Ep 194 Lisa Sugarman | Shielded From the Truth

 

SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:

This week on Grieving Voices is a mental health discussion with Lisa Sugarman – a multifaceted advocate who has overcome personal tragedies to make an impact. As a suicide loss survivor and crisis counselor, her insights are invaluable during Mental Health Awareness Month.

Lisa’s journey is one marked by unexpected turns. From being a content creator in the parenting space to confronting the harsh realities of mental illness following revelations about her father’s death, she exemplifies resilience and strength. Her story highlights how secrets can shape our lives and the importance of community support in healing from grief.

Key Takeaways:

  • The power of listening over advising when it comes to parenting teens.
  • Balancing work-life as an entrepreneur involves recognizing limits and practicing self-care.
  • The transformative experience gained through crisis counseling at The Trevor Project.
  • The connection between unresolved pain and suicide.
  • Community is a crucial element for those dealing with mental health issues or contemplating suicide.

Lisa reminds us that connection is vital and perhaps lifesaving for those struggling silently. This episode encourages open conversations around mental health while providing solace and understanding for those touched by suicide loss.

As a proud member of the LGBTQ+ community and as a crisis counselor with The Trevor Project, Lisa passionately advocates for providing hope to young people facing crises.

Through sharing her own experiences with vulnerability and resilience, she reminds us all that transparency can aid in coping with grief. Self-care strategies are vital for navigating these tough times effectively.

RESOURCES:

CONNECT:

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NEED HELP?

  • National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
  • Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7 support via text message. Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a trained Crisis Counselor

If you are struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, free resources are available HERE.

CONNECT WITH VICTORIA: 

In today’s blog post, we’re going to explore the profound insights shared by Lisa Sugarman on this week’s episode of “Grieving Voices.” As part of Mental Health Awareness Month, it is crucial that we amplify voices like Lisa’s – voices that have turned personal tragedy into a beacon of hope for others.

The Unseen Battle

Lisa’s journey wasn’t always centered around mental health advocacy. Originally focusing her writing on parenting advice, she was thrust onto this path after experiencing suicide loss within her family. Losing her father at ten years old left a mark on Lisa; however, it wasn’t until 35 years later that she discovered his death was by suicide. This revelation not only brought clarity but also propelled her towards helping others navigate through similar pain.

Listening as an Act of Love

One key message from our conversation with Lisa resonates particularly strong: when raising teens—or dealing with anyone who might be struggling—it’s more important to listen than to lecture. Creating spaces where open dialogue can flourish without judgment is essential in fostering trust and understanding between parents and children or any two individuals for that matter.

Self-Care Isn’t Selfish

As someone who balances parenthood and professional life herself, Lisa underscores self-care as foundational to effective parenting and productivity. It isn’t selfish; rather it allows us to recharge so we can be present for those we care about most.

The Power of Secrets Revealed

The discovery about her father’s cause of death strengthened the bond between Lisa and her mother while highlighting how complex grief could become when shrouded in secrecy during times when mental health discussions were taboo.

Pain Shared Is Pain Divided

Lisa emphasizes that while each case is individualized, extreme pain seems to be a common thread leading people toward considering suicide. She advocates strongly for community support systems as critical safety nets for those battling suicidal thoughts—reminding us all that love alone may not always suffice in preventing such tragedies but connection can make a significant difference.

Addressing Suicide Directly

Discussing suicidal thoughts openly can prevent these dark considerations from growing unchecked in isolation. Asking someone directly if they’re contemplating self-harm opens up lines of communication which are often vital lifelines themselves.

For example, organizations like The Trevor Project provide crucial support networks specifically tailored towards LGBTQ youth—a group close to Lisa’s heart due both to personal losses tied to suicide within this community and identifying as LGBTQ+ herself.

Embracing Vulnerability Through Transparency

Throughout our talk with Lisa Sugarman, one thing became crystal clear—the power inherent in sharing your story transparently cannot be overstated. Not only does it serve therapeutic purposes for yourself but also helps guide others through their healing processes.

Moreover, resilience grows from vulnerability; allowing oneself time and space to heal fosters strength over time.

Lisa encourages everyone—to reach out proactively within their communities because sometimes those suffering wear no visible signs.

And finally—always prioritize maintaining your well-being so you remain capable enough to offer meaningful support where needed.

To conclude our discussion:

*Seek Therapy Early**: Don’t wait until you feel overwhelmed before seeking help.
*Offer Specific Help**: When supporting someone grieving or struggling mentally – specific offers tend better than vague ones.
*Remember Children Aren’t Therapists**: Parents should avoid burdening kids with roles beyond their emotional maturity level.

If you want further insight into navigating grief or wish simply connect with like-minded individuals advocating mental health awareness—you’ll find solace under the guidance offered by experts like [Lisa Sugarman](http://lisashugarman.com/). Her books provide practical wisdom while being laced throughout with heartfelt empathy born out experiences many will relate too intimately yet rarely discuss openly.

Thank you once again for tuning into “Grieving Voices” — together let us continue making conversations around grief less taboo so healing becomes accessible universally!

Episode Transcription:

Victoria: Thank you for tuning in to this week’s episode of grieving voices. Today, I am happy to address a very important topic for mental health awareness month. I have Lisa Sugarman with me. She is an author, a nationally syndicated columnist, a three-time survivor of suicide loss, a mental health advocate, and a crisis counselor with the Trevor Project. She’s also a storyteller with the national alliance of mental illness and the host of the suicide survivor series on YouTube. Lisa writes an opinion column. We are who we are and is the author of “How to Raise Perfectly Imperfect Kids and Be Okay With It,” “Untied: Parent Anxiety.” And “Life, It Is What It Is.” All all of their available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and everywhere books are sold. Her work has appeared on health line, parenthood, grown, and flown. Today parents Thrive Global, The Washington Post, little things, and more content now. Lives and writes just north of Boston, and you can visit her online at lisa sugar mint dot com, which I will put a link to the show notes to your website and your books and all of your things. Just poking around on your website, you do have a very extensive mental health resource hub. Mine is quite modest compared to yours, and it is. It really is. I mean, if you have a few moments to check it out, I highly recommend you you do so, and you also have a lot of just quick, like, kind of cheat sheets, if you will Mhmm. On there as well. And is this the work that you always thought you’d be doing?

Lisa: One thousand percent, no. Nope. I never imagined myself doing this kind of work in this space as an advocate, as a counselor. I mean, everything that I’m doing right now has has come as much of a surprise to me. As I think it has to everybody who is close to me kind of, you know, in my immediate world, but it was just the most natural transition for me.
To fall into this space in light of just my story that I know you and I’ll talk quite a bit about. But my story and some some pretty powerful revelations in my life that have come out in the last decade. And just, I guess, my need to do something to make an impact in the mental health space.

Victoria: Ten years before, you found yourself in this space. What were you doing?

Lisa: So I’ve always been a writer. That that hasn’t changed. I’ve always created content and I’ve been many different types of writers. I’ve been a newspaper journalist. I’ve written for magazines. I’ve written for publishing companies, done lots of marketing and PR, and and that sort of thing. I’ve been a columnist for many years. I’ve written books. And so I I did all of that in the parenting space predominantly. It’s just the place I found myself in.
You know, I I my husband and I have to they’re now grown daughters almost twenty four and almost twenty seven. So we’ve kind of cycled through that whole parenting stage of life with little kids and college kids. And that’s what I was writing about. I mean, that was the space I was in. It was what I was doing day to day. I was writing about the work life balance, and I was a working mom, and my husband traveled a ton, and and it was really just about that family dynamic, and that’s where everything’s centered. And it was really I think it was really almost kind of an overnight gift about ten years ago that kind of brought me into the space. But I’m in that.

Victoria: We’ll put a pin in that piece

Lisa: if it’s a pin.

Victoria: I we will. I wanna rewind just for a moment because Mhmm. I just wanna touch on what you were sharing about, writing about parenthood and that was the space you were in and you wrote books about that, you know, how to raise perfectly and perfect kids and be okay with it. Can you share a little bit just because and you mentioned balance. So I just for mental health awareness month, Can you share a little bit about mental health raising teens?
Number one. And today, particularly as in hindsight with what you know now. And then also, there’s a two part question. For entrepreneurs listening, who have kids who are doing all the things. What has balance been for you?
Is there such a thing?

Lisa: Too per question. I guess there’s balance, but there’s like a precarious balance as far as I’m concerned. So the first the first question. I think that the best advice I could give or the best comment that I could make about being a parent of a team or, you know, a young adult child is keep your mouth shut. Keep your mouth shut in large part, not always.
At the right times if you can, and take a step back and do at least as much listening to your kids as you’re doing talking to your kids. When I kind of arrived in that place of understanding that they had as much to share with me as I had to share with them. It was kind of a game changer for me, if that makes sense. Like, I you’d as parents were just kind of hardwired to wanna talk to them and teach them and guide them and advise them and do all the things and and at the end of the day, that is what we’re supposed to be doing. But we’re also supposed to be allowing them to kind of do the same thing.
Like, we’re figuring out how to be parents when our kids are figuring out how to be humans. So there’s a whole bunch of figuring of things out that we all have to be, I think, a little gracious to each other when we’re in that position. So that’s what I would say, you know, to to a parent of a child in in that space and time is just spend as much time as you can listening to your kids than creating space for them to have those conversations because they have an awful lot to say. We just don’t think they do. The second part of your question is a little more complicated for the balancing part.
So, look, it’s like trial by fire, you know. I think that when you keep your own self care as kind of an anchor in your life, recognizing that you’re absolutely useless to yourself, your family, your extended your immediate failure extended family, your friends, your job, your useless, if you’re not okay inside. If your mental health and your physical health aren’t good, there is no balance. There’s no such thing as balance. I don’t think or I haven’t found.
And it’s only when the there’s harmony with those things and you give yourself again giving yourself grace. To do what you need to do. Take the time you need to take, you know, focus on what you need as a human being. And then obviously, of course, what your kids need, what your partner needs, what your family needs. I think the rest, I think the balance part comes a lot easier when you do that or when I’ve done that for sure.

Victoria: And I think for myself personally, it’s like recognizing my limits Mhmm. What are what are my limits? And then where can I fill that gap? And where can I ask for help and support?

Lisa: Mhmm. Yeah. That’s big.

Victoria: Also found too, like, with because I’m I’m in the trenches of college and teen pre college years. And Well, what a what a tramp.

Lisa: Yeah. That’s an understatement.

Victoria: But I think one thing that I have found personally you know, we we have two ears and one mouth for a reason. Right? Like, to touch on what he shared, but I have phoned because I can go into teacher preacher mode. You know, I’ve been there. I’ve done that.
No. We always wanna share Yeah. So which way to them? Just Listen to me, you know, just I I wanna spare you. But I also recognize that the hard lessons are where growth is.
And so Mhmm. What I found personally that’s helped for me is when I feel like I I want to give advice or I want to, yeah, give advice. That may be unsolicited. Rather, I propose it as a question, get very inquisitive and curious. And so I pose it as a question.
Like, well, what do you think about this? For example, just for example, let’s say they’re, you know, dating relationships. Right? If they’re dating somebody, you know, are you talking at her or are you talking with her when I’m recognizing something that I’m hearing or seeing. Right?
And so it’s not telling him what to do, not telling my son what to do or how to communicate with his girlfriend, but being inquisitive about how he’s going about that.

Lisa: Mhmm. You

Victoria: know, and he’s his response. Fair, fair point. Like, yeah. Like, he got it. I didn’t have to lecture him for an hour about how to communicate with someone.
You know? So I think it’s just posing things as a as a curious question.

Lisa: Yeah. I, you know, I love that you do that because it allows your son or our kids to kind of retain agency over themselves and where the conversation’s going. And what advice they’re getting and and not getting and how they’re getting it. I’ll tell you something interesting, and I I know we’ll probably chat about it later, but it that just made me think of how much my capacity for holding space has changed our capacity, but I guess my skill set with holding space has changed since I became a crisis counselor with the Trevor project. Because the way that we are taught to hold space as crisis counselors involves basically completely removing ourselves from the conversation.
We’re part of the conversation but nothing is ever about me. Nothing I we don’t disclose our real name where we are in the world. Whether we’re gay, straight, or otherwise, whether we have families, what our opinions are, like absolutely nothing, no anecdotal, hey, that happened to me and I understand or I can relate or nothing. And that was a really, really big mind shift for me, but it was all focused on once I got it, and I understood that it was all about helping the person on the phone maintain that agency over the conversation and over themselves, it it completely, I guess, revolutionized the way that I have a conversation with someone and hold space and and the same applies. It’s very similar in nature, I think, to what you’re saying, about how you’re engaging with your kids because it’s a game changer too.

Victoria: I just connected the dot for myself. So thank you for sharing that. In that because people would ask me all the time. That’s one of the big questions I get because I I work with Grievers. Right?
I I hear and I talk with Grievers all the time on my podcast and, like,

Lisa: how can

Victoria: you listen to all that sadness and heavy stuff all the time? How can you work with brivers and deal with all that. And I always thought the answer was, oh, all this energy work that I’ve done personally on myself, but to be it just hit me. It’s like, I’ve done a lot of work on myself Yeah. To be able to hold space for other people.
Including my kids

Lisa: Mhmm. To remove

Victoria: my just exactly what you said. So I really I think it’s giving credit to I think the deep work that you’ve done for yourself to be able to be there for other people and also for myself. And I’ve, you know, and I’ve said it to other people, like, you can only sit with others in their pain to the capacity that you’ve worked through your own. You know, to the depth that you’ve worked through your own.

Lisa: Mhmm.

Victoria: But I never got it until you just shared that.

Lisa: So Well, it’s all perspective. Right? It’s that’s that’s what we’re here to do. We’re here to, you know, to make each other a little wiser.

Victoria: And I’ll let that be kind of this motivation for people, especially parents, to take the time to work on themselves because you do become a much better parent than your that your child needs you to be than what you think they need. You know,

Lisa: it’s true. It’s very true. And it’s necessary. And it’s part of that whole learning curve, that whole process. That’s, you know, where we’re supposed to get a little snappier every day, a little bit stronger every day.
Our skill set is supposed to deepen a little bit more as we as we go on.

Victoria: So what shifted ten years ago? I know it. I know it shifted.

Lisa: You know it shifted. Yeah. It

Victoria: What a way to change the topic.

Lisa: Yeah. Right. Right. So ten years ago, I learned Well, I’ll back up. Before I give the, I guess, what would be a pretty big reveal?
I’ll back up and say that I lost my father when I was ten years old. So I’m fifty five years old now. I lost my father forty five years ago. I’m an only child. My dad was everything in the world to me.
And he passed away very, very suddenly of what I was told was a massive heart attack. My dad was a really he was very active, very physically fit but he was also a very big smoker. And so that was not a hard that was not a hard narrative to digest because it was awful. And it was life changing, but it made sense. Like, he had a Mastercard attack.
He was a smoker. I connected those dots and there was no question. Fast forward thirty five years until I was forty five, which was ironically the same age that my father wasn’t passed away. I discovered very much by accident that my dad had taken his own life. And that was just that was a that was a time.
Yep. That was a time. For me that everything just imploded because it was nothing I ever suspected. It was nothing I ever even remotely considered. And I just, like, bumped into family member I hadn’t seen in years and we were talking.
And my husband and I was I was having lunch somewhere at an outdoor cafe. She sat down and we were catching up and she asked me about my kids and my girls were teens at the time. And she asked me if I got out of the blue picked for it, like, out of the blue asked me if my kids had any of the same depression and mental illness that my father had. And I did not know what in the hell she was talking about. And it but but that being said, I as puzzled as I was by the conversation.
I I didn’t ask her anything about it. I think I was too stunned in that moment. I didn’t know where it was coming from. I kind of let the conversation come and go and she left and I turned to my husband as what in the hell was that? I have no idea what that was.
My mom and I are extremely, extremely close. We talk multiple times a day he’s my best friend in the world. I didn’t run to her after that thinking, mom, what am I missing? Like, well, I didn’t do that. Surprisingly.
Kind of the next time she and I were together, which wasn’t too long after that, we were sitting or having lunch, and we were just doing like a normal reminiscing that we would always do. Nothing out of the ordinary. And very much in a in a spontaneous moment, I I asked her, my father had been depressed. And she said, yes. And before I knew it, was coming out of my mouth.
I had never thought about it. I had never asked myself the question. Certainly was not prepared to ask my mother the question. Never crossed my conscious mind. All of a sudden, I don’t know where I blurt it out.
Did dad take his life? And she said, yes. And she explained to me that he had taken his life and that in that moment when she was, you know, considering everything that was happening Now going forward, me and I was ten at the time and had no siblings and it was just the two of us, what would she do? How would I react? What would that do to me?
Losing him, what would that do to me? But then finding out it was a suicide, what would that do to me? And so she she made that decision in that moment to shield me from that truth and to tell me that he had died of a heart attack and never spoke about it with anyone anyone ever. Until he and I talked about it forty well, I was forty five. So that’s what that was that was the that’s my why for doing what I’m doing.
And it it unfortunately was not just my father dying by suicide. A cousin of mine took his life a year before my father. And that I didn’t know was a suicide at the time. That was my first experience kind of understanding even just in general terms what suicide was. And then three years ago, my husband and I had a very, very close childhood friend.
He took his life very unexpectedly. So we’ve kind of had that trifecta of suicide in our life. And I just I needed to do something with it. I needed I needed to kind of change it up and and take whatever I went through or whatever I learned from it. That lived experience and just pay it forward.
So here I am.

Victoria: Did it change your relationship with your mother?

Lisa: It made it even not that I ever thought that this was possible, it made it stronger. My mother is a force of nature. My mother is one of the most remarkable humans that I’ve ever known. She is incredibly resilient and so kind and generous and supportive in every way. And I knew instantly I mean, I was a mom.
I had already been a mom of teenage kids by the time I found out about dad. So I in that moment knew immediately didn’t need an explanation. I understood exactly why she kept it from me. And and to hear it from her, she would say, you know, then you were going off to, like, middle school and high school. And I didn’t wanna lay that on you.
And then you were going up to college and then you were getting married. So it was like there was all there were always these these, like, mile markers that these big you know, kind of inflection points in my life, and she didn’t wanna hit me with it when I was already dealing with, you know, a big transition in life. And so then she just kind of resigned. She never just say anything. Like, why did I need to know?

Victoria: Did she ever share with you what keeping that secret had done to her or what it was doing to her or how it affected her or impacted her?

Lisa: My mom, as I said, is one of the most resilient humans that you’ve ever met. She’s that this this amazing capacity. She’s just the most content person. And I think my my mom she says this all the time. She said this my entire life.
Is one of the most social and loving and outgoing people you’ve you’ve met. She’s also she also considers herself her own best friend. So she I I remember she would always say to me, you know, I’d be in the car and I’d be talking to myself than having a conversation and kind of working through things and, you know, or if I was off at school, she would do things like that. You know, she he just she never harbored any ill will toward my father at all. She said, I never since the day I learned that it was a suicide, which was, you know, the day he died, there was a note was found, so it was it was pretty clear.
He said I never have had a single moment of any dealings of anger. Or dad. I I’ve always understood. Okay. She knew the kind of pressure he was under.
It was really my father’s family. We don’t know what was going on under the surface. We know that my dad started seeing a psychiatrist maybe a month before he died. Because there was so much stress on his side of the family. My parents came from two very very different families.
My mom’s family is pure love, pure love and joy and kindness and support, and my dad’s family was I mean, I you know, I don’t I don’t even wanna say what my father’s family was was like, it was not an awful lot of love to be found. My dad’s side of the family. And that was it was obvious. I was a little kid, and I knew it. And it weighed on him.
He did everything he possibly could. To help his family. Nothing was ever enough and there was a lot of stress. And I don’t know what kind of mental illness he had, like, layered on top of that. But without knowing the actual why, which we don’t know.
I mean, the note that he left was more of just an apology. I just can’t I can’t go on anymore, and I love you both. And I’m sorry. But we have our suspicions about, you know, kind of what the family dynamic did to his mental health. So, yeah, my my mom, it only made me love and appreciate her that much more because I’m incredibly great sold to her.
I don’t know what I would have done at that point in time without the kind of resources that they have in place today for young kids who are are trying to navigate this kind of grief and loss because it’s it’s just a shit show when you’re trying to navigate a suicide law. Like any losses such a devastating thing to navigate. But when you compound that by a suicide, like, that’s a whole different animal. And for a little kid, to have been doing that in the 70s when nobody was talking about suicide. No one was talking about mental health.
No one was being open about going to therapy. Resources didn’t exist. I don’t know I don’t know if I’d still be here, to be honest with you. So

Victoria: You know, there’s two kinds of secrets. Right? The secrets to protect and the secrets that do harm and I wonder what do you feel about people who who chose that route, who chose that route, but I think do I mean, do you feel like there’s a connection between secrets and people who choose? Choose that? Or is it Is it purely mental illness?

Lisa: Meaning suicide, people use suicide? I mean, it’s no situational. I mean, I think it’s it’s so nuanced from person to person for sure. But there are obviously all these similarities attached to suicide that, you know, that kind of connects you know, connect suicides in general. I think that

Victoria: Maybe the better maybe the better question is, how much of it do you think is unresolved grief?

Lisa: Taking your life, I don’t know if I don’t know if it’s unresolved grief as much as unresolved pain. Not that there is too much of a distinction between the two, like grief is pain, but I think that when I talk about suicide in this context. I always say the same thing. The people who have taken their lives are not taking their lives to get away from you or to get away from me or to get away from their family or their community or their friends or their life. They’re taking their own life because they cannot emotionally go on anymore.
They they there is no way that they can exist and be joyful or exist and be productive. Like, they’re in pain. And it took me a really long time to arrive at that understanding. And once I did, it was like it was like ninety day instantaneous that the kind of mind shift that happened for me personally because I when my cousin passed away in nineteen seventy seven, and that was my as I said, it was my first experience with suicide. Not because anyone implanted this belief system in my head, but because I cultivated it all by myself, I just kind of silently quietly believed going forward in my life that suicide was a very selfish act, which is a very, very common response to suicide.
You’re like, well, why couldn’t they just speak up? Or Why couldn’t it work through it or why couldn’t they get help? Not that simple, but it wasn’t until I learned about my own father’s suicide. And really started studying mental illness and the impact of mental illness and depression and the fact that it’s just it’s an illness. It’s an illness that needs to be treated the way you would treat heart disease or cancer or, you know, the way that you would try to heal after an accident.
It’s no different. And it’s beyond your control, and that’s what people don’t understand. It’s so abstract. Like mental illness seems so abstract, but it’s an illness at the end of the day. And so it took me a long time to to recognize that it was really an issue of someone being so desperate to just stop hurting.
That’s why they take their life. It’s not selfish. It’s the only it’s the only choice they feel they’ve got, which is just unfortunate.

Victoria: I had a guest early on when my when I first started my podcast. In fact, it’s a two parter because we had quite an extensive conversation, but he was on the bridge, I believe, in San Francisco, and he was going to jump and take his own life. And

Lisa: Mhmm.

Victoria: You know, he had a brief second, but this thought that came over him and and stopped himself. And I and maybe there, perhaps, someone came on the bridge. That that might have been too. I mean, that’s been quite a while since I’ve recorded with him. But it’s one of my earlier episodes.
David is his first name. But he had shared with me and this is what I remember him sharing is that you know, the connection is the anecdote to having those suicidal thoughts. Like, connection is not the cure, but it is the the bridge to healing when you’re having those kinds of thoughts. What do you say to that?

Lisa: Oh, I absolutely agree with that. I think connection and community I’m I’m reading a book right now. By Francis Well, or I don’t know if you ever read it. It’s called the Wild Edge of sorrow. And He’s just just an absolutely brilliant man and he’s doing these, you know, grief and healing practices for years.
And he talked about that very specifically that he talked about the fact that at the end of the day, It’s community that helps us heal, it’s community that helps us grieve, it’s community that helps us navigate loss or tragedy or you know, some kind of misfortune. It’s by staying together as a unit and leaning on one another. Like, we’re not we’re not supposed to be here alone for a reason. We’re not We’re not all here by ourselves. We’re here to create these relationships.
And I think that community is is that linchpin that, you know, that can keep us rounded and, you know, and keep us kind of reinforced if that makes sense.

Victoria: What would you say to people who are listening and from your own personal experience Mhmm. Where they may feel guilt because their love their connection to the person just wasn’t enough.

Lisa: Mhmm. That’s a tough I mean, I’ve been I’ve been there. I’ve been in that position. I mean, granted I give myself a lot of leeway where that’s concerned because I was ten years old. So how can a ten year old really understand what a grown up is going through, especially like in the case of my father, he he didn’t he didn’t display like he was someone who was mentally ill, like he was hurting like nothing.
We knew absolutely nothing. But, I mean, as I’ve gotten older, you know, it’s impossible to avoid having those feelings of guilt. Like, if if I had asked him more questions or if I had stayed closer to him, it’s inevitable and it’s human nature. You know, we we blame ourselves because we just we feel so helpless and we feel like you know, what could we have said, what could we have done? I mean, I know all of us in our friend group who lost our friend a few years ago, kicked ourselves for a very long time.
What did we miss? What did we not see? How could we possibly not known this was so imminent. And you gotta release yourself from that. You really have to release yourself from that, especially when you’re in a situation where you would absolutely know what idea that the person is struggling.
Like that, you don’t you you can’t help but you don’t know, which is why it’s so incredibly important for the person who is hurting to reach out, reach out to a friend or a family member, a place where you feel safe or call a lifeline, or if you’re, you know, if you’re already connected with a therapist, like be, open, be honest because that’s the only way that people can ever help is when they know.

Victoria: People might be asking themselves then listening. Is the responsibility on the person struggling?

Lisa: I think two that’s a hard one. Two point maybe to a point in terms of vulnerability, sure. I think in as much as they have the capacity to reach out and just say, if it’s only a matter of saying, hey, I’m not okay. I need help. I mean, I think it’s it’s like anything.
It’s a shared responsibility. Like, when you’re talking about, you know, when you’re talking about community a minute ago, I think it’s everybody’s responsibility to be looking out for everybody and to care for each other and to check-in on each other. So I I think it’s all a shared responsibility to a point. I mean, I think that when a person is struggling and at that, like, on the brink and that close to making that kind of decision, thinking about suicide, it becomes challenging because I don’t, you know, you don’t know how much they have the capacity to reach out or to articulate. It can be really parallelizing that kind of depression that’s always attached to that level of pain that can really mess your head up.
It can really contaminate your thinking and and your, you know, it it can create a lot of irrational thought processes and I think, you know, it’s as much of their responsibility to try and articulate just that they’re not okay, and then it’s our response validate and meet them the other half of the way and say, what can I do? How can I help?

Victoria: In my training that I have received, but mental health and grief and all of that. One of the things that I think is a misconception for a lot of people is that if they come right out and ask, Do you have thoughts or have you had thoughts of harming yourself? You’re not gonna send that person down that spiral. Right? They’ve already had those thoughts if the answer is yes.

Lisa: But I

Victoria: think sometimes they’re just people who are struggling are just waiting for someone to ask. Yeah. It’s like the elephant in the room, you know.

Lisa: Yeah. Yeah. What that does? I’m glad you brought that up because it’s such an important piece of of this whole equation. It is a very big misconception that by suggesting that someone, you know, is that low that you’re gonna cause them to harm themselves.
The truth of it is, there have been so many studies that have supported that it’s actually the opposite. When you address that elephant in the room right away with that line very specific language to, like, are you thinking of killing yourself? I know it’s so off putting and jarring. Even GCU and I just talking about asking that question is like people get a visceral reaction to it because it’s so intense. But what it’s actually proven is that it validates the person’s feelings.
It gives them that that that doorway to help that, you know, that opening to say, I’m actually not, okay. And, you know, people I think a lot of people hesitate to ask the question because they’re really they’re scared to death about what the answer be in, like, how the hell do I handle it? If somebody says, well, yeah. Actually, I’m not okay. What what the hell do I do for now?
But it’s not your responsibility. And I’m saying, when I say it’s not your responsibility, I’m speaking now to whoever you are, who knows someone who is struggling. It’s not your responsibility to fix the problem. So take that out of the equation because that is not the responsibility that falls on you. What you can do is empower that person who’s struggling with someone who can help.
Empower them with if it’s nothing more, then, hey, I know you’re I know you’re struggling. I can hear it. Can you call nine eight eight? Call the lifeline? Or in my case, because I I work with the Trevor project, call the Trevor project hotline.
Or reach out to your therapist. And it’s about getting that person connected with the people who can help. That’s all that someone kind of needs to have in their back pocket. It’s just that the knowledge of those lifeline numbers or even that they exist and just and just make that suggestion.

Victoria: Can you share a little bit more about the Trevor project and how you’re halfway into this?

Lisa: Yeah. That was that it’s kind of an interesting little journey for me. So the Trevor Project for for people who are listening who don’t know is the country’s largest LGBTQ centric support lifeline, excuse me, more or LGBTQ youth ages thirteen to twenty four who are crisis. So we are nationwide. We also have an office in Mexico.
And we take calls twenty four hours a day, seven days a week from youth and crisis in the LGBTQ community who are struggling with everything that you could possibly imagine someone would call it like flying with, whether it be stressed about coming out or suicidal ideation or homicidal ideation or abuse or homelessness. Any reason why anyone would call a life flight. But in a way that I got on involved with it is that it’s a for me, it felt like the natural intersection of everything that’s really just important to me, my my top priorities in the world. Obviously, I lost my father and a friend and a cousin suicide. And crisis lifeline is one of their, you know, their biggest pillars.
And the other is, you know, the LGBTQ community and my oldest daughter who is going to be twenty seven came out when she was in college. And I came out as pansexual. I guess it’ll be three years ago this summer, this pride next month. And for me, it was a no brainer to be aligned with an organization that was, you know, both supporting the LGBTQ community and supporting people who are in crisis and who are struggling. So I they came on my radar probably when my daughter came out is when I became more aware of them.
And stayed on my radar for the longest time. And then about three years ago, I thought, you know, when I started getting very public about you know, the way my work was shifting and started telling my story more openly, I thought, you know what, this now is the time. So I got involved and I trained with them to be a crisis counselor on their, like, we have a text line and a traditional phone lifeline. So I’m one of the phone lifeline counselors. And I’m on the left line as often as I can be taking calls from people who are in crisis.

Victoria: When did it originate?

Lisa: Trevor celebrated, so we’re in our twenty sixth year. Wow. Yep. Yep. It’s has a really neat little origin story.
So twenty six years ago, there the three founding members were there was a film about a little boy named a high school boy named Trevor, and he was he was struggling with his sexuality. And the movie, the little short video, was up for an academy. And they played the video during the Academy Awards because I think it was like a twelve or fifteen minute video stage. I played the whole thing and they played in excerpts. But the producers of this video and and creators of this video said, you know what?
We’re playing this thing. We really have to have a kind of a work system. We’re playing it to encourage people to reach out when they need help. We really should have something in place for people who are watching this video now to reach out. So they started a lifeline.
And along with the video being played during the academies, they had they flashed its number up on the screen, and I think they got something like fifteen hundred calls that night, and the lifeline has been in place ever since.

Victoria: Wow.

Lisa: Yeah. Yeah. Twenty six years later.

Victoria: Like, what’s your latest book that you’ve written since you’ve made this transition in your work and your writing and all of that. I’m like, what the latest book? How is how is your writing shifted?

Lisa: It’s shifted dramatically. I mean, my voice and tone has always been the same no matter what I’m whether I’m writing about parenting or whether I’m writing about mental health and wellness. It’s it’s very conversational. I write like I talk. And I actually just signed a a book contract for my next book with my longtime publisher, Familias Publishing, to write a book about my my father’s story that because I’ve I’ve lost them twice in my life.
Mhmm. And I’m I’m really gonna be doing a lot of incorporating of a lot of the resources and the toolkits that you mentioned earlier that are on my website. I want there to be a huge resource section. For people to access who are struggling either with with suicide, with mental health in general, with grief and loss, And I have I’ve developed and curated an awful lot of tools. You’ve mentioned those as well.
People can download them, share them, access them. I wanna incorporate that into the book. So my story about my father will really kind of be the vehicle for having the the bigger more important conversations about surviving a suicide loss and and navigating that. So that’s what I’m working on now. And I believe the tentative publication date is twenty twenty five.
Twenty twenty five or twenty twenty six, but we’re we’re just in the beginning stages.

Victoria: What did your life look like after you found out how he died.

Lisa: If you were looking at me, if you were a friend of mine, like even a close friend. Most likely, you would not have known that there was anything going on under the surface. I I blew up I completely blew up inside. And for the better part of the first, I would say, three years, I would premise to sleep at night. My kids didn’t even know what was going on for the first three years because it was such a shock to me.
I I felt like I was dealing with my my own brand new grief. Like, I was starting day one all all over again and day one, minute one of losing my father all over again, but now under completely different circumstances. And I was trying to navigate that the best I could, which wasn’t very good. And I was trying to navigate helping my mom because remember for for thirty five years, my mother didn’t talk about this to a single bowl, and I wanted to be there for her. I wanted her to be able to somehow process things in a different way.
And so we were just very insular about it. It was just my husband Dave knew my mom and I knew. And I was very much one person to the outside world and very much a different person. Like, when the when the bedroom door closed at night, I was in pieces. And it wasn’t until I started I I started You never come to terms with anything like this fully.
You just learn how to deal with it and process it and live with it in different ways, in better ways, I suppose. Once I got to that point where I felt like I could start talking about it, I told the girls, and my husband and I said, we need to talk to them because they need to know what their DNA looks like now versus what it looked like before, because now they’ve got, you know, they’ve got some degree of mental illness in their DNA. That’s my father had some mental illness. It was a lot that came out that existed on my father’s side. And we all inherit that.
There’s, you know, that that generational trauma and that cocktail that’s you know, manifest in different ways and different people. And I felt that it was really important for them to understand kind of, you know, what was in my background and their background and and it’s ever at any point in their lives, they started having issues or struggling, which, you know, that they were of that age where that’s typically the time period where mental illness or challenges will start to emerge. And sure enough, my my oldest had a a lot of issues with anxiety and depression and ultimately went into therapy and found just incredible success in in going into therapy and going on medication changed her life. Absolutely changed her life and for the better. And once I told the girls that was it, I just immediately started sharing this the truth and never look back in sharing ever since.

Victoria: Was that the most healing that you found was in sharing?

Lisa: Yeah. I think initially that was incredibly cathartic for me just to know that I was I was embracing the truth. I was acknowledging the truth. I I was not I never felt really like it was a stigma. To me, I never felt like it.
I think I feel I feel like by the time I learned about my father, the world was already shifting in terms of the stigma around suicide. I think we went through a big awakening culturally where we’re talking about mental illness so much more and wellness and suicide and IDiation and self harm. And all of these things are so much more mainstream now than they ever were before. So I feel like that that was very helpful to me. In that way.
But writing about it has been, you know, and talking about it like this has been equally as cathartic for me. And I think one of the biggest things, every single time I go on shift, on a lifeline shift with Trevor Project, I think about my father. Every single time I pick up the phone and answer a call from someone who’s struggling every time I deescalate someone who may be higher imminent risk of suicide I feel an incredible sense of gratitude to be able to be in that position, to do that, and to be that person that can hold space for that moment in time for that person who’s struggling. So all those things combined have been healing for me.

Victoria: Thank you for that work that you are doing. By the way, welcome. You’re welcome. What has your grief taught you?

Lisa: That’s a big question. I don’t think anyone’s ever asked me. In all the conversations that I’ve had, I don’t think anyone’s ever asked me that. I think it’s taught me that I’m a lot more resilient than I ever believed myself to be. And then at the same exact time, I’m a lot more vulnerable.
And affected by it than I ever believed I could be. For me, I think I’ve learned that openness and transparency and sharing my story is It’s such a valuable tool. It’s taught me that I can be of service to other people, my lived experience while it may be very nuanced. Everybody’s is very nuanced. You don’t usually need people who have lost the same person twice in their life and grieve twice, so I have a little bit of a unique story in that way.
But I’ve had a lot of experience with grief and loss and I’ve learned that the more I talk about it, the more I heal, and the more it seems that other people benefit from it. So It’s taught me that putting it out there is one of the greatest gifts you can give to yourself.

Victoria: And maybe to someone you don’t even know.

Lisa: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean that. I mean that as well, for sure.
Yeah.

Victoria: What is one thing that you would share with people who are listening, who are struggling.

Lisa: Mhmm.

Victoria: And then also, what is one thing that you would share with people? Who are in support of or want to support someone, that may be something you haven’t shared already. Maybe that helped you or that in your training and things that you’ve learned along the way?

Lisa: So in terms of, you know, what I would share. If someone’s struggling, I would say just give yourself some grace. The way that you feel right now in this moment, this this heaviness, this this place of despair or hopelessness is not the way you will always feel. There is there is a change that happens. There is another side to these these feelings and this kind of desperation.
So I would say be patient with yourself. And gift yourself a little bit of time to be, you know, to to to allow yourself to be where you are at this moment. I I say it this way often meet yourself exactly where you are right now. Don’t try and get ahead because you’ve got to be where you are right now. You’ve got to sit in the feelings.
Even if they’re shitting feelings to sit in, even if they’re so painful and so difficult, it’s so important to allow those to penetrate because when we compartmentalize them and pursue them away, we try and negate them or avoid them, they’re gonna come back hard, and they’re gonna take you down when you don’t see it coming. So you know, it may not sound like great advice, but when you meet yourself where you are right now, it can be one of the greatest gifts you give yourself because you get to dictate the pace. You get to decide when you move forward and how you move forward. So that’s what I would say to that. And in terms of, I guess, coping strategies or things that that I would tell people to do, like, self care, self care, like, whatever that looks like to you, whether it’s giving yourself permission to say no, I don’t feel like socializing tonight.
Or I I think I need to spend time getting these feelings that I have in my head and my heart out. If you wanna talk to someone who is a safe person or maybe you wanna put them down in a journal or maybe you need to go in nature and go for hike or walk or maybe you need to go for a run or maybe you practice yoga and that is a place where you can kind of detach I would say, let yourself focus on on doing those kinds of things to kind of recharge, to help yourself you know, what do they say about a a radiator? You’ve got to bleed the radiator, so it doesn’t blow up. And we’ve got to do that with our emotions. So I would say whatever your thing is, that and everybody knows what their thing is so well.
Whatever your thing is, let yourself do that thing as a way of helping yourself to heal. That’s what I would say.

Victoria: I like the metaphor of using or analogy of using luggage. And so ever since we were children, we’ve been packing her luggage. Something happens. Like, I lost my dad. He would when I was eight, he was forty four years old, packed that suitcase.
My grandmother died a year before him. I packed that suitcase. Molested, packed a suitcase. You know, like, in by the time I was in my early twenties, like, I had a lot of luggage. I was dragging with me from the past.
Right?

Lisa: Yeah.

Victoria: And I think all of that luggage can just get so overwhelming to lug around. You don’t get to where you are. In your suffering and in your pain overnight. Yeah. Can’t expect that you’re going to get healed overnight.
So it’s just looking at that one suitcase. I’m gonna look at this one suitcase. What is what do I need to take from this suitcase. What can I remove one garment at a time? And that’s really I think I just started chipping away.
You know, because I felt I started with the postpartum. There were so many struggles that I had. I thought I was doomed for suffering and I just want to share with people. Just start with one suitcase. Yeah.
One thing. And a

Lisa: beautiful image. Yeah.

Victoria: Yeah. Bring some support in in doing that. Mhmm. Find the thing that you resonate with. Find the person that is safe for you.
Mhmm. Just baby steps. You don’t have you know, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Right.

Lisa: That’s right. Well, that’s right. That’s that’s why I say just you get to set the pace. Mhmm.

