We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Christy Cater a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Christy, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about the best boss, mentor, or leader you’ve ever worked with.
The best boss I’ve ever had is my body. Having Type 1 Diabetes since I was not quite two years old has given me the greatest lessons of my lifetime. Growing up with Diabetes was really hard. My relationship with food was torturous. Insulin, the hormone my body does not make, was developing but not flexible. There were no insulin pumps and once the insulin was delivered via syringe injections, it was active in my body. So if it turned out to be a rainy day and we couldn’t play outside my blood sugars might skyrocket or if we decided to go to the pool and I was active, I could have a low blood sugar at any moment. My body craved sugar. My Grandma, who also had Type 2 Diabetes and was morbidly obese, would hide sweets throughout her house and take us to get frosty’ s and double bacon cheeseburgers at Wendy’s. I’d find the hidden sweets in her house and learned to hide my own. I lived a cycle of up’s and down’s on what would eventually be a thirty year blood sugar roller coaster ride. Diabetes has had an impact in every area of my life and I spent many years hating it. The endless shots, the calculations, the “just in case of a low blood sugar” snacks in every purse, car, bed stand, desk, work place I’ve ever gone, the big and little decisions to eat this or don’t order that, the things I’ve said no to because I was afraid all have brought me to this place where I am now- a peace, a knowing, a rising up from the bottom. Diabetes hasn’t been my worst enemy, it’s been my greatest teacher. It’s taught me to listen to my body’s wisdom. It’s taught me courage and that I’m only stuck if I choose to be. It’s taught me how to save my own life, take care of myself with a fierce passion and to help others take back their lives too.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Having Diabetes since I was a toddler I had a love/hate relationship with food and exercise. I loved sugar and hated exercise! In gym class I was the slowest runner and would have to run again when I didn’t get the “standard” time so all I learned was that I hated running and I wasn’t good enough. In college I found a Pilates video that I started doing at home, fast forwarding through all the hard parts and only doing the exercises to try and get thin, but still. my body felt open to that kind of movement. Most of my twenties was spent in extremes trying to finish college, eating and drinking my way through life and managing my new career as a high school art teacher. It was a job I loved but it also felt taxing on my body. Days where I didn’t leave until late in the evening or days staying after to help kids with extra homework or just to give them a place to be meant I wasn’t exercising or eating well- teachers inhale their food!
When I found a yoga class close to my house I was excited and anxious to try it but knew I needed to move my body. It was a stepping stone into finding my true calling. After the yoga class I was curious about barre and Pilates and found another place to try those classes and I was hooked. I loved the energy of the class and how I was actually loving exercise. After a short time taking the classes I started seeking out certifications to teach the classes while I was teaching high school and Mom to my daughters. Feeling the way I felt in my body taking and teaching barre and Pilates was like opening a door inside me that I didn’t know existed. It felt right to shift from teaching high school Art to teaching body’s in motion so I left a tenured position to become a full-time Pilates Instructor. But the eating and drinking side of my life still wasn’t what I wanted for myself and I found a Certified Health/Life Coaching Program that resonated with me and helped me learn how to heal my relationship with myself and food so I could help others do the same. It was as if I was becoming the person I needed as a kid and my war with Diabetes was shifting. After a year, I started my own Pilates + Health/Life Coaching Business and finally the alignment of mind, body and soul had shifted in me and for those I had the honor of working with in Pilates and Coaching. People just like me who also struggled with being at war with their body, who thought they had no choice but to accept the diagnosis, take the pill, sit on the sidelines, stay in the uncomfortable comfort of their lives and try and ride the roller coaster of food + diet yo-yo. After three years as a Pilates Instructor and Health/Life Coach I became Certified in IFS, Internal Family Systems Therapy, to deepen what I already sensed was hiding below the surface of why we stay stuck; our past, the stories we tell ourselves about everything and the ways we are taught to “be” which keeps us from living our fullest lives. With IFS, I’ve been working with clients to make big shifts in their lives, who finally feel amazing in their own skin, who finally heal their relationship to food and their past and who feel excited about creating the version of themselves they know they can be.
