Terry Tateossian: Intuition Over Ego

Andrea: [00:00:00]

I am so thrilled to, be here today and to have the opportunity to introduce our next guest. and sometimes when I say guest, I even, it almost feels like it's not quite landing the word that I'm looking for. And maybe we haven't discovered what that word is yet, I really, truly believe that we're in conversation with, people who are walking along beside us. And it doesn't maybe feel as much like a guest as, as somebody who is out there who's already familiar because they're walking this same or similar experience as us. And so I say guest, but I think that word's gonna change over time.

but for now, I'd like to introduce Terry Tateossian and know that this conversation is one for anybody who's ever asked. Is this all there is? And then they have decided to answer their own question and they've said, no, not even close.

Terry is the founder of THOR, The House of Rose, a wellness [00:01:00] community for women over 40 and host of the podcast, How Good Can It Get?

Which is both a great question, and in her case, a lived experience before she stepped into this chapter of purpose, healing, and serious transformational energy. Terry was the co-founder and CEO of a wildly successful marketing agency with many accolades including Inc. 5,000 fastest growing companies, top 25 leading women entrepreneurs.

Top 40, under 40. And the list continues,

But all that drive came at a cost. Terry found herself in a serious health crisis, both physically and emotionally, and instead of ignoring the alarm bells like so many of us might do, she did something radical. She listened. She stepped away, she turned inward, she healed, and she emerged 80 pounds lighter, clearer, softer, and stronger than ever before with a mission to help other women over 40 do the very same. This conversation goes [00:02:00] deeply into what it looks like to shed not only weight, but the parts of ourselves that we've outgrown, the identities we thought that we needed the stories that no longer fit.

Terry doesn't hold back, and we are here to hear her story. Welcome, Terry.

Terry: Thank you for having me. I'm looking forward to this conversation.

Krista: Me too. Thanks so much, Terry, for being here.

Terry: Thank you so much. It's great to meet you guys. I, I feel like we're going to have a fabulous conversation.

Krista: Oh, I know it. No doubt.

Andrea: I had to actually stop, uh, pause in our first discovery conversation and for our guests just to kind of expand on that. So before we, have these lovely conversations with these women that are, we do a call with each person to make sure that we're understanding their unique experiences.

And then, with that, it feels less like we're introducing somebody brand [00:03:00] new again, but part of the collective or part of the community that we're building. And when I met Terry, a number of weeks ago, I found myself looking at the clock. I was doing that clock watching because I kept on thinking to myself, I don't want this to be over.

I don't want this time that I have with Terry to be over. And then I was reminding myself, this is the discovery call. So there gets to be another call, and Krista is going to be there as well. And it's going to be. Just as amazing as this one has been, plus more.

So I am so thrilled that this is finally the time when we get to have you back in a seat coming from your own home in New Jersey. is that correct?

Terry: That's right, New Jersey.

Andrea: Yeah.

as Krista mentioned,

one of the things that we love to start with is asking you to share five words that you believe really describe who Terry is.

Terry: I love it. I love it. So the five words that come to [00:04:00] me are goofy, honest, enterprising, confident, and service based, service oriented.

Andrea: Those are fantastic.

Terry: They're always different too. Like they, it depends on the, like the mood that I'm in, they change over time, but generally I would say they're pretty accurate.

Andrea: I really appreciate that the first word out of the gate was goofy.can you say more about that?

Terry: It is a very spontaneous thing and it's the type of humor that is very much environmental based. So I notice things that I think are funny or discrepancies in situations, or the irony in things, or something not so pleasant happens. And I'm laughing at it because it's [00:05:00] the irony. It just hits me and I just go through life like that.

And sometimes it's pretty annoying to be quite frank to many people because they're like, why is everything funny to you? Can't you just be serious once in a while? I'm like, no, I, I can't.

Krista: Has that always been something you've had from a young age, or is this like a midlife, you know, later in life thing where you're just like, ah, you can't take yourself too seriously, let's just go. You gotta laugh.

Terry: It's morphed into this now because I think if I behaved the way I used to in my younger days and as a teenager, I was a really big prankster back then, and I love to play practical jokes on people. But, yeah, it's more verbal now, but back then it used to be more action based.

Andrea: So it's evolved from activity and action-based humor or finding humor in pranks to weaving humor into everything that you experience. So there's a [00:06:00] lightness. Uh, it sounds like that's what I'm taking away from that is, is that you look for the pieces in everything that bring you a smile or a laugh.

Terry: Or, or mortified, embarrassment for my children. So yeah.

Andrea: well

Krista: I am hearing you on that one.

Andrea: that's probably universal, isn't it?

Krista: my kids, mom, you're embarrassing me. Please don't act like that. Please don't say that. Please don't do that. I'm like, I'm sorry that I'm embarrassing you, but this is me.

Andrea: Exactly.

Exactly. as we start opening up the conversation around, this experience of your midlife,

would you maybe take us to what you believe is a time that you can remember, um, and it could be a moment, it could be one day, an hour, an experience that you had, that you feel was really pivotal in your [00:07:00] transformation moving forward from that point, and maybe just tell us the story. I.

Terry: I can, because I'll never forget it. I was roughly 80 pounds overweight, had just recently been hospitalized for what I believe were heart attacks. It ended up being severe panic attacks, which I'm still not that convinced to this day because I've never had it before and I've never had it since.

