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The Kidnapping | Creative Thinking Podcast

A harrowing abduction brought to light the dysfunction within Julie's family. Through the 3P program, she embarked on a path of healing and reconciliation, culminating in a deeply personal experience as her mother's life drew to a close.

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Transcript
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So welcome to this show. And I always say this is my favorite, but this is, they're always my favorite stories when I start talking about my stories. And this is one of my favorites because it's one of the

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most profound stories. But it's a long story, so it's a really long story. So, you know, just kind

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of, you're gonna have to pause this, go to work, and then, you know, come back to it, or maybe listen to this at work, depending on what you do. Anyway, I

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just wanna recap the last two episodes. Cause it's so important and there's so much opportunity. Like, if you've got this entrepreneurial spirit and you're like, hey, I wanna build a business

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around some of these ideas that we're presenting. This is a great business to build. So what we've learned, like, the last two episodes, is

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one. The most impactful tool you can use is start to brainstorm and practice that creative tool, that creative muscle, and just, you

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know, put that problem out there. And then just every morning, two minutes, just brainstorm on the problem solutions. And you just really start to practice

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getting into that channel, getting out of your head. You want to be in the no judgment zone. And if writing is challenging for you, just record. Just record it. And, you know, there's tons of different

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platforms that will take your recording and transpose it to, you know, or you can just record it on voice recorder, or you can record it right into notes. You know, things like that. So there's lots of tools so you don't

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have to write and you don't have to be judging your writing or things that will get you out of the flow. But the whole idea is to just keep practicing, practicing, practicing brainstorming, practicing,

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practicing getting out of your head, practicing, learning how to solve small problems and then move on to bigger problems. And then one of the things based on the

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last episode where we and this episode is going to be the same thing, too, where we get this idea in our head that holds us back. So, like I mentioned,

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my daughter felt she wasn't smart, and so that was such a limiting belief for her. She didn't feel like she could reach her full potential because of this limiting belief. And what we

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had to do was get her the help. And she was doing well enough that there was no help at school, there was no iep, there was nothing. She was doing well enough that she could

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pass through, but she wasn't reaching her full potential. The opportunity for you is to just really kind of start

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to think about those ideas that you've had that have limited yourself or have boxed you in and held you back from. Maybe you know that you're passionate about something, whatever it

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is that lights you up. And you could see a future where you're doing something in line with that passion. And it doesn't have to be work. It could be hobbies, it could be your give back project,

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it could be anything. But what are the limiting beliefs that you have that are holding you back from being in line with that and then really start to put those into your problem solving? Like,

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I believe that I can't do this because of this. And a great example, and this is where the opportunity is for education, is that we are all wired differently, we all think differently,

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and only the smart kids have been exposed to this type of out the out of the box brainstorming type of thinking, advanced problem solving that this program is bringing to the world.

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But it's teaching kids. So right now in school, if you don't do well in English, or you don't do well in math, or you don't do well at art, an art class, or you don't do

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well in chemistry, or even some of the more advanced classes, you decide your career, you decide your path based on that one

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experience, and it's not really real. So when we went into Covid, the very cool thing that came out of COVID talking to my neighbors, there

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are kids that were struggling in the math classes they were taking at the time, whether it be geometry or algebra or any of these types of math classes. They were really struggling in the classroom because the teacher was

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teaching from the book, from the curriculum. When we went into Covid, they started teaching them through videos. And the kids went from barely passing to straight a's. The videos

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allowed them to understand the content and the material. So maybe in the past you haven't done well with the structure of how it was presented. And it may

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not necessarily be anything to do with your intelligence, it may not be to do with anything. And that there is really an opportunity to develop many, many, many ways to

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learn many different learning paths, and that there's this way to identify how this child learns best and how to help them. Now, I know there are things at varying levels that exist right now, but what

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if it was for everything and every subject? And, you know, one of the things that we go through, especially being artists or creatives, is that when we're small children, we draw these

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most amazing drawings and we can make these beautiful pictures and we can be super creative. But there's some point in time during adolescence where we get the idea that if it doesn't

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look real, we're not a good artist. And that is so absurd because you're just not tapping into your true creative soul. It does have to look real. That's the wrong

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criteria. And so when you start to look at education by, are we, how do we help children align with what delights them, where

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their passions are, where they should be going, and have every path open to them. And the whole notion that, like, with my daughter, she realized that it wasn't fair that she had to

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work harder than her sister. Once you accepted that and you're like, okay, I am willing to work harder to achieve what I'm supposed to achieve. Once you get over that, then you're like, okay, if that's

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the deal, and I still want this, am I willing to put in the work? And it's like, yes, yes. So the whole idea is to help children uncover their gifts, help

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children uncover their passions, not limit them by grades. And the grades, you know, say, yes, you should be doing this. No, you shouldn't

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be doing this, but limit them by this doesn't feel good to me, and. But it's not through success or not success. It's just. It just isn't something that interests me. It's not

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something that lights me up. So the whole idea is a different education system that aligns with opening many opportunities to children so that they then can figure

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out where. Where that alignment is and what is the best path path for them. And then the other thing I did with my children was, and it was so sweet. One year, they gave me

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an ipod. So this is a number of years ago to put all music on, and on the back of it, they engraved, we love you conditionally. And because that

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was always my mantra to them, my kids, was, I love you conditionally. And not that I'm going to ever withhold love from you, but you have this obligation to coming into this world.

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You have to live up to your greatness. You have to live up to your talents. You have to live up to your potential. You have this obligation to have this full life of impact.

