Moore 2 Discover Podcast
Discussion about challenges and triumphs by exploring the depths of self-discovery and personal and business growth.
Moore 2 Discover Podcast
Celebrate Growth and Authentic Living
Ready to unlock the secrets of vibrant aging and holistic wellness? Join me, Harriet West-Moore, as I sit down with the inspiring Dionne Jones, founder of Age with Vibrancy. Driven by her grandmother’s teachings, Dionne has crafted a unique platform dedicated to natural living and mindful movement. We explore the wisdom behind age-old family practices like drinking room temperature water and incorporating wheat germ, which Dionne reveals are secret weapons for digestive health and fiber intake. With her military background, Dionne’s journey from weight struggles to a sustainable exercise routine is a testament to the power of age-appropriate fitness, steering clear of the exaggerated workouts often celebrated on social media.
As the year draws to a close, we shift focus to the art of simplicity—returning to basic wellness strategies that nurture both body and soul. Celebrating the small, consistent habits of hydration, movement, and nourishment, our conversation weaves in timeless ancestral wisdom and modern wellness practices. The dialogue expands to envision a future filled with growth and authenticity, emphasizing the importance of meaningful connections and genuine self-care. As we navigate the complexities of today’s world, we encourage embracing opportunities with optimism and savoring the true essence of giving and sharing. This episode is a heartfelt invitation to reflect, rejuvenate, and prepare for a vibrant new year.
Age with Vibrancy Email: agewithvibrancyllc.com
Moore 2 Discovery Podcast Email: contact@moore2discover.com
Youtube: www.youtube.com/moore2discover
Facebook: www.facebook.com/@moore2discover
Moore Self Discovery email: contact@mooreselfdiscovery.com
Good afternoon everybody. This is Hariel Westmore with more to discover podcasts. This is a podcast where we have conversations that chronicle our journeys to self-discovery. I want to welcome you back to another great episode. Today I have a very nice special guest that I met actually online, probably one of our. I have so many Facebook groups that I belong to and I just love meeting and connecting with other like-minded people, and she is definitely one of my guests and a person of interest that I just had to connect with her, and this is Ms Dionne Jones. She is the founder of Age with Vibrancy, and this is like a health and wellness for people who are mature let's just put that I'm not going to say senior but who are at the mature age as myself. So, Ms Jones, thank you so much for coming on to the More to Discover podcast. I really appreciate you sharing your wisdom and giving us your gems of how we can be healthy at our mature age.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you for having me. It was great meeting you. I definitely believe that there are no coincidences. The universe always aligns when the messages needed to be sent out, so our vibrations matched up, so I'm grateful for that.
Speaker 1:Absolutely so. Just give us a background about yourself. How did you, where you come from and how did you find your, your agency, your vibrancy agency, vibrancy Agency, and what propelled you to create this wonderful resource?
Speaker 2:Well, my paternal grandmother excuse me, my maternal grandmother is the foundation and the reason and the seed planter for Age with Vibrancy LLC. When I was a young girl, she was the temperance leader at our church, so she was all things natural, all things organic, all things healthy in the 70s, when there were no such words so, or we didn't have them as much in mainstream, so she taught me to live off the land. My grandparents had a water distiller in their basement so we had to drink room temperature water every day, a gallon of water. We had stuff like wheat germ on the table. My husband always laughed about my shelter childhood, but those are the things that I hold dear to me now because our society pumps illness.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:So, getting back to what my grandmother planted in me, because I know that it is my responsibility to carry her torch and to make sure that her message is continued, and continued loudly, especially nowadays.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. You said two things that kind of I just it kind of triggered because I remember, as yourself, my great grandmother had always instilled of having room temperature water to drink room temperature water especially, she always had it by her nightstand. You know, first thing, you know you drink in the morning and I never did understand that, um, so kind of tell us about that. And the other second thing was, um, the wheat germ, uh, my father uh, uh, had, you know, instilled in us of using wheat germs. So tell me the two significance of both of those natural resource.
Speaker 2:So cold water or ice? Cold water impedes your body's ability to digest food properly. It halts or slows down the digestion. So the room temperature water does not impede that. Also, we weren't allowed to drink 30 minutes before or after a meal because once again, that impeded the nutrients being absorbed into your body during the digestion process. So the room temperature is for um not to impede digestion and then it's easier on the body.
Speaker 2:I mean, of course, if you're going to shock your system, and then yes, definitely cold water, but the room temperature and the wheat germ was fiber. Yes, instead of having to eat seven pears, sprinkle the wheat germ on your food Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh wow.
