Unpacking your bagage with Chrisnatha Derosia

Hi there, I'm Dr. Zoe. I'm glad you're here. This is the place for developing your strength as a woman and helping you navigate difficult relationships in your life, including that sometimes difficult relationship with yourself. Being a strong woman is not about what other people can see, and it's not about how loud you are about it. It's a quiet knowing. This isn't therapy, but you may feel like you've been to therapy after one of my episodes. Here, we also explore the intersection of psychology and faith, all with a purpose of creating a new kind of strong. Welcome to Redefining Your Superwoman. Hey there, it's Dr. Zoe. I'm so glad you joined us today. So today I have a guest. Her name is Krisnatha Derozia. She is an author, she is a motivational speaker, she is a coach, and she talks about helping women get rid of their baggage, unpack their baggage, and learn to live a life that they should be living, a life of health. So I'm excited to talk to her today. And I know that the words that she speaks are gonna be really helpful to you because we all have it. We all have a little bit of baggage. Some of us have a ton of baggage. So listen up. We're talking to Krisnatha DeRosia. And first up though, my Superwoman win and my Superwoman fail. I feel like I'm finally getting out of this quarantine COVID-19 fog. We're still, you know, in social distancing and still quarantined, but I'm getting a new rhythm because it took me out, y'all. Just, well, adding my mother-in-law to the house and all my, And my son coming back from college and my kids all being home. It was just a lot of transition, and it's beautiful in that our family's together, but even beautiful things can cause stress, and even beautiful things take some time to get used to. So I've taken some time off the podcast, not intentionally, but it was just one of those life things that had to happen, and so I'm so glad that I'm back in my groove, and so that's my win. My fail honestly is an internal one. I have just been so judgmental saying, you know, why can't you get it together? Why is it taking you so long to To kind of regroup and I know better. And it was funny, I was talking to my friend, Wynne, and we were talking about kind of the struggles we're having as therapists and supporting everybody's emotions and dealing with everybody else and our lives at the same time. And we were like, okay, sometimes we have to ask ourselves, what would Dr. Zoe tell me to do? What would Wynne tell me to do? And that's just a reality. Cognitively, sometimes you know what you need to do, but reality is we react and we have emotions. And so the fail is that I allowed myself to get down on myself about the things that I wasn't getting done when I wanted to get them done. My win though is that, okay, I regrouped, reframed, I'm back, we're good. So listen up, Unpacking Your Baggage with Kris Natha. Thank you so much for coming on the show, Kris Natha Deroja, which is such a beautiful name. It kind of just rolls off your tongue. Thank you. I'm so happy to have you today, and this is such an important topic because sometimes we ignore this whole deal about our own baggage. We're so— it's so easy to see everybody else's baggage, but we forget that sometimes we have it too. So thank you for coming on the show today.

Yeah, I'm super excited to be here, um, to share about baggage and how important it is to, um, really get into all the baggage that we have.

So before we get started, I have to ask you about your Superwoman win and your fail that you'd like to share with our audience.

All right. So my Superwoman win is that I took a day out earlier this week and I slept for most of the day.

Good for you. That's like a rare, miraculous win. Yes. And I must say, we are actually still— this is April 10th, I think. 2020, we are still in the midst of coronavirus, uh, and the quarantine. So this was during this time that you did that?

Yes. Um, it was important for me to not try to be so busy to, you know, but to take a moment to say it's okay to do nothing today.

It really is. I feel like so— I mean, we know on social media there's this drive to just be so productive during this time period, and we're ignoring this cultural, societal energy that's going on right now that is a little hard to overcome. So I'm glad that you were able to take that time. Can you share your fail with us?

Yes, I had set out a plan to meal prep. I didn't do that. So that was, that was my fail. But I'll get it right next time.

The whole eating deal is really— I don't know about you, but it's off for me right now. I'm finally getting more focused on getting back in line as my whole entire routine is just kind of gone out the window. So thanks for sharing that. So I want to dive in, and can you tell me a little bit about what you know about women and their baggage and how you even came to start talking about this?

Absolutely. I first want to say that, um, I absolutely love getting together with women and talking, but not talking from a surface level of You know, how we always say that everything's fine, but really talk soul level. And so— Hmm. Growing up without a sister, it was such a blessing to have women around and a lot of girlfriends. And we were able to go through changes together and, and witness some things, some bad things, some good things, and then to create a safe space to start talking about how we're feeling and whether that feeling was positive or negative, but to really start talking about what we were experiencing emotionally. And what I realized is that we all have baggage. It may look different for each of us.

Mm-hmm.

