Grief, Motherhood & Sobriety: Nikki Spoelstra’s Journey to "Becoming Her"

In this episode of 2 Girls with Grief, Nikki Spoelstra shares her powerful story of navigating grief, motherhood, and sobriety through some of life’s hardest moments—losing her mother, her child’s cancer diagnosis, and divorce. She opens up about:

• The ‘mother wound’ and how it shaped her healing journey.
• The grief of losing oneself and finding identity again.
• The power of service, self-compassion, and community in overcoming pain.
• Breaking stigmas around sobriety, co-parenting, and mental health.

Through raw honesty and deep reflection, Nikki inspires us to embrace healing, faith, and the strength in asking for support.

Find all things Nikki here

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Are you struggling with grief, addiction, or life's relentless challenges?

(00:04):
Meet Nikki Spoelstra.
She's the host of In the Know with Nikki Spo and Becoming Her.
After losing her mom, battling addiction, dealing with a public divorce while
supporting her child through cancer, Nikki faced life's darkest moments head on.
She's here to inspire you to find your magic after loss and adversity and share
how she finds healing through service.

(00:25):
You will want to miss out on this one of a kind conversation.
Welcome to the Two Girls with Grief podcast.

(00:46):
The podcast where we share our real and raw experiences with grief,
whether it's tears or laughter or maybe a little bit of both.
We're here to figure it out in real time.
We are your hosts.
I'm Kendall Rogers.
And I'm Rachel Dwyer.
And while we're not professionals, we are professional Grievers.
Every Tuesday, we bring you honest conversations that break down the sigma

(01:07):
of grief, one episode at a time, because no one should have to grieve alone.
So grab a cup of coffee, settle in, and let's navigate this journey together.
Hello, Nikki.
We're so happy to have you here.
Welcome to the Two Girls with Grief podcast.
Rachel, Kendall, thank you so much for having me.
I'm really honored to be here and hopefully get to share my experience,

(01:28):
strength and hope with you guys.
Yeah, we're so excited for this conversation.
So Nikki is a sober single mother of three, entrepreneur and host of
The Know with Nikki Spoh, where she leads meaningful conversations that
tackle life's complex challenges with humor, grace, and sass.
She also recently launched a women's empowerment group, Becoming Her, which
offers education, support, and encouragement to help women connect with their

(01:51):
inner knowing and becoming the her of their dreams, which I love, by the way.
I don't think we have a question on that, but I think we need to circle
back to learn more about that.
Thank you.
So our podcast, we've talked about grief and this is clearly
something you've experienced, but we don't want to talk just about grief.
In this episode, we want to know like how you've handled it,
how you've gotten through it.

(02:12):
And most importantly, I think with every Griever knows, grief
doesn't stop when life happens.
It's like you're dealing with grief and life happens.
And life happening at the same time.
So how did you navigate these whirlwinds of these life events?
Like you got pregnant, you lost your mom, you had a cancer
diagnosis with your child.

(02:33):
And then among that divorce, like that's so much in a short amount of time.
Yeah.
So thanks for asking.
I definitely think back to that time and I'm like, oh my gosh, like any one of
those individual things would have been really difficult to deal with on its own.
And they all happened at the same time in my life.
The reality is that I think I've been grieving for a very long time,

(02:57):
particularly grieving the mother wound.
I did not have a healthy relationship with my mom.
And I, you know, I think I was grieving that loss for a very, very long time.
You know, the desire, the longing to have a mother that I felt connected to.
It wasn't there.

(03:17):
And so I became estranged from my mom, probably around the time I was 27.
And we had always had a very rocky and tumultuous relationship.
And at that time, I, at the time that I said, okay, I finally like had a
come to God moment with myself where I was like, I can't do this.
I just can't do it.

(03:37):
I don't think I'm ever going to get healthy if I don't take a step back from this.
And that was a really hard decision because you have people telling you like,
well, that's your mom.
What do you mean you're going to abandon your mom?
Like my mom didn't, was not invited to my wedding and my mom didn't meet my
children until at the very, very end of her life.
And I remember thinking to myself, for all the times that people said,

(04:00):
Oh, you're going to regret that.
You're going to regret that.
What if you regret that someday?
I remember thinking, well, I'm just going to have to cross that bridge when I get
there because right now I have to focus on doing what's best for me and keeping
myself healthy, as healthy as possible.
And, you know, I didn't get sober until I was like 34, 33, 30, in 2020, whenever

(04:23):
that, how old it was, but I was still drinking and using when I became estranged
from my mom, who was also an alcoholic.
And so there were a lot of patterns, a lot of things that I saw both in her and in
myself that it was slowly killing me as well.
And besides just grieving the mother wound and the desire and the longing to

(04:45):
have a mother that met my standards, right?
Or what I thought I needed.
I was also grieving the loss of myself over and over.
Like I was dying all these small deaths, one year at a time, the more I put myself
in harm's way and making decisions that were out of alignment.
And so that might be a little bit different from the grief that is most common

(05:07):
they talked about, I think, right?
When we're thinking about losing a loved one.
But I think it's important to consider the grief that we go through when we lose
ourselves and how that can so deeply affect us as individuals.
And I don't know that a lot of people pay attention to that.

(05:27):
So I think that there's like a lot, a lot of people sleep on, on the grief that we
encounter within ourselves, right?
Whether it's, you know, do you recall the grief that you had when you were
do you recall going through puberty?
And when like, yeah, you became a woman and you got your period.
And like, for some reason you were like, for me anyway, I was like
grieving the loss of my childhood.

(05:48):
Like I remembered very distinctly not wanting to change, not wanting to get my
period, not wanting to become a woman.
I was like, oh my gosh, I don't like this.
Like I didn't have the words or the tools to explain it at the time, but I was like
grieving this version of my life at the time.
And I didn't even know it.
I was in seventh grade.
You didn't know that back then.
You know?
And so I think a lot of us are more familiar with grief than we realize

(06:10):
because we are doing it in small ways all the time.
And so I look at my life and then I'm like, okay, well, I became a
strange for my mom.
I had a really interesting relationship with death, which I actually think was a
pretty, like an objectively healthy relationship.
Like I remember asking my dad when I was little, what happens when you die?

(06:31):
And he was like, well, they put you in the ground and the worms eat you.
And yeah.
And I'm like, uh, what?
Yeah.
What?
And I've always been like a very spiritual individual, like even since I was a child,
even though I wasn't exposed to it necessarily, but I was like, what happens to your soul?
And he was like, well, your soul lives on in the people who remember you and the
people that you impact.

(06:52):
Right.
And in my small child world, like that made a lot of sense, right?
Heaven, the idea of an afterlife, that did not make sense to me.
Like that to me, I could not understand it.
I couldn't relate to it.
That's why it's called faith for a lot of people is because they have to believe
what they can't see, they can't prove.
Fine.

(07:13):
For what it's worth, when he taught me that I was like, oh, everything has a cycle,
has a life cycle.
Everything has a beginning, a middle, a journey and an ultimate end.
Right.
And maybe it has a rebirth.
We don't really know that for sure, but this makes sense.
This is the life cycle.
And so I remember the first time somebody close to me passed away was my grandfather.

