Stories and Lessons

Rick Blodgett, a friend from my college days, is switching careers into the helping profession. He will not be in practice for a few years as he's in the middle of his degree program, but he shared a great insight into life. We had a lot of fun reminiscing about our college days, our insights looking back now, and share some tools to fight the sadness that creeps in on all of us.

Find out more about Rick here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rickblodgett/

In episode 7, I tell the story of how a getting furious at an overwhelmed woman trying to take on a prolific problem got me involved in fighting for survivors of sexual violence and how that same anger almost betrayed the moral imperative that empowered my work.

I recorded this on my brother's birthday because what better way to let him know I care than to share embarrassing stories from our youth. In this story, you'll hear about how we grew up, the ways we cared for each other, and about what it took for me to see my brother as a man. I hope you enjoy.

Izzy Abbass, a man who has spent his entire adult life either in uniform or advocating for our servicemembers, comes on and shares how his first experience serving with a female soldier impacted him as a young infantryman.

Picking up where he left off in Episode 3, Tim finishes his story about Air Force Basic Training. He shares the surprising role he found cleaning toilets and how important it can be to find your role in a group. After settling into my new world at Basic Training, I was surprised to find both peace and purpose while scrubbing toilets. Additionally, finding a way to pay back my fellow Airmen for getting hurt and out of shape self through basic reminded me how much I like teaching.

I tried and tried to put a solid story together about my experience at basic in under 20 minutes and couldn't do it, so here's our first two-part episode. After graduating from the U, I had a hard time sorting out what I was going to do and who I was going to be. After a few years, I decided to join the United States Air Force at 27 years old. I knew it was going to be a challenge, so I did a bit of researched and talked to friends who had served before signing the dotted line. Even will that knowledge I came pretty close to failing to learn how to be an Airman because I came very close to thinking my college education made me better than the Airmen around me. Take a listen to the whole story above.

Back in 2002, I looked great on paper and people generally thought I was doing everything right for a first-time college student. As most of us know, those struggling learn to hide their problems and I was no different. I was unable to be alone for any significant amount of time and I had just lost my main supporters to a work move. To fill the space, I tried jumping into the LGBTIAQ community as a Cis, heterosexual, guy. While this led to some successful allyship, it did not meet my needs or address my problems. Distraction and avoidance can work for a long time, but in my experience problems catch up eventually and I found how limited I am taking care of others when I am unable to care for myself. Take a listen to the whole story above.

Tim tells a story about his first attempt to get involved in social justice. Like most first tries, it did not go entirely as planned.

Stories and Lessons is a podcast where Timothy Wienecke shares personal stories from his life and collects stories from other people in the helping fields. These stories are chosen to be entertaining and normalizing. For more information about Tim and his guests, please visit www.empoweredchangece.com