Stephanie Cerins | Paving a Path to Happiness After Childhood Loss

 

SHOW NOTES SUMMARY: 

We all have intuition. And we all have the power to tap into the intuition within us, too.

However, sometimes our intuition doesn’t feel good to us. As was the case the day that Stephanie’s father wasn’t coming home as was expected. She looked out the window, saw his car but didn’t see him and instinctively knew something wasn’t right.

At the age of 15, Stephanie found her father dead. The reminder was constantly there from that day forward, not only of his absence in her life but also the trauma of that day so close to home.

Life was a rollercoaster from then on, a life of partying, drinking, and working hard at burying that day in her psyche altogether. But as grief does, it spills out into all areas of our lives. Such was the case with her first two marriages, where she would see patterns repeating in her life and ultimately found the courage to seek help through Alcoholics Anonymous and get out of an abusive marriage.

After getting sober at the age of 24, her past began to resurface – and so did the memories she had long-buried.

You don’t get a course in life when you are born. – Stephanie Cerins

Isn’t that the truth?

We are all learning as we go. Through the trials, tribulations, and grief packed into it all – it is through life experience we grow in wisdom. And it is through the wisdom we glean from our lives that we can be of service to others. That is exactly what Stephanie has done in her life.

One of Stephanie’s greatest lessons in A.A. was that no matter how big of a mess you are, you can still help someone.

RESOURCES:

• Book, Healing My Heart, After A Loss: Affirmations That Encourage Me To Feel & Heal My Grief
• HeartMath.org

CONNECT:

• Website
• Instagram
• Facebook

______

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 or anyone you know is 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.

💛 Would you like to Learn Your Energy Type? Free Quiz ➡️ HERE! ⬅️

SUPPORT THE SHOW:

• Rate & Review: Apple Podcasts
• Purchase my published book about my grief journey.

CONNECT WITH VICTORIA: 

• Instagram
• Website
• Facebook

 

Victoria Volk 0:55
Thank you for tuning in to grieving voices. today. My guest is Stephanie Cerins. She is a happiness enhancer. Grief became her constant companion at the age of 15 when she found her hard working 39 year old father dying from alcoholism. Stephanie’s journey through grief was quite messy. At first, she turned to booze and drugs to cope with her grief until she found AAA affirmations and the ability to talk about her feelings. The affirmations you will read in her books come from her 42 year journey into grief, self love and her acceptance of the impermanence of life. Thank you so much for being here and sharing your story.

Stephanie Cerins 1:36
You’re welcome. It’s my pleasure, I feel blessed to be able to share my message of, you know, we’re all going to die. But maybe we don’t have to be stuck in it in all the grief for so long as I was in so if I could help shorten someone’s grief by even a day or a year, or I don’t know, I feel like I mean, my dad died when I was 15. And I never had a conscious memory of it till I was 29. Again, after you know, it was really stressful time. So

Victoria Volk 2:05
Can you go explain that a little bit more deeply? The conscious awareness of that?

Stephanie Cerins 2:11
Yeah, well, it was like my subconscious had shut out that I had even had that experience. Like I didn’t have a memory of it, or anything that I had found my dad until after I went through a and sobered up, it was just like my brain had blocked that memory because I didn’t couldn’t handle it. I guess. Like, we couldn’t talk about my father dying like me, and my mom would just cry. So we just, you know, and they told me, you know, my mom’s friends, I remember them telling her to take us to counseling, but it was 1980. So people didn’t go to counseling, then. Because then you had something wrong with your brain. And oh my gosh, that’s just too humiliating. So we just got to muddle through on our own. And then when I quit drinking at 24, that really helped me to be able to talk about my feelings, and just realize that, wow, everybody’s a big mess, like, because we all go around just pretending everything’s good. And how are you today? Oh, fine, I’m doing good. How are you? And all these, you know, just on the surface conversations, in so many people had with me, right that until I went, Hey, I didn’t know that he will. So many people are suffering and that a lot of people had it way worse off than me. And that just helped me put my life in a bit of more perspective that like that old Buddhist story and take a cup, if you have a grief, take your cup and fill an Esper some butter to anybody that didn’t have any grief, right? And you pretty soon learn that everybody has grief and that everybody has a hard life. And that, you know, the sooner we can see that and just come together and support each other, the better life will be. And so that’s my goal is to just try to be supportive to my friends and family and clients and in my reflexology and Reiki and happiness enhancing affair that I’m trying to get everyone to, you know, take that life a little lighter. Right? We’re also serious about things and stuff. And so how can we be more gentle and not worry about it so much? Everything

Victoria Volk 4:27
Well and share the burden, right? It’s yeah, carrying the burden. And I think to what I’ve connected, what I’ve connected and the work that I do with clients and Reiki and grief work and all of that, too is is that those that have an openness to healing into their own embracing their own story, are much able to connect with others more deeply. And because they’ve probably connected with themselves in a way that has brought them some lightness right and So, if we open ourselves to that process, beautiful things really can come from it. And so what did that look like for you? I mean, because your father had he was an alcoholic. Right? Yeah. So was that pretty much all of your upbringing? That’s all you really knew.

Stephanie Cerins 5:22
Yeah, he was he was a functional alcoholic. Right. So he went to work, and then he drank, but, and so yeah, that was what I saw. And experienced because he was drunk my whole, you know, it got worse. But you know, he was always partying with his friends and playing pool and everybody had a pool table and a game room. And, you know, that’s how we went over to everybody’s house and took turns and had drinkin parties, right. So, you know, all of my parents friends had a shorter lifespan than their parents. Right? Like, my mom’s dad. I mean, my mom, my dad’s mom was 74. And my mom’s parents were into the 80s and 90s when they went and my mom had terrible rheumatoid arthritis because she was x rayed for acne in the 50s. For six months, two or three times a week, they baked my mom under an x ray machine called the treat master to heal her acne like, come on. So anyway, her mom should just quit making them sweetie things. Wow. So yeah, so it was really, my parents weren’t very happy. And like, my mom never felt very well. She used to wake up even in her 30s and say, I feel like grandma pity poo. Right. And so when I grew up, after my dad died and stuff, I just wanted to be happy. It’s like, we have a house and dirt bikes and horses and stuff. And but nobody has any happiness, right? How do I get happy? And so I just started reading self help books and figure trying to figure it out on my own right?

Victoria Volk 7:04
What age was that when you started reading the self help books.

Stephanie Cerins 7:08
It was actually before my dad died. My first one, I have my friend, this is my favorite one working with the law. And it’s about God’s law. And I bought a whole bunch of them. So this is one of my last ones that’s brand new. But I’ve probably read this book about five times. And then it’s somewhere it says, you could manage your mind or your mind will manage you. And I thought, well, I want to be the boss of my mind. Well, little did I know how hard that would be some days, right? That, you know, and to just take responsibility for my emotions and my thoughts and train my brain what I wanted to think instead of just thinking it gets to think whatever it wants.

