Dream, Declare, Deliver: The Power Of Going After Your Dreams With Crystal Dawn Church

AL 32 | Going After Your Dreams

Everybody’s got a book inside of them waiting to come out. After meeting Alicia Dunams at a women’s circle and joining the Bestseller in a Weekend course, Crystal Dawn Church finally decided to write down her own story of childhood abuse and addiction and how she moved from where she was to where she is now. The process was the next step to her catharsis, helping her in her healing and journey. Crystal is the Chief Dreamer at Dreamweaver Consulting.Today, she sits down with Alicia once more, this time to talk about her book, The Evolution of Dreamweaver: 7 Steps to Delivering on Your Dreamsthe process she went through to write it, and the power of going after your dreams – dreaming it, declaring it, and delivering it. 

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Dream, Declare, Deliver: The Power Of Going After Your Dreams With Crystal Dawn Church 

I’m super excited to announce our next guest speaker. We’re going to be interviewing her about her book. She is Crystal Dawn Church. She’s the Chief Dreamer at Dreamweaver Consulting. She wrote a book that is so powerful. It’s called The Evolution of Dreamweaver: 7 Steps to Delivering on Your DreamsIt speaks into the power of going after your dreams, dreaming it, declaring it and delivering it. This is a combination of her story and someone else’s story to show and evoke what it looks like to dream, declare and deliver in your life. I’m super excited to have you, Crystal. 
Thank you. I sit here and hear my bio. I’m like, “I did that. That’s me. She’s talking about me. It’s so cool.” 
You did. You wrote a book, you’re a master coach, you are doing it all. I want to jump in, but first I always start with the following question, why did you write a book? 

AL 32 | Going After Your Dreams
The Evolution of Dreamweaver: 7 Steps to Delivering on Your Dreams

I had no idea I was going to write a book. I get to thank you because we had met through a women’s circle. You had mentioned that you were doing a Bestseller in a Weekend course. You’re like, “You should do it.” I was like, “I should?” You’re like, “Everybody’s got a book inside of them waiting to come out.” I said, “People have always said I should write down my story. I’ll do it.” That was it. Your process is so magical that by the end of the weekend, I had the outline of my book. I couldn’t stop there. It had to be finished and completed because it was the next step in my catharsis, my healing, my life and my journey. 
Also, your evolution. That’s what I was thinking because I knew that you were a coach. What kind of coach would you call yourself? Would you call yourself a life coach? 
I have been calling myself a personal and professional leadership life coach. I say to people, I am a loving interruption. I’m a coach for someone who’s got the basis of emotional intelligence down and is looking for a big pivot or shift because I learned probably the hard way, which is a good way to learn. Not everybody’s ready for this caliber of coaching and transformation. People have to be ready. 
I love how you put it as a loving interruption because that’s the energy that you bring to people. You’re shining a mirror to them on what is next in their life, what are their blind spots and their next breakthrough opportunity. You attended Bestseller in a Weekend. You’re like, “I’ll write a book.” This was during COVID. You were in the course in March or May, which course were you in? 
We started in March. 
You did the Bestseller in a Weekend and you kept going. Your book came out, was it in October? 
In December of 2020 which seemed in the moment so long. It’s taken me so long to write this book. When I look back, it didn’t even take a year, which is a blip. 
Learning the hard way is a good way to learn. Click To Tweet
Bestseller in a Weekend supported you in giving you the tool to write your book. What’s happened during that weekend that gave you the reason to write this book? 
We didn’t even have my topic. I didn’t know my subject. One of the exercises that you had us go through in a partnership, we didn’t follow exactly. It was perfect because what came out of it is I get to tell my story. I don’t know what my topic is because I’ve been living it. In all of the emotional intelligence work and trauma work I had been doing, it was almost leading me up to this place where I write my story from a place that is not victimy, “This is what has happened and these are the gifts because of it.” It was the cherry on top of many years of trauma work, of sharing it outside of myself, owning it and then allowing others to read it, which is the biggest and scariest step of all. Once I did it, that was invigorating, freeing and has allowed me to own my story on a much deeper level. 
Part of the story was the book writing process is a cathartic and a healing process. You were like, “I want to get this book out. I don’t want to get this book out.” There were some awesome opportunities for you in healing not only yourself but your families. If you’re open, would you share with us how the book was able to not only heal yourself but also your family relationships as well? 
Because of the style that you introduced me to and collaborating with another human to get the story out of you, I continued to use that. Once I wrote the story, it felt so raw and vulnerable that I wanted some people that I trusted to read it and give me feedback. I was looking for someone to say, “No, don’t publish it.” Over and over, that’s not what happened. It became powerful hearing people say, “This is the story that others need to hear. These seven steps will help people move from where you were to where you are now.” When I had that experience with that peer group of readers, and we ended up putting those pieces in the book, then one of the most impactful things in my story is my kids. I have three kids. 
My story goes through childhood abuse and addiction. I thought to myself, my kids have a big piece in this book because they were along for the ride. The oldest was there through all of it. The middle one was there. When I got sober, he was seven. The little one knows nothing of it because I was sober when he was born. One of the most healing things that happened was I invited those two older kids into a conversation with me about the content of the book. I gave them the draft, they read it and then we talked. I captured that in the book. As a parent, to hear your impact on your kids out of their mouth, and then it’s not as bad as you made it up in your head. That was one of the most profound moments of my life. I just wept. 
To know that they saw me for who I am even though I was making mistakes, parenting is hard, you add in being an addict. They said they would not change one thing about their life because their life with me as their mom made them who they are now, and they’re proud of who they are now. Who gets to hear that in their lifetime? I do. Another thing that I did was I allowed then my immediate family, my mom and my stepdad to read the story as well because it’s about them. It’s about me growing up. That brought all of us much closer as well. There were things that I assumed they knew about my childhood because they were there that they didn’t have any idea about. That releases a lot of victimy blame because I had to stop and say, “They didn’t know what was going on.” It was validating to hear from my stepdad when he said, “You are hands down the strongest woman I’ve ever known in my life and I’m proud to be your step-dad.” It started this shift of people understanding who I am. That was a long wait. 