(07:40):
I remember thinking like, this makes sense because it's the cycle of life and I miss
this person.
I'm going to miss this person.
And then my other grandfather passed away and I was like, okay, I'm going to miss
this person, but this is the cycle of life.
This makes sense.
Right.
And these were things that like, they got sick in their old age.
And so it was things that were like relatively predictable.
I don't think that makes it hurt any less necessarily.

(08:00):
But it's like the life cycle, like you get to the end of your life and then, you know,
I think that's what's supposed to happen.
Right.
Nobody lives forever.
Yeah.
The loss of my grandmother hit a little bit different.
I think it's because like there was that mother wound at play still.

(08:23):
Fast forward all these years to then 2022 when like the big great awakening of my life
really happened.
I thank God all the time that I got sober in 2020 because people say, oh, well, 2022
must have been the most difficult year of your life.
And as bad as it was, it's not true.

(08:43):
For me, the worst year of my life was when in 2020 when I hit rock bottom and I didn't
want to live anymore.
And I thank God all the time that I was able to access the help that I needed to get sober,
to be able to reach out and somebody show up for me.
And help me turn my life around.
That to me was like the hardest time of my life.

(09:04):
And I know without a shadow of a doubt that had I not gotten sober, and that's my journey,
right?
If I had not gotten sober, I don't, I don't think I would have been able to handle the
2020s.
I don't think I would have been able, equipped to get through it because how do you plan
a pregnancy, get pregnant.
And you're like, in my mind, I'm like, if I don't get pregnant, it's totally cool because
I have two beautiful, healthy kids.

(09:25):
And then my mom passes away and then one of those two beautiful, healthy kids gets
diagnosed with cancer.
Right?
You're like, oh my gosh, now I'm reckoning with the loss of a life of a child who didn't
do anything to deserve this.
Right?
Like straight up, I smoked cigarettes for a long time in college.
Right?
Like, God forbid something happens with my health that's related to that.

(09:49):
I'm like, I did that.
That's true.
I did that.
God forbid.
I went in the sun.
I did tanning beds.
When you are reckoning with a little child who is so innocent and they are diagnosed
with something as scary and serious as cancer.
And thankfully our diagnosis was, was something that was highly treatable.

(10:12):
Right?
But so many children don't have that outcome and don't have that reality.
It makes you question like a lot of things about life.
And so my experience with grief then was, yeah, I'm pregnant with my daughter who has
the same birth date, projected birth date as my mom who just passed away.
And my, I'm now going down a path of reckoning with a divorce, you know, which ultimately

(10:36):
came and came to reality.
And I'm doing all of this while I'm like helping my son go through chemotherapy.
So needless to say, it was like, it was a very, very difficult time in my life.
And the death of my mom was probably more complicated for me than any of the other deaths
I experienced because of our problematic relationship, because there was unfinished

(10:56):
business, because as long as she was alive, I was hoping that sometime, maybe somehow,
even though I knew it wasn't going to happen just because she was so sick and I wasn't,
it wasn't going to happen in this lifetime.
But I'm like, as long as she's alive, like maybe I am going to get, get to have the mom
that like I idealize.
In my mind, in my heart, right.
That I'm craving and longing for.

(11:17):
So as long as she's alive, that like dream is still there.
Even if I'm not doing anything about it, even if I know in my heart of hearts that it's
not going to happen, right.
Then the person passes away and there's all of this complexity that's left over.
It's not as simple as like the person that I loved and enjoyed so much is gone and I'm
going to miss them.
I'm missing something I never even had.

(11:39):
Like, and I'm mourning the loss of that.
And what a mind fuck that is.
It's really complicated and it's not funny, but it's like, it's wild to think about.
When I saw on your Instagram, like you break down that timeline of the pregnancy and the
cancer and your mom's death and then the divorce.
And it was just really reminded us when we have had conversations that grief is not in

(12:02):
a silo.
It's such a hard thing that you deal with, but that doesn't stop the world from turning.
It doesn't stop other things from happening.
It doesn't stop other things from happening.
No, absolutely not.
It's all charter.
And it's crazy to think like, had you not gone sober in 2020, like how would that have
gone down, you know, in 2022?

(12:24):
And then it just like, it's all in timing.
Like some things happen for a reason at the right time so you could handle harder things.
And it's just crazy how some things work out.
But when I saw that, I was like, we definitely need to talk about that because I don't think
people sometimes they just see the grief.
They don't see that.
Like that doesn't mean that other things aren't happening.
That doesn't mean that's the only thing you're dealing with, which makes it so much harder

(12:45):
because the grief is like so hard.
And then obviously, like childhood cancer with your kid, like that's so much to handle
and try to deal with the process.
Well, I think also like there's part of it that you think about all these people in the
public eye, like the actual celebrities, not just like public figures or whatever, whatever,
but like the actual celebrities that are going to divorces and they finally like their
divorces become public and it's like they've been dealing with this for months, maybe years.

(13:10):
You know what I mean?
That they've been dealing with this that nobody's known about it.
Like there was definitely like that at play where I was going through all this stuff and
nobody knew about it.
Like I wasn't talking about my son's cancer online until he went into remission.
I wasn't really talking about my pregnancy.
It was a tough time.
You know, I talked a little bit publicly about my mom because like that was the only thing
I really could do.
I definitely wasn't talking about what my marriage was going through.

(13:33):
Like, and I also have opinions about like that is sacred.
Like what my marriage was like, that's none of anybody's business.
Yeah.
And like there's some of that stuff that will never get talked about.
And that's because of the sacred bond that that was existed when it did.
And so there's a lot of things that like go unsaid and the world keeps moving on and
you're still especially you think about I'm in content creation, right?

(13:56):
I create a podcast like you guys like and how to podcast, make money through advertising.
Okay, so I'm still plastering a smile on my face while I'm pregnant and dealing with all
this stuff.
And I'm like doing the advertising, hosting the guests and showing up and not spilling
my guts to everybody about it.
Like the world keeps turning and something that I say all the time is that the antidote

(14:20):
to suffering is service.
And I truly believe that in order to get out of your own suffering, regardless of what
it is, and grief is so complex and doesn't happen in a linear way, right?
And it can show up out of nowhere, out of nowhere.
Once you think you've like handled it, it can just show up on like a random day when

(14:41):
you're driving your car out of nowhere and you don't expect it.
But I always do say that the antidote to suffering is service.
And the quickest way, the fastest way, the most trustworthy way, and I think the most
rewarding way to get out of your own suffering is to be of service to somebody else who
might need your help.
That's so true.

(15:01):
We're definitely going to touch back on that as well and dive more into that.
But I want to break down a few things that you said.
So one of the things was the complicated relationship with your mom and losing your mom
just in general is super painful.
I've also lost my mom.
So I know that pain.
Thank you.
Yeah.
But me and my mom, we were close, so I didn't have that complexity of it.

(15:24):
So how did you process like your grief and find peace with that unresolved like emotion?
So, yeah, it was really interesting because there were, I didn't know it.
I was doing it at the time.
But like in hindsight, there are distinct things that I was doing that I believe did
truly help.
I started to think about my mom's life as a whole, not just as my mother.

(15:50):
Right.
We are born into the world and we come to meet our parents and they are our parents
and we deify them.
They are God in our eyes.
We need them to live.
Right.
They know everything.
Do you remember being a kid and you'd be like, well, my mom said this and that other
kid is like, well, my mom says this.
Yeah.
Your mom is the right mom.
Right.
Like my mom, my mom is right because my mom is the all knowing mom.