Very heavy, heart palpitations. Rapid heartbeat, not able to breathe. Admitted into er for a few days. They couldn't really pinpoint it, but in any case, I was told to follow up with a cardiologist. I had all kinds of things. Just, let's just put it that way. The machine was breaking down okay, little by little, and I didn't know what to do.

I, I tried losing weight a number of times, I yo yoed back and forth. Eventually, I discovered probably all of the [00:08:00] 40,000 books on Amazon that are on there for sale, for, on different diets, probably gone through most of them. I, I tried everything right? And so at one point I decided I'm going to go ask for help and I called up a holistic doctor in New Jersey. her name is Stephanie, Dr. Stephanie at Solaris. Uh, I can't remember the last name of Solaris Health. I believe she's in New Jersey, if anybody's interested. I'm not affiliated. I haven't even spoken to her in 10 years, but that's who woke me up. And we ended up doing a two hour consultation, where she literally asked me about what was my grandmother's life in her twenties.

Because according to holistic medicine, we, you, all three of us actually existed in our grandmother's uterus because her eggs created our [00:09:00] mother, who then also created us. And so all of this somehow, don't ask me, I don't know the scientific details, but somehow it all kind of translates into how we are our genetic disposition.

And then she started all the way back there. And to the present. And that took about, I believe I was in a medical consultation with Dr. Stephanie for about three hours. And when I was finally done talking, she said her words were, wow, you have been through a lot. And I think that was the first time in my life that I actually reflected on what I truly have been through up to that point.

And how much weight, not just physical, how much weight I was carrying on a daily basis, and [00:10:00] just trying to cope, just manage not only my life, but all the things that were just stored in my body and my emotional health and my history, my traumas, all these things. They all mean something. And no matter how much.

You know, ha ha goofy funny. You can be and just be happy go lucky and ignore it all because, oh gosh, I don't wanna deal with that. Right? it comes back to haunt you until you clean the house. And that was the moment I realized, I really need to just step up to the plate and figure this out because my life is never going to change if I continue to ignore all these things.

Andrea: it's not often that you hear something where you can just, you don't even know what the words are to kind of express how much of an impact that story can [00:11:00] have on those around you. not, to put aside how profound the experience sounds like it was for you, why that moment with Dr. Stephanie was that pivotal moment, where you were able to have somebody who asked you to reflect on not just your own experience, but the experience of your lifetime. Your mother's lifetime, your grandmother's lifetime, and pull it all together. And to have somebody who asks you that and then sits and has you share that and they're listening to every detail and every word is so incredibly moving and

Krista: It's a

Andrea: profoundly impactful.

Yeah. Yeah.

Krista: I [00:12:00] don't think there's a lot of people that get to do that in their life. And I'm actually really curious, Terry. You, thanks for jumping in like that and sharing all that with us. And I, I kind of wanna go back just a little bit to the moment when you realized you needed to reach out to somebody and that pathway to get to Dr. Stephanie because, we can move through our life and maybe there's a little voice or that gut feeling, there's something not right. we know we have to do something, but, it's like if someone were to quit drinking or quit, smoking or these big life changing moments in our lives, I'm really curious what was that moment, where you decided I have to do something.

Terry: There were multiples. I didn't listen first time or the second time

And the reasoning was, well, first of all, the weight gain is a sign in itself. Right. And so I just kept getting bigger and bigger and [00:13:00] bigger. And every time I'd get bigger, I tried, you know, to get some weight off, I'd get 20 pounds off.

Okay. You know, good enough. Go back to real life then not only gain the 20 back, but gain another 10 on top of that, because who has time to eat properly? What does that even mean? Why do I have to change? I've always eaten this way. Um, I don't have time to go to the gym.

I'm not a superstar, supermodel, a movie star, whatever. Who cares what I look So there's a lot of different stories. Um, my family needs me more. My work needs me. My company is gonna fail. It's gonna bomb if I'm not there in 18, 19 hours a day, and I don't dedicate my entire life to it,

So there's all these stories going on that were preventing me at that time from really taking a look at the snowballing slow walk off the cliff essentially.

Andrea: Mm-hmm.

Terry: And, the first time something major [00:14:00] happened, I remember standing in my kitchen with the refrigerator open, thinking about which ice cream am I going to eat right now?

and all of a sudden I started having massive chest pains and they wouldn't go away. And it wasn't something that, I had ever experienced before. They were acute, the sharp chest pains to the point where I couldn't breathe.

And I was doubled down, like to the floor almost crouching because I couldn't even stand. So I freaked out and rushed to the ER and I walk in and the ER is packed. And I'm thinking, I'm gonna just drop dead right here because there's so many people ahead of me. They're going to think I'm crazy and they're just gonna send me home.

Instead, what they did is as soon as they took a look at me, I was rushed to the back room immediately because they saw I

Andrea: Hmm.

Terry: breathe. So that scared me even more. And yeah, so then they let me go. They couldn't exactly pinpoint it. [00:15:00] That apparently was not enough for me. I went straight back to 18 hour work days traveling like a maniac, you know, doing all the things I was doing, eating like crap, not exercising, not doing any of the things I was supposed to do.

