Changing the Conversation Around Periods w/ Amber English

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28:51To learn more and get 20 % off your order, visit activeskinrepair.com and use code JUSTINGREDIENTS. You can also find Active Skin Repair on Amazon and at your local CVS. now back to the show so I love that you are a woman founder and that you're trying to do good out in the world but your story is fascinating because there is another side of your story that we haven't even shared about and that is the daily trials that you do so well I should say with a smile on your face and a positivity with a huge trial with your husband yeah so will you tell the listeners about this? Yes. My husband is just the most incredible person and we just celebrated our 15-year anniversary.

29:39Oh, awesome. Congrats. So exciting. But three years ago, I received a call from my brother and Jared was in an accident. He was mountain biking. We lived a really active lifestyle. Avid snowboarders, mountain bikers. This particular day, I had just gone to the bike park with him the day before. It was a Sunday. He was going out with his guy friends. And he said, Amber, you need to come with me right now. And I said, is he still alive? And he says, we don't know. And so we get there right as the EMTs were getting there. The bike park is about five minutes from our house. He had fallen off of a feature, broken his neck and back.

30:20He was with my other brother, Ethan. And thankfully, my brother Ethan is also an entrepreneur, a business person, figures things out even when he's never done them before. And he was right behind Jared after he had fallen. It's a freak accident. A pop-up rain shower came and just made the ramps and the features really slippery right as he was going on one. So his bike slid out and he fell down and landed on a big pile of rocks about 15 feet below. My brother got there and just realized that he was turning purple and he had never done rescue breaths before but he got on his phone YouTubed it and figured out how to administer rescue breaths for 25 minutes before the EMTs got there because it was up on the hillside not easy access.

31:07Wow. And as soon as he gave the first breath Jared said more and that was all and he was we didn't know it at the time but completely paralyzed from the chin down. Wow. And so Ethan kept him alive. For 25 minutes until they got there. Until they got there. When they got there, you know, what we've learned and we've had quite a bit of experience with the medical system, but you really have to take charge and be in control because not you expect the experts to know what to do, but they don't always. And so Ethan had to continue administering rescue breaths even after they got there because they weren't quite sure what to do.

31:44And he was, again, losing all of the oxygen, going in and out of consciousness. We went up to the nearest ICU. They couldn't send in a chopper because of the storms. So we went via ambulance, 45 minutes. It was a whole process, but learned that he had broken in his neck and sustained a severe spinal cord injury. And that hope of recovery was very slim. And so we were in the ICU for several weeks and then they said we need to go to a specialty hospital, a spinal cord injury facility. And there are several around, but the one in Denver, Colorado is Craig Hospital and it's known it's been around the longest and known as being best and so we were really just praying that we would get in and we did and they life flighted us out to Denver Hospital where we stayed for six months when we got to the hospital they did all of the tests and scans on Jared he was diagnosed as a complete Asia a which means no movement whatsoever below point of injury and no hope of recovering any movement.

33:00But the night of Jared's accident, I had a dream. And I never dream. I never remember my dreams, but I had a very vivid dream. And I woke up right afterwards and I wrote it all down. And we were on a boat on the lake. Jared was almost done with his recovery. He was knee boarding, hanging on with his hands. and we had a daughter and she was five years old. And I had never dreamt about children before. We had talked about starting to have a family and that just really changed my heart. And I held onto that dream, but I prayed. I was like, God, if this dream isn't from you, please take it away. Let me know because I don't want false hope.

33:43And I just really felt like that dream was given to me to encourage me and to be a grounding point during the season that was coming up. Right. And I remember when we got to Credit Hospital, there was no hope of recovery. They did all the tests, the sniff tests, the x-rays to check his diaphragm. He was on a ventilator. They said he would be on the ventilator the rest of his life, no chance of him coming off. And we just prayed. And I remember riding on the whiteboard in his hospital room that Jared would walk out of Craig Hospital. And I did that to give myself hope, even though it felt like everyone thought I was crazy.

