41. Talking Whole Body Wellness with Guest Cassandra Juniphant

Our guest is an unstoppable force of transformation—wife, mother, and self-care alchemist—Cassandra Juniphant. From the high-stakes world of corporate HR to the empowering path of bodybuilding, martial arts, and holistic wellness, Cassandra’s journey is one of intentional evolution. She’s the founder of Ora, a self-care brand focused on helping modern women reclaim their well-being through ancient wisdom and modern practices. In this heartwarming and hilarious episode, we dive into how she went from dislocating her knee doing lunges in front of her baby to becoming a professional bodybuilder, certified personal trainer, gym owner, yoga instructor, and the voice behind The Body Ministry blog and book.

What You’ll Hear in This Episode:

• Cassandra’s inspiring pivot from corporate life to wellness entrepreneurship
• How one painful injury led her to the world of bodybuilding
• Why self-care isn’t one-size-fits-all—and how to make it work for you
• Her journey into motherhood, fitness, and finally holistic healing
• The story behind Ora and what it means to practice true self-care
• A sneak peek into The Body Ministry and her upcoming book

Links & Resources:

• Connect with Cassandra on Instagram: [Insert link]
• Learn more about Ora: [Insert link]
• Follow The Body Ministry blog: [Insert link]
• Cassandra’s book (coming soon!): [Insert link if available]

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Transcript

0:00

Welcome to Caffeinated Chaos, where business deals happen between diaper changes and friendships are fueled by caffeine. I'm Whitney GaN, your host, and I'm here to talk all things business parenthood, and of course keeping up with the BFFs, whether you're juggling the boardroom, the playroom, or just here for some coffee fuel chaos. We've got you covered. Get ready for real talk, laughs and a whole lot of heart as we dive into the beautiful mess that is entrepreneurship, parenthood, and everything in between. So let's embrace the chaos together. Caffeinated, of course. Today's guest is a true force of transformation, a wife, a mother, and a self-care alchemist who turned her journey of personal discovery into a movement from the high power world of corporate HR to the mindful grind of bodybuilding, yoga and martial arts. She's built a life and a business rooted in holistic wellness. As the founder of Ora, she's on a mission to help modern women reclaim self-care through the wisdom of tradition. Get ready to meet the powerhouse behind the passion. Here comes Cassandra Juni. Welcome to the podcast, Cassandra. How are you this morning? I am doing great. Thank you so much for having me. Is it morning for you right now? It is not actually, it's afternoon now. That shows you how my day has gone. It's been pretty fast, but No, it's in the afternoon now. I know we were talking before we started hitting record, but listeners, I literally was like. I got, I have like an hour. I can jump in the shower before my kids notice. Like I'm even gone. And my husband was like playing goaltender, like, where's mommy? Oh, I don't know. I don't know. I am so glad that you are here today.'cause we have had this on the books and then we rescheduled it and now we are here. Now we are here. And that's all that matters. And it's all that matters. Yeah. So why don't we start off first by you telling our listeners a little bit about yourself. Sure. So, I'm also a wife and a mother. Mine are older now. I've got two teenagers, so Oh, wow. They know to leave me alone when I'm in the bathroom, you know, like I've, I've exited that phase. But, I'm a happy mom of two teens. I'm the founder of Ora. We are a self-care company. I also am the creator of the Body Ministry, which is a blog and now a book that I'm really excited to talk about at some point. Yay. And I'm a self-care alchemist, which means that I take self-care and I make it work for me. I make it work really well. But that's kind of like the highlights of who I am. My backstory is that, I was in human resources for many years, over 20 years. And after I had my youngest, after I had my son, I, like a lot of women struggled to lose the baby weight. Mm-hmm. Just could not get it off. And, I was doing jumping lunges, actually. He was in his little, stroller thing or car seat thing. And I was doing dumping lunges to make him laugh. And I dislocated my knee and I was pissed. Yeah. Like, I like full out. It was awful. I went to Google to look for ways to lose weight without hurting my knee, and I stumbled on bodybuilding.com and I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I had never seen women look like that before and I was like, well, let me see if you know there's something here for me. So I Googled again to find a coach, and I found one coach within 10 miles of me. And the next closest coach was like over 50 miles away. Wow. So to me, that was a sign. It was like, okay, you need to be doing this. And so I did. I started bodybuilding. Even though I didn't know what I was doing, I couldn't really afford the lessons. I did it anyways. And I ended up competing for five years, and I got my pro card in 2016. And on that journey, I fell in love with everything about having a body, like everything. I went on to become a, certified personal trainer. I owned a gym. Wow. So, supplements, nutrition, martial arts, a yoga instructor. Like, I literally went down the rabbit hole because I just, I had loved. Having a body all of a sudden, you know, like there was this idea that was discovering the magic of it. And, the backstory to that, or side story maybe to that is that, one I was doing all of this alongside my corporate career. This was all my side hustle. Wow. In my mind there was a direct. Not even just a correlation, but there was direct causation to how well my corporate career was going. I was getting the