In this episode of The Best Ever You Show, Elizabeth Hamilton-Guarino and Dr. Katie Eastman dive into the beauty of wintering in South Carolina and the tranquility of finding peace in Anacortes, Washington—where the mountains meet the sea. We also share insights from our bestselling books, Uplifting and The Change Guidebook, and how their lessons apply to everyday life.Our main topic? Respecting each other's opinions and emotions in real-life settings. In a world that often feels divided, how do we navigate differences with kindness, patience, and understanding? Tune in for heartfelt conversations, real-life strategies, and a little laughter along the way.👉 Listen now and let’s explore what it means to live, love, and respect—together. 💙
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Visit us at BestEverYou.com for more information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi everybody, and welcome to this edition of the Real
Life Podcast. I'm Elizabeth Hamilton g Garrino. Yeah, I know,
my name Katie with the fabulous doctor Katie. Well, I've
editing software with me here in South Carolina, so that's
going out the door like that. Elizabeth Hamilton Garrino is
my name. I love it anyway, Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Katie, Hello, I so relate to that. You know, I
just have had the weirdest sleep these days. Woke up
with an earthquake, first time in my life. The bed
was shaking, but it was pretty funny because I yelled
at my husband. I said, John, it's an earthquake. It's
a real earthquake, and he's like, Nats the cats.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
NAT's yeah, Well we were, you know, we had one
of those Inane a little bit ago and it and
it sounded like a freight train was coming and it
rolled underneath us, and we both looked at each other like,
that's an earthquake. And sure enough, that was an earthquake,
and they was that Did it sound really loud or
was it just bumpy?
Speaker 2 (00:58):
It didn't last long, so I don't know. I had
a fan going and so I didn't really notice what
it sounded like but it was. It was something, but
more importantly it was the shaking. It was just bizarre.
The whole house was shaking.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Yeah. Yeah, so we had to leave on a hill.
So yeah, it was yeah, yeah, well good, I'm glad
everybody's okay. And I looked when I saw it, I
woke up because I'm on the East coast. Katie's on
the west coast. I look, I'm like, oh man, they
had an earthquake. And I always make sure there's no
tsunami warning in case I need to, you know, call
you and like get out of there. You always say
(01:34):
you're high enough.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Up though, so yeah, we are, We are high enough.
But if we're in our office down below in the marina,
we're toast. But we know that when there's an earthquake
to go up to a house.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Yeah. We left Maine about six weeks ago to do
winter someplace out. So we're actually in South Carolina in
Myrtle Beach, as you know and the audience now knows.
But we're we're in this fabulous kindo that we rent
every year, and this side's the golf course and this
side's of the beach. So life's kind of kind of
(02:10):
sweet right now, and so you can kind of it's
one of those moments where you can kind of tune
out the world a little bit and get to anyway
or whatever. And then like over the over the weekend,
a fire erupted, so we actually have a wildfire blazing
in South Carolina of all places, which is pretty trippy.
It's like two miles that way from us, and like
(02:33):
all weekend long, the planes and the helicopters were going
over the golf course with water, so things that you
what do we say, Katie, No one's immune anymore?
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Maybe, oh no, shit happens everywhere, yeah, yeah, and you just, yeah,
you just have to figure out how do you find
your beach walk in the midst of it. And we went,
there's a beautiful place in Washington. It reminds me of
this combination of the state of Washington and New England
(03:01):
because it's got this beautiful field and it's way on
top of a cliff and you can see the mountains
in the distance that are all covered with their white
capped and it's just the most beautiful natural setting. And
we went the other day. We just went to feel
what you're talked about, you know, just get away from
(03:22):
the world, just kind of escape into nature, which is
such a beautiful thing to do. So I feel really
blessed to be able to go do that. I really do.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Yeah, I feel super blessed. We've been taking lots of
beach walks and things like that, and even like we
came down here Covid year even and it was an
escape where we could be alone and be on the
beach and be wherever and things like that. So I've
been coming down here for quite a while. But it's
nice when there's turmoil or whatever and you can take
(03:56):
your moments. I was really happy to see you out
on the beach. Yeah, I was like, there she goes,
she's getting some peace.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
It's important, it is, And I think you don't have
to have a beach or you can actually do it.
And I do it every morning before anybody gets up.
I have my little chair that I have by the window,
and I have my little coffee thing and and I
sit and I listen to these vibrations that soothe me
(04:26):
every morning, and that's my quiet, peaceful time. You can
do that anywhere. You don't have to be in a
beautiful setting. You can be in a corner of your apartment.
But it's peaceful. You're creating peace, and I think that's
just really important for everyone to do, no matter what's
going on in your life.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Yeah, and I think some of us have those skills
from COVID because COVID still rocked us to the very
core that we do. I calm down, like Peter and
I we would drive to home depot in the South Portland,
Maine and we would sit there by the pond and
I would just bring my camera and like watch the
blackbirds or the little beaver that was in the pond
(05:06):
and just do things that were peaceful. Or we'd get
in the car and drive somewhere, or there's all sorts
of things. But I love you forgot to mention that
usually in the morning you have a cat on your
lap because bring us amazing piece too and are a
great source of of peace and tranquility when just don't
(05:28):
when you're vibrating on all all scores and sentence, when
there's when there's.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
An overload and it's really but don't trip over them,
almost dying if you drip, so be careful.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
So yeah, so we were gonna we were gonna talk today,
you know, we that it's I'm glad we're both in
great places, and I'm and i'm I'm. I keep hearing
I'm jealous that you're at the beach Elizabeth or whatever,
and I'm like, you know, we trade off. Like we
were just talking to Peter and I were just talking
to somebody earlier. They do their thing in April, like, oh,
(06:07):
I'm so jealous of you right now. It's very so
cold up here in New England. I'm like, yeah, but
you go to Florida for like the whole month of
April and it's not that great in Maine, then, so
do you get your moment? So I think it's important
to know that we all trade off these moments of
whatever it is, peace, unhappiness, happiness, joy, you know, whatever
it is. We're trading off moments all around, and not
(06:30):
everybody's going to like line up to have the same
thing happening yet exactly the same same time.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Oh yeah, absolutely, and we all have different plays. I mean,
I'm sixty four years old. I didn't have my view
of the water until I'm sixty four years old, so
I it took a long time. I have had that
in my heart's desire for years and years and in years,
I still have a pool in my heart's desire yet,
(06:58):
so that I may be eighty by that, but still
we all have our own needs. But you have to
figure out how to find that solace, that rejuvenation in
your own backyard, in your own way. I mean, I
remember being in Boston and man, there was just nothing
(07:19):
around in terms of nature that I could find. But
I created it by a little corner of the apartment
with plants, and when I was in seminary, that's what
I did to kind of give myself that peaceful space.
So you can do it anywhere. You don't have to
have the beach, but some of us are blessed that
(07:40):
we've got someplace to walk.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
So brings us to the topics of the day, right,
that's our topics of a day.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
So it kind of brings it out that we're all
in different places, we all have different times when we're
more uncomfortable than other people might be, and how do
we deal with that. Like my best example of that
is when I oftentimes will work with people who have
(08:09):
a diagnosis of cancer and they'll describe to me going
into the grocery store and people that they thought were
their friends, not close friends, but acquaintances enough to call
them friends. Will walk the other direction to avoid them
because they don't know what to say, and how hurtful
that is for them, because they don't want you to
(08:32):
deny that you're in a good space. If you know,
you just got a promotion and you're excited, you're going
on vacation, and they have cancer, they're not asking you
to stop being where you're at. They just want you
to be kind. And that's what they all say to me.
They all say to me, don't not talk to me
about positive things because I have cancer. I want to
(08:54):
hear your positive things. Will avoid me?
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
I mean, have you ever had that situation where you're
in a crappy place and somebody's joyful and or the
opposite where you don't know what to say, so you
just kind of like, well maybe if I you know,
avoid them, or I don't think you would ever avoid
somebody now, but I.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Mean when you were younger, not lolly, or if I'm
miserable and somebody else is happy, you know, it's it's
it's all over the place. I think. I think a
spot for that is social media, where you scrow. Just
take one look through your feet and you'll see everybody
posting different things. And sometimes it's here's you know, here's
(09:41):
where I'm on vacation, or here's my new car, or
here's my new house, or and you might shrink back
and feel small because you might not have those things,
or you might feel jealous of those things or whatever
it is. So, but you know, we were we were
talking about how earlier when we were talking about the show,
(10:02):
we were talking about you know, everybody's everybody has a
different reality, and everybody has a different perspective. And again,
not everybody may be joyous in this moment, and not
everybody may be sad in this moment or these moments
or whatever moments they have. So how do you how
do you think we should manage that as people? I
(10:23):
think is the conversation for today, don't you think? Like
between us?
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Yeah, I think what we're talking about is show up. Yeah,
show up, be there for people, and regardless of where
you're at, Because the number one thing anybody who I've
ever worked with who's in pain for whatever reason they
say it hurts them the most is when people don't
(10:46):
show up, when they avoid them, when they when they're
so uncomfortable not knowing what to say, that they just
don't say anything that hurts them the most. So I
think showing up me it means so many different things.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Well, yeah, I worked, Oh yeah, being kindly. I worked
with old lady who was at work for a long
time really miserable and almost got to the point where
she would exclude herself from everyone because she had so
much going on in the background of her life that
was making her sad. That every time she went to
(11:24):
the bake breakroom and people were laughing or people were joyful,
or people were this or that, she felt like she
didn't fit in and she couldn't fake joy in the moment.
