Taylor Way Talks

Content Warning: Traumatic brain injury, hospitalization, suicidal ideation, depression

In this episode, Dawn talks with police veteran Vic Pipke. Vic had a 21-year career that included a dozen years with SWAT. He was forced to change careers after a life-threatening injury. The resulting changes forced Vic to explore his strengths and core identity, which led him to consider changing his career to finance.

Dawn and Vic explore the sometimes dark world of post-brain-injury recovery and discuss strategies to get through to another day. This discussion reveals how Vic overcame his challenges and helped his community and clients by assisting them in dreaming big.

 The hosts then explore the benefits that can be had by facing the challenges often present in recovery. Dawn and Vic confirm that shifting your perspectives is often necessary for maintaining a healthy mental state and urges listeners to keep learning, growing and dreaming.

About Vic Pipke

After a 21-year policing career, including a dozen years with the SWAT team, Vic changed career paths after a devastating and life-threatening injury prevented him from proceeding in his policing career in the manner or level he felt could make a significant impact. The career he chose to pursue is financial services to improve financial literacy and address what he found was the underlying cause of almost all crime and social disorder he saw during his policing career: financial struggle.

With this change in direction, he found a passion for educating, inspiring and serving families in a much more profound and fulfilling way. Now he is committed to educating people about money, financial strategies, taxes and much more to give people HOPE and EMPOWER them to make sound decisions for themselves. Then he helps people to access the financial systems, products and services believed to only be accessible to a very select few. And in so doing, he addresses the actual foundational cause of crime and social disorder.

Resources discussed in this episode:

• Vegas by Doja Cat
• Straight Line Thinkers
• Dr. Joe Dispenza

Vic’s Partial List of Things to Do if Time and Money was not a Factor:

1. Ownership in the Miami Dolphins
2. Immortalized my Dad by having his name on a building
3. Total financial Independence
4. Attend every Super Bowl
5. Buy family dream homes
6. Buy our dream home
7. Have winter homes in tropical places
8. Travel first class anywhere I want
9. Attend every NFL stadium for a game
10. Play golf at Augusta
11. Take entire family on a beautiful vacation
12. Inspire millions of people to become the best versions of themselves in order to serve at a higher level
13. Be the absolute best husband to Tana
14. $100 Million net worth
15. Hang out and play football with Dan Marino
16. Own a gym/rec facility
17. Own a private jet so my mom can travel in comfort
18. Surprise my mom by doing any renovations she wants
19. Be able to cut a cheque for anything that comes up
20. Be immortal-teach 10 people to do what I do and how to teach ten more.
21. Find cure for my Brian injury and subsequent headaches, tinnitus and fatigue
22. Sleep soundly every night
23. Grow every day
24. Build charities to impact people worldwide
25. Leave a legacy for my family

-- 

Dawn Taylor - The Taylor Way: website | facebook | instagram | linkedin

Vic Pipke: Vic Pipke’s Fiancial Warrors | instagram | facebook | linkedin

Transcript

Dawn Taylor  00:09

Hey, hey, welcome to the Taylor way talks. I am so excited for this conversation today. I am hanging out with the infamous Vic Pipke, he from SWAT to not. And I don't mean that in a negative thing. But after 21 years of a policing career, including a dozen years with the SWAT team, he had a life-threatening injury that prevented him from continuing. He couldn't keep going, he couldn't pursue his dream, he couldn't keep going in that job. Right? So like this massive shift of identity, but also the fact that, like, how do you find your purpose again? How do you find your excitement again? And how do you deal with a brain injury, but he now owns this amazing company called Vic Pipke's financial warriors, where he is really helping families across North America, starting in Canada, overcome financial stress worries, figuring out their financial futures. It's outstanding what he's doing. But let's welcome him to the show. Welcome back. Thank you so much for being here today.

Vic Pipke  01:09

Thanks so much, Dawn, really, really excited to spend some time with you. I love spending time with you anytime we can. I know we met a couple of years ago. And you know, we've had some really awesome conversations and next to my wife, because this is being recorded. You're one of my favorite women in the world.

Dawn Taylor  01:28

I'll take it, and I will not tell your wife you said that!

Vic Pipke  01:31

She might hear about it, but I'm not sure.

Dawn Taylor  01:35

Well, thank you so much. So the reason why I asked Vic actually to be on the podcast today is you have had a really crazy stories. So we're just gonna dive right into that. We're wishing people talked about what it's like to completely lose your career or your identity after an extended period of time when your world kind of gets turned on its axes, and you have to change anything and everything in your world. You've lost your identity, you've lost your career, you've lost all those things. And I have to recover. Can you tell us a bit about your story and where this all started?

Vic Pipke  02:10

Yeah, absolutely. So like, you know, it's really for my, for me, my story started as a little boy. The only thing I ever wanted to do was be a policeman. Five years old, that was the only thing I ever focused on. It wasn't like, I wanted to be a fireman, or an astronaut, anything like that. That was what I wanted to do. And that was predicated by a lot of really awesome stuff that my parents and my grandparents instilled in me about being of service to other people. You know, I was told at a very young age the best life you can live is a life of service, and impact other people's lives, don't focus inward, focus outward. And if you do that, the world is gonna give you what you need to be happy. And so being a policeman was the way I wanted to do it. And, you know, I went to schooling for law enforcement and criminology and, and all this other stuff. And when I got into policing, it was in the 90s. And some people on podcasts might understand what the 90s are and what I am about to say. But just in case you don't, the 90s was a very interesting time to get into the law enforcement world. No one was hiring, the economy was not good. So you're getting 1000s and 1000s, and 1000s of people applying for a dozen, 15, 20 positions with the police service.

Dawn Taylor  03:23

Oh, wow, very different, very different from now where they're almost begging you to do it!

Vic Pipke  03:28

Very different! But it also meant that they could pick the best of the best. And so you had to up your game, you couldn't just walk in, and because you were a certain height, or male or whatever, you were gonna to get a job. You had to be in fen- fi- final, incredible physical shape. You had to have education, you had to have great interpersonal skills, you had to have experience. You had to have a lot of different things that maybe weren't as heavily judged, I guess, prior to that. So I went through three applications to get into the Edmonton police services. The only police service that I wanted to work for at the time was very, very highly regarded throughout the world. Because I wanted to be part of the best. And I remember being a young boy, watching the TV show SWAT and thinking, if I'm going to be a policeman, that's the kind of policeman I want to be. So my entire focus, my entire career, was getting into the SWAT team. And I was very fortunate and blessed to be successful and work in that environment for a very long time. And so for the better part of, say, 35 years, I focused on that. My drive was to be the absolute best I could be at that role. And you know, I started at the bottom in the SWAT team as a breacher and then moved up to be, you know, an entry guy and a scout and then, you know, at times I was the team leader, and you know, it was outrageously rewarding career, and I was living my dream. And I had plans. I had a lot of plans, but while I was busy making plans, a life had a plan for me.

Dawn Taylor  04:58

So this like massive identity, this massive, crazy identity from this five-year-old kid.

Vic Pipke  05:04

Yep, absolutely. That's all I wanted to do in life, right was to make an impact in my community in the world through helping people that maybe don't have the resources to help themselves.

Dawn Taylor  05:14

So let's talk about some of the other side of it, too, is at this point, like, you had kids, you got married, right? Like, there, there was a whole family involved in this too, which is all part of this whole identity thing, right?

Vic Pipke  05:25

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, it's really, it's really strange. I think some people will relate to this is that when people asked me, you know, "tell me about Vic; who's Vic?" I'm a SWAT cop. I didn't talk about who I was. I talked about what I did!

Dawn Taylor  05:39

Okay, that is so common!

Vic Pipke  05:41

Yeah! My identity was what I did.

Dawn Taylor  05:43

That is so common

Vic Pipke  05:44

like, it is really sad. Because I think it was a disservice to my family, my friends, you know, I'm a great friend. I'm a great family member, husband, father, grandfather now, right, I've an awesome nine-year-old grandson. He's so cool! But yeah, it was it was really it was my identity was my job.

Dawn Taylor  06:01

Yeah.

Vic Pipke  06:02

And, you know, like I said, life had a different plan for me. And, you know, we were we were at a point that was in my, in my career where I was planning to move to that next level. And we were planning what's called a run-off, which is like an event that that tests the aptitude and the skills of people that want to get into the unit. And in order to set the standards, we have to basically do a mini run-off ourselves to set that standard because we can't ask more people that we can't do ourselves. And in the middle of this little mini run-off, my carotid artery ruptured. And I had no blood flow to one entire hemisphere of my brain. But being a really, really stubborn, good soldier, I finished that run-off with only half a brain. So when people say, hey, you know what, you can't do things with only half a brain. I proved you can. If you have determination, right, but I finished despite the fact that the second night I had this injury, it was like overwhelming headache, tunnel vision, I lost feeling in my extremities. I went from 100% speed and power to like 1%. But I just I push through, I push through, I pushed through until I got home and started to have stroke-like symptoms. And that was when you know, it was time to go to the hospital. I went to the hospital in a packed hospital. We all know what it's like how frustrating it can be to be in a hospital waiting room and the emergency. I was in a gown in a room, being rushed to an MRI, a CT scan. Sorry, within five minutes.

Dawn Taylor  07:30

Wow! Ok. So let's backtrack a second.

Vic Pipke  07:34

Yeah.

Dawn Taylor  07:35

That drive... So you and I know each other outside of this podcast. So that drive though that, oh, wait, my brain just pretty much blew up, and I still can't stop. I still can't take care of myself. I still can't. I still can't fail.

Vic Pipke  07:52

 Exactly.

Dawn Taylor  07:53

Can we talk about that for a sec? Because that is something that... I was chatting with a friend this morning and someone was attacking her on social media. And she commented, she's like, do you remember that time we were at that event and that woman... She's a public bully in our city. And she was like, I remember the time we were at that event, that woman was coming up to me, and you saw me having a panic attack, and you completely stepped in front and like blocked her from me? And, like, walked her away kindly? But you totally just stood up for me. She's like, you're a badass, though. Like, you'll do that even for yourself! And I laughed because I was like, Yeah, but I wouldn't have years ago, I wouldn't have stood up for myself 10,20, 30 years ago, like I wouldn't, I wouldn't oh, yeah, I'll be a badass for you any day. Now I'll stand up for myself as well. But in that moment, where did that- where did that core belief even come from in you? That it's like, no, no, no, but I have to keep going, and I can't stop!

Vic Pipke  08:50

Well, number one, I think it's that environment, that environment is, hey, you go until you can't go any more. You need to-, you need to it's a massive brotherhood, right? And you need to show the people that you're working with every day that no matter what happens when you walk through that door on a mission, that you're going to go until you can't possibly go anymore. Until you know someone strikes you down, something happens that prevents you from physically being able to go another step. You're not going to stop. Right? And there's there's that trust that you build inside. I mean, I woke up every morning, worked out every morning, ate breakfast with every morning, trained with the same guys went on vacation with the same guys for the better part of a decade. And, like, you spend that much time in a tight-knit group like that? You don't want to let those people down, and you don't want to show weakness, so that was really a big driving force. I didn't want to let my team down. And you know, in some respects, I think it can be detrimental, but in other respects, it builds that bond. And that bond is the most important thing in that environment. Right, because you do need to have that trust with those brothers and sisters that you work with. Because if you don't have that, you might hesitate to do something, and you can put the rest of the team in a really crappy position. So that was really my thinking was don't stop, just, you can't quit. And I think now, where I've evolved to now, that mentality is still there, but it serves me in a better way.

Dawn Taylor  10:18

In a way of like, but wait, I... Like it because I get it; I get the whole, like, you were a SWAT member. Of course, you guys have to like trust each other. And there's, there's a totally different level of connection that has to happen, and that push to the death. But it's still that at what point? Am I willing to actually sacrifice my life and my health for the betterment of the group? Versus actually like acknowledging that, hey, wait a second, this isn't okay.

Vic Pipke  10:45

And that's, that's, that's a tough line to cross, right? Because this is your family in some respects. I mean, you know that if the bullets start flying, you're going to step in front of one if it means you're going to save the guy behind you. But that's why we wear armour. So that's cool!

Dawn Taylor  11:05

I was gonna say, at least you have that!

Vic Pipke  11:07

At least we get some armor. But yeah, I mean, it is it is a tough line to distinguish, like, when do you when is your behaviour going to get so toxic to you that it's actually hurting the rest of the team or your family because that's really what comes down to at the end of the day. Yeah, it's like a family atmosphere. But I'm sorry; as much as I love all those guys that I worked with, they're not my family. I still had to go home to a family. And I can say this now, having been in the in the industry, in law enforcement and out of law enforcement, the mindset of a police officer it is horrible. And if there are other police officers listening, I hope you're paying attention. Because it is horrible. We get up every day. And we anticipate having to deal with the worst-case situation of every person we interact with. Why? Because we want to increase the chances of being able to go home at the end of the day. So we have to assume the worst of every human being we encounter. And at first it starts out of work. But it starts to like morph into this ugly monster where you think the entire world is evil. And the entire world is out to get you. And, and I understand it now being on the outside looking in, that, you know, it's necessity, it has to be that way. Otherwise, you're going to take risks that could put you in a really crappy position, and maybe you don't get to go home today. Right? But being on the other side now, and I talked to so many police officers now, it's like, you know what? If you just understood that it's not you against the world. There's actually the vast majority of people in this world that are amazing human beings. That if they had the skill set, and the desire to put themselves in position where you were, they would do it. And that's been my experience since leaving the police service. And it's been an entire mind shift. Right? Like it's, I had to change my entire mindset. I had this this injury-

Dawn Taylor  13:05

So let's backtrack to that. So you land in the hospital. Five minutes you're in?

Vic Pipke  13:10

Yeah.

Dawn Taylor  13:11

Let's go there, then what happens?

Vic Pipke  13:13

Yeah, well, it was it was a whirlwind for me because I was still I was still in, disbelief, right. I, was, I was like, Okay, this can't happen to me. I've never done drugs in my life. I am not a heavy drinker. I exercise three to four hours a day. Plus, my job is physically straining. You know, in my mid-40s, I was at a very high fitness level. And so I'm just thinking like, this is just a headache. You know what, they're just gonna give me some aspirin. It's something minor. And then when they're rushing in, and I'm like, Okay, why are they injecting me with this radioactive dye? Like this, that's it. This is a lot more serious than I'm thinking. And they got me out of the the CT scan. And I went back to the the emergency room that I was I was in, and nurses like, within minutes, they rush in, they rip the curtain back, and they're starting to poke me with blood thinners.

Dawn Taylor  14:06

And those hurt, by the way, if you've never had a blood thinner?

Vic Pipke  14:09

They are putting crap in my body. Like, what's going on?

Dawn Taylor  14:12

Those hurt like acid burning in your body

Vic Pipke  14:14

Oh, and in your stomach! And the doctor came he said, Okay, I don't want to alarm you, but this is really serious. You've had what's called carotid dissection. The inner lining of your carotid artery has ruptured and collapse. It's been a massive, massive dissection block. And effectively, you got no brain flow for 24 hours. And I'm like, what do you mean like I'm walking, I'm talking, I'm like he's like we- and you'll know later, on the neurosurgeons I consulted with and stuff they said there's no medical reason you should have survived that incident. We cannot understand how you lived.

Dawn Taylor  14:49

I've talked to lots lately with with friends, and I'm going to do podcast. A solo podcasts on it soon. Of how there was a one in 750 thousand people chance that I survived a brain aneurysm. And 20. Some years later, like I was supposed to be dead. We talk about these and breeze through them. And I'm like, No, we need to sit with that for a second, like, how crazy is that?

Vic Pipke  15:15

It really makes me believe that you know, and I mean, whether you're spiritual or religious, or whatever. I mean, this isn't a comment on anyone else's belief system. But I truly believe that, that that injury was a gift. Because the path I was going down was not number one going to be good for me. But I also wasn't going to be able to serve at the level that I meant to serve. It was a training ground for where I was going. And so, I mean, the first couple of months sucked. It sucked, right? I wasn't at work because of the brain injury. I was outrageously tired. Like I would sleep 20 hours a day, I have, even with that, I had this migraine headache, and it's a headache I've had since the day of the injury, not one second of one day, I have not had this this headache. So currently, right now I have a migraine headache. I have tinnitus that rings in my ears like like an air raid siren going off 24/7, that obviously makes sleep a little bit challenging. And for the first few months, man, it was a pity party. I pitied myself. How could this happen to me? We so many people that live unhealthy lives don't have to deal with this kind of just happened to me, and I don't deserve this. And I have a problem with the word deserve. Now, by the way,

Dawn Taylor  16:35

OK, I preached that all the time to people I'm like, deserve has nothing to do with it. You get what you work for.

Vic Pipke  16:42

Exactly! But you know what there was at one point in the life of me, I don't understand what it was. I think it was just getting to the mindset that I can't serve at the level that I'm comfortable serving. I need to find another thing I can serve. And I started to think of my injury instead of a curse as a blessing. Because when I was out of the environment, I started to realize what the world is really like. I wasn't shrouded by this veil of false information, false beliefs. Whether they're necessary or not, they were false. And it lifted this weight off of me to be able to realize that I am not my job. And I can do other things. So you know, some of you say, how do you deal with a headache 24 hours a day, seven days a week, tinnitus, fatigue. It reminds me of how blessed I am. Because I could choose to think of it another way. But here's the cool thing. You get to choose how you think about things. You choose! So I could think negatively, or I could choose to think of it as a blessing that led me on another much more fulfilling path. That's gonna impact way more people. So I choose that because I'm not I tried the other one, and it sucked! I tried thinking the other way for a couple of months. And man, it was just a pit of despair. Depression. BS. Crap. It wasn't it was nothing was horrible. So when I chose to think differently, and it didn't come just for me. It came from associating with people that helped me to think differently. You're not an island, as a SWAT guy. You need to be the tough guy. You need to be the guy that everyone can go to, the guy that solves everything. When I realized I wasn't alone. I wasn't on an island. And that there were people out there that were going to help me.

Dawn Taylor  18:30

Oh, 100%.

Vic Pipke  18:32

Like we talked about that, you got to put that ego away. And I stuck with it. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not perfect. I still fight with you. Every day. And I gave people heck! I got testosterone, I have an ego. But you can work with it. And you can learn how to work with your ego.

Dawn Taylor  18:50

Which is, and I've been able to watch part of it. Right. And it's it's so cool to be part of so with that. What's the other than the headaches and the tinnitus and things like that? What are some of the side effects that have happened since?

Vic Pipke  19:05

Um, well, I mean, at first, it was, you know, there was a lot of disbelief that I can do anything other than what I'm doing. And I don't know if it's just a law enforcement thing or if this is prevalent in most people's lives, but I think we really devalue what we have to bring. And, you know, when I started looking for some way else to impact people, I actually got I was suggested that I looked at the financial industry by my advisor. And my first words to him is, you know, I blow stuff up, right? I don't know if I have too many transferable skills. But it got me to thinking, it intrigued me I have to think what skills do I have as a police officer that could be transferable? Well, I was a negotiator. I was an interrogator. I was a SWAT guy. So I'm great at teamwork and leading. You know, there were a lot of things that I'm like, wow, you know what, there are things outside of the law enforcement world that I can actually be good at. And it also got me thinking, what was it that I actually did as a police officer? Right, I responded to these crimes, but when I really boiled down the cause of all the crime and social disorder that I'd ever seen in my entire career, it all came down to money troubles! Like, wow, what if I take all the skills that were that I built responding to the problem and I looked at it from a different perspective? I said, hey, if I can go and educate people, and help people, prevent them from getting into the position where they're making bad decisions because I mean, almost everything comes down to money. If I can prevent that from happening, I'll actually make a bigger impact in my community, because I'll be working proactively rather than reactively. And that was my big shift. I was like, I don't have to change who I am. I'm going to use the skills I learned before, I'm going to take this blessing of this injury. And I'm going to transform those skills into something that's going to serve people at a significantly higher level than anything I could have ever thought of doing as a police officer!

Dawn Taylor  21:04

So for someone listening, though, it sounds like it was just an easy perspective shift that you're just like, woke up one day, and it was like, Oh, my gosh, you know what? This horrific things just happen? I've lost 35 years of my identity. And now I'm going to just make this shift, and everything's gonna be okay. I mean, I'm sitting here going, Oh, no, no, no, no, it's not that easy.

Vic Pipke  21:26

I just changed my mind!

Dawn Taylor  21:27

Trust me, it's not that easy! So let's talk about that. So for someone listening, like I had my Julia Roberts moment, and what I mean by that is in Runaway Bride, Runaway Bride... I know, I know, old movie, Richard Gere, Julia Roberts, amazing show. But she had this moment where for people, if you haven't watched the movie, which you should, she has been to the altar was like, what, three or four times with different men. And she'd make it like most of the way up the aisle. And one of the scenes like, she literally is like dragging the flower girl holding on to her dress as she runs back out of the church. And this, this reporter is hearing about this, and he's laughing, and he thinks its funny. And he wants to write this story and pick apart this woman and, like, why can she never make it to the altar? Like, what is wrong with her? That she bails on all of her fiance's? And what do you realize this is one of the things that she becomes everybody that she's with, and she's totally lost her identity. She's totally lost her identity, and she becomes this. And he realizes it in a way of he's watching how she likes her eggs because he's interviewing all these guys and asking them questions. And one is like, Oh, she, loves scrambled eggs with me every morning, and we'd go on motorbike rides, we whatever it was right. And then the next one's, like, egg whites done with right like, and it's totally different every single time. And there was this moment where he makes her like every kind of egg you could possibly eat. And he's yelling at her that she doesn't even know what kind of eggs she wants or that she likes. And she's trying to justify it. And that when I watched that was such a big, like, shit moment for me. Because for myself, there was so much of me that I was trying to hold of the old person to keep everybody around me healthy, healthy and happy. Retaining who you know, Dawn 1.0 had been, and not changing shifts too much because that made people around me scared.

Vic Pipke  23:37

Yeah.

Dawn Taylor  23:37

Or uncomfortable, or they didn't recognize that person. But for me, it was this big aha moment in my life where I was like, I don't know what kind of eggs I like, where that struggle came in. But also like that anger, that rage that, like I, my husband laughs to this day. He always jokes that I should have written... My book is called "P.S. I Made It" but he was joke that it should have been like, "You Haven't Taken Me Out Yet, God!" Because he came home from work one day, and I was screaming at God. And I was like, I was just raging mad at everything I'd been through my life. And I was like, "Bring it on, Big Boy, you haven't taken me out yet!" And I actually was screaming that in tears at God. And my husband walked in the door from work. And it was like, oh, boy, she's having a rough day. I know. Can you imagine I laughing I'm thinking about it. But...

Vic Pipke  24:30

Okay, here we go!

Dawn Taylor  24:31

So much of that was what my dream of my life, what it should have been? Right? What I wanted it to be what I visioned it to be all of those things. And now I'm sitting in this position where it's like, oh, no, you can't go to school, and you can't have that career, and you can't have kids, and you can't do all those things. And you're going to look different and sound different and not think the same and not feel the same and struggle with again, like you migraines for the rest of your life, and you know all of these things, and so when you're in that position when you're in the depths of the hell of the shit, I want to talk about that for a second. Because that's what nobody talks about. And it's it's actually it's one of my rants, which is what started this whole podcast, was hearing speakers, reading books, where it's like, life was horrible. Now, I'm amazing! You should do the same! And it's like, no, no, no. Talk to me about what was it like in that? And then what did you actually tangibly do? Like, how hard was it? How did you self-sabotage? What did happen? What decisions did you make that you're not proud of? Do you know what I mean? It's like those things. That is like, no, what was it really like in that place that someone else can feel seen and heard? If you're willing to go there?

Vic Pipke  25:48

Yeah, absolutely. I think the big thing was I wanted to escape. I would do anything not to think about what the next step was going to be. Where I was going to go, how I was going to impact my family, how I was going to need to change to be a different person. I mean, obviously, one of the things that everyone is concerned about is, hey, I gotta be able to make money to pay the bills. So, you know, fortunately, the Edmonton Police Service are really good. It's not like they said, you have a brain injury, you're fired. Right? They said, hey, we're gonna find a place for you. It was the most mind-numbingly horrible position I could ever think of. And I still did some pretty cool things. But in general, it was absolute death to me. I went from very high level to basically being a, you know, a big, you know, counting ammunition registering serial numbers.

Dawn Taylor  26:40

Ugh!

Vic Pipke  26:41

and being of here's the big word of zero significance. I was significant before. Now, I'm not.

Dawn Taylor  26:48

I am sorry about that. How hard was that?

Vic Pipke  26:51

Oh my god! that was, that was my, that was the big deal. Right. And it wasn't until the first time we kind of sat down. I came to that reality, right? This was years after. I, you know, I left the police service already, that we actually figured out that my big deal was, I lacked significance again, and I'm a very significance-driven person, I want to be significant in other people's lives. And when that was robbed of me, there was like, dark, dark depression. Right, I all of a sudden, had to take all these pills just to live every day. And there was a time I thought of taking them all.

Dawn Taylor  27:30

How dark to that depression go.

Vic Pipke  27:31

Probably the the day that I realized it was gonna kill me was when I went to work. And I sat in my car. And I looked at my access card key. And it was like, if I have to go in that building again, I'm gonna kill myself. And that was when wow! My kids, my grandkids, family, everyone else started (unintelligible). I obviously, I can't do that. So what am I going to do? Because if I don't have something to look forward to, this will kill me.

Dawn Taylor  28:09

So for someone listening who's in that dark place. They're sitting in their car, looking at their job, looking at their business, looking at their home, looking at their whatever, right? I always used to say mine was in the shower, right standing in the shower, crying because the water washes away those tears, and no one will know. What is a piece of advice you would give to them in that moment, shift or pivot their life even by one degree?

Vic Pipke  28:37

That's a great word. I love it!

Dawn Taylor  28:38

I'm not talking a massive mental shift is saying, hey, you're in the depths of depression. You need to find gratitude. No, no, that doesn't work. That doesn't work when you're in those moments, right? What is... What are one or two things that you would recommend to someone in that moment to help even, like, get them onto a different path?

Vic Pipke  28:57

Well, here's the thing is when you're in that position, you don't see a finish line.

Dawn Taylor  29:01

Yep

Vic Pipke  29:02

Like you can't even really see yourself in the game, let alone winning the game. A couple of things. Number one, know that you're not alone. You might think that you have a unique set of circumstances that no one else will understand, or no one else can relate to. But you are not by far unique in your situation. And that's not a comment on a person individually. Your situation is not unique. There are a lot of people that will deal with what you're dealing with throughout throughout time. The second thing is I would just say, don't think of the finish line. Think about one more day.

Dawn Taylor  29:37

Get through that day. Okay. Emotions are good around here.

Vic Pipke  29:41

So one of the side effects of brain injury, you get really emotional. Just get through that day. Every day you wake up, you have an opportunity to make a beautiful life. And if it sucks today, tomorrow can be a different day. If you're struck feeling today, tomorrow can be a completely different day. Just go one more day, just one more.

Dawn Taylor  30:08

I've often said the greatest gift in the world is that we get to go to sleep and wake up again. Right? We get, we get a new 24 hours.

Vic Pipke  30:16

Yeah, it resets everything. So I think I think that's a big thing is to understand that you're not alone. And you just have to get through the next moment. And maybe it's not even tomorrow. Maybe it's just the next five minutes. Maybe you're just having a real bad moment, not a bad day; you take that 15 seconds of that really crappy interaction with that bully, or a bad interaction at work or road rage, someone cuts you off in traffic, you take that out of your day in your day was actually pretty good. But if you focus on that, that's going to, that's going to affect your entire day. So really think about what it is that is bothering you today. And if it is something monumental, because some people have really monumental things. And it might not be monumental to me, because of whatever reason, I've worked on it. I've evolved certain paths that right, that doesn't change the struggle that that person is having. It's can't like people. I think sometimes people get stuck in the idea that, well, other people might have this problem, my problem is insignificant. No, it's significant to you! Don't be little your situation, but also don't buy into it.

Dawn Taylor  30:18

How true is that!

Vic Pipke  31:26

Because you can have five minutes later, have an interaction that changes your entire day and your entire outlook!

Dawn Taylor  31:31

I've often looked at like how fast to shift your state can shift, right? Like you can be having the best day ever, someone says something, or you read something, or you hear something or whatever your entire state, your entire mood will shift in 10 seconds, which means it can shift back!

Vic Pipke  31:46

Look because it is a muscle. It is a muscle that you build on most I don't think a lot of people realize that is that it's not magic. I, for myself, when someone was like, "Wow, you're so positive, you're so positive!" and like, oh, I have my down days. But this is a muscle I've built to be able to overcome to be able to bounce back, right? I always say my bounce back is real fast. Exactly! And it's a perishable skill and you know, perfect example, you know, yesterday morning, I am having a great morning, I'm pumped up a fired up, we got a lot of great things going with our team. And I sit down, and I talk to a potential client, and they make a decision to me is like, are you kidding me? And it brought my energy from here to here. And man, I and you know, regardless of how hard you work on this stuff, it is still work every day not to let these things impact you. It's like a perishable skill! If you don't practice it every day, you're going to lose it! Right? No different than any other sporting activity, any other craft, anything dexterity related. If you don't practice on a consistent basis, it's going away. And I had to really get myself out of that funk and bring my energy level back up, for me, but also for my family and my team. Because if I go and I start walking into a room, and my energy is low, the entire room knows it. And they deserve better. And when I go home, my family definitely deserves better. They definitely deserve better than what one person said to me at nine o'clock in the morning. But it's not easy. It's not easy. And it's never going to be. It'll get easier because of experience. Every- And it gets faster!

Dawn Taylor  33:20

Like stuff can get real dark. And I bounced back really quick. But that's because I've bounced backs so many times!

Vic Pipke  33:37

At the beginning, no, you didn't!

Dawn Taylor  33:44

 No! Oh my gosh!

Vic Pipke  33:46

In the beginning, what was that like? It was like, it was like, you know, completing a marathon to bounce back at the beginning?

Dawn Taylor  33:53

Oh, 100% it was.

Vic Pipke  33:54

But now it's like, okay, I'm bouncing back faster, I still not bouncing back as fast as I want. But that comes with practice. It comes with time. And, man, if it seems hard to bounce back at the beginning, just think about what the alternative is if you don't work on it, living in that darkness the rest of your life.

Dawn Taylor  34:15

Which you and I have had that conversation. It's not worth it. And we've both laid there in those hospital beds, you know, wishing you were dead. And...

Vic Pipke  34:22

Yeah.

Dawn Taylor  34:23

It's, and this isn't saying that it's easy, always on the other side.

Vic Pipke  34:27

No.

Dawn Taylor  34:28

This week, like, oh my gosh, this week, I'm dealing with side effects garbage of a brain aneurysm that happened like 24 years ago! And like this week, or stuff coming up, and my husband's laughing about it. He's like, Of course, of course that's still happening for you. And you know, I can I can laugh it off, but sometimes it's super frustrating, right. But I know for myself one of the things that I've often looked at is ask for help. If someone is listening to this, and they're in that spot. Ask, ask for help. Reach out to somebody if you can't afford to hire someone like me, if you can't afford to go to therapy if you can't afford some most things; there's always options. There are always options and free services out there that you can access. But we also have the internet, we have books, we have all of these things. But more importantly, reach out to your people, even if you push them away so hard, which is often what we do when we're in those states because we don't want them to see us as weak or see us as broken or see us as less than or any of those things. Call one person, text one person and be like. "Hey, I'm not doing too well. Can we talk?" and start there, because often is even just saying it is saying what's going on is so powerful in helping you even start... Even just starting to process it. Another thing that I started doing years ago, too, when I was in those states, was what I call the three and three. And my three and three was. What are three things in life that are actually going okay right now? Because sometimes I couldn't use the word good. Or well, it was like they're going, okay. And three things that actually make me happy. I'm not talking in a gratitude way because it's really hard when you're in the depths of your hell and things. And you're feeling totally lost, right? I'm talking about, like, there were days that I'd be like, today, I had a good hair day. Today. No one pissed me off in traffic! These things are going well. Or my bedroom is clean. That's it. That's all I got. Those are my three things in life that are going really well right now or are going okay. But other days, it was like, Hey, today was a good day. Today, I actually had a cool conversation with somebody. Today, I cooked an amazing meal. Or hey, right now, my job's going really well, or this relationships going really well. And then the three things that made me happy, your always silly things. Right? I always say to people they don't allow them to involve anybody else. Because people can give you happiness and take it away just as fast. Right? This is where if happiness versus joy. It's looking at it and going, Okay. What are three things that make me really happy? Hugging an inanimate object. I know that sounds really weird. I love hugging inanimate objects!

Vic Pipke  37:20

Your tree!

Dawn Taylor  37:21

Yes, I hug trees! I hug. I was just in Vancouver for work for a week, and all the Christmas stuff is out. And I was like, ah! I'm with this poor woman who's never met me. And I was literally like, can you take a picture of me hugging this big plastic moose? And she was like, you're the strangest human. But within like half an hour of me doing this, she was laughing her head off in helping me find weird things to hug.

Vic Pipke  37:43

Yeah.

Dawn Taylor  37:44

I don't know why; I love it. I'll post a picture in the show notes of me hugging weird shit in Vancouver. But, like, it makes me happy. A perfect cup of hot coffee makes me so happy. There is nothing like that first sip of a hot cup of coffee and the feeling that that gives when you take it right. Like, if you actually stop for a moment and, like, give it a second. It's so good. Dancing in my car to an amazing song, which right now my favorite is Vegas by Doja Cat or whoever that is. I don't even know who it is. I heard this song I was like, that's a dance in the car song. Don't worry; we'll have links to all this in the show notes. But these are the things that I can now easily sit down, and I could list off 100 things that make me happy. But guess what it started with one and one. And then I went to two and two, and then went to three and three. Where every morning, I'd be like, Okay, I gotta find something, I gotta find something. And it got easier and easier and easier. And that was the big piece of it. And I also want to mention when you talked about looking at, like, who you were before and who you are now, who were you as a police officer, who were you as a SWAT member? What were your morals, your values, your ethics, your standards? What about that job did you love? What about that life did you love? What character traits could you take from that to move into a new career? I think that is so powerful because our identities are so often caught up in what we do.

Vic Pipke  39:20

Yeah, absolutely.

Dawn Taylor  39:23

But how do you move that into something different? How... Like, and how do we do that? And so, for you, is there anything outside of your work and what you do now? Is there anything even on the personal end that are like your weird, quirky things that are still you after?

Vic Pipke  39:43

Oh, yeah, I mean, there's lots of stuff, right? Like I'm, I'm a big football guy. So my idea of a perfect day is a Sunday, anywhere between Saturday or September or January. Just sitting down on a Sunday and watching football all day and eating some nachos, right. and just take in the day, I can shut my brain off. I don't have to think about anything else. It's just pure joy for me. Other things that, you know, I've incorporated that had become kind of quirky. Well, maybe not quirky, but I have. I have a morning routine now that I never used to have. But it's a morning routine that sets up my entire day for positivity, gratitude, looking at things on the bright side, right? I wake up every morning, and the first thing I do is, I think about what I'm grateful for. I actually have a gratitude journal. And the first thing I'm grateful for every morning is my wife.

Dawn Taylor  40:42

She's amazing.

Vic Pipke  40:43

Most amazing human being walking the face of the earth. Sorry, but sh-

Dawn Taylor  40:47

Oh, no, it's okay. She's magical. I know her. I love her.

Vic Pipke  40:51

The next thing I do is I go through affirmations. And I read my goals. I don't read practical goals, right? I mean, I do read some practical goals. These this is what I want to accomplish today, this month, this quarter, this year. Whether it's personal, whether it's business, whatever it is. But I have I have a list. I've like an entire list that I'm still working on because I haven't finished it. 101 things that I would do if time and money were of no consequence.

Dawn Taylor  41:20

Oh, fun!

Vic Pipke  41:21

And it's hard! You might think, oh, I got lots of things. Yeah, you might have 30 or 40 things. Try gettin to a hundred! Because we limit our belief in ourselves, we limit what we think is possible. And so... We... we're almost conditioned in life right now not to dream.

Dawn Taylor  41:39

Oh, 100%!

Vic Pipke  41:40

Yeah, a lot of people, they take their dreams and they shrink it into the number that appears at the bottom of their paycheck every two weeks. If it doesn't fit into this number, I can't do it. And they get conditioned to be in kind of that 40-40-40 club, I call it, right? It's going and getting a good education. So you can get a good job to work 40 hours a week for 40 years of your life to retire 40% of what you can't afford to live on today. And we take all the things we want to do when we're kids, whether it's be a space cowboy, a ballerina, you wanted to ride a unicorn, the most outlandish things we wanted to do as kids and life teaches us at some point to stop dreaming. And I think it's an epidemic.

Dawn Taylor  42:27

Oh, I agree!

Vic Pipke  42:28

It's horrible. And when I sit down with people, one of the first things and this is what really throws them off because no one's ever asked them this before; as I asked them, time and money were of no consequence. What would you be doing right now? Where would you be? Who would you be? Like, would it be a big house? Would it be... Like, I'm a massive Miami Dolphins fan. One of my top 101's is I want to own the Miami Dolphins.

Dawn Taylor  42:50

Oh, that's fun!

Vic Pipke  42:51

Because then I can make them play me. I'm the quarterback. You know, obviously, that's a little bit far-fetched. I am too old to do that now, but that is one of my goals, right? How many people have dreams like that? I want a private jet. So that I'm not limited with where I can go when I can go. And also have some other personal reasons for that as well. My mom is at a point in her life where it's very uncomfortable for her to travel. But I think she still deserves to see the world. So why not travel in comfort.

Dawn Taylor  43:20

That's beautiful. Would you be willing to share even a few of the items on your list for people so that they can have an idea of what to look for? And what to think about. That'd be amazing. So I'll give Vic to send me even like 10. 10 or 15 of the ones on your list. Just so that listeners so that you guys can have something to even just start dreaming yourself because it is. It's so powerful when you actually can start dreaming and thinking outside of your life.

Vic Pipke  43:47

Sure!

Dawn Taylor  43:48

And honestly, that's what gives you like the motivation to get out of bed some days is, knowing you have this insane dream. Even if it never happens. It's just like having this crazy obscene dream. Right? Vic, I want to end our time together today with asking you just some silly questions.

Vic Pipke  44:04

All right, bring it on, sister!

Dawn Taylor  44:05

Just some silly fun questions like I do with everybody, and yes, everyone, check the show notes so you can figure out how to get a hold of Vic to if you're interested in any of the work that he does. So what is the favorite place you've ever traveled?

Vic Pipke  44:17

Favorite place I've ever traveled. I'm very, partial to the Mayan Riviera. I love the plain Riviera. I love Mexico. However, my favorite trip ever. Why was to Monterey, California, and we were talking about it just a while ago. Right?

Dawn Taylor  44:36

Oh, such a great area.

Vic Pipke  44:38

For a number of reasons, though. It's not just the the area. It's what I was doing when I was there. I was surrounded by associations that stretched my belief stretched my thinking. And I was with my wife.

Dawn Taylor  44:50

Yeah.

Vic Pipke  44:51

Because I've been there before but not with her.

Dawn Taylor  44:54

Oh, that is so fun.

Vic Pipke  44:55

This was way better. My next Miami. I, for my 40th birthday, I went to Miami to watch a Miami Dolphins football game was the very first time I'd ever seen an NFL game. And it was a goal of mine since I was about 12 years old.

Dawn Taylor  45:09

Oh, that is fun. They're fun. The energy down there is nuts. I've been to a couple games.

Vic Pipke  45:14

It's crazy. Yeah.

Dawn Taylor  45:15

It's so fun.

Vic Pipke  45:16

That would that would be my my two top ones.

Dawn Taylor  45:19

What do you spend a silly amount of money on personally?

Vic Pipke  45:27

Silly amount of money? I said I don't think I'm a real big spender. I mean, well, no.

Dawn Taylor  45:35

But do have you a thing?

Vic Pipke  45:36

I love going out and eating good food. I can eat good food at home. But I like the atmosphere of being out at a nice restaurant with my Queen. And we're enjoying a nice meal, maybe a glass of wine being in the presence of other people. So I think, you know, if there was one place that I could probably save a lot of money, that would be the place.

Dawn Taylor  46:00

I know that feeling. Yeah. Yep. What is the purchase of $100 or less that you've made in like recent, in the last like even six months, that has most positively impacted your life?

Vic Pipke  46:12

I bought a subscription to straight line thinkers, which is a podcast done by Rich Dolly. He has a whole bunch of stuff on there. And I listened to that every day. And it is something that builds my mindset because, like we said before, your mindset can deteriorate over time by not immersing yourself and growing. If we're not growing, we're dying. It is an irrefutable law of nature. And so if you're not willing to grow, grow your mindset, grow personally, you're gonna put yourself in a in a bad position. So that's probably the best purchase I've made in the last year that was under 100 bucks. It was actually 50 bucks.

Dawn Taylor  46:51

I think that one of the common threads of our entire talk today, Vic, has been making the decision, choose that you want something to be different in your life, choose that you're not going to continue to suffer, and they're actually going to fight for yourself. And then these little tiny actions and so much of it comes down to the headspace, so much of it comes down to your mindset. And so much of it comes down to not buying into the bullshit story in your head that you're damaged, or you're broken, or you can't be redeemed or healed or any of those things.

Vic Pipke  47:23

And you know, I recommend to people, you know, some people a little bit more logical if you're more logical like me. One thing that really helped me was reading Dr. Joe Dispenza. Learn why.

Dawn Taylor  47:36

Oh, he has he has cool stuff,

Vic Pipke  47:38

Learn about your brain, learn about why things happen the way they do, learn about the energy. You know, it's actually a scientific thing. It's not some new age kind of pie in the sky hidden the clouds type of stuff...

Dawn Taylor  47:49

It's funny, all the woowoo stuff. Everyone's like, oh, no, that's weird. I'm like, no, no energy is science.

Vic Pipke  47:55

Yep, 100% science.

Dawn Taylor  47:56

It's molecules and atoms. We're just walking vibration.

Vic Pipke  47:58

So if you're that logical person, read Dr. Joe Dispenza. He puts out some amazing stuff. But he's very, he's very logical about it. But he also doesn't talk in really big unwords that people can't understand.

Dawn Taylor  48:12

Yes, I have a couple of his books. I highly recommend

Vic Pipke  48:14

100%. So it will change your life.

Dawn Taylor  48:17

Love it. So thank you so much for hanging out with us today, Vic. Listeners, I hope you got a few amazing takeaways and that you check out the show notes at the taylorway.ca for more information. Information on how to contact Vic, connections and links to all of the things that we've talked about today. The places, the books, the podcasts, all of it. And I hope you stick around for our next episode in two weeks. So if you're willing, please subscribe now on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcasts, and if you love the show, it would mean the world to me if you'd leave a rating and review. Talk to you guys soon!

Hello there listeners, as you may have noticed there is no longer an episode here. This podcast is about hard conversations and the one that was posted on Monday was an amazing one but at the request of the guest it has been removed. 

Hard conversations are incredible but also sometimes really hard. Please check back soon for the next episode titled SWAT to NOT. It will be published on February 27th and I can’t wait for you to hear it!

Dawn Taylor - The Taylor Way: website | facebook | instagram | linkedin

Content Warning: Traumatic injury, hospitalization, grief.

Dawn Taylor welcomes VA and podcast host Janis Melillo to the show to speak on the very moving subject of how to cope with traumatic situations. Janis’ son, Ryan, suffered a potentially life-threatening brain injury and Janis shares her resultant journey as a parent and caregiver.

The stroke and resulting brain injury that happened to her 34 year old son Ryan occurred just when Janis was feeling very elated and content in her life. She talks about how everything can change in a single moment and the feelings of panic and fear she had as a parent. As Dawn notes, a grown child is still their parent’s child.  

Dawn and Janis dive deep into the emotional impact a tragic event has on the family surrounding the injured party, the toll repeated hospitalizations place on the caregiver, why the need to rage and grieve are both important, and how support systems can best help the caregiver through their struggles. Dawn and Janis even address sleep issues and self-care needs. Janis’ raw and open story will resonate with those who can relate and she will make every caregiver feel less alone.

About Janis Melillo:

Janis Melillo is the owner and CEO of her Virtual / Executive Assistant business, TrulyYourVA LLC.  She assists and coordinates creative project management (complex and simple) virtually for her clients some of which include:  social media content creation and repurpose, ghostwriting, research projects, and so much more.  

Janis is also the host of three podcasts, one of which she co-hosts with her sister called Two Sistas.

They share their love of wellness through fitness and nutrition and everything that happens in between!  Janis is also a certified health coach and former personal trainer and brings a wealth of knowledge in this regard.  She and her sister, Carroll-Sue, broadcast Monday - Friday and will be approaching their 500th episode within the next month or so!

Her business podcast, Truly Your VA with Janis. is centered around all things business related, especially in the online digital world, in which offers simplified solutions for entrepreneurs.  She hosts guests on her podcasts who share their expertise and insight on business related topics. Janis is also the morning host of The Morning Brief on the Wisdom Audio App.  

And Janis’ 3rd podcast, Stories That Inspire Us, came about after her 34 year old son, Ryan Scott, suffered a life threatening injury. He is doing so well right now and she is blessed and so grateful!  Janis wanted a creative outlet to process her emotions as a parent and support her son but also to be an outlet, a foundation for others who wanted to share their stories to inspire others to do the same.  She has already had so many amazing guests on her podcast thus far!

In Janis’ spare time, (yes; she does have spare time) she loves to read and write.  She is a published Amazon International Best Selling author having co-authored 16 books to-date, 10 of which hit the International Bestsellers List.  Most of the other books hit #1 Amazon Hot New Releases. Janis recently turned 60 years old and lives in North Haven, Connecticut with her husband, Gary.  Between Janis and Gary, they have 3 children:  Brett, Ryan Scott and Alysia.

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Stories That Inspire Us podcast hosted by Janis Melillo
• “P.S. I Made It” by Dawn Taylor
• “Unexpected Moments” by Daisy Paige

— 

Dawn Taylor - The Taylor Way: website | facebook | instagram | linkedin

Janis Melillo - Owner/CEO of Truly Your VA LLC: website | instagram | facebook | linkedin | pinterest

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Transcript

Dawn Taylor: [00:00:09] Hey, hey, hey. Welcome back to The Taylor Talks, the podcast where we dig deep into things we wish people would talk about. My name is Dawn Taylor, I'm the ass kicker and hope giver of The Taylor Way, and I am your host. I'm so excited to be here. So today on the podcast, we have the amazing Janis Melillo and we are going to dig into the accident that happened to her son when she was at a peak point in her life where life just felt perfect and how it took a really hard tumble down and how to find balance, how to figure out how to deal with that kind of shift in a relationship, how to deal with that when it comes to your spouse, and most importantly, how do you actually get through the rest of your days. So please stick around and hang out with us as we chat. And I hope you really enjoy the show.

Dawn Taylor: [00:01:04] Thank you so much for being here today, Janis. I am a little emotional, being honest, in prep of having this conversation because of my own story. And what we're here to talk about today is how to find balance when dealing with the tragedy. So, Janis, let's go. Let's just dive right into this. Tell us your story and why this is so important to you.

Janis Melillo: [00:01:32] Well, first of all, Dawn, thank you so much for the opportunity to be with you today on your amazing podcast. I'm really excited to share my vulnerability because only with the hopes of, of course, inspiring others. For me, that's what it's all about.

Dawn Taylor: [00:01:52] Absolutely.

Janis Melillo: [00:01:53] Yeah. So Monday, July 19, 2021. Exactly at 1:00 pm in the afternoon. I got up from my desk. I work from home, I'm a virtual assistant and podcast manager. A few other hats. And I was feeling elated because in that moment, life as I knew it was perfect.

Dawn Taylor: [00:02:21] Oh, dangerous moment.

Janis Melillo: [00:02:26] Yes, dangerous moment. I was doing what I love to do. I love being creative. I had these amazing clients and I was a week away from hitting my first five figure month. But in that moment I didn't realize life was changing for my son.

Dawn Taylor: [00:02:48] Tell us about your son.

Janis Melillo: [00:02:49] Well, in that exact moment, my son, Ryan Scott, suffered a stroke. He collapsed, cracked his skull. He started seizing. They lost his pulse, and he stopped breathing in that exact moment that I felt elated. I unfortunately did not find out about my son's accident until 2 a.m. the next morning.

Dawn Taylor: [00:03:19] Oh, my goodness. How old was your son?

Janis Melillo: [00:03:24] He was 33 at the time. About a month before his 34th birthday. And I woke up at 2 a.m.. I'm in that respectable age where I got to get up in the middle of the night. And I remember, of course, glancing at my phone, use it for a light to get to the bathroom, and I was horrified what I saw on my phone. There were several missed calls and then there was this text message from one of my son's friends that said Ryan had a stroke. He's an emergency surgery. Please call me as soon as you get this message. I remember that I screamed. I screamed. And I'm getting the chills thinking about it in that moment because my poor husband was like, What's wrong? Couldn't bear out, I couldn't even talk, I couldn't even catch my breath. And I just handed him the phone and he's like, Oh, my God. So there was, there was about 20 to 30 minutes I was hysterical trying to get a hold of the person. Where is my son? Is he alive? What is it? I was frantic. Absolutely frantic. Did not know what to do in that moment. And then I remember pacing the floor and I was actually wearing my necklace and I just held on to it and I had a moment of clarity. It was as if I hit a brick wall and I said, Wow, okay. You need to get your shit together here and now. You gotta get it together. You have to be strong for Ryan. You have to be stronger than you ever thought possible because this is a defining moment for your son. It is a defining moment for you.

