Ep413: Christina Demetriades – Always Take Care Of Yourself First in Any Relationship

Andrew Stotz 00:01
Hello fellow risk takers and welcome to my worst investment ever stories of loss to give you winning in our community we know that to win in investing, you must take risk but to win big, you've got to reduce it. To join our community go to my worst investment ever.com and receive the following five free benefits. First, you get the risk reduction checklist I created from the lessons I've learned from all my guests. Second, you get my weekly email to help you increase your investment return. Third, you get a 25% discount on all at Stotz Academy courses. Fourth, you get access to our Facebook community to get to know guests and fellow listeners. And finally, you get my curated list of the Top 10 episodes. Fellow risk takers This is your worst podcast host Andrew Stotz from a Stotz Academy, and I'm here with featured guests. Christina dimitriadis. Christina, are you ready to rock and roll Let's rock. Let me introduce you to the audience. Christina works as a personal leadership coach, trainer and coach mentor supervisor. She works with individuals and groups alike globally. Through her work, she empowers and motivates people to succeed in their goals and to consciously enjoy a fulfilling, meaningful career and life. a firm believer in each person's ability to lead themselves effectively is in any context. She guides her clients in developing leadership skills towards personal and professional self actualization. Her motto is lead your life. lead your career, lead your community, Christina. Take a minute in Philly for the tidbits about your life.

Christina Demetriades 01:46
Wow. Okay. Thank you, Andrew, thank you so much for inviting me. First of all, it's a real pleasure to be here with you today. A couple of tidbits about me. Let's say not non work related perhaps would be maybe more colorful or, or interesting. I live in Nicosia, which is the last divided capital. It's in Cyprus, which is the island most Eastern in the Mediterranean Sea. And I have three cats. One, you may see one or two jumping on me. Okay, wait a minute. Ice cream is a very important thing to know about me. Yes.

Andrew Stotz 02:28
And what kind of ice cream is your favorite? My favorite is hazelnut with chocolate. Yeah, I've never had that. I've had hazelnut but not with chocolate. And either combination. Yeah. And, um, are you so crazy that you know how to make chocolate or you just get the good stuff from the supermarket?

Christina Demetriades 02:49
I'm crazy enough to have a partner who loves being in the kitchen and being creative. So I leave that up to him.

Andrew Stotz 02:57
That's smart. Okay, that's creative and smart. I know. I know, Christina that there is one listener. The podcast. Who is crazy about ice cream too. And that's my mother. Oh, great, though. Let's just say Hi, Mom. Hi, mom. She hit me like I want ice cream. I gave her this ice cream. I gave her this book about Dick Van Dyke who is famous guy in America, you know, and he's still alive, I think just saw a picture of him. He's something like 90 and he/she read his book. And she said, look right here. He says he ice cream every night. And I was like, I'm trying not to get too much sugar in your diet. But there I gave her a book that just really messed me up. So now she has ice cream most of the time. So I like your mom. You guys, you guys would get along. When you come to Thailand. It's going to be ice cream time. Great. Exciting. Well, now it's time to share your worst investment ever in since no one ever goes into their worst investment thinking it will be. Tell us a bit about the circumstances leading up to it then tell us your story.