raises, I was getting the promotions. I literally went like this, but there was direct correlation between that and how well I was taking care of myself and how I was able to show up to myself first and then show up to my organization and be a true leader.'cause I had led myself first, and so it all. Very much translated, that my personal life into my professional life. But the backstory. Also is that around that same time that I started my fitness journey, I started my spiritual journey. And it's because I used to be married to a minister for seven years. My children's father is a minister in the church, and I really struggled with organized religion and so I left the church. And so we got divorced, obviously not that long thereafter, but this is around the same time that I stumble into bodybuilding and everything and. I was getting ready for a show, a bodybuilding show. It's peak week, which is the week before you hit the stage. And in peak week you are intentionally dehydrated, like you dehydrate your body so your muscles pop more. Not eating many carbs, you know, like some carb deprived, like, I'm not a happy person, you know, at this point I'm not happy and I'm dying through a workout. And I remember getting this message loud and cleared from source spirit, God, whatever you believe in, and said, this is what we came for. I got an immediate download and I was so clear and had been clear ever since, that having a body is 100%, you know, our purpose in being here. So as I was dying in the gym, spirit was loving it'cause it was non-physical. Having a physical experience and all physical experiences then are so divine. And so since then that has been my mission, it's funny because during those years that I was actively bodybuilding, everyone was like, oh my gosh, your abs, oh my gosh, your trophies. And I'm like, yeah, that's great. Don't get me wrong. But there's something really special happening inside of me. Like, I'm changing. I'm different. There's more here than what you see. And as a matter of fact. Whatever you see is simply the overflow from the transformation that's taking place inside. Yeah. And, have been on, this mission to, I guess, spread the gospel of, of the body, which is why my book in my blog is called The Body Ministry. But fast forward to 2021 and I get laid off. I get laid off. My company's is acquired and I was a VP of HR at the time, and it never, you know, like they didn't need another HR person, another vp. And when I got laid off, it never occurred to me to, go look for another job. It never occurred. I didn't dust off my resume, I didn't do any of those things. I was like, you know what? I think I'm gonna do this. I think I'm gonna bet on myself here. Like I can do this. And 2021 is like the thick of covid time, right? Right. And so for the first time, many of us were talking about our health and our wellness, and it was in 2021 that self-care had a resurgence and it was like this buzzword that we've been hearing about ever since. And yeah. I was like, you know, I am uniquely positioned, having been a single mother, having been a woman of color, having climbed the corporate ladder and really, intimately aware and understanding and appreciative of health and wellness. I'm really uniquely positioned to go out here and help. And so that's when I founded my company. That's when I founded Ora and. Has seen many iterations over the last, almost four years. But today, as I said in the beginning, we are a self-care company and we help women, by reviving traditional wellness, and reintroducing that to modern women. And so, that was a mouthful, but that's who I am. And that's what I do. I love it for so many reasons, but I feel like you cross over to with a lot of things that I am so into. I worked in the mental health field for 10, plus years, and now I'm, now, I'm starting an eight actually in the HR journey, for the company that I did mental health for, wow. A counselor for, so. That's really nice and I can do that part-time while I'm, doing the podcast and doing my business. So funny that it's just weaving through with the self-care because mental health too. So much of what I try to help my coworkers, the other coordinators, we call them direct support professional DSPs, is. You are taking care of somebody else who's taking care of you. Yeah. Like how are you treating yourself? Do you have something that you can do right after work or do you have we call it like methods, mindfulness methods to, you know, stay calm if things start to go down. Back when at my old job we did, behavioral management, so we were constantly under stress where it was, we had clients who had maladaptive behaviors, such as aggressive behaviors. And so we had to make sure that we were, super calm and stressful situations. So I love any topic of self-care and I love that it's so multi fascinated too. And the fact that you started off as this like bodybuilding journey. Yeah. And then you were like, okay, outside and then. It kind of just, it full circled into you working on the inside as well. And now you have this amazing company, and so can you just like tell me when someone, if somebody was to join or become a client of your company, what's one of the first things that you like wanna touch on with them? Yeah. One of the, well, gosh, so I was gonna answer that, um, because I have an immediate answer, but. It's kind of a two-pronged approach. Okay. And so I'll give you the first, what I was gonna immediately say is sleep is the number one thing. Yep. I mean, it, it's, we cannot deny the power, the potency that's transformative properties of sleep. But we do for some reason. And I know with you being in the mental health field. That is absolutely like number one to mental health, to medication efficacy, to balancing our hormones, I mean to everything. Yeah. Sleep literally changes everything. And so, most women coming