So like she really was sort of schlepping to work
every day baseline very sad, and she had a real
inability whatever to bring herself up out of the sadness
(11:50):
to experience really even any joy or any happiness even
in herself in others and so forth, And she felt
like she would shrink back because she felt like it
made her really hard to be around.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Yeah, they're so that is such a common thing with
people grieving. Yeah, because we have this really big, big
misunderstanding about grief that it goes away, go away.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
It doesn't.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
It doesn't, And depending on the situation, it likely will
go on for years cook a few years, depending on
the loss. You know, look at Dolly Parton, she's just
lost her husband of sixteen years. You think she's gonna
stop grieving anytime soon. No, she's going to agrieve for
(12:39):
the rest of her life, off and on. And so
what we don't understand about that is we've got to
learn how to be comfortable with discomfort. Yeah, other people's discomfort.
We need to show up even if it's uncomfortable, and
just be clear that you don't know what to say,
but you're here.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
It's like my mom on Valentine's Day. My parents were
married forever. You know, this would have been their fiftieth anniversary,
and you wanted to call them up, and call both
of them up. Unfortunately, my dad passed away in twenty eighteen,
and you want to be like, happy fiftieth anniversary. So
you know, you could just feel my mom's just intense
pain on Valentine's Day. She like wanted to be happy
(13:19):
because there's grandkids everywhere, and well Valentine's and so much
love and this and that, and then there's this other
division of her that is just deeply, deeply just in
sorrow and grief and everything, and she's almost she said
she was trying to almost bake it through.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Yep, yep.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
I have so many clients that will come to me
and say they fake it all the time just so
other people will feel more comfortable.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Comfortable.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Yeah, But then there's also the flip, people who don't
come up to them because they're really happy and they
don't know how to share their joy. Like, for example,
someone when I went through infertility, when someone was pregnant,
they didn't want to tell me because they didn't want
to make me feel bad. Well, of course it, of
(14:07):
course it was hard, but I was happy for them,
and what made me more sad is that they didn't
tell me.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
So I think it's really important for people to recognize
when someone's uncomfortable because they're going through a hard time.
It doesn't mean we shut down our joy.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Yeah. I've had the opposite of that happen. I've been
pregnant and felt like I've had to tiptoe around four
people who had fertility issues and you could feel almost
the rage, like, oh, I'm not going to your baby
shower and it's like, oh my goodness, you know kind
of thing. And and so the other side of that
(14:47):
was like so much, so much rage geared at me.
You know, it's like I'm sorry, you know, and I
would have that hard have comments at me like oh,
you know, like this is you know, all people have
to do is breathe on you, you know, just mean,
mean spirited things. You know, you've got so many kids
and how many more are you going to have? And
I don't even have one, and I'm like, oh my goodness,
(15:09):
I've had everything said to me on that score as
a mother of four sons over the years. It's wild,
wild and other things. So yeah, there's there's awareness on
both sides, and you just have to hug the person
and just be like, I'm so sorry. It is it
is difficult for you, you know.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Yeah, and who's.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
To say this is a breeze for me either though,
you know, as people well night in childbirth and our
son almost died in childbirth. You know, it's not like
an easy thing. And I've said missed before too and
things like that. So yeah, that's a that's a tough
one because you're i think it's so important to stop,
pause and be aware of other people and and put
(15:54):
yourself in their shoes and see the both sides of everything,
because you can see some like cruel things to people
and not even be aware of it.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Right right, And you know, we're people go through hard
stuff and then we also have moments of great joy. Yeah,
just because someone's going through a hard time doesn't mean
they don't want to hear your joy. I when I
go here's a real tip for anyone out there who
has struggled with this. But when I go to a
(16:24):
baby shower, I tell the person ahead of time that
I never was able to have a child through birth
give birth. So whenever in the baby shower, which inevitably
comes up, they start talking about the drive to the
hospital and how horrible birth is and how painful it is,
(16:45):
I always warn the hostess ahead of time, host or
hostess that I'm going to leave at that point and
I'm just going to go to take a walk, go
get a cup of coffee, go to the bathroom, and
that if they happen to be around for a hug,
I'll take it. And that has worked beautifully for me
because I've been able to show up for baby shouters,
(17:06):
but take care of myself and not fake it, be
joyful for the person who's having the baby, and also
honor my own grief. So there's a way to do both.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Yeah, it's what a cool moment. That would be almost
even for you to share your adoption story though, well
I do, but yeah, now, yeah, but not the same
Oh it's it's or is that like not doesn't fit
in to them? I think you'd be really, I'd be
I'd welcome that if I was sitting there, I'd be like,
(17:37):
you know what, all of us are different because my
mom is a human being who's had kids.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Oh yeah, oh I've done that.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Yeah, and it's and it's and it's fabulous. So yeah,
but yeah, I think, oh yeah, women, Now it feels
like it feels like things have become less and less
stigma and more and more talked about. So I bet
now in a setting people would be like, whatever, you know,
come on in and tell us your adoption story. And
you know, because it's not all it's not all perfect,
(18:02):
and and a lot of things end in cesarean which
isn't easy, and a lot of things, you know, the
birth processes all over the place with people. So it's
not that easy we were talking about earlier, but I
loved the story that you had about your friend at breakfast,
(18:23):
And oh you would share this because you know, we're
talking about groups and settings and difficult chats and easy
chats and joy and sadness and happiness and kind of
all over the place with her, with all the things
that we feel when we're in a group setting. But
one of the things we can feel is very excluded.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Absolutely. I was in a situation where we were gathering
as a group to go out and just have breakfast,
and and someone in the group was going through a really,
really hard time. She had just gotten some very bad
news about her job, and the group kind of several
(19:05):
people in the group were so well bent on nothing,
we are not going to talk about anything uncomfortable, And
so I watched this woman silence herself and be silenced
because nobody else was having a hard time. And that's
not okay to me, is that she felt she had
(19:28):
to be silent about what was going on with her.
And I really wish people would understand that just because
someone else is uncomfortable, you got to learn how to
be with their discomfort you just do or you got
to be upfront about I'm so sorry, but I can't
(19:49):
handle this right now. It's too much for me. There's
nothing wrong with that, but shutting them down and shutting
them up not okay. And that's what I watched happen.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
It sounds like the rules of your group got shifted
in a like a non like like it the group
rules got changed and nobody was aware. Like it might
have been a group you would have never joined if
you knew the way.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Yeah, it was like it was like, this is a
fun group, no room for anything other than fun, and
that is not the way that group used to be.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Do you think it was that moment and just that once,
or do you think it's the way the group will
be from now on? Because like, because there's just so
many difficult topics going around right now that nobody knows
what's safe and what's going to set people off or whatever.
So so here's the question, though, then what the what's
the definition of happy topics then that we're allowed? Is
(20:45):
there a list like you can talk about puppy dogs and.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Dogs yeah, I mean, you know, yeah, rainbows and puppies,
but you know, and and I feel like, what's really
good about it is that someone articulated regardless of what's
going on in the world, I refuse to talk about it.
I don't want to think about it. I'm living my life.
(21:09):
I'm done with it. And everyone else was like, wow, okay,
so does that mean we all have to do that?
But and so everybody that rule changed. Yeah, and so
now we get to tubes and really the first it
(21:31):
was really clear, this is where I'm at, this is
what I'm doing, this is how I'm doing it. And
that's fine as long as you don't have somebody else
who's hurting and you're shutting her down before she even
has a chance to say something's wrong.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Do you think that people were saying, look, this isn't
the right time or appropriate moment to share this sadness
and things like that, or it always been a group
where you talked about anything, and then all of a
sudden appointed themselves head of the group and changed the
rules to rainbows and puppy dogs and kim cats and
whatever else is they have had enough of whatever.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Yep, that's what happened.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Yeah, that's an interesting group. I'll be interested in the
next show to hear if you went back for more
or no.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
I think that in this time period, in this time
period in the world, I belong with a different group probably,
And I went back to this person who was silenced,
and I reached out. Several times. I've reached out and said,
how you doing? What's happening? Because I'm perfectly comfortable with
being engaged in that conversation, and that's okay that not
(22:40):
everybody is absolutely fine.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Well, the other thing you to change.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
The rules, tell people ahead of time.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Yeah. And the other thing too, is not everybody's equipped
with your skill set either. You know, you kind of
got an eagle eye view on that whole group, that
whole table, you know, of everything, all the dynamics. Oh yeah,
I think people don't have that and they just know. Look,
this hurts my heart right now. I don't want to
talk about it. I just want to be with my
friends and rainbows and puppy dogs today. And maybe that
(23:09):
could have been said better, Like you know, every other
meeting is happy. I don't know how to solve the
I'm trying to solve it now because I know it's
a group that you like, and it's like, okay, how
do you how do you you know. I was in
a group once where it's like, I can't remember, it
was like two flower petals and a thorn or something.