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And so that's why they chose the path of medicine and doctors, because they felt that was the greatest place that they could go and where they could be. And so it's living to your full

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potential and just inspiring children to live from their greatness, not from their smallness. And we have a tendency to, and that's where the resilience comes in, because we have

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a tendency to live from our smallest. We have a tendency to live from the negative and have that hang on us and be our identity and who we are. We have an identity that

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aligns with the things that are wrong, not with the things that could potentially be fantastic. And so it's just changing the story, it's changing education. It's making sure that every kid knows how to

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brainstorm. Every kid knows that there's this unlimited idea generation tool that they have access to and then how to use it. And we're going to teach this here, but it's

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how to use it and how to get the most out of it. And so that's what this program is about, tapping into that creative part, accessing understanding the full potential, understanding

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how living a life based on alignment with passions, purpose and path, and then just figuring all that out. So this episode is

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my limiting beliefs. So, and I mentioned before, I had all these crazy things happen. These mini traumas happened to me as a child, lots and lots of them. Nothing

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happened to my sister. And so many things happened to me. And, you know, and so one of them was when I was about six years old, I

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somewhere between the age of five and six, I can remember most of it. So it has to be after the age of five. And so we had this girl in the neighborhood that

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was, you know, everybody identified her as being just crazy, you know, and she was around 16 years old. And

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whenever, you know, we'd see her running down the street, coming down the street, we'd all, like, hide from her. I don't know why, but that was what we did. We ran away from her.

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Anyway, my sister was playing, we had a number of friends and we were all playing in the front yard. And my sister and my friends, she was coming down the

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street and my sister and her friends ran in the garage and they locked me out and she took me. And

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it was, it wasn't, it wasn't that I willingly went with her. It just, I weighed all my options. And like, I'm like,

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she was very scary. She was very threatening, and she basically grabbed me and took me with her. So it was, you

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know, kind of terrifying, but not, you know, we were always out in public. I think if she had taken me to somewhere

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private, it would have been like, it would have been terrifying because then you're like, okay, how can I get out of this? What are my options? But we're in public. We're walking down

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the street. She's grabbed me. So she was, you know, basically taking me different places around the neighborhood and, you know, pushing me down, beating me up, you know, just kind of. And then this, this,

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she was inflicting this mental torture on me. And so we had these, like, soccer fields at the end of our street. And in there they had public bathrooms that had all this graffiti

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over them. And, you know, she told me all those names are people that have died and she's been responsible for it in some way. And, you know, just all these terrifying, like, things that she would do, talk to me about. And then she

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took me, you know, further and further and further away from our house outside of the neighborhood. And, you know, she made me lay down in these grasses that we had

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these really tall grasses. And she made me lay down in the grasses and she said, I'm leaving. I'm going to be watching you. If you move at all,

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I will kill you. I will just come back and I will kill you if you move from. So, you know, I'm, like, weighing my odds. I'm like, is she testing me? Is she knowing, trying to figure out if I'm going to bide, if

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I'm going to run? So I decided I'm just going to lay there in the grasses. You know, I'll take my chances here on this. We're still out in public. We're not anywhere that looks like

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eventually someone's going to find us, right? Right. Eventually someone's going to find us. What I didn't know was my older sister was always getting in trouble for stuff like this. And so she didn't tell my

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mom. Nobody told any adults that this had happened, you know, so this girl had me. And so she

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left and she was gone for a while. And she came back and she was waving this five pound note and she said, which is about $5 now, depending on the exchange rate, but she was

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waving this five pound note and she said, I talked to your mom, and your mom said she doesn't want you anymore and that she's given me five pounds to take you away

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and that you are mine now. You're going to spend the rest of your life with me, and your parents don't love you. Your mom doesn't love you. Your mom doesn't want you,

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and that you're going to be with me and you're going to do everything that I want you to do. Okay? So I was kind of a smart ass, and I'm like, you weren't gone long enough. There's

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no way. But part of me was, like, starting to evaluate this whole scenario, which is does my mom really want

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me? Would my mom ever? If, you know, let's say she ran to our house and she ran back, and she did have this conversation with my mom. Would this be an answer that my

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mom would give? And she planted this seed in my head that my mom didn't want me and didn't want any of us and that lived with me for the longest

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time, so. And we'll go into that. So, as the story goes, she took us all the way around, all the way around the outside of our neighborhood, and I, you know, you don't have any

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perspective, but I would say it was a couple miles, you know, and we're just walking, and she's beating me up, and she's throwing, you know, pushing me down, and everything's like, you know, it's just not a good scenario. We

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end up. So we've gone in this full circle around the neighborhood, and she's at the very, very top of our street. Way up our street, there was some woods, and in the back of the

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woods was a home that everybody said was the woman that lived there was, you know, a recluse, and she was. But she was actually a witch. This woman was a witch that lived back there.

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And, you know, as kids, you know, you have all these stories and everything, and you believe some of them. You know, there's got to be some element of truth to it. Well, anyway, she obviously knew the story about this woman being a

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witch, and she. We went into the woods. We went to this woman's house, and she made me. She forced me to steal from this woman. You know, we went into her

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backyard, and we went in right up to the windows. We didn't go inside the house, but we went up to her back windows. There were all these, like, planters and plant pots on her windows, and I had to steal them. And she didn't

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even go into the yard. You know, this woman's a witch, and I'm stealing from this witch. And so we stole, you know, I did everything she told me to do because she was physically and emotionally

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violent. And. And we came out, and then we came out of the woods at the top of the street, and one of the neighbors found us. So it wasn't, you know,

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it wasn't. I was probably gone maybe two, 3 hours, you know, and, you know, eventually, obviously, my sister started to say, to weigh the odds and say, you know, I'm gonna be in more

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trouble if I don't say something than if I do say something. So then what happened is they set out a search party. Like, all the neighbors got involved, and they sent out a search party, and that's how the neighbor

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found us. But I. It was. And then after that, we never saw her again. Never. She, like, you know, they got the police involved. They got the parents. They got,

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you know, served. This girl was obviously, there was a lot going on here with her, and we never, ever, ever saw her again. It was so.

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But that stuck with me, and I. That's my new operating system, was my new belief system, was that my mom didn't want us. And so,

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you know, and that's really. So the only thing that told me that my parents actually wanted me or loved me was we got presents at Christmas. Now, we didn't get a lot of presents.