But we all have things that shape who we are and how we respond to things now and boundaries that we create. And so that all comes from something. And so we— it's always important to look at the root of things. Because that will help you understand someone a lot better.

How would you even characterize baggage? Like, what's baggage? Because I think we were talking earlier, the fact that a lot of people are like, okay, I can see the baggage in everybody else, right? That person has baggage and they're— that person's dealing with that. But we often don't feel like it's us. You know, we're the ones that are also carrying the baggage. How would you define it?

Well, baggage, I believe it's anything that weighs you down. The interesting thing about baggage is that not all baggage can be seen with the eye.

Oh yes, that invisible baggage.

Yes, yes, the invisible baggage. Um, some people will call different things in someone else's life baggage. Like someone may call someone who has children, they may call the children baggage, which I don't see it that way. However, Someone else may have that perspective. But I believe baggage is what weighs you down. But the thing about baggage is that a lot of people are really interested in making sure that they— their life looks good. Um, but it's more important to me to make sure that people get to the point where their life is good. And so that's where unpacking comes in.

And so how does that baggage show up in relationships and our lives so that we know it's there? Because You just mentioned invisible baggage, and sometimes it can be invisible to other people, but I would imagine it could also be invisible to ourselves. So how do we recognize it?

That's an awesome point because invisible baggage, yes, sometimes we don't even realize that maybe anxiety that we deal with today is from a trauma of yesterday. And nobody may even know that story, or you may not have even shared it with anyone. You may have even made yourself forget What took place 20 years ago. And so it shows up in different ways. It shows up in anger. It shows up in maybe shutting down, not trusting others. So I would encourage everyone to look at your actions and reactions to things and ask yourself, why do I feel this way?

That's beautiful. It's so important to challenge— I was just talking to a client about that the other day. When you have a reaction to something, when you have an immediate thought, it's so important to challenge that thought because it's not always true, right? And even, even if the feeling, you know, is real, because all feelings are just feelings, challenging it can help you understand why you are in that place, why you're feeling that thing. So excellent. So once you've figured out you have this baggage, once you're seeing that it's showing up in your relationship by maybe jealousy, distrust, anger, like you said, there's boundaries. It's something that's impeding your ability to live a good, a healthy, um, happy life. So what next? How do you go about unpacking it and figuring out what to do with it and how to get it gone or get it healthy?

Um, now most people would say, you know, get rid of it right away, but realistically speaking, that's not always the case. I do believe that there's levels to healing. And so the first thing is to acknowledge it and to confront it. A lot of our baggage, for some reason, is attached to shame, guilt.

Yes.

And self-limiting beliefs. And so if we can first say, this happened, my parents weren't the best parents, that happened, that's truth, that's fact, that took place, right? I was sexually abused, I was abandoned, I didn't feel like I had self-worth, right? This is the real deal of what happened. So now you can say it verbally, you can acknowledge it, you can sit in that, but not to feel like it stops there. So it's important that you have a safe space with yourself and with hopefully someone else, whether it's a professional or a great support system where you can say, this took place. Now that I know this took place, it's important that moving forward, my decisions decision-making, the way that I live, it's not from this place, right? Right.

I'm not

sure it's from an authentic place. And so confronting your past is number one. That's key because now you can remove the shame attached. You can remove the secrets. You can remove— it's almost like a freedom, a burden being lifted. Like, this took place. I can even use myself, for example. I was molested as a little girl, 7 years old, but I kept that a secret until I was 25. So for 18 years, I wasn't— I was in torment in my own head, but no one knew. And so it was important for me to really— I just was like, enough is enough. I am tired of dealing with this by myself. And so I was courageous enough. It was hard, but to have a real conversation with family and finally tell them this happened. It wasn't my fault. It wasn't your fault. It happened. Now that it happened, now that burden's lifted, the shame is finally removed. I now acknowledge that it wasn't my fault, and now I can move on to being free and no longer being ashamed.

I think that we underestimate. I don't think that we can really fully understand until you've lifted something like that off of yourself how much burden is there. And thank you so much for sharing that story. I know so many women, myself included, have had times where you're dealing with pain, stress, frustration, and you just kind of keep on going. And it's not until you let it go, like you said, acknowledge it, that you actually feel that weight. And then you have that realization of how much you were carrying and how unhealthy it was. Yes. So yes, I love that. You first have to acknowledge it to yourself. And then you need to acknowledge it generally, right? Absolutely. Not make it a secret.

There's power in that. There's definitely a lot of power in saying, this happened, but this does not have to define my life.

So the next step, once you've acknowledged it and you've said, this happened, now what?

