April 29, 2025 • 48 mins
Welcome back to The Midlife Makeover Show! Today’s episode is a heart-opening journey into resilience, hope, and the art of “rethinking possible.” Wendy welcomes the incredible Rebecca Faye Smith Galli — author, columnist, speaker, and warrior of the human spirit — whose life has been marked by profound losses, including the deaths of her brother and son, her daughter’s special needs diagnosis, divorce, and sudden paralysis. Despite it all, Becky chose to move forward with grace, grit, and an unstoppable spirit.
In this conversation, Becky shares her path from unimaginable adversity to writing her new book, Morning Fuel: Daily Inspirations to Stretch Your Mind Before Starting Your Day. She opens up about living fully despite limitations, accepting life’s unexpected twists, and finding joy and purpose no matter the circumstances. If you’re feeling stuck, facing grief, or craving a fresh perspective on resilience, this episode will fill your heart and fuel your soul.
💬 “And on we go…” — Rebecca Faye Smith Galli
What You’ll Learn:
✨ How to rethink what’s possible after major life changes
✨ Why acceptance can be the most freeing act of self-love
✨ How to live fully, even when life doesn’t go as planned
✨ The power of parallel paths: preparing for hope and reality at once
✨ How small daily practices like gratitude and mindset shifts can rebuild your life
✨ Why it’s crucial to invite support and avoid isolation during tough times
✨ How to embrace the mix of happy, sad, and “mixed up” emotions
✨ Why managing your energy is essential to thriving after adversity
🎧 Tune in now at themidlifemakeovershow.com or wherever you listen to podcasts!
✨Read the blog: 275 🌟 Resilience & Renewal: Finding Hope After Life's Trials with Rebecca Faye Smith Galli at https://wendyvalentine.com/rethinking-possible/
👉 Connect with Becky
www.rebeccafayesmithgalli.com www.facebook.com/chairwriter www.instagram.com/chairwriter
🌟 Explore All Things Midlife & More
📖 Grab Your Copy of Women Waking Up
🧘♀️ Find Your Inner Calm with FREEDOM Meditations
🔥 Step Into Your Best Life with FREEDOM at Midlife
🦸♀️ Unleash Your Midlife Superpowers!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (00:00):
How are you going to look at this situation? Are you
(00:02):
going to look at it as a negative or a
positive? But we get to choose how
we look at situations, which
I think helps all of us as we're going through
tough times. You know, it's okay to look at it negatively,
but there's probably something in there positive
that we can see, too.
>> Wendy Valentine (00:22):
Hey there, beautiful. I'm Wendy Valentine, your host
of the Midlife Makeover show, where it's never too
late to wake up to your best life. Whether you're
navigating a career change, empty nesting,
menopause, or wondering what's next, you're in the
right place. Every week, I'll bring you real
talk, laughs and inspiring conversations
(00:42):
with experts and extraordinary women who have
transformed their lives from self care and
relationships to starting over and finding freedom.
This is your time to reinvent,
rediscover and reignite the woman you were
always meant to be. So hit that subscribe
button and let's rewrite the rules of midlife.
Your new adventure starts now.
(01:13):
No matter if you just got served with divorce papers,
got fired from your job, or ran out of gas in the
pouring rain, bad days are bound to
happen. They happen to all of
us. The key is to not let bad days turn
into bad weeks, bad months, and a bad
chapter in life. Too many crappy days can
lead to depression, anxiety, lack of
(01:36):
sleep, poor behaviors, and one big funky
funk. That's why I created the eight
Happiness Hacks, a, free download to help you
overcome a bad day quickly and get you
back to rocking your midlife. Please go
to Wendy Valentine.com for
forward/happiness to receive your free
(01:56):
download and start applying these simple
yet effective methods to bring happy
days your way.
Welcome back to the Midlife Makeover Show.
Today we have an extraordinary guest whose
story is a powerful testament to
resilience, hope, and the unwavering,
belief that life can still be good
(02:18):
no matter what. Rebecca Faye
Smith, Gal Galley. Did I say that
right? I think it is.
She is an author, columnist, and a
true warrior of the human spirit.
After experiencing unimaginable loss,
including the death of her brother and
son, navigating her daughter's autism,
(02:41):
divorce, and then facing sudden
paralysis, Becky refused to let
adversity define her. Instead,
she turned her experiences into a lifelong
mission to inspire others through her writing
and speaking. And now Becky, is
bringing us even more inspiration with her new
book, Morning Daily Inspirations
(03:03):
to stretch your mind before starting your day.
This collection of daily readings is designed to help
you fuel up on Positivity each
morning offering wisdom, thought provoking
reflections, and practical ways to set the
right tone for your day. Today we'll
dive into why, morning mindset matters, how to
(03:23):
live with uncertainty, and how to handle life's
disappointments. With grace. You'll walk
away from this conversation hopefully feeling
empowered and ready to rethink what's
possible. Please welcome Becky to the show.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (03:37):
T. Thank
you so much. That's quite an
introduction. I hope I can live up to the expectation.
>> Wendy Valentine (03:46):
You say you're like, I'll be looking. Who is this woman she's
talking about? Well, I told you even
like when we first got on here, before we hit record,
I was telling you how impressed I am with
you. I mean, I don't know your
whole story, but just even the little bit that I said
in the intro, it's like,
(04:06):
it's amazing. Just those
few huge
traumatic events that you went through in your life and then
here you are publishing a book about
daily inspiration.
How did you, okay, how did you even go
from all of that to
(04:26):
becoming a public
speaker and a writer and more
importantly writing about
positivity and inspiration.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (04:38):
You know, it's it's. It's a crazy life. You know,
it's been a crazy life. But I've, I feel like just
doing the next thing has, has
led to something that totally
unexpected. But it wasn't a big leap.
Like didn't get paralyzed and think, well, I should,
I should write a book about this. I
think my first thoughts
(05:00):
were I was going to recover
and I've had a lot of these instances
with special needs children,
had one with autism, one with epilepsy.
And there was a lot of hope
about, fully recovering
with transverse myelitis. This
inflammation that paralyzed
(05:21):
me two thirds did have some kind of
recovery. So there's a lot of reality
in pursuing that
hope. But what really got me
started on the the writing
path was a very simple
email when I was paralyzed. It was
1997, the Internet was just
(05:42):
coming into play and someone
had read about. My father was a columnist too.
He, he had written about my strange
infection. And at the time we were very hopeful about that.
And I heard from a high school friend that
said, you know, who,
is that you? Was the subject of
(06:04):
email to me. And so I
hadn't seen him in 15 years. And I updated him
about my marriage, my
special needs children, my divorce, my
paralysis. And these became little stories
that he passed on to other people
because I started then Writing about adjustments to
(06:25):
the wheelchair. What was it like to parent from the wheelchair,
to be out in the community and have
obstacles. And so one of
the stories I wrote him was about playing
soccer with my then 5
year old son. My kids were 3, 4, 6
and 9. I have 4 kids, 3 34, 6 and 9. When
I was paralyzed. This is 9 days after my.
(06:48):
And so anyway, through this connection with this
long lost friend, he started sharing
my stories and then I started sharing my
stories. This is way before social media or even
blog, you know, one email at a time. We would
share with other people and somebody said, you know,
you ought to try to publish those. And
so got a little help from a
(07:11):
friend in terms of polishing it up. my first
column was published in the Baltimore Sun.
>> Wendy Valentine (07:17):
Wow.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (07:18):
Led to more columns. And so that's
the beginning of the writing that that happened. And
eventually it's like, why don't you, you know,
write your whole life story? It's, you know, you've got plenty
of, of material that's for sure
to keep people interested. So that was the
first book, Rethinking Possible.
(07:38):
And then, one of the strategies, one
of the most frequent questions I got was
how do you stay positive and
what are your secrets? Kind of with that. And I said,
well, I usually read some kind of
morning, Daily Reader. I have five
(07:58):
or six that I select
and that gets me going in the right frame of
mind. So I thought this second book I
would do, I would write what I
read, which are little, kind of page a
day.
>> Wendy Valentine (08:14):
I love those, I love those type of books.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (08:17):
Yeah, it's like popcorn, right? You don't have to
read a lot, just
take a, you know, it doesn't even have to be the right day. You can just pick a
day, any day and see what the message is that day.
So.
>> Wendy Valentine (08:29):
Yeah.
So you had said that
when you with the paralysis, that was nine days
after your divorce.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (08:38):
Yes.
>> Wendy Valentine (08:39):
Oh my God. And then you
had four little kids at the
time and two of them,
two of them with disabilities.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (08:49):
Yes.
>> Wendy Valentine (08:50):
You're like Wonder Woman.
It's like so, I mean, oh my gosh,
at any point were you, did you ever.
What was me or.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (09:06):
Yeah, absolutely. I would
get waves of it. and
I think that what I had learned,
it's interesting. I was
20 when my 17 year old brother
died in a water skiing accident.