Victoria Volk 7:51
So I mean, first of all, I think to have that awareness at 15 Hate, like, how do I find happiness? I just, you know, and to have that. It’s like, all this stuff is around you. I should be happy. Why am I not happy? Right? So like, what? I mean, gosh, if I had that awareness at 15 I mean, if only all of us would, right? But what I mean, I don’t even know where to go from here.

Stephanie Cerins 8:20
I think it’s because my family had enough money, right? My mom’s parents were quite well off. I mean, not like rich, rich, but my grandpa had his own Karla. And then my grandma invested the money in stocks and all that. And so. So I mean, in my grandma’s house, the golden rule, literally on a plaque up in the kitchen. The golden rule said the one with the gold makes the rules and my grandma had the gold and she made the rules, right. And so I think because we had enough money, there wasn’t that wasn’t a problem, but it was just no happiness. Right? My dad, I don’t I think my dad didn’t like his job. And so that’s why he drank and then all his friends, their wives worked, but he had to be the only worker. And then my mom even needed a housekeeper even though she didn’t even do anything. Right. So I mean, I cannot my wife I can’t even clean the house and she doesn’t even work. I know, you know, I can only imagine right now that I’m an adult. Right. And so, but of course, I didn’t understand all that then. Right. And so, so just the grieving you know, I was like daddy’s little girl, and we did everything together and went fishing and had fun and then when he left I was like, Well, why am I here with mom? Why didn’t you take me with you? Oh my gosh, right. And so I was just so distraught and and it’s like, you know, I’m just gonna die. Well, what is the point of this whole thing you’re just gonna die like this is sign a pointless this life thing isn’t. And so I really had to find a whole reason to live in everything because I was so confused at 15 that I didn’t even you know, I fantasize lots of times, just driving up and rode, right? Because I just didn’t get what was supposed to happen next, right. And so now what I’ve kind of learned is all that happened so I can help other people grieve like my friend Julie, love to my dad married a man like my dad. And her husband died, like almost exactly the same. Like, she had four kids, but and her oldest one was like 16 or so. And the youngest one was six or seven, just like me, you know, really close to me. And my brothers ain’t right. He was eight years younger than me. And so to you know, and now I’ve been able to help her family through she has a son that’s having terrible, terrible times. And through his life, I’ve gotten down and helped and stuff. Because I just understand the grief that that that he’s going through that, you know, she never took the kids to counseling either when the dad died and all the grief, right, even though it was 20 years later.

Victoria Volk 10:56
Yeah, I was gonna thank you for bringing that up again, because I did want to circle back to that, you know, even you said, 1980, not much has changed. I think in a lot of ways, I think with COVID. That’s really, I’m hoping that we don’t take five steps back 10 steps back once, maybe life seems to feel more settled and secure with COVID. Moving forward, I hope we don’t take steps back in terms of mental health and in addressing that, and the needs of kids and everything. But, you know, my dad was, I was eight when my dad passed away. And so I grew up with grief, too. And, you know, so that was an emulated, obviously, for you like how to grieve, right? Like you didn’t know what to do or how to process and things and it sounds like you didn’t have that kind of relationship with your mom either. Is that accurate?

Stephanie Cerins 11:50
Oh, yeah. Me and my mom were very. Yeah, if my mom told me to do something, I went and I would do it the opposite way. Like we didn’t. Because there was a you know, because she was jealous. I mean, she was even jealous that I got boobs, right? Well, I thought, well, your dad didn’t sit you on the lap and look at playboy. I sat in my lap with my dad, and he probably looked at Playboy magazine. So I knew you had to have boobs if you’re going to be a girl, or nobody would like you know, I prayed for boobs when I was five mom. Oh, wow. There, it’s just so interesting growing up. And, you know, there’s so much we could have been taught in school that you know, about psychology and cell personal growth and stuff that we just leave out of school, I don’t know where they think we’re gonna learn at church or at home or,

Victoria Volk 12:38
Well, NASA thing you know, I, I personally feel like it is the responsibility of a parent, to guide your children through all of those things. But when you haven’t learned it yourself, you’re going to resort to what you know, and those patterns and those beliefs are going to be passed down. Yeah, no doubt about it. So that’s why I, you know, we in Grief Recovery, we have a program that’s helping children with loss, that’s prevention. But truthfully, like, I look at it, like the most important grief that needs to be addressed in a home with children is the grief of the parents. Because if they can learn to process their grief, they will teach their children and guide their children through that process naturally. And holistically.

Stephanie Cerins 13:22
Yes, totally. Yeah. But for so long in our culture, it was just suck it up buttercup, right. And now we’ve almost gone the other way that we’re exploring emotions at nauseam sometimes a little too much, I think, right? It’s like we have to have balanced even with our emotions, because we get to buried in them just going down the rabbit hole, well, then we’re stuck there. We had to find a way to, you know, to have it in the background, but be able to move forward even though those experiences were hard or whatever, right.

Victoria Volk 13:53
I think of two terms like coping, and like you said, like a balance. And it’s finding that emotional regulating, you know, for yourself, rather than trying to cope, and it’s learning to regulate yourself there. You know, in parenthood, it’s challenging anyway, it brings up everything and all your insecurities. It is challenging to regulate your emotions. But again, I think it comes back to addressing your insecurities as a parent has ripple effects for the kids. Totally does. And so growing up for you, you started to read personal development books and started to kind of pave your own path to healing. What did that look like for you? Because I know you said you did. You went to AAA and things like that. But what was life like before you got to that point? In because you said you had resorted to drinking was that as a teenager too?

Stephanie Cerins 14:50
Oh, yeah, I started drinking. Yeah, as well. As soon as I got at 15 and a half. I was already starting to drive right pretty much after my dad passed away and I’d already been riding motorcycles and stuff before that. So I knew that how to drive right. And so, and then I just started drinking and partying and I got myself my first boyfriend was 21 when I was 16. So he could buy the booze, right? And so that was very convenient. And, and then, once I graduated school, you know, I just did whatever I wanted, right? My mom would take my car away. And because I was misbehaving, and then I would be good Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, I’d sleep in, she’d have to give me the car. So I could go to school. Right? So My poor mom, right? I just did whatever I wanted. And she really, you know, I went from being busy, angelic child to, you know, listening to ACDC on the highway to hell, right. You know, it was quite shocking for my mom and, and my whole family, the transformation that I went through, right, and my, even my schoolwork, right, I was almost a student to just barely graduating, you know, failing classes and all kinds of stuff, right? And so, just because I had so much pain I didn’t understand and no one could get. No one was even trying to help me understand, right? I was just having to figure it out on my own. That how can I this this whole point of this life thing? Like, I gotta go through all this, and I’m just gonna die. And it’s like, oh, yeah, right. This This was really, I was totally in shock, right? Like, because my dad just he. He came home from the framework. And he had crashed his car, but and just right out in front of our house. So when I got up in the morning and looked at the main house window, I could see my dad’s car was up the road instead of like, put it in the garage. And so not that I could have seen it in the garage, right? I just shouldn’t have seen my dad’s car. So of course, I just go running out there. And then he was laying in the road. Dying, right? Like, he died on the way to the hospital. Some man was coming back to like, when I was coming up to my dad, and another guy was coming back. And he had already somehow seen my dad went home, called the ambulance, and then was coming back to check on them or something. Right. And then, so I just ran and told my mom, right, and then so, and I already knew when my mom came into the driveway of the neighbor’s house, I said, Oh, my dad’s dead. I says, What do you do, you know, in my own brain, like with your kid brain? And I’m like, Well, how can you know that? Now they’re back to early. He’s dead. Right? So somehow I knew. Right? And, and not that that helped me. But you know, and I just remember thinking, well, now we don’t have to worry if my dad’s coming home anymore, because he’s just not going to come home. Right? Because my mom would sit at that. looking out that window that I saw the car being wrecked, Dad wins to him coming home when you know, because he workship work at a pulp mill seven days a day shift two days off seven days and swing shift two days out seven days a graveyard four days up. So the times he came home was always switching around. Right?

