Mental Health Through Movement: Mindy Lawhorne’s Fitness Journey

I had the pleasure of interviewing the lovely Mindy Lawhorne and uncovering how she’s maintained her mental health using movement throughout her fitness journey.

Mindy is the owner and founder of Team FitLife, Hope in Struggle Podcast Host, fitness professional, as well as founder of The Bible Babes, an uplifting online Christian community for women.

Behind the vibrant personality and successful ventures lies Mindy’s poignant tale of love, loss, and triumph. Mindy shares her profound journey of widowhood and how fitness has been a powerful healing tool in managing grief and processing emotions. As a fitness enthusiast, Mindy emphasizes the transformative power of physical activity for the mind, body, and soul.

Key Topics in this episode include:

• The healing power of physical activity in navigating the grieving process
• The importance of consistency in maintaining a fitness routine
• Being mindful of one’s self-talk and the impact it has on emotions and actions

Taking care of yourself is essential for moving forward and finding joy in life, even in difficult circumstances.

Listen to the Full Episode

Links + Resources From This Episode

• Mindy’s website
• Mindy’s podcast (Mindy interviews me on Episode 85!)
• Mindyon Instagram 
• The Morning Mindset podcast

Episode Transcript

Kim: Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Widow Squad Podcast. I’m your host, Kim Murray, and I have the pleasure of talking with the lovely Mindy Lawhorne today.

Mindy is a fitness professional and the owner and founder of Team Fit Life. She’s the host of the Hope in Struggle podcast as well as the founder of the Bible Babes, which is a women’s online Christian community that gives glamorous Jesus loving girly girls a non-judgmental, zero drama place to share fitness, fashion, glam, and go deeper with God.

And Mindy is also a widow. So that’s how we met through our shared widowhood experience. I love her. She’s the real deal, so let’s get to it. Mindy, welcome to the podcast.

Mindy: Thank you. I’m so happy to be here.

A Peculiar Yet Meaningful Encounter

Kim: I’m glad we have a chance to talk again today. We’ve connected in the past and I’m happy that we get that chance to connect again.

I know your background, but I would like you to start off and tell the listeners a little bit about your widow story. How did you get to where you are today?

Mindy: Sure. I think that’s a great place to start, and I cannot begin telling the story without just first thanking you because you really gave me permission to live my true widow life. You have all kinds of things in your head about how it should go and what you can’t do and what you shouldn’t do, and you really, really helped me grieve. I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you so much. And I just want you to know your message matters. You matter, and your story matters so much.

So, I met a man as a single mom at a funeral of all places and it was a very strange connection because I met him, and I was like, what in the world was that? Never had I ever met anyone where I felt so wow, like, there’s something there. And I quickly had feelings for him.

We talked at the funeral, and we went back to his family’s home, talked there, and we talked about, literally, our, like, top things in life. So, for us, it was faith, fitness, and family. He lived in North Carolina, and he quickly moved to Texas, which is where I live, and I was a single mom at the time if I hadn’t said that. And he married us, my son and myself, and he was a wonderful, funny, fit, like, ahhh, just a wonderful man.

The thing he told me within about a few hours of meeting him after the funeral, he said, “hey, I feel like there’s something going on, but I need you to know something pretty important. I have cancer.” And I remember just thinking, okay. Like, I didn’t go home thinking dang it, I found the one but he’s ruined. I didn’t think that at all. I just went, “oh, okay, well, we can deal with this, we can work with this.”

I did have some experience like that with my family, with my nephew. He had a brain tumor at one point, and they you know were hanging his boots up for him, and that’s not at all what happened. He’s now a pastor of a church in New Bedford, Massachusetts, 20 years later. So okay, I have hope here.

And he was just a wonderful, wonderful man, and he lived with cancer many, many years longer than any doctor ever thought he would probably because he had no other underlying element. Fitness was a very big deal for us. It was really part of our daily must-dos. You know what I mean? Just like anything that you would think you’ve gotta do every day, that’s what we did. And we did it because we enjoyed it too. Let me just put it that way. Not because we had to. It was part of what we enjoyed, and we know it made us better.

