When Life Interrupts Your Plans

What do you do when life interrupts your plans?

At the beginning of this year, I never imagined I'd step away from my podcast, my health journey, and the community that had been walking alongside me. But unexpected health challenges changed everything.

In this deeply personal first episode of Season 2: Project Reclaim, I'm sharing where I've been, what this season taught me, and why I'm finally ready to begin again.

This isn't just a story about health—it's about giving yourself permission to pause, learning to trust your intuition, advocating for yourself, and discovering that beginning again doesn't require everything to be perfect.

Wether you're reclaiming your health, confidence, relationships, career, business, purpose, or simply finding your way back after life took an unexpected turn, I hope this episode reminds you of one thing:

Life may interrupt your plans, but it doesn't have to define your future.

❤️ Welcome to Project Reclaim.

Question of the week:
What are you reclaiming in this season of your life?

 
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Remember, friend — it’s time to Rise, Shine, and Cluckin’ Thrive, Beautiful ❤️

Keep showing up, keep growing, and keep loving your beautiful messy life. 🐓✨

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey peeps, it's been a hot minute. Welcome to the Crazy Chicken Lady Show. I'm Nicole Curtis. If you're new here, hi, I'm so glad that you're here. If you've been part of the flock for a while, I know that there's been a break, and I'm gonna get to that. Um, but I just want to say I've missed you. I've missed showing up here, um, and I miss having conversations with you. So thank you for being here. Um, I'm gonna try not to go in circles with with my story journey. Um, I'm gonna try to have it in the timeline that it needs to be in. But you know, as women, we have spaghetti brains, and so we can just kind of go all over the place. So it's probably gonna happen. So I'm gonna I'm gonna apologize now for it. So the beginning of this year was great. Well, let me just rephrase. If you've been here for a while and part of the flock for a while, um, you know I was on a health and fitness journey that started, oh man, like March, April, May of last year. Um, started with little things, and then it started to eating healthier, and then it started to walking, and then it started. I did the vibration plate, and then it started to doing strength training. And oh my goodness, like January, like December, January. I was like, man, I was on cloud nine. Like I felt like I was unstoppable. Um and so New Year's came and went. We celebrated with neighbors, and that was fun. And then Valentine's Weekend came and went. My hubby surprised me with uh Valentine's weekend away. Um, we went to um Bass Pro, the largest Bass Pro in Springfield, Missouri, and that was such a blast. I'm a very outdoorsy girl. Um, I've shared that on in season one. I like to hunt and fish and camp and kayak and boat and all the things. Um and so we had a blast. It was so fun. Um, and then a few weeks after that, I just I just started noticing changes. Like I just was not hungry anymore. And I was exhausted like all the time. I mean the exhaustion of when you sleep for like eight to ten hours at night, and then you get up, and then in the afternoon you're taking three to four hour naps because you're just you just can't go throughout the day anymore, like you're just done. Um, and that tiredness never left me. And I was like, okay, what is going on here? So then I immediately started putting the pressure on myself and thinking that I'm failing myself, like I'm doing something wrong. I'm eating, I'm not eating enough, or you know, I'm I'm eating too less calories, or um not hydrating myself enough, or like my body is just stressed out from you know the changes, even though you know it was going on. My new routine in the health and wellness was you know past six months from this point, but you just start doubting and questioning yourself, right? And then I had physical changes on my body happen. Um and I was like, wait a minute, this isn't right, something something's wrong, something's off. So I seeked advice. I I went to the professionals um and dealt with several months of appointments and tests and more tests, and let me tell you, that is just beyond frustrating if you've which you've you may have, you may not have, but advocating for yourself, it's important to do it, but it's sad that you have to in the healthcare system. Um but anyway, so yeah, I had just so many different I had a PET scan, an MRI, and a CT scan, and like I just had ultrasounds, mammograms, because what was showing presently was on one of my breasts, and you know, it was never happened before, so knowing something's not right. Um, and at that time it was just like it wasn't like okay, this is a major thing, you just know that something's just not right. Um, and then as the time went on, more zolks came back, PET scans, you know, hot spots, all this kind of stuff. I was like, oh shit, like okay, um, you know, and then you just start going down that spiral and you just go in freak out mode while at the same time feeling like not just a failure within myself, but feeling like a failure to you of just not showing up, not you know, online in the podcast. A new season one ended, and it wasn't like this long of a break wasn't supposed to happen with season two coming out. Um, and so I just felt like I was failing you, but I also had to realize that you are you what you do in life is your responsibility, right? And so I had to realize that you have to take the response, be responsible to keep moving forward, but at