, because you understand.
• 5:14
  Jeanne: You you can listen to somebody who feels broken and comes to you and says, This stuff is happening, and you know, probably feels like covering their eyes or hiding their head, and you can just wrap your arms around them and give them support where nobody else can.
• 5:34
  Jeanne: Yeah, exactly.
• 5:37
  Jeanne: Yeah, that's wonderful.
• 5:38
  Jeanne: Um, so do you have um let's see, a time in that relationship that something just shifted, like, okay, I've had enough of this.
• 5:50
  Jeanne: And you stopped surviving and started seeing it.
• 5:53
  Jeanne: What was it that finally cracked things open for you?
• 5:56
  Kristen: So I did not um see what was happening until I left.
• 6:01
  Kristen: And that's a message that I really like people to hear because I think a lot of people feel, you know, that feeling of things aren't right, but I have to wait until I'm clear, I have to wait until I have a strategy, I have to wait until I have a plan.
• 6:13
  Kristen: You're not gonna get the strategy plan or clarity if you stay.
• 6:17
  Kristen: Uh, and that that's whether it's a job that's a nightmare or whether it's a spouse that's a nightmare.
• 6:23
  Kristen: Like it, it's the same in whatever context.
• 6:27
  Kristen: I definitely had not figured things out.
• 6:30
  Kristen: I was on my bathroom floor having a very bad panic attack.
• 6:34
  Kristen: Um, my father was on speaker phone, and um he said to me, Um, you don't have to leave now.
• 6:43
  Kristen: You can wait until you're strong.
• 6:45
  Kristen: And I had been saying, I can't, I can't leave, I can't leave, I can't leave.
• 6:51
  Kristen: That was his response as I was having the anxiety attack.
• 6:55
  Kristen: And as soon as he said I didn't have to leave, my panic attack skyrocketed.
• 7:00
  Kristen: And it switched to, I can't stay, I can't stay, I can't stay.
• 7:04
  Kristen: And it turns out that's actually a quote from Eat Pray Love, which I didn't know.
• 7:08
  Kristen: I've never read that book.
• 7:09
  Kristen: But apparently it's a feeling a lot of people can relate to.
• 7:13
  Kristen: And the way I see it, there's sort of two metaphors or two analogies that I use.
• 7:18
  Kristen: One is a teeter-totter.
• 7:20
  Kristen: So for a long time, the I can't leave, I can't leave, I can't leave, like I was too afraid to leave part was the heavier part.
• 7:28
  Kristen: And then all of a sudden on the bathroom floor, it tipped and it was I can't stay.
• 7:33
  Kristen: Um, that became the bigger, the bigger, heavier, you know, piece of the teeter totter.
• 7:40
  Kristen: The other metaphor that I used that feels really real is um in that moment, the bear that had been chasing me finally became scarier than the abyss that was in front of me.
• 7:54
  Kristen: And so I just had to take the the leap into the abyss because I just couldn't keep running from the bear any longer.
• 8:03
  Jeanne: That's very profound.
• 8:04
  Jeanne: Um, I'm trying to see it mentally.
• 8:06
  Jeanne: Um definitely don't want to be chased by a bear and be close to the abyss, but I can understand your point there.
• 8:14
  Jeanne: Um What have you got to lose?
• 8:18
  Kristen: Yeah, exactly.
• 8:19
  Kristen: You know, at that point I, you know, I knew I I knew what getting eaten by the bear was like.
• 8:24
  Kristen: I didn't know what the abyss was like, and it finally was like, you know, I'm I'm willing to find that out because I don't like getting eaten by the bear anymore.
• 8:35
  Jeanne: Absolutely.
• 8:36
  Jeanne: Wow, that is um a very interesting story.
• 8:40
  Jeanne: I just um see think that a lot of people go through that and they just survive, they just stay there.
• 8:46
  Jeanne: They don't get to the point that you did on the bathroom floor, they just stay there.
• 8:50
  Jeanne: But when you finally stepped away and started rebuilding, what surprised you most about how hard it was to trust your own voice, even after you knew you were free?
• 9:01
  Kristen: So, what was the hardest part?
• 9:03
  Kristen: You know, I would say it was you know, believing that I could be safe.
• 9:16
  Kristen: Um, because I had spent so many years not thinking that I could be safe um on my own, you know, and um when I left I actually was afraid for my life, and I think not justifiably so.
• 9:34
  Kristen: Like she never hit me, it was never physically violent.
• 9:38
  Kristen: We did have guns in the house, and I started to think that maybe the guns would be used against me, and I, you know, reached out to the police to just, you know, let them know I was worried, and you know, I think all of that was unfounded, but my um anxiety and fear were so high that I just, you know, I everything was scary, and I I didn't believe that I could I could keep myself safe.
• 10:09
  Kristen: And so I think the biggest um challenge I faced was, and and by safe, I mean like in every sense of the word, you know, financially, like not on the street, sexually, like not getting assaulted.
• 10:23
  Kristen: I mean like every component of safety um I had been taught that I couldn't do that for myself.
• 10:32
  Kristen: And I um I had to learn that I could, and um, I know that now and I believe that now.
• 10:40
  Kristen: Um, and it's a great place to be, but that was probably the hardest part that I had to had to learn, had to go through.
• 10:50
  Jeanne: Did you have a support system?
• 10:52
  Jeanne: You said you said your father, right?
• 10:54
  Kristen: That was um I have, you know, I am so blessed and so grateful for my support system.
• 11:01
  Kristen: Um my family for the most part are all alive.
• 11:05
  Kristen: Um my friends are amazing.
• 11:07
  Kristen: I didn't have many local friends because that's part of the manipulation and control as you get separated, you know, from communities.
• 11:15
  Kristen: So I had one friend locally um who I actually didn't know that long at the time.
• 11:21
  Kristen: Um I had only uh been friends with her for about a year.
• 11:26
  Kristen: Um so locally I didn't have really a community, but um on the other side of the coast, I I'm in Massachusetts, back in um California and New Mexico, you know, I had people there um supporting me.
• 11:42
  Kristen: But the interesting thing about that is with psychological abuse, it's such a strange, insidious type of abuse.
• 11:50
  Kristen: I've I've been sexually assaulted, I've been physically abused, but the the thing about psychological abuse is that you you don't know it's happening, you know, with the other types, you know, bam, you get hit, right?
