Description

Deb White and Heather Johnson are a mother-daughter team who teach women to take time to nurture themselves. They are the hosts of the Confessions and Chocolate Show.

Transcript

Deb White and Heather Johnson on Taking Time to Nurture Yourself Paula Fellingham: Welcome to The Win Show. We are so glad you joined us. I am Paula Fellingham, CEO of The Women’s Information Network, TheWINonline.com. We’re the online home for all women, all ages, a community of women helping women. Our hosts today are Lauralee Christensen, she’s the executive vice president of The Win and Kim Coles, actress, comedian, speaker and show host. Our guest today are Deb White and Heather Johnson, they are mother-daughter team who teach women how to take time to nurture themselves so they can be more effective mothers, wives and business women. You know, there are audiences love the humor and the practical tips on their fun show called, are you ready for this? Confessions and chocolate. I love the chocolate, welcome. Welcome! Lauralee Christensen: What a title? Tell us what is the connection? I mean I get the chocolate but why do we have to confess anything about how much do we love the chocolate? Heather Johnson: For we’re women, we all love chocolate. This story actually originated before the show was ever born and Deb and I we’re at a lunch one day chatting as girls do at lunch and I had to confess a story to her because I am her daughter and I am a chocolate lover as is she handed down. And we have a big family gathering, all kinds of people at my house and when you are the hostess, the stress level is a little bit higher. You guys understand this and so I was really concerns about making sure everything was just right and ready for the people that were going to eat and I needed a break from the chaos. Do you understand? So when people plates were needed, I said I volunteer I will go down and get them from the storage room but I had two purposes to that. I wanted the paper plates and I knew the bag. You all have a stash somewhere. There was a bag of chocolate chips just sitting down there waiting for me open, that bad. So, after handful of those I was ready to face the world again and as I confess that— Deb White: It was two handfuls. Heather Johnson: She’s keeping me honest to my confessions. So I tried to confess that to her, the name of the show was born “Confessions and Chocolate”. So the show is not all that chocolate but we confess a lot. Deb White: We realized there were nothing you could not solve by confessing to your girl friends and eating chocolates probably at the same time. Lauralee Christensen: It is great combination. Kim Coles: So is the chocolate to help you feel better about your confessions, to feel more comfortable about your confessions? Or is just that— Heather Johnson: I just think they have to go hand and hand. If you are confessing, we have lots of chocolate here, just chocolate makes the world go round. Paula Fellingham: It’s very therapeutic. Kim Coles: So what are we going to do with this confession, so you have your show. People come on and confess? Or — Heather Johnson: The show name can be misleading, Deb what is the purpose of the show? Deb White: We feel like so often women are making an image that they are trying to uphold and we are all trying so to have this image and yet the images faults and the real person is who is behind the image but we are all making friends and interacting with each other’s images rather than each other. And so we would like to have a safe place where women can hear it like it is and we try to always tell it like it is for us and any of our guest that are on so that there is a place of safety and reality of what it really means. I mean, there are maybe times where your kids have not have a bath in two weeks and that could be your true confession because your wife has been insane. And it’s been spit wash on the way out of the door and yet you would never want, you know, let the world know that that is the way things are. So we try to spin off on different topics that are real so that people can feel comfortable that “I am okay” wow, somebody else is have that feeling. Somebody else has done that thing and it feels good and then we have a chocolate recipe at the end and say I can go and fix. Lauralee Christensen: It is kind of like giving permission. You give yourself permission to indulge in that nice little bit of chocolate and then also permission to be yourself. Tell somebody. Paula Fellingham: Tell us about your awakening, I heard about an awakening and I know our listeners would like to. Heather Johnson: This is actually Deb’s story. I have a little bit in it but hers is really dramatic. Deb White: I was always, wanting to be a mother, that was my goal and so I achieved that quite quickly. I had a honeymoon baby and — Heather Johnson: It wasn’t me. It was my older sibling. Deb White: My oldest son and it was wonderful, I have five children in ten years and it was just what I wanted and I felt like my sole purpose was to teach them and prepare them for their own fabulous destinies because I knew my children will all have fabulous destinies. And so, I so jumped into this world and it sound real noble and lofty, but in reality what happened is