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We weren't, we never were anything wealthy, but we, you know, we would get, you know, like, one toy and then a couple of small things at Christmas. And I'm like, my parents have to

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love me because they buy me something at Christmas. That was it. So again, you know, in a previous episode, I've talked like, we're this victorian age. Imagine the queen

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raising her children. You know, there's not this. No one ever said they loved you. No one ever kind of hugged you or expressed any emotions or never said, like, so there was

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nothing of that. It was. It was the business of raising children, and it was about being. Don't embarrass us. Don't always look proper. Always, you know, have

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your, you know, neat clothes, hair combed. Appearances were everything. How you behaved was everything. The whole structure of growing up was about being.

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Behaving, acting properly. Don't embarrass us. Don't embarrass us. Don't embarrass us. And so that was the foundation of everything. And then it was the business of growing up properly, you know, what is expected of

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you. So now I can look back and I can see why things were the way they are. So if you go back to my mom, how she was

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raised. So my mom and dad were both born during World War two, and they were young during World War two, or they were born right before it. So they were where they knew

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what was going on. Like, they were over the age of five, I think my mom was six, and my dad washing seven or eight during World War two. And so they were very aware of everything

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that happened and the shortages and the things that they. The stories that they could tell you about. It was so horrible. Like, each person would get the rations where you

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could not survive on the rations and each person would get one egg a week, but the eggs would always go, and the meat would always go to the men because the men needed that. And, you know,

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they're just, they, they had one bath a week, my father did. And they had one towel, and they all used the towel, and it would smell, and it was gross.

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And just all these horrible stories and just how they were hungry all the time and how there just was never enough food. There was nothing. At Christmas, they made these little handmade

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presents. And so there was a lot of emotional trauma that came from that, that got carried through on everything about, you know, this fear of

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poverty, this fear of not having things. So it made things a lot of irration there. But the thing with my mother was, during the war, she did not live

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with her parents. She lived with her grandmother. And then after the war, she continued to live with her grandmother and didn't live with her parents. And so,

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and she said, like, her parents were not nice people. They were not kind people. And. But the only kind person she's ever had in her life was her grandmother. She was

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really sweet, really kind. But everybody on her father's side of the family were really mean. They were, you know, and I'll tell you, some of those stories are crazy because that's the entrepreneurial side of the family

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and the crazy side of the family. Really crazy. So. But so my mom lived with this grandmother, this kind grandmother, till she

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was seven years old. And then when she was seven years old, her mother got pregnant with her brother, and she was brought home

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to live with her parents, to take care of her brother. So that was her job. And then they had two other daughters, but so her job was

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raising the children and taking care of the children. So for her, raising children was a job.

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And then so. And she always felt this sense of, like, abandonment from her mom that her mom didn't really want her.

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So when she married my father, the street that her parents lived on, they bought a house, like, three houses down. And then two

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years after, so finally she's married. She's not responsible for her mother's children anymore. And so they were, like, three or four houses down. And so

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then they married, they start having babies, and her mother moves away. So my mom basically raised, and there was three of us, and

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she raised us all by herself. She had no support system. I don't remember ever having babysitters. Maybe my grandmother on my father's side, maybe once or twice would come over.

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But her mother moved to a different country, so she wasn't even close by to help. So my mom had zero support system. Her mother had abandoned her again. And

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there was something psychological that my mom couldn't deal with it. Like, she couldn't deal with us. And my. So my sister would act out

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to get attention, and it would just escalate things. And so my mom was always. Her number one threat was always that she was going to abandon us. She always said that,

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you know, if you're not good, I am going to leave you. And it had such a weight, such a horrible, horrible weight, because she. It came from her soul. This is the cruelest thing I could

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do to any child. And it would have this weight behind it that was. It was half joking, but it was half, like, trauma and pain behind it. And she would always threaten to leave us.

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And so my dad was. He was a traveling salesman. He wasn't a salesman. He was a salesman that traveled. Like, he was gone on business all the time. And he would come back from these, so he would have to

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these overseas trips, and he would come back. And my mom had been alone with us. No. No breaks, not one. And she would just. It would be like world war

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two in the house, and she would leave. And I always thought she never left permanently because she just. She just couldn't. She didn't have the

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financial means, and she would always tell us, you know, you have to. And so she was a stay at home mom, obviously. She was 100% everything for us all the time. And

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she, you know, she just always instilled in us, you cannot be dependent on a man. You have to have a job. You have to have something where you can support yourself. You cannot be a

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dependent on man. And then what you start to read is like, hey, if she could get out of this, she would. She would leave this. She would leave us. She doesn't want this job. She doesn't want to be a mom. She doesn't want

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to be. She doesn't want this. And that's the lens. This girl put this lens over my eyes, and that's how I saw everything. So my whole life

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was built around trying to make her happy, because she was never, never happy. The only time that she was happy, which is really kind of bizarre with this program, was when

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she was being creative. She worked at a bakery before she was married to, and she could create these fantastic cakes that were all had, like, little animals and creatures

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and these, you know, like, Disney scenes. Like, she'd mold it all out of marzipan, and she'd make these absolutely beautiful cakes. And she was. She loved doing that. So for our

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birthdays, she would make us these fabulous cakes. It was amazing. And then in England, we have fancy dress up, which, like, a fancy dress costume, like,

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competitions. So it's kind of like Halloween. We don't have Halloween, but we. You would make costumes and then enter these, and she would make these costumes for us. And she was so good at it. She was so fabulous.

