Catching Up After a Wonderful Summer – Podcast Episode 34

Natural Living Family Podcast, Episode 34 Transcript: Catching Up After a Wonderful Summer!

The contents of this presentation are for informational purposes only and are not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. This presentation does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.

 

[0:00 – 3:33] Prelude

Dr. Z:  I can’t take credit for you being a finalist, like how I took credit for you winning evening gown for Georgia.

Mama Z: Oh, wait, wait. No, you told all the other husbands and wives that you won evening gown-

Dr. Z:  I did.

Mama Z:  … hands down.

Dr. Z: Yeah, okay. That’s a whole another story. I know I shared the story a couple of episodes ago. But, yeah, Sabrina won-

Mama Z: You’ve shared this so many times that people have actually repeated the story to me.

Dr. Z: It’s a pretty good story. I mean for those people who are new to the show, Mrs. Georgia, a couple of months ago, Sabrina won swimsuit, photogenic. She won evening gown, people’s choice award. It was a wonderful clean sweep. I was just like, “Wow!” Evening gown, though, here’s the thing, have you ever seen the Olympics and during the track and field baton race someone makes that mistake and the baton drops or it’s not a very smooth baton-

Mama Z: We had that happen at run club on Tuesday.

Dr. Z: That split second will cost you the gold medal. The same thing with the handing off of your wife during the evening gown, because men escort their wives out on stage for Mrs. Georgia. Unfortunately, a guy or two dropped the ball and stutter-stepped, and it jacked his whole wife up. I was like, “Poor girl. She started on a stutter step.”

Well, I handed you off flawlessly. It was my best work ever. I handed Sabrina off, and it was like she was floating in air. Of course, she’s going to win evening gown. So I take most credit for that. Hi, this is Dr. Z.

Mama Z: And this is Mama Z. Welcome to episode 34 of the Natural Living Family podcast.

Dr. Z: Each week, we invite you into our home to talk about how you can master the art and science of natural living. We share the same tips our family uses every day to enjoy an abundant life. You’re going to love today’s topic.

Mama Z: So come on in and get comfortable. After all, you’re one of the family, our Natural Living Family.

Dr. Z: But before we dive in all the fun, we’re excited to invite you to a special event.

Mama Z: Within the past few years, we’ve lost Eric’s grandma, as well as my aunt, brother-in-law, and one of my best friends to various forms of cancer.

Dr. Z:  All the while, several of our closest friends and family members receive that horrifying diagnosis everyone dreads to hear.

Mama Z: We’ve decided to partner with our friends at Cancer Tutor to do our part to help you not go through what we’ve experienced.

Dr. Z: For the past 18 months, Natural Living Family and Cancer Tutor have been busy working on a film project to bring awareness to people that there is truly hope for cancer. We sponsored a stage two breast cancer patient to receive nontoxic therapies for one year and have documented her progress along the way.

Mama Z: This story gives a candid look at her journey through integrative cancer treatments. We want to give you a special access pass to watch the movie before we submit it to film festivals and online streaming services.

Dr. Z:  We cordially invite you to a special screening of the global premier that will air this coming November 6th.

Mama Z: Simply go to HopeforBreastCancer.com, that’s H-O-P-E F-O-R breast cancer dot com, to reserve your spot today. You’ll get instant access to some of the behind-the-scenes footage and some other amazing goodies.

Dr. Z: We believe there’s hope for breast cancer, and we invite you on our mission to helping stop this epidemic. Hey there, everybody. Welcome to the show. Today we’re going to talk about Catching Up After A Wonderful Summer.

Mama Z: Yes.

Dr. Z:  It’s been a whirlwind.

Mama Z: Absolutely.

 

[3:33 – 4:54 ]Topic Intro and What’s in Our Diffuser

Dr. Z: Being in September, I decided we need to recap, because if you’ve been following along, a lot has happened, and we have some very special announcements today. But before we do, what’s in our diffuser?

Mama Z: Well, of course, on that same vein, we want to talk about our fall diffuser blend. This is my favorite combination that I make. It is clove, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, all spice, and vanilla. All of those together pretty much make pumpkin pie spice. But this is my fall blend that I use around the house. It will definitely usher the warm feelings of pumpkin pie and other treats from the fall.

Dr. Z: Yay! I love it. It’s actually very nice. You did a good job.

Mama Z: I know. You had put something in there, and it smelled so florally. I was like, “That is so not fall,” so I had to dump it out, wash it out. I’m like, “Of course.”

Dr. Z: Oh, no. It wasn’t floral at all. It was patchouli, lime, and frankincense. It was awesome.

Mama Z: Anyway, it might be nice for another day-

Dr. Z: We’ll smell that next week.

Mama Z: … but that was not today.

Dr. Z: Oh, it was good. Chris, what do you think of the blend?

Chris:  It was nice.

 

[4:55 – 9:42] Announcements & a Review

Dr. Z: Good. Well, Chris, I’m going to put you on the spot here in just a minute, so you might have to … Chris is our residential Español speaker. I want to start with an announcement, because for those of you watching on YouTube or Facebook, you see the front cover of our brand new Healing Power of Essential Oils book in Spanish. Yay! I just heard from my publisher it’s coming out in Slovakian in the next week. Not only that, but a bunch of other languages in the next few months. But, Chris, how do you say Healing Power of Essential Oils in Spanish? Because if I tried it, I think I would butcher it. But Chris is awesome at it.

Chris: I’m going to give this a shot. All you native Spanish speakers, just please extend a little grace, but I’m going to do my best here, “Poder curativo de los aceites esenciales, El.”

Mama Z:  Nice. We were going to put a nice case around all these beautiful different language books-

Dr. Z: Oh, love it.

Mama Z:  … except for the fact that I spilled my shake on this one.

Dr. Z: Well, before that, but doesn’t that sound so much better than me saying Healing Power of Essential Oils in Spanish?

Mama Z: [crosstalk 00:06:01].

Dr. Z: Chris, thank you. Chris, for next week, you’ve got to practice your Slovakia. Anyway, I don’t even want to try. But praise God. Yeah, you should have read the subtitle, about inflammation and whatever.

Mama Z: I think you’re pushing it there.

Dr. Z: I see inflamación. Anyway, I love you all. I’m Polish and Italian. I didn’t learn Spanish in school. Forgive me. But how fun and exciting, The Healing Power of Essential Oils.

Mama Z: It sounds way more fun in a different language.

Dr. Z: It does, in nine different languages the next year and a half. And we just finalized the topic of our third book-

Mama Z: Yay!

Dr. Z:  … coming February 2021. The title is still up in the air, but it’s going to be about advanced strategies and protocols, how to use essential oils for chronic disease. Whoa! Whoa, whoa, whoa!

Mama Z: My vote is calling it The Healing Power of Essential Oils and then that part with like-

Dr. Z: Healing Power of Essential Oils Part Two?

Mama Z: Pretty much.

Dr. Z: I mean so we got The Healing Power of Essential Oils. I mean, man, it’s been the number one bestselling aromatherapy book since it published a year and a half ago. It’s wonderful. I love it. Now it will be in nine different languages. Then we just recently published The Essential Oils Diet, which helps people … Okay, great. You know how to use oils now, but what about lifestyle? What about technology? What about emotional detox? What about food? We covered that and now the next one. It’s like the natural progression.

