In this episode, Sherry White, licensed teacher, and founder of Champ Restoration, delves into her transformative journey into life coaching, shedding light on the power of self-reflection and self-care. Sherry shares her struggles with stress-induced health issues and how she navigated through them by reevaluating her lifestyle choices.
Key Themes Explored:
This episode encourages listeners to prioritize internal leadership, embrace self-care practices, and embark on a journey of self-discovery and growth. Join us as we explore the transformative power of self-reflection and positive lifestyle choices with Sherry White on her path to inner peace and well-being.
We want to hear from you! If this episode inspired you in anyway take a screen shot of you listening on your device and post it to your Instagram stories and tag us, @designersplantsandcoffee and @therestoredtribe
Show Notes:
Welcome to the Designers Plants & Coffee podcast, where we discuss how to succeed as a designer while staying true to yourself, finding peace in the process, and making money doing what we love. Subscribe on YouTube and wherever you get your podcast.
Welcome, everyone. So today, we have a special guest, Sherry White. Sherry is a 15-year licensed teacher, is the founder of Champ Restoration, a life coaching, is also a certified mental health first aid responder. This fiercely passionate, fun-loving, and graceful truth teller, if we need more of those, specialized training in preventive and holistic nutrition for the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. I say, Welcome to Sherry. Sherry Can you actually tell us more about how to get started as a coach?
I got started because at some point, I realized that I was the first client and patient needed. I lived under this really ridiculous, self-imposed stress, and all the shenanigans need to stop because I had a health issue where it had me on bedside, basically. I remember emailing and checking with parents at my school and doing all the things. I work with special needs children, and I just didn’t want any one of them who had emotional issues to have a meltdown. But at the end of the day, I’m not the end all be all. God had to sit me down and tell me about myself because I was all in my head and I had self-reflective question, What am I doing? And then literally, Holy spirit was telling me about myself. It was basically things about me that I never thought about myself that was coming to me, things about me that were unpleasant. It was a light bulb because I didn’t realize this was unnecessary. My mindset was just out of whack. Some of those things, although they are good, I don’t think that those were the things that I was supposed to be doing.
At the end of the day, if I’m honest with you, I was becoming a workaholic because I wasn’t addressing a relationship that turned violent, basically. When I left that, I went into work mode. I didn’t address me. In that sit down season, God was definitely telling me about myself so I can work on it.
It would determine what you continued with and what you stopped.
Pretty much, it was this process of taking care of myself. I started eating differently. That’s when I found Dance Fitness, got back to my relationship with the Holy spirit. Another thing I let So people place it in things. To be honest with you, I have to switch up how I move.
When we feel ourselves getting burned out, we still in our head are like, We can do it. We can do it. One more hour, one more day, one more minute before our body starts shutting down. Because most of the time, that’s what it takes. So what types of things do you recommend that we maybe aim to add to our every day so we don’t get to the point where our body says, sit down somewhere?
The thing is when you put things ahead and you’re scheduling them, that’s part of your boundaries. And a lot of us, we’re doing things we’re passionate about, things you know you’re called to do, and you have to put the boundaries in ahead of time. That’s one thing. Another thing, you have to make room. So when I say make room, physically, this is a space that I’ve carved out that is my physical space to prepare. And some people don’t have a room, so maybe a corner in a room. And the thing also is mentally make room. When you’re mentally making room, you’re going to be still. And in that stillness, so much is revealed. Now, how do make sure you’re still? Now, for me, very simple. Just before the podcast, we said, I’m going to put on Do Not Disturb. Lastly, this is this teal box. Encourage yourself by great things that happen to you. I write them down, and this is like 2005. I got something from 2005. I got something here, 2007, working with the Du Bois program in Ghana. This is when I realized I want to be in education. I can pop out something.
It’ll be different years. When I’m feeling a little funky or I go and remind myself, I encourage myself with the things that have happened that were fantastic. Nobody has to know that you’re doing it. It’s not loud. It’s just things that you’re working on. You’re doing the work in this way.
What would you tell someone who’s doing all the things and feels like they can’t drop the ball?
