Embracing Change: The Journey Through Spasmodic Dysphonia and Self-Rediscovery

Amy Stone [00:00:03]:
Clarissa Castillo Ramsey. Welcome to Imperfect Adulting.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:00:07]:
Amy, I’m so excited to be here.

Amy Stone [00:00:09]:
I am, too. I’m very happy you’re here with me today. Are you ready for a fun chat?

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:00:16]:
I’m so ready.

Amy Stone [00:00:17]:
That is so good. All right, so let’s begin at the beginning. Your name is Clarissa, but if you would do me a favor and share with the audience. What part of the world do you call home?

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:00:28]:
Currently, I’m in Altadena, California. So Southern California.

Amy Stone [00:00:34]:
Southern California. One of my favorite places. I’m doing on the other coast. I live in Miami, so. Yeah. So now have you all. Does not sound like you have always lived there.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:00:45]:
Oh, gosh, no. I have lived in several different places. I was born in Detroit, grew up in Texas by the time I was 18, and I grew up in a very small town. By the time I was 18, I was like, I have got to get out of here and just see more of the world. Right. Or at least. So I lived in Boston for six years, and that’s where I did my undergrad. Got sick of the snow and moved out west to California, and I’ve been here ever since.

Amy Stone [00:01:18]:
That’s very similar to how I ended up in Miami. I used to have a joke. So I moved here right after college, and somebody that was in my. The guy I was dating at the time was like, do you want to move to Miami? And I was like, I was living in. I was living in France, and it was very, very cold. And I was like, when is the next flight? And my joke used to be that, you know, 200 years ago, we didn’t know that if you went south, it would get warmer, but now we do. So I’m always confused when I meet people who are like, oh, I live in. And I know that there are people who really, really very much enjoy the snow. I get to spend a little bit of time every year right now in Detroit, which is. You probably have not. I mean, you were born there. I don’t know how often you go back. It’s such a cool place right now.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:02:03]:
It’s been a while. It’s been a really long time. That’s cool to hear. And I’ve had that, too.

Amy Stone [00:02:08]:
Yeah. I mean, I have not been moved out.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:02:11]:
Yeah, he’s moved out. But it would be nice to just go back to visit.

Amy Stone [00:02:15]:
So I had not been there, like, ever until recently. So I have no history there. But now, I mean, you can tell that they raised. I think they. I think they really sort of demolished a lot of the stuff that needed to be cleared out a lot of space. But what’s left is the very, very cool architecture, you know, and the very, very like. So it’s, and it’s very cool. So it is a challenge to my understanding of geography every time I’m there because it’s so close to Canada and it’s so close to New York and I’m like, how is that possible? But it is there. It’s right there. All right, I have one more warm up question and this is just to help create connection between and rapport before we dive into toug things. Tell us as much or as little as you want to about your family, the people you live with, all of those kind of things.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:03:02]:
Yeah, great question and thanks for asking. So I’m married, no kids. And I love where I live. I truly love where I live. I live right up against the mountains, the San Gabriel Mountains. For people who are familiar with the area. Not today. We actually have high, high, high winds. But I’m thankful I live near NASA JBL because I doubt they would shut off their power. So I feel kind of lucky that, that I live right close to them because there’s rolling blackouts today, but knock on wood, like we’re cool. The wind has stopped blowing. It started going crazy literally like at three in the morning. I was like woken up by okay, it must be the Santa. And it winds and. But anyway, I love living here. My brother’s also close by, so and my cousin. So it’s nice. I’ve got family and I’m also an artist. So I’m steeped deep in our artist community and what else can I share?

Amy Stone [00:04:22]:
Published author, very nice.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:04:25]:
I wrote a chapter in a book called Radical Freedom that came out last year, 2024 and it hit international best selling books.

Amy Stone [00:04:36]:
That’s very cool.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:04:39]:
There were 102 authors in this particular book and I wrote all about this journey with my vocal condition and it was also really cathartic. So I think there’s going to be a continuation, a deeper dive into that maybe by the end of this year. We’ll see.