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And you can tell when she was being creative, that was like. That was her release. That's what she loved. She enjoyed. But it was very few and far between because her job was raising children. You know, raising children was

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her job. And she was just never happy. And the birthdays were horrible, Christmas was horrible. Anything we gave her, she would have all this self

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doubt around, and she would end up taking everything back. In England, you don't take things back. It was very embarrassing. But when we came to America, she learned how to take, so she'd take

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everything back. But anything time you emotionally invested in a gift or a present, she would just be so unhappy. And, you know, we go to. We never went to restaurants, but when we started going to

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restaurants, when we came to America, we would go to a restaurant on a birthday. So we go out to, like, red lobster if it was my birthday or my sister's birthday. And she would always order the wrong

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thing, and she would. She would always be torn the decision between what she would order, and then it would always be the wrong thing. So I would always order her number two choice, and I would always switch with

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her. And so my whole life was about trying to make mom happy. So I'd help cook dinner, I'd do the dishes, I'd help out. I helped out wherever I could. I was the good one. I was the

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obedient one. I was the one that always had to get. I never the one they had to worry about. They never worried about me. And that was my role. And trying to keep mom happy and trying to

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make that was my role. So I spent my whole life doing that. And then a lot of the crazy things that happened to me came from that. So, like, going with this girl, I should

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have really kicked and screamed, but no, I'm trying to be the good one, the obedient one, and respect your elders. Respect, even though she's a nut. So 16 year old. And I know

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it's probably not going to end well, but it ended up being that. So this whole thing carried my whole life, this carried, like, trying to make mom happy, and she was just

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not happy. She's just somebody that had this level of unhappiness. And we all voted to move to America. We all voted, but it did not go

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well for my mom at all. So she didn't drive. She never drove, and she was forced to drive when we came to America, and that was really. She had no where. She had a

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few friends in England, and, you know, as we grew up, she started to make more friends, and, you know, she wasn't tied to the kids as much. She started to have a

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little job and things like that, but we moved to America, and she lost all that. And it was a very traumatic move for her. She just. Every

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day was like, I can't do this anymore. I'm going back to England. I'm going back to England. So my youngest sister was nine. I was 14, and my older sister was 16. And she was

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ready to go every day. She was ready to go every day. We were talking, you know, trying to keep her here, but she's like, no, I just can't do this. And it was really hard.

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So that whole weight of abandonment was right there, always present when we came to America. Eventually, we got through it. Eventually, she found her groove. Eventually. She was okay with the driving.

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She was okay with everything. But it took. It really took a while for her to assimilate and to feel comfortable here and to find, make friends and to develop a

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community, because everything was so foreign to us. So it was. That was. That was really, really, really challenging. But the. The biggest thing

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was when we started having kids. Now, we didn't start having kids till, like, late twenties, so. And I got pregnant, and then both of my sisters got pregnant. And

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so within two years, she went from zero to six grandkids, and she absolutely adored her grandkids, and she loved

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kids. And I'm like, oh, my God, my mom loves kids. She actually enjoys this job. Like, my whole perception was that she was miserable.

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And maybe at the time there was some mental illness. Maybe at the time she just didn't have what she needed, the support she needed to cope. Nobody ever babysat us. It was

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100% with these kids all the time. And so maybe that's it. I don't know. But she loved her grandkids, so she began watching

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our kids, like, two, maybe sometimes three days a week. And my older sister, she lived at the time, she lived in Columbus, and so my

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mom only had my kids and my youngest sister's kids, and my older sister moved back from Columbus, and my mom

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started trying to watch her kids, too, but it was too much, and she gave up on everybody. And so, you know, my my sister has always had this, you know, like,

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chip on her shoulder about mom, you know, not being able to handle, you know, parenting. And. Yeah, so it didn't go so well. That didn't go so well.

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And so. And then that started some of the turmoil because my younger sister moved in the house next door to my mom. And so it. She always. Even though my mom wasn't watching our kids, she was

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always watching my sister's kids. Like, ended up, you know, kind of fueling a little bit of jealousy there based on never having mom fully present the way she should

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be. So, you know, this. This upbringing said to me, like, hey, I am. I am going to always. I'm always going to work. And I made

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an intention to work so that I always had a break from my children so that when I would come home, I would just absolutely love and appreciate them. And I always

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wanted to be there and want them and never wanted them to ever feel like what I felt. So I went overboard in just making them feel like they're the. The

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gift that they. Of my life. That's exactly what I was supposed to have as these two girls, and this is what I'm supposed to do. And everything is perfect and everything's right and just really lean into that and just

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make the complete opposite of everything my mom did. I did the complete opposite. So that's kind of my mom's story. The one thing, too, that you really have to kind of understand

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is we weren't aware. So this is. We just knew mom wasn't happy. We weren't aware that our life was abnormal and

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that because all the other families around us were the same, when we started to become aware of, like, that. There's a different way to raise children is

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my sister started dating. So she was 16 when we left. She started dating 1314 years old. So about the last three years, we were in England,

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you know, she would go over to these boys house, and she would come back and start criticizing my parents. She would be like, mom, they're so supportive of these boys, dad. They're

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so supportive. They are. They tell them they love them, they hug them. They're like, I go in that family, they say they love me, they hug me. They do all these things. It's so

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warm. And we're not like that now. At the time, I was highly defensive. Mike was, yeah, but we get presents at Christmas. That was my defense to

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everything. And to me, I was highly defensive. Cause, like, no, this is my family, we are not like that. That's like hippies, you know?

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And I couldn't see it at the time, but at the time, she was, like, really struggling. She wanted. She needed that. She's always wanted that. She's always needed that. She always needed this, like, unconditional love, and

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she never got it. She never got it from my parents. They just didn't, they didn't have the capacity to do it. And my mom did have that kindness from her grandmother, and she could see

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that when she was a grandmother, you could see that come through. And, you know, her biggest thing, and it was so cool was when she was watching her kids, she had all these craft boxes, and it was all about

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crafting. Every day you went and you built something and you created something, and Nana was happy. The kids are happy. And so our kids have really leaned into that. They're super crafters. They love that.

