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How A Famous Actress Pivoted To Health And Wellness with Kelly Kruger Brooks - E9
44 Plays1 year ago
What happens when a successful actress’s career takes an unexpected turn, leaving her to question her very identity and purpose? In this episode, we explore how a famous actress who, faced with a career setback, discovered an alternative path to success, in the form of health and wellness. You’ll hear about her struggles with self-esteem and the pressures to succeed in the entertainment industry, ultimately leading her to explore her passion for health and wellness as an alternative path. Discover how embracing a holistic approach to life and pursuing a new path can lead to renewed success, personal growth, and the opportunity to help others along the way.
Actress, blogger, and entrepreneur Kelly Kruger Brooks has carved a unique path in her pursuit of a purposeful and healthy life. Best known for her roles in popular TV shows like 'The Young and the Restless' and 'The Bold and the Beautiful,' Kelly has also made a name for herself in the wellness space. Her blog, Madison Charles, named after her beloved dogs, has become a go-to resource for clean beauty and holistic living tips. Kelly's passion for natural remedies led her to create her own essential oil line, and to start sharing healthy alternative recipes. With a focus on mindfulness, nutrition, and self-care, Kelly continues to inspire her followers to prioritize their well-being and find fulfillment in their lives, both on and off the screen.
“My purpose and my dream has always been to make a difference in people's lives.” - Kelly Kruger Brooks
In this episode you will learn:
- How Kelly found new ways to define success and fulfillment beyond her acting career.
- The impact of essential oils on Kelly's health and the launch of her own essential oil line.
- Kelly's journey in starting a clean beauty and wellness blog, despite initial doubts and challenges.
- The importance of mindset, meditation, and gratitude in managing stress and maintaining a positive outlook.
- Practical tips for prioritizing sleep, nutrition, and healthy habits to support overall well-being.
- Kelly's mission to inspire others through sharing her personal experiences and passion for wellness.
Resources
- Connect with Kelly on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kellylkruger
- Check out Kelly's essential oils line, Madison Charles: https://kellykrugerbrooks.com/shop/
- Find healthy recipes over at Kelly's Kitchen: https://kellykrugerbrooks.com/kellys-kitchen/
- Follow Kelly on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@kellykrugerbrooks
- Shop all the products Kelly mentions in this episode: https://alively.com/products/kellykrugerbrooks
This podcast was produced by the team at Zapods Podcast Agency:
https://www.zapods.com
Find the products, practices, and routines discussed on the Alively website:
https://alively.com/
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Transcript
Embarrassment in Social Media Promotions
00:00:00
Speaker
I had people actually say, oh my God, and people like successful friends who are like very successful. Oh my God, I can never go on social media and talk about a product. Like that is just so embarrassing. You're an actress. How can you do that as an actor? You'll never be taken seriously as an actress. That's what I was told. And I said, if that's true, well, then so be it. But I'm not going to stop wanting to get information out there for people who might need it. And I don't want to stop trying to help people because that's that's my purpose. Right.
Focus on Health and Wellness Role Models
00:00:32
Speaker
This is the Home of Health Spam Podcast, where we profile health and wellness role models, sharing their stories and the tools, practices and routines they use to live a lively life.
00:00:46
Speaker
Kelly Kruger Brooks, it is so lovely to see you. Before we started recording, we had so many different directions we could take this, and I'm excited to take all of them. Me too, me too. I'm so excited to be here. ah Thank you for being here. um So, you know, we're in 2024 now.
Challenges in Acting Career
00:01:02
Speaker
If possible, I'd like to take a step back and go to 2014. Let's go a decade back. Let's go a decade. And what a decade it has been. In 2014, I was ah pursuing my career as an actress. I was auditioning a lot. I was up for a lot of things. ah The acting world is really insane. It's an insane place to be. You have to be so, so passionate and dedicated and and so resilient. And you hear so many no's and the rejection could be the color of your hair, you know. and
00:01:37
Speaker
It was frustrating for me to have zero control over living my purpose. so For example, as an actor, you have to wait for an agent to submit. You want to You have to wait for that agent to decide, okay, I think she's right for this.
00:01:53
Speaker
Then you have to wait for the casting director to say, oh, sure, I would see her. I could see that. Then you go in on audition for the casting director and you have to have the casting director think you're good enough to then go to the producers and the producers to the studio and the studio to the network and the network to decide that, yes, today I get to wake up and live my dream.
Dream of Making a Difference
00:02:10
Speaker
My purpose and my dream has always been to make a difference in people's lives.
00:02:15
Speaker
So coming from a very broken home as a child and having a very difficult childhood, I made a decision that I wanted to be for young people what I needed when I was growing up. I wanted to somehow make a difference in their lives. So through acting, my goal was to always play characters that had a big arc. So in the beginning, maybe be very broken and then show the strength and their resilience and whatever that character did, and then they win in the end. So that's why I always wanted to do film, because you can actually see that arc within you know the the course of the film. But then I learned that you can do the same thing on television. It just may take a little bit longer to tell that story.
00:03:01
Speaker
But it was that was my dream is I wanted to give young girls particularly um strength and I wanted to show them through. So I was very drawn to true stories. When I first started acting, I booked like three films that were based on true stories.
00:03:19
Speaker
And I think I was just so drawn to that stuff because I wanted to A, do those characters justice, but B, you know, show people who were watching how you win in life, basically, through my choices as an actress, even though I didn't have control over where the story went, somehow it would sort of play out that way. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. i mean a lot of people It's far easier to imagine something when you've seen models for it. right The little figures, or you know the the black women in NASA that were the computers and everything, it was It was in this community of all these scientists. so It was just normal that you would be around scientists, and that seemed like a normal aspiration.
Proving Capability Beyond Stereotypes
00:04:04
Speaker
it's part of My daughter goes to an all-girls school, and part of it is you know the best athlete or girls, the best at math and science and everything. so There's never a question of, oh, can girls do this or that? so
00:04:14
Speaker
that what you're saying It makes so much sense to me on being able to be that model for people. Yeah. Well, also growing up, you know, it's funny because growing up, I grew up with an older brother and he.
