Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
In this episode, join our host as she returns to the studio to share tales from her recent trips to Paris and Spain. Beginning with a humorous exchange about shots, the discussion quickly shifts to her 'mugshots' - daily coffee mug photos she sends out. She reflects on her keynote speech in Paris, her healing time in Valls, Spain, and the unexpected but necessary downtime she experienced there. Through vivid storytelling, she illustrates the importance of being prepared to receive what one asks for, often in packages and moments we least expect. From the hippie lifestyle in Valls to skinny dipping in the Mediterranean, and meeting amazing people, the episode underscores embracing serendipity and being open to receiving life’s gifts in whatever form they come.
00:00 Introduction and Morning Rituals
01:39 Travel Tales: Paris and Barcelona
02:05 The Mugshot Tradition
04:32 Maya Angelou's Wisdom: Ask and Be Prepared
07:17 Healing in Spain: A Personal Journey
12:38 Unexpected Connections and Joy
17:25 Conclusion: Embrace What You Ask For
Creators and Guests
What is F*ck Fear with Christine Spratley: Living Like a Head Bitch In Charge ?
This podcast is for anyone who wants to live like an HBIC—or lives with, works with, marries, dates, or is raising one. Let’s be real: being a Head Bitch in Charge is messy, bold, and unapologetically badass. This is not a guidebook—it’s a pantry.
My guests and I will share the ingredients that we use—what’s worked and what’s failed—as we say “fuck fear” and take action to live a fulfilled life. We cover real-life hacks and deep philosophical pillars to navigate the chaos of everyday life—where some days, my only accomplishment is having a bra on and my teeth brushed.
We’re tackling the daily shit women navigate, from workplace politics to relationships, raising kids, and building careers, all with humor, audacity, and zero filters.
So, tune in—tell your friends, and even your enemies. This isn’t about aging with grace—it’s about aging with mischief, audacity, and a damn good story to tell.
F*ck Fear - 033
===
Christine Spratley: [00:00:00] Good morning ladies and gentlemen, and everyone in between tubs. Oh, Joe, it feels good to be back in here. Are you ready to do our shots? Yes, I'm ready. And Joe, what does it say? Come on now. Immortality. Immortality. That seems like an overreach.
In a lot more ways than one. Okay. This is [00:01:00] a cheers 'cause I need to wake my ass up. All right, here we go. All right. You ready? Yep. Cheers. Here we go.
Oh. Oh, there's a lot of pepper in there. That was a blood pepper that this morning. Ooh. For those of you who don't know, we don't do shot shots. I'm recovering, and if we did shot shots, that would make this quite oh, it's just immunity. It's just immunity. That's something Donald Trump gives out. Anyway.
Ivy, Megan, what's that sound? Yeah. Oh, so shit. Okay. Well, today it's, it feels like it's been forever and it has been a long time since I've been in the studio because I have been over the pond in first a speaking gig in Paris and then went to Barcelona actually outside of Barcelona Balls to see a friend of mine.
So [00:02:00] today. Of course I had something planned and then reality hit. And today we're gonna talk about a mug that I sent out. I sent it out last Friday, but I'd actually found it a while ago for my mugshots and for those people that don't know, my mugshots are most every morning, I've done it pretty consistently.
But most every morning I send out a coffee mug. It's not an actual mugshot. Although, Joe, do you remember the paper, those little newspapers that you used to, not newspapers, but it was like a newspaper where they'd have everybody's mugshot in 'em, like of your neighbor and shit.
I, I remember something like that at the post office. Is that what you're talking about? Yeah. Well they used to have 'em at like the seven, not the seven 11, but the convenience store or whatever they're called, the quickie, gas and pump or whatever. And you'd walk in and you'd be like, you know, you'd see the cashier and there one day, you know, you'd be like, Hey, here's your picture.
But anyway, all it was was like, who got [00:03:00] arrested that weekend? Anyway, this is not what the mugshot crew is. The mugshot crew is, you basically get a mugshot from me. A coffee mug, a
a shot of a coffee mug. And Joe, how would you describe them? Would they be 'cause they're all over the place. Yeah, I mean, they're funny, they're sarcastic, they're.
Irreverent. Sometimes they're in inspirational, sometimes they're just fuck off. It, it really is a little bit about my mood that day, and I try to pick 'em out early. But typically what happens is I pick 'em out and then I'm like, Ooh, I'm not in that mood. And so I decide not to send them, find something else.