34:27But I desperately wanted hope. And I truly believe that God gives all of us the ability to believe in the impossible. And if we don't believe, it will likely never come. and so we were there for weeks and weeks and Jared started moving his toe and then he could move his legs a little bit and the first thing that started working were his legs and he just a little bit of movement that came and he couldn't move his hands or his arms at all and so we just continued praying and then eventually he was able to move on his left side a few of his fingers and started coming back. And I was thinking about that dream.

35:10I was like, in the dream, he was hanging on with his hands were working. And so the big thing was the ventilator. I was like, all right, this dream, this is a crazy story, but how my brain works and all that was going on. I was like, he was in the water. Like you can't be on a ventilator in the water or a ventilator's life support. And it was a whole process of learning all of the things. And if anything happens to the ventilator. It's an emergency situation to keep someone alive. We decided that we wanted to try ventilator weaning sessions to take him off the ventilator. And I knew I was doing study, like researching everything.

35:47The longer you're on a ventilator, the less likely you are to get off. Okay. And if your body's not trying to work on something, if something's being done for it, if the ventilator's breathing for you and you don't have to breathe, you'll never learn how to breathe. So we argued with the hospital. They didn't want, they're like, all the tests are done. This is impossible. And I had a conversation with them. I said, if you don't want to try this, we'll go to a different hospital. I know that there are other ones out there that are pioneering different training techniques with respiratory breathing and ventilator weaning.

36:24And this is something we want to test. As soon as I said that, they're like, okay, okay, we'll, we'll try it. We can try it you know we don't think it's going to work but we'll at least try and Jared for weeks and weeks and weeks would go through just excruciating experiences of trying to breathe without the ventilator they just turn it off for 30 seconds a minute at a time he said it was like being underwater just drowning you're trying to breathe and you can't wow but one of those sessions things changed and his diaphragm started working and all of the doctors said there's no way it's his accessory muscles, which he didn't have, but they're like, he's using like his neck muscles to breathe.

37:01But the respiratory therapists were like, this is a miracle. Something has changed. And Jared went for two minutes without the ventilator. And then he went for 10 minutes. And then the next day it was 20. And the doctors are, they're like, this is impossible. There's no way this is. And to this day, Craig Hospital has done huge case studies with Jared because that has never happened at their hospital where someone was ventilator dependent for months and months and then instantly. That's incredible. And so over the course of a few months, he came off the ventilator completely. When we checked out, they wanted to send us home with one.

37:37And I think they did. And we canceled it before we got home. But he's, praise the Lord, able to breathe completely on his own. He's to the point where he's... That makes me want to cry because I did not know this part of the story. So it just makes me want to cry. Like there's no denying God in that. No, no. And there were people who were watching this happened who decided to believe in God because the miracles that they saw with their own eyes that were undeniable. That is incredible. Such a story. That is such a story. Okay. But you are such a strong, powerful woman to stand up for your husband's hope.

38:16I mean, you had so much hope, but then to work on this and I want you to challenge him and try this. So good for you. And I'm learning, okay, anyone that is listening, I am learning you have to do that because my 24 year old son just went, and this is side topic, but really quick, went through a major surgery this past year. And afterwards, when he was in recovery, one of the nurses wanted to do something that I thought was absolutely absurd. And she was like, no, this is protocol and we need to do this. And I was like, over my dead body are you going to do that like that will not be done and so i was like i want to talk to your head person like we're not going that route and so you and who knew that you can actually say that and that will you have control and it was such a better process of what we went through but long story short because of this story yeah don't be afraid to stand up for what you feel in your gut is right be your own be your own advocate yep no one else you think when you go to a hospital, you're there so they can take care of you.

39:19That is not the case. They have the tools, but you need people in your corner who can advocate for you. You do. Because there are lots of different options for things. It's not just always one way. And that's what I was trying to tell the practitioner. So anyways, back to your story. But you do have to take care of him quite a bit every day. Yeah. Now he is, he's made so much recovery and he's able to walk now with a walker. Oh, is he really? His legs are a lot stronger than his hands. Okay. But because you use your hands for everything, your hands really are your independence. He is still completely dependent, except when he's in his power wheelchair.

