Mindful Chat with Kelli Calabrese Overcome Stress & Divorce Coach

Kelli Calabrese empowers women to overcome stress, rejection and fear after divorce to build a fabulous bonus life.  For 34 years she has been a fitness, nutrition, wellness and lifestyle professional and is also a certified divorce coach.  She has appeared as an expert on all of the major networks and has 3 best-selling books.  She has spoken on international stages sharing a spirit, mind, body approach to whole life wellbeing, and is a proud mom to two college students.

Links

e-mail. Kelli@KelliCalabrese.com

web: www.KelliCalabrese.com

Private FB group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/intentionallyfabulous

Linked In - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellicalabrese/

Transcript

Damaris Grossmann: 0:51

Welcome to mindfully integrative podcast with your host, Dr. Damaris G. Mindfully integrative is a podcast discussing ways toward mindfully incorporating integrative health into our lives. This podcast will have informative resources, fun topics, interviews, and discussions relatable for today with a true mindful perspective in a mind body Holistic Life approach. Hi, how are you? This is Dr. Damaris Maria Grossman. I'm an integrative family nurse practitioner. And this is the mindfully integrative show. So thank you so much. Today, we have an amazing mindful chat with Kelly Kypris. She is 34 years in nutrition, fitness and a lifestyle coach as well as a divorce coach and many other expertise. And she has has many things to talk to you about in the integrative health space and just kind of changing your mindset today. So thanks so much, Kelly, for coming on

Kelli Calabrese: 1:49

the show. Oh, thanks for having me. It is an honor. And I'm happy to be here.

Damaris Grossmann: 1:53

Of course, thank you again for your time. And as I talk to those on the show, and just kind of like say, Hey, what is a little fun fact that people don't know about you? If they were to look you up? And they might not know?

Kelli Calabrese: 2:08

That is such a fun question. I have a motorcycle license and I ride a motorcycle. And people are usually pretty surprised when they hear that because they just don't

Damaris Grossmann: 2:18

married and awesome. I have to tell you I'm not I mean as a medical person. Scary. Yes. Pretty cool as on the other side. Yes. You gotten into any accidents?

Kelli Calabrese: 2:28

I have not never not okay. I've been in my car by Yeah, other people have hit me in my car. But thankfully not. And I'm not writing now. But I do still have my license and maybe on vacation I might ride.

Damaris Grossmann: 2:41

Okay. Oh, that's pretty fun. Um, so thank you for being on the show. And I know that you have a lot to discuss. So kind of what kind of started you on this journey. You're saying 34 years. So there's plenty there that has kind of transitioned you in the health field. But what kind of was your beginning?

Kelli Calabrese: 3:02

When I was 13, I wrote in my journal, I will be an exercise therapist really not knowing exactly what that meant. But I was so happy when I was running, dancing, jumping, you know, just cheerleading, swimming, all of that. Getting that endorphin rush, and I was like, This is awesome. What do people like get about this. I wanted to do this all the time and help people do this. And also moving away from a really strong family history of heart disease, diabetes, obesity, cancer, stroke, alcoholism, I looked at all that man, oh, I don't want anything to do with that. So when I was 17, I got certified and I went on this journey. And I got three college degrees and really had this beautiful blessed career where I was able to own and operate health clubs, manage corporate fitness centers, I founded a school, I got to travel the world be on all the stages, write best selling books be on all the networks. And it really was this beautiful career. I was the online trainer of the year I edited our industry's leading magazine. So that was the first you know, maybe 30 years

Damaris Grossmann: 4:00

of your career.