But this was one that I had actually picked up a while ago and. It was really funny because I, I picked it up before I went to Paris, so I was supposed to go to Paris and speak there and then go I have a friend that lives in involved Spain, and she's like, come on down, you know, use your points, get the delta, well, it's [00:04:00] Air France, but the Delta flight down and, you know, come see me and stay.
And so I, I did that. So I had all of these ideas about what. I wanted from my para strip, right? I was gonna go speak and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, I have just enough time in corporate to, you know, put my corporate brain on and think I need to have everything lined up. And to say that I lined everything up.
As you can tell from my last podcast, when I left was not the case. But the mugshot that I sent out is a quote from Maya Angelou says, ask for what you want and be prepared to get it. So ask for what you want and be prepared to get it. And I was thinking about that because on two fronts, one, a lot of times we ask for what we want, but I'm in no way, shape or form prepared to even deal with it to, [00:05:00] to know how to handle it.
I want the big, you know, you may be in business, in, in corporate or whatever, and you want success and you want this, but you don't know what it's like to be in those rooms. You're not prepared to, to be there. You know, we talked about being ready, you know, being you are never nearly ready, but are you prepared and in a relationship?
I, I have a friend who we were talking and he's like, you know, I don't think, you know, I, I really didn't know if, if women really wanted a, a nice man. They say they want all this guys to treat them this way, but, you know, and so we've had these conversations about are they prepared? You know, have you done the work you've done?
So you know what goodness is when it comes. So this got driven home to me because. I was gonna go to Paris and I was gonna speak, and it was gonna be this type of event, all these things, right? And this is what I was gonna get. And [00:06:00] really what I wanted out of it was I wanted to meet good people. I wanted to have a good, you know, keynote speech that I gave.
I, and it was a shortened keynote. It was only 25 minutes and not the, the full 45 to 60 that I sometimes give, or 50 usually. But I wanted to hone it, right? And and then I wanted to go see my friend. But there were all these other things I was asking for in my life. And I say that because I always think that when I show up, I'm gonna get the things that I've asked for, for that specific event or that specific, I was in Paris, so these are the things that I wanna accomplish.
Nothing else is going to be given to me, you know? And so. It was, it was, it was underwhelming to say the least, from, from my perspective. But I got the things that I wanted. I got my keynote, I got it framed up really well. It went, it went off really great. [00:07:00] I met some amazing people. But overall it was just pretty underwhelming for me.
But what I had been asking for that was kind of this, this trip to visit my friend was a side trip. What I'd been asking for is, Hey, I really need some time to, to kind of heal. This last year has been hard for me. As you know, Joe and other people know I go way too hard and way too long and way too fast, and my back has been just horrendous.
Epidural didn't kick in. So I'm getting ready to do a, a nerve test or a nerve study or something like that. And then they can do surgery after that. So like, I was just like, oh, I want, so I had been asking for like, I need some downtime, I need some things. So I went to balls and I spent time with my friend Maisie.
And [00:08:00] when I say it was, there's like hippie over here, you know, like the hippie Sure. And, and, and stuff. But they, they just do it different over there. That's like their way of life. Like I sit here and say, I don't give a fuck. You don't know what it's like, like what it's like to not give a fuck until you're around people that really don't give a fuck.
Like you don't realize how much you give a fuck about shit until you're around people that just don't. And they didn't. And Griz, GLA and and Maisie and Joseph and. And just Matt, you know, max, he's this, he was this guy from Germany that was volunteering. 'cause over there they volunteer and they volunteer for like four hours a week and they learn how to grow.
Organic crops. They're, like I said, they're hippies. So there was they, they have indoor plumbing and all that, but they want you to use outdoor as much as possible. So we [00:09:00] was, you know, like a good farm girl. I know how to piss in the woods, you know? And but it was just, it was so incredible to see how w.
My body for one reacted, but mainly just me and my, my soul really reacted. I got up every morning and IS swang on the, on, on the swing and and I couldn't push 'cause I couldn't bend my, you know, bend back and stuff. But it was just wonderful. And we went to a festival and it was just a little community festival and just everybody just.
They just didn't care. I mean, kids were running everywhere, but they weren't acting a fool. And, and, and other parents were, parents were policing the kids as well. Like you didn't have anybody running after them. Like, Hey, you know, they just, it was just a really unique experience. [00:10:00] And the time that I gotta spent with her walking, we wa we did a lot of walking and it's the healing that I needed that I didn't know I needed.