Speaker 1:You're checking me back and hydration, yes, absolutely so. Those are two gems that I do recall. What are other things that you can share with us?
Speaker 2:Well, my ministry is, like I said, fueled by my grandmother and movement with the nutrition. She was more focused on the nutrition and making sure that we could sustain ourselves in this society, not just for our family but for our communities. I've taken it a step further with the movement because I'm former military. So the movement and the action and all of that I loved. I fed off of that, I thrived off of that and I got out of the military, married mommy everything to everyone but myself and I looked around and I was 200 pounds and it was very uncomfortable and I knew. I didn't know how to give back to me and I kept hearing my grandmother's voice come back home, come back home. And my mother was moving and she found all my grandmother's tapes. She would record tapes of nutrition. She had all these notes and my mother gave me my grandmother's notes about silver, I mean, just all this stuff that I had forgotten, and it just sparked something in me. So I started with the movement, tried to go back to the gym. I was unsuccessful. And then, the fourth time, after looking at what I was doing to my family not just myself, my children and my husband I realized that I had to start with me. So that started my journey into movement and adding on to what my grandmother laid the foundation for.
Speaker 2:So now I share my ministry whenever I can, and I'm blessed to have a lot of older people it's okay to say older adults, because that's what we are. I realize that I age too. When I was in the service, I was my son's age. He's in his 20s. Now I'm not in my 20s anymore, so movement and fitness and wellness looks a little different as we age. Right, it's not, as I don't want to say, crazy. Some of you on Instagram. I tell people stop following the people on Instagram, they're going to have you break your neck. Don't try to do all that, just keep it simple. So that's what I preach. That's because it's my ministry. So simple movements you can do it in a chair. You can do a standing up. So simple movements you can do it in a chair, you can do a standing up. Things that you have in your home, like stairs, sitting and standing, sitting and standing so simple things, just every day, and they compound your wellness.
Speaker 1:Wow, number one, thank you so much for your service for the military. What branch Army? Army, ok, thank you for your service for the military. What branch Army? Army, okay, thank you for your service. And two, just your career in the military. Did you find other cultures are different in their diets than we are as Americans, or is there a comparison there?
Speaker 2:unfortunately, the american diet is one of disease is ease in the body and it's one another thing that my grandmother taught me. If a food, if you turn over a package and it has more than five ingredients, your body can't digest, that, if it has names that you can't pronounce, that aren't the natural names, like we know the natural name for vitamin E, et cetera your body can't produce, your body cannot break it down, so it's going to sit in your body and rust and create chaos. So abroad it's simple. It's fruits and nuts and greens and seafood out the ocean. It's amazing. I'm just like wow, it's so simple. That's what I brought back home the simplicity. Quit making everything so complicated.
Speaker 1:Right, I'm sure the added all this instant packaging. It's horrible, it's poison, it's convenient. I think it's convenient and that's so.
Speaker 2:I think that's weird, as americans went you know everything convenient right, because we've been bamboozled into thinking that we have to be host hustle culture. And we know you don't have to do hustle culture. It's okay to sit down and rest and prepare a meal. You can prepare a meal. Few five ingredients, you can prepare a meal. So yeah, we got caught up in the hustle culture, Right.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Particularly, and I want to just kind of narrow the culture to our culture as African-American women. You know, along with the stressors of you know, being a lot of us are maybe head of household, a lot of us are, you know, single parents. We're, we're caregivers, we're brothers and sisters to everybody and we're dealing with our jobs, the double, as they say, double minority. We are women, we are Black women and we are women. So you're dealing with the workplace and all the stressors that we have to endure. How important it's very important for us. What simple thing can we start doing to kind of pivot our stressors and kind of just start taking care of ourselves without feeling guilty, say no?
Speaker 2:say no, say no, say no. That's a major feeling guilty, because if I have stressed myself out to the point where I'm in the bed, who am I good to? And some people try to work through the sickness, because I used to be one of those nuts that I can push through the sickness and your body isn't going to eventually sit you down Right and you're no good to anybody. I say I love my husband to death, but daddy's just don't love the same way that mommy's do.
Speaker 1:Say that again, say that again.
Speaker 2:They, they do, they do, they do a great job. But it's just like okay. And then you don't want to go behind them, like, let me refold these clothes. Sometimes we have to let things great job, but it's just like, okay, you don't want to go behind them like, let me refold these clothes.