Dawn Taylor: [00:05:38] Your mama bear stepped in.

Janis Melillo: [00:05:41] It did. It really did. I'm in Connecticut. My son's in Philly.

Dawn Taylor: [00:05:46] And how far away are those?

Janis Melillo: [00:05:49] About three and a half, four hours. So we were trying to figure out, of course, the best way for me to get to Philly. Originally, I was going to drive. Everyone's like, No, no, no, you're too emotional. And I agreed. I ended up taking the train. I don't even remember what I packed. I can't even tell you what I packed in, it didn't matter. And I'm so thankful that I have a cousin who lives actually very close to my son and alerted them and his wife and daughters picked me up, brought me to the emergency room. It was earth shattering to see my son hooked up to so many things. Not something that I would want anyone to ever go through. And they weren't sure he was going to make it initially. The first 24 to 48 hours are very critical. And I just remember sitting by his side and saying Ryan Scott, you need to come back to your life. You were blessed. We were blessed. Your dad and I are so blessed to have you. It's not over. You need to come back. And I just kept talking to him. And when I felt I was going to lose my shit, I would walk out of the room briefly. So started the process of his long recovery. Blessed and grateful he made it through. He has an official diagnosis now. Unfortunately, over about a ten month span, he was hospitalized on an emergency basis nine times.

Dawn Taylor: [00:07:51] Oh, my goodness.

Janis Melillo: [00:07:52] So a lot of going back and forth. Hey, Ryan had an emergency. You need to get down here. Oh, my gosh. I can't even begin to describe as a parent feeling that, feeling helpless. Like absolutely helpless. His official diagnosis now is PTE with a TBI, which is post traumatic epilepsy with a traumatic brain injury. He had, he does have some brain damage on the left, which we knew that he would but I am blessed that he is not he's not as all the ugly things they were telling us he was going to be. He does have some issues and I don't discard those. We can't.

Dawn Taylor: [00:08:44] No, for sure.

Janis Melillo: [00:08:47] We're learning how how to deal with them. And it's been a rocky road. And as a parent, it's been extremely difficult. I really have not had a good night's sleep and maybe three or four nights when I just kind of caved in. I said, okay, I'm going to take a melatonin but I wake up in fear. So I think a lot of times I'm still going through it. I pick up my phone and I'm like, Oh, did I get a message? So it's been quite the journey - 12, a little over 12 months now, of course. And that's kind of where we are with that. My hope is, as I mentioned, when I was pregnant with Ryan, I had the opportunity to meet Bishop Desmond Tutu.

Dawn Taylor: [00:09:44] Oh, wow.

Janis Melillo: [00:09:46] Yeah. It was an amazing experience and I will never forget that conversation. And he specifically asked me, May I put my hand on your belly and say a prayer for your unborn child? I said, absolutely. I will never forget that. So as I'm having this conversation with Ryan and I said, don't forget, you are blessed by Bishop Tutu. We've often talked about that. I've, you've got to come back. You need to get your shit together. Come back, Come back.

Dawn Taylor: [00:10:26] So I'm going to pause you for a second. Take a big deep breath. Whew. You are still very in the raw stages of everything that's gone down. And you know, it's interesting, as you were talking, I - so for listeners that know me or have read about my story, they know that I've had a pretty crazy health history. But for those of you who don't. When I was 17, April 7th of grade 12, I had a brain aneurysm. And my boyfriend was driving home from work or basketball or something. And he felt this voice in his head or heard it say, you need to go see Dawn right now. And he walked in and he leaned over to give me a kiss. I was laying on the couch. I was in the middle of making dinner for my family. And I collapsed on the ground, screaming and holding my head. And he had to rush me to the hospital. And the whole story is in my book that you can find on my website or on Amazon. It was so, it's interesting hearing you talk about it from the parent's standpoint and hence the comment on this being weirdly emotional for me too today. Right? Is, I was the child in that situation who was almost an adult. Right? Your son was already an adult. But, you know, I was this child who was this teenager who was being rushed to the hospital and they were trying to find my parents and they had to medevac me out to another city an almost 19 hour drive away. And they said I wasn't going to survive. And like all of the, all of the crazy around that and the fact that one in 750,000 people survived a brain aneurysm at that point, and I somehow survived. And out of that one in there was - sorry,  numbers, I'm like emotional - 50% chance I would die of a second one within ten years. And my doctor had said, nobody makes 20. And April of this year was 24 years.

Dawn Taylor: [00:12:43] And so, you know, when they say these statistics and they say these numbers and people always go, Dawn, why would they have said that to you? And, you know, it wasn't the doctor's fault. In no way do I blame the doctor. I sat in his office as a grown adult about a year after, and I said, I need to know numbers. I need to know medical statistics because I need to know this prior to getting married, prior to having kids, prior to continuing my life, prior to all of these things. Like I need to know what I'm looking at. And with tears in his eyes, he told me the numbers. And it changes so much moving forward. But I can't imagine what my parents went through in that. And I know my mom for months after had to wake me every 4 hours to give me medications. And it was funny because I remember laying in bed one time and she's trying to wake me and I was sound asleep. I was 18, I was asleep. I had just fallen back asleep after the previous meds. And she freaked out. She panicked because she couldn't wake me up. And I was like, No, lady, it's like two in the morning, I'm tired. But like, I remember that sheer panic in her voice and in her face when I finally opened my eyes. And any time I'd have a headache, any time I'd act different, any time anything weird happened, she'd rush me to the hospital. She would rush me to emerg thinking I was having a second brain aneurysm.

Janis Melillo: [00:14:13] And for the parent, it's, a very close friend of mine said, You know, Janis, you you need to, like, pause for reflection for a moment. It's okay to be strong when you're with your son, but sometimes you need to let your guard down. Realize that you have been through a traumatic experience. She says You're suffering from PTSD.

Dawn Taylor: [00:14:44] 100%. I agree. And the thing I would add to that is you can also be angry. There is this whole concept right now of toxic positivity. Where we're constantly supposed to find the moment of gratitude or constantly supposed to like, focus on the blessings and focus on the answered prayers and focus on all of those things in a situation. But deep down, we actually really need to get angry and we need to allow ourselves to be mad. We need to allow ourselves to be so mad at what happened and what was lost and what was taken and all of those things and allow ourselves to grieve and process those emotions to before coming back.

Janis Melillo: [00:15:25] And I realize that you're absolutely correct. And one of the things that I realized, obviously I'd mentioned I haven't had a good night's sleep and I really haven't, but when the 19th of the month comes along, I noticed the other day that I felt very pissed off, very agitated. And I thought about it 19th, the 19th. Obviously, I know my son's accident was on July 19. But it happened to also be the second anniversary of my dad's passing. And exactly ten months later was when Ryan had his accident. And I was pissed. I was so mad, Dawn, I would sit around my office and then I just, I kind of, I sat down on the floor and I just bawled my eyes out. I'm like, I'm starting to release it. Although you can't release, you can release some of the, some of the energy. And they say we need to move forward. That's great. How the--.

Dawn Taylor: [00:16:38] -- Fuck. It's okay, you can say it.

Janis Melillo: [00:16:41] All right, fuck, why do that? How do I do that? And I go back to one of Ryan's hospitalizations where I was down there, and he lives with a couple of roommates. So when everything initially happened, my ex husband and I felt safe enough because originally we thought we were going to have to transport him to Connecticut so that I could be there and kind of oversee his care. But we also knew that Ryan is a very independent individual. That's how we brought him up to be. And we had these conversations of what would Ryan want? What is in Ryan's best interest? What can we do? Me being in Connecticut and Jerry, my ex-husband, being in Florida. So it was really those difficult conversations. What is in Ryan's best interests? We know that he would want to be where he is. He loves that area. That's part of who he is. Ok, well that's great. How are we going to oversee his care? Ok, well, my ex-husband could fly out. I can drive. But what we did not expect was nine hospitalizations within just about 11 months. That's basically for Ryan being hospitalized like every six or seven weeks or something. Back and forth, back and forth. It took a very heartfelt emotional toll on everyone involved. But we knew that to the extent that we could, we had to honor what we know Ryan would want. And he has the ability now. He can make his own decisions. We have noticed, of course, with the traumatic brain injury that he's very forgetful. He shakes his hands. He was trying to give me something and he was like this...

Dawn Taylor: [00:19:06] Yeah. Just shaking his hands.

Janis Melillo: [00:19:08] Yes. So there's things that we have both picked up on and he's aware that he's doing that. And he says, Mom, isn't this ridiculous? I'm 35 years old. This is effed up. I can't believe it. I'm like, and he just kind of went off and he says, Oh, I'm so sorry. I'm like, first of all, you don't need to apologize. You have every right to feel the way you're feeling, you know? You have to continue being you to the extent that you know what you can be. You have so much more to give. He loves helping people. And to that extent, he will continue to do that as much as he possibly can. He does realize that he, you know, for instance taking his medication, he says, You know, what am I going to do? I don't want to have to carry around a pill thing. I don't want to do this. And I said, Well, Ryan, before any of this happened, like when you're leaving for the day, you know, you going to be out all day. Do you take anything preventative like that's in your bag? Like, do you maybe bring some Kleenex? Do you maybe bring...

Dawn Taylor: [00:20:29] A granola bar?

Janis Melillo: [00:20:31] Granola bar, cell phone, Advil, and you put things in your bag that you know you are going to need? He's like, well, yeah, duh. Don't give me that duh, I'm still your mother. And I said, Well, why don't, you always have your cell phone on you? Why don't you set two timers on your phone and that way, and do a backup timer for each one? So if you're taking your medicine, I forget what it is, 8 a.m.. So you set one at 8 a.m. and then you set it at 8:05 in case you're in the middle of something. It happens to the best of us, we forget.

Dawn Taylor: [00:21:11] All the time.

Janis Melillo: [00:21:12] And he's like, Oh, my God, that's a really good idea. So he's very aware of that. He even took the initiative to get one of those dog tags that says that he has epilepsy and the different medicine that he's on. And I said to him, Ryan, you know - and I just got back from Philly last week. I had to take him to the neurologist - and I said, Ryan, he was kind of bitching about everything that had happened, and I can't do this, I can't do that. And I'm like, Well, think about the things that you can do. You still can help. I know how you like to volunteer your time. You know, you're still doing the things that you love to the extent that you can. So you're, the possibilities are endless. And he kind of thought about that. And he said, You know what? You're right. And I said, Well, it's not about me being right. It's about what is right for you and your lifestyle. This is where you want to be. This is where you're going to stay. This is your home.

Dawn Taylor: [00:22:24] Let's talk about how different it is when it's not your child, but it's your child. Do you know what I mean? He is your child, but he was also a 33 year old grown man.

Janis Melillo: [00:22:36] Yes.

Dawn Taylor: [00:22:37] And tell me you didn't see him as a five year old all over again and you want to rush in and just take care of him and do all of those things. But he's a grown man.

Janis Melillo: [00:22:50] Yes, he is a grown man. And when he was to that point where he could understand conversations, he was in ICU for two weeks and then was in the stepdown ICU for a couple days, and then they transferred him to a TBI center. And we had to have, my ex-husband and I had to have those tough conversations with him about we need to know what your wishes are as far as, God forbid, another episode happens. Like we need to know how you would want us to proceed. We know how we would proceed, but we need to know what you would want. And he kind of looked at us and he was like, he said, Are you trying to ask me something? But you're not really coming out.

Dawn Taylor: [00:23:44] You're like, Yes, yes, we are.

Janis Melillo: [00:23:48] I said, Yes, Ryan, if something happens to you and we have to make a life decision on your behalf, we have to know what your wishes are. And as I was saying that and as I'm saying it right now, I feel my eyes start starting to well up, because that is never a question I had ever anticipated asking my son ever.

Dawn Taylor: [00:24:21] Oh, no, there's this there's an interesting hierarchy to this. I just finished training to become a certified grief facilitator to help with clients that are grieving as well as everything else as a trauma specialist in doing what I do for work. And it was interesting because they talked in it about how like death isn't random and it's not personal. And he said that a lot. And he's like, only in North America do we have a concept that death is supposed to go in a specific order or even like a massive health issue. Like, obviously mom and dad should have the health problems before the child. Like, you should never have to think about those things. And one of the things that popped up for me on today's topic was I think parents with adult children need to have these conversations.

Janis Melillo: [00:25:17] They do, especially if their adult child is not married.

Dawn Taylor: [00:25:22] Oh, absolutely.

Janis Melillo: [00:25:24] The parent or parents should be aware or should have that conversation with their child, adult child, just in case there is an emergency. I think it would be a good idea. Of course, we don't want one to happen, no parent.

Dawn Taylor: [00:25:40] Oh gosh no.

Janis Melillo: [00:25:42] But you sign a health care surrogate designation or something of that nature, and I'm sure it's called different things in different places.

Dawn Taylor: [00:25:52] In Canada its a power, I think it's a power of attorney.

Janis Melillo: [00:25:55] Yeah. So and a durable power of attorney just in case we need to act on your behalf.

Dawn Taylor: [00:26:04] Totally. Well, and have those conversations. Have those conversations. Do you know how many kids... I remember talking to a friend and I was like, I was like, Oh, yeah, I have a file. And she was like, What? And I said, I have a file. It's literally labeled 'If something bad happens, you need this file' is written in giant wording on it. And there's a few people in my life that know exactly where it is in my filing cabinet. But in it is like, No, no, no, these are my wishes. Like, if something happens, here's the will, here's the power of attorney, here's, right, here's all of it, here's all of the stuff, all of the insurance, all of the different forms you might need. But with that, here's also my wishes on where I would want to be buried. Do I want to be resuscitated? Do I want to be kept alive on life support? Do I, like what do my husband and I want? And she was mortified that I had this file. And I said, Yes, but, we need this also of our parents so that we know what's going on. But there's such a fear, right? There's such a fear of like death and talking about death and talking about health issues and talking about these struggles that I feel like we've shut off this entire portion of life and we have this unrealistic expectation or idea. I mean, come on, we're all going to just live till we're 105, perfectly healthy and nothing bad is ever going to happen. And it's all going to be smooth. And that's not realistic.

Janis Melillo: [00:27:37] It's not and life is not smooth sailing. And the unexpected will eventually rear its ugly head. Maybe not to me directly. This happened to my healthy 33 year old son who is a vegan, who is very healthy, who is very vibrant, who basically rode his bike all around downtown Philly. He's not a couch potato. I just couldn't. And in many respects, I still cannot reconcile...

Dawn Taylor: [00:28:24] That it even happened.

Janis Melillo: [00:28:25] It's just, it blows my mind.

Dawn Taylor: [00:28:27] So one other question, I want to ask you about this, is how has it affected your marriage? I mean, there's the whole you've had to deal with your ex-husband probably more than you ever care to want to over the last 15, 16 months because you're dealing with your son's health care. But what about your current husband? How has it affected you guys?

Janis Melillo: [00:28:49] He has been my rock, truly has been my rock. When I screamed that morning, he's been so supportive. He's semi-retired. He, obviously there has been a huge financial associated with everything that has happened. And he has just been working his ass off in case something happens, because we've been in that mode where there's been nine emergencies and he's been my rock, so supportive. I remember when I first got to Philly. And once I initially saw Ryan, was able to talk to the doctors and the nurses and I just had to get out of there for a few minutes. And when they said Ryan is critical, we're not sure what's going to happen. And I remember kind of, I didn't like really bang my hands on the counter, but I was like, I was crying. I'm like, What do you mean you don't know, what what does that even mean? What does that even mean? Talk to me in English. Was adamant. I wanted questions right then and there. So I'm like, okay, I need to remove myself from the situation, they're trying to help me. They knew that I wasn't mad at them.

Janis Melillo: [00:30:19] I was, of course, I had to communicate with my ex-husband. So I remember walking out and calling my husband. Giving him an update. And I said, You just need to stand by. He says, Just know that I'm standing there right with you and I'm giving you the biggest hug that I can possibly give you right now. He was devastated, absolutely devastated. And we were supposed to go to, my last name is Melillo. I live on Melillo Circle.

Dawn Taylor: [00:30:55] Oh, wow.

Janis Melillo: [00:30:56] Everybody who lives on a little circle is a Melillo, except for three, three, nine houses now. And they, the family gets together every now and then, has a little party and his, one of his cousins came over and they said, oh, you know, don't forget. And he had been crying. And they said, What's going on? You know, I saw you leaving with Janis, everything ok? And explaining to everyone what was going on, and I know I'm kind of answering this in a roundabout way, but Gary is my rock. And in that moment, I am so thankful that he had his family around him to support him.

Dawn Taylor: [00:31:37] Well, that's a piece of this, too. That's really interesting is as the caregiver, as the mom, as the parent, as the caregiver, who is your support? Who are your people to support? And then that has to go down layers. So he needs the support so he can support you, who needs the support so you can support your son...

Janis Melillo: [00:31:59] Right.

Dawn Taylor: [00:32:00] We totally just internalize. We barrier ourselves. I had somebody say to me one time, I hadn't shown up for something very often and they came up to me and they're like, Oh, wow, nice seeing you around. And I said, Or the question you could ask is, is everything okay, we haven't seen you around much. And he just kind of looked at me and I just turned around and walked away. But I know for myself when I'm going through a struggle with a loved one, right? When my husband is sick or when situations in my life have happened, I cocoon. I don't reach out and ask for help. I don't reach out and talk about it. I don't reach out and do any of those things. I grab onto any and all control that I can and I pull it all in. It's like I need control. So I'm going to just like, go completely isolated. Because that's where I know I can control the outcomes in the situation.

Janis Melillo: [00:33:01] You know, you said it so eloquently because people don't know what you're going through. This past summer, we were at a birthday party celebration and we were expecting to meet some friends there. And I got a call, Ryan's in the hospital. So I said, Well, I want to enjoy this time with my husband, but I have to obviously tend to this because I'm Ryan's proxy or whatever. And I went in the car, had the conversation with the doctor, came back and got another call from the doctor. So I was going back, back and forth. And then I felt myself getting very emotional again. And I came in and I said to my husband, I hope you don't mind, but I've got to go. I can't. Because then everyone's like, Oh, what's going on? What's going on with Janis? Did she have too much to drink?

Dawn Taylor: [00:34:08] You're like, Yes, yes, I'm a drunk and I'm hiding in a car right now, so I'm going to go home and cry.

Janis Melillo: [00:34:13] Yeah, I'm doing shit in the car by myself. So he said, not a problem. You know, obviously there was some Melillos there. So he knew he could get a ride home. One of our friends that we were supposed to meet, and the wife said, or somebody said, Well, I haven't seen Janis around, like, what's going on? And he just, he took it - I don't want to say offensively, that's not what I mean at all - and he said she, you know, Ryan's in the hospital again. She was going back and forth to the car and this is somebody else's party. So everyone knows what happened to Ryan. So she didn't want the focus to be on her like, oh my God, what's going on with Ryan? Nor could she handle that. That's not what she would want. That's not what her son would want. So when people see me step away, they, I don't get that approach anymore I guess is what I'm trying to say. It's, so, yeah, I put myself in a cocoon because quite frankly, I'm exhausted physically and mentally. I'm not going to lie about that. I, that's just what it is for me right now. And to that extent, I am not okay with that. But my focus is my son. And my hope is that through all of this, at some point, I know I will get a good night's sleep.

Dawn Taylor: [00:35:49] Can I make a recommendation on the sleep thing? Because I've been there. If you're waking up around 2:00 in the morning to check your phone to make sure he's okay, instead of allowing yourself to go till 2:00 for the jarring message, change a ringtone on your phone to something beautiful with really meaningful words for you, to wake you up at like 1:45. And then the alarm, when you look at the words, have it to be like, God's got him, everything's going to be okay.

Janis Melillo: [00:36:18] Oh my God, that is so beautiful.

Dawn Taylor: [00:36:21] Because what that can allow your brain to do is instead of waking up in that panic state, so now your heart is racing and your body's going into this, like, PTSD trauma response, instead, it's just like this beautiful waking you have to remind you that it's like, No, no, no, he's okay. He's got people, like, God's got him, he's good. I'm allowed to sleep. And it worked for me at one point in my life when I was waking up every night in that panic mode, is to actually, like, wake myself up instead in a beautiful way so that it becomes something that you can then look at it and be like, Oh, okay, now I can go back to sleep.

Janis Melillo: [00:37:00] Wow.

Dawn Taylor: [00:37:01] Okay? So I'm going to recommend you try that. And please email me and let me know if that works for you.

Janis Melillo: [00:37:06] I certainly will.

Dawn Taylor: [00:37:07] And the second thing is, do you have recommendations for somebody who might be going through this or somebody who gets that phone call or somebody... Is there something - and I'm not going to say what people should do - but do you have like a please don't do this or I mean, either or. But do you know what I mean? Like my biggest was please don't be like, Oh, is everything okay? No, no, not everything's okay. That used to make me so mad.

Janis Melillo: [00:37:38] That is a great question, because when you're in that situation as a parent, the best thing I think they can do is just show their love and support.

Dawn Taylor: [00:37:55] And give tangible ways people could do that.

Janis Melillo: [00:37:58] Well, for instance, Gary had so much support here. Friends would call him, Hey, we're going to take you out to dinner. We know we want to be there for you. Hey, you know, do you need any groceries? Maybe stopping by to drop them off some flowers or even sending them a note? I'm here for you just to listen. I think people have, their intentions are so well and I don't--

Dawn Taylor: [00:38:33] No people's intentions are beautiful. It's just not always what we need.

Janis Melillo: [00:38:38] Exactly. They can show it in other ways. As like I said, Hey, I'm here for you just to listen. Not so much asking a question, but letting them know I am here for you. If you need anything, let me know. And then that person doesn't have to feel... They want to help. And they they don't realize that they just helped in such a way. You know, I, all the messages that I receive. Unbelievable. So the best way you can do that is not to specifically ask a question. How are you doing today?

Dawn Taylor: [00:39:24] Just say I'm here.

Janis Melillo: [00:39:24] I'm here for you. I'm here to listen.

Dawn Taylor: [00:39:29] And one of my favorites, so after the brain aneurysm, my skin color changed, my eye color changed, I missed my 18th birthday, my voice changed, I had doubled my body size, like my body went through chaos in those months after. And so many people were so busy, like staring at me like I was this freak in a wheelchair is how it felt. And I'll never forget the day that, like, my childhood bestie showed up. She just showed up at my parents house with, like, food and some dorky little kid movie, and she cuddled with me on a giant beanbag, and we just, like, cuddled on the chair and watched a movie together. And there was no conversation. There was no talking, there was no nothing. But we giggled our heads off at this movie. And she gave me a hug and she went home. And it was like, oh, my gosh, She treated me like I was normal.

Janis Melillo: [00:40:24] Right.

Dawn Taylor: [00:40:25] She treated me like I was normal. And that was probably one of the most impactful things. After, was having it not be like, Oh, are you okay? But she just, like, it was like nothing. It was like nothing had happened and we were just hanging out.

Janis Melillo: [00:40:44] I think that is so beautiful because I'm thinking of a few instances where shortly after I arrived home and I didn't want to go out in public, but I'm like, No, you need to pull your bootstraps up, go out for fresh air, go to the Hard Hat. Have your favorite martini, whatever it is, and some of the comments. I remember looking at my husband, I gave him that look like I'm going to bitch slap this person. It was like, So you know what's going on with Ryan? Just the way, it was asked, the tone. I'm like, What's going on with Ryan? A lot's going on with Ryan, how's that?

Dawn Taylor: [00:41:34] A little bit. How are you doing?

Janis Melillo: [00:41:36] Yeah. And the important thing to remember is to, you have to take care of yourself as well. You have to make your self care a priority when you are able to do so.

Dawn Taylor: [00:41:54] I heard on a podcast the other day, I forgot what podcast was, but she's friends with Brené Brown and when she was going through a massive trauma in her life, Brené Brown had called her and said Like, now is when you have to, like, righteously practice self care. Like now is when you eat the healthiest foods and you drink all of the water and you make sure you're getting, like going to bed and having the naps and sleeps and everything else. That's when you have to. And I don't know, I personally totally agree with that.

Janis Melillo: [00:42:30] It was in one of my trips back from Philly, Ryan had said to me, and of course I bawled my eyes out. He said, Mama, I can't thank you enough for being here for me. You're always here to help me out. And he says, Don't forget I got this. But I want to remind you of something. You've got to continue to do your thing. You've got to continue to be creative and you love doing what you're doing and you just got to take care of you. Because I kind of need you, mom. That's not verbatim, but that was the gist of the conversation. And as I'm driving back from Connecticut, I mean, driving back from Philly, I remember listening to, thank God I had satellite radio and I was in that line of stations where it's all the news and let's face it--

Dawn Taylor: [00:43:27] Yeah, nobody wants the news right now. Let's be honest. That'll just make you not happy.

Janis Melillo: [00:43:33] And I remember sitting back going, Oh, my God. I just want to hear a story that inspires me. And I thought back to what my son said. And I knew that was divine intervention. Because I started a third podcast.

Dawn Taylor: [00:43:57] Right. Because it's your heart.

Janis Melillo: [00:43:58] It is. It's my heart and it's my soul. And it's giving back in such a creative way as a platform for others. And. Wow.

Dawn Taylor: [00:44:08] Totally.

Janis Melillo: [00:44:10] Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:44:11] Oh, Janis, this has been so beautiful talking to you, I, my mom has since passed away, and I often wish that, now that I've had healing on everything that's been going on and has happened in my life, I wish that I could have that conversation with her to know where her heart had been at and where her head had been at when I was going through that. And I feel like I saw a glimpse of that today. So thank you.

Janis Melillo: [00:44:33] Thank you so much for the opportunity to share a little bit about Ryan and me as his mom and all I would like to say as well is be strong. You're not alone.

Dawn Taylor: [00:44:46] And for anyone listening to this, like there's so many of us out here that get it. And reach out. Reach out to us. So if you've listened to my podcast before, you know I like to end with just some silly, simple, rapid fire questions. I think that it's just a fun way to connect to people in a different way. So let's do this. What is your favorite place you've ever traveled?

Janis Melillo: [00:45:11] Florida.

Dawn Taylor: [00:45:12] Oh, where abouts in Florida?

Janis Melillo: [00:45:14] Vero Beach.

Dawn Taylor: [00:45:16] Oh, it's beautiful there. What, other than road trips to Philly, what do you spend a silly amount of money on?

Janis Melillo: [00:45:28] Yoga pants.

Dawn Taylor: [00:45:30] Do you have a favorite brand?

Janis Melillo: [00:45:32] No.

Dawn Taylor: [00:45:33] And can I ask, how many pairs do you think you have?

Janis Melillo: [00:45:36] Probably about 20 or 25 pairs.

Dawn Taylor: [00:45:40] That's awesome.

Janis Melillo: [00:45:43] Not as much as my shoes, though.

Dawn Taylor: [00:45:45] No, definitely a good collection. What is your secret guilty way to decompress?

Janis Melillo: [00:45:54] Coffee.

Dawn Taylor: [00:45:57] Oh! Ok, how do you take your coffee?

Janis Melillo: [00:45:58] Extra light with half and half and three stevias.

Dawn Taylor: [00:46:04] Very precise. I like it, I do. And what is the purchase of $100 or less that has most positively impacted your life in the last year?

Janis Melillo: [00:46:16] A book that one of my podcast guests sent to me called Unexpected Moments.

Dawn Taylor: [00:46:25] And who is that by?

Janis Melillo: [00:46:27] Daisy Paige.

Dawn Taylor: [00:46:29] We will totally link that in the show notes for anybody listening that wants to find that book. And if you could choose to live anywhere in the world, where would it be?

Janis Melillo: [00:46:39] I would have to say Arizona. I've always wanted to go to Arizona.

Dawn Taylor: [00:46:46] Beautiful. I want to go to Sedona. I've heard it's amazing there. I've heard it's absolutely amazing there. So, listeners. Thank you, thank you, thank you for hanging out with us today. Thank you for spending this time listening to the podcast. I am so honored to be doing it. And on behalf of Janis and myself, we want to thank you for being here. And if you love the show today, please leave a review and share it with somebody that might just be inspired by it or feel comforted by it today. And I will see you back here in a couple of weeks.

Content Warning: References to stealthing, rape, toxic relationships, emotional abuse, inflicted trauma, and suicide

Dawn Taylor welcomes Dr. Pamela Larde - professor, author, coach, and host of The Joy Whisperer podcast - to the show to talk about finding joy, especially after divorce. Dr. Pamela shares her own personal experiences that led to the insights in her book.

Dr. Pamela came through a tumultuous past that included toxic relationships and struggles being both a single mother and in an unsupportive marriage before she finally got divorced. She tells her story and explains how she found joy after her divorce, despite the hardships she had yet to face in reclaiming her life.  

Dawn and Dr. Pamela discuss exactly what joy is and how it differs from happiness. They break down why celebrating joy in your life is so important, how Dr. Pamela views joy as a life strategy, three tangible ways to find joy from Dr. Pamela’s book, and ways to curate the relationships and circumstances of your life to benefit you. Through some traumatic situations, Dr. Pamela has emerged strong, knowledgeable, and full of insight into finding and maintaining joy.  

About Dr. Pamela Larde:

Dr. Pamela Larde, President of Tandem Light Press and Academy of Creative Coaching, is a professor, coach, award-winning author, and business owner. She founded Tandem Light Press with a heart to amplify the voices of the often unheard who have compelling stories and wisdom to impart. Tandem Light Press has grown into a company committed to publishing award-winning books written for women and by women. 

Dr. Pamela holds a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, a master’s degree in College Student Affairs from Azusa Pacific University, and a Ph.D. in Leadership for the Advancement of Learning and Service from Cardinal Stritch University. As a certified coach, Dr. Pamela is the founder of the Academy of Creative Coaching and Director of Education for the Institute of Coaching, a McLean/Harvard affiliate. She is a certified coach and received training in suicide prevention, motivational interviewing, and substance abuse counseling.

Strongly committed to education and research, Dr. Pamela is an Associate Professor of Leadership for Anderson University’s PhD Leadership Program. Her research focuses on race and gender dynamics, self-motivation, joy resilience, and posttraumatic growth. Additionally, she has written three books, has contributed chapters to scholarly publications, and presents her research extensively for national and international audiences.

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Dr. Pamela Larde’s books - “Letters to the Brokenhearted”, “Empowerment Through Reintegration”, “Inspired to be the First”, “Dancing in the Dark”
• “The Body Keeps the Score” by Bessel van der Kolk, MD
• Dr. Marisa Franco - Friendship Expert / Psychologist
• Meetup.com

Helplines:

• National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (Canada): 1-800-273-8255
• Talk Suicide Canada
• 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (USA): 988 or chat

— 

Dawn Taylor - The Taylor Way: website | facebook | instagram | linkedin

Dr. Pamela Larde - professor, coach, award-winning author, business owner: academy of creative coaching | tandem light press | linkedin | the joy whisperer podcast

__

Transcript

Dawn Taylor: [00:00:09] Hey, hey, hey. Welcome to Taylor Way Talks. I am the host Dawn Taylor, the owner of The Taylor Way. And I am so excited to be here today with the intimidatingly amazing, yes, I use that word, Dr. Pamela Larde. She is a professor, coach, award winning author, business owner. Guys. She is the founder of the Academy of Creative Coaching. It is an institute of coaching. She is a director of education for the Institute of Coaching with Harvard Medical School. Guys, she is an amazing, kick ass, beautiful human being who I am honored to call a friend. And we're going to dive into a pretty cool topic today. She's a big believer in joy as a life strategy and we are going to dive into that and what it takes to find joy after a divorce. So stick around. I cannot wait. And yeah, you know, we're going to do it. We're going to have a fun giveaway at the end. So see you in a bit.

Dawn Taylor: [00:01:14] Welcome, Dr. Pamela. So let's dive right in. Tell us, what is it that you wish people talked about?

Pamela Larde: [00:01:21] Wow, I, I wish people had very real conversations about how hard it is to find your joy.

Dawn Taylor: [00:01:29] 100%.

Pamela Larde: [00:01:30] Yeah. I mean, we see people who are at the top of their game. We see the people that we admire. In my case, it's always been Oprah Winfrey, and while she does tell her story, we don't always hear about sort of the challenge and what it really means to find the joy. We know what it means to be traumatized and to have difficult times. But we don't always understand that journey in terms of how do people, though, actually claim joy after these traumatic and really difficult situations that really that we all live through in one way or another.

Dawn Taylor: [00:02:06] And we totally do. So let's dive into yours. What was your situation that you overcame that you had to fight to crawl up from to find your joy?

Pamela Larde: [00:02:19] Well, I mean, there's two major points in my life in which that was the case. And the first one when I was 18 or 19, 19, and pregnant. And I was the good girl. I was the church girl and my dad was the deacon. And we had Bible studies at our house. And I was even preaching to young women about abstinence.

Dawn Taylor: [00:02:41] We laugh because my brain, my brain is like, Oh, the shame.

Pamela Larde: [00:02:49] Oh, the shame, shame.

Dawn Taylor: [00:02:51] The shame that comes with that.

Pamela Larde: [00:02:53] Yes. And I was living it until the day that my mom pissed me off. I lived, I was literally dedicated to I'm going to wait till I get married, you know, And I was serious about it. My mom made me mad because she said, Oh, you're probably out there having sex anyway. And I wasn't. And I'm a Sagittarius, very stubborn and hardheaded. So I said that day, Well, I'm going to go have sex today. And I did. And I got pregnant that day.

Dawn Taylor: [00:03:21] Oh, okay, pause for a sec, so an entire pregnancy came out of a stubborn moment with your mom?

Pamela Larde: [00:03:30] Yes.

Dawn Taylor: [00:03:31] Can we just, like, stop on that for a sec, like, that's actually hilariously bad. That's sheer determination. Stubbornness right there. Like, No, Mom, you made me mad. So I'm not just going to go against everything I've believed for, like, 19 years, but I'm also going to get pregnant at the exact same time in a singular day. That's amazing. Sorry, I shouldn't be laughing, but it's like those moments we look back on. Right?

Pamela Larde: [00:04:00] Right. Well, you know, and it wasn't my intention to get pregnant. I thought, you know, it didn't even occur to me that that could happen, actually. So but little did I know I was with a guy who was a bit predatory. And it's actually against the law now in California. So I probably, I could have pressed charges, but he pretended to put on a condom and he did not. And I didn't know my body was ovulating that day. I didn't know what ovulation was.

Dawn Taylor: [00:04:30] And didn't know what it felt like to have sex with or without a condom.

Pamela Larde: [00:04:35] Exactly. I had no idea. And when it was over, I was looking for the condom. I couldn't find it in me. I couldn't find it anywhere. I panicked. He pretended he didn't know either. He admitted to me eight months later that he did that on purpose. So it is now against the law. It's called stealthing in California.

Dawn Taylor: [00:04:55] Wow.

Pamela Larde: [00:04:56] It's a form of rape. Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:04:59] Yeah. It should be. That's brutal.

Pamela Larde: [00:05:02] But the blessing is now 26 years old and he is an amazing...

Dawn Taylor: [00:05:08] Your kids are your blessing.

Pamela Larde: [00:05:09] Yes. Yes. He's amazing. 26 year old, amazing human being. And I'm grateful. So that was like the first, but going through those early years, the turmoil with my parents and trying to figure out my life and leaving home because I just couldn't deal with their, they were just overbearing is what I'm trying to say. They were very over, they had rules. I was a college student who was now with a baby. And but I was still trying to live my life. But they would have all these restrictions. So I left home and I went away to college. And so that was its own battle as well, trying to get through college as a single mom in a city I knew nothing about, but I had a few really good friends there. And so I ended up meeting who became my husband, probably within, I don't know, a few months of me moving there. And I, my thing was I need a father for this child. That was it. That's all I knew. My family, everybody's married. Everybody has a father and a mother in the house. So I was like, I have to as well. And so I was, my mission was to get married. And I did. I won.

Dawn Taylor: [00:06:32] Wow. But like, again, like when you stop and look at that, it's and we've talked about this so much on this podcast is the things we do, the things we believe, the things, everything from the way we handle our finances to the way you found a father for your child comes down to like what had been ingrained in us.

Pamela Larde: [00:06:55] Yes.

Dawn Taylor: [00:06:56] As kids, like it's what had been taught to us.

Pamela Larde: [00:06:59] Yes, exactly. And that's, I was determined to reproduce or recreate what my parents had recreated in my life. So I got to do the same for my son. And even though there were tons and tons and tons of signs that this was not the right situation or a good situation, I just pressed forward anyway, thinking at some point he's going to figure it out and at some point I'm going to figure it out. But we'll just get married in the meantime.

Dawn Taylor: [00:07:27] I'm like, you and I both know the red flags right now. Yeah. People listening to this are like, Oh shit, that was me.

Pamela Larde: [00:07:35] I mean, and to be more specific, the red flags were things like, you know, so what drew me to him is that in the beginning, he immediately introduced me to his mother, his sister, his grandmother, three women that he absolutely adored in life. And I saw how he treated them. And I thought I could get treated like that if I become really important women in his life. And granted, I had just come out of a really toxic relationship with my son's father in which he, I mean, stealthing should tell you alone what kind of guy I was dealing with, right?

Dawn Taylor: [00:08:09] Totally.

Pamela Larde: [00:08:11] So I came out of that toxic relationship, and then this was the first guy I met. And, you know, everything looks wonderful with the next person you meet because they don't have the qualities, the same toxic qualities as the previous person.

Dawn Taylor: [00:08:26] They might have their own whole set.

Pamela Larde: [00:08:28] Yeah, they have their own toxic things. We don't pay attention to that because it's different than the previous person.

Dawn Taylor: [00:08:33] Yeah, I've heard this before with clients. Yeah, yeah.

Pamela Larde: [00:08:37] Yeah. I mean, he had a really, the previous guy had a very tumultuous relationship with his mother. It was horrible. It was horribly toxic. And then this next guy adores his mother and like, he has to be the one. So that was... But what I learned is that the love that he had for his sister, his mother, his grandmother, you know, he loves women. So.

Dawn Taylor: [00:09:06] I love that you're laughing about this.

Pamela Larde: [00:09:08] Yeah, it's just, so it didn't stop with them. He adored every woman on earth. And so when we were dating, it was maybe four months in that I found out that he was sleeping with another woman. And that became the theme of our relationship for the next 12 years. We got married six years after that first cheating incident and it never really stopped, but... As I get, you know, I'll pray, pray it out. I'll pray through it. I'll stay. I'll have faith. I will be a long hauler for this relationship.

Dawn Taylor: [00:09:43] Oh, if only I was better. It'll fix him.

Pamela Larde: [00:09:48] Yeah, exactly. So that did not last. And that led to my divorce, which, I think five years into the marriage, and that means that we had been together for a total of 11 years at that point. Five years into the marriage, I was ready to claw my way out. I just, I could not handle it. And it wasn't even just the infidelity, honestly. It was, for me, more of the, he has - I should say had because I think he's gotten better now, like he's a whole different person now. So the story I'm telling about him, it's like amazing. All my prayers finally worked for the current wife.

Dawn Taylor: [00:10:28] Congratulations. Thank you. On behalf of the current wife.

Pamela Larde: [00:10:33] Right. It's all good. But he did, he had temper issues and it was he was very difficult to talk to and all of those things. So I just felt silenced and like I was a whole other person. I couldn't be myself. And I just was suffocating in the relationship. And so I never felt good enough. I had aspirations, like I wanted, writing books and pursuing a PhD, all of those things that I really, he never really supported. So I just I had to get out of the marriage. But I had also sacrificed a lot of things to be in the marriage, moving all the way across the country to a state where I knew no one in the Midwest.

Dawn Taylor: [00:11:14] So where had you moved from? You were in California.

Pamela Larde: [00:11:16] California to Wisconsin. Totally different places.

Dawn Taylor: [00:11:21] Little bit of a change there.

Pamela Larde: [00:11:23] Yes. Yes. And taking my six year old son along on that journey. So that was a huge sacrifice to uproot him from what was home, you know. And I sold a house that I bought. So I had a son, graduated from college, immediately bought a house, got this great job, and I literally sold the house, moved to Wisconsin. And when I got there, I didn't know what he had for us, but he had this poorly maintained apartment in a basement where we didn't have any windows. The windows was like up on the top of the, you know, I'm moving out of my house in California and...

Dawn Taylor: [00:12:10] Oh, my goodness.

Pamela Larde: [00:12:11] And I'm like, what did I do? You know?

Dawn Taylor: [00:12:16] The things we do for love.

Pamela Larde: [00:12:18] Oh, my gosh.

Dawn Taylor: [00:12:19] That's it. The things we do for what we think is love.

Pamela Larde: [00:12:21] I was like, What? I don't know what to call that, but yes, yes. It was shortly after I moved there that again, there was a girlfriend that lived there. And apparently she said, Yeah, I knew all about you and I knew you were the priority. And so it began the moment I picked up and moved, you know, it was just, so I knew the whole time. I called the wedding off twice and, you know, but at some point, I just, I just went through with it. I am, as you may have figured out, I'm pretty hardheaded or determined and driven. Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:12:57] I don't know if anyone caught this. I don't know if anyone listening has figured this out yet.

Pamela Larde: [00:13:08] I'm going get--.

Dawn Taylor: [00:13:09] It's what I love about you. Yeah.

Pamela Larde: [00:13:11] I think the difference in now and then is that I have a better sense of of aligning what I want with what is healthy for me and what I actually need, you know, to maintain my, you know, to progress in life. So back then, it was just I want what I want. I don't care. I want what I want. And so, yeah, so I got what I want. I did, I got the marriage and but five years in - and I honestly don't know and I've had conversations with friends about this - what was the thing for me that clicked for me that made me say, I'm not doing this, I've done it for five years and I'm not doing this because we know people who have stayed 20 years or they wait till the kids grow up and, you know, and they maintain that.

Dawn Taylor: [00:13:53] Or they literally die in it.

Pamela Larde: [00:13:56] Literally, quite literally.

Dawn Taylor: [00:13:59] Like they'll stay until they actually die. Like they'll actually stay till death because they signed up for it.

Pamela Larde: [00:14:05] Yeah, I wrote that in my book 'Letters to the Broken Hearted'. I said I would have probably ended up being this woman in the hospital, too, because I had basically lived with clenched teeth and clenched fists and clenched everything. And I'm not even kidding literally for five years. And when I say clenched everything, I mean I was, what do you call it, constipated for five years. And I didn't associate it with the fact that I'm living with clenched everything. But I promise you, like as soon as I left, my butt, everything flowed. Like I was like, Oh, my gosh.

Dawn Taylor: [00:14:41] You had the greatest bowel movement of your life.

Pamela Larde: [00:14:44] Yes. Yes. Everything flowed and it hasn't stopped flowing since then. And that was 13 years ago. And I'm like, okay, so there is a huge connection between the levels of stress and anxiety and what you're holding on to and being willing to let go of those things. And it's like your body just responds accordingly.

Dawn Taylor: [00:15:07] Okay. Can we just, let's talk about that for a second. I literally had a conversation with a client this morning or with a friend of a client who, we were discussing this. There's a reason why there's books about like your body holds the score or whatever they are, like...

Pamela Larde: [00:15:23] Yes. The body keeps score.

Dawn Taylor: [00:15:25] 'Body Keeps Score', a great book. We'll link it in the show notes. But there is a reason why those things happen.

Pamela Larde: [00:15:30] Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:15:31] There is a reason why so many, I am such a firm believer that like all health issues that are happening, I mean, short of a broken bone, let's be honest, right? But like the majority of health issues, you not only need to see a doctor, but you need to like step back and be like, what's going on in my life?

Pamela Larde: [00:15:48] Absolutely. And that's why holistic doctors are so important. I mean, I think doctors, or I should say doctors who take holistic approaches, who are willing to sort of look at the whole picture, look at your life. I literally just changed my medical team for that reason. And if they were sponsoring me, I would say who they are and shout them out. But they are amazing because they do, they look at the whole picture from mental to physical to your bloodwork to how you're feeling on a day to day basis. And they account for all of those things and they won't give you just some sort of, Oh, you just you have high blood pressure. But what's going on that's leading to your high blood pressure, not just in what you're eating, but what else is going on in your life. They, it's, that's so important.

Dawn Taylor: [00:16:39] So let's fast forward a bit. You end up, you walk away, you get divorced. And I mean, obviously you walked away so life was perfect, right? You were just, you were so happy and filled with so much joy.

Pamela Larde: [00:16:54] Instantly.

Dawn Taylor: [00:16:55] Instantly. Isn't that how this works?

Pamela Larde: [00:16:58] Yeah, well, I have... And so what I had, what I walked away with, was probably... So my son by then was 10 or 11, so a decade of pain. A decade of trauma, starting with my son's father. And I skipped all through all the parts in which he has threatened to kill me, had threatened to kill himself, suicide, all of those things that a 19 year old is dealing with and then moving into meeting the perpetual cheater. So I had ten years of this stuff that I'm walking away with, and even though I literally left everything in the house, I left everything. I don't know what happened to my wedding dress, my ring, my clothes. I just left and I just, I was like, I'm starting, I'm just going to start new. And so I did have a moment of joy that night because I moved into my apartment. It was empty, but I danced in that living room and I, because I was like, I can't believe I did it. And I still tell, I don't know to this day - and I might need to do a study on it - but what makes people leave at five years instead of 20 years, what makes people leave to save their lives before it really does diminish to the point where you're just helpless. I don't know how and why I left at five years.

Dawn Taylor: [00:18:25] Tony Robbins, love him or hate him, makes a statement often where it's when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of the change. And that moment where I know for myself leaving things or walking away from relationships or changes that I've had to make in my life, it was like this officially hurts worse being in it, then what could possibly hurt walking away from it. And I mean a silly example, but I was dealing with severe health issues, debilitating pain. I'm talking like I was blacking out 3 to 5 times a day. I would find myself at the bottom of my stairs. I would find myself passing out in my bathroom floor, like I was in debilitating pain. And somebody recommended a way of eating to me. And I was like, Oh, I don't want to change my eating. But I literally, it was like sugar, dairy, gluten, alcohol free overnight, overnight. So like rapid shift, like grass fed, grass finished meat. Organic veggies, like all of a sudden there's like no lattes, there's no nothing. And when it came down to it, the pain of staying the same became greater than the change.

Pamela Larde: [00:19:43] Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:19:43] But it took, it took until that moment where I was actually writhing on my couch and screaming at my husband to kill me. Like literally like handing him a pillow and being like, Please, please, please. Because I was in such excruciating pain that that's what it took for me to finally go, I can make this change. And so I wonder if that's even part of it is there may have been a moment or a feeling or just a situation or something that came up. That's often what I see with clients when walking them through a divorce is a singular situation or a comment or something goes, No, I can't. I can't keep doing this because the pain of this is so hard and so bad and looking forward to what this could look like in two years, five years, ten years, 20 years. No, like that is more than I can handle. But being alone and starting from scratch and figuring out finances and figuring out all those things, like, Yeah, that seems easier right now. Yeah.

Pamela Larde: [00:20:50] That's so profound. And I think it has a lot to do with perception as well, because I wonder about people who, Oh my gosh, just leave. And I'm not a divorce advocate, but sometimes, you know, it's like leave. But I think that their perceived their perception is that leaving is going to be more painful than staying when in fact, that's not the case. It's just that fear of of the unknown.

Dawn Taylor: [00:21:17] It's the fear. So if you can get someone to face, I always have sat down and looked at clients at like, okay, so what is the worst thing that could happen? What is the absolute worst case scenario? What are all of your huge fears around this situation, whether it's leaving a business partner or leaving a relationship or leaving a job, it doesn't matter what it is, leaving a lifestyle, it doesn't matter. But when they can face all of those and be like, Oh, I could actually overcome all that. I have like a game plan in place mentally of how I could actually deal with that. All of a sudden, man, watch them walk.

Pamela Larde: [00:21:53] Well, you know, and and what also comes to mind, though, is putting yourself in the practice of major change moves, you know. So I think for me, when I was younger, I left the house when I was 19 with a baby because my parents were too overbearing. And then I started college and had to fight the college admissions people. Like, I promise you, I can do this. Let me in. I had to fight social services who said, No, we can't allow you to have government assistance while you're in college. You need to quit college and get a job. And I'm like, Are you crazy? Like, No, this is going to get me financially stable. I fought for that. I moved across the country to Wisconsin. So by then I guess I had already engaged in so many major life change initiatives for myself that maybe it wasn't such a foreign idea to just radically change my life once again. And maybe that's also in addition to what you're saying, is for people to challenge themselves to engage in major change so that if they ever have to do it to save their lives, they can.