AL 32 | Going After Your Dreams
Going After Your Dreams: Choose to hear wisdom from someone outside of your circumstance.

It took you to write a book. The book was a conduit to these deep conversations with your family and children. 
I still live in the community that I was born and raised in. A lot of the book is about growing up in this community with the mentality of the people that I was raised with. I hit Amazon Bestseller, thank you for your amazing program. When it first launched and people were buying it, I was like, “I’ve got a couple of weeks before it gets here.” Someone messaged me and they’re like, “I started reading your book. It’s amazing.” I was like, “How did you get it?” They’re like, “Kindle.” I was like, “People are reading it.” The feedback was incredible. It’s a testament to we are so hard on ourselves. The story is good and people believe me, and they see value in the way I told the story. It’s very empowering. 
It’s unique how you tell the story. I’ll let people at home discover it by reading your book. It was a unique and creative way to do it. I appreciate it and love that twist as I read it. 
I will speak to the process, which you are right there with me. I’m a very vocal human. When you’re experiencing something so intense, there were times that I couldn’t even be my cordial self. I was taking everything so personally. I’d get an edit back and I would be like, “What do you mean I need to change this?” I had to learn how to take that feedback in a way that it was meant. Your team wants me to be successful, and that was difficult. Without your team, I would have published an unwell-written book because my circle weren’t the ones that were going to say, “This doesn’t flow. This doesn’t make sense.” Having your company as that piece was important to the quality of the book. 
Let’s jump into the book. What are some lessons that you want to share with the people about The Evolution of Dreamweaver: 7 Steps To Delivering On Your Dreams? 
Only with a victim-free mindset and feeling worthy can we create the life of our dreams. Click To Tweet
The Dreamweaver process, the proprietary process that grew out of this book is for dreamers who want to start a new career or a new side hustle or a dreamy non-profit. It’s for families who want to learn how to come together and learn how to support each other. I will tell you the seven steps to delivering on your dreams, which are powerful. It’s interesting how they grew out of the original dream, declare, deliver. Seven sounds good. I need seven steps. The seven steps are perfect. Each time I try to minimize that they are effective, I’m like, “No, it’s perfect.” First, it’s the dream and having that dream, and allowing ourselves to dream, which the older we get, the more it gets difficult. When we’re kids, we dream of flying. These things are not unachievable to us. 
As adults, learning to dream again is sometimes a challenge. Once you finally tap into that dream, then the second step is to declare it. One of the things that I loved about working with you as a coach in the women’s circle was, I was so good about dreaming and declaring. You said, “That’s great. By when and what are you going to do to get there?” I was like, “Do you mean there’s more than just declaring?” Absolutely, there is more. It wasn’t until I was able to get that coaching from you that I began to turn things around and began to step three design, put those details in there, design what your dream is going to look like. 
Step four is documenting, where you bring in more detail and you begin to fluff out what this dream looks like. Step five is the minute details. In writing the book, it was making sure the tenets were all the same. Those little tiny details make it a solid dream. Step six is the step that was the most painful in writing the book, and the most painful in my life in general and that’s the delay. I come from the world of, “Push, hustle and we got to grind. Delay? You are lazy.” That’s the story I wrote in my head. I wanted my book published in 3 or 4months. It took however long it took. I was in lots of delays, waiting for editing or waiting for my ego to shut up long enough to take the edits and do the rewrite. That delay has proven to be important however long it takes right before you deliver. The seventh step is the delivery step. Even though I came up with the process, I’m often reminded by others that I’ve taken through the process, “You’re in the delay. Have you embraced the delay?” I’m like, “Did I come up with that.” 
I love the delay because the delay is where you sit in it. The delay is what gave you the ability to have those conversations with your family. If your book was published a few months after Bestseller in a Weekend, you would have rushed through. You and I are similar that way. I love to rush. I love the next step. For us to sit in the discomfort of the marination, of letting it land on us, whatever we’re doing. Sometimes we’re so quick to rush to the reframe. We’re so quick to rush from, “What did I learn from this trauma? Here are the three lessons I learned from the trauma that happened yesterday,” versus sitting in the discomfort of the trauma and not rushing to analyze it or pop psychology it. It is to sit in the hurt, the pain and those difficult conversations. That’s the beauty of it. 

