From Bipolar Battles to Skincare Success

LET'S GO BACK TO 2023, WHERE I RECORDED MY VERY FIRST SOLO EPISODE ON CODE GREEN PLANT.  WE'VE COME A LONG WAY BABY! SEE YOU SOON FOR SEASON TWO ON JANUARY 20TH 2025! LOVE U, MISS U, BYE!
Witness the transformative power of cannabis through a deeply personal lens. My journey began with my mother's battle with undiagnosed bipolar disorder, where cannabis offered solace and balance. Inspired by this, I explore the profound benefits of cannabis in mental health management. As I venture into solo podcasting, I share my experiences and insights every Friday, while continuing my collaborative episodes with Phoebe on Wednesdays. Join me in challenging misconceptions and celebrating the potential of cannabis to enhance well-being.

This episode also chronicles the launch of Simply Vibin, my hemp-based skincare line. Despite facing hurdles with banking and online sales due to cannabis-related stigma, my resolve has only grown stronger. Together with my partners Phoebe and Krista, we aim to broaden our product range with new offerings like gummies. I also reflect on the impact of a viral video that sparked meaningful conversations, which I can't wait to share. Immerse yourself in stories of advocacy, passion, and the courage to pursue a vision against the odds.

Chapters

• 0:00 Building Up to Season Two
• 8:08 A Journey in Hemp and Cannabis
• 22:08 Launching Simply Vibin Products, Podcast, Partners

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

You didn't think I would stay away from you that long, did you? I can't. I've tried and I've tried, but I have to share some stuff with you. I don't want you to go away and think I've left you for good. I have not. I'm far from. I'm just banking some episodes so that I can get ahead of the game and maybe put out two episodes a week, which is my goal for 2025.

Speaker 1: 0:27

I decided to go ahead and put out some of my older podcast videos from my Code Green Plant channel, which is where I started everything. I am a cannabis advocate. I believe in the medical value of cannabis, so I created the Code Green Plant podcast because I couldn't say cannabis like I would get violations and bans, just like I do on TikTok right now if I talk about big pharma. That's what I got all my violations in, so I just need to shut it. I just know that I can only talk about these hard topics here on my podcast. So Code Greenplant because I have to speak in code was created.

Speaker 1: 1:03

I'm going to play you some old episodes where I started to create my solo podcast in Code Greenplant, where I went off and started to talk myself, and some of these are pretty good, so I figured I'd share them with you while we are building up to season two. I love you. I cannot wait to make more memories with you. This has been one of the best years of my life and you are a part of that. So thank you, and I look forward to premiering season two of Love you Miss you Bye on January 20th. Love you, miss you, bye.

Speaker 2: 1:43

Welcome to the podcast where we talk about cannabis Community violation Code Greenplant.

Speaker 1: 1:52

Hello and welcome to Code Greenplant. I haven't really come up with a name for what this is, but it's a. It's a stem, a seedling, a leaf. Of code green plant simply vibing with Christy Chanel right now, until I come up with a different name for my solo podcast. Well, it's really weird because it's not like I'm still code green plant. I don't know, I haven't figured out how this is going to work, but what I know is what I know is my friends and my family have been telling me for years that I needed to do a podcast by myself, and I guess this is my attempt to do that. I always kind of was always kind of told them no, like I don't, I don't know how to just talk by myself. Like I need people to play off of, I need people to debate with, I need people to discuss things with. But you don't know until you try it. So I'm here trying it because of the belief in me that my family and friends have. So here's my thought process on this whole thing. I will record an episode and release my solo episode every Friday at midnight and my main podcast, which is still Code Green Plant, with Phoebe and I. That's still going to be every Wednesday at midnight. So now you're going to get two episodes a week from Code Green Plant and Simply Vibin, and I hope that you'll listen to this one too.