into my world need a good night's rest. We often say, I wanna get healthy. And so the first thing we think about doing is getting on a diet or exercise program, which is. Completely the wrong move. Let me say that as a bodybuilder, as someone who's been in nutrition, that is absolutely the wrong move. Most of us need sleep, to begin with because, we're undernourished in that particular facet of health. We're undernourished in health. And so I say consume sleep com, consume it abundantly, and it'll change your world. A diet or an exercise program will take weeks, months, if not years, to really transform your health. But one, good night's sleep will immediately make you healthier when you wake up. So that's where most women need to start, but that's on a tactical level. More on that internal, level where most women need to start is understanding their worthiness. Love it. It starts with, I have nine pillars of wellness that I go over in the body ministry, and the very first pillar of wellness, believe it or not, is understanding your worthiness. We often, you know, believe that our health or our wellbeing is, it's worth it for. The vacation that we've got coming up, or the reunion or the wedding or the, any of these special events, these milestones that we have throughout our life, usually one of those things is good enough for us to knuckle down and do the hard things and lose the 15 to 20 pounds or whatever it is that we're trying to lose. That's usually where we find our worth. A lot of women who, like I used to be super ambitious. Super ambitious, you know, the master's degree, the chief officer sweeps, all of the things. And I used to find my sense of self worth by those accomplishments, those titles, my paycheck, all of these things that I could point to and say like, well, look, clearly I'm worthy. I love the hair toss. I mean, but that's kind of how we feel about it. I'm like, who are you even talking to? Of course, I'm, I believe in myself. Of course, I'm worthy of all of the good things. Look at all of these good things around me. Yeah, but the question is who are you without all of those things, you know, where is the self-worth? You know, where are you on that scale? Then? What happens when you don't have something to get ready for? What are you worth then? And many times in the absence of those catalysts or those activations, we don't have a sense of self-worth. And our ability to achieve and then maintain results is 100% rooted in our belief that we deserve them. Our sub, and you understand this also, our subconscious only allows us to have what we believe we deserve. So the question that begs to be asked is, what do you believe you deserve? What do you feel that you are worth? And so that's the actual, like, that's the, when I said I had a two-pronged answer, that's why there's like the, the physical, tactical stuff, but there's really the internal work that needs to be done. That helps us get in touch with our ability to have a desire for an external transformation and then maintaining that external transformation. Yeah. Okay. So, it's so interesting that you mentioned like the, like all the accolades and the trophies and all that, because back when I was studying psychology, one of my professors asked the class a question, and it, it was like, something along the lines of like. Who are you, this and that. And so some people were like, I am a student, I play on the uc, football team, blah, blah, blah. And he goes, okay, now imagine yourself in a room, and that room has no shelves, so you cannot display anything. Yeah. Right. And it's only a mirror of yourself. What. Who are you now? If you don't have all of that around you and all you're wearing is jeans and a white T-shirt, you know? Yeah. And so. Then everyone's like, oh my God. You know, like, yeah, you don't have the, you know, the UCSC sweater. You're not, you don't have your leatherman, you know? And so that when you were talking about that, it totally reminded me of this. This teacher I had not even thought about in years and this exercise that he made us do, where it was just like, all right, everyone pictures yourself in white room, you know, in a room, blah, blah. Now write down who you are if you can't display anything and it's just you in a mirror. And I'm like, oh yeah. Yeah, well go on an entrepreneurship journey. That'll also help you. Oh my gosh, yeah. Really begin to understand because my master's degree, my six figure paycheck, my, my network, all of that stuff doesn't matter when you're out here in these entrepreneurial streets, just on your own trying to make an impact. To be of service, to find solutions to bring to the collective. None of that matters. All of that matters is your true effectiveness. Can you pierce through the noise? Can you pierce through and the things that we used to rely on to help us pierce through that noise? Don't matter here, I. Right. Don't matter at all. And so I tell people like to, it's entrepreneurship is not just a business journey or a financial journey or a freedom journey. It is absolutely a self-worth journey. Oh yeah. It's a spiritual journey. It's a personal growth and development journey. It's like all of the other things, but what it really comes down to, to answer that question though, like who are you in the absence of those accolades and all of those things that we can point to outside of ourself, the answer to that question is that you're a, you're a beautiful, beautiful spirit that came here to have a experience in your body. It shows your specific body and all of the things that come with it, whether you love those things or not. Your spirit chose to experience life through you. That's who you are when everything else is tripped away. And it was really sitting with that understanding that I, I. Am an aspect of God, the universe, the divine. Again, whatever you believe, I'm an aspect