40:00That is his independent. He's able to get along. When he was first in a power wheelchair, the only thing he could do was sip and puff, which is you You have a straw and that's how you control your chair is through the straw. But he's now able to drive with a hand control in his wheelchair and can go anywhere in his chair. It's incredible. And it's so incredible that he's regained all of the recovery that he has so far because it's so important for bone health and muscular health and overall health if you can weight bear and do some of those things. So he walks, we've got an incredible full-time caregiver.

40:37While I'm at work, he comes and takes care of, he's my brother-in-law, and God sends us an angel. It's amazing. Oh, that's incredible. Yeah. And he is with Jared nine to five while I'm at work. But because his left hand works quite a bit better than his right hand, but it takes a lot of dexterity. And man, the spinal cord, our neurosystem is so complex. When there's damage to it, it is just a whole nother world. But because of all the complexity it takes to eat, I'll still, I feed him and take care of him, help him get into the chair in the morning and shower, brush teeth, all of those things.

41:17But the function that he does have is absolutely incredible. And he works so hard every single day. He does, Shannon does all of the stretching and all of the things so that he can maintain and not lose flexibility. And then he will get up and walk to his chair across the house every single morning and then do all of these exercises. And he still goes to therapy multiple times a week to work. And with the neurosystem, there's a lot that's not known about it, but it is the slowest healing tissue in the body. It takes a long time. and because the norm is that it's so slow or nothing will happen there's not a lot known but there are extreme situations where people have regained function well what's the difference what's going on I think a lot of it is mindset I don't know but it seems to be like we were at Craig Hospital and everyone there's going through a very similar situation it's so easy to lose hope in that situation.

42:17And what we're so grateful for is just our faith in God and having hope that is beyond ourselves to continue working no matter how hard it is to use what we have. We both believe we're here on this earth for a reason. And it's our responsibility to do the best that we can with the gifts that we have, the resources that we have, even when life's hard and to be able to show up. And because of that, we've been able to be such an encouragement to so many people through this hardship. And that's one incredible thing about faith is it It takes what can be a devastating situation, and God can use that to bring life and love and hope like nothing else can in the midst of, and you know, with tragedy, the lows that come with that.

43:23There is a depth that we get that's a gift that comes from experiencing extreme tragedy that we wouldn't be able to have any other way. And for me, it's allowed me to love deeper, to be more empathetic, to be more. And those are all gifts that I have that I wouldn't have had if we hadn't gone through what we've been through. You are incredible. You have an amazing perspective. And I'm going to cry. Wow, I'm on crying mode today. It's an incredible story, but I'm like thinking about you. Like you didn't plan on feeding your husband every day and showering him every day. That couldn't have been easy at first.

44:07Yeah, it was really difficult. And I'm so grateful for our incredible team at Pixie. They stepped up in an incredible way to take over my role completely so that I could be with Jared in the hospital and not have to worry about work. And then just being able to have the flexibility. We live on the ranch. Our office is right there. So be able to go up, work in the office, come home from lunch and feed Jared and then go back and just being able to do that. And it is our life looks completely different than it did before the accident. we are here in beautiful Utah and the year of his accident Jared and I were talking about how incredible it would be one day to have a mountain home where would we want that to be well let's just in the winters go to a different location and just experience and so the year of his accident our plan was to come up here to Salt Lake and just spend a few months and check out all of the ski resort.

45:09We love the mountains and we love the adventure, but our life looks very different. And the incredible thing, and the thing I love to share with people is if you had told me what my life would look like right now, I would not imagine happiness and joy. But what I experienced is the happiness and joy is the same, if not better, even though my life looks completely different. And what it comes down to is incredible relationships and perspective. We do a lot of like old people activities and it's amazing and it's grounding and we spend time in nature and we watch the birds and we're getting into art and all of these things that we had never in a million years dreamt that we would have gotten into.