Speaker 1: 3:32

I have so much to say I really do about cannabis. Cannabis is you know? I have been researching cannabis for five years and I I fell in love with it. I fell in love with cannabis and it's because of how it can help people, and maybe, maybe, my love of cannabis started when I was younger and I was raised in a household that smoked Parents weren't mean and my parents weren't angry. I had a great childhood, so anything and everything that I identify cannabis with is good stuff. It makes my heart warm, it makes my heart happy, because I no longer have my mom, and I lost her when I was 25 and she was a couple of days away from being 45. So all the years I had with her, she was a smoker, she was a cannabis smoker and I just I didn't see a problem with it and, as I've said before on other platforms, I never had a problem with it learned very early that this wasn't something that you could share with your neighbors, share with your friends, that my mom smoked weed. You just couldn't do that. My relationship with cannabis is a very, very loving relationship with cannabis because I identify it with my mom and my mom was a badass woman who was my best friend and I even put it in my yearbook and she was, she absolutely was. So part of my story let's say a good 50% of it stems from my mom. Like I said, I grew up in a household with cannabis, but also my mom was an everyday smoker, a couple of times a day.

Speaker 1: 5:36

Smoker, career minded woman, had a family, had a husband, and yet she discovered later that she had bipolar. All of this she was trying to balance out a mental disorder and you know where she would have extreme highs and extreme lows and it was hard for her to cope, where she would be sleeping a lot or extremely excited, like I'm a very theatrical type person. I'm animated, I talk with my hands. You know my mom was also very animated. She was very, you know, excited and stuff like that. Well, imagine me. But raise that up by 25%, that was her. It's really cool, actually, because whenever I did something really good, she was just watching her reaction. I think what it was all about, because I really enjoyed telling her something good, because her reaction was just even better than whatever I told her. So cannabis helped her streamline her emotions and she didn't realize that she had bipolar.

Speaker 1: 6:48

I know that a lot of people nowadays are dealing with this, you know, and they have to take medicine for it. But I also think I'm not a doctor, but I also think that there are alternatives out there for people and I have this platform to share it with you and know that it's coming from a place of love and a place of me wanting you to be safe and healthy and happy. I'm not getting paid to do this in any way, shape or form. I'm not getting paid to do this in any way, shape or form. Every episode is made with the love of the plant, the love of sharing, the love of podcasting I have just learned. I would love to do this every day. I would love to edit every day. It's just, it's like creating a show, and I'm pretty good at it. This is my baby. Code Greenplant is my baby. Simply Vibin is my baby. It's made with love. Everything that's happened is made with love, and so we film episodes every Saturday.

Speaker 1: 8:08

I go home and then I will. First, I will edit and do the outtakes, which I think is actually one of my favorite things to do. I will go home and I'll do all the outtakes and I'll add funny music to it and I'll kind of cut it up so that it's got like a little story, a mini story to it, and then I'll chop it up and I'll put it out on social media, you know, and all the platforms. And then I will go and I will create the final episode and I'll chop that up and I'll put it on social media. And so, yeah, I do all that and I've gotten a routine down and I think that I can add another one to my list because I love it that much, you know. So just know that everything I'm sharing, I'm sharing from the heart, it's out of love. I'm not making any money off of it. So if I mention products or brands or anything that has to do with that, it's just simply because I like them or I think they may help you.

Speaker 1: 9:04

I am no doctor and everything I'm saying is coming from my own opinion and my own perspective, and I hope you hang out with me and give me somebody to hang out with and talk to. I just want to talk to you. I hope that you talk back Like you need to, like reach out to me and then on my YouTube version I will show you the information, the contact information below. If there's any questions that you have for me, put it in the comments and I will cover it. I will make sure that I get all the information and I will definitely cover it. I'm excited. I'm a little bit nervous about putting my own episode out there every Friday, but you know what have I got to lose? Really, it's not like I'm you know I could lose money or health or anything from it. Just kind of go for it. I don't even know what I'm going to talk about. I may talk about terpenes one day. I may talk about cannabinoids the next day. I may talk about hot topics one day. I don't know. I'm not really sure. I'm here to share and I hope you'll hang out.

