M.A.Y.A. Ep#72: The Ambition Show Feat. Dr. Kirsten Harrison, Psychologist, Trauma Expert & Author

Dr. Kirsten Viola Harrison the founder of at Soul Wise Solutions ( @Soulwiseteam ) has spent her professional career as a Clinical Psychologist studying and treating trauma disorders. She has had the opportunity to conduct research on PTSD at UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute. By far the most instrumental and informative in shaping her philosophy has been her direct work with trauma survivors, including near-death experiencers and those struggling with complex DID and PTSD. The creativity, passion and will to survive the unthinkable that her clients have endured and struggled through on their healing journeys, have given Dr. Harrison life’s work meaning that illuminated her passion and purpose in helping people heal.


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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (01:08):
The information shared on this podcast is for informational and
educational purposes only and is not intended to be a
substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. While we
discuss topics related to mental health, well being and emotional support,
we are not providing therapy or medical services. Always seek

(01:28):
the advice of your physician, psychologist, psychiatrist, or other qualified
mental health provider with any questions you may have regarding
a mental health condition. If you are in crisis, feeling unsafe,
or need immediate support, please contact a mental health professional
or emergency services in your area. The views expressed by

(01:49):
guests and hosts are their own and do not necessarily
reflect those of any affiliated organizations or institutions.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
Get Inspired Getting Motivated with Maya Akai and the Maya
My Ambition Your Ambition Podcast something that.

Speaker 3 (02:10):
I take Frida and is trying to be forward thinking, thinking,
outside the box, challenging myself and as I challenge myself,
hopefully I challenge you.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Find Maya on Twitter and Instagram at Maya underscore a
Kai on Facebook at Maya Akai Presents.

Speaker 3 (02:22):
We're going to talk health, wealth, fitness, mental health, financial,
lots of different things that can empower you as you
seek out the ambition that you're pursuing or get everything.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
Maya at Maya akai dot com.

Speaker 3 (02:44):
Now mistay everyone, Welcome to episode seventy two of Maya
My Ambition, Your Ambition. I am so excited because we
again this is the Ambition Shows a launch in August.
This is our fourth guest, and everybody has been nothing
short of amazing, and we have another amazing guest today
on the show, doctor Perstin Viola Harrison, who's a clinical

(03:05):
psychologist trauma expert, and you're going to be like one
of the most amazing authors you probably have ever met
and yet to read, but you're gonna read it after this,
so as you know when you check into the Maya Show,
the podcast is focused on embracing what I feel are
very salient topics, but more importantly, when we talk about
mental wellness, we want to talk about it from a
fresh and forward thinking perspective. You know, MY goal is

(03:27):
to normalize it, just like we normalize talking about diabetes
or cholesterol. Guess what I want to normalize us talking
about anxiety or depression because it's an organ just like
anything else, and this one up here does a lot
more work than most people give it credit for. It
doesn't just do the thinking, it runs everything, and it's
also responsible for how you think, feel, act, and so

(03:48):
on and so forth. So if you are a first
time listener, reviewer, welcome. I always say buckle up for
safety because occasionally it can be an unexpected bumpy ride.
And I say that because here we like to have
like serious conversations and you know, myself or my guests
may say something that makes you go hmm, things that
make boom. If you're old enough, you know that song.

(04:09):
If you're not, you don't, but it's okay all the same.
If you are, of course a returning listener or viewer,
then you know what we do here. I encourage everybody
go grab that space to yourself. It's nice and quiet.
Grab a piece you know, a pencil, a pen whatever
it is you like to use a piece of paper,
notebook and jot down some thoughts you might have because,
like I said, something might pop up and you may say,

(04:29):
you know, I never really thought about that. I want
to reflect on it more. And as we move for
the show, you may not capture everything. So this is
the fourth installment of the Ambition show. As I talked about,
and all the guests have been amazing. So if you
missed any of the other episodes, don't fear. You can
always find episodes of Maya My Ambition, Your Ambition iTunes,
the Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Amazon, Audible, Spotify, wherever there's a

(04:52):
podcast platform. All you have to do is search Maya,
m period A, period Y, period A, and Boom, you're
gonna find all the episodes there. Of course, I'm going
to encourage you to go ahead and just subscribe and
share the YouTube channel. Maya speaks to you because once
you subscribe, Boom is always going to alert you when
an episode is coming up, and then you don't have
to miss a single episode. So Maya speaks to you.

(05:13):
And by the way, I have finally caught up with
the times. All of my social media handles are the same.
It's Maya speaks to you. It only took me about
three years to get there. But here I am. Everything
is a shared platform. But of course you can make
life easy for yourself. You could always just go to
my website, which is a www. Dot Maya Speaks dot
com and all things Maya are there. Two things I

(05:36):
really love that's on my website is one. There is
an inspirational blog. I only post something once a week
because I want to give you a thought and I
really want you to process it. So it's not daily,
so I put things up on Wednesday, so you can
go any time during the week and you know, process it,
chew it up, whatever you want to do with it.
But it's always thought provoking. But the other side of
it that I really love is my menopause blog. Anyone

(05:58):
who knows me by now knows that I am the
poster child for menopause. There are thirty six symptoms and
I probably have had at least thirty I'm not joking.
So I love my menopause blog because it shares a
lot of really good information for women. It's called me
on Pause, get it, play on words menopause. So if
you happen to be in menopause, perimenopauso, if you're getting
that forty range, guess what, you might want to check

(06:19):
my blog out because there's pretty some good stuff on there.
Get social with me, though, because then you'll know when
I post something. You can find me on x and
ig and Facebook. It's all Maya speaks to you So,
as I mentioned, August launched the Ambition Shows and these
shows are dedicated to introducing you to people you should
know because they are the embodiment of what passion and

(06:41):
purpose look like when they interset and guess what when
they are totally pushed forward by ambition. So we have
a great guest, but I want to set up our
next guest so you can make sure you're there. If
you happen to be a person who is struggling with ADHD,
you definitely want to check in next Saturday at two
pm for Ron Sowers because he is an amazing advocate

(07:02):
for ADHD. He's a coach and he also hosts his
own podcast, Don't mind Me, I Just have ADHD, and
boy do we know. ADHD is something that can be
highly disruptive to your life one if you're really not
taking care of it. But with that being said, let's
go ahead and jump into meeting our next guest. Like
I said, she's the fourth person to be I'm sorry,

(07:22):
she's our fifth guest to be on. Doctor Kirsten Biola Harrison.
She's a clinical psychologist, trauma expert, and like I said,
going to be one of the most amazing authors that
you will read. But here's the thing. She is so
passionate about what she does. She is the founder of
so Wise Solution, and she has spent her professional career
as a psychologist studying and treating trauma disorders. And I'm

(07:44):
going to say for most people who have in therapy,
if you're a therapist, trauma tends to be front and
center for us, even before we come to realize that
everybody has had something that has impacted them in a
way that it usually looks like a form of trauma
that they themselves do not identify. Well, doctor Harrison has
really devoted her life and created those opportunities to learn.