Amy Stone [00:05:00]:
That is so cool. All right, so very good. I am excited to have this conversation with you today. And to be fair, I only have a teeny tiny little bit of information to go on to start. Right. So when I was putting together the interview questions, I have the little, tiny, teeny tiny bit of information which actually I have to say happens all the time. So this is not like a hardship. This is not a hardship. This is a thing. What I know about the start of the story, and the audience of the people who are listening probably are picking up little pieces of it because there is an auditory Clue. But in 2023, we’re recording this at the start of 2025. So in 2023, you had an event that was planned where you were a speaker, you were scheduled to be a speaker, and that didn’t go as planned. So go ahead and take us through, if you don’t mind, what happened.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:05:51]:
Yeah. So I was so excited to be part of the speaker panel. This event was all in celebration of International Women’s Day. This was like a March event in 2023, and I was on a panel with some amazing women talking about leadership, just being a woman entrepreneur. What does that mean? And how do we take care of ourselves? So a topic that I’m so, Like, all of those topics I’m super excited to talk about, so. But I did notice, like, my voice was kind of getting a little dry, and I wasn’t sick, but as the facilitator was asking questions, she came to me. I can’t remember what she asked, but a whisper came out of my mouth. Wow, this is like, a hundred times louder than how it was on the stage. And thankfully, I had a really good working microphone because, you know, by the end of that event, people were coming up to me saying, thank you for sharing your story. So I thought, shoo. At least they could hear me. Yeah. What a shock to not be able to verbalize. And I’m also a transformational coach. I’m a podcaster as well, so my voice is very much part of my identity. And when that happened, I was like, what is going on?

Amy Stone [00:07:30]:
So. But at first, when this first happened, I mean, did you think that you maybe just had a case of laryngitis or strep throat was coming, or it was dry in the hotel or, you know.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:07:45]:
Exactly.

Amy Stone [00:07:45]:
Allergies.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:07:47]:
Yes. And I had just, like, gotten cleared from a cold that I had, like, January, February.

Amy Stone [00:07:55]:
Oh. So, yeah. So you probably were just like, oh, I’m not actually over it. I thought I was better, but I’m not.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:08:02]:
That came through my mind too. Like, okay, well, I guess. I guess I still have stuff to. That’s lingering.

Amy Stone [00:08:08]:
Yeah. Would you describe yourself as an introvert or an extrovert?

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:08:13]:
I’m introspective, for sure.

Amy Stone [00:08:15]:
Okay.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:08:15]:
I’m more on the intro averted side, but. But I can. But then I can only take so much of my own company. Right. And I need to be with people.

Amy Stone [00:08:26]:
So a lot of People who are entrepreneurs are introverts. I actually am an extrovert. And so every time it happens to me where I get a. A sore throat or I lose my voice, I am in my own little, you know, container of misery because I feel cut off and to the point where, like, if I do. Where I can’t talk to people for a while, whatever it might be, I will. Oh. If I’m. Well in the modern days, like, if I’m home doing. Working on stuff by myself all day long and I don’t actually interact with people past zoom, if I go for a walk in the afternoon, I will start talking to strangers or, like, pets down the street. Like, I. Yep. I’m, like, such a weirdo. Like, I. So. So it is. It is a huge part of how we interact with other people. Right? And so this was definitely unexpected, but I think, you know, everybody, and there’s probably nobody that’s listening who hasn’t had a moment in their life where they haven’t, you know, lost their voice or had a cold where they had to. They lost that. But, you know, it was unexpected at first. When did you begin. How did you begin to realize that it was something more than a temporary one off?

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:09:48]:
I couldn’t talk, like, and I’ve had sore throats before. I’ve had laryngitis before. And I just thought, this is weird. I know. And I. I do yoga. I’ve done yoga for, like, 30 plus years. So I know what it’s like to talk and to breathe, and you don’t even think about talking. You just talk.

Amy Stone [00:10:14]:
Right.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:10:14]:
Well, I noticed something odd happening in my body. And when I’m at my worst, where you can’t even hear me, it is almost impossible to talk and breathe. So I thought, okay, this is really freaking weird. I think it might be time to go to the doctor. So I drug my feet. I went to the. To the doctor late April and got diagnosed with something I had never heard before. Spasmodic dysphonia. And they. They put. It was crazy. Like, I had to do a test just saying words, and it was super hard to say vowels. And they put a scope through my nose to. To check out my vocal cords, and I could literally see my vocal cords spasming. Oh, it was such a trip. There was nothing. There’s nothing wrong with the cords. They just, like, spasm as I was talking, and I was like, what the hell is going on here? Help me out, ladies.