00:04:31
Speaker
was so good at everything. I mean, he was just, he was an athlete. He was great. I'm Canadian. So it was hockey. I wanted to be a hockey player. And my mom said, you're too tiny to play hockey. You can't play hockey. Okay. I want to play ringette, which is the female, you know, I found myself as a child wanting to prove that I could do it, even though I was, even though I was a girl. And this isn't like a a male, female thing. It's more just like, I sort of, he was so good and I wasn't,
00:04:58
Speaker
scholastically smart. I was what my mother called street smart. I did not love school. I didn't love it. and But unfortunately, teachers would say how I'm not at him. So I can't afford to miss school because, you know, I was a dreamer. I'm a creative person. i If I loved something in school, I excelled at it. But if I did not like it, forget it. Like there's just no way I was going to thrive in it. And that was just, and thank God I had the mom that I had that really nurtured that and exposed me to so many things. And, you know, so I couldn't play hockey. I couldn't play ring up, but guess what? I could be a figure skater.
00:05:35
Speaker
And she told me, ah you know, I was 12 years old and I said, I want to I want to be an Olympic skater. And she said, well, Kelly, you would have had to start a long time ago. And I said, no, I don't agree with that. So what did she do? She went.
00:05:48
Speaker
She got me a coach. She got me. and She got me everything I needed. And then I decided when I saw the girls on the ice, I decided, OK, yeah, I probably should have, you know, because I did start when I was three and then I didn't want to. the So the great thing about my mom is she exposed us to everything. Yeah. And then we got to choose whether we wanted to continue with it or not.
Seeking Validation and Parental Influence
00:06:09
Speaker
and I think that that was a big thing, which is I always wanted to sort of do what my brother did and prove that I could do it. and This has a lot to do with my father and father issues and the need to be ah loved and accepted and get that kind of nurture from the father figure that you know I felt like i I didn't have, and that's a whole other that's whole other thing. But part of my drive is to why I do what I do, um and and why i why I've always been driven to to help people and make a difference in their lives. Well, and to tell the different stories. right So you know you you have the arc that is your own life, and you're sharing, and and that has its power. But there's also this multiplier effect
00:06:52
Speaker
with TV shows, with movies, that you're able to model that in a number of ways. So you talk about your your mom bringing and giving you access to the options so you can choose. It seems a very similar thing, what you're doing. i Like, hey, here are all these amazing stories and ways that people have found under difficult circumstances to win. And so you find what parts resonate with you or what story are resonate with you to start crafting your own life. Is that fair?
00:07:19
Speaker
a hundred percent, a hundred percent. And it's interesting because I'm learning that as we speak, that part of my, you know, it is finding different ways to win in life. And the truth is, you know, at this point in my life, I thought I would be much more successful as an actress than I am. Right. Because I had certain goals and I still do. I'm not saying um things change when I became a mom, but I definitely feel like I think this is a really important message for everybody that sometimes the the avenue you think you're going to take to achieve what you want may not be what you initially thought, right? Yeah. And what you thought you wanted may not be the right thing too. So you get to the end. I think Jim Carrey has one of my favorite quotes of all time of, I wish everybody could get rich and famous to realize that it's not the answer hundred percent I have the chills when you say that because it couldn't be more true. I thought that the only way that I could be happy in life was when I succeeded as an actress. So let's go back to 2014
Identity Crisis after Role Loss
00:08:25
Speaker
for a second. yeah
00:08:26
Speaker
I was auditioning. I was getting some roles. I had worked. I'd been on, you know, I'd been on the ah young and the restless for years I had. And then I got fired from that show, which changed everything to like, that was my identity. Right. Like I was a teeny. I was 19 years old. I was supporting my family. I was like, it's who I was. Right. um And then when that went away,
00:08:51
Speaker
I didn't understand at that point how you use one job to get the other and you use it to get heat. And I didn't understand that. So instead of looking at, okay, great, I'm coming off this, you know, the number one soap, I'm young, I'm talented, I have all these things that, you know, let me go hustle and and sort of like put put it into the next. I sort of looked at it as, you know, the biggest the biggest failure.
00:09:18
Speaker
and that I wasn't good enough and I wasn't you know i took it so personally. yeah When these things happen, especially on a soap opera, ah you know you know they happen every day for for nothing. It's a storyline. It's it's whatever. like It has and has nothing to do with you, particularly during my when they cut me initially. it was They got rid of five cast members. It was a whole storyline, that was but i didn't I didn't understand that.
00:09:42
Speaker
And, you know, it was so much so that I remember showing up at an event and there were, you know, photographers there. And in my head, I was like, well, they're not going to want my picture because I'm not on this open. It was my identity. And I walked in and they started like, you know, it was there. They were, you know, red carpet photographers. And when they started taking my picture, I was confused. I was so young. I didn't understand the game, you know. Yeah. Yeah. You're a teenager. Right. like yeah like Right. So I was on the soap and I was, you know, pursuing auditioning and getting a lot of ah getting super, super close to getting something in the last minute they go with the other girl. And what it would happen is my life was audition.
00:10:24
Speaker
get done with the audition, wait for the phone to ring. Did I get the job? Did I not? And what happens at that point when you are an actor and you are unemployed and you are waiting for that job is desperation, right? And like anything else, when you go in with a desperate energy or you want something so badly, you actually push it away.
00:10:44
Speaker
Right? yeah if you I'll give you an example of that. I in i think it was 2016, I had three auditions come across my desk. One of them I wanted so badly, okay? This was my role, like it was everything. And I worked on it so hard, okay? like i just And even when I taped it, it was like i did i just like I worked it to death.
00:11:10
Speaker
The other one was another soap. It was a test. I was like, OK, whatever been there done, that didn't really matter. And then the third one was a movie that I was just like, I've done these, like, whatever. I don't really care. So the one that I wanted so bad, I spent so much time on. I auditioned for it. The one that I sent, ah I've done this, the movie, I basically cold read it, barely prepared. I booked it.