(08:05):
She's done research on PTSD at UCLA, their Neuropsychiatric Institute.
But the thing that I love, she's so passionate about
what she does in informing and shaping and helping people
to understand how trauma impacts her lives. So she's worked
with trauma survivors. She's also near death experiences. See that
right there. For some people would probably go, oh, wow,

(08:28):
that's different, but if you've ever met someone who's ever
had that experience, it's really deep. And she also works
with di ID and PTSD as I said, so, her
creativity and passion is amazing. And the story you're about
to hear it all to me came together with this
one person she encountered and it's amazing. So, without further ado,
let's bring on our next guest, doctor Kirsten Fiola Harrison.

(08:51):
Welcome to Maya. How are you great?

Speaker 4 (08:54):
I'm so happy to be talking with you again.

Speaker 3 (08:57):
Yes, yes, our first conversation. Most people should know I
always talk to all my guests before I bring them
on because I need to be aware of what they do.
I don't do things blindly. A lot of times when
you actually see maybe podcasts or shows on TV Kirston,
you probably know like you've never talked to the person before,
so it's kind of like flying blind, which is not wrong.
I've done that in radio. I had to do that

(09:19):
when I worked in radio. But I like to hear
someone's story. So before we jump into talking about the
book you wrote, you know I am Shanna, which is
so amazing, tell us a bit about your journey, like
what led you to be a clinical psychologist?

Speaker 4 (09:33):
Okay, long story, I am pushing sixty, so we're going
back like forty years. My high school sweetheart at the time,
unbeknownst to me, had been when we've went on our
first date. Hat we were in this nice little private school.
Everybody kind of you know, was at the country club
and whatever. And then all of a sudden, we go
on this first date and he tells me he had

(09:55):
been an orphan in Bobata, Columbia until he was five
years old. A beautiful, wonderful, well meaning family adopted him,
and he proceeded to tell me so many things that
had happened that were so outside of my sphere of understanding,
you know. And then as the course of our relationship progressed,
he eventually became my first husband. I was with him
for sixteen years, so I got a front row seat

(10:17):
to you know, complex PTSD and severe trauma and all
of its manifestations. And I also got such an impetus
to wanting to be able to help and understand and
solve some of these soul level, deep problems that come
from a little kid just trying to make their way
in the world and trying to understand all of this
you know, complexity and uncertainty. So I will say that

(10:42):
that got me to switch my major when I went
to college. I was at Georgetown. I was studying languages,
and I thought, you know, I really want to study psychology.
I really want to understand further what people are going through.
And that just one thing led to another. And then
a few years in, when I was twenty two, my
brother tragically died in a boating accident, and he was

(11:03):
twenty at the time, and so that propelled my thinking
to a whole nother like stratosphere of trying to understand
them much bigger questions of what are our meaning and
purpose in this life? And how do we put all
these traumatic experiences together and hold them in a much bigger,
safer space. And that's when I started interviewing a lot
of near death experiencers. I started digging deep into the research,

(11:25):
which wasn't that easy to find back in the day.
Went to some conferences through that International Association of Near
Death Studies, which is still like incredible eye ins. I
would encourage anybody to go and find their conferences in research,
and I just started getting more and more heartened by
the struggles that people went through, but also their survival

(11:46):
and their strength and their resilience and the ability to
bounce back from horrendous situations, and I really started to
believe that those who had kind of clinically gone to
the edge of what we might call Santa also came
back with incredible gifts for humanity. And so it just
brought in my landscape. And consequently I've worked, you know,

(12:10):
thirty five plus years in the trauma field, and really
it's just about expanding the conversation that was my love synapsis.

Speaker 3 (12:18):
It's great. But you know what's interesting is most people
who land within our respective field, there is a story
that has led them down that path. There is usually
an experience that they've had that says, you know, I
feel like this is something I would want to do.
The field of psychology is a very complex field, you know.
In fact, I would say, you know, working in the

(12:39):
field might be more complicated than the medical field, because
there's nothing that is always sure about working within mental health,
you know, even diagnosing someone finding the right medication. It's complicated.
So when people choose to do this field and I
love and you probably have heard this, as you said,
in therapy with people and they'll say, you know, I know,
this is just your job. It's like you're absolutely cor

(13:03):
technically is my job I said, but ask yourself this question.
So anybody who struggles with the idea of therapy should
really revisit this. Do you think anybody would want to
sit every day in their life and process other people's
issues and problems to help them solve them. I don't
think people realize how much you carry when you decide
that you want to be an advocate for someone finding

(13:24):
peace and mental well being.

Speaker 4 (13:27):
Ah, that is so beautifully stated and so true, because
compassion fatigue is real. You know, it was hard when
I was raising kids. I did need to take a
break for many years with private clients because I felt
I couldn't do them justice, because I was holding back
because I wanted to make sure I wasn't getting more
vicariously traumatized around my children then, and then I was

(13:47):
trying to protect my children. It just became this kind
of Okay, I think I need to take a break
and just go completely into kid land for a while
and not have flashbacks of other people's trauma come into
my right now. But that being said, everything I learned
from my kids and their capacity to find joy in
this way that they handled their struggles then eventually was

(14:10):
able to be brought back to my trauma clients and say,
you know what, even though you didn't have that same
experience as a child feeling safe and feeling loved and secure,
you also learned all of these adaptive things that life
brought you at an earlier age. Maybe some people don't
learn till they're seventy or eighty. Look at how far
along you are. So it was kind of this wonderful,

(14:31):
beautiful melding when I was able to get back to
doing therapy with people.

Speaker 3 (14:37):
When you talk about trauma, and this is something that
I have noticed being working as a crisis worker for
fifteen years in an er and then doing private practice.
It's interesting the amount of people who one truly do
not understand what trauma is because often they have been
exposed to it has shaped their lives. But we normalize

(14:58):
trauma so much within our respective society, and a lot
of people don't get it that trauma often is. It's
done in three different ways. It often starts when you
were introduced to the world. You are put into a
family and there could be standing trauma, so now you
have that, and then you carry that within yourself, so
now you have it individually. But we also have trauma

(15:19):
that exists at a higher level, that's even socially. And
we've normalized so many things. And I've met people that
have had very traumatic things happen and they'll just say,
well that that was just how things were, that's how
my family did things. That was life. And it says, well,
everything that people do isn't correct. You realize that, right,
and then there's kind of like that blank stare because

(15:40):
the first thing that's hard for people to accept is
if trauma is rooted within childhood or their family. Processing
that because the choice you have come to can be hard.
How have you when you've noticed working with people with trauma,
do you find they really minimize it? And does that
surprise you?

Speaker 4 (15:57):
It kind of goes both ways. I Mean sometimes when
I were to impatient with a lot of people with
did with very severe kind of internal splitting, a lot
of times they would come up with either a very
fantastical memory that was so out there, but really it
was a screen memory to cover a more mundane situation
for them, which was Dad came into my room at

(16:17):
night and molested me. That was much more of a
difficult thing for them to process than this crazy extreme
scene they might have set up for other people in
the hospital because there was a disconnect there. So that's
one mechanism and then other mechanisms. As you're saying in
the attempt to normalize, well, I just grew up like that,
and everybody else did. There's this shutting down and complete

(16:39):
dissociation from their own experience, and so there's kind of
this middle ground where you want to make sure that
people feel safe and they don't have to go so
extreme to be heard or seen or you know, self
mutilating or whatever it is. But on the other hand,
understanding that you know, like Besil vander Kolk says, the
body keeps the score and that some have. We're always

(17:00):
trying to have this trauma understood, even if we can't
verbally or cognitively recognize that, and that.