I can’t wait for book four. But I need to find my little cabin up in the Blue Ridge Mountains because I know I’m going to be tucked away for a few days.

Mama Z: Lucky for him, all of my parts, I’m used to all the craziness, and I’ll be able to do it in the comfort of my own home.

Dr. Z: Yay! I love it, I love it. Hey, before we go on to today’s topic, I just want to thank you all who are leaving reviews. We actually have had an influx of reviews on the various … iTunes and Google Play and all the other places where people listen to podcasts. This is a really sweet one. This is from Mechelle23 . The title is You All Are the Best. She gave us five stars. Thank you.

Mama Z: Thank you.

Dr. Z: Love that. Mechelle23 says, “I love that you all live natural and share everything FREE.” Personally, that’s my favorite four-letter F-word, free. “I love that you all are traveling this life 100% together. But first and foremost, I love that you all so openly share your faith and give God all the glory. So thankful for the road that led me straight to you. Ha ha.” I think that’s actually a country song.

Mama Z: Yes, and actually that’s the song we danced to at our wedding.

Dr. Z: Ah, yes.

Mama Z: Yes. God bless the broken road. Yes.

Dr. Z: Just to reinforce the special announcement that we just gave, go to HopeforBreastCancer.com because we’re giving you a free screening of our upcoming documentary. We try to do that for everything. For those people who don’t know all that we offer, you can go to NaturalLivingFamily.com/Programs. Then you’ll see all the different programs that we offer, from Mama Z’s Gluten-Free Italian Class to her Simple Sensational Salads Class to her Gardening Class to her Essential Oils Master Class, her Toxic-Free Healthy Home Makeover, and upcoming exercise and the new and improved Garden Master Class.

Mama Z: Yes.

Dr. Z: We give you free screenings of everything. Mechelle23, you’re welcome and thank you for appreciating that, because that’s been part of the ministry since we started this four and a half years ago. God has blessed us every step of the way.

The next announcement is basically going to lead us into the topic about Catching Up After A Wonderful Summer. We need to breathe. This has been a nonstop, unbelievable train of just going 70, 80 miles per hour, and you can’t stop a train on a dime. We’re like slowly stopping as a train slowly stops. It takes a train five miles to finally stop. It’s where we’re at right now. It’s been a whirlwind.

Ever since our book published in May, ever since The Essential Oils Diet published in May, it’s been a nonstop national and global tour, radio, TV, podcast, promoting the book. Then Sabrina won the Mrs. Georgia pageant in June. And what happened a couple of weeks ago?

 

[9:43 – 13:46] Mrs. America Pageant and More Upcoming Events

Mama Z: We went to Las Vegas-

Dr. Z: Woo-hoo!

Mama Z:  … spent nine and a half days in Las Vegas. It was definitely a whirlwind. I can’t wait to talk more about it. But I ended up top six for Mrs. America. That was-

Dr. Z: A finalist.

Mama Z: Yes.

Dr. Z:  Congratulations!

Mama Z: Thank you.

Dr. Z: You know what? For those watching right now, again we’d like to put these podcasts up on YouTube and Facebook, you don’t see anything in the middle here where the book is. That was where Sabrina’s … Her Mrs. Georgia sash was. But what you can see is her Living Fuel shake while we prayed, like we always do before this podcast. Accidentally, Mama Z spilled her shake and got it all over her sash and all over the carpet.

Mama Z: Don’t worry. I was able to save the sash. We picked the little chia seeds off of it, and it is currently in the washing machine right now.

Dr. Z: Well, the reason I mentioned that is because that is a sign to us that this is going to be a good show, because usually when we have the best shows, something like that happens, or usually when something big happens, like we’ve spoken about this many times in the past, before a final exam, before a clinical evaluation, before a documentary crew comes by to film us, before something big, there’s always something.

I don’t know if I told you all this, I burned … Actually, no, I don’t think we talked about this. We just had a major film crew come by to feature us in a major documentary about essential oils. It’s going to be on a global streaming service. Read between the lines. I can’t say anymore.

But I burned my hand, like second-degree burn, like hot oil bubbled together, popped, burned my hand. This was two days before the documentary, and here I am healing, trying to heal from this experience. It’s like the enemy, the devil always is out there with his minions trying to rob us, steal, kill, and destroy of us the abundant life. We find, oftentimes, right before something big happens, all hell breaks loose.

You see that in the Bible how many times. Look at Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. He’s sweating blood. He just wants to pray with his brothers, and they fall asleep and then they deny him. Here he is on Calvary opening up the floodgates to Heaven, earning, buying our salvation for us, suffering for us, and just everything around him, his friends, his family, everyone just … Have you felt that way? Because we’ve experienced that.

When we look back at Catching Up After A Wonderful Summer … Next episode we’re going to talk about episode 35, A Year In Review, what we’ve learned so far. Yeah, it’s only September, but we’ve lived like five years this year so far. Chris is laughing in the background. We’ve had so much experience. So many things have happened to us in the last nine months, I feel like 2019 can’t do anymore.

To even think that we’re going to be premiering a documentary in two months is just mind-blowing to me. What more else can we fill into our day, into our life, into our calendar?

Mama Z: Maybe a fall and Thanksgiving entertaining class, or maybe a Christmas and New Year’s class, but we’ll see what happens.

Dr. Z: Yes.

Mama Z:  For next year, of course.

 

[13:47 – 25:45] Lessons from our trip to Las Vegas for Mrs. America

Dr. Z: Yes. With that said, we want to catch up with you all because we actually have not filmed or recorded a podcast in a month. We took a month off. Sabrina and us, we all went to Vegas. But I want to talk about Vegas.

Mama Z: Yeah.

Dr. Z:  I want to talk about this whole thing. There is a lot to learn about natural living through this whole experience. You know what? This is one of those shows where we have no script, we have no bullet points. It’s just like we just want to talk and just share. We’ve had some beautiful reviews that we’ll read in the future of people that are listening to our podcast that says, “You know what? I just feel like we’re hanging out like friends.” That’s exactly what this episode’s going to be. Where do you want to start?

Mama Z:  Well, we should start really at the beginning, I think. God had given me some of the things that happened during the week to show that even when stuff looks picturesque, there’s things that go on in the background, too. I knew that, and I had talked to my trainer about this, that I knew that certain things that had happened would give other people encouragement as well.

When I left the morning … And I couldn’t have done everything that I did without my good friend Lisa. Oh, she helped me pack everything up. It was all about being strategic because pageant-packing is a thing. It’s actually a big thing because pageant-packing is different than regular people packing, because you have to make sure that you have backups, and backups to the backups, and lots of different clothes. You don’t know all of the schedule for when you go to Mrs. America, but you know you have to have a bunch of cocktail dresses, you have to have a bunch of long gowns and things like that. She helped me get very ready.

Basically, really from the time that you arrived until the time that you leave, your time is allocated for, and so you have to show up ready. Prior to us going, hair and make-up came that morning very early and we had to get on the road, I believe, by 9:00 in order to make it to the … They got here at 8:00 in order for us to get off by 9:00 and load everything to the airport. But so many different blessings along the way. So many of the girls that I spoke to, the airlines didn’t waive their bag fees.

Dr. Z: Wow!

Mama Z: I had four pieces of luggage that had to be checked, and all of it was waived.