• 12:05
  Kristen: You know, okay, I was just assaulted.
• 12:08
  Kristen: But with psychological abuse, the way it works is it just chip, chip, chip, chip, chips away at you um so slow and so steady that you don't know it's happening.
• 12:20
  Kristen: And unless somebody has been through that themselves or witnessed it up front and personal, they don't really understand.
• 12:30
  Kristen: Even if they love you and they want to support you and want to say the right things, I guarantee you they will say the wrong thing.
• 12:37
  Kristen: Not because they don't like you or don't support, they just they don't know better because they just haven't been there.
• 12:44
  Kristen: Um, and so yes, I am so lucky to have the support system that I have.
• 12:51
  Kristen: Um I had to learn like who could give me what kind of support, um, you know, just based on what their level of understanding, you know, was.
• 13:05
  Jeanne: Well, I don't have that kind of trauma in my life right now, but I do know that sometimes when things are overwhelming to me, that I and people start giving me a million um pieces of advice, you know, from sisters and husband and everything.
• 13:19
  Jeanne: I just want to shut my ears, close my ears and just say, be quiet.
• 13:24
  Jeanne: I have to figure this out myself.
• 13:25
  Jeanne: So it sounds like that's what you did.
• 13:27
  Jeanne: Yep.
• 13:28
  Jeanne: Exactly.
• 13:29
  Jeanne: Exactly.
• 13:31
  Jeanne: So you make a distinction that I love.
• 13:33
  Jeanne: You call your work self-recovery, not self-help.
• 13:36
  Jeanne: What's the difference and why does that word choice matter so much to you?
• 13:40
  Kristen: Yeah, self, um, so I really don't like the term self-help or um self-improvement um or personal development, even, even though my book has to be classified according to those, because that's the language people speak.
• 13:56
  Kristen: But they all imply um that there's something wrong, something deficient, defective, something broken, something that needs needs to be repaired or fixed.
• 14:06
  Kristen: And um, you know, we're all magnificent.
• 14:11
  Kristen: Like, like truly, Jeanne, you are brilliant.
• 14:14
  Kristen: Everybody listening to this show is brilliant and magnificent.
• 14:18
  Kristen: We have just forgotten.
• 14:20
  Kristen: And so, what self-recovery and self-revelation are about, it's remembering that.
• 14:26
  Kristen: It's remembering how incredible we are beneath all the layers of adaptation.
• 14:33
  Kristen: And so for me, healing is really about removing those layers of adaptation and getting down to the authentic self because the authentic self is incredible, incredible.
• 14:48
  Jeanne: Very true.
• 14:49
  Jeanne: Um, you work now with people who say, I can't keep living like this, and we discussed this a little bit earlier, but they don't want to blow up their life either.
• 14:59
  Jeanne: So, what usually goes on underneath that feeling and how do you start with them when they come to you?
• 15:05
  Kristen: You know, it's really about um clearing the fog so that um you can see possibilities because when we're in stress and in trauma, um there's usually only one thing we see, and it's something that won't work because that's where our brain is.
• 15:27
  Kristen: Our brain can only see one possibility, and it's a possibility that won't work, and so nothing happens.
• 15:33
  Kristen: When really there's infinite possibilities.
• 15:36
  Kristen: I mean, truly, they're they're not all practical, they're not all doable, but there's, I mean, there are so many possibilities.
• 15:43
  Kristen: And so there's a couple steps that have to happen first.
• 15:47
  Kristen: One is calming the nervous system.
• 15:49
  Kristen: You know, we get so um our the cortisol and adrenaline and all of that that's pumping through our veins is so intense that um you can't think clearly because your body is so, you know, you don't want to take your eyes off the bear if you're being chased by a bear.
• 16:04
  Kristen: You don't want to close your eyes and go deep and meditate and get quiet.
• 16:08
  Kristen: No, you don't want to take a bath, no, the bear might get you, right?
• 16:12
  Kristen: So you have to create a space and an environment where you can quiet everything down for a moment, even if it's literally a microsecond, you know, but just some kind of break in that um that cycle of chemistry, really is what it comes down to.
• 16:30
  Kristen: And I actually have something um since you and I first talked, something that I've been working on um a lot that I call um emotional sobriety.
• 16:39
  Kristen: And that term is actually used um in by two other types of people.
• 16:44
  Kristen: AA uses it, but they use it to mean emotional maturation.
• 16:49
  Kristen: And cognitive behavioral therapists use it to mean emotional regulation.
• 16:53
  Kristen: But again, in both of those uses, it implies there's something wrong with the person.
• 16:57
  Kristen: They have to mature, they have to regulate.
• 16:59
  Kristen: For me, emotional sobriety is really about breaking the addiction to the chemistry of emotion.
• 17:07
  Kristen: Because what happens is we have a trigger, we see somebody who looks like our ex, or let's even make it more practical.
• 17:15
  Kristen: An email comes up from our ex.
• 17:17
  Kristen: That's a trigger.
• 17:19
  Kristen: Immediately, our chemistry responds and releases a flood of chemicals that we're used to.
• 17:26
  Kristen: We'll call that cocktail cortisol and adrenaline right now.
• 17:30
  Kristen: Then our brain has to justify that feeling.
• 17:36
  Kristen: And so it says, Oh, that's from my ex, and they're probably wanting something really annoying or saying something really awful.
• 17:44
  Kristen: And then our chemistry responds to that thought by creating an emotion of fear, anxiety, whatever.
• 17:53
  Kristen: And then that creates the release of more cortisol and adrenaline.
• 17:58
  Kristen: And so this loop is able to continue.
• 18:01
  Kristen: So the way I use the term sobriety in the context of that emotional chemistry is that it's not about changing our thoughts because um a lot of the therapists will use um this concept to uh teach tools to try to regulate our thoughts.
• 18:23
  Kristen: Well, I don't know about you, but not thinking about a pink elephant with purple polka dots is like super, super hard.
• 18:29
  Kristen: Um, and so like controlling our thoughts is really hard.
• 18:33
  Kristen: And so we try and we can't do it, and then we feel shame and guilt and stupid, which releases the cortisol and adrenaline and all those other yummy cocktails.
• 18:43
  Kristen: And so it just continues to feed the loop.
• 18:46
  Kristen: And what I like to do with people, and this pertains directly to your question of how do I start working with people, is I understand this addiction and I treat it as an addiction.