Kelli Calabrese: 4:02

Like the first 30 years, I opened fitness boot camps in nine countries. And so I just was passionate. Like I wake up every day because I want people to be well, I hate sickness. I hate disease, I hate lack. I hate poverty. I mean, I hate all of that. And 95% of it is a choice. So I want to do whatever I can to help people be well. And then the divorce coaching came in obviously, from the pain came the passion when my husband of 24 years came home and he said my commitment to our marriage is zero. And he laughed. And it floored me. I mean, it emptied me out took me to my knees made me question, you know who I was and everything about life. And I went on a three year healing sabbatical, you know, really went on this journey to figure out how do I stop this pain? How do I never repeat this again? How do I heal my heart, my kids hearts. And so when I felt like I had arrived and put that behind me, I decided that I was going to help other women because I had seen too many women on the same journey that got stuck and stopped in the grief of divorce.

Damaris Grossmann: 5:14

I I think it's pretty like very relevant and there's many women or partners divorce in whatever relationship people are having that I mean, especially even this past I don't talk too much about this past year or two. But you know, in general that divorce is definitely the rates have gone up high and higher and higher than they used to be.

Kelli Calabrese: 5:36

They are it's 50% in the United States. I mean places like South Africa, it's like 17% but the US and Europe it's definitely higher and 30 years old is the highest rate for divorce and 50 is the second and they they have different Rent dynamics at each of the ages as to why they happen, but 50% of first marriages, and it only goes up for second and third marriages, because we're, we're taking us with us into the next relationship. And we just keep repeating the same cycle with less patience.

Damaris Grossmann: 6:09

Oh, no, obviously people are kind of just repeating the patterns. And they're not changing their mindset or their their overall thought thinking. Yes. Wow. So you're now you were talking just before we went on air, and you said that you do a lot of work in the emotional health space, divorce space. But that that is been, you've done so much work in wellness and healing. But this has been something that's been more in your forefront. Can you talk more on that?

Kelli Calabrese: 6:37

Yes. So at the time that I got divorced, I lived in a neighborhood with 110 homes and 12 people were moving out at the exact same time that I was, this is a million dollar, very, you know, upscale neighborhood. And eight of them were getting divorced. So I started to look at what is everyone doing, like everyone is walking this out a little bit differently. But what I found is that when you're in pain, you're going to do something, and I wanted them to do something healthy. So we have a choice, you can turn to wine, you can run into the arms of another man, you can escape, you can isolate, you can over exercise, I mean, pick anything and do too much of it. And it's and it's still not dealing with the issues. So what I found on my three year journey was there were eight different things that really did help to peel back the layers and help with the healing. So that's what I put together in this program. And what I do with my coaching, it's what I wish I had when I was in that stage of shock and denial, and you went through this grief cycle, which I didn't even know what the grief cycle was, prior to divorce. Even with all the years of personal development I had. I was foreign to this, even though I had lost in my life before I lost my dad, my best friend to cancer. But this was the thing that really took me out. And I wanted to help women because you know, when someone is stuck in the past, and it could be bitterness, it could be depression, it could be anger, deep sadness, denial, and they just never get back to a healthy readjustment.

Damaris Grossmann: 8:17

I admit, sometimes people just don't even like it. You're right, they don't get back to what the where they're at. I have you found to like, have you been working with clients recently? That have like, come back to and said, Thank God, you know, you've given me like new joy, you know, just a new, new perspective.

Kelli Calabrese: 8:35

I have Yeah, I mean, if it's like if someone says to you, I had an abortion, and you've never had an abortion, or my house burned down, and your house never had burned out, like, I had friends who had divorce before. And I have to say I was a terrible friend, like I didn't get it, I didn't know the depths of what you went through. So now that I've gone through it, and I had the sleepless nights and crying myself to sleep and grinding my teeth, and I've never had a panic attack before. I mean, all the things that come out on the other side of it, I can help give women hope and encouragement and tools. So I have had a lot of success stories. In fact, my first goal, if possible, is to save the marriage. I mean, I want to if it's healthy, and they're open to it, even if I can just work with the wife and not the husband, I've had marriages completely reconnect, because I was able to help the wife get to a better place and love herself and heal herself. So yes, everywhere from they didn't wind up getting divorced to people who seven years later, who kept repeating the same pattern, that they finally got to a place of forgiveness and re identifying their current situation and not repeating the same whatever cycle that they were doing. So finding a different man because they were a different woman.