Dr. Z: How many pieces did you ship?

Mama Z: Well, we had a lot of sponsor boxes too, but we shipped seven boxes.

Dr. Z: Seven?

Mama Z: Yes. Then we-

Dr. Z: Did I get that bill yet?

Mama Z: Yeah, you already paid for it. Then my four pieces of luggage. So plenty of love letters from the TSA because most people probably don’t pack like this.

Dr. Z: Talk to us about your gift, because all the girls had to give each other-

Mama Z: Yes.

Dr. Z:  Okay. Think about this. Every girl, there’s 52 of them, give each other a gift that’s supposed to represent the state or represent who you are. What was our gift to them, or your gift to them?

Mama Z: Yes.

Dr. Z: It was pretty sweet.

Mama Z: We hand-whipped shea butter souffles for each one of the girls, with essential oils. Then I made a healthy-

Dr. Z: [crosstalk 00:17:07].

Mama Z: Well, I did all of our favorites. I did our Awesome Body, which is citrus and peppermint to help tighten and tone your body. I did Sweet Sleep, which has chamomile, lavender, and vetiver in it. We also did Joyful, which is citrus and vanilla.

Dr. Z: Well, I got a phone call, remember? It was kind of funny. I got a phone call from Vegas. I was like, “Why is someone calling me from Vegas?” This lady says, “Hi. This is so and so from the shipping department in the Westgate. You’ve got some box here that leaks.” She was really funny. [inaudible 00:17:44].

Mama Z: But she said, “But it smells real good.”

Dr. Z:  Yeah. She’s like, “It’s leaking,” and I’m like, “Oh, boy. What’s going on?”

Mama Z: All it was was one of the shea souffles. All of them-

Dr. Z: I asked her, “Can you open it?” I go, “Okay.” I had no idea. I had no idea what shipped. I’m like, “Oh, Lord. It could be water. It could be anything.”

Mama Z: No.

Dr. Z: I was like, “Can you open it?” She goes, “Do I have your permission?” I’m like, “Yeah, open it.” She opens it, she goes, “Boy, this smells good. It’s just this little shea thing that smells good. I’ll take care of it for you.”

Mama Z: There was only one, and I ended up using that-

Dr. Z: I love it.

Mama Z: … because just that corner had gotten more smashed. But we had so many things in the middle of everything that almost protected everything else.

Dr. Z: Yes.

Mama Z: I ended up being able to use that one. Then I did a healthy hand sanitizer for everybody from our recipe, the 10-10-10 method.

Dr. Z: What’s that, for those people who don’t know?

Mama Z: 10 drops of essential oils, 10 drops of aloe, and 10 drops of a grain alcohol mixed in a one ounce PET plastic bottle with distilled water to fill it up to the top.

Dr. Z: What kind of oils did you put in it?

Mama Z: I did lavender, I did peppermint, I did spearmint-

Dr. Z: Oh, fun.

Mama Z: … I did orange, I did lemon. I did just a variety of our favorites that I make throughout the year. Each bag got those. Then our great friends from MyGreenFills, one of my absolute favorite things is the Dryer Angels that they make. Dryer Angels are made in a deaf village in Jamaica. Now because of so many people being involved with MyGreenFills that deaf village is actually completely funded by MyGreenFills-

Dr. Z: I love it.

Mama Z:  .. so much to the fact that they’re actually now buying women out of slavery in that area as well to help with some of their other projects that they’re doing. They actually fund the entire deaf village. In that deaf village, they provide housing, education, and also a job for them through the Dryer Angel program. Each one got a Dryer Angel, which is so beautiful and it’s handmade by this village.

Dr. Z: People, hey, if you’re interested in any of this, go to mrsgeorgia.org. Then scroll down to check out Sabrina’s sponsors. There’ll be logos that you can click on that will bring you to these people’s websites. If you haven’t, you need to get on MyGreenFills. It’s the best laundry subscription of nontoxic laundry products ever. Like Sabrina was sharing, it’s wonderful. All of the sponsors that she’s going to mention right now that gave products, they want to give you guys and gals a wonderful discount to get you started on this natural living road.

Mama Z:  Awesome. Then also Annmarie Skincare. They gave skincare kits to every single person, a smaller skincare kit, but then they also had a probiotic serum for the face. They had a special stem cell one that they had. They had just a variety of different ones for everybody to experience.

If you don’t know anything about Annmarie Skincare, that’s what we use at the house, and our kids use it. This is what we use. I’ve used all of the products. I’ve purposed to try each and every product. A lot of their antiaging things are absolutely amazing. But they’re organic and they use essential oils. They’re just absolutely amazing.

Dr. Z: And then jade roller.

Mama Z: Oh, yes. The jade roller that they gave me happened right about the time that I had a burn on my leg, which was a week and a half before Mrs. Georgia. Very anti-inflammation, but I used that jade roller to really help … Not only just used the medicine that my friend and I another doctor put together for my leg, but also it just really helped it calm down, because when you have a burn, and I’m sure Eric can attest to that, you feel like you’re on fire in that area. You have to make sure that you are putting multiple things on it. It was like putting an ice pack on there.

Then also I had Living Fuel. They sponsored my fuel not just before the pageant, they actually shipped fuel on site for me, which is absolutely amazing. This is one scoop of red and one scoop of the green, but when I’m definitely in the throes of my training, I just use the green. I make these shakes, and the fuel is just amazing.

The owners of the company, KC Craichy, he wrote a book about Living Fuel. He wanted to give each and every one of the girls one of those books. His wife, Monica, my good friend, she wrote a powerful devotional of the words of Jesus Christ, the precious words of Jesus Christ. She wanted everyone-

Dr. Z:  Oh, they gave that, too? I didn’t know that.

Mama Z: Yes. They wanted everyone to not just have help-

Dr. Z: That’s awesome.

Mama Z: … but they wanted to have the words of our Lord there, too. They donated both of those books to each one of the girls. It was just such a precious package. It was actually quite hefty. It was great. My mom and my girlfriend … We couldn’t have anybody else except for our roommate and us in our rooms, just because it was more of a security thing. You have lots of expensive pageant things and other stuff. But luckily for us, we had a porch. People could enter from the hallway out to the porch. I actually lined up all the bags in boxes. Then they put all the stuffing in there.

Dr. Z: That’s awesome.

Mama Z: Oh, also our Nature’s Corner Market had donated a bunch of the gifts from a lot of our sponsors that we had from our state competition. We have lots of different sponsors that they were able to secure samples for different things.

Dr. Z: Like what?

Mama Z: Everybody got samples of my favorite, Calm. Everybody got Calm. They had different shampoo and conditioners. They had all kinds of antiaging things-

Dr. Z: [crosstalk 00:24:10].

Mama Z:  … whether it was for skin, hair, and nails. But just lots of different variety of all things that pageant people would appreciate. That was in there as well. We just were so thankful for all of the outpouring that was a part of what we were able to give each one of the girls.

Then once we had all the boxes put together, it was actually four ginormous boxes of the seven that had come. We had to have a bellhop come and load it up for us because they were so heavy. Then he hauled them all the way from where we were at to where the conference center was. He was on a good three-quarters of a mile hike with me. Then he stuck around and helped me pass them out.

Dr. Z: Was yours the heaviest?