Speaker 1: 10:08

I've been in the business for five years in cannabis. I lost my mom to prescription medicine and she was not an addict. She was prescribed medicine for her bipolar. She fell down the stairs and a fill-in doctor. She did not have to go into their office, but a fill-in doctor prescribed her a medication that I'm not going to say here that she took and it stopped her heart. I don't know how or why. I think it was the combination of everything, but it did stop her heart and she passed away at 44. This has made me highly sensitive to prescription medicine, and I know that my mom would use cannabis before she was diagnosed with bipolar and she was alive and then she was prescribed medicine and she was no longer alive. But that's why I'm sharing this with you. If I can help anyone, if I can be a part of your journey in any way, I want to be.

Speaker 1: 11:18

Yeah, I've got a lot to say. So five years ago can you believe it's been five years? Five years ago, I had an idea to start a hemp business. Yeah, I had never had a business, much less knew anything about hemp. I just knew that there was a good chance that it was going to be legalized. So I guess this was 2017, maybe it's been six years. It's been six years, holy crap. Anyway. So I was like I think this is about to be legal and you know, hemp sounds cool. I mean, I could totally get down with some hemp. It's natural. It can clothe you, feed you, put a roof over your head. There's so much you can do with hemp. It's just ridiculous how much you can do with hemp. And so I was like I can get behind this.

Speaker 1: 12:11

I started studying and kind of finding out all about it and watching the laws and watching if they could vote on it. I started hearing rumblings like they're going to vote on it and then in 2018, it became legal and I was like freaking out. I sat there on my granny's ranch and I sat there in the big recliner and just was like, oh my God, I'm going to be a freaking millionaire. Yeah, not really, but I was hoping that we were going to grow hemp on the land. At that point. That didn't really turn out well and I decided at that point that maybe that's not the direction I wanted to go in. I was thinking we'll grow it, we'll do this. That is a very, very expensive business. So that didn't pan out because I am like bootstrapping it here. People Like everything that we do I am paying for, so I am bootstrapping it. So, anyway, we decided to.

Speaker 1: 13:09

I forgot to mention back then, in 2017 and 18, I had a partner. We were 50-50 on this company. She was kind of the money behind it and I was kind of the sweat equity part behind it. I came up with the name. Simply, vibin bought the domain which she taught me that came from her. I trademarked it.

Speaker 1: 13:36

Hold on, let me call my son. He's at the homecoming dance and he just texted me that he needs me to send him his ticket. But I read that I don't have to send it to him. Hi there, buddy. Um, your ticket. I read something yesterday that you just have to go in there and they have everybody's name on a list that bought a ticket already. Okay, love you too. Bye, okay. So I don't even know what I was saying. Oh, how I got into the. Okay. So, my partner Renee we were 50, 50, you know. I came up with the name. She told me what I need to always do.

Speaker 1: 14:14

Whenever you have a business, you definitely want to go check the domain. So go to a site like GoDaddy, type in the business name that you want and then make sure that the com is available. If you see the net, I wouldn't get it, because that means somebody else out there has that exact same name that is using the com and you want to be the only one they're looking for. You'd hate for them to get confused between you and this other place. So, anyway, that's the first thing I did. I started putting all these names in the GoDaddy search site and then I was like I knew it has to be cool, it's cannabis, it has to be cool. So I was like vibes vibin'. I started coming up with that, and then I was like simply vibin', simply vibin'. That has multiple meanings to me, and so it was available multiple meanings to me and so it was available. So I got thecom, which is now worth about $6,000 because of all of my marketing and social media stuff I'm doing out there, which is a whole nother conversation that we need to have, because I've got a lot of experience in this area, but anyway, so I got thecom. I got the trademark, which means nobody can use simply vibin out there, which means nobody can use simply vibin out there, which is kind of cool. So it's another asset that I own.

Speaker 1: 15:24

And then I realized that we can't do hemp, so I knew that we had to do. I wanted to do cannabis. Of course, I've always wanted to do cannabis, but CBD was like the latest and hottest thing to do and I knew it was a cannabinoid that was really working. It was working. I think at the time I didn't realize that you don't really want to isolate any of the cannabinoids by themselves because they don't have that entourage effect that you should be using for your body and your endocannabinoid system, so I didn't know that at the time. I'm much more educated on that now.