There many ways I love helping others. Some of my clients come to me for TRX/Pilates, “turn up the jams” cardio and strength training class using suspension straps and Pilates Mat moves. Others love the solos, duets or group equipment Pilates Classes using different types of classical pilates equipment such as the reformer, the chair or the tower for a safe, no impact workout that targets the muscles in the spine and core in the most efficient and effective way of exercising. Some work with me as their Health/Life Coach and some are with me for all of these ways of bettering their lives. Every class is 55 minutes long and my clients feel like family. They leave with a smile and a “thank you for making me feel better about myself and my life”. It’s the greatest feeling in the whole world.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
Oh, the many lessons I’ve had to unlearn!
One of my biggest shift’s is when I realized I had been telling myself the story that everything outside of me knew my body better than I did. Growing up we didn’t really eat for fuel, we ate for emotions, we ate for celebration, we ate because it was on sale, we ate because we didn’t want to hurt feelings or complain or seem different, we ate because we might not have more coming until the next month, we ate to feel something or not feel something beyond hunger; to numb, to cover up, to feel loved. When I started wanting to take care of myself in my twenties, it was because I was exhausted battling the feelings of knowing my stomach was hanging over my pants or seeing pictures of myself looking puffy. It was a place of shame and desperation and I started trying to run (which hurt and I hated every step) to burn calories and also restricted my calories to no more than 1000 per day. I remember eating half of a healthy yogurt cup one day and telling myself to stop and throw the rest away because I didn’t want to be a fat, diabetic anymore. I would go on to try vegan diets, keto, Adkins, detox’s, cleanses and even the “drink your calories” diet.
Nothing seemed to work. Signing up for barre and Pilates classes opened up new doors for me because for the first time I was having fun working out. And, my body started to change. I found myself eating more freely and listening to my body and what it craved and when. I decided to throw away my scale and stop weighing myself. It was like breaking up with a friend that I loved/hated. But I was actually breaking up with a deep pattern inside me that tied my worth to a number. For the first time I gave my intuition permission to have a voice verses years of being “good” or “bad” because of the foods I ate or didn’t eat or the exercises I was doing or not doing. I let myself be a soul having an experience in this body verses trying to be someone else’s idea of what was beautiful, healthy or good. I was good enough in my imperfections for the first time in my whole life.
Becoming a Health/Life Coach helped me unravel the years of stories around food scarcity I had lived in. The webs my body and brain tied food to love, belonging, comfort, body image, grief and self worth were in every corner of my existence.
Who did I want to be now?
What did I want to tell myself about those things now?
What will I do to love myself now, changed everything. And doing that work moves me from a place of possibilities, not shame, guilt, fear or not enoughness. It feels so good to have taken back my power and learn that the world outside me does not know my body better than I do and I hope everyone gets to hold that power for themselves too.
Putting training and knowledge aside, what else do you think really matters in terms of succeeding in your field?
One thing that has been hugely successful for my field is understanding that trying to help everyone in every way is a recipe for burnout. When I found the keys to unlocking my own struggles with Diabetes, food, alcohol, weight, exercise and how our past shapes our present, I wanted desperately to save everyone that reached out to me, even my own family. But that only created tension, resentment and inauthenticity.
It was coming from a part of me that loved saving, fixing and healing but it was also getting in the way of others having their own human experience and building trust within themselves to be, do and have exactly what they needed at that moment in their own life- even if I had something that could help them, it was not mine.
That radical acceptance opened up a freedom to not only accept others but also myself. I don’t need to fix or save anyone, we aren’t broken. We carry things and I truly believe, although sometimes destructive, everyone is doing the best they can with the information they are given. We have to allow ourselves and each other to be free to have up’s and down’s and when the student is ready, the teacher appears. Whether that’s a billboard, a perfectly placed butterfly, a diagnosis, a new walking buddy, a Pilates instructor + Health/Life Coach, or a social media post that changes our trajectory, it’s all part of a beautiful journey of growing.
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Image Credits
Angela Needs Shipps