I remember, Oh.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Yes, oh yeah, I was teaching college.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
You go around the room and you share two two
flower petals in a thorn. It's like, maybe you guys
need that two flower petals in the thorn or two
rose petals in a thorn.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
You know. I don't know, but I think the point
the point of it is is don't shut someone down. Yeah,
it's absolutely fine to have your own level of comfort,
but recognize that other people are in a different.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Place, well, especially if like it's a group that they've
relied on for those moments forever and ever too, and
then you just like feel silenced or whatever. It's tough.
And yes, so it's interesting, but I imagine that's probably
indicative of a lot of things happening right now. That
kind of reminds me of like a holiday table. It
(24:19):
still does. It does. It's kind of like, Okay, here's
the Thanksgiving rules, everybody, just yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Yeah. I used to do this with families that would
come to me for counseling around and before the holidays.
Because they had so many conflicts going on, And what
they would do is they would create a piece preamble
before so they'd have rules of topics that were off limits,
how we're going to speak to each other, how we're
(24:49):
going to communicate, and they would really have nice thanksgivings
as a result because the rules were set up aheut
of time. So I'm kind of encouraging people figure out
work level of comfort. Do you want to talk about
stuff right now? If you don't, that's fine, but be
clear about that. And don't ever avoid someone going through
(25:12):
a hard time because you don't know what to say.
Don't ever avoid someone in the grocery store or in
the pharmacy, or or if you're having happy news and
they're going through cancer treatment, don't avoid them. Just say
I don't know what to say, or I just wanted
to tell you, how I give you what.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
I want you is a good questions.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Just showing up, how.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Are you doing is a fair question? How are you
right to tell you?
Speaker 2 (25:41):
Because I'll tell you what as somebody who went through
infertility and watched a lot of people have babies. Man,
if anybody ever did that to me, I'd run after them.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Well, I have dinner envy. I have tremendous dinner envy
with life threatening food allergies.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Yeah, of course you.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
And I was in my early twenties working and traveling
and my job. I never had a food allergy ever,
and I could do anything, fit in anywhere. Now. I
went through a really, really big phase a thousand years
ago where I was really jealous of everybody eating, like
you can't eat that, you know kind of thing. But
it's kind of going away because we cook and do things.
(26:22):
But I still I still crave, like, Okay, where can
I go out for dinner? Where is it? It's usually
like steak, potato green beans is real safe, so that
points to something expensive, right right, the nearest expensive steakhouse.
And then I don't have dinner envy anymore. But I
do have a lot of dinner and buffet envy and
(26:43):
things like that. And it makes you not fit in.
It makes you leary to show up in a crowd
where everybody can eat anything they want and you can't,
and there's and you know, do you really want to
hang out in the crowd of everybody that can't eat
anything and you can't eat I don't know. That's kind,
you know, So it's funk. It's a really funky dynamic,
(27:06):
and that's it's just another example of how people feel isolated,
how they feel left out, how they feel unheard, how
they feel But as you tell people what's going on,
people do really nice things. We had a we had
a cookout in our neighborhood and a couple of us
have food allergies, and people made food for us, which
(27:28):
is a historically very dangerous thing. And most people are like,
I'm not eating no matter what you made for me,
thank you very much. But they were like, here's the bag.
Even you can see what's in it, you know, here's
everything that's in this end, the ingredients and the you know,
you're you're okay. And and my daughter has the same
allergies as you and watch her eat it, you know,
kind of thing. And people do very nice things for
(27:51):
you once they know. Generally, yes, most people are free
to be it's kind of ringy. Yeah, most people want to.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
Most people want to be kind. And it's not kind
to avoid someone because you don't know what to say.
That's not kind, that's really hurtful. And and and they
see you by the way they see you.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
And.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
That's a good point. Yeah, they do see you walk
the other way or whatever.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
You And trust me, if anybody ever did that to me,
I would I would run after why are you avoiding me?
Speaker 1 (28:24):
You know? In the show, I want to go back
to something that we've been saying. We only have a
couple of minutes left. We've been calling everything that we
do and this is a Katie for We call it
a katieism. She has termed the phrase no fluff zone,
which I really love for our books. And we have
a new book coming out, the Peace Guide Book, which
(28:45):
is coming out in twenty twenty six. No, you can't
reorder it yet. We're not done writing it. We're still
we're still working on it. But no fluff zone is
a thing we say, and it's part of our podcast,
part of our books, and part of our everything. And
Katie explain what that is, because it's it's so needed.
It's yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
Okay, So, how many of you have read The Velveteen Rabbit. Yes,
I mean, of course we've all heard of The Velveteen Rabbit.
The Velveteen Rabbit is all about authenticity and showing up
with your rough spots and being real and letting people
help you and helping others. That's what we're talking about,
(29:23):
a no fluff zone. Don't pretend you're fine when you're not.
Don't pretend everything's okay and hide your suffering or your struggle.
And also don't pretend that you're not joyful when you've
got great news. Be real, show up like the velveteen
rabbit and be real with your real hard things and
(29:47):
your real joyful things and everything in between. Be real.
And that's why we call this real life because we
really want people to. I mean, life is so much
more rich and rich shame when you're authentic and real
and not when you hide or pretend or stuff or
(30:08):
you know, minimize or any of that crap. It's just
show up like the velveteen rabbit and be real and
then just think of the warmth and fuzzy, warm fuzzies
you're going to get.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
Well. Yeah, it's super important. And I think it's important
to hold up our books too at this moment too,
because we both have books that support that. If you
don't know what that means, to be your authentic self
and find your heart and find your truths and be
comfortable showing up real and authentically as you. You've got
a book you hold up uplifting, uplifting. Uplifting is go ahead,
(30:44):
you talk about uplifting.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Well, why I wrote up Uplifting is because it's stories
of loss that people have transformed into growth. And it's
a perfect example of all these really inspiring stories of
people that went through really hard stuff but they learned
how to manage it, but not just manage it, to
grow from it and make it something positive and purposeful.
(31:09):
And I think that that's my whole our whole point
is don't run away from your difficult things. Let them
be stepping stones.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Yeah, and so, and then I've got the Change Guidebook,
which hold uplifting up again because we always have similarities
in our books. We love yellow and we've got a
lot of color similarities and things like that. It's and
it's pretty fun and not intentional at all, but it
just stends to be. But so this is this is
a Change guide Book, how to align your heart, truths
(31:38):
and energy to find success in all areas of your life.
And in here are twenty contributors. There's amazing stories of
people who have gone through changes in their life and
how they made those changes. Some good, some bad, So
it is all over the place with it. But I
think the heart of the book is really that is
(32:01):
thinking with your heart, showing up authentically and really living
your truths and so forth, and helping people get there.
The end of the book is this amazing chapter about
impact and your impact on the world, and the book
is closed out by former Senator Olympia J. Snow and
her story of being orphaned at a young age. So
(32:22):
she's right here in the book the very end of
the book, and she and joined in that chapter. She's
with Haley Stark, who had a spinal stroke in high school,
one of Quaid's friends. But my own kids contributed to
the book, and quaids in here, and Bryan Esposito's in here,
and there's just a ton of people in here that
(32:43):
show stories of how they change their lives through some
of the most difficult moments too that you know, sometimes
the contentional changes like okay, I want to lose hundred
pounds or whatever, and other times it was like, uh, oh,
I just joined the club. I did not ever intend
on joining. How am I going to navigate this? What
am I going to do? And how am I going
(33:03):
to get through this and stuff. And I think one
of the things that both hold your book up again,
you know both of this is a both of these books.
I think if you go back, and I'm going to
be choppy in this message, but if you go back
and turn our clocks back all the way back to
two thousand and eight when we met, you taught me
a lot about change and growth and grief and loss
(33:26):
and best being your best in all of these things.
And the book I'm not holding up is our book
called Percolate, Let your Best Self Filter Through, which kind
of led like led us in these directions of creating
all of these books and doing the things that we're
doing now and stuff. And it's it's just been a
really cool process to see us change and grow and
do the things that we're doing and finding right here.
(33:47):
And I think anytime you shift from here to here,
it's just really a good moment all the time.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
And really that's what no Fluff is all about, is
we have both been through hard stuff. We've worked with
people who've gone through hard stuff. We show up. We
show up for them, we show up for ourselves. We
show up like the velveteen rabbit with authenticity and with
(34:16):
an intention for growth. And that's what we're trying to
help people understand is that you'll have a much better,
more peaceful, meaningful life if you show up.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Yeah, I'm going to I'm gonna do if you don't mind,
I'm going to take five more minutes of our time
and talk. I do want to close the show out
with emotions. Oh, any kind of emotion, because we show
we when we show up emotionally to something that can
make people shut down, run, you know, don't want to
(34:49):
be around you, or whatever. And it can be any
kind of emotion, whether it's anger emotion or rage emotion,
or a happy emotion or whatever it is. Do you
want to talk a little bit about emotions and the
roles that they play in a group setting? Sure leadership?
I kind of hang on a second. I kind of
(35:09):
want to go at this from I'll chime into like
a leadership perspective. When you're in a group, you know,
what's the tone, right, Read the room? Yeah, I know
you're going to say that, read the room.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
Everybody in a group, the leader's role is to ensure
that everyone is heard. Now I'm a consensus leader, so
that's you know, that's kind of the leadership. I'm a
compassionate care leader, so I teach leadership from that perspective.