Christina Demetriades 04:03
Right. Thank you, Andrew, when I was delighted to receive your invitation to the show. But I admit I had a very hard time finding what to talk about. Because you see, I have worked on for a long time on a low regrets philosophy. And I have a positive attitude to life. So whatever in my investment didn't turn out to be a great win, or how I expected it to be to even put it mildly, it still gave me an opportunity to learn and improve myself. However, I'm here now and I've thought about it. I aim to share a positive message and I acknowledge that this is the ultimate purpose of the show. So I will keep to the language of the show and I'm making a little pun here to the philosopher, one of my favorite philosophers vidkun Stein, he talks about the language game so I'm going to stick to the language game of the show and share my worst in bestman ever was, which was in a personal relationship more than a decade ago. So younger me. And the circumstances leading up to it, I think are quite interesting because at the time, I had discovered that I had a severe back issue which kept me in bed and immobile for about three months. I was bedridden, I was devastated, really, I was in pain all the time. And I could, there was no way I could continue enjoying the very active life that I had as a 27 year old. So I was in my 20s, you can do the math, I'm 40. I just turned 40 recently. So I was constantly in pain, the doctors couldn't find what was wrong, because the apparent issue was with my leg. However, the real issue was with my spine. So I was dependent, fully dependent on my family and my friends for support, even for basic things like food and drink. And I remember very vividly watching dancers on TV and crying my heart out, because I thought at the time, I would never be able to walk again and let alone dance. And I do. I do love dancing. I was blessed with a great support system. And the best thing that I got out of this period was that I learned to support myself better and better. And eventually I avoided a big surgery, and I got out of the mobility. So coming out of it, you know, coming out of these circumstances, I was so enthusiastic about life, again, you know, about living about going out about socializing, exploring, I felt, you know, I could drink life having a cup, you know. And during this time, I was in a bar, one of my favorite bars. When I met an old acquaintance, we started chatting, and the night just flew by. And the one thing I remember about that night was looking at him thinking, Oh, my God, he's so handsome. Just imagine seeing this face all the time. At that time. And, yeah, I mean, I felt like, you know, wow, I'm back into life, I'm back alive. And I've got beauty all around me. And you know, I want to soak myself in it. Anyway, long story short, we did get together. And we had we were together for one and a half years. Those one and a half years were very full, very adventurers, we were very active in going around exploring the island, the island of Cyprus and socializing a lot. You know, we had very vivid, very, very time together very much alive. So I was, you know, coming from the bed, and when I was bed, the bed of pain, you know, bedridden pain and, and frustrated all the time, I was at the other end, you know, loving it all, and having fun, so. And there was one thing that I did realize, and ignore that the time, we were both quite strong personalities, at times explosive. And there was a felt difference in maturity. And although I clearly saw it, at the time, I chose to turn a blind eye as I was finally having a quote unquote, serious relationship, you know, coming from where I was, I had a boyfriend I could hang out with and go camping with and go to festivals with and concerts and have fun with. And after all that bigger deal, which had me bedridden and starved for life for so long, I was not ready to give it up. And in sharing this story, I want to say the two things that happened that prompted me to choose to talk about this today. One is, and I think this is the biggest, I slowly forgot myself in this relationship. This is about how I invested myself in this relationship. And this is not about the relationship. It's actually about me about how I carried myself in this context. And what I did was I took all his issues, and I made them my own. I've always been a helper, I still am and I love it. So this was a process a journey for me to start to learn to accept the value of the balance between giving and receiving. I have prioritized all the issues he was facing on a very personal even familial level, you know I was, it was none of my business and I was still, you know, invested in helping him fix things and solve problems and, and things that maybe he wasn't ready to do. But I was, you know. So when we were not no longer together and I was searching for myself, that's when I realized my mistake. My part of the, I don't want to use the word blame, I want to use the word responsibility. Yeah. So where had I forgotten? Christina? That was a big hit, you know, it just it was a big slap. And the second reason I'm talking about this today is that the breakup was very dramatic. Very dramatic. It was like, you know, I was living a soap opera this whole time. And it was in the middle of our holidays, it was wild camping on top of a mountain

Andrew Stotz 10:57
in an isolated area,

Christina Demetriades 10:59
not too isolated, but isolated enough. And I I just couldn't believe it, when, after an argument, he just took the car and drove off. Wow. Yeah, I know. And I was just, you know, left there staring at a tree for a while thinking, What just happened? Where is he? Is he coming back? I don't have a car. You know, I'm stuck here. I don't know. What's happening. It was a big shock the way to happen, you know. And so I didn't have the means to leave the place. But I was, again, thankful and fortunate to have friends in the area in the wider area that my they were caring, and they were supportive. And in fact, one of them saw him drive away and she came running. I didn't have to go and tell anyone she just came running. What's going on? Why is he driving off alone, and I was like, crying my heart out, oh, my God, I can't believe it and all that. All that very valid trauma. Very first few days were extremely hard. But I chose to stay there, stay at the company on the mountain and clear my thoughts as much as I like.

Andrew Stotz 12:18
So how would you describe the lessons that you learn from this experience?