Amy Stone [00:11:27]:
So if there is an upside to this, it is that you got a diagnosis Very quickly.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:11:32]:
Yes.

Amy Stone [00:11:33]:
Okay.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:11:35]:
What was going on?

Amy Stone [00:11:37]:
All right, so the, the words are spasmodic dysphonia. I actually, I know there’s two pretty famous people who have this. Diane Reams, the broadcaster, I don’t know if she’s like, still on the air. And more contemporarily, RFK Jr also has this. So it’s got. We actually have. There’s somebody. There’s somebody who’s a local politician in. In M. Cindy Lerner, who has gone through this diagnosis in the past, like four or five years. And so people might recognize some of the pitch and the sound because it is. I think it’s distinctive.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:12:17]:
Yeah, I think it’s very distinctive. Yes.

Amy Stone [00:12:21]:
All right. So what was your life like? Give us a sample. Then we’re going to talk about how this impacted your life. But in order to do that, take us back to like before, before the speech, like, what was your life kind of like before? You’re an entrepreneur, so all these things. So what was your life kind of like before you got this diagnosis?

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:12:45]:
Yeah, so I. I left my corporate job mid-2021. No.

Amy Stone [00:12:52]:
Okay.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:12:52]:
And I just hit the ground running. Yeah. And I. I had some pretty nice success from the get go during the pandemic. And I actually started working with my coach in the fall of 2020 to kind of just ramp myself up for. For leaving a very cushy six figure job. And I hit the ground running and I was doing all these things, events, master classes. I started my podcast in 2022. Coaching, group coaching, one on one coaching. So honestly, I was talking a lot more than I did at my day job. And so that was happening and I was pretty happy like when I started. However, by the end of 2022, which is, you know, not so long of a time, I started to feel a little bit drained.

Amy Stone [00:14:01]:
Okay.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:14:02]:
And I was doing four summits a year when one of my speakers, who we were supposed to go live together, said, clarissa, are you sure you want to go live right now? You do not look well. And I was like, what? The show has to go on. The show has to go on. And so I was like, you know, I’ll. I’ll power through it. Right? Because that’s what I did during corporate, my corporate days. And that was just my work ethic. So let me just power through. And that was the fall of 2022. Early 2023 is when I got sick and when I said, okay, maybe I. Maybe that’s a sign I need to slow down. I know what burnout is. Like, oh, here it is again. And so that’s kind of like the events that led up to this.

Amy Stone [00:14:50]:
Okay. And so, yeah, so that’s. Well, I never knew that I’m in burnout until I’m all the way in it. You’re better. You’re better than I am. If you can figure it out, then. All right, so I don’t want to ask a lot of very specific stuff about the condition because I want to talk to you about, like, you. But is it something that is related to. Is it. Is the diagnosis at all related to the burnout or the virus or anything like that? It is.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:15:18]:
You know, the jury’s out. Out. Like they say it’s typically happens with women.

Amy Stone [00:15:26]:
Okay. K Junior’s lucky.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:15:29]:
Yeah. Right. Midlife and beyond. It’s usually it happens with a stressful situation.

Amy Stone [00:15:37]:
Okay.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:15:38]:
And so I think, you know that my, My speaker telling me, you look, you look, you don’t look so good. I think it was the beginning to that and it didn’t listen. And also coming off of, like, a cold getting sick. And they also say it could be hereditary, but there’s nobody in my family who has this, so. And who knows if the virus, you know, or vaccinations causes this? Like, I feel like anything’s possible, right?

Amy Stone [00:16:11]:
No, yeah, that’s. We never know. I have a. I have a knee jerk reaction whenever, like, people are like, this is because you ate a lemon seed when you were five. Totally. How do we know?

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:16:23]:
Yeah, we don’t know.

Amy Stone [00:16:25]:
We don’t. You know, and I’m old enough that I grew up in, like, the 70s and 80s when there was, like, so many things. I’m like, oh, there’s so many things that have, like, the list is long.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:16:35]:
I’m still here.