So he passed away in 2019. He did great with all the treatments and all the trial drugs just up until the end, where he just had too many tumors. The tumors morphed into all kinds of things and they went from leukemia to lymphoma and then to a thing called Richters and God took him December 13^th 2019.

And here I am now with you on the Widow Squad podcast telling my version of what so many of us have lived.

Kim: My gosh. Okay. So, I’m gonna try to let that all sink in. First of all, you met your husband at a funeral? I’m not sure I’ve ever heard that before.

Mindy: And that’s why I believed it. I’m like, this is weird enough. This is weird.

Kim: Yeah. Like, how do you start talking to someone at a funeral? Like, I think you’re attractive, and I’d like to know you better. I mean, you’re at a funeral. This is also fascinating to me.

Mindy: Yeah, it was very funny. It’s kind of a story maybe for another podcast, but I had known his family. I grew up in Wichita Falls, and his family was in Wichita Falls. So, I went back for a funeral there, and he was there as a family member. And, by the way, at the funeral we didn’t really talk. We talked later at the house where they had a bunch of people.

Kim: That is a fascinating story. I love that. So, you meet him at a funeral, but then the second part of that is he has cancer. I’m trying to digest this thinking, and I’m sure listeners are asking the same question, what would I do? Like, if you know someone has cancer, there’s a different trajectory to your relationship potentially.

Mindy. Let me give you a little reference, a little history. So I was married before. Right? And my ex-husband was not a great husband. He ended up being verbally abusive, and he cheated on me and all these things. And my heart was so, so broken. I was dealing with a man that was emotionally broken, emotionally sick. I dealt with that for 7 years, and I had finally said I have to get a divorce, and I hate that it even happened.

So, I remember thinking, okay, wait a minute. I’ve had a man that was emotionally and mentally sick and treated me terribly. Now I meet this man that I already have this discernment for that has a sickness in his body. I can deal with that. Right?

And I’ve never been loved like that in my life. I’ve never had a connection with someone like that in my life. He allowed me to be exactly who I was, and we were such a good combo, I can deal with cancer. And we did. We dealt with that very well for many years, almost 15 years. and I certainly wish it had been 50.

Kim: That makes sense. It makes perfect sense. I mean, I think when you know, you know. I know my experience was similar because I was with someone who loved me unconditionally. And when you find that, you absolutely do not let it go.

I think that also gives us a basis to live in our widowhood. Because we know we were loved so completely that we are worthy of whatever life brings our way. So that’s how I feel. Like, I know that’s my birthright because my deceased husband showed that to me. I appreciate that part of your story.

Fitness as a Lifeline: Mindy’s Fitness Journey

Kim: You’ve been involved in fitness for a long time. How has that helped you with your grief? I watch your Instagram stories and videos. You’re always pumping iron. So how did that help you with your grief? Was that part of your healing process?

Mindy: Yes. Thank you for asking this question. So just to back up a little, I got into fitness at about sixteen, seventeen years old just because I was really tired of being overweight, and I wanted to not be overweight. I am the last of five kids, and all my sisters were just, like, little and cute. Right? And my brother was super athletic, and I was like the chubby little sister. I technically had a different father, but my dad raised them. So, I was genetically different, right? My nickname was CC and that stood for chubby cheeks. That’s cute until you’re, like, four.

All my sisters are just beautiful, and people were all like, “no way you’re their sister.” Like, people would say that to me all the time and it hurt my feelings. But then I thought, wait, I know God has made me good. I just gotta figure out my place. You know?

And so when I was 16 or 17, I started walking. And I asked my mom to go to Weight Watchers, and she was so worried about me. But I lost 30-something pounds like that because up until then, I didn’t know how to eat properly. I’d never really worked out because, you know, in my family, you’re either fit because you’re athletic or you’re not. And that’s not at all what fitness is. That’s, like, one of my biggest messages. Fitness has something to do with you being athletic. It has to do with will and determination. Just getting up and doing it. Right?

So, I got into fitness back then, and then I became a personal trainer and got a degree in kinesiology, and my main reason for that was it was the only thing I liked.