Mama Z: It was definitely one of the heaviest, for sure. Then Mrs. Idaho and one of my other friends helped put mine at every one of the place settings. It was so cool.

Dr. Z: I’m seeing something here because I’m assuming not all the girls were into natural living like we are. Most people aren’t. I think we should start a natural living pageant where everyone has to use nontoxic products and everyone has to give each other healthy gifts. We’re going to start a revolution.

Mama Z: I think we can start a revolution right where we’re at. Because I do have so many sensitivities and stuff like that, it was great to be able to navigate food, it was great to be able to navigate hair and make-up.

 

[25:46 – 32:32] How Mama Z Navigated Food & Personal Products in Las Vegas

Dr. Z: Yeah. How do you do that in Vegas? Because there is zero health … I don’t want to say zero. There are zero healthy restaurants in Vegas, at least in the strip downtown. I talked to several different people, and I’ll tell you my version of this, my story, when we went with the kids. That was a whole different thing. But how did you navigate food?

Mama Z: They were super accommodating. I went and talked to the chef, like I always do. I tried to prior to, but I could not reach him. I had left a couple of messages. The pageant director had said, “Just wait until you get here and then correspond with him,” so I did. They made as much of accommodations as they possibly could. I still had a reaction with the salad, even though it was dry and stuff. I was able to modify from there. I brought my own dressings and stuff like that, but I also brought my own greens. I knew how to adapt from there. But they were willing to bend backwards.

Dr. Z: You were saying a few of the other girls, several, didn’t feel good after you all ate at some of the restaurants in the casino.

Mama Z: Yes, that was the case. Some of the people really had a problem, like going to the bathroom and stuff like that. Nerves and other things are a factor as well, but definitely I’m really sensitive to the food factor. I had purposely gotten there a day early in order to go to Whole Foods and go to some of the other places. I went and got real toilet paper and real paper towels that I picked at the grocery store, because there’s just something about having good paper products at your disposal. I made sure that I had the things that I’m used to.

Then what I did is on different breaks, I would make either my fuel shakes up or I would make omelets and had lots and lots of greens in it. I had lots of vegetables. Then I just brought those places. We were at Benihana’s, and they brought me a nice dry salad. Then I was able to put my omelet on top. Then some of the people looked over and go, “What are you eating? That looks really good. I want some.”

I was able to just make the modifications that I needed to, which I think were really important. That’s why I was able to keep my nutrition up. But when it comes to hair and make-up, I was blessed to have one of the best to make-up artists, I think, in the country.

What happens is is you pay for a chair for the entire week. Many of these artists go from different pageants and then they have chairs available. The amazing make-up artist I had, Austin Wright and his team, they were completely awesome. They worked and tailored everything that I needed. I brought my own hair products, and they loved my hair products. We did really well.

With my hairstyles, they had certain days that they wanted us to wash our hair, certain days they wanted us to have dirty hair. How it works is we had to report a number of the days at 7:00 AM. My make-up call time was 4:00 AM, so I had to wake up at 2:45 AM in order to be ready with my hair completely dry and ready to go for hair and make-up. It was just quite an experience.

With the sensitivities that I have regarding the make-up, I was able to use a lot of my own make-up. Then we tested out different products on my face. I would read the ingredients. We’d go back and forth, see how my face did and made adaptions for the whole experience. They completely worked around every one of my needs. It was awesome.

Dr. Z: That’s a lot, in the midst of training all day for opening number. You got ready for interview and then you did the prelims. It was really exciting to see, because we didn’t talk a lot because you couldn’t. I mean you couldn’t for security also.

Mama Z: Right. Then when we were at practice, we had to have our telephones in our bags. We were most of the time away from our bags, and so we didn’t have access to use them. For security feature, for me, I always posted a day after each one of our events. If we went somewhere, I waited until later when we weren’t there, or the next day, to post each thing. I always try to go above and beyond when it comes to security.

I thought, on our preliminary night, I had the best hair and make-up ever, okay? But I had a couple of things happen during that day that was crazy. When I talked to my trainer about this and I said, “I think that some people are going to want to know this story because it’s not all picture perfect, but God worked it all out.” I think that was important.

I get a mad dash call from you while I’m in the hair and make-up waiting for hair and make-up, “What are we supposed to wear?” and I’m like, “Oh, my gosh. We went over this a month ago. We had it all picked out.” You were stressing me out, and it all got worked out. You guys looked amazingly handsome.

Dr. Z: Oh, no, no, no. No, no. That’s not 100%. You told me I had to wear a tuxedo for both days.

 

[32:33 – 44:48] Navigating Mishaps During the Big Event

Mama Z: No, just the final night.

Dr. Z: No.

Mama Z: And you had to wear a jacket.

Dr. Z: No.

Mama Z: This is where sometimes I wish that I don’t-

Dr. Z: You said I had to wear a tuxedo.

Mama Z: No, just on the last day.

Dr. Z: You said black tie. Then Alex, our nanny, is like, “Hey, I just talked to Sabrina. She said you could wear business casual.”

Mama Z: I said men in jackets.

Dr. Z: Okay, here’s the thing.

Mama Z: Yeah, so he hears something totally different.

Dr. Z: No, I hear business casual.

Mama Z: No, no, no. Sometimes I wish that I wait to see-

Dr. Z: Which means polo shirt and slacks.

Mama Z: No.

Dr. Z: Yes, that’s my business casual.

Mama Z: Sometimes I wish that … I’m like I should just not talk until right before because you just don’t listen to it anyway. I went over this a month before we left.

Dr. Z: No, no, no.

Mama Z: Yes.

Dr. Z: No.

Mama Z: What my mind is I went over it-

Dr. Z: No.

Mama Z:  … it’s done. For him, he wasn’t done. But here I am waiting patiently.

Dr. Z: No, Alex said, “Hey, did Sabrina tell you there was an update?” because they just published the brand new schedule, and it changed.

Mama Z:  No, it was always the same. I gave you the sheet that I had given you over a month and a half before the event.

Dr. Z: Whatever.

Mama Z: Sent you the same picture.

Dr. Z: Well, I’m glad I brought a sport coat because I looked good.

Mama Z: There were lots of people fine-tuning their look, and so it took a little bit longer in hair and make-up. I thought that I would have plenty of time to load the rest of the things in my bag and make it to the theater. By the time I got back to the room, it was a mad dash to get down there.

I had my helper and I had my friend. They went out to the little patio. Then I was able to wheel stuff out to them and we all carried everything down. But because it took so much longer to get down there, there was a window of time that we had to be down to the theater. I was more towards the end of that window.

What I didn’t know is they were practicing on stage swimsuit and evening gown, and we had not yet practiced at all swimsuit and evening gown on stage. I didn’t do swimsuit and evening gown until I did it for real that night. I mean we practiced in our practice room, but not on stage.

Then I put on my swimsuit and the entire right cup of the swimsuit was concave. Something happened to it, and I couldn’t have a look like that, okay? As always, God always will perfect those things that concern you. I took my sash, because we had these little short sashes that said “Georgia” on it. I had to angle it high to cover the part that was completely not right about my swimsuit. Somehow it corrected itself. I don’t know what happened with the foam in there. It just was not right.

Dr. Z: Didn’t Sally, you’re 85-year-old, whatever, plus friend, your old pageant director, donate a bra to help you at that time? She told us. Is that what it?