00:11:35
Speaker
didn't even get a call back on the one that I wanted. And the other one was just, you know, they want a different direction. But right. It really showed me that when you truly, truly like need something, it's an energy that you put out that is actually pushes people away and it actually can. Whereas whereas when you're in the place of just being like, OK, I'll take it, I can take it or leave it, you do your best. The work still needs to be there. Things usually do work out. So In 2014, I was at that place where I was just very desperate. And every audition that came in, I needed it. I needed it because A, it defined me. B, it was how I was supporting myself. And C, it's what I did and what I wanted to do. So my whole life revolved around that.
00:12:20
Speaker
and I said, I'm tired of this.
Transition to Health and Wellness Knowledge Sharing
00:12:23
Speaker
I'm tired of waiting for all these people to tell me that I can make a difference today. so I said, you know what? I'm gonna start i'm going to start. what What am I great at? what am i like What can I put out there that's not acting that I can teach people, I can educate people, or I can help people in some way?
00:12:40
Speaker
And I had been on a crazy journey with I've always been into health and wellness since I was very, very, very young. My grandfather was actually ah a brain surgeon, like a very world renowned, well respected brain surgeon. And um I never ah got to meet him, but his research and the things that he did was unbelievable. And so from a young age, I innately and and his his way of being was very intuitive. So he knew about things that we're only finding out about now, right? Yeah, the science is now catching now catching picked up. on yeah So my mom raised me, you know, Eastern European, she raised me very much the way she was raised, which is, you know, we don't eat out of a can because there's BPAs, but we didn't know about BPAs back then, right? So just naturally, I i never really liked processed foods. I never drank
00:13:30
Speaker
I call them soft drinks, what are you, pop, cola? Soft drinks, yeah. Because they burn my throat. I always just drank water. That was just what I did. if I was exposed to it. My mom had junk food in the house. I never liked it. I wanted real food after school. So it was very interesting that my body naturally always wanted the cleaner, healthier stuff. And so I thought, okay, well, and then I battled with acne for a very long time. And being an actress, that's really, really, really hard.
00:13:58
Speaker
Because when when I first started, I was actually a model and I'll never forget I showed up at a photo shoot and this photographer who was like the photographer. ah He was so rude and he he was like, you know, telling me how I was popping a pimple on my face. And he said, I can cover redness. I can't cover bumps, like making it seem like it was my fault that I had this on my face, like you just so many clearly on the way there. You're like, you know what? Like, I would really love a pimple right now. You know, so I had battled and I had basically tried every product known to man to try and balance my skin. um I also loved makeup and loved beauty. So I thought, okay, what if I start a blog about, you know, teaching people how to, you know, use cleaner makeup, I was starting to get into clean beauty at the time, I was understanding what parabens we're doing to our skin. I was understanding what, you know, how our skin is our largest organ and it absorbs everything that we put on in it and just trying to like, maybe I could educate people a little bit through this.
00:15:00
Speaker
Well, guess what? It is very uncool in 2014 to be an actress and have a blog. It was very uncool, okay? okay ah It's embarrassing. Oh my God, Kelly's like, you know, I would ask people, hey, can you just support me? Like, you know, I'd start posting on social media and I'd say to my friends like, hey, can you just like leave an emoji under it so I can get some engagement? Cause that helps me like with brand deals and stuff like that. Nobody, nobody.
00:15:28
Speaker
And it was like, and I had people actually say, oh my God, i and people so like successful friends who are like very successful or were very successful at the time. Oh my God, I can never go on social media and talk about a product like that is just so embarrassing. You're an actress. How can you do that as an actor? You'll never be taken seriously as an actress. That's what I was told.
00:15:47
Speaker
Okay? And I said, you know what, if that's true, because it was very uncool at that time, right? Nobody was doing it, or very few people were doing it, but and actresses weren't doing it. And I said, if that's true, well, then so be it. But I'm not going to stop wanting to get information out there for people who might need it. And I don't want to stop trying to help people because that's that's my purpose, right? Yeah.
00:16:10
Speaker
So I continued to do it and I started Madison, my blog was called Madison Charles. And the reason I named it Madison Charles is because I had two dogs um I got when I was, the first one I got when I was 19 years old, when I was on the soap.
00:16:26
Speaker
And her name was Maddie, and she was a pug. And then I got Charlie, who was a boxer. And they lived to be 14 as a boxer and 17 as a pug, which is wild. And we went through everything together. I mean, when I tell you that they were my strength, I mean, I it's an understatement. Like they were my they were everything to me.
00:16:49
Speaker
And I always said, if I ever had a line one day, I would want to name it Madison Charles in honor of them. But also I thought it was a cool name. yeah right And then I thought, well, if I think of health, and this is going to sound really weird and you might think that this is crazy, but I in, gosh, Cheryl Crow,
00:17:11
Speaker
announced that she had breast cancer. I was very young. I think I was probably about 19. And she had mentioned that she attributed it to leaving plastic water bottles in her car. And then they would get heated up, and then that would release the BPAs. And I was so young when I heard this. And I thought, I believe that. I really believe that. I believe that plastic is probably not great for us. And I said, and if it's not great for us, then it can't be good for my dogs, right? So I started back then not only drinking from glass and making sure the water was filtered, but my dogs never drank tap water. So truthfully, I just felt like they did represent health as weird as that sounds because they lived a very, they ate clean, they ate they drank clean water, they got out and exercised, they spent a lot of time in the sun, they were in a happy environment, right? um So all of these things, I really felt like energy, I just felt like
00:18:04
Speaker
who else to better represent health than than those two, right? yeah So that was the name of my blog and I started sharing makeup tips and beauty tutorials and things like that. Now now I will tell you that luckily I have soap fans and soap fans are the most loyal incredible most beautiful people ever they follow you to the ends of the earth like they are they're amazing and to this day it's my soap fans that have really made this possible for me to do yeah but i wasn't making any money it was i could tell you i i worked for free for
00:18:44
Speaker
I mean, seven years for free, like I'm talking. And then I said to my husband, my now husband at the time, I said, well, you know what? I don't need to make money as long as I'm making a difference. And I think the money will come. If I just keep doing it, it'll come. And also, if I could get free beauty products, then I'm saving money. so you know So I just kept at it, even when I was getting rejection after rejection, and I was watching people around me really grow much faster than I was growing, and it was frustrating. and But there was something in my gut that was just, I have to keep doing this. And whether it was you know somebody sending me a DM saying, wow, I tried your makeup technique that I saw on YouTube today, and my husband told me I looked beautiful for the first time in a really long time, and I would be sobbing. you know I was like, I helped that. you know that happy yeah
00:19:32
Speaker
Then, you know, I did this and I continued and I started. And oh, the most important part of this story is that when I launched my blog in 2014, I was so focused on the blog and getting it started that I wasn't focused on the phone ringing. And literally as I was building the site, I got offered a movie. I had to stop. I had to go shoot the movie. And at that point I was like, oh, God, I got to go do this movie. And I can't, you know, so I started working a lot.
