We were lucky to catch up with Candace Gasper recently and have shared our conversation below.
Candace, sincerely appreciate your selflessness in agreeing to discuss your mental health journey and how you overcame and persisted despite the challenges. Please share with our readers how you overcame. For readers, please note this is not medical advice, we are not doctors, you should always consult professionals for advice and that this is merely one person sharing their story and experience.
In 2020 I experienced an eating disorder relapse. It was a very hard time for me and I harbored a lot of shame during that time. Through intense therapy, a 5-day silent meditation retreat, and radical honesty, I was able to create healthy coping skills to deal with the stress of life, entrepreneurship, the pandemic, etc.
The biggest challenge with an eating disorder is that you can’t avoid food. In fact, that IS an eating disorder. Having an eating disorder is like having a very angry pet lion and 3x a day you have to take that angry lion out of its cage and take it for a walk.
Of course, I still have my bad days but now I am better at recognizing what the underlying feeling or emotion actually is that is making me feel uncomfortable. I don’t let the bad day become bad days that turn into bad weeks that turn into bad months.
I read this book at a silent meditation retreat by Amy Samy and, I’m probably butchering it, but basically, our brain is the enemy. So when you start to have a bad thought or bad feeling there’s nothing really wrong, you’re just having a bad brain day. You can tell your brain to shut up.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
Right now, I’ve been focusing on volunteering with the hospice network here in Kentucky. I started as a Care Call volunteer in 2021 where I would call hospice patients and their primary caregivers and make sure they had all the medication, supplies, and equipment they needed to get through the weekend; I’d pass these notes on to the care team and they care team would supply any necessities.
Then I moved on to volunteering in-office at the front desk 1x a week just buzzing people in or guiding them to the person they were seeking, usually the grief counselor.
Now, I do respite and 11th-hour visits. Respite visits are for relieving the primary caregiver so that they can sleep, shower, run errands, etc. without feeling guilty or worried about their loved one being alone with no help. 11th-hour visits are where volunteers are set up around the clock when someone is at 10% or less, meaning they have about 48 hours left. They may have no living family nearby or at all so we make sure that someone is always with them so they die with some comfort. I really enjoy it.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
I think the three qualities that have helped me are having compassion, being understanding, and not being afraid to look dumb.
Compassion has helped me foster relationships within my community which have helped me expand my network, both for myself and for others. I love being able to connect people with other people who can help them. That’s probably the best part about being an agency owner.
Not being afraid to look dumb or fail is probably the quality that has saved me the most. So much of entrepreneurship is feeling dumb or feeling like you’re just circling the drain. The highs are so high and the lows are really low and it often feels like there are more lows than there are highs. But, I’ve learned, you just gotta keep on trucking. No one is thinking about you or looking for you as much as you are about yourself. So rarely is anything really even about you.
Being understanding has helped me so much in maintaining personal and professional relationships. I’ve had clients have to end services with me because money is tight and I always let them know that the door is always open when they’re ready to come back. You never really know what is going on in a person’s life. It’s best to just give them some grace and compassion and leave the door open.
As we end our chat, is there a book you can leave people with that’s been meaningful to you and your development?
I recently read The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks. In the book he talks about the Upper Limit Problem which is a unique limit we all put on ourselves when we subconsciously feel like things are going too well. In the book, the author talks about how we have a tendency to limit our happiness in love, career, and life because for some reason we don’t believe we deserve to have good things happen to us.
When I start to get kind of overwhelmed or notice self-sabotaging behaviors start to rear its ugly head I ask myself, “Is this really a problem or am I placing an Upper Limit on myself?” Even something as small as a headache or minor inconvenience could be a manifestation of my negative subconscious beliefs.
I am trying to stay in my Zone of Genius which is where you come alive! Tasks completed while in this zone are both easy and enjoyable, It’s easy to lose track of time while doing a task in this zone. It’s something I notice that happens when I write.
The book reminds us, “The goal in life is not to attain some imaginary ideal; it is to find and fully use our own gifts.”
One of my favorite quotes is: “Fear is excitement without the breath.” Here’s what this intriguing statement means: the very same mechanisms that produce excitement also produce fear, and any fear can be transformed into excitement by breathing fully with it.”
There can be so much fear when you begin your entrepreneurship journey, even seven years in I still find myself experiencing new horrors. But then I remember to breathe into that feeling because sometimes the fear is actually a part of the fun.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.digitalcandyllc.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pugprxncess/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/candace-gasper-90151838/
Image Credits
Kellie Coleman Purple Monster Studios I Am Munzero