• 18:59
  Kristen: So, how are we going to break the addition addiction to the chemicals?
• 19:04
  Kristen: Because those chemicals are what cause us to ruminate, and it also is what causes us to choose the same environment over again.
• 19:12
  Kristen: Okay.
• 19:13
  Kristen: Because what happens is we're in that terrible marriage, we leave, we get out of the marriage, but our body still wants that chemistry.
• 19:21
  Kristen: So it has to find a way to create it.
• 19:24
  Kristen: So what it will do usually is either ruminate.
• 19:28
  Kristen: So you'll think about the things that happened, or you'll think about what might happen or what you might say in the next conversation, or you'll reread the email that pissed you off the first time you read it.
• 19:38
  Kristen: And that keeps that constant drip of chemistry.
• 19:43
  Kristen: Or you'll choose a partner who looks exactly, but is exactly the same person in a different meat suit to again provide you with the chemistry.
• 19:53
  Kristen: So knowing that, I can then work with the person to help them actually break the addiction at the chemical level, which is um hard, but actually easier than trying to stop thinking a certain way.
• 20:08
  Kristen: So um, yeah, that's how I start working with people.
• 20:13
  Jeanne: Well, I don't know all the psychology behind this that you know, but I do know, you know, even in work environments that are stressful, um, that I've been in in the past where you've seen these scenarios play over and over again.
• 20:27
  Jeanne: Not necessarily one of them relationships with people, but people you work with.
• 20:31
  Jeanne: Um, and they try to train you to uh assume positive intent, but you're like, in your mind, you're like, I know how this plays out, I know how this is going.
• 20:39
  Jeanne: You can't really you can't break that.
• 20:43
  Jeanne: It's very difficult.
• 20:44
  Jeanne: So I don't know, it sounds a lot like what you're working with with people.
• 20:49
  Jeanne: It's like it is.
• 20:50
  Jeanne: They see the same thing and they're like, I know how this works.
• 20:53
  Jeanne: So Yep.
• 20:54
  Jeanne: Yep.
• 20:54
  Jeanne: So you have to switch that, switch that off.
• 20:57
  Jeanne: Yeah.
• 20:59
  Jeanne: And that's not easy to do at all.
• 21:00
  Jeanne: I mean, no, I mean, do do what kind of just give us an exercise or something that you do to help somebody break through.
• 21:08
  Kristen: Yeah.
• 21:09
  Kristen: So there's sort of two different contexts, and when I see that I work with people um tangibly around the emotional sobriety.
• 21:18
  Kristen: So one context is um the ruminations.
• 21:22
  Kristen: So again, rereading an email or you know, spinning out about the next interaction that might happen, what you're gonna say.
• 21:30
  Kristen: So that is sort of one batch of tools that I'll talk about.
• 21:33
  Kristen: And then the other instance that it's um really easy to sort of come up with strategy and tools around is interactions.
• 21:42
  Kristen: So you're at work, you're approached by that coworker that you don't see eye to eye with, they say something to you that pisses you off, you react, and then it escalates and goes, right?
• 21:57
  Kristen: So that's like the normal flow.
• 21:59
  Kristen: So Those are two different very different experiences that are doing the same thing, which is providing that chemistry.
• 22:07
  Kristen: So the first thing that has to be done is you have to be aware because if you're not aware it's happening, then there's no way to fix it.
• 22:16
  Kristen: So it's just kind of like 12 steps, right?
• 22:18
  Kristen: You have to admit there's a problem.
• 22:20
  Kristen: So you have to be able to become aware enough to see it happening in the moment.
• 22:26
  Kristen: Because the the interesting thing about um emotional sobriety is with drink, I'm also two plus years sober from alcohol, but you can um, you know, not go in a bar and not go in a liquor store and not have alcohol in your house, but you can't kick the emotional sobriety bartender out of your brain.
• 22:46
  Kristen: He's there ready to mix up that cocktail any old moment.
• 22:51
  Kristen: So the awareness is really an important piece.
• 22:55
  Kristen: And if you um quiet your if if I stop talking for a second and let you just be in your head, I want you to notice um the different I'm gonna stop.
• 23:08
  Kristen: You're gonna do this.
• 23:09
  Kristen: I want you to notice the different voices in your head.
• 23:13
  Kristen: Okay.
• 23:13
  Kristen: So did you hear just one or did you hear multiple voices?
• 23:25
  Jeanne: Just one.
• 23:26
  Kristen: Okay.
• 23:27
  Kristen: Did the voice sound like yours?
• 23:29
  Jeanne: Yes.
• 23:30
  Kristen: What was the voice saying?
• 23:33
  Jeanne: We have dead air time.
• 23:35
  Kristen: I love it.
• 23:36
  Jeanne: And so did my editor gonna edit this out.
• 23:39
  Kristen: No, no, please don't edit it out.
• 23:41
  Kristen: Please don't edit it out.
• 23:42
  Kristen: Because that's the point.
• 23:44
  Kristen: So, what did you then think?
• 23:45
  Kristen: We have dead air time.
• 23:46
  Kristen: Then you said, is my editor gonna edit this out?
• 23:49
  Kristen: Because what was the next thought?
• 23:52
  Jeanne: Because I don't want to lose your exercise.
• 23:56
  Jeanne: And how do we do this?
• 23:58
  Jeanne: Play a little music, like uh-uh.
• 24:02
  Kristen: No, so the whole the whole point is that um there's this chatter that happens in our brain that we think is us because it sounds like us, but that chatter, and sometimes it's lots of voices.
• 24:14
  Kristen: So sometimes it's oh my god, what is she doing?
• 24:17
  Kristen: She didn't tell me she would do this.
• 24:18
  Kristen: People are gonna hate this.
• 24:20
  Kristen: You know, my mother told me not to do podcasting because I would suck at it.
• 24:23
  Kristen: And you know what?
• 24:24
  Kristen: I don't know if I'm gonna be able to get my editor to to work on this and edit it.
• 24:28
  Kristen: You know, I was hoping this would be an easy, you know, little middle, little, little, middle, right?
• 24:31
  Kristen: Monkey, monkey mind is what I call it, and other people call it too.
• 24:35
  Kristen: So you have to be able to interrupt monkey mind long enough to be aware of what's happening.