00:20:01
Speaker
because I wasn't focused on that. I was focused on something else. And so I allowed that space for for the other side to come in, right? And when I'd walk into rooms, I would be like, especially when ah when I started earning, you know, it was like, well, I don't need this. So it would be cool, but I don't need it. My soul needs it cre creatively. So yeah, so it just became became, it was just an interesting thing where I thought,
00:20:27
Speaker
all actors need something else.
Balancing Acting with Other Interests
00:20:30
Speaker
Because if they don't have that other thing, then it's a really miserable experience. Yeah, it's a more universal, I think, point than just actors in that, you know, you could be a salesperson. And once you make the sales call, and you're waiting for the client to make a decision, there are only so many times you can chase before you push away, right? You talk about that being desperate, or you're advocating for an idea in your company.
00:20:54
Speaker
And there's only so much you can push, and then certain things are out of your hands. And outside even the professional life, this generic concept of, look, we do a certain amount of work, and then that work to come to fruition needs time to germinate. like it's plant We planted the seeds, we watered it, but standing over it 24-7 is not necessarily going to make a difference.
00:21:18
Speaker
And yeah know this is like a mindset that you had when you were younger to have a look, you're you're probably not big enough to go hit people against the box and hockey. So then you have the mindset, OK, well, if I can't do that, what can I do? And let me go look what I can do and put my efforts and work there. And then you you did it again. But I think.
00:21:38
Speaker
It's important for the listeners to understand, even when you intellectually know that and you intellectually knew it at 12, we forget it at time. You get into this funk and you're you're held back and then you're like, wait a minute, I have this agency. I can control this. Do you have any daily kind of stress management mindfulness practices to try to keep you on kind of that keel to to not have to let it slip a week or a month, but say, okay, you know I can check in today and and get back there?
00:22:08
Speaker
Absolutely. I mean, meditation is key. I think daily ah so much so. Well, when you talk mindset, it's very easy to focus on negative things, obviously. Right. And when you go down that it really I could say for years, I was in this really negative, almost depressed state.
00:22:27
Speaker
because I wasn't where I wanted to be. And I didn't understand at the time that it's just the flip of a switch and the way you look at things and the way you perceive things that can change that reality so quickly, right? yeah And I think it was becoming a mother that really helped me learn this lesson because it changes everything, your purpose. And i so what's very important to me, I should say, is You know, I had a very hard childhood I mentioned and I didn't really have the tools on how to cope with what I was going through. I would see my mom at a very young age journaling and writing in a diary. So I had a very young age, started journaling and writing in a diary to get out my feelings and to figure out and to try and get past them. Right. Because living in it is the worst place to be. So you need to find. So I think from a very young age, I was always trying to get ah get away from that feeling of
00:23:23
Speaker
I don't know the word, but just sadness and anxiety and and depression and and fear and all of those things. And the only way to get out of it is to push through it. So what what are those tools? And so as a mother now, i I find it very important. My kids are very young. They're four and two. But my four-year-old and I, in the morning, we start every day with ah meditation. And meditation, what that means for for us is we go sit in the closet. I have you know red light in the closet. yeah put it on and we hold hands, we close our eyes, we take a couple deep breaths and we talk about, I have her describe what the most exciting thing is for her, what makes her the happiest, right? And so she'll describe it to me and then and then she'll talk about three things she's grateful for and it's usually me and you know the family, her dad and her sister. And and then so I put her
00:24:14
Speaker
in a happy so and and I'm trying to train her brain to in the morning focus on what are you most excited about today? What would make today perfect? What would make today amazing? Because I've learned the value of creating that mindset so that it's a habit, right? Because we know that negative thinking and positive thinking are habits, right? Yeah. So I try I'm trying to train her at such a young age to constantly focus on the good and so that she's she never has to sit in in these things. So if she's upset about something, well, what can we learn from that? What is positive from this? what How can we focus on the next thing that's ah like, how can we get your state happy? And part of that is like, close your eyes and think about something that makes you happy and you'll instantly change your state.
00:25:00
Speaker
and I tell her like all the time, feel these feelings, feel frustrated, feel angry, feel sad, and then let's find a way to shake it off and move on and learn from it. And I know some people might think, well, that's young, four is young, but I wish I had this at four. yeah you know I wish I had this kind of training because It is, you know, my husband is naturally he's from Hawaii. He his parents are like they've been married for 50 years. They are. His mom wakes up every morning and watches the dolphins on her lanai. And she's, you know, watching the whales. And life is just beautiful for them. You know, they've been in love for, you know, like I remember their 45th wedding anniversary was like 45 years. A marital bliss is what his dad said. And that's foreign to me. OK. I think that's completely foreign. Yeah. So he naturally was raised with this mindset. And so when we met and we were so opposite, because I would go to the negative and he would always, things would roll off his back and he would be very positive. I was trying to learn how to adapt that mindset or adopt that mindset. It's a tool. It's a tool to, yeah.