of that. And because I came here as a woman, I'm expressing through a woman's body. I'm the feminine divine on top of that. And so my lens to the world is through that as the feminine divine. What does she want? How do we wanna experience life? What are these as we make decisions about what to eat, what to drink when they go to sleep, and how to rest our body, who we wanna engage with, how much energy we wanna share. All of those things are done through that lens of answering that question, who am I really? I'm a divine feminine, and. That's, how I show up to the world, that is the perspective and the lens through which I, view and make decisions in this world. Oh gosh. He would totally give you an A. Okay. I'm totally the, A student kind of chick, so I love that. Gimme my a. So I'm gonna backtrack a little bit. You mentioned your book, and then I know you were mentioning it when we were talking about, and you said you have nine pillars. Mm-hmm. Okay. We probably don't have enough time to go through. All of them in detail, but do you wanna just run us through what your book covers? Yeah, absolutely. So the book is called The Body Ministry. It's based off of my blog, the Body Ministry, which is out there, on my site. It covers the nine pillars of wellness and, the nine pillars are, well, they're in three different realms as well. Okay. So there's the mindset real, the spiritual realm, and the physical realm. So in the mindset realm, the first three pillars are. Oh my goodness. Our worthiness, trust and discipline. So it's our sense of self-worth. It is how much we not just trust ourselves to make decisions, but trust ourselves to thrive through whatever the outcome of that decision is. It's discipline with ourself and really def redefining discipline so that it is really protecting our desires at all costs and a practice of devotion to ourselves. Then we move into the spirit realm with our fourth pillar of wellness, which is breath and breath being literally our life force and our first communication with spirit. You know? Okay. Our source, we begin and end our life with our breath, and it's really powerful for all of the moments in between and creating space for us to be really intentional. The fifth pillar of wellness is connection, and this is really diving into the connection that we have with our. Self with our intuition and with our body and usually the cleaner and more pure our body is as a channel. The more we trust our gut, the more we trust our intuition.'cause it's not clouded and. Trying to get to us through the interference of all the gunk that we do to our body. Yeah. Then there's presence and that's the connections is more towards yourself versus presence is to your environment and being able to be fully aware and fully present with whatever emotions or physical environment you find yourself in. Because the only way to get from point A to point B is to be fully aware of where you are today. Right. Then the navigate. To, but if we are cloudy or unsure or not willing to pay attention to where we are, it's really hard to start that navigation. So it's really being present. Then we move into the physical realm with our seventh pillar of wellness, which is rest. Mm-hmm. Rest is and I titled it, rest not sleep because there's rest and then there's sleep, and then there's stillness and all of those things are important, but they fall under the overarching kind of category of rest and making sure that we are giving that I. To ourselves in the many different ways that we have an opportunity to, and that it shows up to us. Then, the eighth pillar of wellness is nutrition because the energy transfer of food changed my life. Food alchemy is real and as someone who's been challenged and battled mental health very publicly for a long time, and it's on both sides of my family. At the highest of degrees. It was something that I always thought that I was just inevitably going to suffer with. But it's something that I've absolutely, you know, thrived through really intentional food choices. So I get really passionate about nutrition. And then finally, last, but certainly not least, is the ninth pillar of wellness, which is movement and our, you know. Soul remembers to dance and rejoice every time we move. And so movement. And it's not exercise.'cause I don't want people, specifically women to limit themselves to thinking this is a gym or a class. It literally is just movement. And I'll just share that, one of the most powerful, not even just most powerful and effective, but preferred methods of movement for our body is simply walking. Walking every day. And I really like to point that out to eliminate the resistance and the stress and the, anxiety and intimidation about workout programs and what that has to look like. It literally, the call to action here is just movement and walking is a beautiful way to honor that. So those are the nine pillars of wellness. And in my book, the Body Ministry, it's a. Playbook that takes women through the first 12 weeks of their health and fitness journey. For anyone who's been on one before, well, you probably have an awareness that the gym, the hour or so that you spend in the gym is not the hard part. The hard part is the lifestyle outside of the gym. That part where we're not paying anyone to really coach us through, to cheerlead us through. To guide us through. Well, this book does that. This book is that cheerleader, that coach, that sage that wise, you know, b, f, f, that you've got kind of like you've locked arms with, to walk you through the internal transformation that supports the external trans transformation. Okay, so I love this'cause I'm just getting out of postpartum. My baby is six months, so I have a 3-year-old and a six month old. And so I'm like starting to like be like, okay, I have the energy to do stuff. Now I feel like I'm finally like. Flush in my cheeks