(16:12):
You're not your mom.
Not so much.
Right.
Yeah.
We deify our parents.
And so we forget that they were whole ass people like before us.
Right.
And even though grow up into adults and we have context, we still forget it.
Right.
Because yeah, they didn't exist before us.
Like we can't really relate.
We weren't there.

(16:32):
So, you know, I started to think about my mom's life as a whole, as a whole person.
And I started to think about the things that my mom might have gone through.
In her life from the time she was born, I thought I started to think of my mom as a
tiny baby when she came into this world and she was so pure and so innocent and the world
broke my mom into pieces and she did not have the tools and the resources to get out of

(16:57):
her alcoholism.
She did not have the tools and resources to ask for help in a way that she was able to
receive it.
She just didn't have it.
And I, and I can speak from experience and being in a 12 step program.
For addiction, it's not about willpower.
I think a lot of people think that like fighting alcoholism or addiction is about willpower
and that people who are addicts are weak.

(17:18):
That's not true.
It's fighting addiction is not a willpower thing.
It's really about surrendering your life over to the care of God.
I actually know today that I am very weak and I can't stay sober without a relationship
with the God of my understanding.
And I am not a religious person.
I do not belong to any organized religious group.
I am spiritual.
I have a relationship with God.
I have a relationship with God and I understand that I cannot combat alcoholism with any earthly

(17:47):
thing.
There's nothing earthly here, person, place, thing that can fix my relationship with alcohol
except God.
I truly believe that and I stay in the center of the program in that way.
And so the things that I did with my mom to like overcome my grief and find peace was

(18:08):
that I started to think about her as a tiny baby and what her soul was like when she came
into this world and her soul was pure.
I believe that my mom's soul is pure.
And so I think about how the world broke her over time over things that she would not talk
about.
She refused to talk about them.
So I can't even imagine the depths of the pain that she was experiencing.
It doesn't make anything that she did to me okay.

(18:29):
So the two things are true, right?
Hurt people hurt people and that's not okay, right?
But if I have to go on living in this life, I can either choose to harbor resentment and
having resentment is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.
You're not poisoning the other person by being resentful towards them.
You are poisoning yourself by holding resentment in your own heart.

(18:51):
Okay, so I had to get right with that.
I'm like, how long am I going to live being mad at my mom for the things that happened?
And so when I started to have some more compassion, because I was very rageful, right?
About the things that went on between us when I was a kid.
And it was appropriate rage.
I had every right to be mad.

(19:11):
But as I realized I wanted to start to recover from that rage and start to let it go and
start to try to forgive, just try to forgive my mom, it really came down to me showing
her some empathy and compassion for the things that she experienced while also knowing at
the same time that it wasn't okay how she treated me.
And so I thought about how long and hard my mom had to live this life of pain.

(19:39):
And when she passed away, I was like, oh, what a relief for her soul that must be.
And I remember talking to some of her friends and her friends all said the same thing.
Like when you think about rest in peace, it brings tears to my eyes still that I'm like,
oh my gosh, she's finally resting from all the turmoil that she experienced in her life.

(20:03):
And so in this really wild way, it'll be a random day and I'll be taking a shower or
driving in the car or whatever.
And I'll experience some type of pain, whether that's heartache or loneliness or longing
or even jealousy or like, oh, I should be doing this.
I'm not doing this.
I actually like pray and I talked to my mom and I feel like I sound crazy saying it, but

(20:24):
I'm like, mom, what would you want me to do?
Like, what would you want?
What's best for me?
And it's like wild because I would never have trusted her earthly self to give me advice.
But I'm like, now that she's back into her purest form, which is what I believe, regardless
of me believing in an afterlife, I believe that she is now energy.
I trust that and her energy like is still in me.

(20:48):
I think that I can choose.
My mom, when she was alive, she was magic.
Like she, when she was alive and well, she was magic.
Like that woman walked into a room and she was magic.
And I'm like, I'm magic too.
I'm her.
I'm a little bit of her.
And I hold on to that.
I try to hold on to the good parts and I'm really grateful that I had the courage to
get sober too, you know, so that I could break that generational trauma of what she did give

(21:12):
me, you know, whether she wanted to or not she did.
That's the reality of it.
I took my mom's ashes to Puerto Rico.
I had completely kind of like abandoned, not abandoned because like I didn't grow up with
them, but like I just kind of like disregarded my Puerto Rican heritage when I became estranged
for my mom because they weren't here to experience the abuse and that I did.

(21:35):
Right.
They just saw it from the outside.
They didn't know.
And so like my aunt would come visit and be like, oh, but it's your mom and she's been
through so much.
And I'm like, you don't see what I'm going through lady.
I'm like, you don't see it.
Like you can't relate.
Like, and you're not helping me.
I need to be saved.
You don't get it.
Right.
And so I was mad at them in a lot of ways.
I was mad at my family in Puerto Rico for not being there and for not seeing it.

(21:59):
And so I just, I like pretended they didn't exist.
Right.
And what's really cool is that my cousins over there have nine cousins.
They all still treated me like family.
They'd still check in.
They never stopped reaching out, reaching out, reaching out.
And even though I kept my wall up all the way up, they didn't stop.
And they weren't annoying about it, but they didn't stop.

(22:19):
Okay.
So my mom passes away and then I'm like, I need to go reconnect with my heritage over there.
I am a Puerto Rican woman.
Right.
Like I am of Puerto Rican descent.
Like my family matters.
My, I now have children that are Filipino and Puerto Rican.
Their heritage matters.
I want them to know that because we didn't get to like spend a lot of time with my mom

(22:39):
as, as their grandmother.
Like I want them to know like where we are from.
And so I've been taking my kids to Puerto Rico every year.
The first time I went back was to bring my mom's ashes and we got my whole family together.
And this Christmas we went over there and they were like, you know,
it's so nice that you started coming back to Puerto Rico because
we weren't getting together so much, but we started getting together

(23:02):
because you guys started coming back.
And I'm like, you think about it.
And I mentioned service before and it's like that's service in disguise, you know,
like I thought I was going there to reconnect with them and they were really
welcoming me back in to reconnect with each other.
And so that was incredibly healing.

(23:24):
The thinking of my mom as a baby and understanding that the more I resent her,
like the more suffering I'm going to experience.
And we've talked about how you need to see our parents as like humans and not just your parents.
Yeah.
We've like talked about that because I think it does separate the,
I wish they had done this or this or that.

(23:45):
It's like, they're just trying to live their life and figure it out as they go too.
And like as an adult now, I'm like, I don't know how to do this stuff.
Like Kendall's like figuring stuff out too.
We're like all these things that I just assumed my parents knew.
Like I assumed I could just ask them and they would know.
And Google wasn't a thing for them back then.
So it was so much harder to like figure things out.

(24:06):
And you just assume that they know.
And it's like they were living their own life and seeing them separated is just like your parent.
I think it really helps you kind of detach from how you want everything to be and how you assumed
it was going to be because they are just human also living their life.
So on that note, like as a mom of three, like I try to show my children, my humanity all the time.