Mama Z: No, this is a different story.

Dr. Z: Okay, because I was at lunch with your mom and Sally, and she’s like, “I’ve given away more clothes, but the first time I’ve … ” She goes, “I’ve donated a lot of stuff in a pageant, but first time ever given a bra.” Here she is, like, 90.

Mama Z: Yeah.

Dr. Z: This was so sweet. She was in a wheelchair. Hey, by the way, more than 30 people from six different states came to support Sabrina during that event. That just touched our hearts. It was so sweet that we all got together. We had a celebratory Chinese dinner with some sushi right after.

Mama Z: Elizabeth Bond, our Director of Customer Happiness-

Dr. Z: Thank you, Elizabeth.

Mama Z:  … God bless her, so she told my mom, she’s like, “I really need to be doing something.” She’s like, “I want to take over the seat-saving task.” She had all the signs for everybody to cheer and all of that. She was amazing.

Dr. Z: It was wonderful. Make sure, you all, if you haven’t seen anything online, you could go to Mama Z’s Facebook page. Just go to Facebook and type up Mama Z, or you again can go to MrsGeorgia.org. What we have is Sabrina’s Instagram feed right there. You can just scroll through and see a bunch of photos. They’re wonderful.

But I’ll say, though, the Mama Z Facebook page, I did a lot of video. I did a video of her being announced top 15, top six, showing her pictures in her swimsuit and evening-

Mama Z: I spotted him out. I figured out where he was.

Dr. Z: It was wonderful. But, yeah, I want to make sure you all get a chance to see this because, ultimately, it’s so nice to come after all this and to be able to relate what happened to you in this, kind of like, okay, well, let’s breathe, because this whole thing started with a book launch in May. Then it catapulted-

Mama Z: Yeah, but we had stuff months in the making before that came out, with all the podcasts and the radio and stuff like that. It was even before that.

Dr. Z: Yeah, because we were always actively building and growing and adding to our Natural Living Family database and our online programs and everything, books. We were getting ready to launch this book, Sabrina is training for the Mrs. Georgia pageant, and then it was boom! Things were just …

It was kind of a blur. I mean here we are in September and it’s really a blur to even think about how we got through where we were at. But you know what? Truth is we’re healthier than we ever been before. We’re more disciplined. I mean I’m pretty proud to say that we’re regularly exercising as a family. The kids are in run club, I’m lifting weights three, four times a week.

Mama Z: Esther’s in gymnastics, the boys are in karate.

Dr. Z: Our diet has never been better, our marriage has never been better, besides Sabrina being mean to me this morning.

Mama Z: I was not mean to you.

Dr. Z: All right. Chris is laughing. He’s like, “Man, this guy. I don’t know how he does it.” His wife would be like, “Chris!”

Mama Z: Let me finish my story about [crosstalk 00:37:15].

Dr. Z: I’m just saying this is catching up from the summer, so kind of like recapping. This whole thing is just like boom! It just happened and here we are. It’s just nice that we can sit down and just thank everyone. All the text messages, Facebook messages you got, all the emails, all the Instagram posts, just the support from everybody.

Mama Z: Right.

Dr. Z: Thank you so much. I mean this has been wonderful.

Mama Z: God actually picked my dress. This is what happened. This is going to touch on what you talked about with Sally as well. Preliminary night, I had had some issues with the dress I was going to wear. I had tried on this other dress after I had had Bella and a few other times. I’d always liked it, but it was just not the timing for this dress. Then I ended up trying it on and I had two sponsors literally give me the money for this dress. It was absolutely amazing.

With being in all these extra workouts that we did while we were there, with the dancing and everything, it made me lose a little extra weight, and my dress was almost falling off my shoulder. I had to use two-sided tape on that Thursday, which was kind of crazy.

Dr. Z: The preliminary night.

Mama Z: Preliminary night. It was still gorgeous, it looked amazing, and it was very different from anything else. But that night, quickly after we were done, I got to say hi to you. I think you got a picture of me with my stuff from the theater and my Living Fuel shake. Then I was up to my mom’s and Sally’s room. We were going to have to make modifications to this dress because there was no way that I could walk freely without it falling off of my shoulders.

Sally was like, “We need a hook and eye.” I had snaps in my little thing. I had everything except for a hook and eye. She’s like, “Well, I have a hook and eye on my bra.” But what we didn’t realize is not only is that sewn in there, it’s glued into there. She had used tweezers and had to rip out one. Then we realized that she needed to rip out the other, which would make her bra null and void. She did donate her bra to the cause.

We got it to the point where I get a call from my trainer in the morning. She’s like, “What are you doing?” and I’m like, “Oh, I’m getting ready, getting everything else set.” She goes, “Can you come up and try on the dress?” I’m like, “Okay. I haven’t showered yet from our organic spray tan.”

I went up there and I said, “After all this work, do you want me just to try on the dress that I had designed? I know that was going to be the backup. But do you want me to just try it on?” She’s like, “No, don’t mess with that. Your spray tan could ruin the white. Don’t worry about it.” I was like, “Well, doesn’t that not matter if I don’t wear it?”

Anyway, they had me try it on, and they were like, “Oh, my gosh. That’s it.” You weren’t even keen on my other dress. Even when you saw it on FaceTime-

Dr. Z: No, it wasn’t a beauty pageant-winning dress. It’s a beautiful dress. You asked me what did I think of the dress, I’m like, “It’s beautiful.”

Mama Z: See, I had to have you behind me 100% on the dress. That’s so important.

Dr. Z: Yeah. It was the white version of the blue dress that you wore, that one evening gown for Mrs. Georgia. We know that white wins. White or gold or like colors, 10 out of 11 years, have won Mrs. America. We knew-

Mama Z: That still was in the color wheel with the other dress.

Dr. Z: Well, yeah, but it was not that hourglass, form-fitting, beautiful, like wow dress. Your dress was cute, it was pretty, kind of reminding me of a fancy prom dress. The bottom was just like a drape. In my opinion, you’ve worked too hard to get to the fitness level that you have without wearing a dress that accentuates your figure.

Mama Z: Well, guess what? Two weeks ago, that dress didn’t look like that, which was so crazy.

Dr. Z: Well, it fit wonderfully.

Mama Z: So God-

Dr. Z: I’m convinced that’s what got you in the top six, because I don’t think you would’ve gotten top six with the other dress.

Mama Z: I mean God pretty much picked my dress. That’s what my trainer said. She’s like-

Dr. Z: I was praying. I was like, “Lord, help my … ” Once you decided, though, once you decided to wear that dress-

Mama Z: Well, once I put it on, I was like, “This is it.” All of them-

Dr. Z: I was like, “Lord, all I want to do is see my wife in that dress.” It was a showstopper. It was. It was one of those, like, wow!

Mama Z: Yes, it was. It was very cool because a week before that, here I am, I’m flying to California to meet you. I’m beating the tassels for this dress that’s over my leg area, my slit area. You can’t use scissors on the airplane so I had to use my teeth to cut the thread to do this. I’m thinking, “I know nobody’s ever going to see these, but they are going to be beautiful,” then the whole world got to see them. It was absolutely awesome.

Dr. Z: It was wonderful.

Mama Z: It was. I had all these other factors going on in the preliminaries. I am very tough on myself because I am competing against myself. I always want to do the best job I’ve ever done. As soon as we were done with preliminaries, then we immediately started practicing for finals.