Speaker 3 (17:08):
Right there is I think the part that is really
starting to emerge, especially within the field, is people beginning
to accept that trauma sits deeper in the body than
just a memory. We're knowing that it's literally at a
cellular level. Hence there are new therapies that are coming
out to help people to be able to release those things,
and I think those people, if you out on the

(17:30):
trauma is not just this independent experience. You hold that
so tight when something really ultimately shapes the way you
think and feel, and often not for the best.

Speaker 4 (17:40):
Yes, and you are touching upon I mean a lot
of people are really swearing by somatic, experiencing that kind
of therapy where it really gets to the somatic level,
and then being able to also realize the beauty is
that we can control some of those innate physiological responses
like a startle reflex in PTSD, hyper arousal, whatever it is,

(18:00):
that you're able to practice deep breathing, filling into the heart,
filling into the body. So there are ways that we
can access some of that buried trauma and the epigenetic
trauma that's been passed down through generations that we are
not aware of either. But I will also, because it's
my personality, I will also highlight the strength and resilience
and all of that. So whatever's been embedded deeply is

(18:21):
also given our bodies at that celluar level the ability
to start adapting and to start being resilient. And so
I will say that I will always look for the
strengths and survival and always kind of promote the post
traumatic growth and thriving that comes from all of that.

Speaker 3 (18:39):
So with that being said, let's do that lateral shift
and talk about Shauna. Because I feel like this book
is so amazing, but I also feel like for you
it had to be this experience. Did it bring so
many things together that you had been doing? It seems like,
you know, you can lead up to something, yeah, and
then that moment happens, You're like, this is probably what
I was born to do. This was this was supposed

(19:00):
to be part of what I was supposed to help
manifest and bring into the world. So tell us the
story of Shawna because it embodies three things that for
my listeners, you're going to know a whut some of
this and some of it's are not one. It also
it talks about obviously, you know, gender, that's one piece.
Then it talked about obviously mental health because there was schizophrenia.

(19:21):
And then there's homelessness, which is obviously, you know, a
financial and social dynamic. So three different things came into
play when you met Shawna. Tell us the story of Shawna.

Speaker 4 (19:32):
Okay, so behind me, if you can see that picture
that is Shauna and we had just moved to La Jolla, California,
which was just this quaint little seaside community of really
wonderful people and my ex husband. But my husband at
the time was originally from Trinidad. He's been in America
since I was thirteen, but he's so Trinidadi and American

(19:53):
long dreadlocks, and a professional tennis player that traveled the world,
had a big tennis academy and coach at the major's
And so we noticed that Sean at the time was
just always hanging out at the tennis courts, and Sean
six foot five African American, very muscular collegiate athlete. I
said to my ex husband, maybe you guy should catch

(20:15):
a match sometime, just go play tennis. And so we
were getting settled, and then all of a sudden, one
time we went to the grocery store and all of
a sudden, Shawna appeared land curly wig, pink bikini top,
little skirt, and I was like, huh, okay, didn't expect that,
what's going on here? So over time I did observe
her enough to start to see that there were maybe

(20:36):
some mental struggles, some little bit of distress and agitation,
and also observed just this preternatural like positivity and just
incredible optimism. Everyone in the community knew where, everybody loved her,
and so there was only one caveat that when she
was having some extreme kind of like delusional outbursts and

(20:58):
getting really agitated in her body, she would also kind
of shout really loudly, so it would kind of look
like this on the streets and be a little scary
to some people. So I kind of started making it
my mission to educate people, Hey, if you just say hey,
Shawna in a friendly voice, she'll sort of snap out
of it and all will be well. So that was
kind of part of the first part of just maybe

(21:20):
using my skills as a psychologist to maybe educate people
around her, like the people at the Starbucks or the
people at the grocery store. So then one night I
was at the grocery store really late, probably ran out
of dog food, can't remember why I was there so late,
and she was standing there in the freezing, pelting rain, shivering,
and all of a sudden, I was like, oh my gosh,

(21:40):
she might be homeless, Like does she not have somewhere
to go? And so I said, would you like me
to put you up at a hotel for a night,
would you like shelter? And she said, oh, yes, ma'am,
and she gestured to the heavens and just gratitude, almost
looked like she was about to follow her knees and
she was like bless, like thank you. So that started
a long journey of calling the newspapers, starting a GoFundMe,

(22:03):
putting her up in a million different hotels till I
could figure out what I was doing. But I knew
I couldn't turn back. I promised her, you know what,
You're never going to be on the streets again. And somehow,
through the grace of God, I was able to deliver
on that promise. I don't know what gave me strength
and impetus and vision, but it all constellated, as you said,
in this one situation. And for ten years now she's

(22:27):
been housed and she now lives in Palm Springs. She
spent the last seven years there to just sort of
have some downtime. She walks a half marathon a day,
half marathon a day to manage her mental distress. When
the symptoms come up late at night, she can kind
of release it to the air. It is an incredible
mood walk therapy for her, she's been able to manage

(22:47):
her symptoms medication free.

Speaker 3 (22:49):
That was for her.

Speaker 4 (22:50):
It was an unacceptable risk to her body, some of
the side effects. And it's just been a wonderful journey.
We took ten thousand times a day. I sent on
her first flight after seventeen years not being on a plane,
taught her how to, you know, text, and now she's
a social media queen with a million views on TikTok.
So it's just been an incredible journey. And then I

(23:13):
will address one more part. So she is what they
call intersex, and this took her a long time, a
lot of years of confusion to figure out. She eventually
got the diagnosis. It's where you have kind of ambiguous genitalia,
and from my understanding, it's sort of like the old
term hermaphrodite, and it's not as cut and dry, but it's,

(23:34):
you know, trying to tease that apart with also her
mental illness and trying to figure out where the truth
lay kind of thing. And she said she always knew
something was different. She was very confused growing up. She
had a very Christian home and they just didn't really
talk about things like this. Her stepfather was a pastor,
but she grew to understand over time that things weren't

(23:56):
quite like everybody else, and fine, the homeless Outreach team
in San Diego took her to the Game Lesbian Center,
then they did a few examinations, put her in an
intersex support group, and then voila. She's finally at some
sort of peace and understanding with who she is. And
she now spends her time advocating for intersex rights, advocating

(24:21):
to stop intersex surgeries, which she's very grateful that her
parents didn't have to make that really difficult choice when
she was younger. And we just spent three weeks in Europe.
She'd never left the country. We spent three weeks in
Europe going around to the euro Pride Paray, the Paris Pride,
London Pride, and she advocated and spoke about, you know her,
what it's like to live kind of in the margins

(24:43):
and in between and how you find peace with that.

Speaker 3 (24:46):
So that's and that's right there, that's so so much.
I mean, you set Seanna on this path to be
able to gain the understanding that it seems like for
all of her life. That was just so it was
uncles and the thing about for instance, like homelessness, Like
you didn't initially realize that homelessness was part of the equation. Yeah, yeah,

(25:09):
shared some information earlier, and I'm like, I always say
to people that no one wants to be homeless. There's
always a story. And when you shared the back ground,
I was like, that's powerful. Course, everybody has this story
that has led them down the path. So how did
Shawna end up in homelessness? So?