Victoria Volk 17:59
Well, that’s incredibly taxing on the body alone. And so, you know, did he have a lot of grief himself? Do you think and I know you had mentioned that part of his drinking was possibly due to like just the relationship that he had with your mom. But and we’re not to analyze your father’s grief here. But I want to connect the dots of how this cyclical pattern repeats. And so what was his experience growing up? Do you think that?

Stephanie Cerins 18:33
Yeah, I don’t think that I think my dad got a girl pregnant and had to marry her and felt very trapped by his life. And I don’t think that he enjoyed his job very much at the pulp mill, even though he did it for 18 years, right. I mean, he made the best of it. And he was a hard worker, and he would go help his friends build their houses or whatever, you know, if you gave him a beer, he would do anything. And you know, he was jolly and happy and you know, always the life of the party. Right. And, but and in his group, I think he had a lot, right. I mean, his I’m sure his parents weren’t emotionally intelligent. I’m remember his mom being quite strict and harsh. And, you know, grandmas Sorenson only had sex once a week, once a month, whether grandpa needed it or not. That was the subtle, right. So I think from a very strict but I mean, before the pill. Yeah, I mean, you don’t want to be having sex all the time. You’re gonna be having babies all the time. Nobody can afford that. Right. And so I think there’s, you know, I think our families have been so traumatized and stuff by wars and everything in just their you know, there wasn’t anything about emotional growth, right? It’s just like you are how you are and that’s just how you are and, you know, whereas didn’t have to be like that. You can have emotional growth and you can change your life and you can go, you don’t have to be stuck in the same class or system. them or whatever, if you work on yourself, right? You know, and you don’t get caught up in all the sadness, right? Because it’s how we feel creates our life. So if we feel like bad and sad, then we’re just going to create more sadness. We have to, even if I like, in my marriage, my last marriage, my ex husband used to slap me around. And I would say, Oh, well, thank you for that. Because I got to learn something, not to be mad at quiet happened, right? Because the person who taught me reflexology and where I got that book working with the law, my mom’s reflexologist, he let me know that you have to be thankful for everything, if you want to have a good life, because that’s how you stay in the vibe of abundance. By not That’s why it says Have faith in the Bible and all that right, like, because you don’t worry about what’s going on in real life. You keep the faith. And then that’s how it turns out good, right. And so I that’s just what I’ve been trying to dedicate my life to is just keeping the faith no matter what life looks like now, it always like just what has happened in the world, people are all worried I’m not worried because it always turns out the best for me, but Right. So I’m not going to worry because I’m going to be in the right place at the right time. Right. And I think if we could all think that more than that, the hard parts are easier. So that I don’t have hard things to go through or whatever anymore, but it’s just that I’m at peace with it. And it’s okay. I don’t I remember when I read the road less traveled in the first sentence was, life is hard. That made me feel so good. Like, oh, life was hard. Oh, well, then. Okay. I could do all right. It’s not like it was just hard for me. It was just hard period. Right. And so, you know, I cannot not be so worried about it. I think that’s what a I learned in a that. Gosh, you know, my parents were pretty good. Really, compared to some of the parents out there. Like they didn’t even feed their kids, right. Like, they beat their kids. Right? I didn’t get beaten. I didn’t I had food. Right. I had a grandmother that took me to the fanciest children’s Booderee and bought me the best shoes once a year. Right. So Right. So I had a lot of advantages a lot of people didn’t have even though, I still was just a blue collar family.

Victoria Volk 22:17
I resonate and a lot of what you said in I think there’s some people listening that might think that Well, that’s really a Pollyanna approach. You know, like, have you been told that like, how I don’t worry about anything, nothing is worth worrying over. And worry i I’ve I’ve read to that worries, a prayer you never asked for, like it’s, but some might view that mentality as Pollyanna. But for me, I would always try to find the silver lining, like the well at least this didn’t happen, or at least I have this, you know. So it’s it’s kind of taking the situation and just and reframing it like I became a master at reframing because I think I would have succumbed to my own grief. Had I not learned the power of reframing.

Stephanie Cerins 23:07
Yes, I think you said it very well. I think that’s exactly where I was. I was just so overcome by everything that because my mom wasn’t well, right. So and we had horses and stuff. And we had board horses that I took care of. And there was lot right like, my friend Julie told me once I can’t believe how much you had to do. I thought it was so your parents were so mean, because you had to do all this stuff. My never thought that I love the animals. I love taking care of them. I wanted to have a farm, that I was Laura Ingalls Wilder reincarnated.

Victoria Volk 23:39
I love that show. Little House on the Prairie. Yeah, I love that show. And I think just having something to nurture, right, something else to take care of. And I, you know, I’ve heard too, like I’ve read in grief. And I know that with grief, the fastest way to get out of your own sorrow is to help someone else or something else, like turn that take that love with nowhere to go right? And put it into something else and you put it into your animals. And so have you ever I mean, I imagine you have but I’m sure you’ve reflected on that time. And those animals are probably the blessing in disguise that you had. I was I was trying I didn’t live on a farm. We lived in town. And I’ve I always wanted to live on a farm. But I would always I was the kid that always brought stray animals home. You know, I just it’s because to like I had this love with nowhere to go like I didn’t know what to do with it because in a lot of ways it was rejected in my house and it wasn’t emulated for me. And I think that’s so important to have somewhere for that love to go

Stephanie Cerins 24:48
Yeah know for sure. I was very lucky to have the horses as my friends and the dogs and you know, all the animals that I got to attend and stuff. It was very healing for me. And it I mean it did Even teaches you about life and death. I mean, a friend of ours had some goats I was going into go for Ah, I got a couple of goats. Some cat came in, got it my goats and they both were dead, right? I mean, you know, large lots of death on the farm right. And, you know, my dad wanted to raise cows. So we went and got nine, three day old baby calves. So then I had three babies, nine baby calves repeat Well, we didn’t know nothing about it. And luckily four of them lived somehow five of them died, right. I mean, I think that was good that I learned that but it’s even though I had experienced, you know, previous steps, some grandparents are different things that still didn’t prepare me. For a out of order death when your parent dies so young, or if you have a child that dies, that’s another kind of an out of order death. That’s like, there’s not even a word for it, right? They save when you lose your kid, right? So

Victoria Volk 25:51
So how did growing up with grief shaped your life in adulthood?