Dawn Taylor: [00:22:57] Was part of it, too, though, is that this one you, when we're dealing with somebody else's emotional state and their boundaries, ethics, moral standards of who they are, it doesn't matter how stubborn we are, there's no guarantee of the win. Do you know what I mean? Where when your when you're dealing with government, when you're dealing with the school admissions and you're dealing with all of those things? I mean, let's be honest. You get stubborn enough and fight hard enough, they're actually going to let you get away with it just to shut you up and get you off their plate. Do you know what I mean? But in a marriage, in a marriage, it doesn't work that way.

Pamela Larde: [00:23:33] Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:23:35] And it's almost like there's this point where you just go like, I don't know if any amount of my stubbornness and fighting will actually make any change now.

Pamela Larde: [00:23:43] Yeah, because you're there, you're in there, and you all can just sit there and you're enclosed walls and have the same fight for 20, 30, 40 years.

Dawn Taylor: [00:23:53] 100%. And it doesn't change.

Pamela Larde: [00:23:56] And I believe that would have been, that would have been my life had I lived. I mean, we probably would have been married 19 years right now, I just can't imagine what I would be like, what my life would be like if I would have a life actually, you know, literally speaking.

Dawn Taylor: [00:24:15] 100% So you got out, you danced your butt off the first night.

Pamela Larde: [00:24:21] And that's where the dancing stopped.

Dawn Taylor: [00:24:23] I was going to say. And then life started.

Pamela Larde: [00:24:25] Yeah, life started. So that was my victorious moment. And one of the things that I do talk about with joy is that there's different expressions of joy, you know? So there's that momentary celebratory claim, seize the opportunity joy. And so that's what I did. But it doesn't mean that my life was at that point defined by joy or that it permeated throughout every aspect of my life. It was a moment and I am a believer. Claim those moments. Claim the moments because we always talk about, Oh, it's just fleeting, it doesn't mean anything. It means a lot. Celebrate yourself. And so that's what I did that night. But I also was about to embark on a journey of rebuilding my life. And of trying to redefine this relationship with a very bitter ex-husband-to-be who was like, How could you leave the family? How could you? You know? And we had a daughter by then. She was two years old at the time. Why would you do this? And I want my daughter and, you know, and so there were, there was this fear of what's going to happen. Is he going to fight for custody? Are we going to be able to do this co-parenting thing together? What is this going to look like? Wisconsin law says that if I left the state, if one parent leaves the state, the other parent has a right to the child as a full custody parent. But the money I was making in Wisconsin was not enough to sustain me being a single person. He brought in the bulk of the income, so I had to leave. And I did pursue another job. And I did get another job in Georgia, where I live now, that paid more than double of what I was making in Wisconsin. And so I had to humble myself and really kind of plead my case to him in terms of why it's better for our daughter and for my son and for the whole dynamic for me to be more financially stable. And because his job is an international company, they have headquarters here in Atlanta. So I'm like, just come here. Just, you know, let's just all uproot together. And I, and I knew that that was a very farfetched idea. I am a person of faith. And I believe that if you rise above the physical, what's going on today, and really in my, for my spiritual practice was praying about it, you know, and here is how I need to sort of stay focused and believe that change is going to come and then discipline myself to not do things that will thwart that change. Like fight with him and call him names and, you know, all those things, like it kept, my faith kept me in check in terms of here's what I need to do to do my part. And I know he's being a jerk right now, but he's angry and I'm going to allow him that room to be angry. I'm not going to engage in the anger and my prayer life, my, I was in church, I had spiritual mentors, all those things, and all of that kept me grounded enough to push through. And, you know, and he did, he did eventually he calmed down. We have gotten along for the last ten, 13, however many years as co-parents beautifully, but it didn't--

Dawn Taylor: [00:27:56] That's amazing--

Pamela Larde: [00:27:56] -- it took years. It took at least two years before it felt like a partnership. And then the years after that was just growth. So that was baseline partnership after two years. And then the growth began, you know, as co-parents after that. But that was a very difficult two years. If you think about how two people have been through a divorce and the anger that they must feel and the frustration and the disappointment, and now they have to figure out how to co-parent. And one parent wants to move out of state to take a job. I have seen so many divorced parents destroy opportunities to build partnerships with one another because they both are unwilling. And sometimes even when you have a willing party, the other party might still be incredibly difficult. But I was willing to take that risk and say, What if I just didn't engage him in shouting matches? What if I allowed him to be angry and just allowed him to say what he needed to say? And I remained the peacemaker no matter what. That wasn't easy.

Dawn Taylor: [00:29:04] Oh, hell no. Do you think part of that, and my husband and I had this conversation recently, right? And we've been together 26 years and married for 22 and doing good. But we had this conversation because we've had friends and associates and people that we know going through divorce right now. And the one common denominator is one person has like sat on it for a long period of time and hasn't said anything, hasn't spoken out, their frustrations, their anger, whatever, because in the past, maybe it wasn't taken. And then they surprise the partner by being like, Oh, yeah, by the way, heads up, I'm out.

Pamela Larde: [00:29:45] That was me. I was that party. Yes.

Dawn Taylor: [00:29:48] And which, in turn - and the reason why we'd had this conversation is - he's like, if you are ever even like, like the split second, your brain even goes to, like, I could actually see myself divorcing you, he's like, Can you say something so that at least I have, like, an opportunity to change or an opportunity to participate in this? And I mean, we kind of laughed about it, but legitimately, in a divorce, typically there is one person who's, they've already pre grieved, they have done, they've been angry, they've gone through all of those processes.

Pamela Larde: [00:30:22] Yes.

Dawn Taylor: [00:30:23] To such a high level that they surprise their partner, they surprised or exposed, and that person doesn't know how to keep up. And so often, and people listening like I recommend if you're the person that did the surprise I'm not saying that's right or wrong, but like if you're the surprisor in the situation, do everything in your power to give them the grace to be allowed those emotions.

Pamela Larde: [00:30:50] Yeah, because they're going to need time.

Dawn Taylor: [00:30:52] Because they do, like they need so much time to process everything that you've already been processing for so long.

Pamela Larde: [00:30:59] Exactly. And to think, Well, I've been asking for this and that, and they haven't listened or I have been saying that I need this and they haven't listened. That doesn't mean that they understand that you are on the road to divorce. Not at all.

Dawn Taylor: [00:31:13] Not at all. Often they're like, Yeah, well, I knew they were frustrated, but.

Pamela Larde: [00:31:17] Yeah, exactly. And I, I wonder... I knew, I was gonna say, how long did I know I was on the verge of divorce before I announced it? It was probably three months, but I know that the whole entire relationship was, Oh, my gosh, what did I do? Like, but at three months, that's when I knew definitively, Yep, this is it. Because it was too much. It was. I mean, it was, it was a 19 year old who lived across the street who said she wanted to be our nanny. And they had this whole sneaky relationship going on for a year.

Dawn Taylor: [00:31:49] Oh, my.

Pamela Larde: [00:31:50] Gosh. You mean while we were in therapy? You know, so, like, so what's going to work then? If this isn't working, what is going to work? And so--

Dawn Taylor: [00:32:00] Yeah.

Pamela Larde: [00:32:01] It was, so that was kind of like what you mentioned, kind of a last straw kind of situation where for me it instantly clicked and I instantly, my light for him instantly went out after that situation. And I was, I knew then.

Dawn Taylor: [00:32:16] So how did you find your joy? And let's, let's define that. So often people don't understand the difference between like joy and happy. And I've always described it as - and tell me you think different because girl, you brilliant, like I'm just going to go out there like, you guys all need to know this woman. She's amazing. But I've always talked about like happiness is something that often comes from things or from people because it's something that can be given to you, but it can be taken away. Somebody can be like, Wow, you're beautiful. And you're like, Oh, that makes me so happy. And then just as fast they could be like You're gross.

Pamela Larde: [00:32:53] You got a little thing on your you know, where did that come from?

Dawn Taylor: [00:32:56] Right? And like, instantly, like, as fast as you can imagine, your happy is gone, where joy is an internal thing and joy is something that isn't as affected by extenuating circumstances.

Pamela Larde: [00:33:10] Right. And it's so beautifully said. I mean, and it's, the other piece to that is happiness is it's insatiable. You need more, you need more, you need more.

Dawn Taylor: [00:33:20] It's like a drug.

Pamela Larde: [00:33:21] Yeah, it's like a drug. And it's not bad, but it's not sustainable. And so we have to understand, Yes, enjoy your moments of happiness. Grasp those, you know, embrace them. Yeah. Understand that these moments of happiness are not sustainable. That you need something deeper that's going to help you thrive. And joy isn't just about I feel good. Joy - and one of the coins that I termed around joy is joy resilience - joy is actually one of those things that enables you to overcome different difficult things that we go through.

Dawn Taylor: [00:34:01] That's beautiful.

Pamela Larde: [00:34:02] It's the thing that really sort of allowed me, it was my barometer. It was the thing that allowed me to leave my marriage because there was no joy there. And I remember, I know what it feels like. And this is one of the benefits that I have because of how I was raised and one of the privileges I have. So I realize everybody doesn't have this, but I do know what it feels like to be loved by a man. My dad was just all in, every game, You're pretty. You're so good at what you're doing. You're smart. And I heard that all the time. So to get into a marriage in which I never heard anything like that, in fact, I would say, How come you never compliment me? How come you never say that I look beautiful? And his response was, Beautiful is not even a word in my vocabulary. Like, I don't even use that word. And I'm like, Oh.

Dawn Taylor: [00:34:49] You're like, I bet your girlfriend hears that. That's what I would have gone, you know?

Pamela Larde: [00:34:57] So it was just like, you know, the other thing was hand-holding. Physical touch is one of my love languages. And he would never do the hand-holding thing. But I always saw my mom and dad holding hands. So I had this foundation of what experiences of joy that I had growing up as a child and the absence of that that I experienced in my marriage. And it was the joy that I experienced as a childhood that really sort of translated into a resilient joy in my marriage that made me say, I need to find that joy, I need to find that. And it allowed me to be resilient over the challenges that I faced in my marriage, enough to give me the fuel to move into a better situation in my life. So joy is functional. It's not just a feeling. It's not just, you know, a version of happiness that comes from within. It is that, but it's also a life strategy. It's also your art ethos, the way that we characterize ourselves in life. How do you even approach life? I either approach life by engaging in other people's trauma with the fighting and the arguing, or I see past what they're bringing me and I understand that they're in pain. And I, because I'm not there with them, I yeah, I've had pain, but my life isn't characterized by pain. My life is characterized by joy. So I see it right away. The disconnect like, oh, okay, I see where they're coming from. And I can have compassion and empathy for what they're going through without having to get pulled into what they're experiencing. So it's yeah, it's a life strategy. It's a protective factor. It's a lens for how we see and approach the world.

Dawn Taylor: [00:36:49] Just amazing. So we're going to we'll put a link to your book in the show notes so people can find you and all your social media and all those things. But for people listening, one of my big things on this podcast is like tangible ways to start, tangible ways to like start that journey or to start going in the right direction or the direction that they're choosing. What are some easy ways, or a couple simple strategies you could give people, to start to build that joy or find that joy for themselves?

Pamela Larde: [00:37:19] Yeah, and I, I still live those strategies 13 years later. Two really important ones that come to mind right away, and I do talk about these strategies more specifically in the book. If I had the book, I'd be like, it's these. But the two that come to mind right away for me is getting physically active, exercise. So I found ways to just stay active. And it wasn't necessarily for a goal, like I'm going to lose 20 pounds, or I'm going to do this, because that puts more pressure on you. You know?

Dawn Taylor: [00:37:51] Oh and it also turns it into a negative so often in our brains.

Pamela Larde: [00:37:54] Yes, Yes. But so to do it just for the sole purpose of getting your body moving, wherever you've been the clenched fists and the clenched innards, the clenched teeth, you're loosening all of that up. You're enabling yourself, just your body, the freedom of movement. And there's just something about that freedom of movement that it just changes you from the inside out. So the unexpected result of that was that I acquired the most amazing body I had ever had in life at that time. But it wasn't necessarily my goal. It just happened because I dove in so deeply, into just I'm going to run every day, I'm going to, and I just was so committed to what I... It just felt so good in my body to be able to do that. And so everybody has a different thing. It might not be running for everybody.

Dawn Taylor: [00:38:52] Even just like a dance party in your kitchen, like put on your favorite songs and dance.

Pamela Larde: [00:38:57] Just move. Yeah. And so for me, it's been walking lately. It's been yoga. Yoga, oh, my gosh. I just adopted yoga in the last few months. But yeah. So whatever it takes, move your body. So that's one. The other one for me was to tap more deeply into my spirituality. And again, like I mentioned, it allows you to rise above the physicality of everything that's going on. And if we, thank God I didn't get divorced in this time. So for those of you who are going through those things, it's a hard time right now. The world is just--

Dawn Taylor: [00:39:33] Oh, it is so black and white and so hard.

Pamela Larde: [00:39:37] So, and so I, I went through during a different time, but I was able to sort of rise above all of the things, the physicality of all the things, that were going on in the world and to really focus more on what's going on internally with me, my healing and then what my hopes are for the future. So it wasn't that I abandoned the modern day, but it allowed me not to just get so steeped in the modern day that that's all I saw. And I think spirituality does that for us. And so we have a lot of different ways to engage in our spirituality. So it depends on what works for you. For me, I probably overdid it. I was in church every day and, because there was like regular service and then there was Bible study and there was women's groups and I mean, there was always, there was something every day. So I just dove all the way in for what I needed at that time. At this point in my life, my spirituality looks very different after COVID. I haven't been in church since COVID, but I'm very, I am still very connected, just as connected as I was back then. Different strategy, same results. So I believe firmly that there's a lot of different ways to tap into our spirituality. And so those two were major for me. But I'll add the third one, which was what I now call, I didn't know when I wrote the book, but now that I'm writing Joyfully Single, which isn't out yet, so, you know, but there's this concept that I've talked about called Communities of Joy. Build your Communities of Joy. And that was essential for me. I had people that I made sure I had in my life and I curated it. So it doesn't mean I had them already.

Dawn Taylor: [00:41:19] Okay. Talk about the curating for a second. We often don't give the power that we should to what we're surrounding ourselves with and how it affects us.

Pamela Larde: [00:41:32] Yeah, yeah. We think that what's around us are, is really what our options are.

Dawn Taylor: [00:41:38] No, we have to curate, like I'm talking from your social media feeds, to what you're reading, to what you're watching, to what you're eating, to your friends in your life. All of it. Every single thing.

Pamela Larde: [00:41:50] Yes, with intention. One of the people that I have been following very closely is Dr. Marisa Franco, and she, her whole entire research line is around how adults can build friendships. Because with adulthood, we have more challenges doing that, because we are, I mean, when we were kids and even in college, we have these communities that are built in for us and all we have to do is engage with those people. As adults we're isolated in a lot of ways, and especially now after COVID.

Dawn Taylor: [00:42:24] Oh gosh. Yes

Pamela Larde: [00:42:25] Prior to COVID, all we had were our coworkers.

Dawn Taylor: [00:42:28] You know what's hilarious? I'm literally recording a podcast next week on, with a man, on how hard it is to find friends as an adult.

Pamela Larde: [00:42:37] It's so true. So, okay, so I'm talking about this, but I should... How do you curate? So the curation part for me came with joining like the weirdest groups, like Bunko. I don't know if anybody's heard of Bunko.

Dawn Taylor: [00:42:51] No. What is this thing?

Pamela Larde: [00:42:53] I honestly can't even tell you. I don't remember. It was 13 years ago. And how do I not remember? All I know is one of my friends said there's a group of women who play bunko every Thursday, game with me, and I was like, Sure. And so I did. I joined her and we went to Bunko every Thursday. And it's so sad because I don't remember the game. All I remember is the fellowship.

Dawn Taylor: [00:43:14] That is so funny.

Pamela Larde: [00:43:16] I remember that we baked cookies together and we did all these things that I never would have thought of doing. We had a wine bottle night where we would cover up the bottles of wine so we wouldn't know what it is and we would try them and do a competition about who bought the best bottle of wine. So but it put me into, it immersed me into a community. I did pole dancing, so I'm going to church on Saturday and then I'm pole dancing, or going to church on Sunday, pole dancing on, you know. But there was the pole dancing class, and there's a combination of women. Some were college girls and others were women like myself, like, Hey, I'm fresh out of divorce. Others were married women who were like, Hey, I want to impress my husband. Yeah, it was really cool.

Dawn Taylor: [00:44:01] Oh, that is so funny.

Pamela Larde: [00:44:02] Yeah. And so there was a lot of different ways. I, there is a website that I don't even know exists anymore. It might, but meetup.com. When I left Wisconsin and moved to Atlanta, I looked for people who had similar interests. I looked for book groups, writing groups. I joined a science, a sci-fi fantasy science writing group, and I still have the sci-fi fantasy book kind of outlines that I want to write, but it was so cool to be in here with this room of people I never would have been engaging with otherwise, because they're just not in my circles. And so you have to be intentional about how you're going to drop yourself into a new space of people. And some will work out beautifully and others just may not be your match. It's okay. You just move on and you, but you keep being intentional about curating those communities of joy.

Dawn Taylor: [00:44:57] Which is so beautiful. It's, I think that we get so caught in the weeds of life. We get so caught in how hard it is in the moment that we stop realizing how much control we actually still have.

Pamela Larde: [00:45:13] Yes.

Dawn Taylor: [00:45:14] So while we're out of control in our marriage, we're out of control with our health, or we have all these other things that are totally out of our control in the moment, we kind of curl up and die instead of realizing that like, no, no, no... We still actually have things in our lives that we are in control of, that we can fix or curate or treat different or make beautiful and healthy. And I know I said to someone this last winter while I was going through my health stuff, I mean, you and I had been chatting and you knew my whole world was kind of falling apart for a bit. And in the middle of that, someone was like, Oh, what are you doing tonight? And I was like, Oh, I'm going to binge watch this silly, ridiculous show on Netflix. And they're like, Why? They're like, That's so lame. And I was like, Because it's going to make me laugh and it's going to make me happy and I'm going to fall asleep with a smile on my face, not thinking about the trauma of having had IVs for that long today.

Pamela Larde: [00:46:09] Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:46:10] And people were like, Oh, okay. And it was from what I wore to how I did my hair or my makeup, to the earrings in my ears. Like, I'm talking like everything in my world was like, I'm not listening to it unless it brings me joy right now. I am not eating it if it is not bringing my body nutrition and joy right now, I am not doing that thing because society has told me I should or I have to or people are pressuring me, because in that moment when everything felt so out of control, that's what I got to control, right?

Pamela Larde: [00:46:48] Exactly. We get to control our joy. We can't always control our happiness because it depends on what's being brought to us. But we can control our joy.

Dawn Taylor: [00:46:59] 100% and we can filter the happiness thing. Like in those moments, I didn't phone people that made me grumpy. I didn't hang out with people that sucked the life out of me. I didn't, I didn't watch all the gross murder shows that cause my brain to go dark. Right? Like, it's, we have so much more control than we realize.

Pamela Larde: [00:47:24] Absolutely.

Dawn Taylor: [00:47:25] And I just want to inspire anyone listening to this before we jump into the fun little questions to get to know you better, I just want to inspire anyone who's listening to this to realize that, like, you are worth more than your circumstances.

Pamela Larde: [00:47:39] Absolutely.

Dawn Taylor: [00:47:40] And you can overcome so much more than you could ever imagine. Face the horrible, face the worst case scenario. Come up with an action plan of how to deal with it. And then take the steps.

Pamela Larde: [00:47:52] Absolutely. Take care of you.

Dawn Taylor: [00:47:54] Because it's no one else's job.

Pamela Larde: [00:47:56] Yeah. And you rise into better circumstances, you know? Yeah. It's beautiful.

Dawn Taylor: [00:48:01] Oh, this is so fun. I know you and I could talk all day on this. We totally could. But let's do just some fun, silly questions. So I know you personally. I know you are like a massive travel junkie, like, trip a month. What is, what are a few of the favorite places you've ever traveled?

Pamela Larde: [00:48:24] Costa Rica. Hands down.

Dawn Taylor: [00:48:27] That's your place?

Pamela Larde: [00:48:29] Yeah. That's new for me. And it was the first time I had been there in July. And the level of peace I felt when my feet hit the ground was like, What is this place?

Dawn Taylor: [00:48:42] It's amazing.

Pamela Larde: [00:48:44] Yeah. And it was maintained the whole time, even driving on the roads. Peace. And I'm like, There's nobody honking. There's nobody on my tail. It was just, just so peaceful and... Yeah, so definitely I'm just going to just put Costa Rica on the top of the list. Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:49:03] Like, that's the one and only is just Costa Rica. Describe yourself in one sentence.

Pamela Larde: [00:49:11] I am joyful. I know that sounds very cliché and corny, but I'm joyful.

Dawn Taylor: [00:49:17] You are? What is something you spend a silly amount of money on other than travel?

Pamela Larde: [00:49:24] I was gonna say travel.

Dawn Taylor: [00:49:27] We know this.

Pamela Larde: [00:49:28] Ok. Amazon stuff.

Dawn Taylor: [00:49:31] Do you have a thing? Do you like a thing you buy a lot of?

Pamela Larde: [00:49:35] That's a really good question because it's just a hodgepodge.

Dawn Taylor: [00:49:41] I spend a silly amount of money on original art. That's one of mine. And Lego sets, it's a problem. Oh, girl. Yeah, it's a problem.

Pamela Larde: [00:49:52] For me, it just has to be travel. It's, you know, I'll tell you why it's silly, because it's not just like, Oh, she's going on a trip. No, I've become bougie with my travel, so I am going to not just get a regular hotel. No, I'm going to get an Airbnb with all the things and it's just me. I'm like, in this four bedroom Airbnb and just, you know.

Dawn Taylor: [00:50:18] So it's travel, travel's your thing.

Pamela Larde: [00:50:20] The flights, I am like, I got to go first class. Now that I can. When I first started this travel thing, I would have to find $30 flights so I can afford to do it. Now I'm like, I'm going to fly first class. That's like a ridiculous amount of money. So I don't do purses or shoes or, it's the travel. That's where I splurge.

Dawn Taylor: [00:50:40] That is amazing. What is one purchase you've made for $100 or less that has incredibly impacted your life in the last little bit?

Pamela Larde: [00:50:52] I want to say this Fitbit, because it really, it helps me pay attention to how much I'm moving and how much I'm sedentary. And I don't like to just be sitting. And sometimes when I have days where I'm not paying attention, I can just sit. Because I'm a writer, I can sit all day. I can do eight hour writing sessions without getting off the couch or out of the chair or wherever I am. And so this helps me realize, Get up.

Dawn Taylor: [00:51:28] It's a problem.

Pamela Larde: [00:51:29] Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:51:32] What is - two more - what is an unusual habit? Or just like, a weird, absurd thing that you love?

Pamela Larde: [00:51:42] Oh, I don't know. People do say I'm weird and quirky. I do, with my writing - this might work - I can't do too much creative work at home. I have to go somewhere. So I am known for sitting at bars with either my laptop or my journal. And I'm writing and I'm at the bar and everybody else is flirting and doing their things. And I'm sitting there writing and it's a great conversation starter because I often get approached and people often wonder, how do you even focus? But for some reason, all the energy of the people, I don't know. It just, it gives me energy in my writing.

Dawn Taylor: [00:52:20] Hey, I love that because I'm the same. I cannot write at home. I can't write in Edmonton where I live. I have to go somewhere where all of my other senses are so distracted and feeling out of control.

Pamela Larde: [00:52:34] Yes.

Dawn Taylor: [00:52:35] It's like my brain is busy enough with all that, that everything else can just flow and I'm good.

Pamela Larde: [00:52:40] That explains it well, because I don't know why that works for me so well, but it does.

Dawn Taylor: [00:52:45] It's because I lose total control. I lose total control of being able to filter what I'm writing in that moment because my brain is so focused on everything else. It's like it opens up the other side. Like the logic side of my brain is focused on stay safe and alive, right? It's like the emotional side of my brain, The artist side of my brain can be like, Oh, I'm writing a book. This is good, right? That's what it is for me.

Pamela Larde: [00:53:12] It's true. I mean, I have to think about that because, yeah, I just, if I'm in a quiet room like this, I'm going to go to sleep. I don't know. I'm just not gonna write.

Dawn Taylor: [00:53:20] Because then you're like, But in the bar it makes sense to my brain because I'm like, No, you're listening to all the other conversations and the noise and the music and the sights and the smells and like everything. So all your senses are going.

Pamela Larde: [00:53:31] Yes.

Dawn Taylor: [00:53:32] And I think I know the answer to this one. But if you could live anywhere in the world, no holds barred, money doesn't matter, kids, nothing. Where would you live?

Pamela Larde: [00:53:41] Right now it's Costa Rica. Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:53:44] I was like, I don't even need to ask.

Pamela Larde: [00:53:46] I've been kind of like, even researching specific areas, and right now it's Escazu, Costa Rica and I haven't been there yet, but I'm going to try to spend a month there next next year. And so I think it's Escazu.

Dawn Taylor: [00:53:58] Nice. I love that so much.

Pamela Larde: [00:54:01] Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:54:02] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here today with us. It was such a blast to hang out and talk and dive into joy and how people can find that coming out of a rough situation. And really, it's any situation, whether it's the end of a job, end of a marriage, whatever it is, whatever it is, but how to find that again? So if you want to find Dr. Pamela, she is all over the place. Check the show notes on my website, TheTaylorWay.ca. You can find all of her links to where to get her books, her website, her coaching school, all of it. So you can track her down and see what she's up to and please support her in what she's doing, and order those books because she's outstanding. If you love this episode today, please leave a review on Apple or Spotify - wow, my words - podcasts and we will see you again in a couple weeks. Thank you so much.

Content Warning: Discussion of human rights violations, murder, execution, and imprisonment.

Dawn Taylor welcomes Navid, Principal at Aultrust Financial out of Vancouver, to share his lived experiences and knowledge about what is happening in Iran right now. Navid explains a brief history of Iran and how things changed when the regime took power to lend context to the protests and executions happening there now.

Navid sheds light on how open and inclusive Iran was just 40 years ago. When the king, the Shah, of Iran left and the Islamic Republic of Iran seized power, Iran became controlled by a regime that then waged war against Iraq and instated strict religious and moral restrictions on the population. The protests now were trigged by the murder of Mahsa Amini for having a lock of her hair showing, but they encompass much more than hair coverings. Navid explains how Iran, and especially Iranian youths, are protesting the regime and lack of human rights freedoms, and are losing their lives for the cause…… 

Dawn and Navid have a very open, frank, and revealing conversation designed to give Western listeners the truth about Iran, the Iranian people, and what they are fighting for. Navid shares insight about Iran’s former openness to all religions and cultures, how many people were born after the regime’s take over, what the protests are truly about, and how the bulk of misinformation spread by Western media is planted by the regime itself. This is a powerful episode that everyone needs to hear.

About Navid:

Navid started his career in the software industry in 2003 as the founder of BITAA Technology, well before graduating from Simon Fraser University a few years later. As founder and operator, Navid was instrumental in building the company from the ground up and putting together people, processes, and technology to manage the operations with fluidity and efficiency. 

In 2010, Navid changed his focus to real estate marketing for major development projects across Metro Vancouver. Combining his software and marketing background, he provided customized investment portfolio management solutions to developers and their investors in addition to providing digital marketing plans, implementing sales strategies, and ultimately selling products at a faster pace than the competition. 

In 2015, Navid founded Aultrust Financial, a real estate development, and investment firm, leveraging his extensive operational experiences to oversee Aultrust internal processes and manage marketing and development activities, whilst he oversaw compliance and investor relations. Navid believes land development is highly regional, and successful investments require a deep understanding of the market in which one operates. Navid’s role in Aultrust is to provide connections to local players, inventory, and most importantly Municipality’s development processes and political tendencies. 

Navid also owns and operates a complex and multifaceted education center with over 150 students and 20+ staff members within multiple locations in the Tri-City. The center requires operational accuracy and well-defined processes to ensure compliance with strict regulations on safety, security, and quality of care. 

In addition to his work running funds and operations, he also serves on the Board of Directors of several educational and charitable organizations and is always looking for different ways to give back to the community by donating his time, energy, and resources to the causes he is most passionate about.

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Mahsa Amini
• Information Links - Rise with the Women of Iran
• Masih Alinejad - Iranian journalist and activist
• Persian Song “Baraye”

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Dawn Taylor - The Taylor Way: website | facebook | instagram | linkedin

Navid - Principal at Aultrust Financial Ltd: website

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Transcript

Dawn Taylor: [00:00:09] Hey, hey, hey. Welcome to Taylor Way Talks. I am your host Dawn Taylor and I am so, I think the word is honored, to be here today with my guest. He is an amazing human being. His name is Navid. He is the owner of Alt Trust. It's a financial and real estate investment and development company based out of Vancouver. It's hard for people in developing community and developing relationships is mind blowing. Like, I'm super in awe of this guy. But we're here to have a really interesting conversation today, so I'm going to let Navid kind of start it. But welcome, Navid. What is it you would like to talk about today?

Navid: [00:00:45] Firstly, thank you for the invite, Dawn. And I'm going to take you around from now on for doing the introduction. That was pretty humbling.

Dawn Taylor: [00:00:55] Deal. Deal. I will totally do it.

Navid: [00:00:58] Yeah. We had this conversation a couple of times in person and over the phone or Zoom witness in regular chats that what's actually going on in Iran and what's the reflection of what's happening in Iran in the war. Sometimes all these news coming out, how do people grasp it? What can they do? What does it mean? Like, and it's hard to understand. It's a complex situation somewhere far from us, but something that I believe is truly affecting the word democracy and is something that we should all consider as human being and understand it and actually basically use this situation of what's happening in Iran as an education piece for all of us to be better people, to understand better and to see things better. That's basically, I think, that's what I'm going to try to cover today.

Dawn Taylor: [00:01:54] So Navid and I know each other outside of this podcast, and I was hanging out with him a little while ago and his wife, his amazing, beautiful wife, and we were having an interesting conversation on how growing up in North America, I mean, hello, white privilege, but growing up here, our ideas of what it was like to be raised in somewhere like Iran, our ideas on what your childhood would have looked like or what we were taught in school, what media, movies, all these things have done and how wrong it is. I mean, even just how we pronounce the word like you taught me how to say it proper this morning, right? Is Iran like e and then run? And even just something as simple as that. And we're asking you questions like what was your childhood like there? Like, what was it like growing up? What changed? What shifted? When did you come to Canada? All of these things. And that's really what I wanted to dive into is, like, let's get to know a little bit of the behind the scenes of what it was really like and then when the change there all happened. So we all hear like the regime and we all hear all these words, well, unless someone's actually sitting down and Googling, like people don't know it is.

Navid: [00:03:06] I said, I started with saying it's a little bit complex, like people to understand what's going on on other side of reward and what has happened and the way the media manipulate the situations across the world. So just a little short story on Iran. Iran goes back to like 1500 years ago. I don't know, this is one of the oldest Asian countries in the world. Then the expansion of Iran was all the way from China to Egypt. It was a very large country with very many different cultures and religions and so on. And it goes back to the time of like 130 B.C. or something that Cyrus the Great was the first person who actually came up with human rights. So I might not have the dates right. I'm not, but the conceptually is the first basis of human rights. Like King came from Iran and Cyrus the Great was a person who basically had that written down. And the whole concept of it was like everybody getting along with each other. That went on. And that was a revolution that happened about 43 years ago, that the king of Iran, the Shah, left the country as people were protesting. They were asking him to end his term and leave the country. I was born four years ago, I never do learn that exact details of what happened, it was basically people were asking for reform. The reform wasn't happening. It was it was a manipulation on governments. And Iran is a rich country, as when it comes to the oil and natural gas it is one of the richest countries in the world. And there was that fight of who's going to win that battle to access Iran's wealth. So when the king left, pretty much Iran got taken hostage by the Islamic regime, Islamic Republic of Iran. So when we're talking about the regime, it's Islamic groups like extremists, like, you know, we talk about Christian extremists or whatever. So this is like Islamic extremists where they use Islam, the religion, to manipulate and control people. So right off the bat of the revolution, it's happened about 43 years ago, so we see, like we call them mullahs, basically the guys, they came in the regime, Ayatollah Khomeini, Khomeini and all these guys that control Khomeini, they took control of the country and that Khomeini - this is crazy, they're like - he came after him, after the death of Khomeini, Khomeini and these guys basically running a very religious dictatorship on the country. And the people we passed 43 years ago, they were living a free life that it's happened here, just like a life that exists in Canada. People along every other cultures were living together. You would go to the beach, somebody would be wearing a full hijab, a scarf cover, and the daughter person is a bikini swimming. So it was with respect within everybody's religion and culture, everybody was living with each other. But once the revolution happened in 79, that government changed and the regime came in place and it took control with basically and we're having a war started between Iraq and Iran that lasted about eight years.

Navid: [00:06:31] So I'm 40 year old. Pretty much the first six, seven years of my life was in the war. When you say talk about the childhood, it was the families trying to pretty much play it normal. Hey, we're traveling to the suburbs. We used to live in the capital. So often you would hear sirens going on, the bombs coming out, the families would make it like a it's in the middle of night, the siren goes off like a game that you're playing, hide and seek in the middle of night, run down to the basement for shelter. So it was a lot of that in different cases, and it was a lot of bouncing around in different countries with different family members. But within the shelter of your house, it was free. You could talk about everything. We could do everything, people wouldn't wear scarves. I don't remember any occasion or a party and events we went to or we had that alcohol wasn't served. We, our parents, my parents, weren't really drinkers or anything. But we always, like as a respect for somebody who comes, they want to grab a beer, they had it. Even though it was illegal, but everybody had access to it. Everybody would brew their own wine at home, something.

Dawn Taylor: [00:07:38] That's awesome.

Navid: [00:07:41] But so culturally we were different, but we were taken hostage with this regime. And every time you would talk about against them, it's against the religious aspect or against their morality of what's right or what's wrong, you have consequences.

Dawn Taylor: [00:07:57] Okay, So let's backtrack a second. Let's backtrack a second. So we're talking about a country that right now is in the news for the morality police. People are being murdered. People are being killed for like having a piece of hair out. Yet this is the country that actually started the rights, like movements of like, no, no, no, we need equality, we need rights and we need all of this stuff. And was very, very similar and I know talking, I've met your mom. She's amazing, right? I remember talking to her. I've talked to her about like what it was like. And she showed me pictures of the younger years and everyone hanging out and getting along and laughing and cultures and very similar to Canada.

Navid: [00:08:38] It's totally right. Like I have a picture of my dad with his buddies. They dress up like Beatles, they holding brooms and pots and pans, pretending the drummers and the singers and the guitar players. So it was like here, it wasn't lost on everybody. They had the common culture back then. But what has happened like over the past 40 years, these are some cool, crazy stats at the same time. So when the revolution happened 43 years ago, the population of Iran was 36 million. Right now it's at 82 million.

Dawn Taylor: [00:09:12] Wow.

Navid: [00:09:12] So more than that and crazier than that, 55% of the country is women.

Dawn Taylor: [00:09:20] 55% of this country are women.

Navid: [00:09:23] Yeah. So it is like, to just grasp that, it's, it is... So you have a country that the majority of the people were born under this regime. The families they went through a revolution, they went through a war. They went through the war divide sanctions back to back because of this regime was holding country hostage. And so there's a lot of suffering on the people who, over 40 pretty much. Right? And even late thirties and early forties like me, there is, we come from a background of every time we talk in opposition of saying something is wrong in Iran.

Dawn Taylor: [00:10:08] You get in trouble.

Navid: [00:10:08] We get in trouble. We have to be silent. Our parents would get in trouble and they had to come and vouch for us to get us out and either would cost them money or financial situations down the line or not being able to exit the country. So it was always problems that comes with it. So we learned to be shut up and work and just obey whatever it is and not understand or not have the guts to create change. But that's going on for way too long, it's been 40 years now. And then we have more than half of the population of the country under 40. That means like median age is 32. We have a lot of Gen Zs. We have a lot of...

Dawn Taylor: [00:10:49] Wow. Median age is 32?

Navid: [00:10:53] Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:10:54] That is a young country.

Navid: [00:10:56] Exactly. And then you try to ask them, imagine like even in the US, right, the gap of having President Biden and before that Trump and wanting to run again and so on. The age of this president, it still works because the country of US is not that young. Right? Imagine if US was younger. You cannot relate to somebody in seventies dictating how your words should lay out. Right? You can't you can't just keep saying that Gen Zs are stupid, they don't understand capitalism. They know. They they want the better world. Right? And they want a more meaningful life for everybody. That's what it is. So these guys in Iran, they have access, they had access to Internet and they could see the world and they could not reason for themselves that why is it our country like this? How is it our country is the hijab is mandatory? Why do I have to cover my head? Why don't I have basic rights? Why don't I have a voice? Why can't I, in the country that's one of the wealthiest countries in the world, can't afford anything? One in 5% in Iran with this regime over the past 40 years, it ends up being into severe, severe poverty. That means the other four are barely entering the life and that there's good one, there's that one percentile that every country has, and you see them like living a good life, showing off or whatever. But majority of the country, they're not financially well anymore. They've been pressurized. They've been limited to what the government is doing to them. So they, basically all the resources of Iran, all the oil and gas and natural resources of Iran are getting used and sold to China, Syria, any countries, Iraq, like any countries that is surrounding. Any other, I would say, or Russia, any other dictatorships and the dictators are benefiting from it. And also Democrats across the world are benefiting from the situation that has happened in Iran. But the people in Iran, they've been suffering. The event that happened with Mahsa Amini, that she got brutally murdered because her hair was showing, it was the trigger. It was like hitting the bottom of the pan for people. It was just like, that's it. Like they just burns. And so they start, everybody start screaming and yelling. The difference of this time is that we have the women front of the whole revolution. Men are walking side by side with them. They scream side by side with them, but it's the women in front of it. And just the guts of this woman, it's really hard to explain unless you been in that country, like we just talking about it, showing a little bit of hair, got the girl killed.

Navid: [00:13:48] You can't talk against the regime. They get you jail. Like there is this one famous prison in Iran. It's called the Evin Prison in Iran’s Capital, Tehran. They're, basically the people that they imprisoned there, majority of them are the most intelligent people of Iran. They're basically people that ever said anything right about humanity, they get to be jailed. Anybody who's intelligent in any level who ever wanted the freedom for people, whoever was any level of activists that raise a voice and was a voice for people, they jailed them. And the, not shame of it, the shame of it, they brutally tortured them, they kill them and they get away with it for the longest time and they've been doing it. And that's just their trend of staying in power. They easily, if the students talk about it, they raid the universities and kill them in front of other kids. They set an example. So when this whole trend started with the women uprising, the women life freedom, basically women asking for basic rights. That's where it started. Right now it's not just about that, it's about eliminating this regime. Getting rid of this hostage situation that exists.

Dawn Taylor: [00:15:10] And let's talk about that for a second, is it's basic human rights.

Navid: [00:15:15] Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:15:15] It's not like people are asking for a lot.

Navid: [00:15:20] Not at all. Like it was, it started, I think it was the second week of this whole uprising, people started with a hashtag on Twitter and they were saying that just right, why do you want this revolution to happen? Like, for what reason? And then it became a famous song, “For” in Farsi translates to “Baraye”, and then people go on like, you know, battle you this or that. So a lot of it is like just being able to dance on the street or being able to kiss your lover, just any place that you wanted to. And that was the basic, and it was like for ending the poverty, to not see a four year old diving into the garbage, trying to find food. And then it's like and it goes on. And that song like you got to, I'll send you the translation of it that Rana sang in the closing of The Voice in Germany. And it is just so beautiful and deep, even though it's so basic and we don't realize how fortunate we are that we have so many things that identifies us as free that we don't even recognize or realize. And then these guys are literally going taking bullets on it, like there is videos like somebody getting shot. And then instead of people running away, there's these young girls and guys they run in front of the cops say, like, shoot me if that's what it takes for free. Like somebody got shot beside them. Like to to have, to have it to that level and to...

Dawn Taylor: [00:16:53] A whole different level of desperation, right?

Navid: [00:16:56] Yeah. Like desperation and fighting, like giving up your life so one other person does not have to go through what you're going through, or have a life that you're having. so often you see like, you hear like right now, left and right, like a 17 year old died, 16 year old got murdered, like 15 year old got shot, and 9 year old got shot. So there's all these things that you constantly hear and then you find out the last tweet or the last Instagram post is like, if this is going to be my last post, I just wanted you to know that I gave my life for the country, for the freedom of every one of you guys. And then there is, every time there's a burial or something, everyone's like saying, like every one of us that dies, there's another thousand of us that wakes up. So it is a situation in Iran that people are dealing empty handed with the most brutal regime that doesn't hesitate to kill kids, kill women, kill men of any level, any age to just say that they didn't kill that first kill. So up to date, within their own stat, I think they killed close to 500 people, that's their own stat. That is definitely way more than that. They have jailed, they have jailed over 18,000 people. That's crazy. Just think about it. The 18,000 people that they talk to against the regime, they've been jailed. They're getting tortured, and about 500 people are dead so this regime can prove to the world and their people that they didn't kill that first kill. That's basically what it is. Right?

Dawn Taylor: [00:18:41] So let's jail 18,000 people, kill 500 more, just to prove that we didn't kill one.

Navid: [00:18:45] We didn't kill one. That wasn't, no, that didn't happen. And you guys are wrong. So it is... and often, you know, and so I'm going to try to get to the point that, like, what have we heard or what have we known in the West here about Iran? How does the government keeps us so limited educated on that segment, and why? And how is it affecting horribly and what's happening? So for the longest time, no blames on anybody that lives across the West or Canada and US, because our access is media and the things that we get educated with. And it's been, basically we've been told that Iran is that country that terrorism comes from. People cover their heads, they're super religious, and everything that they do is their culture. Covering their head is a culture, you know, being in this situations or whatever is their culture. And every time even we talk about it, it was they said, oh, it's Islamophobia. No. It's like anything extreme is wrong, right? Like the religious is a point of fate not to be pushed on somebody. So if we see it anywhere, if you see a religion is pushing something on people, like, we... I'm going to diverge to like Qatar for a second, the World Cup, the One Love movement that you cannot have a wristband that says one love that shows support to LGBTQ community. Or any, like you can't hold a rainbow flag or you can't say anything of those aspects in the country. And we say that, oh, and then you go on TV and they hear it's no, no, it's their culture and we have to respect it. Right? And I, and this is, and if you see anything it's Islamophobia, I think that's wrong.

Navid: [00:20:39] I think we all obligated to say something because it is wrong. It's humans, it's humans, it's a human being. We cannot encourage, we cannot advertise that for them. We cannot normalize that thing. We cannot say that's normal in another country. Some people get tortured and killed for being gay or lesbian or transgender, that's okay because it's their country. We cannot go on and doing that. And basically that's the presentation. So if people didn't understand exactly what's going on in Iran, they had a hard time understanding what's going on there, because nobody could talk about it. Everyone is shut down about it. It's like, oh, no, it's their country, it's their culture, they have to cover their face, they have to go to the sanctions because the whole country believes in this wrong things. Right? So, but this movement and with many of Iranians fleeing the country over the past like 40 years, it's basically the country Iran's system was, and the regime was like, if we don't like our country and you can get out, get the hell out, we don't want you here. Because if you stay here and you talk against us, you're going to end up in jail. So get out. You know, we got out, a lot of people got out. They're like, Oh my God, we need some freedom. You need, we need to start again. So a lot of people - and it's not easy, just imagine like people leaving a country at age 40, 50, like my mom was 40 when she moved to Canada. Somewhere a different language, just start from zero. You leave everything behind, you come over to another country, you start from zero at age 40.

Dawn Taylor: [00:22:14] I can imagine, having talked to your mom about that...

Navid: [00:22:18] Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:22:19] It's just crazy. Like giving up everything. Business, life, friends, family, everything, and having to just escape to this new country, having to learn a whole new culture, life, work, everything.

Navid: [00:22:35] So there's so many of us that traveled the world for that. And then this is finally everybody outside the country is Iranians. They had awakening that we can be the voice internationally. We can educate the world about what's happening. So that's why you see the post after post and you guys trying to like, it's just basically trying to catch up the world with what's going on. But there's difficulties with it because the regime of Iran over the past 40 years, they have implemented systems within all the countries. For example, in the US they have a group called NAIC, which is stands for North American Iranian Committee. So what it is they present on the quotations, the Iranians in North America, which it is actually these guys are funded possibly and they are pro Iran regime. So they're very influential within the news and media. They're very influential within that.

Dawn Taylor: [00:23:41] In order to protect themselves.

Navid: [00:23:43] To protect the Iranian regime. Right. So as of two days ago, even. So, right now that we're talking is starting yesterday, today and tomorrow is major national, basically the what do you call it, like a closedown down in a country. So the market is closed. Everything is, in Iran, is going to be closed as of yesterday, today and tomorrow. It's like a major protest, national protest against the regime. The people taking it, they're closing the bazaar. So the government didn't want this news to come up. They wanted to derail the news. So they got the people from NAIC to publish an article within The New York Times, a bunch of this major publishings, that basically the revolutionary, the morality police in Iran has been demolished and they're going away. And they no longer going to be there.

Dawn Taylor: [00:24:37] Yeah, I saw that lie posted.

Navid: [00:24:40] Yeah. So it blew up all over the place. But is it true? Hell no. That's just the biggest lie ever. And it started from this group of NAIC coming up. Why? To take the attention of the world from what's happening. Shut down the internet. So try to say, oh, we fix the problems, it's not a big deal. And where they are mass killing right now as we're talking. Like so, and they increase their amount of executions of the protesters over the past, like three or four days. Extremely. So every day I wake up, I go on Twitter and I read like another 17 year old got hung and executed. Another 22 year old got hung and executed, and another 16 year old got evicted for execution. And just because of the protest that was there, just because it was, you know, uprising against the government and they tried to create that fear from people on them, but they tried to derail the media of international is like, oh no, we solve a problem. People just wanted a reform and we did it. People don't want to reform anymore. They want this government to go. And so the media here, it is very limited, educated themselves, and their fact checking is very, very weak, I would say.

Dawn Taylor: [00:25:54] Good way to word it.

Navid: [00:25:56] Yeah. Because it doesn't, you don't have to, like it is complex what's happening in Iran, but you don't have to, it doesn't take you much to understand what's a fake news, what's the right news. Like the second, if you're writing an article, but you know what people are uprising, then you know what article is right or what's wrong. A country that is Islamic Republic to take the morality police out, that even if they do which that didn't happen, that means they're changing the name of it. And what next? Tomorrow is going to be Islamic Police like there is no way, like this is how the country is controlled, like they would fall apart.

Dawn Taylor: [00:26:37] I was going to say it's how they've controlled this country for 40 years. It's not just going to go away overnight. So with that, I know one of the things that you and I talked about forever ago is, as North Americans, there's this idea that like everybody there is an extremist and everybody is Islamic and everybody is of that religious belief or have that idea. And I know you were like, no, there's like every religion, every culture, every, like, it's the most...

Navid: [00:27:08] Yeah, no, we we have Baha'is. We have Jewish people. Like they all scattered around the world mostly because if you stay in Iran one way or another, they find you and they try to get you in some sort of trouble. So I think in California, we have a major Jewish community, like we have a lot of Baha'is across the world. It's just so many different religions that goes on. But honestly, I think what our Gen Zs and the new generation, religion just doesn't even make sense. It's not what people are after, rather than just human being, especially being in a country, like being born in a country that the religion dictates who you are, it pushes you.

Dawn Taylor: [00:27:51] It gives you a really bad feel of what a religion is.

Navid: [00:27:54] Yeah. And like, you know, people have their beliefs. They still may believe in their gods and their things, but they more than anything, they believe in being a human. Like you're born in human and whatever religion comes your way, it's secondary for making you a better person also, but not to dictate who you are going to be, how you're going to be. And you know, the fact that, like, using religion to kill people and do things like, you know, this is...

Dawn Taylor: [00:28:26] So horrible.

Navid: [00:28:28] Yeah. So a lot of younger people, they don't stand for any, like I said, like more than 50% of the country has been born after revolution and they've been born with access to internet and knowledge and information. And they're saying that we don't want this dictatorship, this umbrella over our head that's suffocating us. And basically that's, and sadly down there the regime is in control. So people don't have a voice here. We can all raise our voice and our politicians, they have to satisfy to get elected for the next round. So you say, hey, the daycare is expensive, and then next day, $10 day care, like at least they say stuff, they do this stuff. Maybe 80% of them fails, but at least they try. But the things that goes on in our country say we're fortunate because we do have a voice. Not saying that things shouldn't be fixed here and improve your, you know, things like our health care system.

Dawn Taylor: [00:29:32] Or it's a bit of a dumpster fire here right now.