Speaker 4 (25:28):
Okay, so she was homeless for eight years, sleeping on cardboard.
It started. She has a four year college degree as
a pe teacher. But things did start to unravel a
little for her in college in terms of some of
she was on the basketball team on a scholarship, and
another part of the story she actually founded some of
the basketball things at Christian Heritage College, and so she

(25:51):
was she was doing great, and then as what often
happens with especially schizophrenia, which I've sort of in my
mind diagnosti asti schizophrenia, which I can get into that
in a little bit, but I remember I'm her friend
and I'm not her psychologist, but just everything inside me
with aline training kind of over time, I would sort

(26:11):
of say, does this feel right to you, Shuna, and
we would go work through it. And so she was
working seventy hours at the Boys and Girls Club and
she was just feeling like she was spinning out of control.
And she said, just like a car that runs out
of gas. One day, I just stopped. And what's apparent
to me is that some of the internships she had
in the schools, maybe she was starting to not be

(26:33):
able to teach in front of the kids as easily.
So the mental illness was starting to become a parent.
And I've also talked to some of the friends that
she had back in that time, and they've concurred with
that that it was just enough to guide her to
the mental health center. So then she she just stopped
being able to pay her bills, which of course then
is a scary slippery slope. She started living in her

(26:56):
car and then she said, one day her car just
got towed and she's just like that, Doc, I ended
up on the streets. And it was scary. It was
very scary, and it took her a while to adjust
and to get through like the just despair and the
fear and whatever. But sure enough, in true Shana fashion,
which is why she is so inspiring. She said, I

(27:18):
just started waking up each day curious, I wonder what
today is going to bring. She said, I always knew
something was going to work out for me in the end.
I didn't know how, but I shut up every day,
kept myself clean, went to the beach showers. People started
collecting at the recreation center here locally, little shampoo, things
from hotels, little things of toothpaste. And so she just

(27:38):
kept going on her routine, and she started doing a
bunch of errands for businesses. If they'd give her a
pizza out at the back, she might bring the managers,
you know, shopping cart over to the grocery store to
get a bunch of let's say waters for the company,
and she'd walk three miles with the shopping cart to
go deliver. So she started creating community and being neighborly

(27:59):
in a way that was just incredible given her circumstances.

Speaker 3 (28:03):
So you said, diagnosed with schizophrenia, and that the thing
I want people to note about that is you had
a person who had a life, had a potential opportunity
enter mental health. Yes, it can be highly disruptive, and
it's interesting because it sounds like, what was the support

(28:24):
like for Shauna. Was there a disconnect with family at
that point? Had she kind of separated away?

Speaker 4 (28:31):
So I'll start with one of the beauties of this
story is that I have reconnected her with, you know,
her sister and some family. Now Shauna is still very
sort of at arm's length because she wants to. She
was very prideful when she was homeless and her identity
was confusing, and so there are times that her sister
has told me that she would come to visit and

(28:52):
it was starting to peek through and she would maybe
wear kind of an extremely flamboyant outfit, and then that
scared her sister because of her kids. So there was
a little bit of backstory of just sort of like
everybody just trying to get by and make it, because
it's you know, we're not talking families that come from
like a ton of opportunity. However, her family was quite remarkable,
and they did send part of a trip I took

(29:14):
with Shanna audiast As we retraced her whole life, and
so we went through she did go to an amazing
private school in Columbia, Maryland. They were the only black
family and she excelled, She got amazing kind of opportunities,
but again, systemically things were stacked against her. And then
in her family of origin, it was like everybody was

(29:36):
just trying to get by and move forward, and things
were falling through the cracks. And so her sister did
say that she noticed some differences early on which I
would point to maybe start starting this building planning the
seeds of schizophrenia and her neurology some you know meetle
prefrontal cortex things. I mean, things were a little bit

(29:57):
different than they were for other people. There was a
little bit of pristbal planning that started to fall apart.
There were moments of maybe like some catatonic kind of
like states that were like her sister just thought she
was sort of zoning out. Now it's confusing because in dissociation,
the same thing happens when someone's had a lot of
severe trauma, as you know, like with kids, teachers will

(30:18):
think they're zoning out when actually they're just sort of
like elsewhere because of trauma. It's a split. But to
get back to the story, her sister and I have
a great relationship where we're kind of I'm like the
go between between Shauna and the family now, and so
I'll post comments and pictures to the sister and then

(30:38):
she'll give me more backstory. But honestly, there wasn't anything crazy,
like identifiable that would cause such a difficult downward slope.
But I think once you're stuck in a situation where
you are living on the streets, it becomes such formidable,
like the obstacles are incredible to being able to start
to get it back together unless you have an ally

(31:01):
or someone powerful to come in and say, hey, I'm
going to walk you through every step of this. And
even with that, it's difficult. It's it can get kind
of hopeless, kind of quickly. And that's why it's so
important for all of us take a chance on people,
connect with people, try to hear their stories and see
what maybe you could offer, you know, to lend them
a little strength, because you just never know, right.

Speaker 3 (31:27):
You know, there's there was a study that was done,
i want to say, back in twenty twenty three, and
it's said that roughly it's an estimate within the US
that sixty seven percent of people that are homeless have
mental health issues. So just think and that's what I need.

(31:49):
That's what people really need to understand is that no
one chooses to be homeless. There's something that puts them
there and there's a lot of factories to it. So
and you think about it in the breakdown. That was
interesting is that schizophrenia is one of the leading diagnosis
that places people there, as well as bipolar in those

(32:11):
three things are usually the top kind of issues that
play into when people end up in homelessness. And it's interesting.
So Shana went from living in Maryland and then she's
across the country. I mean yeah, as you hear the
story though, this was a person who had a future,
who had a lighthead opportunity and then enters the mental
health issue and all that spiraled very quickly. So talk

(32:33):
a bit about schizophrenia because I'll be honest, it is
definitely one of those mental health disorders that most people
truly do not understand.

Speaker 4 (32:41):
Well, okay, so this will date me, But when I
was back at Georgetown, and I was eighteen nineteen back
in DC, was when Ronald Reagan had done all that deinstitutionalization,
where all of a sudden, all the people who had
been cared for in the mental facilities were now on
the streets and I remember very distinctly there's a place
in d See called DuPont's Circle, and I remember, all

(33:02):
of a sudden, I started seeing all these people doing
some really interesting behaviors that I had just learned about
in my psych class. And so that was part of
starting to see the effects of how the disorders that
you mentioned are very biologically based. They're the most biologically
based of all the mental disorders. So it would make
sense how they end up on the streets because there's

(33:24):
not a huge capacity to always be able to help
themselves in the way that we would commonly say, Hey,
just pull yourself up by the bootstraps.

Speaker 3 (33:32):
You got this.

