Kat Roberts, owner of SurfaceFloat, New Brunswick, CA discusses her journey to #breakupwithstress and integrate stress strategies in her health and wellness plan. She shares how not paying attention to stress signals made her ill and the necessary changes to get her health back.
Kat Roberts, owner of SurfaceFloat, New Brunswick, CA discusses her journey to #breakupwithstress and integrate stress strategies in her health and wellness plan. She shares how not paying attention to stress signals made her ill and the necessary changes to get her health back.
You're listening to less stress in life. With hosts, Debra Timmerman and Barb Fletcher, we believe life with less stress and more energy is possible with the right tools, strategies and knowledge. So, we bring you real conversations around the stress of relationships, money, and the daily hassles of life, with guests that will inspire, challenge, entertain, and motivate you to take action. Our guest today is Kat Roberts, owner and Director of Surface Float a wellness center offering clients the opportunity to break up with stress and service, their best self service float offers infrared saunas, floatation therapy, massage therapy, and various workshops and classes like yoga, mindfulness and sound therapy. So prioritizing wellness and well being of mind, body and soul is what they do. Welcome Kat.
Kat Roberts:Thank you for having me.
Debra Timmerman:Tell us more about Kat why wellness?
Kat Roberts:Well, my life has been kind of a journey, as all of us, we all have a story. So basically, my unwellness started about, I would say five years ago, I had four kids pretty close together. But you know, managing, doing okay, a little sleep deprived, you know, a little tired, but just one you know, every day, I'd show up and do it all over again. And then I started noticing a shift. I was getting irritable. Not just tired, but exhausted, and just cranky with my kids, with my husband with people in my life. I was losing my spark and my joy. And I just thought, Well, you know, this is the tough years with with kids being a mom, at the time, I was mostly home. But I ran a prenatal, like a business doing prenatal classes. And I was also a birth doula. So being a birth doula you put your body through a lot. When you do attend birth, you stay up all night and all day and support your client. And you're there, you get the adrenaline push to get through those hours. And it's amazing, because you get such a thrill when the baby's born and everything just kind of comes to a closure. And it's like one of the best highs you can ever get is watching the birth of the baby and the parents, right. But recovery is tough after being you know up in and doing that line of work. And I think over the I did that for a decade and over the years, I noticed that it was getting harder and harder for me to bounce back and feel good again. But I was ignoring it. And I think that's the key is that I was pushing my needs and my self and my self care on the to the backburner and I was just saying, Okay, I'll have a nap later, I'll do that later, I'll go get a massage later. And and never actually doing it. So that lasted for, you know, a number a couple of years. And then I just got sick one day, I woke up and started feeling crappy, like just not good. And I thought well, it must be coming down something but it just kept getting worse and worse and worse. So the stress of everything started manifesting physically for me. And that was just the beginning of the downward spiral to completely burning out. Getting super sick, I was in bed I couldn't get out of bed. I lost close to 25 pounds in about two to three weeks. It was just really really bad I I was also having like, symptoms of that were similar to the stomach flu like throwing up and having to run to the bathroom. Like it was just awful. So after that was going on for like a week or so I went to the doctor and they just said Oh, you probably just have the stomach flu. Give it another week or so. So another week or so goes by getting worse and worse. So finally, it was determined. They were like okay, something is wrong with you. Let's investigate it a little further. But by this point, it was like a month. And I was so weak, so tired. My mom had to come up at the time. She lived in Halifax. So she came up to help me with my kids. And I was in in and out of the hospital getting tests and checked anyways, long story short, I got diagnosed with an autoimmune disease as you know, it's starting to be understood. autoimmune stuff is closely linked to stress. Auto immune system dis-association in the body right and it starts to kind of attack your own your own body. And that was my breaking point, I just said, Oh my gosh, like I, I thought I had cancer, like I thought I had bowel cancer because I was like, having symptoms that were similar to that I don't want to get into detail. But I thought they were going to tell me after the CAT scan like you have, and the colonoscopy like you have cancer. So I was grateful that it wasn't that but it also was a wake up call to take care of myself and to change and overhaul everything that I had been doing. So the next two years were a complete shift. I left so much like I said, goodbye to so much. I stopped being a doula, I just couldn't do it anymore. I was I felt like I wasn't able to give the kind of care that my clients needed, I needed to take care of myself first. And that was the beginning of what led to my next, I guess, career or, you know, role. I started meditating, I started doing yoga again, returning to that, because I love yoga, but I had not been prioritizing it. I went to see a naturopathic doctor and got all sorts of ideas and treatments and supplements for healing my body. And in conjunction with working with my doctor to taking medication to calm down the inflammation. And it took it took a long time, it took about a year for me to feel good again to feel, I guess in quotations, normal back to myself, but I was different. Because my perspective on everything changed. And I realized how much I had been ignoring and not listening to that inner voice that we all have, that tells us what we need and when we need it and gives us little red flags when there's still time and still, you know, that grace period of Okay, I'm not happy, but you if you changed now you'll be okay. Um, so yeah. And that that opened the door for everything that I do now, I shifted kind of career paths and open this Wellness Center, because I discovered floating for myself, and I said, I need to do this on a regular basis. But there was nowhere to go and where I live. So I said, Okay, let's look at how this can all, you know, work out and is it possible to do it? And and I did it with a lot of help. But yeah, we actually today is our one year birthday of being open.