Victoria: You

Lisa: know, and it’s it’s very much a marathon. It’s not a sprint. So in in that context, you get to decide how you cover that ground. But every step that you take, it doesn’t matter what the pace is. Every step you take is forward motion.
That’s, you know, progress. If you wanna look at it that way. And while in the case of grief and loss, we never stop grieving for our people. Like, you know that? I know that most people who are listening to this know that.
You don’t stop. What we’re all doing here, what you and I are doing by having this conversation is giving people you know, the tools to learn how to navigate the trip a little easier. Maybe be a little lighter, maybe, you know, find hope a little sooner. That’s that’s the point because at the end of the day, for me, one of the things and this goes back to what you asked, what do I learn about grief? I’ve learned not to fear it.
I’ve learned not to try and push it away because to me, And I’ve I’ve lost, you know, we’re talking about the three people who I’ve lost, you know, father, cousin, and a friend, but I’ve that’s just a suicide. I’ve lost grandparents, aunts, uncles. I mean, I’ve lost friends. I I’ve been accompanied my grief my entire life. I don’t wanna stop grieving for those people because I love those people and those people are a part of the fabric of my life.
They’re part of that whole catastrophe of my life. So I wanna wrap myself in that quilt of them all the time. All of these people that I’ve lost So my grief while at the same time that it’s sad is also the thing that keeps me tethered to those people. So I think that was that was pretty transformative for me too when I finally kind of arrived in that place of understanding that. That it wasn’t something to push away.
It wasn’t something to barrier to fear. It was something to in a strange way in this Francis Sweller that I mentioned earlier, the author of the wild edge of sorrow writes that, you know, that’s how we keep our people alive. You know? And I think we all need to stay attached in whatever way is most meaningful to us.

Victoria: And we wouldn’t be who we are without those people in our lives.

Lisa: One hundred percent. Yep.

Victoria: Just like you listening the people in your life wouldn’t be who they are without you.

Lisa: Mhmm.

Victoria: Is there anything else that you would like to share that you feel like you didn’t get to. I mean, I think I could we could talk for hours. We could talk for hours.

Lisa: I mean, you’re all day. I love this is the kind of conversation that I feel so empowered to have. Like, I’m so grateful to be able to reach new people and, you know, in new communities. So I’m grateful to you from this opportunity. I mean, I think I would suggest to people that you take a minute and look around you at the people in your life.
There’ll be two cohorts of people. There’ll be the people who appear okay and grounded and settled and driven and joyful on the outside. And then you’ll be you can look at them and you can say, okay, I know that person is struggling. It’s because maybe they’re more vocal with it, maybe it’s their affect, maybe in a lot of different signs of signals. I would say, treat each one of those groups the same.
I would make it a point to check-in on your people. Make it a point whether it’s the people who seem great or if it’s the people who you know aren’t, back in with them. Ask them how they really are. Ask them if they’re okay. Ask them what they need.
Ask them how you can help because sometimes And this this applies especially to the people who don’t make their struggles very visible. When you open a door for someone, sometimes that’s all they’re looking for. That’s all they need. They just need to know it’s a safe ways to share what’s really going on. You know, people people like my father get very skilled at hiding what’s going on just under the surface.
And yeah, I know. I mean, it’s so common. I feel like way more people are fighting the truth of what’s going on than aren’t. And I think that we just need to be a little bit more sensitive of each other and make each other more of a responsibility. That’s how we get back to that, that have a whole sense of community, you know, back in the day when you know, my parents were young.
They lived with their grandparents and their extended families. And I my husband and I actually both grew up the same way, living with grandparents. But most of our friends did not. And, you know, nowadays these generations, you know, you you get married, you go off, you’re separated from your extended family. And people are living in these isolated little pockets.
And people aren’t there to check-in on each other and interact with each other and support each other in the ways that maybe people are used to a little bit more often. So when you get back to that, which circles right back to the beginning of our conversation about the importance of community and the importance of having support systems. So that’s what I think I would say to people. It’s just kind of be watching, be vigilant, and take your own pulse every once in a while too because you can’t help anybody, you can’t pour from an empty cup.

Victoria: Right? They bring up a good point, so you had talked about three years. You struggled, not necessarily in silence because your husband and your mother knew, so you had their support. But I’m curious if you’re daughters were, like, shocked. Once you’ve I mean, two counts.
I mean, eventually, once he said, oh, the past three years have been a living hell internally, and the people that knew you were like, whoa. Really? Like, I had no idea. And so how did you reconcile that? You know, knowing that the work you do now, you’re struggling in silence, would you have done things differently?

Lisa: Also good. You’re asking me all these really good questions that no one ever asked me before. I probably would have allowed myself to be more vulnerable earlier on. One thing that I would have done probably much sooner, much, much sooner, was start seeing a therapist again. So when I was when I was young, my first experience seeing a therapist, I was college age, and I had taken a gap year before gap years were even a thing.
And I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do with my life, and my friends were already kind of established in schools and in programs and majors, and I just felt like I didn’t know what I wanted to do. And I struggled with that. And so I started seeing a therapist to kind of navigate that, work through that, we only really very briefly at times touched on my father in terms of big life events that kind of shaped who I was. I didn’t know he was you know, he had taken his life, so I that was not a part of our conversation. And I was in therapy like that for a number of years, and then I kind of found my way and and got on my path and and didn’t see another therapist for three decades, three and a half decades.
And I finally got to the point about two years ago when I said, you know what, I need something for me. I mean, My husband’s amazing. He has held more space for me than anyone has probably ever held for anyone. And my mother the same, but it’s different when you have that impartial person who doesn’t know your history, who doesn’t know that the social dynamics and the damiliar hierarchy and those dynamics, and that’s something I would have done right from the jump, I think. If I could have gone back and done it again.
Maybe not done anything differently in terms of telling my children, I didn’t want to tell them prematurely. I wanted to make sure that they had kind of the capacity to deal with that. Like they were teenagers, and it was heavy. And what I was talking about was something incredibly intense that I wanted to make sure they could deal with. So I don’t I I don’t regret waiting for that.
But, yeah, I probably would have, you know, been a little bit more open about it. But to the rest of the family, and I I probably would have done therapy sooner.

Victoria: That’s a good answer. And the reason why I asked too is because you know, we can have these regrets. Right? And that’s grief. And you had spoken and touched on, like, at the point you didn’t know what to do with your life.
You weren’t sure and you were struggling, and that’s kind of what caused you to seek help and support. But how much of it do you think? Like, it’s just in hindsight now. It’s like, of course, your the loss of your father and your cousin had greatly impacted you, but I just see so many kids like today. Like, there’s divorce and there’s just the heaviness of the world and social media and kids are just mean.
Right? Kids are just mean. Yeah. It’s like Yeah. It’s it’s so can you just speak briefly to maybe the and I don’t know that a lot of young, young people are listening to this, but surely their parents or caregivers are can you speak to supporting someone who was like you?
Who didn’t know, like, who felt like a fish out of water, right, floundering and

Lisa: You know, I I really think in the same way that I was suggesting that people meet themselves where they are. I think that’s the advice that I would also give someone trying to help a friend is meet them, meet that friend exactly where they are, hold the space, in the way that the friend who’s struggling needs you to hold it. You know? I mean, like I said before in the context of being a crisis counselor, like, you’re not there to solve the problem. Especially if someone who’s grieving a loss, any kind of a loss, whether it’s the loss of a a human being who’s passed away or the loss of a a job or the loss of a relationship or, like, there’s so many.
Like you said, there’s so many different sets of losses in the world. I would say, be there to support them in whatever way they need to be supported, but don’t go into it at thinking you’ve got to fix it and solve it because in most cases it’s unsolvable. You know, in the case of someone losing someone and and someone who’s grieving, there is no turning back, back clock. You know, it’s more about just moving forward trying to maybe encourage that person to figure out what they need. That’s a big one because oftentimes when someone’s grieving, they don’t know what the hell they need.
They don’t know where to go, where to turn, who to who to ask for help, you know, ask someone to go for a walk, ask someone to go to a movie, ask someone if they need help finding a therapist, if they don’t have one, cook a meal, one of the things I learned is not to ask open ended questions. Like, what can I do to help you? You know, I’m I’m there. Just just whatever and I get caught on doing this all the time. We all we all did this kind of thing all the time.
Be deliberate. Be intentional. Can I cook you dinner? Can I take you to dinner? Can I do some errands for you?
Can I pick up your dry cleaning? Can I pick up your kids at school? Like, what whatever the case is? I think those are the ways that I know that when I’ve been grieving, when I’ve been in that situation that needed help, those were the things that were the most helpful to me.

Victoria: Is there anything else that you would like to share?

Lisa: You know, I would just say, even if you’re someone who is private and a lot of people are, I am very much very much so. I am private in spite of the fact that everything I do is so public. I write about everything I write about is, you know, out there for the world to see. A lot of people are not comfortable sharing what’s going on the inside. I would say give people around you the benefit of the doubt.
Give the people in your life, the benefit of the doubt that that they can help you. That they can somehow offer support, trust. You know who you can trust. We all know who we can trust the most.lean into that.lean into the people who are there who want to support you. In the ways that you need them because at the end of the day, we’re not meant to go through any of the stuff alone.

Victoria: And to piggyback that, I just had a thought. Your children are not your therapist.

Lisa: No. No. So if you are a parent

Victoria: who is struggling, your children are not your therapist,

Lisa: agreed.

Victoria: Yeah. Yeah. Played that role for a very long time.

Lisa: Yeah. That’s right. But it’s just made me who I

Victoria: am, I guess. Yeah. You know?

Lisa: That’s right. That’s right. And and that’s the thing. You know, I mean, you know, we all we all have things we wish we could, you know, we could redo. But at the end of the day, we’re all we’re where we are because of those things.
So do we really wanna change those things or do we wanna just, you know, use them as teachable moments and and you know, be better going forward.

Victoria: I love that. Yeah. Just give a hug. Yeah. You have your parent and you need a hug.
You know, your kid probably needs the hug too. Mhmm. My daughter gives the best hugs to seventeen and yeah. She just and she won’t let go. Like, she is like, she will not let you go.

Lisa: Oh, I love that. I love that. I probably bug both of my daughters about hugs a little too much. My so my oldest lives in Japan. So I have to ration.
Like, I have to I I can’t go in too hot when I get off the plane. I all I wanna do is hold her for, like, three days, and she’s like, look. I will give you all the hugs that you want. You gotta you gotta pace yourself a little bit, or we’ll never get out of the airport. So Yeah.
But my kids are good ones too.

Victoria: My daughter knows psychologically a minute. Needs to be at least a minute.

Lisa: Mhmm. Yeah. I like that. That’s that’s like that’s an, like, a that’s an adequate amount of time to really, like, embrace the hug.

Victoria: Gotta let those good feelings that those good feeling adorphins come up and she knows that. So

Lisa: Yeah. Yeah. That’s that’s that’s good insights. It’s it’s a it’s a child who comes from a good place.

Victoria: Yeah. Our kids teach us too. Share her. Forget that. Well, thank you so much for being a part of my podcast and the mission of my podcast, which is to make it less taboo to talk about grief, to talk about mental health and suicide and all the ways that we grieve and the experiences that shape us.
So thank you so much for sharing your story. For the work that you do. And I will put all the links to the show notes, but please share again where people can find you and connect with you.

Lisa: Sure. The best place I mean, I’m on all the socials. Lisa underscore Sugarman on Instagram. The Lisa Sugarman on Facebook, but the best place to to catch everything that I do is lisa sugarman dot com. And I know at the beginning of the show, you mentioned the resource of the mental health resources hub that I have on my website and the toolkit hub that I have.
And and that’s like a to me, that’s probably the crown jewel of the website for me. I’ve spent an awful lot of time and effort pulling together all these resources, betting all these resources, and they’re there for anyone who is struggling or if you know someone who’s struggling, please go on my website I’ve got about sixteen different categories. It’s a very inclusive website. Doesn’t matter who you are, what your background is. I hopefully have help that’s right for you, so take a peek.

Victoria: Thank you again. And remember, When you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.

 

Ep 173 Zane Landin | Empowerment Over Stigma and Keeping My Mom’s Legacy Alive

Zane Landin | Empowerment Over Stigma and Keeping My Mom’s Legacy Alive

 

SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:

Zane Landon, a mental health and disability advocate and founder of Positive Vibes magazine, actively promotes mental health awareness, wellness, and inclusion. Despite battling his own mental health, Zane showed up to the Mental Health Youth Action Forum in Washington, D.C., to advocate for youth mental health policies and confront the stigma surrounding mental illness, particularly the misconception that it leads to violent behavior.

In this episode, he shares his journey with major depressive disorder, emphasizing the empowerment he found in diagnosis and connection with others, as well as the healing power of helping those in similar situations. Alongside these topics, Zane addresses his struggles with weight and overeating and the recognition of the complex relationship between mental health and eating habits. He stresses the importance of body positivity, self-acceptance, and maintaining health objectives.

Reflecting on the universal impact of mental health, Zane discusses the importance of recognizing individual worth and the value everyone brings to the world. His narrative includes the profound effects of early life experiences, personal achievements, and investing in oneself. In light of COVID-19 and the loss of his mother, Zane expresses gratitude for her influence in his life and explores his belief in an afterlife and continued connections with those who have passed.

The conversation also delves into processing grief. Zane emphasizes the need to change one’s internal narrative. He candidly discusses his spiritual yearning and the lack of definitive answers in coping with the absence of loved ones. He finds solace in the hope that his mom is in a safe place or some form of afterlife, and he seeks to honor her memory by channeling his love and energy into positive actions, such as a newfound love of cooking (which his mom loved to do).

Grateful for the ability to discuss grief, mental health, and suicide openly, Zane advocates for improved societal approaches to these issues and uses social media and his digital platform to promote accessibility and encourage positive change.

RESOURCES:

CONNECT:

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NEED HELP?

  • National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
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If you are struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, free resources are available HERE.

CONNECT WITH VICTORIA: 

Victoria Volk: Thank you for tuning in to grieving voices. Today, I have a guest episode and Zane Landin, has joined me and he is a mental health and disability advocate, a queer rights activist, entrepreneur, and positive change maker. He is the founder of Positive Vibes Magazine, a digital magazine that’s dedicated to telling authentic stories about mental health, wellness, and inspiration. The magazine has featured over eighty voices, reached thousands of readers from over a hundred and fifty countries, and secured twenty-two thousand followers on several social media channels. He attended the first ever mental health youth action forum in Washington DC, where he met President Biden, Selena Gomez, Dr. Murphy and Dr. Biden. Out of hundreds of applicants, he was one of thirty young applicants selected from across the country to attend the forum to allocate youth mental health activation, policy, and inclusion. And thank you so much for joining me today and for taking your time to share the work that you’re doing, which is obviously having an impact because people are finding you, it’s definitely needed. And for also sharing your story of grief, which is what brought you to the podcast today. So thank you so much for being here.

Zane Landin: Thank you for having me and also for facilitating a podcast on grief. It’s not a topic we talked about enough, but it really does impact almost everyone at some point.

Victoria Volk: It does impact everybody because we all grieve something. Right? Yeah. Even if it’s the loss of a dream.

Zane Landin: Mhmm.

Victoria Volk: Or a pet, loss of a friendship. Right? No one has to die for us to grieve. And so that’s really why I wanted to start this podcast too to help people understand that grief isn’t just about death. And I imagine in the work that you’re doing in activism and in what you have found yourself in the work that you found yourself in, the position that you found yourself in, hasn’t been necessarily an easy road because what I found in doing this podcast for almost four years now is people find their purpose through their pain.

Zane Landin: Mhmm.

Victoria Volk: And so I know you didn’t come to this podcast to talk about what brought you to the work you’re doing today, but I often believe which is often the case is that, like I just said, there’s a story there and I would like you to share and we can start there what led you to do in this work.

Zane Landin: What’s funny is, I’ve always experienced mental health conditions for a young age. I don’t know if I can really think of a time I left. Right? Didn’t have an irregular feeling of intense anger or depression. Or sadness or whatever it was. So he’s so then I’m always thinking about so then I’m always working on and I saw, like, a psychologist growing up. So luckily, my family knew about mental treatment and they move forward from the mental stigma that exists, which is I think sometimes uncommon. I think a lot of people do fear how they’re gonna be judged or perceived, like, especially when it comes to mental health because of how it’s been portrayed in so many conversations and so many stories to hold online or the media. And even when you think of mental health, we resort to think about violence because of how horribly, mental health has been portrayed in so many stories, especially when it comes to, I’m just gonna be upfront like serial killers. You know, you think about serial killers and it’s always talk about mental health. And I understand that sometimes unaddressed mental health can lead to that. But if you really look at the statistics, people with mental conditions are gonna be more victimized or more violated than vice versa. So we have to wait we had to really shift that narrative that you know, it’s not necessarily with mental health conditions that are that are engaging in a valid behavior. Sometimes it’s the opposite. And because we have such a stifled view on what mental health is, people do find a way to justify their violence against them. As we’ve seen, there was that story of someone who had a mental condition that was murdered in a subway. And so It’s just the way mental is perceived. And so I understand that sometimes the mental health stigma is so powerful that it will infiltrate your mind and it will prevent you from seeking help. I think that’s a very sad thing that people have to live in that kind of world. And it still exists for me, but I’m since I’ve been in the work so much, I can really recognize what my saltigo is, and I’m just kind of at this place where I move forward from what people think and that if people are really going to look at me negatively for having a mental health condition, that’s a good sign that I don’t need to be around you, and I’m kind of creating my own community that way.

Zane Landin: So it’s like a good filtering device. So like I said, saw a psychology for many years. And then I was doing okay. When I graduated high school, I went on to university, and I was doing really well. And then there was a timeline life where nothing fit. Nothing was going well. I didn’t know where I was headed. I felt like I was in such a plane of uncertainty all the time. So I didn’t know where my life was headed. I was, like, at odds with my family because of this type of relationship I was in.

Zane Landin: So there was a lot of things happening, and there was a lot of first things happening. Like, I was in my first relationship, and I did not know how to react. I didn’t know how to feel at that moment. And then when you like you said, if you’re talking about grief, I had to grieve that relationship. Luckily, I didn’t have to fully agree with it because I still decided to see that person despite what my family said. And that was kind of the first time I was at this weird odd with my family. Eventually, they accepted him because I was still with him for many years after, and they accepted him. But it took a lot of time and grace for that to happen. And in hindsight, I understand where my family was coming from, but it was still very very hard in that moment. And there was a point in my life where I engaged in self harm. And I feel like the moment that I made physical contact with my body, like, the moment that happens I feel like that there was a, like, a I wouldn’t say I wouldn’t say in-depth. That’s that’s probably not the right word. But I would think that there was, like, something I mean that changed completely that day. And it’s not necessarily, like, my life has been doom and gloom all the time, but it’s kinda like there’s this there’s this new level of pain I never thought about, and now I do. So I have to, like, be careful with myself.

Zane Landin: Because the moment I cross that threshold, you can’t go back because it’s always an option now. I never thought about it. I never thought about it myself in that way. The moment I did, it’s there now. And so no matter what happens, no matter what I do now in my life, if I ever come to a dark place, it’s still in my mind that that’s a possibility.
So I have to really actively make sure I’m not gonna do something like that. Same as suicidal ideations I was having a lot almost every other day, maybe almost every week, something like that. So yeah. Like you said, turn your pain into purpose. And I don’t want people to only focus on the pain, and it’s good when you turn into purpose.

Zane Landin: But I think it’s also a good reminder of how far you’ve come and what you’ve had to do to get there. And so I decided to take the semester off of the university. And then after I knew myself was a huge topic, but then I didn’t realize a severity of how important it was. Until I experience it myself. I already knew about it. It’s something I didn’t know about it, but it was like, I didn’t realize how painful it can be to this extent. And I knew pain though. I did. So after that, I was like, I need to I need to create community. I need to get involved somehow. So I got involved in just different mental health organizations, and that’s all. That’s really where it started. And that’s and these organizations like active minds or NAMI, National Alliance on Mental Illness, they all did give me a sense of community of this is a place I can go to. If I’m not finding that support in the real world, because, unfortunately, it is difficult to find that support. I think we’re seeing a lot more for mental health, definitely, but there’s still so many pockets in this country.

Zane Landin: And definitely in the entire world where mental health is not talked about. And in many cultures, mental health is not even a phrase. It’s not even a thing that you can to find in certain cultures. They don’t have a word or a terminology for mental health. So how in the world do you describe your experience if the terminology doesn’t exist? You’re gonna sound like you’re erratic or you have no idea what you’re talking about. And then you’re gonna be judged very negatively because of that reason. And people have their ways of addressing mental health in different countries. I’m not going to comment on them, but they are interesting to see the least.

Victoria Volk: Yeah and I see mental health as an everyone in you because we all experience periods of time, even if we don’t have a diagnosis of a mental health condition, we all experience periods of time where we don’t feel like ourselves, where our minds kind of take control and and are in the driver’s seat and and we need to find support or resources to get ourselves out of that. Did you mind sharing? Did you receive a diagnosis? And if you did, how did you feel about that? Was that a helpful thing? Or was that a did you have a lot of conflict with that?

Zane Landin: I didn’t get diagnosed so recently because I wasn’t looking for diagnosis. And I think sometimes you can look for one and you can request if you see a psychiatrist. I really wanna be diagnosed. I didn’t. And I was just looking for mental support community support. I saw, like, a psychologist on my call, university campus. I was just interested in how can I start feeling like myself again? How can I start feeling better again? So that was what I was focused on. And then when I my first job at university, which was the job in now because I got the job recently last November. I had a great benefit plan, and so I was able to see a psychiatrist And because I was moving away, I moved from California to Washington DC in last in January, it was such a new phase in my life, rose. Actually gonna be on my own points that I needed mental support. Even if I didn’t feel like feel it in the moment, it’s kinda nice to be proactive when you need it. So I do have a psychiatrist, and she did diagnose me with major depressive disorder, which is not a huge surprise. But it didn’t feel empowering like I thought it wouldn’t. Because I kind of always envisioned what it would feel like to be diagnosed with a mental condition. But when I was recently diagnosed, for one, I kinda had the idea that I already had something like that, so it wasn’t a huge surprise. But it’s interesting because I feel like when you have this speculation, you speculate what your body is going to, you’re speculating, what your mind is going to, and it’s still speculative. Right? And then when I finally got the diagnosis, I thought it was gonna be wow. I can finally see how I acted or my behaviors or my depression, how it’s linked to a condition. But then I was just kinda, like, It’s kinda sad though because if I didn’t have a diagnosis, it would be like you said periods of time. Now that there’s a diagnosis, like, this is something I have to kinda manage my whole life. So it was an interesting way how I felt when I was diagnosed. It wasn’t necessarily empowering at first. It doesn’t it does not Because, again, now I can actually understand where I’m coming from. And if I need that support, I can find people who experience that same condition And I again, I can create another community that way or enter one. So but

Victoria Volk: It can be your field. Yeah. It can be your fuel to keep doing what you’re doing. Because I feel like in the process of helping others who are experiencing the same thing you are, that can be healing.

Zane Landin: It can be because you when you hear someone’s story of how they struggle, you, of course, can see yourself in that story. Maybe not exactly you can’t visually picture-picture perfect that story because that one is experience is different. I was actually I did a television interview and is it February or March, and they had me react to a story of a kid who was suicidal. And they asked me how I felt about that story. And I was like, all I really could say was I really can picture myself in their story. And so I can understand where they’re coming from And now that I’m in a better place and I can help someone feel better about themselves or refer them to a psychologist because I am not a mental health expert. I’m an advocate, but I am not a therapist or a psychologist. I can’t give that kind of support, but I can refer them, and I can give them resources, and I can check-in on them in my own way and give them my support of what I can do myself and that does. That is a positive fuel because, you know, you are you are helping someone out of a out of place that you were at? You know how it feels?

Victoria Volk: Yeah. You don’t need to be leaps and bounds ahead of ahead of somebody else. You can be two steps ahead. To help them. You know? Yeah. I also saw I was kinda creeping on your social media a little bit. And I saw that you had had this experience of weight. And you’ve lost a lot of weight.

Zane Landin: Yes.

Victoria Volk: And I think it was as of July, you had lost seventy-five pounds is what you had written.

Zane Landin: Wow.

Victoria Volk: Yeah. So I wanna congratulate you. And a part of me wonders, like, because it correlates with your story. Right? Like, as soon as you sought out the support that you needed, you moved. Right? You started this new chapter. You thought, I think you were really empowered because I don’t think you would have lost this weight. Had you not felt empowered? Had you not felt like you can be of service to other people? And that you wanted to be the best version of yourself while in service of other people. I think there’s a really deep connection there. There’s a stronger y to the seventy five pounds.

Zane Landin: There is. And I will be honest. There was a time in my life where I focused solely on my mental health, if we shouldn’t do. Because, again, the trend. And what we say is mental health is important as physical health. But then you can, again, your physical health either of that, which is what I was doing. And so, yeah, there was a time where I just had a hard time walking. As a twenty-four-year-old, I shouldn’t have a hard time walking unless I have a condition. Like, as long as a condition, they can’t walk out. I understand that that’s just totally your story. I don’t have that. And because I don’t have that, I should not I should not be held back because of my weight. And understand that and I know people that do activism for, you know, bigger people. And I know what they say, and they say that the world shouldn’t being accessible or the world shouldn’t hold you back because you’re waiting. I agree with that. Of course, like, there are many spaces that you might feel comfortable as a bigger person So I do get that. I don’t think anyone should be discriminating against. But internally myself, I held myself back because of my weight. I didn’t want people to see me and I would get tired really easily. And so I held myself back from certain opportunities because of that. And then I think it was I don’t know I don’t know what happened. I just know that a friend of mine was on, like, this, like, diet weight loss plan, it was working. And she struggled a long time with it as well. I was like, it’s working for you and your whole family. Like, what is this plan? I used to learn more about it. And I ended up starting it. And, yeah, I just slowly not really slowly. I did lose weight pretty fast. From February to July, losing seventy five pounds. I definitely gained weight, and I’m not on the plan as much, but I’m gonna be back on it, and I’m gonna be I’m gonna take the initiative again and address it. I’m at a good place right now, but I still have some way to lose so I can be in an ideal way for like, the health goal that I have, but it was it was very difficult. And it was just interesting to see myself that way because I have seen myself as a big person my whole life. I was like, now that I’m slimming down, now that my face isn’t as, like, my face is, like, thinner now and it wasn’t for I just I see myself differently now. I have more confidence. And it’s kind of sad though that, like, you have to lose weight to kind of feel that way. But I think that that’s just kind of how the world works right now. And especially when it comes to weight and weight loss. But also, I surrounded myself with more people. The more confident I got, the more I surrounded myself with people that were in this space. And like you said, they gave me that support where I was like, oh, I should feel better about my body. Even if it’s not what I want it to be. It’s fine. And so there’s difference between being happy with your body and having certain health goals. I think everyone should be happy with their body. And if not, I hope they have the agency to do it in the right way. So I know many people that have done it the wrong way. And the wrong way is engaging harmful things with our body if it’s steroids or diet pills or whatever it is. I know every situation is different for everybody, but there are some things out there that I wish people wouldn’t do because you might lose the weight. But the after effects of the next couple years or your whole life, you might damage your liver, you might damage your internal organs, you might do these extraneous things because you wanted to lose the weight. And so I hope you don’t do it that way, which is why those, like, fat diets are kind of extreme and scary, which is I was happy the plan I went on wasn’t that at all.

Victoria Volk: And I think you bring up a key point to it in that it’s who you surrounded yourself with and there’s a quote or I heard some time ago, you’re you’re a sum of the five people that you surround yourself with. So if you’re surrounding yourself with people who love to just sit around and fudge and not move their body and and are kinda negative and see the negative and everything. I mean, that’s low vibe. That’s gonna bring you down. But if you surround yourself with people who are elevating you, who are at where you want to be, that’s an inspiration, that’s an encouragement, that’s the motivation that a lot of us need. Right? To get up and do it again. Right? Because it’s easy to start. But to cross the finish line, I mean, And there is no finish line in health. Right? And the thing is too is, do you wanna feel good? Or do you wanna feel like crap? Mhmm. And that’s I’ve been on my own journey. And I was just tired of feeling like crap. I would do wanna touch back on because you mentioned that you had the weight issue since childhood, and I know this is not what came on the podcast to talk about, but I feel like this I’m seeing a lot of ads, like, it was on Zenthick and so, like, I’m just going with the what’s in the news right now and you mentioned that you had this issue since childhood, and I’m curious, do you feel like I mean, did you have a difficult childhood or did you feel like food was how you coped and how you do continue to cope sometimes?

Zane Landin: Oh, definitely. I wouldn’t say that. Wouldn’t say I had a hard childhood. There were hard aspects of it with the weight being queer, having different theme, like, multi ratio all these different things, and I saw how my parents struggle with money at times. But I still was pretty blessed that I had the love and support from my family. And sometimes it wasn’t, you know, how I want it to be, like, every like, one of my favorite movies, I’m just gonna read this out. One of my favorite movies is Coreline. I think it’s a great story. But when you actually watch the movie, her family isn’t that bad though. Like, I think that her family is just stress. They’re, like, burnt out. They’re trying to they’re trying to put food on the table by doing the work until she’s not gonna live that she wants. When she said it’s a batch salad, I don’t think so. Just think that she’s just not getting the love that she necessarily needs it once, which is bad. But I went to essentially what makes you like, it’s not I think a lot of people experience that because it’s hard to, like, kind of replicate exactly how you wanna be loved by your family. I think it’s kinda difficult because everybody has such different needs and I don’t think every need is gonna be met. So for me, I wouldn’t say no. I wouldn’t say, well, I had a hard childhood, but there were hard aspects to it. But, yeah, I think that just my family has just a lot of members of my family on both sides struggle with weight, which isn’t surprising because a lot of people do. I feel like sometimes when I’m in the health spaces and I see a lot of work working out and it feels like, yeah, the majority of people work out and it’s like looking at it, letting I don’t think so. I think a lot of people do struggle with it, especially with, you know, how much fast food restaurants there are and how much people have to rely on it because sometimes expensive oversight. Sometimes health choices or healthy foods are more expensive. And so if someone is struggling to make an income to support their family, how are they gonna spend money on healthy food. And I know that there are other resources to get healthy food if it’s like a stipend or if it’s community garden, whatever it is.

Zane Landin: So I always encourage people to, like, seek out other resources if that isn’t the case. But, again, I understand that some people, they have to do that to support their family. I just wish there were more there were more like equitable ways to make sure that people are getting healthy food. Or just to have more options and what that looks like for their family. And so, yeah, my family struggled with that, but I don’t think it was essentially some of the stuff that we just ate like my mom always cooked and always had such a balanced meal, but it was always, you know, a lot of snacks and always the secondary foods that are around. So a lot of that is what people struggle with. And for me, I think it was yeah. I think I do. I think even recently when I was eating, when I was upset, I still am an emotional eater. And I thought even after a year, have I changed that much? No. Because I always think that I’m gonna be an emotional leader. And so, again, it’s, like, keeping yourself in check that when I’ve upset or if I’m depressed to kinda try to not fall into that temptation of just overeats because that’s a big deal. I don’t think a lot of people talk about it, and it’s not something mention a lot, but to me, it is an illness because when you look at alcoholic anonymous, when you look at that group, and we can recognize that drinking alcohol or consuming too much alcohol is a disease or it’s a problem that arises and there’s addiction with that. It’s different with food because it’s easy to think that we don’t need alcohol at all. But when it comes to food, we need food. So if someone overeats, you can just use the excuse and see it as, but we need to eat. So it’s okay if I’m eating this way. But it’s not, though. And overeating is a huge issue. Yeah. And that’s what I would say. And I wouldn’t say yeah. Sometimes I am in over a year and sometimes I’m not. I mean, no. It’s something I always am, but, I don’t always engage in over a year thing. So I’ve learned a lot about, like, balancing my meals and how to have, like, better portions, which I think is a huge thing that people don’t, that struggle with as well, like, having enough portions where you’re satisfied rather than I need to be over the top. And then in the way you’re engaging in, over eating and it can be addicting, very addicting.

Victoria Volk: Do you think it’s a greater struggle in the work that you do that you have seen at your for yourself and in other people that within the mental health space, in the advocacy work, do you see the connection of a lot of these other issues that kind of play into people’s lives like addiction with food or issues with food, what I’m getting at is, we have a relationship with ourselves. Right? We have a relationship with ourselves and our inner child and we have relationships with other people and we have relationships with alcohol. We have relationships with food, with money, with all these other aspects of our lives. And so do you feel like especially when it comes to mental health that and why it’s so important is because it affects everything in your life. Mhmm. Have you found that to be true for yourself and for other people that you come in contact with and the work that you do?

Zane Landin: I do. And that’s why in like, the mental health space, like, there are a lot of research and discussions on eating disorders. I don’t know what’s on my head. I do not know if over eating is considered an eating disorder, but It doesn’t matter. It is some form of engaging in a harmful eating that’s not good for your body. So that yeah. I do think that and that that sounds with so many things. If it’s, like, if it’s escaping your emotions and using food as a vehicle or if it’s not eating. And is that’s a way to feel control or a way to feel like you have some control in your life is to control your eating or don’t control reading or decide not to eat. Again, none expert, there’s just what I’ve observed and what I’ve seen. And so I’ve never been diagnosed with any disorder. I don’t have one, but it also stems from body image issues. Sometimes my partner comments and says the way I act and the way I perceive my body is like I have body dysmorpnea. I don’t think I do because it’s not I read a bit about it and, like, it really needs to impact your day to day. It doesn’t impact my day to day as much. It only really impacts my day to day when I see myself, and I really don’t like what I’m seeing. I think the biggest issue is I need to also see the fiscal evidence that I’ve changed because sometimes I look at my summoner here and I’ll be like, I am the exact same. I haven’t changed. What’s up with that? Like, I’m really frustrated right now because I’m not seeing a big change. And I go into my phone. I’m like, okay. There’s a difference. Alright. I see it, but it’s sad how, like, oh my goodness. Like, how wired our brains are that we it’s like we cannot accept progress when it happens. And to the point where we physically don’t even see a change, I think a lot of people do that, especially not even with their weight or their body, but, like, just even their accomplishments. Like, they’ll probably something so amazing and they’ll just downplay it. And I don’t know why. It it makes me makes me kind of sad. And I do that too. Like, we all do it. I think many people do it. I don’t know many people that don’t. They downplay their accomplishments. And I think because in this culture, I think that we try to reward humbling behavior. That’s on humbling though. I don’t think that’s humbling at all. I actually think that’s not what Humble is. I think humble is I did do a great job, and I’m really proud of it. Thank you for saying that. You don’t have to say that whole thing. But you can just say, well, thank you so much for acknowledging that. I think being humble is recognizing that you have these important strengths and that you do reselling to the table. Being humble is not, oh, I didn’t really do that great of a job. It’s not that great. I could do better in said, no, that’s not being humble at all. You’re downplaying your accomplishments. And in fact, you’re just kinda disempowering yourself, and that’s not being humble at all. I don’t think so.

Victoria Volk: I think a lot of us in general, I think we’re hard we’re wired to point out the negative and to see the negative. Right? But I think there is actually a population of people. I mean, if you’re interested in human design, I’ve been kind of looking into human design. If you haven’t, I believe it’s an open g center, which oh, most people I think the majority of people have an open g center or a will center. It’s actually where we feel self worth. I think a lot of us have that open center. And when you when that is undefined and it’s open, we do have an issue of self worth. I have it defined. And so to recognize, like you said, I think it’s recognizing what we bring to the table, what we have to offer, and owning it, owning that as a gift that has been given to us and recognizing that you are different, but you have different gifts, you have a different skill set. And together, we can move mountains. And I think that’s where we have to recognize that all of us have a different gift to offer. And it doesn’t make one better than the other. It’s just different.

Zane Landin: I wholeheartedly agree with that. And I watched, like, a really great anime recently that the whole premise was about all life is created equal. It definitely dove into, like, medical developments, which was so interesting. But I love the idea that all lines are created equal. And that sounds a little self-explanatory. Right? But I don’t think people completely realize that. I think some people are gonna hold people to a higher standard or there’s a we still organize ourselves and hierarchies and that some people’s voices are more important. I just I don’t agree. I don’t think anyone’s better or worse. I think everyone, like you said, provides something different and unique to the table. It’s just about recognizing that, but also on the other side, making sure that you are encouraging that, making sure that you are encouraging that they are here for a reason and that their voice isn’t put in. I think a lot of I think a lot of parties are, like, involved here. I don’t think it’s unique to realize on your own. I think we also need people in our lives that are gonna encourage it. Kinda goes back and say, it’s running yourself with good people. They’re gonna uplift you and you also uplift them.

Victoria Volk: Especially when you are a child. Right? I mean, because that’s when a lot of these insecurities and mental health issues kind of take hold. In the grief space, the grief work that I do, and what I’ve learned about grief is that by the age of three you’ve already learned seventy five percent of how to respond to life. The rest comes by the age of fifteen. Those formative, difficult, challenging years. But by age three, I mean, little children are literal sponges. They see and they take in and they hear everything. So let’s shift gears. And talk about really what brought you to the podcast. And I love the advocacy work that you’re doing, and that’s why I’ve spent so much time on it because I think it’s important. And I think the the more that you invest in yourself the more confident that you become, you can move mountains. You can. One person can make a change. And even like you said, even if it’s just one child that you check-in on or one friend that you check-in on, we never recognize even maybe it’s insignificant to us, but it can mean it can be life changing to somebody else. We don’t celebrate those things either. And often, we don’t even know because people don’t share that either. Right?

Zane Landin: I wish we did. I wish we more openly had gratitude. I’m not saying people don’t have internal gratitude. Mhmm. But I wish they externally, like, vocalize our gratitude. For the people in our life more. And I say, wait. But you know what? I could do that better too. Like, definitely, I think we I really do think we all can. I think it’s something I wish we would practice more. And that’s why when you enter a lot of spaces of self-empowerment, gratitude is such an empowering tool. Not a tool. But just yeah. I kind of it. But just the practice of showing gratitude is what I mean. And so yeah. And I agree with that. It’s interesting. It’s I think sometimes, you have a hard time showing affection to people from what they’ve done or what they’ve accomplished. And I don’t know why. I think that’s something that hopefully is changing especially when COVID happened. And I feel like people were more aware of people’s circumstances and we’re, like, one more compassionate of their life outside of work and all these different things. And so I wouldn’t say that means like the world’s becoming more compassionate. I just think it’s becoming hopefully more open. That it has before.

Victoria Volk: There is hope for that. Right? I have a frame picture. It’s by roomy. And it says, if you only say one prayer in a day, make it. Thank you. Mhmm. So when we think about gratitude, let’s talk about your mother because it sounds like to me just what you mentioned so far that she was a very integral part of your life and was obviously a very devastating loss for you. And in twenty twenty one during COVID, nonetheless. Right? Because that would have been during COVID.