And I didn't realize it at the time,
(09:26):
but later when I was writing the memoir,
I realized I had had a front row seat to
seeing my Parents deal with
an unimaginable loss and
how they did that.
>> Wendy Valentine (09:40):
Interesting. Yeah.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (09:42):
Yeah.
>> Wendy Valentine (09:43):
Mm. So.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (09:43):
And it was also interesting in that
we all handled it differently. And
it was still. We were still handling it, but
we handled it in our own way. my dad
was a very public person and he
turned his lessons in grief into lectures
and. And became kind of a
resource for others, but could very publicly speak about
(10:06):
things that I can't until
I've processed for a really long time.
My, My mom was in grief
support groups. She had. She went to one of those
about. For kids, families that have
lost children. and my sister,
who was 17 months younger than my
brother, wanted to be with Forrest,
(10:28):
wanted to be with my brother. And so we had to get her
specialized counseling to, help her move
through grief. I, on the other
hand, was in college, and so
there they didn't
know Forrest as well. And so I just
leaned into that lifestyle, leaped into that, moving
(10:48):
forward with them, and they were very
supportive of me. But we also had
classes and things we had to do,
whereas my sister Rachel was in the same
environment my brother was. So there was
kind of a collective grief there that she had to
manage because everybody was missing my
brother. But I learned we
(11:11):
all grieve differently.
>> Wendy Valentine (11:13):
Yeah.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (11:13):
And it's not wrong. As long as you're moving.
It's not. It's not wrong.
>> Wendy Valentine (11:18):
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Moving through
it.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (11:22):
Yes. So,
after. After the divorce and then the
paralysis, my. As I like to say, my
m. My husband was no longer my husband.
He. But he was still my friend,
so he was still been very supportive.
We're still very friendly, have holidays
(11:43):
together and that kind of thing. But I couldn't have
done it without his. His steadfast support
too. So I was very fortunate to have such good
support going through all
issues. Well.
>> Wendy Valentine (11:56):
And just like you said, you know, you. You had this front row
seat to, to see what it's
like to really grieve. And it seems like your parents,
you know, handled it pretty well
speaking about it and seeking help. Whereas
some people do not seek any
help and just kind of push. Try
(12:17):
their best to push the grief down in a
way.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (12:21):
And I think that's, the two things about that.
The first is I think that you. You do have to be
honest about the pain. You have to be
honest that this is. Go through all those
feelings. It's not fair. And why me? And
you know, one
more thing, you know, but,
(12:41):
I also think that it's really important to
be honest about how equipped are you to
handle that? And if you're not,
I say get people in the boat with you.
>> Wendy Valentine (12:54):
Yeah.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (12:54):
Ah, stormy weather.
Get. Yeah.
>> Wendy Valentine (12:58):
Yeah. Like, it's. It's. Yeah, it's. Yeah. If you're
stranded out there in a little boat in the middle of the ocean with a
huge storm and you're by yourself, it's a lot different if
you have 10 other people in the boat with you.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (13:11):
Absolutely. And, you know, we. We
invite those people that can be helpful. And not
everybody is helpful in every storm.
>> Wendy Valentine (13:19):
Yep.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (13:20):
It was interesting when, my
father, died. My sister and I are very
close, but we quickly realized that
we couldn't help each other in our grief because
we were in our own grief.
>> Wendy Valentine (13:34):
Yeah.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (13:36):
So you had to invite people that weren't
immediately affected as deeply as we
were to help keep us
moving. And that was kind of
a strange realization. He mean, you
can't rely on your family member.
>> Wendy Valentine (13:53):
Yeah, I had.
I have never thought about that.
Right. You would think that the people that are close to
you in the person. Person that, you know has. That you've lost,
that those are the ones.
But actually, you're totally right. Like, each
person is in their own grief, and you have
to kind of pull in people that are not
as attached to that grief
(14:15):
as your close family members are.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (14:19):
Because we wound up making each other even more
sad.
>> Wendy Valentine (14:23):
Yeah.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (14:24):
Would remember the same things or even a different
angle or either something else we missed. And it's like, wait a
minute. We're going the wrong direction with this. We're supposed to
become. Coming out of the pit, not going back down. Yeah,
I know.
>> Wendy Valentine (14:36):
Yeah. But then, And then your son.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (14:40):
Yeah.
>> Wendy Valentine (14:40):
You've also lost your son.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (14:43):
I did. So, Matthew was my second,
born, child. And he
had presented with seizures at
age. And
then he, also presented with
some. They call it an
undiagnosed disease of the central
nervous system
(15:05):
that was degenerative.
And so at age 15,
>> Wendy Valentine (15:12):
He.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (15:12):
had a bad case of pneumonia and
we. And we lost him
again. I had great care for him. I
couldn't provide all of it, especially
now. I was paralyzed. But we had great support
systems for that. And I just made
sure that he was well cared for, for
(15:34):
what I couldn't do.
and I think really that's what I've tried to
do in each of these circumstances,
including my own, is figure out
how to live fully in
your circumstance.
>> Wendy Valentine (15:51):
Yeah. What does that mean to you, to
live fully?
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (15:56):
I think to find your purpose and
Keep rethinking what that is
depending on your changing circumstance.
One of my little tricks is I, I think
even though whatever the situation that
you don't like or you didn't invite in your
world, I can still.
(16:17):
So even though I'm paralyzed, I can still
write.
>> Wendy Valentine (16:21):
Oh, I like that. Even though
blank, I can still. Blank.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (16:27):
Yes. And I think that puts you
into an active mode.
Ah. the title of my first book was
Rethinking Possible. And
I didn't pick, the editor picked. And I was like, you know, isn't
that what living fully is all about
is still rethinking what's possible?
>> Wendy Valentine (16:47):
Yeah.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (16:48):
Whether it be autism or epilepsy or
divorce or whatever kind
of adversity you're going through to
still keep that mind
rethinking through
possibilities and then moving into that.
>> Wendy Valentine (17:05):
Yeah. I mean and if you're able to rethink possible,
then that you're obviously still alive and you still
have an opportunity to, to, to do something
with your life and to just be grateful
for life in general.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (17:20):
Absolutely. And gratitude's huge.
You know, that's another one of those kind
of get you out of a funk situation. Three things
you're grab. You're grateful for. I try to do that every
morning. Whether it's just a sunrise or my
power wheelchair charged overnight, or I slept
through and only woke up once instead of twice.
>> Wendy Valentine (17:40):
Yeah, yeah,
yeah. Isn't that fun? I know, right? I, I kind of
find that I don't know about you. It's like the older I
get, the more that I'm
grateful for the simplest of things. Like,
oh, oh, I didn't have to get up
twice in the middle of the night. I only got up once.
Cool. Simple
(18:03):
as things. But it is
not that we don't, I don't know about you. It's not like
we don't want more or desire more.
It's just that I don't know just life.
I don't not that I don't expect more.
I'm just happier, I think with, with
how things are too. I'm
(18:24):
not demanding so much out of life as I used
to.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (18:29):
I totally get what you're saying. I
agree too. But I do think it's
important to again the honesty
about whatever pain it is. And
my dad gave me this great imagery that
I use all the time. It's like, what do you
do with the adversity that you
face that you don't feel is fair? You can't.
(18:53):
Don't deny that, but where are you
going to put it? And I
wrote one of my Morning Fuel pieces about, is about
the power of put. Where do you put
that feeling about
losing my child or being paralyzed or
being divorced and my dad had this
(19:13):
imagery of your mind kind of as a, as
an entity where you, you have shelves
in it and you can put
whatever that
unfair pity party,
stimulus is to the
side on a shelf and it's like yes, it
(19:33):
was not fair that I lost my 17 year old brother.
Yes, it wasn't fair that I was paralyzed.
But it's on a shelf not to
deny it, that that pain isn't
real. And yeah,
but I'm not looking through it. It's not, it's
not the lens that I'm looking through. Life
(19:53):
it's managed and this is so much
rethinking possible and, and
having a full life is managing those
things that you didn't have control over.
>> Wendy Valentine (20:06):
Yeah, it makes me think of like it's like to be in the world but
not of the world. Right. To go through
these challenges but not to.
It's not all of you.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (20:17):
It's.
>> Wendy Valentine (20:18):
Yes, it's a part of you, but it's not all of
you. And I mean I
think do you ever, do you ever hear from people
like oh my God, how are you so happy all the time you
went through all that, how are you so happy? It doesn't seem
like more people that maybe don't know you at all and that
they just would have no idea
(20:38):
that you had been through so many challenges in
life. And
you know, it's surprising to them if they find out
about any of your hardships.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (20:50):
Well, I, A lot of times I, when
I'm doing some public speaking, my first question
to the audience is, how many of
you life has not gone as planned?
yeah, everybody raises their hand,
right? Nobody's not
responded to that. And I said I
(21:11):
believe that kind of connects us that most of
us have, have gone through life not
as planned with a few things. I just think,
you know, mine is more visible than most and I've got,
I'm sitting in a 385 pound
power wheelchair. So they know
my life did not go as planned. They don't know how.