Stephanie Cerins 25:56
I think it helped me to, to enjoy my life more to really understand that. It that I do have an effect of my life because I was able to cope with the grief, right? Like I overcame it and dealt with it. And even if it took years and years, and it’s helped me to make peace with death. So I think death is my friend now. And I’m not scared of it. And you know, I’ve even been thinking about becoming a death doula or something like that right? To help people to be able to cope. And to help even make fun arose, right? Like, I reached out to a group that does a grief subscription to help people. And they wanted someone to help write about to people to cheer him up about grief, and they wanted you to have a degree and stuff and I don’t have a degree, but I thought I’d apply anyway, right and see what happens. And so I might get to write for their paper, right? And so just to be able to, to reach out in different ways to be able to connect in help people understand that there’s, we’re going to have grief, and to not, you know, be so hung up on I mean, we’re all gonna die and to be able to just have a good cry, and then be okay, right and move forward, right to not just be stuck like I was for so long, and I read and just like, I can’t even believe that my dad, I didn’t Oh, my God. And that’s not right. And just I was just so spinning and spinning and spinning, right. And to be able to come out of that and move forward in my life. And to not worry about death anymore. I know I’m gonna die. And I hope it’s sometime in the future. But if it’s not, oh, well, and I think it even helps me deal with all this mess of the Coronavirus, right and everything because it’s like, I not worried about it. I’m gonna be healthy until I’m not. And if I’m not, oh, well, then probably there’ll be someone to help me because I try to be helpful, right? And I don’t, you know, don’t worry about things because it just causes more stress. And then you get more wrinkles with wrinkles, and we pay 1000s of dollars on creams and stuff. My palm died. Oh my gosh, there was so much anti aging creams and soaps. I gave out swag bags, practically I had all these little baskets of stuff for people to take and remember my mom and you know, and so when my mom died just a few years ago, it was so easy. Because my dad had died. It was so traumatic, right? And so even though it was hard and achy. Now, it’s like I can’t say it’s nothing when people I love die, but it’s certainly the worst one I’m sure happened already. Right, because it was so traumatic.

Victoria Volk 28:36
Well, I’m because the relationship was different. Right? Yeah. I mean, every loss is going to be different because the relationship is unique.

Stephanie Cerins 28:44
Yeah, that’s for sure. Yeah. I didn’t think of it like that before. But yeah, for sure.

Victoria Volk 28:49
How did you know people will say to or, I don’t know, they say I don’t know who they is. But you tend to marry your parents. You know, you tend to look for someone or marry someone like your parents. Did you find yourself as an adult? Like attracting someone like your father to you? Or had you come so far in your healing? That it was very different? It was a different experience?

Stephanie Cerins 29:18
Yeah, no, I didn’t really marry people like my dad. So much. I didn’t marry any womanizing, man. But I think that but I married my other own kind of weirdness man right and because this is my third marriage, and this marriage is I’m I’m coming into the 18th year so I think we’re doing pretty good. And but yeah, my other marriages were very I was just so I just felt so alone and lonesome and I couldn’t stand to be alone. And I this, I just wanted anybody to like me, right. And then as I aged and progressed, it was like, No, I mean, I remember sitting in a wine bar and one lady was like, as I get oh, Although I get less pickier than I thought as I get older, I’m way more pickier. It’s like, I’d rather be alone than put up with what, you know, I’ve put up with something. Right. So it’s just more I think it’s been just helpful to, to be able to know really listen to what I want. And like I was committed to not having children, like I didn’t want kids. And you know, when I turned them in a pose a few years ago, I was like, Shit, I did it. I didn’t have any kids. I kept that word to myself. Right. And, and that meant a lot to me that I did that. And so because just I felt like I needed to reraise myself, How can I trust some guy to be there? The whole time. My ex husband didn’t want to have children. My first husband wanted to have children. But I was just like, you know, you tell me you have two children and I haven’t met them. So I think they’re not really dad material like not, right. And so my first husband was a partier in a drunk. And so he was maybe but not, but he wasn’t hard working or anything good like.

Victoria Volk 31:05
That the quality of looking for alcohol to serve the self is was similar to your father then?

Stephanie Cerins 31:12
Oh, yeah, it was terrible. Well, especially for me too. I’ve even thought now if if my dad was killed by alcohol, right, and his proclivity to drink. And I had always thought, well, what if an assassin had killed my dad? I wouldn’t have dated the assassin but I did sort of date, right? Like because I drink so much like, I was in a when I was 24. I got a DUI when I was 21. You know, so I drank you know, I drank and drove off. Drive blackout. Right. Get home. Don’t know how, right lots of times. But I would tell my dad when I was struggling, he’s dead right out. You had to get me home. Right. And I guess he did. Because theory I’m still right. When a lot of times when you know, I just thought you know, I don’t know how I got there.

Victoria Volk 32:00
So how old were you with that first marriage?

Stephanie Cerins 32:02
I got married the first time 21

Victoria Volk 32:05
Like very new and your grief yet? Like that’s not very far out from your grief and you hadn’t addressed it by then really? Have you? Had you?

Stephanie Cerins 32:12
Oh, no, no, I had I didn’t even start address even when I went okay, I wasn’t really starting to address my grief. Till I was in my second marriage. My ex husband really helped me. He had worked on himself a lot. And I learned more about self help books. And even more salesmanship books, and just personal growth. So many different kinds. Right? That’s when I really started reading. And I also, I worked at a private college and so I cleaned the bookstore. So I was open to a lot of college psychology books and different books that I could buy, just you know, the bookstore will sell you a college book, even if you’re not in the college. Right. And so I bought a lot of books that helped me to, to understand grief and grieving and personal development and all that stuff.

Victoria Volk 33:01
To understand yourself. Yeah. And myself.

Stephanie Cerins 33:05
Yeah, exactly. Because I didn’t have any understanding of what I you know, why was I so upset and everything else. And so the grieving that I had that was so hard, I feel very relieved that I did it. And you know, that any helped me know me, and hopefully I can help others. Right. That’s what I learned in AAA to, no matter how big of a mess you are, you could still help someone. We’re all here to help.

Victoria Volk 33:28
You had mentioned that your second husband was abusive in some ways. Yeah. So if he was working on himself was it. I mean, his journey was his journey. But obviously, that was more grief for you.