again, you know? And the brain, the mom, brain fog. Yeah. You know, that's definitely, yeah. Yeah. So now I'm just like, I'm ready to go. Where can people find your book? I will also put all the links listeners down below. But for anyone who can't access the show notes right now, where can we find your book? Sure. Please visit my website, ora.com. O-R-I-A-R a.com. There's literally a button that says, you know, are you looking to start your self-care journey? Start here. So all you gotta do is click. The button and it takes you to everything. And so you'll find awesome. The blog, you'll find the book, you'll find a bunch of other, resources. I know this is gonna air probably after the fact, but I do have it, a donation based masterclass coming up, in the beginning of March because, it's a great way for people to get a feel of what the book will walk you through. It's a body ministry masterclass Yeah. That I do. And I do donation based workshops once a month because, I. Feel really strongly about having accessibility to true self-care and it having no barriers to entry. So at least once a month, even if you, whenever this airs and you don't make that one, there will be another one.'cause I do them about once a month. Awesome. That's so nice. That's so great too. Yeah. Yeah. I'm happy to like, I'm genuinely happy to That's great. Yeah. I mean, I can tell you from like. How much we have to advocate in the mental health field for the tiniest little thing. The fact that someone like you has all this knowledge and you're like once a month, like come all you know, as you are. Amazing. Cassandra, you are amazing. Thank you. Thank you. It's so funny because when you said that you have a 3-year-old, three and a half, and a six month old, that's about the same age difference between my children. And so I just feel, I very much think I can kind relate to the position that you're in right now. And, yeah. I remember, yeah. Was it your first born or your second born that you were doing jumping lunges in front of? It was my second one. It was my son. Yeah. My daughter, I don't know. She must have been sleeping at the time. And my son, you know, babies, they get up early. Yeah. And so he was up early, he was in his car seat. I was doing jumping lunges, making little funny faces, trying to get him to laugh and make this fun for the both of us. And I literally dislocated my knee. Gosh. Oh my gosh. You've got to be kidding me. But it led, it's one of those, you know, beautifully. Um, what's the word? Like one of those beautiful interventions, you know? Yeah. That you feel like is literally gonna take you out, but it ends up being the thing that lifts you, you know, higher than I could have ever imagined and ever dreamed just from dislocating my knee that one time. So, yeah. I mean. Yeah, it's like one of those like multiverse like theories where it's like, where would you be if you weren't trying to entertain him and work out at the same time? Yeah, yeah, for sure. For sure. No, definitely. I think about that, what do they call it? Um, sliding doors, moments. Yeah. Right. Like and you have the two. Yeah. Do, I think about that quite a bit. And then even just my HR career, if I hadn't dislocated my knee, stumbled into bodybuilding, done all of those things, then, who would I have been in hr? How would I have shown up to, and I'm sure you're getting a good dose of the stress and being pulled mm-hmm. In different directions and the demands that are being placed on you, both from management and from the employees. Like, it's a lot. It's a, and I just think about who would I have shown up as, you know, if it weren't who I ended up showing up as, which was a woman who had high standards for herself and then therefore, you know, everyone else around her. And thank goodness, because I embodied those standards, everyone else was willing to meet me there. Mm-hmm. And it's funny because we talk about this a lot now, but 12 years ago, personal branding wasn't a. Thing. You know, we didn't run around our personal brand, but that's what I realized it was, is that I was personally branding myself as someone who had discipline and project management and, who was able to strategize and time management and all of these things that come with leading yourself. Again, definitely translated to, everything I was doing in hr. Okay. Nice. Yeah, I think about that. Okay. We have to squeeze one in because we are caffeinated chaos, so we can't have a little, we need a little tea, A little chaos. Okay. So it can be parent related, business related. Just a funny. Funny story, if you have a, I mean, it's like, when did, I don't know if the chaos ever ended to be with you. I feel like I'm in chaos, all the time. But I'll tell you, well, do you want a historical story or like a current one? Surprise us. So currently I have a senior in high school and an eighth grader. So I've got two graduations this year. And like all of the graduation preparation stuff is happening right now. And they're both track athletes and so. They're running in, track meets that aren't always together. They're practices are completely opposite schedules. And so this is gonna be an interesting year on top of the fact that I'm a newlywed. I remarried in late 20 11, 11 23. This is so our first full year of, being married. And so there's all the newness of this being in my house. Everything is new. And it literally, when we moved here, picked up my kids from their original, schools and friendships, place that we had been their entire life. I brought both of my kids back to the home that, you know, I sold to, to move here. And so, like, literally, when I say everything is brand new, I mean, everything is brand new and really, really chaotic. And so, you know, as I look at what's. Ahead of us. And I'm trying to strategize, you know, the track meets and the practices and the dinners and then my self-care