• 24:42
  Kristen: Interrupting monkey mind is a fun little challenge, but you start with teeny tiny, again, like micro moments.
• 24:51
  Kristen: So it can be as simple as the first bite of food.
• 24:56
  Kristen: You pay attention to the texture and the flavor and the different components and the mouthfeel and how it is against your teeth and your tongue and all of that.
• 25:07
  Kristen: That is meditation, that is mindfulness, that is creating a micro moment of quiet, which is so wonderful.
• 25:18
  Kristen: Once you create enough of those micro moments, then it really can just be one bite of food.
• 25:23
  Kristen: Like it doesn't matter.
• 25:24
  Kristen: There's a lot of other tools that I can suggest, you know, walking in nature, saying that you're going to look for more variations of color than you've ever noticed before, or as you walk, uh expand to take in as many sounds as you can, the sound of your feet on the gravel, the birds, the wind, the leaves, the water, the traffic, your stomach gurgling, your, you know, like that is also an exercise that stops that monkey mind.
• 25:53
  Kristen: So the more practice you can do of stopping monkey mind, the more um breaks in that chatter you will have.
• 26:03
  Kristen: And then when you're in that moment of rereading the email or getting annoyed by your coworker, you'll be able to see that.
• 26:12
  Kristen: Now, the way it usually works is, and let's use the coworker.
• 26:16
  Kristen: So the way it usually starts to happen once you've been practicing this is the coworker comes, coworker says something really annoying, you become aware that this is your trigger button, but you still do the same darn thing you always do.
• 26:30
  Kristen: You just do it.
• 26:32
  Kristen: But then the next time that happens, you become aware that it's about to happen and you think, okay, so I could do X or Y instead of what I usually do, but you still do what you do.
• 26:44
  Kristen: And then the third time you go, okay, I could do X or Y, and you actually do X or Y.
• 26:51
  Kristen: And then the next time you don't, you don't, or you even say, I could do X or Y, or I could do what I always do, and I want to do what I always do, so I'm gonna do it.
• 26:59
  Kristen: Uh so it's not like a perfect science, but the more awareness you can have in your life, um, the easier it is to then um break cycles that aren't working.
• 27:12
  Jeanne: Well, sometimes I've heard tricks of like don't reply to an email till the next day, after you get one that you know annoys you, just wait, sleep on it, um, or you know, count to 20, or get up and walk around, and when you come back, maybe things feel a little bit better.
• 27:30
  Kristen: I don't know if those are the kind of things that you absolutely, but those all have to happen because you have awareness.
• 27:36
  Kristen: So awareness is really the first step because how are you gonna do any of those other things if you're not even aware it's happening?
• 27:44
  Jeanne: Right?
• 27:44
  Jeanne: Right, very true.
• 27:46
  Jeanne: When you're just always reacting, reacting, you're not thinking about it.
• 27:51
  Jeanne: Uh yeah.
• 27:52
  Kristen: Yeah.
• 27:52
  Kristen: So awareness is the first step.
• 27:54
  Kristen: There are infinite numbers of once you have the awareness, there are infinite number of responses that you can do that shift things in your life.
• 28:04
  Kristen: Um, there's no one perfect only answer.
• 28:08
  Kristen: There's so many.
• 28:09
  Kristen: I had a client who um his ex-wife was really good at pushing his buttons in regards to his kids.
• 28:18
  Kristen: And um, she knew he was like a neat freak, and she knew he was a neat freak.
• 28:23
  Kristen: And so she star she created these play experiences in their house where the kids would throw rice up in the air.
• 28:32
  Kristen: And so then he would come have to clean up all the rice, and it was just really annoying him.
• 28:38
  Kristen: And um, so he came up with this plan, which sounds totally counterintuitive because I said, Well, what do you usually do?
• 28:48
  Kristen: And he said, Usually when I realize it's happening, I leave, I take a walk, and I come back.
• 28:52
  Kristen: And I'm like, Okay, great.
• 28:53
  Kristen: Is that working for you?
• 28:54
  Kristen: And he's like, Well, she's still a bitch afterwards, so no.
• 28:58
  Kristen: Uh so still does it.
• 28:59
  Kristen: Yeah, it still does it.
• 29:00
  Kristen: And I was like, Okay, so what could you do differently?
• 29:02
  Kristen: And uh, you know, I said, think out of the box, you know, think about whatever.
• 29:06
  Kristen: And he said, Well, I have confetti in my drawer at work.
• 29:09
  Kristen: I'm gonna put confetti in my pockets.
• 29:11
  Kristen: And when she starts to say what she says, I'm gonna reach in my pockets and throw confetti up in the air.
• 29:18
  Kristen: And I was like, Oh, that's brilliant.
• 29:20
  Kristen: That's great.
• 29:21
  Kristen: Um, now, you know, what's an obstacle, you know, to this?
• 29:25
  Kristen: And he's like, Well, then I gotta clean it up.
• 29:26
  Kristen: I'm like, Yep.
• 29:27
  Kristen: So what's the solution to that?
• 29:28
  Kristen: And he's like, Well, I could buy a uh roomba.
• 29:31
  Kristen: And I'm like, Yes, you could buy a rumba.
• 29:34
  Kristen: So that's what he wound up doing.
• 29:36
  Kristen: He wound up taking, you know, so again, it's like it doesn't have to be one perfect little answer, it can be let's take off all our clothes.
• 29:47
  Kristen: Like, you know, like I don't know.
• 29:48
  Kristen: Let's, you know, and I would do something different.
• 29:52
  Jeanne: I was thinking, like, why is he doing it in his own house?
• 29:55
  Jeanne: What isn't if it's his ex, then go to her house with the kids, do it there.
• 30:00
  Kristen: Yeah.
• 30:01
  Jeanne: So she has to clean it up.
• 30:02
  Jeanne: But the roomba sounds good.
• 30:05
  Jeanne: Unless you have a a dog.
• 30:07
  Jeanne: I don't know.
• 30:08
  Kristen: Right.
• 30:08
  Jeanne: I always wondered if my dogs would handle a roomba very well.
• 30:11
  Jeanne: So what um I'm gonna ask you another question.
• 30:16
  Jeanne: Um, how does the story serve your future?
• 30:21
  Jeanne: Which is kind of a deceptively simple question, you know, like you're recovered and you know all the tools and all the tricks, but what do you want people to sit with after they hear this conversation today?