Navid: [00:29:36] So it's, and it is a lot of things, but it's basically taking a pause and realization of what we have and appreciation of it. So it gives us the energy to go on and fix the issues that we have to always improve the country that we're in. On the other side, it's understanding what we have in this world and just wanting the rest of the world to have a bit of what we have. Because often I think, like, you know, if you understand what's going on between Russia and Ukraine, or what's going on on Afghanistan, like what's happening in Afghanistan or what's happening to Iran, how they murdering kids, how they raping youths, girls to set an example for girls to not come to streets, murdering them, like things like that. How those things are happening and there's these things happening all across the world. I'm not limiting it to anything. If we understand it and we close our eyes and we're selfish to just ride our own boat. We have to question our ethics. We have to question our being. Are we--

Dawn Taylor: [00:30:40] -- yes, right there.

Navid: [00:30:42] Yes, it is, it is hard. I always, I always have this conversation with my business partner that it is easier, like, you know, you deal with different people within different parts of your work. It is often a lot easier to be stupid, but to be...

Dawn Taylor: [00:30:59] That's a good way to word it. It is. It is so much easier to be ignorant and stupid than it is to actually face what's going on.

Navid: [00:31:08] And to be a better person. If every day you wake up and say, I want to be a better person, it is a fight. It is challenging because you have to question yourself. You have to understand your acts, you have to understand what's right or what's wrong. And that goes on. And often we've been taught to our life here that just go on, your challenges is just affordability in housing. Your challenges is just a bad system in the health care. Yes, there are challenges. These are the things that we all have come together and fix, and I take it on my shoulder within our own projects or whatever I try to fix to bring a little bit of self affordability and everything into it. But these are minor problems where our homeless here are funded by the government. They have opportunities. I'm not saying again, we have a system that we clean them up properly or we take care of a problem. We don't have that. But a homeless person here is pretty much one top 1% of the world. Like we have to understand the grasp of...

Dawn Taylor: [00:32:10] Hey, pause there for a sec. Say that again. The homeless in Canada...

Navid: [00:32:15] Probably in the one percent.

Dawn Taylor: [00:32:16] Are probably in the top 1% of people in the world.

Navid: [00:32:19] Yeah, just think about--

Dawn Taylor: [00:32:20] -- because of the funding and everything.

Navid: [00:32:22] Yeah. So not saying again if the funding is used properly, if the system is used properly, access to the health care, access to the funding, access to being able to not sleep hungry. You know what I mean? Like, they can. Like, again, the system is wrong because a lot of them on the corner of Hastings Street in Vancouver is a torture. Every time you drive by there, like I get in tears sometimes at some of them. And it is, it is, the system needs help, but they are still, to some level, way more fortunate. And then once we understand that as a person here, when we're walking around and going to be living our life, we should take it upon ourselves that how can we help the world as a whole? And that's always an exhausting thing to do, like because we have a life ourself. I still need to catch my, I don't know, pilates class or soccer game, and deal with work and business and this and that. And at the end of the day, what can I do? It's across the world, you know, whatever. But I think we we have to all value what we have and and part of it, part of, like, you know, it's like, we all make money to have a good life here, but it's a part that we give back is what makes us, you know, like it gives us a meaning to our life. And like, you know, you make your living by money, but you make life by giving back. And often that giving back doesn't have to be that complex, right? It could be just raising an awareness. It's just asking basically, or pointing out what's happening. You can't expect, as Iranians, like what we sell and what tortured us outside of Iran is that you see, like Iran being in a united nation, Iran being G7, we come left and right people from this terrorist regime, they end up in New York and negotiations there's negotiations about nuclear, negotiations about this and that. And it's so horrendous and it's so painful. And because the government ties, they normalizing it so they kept doing it. Imagine Iran killing women for a little bit of hair. Women cannot go to soccer games. They can't travel outside a country without the dad or the husband permission. If the husband dies, they don't get to have the kids, the kid goes to the family of the dad. There's so many things against women rights. So like I can go on forever. So what you wear, what you say, all those things matters. And then they had a person on UN women rights department. So that's the word, normalizing it, saying that that's their culture and that's what it should be. So we have to really, really understand. We have to really, as people, to digest things ourselves. And that's not normal. That's not normal that our government goes shake the hands of these terrorist regimes and makes a dealing for them. A lot of this anti riots, you know, tear gases and bullets and guns are imported from the US and Iran indirectly, directly from US and England to Iran.

Navid: [00:35:41] So it is, so there's dealings that happened, right? So once the whole world stands against a terrorist regime, a stance, not even that, stands for human rights of those people in Iran, then these governments, they can't simply deal with the Iranian regime that the terrorist regime of Iran that's taking the country hostage, then they have to ask them to close their embassies across the board. They have to basically arrest or deport every related government member with all their money seized, like exactly what they did with the Russian oligarchs. You know? And if that affects happen, then that regime crumbles and then the people will be free. Because if they can't buy everything that they buy with money they will fall. So it is, so it is just that what can people do is raising awareness. If you have any sort of platform, like you do have it, you're using it, you're having this conversation with me, is just raising that simple awareness that people know that they are normal humans living there. It is just not by their choice that they were born in a different country, whether it's Afghanistan, Iran, Africa, or it happens anywhere. But they are humans and they deserve to have basic human rights. And often they not even asking us or anybody to fight for their own specific rights. It's us asking our governments to do the right thing, to step up and do the right thing. Often what I see, which I find it painful, it's the dictatorship countries like Russia, Iran, China, Syria, they support each other like. Solid.

Dawn Taylor: [00:37:36] Yeah, they're good. They get along really well.

Navid: [00:37:39] Yeah. Like Iran regime is providing drones left and right to bomb Ukraine and Kiev where my uncle lives there. So it is, it is, the Iranian regime is providing those things to Russia. Russia is providing riot systems to Iran. And China is dealing with Iran through all the sanctions to buy their oil, the natural gases, the major dealings and things happening. And then as a Democrat countries, what are we doing together that not validifies them, to give power to the people but not validifying them? That's all we need to do. We just need to, and basically raising up to our government and making a noise and making them understand the things that they have to do. But Canada made a move finally. Iran took a plane down that was flying down from Iran pretty much, stuff over in Ukraine to come down to Canada. They killed about 170 Canadians, mostly Iranian Canadians, but Canadians nevertheless. Another 60, 78 people were in there as exchange students coming here to study. And so that plane got like, literally, Iran regime they shot down the plane. Accidentally did it, they wanted to kill somebody in there or whatever, we don't know. It took over 1000 days, over three years for Canada to basically take an action against what has happened there. So trying to, you know, finally we had the point that we in Canada were calling the IRGC, the Iranian government, whatever is the terrorist group they are.

Dawn Taylor: [00:39:28] The terrorist regime. Yeah.

Navid: [00:39:30] Yeah. They finally calling them a terrorist regime. They finally having, they going after the people from that regime here, they trying to come up one on one. But that's Canada that's a small pocket of the world where we need to work to step up. We need US to step up. We need all the Europe to step up, to close down the embassies, to identify this regime as a terrorist regime internationally and not allow these stupid articles, to not normalize these things that happens. Like if you understand, it's just a simple understanding for anybody in the publication is saying out there, if there is any article that ever comes out right now that it's not clearly about getting this regime out of the country, ending the Islamic revolution that has happened, it's a lie. No change of morality police, no stepping down of the leader, no other news, is just a distraction as a propaganda to distract everybody, distract the world from what's happening so they can continue their mass killings, they can continue to do what they're doing.

Dawn Taylor: [00:40:44] Which is so horrible. So one of the things I'm sure, like when you and I had first talked about this, I mean, like you my heart breaks. I, actually it's funny, I just did an Instagram live this morning talking about like if every single person did one nice thing for someone this month, whether it's donate money to something or buy a meal for someone who's homeless or whatever it is, how different would our world be if everybody did something? And I just did a challenge to people. And it's interesting, so there's already messages coming in from people going, Thank you, thank you for reminding me of this so I can actually do something. But when you and I first talked, my heart was absolutely broken for you, your family, all those women in Iran. But then my first question was, okay, but what can I do? Like logistically, what can I do to actually make a difference? Because I don't know how to kick an embassy out of a country. And so one of the things that you had mentioned was you were like, even just write letters, write letters, send emails to your government and like, make a noise, post on your social media, you know, share this podcast so people can actually hear what's going on. And make that loud. Can you send those letters again so we can put them in the show notes for people?

Navid: [00:42:00] Sure, yeah. It often, you know, these things are exhausting for people because you don't want, like you know, but it is just so often that single post, that simple hashtag, like Mahsa Amini hashtag, the girl that they killed at 22 because of her hair was showing up. It was, it broke the records of hashtag on Twitter ever, and it's still continuing. So just making the sense that like hey, we, like, you know, in any level to tell the world that we are watching because that has an effect. People don't understand that we use our social media often just for fun and maybe sometimes the wrong way. But we all have this weapon of saying to the world what's normal and what's not normal, right? So it's often simple as that, like, you know, if you get an understanding from this podcast, or you do your research, you hear something that really goes to your heart and you say it's wrong. And just simply saying that, taking that action of just like, Hey, you know what, I am with these women in Iran and I hope that regime falls, right? Get them to get that message of like nobody in that country in their right mind would want that regime to stay because it's wrong. And yeah, for sure, you know, there's letters that has been sent to the parliaments and the UN that could be used but again, often the easiest way is making a post, having some hashtags that brings attention to UNICEF.

Navid: [00:43:51] Why is UNICEF not doing much with regards to kids in Iran with what happened? What is the UN just announce starting investigations in Iran, how long is that investigation is going to take? Right? Like investigations happens in two years from now, is two years late. The investigations that happened two years ago, that's what was needed. So how long are you going to hold up? Yeah, how long are you going to get away from us? But I say it is a little bit of just basically getting attention to UNICEF and the UNs and the governments in the world that they see that they are getting mentioned against this revolution is happening, they have to act faster because the message to them is that the world is watching you. Are you going to, are they going to fill the void? I doubt it. And one thing I want to say, that the people may not care about another country, maybe whatever. Iran, like any other country, this is, this fight, this thing that happened in Iran, the women uprising and now the whole country uprising against the regime, it is a true fight against democracy. It is us--

Dawn Taylor: [00:45:06] --- it is. It is a fight for democracy--

Navid: [00:45:08] -- us taking actions as human being across the board, is not just for that country and those people. It's raising awareness for all the government in the world that now we are smarter than ever. Now we can see, we can communicate without you telling us what to see and what to communicate. And that's a huge message that goes around because in the past, I feel like in the past five or six years, we kind of stepped back in the world. Sexism is more out there, like you hear it more the racism, you hear it more. Now you have US, you get the sense of us being divided. You have woke right and left and everything is extreme and everybody is...

Dawn Taylor: [00:46:03] Everything is extreme right now.

Navid: [00:46:05] Standing against each other. And the reason of it is because of what the media pushes on us. I don't think anybody can say, I nobody should be able to say that I'm fully Republican or fully Democrat. There is, you have to have an understanding of what's going on. Like you, some policies may work for your business and your life itself, but some policies from our government may work for just bettering everybody's life. And we have to be human and we have to understand what the middle ground is. And we have, and our government should learn to be that way, to not demean each other. Often when you see a politician's fight, they mocking each other, they pointing fingers at each other. There's never understanding of what's good about something, or what I'm going to add. It's never that aspect. So it's causing division. But with people that are raising voices together, with looking at the things themselves and understanding the true fact, is giving and highlighted the governments across the world that we are watching. We're more intelligent. And they have to step up on actually fixing our world. We talk about, you know, climate change. We talk about a lot of things. But the actual step up, like, you know, changing our world is what matters for all of us. So we want to, you all want to live in a better world, a better country. We want our health care system here to be better and fixed. We are benefiting from a public health system that we don't have to pay when the crisis comes. But it shouldn't be, like, you know, in a normal day, you don't have to pay it but when the crisis comes, that's the time it works, but it doesn't usually work in other levels. So we want to, you want to help. You want to help on that. We want to be able to use our immigrants that they come here with all their knowledge and education as to fall in the system better so the country can grow faster, rather than limiting it to the people that they save the country here. Right? So it is, it is a lot of, it is a lot of things that needs to be fixed here. But it starts from us voicing our concerns to the government as a whole, as saying them that we see it, we understand it. And then not often with mocking them and criticizing them, with making them understand that we're watching, and make them understand that we know what the right answer is and we're watching to see when you deliver it, right? And the more and more you put the voice internationally towards everything, the better world we're going to go towards, I guess.

Dawn Taylor: [00:48:50] I agree. And so just finishing off here because we've, I can't believe it's been an hour now, Navid. I love talking to you about this. It's such a different perspective. It's such a different viewpoint of it. Because you're not afraid to actually have these conversations and you're not guarding yourself and you're not blocking yourself from it, which I mean, for people listening, we had a conversation before that started of, is it okay if I even say your name? Is that okay and is that safe? And he was like, Yeah, I'm not hiding. Like, understand how big of a deal that is. Like, a lot of people are living in fear right now and are really quiet. And I think the point you made about how this is for democracy, this is showing the whole world that every government, when we rise up as a group change can happen and things can be done. And, you know, if nothing else, there are people from Iran in your community, in your town, in your life that you might not even realize are struggling right now, hurting right now, having a PTSD response to what's going on, have family members still there who are in danger, who are fighting on those front lines. Check in on them, see how you can support, how you can help, how you can do that. But send the letters, send the letters to your governments, do the posts, share, share it everywhere so people actually have an idea. But more than anything, I don't kno, this is like the start of our conversations we ever had on this was accept the fact that we're ignorant in so many of these areas and do the research, start asking questions, start looking and spreading the awareness, even just knowing, even just knowing what is going on and get curious. Right? Like I say this all the time to clients, like no judgment, just curiosity. Like get curious about what's actually happening.

Navid: [00:50:49] And it's okay to ask questions like yesterday somebody had a post on Facebook about that basically this morality police in Iran has been put aside and right away I wrote a sentence on it that like, hey, this this is not the right news because of these reasons. Here is where you can get more information. Right? So it is okay to ask, it is okay to talk about stuff, you don't always have to, you don't always have to make a statement that what it is, you can ask the questions to understand. We can, that's how we grow.

Dawn Taylor: [00:51:29] You're hitting cancel. Cancel culture right there. Everybody is so scared. Everyone is so scared right now to ask questions and to actually go, hey, I don't know, like, how many questions have I asked you about what it was like growing up there and what's actually going on and what's really happening there. But I said, I'm like, I'm going to come across as a complete idiot. Like, I don't know. I just know what I was taught in my small northern B.C. town in high school that did the best they could. But I want to know. I want to know more and what I can do, which is why we're doing this podcast and having this conversation, right?

Navid: [00:52:07] Yeah. And then you said it like, you know, it's often a lot of people my age in Iran or outside of Iran that has relations, relatives, families, maybe even financial situations in Iran, they are afraid to talk because the back of their head is like, what if the regime doesn't go, I'm being broken, I have so much to lose. But my answer to them and myself is that what do we have to do is that a 14 year old and 9 year old is getting shot that doesn't have to. We can't be, we know better than that. If anything, I think they are way better people than I ever be. And we have to understand that that the 9 year old or 10 year old that stands in front of the bullets, that 16 year old girl that removes her scarves and fights for the people, those guys, that's what we have to be, to be their voice. And we can't hide, as I'm saying it to my fellow Iranians, that they're afraid sometimes to step out in the street. They worried about their families. They have the right to worry about their families. They have the right to worry about the financial situations and everything. But this is the fight for life of everybody else in that country and eventually your life down the line because the country is getting worse by day and day. And eventually it's going to get to the point that it's not going to be bearable for them. So better to step out sooner against that regime than trying to wait and see what happens. And often, and often what is my risk? You know what I mean? Like, I'm sitting in my extreme comfort on this side of the board, this is the least I can do. And, you know, and I hope my voice and what I said, it raises a little bit of awareness that helps them a little bit, those guys that are risking actually their lives. And and basically, lastly, I just want to thank you for dedicating this time in your podcast and getting this done.

Dawn Taylor: [00:54:17] Seriously, this whole podcast is about like the things no one wants to talk about, the hard conversations. And this is one of them, right? This is one of them. And it's very special to my heart. You know how much I love and adore your family and especially you are to me. And having these conversations over these last few months about what's actually been going on and even just being able to share that with my inner circle of like, Hey, do you guys actually know what's happening right now? Even actually paying attention to this has been really powerful. And I hope that, I hope this episode goes viral. I really hope it goes viral strictly for the fact of I want people to hear and understand what is actually going on and just shift some perspective, if nothing else.

Navid: [00:55:01] Thank you, Dawn. I really appreciate your time putting this and inviting me to your show.

Dawn Taylor: [00:55:06] Well, you're so welcome. So for everybody listening, we're going to have a bunch of resources for you in the show notes. So TheTaylorWay.ca/podcast, go down to the episode with Navid, you will see it there at the bottom. This episode, by the time this episode comes out, it's going to be a few more weeks from when we recorded it. We were at the right before Christmas right now, but when it comes out, I will try to have an update for you on what's going on in those show notes. I'm also going to get some resources from Navid on where you can go to follow to get better news of what's happening and maybe even a list of like the rights that are actually being taken away. Because I think right now a lot of people believe it's just the hair, that's it. Like it's just the hair and that that's the issue and that's what everyone's trying to do. And just like, come on, put on a scarf. It's not that big of a deal. But when you talk about women aren't allowed to like travel without their husband's permission or their dad's permission and all of the rights that have been taken away from 55% of this country, we will put together a list of some of those rights. Some letters, we are going to give a ton of information for you guys so that, honestly, being a little bit blunt, you have no excuse. You have no excuse to not know what's going on and to not be able to do something about it. So check out the show notes. If you enjoyed today's episode, please leave a review anywhere where you are listening to your podcasts. And again, thank you so much, Navid. This was awesome.

Navid: [00:56:36] Thank you, Dawn. All right. Take care.

Dawn Taylor welcomes CEO and Executive-Producer of Modern Muse Media, Jesse Schewchuk, to the show to talk about what’s never talked about: menopause. Jesse wants to “make the m-word mainstream” and open discussion up so women can find the support they need in menopause.

Jesse and Dawn both lost mothers earlier in life, before they had entered menopause, and they talk about the disadvantages of not feeling prepared or having any conversations before they themselves became menopausal. Jesse wants menopause to become a more open conversation because it’s so much more than just jokes about hot flashes. She explains how it’s like a total brain re-wiring and the emotional upheaval it brings.

Dawn and Jesse shed light on the reality of what menopause looks like from their personal experiences: the truth about hot flashes, heightened emotion, brain fog, and body changes. And they share important advice and tips on treatments, therapies, supplements, and mindsets that have worked to help them regulate their journeys. This episode isn’t just for anyone experiencing menopause but for the spouses, partners, and friends of those in menopause too. 

About Jesse Schewchuk:

Multi-award-winning Television Producer Jesse Schewchuk is the Founder and CEO of a thriving Video Training Agency, Modern Muse Media. With over two decades of television experience, Jesse is now focused on helping industry professionals build their brand with intention and capitalize on the tangible impact of video as the premier medium for business promotion and marketing.  Her achievements led to a Cover Feature in Avenue Magazine's "Top 40 under 40" and a nominee of a Canadian Screen Award for Best Dramatic TV Series (this is the Emmy of Canada, Folks!). Jesse is currently the President of the Edmonton Business Association and is Past Vice-President of Women in Film and Television Alberta (WIFTA).  Her passion is to entertain, train, and inspire people through the power of story and video every single day.

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

Tips and Tricks for Surviving Menopause

• Code word for extreme feelings to use with a partner
• No caffeine
• Heated blanket, warmth, full-body hugs
• Meditation, sensory overload plan, understanding triggers
• B100 complex and camomile tea
• IV therapy
• Yoga for menopause
• Red light therapy

— 

Dawn Taylor - The Taylor Way: website | facebook | instagram | linkedin

Jesse Schewchuk - CEO / Executive-Producer at Modern Muse Media: website | instagram | linkedin

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Transcript:

Dawn Taylor: [00:00:09] Hey, hey, hey. Welcome to The Taylor Talks. I,okay, let's be really honest. This conversation today is going to be highly entertaining because my guest and I are a little bit ridiculous together when we are together in real life. And I can't imagine this will be any different. But today we have Miss Jesse Schewchuk, also known as Jesse Schewchuk, and she is a multi award winning television producer. She's the founder and CEO of this crazy, insane, thriving video training agency. If you've seen any of my ridiculous reels, it's probably because she's convinced me to do them. And she's been doing TV and producing and video for longer than you and I can imagine, before we even thought it was really a thing other than watching on an actual television. So today we are going to dive into a really crazy topic - and men, stick around because you need to hear this, too - but we are going to be digging into the topic of menopause and what we weren't taught from a standpoint of not having moms anymore because they've passed away. So just a warning for anyone listening, we will go inside a little bit of the loss of that and how that shifts our lives moving forward, what the men in our lives need to know in order to stay sane themselves, but also to help keep us sane, but also just the stuff that nobody actually talks about and we all act like isn't happening because we live in a weird, crazy, secretive world. So stick around. And at the end we will tell you how to get a hold of her, where to find her. She maybe has some cool shit up her sleeve that, I know I said a bad word, that involves all of this topic. So you totally want to stick around for that. Miss Jesse, welcome to the show.

Jesse Schewchuk: [00:01:57] Thank you for having me.

Dawn Taylor: [00:01:58] You are so welcome. So what is the topic? What are we diving into today and what do you wish people talked about?

Jesse Schewchuk: [00:02:05] We're going to, we're going to make the m-word mainstream. We're going to make the m- word mainstream. Talk about some menopause, so sexy and awesome.

Dawn Taylor: [00:02:18] And sweaty and hormonal.

Jesse Schewchuk: [00:02:23] And itchy and brain foggy and and and... I don't even know who I am after this last year because it's, it is a much more of a wild ride than I think one could have even imagined. For some. For some.

Dawn Taylor: [00:02:41] Totally. So a little bit of a back story is Jesse and I both lost moms at a younger age, prior, probably I don't even know if it would be prior to them starting menopause, but prior to us knowing that they were starting menopause or any of the symptoms or any of the things. And let's dive into that a little bit. So how old were you when your mom passed away?

Jesse Schewchuk: [00:03:09] So I passed away when...

Dawn Taylor: [00:03:11] Whoa, whoa, whoa. I was like, You're dead?

Jesse Schewchuk: [00:03:14] Yeah. My mom passed away at 48 and I had just turned 24. I later discovered just even in the last year of my investigation that she had early symptoms of menopause in her late thirties prior to her chemo treatments. My mom had breast cancer. Of course, when she had treatments, it put it into hyperdrive. But early menopause is very normal for our family. I found out my grandma actually started around 38, 39, so late thirties.

Dawn Taylor: [00:03:48] Oh my goodness.

Jesse Schewchuk: [00:03:49] Of course I wouldn't have known this. The only thing that was ever discussed or that I knew of about menopause is hot flashes, which are, which is in jest. Jokes are made about it, right? It's just like, oh, you know, somebody open a window. It's so much more. And I think that there are a lot of women suffering in silence. So I most definitely have not had my mom as a resource, nor did she talk about it, nor do many.

Dawn Taylor: [00:04:19] No, and they don't. So I was 28 when my mom passed away and she was 52. And yeah, like we joked about it, we joked about like, oh, mom's hot or mom's really grumpy today, but it was really not dealt with any different than like someone PMSing. It was almost held on that same vein as just the same as someone PMSing and nobody talked about it. And I know for me it started after a hysterectomy and I had a radical hysterectomy where everything got taken out and I went from like, No, I'm good, to like full blown menopause in under a week, like hot flashes, night sweats, crazy hormones, all of the emotions. And I was 34. And I remember sitting at a family thing with my husband's mom and I'm like, Oh, my word, my mother in law and I are going through this at the exact same time. And we were like comparing stories on it, but it still wasn't, it still never felt like this, like safe, open conversation that I could have.

Jesse Schewchuk: [00:05:24] Yeah, I think that there's an embarrassment. When you think of menopause, you don't see women in a in a beautiful light when, how it's often painted. You think of them having extra weight, potentially sweating, unable to cope. And that's the picture that's painted, when what is really happening - and I'm in the process of learning and sponging of all of the information I possibly can so I can help myself - is a total reconfigure and rewiring of your brain. I mean, this is serious. This is very, this is intense stuff. And all of those side effects are a cause of that, a rewiring of your brain. When you think about that, when you think about that, there are only a few times in your life when you have that. Of course, as women particularly, we'll have that when we're born. You know, the wiring in those years, right? And there'll be that rewiring it again, or further wiring, in adolescence when you go through the hormones and it washes away, your brain basically shifts to anything that's not necessary or useful and you rewire or build on that wiring. And then we have menopause. It's just so much more than meets the eye.

Dawn Taylor: [00:06:50] Oh, so much more. I often remember when I was going through it at first - and, so funny, embarrassing story - at that point I owned a restaurant franchise and I'd get brought out for these crazy fancy dinners and hockey games and all these things. And I didn't understand what a hot flash really did to your body and how crazy you felt when you were having one. And I was sitting at this dinner with some very fancy-pants people that had flown in from Toronto to have this dinner with me. And I started having a hot flash. And I actually thought I was going to die because I wasn't dressed in proper layers. I didn't know how to manage it. I didn't know anything about supplements, like my doctor was a waste of time when it came to that, he was pretty much like, Nah, you can take some estrogen if you want, go about your day and enjoy. And I, this is so embarrassing and I can't believe I'm going to put this out there, I actually took a drink of my water, put the ice in my napkin, put it on my lap, and dropped the ice cubes on the floor. And I kicked my shoes and my socks off under the table in this like five star restaurant and was rubbing my feet on these ice cubes. And I kept doing it. And we're having like contract negotiation talks, it was this whole thing, and all of a sudden I just couldn't do it anymore. And I had a scarf on and I tried to take the scarf off and I got, like, flustered and it got caught in my hair and I got all like, you know how out of sorts you feel in those moments, right? Like you've lost complete control of your body. And this scarf came off and flung across the table and smacked this man across the face. And I was like trying to pull it back, and I'm dragging it through everyone's food. Like it was actually one of the most mortifying business moments in my entire life. And I remember just sitting there being like, They have no idea. Like, they have no idea. And what in holy hell is this feeling going on in my body right now? And how would, like how would you describe a hot flash? Because I know how I describe it.

Jesse Schewchuk: [00:08:57] It's interesting because when you talk about that, the place that I go to is - not male bashing at all - it's that in business and I own my own business, you own your own business, but even business leaders, women, we need to deal with this layer under the surface that we're hiding or that we're trying to hide, sometimes not doing a very good job while doing business. And it's really impacted my world of doing business. And it actually brings up what my hot flashes are. So to answer your question, I don't get the hot body flashes. I will if I've had too much wine the night before, I'll get some of those, maybe through the night or the next day. But I don't really do that very often anymore, so I don't experience those. But I experience hot flashes in emotion, and my hot flashes are flashes of rage. And even when you started to talk about it, I started feeling angry because there's a bit of an unfairness or a misunderstanding and it's like, you don't have to deal with this because it is really a body takeover. It is the flipping of the lid. It is the lizard brain. I have tons of tools. I've done lots of work. But when I get my hot flash, which comes in emotion, it is a wave that is body takeover. It's possession of my everything. I don't feel like I can tap into my tools. I'm angry. I do feel warmer, definitely, but I don't feel emotionally regulated. And to an extreme, and to an extreme that I would feel - and the only thing I can compare to - is a bit of the teenage rage where you're just like, you're just angry, you're angry at the world and you don't really have a reason and everything's going good, but you're just angry. That's how my hot flashes come through. The heat comes in emotion.

Dawn Taylor: [00:10:47] Crazy. And like, nobody talks about this, nobody talks about the stuff. And I know, so you and I had a different topic for today, we were going to talk about something completely different, and as you've been dealing with this - and side note, Jesse and I are very, very dear friends - and as we've been talking about this behind the scenes, trying to figure out tools and trying to figure out how to manage it and having those conversations, I know, I've been there, like you'll get through this, right? It doesn't mean this isn't going to suck in the process, but like, here's the doctor you need to talk to. Here's a treatment you need to do kind of thing, right? We started talking about this and like, why? Why is no one discussing this? Why is this not a topic of conversation ever?

Jesse Schewchuk: [00:11:34] Every day? And why is hormone therapy the only answer? So have you talked to your doctor? Are you on hormones? Are you? And it's like, no. You know, from what I understand, through my naturopath, I've gone into early menopause because of a family history and also due to stress. So trigger warning here, when things got really super bad for me, I was in a place of burnout again. Basically, my body had depleted itself of cortisol entirely, and so my adrenals were tapping into my sex hormones, which set my body off-balance hormonally. It reached a point in June of 2022 that I was in bed, not getting out of bed, crying, sobbing, sobbing relentlessly. This is not me. I'm a jump out of bed, take the day on kind of gal.

Dawn Taylor: [00:12:26] Oh, anyone who's met you, you're like the life of the party and the bubbly one in the room.

Jesse Schewchuk: [00:12:30] Yeah, but my daughter, she was sitting on the side of the my bed and she said, Mummy, do I need to call someone? And that's when I was like, okay, this is, I need to get some answers. I need to get some answers because if I'm going through this, then somebody else is going through this. And I wasn't necessarily suicidal because I didn't want to go on, like things are good, there was, it was something totally different. It was the inability to, it was that takeover. It was that emotional takeover. And so that's when I really started to explore other avenues that were not just hormone therapy. And there are many, I'm so happy to say there are many. And again, if we talked about the stuff we're going through more, we would see the rise up of the remedies. And that's been IV therapy, hormone yoga, on and on and on, like the vitamins, minerals, like there's just there's lots of things that you can do.

Dawn Taylor: [00:13:34] I may have bullied you at one point to go for IV therapy.

Jesse Schewchuk: [00:13:40] Yes. Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:13:41] Like full on bullied you.

Jesse Schewchuk: [00:13:45] Well, and I mean, I'm just grateful because, like I could to be in that dark of a place was mostly because what, all because my hormones were out of whack. It was just so out of whack. And that's the kinds of things that it can cause. And I think that there's knowledge and education around some of this stuff, including anxiety and depression. Is it, you know, could it be some early menopause? Could it be perimenopause that's causing some of this stuff? And oftentimes we go to an anti depressant, for example, which is another kind of remedy, which I'm very open to, and there's lots of reason for that. But wouldn't it be interesting if more study and more information was in and around the root of the connection to some of these things? And if we were to solve some of these other areas, service this, it could, as a result, help with some of these other side effects.

Dawn Taylor: [00:14:45] Oh, 100%. And it's interesting. So for a lot of people, they don't understand the cycles of menopause, and that was something I didn't understand, is there's perimenopause is like your pre-menopause, and that's when your body has stopped producing the estrogen. And now it's just slowly being absorbed out of your body. So any hormones that you've created and are stored in your body at that point. So weird side effect is when people go through it faster because it's the hormones are stored in your fat cells. So if you have a bit more weight on you, it actually is a nicer process, this is what I was told by a hormone specialist, but with that, it's the depletion of those hormones in your system and the last of them, like the remaining of them. So it starts this whole process of getting rid of them. But that is when you feel the worst is in perimenopause because your body is all of a sudden not producing in the same way. So all of a sudden, like, you age faster and your wrinkles are shifting faster and you get like weird skin on the back of your hands. And like, all of these things are shifting all at the same time. And I remember a doctor saying, like, you will go from youth hands to grandma hands in a matter of years. And that's all it is, is the lack of the collagen and the estrogen in your body. And that's what's going on. Right? And I was like, okay, but then as soon as all that estrogen is out of your system is when you actually go into menopause. And menopause is like kind of you're, like, okay, now I'm in menopause. And then that's a whole different thing. And then you have post-menopause, kind of when it's all done and now you're just old. Right, now you're just like your body is considered elderly, you've gone through menopause and now you're on the other side of it. But nobody ever described it that way. Nobody ever told me like, oh, hey, by the way, one of the side effects, by the way, of not having estrogen in your body is like you can have heart problems and osteoporosis and there's all these other things that could happen. So you need to like up your self care. You need to have some of these treatments and some of those things. And here I am, 34, trying to figure this out. And my body, because of its magical, I don't know, weirdness, my body doesn't accept hormone therapy. So they put me on scary doses of hormone therapy and did all the bloodwork and the urine samples and everything in my body would show up that I had no hormones. So for me, that was never an option. I tried for years and it wasn't an option. So when everyone around me is like, well Dawn, just go on hormone replacement therapy, it's fine. And I'm like, Yeah, dropping $700 a month right now to do hormone therapy and it's doing nothing. That's for I really had to go, Okay, what is this? How does this work? And then what alternative treatments can I do that might help?

Jesse Schewchuk: [00:17:44] Definitely. I think that the thing that caught me off guard was the grieving of one's identity. And let me explain. So when your brain is rewired, you know, we talk about brain fog. We talk about a lack of ability to recall. I mean, I am a person that was, that does, I am a little bit OCD for sure. And I am particular and attention to details and on top of things. Right. And the memory, I would be able to remember names and phone numbers, like to this day I try to remember phone numbers still, try to utilize that part of the brain. What I found is like I was literally, I felt like I was losing my mind. And this is the part that people don't talk about. I felt like I was going crazy. And this is a common theme I'm hearing with women. This is the part that we don't, is we think it's only us. And I couldn't remember things. I couldn't recall things. I have a photographic memory and I would take notes and usually be able to see my words on the page to recall: didn't happen anymore. So what I'm going through right now is almost a grieving of an identity crisis because I'm not the person that I used to be. I can't achieve and deliver and execute the same way I used to be able to. That's loss. There's a loss there and a frustration that comes from just not being able to be who I, and I would almost set am, but was. That's not me anymore. And I'm likely not going to reclaim a lot of that back. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. And that's where I'm not the expert. I'm just definitely just the lived experience talking about this, but just encouraging folks to talk more about it because the crazy brains, I'm going to tell you, I literally some days feel like I'm losing my mind.

Dawn Taylor: [00:19:39] Oh, 100%. And oh, yeah, we're not doctors, don't listen to anything we're saying. Just, there's the warning. We're not doctors. But it's true. It is so true and so legit. I remember looking at my husband at times and I was like, I literally feel like there's an alien inside my brain. And he was like, What? And some of the things that we had to come up with in our house is, like, we have a code word and it's 'melting'. And melting is like I'm not emotionally handling myself right now and I'm not coping really well and I don't even know why. Like, I don't actually know why because this was the greatest day or life's going well or I just signed a good contract or whatever. It doesn't even matter. It was like all of these things are going really well and I could commit murder with no remorse, and I'm not sure why. And I'd always talk about it like that, where I was like, I literally feel like I'm an ice cube that's melting. And I'm like, But no, I'm still in the freezer. Like, why am I melting? Like, I should be fine.

Jesse Schewchuk: [00:20:46] Actually, for men, it's so hard to understand because everything can be great and you're still experiencing these emotions. This is the hot flash, if you will for me. It's like, and so with men and partners, you can try and logic your way through that and go, But I don't get it, we're going to Mexico or...

Dawn Taylor: [00:21:06] There's no logic. There's no logic in a menopausal moment.

Jesse Schewchuk: [00:21:13] And that's what kind of makes you feel like you're going crazy, too, because you go, Why? I shouldn't be feeling like this. And then you start with that self shame spiral. And that criticism is like, No, I shouldn't be feeling like this and I should just be happy. And why am I not just happy? And it's like because you're actually not in control of your body right now with your hormone shift and maybe you can go have that, or maybe it's time to make an appointment for an IV therapy or, and that's what I've really started to see are the signs and identify the triggers that bring some of that stuff on. But there are times when it's like, I don't know where, right?

Dawn Taylor: [00:21:54] It's like, I just have no idea what's happening right now. I often equated it to the Hulk. Like in the movies, like he's so calm and he's so peaceful and he's so loving and soft and gentle. And then out of nowhere, he's the Hulk and he destroys his entire world. And then he's like, naked and vulnerable and back to being all soft and gentle again. And nobody really knows what set him off in the first place. But in the times you need him to Hulk, he won't Hulk. And that's so much what it's like often in a menopause brain, at least I know for us. And so some tips I think... I think we need to give people some tips, honestly, on like what's worked for us. So for us, like, the melting has been amazing. So if I'm starting to feel it or he's, my husband, starting to experience it. And I mean, let's be honest, I've been going through this now for eight years. So I'm like, I'm an old pro at this it feels like at this point, but he'll look at me and go Melting? if I'm starting to just act a little bit irrational or my hormones are like, he can feel that I'm not really where I should be, or I'm arguing with him for no reason or I'm fighting for no reason, or I'm like lashing out or I'm angry for something for no reason. And he'll gently be like, Melting? And that's a code to be like, Oh, I need to shut up. Like, I need to actually shut my mouth because anything and everything that might come out of it is venom. And that's not actually going to benefit anybody in this moment. And in that I can go yes, or just nod. And he knows. He knows because we've discussed it, by the way, not during a melting moment, but we discussed it when I had a solid, clear brain years ago, because it will still happen a lot. But one of the things that he'll do is like we've already preemptively put a list of things in place of like, what could I need in that moment? So it's like, do you just need a big stair hug? And that's, because he's so much taller than me, I will stand on a step so that I'm equal height to him, or closer. So I'll actually, like, stand on a stair and, or on a little stool if we don't have stairs in a house at that point. And I need him to hug me, but I need him to hold me. Like I need to feel like he is holding all of my broken little parts and with his squeeze can somehow manage to put them back together. And typically that results in like a good solid 30 plus second hug. And sometimes I can't hug him back. I just need to stand there and have him just hold me, because then I can be like, okay, okay, I'm going to be okay. You're my rock. Problem with that, he's gone a lot.

Jesse Schewchuk: [00:24:48] And I was going to say, yeah, and I don't live with my partner and so I don't, you don't have access. So what if you don't have access to that?

Dawn Taylor: [00:24:56] So when I don't have access to it, I will call him. If he's not available, I will personally go down my own list. And so one of the things I do is I do the infant check that I talk about in coaching all the time. Right? Is like we age to a certain point and then we revert backwards, which is why we end up like, needing diapers when we're old. And so I know I've joked with you about the infant check where it's like in that moment, have I eaten? Have I had something to drink? Are my clothes pinching me in weird spots? Have I gone to the bathroom? Right? Am I just really tired or do I need a nap? I will infant check myself. That's always my very, very first thing I do because those are five things that I can be in control of immediately. And often, that is a very, very powerful piece is at least two out of the five of those are out of whack and I can stop myself and take a deep breath. I also make sure I don't have extra caffeine in those moments. Because caffeine is known for increasing your anxiety feelings and all of those emotions, which just does not help the situation at all. So why would I put myself through that? So that's not the time to go have chocolate. That's not the time to go do any of those things with caffeine, because it's really not going to benefit me. So I always double check that. Another one that I do is I feel, I have weighted blankets, I have a heated mattress on my bed, things like that, because sometimes I just need to feel like I'm being held, right? And I need that. So I will just go like lay in my bed and just have a moment and allow my brain to do whatever crazy it needs to do. And so listen to music, listen to a podcast, do something that's not going to incite anger and rage. I'm not going to listen to, like, a political podcast or a relationship one where they're talking about a perfect relationship. You know, I'm not going to do that. I'm very much more like, No, no, no. I'm going to listen to really peaceful Christmas music right now. Because that is my head space and that's about all I can emotionally handle right now. But I do a few of those things. I always change my outfit when I'm feeling like that. Because there's something about a fresh outfit. Sometimes I'll even go and re-shower for the day, and it's a lot of these, like, little shifts, little changes that have worked incredibly well for me.

Jesse Schewchuk: [00:27:09] Yeah, definitely. So it's funny because the little things that will trigger you, I find, when you're going through this, are different or more so than before. So some things that have definitely helped me were even changing my ringtone, whereas I have salsa cell ringtone that used to kind of make me laugh. It would... Yeah. Send me into anxiety and a little bit of anger, cause me to jump, right? So I would change that. Same with the alarm, getting up in the morning. I'm making sure that I'm making time for meditation, even if I'm not really in it or listening, like leading it or feeling it. I set my alarm clock to not be something that startles me or wakes me up in a panic. And then I do, even if it's just a ten minute meditation to just try and get into a better headspace. Because sometimes you can just wake up angry, sometimes you can just wake up agitated. And those are some things that definitely help get things shifted before even getting out of bed and having to tackle the day. Overall, it just feels like a capacity or an incapacity to handle as much as you once were able to. So whether that's through recall, whether that's through your skill set and the amount of work, but it's also through that emotional intelligence or capacities. And so sounds, like, of people in rooms, large rooms, I can only take those in doses. And I usually say to whoever I'm going with, if I'm going with somebody to an event, that there's a certain timeout or that it's agreed upon ahead of time that's the safe time if one is starting to feel those emotions. So I think you're right about just being aware that you are changed, allowing that change to occur, but then setting yourself up to win. So what are the things that you can shift and change in your own world that are in your own control to be easier on yourself? Something that you've shared with me is radical self-care, right? And when we think self care, it's the woman in the bathtub with a glass of wine. And while that is nice, radical self-care is not only that. It can be, I think it can be. I mean, it can be very real. But I found that radical self-care means that you're not signing up to as many networking events in a week that you normally would. And I had to learn this the hard way, where I was like raw and dead and unable to cope with life after, or you are going to bed at that certain time that you've said you're going to, so you're going to sleep at nine or 930 so that you're getting the hours that you can or need for your brain to rewire and making the hard choices. The radical self care, I find, is often the the tough choices that you don't want to make, the eating the salad, it's the nourishing the body, saying no to bad things because I find that one is just far more sensitive to everything. Everything.

Dawn Taylor: [00:30:23] Well, and with that is honoring yourself and your body and what it's going through. And sometimes you just actually don't have the capacity to do what people need you to do. And that's okay. It's giving yourself this different level of grace to be like, You know what? I'm transitioning right now. That sounds like the wrong wording, but you know what I mean? Like, I'm transitioning.

Jesse Schewchuk: [00:30:50] I think it's great.

Dawn Taylor: [00:30:52] But it's like I'm transitioning into a new person. I'm transitioning, like my hormones are shifting and all of these things are shifting and all of these things are going on. But I'm also not 9 or 12 or 13 or 15 and going through this where all I have to do is go to school and I can cry hysterically into my pillow at night and all my friends are just going to complain about the cute boy at school that looked at me funny. And I can have these raging hormones. Like, that's a totally justified thing when you're a child or you're a kid or you're a teenager. Like that's allowed and it's accepted and people just laugh at it and they're like, No, no, no, it's okay. Give them grace. Yet somehow we're not allowed that or we aren't given that. And it's funny because as we're saying this, I can hear my husband's voice in the back of my head going, No, you're not asking for it. And if he listens to this, he's going to laugh that I've said that because that is a conversation that we have had, is the expectations that we put on ourselves, that we also have assumed that our partners are putting on us, that they're not, and that sometimes we have to explain what's going on and we need to talk about what's going on. And we need to just be like, you know what, I have crazy brain right now. Can we not, like we, I need you to stop this conversation in its tracks because this is not actually going to benefit anybody. And we're probably going to end up blowing up our entire lives over this.

Jesse Schewchuk: [00:32:19] But I think the beginning of our conversation in awareness that, the things that aren't talked about in a household, on a personal level, in doctor's offices, I mean, just around the world, you know, half the population is going to go through this. It is monumental. It is menopause. How do we make this m-word mainstream? How do we get the word out and be able to have those conversations and know that with teenagers, like you said, if there is that parallel of some kind of life transition, when they're going through that, it's like you set parameters with they slam their door, you let them have their space, they'll come back around. You know.

Dawn Taylor: [00:33:01] There's like puberty parties, right? Literally, this is like the Pinterest mom thing, is it's like, welcome to womanhood. There's like this whole party that goes on like, we celebrate this, yet when we get old, we shut up.

Jesse Schewchuk: [00:33:18] Yeah. And menopause is a celebration. And as much as there are side effects and such, you talk to the women who are on the other side of it and you are the elders now, you are the wisdom of our world, really. And you've gone through this rite of passage. I find, and I've heard and I am experiencing that all of the shit in your life that you have never dealt with--

Dawn Taylor: [00:33:45] --all comes up in menopause.

Jesse Schewchuk: [00:33:46] You need to deal with it, probably because it's this beautiful rite of passage that when you get through the eye of the needle, only then are you on the other side where you're in that place of elder wisdom and being able to offer that advice because you've gone through that rite of passage. Yeah, we got to break open the conversations and make the m-word mainstream. That is definitely something that I am passionate about and I know, I just know there are so many women and men who are suffering in silence. There's divorce that's happening, separation, family trauma because of menopause. And so we need to bring this to the light, out of this dark place, out of the darkness, and create some parameters and support networks and remedies and systems for people to be able to get through this, to thrive in this place. We have to do it because it's so hard to go through alone. Definitely. And I know just starting to have these conversations, a lot of people, a lot of men are frustrated and sad or furious that they can't help more or they don't know what to do to support their partner or they're fed up, right?

Dawn Taylor: [00:35:08] 100% they are.

Jesse Schewchuk: [00:35:09] So, yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:35:11] And at the same time, I'm going to play devil's advocate in one way. At the same time, as I'm hilariously hearing my husband's voice in the back of my head when I say this because this is what he'd say if he was here, is at the same time, just like we really need to not use PMS as an excuse to be a bitch or PMS as an excuse to be nasty to our partner, we need to do the same with menopause. Like while we have crazy brain and while we have all these things, we still, like it still comes down to like, don't use it as an excuse to be mean or cruel or nasty or any of those things. That's where the conversations need to happen with your spouse, with your partner, to be like, Hey, how can I support you in this? But what parameters and boundaries do you need to put in place when you're in that moment so that we're not hurting each other? So that we're not hurting each other, so there we're not attacking, we're not digging, we're not picking, we're not doing any of those things because it is so common. It is so common. So I know a few of the things, like I listed a few of the things that worked for me. Another one that I know has worked really well is IV therapy, that's been really good for me. Girl just bought a red light and I'm now offering red light therapy to clients or anyone who wants to come by my house. Red light is huge for that. I know there's all of these other options. There's all of these options to get through this. And we can do it with dignity, grace and class if we choose to. If we choose to. But we actually have to choose that. And so husbands, talk to your wives. Talk to your wives and be like, Can you explain it? Can you explain what it actually feels like? I remember the first time I was trying to explain what a hot flash felt like, and I was like, I don't think you get it. My husband is like, you know how gross it is to roll over in bed and have you wet? Like you're literally, like, damp to the touch. And I was like, whoa, we need to have a conversation about this. And yes, there's things I can do from like dietary supplements and all these things to slow down the night sweats and slow those things down or the fabric of the sheets or the fabric of my pajamas or whatever. But I was like, it feels like an internal fire. It feels like my body literally started on fire in the center of my body, and it is burning from the inside out. So it's not an option of just like turning the temperature down to cool down because it's on the inside. Like, I don't think you understand. And he was like, Oh, and I was like, No, it's like a burning inferno in my body. And so I actually let him, when I was having a hot flash, I was like, Look, this is where my hot flashes come out of my body because everyone has a spot on their body that they typically come out of, their head, their chest, their thighs, their stomach. And I was like, No, no, feel this. And he's like, Holy hell, that's hot. And I was like, Yes. And it's hotter on the inside. And he's like, Well, that explains why you're so unhappy when you're having one. But it was this vulnerable, open conversation about like, what is actually physically going on in my body. So partners talk, talk to each other about what's going on, support each other, watch for cycles. And if you're like, Wow, my wife goes nuts every 22 days, like every three weeks, she's losing her mind. Guess what? At two weeks be like, Hey, I booked you an IV treatment, or, Hey, you should do this, right? That is the time like you can actually support in this place, because there's also a lot of amazing things that come out of it. Like Jesse said, there's so many amazing things that can come out of menopause, but we have to get through it. It is like going through labor, just lasting longer, right? Like we don't have a choice. We just have to go through it. But friends, talk to each other about this. Talk about the good, the bad and the ugly. Talk about the weird stuff that comes, right? Like the weird smells or the weird sweats or the crazy brain.

Jesse Schewchuk: [00:39:14] Yes. I'll never forget my first night sweat and I woke up and I was just like, Oh, my gosh, do I have the flu? Do I have a fever myself? Did I pee? Yeah. I got soaking wet like you could, you could wring out the sheets. That's shocking. That is a shocking experience for someone that's not expecting. When you think night sweats, you just, like, blot your head a little bit. And it's like, No, I'm not, you're going to feel like you jumped in a pool. It's like, what the hell?

Dawn Taylor: [00:39:44] It's so true. I remember waking Chad up some nights and being like, You need to get out of bed. And he's like, It's three in the morning. I was like, I'm changing the sheets. And he was like, Okay, then.

Jesse Schewchuk: [00:39:56] This is happening.

Dawn Taylor: [00:39:56] I was like you need to just move. Thankfully, things have gotten better. Thankfully things have gotten better, but it's legitimately a thing.

Jesse Schewchuk: [00:40:06] It is legitimately a thing. It's more than just a hot flash here and there. It is a thing that shows up in many different ways for different women in any one or multiple of some of the symptoms that we've talked about. And probably many, many more. So this is why I am a huge advocate for conversation around this and creating some foundations and support structures and things for us to understand that and get through it again, like you said, with more grace and... and less challenging. Definitely, and isolating, because I think it can be very, very challenging and isolating for sure.