Zane Landin: It was. Yeah. I I believe the vaccine hadn’t even been rolled out at that point either. What happened was my mom always had problems with hernias. And, yep, that was it. She had a problem with another hernia that came again. It felt like no matter how her politics or she did, she always had one or had one forming or however it works. So she was having pains again with it, and they decided to take her to urgent care. And so they took it to urgent care, and then they did the surgery. But unfortunately, she just didn’t wake up. Mhmm. So that that was it. It yeah. It was pretty devastating. And I remember I remember even telling my mom just, like, don’t even worry about whatever’s coming up. Just try to focus on your health and the pain right now and just how to make yourself feel better because she was worried about a lot of different things, of course, because that’s kinda how my mom was. So it’s kind of sad to think of it that way. And in retrospect, to me saying that because, she has nothing to worry about. So I just kinda well, depending on what people think. I do think that there is an afterlife. And I do think that, you still worry when you’re out there because I do firmly believe that we greet them. They grieve us. So if there is an afterlife, my mom is grieving us. Because she loves us, and she has to wait a long time to see us again. Even though, again, it’s so complicated because, you know, I do believe that we’re always there. But being face to face and actually our spirits touching in a the way we’re on the same plane now, because we’re in different planes now. And so it is a different relationship. So yeah. It was definitely very hard and I’m very I have a lot of gratitude that my mom was always there for me and I do love the prayer saying thank you because just thinking my mom for every single thing she did, and that’s why it was probably, it probably will be the hardest that I’m ever going to experience. But who knows? Because in my opinion, when you experience death, you think about all the ones called the people died, like, recently, my grandpa died on my dad’s side. My grandpa died on my mom’s side. And yeah. It just makes you think, like, oh, my mom’s not here either, and I have to think about all the deaths that I’ve experienced. And, again, I’m also thankful I haven’t had to experience that many deaths. But one of the first ones of someone I was close with had to be the person I was close with, it’s kinda difficult. And I think that you can prepare as much as you can. Like, I think people like preparing for grief, I don’t think he really can. Like, I think some people go, like, you know, how do I prepare myself for? Or does it feel like can’t explain how it feels. I really can’t. I can’t at all. It just feels like a sharp pain in your chest that’s removable and you can’t do anything about it. And it’s there forever. And sometimes it’s sharper, sometimes it’s not. And it’s gonna depend on whatever triggers it. If it’s a smell that reminds you of them or if a song you’ve heard, whatever it is, it’s gonna trigger that sharp pain, and it is difficult. And it is again, it’s always there, and you won’t really understand until you reach that point. And again, there’s also no return because, again, the moment, I think you lose someone that’s close to you. I mean, you inevitably change. And that’s okay. I think that’s fine. Because some people say, since so and so passed away, I’m not even the same person anymore. That’s okay. Because how could you be? Like because of what I think is interesting about grief and why we grieve people is they’ve had such a monumental, like, a impact on our lives and our identity that our identity surrounds ourself with that person. And so without them, how do we even understand your identity? And it’s and I think it’s coming to terms with no. Your identity is just different now. And it is you are a different person. Doesn’t mean you’re radically different? No. You might be though. You never know. Know, the only thing is, like, except that you are a new personnel and your perspective is very different, probably. And it’s a very difficult thing. Again, you have to come to terms with the person isn’t there anymore. And you have to kinda figure out what that means for you. Maybe you don’t think that. Maybe they are there for you still, but for some people, it feels like they’re just gone. And I know some people and connect with them still. Like, some people have that kind of gift. I’ve had different instances where I’ve had, like, pretty profoundly dreams about my mom. Some were great, but there’s one that was so so, like, lifelike. It felt so real that there’s no way that that was just a dream at all. I actually did a podcast where I talked about the dream and what it meant. And the dream was me just, like, comforting my mom. Like, I went into this space where it was a dark room and she’s hunched over, but she’s kinda lit up, like, a light. And I comfort her And then I kinda just slowly wake up, like, a final goodbye that I never got to have. Mhmm. And it felt so strange. Like, I woke up a piece of it than I ever had before, and I was like, there’s no. No. No. That that was some sort of that was some sort of communication there. There was no way that that was a dream. Well, maybe that’s what all dreams are. This so of it added this stuff and so that’s why I find it so interesting, but the grief alone is very difficult. But as you can see, I’ve had a lot of things that have affirmed how I feel about my momentum and how I do believe that there is more out there that’s for me though because I know that everybody believes that. And to me that would make grief a lot harder, though, if there wasn’t anything else out there and I really wouldn’t have a chance to see them again, but I also don’t know. I’m not gonna know till, like, I cross that path like we all will. And I find it interesting, like, death is the only thing that I think we’re guaranteed in life. Yeah. And then it’s interesting. I know I mean, yeah. They’re I don’t know if we’re really guaranteed anything in this life. Like, so are we guaranteed love? Are we guaranteed support? We’re not at all. I think the only thing that we’re guaranteed is when we die. And so I think it’s something we all have to come to terms with because we’re all gonna face it.

Victoria Volk: You said a very key thing there. You said there’s no guarantee of love, there’s no guarantee of, you’re saying there’s no guarantees of all these things. And my thought that came to my mind was especially if we’re not open to it. If we’re not open to having this continued relationship with a loved one who has passed, we are not going to have a continued relationship with the loved one who has passed. Mhmm. But to understand that that’s possible, regardless of what you believe or think spiritually, god, whatever afterlife, that relationship does continue because you’re still gonna be thinking things, you’re still gonna be feeling things about that person. That relationship continues and that’s up each of us to decide what we want that relationship to be, how we want that to look. Do we want to be pulled back in time to this devastating moment when that person passed away or this traumatic thing that we saw or replay this the negative. Right? We replay the negative in our minds over and over and over, or we can choose to work through and process all the things that we didn’t get to communicate, all the things that we didn’t get to say all the things that we didn’t get to experience and change that, change the narrative, change the story that replays in your mind. So instead of feeling sadness and you’re gonna feel sadness, but instead of being pulled back in time to that deep depression, state, or this deep hole, every time you smell something that reminds you of your mom or every time that you someone says something or mentions her name or says her name that you’re pulled back to that space instead of

Zane Landin: Yeah.

Victoria Volk: Oh, thank you mom for this message. I know you’re there. I needed that comfort. And perhaps that dream, and I’ve heard that I mean, the idea is that, you know, I’ve had psychic mediums and things on my podcast before, but I’ve heard that when someone comes to you in a dream, it is for you. It is for you. And sometimes too, I’ve heard that that’s an indicator that you need to pray for them. I don’t know. It’s your dream. It’s all of a and our our relationships are individual. Right? So all of us are gonna have these unique experiences based on our relationships. I mean even less than loving relationships, you can have experiences that are so profound that you can’t explain. And put into words.

Victoria Volk: Something else I’m trying to put into words is my experience with our new sponsor, Magic Mind, Magic Mind is a patented blend of thirteen active ingredients containing things like matcha, which supports energy, bacobá Monieri, which I’m probably pronouncing that wrong, but that supports attention, cognitive processing, and working memory, which Hello, I personally need Lion’s Main mushroom, which helps to balance mood and improve cognition, turmeric, which supports healthy blood flow to the body and brain, phosphodilisiran, which supports memory and attention span. Again, another word I probably botched, Ashwa Ganda supports the reduction of stress, and rhodiola, rosacea, and vitamin B complex, which manages fatigue, supports energy, and boosts endurance. So I’ve been taking this little two ounce shot for the past month or so and it’s only three grams of sugar at twenty-one calories, but this little awesome shot is really helped me bring some calm into my life so I can be productive. And that’s the biggest thing that I’ve noticed is this calm that comes over me. When I feel like I’m getting a little bit overwhelmed. And as a creative. Right? We have a lot of to do list and a lot of things that we’re trying to create and put out into the world and as a podcaster and and especially to add in grief and add in just the curve balls of life. Right? Like, we can use all the help we can get to feel like we’re on top of things in our life because when we have so many balls in the air, that only adds to our stress. It only adds to our anxiety. And so to have this little two-ounce shot to support whatever it is. We’re trying to create and do and to just be just to be a better version of ourselves, be a little bit more well in our mindset. Head to magicmind.com/grievingvoices. They have an option for us subscription or you can just order one time to try it out. Either way, you get a discount of twenty percent with the coupon code greeting voices, all caps. And when you get a subscription, you actually save more as well. So again, magicmind.com/grieving voices. Now let’s go back to the conversation with Zane.

Zane Landin: And what I also do love about this idea that we are that death is guaranteed. Because, again, I think we have a hard time understanding that we are all legal. I think some people will, again, look at social identities, different circumstances, and that was what makes us different. And of course, it makes us different. But in reality, we’re not different. We’re all the same species. And then when we die, it’s what equalizes us.

Victoria Volk: We all got the we all got the dash on the tombstone. Right?

Zane Landin: Right. And I find that interesting because I saw a video of this man who died for twenty minutes saying he recall this entire experience. It’s a very popular YouTube video. It’s a very beautiful experience and it’s just like interesting that we all do reach that path one day and we’re all equal in that in that front. And is there something beautiful about that that we go back to a place where we’re sphere or wherever it is or we’re back here on this planet, living another life. I don’t know, where I watched the video on how we are just one being, and we’re just recycled into many people, but we’re all just one energy, which is so many theories, so many interesting thought processes in that one. But, yeah, I always find this stuff super interesting. And I like the idea of people talking more only about grief because and that’s what gives us support and the tools to understand the relationship with them. So, like you said, we don’t travel back in time. And we’re obliterated honestly with the sadness. Yeah. And there’s always that quote. I know people don’t like it, but I do. It’s the quote that don’t be said it ended, something like that. Don’t be sad it ended, be great for what happened. I understand that not everybody wants to hear that, especially, like, also please be mindful of what you say when someone does lose someone. It’s and to me, it’s not your place to ever say anything about that person, like, like, how you should feel. Because, like, when someone go, oh, they’re in a better place. Okay? You gotta understand that when someone isn’t a very vulnerable space where they just lost someone, they really don’t wanna hear that. You know? Unless they

Victoria Volk: They should be here with you. Right? Yeah.

Zane Landin: Yes. And so no. That’s absolutely right. But so I think you want to understand that, you know. Sometimes the best thing to say is nothing. I think when someone is going to agree with process, just just show up for them. You don’t have to give them advice. You don’t have to fix their problems because you cannot. You cannot do that ever. And there’s no point in trying to set up yourself for failure because you will fail. There’s no way you can ever do that because I know some people try to do that. Like, let’s get you in a better mood. It’s not gonna happen. You can do things to maybe support them. But sometimes in that moment, just be there for them. You don’t have to try to make them happy. You don’t have to try and distract them from their grief. It’s impossible. They’re going to always be thinking about it. But if you can show your support and your positivity, and the kindness. I hope that that will help them. And that get that probably is a lot more than you think it is. And then they get to a place where if they ever need your support, they can reach out to you. So that’s what I would say. What’s interesting is I find it easier to have conversations with people that have lost their parents. I saw someone post recently that they had a hard time going back to the gym. Since their father passed away, and I didn’t even realize that. I didn’t even realize that their father passed away. And so I even reached out and I said you know losing parents is so damn hard. And I hope you find some peace right now. I hope going to the going back to the gym like you’re doing is gonna give you some peace because that is a hard thing you’re you have to deal with, and you only experience it two months ago. And I’ve had almost three years to kind of understand it. And even still, I don’t really fully understand it because it’s like a lifelong thing you have to figure out. And that’s why I also believe that like, when people say grief gets easier with time, I wouldn’t say it gets easier. I would just say, you’re used to the pain at this point. Is it easier? No. Because the pain is always a sharp pain. It’s like you have a thicker coating now, but it’s still there and it’s always gonna it’s always gonna penetrate your body. It’s always gonna make you feel bad or you have this pain. But, yeah, it’s again something that just doesn’t go away. I see it as almost have not exactly. But, like, having a mental health condition. It’s like that. Not the same, but that it’s something that’s lifelong there is actually, like, a condition called, like, prolonged grief, which is an interesting one. It’s kinda like saying that you’ve had this long period of grief, and you should be at point where you’re getting over it. I don’t think I fully agree that that’s a condition. But I do like I don’t know. It’s interesting. I don’t go into, like, an interesting thing here, but I do like the idea that there is something there with grief because I don’t think that there’s enough work for it, especially in the workplace. Like, if someone passed away and, like, okay. You get three days off to figure out everything else. Like, what? Like, no. That’s why I actually understand, like, medicalizing grief is interesting because maybe we can convince employers, no. I mean, like, time off. I need to take a leap of absence because this is really difficult and it’s impacted my body and health every single thing. And so I also wish grief was taken more seriously on in that way. So when you do experience grief that in the workplace, they understand. And they don’t come with the attitude that it’s been a week. You can come back to work and you’ll be fully efficient. Right? No. That’s not how it works. And someone might need three months. And so that’s the only reason why I could ever see why it would manifest grief only in that way, I would never want it to be a negative thing. Oh, that all makes sense.

Victoria Volk: Yeah. And here’s the thing with grief, like prolonged grief, or complicated grief, or complex grief, it’s all grief. Grief is just grief. Mhmm. We don’t need to add any labels to it. Right? It’s almost like a mental health diagnosis. What did that do for you at the end of the day? Right? You know what you’re experiencing? You know what it feels like? Can the label can be empowering. But when it comes to grief, that’s not empowering. No label for grief is empowering. There isn’t a single one that’s empowering, and the thing is we’ve all learned these myths of grief, and time heals all wounds is one of them. And a time doesn’t heal, it’s the action that you take in time is what heals. You got to, like, one of my one of my guests a long time ago, and she’s gone through the grief recovery method, which is the program that I facilitate that I worked through my own grief with because I lost my dad when I was eight. And she says, when you lay, you decay. And that’s the truth. When you lay, you decay. And when you are deep and grief, that’s all you really wanna do. And that’s that’s okay for a time. But if you find yourself laying and laying and laying, not living life to its fullest not living out your fullest potential. That’s not living. And I know so many people, like, even when my dad died, a part of my mom died with him. She was a very different mom. I imagine your dad is a very different dad. Maybe for the better and maybe not so much. It depends on how a person chooses to respond to that. Do you choose to get support and resources and help and talk about it? Or do you do what society has taught us to do and to grieve alone, replace the loss, try replace it with food, alcohol, sex, gambling, whatever it is, whatever advice it is. Right? Mm-mm. This is why I started this podcast. People just don’t understand grief. Even therapists, psychologists. It’s not even in their schooling, not even in their education.

Zanre Landin: Really?

Victoria Volk: I’ve been to suicide prevention forums, rooms of social workers talking about suicide prevention for military and veterans. Not at once did the word grief come up? Not once, don’t you think grief has a little something to do with suicidal ideation? With the experiences that military personnel have experienced on deployments.

Zane Landin: Yeah.

Victoria Volk: I mean It is a no brainer. Right?

Zane Landin: It is. Yeah. Wow.

Speaker 0: And considering the life that we, the lives that many of us live, there’s so many chronic issues whether it’s the economy, whether it’s, your personal circumstances, whether it’s sit and watch the news, like, oh my gosh, and then children are watching these killing games. That’s all the games are nowadays. It’s just killing each other. Right? Like, all of this is information that we all take in. We’re looking at toxins and we’re taking in toxins in all kinds of ways, day in and day out, so no wonder we’re all freaking depressed.

Zane Landin: Yeah. Yeah. Well, then I think people question, yeah. I think it’s not when I hear this because, you know, least I see that. At least my generation Generation Z. They’re talking more about mental health. And I know sometimes they’re viewed negatively for it, or they’re the emotional generation. Now I hear people say, well, my generation, we just we just do what we have to do. Is that really a positive message though? Did you really wanna do that though? That’s what I question people. It’s like, I understand that’s what you had to do because your generation, you really did not talk about this kind of stuff. Mhmm. But do you really think that helped you? Like, if you really could live in a generation where you could be more open with what you experience. Why don’t you wanna live in that generation? And if not, well, okay then. But I hope a lot of them say, yeah. Actually, I would like to live in a generation more. I keep you open with my emotions. I could be more emotionally available for my partner. Or my friends or whoever is in my life that I love, and I could show up differently if you feel like you could. I mean, again, if you maybe you should have been the best way you could. You never know with a certain people. Maybe they did. But I like this idea that as a culture, we’re becoming more open about grief, and I see a lot of grief podcasts. I’m like, I’m so happy that not only I can share my story, but all these other people and all their guests get to do it as well. And someone is facilitating that conversation because and I think this is why grief is so hard. Not just grief flow. That’s already hard. I mean, that’s that’s never really gonna change. No matter what, but I think the if we live in a culture where we have to bottle it up and we can’t express it, that makes it even harder, so much harder because where do I go? Nobody understands. But maybe they do. But maybe they’re not open about their grief. Maybe more people are open, you’d be like, wow. Actually, you understand grief. You do too. I didn’t even realize, like, let’s Let’s have a community. Let’s actually host a brief chat. Sounds weird, I know. But something that we can continue in the conversation and you just provide, like, a peer to peer support on when you have this trigger. Again, we can’t provide expert opinions because we’re not experts. Like, again, I’m not an expert. Unless you are, unless you’re a grief counselor, you have that training. That’s not what I’m saying. Like, just peer to peer people that just just experience it on the everyday level.

Victoria Volk: Well, and it comes back to I mean, and how you can support and help other people as a griever. You can speak from your own experience. Sure. But it’s learning about grief itself. And I just wanna say, I highly recommend the book, the grief recovery handbook because you will learn more about grief than you’ve ever ever learned in your life. Even with experiencing it. It just brings a better level of understanding of why you feel the way you feel, what you’re experiencing. So I highly recommend that book or the first twelve episodes of my podcast is all about what we talk about in grief recovery. Because I fully I will say this. Recovery is possible. I’m a testament to it. It was it derailed most of my life, my grief. My life changed when I decided I wanted to change it. And we all have that power, and we all have that agency within ourselves.

Zane Landin: Yeah.

Victoria Volk: And just meet ourselves where we’re at with compassion. But I think we all have a personal responsibility because we are all part of a collective. Right? And so if I can become the best version of myself, I can show up better for my neighbor, for my friends, for the cashier. I don’t have to be an asshole to the cashier. Right? Because of whatever I’m experiencing. There’s no excuse for treating others unkind.

Zane Landin: Yeah. No. I agree. And I really wish I did not see that normalize, and it kind of is, where if someone is trained so importantly, it’s like, have to like, oh, they’re probably going through a hard time. It’s like, I’m at this place where I remember saying that. But I was like, I have empathy. I understand where they’re coming from. And it’s like, no, that’s ridiculous actually. I should not know where you’re coming from because you should have no right to treat someone like that. I don’t care what you’re going through. That sounds kind of heartless. I know. But why? Why should you have the right to treat me like that? I didn’t do anything to you. That’s your life. That’s the people in your life. That’s up to you. I had nothing to do with it. But I understand, like, sometimes people just lash out. Sometimes people have those moments. I get it. If you’re perpetually being like that, and you’re using the excuse of what happened in your life, it’s not fair because I don’t know anyone in this world that has not experienced any sort of struggle. I’ve never I don’t know anyone that hasn’t experienced anything. That’s not possible. Even someone that’s the most privileged, the most rich in the world, whatever their privileges are, they have something that has helped them back. They have something that has that they have a fear. Everyone has that. And so I don’t ever agree with, you know, you treat people warmly because of how you’ve been treated.
Because you are no different from the person that wronged you as well then that’s how I think. I think that, again, if you’ve been treated a certain way and you treat other person that way, you’re just creating a cycle of negativity and darkness and you’re no better and that I think is sad because to turn from being a victim to a perpetrator is a sad reality. And it happens, especially when people are abused, like, sometimes they become abusers, and I don’t know why. I again, I don’t know a lot about it, but I’ve heard stories of that that happens to people. Or their victims and they put their any positions where they’re victimized again. And it’s just such a sad reality but it was a little randy. But just kinda going into what you were saying that, I agree that there’s there really is no excuse to treat someone like that because, again, all of us have our issues, all of us have our challenges. But if we show up in such a positive light for someone else. I think that we can inspire others to be kinder, to be better, and again, what are you accomplishing by treating someone like that? What you need besides bringing them down with you? And that’s what some people want, though, and that’s sad.

Victoria Volk: And that key thing you said was, it is it’s it’s up to us. Right? Like, it’s it’s up to each of us. Like, we all play a role.

Zane Landin: We have yeah. I think some people don’t realize that. We have our triggers. Like, things will not trigger us. Like, well, that’s my trigger. Okay? But it’s not natural how you react. No. I think that again, actually, you’ll have a trigger. Something would trigger you. But there’s no there’s no way of saying this is how I’m gonna naturally react though. It’s an eight. No. It’s not. I think the trigger saying that happens. But again, if you choose how to react, you choose how to treat people, that’s exactly what you do. There’s nothing that is involuntary like you’re saying it is. Because I know people that don’t say, if I react negatively, it’s because of this, and I have my right to act like that. Sure. Everyone has a right to express how they want it. I don’t think you have a right to her other people though. That’s not fair.

Victoria Volk: And that comes down to, again, like, with with grief. Right? Because, I mean, you can become a you can become a griever who’s an asshole. It’s possible. Right? But if you work on yourself, that’s the only thing you have control of this yourself. Like, the environment And then the world around you is not gonna bend to your will. The only thing you have control of is your free will and what you decide to do and the actions that you take or don’t take, which is a choice too.

Zane Landin: I see that a lot now, and I thought we were almost past this. Where we we ship our own, like, we choose how we wanna be and we, you know, we kinda disassociate from what people say about this. We move away from how people judge us and perceive us. But I still see that though. I still see people that and I do sometimes, but I know people and I see even content creators that they thrive on that validation almost constantly. And without it, I don’t even know how you move forward if you don’t have it all the time like you accustomed yourself to. And so I know that people who experience or around in their life, and they want validation all the time even from strangers. And it’s like, how are you going to how are you going to feel better or be better if you don’t have that validation one day? And I see that’s

Victoria Volk: I think that’s that’s the voice of a victim. That’s someone who feels like a victim and who has an attachment to suffering. And that was me for a long time too. Like, I just thought, like, my life, I’m just destined to suffer because it was just one hit after another after another after another. You know? And that’s that is life. Yeah. It sucks. Life sucks. It surely does suck.

Zane Landin: Yeah.

Victoria Vlk: It can I mean, if that was my perception? Right? Like, life just sucks. This sucks. But we have a choice to sweep our own doorstep or not. And it’s not up to it’s not anyone else’s responsibility to make us whole, to make us happy, to fulfill some whatever it is that we’re trying to fulfill in our lives. That is our responsibility. There isn’t enough personal responsibility in this world. And I think that’s

Zane Landin: I agree. And that’s again, like I said before, if that’s impossible. Like, me helping someone who’s grieving, I cannot fix your problems. I can be there. I can try to support you. But, again, at the end of the day, you kinda have to do that for yourself. And, again, it’s also it’s not right for you to put the burden on someone else because they should not exhaust their emotional needs to help you. So you need to be fair to the other person as well that you are not mentally exhausting them by putting a burden on them fixing your problems when, again, you need to do that.

Victoria Volk: And this is why I’m so glad the conversation went here, and this is why it’s so important to seek support from somebody who has no skin in your game. Someone like me, I’ve you know, I don’t know you from Adam. I have no skin in your game of life. There’s nothing you can say to me that’s gonna make me turn on you or you know what they mean? Like, we don’t have this intimate relationship.

Zane Landin: Yeah.

Victoria Volk: And I can go to bed at night and what what is yours is yours and what’s mine is mine. And it’s taken me a long it’s taken me a long time to be able to do this work and to get to this point, but it’s because I worked on myself, but we all have that capability. That’s what I’m trying to, like, just scream to the rooftops. We all are capable of working through this the most devastating parts of our aspects of our lives, it’s possible.

Zane Landin: Yeah.

Victoria Volk: And So what is one tip that you would give a hurting heart today?

Victoria Volk: Okay. Let’s see. I guess I would say, take it one day at a time, and that maybe one day, you’re having a really hard time. You think it’s always gonna be like that, but take it every day because you never know the next day is gonna be. Maybe you’ll feel better. Maybe you and I hope you have I will say the courage it I think it is very easy to stay in the darkness. Mhmm. I understand. And then he was, well, why do you wanna stay suffering? There is an attraction to suffering. There it is. I know that that doesn’t sound right, but there is. I’ve seen it in many places in society that we wanna hold on the negative as much as we can. And so it is very easy to stay in that darkness. And it is someone to learn. And I do think that there is actually, like sometimes that there it’s like a good feeling to be sad. It’s interesting. It’s not that it’s happy. Besides when you feel said or you’re crying, it can feel kinda good. It’s interesting. I know it doesn’t sound right.

Victoria Volk: But crying can be a release. Right?

Zane Landin: I think that’s

Victoria Volk: They’re all valid emotions. It’s not, like, it’s bad to be sad. And that’s not what I’m saying here at all. And I don’t think you are

Zane Landin: Oh, definitely. No.

Victoria Volk: It’s information. Yeah.

Zane Landin: And it still has a balance. I don’t know if there’s anyone being sad or being negative, grabbing that depression as long as you hopefully have a balance of having a that positive energy in your life too. Don’t avoid yourself with all the negative either because I think, again, a balance of union and union you need you do need both to to be the best you can. So that’s so, like, what I was saying was, you know, it’s easy to stay in that darkness, but I hope you find the courage to get yourself out of it and not completely because that’s it’s a slow process. And if it’s reaching out to someone or doing activity that you used to like or even visiting a burial site. It means for some that could be very very positive for some people or maybe it’s just taking the day off or going to the beach. Anything you think is gonna calm your mind? And again, take it one day at a time. You’re not gonna come out of the darkness or feel the best and most positive person you were before, in just a day. It can take a long time and maybe he won’t be there one day like you were before, and that’s okay. That really is.

Victoria Volk: So what is one memory of your mom that when you think of it or or maybe there was something that you did together when you think of it or when you find yourself doing it that you feel good and you think of her?

Zane Landin: I think about My mom was a huge cook, and she didn’t bake that much. But when she did, we always loved it. But I remember I was like, I really wanna bake something. I love watching baking shows. There’s something so comforting about that. And I just wanna start doing it. Like, I wanna start doing that. And so we made these really nice chocolate chip cookies and we tried, like, three different types of chocolate in it and that was very fun. And it was the first time I got to bake something because, again, my mom kind of always did it. And so I never really got to help. And if we tried helping, we just kinda got in our way. So we kinda just stopped didn’t really get to help as much. And so what changed is interesting is I love that so much. And that was, like, honestly, the month before she passed, actually. Because it was in it was Christmas time and she passed in January. But now what’s interesting is even going back to the weight loss. When I started the plan, I needed to cook my own food in February. Which was like daunting. I was like, okay, cooking my own food. I’m a little scared. I would just rely on frozen foods that I would just heat up. So when I cook my own food, it was a slow process. But since February to now, I cook all the time out. I wanna do it all the time. Like, I was like, should I even, like, change my career and when I’m doing it and start cooking? Probably not. But there was a look at my job yesterday and I made lobster mac and cheese and it was okay to be honest, no bragging here. It was very good at the time of my recipe. I found it online, but I changed a lot of things that I wanted in the recipe. But I was very happy with it and it was like, I don’t get to click bottom for other people, especially at my job. That was the first time. But now that I get to cook and I get to big stuff, and I made chocolate chip cookies at home recently when I was back in California. And I made a post. I was like, no. I don’t. I didn’t really think about it. It wasn’t really conscious, but why am I feeling sad doing this? I don’t really know. I wasn’t, like, really sad. I was just it was, like, a sadness, but it was also comforting. It was very weird. But I was, like, it is a sadness, but I also love doing and I had Harry Potter music playing in the background of my mom and I loved watching and listening to the music from those films and when I made them, I was really happy how they turned out. And I was I just kinda reflected on that, and it was just a it was a sad thing, but it makes me wanna do it so much more now. Because, you know, I get to kinda cook with my mom now. And I don’t have any regrets, but I do wish I got into cooking before, so I was like, my mom was always like, every single time we watched the movie, we were a man and cook for his wife. She was always so happy. She’s like, I want someone to come in and cook for me. My mom was just always the cook though, and so wish I knew how to cook because I would cook her so many things. Anything she wanted, I’d be so excited to make because I love doing that. So not a not a regrets. I don’t have any regrets, but that’s one thing you know. I kinda wish that I did before, but now I do it all the time, and I wanna do it all the time. And when I get to see my mom, it’s I could just, like, tell her about all the things that I’ve I’ve made, maybe not all of them. There’ll be a lot at that point. And I just hope that when I get to taste it myself, she tastes through me. I hope so so that she can taste herself. I hope so. I hope that’s how it works.

Victoria Volk: So I just had a thought. So does she have a lot of her own recipes that you have?

Zane Landin: No. That’s what’s said. It’s okay though because I have an idea of the stuff she made and I can always find it myself, but that is one thing I tell people, chronicled your family, whatever it is, like, maybe even, like, do an interview. Like, do a video interview and, like, have them talk about their life. And even if it’s, like, couple hours, like, you have that chronic illness now of their life. And it’s so much better than you imagine what it was or trying to remember what that story was. Now you can actually pass it down that’s the same with cooking. It’s like, please, get their recipes, have them write it down. I know it’s in their head and they don’t write it down, but have them write it down so you can chronicle their wisdom.

Victoria Volk: There are apps for that actually. One, I had a guess yeah. I had a guess on my podcast some time ago. He developed an app called AfterCloud.

Zane Landin: Oh, wow.

Victoria Volk: I believe that’s what I think there was a branding shift, and I think it’s still called AfterCloud. But I’ll link to it in the show notes. But, yeah, there and there’s actually other apps too out there that help you to document just what you just said to create a family heirloom of sorts. But I can imagine that you know somewhat of what she made and how you can make it and yeah. And then you could share it with your neighbors or share it with, you know, the cookies, especially, like, share it with other people, maybe another griever, a taste of mom’s cookies. So

Zane Landin: Yeah. It’s so interesting just being in a place where I didn’t cook, and now it’s all I wanna do in that. That is, like, the probably the best way for me to express affection right now. Mhmm. I think it’s always going to be now. I don’t know why. It’s not that I can’t communicate as I can. But it’s more like, I care about you, but, like, I’m gonna put my soul in beans when I’m making for you. And then I really hope that comes out that way. And that is, like, the best way it’s, like, a love language. And I hear people say that cooking is their love language. And I say that now. And then people, like, I don’t even get what that means. I’m like, do you even know what that means? Like, cooking is so hard for, like, there’s so much involved when it comes to cooking and, no. Like, the people I love, I get to make something for them make them happy in that way. It’s just it’s so rewarding. I wish I could share that with my mom. Like, now I get why she love cooking too.

Victoria Volk: And maybe that’s part why you’re drawn to it is that Yep. You recognize now that connection that to food. It’s a relationship. Right? And so maybe a part of this you wanting to cook and things is is is what is going to help you shift your relationship with food. Right? And so that it’s no longer this drive, like controlling force in your life that it’s you are changing the narrative around food. It is now a source of love and nourishment and vitality. Right? Yeah. Not only for yourself, but whomever you decide to share it with and break bread with, I think it’s a beautiful thing.

Zane Landin: It is. Thank you.

Victoria Volk: Is there anything else that you would like to share? And I don’t wanna say this too because one of the things I’m actually gonna ask this because it’s on my forum and you filled it out. And you I love your answer. And if you don’t remember what the answer was that you put, but I ask, what would what would you like to scream to the world in the past or recently in which people knew about your grief? What you had said then when you filled out the form was my grief doesn’t make me broken. It has made me stronger.

Zane Landin: My gosh. Wow. Sorry. So I’m trying to remember. Because like I said, before we started, I don’t remember when I sent that in, but that is true though. Yeah.

Victoria Volk: I agree

Zane Landin: I able to look at me differently. And I don’t think people do. But I do think that there’s another layer that people understanding now. Like, there’s a depth that they understand of something that I’ve gone through. Who knows? Maybe people do see me as broken. But I don’t. Again, I’m not gonna I don’t I’m not concerned with how people perceive me. How I perceive myself as I’m not broken. It’s a thing that, again, everyone experiences and I experienced it. And I know I do believe in the mindset that everything happens for a reason. I don’t know what the reason is. I don’t need to know. I just thought there’s a reason my mom passed. There’s a reason I discovered cooking. There’s a reason had such a great relationship with her, whatever it is. That’s how I feel that it was her time. There’s no reason why. Because I know some people will grapple with that. Like, why did that person pass? There’s no need to ask why? There’s no answer. If that makes you feel better, then that’s, you know okay. But I think that that just that would make me feel so much worse because there is no why, there’s no real why. There’s no why because there shouldn’t there’s no reason why they should be gone at all. They should still be here. That’s what I would say. I don’t I don’t see myself as broken. I just see this something that I’ve gone through and it’s something that makes me stronger. And that’s exactly how my mother was too. I didn’t see my mom as a broken person even though she went through so much, so much loss, so much so much like, just a lot of stuff so much. And but I never saw myself I never saw my mom has broken. I don’t know how she saw herself. But because she was such a life for everyone else, no. We didn’t see her that way. She was the kind of person that, of course, can that lit up around. And I know a lot of people do say that. I feel like, at this point, it’s a little cliche when I hear that. But there’s no other way I can describe it. Yeah. So I guess that’s what I would say. And also grief doesn’t define me. I’m not a I’m not a person who grieves. It’s not my identity. It’s just when that happens to me. It’s when I’m always gonna carry but I don’t want to see myself as a griever. I wanna see myself as a strong person that still has this powerful relationship with my mom. In grief, it’s just something I’ve had go through.

Victoria Volk: And you’re thriving? I believe you’re thriving. Do you believe so too?

Zane Landin: I think I am. No. I know I am because I’ve had many opportunities maybe just coming to DC and living here for a year and just the relationships I’ve made and the people I’ve come across and just the routines I’ve had just in the past. Couple years alone. I’ve had a lot of great opportunities before my mom passed, but I think it’s just kinda sad that I had a lot of opportunities. So many that my mom well, especially, yes. Like, she got to see them and experience them. But the one thing that I think is the hardest is I don’t get to hear her voice. I don’t get to hear her excitement anymore. And there were so many things that she was into that she I can’t really imagine how she would react to some of them. Like, when I got the opportunity to go to the White House, my mom was always wanting to go there and I know she would be on the same fight with me. Or before I actually interned NASA. My mom loved NASA. She loved anything to do with space or the universe. Just so many different opportunities in me just working at well, I didn’t even ever even mention it, but I do work for National Geographic. My mom just she sounds like we had the magazine lying around, but just working for National Geographic. I know my mom would be very excited about that. So it’s just kinda or speaking on television and just seeing me the TV screen. There’s just so many so many opportunities that I wish she kinda I got to physically see her react. But other than that, I am very blessed.

Victoria Volk: I’m just gonna take a moment to celebrate you for a moment because, you know, we talked about not owning our accomplishments and things like that. And especially with grief, we can have that loss that really just takes us down. But instead, it’s cracked you open. And look at everything that has opened up for you because you didn’t allow it to take you down. I think that’s an inspiration for people and for my listeners. So I just wanted to highlight that and make a point to say that.

Zane Landin: Yeah. Thank you. And one of the things that I think about is, you know, where where would they want you to be? I don’t know many people that would want you to be depressed about them. I mean, yes, it’s had that had that low low of sadness, but it’s like you say, Was it lay and decay? When you lay and decay

Victoria Volk: Lay and decay yeah

Zane Landin: When you lay and decay, it’s, like, I don’t think I don’t know anyone that wants you to feel that way. And so, like, I have I consciously have to think about what mom would want for me, and it’s like, would my mom want me to soak in that? When mom want me to take the opposition and go for an opportunity, no matter what the outcome could be, you never know what’s gonna happen, and sometimes it could be good, sometimes it won’t be but I think my mom always pushed me to accept any challenge that came my way.

Victoria Volk: Yeah. I think even moving forward, I think that’s the driving question. You can ask yourself, what would my mom do? What would mom do? Yeah. Because she was such a light for you, and I’m glad you had that experience. Relationship with her and that it is continuing, that relationship is continuing because I think too, it can happen. We didn’t really get into this, but a lot of what can happen when people lose somebody is that, you can get very angry at God, you can get very angry at the world, and just completely shut down. And that was me too for a long time. Like, I was very angry. I didn’t step into a church. I was I was spiritually thirsty. That was an aspect of my life that really went downhill. And so I just encourage people to be open, be open to the possibility and like you said, we’re not gonna have all the answers. We’re never gonna have all the answers. But do we have to? Right? Would it make a difference? Would it change anything? You know?

Zane Landin: Yeah. I think it’ll

Victoria Volk: The result is still the same. Right? They’re still without this person.

Zane Landin: Yeah. I think that people they want the answer. Because I think when you have that answer, It’s like you feel like your path is set, but I really don’t think that there is an answer. How could there be? Because I know some people say, oh, maybe God wanted them closer. No. I don’t think that at all. I don’t that’s incredibly selfish. I don’t think I would want that. And if that’s the case, why would you want them there? If they’re such a light, why wouldn’t you want them in the world, preaching, love, that you want the world to be as God. Right? And so I don’t believe in that. And so I never want people to question the why because there is no answer really. And like you said, if you do get an answer, it doesn’t really change anything.

Victoria Volk: So what gives you the most hope and joy for the future?

Zane Landin: It’s what gives you the most hope and joy for the future is knowing that my mom is still out there and some sort of spiritual way, whatever it is. She’s still there and I still have this relationship with her, and I get to build on it, and I get to do things that remind me of her. And that gives me hope. Like I said, it’s not a guaranteed answer, but if I knew that there was a guaranteed afterlife. I would feel an ultimate peace in a way. Wouldn’t change it. It wouldn’t change a lot because she was so gone. But just the comfort of knowing that she’s in a safe place and I will see her one day that she said that’s enough. I will never know that for sure. But what gives me hope is that that might be that might be out there. And if it’s not, well, I hope not. But if it is, I still have the beautiful memories and I can create more positive memories with other people, with my mom in my mind.

Victoria Volk: Channeling her love and her energy and her light through your good work. Right?

Zane Landin: I won’t feel to remember that way because like, my mom doesn’t hear anymore, but I want people to feel that way when they interact with me. That, there is a there is, like, a specking me that reminds them of my mom or if they haven’t met her, it’s like, well, that’s what my mom would be like. You kinda have met her maybe. I remember even telling a story, and my partner was, like, it’s almost it’s almost exact how you tell stories like her and I was like, really even like my family friends are like, yeah. It’s very interesting how you’re almost just like your mom at times. I’m like, wow. Well, I love hearing that. Thank you.

Victoria Volk: That’s wonderful. Anything else that you would like to share that you didn’t feel like you got to share that you want listeners to know?

Zane Landin: We really don’t think so. I really think we got into a lot of different topics about grief and also mental health and human suicide and the work I get to do. No. Nope. Not at all. Just thank you so much again for having me on.

Victoria Volk: And where can people find you?

Zane Landin: Oh, I mean, I’m on, like, Instagram and LinkedIn. And the digital magazine you mentioned is positive by its magazine. You can find me by just typing in my name. My social media handles or all my name, just show people who type my name, exactly where you’re gonna find me, just so I am just so I am accessible to people as much as possible.

Victoria Volk: And that’s how they access the magazine as well as through your social channels.

Zane Landin: Yeah. You can find it there too.

Victoria Volk: Okay. Well, thank you so much. I will put all those links in the show notes, and I thank you so much for joining me today. This really, truly did feel like, a conversation, like, you know, a really what’s the word?

Zane Landin: Like a dialogue.

Victoria Volk: Yeah. But more like yeah. But of really deep issues that are impacting all of us, like everybody. Right? Like, we’re not resistant to soul that isn’t touched by grief and there isn’t a soul that isn’t probably touched by mental health, whether it’s themselves or someone they know or love or care about. Right? Like, it’s an both of these things are an every one issue. And I think I think we’re getting better. And that’s what gives me hope is, as a society, I think we’re getting better. We have a lot of work to do. But I think with people like me and like you or using our voices for positive and to share what we’ve learned and what we know and helping where we can help and be of service. I mean, that’s the best we can do. Right?

Zane Landin: Yeah. This is so great. Thank you so much.

Victoria Volk: Thank you so much for being my guest today and for sharing your time with me and my listeners. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.

Ep:146 Jordan Brodie: Where Are They Now? | Redefining Success & Grief with Best Friend and Brother Loss

Jordan Brodie: Where Are They Now? | Redefining Success & Grief with Best Friend and Brother Loss

 

SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:

This “Where Are They Now?” episode with Jordan is a follow-up to the first conversation we recorded on 01/19/2021.  Jordan’s first episode went live as episode 44 on 4/27/2021. You may want to check out that episode first, then come back to this follow-up episode.

In this follow-up episode, Jordan shares about the devastating loss of his older brother to a fentanyl overdose only a week after we recorded his first episode. In the time since, Jordan has been able to maintain his sobriety. However, in this episode, he goes into more depth on the impact the loss of his best friend, followed by the loss of his brother, had on him – and his sobriety.

Sobriety aside, Jordan also shares how his spiritual beliefs have been shaped by the loss of his best friend, Chase, and his older brother, Josh. And what he looks forward to in the future. Jordan is currently traveling Europe after living in Los Angeles for 11 years. He shares how leaving the glitz, glam, and city life has offered him the opportunity and experience of a lifetime. And maybe, for the first time, the time and space to discover how he wishes to define what success means to him moving forward.