00:26:09
Speaker
guess I mean, it man, i I love what you're talking about that you do with your daughter. my My daughter will meditate with me, but just sit in my lap and we we look out over the ocean and we do that. But ah she's eight, but it's still kind of boring. Like i if we're not running, but to have that conversation, to to kind of set that I might say, do you use any apps or is it just the, the two of y'all because it doesn't remember their, their attention span is very short, right right? So it's really just the meditation with her. So I used to do, I mean, I do, I technically do TM, but I just have, it's been hard to really keep up with that with my schedule and my life. So we keep it very short. It's three minutes of we sit, we hold hands, we get ourselves into a happy state.
00:26:53
Speaker
Then we go outside barefoot in the grass and we do some grounding right and she understands like she asks for it all the time she said she says mom can we ground can we ground because she understands the.
00:27:04
Speaker
you know, the effect that it has. Yeah. So we do some grounding and then we, we, uh, we just started our own vegetable garden. So we go and we, we water our plants and our veggies to, and they're starting to, to, we're starting, you know, we have zucchinis now and the, and the tomatoes are coming in and it's such a cool thing for them. My two year old is a part of this too, to see you plant a seed and it doesn't happen right away.
00:27:28
Speaker
Right. It takes time. And then you watch that blossom and you have to be patient and let we know kids are not good with patient. They don't they want it now. Right. Right. So it's just, you know, we have our morning routine and, we you know, one thing we do is we, you know, we sit and we have breakfast all together. That's like one thing we're so blessed to think when one thing working from home that I get to do, which, you know, I couldn't do if I was on location shooting a movie, you know. Yeah. So we have our morning routine and that really helps me with to answer your question, keeping my mind set in ah in a really positive place. I do ah you know i do cold plunge. My husband and I are really into cold plunging right now. We don't have a cold plunge yet, but we do ice baths. So we'll run a bath in the morning and we'll we'll scream on top of our lungs as we jump in the ice bath.
00:28:17
Speaker
so you Do you have an ice maker? Do you load it with ice like we load it with ice? We usually get bags of ice and if we can't get enough ice from our our ice maker, we have to find a better way. ah We should probably just invest in a cold plunge at this point, but we wanted to make done too yeah we just wanted to make sure that it was something that it wasn't a phase and that we were going to actually keep up with it.
00:28:37
Speaker
It makes sense. Yeah. But that really instantly helps you. You want to talk about mindset. You need so much willpower and and so you have to be so, so mentally strong to sit, to to put your body through that. But the best part about doing something like that is you get in there and you say, this is the hardest thing I'm going to have to do all day. And then everything else just is easy, right? Right. Yeah. It's is running downhill after that. Right. You get over that. It's running downhill. Yeah. That's great. Yeah.
00:29:06
Speaker
You mentioned breakfast. and so nutritionally right you're You're someone who's clearly very, very thoughtful about whole health, but especially in nutrition. A lot of the content you share, it's around recipes, around nutrition. How do you think about that? We already said, hey, it can be a religion. How do you think about it? well It is a religion in my house.
00:29:25
Speaker
so much so that My children, my my greatest moment so far as a mom, might I should say my greatest win in this as a mother was my daughter and I were walking through Whole Foods and my daughter pointed at a ah like a pre-made cake or cupcake or something.
00:29:44
Speaker
And she said, hey, Mom, can you make that for me? And I said, of course I can. And she said, my mom is the best chef and she makes the healthiest things that are good for my body so I could still enjoy them. But they're good for my body. And I.
00:29:59
Speaker
started. I'm like, my job is done. That's it. yeah And, you know, I am not a chef. I need to make that very clear. When I met my husband, I did not know how to cut an onion. I did not know how to chop a piece of garlic. So let it be known that I would and continue to. I mean, look at the burn on my finger. That's from trying to make Tango the other day. So I am very clumsy. I am not. I never understood why people enjoyed cooking, because to me, it's like you spend all this time and then it's just like as an actor, you spend all this time working on a project and then it's on film forever. Right. As it as when you create, when you cook, you spend all of this time and then it's just gone and there's nothing to show for it. You have to go clean it up. And then you have to clean, which is the worst part. So I never really understood it until I was trying to get pregnant. It wasn't happening right away. So I've always been very mindful about my food. I've always been, like I mentioned as a kid, you know intuitively, I just like cleaner food. i have
00:31:00
Speaker
really weird allergies that are today is like thank god i have had these allergies because like to gluten and said i'm too busy stand so i unfortunately i'm allergic to red meat and i know there's a lot of positives to eating red meat but i've never been able to eat it my body just doesn't ah digest it.
00:31:18
Speaker
yeah But I and like I said, I naturally have never liked bubbly drinks or anything It just just worked out that way. So ah when I was trying to get pregnant, I Went down a rabbit hole because I didn't understand that You don't just get pregnant like sometimes it takes a couple of months, right? But because I we had waited I thought oh my god What if I miss the window? what if like What if I can't do this? What if I can't give this to my husband? what if you know I always just assumed when I was ready to get pregnant, I would just get pregnant. I didn't understand. So I went down this rabbit hole of
00:31:53
Speaker
understanding about fertility and understanding that as women, you don't get to choose the amount of eggs that you, you're born with the amount of eggs that you will ever have, but you can change your egg quality and your egg quality can be changed by your environment and by your diet. And so I started learning about everything that affects your endocrine system, which is leading me into my oils and why I started them because perfume,
00:32:20
Speaker
Perfume is toxic. um Synthetic fragrance is toxic and we don't realize how so many things like so many of our beauty products are loaded with chemicals, chemicals that get into our system and effect.
00:32:35
Speaker
our fertility, essentially, and affect our egg quality. Things like even you don't think about it. And I i went a little bit crazy. I'm not going to lie. Like I was a little too extreme where my husband at one point was like, you have to come back to the middle. Like this is just too much. Right. yeah But my feeling is I wanted a baby.
00:32:56
Speaker
yeah I was going to do everything in my power to make sure that I was doing everything I could to have that baby. And if it didn't happen, well, then that's our journey and we'll go on to the next step. But if I can control certain things that could potentially, you know, result in me, then I'm going to do it.