Dawn Taylor: [00:40:50] Totally, and friends if your friend's going through it, deliver a care package. Just deliver a care package, whatever they need. Just to let them know that they're loved, they're seen, they're heard, they're understood. That it's okay if they have crazy brain. It's okay. It doesn't matter, you're going to love them and go shopping with them if they gain a bit of weight because, oh, I don't know, that happens in menopause. Or is it you're going to laugh with them when they're hair thins or you're going to sit with them and count wrinkles with them if you need to, or buy them weird face creams? Like it's all of these things that are so awkward and so uncomfortable. And when you feel like an absolute Frankenstein freak walking through life because you're like, But no, on the outside I look just fine. But on the inside you're like, If they could see inside me right now, I'd be committed.

Jesse Schewchuk: [00:41:37] Yeah, totally unrecognizable and crazy. Who am I? What is happening to me?

Dawn Taylor: [00:41:47] That's always the thing. It's like, What is this? So the good news is it does get easier.

Jesse Schewchuk: [00:41:53] There are some things that really, really, really do help. And I am so interested in finding a more, you know, like it's conversations like this with chats and comments that are like, And I tried this and I tried this and this worked for that. And in such sharing of information that's so powerful. So.

Dawn Taylor: [00:42:12] Oh, one of my greatest tricks was from somebody, when I just walked up, I walked to this woman in the grocery store and I was like, How old are you? She was like 58. And I was like, Do you get hot flashes? And she was like, Oh, sweetie. And I was like, How did you deal with them? Like a perfect stranger? Because I was so desperate for knowledge and information. And she looked at me and she goes, B100 complex and camomile tea. And I went, What? She's like, take B100 complex every morning. And she's like, camomile tea all day, every day. Just sip it. Hot, cold, doesn't matter. She's like that got rid of probably 80% of mine. And for me, that worked. That worked so freakin well. I mean, who wants to drink camomile tea all day, every day? But it worked. So when I felt out of control in that area, I was like, okay, I'm going to do this and I'm going to suffer through the chemical tea - chamomile with honey does taste better with the vanilla - but I would do that because I was like, Thank you for this weird menopause hack from a perfect stranger in a store. And yeah, we just need to talk louder. So if anyone's listening to this, I mean, we know someone's listening to this because I get numbers, but whoever's listening to this, if you have a spouse that's going through this, can you please, please, please, like, send me a message. You can go through my website [email protected]. Send us a message. I will share them with Jesse. On like how we can support you if your wife is going through it or your partner is going through it. But also if you're the woman, like, we want to hear from you. We want to hear from you on like what your symptoms are, what you're going through, what's worked, what hasn't worked. So we can actually share this.

Jesse Schewchuk: [00:43:55] You bet.

Dawn Taylor: [00:43:56] So we can actually put this out there?

Jesse Schewchuk: [00:43:58] Yeah! Did I say let's make the m-word mainstream?

Dawn Taylor: [00:44:01] No, I don't think you did. I think you should say it at least one more time.

Jesse Schewchuk: [00:44:05] I think I said it. We got this, we got this. Humans, we got this menopause thing. Let's do this.

Dawn Taylor: [00:44:13] We totally do. So at the end of every show I ask just a bunch of silly questions and we're going to do the same today because it's kind of fun. So, Miss Jesse, favorite place you have ever traveled?

Jesse Schewchuk: [00:44:27] Hmm, Favorite place?

Dawn Taylor: [00:44:30] Yeah.

Jesse Schewchuk: [00:44:32] I would definitely have to say Baja. We've traveled there a few times and gone exploring up the coast of the Sea of Cortez. And that was the best. The best.

Dawn Taylor: [00:44:46] Amazing. Describe yourself in one sentence.

Jesse Schewchuk: [00:44:50] Passionate.

Dawn Taylor: [00:44:52] Yeah. You need one word.

Jesse Schewchuk: [00:44:56] Oh, my God. One sentence! I heard word. I heard word.

Dawn Taylor: [00:45:01] That's okay, because that totally does sum you up. You can be like the Madonna of descriptions. Just passionate. What do you spend a silly amount of money on?

Jesse Schewchuk: [00:45:16] IV therapy.

Dawn Taylor: [00:45:17] Oh, yes! Yeah. I'm with you on that one. Mine's like weird alternative health anything. Like just trying to hack something in my world. This red light. This is my newest. Yeah. If you... What is an unusual habit or just a weird, absurd thing that you love?

Jesse Schewchuk: [00:45:38] Popcorn. I like popcorn way too much, like more than the average person. Like, I could eat popcorn for dinner every evening if I was allowed to, because that wouldn't be radical self-care, so I don't. But I, yeah, I have this love for popcorn that's just kind of over the top.

Dawn Taylor: [00:45:57] How do you make it or what's your favorite?

Jesse Schewchuk: [00:46:00] There are a few kinds. I mean a go-to is the Smart Food, the white cheddar. But then when my daughter is like, make it. I have the good old popcorn pot that I put on the stove with the coconut oil, we melt it, kernels in it, all pops to goodness. And then I do a mixture of sometimes like different salt. So we have a truffle oil, a truffle salt rather that we use, or salt and vinegar, or white cheddar. And I sometimes do a mixture of things which yeah, fun.

Dawn Taylor: [00:46:29] I want popcorn at your house. My husband's a big popcorn boy. He loves that stuff. And what is one purchase that you have made in the last little while for $100 or less that has positively impacted your life?

Jesse Schewchuk: [00:46:45] For $100 or less? Oh, gosh, that's tough. I would say...

Dawn Taylor: [00:46:56] I have one for you if you don't.

Jesse Schewchuk: [00:46:59] Okay, tell me. Tell me.

Dawn Taylor: [00:47:01] All of those command strips that were used to hang the art gallery wall behind you.

Jesse Schewchuk: [00:47:11] Yeah. Okay. I've also... I was. I'm overthinking it because I purchased a guitar recently in the last year, and I'm going to learn how to play it. So that's something that means a lot. But it's just over 100. It was like 300 bucks.

Dawn Taylor: [00:47:24] That's okay. We'll go with it.

Jesse Schewchuk: [00:47:26] Okay.

Dawn Taylor: [00:47:26] We'll go with it. It's all good. Miss Jesse, thank you so, so, so much for being here today and for hanging out. Where can people find you?

Jesse Schewchuk: [00:47:36] Oh, speaking of Miss Jesse, they can find me on social media. I am MsJesseMuse. That's Ms with an S Jesse Muse, and I am also on LinkedIn. I'm Jesse Schewchuk and my company is Modern Muse Media. So we're a video training agency, and if you follow us, you're going to get a bunch of tips and tricks on how to make awesome video to promote your businesses.

Dawn Taylor: [00:48:02] And she's outstanding. I have taken some courses, so we will have all of the links to all of her social media, how to find her, her website, all of that fun stuff in the show notes. Also all of the treatments, all of our tips, the tricks, everything, it's all going to be in the show notes for you. If you want to check it out there, at TheTaylorWay.ca, check them out and let us know what you think. Also, subscribe now on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcasts. We will be back in two weeks with another one. And if you love the show, it would mean so much to me if you would leave a review. So, Ms Jesse, thank you so much for being here. And menopause ladies, we've got your back. See you guys in two weeks.

Dawn Taylor welcomes Jason Tieri, host of Threads Podcast, to the show to dive into why adult friendships are difficult. From childhood trauma blocking adult connections to a lack of properly communicated expectations, Dawn and Jason break down why adult friends are hard to come by. 

Jason explains how past abuse and a less than ideal childhood may have contributed to his difficulty making friends as an adult, but he also wonders if men find it more challenging to get deep with each other in addition to trading jokes. And what about that ride or die friend? Does everyone find one? 

Dawn and Jason talk about the differences in personalities that make each friendship unique and sometimes uniquely challenging, what it’s like when a friendship breaks down, and the expectations we place on friends. They reveal some truths about what they each want in a friendship and maybe also what they truly need. What do you want in your friendships? And how will you make more? Find out with Dawn and Jason.

About Jason Tieri:

Jason is a loving husband, supportive dad, and avid gig economy hustler. While he has a fun and boisterous personality, he also enjoys thinking deeply and learning more about people. Jason is passionate about running, being the best husband and dad that he can be, and growing in all areas of his life.

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Threads Podcast: Life Unfiltered
• Threads Podcast #116 || “Dawn Taylor: Ass Kicker & Hope Giver joins Ben & Jason in the deep end of the conversation”

— 

Dawn Taylor - The Taylor Way: website | facebook | instagram | linkedin

Jason Tieri - Threads Podcast: Life Unfiltered: website | instagram | facebook | linkedin

Transcript:

Dawn Taylor: [00:00:09] Hey, hey, hey. Welcome to the Taylor Way Talks the podcast where we dig deep into all those things we wish people talked about. My name is Dawn Taylor, the ass kicker and hope keeper of the Taylor Way, and I am your host. Today we have one of my favorite humans. I know that sounds crazy because I just met him. But I did his podcast long time ago and now he's here to do mine. His name is Jason and he is a loving husband, supportive dad, and avid gig economy hustler. And we are going to dive into why adult friendships are so incredibly hard. So stay tuned and hang out with us tonight.

Dawn Taylor: [00:00:49] Welcome to the show, Jason. How are you doing today?

Jason Tieri: [00:00:53] I am doing well. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be on your show as you were on mine long time ago. And I tried to peer pressure you to start a podcast because I think it was important. And here you are starting a podcast, so I'm pretty proud of you.

Dawn Taylor: [00:01:08] Oh, thank you. I had a blast on your show. If anyone wants to listen to it, go check it out. It's in on my website, TheTaylorWay.ca. And where would they find it on your end, Jason?

Jason Tieri: [00:01:18] Oh, you can just go to threads podcast dot com and then just click the episode link and I'm not sure which episode it is. I probably should have had that prepared before I came on.

Dawn Taylor: [00:01:29] That's okay. We'll put it in the show notes. We'll put it in the show notes for people if they're looking for it. So what is it you wished people were talking about?

Jason Tieri: [00:01:36] I wish people would talk about how hard it is to have adult friendships.

Dawn Taylor: [00:01:43] Amen brother.

Jason Tieri: [00:01:45] Yeah. I mean, I'm 46 and it's still a challenge for me. And I'm like, This should be easy by now. I mean, I've had a lot of years on this earth and I struggle with it at times.

Dawn Taylor: [00:01:59] Okay, so let's dive into this. So if anyone's listen to the episodes I've done before, they've heard we dive into like, what were we taught, right? Because that's a huge part of all these things is what we experience, what we were taught, what we were shown, and then how it shows up in our adult livelihood. So for you, what did your parents' relationships look like? What did friends look like when you were growing up in that way?

Jason Tieri: [00:02:22] You know, I knew you were going to ask kid stuff and I had, I don't know if we talked about it, but terrible upbringing. So it was a shit show. My parents didn't have, I mean, they didn't have a great relationship with me, so I can't imagine they had great ones when I was super young. But as I got a little bit older, I could see the writing on the wall. My mom was always losing friends because she has, she had mental health issues and those kind of things. And my dad seemed to keep some of the same friends. But like when you're married, too, it seems like at least in my parents' generation, they kind of like you hung out as couples, right? It didn't, there wasn't a lot of individual, at least for me. And so, you know, my mom would damage that relationship and then, you know, they would break up like, you know what I mean? Like, the whole couple would break up. So, yeah, that's kind of where I guess it came from for me. Obviously with the abuse, with me being younger, has really affected my relationships tenfold going forward. So that's part of the problem.

Dawn Taylor: [00:03:25] You know what? I totally agree. It's interesting and I've had this conversation with friends even recently is, like I was raised where my parents didn't go out and do a lot outside of couples hanging out with couples. It wasn't like my mom was all the time going to like wine Wednesdays or things like that that people do now. Do you know what I mean? Like they got, she would get together with like a cousin or friends and they'd craft or they'd visit while the kids played. It was not the same as what things are now, but coming from a background myself, with abuse and all kinds of different things, I've done a ton of research into even the inability to bond and how we bond in utero. And that for me has been a personal big struggle because I don't connect. I connect, but it's more of a chosen connection and I don't bond in the way most people bond. Then add to that the fact that I'm an empath and an introvert. It makes it really hard to maintain friendships. So what do you think for you, we'll start there. Are you an introvert, extrovert? Do you struggle to bond to people?

Jason Tieri: [00:04:38] I feel like as I've gotten older, I've become more of an introvert. I like to stay home and stuff like that, but I'm super social when I know you, like if I know you, you cannot shut me up. We're just having a good time. But I've kind of grown in my friendships as, like I said, I'm mid-forties. Younger, I had these friends that were the typical like bro friends, you know what I mean? Like, it's dick jokes and boobs and that's all you talked about, you know what I mean? Like, I mean, we're guys, right? Guys?

Dawn Taylor: [00:05:10] Totally.

Jason Tieri: [00:05:11] And then, you know, and then we would shit on each other and be just jerks. And then over time, I'm like, as I'm getting a little older, I'm like, Yeah, that's fun, But I don't want to... I want a little bit more of a deeper relationship. So I eventually got away from those friends just because they didn't want to go deep, I guess. I don't know.

Dawn Taylor: [00:05:35] It's part of that, do you think, the fear of vulnerability? Like you and I are close to the same age. And so we were raised in this era where there was not a heck of a lot of emotional intelligence, but it was also a time in life where, like I remember a situation, if my sister is listening, she's going to laugh at this or be mad at me again, but I lost it at my sister, reacted very, very, very badly in front of my mom, like a knife thrown across the house, kind of badly. Oh, yeah, it was real bad. And my mom was on the phone in the middle of it, and she was like, Oh hi, yeah. And as this, like, violent, like rip, like I'm talking like the battle to end battles is going on. I'll never forget to this day, at no point. And I mean, she was talking to one of her really close friends. At no point was she like, oh, I got to go, my kids are losing their crap right now. She was like, Hey, can I just call you back, in like the fakest voice ever, and there was this, like, weird pause there. I remember looking at her and thinking like, that could not have been more fake. Like, what was that? But I think looking forward from that, like, vulnerability is not a comfortable thing for the majority of people. So is that part of it? Those guys, it's like, no, no, no, dicks and boobs. We're good. We're good. This is as deep as this can go.

Jason Tieri: [00:07:03] But I think everyone has a story of growing up. I mean, nurturing is huge. I mean, as you know, your story about your mom, my mom was the same way. It was like, we're going to get, we're going to, shit's going to go down on Sunday, but when we go to church, it's going to be like, no, it's all good. You know what I mean? It's all good.

Dawn Taylor: [00:07:23] All going to act like the world is fine.

Jason Tieri: [00:07:25] Yeah, right. And so the friends I had, I don't know, like, maybe their parents didn't offer that emotional intelligence, as you talked about. Like, my mine really didn't. And so it's a, you know, mid seventies/eighties kids. And I think things have changed now, especially as I've raised my own kids. But yeah, I don't know, like I can't see any of those guys getting deep. I mean, I tried, you know, in quotes, "tried", I don't know if I was doing the right thing, but I mean, like, and I'm deep with my friends now, but it's not like, oh, gosh, it's not like I come to my friend and say, I literally have one friend, by the way, like a deep friend. So there's long stories with that. But I don't come and say, I want to get deep. You know, I just tell him my feelings. It's not like it's like, Oh, let's hug or anything like that. But I just say it how it is. Like, this is how it is. And that's emotional intelligence because I'm just telling them what my feelings are. So.

Dawn Taylor: [00:08:27] So is that, is part of it... and so I'm just like, my brain is rumbling through this right now. I read something that someone posted the other day on social media and it was like, what is a true friend? And someone posted this thing and I was like, Oh, that's just all horseshit. Like, that's a codependent, not healthy relationship. So could it be that we also don't understand what the definition of a friend is, or that there's different levels and layers, like I always use, like food as a metaphor for it. And I'm like, you know, you have your cotton candy friends, but like, you can't actually consist on a diet of cotton candy. So then you have like your meat and potatoes meal, but then you have like, Oh, I'm eating fruit. It's good, it's healthy for me, but I can only handle so much of it before it actually will send me into a diabetic coma. Do you know what I mean? Or like I can only have so many vegetables. Also good for me and a bit more substantial. But again, you can only eat so many before you're like, This is too much.

Jason Tieri: [00:09:25] Yeah, I... do you have a ride and die friend? You know what a ride and die is, right?

Dawn Taylor: [00:09:30] Oh, 100%.

Jason Tieri: [00:09:31] Yep. Like, I don't have that. I was, one of my friends, his wife is like a ride or die. Like, he went through a rough patch. He basically got ass-canned, and it was, he was a youth pastor. And he got ass-canned, but the passer told the church that he was moving on to other things. So it was this big like scandal. And she's like, I'm going to kill that pastor, like, and I'm like, Oh man, she is a ride or die. And I really don't have, I mean, I have a bunch of friends, but like, ride or Die is like, there's caveats to that, though. Like if you, if you hurt a family member I'm going to snitch on you, like, you know what I mean? But like, if anyone else and you're like, Hey, I got a body to bury, I'm like, All right, let's go. You know what I mean? That kind of ride or die? I don't know. I think of, like, biker groups. You know what I mean? Do you ever see Sons of Anarchy?

Dawn Taylor: [00:10:28] I saw like a few episodes of it.

Jason Tieri: [00:10:31] It's, it's very--

Dawn Taylor: [00:10:33] They're ride or die, though.

Jason Tieri: [00:10:34] Yeah. They're ride or die, like it does not matter what is going on with, if they're in that club like it's happening. So I always think of Sons of Anarchy for ride or die. But do you have a ride or die? I did ask that.

Dawn Taylor: [00:10:47] You know what, My ride or die is funny. I've had the same best friend since we were nine, but she was also born with the inability to bond. So we are, we've talked about how we have, like, the weirdest friendship on the planet because we're both each other's, like, chosen person. But we can go months without talking. We've had times where we've gone like a year without talking.

Jason Tieri: [00:11:15] Oh.

Dawn Taylor: [00:11:16] And we both are like, So you're still my person? Yep, still your person. We're like, Yeah, okay, cool. And like, but we actually, like, have to check in once in a while, which I find really hilarious. But she's the person who - and I've said this before to people - like, she's not the person you call when you're having a bad day. Because she doesn't process her emotions in the same way as anyone else I've ever met in my entire life. So there's like zero empathy. Like she'll have some sympathy, but then she's like, Yeah, okay, what are you doing about it? Which is not the person you want to call an emergency, but she's the person that you know is always going to be there and always is going to love you. And I'll pray for you if you're having a bad day and like you can say those things. But she is my biggest challenger. Like, hands down my biggest challenger. So she's the one that, for example, when I was dyeing my hair for years because I had gone grey when I was about 21, 22. After the brain aneurysm, I had gone grey. And I dyed my hair every three weeks at a hairdressers for the next ten years. And my husband and I were talking about it one day and we'd calculated that I had spent over $25,000 keeping my hair from being gray. Yes. Yes. Your jaw should be dropping because it's an atrocious amount of money. But I have such a ridiculous amount of hair, it's baby fine, so I couldn't box dye it or it wrecked it. So it was just an expense. Like it was a line item in our budget that I went and got my hair done. And him and I were talking about it and he's like, What if you just let it go gray and see what it looks like? And I mean, this is my natural hair. Like, this is just my crazy grey, it turned out well for me. But when I called her and I talked to her about it, this is how she responds: Not just like, yeah, you should totally just like, let it go and see what happens. Or no, you should keep going. This was her exact response, and I'll never forget it. She's like, Are you dyeing your hair to hide and not stand out in a crowd? Or are you dyeing your hair because it actually authentically makes you feel more like you prior to the aneurysm? Because you need to check your intentions first. Like she's that friend. And I was like, Oh. Okay. Right? So then when I realized that, like, yes, I was dyeing my hair to fit in and feel more quote/unquote normal, then I was like, Yeah, okay, I need to actually just let it go gray and roll with it and see what happens. Like, she's that friend. She's not the friend that you are just like, Hey, how's the weather? Like, she couldn't care less. Like it's like, insta deep. It's a totally weird friendship, though.

Jason Tieri: [00:13:52] Yeah, it sounds like a very therapist response. Like, you know what I mean is, are you trying to make yourself feel better and whatever she said, and I'm just like, that's something my therapist would say.

Dawn Taylor: [00:14:05] Well, and that's where she's like, where I said, like, she's my challenger.

Jason Tieri: [00:14:09] Yeah. And you need those people.

Dawn Taylor: [00:14:10] Totally. So she's like my meat and potatoes where I have a friend here who is, she's one of my favorite people. But we, because of childhood, because of levels of trauma, because of different things, it'll never be the same as relationship A. Do you know what I mean? But she's probably the person I could phone and be like, Hey, I killed someone. And she'd be like, Yeah, cool. I got a shovel where we going? Like, she's more that person, but fairly new. Like we've known each other for five years.

Jason Tieri: [00:14:44] Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:14:45] So, yeah, I know. I look at my sister. My sister has, like the most amazing set of friends and the same friends for a million years, and they help each other with everything. And I'm always like, What does that feel like? What does that look like?

Jason Tieri: [00:15:00] As far as like females go, my wife struggles to have good, close friends and I, like, when we first got together, I had always been like the jealous type. And so when we first got together, she had some friends and then I kind of wrecked that. You know, I was young and, well, no, I wasn't young, I just had not had therapy yet. So that was my problem. I can't say that I was young because I wasn't young, but...

Dawn Taylor: [00:15:26] Young emotionally, put it that way.

Jason Tieri: [00:15:30] Well, yeah. And then I'm a male, too, so it's like it doesn't even hit until like 30 anyways, so. But yeah, and to the point where I would have to tell her I'm like, you need to go out with some friends, like, go find some friends. And she's a big one that struggles with connecting with people, which she's so emotional too, like, she's the exact opposite of me. So I guess it's two ends of the spectrum. Like you can be, like, you can't bond or you're an introvert or you can be like, she's super social, everyone loves her at work, but she just can't find those deep connections and she hasn't quite figured it out. We've talked about it, but I don't know. I wish she had like a super best friend because she always says like, Oh, I'm so stressed out and if I can't talk to you, I only can talk to my therapist. I'm like, Oh man, I wish you had a best friend. Not that I don't want to talk to her about it, but sometimes I can't help. You know, I'm the problem, probably.

Dawn Taylor: [00:16:23] Right? Right. I think your spouse and your best friend need to be two different people. Like my husband is 100% hands down my very, very best friend in the world. But I still have other people I can talk to and my other friends. So, funny question, but what are your expectations of a friend? What do you need from a friend?

Jason Tieri: [00:16:44] So I'm going to - you know what spill the tea is?

Dawn Taylor: [00:16:47] Kind of.

Jason Tieri: [00:16:48] I have a 14 year old daughter, so it's like gossip. You don't probably know this, and, but anyways, when when we recorded with you, it was with Ben.

Dawn Taylor: [00:16:57] Yeah.

Jason Tieri: [00:16:58] And he is not part of the show anymore, and he's not part of my life anymore.

Dawn Taylor: [00:17:02] Really?

Jason Tieri: [00:17:04] Yeah. We had a huge falling out. I mean, like, stomp away from the table, like he just walked away and it kind of has to do with your question, your expectations. So I think we were never made to be friends. And I think the podcast, I tried to work on it more because of that, but his expectation for my friendship is like, I like to have fun and tease, right? But I also, my expectation is I also want that emotional connection. Well, we were kind of having that emotional connection, but he was struggling with the teasing and having fun and and there's a lot more to the story than that, but...

Dawn Taylor: [00:17:46] Oh, totally.

Jason Tieri: [00:17:46] I just wanted to let you know that he's not part of it. And obviously Threads is still going, obviously. But I brought another host on who was actually going to come out as the third host, and that's when Ben blew up. So it's a big...

Dawn Taylor: [00:17:58] Oh no.

Jason Tieri: [00:18:01] And this third host had been on the show like six times and he went to college with Ben. Like this was going to be this like, awesome, like three person pod. And then it just blew up. It didn't happen. But yeah, he had, Ben had said to me, like, you can't tease me. You can't like, he didn't even like jokes, you know what I mean? And I'm like, I can't have a friend like that. Like, I just can't do that. I need both. I need to be able to connect with you and say, I'm having a really bad mental health, like I am messed up today and I really need to talk. And I also need to be like, you know, like dick jokes, like, I like to have fun, you know, it's the whole point.

Dawn Taylor: [00:18:43] I need to be able to say I'm melting and say a your mama joke in the same sentence.

Jason Tieri: [00:18:46] Yeah. You know, honestly, since Mike has come on the show, it's so much more fun. I'm having so much more fun.

Dawn Taylor: [00:18:53] Oh, good.

Jason Tieri: [00:18:54] We joke a lot, but we still get deep, and I do miss Ben. I think he was a good part of my life for those years. And I really, it's a shame that it happened, but again, hard friendships, like he walked away. He recently just texted me - this happened in January - and he's like, I'm thinking I might want to reconnect. And I texted back, I'm all set, you know what I mean? Because like, I'm done with you. Like early on, if you would have reached out within the first 90 days, I might be like, Hey, let's work on this.

Dawn Taylor: [00:19:26] But you're like eight months later?

Jason Tieri: [00:19:28] Yeah. I'm like, No, no response. No, tell me. I mean, a few emails, but just like none of it, and all of a sudden you want to reconnect again? And I'm just, maybe some day, but I'm just like, I'm good, I'm good. So anyways, my expectations. That was a long story to get to answer your question, but is that, is the emotional connection, the emotional intelligence, and still be able to have fun and and not worry that I'm going to hurt your feelings, unless I did and then Mike, again, my friend, would say hey you know this hurt my feelings.

Dawn Taylor: [00:20:06] So do you have, because this is something that I've, people laugh at me because in a new friendship I'm like, okay, so let's talk expectations.

Jason Tieri: [00:20:15] Right away?

Dawn Taylor: [00:20:16] Oh, like really early. Like we've maybe hung out twice and I like, lay it out. I'm like the person who, I just lay it out. So I'm very big on like, okay, what are your expectations of me? When it comes to your birthday, I probably won't remember it. So do you need me to remember it? Do you need me to throw you a party? Do you need me to call you and serenade you and buy you an expensive gift? Like what do you need from me? How often do we need to text? How often do we need to talk? How often do we need to hang out? Like, what do you need from me? Because I will take someone out with my car. I will fight to the death for you. I will be the first person there in an emergency. Like I will move the mountains for you if you are one of my friends, you're my person. But I need to know what your expectations are of me so that I can tell you in advance if I'm going to just incredibly disappoint you or not. And people, people laugh. They're like, seriously? And I'm like, Yeah, I need to know. And they're like, Why? And I'm like, Because I am the world's shittiest friend. And I'm very aware of this fact. And this is literally, literally the conversation I have with people is, I am the world's worst friend and I am very aware of that. And it's very hard to be my friend sometimes. And so I just want to lay it out in advance so that you know what you're walking into because there's the door. And it's really interesting how many people actually stick around. Because they're like, You're hilarious and the easiest friend to have because we know exactly what you need and want from us. But it's a thing, and it's been really interesting over the years, having people in my life that are like, You haven't called me all week. And I'm like, No. I haven't. And it might take me another month to call you. But I thought you were my really good friend. And I'm like, Yeah, and I laid it out when we started. And I think that for me, there's like a weird threshold of like I need very little in a relationship to consider someone a close friend. Like, I have such low expectations of people that I'm always pleasantly surprised by people, which is why I lay it out so abruptly. But I've definitely lost a lot of friends over it because I can't meet their expectations of what they have of me.

Jason Tieri: [00:22:41] Yeah, I first of all, that's incredible. Probably people love it mostly because they want to do it and they just don't have the balls or or, you know, excuse my French. I don't know. It's such a woke world now, I figure you're not like that. And I am pretty woke, but like, balls. I'm like, Oh, that's offensive because it talks about male genitalia, not female.

Dawn Taylor: [00:23:03] Oh, gosh, it's okay. I had that today when I was, like, someone was talking to me about starting coaching and I was like, No, no, you need your time at home with your baby. And they're like, That was a weird, awkward pause. And I was like, I didn't know if I could say, like, your son or daughter. Like, I actually genuinely didn't know if I was allowed. And she started laughing and was like, It's okay, it's my daughter. And I was like, Oh, okay, we're good. Like, I felt so bad because I don't want to like, I'm always like, I don't want to get in trouble, but I don't actually know how to be politically correct these days.

Jason Tieri: [00:23:31] Yeah, it's a weird time. Like I said, I lean to the left, but I often wonder when I say stuff like if I can come across....

Dawn Taylor: [00:23:40] You can say balls.

Jason Tieri: [00:23:41] Yeah, I know. I just wonder if I come across as like, I've really... total digression. If you can see my flag right here is upside down. That is my protest to, you know, what's been going on in the Supreme Court in America and stuff like that. But I just stopped wearing my American hat flag because people thought I was a Trumper. Like, I got this giant beard and I have tats all over my arm. And I literally, people thought I was a Trumper and I'm just like... anyways, I could go on. It's such a random, I could go on and on about this frickin country right now, but...

Dawn Taylor: [00:24:16] We'll do a second podcast on that. No, but the whole expectation.

Jason Tieri: [00:24:20] Yeah. So that kind of sounds like boundaries to me. And I have really worked on setting boundaries with my family. Now, when I say my family, the family I grew up with, which I literally don't talk to, well my younger sister I do. But the expectation thing, so when you say that to people, what if they have expectations for you that you're like, I can't do that? Do you just say we can't be friends or This is what I can do and if you don't like it, then I'm not sure we can be friends? I mean.

Dawn Taylor: [00:24:49] 100% I do. So I will actually say that and I will, I'm very not blunt because it's done out of love. But I always talk about how like expectations of somebody, you're setting them up for failure and yourself up for disappointment constantly. And so I'll say, Look, I can't ever be that person for you. At no point in time am I going to text you every day, never mind five times a day, at no point in time am I going to call you even maybe once a week? And I might come in and out. And I just like, I need you to know that, like, I can try to step it up because I know that this thing is important to you. And then I can choose that, right? I can choose to shift my behaviors. And I have, like I have some friends that certain things mean a lot to them. And so I will make sure I do those things. Where other people I'm like, I'll never be the friend you need me to be. So I'm totally willing to try, but I will forever disappoint you.

Jason Tieri: [00:25:54] But early on, like, I'm always wanting to have new friends, so I would never do that so early because I'd be like, What if it's the one? What if it's the the ride or die? You know what I mean? So, no, I would definitely down the road, like if things started getting quote/unquote weird, like, you know, the person was like, how come you haven't texted me? I'm like, okay, we need to set some expectations here. You know what I mean? And then I would say, Well, maybe he's not the one. I know it sounds weird, but yeah, I would think I would want to wait before I'd be like, lay it out. Because if you did that to me, I would be like, Yeah, whatever, dude. Like, wow, you got, you need to see your therapist today or something, right? I mean, just be like, it was such a like, or I've thought I would say, Man, she's really got her shit together. She's seen her therapist and she is not messing around. So, you know, keep an eye on her, too, you know?

Dawn Taylor: [00:26:46] Well, I think for me, part of it is being an introvert. I only have so much energy in a day and I only have so much energy in a week. And so I have to be very, very cautious to guard my mental, emotional, physical energy. I have to be so careful with that. And maybe that sounds really awful if I know in advance I'm going to disappoint you. But also if my bluntness or my abruptness or my confidence... my husband's like, No, you're just ridiculously confident is what it is.

Jason Tieri: [00:27:23] Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:27:25] If that's going to offend you that early, you're probably not gonna last as a friend to begin with. Right? But because I only have so much energy, like, I had someone reach out because they want to go for lunch. And I was like, Yeah, I'm booking like last week of September. And they were like, What? And I was like, No, I'm literally booking last week of September. And they're like, Okay, weirdo. But yeah, let's do it. Let's book it, because I know that I can only handle like so many friend dates in a week or so many coffees or so many lunches or so many dinners. And part of it is like protecting my physical health, having dealt with this thyroid disease stuff this last year, and I have very little extra energy at the end of the day. Yeah, I think that's part of it, right, is like are you feeding me or are you taking from me? And that will determine when and where you can fit. So there's some people in my life, if they were to call me today and be like, Hey, do you have an hour? I'm going on a road trip this week, next week. And if they were to be like, Hey, do you have an hour, I want to go for coffee this week, I'd be like, Oh, hell yeah, let's fit that in, because I know that that's going to be like an equally beneficial time together. But I don't know, maybe I'm like, weirdly calculated in my friends.

Jason Tieri: [00:28:44] No, what I hear now that you've explained it a little bit more, is that you're very aware of your bandwidth. I call it my bandwidth. You know what I mean? You're very aware of that and you're like--

Dawn Taylor: [00:28:55] -- crazy aware.

Jason Tieri: [00:28:56] -- can't happen because then I'm going to not be a good, good wife or whatever, or a good coach or good friend to the friends that you already have. And it might sound mean to them and they might get pissed off, but you're just like, This is how it is. Like my mental health is more important than trying to please everyone and you just never going to please everyone, so.

Dawn Taylor: [00:29:18] Well, I think I'm okay with that. As weird as that sounds, I'm very okay with the fact that I'll never make everyone happy. Like, it's not possible. So I've just, I've removed that expectation of myself and my world.

Jason Tieri: [00:29:32] I feel like you had to just shorten that down to, like, a nametag, something that you can put on a button and just walk around with the button. Or you could just say F Off. I mean, that would be short and sweet.

Dawn Taylor: [00:29:46] It's funny because the people in my life that are my people, like when I choose you as my person, you're my person, right? If I choose to have you in my life as a friend, you're in. And then I'm actually quite good. But it's really funny because they all laugh. They're like, You are so funny. Like, I'm the first person, like, you're having a bad day, I'm going to, like, make sure you're fed. I'm going to make sure you get a gift. I'm going to make sure that, like, do you need your house clean? Like, what do you need? How can I support you? I'm here. I'm not joking when I say I'm that girl in an emergency. I'm like, Let's do this.

Jason Tieri: [00:30:23] I struggle with friends and what I hear from you is you don't. Like what, what do you what do you struggle with friends or what do they do that you struggle with, that you're just like, Oh, I can't do it. Like I said, mine with Ben, it was just I couldn't have fun with him, you know? But with Mike, it seems like I can have fun and connection. So I'm just wondering, you know, it sounds like you have everything laid out perfectly, so you must have these perfect friendships.

Dawn Taylor: [00:30:53] I wish. You know what, my biggest struggle, my absolute biggest struggle is not having the time or the energy that people need from me. So even within those friendships, it's still like, as much as like the majority of me is like, no, I really don't care if I disappoint you because that's actually just life and you need to accept that, it's still the actual action of like, Oh my goodness, let's go do this thing. And I'm like, No, tapped out, can't. I find that super hard. I also weirdly attract extroverts that don't have a deep level of trauma, which is like the polar, which is the polar opposite of me. And so I personally struggle with feeling like I have to hide a lot of who I am, because I grew up feeling like I was too much for people. Like my story's too big or I'm too much or I'm too extreme or something like that. Like I had a newer friend this week, she's like, What I know about you so far is like everything in your life is a massive extreme and everything you do is done really big. And I was like, Fuck, she saw me. And that was like my initial response, which was really hilarious because nothing she was saying was said with an ill intention or anything. And I was like, Wow, I actually let my guard down with somebody. Like that was really, really surprising to me. And so that's one of the areas that I struggle in.

Jason Tieri: [00:32:26] I think we're kind of alike. I do things big, like.

Dawn Taylor: [00:32:30] My whole world is like that.

Jason Tieri: [00:32:33] If I'm going to do it, I'm just going to do it big. And I actually, this whole podcasting gig has been the longest thing I've spent time on because my wife always jokes like, I get 1000 hobbies and I go big on them and I'm hard and fast. And then it's like--

Dawn Taylor: [00:32:48] -- and then you peter out. 100%. I'm the same.

Jason Tieri: [00:32:51] I know. But this podcasting thing, like, this is like all I do right now. And my wife is like... Man, I've been doing this since 2017. And yeah, I think it's the first time I've actually not, I've gone big, that's for sure. But too big at times. Well I'm kind of glad that you told me that. Like and it's funny that you said, oh I'm being, oh, they found out, but that's you,that's being vulnerable. That's a connection point with somebody. They're like, Oh, yeah, like, okay, maybe this person is the person that I can connect with.

Dawn Taylor: [00:33:26] And I, yeah, I find that this year I've really been shifting my intentions. For anyone listening, in, even in just building relationships - and this is a big piece of advice I would give anyone - is shift your intentions behind even the time you're spending with people. So I set goals at weird times of year. And so my goal setting is typically for September 1st. This is my time of year, I set all my goals. Because if I do January 1st, like the majority of people, then I'm like mid-November, I'm like, January is coming, life's busy, it's fair, whatever. And then I just kind of like coast for a solid like six weeks till the end of the year. And then January 1st, it's like, who actually wants to restart their goals on January 1st? Nobody. So if I start in September when the energy is still high and motivation is going and there's like the excitement of the back to school and, you know, the weather changes and all those things, I find that it's so much easier for me when it comes to my goals in life. And so one of mine this year, though, with friendships was I'm not going to do the Hey, we should do coffee. Hey, we should set up that lunch. So I have a bunch of people in my world now where... I actually, like, it's in our calendars, like every four weeks we go for breakfast. Or every four weeks we're meeting for lunch. So it's not even super often, it's a completely attainable amount. But it has completely shifted even our conversations within those dates. Because we know that we're going to do another one. And now it's turning into like, Hey, what's all gone down in the last month? And there's an excitement for what the next one's going to be. And it's fun when it, like, gets bumped up to like three weeks because you're like, No, I want to see you, let's, like, bump it up a little bit.

Jason Tieri: [00:35:14] Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:35:15] And so that's one of the things that I have shifted this year is when someone's like, Oh my goodness, we should do... I'm like, Yeah, no, let's book it now.

Jason Tieri: [00:35:23] Yes, that is awesome.

Dawn Taylor: [00:35:26] Like pull out your calendar. And if people are like, Oh, I'm like, Oh, so you weren't serious? Okay.

Jason Tieri: [00:35:32] Yes. You're like you just call them to the table. You're like, okay, bro. Like you, I guess, you know, I do the same thing. I'm like, Mike, I'm like, pick a date. Like, he is terrible with that, too. It drives me bonkers. Like, we're going to supposed to do a fire in September, and I've asked him twice. I'm like, I'm giving you every available Saturday in September. Pick one, please. Oh, I'll talk to Natalie, blah, blah. I'm like, Oh, it's so frustrating for me. But yeah, no, that is super good to do that because then it like doesn't, I think what happens sometimes when you don't do that, then which person is responsible for the one to reach out to actually book that. So then it eliminates that. We're like, yep, let's put it in right now, you put it in and then we're both responsible for making the date. And it's not this weird, awkward, like, Oh, she never texted me. And then one gets pissed because they didn't. And I'm talking about my wife, I'm thinking about a scenario, like, they struggle with that too. I'm like, for Christ's sake, just put it on your calendar, right? Like, reschedule it right there, like I do. I got my haircut today. I rescheduled my six weeks, like, boom, Like, that's just what you need to do.

Dawn Taylor: [00:36:43] We do it with everything else, but we don't with our relationships. And another thing that I've really looked at this year is going Ok the people that really matter. So if I'm looking at like my core few people that I'm like, No, no, I actively want to improve this relationship. This is one that I really want to improve. One of the things that I've really been looking at is, okay, what do they need? So what are their expectations? But like, what do they need? So I have one friend who we have like a regular every Friday we were meeting to go to the farmers market, and it was our quick little like 45 minutes walk around our groceries, it was just our little thing, but it was just this amazing connection point in a week. But I knew the minute summer hit - and this is where it comes down to expectations, right - I knew the second summer hit, girl is going to be at the lake. Like nine of the ten Fridays, if I'm like, Oh, here, we still good in the morning, she'll be like, Oh, no, I went camping. Like, I know this about her too. She is. But it's not that she's rejecting me. It's not that she's pushing me away. It's not any of those things because we like to attach stories to people's actions.

Jason Tieri: [00:38:00] Yes.

Dawn Taylor: [00:38:01] And so I looked at that and I was the one who was like, Hey, why don't we cancel our farmers markets for the summer knowing you're going to be gone the whole time? But then I actually said the words. I was like, You know, I love you. I know you love me. Let's see if we can catch a lunch or two this summer. But then let's start again in September when you're ready, just let me know when you're back from camping. Guess who texted today because her kids school started today and she's like, so Friday farmer's market? And I laughed and was like, Yeah, okay, let's make it happen.

Jason Tieri: [00:38:34] Perfect.

Dawn Taylor: [00:38:35] But I think that's part of it is, like, releasing people of the expectations that we have of them that are so tied to ourselves. So for her, I'm not going to be like, No, we had that scheduled, so if you cancel that on me, you're dead to me. Do you know what I mean? Like I'm not going to go there because it's not even her personality and it's not an attack against me.

Jason Tieri: [00:38:57] How are you so, like, not selfish? Like if you grew up in, like, shitty, like me and my sisters, we're all selfish. Like, I feel like I had neglect and those kind of things and the abuse and stuff. And it sounds like you're just so giving, within your limits, of course.

Dawn Taylor: [00:39:18] Oh, healthy boundaries.

Jason Tieri: [00:39:19] And healthy boundaries. But I just, I struggle with that. Like, you were really thinking about your friend and I would be a little fussy. I'd be like, This is bullshit. Like, we had this date every week. You're like, No, I'm going to I'm going to be like, proactive, and I know she's, you know, is going camping. And I don't know, I just, I applaud you for that because I really struggle not thinking beyond myself sometimes.

Dawn Taylor: [00:39:46] You know, the biggest part is that I'm not afraid of my shit. I'm not afraid of it. Like, people laugh at me. So I'm leaving on Friday, no, Saturday morning I'm getting in my car and I'm like, Oh, okay, time to face some demons, time to face some fears. Let's make this happen. I am the first person to be like, Ooh, found a scab, let's pick it and figure out what's going on underneath it.

Jason Tieri: [00:40:13] Yes, I'm a scab picker.

Dawn Taylor: [00:40:15] Like I am the first person to be like, ooh. Ooh, that feel wasn't good. What was that? We got to dig into that and figure out where that came from and what that was. And so I'm literally doing a two week, 7000 kilometer road trip by myself, pushing myself out of my comfort zone every single day, facing my physical fears, my mental fears, my emotional fears, my demons. Like, no, it's going to be brutal and amazing. But I'm the person who was willing to do that. And the biggest thing for me is looking at it and going, okay, if I can actually look at this with no judgment and just curiosity, what's really going on here? And so being raised the way that I was and with the abuse and the traumas and all of the craziness that's gone on in my life, I think part of it is I have fought so hard to not be who I was raised by. And I sat in that car as my parents would spend every summer driving across Canada to visit all the friends and all the family and stop every night at someone's house. But it was interesting because, like, they would do it, but then they'd get in the vehicle and bitch about it from that destination to the next destination. Right? Like the amount of times I heard, like, you know, the road's the same distance both ways. Like, all this effort, we're putting in, right. Like it was this constant complaint. And I remember sitting there as a kid being like, So why the hell are we doing this? Can't we just stay home? And so out of rebellion of that, right? Like, my parents were super indecisive, I became too decisive. My parents were, you know, maybe like super high expectations on all the people around them, and I was like, I'm going to have none and let people surprise me. Right? So a lot of it comes from that. Like, a lot of it comes from that. But also this, like really big like, huh, there's a really giant feel around something that makes no sense. I wonder where that came from.

Jason Tieri: [00:42:19] That's incredible.

Dawn Taylor: [00:42:21] Like, I really spend a lot of time digging into that. So when somebody says something, when that person reacted, when that new friend said what she said, and my initial reaction is like, fuck, like I freak out. I was like, well, that was a big feel. Like, where did that come from? But then if I'm not judging my reaction and I'm not judging the feeling and I'm not judging her for what she said, and I'm like, there's no judgment on it. I'm just curious. Then I could look at it and be like, but what about me is so scary? What am I scared of her seeing? Why? Why am I hiding? Like, what specifically am I hiding from her? And it was like this feeling of being too much. And then I could look at it and go, okay, if you are too much, there's almost 8 billion more people on the planet. I'm sure you can find someone else who will think you're perfectly enough. Yeah, but the second thing is, at any point in time, did she say I was too much? Or did she actually just point out something that was complete truth about you?

Jason Tieri: [00:43:28] Oh, yeah, that's hard.

Dawn Taylor: [00:43:29] And so then in that I could be like, Oh, no, that actually just had to do with me. And now I can decide how much more I want to put out there or show or not show or like, my level of vulnerability with her.

Jason Tieri: [00:43:42] Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:43:43] And I think that's why I can react the way I do to people.

Jason Tieri: [00:43:48] Yeah, that's crazy that you can do that. I'm jealous of that. Being more curious is a pain point for me, as people say, that I'm not curious enough and I end up having trouble with my friends because I shoot my mouth off. Oh, man.

Dawn Taylor: [00:44:10] I don't know, though. Like, if you were to look at it, though, and go, How can I love you even more right now? Like that statement, even just try that with your family, right when you're going into a situation. I can I can look at my siblings, I can look at my friends, I can look at my husband. Good grief. We can look at anyone around us and judge them.

Jason Tieri: [00:44:31] Oh, yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:44:31] Like we can always find something to not like about a person and then hold them responsible for whatever's going on in our lives because of it. But, I don't know. I find the more I just get curious, and whether it's with my own life or somebody else's, the more I've... well put it this way, the more curious I've gotten about my own life and the less and less judgment I have on my own world, the more healing I can get at a faster pace, which then allows me then to be like, okay, so if I can just get curious about me, what's stopping me from just getting curious about someone else?

Jason Tieri: [00:45:08] Yeah, that's amazing that you can do that. It sounds like you've done a lot, done a lot of work around that.

Dawn Taylor: [00:45:16] A lot of work. It's a muscle, though. Like, seriously, you should try it. It's just a muscle. It's a muscle where every time I find myself going to that place of like the condemnation, you know, like that judge feel. And I always, I always stop myself and go, Oh, no judgment, just curiosity. If I was to look at this through a lens of no judgment, just curiosity, how different would it look?

Jason Tieri: [00:45:41] Yeah, it's funny you say that that's a muscle. It's, it really is. It's just something like the attitude of gratitude, right? You have to work on that. And then we always talk about with our kids around Christmas and Thanksgiving and then it goes away. But yeah, that is something. I know it does. Fricking kids. They live a great frickin life, man. I don't know, I spoil them too much, probably because... Yeah, well, we know from my childhood. But yeah, that's so interesting that you say it's like a muscle because it's like a habit that you have to keep doing, and then over time it's just like, oh, is that, am I, am I mad at that person or am I just, do I need to be more curious instead of like, freaking out about it, you know? But that's, that's cool.

Dawn Taylor: [00:46:33] Well, and the other question I always ask is, was this my expectation of them or was this their expectation of themselves.

Jason Tieri: [00:46:41] Usually yours?

Dawn Taylor: [00:46:42] Because if you look at it when it comes to like morals, ethics, values and standards, that totally like, look up the definitions of those, is super interesting to see like, oh, that's actually someone's standard that they've set for themselves on what is or isn't appropriate in their life. And then you can decide, like, is that something that I'm okay with? Can I handle that in a friend? I can handle a friend who changes their plans nonstop. I can handle a friend who doesn't talk to me for a year and then shows up out of the blue and is like, and they're there and they're like, Let's be friends. I'm like, I can totally handle that. I have zero issues with that. Just because I'm like that. Like, I'm totally okay with that. But I know a lot of people that aren't.

Jason Tieri: [00:47:28] I'm not.

Dawn Taylor: [00:47:31] No. And you don't have to be is the thing. Its just finding people that have, like, similar standards of themselves.

Jason Tieri: [00:47:38] Oh, that's such a good point. But like, we only got this short life, though. I mean, how many, how many failed friendships am I going to have before I find the one?

Dawn Taylor: [00:47:47] So what is it you're looking for in a friend to fix?

Jason Tieri: [00:47:51] No, not for them to fix. But like you said, you know, trying to find people with the same standards, like someone that maybe doesn't care that you don't connect. But also, do you want those same people like a high strung friend? That's another high strung friend, you're just going to kill each other. You know what I mean? I get what you're saying about the same standards, but I feel like that's super hard to find.

Dawn Taylor: [00:48:14] Well, I think it comes down to not... How many standards do you have?

Jason Tieri: [00:48:19] Yeah, that's true.

Dawn Taylor: [00:48:21] Like, if you're going into a relationship and you're like, Oh, heads up, these are my 45 values and these are my 73 expectations, and here's my list of 597 standards that you have to meet, like if you're looking at it like a Tinder thing, right? Where it's like, Oh, they don't meet all of my expectations. Or if you're like, you know what? This is one area that I know of that's a huge trigger for me, is if you ghost me.

Jason Tieri: [00:48:47] Yeah, that's fair.

Dawn Taylor: [00:48:49] Then you could be like, then you can pay attention. And if you talk, if you're talking to someone and you realize that all of their friends are current, like every single one of their friends is current, in the last three months, you're like, Oh, this person loses friends a lot.