Kim: Well, that’s good. Go do what you like.

Mindy: We’ve talked about the business aspect and I’m a businessperson now. But getting a degree in business is just no fun. You know what I mean? Get a dream of something you love and then make it a business. Now that’s fun, right?

Kim: That’s the way to go.

Mindy: That is the way to go. So, I started teaching, and fitness has always been a part of my life. I enjoy teaching. And as much as people may think, oh my gosh, I could never do that. Well, I thought, okay, I get a free gym membership to every gym I teach at; I get paid to work out; I have accountability to work out x amount of days and I won’t skip those days because I’m getting paid to do it. And the people that come to take your classes, they’re your people. They’re amazing. They came to my baby shower, came to my wedding, and I love them.

Working out is the way I get my mind right. Yeah, I am a Christian, so, like, there’s that. I do a bible study every morning just to get me going. And then this is a way I focus on myself. Not only does it make me feel better, it gives me confidence. It helps me throughout my day.

My father died at 58-years-old because of his lifestyle. He was a wonderful man. He smoked and he ate whatever he wanted. He never worked out. And so by the time he had his stroke, he had, like, six lifestyle diseases. Type 2 diabetes, congestive heart failure, COPD. I just thought it’s my obligation to not do that to my children. And by the way, I’m not mad at my father at all, but I’m not gonna do that to my children and maybe my genetics are not on my side, so I’m not gonna do it.

To answer your question, fitness has been a lifeblood for me. It is how God has helped me manually, emotionally, and physically. I don’t know where I would be without him and fitness because it just cleans you out. I know that sounds so weird, but it just flushes all that stuff out. And I have been bawling walking. I’ve been bawling on my bike.

Kim: We’ve talked about that so many times. You know, walking is my exercise of choice and my other cohosts too. And we talk about, yeah, we’ve been walking down the street crying, maybe wearing sunglasses, maybe wearing a hoodie.

I remember before my husband even died. This was back when my mom died. She’s been gone 14 years now. But I remember being in a gym, in a spinning class, and we were spinning to this really intense song, and it got to the crescendo and I just started bawling on the bike. All of these grief feelings that come up, I mean, they gotta come out. So when you move your body and they’re coming out, it’s like a win- win.

Mindy: It is. Oh my gosh, it’s like a rebirth. Well, it’s not, but you know what I mean. You’re like, I didn’t realize how badly I needed that.

Kim: You need it, and you don’t know you need it. And that’s part of the reason I think sometimes in our grief, we talk ourselves out of doing the exercise or going for the walk without realizing how much better we’ll feel after it’s done. Every time I get back from a walk, every time I get back from doing something physical with my body, I feel better. Whether I’m grieving or not grieving. I mean, I walk out of anger too. I walk out of sadness. I walk out of confusion. All that. All of it. But you always feel better after you do it.

Mindy: Well, you do. And, I mean, people need to know that a physiological thing happens. There is chemistry, a scientific thing that happens in your body. I’m not gonna bore you to death with those details, but something legit happens that medicine can’t give you, that all the sleep in the world can’t give you, that wine can’t give you. Hey, we’ve all tried that.

Kim: Yes, we’ve all tried that.

Mindy: We’ve all tried it. It’s just not something you can create or fabricate in any other manner.

Kim: Well, I think sometimes we get tripped up thinking we have to do things the “right” way. Widows are always like, am I doing this right? Am I saying this right? Am I living this right? And there are a million different ways you can exercise. There’s no “right” way. It’s just whatever gets your body moving. It doesn’t matter if it’s yoga, walking, or swimming.

Mindy: Well, and that’s one of my favorite things about you and your message is that we all have these hang-ups.