And reading the room means leave space for anyone's experience.
(35:51):
So your own emotions need to be managed enough that
allows for space for someone else to feel what they're feeling.
So it's got to be okay for someone to feel
whatever they're feeling. You don't have to take it on.
You don't have to fix it, but you can show
up for it with kindness and presence. Yeah, and that's
(36:14):
all you have to do, show up with kindness and presence.
You don't have to give them answers. You definitely shouldn't
give them platitudes, but just be and that's good leadership.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
Yeah, sometimes you need Yeah, sometimes sometimes you've got to
have tools to lobby the ball back into their court too,
because people can be boundary jumpers with emotions a lot
of the times too. So it's it's I think it's
really important to you don't because sometimes people feel like
they're in that spot where they've got to give advice
and you don't have to, and you can you can
(36:50):
ask really clever questions that just bounce it back over,
like what do you think about that. How are you
just all day long go back and forth with questions.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
Yeah, I was on a call the other day and
we were all talking about when someone is really sick,
what not to say. Don't say I'm so so sorry
because that just makes him feel Okay, It's like, I'm here,
What do you need? And I do anything for you?
(37:24):
What do you need? Do you want me to just
sit here? Do you want me to read you a book?
Do you want me to talk to this silent? Do
you want me to whatever? And read the room?
Speaker 1 (37:36):
And we.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Got to read the room.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Yeah, I gotta share. I'm going to talk about my
dad's I see you room for a minute. Yeah, like
all came up just a minute ago as you were
talking talk about reading the room. Like we're in there
trying to keep this man alive. Right, we're in coats
because he's got a on ice and just all sorts
of crafts happening to keep my dad alive, right, and
we're all our baseline is like we're fighting. Yeah, you
(38:04):
would have people we're fighting room, you know, we're we're fighting.
It's all going on, you know kind of thing, the
pictures everywhere, all this stuff. We would get people who
would come in and be like it's time to give
up now, you know, and you're like, keep away from us,
you know kind of thing. We're fighting, Go away, you
(38:24):
know kind of thing. But you it's and and we
would get people, even relatives come in and you can't
like control what's going to come out of somebody's mouth.
But my mom almost I went through the hospital roof
when one family member came in touched my dad's hand
and said it's okay, you can let go now. My
mom just about went crazy. You know, So you can't
(38:45):
control what people are going to say. I'm just I'm
I have a smile on my face. I'm picturing my
mom just like, you know kind of thing. And so
she put she wasn't We weren't aware that people would
do that. We thought everybody was, you know kind of thing,
not like give upload. And so she put a put
a block on like the only certain people are coming
(39:08):
in here because I know your vibe around him and
everybody else will keep you updated. And the group got
real small. Even even one of the doctors was like,
we were like putting arms around one of the doctors
at one point because he was like there's nothing more
I can do. I'm like, sure there is, let's go,
you know kind of thing because we were like delusionally
(39:28):
positive about things, and which worked, by the way, because
he survived way longer than any human you know, probably
should have or could have in those circumstances. It was.
It was crazy miracles happening.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
Yeah. We used to call that the what is it called?
We used to call that flunking hospice.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
Yes, thank god, right, and.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Good hospice workers as as I've been trained as a
hospice social worker, you know better. You read the room.
You read the room, which is what in my father's case,
he was in a palliative care unit in a hospital.
Our family was gathered around saying goodbye. We were all crying,
We're all really sad. We were feeling what we were feeling,
(40:15):
and this perky nurse came flying in the door and
she goes, so, mysteries, man, how are you today? Opposite
my father, I've never been more proud of. My father
was Jesus Christ. I'm dying. How the hell do you
think I feel? You know.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
It?
Speaker 2 (40:33):
Yeah, so you just don't know. Both sides of this
are equally important and valuable read the room.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
Yeah, that's that's and apply that toward whatever you've got, everything, everything, everything, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
Everything, show up like the velveteen rabbit. Be be more
comfortable with other people's discomfort.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
Yeah, and then show up. I think the other thing
too is I don't know how to articulate this exactly,
but we know from being in the in a hospital
setting for that long, Uh, you could it was the
feeling of the doctors and nurses sometimes was palpable with
their their sorrow and there. Yeah, they're used to people
(41:20):
not walking out of ic you clearly, and so when
you're around them and you're hopeful, they try and tell
you to not be in some case you know, kind
of not not exactly like that, but they try and
give you the real life scenarios of what usually happens.
And we found people were trying to embrace us for
the inevitable or this or that, and it was very
(41:42):
frustrating to us because we wanted to be positive around
him and stuff like that, and so we had a
real wide variety of people around him, and and.
Speaker 3 (41:53):
It just was really interesting, yeah, really interesting lesson in
process of what the usual process is versus the miracle process.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
And the fact is as a healthcare worker, they have
to do that.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
Oh yeah, they do.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
So it's it's how they deliver that. Because my training
was you always hold hope for cure while preparing for death.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
Yeah, you do both.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
You do both, you offer both. So in everything, it's yes,
And it's no matter what crappy thing is happening in
someone's life, you hold hope for something positive to be
to be learned from it. And that's that's what we're
all about. And that and the way you do it
(42:43):
is you lift yourself up and you let other people
lift you up, and you lift up others and you
don't run away from people's pain.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
Yeah, what's the hardest part of this for you? We
were talking about that, that being a question we were
going to ask each other. When you don't feel like
you fit in with a group of people, what do
you do and what is the hardest part for you?
And then we'll end.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
I think this showed up when I used to do
hospice for children, and that is a definite downer when
you're at a cocktail party. And when I once had
a thing where I was at a fundraiser and I
was sitting next to this woman, and she asked me
what I did for a living, and I told her, well,
(43:28):
I run a children's hospice program, and she literally turned
away from me and stopped speaking to me and didn't
speak to me for the rest of the night. I
wonder what It was really really really painful, And the
irony is the fundraiser was for my program, but she
just couldn't talk to me there. And I felt like
(43:52):
such a pariah because I cared for dying kids and
it's like, excuse me, people, somebody's got to do it,
you know, and why not me?
Speaker 1 (44:04):
And why not the most compassionate person on the planet.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
There you go, Yah, Well, but but that's turning away
from me because you're uncomfortable for some reason was hurtful
and painful. If she had some story behind it and
just had said, wow, that must be really hard. I'm
really uncomfortable with that. I would have been fine, but
she just rejected me, and it was really really hard.
(44:30):
And so I would just say to everyone out there,
don't just walk away from someone, Yeah, show up, tell
them why, yeah, don't run away from the grocery store.
Don't just don't.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
Do that, yeah yeah, No, And I think the hardest
part for me in that when you feel when when
I feel like I don't fit in or I don't
belong or something like that is probably more the heart
hurt ye and trying to understand what's sometimes you. I
(45:09):
used to do this a lot where you go, well,
what's wrong with me? Yes? You? I think people I
think people go right here and they go, well, why
don't you like me? What did I do to you? Ever?
You know kind of thing. And I just actually had
that happened to me yesterday or the day before, and
it was like, huh, no, matter what I do, You're
not going to like me, are you? I can just
(45:30):
feel it. Yeah, And I'm old enough now where I'm like,
so be it. Then there's right people, what I used
to be like, oh you don't like me, well let
me make you like me. Let me make you like me,
you know kind of thing. And I and I think
that's a that can be a really frustrating thing for
people when you aren't liked by everyone right.
Speaker 2 (45:52):
Or when people walk away with when people have reason,
yes you are everybody's cup of teas Nope, And and
now I can respect why yeah, you know obviously why
you wouldn't want to talk about dying children for sure. However,
do it in a respectful, compassionate way.
Speaker 1 (46:12):
Yeah, yeah, And I think anytime you aren't vibing with somebody,
just do it in a kind but yeah, just some
kindness so the other person isn't, you know, damaged permanently.
It would be nice, right And people are you know,
some emotions and things like that, and it's like, well,
you don't have to hurt people, okay, and you tell
(46:33):
you don't have to.
Speaker 2 (46:34):
Nobody has to stop being what they're being. Just show
up with your passion, is what we're saying. That's the
no fluff comment.
Speaker 1 (46:42):
For the day. Yeah, all right, well, good conversation always, yeah, always,
And we'll send people to best Ever U dot com.
I will not type up a banner right now that
flashes below us and rolls. I'll just let people go
to the best Ever. You go walk on the beach. Yeah,
(47:03):
we're gonna go walk on the beach. Probably it's supposed
to rain here tomorrow, so we'll see. But I think
I think it's a moment to just find those moments
of your what brings you piece peace, and and that
just kind of like if you need a hug, take
the moment out and find something that gives you that hug,
whether you actually have to do this or go somewhere
(47:24):
or whatever it is. Or if you need conversations and
you're not comfortable in groups, maybe make them one on one.
I know you're available. I'm available. We can listen, reach out,
reach out, reach out. Maybe your conversations need to be
more one on one right now. If you've got something
that you're thinking or feeling or whatever and you don't
feel like comfortable in a group, that would be what
(47:46):
I would suggest, I think. Yeah, So anything else before
we go?
Speaker 2 (47:52):
No, just if you haven't read The Velveteen Rabbit, go
read it.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
Yeah, I love the Velveteen Rabbit. That's a good one.