Debra Timmerman:Oh, congratulation. Yeah, amazing. I think it's common that women don't listen to those sign, we would not ignore that sign when the check engine light comes on on our car, or when the cell phone is starting to deplete. We're running out of it in. And there is just something about us being disconnected from that awareness. I think Barb had a similar story with her jaw. I had a similar story where I actually fell down a flight of stairs because I was not paying attention. But I had no signs for ever. And then we think that we're going to get well like in a day or a month. And it makes us a year or two years or three years. And it's a process.
Kat Roberts:Yes. Yeah, but it I remember so clearly having another kind of a ha moment. I was making supper, getting the kids you know, food on the on the table and all that stuff and calling them hey, supper time comes it. Nobody came like it was like they were just ignoring me. And I just remember starting to just feel that like, like that tension in my chest. Like I couldn't breathe. I was so mad. I was like, Why doesn't anybody ever listened to me? Like, it's so frustrating, you know, I'm making supper. It's warm. It's ready to go. Why? Why are they ignoring me? And then it hit me like a ton of bricks. It was like, Huh, I was like, why don't I listen to myself? Right? Like you can't get what you don't give. So that was a huge moment where I was like, Okay, I got to rehaul everything and start giving myself what I what I need.
Barb Fletcher:I always appreciate what I call near misses, which are that same experience that you spoke about when you came back from having colonoscopy and you believe that something else was going to happen. And instead, you were given a different diagnosis. And so those near misses, you know, for for some of us, we take those as time to pivot time to change our perspective. And but Not everybody does that there are some people who continue on looking for another answer outside of themselves as opposed to inside of themselves, which is where you went.
Kat Roberts:Yeah, yeah, I, I guess I wasn't unfamiliar with, you know, listening to my intuition. That was what I told all my clients, you know, like, you know, the answers, you know, what you need, you know, what your baby needs. So it was not unfamiliar, but it's so interesting how we can tell others, right? How to try this or that. We know what helps us but we just don't practice it for ourselves. And that was the disconnect for me is that I was teaching my clients, meditation practices and mindfulness techniques, and, you know, listening to their intuition and all the things but I wasn't doing though. So it was, it was just when I look back, I'm like, Oh, my gosh, how, how is that even possible? Right? Like, how did I go so long with being so much in denial? And so unaware, right? It's Yeah, so I love that, calling them that, like near misses, it's like an opportunity, right? You get Okay, you got here's your warning. Be careful what steps to take next. And actually, it was really interesting, because when I spoke to my physician, and I said, Okay, what can I do? You know, yes, I'm going to take this medication, but what else can I do to help my body heal? Should I change my diet? Should I, you know, take other supplements and all this stuff. And I can appreciate, you know, physicians being probably a little, you know, jaded, because they might have really good suggestions, but then the majority of their patients are not going to do them, right? If they tell them like, yes, change your diet, or Yes, you know, do this three times a day or whatever, like, it's so hard to get compliance already from just giving them the medication, right? If you add a whole bunch more, they're probably not going to do it. So he just said, Nope, just take your meds and, and just, you know, if they don't work, we'll give you a different medication. And I just kind of, like looked at him. And I'm like, Well, I'm gonna change my diet. I'm gonna do the research and see what other people with this condition have found helpful. And, and I have, I've done that I stopped eating whole bunch of foods, because I figured out that they were triggers for causing inflammation. And I'm not saying that, that works for everybody. But you almost have to take the opportunity to pivot. And also, like, go within, and also do your own research and your own. Finding out I guess, discovery of what your specific body needs, right? Because we're also different in our own journey. And what I know you and I both have spoken about it before, but like, I love the connection of like, what areas of the body and what that means, right, in terms of energy and past traumas and stuff like that. So it's, that's like a whole other realm, I guess. Not everybody subscribes to that connection.