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That's fueling their souls. That's where they are. So, um. But, you know, part of that, too, is that when. When

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this happens, all of this, there's, like, this emptiness inside of you, and there's like, this, like. And you notice this as a

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whole. Like, it. It feels like a whole, like, this emptiness. And, you know, I wasn't. The most times I was aware of it was when

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I was in. So I felt like that emptiness was filled. Like, when I would be in a solid relationship with somebody, but when I was outside of a relationship, when I was alone,

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that hole was, like, massive. And I thought. I thought it was. I really thought it was based on relationships. Like, I needed this soul mate or this partner. I

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needed somebody in my life to fill this hole. And at the time, I didn't realize that that was actually the repercussion of this type of upbringing,

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because my kids don't have it. They could have a relationship or not have a relationship and not feel like there's something missing. So I realized that

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looking back, that there was a brokenness to this, that came from not having this environment where you felt like you were wanted or loved, and it left this big hole in you. And

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so part of that is my journey, which is, you know, when I was about 18,

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my best friend took me to this church that wasn't like any church. You know, we're Church of England, you know, proper. You know, it's the. It's the version of

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Catholicism where you can get a divorce. That's it. That's all it is. Everything else is the same except for the big rituals with all the smoke. And everything in Latin, we don't have that. It's all in English, but it's the same

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sort of structure. And now I don't feel religion should have a structure. I don't feel it's the same way. And we'll talk about religion in another episode. But basically, I'm multi faith.

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I love every religion. I think every religion's got such really cool parts to it, and I just ignore the bad parts. She brought me to this church, and again, that's part of, like, this.

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It's a multi faith church. So they're accepting of all religions. They believe all paths to God are good. They do their version of Christianity, which is to follow Jesus, not worship

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Jesus. It's a little bit different, but it was all based on healing and growth. And the minister every, like, no matter what problem I'd come with, whether it be a boy or a relationship, that wasn't

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working out, it was work or it was school, it was, you know, in my teens, I went through a lot because my parents kicked me out when I was 19, and I'm like, the good kid, so

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getting kicked out is like, wow. So. But so I went through a lot, and so my friend would bring me to church with her, and it was all healing and growth, and I'm

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like, oh, gosh, this is good. Like, I need healing and growth. And so, you know, that started my journey, like, figuring all this out of figuring

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out, like, how. How do you fill that hole? How do you make that hole disappear? What does it take? What. Where does this pain come from? How do we get rid of it? How does. So this whole journey

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of figuring this all out, but absolutely, absolutely everything I'm talking about fills this hole. The hole doesn't even really exist. It's just this slight programming in the back of your mind that something's

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not right and you need something to fix it. But everything is fine. Everything's fine. You're just not in alignment of where you should be and what you should be doing. And when you start giving

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up, you know, the way you think things should be, and you start embracing the potential of what it can be, it just totally changes

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everything. It really does. So, good news. It's not real. That big hole is not real. And, too, that everything we're talking about

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here, and especially when we got into the three principles, like, and that's really. It's like, oh, my gosh, that's the answer. And the three principles is simply understanding

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how thought works. That we believe. We believe that what we think is real. And we believe that everything we experience around us and what we

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think about that is real and that our feelings are real. And the feelings come first. And then you have the thoughts, but it's not that way. You have the thoughts, it

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triggers the chemicals. Then you get the feelings. If you just kind of reprogram your brain not to pay attention to those thoughts and you look for the next thought,

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you just, you're constantly looking for the next thought. You're like, I don't like that feeling. I'm going to look for the next thought. I'm going to look for the next thought. And eventually a good thought comes along. And then you embrace that good

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thought. Or you could trigger it, you know, listen to music, whatever. There lots of ideas here. And if you're really interested, go, go follow, you know, three principles. Just

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Google three principles. And it's like three p.org or something. It's really, and there's tons of communities and there's tons of information about it and it's really huge. But it's, it's this whole

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idea of getting out of your head. But the question is, when you get out of your head, what do you do with it? And that's what this program is about, is how you can hack that part of

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you, but then, and problem solve everything you have in your life and then just get in alignment with it. So back to the story. So my

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mom and I have a totally different relationship once we start having children. And so I start getting into this healing and growth, and I start getting into

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the ability to fix the parts of my life that don't feel right again, raise children in this supported

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environment instead of an environment that makes them feel like something's wrong, how do I remove the barriers? How do I let them see that even if they think, believe they aren't smart, that they actually, everybody's smart. You're just

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smart in different ways. And I love education systems that supported that. And then really, I started looking towards the future. This is a note from our

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sponsor, me. And this is coming from one of our amazing clients, treetops. And if you're looking to plan the ultimate family

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vacation, northern Michigan is definitely where you should go. Treetops can be your base camp. It's just an amazing resort where

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memory for your families and get super creative, too. And I started looking towards, so I had, in between this, figuring this out, going through, filling that

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hole, blah, blah, blah, one of the things was, I'm not fulfilled unless I'm married. I have to be married.

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So, of course, if you go into being married with that, you're going to pick the wrong guy. And absolutely, hands down, pick the wrong guy. And it's

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so funny. I went to see a psychologist afterwards, and, you know, I'm like, you know what I've been doing? You know? So I did divorce recovery. I did all these, like,

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different groups, and, like, everybody's, like, devastated from their divorce. And I'm like, man, am I a psychopath? Am I not? I'm really not devastated from this

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divorce. And, you know, and I saw all these broken people, and I saw all these people where their lives had just been completely disrupted by the divorce. And I was, I wasn't feeling that way. And the only

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reason I went to the divorce recovery and the only reason I went to the psychologist was because I didn't want to repeat it. I did not want how you get into patterns. Like,

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you marry an alcoholic and then you marry another alcoholic. And I'm like, I don't never want to marry a guy like this again, ever, ever in my life do I want to marry a guy like this again. This is not in alignment

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with who I am and what I want to do and where I want to be and the children I want to raise could not have children with this man. It was not a pleasant situation. So I'm like,

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I don't want to do this again. And so I went through all this discovery. I went to Coda, I went to all these different things that I thought would make sure that I understood what was going on, why I married this guy

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and why and how not to repeat it and how not to be attracted to that type of person ever again. And so the psychologist said, you know, you're not grieving

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because you grieve the whole marriage. Everything that went wrong throughout the marriage was like an affirmation that you should not be with this guy. And you've already done all your grieving, you've already done everything, and that you're,

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you're, you're fine. You know, you, you were, you're totally fine. You just, you've been over it for so long. It just was, you know, signing a paper to just, you

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mentally checked out from day one. Like, okay, yeah, you're right. That's right. I was trying to make something work that was, like, clearly not working. Then it was just, like, figuring out my exit strategy.