Amy Stone [00:16:37]:
Right? Exactly. Still here. So based on your experience, what is. Okay, so this is fairly recent. So 2023, you’ve been living with for about a year and a half. And so what is something based on your experience of it? It’s something that some people have probably heard of, other people have not. I didn’t. I don’t know exactly when I heard of it, but I’m one of those people that I stockpile random pieces of trivia. So, yes. What is one thing that you do wish or it would be helpful to you if people did know about this? More people knew about this condition of spasmodic dysphonia, which is so much fun to say. Probably much more fun to say than it is to have.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:17:21]:
Yeah, for sure. That is for sure. I Just want people to know, like, because so many people have come up to me and said, is this because of stress? Is this because of stress? And I just feel like, you know what? That just stresses me out. So I have a feeling I’m not alone with that. Understand people’s concerns. But it’s also a neurological problem. So this is something like that I learned really late with this diagnosis in 2023. I spent most of that year whispering, because when I whispered, that’s when people could hear me.

Amy Stone [00:18:08]:
Sure.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:18:09]:
I started doing vocal therapy. Yeah. Last year for a period of time. Period of time. And my vocal therapist said, the first thing you need to do is stop whispering because you’re training your brain that. That is your speaking face. So for anybody who has this condition or thinks they have it, definitely get checked out. I don’t whisper, and I just ask people, you know, if you can’t hear me, I’m happy to repeat, but, you know, we might just need to move on to another topic.

Amy Stone [00:18:47]:
If you can’t hear me, that is so interesting. So I. Once when I had laryngitis when I was young, but my. The doctor was like, don’t whisper this. Like, so. But I think it was a different reason. I think it was a different reason, though. I mean, and I could be. My memory could be flawed with this, but I believe he just was like, that stresses your throat even more. He’s like, what you want to do is just rest and keep your. You know, just don’t talk. And. And I was like, that is really.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:19:14]:
Hard to do, especially for an extrovert.

Amy Stone [00:19:18]:
That is really hard for me to do, but I will do my best. All right. So thinking back to this transition, which you’re. You know, you’re very composed and very upbeat about it now, but I can imagine that there were parts of this that were pretty emotional to go through. When I talk to people about choices and changes. Right. There’s. There’s a broad line I can draw, which is, like, things we choose and things that we have to respond to that kind of happen to us. Right. And you did not wake up and say, hey, you know, what I’d like to do today is lose my voice and develop some spasmodic. Some spasms in my vocal cords. What. Let’s talk about what kind of support you had and what kind of support maybe you wish you had had.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:20:04]:
You know, right when it happened, I just was in, like, denial. I was depressed. I did. I kind of cocooned as somebody who’s more of an introvert that I think is typical behavior.

Amy Stone [00:20:22]:
Yeah.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:20:23]:
I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to connect with people. And. And it was really, really. It was just really, really rough. And the doctors that I saw, because I saw two doctors, and they said, hey, here’s a support group for people with spasmonic dysphonia and lost in the Los Angeles area.

Amy Stone [00:20:45]:
That’s kind of amazing.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:20:47]:
Yeah. They’re all over the world. And my reaction to that was, I don’t want to be in a support group.

Amy Stone [00:20:56]:
Okay.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:20:56]:
I’m going to kick this thing. I didn’t want to acknowledge it at all. And so for a good portion of 2023, I just lived in a whispering misery. Yeah. I did not stop my podcast. And because I had done so many summits, I literally have hundreds of interviews that I could pull from. So I did that here and there so I wouldn’t have to do, you know, record every week. And I finally broke down and joined the support group for spasmodic dysphonia in la. And that has been really helpful to be part of a group who gets it.

Amy Stone [00:21:47]:
Yeah.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:21:48]:
And since then, I have found. I found another group called Vocal Freedom Program with Jim Bostock. I think that’s how you say his name. And his program was all about spasmodic dysphonia, muscle tension dysphonia, other voice dystonias. And I went through his program, and that was super helpful. And I wish I would have known whispering was bad.

Amy Stone [00:22:18]:
Sure.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:22:18]:
I wish I would have known that. And I wish I would have started vocal therapy. Yeah. From the beginning, because I really. Yeah. I mean, I know that our thoughts really impact how we behave, but I did not think whispering was gonna screw me up this bad with my voice and train it. And train it to just, you know, be my speaking voice. So that I wish I would have done sooner.