Then, of course, the next day was the miss finals. God had spoke to me that the questions that they had had in the miss finals were going to be the questions that were in the missus finals, which they’ve never done that before. I’m like, “Well, that can’t be.” I’m like, “Well, I’m not going to doubt God.” They were the exact questions that were in the finals.

It was just such a surreal experience. I’m so grateful that I got to really get to know Hawaii and Idaho, and being around Florida as well, because we had to sit in alphabetical order. It wasn’t by last name because we all know that I would probably be last and usually am because that’s how the Georgia pageants run. But we sat by our states.

Actually, people didn’t refer to you as your name. They just called you Georgia. Someone will be like, “Hey, Georgia,” “Hey, Hawaii.” But we ended up being really close. It was such a great experience with those sisters. We since have been communicating. Just a great experience overall. Everywhere we went, they really rolled out the red carpet for us. It was just an amazing event.

Dr. Z: I got the chance to see the Elvis Suite, because Elvis played at the Westgate for 10-whatever years.

Mama Z: Yes, the Elvis Suite. I’m worried because there’s 104 women, plus staff, and I’m thinking, “Are they going to have enough bathrooms?” Oh, my goodness. They had at least eight hot tubs. In each bathroom, it was like they had a bidet and a toilet. Of course, I had to take a picture of it because it was crazy. But there was plenty of bathrooms, if anybody needed the bathroom. They had a courtyard with a pool. This is on top of the hotel. But it was just an amazing experience.

Dr. Z: Yes. It was where Elvis lived for a decade, basically. That’s unbelievable.

Mama Z: Yes.

Dr. Z: It’s unbelievable.

Mama Z: One of the hot tubs that they had, and each side had a his and a hers. It was very balanced, which, style-wise, I’m a very balanced person. Each side had a hot tub that was taller than me. Then they had three showers on the other side. I mean it would probably take hours to fill this hot tub, but it was incredible.

 

[44:49 – 55:33] Getting Calm Before the Pageant

Dr. Z: Okay.

Mama Z: Eric’s like, “Oh, that sounds fun.”

Dr. Z: Well, we’ve got some other fun stuff to share, especially in the spirit of the Natural Living Family podcast, just how our life and our way of life really propelled Sabrina and us as a family to do this successfully. But before we dive into that, a quick word from our sponsor.

Mama Z: More than half of you listening to this will be affected by cancer at some point in your lives, either personally or through a loved one.

Dr. Z: The first thing that goes through your mind is dread, fear, and the never-ending question: can this be cured?

Mama Z: My dear friend Angie went through this exact experience. A wonderful mom and wife, she was the picture of health. A breast cancer diagnosis in 2017 shocked her to the core. It changed everything for her.

Dr. Z: The Hope for Breast Cancer documentary follows her story as she navigates the maze of cancer therapies to uncover some shocking truths about herself, her faith, and about her health.

Mama Z: Visit HopeforBreastCancer.com, that’s H-O-P-E F-O-R breast cancer dot com, to reserve your seat for the upcoming global premier and to be the first to watch the free viewing when it airs.

Dr. Z: We promise tears, laughter, and most of all hope. Before we end the show today, we’re going to have a natural living tip for you. I’m going to give you our antianxiety inhaler recipe, our citrus-lover’s antianxiety inhaler recipe to be more precise, from The Healing Power of Essential Oils recipe.

But I thought that was really something special because when you and I were talking on the phone before the guys had to be part of the rehearsal, because I can’t take credit for you being a finalist, like how I took credit for you winning evening gown for Georgia.

Mama Z: Oh, wait, wait. No, you told all the other husbands and wives that you won evening gown-

Dr. Z: I did.

Mama Z:  … hands down.

Dr. Z: Yeah, okay. That’s a whole another story. I know I shared the story a couple of episodes ago. But, yeah, Sabrina won-

Mama Z: You’ve shared this so many times that people have actually repeated the story to me.

Dr. Z: It’s a pretty good story. I mean for those people who are new to the show, Mrs. Georgia, a couple of months ago, Sabrina won swimsuit, photogenic. She won evening gown, people’s choice award. It was a wonderful clean sweep. I was just like, “Wow!” Evening gown, though, here’s the thing, have you ever seen the Olympics and during the track and field baton race someone makes that mistake and the baton drops or it’s not a very smooth baton-

Mama Z:  We had that happen at run club on Tuesday.

Dr. Z: That split second will cost you the gold medal. The same thing with the handing off of your wife during the evening gown, because men escort their wives out on stage for Mrs. Georgia. Unfortunately, a guy or two dropped the ball and stutter-stepped, and it jacked his whole wife up. I was like, “Poor girl. She started on a stutter step.”

Well, I handed you off flawlessly. It was my best work ever. I handed Sabrina off, and it was like she was floating in air. Of course, she’s going to win evening gown. So I take most credit for that. But I can’t take credit for you earning a finalist, because this time I didn’t hand you off. I didn’t say anything. I was part of the show for five seconds. But the very beginning of the show, opening number was all the ladies walking out their husbands. I’m her arm candy. You’re like-

Mama Z: The funny thing is they should have had you guys on the opposite side. Because you were on the side that you were … It was so funny, me and the other ladies. The guys would turn faster, but it would whip us around, because you guys were already turned-

Dr. Z: I know.

Mama Z: … and then it was kind of like you were-

Dr. Z: Well, did I whip you around?

Mama Z:  A little bit.

Dr. Z: But not bad as the other guys. That’s probably why you became a finalist. You see-

Mama Z: There you go.

Dr. Z:  … I give God the glory-

Mama Z: But it was so funny because-

Dr. Z:   … because he just inspired me for all this. But anyway …

Mama Z: But I noticed it, I mentioned it to Mrs. Hawaii. I’m like, “Look, see the guys have less distance to go, so when they turn, the wife has to catch up in the taller shoes.” It’s kind of like they’re whipping everybody around.

Dr. Z: They’re like, “Hi, I’m Sabrina Ann Zielinski. I’m Mrs. Georgia. This is my husband Eric,” and then that’s it. Then I walked off the stage. But we had to practice that at like-

Mama Z: Right. You always have been my prayer cloth and always have, whether it’s been at Mrs. Georgia. I’ve always looked forward to you coming to me and me getting the hold on to you. I just love that.

Dr. Z: Well, rehearsals.

Mama Z: Yeah.

Dr. Z: Rehearsals, I had to wake up earlier. We got there Saturday morning and all the guys are just hanging out and had a great chat with Mr. Alaska and some of the other guys, just husbands of the pageant queens. It was kind of fun.

By the way, this is funny. I didn’t say anything, but it was stark obvious to me, like all you pageant girls are the same; bubbly, pretty. All the guys were completely different. It’s like we had old, we had young. We had fat, we had skinny. We had dark, we had light. We had bald, we had hairy. It was like everyone you could think of. There was no consistency among the men, but all you ladies were like, “Yay!” bubbly. It was really funny.

I remember, though, when I was on my way, because you told me, “Hey, they made a last minute change. You’ve got to get here a little bit earlier,” you said, “Bring the antianxiety inhalers,” that I usually have in my briefcase, which, by the way, don’t forget I need them.

Mama Z: Oh, yeah.

