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Welcome to The Fire Inside Her, the podcast where we explore the incredible stories of individuals who have discovered their inner fire on their journey to authenticity. I'm your host, Diane Schroeder, and I am so grateful that you are here. Hi, friend. I was so inspired to talk with today's guest, and I know you will be too. Christina is a badass whose journey and navigating life's transitions is an inspirational story of true resilience and courage. From overcoming a traumatic brain injury to fighting through chronic pain and mental health battles, her story embodies the warrior spirit. Christina is turning her pain into purpose with her company, The day company, encouraging others to live in the present and find that day, touching on the often overlooked warning signs of mental health struggles. Christina advocates for a world where being unapologetically authentic isn't shunned but celebrated.

I'm telling you, she's my type of gal. So get ready as we dive into Christina's passionate pledge for kindness, her path to sobriety, and how her daily rituals help maintain her well-being. This episode is gonna tug at your heartstrings. With a military background, Christina brings resilience and passion to her ventures. She's a coffee entrepreneur and mental health advocate dedicated to positive change. I'm so grateful Christina sent me a bag of her coffee, and it was amazing. And if you know me at all, you know that I love my coffee in the morning, so you should definitely check out her shop. And one more thing, if you are new to this podcast, thank you for listening.

I'm excited to have you here, and welcome to this incredible container Her guests share their inspiring stories of how they navigate the bumps in life with authenticity, community, and self care. If you're looking for more about The fire inside her, I invite you to sign up for my mostly regular emails that are full of wisdom, humor, and additional tools to help you when life gets bumpy. Head on over to the Fire Inside her.comforward/list. And without further ado, I welcome Christina to the show. Alright. Well, hello, fiery souls. Today, I'm really excited to chat with Christina Loyola, who is a badass and has dedicated her life to empowering women and having hard conversations and really bringing forth awareness to mental health, and I'm really excited from her military background, my fire background. I'm expecting a pretty good conversation.

So, Christina, welcome.

Thank you. Thank you. I'm super excited to be here.

I am really excited as well. And my question that I wanna know is, when you sleep at night, do you sleep with your door closed or open?

I sleep with everything open except for my front door.

Okay. Alright. I like it. I like to ask that question because I am obsessed about keeping everything shut and the exact opposite.

So I used to be. It's funny, you know, The ghost behind the door, like The shadows. But with my disabilities and my trouble transitioning from darkness to little light, it's easier for me to just have everything open so I can just walk with my eyes closed.

That completely makes sense. Well, thank you. Alright. So I want to first start with coffee because I absolutely love coffee. It is the nectar of the gods, in my opinion. And even though I have started to drink cacao more frequently, I still need my morning coffee. So can you tell me and tell my listeners a little bit about coffee and your journey and how it all got started.

So I do everything backwards. So I read books backwards, you know, things like that. So I'm gonna tell you the end of the story. I know very little about coffee. So now that you know that, I have always wanted to open my own business since I was a little Fire. And then my aunt wanted to open a cafe when I was in my late teens. Never did. And then 2 years ago, I was like, you know what? I think it's time for me to open my own cafe.

And then I was like, don't even drink coffee. So, like, I know absolutely nothing about coffee. My boyfriend tells me that I make horrible coffee. I measure the and it's the The, like, there's a line because I just can't even with a Keurig. Like, not really good at it. So I decided that I was gonna open my own cafe. I don't really know that much about coffee, so I went to my military background with logistics, and I love finding ways to connect all the dots. And I found an amazing company out in California.

I'm in Pennsylvania. They're called Tamika. They're in California, and they are one of the only companies that I found cost efficient, sustainable, organic options. They offer me over 40 blends, different bags, different sizes. I'm actually a wholesaler and a retailer. And as my own company, I then started another sub company with my coffee, and I'm threatening and coming up with a service called Fruit and Charm to help disabled people be able to continue working at their own leisure and be able to use coffee to change the world with mental health, disability, and gourmet coffee. So that's what I know about coffee.

Thank you for sharing that. And yet you can go on and order, like, empowering positive messaging and send, like, a pound of coffee to someone with a, hey. I got you or I love you. Right?

So, literally, the brewing charm is going to be where you can either bag your own coffee. Like, that's what I told you I was building something. I am building the prototype and the blueprints that I'm drawing out of my head. The coffee will dispense. You can pick a 4 ounce, an 8 ounce, or 16 ounce. Then you can pick a charm that will be engraved. This one is a special prototype, but they'll be wood. Or you can put it inside in a food state so that you can give a bag and they won't even know that there's a charm Inside.