I knew I was supposed to do those things. but I had a million excuses and then six, seven months later it happened again. and that's when I said, okay, this is, this wasn't a one off. my intuition was telling me that, you keep going like this, you will have a heart attack because your grandfather died after his fourth heart attack.

Your grandmother had congestive heart failure, and you're just moving in that direction. So choose. And I just didn't know which way to go. And because ER did not figure out what was going on, I didn't have a lot of confidence in the traditional medical healthcare system. And so I went and I found, someone that was introduced to me as a really great, holistic [00:16:00] integrative medicine doctor that would look at the whole thing that was happening.

'cause one specialist was not gonna pinpoint 'cause they couldn't, they checked, there was nothing extraordinary happening. But now. Here's the other, the kicker, what I hear now from women is that the traditional medical healthcare system does not intervene until you actually do have a heart attack.

So until something really critical does happen, rather than, preventatively. And so if I hadn't listened, I don't know where I would be today.

Krista: is it that first person that you connected with was Dr. Stephanie? Is that true? And was it an instant connection with her?

Terry: I was not instantly connected. I was skeptical because that's just been my experience and I had a big ego back then and I thought, how the heck is someone else gonna figure this out when I can't figure it out? [00:17:00] It's my body and I can't figure it out. And it did take the full three hour conversation.

she cracked me open and that,

Andrea: mm

Terry: what I think was necessary.

Krista: unlike the medical system, how amazing is it that she, was able to integrate more of the emotional side of things. I think we can all agree that, it's very, sterile and just like, give me the facts and let me poke around and do some tests and that's it way you go.

So I can understand how you would feel a bit skeptical, but can you talk a little bit about that over the three hours of sharing your story and your family story throughout the years, Nobody gets to do that. we don't allow ourselves to do it. and it's very rare to be embraced in that sense of the matter and have somebody take the time with you to really sit with you and really invest in you.

And so, I'd love to hear a little bit more about that connection with her.[00:18:00]

Terry: Yeah, so she started by asking the easy questions, right? So, what's wrong? What's going on? How do you feel? What are the symptoms? What happened? why are you here? The biometrics and all these things. And then started diving into my past history. Were you always over overweight?

No, I wasn't. When did this begin around this time? What was going on? This was happening, you know. And then what about your family history? Do you have obesity in your family? No, I don't. Do you have all these other types of conditions like heart disease, diabetes, cancer, things like that in your genetic pool?

Not to my knowledge. Right. But yes, heart attacks and all these things. So little by little, she created a roadmap of, an understanding of how I got to her. How did I get to today? Right? What happened? And then what was the, the [00:19:00] family history, and then what was the lives of the people?

How did they live their lives and what did they go through? And potentially, what are some of the beliefs that I have about things that might be. Creating a problem for me in the present moment and all of it was just tied together where the more questions she asked, the more, I trusted her guidance because I saw where she was going with it, and it was looking at the full picture.

It wasn't just a microscopic, point of view of, well, you, you know, you gotta lose weight.

Andrea: Hmm.

Terry: Like, do you think, I'm not trying, that's the obvious part, just looking at me, you knew I'd had to lose it. I couldn't walk up the stairs at the age of 37 without being completely out of breath.

That's not normal. And so, how do I shed this weight? That was the big mystery. And unbeknownst to me at 37, I had entered perimenopause [00:20:00] and I didn't know that. And so A perfect storm, right? all of these things were happening all at the same time, and I literally felt so lost, so confused.

my mindset was changing, my mood swings were all over the place. My weight was just not budging no matter what I did. my hormones were raging just completely. I mean, I felt like I was an adolescent again,

Andrea: mm-hmm.

Terry: really unpredictable behavior. things just being, unsettling. And I did not know, nobody told me that you could go into perimenopause at 37 and then be in perimenopause fully at 42.

I'm almost 49 now. So I went through this crazy period of five years of a lot of mystery. Yeah.

Andrea: [00:21:00] I was thinking about, a word that you had used earlier and it was, intuition and you used your intuition to guide you. More and more, I'm appreciating this word. and I wonder

Do you find that you're using it more and more as your guide? I would wonder if you might expand on what intuition means to you.

Terry: What a great question. So the majority of my younger years, I would say I was driven by my intuition because I just didn't have. that much knowledge. I had experiences, but my main power source was my intuition. Then at some point between maybe 25 to 40, I shut it off, I silenced it.

My [00:22:00] ego took over and it was just running the show, Because, I mean, this was just what was, I'll be honest about it, right? So I'm a business owner. I'm A CEO. I know what I'm doing. I gotta do all these things and I'm so important and blah, blah, blah, right? And so that's what was going on. And what does the media do?

It thrives on that. And women entrepreneurs, we don't need anybody. We can do everything. We can be mothers and CEOs and not gain. 80 pounds. No. Right. So I wasn't listening to my

Andrea: Hmm.

Terry: intuition, at all. I have no recollection of having any inklings. But then as soon as my ego got knocked out by being in er, by having Dr. Stephanie Solaris, [00:23:00] really listen to that little girl that went through these things, through that adolescent girl, through the young adult, and really, truly, she connected with that part of me that I had silenced for a while, and now all of a sudden she was like, oh, wow. I actually have a chance here. I, somebody's listening to me because the ego, drill sergeant that's living in her head has shut me down for so long and so little by little it started waking up. And the best way I can describe what that feels like, Its a reconnection to your authentic self. It's a whisper. It's not, a loud voice. It does not scream at you.