• 30:32
  Kristen: Yeah, so the story serving the future.
• 30:34
  Kristen: So, you know, at the beginning, when you were asking, you know, kind of like my context, my story, and I said, you know, I hate I kind of hate telling my story.
• 30:41
  Kristen: So there's different versions of a story that are equally true.
• 30:47
  Kristen: And the story that I told when I first left my marriage, when I would meet new people, because I moved to an area I had never even visited before.
• 30:57
  Kristen: I just had to leave.
• 30:58
  Kristen: And so I got a furnished apartment about an hour from where I lived.
• 31:03
  Kristen: I moved in, I knew nobody.
• 31:05
  Kristen: And so when I would meet people and they would say, Oh, what brought you to the area?
• 31:09
  Kristen: I would say, Oh, I was in this really psychologically abusive marriage and it was awful, and I had to flee in the middle of the night because she wouldn't let me leave.
• 31:17
  Kristen: And, you know, I moved here and I don't know anybody and it's really scary and blah, blah, blah that, right?
• 31:22
  Kristen: So that was the story I was telling.
• 31:24
  Kristen: When I became aware that that story wasn't serving my future, I started thinking about my story.
• 31:31
  Kristen: And when people would meet me and say, you know, what brought you here?
• 31:37
  Kristen: My story became I was in, you know, a bad marriage and I moved here.
• 31:45
  Kristen: I've never been here before, but I somehow wound up in this incredible apartment that backs up to greenery and has a screened-in porch that my cat loves.
• 31:55
  Kristen: And I'm like a three-minute walk from the bike path, and I can walk everywhere, and I'm meeting really interesting new people, and I'm so excited to see what the future brings.
• 32:05
  Kristen: What's interesting about that is they're both true, but actually the second one is more true than the first because I didn't flee in the middle of the night.
• 32:15
  Kristen: Now, I did have to leave when she was on a trip because she wouldn't let me leave, and that's a whole nother, you know, substory.
• 32:24
  Kristen: But I felt like I wasn't allowed to leave when she was uh there, physically there, because she told me I couldn't.
• 32:30
  Kristen: So I had to leave when she was gone, but I didn't flee in the middle of the night.
• 32:34
  Kristen: So that story was actually less true than the second story.
• 32:41
  Kristen: But the second story served my future.
• 32:43
  Kristen: So same experience, different stories.
• 32:51
  Kristen: Which story serves your future?
• 32:54
  Jeanne: Yeah, I like the description of where you are now, the bike path and the nice apartment.
• 33:00
  Jeanne: It's like you get up every day now, I guess, and can say, Oh, I'm happy to be where I am in my life.
• 33:07
  Jeanne: Instead of that dread of I gotta get out.
• 33:10
  Jeanne: Yep.
• 33:11
  Jeanne: That's fantastic.
• 33:14
  Jeanne: So I know you have a book.
• 33:16
  Jeanne: Um, tell us about it.
• 33:17
  Kristen: Yes, it's called Be the You That's More You Than You've Ever Been.
• 33:21
  Jeanne: And I love the title.
• 33:23
  Kristen: I have one here.
• 33:24
  Kristen: Yes, of course I do.
• 33:25
  Kristen: So um I actually so it's a big book.
• 33:30
  Kristen: So I had to I have to be.
• 33:32
  Kristen: That's a lot that I gotta be.
• 33:34
  Kristen: It's a lot, it's a lot of being.
• 33:36
  Kristen: So I actually um after I published the book, I realized um from feedback that it can be a little intimidating for some people.
• 33:44
  Kristen: So I created a journal that uh the first part of the journal helps people design their own experience of moving through the book so that it's not intimidating.
• 33:54
  Kristen: Um the book is be the you that's more you than you've ever been.
• 33:57
  Kristen: The journal is um the true you 2.0 field journal.
• 34:02
  Kristen: And uh together they work really well to calm the nervous system, help you think through who you really are, how to how to get at that truth, um, and how to do it now.
• 34:15
  Kristen: That's the most interesting part, I think, of the book is the final, the um integration where um it's not like typical goal setting where you know, 10 years from now you'll be there.
• 34:28
  Kristen: It's today.
• 34:29
  Kristen: Today you're there.
• 34:30
  Kristen: This is how you do it.
• 34:32
  Jeanne: Oh, I like approaching it that way.
• 34:34
  Jeanne: When you say, even in job interviews, where do you see yourself in five years?
• 34:38
  Jeanne: Uh not no clue really.
• 34:41
  Jeanne: Because things could change every day.
• 34:43
  Jeanne: That would make me like AI is out now, and I was in technology before.
• 34:48
  Jeanne: And if they had asked me last year, where would you be in five years?
• 34:52
  Jeanne: I wouldn't say, like, really absorbed with AI, which I am.
• 34:56
  Kristen: Right, right.
• 34:59
  Jeanne: So, yeah, that's a fantastic approach to the book.
• 35:02
  Jeanne: You can see yourself making progress every day that way.
• 35:04
  Jeanne: Wonderful.
• 35:07
  Kristen: Yeah.
• 35:07
  Jeanne: Well, hey, this has been so fantastic getting to know you.
• 35:10
  Jeanne: Uh, anything else you want to throw in and give us more insight into you before we go to Two Truths in a lie?
• 35:16
  Kristen: Yeah, yeah, quickly.
• 35:17
  Kristen: So I take people from trauma to truth, and you can start anywhere in that spectrum.
• 35:22
  Kristen: So on the trauma end, um, I do work with um people in uh relationships that aren't working and they're trying to decide should I stay in this relationship or leave?
• 35:33
  Kristen: I work through the divorce process if somebody heads that way.
• 35:37
  Kristen: Um a lot of times people going through transitions, whether it's divorce or something else, they start asking them themselves the question, who am I?
• 35:48
  Kristen: And that's where my bigger um sort of passion project comes in.
• 35:52
  Kristen: And that is um Paramount Paradox, which is what the book is sort of the foundation of.
• 35:58
  Kristen: But all of Paramour Paradox, which is Paramour Paradox.com, all of that is tools that are designed to help people remember their path to truth, to their truth.
• 36:09
  Kristen: And uh there's lots of freebies on there.
• 36:12
  Kristen: So if you go to the shop, there's um all sorts of, I don't know, there's like nine different free things that you can download that are really practical and helpful.