the same time, I wanted to be that that support and that motivation, that inspiration, and I I wanted to continue doing it together, and I just I wasn't in the capacity of doing that, and so I had to just come to terms with just giving myself that permission to just be what I needed to be in where I was at in that state in my season there. So I I was basically just surviving a season that needed my full attention, um, and sometimes giving your some permission to step back is exactly what you need to do in life, and so I did that um until I could move forward again. And so, yeah, it's been um, so I did get results back. Um, it's not it's not the C word. Um it does have a small percentage of it turning into it, so I do have continuous scans that have to happen. But let me just tell you, after I got the answer, it was just like my body went into complete detox, and I don't even know how to explain it. Um, my emotions were all over the place. Um, I was eating everything in sight because like my appetite came back, like I was just starving. Um, and my moods were up and down, like it was just I don't even know how to explain it. It was kind of like I was pregnant, but then also just had a baby, but then I'm also on my menstrual cycle, like all three things together. Um, I guess that's the only way that I could describe what that detox is like, and my gosh, my husband, like my my son, um, since he's the one that only lives at home now. Um, those poor guys, um, it was uh like I was just crying all the time, and um, it was just my that's that's our rue. Um that's Colonel Sanders. So I'm gonna be doing this is a side note, I'm gonna be doing my podcasts more around my chickens. Um, because as much as I love being in my office when I was doing season one and recording, I really want to be I want to be with my chickens because that's that's just that's just who I am. And so anyway, so if you hear that background, that's what that is. Um, where was I going with this? He's saying hello guys, what's up? Um and so okay, so that was probably about uh what is it, July? I can't believe it's July already. Happy 4th of July, past 4th of July. Um It was probably in June, like middle of June is when I finally found answers. Detox started happening. So a couple weeks ago, I don't know what I was doing. I was probably reading one of my smut books. Um it was probably then, if I'd have to be honest with you. Uh, and my brain, like my brain, like my mind was and my body was just like, let's just go for a walk. And I'm like, I didn't even allow myself to think through it. I just like, yep. And I just got up and I just changed my clothes, got my shoes on, got my weighted vest on, and I and I went. Um, and God, that was awakening. But I felt so good, and I just like afterward, it was like my body's like, all right, it's time. Like, let's get back to it. You made goals for yourself last year when you started in your journey of where you wanted to be, you've had a little setback, it happens, right? That's what this podcast is all about when the unexpected, the unprepared, the unplanned, like all of that happens in life. Okay, so that happens. So now let's get back on track. And that was pretty much like the aha moment of that. And so before I did any more walking or went into back into strength training, I was like, you know, I need to get I need to eat start eating healthy. Because, like I said, like I just was eating everything in sight, and I think it was just because my appetite was gone for so long, um, and my body was just unnourished. Um so that's been a journey. Um, I've been eating healthier the last few weeks, and um, yeah, like it's I miss my junk food. Um, but in anything in a healthy journey, it's just replacing chips with healthier chips, right? Replacing cookies with healthier cookies and limoudine and um and so I've been doing that and oh man, like my skin is different, my energy is different, my body is different. Like, I I just I instantly notice like some of the weight that I've gained back, um, and like just go away, and it's it's been good, like so I've done like last week I did two three mile walks with my weighted vest, and I ended up jogging a couple times and I sprinted home a couple times, like that was new for me. Whoa, um, talk about exhausting and sweaty mess, and like, oh my gosh, I can't believe I just did that, and I I almost died though, right? Um, and I did my first strength training a few um this last Saturday, and man, it felt good. So um, yeah, so this is exactly why Project Reclaim has been born. Um, this isn't my journey, it's our journey. I want this to be our journey because every single one of us is reclaiming something. Maybe right now you're in this re in the season of reclaiming your health, or maybe it's your confidence, or it's your marriage, or your business, your in your faith. Maybe you were relapsed or you're in your recovery, maybe you're a new time mom, or maybe you're in a new stage in motherhood, maybe it's joy, maybe it's purpose, like all of these things. I think all of us are in a reclaiming stage of our life, and I don't I don't want us to walk this road alone. This little flock, we're gonna walk together. So it's one step, one choice, one clucking day at a time, right? You know how that is. So before I go, I just I just want to leave you with one question. What are you reclaiming in this season of your life? I love to hear your answer because truly I believe there's something powerful about saying it out loud. Um and remember life may interrupt your plans, but it doesn't have to define your future. Until next Tuesday, keep reclaiming what matters most. And from one crazy chicken lady to another, keep clucking on.