And you can customize the front label. So taking sustainable coffee, organic, non natural coffee, and turning it into an exceptional gift.

What a fantastic idea. So tell us a little bit more about you and your journey and how you got to where you are right here, right now, today.

I got to where I am today because I was told my whole life I wasn't good enough, and I fought every day to be good enough for just anybody. And then a lot of trauma happened throughout my life Her and there and everywhere, which led me to join the military to get out of unfortunate relationship. And I fell in basic training 2 weeks into it. And it's the obstacle course, and I wasn't gonna tell them I got hurt. So I finished in the top ten. I don't remember anything. Couple weeks later, we jumped out of a Fire ton, and I collapsed. Fully loaded, collapsed, still in basic training, pretending like I'm not in pain.

So after that pain was confined, they realized that my cognitive was going. I started showing signs of dementia. I couldn't be awake for certain amount of hours. I was in speech therapy, physical therapy. I couldn't brush my own like, things were going sideways very quickly. My doctor had asked me if I had ever hit my head. And I was like, no. I think I would remember if I ever hit my head.

That is a beautiful answer, and, oh my god. You're a badass, first of all. Like, that resiliency, that perseverance is impressive, and I'm really grateful that you were able to figure it out and get some answers because I can only imagine that's kind of helped give you some clarity and understanding and, like, oh, that makes sense.

A lot of things make sense. I live in a separate house The my entire family. That's how much things make more sense now to me because of the colors on the wall or I have to change the furniture. I don't have living room furniture. All my lights are soft. Everything is shoulder level. If the wall and the door are the same color, sometimes I can't identify that.

Wow. And now that you've understand that you've healed your TBI and the trauma from, specifically, the physical trauma from the fall and basic training, has that given you a different perspective of, okay, that does make sense, and now you're learning how to work within the boundaries of your body now in your brain. Has it given some sense of freedom to you?

So much. A lot of things when I was going through the diagnosis, and then after the diagnosis, I had another health hiccup. I call them health hiccups because I don't know what to call them because they're they're not strokes, but they're Fire health hiccups. So it was a £165, and I lost £20 in 2 weeks. And then I kept losing weight rapidly. I would sweat £5 a night. Like, I was a £165. Now I'm a 107, but I work out.

I have a trainer with an eating disorder. So there was a lot of things that went sideways, but then everything started going good again. And then I had a health lift last January, which took all of my motor skills for a month and a half. It took me a month and a half to get them back. We actually applied for home health aid, health home health care because I was choking on air. Couldn't, like, do 2 things at once, and I had questionable brain scans. But then they said everything was fine, so I started running marathon.

Wow. So that's I might die. I need to run a marathon. Is that worth at?

So I didn't even run a marathon. I'm now I'm working towards hopefully running a marathon one day, but, like, I couldn't even walk 5 steps. And last year, I was so determined. I would get up 4 o'clock every morning. So I would go outside with my cane, and I would try to walk down my driveway, and then I would come home, take a nap. The next day, I would do more. And I kept challenging myself to the point where I was power walking faster than most people were running. So by the time I had been driving for 2 weeks, I was able to physically drive for about 2 weeks when I did my Fire 5 k as a power walker.

And then 2 weeks later, I did my Fire half marathon as a power walker, And I was like, you know what? I don't need a power walk anymore. I'm gonna start running. So I got a personal trainer that is beyond amazing. I'm sure, you know, being a firefighter and having to work out in different things, not all personal trainers are educated fully on health conditions and how to properly care for them. My personal trainer and The life care person, he's been a physical therapist. He's done all the things. So me being so wonky with all of the ranges of things, he's he's made me mobile. I'm still in shock about a lot of things.

I wrote the Diane on my whiteboard because I have a whiteboard so that I can keep track of things. When I looked at, like, I was diagnosed in 22, 20 3, it was really hard, but I filed my LLC. I Fire the odds of, you know, having questionable heart failure scans and stuff and peri ventricle white matter changes on my brain. Like, all these crazy things. And we're just in 24, and I feel like 23 was so many years in The. I wrote those years before we started the podcast. That's crazy.