But, but I think that those, those
(21:34):
invisible losses, all of us
have those, yeah, I just have one
that's very visible that people probably
know that something didn't quite go right somewhere along the
line.
>> Wendy Valentine (21:48):
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(23:15):
waking up.com or wherever
books are sold.
Let's wake up Beautiful.
I thought it would be cool to read
from Morning Fuel, so when
this airs it'll be April 25th. so
I'm going to read this. It is so good and it kind of
ties in nicely with what we're talking about. And
(23:36):
it's titled Going on.
It's a favorite phrase I like to use when
I'm wrapping up a conversation or signing off from
a column. And on we go.
But after six weeks of isolation during the COVID
19 pandemic, the idea of going on
eluded me. Life had lost its
(23:56):
punctuation. It felt like one
giant run on sentence with no
commas, semicolons or colons
to segment it in clarifying ways.
There wasn't a period in sight,
but there were plenty of, question marks.
How long will this go on? Will I get the
virus? If I do, can I survive it? When will it
(24:19):
be safe to resume the life I knew? How
can I possibly know how to go on
when I'm not sure exactly where I am?
The unanswered questions closed in the
uncertainty of not knowing what was
sent. What was knowing
was next sent me into that place. I've
(24:39):
fight so hard to avoid the pity
pool. After a while, though, I grew
frustrated with my meltdown. I know
how to get through tough times. My
life is riddled with no cause, slash
no cure. Experiences one child's
autism, another child's epilepsy, and my own
paralysis. I'm a veteran of, dealing with
(25:02):
unexplained adversity. Why
couldn't I use what I learned and
get on with life? Because
my tears reminded me you can't deny the
pain of loss or skip over its steadfast
companion, Grief.
Grief. Was that what I was
experiencing then? The words of, Robert Frost
(25:24):
guided me yet again. The best way out
is always through. Of course, there
are no shortcuts around the Valley of Pain
and loss and its sidekick, grief.
I needed to treat this unpunctuated life
as what it was, one more
journey through grief. When grief had
disoriented me in the past, I'd learned to focus
(25:47):
on the present and what I needed to do
right then. To care for myself.
Sleep, nutrition,
exercise, connection to others. But
I also considered what I allowed to take up space
in my mind. Although I wanted to be
informed, I limited my news consumption
while increasing time spent with nature.
(26:10):
I sought out messages of patience and hope.
And I slowed down my routine so I could sense the
slightest progression. After a while, I
felt the momentum of forward motion once
again and could say with newfound conviction
and great relief.
And on we go.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (26:28):
thank you for reading that. That's so
cool.
>> Wendy Valentine (26:32):
It's so perfect.
I feel like in times of
uncertainty, we don't know what to
do with ourselves. And we, I think we try to fight it
or put it into a pretty little box, right?
And make it something that it's not. Instead of just
facing it, like you said, like, you just face
(26:53):
it for what it is. And
I'd say, more importantly, control what you
can. Just like you said, I need to sleep. I need
to pay attention to my nutrition. I need to watch
what I'm reading, what I'm absorbing, who
I'm connecting with, like. And, you know, serenity
prayer was always one of my favorites to get me through my tough
times and. But God, grant me the
(27:15):
serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the
courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to
know. Know the difference. I have to remind myself
of that often. I'm like, wendy,
what can you control? Do what you can to
take care of yourself, right? Because that's the best that
we can do.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (27:36):
Absolutely. The whole accept what you can't
control is.
It's, it's a worthy goal, but it can be
hard. It can be hard sometimes to admit
that one of the things that a
therapist gave me was a tool that I
used time and time again. When my son
Matthew presented with seizures and he'd been in the hospital
(27:58):
and I didn't know whether they said there's a
potential he could grow out of it or
potential not. And it was so
frustrating to me because I didn't know what to hope for.
And she told me, she said, becky, you want to, why don't you
pursue parallel paths? My
parallel path? What do you mean? She
(28:19):
goes well, on the hopeful path, you can
pursue, what it would be if he grew out of
these seizures and he regained a normal life.
But on the other path you could think
through what would happen if he didn't.
it became a really good metaphor for me
to kind of divide out my thinking
(28:41):
on what happens if I recover from
paralysis, what happens if I don't, what happens if
my divorce makes it, I mean,
that I. Are we reconcile in our marriage, what
happens if we don't? But it, if you
are able to see both,
options, you're still
(29:03):
able to journey on either one,
you know, and then
when the reality becomes obvious,
then you're prepared. Mm,
>> Wendy Valentine (29:14):
Yeah, that's exactly the word I was thinking
is being prepared for it.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (29:20):
And in the meantime, you've kept
active. You haven't done the worry thing.
It's like you can put your, put legs on your
worry and, and
act in one way. For example, when I thought that I
was going to recover from
paralysis, I did
all the things preparing my body that I could stand again
(29:43):
with that. That was physical therapy and
supplements and all the things that could prepare
me to stand. And then on the other,
like I needed to think about putting
permanent ramps in the house and
maybe getting a minivan instead of my
station wagon. So my
thoughts were moving, but they were moving in
(30:05):
tangible ways that could prepare me for either
outcome. So I really like that
concept of.
>> Wendy Valentine (30:11):
I do too. I, I like that too.
Now, what is your opinion on, you know, the the
positive thinkers manifesting? And you
only think what, exactly what it is that you
want. So don't think on the other of the
other parallel of what could go
wrong. What do you think about that?
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (30:31):
You know, I went through that phase especially with
paralysis and all I did, I got
this big picture board of, of all the
latest pictures I had of me standing
and every time I would go into the bathroom,
you know, that was my workout area. Put this,
had to enlarge a bathroom where I could fit in there in the
(30:51):
wheelchair. And I had this huge mirror that every day
I would do my arm exercises and
And then there was my vision board of everything that I
had the last time I was standing.
So I did that for a really long time. And
after 19 months
of not getting any kind of return,
(31:13):
any kind of return of function, I had
decided, you know, somewhere along the way I might
need to consider. Consider what it would be like if. If
plan A didn't work out. But it was. Had a very
strong plan A. But yeah, I
get what you're saying and I did go through that. And I
don't have a quick answer to that other than I guess, you
know, when.
>> Wendy Valentine (31:34):
Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think eventually. Right.
You have to. It's. It's acceptance.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (31:40):
Yes. Which can be very
freeing, you know, once you accept.
Accept. Like I was in therapy three times
a week for standing and I was missing
dinner with my kids so that I could go to the
dent. I could go to this therapy. And like once I
accepted, okay, I need to be the best mom I can be
from the wheelchair. We're going to have our family
(32:03):
dinners again. And I really leaned
into that and I. Candlelit dinners like we used to
have with my childhood. And I. Back. This is back
when the CD programs were big and you could
like order 20 CDs for a dollar and
so put
funky music in one night and classical music
(32:23):
in and country music another. You know, it was
so. It was a way to enrich our family time
with music. and I really, But
once I let go, had to let go of this.
>> Wendy Valentine (32:34):
Yeah. Ah, that's.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (32:36):
That's what acceptance does. I think it frees up your mind
to, to include more of what
is reality.
>> Wendy Valentine (32:43):
There's that quote. God, I can't think of what it is. It's
basically about letting go of
the life that you had planned in
order to have the. The life that's, you know, right
there in front of. You have to let go of the life that you plan. I can't. I
can't think of who it is. but it's true.
Like sometimes we cling to something
(33:03):
even though it's already has. It's trying
to evolve into something else. We fight it
no matter if like if it's relationships or career
or our bodies or you know,
just trying to avoid certain
things from happening and it's like. No, it's. It's
happening. Like you have to. It's
(33:24):
acceptance.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (33:26):
Yes, it's a very freeing thing, but it can
be very tricky to
fully embrace it because we want to hold on to hope.
And not all hope is healthy. You
know, if we hope for something that isn't realistic, we
wind up chewing up a lot of energy.
>> Wendy Valentine (33:44):
Ah.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (33:44):
In that hope. And my mother was great.
She said, you know, we only have 24 buckets of energy a
day.
>> Wendy Valentine (33:52):
Yeah.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (33:53):
And we have to decide how we spend that,
what we're going to put energy on. And I was like, oh, that's a different way
to look at it. It's like you kind of budget your
energy.
>> Wendy Valentine (34:03):
Yeah, yeah. I've called myself, like last few years,
like an energy snob. You know, I'm like, very picky
about who's taking my
energy, where am I placing my energy,
what. What am I absorbing, what am I giving away?
Right. Like, because. Yeah. I mean, kind of going
back to like the gratitude and where our life
(34:23):
is now. And it's. Yeah. I mean, I
think even my energy is shifted. I'm very
selective about where I place my
energy and is it really worth it? You
know, and it's on things that I'm
guilty of this, like, silly things that I might get worked up
about. I'm like, do I really put my energy on that? Like, why do
(34:43):
you. You know, I don't like the way he said this or I don't
like the way she did that. Like, okay,
like, do I really want to use that bucket?