I'll guess how much I love you. Another Bunny book?
Have you read that one? I love that. That's how
much I love you. Yeah, it's such a good book.
So anyway, all right, by everybody, thanks for listening. All right,
take care. We gotta find how to turn this off. Okay, bye,
(48:21):
there
Hi everybody, and welcome to this edition of the Real
Life Podcast. I'm Elizabeth Hamilton g Garrino. Yeah, I know,
my name Katie with the fabulous doctor Katie. Well, I've
editing software with me here in South Carolina, so that's
going out the door like that. Elizabeth Hamilton Garrino is
my name. I love it anyway, Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Katie, Hello, I so relate to that. You know, I
just have had the weirdest sleep these days. Woke up
with an earthquake, first time in my life. The bed
was shaking, but it was pretty funny because I yelled
at my husband. I said, John, it's an earthquake. It's
a real earthquake, and he's like, Nats the cats.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
NAT's yeah, Well we were, you know, we had one
of those Inane a little bit ago and it and
it sounded like a freight train was coming and it
rolled underneath us, and we both looked at each other like,
that's an earthquake. And sure enough, that was an earthquake,
and they was that Did it sound really loud or
was it just bumpy?
Speaker 2 (00:58):
It didn't last long, so I don't know. I had
a fan going and so I didn't really notice what
it sounded like but it was. It was something, but
more importantly it was the shaking. It was just bizarre.
The whole house was shaking.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Yeah. Yeah, so we had to leave on a hill.
So yeah, it was yeah, yeah, well good, I'm glad
everybody's okay. And I looked when I saw it, I
woke up because I'm on the East coast. Katie's on
the west coast. I look, I'm like, oh man, they
had an earthquake. And I always make sure there's no
tsunami warning in case I need to, you know, call
you and like get out of there. You always say
(01:34):
you're high enough.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Up though, so yeah, we are, We are high enough.
But if we're in our office down below in the marina,
we're toast. But we know that when there's an earthquake
to go up to a house.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Yeah. We left Maine about six weeks ago to do
winter someplace out. So we're actually in South Carolina in
Myrtle Beach, as you know and the audience now knows.
But we're we're in this fabulous kindo that we rent
every year, and this side's the golf course and this
side's of the beach. So life's kind of kind of
(02:10):
sweet right now, and so you can kind of it's
one of those moments where you can kind of tune
out the world a little bit and get to anyway
or whatever. And then like over the over the weekend,
a fire erupted, so we actually have a wildfire blazing
in South Carolina of all places, which is pretty trippy.
It's like two miles that way from us, and like
(02:33):
all weekend long, the planes and the helicopters were going
over the golf course with water, so things that you
what do we say, Katie, No one's immune anymore?
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Maybe, oh no, shit happens everywhere, yeah, yeah, and you just, yeah,
you just have to figure out how do you find
your beach walk in the midst of it. And we went,
there's a beautiful place in Washington. It reminds me of
this combination of the state of Washington and New England
(03:01):
because it's got this beautiful field and it's way on
top of a cliff and you can see the mountains
in the distance that are all covered with their white
capped and it's just the most beautiful natural setting. And
we went the other day. We just went to feel
what you're talked about, you know, just get away from
(03:22):
the world, just kind of escape into nature, which is
such a beautiful thing to do. So I feel really
blessed to be able to go do that. I really do.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Yeah, I feel super blessed. We've been taking lots of
beach walks and things like that, and even like we
came down here Covid year even and it was an
escape where we could be alone and be on the
beach and be wherever and things like that. So I've
been coming down here for quite a while. But it's
nice when there's turmoil or whatever and you can take
(03:56):
your moments. I was really happy to see you out
on the beach. Yeah, I was like, there she goes,
she's getting some peace.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
It's important, it is, And I think you don't have
to have a beach or you can actually do it.
And I do it every morning before anybody gets up.
I have my little chair that I have by the window,
and I have my little coffee thing and and I
sit and I listen to these vibrations that soothe me
(04:26):
every morning, and that's my quiet, peaceful time. You can
do that anywhere. You don't have to be in a
beautiful setting. You can be in a corner of your apartment.
But it's peaceful. You're creating peace, and I think that's
just really important for everyone to do, no matter what's
going on in your life.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Yeah, and I think some of us have those skills
from COVID because COVID still rocked us to the very
core that we do. I calm down, like Peter and
I we would drive to home depot in the South Portland,
Maine and we would sit there by the pond and
I would just bring my camera and like watch the
blackbirds or the little beaver that was in the pond
(05:06):
and just do things that were peaceful. Or we'd get
in the car and drive somewhere, or there's all sorts
of things. But I love you forgot to mention that
usually in the morning you have a cat on your
lap because bring us amazing piece too and are a
great source of of peace and tranquility when just don't
(05:28):
when you're vibrating on all all scores and sentence, when
there's when there's.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
An overload and it's really but don't trip over them,
almost dying if you drip, so be careful.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
So yeah, so we were gonna we were gonna talk today,
you know, we that it's I'm glad we're both in
great places, and I'm and i'm I'm. I keep hearing
I'm jealous that you're at the beach Elizabeth or whatever,
and I'm like, you know, we trade off. Like we
were just talking to Peter and I were just talking
to somebody earlier. They do their thing in April, like, oh,
(06:07):
I'm so jealous of you right now. It's very so
cold up here in New England. I'm like, yeah, but
you go to Florida for like the whole month of
April and it's not that great in Maine, then, so
do you get your moment? So I think it's important
to know that we all trade off these moments of
whatever it is, peace, unhappiness, happiness, joy, you know, whatever
it is. We're trading off moments all around, and not
(06:30):
everybody's going to like line up to have the same
thing happening yet exactly the same same time.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Oh yeah, absolutely, and we all have different plays. I mean,
I'm sixty four years old. I didn't have my view
of the water until I'm sixty four years old, so
I it took a long time. I have had that
in my heart's desire for years and years and in years,
I still have a pool in my heart's desire yet,
(06:58):
so that I may be eighty by that, but still
we all have our own needs. But you have to
figure out how to find that solace, that rejuvenation in
your own backyard, in your own way. I mean, I
remember being in Boston and man, there was just nothing
(07:19):
around in terms of nature that I could find. But
I created it by a little corner of the apartment
with plants, and when I was in seminary, that's what
I did to kind of give myself that peaceful space.
So you can do it anywhere. You don't have to
have the beach, but some of us are blessed that
(07:40):
we've got someplace to walk.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
So brings us to the topics of the day, right,
that's our topics of a day.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
So it kind of brings it out that we're all
in different places, we all have different times when we're
more uncomfortable than other people might be, and how do
we deal with that. Like my best example of that
is when I oftentimes will work with people who have
(08:09):
a diagnosis of cancer and they'll describe to me going
into the grocery store and people that they thought were
their friends, not close friends, but acquaintances enough to call
them friends. Will walk the other direction to avoid them
because they don't know what to say, and how hurtful
that is for them, because they don't want you to
(08:32):
deny that you're in a good space. If you know,
you just got a promotion and you're excited, you're going
on vacation, and they have cancer, they're not asking you
to stop being where you're at. They just want you
to be kind. And that's what they all say to me.
They all say to me, don't not talk to me
about positive things because I have cancer. I want to
(08:54):
hear your positive things. Will avoid me?
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
I mean, have you ever had that situation where you're
in a crappy place and somebody's joyful and or the
opposite where you don't know what to say, so you
just kind of like, well maybe if I you know,
avoid them, or I don't think you would ever avoid
somebody now, but I.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Mean when you were younger, not lolly, or if I'm
miserable and somebody else is happy, you know, it's it's
it's all over the place. I think. I think a
spot for that is social media, where you scrow. Just
take one look through your feet and you'll see everybody
posting different things. And sometimes it's here's you know, here's
(09:41):
where I'm on vacation, or here's my new car, or
here's my new house, or and you might shrink back
and feel small because you might not have those things,
or you might feel jealous of those things or whatever
it is. So, but you know, we were we were
talking about how earlier when we were talking about the show,
(10:02):
we were talking about you know, everybody's everybody has a
different reality, and everybody has a different perspective. And again,
not everybody may be joyous in this moment, and not
everybody may be sad in this moment or these moments
or whatever moments they have. So how do you how
do you think we should manage that as people? I
(10:23):
think is the conversation for today, don't you think? Like
between us?
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Yeah, I think what we're talking about is show up. Yeah,
show up, be there for people, and regardless of where
you're at, Because the number one thing anybody who I've
ever worked with who's in pain for whatever reason they
say it hurts them the most is when people don't
(10:46):
show up, when they avoid them, when they when they're
so uncomfortable not knowing what to say, that they just
don't say anything that hurts them the most. So I
think showing up me it means so many different things.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Well, yeah, I worked, Oh yeah, being kindly. I worked
with old lady who was at work for a long
time really miserable and almost got to the point where
she would exclude herself from everyone because she had so
much going on in the background of her life that
was making her sad. That every time she went to
(11:24):
the bake breakroom and people were laughing or people were joyful,
or people were this or that, she felt like she
didn't fit in and she couldn't fake joy in the moment.