and time with my husband and all of these things. What is front and center there is me. I'm taking myself into all of those things. Every single thing that I just mentioned that is, you know, on my mind and is a stressor I'm taking myself into. And so I'm making sure to, prioritize my wellbeing so that I can show up as, all of the things that I need to be over the next three months, until the kids graduate. And so, yeah. Life's pretty chaotic right now. Like it's really chaotic right now. I know. Wow. I mean, and that's also a good lesson for anyone listening is like to have yourself also be a non-negotiable that like you can give so much to everyone, but you do need to make sure that you're giving to yourself and taking care of yourself as well. Yeah. Yeah. And I guarantee you, the people who love you, want you to, right? Yeah. People who love you, they know you're worthy. Let me have 20 minutes for, you know, meditation, 20 minutes to go do a walk, 20 minutes, because that's all you have for whatever it is that you need. The people who you were asking that of, I guarantee you. Believe that you're worth that. Right. Yeah. Oh my God. I recently, in the past like month, I have been able to carve out time for myself and my husband is like, go, and I actually finished two books and I swear I haven't read a single book since before I was pregnant with my second Jasmine. And I'm just like, I just read two books. Like, I was so stunned that I even finished them and he's like. We're going back to Barnes and Noble. It's only been like two weeks and I was like, yeah, let's go back to Barnes and Noble. That is the best feeling in the world. I love that. Yeah. He now has bought me five books so that I don't have to keep going back to the store. And it's really interesting. I also recently got into audio books and I finished my first like 19 hour audiobook yesterday. Ooh, wow. That's cool. I know. Book wow. Yeah, it was good. I know it, it was really long. I am now like convinced that I only like audio books if it's dual narrations. I feel like it keeps me like occupied and it's not like, you know, I. One person having the same tone of voice the whole time. Yeah. Yeah. Unless of course it's like a biography or anything like, you know, yeah. By the person. That's a good, but yeah, to look into that, yeah. The dual, narratives. Yeah. Yeah. It's really, it's really nice too, like even if it's just somebody doing voices for the other characters and actually having people who are professional voice actors do it.'cause they can change their voices as they go, you know? Yeah. So yeah, that's my little like fun little self-care thing is I got back into reading and reading is huge. I love that. I am like, I am total like Bell from being the beast. Like I want the bookcase with the swinging ladder. Like I have so many books and I'm just like, I will get to you again one day. You know? Yeah. It's fun. I have a, I do have a. Big in my office, a couple of big bookcases. And, sometimes I'm like, oh, I want a new book. And I'm like, no, let me just go shopping in my own little, you know, bookstore here. And I pick up something that I haven't read in a gazillion years and I reread it again and I'm like, oh. It's a whole new book. Yeah. This, I'm reading this from such a different perspective and such a different mm-hmm. Layer of myself, like it casts a whole new tone to that same book. And I, that's one of my new favorite things is just going shopping in my own little library. Yeah. I mean, if you, if you got it, why not? Because books are meant to be read. They're not meant to like always collect dust, you know? Yeah. Yes. And you're an author now too, so I am an author now. Yeah. That feels good to say. Thank you for saying that. That was like wild. Yeah. Do you have like a specific place in your library for your book? No, actually, I was just thinking I don't have it on in my bookcase. They don't have it in my office, and so I, I need to do that. I, my, my whole thought is like, let's get these book out into the world, but you're right. I need to put it someplace prominently on my own bookcase, so I'm gonna do that. Actually, when we get done here is like, yes, you belong here. Yeah, yeah. Somewhere at eye level so that it's like a reminder to yourself, you know? Yeah. I love that. I love that. Yes. And, and this is hopefully the first of many books, you know, being, in the bodybuilding health and fitness world is, it's, I know it so intimately and so well, so I thought my first book, I want this to be kind of like a love letter to any woman who's ever been on a diet or exercise program and felt like. If she didn't get the results she wanted, she felt like something was wrong with her. Like I'm talking to that woman, like, there's nothing wrong with you. We're not live living in a society where our health or humanity is really supported, and I want women to understand that. So I wrote this first book to them, but the next book. It's gonna be the same nine pillars of wellness, but targeted towards corporate women.'cause the other thing I know really well is climbing the corporate ladder and what that looks like and what it takes and how to personally brand yourself and make self-care a non-negotiable part of your professional development. Because that's what I see it as. I see self-care being an a, a, an aspect of. Professional development. Yeah. The book after that's gonna be for Fit Moms because I know all about being, a fit mom. Yes. Now that my kids are older, I can say with a lot of confidence what works because my kid, my son was turning one, I was trying to lose the baby weight for my son turning one years old when all of this started and now he's 13. And so, wow. My kids have, you know. Been raised only knowing really this version of me and, and those lessons. Now that there are older adults who are athletes and making their own