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Victoria Volk: Thank you for tuning in to grieving voices. Today is a Where Are They Now episode. And it is a follow-up with a guest who I originally spoke to on January 19th, 2021, Jordan Brodie. And his episode went live on April 27th, 2021. It is episode 44. And it is titled Growing Up Gay, CODA, and with Addiction. And so if you haven’t listened to that episode you might wanna check that one out first and then come back to this one but I am so excited to catch up with Brodie. There has been a lot going on in his life since then. And also, actually, the week after we spoke, his brother had died of an overdose. And so that is where we will start today. But first of all, Jordan, thank you so much for being here. And you’re all the way over in France. So thank you so much for joining me from France. And I love the idea of following up with people after a couple years and because if I’m wondering how you’ve been, what’s what you’ve been up to, what’s changed in your life, I’m sure other people are too, And so thank you so much for taking the time to catch us all up.

Jordan Brodie: That’s so nice. You’re welcome. Thank you. Victoria, and so grateful to be back here today. So much has happened since Chase Guy. And even after that podcast, we recorded eight days after my older brother died. And, God, I think speaking with you, and, like, having been prepared from losing my best friend. It really helps me, I think, because Joshua’s death, my older brother was even more difficult for me emotionally. And Chase is definitely very difficult. I think, kind of, like, having this platform to tell my story I think it really helped my grieving process. And I just wanna thank you because it really did help me to talk about it right away. It really did. I don’t I think I really think I breathed well, and I’m still grieving. Chase and Josh and another’s losses in my life. Like, it’s a continuous thing, I think society prepares us to get things. Like, we’re in a consumer capitalistic society where we’re, you know, get get get we want this, we want that, we want new things, we want a new dog, a new puppy, a new bike, a new car, a new house, a new boyfriend, a new girlfriend. We always want new things. We gotta get that new iPhone every year. Our society doesn’t teach people how to lose things in a proper and healthy way. And you know, when some when you lose something, a lot of times people are like, oh, well, don’t worry. You can get another one. And that really invalidates the emotions. I’ve learned it’s not good to say that to people don’t say, oh, well, you can get a new cat, you can get a new dog. It invalidates the emotions. And also, I don’t like even people offer me, like, tissues or phoenix when I’m crying. Like, I don’t like being blocked. I want to just let it flow because I think it’s healthy. We have such a shame around crying and and losing things. But it’s a part of life. It’s inevitable getting on here here with you. It was about two years ago really helped me, like, with my grieving process because if I keep things bottled in, I go crazy. I really do, and I need to talk about what’s going on with me. And everyone does, not just on a podcast. We don’t just need to be on a podcast to talk to people who can talk to our friends, our family, our therapists, but I think it’s important to talk to someone and He really helped me, so thank you.

Victoria Volk: Thank you so much for sharing that because I really had no idea. I mean, I know we had kinda just talked over social media a little bit after I had heard that your brother had passed, but I had no idea. Those are the very things that we talk about in the program Do Grief Differently. Like, you know, when I try and educate people, like, don’t hand a tissue, you know, that stops someone from crying and so just the fact that you’ve re you remembered those things and that you found them helpful and you’re probably actually helping other people too and educate dating other people along the way in the past two years just based on what you’ve learned in our first conversation.

Jordan Brodie: Yeah, I really hope so. I really hope to be just a light inspiration by being vulnerable on social media, on the Internet, on YouTube, in public with people just being open and honest and authentic. I really hope it helps others, and I know it helps others. I’ve had people say, they look up to me. I do know I have people that looked up to me and I’m really grateful for that. It used to make me feel uncomfortable, but I’ve worked through my impostor syndrome and I think everyone, not just me, everyone can help anyone with their story. We all have a story to tell. You, Victoria, have a story to tell. All the listeners on here have a story to tell, and it’s important and it’s valid. And it doesn’t matter if you’re just a grocery store clerk or you’re just a farm Boy or you just you’re just a high schooler with no extracurricular activities or you are the football player or whatever you are, you have a story. Everyone has a story. It doesn’t matter who it is. You don’t have to be a royalty, a rich person, born into a rich family, a celebrity. It’s not just the celebrities that have stories to tell. It’s the little Joe’s and Bob’s and Dina’s and Susie’s in the middle of America, in the middle of Europe and then in middle of France. Everyone has a story and I love your podcast because you do interview everyone. It’s not just celebrities, it’s not just these people, it’s normal average job people dealing with free and everyone deals with Green in their life and it’s something we need to talk about. I don’t think any topic should be taboo. In this world because we’re all human. We all go through the same feelings and emotions and desires maybe different ways. But why should any topic be taboo or shameful when everyone is experiencing that?

Victoria Volk: In church recently, the priest had shared, we should not hide our wounds. When we hide our wounds and we don’t talk about our wounds, they kill us.

Jordan Brodie: Yeah.

Victoria Volk: And that speaks to what you’ve just been sharing.

Jordan Brodie: It’s very, very true. So since Josh and Chase died, by the way, Joshua’s death very difficult, and he actually died from the same death as Chase, a similar death. It was a fentanyl overdose. I don’t know the exact details about Chase, and I don’t even really know the exact details about Josh, but I know that he had COVID and had been isolated for two weeks, and then relapsed and it was an overdose on fentanyl. I did similar thing with Chase with Chase. I was like, how can I give service to his mother, like and being of service throughout Chase’s death process, like, after he died and asking his mother, like, how can I help? Like, I love Chase so much. Like, how can I help? She asked for help putting together his because it was during COVID, his Zoom memorial service for friends and family because COVID, we could she couldn’t have a big open funeral. It was only close family members, no friends. So I did that. I put together, I found a pastor, to run the services. And I got the made invitations. I invited a bunch of people. Like, It is really hard to do, but it helps me stay focused and help me stay safe. I had some friends donate money to pay the pastor because he was on Zoom and he was a friend from the Unitarian University of Church. We did this service. It was a beautiful service. I think I sing and my other friend saying and read a poem and it was very beautiful. Chase would have loved it because Chase was an artist, he was an actor, he was a performer, I still think about him. He’s still a superhero to me. He was obsessed with SpiderMan. When the new SpiderMan movie, came out. It was on I think it was on Joshua’s birthday. Josh’s birthday was February 18th, and he died from January 27th. It was somewhere around his birthday that the new SpiderMan movie came out and Chase was obsessed with SpiderMan. Chase where he had all these furnishings with him. It was kinda silly. It was like an adult child that became this part of that. But I would just the message of that SpiderMan movie. I don’t know if you saw it. Let’s just see the new SpiderMan. It was I don’t wanna ruin too much of the story for but for those who saw it that are listening, there was a message of forgiveness to those who have done you wrong. Because it’s a long story, but I don’t wanna ruin the plot, but there was a character in the movie who hurt SpiderMan. And SpiderMan had a choice to be to he had a choice to make. And he would have done something wrong if he wouldn’t have chosen to forgive And the thing about Chase and Josh is they go back from a fentanyl addiction, which drug dealers are lacing drugs of fentanyl. So I was angry. Like, at drug dealers, when Chase moved to LA, he was a very handsome he was very handsome and fellow people all the actor agents said he looked like the next action cooker. Sorry, handsome. And everyone just so many old guys came around promising him fame and fortune and I’ll be your agent. A lot of them just fed him drugs and got him high and took advantage of him. Like, it’s true. And it happens to so many people that move to LA. So many people I’ve seen it happen. I’ve been I was in LA for eleven years, and I saw so many people get chewed up and spit out And I’m so sad that she’s happened to be one of them. I luckily kind of avoided that. I avoided the drug part because I already got it up that out of my system in high school, but Chase fell into that. All these old gross men I was always so I was so protective of Chase. I mean, I knew him since I was eight years old. And I had a big crush on him. I didn’t realize that he was kind of my high school crush, but he only liked older thighs and I wasn’t necessarily as type. And I think we were both kind of afraid of each other in that way. I’m afraid of intimacy and being hurt and I was afraid to be honest with him about how a truly felt for him, and that was one of my biggest regrets. When she died. I was always so angry with Chase. I was like, Chase, why are you hanging out with this guy? You just want to fuck you. You just want systems like, oh, yeah. That he helps me with my scripts when I have auditioned. And I was like, I can help you with this script. Someone else can, but this guy is not confused. There were so many of these to be fair, like, one of these guys that I’m talking talking about, I don’t wanna say his name. He like, two years ago. He’s a really fit a popular agent in LA. And he literally got me tuned and canceled, and that he actually died from cancer, like, a few months ago, this guy in particular. And I was always like, Chase, why are you hanging out with this guy? Like, he’s not promising you anything. He’s just using you. He’s getting you high. He’s leading you on. And, you know, this is good. To share because I heard of the superficiality of LA. I’m tired of seeing it. It was so heartbreaking to me. And all these influencers, all these people are coming every day, every year, and falling from this trap. And so many people get caught into drug addiction. Think about the amount of famous people you know with drug problems that, like, goes spiraling down. For every famous person, there’s probably like ten thousand not famous people who never make it, who die from an overdose in LA because they get stuck in that whole trap. It’s really dark. And messed up. And I think people should know, like, when they move to LA to have boundaries and not lose their backbone, like, keep your morals and your standards or you will get lost. Like, I got lost. Thank god. I got back on track. Chase actually helped me get back on track. He was my eskymo of I went to anonymous twelve step programs at first to support Chase. And then I stuck with it. And now, yeah, I have six years sober. I’ll have seven years on January thirteenth. So help me God. But

Victoria Volk: Congratulations.

Jordan Brodie: Thank you. It’s just really heartbreaking and I’m tired of seeing people just fall into this superficial chase of fame and fortune. I have different dreams now. I still want I still desire to be famous for my music and well-known or successful and be paid from my art and my music. Fame represents success for me as an artist. But I don’t it’s not if I’m making a living as an artist or even if I am still making art, but I have all my needs met, like I have a home, a place to live, food to eat, As long as I’m doing music recording, I don’t care if a thousand people are listening or not. I just want to have a place to sleep some food to eat and be doing music. And I realize I don’t like big cities. I feel anxious in big cities. So I’m actually traveling Europe right now. I’ve been in Europe almost for two and a half months doing work away. I’m traveling right now around the world. I’m gonna probably be doing this for, like, a year or two. Until I figure out where I wanna live. Getting European citizenship to my grandmother. She’s born in Estonia. It’s not guaranteed, but we’re starting the process to apply for my citizenship. And, yeah, I love Europe. I’m loving it. And I feel like Chase and Josh are with me and but, yeah, for everyone that’s planning on moving to LA or New York, any big city. It doesn’t matter. Paris, Berlin, Barcelona, London. All these major cities have huge drug problems. So it’s really important to stick with your morals and ethics and your backbones. Like, wherever you’re going, think about find a role model from your childhood, like, maybe it’s a grandpa, like, or someone that you really admire that has good qualities of integrity and service and love. They don’t have to be perfect. My grandpa and some of my role models are not perfect. They have mistakes. They’ve had flaws. But I admire their good qualities, and I aspire to be like them finding role models in my recovery has been what’s helped me. And I think going back to the SpiderMan thing, that’s what Chase’s well one of his role models was SpiderMan because he was he’s such a positive hero. Like, I think he’s such a great world model. And when I watched that movie, God, I’d boggled so hard in the theater. But Like I said, the moral of that story was forgiveness to those who have done you wrong and hurt you. If you watch it, you will know what I mean. You will see this message. It’s pretty clear. And it’s exactly like, I was so mad about Chase, like, I blamed basically any old gay guy. This sounds really brief is a seductive kind of messed up it can put some messed up voices in your head, like my ego. And any, like, older gay guy, I was just angry at. I was, like, everyone’s a predator. I hate all of you guys. Like, just so many people I was so mad at, and I was blaming all these people and it was really hard. I was so angry at everyone. I was just angry at the world, like, for just being not understanding of my friend and not respecting his humanity because he was a very handsome person and just so many people, like, threw themselves at him and try to take advantage of him and I was just, like, always there on this side, like, supporting him with my love, and I was, of course, hoping one day. Well, no. I appreciate him as a friend and I was content with their friendship, but I really was and love on him. Looking back at it, I was very much in love with him. Like, I was too disassociated for my own addictions. To know that it was, like, what I was for. Like, he was always when I went in high school, I had a big crush on him, I had a huge crush on him. He’s so charismatic. He’s so funny. He’s so handsome. And I had a big crush on him. And then I always did, and he knew it. Like, he liked older guys.

Victoria Volk: How do you honor his life today?

Jordan Brodie: As I’m traveling, going to things like that SpiderMan movie is very helpful. I got to see Demi Lovato perform at Avida, like, the week before I left for Europe. And Chase was the biggest Demi Lovato fan. Like, I wasn’t that I love Demi, but, like, I’m not, like, I’m not obsessed. Like, she’s not my diva. I love her. I love her music. I’m obsessed. That like, I do love her. Okay? But Chase was obsessed. Like, the biggest demi lovato fan. So I felt like he was there with me and, like, he was so happy and like, I just felt him there. And then I just feel his energy a lot, and I talked sometimes I’ll reach out to his mother, see how she’s doing. We talked on social media a lot, and she’s just really supportive of me. And I know she still misses him a lot. And Chase was very, like, he was, like, very risk-taking, very adventurous. It’s on my list of things to do to go skydiving with some of his friends, like, in Chase’s memory because Chase was such a risk-taker. So I wanna get some of his friends and I wanna go skydiving because I am so scared of how it’s and like, Yolo and his memory. Like, I wanna jump for him and, like and then I and then I worked my program my recovery programs and my sobriety honors him. Like, I feel like when he died, I don’t know if I talked about this in the podcast, but I I didn’t handle it the best when it came to my recovery in some of my behaviors because I still, like, I acted out like, sexually, like, to, like, cope with the emotions I was experiencing. And like, because I’m an addict, but I’m not just, like, a drug addict, an alcoholic. Like, I also struggle with sex addiction, and love addiction and emotional anorexia. When Chase died, I just I kinda I relapsed. I really did. I don’t I didn’t talk about this. When we did the interview, but I did relapse, like, when he died. And it took me, like, a week or two, like, get back on track, and that was really hard. Like but when Josh died, I think since that had already happened, I didn’t relapse when Josh died. I was ready. I was prepared. And so that was really hard. And my sex and love addiction is still very difficult. I do still get really lonely. And I have a lot of pain, like, anxiety, emotional pain, and I think it’s good not to latch onto someone when you’re grieving or you’re sad, but it wasn’t ready for that. Like, no one prepares you to lose your best friend or, like, to lose your older brother, like, I had never experienced any significant loss like that in my life. It was the first. So I was not ready for that at all. At all. Like, I wasn’t that close with my grandpa. When he died, I was, like, it wasn’t that big of a deal for me. I mean, he’s a grandpa. He’s older. You know? It’s part of life. And he was kinda angry towards the end of his life. So I was kind of relieved for him because he had cancer and he was in a lot of pain. It wasn’t very nice to me. My little brother’s, and I didn’t, like, carry through to my little brother’s. So when he passed, I was a little bit relieved for his pain because I knew he was in a better place. He was in so much pain. Presented his life. And I don’t know. But Chase, like, I thought he was doing good. Like, he had just gotten six months sober. And Yeah. I still really miss him a lot. And honestly, like, I was really delusional about their dads like, I don’t know, like, last January. I was this January, I was, like, oh my gosh. It’s almost been a year. I was texting my stepmom. I was like, it’s almost been a year since Josh died. And she was like, Jordan, it’s been two years. Like, that’s how, like, disassociated I’ve been when it comes to my brother and she it’s, like, I was still in denial about his death for a really long time. Like and I’m still a little bit in denial. About it. Like, I really am. Like, I delusionally, I’m a fantasy addict, so I live in fantasy. I live in my head a lot. And I escape into these fantasies of being all these different characters. It’s something that I do. It’s kinda crazy, but it’s normal for artists. Like, I guess, a lot of us do this, you know. Like, Nicki Minaj has her personal. Awesome. I have mine. I’m just not as vocal about it. It’s all in my head, but I escape into fantasies of them still being here. Like a lot of the times, which I don’t think is very healthy. No one prepared me for this. Like, having this platform being able to talk to you also, my recovery community, I do gratitude list every morning. Doing that gratitude every morning when Josh was when after Josh died and after Chase died, really helped me keep, like, a glimmer of light and hope as that dark period went. And I don’t wanna say, but my sponsor in one of my recovery programs was, like, one of the first people I called when I found out Josh Knight. And he was the first person I called. And he, like, helps me, like and so many people helped me. And, you know, it’s really important to know that shit’s gonna happen in life. People are gonna die. And there’s gonna be people there for you. Like, no matter what, like, and it’s important to let them help you. My best friends all kind of, like, kidnapped me too, like, when they found out Chase and Josh die. They kind of just, like, kidnapped me and, like, took me. Like, and, like, I stayed with them in Orange County. For a few days. Unless all my friends came around me, I’m so lucky. I have really good friends. And Yeah. But it’s really hard. Gosh. I was not expecting to cry like this. I guess because, like, doing work away, so I’m how I’m doing Europe is I am doing work away, so it’s an exchange. I’m here at this house that’s on a farm in Normandy, France. And ex and the guy who owns it’s a single gay guy. And in exchange for a house, to stay and food to eat. I help him twenty hours a week with whatever he wants. Like, I help to make a costume, like a gay he has some of that this weekend, so I may help them make a gay alien custom. And I helped him. We’ve I’ve they have been weeding. I help cook. I help with this animals, like, clean up donkey poo. Each job is different. I was in Switzerland before this for three weeks, and that was I was, like, an assistant to the housewife. I was, like, picking up the kids from school tutoring, and the first one was similar to this. So but these last three days, it’s really scary. Out of my element, these last three days have been hard for my sex and love and mix gen, I guess. Like so I think that might be why I’m crying a little bit because I just didn’t reminded how difficult it was, and I really I relapsed when Chase died. And I know it’s pretty common. A lot of people relapse in recovery programs when a loved one dies. Or they break this is why it suggested not to get in a relationship the first year of recovery. It’s not a requirement. It’s a suggestion because it cannot get iteration or end up get out because significant changes in our emotions. We use drugs in alcohol effects, our addictive patterns to numb our pain and our sadness. So if we shift things and we experience big changes, the chances as of us relapsing before we have the right tools are higher. So Yeah.

Victoria Volk: May I ask

Jordan Brodie: Yeah.

Victoria Volk: May I ask if so how long have you been doing work away? When did you leave the US?

Jordan Brodie: Oh, the end of March. So March, like, 29th, and I started my first position, like, April second.

Victoria Volk: Do you feel as though I mean, because It’s one thing to, like, leave your home country for a couple weeks and knowing you’re coming back and knowing when you’re coming back. But in doing work away and having the intention that you’re gonna do it at least a year, maybe even two years, and being away from you know, it’s one thing to, you know, we have the devices. We can stay connected in that way. But to not physically be in proximity to those we love and our family and our friends and things like that. I’m just asking, do you feel like potentially a part of this resurfacing for you is just the fact that you are away from your home. You are you’re I mean, this is a huge change. If you think about it, I mean, this is a huge change. You’re you’re plopping yourself in

Jordan Brodie: That’s a good question. That’s a good question. And I think that might be some of it. But the thing is I don’t feel like I actually miss anyone. It’s kinda weird. Like, I miss people. I would love to see my friends, my family, like, if they showed up or if I went and visited them, I would be elated. I’d be so happy and excited to see them. But I don’t feel like a yearning for them. I might go, it’d be nice to see them. I feel like I don’t I’m just having so much fun. Like, it’s so exciting for me. I’ve never been to Europe. So I’m so excited. I’m so inspired. And also, I’ve been in LA for eleven years, and my mother lives in Montana. All my loved ones live in New Mexico and Montana. And then I have friend all over the country and the world that I grew up with, so I’m always missing someone. Like, at what I have a really big family and they live all over. Like, I’m always missing someone. I’m used to this feeling because I’m kinda spread out a little bit thin. It’s, like, the perks of having a lot of people you love in your life. Like, I have a big family a lot of friends. I have a big community around me of people in real life. It’s not just social media, like most of my friends and family and loved ones have a large majority of people that don’t even use social media. So, like, I just always missing someone. So I’m used to this. So the truth is, yes, I do think that’s part of it, but I thoroughly enjoyed the host here, and I’m here with two other workawaiters. And I go out on walks a lot I pray a lot and meditate. I do outreach calls all day long with fellows and thank god for technology. Like, you’re out North Dakota. I’m here in France and we’re able to talk. I’ve been able to call my friends in LA. New York, in New Mexico, like, I’ve been able to call people still and FaceTime them. It’s not the same as personal connection, but I get that from them. I guess I’m a little bit lonely and the fact is, like, I think also Chase served he wasn’t my brother. He wasn’t family. Josh was my family. It’s different. I didn’t have, like, romantic feelings for Josh. It’s for my older brother, you know. I didn’t he was my brother, we were blood, and but chase, I kinda had some intimate romantic feelings, and I didn’t really fully understand that until he died. And it’s really sad. I think it’s really sad that I didn’t know. Because, like, I knew I liked him and I was kind of obsessed with him. I didn’t know they were those in feelings until he died and I felt those feelings. I think that’s why I relapsed. When Chase died and my sexual live addiction is because I didn’t know how to handle those feelings. That feeling of loss, that feeling of grief. I’ve had a few other, like, guys, like, people that I’ve had these really intense feelings for, like, since Chase died. And it’s weird because I feel like having him die kinda gave me permission to, like, move on. I guess, I’ve spread myself out too thin emotionally and sexually because of my past as a sex worker, because of my promiscuity, emotionally, I was a little bit of an emotional horror. Like, just my emotions are all spread out all over the world. So, like, having Chase died, like, kinda help me reel it in. My emotions I have better boundaries now. I don’t hoard or myself anymore, emotionally. I don’t I don’t I tried to I’m way more conservative than I thought I was, like, emotionally and sexually. Like and it’s new to me, but she’s gonna help me with that. And, yeah, I’ve been able to forgive those guys that I mentioned that I was mad at because of Chase’s death. I kinda blamed them certain characters in West Hollywood that I know was I really angry at? And they’re still doing the same shit. These old older men that work in the industry having these parties, inviting all these young new gays, giving them drugs, giving them alcohol, telling them they’ll do this, they’ll do the app, but they really just wanna get laid. It’s still happening. The same people are still doing the same shit. As eleven years ago when I moved away. This same shit. It’s not different. And I’m like, how do these people sleep that night. But I don’t think they’re fully aware of what they’re doing. It’s kinda like if they knew they knew and they would stop doing it. But it takes two sides. So so but I’ve been able to forgive them. Like, you know, I don’t and I’m leave I’ve left LA It’s a new experience for me. I do wonder am I escaping? Am I doing escapism by being out here? But I’m really enjoying Europe. I don’t plan to, like, move here and get a house here and, like, be here. But I plan to go back LA. But back to New York, back to New Mexico to my parents, back to Montana, I still plan to stay connected to America. I’m always gonna be an American Like, even if I get my Estonian citizenship and I so, like, I don’t know.But yeah. I think I am feeling a little bit lonely. But last night, I made a friend. I made friends with this local girl. She was really nice. And I’ll go to Paris in two weeks and see one of my friends, and there’s a big recovery convention that week. So I’ll see people that I’m only, like, three hour train ride from Paris right now. So it’s pretty cool.

Victoria Volk: Do you think a part of this too could be a little bit of being ready maybe to settle down? Maybe just wanting someone to share this experience with?

Jordan Brodie: Definitely. I was talking about this last night with someone. Okay. I so part of this too, I thought that it’s so funny because Miley Cyrus on Flowers came out on my sobriety birthday, which is January 13th, like, the album was released. And my it’s, you know, the the theme of the song itself, love, like, a renaissance flower was I can grab my name and the saying a quote directly from Chase. He always told me this. He’s like Jordan, God provides music always at the exact right time when they need it. Like, that was Chase’s little quote. That was one of his quotes that he always told me, and he always said if it’s not nice, don’t say it at all. And he would always tell me that because I was kind of more of a bitch than he was. It was always very, like, snarky and he and saying these things. And he was like, my mom always taught me. It’s that nice, don’t say it at all. So he kind of has this consciousness need to, like, be a nicer person. Anyway, So it to me, it was God. It was Chase. It was, like, music. Also, on the year so on so his death was December 27th, I think, or December 1st. December 1st. It was the day of the Equinox when the bright star, the north star, whatever was brightest. So in some ways, I’m like, chaste must have been like Jesus or something because he died on that day. What a great day to go out was the day that the whole world did that international meditation together. Everyone did it. He died that night. The North Star was the brightest. So I think it’s a beautiful night to pass. The energy was amazing. And okay. So a year later on the year of his passing a year prior. It was either the week before or the week after a few weeks. Tim Petris, one of my other favorite pop stars put out a song called Coconuts, which Coconuts, you know, it’s like it’s tropical themed in the middle of winter. So random. She’s the queen of, like, putting things out at random times. Chase and I, five years before he died, We were very silly together and played together. He wrote a song. We wrote a song together called Coconuts. Chase and I did. It was just a joking stupid song. We were obsessed with coconuts. We were like, anything coconut, coconut oil. It’s good for your skin. It tastes good. It’s good for cooking. It’s good as lube for seg. Like, you can do anything with coconuts. You can eat it. You can do anything with coconuts. So so the fact that that song came out like near during a year from his passing was God to me. I was like, Chase is on the other side manipulating shit. Kim Petress has put out a song called Coconuts. And that song is really stupid. It’s a dumb pop song about her boobs, basically, coconuts, Mac, coconuts, it’s, like, totally random, which is also chases humor too. So to me, it was God, like, that song is spiritual to me. It’s funny because everyone’s like, oh, this is a dumb pop song. But that song is spiritual for me. Like, whenever I hear that song, I it’s like, god speaking to me. And then similar things like on Josh’s birthday this year, pink put out her single to her next album, trustful, the song closed, your eyes, and leave it up behind, go with love. It’s on our side, and it’s stressful. And I remember, like, I was playing it on repeat. And that evening of I was going to someone’s birthday and I was in West Hollywood. I was in the Candle Delirium store and I was buying a candle for my friend. And at the register, the guy I will see him there. He owns the store or whatever, but he was, like, Are you okay how are you, by the way, are you okay? And I broke down crying in the store. Like, in front of I it wasn’t, like, I because I was, like, I’m and then it just kinda cracked. And I was, like, crying because I couldn’t hold it because I was just I was dealing with it was I was just listening to music and I was alone. And then I just told him, I was like, oh, on today’s my brother’s birthday, he died, like, two years ago, and I really miss him. And so, yeah, I’m kinda sad, but thank you. And then they, like, they, like, gave me a big hug and they gave me, like, a really big discount on the candle that I was buying. And, anyway, that it was, like, really sweet. So it’s always good to be honest. Like, we don’t wanna get vulnerable when we’re doing bad. But if you just say if someone asks you how you’re doing, you’re not feeling good, there’s nothing wrong with saying, I’m not feeling good. I’m not doing good today. How are you? It’s good to be honest about what we’re feeling. That’s been the biggest lesson with all this and Yeah. And the best way I can honor my brother and Chase is by continuing to work on myself become the best version of myself. I feel like they’re here with me. I pray to them all the time. I talk to them. I danced with them. I, like, I went to EDC last year, and

Victoria Volk: What does that stand for?

Jordan Brodie: Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas. It’s the biggest wave in the United States. It’s a big music festival, like, all the big big DJs, like Calvin Harris, David Geta, like, than even NASA, like, Gorgon City, Zoo, Grimes. All these DJ’s, like, perform. There’s, like, hundreds of d j’s five hundred thousand people in Las Vegas at the speedway from all over the world to go and I’ve been wanting to go for a really long time and it was my first time going and I went with two of my best friends, and it was so much fun. And there was a moment. Okay. So my friend Phoenix and Sean both really love this artist. His name’s excision. I don’t know if you’ve heard of him, but He’s a electronic music producer. His music has a lot of heavy metal references in it. So it’s not Like me, I’m candy pot. Like, I love pot stuff. I’ve always been great name Adzana, Michael Jackson and Paris Hilton and Christina Aguilar. If it’s gay, shiny, and sparkly, I’m all over a girl, and I’m listening to it. Like, I don’t even like horror movies, dark I’m the sugar to my friend’s spice. Like, I’m the bright one that’s very gay and happy. I do have a dark side Don’t get me wrong. I have a dark, angry, evil, twisted, bitch side of me too. Sorry. I don’t know if I can cuss back.

Victoria Volk: It’s okay.

Jordan Brodie: But okay. So so here we are. And I Josh and I wrote music together. We had a business together, my older brother. We made his songs together. Josh produced classical music He played the guitar. He played the bass. He played the saxophone. He played the piano. He played he taught himself all these instruments. He never had, like, probably, like, a few lessons when he was younger in piano, but he was a musical genius. He produced hip hop music. Classical music, hot music in the end. He was so talented. And I kept trying to get Josh to move to LA. Like, to, like, for us to work together, but he couldn’t ever his addictions problems and stuff would always get in the way of are working together, and it really frustrated me. And I don’t know if he was an addict or not. It’s not fair for me to say that, but Some of his behaviors would get in the way of us working together. Music was our bonding thing, my older brother and I. And same with Chase. Chase and I whenever we were driving in the car, it was like it was like you’re in a concert. Chase and I were jamming out. We listen to music all day. Chase was always messaging me songs. A lot of my favorite songs. I have a whole playlist with Chase music, Demi Lovato, just chase loved music. And he really helps me grow my love of music as a consumer because Pace wasn’t making music. He was an actor. He wasn’t interested in writing. He was interested in being an actor, but he had a love and a passion for it as like a fan. So I was writing music. Chase loved my songs. He was one of the first people to buy, like, the physical copy of my first, like, single make it right. Like, he bought it online when he could stream it for free. And, like, he was just so proud of me and he loved my music. And so it meant a lot to me because I moved he moved to LA a year before I did from my hometown, and he let me stay with him for a few weeks, and he helped me get start up because he moved there to pursue his acting dreams. And I moved to LA to pursue my music dreams. So anyway, at EDC, it’s a music festival, so it’s all about music. Of course, I was thinking about Chase and Josh the whole time. Like they were there with me. There was this moment. And Josh also was in heavy metal bands. He played heavy metal music, and I loved all kinds of genres, but heavy metals not really my cup of tea. Like, I love metallica, I love whole you can still understand the lyrics, but heavy metal, screamo music. I love the guitars. I love high-intensity guitars and music and rock music. Like, I love Ramstein. I’m obsessed with Ramstein. It’s because they’re really hardcore. But they speak German so it’s like, I already don’t understand German so it’s okay. But screamo music. I don’t know what they’re saying. I don’t I’m not the biggest screamo fan. I will go to a screamo concert. I will go to a heavy metal concert. I’ll address the part, and I will have a blast. And I’ve done it. And I supported Josh was obsessed with Bingo. I think it helped him presses emotions. He was in so many metal bands. He was, like, producing metal music, blah blah blah. Had all these things going for him. And so Sean and Phoenix both love excision. I’ve never heard him. Has a lot of heavy metal influences. We’re, like, up at front. All jammed out look like Barbie dolls. Like, headbanging in the front of the excision, like, looking gay AF in front of all of these because excision, people are they what’s that called, mosh, they mosh pit. Like, you know, it’s EDM, but people are mashing. Like, It’s aggressive energy. It’s not really me. Like, I’m not that like, I was the little gay boy on the in ballet class on this side. The boys ballet class watching the other boys who were just there because their sports coaches made them do ballet. They were all tackling each other, and I’m there rolling my eyes. Like, I’ve never really been the type to, like, do that. So anyway, we’re, like, head-banging. There was a moment where excision because it’s, like, hard more metal, like, idiom. And then all of a sudden, he he saw us, like, in the front row. I where he did this for the three games on the front, because he played a quote on Britney. He was, like, it’s Britney Bitch. And then it just went back to the And then there’s a moment where he slowed down the music. He was like, I just wanna take a moment. I just recently lost someone that was really close to me, like, a few days ago or a year ago. I can’t remember the exact time period, but he was like, tonight, I’m really thinking about him and I’m really honoring him. And if there’s anyone out there in the audience, that’s like experience is significant loss recently. I just want you to know that you’re not alone and I don’t remember what else he said. But it was just I started crying, like, during a heavy metal EDM, set because I knew Josh was there, like, with me. Like like, your loved ones are always is there with you and your memories and your heart. And I am someone who believes in afterlife. I don’t believe in energy. I don’t know if it’s actual heaven or hell, I don’t really believe in that. But I do believe that our loved one’s energy, like, is there and guiding me. I feel like I have this, like, this, like, team of, like, almost, like they’re, like, in the van of, like, the spy van. They’re, like, up there. I can just, like, be, like, yo, guys. Hey. What’s up? Like, I just feel like I have access to all these people in the spiritual realm, and they’re always with me. So whenever you’re getting Jordan, you’re getting all it is. And to add go back to your question about eye flowers, Miley Cyrus song music. When I always thought I would need a boyfriend, a husband, a partner, before I came to Europe. I would need a rich sugar daddy. I would need this. I would need that.
I can’t go alone. It’s romantic to go to Europe. You know? So the fact that I’m out here by myself without a man or a partner, I haven’t even I’m still not ready to date yet until I finish my steps. So I haven’t gone around any dates. I met some guys, and I was kinda trying to meet up with this guy that I met in Brazil, like, in Switzerland, but he goes to me. So I haven’t kinda sad about that, but you said it would wouldn’t it be nice to share this? In the past, I’ve always thought, yes, it would be so nice to have a partner to share all these amazing things with. But you know what I’ve been realizing lately is, yeah, that would be nice and that will happen eventually. But right now, I’m sharing my life with you, Victoria. I’m sharing my life with these work away hosts. I’m sharing my life with my family, my parents. They’re so excited for me that I’m traveling. They’re so supportive of this. My dad started sending me money to help with this adventure, which I was not expecting. And then a lot of my friends are so supportive and so proud of me, like, I am sharing my life with people. Like, I’m sharing my life with amazing people. Like, I don’t I already am sharing my life with an amazing beautiful community. Like, I really am. It’s not I’m not missing anything. I have everything I need right now. I have food to eat. I have a house to sleep in. I have friends. I have family. I have love. I have animals. And, yes, it would be nice to have a intimate, romantic, love partner to share all this with, but it’s just gonna add to what I’m already sharing with other people.

Victoria Volk: I absolutely got full-body chills with you sharing that. And I think that is the most beautiful message. Anyone listening to this can hear today. And that and that is self-love. Right? That is self-love. Opening yourself up to share what you have with where you are right now. Yeah. And that’s what you’re doing. And so thank you because you just It’s such a gift. Like, you’re our share in your life with me and to not want. Right? Isn’t that, like, the isn’t that what peace really is? What other peace feels like is to not have a feeling of want, like to be at peace.

Jordan Brodie: That in Buddhism, they always talk about the four pillars of Buddhism. Buddhism is always about It’s all about the relinquishment of suffering. And suffering is defined as wanting something else outside of us. That is suffering. So when I’m sitting there, yearning for Chase to come back or yearning for Josh to come back or yearning for this guy or yearning for this or yearning for anything that’s not right here physically in front of me right now. I’m in a room by myself talking to you sitting on this bed. This room’s really pretty. It’s I’m this is my present moment. This is what I need to be an acceptance about. This is exactly where I am right now. It’s exactly where I need to be. It’s exactly where I’m supposed to be. This moment has never happened before ever. In this new time, it’s happening right now. This instant present moment. And that’s the present moment is where amazing things happen. It’s where really bad things happen. The present moment is where we need to be. And it’s all that matters because the future will give us anxiety if we obsessed about it and the past will depress us. So so, yeah, it is piece to let go of the wanting. It doesn’t mean we can’t have desires, but when we have desires, I’ve learned it’s important to make a plan of action and set some goals, and then start working towards those goals, but not obsessing about when they’re gonna happen. Because they’re gonna happen if they’re supposed to happen, we can’t control that. And I have my goals and do you have everything I want? And Yeah. Sometimes when I’m sad and lonely, I yearn for a romantic partner and sometimes I’m sad about why Chase, like, why Josh, like, why my why this why the and sometimes I have to stop myself and be like, well, it happened. It is what it is. It did happen, and I have to be in acceptance. Because if I’m not in acceptance, I get depressed, I get sad, I get kiss them. I know my brother and Chase and my aunt Julie and all my loved ones. They loved me so much. And they wanted me to be happy. They really did. They wanted me to have love they wanted me to be free. Josh was very supportive of me as a gay person and very protective. Actually, when I was acting out promiscuously, Josh should be, like, Jordan, that’s not who you are. Like, what are you doing? Like, that’s not my brother. Like, and he really loved me. And Chase too. Like, Chase was really trying to help me get closer to God because he could see how lost and broken I was. An eye cutting. It was a light in a dark place. And my aunt Julie, she was always like Jordan. Don’t hide from us. We know how gay you are. She’s like, you are fabulous. And she’d be like, why are you hiding from us because I was still hiding from everyone. I was the one who needed to accept me and love me. Everyone loves me and loved me so much. They love how gay I am. They love how feminine I am. They love it. I was the one who didn’t love it yet. And I’ve done some work, and I’m still working on that every day, loving myself and accepting myself as my daily journey. And my point is, Julie, Chase or Josh, would not have wanted me to be sad and miserable. They want me to be happy. They want we just celebrate life. They want me to be successful. They want me to be extra. They want me to dance around. They want me to make billions of dollars. They want me to have that a nice guy who takes really good care of me, they want me to be happy. I know that. It’s not a question. And so I know whenever I’m starting to feel sad and I get sad about them, I’ll say, guys, I’ll, like, kinda say I miss you. I’ll express to a friend that I miss them or I’ll write something or I’ll allow myself to cry or this song has been really helpful to me lately. The next right thing from Frozen two. Oh my gosh. That song just gets me. I listen to it every day sometimes. It just really helps with these emotions because that’s all we can do sometimes. Is the next right thing? What is the next right thing? I know after this, I got some stuff to do. That’s all we could do is the next right thing. And, yeah, I know that that they would be happy and mad with me. I’ll say one more thing too. I’ve learned this recently. There’s a great docu-series, by the way. On Disney plus that Morgan Freeman does called God, and he talks about lunch of different religions and their views, not just Christianity. He talks about Buddhism. He goes to India. I forgot the name of the city. It’s like Varnasse or Varsini India, which is one of the spiritual capitals of India. And he talks about in Hinduism, how they celebrate. They celebrate death. It’s not a taboo. It’s not this grim, sad thing. They believe and after life, they believe it’s a journey into a new thing, a new place. So they is a passage. They’re excited for their loved ones to go on and continue. It’s a celebration for them. And I kind of I have in American culture and eastern western culture death is seen as this morbid sad thing. Taboo talk topic, it’s awkward. We don’t know how to handle grief. We bat we don’t know how to handle it. We don’t have these social systems in place. Whereas in Hinduism, it’s celebrated. They’re like, hell yeah, like, I loved one died. They get to go on. They could have a new experience. It’s like going to college or something. I’m like, we’re getting a new job. It’s like in a new thing. It’s citing. So I’ve been trying to think about that with Chase and Josh and Julie and my other loved ones. It’s like, I make I’m excited for them. What are they doing now? They’re probably having so much fun. Like, who knows? Like, what? Yeah.

Victoria Volk: I had a psychic medium on my podcast, her name’s Siri Burnson, and she spoke of a client of hers at one time who hurt this the client’s son had completed suicide. And the mother was just so concerned that her son was not in heaven. And he came through through the psychic and Derseri and she said he wants you to know that he’s in school. Mhmm. He described to through to Siri, like, where he is at, it’s school, that whatever lessons he didn’t learn in the three d he is learning now. And I’ve actually heard that different said a different way multiple times through other psychic mediums or through people who have had near death experiences or people who have actually died and come back who have talked about it like, looking like this experience or being this experience of, like, school.