Jason Tieri: [00:49:02] Yes.

Dawn Taylor: [00:49:03] Then you, then like, you can pick up on those red flags to be like, Oh, yeah, No, no, no, this makes sense. This person's going to ghost me at some point. So how much energy am I willing to put into it? Where if you look at a friend who has like 50 friends that they've had for 20 plus years and it's not even a thing, you're like, Oh yeah, this person will stick by you through all your shit. Like, it takes a lot to lose this person as a friend. I think I'm going to put effort there.

Jason Tieri: [00:49:31] That's fair. That's fair. I often wonder, too, though, how many friends do you need? You know what I mean? Like, I have my one friend now and I mean I have other friends, but like, they're not like I talk to every day, you know, like I text him every day, but I try not to be the crazy girlfriend and text them too much. I try to give him the space because he wants his space, you know what I mean? But again, how many friends do you need? Like I, you know, I'm fine with just the one right now, but then you worry like, oh, man, what happens if it doesn't work out? I mean, I don't actually worry about that, but I mean, after what happened with Ben, I'm a little like, oh, a little gun shy going into friendships right now. But I don't know, I guess there's probably not a magic number of how many friends you really do need.

Dawn Taylor: [00:50:16] I think everyone's different. Someone described it to me one time as like a Lego brick. Some people just have like that one little tiny square and they have like one little knob. That's it. Like they can have, they have one friend that's like their compartment that they can put towards friends. Another person might have a six piece, another person might have a twelve piece. It doesn't make any of the Lego pieces wrong or broken or something like bad. It's just everyone has a different capacity of what they can handle.

Jason Tieri: [00:50:43] Yeah, that makes sense.

Dawn Taylor: [00:50:45] I think that's okay. Maybe it is and maybe that's beautiful and okay. I don't have, I don't have a ton of close friends. And I'm okay with that.

Jason Tieri: [00:50:57] Yeah, I'm okay with it, too. Sometimes you wonder if you need more because that one's not filling your bucket that day or whatever. And I wish I had another friend that I could bounce something off to. But anyways. Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:51:12] I mean, you can always start actively looking.

Jason Tieri: [00:51:14] Oh, gosh. Is there, is there an app for that, for friends?

Dawn Taylor: [00:51:18] Hilariously, I think Bumble does that now. Don't they?

Jason Tieri: [00:51:20] No!

Dawn Taylor: [00:51:22] Yeah. Bumble has like a whole friends category where it's actually just people looking for friends. That have similar likes, similar stuff. It's way bigger in the States. I've heard in Canada, it's kind of pathetic. Probably because there's no people in Canada.

Jason Tieri: [00:51:38] Right. That's actually not a bad idea because like, you know, with Facebook, there's a bunch of like Grand Rapids, or I'm from Grand Rapids, but like the Grand Rapids Informed and people are on they're like, yeah, I'm just, I'm looking for a friend. I always think of them as losers. Like, oh, gosh, they're like a psycho. They're going to kill me. But maybe they just want to have somebody that likes car racing or basketball or stuff like that. And I'm like, Why don't you just be a normal person, just get on Reddit. Don't, I don't want to meet you in person.

Dawn Taylor: [00:52:12] I love it. Jason, we should just be friends.

Jason Tieri: [00:52:16] Yes.

Dawn Taylor: [00:52:18] Let's do it. I'll disappoint you. I'm just warning you right now.

Jason Tieri: [00:52:23] Hey. You've set the expectations, so... Are you one that doesn't return text messages, though?

Dawn Taylor: [00:52:29] Oh, no, I totally return texts and calls.

Jason Tieri: [00:52:32] Thank you. Well, don't call me. If you call me, I'm not picking up. I hate talking on the phone. I hate it.

Dawn Taylor: [00:52:38] Oh, that's hilarious. No, you can text me any time, and I will always respond.

Jason Tieri: [00:52:42] Yeah, at least respond back like I'm good or Can't do it. People that leave me hanging after they ask a question, it's just like...

Dawn Taylor: [00:52:50] That's my biggest pet peeve. So here's my, here's my like, Hi, how are you? And then you're like, Good, how are you? And then, like, they don't respond. And you're like, Hello, were we not in an engaging conversation?

Jason Tieri: [00:53:04] Right? Yeah. I said, How are you, damn it. Just say great. And then we can be done with this interchange.

Dawn Taylor: [00:53:11] Oh, it's so true. Jason, this was so fun. Let's jump into some rapid fire questions.

Jason Tieri: [00:53:20] All right, let's do it.

Dawn Taylor: [00:53:21] What is your favorite place you've ever traveled?

Jason Tieri: [00:53:24] Oh, actually, it's Mexico, and it's actually a poor area of Mexico. I did a couple of mission trips in Colima, Mexico. It's dirt poor down there. A couple of orphanages. That was actually my favorite place. It was such a cool place to be where it wasn't vacation Mexico, which I've been. But it was just cool, like just the life there and just the slowness of everybody. And they're just like, Man, what's up? And I don't know. I loved it there, so.

Dawn Taylor: [00:53:55] Oh, that is so cool. And I have to Google that one. Describe yourself in one sentence.

Jason Tieri: [00:54:01] I'll love you hard, but sometimes I'm an asshole.

Dawn Taylor: [00:54:07] That's. That works. That's my husband. I always joke that there's an extra love language and it's abuse. Like in a verbal like, like not like a physical abuse, but like, like jumping around sarcasm, asshole. I always joke that that's my husband's love language. And he's like mmhmm.

Jason Tieri: [00:54:26] I love it.

Dawn Taylor: [00:54:27] Yeah. The more he picks on you, the more he loves you. He's been that way as long as I've known him. What is something you spend a silly amount of money on?

Jason Tieri: [00:54:36] Oh, gosh. Monster energy.

Dawn Taylor: [00:54:39] Really? Like, how many a day? How many a day are you drinking?

Jason Tieri: [00:54:43] So I do drink the sugar free ones. Not that that matters. At least I'm not putting empty calories, they're probably a cancerous. I drank two a day, but two every day, like I order it by the case on Amazon. It's nuts. It's like two cases a month.

Dawn Taylor: [00:54:59] That is crazy.

Jason Tieri: [00:55:01] Dude. Yeah, it's a problem. And it's not even the caffeine. I love the taste. I don't know what they put in there. The same person that makes the chips that make them taste so good and crunchy - like there's a crunch person, right, so you eat more of them - works for Monster Energy too, because, like, I don't need the caffeine. I mean, I just drink them because they're delicious. They are like my favorite drink.

Dawn Taylor: [00:55:25] Oh, that is too funny. I don't even know the last time I had a Monster energy drink. That's wild.

Jason Tieri: [00:55:31] Man.

Dawn Taylor: [00:55:32] What is an unusual habit or an absurd thing that you love?

Jason Tieri: [00:55:37] Oh, man, I know they're supposed to be rapid fire, but...

Dawn Taylor: [00:55:40] No, it's okay.

Jason Tieri: [00:55:43] An unusual habit or something that I love. So you actually, and this don't, don't be sad people when you hear this, but you talked about the scabs. And I like applying a little bit of pain to myself. A little bit. And it's a weird habit, but like, I have this little, like, thing on my thumb that I pick at. And it's a weird habit, but it actually brings me a little bit of relief. I don't know what it is. I'm sure, I'm like not a cutter or anything, that would be too much pain for me, that kind of stuff. But like, I've talked to my therapist about it and I was like, Should I stop this? And she's like, No, I mean, if it goes to the next level, yeah, but no, you're good. So that's a weird habit. I just kind of like, the scabs, oh, my gosh my wife wants to smack me so hard. She's like, Don't you pick that. I'm like, I just kind of like the pain.

Dawn Taylor: [00:56:35] That's so funny. But it's the same as the people that love getting tattoos. Is often - and I've seen this a lot with clients over the years - it's often when you've had to shut off all of your feels and your emotions, even a negative feel gives you a feel, but it allows you to control it. So it's a way of feeling something.

Jason Tieri: [00:56:56] So right. You're controlling your own pain. Now, tattooing, which I do have a lot of tattoos, there are some areas where I'm not controlling it. I don't like it because it's in a sensitive area, but for the most part it's like you've signed up for this. So yeah, it's kind of controlled pain, so interesting.

Dawn Taylor: [00:57:12] But it allows you to actually just feel a feel. And especially when especially when traumas happened within your family, because then there's this weird attachment to like, the people that should have loved you the most, hurt you the most, and where you should have been the happiest was where you were hurt the most. So then people get scared to actually feel happy feels and positive feels. So then there becomes this really interesting attachment to pain.

Jason Tieri: [00:57:37] Yeah, it's so weird.

Dawn Taylor: [00:57:38] Something about it that actually feels good. No, it's, it's actually not, I mean, to me, it's not absurd, but that's because I see this every day in work. And I've done it, but yeah. No, that's amazing. One last one. If you could choose anywhere in the world to live, where would it be?

Jason Tieri: [00:57:54] I know this sounds cliche, but I love where I live. Like, I don't... I love it so much. It's a great community. And yes, the winters can be shitty, but like, I'm so blessed to be in an area where I get spring and summer and fall and winter and it's just, I just love it here.

Dawn Taylor: [00:58:12] Because where do you live?

Jason Tieri: [00:58:13] I live in Grand Rapids, like West Michigan, on the biggest freshwater lake, you know, ever. I think it's the biggest one in the country. I don't know. Probably not the world, but, so I'm like 30 minutes from the lake and everything's, I don't know. It's great over here. So, and I'm kind of a homebody. I was gone in Dallas last week and I'm like, this sucks. I cannot wait to get, I mean, it was good to be there, but I'm just like, I can't wait to be in my home, my own house. And yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:58:43] You just wanted to be home.

Jason Tieri: [00:58:44] I just want to be home. Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:58:47] That's awesome. No, I love it. So, Jason, thank you again for being here today. Thank you for hanging out and talking about relationships and adult relationships and why they're hard and where it all kind of started, right, when you weren't raised even knowing what a healthy adult relationship was. So if you want to find Jason, check out his podcast, it is outstanding, at Threads podcast. He is at Jason Tiere - t i e r i - dot com. He's on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, all of your normal places. Go drop him a like, a follow, a subscription, something, and check out our show notes if you want to find any of the things that we chatted about today at TheTaylorWay.ca. We will see you again in a couple of weeks.

Content Warning: Childhood physical, emotional sexual abuse. Childhood neglect and trauma.

Dawn Taylor welcomes Joy Stone, best-selling author and applied positive psychology certified coach, to the podcast to talk about overcoming the past and what it means to not be broken. Joy openly shares her story and the things she has found useful to healing beyond her childhood.

Joy Stone experienced a challenging childhood born to homeless and addiction-riddled parents. She grew up in total poverty and experienced all abuse of many kinds. She shares that she never felt safe or secure or that she had a voice of her own. With her father gone and her mother only halfways in her life, she also ended up her little brother’s primary caregiver at age ten.  

Dawn and Joy dive into how Joy came to terms with her childhood. Joy learned through a teacher that viewing herself as broken, like the world suggests, was stopping her healing and she explains how she then realized there was more right with her than wrong. Her message is that “fixing” the parts of yourself you think are broken is preventing you from developing the parts of you that are whole. Joy’s message is one of learning yourself and accepting that you are whole and complete no matter what you’ve come through.  

About Joy Stone:

Joy Stone is the author of two best selling books: “If I'm So Spiritual, Why Am I Still Anxious?” and “Releasing Self-Doubt.” She is also certified in both Applied Positive Psychology and Positive Psychology Coaching. She received her education under Harvard Professor, Tal Ben-Shahar, Kripalu Institute and Wholebeing Institute. Joy is also certified in yoga psychology and mindfulness.

Healing her own anxiety and unlocking her soul's purpose, Joy has mentored women for the last decade to tap into their soul's purpose, rise above fear and leap into their inevitable success, freedom and joy -  inside and out.

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• “On Joy and Sorrow” by Kahlil Gibran
• “Power Vs Force: The Hidden Determinants of Human Behavior” by David R. Hawkins
• Joy’s blue light glasses
• Quote: “the level of shame is perilously proximate to death… feeling like a non-person”
• “If I’m So Spiritual, Why Am I Still So Anxious?” by Joy Stone - free digital download
• Joy Stone Coaching Resource Vault

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Dawn Taylor - The Taylor Way: website | facebook | instagram | linkedin

Joy Stone - Joy Stone Coaching: website | instagram | email | facebook | youtube

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Giveaway Link:

Transcript:

Dawn Taylor: [00:00:08] Hey, hey, hey. Welcome to the Taylor Talks. I have the most incredible guest today who has overcome such a ridiculously large amount in her life and has the coolest outlook on it. So her name is Joy Stone. She is an author of two bestselling books. She is an applied positive psychology certified coach. She's done all kinds of amazingly cool things, but also comes from a background of being raised by homeless hitchhikers with drug addiction and alcohol addiction and all kinds of craziness. And we really are going to dive into what it means to not be broken. And the fact that society has taught us that we are broken. But what if we're not? So stick around while we have a really beautifully vulnerable conversation, including an update on her relationship with her mom. See you soon.

Dawn Taylor: [00:01:02] Hey, good morning. I am so excited. Hey, so one of the coolest things about this podcast is having conversations with people that I would never meet in my day to day normal life. And today I have the honor and the pleasure of having Miss Joy Stone with me from one of my favorite cities in the world, Nashville, Tennessee. And we are going to jump right in. So tell us, Joy, what is the thing you wish people were talking about?

Joy Stone: [00:01:28] You know, I really wish people were talking about how whole and complete we are and how we are not broken. Like, no matter what we have been through in our lives, no matter where we've come from, no matter what obstacles we're facing, it doesn't matter. I mean, we... just the idea that we're not broken, we don't have to think of ourselves as projects that we have to constantly be working on and fixing.

Dawn Taylor: [00:01:50] Yes, I 100% agree. I often use the Mr. Potato Head doll with clients when I talk about that and go, No, no, no, you've been through some stuff. It's given you some jaded, maybe like rough edges, but that's okay. Like we can get through this. And I always say, like, I'm just a Mr. Potato Head doll that had some parts in the wrong spots. Like, I maybe had too many arms or too many ears or too many noses or whatever. But at the end of the day, we are actually all just these beautiful, whole amazing beings. And it's not all about just fixing. So tell us where this started for you and a little bit about your story and your childhood.

Joy Stone: [00:02:28] Well, this started for me, this idea that I'm not broken. It started for me really in 2012. So I'll share a little bit about that, like this sort of epiphany that I had, that I, I had been in therapy because of some of the things I'll share with you in a moment about where I come from, my childhood, and things I went through. But I found myself in therapy. I found myself in different group programs. I found myself reading books, going to workshops, all the things, and then eventually becoming involved in the yoga community and spiritual world and discovering all these amazing insights about who I am. And I would hear things like, There's more right about you than there is wrong at any given moment. And I had never heard things like that before, right? But I had been, so I'd been immersed in this world. And then in 2012, I met a teacher who introduced me to this concept in yoga, which is “tapas isvarapranidhana”. So tapas means like it's a Sanskrit word that means practice and isvarapranidhana –

Dawn Taylor: [00:03:33] I was like, Those are some big words.

Joy Stone: [00:03:34] Aren't they. They're so big. We're just going right in. We're just going right in for it. But tapas means practice, right? And then it means, like, purification. And then this idea of raga means detachment. And what I realize is the way he was sharing this with me is that I had been spending almost all of my energy on the idea of detaching from the things I thought were broken about me, like I had been spending so much energy on fixing the things that I thought I needed to be ashamed of, that I thought if anybody knew, they just wouldn't love me, or if anybody found out this, they might think less of me. So I had been working so hard on fixing and removing myself from the things that I thought made me broken and no time really on developing, which is the practice of having this profound relationship with who I really am. My wholeness. Like those are two different paths, really, and I hadn't thought about it that way. So 2012 was a big breakthrough for me in how I actually got to this point of this idea, thinking that we really need to talk more about this and then... do you want me to dive in a little bit to my childhood?

Dawn Taylor: [00:04:45] Well, yes, we're going to get there, but let's pause there even for a second, is you said like shutting out that side of you. I, for the longest time, have been a believer that every single thing in life is a double edged sword. A knife can be used to butter your bread, but a knife can also stab somebody. Love can be something that can absolutely rip you apart and destroy you, and someone can use it to manipulate and hurt. But it also is like the greatest thing in the entire world. And how all of these things are really just double edged swords. And I do find so often in healing - and please hear us, we're not psychologists, we're not doctors, we're not telling you don't go to therapy, we're not telling you not to heal the trauma of your past or any of those things like, that's not what we're saying - but it's looking at it in a way of you're not broken, you're not doing the work because you hate yourself. You're doing it because you love yourself, and you want to maybe shift a belief or shift your thinking or shift something that's like holding on too tight in that point in your life. But people are so quick to try to like, eradicate who they were. And not love that person for what they survived.

Joy Stone: [00:05:54] Yeah, that's beautiful. And it's true because we're like, that part of us, whatever we went through in our lives, it is a double edged sword. It's like I remember realizing that, thinking that that was a part of me that was so, so like just a part of me that felt so dark and so, like, I wanted to put her in a closet and never bring her out. I didn't want anybody to know that part of me that felt so wounded. And then even talking to a therapist, right. So about - and again, this is just part of my journey - and her telling me and she was actually like, really so deep in her thinking and her spiritual advice that she would bring into our sessions, and just her telling me that, like, you're actually born to know your joy. You're actually born to know joy. And it's like the same kind of like that poem, I think it's from Khalil, how do I say it, oh, Gibran. Like anyway, Kahlil Gibran, and it's a beautiful poem. He says, basically like that.

Dawn Taylor: [00:06:55] We'll find it and tag it in the show notes.

Joy Stone: [00:06:57] Like the cup that holds, like your sorrow is the same cup that holds your joy. So it's this idea that if I'm stuffing a part of myself down, if I'm pushing her down, if I'm if I'm ashamed of her, if I feel like I'm broken, if I feel like something's wrong, it's kind of like there's only one cup, there's only one container, there's only one me. And so I'm blocking the joy when I block that part of me off, when I try to close her out. And so it's that integration is what I think about as healing. And that word healing meaning to be made whole. It's like, I think about that I have to integrate all parts of myself and through that integration I can ascend. Through that integration I can like love myself more fully. I can have more compassion for myself. I can become more useful. So like you're saying, the double edged sword, all of the things that happened have made me so much more useful to the women that I love in my life who are going through things, my clients, my son, friends. I mean, it's just, it makes us so much more useful when we can actually not put that part of ourselves in a closet, lock her away, but say, Look, I see you, I hear you. I've been through this, too. Let's do this together. We're not alone.

Dawn Taylor: [00:08:09] Well, and it's true. Society has put such shame on things that have happened to us. And it's shown us like we aren't good enough or we're not pure or we're not whatever it is. And I often have said, like, what if you stopped hating yourself and looked at yourself with curiosity? What if you look to that part of yourself that you hate and realize that that was actually something that was developed out of a protection mechanism that you needed to survive at one point in your life? Right. It's like if you're trying to eat healthy because you hate your body versus eating healthy because you love your body and you want to nourish it, it's it's still your body, but a completely different way to look at it. So when you talk about who that little girl was, who that person was that you hated, talk to us about her life. What was your childhood like?

Joy Stone: [00:08:58] My parents were very... Well my mom was not very young, I guess, but she was 18 and my dad was older. He was 27. But they were traveling along like they were hippies on on the road. And they got pregnant with me along the way. So they definitely weren't planning to have a child. They were not equipped to have a child. They were homeless. They were living on hitchhiking, basically no home, nothing, backpacks. And so they had me along the way. And then we... so I was born into total poverty, total homelessness with parents who were dealing with drug addiction and alcoholism and physical abuse and just all the things going on. Just absolute chaos from the moment I came into this world. And that just escalated into my years as I grew up. And so I grew up in a home with alcoholism, drug addiction, abuse. I experienced abuse, physical, but more so like emotional, mental, neglect, some sexual abuse. And just all this completely unsafe, did not feel that there was any structure in my life, no boundaries. I had no voice. It didn't matter what I wanted. What I needed. That was not a priority. That was not a consideration. Going to school was like a complete torture, even though I absolutely loved going to school because on one hand it felt like such a safe place because--

Dawn Taylor: [00:10:16] You were getting away from it.

Joy Stone: [00:10:17] Yes, I could get away.

Dawn Taylor: [00:10:19] Yeah.

Joy Stone: [00:10:19] Yeah. But then it was like embarrassing because I couldn't play sports. I didn't do extracurricular activities. I didn't have the right clothes. I just felt odd. Right. And I was a secret. Nobody came to my house. Nobody came to my house. I didn't have friends over. We didn't go do playdates. You know what I mean? It was like none of that. And so we lived in a - by the time that my mom and dad separated when I was about five or six, they were never married, but when they separated, my mom was a bartender. And so we lived in a little apartment attached to the bar. And, you know, there were times I would wake up in the middle of the night, my mom would not be there. She would be at the bar or somewhere else. I would be left for like days, like sometimes three days. Didn't know where anybody was. And I would walk the streets at night like anybody know where my mom is? Like I'd be knocking on bar doors. So it was, it was just a difficult time growing up like that. And I learned to, like, retreat inside myself. That I can only rely on me.

Dawn Taylor: [00:11:17] Well, and then from from this magical society's view on that, you were different. And all of these things that we've been taught are bad or broken or wrong or... So what did that childhood, did it continue to go like that your entire life? Did it... what did it train in you?

Joy Stone: [00:11:38] Until I was ten when my mom met a, she met a man and married him for a very short period of time. But in that short period of time, she had a baby. And that's my brother, who is ten years younger than me. But my mom,and then that man, she married, separated. And I was left home now, still alone, but now with a baby at this very young age, not knowing what I was doing - and just to explain, like I don't, it was absolute terror is what I lived in, because I didn't know what I was doing, didn't know how to take care of myself, really, because I'm young. And my brother. And so it got to the point where even my brother would call me mom because it was just like as he aged, I was his primary caregiver. I mean, my mom was around, but she was young, she was bartending, she was out at night. She had her life. She was off with her friends. She was dealing with alcoholism. It was just... And my dad had had moved away, which I felt very angry about. I felt very abandoned by him. So it instilled in me as I grew up, again, that I'm the only one that I can rely on. I was starting to get very resentful, very angry, and also very scared, which is what's underneath there. So I grew up and I did not get to. We moved into some low income housing. We left that apartment and ended up in low income housing in another city. And now my teenage years were hard because I didn't really get to go do all the things that girls want to do. And you're supposed to be discovering yourself and you're in puberty and you're totally awkward and you're like, No one's teaching me things about this, you know what I mean? So basically I was looking outside of myself for normal. I was looking outside of myself for an identity. I was looking at other people and saying, What are they doing? Like, how do other girls behave? Because I literally felt like an empty shell inside. I did not know myself. I didn't know how to function. And so there came a point where my mom, it just got more difficult to take care of my brother, my mom not being home all the time, that I had to quit school. And that was devastating for me because I also, inside of me, we're so complicated, we're so dynamic as people. It's not one way. It's not like I was devastated and like feeling like my life's falling apart and I had no ambition inside of me. I also had a desire, like I want out of here and I want to make a life for myself and I want to never be here stuck here again. And so I knew that I wanted to go to school and I had like, even ideas that what if I could go to college or what if I could do this? I had an ambition, but I couldn't fulfill it because the weight of the world at such a young age was on me. So when I quit school, it felt very devastating. But the depression got so great that it was so hard to live the double life, go to school and pretend like I was okay, and then come home and know that it wasn't. So I ended up going back and getting my GED and then working my way into my life. We can talk about later, but that was it until I was 18 and I moved out finally.

Dawn Taylor: [00:14:31] Wow. And so where is your - I have to ask, because that's who I am - where is your relationship with your mom now?

Joy Stone: [00:14:38] It's a complicated relationship because as much as I've healed, as much as I've worked on loving myself, getting to know myself, forgiving, forgiving, doing the inner child work, doing all the shadow work stuff that we do, doing all the things, when I'm around my mother, I can see that I love her deeply because I see I have compassion for her because she also came from a very hard childhood. She was not equipped to have, she she did not have a good life either. And yet I have these visceral memories. I have these cellular memories. I have these things that arise. So when I'm around her, I just have to be very intentional and also very patient with myself because I used to beat myself up when I would get triggered. I think, what's wrong with me? Why am I still, yeah, why am I getting triggered? I've done so much work. Why am I still feeling so bugged? Or you know what I mean? And it's like, or I'm spiritual, I'm evolved, I am a teacher. Like, what's going on? So I've learned to have compassion for myself and my mother. But I will say that it - just to be transparent, because that's what this conversation is about - so just normal to all these things, even right now, as we're talking for this podcast, my mother and I are having a disagreement. And what I'm doing right now is I'm trying to break a pattern in myself where when my mom - because what happens when you grow up like that too, is you end up putting everybody else's needs before yours because there's no room for your needs. But you're angry about it, right? So what happens is if my mom can do the passive aggressive or the guilt trip, like kind of because she has trouble communicating, so that's how she communicates, then I let that guilt, I let that guilt control my decision making, and I'll do things that I don't want to do. But what I'm doing right now is I'm really working on allowing myself to break that pattern. I can sit with guilt, I can hold this guilt, Joy, like that's what I'm telling myself. This guilt is not going to kill me. It's just a feeling. And the more that I grow, the more that I realize that's what growth is as my capacity to hold more of this duality. Because it will not go away, that one day I'm just not going to get triggered. It ebbs and flows, so I just have to be able to hold more for myself. So that's where I'm at with it right now is, yeah, I'm a little triggered and I'm working through. When I say trigger, it's a teacher, it's teaching me because that trigger is taking me back home to myself is what I'm learning. Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:17:07] Isn't that... No, thank you so much for the vulnerability and honesty there, because it is a thing. And I know in my own life my husband always laughs. He's like, You're the first person to, like, pick your own scabs. And it sounds gross, right? But what he's meaning by it is like the second, that split second, I'm like, Oh, there's a thing there I haven't worked through, I haven't processed or I haven't dealt with. I'm like, Oh, let's sit with it. Let's sit with that and dig through that and figure out what that is. And I was at a conference here, I think it's like a Tony Robbins conference, and he was talking about like, you can fight your fear, you can fight it or you can dance with it. And he did this visualization of like this person, like pulling. And they're fighting back and forth on stage. And then it's like, no, no, no. Or you like, wrap your arm around it and you can use the energy and the power of it to dance with it.

Joy Stone: [00:17:56] Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:17:57] And so as we can sit, sit in our shit, is really what it is. As we can sit there, how can we then heal.

Joy Stone: [00:18:07] And also not make a judgment about it. It's like the idea that we have this problem, quote/unquote. But then we add another problem to it. So we have the problem that arises, let's just call it that name. It's a problem, I have a trigger, I have a feeling, it's like, Oh my gosh, here I am again in this experience with my mother. And then I layer it with, Well, I shouldn't feel this way anymore, what's wrong with me? And then that adds that layer of shame, like, Oh, now what's wrong with me? And then I don't want to talk to people and then I just want to wall myself off and then yada, yada, yada. And wait a minute. Like this is why I think we're not broken. Like I said, like we can talk about this is that this is just part of being human. We are like, we are on this planet with other people, with these dynamic relationships, with these wounds, so to speak. But sometimes the best I can do is just lean back and observe. I don't need to bite the hook, and that's sometimes the best I can. And that's a great thing not to bite the hook. Because if I don't bite the hook, right? I can like, then I can have some... I have a choice.

Dawn Taylor: [00:19:12] Yeah. So with that, one of the things that I love to look at in that way is like, Oh, what an amazing flashlight. Like shining light on the fact that I probably need a boundary there and we mess up boundaries so bad in that I'm putting at the boundary against your behavior. Instead of being like I'm putting up a boundary on my behavior, how I'm going to react, how I'm going to respond, how I'm going to deal with it. Because we can't make anyone feel a feel. We can't. Like think about that for a second. We can't make someone feel a feel. So right now I could be like, Wow, you have really ugly hair - which Joy doesn't, by the way, she's stunningly beautiful and looks like she's 25 - I could say that and you could start laughing and be like, Wow, you're weird. You could go totally different. It could cause a massive emotional response and you could like scream and yell and swear and lose it on me. We actually are in charge of our feels and our emotions. So as soon as we're handing that power over to somebody, as soon as we're giving them that power, it's this amazing moment to be like, Whoa, why am I allowing you to make me feel something I'm not willing to feel? Because I'm actually allowed to attach meaning to this.

Joy Stone: [00:20:31] Yes.

Dawn Taylor: [00:20:32] Not you. So that is another thing. Having been raised by passive aggressive humans and having a lot of them in my family. Oh, the guilt and shame. Huge, huge, massive, massive issues around that. Yeah.

Joy Stone: [00:20:48] And toxic.

Dawn Taylor: [00:20:50] Right? Like so toxic. And one of the things that I do personally is I always look at like, okay, what was my intention behind my behavior? What was my intention behind it? Was it to harm? Was it to hurt? Was it to cause somebody else to react in a horrible way? If so, then damn rights I should feel some guilt and shame over that. Like, let's just put that out there, right? Like, if I actually consciously set out to harm, I should feel bad. But when you can even take a look at it and for people listening, if you're in a situation like this. If you can, like she said, step back. Don't bite the hook. And maybe that's like a close your mouth. Don't bite the hook. Stop talking. Is like pull back from it for a second and then be like, okay, what was my intention behind my side of the situation? Behind what I said, behind what I did, behind how I responded or reacted to it. What was my intention behind it?

Joy Stone: [00:21:48] That gives you a lot more, it's much more empowering, right? Because then you're at least you're taking control of your experience and you're using that thing, which is that double edged sword as either something that can continue to harm you or help you grow. And the other thing that's very... there's a book by David Hawkins, and he talks about how we kind of measure emotions, right? Like each emotion has a vibration and how shame is really like the lowest vibration. The vibration of that emotion is in proximity to death. Like we actually feel like a non person. Like when we are riddled in shame, we actually are so close to death, like energetically. So if you think about that, living with so much shame and when you grow up as a kid living with that, but that profound ripple effect that has on your body, mind, spirit as you're growing up, and still knowing that we're not broken. So it's like if we have any sort of like impact, that's normal, that's normal. So don't layer it with more shame or more guilt or more, more fear. Don't be like another abuser in your own life, sort of speak, with your own words to yourself. And one thing that I find very humbling is that, again, this is a real conversation, right? We're like... is that even though I can say, oh my goodness, my mother does these things that can really trigger me, and yet I know that that trigger is coming from that wound within me. What's so humbling is when I see myself acting like my mother. You know what I'm saying? This happens for us and that, my husband will bring that up to me sometimes. I'll share with him things that I experience with my mother, and he's like, He says it in a loving way if it's appropriate. You know what I mean? We're having conversation. He's like, Can it bring that to light? That that's actually something that I do. And I'm like, Wow, you're right. I do do that. So it's that when I am seeing something in another person, it's that idea, too, that it's something in me that I need to be healed. Because that whole idea, even though there is the experience of what happened, not everybody gets wounded, quote/unquote, in the same way. And that obviously is something in me that needs some attention, like you're saying. So that's just another humbling experience when that happens. And this past year, I've really been noticing it more and I've been really willing to let myself admit that. And because I can admit that and see that and not just go, no way, I'm not like her. Well, yeah, well, if you grew up like I did, you'd be like this too, kind of attitude.

Dawn Taylor: [00:24:21] Oh, the justification.

Joy Stone: [00:24:23] Yes. So really allowing myself to go, Yeah, I see that about me. It's not a judgment, because the only way I can see something about myself and really take it in stride and say, I'm going to heal this or I'm going to bring this into the fact that I'm actually whole and it's okay. I'm going to like, integrate this, is if I don't make it a bad thing about me. If I make it a bad thing about me, then I'm going to get busy defending it and I just don't need to go there. So, doesn't mean I don't ever go there. But I'm, but that's, I think part of this thing that we need to talk more about. That if, it's just part of the journey.

Dawn Taylor: [00:24:57] Oh, it so is. So I want to backtrack a second because I have people all the time - I have such like a logic masculine brain often - and I have people all the time say things like, oh, gosh, energy, you're talking about energy. And I had someone else on my podcast the other day and they're like, Is it going to be all like coaches talking about energy and like, woo woo shit? And I was like, You're hilarious. And no, I promise it won't be. But I want to go to the energy for a second because so many people think that it's actually just woo woo, right? Like it's just this hippie new age spiritual woo woo stuff. Guys, we're molecules and atoms.

Joy Stone: [00:25:39] 100%.

Dawn Taylor: [00:25:40] Like, that's actually just science.

Joy Stone: [00:25:43] Everything is energy. And we hear that. But it's absolutely, it's science.

Dawn Taylor: [00:25:47] It's science. We're molecules and atoms that literally are vibrating all day every day like, and friction of, like, bumping up against each other. Like that's, that's actually all it is. So when you hear anything about energy or you hear anything about that stuff, know that it's actually scientifically proven. They can actually test the energy in food, they can test it in people, they can test it in emotions, they can test it and all these things. It's the reason why when we walk into a room, someone feels gross. You know, that moment where you meet someone and you're like, oh, and you're like, why does oh, I just don't want to be around them. It's because their vibration is so low.

Joy Stone: [00:26:28] Yeah, well, I mean, everything.

Dawn Taylor: [00:26:30] That is incompatible with yours.

Joy Stone: [00:26:32] Yeah, it's awesome. I mean, everything is really energy and the fact if we think about our thoughts are energy. Our thoughts like, can produce emotion in us and emotions are just simply chemicals in our body. So even our emotions put into science a little bit if we want to look at that, right, they're just chemical reactions to what our brain is telling our body. And so those emotions, though, put us into motion and motion is energy. And so a lot of times I'll when I'm talking to women or myself or just think about my life too, is there's a lot of things that we can't control. There are so many variables to what our life looks like.

Dawn Taylor: [00:27:08] We control hardly anything.

Joy Stone: [00:27:10] Hardly anything. But what we can control is our energy. I can control what I choose to eat, how much sleep I choose to get, what I choose to focus on, how much TV I watch, who I spend my time with, what I read. I can control the energy I bring to something. And when I learned that, that was a game changer for me, because there's the power of influence, I can either let everything influence me, and it certainly will a little bit, because there's just that variable. Or I can put the focus on how I can influence things. So that is, that is just the way that it is.

Dawn Taylor: [00:27:48] Oh, totally.

Joy Stone: [00:27:49] And that's been really helpful for me.

Dawn Taylor: [00:27:53] Isn't that amazing? I know people are like, but I can control that. And I'm like, Really? What in your life can you actually control? So like, everything, I'm like, Really? Have you ever farted in public? Because I'm pretty sure you weren't in control of your body in that moment, right?

Joy Stone: [00:28:09] Like there are a lot of things that we can control. But the problem is people get stuck in that, what they can't control. And then they start to feel... Like there's that whole idea of the power of influence again, which is we're either going to live in our power of influence or we're going to live in our power of concern. So if a person has high anxiety, like I was, is always living in the circle of concern. Like what can I, what can I, what can I do? I don't have any control. I can't control her. I can't control that. I can't control the past. Why did that happen to me? Why did that happen? That was the thing over and over again, versus what can I actually influence? I can influence how I see my past. I can influence how that, who that past is going to allow me to become or who I want that to help me become. You know, and again, there's going to be factors that come up, but there are a lot of things that we can influence. And I think that as part of healing - and remember that we're not broken and that we are whole and complete - is that putting the emphasis on that in our lives and having compassion for the parts of areas where, hey, when things happen that we just... Because we have a physiological body and we have cellular memory and we can get triggered in the sense that something can happen in a second like, Oh my God, I wasn't intending to have a freak out. I wasn't intending to have that reaction. But wow, that came up for me because I've done things where I've felt embarrassed, where - and I'm someone who has done a lot of work on herself, quote/unquote, right, like a lot of that work - and there's times where I'll be in a public situation because I can still fall back into that little girl vibe where I don't feel like I fit in. I don't feel good enough. And when that gets triggered, it's like sometimes I can just act in a way. I'll have my walls up, I'll do, I'll do a a look or I'll shut down or I'll act cold and aloof, because that's the way that I used to act. And I can catch myself. But it can happen before I catch myself because it can happen so fast.

Dawn Taylor: [00:30:00] Oh, it's so quick. We have no grace for that in ourselves, which is mind blowing. Like we really should. I find myself too, and I don't know about you, but coming from a past trauma is people used to always be like, Well, you're really sensitive to things. When I was like, No, I don't want to watch a horror movie because it makes me feel too much and it affects me psychologically too much, or I don't want to watch that TV show or I don't, I don't want to watch the news. I don't want to play that game. Like I refuse to, like, bring those things into my world. Like, I just don't want that in my world. And people would be like, What is wrong with you? You're super sensitive. One of the best things that I ever did was say, No, I'm actually just tender. I'm just tender. And they were like, What do you mean? I was like some of the most elaborate, gourmet, fanciest, most beautiful things in the world are fragile or they're tender or they're they're just a bit, like they can't handle the roughhousing and the, like, that aspect of life. And I said, But it doesn't make them less beautiful.

Joy Stone: [00:31:08] Yeah, and that's beautiful because the concept you're sharing about is like this idea of just really knowing ourselves, knowing what we need, knowing our needs. Like some people really love being around people. Some people really love the whatever it is. I mean, my husband's very much an extrovert. Well, he says he's an introvert, but he loves, he's so social, he loves being around people and he probably may feel like an introvert inside. I'm definitely more introverted. We always joke about this. So the point being, he loves. So I used to kind of think, Oh yeah, I wish I was more, I wish I was more comfortable around people. I wish I was more outgoing. I mean, I'm not going, but it's just I like, have a limit, so.

Dawn Taylor: [00:31:49] You're an ambivert, or whatever they call it.

Joy Stone: [00:31:52] I'm a little of both. Right. So it's okay, though. It's. But the idea is having that wisdom and giving ourselves permission. It's like to say it's okay. Like one of the things that I tell myself and women that I support, is it's okay to want what you want for no reason at all or for any reason at all. In other words, you don't have to justify it. You don't have to validate it.

Dawn Taylor: [00:32:12] Say that again. It's okay to...

Joy Stone: [00:32:14] What you want for any reason at all, or for no reason at all. Because one of the things I used to walk around and say was, Do I really want to do this or that? But here's why, I would tell people why or, Well, but we probably shouldn't do that. Like I'd say what I want and then I'd say never mind, that's probably stupid. Like, I would do that and it's like, whoa. Or I would say something and I'd say, But I probably don't really know what I'm talking about or I'm not making sense. It's like a discount. And so it's like, Wait a minute, let me just say what I need. Also, if we don't allow ourselves to want what we want, nobody else is, like the universe isn't. And I'm not talking woo hoo, because there is like we have this thing in our brain called the reticular activating system, which is that I have this filter in my brain and it's looking out into the world, bringing back to me evidence of what I already believe. It's not bringing me facts, it's not bringing me truth. It's bringing me evidence. So if I believe that it's not okay to want what I want, that somehow I'm selfish or it's bad or that's stupid, well, I'm going to find a lot of evidence in my world that yeah, probably dumb idea to ask for what I want. I might pay more attention to an eye roll. I might look at people who seem to not really like me or think... I'm going to read into things because my brain is looking for congruence. So it's really important that we start on the inside and we say, Look, it's okay, I'm whole and complete. I'm allowed to have what I need. I'm allowed to want what I want. I don't need to go after it and harm people to get it, but I'm giving myself permission to be my own, like parent, like I'm parenting myself. I'm allowing myself to have that. I'm, it's okay. And that's one of the things like going back and doing some inner child work, which again, I used to have a real aversion to. I used to be like, Oh gosh, please, because I was very stuck in the masculine energy. And I don't mean that in a bad light. It can suppress our feminine. We need the balance. It's where I was like growing up in that fight or flight. I was going to push my way through life. I was going to get through life. I was not going to like--

Dawn Taylor: [00:34:10] You were going to pit bull it.

Joy Stone: [00:34:12] Pit bull it. So when I started learning about this inner child work, I would just immediately put up a wall. I was like, No, I do not like even that word. I don't even want to hear about that.

Dawn Taylor: [00:34:22] It sounds, it sounds like fluffy, do you know what I mean?

Joy Stone: [00:34:26] 100%? I do. Because sometimes even like, I would just get so, so angry at my therapist or my spiritual teacher or any of the work that I was doing from the spiritual side or the science side. I was like, all this work. But I will tell you, it's been some of the most profound work I've done. And what it is about is if you think about, now from a spiritual aspect, there is no time like we see time now. Like it's everything's kind of happening all at once. This is just an idea. We live in a fort. We think we live in a universe like that has a straight line time. But we don't. So when I go back and heal my inner, when I go back and talk to that little Joy, it's like I'm healing myself now because it's all happening at the same time. One of the things that I really got to understand more of, even this year in terms of this, is, Whoa, what I'd been doing was, when I would get triggered or when I would feel like, Oh, that like little part of me when I'm in a social situation, because that's where it would really kind of trigger me a lot is in social situations because I didn't have a lot of that growing up. I would start to immediately kind of go back to that little version of me that felt scared and insecure and am I going to say the right thing and what are people thinking about me? And that's just that kind of back story.

Dawn Taylor: [00:35:39] Oh, 100%.

Joy Stone: [00:35:40] So what I would do is I'd kind of like be like sitting there breathing and like, okay, it's okay. I'm fine right now. But I was allowing her to kind of take over my world now. And what I realize is, oh, my gosh, I go back and what I do is I bring her here and I say, Look, we are okay. Like we are safe. You are so proud of how far we have come. And I just let her kind of know. And it's not like I'm talking to a separate part of me. It's like I'm integrating. I'm saying, I see you. I hear you. You were never heard as a child. You were never seen. I get that. I get that this can be a scary situation, I'm acknowledging. And then I'm saying, but or and we've got this. We are okay. And I think that that's really important because when we're just trying to muscle through again, we're going back to that same cup that my joy and my sorrow is going to flow through is not clean. It's not, it's not open to like let things kind of fill and flow. So, yeah, that inner child work was interesting. And so I do really love it, though.

Dawn Taylor: [00:36:43] It's, yeah, I'm such a big believer in that and diving in. When people are like, Oh, but I just need to like, push, push, push, push, push, go forward, forward, forward. And I'm like, Maybe you don't understand so much of moving forward until you can accept what happened behind you.

Joy Stone: [00:37:02] Right. You just got to. Yeah, because you're not... You are, it's that idea that you are your constant companion. You are the main character in your story. You are every character in your story. You are every character. And so...

Dawn Taylor: [00:37:16] You're the author.

Joy Stone: [00:37:16] You're the author. And that part of you that's that has gone through what she's gone through or he's gone through has so much wisdom. And that's one of the things that I'm also learning more and more of in my life is to learn to extract the wisdom. Like if you just close off, you're also closing off the wisdom, like there is something to be learned, there is something to know. And I think that's where having the PTSD and the anxiety that I dealt with as an adult, right? Childhood and adult, is that instead of looking at that as something that's wrong with me, is that that's actually something that's guiding me.

Dawn Taylor: [00:37:53] What is the gift that came out of it?

Joy Stone: [00:37:55] Well, anxiety, I actually had a very profound experience with my anxiety because I had been really struggling and again, a lot of shame around it because at that time I was teaching, I was coaching, I was writing, I mean, all these things. And I was like, and I had all the mala beads and I was doing yoga and meditation and breathing and therapy, and I was like, What is wrong with me? Help, right? And I had this epiphany and it truly was almost like, I joke and say, Oh my God, it was like a download, which sounds I know, woo hoo, but I was driving, I remember the moment. I was going to the grocery store and I was so upset. I was just in my, I was just driving, I was like really frustrated. I was like, seriously? Like, how long am I going to deal with this? How long, how long, Joy? How long is this going to go on? What the heck is wrong with you? And I pull into the driveway of the grocery store and I'm parking and I can't bring myself to go in because I'm just in that like, I got to cry, but I don't want to cry, you know, kind of feeling like. And I'm frustrated because at the time my dad was busy and I was feeling triggered and I was like my husband... and there's a lot of stuff. And I thought, Oh my gosh, wow. Like, anxiety is not failure. This is the actual thought that came to me. I'm not failing right now, Joy. Like I'm not failing because I was driving the whole way thinking, what's wrong with me? What's wrong with me? What am I going to be through with this? What's the deal? I'm not failing. This anxiety is feedback. This anxiety is showing me where I am in relationship to myself. Because when my anxiety gets off the charts like that, or when I say off the charts, I'm functioning, but it's like I'm just, I'm out of alignment with myself. And that's what anxiety is. It's a gift. It's a messenger. It's showing me where I am in my focus and my energy and my attention and my, and all of it. Because every time I can track my anxiety back, it's that I have now become so out of focus that I'm putting my peace and my safety and my security on something that has to change out there. And that doesn't have to change for me to feel safe and secure anymore. So when I can, when the anxiety flares or the worry or overwhelm or that perfectionism or whatever it shows up as, flares, it is not failure. It's like, oops, it's like, alert, alert. Pay attention, Joy. Pay attention to what's really going on here. And then right after that, I got this next message and it was like, boom, boom, boom. It was like, wait a minute, anxiety is not really me. It's just a pattern. It's a physiological pattern. It's a mental habit. It's a point of focus. It actually is not me. I'm completely separate from anxiety. And as long as I keep trying to hammer on anxiety, I'm never really finding my wholeness. I'm not really experiencing my wholeness because I'm not broken. So this is kind of this idea. And then and then after that, I was like, Whoa, wait a minute. My diagnosis is not actually anxiety, it's disconnection. I'm disconnected from myself. And these were huge like, and again, I call them downloads to be funny, but it's like they kind of were messages that came through, but they came through from years of journey.

Dawn Taylor: [00:41:07] Of doing this.

Joy Stone: [00:41:08] And it was like, Wow. And so my life did change in that moment. Now when I say it changed, I changed the way I related to myself from that moment on. I changed the way that I was in relationship to myself. And that's the key. Because we aren't broken. We're whole and complete. And we're either going to start from that point where I wake up each day and remind myself, I am whole and ncomplete. And am I going to have some challenges in this day? Probably there'll be some that arise, that doesn't have to mean anything other than what I make it mean. And it doesn't have to say anything about my worth or value unless I choose it to.

Dawn Taylor: [00:41:39] Isn't that amazing? It's what we choose.

Joy Stone: [00:41:41] It really is.

Dawn Taylor: [00:41:42] I am always amazed at how little people are connected to themselves.

Joy Stone: [00:41:47] We're not taught to be.

Dawn Taylor: [00:41:50] We're not taught to be. We're not taught to be at all. We're also not taught to be critical thinkers anymore, which is why there's no common sense anymore.

Joy Stone: [00:41:56] Yeah, I know. It's so funny. During my pause, I went back and studied a positive psychology with - that was amazing - but the point is that my positive psychology teacher, Tal Ben-Shahar, he said the first day of class, we were all out in the class, and he stood up on the stage and he said, What I'm going to teach you is going to be it's going to sound like common sense, because what the problem with common sense is, most people don't use common sense. We're not using it. So the things that we're going to hear, even on podcasts like this, us talking, even things that we read in books, they're not like, wow factors most of the time. There are things we've heard before in one way or another, but we're not applying them. We're not integrating them. We're not, we're not making them be inside out. We're thinking the outside in really approach. And I think that's the big shift, is like I kind of joked I had all the mala beads, the essential oils, I had the yoga mat, I had the yoga.

Dawn Taylor: [00:42:51] You had all the things, all the things the self-help world had told you you needed.

Joy Stone: [00:42:55] I had them all, right. And I mean, I and I like those, right? But the thing is, like, they're supposed to be inside out. They're little mirrors for me to see that Oh, the peace is really in me. It's not out there. It's not in these mala beads. It's not on this yoga mat. It's not on the show.

Dawn Taylor: [00:43:09] Isn't that what everyone is thinking now? Right? We don't ever look outside of ourselves. So right now, for anyone who knows anything about my personal life, is last fall, I was diagnosed with a pretty rare severe thyroid disease, and one of the lovely parts of it - and I say that because it's actually like the weirdest gift on the planet - is through a whole pile of treatments my thyroid is under control right now, but the second I have any amount of stress in my life, I'm talking any amount of stress or overwhelm in my life, it flares my thyroid. Which then makes me completely exhausted to the point where I feel like I'm going to die. I'm so tired I can hardly get out of bed. I just want to sleep all the time. I can't function. I don't have words, like I feel like I'm literally falling apart and it knocks me out for a good 48 to 72 hours. But then what happens, is now I haven't been able to work and I haven't been able to do my house stuff and I haven't been able to function, which then just adds more stress, which then makes me more tired, which adds more stress. So I play this weird dance all day, every day, of like, how do I keep myself so grounded and so calm and no stress? So that I'm not tired except when I feel really good. So I want to do more things.

Joy Stone: [00:44:27] Isn't that interesting?