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (34:54):
I love that. Energy snob.
>> Wendy Valentine (34:56):
Yeah. Total energy snob.
Yeah, I know.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (35:01):
It's a good one to be.
>> Wendy Valentine (35:03):
Yeah, exactly. A little
snooty.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (35:06):
What.
>> Wendy Valentine (35:07):
What would you say? Not that you can rank these,
but what did. Of all the losses,
which one did you really struggle with
the most?
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (35:19):
You know, I think it has to be the loss of
my brother. Just m. Because
he was that kid, you know, he was president of
the student body. He had.
Was, a musician, he was an athlete, he was a leader
in church. we were really tight.
And at age 20,
(35:39):
having that kind of loss was probably the
deepest just because it was. It threw
us into such a tailspin.
>> Wendy Valentine (35:48):
And it was an accident too, right? It was a
skiing accident. So it was just shocking. Like, wait, what?
Not like, it was like a gradual. Like, okay, he'd
been sick for a long time. It was an accident then.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (36:01):
Yes. He. He, was unconscious
for nine days and then
that was it. So we had some
time of kind of getting.
I don't know if it's grief or preparation or whatever, but it
wasn't instant. I did get to see him, you know,
but he was all the tubes.
(36:22):
And it was just intense.
It was intense. And it was a whole
reorientation of a closely
knit family of five to a. Call
it a foreign configuration of four
had to adjust to. And, It
just didn't make sense. Didn't make
(36:44):
sense. That was the first time I think life had
really not made sense to me. And
there are a lot of other times since it hasn't, but, That
first time, I think is. Is, was the
hardest.
>> Wendy Valentine (36:57):
Were you with him when he passed?
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (37:00):
No. we knew that it would be, It
was imminent, so I did have a chance
to. To say my own goodbyes to him. We each
did. So I was at, in, in
college at the time. So I had come back and
that it would have. It would have been a true
miracle for him to survive that kind of
(37:21):
head injury.
>> Wendy Valentine (37:23):
Yeah.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (37:24):
Yeah.
>> Wendy Valentine (37:27):
it's almost like, I feel like with the
more that you go through stuff, it's like building a muscle,
you know, it's like this resilience muscle.
And, you know, it's almost like all
of that prepared you more for some of
these other losses that you went through. Not that. Not that
you can really. I don't know if you can prepare for any, you know,
(37:48):
any more, but I. I don't know.
I'm speaking for me, when I look
back at some of the. The tragic traumatic
events I went through, it's like each time
it's like, not that it gets easier. I think I'm
just more prepared. I'm
like, okay, this is grief. This
(38:09):
is gonna suck.
Acceptance, as opposed to
like the first time something happened, right? Like with your
brother, the first time something happens. It's just
so shocking to you, physically and mentally
and emotionally and spiritually, that you're just like.
You don't know what to do. It's fight, flight, freeze. but
(38:29):
then as more, you know, and we
all, I think especially here we are on the Midlife Makeover show. We're at
midlife, 40s and 50s, 60s, whatever.
And you know, our parents are going to be passing
away or are passing away, have passed away. We
have friends. I mean, it's. There's
divorce, relationship changes, lots of
(38:50):
losses, and nothing can really prepare you
for it. But at the same time, you
can know what
to know what to do as, best that you can
when it approaches.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (39:06):
You've been down that path before. And I think
that that's it to remember how you got through
the last time. And pretty, pretty much there's some
standard things in there. You can probably lift
and apply in whatever
wilderness you're in. I think it's all about
paths in the wilderness.
(39:26):
that doesn't mean you like them, that doesn't mean
they're exactly the same. But I think our process of
dealing with them can be the
same if we look at our patterns. And
that's. I think the older I get, the more
I see, okay, you're going to be ticked,
you know, you're going to be angry for this long.
(39:47):
You know, give yourself m. Space to do
that.
>> Wendy Valentine (39:51):
Yeah, yeah. It's almost like we're gentler
on ourselves the more you go through
it, more compassionate towards
ourselves.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (40:02):
Absolutely. And I love. And my, my
favorite definition of grace is
unmerited kindness.
You give yourself that too. You give yourself
grace like, you know, you really shouldn't be,
but it's okay if you are.
>> Wendy Valentine (40:19):
Yeah, exactly.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (40:21):
You know.
>> Wendy Valentine (40:23):
Yeah. I mean, I would say that, you know, for me,
grief taught me a lot. A lot.
The good, the bad, the happy, the sad.
And. But it's like,
when you come out of it,
like the, the bulk of it, it's. Can be
very. I, don't know what the word is. Just
(40:44):
like law. It's like this, like
awakening, just like, oh
gosh. And it's. There's still those
remnants, you know, but
it can be very just rewarding
and feels so good,
like just to come out of it.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (41:05):
Yes. And it's interesting you. You
mentioned those emotions because
when my daughter Brittany, my oldest, who
was without any kind of disabilities
young, she wasn't first
kidding when she
watched at age 3 her brother have
seizures. She
(41:27):
developed this, thought that
all boy babies had seizures.
I got her into counseling and the
counselor said this is magical thinking. She's
trying to make sense of her world while she doesn't have seizures,
but her brother does. So one of the
exercises she gave us to do was
(41:48):
at nighttime, ask,
Brittany, you know, four things.
What's your happy, sad, mixed up,
mad thing that you experience
today? And so we would go through
it so she would, she could talk more
about her emotions. And the trickiest one
was always mixed up, which had to do
(42:11):
with this made me
happy, but at the same time it made me sad.
And one of those could be the
weather. It was rain. So
she was angry because, you know,
the, the rain washed out the ball game that she was
going to be a pitcher in or.
(42:32):
But the same time we needed the
rain for. Because we hadn't
had rain in a long time for the Flowers to grow.
So I think that that mixed up thing
gave her perspective. Like, how are
you going to look at this situation? Are you going to look
at it as a negative or a positive?
(42:54):
But we get to choose how we, look
at situations, which I think
helps all of us as we're going through
tough times. You know, it's okay to look at it negatively,
but there's probably something in there, positive
that we can see too.
>> Wendy Valentine (43:09):
It's like embracing the, the dichotomy,
the duality of life. Right.
Yeah. Just accepting it
for, you know, the good, the bad, the happy,
the sad. And you're gonna have that. Like, if
you. To me, it's like, you know, you wouldn't.
You wouldn't know light if you didn't know
(43:30):
dark. You wouldn't know
joy if you didn't know sadness.
It's just the other side of the coin. That's so
smart that you, you had her go to therapy. I, I
admire that.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (43:44):
Thank you. Well, I've had a lot of therapy myself and
I've found that, you know, professionals
have a way of guiding you pretty
clearly and the ways that you need to do
to cope, they're the, their expert is coping
with what you've got in front of you.
So highly recommend that.
>> Wendy Valentine (44:04):
Yeah, I wouldn't be, I wouldn't be where I'm at if I, if it hadn't
been for therapy. Good golly,
be a hot mess.
Well, thank you so much, Becky. You're. You are quite the
inspiration.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (44:20):
Well, thank you. It's a pleasure to be with you.
>> Wendy Valentine (44:23):
You can see your.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (44:24):
You can see your joy in just
your countenance. I will say thank
you. You are energy plus for me
today. How about that?
>> Wendy Valentine (44:36):
I gave you a few extra buckets so you
can.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (44:39):
Thank you. I'll spend them wisely.
>> Wendy Valentine (44:42):
Yeah. And I look forward to this
airing on April 25th. It's. It's. We'll even get
more.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (44:49):
Yeah. Thank you for that.
Thank you.
>> Wendy Valentine (44:53):
Any, Any bit of advice for someone
if they're going through a really tough time right now?
What is something that they can do for themselves
to just. Just to clear
that dark cloud just a tiny bit and get some. Get
some sunshine in there,
you know?
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (45:11):
I think I, I will. I like to always
say, don't isolate. That's
my, you know, don't sit with it.
Find one. Be honest about it. What are
your resources? Invite people in the boat with you
and keep moving, even in some way, whether you need
to journal it out, whether you need to talk
(45:32):
it out. But don't isolate and
keep moving. That's. That's my best
advice.
>> Wendy Valentine (45:39):
Yeah, yeah, but what is it you said in the.
In that book, the title? Is it going on or.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (45:45):
And.
>> Wendy Valentine (45:45):
And what is that? How did you end the thing? Oh, and on we
go.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (45:48):
On we go. Just make sure you're going on.
Yeah.
>> Wendy Valentine (45:52):
And onwards. I love
ellipses.
So where can we find you and how do we get your
books?
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (46:03):
Well, I'm@beckygalley.com
B, E, C, K, Y, G, A L, L,
I. And I'm, also
my books, both of them, Rethinking Possible, which is a
memoir, and Morning Fuel, the Daily
Reader are available wherever books are sold.
You can get, them on Amazon, Barnes and
(46:23):
Noble, independent bookstores.
so, yeah, I'm around and I.