So like she really was sort of schlepping to work
every day baseline very sad, and she had a real
inability whatever to bring herself up out of the sadness
(11:50):
to experience really even any joy or any happiness even
in herself in others and so forth, And she felt
like she would shrink back because she felt like it
made her really hard to be around.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Yeah, they're so that is such a common thing with
people grieving. Yeah, because we have this really big, big
misunderstanding about grief that it goes away, go away.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
It doesn't.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
It doesn't, And depending on the situation, it likely will
go on for years cook a few years, depending on
the loss. You know, look at Dolly Parton, she's just
lost her husband of sixteen years. You think she's gonna
stop grieving anytime soon. No, she's going to agrieve for
(12:39):
the rest of her life, off and on. And so
what we don't understand about that is we've got to
learn how to be comfortable with discomfort. Yeah, other people's discomfort.
We need to show up even if it's uncomfortable, and
just be clear that you don't know what to say,
but you're here.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
It's like my mom on Valentine's Day. My parents were
married forever. You know, this would have been their fiftieth anniversary,
and you wanted to call them up, and call both
of them up. Unfortunately, my dad passed away in twenty eighteen,
and you want to be like, happy fiftieth anniversary. So
you know, you could just feel my mom's just intense
pain on Valentine's Day. She like wanted to be happy
(13:19):
because there's grandkids everywhere, and well Valentine's and so much
love and this and that, and then there's this other
division of her that is just deeply, deeply just in
sorrow and grief and everything, and she's almost she said
she was trying to almost bake it through.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Yep, yep.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
I have so many clients that will come to me
and say they fake it all the time just so
other people will feel more comfortable.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Comfortable.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Yeah, But then there's also the flip, people who don't
come up to them because they're really happy and they
don't know how to share their joy. Like, for example,
someone when I went through infertility, when someone was pregnant,
they didn't want to tell me because they didn't want
to make me feel bad. Well, of course it, of
(14:07):
course it was hard, but I was happy for them,
and what made me more sad is that they didn't
tell me.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
So I think it's really important for people to recognize
when someone's uncomfortable because they're going through a hard time.
It doesn't mean we shut down our joy.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Yeah. I've had the opposite of that happen. I've been
pregnant and felt like I've had to tiptoe around four
people who had fertility issues and you could feel almost
the rage, like, oh, I'm not going to your baby
shower and it's like, oh my goodness, you know kind
of thing. And and so the other side of that
(14:47):
was like so much, so much rage geared at me.
You know, it's like I'm sorry, you know, and I
would have that hard have comments at me like oh,
you know, like this is you know, all people have
to do is breathe on you, you know, just mean,
mean spirited things. You know, you've got so many kids
and how many more are you going to have? And
I don't even have one, and I'm like, oh my goodness,
(15:09):
I've had everything said to me on that score as
a mother of four sons over the years. It's wild,
wild and other things. So yeah, there's there's awareness on
both sides, and you just have to hug the person
and just be like, I'm so sorry. It is it
is difficult for you, you know.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Yeah, and who's.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
To say this is a breeze for me either though,
you know, as people well night in childbirth and our
son almost died in childbirth. You know, it's not like
an easy thing. And I've said missed before too and
things like that. So yeah, that's a that's a tough
one because you're i think it's so important to stop,
pause and be aware of other people and and put
(15:54):
yourself in their shoes and see the both sides of everything,
because you can see some like cruel things to people
and not even be aware of it.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Right right, And you know, we're people go through hard
stuff and then we also have moments of great joy. Yeah,
just because someone's going through a hard time doesn't mean
they don't want to hear your joy. I when I
go here's a real tip for anyone out there who
has struggled with this. But when I go to a
(16:24):
baby shower, I tell the person ahead of time that
I never was able to have a child through birth
give birth. So whenever in the baby shower, which inevitably
comes up, they start talking about the drive to the
hospital and how horrible birth is and how painful it is,
(16:45):
I always warn the hostess ahead of time, host or
hostess that I'm going to leave at that point and
I'm just going to go to take a walk, go
get a cup of coffee, go to the bathroom, and
that if they happen to be around for a hug,
I'll take it. And that has worked beautifully for me
because I've been able to show up for baby shouters,
(17:06):
but take care of myself and not fake it, be
joyful for the person who's having the baby, and also
honor my own grief. So there's a way to do both.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Yeah, it's what a cool moment. That would be almost
even for you to share your adoption story though, well
I do, but yeah, now, yeah, but not the same
Oh it's it's or is that like not doesn't fit
in to them? I think you'd be really, I'd be
I'd welcome that if I was sitting there, I'd be like,
(17:37):
you know what, all of us are different because my
mom is a human being who's had kids.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Oh yeah, oh I've done that.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Yeah, and it's and it's and it's fabulous. So yeah,
but yeah, I think, oh yeah, women, Now it feels
like it feels like things have become less and less
stigma and more and more talked about. So I bet
now in a setting people would be like, whatever, you know,
come on in and tell us your adoption story. And
you know, because it's not all it's not all perfect,
(18:02):
and and a lot of things end in cesarean which
isn't easy, and a lot of things, you know, the
birth processes all over the place with people. So it's
not that easy we were talking about earlier, but I
loved the story that you had about your friend at breakfast,
(18:23):
And oh you would share this because you know, we're
talking about groups and settings and difficult chats and easy
chats and joy and sadness and happiness and kind of
all over the place with her, with all the things
that we feel when we're in a group setting. But
one of the things we can feel is very excluded.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Absolutely. I was in a situation where we were gathering
as a group to go out and just have breakfast,
and and someone in the group was going through a really,
really hard time. She had just gotten some very bad
news about her job, and the group kind of several
(19:05):
people in the group were so well bent on nothing,
we are not going to talk about anything uncomfortable, And
so I watched this woman silence herself and be silenced
because nobody else was having a hard time. And that's
not okay to me, is that she felt she had
(19:28):
to be silent about what was going on with her.
And I really wish people would understand that just because
someone else is uncomfortable, you got to learn how to
be with their discomfort you just do or you got
to be upfront about I'm so sorry, but I can't
(19:49):
handle this right now. It's too much for me. There's
nothing wrong with that, but shutting them down and shutting
them up not okay. And that's what I watched happen.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
It sounds like the rules of your group got shifted
in a like a non like like it the group
rules got changed and nobody was aware. Like it might
have been a group you would have never joined if
you knew the way.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Yeah, it was like it was like, this is a
fun group, no room for anything other than fun, and
that is not the way that group used to be.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Do you think it was that moment and just that once,
or do you think it's the way the group will
be from now on? Because like, because there's just so
many difficult topics going around right now that nobody knows
what's safe and what's going to set people off or whatever.
So so here's the question, though, then what the what's
the definition of happy topics then that we're allowed? Is
(20:45):
there a list like you can talk about puppy dogs and.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Dogs yeah, I mean, you know, yeah, rainbows and puppies,
but you know, and and I feel like, what's really
good about it is that someone articulated regardless of what's
going on in the world, I refuse to talk about it.
I don't want to think about it. I'm living my life.
(21:09):
I'm done with it. And everyone else was like, wow, okay,
so does that mean we all have to do that?
But and so everybody that rule changed. Yeah, and so
now we get to tubes and really the first it
(21:31):
was really clear, this is where I'm at, this is
what I'm doing, this is how I'm doing it. And
that's fine as long as you don't have somebody else
who's hurting and you're shutting her down before she even
has a chance to say something's wrong.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Do you think that people were saying, look, this isn't
the right time or appropriate moment to share this sadness
and things like that, or it always been a group
where you talked about anything, and then all of a
sudden appointed themselves head of the group and changed the
rules to rainbows and puppy dogs and kim cats and
whatever else is they have had enough of whatever.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Yep, that's what happened.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Yeah, that's an interesting group. I'll be interested in the
next show to hear if you went back for more
or no.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
I think that in this time period, in this time
period in the world, I belong with a different group probably,
And I went back to this person who was silenced,
and I reached out. Several times. I've reached out and said,
how you doing? What's happening? Because I'm perfectly comfortable with
being engaged in that conversation, and that's okay that not
(22:40):
everybody is absolutely fine.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Well, the other thing you to change.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
The rules, tell people ahead of time.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Yeah. And the other thing too, is not everybody's equipped
with your skill set either. You know, you kind of
got an eagle eye view on that whole group, that
whole table, you know, of everything, all the dynamics. Oh yeah,
I think people don't have that and they just know. Look,
this hurts my heart right now. I don't want to
talk about it. I just want to be with my
friends and rainbows and puppy dogs today. And maybe that
(23:09):
could have been said better, Like you know, every other
meeting is happy. I don't know how to solve the
I'm trying to solve it now because I know it's
a group that you like, and it's like, okay, how
do you how do you you know. I was in
a group once where it's like, I can't remember, it
was like two flower petals and a thorn or something.
I remember, Oh.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Yes, oh yeah, I was teaching college.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
You go around the room and you share two two
flower petals in a thorn. It's like, maybe you guys
need that two flower petals in the thorn or two
rose petals in a thorn.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
You know. I don't know, but I think the point
the point of it is is don't shut someone down. Yeah,
it's absolutely fine to have your own level of comfort,
but recognize that other people are in a different.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Place, well, especially if like it's a group that they've
relied on for those moments forever and ever too, and
then you just like feel silenced or whatever. It's tough.