Here’s a non-widow one that I wanna share with you guys because I’m like, wait a minute, where is this belief coming from? Where is this rule coming from? So, when our business started to grow, I asked my husband, “can we please get someone to help me with the house?” Like, maybe just one day a week, right? I’m like, let’s do this for 1 month. If we don’t get more money, I don’t get more people, whatever, then we’ll stop. Well, you know, I worked my butt off that month, of course. But my mom came over. And, by the way, love my mom, and she passed on in heaven now as of February this year. Anyway, she came over. My mom wasn’t a great house cleaner. Right? But my mom comes over and she goes, “you have someone cleaning your house? You’re a stay-at-home mom.” And I’m like, okay, well, first of all, I teach, like, 10 classes a week. And I have a business that is now bigger than what my husband brings home every month. So, I’m a stay at home mom, and I can’t get someone to help me with the kitchen and the bathroom? I got upset about that and I thought, gosh, I am a terrible mom. I shouldn’t be doing this. And then I’m like, wait a minute. That is not true.

So the same thing happens with some of the things we think about grief and widowhood and what we can and can’t do and what we “should” be doing. It’s something that comes from somewhere that most of the time is a belief that we’ve never really dissected. I’ve been working really hard over here and I can pay this beautiful woman who, by the way, has been with me for 15 years. She’s about to come over to help me do these things that I pay her however many dollars in an hour to do, where I can make x amount of dollars per hour doing something only I could do. And what does that do? That benefits my family. I can give more. I can tithe more. We have more opportunities. Okay. didn’t mean to get onto that.

Kim: No, that’s a good point. It’s the same thing with our widow stuff. Even if you didn’t have another business, it doesn’t matter. You can still hire somebody to help you clean your house.

Mindy: Absolutely.

Kim: Just because you decide that’s what you want to do. That’s it.

Mindy: One thing with the widowhood, like I said, that you have helped me with is, like, why do I think that? And then I’d go back to why I’m thinking that and I’d go, you know what, this is me. This is my life. This is today. I gotta be me, and that is so freeing.

Kim: Well, we think things because people tell it to us. We think it because people say it to us!

Mindy: Yeah, I didn’t ask for that unsolicited advice!

Kim: Yeah. I don’t like unsolicited advice. Stop it.

So those are the widowhood hang ups we all have. Because we hear things, whether they’re from family, friends, society, whatever, they could be new messages, they could be repeated messages. But we have to really make a concerted effort to talk to ourselves in our own brains.. I always say just shut out that noise from the outside and listen to your inner voice because that’s the one that has the wisdom and that you need to listen to.

Mindy:  Absolutely.

Kim: So back to the fitness part, I know for myself, I’ve been to the gym, I’ve done spinning classes. I’ve done high intensity interval training. I’ve done yoga. I’ve done everything. I keep thinking I have to find the “thing” that’s going to be for me that I can do. Right? Well, the “thing” is walking, and it took me years to come to this realization. I do not have to do an hour’s worth of cardio every day. You know? My knees are bad. My ankle’s bad now. My hips are even, so I’ve had those issues my whole life. But, anyway, so I walk. So I’m saying that to the listeners and everybody else who’s having these conversations in their head about what they “should” be doing, all I do is walk. I lift some weights too. I have to get better about the strength training part, but walking is my exercise of choice. So just pick something that moves your body. That’s all.

Mindy: Absolutely. The best thing that I can ever share with you is it’s the consistency over time. I don’t care if you run. I don’t care if you do cycle classes. I don’t care if you’re doing yoga at home. I don’t care if you do workouts at home or at the gym or at your church or the local whatever center in your town, it’s consistency over time. If you don’t believe me, (and by the way, I point to no one when I say this), but look at the people who are in their 50’s, that have been consistently doing something, all these, you know, 20, 30 years. Right? Then look at the people who haven’t. My point is made. The best thing for you emotionally, mentally, and then physically is consistency over time. We have to keep moving, and you will know when you don’t do it because you’ll miss it.

Kim: That’s what I’m talking about with the walking because you get into a routine. That’s my routine. I push away from my desk at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, or whatever time it is, and I go out. Sometimes I am running late, and dinner is pushed back because I have get in my walk. And, you know, I’ll tell my husband now, I’ll say “I’m gonna be a little late for dinner today because I gotta get my walk in.”  

Mindy: You obviously don’t live in Texas. We would not want to walk at 3:00 pm right now.