Debra Timmerman:So Kat, you obviously lead a hectic life or a full life, I should say, you have kids, you've run a business. How do you balance the needs for those interventions in your day? And what does a practice what is your practice look like?
Kat Roberts:Yeah, that's a really major part of my everyday because I'm constantly asking myself, are you on track? Are you okay? What do you need right now, because that was one thing that I promised myself I would do, because if I don't, then I burn out and I burn out pretty easily. It's like, if I don't look after myself, that decline is not subtle anymore. It's very steep. And I definitely don't ever want to end up like that again. So I I wake up and I do my gratitude practice. So just a short meditation on waking up for another day, the the gift of being alive and everything having my health and then it's the hustle and bustle of the morning with the kids and the dog and getting to work. And throughout the day I I trained with heart math with barf. So that is a huge part of my day to day as well even if it's just two minutes, but I do my breathing and getting into coherence, especially if it's a hectic day, like you said, you know, extra challenges or additional stuff going on. And sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn't. But as whenever I think of it, and I and I kind of bring it to top of mind, I do it because I know okay, you thought about it, you need this right now. If I can, I will do a longer meditation later in the evening, if I have the time, or I carve out the time. And I just find that is so regenerating, and so grounding, or I'll do a yoga practice, if I feel like I need to move my body or now that the weather's getting nice, going for a walk is awesome. And communication has become my gold standard, communicating my needs, like if I am feeling done, I tell my husband, you know what, you're on kid duty tonight I like I'll, I'll say goodnight to them, give them a kiss, but I'm not doing the go to bed and like have you brushed your teeth. Like it's, I find that so exhausting, when I'm a little depleted, just because I feel like they, I haven't gotten what I needed that day, and I feel drained. And so they just, if I'm not careful, I find it even more draining. So I want them to be able to follow, like, I'm leading by example, that when they need a mental health break, that they can get it like they can say, you know what I'm checking out guys, I need to just chill out for a bit. And then I float, I float once a week, sometimes twice a week, if I really find I'm having a rough week, or, or a rough month, I'll float a little more often. But I find getting into the float tank. It just amplifies that meditation practice and amplifies the restorative benefits that you get from you know, like a yoga class or a walk in nature, it just takes it up, like several notches for me. So one float session can do for me what like five yoga classes would do, or that's just a random example. But I find it just like, makes it that much more powerful. So that reboots me, it's like, charges me up and gets me through the next, you know, a few days or whatever. And just another huge thing for me has on this healing journey has been choosing love. So when I'm interacting with my kids, or my partner or my friends, whoever really clients, customers, I and I love heart math for this too. It's like how can I approach this from a place of love, and a place of clear communication. And that just takes away so much stress too, because you deal with it in a way where you get a good resolution most of the time, like 99.99% of the time, everybody leaves the interaction happy or satisfied? Because if you don't do that, then you're going to have lasting stress after you do that, Oh, I should have said this, or why did they say that and like it just it, you don't get closure, and you don't get to just move on. It's like lingers and causes that like, knowing stress, you know, all the time. Um, so I think that's an important skill to teach my kids too, is that you want to make sure that you speak, where you're not going to create more problems. You know, after you have an interaction with someone.
Debra Timmerman:Oftentimes, I hear women say, I don't have time for that. But what I heard is that when you take the time to do that, you actually get that time back. Because you're not all in your head and it doesn't suck your drain your energy more.