Amy Stone [00:22:50]:
Yeah, No, I can see all of those things. The. I think that the. The resistance to joining a support group is a really interesting thing that I’ll. I’ll sort of lead the conversation that way. I think it’s common. I mean, that’s not the right word, but I think that I’ve talked to many, many people. Right. Especially when it’s an experience that you don’t want to be going through. I think that people, sometimes they see that joining the group is like a. I don’t know. You can. You can. I don’t want to put words in. You can. You can draw. You can. You can draw. You can sort of try and explain it in your own like, they feel like it’s resigning themselves and giving us.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:23:35]:
I’m defeated.

Amy Stone [00:23:36]:
Yeah, I’m defeated. This is. This is who I am now, right? And. And. And there’s a part of, you know, when. When something happens to us, there’s a. There’s a part of us where we, you know, we decide, is this. Who. Is this who I am now? You know, does. How much am I going to let this define me? And so. And it’s. It can be. It can be. It can be a. To a tight, tight walk to figure out, like, what, what. But. And on the flip side, right, the amazing thing, right? And also, let’s just throw it out there. There’s some crappy groups out there, right? Like, I think we’ve all been through experiences, not necessarily support groups, they can be social groups or whatever, but we’ve all been in a situation where you walk into a group and you’re like, oh, well, wait a minute. No, I don’t. I don’t actually want to be here. Reverse, Back away slowly. Exit, exit. But when you find a good group for whatever it might be, then it is such a. It can be a really helpful, freeing things. And that can happen with hobbies. Like, you find somebody who shares a hobby with you so you can talk to them about your hobby and not annoy people who don’t care. And. Or when you find something that is hard and is a challenge in trying to navigate it. And so I think it’s beautiful that you were. So. We live in an amazing time, right? You can connect with people. We can connect. All of you and I are on different sides of the continent, and we’re connecting over this fabulous platform so we can find people who. It’s an amazing thing that we can do that. But also it means that, you know, but it is still very lucky that you had a group that was right there, that you had a doctor that was like, go talk to these people. And you could find people who were ahead of you in the journey and still kick in, like, yeah, I think that’s really lucky. What. What were the things? What. So other than that, what were the things that kept you. That made you. Made you push back against going and joining the group right away?

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:25:55]:
Yeah, I think pretty much the. The biggest thing was just identifying as a person who couldn’t speak.

Amy Stone [00:26:06]:
Yeah.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:26:06]:
And I was so embarrassed because that is my. That was also my identity as a podcaster, as a coach, as a facilitator. Like, speaking in front of groups is not an issue for me. I had to do it. In my corporate days, I love in person energy. So I was not afraid to speak during that event. That actually gives me life and vitality. But then for it to, for nothing to come out, I was like, what is going on? Universe is speaking to me. Yeah.

Amy Stone [00:26:47]:
So then. All right, so like the whole theme for the things I do is like, the choices and changes and how they impact our life. Right. And so at the beginning it sounds like, oh, this is a change in my voice and this is a condition I’m diagnosed with. But when we peel it back, this is actually a redefinition of your identity statement. Before this happened, you saw yourself as a person who used her voice in a, in a position of power. It was a part of your identity. And, and this change put you in a spot where you had to reflect on, okay, who am I now? What does this mean for who I am? I think if I was to say that we as a culture do a big disservice to the youth of, of, of the youth of our people, or however those words should go together, because not like I put them together, but it’s that we, we don’t prepare people for the fact that we’re going to do this a bunch of different times as we grow older, right? So. And the first several people walk you through, so it’s like you’re. And then you go to middle school, they bridge you there. I’m in high school, I’m going to go to college. If you’re following the path that everybody tells you to, they bridge you that way, right? Then you graduate from your college degree, and they’re like, wow, there you go done. Good luck with good luck.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:28:00]:
Right?

Amy Stone [00:28:01]:
Yeah, good luck to you. And no one ever tells you any of the other. Right? Nobody ever tells you how to do it again. And so then you have all those adult transitions where you go from like, you know, single to paired up, paired up to not paired up anymore, like divorce, whatever, not a parent to being a parent if you do that, or a step parent or foster parent or whatever, working to entrepreneur, working to all of those on your own. On your own.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:28:27]:
Yes.