Jordan Brodie: I love that. So where I’m at in Normandy, the host he teaches yoga and chi dong, Chinese like it’s kinda like tight. And then he does acupuncture. I did she gong on Monday with him Monday morning, and I had a spiritual experience. It’s like she energy and Chinese spirituality is God. It’s the energy of life, it’s the electricity, the spirit electricity, the realm that runs through you. And Shi Gang is just, like, movements like this. It’s just It’s not a hard exercise, but the whole point of it is the connectedness between heaven and earth, like the sky and earth And I had an epiphany during on my day. Because they always say the spirit realm. Right? It’s like energy. It’s not heaven. It’s whatever you believe it. It’s the afterlife. It’s it’s not tangible to the like you said, the three d plane, the this plane that we’re in right now. It’s another realm. The earth the real realm that we’re in right now is you know, tangible. We can touch things. Our blessing humans serve a huge placed in the universe because we’re the only creatures and animals I believe too that are the conduit the middle the middle ground between the spiritual realm and the real realm. We get to experience both. We get to experience the physical pain in existence and the spiritual pain. When we tap into God energy and we tap into our loved ones or past, it’s a blessing. It’s a huge honor to be human. And I had an epiphany that that’s what it means to be human. To be human means to be a conduit from this spiritual realm. And the and the physical realm. It’s a blessing and we have a purpose here to take care of each other and to take care of the animals who aren’t as advanced as us, I think it’s our responsibility to care for the animals, the and for the people that’s fortunate, the people that aren’t born with legs, the people that are born with diseases, if you have a privilege and you have legs or you have money you have resources, it’s our responsibility to take care of them. I had just had this whole epiphany during qingong, which is like so that’s why it’s good to be open-minded too. Like, I was raised, Christian, I read the bible. I do believe in Jesus. I do pray to God. I do believe in that. But I do think it’s important to be open to other things that aren’t out of your comfort zone to, like, new cultures and new things because the Chinese have been around for way longer than Americans have, so they’ve had plenty of time to think about things. They’ve I’ve so it’s, like, I had this a mate. I highly recommend Xevon for anyone. You really feel like the energy. Like, I felt you can feel it. Like, you can feel God. It’s so cool. I love it. Anyway, it kinda got off a tangent, but yeah.

Victoria Volk: I recently did Tai Chi at a retreat women’s retreat and I really phoned. Okay.

Jordan Brodie: Takes you off.

Victoria Volk: I really like that too. Can you just share a little bit for those listening? How does work away work? Because First of all, it’s amazing that you had that experience. You had that epiphany because of work away. Like, you’re experiencing all of these things and meeting all of these people because you took a chance on this opportunity to do this. So can you just explain a little bit how it worked? Like, you know, do you have to pay obviously, you probably have to pay to get yourself overseas and, like, how does that work?

Jordan Brodie: Yeah. I’ll explain. Okay. So this is something I’ve been wanting to do for, like, seven years. I don’t know how I discovered it, but there’s a website called workaway.info. It’s the website workaway.info, not .com .info. It’s been around for a really long time. It’s a social media platform. You can make a free profile, but in order to message host or message people, you have to pay fifty-six dollars or sixty dollars for the whole year. It’s like a subscription. And what that pays for is basically like, it helps filter out, like, kind of shaving people.

Victoria Volk: They’re vetting the people that get on that platform.

Jordan Brodie: Exactly. Because And then I there’s some type of background check process. I don’t know, actually, how that works. I don’t know if I don’t remember filling out a background check form, but they might do that. They do some type of thing verification process. I don’t remember. But It’s just a website anyone can apply for an e make a profile. I put on my profile. I’m good with children. I can cook. I’m good with animals. I worked at the doggy daycare. My grandpa had a farm when I was little. He told me to work when I was fourteen. I was always working on the tractor and the grass, this kind of stuff. My parents would always have me do tasks. I explained all of this and I explained my interest, and I’m learning French, and I know a little bit of Spanish. I put all this in my profile. You just make a profile. And then there’s workaway hosts. So people all over the world. There’s some in Austin, Texas. They’re all over the world. Every country, South Africa. There’s this really cool one near Cape Town. This guy has a Safari company where she takes people on Safari tours. And he just needs people’s help. The maximum hours you’re supposed to work is twenty hours a week, by the way. They’re not supposed to ask for anymore. And so for me, it’s usually about four to five hours a day, five days a week, Monday to Friday. I work about. So it’s not much. And this guy in South Africa wants people to help do marketing on for his safari business. There’s people who want nannies for their kids. There’s people who have the in Switzerland, Bern, I was helping her Flyer for her. She was starting a high school in her area. I was helping pass out flyers in the city center. And they help them cook, can I help them clean, and help them go shopping? The first work away, she could I was helped She broke her leg last year as older lady. So I was helping her with things she couldn’t do because of that her leg pain. And there’s all kinds of jobs, all of it. So you just make a profile, you pay for it, and then you message place you you can search by country where you wanna go, and then you just start messaging host. You say, hey, I’m interested in this and it’s completely volunteering. So it’s a way to get around. They want people to stay for longer than two weeks, usually two or three weeks, a month, two months, three months. One girl is staying here for eight months because they have long-term projects and they want someone to stay for a while. And it’s a lot of very interesting people that do the hosting. And you’re helping out. You’re like, living in, like, living and helping. And you get food, you have access to food, and a place to stay, but you’re volunteering so you I don’t have to get a special visa. Like, if you if I get paid from someone, I’ll have to get a work visa in this country. Wherever so I don’t have to get a visa because I’m volunteering. I when you come here, I say I’m I’m traveling. I’m a tourist because I technically am still traveling. I’m a tourist, but I am working in exchange to stay here. It’s just kind of a loophole. I feel like I found like hitch hiker’s guide to the galaxy, and then come on. What was my thumb? But I am offering some ands it’s pretty scary, but you just wanna make sure you message them. And I’ve made sure to have video chat with each of the host before going and seeing if I got along with them. There were some people I said no to because I didn’t feel comfortable. I didn’t want anyone that just wanted me to crash and pooch because I knew that would harbor it with them in them. I wanted to work. I have to work twenty hours a week. Because I don’t want to freeload. And, yeah, that’s what I’m doing. It’s a great way to travel because I’ve always been wanting to do this for seven years. I was terrified to do it. I almost canceled this trip. So many times, I had just lost my job. I was in limbo. I used my last bit of unemployment money. To buy my plane tickets out here. And you can get some Gritty cheap tickets to Europe. What you do is you type your city in the US, in flights dot Google.com. Type in your city. And in destination, you can put Europe. So you don’t have to put the country, and it’ll show you what the cheapest flight to fly into. And I found a really cheap flight to Norway. It was only three hundred dollars. And then and then from Norway, there was, like, ten dollar fight from Norway to London. And then March, that’s how I got here. So so you can do that. Like, you just find the cheapest place to fly to. And once you’re over here, they have a airlines called Ryanair, which is kinda like Spirit Airlines in US. It’s just really cheap flights and ten dollars, twenty dollars, thirty dollar flights. It’s two other like, my flight to Edinburg was, like, forty dollars. Like, I’m going at the end of this month or next month. Wow. So So, yeah, my next workaways in Scotland. I can only be in Europe for ninety days because I don’t have citizenship and I don’t have a visa. But in the UK, you can be there for six months without a Visa. So I’m gonna go to UK for at least ninety days and then come back to Europe, and I’m just gonna bounce around between UK and Europe until I get my citizenship. Once I get my citizenship, I can get a job out here I can get an apartment, get a house. So so that’s what I’m doing. And it’s a great way to travel. I recommend it for anyone. Because you get to have a cultural experience, you get to meet locals, you get to hang out with some I’m not just in a hotel and going to guided tours. Like, I’m meeting locals. I’m experiencing the culture. I’m experiencing the history. Like, I’m in a small town. You get to feel what it’s like to live in another country. And I’ve always been very interested in how of first generation American feels like an immigrant, someone who moves to America without like, knowing the language. I’ve met people like that and they’re so inspiring me for me. They’re such hard workers they barely know the language and they have to build an entire life and they’re usually sending money back to their family. They’re just inspiring amazing wonderful people to me. I’ve always been fascinated with what with them. So I think that’s why I’m so attracted to being here in Europe and kind of being an immigrant here. I don’t like the word expat. It sounds too I technically am, but I don’t I’m not yet, but I don’t it sounds to, like, like, boosie, whatever.
Like, I’m an immigrant. I’m an immigrant as someone who migrates to another place. Like, It’s there’s no bad terminology about it. Alright. Nextiva, whatever you wanna call me about. World traveler. World traveler? Jitsi. Jitsi. An Experiancer. Listen to ladyaga Jitsi a lot.

Victoria Volk: This has been so fun catching up with you, and I’m excited to see how this experience will change you. Over the next year. And I am actually, like, let’s plan a catch up maybe not as long as two years, maybe in eighteen months or something like that. I would love to see. Yeah.

Jordan Brodie: I’d love to see you another one in a year. Yeah. It’s exciting. I’m I’m curious to know for the listeners, like like, what people what their experience with grief is and traveling and I’m really curious to know if I’m the only one who feels this like connection with, like, with my loved ones that have passed. Like, if you will if I’m just kinda delusional about all this or.

Victoria Volk: No. I can even tell you just people who I’ve talked to and had who have been on this podcast that that’s not true, that you’re not alone in that.

Jordan Brodie: Are thinking about them a lot. And, yeah, no one really prepares me for it. And it’s kinda like a splinter. Like, you just gotta rip out which just happens.

Victoria Volk: It’s very true.

Jordan Brodie: Well, thank you. Yes. So wonderful.

Victoria Volk: Yes. Thank you so much for being here and for catching us up on your life. And I look forward to seeing what workaway brings to you in the future? Because I think it’s

Jordan Brodie: I’m still working on music. I’m actually looking for recording studios right now because I have I’ve have a song written that I want to record And so I’m still doing my music stuff. Like, I haven’t given up on my influencer music artist’s dreams. I’m just trying to make a more deeper, more personal brand than just, like, like, some candy, pot, like, superficial, like, three d like, just two-dimensional person. I’m just trying to be authentically myself, but I’m still gonna do music and stuff. One thing I haven’t done, sadly, since Chase and Josh died, I haven’t really written about them. Or about their death or about any of that. I want to. I’ve been kind of procrastinating and printing it off. One of my favorite artists is Grimes. I don’t know if you know her, but she’s amazing. I love her. She’s so wonderful. And I learned this that her first album of Libya was written in Vancouver, Washington, her best friend died from a drug overdose, and she was to deal with her grief. She locked herself in her apartment for, like, a week and wrote oblivion, which was her first like, landmark album that, like, blew her up. And I’ve been wanting to do this. But I haven’t known how. I have actually brings up some pain like mention like, I’ve been afraid my impostor syndrome says, I’m not good enough to produce all the songs by myself. That I need a microphone. I need this. I need that. I need this. Like, there’s all these excuses that I have. And I really hopefully, by the next time we talk, I will have done a lock-in for a week and written about Jason. Josh, and Julie, and my other loved ones. I’ve written about Julie. She is my aunt. I didn’t really mention that. I mentioned to her a little bit. Right? She died, like, a while ago, something overdose. But, like, I didn’t I still haven’t written about Jason Josh, and I really I think I need to. I’m kind of waiting for the right time. It’s gonna happen when it’s supposed to happen. And but this next song I’m doing is called it’s it’s gonna be like a chill kind of pop song like asking people to get to know me because I want people to get to know me. That’s why I love doing this podcast because I really hope some of my friends and loved ones watch this and it helps me connect with more people because I want an audience that’s real and not superficial. Like, we all have a reason why we’re connected. It’s not just because I’m hot or just because I have good music. It’s like, they have a reason. You know?

Victoria Volk: Well, and I imagine that the loss of your loved ones aside that just traveling over the next year or two that what you experience will inspire your writing for sure.

Jordan Brodie: Oh, definitely. And I haven’t really written about traveling yet. I’d like to, but I’ve been writing. I’ve written a few songs yesterday. I’ve been writing. Yeah.

Victoria Volk: Yeah. Let the environment inspire you because it sounds like it is, so that’s wonderful.

Jordan Brodie: Well, thank you, Victoria. Bye now.

Victoria Volk: Thank you. Love you too. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life, much love.

Ep 121 | Christian de la Huerta

Christian de la Huerta | Awakening the Soul of Power

 

 

SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:

Christian is one of nine children born and raised in Cuba during turbulent times and in the Catholic faith.

His parents instilled in him the importance of excelling and reading. These early lessons laid a foundation. However, those lessons also set the stage for a desire to escape and not be seen.

Introversion and depression plagued his adolescence, as was his knowledge of being gay. With courage, he came out to his family. Christian speaks about this challenging time in his life and the ones that came to be in the future, including the recent (and unexpected) decline of his mother’s cognitive health.

Through his breath and deep, internal work, Christian paved a path to personal empowerment and now leads others in doing the same. Through the lens of 30+ years of experience, he shares two of the biggest hurdles others have to personal freedom and empowerment.

RESOURCES:

CONNECT:

________

NEED HELP?

  • National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
  • Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7 support via text message. Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a trained Crisis Counselor

If you are struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, free resources are available HERE.

Are you enjoying the podcast? Check out my bi-weekly newsletter, The Unleashed Letters.

CONNECT WITH VICTORIA: 

 

Victoria Volk 0:00
Thank you for tuning in to grieving voices. Today my guest is Christian de la Huerta. He has 30 years experience and is a sought after spiritual teacher, personal transformation coach and leading voice in the breathwork community. He has traveled the world offering inspiring and transformational retreats combining psychological and spiritual teachings with lasting and life changing effects, and award winning critically acclaimed author he has spoken at numerous universities and conferences and on the TEDx stage. His new book, awakening the soul of power has described by multiple Grammy Award winner Gloria Estefan as a balm for the soul of anyone searching for truth and answers to life’s difficult questions, and has received a novelist Book Award and a nonfiction book award. So thank you so much for being here. And we are gonna go deep today.

Christian de la Huerta 0:52
Thank you so much, Victoria. I’m so happy to be here with you.

Victoria Volk 0:56
I actually really want to start, because I know you’ve done a lot of these podcast episodes, interviews, and then on the stage and things like that. But I really want to get to know you as a child, because I think our childhood really shapes our adulthood because adulthood is childhood reenactments. I say a lot. So I’m interested in learning about you as a child. So would you describe yourself as a child and your life? What it was like, for you?

Christian de la Huerta 1:24
Yeah, that’s, that’s interesting. I was I was born in Cuba. And so lived in a communist regime for the first 10 years of my life. And I’m one part of a large family of one of nine kids and only 12 years between the oldest and the youngest, and my mom was pretty much pregnant the whole time. Which I can’t even imagine having any kids, I’m happy if I don’t kill my plants when I travel. The scene so it was it was a beautiful and challenging in different ways. Childhood, I’m really appreciative of the fact that we grew up without watching TV, we had a TV, but there was nothing worth watching, really. So we grew up reading and I’m really grateful for that. We grew up creating, inventing our games and our pastimes and spending a lot of time out outside. So you know, when I see some of my kids in my life, you know, just like with their nose to the to the screen, just lost in there’s, it’s, it saddens me a bit. To see that. I was, you know, it was interesting, because my parents were involved in counter revolutionary activity. So they were conspiring against the revolution, or the Communist revolution, there was this kind of interesting push pull between, like an implicit, wanting to be seen and wanting to excel, like there was sort of sort of a family message like most of us were, like, really good students. I think we all were, and then because of their cattle revolute with the right kind of revolutionary activities, there was an innate, another message not to be seen too much. So So I see that, that, you know, I’m basically introverted, which, which means that you know, that I that I process internally that I need time off, if I don’t have time alone, that’s when I’m liable to lose my center. And so this was an interesting childhood me surrounded by kids and then having this also introverted streak like looking fighting for I was looking for my own space. And what I think your your, your audience might relate to also is that my adolescence, if you don’t, going forward a little bit, was one long depression with suicidal fantasies, like, I don’t think I know, I wouldn’t have done anything about it. But I did have thoughts about not not being alive and sort of like that escape fantasy, and and what’s important for your audience, because another another depth of the work that you do is that flash forward now, no matter what the details, or the circumstances are in my life, whether a relationship works out where it doesn’t, whether a project succeeds or it fails in quotes. I never, ever, ever questioned my sense of self, my level of self love self acceptance, are established, and unshakable and so that I know that that we can all break out of that stuff, the traumatic the difficult stuff, the self esteem, stuff from from childhood that all that stuff can be healed and transcended.

Victoria Volk 4:47
In your TED talk, you spoke a lot about this fight, flight or freeze and would you express that that was your adolescence, like was it like a, like a lack of stupid ability or security, like what was the? What was the grief? Of of your experience, then?

Christian de la Huerta 5:07
Yeah, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t say that I was in that. Maybe No, I didn’t know that I would say that it was in the fight flight or freeze mode. I think it was just numbed out. And for me, it was an existential struggle. You know, I knew at a young age that I was gay. And I was raised in a very Catholic, very Catholic environment. So trying to reconcile, you know, those two parts of who I am, there was a part of me that that’s always had a spiritual sense, sense of mission sets of helping humanity making a difference in other people’s lives, with serving the sacred that’s interpreted that in different points in my life. So there was a huge part of me, and this other part of me that was told by the religion in which I was raised, that I was, you know, another I’m an abomination in the eyes of God, that I was gonna burn in hell for eternity. So that was the struggle, which, you know, looking back on it, I’m grateful for that now, for several reasons. But one of the reasons is that it forced me to struggle with those tough, existential questions of, you know, who am I? What am I here for? What’s life about? What, why do we do the things we do at a younger age that most of us have to struggle with. And so, for that, I’m grateful. And it also gives me an ability and an ability to deeply empathize with another person’s pain or their grief, you know, the details might be different, but the experience is similar, for most of us, so so I’m grateful for all of that.

Victoria Volk 6:43
Where you accepted your loved ones?

Christian de la Huerta 6:48
Eventually, yes, I mean, my siblings immediately, my parents, you know, it took a little bit longer for it to, you know, for my mom to get to the place of, I just want my kids to be happy, which, you know, which that foundation was always there, so that I know that I’m blessed in that area that many other people don’t have, which was that I knew that the love was there. And no matter what, even though I spent years, you know, with with that deep, dark secret, not telling them, but once I finally did come out to them, you know, it’s it took some navigating for sure. And my father was a psychiatrist. So there were other layers around that of, you know, his philosophy about that, but but I knew that deep down inside the love, was there always.

Victoria Volk 7:43
Can I ask for those listening? Who might get a sense that their child may be gay? Or be struggling with their sexual identity? What is one piece of advice that you would give them? Is it to confront it, and just start the conversation or allow the child to express it in their own time?

Christian de la Huerta 8:11
You know, it’s hard to make a blanket choice about that, or suggestion about that? I think it depends. My inclination, my initial inclination would be to let it let it come out in the child, but I’ve also heard stories where the father, the father, or the mother, just opening up the space and, you know, creating an environment which, in which the kid feel safe, and you know, kind of setting them up, to be able to come out to them, but that’s also very helpful. Here’s the thing that I think will be helpful, because I know that the reason that all of us you know, but especially parents, you know, struggle with that, how can I accept this in my child, when my religion may be telling you that this is wrong, or that it’s sinful, or whatever. So it’s going to take work, right? It’s gonna, it’s, for me, it was it took years to get to that point of self accepting and reconciling my sexuality and my spirituality. But But here’s what’s really key is that a lot, there’s about six, and I’m going to go immediately to the majority religion and in this country, and the West, which is Christianity. There are basically six biblical texts that are interpreted, and I would say misinterpreted, to condemn homosexuality. And the thing to remember about about this is that they’ve been taken out of their cultural and historical context, and they’re very selectively interpreted. What allowed me to get through this into healers and myself is that I started doing a lot of research and discovered and realized that before the patriarchal times and cultures and religions, people that we today would call gay or lesbian or LGBT, or Q or whatever. We’re not only spiritually inclined, but wherever actually honored, respected, in some cases revered for the roles of spiritual service and spiritual leadership that they played all over the world. So my first book was called coming out spiritually, and dives deeply into that, because there are examples of that all over the world and all inhabited continent. And so that begins, like, once we’re able to reconcile that for ourselves as parents, then it becomes easier to arrive at that point is like, you know what, all right, well, I don’t know about this stuff, and where these teachings come from, but I know the love I have for my child, no matter what, and I help them to arrive to a place of inner peace with that.

Victoria Volk 10:43
Isn’t that the goal? Just to find inner peace with it on both sides? Right? Yes, yes. It’s better than creating, destroying the bridge between that relationship, there’s ripple effects in that for sure.

Christian de la Huerta 10:57
Oh, my God, and it’s so unnecessary. And so unnecessary. By the way, it’s important to remember to that because the more I think about this, the more that I realized that homophobia and misogyny are two sides of the same coin. And the more that I think about it, I think misogyny is really the deeper one. Because if you look at any culture, any religion, that persecute homosexuality, or you know, LGBTQ people, 100% correlation, they are the same ones, where women do not have equal status. And so, you know, taking one of those, you know, what are called the holy text of terrorists, those six biblical injunction injunctions that are used to condemn same sex behavior. One of them is like, you know, you should not lie with a man as you do with a woman. But what about two women together? You know, that, that doesn’t even come up? And why is that? Because at that time, in that culture, you know, women weren’t even human. Women were property. And so am I going to base my my choices about what’s right, and what’s wrong on stuff that was written, you know, 1000s of years ago, that was translated and re translated and mistranslated, stuff was taken out stuff was put into those those those, you know, sacred texts that were written by humans. And so I’m personally not, you know, and even if we, if we flash forward to today, you know, for, you know, like, the many examples of homophobic, straight men, you tell him, Oh, two women, or you show him a movie with two women, it’s like, Ooh, I want some of that. But how different two men together, it’s like, wow, you know, either either, you got to shoot them, you got to kill them, get rid of them, or the yuck factor comes out. So why is that? And I think is because of two women together. We’re not a threat to the status quo. Right? Because again, they weren’t seemed to hold the same kind of amount of power in the world and still don’t, which connects to the book that, you know, that I just published last year, whereas two men in their mind, I think they believe that one of them is willingly forfeiting giving up their superior male status, and that is a threat to the status quo.

Victoria Volk 13:19
Do you think that if men, just straight men in general got more in touch with their femininity, their feminine side? You know, the yin and yang, equally balanced? Do you think that would change things?

Christian de la Huerta 13:39
Of course it would. And, and, you know, because we’re part of the cosmos, the cosmos is equally balanced between masculine and feminine energies. So that means that those masculine and feminine energies course through every one of us, no matter what kind of body we’re in, and for some reason, you know, at the rise of the patriarchy, the feminine was made, was turned us into weakness into something less than, and whereas, whereas, you know, from my perspective, if you want to talk, strength and power and resilience and courage, let’s talk about the power of creation that lies in a female body and to lighten things up a little bit, you know, read about an interview of Betty White Pass to not long ago, the one and only inimitable Betty White, but apparently she was in one of those group interviews and somebody said something about having balls and she goes, Wait a minute, I don’t know where we got this connection between having balls and encouraging strength and strength you thumped those little things in the guy collapses bends over in pain. You want to talk courage and strength, let’s talk vaginas. Those things take a pounding.

Victoria Volk 14:56
You know, just yesterday, my soul i you actually mentioned her in your TED Talk Joan of Arc. And so my daughter, she’s going to be confirmed. I’m actually a convert to Catholicism. But I, you know, I struggled spiritually and religiously for many years because my dad died when I was a child, and I was sexually assaulted and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I wrote off God, I was angry at God, and I didn’t, you know, that relationship, I cut it off. And so I struggled for a long time, but I found something I could set a foundation of faith in. And it’s still evolving, it’s always going to evolve. And I think that’s where we kind of get stuck in our thought process. And then in our, we get stuck in our ways. Like, this is how it is, this is how it’s always gonna be. But I feel like I’m more spiritual now than I would say, I’m religious, you know, and that took a long time to get there. Anyway. Sure. My daughter, my daughter chose Joan of Arc, though as her patron saint. So anyway, I just said to her, I said to her yesterday, she has to do this paper on her and I just said, you know, well, you know, she was she’s like, she’s a badass. She, I don’t know how, how I will describe her. But I did say she has lady ball. That she had lady balls, you know, when you mentioned that, it’s like, oh, my gosh, my language, right. Like it is. It is in so this is my question, because I wasn’t gonna go here. But I feel like it’s, it’s just coming up. So currently, there’s this all this talk about gender neutral clothing, and I haven’t even seen the story I it was just shared with me and, and my thought is let the kids wear what they want to wear. Just let them wear what they want to wear. Let them express themselves. You know, here it’s us as parents and society, that places these places, children in a box, well, let’s just give them gender neutral, because they look male, and they they see male, so let’s just put blue clothes on him. But as adults, we were all kinds of colors. I’m wearing blue today. That make me male. You know what I mean? Like, it’s not a big deal as adults. It’s ridiculous. Why do we make it a big deal? I think we as a society, we make mountains out of molehills, where there doesn’t need to be just compassion, and kindness and free freedom of expression. Right? I have a picture of my child sheet my youngest girl, she, I don’t know, one time, it’s one of my favorite pictures. But she was dressed literally like a clown. Like just mismatched, and stripes and solids and all kinds of it. And she looked silly, ridiculous. And she had like a wellness check that day, I let her dress like that. I don’t care. Like what, you know, people get so afraid of what it what it says about them. You know? So I think that’s yeah, anyway, that’s my schpeel. What are your thoughts on that?

Christian de la Huerta 18:01
I think you’re absolutely right. It’s ridiculous and tragic. How much power we give away to others, and how much weight we give to what other people think how many choices we make, based on what we think they think. Right? So it’s all made up in our minds, and based on whether other people are gonna like it or not. And to me, it goes back to self esteem, right, the stronger our sense of self, the deeper that our level of self acceptance, the less and less and less that we care what anybody else thinks. And, and we get to that place of freedom, which I think is what we all have, we’re all longing for freedom just to be who we are, wherever we are. Because we spent so much time like with, you know, with masks, and being this way at work, and this other way, with, with our friends this other way with our family this other way with, with our lovers, it’s exhausting. It’s right, what if we were just able to, to be who we are, right, of course, selectively, unconsciously and intelligently. We don’t have to share every part of who we are with everybody in our lives. But it’s such a relief, we spend so much energy, worried about what other people think and then presenting ourselves in a way that we think they’re going to like exhausting.

Victoria Volk 19:21
Exactly. You mentioned in your TED Talk, too, which I’ll put that in the show notes link to that. But you mentioned you’re speaking the language of Grief Recovery. When you were talking about are you familiar with grief recovery method at all?

Christian de la Huerta 19:36
Not the method method specifically my degrees in psychology so and from personal experience I’ve also dealt with you know with grief, but I don’t know that particular methodology Grief Recovery, recover.

Victoria Volk 19:46
Okay. It Well, it’s based on the Grief Recovery handbook. But you were talking about particularly there was a spot where you’re talking about drugs and alcohol and shopping and gambling like all these ways that we call opened to distract ourselves from what we’re feeling. And I’m like, Oh my gosh, she’s speaking the language of Grief Recovery. Because in Grief Recovery, we call those stirpes short term energy relieving behaviors. And so as a teenager, when you are going through all of this struggle with self self acceptance, and you know, this tog, and what were some of the ways you were coping with that.

Christian de la Huerta 20:24
Yeah, you know, that’s, that’s a good, great conversation too, because we all do that, right? We, like most of us, I’m gonna say most of us, like, have become really adept at running away from numbing out or emotions. So and there’s so many creative ways in which we do that, right, that we numb out and not to not feel to not remember whether it’s substances, drugs, alcohol, food, whether it’s behaviors, exercise, social media, shopping, work, workaholism. Yeah, yeah, and not that there’s anything intrinsically wrong with any of those. It’s how we do it, how we a relationship to all those things, TV, and, you know, all of them have potential to be have good or negative effects not so good effect. I think for me, I definitely hit at my books. And I love you know, the fantasies science fiction, it was it was easy for me just get lost in these worlds, whether it was Lord of the Rings are the foundation series are so many other series like that, that I could just go get lost in book after book after book after book for your Pisces, no, I’m a Gemini.

Victoria Volk 21:42
Oh my son’s a Gemini, but just how you’re describing getting lost in the fantasy. I’m like, okay, that’s, that’s like me.

Christian de la Huerta 21:48
And you know, and it’s understandable, it’s easier to go through it with, you know, to not want to feel stuff that wasn’t pleasant, or to remember stuff that, you know, may not have been great experience. So it’s understandable that we want to run away from that stuff, but the price we pay, the reason that it’s not an effective strategy, as you know, is that that stuff doesn’t go away, just because we don’t want to deal with it. So we stuffed it in we stuff our emotions, and you know, what used to be spiritual teaching that everything is energy. Now we know from quantum physics, that everything is energy. And we know that energy cannot be destroyed. And by everything, I mean everything like this cherub sitting on the table, or the computer, the body, the emotion, even though it might feel solid, it’s just energy, just vibration. And so whenever we stuff those emotions, whenever we numb out and run away from them, it doesn’t go away. It gets it gets lodged in the tissues of the body. And after years, and decades of doing that, we walk around with layers upon layers upon even more layers of repressed emotional crap, and unhealed past situations. And here we are trying to have a relationship in the present moment. And all of it is getting filtered through that lifetime of unhealed trauma, and repressed emotions like Yikes, how any relationship can work is it boggles my mind, because we haven’t been taught how to hold on how to approach them. And we certainly haven’t been taught how to clear ourselves of that cauldron of repressed emotion, because what happens is we suppress, suppress, suppress, and then the next unfortunate one just says something to us the wrong the wrong way and boom, volcanic eruption. And because our, to our relationships, sometimes irreparably, or suppress, suppress, suppress, suppress, that energy has to come out, and it begins to start seeping out of the body and showing up as physical symptoms, like cancer, heart attacks, ulcers, so we’ve got to get this we’ve got to get a relationship to our emotions and accept that they’re not weakness. Emotions are not good. They’re not bad. They’re not strength, they’re not weakness. They’re just energies coursing through our bodies, we get into trouble with them when we when we suffer, because what happens when we stuff sadness, as you know, it congeals it turns into grief. And when we stuff anger, it turns into rage and we walk around like a raging cauldrons. So better to nip it in the bud and learn how to first identify what we’re feeling because most of us are clueless about our emotions, including my psychiatrist, that including myself up until I started doing this conscious work 20 years 30 years ago, I had no idea no clue as to what I was feeling. I couldn’t tell you what I was feeling because I had no idea and so we can talk about processes, you know, like simple techniques to become more emotionally intelligent to increase our EQ and then learn how to communicate them responsibly like owning their our emotions, so that nobody can make us feel any anything, unless there’s some little button there that they’re triggering. But it’s here, right? So we’ve got to own that stuff. And then learning how to communicate them responsibly not not courageously, because it takes courage for sure, responsibly just not having a tantrum like a two year old and in a way that they can be heard that they can be received. And so, so level of mastery, so it’s the opposite of weakness, it’s a level of mastery.

Victoria Volk 25:27
I love that. You said so much that we talk about in Grief Recovery to just you know, the implode or explode, that’s we either implode or we explode. We either suffer from disease and illness and you know, all these symptoms, these physical symptoms, or we explode and have these dherbs Right, these behaviors and angers in anger can be a sturb I was very angry as a child and I grew up. I was very angry as an adult too. And if solidly I yeah, I would argue that at the root of grief and sadness and, and fear and anxiety is grief, like all of those emotions. It just is the embodiment of grief. And I always say to like grief was our pandemic long before COVID-19, long before your teenage years. And growing up, that was just the start of your experience with grief. But there’s more to your story. And I would like to get there. So you had shared in your information with me that your brother, you had lost your brother when he was 26? you mind sharing that story with us?

Christian de la Huerta 26:31
Yeah, of course. And I want to say to that there’s that it’s important for us to realize that there is there is an end to suffering. Right? Like there is an end to that. Not so much for sadness, like there’s always going to be stuff in life, that’s going to be sad, that’s going to evoke those emotions in US people are gonna come people are gonna go crazy traumatic stuff, crisis level stuff is going to happen in the world, as we’re witnessing right now. And global pandemic wars, the things that humans do to other humans, it’s just like boggle the mind. So what once we get to the level where we can feel our emotions, we are no longer running away from them, or numbing them out or stuffing them? Well, we can just let them course through us, then we can get to that place of freedom, where we just allow those energies to course through us and we don’t get stuck in and and so yes, you know that what happened with my brother and my nephew? Later, it’s just stuff that shouldn’t happen. You know, my brother was 26. And he drowned in a kind of freaky boat accident, riverboat accident and attempts in London. And I can’t even imagine, of course, we’re all impacted. But I can’t even begin to imagine what it’s like for a parent to lose a child. I don’t have any kids myself, have many kids in my life. But no, none that are mine, so to speak, because and then I witnessed that again with my sister, my nephew was also around 2627. He was 27 incredible. I mean, both of them really creative and smart. My my nephew shown because he had these amazing leadership qualities. He his passion was being a DMT. He was a firefighter DMT gave up a scholarship to Harvard because of his grades, because that was what he really wanted to do. And at 27, he, his wife was seven months pregnant with their first child, which they never met. He got this really aggressive form of brain cancer. And within weeks, like four or five weeks, it was gone to everybody’s Chuck. And again, like how do what does one do with that, of course, it’s sad, of course, takes the parents years degree that stuff, some of that lingering grief doesn’t ever really leave you we heal it for sure. But there are layers of the sadness and the missing somebody like that. And I guess I guess what I’m saying is that the more work that I did on myself, the more that I was able to get to that place of feeling these incredibly sad emotions and not be stuck with them. Either we can we can weave it into the fabric of our lives and realize that one thing we know for sure, is that life is going to continue throwing curveballs our way, whether it’s a global pandemic or a 26 year old getting brain cancer or an an unexpected drowning like there is not one thing that any of us can do about that. So we can that can help us add you know the to the feeling of grievous grief and sadness, it can add a layer of feeling helpless, and even some people feel victimized by life. Like I got such a horrible deck of cards this lifetime. And if only this hadn’t happened or that had happened if I had only been born in a different place a different time, a different culture. You finally You know, the system was set up differently. As long as we’re doing that, if only and feeling victimized by life, we’re giving our power away. And sometimes even to the perpetrators, as you know, as long as we’re holding them responsible for our emotions for our state of being. And it’s not to minimize any of that, or to excuse anything. If we want to be free, we’ve got to get to that place of healing and acceptance. And one thing that helps to reframe that is knowing that no matter what happens going forward, no matter what new curveballs come our way, no matter what happened in the past, we always, always get to choose how we show up in response and that element of choice, just remembering that and knowing that it’s liberating, and it’s empowering.

Victoria Volk 30:49
And I just had a thought to it when you are someone who isn’t there yet, in their heart and their mind, because forgiveness, too, can be very, very difficult for people. Again, like you said, it always comes down to choice you can you can have grief in the back seat, you can, because it’s going to follow you, right? You take you everywhere you go. But you have a choice, if you’re going to continue to look in the rearview mirror at it. That’s where you can look forward to but what if what if you’re stuck looking at the rearview mirror, I think that’s where finding support in someone who is a little further along than you, who maybe is an example of of where you’d like to be in your life. So when you were going through these losses, had you already been at this place in your life with the breath work and on your spiritual journey and things like that, like had you because we never fully arrived? Right? But had you already started.

Christian de la Huerta 31:46
In this in the case of my brother’s death, it was synchronous, it’s right around that time, is when I did breathwork for the first time and were in when I started to, to reclaim my spirituality, right, because like many people and like you were referring to, I threw the baby out with a baptismal water, I didn’t know that there was a difference between religion and spirituality. And I didn’t know that spirituality is just an inherent part of who we are. That is just as ludicrous for you to for me to have tried to repress and reject and run away from my sexuality, as it was to ignore it and repress it in in with my spirituality. It’s just part of who we are as humans. So yeah, I did have much better tools in those situations. And I want to go back to something I want to highlight something you just said, which I think is really important, because we just hit on the two biggest hurdles on the on the on the journey to freedom and personal empowerment. One is that victimization, you know, poor me, woe is me relationship to life. The other one that you mentioned is forgiveness. Because we know we’ve heard this, we’ve heard that forgiveness is really for us. But how do we forgive? You know, the what feels unforgivable? How do we do that, because if we think about it, as long as we’re holding someone, right, looking in that rearview mirror, where we’re holding somebody over the fire for what they did, or failed to do, our hand is also getting burned or hand is in the fire. So, so it helps us to understand the necessity for forgiveness. Another way to convey that visual, if you think of the heart center, not the organ or the chakra, the energy center, it opens and closes in the same way that like the shutter of a camera, or the iris of the eye. If I shut my heart to my sexual abuser, or to my father who left or to mom who did who was emotionally abusive, or to the teacher, or the minister, or society, or sexism or misogyny or racism, or homophobia, I can’t close it selectively just to that, or to the boss who fired me or the ex who cheated on me, right? We I can’t close it just to them. If I close it, I close it. So it’s not even about them. Because in closing it we’re giving our power away again. So this is between me and my heart. This is a bit in my heart and love between my heart and life. And so how do we do that? How do we even begin to forgive the unforgivable and this is something that I picked up along the way from a teacher that begins to open the door to the possibility of forgiveness. And it’s forgive two syllables, flip them around, give for what we do, when we forgive, we’re giving others and ourselves which is often even more difficult to do. We’re giving them the space to be human, to make mistakes, to fall short of the mark to to make a royal mess of things like to really if things up.

Christian de la Huerta 34:50
And it’s it getting off the self righteous stance of the ego. Like we don’t have time to dive into what the ego construct is here. But it’s really important To understand what the ego is, I spent the first quarter of the book, maybe even the third talking about the ego mind, and and how it keeps us in a self made prison of fear and lack and limitation and self doubt, and reactivity and the victim and defended victim mindset and defensiveness. So really, really important. If we want to be free, if we want to step into our power, if we want to have relationships that have a chance of working, that we understand that how the ego is and how it works, so that we can get ourselves out of it out of its self made prison because nobody else can. So the ego one of the aspects of it is it’s very self righteous, again, knows, it went to law school and appoints itself a judge, jury prosecutor, it knows exactly what the other person did that was wrong, what the punishment should be and delivers the punishment. So forgiving means getting off, like stepping off that self righteous stance, I know I’m right, I would never do anything like right, because that closes the heart. And again, a highlight it again, it’s not about making it okay about denying what happened about rationalizing. It is not about any of that. It’s not about minimizing, or making Okay, whatever they did or didn’t do, but it’s not about them. This is about us, and how do we free ourselves from that. And so when we forgive we make we give the other and ourselves the room to make all those mistakes, to to forgive to get off that self righteous stance, and say maybe right, all it takes is that question mark MIDI, I can’t see it, I cannot even begin to imagine that I would ever do that. But maybe if they had been raised in their situation with their parents, their culture, their time, in whatever way their parents raised them and their parents before them, raise them. Who knows what was going on in their brain cut biochemistry? Who know what, who knows what happened in their own past? Who know what traumas they had, because we know trauma is the gift that keeps on giving, especially in sexual abuse and that kind of stuff. And right and again, not minimizing it not making it okay. We don’t have to hang out with them. We don’t have to be friends with them. We don’t have to ever see them again. But that question marks like maybe, maybe I might have done that. I might have I might have done that. And here’s like an extreme way to be able to do that a terrorist like it’s really hard for us to otherwise them we because we can’t imagine like anybody listening to this for sure. Watching this cannot have Woods is not about to wrap their bodies in explosives of walk into a crowded mall and detonate ourselves. So it’s really difficult for us to understand that standard is easy to say I would never do that. And have we ever terrorized others emotionally? Have we ever terrorized ourselves emotionally and that I know every single one of us has done. So we have an inner terrorist inside me that inside of each one of us, the details are different. But we have that potential. So it’s again not to make it okay not to minimize it. It just begins to soften that harsh separation of I wouldn’t ever do that, because that’s what makes forgiveness difficult. Like when we soften that then it begins to to free ourselves from carrying that weight and being stuck in the past.

Victoria Volk 38:19
I can bring a visual to this that can lighten things up. Because when you were talking about emotions, and how like what came up for me is like yeah, we’re just all walking around a little bit emotionally constipated some more than others. Right? And I when you were saying how we terrorized others emotionally. It’s like if we think of that emotional constipation, right? It’s gotta go somewhere. So either it’s gonna, we’re just gonna have, we’re gonna let it come out of us, or we’re going to just throw it at people, right?

Christian de la Huerta 38:50
Yes. You know, it’s so funny because I called breathwork. Virtual Drano. Oh, cool. Yeah, emotional and spiritual drain, and we get rid of all that crap that we’ve been carrying inside of us. Quickly, and it works fast. Well, that’s so profoundly at so many levels. It’s just a really amazing and for lack of another word, miraculous.