Sometimes it only says things one time and that's it. And so if you are not listening, [00:24:00] if you are not practicing some type of way of silencing the voices that are in your head, 'cause we all have them many, many thoughts constantly, it's very hard to hear that whisper. If you are not practicing stillness, meditation,

a connection to your inner being. If you're not intentionally doing these things, it's very hard to tune into the frequency of your authentic, true intuition. The higher being that's gonna guide you. And maybe say like, Hey, you know, maybe, and it doesn't even direct, it never directs. It says, maybe you should like, just try it.

you don't know. it could be good.

Andrea: Mm-hmm.

Terry: And because it's not overpowering. It's very easy to ignore it.

Andrea: Yeah, it's not the loudest voice because it doesn't need to be when [00:25:00] we shut down or quiet the loud, the overbearing, the voices that are guided maybe by outside forces as opposed to inside forces.

Terry: 100% the people pleasing. That's all ego based, having no boundaries. Again, that is ego based. Um, constantly being in action. That's the ego. All of these things are distractions, really in my opinion, to being fully connected with your own true. Being intimate with your own true self, which is, it's a very scary thing, right?

Because we would have face a lot of the things that that inner child, inner being [00:26:00] our true self has gone through and address a lot of the things that we have gone through up to that point, and that's very uncomfortable. And so we do everything in our power to distract ourselves. We find coping mechanisms, addictions, all that stuff, just so that we don't have to open that door, walk into that room, and witness our own self being in pain and making it okay.

Krista: During that, three hour conversation, with Dr. Stephanie was it full of those discoveries through the three hours or was there one moment or one thing that came up for you that was a realization that you didn't think about or really know before?

Terry: I had those moments probably with every question

because I had to think really hard. I had suppressed so many things. I mean in all seriousness, nobody's going to constantly bring up their own past and live in it, right? So. [00:27:00] It's a healthy thing. I, I don't feel that I need to constantly be addressing, the past.

But I had a lot of those things. I had just kind of let them go. And when I was asked to go back and really acknowledge what I have gone through, what my mother and my grandmother, um, and coming from an Armenian background, my great-grandmother was in a Holocaust. She was displaced. There was, you know, 500 year wars going on.

She was displaced multiple times. And my grandmother was displaced. They had to immigrate

Andrea: Hmm.

Terry: Then my mother, was basically born into a communism, and then she had to leave the communist country come to the United States. I wasn't born here. I was born as well in a communist country. So we had to start over again many, many times over many generations.

And just that itself is an experience. But you know, [00:28:00] divorce with my biological father, alcoholism on my biological father's side, me inheriting the alcohol gene and slipping into that. Right. And slowly starting to drink more and more and more. That's where I was at when I was talking to Dr. Solaris as well.

You know, all that stuff really. Um, paints a really interesting tapestry of life that you don't really think about on a daily basis. 'cause we're busy doing our thing.

Andrea: totally.

Terry: Mm-hmm.

Andrea: And coping and finding those coping mechanisms to keep us able to get up each morning and do all the things that we believe that we need to do.

Terry: Absolutely. Absolutely. But yeah, my feeling was that if I go back and I address myself at that age of [00:29:00] experience where maybe I lost my father and I never saw him again. You know, there was a lot of pain associated with that, but I never really processed because I didn't have the tools back then to do that.

I didn't know, you know, a 4-year-old me did not know how to do these things. But 45-year-old me does, and 45-year-old me can explain that to 4-year-old me. Um, and things like that. Like, for example, another thing that was very insane that happened to me, so my bi speaking of my biological father, I was told that he died about 15 years ago when that wasn't the case.

He was actually alive. He was not. And then right when COVID started, I get a letter from my stepbrother on his side that he was very much alive all this time and he passed away the year before [00:30:00] COVID, so 2019.

Andrea: Oh gosh.

Terry: I was blown away by that. I can't even tell you, I did not cry the first time I thought he died.

I had no reaction. The second time he actually died, I was a basket case for probably about six months. I couldn't stop crying. I have no explanation for why I reacted this way, but something had cracked open for me by then where I could feel the grief that the 4-year-old me did not feel. The 34-year-old me did not feel, but the 40-year-old me or 42-year-old me did.

And so it's a very interesting progression of how we grow as human beings. The more work we put into

Andrea: Mm-hmm.

Terry: to process a lot more. And so our emotional bandwidth, I feel like expands a big highway, right? We [00:31:00] maybe start off with 1 or 2 lanes and the more work we do, maybe we're now at 10 lanes and we can process.

Andrea: I mean, love that analogy. That's.

Krista: if you had known he was alive and you were in this new phase of your life, if there is almost like it was the opportunity to connect with him, if that was even something that you would want to do was taken away from you. you weren't. Given that opportunity, and maybe that was something that you would've taken advantage of and explored,

Terry: Yeah. The kicker was that I was probably about four hours away from him, three months before he died on the other side of the world.

Andrea: Hmm.

Terry: this is where intuition comes from. I had this thought, why don't you look him up? And I said, nah, nah, nah. Who cares? He's dead.

What? What am I gonna do out of that? Right. He was alive.

Andrea: Hmm.

Terry: Yeah.