Christina Demetriades 12:23
Well, when this whole experience was very deeply transformative for me, as I mentioned, I had invested the whole of myself in this relationship, and I almost, I kept almost nothing of myself or for myself. Of course, once I was alone, again, I was on the floor, quote, unquote, on the floor, and I remember my close friends really, you know, sweeping me off the floor. It was terrible. It was a long process to accept the breakup, and especially the very dramatic way it had happened, and an even longer process to find myself again. And this process of finding myself again, ultimately, even though the actual process was quite hard and painful, I was suffering, real suffering for a while. And in the end, it was very much fun and empowering. Yep. So I could, you know, I could explore and be playful with tasting different things, having different experiences, trying out new hobbies, meeting new people going on new excursions, having new adventures. It was ultimately, you know, very creative periods. And I want to share their most treasured lesson for me. The most treasured lesson was that the most valuable relationship we have is with our own selves. befriending ourselves, you know, being friends with ourselves is, is so critical is so central to finding happiness, to finding balance to finding peace, and giving to ourselves, what we would give to a best friend, or a loved one is such an empowering experience, you know, because we learn to trust ourselves more and more trust is, is a key word here, right? We learn to rely on ourselves to depend on ourselves to believe in ourselves. And this directly translates to self esteem and self confidence. And that's not to say, you know, I'm on top of the ladder because I experienced this of course not life is a journey. It's a lifelong process. Yeah, we keep we live, we learn we keep learning, and life is so generous with so many learning opportunities. It's true,

Andrew Stotz 14:47
we get a lot of them.

Christina Demetriades 14:50
We do and we have a choice, Andrew, we have a choice in how we deal with them. So this very valuable lesson. Yeah,

Andrew Stotz 15:00
I was gonna say that's the benefit of this show is we do look at those horrific or difficult situations, and then you know what we learn from?

Christina Demetriades 15:12
So. Exactly, exactly. And that was the biggest reason I wanted to be here today. So thank you once again.

Andrew Stotz 15:21
So let me just summarize some of the things that I took away, I guess, one of the things I would just been taking notes, but it all reminded me of my first girlfriend, and I was growing up in Ohio and I moved to, I decided I wanted to go to California. And my, my, my father told me, Hey, your godfather lives in California, you should call him. And I had always received books from him on my birthday, but I didn't. I never really knew him. And I said, Mike, this is Andrew Stotz. And I want to go to California says, and he called me, Andy, any, you just come and stay with me. Just pack up your car, get in when you're ready to go and come and stay with me. I got a job for you and everything. So I was 19, maybe turning 20, something like that. And so I drove out to California, and he had a beautiful guesthouse behind his house. And he had a summer camp. And so I was a camp counselor, all summer long in LA. And it was such a blast. And I fell in love with this girl named Nina from Pasadena. And she was just everything I'd never seen before, you know, beautiful, sophisticated, you know, she came from a pretty rich family and all this, and I just didn't know anything about that. But we just we just and somebody asked me what, why? Why do you like her? And I said, because she likes me. And that's as far as I could really go on a relationship is just the fact that, you know, I found someone that liked me. And so when we went, had a summer love over the summertime, and then I went back to Ohio, and went to school for a term. And then she came in, visited in the Christmas time and met my family, which is lovely. And she flew back. And then we decided when I'd finished the school, I would drive back out to LA and I would stay with her. And then she would go up to Berkeley, where she had gotten in, and I would try to figure out what to do with my life because I wasn't really that serious about school. So I drove my car. Three days when my best friend and we were going across town, I called him called her from Las Vegas and said, I'm almost there. I'll see you tomorrow, where do you want to meet, she said, Let's meet at the park. Well, I thought that was a little odd. I was thinking that I was going to meet her at her house because I was going to stay there and all that. So we met at the park. And she walked up to me and she said, I want to break up. Oh, and she gave me back, you know, a necklace, I'd given her whatever. And then I did what any self respecting man would do. I begged her to stay together. And then we moved up to Oakland, and she went to Berkeley. And then the next few months, we tried to keep it together. But in the end, it just fell apart. And I just remember that, you know, self esteem, the way I felt about myself, you know, you've reminded me, I didn't see myself in a very good light, she was an important part of how I viewed myself. And I didn't know what to do without her. And the only thing that I did was work basically. And I went to school at a place called Laney college, I got into this Junior College, so I didn't have to pay my student loan back. And then I just worked in I think we even lived together while we were broken up until my best friend came and picked me up and said, Now it's time to move down to LA. And then I moved down to LA and when I left Oakland, in my car with my best friend, I just cried my eyes out. Because I had kept inside all of the pain and all the struggle. And then you know, I started a new life and became a better person and, and started to build that confidence and started to realize that you know, every relationship has one thing in common. I'm in it. And so I need to bring more to each relationship that I had. And I learned that I need to be not a dependent person but an independent person and bring value to that relationship. And so that helped me to be better at that. So I just want to say thank you for sharing your story because you've helped me to reminisce on that story. Is there anything you would add to the learning that I got from that?