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So. So anyway, but the thing that I got from the grief recovery programs was that grief shut people down. Like, absolutely. Like, there were people that

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said, you know, I've never been the same since my mom died. You know, that just took a whole part of me out of, and I've just never been able to recover, or I've never been the same since my dad died, or this was

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such a trauma, I've never been able to get over it. And so I started looking at how. How could I handle grief the best I could possible handle grief. So I started

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getting really observing grief and really observing death. And the two things that I came up with was the two types of people that dealt with

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grief better than anybody else was that people that worked on a farm and people that were super religious. So if you worked on a

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farm, you were close to nature, and you realized that they were stillborn animals. There were animals that lived three days and died. There were animals that were killed by a coyote or a fox,

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or they were just death and traumatic death and unforeseen death. Death was just part of nature. And that living on a farm, you just

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understood that this is just part of who we are, what we go through. The really religious people were, this is just part, you know,

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this accepting of your journey and accepting that this is God's way. And you don't need an explanation. You just have to trust and have faith. And they were able to navigate death better than anybody

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else. So the foreign people had. There was a lesson there. And then the religious people, there was a lesson there which is really in alignment with this, that there's purpose to every

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life and there's meaning to every life, and we're supposed to be on this journey, and it's happening for you, not to you and all that. So anyway, so I started to look at death, and I started to look

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at how my parents dying, how can I best navigate this, and how can I not have it shut me down in any type of major

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trauma in my life? How can I not have it impact me? So I really started looking closely at what could I do to do a better job with grief. At the same

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time, I took some compassionate listening classes, and that was really helpful because part of that was training to talk to people that had

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been experiencing grief. And it's one of those things that we should train, we should deal with in school. Nobody ever talks about grief.

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Nobody talks about what happens when people die. Nobody talks about what happens to the survivors once people die. And when you talk to those people, what you

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find is everybody abandons them. They don't know what to say. They don't know what to do. Everybody abandons people that are in grief because they don't know how to deal with it. And they feel like, oh, I

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need to respect your privacy. I need to respect anything. But you don't actually, you don't have to cross that line, and you just have to have compassion and

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let people know you're here and you're thinking about them. And then when you say, how you doing, you don't ask it that way. You ask it, how are you doing?

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And it extends that. And people are in a place where they can feel cared and

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supported, and we need, this is another part we need to bring into. Nobody ever talks about grief and how to handle grief. Nobody talks about death and

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how to handle death. We avoid all those subjects. And so we need to be able to talk about it. We need to be able to teach people what other people

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need. You know, don't isolate them. Don't, you know, be that person that reaches out to them and says, how are you doing?

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So the whole goal was to deal better with grief. So my mom got cancer, and we went through cancer treatments,

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and I have this wonderful woman that I met through the church, and she did Reiki, and she always talked about her Reiki. And Reiki is just a form of energy

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to send energy and give people a little more energy and a little more, just help the body what they need. So it helped. Reiki is just, we're just sending you a

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little more energy. That's it. We're giving you a little more energy just to help your body, because we're all energy. It just helps. It helps healing emotionally, physically, and spiritually, and it just helps with whatever you're dealing

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with. It can help with it. And she was saying how, before chemo treatments, she would do Reiki on her patients before and after chemo treatments, and it helped the body deal

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with the attack of the chemo. I'm like, oh, my gosh, we're doing this. So I would take my mom there before and after her chemo treatments. This woman would do a 20 minutes Reiki treatment

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before and after each one of her chemo treatments, and instead of having four rounds of chemo, she only had three rounds of chemo. And she, she was done. She was in remission, and she,

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and, you know, they obviously removed. She had lung cancer. They moved this section of her lung, and it's so funny, she never smoked, but my dad smoked like a chimney, so no guilt there, dad.

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But. So she had a section of her lung removed. They did chemo. They only had to do three rounds of chemo and radiation,

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and she never had any of the side effects like she did. I mean, she felt off. She didn't feel good. Okay. Like a baden flu. But, you know, she didn't really lose most of her hair. She

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lost a little bit. Everything was minor, and she did really well. She did really well. These really worked, this Reiki before. And after each chemo treatment, like,

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worked. Like, I'm like, man, this is it. So I took, this woman also gave Reiki classes. So I took all the Reiki classes so that, you know, I could, if anybody else got

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cancer, hey, I can do this, you know, so. And then this other program that came through, somebody our church introduced it to was the three principles. And so, and this

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was about eight years ago, I got introduced to it, and I'm like, this is it. And I told you that this is it. But nobody got it. So anyway, so I started taking my parents to this class,

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and I'm like, one, my mom's not happy. Never happy. This will make, this is happy class. And two, you know, maybe we could heal some of those, those old wounds,

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you know, because, you know, you were terrified to bring these things up to your parents and talk to them about it, that, you know, maybe they may have screwed you up. So, anyway,

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but the past doesn't exist, actually, when you start looking at this, the past is gone. Don't worry about it. Don't let it, you know, every day is a new day. Everything's a fresh start. So. But you don't do that. But

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it just, like, I wanted to be able to have a language where we communicated with each other and we could say the same language. So I. So I started taking my parents

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to happy class, and they went along with it, which is crazy, because this is way out there for them. They don't live in this world. Way out

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there anyway. And my mom would leave happy class, and she would be like, I'd like, mom, did you get anything out of it? She goes, no, but she

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said, it feels really good. It feels really nice. It's a really nice feeling in there. And I like that. And she goes, and I'll come back just for that feeling. And I'm like, hey,

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that's a breakthrough, you know? Cause they still lived very much in their head. My dad was, I've never had an epiphany. I'm never gonna have an epiphany. It's just not how I

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work. Like, okay, dad, that's. Whatever. That's fine. So anyway, so they were open to what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it, and they were like, and

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I'm, you know, I started talking about this program that I wanted to create, and they just thought I was off my rocker. But they're, like, really supportive. We can see how passionate you're about Julie. And I'm like, you know, I want to

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tie this to creativity, and I want it to be this thing, and I want. And they're like, okay, we support you, but we don't understand the words you're saying. And I'm like, okay, that's fine. So, anyway,

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but they kind of got it at a subconscious level. They really started to understand it, because you could see them soften this

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rigidity. You could see them soften up. And when my mom's cancer came back, like, ten years later, which was about four years

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ago, it was, you know, I knew. I knew how to navigate death.