Andrea: And now that's part of that tapestry, right? That's part of that, that infrastructure of who [00:32:00] you are today

Can you, take us into the experience from. The conversation that you had with, Dr. Stephanie Solaris. you were coming from, a world of being, a CEO, running a company,

And you're in perimenopause, You're Discovering more and more about yourself Take us through now how your life is changing.

Like what are the things that are shifting in your day-to-day, in your work, in what's important to you and what you're spending your time on and where that's leading you.

Terry: Another fantastic question, and I'll be honest, running a business. Requires you to have a shield up.

Andrea: Hmm.

Terry: You have to appear to be in control. You have to be competent. [00:33:00] You need to inspire people to follow your lead. You have to show strength, right? Like, I can do this. I'm able, I'm capable, I'm resourceful. You have problems, you solve them.

You need to achieve X. You do whatever it is you need to do. One, because people are relying on you for their livelihood, and two, because you've taken on this role and that's your job. So when I couldn't figure out my own garbage, I couldn't figure out my own body. I didn't know what the heck was going on in my head.

My body was going completely haywire. I was ashamed. I was ashamed of everything that was happening to me, and I did not want [00:34:00] anybody to know, and I would not ask for help. That's why it was such a big deal for me to reach out to a doctor and go through this whole mental health, emotional health, physical health exercise.

And I only prayed to God. No one ever knew about what I told her. 'cause nobody would wanna work with me. That's what was in my mind, right? So if clients knew what a hot mess I was, no one was gonna wanna work with me. And so I would not wanna go out and ask for help. Oh, for, for my personal stuff. Oh, no way.

I knew how to hire people professionally and, have employees and contractors and do all this stuff, but like, for my own mental and personal health, like, I can't even figure that out. People expect me to figure out multimillion dollar branding jobs. so that was a really big thing for me to ask for help on a [00:35:00] personal level.

And what Dr. Stephanie did for me is she actually kind of cracked me a little bit to see the benefit that, you know, I do, I need help. I, I really do. If I wanna show up the best way I can in my business, in my family, for my children, I need help. And I had to humble myself down all the way down.

To ask and receive and follow instructions the way I was told. So my next step was, which was not easy. I was terrible. I was a terrible client. Okay. My next, um, my next job, what I did the next was hire a coach that would work with me on an ongoing basis. I hired, Michelle McDonald.

She is a bodybuilding competitor, and she was working with women that [00:36:00] were, uh, looking to do a lifestyle change, meaning teach them how to eat properly, teach them about nutrition, teach them about weightlifting. I had never picked up a dumbbell in my life. I thought it was a waste of time at that age

when she gave me my program, I looked at it, I was like, what the heck is a db? I don't, you know, dumbbell. I didn't know that. Um, bar Bell. I had no idea what that was. I mean, there were so many things it was like a new language. And I used to joke around, she said, here are your macros. And I was thinking to myself, what do I need Excel macros for?

Because that's what a macro was to me. It was the formulas and Excel spreadsheets that's how much of a beginner I was. And so I had to learn all of these things very quickly and I was not a willing participant. I was a terrible client. [00:37:00] Yeah. So that was my next step. so she helped me learn to ask for help.

Hire people to help me personally and not be so ashamed there. There was a lot of shame, in the very beginning to really admit to my emotional eating patterns, to binging, to being successful with my adherence to the plan, and then going off the deep end and ghosting my coach, disappearing for months at a time, and then coming back and being 20 pounds heavier.

And she would say, what happened? I don't know. I don't, I did everything you said. I was lying about it. I was very ashamed. And this was in the beginning of 2019. So I started with her in January, 2019 and, I was with her for a few years, so if you can [00:38:00] imagine, it took me. At least seven years to get my act together

Andrea: seven years that transformed you to who you are today.

Terry: every single day was a fight. It was a battle, I had to understand that I have to reprogram literally everything that's in my brain because it was not true. I did not have to be ashamed of what I was going through. I was not the only one that was going through these things. There were many other women going through the same, and there is a way out.

There is the right way to do things, and then there's the wrong way to do things and 90% of us are doing things the wrong way because that's all we see out in the media. But the benefit [00:39:00] of hiring a professional with a proven track record that knows what they're doing, that's actually gonna call you out on your bs.

Not someone who's just there to take your money and get a paycheck. And yes, yes, yes. You to death. Uh, not someone who's gonna enable your nonsense. It, it's a gift. It truly is. And that's what got me out of the mess that I was in, because if I had hired somebody that was gonna just baby me through things, I was not gonna have respect for that person.

Andrea: Mm-hmm.

Terry: I would know that that's bs.

Andrea: So you found yourself, through these years, learning about, how to take care of your body physically. So there was the physical activity and a program that was built that was really curated to work for you and then there was the emotional and the psychological side of the work. and you did touch on [00:40:00] the perimenopause, so I would imagine that nutrition plays another big component of this. And then hormone health, which, became something that you now are an expert in. Somebody who can speak to hormone health, grounded in your own experience.