I slowly over the years gradually disappeared as a unique individual. I wanted to do nice things for myself but I never allowed myself, giving myself permission to do the nice things and when you do not take the good time to nurture yourself correctly, you usually do convoluted forms of that and it usually involves food. And so I would eat treats to be nice to myself because you could do that way. Your car pulling or while you are cleaning the house or while you are ironing or whatever, and so I resulted after several years of this kind of not taking care of me and just taking care by everyone else. I was very overweight. I was very unhealthy and depressed and feeling like I was being left out of the experience. I had longingly watched my husband and my kids go off down the drive at the beginning of their day and just wished that I was starting my day. And so there was a moment where I realized that I had created this wonderful family pie but I did not allow myself a piece of it. It all got deserved to everyone else. Lauralee Christensen: And was it a chocolate pie? Deb White: Of course. It was not for me and so as I realized that, I started with my body and I lost weight. I’ve got bit and better shape and as my body got stronger, my spirit, my emotions got stronger and I started looking at this wonderful world and how awesome it was to be a woman because I have gotten into a place where it felt like I was just a none paid slave and could not see joy in womanhood. And yet as I return to myself, wow it is so awesome to be a woman and it is so awesome to hang out with women because there is no one on the planet that gets you like another woman does. Paula Fellingham: It is true. It is absolutely true. Kim Coles: I want to acknowledge you for going through that process and then bringing your daughter along for this journey so that you are now fulfilling that purpose that you wanted from the beginning to have your children go out and live fabulous eyes opener. I remember how you’re languished it but that you are modeling that for her and that she gets to take this journey with you on your show. I think that is really wonderful. Heather Johnson: It’s been neat as her daughter to watch her go through this because she is not the same woman that she was two years ago and it has been incredible to do show with her because I felt like every time we record an episode, nuggets of wisdom are coming from her and then I am able to share with her my experiences. And I really feel like I have skipped 25 years of learning and making mistakes because I have been able to learn from what she has gone through. And we have just really share real things on the show. There are times where we get choked up and we are feeling emotional and we laugh a lot and it is just as really fun. Deb White: It is like going to lunch with your best friends and that is what we have tried to create. So you feel like you spent a lunch with your best friends and you can go on because you always do. You leave lunch with your buddies and you are like “Okay I tackle my life again.” Paula Fellingham: That’s what the WIN is all about. That is we’re all about. And the online home for all women, all ages. You see because we have got this wonderful opportunity to teach one another through the experiences that you have had and a wonderful—our younger generation are so gorgeous and so smart and they share with us things that they have learned and we are all better because of it. This is a perfect example. I love this. Heather Johnson: Thank you. We really enjoyed it and we do have guest on our show quite often which is fun because being mother-daughter we do have, you know, similar interest. So it is great to pull another people we have had on triathlon coaches. We have had—and recently who has written many best selling books and she is a show host too. So we have had a lot of experiences to share wisdom that maybe we did not gain but we pull it in from experts so it’s a great show. Lauralee Christensen: And you mentioned recipes too. Deb White: We do, we include—in each episode we have a chocolate recipe and we try to them really fast so that you can get to your chocolate now. Kim Coles: Speaking of getting to chocolate quickly, what both of you brought for us here? Heather Johnson: Well we have to bring you truffles as if we are having a song so after we are done, you can dig right in. Deb White: After you confessed something. Paula Fellingham: We have to earn our chocolates. Heather Johnson: Exactly, exactly. Kim Coles: Any other one tip you want to give us? Heather Johnson: Women are divine and every woman needs to realize her potentials so that you stop comparing against an invisible pretend benchmark that is not really there. Paula Fellingham: Thank you so much. Heather Johnson: So I just want to reach out and say “Be authentic, be who you really are.” Kim Coles: I confess that I am divine, chocolate for me. Paula Fellingham: It is time for us to close, unfortunately. We have loved being with you. Thank you so much and we invite every one to visit TheWINonline.com where you are going to get solutions just like this. Share your ideas and really connect with women worldwide. Now let us live joyfully with passion and purpose. Have a wonderful day.