Speaker 1: 15:59

I was like we could do actually it was not my idea, this is Renee's idea. She's like we can do, like maybe a subscription box. And I'm like because she was always getting subscription boxes delivered and they had all these different kinds at that point and I'm like, okay, maybe that might work. So we created a subscription box and I'm going to show you a picture of that right now in the YouTube version so you can kind of see what it looks like. Beautiful box created a beautiful box. It was black and it was shiny, and then inside you'd open it up and it had this red tissue paper and it had this message from us on the back and it was. And then then we had this message from us on the back and then we had all these CBD products on the inside and it was just really good. It was $100 subscription box easily. The level we had in there easily was really good brands. I partnered with a couple of really really good brands.

Speaker 1: 16:59

I learned a little bit about the advertising, but I think, if anything, it taught me a lot, because we weren't able to market it and I didn't know that we weren't able to market it until I tried to market it and then I learned that cannabis cannot be said online on certain platforms. Well, at that point all platforms you cannot say cannabis or they can take you down, take your video down, everything. Well, if you can't say CBD which you also could not say and you can't say cannabis, how can you sell anything? You absolutely cannot sell anything. So I hear I have this box. We prepaid for all of it. I had this box and we could not get rid of it. Of course, we sold some locally, between the people that we knew, but we could not sell it online. And that was the business model was to sell these things online and get these subscriptions and then change out the products every month Sounds like a freaking fantastic idea. It is. It absolutely is.

Speaker 1: 18:04

I would not stick with CBD solely. I would probably go a different route today, but back then, cbd was the only cannabinoid people were talking about besides THC. So we went that route. Yeah, it didn't work. So when we were done, I said I just I can't do cannabis. So I tried to go in these other avenues. I'm like, oh my God, if I just even switched industries, I'd be able to market, I'd be able to do all of this stuff and life would be so much easier. Because I mean, I'm talking like Facebook took my Simply Vibe in like I couldn't do ads. They like wouldn't let me do ads, even though hemp was legal and CBD was legal. They didn't know enough about it. So they just totally took my ability to market at all away completely. It was a disaster. It was an absolute disaster, but it taught me a lot. It taught me a lot. So I ventured off of that for a little while and then I came back.

Speaker 1: 19:06

I just was sitting there one day and I was like, you know, my partner really doesn't, isn't involved in anything that I'm really doing. She's got a full life, she's got a whole career, she's got, you know, three children. That she's a single mom. She was going through her own issues and could not be present where I really needed her to be present. This is really what it comes down to, I just I needed a business partner that I could talk to. I needed a business partner that would be available, because that's what I want for my life be available, because that's what I want for my life. But if I had a business partner that didn't want that for their life, you're not going to get very far. You're just going to stay, you know, like on a unicycle, not a unicycle, a bicycle, a sitting bicycle. You know you're going to stay in that spot cycling and not going anywhere. And so that's what it felt like. That's what it felt like and it was really difficult, because I love this person. I love her Like she's amazing and she is such a kind hearted person and I've never really talked about this publicly.

Speaker 1: 20:14

I started to realize, okay, so either we dissolve simply vibin, or she gives it to me because I don't think that I can be partners on this anymore. And it took about six months of me being very patient to see where it was going to go Because, like I said, we were 50-50. She didn't have to give me anything. She didn't have to. She could say no, I choose to dissolve this and I would have Chanel LLC. So now I've had a new business because I'm like I am moving forward with this. Do I get to move forward with my Simply Vibing brand or do I have to go Christy Chanel brand? And I wasn't sure which direction I had to go.

Speaker 1: 21:02

As soon as I bought Christy Chanel the LLC and got it started, she let me know. She called me and she's like hey, um, yeah, I'm going to give you, I'm going to give you simply vibe. And we weren't making any money at that point. We had lost money. So it wasn't like. You know, there was a whole lot she was giving me, except for the name and the trademark, which is what I wanted, cause I I loved the name simply vibing. I'm very, very appreciative for that, cause not everybody would be that easygoing. They're like, oh, you want something, do you? Well, so do I? Not everybody's that kindhearted and she was, and I'm very, very thankful for that. All of a sudden, I have Simply Vibin back and I'm like, oh my God, the heavens opened up and I was just like, ah, because I had my baby. I had my baby, I had done all the work for it, I had done all the social media for it.