AL 32 | Going After Your Dreams
Going After Your Dreams: People often get addicted to the rush of doing. Teach yourself to sit in that delay and cherish it.

I know personally what you experience with some transitions in your family, the delay is living each day at a time and just being in it. It’s not getting to the next point and getting to the thing. It is being in it. That’s what I appreciate about you. You are so vulnerable through your process that you shared that with your clients. I know some of your clients. We’ve talked about your clients and your process. You show how you go through your seven-step process in a vulnerable way. I want to acknowledge you for that. 
I’ve been this way my whole life, probably even as a little girl. It’s so nice for it to be cool. Vulnerability is cool instead of it being like, “You’re telling a little too much right now.” I embrace that. Something interesting about our pandemic and the timing of me starting this in the pandemic is that the whole world was caught in that delay. I don’t know that I would have been able to embrace it or even made it to step six hadn’t the pandemic hit us because I needed that permission to be in delay. I was coming off of a lot of stress and I needed that permission to be in delay. It’s powerful. 
Honor the delay. There’s a lot in there. One thing I wanted to talk to you about, you use the word victimy as an adjective. I’m curious, how can someone, in their self-awareness, see that they’re coming from a place of victim versus the alternative which would be victorious? 
That’s what I call it in the book, victorious. The tagline of Dreamweaver is that, “Only with a victim-free mindset and feeling worthy can we create the life of our dreams.” In an honest answer to your question, what intuitively came to me was I don’t know if we can see ourselves as a victim by ourselves. This isn’t a pitch to get a coach. However, get a coach. It’s in the partnership with someone that you trust who walks beside you to allow you to see it from a non-judgmental place. In the women’s circle that we were part of together, I was deep in victim even then and we’re talking in 2020. It takes that personality for me to have that smile that’s on your face and not make me wrong. I’m like, “I see what I’m doing here.” It’s difficult until you do a lot of work to figure it out on your own because the victim gets trickier the more work we do. 
What you’re saying is you need someone to point out your blind spot because victim is a state, because everything in life is a practice. If we continue on this automatic, it becomes who we show up in the world if it’s our day-to-day. It requires that loving interruption to knock you out of it. 
It has to be loving, otherwise, the human is like, “Who are you?” When you frame it from a loving perspective and when you choose into a relationship with another coach, the keyword is you’re choosing in. No one’s forcing you to hear. You’re choosing to hear this wisdom from someone outside of your circumstance. 
Life will surprise you. If you can dream it, you can declare it and deliver it. Click To Tweet
I love how you wrote to Brené Brown or her team to ask to write the foreword. What was that experience like? 
If I’m going to be all about the dream, declare, deliver, the dream is that Brené reads my book and writes the foreword. I sent the email off. The next day or two, I got a response and I’m like, “What’s happening?” It was her assistant. She said, “Brené is not taking any new, thank you anyway. Good luck with your book Dreamweaver.” I thought, “This isn’t a bot. She responded to me.” I vulnerably and openly said, “You made my whole day. I’m so excited that anybody even answered me. Thank you so much. You’re amazing. Thanks for bringing a human aspect to Brené.” She wrote back and said, “Thank you. I appreciate that. Keep us posted.” Brené will still read my book. I’m holding on to that. I’m going to be sitting on a couch next to her or Oprah or someone. I know and believe that. That little nugget was enough for me to be like, “In time.” 
It’s all part of the evolution and the up-level that once you do one thing, and you get to a greater sense of the doing, the knowing and the worthiness, that’s what it is. It gives you confidence. That’s the whole thing about writing a book. A lot of people are like, “I can’t write a book.” When you do acts of esteem, it improves your self-esteem. Once you do something and it’s in the past, it’s the rear-view mirror and you’re like, “I did that. I could do it again.” That’s what you said that you’re in a process now, doing some journaling and potentially writing a book. 
It’s brewing. It happens. It’s a done deal. It’s already somewhere in the quantum field that it’s done. Something you triggered me to think about was that delay piece again. Waiting for Brené to say she has read my book is a delay. I’m learning. I’m teaching myself to sit in that delay and cherish it because my goal was to be an Amazon bestseller. I woke up to you texting me the very next day, the picture that I had hit Amazon bestseller and I was like, “What?” I didn’t acknowledge it. I was like, “What’s next?” I thought, “You achieved a cool goal, girl. Stop. Sit in this for a while.” I then thought, “That’s that delay, isn’t it?” We get addicted to the rush of doing. I literally shut things down for two weeks and walked around like, “I’m an Amazon bestseller. Did you want my autograph?” 
Crystal, where can people find more about you, your book and how to work with you? 