Stephanie Cerins 33:42
I guess, when I met my husband, I never had had a climax in sex. And so I had been trying to find a man who helped me with that. And he helped me with that. And that was such a relief that I thought maybe I could help him to stop hitting people, too, by loving Him enough and giving him what I thought he needed, right. But all I learned in that relationship is people are just going to be who they are in. I’m not in the people fixing business anymore. And by the end of it, I just told God cheese, I’m not a very good person. Because by the end of that marriage, I could remember laying there like fantasizing or imagining or whatever you want to call it ending him because he hit me so many times right or slept in that it wasn’t me that he would hit anybody. And so that helped me to forgive him and to be able to move on because I realized by me staying there, he couldn’t control himself, then I was actually harming him by continuing to stay there. And so that’s how I was finally able to leave because he had so much grief and there was so much someone put him in the dryer and turned it on when he was sick. Can you imagine like he was so abused? They his family had so much physical abuse, right and so everybody hit everybody and his brothers and sisters were failing stuff like his sister moved into an apartment. She lived there two years, she hadn’t unpacked a box, there was boxes stacked everywhere in the house. Like, there’s just ramping dysfunctionality, right. And so just to, we just were dysfunctional together. And we helped each other as much as we could. And then when I realized, Oh, this isn’t working for me, I just slept in, started, I went to a battered women’s shelter and started over. And just, I even gave him the car and everything, I wanted him to just go away. Right. And so he left and it was my car. And, and I knew that I would get a new car, and I did I got another old beater. That didn’t cost very much and it worked. Okay, and, you know, just keep on moving forward and don’t get stuck if something bad happens, right? Or if you make a mistake, oh, well, this, I’m just undo it right. So I left and started over. And you know, my first this is my first my first book was healing my heart after domestic abuse, and just affirmations. And then I and then my next one that just came out I did in November last year. It’s the same principles, just affirmations and just to try to help women or men whoever, to be able to get out of their grief and their or their abuse and to realize how important our thoughts really are and what we think and what we feel. And it’s not just like feeling sorry for yourself, or worrying or being upset, it’s just that’s really is the problem is that we can’t quit obsessively thinking about what happened, because it’s just what happened. And if we don’t have to get hung up on it, then we can move through life better. And it’s easier. Because I was hung up on my dad’s death from 15 to 29. I mean, I blocked it out, and I didn’t think couldn’t remember it. And that’s how I messed up, I was friendly. And then when I could remember it, then I could start healing and it’s coming out of myself and just, you know, have dreams about it again, and let and let it release from myself and move forward. And like make friends with it.

Victoria Volk 37:11
I just want to highlight one thing you said because I’ve never heard a reframing of that sort when someone has abused you and you’ve reconciled it in your mind in the way that I’m not helping him by staying here. I’m not helping him grow by staying here. And you’re, you know, to, to how to so hard like to take in like in Grief Recovery, we say take 1% responsibility. And that’s why the process of Grief Recovery can be so difficult for people who are abused. You know, I was molested as a child also. And so that was a really difficult part. That’s why forgiveness is so hard for people. But forgiveness isn’t for them. It’s for you. But I think a part of that is just what you said it’s just taking just a sliver of responsibility of your ownership in that relationship because it is a relationship and a dance with grief when two dysfunctional people bring their all their baggage and they just dumped their luggage and it’s all just meshed together. Right? That’s That’s how relationships often start. And you attract. Like attracts like, right? And so I do want to get to where that changed for you because the relationship obviously once you started to let that grief come out, you attracted someone who who has now been your partner for 18 years. And so what did that look like? What helped you I mean, I know you did a but what then what helped you progress in your evolve your grief?

Stephanie Cerins 38:51
I think after my dad died, I was just so scared of being alone. Right that I would do anything to not be alone have roommates, whatever, right? To never live alone, never be alone. And then like my ex husband, we did everything together. We cleaned houses together, we rode motorcycles together, he even came into the public bathroom with me eventually, you know, like, because I was so scared to be alone and make my own choices. I picked controlling people to make my choices for me, then I don’t have to be responsible and whatever happened or whatever happens, right? And so then when, during that marriage with Jeffrey i He was a salesman, right and he sold me for years. So but I learned he helped me understand psychology and people. And so really I got over my fear of being alone during that time and I just felt more confident around people. And just by reading all those self help books and in that marriage that you know everybody’s a mess. And that life is hard and that you know, everybody’s scared. In the whole world, and so by realizing that I’m not the only scared one, if someone lashes out, or does something that makes me uncomfortable, I really kind of know now it’s really coming from them, it’s I’m triggering something inside of them. Like someone triggers something inside of me and I get upset sometimes to write, I try not to, but on occasion, I still have a screamingly new bed. And I try not to, but you know, we’re all only human. And if we can be more gentle with each other and not take it, you know, someone has a meltdown. And then the other person takes it so serious that they, they get their feelings hurt, and then they lash out to the next person. And if we can just stop that repeating lashing out and realize, oh, that person just insulted me because they’re hurting. I mean, in it at 711, they show you a video where a guy and his wife have a bite in the car, and the guy comes in the store, and He’s so rude to you as checker, right? To show you to not be triggered, right? That, Oh, this guy’s not mad at you. He just, and really, that helped me in life to that little psychological movie to have that. Wow, it’s really, you know, my dad was really frustrated in his life. So that’s why he held me down and tickled me and did things to me that made me uncomfortable, because he was uncomfortable. So if I can deal with my own uncomfortableness, and not pass it on to someone, then that makes me feel like I’m, I’m helping in that part of what I’ve lived through, is helping that I’m not you know, dumping my poop downstream. Right? I dealt with it myself with me and God and talked it out with friends that are trustworthy. And, and because we’ve learned to share. I mean, that’s what’s been so hard about this COVID, we’ve been so separated from everyone, and we need to be able to talk and communicate and connect, because that’s how we realize, Oh, I’m not such a mess. You have problems too. Right. But in our society, I think we don’t want to talk about that. And I mean, you know, we are all everybody’s just puts on what is cool going on in their lives and talks about that. Meanwhile, you know, they just got kicked in the head last night, like I did, but they didn’t tell and I didn’t tell right? And if we can just realize that everybody’s going through stuff into, you know, to try and if they do something to us, oh, well, maybe, you know, someone was mean to them, and it didn’t have nothing to do with me. You know, because our parents are broken when they have us because, you know, we’re and then, you know, that’s why I didn’t make any kids because I didn’t want to break anybody. I thought I could always adopt if I needed some there’s plenty of people around,

Victoria Volk 42:49
You know, you talked about death and how you’re not afraid of that. And and you’ve made peace with that. Is that something you’ve thought about going to the end of your life? And? And? Well, I mean, if you’ve made peace with being alone, too, right, like so? It’s not You’re not seeking relationships for codependency reasons, right? You’re seeking relationship chips to enrich your life. But I’m wondering if that decision to not have children? Is that something that you think about? As you’re getting older now?