Speaker 1: 22:08

I started Simply Vibin, I did all to do with it, and so I always wanted to have my own product. I always wanted to carry a Simply Vibin product, but I was taking my time. I want to do it right. I've already been a part of something that failed, so I wanted to make sure that I was doing something that would work, that had legs. I thought gummies, gummies, but I couldn't do gummies yet, so I held off on that. I held off on gummies right away.

Speaker 1: 22:33

The first thing that I got manufactured was a Simply Vibin facial serum. It's a hemp seed, all natural facial serum. I use it every day, and now I've already made a promise to you that I'm going to be a hundred percent with you. I will be a hundred promise to you that I'm going to be 100% with you. I will be 100% with you. I promise you.

Speaker 1: 22:55

When I tell you that I use this every day, I mean that I use it every day. My friends will be the first ones to tell you that I sleep in my makeup. I have no makeup routine. I don't use any moisturizers. Listen, I'm not bragging about that. I am not bragging about it. I just am very low maintenance and I'm like whatever. Like I wake up and my hair is wet. When I wake up, I blow dry my little wings, right here, my little wings, but the rest of my hair is natural air dried. I don't use hairspray, I don't use anything. I am. I'm not saying I never use hairspray, but I don't on a daily basis. I do when I'm like want to look really good and I'm going out right now, right now, no hairspray. So my point is I want to do the bare minimum and keep it moving.

Speaker 1: 23:47

And then we created a Simply Vibin beard oil. We currently carry those. I do want to, in January, launch gummies. I have to be prepared for that, because remember how I just told you that people take you down with your. You say the word cannabis, they'll take you down. So GoDaddy took that down for me. They took down my payment processor on my website, simplyvibincom, and all I was selling was facial serum and beard oil. If I don't protect myself, that includes a banking system, a place that I can bank with that will be able to allow me to sell hemp-derived products.

Speaker 1: 24:42

This is not cannabis. Well, first of all, cannabis is both hemp and weed. Okay, everybody, it's the same damn plant. The only difference is the THC levels. That is it In any case. So when you say the word cannabis, you're talking about the whole plant, which is hemp as well.

Speaker 1: 25:01

Anyway, I knew that I could not sell hemp-derived cannabis products on my website without being protected in that way, because I don't want anybody to come along and say you can't have your money. So it needs to be done correctly, even though, though, like I just said, hemp is legal. So, anyway, that's what we're working on now. That's why we haven't launched our gummies, but they're coming and I've already been testing them on people and they love them. I, I love them. Now they're going to be 10 milligrams and the only thing about that is I don't need the whole 10. Like, I'm a glass of wine type girl, maybe a glass and a half. I do not drink alcohol. So what I'm saying is, whatever that glass of wine and a half would do for me is what I want done for me without drinking alcohol would do for me is what I want done for me without drinking alcohol. So I typically take a 10 milligram gummy and I split it into quarters and then I take one quarter of that gummy. So it's basically 2.5. Is what I'm looking at and that works really, really well for me and that's what I take.

Speaker 1: 26:11

I don't even know how I got here and I was worried that I wouldn't have anything to talk about. I have been talking for literally 30 minutes straight and I don't even know where I'm at at this point. I was telling you about Renee. So Renee gave me the company 100%. I was sole owner. And then I got to a point where I'm like I love working with somebody, like that's why I didn't work with Renee, because I like that camaraderie, I like to talk to people, I like to bounce ideas back and forth and come up with something great.

Speaker 1: 26:43

I asked Phoebe if she would want to come in and be a business partner, and I trust Phoebe, so that's why I asked her to be a part of this business. At the same time, I was starting to get the idea. Well, I always had the idea to create a podcast. I wanted to create a podcast, but I didn't want to do it by myself, which is irony right now, because here I am doing it by myself. So I asked a friend of mine, krista, if she would want to help with the podcast. She jumped at the opportunity. She was like hell, yeah, I want to.