Christina Demetriades 19:30
Thank you, Andrew. That's it's very precious that you shared that. I really liked how you start and how you end that you know, you came full circle. I like her because she likes me. I like her because I feel good about myself when I'm around her when I'm when I'm with her and and you know about relationships. It's actually what I wanted to conclude with today that you know, we are social beings. We strive to have meaningful relationships with others around us. And in building a healthy relationship with other people, we are helping ourselves as well through it is through our relationships, that we get to know ourselves better. And self awareness, self knowledge, that's the cornerstone of emotional intelligence and emotional intelligence is all about lifelong learning. It's all about growth, about through progress about evolution. So, you know, if we learn, if we get to know ourselves better, through every single relationship we have, it doesn't matter if it's a professional relationship, or a personal relationship, or a familial relationship, those are usually be tougher, sometimes. Yeah, well, this is one of the many purposes relationships serve, we get to face sides of ourselves, which we may not have known that they existed, or which we may have feared to face now. And everything we experience in life, through our relationships with those around us loved ones or not, it carries a wealth of opportunities for us to learn, to grow to become wiser to evolve,

Andrew Stotz 21:20
well goes back to the words that you used is, you know, describing self actualization, right? There you go, yeah. But, you know, what do I bring to relationship is kind of what I took away from the story. And, and I will just highlight, you know, I've had a very special relationship with my mother, over the last five years, after my father died, I was able to bring my mother here. And, you know, we've had our ups and downs and, you know, frustrated each other. But through it all, we've loved each other, and we've supported each other. And, you know, I've been able to go deep in a relationship of love and care. And even you know, that this weekend, mom, and I talked with her about, you know, what, what am I going to do when she passes? What about the you know, what about the funeral? And what about activities? And, you know, and how is it going to happen? And, you know, what, what are the plans related to health care and all that. So, you know, it just, it's great to be a much more mature person in a relationship compared to that relationship that I described earlier. So, let me ask you, based upon what you learned from this story, and what you continue to learn, what one action would you recommend our listeners take to avoid suffering the same fate?

Christina Demetriades 22:35
Right, even though suffering is not necessarily bad. It's like in maths, you know, double negative is positive, actually, I do have an answer. And the answer is different yourself. The most valuable relationship we have is with ourselves. So be yourselves best friend, give yourself whatever he or she needs. Listen to yourself, support yourself, even laugh with yourself and cry with yourself. It's fine. You know, you can live a fuller life and feel truly alive and full of life with all its ups and downs. If you just allow yourself and one thing to finish with is imagine what you could do and what your life could be like if you were yourselves best cheerleader.

Andrew Stotz 23:26
Beautiful. Alright, last question, what's your number one goal for the next 12 months?

Christina Demetriades 23:32
Well, thank you. My number one goal is to get to know myself on a deeper level, which is not a new one, but a lifelong commitment. And to be a good Mum, at the moment, I am expecting so in the next 12 months, I'm gonna discover a whole new side of myself. Hopefully, everything will go well. And and see what that relationship brings.

Andrew Stotz 24:00
That's exciting. Well, listeners, there you have it another story of loss to keep you winning. My number one goal for the next 12 months is to help you mine listener, reduce risk and increase return in your life. To achieve this, I've created our community at my worst investment. ever.com. And I look forward to seeing you there. As we conclude, Christina, I want to thank you again for coming on the show. And on behalf of a Stotz Academy, I hereby award you alumni status for turning your worst investment ever into your best teaching moment. Do you have any parting words for the audience? I want to say thank you to you, Andrew, thank you so much. It's been a really fun time together. Go out and live your life and remember to be a friend of yourself. That's a big one. So that covers me. Perfect. Well, that's a wrap on another great story to help us create, grow and protect our well fellow risk takers This is your worst podcast hose Andrew Stotz saying. I'll see you on the upside.