• 36:21
  Kristen: And um if you want to actually talk with me, if something I've said has made you go, I want to talk with her, either to fight with her or to agree with her or to give her guidance, um uh u2.0.com, YOU, the number two, the word point the number zero.com will get you to a page where you can book time with me and it's free.
• 36:43
  Kristen: This is my passion project.
• 36:44
  Kristen: I love, I love doing this.
• 36:46
  Kristen: Um, so yeah.
• 36:48
  Jeanne: You're braver than me.
• 36:49
  Jeanne: I don't want to invite people to argue with me.
• 36:52
  Kristen: I love I love that because it gets me thinking different ways too, you know?
• 36:57
  Kristen: It's like uh bring it, bring it on.
• 37:00
  Jeanne: Yeah, you're raising kids, you don't want to keep you don't want to have people arguing with you.
• 37:04
  Jeanne: I've had enough of that.
• 37:06
  Jeanne: But anyway, good kids though.
• 37:08
  Jeanne: Um, all right, so it's time to transition to Two Truths and a lie.
• 37:12
  Jeanne: And the way we play it, this is a lot of fun.
• 37:15
  Jeanne: Kristen has provided me with three headlines about herself.
• 37:19
  Jeanne: These are uh gonna be more revealing um than just what she's doing today or what she's done in the past.
• 37:25
  Jeanne: These are like these little tidbits that happen in your life that you you don't see coming sometimes.
• 37:31
  Jeanne: And hers are quite crazy.
• 37:33
  Jeanne: So I'm gonna read the three headlines.
• 37:36
  Jeanne: Then I'm gonna guess which ones I think is the lie or twisted truth, and then uh she'll walk us through each of those stories, and then at the end, she'll tell us which one's the lie or the twisted truth.
• 37:49
  Jeanne: So um, are you ready?
• 37:52
  Kristen: I'm ready.
• 37:53
  Jeanne: This episode is sponsored by Rebel 180, the home of brave pivots and fresh starts.
• 37:58
  Jeanne: Rebel 180 is all about helping you rediscover what's possible when you stop settling and start listening to that little tug inside that says, life can be different.
• 38:08
  Jeanne: Whether you're navigating a career shift, dreaming about a new direction, or standing at the crossroads wondering if it's time for your own 180-degree turn, Rebel 180 is a reminder you don't need permission to change your story.
• 38:23
  Jeanne: And now, as we open the door to our second sponsor, we're stepping into the world of tech.
• 38:28
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• 38:36
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• 38:47
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• 38:55
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• 39:00
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• 39:02
  Jeanne: Okay, so headline number one.
• 39:08
  Jeanne: Uh accused of being a political deviant and international terrorist, Kristen was arrested by the FBI in 1987.
• 39:18
  Jeanne: Actual charges were assaulting a federal agent.
• 39:21
  Jeanne: Wow.
• 39:23
  Jeanne: Headline number two.
• 39:25
  Jeanne: Kristen holds a Bachelor's Degree in anthropology from the University of California at San Diego and a graduate degree degree in psychology from the University of San Diego.
• 39:37
  Jeanne: Um, two different universities, obviously.
• 39:40
  Jeanne: They sound similar though.
• 39:41
  Jeanne: Uh, number three, Kristen lived in Nigeria during a military dictatorship and won a research scholar award for a paper titled The Political Uses of Juju in Nigeria.
• 39:56
  Jeanne: Okay.
• 39:57
  Jeanne: So I am going to guess that number one is a lie.
• 40:02
  Jeanne: I can't believe you would be arrested by the FBI, but don't tell me what's the lie yet.
• 40:06
  Jeanne: So take us through story number one.
• 40:09
  Kristen: Okay, so story number one is there was a career fair at um the university, and um there were uh a group of people who were protesting the um FBI and CIA's involvement in um different countries, and um they asked me to take photos of the event, and when I took photos, the agents that were there, the agent that was there um got upset with me and um demanded that I stop and I refused to stop, and so they grabbed me by the camera strap and um I bit the agent's finger and was um taken to to federal prison, um spent a night there, and then for the next year I had to defend myself in in the court.
• 41:24
  Kristen: Wow story number one.
• 41:28
  Jeanne: In 1987, so on a campus, I didn't remember, I guess there was a lot of political unrest then and a lot of other things going on, but it just seems different back in 1987.
• 41:40
  Jeanne: So and you bit an FBI agent, but why was he grabbing you by the strap?
• 41:44
  Jeanne: That's abusive.
• 41:47
  Kristen: I don't know.
• 41:48
  Kristen: Was he um I don't know.
• 41:53
  Jeanne: Was he trying to make you move for you said you weren't gonna stop doing the pictures.
• 41:58
  Jeanne: He was trying to grab your camera, maybe?
• 42:00
  Jeanne: I don't know.
• 42:01
  Kristen: Yeah, the agent was trying to get me to stop.
• 42:03
  Kristen: They grabbed my camera strap and um was trying to get me to stop.
• 42:09
  Jeanne: Okay.
• 42:10
  Jeanne: All right, so uh but I'm I'm so weird and naive.
• 42:15
  Jeanne: Some FBI agent comes up to me and says, Stop.
• 42:18
  Jeanne: I'm like, okay, here's my camera.
• 42:20
  Jeanne: Here's here's fifty dollars.
• 42:22
  Jeanne: I'm sorry, then I get for bribery, right?
• 42:27
  Jeanne: Okay, all right.
• 42:32
  Jeanne: Well, that one seems strange.
• 42:34
  Jeanne: All right, so number two, tell us about that one.
• 42:38
  Kristen: Okay, so number two, uh bachelor's degree in anthropology.
• 42:43
  Kristen: Um, so uh University of California at San Diego is one of the UC systems schools, and I got my bachelor's degree in anthropology from there.
• 42:57
  Kristen: I got um I minored in poli sci.
• 43:00
  Kristen: Um and then I continued to live in San Diego and decided to get a practical um, you know, extension of my education because anthropology is not very practical.
• 43:16
  Kristen: Um and so I um applied to and got into the University of San Diego and got a graduate degree in psychology um and uh then um worked for about um five years uh with um some therapists just as like their scheduling person.
• 43:45
  Kristen: And then I gradually transitioned into um working in a therapeutic role um for a number of years.
• 43:58
  Jeanne: Okay.