So, as you said at the beginning, the work is not one dimensional, which for so many people, it feels as though when we look into things to take care of ourselves, we can find something that will help that thing that we're trying to address. And it becomes a very siloed path,

But from what you've described, from your story,

you were in the process of transforming from the CEO into where you are now, which is.

a leader, an advocate, a person that walks [00:41:00] beside and partners with women in so much of what you've just described. can you share how did you move through, that time of running a business into where you find yourself now

Terry: Mm-hmm. So as I started the process of, I, I call it cleaning the terrain, right? So cleaning the body out, Nutritionally, physically losing weight. Processing emotional weight, figuring out where my energy was, feeling the healthiest. I, little by little started discovering that I was healing myself. I was healing whatever was broken inside.

Again, it took a long time, It wasn't instantaneous, but I started being more aware of the things I was doing that were working against me. [00:42:00] I started becoming more aware of the stories I was telling myself that were old, no longer necessary, and I started moving through all this, So the weightlifting and the nutrition served as a gateway, truly to energetic and emotional transformation on my side.

Andrea: Hmm.

Terry: And eventually what I realized is that being in that corporate business environment really was killing me. I started to not feel well mentally, emotionally, and so I walked away. I gave myself retired technically and I gave myself a little bit of time to move through the emotions of grief that come when that ends.

For us as business owners, there is a lot of emotions that need to be processed. When you used to own a business and then you are [00:43:00] now just the fly on the wall and no longer needed, which is great, but also sad. Um, and so I gave myself the grace of time and I started being approached by other women.

'cause I started sharing my story. I decided that. I'm done being ashamed about all this stuff. I'm done nitpicking my body to death. I'm going to just blast through all of these, limiting beliefs, I would call them. And so I started sharing my story on Instagram and little by little women started asking me for help.

And so I started helping a few women for free. I wasn't even charging, um, in the beginning. I had neighbors around the neighborhood that saw my transformation. They wanted to know, what the heck are you doing? So I started training them for free. just doing it because I was so jazzed. I was so pumped, so happy.

I was like, I gotta tell [00:44:00] everybody, everybody needs to know. And so that went on for a little bit. And then, women started referring other women, and then I had to get a little more serious about it, but I was so passionate about this. I could not believe it had taken me 40 something years to figure this out. I was like, this can't be kept from women.

That we need to eat more food, eat more protein, lift weight, stop doing three hours of cardio. Don't starve yourself. You know, stop stressing yourself out with 19 hours full of busy work, sleep, drink water. I mean, this is basic how did we get robbed from these things? How did we allow that?

and so I was seeing women, a lot of women in the same boat that I was in, just exasperated, Like, what is wrong with me? There is nothing wrong with you. It's everything around you. It's how we've [00:45:00] been conditioned to think. What we've been told our whole lives, you know that's what's really wrong.

And then when you stop doing all the wrong things and you start doing all the right things, all of a sudden it's like, oh my gosh, I feel so much better. Well, no, shit, you feel much better. that's what happened to me.

Andrea: Oh my gosh, it's amazing.

Krista: Oh my gosh, what a revelation. Oh,

Andrea: So

Krista: and then it's infectious too, right? Because you are giving, they're getting Then you, so you're building this community, so what does community mean to you and how did that feel? what did that look like?

Terry: I discovered in this process that I'm one of those people that gets, I get high, I'm pumped when I havea lot of people to take care of. And so people [00:46:00] ask me all the time like, how the heck do you have so much energy at these retreats? Aren't you exhausted? I'm like, no, I'm high. when the retreats are happening, I'm flying on cloud nine.

I get so energized and so fulfilled to be doing this work to help women maybe even in a tiny little way. It doesn't have to be anything monumental, but if I can help you feel 1% better than you did yesterday. I'm pumped because now I've given you something to look at, to hope for and see, well, okay, I made this tweak.

I feel a little better. What if I make another tweak? in this new direction you're incrementally going to start feeling better. And so I'm one of those odd, extrovert people that's really energetic from doing work with community and being in a community, but in a [00:47:00] service based type of way,

Real human people, not corporate services, human services.

Andrea: Oh, I love that reframe. it's hitting on so many things personally.

going back to what I said at the very opening of this conversation is that we are all walking along be side one another, in the experience that we're in. And I love that you identified that, Everybody has their own story.

But when we share those stories, we can see just how powerful that is in creating change, in creating transformational moments. I love how. you've talked about just now identifying human service as opposed to corporate service.

Terry: you reframing, Human service [00:48:00] really lands with what I think Half Betty was born of, and I like you am absolutely locked into being of service in the space of human service, providing the space for humans to thrive. Being in conversation, finding connection, helping people not only share their own experiences, but in doing so, unlocking other things for people around them. And so I really appreciate, your way of not only candidly describing, this journey you've been on, but for really creating this joy in being in human service I love that. I love how you framed it and I love what you guys are doing. And I [00:49:00] can tell you from my experience with both of you, you are 100% living your passion and your purpose because I can feel it. And you are so dialed into that frequency of human service, and you're natural, you're authentic, you're real, your intentions are pure. And I feel personally in this world, we need more of that. We need more people waking up, reawaking their passion and their intention and their reason for being here. We need that because people have forgotten, and that's my mission. I want to remind women specifically of who they are, where they come from, who they've been, and what their reason is for being here.

And I can promise you it is not so that you can be [00:50:00] working like a mule for 20 hours a day. that is not why we're here. I was told my whole life, my only reason for existence was so I can make money and earn a living. And that was the only saving grace I had.