Right. So you've taken the diagnosis, and it's not just, you know, the physical challenges that you are crushing. You finished your college degree. You've also gotten a lot of certifications when it comes to mental health, specifically around suicide Diane youth. So can you tell my listeners a little bit about that and why?

This one's a hard one. So this March, it'll be 7 years since my mom took her life. She, struggled with mental health since before I was born. I took care of my mom's mom who Her dementia, so I learned a little bit about my mom, and she had been trying to take her life since she was a toddler. Turned out she was bipolar 1, not bipolar 2. So there was a lot of things along the way, and she was older, the misdiagnosis. So that's always been something that was we didn't know about. But when I first remember my dad calling and telling me my mom had tried, And she was in the ICU, and we didn't know she was gonna wake up.

And she took over 300 Diane something pills, and she drank, which she never drank. And I just remember all the things that fell from The, like Her denial. She wrote letters. All the things. The way that it affected the family, the way that the family then treated Her, all the things that I wish I would have been kinder. So I took that, and I took all of the trauma I've been through, all of the mistreatment I've been through, and I decided to start getting educated from a different perspective. I go to therapy. I do all the things.

I know firsthand from somebody that wakes up every day and fights the major depression and the OCDs and all the things. I wanna also be able to take my trauma and teach others how to be kind to themself first and to others. I wanna create a world where customer service is old school again, and it can be the new school where we care about each other and we're not just angry. So with my ruined charm, like I said, it is for it is I'm literally building it, like, hinge by hinge. And the homes you the one guy was like, do you have a job here? Like, I feel like you've been here. I said, I'm working on a project again. I said, I'm building a car. I said, and I have to make it handicap friendly because not all the time can I pick up things? I said, and I wanna create a cart that all the people that have a car will be educated and be a trainer as well.

So I wanna become certified so I can start training my employees to have the mental health first aid so that they can have the understanding and the compassion that they deserve as well. Not everybody is angry at you. Some people are just projecting.

Thank you for being so vulnerable and open to that and sharing the story. I can't even imagine how hard that experience was for you. And I just wanna say, I think that is such a beautiful way to honor your mom and attribute to her and to express and help and give voice to those who can't? Because I do think we, as a society, are not kind in general anymore. We've lost our north star of being kind, compassionate humans. And especially when people struggle, it becomes a lot of judgment. It becomes a lot of working your stuff out on someone else, and that is the last thing anyone who's struggling needs. My hat's off to you. I admire you so much for taking on such a ambitious and much needed endeavor.

Thank you. I don't know if I said it, but the name of my company is called The Day Company. Because someday, I was gonna own my own business, and that day has come. And I'm on a mission to help others find The that day too. My boyfriend actually helped me pick the name because I was gonna do someday. But, ironically, somebody had that idea in Pennsylvania and registered Someday Cafe and Someday Roastery. So I was like, oh, well, I can't have that. So that day finally came for The, and my boyfriend was like, that day.

That day has come. You can Her others find it that day. So that someday, you can stop dreaming. You Diane actually live in the moment.

Well and I think the other beauty of your name of the name of the company that day, because not everyone gets that day because of choices, circumstances, whatever. Life is precious, and it is not nearly long enough. And for people who've not been impacted by suicide or the loss of a loved one or someone struggling with mental health, it might be hard to wrap their brain around just the ripple effect that has within a family structure or system, you know, within your tribe and community. It's just such a empowering I love it. I just so well done, and I wish you nothing but success for that because I think it's just so important. And I love your determination to, you know, just do it and do it on your own and with your own hands. There's something very beautiful about building something yourself. Would you agree?

Oh, yeah. When this prototype is done, my goal is to have people sponsor the idea so that I can then create another one to hire somebody that could benefit from it. But yes. No. I literally am blueprint hinges 3.2, the details, because I want to make it a like, you go to Home Depot and you can buy a shed in a box. Like, they'll just deliver it in with The that's what I want this card to be. I want you to be able to just have the basics and paint it how you want, do all the things, and then, you know, just go and just Diane live your life. Just do whatever you want.

Whatever. Like, it's your cart. Sell coffee, crochet, sew, you know, blow, relax, whatever you want. It's your cart. It's your charm. Bring your charm to the card.

What a great and so innovative. I just think that's fantastic. So what would you say to my listeners when it comes to the the mental health? You know, I think being a first responder and seeing, I think, the other Inside. You know, we respond after the tragedy has happened or when someone is in crisis and needs additional resources and can't handle what's going on themselves. But from your perspective on the other side of that, what would you tell people? Like, are some indicators or warning signs of, you know what? Engage or ask you know, maybe try to get help for a loved one. And like you said, it's not just that they're mad at you. They could be projecting because they're struggling.