00:33:15
Speaker
me' That mindset over. right like you You have this purpose, and what's in my control? and I'm going to keep working. What's in my control? There you go. There you go. ah so I went through my house, and I got rid of every every plastic Tupperware. I stopped eating out because you don't realize that when you get that hot Chinese food, it's in plastic. and Then you're getting all that those chemicals, and you're eating. so I just started just doing all these things and understanding how you can change your egg quality.
00:33:40
Speaker
and started cooking and got pregnant, was like, oh my, now I have a child inside of me. I want to make sure I keep this pregnancy. Let me be really clean and and and conscious about what I'm putting in my body. So I started really just every, my meats, like everything had to be, you know,
00:34:01
Speaker
ethically sourced and no hormones, anti about like organic, everything, right? And then that sort of turned into, then I had the baby and now it's like, what am I, I was you know breastfeeding. It's like, what am I giving to my, and then the pandemic hit. So truly the cooking side of things and they started at that point where I, my husband was teaching me a lot of things too. My husband's mother, my mom are recipes from when I was a kid, but she lived in Montreal at the time. So, and it was a lot of trial and error. And I started a thing on yeah a series on YouTube called Kelly's kitchen. And it was really Kelly's kitchen. It's not Kelly's kitchen unless you break something, burn something or make a mess. And half the time it's me dropping things and burning things and ruining dishes. But then ultimately in the end, I get to the results. So it doesn't matter. There's a big lesson there in that.
00:34:49
Speaker
Same thing, it's a theme I think of what we're talking about is you might not get to the end the way you think or the way you hope, and it may be really messy, but eventually you get there and the result is great. And then to go back to what I didn't understand about cooking, where you ate it and then it was just gone, now I have a child who is gonna be eating the food that I make, so it's not gone, it's helping her grow.
00:35:16
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's literally in the cells of her body. It's building a human. Yes, yes. And so that's where my real passion for sharing this um because prior to this, um my content really took a turn. It used to be very fashion beauty. um And I'm not going to lie, I find fashion is helpful for so for some people, but I found it very it wasn't for me because not to say that I won't do fashion, but I just don't I don't.
00:35:44
Speaker
want to put out content that's like, look at me and how good I look and look at what I could afford, especially today. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, I want people to come to my account and feel good and not only feel good, feel like, wow, I could do that. oh wow And that's it. That's the thing. You're not just modeling, but providing the map, the roadmap of saying, hey, to live well,
00:36:09
Speaker
Here's how it can be done here. And here's the recipes. Here's the the pieces to put in place. yeah And I think the things that people don't realize is and I'm I'm 100 percent the example of this prior to this journey. I was prior to understanding that I had an allergy to gluten and prior to understanding how certain foods can affect you.
00:36:31
Speaker
I was tired all the time. like I had no energy. yeah I was just always lethargic. and Then I met an acupuncturist who didn't tell me that I was not going to be eating gluten. She just put me on a diet to help balance my hormones.
00:36:46
Speaker
and But slowly I started, I said, Oh my God, I have all this energy. My skin is clearing up. And I said, Oh wow. And then I went to the allergist and found out that I, in fact, I'm allergic to gluten. And so doing this, I feel like on social media is help understanding that just because you're eating clean, just because you're not eating inflammatory oils, just because you aren't eating the gluten doesn't mean you can't enjoy everything.
00:37:10
Speaker
And not only can you enjoy it and make it, which goes back to what my daughter said, like, can you make this? You can make it but make it better, but you'll feel good and you'll have energy. And and and you just it's like a feeling of accomplishment, too. And some people say, oh, I don't really have time to to do it. Well, guess what? You're going to have more time and energy when you're putting the good fuel into your body. That's 100 percent true on the the energy you put in is the energy you can get out. And so many people. And that's a big part of the show and what we're doing.
00:37:41
Speaker
If every day you're operating at 40% or even 60%, you don't know that. but you did i've I've had friends. you know I was talking to a guest just the other day that had an allergy and didn't realize. And then it's like a light switch and saying, wait, I was in my 20s. Why am I low energy? What is going on? And then made these changes. Wow. you know My life is now in technicolor. I was living in black and white before, but now it's so different.
00:38:08
Speaker
And it can seem a little proselytizing, a little bit religious. But when when you have that insight and that breakthrough personally, you want to help people. ah that's This is your purpose. right This is from the beginning. This is my purpose, to help people. How do I show them what's possible? And with your content, with the story you're telling, you're absolutely doing it.
Sharing Product Recommendations on TikTok
00:38:30
Speaker
Sorry, can I add one quick thing to that? so My TikTok is mainly beauty and food and wellness. right On TikTok, I share so many products. right and The reason I share these products is because they changed my life in some way. And some people think, well, how could you get excited about that? It's like, if this has changed my life in some way, I need it to change your life in some way. So here's and here's a way for you right here. TikTok shop is a brand new thing. um And so it's the best thing ever because
00:39:03
Speaker
You are basically doing what I do on you know sharing information, but you don't have to click out to... to sort It's sort of like what you're doing, which is amazing. You don't have to go to exterior. you just The link is right there and you shop within the app. And it's the best thing for me because now I get to share all my secrets, all the things I've learned over the years being and being on set, all the things that are helping me, ah whether it's makeup or clean makeup,
00:39:24
Speaker
maybe it's not 100% clean, but it does this, you know, um it's just a place for me to be able to share it and for people to be able to get it immediately. So yeah that's super exciting about what I'm doing on TikTok right now.
00:39:35
Speaker
and get the story behind it, right? like So much is the why behind this to say, hey, is this maybe relevant to me or not? Right. So with the the food, because you're eating very much whole foods and getting a lot of the nutrients there, do you find you have a need for supplementation? Do you take anything outside of just meals to say, hey, I need to top up on these things? I do. I do. I think certain supplements, we actually unfortunately can't get some certain, you know, minerals we can't really get from our food anymore, unfortunately. So I do, I do supplement. I, I take, um, so I'm a big fan of symbiotica. <unk>tica I take, um, there, I take a lot of supplements from them. I take their vitamin C, I take D three K two, I take a glutathione from them. I take, they have a mushroom blend. I drink their matcha.