Speaker 4 (33:33):
It's like it's a very different challenge when it's coming
from you know, different signals in the brain. And I
will say also on this trip with Shanna, I had
a bird's eye view, you know, I mean whatever you
would call it when you're right there with somebody. I
guess not a bird's eye view. I had a view
right next to her for three weeks straight, which is
the most time we'd ever spent like in that close

(33:53):
proximity to seeing how things got difficult, Like we would
be walking somewhere in all of this sudden she would
just start screaming at different voices, and then she would
catch herself a little bit and she'd kind of go
to play it off or And I thought that that
was actually growth, that she was able to sort of
step outside and realize, Okay, I got to conform a

(34:14):
little here, I have to act a little more appropriately.
Like to me, that was growth. But one time I
looked at her, deep in her eyes. We were sitting
in Paris at the Gallery Lafayette, which is a beautiful
department store, and I just stared deep into her eyes
and I said, Shanna, it's exhausting to watch what you're
going through, Like I don't know if you can see it,

(34:34):
but I'm watching you basically like being attacked by something
that you're always on the defense from. And she looked
right back at me and said, Doc, you have no idea.
It is trying, And then she just popped right back
up with you know, but I get through it, I
you know, make the best of it. And so I
was like, there is a human being way deep inside there,

(34:56):
no matter who you're dealing with, that has a deep
awareness that I would call it maybe saul, like really understanding. Yeah,
I'm kind of trapped in a little something here, But
how do I choose to respond to what's going on?

Speaker 3 (35:09):
You know that that piece you said right there is
the thing if you take any nugget away from this
is the thing I want people to learn about when
people struggle with their mental health is that there is
a person in there, yes, and that person is often
fighting to get out. But it's not easy. And I
think it's so easy for people to judge when they

(35:30):
see homeless people or people who are struggling and things
and think, oh, you know, they can just change that. Well,
if it was that easy, clap on all we'd have
it result. And when you described eighties, I'm going to
date myself too, Ikti. Remember as a kid growing up
in Illinois, I remember when they closed all of almost
all of the mental health institutions in Illinois, like there

(35:53):
were three of them. And the thing is, I would
and understand this. They close the facilities with no action
plan for the people they were releasing.

Speaker 4 (36:01):
So exactly homelessness.

Speaker 3 (36:03):
Was just created because most these people had no family,
they had lost contact with, I mean, they had no support.
So literally we took people that we knew were mentally
and emotionally debilitated, and we put them on the streets.
And the thing is, and from that point within this country,
homelessness has continued to grow. But I don't think people
realize the boost that it really got was like those

(36:25):
late eighties, so to speak. Yeah, when homelessness really got
a boost because we released or talking thousands, hundreds of
thousands of mentally ill people into the world with no resources,
which means no more medication. We're talking about you have
them medicated, as you had them institutionalized. Since you released

(36:46):
them with no medication, no follow up care, what do
we think was going to happen to them?

Speaker 4 (36:52):
Well, exactly, And you have the same exhausted families that
were powerless, clueless, didn't have any idea how to cope
with the struggles that this person who clearly needed help had.
But then, at least if they were somewhere, which I'm
not going to speak to, how difficult it must have
been living in an institution, that must be horrible. However,
at least, as you said, there's medication management, hopefully some meals,

(37:14):
hopefully a bed, hopefully all of this, and the families
all of a sudden, they are like we don't know
what to do, and then the family members usually just
then lost to the streets. What happened how we connected
with Shanna's sister was that her niece had always realized
that her mom was feeling this super deep pain about
what happened to my brother. Did he die? What happened?

(37:35):
I haven't heard from him in all these years. And somehow,
by the fact that we did the GoFundMe and then
it got local coverage and then the San Diego Tribune
and whatever her sister was, her niece was googling something
and then told her mom, Oh my gosh, I think
I found my uncle. And then through that article because

(37:55):
I had said this wonderful landlord named Lou and somehow
I thought I was doing lua favor by kind of
plugging his business. Turns out he was like, Okay, I
got too many calls from people saying can you give
me housing? But that's how the sister was then able
to contact the landlord, who then contacted me, who then

(38:16):
I called the sister, and then that's how the connection
was made. But we're talking families that are severed by
mental illness and severed by the whole institution of how
do we protect people who are most vulnerable. That's what
we need to remember. These are vulnerable adults. And back

(38:36):
in the eighties, there was a guy named Mitch Schneider
and he made it his mission to stick up for
the homeless, and he eventually suicided sadly because the whole
thing just became so overwhelming. It's like there were tents
outside of the White House and nothing was happening, and
so it just, I mean, it's a pervasive issue. I
would say it's the same thing with substance abuse. Nobody

(38:56):
tries to end up on the street addicted. No, that's
not the vision people have for their lives. But you
have series of traumas and then you have the brain
kicking in, addiction kicking in taking on a life of
its own, and pretty soon there you are and fed
up families or frustrated families, or families who just don't know.
And then also again I will keep going back to

(39:19):
everybody's just trying to make it. Life can be hard,
and so they don't necessarily have time to stop their
life and like see, oh how's my brother doing right now?
It does sometimes that's just it's not possible when they're
trying to raise.

Speaker 3 (39:31):
Kids, you know. And one of the things that I
reefly have had conversations with people, and the current thing
that keeps surfacing, and I find it very sad, is
that there are so many people that legitimately are just
one step away from being homeless. Most people don't realize
the step before full blown homelessness that I have seen

(39:52):
with a lot of people is living in motels. That
is something that for me, in working as a crisis
worker in an er, it floored me how many people,
like families, we're talking ten people sometimes in one like
one hotel room, and that's their way of trying to
just be able to have some type of stable housing
because one the cost of housing has gone up exponentially.

(40:16):
Often when most people need to be able to even
rent something they don't have, like, for instance, they don't
have the credit history, they maybe don't have the first
month or last month, rend all these things that they're
being asked for. And to be honest, public housing within
the country cannot accommodate everybody.

Speaker 4 (40:32):
No, yeah, you'll laugh right now or not laugh. It's
actually horrible. But to your point, we've been trying for years.
My dad used to say you know, you can't support
her for the rest of your life. I was like,
I will die trying. You know, I cannot handle the
thought of her ever being homeless. And we've got things
in place now with writing the book and whatever, that

(40:52):
won't be the case. I will make sure she's always
going to be okay. However, even trying to get like
food stamps, EBT. She qualified. I think at one point
when she was on the house for one hundred and
forty dollars a month, that was it. And she was
on house and mentally ill. That's it. It's not like
when people say, oh, there's services for that. Well really,
because I found that through my work with Shauna, I

(41:15):
all of a sudden, it was like all the homeless grapevine.
Everybody was seeking me out in the community. It was
a little overwhelming at first, and I was trying to
get this woman connected with some services that had a dog,
and they were like, nope, we can't help her. She
has a dog. I said, do you understand this dog
is everything to hers, the last thing she has from
her old life. It protects her from all sorts of

(41:37):
assault at night on the streets. No way is she
going to part with this dog, and yet they were like, nope, sorry,
And so the obstacles are just gigantic. And so even
with an advocate, I went to the to a local
physician to try to get some of her Shawna at
one point had been in the military, she'd been in
the Navy, at another point she had been in She'd

(42:00):
just been worked with all these different places. And I
was like, she's got to have some benefits out there somehow,
And so we tried to get her student loans kind
of forgiven through this military program and again living on
the streets for eight years after somebody who had very
diligently completed college also taken out a few loans. She
had basketball scholarship, but she made up the difference with loans.