(24:30):
And I have conversations with them about that.
Listen, we have, when we know better, we do better, right?
By no means am I a perfect parent.
I think that I am a conscious parent, right?
A parent who is willing to learn.
I'm a parent who is willing to own up to it when I make a mistake.
I am sure that as evolved as I am, there's still going to be something that my kid goes to therapy

(24:52):
about when they are adults and they're like, you messed me up by doing this.
And I didn't know I was doing it.
Maybe I knew I was doing it.
Maybe it's this thing that happened that I'm like, oh shit, I did that.
I was really bad because we have those moments, right?
And it could be something as benign as you did this one thing when I was drinking water.

(25:13):
And like they're in therapy talking about that one time that I did that one thing, right?
So I have the humility to know that that is a likely possible outcome.
And at the same time, I'm like, I'm going to show you my three children that I am a person.
And so when I don't know something, I say, I don't know.

(25:34):
One of my pet peeves is like when parents say because I said so, no, no, why not just like,
okay, stay with me on this because it's kind of woo woo.
I look, I don't know how ancient my kids souls are.
Like for all I know, they're more ancient than me.
I don't know.
They, I just happened to come into this earthly world before them, physically before them.

(25:55):
I am older than them.
They were somehow assigned to me, right?
And I am now their physical guide.
And so when I look at them, I don't, I try not to parent from a place of ego where like,
I'm superior to my children.
No, you are my spiritual equal.
Like you children are equal to me.
You are my equal and I'm going to treat you with the respect of being my equal.

(26:16):
I just happen to be here and have a little bit more life experience than you because I'm an adult
and I've been through the things and I know how to speak English and read and write and do all
these things that you are still learning how to do.
I know how to compartmentalize my emotions.
I know how to like react properly most of the time, you know?
So when I don't react properly, most of the like, if I had that moment where I'm like, oh gosh,

(26:37):
I really messed up.
I apologize to my children.
I think apologies are really, really big.
And I say things to them like, you guys, this is not fair.
You guys, this is my first time being a mommy to a six-year-old.
I've never done this before.
You guys, this is my first time being a co-parent.
I've never done this before.
I'm trying to figure it out.
Hey, you know what?
I've never been a basketball mom.
I've never been a soccer mom.

(26:58):
I've been a dancer, but I've never even played the sport.
So like bear with me while I learn how to know which cleats to get you when you're really,
really mad that I got the wrong cleats, you know?
And those are just like small, tangible real life examples.
But I think they're valuable because this is us showing our children our humanity.
I am a person, you know?

(27:19):
And every once in a while, my sons, because they're more verbal, they're five and six
years old, they're like, mommy, it's okay.
We know.
We get it.
That seems like a really stressful thing that just happened.
Wise for years.
They're so wise, but they're wise for their years.
And I think that that part of that is innate, but it's also that
we teach them how to be people, right?

(27:41):
We teach them.
They're looking to us to learn how to be a person, how to operate in the world.
Their mindset is everything.
The way that you speak to a child is the way that they form opinions about themselves and
the world around them.
That's why the way we speak to children is so important.
That's why I think about like how I was spoken to when I was a child affected me for the
rest of my life, right?

(28:02):
And I've had to do a lot of this work to, you know, becoming her, but it's also a lot
of unbecoming her.
Like I'm unbecoming all the time.
I'm processing all that right.
So that was like real deep, real deep into like my soul right there.
I like that you were touching on topics around your identity, especially around your cultural

(28:24):
heritage, because that does intertwine so much with grief.
And another thing along with that is divorce and losing a part of yourself in that relationship
or in that facet.
So because of that, and meanwhile, all these other things are happening and swirling around
you.
How did you reconnect with yourself and begin to embrace yourself and your individuality

(28:49):
again?
I started to do things little by little by little more things that I liked.
And I would say that on a very tangible level, like that presented in how I dressed or how
I wore my hair and things that I could like very easily control.
The easily controllable things, right?
Like I'm going to put sparkles in my hair and I'm going to experiment with a red eyeliner

(29:11):
and putting glitter on my face when I go to a concert or wearing this outfit.
I think it presented in like small choices like that that were very childlike.
Like what would the seven-year-old Nikki want to do with this moment?
Right.
Like if I could make this magical, how would I do it?
And I think it was just like by practicing that over and over and over and over and over

(29:33):
again.
Even if people thought it was weird, even if people were like, oh, she's going through
a midlife crisis.
I'm like, yeah, you know what?
I'm going through the biggest, greatest homecoming of my life, baby cakes.
So get on board and get out of the way because she's the uprising, right?
I'm like, this is the uprising.
So I think a lot of it had to do like the coming home to myself.
I started taking more dance classes.
You know, I started to do things now, especially because I am a co-parent and I have this like

(29:58):
block of time away from my children.
I'm like, I could either wallow and be sad because that is a very sad thing for, I think,
a mother to have to go through is like losing the connection with her children.
And what I have to remind myself in that note is like, I'm not losing my connection with
them at all.
Just because they're not physically with me doesn't mean we are tethered.
Our souls are connected.

(30:18):
Like we are not losing each other, you know?
And so if anything, it's an opportunity for me to reconnect with myself, invest in things
that make me happy, like working out, like meditating more, like having a cup of coffee
in silence, you know, which is like, you don't realize that you've lost out on those things,
you know, like getting to sleep in on a weekend morning, you know, little, little things like

(30:41):
going dancing, going out dancing, like, just really being able to do things in my new co-parenting
life that I was like, oh, there she is.
And then slowly it was like, it's like she never left.
I'm like, oh, there she is.
It was a recognition.
I was like, oh, I recognize you.

(31:01):
You're recognizable to me.
I think that it's just like a recognition.
I would call it a recognition.
I'm like, oh, there she is.
She's not gone.
She's not dead.
You're going to love again, babe.
Like, like I got to fall in love after my divorce, which was really special that it
didn't work out.
Like, but after like the initial sadness of it not working out, after that faded, I was
like, girlfriend, you get to love again and again and again, and you're not jaded by life.

(31:27):
Like, what a blessing that is that I can keep my heart open.
I refuse to lose hope.
I just refuse to lose hope, you know, and I'm not a pushover.
I'm not like the type of person who's going to take shit.
I don't take any shit actually, you know, and that's probably the hardest part about
dating me is that I don't take shit, right?
But I am still a very hopeful person.
I am still a very optimistic person.

(31:48):
I am not like living in a doomsday.
Like, I just refuse.
I didn't come all this way.
I didn't walk through the fire to like be scared anymore, you know, and I actually to
touch on like the fear part, I don't think that I'm a fearless person.
I think that I'm a courageous person.
I think there's a difference is that like I'm scared of a lot of things, you know, I'm
scared of like getting in cars sometimes.
I'm scared of like of whatever, all the things, right?

(32:11):
And I choose to live my life with optimism, right?
And I think that that's courageous in itself.
Absolutely.
I resonated so much with you said about like fighting yourself again and something that
we've talked a lot about is like after hard things happen to you, like I've lost both
my parents and my sister, Kendall lost her dad.
And so it's like when so much happens, it's like you stop thinking about yourself.

(32:36):
I didn't like to be seen.
Like, I feel like I just kind of turned into a shell of myself because so much was happening
and I was having a hard time processing it and accepting it.
And so I really resonated what you're saying.
It's like just doing the little thing, whether it's like curling your hair or like going
to a hair appointment, like just something.
Go to the workout class that makes you feel like you're just putting yourself first again.