Yes. The obvious ones are somebody detaching, somebody being closed off. Oftentimes, people don't realize when people start giving things away. We tend to forget things, especially nowadays because people sell things so easily on marketplace. You don't really pick up the cues on people getting rid of things. Everybody's struggling financially. So it's easier to hide what would seem normal underneath The thing. So just make sure that you are paying attention to if you have a concern for somebody, look a little closer.

Don't look at the surface. Look at the actions. Look at how they're riding. Look at how they're holding their cup, how they're walking. You can tell a lot by somebody by just their demeanor because an attitude is an attitude. That's like trying to understand The text message with an exclamation mark, but they really meant I'm having a bad day. But they put I'm having a bad day, and you're like, I'm confused. So a lot of people put on the mask.

So with my disability of having a TBI and all that, my sensory I have a lot of sensory issues. So I tend to watch how people act and how they move. When people slow down and the world is moving around them, there's something. Like, they they're glued. Their legs are, like, weighing them down. They're feeling that hopelessness. I would just look at them as a person.

Thank you for that. And is it better to be direct and just ask questions or, you know, like, hey. I'm really concerned about you. What's the best way to kind of approach, I guess, is my question?

So that's why I decided to take all these trainings because the verbiage is very important. If you start poking at somebody, you could do more damage. But being direct is the best way to be. You know? Are you thinking about taking your life? Are you thinking about cutting yourself? Are you thinking about and start The, not, oh, did you or you're not going to. Don't joke. If you joke, then they tend to think that you're not taking them seriously. So try not to joke. Be very direct.

Offer guidance and suggestions when when asked, and don't put your scenario in theirs. Right? Then they need to be seen. They need to be heard. It needs to be all about them. They are in a crisis whether they know it or not, so it's all about them. If you're at that point and, you know, you can engage, Make sure your surroundings are safe. But, yeah, be direct because that's what they need. They need to be seen.

Thank you for that very important tip and advice and direction because I agree. It's it's easier to be direct. And if you're uncomfortable being direct, that's a you thing, not the person in crisis thing. So if you wanna be helpful, then you have to be all in to be helpful and not make it about you. I love that advice. So switching gears a little bit, how has all of your life experiences, the trauma, the recovery, the TBI, the challenges you have faced, how has that set you up for your journey to becoming your most authentic self?

My life has taught me that I am wild, free, and crazy, and it's The Her asked in all the things, and I don't have to hide any aspect of it. If I'm too much for somebody else, guess what? I'm too much for somebody else Diane I don't hear back from them. If I'm too much, I warn you. I tell everybody I am a lot right off the bat. I warn everybody. You can either take it or leave it.

And by embracing yourself and stop and no longer hiding and just being your genuine authentic self, have you found that your community has changed, and you're now surrounded by those that you probably should have always been around, and maybe the people that aren't as supportive are just no longer in your your life or your community?

Yes. I didn't have an active drinking problem when I had my last binge, I guess you would call it. So I've been sober a little over a year and a half, which changed my entire community. I didn't go to bars before that, and I only drank, like, twice a year. But I come from a family of drug addicts and alcoholics, and I did have, you know, a problem. So I stopped hanging around very depressed people. And I started hanging around the people I wanted to be. And it changed my life.

There's a lady. Her her name is Christina too. And last year, we both were on The, which is a fancy restaurant here in PA. And she was The, and I was like, I feel so out of place. And and she looked at me, and she was like, me too. I was like, you? I'm intimidated by you, and I feel this place. And you're telling me you feel this place same place I feel this place. I was like, oh, it's okay to just be.

Like, everybody's scared of everything. Like, everything. They just don't talk about it. So it was nice The to have somebody that I was looking up to be like, no. I I feel exactly how you do. So it really validated where I was in my life and where I needed to continue to be.

Well and I'm sure you felt seen.

Yes.

And I think that's important to recognize as well that it's not just you know, people wanna be seen and and heard and valued and exposed and not, like, expose, like, you know, inappropriately. But to expose yourself and be vulnerable is scary because you're showing people your your underbelly. And I I have found that the more genuine and authentic that I am, that when I have conversations with people who are in Fire minded, it's always a safe and beautiful conversation, but it takes time to get there.