(42:21):
She diligently paid those off up until the point where
she landed in her car. And they even with my signatures,
trying to go in and get another medical doctor's signatures,
no nobody would cooperate. She was so when people think, Okay,
they can easily change their situation, No, it is not easy,

(42:44):
and we all need to help. We all need to
show up as advocates. We need to ally. I'm not
suggesting that everybody go out and just go maybe do
the Shaana story like I did, because I definitely was
aware that she had already made a lot of friends
in the community and people very much vouched for her.
It wasn't like I was just blindly going okay, because

(43:05):
that can be dangerous, especially if you're young. People if
they hear that message. However, take a chance, do what
you can, you know, find a way to try to
find some common understanding or something that ties your maybe
expertise or passion to somebody else and see where that
can go. I mean, it's quite remarkable when you give
it a chance.

Speaker 3 (43:25):
And the thing is, it's a little thing. So there's
a person within my local community that created what's called
portable pantries. So throughout the city, like my bus stops
commonplaces are these little they look like little houses. They're
like about about three, three or four feet high, and
they're stocked on a regular basis with non perishable foods.

(43:48):
So anybody who's homeless can walk up to this portable
pantry and they can pull out, you know, you know,
some like soup that you know with the pop top
or anything that's you know that will not you know,
spoil or waste, and they're throughout the city. And the
thing is, you've got people who then volunteer to collect
the food. You have people that take it upon themselves
to own, like to take ownership of one of the

(44:10):
pantries and make sure it's always filled. It's the little thing, yes,
that can make a difference. And that's something simple that
puts a meal on somebody's plate.

Speaker 4 (44:19):
And that's huge. I mean, after all of this was happening,
I knew Shanna's story. We would go back to the
different places and sort of say, hey, thank you so much.
We featured with you.

Speaker 3 (44:28):
In the book.

Speaker 4 (44:29):
And one of them was a local fish shop that
gave her clam chowder every night, and Shawna said, the
warmth of the chowder fed my soul. It kept my
soul warm. And it was like they had no idea
that a simple little offering of a cup of clam
chowder every night was hugely momentous to Shanna, and it
also gave her a purpose and felt like she had
a sense of belonging. So yeah, we can all do

(44:50):
that and start in your neighborhood, start in your community.
There are countless myriad ways to be able to make
those differences that actually matter so much. And that's a
huge theme of the book is how the community rallied.
But Shawna also constantly availed herself of everything, but also
made herself useful and productive by trying to help. If

(45:13):
a neighbor always had trash on the porch, Shanna would say, Hey,
can I move that over to that dumpster for you?
And it just started to become a little habit. Pretty
soon there was five dollars that was on the porch
for thank you, And it would just be kind of
like these little acts of kindness that just keep everybody
moving along. We're all interconnected.

Speaker 3 (45:32):
Little acts of kindness. It's just sometimes that simple. And
the other cliche thing is charity starts at home, so
you don't have to do these big global things that
people assume. Start within your community. Maybe you volunteer at
a food pantry, you helped make sure that people donate
a lot of times, toyletrees, all those things like make
a difference. That's one of the things. We had people
that would create like little personal bags and give them

(45:54):
to the hospital er. So when people would come in homeless,
the bag had all these like things that you would need,
and we always ask them out to people. We collected clothes,
so people would come in sometimes and we would give
people shoes and jackets because people donated it. And it's
just something small. So clean out your closet. If you
got ten costs and you're wearing them, go give it,
go donate it to a closet because somebody could use it. So, okay,

(46:17):
we know about Shawna. So how did you get the
idea of the book and how did you collaborate with
Shawna to write? I already had to have its challenges.

Speaker 4 (46:27):
It was very challenging, so I will say I was like,
you know, your whole show is about ambition, So I
was a little over ambitious at first because so what
happened was the first year the GoFundMe, we got her
off the street and it paid for all our housing
and expenses. Then we found an angel investor and they
were incredible, so the second year was covered. By the

(46:47):
third year, I started to panic, like, oh my gosh,
like what are we going to do? I think with
the community is kind of going okay, like what's shut
up to next? But there wasn't the same kind of
impetus or drive to maybe like donate. So I was thinking, Okay,
obviously this is going to fall to me. Now, I'm
never going to let her go back on the street.
It's going to fall to me. But so I started

(47:08):
selling things in my close at my nice high end boots, whatever,
and I just get her like one more night of
something like you know, food or whatever. And so I
said to her, you know, Shanna, your story is so
compelling and so many people seem to know you and
love you and vice versa. I think we should tell
your story. I think we should write a book. And
she thought about it, and she's like, you know what, Doc,

(47:29):
I would love to do that. So what I didn't
realize was I had three kids that were all in
like preteen and high school age with all the you know,
activities and whatever. I have two step kids and one
of my stepkids is got special needs Smith McGinnis syndrome.
So I had my hands full. So me even suggesting

(47:50):
that was kind of like ludicrous. However, I was not
going to give up on finding a way to use
my skills to maybe find her a way to become
self sufficient. And so I will say that during that time,
of course, I'm supporting her. I'm trying to find time
to write. Then she decided she want COVID hit and

(48:10):
she had wanted to move to Palm Springs because she
thought it would be calmer and more respit and coould
take a lot of mood walks. So we would text
a lot of ideas back and forth, and then I
would task her with, Hey, Shawna, I needed intro paragraph
to this chapter, and I really need your deep thoughts
on what it was that you were going through, but
just say it how you would say it. So her

(48:33):
experiences and thoughts were always synthesized at the beginning of
every chapter, and then every single thing that was written.
Although I write the most of it, everything that was
written was from countless texts and conversations that I recorded
or that I went back and found later screenshots. And
that's the story. So it's very much interwoven with Shawna's

(48:54):
words and everything she told me about her life and history.
And also it's a challenge but trying to write me
into the story because obviously the relationship was part of
it too. And I first worked with a publishing partner
because I had no idea how to write this kind
of book. I'd always written clinical journal and type of essays,
and she said, you are part of the story. She said,

(49:15):
you need to write yourself in as part of the story.
And how learning together what helped both of you. It
became a mutually wonderful story. And the biggest highlight of
that was in twenty nineteen, I had gotten a diagnosis
where they were telling me, based on scans, that I
had a year to live, and I was couldn't believe

(49:40):
what I was hearing, and I had to tell my
kids and my husband at the time, and it ended
up after a deep biopsy in my bone that it
was something completely different. I have a very rare disease.
But you know, hallelujah, it's not that I had a
year to live. We're now in twenty twenty five. I'm
evidence of that. So but I will see, Yeah, thank you.
I will say that shawna sh up for me in

(50:01):
every which way known to man, as well as my
people that I've been friends with for forty years. I mean,
she was checking in text, she was sending me flowers
on the text like every single day. It was doc, Okay,
how are we doing today? And I just thought, you
know what these are, the unexpected gifts of taking a
chance on someone that are priceless and who knew that

(50:22):
that would happen. So of course that is part of
why we wrote my story into the book as well
in Our Friendship, because really it's all about this mutual
touching of each other's lives and how we just never
know who were sent on this earth to interact with
and how many synchronicities happen when you just open yourself
up to these relationships.

Speaker 3 (50:43):
I mean, and that's and that I love how you
created that space for Shauna to be able to do
something that, within its own right, could be challenging, like
how do we how do we collaborate to write this book?
Because it's not necessarily easy. But I like the fact
that and I'm glad that the publisher pointed out, but
you are part of the story. It's like you bring
this together to help share and so I'm glad they

(51:05):
helped you to realize that pretty much you should be included.
So with that being said, everybody, guess what. The book
has been completed. You finished the book and it was
released when.