You know, and I like that Maya Angelou quote, because I had been asking for, for peace over a lot of things. And I had been asking for just some quietness in my brain and in my mind and in my soul. And I, I so got that. I mean, a week, a week and a day ago. 'cause it's today, we're taping this on Monday. It'll go out tomorrow, but.
Last, not this past Sunday, but the Sunday before I was over in Spain and I was swimming in the Mediterranean Ocean or Mediterranean Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, and I was butt naked because they don't wear clothes over there. And what was so crazy is like, it's just not a thing. It's [00:11:00] just not a thing. And so it was not a thing for me and I'm there and I'm doing it, and I felt so complete and soul whole and so wonderful.
I just, I haven't felt that solid in myself. So long just I didn't have, and it's one thing to like decide, okay, I'm gonna go skinny dipping or whatever, and okay. Over there it's not even skinny dipping 'cause it's just, they're all there doing it. And but it was like, there was no amount of me that was self-conscious.
I didn't even think about it. I didn't look at other people. I just, I was, I was in, it was, it was amazing. Warm water, just cool enough but just wonderful. And. I went with Maisie and, and the lady that owns the place that she lives on and then Max, the, the German guy who's like a little kid. Max. Max is like this.
He's just, is just, he goes and met, like he got up the first day I met Max, he came for [00:12:00] in, for breakfast at like two o'clock. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and then he got up the next morning at like seven to go do some, you know, cut some bushes for her on the farm or whatever. But it is just, just very kid-like, and just and again, it was just this whole feeling of just being complete and being okay.
And I didn't know I needed it. I knew I wanted it, but I didn't know what it was gonna look like, where it was gonna come from. How it was gonna happen. But I knew I wanted it. And I mean it was funny 'cause it started on, I mean, and I met some amazing people. That's the other thing is I met some. I can't tell you the people.
I've got pictures of all the people I met on the train down. I met two wonderful women from Germany, younger women I would say in their thirties. They just decided to be in Barcelona and ride down [00:13:00] and go to the beach for the day and you know, for the long weekend or whatever. And, just so much fun on the train.
We were, we, you know, and I didn't know where the hell it was going. The signs on the train were on the inside of the train. Were were out. So they were just kind of telling me, just take it till it ends. Just don't get off. And of course, I got off too soon. I don't listen directions, but I, again, just wonderful, amazing people.
And then I met some people down there. Honey, the, the young woman that checked me in at, at the hotel and Nona, the, the other woman that was there, the young woman that checked me, she checked me in the second time 'cause I went, stayed at Barcelona and then went down to Vals and then came back.
David and Mohamed from the hotel. I just stayed at the Moxie next to the train station and it was just, it was just incredible. It was just so much fun. [00:14:00] so I'm at the train station waiting for, to talk to a ticket agent to get my ticket to, to balls and there's this one, you know, they're all lined up over there and they're behind this glass and.
There's one that's just very animated. An older guy, older than me, I'd say, I don't know how old he was, but he, gray hair, bald, thin, thinner gentleman and just, you could tell he was, I don't know if I have this sense Joe, but like, [00:15:00] because I'm so sarcastic 'cause I give people shit on a regular basis, but like he was given his.
The people that walked up to his thing, he was giving them shit and he was giving the counter the people at the counter next to him. Shit, it was so funny. And I could just tell now, I couldn't tell what he was saying. So then I started, 'cause I was in a good mood, so I was dancing and, and, and yeah, that was me at the train station.
But again, I was just, and then he started, he, he, he started kind of dancing with me and, and, and it, it was just making the gestures back and forth and, and just funny. Again, it was one of those things where, you know, am I prepared to receive it? Am I prepared to get it? All that stuff that I wanted, all that joy, all that healing, all the feeling of being okay with who I am, am I prepared to get it?
If I don't look in in other places and I look right there and I'm [00:16:00] experiencing right there. 'cause otherwise I would've had a predetermined idea of what my trip to Spain was going to gonna be like. You know, it was gonna be about this, it was gonna be about Barcelona, it was gonna be, you know and it wasn't.