Kat Roberts:Exactly. It's like paying yourself now for the benefit of, you know, feeling good for the next foreseeable, you know, few days or even longer, right? We say no, I don't have time for that. Now, I'm just gonna keep going and keep going. But you're going to pay the price if you do that. Because the longer you ignore that need, or that task, or whatever it is that you need to do. You just make it the late and then it gets a little bit worse, a little bit worse, a little bit worse, to the point where you know, instead of taking an hour, it will you'll be dealing with maybe you get sick or maybe you you know, like you had that experience of hurting yourself, like falling down the stairs. And you know, how long did that take you to get better, right? Like me ignoring myself for months and months and then needing a whole year to get back to somewhat a new you know, normal like yeah, that's a huge one. And I often do Here we meet people at the at the foot center, we meet people and like, Oh, I don't think I have time to flow once a month, because our memberships are, you know, a minimum of coming at least once a month. And it gives you that accountability, you know, you come and give yourself that time, once a month, you get an hour and a half just to yourself. But there's people like, Oh, I don't I don't have time for that. And it just, you know, we respect then we're like, Sure, no problem, but having lived through it, I'm like, how can I share that with people? Like, you got to give yourself at least that, if not more? You deserve it? Right?
Debra Timmerman:Yeah. And putting that in your schedule first and working around it when you are ready, rather than squeezing it in. Scheduling first is what works for me.
Kat Roberts:You have to learn kind of little hacks on you know, on how to get that, calling it a meeting instead of self care. You know, it's like it has a different vibe to it. Okay, I'm having a meeting with my intuition at 2pm.
Debra Timmerman:So, everybody that's listening, make sure that you write yourself in for a date with your intuition on your calendar monthly and set it up for for incurring event.
Kat Roberts:I love that.
Barb Fletcher:And I'm I'm guilty, raise my hand, I'm guilty of not doing that nearly enough. I do. Am consistent with my other practices. But that is one that floating is one that creates so much extra capacity and the point that that you end up or speaking of about, you know, actually slowing down to be more efficient than Hurry up, you know, people will say to me, I don't have time to do this, or I you know, my schedule is too full or by people are too full. And it seems illogical when you say to them, but if you just slow down, you actually could be much more efficient than what you are right now.
Kat Roberts:It's like wiping the slate clean. Because when you're when you're at the point where you feel that you don't have time for whatever it is, you are already in overwhelm mode. And being in overwhelm mode is being in denial of your own self care. And that practice of taking time to be still, which we don't realize how important that is until we you know get sick or until something happens that we we realize, oh, wow, I wasn't taking the time to give myself that recharge time, right. And I find them so much more clear headed. Focus feel like million pounds later after my floats, I just feel so fresh. And it just you're right Barb, it gives you efficiency and productivity and you could get so much more done and you don't feel that overwhelm anymore. You feel like you can handle anything you're like Bring it on. I have time for all the things So, yeah, it is it's huge.
Barb Fletcher:Kat, this has been absolutely wonderful. We really appreciate you taking time with us today.
Kat Roberts:It's my pleasure. I always I could talk about this stuff for for hours I find it's changed my life and I hope that you know listening to this helps other people think about trying it or trying something else that's restorative if this doesn't sound like something that could be for them. There's a whole bunch of other things you can do that give you you know, a similar restoration but floating is pretty cool. You should at least try once.
Debra Timmerman:I have not tried floating yet, and I am waiting to get that referral from you for one in my area. If you are listening to the podcast and you are trying floating or you like something else that works for you. drop us an email and let us know what that is or share it on our Facebook page. It's less stress in life on Facebook or on Instagram and our website less stress in life.com. Kat if any of our listeners want to get in touch with you or have questions about floating How do they find you?
Kat Roberts:Well we're on social media so Facebook and Instagram Tick Tock at as surface float. And we have a website surfacefloat.com and on there you can find our contact info phone number email. So yeah, there's a few different places to find us but we try to post and educate people so our social media is full of info and you know, I know we talked a lot about floating but we also offer sauna and obviously people know about massage therapy too, but we we have little infographics and stuff like that to help people learn More about it.
Debra Timmerman:Well, thank you so much for being our guest today. Until next time, less stress in life is possible. If you're new to this kind of thinking and would like to explore what's possible for you, we'd love to connect. You can reach us through our website at less stress in life.com. That's less stress in life.com