Speaker 4 (51:18):
It was released in May, and we did a book
signing locally and then ever since then, we've been traveling
and promoting and doing a lot of things on social media,
and the whole thing is really just driving people to
the story and the way that her journey progressed. And
I feel like using social media to find a way

(51:42):
to connect with people and what their curiosities are, Like
a lot of people are very curious about intersex and
finding a way that we can sort of educate, which
is Seanna's passion. Educating coach also brings people towards this
story and then back again, and it kind of starts
to weave in a bigger conversation with everybody's input, and

(52:03):
I think that is making Shauna feel so heartened that
now people are joining a much bigger conversation. But I
would say you will find something in the book that
will speak to you and resonate with you and give
you hope, because ultimately there is so much joy and
hope if you just like adopt the right lenses if
you can and in an allyship to be able to

(52:25):
really be there for somebody, there.

Speaker 3 (52:28):
For somebody, So everybody, you've got to check out the
book so to learn more obviously about you know, doctor
Harrison as well, as about Shauna. But by now we
should have piqued your interest in this because there's a
lot of different moving parts to this story. You know, one,
you can always go to the website which is ww
dot Soulwise Solutions dot com. There's all things Doctor you

(52:49):
know Harrison there, as well as a lot of things
with Shawna of course, but we want you to go
out and get the book. That's the key thing. Read
the story, learn more about it, you know, kind of
read take it in because I do believe when people
hear these stories, it tends to open up their eyes that, yeah,
everybody who's homeless, no one's choosing this. There's a reason
why this is going on, and you can very well

(53:11):
be the solution to someone. Here's the thing. We're not
going to always solve this just out the gates rights.
It's going to be a process, but we could individually
get a difference maker in someone's life. You'd be surprised.
So everybody make sure you check out I Am Shauna.
It's an inspiring story. It talks about homelessness and identity
discovery and it's towed through obviously a collaboration with doctor

(53:32):
obviously Harrison. So guess what, Just like everything else in
the known world, it's available on Amazon whatever and wherever.

Speaker 1 (53:42):
You know.

Speaker 3 (53:43):
Yeah, So if people want to pick up a copy
obviously Amazon, is it also available on your website as well?
Is there like a preferred way to purchase it, like,
for instance, if people purchase it through your website, obviously,
is that a better outcome financially for the book and
for Shauna? I do it that way.

Speaker 4 (54:00):
I mean, it just depends what's easy and convenient for them.
The website one has the hardcover copies that are signed,
and Shanna and I had a great time signing those
and she just felt so proud. So if you want
that copy, for sure, get it through the website. But
otherwise Amazon, don't go.

Speaker 3 (54:17):
To Amazon, go to soul Wise Solutions dot com. Because
it's a sign copy. Well, who doesn't want a good
sign copy person and the film you're buying the book
and there's so many photos.

Speaker 4 (54:28):
Yeah, and the photos that are really clear in the
sign in the sign copy, they're very well done.

Speaker 3 (54:34):
Yes, So I'm going to say go to that website
and purchase the book there. I'm not being anti Amazon.
I'm just saying I feel like this is more benefit
if people wanted to donate in some way, like they're like,
you know, I I wouldn't mind giving because you know
a lot of times people don't like to give because
they feel like, is my money gonna really go where
it's supposed to go? You know, and they question, you know,
who's gonna go where it's supposed to go? Can they

(54:55):
donate on the site as well, or something like that.

Speaker 4 (54:58):
I'll think think about that. I don't know that I
haven't set up. I think the best way again to
kind of donate would be to buy the book and
then maybe donate the book to other people.

Speaker 1 (55:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (55:11):
I haven't even thought of that before. I just sort
of always figured that somehow what Shawna needed was going
to up here.

Speaker 3 (55:20):
But that's a good thought.

Speaker 4 (55:21):
Maybe we can think about that.

Speaker 3 (55:22):
Yeah, just you know, people might say, hey, because like
I said, a lot of times people want to donate,
but they just kind of feel a little like, I'm
not sure can you hear things where things don't go
where it's supposed to. This is you have poured ten
years plus of your life into this book, person, so
obviously you know it's it's definitely worth I think I
would do I wouldn't think twice about don't. I'm definitely

(55:43):
going to get the book, and you're right, the book
does help the cause, so that that works that way
as well, that would be all right.

Speaker 4 (55:49):
And then also so we set up as an LLC together,
so we set up a shelter for Shauna LLC where
everything does help bridge the gap when she needs it,
so that the book definitely, all the proceeds of the
book go directly into that nice I would say, if
you're looking for a gift for somebody and you want
to inspire somebody, that buying the book directly help Shanna

(56:13):
move forward and also helps the message of hope and
resilience move forward, and to me, that is like the mission.

Speaker 3 (56:21):
Yeah, so everybody make sure you pick the book up.
Like I said, is on Amazon, but our preference here
is to go to Soulwise Solutions dot com and to
pick up the book there because it can be a nice,
actually personalized copy, which you can't beat that. I think
that's so much even better knowing that she took the
time she signed, you signed, it's just so much more spoful.
So everybody check out the book. It's definitely an amazing story.

(56:41):
And it's so personal and it's real. It takes the
idea of homelessness, mental health and even most people are
not familiar with in our sex. In fact, we probably
just had an education moment, you know, Kirsten that most
people were probably still saying hermaphrodite because that was the
word that was has been used forever. Well, guess what,
We've graduated past that word. So now it's intersects and

(57:04):
it's something new to learn about. So there's a complexity
to her story. This is that that runs so deep.
So I'm so glad came on the share Riley, you
want to jump on and share some stuff. She's like, hey,
I want to say Hi, I've got some stuff to say.
Can you hear me? Yes? Okay, Hi?

Speaker 5 (57:23):
Oh my gosh, that was so beautiful. I love that
story of Shauna. Its just I love it. I just
like how it really just shows like asking for help
and receiving help. You just if you don't ask, you
won't receive type of deal and just and just I

(57:44):
thought that.

Speaker 3 (57:45):
Was so inspiring.

Speaker 5 (57:46):
And I just I talk about like my journey on
here all the time. I'm a recovering addict and I've
experienced like similar things to Shauna, and it just having
a positive mindset through the hard times and just believing
in yourself. And I just love that she has that too.

(58:07):
It I really want to read her book so bad.
And yeah, I just that was great.

Speaker 4 (58:14):
I love that you share that too, because honestly, it's
we're always held by something bigger, guided by something bigger.
That is just one hundred percent of my contention. I've
seen it so many times with so many people, and
I feel like that's also like the brightness in you.
I feel like that is something you're able to resonate
with that that somehow we're on a path and we're

(58:36):
all on it together and we have to keep that
openness and curiosity no matter our situation.

Speaker 5 (58:42):
Yeah, and I love just we are all human too.
That's part just really just people need to really be
empathetic and understand that we all have souls and I
kind of think about how we are, like with the
mental health aspect, we kind of observe what our brain

(59:02):
was wired to do, and sometimes it's tougher for others.
And yes, just being true to yourself and knowing like
that there's a human inside there is so great and
we all go through.