Dawn Taylor: [00:44:29] Which then adds this amazing level of stress back to my life, which then makes me exhausted. Right? And as I have been learning to manage this and deal with it, I got some really crazy bloodwork results yesterday and my cortisol levels are like perfect. And my doctor was like, What? You have perfect cortisol levels. He's like, okay, are you like disassociating and disconnecting to have them that good or have you actually just gotten that phenomenal at managing your stress? And I said, honestly, I've gotten that good at managing my stress. But in that I have to watch it, like I have to check in constantly to be like, How are you feeling? What's going on in your body? Like, I have to be connected at all times to know when I have to move a client or know when I have to cancel something or know when I need to say no or know when I need to have a nap. And it's even been as far as like a massive to do list at the end of the day, and I have time to do it. But I can feel that elevation, you know, that moment in your body where you can like start to feel the overwhelm.

Joy Stone: [00:45:32] Yes.

Dawn Taylor: [00:45:33] But we all ignore it.

Joy Stone: [00:45:35] We do.

Dawn Taylor: [00:45:36] We totally ignore it and we just push it aside and act like nothing's going on because we're like, No, I just have these ten things I have to get done, right? Like that urgency. Oh, no. If I push through that like, I may as well just, like, wipe out my entire calendar for the next three days.

Joy Stone: [00:45:49] I mean, when I say this, of course, and you and I were talking, these are like the anxiety or the thyroid, these gifts of kind of that book, gifts of imperfection. Right? It's like, oh, my gosh. Because in again, my background is in positive psychology and yoga psychology, so I do blend east and west, is if we look at it through the lens of the yoga psychology or yoga therapy, is that autoimmune or any sort of issue, right, when we look at this is what it really is energetically - this word, again - we're ignoring our needs. That's what it actually is. And you just said that. So that's why I brought up, because I was like, that's actually what it's showing us. So a lot of times we'll be sitting at the desk and we're working, Oh, I got to go to the bathroom, but we're not going to go. Well, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. People like even that basic need, I need some water. No, I won't get it because I got to just do this. We are ignoring our basic needs, and it's like everybody's going, Hey, hey, hey, don't ignore me. So this is the very, so it becomes this wake up call, like you have this beautiful now relationship with yourself. And when you said managing your stress, my brain goes into because of how I had just done a talk on this recently, rather than managing our stress, and it's exactly what you're doing, we're learning to manage our own energy. And so we go back to that energy where you are managing your energy, you're like, Look, I'm learning to listen to myself. I know when I need this or need that and I'm getting it and I'm not pushing it, I'm not doing... So it's like you're not managing the stress, you're managing your energy. And that's been the game changer. When we try to manage stress and all the moving parts that we think are making us stressful--

Dawn Taylor: [00:47:19] It just makes us more stressed.

Joy Stone: [00:47:21] Yes! So it's inside out.

Dawn Taylor: [00:47:23] 100% it does. No, and my husband's been laughing at me because it has been things like when I feel that right, like that moment, I'm like, Oh, stop, walk away, go for a walk, go outside and garden for 10 minutes. Go do something to, like, completely drop that back down and be like, No, now I'm good, now I can go back to what I was doing. And I've always been so hyper aware of what's going on in my body. I mean, when you have a brain aneurysm at 17 and you've dealt with the health stuff I have, like you have to be aware. And so like I've been so aware for so long and that's why I knew I had a thyroid problem months before anything would even show up on tests like I was diagnosed in September. And on my birthday in April, I told my friend I was like, Something's growing in my body right now. I can feel it and I don't know what. Like I'm hyper in tune with my body. And people always asked like, Well, but how? And I'm like, Oh, no, no, you actually have to listen to it. You have to actually listen. And what's amazing in those moments is I have been more productive. I've been, I've gotten through things way better. I'm enjoying life so much more managing that energy and managing those things. But like, if I even have - and I know it's been hard on friends - but, like, I'll have like something booked for, like, a date with somebody and it'll be like, Nope. Can't.

Joy Stone: [00:48:44] Oh, and giving yourself permission to do that is huge.

Dawn Taylor: [00:48:48] I do all the time.

Joy Stone: [00:48:49] That's awesome.

Dawn Taylor: [00:48:50] All the time, and it drives people in my life insane. And I'm like, No, right now that is not actually beneficial to my physical health right now. And I can't handle that. Actually, no, I can handle it, but it's not going to be beneficial to me, so I'm choosing not to.

Joy Stone: [00:49:06] Yeah, which is huge because a lot of people don't do that. Right? And I know we're not taught to do that. So sometimes we can even be told that's selfish, like we get these mixed mixed signals.

Dawn Taylor: [00:49:16] Well, because I'm broken.

Joy Stone: [00:49:17] Yeah. And I think that's huge. And listening. I know one thing I've done lately is saying I don't make commitments too far out because I am notorious for like, Oh yes, I'll commit. And then the day before or the day, I'm like, Why did I do that? So it's like I know my, sort of my, my human design in a way, like who I am. I make it up and like, no, I don't really want to commit that. I gave myself permission to say, Can I get back to you? Or maybe. Or do you need to know now? Can this wait? Like, or if it's something I really want to do and I know I'm going to stick to it? Sure. But yeah, it's beautiful. Beautiful to be able to give yourself permission to do that.

Dawn Taylor: [00:49:55] You know what? It's all these areas of our lives where, like, yours was so much of how you were raised in your childhood made you feel so broken. Mine has always been like labeled the sickly one or the one with all the health issues. And it's like, Wow, but I'm not broken.

Joy Stone: [00:50:09] No, we're not broken. And it's kind of like this idea that we're born broken and maybe get made whole or something. And I like the paradigm where we're whole and complete, but we just forget that.

Dawn Taylor: [00:50:20] We totally do. We totally do. So for people listening, guys, you are whole. You are complete. You're beautiful, you're perfect. You are amazing. And maybe you just have some parts in the wrong spots and that's okay, but give yourself some grace with it. So in the show notes, we're going to teach everyone where to find genius Joy, so that people can know who you are and what you do and all of those fun things and follow along with your stuff. Right now to end our hour together, what I want to do is just some fun, rapid fire questions. Just, I don't know, it's fun to get to know little facts about people. So what is the favorite place you've ever traveled?

Joy Stone: [00:50:58] Oh, my absolute favorite place is Byron Bay, Australia.

Dawn Taylor: [00:51:04] Oh.

Joy Stone: [00:51:04] Yes. I got to spend almost a week there. It was so fun.

Dawn Taylor: [00:51:08] You should see how Joy's face just, like, lit right up. She just, like, felt herself in Byron Bay.

Joy Stone: [00:51:14] Loved it.

Dawn Taylor: [00:51:16] How would you describe yourself in one sentence?

Joy Stone: [00:51:19] Oh, boy. I'm a silly person with a very serious side who likes to be alone, but also spend time with people.

Dawn Taylor: [00:51:28] Love it. That's why I didn't say like a couple of words, because I'm always like, I'm way too complicated for one word. What do you spend a silly amount of money on?

Joy Stone: [00:51:41] Oh, my gosh. Like books. I would say books, like things like that. Books. It's going to sound funny, but like oils. Even though I talked about all those things, I like that kind of stuff. Yeah, if I look around, that's what I spend a lot of money on. Books you should see. I literally don't even get the the Kindle books or the Audible, I get books still, and I have ones I haven't read.

Dawn Taylor: [00:52:08] My favorite's when I buy multiples because I forgot that I already bought one.

Joy Stone: [00:52:12] Yeah. Or it's like, Gosh, I want this one. Please. I don't know. I can't decide. Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:52:17] Oh, my husband the other day, he's like, Are you literally following along in a book and listening to it on Audible? And I was like, Mmm hmm. He's like, Isn't that..? I'm like, Yes, I also have the book in hardback. I'll give that one away. He's like, you're ridiculous. What is your secret guilty pleasure way to decompress?

Joy Stone: [00:52:39] It would definitely be to watch like, it's a bad one. It's not bad. I, here I am saying it's bad. It's just. It is, this is an embarrassing one, I will admit it. It's those, like, Dateline murder mysteries. 2020 Dateline channel. Yeah. I haven't watched them as much lately because I was getting a little bit like, Yeah, this is kind of weird, but like...

Dawn Taylor: [00:53:01] Not weird at all. You'd be amazed the things I've heard asking this question. Is there a purchase of $100 or less that you've made lately that has really positively impacted your life?

Joy Stone: [00:53:13] Yes, I will say that I actually went to the Dollar Store recently, like a Dollar General or something like that, and I have it on my desk right now, these cute little journals. And I love them and I love to journal and I journal every morning. No, I know this, this sounds... but journaling is big for me.

Dawn Taylor: [00:53:30] It is to some people, I don't. And if I journal, it's like, it's like these weird, like disjointed sentences. Like point form. It's like a point form checklist journal. People are like no, Dawn, complete sentences. I'm like, Why when you can write three words so it means the same thing. So no, I've never understood the thrill of journaling personally.

Joy Stone: [00:53:52] That's something I bought recently. But yeah, I would say my journal I love so much. Oh, I won't say one more thing then. That's it. Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:54:00] Oh, no. What was it?

Joy Stone: [00:54:01] It was really, my really cute blue light readers. I have to try these on because they are.. My husband makes fun of me, but I absolutely love them. They're huge.

Dawn Taylor: [00:54:11] What is it about blue light glasses that are so gigantic? They're always like, so big.

Joy Stone: [00:54:18] Hello. Could they get any bigger? But I love them. And I'm like, I'm not sending them back. Even though he was like, those things, do not let anybody see you in them.

Dawn Taylor: [00:54:28] I think they're adorable. And send me the link. We will post this for people to look at, if you're curious. Yeah. If you could choose to live anywhere in the world, where would it be?

Joy Stone: [00:54:42] Goodness. Oh, gosh, that's a hard one, because there's two places. Okay.

Dawn Taylor: [00:54:46] Give us both.

Joy Stone: [00:54:48] If money was no object? I could have everything taken care of.

Dawn Taylor: [00:54:51] Money, family, friends, nothing. No objection.

Joy Stone: [00:54:54] I would love to live in New York for a while because I never have. And I love New York. And Hawaii. I'd love to live in Hawaii.

Dawn Taylor: [00:55:01] I'm trying to convince my husband that we should like, winter places, but not like winter, like seniors that go for like, six months, but just escape like that nasty cold of, like, January, February, and, like, just find random places to live different every year.

Joy Stone: [00:55:14] It's so fun.

Dawn Taylor: [00:55:16] Not sure I'm going to get my change adverse husband on board.

Joy Stone: [00:55:20] I don't know. But it would be fun.

Dawn Taylor: [00:55:24] Wouldn't it? Well, thank you so much, Joy. This was an absolute blast. So if you are looking for Ms. Joy, they can find you everywhere. Joy Stone Coaching dot com on Instagram, Facebook, I'm guessing, all over the place. We're going to link everything in the show notes for you so you guys can find her. Show notes are found at the Taylor Way dot ca. And yeah we're also, she has a really fun giveaway for you guys today. So what is the giveaway that you have said. So what's the giveaway you're going to get?

Joy Stone: [00:55:56] So yeah, so it's my book. It's my, and it became a bestseller on Amazon and it's available on all the bookstores. It's called "If I'm So Spiritual, Why am I Still so Anxious?" So it's kind of a funny spin on if I've done all this work, I've done all the things, why am I still so anxious? And it comes from this idea that we are not broken. And it's the journey from trying to fix myself to actually discovering that I'm whole and complete and how to have a new relationship with who you are.

Dawn Taylor: [00:56:21] Amazing. So there's going to be a link for you to, I don't know, we'll figure it out. It'll be in the show notes, but you have an opportunity to win a hardback. I will actually purchase one that we can mail out to you for an opportunity for that. But I think there's also a free download you had said, where people could just like download it.

Joy Stone: [00:56:37] Yes, absolutely. So you can go to my website at Joy Stone Coaching dot come and download the digital copy right now. And there's also some bonuses there where you have the worksheets for the book as well.

Dawn Taylor: [00:56:49] Amazing. So we are going to link all of that in the show notes so that you get everything because we love giving stuff away on this podcast. If you love this episode, please share it with people you know and possibly leave a review. Thank you so much for hanging out today, Joy, and I can't wait to talk to you guys again soon.

Content Warning: Loss, Cancer, Loss of spouse.

Dawn Taylor welcomes Jason Clawson, therapist and co-founder of Giving Sunshine, to the show to talk intimately about grief. Jason has experienced deep personal grief and he shares what that journey was like, how hard expressing emotion was, and what he needed in a support system.

Jason Clawson lost his wife to cancer just when he thought his life was at a great place. He was left to parent their two boys on his own while struggling with his own deep grief in secret. He bottled up his suffering so he could “mask up” and be strong for everyone around him. But that wasn’t sustainable and Jason describes how he eventually broke down and asked for the help he needed. 

Dawn and Jason talk very openly about the grief associated with the loss of a spouse or loved one and Jason describes how there is an emotional disconnect for grieving men especially. Men are expected to be tough and not show vulnerability. But in this conversation Jason shares how he asked for help, who showed up for him, how they showed up, and then he shares advice on what to say and do to support someone in your life who is grieving. 

About Jason Clawson:

Jason Clawson is Therapist, Widower, and Father.

Shortly after experiencing the death of his third child, Jason Clawson and his wife discovered she had stage 4 colon cancer. After fighting for 9 months, he and his 2 boys had to say goodbye to her. Throughout all of this pain and heartache, it became obvious Jason had many people around him who cared about him but did not know how to give him the support he so desperately needed. This is when his friend Wyatt approached him and asked if he wanted to join in building a hope kit that would help those who are suffering progress through their own personal grieving cycle.

Throughout 13 years of therapy, Jason has discovered what he calls the “Support Vacuum”. When those who are struggling need the most support, those who would become their support are so scared of making things worse than they already are, they end up doing nothing. Imagine that, when someone is needed most, they disappear. But it makes sense, there are no training grounds on how to be a good support system to those who are struggling. That is until now. The Hope Kit is designed to help the person going through grief branch out and build that support around them with minimal effort.

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Here is a link to the support cards that help you know what to say when someone is struggling and going through a hard time. https://givingsunshine.com/products/support-cards-deck-1-2-the-best-ways-to-guide-2-friends-on-how-to-provide-support-without-needing-to-ask
• Here is a link to the sunshine cards people can pass out when they see people doing good in the world. https://givingsunshine.com/products/sunshine-cards-spread-share-happiness
• Jason’s favorite gummy bears

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Dawn Taylor - The Taylor Way: website | facebook | instagram | linkedin

Jason Clawson - Giving Sunshine: website | instagram | email | facebook | linkedin | jason’s facebook

Giveaway Link:

End Note:

From Jason: “In January 2022. I married my sweetheart Kirsten. We both have lost a spouse to cancer, and now get to share our stories of hope, happiness and joy after tragedy with others. We are also excited to announce that we are going to have a baby GIRL at the end of December. This truly a miracle because my wife was told she would never have kids, as well as me and my previous wife struggled with getting pregnant, and had to do in vitro fertilization to have children. Can't wait to squeeze and kiss our little girl soon.”

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Transcript:

Dawn Taylor: [00:00:09] Hey, hey, hey. Welcome to the Taylor Talks podcast. Oh, do I have a treat for you today. Hey, so this podcast, I got to spend an hour with the incredible Jason Clawson. If you have not heard of this guy, for starters, you need to check out the show notes because there is an image of him balancing a ladder on his chin. Yes, you heard that right. But he's also had a really, really crazy, incredible life. So to hear his story, you're going to have to listen. But we're going to dive into masculinity around grief. So the masks that we put on around being a man, the masks of grieving and how to actually create a system around you to help in those situations, but also how damaging that can be. He has an incredible business. He helps other people with grieving. There's just so many good things in this, and I cannot wait for you to hear it. Please check out the show notes for more information and to figure out how to get ahold of him. We'll see you on the show in a sec.

Dawn Taylor: [00:01:17] So welcome to the show, Jason. So excited to have you here today. So topic of the day: Asking for help in grief but from a man's perspective. When you're taught right, you're taught to just be strong, not ask for help. Don't be vulnerable. Come on, Jason. What do you mean you're asking for help?

Jason Clawson: [00:01:39] It's putting on the mask of masculinity and not let anybody see what is actually going in on your heart and on the inside. And it's just like, I'm good. I'm fine. When people would ask, like, How are you doing, Jason? Or How you holding up? It was a common response to just say, I'm good, I'm doing it. Because if I showed weakness to my boys, they would be worried and concerned. Or if anybody else saw weakness or that I'm breaking down, then they would worry. So I didn't want to put extra pressure on anybody else from just saying life sucks, like I can't take it anymore. I'm struggling to get out of bed, I'm struggling to brush my teeth. I'm struggling to to take a shower. I didn't want anybody to know because then everybody else was going to be worried about me, even though I was crumbling inside.

Dawn Taylor: [00:02:34] So let's backtrack for the listeners. Tell us a bit about your story.

Jason Clawson: [00:02:38] My story starts four years ago, life was going as good as I hope for, where I was a director of a recovery program as a clinical therapist. My wife had just lost 100 pounds. My boys are thriving in school and I was building a home that we've looked forward to. And in a matter of about a month, we, my wife discovers a lump in her stomach and she brought up some some concerns. We gave it a week to kind of let it play out. But after this week, her lump in her stomach grew. And then we found ourselves, through doctors and tests at the hospital, having an exploratory surgery to find out what was going on. So it was like, okay, let's hurry up and take care of this part of our life because we have to get back to the way life was going.

Dawn Taylor: [00:03:32] The amazing part.

Jason Clawson: [00:03:34] Yeah. This is what we worked really hard for and we pictured this life that we're supposed to live. And then I remember the doctor walking in after surgery and looking me right in the eyes and saying, Jason, I'm so sorry. Your wife has stage four colon cancer. And in a moment like that, I just started to cry and started to weep. My sister was there, my wife's best friend, her parents were there. And I just said, How could this happen? We are trying to help people. We are trying to do so much good. And why does this have to happen to me right now? How dare God do this to us right now? This is not supposed to be my life. And I was angry and I was upset. And then I remember going into the recovery room with my wife and the doctor comes in and says, my wife wakes up and says, this is the diagnosis. And again, I just begin to get angry and upset, like, how could this happen? And then I begin to have so many questions. And the doctor left the room. But I ran after the doctor. Doctor? Doctor, How are we going to pay for this? How do you tell your kids? What kind of treatment? How long does she have to live? And I'm just peppering her because I didn't know what to do except ask questions. And then the doctor calmed me down, looked me right in the eyes, and Dawn, this is just hard. What the doctor could have said at this moment, said, Jason, you'll be okay. But cancer has a way of enhancing your life. And I just wanted to say, I don't want, I don't want my life to be enhanced. I want to go back to my life I was living and I felt like a traumatic event happening in that moment where life was time-stamped in my brain. And when I can recall that, I can remember how it felt, what was going, all the details and time-stamped of the doctor saying that. And I held on to that and it just built in me and anger and all these emotions just begin to build because of that moment.

Dawn Taylor: [00:05:55] Absolutely.

Jason Clawson: [00:05:56] I was angry at the doctor, I was angry at God. I was angry at people that weren't helping me. I began as a male, I began to just, again, put on this hard mask and say, we're going to fight it. We're going to do all we can to fight back and we're going to beat this. And I just remember being scared to death and I'm getting emotional.

Dawn Taylor: [00:06:21] It's okay.

Jason Clawson: [00:06:22] I just remember... like I would I would take care of everybody. I would take care of my wife, make sure her needs are taken care of. I take care of my boys.

Dawn Taylor: [00:06:32] How many kids did you have or do you have?

Jason Clawson: [00:06:34] Two boys. And I remember when everybody was asleep, I would just sit there and sob and just say, This is not fair, this is so hard. And I would cry at night. I would fall asleep over exhaustion, and then I would get up before everybody else, wipe away the tears because I have to be strong, and put back on my mask and say, okay, we're going to fight this. But little did everybody know Jason was struggling and at times I was too prideful to just say, I can't do this anymore. This is not fair because people expect it. And what's hard as a caregiver is people expect you to be the strongest person in the room.

Dawn Taylor: [00:07:25] Isn't that amazing? It's so true. I have been in that position and I'm always like, Yeah, I'm strong, but I'm so weak at the same time.

Jason Clawson: [00:07:37] But it's like everybody gives all the love and attention to the person going through it. And you're just sitting over... it's a lonely, being a caregiver is a lonely spot because nobody - and I just challenge anybody listening to this - check on the caregiver, check on the caregivers and turn to them and say, How are you doing? Take them one on one, build them up so that they can build up the other person. This is something I learned that is so valuable. And every time that I come across someone that's suffering and someone that's taking care of, I immediately go to the caregiver. And I just said, How are you doing? What do you need? And that's my go-to because I know everybody else is helping that other person. And my eyes and the way I feel is I need to go take care of the caregiver first and then go take care of the other person, because the caregiver is that lonely spot where they're putting on a mask and they're pretending it's okay, but it's not okay.

Dawn Taylor: [00:08:43] No, not at all. So continue your story. Where did it go from there?

Jason Clawson: [00:08:48] So we were given 2 to 3 years to life expectancy. And as we fought back and did everything the doctor asked, nothing began to get better. Nothing. We'd do a scan and we'd do treatments and there was no improvement. So after nine months, we were saying goodbye to my wife at the funeral and trying to figure out how to do life now as a hybrid parent. I'm supposed to be a father. I'm supposed to have mother qualities and pick up those extra pieces. And funerals are great because everybody rallies around. But the hardest part is when the funeral, when everybody goes away, and the reality of hard life began to lock in. And I noticed that things that my wife did, I couldn't provide because I wasn't my wife and my boys were struggling and one of them would fight back and yell. The other one would go internal. So I'm just like, Oh, how do I help? And I begin to realize how hard life was and silently suffering every day and again crying. And then my boss calls me and says, We need you back to work. There's people that are struggling and people need help. And I'm just like, So again, I put on--

Dawn Taylor: [00:10:19] Pause for a second. How long? Got to love work. How long after your wife's funeral were you getting this phone call?

Jason Clawson: [00:10:29] I was back to work in eight days, nine days.

Dawn Taylor: [00:10:33] Are you serious?

Jason Clawson: [00:10:35] Yeah. And... I mean... I was--

Dawn Taylor: [00:10:38] -- as a therapist.

Jason Clawson: [00:10:40] Yeah, It felt like I had to go back because they needed me. But I wasn't done, and I was just in this tough, tough spot. And so, again, I put on that mask and I made sure my boys were taken care of. And I'd go work and and going through the hardest thing of your life and then sitting in a therapy session where I'm dealing with individuals, at this time I was working at a treatment program for adolescent girls. And there's sexual trauma, there's rape, there's there's some heavy, heavy stuff.

Dawn Taylor: [00:11:18] So not a light job to go back to.

Jason Clawson: [00:11:21] No. And I just... I would just sit there and at times, this is... they would complain about stupid stuff and I'd just be like, You want to complain? Let me share you a little bit about my life. But I didn't. I just, I did the best I can to help them in in their most difficult spots of their life. It was hard. And I did this for, I mean, I did this for nine months. And again, putting on that mask of masculinity, I'm supposed to be strong. And then finally, after nine months, I just said, I can't do this anymore. My kids are suffering. I remember coming home and my son pulls me aside - he's about 13 at this time - and he looks at me in the eye and goes, Dad, you come home angry every day. And I just, I went in my room and I began to weep because I didn't want my kids to suffer. And again, I was trying the best I could to manage my life and try to get by. But it was so heavy and so hard. And I was like, I just want someone to help my kids. I want someone to help me. And I was getting to a breaking point and finally I took my lunch break and I remember getting out my phone and I remember making a message to 14 people in my neighborhood and my church group, people in my family, and I said, I need help. Can you meet me at my house tonight? I want to open up my heart and tell you how I'm feeling. And I sent it and a sense of relief came over me because I threw it out there.

Dawn Taylor: [00:13:12] But will they show up?

Jason Clawson: [00:13:13] Exactly. That's what I thought. Who's going to show up? An amazing thing happen is everybody that I texted showed up, and I just felt extremely blessed. And I remember sitting in my living room and just pouring out my heart. And I call this my healing team because I finally gave people permission to help me.

Dawn Taylor: [00:13:39] Hey, pause really quick there. Pause really fast there. You gave people permission to help?

Jason Clawson: [00:13:46] Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:13:47] And I think, I just want to pause on that for a second because that is so powerful. Because I think that in those times when we are broken and we are alone and we are devastated and we're not holding it together and our masks are crumbling and falling off and life around us is falling apart, I'm known as the get shit done, girl. I'm known as the girl who. Right? I walk into a room and I protect and I save and I rescue and I do all those things. In trauma in my family's lives and all those things. Right? But I don't know how to ask for help. And so for people hearing this that are like Jason and myself who don't know how to ask for help, when you ask the caregiver how they're doing and they say, I'm good, you know, I'm fine, you know, I'm getting through this. Don't just take that at face value.

Jason Clawson: [00:14:41] Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:14:42] Dig way deeper. Be like, No, no, no, no, you're not. What's really going on?

Jason Clawson: [00:14:47] Sit in the emotion with them.

Dawn Taylor: [00:14:50] Yes. So keep going. So you invited 14 people, and that night...

Jason Clawson: [00:14:54] I just poured out my heart and, again, giving them permission. Because when you go through a traumatic event or loss or losing a loved one, there's so many people in our culture that don't know how to help. They're afraid to say things. They don't want to rock the boat. They don't want to speak the person's name.

Dawn Taylor: [00:15:15] Oh, that's the worst.

Jason Clawson: [00:15:17] They just, they go into a support vacuum where they want to do something, but they don't do anything. Again, I said I gave them permission to help me. And once I open up my heart, then they said, okay, I know how Jason is feeling and I know how to help them. So that's why it was important for me to finally take off my mask and say, This is how, this is what's going on. And in that moment, these guys gave me feedback on what was going on, what they're experiencing. Together we begin to talk about how to help each other. And another amazing thing happened is in that healing team, we created a captain of my team, and whenever things would get really heavy or hard, all I would have to do is text one health word to my captain, and the captain would send out a text to everybody in my group. And what was amazing in that group is we made assignments for people of what to do. So someone is in charge of the laundry, my parents were in charge of my laundry.

Dawn Taylor: [00:16:23] That's awesome.

Jason Clawson: [00:16:24] Someone was in charge of taking my kids. Someone was in charge of bringing me food, doing yard work, house clean. So when they get that word help, when it got as heavy as it ever could, if I send out one word, I can send out one word. Then the troops would come in.

Dawn Taylor: [00:16:42] They all just came in.

Jason Clawson: [00:16:43] And they would pick me up until I became strong enough to take some of those things back and carry me through. Until I said, I can do my laundry.

Dawn Taylor: [00:16:55] Mom and Dad, you can stay home.

Jason Clawson: [00:16:57] Let's hold off on the meals. They're starting to back up. But this gave me power and permission to be able to move forward. And as hard, as difficult as it got, all I could do is just send one text and people would kind of build me up. And that was extremely empowering to be able to do this. And then I began to be, people would ask hard questions or ask how I'm really doing, and it began to allow myself to heal from the inside out. And I wasn't trying to hold on to my emotions and just trying to wait out grief, because you can't wait out grief. You can't wait out trauma. You can't wait out those emotions. So. And one thing I also learned was the opposite of grieving, the opposite of depression, the opposite of addiction in work I've done, is connection. And I realize how powerful connecting with people that are there and wanting to help. But again, I'm not going to connect with just anybody. Again, I would go to church, I would show up and people would say, Hey, if there's, how you doing?

Dawn Taylor: [00:18:10] If you need anything, let me know. You know that line from church?

Jason Clawson: [00:18:16] Yeah. I knew the right words to say to push on the people that weren't interested. But again, going back to what you said, Dawn, people that just sat in it just said, no, you're not, you're not doing very good, and sat in that moment where the tears could come out. And those are the people that I can invest in. Those are the people worth opening up my heart because I know they're going to take care of my heart or they're going to help me heal my heart.

Dawn Taylor: [00:18:45] 100%.

Jason Clawson: [00:18:45] It's, again, it's finding the right people. That's that's hard, though.

Dawn Taylor: [00:18:51] I was going to say that is very hard to find those people. When my mom passed away, that was a really hard one because, again, like I'm the girl who got the phone call that my mom and passed away at ten in the morning. And then I proceeded to do my boss's bookkeeping for his year end for the next 4 hours.

Jason Clawson: [00:19:13] Oh, wow.

Dawn Taylor: [00:19:13] Because it had to get done. That's where I go. I go into that rock. I turn into a rock when trauma happens in my childhood or my life. And for me, it was always four months later. It's four months later that I fall apart because I have a natural go-to of take care of everybody around me, make sure everybody else is okay. When my mom passed away, when my dad walked away, when, you know, when I had a brain aneurysm and all these things happen, it was like, no, no, no, I got to take care of everybody else first, make sure everybody else is okay. Put on my rock face. And four months later, almost to the day after any and all traumas, is when I fall apart. That's my moment. And so I know for myself and for anyone listening, pay attention to what your patterns are when it comes to that, because I know mine is four months. So I've told friends over the years like I'm good now, I'm great in those first six weeks. I cry at night, I hold it together all day. I'm very efficient. Check on me in four months, because in four months I'm going to be a basket case and I'm going to be where most people are in week one.

Jason Clawson: [00:20:25] So true.

Dawn Taylor: [00:20:26] Right?

Jason Clawson: [00:20:28] I've had people say, Well, how do you know you're doing better? Like, what are the, how do you know that you're showing up and doing better? And the best way that I found to describe this is when we first go through a traumatic event, all those emotions are like time-stamped and they're connected to emotions that come up. And what I found is at the very beginning when I lost my wife, I couldn't even speak her name without just crying or talking about the memories of things I would have. And I couldn't even get through like a sentence. And what I've noticed is over the years, as I've done my work, I've talked, I've incorporated my team, is the intensity of the emotion decreases. And that's how I know I'm doing better, because now I can talk about my wife openly. I can talk about her memories without breaking down for a couple of days. And again, there's times where I still get emotional and there's probably work that needs to be done, but the intensity of the emotion decreases.

Dawn Taylor: [00:21:35] So much less.

Jason Clawson: [00:21:36] And think of like taking off the mask and letting these emotions out to people and sharing those. That's helped me heal in my intensity. And I'm doing less of falling apart. But that doesn't mean I'm not honoring my wife. It means I'm honoring her more because I'm talking about it and I'm talking the experience and I teach people and that gives back to me strength, because I'm connecting with them on a deeper level.

Dawn Taylor: [00:22:08] Oh, totally. I have to ask, how are your boys doing?

Jason Clawson: [00:22:12] Today they are doing good. It's been an adventure for them. And again, they struggle in different ways. And I just remember saying, man, I don't want to be five years down the road and we are addressing these in therapy because as a therapist, I knew how that complex trauma and those emotions that are backed up and how they manifest itself. And I was like, we got to do something. And, and the thing that happened after the healing team is I remember, my life, I was operating, and my boys, off of sad and unhappy memories. We're her death, cancer. That's just all we are living and that's not sustainable. So after that team meeting, I said I want to create some happy and I want to reconnect with my kids. So I did a hard thing. I quit my job and I just said, I'm done. My family is more important to me than than just being stressed out. So I quit my job. And after that, I sat down at the kitchen table with my kids and I said, Boys, I quit my job. I want to make a bucket list with you. And I want to make some happy memories with you guys. And so we created a bucket list of things that we were able to do and accomplish. But I think the important part, too, is we involved other people into our scope that people could check on me, talk to my boys, and we're building our team and our community so that they could help us heal. So. And what was interesting is one of the things that we did is we created the lemonade stand, a lemonade stand, because we wanted to make these yellow sunshine buckets so that we could give to people and bring happiness to them.

Dawn Taylor: [00:24:11] Oh, that's so fun.

Jason Clawson: [00:24:12] And because someone did that to us when we were going through treatment with my wife and it was so happy, it was a great time to remember. And again, my mind time-stamped my wife smiling, my boys laughing and getting along,and I was like, I want to do that. So with my boys is we begin to activate in our brain yellow things. So whenever we'd go to the store, we'd look for yellow things to go in the baskets. And this was so helpful for my boys because I began to train them to think about other people other than themselves. So they would go to the store and they'd be like, Oh, let's get that for the basket, let's get this. And it became such a motivating thing to help them. And they were thinking about how we can help people other than what's going on inside. And this began to help them. So we did a neighborhood lemonade stand. We raised 1500 dollars.

Dawn Taylor: [00:25:10] That's quite the lemonade.

Jason Clawson: [00:25:12] Yeah, exactly. We took that money. We created 25 baskets. And our mission of helping and giving back was the right medicine for us to be able to be helpful. So we'd put these baskets together, we put it out on Facebook, and we begin to deliver them, and we begin to ask the hard questions to people that were going through hard times because we knew what to ask them. We knew what to say and how to say, you know, this sucks. Like there's no way around it. And my boys could speak to their kids, I could speak to the spouse. And it became a way of life, of helping people. And in that sense, we begin to heal because we begin to give of ourselves and help people heal as well. And it gave us an opportunity to tell our story and speak of those emotions. And we began to connect emotions to emotion, and we began to have deep, deep connections with these people. And some of the most amazing spiritual experiences about connecting people from trauma or from going through life-altering event was some of the most amazing experiences.

Dawn Taylor: [00:26:33] Which is incredible. So one thing I want to touch on is when you had mentioned when the caregiver, they're the strong one, and they have to hold it all together and they have to deal with this. You were dealing with a whole different aspect of it as well and the fact that you were a therapist, you were the therapist to the room. So was there a judgment put on that? Was there an expectation on you in that way? Because I mean, you're trained, you're a therapist. You should be able to handle trauma in a different way or deal with this in a different way. I want you to talk to me about that experience.

Jason Clawson: [00:27:10] I love that question. You're right. I dealt with people with sexual trauma, with abuse, people grieving. And I can help people. I can help them out of that. But when it comes to me, I physically can't look in the mirror and talk me through that. So that was extremely hard and frustrating. But what I knew is I had the information and what I began to do is one of my biggest supports, he began to ask the right questions and it's like, How do I help you? So I begin to teach him what to say and how to help me. And that became such a great way of doing it. I could teach, but I couldn't help myself. So I began to teach him what to say, what to do. And that was a vulnerable moment because it was another, it was a male connecting with a male, which we don't. We would go to lunch weekly and he would sit across from me and he'd say, How you doing? And ask the harder questions. Or he would even say, Is that the right question to ask, Jason? Or What do you need? And I would teach him. And then on our next connection, he would ask those and follow up. And that was so helpful for me, probably more helpful than going into therapy and talking to a therapist. But what I was doing in that relationship is I was telling them what I needed and he was willing enough to follow up and help me through and walk that journey with me. And that was extremely helpful. Not everybody can do that. Not even my siblings. I come from a family with six other siblings and they were having a hard time showing up for me. So I had to go to someone that was willing and and right there with me, it was my neighbor at the time, and teach him how to help me. And thank Jesus for helping me, having someone to be able to sit in those emotions and wasn't running away. Just no matter what I said, he would just say, okay, let's do this tomorrow, Jason, let's get you out of that. And that was extremely healing. And the only way that that could have happened was for me to just be raw and authentic. And I think what I did was I sent out the feeler questions to see if he was the right person to sit in that. And they responded to it. And I was ready to unload when he responded to me.

Dawn Taylor: [00:30:03] So are you willing to give us some examples of those feeler questions? Because I think there's an expectation on the people around us. It's like, I'm in an emergency situation right now, except we're all, it's like we're all in a movie and these people are all part of the movie. They're just all your, you know, your secondary characters. But sometimes those people aren't the ones that can help you in those moments. They aren't the ones that can be the support for you. And it's not everybody's thing. And so we have these expectations on our spouses, on our friends, and our families and our siblings, and our relatives, to be our rocks, to stand up for us, to step in and be in that situation. And they don't know how or they can't.

Jason Clawson: [00:30:46] Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:30:47] And so we do often have to reach outside of that. And I know sometimes in my life it's been the most random strangers or the most random people that have stepped in and been those people for me. It hasn't been the people you would think. It wasn't a sibling or it wasn't a close friend, there's some random guy on a committee with me for a community thing that will come over and sit and talk with me during a hard time or will take me out for coffee, or a random artist friend who I met at an art show. And we'd go and sit in a breakfast place and just talk. You never know who they're going to be, but what are some feeler questions that people could have, if you're willing to share, that they could put out there for like, Hey, how do I find this person?

Jason Clawson: [00:31:37] It's interesting you said that. As a side note, me and my support system, we've made these support cards for people to know what to ask them. So we'll get to that. But we, me and my support, we've created these deck of cards that people can use to ask those harder questions or ask those emotional questions. I think one thing about my support is, one thing with me is, he wasn't afraid to bring up my wife's name. That's not scary for them. So.

Dawn Taylor: [00:32:17] Huge. That is so huge.

Jason Clawson: [00:32:20] Yeah. And when they can speak their name without hesitation, it's like, okay, you're not afraid to continue keeping that person alive in our life. And that's what someone that's lost, a spouse or someone they don't want that person's memory to be forgotten. So speaking their name is awesome medicine. And he's always asking that, he's like, Hey, Valerie's birthday's coming up. How are you going to honor her on her birthday? Like, and it's just so helpful. And I think also with this support person, why he asked emotional questions. He'll attach, How are you feeling? What is the hardest thing you're dealing with today? What would help you when you are having a difficult and down day? He would ask emotional questions, and in those moments you can't deflect those. You can't give a prepared answer, kind of like throwing a dart at you like, Oh, I have to answer that.

Dawn Taylor: [00:33:24] You're like, Shoot, I have to just show up for that one.

Jason Clawson: [00:33:27] And it's questions that aren't one one word or one breath answers. It causes me to pause and think about those emotions. Those are so, so helpful. I'm trying to think of other good questions. Again, he's able to focus on the here and now and how and how I'm being present, and that's really helpful. Not like how was last week for it, because that's too big. It's like focusing on, like, what's your biggest struggle right now that you're, that continues to make you frustrated? Like in the moment questions so you get raw - kind of like this podcast - that's like asking them how they're feeling in the moment, not how they were last week or how'd that month go. Just nail them with, and just sit there and you got to be willing to ask and you got to be willing to sit in the emotion and not run and just be like, That sucks. And validate them. Man, that is so hard to deal with. But guess what? I'm here for you and I want to sit in your emotions with you. That means the world.

Dawn Taylor: [00:34:35] I heard one of the top grief facilitators in the world is David Kessler, and he talked about the fact that after his son passed away, one of his friends just showed up and, like, parked in his driveway. And was like, I know you don't want him in your house kind of idea, but like, I'm here. And day after day after day after day, this guy would just show up and sit in his car in his driveway and be like, I'm here. I'm here if you need me. And he talks about how - I was listening to a thing with him the other day - and he was talking about how powerful that was. To just know someone was there. And I think so much of it is the awkward silence. People aren't... We're so afraid of our emotions. We're so afraid of feeling negative emotions. We are taught, and tell me if I'm wrong, but as a man, you're taught to be terrified of tears. Right? Because tears mean that either if there is a woman on the other side, things aren't good, right? She's crying. And now you have to figure out how to manage. Manage her. Right? Is this weird idea that's out there. Well, it's what we were taught from the patriarchy. Let's be honest.

Jason Clawson: [00:35:42] It's a weakness.

Dawn Taylor: [00:35:43] But the tears are a weakness. All of these negative emotions are a weakness. And yet, really, they're our greatest strength.

Jason Clawson: [00:35:51] Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:35:52] Our greatest strength.

Jason Clawson: [00:35:52] I teach clients vulnerability invites vulnerability.

Dawn Taylor: [00:36:00] Oh, it totally does.

Jason Clawson: [00:36:02] As soon as I begin to cry and let down my mask is the moment I begin to get happy and healthier and and walk my journey. As soon as I kept that mask on and not willing to share, it kept me stuck in the same place. And that just kept building emotions. It's like a pop bottle get shaken up, right? I wasn't letting out the fizz, but vulnerability invites vulnerability and that will invite the right people in, and the people that aren't ready or it makes them feel uncomfortable, they'll probably disappear because it's too hard for them. And they got their own stuff to work on. They'll just say, oh, they need some work. So let the people that come back to you be part of your healing team.

Dawn Taylor: [00:36:49] Well, and isn't that true what you just said, is they have their own thing that they need to work on. We're so quick to judge somebody's behavior and to judge the fact that they can't support us and judge them in that way instead of getting curious to be like, Huh? Maybe this is triggering something big in them or this is causing a big reaction in them that they can't handle right now.

Jason Clawson: [00:37:11] 100%. 100%

Dawn Taylor: [00:37:12] And so we need to let them go and do their thing. And if they're meant to be in our lives, they'll come back around. So one thing I've always told people is when you ask a really hard question of someone, be willing to just sit there. Just sit. I don't care if you have to like count to 60 or count to 120, but give the other person the opportunity to finally talk. And sometimes in that moment where it's like, No, no, no, how are you really doing?

Jason Clawson: [00:37:40] Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:37:41] If you're like, okay, they're not answering. Shoot. They're not answering. Maybe they're mad at me. Maybe there, it was too deep of a question, right? Sometimes they just need a moment to process to be like, No, they're actually asking and maybe they're safe, and maybe I can actually say what I need to say. And then I know this sounds blunt, but like, shut up and let them,. Like, just let them go. And if if they say something and they're like, this is what's hurting right now, and they're crying and they're letting it out, when they pause, don't try to fix it. Follow it with like, what else?

Jason Clawson: [00:38:12] Yeah, I had a friend just say, Jason, I don't know what to say. It's like, I want to support you, but I don't know what to say. But that was real. And I appreciated him just speaking how it feels to hear this. And then I could tell him what to do next. And that was really helpful. So speak. Speak how you're feeling so that you can support them.

Dawn Taylor: [00:38:38] So Jason has started an amazing organization and you know, this podcast, I've said from the day one, it's not going to be anything sales. But what we are doing is we're going to do a really cool giveaway at the end of this podcast if you go to the show notes, we're going to have a good giveaway for you, but we're also going to link to all of Jason's stuff. So from GivingSunshine.com where they put together the gift baskets, they have starter packs on there, the perfect sympathy care package, cancer support, all kinds of stuff on there that you can go to and you can help support his company as well and his family. But also where you can get in touch with him, you can connect with him. You can really take time to get to know him and how he's gone through all of this, and maybe see if he's a fit for you if you need some resources in that way. But is there anything else that you want to give as like a piece of advice? Tip? Something to someone who's dealing with this, whether they're... Let's do two if you're okay with it, is one is the person who's grieving a lost spouse or is about to lose their spouse from a similar situation, a tip that you would have for them, and also for their support people.

Jason Clawson: [00:39:54] And again, it goes back to finding some connections that will help you walk the journey, whether if your spouse is not doing very good, find some people that will walk through that journey with you. I think for me, I was trusting my family and other people that I had relationships with to just take over. But as I look back on it, it would have been helpful to develop some of those relationships prior to. I think later on I made my community, but I think start your community now, and start those hard or those emotional connections with people now. So they'll walk you through the whole process. And again, it goes back to connection. The opposite of grieving is connection and the opposite of depression and trauma, it's just connections and finding the right connections for you. That has been helpful through the process. And I couldn't have done it sooner. I should have done it sooner. But again.

Dawn Taylor: [00:41:01] Hindsight's 2020.

Jason Clawson: [00:41:02] I'm too prideful and I just wanted to muscle through this. But it broke me and it broke me down to where I had a choice of either breaking down and falling apart or taking off the mask and allowing people to help me through my emotions. So I chose to let people in rather than falling apart in front of everybody. So it's a lot.

Dawn Taylor: [00:41:31] They're going to show up no matter what. They're going to show up no matter what, whether you ask or if they have to be forced to later. And what about for the person helping, the person watching?

Jason Clawson: [00:41:44] It goes back to the questions that we've talked about, Dawn. It's asking hard questions and sit in the emotions, like just sit with them. That means so much. And someone that goes through traumatic events or someone that's lost a spouse, it's like the pop bottle just getting shaken up. And when you find someone safe to talk to you, oh, my gosh.

Dawn Taylor: [00:42:08] Watch it blow.

Jason Clawson: [00:42:10] But don't be afraid of those. It'll decrease, but they finally find you a safe person. That's a compliment when someone starts to unload. Sit in that emotions and then just continue to come back. Don't disappear. Those people need you. They have made you a person they trust and feel open with. And you just got to sit in those emotions. And that can be so helpful for people that just need to get some of those emotions out. They need you, they want you. And it's part of the healing journey.

Dawn Taylor: [00:42:48] Which is so beautiful, which is so beautiful. I know, I wish I had known all of this when I was dealing with grief in my life. And so it sounds really bad, but it's like, I'm glad I'm learning this now. I'm glad I know this now because let's be honest, we all die, right? Like, that's just part of life and grieving. And that's that's a huge just part of our world. And so to learn some of these things now is so powerful.

Jason Clawson: [00:43:13] Well, Dawn, do you remember what the doctor said to me in the hospital? Cancer has a way of enhancing your life. So we go for a full circle. And now I look back on that and I think of how blessed my life is, even though I've gone through a traumatic event and lost my wife, my life has been significantly enhanced because of what I have gone through, who I've met, who I've connected with, what I'm doing now to be able to help people through that process so they don't have to go through all the pain. And I'm sure you're on that same journey as well, is giving back and helping. My life has been enhanced because of doing my work and allowing myself to walk this path and being vulnerable so that I can help and I can heal in the process.

Dawn Taylor: [00:44:06] I always tell people, look at the gift in the situation. And often people are like, Dawn, there isn't a gift. And I was like, No, no, no. Gifts aren't good or bad. Like you get good gifts. You get horrible gifts. But what are the gifts in this situation? There's something, there's something that's going to come out of this. There's something. But you get to choose what that's going to look like for you. Because you've got to go through it no matter what.

Jason Clawson: [00:44:30] Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:44:30] So let's find something to cling to. So let's end with just our silly questions that I do at the end of every one.

Jason Clawson: [00:44:37] Kind of worried about this, but go ahead.

Dawn Taylor: [00:44:41] No, no. You know what they are? It's, they're just like silly things that normalize people and make just random things more attainable, but it just makes us all seem more human.

Jason Clawson: [00:44:52] Let's do it.

Dawn Taylor: [00:44:53] So what do you spend a silly amount of money on?

Jason Clawson: [00:44:58] My kryptonite is gummy bears.

Dawn Taylor: [00:45:01] That's amazing.

Jason Clawson: [00:45:02] I'm just, I'm kind of embarrassed, but that's, like, my favorite snack ever. It takes me back to being a kid and, like, I get them, and my kids want to eat them, and I, like, hoard them. So I just. I love gummy bears.

Dawn Taylor: [00:45:15] We're going to put a link in the show notes here, like top couple of gummy bears for people to have. That is amazing.

Jason Clawson: [00:45:23] Every birthday I get like 5 pounds of gummy bears, so they just keep showing up.

Dawn Taylor: [00:45:30] That is incredible. I love that so much. What is your secret guilty pleasure way to decompress other than eating gummy bears?

Jason Clawson: [00:45:38] Oh man, that's a great question.

Dawn Taylor: [00:45:43] Like some people, it's like a random TV show or I build Lego. I have the world's largest Lego collection. It's ridiculous.

Jason Clawson: [00:45:52] You know what? Something that is really helpful, like even when I've dealt with stressful clients or you know what? I love to take off my shoes and go walk in the grass or...

Dawn Taylor: [00:46:06] Earthy.

Jason Clawson: [00:46:06] Or carpet. Just grounding myself with my environment is like, so amazing. And when I go to write notes or I'm stressed out, I like take off my shoes. That's the first thing I do. And it's like self-soothing.

Dawn Taylor: [00:46:20] So that's amazing.

Jason Clawson: [00:46:22] Yeah. So go walk in the grass.

Dawn Taylor: [00:46:25] No answer on this is weird and it's so cool to hear just what people do. So do you have a purchase you've made of about $100 or less that has most positively impacted your life in the last like six, eight months?

Jason Clawson: [00:46:39] And it's a little bit later, but yeah, I, when I was, I remember waking up and looking in the mirror after I started to take care of everybody, I looked at myself and I wasn't in very good shape and I just was a shell of my self. And I, I invested in a health coach to help me become healthier and happier. And it was over $100. It was a monthly thing, and it was well worth taking care of myself.

Dawn Taylor: [00:47:10] Yeah, I think that's the biggest is we lose ourselves in taking care of the people around us. Then it feels, almost feels selfish to put money towards that or time towards that, all of those things. But it goes right back to like you got to put your oxygen mask on first. You got to focus on your own health. What is, last one, what is an unusual habit or some absurd thing that you love.

Jason Clawson: [00:47:36] I will tell you about my stupid human trick. And this is just bizarre. Anything I can get over my head, I can balance on my chair.

Dawn Taylor: [00:47:49] Explain.

Jason Clawson: [00:47:49] Tables, chairs, shopping carts, small children.

Dawn Taylor: [00:47:54] Really?

Jason Clawson: [00:47:55] It's kind of my mantra, like keeping your chin up. Like when we keep our chin up, we're not looking at the garbage on the ground, but we're, we're focusing on God, we're focused on people. And that will help us. So I will send you a picture.