And yes, so it's interesting, but I imagine that's probably
indicative of a lot of things happening right now. That
kind of reminds me of like a holiday table. It
(24:19):
still does. It does. It's kind of like, Okay, here's
the Thanksgiving rules, everybody, just yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Yeah. I used to do this with families that would
come to me for counseling around and before the holidays.
Because they had so many conflicts going on, And what
they would do is they would create a piece preamble
before so they'd have rules of topics that were off limits,
how we're going to speak to each other, how we're
(24:49):
going to communicate, and they would really have nice thanksgivings
as a result because the rules were set up aheut
of time. So I'm kind of encouraging people figure out
work level of comfort. Do you want to talk about
stuff right now? If you don't, that's fine, but be
clear about that. And don't ever avoid someone going through
(25:12):
a hard time because you don't know what to say.
Don't ever avoid someone in the grocery store or in
the pharmacy, or or if you're having happy news and
they're going through cancer treatment, don't avoid them. Just say
I don't know what to say, or I just wanted
to tell you, how I give you what.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
I want you is a good questions.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Just showing up, how.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Are you doing is a fair question? How are you
right to tell you?
Speaker 2 (25:41):
Because I'll tell you what as somebody who went through
infertility and watched a lot of people have babies. Man,
if anybody ever did that to me, I'd run after them.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Well, I have dinner envy. I have tremendous dinner envy
with life threatening food allergies.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Yeah, of course you.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
And I was in my early twenties working and traveling
and my job. I never had a food allergy ever,
and I could do anything, fit in anywhere. Now. I
went through a really, really big phase a thousand years
ago where I was really jealous of everybody eating, like
you can't eat that, you know kind of thing. But
it's kind of going away because we cook and do things.
(26:22):
But I still I still crave, like, Okay, where can
I go out for dinner? Where is it? It's usually
like steak, potato green beans is real safe, so that
points to something expensive, right right, the nearest expensive steakhouse.
And then I don't have dinner envy anymore. But I
do have a lot of dinner and buffet envy and
(26:43):
things like that. And it makes you not fit in.
It makes you leary to show up in a crowd
where everybody can eat anything they want and you can't,
and there's and you know, do you really want to
hang out in the crowd of everybody that can't eat
anything and you can't eat I don't know. That's kind,
you know, So it's funk. It's a really funky dynamic,
(27:06):
and that's it's just another example of how people feel isolated,
how they feel left out, how they feel unheard, how
they feel But as you tell people what's going on,
people do really nice things. We had a we had
a cookout in our neighborhood and a couple of us
have food allergies, and people made food for us, which
(27:28):
is a historically very dangerous thing. And most people are like,
I'm not eating no matter what you made for me,
thank you very much. But they were like, here's the bag.
Even you can see what's in it, you know, here's
everything that's in this end, the ingredients and the you know,
you're you're okay. And and my daughter has the same
allergies as you and watch her eat it, you know,
kind of thing. And people do very nice things for
(27:51):
you once they know. Generally, yes, most people are free
to be it's kind of ringy. Yeah, most people want to.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
Most people want to be kind. And it's not kind
to avoid someone because you don't know what to say.
That's not kind, that's really hurtful. And and and they
see you by the way they see you.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
And.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
That's a good point. Yeah, they do see you walk
the other way or whatever.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
You And trust me, if anybody ever did that to me,
I would I would run after why are you avoiding me?
Speaker 1 (28:24):
You know? In the show, I want to go back
to something that we've been saying. We only have a
couple of minutes left. We've been calling everything that we
do and this is a Katie for We call it
a katieism. She has termed the phrase no fluff zone,
which I really love for our books. And we have
a new book coming out, the Peace Guide Book, which
(28:45):
is coming out in twenty twenty six. No, you can't
reorder it yet. We're not done writing it. We're still
we're still working on it. But no fluff zone is
a thing we say, and it's part of our podcast,
part of our books, and part of our everything. And
Katie explain what that is, because it's it's so needed.
It's yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
Okay, So, how many of you have read The Velveteen Rabbit. Yes,
I mean, of course we've all heard of The Velveteen Rabbit.
The Velveteen Rabbit is all about authenticity and showing up
with your rough spots and being real and letting people
help you and helping others. That's what we're talking about,
(29:23):
a no fluff zone. Don't pretend you're fine when you're not.
Don't pretend everything's okay and hide your suffering or your struggle.
And also don't pretend that you're not joyful when you've
got great news. Be real, show up like the velveteen
rabbit and be real with your real hard things and
(29:47):
your real joyful things and everything in between. Be real.
And that's why we call this real life because we
really want people to. I mean, life is so much
more rich and rich shame when you're authentic and real
and not when you hide or pretend or stuff or
(30:08):
you know, minimize or any of that crap. It's just
show up like the velveteen rabbit and be real and
then just think of the warmth and fuzzy, warm fuzzies
you're going to get.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
Well. Yeah, it's super important. And I think it's important
to hold up our books too at this moment too,
because we both have books that support that. If you
don't know what that means, to be your authentic self
and find your heart and find your truths and be
comfortable showing up real and authentically as you. You've got
a book you hold up uplifting, uplifting. Uplifting is go ahead,
(30:44):
you talk about uplifting.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Well, why I wrote up Uplifting is because it's stories
of loss that people have transformed into growth. And it's
a perfect example of all these really inspiring stories of
people that went through really hard stuff but they learned
how to manage it, but not just manage it, to
grow from it and make it something positive and purposeful.
(31:09):
And I think that that's my whole our whole point
is don't run away from your difficult things. Let them
be stepping stones.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Yeah, and so, and then I've got the Change Guidebook,
which hold uplifting up again because we always have similarities
in our books. We love yellow and we've got a
lot of color similarities and things like that. It's and
it's pretty fun and not intentional at all, but it
just stends to be. But so this is this is
a Change guide Book, how to align your heart, truths
(31:38):
and energy to find success in all areas of your life.
And in here are twenty contributors. There's amazing stories of
people who have gone through changes in their life and
how they made those changes. Some good, some bad, So
it is all over the place with it. But I
think the heart of the book is really that is
(32:01):
thinking with your heart, showing up authentically and really living
your truths and so forth, and helping people get there.
The end of the book is this amazing chapter about
impact and your impact on the world, and the book
is closed out by former Senator Olympia J. Snow and
her story of being orphaned at a young age. So
(32:22):
she's right here in the book the very end of
the book, and she and joined in that chapter. She's
with Haley Stark, who had a spinal stroke in high school,
one of Quaid's friends. But my own kids contributed to
the book, and quaids in here, and Bryan Esposito's in here,
and there's just a ton of people in here that
(32:43):
show stories of how they change their lives through some
of the most difficult moments too that you know, sometimes
the contentional changes like okay, I want to lose hundred
pounds or whatever, and other times it was like, uh, oh,
I just joined the club. I did not ever intend
on joining. How am I going to navigate this? What
am I going to do? And how am I going
(33:03):
to get through this and stuff. And I think one
of the things that both hold your book up again,
you know both of this is a both of these books.
I think if you go back, and I'm going to
be choppy in this message, but if you go back
and turn our clocks back all the way back to
two thousand and eight when we met, you taught me
a lot about change and growth and grief and loss
(33:26):
and best being your best in all of these things.
And the book I'm not holding up is our book
called Percolate, Let your Best Self Filter Through, which kind
of led like led us in these directions of creating
all of these books and doing the things that we're
doing now and stuff. And it's it's just been a
really cool process to see us change and grow and
do the things that we're doing and finding right here.
(33:47):
And I think anytime you shift from here to here,
it's just really a good moment all the time.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
And really that's what no Fluff is all about, is
we have both been through hard stuff. We've worked with
people who've gone through hard stuff. We show up. We
show up for them, we show up for ourselves. We
show up like the velveteen rabbit with authenticity and with
(34:16):
an intention for growth. And that's what we're trying to
help people understand is that you'll have a much better,
more peaceful, meaningful life if you show up.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Yeah, I'm going to I'm gonna do if you don't mind,
I'm going to take five more minutes of our time
and talk. I do want to close the show out
with emotions. Oh, any kind of emotion, because we show
we when we show up emotionally to something that can
make people shut down, run, you know, don't want to
(34:49):
be around you, or whatever. And it can be any
kind of emotion, whether it's anger emotion or rage emotion,
or a happy emotion or whatever it is. Do you
want to talk a little bit about emotions and the
roles that they play in a group setting? Sure leadership?
I kind of hang on a second. I kind of
(35:09):
want to go at this from I'll chime into like
a leadership perspective. When you're in a group, you know,
what's the tone, right, Read the room? Yeah, I know
you're going to say that, read the room.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
Everybody in a group, the leader's role is to ensure
that everyone is heard. Now I'm a consensus leader, so
that's you know, that's kind of the leadership. I'm a
compassionate care leader, so I teach leadership from that perspective.
And reading the room means leave space for anyone's experience.
(35:51):
So your own emotions need to be managed enough that
allows for space for someone else to feel what they're feeling.
So it's got to be okay for someone to feel
whatever they're feeling. You don't have to take it on.