Victoria Volk 39:12
That’s a great segue. So I do want to talk about that. What is I had a personal experience, a friend of mine, she does Kundalini yoga, and she’s in a training right now to become a practitioner in that. But she does breath work. She does breath work practice every day, and she walked me through this breathwork practice was about 30 minutes, but I tell you what, I learned the power of our breath. In that one session that blew my mind. I felt I’m a Reiki Master, but I had my hands were vibrating to the extent of nothing a comparison like my hands are starting to tingle just thinking about it. I felt so alive. Like the Most alive that I had felt in a long time after experiencing that it was so powerful for me, can you give our listeners something that they can do today, if they are in a moment of panic, fight flight or freeze, grief, whatever they’re experiencing right now can you share some a technique with them.

Christian de la Huerta 40:20
Of course, and you know, breathwork is a, it’s a really broad umbrella, there’s a lot of breathing practices, a lot of breathing techniques, yoga, practice yogic practices, pranayama, it’s called in that yoga tradition, you know, whether it’s Kundalini yoga, or any other kind of yoga. And so the breath is at the core of all those practices, and at the core of every meditation practice at the core of every spiritual tradition. And so the particular breathwork that I do, it’s longer, it’s about an hour, an hour and a half, there’s different modalities, it’s you. So you can use breathing techniques. for different purposes. If you’re if you’re stressed out, if you’re stuck in traffic, if you’re, like, stressed out or nervous about right before a difficult conversation, or an important meeting, you can do take slow, deep breaths, to calm yourself down and the body has to slow down. Like there’s Swamis in India have that much control over their body, they can tell their hearts to slow down. And they do you know, they can, some of them can mimic states that are really, really hard to distinguish from death, they can slow down the body that much, most of us are not gonna be able to aren’t there. And I’m probably not going to learn how to do that kind of stuff. But anybody can slow down the breath, anyone can slow down the breath. When we do that, the heart has no choice, the heart has to slow down. And and when the heart slows down, the nervous system begins to quiet down, the body begins to relax. Right? So it’s, it’s slowly and under breath. It’s like it’s your best friend, your most effective practice. There are also breathing techniques that you can use, like in place or the afternoon slump, you know, a cup of coffee, you know, there’s the faster, more energizing more focusing practices, the type of breathwork that I do, it’s a different model, it’s more of a, to me, it’s part of my psycho spiritual therapy, you know, approach to healing. I was on a trip my father was a psychiatrist. As I said, my my degrees in psychology, I was on a track to get a PhD. When I discovered breathwork, this modality that I that I practice, I jumped tracks, I never went for the PhD because it works so fast and heal so profoundly at so many levels, including, by the way, I don’t know anything more effective that healing past traumas, including sexual abuse, including, you know, just violent stuff that people have have experienced, that I’ve worked with over the years, and it gets healed. And so not only that, which will be hard enough to believe, but it heals spiritually, mentally, even physically. And yes, you know, even like more than 30 years saying this or talking about this, I know to my mind, it still sounds hard to believe, to my logical, more scientific, more skeptical mind. But I can’t argue with the result. It works with permanent effects. And you know, they haven’t studied it yet. They’re starting to do more research now about what’s happening in the body scientifically. But even that, it doesn’t explain it to me, like, like the stuff that happens. Because you can also have incredibly ecstatic moments like moments of oneness, moments of feeling connectedness to to everyone and everything to all of creation. And so just from breathing, but here’s what ultimately helps me understand that the way that I can understand if you look at any religion, any culture, some even languages, in many of them the same word, one word, can mean breath, or spirit, depending on the context. So for example, from Numa, from that Greek word Numa, from which we get pneumonia, that word meant or it meant soul, and lung, from the Latin root speed at A, we get both respiration and inspiration or exploration. So that breath spirit connection is is available, like I said, most spiritual traditions and even several sets of regular languages. And that’s what ultimately helps me understand that is when we breathe in this conscious, intentional way, that the effects of which are undeniable like you felt your body was you will beginning to notice your body more as vibration. So you popped out of that limited perspective of separateness as like I’m just over here, this is this description as Victoria which is what the ego is that artificials you know, sense of of separate separateness, and you began to experience yourself beyond the confines of your body as a physical thing, and that that’s what that vibration was, and that we can access Not only profound healing, but ecstatic states, which by the word, that’s what the word ecstasy means means out of ourselves. And that’s what that breathing practices and breathing practices help us to do. So that we can pop behind the illusion of separation of the ego, and reconnect with our, no our ultimate nature.

Victoria Volk 45:20
There was a conversation one time about psychedelics, and she’s like, you don’t need to take a psychedelic to have that experience, you can find that through your breath. And I totally, totally agree. I actually had written down just before you said it, I wrote the soul is in the gut and grief is in the lungs. So isn’t that just really ironic in a way that the breath connects us to? Both right is part of both, essentially. So I’m curious. Is it was it just breathwork? Because, you know, I’ve dabbled in different healing modalities. I’m currently actually learning biofield tuning, which addresses the energy field that’s around us the stuck energy that’s outside of us, you know that, because our bodies are a mirror of what’s out here, stuck in this energy field, and that extends five to six feet beyond us. So was it just breathwork? Or have? Were you kind of dabbling in a lot of different things? And breathwork? Is what stuck? Or was it always breathwork. And that’s just kind of been your thing?

Christian de la Huerta 46:28
I think the combination I mean, there’s so many tools to help us heal and help free. The ones that I include in every single retreat for over 30 years. No matter whether the retreat is on conscious relationships, and having relationships that can actually work, whether it’s stepping into our personal power, and reconciling the conflicted, ambivalent relationship we have to power? And how do we step into power in a way that’s not about hierarchy and control, and fear and force and domination? How do we do it in a way that’s a match for who we are? Whether it’s about life purpose, and what are we really, really doing here? And how do we stop selling out for that illusion of security of a biweekly paycheck, because we sell ourselves so cheaply for that illusion, as many have had to discover the hard way during this pandemic, but no matter what the theme of the retreat the to constant, or the breath work, because I’ve yet to come across any tool that heals as quickly and as profoundly. And in many ways, the other one is understanding that you go, because it’s to me, there’s that’s step one, understanding the mind and why we do the things we do and our patterns, why do we get triggered what? Well, the same behavior would have could have a completely different response in you. And yet, it’s got me just out of control and got my goat. So why is that? Understanding our patterns? Like, why do we do the things we do? Why do we attract certain people into our lives? Why do we have certain what are we recreate patterns and situations? What? Why do we keep creating patterns of relationships that sometimes feel like it’s the same boring movie, different actor different co lead, but the same crap? Same argument, same patterns? Why is that? Right? So it’s so again, a lot easier to go through life numbing out and running away from these questions. But then we get stuck in a there’s no way to this, we’re just going to recreate and recreating, and keep creating the same stuff. What we’re talking about is like having the courage to face our grief, to face our memories to do whatever it is that we need to do to heal ourselves and declare ourselves that is nothing less than heroic. That’s why there’s no book awakening this whole power is the first of a series of three, which is the tide the series is titled Calling All Heroes, what does it mean to live heroically in the 21st century? And so yes, you know, I honor you for the work that you’ve done to not only heal your past trauma, but to now use that to make a difference in other people’s lives. And I honor anybody who has stuck with this conversation thus far. It’s, you know, this stuff is not easy. It’s not for the faint of heart. This is And speaking of heart, you know, that’s courage comes from that root, the same root core which a Latin means heart, courage, courage, and in French, the big heart, take this word takes big heart, big courage. Nothing short of heroic. incredibly rewarding, like freedom, empowerment.

Victoria Volk 49:40
Empowerment. Yes. That’s huge. Yes, absolutely.

Christian de la Huerta 49:44
Like you were telling me when we were connecting right before we started recording like this podcast is like, the best thing you ever did. Like wow, and you using your own? Like that’s what he lives there, right. We use our own stuff to bring healing to others for On lived experience, not just stuff that we read in a book, and we all have access to that.

Victoria Volk 50:05
You actually mentioned that your mother’s presence is diminishing slowly is is that did you? Do you mean cognitively? Yes. Okay. And I asked that because a friend of mine mentioned this, you can have cancer and you can have disease and things like that, which is really difficult for the person going through it. Right? They have to reconcile their life right when you’re faced with this is what’s happening to me, whether it’s, you know, MS, or muscular dystrophy, or, or any kind of debilitating progressive disease, cancer, anything like that. It’s really difficult on the person experiencing, and of course, the family and people watching it happen. But when it’s someone that’s going through a cognitive decline, they aren’t necessarily aware of it. And so that’s really more impactful on the family and the loved ones. And that struck me because I hadn’t really thought about that. But what do you say? How is that different? for loved ones? In your, in your experience? You’ve had both experiences, right? You’re your nephew, and now your mother.

Christian de la Huerta 51:12
Yeah I think this one’s even more difficult. Because what I’ve realized is that I’ve been preparing I’ve been preparing for the for the inevitable, which is my mother’s passing for years, she’s not in good health, physical, like she, you know, nine kids is take a toll on my body, She’s diabetic, she’s overweight, from that generation that never took care of her bodies of her body. And, and that dealt with everything. Like from the perspective of Western medicine, my dad being addicted to it just medicated it, rather than addressing the symptom, I mean, the addressing the symptom rather than addressing the source. And so I never thought for a moment that my mom, my mom’s body would outlive her mind. And so I didn’t see that coming. That one I was not prepared for it. caught me off guard. And, and it’s, it’s, it’s difficult to experience not only to see her and this beautiful, vibrant, brilliant, loving woman to be like a shell of who she was, to be caught in, in fear, which, which it’s heartbreaking. And there’s nothing, nothing that as a family we can do except no lover and create, you know, like, try to improve the quality of our life as best we can. And, and be one thing to connect to everything else. We’ve been talking about the importance of doing the heroic work of, of self discovery and, and healing ourselves. What I’m beginning to see is that is her undone work. Like sometimes when she goes into these places of fear that, you know, she’s living or reliving something that we can’t see. And beginning to feel that as she’s recreating, like, there’s this one kind of actor that keeps coming back into her her her moment. And it’s, it’s beginning to realize it’s a young woman, like a teenage girl, and my mom calls her all sorts of names, like stuff that she would never say in real life. Like now it’s like, unleashed. And so what I’ve what I’m beginning to put together is that when she was in high school, there was a moment where they were put into they were taken to boarding school and Cuba, my aunt and my sister and her aunt Amy. And her sister, my aunt, and I think she had to, you know, just piecing together stories, there was a there was a group of girls, you know, I mean, girls that were kind of bullies and they were rich, the rich girls in the school. And I think because she never really worked with with her feeling, I’m projecting I’m making it up in my own mind that a feeling rejected or feeling unloved because she was put away were taken away to a boarding school and then having to deal with this bullying, that she never really worked through that and so now when the filters are off, it’s coming back up. And so important for us than to do this kind of work whether we’re using traditional therapy whether we’re using breathwork you know, it’s really important to do or your your energy work, whatever whatever it is that were guided to do. To to have that courage to to clear to face and clear or inner demons.

Victoria Volk 54:23
I just got chills as I heard you talking about that, because it’s like the same. It’s almost like reliving a nightmare over and over and over that you can’t just push stop on.

Christian de la Huerta 54:34
I know it’s it to me, that’s hell, she’s still going to Hell yeah, weaving it back to the religion and it’s, you know, that it gets tragic to me, that in her end, the end of her life, that the religion to which she devoted her entire life is not a source of love and support and support and inner peace, that because of the teachings about hell, which, you know, I personally don’t believe like there’s a physical place that you go to When you die, I don’t believe in a punitive micromanaging didi. But don’t take away my mother effer to, to fear that she might go to hell, like why? It’s nothing that she could have ever done. And it to me, I found that tragic that that fear was put into her head, which to me is not even real.

Victoria Volk 55:19
I had a medium expressed to me once, it was a teenager experience, spirit that had come through and she just her experience was that what she’s learned through her work was that it’s even someone who’s done not great things are good things, you know, good deeds, who have maybe done some bad things, right? It’s, they’re going through school. They’re just they’re going through school, and they’re having to learn these lessons. And they’re kind of in school until they can graduate, I suppose in a way to, to be with the good spirits. I don’t know how to explain that, you know, but that’s kind of how she said it. How, you know, because the mother was so worried that he because he died by suicide, she was so worried that he was in hell. And that brought so much peace to her. But you know, how the Son explained, he’s like, No, I’m in school. I’m having to learn these lessons that I never was open to learning on the physical plane. Yeah, I just thought that was beautiful.

Christian de la Huerta 56:23
I think it is beautiful, and very, very liberating. And to me, you know, from my current perspective, heaven, and hell are not places that we go to after we that I think their states of being heaven, and hell can be right here right now. It’s not your truth. Yeah. And, and it’s a state of mind. And I think that even if we’re going to, you know, stick with a Christian frame of belief, philosophy, mythology, whatever you want to call it, teachings, Jesus said, You know, these greater things you will do. And so, that comes from that state of mind, which he had access to, and to which he never claimed exclusivity. He never had never really did.

Victoria Volk 57:08
And I think there’s just so much we don’t know, that we’ll never know. And even when it comes to healing to the forgiveness piece that we talked about earlier, and, you know, trauma and stuff, it’s, or we feel like we were a victim in our own stories, we just we don’t know what we don’t know. Yeah, if I want to learn this method of breathwork, especially as a Griever, where do I go to learn that.

Christian de la Huerta 57:31
I mean, if anybody’s interested, they can email me, or, you know, just go to my website, soulfulpower.com. And I can either try to help them find somebody local, where they can do it, there’s some people that do it virtually now, I do it virtually very selectively, because it’s really powerful, that the modality that I teach is very powerful. And you never know what’s underneath the surface of somebody’s psyche, what’s going to what’s going to come up. And as you know, so many of us have memories that we suppressed. So like in person in live, I have no hesitation, like, I know that I can handle anything that comes up. And I’ve had some really traumatic stuff come up for people virtually, not so much, right? There’s because there’s my what I’m able to do to support intervene, to, to hold space for them is limited by and all they have to do is click, and then there’s nothing I can do to help. So I do it only with people that you know who have come to my retreats, people I know, people that that are part of my year long coaching program, and that I don’t even start with breathwork that’s only like halfway through once I get a sense of who’s in the group and what kind of stuff they’re dealing with. Or if it’s somebody maybe who has a support system. So sometimes therapists refer people to maybe therapists, you know, where they’ve been with a client for some time, and they’re plateaued, they’re stuck, they’re stagnant. Even one breathwork session can can change your life it did for me, my first session, I knew that I’d never be the same. And I wasn’t. And I knew that I had to do it again, I didn’t care where I had to go what it cost, and I knew that I had to make it available to others. It was just the most amazing thing that I’ve ever experienced. And by the way, you mentioned psychedelics in a different, like branch of breathwork, which is called Holotropic. To more, it’s longer you do for like three, four hours, kind of very similar technique, but longer. And there are other differences, but the founder of that modality. Stan Grof, was a psychiatrist from the Czech Republic. When he was over there, he was researching LSD. And what he realized, you know, once he came to the States, he couldn’t, you know, continue that research. But somewhere along the way, he discovered because when once people attain certain levels of pain, through the chemical substances are the sacred plant medicines that so many people are working with these days. The breath that kind of breathing pattern sometimes gets triggered automatically. spontaneously. And so he realized, by just using the breath, you can access the same levels of non ordinary beings or states of being. So yeah, and I hear that constantly from people who come to breathe with me, it’s like, yeah, I got to the same place that I did with on an Ayahuasca journey or, or whatever, mushrooms, whatever they were doing, it got to that same place, that same ability to perceive myself from from a different perspectives. And that sense of oneness of connecting with all of it. Because here’s a great metaphor for that for the ego goes back to the ego, right? If, if you think of the ego as a baseball, it’s a part of who we are, that’s a very limited experience of who we are. It’s like a tiny, tiny, tiny part of who we are. Yet we think it’s all who we are. And we make really important consequential choices in our lives from its very limited small and always fear based perspective, once who we are. So imagine the ego in a center of a stadium, that’s the the baseball in the center of a stadium, that’s the ego, who we are, is actually the stadium. And we’ve allowed this tiny, tiny part of us to think and then to make choices from its from its small perspective. So part of what happens in breathwork. And with sacred plant medicine work is, you know, we experience ourselves, we pop out of the, the false limitation of the ego, that false sense of separation. And we reconnect with our essence with our interconnectedness with everything with all of it.

Victoria Volk 1:01:32
Is just hanging on your every word there.

Christian de la Huerta 1:01:34
And it’s accessible to all of us like it’s our breath, it’s just in the beginning, we and you can be taught how to do it yourself in the beginning, that’s the first 510 sessions, it’s important to do it, somebody who knows what they’re doing somebody who has been trained that can hold space, and so that the ego can feel safe enough to release a lot of stuff that’s been suppressing and allow it to come up to consciousness and call you and by the way, the psychologist said that the process of enlightenment is making the unconscious conscious, and breathwork is really speeds up that process.

Victoria Volk 1:02:07
Love it, love this conversation. And we could go so many other directions, too. I want to be respectful of your time. But is there is there anything else that you would like to share that you didn’t get a chance to address?

Christian de la Huerta 1:02:21
Well, I just give a brief overview about the book on empowerment, because as I started to say, most of us have an ambivalent conflict, the relationship to power, we part of us wants it part of us is afraid of it. And I think what we fear the more that I work with people around this issue, what we fear is that if we really stepped into our power, if we really stepped into all of who we are, that other people wouldn’t be able to handle it and that we might end up rejected that alone, and who wants that? We also fear that we might abuse it. And no wonder like how many abuses of power have you on I experience and have all of us experience? Like all we got to do is turn on the news any day, any given day to witness at least one abuse of power. So and then on top of that we’ve been in court, it’s been ingrained in us that power is bad, that power is negative, you know, with quotes, like power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Who wants to be corrupted. But what they didn’t tell us is that Lord Acton who said those words, were speaking specifically about political power, not personal power. And so, add to that mix, what we were talking about the emotions, we’ve turned the emotions into weakness, you know, we hate conflict, we avoid confrontation. And so what happens when you put all that together, we we end up giving our power away our power that nobody can give to us, nobody can take away. We are the only ones who can give it away. And the sad part, the tragic part is that we give it away for the lamest of reasons. Like we say yes, when inside we really feel no inside, it’s really not okay with us. But in order to maintain that illusion of peace do not rock the boat too much. We override our desires or preferences or dreams. And we say yes, when inside we feel no we stuffed ourselves into tiny little packages that the you know that not gonna rock anybody’s boat. So we limit ourselves we play small for an illusion of security for a false sense of acceptance. And for crumbs, we settle for morsels of pseudo love. So it’s not a good strategy. It’s a really good strategy in life. And so what the this book walks the reader through in a very doable way I know how crazy busy and overscheduled everybody is. So designed the book and with very readable, doable short chapters with power practices. Do you have to rush through the book one chapter a week Do the practices because those practices are designed to integrate and apply the teachings to our lives. So they don’t stay at the level of information, we don’t need more information. We’ve got information overload, what we need is transformation. And that only comes from taking on the stuff and really living it. And so so the, if they will do that, it’ll begin to transform the relationship to power and began to discover ways that we can step into and express our power. And we’re in the in the wet in the world in a way that’s not about fear, hierarchy, force, control, domination, that kind of power that that requires that we step on, somebody push them down. In order for us to feel powerful. There’s a different way to do this.

Victoria Volk 1:05:48
I recently, there’s so much so many synchronicities. And what you say is because just the other day, I shared a quote on my social media about it was in a podcasting email of all things, and it just it hit me it’s, it’s stuck out. So I created a quote, for knowledge isn’t power. It’s the application of knowledge. That gives you power. Exactly. Right. So it’s the application of the knowledge. And that’s just what came to my mind as I was hearing you sharing that? Yeah, that’s a great quote, for sure. So where can people reach you, I know you have your website, just share all the things.

Christian de la Huerta 1:06:25
Yeah, I think the best way to reach me, well, the book is available anywhere where books are sold, you can get it at your local bookstore, you can order it there, if you want to support them. You can also get it on Amazon. In terms of reaching me probably the best way is my my website soulfulpower.com, and by any for anybody who of your audience who signs up goes to soulfulpower.com, and get to my email list. And we all know how easy it is to click unsubscribe down the road if it doesn’t work for you. And I’m not going to take it personally. That’s one of the benefits of doing this kind of self love and self acceptance work is like you don’t take stuff personally anymore. And so anybody who signs up for my email list will send them a sample chapter from the book, and it’s one that talks about what it means to live heroically. In the 21st century, we’ll share some of the power practices we were talking about, and a guided meditation. And it’s on trust that I created last year, with a year before in the midst of the pandemic. And so how do we find a place of inner peace and trust? How do we become that eye of the storm? In a world in a time of chaos and fear and uncertainty? How do we move into trust?

Victoria Volk 1:07:42
It’s a big word. Trust, right?

Christian de la Huerta 1:07:44
It’s a big word.

Victoria Volk 1:07:46
Thank you so much for this conversation today. I could talk even longer about energy and all of that more about the ego. Maybe around two,

Christian de la Huerta 1:07:56
Maybe around two. Yeah, it’s clear that you and I would not run out of stuff to talk about.

Victoria Volk 1:08:01
Never. No, I don’t think so either. Maybe after I get a chance to read your book. Okay, well, thank you so much for being here today.

Christian de la Huerta 1:08:11
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me on the show and for having the show.

Victoria Volk 1:08:15
And remember, when you unleash your heart you unleash your life. Much love.

Ep 44 | Jordan Brodie

Jordan Brodie | Growing Up Gay, CODA & With Addiction

 

SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:

Jordan grew up knowing he was different. And, it was in that knowing where he could be himself with his loving, supportive father.

However, in the outside world, he navigated the harsh reality of mean kids. Aside from his sexuality, growing up as a child of a deaf adult (CODA) also felt like a dirty little secret.

What happened, as Jordan grew, is years of trying to deal with being put in a special class for kids with high intelligence, and in middle school, he found himself drinking and starting to experiment with drugs. This was on top of the medication he had been put on and was on since the age of 8, and was later able to get off for “diagnosed” ADHD and anxiety, which, by the way, he’s no longer taking.

The years that followed were challenging and would lead Jordan to follow his childhood friend to Hollywood, who also would later die of an accidental drug overdose, who was the one who took Jordan to his first meeting to get addiction support. Thankful for that start in sobriety, Jordan has been sober for four years, but not without a lot of inner work and therapy.

On top of the grief Jordan shares in this episode, one week following our recording, his older brother, who is deaf and who had also been struggling with addiction, died of a fentanyl overdose. Jordan will be coming back on the podcast to record a follow-up. In the meantime, as you listen to Jordan’s many stories of loss, attempt to put yourself in his shoes.

RESOURCES:

CONNECT WITH JORDAN: INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK | TWITTER

Victoria Volk  00:00
Welcome to grieving voices. Today my guest is Jordan Brodie. He is a performing artist, an LGBTQIA advocate, self proclaimed digital marketing Queen, and sober in recovery from drugs and alcohol. For years actually just you recently had an anniversary on January 13. Congratulations, huge congratulations on that. And thank you so much for being here.

Jordan Brodie  00:29
Thank you. I took digital marketing Queen out of my bio, I just, I didn’t I didn’t want to put too much emphasis on that.

Victoria Volk  00:40
Okay, okay. Well, you are no longer the digital marketing queen, its official.

Jordan Brodie  00:47
I just don’t want to draw attention to that. Anyway, so but it’s okay. Like, I’m cool, like happy with.

Victoria Volk  01:00
Alright. 

Jordan Brodie  01:01
Thank you.

Victoria Volk  01:03
Yes, thank you for being here. So, tell us a little bit about yourself. How, how, maybe your why for wanting to be on the podcast today.

Jordan Brodie  01:13
Why? Well, we just recently had a memorial for one of my best friends who passed away from an accidental overdose. And this friend was very close to me. I’m 29 years old now. And I’ve known him since the sixth grade. So that is quite some time, like 20 years. 2020, something like that, right? A lot of years. And when he helped me move to Hollywood, he moved to Hollywood before I did, and I followed him out here. A year later. He’s an actor and I’m a performer and we both grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico together. And he moved out here and then he let me stay on his couch showed me around introduced me to some people. And one of the friends he made while he was out here while we were out here because we both I stayed since I meant that he needed to walk back and forth from Albuquerque. He met Katie Tanaka’s and he would always tell me about Coco. He called her Coco. And he said I was basically the male version of Coco. He was like, you have to meet my friend Katie. She’s so much like you. You’re like the man. She’s like the male version of you like and I was like, okay, like, Who is this girl? And I felt then he was like, he played me one of her songs. Her spoken poetry song. I almost lost my heart in Monaco. I don’t know if you’ve heard it. It’s it’s the best song y’all need to go look up. Katie Tanaka’s left my heart in Monaco on YouTube right now. Pause. Anyway, so. So you’ve and it’s a fabulous Argh. And it’s so it is me it’s and move. It was funny because he saw a version of me that I didn’t see in myself, which is, I’d happens a lot, especially because I was in my addiction for most of my life, up until the last four years that I got sober. I was not fully self aware of like who I was. And a lot of my friends would see me in a different way than I saw myself. And when he passed away, it was actually the night before the memorial last Sunday. I I, the night before the memorial, the family had asked me to put together the memorial. So, I’ve been organizing, inviting people for the friends on zoom. And then the night before I was kind of it was starting to hit me that the memorial was the next day. And I was starting to get sad, and I made a playlist. My friend and I would speak through music, we shared songs a lot. And that’s how we communicated was through music a lot of the times we I know like 100 songs that I learned from my friend and and then, so I was listening to a playlist that I made with songs that we shared, and then I remembered Katy song. I was like, I need to listen to that song. And I was like, wait a minute, this and I forgot that he was her friend. I was like they were friends. I need to let her know about his memorial. So, I found her on Facebook, on Instagram and I messaged her and told her and she joined us for the memorial the next day and she told me about you and your podcast and and the thing about the reason why I wanted to have this conversation is that my friend’s death brought up a lot of anger and resentment and me towards Hollywood and the entertainment industry and the music industry. And there’s a lot of massage money in the music industry. Meaning, like, in the straight roads, where there’s and they don’t talk about it, you know, the me to movement just happened with Harvey Weinstein and all these other people. And in fact, my friend, when I told you I stayed on his couch for a few weeks, he was renting a room from this guy, I want to say his name, but this guy got just got me two, three years ago. So, what I’m trying to say is a lot of people that my friend fell into, we’re shady knee tattooers If you like it, the massage me of the straight world of the masculine man dominating the feminine and dominating the industry. it rubs off on to the gay world. It’s like it passes down. And then and then it’s also a lot of times invisible, like you’ve heard about that guy who was basically put together the Backstreet Boys, he had all those charges for molestation and stuff. There’s just a lot of that going on behind the scenes, and a lot of people that move to Hollywood, and they fall for the casting couch, the idea that you need to sleep with someone to get ahead in your career, and they and then people with power in the industry, abusing their power and not denying it just to get laid. Because the truth is, it doesn’t work sleeping up to the top doesn’t work. And I’ve know some from some pretty famous people like coaches that that’s Bs and I was always really upset with my friend for being so naive and letting all these people take advantage of him because I knew it wasn’t the correct way I knew the correct way was to focus on the talent that’s what my heart and my intuition told me. And my family taught me not to do that. And and I had my own experiences in college where I kind of got burnt out and screwed over by some guys and I learned pretty quickly that you couldn’t really trust people and and and so that’s why I want to do this is because it made me really upset about the entertainment industry. I I had to let Katie know he passed but I also had to let that old roommate I told you about and like at least five other people that I know that I love because they were scumbags. They were so sleazy. Yeah, they were in the entertainment industry. But they were taking advantage of my friend. They were taking advantage of other people, they tried to take advantage of me. They felt like because I was young and cute. I still am young and cute. But I was a lot cuter than and a lot of people like people tend to underestimate me especially because Paris Hilton is one of my idols, okay, I love the idea of putting on this presence of being light and fun and aloof and stupid and kind of, like out of it. Because I love that type of humor. And I, I don’t want people to take to get uncomfortable with me like being way smarter than them because that’s usually I’m a lot smarter than most people. And I don’t just say that to brag or anything. It’s taken me a long time to get here. But I grew up in special ed classes for really smart kids and like, and I tested like at a really high IQ level when I was like in elementary school and I always made me uncomfortable like that. So I learned to pretend to be stupid. When I was with people, and not in class. It’s how I kind of like would like talk to people and relate with them. So What I’m saying is that these like, man would try to, like do that to me, like what they were doing to chase. And we were the same age. And I would, I would not say anything, but I wanted to like, I would just get silent and leave, you know, or just, but I wanted to stand up for him, I wanted to stand up and put these guys in their place, because I knew if they were doing it to my friend, they were doing it to other people. And it like hurts my heart, because my friend that I’m telling you about, I loved him, like a lot more than a friend, I had a huge crush on him, like, and he was beautiful. And I knew him since sixth grade. And he was kind of like my high school crush, and he had trauma and I wasn’t his type. He only really like older guys. But I had a total like, I had feelings for him and, and he was a good guy, and he loved God and he had a good heart. The thing is, I don’t want to like, make him seem like he’s like a complete victim in the situation because it takes to to play like, he made the active choices to be doing the things he was doing. And he was getting from these people in the same way that they were getting from him. So they were both using each other, you know what I’m saying? So it’s not saying it’s okay, what these guys are doing, but it wasn’t okay, what my friend was doing either. He was being manipulative. And anyway, so. So that’s why I want to do this is, and I love my friends so much, and I miss him. And if anyone out there and struggling with addiction, or alcoholism or drug addiction, just know that there’s someone out there that loves you a lot. And you may not know it right now because you’re in your disease and you’re in your head and you’re in the darkness. But there’s someone out there if you pass away, they will be heartbroken. Ever. I strongly believe everyone has at least one person, even the most isolated people and I myself to have just got four years sober on Wednesday. And my friend that I’m talking to y’all about he took me to my first meetings before I even knew I had a problem. So that’s why I’m doing this took me so answer that.

Victoria Volk  12:38
No, that’s okay. So, I do want to circle back to something you said about growing up and how you felt like how you couldn’t even really be yourself like you were out of integrity with yourself. Like you couldn’t feel like you could own your smarts. You couldn’t feel like you could. I mean, I don’t want to put words in your mouth. But do you feel like living out of integrity with who you felt you were but couldn’t live out? Do you feel like that’s subconsciously set forth like a pattern of behavior and things that kind of ultimately lead to your own addiction?

Jordan Brodie  13:19
Definitely. And it’s funny, you’re focusing in on that I never really thought about that incongruent and how creating that in my brain at a young age would cause that I’ve thought about one being a gay a gay man that’s another reason why I want to do this is my friend was gay and I think in the gay community especially like on top our right and feeling weird for being smart there was the my dad marrying my stepmother going from the hood like because I see myself as kind of like a HUD kid even though like they got married when I was a like I my soul My spirit is very like casual and fun and more go with the flow it’s not so I don’t know I like I don’t like like fully I’ll Of course I love having things being associated with with wealth and that sort of stuff. However, I still like being associated with just hustlers with people who don’t have much and have to make ends meet and so it was traumatizing. What I’m saying is one trauma was the being really smart trauma thing that was like confusing for me. And then the other was the was the moving from the hood to like, basically Beverly Hills overnight when I was eight that Was traumatizing for me because most of my friends didn’t have a lot of stuff, a lot of things they had small. My bedroom was bigger than most of my friends houses in high school, and elementary school and middle school and I felt guilty about that I felt extremely guilty. I felt weird. I never talked about it and never asked my parents about it. I never talked to anyone about it, actually, this you’re the second person I’ve talked about this with. And it is actually really healing to talk about it. So that was one trauma. And then on top of that, being gay and feminine. My dad is the opposite of me. Like I told you, he’s in the military. He was a basketball coach, really masculine. I’m so grateful to have such an amazing father. He supported my femininities for my whole life. He’s always loved it about me, he thinks it’s cool. Like when I was eight years old, I wanted to start dancing and he went it was just him and me and my brother and he allowed me to dance, and I was always dancing, and he let me do that. So, I was feminine. And I don’t think I think the separation the beating myself up and the on inauthenticity and the the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde like hiding stuff from the world and putting on this character started when I started going to public school, and middle and in middle school after my dad married my stepmother, we moved to the other part of town. And we went to this public school and the kids are really mean to me, they bullied me and up until that point, I was never self conscious. I was my stepmothers always told me you were really confident when you’re a little like I was really confident, really flamboyant, not afraid to show my feelings, not afraid to talk. I was fearless. That’s what she told me. And then I started going to elementary, middle school, and people were making fun of me and I didn’t know why. Like, I was always hanging out with girls. I think I I think when we’re little we, when we’re truly little and innocent. I didn’t really see my sex or my gender. I didn’t really see it yet fully. I always felt like a girl. And I always vibe with the girls. Like I always played Barbies, I wanted to play Barbies, I wanted to play that. This clapping game. I wanted to do all the girls. That’s like what I did. And then when I went to this middle school, that’s when I started realizing it was different. I was different than the other boys. They started making fun of me. I think they were jealous because I was friends with all the girls that they wanted to date or whatever. But I wasn’t, we were just friends like, and they started bullying me. And do I’ve done a lot of therapy, the last four years in my sobriety, I did a year of EMDR, it really helped. And I’ve done a lot of therapy, to come to realize that. That was when the separation started. That’s when I started feeling weird and ashamed about certain things and not wanting to share everything with everyone. Because if I gave people too much information about me, they were throwing my face and they would use it and they would make fun of me. And the thing is, I was different I had my biological mother was Dev, I’m gay like after that happened, I started realizing they’re making fun of me for being a feminine man, a feminine boy for dancing and all this stuff. God forbid they find out my mother’s disabled. I didn’t want it because they made fun of disabled kids, they would make fun of people. It was mean these kids are some mean, so I didn’t. I didn’t ever talk about my mother being deaf. She was like my secret. I didn’t even let my friends now and and then you know, and then I went to and then I was put in that class for smart kids and, and then I was separated from everyone in middle school, I was put in this class called to x when everyone’s going around and their periods they can leave. I had one class and it was for smart kids with behavioral problems. Because I would fight with everyone. It was hard. I had a really hard childhood, and it was very difficult. I felt very isolated and alone. That’s why he was so close to my heart and helped me in some of the darkest times of my life. Like when I was really in my addiction, and I like basically I was trying to kill myself with my addiction without knowing it. And he would scream at me and yell at me and let me know how love die was and, and like, took me to my first meetings and yeah, so that’s why this I’ve never lost anyone that’s close to me. I wasn’t this close to my grandpa, he wasn’t that close to me, and my aunt Julie passed from drug addiction from alcohol addiction four years ago, and then my uncle Brian, three years ago, so it runs in my family addiction, that addiction oftentimes runs in the family. Yeah.

Victoria Volk  20:47
So how old were you when you started drinking? You started with alcohol?

Jordan Brodie  20:51
Yeah, when I was like, 14, I started drinking. I was middle school like seventh grade. One of my friends from that class I told you about the 2x class. He was from Detroit. And so he had already been drinking for like two or three years, and we were in seventh grade. And I also was on a lot of prescription medications. I’m not on any anymore. When my dad married my stepmother. They saw that I was damaged, like this damaged little kid and my stepmother started sending me to therapists and psychiatrists, and they were all doing all kinds of experiments on me with different medications. And I was on a shitload of drugs. When I was little, like, I don’t like, and this is to each their own. I think everyone should find a doctor and make smart decisions. But I think I was mis diagnosed, I see my, my ADHD, my mood swings, my anger, my my other things on my addiction were caused from pain. So, it was like, from pain and confusion about my mother being deaf. And her, she would neglect me unintentionally. Because of it. Just because she couldn’t hear me like when, when I was a baby, when you’re in your developmental stages, those first few years, you’re crying to your that’s how you communicate is through crying. You’re saying, I want food. I want cheese. Like you’re crying for the things you want. My mother couldn’t hear me. So, she unintentionally when neglect me, I’d be like crying for like 30 minutes, and she wouldn’t bring food. It’s a common thing for they’re called kotas children of deaf adults. And I’ve learned that we have a name. It’s a really, really common thing for coders to have feelings of not being heard. Being a it’s a lot of coders will experience difficulty and in obtaining their needs and desires and communicating what they want and like in relationships and being assertive with what they want. They don’t. And it comes from that from being an infant. It’s really common. And I’ve learned that recently and I have more in a from a therapeutic standpoint, I have more work to do on that, because that’s only a newfound thing. But my point is that, that that it’s what was the question?

Victoria Volk  23:46
Well, I just want to circle back and just really, because what I hear you saying and everything that you’ve said, your life experience so far to me, like I can sum it up in one word, grief. I mean, it was grief from an early chat from early on.