But that's not true. And so I commend you guys for doing what you do. Thank you for spreading the word. And I think it's so important and it will become increasingly important. It's already at a critical stage that we need these types of voices to be heard. But it's gonna get increasingly, important as we start navigating the age of technology, ai, all the phoniness, disconnection, social media, people don't know how to talk to each other.

They don't even know how to feel

Andrea: Hmm.

Terry: it's getting more and more critical.

Thank you for allowing me to rant.

Krista: Thank you. Thanks for sharing your story, Terry. I mean what's common in all of [00:51:00] these stories that we hear is the transformation, these beautiful moments where there's a discovery, there's action that's been taken, and then this community that follows with that. And the revelation, the inspiration.

All these things start to happen. And it's like, we're living new lives, we're making new friends, we're opening our hearts, our minds, and we're changing. and that also comes with sharing. And it's so innate and we have to, it's like our duty, our job, it's our new job,

Like Andrea said, it's so inspiring to hear your story and to know that we can change. And sometimes it takes seven years. Sometimes it's overnight because it has to be.

And our journeys are all different, but it doesn't matter. What matters is that we, hear those voices, we get help, however that looks we find our community and we just share and keep moving forward. that's the way it's [00:52:00] gotta be, and the earlier we can get to these moments, the better.

Andrea: That's so good. Terry. do you want to paint us a bit of a picture of. Where you are today and also paint us into a little bit of the future. Also, I have to ask a question because it just occurred to me, is clearing the terrain a play on your name? Like is it terrain? Terry Terrain?

Terry: I like that actually. That's a good idea.

Andrea: It just, it just, it wasn't that.

Terry: No, it was,

Andrea: Oh, okay.

Terry: to get your body healthy. Right. So clear. Clear the terrain and um, and integrative medicine means to get your body in order

Andrea: I love that. Ooh, I love that. I really queued into the word terrain and just how. visceral. That makes it So I wanted to just touch on that use of that word. [00:53:00] Um, would you mind walking us through where you are today, what your time and days and experiences look like now? and then share with us what the future looks like

Terry: Absolutely. So I spend most of my days coaching my beautiful ladies that have trusted me and hired me to be their coach, to walk beside them on this journey. It is my absolute privilege to do that. And I do that on a daily basis. So 30 days a month, that's what I do. I work out, I get my own things taken care of.

And then maybe once or twice a month, mostly once a month for five days, I run retreats But it's a more intensive, immersive type of in-person retreat. And, what's coming in the future is that I've added two new locations for retreats. So the majority of the retreats are in Tennessee in the Smoky Mountains, Cherokee National Forest

Andrea: Oh wow.

Terry: Mountaintop.

so that's where about 10, retreats happen per year. [00:54:00] Next year we're adding a new location in Sedona and in the south of France. And then eventually we're going to add potentially Italy and maybe some other place. Sothat's the plan for the future. Um, there is a cookbook coming out for Thors, food that we prepare a lot of women really enjoy, the meals that we create, at the retreat.

So there might be a cookbook this year, but that's it. Simple. I like it. Simple.

Krista: That's it. Simple. Okay.

Andrea: Simple. Oh my gosh, this

Krista: Oh my gosh.

Andrea: can you tell me about where Thor came from?

Terry: Yes. So the terrain actually is part of this. So when I was trying to figure out how do I name this company because it's my love project, and so, I did a lot of branding and company naming and all kinds of things for other companies for many years, [00:55:00] and I hadn't felt the need to do that for myself. It's very hard, by the way, to do it for yourself. And so I wanted it to really mean, something to me. And so the House of rose, the reason why it's rose is because the rose is the highest frequency flower out there. That's the highest vibration. It is used as a metaphor for love and for God.

Andrea: Mm

Terry: so it is the house of the higher being, who is the higher being, the little you that lives inside of you,

So

Andrea: mm.

Terry: You're in your own house. You are on your terrain. And what um, we do at the retreats is we talk about our body, our physical health, our emotional health, our mental health, our energetic health, very important. Uh. Yeah. And so when you put all the letters together, it comes out to Thor.

What is Thor? [00:56:00] Thor is the demi god of fertility, protection, security, humanity.

the dependent, the rose and Thor, masculine, feminine. You got both sides of the coin. It just worked for me, so that's how I ended

Andrea: What a beautiful story. I think it's interesting that it comes back to this word terrain, you just described where geographically, your, retreats are held. and you described Tennessee Smoky Mountains. So it seems as though, environment is a, big factor in creating spaces for healing and for connecting with ourselves and by environment it doesn't need to be.

necessarily outside environment is where you find yourself. and I love the way we're describing our own bodies as, a, geographical space in some ways, it is full of its own [00:57:00] natural occurring beauty. It's full of all the things that make it unique and like nature. It's perfectly designed right, this law of nature that there's no more perfect design than what nature designs itself. And so, I really hear that woven into. All of your stories of, how you see yourself, how you've described the work that you've been in. It's this deep connection to the perfect balance that nature creates

And this is the interesting thing because that's what I've taken away. And I would love. Krista to, share what she's taken away because the really wonderful part is that we all will take away something that's unique to our own experiences and stories, and it will help us [00:58:00] individually

One story, as long as it's yours, will serve so many others, which is that human service piece.

