We were lucky to catch up with Kerry Pastine recently and have shared our conversation below.
Kerry, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?
As a child, I was diagnosed with led, mercury and other metal poisonings, resulting in a myriad of symptoms and illnesses. This was in the late 60’s and, at the time, our society wasn’t tapped into alternative medicines. My mom had her hands full with 6 kids, a daycare and an abusive husband. She wasn’t allowed to drive or leave the house unless my dad took her to the grocery store, the bank or church. If you’re a woman reading this, you understand the necessary resourcefulness that it takes to survive this world, and my mom had it in spades. After talking to another mom at our church about my condition, she learned about Dr. Jefferies, the “quack” who would save my life. My shy but resilient mother not only followed up with Dr. Jefferies, but she then asked this sweet, elderly couple (in their mid-nineties!) to take me to this doctor. 10 years later, I had learned so much about my body and newfound ways of healing, that I embarked on my first voyage of self-healing and resilience. Thanks mom!
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I’m a professional singer, rock and roll performer and song writer. My band is Kerry Pastine and the Crime Scene and I’ve been running around stages like Mick Jagger most of my adult life. Before I share more, let’s talk about the fact that we can’t achieve a whole lot without the help of others. We need each other! Can I get an amen? How about an A-Woman!!!
My helper, my partner in crime, my buddha and husband is Paul Shellooe, and he’s one of the most bad ass guitarists I’ve witnessed and I get play with him onstage! The two of us have written and produced 10 albums and played live music together for 20 years,. He edited and designed my book, Know Thyself which is tattooed on my arm as a reminder. He’s helped me design my Youtube meditation channel (link below) and he even designed those meditations into an Android phone app. .
Everything I do revolves around bringing joy to my fellow human. It’s not something I set out to do. It’s something that I couldn’t help and it was a type of survival mechanism mixed with a little girl who just wanted to love and be loved. What I’ve learned is this. If I connect with myself first by checking in with my feelings and thoughts, then I can discover how my thoughts are making me feel and behave, if they’re sabotaging or creating my dreams and, most importantly, if they’re helping me love and support myself. Again, KNOW THYSELF.
This is my responsibility to the planet and I teach others how to do it as a life coach.
As a fine artist, it’s all about staying in tune with myself, always creating. Having art on a wall can brighten a person’s mood and bring them a contemplative calm.
It’s funny, I just turned 61 on June 11th and I still feel like a 12 year old playing outside, a 22 year old trying on life and a 40 year old finding my power. I’ll never forget the day I told myself to start saying yes to everything I hoped to be because I knew that on the other side of my fear was the feeling I wanted. I already knew that saying no made me feel stuck and disappointed in myself and even more, it made me afraid to try things. My latest “yes” was moving to Portugal this year and I feel like I have just given myself a whole new life and canvas to paint on. I’m happier than I have ever been.
Say yes to yourself!!!
https://kerrypastine.com
https://www.crimesceneband.com/
https://knowthyself.kerrypastine.com/
https://www.youtube.com/@Kerrypastine/videos
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
It’s always important to look to those you admire, see what they’re doing or how they’re doing it. I’ve found hundreds of these people along the way and made vision boards or wrote about them in my journal. From authors to rockers, philosophers to artists, intellects to taste makers, I would create a palette of people I could look up to. I looked for the qualities that I admired. I imitated those qualities until they stuck.
Keep learning or you will become boring. You never know when you have to pivot and reinvent yourself in life.
Stay humble. There is always someone better at what you do.
Before we go, maybe you can tell us a bit about your parents and what you feel was the most impactful thing they did for you?
My parents didn’t over parent. We didn’t have phones back then and we were forced to play outside all year long. That allowed me to find myself, to wander and get lost and find my way back, it allowed me to daydream and learn logical things that were critical to my personal survival. Once I was an adult, they never pried or took too much emotional investment in my adult decisions. They were mine and I relied on myself, not them.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://kerrypastine.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kerrypastine/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kerrypastine
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@kerrypastine7209/videos
- Other: https://knowthyself.kerrypastine.com/
https://www.youtube.com/@Kerrypastine/videos
https://thecrimescene.bandcamp.com/music
Image Credits
Leslie Van Stelten Michael Mark Cullen Titmas