45:55But they are fun and fascinating and we're learning and we're educating and there's so many things that we can do instead of looking at all of the things that we can't do because there are a lot of them we try to look at the things that we can do and the world is huge and it's full of life and generosity and there's so much when you choose to change your perspective and life is better when you have a positive perspective at least it is for me. And I'm just so grateful. And we focus on that. And it has added joy and depth and conversation and relationships that we wouldn't have had. Our lives were too busy before that to take the time to put into the depth and the energy it takes into some more quiet activities.

46:43Wow. Okay. For those that are listening, because you have a great perspective and a great perspective on life and happiness and joy. But did you have to teach yourself this or were you always a positive person with a great perspective? I am so, so, so grateful for my childhood and the way that my parents raised me. My mom raised us kids that we could change the world. And I believe that for everybody. You can change the world no matter where you're at or what you're doing. You can change your part of the world and make this place better. So I was raised with that, which I think is really, really helpful.

47:24But one thing I'm really grateful for, and it was all divine providence. When I was 16 years old, we had, our family had enrolled in Taekwondo and it was so much fun and active. And my instructor started teaching boxing classes. And so I signed up for that as soon as I could drive. And it gave me a confidence that I didn't have before, both in, because it was all about physical health. And I was struggling with some depression at the time. It turns out it came from sleep deprived. Oh, interesting. Depression. And I wasn't sleeping. I was very working as soon as I turned 16, working two part-time jobs, trying to do the homeschooling thing and just go go go go go go not sleeping enough and I got a lot of healing through being physically active and that's how my journey in health or six years studying health in my education came from was my desire to help other people but through that time boxing I I learned the, on a whole new level, the power of positive self-thought and self-talk.

48:39And I had 10 different fights and I won all of them in my short little amateur three-year boxing career. Who would have ever thought you were a boxer? I love that. What it taught me is like in this sport, there are lots of sports and you can work really hard to be the best. But in boxing, if you don't do your best, you get beat up. And I didn't want my face to get punched. I love it. I let it just consume me in every like eating. I just saw everything that I was doing. It was either going to help me win a fight or it helped me lose. I wanted to do everything I could to help me win. so I was very into eating, sleeping, doing all of the things and talking to myself so on the way to these fights in the car and I really do think it was just divine intervention.

49:36I would talk to myself out loud. You can do this. You've got this Amber. Let's go. I did this non-stop and that is to this day, I still do this inside. My internal monologue is extremely positive. It's taken me years. I'm only just now coming to understand this is one of the superpowers that I have. And I think it was kind of instilled in me when I was 16 years old. And I still have this, you can do this, Amber. You've got this. God is for you. He's not against you. Let's go. And I talk to myself all of the time. And I think a lot of the success and lifestyle and positive outlook has come from that.

50:21And there are a lot of people that don't have a lot of positive self-talk and it's heartbreaking. And it's one of those things that we can change, but it does take a lot of practice. And I'm just glad I had that early on. You are incredible. I just had Dr. Manning on here who is all about self-talk and how your brain doesn't know if what you're telling it is a fact or a lie. And so if you're telling your brain, I can't do it, I'll never be able to walk, I can't, then your brain believes that as a truth. It doesn't know the difference. And so I love that you're talking about this because we just aired his episode and he is like, tell your brain three specific things and it will be able to do those very specific things.

51:02And so that is like really what you're saying. Like, I'm telling my brain, I can do it. I can do hard things. I've got this. And so your brain, that's all it knows. That's all it believes. And so occupying that space. And that's what he talks about. You have to occupy. There's no room for anything else. And like I, I, and I do that constantly. And I am just, I don't know, really, I can't take any credit for where it came from, but I have that. And I'm so grateful because it's so helpful. and I think a lot of it comes from my mom. She's a very confident woman. She was very healthy and I remember growing up and everyone would come up here because she was fit and she had eight kids.

51:42Everyone's like, oh my gosh, you're so lucky. It must be genetics. I remember thinking as a kid, it was like, no one in our family is healthy. This is not genetics. Her parents don't look like this. and so I just remember like realizing like she that's that's something different it required action to kind of get to where she was but she had a positive self image and instilled that in us and I think a lot of it kind of came came from the way I was raised I'm so grateful for that I love that well you are incredible the self-talk that you've learned how to do has been life-saving to you through this hard time.