Damaris Grossmann: 9:53

That's amazing. I mean, I think that's sounds for it's pretty tough to have those conversations with those women or, or whoever partners that you're speaking with, like, you know, I haven't married my husband quite a long time. But you know, you think about that it could happen to anyone, you know, any anyone in there, whatever partners or relationships people are in, and it's just that conversation of grief in that those those. You found a way to not just say to someone, oh, just go to therapy, or just sleep it off, or just take a Xanax as someone would come to me for and then I'd say no, we're going to do something else. And now I want them to meet you and say, Hey, there's other ways. I think it's being open to these other health options because or just just letting people know that they're not alone too. And you're, you're also another person that's been through it.

Kelli Calabrese: 10:43

The support is so important. I do have a private free Facebook group called intentionally fabulous and it's a place where women can go who are going through any season of separation, divorce post divorce where, you know, they feel like they're not yet healed, and it's supportive, we talk about the hard things, we laugh, we encourage each other, the women who are ahead really helped to lift up the women who are in the depths of just, you know, self pity, or wherever they are. So it's a really safe place that they can come and share. So community is so important, isolation is awful. During this stage, I mean, the voices in your head will just take over and you will catastrophize everything and make it so much worse than it is, if you don't have the voice of love and wisdom and reason to, you know, be able to get that kind of feedback.

Damaris Grossmann: 11:35

That, yeah, I think that our negative thinking always comes back and reverts back and says, Hey, what's going on? And we, we want to say all those negative thoughts, but really, it's, as I tell people, more and more more positivity can can push away that negative thinking, but you know, we always have five more negative thoughts than positive ones. And it's like, no, no, stop, keep, let's change the script and make it five positives for every negative and, and I see your little heart in the background, you know, you're always seemed like you follow yourself with love and, and kindness around. Um, would you like to share a little bit about either your story or our client of yours? Either in this situation that has come up recently, obviously, privacy? And with privacy? Not, you know, saying anyone's names or anything like that?

Kelli Calabrese: 12:30

Yeah, well, I'll share my own then. One of the places that I found myself really stuck was bitterness. And it was awful. And I didn't even realize I was being bitter. I knew I was telling the stories over and over and over and replaying the past. And if you heard my story, you would cry for me, you would say, Kelly, that was unjust. That was not right. That was unfair. I mean, there was an unreasonable series of events. But we have a choice. What we're going to do with that, I mean, horrible, horrible things happen to people, you know, in marriages in life. I'm not condoning them at all. But it's from the hard things that we can learn and grow, and use that pain for purpose or not, we can stay in that victim mode. So I got to a point where I just decided, and there was one weekend was Fourth of July weekend, a couple of years ago, where I just sat down, I'm like, I am not getting up until I'm not bitter. And I picked up a book and it was unforgiveness. And I know people don't like to talk about forgiveness, because it's just like, Kelly, if he knew my story, you would not be telling me to forgive, it was awful. And we're not saying you know that what the person did is right. But the forgiveness was really for me, because I felt like a failure. And I was holding my own feet to the fire. I was burning myself, this was not supposed to happen to me, I did all the right things, and so on. But eventually you get to a point where you realize I need to free myself from this place, or I'm never going to be well, so I decided it was actually easier to forgive my former husband than it was forgive myself. But I decided forgive myself and I could feel the difference. I mean, it was like a palpable physical feeling that was lifted off of me when I forgave myself. And so people should consider doing that a lot of times, it's just never been modeled for us. So we don't know how we didn't see parents saying, I'm sorry, please forgive me. I didn't mean to offend you, I'll do my best never to do that. Again. I love you. You know, we didn't, we might have seen like, tell your brother, you're sorry. We didn't actually see forgiveness really modeled. So it's something we have to learn. And what I decided from that was to live a life of pre forgiveness where I decided ahead of time that I am not going to be easily offended, and that I am going to love myself and not criticize myself. I'm not going to criticize others. I'm not going to let what's going on in the news affect my day. So the highest level of forgiveness is to forgive the person in the area that they hurt you. So for example, with my former husband, I forgave him and I bless him and his new wife. He was reengaged within a month of our divorce, and I want yeah, I want nothing but the best for them. Honestly, I mean genuinely with all my heart I wish them no ill will and hope they make it till death do they part so forgiveness was, you know, a huge part of of my story, and it really has to be to get to a place of health and freedom.