Krista: Well, I've been tearing up quite a lot hearing your journey and I think the main thing that I've taken away from this is change is inevitable. It's always gonna come whether it happens, overnight or through an accident or through something drastic and traumatic or whether that is a slow moving train where we know where it's headed and we're fighting it along the way And I just think it's so beautiful that you persisted and that you got the help that you needed and that those people helped you get to where you needed to be. I think it's a testament to your strength. and I can reflect personally on, exercise and keeping [00:59:00] myself busy and, we do all these things and for me personally, you know, raising twins and now they're nine and okay, it's my time.

half Betty is a moment in time for me to embrace who I am and what I finally get to do and allow myself to do. And the changes that I know I need to make, can be put in action. And it's so inspiring to have all these women come on and talk about their stories and where they've come from and what's changed for them and where they are now.

I'm so grateful for the journey that I'm on and that it's resonating with people like you, Terry, and all of our guests it is time to really dig in and to support each other and to talk about these things. 'cause they really matter and these intimate connections that we're building are only going to be stronger if [01:00:00] we allow them to be.

And that starts with ourselves. So,thank you so much for sharing all that you've shared and I know that this will resonate with our listeners and I know that it will create change.

I'm wondering if you could offer up a challenge because some people like me, sometimes we need to be given a challenge, and I'm wondering if there's something in there that you could offer up our listeners to challenge them. And one thing that they could try doing today that would help them just take that step forward in, making the change for themselves.

If they're feeling stuck but they just need a little hand on the back to just guide them forward.

Terry: I'm gonna make it spicy. Is that okay?

Krista: Yes. Make it spicy. Oh my gosh, yes, please.

Terry: Okay. So because I don't know your goals, I don't know what you're striving for, I'm gonna make it super spicy. Make a list [01:01:00] of the top five things that are preventing you, keeping you, demotivating you, scaring you, whatever it may be that are sabotaging you. All the time, write 'em down every day from hitting your goal, your vision, your dream.

It could be a career change, it could be physical change, it could be nutritional change, it could be relationship change. It doesn't matter. So what are the top five things on a daily basis? Every day you write them down and then at the end of two weeks, take a survey, put your corporate hat on, pick a survey, what's the top answer?

And start working on that one. And then little by little, try to eliminate as many as possible. Are new ones gonna pop up? They do every day. And so our job is to continuously clean the terrain as well, right? We clean

Andrea: Mm, clean the

Terry: mental and [01:02:00] emotional hygiene, andthat's a way to write things down and, reflect and be aware of those thoughts that are popping in.

Krista: we've talked about this before in some of our other episodes, and there's something that happens when we get it out of our head and we write it down and we can see it. You know, I know Andrea loves to write. She loves words, she loves to see these, sentences or phrases or, quotes come up.

Um, and it's such a powerful way to make that first step into that transition. Those thanks for offering that up, and I know I'm gonna do that today.

Andrea: I know I'm already, I'm already itching, but I, I am listening to Krista 'cause she's so good at everything that she does. And she said to me, do not write while we're recording because you can hear the pen on the paper. So I'm holding back

Terry: That's great.

Andrea: and as soon as we're

Krista: Well, the beauty is we can listen to this again, and then you can do your writing.

Andrea: I know.

It's so good. I'm so happy for this conversation.

and [01:03:00] Terry, thank you for your time because

Krista: Mm.

Andrea: you're in this human service, this beautiful human service journey, and so taking this time with us is really meaningful and powerful and, We know that this is but a moment in time for this conversation, but the momentum for this will continue.

The energy from this will continue, it will evolve, it will transform, and it will build. and that's probably,one of the most exciting things is anticipating that this is not a moment in time that has a beginning and an end, but in fact this is a spark that creates something that is gonna continue and I just can't wait to see how it continues.

Krista: Oh, me too. Yeah, me too.

Terry: Thank you both of you so much. I really enjoyed my time. Keep doing what you're doing. What your work is is so important because you're [01:04:00] documenting these stories and they're going to live out there forever. And maybe someone five years down the road is gonna watch or listen to this episode and your other episodes and because of that, take action towards a more positive direction or maybe feel more connected, or maybe not feel as sad or know they're not alone. So the work that you are doing has so many exponential benefits from this point all the way into the future and from all the episodes that you're doing.

So thank you for that.

Krista: Thanks Terry. if people wanna get ahold of you, learn more, how can we direct them your way

Terry: I have two, two places. So Instagram, @how.good.can.it.get? And the website, thehouseofrose.com, if you wanna email me, I'm Terry, terry@thehouseofrose.com. I welcome all comments, questions, anything, love meeting new people. [01:05:00] And that's pretty much it!

Krista: And anyone can, join in on your retreats as well. And so follow along with that through your website, would, that would be the best place to look.

Terry: exactly on the website. Mm-hmm.

Andrea: That's so exciting. I know where I'm going after I write down things, um, then I'm going immediately to the website.

Terry: I love it.

Krista: Thank you,

Andrea: you, Terry.

Krista: of course, for our listeners at home, or we're in your car or on your trail run or wherever you're at today, when you're listening, please follow us on Instagram @HalfBetty and our website, halfbetty.com. You can find more there and all the episodes are listed there. You can find some juicy details about Andrea and I and our little bios and learn more about us.

Thank you for joining us today. We're so honored that you've taken this time for us and to learn more about Terry and perhaps yourself too. So we will see you real soon.