>> Wendy Valentine (46:28):
Can vouch it's a good book. I like. I'm looking forward to
tomorrow. That's what I love about those Daily Readers. You know, it's like,
oh, see, well, today is March 4th, so
March. March 5th, I get to, I get to read something
cool again.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (46:41):
Well, thank you. I appreciate that.
>> Wendy Valentine (46:44):
Yeah. Thank you so much, Becky.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (46:47):
You're welcome. So, so great to be here and
sharing your energy.
>> Wendy Valentine (46:51):
Yes, thank you. You too.
Did this podcast inspire you? Challenge
you? Trigger you to make a change or spit out your coffee? Coffee
laughing. Good. Then there are three ways you can
thank me. Number one, you can leave a written review
of this podcast on Apple iTunes. Number
two, you can take a screenshot of the episode and
(47:12):
share it onto social media. And tag me Wendy
Valentine. Number three, share it with
another midlifer that needs a makeover. You know who
I'm talking about. Thank you so much for listening to
the show. Get out there and B bowl,
be free.
Be.
How are you going to look at this situation? Are you
(00:02):
going to look at it as a negative or a
positive? But we get to choose how
we look at situations, which
I think helps all of us as we're going through
tough times. You know, it's okay to look at it negatively,
but there's probably something in there positive
that we can see, too.
>> Wendy Valentine (00:22):
Hey there, beautiful. I'm Wendy Valentine, your host
of the Midlife Makeover show, where it's never too
late to wake up to your best life. Whether you're
navigating a career change, empty nesting,
menopause, or wondering what's next, you're in the
right place. Every week, I'll bring you real
talk, laughs and inspiring conversations
(00:42):
with experts and extraordinary women who have
transformed their lives from self care and
relationships to starting over and finding freedom.
This is your time to reinvent,
rediscover and reignite the woman you were
always meant to be. So hit that subscribe
button and let's rewrite the rules of midlife.
Your new adventure starts now.
(01:13):
No matter if you just got served with divorce papers,
got fired from your job, or ran out of gas in the
pouring rain, bad days are bound to
happen. They happen to all of
us. The key is to not let bad days turn
into bad weeks, bad months, and a bad
chapter in life. Too many crappy days can
lead to depression, anxiety, lack of
(01:36):
sleep, poor behaviors, and one big funky
funk. That's why I created the eight
Happiness Hacks, a, free download to help you
overcome a bad day quickly and get you
back to rocking your midlife. Please go
to Wendy Valentine.com for
forward/happiness to receive your free
(01:56):
download and start applying these simple
yet effective methods to bring happy
days your way.
Welcome back to the Midlife Makeover Show.
Today we have an extraordinary guest whose
story is a powerful testament to
resilience, hope, and the unwavering,
belief that life can still be good
(02:18):
no matter what. Rebecca Faye
Smith, Gal Galley. Did I say that
right? I think it is.
She is an author, columnist, and a
true warrior of the human spirit.
After experiencing unimaginable loss,
including the death of her brother and
son, navigating her daughter's autism,
(02:41):
divorce, and then facing sudden
paralysis, Becky refused to let
adversity define her. Instead,
she turned her experiences into a lifelong
mission to inspire others through her writing
and speaking. And now Becky, is
bringing us even more inspiration with her new
book, Morning Daily Inspirations
(03:03):
to stretch your mind before starting your day.
This collection of daily readings is designed to help
you fuel up on Positivity each
morning offering wisdom, thought provoking
reflections, and practical ways to set the
right tone for your day. Today we'll
dive into why, morning mindset matters, how to
(03:23):
live with uncertainty, and how to handle life's
disappointments. With grace. You'll walk
away from this conversation hopefully feeling
empowered and ready to rethink what's
possible. Please welcome Becky to the show.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (03:37):
T. Thank
you so much. That's quite an
introduction. I hope I can live up to the expectation.
>> Wendy Valentine (03:46):
You say you're like, I'll be looking. Who is this woman she's
talking about? Well, I told you even
like when we first got on here, before we hit record,
I was telling you how impressed I am with
you. I mean, I don't know your
whole story, but just even the little bit that I said
in the intro, it's like,
(04:06):
it's amazing. Just those
few huge
traumatic events that you went through in your life and then
here you are publishing a book about
daily inspiration.
How did you, okay, how did you even go
from all of that to
(04:26):
becoming a public
speaker and a writer and more
importantly writing about
positivity and inspiration.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (04:38):
You know, it's it's. It's a crazy life. You know,
it's been a crazy life. But I've, I feel like just
doing the next thing has, has
led to something that totally
unexpected. But it wasn't a big leap.
Like didn't get paralyzed and think, well, I should,
I should write a book about this. I
think my first thoughts
(05:00):
were I was going to recover
and I've had a lot of these instances
with special needs children,
had one with autism, one with epilepsy.
And there was a lot of hope
about, fully recovering
with transverse myelitis. This
inflammation that paralyzed
(05:21):
me two thirds did have some kind of
recovery. So there's a lot of reality
in pursuing that
hope. But what really got me
started on the the writing
path was a very simple
email when I was paralyzed. It was
1997, the Internet was just
(05:42):
coming into play and someone
had read about. My father was a columnist too.
He, he had written about my strange
infection. And at the time we were very hopeful about that.
And I heard from a high school friend that
said, you know, who,
is that you? Was the subject of
(06:04):
email to me. And so I
hadn't seen him in 15 years. And I updated him
about my marriage, my
special needs children, my divorce, my
paralysis. And these became little stories
that he passed on to other people
because I started then Writing about adjustments to
(06:25):
the wheelchair. What was it like to parent from the wheelchair,
to be out in the community and have
obstacles. And so one of
the stories I wrote him was about playing
soccer with my then 5
year old son. My kids were 3, 4, 6
and 9. I have 4 kids, 3 34, 6 and 9. When
I was paralyzed. This is 9 days after my.
(06:48):
And so anyway, through this connection with this
long lost friend, he started sharing
my stories and then I started sharing my
stories. This is way before social media or even
blog, you know, one email at a time. We would
share with other people and somebody said, you know,
you ought to try to publish those. And
so got a little help from a
(07:11):
friend in terms of polishing it up. my first
column was published in the Baltimore Sun.
>> Wendy Valentine (07:17):
Wow.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (07:18):
Led to more columns. And so that's
the beginning of the writing that that happened. And
eventually it's like, why don't you, you know,
write your whole life story? It's, you know, you've got plenty
of, of material that's for sure
to keep people interested. So that was the
first book, Rethinking Possible.
(07:38):
And then, one of the strategies, one
of the most frequent questions I got was
how do you stay positive and
what are your secrets? Kind of with that. And I said,
well, I usually read some kind of
morning, Daily Reader. I have five
(07:58):
or six that I select
and that gets me going in the right frame of
mind. So I thought this second book I
would do, I would write what I
read, which are little, kind of page a
day.
>> Wendy Valentine (08:14):
I love those, I love those type of books.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (08:17):
Yeah, it's like popcorn, right? You don't have to
read a lot, just
take a, you know, it doesn't even have to be the right day. You can just pick a
day, any day and see what the message is that day.
So.
>> Wendy Valentine (08:29):
Yeah.
So you had said that
when you with the paralysis, that was nine days
after your divorce.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (08:38):
Yes.
>> Wendy Valentine (08:39):
Oh my God. And then you
had four little kids at the
time and two of them,
two of them with disabilities.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (08:49):
Yes.
>> Wendy Valentine (08:50):
You're like Wonder Woman.
It's like so, I mean, oh my gosh,
at any point were you, did you ever.
What was me or.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (09:06):
Yeah, absolutely. I would
get waves of it. and
I think that what I had learned,
it's interesting. I was
20 when my 17 year old brother
died in a water skiing accident.
And I didn't realize it at the time,
(09:26):
but later when I was writing the memoir,
I realized I had had a front row seat to
seeing my Parents deal with
an unimaginable loss and
how they did that.
>> Wendy Valentine (09:40):
Interesting. Yeah.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (09:42):
Yeah.
>> Wendy Valentine (09:43):
Mm. So.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (09:43):
And it was also interesting in that
we all handled it differently. And
it was still. We were still handling it, but
we handled it in our own way. my dad
was a very public person and he
turned his lessons in grief into lectures
and. And became kind of a
resource for others, but could very publicly speak about
(10:06):
things that I can't until
I've processed for a really long time.
My, My mom was in grief
support groups. She had. She went to one of those
about. For kids, families that have
lost children. and my sister,
who was 17 months younger than my
brother, wanted to be with Forrest,
(10:28):
wanted to be with my brother. And so we had to get her
specialized counseling to, help her move
through grief. I, on the other
hand, was in college, and so
there they didn't
know Forrest as well. And so I just
leaned into that lifestyle, leaped into that, moving
(10:48):
forward with them, and they were very
supportive of me. But we also had
classes and things we had to do,
whereas my sister Rachel was in the same
environment my brother was. So there was
kind of a collective grief there that she had to
manage because everybody was missing my
brother. But I learned we
(11:11):
all grieve differently.