Stephanie Cerins 43:21
No, I’m really glad. I’ve especially with this COVID going on? No, I’m glad. I think there’s ya know why I’m so glad that I didn’t have kids. I’m just gonna make friends. And you know, even some of my people with people that have kids, oh, well, I wonder which kids is going to take care of me when I get home. Like, I don’t even think about that. Because it’s just karma. If you do good, you’re gonna get good. So I don’t worry about something bad happening. Sure. Something bad’s gonna happen. The car will break, somebody will die. I don’t know, the government’s gonna collapse. Who knows what’s going to happen? I’ve been thinking that recently, I thought, you know, when I incarnated here, nobody promised me sane governments. Nobody promised me sane partners. Right. And so I think we just, we just expect a lot in life. And we expect to we see so much richness on TV and plenty. And you know, that it’s just ridiculous. I mean, I heard in Cuba, because they don’t have TV and all the stuff that they don’t have as much body shaming issues, right? Well, hello. You know, that’d be great if we didn’t have women injecting silicones in their butts or some to make it bigger. I mean, I think it’s just really important to just stay focused on really what’s important. Do we have enough food? Do we have a house to live in? Do we have some friends? Not? Am I going to be the richest person on the planet? You know, am I going to be the next Bill Gates or whatever, right? I’m hoping somehow this COVID is going to bring us down to a little more reality of relief. But, you know, 200 years ago, nobody traveled Nobody went anywhere. You know

Victoria Volk 45:03
I know. And isn’t it crazy to think of how far the all the advancements and all of the stuff in 100 years just in the last 100 years, even 7550 years, it’s, it’s just absolutely crazy. It’s like we’re the most spoiled. We’re the most spoiled generation, but we’re probably in a lot of ways, the most miserable and it comes back to like what you said, it’s like you can have all this stuff. But what what is enriching your life experiences? deep conversation? deep connection? You know, and we can experience that if we don’t address the stuff that’s like, lurking in us.

Stephanie Cerins 45:46
Exactly. And, and at least nowadays, we have enough time to explore some of it. I think, before life was so hard that you just, you know, I can’t even imagine having six kids and women had no rights use that as much rights as the dog, right. I mean, really, just not that long ago. You know, being grateful for everything’s really safe to me, I swear that little piece of advice, just if even if I’m grateful that I’m late, because if I was any earlier, maybe I would have gotten a terrible car crash, right. I mean, I’m really good at making it I’ll make good stories, instead of bad stories, we need to have a running well, it’s gonna work out terrible and everything’s in bad. It’s always gonna work out the best for me. I have environmental illnesses. So I have a mask from that from for bicycle riding from Europe, that sometimes I wanted to wear, because I’m carrying us and stuff, I burp and I don’t feel good. And my husband’s an artist and we do outside shows sometimes where there’s more traffic than my body is comfortable with. So are like at the end, the end, I’d put my mask on because there’s so much cars going by in the exhaust just from the cars will make me burp. And so so now the whole world is wearing a mask so I can wear my mask more. See, it always works out all the best for me like, and I make up silly, ridiculous stories like that. Because it’s no more ridiculous and said, Oh my god, nothing’s gonna work and I’m not gonna have any money and oh my god, and nobody’s gonna love me and I’m gonna be alone forever. Right? Like, it’s just a story. So just make up a better story, right? Abraham Hicks. She’s like, just pick the next better feeling thought and what if your depression than rage is better than depression? Well, how great is that to hear? Oh, right. Well, I’m upset.

Victoria Volk 47:34
Well, rage can be a very good motivator to anger is a very good motivator.

Stephanie Cerins 47:39
It is the house gets very clean if I’m

Victoria Volk 47:44
I am the same way. Lady mom clean house. So we got to channel it. Yeah. Right. You might as well channel and pour it out and get rid of it and do something productive with it. Right?

Stephanie Cerins 47:57
No top and one uses a lot of braid.

Victoria Volk 48:01
Yeah. No, I love that I find myself the same thing like making up stories. If someone like the checkout person, if they’re rude to me, or whatever, I’m pretty good at making up stories. Well, you gave a little piece of advice there about gratitude. But is there anything else that you would share with someone today who may be kind of where you were in that in between where you’re just kind of on the cusp of this awareness of how much better life could be and how much sweeter life could be?

Stephanie Cerins 48:32
I think it’s just be gentle with yourself while you’re going through anything. And to not were so dramatic Oh, right. Like, I’m gonna die or like me wanting to die as a 16 year old, 17 year old, because I’m so enraged that my dad left me here, right, and I missed out on all kinds of fun, and trauma in life. You know, and understanding. And so to just, you know, be to be patient with yourself and to be gentle with yourself and to don’t expect ourselves to know so much. I mean, it’s not like, you know, you don’t get a course in life when you’re born. It’s like, like, we learned to talk, but we can’t read. That’s kind of how life is right? You don’t just get thrown into things, right? Like, you don’t have to have a training class to have a baby, right? You can just get pregnant when you’re 12 or whatever, you have a period and we get pregnant. It’s like, oh, oh, that happened. I mean, I’m sure that’s what my dad was like, how would I get a baby? You’re a kid and me. That’s how it happened. Like really? He was pretty oblivious. My dad who at all right, like, and I think that’s how a lot of people go through life was just there didn’t make choices. It just happened to him. Right. And so I think by me choosing that I didn’t want to have kids that started a whole bunch of changes. cuz then whatever we decide in life, one of my friends, she wanted to have six kids. I was like, wow, okay, and she did it. And I was like, Wow. All right. And then she’s dealing with that which she’s created. Right? And is that was a hard one.

Victoria Volk 50:16
Yeah, I just had with teenagers too. I have three teenagers and talking to them about choices and how choices every choice, every single choice that you make has a consequence.

Stephanie Cerins 50:29
And every thought you think has a consequence? And we’re not told that in school, right? We’re not, right. It’s really what we think creates our actions and our beliefs. And that’s your life, right? And so just how can we help each other to to be more gentle, and I could have a boyfriend, my dad died? It’s like, oh, well, that’s one thing to be grateful about. I could have a boyfriend because he would have killed any boyfriend that came around, right? And he wouldn’t be so mean, I would have never got a boyfriend. That’s what I remember thinking that well, at least I could get a boyfriend. Now,

Victoria Volk 50:59
Let me ask you this, because it kind of circles back to the whole idea that, you know, your thoughts are important and have consequences and thoughts become things. And so what about this idea of life is hard? I want to challenge you on that, that, isn’t that a belief? That life is hard? Or is it that we make it hard?

Stephanie Cerins 51:21
Well, I think for me, the day that I read that, and how it resonated is that I sort of looked at, like how I how I thought was everybody else was having an easy time when it was just hard for me. But when I read that, and that helped me have an understanding that, oh, life’s just hard sometimes. Not that. And I do think that sometimes like this heart, I mean, to get up every day and chop wood and carry water. And I mean, could you imagine growing food, and then the locusts come and like you didn’t have a grocery store with everything just right up the street, like we’re really I mean, it’s pretty easy for us, really, a lot of us, we don’t have a lot of hardships. And in that our past families have had to do like, if you didn’t grow the garden, really you didn’t eat, you know, and that kind of thing. And or, you know, you got to go kill the animal and tan the hide. And so you could wear something right.