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I knew how to tap into what. What I needed to do and what everybody else needed to do to have the best possible

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outcome, which is live life. No regrets, you know, lean into this. Do whatever you can. And

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so she went through one chemo treatment, and then her body couldn't. It just. It depleted her.

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And, you know, we wheeled her into the second one in a wheelchair, and they said, if she can't walk in here by herself, she can't have any more chemo. So.

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So we put her on hospice, and it's gonna be a tough one to get through. Anyway, so we put her on hospice, and so it was the most beautiful

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nine months of my life. And if someone said, you know, you've got, like, it was everywhere the cancer was, and, you know, she couldn't walk, she couldn't do chemo, and she lived for nine months,

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and it's the damn Reiki. I would come every single day, and I would give her Reiki every single day. And my best friend,

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the one that introduced me to the church, was, you know, she would come. She was. She was just kind of retiring from nursing, and so she would come every morning, and she would take care of her

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in the morning. Hospice would come at lunchtime, and I would come in the evening, and I would take care of my mom, you know. And when it got to the point where she couldn't walk anymore. She couldn't get out of

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bed, and we would have to, you know, have her in diapers. And that's the level of care. I'm like, God, I can't do this. But I'm like, I just leaned into it. I'm like, you know, if healthcare workers can do this, I

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can do this. So I just did, and I got over it, and it was okay. But what I did was I took this nine months, and I'm like, okay, this is. And I didn't know it was nine months. Obviously,

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you're going into it. You don't know if you've got weeks. You don't know if you've got months. You don't know if you've got anything. You don't know. You're unknown, but you're like, I am looking ahead. I know how

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this all works. I know grief inside and out. I know how people are turned. You know how they come out of it. And I know what, I know how this works, okay? How am I going to best

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navigate this? And this is all this. What you get from this is your problem solving, your troubleshooting. You have no fears, okay? Your fears are, you cannot do this. And your fears are like, you are going to

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do this. So what I did was, I decided, so I was the neglected child. I had, I was the middle child. I had this older sister that acted out all the

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time to get attention, so she got her attention, and I had a younger sister that was five years younger, and she was always the baby. And the baby demanded all the attention. My mom had to take care of the baby, so I was

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always the good one. I was the one they never worried about. That was me. That was my role. So now it was my time. So I leaned into that, and I got everything I needed from

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my mom. I would cuddle up next to her, and we would just cuddle, and we'd be, I got everything I need. I got all that nurturing that I needed in that nine month period. I had this amazing

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relationship with my mom. I gave it reiki every day. I took care of her. I leaned into it.

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I taught her how to say I love you. And she would, she would say it to my sisters. She would say it to my kids.

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She just opened up, and it was the biggest change and transformation I've ever seen in my life. This person that was so, like,

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so unhappy was so appreciative and so happy. She was just released from everything, and we just. I got

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everything, absolutely everything I've ever needed out of this. And it was the most beautiful experience of my entire life. And I cannot tell you how it transformed me, but this. This level of

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appreciation she showed every day to everybody was. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for taking care of me. Thank you for this. Thank you. And it was the most amazing experience.

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And it was so much so. You know, my kids helped. You know, my oldest daughter said, hey, I want seniors. I want end of life. I want hospice.

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The most beautiful people are in hospice. And end of life is the most beautiful part of life. It's even better than being born. End of life is. There's this absolute beauty to

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that, that the soul leaving the body, the transformation, that where it goes again, that's on your religious beliefs. But when that happens, it's the most beautiful event. And

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if you can be there, if it's not traumatic, if it's not through a trauma, it's through the grace, you know, of passing. It's amazing. And so

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we had, you know, there were so many gifts from this. You know, my kids got their life purpose out of it.

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I got this sense of, hey, grief does not have to be this burden, and death does not have to be this burden. It has to be this beautiful, beautiful experience.

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So my two sisters, my oldest sister, she would come and she would see my mom. She wouldn't help. She couldn't go there, but she would come and see my mom and spend time with her. My younger

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sister, she lived next door. She could not come in the house. If she did come in the house, she would stand in the doorway. She was so terrified of my mom and what

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was happening and the imminent death that she could not. She could not embrace it. She could not be there. She could not. She could not bring herself to be part of this because it was so terrifying to her.

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So there was a. That was, I think the biggest gift was so my. I got all this back. My older sister got a little bit back because, you know, my mom's saying

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now I love you, which is like, we've never heard these words. And we started to get back from my mom all those things that we always wanted and we never had, but my youngest sister couldn't embrace it

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and couldn't be part of it. And so when someone's going to die of natural causes, they have this. Their breathing changes. And

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hospice knows that there's like a 24, 48 hours period where they're gonna pass. And so they're like, everybody come around, everybody say your goodbyes. She's gonna kind of lose consciousness, and then

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she's gonna pass. And so you start this, like, 24 hours death watch, you know, like someone's with her all the time because we don't want them to pass

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without one of us being present, you know? And so my youngest sister, finally, she's like, she had to accept it, and she was

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there. Sorry. So my mom's best friend had passed not long before,

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and so my youngest sister, you know, she is very religious. My youngest youngest sister is. And she had, you know, prayed and everything, and she

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invited my mom's best friend to come take her, and she did. And although my sister wasn't part of it, my youngest sister, and she didn't

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get what, the blessings that I and my best friend had got out of it, when she did get, she got the most important moment, and she got to share that, and she was a part of

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it, and she, too, was transformed by it. And when she passed, yes, grief is like this big, dark gray blanket, and it comes over

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you, and it. You, my kid, my daughters, because, you know, they're all medicine. They said it's a heavy cognitive load, mom, heavy cognitive load.