Kim: Well, so here’s the funny thing. I live in Michigan, and I walk in the winter too. I hear everybody’s excuses. I’ll put it this way, if the wind chill is not less than 20 degrees, I will walk. So that’s my limit. I’ve had, you know, windburn on my face and stuff when I’m in the past.

Mindy: You would have to be covered everywhere.

Kim: Yes, covered all the way. But can always make excuses. Always.

Mindy: You know what an excuse is? It’s a cop out.

The Importance of Consistency

Kim: Yeah. There’s always something. I’m tired. I think the weather is bad. You know, my friend said something mean to me. I don’t care what it is, there’s always an excuse. So those are the mindset things. We have to get used to kind of bucking that system and retraining our brains to say, no, this is healthy for me. If you could say three or four things that you wish widows knew about the benefits of a healthy lifestyle, what would you say? What’s going to happen if you adapt to a healthy lifestyle?

Mindy: Well, if you adopt a healthy lifestyle and you just start to be consistent, take away being perfect, take away having to look a certain way, having the right outfit, etc. Take all that away. Just get up and do something.

You are gonna see not only that you feel better. You may not be able to put your finger on it, but you feel better. You will sleep better. You’re gonna have clearer thinking.

Kim: Clearer thinking. That’s a big one.

Mindy: That’s huge. We all deal with foggy thinking and just get even more upset. You’re going to have clearer thinking. Here’s the bottom line. When we feel better, we do better. When we feel better, we make better choices. When we feel better, we make, like, smarter choices.

One of the things I have a lot of my clients do, and they don’t like it, and it’s not a judgment thing. I just say, “I want you to be very clear about what you’re dealing with.” I have them write down everything they do every day. And what that means for me is not just their food. I want them to write down what they do. So if they sat and watched, I don’t know, Breaking Bad for the third time, how many episodes did you get through and how many hours was that? Okay. So just so you know, you sat for three and a half hours. Every once in a while, that’s fine or if it’s the end of the night, but our bodies need to move. And so, killing it for an hour and doing nothing for the rest of the day doesn’t cut it. It’s going to work out and later on, yeah, let’s do something else. Little things like, pull weeds, go out there and walk your dog, whatever it is, but you will feel better. When you feel better, you do better.

Here’s my best example. Think about that outfit that you wore recently that you loved. You know what? Can you catch yourself in the mirror? You’re like, not so bad. You act differently that day. You hold yourself differently. You talk to more people. Why do you think when people are on vacation they talk to everybody? I guarantee they don’t talk to everybody like that in real life. They’re happy, they feel good. They’re excited. You can live your life even as a widow, and I’m one too, okay? You can live your life with joy. Even knowing what has happened. Because we’re still left, so that means we still have purpose. But we have to make some disciplined decisions every day. And I don’t mean disciplined like you’re getting in trouble. I mean, you want better. I want to feel better, so I’m gonna do a couple of things I don’t want to do in order to get the life that I want.

Kim: That’s a good point. I want to just interject there that we have to do things we don’t want to do to get to where we want to be every day. It’s not just you or me. It’s humanity. This is what we have to do.

I tell my kids that all the time you have to do things you don’t want to do. Either for the greater good or for other people. Or whatever. Just things you don’t really feel like doing. That’s sometimes what you have to do.

When I’m walking, I will literally be talking to myself sometimes. If I’m trying to process something, I try to call friends on the phone too to help me process. And if they can’t help me process, I talk to myself. I might have the earbuds in while I’m listening to a podcast, but I’m still talking to myself on certain routes. People will stare at me. I don’t care. I am trying to figure stuff out. We live in a world where people are always talking on their Bluetooth or whatever. So it’s not as strange, I guess, as it used to be, but I don’t care anymore. I just start talking and working things out and just processing.

You just have to keep moving, and it’s okay to have the days where you don’t feel well. I’m dealing with an inflamed Achilles’ tendon right now, so I can’t do as much as I want to. But I still do what I can.

So when you get to that routine, and I wanna go back to a point you made earlier, you almost can’t not do it. I walk so much it’s part of my day. I can’t not walk. So my body, my mind, my muscle memory, whatever you want to call it, is on that schedule. Even if I feel like, well, I  don’t want to go out, my body’s saying, no, you have to go, and you have to move. We just have to think of ways to be healthier because it helps with the brain fog. It helps with your body.  