(32:58):
I feel like that's so relatable.
And it's just like whatever step you need to do that just makes you feel a little bit
more like yourself or the new version of yourself.
I think is so important for people to just like not give up even when you feel really
low and it feels pointless.
Like there's always that next step.
There's always like a new beginning that can happen.
Yeah, I was recording earlier with Dr. Kat Vigo, who is has a doctorate of physical therapy

(33:23):
and she helps postpartum moms heal, recover like emotionally and physically.
Right.
And she was saying like for women, like in the throes of postpartum depression.
Right.
If somebody came to you and said, man, I hurt my shoulder, my shoulder really hurts.
You would do an x-ray and you wouldn't like not believe them.
Right.
You'd be like, let me check the shoulder out.
Like, let me, let me see.
Oh, here's what you can do to fix the shoulder.

(33:44):
Right.
People don't really have that mindset oftentimes when it comes to your mental health and you're
like, if you're feelings, right.
Like I'm sad, I'll just snap out of it.
I'm depressed.
We'll just smile a little bit.
Like, what if, did you try, did you try this?
Everybody's all of a sudden, like the mental health therapist when you have a depressed
friend or you're going through something difficult.

(34:04):
So one of the things that she said is like in the throes of depression or heartache or
whatever it is, grief, there's not always an answer to it, but what you can do is like
raise your hand.
Right.
And so we talked a lot about how physical movement is healing because like all of this

(34:24):
stress and the sadness and the grief and the anxiety, like we store it in ourselves.
And so we talked a lot about like the importance of actually like moving your body.
Right.
And it feels so impossible sometimes because I have days that I remember like I could
literally not get out of bed.
Like there were days when I was co-parenting that my children were gone from me and I'm
like, I cannot get out of bed.
This pain is too severe.

(34:47):
It's too severe.
And you need, you need those days sometimes.
Right.
But like we also, there's a thing called in, in DBT therapy and CBT therapy, there's a
thing called like opposite action where you feel like staying in bed.
So you're going to do the opposite of that is you're going to go for a walk.
Like even if your walk is three minutes or maybe it's down the hall to your kitchen to

(35:08):
get a glass of water, but you're going to get the fuck out of bed and you're going to
go do it and you're going to, maybe you'll get back in bed.
Okay.
But like those are small, tiny things that you can do for yourself.
And then maybe the curling of your hair is too much to ask right now.
You know, maybe you have to start with getting out of bed and walking to the kitchen.
Right.
And maybe you have to start with like feeding yourself a healthy meal.

(35:30):
Maybe you have to start with something really, really tiny.
Until you can build up a strength because like these are muscles, right?
You don't lift a 100 pound dumbbell if you've never lifted weights, you know, like you have
to start with the three pound weight.
You have to lift that until you can do the five pound weight and then to 10 and then
you increase it.
And all of a sudden you're this one strong bitch.
Like how did we get here?
Yeah.
It was time and practice.
It was time and practice.

(35:51):
And I think a lot of people, we want to zoom through it.
Right.
You just want it to end.
Like as an addict, I definitely feel like I just make it stop.
I'm like, make it stop.
Right.
I drank because I like make the pain stop, make it go away.
And that is the long route.
The shortcut is the long route.
Period, full stop.
The shortcut is always the long route.
The shortcut is actually doing the work.

(36:14):
That's, that's, that's the cheat code is to get in there and get your hands dirty,
get your mind in there and do the work.
And it's hard.
And I think we avoid it a lot.
And I think a lot of times we can't see out of our own cloud.
Right.
I like to think of life as like, sometimes I'm like, I tell myself,
can you think about this as if you're outside of the snow globe, Nikki?
Right.

(36:34):
So you have this snow globe and you've shaken it up and your life has gone to shit
and it's all crazy and everything's messy.
And in the snow globe, you're still, whatever's in the snow globe is still like the structure.
If it's, let's call it the Statue of Liberty.
Right.
The Statue of Liberty is in there.
It's not broken.
It's not messing around.
It's still right.
Can we look at ourselves and our lives from outside of the snow globe and see it?

(36:57):
And allow the snow to settle and allow the glitter to settle because the snowstorm comes
and so do the glitter storms.
Like not everything is good all the time either, babes.
You know, it's just not like everything is transitional.
Everything is fleeting.
And that's why we have to like really try, stay where our feet are.
Stay right here.
Stay right now.
Even when that right now is hard.

(37:18):
I feel like me and Kendall can really relate.
We were very delayed in like dealing with our grief.
Me even longer than Kendall, but I feel like we were very late.
I think that's so true.
It's like the shorter route would have been dealing with it sooner.
It ended up being longer because not dealing with it.
And that feels like, yeah.
And like, oh, I'm handling it, but you're not really.

(37:41):
So it just made the journey a lot longer to get to where we are now.
And the shorter route would have been like, okay, let's sit with it and like feel those
feelings and handle it then.
And yeah, I beat Kendall with that because I took longer than she did.
But that's how we kind of connected.
We're both like had taken a while and now we're at this space.
We're like, we want to talk about it.
We want to share.
We want to help other people that are grieving so that maybe they will step out of it sooner

(38:05):
and like handle it sooner than we did by just like talking about it and hearing our conversation.
So really related to what you were saying.
Community is everything, like by the way.
And when you talk about these things that are really, really difficult or taboo to talk about,
you're not just healing other people, but I think we're also really healing ourselves.
Right.
The more we talk about it, the more like comfortable we get with it, the more we're

(38:27):
able to sit in our own shit and like move through it, right.
And clean house and clean it up and turn it into something bigger, better, which you're
doing by having this show.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
That brings us to the next topic you want to talk about was you've been so open talking
about your sobriety journey and you spark conversations about people that even want
to be like sober curious and like what that could look like.

(38:48):
And you're helping destigmatize people talking about being sober because I think people often
look at it as like this, like, oh, we want to talk about it.
That's your personal thing, but you don't do that.
You make it very open.
You share all the time.
I think it's one of the first things you said on our podcast was you mentioned that you
were sober and it's in your bio.
You're so open about that journey.

(39:08):
How did you find that strength or like, and make that decision to do that?
Because I watched, I think it was like a TikTok clip or something where like you hit it for
a while, like you hid that from other people and other people didn't know that you were
going to do that.
And we talked about you not, you know, not being public about it, but just even your
personal life, you kept it private and people didn't notice.
What made you decide to like, I'm going to do this, but then I'm like also going to share

(39:32):
that journey with other people.
Well, I think there was a lot of shame involved in it.
And like, I would like to also preface it by saying that like people who go into like AA,
for example, like anonymity is a spiritual foundation of the program.
Right.
And so people who choose to be anonymous, it is so important to keep them anonymous.

(39:53):
Right.
It's not our place to point out another alcoholic.
Like I would never, I would never like it.
It's like a core value.
I would never say, oh, that person's sober.
That's not my story to tell.
That is not my story to tell.
Right.
So for me, I was like, okay, this is my story to tell and I could not tell it and keep it
as part of my anonymity of the program that I'm working.

(40:15):
But I was like, mm-mm, people don't believe me.
Number one.
Number two, I'm talking about like people that matter.
You know what I mean?
Like I don't, I don't give a shit what other people think.
Like, but the people that matter aren't believing me and that doesn't feel good.
So there was that at play.
Also, there was a lot of shame with it.
Not necessarily that other people were putting on me, but I was putting on myself and I was
like, I'm so ashamed.