52:20Do you still play the same role at Pixie as you did before the accident or no? My role switched some. When I was removed completely for six months, they thrived. It was incredible. Maybe I need to remove myself for six months. Just kidding. And I was like, wow, so I don't need to have all of the control. I don't need to be the final say. Our team members are just incredibly incredible people. And when they were forced to step up to the plate, they did so with excellence. And it changed my perspective. I'm like, how can I use this? Like, what am I doing that's maybe preventing them from growing in their own roles?

53:07How can I change? How can I have a different role and empower them to be even better versions of themselves and help them grow. That's what I'm doing for myself. Like as a business owner, you're constantly doing a million different things and learning and growing. And it's one of my favorite things. And how do we empower our team members to have that same mindset, to take ownership of their own role and to empower them to make incredible decisions. And at Pixie, we encourage failing forward. We weren't business owners. we had no idea what we were doing sometimes we still don't and relate I can relate so many questions we don't have answers to but how do we learn we make our best judgment and move forward and if it's a failure let's learn from that because as long as we're learning it's a positive experience and we can take that and make better decisions going forward so how do we install that and our team members.

54:08And I think it helped us kind of have that mindset. And it's been a good thing. Well, I love that motto of failing forward, meaning we'll fail, but we can still move forward. Yeah. And that's good advice in life. Doesn't have to just be a company. Life is new to all of us. Each year is a new year. The, you know, like you're saying you hadn't owned a company and you don't know what the next thing is, but that's like life also. You know what I mean? Yes. So Oh, that's incredible. Okay, so talking about tweens, I'm actually curious, like being a part of this whole period industry, what advice would you give to moms to first tell their tweens about having a period?

54:50This is a good question. What we love to do is empower moms to think back to what it was like when they first had their first period and share that story with your daughter and also just share, I wished I would have had XYZ. And then do the XYZ, whatever that is. And I think just starting that conversation with, this is what it was like for me. I kind of wish that my mom had shared with me a little bit more education about my body. And so I didn't have that, but I'm learning it right now. And I really want to teach that to you can we learn together and so one thing we've done at pixie cup is we're just so passionate about education and so we try to come up with social media videos for empowering education for women but we've also have some products that really help with that and we launched uh two years ago our my first period kit it was written by and developed by the moms on our team.

55:58Oh, I love it. For their daughters. And it's education. It has a booklet and a journal to teach young tweens. And also it's a beautiful box and it has all of the things that they need are organic cotton top sheet pads and a little heating pad that's filled with flaxseed and lavender and everything that they need to be prepared for their first cycle, but also to celebrate it. Because I think that's one thing that we missed out on in our generation is celebrating womanhood. It's such an incredible gift. It's such a superpower that has some unnecessary shame around it, but doesn't need to be there.

56:42And so if we can help our daughters understand how incredible the changes are in their bodies and start them out with some really basic education, we're giving them a good foundation. Oh, I love that approach. That is great. Your story is incredible. Like I said, I was moved to tears listening to it. And you're just really inspirational. Like, I'm thinking, oh, I can do better as a owner and a CEO of my company, like empowering people, but also as a mom, like I need to empower my kids more. So and teach them to have this positive perspective in life and to teach that with hope anything is possible it really is with hope and faith yes and your story I just it's an incredible story so thank you for sharing it thank you for being vulnerable and just discussing it because it is a hard story but I love that you shared the positivity out of it so thank you oh thank you I'm I'm so grateful to be able to share sharing is power it really is and I feel like we sometimes when we don't share, we are subject to isolation and there is no heal or it's hard for healing to happen.

57:51Well, and there's so many, yeah. And there's so many people going through hard times. It doesn't have to be a accident like that. It can be so many other things, but the mindset and the hope and the faith and the perspective is the same. Yes. So thank you for sharing all that. Will you tell my listeners where they can find your products? Yes, you can go to itspixie.com and find all of our products and then also follow us on social media if you want to laugh and learn about periods. And tell them the name on social media. Instagram, MyPixieCup. Okay, perfect. I'm excited for you followers and listeners to go try her products.