You don't have to fix it, but you can show
up for it with kindness and presence. Yeah, and that's
(36:14):
all you have to do, show up with kindness and presence.
You don't have to give them answers. You definitely shouldn't
give them platitudes, but just be and that's good leadership.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
Yeah, sometimes you need Yeah, sometimes sometimes you've got to
have tools to lobby the ball back into their court too,
because people can be boundary jumpers with emotions a lot
of the times too. So it's it's I think it's
really important to you don't because sometimes people feel like
they're in that spot where they've got to give advice
and you don't have to, and you can you can
(36:50):
ask really clever questions that just bounce it back over,
like what do you think about that. How are you
just all day long go back and forth with questions.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
Yeah, I was on a call the other day and
we were all talking about when someone is really sick,
what not to say. Don't say I'm so so sorry
because that just makes him feel Okay, It's like, I'm here,
What do you need? And I do anything for you?
(37:24):
What do you need? Do you want me to just
sit here? Do you want me to read you a book?
Do you want me to talk to this silent? Do
you want me to whatever? And read the room?
Speaker 1 (37:36):
And we.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Got to read the room.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Yeah, I gotta share. I'm going to talk about my
dad's I see you room for a minute. Yeah, like
all came up just a minute ago as you were
talking talk about reading the room. Like we're in there
trying to keep this man alive. Right, we're in coats
because he's got a on ice and just all sorts
of crafts happening to keep my dad alive, right, and
we're all our baseline is like we're fighting. Yeah, you
(38:04):
would have people we're fighting room, you know, we're we're fighting.
It's all going on, you know kind of thing, the
pictures everywhere, all this stuff. We would get people who
would come in and be like it's time to give
up now, you know, and you're like, keep away from us,
you know kind of thing. We're fighting, Go away, you
(38:24):
know kind of thing. But you it's and and we
would get people, even relatives come in and you can't
like control what's going to come out of somebody's mouth.
But my mom almost I went through the hospital roof
when one family member came in touched my dad's hand
and said it's okay, you can let go now. My
mom just about went crazy. You know, So you can't
(38:45):
control what people are going to say. I'm just I'm
I have a smile on my face. I'm picturing my
mom just like, you know kind of thing. And so
she put she wasn't We weren't aware that people would
do that. We thought everybody was, you know kind of thing,
not like give upload. And so she put a put
a block on like the only certain people are coming
(39:08):
in here because I know your vibe around him and
everybody else will keep you updated. And the group got
real small. Even even one of the doctors was like,
we were like putting arms around one of the doctors
at one point because he was like there's nothing more
I can do. I'm like, sure there is, let's go,
you know kind of thing because we were like delusionally
(39:28):
positive about things, and which worked, by the way, because
he survived way longer than any human you know, probably
should have or could have in those circumstances. It was.
It was crazy miracles happening.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
Yeah. We used to call that the what is it called?
We used to call that flunking hospice.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
Yes, thank god, right, and.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Good hospice workers as as I've been trained as a
hospice social worker, you know better. You read the room.
You read the room, which is what in my father's case,
he was in a palliative care unit in a hospital.
Our family was gathered around saying goodbye. We were all crying,
We're all really sad. We were feeling what we were feeling,
(40:15):
and this perky nurse came flying in the door and
she goes, so, mysteries, man, how are you today? Opposite
my father, I've never been more proud of. My father
was Jesus Christ. I'm dying. How the hell do you
think I feel? You know.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
It?
Speaker 2 (40:33):
Yeah, so you just don't know. Both sides of this
are equally important and valuable read the room.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
Yeah, that's that's and apply that toward whatever you've got, everything, everything, everything, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
Everything, show up like the velveteen rabbit. Be be more
comfortable with other people's discomfort.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
Yeah, and then show up. I think the other thing
too is I don't know how to articulate this exactly,
but we know from being in the in a hospital
setting for that long, Uh, you could it was the
feeling of the doctors and nurses sometimes was palpable with
their their sorrow and there. Yeah, they're used to people
(41:20):
not walking out of ic you clearly, and so when
you're around them and you're hopeful, they try and tell
you to not be in some case you know, kind
of not not exactly like that, but they try and
give you the real life scenarios of what usually happens.
And we found people were trying to embrace us for
the inevitable or this or that, and it was very
(41:42):
frustrating to us because we wanted to be positive around
him and stuff like that, and so we had a
real wide variety of people around him, and and.
Speaker 3 (41:53):
It just was really interesting, yeah, really interesting lesson in
process of what the usual process is versus the miracle process.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
And the fact is as a healthcare worker, they have
to do that.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
Oh yeah, they do.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
So it's it's how they deliver that. Because my training
was you always hold hope for cure while preparing for death.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
Yeah, you do both.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
You do both, you offer both. So in everything, it's yes,
And it's no matter what crappy thing is happening in
someone's life, you hold hope for something positive to be
to be learned from it. And that's that's what we're
all about. And that and the way you do it
(42:43):
is you lift yourself up and you let other people
lift you up, and you lift up others and you
don't run away from people's pain.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
Yeah, what's the hardest part of this for you? We
were talking about that, that being a question we were
going to ask each other. When you don't feel like
you fit in with a group of people, what do
you do and what is the hardest part for you?
And then we'll end.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
I think this showed up when I used to do
hospice for children, and that is a definite downer when
you're at a cocktail party. And when I once had
a thing where I was at a fundraiser and I
was sitting next to this woman, and she asked me
what I did for a living, and I told her, well,
(43:28):
I run a children's hospice program, and she literally turned
away from me and stopped speaking to me and didn't
speak to me for the rest of the night. I
wonder what It was really really really painful, And the
irony is the fundraiser was for my program, but she
just couldn't talk to me there. And I felt like
(43:52):
such a pariah because I cared for dying kids and
it's like, excuse me, people, somebody's got to do it,
you know, and why not me?
Speaker 1 (44:04):
And why not the most compassionate person on the planet.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
There you go, Yah, Well, but but that's turning away
from me because you're uncomfortable for some reason was hurtful
and painful. If she had some story behind it and
just had said, wow, that must be really hard. I'm
really uncomfortable with that. I would have been fine, but
she just rejected me, and it was really really hard.
(44:30):
And so I would just say to everyone out there,
don't just walk away from someone, Yeah, show up, tell
them why, yeah, don't run away from the grocery store.
Don't just don't.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
Do that, yeah yeah, No, And I think the hardest
part for me in that when you feel when when
I feel like I don't fit in or I don't
belong or something like that is probably more the heart
hurt ye and trying to understand what's sometimes you. I
(45:09):
used to do this a lot where you go, well,
what's wrong with me? Yes? You? I think people I
think people go right here and they go, well, why
don't you like me? What did I do to you? Ever?
You know kind of thing. And I just actually had
that happened to me yesterday or the day before, and
it was like, huh, no, matter what I do, You're
not going to like me, are you? I can just
(45:30):
feel it. Yeah, And I'm old enough now where I'm like,
so be it. Then there's right people, what I used
to be like, oh you don't like me, well let
me make you like me. Let me make you like me,
you know kind of thing. And I and I think
that's a that can be a really frustrating thing for
people when you aren't liked by everyone right.
Speaker 2 (45:52):
Or when people walk away with when people have reason,
yes you are everybody's cup of teas Nope, And and
now I can respect why yeah, you know obviously why
you wouldn't want to talk about dying children for sure. However,
do it in a respectful, compassionate way.
Speaker 1 (46:12):
Yeah, yeah, And I think anytime you aren't vibing with somebody,
just do it in a kind but yeah, just some
kindness so the other person isn't, you know, damaged permanently.
It would be nice, right And people are you know,
some emotions and things like that, and it's like, well,
you don't have to hurt people, okay, and you tell
(46:33):
you don't have to.
Speaker 2 (46:34):
Nobody has to stop being what they're being. Just show
up with your passion, is what we're saying. That's the
no fluff comment.
Speaker 1 (46:42):
For the day. Yeah, all right, well, good conversation always, yeah, always,
And we'll send people to best Ever U dot com.
I will not type up a banner right now that
flashes below us and rolls. I'll just let people go
to the best Ever. You go walk on the beach. Yeah,
(47:03):
we're gonna go walk on the beach. Probably it's supposed
to rain here tomorrow, so we'll see. But I think
I think it's a moment to just find those moments
of your what brings you piece peace, and and that
just kind of like if you need a hug, take
the moment out and find something that gives you that hug,
whether you actually have to do this or go somewhere
(47:24):
or whatever it is. Or if you need conversations and
you're not comfortable in groups, maybe make them one on one.
I know you're available. I'm available. We can listen, reach out,
reach out, reach out. Maybe your conversations need to be
more one on one right now. If you've got something
that you're thinking or feeling or whatever and you don't
feel like comfortable in a group, that would be what
(47:46):
I would suggest, I think. Yeah, So anything else before
we go?
Speaker 2 (47:52):
No, just if you haven't read The Velveteen Rabbit, go
read it.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
Yeah, I love the Velveteen Rabbit. That's a good one.
I'll guess how much I love you. Another Bunny book?
Have you read that one? I love that. That's how
much I love you. Yeah, it's such a good book.
So anyway, all right, by everybody, thanks for listening. All right,
take care. We gotta find how to turn this off. Okay, bye,
(48:21):
there
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