Amy Stone [00:28:27]:
Gotta figure it out. So I think that. So, but it is. Those are really tough transitions when you come into the position where it’s like, okay, who am I now? That is a really, really tough tradition transition. And the ones that, the stories we see where people actually are publicly going through it are actually celebrities, right? So like sports, people who retire, and celebrities who decide to not be slipped, which doesn’t happen. All that Often. But when it does, those are the only times that I see people like, hey, I’m making a change. This is no longer who I am. And. But that’s. So that’s really what you found yourself going through. It’s like, what does this mean for me, Clarissa?

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:29:07]:
Yeah. And I also. I do think when these things happen to us, there’s. There’s something going on energetically.

Amy Stone [00:29:16]:
Yeah, sure.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:29:17]:
Like saying, so once I got out of my depression of, like, oh, my God, I have lost my voice, I feel like I’m losing an identity. The truth also was I was starting to not feel connected to the work that I was doing before. So, you know, that is part of this story too. And I grew up, you know, in the 70s and the 80s, and. And I don’t have kids, so I don’t know how much of this is different, but I really felt like I had to be a good daughter. I had to follow what my parents said. I had to go to college. I had to go in and do something. Yeah. That would make them proud.

Amy Stone [00:30:07]:
Yeah.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:30:07]:
So I spent a lot of time, like, doing things for other people’s approval, and I even think starting up my business. And the truth is, you don’t. You don’t know what you don’t know. You just have to start. And so I just picked. Picked an edge, followed my coach’s advice, which was great advice. But what I neglected to do was really take that time to ask myself, well, what is. What does Clarissa really want to do?

Amy Stone [00:30:41]:
Okay.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:30:42]:
And so with this whole vocal thing, that really was an opportunity. Like, I just felt like the universe was like, you are being squashed. You need to just stop. It is time to re. Reconnect with yourself. And that’s really what. The very end of 2023 and all throughout 2024, I let go of all my preconceived notions of what I should be doing as an entrepreneur. I went back and just. I do vision boards every year, or I journal a lot. And I sat with that question. I said, what am I? What am I not saying? What am I not doing? Who am I not being? And the truth is, I’m an artist. I’m a creative. And I just kind of put that on the back burner so that at work, doing things creative has really been part of the work that I’m stepping into. So last year, I did a lot of different experiments, and if I could do it all over again, this is where I would have started.

Amy Stone [00:32:00]:
But like you said, you didn’t know what you didn’t know. And that’s always true. My least favorite thing that people will say to other people is, oh, well, you should have known. And I’m like, this is never true. Like, this is never ever true. Like nobody ever knows what’s coming. I mean, you know, I’m sure there’s some exception to that, that sometimes there are people. But the. So that is really interesting. So you can. Okay. What kind of coaching, what kind of transformational coaching were you doing before you shifted? Was it like business type?

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:32:31]:
Helping People leave their 9 to 5 to start their own?

Amy Stone [00:32:34]:
Which is what you had done.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:32:35]:
Which is what I had done.

Amy Stone [00:32:36]:
Right. Super common. Their own first client. Yes, exactly. We teach from our experience. I love it. Absolutely love it. And now you have transitioned into something which is more creatively based and you did that. I have a question unrelated to what I was just talking about, but it popped into my brain. When you do vision boards, do you like still go out and buy like, you know, 10 or 11 magazines and put it together or how are you doing? What is the modern version of this?

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:33:01]:
Yes. So I still like the traditional.

Amy Stone [00:33:07]:
These days.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:33:08]:
I actually have my vision board here. I’ll just share it with you. This is the lack here. So. Okay, so funny story. Yeah. I pitched myself to do a vision board event for 100 people.

Amy Stone [00:33:23]:
Okay.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:33:23]:
And I haven’t done that. I hadn’t done that before. So I was like, oh, crap, I need to get. I need to get magazines. Well, like you said earlier, the beauty of modern day living is we have all these platforms, we have all these technologies. So I simply put a post at Oatmeal on Facebook in a couple different places. And I said, hey, I’m potentially leading 100 person vision board shop. Is anybody getting rid of magazines? People responded like, I got an overwhelming support because you’re right, magazines are not cheap.