>> Wendy Valentine (11:13):
Yeah.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (11:13):
And it's not wrong. As long as you're moving.
It's not. It's not wrong.
>> Wendy Valentine (11:18):
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Moving through
it.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (11:22):
Yes. So,
after. After the divorce and then the
paralysis, my. As I like to say, my
m. My husband was no longer my husband.
He. But he was still my friend,
so he was still been very supportive.
We're still very friendly, have holidays
(11:43):
together and that kind of thing. But I couldn't have
done it without his. His steadfast support
too. So I was very fortunate to have such good
support going through all
issues. Well.
>> Wendy Valentine (11:56):
And just like you said, you know, you. You had this front row
seat to, to see what it's
like to really grieve. And it seems like your parents,
you know, handled it pretty well
speaking about it and seeking help. Whereas
some people do not seek any
help and just kind of push. Try
(12:17):
their best to push the grief down in a
way.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (12:21):
And I think that's, the two things about that.
The first is I think that you. You do have to be
honest about the pain. You have to be
honest that this is. Go through all those
feelings. It's not fair. And why me? And
you know, one
more thing, you know, but,
(12:41):
I also think that it's really important to
be honest about how equipped are you to
handle that? And if you're not,
I say get people in the boat with you.
>> Wendy Valentine (12:54):
Yeah.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (12:54):
Ah, stormy weather.
Get. Yeah.
>> Wendy Valentine (12:58):
Yeah. Like, it's. It's. Yeah, it's. Yeah. If you're
stranded out there in a little boat in the middle of the ocean with a
huge storm and you're by yourself, it's a lot different if
you have 10 other people in the boat with you.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (13:11):
Absolutely. And, you know, we. We
invite those people that can be helpful. And not
everybody is helpful in every storm.
>> Wendy Valentine (13:19):
Yep.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (13:20):
It was interesting when, my
father, died. My sister and I are very
close, but we quickly realized that
we couldn't help each other in our grief because
we were in our own grief.
>> Wendy Valentine (13:34):
Yeah.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (13:36):
So you had to invite people that weren't
immediately affected as deeply as we
were to help keep us
moving. And that was kind of
a strange realization. He mean, you
can't rely on your family member.
>> Wendy Valentine (13:53):
Yeah, I had.
I have never thought about that.
Right. You would think that the people that are close to
you in the person. Person that, you know has. That you've lost,
that those are the ones.
But actually, you're totally right. Like, each
person is in their own grief, and you have
to kind of pull in people that are not
as attached to that grief
(14:15):
as your close family members are.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (14:19):
Because we wound up making each other even more
sad.
>> Wendy Valentine (14:23):
Yeah.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (14:24):
Would remember the same things or even a different
angle or either something else we missed. And it's like, wait a
minute. We're going the wrong direction with this. We're supposed to
become. Coming out of the pit, not going back down. Yeah,
I know.
>> Wendy Valentine (14:36):
Yeah. But then, And then your son.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (14:40):
Yeah.
>> Wendy Valentine (14:40):
You've also lost your son.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (14:43):
I did. So, Matthew was my second,
born, child. And he
had presented with seizures at
age. And
then he, also presented with
some. They call it an
undiagnosed disease of the central
nervous system
(15:05):
that was degenerative.
And so at age 15,
>> Wendy Valentine (15:12):
He.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (15:12):
had a bad case of pneumonia and
we. And we lost him
again. I had great care for him. I
couldn't provide all of it, especially
now. I was paralyzed. But we had great support
systems for that. And I just made
sure that he was well cared for, for
(15:34):
what I couldn't do.
and I think really that's what I've tried to
do in each of these circumstances,
including my own, is figure out
how to live fully in
your circumstance.
>> Wendy Valentine (15:51):
Yeah. What does that mean to you, to
live fully?
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (15:56):
I think to find your purpose and
Keep rethinking what that is
depending on your changing circumstance.
One of my little tricks is I, I think
even though whatever the situation that
you don't like or you didn't invite in your
world, I can still.
(16:17):
So even though I'm paralyzed, I can still
write.
>> Wendy Valentine (16:21):
Oh, I like that. Even though
blank, I can still. Blank.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (16:27):
Yes. And I think that puts you
into an active mode.
Ah. the title of my first book was
Rethinking Possible. And
I didn't pick, the editor picked. And I was like, you know, isn't
that what living fully is all about
is still rethinking what's possible?
>> Wendy Valentine (16:47):
Yeah.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (16:48):
Whether it be autism or epilepsy or
divorce or whatever kind
of adversity you're going through to
still keep that mind
rethinking through
possibilities and then moving into that.
>> Wendy Valentine (17:05):
Yeah. I mean and if you're able to rethink possible,
then that you're obviously still alive and you still
have an opportunity to, to, to do something
with your life and to just be grateful
for life in general.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (17:20):
Absolutely. And gratitude's huge.
You know, that's another one of those kind
of get you out of a funk situation. Three things
you're grab. You're grateful for. I try to do that every
morning. Whether it's just a sunrise or my
power wheelchair charged overnight, or I slept
through and only woke up once instead of twice.
>> Wendy Valentine (17:40):
Yeah, yeah,
yeah. Isn't that fun? I know, right? I, I kind of
find that I don't know about you. It's like the older I
get, the more that I'm
grateful for the simplest of things. Like,
oh, oh, I didn't have to get up
twice in the middle of the night. I only got up once.
Cool. Simple
(18:03):
as things. But it is
not that we don't, I don't know about you. It's not like
we don't want more or desire more.
It's just that I don't know just life.
I don't not that I don't expect more.
I'm just happier, I think with, with
how things are too. I'm
(18:24):
not demanding so much out of life as I used
to.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (18:29):
I totally get what you're saying. I
agree too. But I do think it's
important to again the honesty
about whatever pain it is. And
my dad gave me this great imagery that
I use all the time. It's like, what do you
do with the adversity that you
face that you don't feel is fair? You can't.
(18:53):
Don't deny that, but where are you
going to put it? And I
wrote one of my Morning Fuel pieces about, is about
the power of put. Where do you put
that feeling about
losing my child or being paralyzed or
being divorced and my dad had this
(19:13):
imagery of your mind kind of as a, as
an entity where you, you have shelves
in it and you can put
whatever that
unfair pity party,
stimulus is to the
side on a shelf and it's like yes, it
(19:33):
was not fair that I lost my 17 year old brother.
Yes, it wasn't fair that I was paralyzed.
But it's on a shelf not to
deny it, that that pain isn't
real. And yeah,
but I'm not looking through it. It's not, it's
not the lens that I'm looking through. Life
(19:53):
it's managed and this is so much
rethinking possible and, and
having a full life is managing those
things that you didn't have control over.
>> Wendy Valentine (20:06):
Yeah, it makes me think of like it's like to be in the world but
not of the world. Right. To go through
these challenges but not to.
It's not all of you.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (20:17):
It's.
>> Wendy Valentine (20:18):
Yes, it's a part of you, but it's not all of
you. And I mean I
think do you ever, do you ever hear from people
like oh my God, how are you so happy all the time you
went through all that, how are you so happy? It doesn't seem
like more people that maybe don't know you at all and that
they just would have no idea
(20:38):
that you had been through so many challenges in
life. And
you know, it's surprising to them if they find out
about any of your hardships.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (20:50):
Well, I, A lot of times I, when
I'm doing some public speaking, my first question
to the audience is, how many of
you life has not gone as planned?
yeah, everybody raises their hand,
right? Nobody's not
responded to that. And I said I
(21:11):
believe that kind of connects us that most of
us have, have gone through life not
as planned with a few things. I just think,
you know, mine is more visible than most and I've got,
I'm sitting in a 385 pound
power wheelchair. So they know
my life did not go as planned. They don't know how.
But, but I think that those, those
(21:34):
invisible losses, all of us
have those, yeah, I just have one
that's very visible that people probably
know that something didn't quite go right somewhere along the
line.
>> Wendy Valentine (21:48):
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(23:15):
waking up.com or wherever
books are sold.
Let's wake up Beautiful.
I thought it would be cool to read
from Morning Fuel, so when
this airs it'll be April 25th. so
I'm going to read this. It is so good and it kind of
ties in nicely with what we're talking about. And
(23:36):
it's titled Going on.
It's a favorite phrase I like to use when
I'm wrapping up a conversation or signing off from
a column. And on we go.
But after six weeks of isolation during the COVID
19 pandemic, the idea of going on
eluded me. Life had lost its
(23:56):
punctuation. It felt like one
giant run on sentence with no
commas, semicolons or colons
to segment it in clarifying ways.
There wasn't a period in sight,
but there were plenty of, question marks.
How long will this go on? Will I get the
virus? If I do, can I survive it? When will it
(24:19):
be safe to resume the life I knew? How
can I possibly know how to go on
when I'm not sure exactly where I am?