Jordan Brodie  24:05
Oh, yeah, that’s what I was telling you. Because you asked when I started drinking. Yeah. And so I was in a lot of pain that being neglected unintentionally. As a little baby. I was in pain, and I was confused. And then my dad divorced my step, my mom, and my mom was angry. I think she has borderline to be honest with you personality disorder. She can’t take a boundary like if you tell her no on something, she starts screaming at you. On top of that she’s deaf, you know what I mean? So it’s like really hard, and she calls the cops incessantly. She doesn’t know the purpose of the cops. She sees them as like mediators. So anytime she would get in a small argument with my father. She would call the cops and tell them he was attacking her, and all this stuff and I I experienced it recently. That’s why we don’t talk. I got into argument with her because she was breaking one of my boundaries. And I stood up for myself. And she started getting denying it, and I got mad. And she called it and I was just yelling, and she called the cops and told them I was attacking her. So like, she will lie. She told them, I was trying to kill myself, she told us she will lie to the cops and say whatever she wants to them. And then they come, she sees them as a mediator. If she did, it’s just it’s insanity. But yeah, um, so there was a lot of trauma at a younger age. And I believe the reason why I couldn’t sit still, when I was little, the reason why it was hard for me to focus on adults, and take them seriously and respect authority was at all of the things that I struggled with. It’s not because of my genetic makeup, it’s not because of eight, it wasn’t genetic. For me, it was from trauma. Because and, and I’ve and, and I have the proof, like I have the receipts that it was because the last four years of my sobriety, I’ve spent hours and hours of therapy and EMDR. And if I were to just coldly walk into a psychology or psychiatry office today, since I’ve done all this work, they would not they would not diagnosed me with bipolar or ADHD or any of that, because I’ve worked on my symptoms, like I’ve worked, I’ve done a lot of work. And I have more work to do. And so anyway, but when you’re little you don’t know this, I didn’t they don’t teach you about emotional health in school, they don’t teach you about the things we really need to be learning. And, and they just the psychologists, they just didn’t look at my pain. They didn’t look at my trauma, they ask questions. They just gave me drugs to deal with the symptoms, who it makes me so mad that they are prescribing eight-year-olds, amphetamines, they are giving eight year olds meth. Like it makes me so mad. And that was me. I have been on net, like a form of meth since I was eight years old. And that’s why like, that’s what Adderall is. That’s what Ritalin is and that’s why when my stepmother when my doctors were trying to give it to my little brother I I told them not to but she didn’t listen and it’s just it makes me so mad. Because I feel like I have some like holes in my head and stuff now like it’s like hard for me to my brain is healing thank God for neuroplasticity, it’ll heal, but, but I really wish the doctors would have tried to stoop to my level and just see me as a creature that’s been damaged that’s been wounded and, and tried to understand me, at a younger age, instead of tried to just sedate me or change me. Because I didn’t need to be changed. I just needed to be hurt. That’s all I needed. And and I’m thankful that I have this realization today and that I’m on a better path. And I have a story now that can help a lot of people and, and, and my friend’s death ignited this passion in me to start really sharing it because I’ve always had the passion to share it. But I’ve been hitting the grind. Since he passed and just getting organized. I’m hiring people. I’m hiring an assistant to help me today or tomorrow we start training her and I’m getting my stuff together. But yeah, so I started on amphetamines when I was eight like prescribed prescription drugs. And then when I was 14, friend from Detroit, was taking shots in the kitchen when I was staying with him one night and I was like, ooh, what are you doing? And he was like, I’m not gonna tell you to do it. I was and then I took that as a challenge and started taking shots of Bacardi and, and then I wanted to do it every weekend after that, and I wasn’t the type of alcoholic or addict that drink every day. And I think that’s the misconception for alcoholics and addicts is that you don’t have to drink every day from 10am to two to be an alcoholic or an addict. I was an alcoholic or addict because I use drugs and alcohol as sober lubricant and I wanted to do it every weekend. It was my escape. It allowed me to feel like I could be myself. Because of myself, who I am now sober is who I was when I was blacked out drunk. Because I’ve worked so hard on breaking down the trauma and getting rid of that. Because I is someone that is super social is super talkative is the life of the party sober. That’s who I am. And that’s who my friend that passed was. And I needed drugs and alcohol to feel like that, because of all the trauma in my brain, it would shut off my brain, and I could finally just be present with people and, and I didn’t know it. I just loved it. I, I thought it was so fun. And I did it every weekend and partied, I did a lot of drugs. My friend, one of my boyfriend’s was a coke dealer and like, I just had a lot of fun. Like, it was, like, fun for me. So, and then my aunt and my uncle, the ones that passed, they were the alcoholics like I didn’t have a problem. And then my friend, he was the addict, right? He was on. He was on meth. I was on prescription math, but it wasn’t like, you know, like, so I didn’t think I had a problem because I wasn’t the one my aunt Julie. She was one of the most fabulous people I know. And she would drink every day from 10 to two for the last 10 years of her life. She drank herself to death. She had all the money in the world. She could have done anything she wanted. And she drank at her house from 10 to two she died loaded with jaundice. She had a brain aneurysm. It was really bad and really sad. And I tried everything to get her out of the house, but she just wouldn’t. in the mail go Brian as well. He died from like, from brain from liver failure, I think. And my point is they were the alcoholic acts. They were the ones that drank all day, all night. Not me. I just would go out every night and drink in the clubs in my underwear, trying to get guys to buy me things. That’s what I did. I didn’t have a problem. That’s just being resourceful. And it took me a lot It took me until I hit rock bottom. getting arrested after chase had been taking me to meetings, getting arrested in West Hollywood for blacking out and doing some embarrassing things. And it took me to be court ordered to go to like some support meetings before I could really realize that I was an alcoholic and that’s the misconception about alcoholics and addicts is that some people don’t drink like all day long. It doesn’t mean you’re there’s some addicts that are the weekend warriors. It’s the point is that when I start drinking and if anyone can relate to this, I recommend them get like how is it that when I started drinking I I couldn’t stop like I would drink a whole bottle of vodka or like a whole and it was all about just getting Blitz out of my mind and escaping and just like basically not being here not being present. And because blacking out turns off the blood to your brain. And I just like that’s that’s an alcoholic to it. You don’t have to be an everyday drinker to be an addict or an everyday user to be an addict. You can some alcoholics and addicts’ news recreationally and it’s just about like, does your life become unmanageable. When you drink or use there are normies that like, can have a glass of wine at night, and then their life doesn’t spiral out of control. My life was never in control. Like, I couldn’t control it. I never could, I cannot stop I had no self control. I was in so much pain, emotionally. And I didn’t even know it. And I was using drugs, alcohol and sex to try and numb the pain. That’s what it was. And now when I want to do something stupid, I have to journal and figure out what is my fear? What am I in pain about like, what is this and I’ve been digging through the pain the last few years and it’s been really hard. Getting sober is not easy. It’s very hard. It was really difficult. I had to change everything about my lifestyle. I had to get really, really pour beef to figure out how to work How to make a living. It was really hard and I’m still struggling, I’m still on my way up.

Victoria Volk  35:07
Not to mention the friendships that change, I’m sure in the process of that, too, because like, I like how you said and I, I think it’s a really important point to bring up in grief recovery, we call them serves the short-term energy relieving behaviors, the things that you mentioned, to help you to feel better, because like to put a bandaid on the pain. I’m sober now a year. No, it was a no November it was a year, I was a weekend warrior to you like I could. And because people didn’t see me as an alcoholic. They didn’t think I had an issue. You’ve even now still people closest to me. You weren’t an alcoholic? Yeah. And it’s like, do you realize a bottle of wine is like four glasses. Yeah, I knew that because I would drink the whole bottle. You know, I wouldn’t stop at just one. You know, I would be making supper, grilling outside making supper for my kids drinking a beer. I’d have to by the time we ate, and I was buzzing, you know, you don’t. I like how you mentioned that. Because it is important if it if you have to do it, to feel better about who you are. And to feel more comfortable in your own skin. For me it was social situations. really brought up anxiety for me. I just I felt like I had to drink in order to relax into the fun. So thank you for bringing that up. Because I think addiction or whatever it is that we are using to numb ourselves or to feel better. If you are not functional the next day, you have a problem.

Jordan Brodie  37:01
Yeah. Yeah. 100% and, and that’s the thing. Another part of it is you mentioned that you would drink the whole bottle and you couldn’t stop or and to escape and I was doing the same thing. So, I didn’t think I was an alcoholic or an addict. And, and then and then so and there’s the element of addicts and alcoholics and with my friend that passed they call it Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, right? It’s like the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Dr. Jekyll was the the doc and it’s kind of funny because my last name My surname is Brody from Scotland and there’s actually a Brodie castle in Scotland. And if you look this up, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the person who wrote the fable Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It’s the way he wrote it. It’s a fantasy story based on reality on on a real person. And the real person is a long lost relative of mine. It’s a it was a Brody. He was related to that Brody that Hasbro and so Dr. Jekyll and that’s the fable of Dr. Jekyll Mr. Hyde because he couldn’t write about the person is that Dr. Jekyll is like the doctor that’s all nice and good and whatever and distinguished in society. And he had a dark side Dr. Hyde, who would like rob people at night. End on story comes from and they talk a lot about it and sobriety and recovery world Dr. Jekyll Mr. Hyde. This story comes from a comes from a Duke Brody like if you look him up, it’s Brody something his last name was Brody and he was like a Duke or something in high society back in the day. And he was really he owned a locksmith company. That’s how he made his money and his wealth. And so all the aristocrats in that area of Scotland, he would do their locks, he would fix their houses, or their castle has their estates and do their locks. And so, he had all the keys to all of these wealthy people’s places. And then the Hyde Park came because the scandal was that he would go in and Rob everyone at night. And that’s what that story comes from. And so, a lot of alcoholics and addicts, even unknowingly, we have we hide how much we drink, like, because and we don’t intentionally do it. It’s not like you drink a whole bottle of wine and you announce to the whole party. I just drink a whole bottle of wine. No, you just drink a whole bottle of wine, and you keep drinking and then you don’t talk about it. You know So there’s like, we don’t disclose it. So, people don’t know how much we’re doing it. And that’s what happened to me. When I started going to meetings and talking about my problems. My parents were like, you’re not an alcoholic, you’re not an addict, like, why are you going to those meetings like, you don’t have a problem with it, because they always thought my problem was mental health. And that’s the problem with psychology and some forms of that type of medicine. And say, put the emphasis on the diagnosis. And that, and then taking medications becomes the solution. In my parents had the solution for me, my whole life was my medicine. They were like, they didn’t know enough about therapy and psychology to know that I could have done EMDR, I could have done all these therapies to work on the pain to work on my brain and reprogram my mind. They didn’t know about that. Because the doctors told them my solution was medications. So they thought they had it solved. Like, oh, here’s the problem. Here’s your solution. They thought that my solution was medications. So when I told them, I was getting sober and stuff, they didn’t know I had a problem, one because they didn’t see how much I was drinking. And two, they, they thought that my solution, my whole life was get on my meds. And since I wasn’t on meds at the time, they were like, that’s why you’re having problems if you’re not on your medication. So now I’m not on any medicine, and I’m fine. Like I’m able to live and function well in society. And it’s all because of the meetings I’ve been going to. Did you hit a really, really good point is that it and it and that’s the thing, you know that you had a problem. And you knew, and you were able to be honest with it. It doesn’t matter what other people think about us, it only matters what we think about ourselves and what our own problems were. And the thing with my friend, and a lot of the people that pass is, since I was so in my Z’s I got I was in my Mr. Hyde with them, I got to meet their Mr. Hyde’s and their dark sides. And so that’s why I knew it, but to their family, and a lot of their friends and other people they didn’t know like, we were all living like these double lies. And that’s another big thing that comes with it. And so that’s another reason why I think it’s important, we don’t use his name, too, because a lot of people didn’t even know all this stuff that I’m telling you about. It’s really sad.

Victoria Volk  42:47
Well, the thing is, I we don’t talk about our shame. We don’t talk about the things that are shameful to us that we are carrying, right. And so, and we don’t, we aren’t encouraged to talk about the things that are painful for us either. So that’s where, just like you said, you were able to talk about it probably for the first time.

Jordan Brodie  43:10
I would like to hear more from you. You said that it sounds like my whole summary of my childhood in life has been grief. And I would like to hear more from you of like, what your definition of grief is, and what are some ways to approach it? I this is definitely helpful. Like it’s been helpful talking to about this. And I’ve read the book called the grief recovery handbook. And it talks about making a timeline of memories, good and bad. Reading that to someone writing a letter of thoughts that are not like, fully processed. Yeah. undelivered communications, reading the letter to someone. I are those just what do you think about those tools? And maybe you could tell me more about grief because I didn’t see my childhood or the neglect from my mother, or my parents divorce, and that kind of stuff as grief because I think a lot of times people think grief to be just when someone dies. But the grief recovery handbook. I remember reading it and it talked about divorces caused grief. Any of you experienced any sort of loss, and I and I didn’t realize that and I don’t know where the loss is, in my situation with my mother being death. And that’s what’s been hard for me to wrap my head around that.

Victoria Volk  44:49
Well, it’s a loss of connection. You can’t connect with her in a way that you see maybe that you see other children connecting with their moms, because we learn by what we see. Right? And so There comes a time where you kind of probably looked at other relationships and was like, my relationship isn’t like that. But you, as humans, we know what we need. Right? And so, when we’re not getting that, we know that too. And that’s great. It’s anything we wish that would have been different, better or more. It’s a loss of hopes, dreams and expectations,

Jordan Brodie  45:23
Anything we wish that could have been different, better or more. That’s the definition of grief.

Victoria Volk  45:31
In the grief recovery Handbook, it’s in there. Yep, loss of hopes, dreams and expectations, anything we wish that would have been different, better or more.

Jordan Brodie  45:39
That is interesting, because that means everyone’s experienced grief.

Victoria Volk  45:45
Everybody, everybody.

Jordan Brodie  45:48
When you’re not, when you’re not being responded to, or you have an expectation, and it’s not being delivered the way you expect, or, wow, that just and we’re not talking about this, and people aren’t aware of it. It’s not. If it’s such a common thing, that experience that we experienced on a regular basis. Why aren’t we talking about it?

Victoria Volk  46:13
Jordan, that is exactly why I started this podcast. Thank you for bringing that point up, because that’s exactly why I started this podcast and that’s why it’s called grieving voices.

Jordan Brodie  46:25
Well, I love this. I’m so about bears.

Victoria Volk  46:31
There’s one question I want to ask you, I want to make sure we get to because we’re about running out of time. But I want to ask, because we we’ve heard your story. Thank you for sharing all that you shared, you highlighted so many different ways that children grieve. And interestingly, I used to work as a I don’t want to say I don’t even know what the job title was actually. But I would actually take the phone calls for people who want let’s say, you wanted to call your mom and you use the TTY. I would be on the other end. I was I was the operator. So, I would actually type what you would say, and read what the deaf person is writing.

Jordan Brodie  47:17
Beautiful job, you have no idea how many conversations I’ve had to have with my mother over those services. And people don’t recognize it’s such a marginalized community. They’re like, this is another universe. It’s like, and the problems they experience are similar to those in the LGBTQ community. It’s feeling marginalized, it’s feeling without a voice. It’s it’s the same type of feelings of inequality. And I really think we need to bring affirmative action back because they’re like, there’s I don’t know if you’ve heard of the whole breaking code silence like Paris Hilton’s. new thing, she has just recently come out about some abuse that happened to her at a border school, boarding school in high school, she was always too afraid to talk about it. And she’s finally someone pulled it out of her and her last documentary, and she’s finally talking about it. And so it started this whole thing, where they’re, they’re basically they are investigating all these schools in the United States that have been hurting people. And the reason I mentioned this is because like, my, the deaf community is a very vulnerable community. And they are being taken advantage of all the time. And I have a little so it’s genetic. My little brother is deaf, too. And he was he’s been molested in school. That’s another part of my grief is we were really, really close. He was basically like a little kid to me. Like my, he looked at me like a father, basically. And when I found out he had been molested, and these schools, I was like, thank God, I wasn’t in Montana, like I would have found those people. Like, I just was so mad. And so her and so sad. And I talked to my grandma about this recently. And she said in the 80s, when the Kennedys were president, and like, when they were really popular that Kennedys, one of their sisters started this movement for affirmative action and actually made some laws that required big companies to hire at least one or two disabled persons, on staff and they upped the budget for the dis schools for people with disabilities. And stay put a lot of support for that community and because the problem is and parents, I was listening to a podcast last night with Kate Hudson and and Oliver Hudson, they were interviewed. It’s called so sibling revelry. And it’s really good. And it was, it’s siblings, interviewing other siblings. So, they were interviewing Parris and her sister, Nicole, or Nikki, and I was listening to this late last night, and Paris was talking about, about this, a lot of these schools hire under an under qualified people that because of the lack of funding, because of the low budgets, they’re hiring people that aren’t qualified. And that’s what my grandmother told me. One solution that can be done for these people is if affirmative action comes back, and we’ve raised the budgets for private for public schools for the deaf, there, they would filter out they would have better hiring programs, and they could hire better people. And because people are being molested, like every year at these schools, and that’s just adding more trauma, more grief, more problems to our society, might I pray every day for my little brother, like I’m so worried about him that he’s gonna just turn out and like, become crazy or something because of all this stuff he’s been through.

Victoria Volk  51:26
That’s just it. That’s I mean, if you’ve read, I know, you said, you read the grief recovery handbook. And we’re all Grievers. And we all have life experience. And, you know, one person’s trauma is going to be different from someone else’s, and it doesn’t have to be like big t trauma, it can be something little like for you, you know, at first, you know, just not being able to feel like you could own who you were a smart kid, you know, just, I mean, that’s something that seems so insignificant to probably adults and other people.

Jordan Brodie  52:02
it’s your right, to like yeah, to know who you are. And to be able to. Just like all I’ve ever wanted is to be in a room and like you said your you would get anxiety. And that’s probably the reason why you drink is to be imagine just being in that room or to be able to go into any room and not have to be hyper focused on your breath or hyper focused on your thoughts are hyper focused on how you’re moving or hyper focus on how you’re, you’re speaking or, like just hyper focused, it would be so nice to be able to walk into any room anywhere we go and like, you know, the whole George Floyd movement, just be able to breathe, and just be able to, like, be one with that room. But our traumas caused us to get in our head and separate and and that’s all I’ve ever wanted was to just feel like I could be myself in a crowd of anyone and bullying caused me to feel separated. And part of my journey in recovery is getting back to that how do I calm my brain? How do I calm my nerves? How do I allow myself to feel like I can be anyone I want to be. And that’s part of the reason why, as an artist, I have a small fan base, we’re really tiny, like a little cat and I’m like a little candle and I just, they are basically the ones that that see me exactly how I am and I feel like I don’t have to put on a show for them. And I haven’t performed for them yet. They’re all on the internet. And hopefully after COVID I’ll be able to do some shows for them. But it’s Kim Petrus talks about it too, like she feels like she’s created this heaven where she can go on the stage and fans that are like her show up to her shows. And she can go up on stage and just be as weird as she wants to and whatever outfit she wants to singing during whatever she wants to. And it’s empowering for her like It’s like she created her own group therapy and her performance.

Victoria Volk  54:24
And I think to it comes down to self love and I think it’s this radical self love that we find in ourselves and give to ourselves when we do the work on ourselves. Exactly. I think that’s what you’re finding too. That’s what I found. This has been so good.

Jordan Brodie  54:44
Thank you. Yeah, this has been super helpful. When so when this is are you posting a video to or is it just the audio?

Victoria Volk  54:55
For now, it’s just the audio, the podcast. I do keep the I do have the have eventually possibly I want to get these on YouTube or closed captioning or community. And I’m just not there yet because it requires editing of the video as well as audio so not that, I’m a one woman show. Right there. Yeah.

Jordan Brodie  55:22
Have you heard of fiverr.com? I did. Yeah. We could probably find some editors on there to collaborate with that wouldn’t charge a killing you know?

Victoria Volk  55:33
Yeah

Jordan Brodie  55:34
Cool. Yeah. Let me know when you are when when will you post this because I will be sharing this for sure.

Victoria Volk  55:43
I will let you know. But before we go, I want people to know where can they reach you if they want to want to reach out to you? Where can they find you?

Jordan Brodie  55:51
Well, on Instagram, tik tok, Snapchat, Facebook, my most of my I have a few different handles, but it’s jbrodie Music on Facebook and Instagram, and Twitter. And then on Tick Tock and Snapchat, it’s brodiejmusic. It’s the opposite, just because the other one was taken. But I also just recently, and I don’t know if you’re on clubhouse, or if you’ve heard of it. I just recently joined clubhouse. And it’s jbrody music on clubhouse. And what it is, I, when I get, I have a few people in line. But when I get a few more invite codes, I’m sending you an invite code, because it’s invite only right now because they’re in beta testing. But a lot of podcasters are on there. A lot of entrepreneurs, it’s a new social media platform based on voice. So, people create these rooms of topic, interests. And I created last night I was up late last night because I was creating different rooms. I’d love to get you on there. And we could start like a weekly grief room. And it’s really cool because when you start following people, you just invite people and it’s like interact. It’s almost like it’s like a conference on your phone. And I’ve been listening to some really like famous people. I’ve been having conversations. I had a conversation with dead mouse the other day. It’s a really famous DJ with Perez Hilton. I had a conversation with Richie squirrel yesterday. He’s, he’s Lady Gaga is choreographer, like just all these people are on there right now. And they’re having these conversations. And it’s really cool. Like, I highly recommend that you can find me on there too.

Victoria Volk  57:48
I’ve heard about that through a podcasting group, but I haven’t checked it out yet.

Jordan Brodie  57:53
And maybe we could all start a group on there sometime.

Victoria Volk  57:58
I’ll have to check it out. Thank you so much for being here, Jordan. I’ve really appreciated what you’ve shared and what we’ve all talked about sharing your story. So, thank you so much. It’s been wonderful

Jordan Brodie 58:10
Thank you.

Victoria Volk 59:25
And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.

 

 

Ep 37 | Angela Williams

Angela Williams | Abused by My Mother, Homeless, & Heroin Addict to Ph.D.

 

SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:

Based on the experiences she had in the first decade of her life, Angela was destined for a life of struggle, and, as her mom declared – die with a needle in her arm by the time she was 16. This prophecy nearly came true more than once. Instead, she got her Ph.D..

A life of trauma, physical, emotional, and sexual abuse by her mother led to early motherhood, heroin addiction, looking for love in all the wrong places, and losing her son to her own mother who put him in foster care. It would take over a decade for her to get her son back.

As her book describes, she was a child that fell through the cracks of the system. And, nearly paid with her life for it. Her story is a hero’s journey where she paved her own path out of living hell.

Connect with Angela:

Victoria Volk  00:00
Welcome Grievers to another episode of grieving voices. This is your host, Victoria. And this week I have a special guest. They’re all special, because all Grievers are special. But this special guest is named Angela. And Angela is an author, a free-range researcher, independent podcaster and survivor of many horrible things in her words. And she is from Sydney, Australia. Welcome, Angela. Thank you for being here.

Angela Williams  00:34
Hi, Victoria. Thank you for having me. It’s lovely to be talking to you today. Well, you know, difficult but lovely. Yeah,

Victoria Volk  00:41
I know. It’s heavy stuff. And I have thoughts on that. Moving the podcast forward actually how I can bring a little lightness to all the heavy, you know. I think we need a little bit more balance in times

Angela Williams  00:53
Think of the cactus flowers, cactus flowers. They’re the theme in the shop. It’s and we find the beauty is hiding there waiting to just pop out. Yeah.

Victoria Volk  01:02
Yeah. And that’s actually where a specific question came from that I came to me today that I will ask you later.

Angela Williams  01:09
Okay.

Victoria Volk  01:10
All right. So, we just met just now, man.

Angela Williams  01:15
Yep, yep.

Victoria Volk  01:16
Yeah, no history here.

Angela Williams  01:19
I feel like we’ve clicked.

Victoria Volk  01:21
Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. I think that’s the thing with grief. It’s where we all experience it. On some level. And that’s the one thing that we nobody can run from.

Angela Williams  01:35
We can try.

Victoria Volk  01:36
You can try.

Angela Williams  01:38
Yeah.

Victoria Volk  01:39
And that’s what the education piece is all about.

Angela Williams  01:41
Yeah.

Victoria Volk  01:42
The work that I do. But what I do know is that your story begins when you were four.

Angela Williams  01:49
Yeah. So that that’s when I started grieving. When I was four, my father had was an alcoholic, and he died of hepatic cirrhosis. And so, I was four years old, my brother was three years old. And we found out a lot lighter that we actually found him at the time, but it was very traumatic. So, he died. And my mother had, we had been living with my two older brothers who I only met last year for the first time. And they had been raising myself and my brother, because my mother wasn’t very good at it. So then when he died, she just took us and left We went to a couple of different places. And she was incapable of looking after two human beings, but also very, very abusive. So, from she then told my brother and I, for a very long time that our father had died of suicide, and specifically told me any number of times that he’d killed himself because I was a naughty child. So it was, yeah, like I started grieving him 40 years ago, and part of grieving him was that that that gradual awareness as a child that my mother wasn’t like other people’s mothers, so she died on Halloween last year. And I never really liked my birthdays, because they were always really dodgy at home. And she somehow managed to time it so that she committed suicide on Halloween and was then buried on my birthday last year. So instead of going to the funeral, I made a podcast about the situation and so I’m now in this really kind of unique situation of grieving this woman who I started grieving 30 years beforehand, so yeah, she Yeah, my father’s. I probably told the whole story and you were gonna save it up for the whole interview, and I spurted it all out in one go. Yeah, that’s where it started. And that’s where I am now trying to balance all of the lies that she told me about myself and about my world and who I am and how to grieve someone. When it feels like to grieve someone, there has to be a connection, there has to be love or a link there. And it’s very, very difficult to work out how to grieve someone when you almost wish they’d never been born, you know. So yeah, it goes back a long way. And it’s really all flared up in the last year. But since she died, I’ve, my whole life has changed. It’s been remarkable from the day she died, everything got different and that’s why I decided to do a podcast to talk to people like me who are going to have to face this really complicated grieving process somewhere along the line. Lots of us are estranged now and we need to talk about that.

Victoria Volk  05:09
So, you mentioned that she kind of plucked you out of the life that you were living so and where you were and everything familiar. So, it wasn’t even just the loss of your father. It was the loss of yours. Whatever support you did have, correct?

Angela Williams  05:25
Yeah. We, we went from, I’ve only really found the details of this out in the last couple of years from kind of extended family members who I found gradually through poking at the Internet. She she just took us away we had, I was at school, my brother was in preschool, and we just kind of got picked up and moved overnight, she sold my father’s house, liquidated all of these assets, left his other children and his first wife with nothing, and then just took us and, and then we went through this series of living in tiny, isolated places like small flats, and we went to stay for a while in this weird Christian commune in the middle of like regional New South Wales, where we all farmed together, we had to leave there, after she got really violent with me. And when we left places, it was always bundle everyone into the car, pack everything up, and now we go. And then, so it was just, it was this horrible experience of not actually ever having, learning the basic human things. So, like, by the time I left school at 16, left home, I didn’t have any human skills, all I knew was how to be an abused child. Everything I’ve made since then has come out of recognizing the strength I got back there.

Victoria Volk  07:00
So, at the time to when you left at 16, and your brother would have been 15

Angela Williams  07:06
Yes.

Victoria Volk  07:07
She’s equally as you said to him.

Angela Williams  07:10
It was weird mine, it was gendered, very specifically gendered. women had one job according to my mother’s view of the world and men had a different job. So, my brother was abused, but in different ways we both kind of he was a lot of mine was really weird sexual stuff, and emotional abuse and yeah, kind of public humiliation and things but all linked to my sexuality from when I was like a small child she was offering to sell meet men and to auction off my virginity for a boat at the golf club. And she just thought this stuff was funny, she thought she was the funniest person in the world, and it was 1980s 1990s Australia, people didn’t step in with child abuse, we have a terrible history of what we’ve done to children in this country and things that have been covered up institutional child abuse and stuff. And nobody stepped in. People just assumed it was the mother’s job Oh, and so many people said to me over the years, a mother wouldn’t do that to her daughter, particularly the sexual stuff like a mother wouldn’t do that to her daughter. So, it was kind of I was always just trapped in all of these messages that she was giving me the really dangerous messages that then the rest of society was not challenging those messages not interrupting and saying hey actually that’s wrong. I am a little bit by psychiatrists likes to remind me I could have gone to jail for this one but I once ran up at a woman in the supermarket and slapped her across the head and told her to pick on someone around sides because I walked behind over three aisles watching her slap the child across the back of their head every time he reached for something and I wait to stand by it and ignore it because I was that kid that people stood by and ignored so yeah, she gave me a real put a fire cracker and to me that woman I had to be this is where I can read it. Let me Can it Can I just read that bit from my book? Yeah, so I wrote this book. It’s not about promoting this for everyone else that already told Victoria this, but I wrote this book and in this book I talked about it’s called Snakes and Ladders wonderful book, but in their awful awful book I lie It’s not wonderful. But I survived spoiler. It’s about it includes the the horrible things that my mother did to me and the dedication in this book, I wrote it. When I first started writing the book it says to my mother for making me the strongest woman I could be to my mother for making me the strongest woman. I could be all stop That’s what you do with it, you take it and you go, this stuff is intolerable. This is unbearable, you cannot live like this. And then you change it, you do something different with it. So I did something so different to what she told me to do. And now it’s like, right up until the day she I’ve been in therapy for 20 years, okay? 20 years with the same psychiatrist, you can do that in Australia. He’s been both billing me the whole time. It’s free. Because I’m really broken that so you don’t normally get that, but I’m pretty broken. He likes me. But you can get free therapy here. It’s amazing. I forget where I was going, I started talking about therapy. Does it every time you can take all of this stuff and make it into something different. And odd. That’s where I was going. The day she died. I’ve been in therapy for 20 years. And I thought I processed at all. But the day she died. I sat there and because she died of an overdose. She’s she overdosed we don’t know for sure if it was suicide, but it was a painkiller overdose. And that’s what she always said to me. From when I was so young. She said, you’re going to die in the ghetto with a needle hanging out your arm, Angela. And she said it was gonna happen before I was 21. So 21 was when I was like, Oh, I won that. Then 42 I was like, Oh, I got to double what she said, I totally won. But then when she died the same way she told me I was gonna die. Something dropped off my gaze, and I was able to see how much of everything she ever said about me. She was actually saying about herself. She was talking about herself with all of those things that she said to me, and just that moment of realizing she was finally dead. Let me just own the truth of myself as a person separate to that abuse. To like really step into being that strong woman that you have to be when you when you’re raised with all four things you have to be strong or die. As I tried to die with a needle hanging out my arm, I’m just obviously better at surviving. She thought I was going to be I gave it a good read hard go. Heroin is not the way to solve your emotional problems. I can say that 100% confidence, but I’ve gone somewhere different what she planned for me. And letting her go is letting that hold over me go. I am. I started my podcast after she died because after years of worrying about talking and being heard in the world, because she would hunt me down everywhere. She never respected my no contact. As soon as I popped up the social media accounts, she was there she would send requests through friends and constantly had some illness that I needed to rush to her side and comfort her. So, the poor people who had to email me about her finally dying, got that response of I am so sick of this. No, I am not rushing to her bedside again. And then she was actually dead and all I felt was relief. I already processed all the grief. I’ve processed the grief through the book and through the therapy and through making myself into this amazing, strong, capable human being. And I don’t regret not having contact with her. I don’t regret having kept myself safe. I don’t regret prioritizing my safety over her comfort

Victoria Volk  13:42
For the audience, it is Dr. Angela Williams. So, it’s an incredible story. What’s up?

Angela Williams  13:53
I said I’m comfortable in lecture mode.

Victoria Volk  13:56
Can I ask what kind of with doctor?

Angela Williams  13:59
Yes, yes, you can. I actually have a PhD in Creative Arts. I like to tell people that I’m a doctor of making shit up. I taught critical theory at university for seven years, which is all of those big ideas. We used to think about the world like philosophy so the feminism and the socialism and all the different isms and ologies. I taught a big first year class of around 300 students where we taught them how to do things like think and write essays and paragraphs and sentences. Let’s be honest. And so, I’ve given a lot of feedback. Oh, my favorite subject I ever taught was a I was just a tutor for this one. It was a third-year research project. So, the students got to write like a mini thesis, and I did. I was working with about 90 students helping them all make their own little mini thesis research pro at the end of three years of creative art, so there were across all of the disciplines visual arts, dance, and dramatic pin performance and all the rest of them. And including a couple of writers, creative writers, which is my field, they’re always the quiet ones sitting, they sit in a little clump in the middle of the room, and then the louder students get around them. But yeah, so I spent seven years wrangling creative art students to learn how to think while I was writing my PhD well, and after I finished my thesis, but my research was into how writing a memoir is like self surveillance, and we turned the lenses on ourselves to discipline ourselves into being more socially acceptable human beings. proved that theory, didn’t I? Yeah, so that’s what my doctorate is in, I think way too much. And I’m overqualified to do everything. But podcast turns out so yes, I’m technically an expert. They told me. Obviously, I am. Yes. Can I arrange my favorite bit of the book since we’re talking about me being a doctor? Here we go. This I didn’t even write this bit. Neither did my publishers. This is by an Australian author called Anna crying. Sorry, my microphones there. Oh, this is why I started a podcast. Snakes and Ladders is devastating and brilliant. Williams is a tremendous writer, her insight into power and punishment is brave, honest, and revealing. Thank you, Brian. Yeah, so that’s what kind of doctor I am. I am really good at looking at stories and looking inside them and behind them and underneath them. I did University and therapy at the same time. So, I just think all the time.

Victoria Volk  16:51
I think it’s absolutely incredible how I mean, you’re the epitome of the heroine story. And can we circle back to when you were 16? And like, come back to like the time in between now, if the time is between?

Angela Williams  17:11
Say, between 16. And now?

Victoria Volk  17:14
Yeah, like, how did you get from a needle in your arm to a PhD? And like, how did you quit? Like, you just like, kicked heroin, like, I’m done.

Angela Williams  17:24
I’m, I’m really smart. I didn’t know that when I was a kid. I thought that I was creative, which was an insult in my family. So we went to a Pentecostal church, and I had been reading it, my job was to work in the bookshop. That was my volunteering gig. And I read all these books about heroin in the church, bookshop. It took me about 10 years in therapy to realize that what I had done was put those messages together and worked out the consistent thread through all of those books was that when a person started taking heroin, their family stopped talking to her. So, she had already been predicting this for me for many years. So, I didn’t come up with these ideas by myself. But it was a really good escape hatch for me. I used heroin for a few years, got myself in some terrible, terrible trouble, ended up in jail, and then back in jail, 10 years later, the same thing, but um, when I left home, I just, I found a place to live. And she came there and saw me. So, then I moved further away into the city right into the city, and she came and found me. And so, I ended up actually just I lived homeless on the streets of Sydney for about nine months. Um, I was at the time, I was like, I’m pretty sure there’s a private investigator following me. And then my friends will like your paradine Angela, that’s the drugs found out years later that my rd actually had paid a private investigator to try to come and try and find me. And so, I did have a private investigator following me. for brief periods there, I had to make myself so unpalatable to my mother she had, she went through this period of every time she saw me, she would give me money for heroin and would try go and buy it for me offered to shoot the app one day because my hands were shaking too much. She was really it was kind of like Munchausen by proxy. She really liked having a broken child. When I was a kid, she used to feed me toothpaste so I would have a fever and go to the hospital. So by the time I left home, like it took me about a year and a half to get her to leave me alone. And then I met this man and, and he convinced me that he was going to rescue me and when we’re gonna get married, I was 17. He was 26. He’s the father of my child. He convinced me that my parents needed to be involved. In this so they came and met his family and it got really weird. And then it turned out he was abusive, because like part of what you do when you’ve had abusive parents is you go and find a bunch more to keep that abuse going don’t is so I actually have had I think my next book will be about how many relationships are fucked up on the way to having one that actually works. But um yeah, I had a child I was spiraling out of control, and I needed to, I got so sick that I actually genuinely don’t know how I’m alive, I weighed like 36 kilos, you guys can confer those two pounds yourself. And I had this big, crap sores on the corner of my mouth where every time I talked pass would run down my face. And I really liked to talk. So, I got really, really sick. And then I went to rehab, because that’s what you do. And I did 12 months in rehab, and my first therapy while I was there, and I started thinking, and I started putting things together. And the first three months I was in rehab, you weren’t allowed to talk to your family. That was one of the rules. And then I got through 12 weeks, and then my mother rang me. And I stood there, and I had not wanted to use heroin. I was going through the program, I was loving it, I was enjoying being clean. And then I heard a voice on the phone, and I wanted to use again. And I was like this is and then I said, no, I can’t have any contact with you. And then about six weeks later, a social worker turned up at the rehab and told me my mother was dying in hospital and that I needed to go and make my peace with her. And that was in 1997. So that was the first time she got me out of the No Contact thing. And then I just I refused to play by the rules I’d been given. So, I, my son might, she took my son to live with her and put him in foster care. And I didn’t see him for seven years, the police wouldn’t let me file a missing persons report because he was with a family member. So, in that seven years, I tried to kill myself really hard with other drugs, not just heroin, I made my track marks into a work of beauty, you can use them as little soup bowls. And then I went No, I said, this is not working for me. So, I attempted suicide, which was kind of in my genes as well, when you look at it, or how I was raised, but then my suicide attempt failed. And while I was in hospital, the doctor who assessed me was my psychiatrist. And, and how I still see him to today. He, he was the magic thing I had just applied to go to university. And I have been spent 20 years telling this man these stories about myself. And he just he just gives me constant positive regard. He likes me no matter what. And 20 years of therapy, and 13 years at university and the two combined to just I can see so clearly how my teenage years were just like those years after I left home, that was all I Those were the only options I had. I didn’t know how to open a bank account. I didn’t know any of the basics of like economy of how the economy works, how politics works, how to engage with the world, how to get a job, but how to do anything. And so I spent 20 years being my own parent, in therapy, doing, giving myself all the things that my mother hadn’t given me to make myself into a human being and I think I probably technically hit like a human being around about 26 or 27. Before I was actually able to see myself as being the same kind of creature as the people around me. Now I bought I am 100% convinced I am a human being but took a long time. A lot of therapy. He charges $360 an hour to people who are being both build. Oh, I am so privileged this man. It changed my life forever. Oh yeah, absolutely. He is the captain of my fan club. Yep, yep. Yeah.

Victoria Volk  24:46
Sounds like an amazing guy.

Angela Williams  24:47
He is, he is.

Victoria Volk  24:51
Perhaps a father figure you’ve never had?

Angela Williams  24:53
Well, yes and absolutely the father figure I never had but also a kind of rebel. representation of society because the school ignored the abuse, the church ignored the abuse, our Doc’s the Community Services, they got sent out to see us. They saw me at the school and then went back home and told my mother what I said about her. So, all of society was just saying this is okay. shrink Allah, my psychiatrist. He was the first person who said, Actually, no, this isn’t okay. Like, there was a moment where I was telling him this story about how my grandmother said that if I could get a recording of my mother abusing me, then she would go to the police with me. And I was telling my psychiatrists this as evidence that my grandmother was my hero. He was like, hang on, Angela. If she was like, what adult asks a child to provide a recording of them being abused before they will believe you and take action on it. Yeah, he was the first person who ever said actually, no, no, this is not okay. And I needed to hear that.

Victoria Volk  25:58
In grief recovery. We talk a lot about my grief recovery specialists. talk a lot about beliefs. And what I mean was your I don’t know if this is okay to ask. So, if it’s not just let me know. But do you know if your mother who was abused, growing up?

Angela Williams  26:20
Okay, so there is, this is totally intergenerational. This has happened a lot in Australia. We’ve actually just put the story together. In the last, say, four months before my mother died. My auntie died. Well, three and a half months before my mother died, my auntie died and my auntie had been her younger sister, and had been the victim of her abuse growing up my mother and my grandmother used to team up on my sister and my her younger brother who died of suicide Would you believe? So? Arnie Liz died last year in August, September. And then my mother died in October, but in between, we found his briefcase that Ali Liz had had sitting for years and she would say to my uncle, don’t worry about this, this stuff for the kids. And she was kind of like my standing mother, I lost contact with her. She tried to kidnap me when I was 11 after my mother broke a fry pan on my head. And so, then we didn’t see them again until I was an adult and I found myself Um, so Arnie layers had kept this suitcase, this briefcase. So the way the story goes, we put all the documents together. My grandfather was a in the Navy, and he went off to World War Two, and he met my grandmother. And so, he went off to World War Two was on a boat, they accidentally told him my grandmother was at home, pregnant with my oldest Auntie, and they accidentally told my grandfather that she was dead her and the baby had died. And so then he ceased all contact with her back in Australia. And at the same time, the Navy decided the way to treat his grief was to feed him heaps of rum and put him in an officer training program. And then because of you know, all those screw ups that happened in World War Two, he didn’t come back to Australia for five years. And he lived as an officer in the Navy drinking heaps of rum and constantly reporting back to the hit the medics that he wasn’t dealing wasn’t coping with this while at home. My grandmother was going mad because her brand-new husband had deserted her and left her at home with this baby. So we’re pretty sure that something broke in the family then they went on to have three more children and my mother was the eldest of those three children. So, my grandmother was a nasty woman. And everybody agreed with that. She was nasty to her children, and she taught my mother her unique brand of nastiness. So, it wasn’t my mother would tell you she was abused by everyone. Everyone abused her. My stepfather abused her my father abused her my grandmother abused her. The people who were victims and my mother tell it very differently so I’m something broke in our family in World War Two. I’m trying to put we’ve got all of this in my grandparents own handwriting. My grandfather’s written this to the Veterans Affairs trying to get recognition of what was done to the family. But I think something broke back then. And so, then they came back to Australia and Australia had a really long we have made torturing children a tradition here. We routinely dig up backyards in the inner west of Sydney where there are multiple babies skeletons buried around because you could make money at certain stages of Sydney’s history by we call them the baby farmers. They would take babies on to look after them or to rehouse them and then just kill them and bury them in the backyard. We had orphanages set up just to bring homeless destitute children from the UK and the US to Australia to farm them out for profit. And this is like 100 years ago 150 years ago, so we had a really bad history of child abuse in Australia that was ignored on every level. So, it’s kind of filtered down to it is ridiculous how many friends I have. It’s such similar stories of mothers like mine. But down to really ridiculous. I have one friend and we both had the same identical experience of being made to paint ceilings in our house in the light one at two o’clock in the morning, standing on tables whilst being beaten with broomsticks. That is such a precise, it’s like we taught women in this country mothers in this country how to abuse children. So it, I can understand why she was the woman she was, but I can’t forgive it. But luckily, it turns out that forgiveness isn’t as necessary as they make out. Yes, so she there was something broken in the whole family. And my grandfather was one of the first people to get off the boat and set foot Hiroshima after the things did you know, we let Navy officials just get off and wander around there after the bombs went off without any PPA. Whoa, and then his hair was falling out and he was bleeding from his rectum for the rest of his life. Yeah, yeah. So I’m, I’ll do something with that suitcase full of records, write a book about it, but we can always you look at society, you look at any level of society, you can find something there that is guaranteed to turn a person into a monster. But at the same time, we have to look at the monsters and go doesn’t make it okay. The monster I should have been a monster I should be Myra Hindley, the serial killer, the most murderer had such a similar upbringing to me, I should have been Myra Hindley. But instead, I did therapy, wrote about my stuff, changed my life. And now I’m a beacon for good. We don’t have to live out the histories that were given.