Victoria Volk 52:15
And that was on top of the grief, they already had to write, though. So you know, a lot of those conveniences of life take away a lot of the grief that will never hopefully, God willing, that we never experience right? Or that we never feel personally,

Stephanie Cerins 52:33
Yes, that we have a lot of comfort. When then I sometimes when you have a hard thing, sometimes you learn something, but it’s still balance, and you still got to have a support system. And I sometimes wonder if with all the margin, because I don’t have to have someone with me, right? Our independence makes us more sort of honoree and individual, right? If it’s if I don’t have to grow the garden and do this and the chickens and kill something in, you know, and has sit around having a sewing circle so we can make a quilt and faster than 25 years, we’ll all work on a quilt and then we’ll make one and we’ll make one for you. And we all make a quilt right. And that’s how we used to do things all together more. Right. But with the advent of petroleum, petroleum, there’s so much work that we don’t have to do, right, it takes the holes, it does lots of things, and makes our life easier. And then the food, right. And that’s hard because people are eating such crappy food. They don’t even have no energy. I mean, 200 years ago, guys cut down trees as big as my house with a saw with one guy on each end. Right? Now, we got to have a bigger truck because the guy can’t even lift the garbage can, right. I mean, it’s so

Victoria Volk 53:49
You bring out so many interesting perspectives. And it really does just, it just really brings up for me that we used to do so much more with community like it was everything was done, because you couldn’t I think it’s really what this message, what it comes down to is that life was done with others used to be done with others, and so much and I think that’s what the advancements perhaps have been a contributing factor to this isolation that we experienced, because even if they didn’t talk about grief, or it wasn’t something that but you know what, honestly, like, when someone died back, then way back then they would have their loved one with them for days and take pictures after they died with them. So everything grief was even done differently. Yeah. And so I think that with advancements the advancements have come have brought consequences, right. And I think it’s this, like you said this more isolating society.

Stephanie Cerins 55:00
Were separated from death more, they come and hurry up and take away the body and hurry out. Instead of you know, you used to wash the body yourself and then bury it in the backyard, right or whatever. And so with the distances and all the modernization and that we don’t even kill animals to eat anymore. Some guy does it in the slaughterhouse and has to kill all the animals for everybody, instead of everybody just getting a little death on you, right?

Victoria Volk 55:29
That’s true. That’s very true.

Stephanie Cerins 55:32
And so I think that this, we’ve have a sterilization of our life more because of the modernization and the withdrawing of the, from people in grief and everything, right? And we think it’s supposed to be so easy, but no, gosh, Everybody’s hungry. I’m trying to grow a garden here. And you know, you plant the seed, and you got this little baby embryonic plant, right, like it’s in the womb, right? It’s a little baby plant, just one shoe. Everybody eats that little chute like to defend that little chute. So you could grow it and eat it like and so I’m feel very lucky to be able to understand the circle of life a little bit more than if I can help someone else understand it more that way. Because I don’t think we die when I did a meditation when my mom had said if she wanted to Reiki healing when she was getting ready to go, and she said she did and I was very shocked. And so I went down by to a beach by where we lived, and just did a little meditation. And in that meditation, first me and my mom, I, I saw her, we saw her body in the bed of the hospital bed, right? And we were just kind of like, I guess hovering in the air. I couldn’t see us. But we were we were like drone view of the bed, the hospital a better overview. And she was like a big giant raisin. I was like, Oh, Mom, I think your body’s getting all tired and whistled up. That’s not looking too good, is it? No, it’s not looking too good, isn’t it? And then the next thing in my meditation, we went and we we were walking up a path and it was very glowy at the end of the path. And as we got closer to the light, the glowing mass it individualized more. And it was like, there was grandpa and not as not a vision. But the feeling right there was Dad and Grandpa and Gordy and Alan and all these people waiting for my mom, right? And then I took my mom’s hand and passed it, but it felt like to my dad. And so after that visualization, I’m not scared of death, like at all. It’s just, we’re just light beings and we got these bodies. And we’ve just go back to the big ball blade. And there’s going to be people there waiting, and we’re never alone.

Victoria Volk 57:49
So would you say that’s what grief has taught you?

Stephanie Cerins 57:52
Yep, that we’re never alone. It asking you shall receive. It’s really true. If you just ask and you don’t expect it to happen. But don’t put a time limit on it. And don’t worry about it. Right, but then just trust and do your best. Because Because we’re all just here for helping into into be compassionate with one another if we can.

Victoria Volk 58:19
So you mentioned Reiki are you You are a Reiki practitioner Reiki master.

Stephanie Cerins 58:24
Yeah yeah, I do Reiki and reflexology simultaneously on a person so I do the energy body and the physical body. And most of the time my clients are falling asleep on the table and I don’t understand that matches around their head. And it’s like, I don’t know if I would be that. But I feel grateful that to be and then I write affirmations, personalized affirmations for people to help them just like a little short story, right? That’s something good because I have friends that just ad nauseam berate themselves, right and So can’t we nauseam cheer ourselves up until I did something good. I did the dishes today. I didn’t even have to cuss or nothing while I did it or, you know,

Victoria Volk 59:07
All of the healing that you’ve kind of experienced in the last 1518 20 years or so. That has led to you like would you say that Reiki found you because that’s most Reiki practitioners I know say that Reiki found them.

Stephanie Cerins 59:21
I’ve done reflexology since I was a teenager because I learned it to help my mom the from the reflexologist that she used to take us to and he trained me to help my mom because she was such a mess and then but when my ex husband he used to have migraines, so I would sit and do the reflexology. But I but before I even knew Reiki I visualized having like come in my head and go out my hands. God’s like God’s love whatever. Good orderly direction I would say I don’t know why Jeffrey has a headache. But you know why Jeffrey has a headache. God, whatever good orderly direction and Jeffrey’s body knows why Jeffrey has a headache. So maybe I could Just like give them some energy and you guys can figure it out right? And not take responsibility or anything for the energy. And then I read a Reiki book and I thought I’ve been doing Reiki already. So then I got a break the I became a Reiki Master so I could actually learn what I was trying to do more. That’s how I felt. So yeah, I think Reiki definitely better. I it’s just like a mom, when your mom like kisses your booboo. That’s Reiki, right? It’s just like, offering good loving energy from your heart. Right? But if you learn how to do it, well, then you can do it better.

Victoria Volk 1:00:38
It seems like to me, you’ve kind of found the essence of who you are, with your healing, right? You’ve come back to the essence of who you are, what you were doing with the animals and caring for the animals and helping them transition when it was their time. And in doing that, for those that you loved along the way, right? Like, that’s really the essence. It’s and I think in grief, and when we’re so far in it, and deep in it, we can’t connect to that part of ourselves. It’s really difficult to

Stephanie Cerins 1:01:08
No. Yeah, cuz we’re so overcome with the emotions, and we’re feeling so alone and everything and because we’ve decided, oh, that person left and they did it. I mean, I thought, you know, my dad died because of me. And I felt guilty for it. But it wasn’t didn’t have anything to do with me, it had to do with all the thoughts he thought and the over only the overwhelm in his mind that he felt too alone. And he felt overwhelmed, or whatever it was, that caused him to pick up a bottle every day, right. And besides working in a very toxic place where they have you washed your car when you leave, but you didn’t hose the shit out of your lungs, you know, and wow, up your skin and working at a pulp mill was not very healthy, right. And meanwhile, I know lots of guys that lived in retired and I even cleaned house for a guy that was over 80 years old who worked in a pulp mill forever. So it didn’t have to kill you either the chemicals, right? It’s just how you perceive things and think and

Victoria Volk 1:02:05
Is there anything else that you would like to share,

Stephanie Cerins 1:02:08
I just feel very blessed to be a part of your podcast and to have a chance to share my story and maybe to wrap a person and help them find their, their beauty in their own self and to not be affected so much by the fears and the anglers have their families and whoever raised them and taught them the world how it should be.