(40:37):
I'm so ashamed of this.
Like, how do I let go of the shame about it?
I have to talk about it.
I, for me, I was like, I have to talk about it.
There was this distinct moment, you know, somebody that I had been arguing with arguing
about something unrelated to being an alcoholic.
And the response was like, I don't even know why I'm arguing with you because you're drunk

(41:00):
and that's all you ever will be.
Yeah, right.
Super intense, right?
I was already like 14 months sober and I was like, oh, this is how you view me.
I am changing.
You can't see it.
And I might not be able to convince you to see it.
You might still see me this way no matter what I do.

(41:23):
But I have to start talking about this.
I have to start talking about this so that other people can get the help that they need.
So other people can see that anybody is susceptible to alcoholism.
Also, like I used to think that, oh, I have the job and I have the car and I have the
marriage and I have the this and I have this cush life.
Not me.
Alcoholics are like reserved for the lowest of the low, not I.

(41:45):
Right.
It was like a really fake sense of superiority.
And when anybody has this sense of superiority, it's almost always an inferiority complex.
It's almost always an inferiority complex because you don't really think you're that superior.
That's like coming from a place of deep, deep seated insecurity.

(42:06):
Right.
So me thinking I'm like above alcoholism, it was really humbling.
I was humbled.
And so it took me seeing somebody relatable to me that identified as an alcoholic.
And I was like, oh, my gosh, you were a prima ballerina.
You are this. You are that.
Oh, you're a doctor.

(42:27):
You're a teacher. You're a mom.
You're this.
Like all these people, these people that had their shit together that once upon a time did not.
And we're like in it.
There's a saying like you got your dark night of the soul, your worst day of your life under a bridge or on the floor of your penthouse apartment in the Upper East Side in Manhattan.
It's still the worst day of your life.

(42:49):
It's still rock bottom.
Right. Wherever you are.
So I think that there's a great equalizer there.
I think grief is a great equalizer.
I think that like we are all we all grieve like it is a great equalizer.
I think motherhood is an equalizer.
I think there's a lot of things in our world, like some of the hard stuff, right.
A lot of hard stuff.
They're equalizers.

(43:10):
You look like the L.A. fires an equalizer.
Horrible what's happening.
But like it equalized everybody who was going through that.
Yeah.
One time.
And talk about grief.
Right.
We could go on and on about all the things that are happening in the world right now.
So much could get very political and that might be messy.
So let's maybe move away from that.

(43:31):
We're going to get a spiral of those things of all those things.
Yeah.
So yeah.
Let's think about those things.
Yeah.
Rachel, we were having a spiral last night of just like oh gee.
But I like that you brought up like these equalizers because I think I was in the same place too thinking I have all these things.

(43:55):
Grief couldn't happen to me.
This doesn't happen to someone like me.
And then it does.
And it showed me I think same thing with addiction.
The reason I started seeking help for my grief because I realized I was tiptoeing on a line on a path I don't think I could have come back from.
I don't think I started going down taking bad habits.
And I was like this is not just something to smooth out the pain anymore.

(44:19):
This is becoming a daily harmful habit for myself.
And that's when it spurred me seeking out grief support and realizing yes so much of it was because of this pain I was harboring and not even addressing it originally.
Not even willing to reflect and look at it in the mirror.
And that self-reflection is so difficult especially when you're facing these very difficult things.

(44:42):
So what was that turning point for you when you decided to like commit to this to like focus and fix it and be like I'm changing my life today.
And I'm getting it back on track.
I'm not saying it's a perfect journey ever but you know it's kind of a decision you have to make for yourself.
I think it's like a one day at a time thing.
I remember like going to my first meeting when I was trying to get sober and they were like can you just can you give us 24 hours.

(45:07):
Do anything for 24 hours.
Can you do this one thing.
This one thing for 24 hours.
I'm like I don't think so.
Like can you do it for six hours.
I'm like probably not.
Like can I stay on the phone with you for the next 30 minutes and talk with you for a little bit and you just not do that while I'm on the phone with you for 30 minutes.
I'm like maybe.

(45:28):
Right.
And so sometimes it's not.
This is going to how I'm going to view the rest of my life.
I cannot do that because that is overwhelming.
If I think about the rest of my life I will combust.
Right.
I cannot handle the rest of my life.
I can't handle next week sometimes.
Right.
I can handle today.
Right.
And in the early days of my sobriety I was like I can handle five minutes at a time.

(45:52):
So maybe 24 hours was daunting at first and then it became like OK well you can't do 24.
You can give me eight.
No can't do eight.
We're going to do four.
You can't do four.
You can do 10 minutes.
Can you do 10 minutes.
OK we can do 10 minutes.
OK we're going to start there.
Right.
And so staying just a little bit longer.
Right.
And then the feelings pass.
And I think like when you have the power of community which is like what you guys are creating it's like you're going to be able to do it.

(46:17):
It's like you're not that unique.
You learn very quickly that you're not that special.
Yeah.
And I don't mean that you're not special.
I mean that is like your story that you carry so much pain about is not that unique.
You are not the only person.
There are thousands and millions of your story walking around every day.

(46:40):
Walking around every day.
And I think that's what's part of what's so difficult about dealing with grief is that we feel like we're the only ones like nobody.
You can't relate to this.
What do you know about my pain.
Yeah.
There are people that know a lot about your pain.
They're not talking to each other all the time.
We start to get out there and listen to conversations like these and you start to talk to other people.
You're like oh shit.

(47:01):
That person has my same pain.
It's just in different packaging.
She just got packaged differently.
But that's the same root feeling.
That's the same problem that I'm experiencing.
She just put it together in a different life experience maybe.
Yeah.
I feel like grief has been such a that connecting piece.
I mean like I feel like it just opens you up.

(47:23):
I feel like that's how Kendall became such close friends so quickly is like we're sharing this like deepest part of us that we didn't really share with other people.
And now we talk about it on podcast.
But it took that like opening up and feeling comfortable to speak about it that really changed everything and also put it in perspective because we talk to people and it's like oh wow your story is I don't like comparing and saying like it's worse or whatever.

(47:48):
But it's like that's a totally different experience than us and that seems really hard.
And it's just been really eye opening to like build that community and see like I'm not the only one that's lost both their parents and sister or had such an if you lost Kendall's not the only one that lost her dad.
But it puts it in a little bit of like you said like a lot of people are going through hard things.
You're not the only one with that chip on your shoulder like a lot of people have that.

(48:09):
And it makes you feel a little less alone and that like you carry it so heavily.
But you're like I'm not the only one.
And if other people are getting through it I can too.
And hopefully I can help other people by just sharing like it's hard for me.
I still cry frequently but like I'm doing my best to live a good life and put good things out there to like welcome good things back because I'm still here and I'm choosing to be here and I want to make the most of it.

(48:36):
And they loved me and they would be cheering me on like like you said you talk to your mom and you ask her things like I do that.
I kind of intertwine I think like prayer with like it's like dear God or dear mom or dear sister or dad.
I kind of do it interchangeably of like I'm just talking to somebody who there can maybe answer me or help me out and I kind of mix that all together.