Amy Stone [00:34:05]:
Other than the dentist office, I’ve never. I like never see them anymore. You know, everything. Every magazine I get is. Is a digital thing.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:34:12]:
Yes.

Amy Stone [00:34:13]:
So, yes, I was curious about that. All I get these days, I get catalogs still. I get a couple of catalogs. My favorite catalog is from Restoration Hardware. I think in the last 25 years, I think I bought $1 4 doorknob from Restoration Hardware. But they send me a 250 page beautiful catalog twice a year. And I’m very thankful for it. It’s very pretty. It’s a very pretty thing. I’d love to speak to their marketing department about their. All right, so we’re going to wrap up this Interview. But before we do, we’ve talked a lot about the things that you’re doing. And I want to give you a chance to tell the listeners how to connect with you a little bit about as much as you want about the business you’re doing these days. And I know you have a podcast that you want to share.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:35:03]:
Yes. So the work that I’m doing is geared to self expression. I still love helping people, like, do the things they think they can’t do, but it’s not necessarily about leaving your job to go start your own business. So a lot of creative workshops, just painting, journaling, having discussions to tap back into yourself. Because I think in this go go society, having, having quiet it type of events where people, people can reflect, I think there’s a need for that. So that’s more of what my work is. And I’m particularly wanting to support women who are in midlife and beyond. Yeah, yeah, those are my, those are my people. And I do have a podcast called Painting your path, and it’s all about creating life on your terms.

Amy Stone [00:36:02]:
Very cool. So the link to the podcast will be in the show notes if you’re listening on a podcast platform, but also if you’re subscribed to the imperfect adulting newsletter, the email community. I put that link in there and that’s the easiest way to get that because then you can just click on it and it’s. That’s the way. That’s the way to do it. All right, so now I’m going to ask you three questions. These are supposed to be rapid fire. It’s not a challenge. They’re just for fun. The idea is that you’ll answer in just a few short words and probably you’re going to be very. I have high expectations you’ll be better at this than I am. I don’t. I. Brevity is not my strength. Are you a late night snacker? And if you are, what’s your favorite late night snack?

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:36:45]:
Oh, my gosh. Well, guilty. And last night my husband and I had popcorn.

Amy Stone [00:36:54]:
Buttered.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:36:55]:
Buttered popcorn.

Amy Stone [00:36:57]:
Microwave. Or like, maybe microwave. Microwave.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:37:00]:
Microwave.

Amy Stone [00:37:01]:
You know, my thing with popcorn is that I love it and it’s delicious. And also I. I find myself flossing for like, you know, I mean, I floss daily, flosser. Like after I eat popcorn, I am like, every few hours I’m like, oh, my God, there’s another one. Exactly, exactly. I’m not entirely sure that it’s worth it, but. So. All right, very. Do you have an all time favorite book or author, like, from your whole life that you could call out and.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:37:33]:
Share such a great question. So here’s who popped in my head. Julia Cameron.

Amy Stone [00:37:41]:
Oh, the artist way.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:37:42]:
Yeah. Yeah. So many other books that are great, too, but I go back to that one pretty often.

Amy Stone [00:37:50]:
Do you do morning pages?

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:37:53]:
I’m not consistent.

Amy Stone [00:37:55]:
Okay, so do you do. Do you do the. Do you do the artist date? Yeah, yeah, I do that. I pull out the artist date when. When I feel like I’m hamster on a hamster wheel. When I can’t. Like, I’m like. I’m like, you know what? I need to clear an afternoon and just go. Just go be free and do something arty. So, yeah, all right. Third, I was. That was like, such an intriguing idea. My mind was like, let’s do that again. If somebody offered you a free luxury vacation, like, all expenses paid, all the bells and whistles, things like that, and your choice was. They gave you a choice of two things. Wintry mountain destination or sunny beachy paradise, which do you choose?

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:38:38]:
Sunny beachy paradise.

Amy Stone [00:38:40]:
There you go. There you go. That’s it. Clarissa, this has been a wonderful chat. Thank you for being a guest.

Clarissa Castillo Ramsey [00:38:46]:
Thank you for having me. This was fun.