Speaker 2:For things like that sometimes we have to let things go Right right. No, put me in micromanagers, because black women, we are micromanagers, yes, we are. We want things to be perfect and it's because the way we've been taught we have to do. We have to be 10 times better, yes, 50 times better, and we, it's true, but not to the point of our detriment, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and some of the things that you, you know, are teaching and you're ministering to us, I mean that the whole grains, the just eating healthy and taking care of ourself, our mental mind, that could, you know, wipe out a lot of our you know like high blood pressure and you know all of that, a lot of that could be, you know, eliminated through just simple diet. I mean just changing our way of thinking, our way of eating diet.
Speaker 2:I mean just changing our way of thinking and way of eating, Our way of, like you said, thinking and eating, but society, we have to learn how to break away, and it's okay, not to be the quote unquote popular girl Trying to chase this unattainable status of I have this, that and the other and so-and-so was in my Rolodex and we have to be okay with being ourselves. Yes, it's okay to be the nerd, it's okay to be the weird girl, whatever woman. Just be yourself. And I think that's what a lot of us struggle with because we're so busy trying to be what we're not and it's putting additional stress on us. It's hard enough being a woman. It's hard enough being a Black woman. Now you want to be perfect, and now you want to have the perfect car, the perfect husband and the perfect house, the perfect clothes for people who don't even like you Exactly.
Speaker 2:And at the end of the day don't even care, Right, I call it the housewife syndrome. We have to get out of that housewife syndrome. I say Nene Leaf gets paid to be a mom, you're not, so stop trying.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:If people could just and I know it's hard because we've been conditioned to, because you have to be popular but just if we can just get back to being ourselves. I mean, I have a girlfriend that we profess that we are proud blerds, we're black nerds, we love Legos, we love anime, we love all the things that. Quote unquote is not cool for black women, but it feels so good not to have to, not to have that stress of trying to compete with somebody exactly, exactly and unfortunately I mean we can take it to another.
Speaker 1:You know, in our culture, you know, sometimes our churches can be. You know, I know I I'm touching on some toes here. I'm sorry, but those of us in my audience know we've already had that discussion about. You know, spiritual abuse in the church. We already had that discussion. But a lot of times, you know, even our churches can be toxic.
Speaker 2:Well, the patriarchy. The patriarchy, no matter what color is coming from, is toxic. Yeah, yeah, no, from. I was raised 70 at Venice and for years they would not let women be deacons, deacon, deaconess, be on the pulpit. And I remember the first, I remember the first deaconess they had, and the older women were just like I don't know. I'm like I'm pretty sure in the Bible there were women who were in charge of the church. I'm pretty sure.
Speaker 1:So where do we lose?
Speaker 2:our way. Who were in charge of the church? I'm pretty sure, so where do?
Speaker 1:we lose our way. But yeah, that that's a whole another dissertation. Yeah, and I'm going to um self-disclose, I was also um, I'm also adventist, so isn't that something? Synchronicity isn't that something? So I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah, you're right, that's going to be another podcast.
Speaker 2:We've opened up a can of worms. But you're right, I mean yeah, the fear to be yourself. They scare you. I mean, organized religion as a whole is about control and scaring you into being the good little girl, and it's not even what it's intended to be. It shouldn't even be about that. It's about connecting to spirit, right, absolutely Connecting to deity, I tell people. You can be spiritual without four walls, right?
Speaker 1:Amen Right, amen, amen Right. How can people what talk about your, your business, talk about your agency? How can people reach out to you and you know what services do you offer?
Speaker 2:well, I'm a health coach, so I offer internal wellness. Um, I do. I start my clients off with a bio scan, a two-minute process, and I get to see what's going on inside your body, and then we move from there with a development for your nutrition and your movement plan. It's fascinating because we don't even realize what's going on with our organs, but all that stress is going somewhere and that bio scan lets us know where it's going. Let's start with that. We develop a plan. We can do in-person training, we can do virtual training.
Speaker 1:I move from there. How long um are. The is your program. Do you have different packages that you want?
Speaker 2:well, yeah, the bioscan is like I said, that's a basic, that's two minutes. Um, I do have a um a wellness program, have a year, because we all come in at different stages Right, and it's one of the great things that I love about being a recovering social worker I can intertwine that and get people out of their heads because that's the bulk of your wellness journey getting out of your own head and getting out of your own way.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. That self-statutage is real yes, very much so.