decisions, I can say, yeah, these things I did with them when they were little. These things worked because look at, who they are today. And then finally, believe it or not, my fourth one, I know is gonna be about mental health, and care for mental health that I wanna work with a mental health practitioner because as I was going through my mental health challenges and even today, all of our conversations about mental health. Are from, they act as if we don't have a body that our emotions and our mental health is living in. Mm-hmm. And we completely disregard the physical health of the body in every conversation about mental health. And I'm like, this is the biggest elephant in the room. I can't believe we aren't talking about here. Right. How can you have a conversation about mental health when we're not talking about whether or not you're sleeping, if you're eating ultra processed foods, whether or not you've moved your body in the last 30 days. You know, like these things make a mati. At least when I was going through mine, I. Huge difference. And so I wanna talk about self care, in relation to, mental health. And so those are, I just want a whole mouthful there, but that's what I for. No, I love it. That's what I've got lined up for the year. In the next series.'cause again, they're all based on these nine pillars of wellness. But depending on who I'm talking to, I've got a really specific message for you and a really, a depth of understanding of that thing that I hope helps translate it to a really palatable language that makes you feel inspired and that you can take action and feel like you can actually create positive outcomes in your life. Like that is the whole goal. Yeah, I love that. You need to carve out a bigger spot on your shelf now because it's gonna be four bucks thick. I do, I do. I love that because when I was working, and we were doing behavioral management, we would break up our client's day, into three aspects. So they were with us from nine to two, and we would do, exercise or movement in the morning, followed by a, life skills building session. So whether that was volunteerism or actually like working on math or reading or that kind of thing, we would have lunch and then we would have socialization hour where they can go into whatever groups they wanted to, with their peers. And so every day was that routine, Monday through Friday for them. It really like helped find some people were like, I have purpose. I am gonna go here. I'm gonna go to work. You know, they call it work and I forgot to mention that I worked with adults with developmental disabilities and so that's the population I was working with. And so I. We breaking it down and then meeting with the rest of the people who care for this, the for them, their team, whether they're in a group, home, parents or their regional, service coordinator. It was always like, okay, what are the main goals? And then we're like, I. We would listen to all their goals and then we would help build that plan into those three segments of our program. And then, so each day it was like, okay, yeah, you wanted to do this more so you're gonna be part of this group who goes on a hike in the morning or yoga in the morning, that kind of thing. Mm-hmm. And then you wanna volunteer or you want to earn money and so you would do that and, and so like the fact that. You're talking about, you know, in your fourth book, going and relating it to mental health is so important because you are right. A lot of people just when they hear mental health, mental brain, you know, thoughts and brain. Yeah. That. It is a full circle. It's the whole person. We used to call it, person-centered care. Yes. Where it's the whole person and their whole being. Yeah. You're 100% right. It is person-centered, human-centered care, and that mm-hmm. I don't know why we don't talk about it more fluidly or at least mainstream that way. Mm-hmm. We talk about mental health as though it happens in a vacuum. And so there's no outside forces. Like you're just born with a mental health issue or a developmental, you know, delay or something and then therefore like, that's it. And I'm like, there's so many. Contributing factors there are environment, you know, upregulates or downregulate, some of those, those aspects of ourselves, right? Yeah. That we might, so don't even get me started. You get it, but, oh God, we could me, we could start a whole podcast about this. I'm telling you.'cause it's a real thing and it's really, I feel like it, it hurts my heart.'cause I just remember how much I hurt. Mm-hmm. I just remember, the agony literally that I was living with. And I was actually prescribed meds and I'm not mm-hmm. Giving medical advice, but I knew that wasn't for me. I knew that this wasn't the step that I wanted to take, especially'cause when I was first prescribed, I was, bodybuilding. I didn't know, I had to hit the stage. I didn't know how that was gonna affect my body. And so I needed to find more natural ways of dealing with what I was going through. And, that was when I turned to nutrition to really as my form of medication. You know, like that, that saying that, that food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food. That's not, again, just some quippy, saying it's, it's really, really true. And I leaned on that to heal me, not to numb me, not to, you know, create a bridge to get me from day to day, but to heal me, to truly heal me. And here I am all of these years later and I can say, absolutely it works. And yeah, it's just, it's fascinating to me that we treat mental health as being this isolated. Thing that we compartmentalize and I think about all of the people, and my heart is with women who, on top of just having mental health challenges that are challenging in and of itself, but then the messaging that we get from the world and it really feels so oppressive and it really