Victoria Volk 1:02:29
Pave your own path, right? Yeah,

Stephanie Cerins 1:02:32
So don’t worry about what other people think and make up your own silly story and just do it. I’m the happiness enhancer, right? I just made that shit up, you know, but I did that. But last year, I did take I love Heart Math, the company Heart Math. And so I’m a Heart Math certified Heart Math mentor to help me be able to help people get in touch with their heart and to breathe, actually breathe emotions through their heart. Right? And to be able to maintain heart coherence more often.

Victoria Volk 1:03:04
Oh, can you talk a little bit more about that?

Stephanie Cerins 1:03:07
Oh, sure. I love Heart Math, because Heart Math is the study that that our heart really is more powerful than our brain. Because in our society, we’re told our brains more powerful than our heart. When in when in the meantime, what’s the first thing that performs in the human body in the womb? The heart? When does it start beating at 18 to 21 days? Do we have a brain? No, we don’t even have a brain. Right when our heart starts beating, right, and that we have a brain actually, there’s brain neurons in our heart. There’s Breton neurons in your stomach, you have the same kind of neurons in your brain, in your heart in your stomach, to help us to be able to connect with each other. I mean, we have a mirror neurons in our brain so that if someone’s crying, we feel empathy, because that person needs us to feel empathy, right? And so that we can connect and that they’ve proven now that there’s an aura, like they can measure this auric field that goes about isn’t it interesting, about six feet, most people’s heart energy goes about six feet, and then I’m fine that we’re supposed to distance six feet. So I thought that was interesting. And that just I love Heart Math, because it proves that hearts more important than brain. And I think that if that’s true, and I think in our society that’s totally not emphasize that.

Victoria Volk 1:04:34
I would 100% agree with you. And I’m very curious about that. And so I will definitely be looking into that.

Stephanie Cerins 1:04:41
Yeah, it’s heartmath.org or heartmath.com. And the.org has all the scientific studies and stuff and you can go down the wells and the.com is a little bit more than reaching out and promoting themselves and stuff. like that, but it’s been going for about, I don’t know, 20 or 30 years Heart Math. And then oh, if you haven’t know, you’re gonna love Heart Math, if you haven’t heard of it, oh, no, I’ve never heard of it. And so and so I paid $1,400. So I could become a mentor. And that allows me to be able to train about 10 people, but I think I’m gonna go for, I don’t know when, but I’ll go and get the next one. So I can do like 100 people, and then I could have, but not that it really matters that I can really get that many people together right now. Anyway, still, so. But yeah, just to Yeah, HeartMath is so fascinating. And it really took and it’s hard like to actually generate a new baby, you got a thing you stick on your ear, and it measures like your heart coherence. And it’s not that easy to keep the feeling of love going not thinking about love, but to actually emanate a feeling. And to get that heart, there’s a, it can turn red, or a green or blue. And to keep it green, which means they’re all like this, you know, a monk, I would say or whatever, right? And, and so it’s fascinating to, I can generate a real good for about five or 10 minutes, and then it seems like it starts dropping off. And so I haven’t worked with it as much as I could. But I would like to someday be able to generate that for 20 minutes or half an hour or, you know, just constant if it would stay green. But I can get it to go totally green for like 10 or 15 minutes. And then you know, your mind starts to wander and you get, you know, think about the laundry or something.

Victoria Volk 1:06:40
And I think that really makes me think of gratitude, right, like gratitude and you know, loving what is good in your life. And giving that appreciation is kind of up there with love, you know. So,

Stephanie Cerins 1:06:54
The more the more we can you know, the more you can just focus on whatever we can do not not everything that we can’t take anything. You know, I can’t do nothing about what the government’s do nothing about what anybody does except me. And what can I do? Well, I can at least try to at least I can be generous in kind no matter what anybody else does. And then I know someone’s generous and kind and then I’ll run into my

Victoria Volk 1:07:19
Laptop. So where can people find you, I know, You’ve written a couple books,

Stephanie Cerins 1:07:24
My one book healing my heart after a loss is on Amazon. And I hope to get my other one on Amazon pretty soon, because I published it through a different way the first time in 2014 in 2017. And so I just have to redo it in Word. And so it’s taken a little while and but anyway, so on, on Amazon and then healing my heart after a loss just comes up if you type it in the search bar, and then the and I’d like to send you a book, I’d like to email you a book. I mean, I’d like to mail you a hard copy if you want to email me or address. Because I feel blessed that to have this opportunity to share my story and trip the planet. Because that’s my goal to bring tear to the planet or cheer up the people of planet Earth or because it’s we all just take it too serious and happiness is healthy. That’s my website. And I’ve been writing I have a blog that I’ve been writing, it’ll be my 10 year anniversary, I just thought of now when we were talking that my blog is 10 years old this year. And I’ve written affirmations. And when I first started it in 2012, I was writing affirmations every day, just like a paragraph long affirmation to try to cheer people up because you and that’s why I made this a coloring book book. Like you color you read in color, because then if you just read this one that’s not going to change your life. Because you have to read something over and over, there’s a book called The greatest salesman, and it says in there Augmentee know, tells you to read it in the morning, read it in the afternoon, and then read it out loud each chapter, you read the little chapter two or three pages in the morning, the afternoon and then out loud at night. And you do it for a whole month. And then so it takes 10 months to get through that book if you really do what it says. But it’s really like one of the things is I laugh at myself and the world laughs with me and I take myself you know, and I don’t make a big deal of things and just really it was a long time ago. I can’t even remember all 10 of them anymore, right? But I will laugh at myself. I live this day as if it is my last you know just lots of things to you know, so that you don’t waste your life you take the moments that you get.

Victoria Volk 1:09:42
I will put all of the links to everything you mentioned in the show notes. And you I thank you so much for this rich conversation and for you sharing your story with my listeners today.

Stephanie Cerins 1:09:55
I feel very blessed and thanks for having me. It’s they’re lovely and and I like you as much as your voice, I thought she was a good boy. So I’m gonna reach out to her. So,

Victoria Volk 1:10:05
I love that. Thank you so much. And remember, when you unleash your heart you unleash your life. Much love, from my heart to yours. Thank you for listening. If you liked this episode, please share it because sharing is caring. And until next time, give and share compassion by being hurt with yours. And if you’re hurting know that what you’re feeling is normal and natural. Much love my friend.