Dr. Z: I want to talk about that because that’s why I want to give the antianxiety inhaler recipe at the very end of the show, because here you are at a pageant and I was like, “Oh, that’s sweet.” So like-

Mama Z: Wait. Before my interviews, I always use a certain couple of blends that I really like. But every time before you and I interview together, you always either have that blend in the diffuser or you have it in an inhaler. I just have grown to really like that smell before we do anything big, and so I wanted you to bring that.

I could start sensing some of the anxiety from the people around me. I really wanted that to not become a part of me at all either. When you brought those and you were like, “I don’t know which one it is. It’s either this one or this one.” Then I knew for a fact it was this one, because the other one is more your cologney type. It was more your floral thing.

Dr. Z: Because I didn’t label it.

Mama Z: Yeah, because … Did you hear what he just said? He didn’t label it. I carry a label maker with me everywhere. I bought him a label maker. He has yet to use the label maker. It’s locked in his drawer in his office. I don’t even know how to get to it.

Dr. Z: It’s one of those gifts that you give to people because you want to use it, not because the person wants it.

Mama Z: No, I have two of my own.

Dr. Z: It’s like me giving you a bowling ball.

Mama Z: No. Listen, I have two of my own.

Dr. Z: Chris knows what I’m talking about here. Chris is laughing.

Mama Z: I have one in the kitchen.

Dr. Z: No, you gave me a gift that you wanted.

Mama Z: I have one in my suitcase.

Dr. Z: Yeah. I don’t want it.

Mama Z: No, I already have my own. I was giving you one.

Dr. Z: Have I ever used a label maker in my life?

Mama Z: I gave it to you when you got your office because I knew you’d want to label things.

Dr. Z: Okay. A, you’ve never allowed me to touch your label maker.

Mama Z: That’s why I gave you your own.

Dr. Z: I don’t know how to use a label maker, I have no interest in labels, and you give it to me.

Mama Z:  Eric, I gave you your own label maker. I already have my own, and I have a traveling one that I use.

Dr. Z: That’s one of those gifts you gave to me because you wanted it yourself.

Mama Z: I have a love affair with my label maker.

Dr. Z: That’s why you have it downstairs in the basement now so in case you have a … You need a fix.

Mama Z: No, because you have it locked up in your office.

Dr. Z: I’m telling you. Anyway, I didn’t have it. But it was so sweet because, folks, this is how we live. This is natural living. This is our Natural Living Family. It’s like we just have stuff always prepared, and it’s convenient. I have a couple little inhalers in my briefcase all the time, and sometimes I go to it. You know what? You made a point. This is-

Mama Z: We had diffusers going in our room. That was something that we had a chance to talk to our roommate prior to. I let her know that unnatural scents really bothered me, and so she made sure that she didn’t use any of those things in the room. She liked diffusers and they use them in her home. I said, “I’ll make sure that I bring diffusers and plenty of essential oils as well.”

Dr. Z: You mentioned something, though, that’s worth emphasizing for people right now that are going through their own healing journey, especially if it’s cancer, if it’s anxiety, depression, maybe some PTSD abuse or trauma. I cover actually a whole class in our Women’s Health Series that people can buy if they join our master class, our Essential Oils Master Class. I have a whole hour and a half, two-hour long teaching on this. But you said something.

What happened is after all the times that we’ve interviewed together, I have this special blend kicking. It’s consistent. We’ve actually imprinted our brain, to let our brain know, “Hey, show time,” “Hey, we’ve got to be on,” “Hey, interview’s coming up,” “Hey.”

It’s special because when you do something repetitive like that, it’s like if you’ve heard of muscle memory, it’s the same thing. It’s literal brain neurological memory because of neural plasticity.

Mama Z:  Yeah. It’s so funny because I don’t use that blend normally, but you always do.

Dr. Z: It’s our blend. Guess what blend I’m going to use when I write the book, the next book, when I help write my portion of it? It’s going to be lime and bergamot, because that’s the exact same blend that I put together for The Healing Power of Essential Oils. Every time I need to do something super important, where I need to be energized and have a good boosting mood, that’s what I put in .

It’s special because regardless of where you’re at in your healing journeys, now is the time to find that blend that you just love. That’s one reason why we give you the blends that we have in our diffuser every week, so you have now, if you’ve been listening, 34, 35 different blends in your disposal and you’re like, “Oh, let me try this, let me try that.”

That’s really important to this discussion is that once you find something that you like, try it during maybe a stressful situation or something where you really need to concentrate. Then that will be your anchor.

That was so sweet because I realized this really works, and that was your anchor. Not that that caused you to become a finalist, but, man, it puts you in a such a better space because now you felt empowered. Now you’re like, “Hey, I got something at my disposal.” Now it is a matter of what’s going on around you, because some of the girls were … I saw some of them. One girl’s as sweet as can be, she was crying right before. It wasn’t like emotional crying. She was just like she couldn’t stop crying. She’s like, “Why can’t I stop crying?” It was like five seconds before the show goes on. Bless her heart.

Mama Z: I hadn’t seen any of that stuff.

Dr. Z: Like emotions going on everywhere. It’s like, “This is crazy.” Being backstage, it was pitch black for five minutes. I’m like, “What’s happening here?” All the husbands were like, “Duh.” What do husbands do, but wait.

 

[55:34 – 1:04:46] How Mama Z Feels Accomplishing Her Dream

It was really kind of funny, but, folks, that’s what life’s about, whether it’s a marathon, a pageant, whether you’re getting up to speak in front of your kid’s preschool class, whatever it is. You have something that you could anchor to, go to, and, of course, prayer.

We prayed and prayed and prayed and fasted. I hope and pray, like I did from the very beginning, that this experience just filled you, completed you, helped, because this has been your dream, to compete at a national level for, what, over 20 years now. How sweet is that? How do you feel? I haven’t asked you about that.

By the way, folks, we haven’t talked about any of this. All this stuff that Sabrina’s telling me is new to me. It’s no wonder why I wanted to do this podcast. But before we end in a few minutes here, how do you feel? I mean is this like do you feel like you just had your dream come true? Do you feel you had your once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to compete at a national pageant?

Mama Z: I feel like it was an amazing experience, and I learned so much from so many different ends of it. Of course, I always wanted to compete at a national level, especially doing that with speed skating many years ago. I enjoy competing at a national level. It’s something that I would love to someday do again, just because it really, just in my whole story, has helped motivate so many people.

Just like my interview I had yesterday, the lady was so sweet. She’s like, “I really want to look up this pageant thing,” because there are so many women who have been wives and moms for a while. They’ve really committed a lot of their energies to their family, and they still have goals and dreams.

I think it’s important for our kids to see us living some of those things out. They learn lessons through that. They go through the ups and downs of competing and all of that stuff. I think it makes us better. Like we know, iron sharpens iron.

I was blessed to be top six. 46 other people weren’t able to do that, and that is a complete honor. I’m glad I had a chance to represent Georgia proud. After talking with different judges afterwards and different state directors that came up to me and spoke to my director, lots and lots of amazing feedback. They actually just changed-

Dr. Z:  Well, you’re my Mrs. America.

Mama Z:  Oh, thank you. They actually just changed the ruling. It used to be it was a one and done. You couldn’t ever compete again. They allow you to give up your title and then you can compete the following year. You’re able to go back. It used to be that in order for you to ever compete again, you’d have to have residency in a different state for a period of time.