Two things come to mind. One is this idea of internal leadership. Before you can lead the world, before you can lead out in the community to work, the home, the family, how are you leading yourself? What’s going on up there? You have to identify priorities, right? We know I thought, priorities are a thing, but literally, I believe that we need to be constantly assessing ourselves. So if you say five things are really important to you, well, then that’s nice. You know that. Well, put them in order. What should be your first priority? What should be your second? And it’s going to be different for different people. And then once you realize you are doing well, pat yourself on the back because I’m real big on celebrating yourself. But if you’re not, why am I not putting that in priority? Because now you can start to think of solutions. How can I do X, Y, and I know I want this to be the top, but why is it not? What’s going on? Is there anyone interrupting me? Am I allowing that? It’s a flurry of questions once you have your priorities and then you put them in order.
One thing that I know that I do, and as I’ve gotten older, The thing that I’m asked to do doesn’t line up with the things that I put in priority. The answer is a strict no.
I find the older I get, the easier it is to say, No, not going to do it. No, I don’t want to. Somebody asked me the other day, Would I make a prom dress? For them in April? And then she started showing me these designs. And I said, Do you know how much that lace costs? If you can’t afford that lace. You can’t afford my services.
Would always say no and then give an explanation why. And my mother literally said, No is a complete sentence. Sherry, can you tell us more about the new programs that you just started?
I have two programs. I like to keep it nice and simple. The first one is called Be in Health, Womanhood and Wellness. The other program, The Well-Rested Leader. That’s the signature program. That program is something special. Such great results. A woman, she used to have panic attacks just because of her job. But going through the program, The Well-Rested Leader, there’s two signature parts to it. There’s inner peace incubation, and then there’s power boundaries blueprint. Only have access to those systems once you’re enrolled in The Well-Rested Leader. So no more panic attacks. She learned how to manage that through So some of the things I teach. The first program, I’ll continuously take my programs. And I had a toxic job at one point. And be in health was right on the money because what it did is help me to focus on, not them, not them, help me to focus on me. It’ll help a person to focus on themselves, the things you can control. And in controlling that, you really have a sense of hope because you’re seeing progress and you’re actually like, I can’t deal with that, but I can deal with me. And it helps you to be able to show up in your manner your attitude better because you’re feeling good because of what you’re eating, what you’re taking in.
And then it’s not just that, it’s what you’re consuming, what you allow to hear with how you respond. Everything you’re consuming, you’re mindful of because… Taking care of yourself.
Are these programs available on your website?
I run them at a certain time of year, and I’m actually revamping both of them, so it’s soon to come. But the Restore Tribe, the community that I run, it’s a book club and it’s a leisure club.
Leisure meeting what?
Local trips. A couple of months ago was the Book Club, and we were in nature in South Orange, New Jersey. You go there, let’s chop it up, talk about a couple of sections of the book, but we get to watch a little beautiful waterfall. Oh, it’s a free community? Oh, yeah.
We want to look up all of Sherry’s stuff in the links below.
Thank you, Sherry. I wish I had known you. Before I realized that it was the industry that was really forcing me out, diagnosed that I had ulcers. It was because of stress. Once I left that place and took something else that wasn’t as stressful, I no longer had it. Then I began to pay attention to when I would feel overwhelmed or stressed and just say, Okay, let me go for a walk.
Working in the fashion industry is extremely stressful, and it really depends on the company you work for and the people you work around. I’m saying this now as I’ve gotten older and as I’ve been in the industry over 25 years, you have to know yourself and know your boundaries. I know as an introverted person, I absorb people’s energy. It’s just like once you feel the energy coming towards you, you have to be able to cut it off and say, No, this is not for me.
Incorporating those walks in your day, especially when it’s nice, not too hot, it makes a world of difference. I would just walk around the block in my neighborhood and come back, and I would be refreshed just from getting some sunlight on my skin and some air in my lungs.
I am signing off. Please make sure you follow us on YouTube and all of our social media platforms. I’m LaTisha Winston for keeping you in stitches along with Naima Doja of Fearless Threads. And Zahir for Cover Me Chic and Breeding Design. Until next time.
Subscribe to our newsletter with stories from our experience in the fashion industry and the best design tips.
We publish bi-weekly on Friday’s at 7am.