The unanswered questions closed in the
uncertainty of not knowing what was
sent. What was knowing
was next sent me into that place. I've
(24:39):
fight so hard to avoid the pity
pool. After a while, though, I grew
frustrated with my meltdown. I know
how to get through tough times. My
life is riddled with no cause, slash
no cure. Experiences one child's
autism, another child's epilepsy, and my own
paralysis. I'm a veteran of, dealing with
(25:02):
unexplained adversity. Why
couldn't I use what I learned and
get on with life? Because
my tears reminded me you can't deny the
pain of loss or skip over its steadfast
companion, Grief.
Grief. Was that what I was
experiencing then? The words of, Robert Frost
(25:24):
guided me yet again. The best way out
is always through. Of course, there
are no shortcuts around the Valley of Pain
and loss and its sidekick, grief.
I needed to treat this unpunctuated life
as what it was, one more
journey through grief. When grief had
disoriented me in the past, I'd learned to focus
(25:47):
on the present and what I needed to do
right then. To care for myself.
Sleep, nutrition,
exercise, connection to others. But
I also considered what I allowed to take up space
in my mind. Although I wanted to be
informed, I limited my news consumption
while increasing time spent with nature.
(26:10):
I sought out messages of patience and hope.
And I slowed down my routine so I could sense the
slightest progression. After a while, I
felt the momentum of forward motion once
again and could say with newfound conviction
and great relief.
And on we go.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (26:28):
thank you for reading that. That's so
cool.
>> Wendy Valentine (26:32):
It's so perfect.
I feel like in times of
uncertainty, we don't know what to
do with ourselves. And we, I think we try to fight it
or put it into a pretty little box, right?
And make it something that it's not. Instead of just
facing it, like you said, like, you just face
(26:53):
it for what it is. And
I'd say, more importantly, control what you
can. Just like you said, I need to sleep. I need
to pay attention to my nutrition. I need to watch
what I'm reading, what I'm absorbing, who
I'm connecting with, like. And, you know, serenity
prayer was always one of my favorites to get me through my tough
times and. But God, grant me the
(27:15):
serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the
courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to
know. Know the difference. I have to remind myself
of that often. I'm like, wendy,
what can you control? Do what you can to
take care of yourself, right? Because that's the best that
we can do.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (27:36):
Absolutely. The whole accept what you can't
control is.
It's, it's a worthy goal, but it can be
hard. It can be hard sometimes to admit
that one of the things that a
therapist gave me was a tool that I
used time and time again. When my son
Matthew presented with seizures and he'd been in the hospital
(27:58):
and I didn't know whether they said there's a
potential he could grow out of it or
potential not. And it was so
frustrating to me because I didn't know what to hope for.
And she told me, she said, becky, you want to, why don't you
pursue parallel paths? My
parallel path? What do you mean? She
(28:19):
goes well, on the hopeful path, you can
pursue, what it would be if he grew out of
these seizures and he regained a normal life.
But on the other path you could think
through what would happen if he didn't.
it became a really good metaphor for me
to kind of divide out my thinking
(28:41):
on what happens if I recover from
paralysis, what happens if I don't, what happens if
my divorce makes it, I mean,
that I. Are we reconcile in our marriage, what
happens if we don't? But it, if you
are able to see both,
options, you're still
(29:03):
able to journey on either one,
you know, and then
when the reality becomes obvious,
then you're prepared. Mm,
>> Wendy Valentine (29:14):
Yeah, that's exactly the word I was thinking
is being prepared for it.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (29:20):
And in the meantime, you've kept
active. You haven't done the worry thing.
It's like you can put your, put legs on your
worry and, and
act in one way. For example, when I thought that I
was going to recover from
paralysis, I did
all the things preparing my body that I could stand again
(29:43):
with that. That was physical therapy and
supplements and all the things that could prepare
me to stand. And then on the other,
like I needed to think about putting
permanent ramps in the house and
maybe getting a minivan instead of my
station wagon. So my
thoughts were moving, but they were moving in
(30:05):
tangible ways that could prepare me for either
outcome. So I really like that
concept of.
>> Wendy Valentine (30:11):
I do too. I, I like that too.
Now, what is your opinion on, you know, the the
positive thinkers manifesting? And you
only think what, exactly what it is that you
want. So don't think on the other of the
other parallel of what could go
wrong. What do you think about that?
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (30:31):
You know, I went through that phase especially with
paralysis and all I did, I got
this big picture board of, of all the
latest pictures I had of me standing
and every time I would go into the bathroom,
you know, that was my workout area. Put this,
had to enlarge a bathroom where I could fit in there in the
(30:51):
wheelchair. And I had this huge mirror that every day
I would do my arm exercises and
And then there was my vision board of everything that I
had the last time I was standing.
So I did that for a really long time. And
after 19 months
of not getting any kind of return,
(31:13):
any kind of return of function, I had
decided, you know, somewhere along the way I might
need to consider. Consider what it would be like if. If
plan A didn't work out. But it was. Had a very
strong plan A. But yeah, I
get what you're saying and I did go through that. And I
don't have a quick answer to that other than I guess, you
know, when.
>> Wendy Valentine (31:34):
Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think eventually. Right.
You have to. It's. It's acceptance.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (31:40):
Yes. Which can be very
freeing, you know, once you accept.
Accept. Like I was in therapy three times
a week for standing and I was missing
dinner with my kids so that I could go to the
dent. I could go to this therapy. And like once I
accepted, okay, I need to be the best mom I can be
from the wheelchair. We're going to have our family
(32:03):
dinners again. And I really leaned
into that and I. Candlelit dinners like we used to
have with my childhood. And I. Back. This is back
when the CD programs were big and you could
like order 20 CDs for a dollar and
so put
funky music in one night and classical music
(32:23):
in and country music another. You know, it was
so. It was a way to enrich our family time
with music. and I really, But
once I let go, had to let go of this.
>> Wendy Valentine (32:34):
Yeah. Ah, that's.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (32:36):
That's what acceptance does. I think it frees up your mind
to, to include more of what
is reality.
>> Wendy Valentine (32:43):
There's that quote. God, I can't think of what it is. It's
basically about letting go of
the life that you had planned in
order to have the. The life that's, you know, right
there in front of. You have to let go of the life that you plan. I can't. I
can't think of who it is. but it's true.
Like sometimes we cling to something
(33:03):
even though it's already has. It's trying
to evolve into something else. We fight it
no matter if like if it's relationships or career
or our bodies or you know,
just trying to avoid certain
things from happening and it's like. No, it's. It's
happening. Like you have to. It's
(33:24):
acceptance.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (33:26):
Yes, it's a very freeing thing, but it can
be very tricky to
fully embrace it because we want to hold on to hope.
And not all hope is healthy. You
know, if we hope for something that isn't realistic, we
wind up chewing up a lot of energy.
>> Wendy Valentine (33:44):
Ah.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (33:44):
In that hope. And my mother was great.
She said, you know, we only have 24 buckets of energy a
day.
>> Wendy Valentine (33:52):
Yeah.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (33:53):
And we have to decide how we spend that,
what we're going to put energy on. And I was like, oh, that's a different way
to look at it. It's like you kind of budget your
energy.
>> Wendy Valentine (34:03):
Yeah, yeah. I've called myself, like last few years,
like an energy snob. You know, I'm like, very picky
about who's taking my
energy, where am I placing my energy,
what. What am I absorbing, what am I giving away?
Right. Like, because. Yeah. I mean, kind of going
back to like the gratitude and where our life
(34:23):
is now. And it's. Yeah. I mean, I
think even my energy is shifted. I'm very
selective about where I place my
energy and is it really worth it? You
know, and it's on things that I'm
guilty of this, like, silly things that I might get worked up
about. I'm like, do I really put my energy on that? Like, why do
(34:43):
you. You know, I don't like the way he said this or I don't
like the way she did that. Like, okay,
like, do I really want to use that bucket?
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (34:54):
I love that. Energy snob.
>> Wendy Valentine (34:56):
Yeah. Total energy snob.
Yeah, I know.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (35:01):
It's a good one to be.
>> Wendy Valentine (35:03):
Yeah, exactly. A little
snooty.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (35:06):
What.
>> Wendy Valentine (35:07):
What would you say? Not that you can rank these,
but what did. Of all the losses,
which one did you really struggle with
the most?
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (35:19):
You know, I think it has to be the loss of
my brother. Just m. Because
he was that kid, you know, he was president of
the student body. He had.
Was, a musician, he was an athlete, he was a leader
in church. we were really tight.
And at age 20,
(35:39):
having that kind of loss was probably the
deepest just because it was. It threw
us into such a tailspin.
>> Wendy Valentine (35:48):
And it was an accident too, right? It was a
skiing accident. So it was just shocking. Like, wait, what?
Not like, it was like a gradual. Like, okay, he'd
been sick for a long time. It was an accident then.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (36:01):
Yes. He. He, was unconscious
for nine days and then
that was it. So we had some
time of kind of getting.