Damaris Grossmann: 15:37

I think you come up with when you're saying freedom, it's not just it's freedom with yourself and freedom for others. And I feel like that people don't always give them I love that you've stated forgiveness. I think that we We as are women, not just women, just any person in general to forgive ourselves is one of the hardest things because you have to look within with things that you've done wrong or done right or, or the whole situation. And accepting that sometimes it's like, a little, it can be, it's can be the hardest part, like you're stating, and forgiving the other person, you're like, alright, I should forgive them and, but you're accepting, but also like kind of completing the circle for yourself so that you can heal.

Kelli Calabrese: 16:21

It's a step in the direction of self love. Also, when you love yourself, you're going to forgive yourself, because the opposite of self love is self rejection, self hate. You know, I just see so many people that are so judgmental of themselves, and it will come out in judging others, but when someone is judging others, they're really the biggest self critic. So it's stopping that self, you know, punishment, and turning it around into loving yourself and doing things throughout your day, in your beliefs in your thoughts in your actions and your habits, which becomes your character and becomes your identity. So when what's inside you is what comes out of you. When you're squeezed when you're pressed by the stressors of life. If you've been stuffing down anger, and bitterness and depression, that's what comes out when things get tough. But if you have love inside, if you're loving yourself, then when you walk in the room, people feel that love I mean, we have energy, anything that breathes has energy. So when you walk in the room, you want to bring this energy that affects others in a positive way, versus being the depressed one, and that everyone's gonna try and cheer up or the one who feels like a victim. So that forgiveness was really a part of self love, which is different than self care, but they can kind of perpetuate each other.

Damaris Grossmann: 17:44

Yeah, intertwine in the most positive way, when I talk to my clients talk patients talk to others. And I hear on the show and like, as I say, finding a mindful way and just the mindfulness for yourself as is one of the hardest things to do, because it's that non judgmental moments. And that self reflection can be we can go on the negative and we can go on the positive but bringing it back to that self love self care, there, they're kind of intertwined in itself. So I I really think that it's great that you're kind of bringing that out now and discussing because I know that someone needs to hear not someone needs to talk about their divorce and their separation or their partner. And it's hard now, you know, especially people have been really cooped up. And I can imagine how many more divorces are coming in brain. They're not connecting the connections are so important. They are Yeah, the

Kelli Calabrese: 18:45

isolation is really damaging mean having some time alone is good. Because you do need to work through some things without chronically having input from other people. I mean, there's some things that you have to do in the dark by yourself. But not too much, not a few No, it's not healthy, not if there's a voice in your head, that's telling me you're not good enough. You're not lovable, you're not worthy. You're not like then you need to get with someone and you know someone who can give you wise counsel and truth but time alone, you know, just reflecting journaling, meditating, walking in nature, all of that is so healing. And it should be consistent. Don't do a one time make it a part of your life plan of you know who you are, let that be your identity.

Damaris Grossmann: 19:27

That in itself is a tip. I mean, I tell people to try to time block if, hey, I was going to go into my next step is do you have one part to share with those that are listening or a tip of your series are many of things. I mean, you have such a career that you've done, that you'd like to share on people's wellness instead of illness?