Speaker 1: 27:18

I have a video that's going viral. It's like a video clip, a short, and it's me and her in this clip in our very first, like one of our first recordings, and so it's her and I and I'm talking about my mom, like I just did just now. I'm talking about my mom and that video clip on Facebook is now, I think, at like 135,000 people and it keeps getting shared and I keep getting followers from it and people keep commenting and talking about it and that we're going to discuss in next Friday's episode. I want to talk about and I want to read the comments that people are leaving for me, because they are so vulnerable and special and I want to talk about it. We need to touch on it and maybe it'll connect with you.

Speaker 1: 28:06

Hearing somebody else talk about something that you're going through. I knew I was on to something Like this clip. I knew I was on to something like this clip. I knew I was on to something like holy crap, like this is like. Like when it got 5,000 views, I was jumping up and down but it kept going and going and going. I'm like, oh my God, we just reached a hundred thousand. Like this was like monumental to me. But anyway, we'll get back into that. I just wanted to touch on it and let you know that the podcasting thing I was like we're on to something.

Speaker 1: 28:34

But it was actually Krista that came up with Code Greenplant because I was telling her I was like you know, you got to speak in code on these social media platforms and when you're speaking in code, that's how you can kind of sell it without really selling it, you know. So I learned different techniques and different ways in marketing that I was able to connect my message without verbally saying it and by doing that. That's why she's like well, you know what we need to call it Code Green Plant, because it's a code. You're speaking in code and I'm like you are freaking brilliant, krista, you are just freaking brilliant. So, besides that, she does my voiceover for my podcast intro and she does my voiceover for my podcast outro and her husband, tim, is the one that kind of did the music to the intro and the outro as well. So they are directly involved in my podcast every single day.

Speaker 1: 29:32

She was very pivotal and I hope to get her back into the crew on this podcast because she's really an invaluable part of the team and she's just stepped away for a little while, but hopefully she'll come back, but anyway. So she stepped away and I decided I did still need a co-host. Well, I asked Phoebe, do you want to come on and be like a guest for one of my podcast episodes? And she's like, yeah, let's do it. And so we did. We recorded that first episode and I was like that was really easy, that really really works and asked her if she wanted to be a permanent guest on Code Greenplant. I figured you know, when you have a guest on, you are kind of learning about who that guest is, and so maybe you need to know about us a little bit more.

Speaker 1: 30:24

If you're watching, if you're listening to this on a podcast streaming platform, you know, maybe throw a like I don't even know. Can you throw a like button If you could throw a like button? Throw a like, I don't even know. Can you throw a like button If you could throw a like button. Throw a like button at me. Let me know that you appreciate this and you like this idea to do this podcast every Friday. So we'll just kind of play it by ear and let it roll and see where we're going, but please let me know if you like it Cool.

Speaker 1: 30:46

Well, I appreciate you guys more than you will ever know. I don't care if there's only one person listening to me every week. Let's be friends, let's hang out. Let me accompany you on your drive or while you're washing the dishes, or while you're in your living room sewing I don't know Hell, I don't know what everybody's doing. I know I'm not sewing, so that was probably a really bad example. Why would I assume you were selling? I don't know. Anyway, I love you guys, I truly love you guys, and I hope you stay safe. You make good choices and one of those good choices is to come back and listen to Christy Chanel on Simply Vibe with me. Okay, that was corny, so I'm just going to say I, you, one of your good choices is to come back and hang out with me.

Speaker 2: 31:38

This episode of Code Greenplant was sponsored by Simply Vibe and LLC. Code Greenplant is a Simply Vibe and production hosted by Christy Chanel, with music produced and mixed by Timothy McGee. This podcast is not intended to be used for medical advice and is solely the opinion of the host. Please consult your physician. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to hit that like and subscribe button, and don't forget to follow us on social media. Want more? Visit wwwsimplyvibincom. We appreciate you simply vibin' with us. Code Green plant.