It's important to also not to sit and dwell on the things that maybe you do wrong or you did wrong, right? What am I good at doing? So now let's— speaking about CORE, right, because that's an acronym as well. And so CORE, confronting your past, is the first step. And the second step is to operate in your strengths. We spend a lot of time talking about what we can't do, what we're not good at doing, what we could be better in. And that's fair. But let's talk about what you are good at doing. What do you do well? What do others say you do well? So now let's start to invest our resources, our time into the things that we do well. Let's develop ourselves in this area and let's focus on our strengths and let's blossom. Blossom where you're planted, right? But let's do—

Right.

With things that we're good at doing. Once again, I can use myself as an example. After lifting the shame, right, of what happened as a child, I now said, I'm sure there's somebody else who went through something, if not this similar, that is living feeling like they did something wrong. I want to use my strength of speaking to women, bringing them together, encouraging them to use this now, taking this pain and now turning it into power. How do I do that? Started getting women together, having workshops, summits, conferences,

you

know, over time. Bible studies, just really turning that into a strength. I knew that I could get women together. I knew that I could encourage them, and I knew that they trusted me. And so I built upon that. And now, you know, I have my organization, I Am a Masterpiece, where that's, that's what I do. And so it, it started out as something bad, but something good was birthed from it. And so I would encourage people to really focus on their strengths because you're greater than what you've been through, and you're greater than That's

beautiful. And, you know, I think sometimes too, people will try to focus on what they think they should do, like what they think should be their strength, and not really operate out of their strength, probably because of fear, and maybe because they haven't even accomplished that first step of confronting, right, and accepting this is what happened. And I just want to say too, to women, as we talk about confronting and acknowledging, it doesn't mean you need to shout it to the world, right?

Yes.

You need to just confront it to yourself, and then you need to Speak it in a way, whether it's like you said, to your therapist, to your friends, in a way that it's not something that you're hiding anymore. It's just a part of you, right? And you're just accepting it. But it doesn't mean you need to go on stage and speak it to the world.

Right, absolutely. But, and even journaling as well, you know, just being free. Yes, putting it out there.

Right, not hiding it. Great. And so then you start to operate in your strength. And you do what you are put on this earth to do. You walk in your purpose, not anybody else's. And what, what's the next step?

The next step is to removing the junk out of your life. That is really important. Yeah. Um, one thing about baggage and different things that we go through or have been through, sometimes we attach ourselves to people Things and habits that remind us of our past.

Right, because they are familiar.

Yes, very familiar. There may be even comfort in that space. And so you want to make sure that you're attaching yourself to people, habits, activities, things that look like your future. What do you want your life to look like? So focus on that, you know. And so it's important to really remove the junk, is the negative shows that you're watching, the negative things that you're reading, like just your programming for yourself.

Right.

Right? Like if you're only reading negative things or watching negative things, then that's really what kind of flows in your mind. You're like, oh well, that could never happen because, you know, that doesn't happen for people like me when That could be so far from the truth. And so, um, it's important to really take control of your life and, um, be honest. What's no longer serving me? You know, um, is it relationships? Am I in toxic relationships or friendships? Um, am I, do I have these self-limiting beliefs that are holding me back? Do I believe that I can have a better life? I always tell, um, women that it's important to know that, um, we don't just necessarily get what we want in life. We get what we believe. And so it's so important that our belief system is challenged, that it lines up with God's plan for our life, because you can want success. You can want a healthy life, a healthy relationship, a healthy relationship with yourself. But if you don't believe you're worth it, if you don't believe it'll ever happen, if you don't believe that God has called you higher, um, than your current circumstance, it, it won't manifest.

That is such truth, man. You are speaking good things today. I know that this will speak to so many women because as you're talking, it's speaking to me, and I can even see things in my life that I've had to remove. And sometimes it's not comfortable to remove that. Sometimes you want to hold on to it, you know, that unhealthy friendship, because Like you said, there's some comfort or familiarity with it, but in order to move forward, we do have to let go of that junk and grieve it. Because even though we're letting go of it, even though we know it's not healthy, we— it is still a loss, and we have to grieve it and know that just because we're grieving something doesn't mean it should be in our life. We've got to let it go.

Absolutely. And be open to good things. Yeah, I hear sometimes women will say, oh, that person's too nice. There's no way she could be this sweet. She has an ulterior Could it be that she just loves you? Could it be that she doesn't have to know you long to know that she's in your corner? Could it be that she sees something in you that you don't see in yourself? Be open to good things. You deserve them as well. Be open.

What a beautiful reframe, because we really do experience the life that we expect to, and we look through, you know, we see our— the world through this lens. And when it's a negative toxic lens, that's exactly what we're gonna get back.