Kelli Calabrese: 19:49

Yes, so one of the things is, and they may have heard this before, but I really want people to get gratitude is a super high power. And I made a commitment that I was going to fill a page every night I have a gratitude journal for one year without missing a night. And when I started out it was really mechanical. You know, it's like I took my vitamins check and I called my mom check and but after a while, it was like wow, nobody gets the day that I had today and I would go throughout my day just looking for things to be grateful for and when you're looking for things to be grateful for you're just more open to receiving things and good things started to happen like wow, this person helps me with that or wow, you know, someone sent me a card or you know, I was looking for good all day long and I would ask myself the question What is good about this? Now, I never went to the altar thinking I would end up in divorce. I hope no one goes to the altar thinking divorces an egg is a strategy and an option. But I had to at some point go okay, what's good about this? So I would do that every day, even if like my technology is not working or you know things go wrong, life is gonna be hard. There's going to be struggle. But I would just ask myself what was good about this day? What's good about being single? Because there are benefits to being single? Again, not the story that I wanted, but here I am. This is my life. So I need to go okay, well, I get to make all the decisions. You know, I don't have to compromise on anything. I can decide what to eat. Where to eat, when to eat honey, I get to choose. Yeah, I mean, all what time you go to bed, all of it. So that's good. And while the house is really peaceful, like I get to live in a peaceful house, it's not cluttered, or I don't have to clean up after anyone or this is an opportunity for me to really work on me like I could be the fittest, healthiest, best version of myself right now there are no excuses. If I'm bringing ice cream in the house is no one's fault. But my own like this is, this is my chance to set myself up for success and become a really amazing hole. Well version of me, it's a great time to serve. So things like you know, gratitude and asking yourself, what is good about this, it rewires your brain, it gets you to change your thinking instead of I'm a victim, I can't believe this happened to me. And it's never 100% the other person and 0% you so taking responsibility was also really, really important. And holding that mirror up and saying what was my part? It's powerful to admit those things.

Damaris Grossmann: 22:25

pretty profound, because I feel like we don't always take the responsibility like and again, that looking within gratitude, gratitude, we'll be talking about gratitude and a whole hour or more. But I love for those that are listening and watching to reach out to you. And I will have the show notes. But is there something or a way that they can reach you because you have so much to offer? And they I'd love for them to get to know you more?

Kelli Calabrese: 22:52

Oh, thank you. I would love if they emailed me honestly, like I would love to know something you heard on the show that just stimulated you to want to reach out. Tell me about your challenges. I really want to hear them. I read every single email. And for any of your listeners, I will offer them a 15 minute call where I listen to their challenges and let them know if I can help them. I honestly I get up every day to help people be well. So it's Kelly with an eye at Kelly Calibri ca L a b r e s e.com. My website is Kelly Calibri. So they can get my latest best selling book. They're called success habits of super achievers, they get the e book for free. And then my divorce coaching is called intentionally fabulous, then go to intentionally fabulous calm to get more details there. And the Facebook group is also intentionally fabulous. It's free. It's private. I pour into there every single day to help women be well.

Damaris Grossmann: 23:51

Amazing. Well, I appreciate it. I think there's so much to I can't wait to you know, check out your book because I haven't gotten to see it yet. So I can't wait to read it. And I can't wait for the listeners to reach out to you. You have so much to offer. So thank you so much for your time and your day. And I appreciate you being on the show.

Kelli Calabrese: 24:09

Thank you for having me. And thank you for bringing this podcast to the world. It really really needs it. Thank you. Oh,

Damaris Grossmann: 24:14

thanks. All right, you have a good day. Thanks for listening to mindfully integrative with Dr. Damaris G. Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss an episode. If you enjoyed our show, support us by leaving a mindful review on Apple podcasts or your favorite streaming site. If you would like to be a guest of our show or interview, email us at info at Damaris maria.com If you want to learn more about the resources mentioned in the podcast, you can find those in the show notes to connect mindfully with Dr. Damaris G reacher@www.de Maris, maria.com or connect via social media links. We appreciate your time connecting here with us. May your strength and peace within bring you more balance every day. No Ma stay