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And what happens is your brain just kind of shuts down. You know, you're like, you can't think. You can't function. You can't do anything. But there was, for

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us, there was that. There was this. In the back of our head, there was this great. But there was also this immense joy for all the blessings. And we just. We

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just rallied around my dad, our families, every, there was this immense, immense joy for the life and the blessings and everything, and all the trauma, all the stuff that came

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in our lifetimes, all of that disappeared. We got what we wanted out of it. And so this episode I call fixing my parents, because

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it really was their ability to realize that all the things they were holding onto, all the belief systems, they weren't real. What's real is love, support, caring,

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kindness. And once you can get them there and you can get them past that, they open up. Now, my dad, I could never get my dad there. So we would say, you

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know, I'd really work on him. I'm like, I love you, dad. And he'd say, thank you. Thank you very much. He couldn't say it back except one time. So my dad passed last

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December, like, two days ago last December, and. And, you know, we were. I called him. I leaned into that. When we knew they gave him six months to live, and he

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lived like a year. So again, God bless the Reiki. So and so we lived for a year after they gave him six months to live. So here we

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go. Leaned into it. I called him every day, saw him three times a week, just really embraced it, really worked with him, really supported him. Just got everything I needed out of it. And just really, it was a beautiful,

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beautiful thing. But one time we were hanging up the phone. I swear he said it, but I didn't call him out on it because I didn't want to embarrass him. So

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he said it one time, but he passed. And the beautiful thing is, with three principles, with all of this, with

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everything I'm talking about, you problem solve at, like, a spiritual level where you know what you need it when you're facing with these things, so the outcome

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is the least impactful. So, and again, you have this heavy cognitive load, and it just lightens up every day. Every day.

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And so the grief only lasts about three to six weeks. And so it was about six weeks with my mom, and then it was about three weeks with my dad. And then I was back to

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normal. And I miss him terribly, like, so, you know, he always complained that curries here weren't hot. They couldn't make hot

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curry. So we went out for the day he died a couple days ago. We went out. Now, the Indians, not very good around here, so we went out for Thai, and I asked for their hottest curry. And the guy was

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the, you know, he was asian, the guy that was waiting on us. And he was like, oh, he was just so excited that I, this hottest curry, and I suffered through it. Yeah, just for you, dad.

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And then his favorite show was jeopardy. We watched Jeopardy. Every night. And so we came home and watched Jeopardy. And we just kind of honored him. But. And I miss him terribly, and I miss my mom. But you're

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not in this program. You're no longer a victim. And grief can be a victim. Like, oh, I'm never gonna see him again. You know, what did I. Or guilt, too. You're

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none of those. You're just living. You're experiencing. And for me, they ended up being in my head. Like, I could hear their voices. I'd ask questions, and

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I'd be in the back of my head. And, you know, my mom was there for about six months, and my dad was there about six months, too, where I could ask any question, they would always answer, and they were always with me.

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And then slowly they faded away. And, you know, I went to see a medium.

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Like, maybe some of the grief on my dad was about three weeks. I went to see a medium about six weeks later.

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And immediately she said, oh, someone just passed. And I'm like, yeah, my dad. And she goes, well, when did he pass? And I said, about six weeks ago. And she said, oh my gosh, it usually

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takes three months for them to come through. I said, I know. I said, we've got this different relationship and he's, he's been here and he's with me. And she's like, yeah, it is, it's real, it's, that's what's going on. And

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so, um, it, you can better navigate it. You can better navigate death. You can recover quickly. Yes, you miss them. Yes. It's like, it's like,

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it feels like, you know, when you left your childhood and you no longer that kid, you miss them, you know, but it's not this weight, it's not this noose, it's not this hole.

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There is no hole anymore. And it just starts to feel great. And again, you using the creativity, using the problem solving to figure out how am I going to best navigate

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this? What steps can I do now while they're alive to be able to, because we had the blessing. We knew it was coming. What steps can I do right now to make sure

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we have the absolute best relationship that we can have? What do I need to do? Where do I need to go? How do I need to solve this problem? Again, it's a relationship, but it's a problem that needs

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to be solved. I need that I can let go of any hurt, any resentment, any lack of that may have held me back in my lifetime because my

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parents weren't emotionally present to be a good parent, you know? And then, and so, because at the end of the day, you're a

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grown up, you're responsible for yourself and the things that you have in your lifetime are no longer excuses. There's no excuses. Excuses. There's no excuses why

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tomorrow is not a brand new day and you just wake up and do what you're supposed to do. So this is a hard lesson. It's a tough one to get through, but it's what you

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start to see is one, you can fix your parents, you can have that relationship with them. You can get them to a place where, and you can accept their flaws and be okay with it.

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You can accept the things that didn't happen and be okay with it. And you can have this amazing relationship with people that you never thought you could. And so that's part of it. But it

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all comes down to the troubleshooting, the intuition. What do I need? What do they need, where do we need to go and how do we navigate this? And so just really leaning into

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that is really something that can be very, very transformative. And then all the things that were problems that may be holding you back are no longer problems problems. You've solved them. So

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take that with you today. And how to do grief and how to do parents. That's this episode. Thank you for listening.

About the Podcast

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Creative Fuel for Underdogs: Using Creativity to Achieve Success
Use the science of creativity to propel everything to the next level of success.

About your host

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Julie Stout

Founder and owner advancreative – Helping brands and businesses move from underdog to industry leader using creative advertising, creativity training for marketing teams, and our flagship service, highly effective, creative SEO (search engine optimization).