Mindy: It’s just the right thing to do. If you don’t believe me, just try it and then stop for a while and see what happens. The cool thing is this, though, and then this is something that I want to speak to because you said it earlier, but I was supposed to say this again. It is very simple. It’s not necessarily easy because some days you don’t want to, but it is simple.

I find the days I don’t want to all determine what I did the prior day. And by the way, we’re allowed to have fun. I do not think you should work out every single day. I think you need some down time. Right?

But the last time that I had, which, by the way, I do have adult beverage every now and then. Okay? So don’t think I don’t. Don’t think I don’t have me a hamburger and pizza. But this is what I want to say. I went over to my neighbors, and they’re just so fun. I probably ended up having three glasses of wine. Well, there’s nothing really wrong with that. Right? But I woke up the next morning feeling like absolute poo. And I was like, why does my head hurt? Why am I sluggish?  Then I figured it out and I thought, well, I’m just then I’m gonna have to get over it today.

I didn’t feel like I was sinning having a drink, don’t get me wrong. But there are always repercussions for the drinking. I’m like, you have to teach two classes today, and you have to speak on a call. Oh, that might not have been the best choice. But I just say that because there are reasons why we feel a certain way. I think that sometimes we think maybe it’s we’re in our head or in our emotions. And I find that when I’m in my feelings, which we’re allowed to be, I can only stay there a minute. Because if I listen to them, they will take me down a path that is not right and true. And so I’m like, okay, you’re allowed to feel this and I have every right to be lonely. I have every right to be sad because of my life, but I’m only gonna stay here a minute. And then you know what? I’m going to get out. I found out staying in that place doesn’t help me. It serves no one. It makes me worse, mom. Makes me more sad. I want to eat. I want to have a pity party. I want everyone to realize how bad my life is and how great theirs is, you know what I mean? And what good is that gonna do? Nothing. So, my whole point in bringing that up is a lot of times we don’t feel like it. We just have to backtrack. Okay. Wait. Why am I not feeling like it? Oh, yeah.

Kim: I think sometimes when people listen to us talk and we’re a little bit further down the road than some other widows are, they sometimes think to themselves, well, that’s great for you. That’s not me. Or I’m glad to hear everything worked out, and you’re, you know, a fitness guru and everything. But that’s not gonna be my reality. We all had to start somewhere. So I always make that point  that we’re all beginners when we’re first widowed. We don’t know what we’re doing. We don’t know how to do it.

I want to give people the benefit of knowing what your process was to rebuild your life after the loss of your spouse. We don’t know how to do any of this. We all have different ways of doing things, and I keep repeating this because it’s such an important point, but we all start at the beginning.

So if you can just tell us a little bit about your process moving forward. Was it in a systematic manner, or did things just kind of happen? And then you realize one day you’re like, okay, I’m actually moving forward, and that’s not something I thought I was gonna do.

Mindy: Well, that’s a great question, and I have an answer for you. But I want to begin by saying, I am by no means “there.”

Kim:  Right. Well, nobody’s there. Nobody gets “there.” That’s the fantasy, right? That’s the misconception.

Mindy: I still struggle. I still cry. I still wonder why I’m alone. I wonder why God has kept a wonderful, hopefully fit Jesus loving man, you know, big old Texas boy from me, but he has. And that’s not gonna fix everything. Please know that. But when you think, where does my heart hurt the most? I’m lonely. I want a friend. I have nobody to talk to. I want that person to talk to. And I have plenty of friends, but y’all, it’s different. I kind of want my guy. So please know. I’m not there.

But I will tell you if I could put it in a system, the things that worked came out of the overflow of what didn’t work.

I want to lovingly encourage you. These things that I’m about to tell you, if I do them every day, I stay out of those deep dark pits. I know we’ve all been there, and sometimes we’ll go back. But I have to wake up every morning. I have to pray. I just read something Jesus. I put on workout clothes. There’s something about doing that. It makes you act a little different. And then every day I try to cook something. I want to give my family the healthiest food ever. And, by the way, we’ve done Door Dash. Sometimes I’m like a deer in the headlights when my kids ask me, “Mom, what about dinner?” And I’m like, is it dinner time?