I mean, this is how much fun we had. So when we were swimming, we're getting ready to, you know, kind of we're all drying off and, just kind of walking around and Max is still out there in the, in, in the water. And all of a sudden I come, so I go walk and I come back and down the beach and they go, they hold up this, you know, like a twist, chew thing, you know, like a tug war for your dog?
Mm-hmm. Okay. Well it was, it was something like that, but it had all these muscles on it, and they're like, that's for dinner. That's what we're having for dinner. He found muscles in the fricking bottom of whatever, like who does that? It was just one of those [00:17:00] things where
I didn't know that's where I was gonna find it. But I was prepared. I was prepared. I had, I had prepared myself for it. I had set the turd down. We talked about that last time. I'd set the turd down. I'd gotten to be where my feet were at and I can't tell you how much I needed it. So today's gonna be a real short one, but it's just, again, it's about, you know, ask for what you want and be prepared to get it.
And sometimes that means for me, be prepared to get it in the, in the packaging that you didn't think it was gonna come in, and the places and the people that you didn't realize. Had, were the carriers of what you've asked for. [00:18:00] And I, I came back on a Tuesday, I went and packed up my house stuff from where I, my husband and I used to live on Wednesday.
I. Started moving stuff back is just all shit. And so, and then Friday, you know, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, tried to move my, or Thursday, Friday tried to move my stuff in from my old place that I was renting to this new place. And Saturday, it's like I told you, Joe, they movers were supposed to be there for just a few hours, get this stuff from my old house with my ex and move it to my new place.
And I'm on the fourth floor there and at my new place and elevator went out. But again, the guys were great. Oh my God. They were so, they were so troopers. They were, they were so, they were such troopers and, but ag, you know, I don't think I would've been able to go through last week if it hadn't have been for the week before that.
And [00:19:00] it wasn't my time in Paris. It was actually my time in balls with Maisie and the, the wonderful people on that little farm down there. The wonderful people on the train. So I, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'm getting ready to wrap up, but I'll tell you this. So I, you, you know me. I'm usually late now. I never used to be, by the way.
But I'm, and I'm always, always something comedy of error. So we're getting ready to leave. My train gets delayed back to Barcelona, so we are gonna have lunch, by the way. The lunches are amazing. Like they would make nothing and it would just be the most amazing tasting thing I've had. So we have lunch and we get talking and we get laughing and I totally forget that I'm supposed to be watching the time and next thing you know, and I think we're, we're going outta [00:20:00] balls and we're really going out of Tarragona Kemp to Tarragona and train.
So that's like 30 minutes away. Balls is 10. So my brain is not watching the clock to begin with. And then two, I'm thinking we're 10 minutes away when we're really 30. So ela, she, she goes, what time is it? And, and all of us just panic and. She has this 20-year-old car, and the best way I can describe it is like a Dodge Omni.
You remember those? I don't know if you remember those. That was my first car. I had a, I had a Dodge Omni and it had an AM radio station, so I can sing all of that. Fifties and sixties music and forties. And, but it was like, it was like a farm farmer's Dodge Omni where it was dirt. I mean, it was beat this shit up and I.
She whips around, I throw my stuff [00:21:00] in and she hauls ass. And now she's hauling ass, but the car's not hauling ass. So we get there and she's like telling me, you have to run. This is what you have to do. This is you, you cannot miss this. And she is very directive on that. And she's like, you don't have time to hug Maisie.
You just gotta go. So. I get through and I'm running down there and and so I, of course I find, I see a bunch of people, so I'm assuming, assuming wrong thing to do, assuming this is my train, right? Not really paying attention, but assuming, so they start kind of boarding some people, but not everybody's getting up.
So I go up there and I'm like, Hey, and I show 'em my pass 'cause I'm looking on the board and the board says you're just gonna leave at like, you know, 10 50 or it was actually two 50. Eight or 2 52, and it was like two 50. And I was like, man, that's like, like there should be more people like, what's going on?[00:22:00]
And so I show her my, my pad and she's like, no down. And so she tells me to run down and, and of course it was the, the platform over. So I had to run down and I get there and train hadn't come yet. I, I didn't know if it had come or had already gone, but I was just gonna. I mean, I knew the next one was gonna come sometime, so I was going ride whatever train it was that came, I was gonna get on, ride it to Barcelona.
So I'm sitting there, and again, every, I always say this, you never, five minutes too early, you're not five, you're not 10 minutes too late. I get there and this lady comes up next to me and she sits down and she says. She, you know, thinks I speak Spanish. Actually it's Catalan where down where I was staying and it's not Spanish.