• 43:58
  Jeanne: So Anthropology isn't that like a study of cultures and people and customs, um uncovering what makes people so then the the actual extension to get to psychology probably made a lot of sense.
• 44:15
  Kristen: Yeah, it did.
• 44:16
  Kristen: I mean, anthropology is um more about how uh people, communities of people are affected um in you know by different cultural things.
• 44:34
  Kristen: Like, for example, my first um job out of college, uh out of my undergraduate degree, was for an applied anthropology company.
• 44:45
  Kristen: And that was when um the uh Valdez oil spill happened.
• 44:51
  Kristen: And so I uh did sort of the administrative research.
• 44:57
  Kristen: Um, and the task was to identify how the native populations in Alaska were affected by the oil spill.
• 45:06
  Kristen: So that's sort of an example of anthropology applied in real life.
• 45:14
  Jeanne: Okay, all right.
• 45:15
  Jeanne: I remember that oil spill.
• 45:16
  Jeanne: That's when they were trying to clean ducks, oil off of ducks, and that's when Dawn Detergent became popular.
• 45:24
  Jeanne: Yeah, yeah.
• 45:25
  Jeanne: Cleaning oil.
• 45:26
  Jeanne: Oh my goodness.
• 45:27
  Jeanne: Yep.
• 45:27
  Jeanne: Uh given my age out here.
• 45:29
  Jeanne: Okay, number three, you lived in Nigeria during a military dictatorship.
• 45:35
  Jeanne: This sounds horrible.
• 45:36
  Jeanne: So what is juju anyway?
• 45:39
  Kristen: So juju is like voodoo.
• 45:41
  Kristen: So kind of uh, you know, it's it's more than it's it's more than a spiritual practice in Nigeria.
• 45:50
  Kristen: It's also um it's like even deeper than cultural, it's just a really, really rich, um, ingrained part of the way they view the world.
• 46:02
  Kristen: And so um what was interesting about that experience was um seeing how Juju wasn't just about healing or about spiritualism or religion or mysticism, how it played a role in their lives to the point where the political figures um used juju to protect themselves from bullets and um uh you know other violent acts against them.
• 46:40
  Kristen: Um it was they called it insurance, Nigerian insurance uh was juju.
• 46:47
  Jeanne: Okay.
• 46:48
  Jeanne: Against bullets, bullets, guns, bang bang.
• 46:52
  Jeanne: Yeah, but juju.
• 46:53
  Kristen: It's just it's just um there was uh casting spells or something?
• 47:00
  Jeanne: I don't know.
• 47:01
  Kristen: No, no.
• 47:02
  Kristen: Um so an example is um uh I was in a car uh driving from one town to another, and there was a car in front of us that started fishtailing and swerving and then rolled.
• 47:18
  Kristen: And uh we got out of the car to go see if the people in the car that got rolled over were okay.
• 47:28
  Kristen: And another uh car that had seen this happen did as well.
• 47:32
  Kristen: And um the they were all speaking amongst each other and very, very animated.
• 47:40
  Kristen: And I didn't understand what they were saying, but what I later found out they were saying was they had um pulled the, they had righteous the car.
• 47:53
  Kristen: So they had pulled the car right side up and nobody was in the car.
• 47:57
  Kristen: And then one person said to the other person, Oh my god, nobody's in the car, and there was somebody else yelling on the side of the road.
• 48:06
  Kristen: And those were the people that were in the car, but they were out of the car when the car rolled, and it's because they were government officials protected by Juju.
• 48:17
  Kristen: So when the car actually rolled, they were no longer in the car.
• 48:21
  Kristen: And they opened the door and got out or out of got it.
• 48:29
  Kristen: No, it's more like it's more like metaphysical, spiritual, mystical.
• 48:35
  Kristen: Okay, they just they were no longer in the car, they were out of the car.
• 48:40
  Jeanne: Okay.
• 48:40
  Jeanne: All right, so that was interesting.
• 48:45
  Jeanne: I think you know, now that I think about it, I remember people saying they have some bad juju, and I never thought about what that was.
• 48:51
  Jeanne: Yeah, okay.
• 48:53
  Jeanne: All right, are you gonna tell us which one's the lie?
• 48:56
  Jeanne: Number two.
• 48:57
  Jeanne: What?
• 48:59
  Kristen: I do not have a degree in psychology.
• 49:02
  Jeanne: Oh.
• 49:04
  Kristen: Just anthropology or anthropology, and I have a master's in international business.
• 49:10
  Kristen: International business.
• 49:12
  Kristen: But I do not have a degree in psychology, yeah.
• 49:17
  Kristen: Oh, but you were arrested by the FBI.
• 49:20
  Kristen: I was.
• 49:21
  Kristen: I was.
• 49:22
  Kristen: I was arrested by the FBI.
• 49:24
  Kristen: Yep, I was charged.
• 49:25
  Kristen: Oh my goodness.
• 49:26
  Kristen: I was charged with assaulting a federal agent.
• 49:29
  Kristen: They were trying to prove that I was a member of the Palestinian uh liberation organization and an armed terrorist uh for an entire year.
• 49:40
  Kristen: They um went back and forth on, you know, manufacturing new, you know, charges or new, you know, things.
• 49:50
  Kristen: And then eventually I was um, you know how you said, um, but the agent um assaulted assaulted you or something.
• 49:59
  Kristen: Well, it actually got thrown out by um a fed the federal judge.
• 50:05
  Kristen: And what's interesting about that is the federal judge that my case went up before was a very conservative judge.
• 50:11
  Kristen: And my attorney thought, oh my God, this is terrible.
• 50:14
  Kristen: You know, you're gonna get fried, basically.
• 50:16
  Kristen: And the federal judge put the agent on the stand at the pretrial um hearing and um asked the agent, it was a female agent, asked her some questions.
• 50:30
  Kristen: One of her answers was sometimes the best defense is a good offense.
• 50:35
  Kristen: So he decided that she assaulted me and he threw it out.
• 50:40
  Kristen: What's really interesting about that is that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned it, which is why this went on for a year.
• 50:48
  Kristen: The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned it, and that is now taught in um law school.
• 50:54
  Kristen: Um, you know, the the judge acting beyond his authority or something like that whole scenario is actually used in law school books now.
• 51:07
  Kristen: Crabtree versus the United States.