I don't know if it's grief or preparation or whatever, but it
wasn't instant. I did get to see him, you know,
but he was all the tubes.
(36:22):
And it was just intense.
It was intense. And it was a whole
reorientation of a closely
knit family of five to a. Call
it a foreign configuration of four
had to adjust to. And, It
just didn't make sense. Didn't make
(36:44):
sense. That was the first time I think life had
really not made sense to me. And
there are a lot of other times since it hasn't, but, That
first time, I think is. Is, was the
hardest.
>> Wendy Valentine (36:57):
Were you with him when he passed?
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (37:00):
No. we knew that it would be, It
was imminent, so I did have a chance
to. To say my own goodbyes to him. We each
did. So I was at, in, in
college at the time. So I had come back and
that it would have. It would have been a true
miracle for him to survive that kind of
(37:21):
head injury.
>> Wendy Valentine (37:23):
Yeah.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (37:24):
Yeah.
>> Wendy Valentine (37:27):
it's almost like, I feel like with the
more that you go through stuff, it's like building a muscle,
you know, it's like this resilience muscle.
And, you know, it's almost like all
of that prepared you more for some of
these other losses that you went through. Not that. Not that
you can really. I don't know if you can prepare for any, you know,
(37:48):
any more, but I. I don't know.
I'm speaking for me, when I look
back at some of the. The tragic traumatic
events I went through, it's like each time
it's like, not that it gets easier. I think I'm
just more prepared. I'm
like, okay, this is grief. This
(38:09):
is gonna suck.
Acceptance, as opposed to
like the first time something happened, right? Like with your
brother, the first time something happens. It's just
so shocking to you, physically and mentally
and emotionally and spiritually, that you're just like.
You don't know what to do. It's fight, flight, freeze. but
(38:29):
then as more, you know, and we
all, I think especially here we are on the Midlife Makeover show. We're at
midlife, 40s and 50s, 60s, whatever.
And you know, our parents are going to be passing
away or are passing away, have passed away. We
have friends. I mean, it's. There's
divorce, relationship changes, lots of
(38:50):
losses, and nothing can really prepare you
for it. But at the same time, you
can know what
to know what to do as, best that you can
when it approaches.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (39:06):
You've been down that path before. And I think
that that's it to remember how you got through
the last time. And pretty, pretty much there's some
standard things in there. You can probably lift
and apply in whatever
wilderness you're in. I think it's all about
paths in the wilderness.
(39:26):
that doesn't mean you like them, that doesn't mean
they're exactly the same. But I think our process of
dealing with them can be the
same if we look at our patterns. And
that's. I think the older I get, the more
I see, okay, you're going to be ticked,
you know, you're going to be angry for this long.
(39:47):
You know, give yourself m. Space to do
that.
>> Wendy Valentine (39:51):
Yeah, yeah. It's almost like we're gentler
on ourselves the more you go through
it, more compassionate towards
ourselves.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (40:02):
Absolutely. And I love. And my, my
favorite definition of grace is
unmerited kindness.
You give yourself that too. You give yourself
grace like, you know, you really shouldn't be,
but it's okay if you are.
>> Wendy Valentine (40:19):
Yeah, exactly.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (40:21):
You know.
>> Wendy Valentine (40:23):
Yeah. I mean, I would say that, you know, for me,
grief taught me a lot. A lot.
The good, the bad, the happy, the sad.
And. But it's like,
when you come out of it,
like the, the bulk of it, it's. Can be
very. I, don't know what the word is. Just
(40:44):
like law. It's like this, like
awakening, just like, oh
gosh. And it's. There's still those
remnants, you know, but
it can be very just rewarding
and feels so good,
like just to come out of it.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (41:05):
Yes. And it's interesting you. You
mentioned those emotions because
when my daughter Brittany, my oldest, who
was without any kind of disabilities
young, she wasn't first
kidding when she
watched at age 3 her brother have
seizures. She
(41:27):
developed this, thought that
all boy babies had seizures.
I got her into counseling and the
counselor said this is magical thinking. She's
trying to make sense of her world while she doesn't have seizures,
but her brother does. So one of the
exercises she gave us to do was
(41:48):
at nighttime, ask,
Brittany, you know, four things.
What's your happy, sad, mixed up,
mad thing that you experience
today? And so we would go through
it so she would, she could talk more
about her emotions. And the trickiest one
was always mixed up, which had to do
(42:11):
with this made me
happy, but at the same time it made me sad.
And one of those could be the
weather. It was rain. So
she was angry because, you know,
the, the rain washed out the ball game that she was
going to be a pitcher in or.
(42:32):
But the same time we needed the
rain for. Because we hadn't
had rain in a long time for the Flowers to grow.
So I think that that mixed up thing
gave her perspective. Like, how are
you going to look at this situation? Are you going to look
at it as a negative or a positive?
(42:54):
But we get to choose how we, look
at situations, which I think
helps all of us as we're going through
tough times. You know, it's okay to look at it negatively,
but there's probably something in there, positive
that we can see too.
>> Wendy Valentine (43:09):
It's like embracing the, the dichotomy,
the duality of life. Right.
Yeah. Just accepting it
for, you know, the good, the bad, the happy,
the sad. And you're gonna have that. Like, if
you. To me, it's like, you know, you wouldn't.
You wouldn't know light if you didn't know
(43:30):
dark. You wouldn't know
joy if you didn't know sadness.
It's just the other side of the coin. That's so
smart that you, you had her go to therapy. I, I
admire that.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (43:44):
Thank you. Well, I've had a lot of therapy myself and
I've found that, you know, professionals
have a way of guiding you pretty
clearly and the ways that you need to do
to cope, they're the, their expert is coping
with what you've got in front of you.
So highly recommend that.
>> Wendy Valentine (44:04):
Yeah, I wouldn't be, I wouldn't be where I'm at if I, if it hadn't
been for therapy. Good golly,
be a hot mess.
Well, thank you so much, Becky. You're. You are quite the
inspiration.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (44:20):
Well, thank you. It's a pleasure to be with you.
>> Wendy Valentine (44:23):
You can see your.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (44:24):
You can see your joy in just
your countenance. I will say thank
you. You are energy plus for me
today. How about that?
>> Wendy Valentine (44:36):
I gave you a few extra buckets so you
can.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (44:39):
Thank you. I'll spend them wisely.
>> Wendy Valentine (44:42):
Yeah. And I look forward to this
airing on April 25th. It's. It's. We'll even get
more.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (44:49):
Yeah. Thank you for that.
Thank you.
>> Wendy Valentine (44:53):
Any, Any bit of advice for someone
if they're going through a really tough time right now?
What is something that they can do for themselves
to just. Just to clear
that dark cloud just a tiny bit and get some. Get
some sunshine in there,
you know?
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (45:11):
I think I, I will. I like to always
say, don't isolate. That's
my, you know, don't sit with it.
Find one. Be honest about it. What are
your resources? Invite people in the boat with you
and keep moving, even in some way, whether you need
to journal it out, whether you need to talk
(45:32):
it out. But don't isolate and
keep moving. That's. That's my best
advice.
>> Wendy Valentine (45:39):
Yeah, yeah, but what is it you said in the.
In that book, the title? Is it going on or.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (45:45):
And.
>> Wendy Valentine (45:45):
And what is that? How did you end the thing? Oh, and on we
go.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (45:48):
On we go. Just make sure you're going on.
Yeah.
>> Wendy Valentine (45:52):
And onwards. I love
ellipses.
So where can we find you and how do we get your
books?
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (46:03):
Well, I'm@beckygalley.com
B, E, C, K, Y, G, A L, L,
I. And I'm, also
my books, both of them, Rethinking Possible, which is a
memoir, and Morning Fuel, the Daily
Reader are available wherever books are sold.
You can get, them on Amazon, Barnes and
(46:23):
Noble, independent bookstores.
so, yeah, I'm around and I.
>> Wendy Valentine (46:28):
Can vouch it's a good book. I like. I'm looking forward to
tomorrow. That's what I love about those Daily Readers. You know, it's like,
oh, see, well, today is March 4th, so
March. March 5th, I get to, I get to read something
cool again.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (46:41):
Well, thank you. I appreciate that.
>> Wendy Valentine (46:44):
Yeah. Thank you so much, Becky.
>> Rebecca Faye Smith Galli (46:47):
You're welcome. So, so great to be here and
sharing your energy.
>> Wendy Valentine (46:51):
Yes, thank you. You too.
Did this podcast inspire you? Challenge
you? Trigger you to make a change or spit out your coffee? Coffee
laughing. Good. Then there are three ways you can
thank me. Number one, you can leave a written review
of this podcast on Apple iTunes. Number
two, you can take a screenshot of the episode and
(47:12):
share it onto social media. And tag me Wendy
Valentine. Number three, share it with
another midlifer that needs a makeover. You know who
I'm talking about. Thank you so much for listening to
the show. Get out there and B bowl,
be free.
Be.
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