Mm-hmm. Yes.

So, yes. Yeah. So confront.

Yes.

Walk in, uh, I'm trying to remember. Confront. Is it walk in your strength? Mm-hmm.

Operating in strength. Right.

Operating in your strength. And then remove the junk.

Yes.

And what would be that last step?

That last step is evaluating your heart. It is so important to do heart checks daily.

What does that mean?

We can do the right thing for the wrong reasons.

Oh yes.

Because, you know, sometimes we may have a manipulating spirit. You know, we may want to be in control all the time. Um, it's important to evaluate your heart. Uh, one thing that I think is super important is to be and become more and more self-aware. And I believe the first step in doing so is asking yourself a lot, why?

Mm-hmm.

Why I'm going to make this decision? Why? Is that what you truly are feeling in your heart? Is that what you're led to do? Or are you afraid of disappointing someone? Why am I going to accept you to be in my life? Why? You know, do you look more like my future? Okay, well then that makes sense. Let me be open. Or am I doing this out of fear? Am I doing this because I'm comfortable with this? So asking yourself why is very key because you'll be surprised your intentions. And sometimes they're not positive. Sometimes it's like, you know what, I'm really doing this because I'm trying to get back at someone and that's not the right thing to do. So let me pull it back.

That is so true. And that just goes right back to challenging yourself. And when you challenge yourself, then you're able to go deeper. You're able to, to know yourself better. And then in the future, you're going to make wiser decisions. You're going to understand your motivation, change your course or change your path.

Because the goal is not to have a life that looks good, but it's to have a life that is good because it starts from the inside out.

Did you create the system because This is what the steps that you went through. Did you, did you like decide the steps and then go through them, or did you see what you did and then kind of create them after?

I created the steps and then I had to kind of go through them because every— before I teach anything, I make sure that I am leading from the front and so that I have experienced it as well. But I heard years ago, I heard a message about it's so important to, to operate, um, to speak from your core. And I'm like, what does that even mean? You know, what is my core? Like, what is that? And so I would pray this prayer. I'm like, God, help me to try to get as close to being the default version of myself. And that is the default version of myself is the Kris Natha before she was molested, before she was hurt, before she knew what disappointment was. That pure—

Mm-hmm.

Chris Natha in spirit and love. Right. Help me to operate from that space. So give me a mind like yours so that I can truly let my light shine, so that when people see me and see the work that I do, they don't see me, but they get to see you. And so, yeah, getting to my core has been something I believe that has saved my life, and I vowed to myself that I will continue to push that message It just as much as I can, because I know if it did so much help for me, it can be just as much help, if not even more, for someone else.

Absolutely. And you know, just as much as it is about removing baggage, so many women will come to me and say, I don't really know who I am. I don't know how to find myself. I don't know what I enjoy. I don't know me. And this concept of core can also help you get to the same place because you're asking yourself those questions. You're asking yourself the deep questions and you're moving away from toxicity so that you can really figure out who you are, right? Get to know yourself.

And truly, even moments like this that we're like, you know, hashtag quarantine, where you are with yourself, right? And it's causing us to be still and to slow down. And I'm encouraging women to take time, take— even if you're busy with the children and your business, but to carve out a moment, even if you got to go sit in the car, right? To carve out a moment.

Or your closet or the bathroom.

Absolutely. Or during your Your morning walk, right, in your neighborhood. Like, take a moment. What do I want? Is my life going in the direction that I am pleased with, that I know that God wants for me? And if it's not, the great news is that I get to hit the reset button.

Yep.

I get to— I don't have to live how I've been living. I get to hit the reset button. And so what does my ideal life look like? Right, in terms of my mental health, my emotions, the way that I communicate, how I feel about myself. Do I need to forgive myself for anything? And if nothing else, forgive yourself, maybe for not dreaming big enough, maybe for limiting yourself, and hit the reset button. It's not too late.

So how can people find you?

I'm on all social media platforms. @ChrisNatha, C-H-R-I-S-N-A-T-H-A. I am the only one. So, um, yes. And also my website is www.imamasterpiece.com.

Awesome. And I will put that in the show notes if you're driving or exercising and can't quite write that down. Okay. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. I know that your words will speak to women right where they are.

Awesome. Thank you for having me.

Thank you for listening to the Dr. Zoe Show, Redefining Your Superwoman. New shows go up every Tuesday. Subscribe so you don't miss an episode and text the word strong to 38470 to get my weekly encouragement. I look forward to connecting with you amazing women on social media throughout the week. Have a super week.