can feel so. Just dark. Yeah. It can feel really, really dark when you're in those spaces. And so my heart, my whole heart is with women who might be experiencing that and just not know where to turn. And I want them to know that you can turn to yourself like you are endowed with all of the creative abilities and power. To make a better way for yourself, but it literally starts with yourself. And I don't mean just, you know, like love on yourself, but I mean literally like, give yourself rest. Give yourself, you know, clean water. Give yourself high vibrational foods, like really turn to your physical vessel and give the best that you can to yourself, and that will help you really begin to climb out of that dark space. Like the light will shine really bright for you to be able to. Follow to navigate your way out, I promise. Oh my gosh, Sandra. So many good things. Okay, so I know that you have a freebie you wanna tell everyone about. So why don't you tell us about your freebie that we have? Yes. And then also, how people can connect with you. Okay. Yeah. I didn't realize all this time had already flown by. My goodness. I, that's what I said. Like, we could, we could literally start a whole podcast about. Seriously. No, you were so easy and fun to talk to. So my freebie is called, I think this is, I think I called it the Gym Girly guide. But, it's the other 23 hours of self-care that we're often not thinking about or talking about. When we start a health and fitness journey again, oftentimes we think about getting healthy and the first thing we think about is a diet or an exercise program when, the fact is health. Means wholeness and you cannot cut or diet your way to wholeness. The only way you can arrive at wholeness is by adding to by nourishing, and this guide helps you learn how to do that by starting with three simple things. It's nourishing yourself and consuming in abundance rest. It's nourishing and consuming in abundance water. It's nourishing and consuming in abundance, high vibrational foods, and you do those things first to be. To get yourself in alignment with the lifestyle that's just gonna be required of you in order to obtain and then maintain any results you're trying to get in the gym. So I say, before you even think about stepping foot into a gym, spend a good two to three weeks nourishing yourself with those three things. Spend a few weeks doing the lifestyle piece because once you've got the lifestyle going, your body's gonna crave movement. Your body's gonna, be aching to move and go do things. If you're thinking about, and as spring comes, it's getting warm. We all wanna be outside and be cute. Yep. Right now I say it's winter still. Use these dormant months, the way they're supposed to be a force of nature. You've gotta work with nature. And right now the entire universe is screaming at us to slow down, nourish ourselves. And that's what this guide helps you learn how to do, is how to nourish yourself so that come spring you can be all the way outside. Side in Bloom, be beautiful and be happy and confident. So that is the freebie, that I've offered. And then, again, you can find me@ora.com, O-R-I-A-R a.com for the donation based workshops that are once a month. The blog that I mentioned, the book that I mentioned. And along with the book, I'm launching a self-care collective because one of the questions I got was. Well, but if I have questions, how do I, you know, where do I go? And I thought, you know what? I really wanna create a space where women can follow along. I love that if you don't have the book, you can still follow along. The idea is it's come one, come all, whether you've got a diet or exercise program that you're on, but you don't have anyone to keep you accountable. That's where I come in. Or you're looking for something to start. You don't know where to start. That's where I come in. That's where this collective comes in. Because again, I've noticed, women, as we heal and we evolve and we're shedding past layers of ourselves, we're like, well, who are the new people that I'm aligned with? Where are the women who, you know are on this health journey, on a self-care journey, on a healing journey? On that level up, we're. They're in the self-care collective. And I know if they're anything like me, you know, I was looking for new friends, I was looking for my new tribe. I was looking for women who, were gonna support me in my new healthy lifestyle and stop being that one healthy friend in the group. You know,'cause that just wasn't fun. So, I created that space for women. So all of that though is on the website or ari.com. Awesome. And it will be in the show notes as well. Cassandra, thank you so much for coming on. I'm so glad that we connected because I would talk to you all day if we could. I would love that. And I feel like we were just starting to like peel so many layers back on the conversation. So. You are always welcome back and I would love to have you back again when the next books come out. Maybe next time we'll have like your book in the background on that, like I wanna see it on the shelf. Cassandra, you okay? Your book deserves to be on your library shelf. Feel, feel good? Done. Yeah. But yeah, thank you so much for joining us. I really, really appreciate you being here. And I will like, we will definitely be connecting for sure. Good, good, good. Thank you so much for having me. That's a wrap on another episode of Caffeinated Chaos. I hope you're leaving with a little more clarity, a lot more inspiration, and maybe even an extra shot of motivation. If you love today's episode, don't forget to follow us. Leave a review and share it with a friend who could use just a little chaos at caffeine in their life. Until next time, keep embracing the mess. Chase your dreams and make magic happen. One caffeinated, chaotic moment at a time. I will see you all soon. Bye now.