Anyway, that was a neat thing. But it was a great chance to bring together so many people who’ve helped encourage me over the years, like Sally, like Lana, and my mom, her getting to go there. My dad was so cute. My dad, when she got home, he goes, “So do we do this next year?”

Dr. Z:  Oh, man.

Mama Z: That’s the very first thing he said. He was like, “Because I’m in.”

Dr. Z: He wants to go next year?

Mama Z: Oh, yeah, he said. Anyway, it was just really neat to hear a lot of the feedback and stuff like that. But I love what this program has done for me. I’ve just seen where it’s been able to encourage so many people, and just even my walk for Mrs. Georgia, and other people I didn’t even know that they knew my story.

I had directors that came up to me, “I judged you the very first time. I’ve been following your story ever since then. I just want to tell you that you’ve been such an encouragement, and just your resilience and just how you’ve just stuck with it.” One of them said, “I feel like you making it in the top up there is … Even though I’m not your state director, I have a piece in that.” Another lady came up to me, “Do you remember when I encouraged you your third time to do it a fourth time?”

Dr. Z: Wow! Oh, really?

Mama Z:  Yes. I said, “I do,” and I said, “You’re one of the reasons why I’m here.” Just all the directors that have judged our pageant, to be able to encourage them. They’ve used my story. I’ve talked to other contestants and other people. It was definitely about the total package. The experience has just been incredible.

Dr. Z: Hallelujah. Big shout out to Lisa Miner, your best friend, one of your best friends, to … Well, shout out because she’s committed to-

Mama Z: Doing it, yes.

Dr. Z:  … competing for Mrs. Michigan. This is why I’m mentioning this because if any of this is motivating to you on any level, and if you’re a married woman in America, I would say give it some strong peripheral consideration to join regardless of … You fill in the blank. Lisa has recently lost, since she’s followed The Essential Oils Diet … And this is not a plug for the book, by the way. This is actual truth.

Since she’s followed The Essential Oils Diet, she’s lost over 50 pounds and 50 inches. She has 50 pounds more to go. She signed up for the pageant for next year, April 2020, Michigan. This is Michigan pageant as her motivation.

Mama Z:  And I’m committed to going.

Dr. Z:  As her motivation to finish off the rest of the 50, because her goal was 100 pounds lost. We believe in her and she can do it.

Mama Z: She can do it.

Dr. Z: Here’s the thing. That is the reason to do a pageant. Not to win and get the glory and get a crown and go through and be rich and famous.

Mama Z: It’s the personal growth development. The journey is always in the trip.

Dr. Z:  I’m telling you that’s where I see the missus circuit. This is different because this is not a nonprofit. There’s no money involved. When you win Miss America, you make a lot of money, you get to travel. It sets you up pretty much for life if you’re smart. It really is.

Missus is not the same. This is very much a personal development type of thing for married women, working professionals, or stay-at-home moms. It’s a great opportunity to challenge yourself because, quite frankly, you’ve got to put on a bathing suit and an evening gown and be in front of people. The thing is is that-

Mama Z:  At the national level, it is a one piece, but you’re still wearing a bathing suit.

Dr. Z: It was a one piece. But still it’s like how many people do we know that don’t put on the evening gown or swimsuit to go out to the pool, or they don’t put on the evening gown to go to the black tie event because they’re embarrassed? There’s no difference, whether you’re on stage or where you’re at, like a public event with other people.

Mama Z: Right. You learn the physical fitness-

Dr. Z:  It’s wonderful.

Mama Z: … and the balance of the swimsuit with the grace and poise of the evening gown.

Dr. Z: So go for it, right?

Mama Z:  And also the interview.

Dr. Z: Interview is key. It’s 50% …

Mama Z: It’s 50%. Not only-

Dr. Z: … of the scoring.

Mama Z: It’s the connection and it’s the comfortability that you have because you have to learn how to articulate your thoughts to be able to motivate other people, especially if you have a message to give, and we do. Our health message is something that we walk out every day and it’s something that we do every day, but it’s a part of what we do. Every single person I know has some sort of a message to give. This is a great vehicle to do it. Also, it opens so many other doors.

I had a lady on one of our boards. She had said, “Why in the world would you want to do a pageant?” I kept this because I thought, “Okay. Well, this is something that you need to really … I wanted to read.” I’m not going to mention her name, but I said, “This is a great way of spreading my message. It opens doors that wouldn’t naturally be opened. I want families across America to live their best, healthiest life now. I want women everywhere to know about the Mrs. America program and what it does for women to help them realize their greatest potential.

Pageantry has been the number one tool used in my life to sharpen my TV skills, to speak in front of all crowds, has trained me to be well-balanced in poise, confidence, and fitness. I would encourage women everywhere to be involved in pageantry.

This is also one of the tools that God used to save me. It’s a great place to be a powerful witness for Christ. I have so many strong, like-minded girlfriends from all over the country that I have been friends with for decades, and I never would have met them any other way.”

Dr. Z: Ladies, if the Holy Spirit is pricking your heart, so to speak, go for it.

Mama Z: Yeah.

Dr. Z: Guys, encourage your wives to consider it. It could be a life-changing and transforming event, and challenge you women to be the best you possible.

Mama Z: Yes, the best version of yourself. There you go. To wrap up today’s show, we have a natural living tip for you.

 

[1:04:47 – End] Natural Living Tip and Episode Wrap

Dr. Z:  This is straight from The Healing Power of Essential Oils, the English edition, not the Spanish edition, because I’m not going to read the Spanish edition unless I could get Chris … Hey, Chris, do you want to read the Spanish edition here? Chris is like, “You put me on the spot again.”

This is page 109, our citrus-lovers anxiety inhaler, the one that Mama Z cried out for when she was right about to go on stage for the finals of Mrs. America 2019. You get five drops of orange essential oil, five drops of bergamot essential oil, five drops of sandalwood, five drops of your ylang-ylang. You just mix these oils together, soak up your precut organic cotton pad, and put that in your aromatherapy inhaler.

When a panic attack hits you where you feel anxious or when you want to feel grounded or clear away any wayward thoughts, you simply open the inhaler, take a few deep breaths, and enjoy.

Mama Z: Don’t forget, the free screening of the Hope for Breast Cancer documentary starts November 6th.

Dr. Z:  Simply go to HopeforBreastCancer.com, that’s H-O-P-E F-O-R breast cancer dot com, and you’ll get instant access to some behind-the-scenes footage and some other sweet goodies while you wait for the film to premier.

Mama Z: Please share this with a friend. The information and hope shared in this film could be a world of difference for someone in need. God bless.

Dr. Z: Well, folks, thank you for listening and we hope you enjoyed the show. As a reminder, you can find all the Natural Living Family podcast episodes, show notes, transcripts on NaturalLivingFamilyPodcast.com.

While on our website, please don’t forget to sign up for our weekly podcast newsletter, which includes a personal invite to join our private Facebook group so we can connect one-on-one and so we can meet thousands of other natural living lovers just like you. Don’t forget, please subscribe to our podcast and leave a review. We love hearing what you have to say about the show. As always, I’m Dr. Z.

Mama Z: And Mama Z.

Dr. Z: Our hope and prayers that you and your family truly experience the abundant life. God bless you all.