58:29You've heard how amazing they are and maybe have your daughters try them, especially the new underwear, but maybe teach your daughters how to use a cup. or maybe you yourself need to go try a cup a few more times. So thank you so much for being here. It's been such an honor having you here on the show. And I always end my podcast by asking five quick questions. So are you okay with these? Okay, here we go. Number one, what emerging health topic are you most excited about right now? Oh, this one, I would say it's a bit unique, but rest. And I know it's not necessarily an emerging health topic, but I kind of feel like it is.

59:07in the busy Western world that we live in, taking time to rest and unplug and ground ourselves, for me, has been so important, especially after Jared's accident and just realizing how busy our lives were. And if we really want to thrive, we need to be filled on the inside. And that comes from unplugging, relaxing, taking a full day of rest once a week, every single week. And that's been incredible. And I think more people are talking about it these days. There are a lot of people talking about that rest day, like they talk about for exercise, but even, you know, a lot of Christians obviously are saying take the Sabbath off as a pure day of rest to really unwind.

59:52But I think people are needing it mentally. Just it is so go, go, go. Let's just unwind for one day. Yep. It came from a book I read right after Jared's accident, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer. Oh, I have not read that one. Oh, so good. I was like, I, more than anything, I need this. Okay, I'm going to add that to my list. All right, question number two. What's a piece of advice you give your younger self? I think I would probably encourage myself, especially younger in my early teen years. Growing up in a big family, it's easy to kind of get lost in it all. And my older sister is just incredible.

1:00:31And I look up to her with everything I am, but just encourage myself that it's all right. You've got this. You've got it. I love that. Number three, what's the one health practice you'll never compromise on no matter how busy life gets? This would be the mindset of embodying a healthy lifestyle and being a healthy person. I don't think there's any one health practice or activity that I would be like, no matter what, I will never compromise because I've been through so many different seasons and life can look very different in really dramatic seasons of trial where it's okay to have a lot of compromise, but to embody a spirit of, I am a healthy person.

1:01:14And maybe I don't have the time to exercise right now on a regular basis, but I am going to make sure I get extra steps in. I'm going to do this and not that. and just thinking through, I am a healthy person in this season of life. What can I continue to do that's healthy? What are the small things I can do? Because I practice a lot of the healthy things, but I've never had something where like no matter what I'm going through, I'm only going to do that one thing. I try to adjust and be flexible. That's that great mindset you have and great perspective you have. I am learning so much just from sitting here by you.

1:01:50Question number four, what's your favorite Just Ingredients product and why? I love the energy drinks, the brain energy. So amazing. We first had them when we met. Oh, that's right. That's right. They're incredible. I actually just bought, we're having our team retreat come up. And so for the whole team retreat, everyone's having just ingredients, energy drinks. Well, thank you. Thank you. All right. Last question. What's the best ingredient you've down to life? For me, I think it's relationships. It comes down to the meaning of life and why we're here on earth and how to make the most with the time that we have is quality relationships, spending time with the people that we love and care about and investing in those.

1:02:39And it makes life incredible and rich and rewarding when we have healthy, thriving relationships. And they take a lot of time, effort, and energy, but it is so, so incredibly worth it. I love that. They do take a lot of effort, a lot of time. And we live in a world where people are letting go of relationships left and right, whether it's friends or family or spouses or whatever it might be. And so I do love that. And they are hard. Relationships aren't easy. So, well, again, thank you so much for being here. I have learned so much. I've been inspired to do better just by talking to you. And so thank you for taking the time to be here.

1:03:19I know it's hard to leave your husband to come. And so thank you for making the sacrifice. Oh, thank you for having us.

1:03:29Thank you for being here and being part of this community. don't forget to subscribe to the just ingredients podcast we've got so much more to share with you and if you're not already come join us daily on all social media platforms at just.ingredients until next time keep choosing what nourishes you