Kim: You can’t stand the thought of trying to come up with one more recipe or one more meal. It’s too much.

Mindy: I saw this meme and it said, “I would die for my children, but I do not want to fix them dinner again.” I know it. Like, it’s so true.

Mindy: So that’s just how my mind and body works. It’s being active. But I will make eggs. I will make a little something. I have 2 boys and I always have to have something for them to eat. But there’s something very cathartic about me making something, and it could be simple or a little more extravagant. Believe me, I’m into healthy food, so you probably would not even like it. First time, my children had tacos at my sister’s house, they’re like, why does the meat taste like this? I was like, well, actually, she seasoned the heck out of it.

Kim: Exactly. Like, what, people eat tacos without kale in it? We didn’t know this.

Mindy: What’s this white sauce? It’s called sour cream. Anyway, my whole point is it’s something I like to do. And maybe for you, it might be folding the clothes. I want to feel productive as a mom.

I get up and pray and read. I do something fitness, and I still teach fitness class today, and the main reason why I told you, it keeps me accountable. And I have a free gym membership, and it’s, like, it’s so fun. And then I do something every day that feels like I’m being a wonderful homemaker or mom. Then, for the last thing, I always read or listen to something helpful. It’s a must for my life. I want to hear someone else talk to me because I’m so tired of my voice since it’s the only one I hear.

Kim: That’s a good point. It gives you a lot of perspective into the different way people do things or the way they think about things. Sometimes we hear the same thing but said in a different way. As if we’ve heard it for the first time. You’re like, I’ve never heard it that way before.

Mindy: Well, it’s just like the scripture. Sometimes you hear something. You’re like, I haven’t heard that since I was five. And then you hear it now and it’s different because you’re mentally and emotionally different and you’re farther along. But here’s what I think about podcasts. God always lets me hear something I need to hear.

Kim: I talk about signs all the time. Yes. I get the sign and I’m like, I needed that message. You tagged me on Instagram with a message and I was like, how did you know that is, like, quite literally exactly what I needed to hear that day? I don’t know if you remember that, but I was like, she’s in my mind! My God, you’re reading my mind! You randomly tagged me that day and it was exactly what I needed to hear.

There was something I read the other day that said, no matter what it is you’re trying to do, no matter what you’re trying to accomplish, if you repeat in your brain, “every step I take makes me a…” blank…whatever it is, ok?  Every step I take makes me a healthier person. Every step I take makes me a better parent. Whatever it is you put at the end of that, whenever you feel like you don’t want to do the thing you want to do, just say, but every step I take makes me this thing, and then you’re training your brain to just keep moving toward that goal. You can make it whatever you want.

Mindy: Absolutely. And it can even change. How we speak to ourselves is key. And I always thought that was, like, mumbo jumbo. Until my mentor, Chalene Johnson, which, you know, I talk about her all the time. One time she asked me, “what do you tell yourself?” And I’m like, “what?” She goes, “think right now, what do you repeat in your head the most?” And you know at that moment what I said? It was stop, don’t. And I’m like, I tell myself all the time, stop, don’t. And I’m like, I have to rework that. We have to pay attention to what we say, and maybe it’s what we’ve heard our whole lives. But I don’t need “stop.” I don’t need “don’t.” I mean, like, what’s going on here? Let’s figure this out, or what’s a better way. How we speak to ourselves is everything. And I think we need to take a minute to, like, diagnose that and be like, okay, I need to start using a different language.

Kim: Absolutely. I always say that I talk myself out of something before I talk myself into it. So, the “no” and the “stop” and the “don’t” are key words in my brain a lot. I think that’s an excellent point. We really have to listen and stop those thoughts. When we talk about doing that, it’s a practice, a lifelong practice. You’re not, like you said earlier, you’re not fixed. I’m not there. I’m not fixed. I have to retrain my brain. I have to talk nicer to myself daily. On a daily basis. So it’s a practice. It’s not something we just, you know, all of a sudden figure out how to do. We have to be mindful of it and just keep practicing it.