Dawn Taylor: [00:48:10] Oh, my goodness. Please send me a picture of that. That is amazing.

Jason Clawson: [00:48:13] It's kind of been my mantra, but it makes me unique. And and that's what I do. I balance things on my chin. It's my way of connecting with adolescents and people that are struggling. So yeah, that's.

Dawn Taylor: [00:48:27] Oh, that is that is amazing. That is totally unusual and I absolutely love it. So for anyone who is listening today, thank you so much for hanging out with Jason and I for this last hour. And I just want to thank you so much for being here, Jason, for being part of this conversation and being willing to talk about the hard stuff in life. And if you enjoyed this episode, please, please, please leave a review on Apple or Spotify podcasts, wherever you're listening to them. And definitely wanting to check the show notes this week because we're going to have some fun giveaway, I'm sorry, a fun giveaway, a fun photo, and some links to some amazing gummy bears. And we'll see you back here in a couple weeks.

Dawn Taylor welcomes healer and coach Kim Lyle, owner of Thrive Within, to the show to talk about the massive self-help industry. Kim is not a fan of the pressure the self-help industry brings to life but she and Dawn discuss the good and the bad with raw honesty.

Kim went through her own struggles when she was a mother with a toddler and new baby and realized she was sleep deprived, pressed for time, and at a breaking point. She turned to the self-help industry for guidance but what she found was pressure to create time she didn’t have and an overwhelming sense of being broken or not good enough. 

Dawn and Kim explore the good and bad of the self-help complex. They candidly address exactly what you shouldn’t allow the industry to make you feel and how to assess whether or not a specific modality or coach is offering value or is throwing up red flags. Kim assures listeners that if the ideals pushed by the self-help industry don’t work for us, we’re not broken or alone. The deep dive into an industry that permeates every aspect of our modern lives is a necessary one, to ensure we’re doing what’s best for ourselves.

About Kim Lyle:

Kim is a down to earth, grounded-in-reality healer, helper, coach...not really sure what label to give herself yet or if she’s all the labels. She embraces nuance and context and plays within the grey areas of life. She is also the creator of the "Not Your Typical Self Help Seminar" that focuses on breaking down why people are feeling so overwhelmed and stuck and what to do about it...forgoing the black and white, lacking nuance, typical self help advice most people flock to. 

She had to go through her own "life crisis/identity crisis" of sorts to figure out who she truly was underneath all of her conditioning. Through this process she began to uncover all the lies sold to us through our society that keep us feeling like failures. She is fiercely compassionate and believes deeply in everyone’s ability to create power within themselves

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Traeger
• Kobo
• Macrame Tree Creator - Free Spirit Designs
• Kim’s favorite dance song - “Bam Bam” by Camila Cabello

— 

Dawn Taylor - The Taylor Way: website | facebook | instagram | linkedin

Kim Lyle - Founder of Thrive Within: thrive within website | instagram | email | facebook

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Transcript:

Dawn Taylor: [00:00:09] Good morning and welcome to the Taylor Talks podcast. I am so excited. I know I say that every week, but I'm hanging out today with the amazing Kim Lyle. She is an acupuncture, she's a coach, she's a healer, she's all of these things. But more importantly, she is a mom, she is a wife, and she is a big believer and hater of the self-help industry and the fact that it has damaged more than it's healed. So if you're curious about this very controversial topic, stay tuned. We are going to deep dive into this. And also check out the show notes for the giveaway at the end.

Dawn Taylor: [00:00:46] Kim, welcome to the show. So I am so excited you're here today and let's just dive right in. What is the topic you wish people talked about?

Kim Lyle: [00:00:55] I wish people talked about more how the self-help industries and all of those types of industries are more damaging than good.

Dawn Taylor: [00:01:04] Oh, big topic in this world. As we both get canceled. So let's dive into this. You and I had met at, we we took a course together and we had chatted over coffee at one point about how the self-help world has actually become, I mean, it's a huge moneymaker for people. And I mean, you and I benefit off of that in the ways that we work with clients and we work with people. But also it has caused so much damage and hurt so many people. And no one talks about that. No one talks about that. So tell us a little bit about your story and how you came to this realization.

Kim Lyle: [00:01:53] So yeah, I've definitely had my own journey with the self-help and personal development, spirituality industries. I hadn't really kind of had a huge relationship with them previously in my life because I kind of grew up with this idea of just like I was who I was, and it was just who I was, right. There was nothing more I could do about it. There were faults within me and I just try to had to kind of fit myself into society with that way. Right? And so I had dabbled a little bit with the self-help industry, but it was always kind of along the lines of, you know, you should do a morning routine or you should change your habits or you should make sure you exercise right. And I feel like a lot of this, a lot of us kind of dabble in it, and it may not seem really damaging. And so that was kind of like my first introduction to it. Like I didn't really think too much of it. I just thought, this is what life is, no big deal. And so it wasn't until I had my, I have two kids, so I had my daughter when I was 32, she was like super easy baby. So didn't really kind of throw my life into a tailspin. But then I had my son 15 months later and he was just like such a high needs baby. So he didn't sleep. He needed to be held all the time. He was just constantly fussy and my husband worked away. I was home alone with him and then my daughter and I was just severely sleep deprived and I was just a mess. I was not doing good. And so about when he was about nine months old, I was still really, really struggling. And I just I finally reached my breaking point. And because I was always kind of like, how do I say it? I was always kind of blaming other people for my issues, right? Like the fact that I was struggling. It was very much like, Oh, it's because my husband works away or because he does this and it's because my son is this way. And then finally I reached this point where I was just like, you know what? Like blaming other people and blaming my circumstances, that's not working for me anymore, right? I need to figure out how to improve my life. I hate feeling so terrible right now. And so that was when I started engaging, like, really deeply with these industries of self-help, spirituality, personal development, because I thought, okay, I've really got to get to know myself. I've really got to take responsibility for my life and how I'm feeling. And so when I did that, though, that was when I just realized how damaging and toxic these systems were, because those systems were not designed to help people who have no time and space. They're not designed to help people who have no support. They're not designed to help people who don't have a lot of money or or things like that. Right? Like everything within the self-help industries I found was it took a lot of time. Like it takes a lot of extra time in your day to fit all of these things in. And so if you don't have the time to fit those things into your life, you're a failure. You're not trying hard enough.

Dawn Taylor: [00:04:48] Oh but you should be able to find the hours. You're just not creating them.

Kim Lyle: [00:04:53] Exactly. Like not having time is an excuse. That's what I heard over and over and over again, right? So and so I was gaslighting myself. I was listening to these industries because they promised to help me. Like, I'm taking responsibility for myself. I'm going to figure out how to feel better, improve my life, get to know myself. But everything they asked me to do required... you have to do this every day. You have to be consistent. You have to show up for yourself. I was at a point in my life where I was still severely sleep deprived. I didn't have any time or space in my life. I had a high needs baby. My husband still worked away and I was like, How am I supposed to do all of these things? Like how? And it just ended up breaking me. It just made me feel actually worse than I felt previously to engaging with these industries, right? Like I had already reached my breaking point. And then I was like, I'm going to show up for myself, figure it out. And I just ended up worse off. In all honesty, I felt worse about myself. I gaslit myself constantly. And then, you know, with the spirituality industries, they really kind of gaslight me in the way that it was like I needed someone magical to heal me. I needed to spend money to trust these people who could like, clear these energetic blocks within me, and then I would be saved. And so I was really handing myself over to these people and spending money on things that I didn't have the money for. But I just kept thinking like, God, there's something wrong with me. I need these people to heal me.

Dawn Taylor: [00:06:19] Okay. Pause right there. There's something wrong with me. That is probably my biggest pet peeve in so many of these industries. And I mean, we can go. We can dig into social media and the effect it's had, and magazine covers and how we were raised, and all of these things. But this industry is so much focused on you're broken and you have to be fixed to be okay. Instead of like, no, no. And it's just an analogy, metaphor or whatever, I forget the word I'm supposed to use right there, but that I used to use with clients all the time was like, Picture yourself as a Mr. Potato Head doll. You're actually beautiful and whole. Like the core of who you are is beautiful and whole. Some of your parts just might be in the wrong spots. And so some like little tweaks and adjustments, but like, you're not broken. No part of you is broken. But what we are seeing and learning and hearing is teaching us that we're broken and we just need one more book. And you know, if you got up every day at 4:30 or 5, which I will be honest, I used to preach that to people all the time, is like, if you want to find time in your day, figure out where to put time in your day. And so for some people, but not a sleep deprived, brand new mom. So it was like find your happy hour of when you can wake up and when you can thrive. But it was, but that was something that had I have been ingrained in as well was like you have to read every day and you have to journal every day and you have to eat a perfect diet every day and you have to be working out and this and this and this, and you're broken if you're not.

Kim Lyle: [00:07:58] Totally. And that was the thing too, is all of these things that I was like I, I had really low self esteem, obviously, at that point. I didn't really think very highly of myself. I really thought like I sucked at life. And so but the other thing too is like I also felt like everything I was being asked to do - get out in nature, exercise, journal, meditate, get up early, have a morning routine, all of these things - I didn't feel them deeply within me. It just felt like a very surface level thing. It just felt like another thing to do on my to do list. And it was like, how are how are people supposed to get to know themselves, create a deeper connection to themselves, undo all of the conditioning they've gone through without their entire life, without having a deep sense of self, right? And that was what I was missing. And these industries were no, wasn't helping me create a deeper sense of self. It was just keeping me distracted. It was just keeping me distracted on trying to fit these extra things into my life. It was not helping me get to know myself at all. It was always taking me out of the present moment. Oh my God, what am I going to fit exercise in? My kids, they're so annoying. They never leave me alone. I don't have any time and space, like it was keeping me focused on all the things I didn't have available to me. And then thinking I needed those things in order to improve my life. So yeah, and that's the thing too, is like, I feel like that happened to me when my a few years ago. It's been about four years now since I kind of realized that. But then so I kind of realized that had a little bit of time to practice doing things differently. And then it was like, boom, COVID happened. And so I feel like a lot of people are now at that position. I mean, our society and our culture was moving in that direction anyways, right? Like people were always talking about how they don't have time. Social media is purposely addictive. So that's that's taking more of our time. Like there's all these ways that we're being manipulated within our society and we're not being supported in the way that we need to. So our society was already moving in that direction and people were feeling more stressed and anxious and depressed and burnt out. Then COVID came and it just like piled so much stuff on top of more people, especially moms, because they're the ones who have to stay home and do schooling and they're dealing with their kids mental health and they're dealing with financial issues and relationship issues. And I would say the majority of the burden fell onto moms. And so now moms are at this point now where it's like their nervous systems are completely shot. They have no extra time and space and they're taking on so many extra burdens. And so everyone's kind of reaching that max point. Yet we're still all trying to reach to the self-help industries to try and help us, and they're just not helpful for people who don't have time, who don't have space, who don't have support, all of those things, you don't have the extra money.

Dawn Taylor: [00:10:49] So for people listening, I know that I'm going to get messages from people being like, but the self-help industry saved my life. And this is where I will play devil's advocate for a second is, yes, parts of the self-help industry are outstanding and a lot of healers out there have the most beautiful intentions and they do really phenomenal work. And it's very good. But it also comes down to a point of contentment. And at what point can you actually just look at your life and be like, This is good, this is good, This isn't maybe where I want to be, or, you know, like I'm still growing and I'm still doing things because I do believe you need to. We need to continually grow in life. But the whole idea that we're broken, if we're not. That we're damaged, that we're not good enough, that we're not doing enough. That we're not... All of those things drives me insane. Like the amount of times I have even clients go, I know, but shouldn't I be journaling? And I'm like, Do you enjoy journaling? Well, no, I hate it. And I'm like, Then stop journaling,

Kim Lyle: [00:12:08] Stop doing it. Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:12:10] Like, you don't have to. And they'll be like, But no, but, but I have to work out and I have to work out every single day. And I'm like, But you could also go like, have a dance party in your kitchen and you could go to the park and play with your kids. And that's ten times more beneficial than making sure you make it to the next spin class or the next, whatever it is. And we've lost our ability to go, Hey, this is actually serving me and this is really beneficial to me. And this I actually hate. Like this part of it actually makes me angry, which is doing the opposite of what it's supposed to.

Kim Lyle: [00:12:46] Exactly. And, and that's the thing. It's more so these industries that I have an issue with, it's not necessarily a particular advice they give because I would never argue that exercising is bad for you or that you shouldn't meditate or that you shouldn't journal. Like all of those practices in, within themselves are fine and they can be helpful and they can be supportive. So like you said, don't do something just because someone tells you it worked for them or that you should do it, or that this will be the thing to help you. Be aware of how it makes you feel. And if it actually, like you feel like you have a deep connection and you love it and it feels nourishing and it fills you up and it helps you, then by all means continue to do it. But the thing as well is it's not something I feel like you have to do every single day. It's not a chore. It's not a thing on your to do list. It's just being in the present moment and being like, What can I do to support me right now? What's available to me? Because not always what we want to be available to us is available to us. And if we always focus on what we wish was available to us, that keeps us unable to be able to figure out what actually do we need and what can I do in this moment? So it's like, sure, I would love to be able to exercise every day, but when I try to exercise, I just end up getting angry at my kids because they don't leave me alone or whatever, right? So. So it's like, okay, well then what can I do right now to move my body? Again,like you said, dance parties like I do that to shift the energy in our house all the time. You know, I would try to go for walks with my kids when they were young. And because I love getting outside and I love going for walks. Right? But even that would be like it wouldn't be very fun because one kid would have a pooping accident, one would run away from me, one would start crying on the ground and I end up carrying two kids home. And it was just an absolute disaster, right? So it was like, this is just where I am in my life. What is available to me? What can I do? Instead of wishing like I should be able to do all these things or I wish I had all these things? I love journaling. I've always loved journaling, but journaling is not something I do every day. I don't wake up and think, okay, I have to make sure I put journaling in. It was more so like a if it was available to me and if I felt like I needed it, then I would. I would do it. So I have no issue with those things. It's just you don't need to exercise, you don't need to meditate, you don't need to journal, you don't need you don't actually need any of those things in your life. You don't need to try to make sure you fit those into your life.

Dawn Taylor: [00:15:13] No, we don't have to at all.

Kim Lyle: [00:15:15] And so whenever you feel like this should, I always tell people to be like, think about that for a second. Is it a should or like, is it actually deeply nourishing for you? Because if it's a should you like purposely don't do it just to show yourself that you can do it without it?

Dawn Taylor: [00:15:30] Well, and part of it too is - and I had this conversation this morning with a friend - was we also the self-help industry has also designed it very much that if it doesn't feel good, we don't do it. And that's one of my biggest pet peeves. It's like but it doesn't feel right. It's not aligning with me. And that gets said so many times and I hear that all the time. And I'm like, okay, I get it. Some things in life don't feel good, but we still have to do them because we need to do them for our mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, financial, relational health. We can't just not ever work because it doesn't feel good. No, we have bills to pay. We can't never do the dishes because it doesn't feel good. Like no, like you have maggots crawling in your counter and ant problems. Right? Because you're never doing your dishes. And I find that the growth and development industry has very much done the same, is like but it has to feel good. But I'm going to do this because it feels good and it's like, No, no, no. Sometimes we actually have to do hard things. I agree with you in so much of it in like, no if we should do it because someone is telling us we have to, you know, we need to actually take a look at it and go, what is it that like, What is my intention behind that action and that activity. For myself, waking up really early, it doesn't feel good, but it benefits me so much throughout my day. It allows me to not feel so stressed out. It gives me time as an introvert to like, decompress. It allows me all of those things. It doesn't mean I love it all the time.

Kim Lyle: [00:17:13] Yeah. And so that's the thing. You're not doing it like a should. You're doing it because it fills you up because you have a deep connection to it, because it--

Dawn Taylor: [00:17:22] But I don't feel good, but I don't is the thing.

Kim Lyle: [00:17:26] But it does feel good, right? Because it helps you in the day. It gives you that--.

Dawn Taylor: [00:17:29] Well it helps me. It helps me throughout the day. But it's still something that I know I should do it. And this is where I want to be careful in like the wording we use, is should coming from ourselves and should coming from society are two very different things.

Kim Lyle: [00:17:45] Yeah. And it's sometimes a hard thing to kind of differentiate. Is this coming from me or is this coming from society because we've been so heavily conditioned throughout our lives. What's me? What society? What's my family?

Dawn Taylor: [00:17:59] 100%. And that's where I want to challenge people listening that might be like, what? I don't know how to deal with this. And right is for me, I always look at it as, okay, what is my intention? Like, what are my goals? What is it I'm wanting to do? What is it that I'm trying to get out of this? I did a crazy project a few years ago and I read somewhere that you need to read like a growth and development book or self-help book every week. That is like the ideal for growth and development is to read a book a week. And I was like, Cool, I'm going to do better than that. If that's the ideal and more is better, I'm going to do better and see what it actually does. So I started to read 75 growth and development books over the course of a year. And oh, I know. And in eight months I hit number 50 and I didn't just read them, I read them, I journaled about them, I wrote like an, like I audited them pretty much. I had like an entire blog based on it. I was like, This is who I would recommend this to. This is my thoughts on it. This is what I agree with, what I don't agree with, what I like, what I don't like. I did a video on YouTube about every single one. Like so I didn't just read a book, like I read these books. And at book 50, I sat down and I was like, okay, out of all 50 of these - and I remember sitting in my office and having all of them laid out - I was like, Would I read any of these again? There were maybe ten out of the 50 that I would have even recommended to people. And I was reading some of the top books on the market at that point in these areas. A lot of these have been recommended to me and what I found was it was the same regurgitated garbage over and over and over. There didn't feel like there was a ton of substance and there were a lot of really vague concepts. There were so many vague concepts that it was like, You need to do this thing, but I'm not going to tell you how to do it. And you need to figure it out. Which is such a thing in this industry. And I'll never forget the first time I realized that as I was listening to a speaker and she's like, I want everyone to stop. And just close your eyes. And I want you to breathe into your spirit heart. And I would like open my eyes and look around because I was like, What the fuck is she talking about? Like, what is the spirit heart? I breathe into my lungs. I don't know what's going on. And everyone's just like, sitting there all into this. And I'm like, What did I miss? And so with that, I want to, for people listening, can we go over between the two of us, like because we have similar but different views on this because there is a lot of beautiful self-help stuff, incredible self-help stuff. But can we maybe give some tips to people on like what to watch for? What the red flags could be. What are other ways of doing things that can maybe benefit them in a healthier way?

Kim Lyle: [00:21:02] OK Yeah, because to kind of just go back to what you were mentioning before about like doing hard things, like not everything's going to be easy, and I agree with that. I definitely did things to help me, even when I had no time, even when I had no space, no support, anything like that. There were things I was able to do to help me. And they weren't necessarily easy, but I knew that they would help me. But I was choosing what I was going to do, right? Like I wasn't listening to anyone else. But the other thing that you mentioned too, is the only way we're going to know whether it's a should internal or whether it's a should external would just be to do the thing, be present while we're doing it and see what comes up, see what feelings are coming up inside of you. Right? That will kind of give you the answer of whether or not it's an internal should or if it's an external should. We can't know one way or the other if we're sitting at the sidelines stuck in our head trying to analyze, it's like this is, you need to experiment. So you just need to experiment with different things, see how it feels in your body, be aware of that, and then kind of make a decision based on that.

Dawn Taylor: [00:22:08] Totally. So let's break down some of the big ones and maybe alternatives to even how they're done. So one of the biggest is like meditation. Everybody talks meditation. Everybody. Like that is the thing you hear from every celebrity, every guru, every therapist. Like, there's a million apps for it. I'm hereby declaring my name is Dawn Taylor, and I hate meditation. Like, hate it. And here's why. Is - not that I have to justify it, hear me when I say that - but I've gone for brain mapping and my brain vibrates at almost three times the pace of a normal brain. When I close my eyes, it almost doubles. I fight my brain all day, every day to be calm. I fight it. The only time in life that I feel calm is when I'm, like, in intense situations. New York rush hour Friday afternoon when everyone's trying to leave the city on a long weekend. I stood in Columbus Circle and cried because I felt so calm. Going to a concert and having 30,000 people screaming. And that intense energy is when I feel calm. I just fell asleep at a concert last night because it was so intense. And that's what relaxes me. For me, meditation looks very different than the person who sits with a Calm app or the person who goes to the yoga studio and does like a big meditation thing. I play Lego. Or I color or I, I calmly do things, but there has to be more of an intensity to it. Do you know what I mean? Big smells, big sounds.

Kim Lyle: [00:24:05] Totally. No, I get that. And that's the thing too. It's about meeting yourself with where you're at. I think a lot of us will feel anxiety or anger, like kind of those big energy emotions. And then we're told in the self-help industry, spirituality industry, whatever, like you need to meditate, you need to calm yourself down. But that's really just trying to kind of like stuff it down. Like, I feel like you need to match your energy to where it's at so you can actually do something about it then. It's like this idea of like meeting you where you're at. So meditation, because I feel like there's a difference between like nervous system regulation tools and coping mechanisms.

Dawn Taylor: [00:24:43] So explain those for people that don't understand what those terms are.

Kim Lyle: [00:24:46] So for me, a coping mechanism is I mean, it can be a few different things. It can really be anything, anything can be a coping mechanism, but it's bringing you back to kind of this feeling that you're used to feeling, so like this familiar feeling. For me, my familiar feeling was numb and disconnected. That was kind of like my happy place of where I felt comfortable. But for other people it could be like anxiety, even though it's not like super comfortable. It's like where they always are. It's kind of their like natural state, they're normal state. They're used to it. So we'll do things to kind of bring us back into that, into that space, or we'll try and do things to like not go there. So, for example, you tend to be like a really anxious person. You could use meditation as a way to try and calm that anxiety, but you're not actually meeting that anxiety. You're not doing anything about that anxiety. You're just hoping it will go away. So meditation would be like a coping mechanism, right? Meditation can also be a nervous system regulation tool depending on how you use it and who you are. So again, it's that should internally like this, this feels helpful. This puts me in a position of being able to choose differently moving forward, instead of just kind of like bringing you back to that familiar place. Does that make sense or was that confusing?

Dawn Taylor: [00:25:58] No, it made sense. Well, it makes sense to me. I always look at it as like, what is what is it I'm actually feeling? We don't actually have to just, like, bottle up and ignore our feelings. My favorite ever is when people are like, You need to calm down. I'm like, No, no, no. Let's actually just be mad. Like, what is your actual feeling that you're trying to run away from? Let's sit with it for a second and face it and be like, Huh, You're interesting. What caused you?

Kim Lyle: [00:26:26] If your nervous system is like it kind of like, goes offline or whatever, then sure, meditation could be something to bring you back into a place so you could actually meet that anger. And so then you can actually deal with it. But if you're using it as a coping mechanism, you're not there to meet your anger. You're there to like, get away from the anger. I'm trying to ignore it. So so it can be both. Just like exercise can be a great nervous system regulation tool, but it can also be used as a coping mechanism. Some people exercise to not feel. So that's why it's so different for every single person. There's no one blanket rule as to what's going to work for you or what you should do, right. This is why people do need to just jump in and experiment to figure it out, right? They need to know how they feel.

Dawn Taylor: [00:27:07] Oh, 100%. And Kim and I, I'm surprising her with this, but Kim and I are going to do a little like a giveaway at the end. You guys know that I always do like a fun giveaway at the end of all these. We'll do a giveaway that gives you like alternative things to try. Ones that are free, ones that are easy, ones that don't take up a ton of time. Some alternatives that we have found have really helped us in our journeys that don't match up 100% to what society is telling us we should be doing. We will do that for you guys. Kim's like, Oh, good thanks Dawn for telling me we're doing that. As just like a friend giveaway, right? Like it's super fun giveaway at the end. So what ways has the self-help industry actually benefited you though? In what ways has it actually served you and helped you? And then we're going to get back to like the red flags people need to look for.

Kim Lyle: [00:28:02] Yeah, totally. Honestly, I want to say the self-help, all of those industries, I would say they served me because I was so angry with them that it kind of fueled my fire to find a different way. And so I would say that's how they benefited me. The fact that I don't engage with them at all anymore. It actually, because I found them to be so harmful for me in my situation where I had no time and space, no support, no everything like that, that it actually fueled my fire. And it was kind of like they gave me like a fuck you energy of like, I'm not going to believe you. I'm not going to trust you. You're a sheep in wolf's clothing. I'm going to find my own way. And so it kind of fueled me in that direction. So I would say that's how it's benefited me. It pissed me off so much that I was like, I'm never engaging with you.

Dawn Taylor: [00:28:53] That's awesome, I love it. I love that you're just so angry about it. You're just like, No, I hate it.

Kim Lyle: [00:28:59] I definitely I mean, obviously we can't have anger sustain us through everything, but it definitely was that kickstart to be like, No, I have to find a different way because I'm no longer handing myself over to these industries. So. So now that I've completely divested from these industries, I'm able to maybe engage with some of their practices a little bit more, but not because they're self-help. It's because it's like meditation, exercise, whatever. Like I'm still going to do those things that's not like owned by the self-help industry, but just the idea behind self-help and all these things you quote/unquote, should do, that I've completely divested from. Like I don't make my decisions based on anything that someone tells me to do.

Dawn Taylor: [00:29:40] No. And that's, it's funny because, like with that, I agree. And at the same time I'm like, but I still want to learn. I'm always curious. I'm always curious about what people are doing and what people are teaching and what people, like how people are showing up. So I think I'm like a halfway between. So for myself, I'm really big on not going with what the fad is. So for some red flags for people that are watching this, is number one if you are looking for like a book or a podcast or an actual healer or a teacher or a coach or whatever it is, take a look at who they actually are. So do your research on who the person is behind the scenes. And do you actually want their real life? But secondly, have they gone through what you've gone through to even be able, to even be able to understand what it is you're wanting from them? That was a huge one for me, was I'm going to school right now to become a certified grief facilitator. But I looked around and I was researching all of these different programs all over the world and all these different teachers and all these different things. And I was like, No, no, no, show me the facility. Show me the teachers that have actually lost somebody. That have actually done the work, that have the training, that have actually gone through the things to understand it on a different level. Though I didn't go with the local person that everybody goes with. I found some person in the States that I'm like, No, no, no he's actually done the work to overcome. So I'm willing to hear what he says and then decide if I want to take that advice or not. Right, on how that works. So that is a big one for me, is who's teaching it? Who is having the conversation with you?

Kim Lyle: [00:31:32] Totally. No, I 100% agree. It's really important to me if I'm going to look to anyone to help me, they don't necessarily have to have kids, but I do find that that is very helpful. If people have had difficult babies, if they've had a period of time in their life where they haven't had time available to them, because anyone who hasn't gone through a period of time in their life where they haven't had time, their time isn't theirs to choose how to use it, I can't relate to them. The advice they give to me isn't relatable to me. Right? All of these people who are single and and don't have kids and all of these things and they just tell me the same stuff. Well, you need to make the time. You need to exercise, you need to show up for yourself. You need to do all these things. And I was like, You don't get it. Like, I can't I can't relate. And that's the other thing that I think is really important is if you are seeking help from someone and they make you feel worse, they make you feel like you're not good enough. They make you feel desperate. They gaslight you into questioning whether or not you're doing enough or if you're doing it right. They don't actually calm your nervous system. They don't--.

Dawn Taylor: [00:32:39] Okay, give some examples.

Kim Lyle: [00:32:40] Well, one would be just like, you're not doing enough. You're not showing up. You're not, time is an excuse. Well, you need to make the time to.

Dawn Taylor: [00:32:49] Are you sure? Are you sure you're trying? That's my favorite. Are you sure? Did you really? Did you really? We followed up with whatever it is they're trying to tell you.

Kim Lyle: [00:33:00] Yeah, exactly right. Like, just constantly this questioning you. They don't just believe what you say. They make you question your reality. And it's done in a way where they try to make you think like, I'm just I'm helping you see another perspective. Or I'm like, they're doing it in a caring way. So it's it's tricky to see because I encourage people to to question their perspectives as well, right?

Dawn Taylor: [00:33:23] Oh, I do, too. All the time.

Kim Lyle: [00:33:25] Of course. Right. Like we need outside perspectives in order to see different things. Like we have so many blind spots. If we're trying to do it all of our all, all our selves. But people would ask me, and it was almost like I felt like I had to agree with them. Like, you're right, you know, I, I can find time to exercise. And you're right. Like, I am not showing up for myself. And it was like, No, actually that's not true. I don't have time. Like, you know.

Dawn Taylor: [00:33:50] And you're like, No, literally, I can't do that. I don't think you understand.

Kim Lyle: [00:33:55] Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:33:55] So my favorite was, my favorite red flag for people is at any point in time, if someone says, Can you afford to not work with me?

Kim Lyle: [00:34:07] Oh, oh, I hate that. I hate that.

Dawn Taylor: [00:34:11] The slimy sales tactics of like, what is your dream? Where are you going? We're going to get you there. You can't not afford to work with me. But then going if you can see our faces right now we're both like crawling. But and I had I've had people say that to me so many times.

Kim Lyle: [00:34:34] Anything to do with money? Like money. If people try and gaslight you to believe that you don't have enough money to invest in what they're selling you, that's a red flag.

Dawn Taylor: [00:34:41] Or that you have to find it or you haven't manifested it enough or you haven't, anything like that. And my other really, really big one and maybe this is my age, right? Maybe this is that I have a more old fashioned marriage, but I don't drop massive amounts of money without talking to my husband. It doesn't matter how much money I make, it doesn't matter what I'm doing. It doesn't matter if it's mine or his or any of that. It's a respect for our finances as a couple that I do that. And so I'll never forget talking to, it was a well-known coach and I was looking for a coach for myself, and we were talking and I said, you know, honestly, right now, like, I don't have the money. I said, My husband hasn't been working. He's been really sick. There's literally not the money in the bank account. And the money that's coming in, yes, yes, I could spend it, but I don't know when he's going back to work right now because of his health. So I can't. I can't. I cannot put that money into this at this point. And I got this bullshit line on, Wow, you're really not trusting the universe to provide. And I was like, No, no, it's not that. It's logically and literally. It came back to the logic for me of it doesn't actually matter because I don't... Like No, no, that's, that's not actually helping. And then even when I couldn't fight back on that and I was like, okay, well, maybe I'm not and maybe I'm not actually trusting that money could come in and it could show up in other ways because it does. Like if we actually trust, like money weirdly does show up and that's a whole nother conversation. But like then when I said, well, you know what? I need to talk to my husband about this and just make sure that we're okay with this commitment. Because it was a couple thousand bucks, which is still big money to be putting out every month. Like I get that. And it was a six month or one year contract or something crazy. And I was like, No, no, no, like, I'm very aware of that. And if I feel like this is what I'm supposed to do and I talk to my husband and we agree, and then, yeah, I have no issue signing up and putting the work in because I'm very dedicated when I'm doing the work. And then I got a comment on how I was allowing my husband to control my finances in my business.

Kim Lyle: [00:37:06] Yeah, like that would be instant. Like, I don't care who you are. I'm not working with you. Yeah, like, that would be instant, I'm done. Like, there's no, if you're trying to play on my desperation or manipulate me and not trust what I'm telling you, that's an instant red flag to me. And I instantly say, No, I don't even engage with it when I notice those things going on right now. Like, if you can't trust the reality of what I'm telling you, then I don't want to work with you. Because that's the thing. People tell me I don't have the time to do that. I'm like, okay, I'm going to trust that you tell me that you don't have the time. Then what are some things we can do with the amount of time you do have or whatever, right? Like meet people where they're at, Don't try and convince them otherwise. And so if anyone tries to convince me or gaslight and manipulate me, I'm instantly out. I don't care how good they are. I don't. I don't care because I'm like, this is just a sign of what's to come.

Dawn Taylor: [00:38:03] I am the same. And then with that, the other one and, and I don't think people maybe because of age, please listen, if you're listening to this, we're not saying you're stupid if you have fallen for this. Because we have fallen for this. A million times we have fallen for this, right? We're just now at a point where we're not. But another one that I love is like this scarcity mindset of like, there's only three spots, so there's only another 30 minutes or 60 minutes to buy in. And it's funny because I took a course, it was about a year and a half ago and it was literally about selling without sleaze, how to sell yourself on a stage or sell yourself to people without the sleaze. I have never felt so sleazy in my life. I didn't even finish the course. And it was like a live, like there weren't that many people, we were talking and answering questions, like I actually didn't go because the amount of times in the day workshop another course is brought up and another thing was brought up and another thing was brought up. And to elevate this, you have to do this. And to elevate this, you have to do this. And then this other thing was brought up. And then when she started talking about like how to sell and she's like, Oh yeah, if you hit them here and hit them here and hit them at this point, at this point, like by the end they're going to be desperate to buy. And I was like, Oh my word, your entire talk is a massive manipulation.

Kim Lyle: [00:39:26] Yeah. And that's how people are told to sell, like within these industries, right? Like they're told the manipulation tactic.

Dawn Taylor: [00:39:36] 100%. It makes me so angry.

Kim Lyle: [00:39:38] Right? Like, let's touch on people's pain points to make them feel like they have to work with you. That's the whole idea behind all these marketing things. It is not like filled with informed consent, just being totally upfront and trusting other people to make the decisions. Like you don't have to manipulate people to work with you if you trust that you're good at what you do.

Dawn Taylor: [00:39:59] Hey, say that again.

Kim Lyle: [00:40:02] You don't have to manipulate people to work with you if you're good at what you do. But it's harder for people... Okay, here's the thing, though, is it is easier to grow your business if you manipulate people? You know what I mean? And so everyone wants, oh, I need money. I need money. Right? And so it's like, yeah, you know what? Because people have been conditioned to be manipulated. They've been they've been manipulated to trust other people more than themselves, so they will fall for it, which is what I really try and talk about a lot is like, don't trust other people. Don't, you, like you can trust yourself like you do that thing that you're telling yourself like this feels off, listen to it. And work with people who make you feel safe. Work with people who like give you informed consent, who make you feel like you can say yes, you can say no. Like that's really, really important for people to trust themselves.

Dawn Taylor: [00:40:54] I remember in like back in the day and like even now, like in my social media and stuff, I'll be like, Hey, is this something you're struggling with? Like, let me know. But the minute I stopped attempting to sell or trying to desperately get another client was when they started coming in. Because it wasn't who I was. And I'm like the world's worst sales person because I think all of it's bullshit. So even now, like, I'll talk to somebody or I'll work with somebody or they'll contact me and I'm like, No, no, I might not be the right fit for you. And I'm 100% okay with that. But like, Hey, let's do a consultation or let's do just like an initial session and see if we're the right fit, because I might not be the right fit for you and you might not be the right fit for me.

Kim Lyle: [00:41:41] I agree. Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:41:42] And that's okay. And maybe I can recommend you to somebody else who would be a better fit. But that's a piece of integrity that I feel like is missing. And I'm not saying I get it 100% right every time, but it's a piece of integrity that's missing. To be like, Hey, you know what? Talk to your spouse. Think about it. Pray about it, meditate on it. Journal. I don't care. Like talk to 400 friends about it. I'm not going anywhere. And I'm here if you want to work with me.

Kim Lyle: [00:42:17] Totally. And that's the thing. Be aware of someone's playing on your desperation because I was really desperate.

Dawn Taylor: [00:42:24] And I've been there, right? I've been there and I've been so desperate where I was like, I don't know how I'm going to get through my day. I don't know how I'm going to get through my week. I'm full blown falling apart right now. And then somebody would be like, It's okay, I'll rescue you. And you just have to spend this money and you just have to take this course and you just have to do this thing and then you're going to lose the weight and you're going to fix your marriage and you're going to have all these things healed. And, and, and, and it's like--

Kim Lyle: [00:42:51] You brought up another key point. If people are promising massive change in a short period of time. That is a red flag for me. Because actual sustainable change, like you need to work with your nervous system. And your nervous system doesn't just shift overnight. When they're like, you need to take up space and you need to be bold and loud. And it's like, if that's not how you're used to being like, it takes time to get there, to have the strength to be able to actually be bold and out there. You can't do that in like a three week course or a six month course. You need to meet yourself with where you're at right now. So anyone's promising like big, bold, massive change in my life, I'm like, no. To me it feels... Like I've had massive change within my life within the past three years. Like it's been huge. And so--.

Dawn Taylor: [00:43:40] But I think it depends what it is. And here's why I say that, is like even with my own clients, I'm like, Oh good. I'm the person who will say that you can have massive change. But I always back it with like, if you do the work, if you do the work and you are like 100% in and you're like, ready to make massive change. Then you can have big change and you can have it fairly quick. But it's still like over the course of two days or the course of like one session of something, your entire world is going to be rocked and you'll be healed. That's where I struggle. That's where I struggle.

Kim Lyle: [00:44:20] And I guess it just depends on what's available to you. I didn't feel like massive change was available to me in a short period of time because I have two young kids, a husband who worked away, all of these other things. So I didn't have any extra time, extra things. So I guess that's where I'm basing it off of because on my own experience is like quick, massive change wasn't available to me because I didn't have the time to invest in doing all these extra things I was supposed to do. So I guess that's important for people. Like, sure, if you have the extra time and space to be able to do all these extra things, you maybe can have change a little bit quicker. But for me, sure, I want all this massive change, but I would have to ignore my children if I if I was able to do that, you know? And so I was like, I have to be in my reality of what's available to me right now. And massive changes within my life just isn't available right now. So I was the slow and steady, which worked well for me because three years down the road my life is like so completely different. Even though like externally it looks pretty similar to what it did three years ago. My kids are a little bit older. But like how I feel, how I show up in my life, how I interact with people is completely different. And I just like, you know, tiny, tiny, tiny steps was how I got to where I am. Whereas before, because I didn't have a lot of time or space or support, every time I tried to make massive changes and jump, I would just end up like back to where I was before, right? So I never actually made any progress forward because those big, bold changes, I couldn't do massive change. So I suppose it depends on your situation.

Dawn Taylor: [00:45:55] Well, I think it depends on personality too. It totally depends on - this is gonna sound funny - but it's like how desperately you want and crave and need the change. I have a personality where I can make a decision on something and I can flip that switch like that fast and I'm like, No change, done, good. But that's my personality, that plays into who I am. And so I have clients that are the same where it's literally like a switch in their head where it's like, Oh no, no, no, I could literally do this over the next 10 hours and I'm done. I'm good. And they've created massive, massive shifts in their lives. Where there's a lot of people that and is based on how, you know, what their past is, what they've gone through, how jaded they are, what their beliefs are, how desperately they want it, where they're coming from, how much time they have, how much like what resources they have. Like there's all of these different metrics that play into that. But some people need the slow and steady and some people are like, Oh no, we're going to just like bulldoze this at the most rapid pace ever and make huge change. And that's awesome, right? And I see that every day with clients. Like, I have some clients. They're like, No, no, no. Like, how fast can we do this? Yeah. And I'm like, Well, based on your personality, 17 hours and they're like, Cool, let's rock my entire world in 17 hours or whatever the number is. And they do it. They do it, and it's sustainable and it's lasting. And like if they do the work, they can maintain it.

Kim Lyle: [00:47:33] And have the time to do the work.

Dawn Taylor: [00:47:35] Well, and that too, like if they have the time to do the work.

Kim Lyle: [00:47:38] Yeah, for sure.

Dawn Taylor: [00:47:39] And I think but even that you and I look at those things, because you and I have such different personalities and how we grow and change and shift in our lives and the time we have and all of those things. And so for someone listening, the biggest thing we want you to take out of today, or at least I want you to take out of today, is just because your journey looks different than somebody else's doesn't mean it's wrong or it's broken or you're broken or any of those things. And if none of the things of society or this industry is telling you work for you, you're not getting results, it's not working, you're not seeing the change, you're not able to do it, there's other ways. And it's not your fault. It's not a fault of yours or an issue with you that it's not working.

Kim Lyle: [00:48:29] 100%. Oh, yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:48:30] All the time. Right? Like, like there's there's so much more to it.

Kim Lyle: [00:48:34] Yeah, I agree.

Dawn Taylor: [00:48:35] And that's really what I want you guys to take out of this. And Kim, like, that's something that you and I talked about, right, is for people to go, Hey, there is a different way to heal. There's different ways to get help. There's different ways to... Different paces, different styles. I mean, that's I guess that's the one good thing about the industry is it's so big and so broad. That there are a million different ways to get help.

Kim Lyle: [00:49:03] Totally. Definitely. Yeah. Like, like you said, I think it's just really important for people to acknowledge where they are in their life, what is actually available to them, what time, what resources exactly. Right. Like those are important to be with where you're at, acknowledge where you are, be in reality and be open to like don't fight for your limitations. Right? Like I could have fought for my limitations and been like, I have no time. I have no time. What are you talking about? There's nothing I can do. And it was true that I didn't have any extra time. But there were things that I did that didn't take up extra time that really helped me move forward in my life. So this idea of like, people being powerless to their circumstances, society loves to convince you that you're powerless if you don't have time, if you don't have money, if you don't have support, there's nothing you can do. That's not true. That's not that's not true. So it's like believing in yourself that even if you don't have the things you wish you had right now, there still are things you can do to at least move in the direction you want to go. And when you continually move in the direction you want to go, even if it's slow, if that's all available to you right now, three years, you're going to look back and be like, Oh my God, I've made so much progress. Yeah, definitely.

Dawn Taylor: [00:50:18] It's so true. So to end off our hour today, I like to ask, just like ask four silly questions. Just like four silly questions that just help people get to know us better. So what do you spend a silly amount of money on?

Kim Lyle: [00:50:35] What do I spend a silly amount of money on? Oh, my goodness, you caught me off guard. What do I spend?

Dawn Taylor: [00:50:40] I'll give you a second to think about it, and I'll tell you, my current one, is for our wedding anniversary. This year, my husband and I bought a Traeger, those barbecue smoker things, and right now I spend a silly amount of money on weird meat cuts to try to smoke. I've become obsessed with, like, smoking, briskets and all of these crazy meat cuts, but it's like an obscene amount of money sometimes. Like, sometimes I look at dinner and I'm like, I cannot believe that I just spent that much on a meal.

Kim Lyle: [00:51:15] That's so funny. You know, honestly, I'm having a hard time thinking of an answer right now because like before I would have said, like courses and books and everything like that, but I specifically don't anymore on purpose. The only thing I can think of right now, and I don't even know if this makes sense, but like I spend so much money on fruit in my house because my kids, my kids will not eat vegetables, like they'll eat like a couple of vegetables here and there, but it's like at least they eat fruit. So I'm constantly like, just eat berries. I don't care how much the berries are. Just eat the berries, like eat the $14 watermelons. Like I'm just like eat fruit at least because I can't get vegetables in here. So I guess maybe that.

Dawn Taylor: [00:51:54] So welcome to my life, but I'll also vegetables. I just yeah, I'm like, Oh no. My 10 pounds of blueberries this week are almost gone.

Kim Lyle: [00:52:03] Yeah. So I have a lot of berries, especially in my house and watermelon.

Dawn Taylor: [00:52:08] Oh, no. I think we spend like a family's budget worth of grocery money on, like, meat and berries right now. Yep. Legit. I get it. What is your secret guilty pleasure way to decompress? Do you watch like a silly, embarrassing show? Do you... one client goes, one person on here was like sex. A lot of sex. You haven't heard that episode, it's coming.

Kim Lyle: [00:52:35] Oh, that's so funny. What's my secret guilty pleasure. Oh, my gosh.

Dawn Taylor: [00:52:39] Like, what's your thing? What's your thing that you do to decompress? Like, you're like, number one thing to do?

Kim Lyle: [00:52:45] You know what? It's probably just going to be dance. I like to listen to music and, like, dance. So actually, that's a good one because yesterday I was by myself at home and I just put on like some pump up like dance music and I was just like dancing around my house and that just like, nourishes me. Like it just like, fills me up when I do that. And so, yeah, and like, that's thing to like, even if I'm feeling really, like, angry, like I'll put angry music on or if I'm feeling really moody, I'll put like, really deep, moody music on like I do really like to have music and dance around. So yeah, I do.

Dawn Taylor: [00:53:21] Are you a playlist girl?

Kim Lyle: [00:53:23] Yeah, Yeah, I am so like, I'm pretty crappy. Like, I don't really know a lot of different songs. So whenever I hear one just randomly, I'll just like, Oh, I like that song. I'll add that to like my moody, sad music or like my moody, angry music. And yeah, I'll do that. So yeah, so yeah, I do really like music. Or if I just need to like get back in my body and I'm stuck in my head and I really need to get into my, it's like it brings me down, right? And I use it a lot with my kids too.

Dawn Taylor: [00:53:47] I'm, I'm a fan. Is there a purchase of $100 or less that you've made recently that has made a big positive impact in your life?

Kim Lyle: [00:53:59] My goodness, Dawn, you're just catching me on the spot for all of these.

Dawn Taylor: [00:54:04] I know, I know. I do it to everybody. They're like, Can you send that in advance? And I'm like, No.

Kim Lyle: [00:54:10] So, I mean, the only the first thing that kind of comes to mind right now is there's this woman in Saint Albert who makes macrame. So anyway, she posted this one, and it was a tree of life that she had made for macrame. And I saw it and I was just like, oh, my God, I absolutely love it. And like, I have a thing with, like, trees and plants. I have a tree tattoo, I have trees and plants everywhere all the time. So I thought my logo is a tree. And so when I saw it, I was just like, Oh my God, I need this. And it just like filled me up when I got it. So.

Dawn Taylor: [00:54:44] That's amazing.

Kim Lyle: [00:54:45] Yeah, I love it.

Dawn Taylor: [00:54:46] I, it's funny because in the background, every time I ask these questions and because I'm recording podcasts so often, I always ask these questions of people into the background. I always answer for myself because it's different every time. And mine was like a good pair of slippers.

Kim Lyle: [00:55:02] I love slippers.

Dawn Taylor: [00:55:03] Like a good pair of like moccasin style slippers. Right now. It's just been like the biggest positive impact right now.

Kim Lyle: [00:55:12] I bought a Kobo a while ago and that one was a pretty sweet one too.

Dawn Taylor: [00:55:16] Oh, that's a good one.

Kim Lyle: [00:55:18] Yeah. I like having my books on there instead of like the actual book, so that was a good one. I like that.

Dawn Taylor: [00:55:24] And for anyone who's curious about this macramé tree lady, I'll link her stuff in the show notes so that you can find her and maybe help support a local business.

Kim Lyle: [00:55:34] She's so great. She does amazing work, I have two.

Dawn Taylor: [00:55:37] Oh yeah. We'll totally link that in the show notes. Is there what is it like an unusual habit or some like absurd thing that you love that everyone around you is like, whoa. Like it could be like a food thing or an activity or a music or like, what is something that you're just like?

Kim Lyle: [00:55:55] So I don't, the only thing that comes to mind is I love getting deep with people. Like someone will say something offhand and I'm just like, Oh, like I just instantly am like, Let's go deep on that, right? And they're like, like that was just an offhanded comment. And I'm like, No, there's so much more to it. So my husband will just try and have a conversation with me and like all of a sudden I'm like going deep. And he's like, Kim, I didn't want to like, this just wasn't supposed to go here. Yeah, exactly. But I just, like, I go deep with everything. So it's really hard for me to just have like a really light conversation.

Dawn Taylor: [00:56:30] Because when you and I hit it off, because we both do that.

Kim Lyle: [00:56:34] So that's what I love. Like, I love like one on one conversations where we solve the world and all of our issues and whatever, when you just, you just want to have like a light, easy, breezy conversation. I mean, I can do it sometimes, but most of the time I like to really dive deep into things. So.

Dawn Taylor: [00:56:49] No, I totally get it. I am like the worst at saying like the most inappropriately deep comments or like really dark. And it's like, Oh yeah, this is our second hangout. And I just went there. Oh, yeah, we're not having a third one, are we? I always laugh about that. I'm like, It's so fun to be my friend.

Kim Lyle: [00:57:07] I know exactly, right? Like, you really do want to hang out with me. I promise.

Dawn Taylor: [00:57:12] I promise that I'm also really funny. I just am going to dive really hard into something like. I mean, look at this podcast. I'm like, it's so perfect for you because you're so willing to talk about all the hard things and the deep things and like, just have those conversations? I don't know. I think that there's just, like, this cool level of humanity.

Kim Lyle: [00:57:34] Yeah, for sure.

Dawn Taylor: [00:57:35] Kim, thank you so, so, so much for hanging out with me today and having this conversation on an industry that is so huge and so massive. Almost everybody is somehow magically involved in it. And just even like support people going through it that are feeling like they're all so broken or they're not feeling the same. So if you are interested in finding Kim and her business and what she does and more about her, please check out our show notes. We're going to link to all of her social media, her business website, everything is in there. A beautiful picture of her so you can connect with her and even what she looks like. Not that looks matter, but I connect to photos so that matters to me. And if you really enjoyed this episode, please leave a review on Apple or Spotify podcasts or wherever you get them and share this with your friends. And if you're interested in having a spot on the show where you talk about something you wish people would talk about, reach out. You can contact me through my website, TheTaylorWay.ca, or through any of my social media handles, which you can also find in the show notes. So have an amazing day and I will talk to you soon.