00:40:25
Speaker
I think that they're very clean, and um I'm just a very big fan of of of their products, and as the owner, the founder, Chirvin. turin i'm not going to pronounce that pronouncing it, but he um his his purpose and his why. and so I love what he's putting out. It's very similar to the way I do my oils and why. so ah so I'm a big fan of that. um I also take Armora colostrum, which I find is a really important supplement. and I only learned this because I breastfed for four years.
00:40:55
Speaker
yeah I was like, breast milk is everything. So colostrum is very powerful and it's great for the gut and it's great for overall wellness and immunity and all that. And yeah, I take ah chlorella. I do. I supplement. I take put them in. I take you know just certain things that I'll put in smoothies or you know I take in the morning that I feel like just complete everything.
00:41:18
Speaker
Yeah. Do you do extra protein in your smoothies? I do. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. um I do use this in Biotica protein powder. I also like Four Sigmatic because they have a mushroom. Yeah. I like them. And they also sweeten with monk fruit. So I'm not a big fan of Stevia or any of the, you know, those kinds of sweeteners. Okay. um So those are the two that I've been really, you you know, rotating between.
00:41:42
Speaker
Yeah. You you mentioned the symbiotic, his why and purpose, very similar to what you're doing with the essential oils, Madison Charles. Can can you say more about that and the use cases for essential oils, how people can incorporate that? yeah So when I was on my journey, I had gotten into essential oils, funny enough, actually on the movie that I told you about at the beginning of this conversation, the one that I was like, eh, whatever, you know, I could take it or leave it. It actually changed my whole life because I got onto the set of that film and my co-star and I got sick. We caught something on the plane and my makeup artist happened to be an aromatherapist and I was never into essential oils. before. I didn't even know what they were and I didn't understand it. And so so she started feeding us all these essential oils and we were able to make it through night shoots, whereas I would normally be curled up in bed. I, it was helping my symptoms. So, and then, you know, my skin was a problem at the time. So she started giving me advice on how to use essential oils for my skin and she just started guiding me. And I thought, okay, this is pretty cool. That same, same time I flew back to LA, I got off the plane and I,
00:42:51
Speaker
my drive, you know, production gets you a driver. So my driver was this beautiful older man. And I said, Oh, gosh, I had i have a headache. He said, How's your flight? I said, Oh, it's okay. I had have a headache. And he said, Oh, I have this beautiful French lavender oil that I think that you should smell and it's going to help your headache. And at this point, I literally went on Instagram to show people that my driver was making me sniff something in case something happened to me. like since heavy since i yeah um so And I said, oh wow, this is weird because it actually did help. Lavender is not known to help headaches, but for some reason it calmed me and it did help me. And I said, that's for my daughter, Lavender is her go-to. Yes.
00:43:35
Speaker
And so I said, okay, this is weird. This is twice that i'm you know I maybe should pay attention to this. And then I got back and my sister-in-law, who's a yoga and Ayurvedic specialist, had mentioned that she's getting into essential oils. And I said, okay, this is something obviously I need to pay attention to. What is going on? And at first, I was actually very resistant to it. And I thought,
00:43:55
Speaker
how what could they you know I was skeptical, like a lot of my actual you know my fan base was very skeptical in the beginning, too. and I started using them. and All of a sudden, I was like, I'm going to become a little chemist. and I started putting these blends together. and I'd have family and friends come over. and you know My brother-in-law came over with allergies. He was allergic to the dogs. and I put this blend together, which is now our Breathe Roller.
00:44:20
Speaker
And I said, just roll this all over you. 10 minutes later, I looked at him and I said, how are your allergies? Completely stopped the attack. wow Or, you know, my mom has chronic pain in her ankle. And we made a blend for that for pain, which is now our massage oil. yeah And um the thing about essential oil, so knowing that fragrance was so toxic, my goal was, hey,
00:44:45
Speaker
let me launch this for my small community of people on my blog. and If it helps one person, then I've done my job. so Initially, the idea was let me launch clean, non-toxic perfumes that also have therapeutic benefits.
00:45:01
Speaker
So, hey guys, let's ditch our perfumes because they're toxic. Let's use these rollers that smell amazing. But guess what? Also, you're going to have less anxiety. Or also, you're going to sleep better. Or also, it's going to help with your allergies. And so, we had five main oils that we decided to launch with. And it just so happened that I had made a blend, or my sister-in-law made me a blend for to balance your hormones for fertility.
00:45:25
Speaker
And I just so happened to get pregnant two months after I was using that oil, right? yeah And we launched January, or sorry, we launched December of 2018, but I got pregnant, you know, end of December, right? So as I launched in January, I was pregnant with my first child, right? So this was like,
00:45:45
Speaker
wow, I've been doing all of this stuff. I've been using these oils. I've been eating like this. I've been doing, I've been cleaning everything up and now my miracle is here, right? yeah So I was like, I have to share this with the, like whoever will listen. Like I said, if it's one person and I can change their life, great. So let me just make it available thinking nobody would, nobody would buy it, right?
00:46:05
Speaker
We sold out, thanks to, again, my soap fans at the time. um First run, we were we were out and I was shocked. And then there were a lot of skeptical people, but then as they used it and the feedback started coming in and people were like, this is changing my life.
00:46:23
Speaker
and The thing that people don't understand, I think, about essential oils and for anyone skeptical is this is what we as humans used for medicine for thousands and thousands go back to ancient egypt like thousands of years. Essential oils were what we used. right and The way they work is they get into your cells because our skin is our largest organ. right so And through the through this through sense, like there's actual for for the science-based people, there's actual scientific evidence now that when you do inhale essential oils, it does do something to the brain. um My uncle is a very, very, very Western doctor, and he's the one who sent me the article, because he needs that science, right? Right. right
00:47:05
Speaker
um as do many people. um And so it does through the sense of smell, but also through your largest organ, it is absorbed into your cells and it starts to do what it needs to do from the inside. So the same way that bad ingredients get into your cells and can wreak havoc, the good ingredients are getting in and causing beautiful things to happen.