• 51:10
  Kristen: That's really yep.
• 51:11
  Jeanne: If I Google that, would you come up?
• 51:14
  Kristen: Actually, what you should Google is 1987, Kristen Crabtree arrested by FBI UCSD.
• 51:23
  Kristen: And you'll see all kinds of stuff because I was all over the news.
• 51:27
  Kristen: I was even in the Washington Post.
• 51:31
  Jeanne: Oh wow.
• 51:31
  Jeanne: Yeah.
• 51:32
  Jeanne: So we have a celebrity on the show then.
• 51:34
  Jeanne: Uh for being arrested by I you know what?
• 51:40
  Jeanne: I just uh two podcasts ago, I just interviewed an FBI agent, a former FBI agent.
• 51:46
  Jeanne: He's a guard.
• 51:47
  Kristen: And it's interesting that I was married to a police officer for 20 plus years.
• 51:52
  Jeanne: Yes.
• 51:53
  Jeanne: Yes.
• 51:53
  Jeanne: Oh, okay.
• 51:54
  Jeanne: And this juju thing, uh, I guess you got off because you had good juju.
• 52:00
  Kristen: Well, actually, I so they finally offered me when it went back to trial the second time after you know the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned it and it went back to trial.
• 52:11
  Kristen: Um, they offered me a deferred prosecution and I accepted it.
• 52:16
  Kristen: And that basically means if you're a good girl for a year or however long, um, the charges are dropped.
• 52:22
  Kristen: But I I accepted it, but I knew I wasn't going to be able to stay out of trouble because the police had started um targeting me at any event, even if I wasn't acting out because I was a known, a known problem.
• 52:37
  Kristen: And so if I was at something else, I would get targeted.
• 52:40
  Kristen: And so I understandably, you know, to be quite honest.
• 52:45
  Kristen: Um, and so I knew that if I stayed in the area, there was no way I was going to be able to live out this deferred prosecution.
• 52:53
  Kristen: So I agreed to it on the condition that I could leave the country for a little while and go to Nigeria.
• 53:00
  Kristen: So I went to Nigeria and um my uh favorite anthropology anthropology professors sort of sponsored me in the sense that he said, um, you know, if I came back and wrote a research paper, he would give me um, you know, credits for the time that I spent um in Nigeria.
• 53:22
  Kristen: And uh the guidance he said um in terms of researching, he said, just keep a journal.
• 53:28
  Kristen: Just journal everything that happens.
• 53:30
  Kristen: Don't go in with any kind of preconceived idea about what you want to write about.
• 53:34
  Kristen: And as things unfolded, I was learning about Juju um in a medical capacity.
• 53:41
  Kristen: The family that I lived with, the uh mother was the senior wife of a man who had had what was probably a stroke, and she was trying to use Juju to help him.
• 53:53
  Kristen: And so I had a lot of exposure to different um Juju masters and um was able to witness a lot of um sort of behind the scenes stuff around that.
• 54:06
  Kristen: And so that's how my paper came to be.
• 54:11
  Jeanne: Oh, very nice.
• 54:12
  Jeanne: Well, it may it's logical progression, I guess.
• 54:15
  Jeanne: But I mean, you got me when you said to the judge, uh, well, um, I'll take this, this, this uh whatever you call it.
• 54:23
  Jeanne: Yeah, yeah.
• 54:26
  Jeanne: And you know, as long as you'll let me go to Nigeria, you know, the resort country of Nigeria during a military dictatorship.
• 54:38
  Kristen: Yes, yes.
• 54:39
  Jeanne: I'm thinking uh what was going on in your mind there?
• 54:42
  Jeanne: I I would I would be picking things like Belize, Italy, I don't get anything.
• 54:49
  Kristen: I've never I've never made anything easy in life.
• 54:52
  Kristen: That's definitely not my style.
• 54:56
  Kristen: Not my style.
• 54:57
  Jeanne: I'm getting that vibe here, Kris.
• 54:59
  Jeanne: Well, you've been so fantastic.
• 55:03
  Jeanne: I know people are gonna want to get in touch with you, so I'm going to, and you've already given them some of the information about how to do it, but we have right here the contact information, and all of this stuff will be in the show notes so that people will be able to reach out to you when they uh if they lose these uh links by just seeing them on screen or by just hearing you talk about them.
• 55:24
  Jeanne: Um, but I did like your quote.
• 55:27
  Jeanne: I always ask people for a quote, and yours is does your story serve your future?
• 55:31
  Jeanne: So do you want to say anything more about that?
• 55:33
  Jeanne: I like you kind of talked about that earlier.
• 55:36
  Kristen: Yeah, yeah, I talked about that earlier.
• 55:38
  Kristen: Just ask yourself that.
• 55:39
  Kristen: You know, you tell your story to others and to yourself all day long, every day.
• 55:45
  Kristen: Does the version of your story serve your future?
• 55:48
  Kristen: Because there's so many different versions you could tell, and they're all true, or you might even be telling one that's not necessarily fully true, but it gets you something, it gets you sympathy, or it gets you love, or it gets you attention.
• 56:01
  Kristen: But does it get you your future?
• 56:04
  Kristen: Does it get you where you want to be?
• 56:08
  Jeanne: Right.
• 56:09
  Jeanne: Very nice.
• 56:10
  Jeanne: So, everybody, thank you very much, Kristen, for being on and for all the people that are listening.
• 56:15
  Jeanne: Um, I am Jeanne Andersen, your Admiral of the Unexpected, and we heard a lot of unexpected things today.
• 56:23
  Jeanne: Um, I hope you turn in next week for another episode.
• 56:27
  Jeanne: And until then, I wish everyone smooth sailing.
• 56:30
  Jeanne: Thank you, Jeanne.
• 56:32
  Jeanne: Thank you.
• 56:32
  Jeanne: Bye, Jeanne.
• 56:33
  Jeanne: Thank you.
• 56:34
  Jeanne: Thanks for joining me on Project Candor, where the doors are open, the stories are unexpected, and the treasure is always real.
• 56:42
  Jeanne: If today's episode made you laugh or think, follow the show and share it with your crew.
• 56:47
  Jeanne: Otherwise, I might just make you swab the deck.
• 56:51
  Jeanne: I'm Jeanne Andersen, your Admiral of the Unexpected.
• 56:55
  Jeanne: See you on the next voyage.