(49:00):
And you talk about that with your faith and spirituality.
Like how do you think that's really helped your grief experience and not just like necessarily the death of your mom and your grandparents but like kind of just the grief you've experienced through other experiences of your life.
Because I think like religion and faith when people talk about it I think it can be kind of something where people either like it or either makes you closer to something.

(49:25):
Yeah or farther away from it.
And it's one of those things that like you go in either direction.
Yeah.
So I think when I was kind of like forced into like reckoning with whether or not I believe in God because like I had gotten to such a low point in my life that like I didn't want to exist anymore.
And I'm like what kind of God would do this to me would make me feel this way. There's no God.

(49:46):
Right. And then I had to come to a place where I was like baby girl you can't do this on your own.
Right. And I am at the time I was very anti religion because I did not believe in God because why would God do these things to me.
Right. I started to see glimmers of hope when I would pray.
And sometimes I wasn't even praying to God.
I was like just hooray. I'm like I could be praying to this water for all we cared about.

(50:12):
Like it didn't matter.
Like I was like here's my lipstick.
I prayed to the gods of the lipstick.
Like it didn't matter.
I would also literally get on my knees in a position of humility and pray and put my head in my hands and pray to I don't know what.
OK.
And I would pray that I could do God's will.

(50:33):
God if you're out there let me do your will.
Let me do something good.
Please give me the goodness to do the next right thing.
Just do the next right thing.
Not all the right things.
Just the next one.
Just the next one.
And then I'd like cross that bridge when I get there.
I'm like OK.
I did that one good thing.
Let me pray to God.

(50:54):
Please please give me the power to just please do the next right thing.
And then guess what you fuck it up.
Right.
Somewhere along the line you mess it up.
You mess it up and you're like oh see.
Those stories I told myself before when I was this big bad person or whatever story you're telling yourself.
I'm going to be alone forever.
This pain is too much for me to bear.
You just start over.

(51:15):
You just start over without an ego about it because a lot of people are like oh shit I don't want to start over.
Now I have to start from the beginning.
Yes babe.
Yes you do.
Yes you do.
You said something about how heavy how heavy it is to carry the grief.
And I think with community when you realize that like all these other people have similar stories to you I think part of letting it not be so heavy is like giving it to someone else to hold for a little bit.

(51:39):
And when you talk about it we talk about it with other people.
I think it does come a tiny bit less heavy because you're sharing it right.
You're sharing the load now.
It's not a mental emotional load that you have to carry by yourself.
You have people in your lives.
You have programs.
You have podcasts.
You have books that you can share the load with.
You don't have to carry it alone.

(52:00):
That's so true.
We had an episode with Girls Gotta Heal and she has this amazing like grief deck.
And she pulled cards.
Basically you talk about grief.
It opens up about grief.
And one of the cards.
That was awesome.
It's amazing.
She pulled two cards during her episode.
But one of the cards was basically like who is your rock or like who is your person or go to.

(52:21):
Who makes you feel the safest.
And it was one of those questions because like I had to say like myself currently because it would be my mom my sister and they're gone.
And I've had to reckon with I am my strength right now because I'm still building and I'm still finding myself like I can trust myself.
I can trust how I'm feeling with grief.

(52:42):
I can trust my decisions.
But I walk right now and I don't want that to be forever.
Like I'm single too.
Like I don't want that to be the forever case but right now it is what I need.
And because the people aren't there and they haven't been here for many years.
A few years ago I probably would even say myself.
I probably just be sad.
So it has been a lot of strength.
But it's like you need community and finding community has been so helpful.

(53:04):
But I realize like I am my rock.
But I'm proud of it.
It's a sad thing.
But it's like also I'm very proud of like that I can be my rock right now while I need it to be.
Kudos to you for that.
Kudos to you for that because I think like there's like I mean this sounds really harsh.
I'm going to say something that might be polarizing to your community.
Nobody's coming to save you.
You.
You get to be in charge of that.

(53:25):
It's a privilege for you to be the rock for yourself.
Like to have the wisdom and the grace that you can show yourself to be the rock.
Like there might be somebody who comes into my life down the road who's going to be like a compliment to my strength and my resilience and my love and my zest for life and my passion.
They are never ever going to define it for me.
I'm never going to be able to give somebody that power completely.

(53:48):
Like I take care of me.
I do believe that like nobody's coming to save me.
And who better to be my knight in shining armor than me.
Like I'm her.
I get to be that person.
I get to save me.
I get to be like the knight in shining armor in my life.
I get to be the hero of the story.
Like I get to be the hero of the story.
Yeah.
Like let's go from victim mindset to to Victor.

(54:12):
Right.
Like I get to write that narrative.
And so for me it's about it's been a lot about like reclaiming that that position of power in my own life.
Right.
And not succumbing to the darkness.
You know it's easy to come to the darkness.
It's easier to stay there.
It's hard to come out into the light.
It's hard to be your own savior.
It's hard to be your knight in shining armor.

(54:34):
It's hard to be the hero.
It's hard to be the hero.
In any Disney movie you've ever watched the hero had to do some hard work.
True.
I'm her.
Like I'm going to be her.
I love that.
I do too.
And it's like you mentioned earlier it's the fire you go through and that's your fire and you get to show off that you made it through.
To touch back on what you were mentioning earlier about service and how important that has been in your healing journey.

(55:00):
Can you explore that a little bit more and talk about how that has integrated itself into your journey and how are you talking about it with your family?
How are you talking about it with the people that keep up with you?
So I have been volunteering since I was a kid.
I started volunteering with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Miami when I was 17 years old.
And I've always had a mindset of philanthropy.
I'm not really sure where it came from.
I've just always been that way.

(55:21):
And when I was a school teacher I was teaching in an inner city middle school with kids that had a lot less than I did.
And you know it's funny you talked about like comparing pain right.
Like no one's pain is more severe than the others.
Like I remember witnessing that really really severely when I worked in an inner city middle school.
When a child came into my class he had taken five city buses to get to school.

(55:43):
Five city buses to get to school where he had to drop his younger.
He's in seventh grade by the way.
Like had to take all of his little siblings to their schools on the city bus before he could get to school which started at seven.
And he had to get there early enough to he could make it to the breakfast which was free and reduced breakfast.
Because this is the time these kids that's the meal they get.
They get the breakfast and the lunch at school and they don't know what they're getting after school.

(56:07):
Right. And I said to him oh my gosh child today's your birthday because I could see it right on my database.
I'm like oh my gosh happy birthday.
He goes it's my birthday.
And I'm like yeah babe.
Like yes it's your birthday.
He's I was like did your mom tell you it's your birthday this morning.
He's like my mom never wakes up in the morning when I go to school.
And I'm thinking I cannot relate to that life.

(56:30):
I cannot relate to that life.
But that is all that child knows.
That is that child's normal.
Right. Like that is that child's normal.
And so like you think about like there's no real comparison.
Like everybody's shit is everybody's shit.
Like and so I think my heart and commitment to service started when I was really young.
Then when I became a school teacher I started getting my dance team that I coach.

(56:51):
I started getting them involved.
Right. These are most kids in the inner city that think they don't have anything to give.
OK so we went down and volunteered with kids with special needs.
Yes you do have something to give those children.
Right. OK. Now they coach that dance team.
OK cool.
Now I come into you know I come into a little bit of wealth through my circumstances.
And I'm like what can I do.
All right. Well not only do I want to give my time which I've been donating since I was a kid.