00:47:29
Speaker
That's amazing. i mean I just can't help but come back to this this narrative arc that you may play on screen for others, but it very much when you talk to the culmination of your pregnancy as this is all coming together, it is your narrative arc of these are the challenges. Here's here are the tools. Here's the the map that I use to the extent it can be helpful to others in sharing that.
00:47:47
Speaker
Now with a two year old and a four year old and everything you have going on, what does your sleep routine look like? Okay, that's an area I need to work on for sure. Because I do a lot of things during the day and I work around the clock because when my work day is over, I'm with my kids and then when my kids go to sleep, I'm back to work, unfortunately. um But because I'm wearing so many hats and doing so many things, my mantra is I'll sleep when I'm old.
00:48:17
Speaker
Now, the other side to that is Sleep is so important for your mental health, for your wellbeing, for your physical wellbeing. for your So it's something that it's the one pillar I feel like that needs a lot of work. um I put my kids to bed, my husband and I take about an hour to sort of like do our own thing and decompress after the day. And then we come together and we have our time and that's usually around, you know, 839 o'clock. So we have that time from about, and you know, 839 to about 11.
00:48:48
Speaker
When I should go to bed, he goes to bed at 11 and he's always between 10 30 and 11. He's like, babe, we've got to go to bed. And I'm like, hey yeah, I'm coming. I'm coming. I'll be there in a second. And then two hours go by and because I'm editing or I do everything myself. Right. um So it's hard for me to delegate. There's certain things, of course, with my business that are delegated out. I can't do. I'm not good with numbers. I'm not good with certain things that but when it comes to the creative, I need to do it myself. So I'm editing. I'm, you know, finishing up certain things that I have to do. And then I need to just
00:49:22
Speaker
decompress, so I need to read a little bit. I need to like, turn off I can't. So, and then I finally go to bed. um And, you know, my four year old, both kids actually this morning, it was 6am and they were ready to start the day. And, you know, it is what it is. But I have to I have to work on that. I have to set an alarm at 9pm, put my phone away, put everything away and go to bed with my husband at, you know, 1030. Yeah.
00:49:47
Speaker
Yeah, i it does make me a little sad when when you just said that, because it is so important. I used to think the same. And then you start seeing the research of a single night's bad sleep and what the precursors to Alzheimer's, how they all start showing up her and that, no, we can't actually wait till then we really have to do it now. And you know, my my husband, we used to call it mom brain because he would mention how spacey I am sometimes, you know, and i would i'm I'm just tired and it would just come from, you know,
00:50:17
Speaker
your, my brain is constantly in mom or my kids. Okay. What do I need to do for my kids? What do I need to do for my marriage? What do I need to do for Madison Charles? What do I need to do for my Tik TOK content? My Instagram content? What am I doing for this? Like it's constantly, there's just so much that I do in a day. So it's really hard to sometimes, you know, just super like be president. That's where the meditation comes in and then workouts.
00:50:43
Speaker
Yeah, so the workouts, i it seems almost unfair to SS now after we discovered everything else. But on the fitness side, like what does that look like? Because obviously, that's this huge pillar of health. Huge. And that's always been my thing. I was in the gym at 12 with my mom. shes Like I said, she's always been into fitness. And so working out, and that's another thing that I really implement with my kids. Every day, they start their day after breakfast with movement.
00:51:07
Speaker
So no matter what, they are either outside or we're doing something or we're jumping up, bouncing, you know, on the trampoline. We're doing something because the movement, I want them trained. You get up, you do your thing, you work out because that has been my savior over these years in terms of mental health. So I would try to work out every day. It doesn't always happen. ah That could look like, um you know,
00:51:29
Speaker
walking on the treadmill, going on the elliptical, taking my dog for a long walk in the neighborhood, taking the kids. um But two to three times a week, I do Lagree, which is a high intensity, low impact workout. I have my my machine in here. I do it on Zoom. with um I've been working with Lagree for a year and a half almost yeah it's a year and a half now. It is um the type of workout that is the only time my brain shuts off.
00:51:54
Speaker
My brain shuts off and focuses on what I'm doing because every movement is so, ah you have to really put, it's a mind-body connection. And so I'm addicted to that because it's the one time that I'm not thinking about anything else and I'm doing it for me and you're building lean muscle, you're getting cardio, believe it or not, even though the movements are very slow, it's low impact, but the intensity is high, I'm sweating and I feel amazing. So,
00:52:20
Speaker
Yeah. that's what's fitness But I mean, when, when you're in that state, that's also meditative, right? Like that is a very, fitness can be the stress management, stress reliever as well. Yes. Okay. Yeah. I'll have to check out. And then sometimes I do look great. Oh my gosh, you're gonna, if you're, yeah I have to, like, we need to talk about this off, off air too, because it's, it's a game changer. It's complete game changer.
00:52:41
Speaker
um And also I do Peloton. Sometimes I'll do um some spin if I really need my head to, if I want to really like sweat and get, you know, but I don't love high, high, and like super, super, like things that are really hard on the body in that way. You know, I feel like high intensity workouts like that can sometimes be very stressful, especially for women, you know, can affect your hormones in a negative way, but sometimes in a positive way.
00:53:05
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, where you are in your cycle, everything, if you got to be mindful of all that. Yeah. Wow. Before we jumped in, I was saying, I get overwhelmed just talking about all the different things that you do and are doing. And I'm no less overwhelmed having heard how you pull it all together. Kelly, it it is amazing to see someone so authentically living and sharing her purpose.
00:53:34
Speaker
in multiple different avenues. And i just I can't thank you enough for coming on our show and and sharing this with our listeners today. Thank you so much. I love what you're doing very much. Thank you. Thank you for joining us on today's episode of the Home of Health Span podcast. And remember, you can always find the products, practices, and routines mentioned by today's guests, as well as many other healthspan role models on the lively.com. Enjoy day.