AL 32 | Going After Your Dreams
Going After Your Dreams: Life will deliver your dreams to you in the way that best serves you and mankind.

I’m all over the usual channels and I made it simpleDreamweaver.Consulting is my website. You can see me on Instagram, @DreamweaverConsulting1, on Facebook, Dreamweaver Consulting. I’m on LinkedIn and all the usual places. My name is Crystal Church. You can’t forget that one either. 
You can find Crystal’s book, The Evolution of Dreamweaver: 7 Steps To Delivering On Your Dreams, on Amazon.com. What’s one final word of advice for the readers, Crystal? 
Life will surprise you. If you can dream it, you can declare it and you can deliver it. Life will deliver it to you in the way that best serves you and mankind. 
Thank you so much, Crystal. Until next time. 
Thank you. 
Be well. 

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About Crystal Dawn Church

AL 32 | Going After Your DreamsEver since I was a little girl, I have been dreaming, declaring, and delivering results. When I younger, I dreamed of choosing my own clothes, so I started mowing lawns to make my own money to be able to buy the clothes I wanted. As I got older and began dreaming of owning my own car, I convinced my Grandmother that at 13 years old I was grown enough to work, and even manage the family restaurant while Grandma was away.

I excelled in athletics and academics and received a scholarship to attend Central Washington University (CWU). While my intention was to continue to dream, declare and deliver the results for my future, things took a turn in college. It was during this challenging time in my life where I went down the slippery slope of addiction and struggled on and off with sobriety. My academia suffered until I hit ‘rock bottom’ and committed to my recovery, and it was at this time where I completed University with a degree in Community Health Education. In 2020, I celebrate 14 years of long-term recovery.

Throughout my life I have created a path to achieve my dreams, no matter the adversity. In 2013, I dreamt of reviving a nonprofit to benefit youth in my community leaving a legacy relevant to my own life journey. Once again, I dreamed it, declared it, and delivered it. Over the past 7 years I have increased the fundraised dollars for the non-profit by 80% and have made a HUGE impact on the youth in my community by matching over 500 kids with mentors.

In 2018, I declared a dream to take my leadership to the next level through a life altering emotional intelligence leadership training at Ascension Leadership Academy. It was through this experience that Dreamweaver Consulting was born. Dreamweaver is consultancy service that utilizes all of my life experiences and allows me to share my gifts of weaving dreams into your reality.

In May of 2020, I left the sustained nonprofit and I am currently living my dream of Life Coaching and Consultancy with Dreamweaver Consulting. I completed my book, “Dreamweaver and how it evolved into the 7 steps for delivering in your dreams”. I leaped, and the next appeared.

If you can dream it, you can declare and deliver it. I will prove it to you.

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