Speaker 2:Very much so there is a link on my Instagram. Okay, yeah, so age underscore with underscore vibrancy you see it rolling around on the ticker down there. So just put the underscores, without the LLC, of course, and there's a link and you can schedule an assessment and connect and move from there.
Speaker 1:But yes, I will definitely make sure I'll, once I do the editing and everything I'll make sure everybody has their is your information. You also have a Web site. Oh, just IG, just IG, ok, email.
Speaker 2:Yes, I do have an email. I can send that to you. Okay, I'll have all that information, the one that we corresponded with. That's my Okay, okay.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Any final thoughts? And what is your final thoughts for us that really are? You know this is December, end of 2024, and I know people like to do resolutions and you know they may want to.
Speaker 2:I don't, not that I don't believe in them because if you need some direction, you need a goal.
Speaker 2:I think people set themselves up with too big of a goal instead of taking it from the basics. The first thing is have you moved? Have you gotten up and shaking your tail feather for about five minutes a day? Have you had water? I mean just stuff that we don't even think about. Have you eaten? I have a girlfriend that I text because I know she don't eat. I'm like have you eaten today? She like oh, oh, how do you forget to eat? But because for some people is different, I know because of my metabolism I have to eat every two hours or it's not going to be pretty, but just simple things. Have you hydrated your body? Have you moved your body and have you nourished your body?
Speaker 1:Wow, get those and we can start working on the mind once we get everything else regulated. Wow, we all, we all. You know we owe it to ourselves. You know we are living in, as they say in our perilous times and you know it's very important. You know everything is now. You know we're supposed to just go back to the basics. Go back to the basics and, yeah, we have to. We're really going to have to go back to the podcast.
Speaker 1:Another podcast, but we owe it to ourselves and to our loved ones. You can just start where you are. You don't have, as Ms Dion says, just start, just get up, get up, start drinking water, more water, you know, and then you know the, the, the, the advice of our, you know our ancestors of drinking warm water. You know room temperature water and then wheat germ. I mean, you know, I grew up in the 70s, as you did, you know, I just didn't understand that. But now you know, as older, you appreciate a lot of the stuff that our parents, our grandparents, our great grandparents, you know, have. They didn't have all this packaged stuff, a lot of stuff they had, you know, concoct from the earth package stuff, a lot of stuff.
Speaker 2:They had to, you know, concoct from the earth. I know you triggered something because I was thinking about my husband when he was teaching my sons how to clean their bathroom, and he went and got the newspaper and some vinegar water, yep, and I just I just got so tickled because I was like that's what my grandmother used.
Speaker 1:You don't know what that stuff is.
Speaker 2:Back to the basics.
Speaker 1:What do you see yourself in the future? With age, with vibrancy? Do you see any expansion on your business or any products or any things that you have?
Speaker 2:I would just I see myself because it's happening now. I just did an international conference.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:And that just. It wasn't in my bingo card, it wasn't on my, but I know that I can't be small.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:This message has to go out to the world. So I know that I have. I'm such a time as this, I know it's my time to do it. So I know that I have. I'm such a time as this, I know it's my time to do it, so I see myself international definitely.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And I'm so excited.
Speaker 1:I'm so excited, I'm so excited for you. Well, dionne, thank you so much for taking the time out and, you know, just imparting your wisdom on us and just, I mean, it's very simple and, like you said, just start and you can reach out. I'll have her information. Um, so just reach out to her. Um, she's very easy to talk to. You know, you see, has a common voice, um, but I'm sure you know you have no qualms of uh getting us on the right. You know getting our, your clients, on the right path and they will feel so much comfortable with you. Just, you know, just from the open of your, the first word out of your mouth, you know all that, uh, you know anxious anxiety will go away just breathe.
Speaker 2:Yep just breathe breathe, keep it simple there you go and don't be a jerk, there you go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because that that causes another unwanted stressor more stress, more stress so thank you so much and thank you definitely. I would love to have you to come back on another topic. We seem to have so many things in common that we can create another episode on this topic.
Speaker 2:I look forward to it.
Speaker 1:I will definitely invite you back. So, you guys, everybody, just take care of yourself. I mean, this is the holiday season, but, you know, be mindful for what this is the meaning of. It's not about running around and going in debt and getting stressed out because you're gonna have to buy this and keep up with everything that reality shows and all this. Whatever it's about. Just be yourself and just give of yourself, and that is more than enough, and those who cannot appreciate that, then you don't need to be in that circle, yeah? So, that being said, you guys, take care. Happy holiday season and I will talk with you soon thank you so much, thank you so much, thank you.