In person, I get a lot of, that wall falls really quick when people around me because, unfortunately, unfortunately, I experienced a lot of different trauma. So I can relate to different aspects of things. So I recently have been reached out to when people that I haven't talked to in a while. Anybody loses somebody or somebody loses somebody to suicide. In the last 6 months, I've actually had people that were like, I know that you're certified, Fire, and you you couldn't help me with this. I don't know how to grieve. And I was like, well, there is no way. Like, there's no right way.

However you feel, that's the right way. And it could be different tomorrow. That's been very, again, validating that I'm I'm being who I'm supposed to be. You know, I go to a lot of funerals. It's something that I'm comfortable doing, so I always tend to be the person that somebody reaches out to when they lose somebody. But I have a lot of the cards. I don't have them all in one spot. So every once in a while, one will fall out of somewhere, and I'll reach out to that person.

And it's thinking of you or whatnot, and it happens to be just at the right moment. So I try to be, you know, that person.

That's a gift. So you are a gift to those whose orbit you're in Fire sure. And because this is not a light topic by any stretch of the imagination, The is hard, and it's hard work, and it's hard to absorb that energy from everyone else. How do you take time for yourself, and what do you do to make sure that you're in a good space and that your whole, you know, daily, what's your self care routine look like?

So I take a lot of pauses. I am an entrepreneur, and I just finished school, but I just pause. I just stop everything if it becomes too much. Right now, to keep going with my business in time for launch. I've given up control of the house, finances, and being in charge of all major decisions even within my own company. You know, make sure that I'm talking to somebody because I'm having an OCD manic episode, so I'm spending a lot and I'm not fully thinking things through. But the way that I keep myself level is I wake up at 4 AM, Sunday through Saturday, and I try to go to bed by 6:30 to 8 every night. And I have a whiteboard that's literally by my front door that says, ginger and lemon tea, vitamins, walk, run, or workout, learn, breathe, take care of the cats, vacuum.

I wanted to improve my Fire skin care thing. So this year, I added wash your face and your emails and do the dish I just have a checklist so that I like lists, so I like to check them. So every morning, I make sure I do my list, and that's that's how I know when I'm doing good or not and when I need to ask for help when my list isn't being done.

Thank you again for sharing. This has been an extremely vulnerable conversation, and I just am I'm very honored to have this space with you because I think there are a lot of people, and some people are probably listening right now that can really relate and resonate, and you're giving story and language and voice to how you are thriving in life. And it might not be easy every day, and yet you know what boundaries that you have, and you can stop The, and you also know to ask for help. So I just again, I admire all that you're doing, and I just think you are gonna change the world. There's no doubt in my mind.

Thank you. I don't want people to feel how I felt for so many years. And now that I understand things, it's a secret that's, like, been revealed to me, and I just need to share it with everybody. Like, you can be completely broken and be completely successful at the same time. You don't have to have your ducks in a row to get a dog. Like, you know what I mean? You can walk your dog and have your ducks over here swimming in the pond. Like, as long as you have discipline, I have my routine. My routine is what keeps me level.

And that's my pedometer or, you know, thing that tells me when when I'm a little too wild and free.

I love that. I love wild and free, and I think that more of us in the world need to embrace our wildness and be free and live authentically. So, Christina, thank you so much for sharing. And how can my listeners find you and find that day? And I will link all of your stuff in the show notes, but is there anything you'd like to add with that?

Most of my handles are The day company. My website is that day company.com. I'm on almost every platform that you can think of. And just for everybody listening, I challenge you to see the small ripple effect that you will not see, that will go far beyond your lifetime. I challenge you to find something that'll be a ripple that won't change in your lifetime, but will make a difference in somebody else's.

That's a mic drop. I I can't agree more. So thank you for your amazing words of wisdom and your story, and I'm so grateful. And I will make sure, again, check out her website, check out the coffee, and I can't wait to see the prototype, the carts. I love it all. I think it's gonna be amazing, and I can't wait to see it come full circle for you.

Thank you.

Another great conversation. Thank you for giving the valuable gift of your time and listening to The Fire Inside Her podcast. Speaking of value, one of the most common potholes we fall into on the journey to authenticity, is not recognizing our value. So, I created a workbook. It's all about value. Head on over to the Fire inside her dot com slash value, to get your free workbook that will help you remember your value. Until next time, my friend.