Mindy: One of my favorite podcasts is called The Morning Mindset. It’s from a guy by the name of Carey Green. He said every day we’ve got to reset our mind and our intentions because we leak as the day goes by. We leak. So whether that’s your faith or this mindset that you’re trying to establish with yourself, we have to reestablish it because we’re gonna start going back in our old ways.

The Power of Consistent Self-Care

Kim: So what I’m hearing you say is, like, health and fitness and the space that you’re in has really been a big part of your self-care. We talk a lot about self-care. So your whole routine, you’re reading the bible and listening to your motivational podcast, making a meal, getting dressed, doing those things is your form of self-care.

Mindy: It really is. What I’m trying to get at is that life’s gonna happen. But the consistent things we do every day give me joy. We have to be our best personal managers. If you just do the hardest things first, the hardest things are done. After my workout, I always go, okay, the hardest things are done. I prayed, I got up. You know, brush my teeth, put my clothes on. I worked out. The hardest things I have to do today are already done. Everything else is gravy, even though it’s still work, but that’s the stuff that makes me a better mom. That’s the stuff that makes me mentally right and ready for you or ready for the Bible Babes or whatever I’m doing. That’s the stuff that gets me away from being so very selfish.

And you guys being a widow, it makes you so selfish. You don’t try to be, but what is one of your prime thoughts? I’m so sad. I’m devastated.

Kim: I’m lonely. Nobody understands me. No one’s feeling the way I’m feeling.

Mindy: Right. No one gets me. They think their life’s bad? They have no clue. You know what I mean? I have this lump in my stomach. It’s yet to subside, by the way. That lump is the love that I still have for that man that I can’t go to anymore.

Kim: I love these examples that you’re giving and the steps that you take, and I think it’s all such important reminders to all of us to just be good to ourselves and take care of ourselves. I just want to say, like, your routine is great. My routine is great. But it’s not going to be everybody else’s routine. You guys have to decide, listeners, podcast peeps, you know, out in the audience. You decide what your thing is. There’s no comparison here. Nobody is saying you need to be doing one thing, two things, five things a day. You just have to decide what that means to you, what brings peace into your heart, that makes you feel better and that makes you, you know, a better person, parent, whatever. You get to decide what that is. We’re just giving some examples and some good ideas of what that could look like, but you get to find your own way.

Mindy: And just be consistent. Whatever it is, you’re gonna see a difference over time. This is the way I need to go. Or you know what? I’m not there anymore. And sometimes it switches. I would say out of complete love, that doing nothing is sliding back. There’s no neutral. We either have to move forward or slide back, and I say that with all the pain in my heart of losing my husband. Just try to take steps forward. If you need an accountability partner, get one.

Kim is a bright, shining light for this. And I get you because I feel you because I am you. We all have a connection that none of us ever wanted to have, but I thank God that we have this connection because it’s brought me so close to wonderful women like Kim, and then, of course, I’m sure all of you that follow her as well.

Kim: I’m so impressed with your outlook and your insight. And I’m so happy that you took the time today to just give us a glimpse into your widow world. I think this is gonna be a really important episode for a lot of our listeners to just understand that they get to take care of themselves, and they’re important and they’re worthy, and that should be one of their top priorities. So, you’ve got lots of really good insight and I know our listeners will 100 percent appreciate your perspective.

But before we go, we’re gonna wrap up here in a minute. But before we go, what’s the best place for our listeners to find you?

Mindy: The best place is to come to www.mindylawhorne.com. I have my podcast. I have all my fitness stuff on there. I have a lot of free stuff in addition to a little women’s ministry called The Bible Babes. We’ve had Kim on the Bible Bates before and on my podcast, and everyone just was blown away by her and I just want to thank you for letting me be on here and letting me share with you, and I can’t wait to talk to your Widow Squad next month.

Kim: Yes. Mindy will be a guest inside our membership next month. We’re looking forward to that too.

Thank you so much for being here. I’m just so so grateful that we had a chance to connect again!