(57:16):
But like now I have a little bit of money that I can invest in the community and things that I'm passionate about.
And I was able to give an art room to a school that I'm really really proud of having done.
More than anything I was really proud of myself.
I don't even like saying proud of myself but I was felt really fulfilled.
How about that.
I felt really fulfilled when I got to go back into the cancer wing after my son was in remission and talk to the other parents of the children who are going through this.

(57:42):
Because a lot of people feel for the kids that are going through it which is legit.
Right.
But it's really hard on a parent like I don't know how many nurses I yelled at because I definitely yelled at some nurses while I was attending chemo because I was so stressed out.
And I remember going back to them and like apologizing to them and they're like we don't know what you're going through.
We were here.
We're treating your kid.

(58:04):
But you're their mom.
And so like we can't tell you how to deal with this grief.
Right. And we don't take it personally that you snapped at us because whatever whatever.
Right.
So going back into the cancer wing and getting to talk to parents that were struggling with the reality the great possibility that something really terrible was happening to their child.

(58:27):
Being able to like be just a lending ear and just give or give them a hug like or just be like I understand.
That was really powerful for me.
Now my children and I are pulling some money together.
We're building a park in the Miami community.
A children's park where people can play.
It's a play forest.
And hopefully that will leave a lasting legacy for my children of understanding the power of community and and service.

(58:52):
And those are the things that I'm up to.
Beautiful.
With service.
And I'm still really involved with Big Brothers Big Sisters till this day.
So yeah.
That's amazing.
So that's a bit about your service.
And we talked a little bit about becoming her.
But you actually have launched a woman's empowerment group called Becoming Her.

(59:13):
Can you share a little bit about the inspiration for that and what you do with that group?
Thank you.
So I remember people would always be like do you do one on one coaching?
Do you do this? Do that?
Like you should totally teach a program.
I'm like I do not teach.
I am not the expert on life.
I do not know all the all the answer.
Yes.
I'm done with you.

(59:34):
You're done with what?
With dinner.
Okay.
We go take a bath.
Okay.
Yeah. Good idea.
Okay. So people are always asking me like to coach to give them.
Do I do one on calls?
I don't.
I don't pretend to have all the answers about life.
I don't.
I like I am not the guru.
Right.
What I am is a great connector.
And so what I've done with this community is I've given women the space to come together

(59:58):
and talk about all about life's obstacles in a space that is safe and a place where
we can have a little bit of fun with doing it.
Right.
A place that is light but serious at the same time.
We have weekly meetings and we have.
So I do like once a week check ins that we then have like supplemental like people do
like breakout groups and they have their own meetings.
And so there's this like web of women that are connecting with each other outside of

(01:00:19):
me.
Right.
Like they're like oh you do this.
You've been through that.
Oh you're going through divorce.
Oh you just had a baby.
Me too.
Like or whatever they're going on there's a place for them that they can come together
problem solve empower one another.
And everybody's on this trajectory of like I'm on the up and up girl.
Like I'm on the up and up.
Like I might be good right now.
And that doesn't mean I'm not grateful for like everything that I've accomplished or

(01:00:40):
overcome in my life.
But I'm still on the up and up.
I'm still going to get better.
I still want to evolve.
And I reserve the right to change my mind.
So this is a space where people can come together and really do that.
Also like in addition to the weekly meetings that we do I have experts in the wellness
industry that come and do like webinars guest webinars.
I release solo episodes that are just for the community.
And really what it is is a space for people to come together with like minded people like

(01:01:03):
minded women specifically on the biggest best glow up and homecoming of their lives.
I think that everybody's searching to come home to themselves.
I think that people really really want a deep a deep sense of inner knowing.
I think that people want inner peace and they don't always know how to get there.
But when you listen to other people you pick it up.
You pick up to bits along the way.
And again to the point of like power of community.
Like that's that's what I'm hoping to create with what I'm doing with becoming her.

(01:01:27):
That's incredible and so important in this day and age.
So we're about to wrap up the episode but we want to ask do you have any advice or last
last thought messages that you would want to give to the listeners or do you have a
thought about the next chapter of your journey just kind of like your last little piece to
claim the mic.

(01:01:48):
Yeah I think that if you are in the throes of depression of heartache of sadness of loneliness
of grief like if you're listening to this it's not a mistake.
You're meant to be here.
Like do not ever give up on yourself and you can reach out a hand.
There will be somebody who will grab it even if you think there's nobody there it will
be.
There will be.
There's help that's available to anybody who is sick and suffering whether it's grief or

(01:02:12):
addiction or any of the things that we've talked about today.
Like you are not alone.
Like this podcast in itself is a testament to that.
And I hope that if you are in the throes of that pain that there's a glimmer of hope here
for you and know that you're not here by accident.
You're not listening to this conversation by accident.
There's a reason for it and I want you to hold on to that hope.
Beautiful thank you.

(01:02:32):
That's amazing.
So do you have a book coming out because I feel like you need to write a book.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
No but um so The Know With Nikki Spoh is actually rebranding completely to Becoming Her.
So the podcast itself is actually going on a little hiatus so it's totally cool you introduce
it properly.
When you air this episode the podcast is still The Know With Nikki Spoh and so it was really

(01:02:55):
great is that this goes as a like a little low key announcement that the podcast is undergoing
a big rebrand and is actually becoming Becoming Her.
And I think that's a big reflection of like where I am in my life.
Thank you.
It's like a reflection of where I am and where I'm going in my life and where I think my
community is really growing with me as well and where they're they're coming along with
me for the journey.
So I love that so much.

(01:03:17):
I get something that Kendall and I really resonate with because we've been on this journey
of like kind of gaining confidence in ourselves again and and in this journey and what we're
doing and building community and it's like you're really trying to find yourself like
you said like becoming her I think that's the message.
It's like you need to become yourself like find yourself again like be home with yourself.
And that's such a powerful message.

(01:03:39):
So I love this conversation so much.
I could just like see Kendall really taking in so many things as well.
She's very expressive.
I'm like one of the tears every three seconds.
Aww. Kendall has such an expressive face so I can see what she's really like taking things
in.
I've also been like taking notes on the side.
I think Rachel's been watching me like look in the script and I'm like okay we got to note that.

(01:04:00):
We got to note that.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for this opportunity.
I really appreciate you both.
Well we're super grateful.
Yeah thank you for coming on.
Thank you for sharing your story.
I'm really excited for this episode.
I feel like there's going to be so many good like sound bites and little pieces of advice
that there's so many little things I don't want to miss anything.
Yeah I feel like we could have talked forever so I'm so grateful.

(01:04:22):
I know.
I was trying to make sure.
I gotta go to mom duties though.
Yeah I was like we need to wrap it up because your kids are like mom.
They're like we need to take baths mom.
They're like who's what?
They're like we need to get back to it.
But you know what to that point I also think it's important that they see me do this type of stuff.
You know what I mean because I think they're so little and they don't understand what I do.
They're just like what are you doing?
Yeah.

(01:04:43):
I think they're coming to know little by little and I think that's really cool too so I appreciate that.
Yeah that's what I'm saying.
That you tolerated and welcomed their little cat.
Of course.
Of course.
We totally get it.
Life happens right?
So yeah kids are a part of that.
So again thank you so much.
Thank you for listening to another episode of Two Girls with Grief podcast and we'll see you next week.