And so she, and I said, you know, I speak English. And she says, so she's, she speaks English, she's this teacher down there. And, and actually she teaches in moca and, [00:23:00] so we get talking and she says, should I get on this train my next train that I'm on the next one, but I don't wanna take the next one.
And she's like, it's, you know, there had been something mixed up with her tickets. They put her on the last train out. And so I was like, get on till they tell you to get off. You know me, Joe. And so she gets on and and, and we're both, we don't know where the cars are at and what, so we just sit down and and it's a hide speed train.
So the deal is, I told her, I said, get on and if you can get on long enough for the doors to close and for us to leave, it doesn't stop. So you, you're on, you're good. I mean, they may make you stand, but you're on, they're not gonna throw mama from the train. But we ended up, started, started talking and just her.
She had gone through a, a divorce a couple years earlier, and so we had a [00:24:00] lot to talk about there. But then I was telling her about my podcast and she was like, what's the name of it? And I said, fuck, fear, you know, with me living like a head bitch in charge. And then she says, no. And she shows me her WhatsApp, WhatsApp app.
And and basically her, her mantra is basically, fuck, fear. And again, just, and so we get off the train in Barcelona and her brother who's five, five years younger, maybe a little bit more than that, younger than her, is gonna pick her up. And I'm like, my hotel's right next door. So I'm like, well, don't wait here just if he's not here.
'cause he was having a hard time getting in 'cause of traffic. I said, just come over to the hotel and you can hang out with me at the hotel. And so she, so she comes over, we walk over to the hotel and we're, we're standing outside. He finally pulls up and just like a big sister, [00:25:00] she's like, take a picture.
Take a picture. So we get into this picture and then she straightened him, his straight, his shirt and his, his undershirt. She's like, oh, you look like shit, you know? And he's just like trying to brush her off. And and we just had an amazing, like, amazing, you know. So now she's like, you need to come over.
You need to stay in Marco with me. You need to do this, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And again, those things that I wanted, that I had been asking for were given to me, but they weren't necessarily, didn't come in the packaging that I thought. And so. I, again, I talk to people now and I'm on the flight from Barcelona to Charles de Gall, and then I'm gonna catch my flight home from C-D-G-C-D-G to the states.
And I get in and [00:26:00] the, I see this guy and this wife, his, this. Wife, his wife next to him, and I can tell they're American. And and, and, and I sitting, I'm sitting across the aisle from him and it says something, ag America, ag or something on his jacket. So I'm like, ag, I know Farmer, like I can talk ag.
So I of course start talking to him and and we had him and his wife, I think they've been married. They had met two couples that had been married a long time. One was 45 and one was gonna be 30 years. And we weren't talking. That's a long time. I think this was 30 Brian guys, I'm sorry if I get this wrong.
But we, we started talking, we they did the cutest thing right when we were getting ready to land and they didn't even know they did it. And I took a picture of it and I didn't let [00:27:00] them see me take a picture of it, but I took a picture of it and then I cropped it and then I sent it to em. And they were holding each other's hands, like he held her hand and he leaned over and he kissed it.
And, you know, it was, it was, it was butt ass early flight. And I thought it was so cool that, that he did that. And I thought after all this time and and then we got off and it was so funny 'cause she was telling him where to go after all this time. And and it was just so cool. And I got pictures and I got their information and, you know, they, their, their farmers, their potato farmers in Idaho.
And but again, just where. Where do you get what you've asked for and are you prepared to receive it? And what amount of it is gonna come to you today? But if you're not prepared to receive it, [00:28:00] if you're looking in the wrong places, from the wrong people, from the wrong job, from the wrong situation, nah.
Are you, are you prepared? Are you prepared to move from the job to the next job, to to get what you want? Are you prepared to leave the relationship or get into a relationship to get what you want? You know, are you prepared to walk across to someone who thinks, looks, and acts differently than you to get what you want?
The sense of community, the sense of belonging, and all of that. Are you willing to do that? And so that's what I talk about today. That's, that's it. There's no, there's no big, you know, storyline here. It's just, you know, ask for what you want and be prepared to get it and, and celebrate when you do, because I always get what I need.
I always get what I need, and usually I've learned that what I need is typically what I really want. [00:29:00] So, ladies, gentlemen, until next time, tubs.