Victoria Volk  32:12
It takes people like you to break that cycle to break the pattern of that generational learning. Because imagine then, if you hadn’t, how would your relationship be with your son? How would your son be, you know?

Angela Williams  32:27
Well, my son came back out of foster care to live with me when he was 11. Apparently, that never happens. So, we talked about it, he was officially put back into my care when he was 16. I took him back from the state. I was like, give me back those papers, which apparently again, never happens. But he lives with me now. He’s an adult 26 we have the best relationship in the world. He has been very slow about getting any relationships. And there’s damage there that comes from having a family like mine, but we did something different. He’s my hero. Would you like to say a picture of him from the book? So ah, he’s amazing. His name is Finn. I call them decks in the book. He got to choose his own name. There he is. Oh, that’s what he was little. And there is with me and him. No call. Oh, there’s my boobs. Look, I covered my boobs.

Victoria Volk  33:22
Check out this book.

Angela Williams  33:24
I’ll do but yeah, you don’t get the pictures in the edition. People have been very disappointed about that. It’s a very good book. Lovely. Yeah.

Victoria Volk  33:33
I like a book in my hands. Yeah, like a book in my hands.

Angela Williams  33:37
Sniff them. You can’t sniff in a book.

Victoria Volk  33:41
You can’t doggy ear you can’t like right?

Angela Williams  33:45
Take posted notes. Where do you put your posted note?

Victoria Volk  33:51
I know! So let me ask you this. Among all the chaos and the trauma and use and and and and where did you find your joy? How long did that take too?

Angela Williams  34:09
Finally my middle name is Joy, Angela joy because I’m an angel of joy. Yeah, I don’t know where she was going with that. But um, I found my joy by recognizing my superpowers. complex trauma does has an effect on the structure of your brain, particularly complex trauma with really young people so your, your brain wires differently to normal people and it gives you some things that like when we talk about pathologies, they kind of describe these as symptoms but I prefer to think about them as superpowers. So it was a really slow process, going to university and realizing that I was very good at critical thinking. I can put a Very sound argument together; I can read some very disparate different sources and bring them together to make a hole. And it took me a very long time to realize that that was because I was smart, I had been creative was the insult I it took me a really long time to realize that I was smart. Once I started to let myself relax into that. studying and learning and writing and creating is where I find my joy. It’s I’ve won a couple of awards for the book where I got to before it was published, I got to go and stay in this amazing writer’s retreat up in the Blue Mountains just above Sydney. And one day I wrote like 22,000 words, in one day, I was from like, three o’clock in the morning, I woke up just with the flow of burning in me and just wrote, that’s where I found my joy, I found my joy in not quite retelling, it’s reimagining every story I come up against, I challenge it, and I think about all the different angles and that’s, that’s why I started my podcast. So, I could just share this stuff with the world, I usually just share it with my Facebook and people are like, Angela, you need to talk to other people about this. I’ve done some conferences, a couple of appearances, and I just I love taking the bad stuff and making it into something good being able to find those cactus flowers. When I, when the editors of my book first read it, they were like this is an amazing book, there is a wonderful story, we just need you to find. Some of them are pretty bits, we need you to find the joy in there and bring it out because it’s a very heavy book to read otherwise. And so I’d gotten addicted to this kind of flow activity of learning and reading and synthesizing information before I realized that I was enjoying it. So, I was at university getting those really good marks going, spending 80 hours a week reading and researching and writing. And then never making the connection that the really good marks I was getting. And the fact that I was happily and willingly spending all of these hours reading things that other people were very resistant to reading. That’s where I get my joy and my flow. It’s the superpower of part of the brain damage that’s inflicted on you as an abused child is hyper awareness, you have to watch for everything, you have to read the tiny, tiny details because that’s what keeps you alive. I took hype awareness and made it into a craft an art form skill that I can use to make myself stronger. And that’s it. That’s where I found my joy in flipping all of the narratives and all of the stories I was ever given. And turn upside down look underneath find out the other version of the story and then do that instead. Yeah, yeah. And build the superpower theory has only really formed over the last five years or so when I got quite heavily into researching cortisol and neuro Neuro Linguistic prayer. I’m not I’m not doing NLP. I think it works, but I’m not doing it. But once I started researching how brain chemistry get to get gets fits together, I realized that Yeah, I get way too excited about research. So I just let myself do it now, freelance researcher, I am not affiliated with the university, I am considering a current research arrangement that might let me stick my nose into corrective services. But mostly I just to work from my fun

Victoria Volk  38:33
Was it your therapist that encouraged you to apply for university.

Angela Williams  38:37
No, no, it was not my therapist. It was well yeah, he encouraged me to apply for university, but I’d already kind of started the process before I met him. I was flirting with the idea people. I used to take a lot of drugs. I know I don’t seem as sort of way, but um, for a very long time. Or maybe it just seems longer because I was on drugs. I would have these conversations with people and the pool tables in the toilets at the pub at the bus stop. And they’d be like, you should go to university Angela. Um, so lots of people said it. And then I met this guy. He’s like, I was 26. He was 16. It was nothing romantic. He’s gay. Were bsfc lives in Canada. But he started going to university, and we were hanging out quite a bit. There was drugs involved. He started going to university and he was like, honestly, sorry, Chris. I know you’re listening. Not very smart. Not very smart. So, I was like, well, he’s going to university surely I can go to university right? And so, he made me drive with him to Wollongong University, just south of Sydney. And I was like, oh, this is pretty nice, isn’t it and then I watched him get to put your form in in person back then I watched him put his form in and I was like, by the time we got back to the car, I was like, dude, I’m gonna go to university. It was like, I think you should, And I didn’t know you could get scholarships because that I hadn’t done your 12 the end of school HSC we call it, I didn’t know you could get scholarships to pay for the bridging course. So, I was working in the sex industry. So, I just went to work and stayed at work until I made enough money to pay for that course. So, I could get in and go to university. Um, yeah, yeah, I was just determined to go. And then I worked in the sex industry the whole way through university, to pay my way there, which is legal in New South Wales, and we pay taxes and things. It’s excellent. And by the time I finished my second degree at university, I was just taught, I just stayed there until they started paying me to be at university. And then I got so involved, and I saw the back end of University and I went, I don’t want to work for your people anymore. I’m just gonna go and think for myself now. Yeah, so it was Christopher’s fault. He’s the reason I went to university. He’s just upstairs from you in Canada, give him a poke with the state.

Victoria Volk  41:02
There’s so many layers to you. Like it’s just,

Angela Williams  41:05
I know, I know.

Victoria Volk  41:06
What’s the next what’s the next chapter?

Angela Williams  41:10
I’m on, I’ve met this woman. I’ve had lots of very awful relationships in my time. And I’ve met this woman and she’s pretty excellent. We’ve been together for coming up on two years now. And our families like each other. And her mother gave me a card at Christmas time that know for my birthday right before Christmas. That said to my daughter in law, so we figure she’s dropping some pretty heavy hints there. Um, yeah, we are talking about going Bush, we’re gonna go and live in a tiny town and grow vegetables except for when there’s a drought, then we’ll just eat dirt and stuff. Because Australia and she started a business. I’ve got a couple of different things I do. I’m writing another book, of course, actually, that’s a lie. I am writing six different books at the moment. So, I should probably focus in a bit pour my energies towards just one of them for a while. Yeah, I’m just relaxing. I’m 44. I’m pretty sure that I’ve started metaphors. I’m going to see the doctor about that on Thursday. I’d really like to just relax and enjoy the second half of my life. I want this thing to go away. Like to. Yeah, my son’s name is Finn. I told him it’s my Finkle.

Victoria Volk  42:34
These are my like the number 11 I got you know, 11 lines. It’s Are you effing KIDDING ME lines?

Angela Williams  42:41
Well, I think I’ve done it so much. Mine squashed into one. Yeah, yeah. Oh, I am I’m a bundle of contradictions. My podcast, I go 20 minutes, Monday to Friday and,

Victoria Volk  43:00
Wow. What’s your what’s your podcast?

Angela Williams  43:03
Oh, my podcast is called the Deboning Power. I like to stick my knife into things. I just I’d make terrible puns. And I can’t stop myself. So, I talk about mostly I talk about New South Wales and Australian politics, I bust a lot of spin there. But then at the same time I have at least once a week I do one on getting better. The therapy stuff, Badaling, all of that amazing therapy I’ve had and just trying to speed it at the intent. And on Mondays I talk about kink. BDSM. I’m a bit of a community leader. So, I educate people about how to do things safely. It’s all a good combination. Power just pretty much covers everything, doesn’t it? You talk about power; you can talk about anything you want. Um, yeah, I asked if you’ve got questions. I’m very good at reading media. And I really dislike my politicians. So, I have to tell them that frequently. Um, yeah, but my therapy ones are my most popular. No, that’s a lie. People love the kink ones they get very excited about those, but the therapy are the second most popular episodes. Yeah. Politics is just what I do for fun.

Victoria Volk  44:11
I just, I love, I love this interview because it’s going from heavy to light to so many spectrums of the human experience that I mean do you feel like you’ve lived like three lifetimes?

Angela Williams  44:26
Oh, yeah, totally. I’m waiting let me I know I wrote this bio. Yeah, no, it’s in my bio. It says Where are you by Oh, come back here. It says that I’ve lived way more lives than by 20 I’d lived more lives than anyone should have I’ve but that was it right? Because I wasn’t my mother didn’t teach me how to be a human so I had to learn for myself and all of the predictions she made for me She told me I’d end up in sex work so I went into sex work became an incredibly successful like professional dominatrix. She told me I was gonna die from using heroin. So I use heroin. Instead used as a tool to escape and to get away from her. And she told me that I was creative. And that meant that everything I said was a lie. And instead, I became a writer and became very well equipped at just speaking truth. Truth is what I do better than anything. And this for a podcast about grieving. This is so important, because I’ve grieved my auntie, this year and my stepfather in a much more complicated way. But everything I’ve made in my life, every single weird thing that I’ve stuck my finger into, has been in response to my grief for not having a mother not having that central cohesive, because she was there, but she wasn’t a mother. So that’s everything I’ve done. My psychiatrists, my sex work, my education, it’s all been about mothering myself, giving myself the things that she wasn’t giving me and the thing. The thing that’s been hardest about her actually dying, was, how much relief I felt. And how uncomfortable I felt saying that other people I could tell my girlfriend or my psychiatrists, but it’s really hard with most people to say yes, my mother just died and I feel absolute relief. Over the years, lots of people have said, you need to make your peace with her. She’ll regret regret it when she’s dead. Everything I’ve done has been me making my peace with her. And I didn’t realize how efficiently I’d already grieved her. I didn’t realize how making myself into the opposite of what she thought I was gonna be was. It was a gift I was giving myself because that’s all grief is isn’t it? They don’t know were grieving them. They’re, they’re gone. They all of our grief is something that we give ourselves. It is a for some people, it’s soothing. for other people. It’s relief. And it’s about us, though, not them. And yeah, I couldn’t go to the funeral. I couldn’t my brother when she changed her name, after the court said that she wasn’t legally allowed to have access to my son. Cuz, she tried to get him removed from my care and put in foster care up near where she lives. So, she could see him up there. And I’m like, no, that’s not happening. And I, in exchange asked for an order saying that she never be allowed to see him again while he was child. So she changed her name after that. And so I would have had to turn up to a funeral with all these people from her church, who had become her church was very important to us. And I couldn’t have my truth there. I couldn’t, I couldn’t. I couldn’t perform the grief that they would expect me to perform. And I couldn’t fake it. If I walked into their I would not call her by her name that she talked to you avoid. Police finding out she was talking to children. I would just I’m too honest, I couldn’t do it. And every single funeral that I’ve been to, my army chose not to have a funeral. We got drunk on her river and sent her ashes out there all happily and celebrating under her tree where we fished together for years. I couldn’t give my mother that I couldn’t did a podcast instead. talked about it. Yeah,

Victoria Volk  48:32
Maybe a podcast about a eulogy that you would have liked to have written.

Angela Williams  48:39
Oh, well I tried that right. I was gonna give her a eulogy. And instead, I just ranted about how horrible it was that she decided to get buried on my birthday. Because you know, I do my podcasts every day. So, some of them get quite a lot of research. Some are just I am yelling at you today internet and that’s okay. When you do it every day, they can’t all be amazing. But that one was quite amazing. It was very raw I am I didn’t want to give her a eulogy. She um she left a stack of notebooks a stack of them and my brother burden I am I asked him to because we knew we knew that all that would be in there would be pages and pages and pages of explanations for why she was a victim in the world and everyone was out together and I’ve had it I’ve had the letters sent to me pages saying if you don’t respond to now I’m cutting you out of the will cut out of the well the first time when I was 14. So, it’s like you can’t keep holding that thread over me forever. And it turned out there was no will so or anything to leave.

Victoria Volk  49:43
The truth how you saw at people close to her? Probably never did.

Angela Williams  49:49
No, no, no. My brother asked if I wanted them. Or if I wanted him to say anything. said tell them to read my book. But that’s my truth. Yeah. Yeah. Because I’m, that’s it, I’m on to them, I said goodbye to them. By writing that book, I had to find some kind of sympathy for them in writing in that empathy that you have to have for your characters, even when you know their people abused you. I found a whole new level of understanding for my mother and writing that book and who she is as a person was as a person. But um, the only reason I would have turned up to that funeral was to make the other people there feel better about it. Yeah, I felt more guilty about being the MTC in the Pew then missing saying goodbye to my mother I’ve been. I’ve cried over too many times. Every time I cried myself to sleep after a beating, those were the tears that should have been at the funeral. And like I said to her, when she tried to ask me if she could move in with me a couple of like, last year sometime, I said I am. If you want to have children who are going to look after you’re in your old age, you have to skill your children up as human beings before they leave home. You can’t abuse someone for most of their life, and then say, Well, now it’s your turn to look after me. Yeah, can’t you just can’t do that? Yes. Yeah.

Victoria Volk  51:23
So she’s the epitome of a narcissist too?

Angela Williams  51:27
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Top to bottom. Yeah, and prescription pill addicts. So, you know, had lots of doctors treating her for lots of different illnesses and all kinds of prescribing. Yeah, medication for different things. And she would self diagnose and then go to a doctor and tell them that someone else had diagnosed her with that thing and then,

Victoria Volk  51:54
Coming back to what you were talking about with, like how other people would say that. You need to make peace with her regretted it’s like, what people don’t understand is like you like in grief recovery? Oftentimes, the people that give us the most grief are people who are living.

Angela Williams  52:11
Yeah, absolutely. And a lot of people when they say that they’re projecting their own experiences onto other people as well, if you’ve grown up with loving, supportive parents, it is very, very hard to conceptualize. Like, it’s equally hard for me to conceptualize loving, supportive parents, you can’t just assume everyone else has had the same experience as you. And when people say that to you, when they say, well, you’ll regret this after they’re gone. what they’re actually doing is trying to place this responsibility on you to value your blood connections over your own safety and security. If someone has just told you that they’ve been terribly abused by someone, and you turn around by saying, or you need to stay in touch with them, you need to have their your mother You have to have that connection, what you’re actually doing is I’m telling them, that all the stuff that that person has done to them matters less than their safety, no, sorry, matters more than their safety. It’s and grief is so difficult, we need to know to people will grieve the same way. And it’s been really strange talking to my brother about this, because we never, we’ve had a very difficult relationship because we were co victims, you know, victim bonded, and then talking to our kids about it. He has five kids and I have one kid and we talk to them about stuff. Particularly stuff with suicide, because my brother has four girls, my cousin has three girls, we talk about the suicide stuff, because not talking about it is more dangerous than talking about on now. My father’s suicide was not real. So, I don’t count that in the tally anymore. But apart from my father, I’ve lost half of my mother’s generation to suicide. And that’s enough. That’s enough. Yeah, so we talked to the kids, and we talked about the abuse, and we talked about what it means. And we talked about suicide because that’s it right you know, when you when you live with this risk, how can we reasonably certain I have complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, one of the most likely ways I will die is from suicide. That’s just the reality of my illness and my history and my baggage, so I kind of live around that risk knowing that yeah, and I suppose my mother’s done it now. So that’s even more likely, isn’t it? Um, that pushes me into even further into a risk category and that was that was one of my biggest concerns over the period where she was being buried. It was my birthday, which the last time I saw her on my birthday She sexually assaulted me in front of a big group of people and made a joke out of it. And yeah, so I was in a real risky place around that week and, but I just did what I do I talk to my psychiatrist, I talk to my girlfriend and kept myself safe. Yeah. I got docked in it. It’s okay.

Victoria Volk  55:25
You’re talking to me. You’re here.

Angela Williams  55:28
I know. I know. You’re like Oh, so many times over the last 10 years I’ve just stopped and yelled at the sky, I win! I am, I did so different to what I was told to do. I became whole.

Victoria Volk  55:44
The whole suicide narrative that doesn’t have to be your story. You don’t have to live into that story.

Angela Williams  55:51
Yeah, but we have to talk about it. Exactly.

Victoria Volk  55:55
As much as you talked in, you know, I’m sure your therapist, ie your father figure.

Angela Williams  56:03
In Australia, were as scared of talking about suicide as we are talking about child abuse. We have named renamed world Suicide Prevention Day is now called Are you okay? De? Shut up? No, it is and instead of talking about suicide, people say, are you okay to all their friends and everyone wears a badge on that day and then we don’t have to talk about it the rest of the year. And our Prime Minister has just hired a woman for one of these marketing buddies who is going to she is revolutionizing the Suicide Prevention space in Australia by she’s making a program where we’re going to identify people who might be at risk of suicide and then offer them support and counseling but without bringing up the topic of suicide so we’re going to talk cast people go up and have conversations with them where we just all of a sudden look really positive and cheerful that I’m sure will say Are you okay? And but we’re not ever going to mention the word suicide So yeah, I respond to my environment. This country is a bit toxic in some ways. So yeah,

Victoria Volk  57:08
Better line would be, how do you feel?

Angela Williams  57:12
Well, yeah, I’ve been every year. I’ve I kind of I get a bit activist around Are you okay day, and I like to do things like, why isn’t it okay for me to say I’m not okay. Yeah, and this year this year, it was Oh, sorry. Last year. 2020. Do you guys have kitkats? Over there? Yes. Yeah, yeah. Do they have the have a break? Have a KitKat? ad? Guess who sponsored Are you okay, day in 2020. kid? Are you okay? Have a break? Have a KitKat?

Victoria Volk  57:46
Anything related?

Angela Williams  57:50
Yes. Someone in the marketing room thought they were an absolute genius coming up with that sponsorship campaign.

Victoria Volk  57:56
Make suicide talk clever.

Angela Williams  57:58
Yeah, yeah. How to kick cat instead of killing yourself.

Victoria Volk  58:01
Oh my god.

Angela Williams  58:02
We want to talk about it without talking about suicide. So yeah, yeah. It’s one of my topics.

Victoria Volk  58:08
Yeah. bring that to the forefront, more regularly. Yeah, for sure.

Angela Williams  58:14
Yeah. I’m a bit of an activist in the circle. Yeah. Yeah.

Victoria Volk  58:19
My Bringer.

Angela Williams  58:21
Truth speaker, brutal, unflinching, and honesty is my brand. Yeah. I say the things that other people are just too uncomfortable to say.

Victoria Volk  58:33
What would you like to scream to the world? and wish people knew about your grief?

Angela Williams  58:39
I did write something that didn’t I?

Victoria Volk  58:42
I think it comes down to just that you don’t always have a loving relationship.

Angela Williams  58:47
Yes. All right. I already said that. No, yes, that is the thing. The thing I would like to scream to the world is that not everyone has a loving relationship with the person they’re grieving. And we need to make space for people who don’t we’re in Australia, there’s a fly there. Not everyone is going to mourn with sadness and tears. The shock on some people’s faces when I said they said, I said my mother died. They said, how are you I said, I feel relief need to make room for people to feel relief, we need to welcome these kind of stories of grieving that challenge the norm and challenge the stereotypes because lots of people have come to me over the years and asked for my support with going no contact with abusers. There’s a lot of people out here living this truth. And the reason I’m talking about this as much as I am right now is just to say to all of them, you’re not necessarily going to regret it. You’re not we don’t all grieve the same way and we don’t all love the same way and we weren’t all raised the same way. We have to give each other room for the differences.

Victoria Volk  1:00:01
Because we’re all unique, and every relationship is unique, and like you kind of brought up a little bit earlier, like you and your brother lived in the same household with the same person, but your experiences, you’ll see it from your own unique perspective, and you won’t believe the same.

Angela Williams  1:00:17
I don’t. No.

Victoria Volk  1:00:19
So, coming from a place of understanding and compassion?

Angela Williams  1:00:24
Absolutely compassion, we need to just be more gentle on each other. We’re also willing to tell each other what’s wrong with the other person, but much less willing to look at ourselves, I it’s the biggest value I’ve had of therapy every two weeks, I spend an hour fact checking my reality and identifying when I have fucked up when something is my fault. And when I have contributed to something, and then changing that.

Victoria Volk  1:00:54
What does that look like? What does it process for you?

Angela Williams  1:00:58
Oh, I’m big on accountability and honesty, and I screw up all the time. It’s, for me that it’s hard, it’s hard to realize that you’ve done something wrong, or that you’ve been an idiot, or that you haven’t noticed something harmful you’ve done to another person. I did a I did a really good podcast recently about shame and secrets and about how we talk about them. And I think for me, a big part of living so honestly, is learning to also cope with shame, deal with shame, acknowledge shame, Own your shame. It’s the the feeling that we run away from the most is shame. And I know that my feeling of not wanting to leave that empty seat at my mother’s funeral was linked to my shame of never having been a good enough daughter for her never having. And I’ve carried that shame so long, but it’s still something that I need to check again and again and again. And its stuff that it’s so easy to project onto other people.

Victoria Volk  1:02:13
This is like the third time the word shame has come up today.

Angela Williams  1:02:18
Really?

Victoria Volk  1:02:19
Yeah, and so that’s actually where I was kind of going and how shame is very much tied to grief. Oh, yeah. Because, you know, we may feel guilty about something. It’s these conflicting feelings of I should feel this way. But I really feel that way. I want to feel this way. But I have this weight of shame. Yeah, and, and that blocks us from the ability to be intimate with ourselves, like to really look at ourselves, and really connect with other people.

Angela Williams  1:02:59
Yep. Or shame is such an uncomfortable feeling it is. It’s prickly and horrible. It’s when our chest gets warm, and our throat gets warm, and our face gets warm. And most people will never even recognize that they’re feeling shame. In my opinion, I think a lot of us flip it instantly into fear or disgust or anger or rage to avoid having to feel shame. And I think that people like myself, and like my mother who blamed everything outwards. That’s about doing anything possible to avoid having to come close to that shame. And what you’re saying is true. It blocks you from any kind of intimacy with yourself or with other people. Because when you’re 100% doing everything you can to avoid feeling shame, you never give yourself the space to connect realistically with people because everything is about protecting yourself from shame. And it means that when you need to be accountable to someone, if you’re doing everything you can to avoid the shame. All you’re going to do is put up a wall between you and that person. And that’s usually cut that wall is really frequently blame. It’s your fault. You did this to me, you made me do this. And as soon as we put the word you in there, we’re pushing our shame away putting it onto another person and saying this is yours. It’s it’s so much harder to just say, I’m really sorry I did this, and I can see how awful it’s been for you and then just stop talking.

Victoria Volk  1:04:40
Be honest. Right?

Angela Williams  1:04:41
Yeah, it is.

Victoria Volk  1:04:42
And that honesty is the drug is the wrong word. Antidote for shame.

Angela Williams  1:04:45
Oh, that’s a good one.

Victoria Volk  1:04:52
It is the antidote for shame.

Angela Williams  1:04:55
It is. Do it, do it. I think I might have said something similar in my shame. People message me all the time to say they’ve read that one. I mean, listen to that one, it’s amazing. We need to talk about shame more.

Victoria Volk  1:05:10
And the word grief, and the word suicide.

Angela Williams  1:05:13
Oh, yes. And how they all lay it together, I was I’ve spent so much of my life, thinking that if I could just be a bit more something, then I’d be the kind of person my mother could love. And my first suicide attempt, when I was really young, came as a reaction to feeling that I would never match up to that. And my last suicide attempt came from a feeling that I would never match up to that. And that feeling that I would never match up to it. That is shame. That is, but that is that’s absolutely shame that’s been kind of mis smeared on to me, but I never did anything wrong, I didn’t actually have anything to be ashamed of there, there was no way that I could have made that woman love me no matter what I did, but

Victoria Volk  1:06:04
And then here’s the thing. She wasn’t there, when she wasn’t, she wasn’t there for you to even blame and wanted to blame her, she would turn it around and spin it on you. So that’s where that self destructive behavior, if people don’t, aren’t able to communicate, and get that out, like, just even speak it.

Angela Williams  1:06:31
But the other thing is right, that that shame, I can see that shame now and know that it’s not my shame. But before I could do that, I had to feel that shame, and process it and think about it in all of its deeper layers. So, when I first met that shame, it was my shame because I hadn’t looked at it enough to know that it wasn’t. And so, when you can identify shame that has been smeared on you from outside like that, then you can step back from it and go, no, I don’t own it. It’s not my shame. But you’ve got to go through the process of feeling at first. And so, a lot of a lot of things that people turn into more dangerous emotional, well, toxic emotions, like anger and rage is things and blame was something where if they just sat with the shame, set with the feeling and thought about what it said about them, it might have been that they’d done something that they needed to apologize or be accountable for. Or it might have been that they were carrying some baggage that had been smeared on them from outside. But by refusing to feel the shame through that uncomfortable bit and think about it, they’ve lost the ability to it becomes their shame, then no matter where it comes from, because they can’t look at it long enough to categorize it, sort it into its basket. Shame is toxic. I’m pretty sure that shame is linked to the majority of suicides that happen and I can see my mother’s as a direct result of her own shame made had finally gotten to the stage where she couldn’t keep spinning games to people. But that was her shame, not mine.

Victoria Volk  1:08:16
I believe the root of shame is grief.

Angela Williams  1:08:20
Yeah.

Victoria Volk  1:08:22
I believe grief is at the root of a lot.

Angela Williams  1:08:29
Yeah, and we haven’t I think we’re carrying a lot of kind of societal and cultural grief as well. Some of the things that we’ve seen humanity being capable of in the last 100 or so years. I will buy way before that as well. But you look at things like World War Two and the impact that had on my family we all kind of we have a lot of shame that’s spread around and it is about grieving it’s about when you feel shame you’re grieving something in yourself. We don’t only grieve deaths we lead grieve losses as well. And payment grief so much shame about grieving. I was supposed to bounce back we’re supposed to be able to deal with it. We’re supposed to,

Victoria Volk  1:09:14
Yeah, I could talk all day about grief. It’s really the loss of hopes dreams and expectations and anything we wish would have been different better or more. And so, when you think of grief in that way it that’s why I say everyone, every single one of us has grieved something.

Angela Williams  1:09:33
Yet, all we’re putting off grief to later we’ve got something we should have grieved, or we need to grieve and we’re saving that up for ourselves to do some other time.

Victoria Volk  1:09:45
But we’re dealing. Dealing with it yes, some way. Yeah. You know what, if you turn into the bottle, if you’re turning to sex, if you’re turning to gambling, you’re turning on your turn into shopping. You’re you’re addressing it?

Angela Williams  1:09:58
Well, yeah, I did a podcast on this yesterday where I was talking about endorphins and pain and how endorphins work just there your brain’s natural heroin. So, when you’re doing things that give you an adrenaline rush, basically all you’re doing is getting your brain to shoot out its own heroin. And that works for emotions as well as for like physical pain. So yeah, the great eraser is what they call alcohol in the AIA movement, the great eraser and it is it’s just, you’re not dealing with it, you’re just kind of putting a cap on it and hope that it will stay there for a while. But your card that those caps don’t hold, they got to cover off eventually.

Victoria Volk  1:10:42
Well, no grief recovery can be equated to picture yourself as a tea kettle.  And you either implode or you explode.

Angela Williams  1:10:52
Yeah. Yeah, that’s good. And that bit in between, you’re going to be spitting stuff in every direction. Yep. Yes.

Victoria Volk  1:10:59
I’m assuming it was your therapist, who was the most supportive of you? What did you find? was most helpful to you? And I started to navigate everything.

Angela Williams  1:11:14
When I first got the email, saying that they needed me to call about my mother. I am. I hope she was dead, after all the times that she’d kind of use that as a tool. But I couldn’t let myself hope because it had happened a lot before, but I couldn’t I also couldn’t. It’s really difficult to say to a person who was ringing me to say your mother’s in hospital, you need to come and see her to say no, I’m not doing this again. So, I rang my brother and said, I think can you call this person I think something’s gone wrong with our mother. And that was the best thing I did. asking him to do that for me. I couldn’t have done it. A year ago, we drove to my Arnie’s for her funeral together it was the longest we’d spent alone together since we were children. So, I called him and asked him to take that and then in the bit in between me saying that to him and him ringing back to tell me that she was dead. My beautiful girlfriend just I didn’t cry. It was really I felt shame about not crying. But I just kind of sat there with it kind of gradually dawning on me that maybe this time she actually was dead and and then I had four or five days of just was like I was startled cat constantly. It was really bad timing. The Jacaranda trees were out, and they triggered off some really bad stuff from my 16th birthday. So traditionally, my entire life every single time I’ve seen a Jacaranda tree. I’ve had this moment of being triggered back into my 16th birthday. And day after she died, I went out driving with my girlfriend and a sort of Jacaranda tree. And I just had this moment of lightness in my heart. So it took me a couple of days to actually believe that it was real this time that I wasn’t going to open my email or my messenger to a big long message or lots of messages from people she’d messaged about me, but I just I took that space, my girlfriend has sat on the lounge next to me and held my hand and she just kept saying to me, I’m here, like whatever you need. I’m here. First, I got an in practice I had, when Annie LEDs died in September, I grieved really hard, I cried on the floor in the kitchen for hours. And I cried on the floor in the bathroom, and you know all the places with tiles, let’s go and cry there. But I couldn’t cry over my mother, I couldn’t. I just needed the space. And I needed the space to own that reality, and to go yet. And then I had my next therapy session. And then it’s harder she died, and we talked about that. And then I have my next one where I said and you wouldn’t leave, she got married or got buried on my birthday. And he was just like, of course she did. And it was like I needed those people around me who I knew would just affirm my decisions. And luckily, I’ve curated my world quite well. All of the people who said things like, our mother would never do that to her daughter, I’d gone I just haven’t I don’t give them space in my world. So I just yeah, I needed that space and I needed a couple of days to just test. I kept expecting to feel regret. I kept expecting to feel loss. And all I felt was like the threads are finally gone. The threat that she could pop up any second and want my attention again or The worst thing she ever did was every single time she saw me as an adult, she apologized for what she did to me. And then she said, I don’t remember any of it. I wasn’t there when any of it happened. So yeah, yeah. She said, I’ll let you publish that little book, and you say whatever you want, because your reality is your reality. And it was like, your reality is your reality is pretty good. But the bait at the beginning what you say, will you publish that little book. Um, yeah.

Victoria Volk  1:15:28
Give him permission.

Angela Williams  1:15:30
No, I didn’t. And I kind of can’t believe I waited until after she died to start a podcast because I’ve been yelling a lot for years. But um, I just gave myself space to let myself be however I was. And it was a surprise for me every day. I’m still kind of surprised that I don’t feel regret.

Victoria Volk  1:15:49
So, advice. And it’s that’s advice too, for others.

Angela Williams  1:15:55
It is nice. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Victoria Volk  1:15:59
The people around you that,

Angela Williams  1:16:02
Connect with people you’ve similar experiences. if for no other reason, then just so that you’ve got someone you can talk to? Who knows? Because really, I can’t imagine only having friends who’d had excellent relationships with their mother and then trying to talk about this. About this big circle of friends. I call them the bad mothers club. We um, we know, we know, because we’ve all been there. So those are the ones I went to talk about it because they want to know.

Victoria Volk  1:16:36
Can I ask you something?

Angela Williams  1:16:38
Yes.

Victoria Volk  1:16:39
How do you hear something today, too? And I’ve been given it a lot of thought even before, but do you identify yourself as a survivor? Like, is that a word? That you feel like you wear like a badge of honor.

Angela Williams  1:16:58
Some people hate that way.

Victoria Volk  1:17:00
Or do you feel like that’s something that I don’t want that to be my story anymore?

Angela Williams  1:17:05
Um, no, I do identify as a survivor. I’ve had a lot of conversations with people who I also use the word victim about myself, though. And I know a lot of people who refuse to use either of those words in relation to themselves. I survived this stuff. If I wasn’t a survivor, I would be dead well, and truly did many, many times over. Sometimes I watched that survivor show. And I think you guys wouldn’t last five minutes in my life, some bits of it. Yeah. Let’s do survivor where you’re just homeless in Sydney instead of on a tropical island. I’m a survivor. Because you’ve got to you’ve got to value the superpowers, don’t you, you’ve got to see the things that are most valuable there. And when you live with a constant risk, like suicide, sometimes the only thing that gets you through is being a survivor. My house is filled with ridiculous craft projects that I did, because I was putting off committing suicide. That’s one of the things I do, I’m like, Well, I will make this stupid thing in my kitchen, I have a little angel made out of why you know how you do those string dolls, where you tie them up, and you make the legs and things. I made it out of really horrible why I where I must have stabbed myself dozens of times. And it’s got these little beaded wings with string. And I made that doll about 20 years ago instead of committing suicide that day. So I’m a survivor and I’ve got like, evidence of my survival all over my house and my life and my body and things I am I have to celebrate it because I haven’t traditionally had a lot to celebrate. So celebrate the things you can and I know that some people don’t like the term survivor and they don’t like the term victim because it that kind of disempowering element that by saying we’re survivors were giving over some of our power whereas I think being a survivor should be mark of honor. And it should be seen as a mock Ivana, it should be. If you know people who’ve survived bad shit standing or have them, look at them and go you did something that I could never imagine. I like it. I like it. I’m happy. I might get a tattoo that says survivor. I put it next to my feminist killjoy.

Victoria Volk  1:19:31
I just, you know, I just heard a story today, a woman she was an addict for I don’t know how many years and she she had a different perspective of the word survivor and hers was, I didn’t want to be that I didn’t want that to be my story. Like and, and like suffering. And yes, this idea of, let’s get out of the suffering and let’s get into the joy, let’s just work on the joy.

Angela Williams  1:20:02
Absolutely. And that part of it, like people talk about tragedy porn, and trying to avoid just your entire life being a story of tragedy, which is I talk about the tragedy and the bad stuff. But I try to talk about the good stuff as well. And I don’t want being a survivor to be the only thing I’ve done. But I never want to forget that it is something that I’ve done

Victoria Volk  1:20:26
It and it’s, we have both right, in society in our human experience.

Angela Williams  1:20:32
Yeah.

Victoria Volk  1:20:33
You know, you don’t have to have traumatic physical experiences for something to be or feel traumatic.

Angela Williams  1:20:40
No.

Victoria Volk  1:20:41
To feel like you’re a survivor of something.

Angela Williams  1:20:43
Yeah.

Victoria Volk  1:20:44
So yeah, I’m just you know, I’m actually going to add that as a question.

Angela Williams  1:20:50
I think that bit where I was talking before about the superpowers. That’s it, like I could celebrate being a survivor, because I can identify the superpowers, I got from what I survived. So, I can celebrate my strength.

Victoria Volk  1:21:04
Yeah, its deeper. It’s going deeper than just this identity.

Angela Williams  1:21:10
Yeah. Well, when I get to talk about surviving, and means I inevitably get to talk about how strong and powerful surviving made me. So, it’s kind of that flip side. Yeah.

Victoria Volk  1:21:20
Can I ask you another question?

Angela Williams  1:21:22
Yes.

Victoria Volk  1:21:23
This just really just drives me nuts. What are your thoughts when you hear people say that children are resilient?

Angela Williams  1:21:31
Oh, I hate the word resilient. Oh, God. It’s so shaming, I keep hearing it from our politicians here where they’re like, our country has been on fire, then we had some floods. And now we’ve got COVID. They’re like, you just need to be more resilient, because that’s what we’re saying, instead of let’s talk about suicide. Oh, my God, children don’t need to be resilient. No one needs to be resilient, if you are. Resilience should not be our natural state resilience is to stress and yes function. And I don’t know if anyone’s noticed. But when you put kids under stress for too long, their brain chemistry changes. with superpowers and celebrating being survivors. We don’t want our children to have to end up with superpowers and celebrate being survivors. So we’re not going to force our children to be resilient, I firmly believe that every child deserves to have a period of their life where they’re not under stress. I cannot imagine what that would be like. But imagine if you did Imagine if you just woke up every day knowing you were secure and loved, whoa, children don’t need to be resilient. And now when the entire world is falling apart, and were taking bits of their future away from them just because of you know how capitalism treats things like illness. Now is not the time to tell them to be resilient. When we say to these kids, you need to be resilient, we are shifting the responsibility for what the world we’ve made them. We’re saying, Well, now this is your responsibility. You deal with all the crap we left you just be resilient. It’ll be fine. No, I hate the word resilient. Yes, yes. Our Prime Minister keeps saying our kids don’t need to be anxious. We’re looking after things. He says that about climate change, we’re going to get we’re gonna hit our climate targets by pretending we hit and 10 years ago, we’re just making up these climate credits. And he’s saying to the teenagers, just don’t be anxious. Okay. He took a lump of coal into parliament and hugged it on the floor of the Parliament. And he’s saying to the teenagers, don’t be anxious. Yeah, it’s an insult. It’s awful. Teenagers rise up rebel burners all tell us to piss off and make the world in your own way.

Victoria Volk  1:23:46
With your creativity.

Angela Williams  1:23:49
Exactly.

Victoria Volk  1:23:52
No, and I think it came up not that long ago on another podcast episode I did where it just it. I just I’ve heard it so much lately, especially with Kobo and everything. And it’s just so resilient. They bounce back. I mean, I’ve heard that as I heard that around me, like in my personal experience, what I went through, and it’s like, kids that you’re saying that about did not choose to be resilient? No, no, why not something they chose with you. You catch yourself saying that they’re resilient, that that child is resilient. You’re there in an experience that they did not choose?

Angela Williams  1:24:29
Yep, yep. Yeah. And nobody needs to says or yell or be resilient when I grow up. They want to be right. They don’t want to be resilient. Yeah, yeah.

Victoria Volk  1:24:42
Yeah. Um, I love this episode. I love this. Very rich. Where can people find you?

Angela Williams  1:24:51
They can find me on Facebook. If you search for my group, Deboning power podcast. You can find me there. I even share myself sometimes. Yeah, I also have my podcasts which is deboning power. And that seems to be pretty much everywhere where you can get podcasts you can find that one. Yeah, yeah, I’m not gonna give people my address because this is the internet. Well, links my book you can get anywhere. It’s in audiobook form. The performer who does made a remarkable impersonation of me. She’s excellent. It’s also available in ebook and in beautiful, sexy paper form. And they will send it to you in America on ada booktopia. Or, what’s the other one that’s got sold on Amazon. So, it might be it might be on Amazon. But booktopia ships internationally I think or the Book Depository one of those too.

Victoria Volk  1:25:51
Send me a link. I will put it in the show notes. Anything else you’d like to share?

Angela Williams  1:25:55
My final thoughts. Love yourself. Love yourself. Give yourself the love that other people could give you even if you are loved by everyone in your world. Still love yourself. But if you’ve got no one and nothing, give yourself love. Because that’s it is that is that?

Victoria Volk  1:26:18
I heard when as a kid, I think my dad would always say this. Something about if you think I’m this? If you want a helping hand, look to the end of your own arm.

Angela Williams  1:26:33
Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. Hmm. I like that. I like that.

Victoria Volk  1:26:41
You were your own hero.

Angela Williams  1:26:43
Yes, we all can be

Victoria Volk  1:26:46
We all can be. Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.

Angela Williams  1:26:49
Oh, thank you, thank you.

Victoria Volk  1:26:53
And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.

 

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