Speaker 4 (59:14):
It happen anyway exactly. That's the that's like the golden nugget,
like it can anything can happen to anyone. It's like,
just stay open, don't be judgmental, just come in and say, okay,
well that didn't happen to me this day. So how
can I then lend my strength because goodness knows we
might need it in return, as shown by how Shauna

(59:34):
responded to when I got sick. So you know, I
love that you jumped down and said that.

Speaker 3 (59:40):
That that makes said you said something. I think that
people need to hear it's okay to ask for help. Yes,
oftentimes people will not know your suffering because look how
long it took for doctor Kirsten to actually come to
realize that Shauna was homeless because he was carrying herself
and it didn't just jump out that there was something

(01:00:01):
that was going on with her. So we can never
assume that people are okay, even though I always say,
I've been in places and I've seen someone like not
looking okay, I don't know them, and I've actually walked
and said, I know, I don't know you, but are
you okay? Because they just looked like they were so broken.
And the thing is it's the small thing. When you
walk up to a stranger and they're just having a

(01:00:21):
bad day, they'll be like, wow, I actually appreciate you
asked me that, and then they just actually like said
some stuff, you know, or even with I know, we
see a lot of homelessness in the world, and it's
often easy to like not want to be bothered at
times because you see, like especially if someone walks up
to your car, you know, and it's hit or miss
if people give But I'll tell you you'd be surprised

(01:00:42):
how the small things make a difference. Like I was
once at a gas stationing air in my tire and
this guy walks up and I didn't like that piece
because I was putting air in my tire because I
didn't particularly care for someone walking up. Yeah, He's like,
he's like, would you give me a dollar if I
do that? And I said no, but if you just
go inside the gas station and get some stuff, I'll
come in and buy it for you. And he's like really,

(01:01:02):
and I said yeah. So here's what was interesting. I
finished putting air on my tire, I walk in the
gas station. He was standing at the back of the line,
the look on his face. He didn't believe I was
going to come in and buy the food he had
gotten like one or two. I said, what are you doing?
I said, isn't that two for one? I said, We'll
go get like four and like and don't you need

(01:01:23):
water or something? And he's like really. And the thing
is the people in the line were just staring at
him and me like what. And he went back and
got water and stuff and I said, I'll pay for it,
and people just looked at us. I said, it's the
little things that make a difference. And for that man,
he was like, thank you so much. I didn't think
you were going to come inside. And I was like, yeah,
I get it because most people probably would tell you that.

Speaker 4 (01:01:43):
It's he restored his trust and his dignity by doing that.

Speaker 3 (01:01:46):
And the one thing is so important is in that moment,
I feel like that man felt like he was seen. Yes,
so often are homeless are struggling. They feel so unseen
and unheard. So when someone extends kindness, they're like wow,
because that's Unfortunately the world is feeling a little harsh
right now. So everybody gets the book Doctor Kurz and

(01:02:11):
thank you for coming on and sharing your story along
with Shauna's story. And I want to encourage everybody, please please, please, please,
you know, go get the book. Remember I said, you
can go to the website. It's there. That's why I'm
gonna encourage you to go to www dot Soulwise Solutions
dot com. Go get your autograph copy of the book
because it's worth it, and it's it's for a good cause,

(01:02:33):
but it's also a good read. And I said, get
social with you know because I feel like it's Shauna
probably on a lot of your social media stuff. Is
that probably? Yeah? Yeah, So yeah, get.

Speaker 4 (01:02:43):
We have So soul wise Team is the social is
the handle. Like you said, it was hard to try
to figure out to get it all consistent, but especially
on TikTok and on Instagram, soul wise Team seems to
be where a lot of the really interesting discussions are
taking place.

Speaker 3 (01:02:58):
So there you go, So get it with you. You're
getting social with Shawn and so it works out good.
So everybody make sure you follow on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube
and ex soul wise Team. That's pretty straightforward. Go get
the book that at Soulwise Solutions dot com. And again,
thank you so much for taking time out of your
schedule to stop in and chat with the Maya listeners.

(01:03:20):
And I hope you guys are all going to step
up and go buy this book, okay.

Speaker 4 (01:03:23):
And you're so passionate and formed, just so incredibly just compassionate.
I love it. Thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:03:32):
Yes, you you're you're heavy motivating, and you know, I
look forward to the day when I get to.

Speaker 4 (01:03:36):
Say, oh, I'm doctor Maya too.

Speaker 3 (01:03:40):
Hopefully this time next year we'll be saying that. You know,
I'm looking forward to it. But yes, your passion and
your purpose, these are the stories that I wanted to
share with people. So again, you know, we'll probably have
you on another time to talk about something else because
you're highly informative and I love your energy, good stuff.

Speaker 4 (01:03:55):
I would love it. And likewise, it's been a total pleasure.
Thank you, all right, thank.

Speaker 3 (01:04:00):
You for coming on. Everybody that is doctor Kirsten Viola
Harrison Meg I said, make sure you follow Instagram, Facebook,
YouTube and xt soul Wise team. Make sure also you
get the book. Go to soul Wise Solutions dot com
and purchase your autograph copy, not just the book, get
an autograph copy of the book and share the story

(01:04:21):
with other people. So this was episode seventy two. We're
just chugging along here. Hopefully everybody enjoyed it, share it
because I think the story is so worth sharing with
so many people because it is so so important. So
make sure everybody that you are out there sharing the story,
make sure you tune in.

Speaker 1 (01:04:39):
Though.

Speaker 3 (01:04:40):
We're going to keep the conversation about being ambitious on
the table next Saturday, which is the thirteenth, well this
month is already flying by. At two pm, we're gonna
have on our next guest. It will be the sixth
guests actually on the show, Ron Sowers, who is an
ADHD advocate coach and he's the host of Don't Mind Me.
I just have ADHD, And I feel like anybody who

(01:05:02):
probably has ADHD realistically probably can relate to that, like, yeah,
my forgetfulness. We just all kinds of stuff. So gonna
give some great insight because you know, one of the
things that people talk about right now is the diagnosis
for ADHD along with autism is rising exponentially, it seems like.
And to have someone kind of speak to it from

(01:05:22):
an adult perspective, because I met so many people that
were not diagnosed to adulthood and they're like, wow, how
this changed my life when I realized what was going
on in my neural divergent you know, is a better
way to talk about it. They like to be neuro divergent,
you know how that is. So make sure for sure
you tune in next week and we have on Royn
Biers talking about ADHD. It's going to be another amazing

(01:05:43):
show as well. Well. Everyone, thank you for listening to
this episode. Is I said, the whole purpose of this
podcast is to help you to identify your ambition, harness
that motivation to help you acquire the success and satisfaction
you seek in your everyday life. I want you to
think about every day, not like the future down the road.
Every day, I want you to think about how you

(01:06:05):
can grow and get that life you want. So remember
episodes can be found on Apple and iTunes as well
as Google Podcasts. There is Spotify, Amazon, iHeartRadio. These are
always that you can find, you know, the Maya podcast
of course. The easy thing to do is just go
to www. Dot Mayadas Speaks dot com and you can

(01:06:27):
find everything there is well to make it easy, so
make sure you subscribe and that you share and all
that good stuff these episodes with other because I say,
even if let's say you listen to an episode and
it doesn't do something for you, it doesn't mean there's
not somebody else that could benefit from the information too.
So subscribe and share. You know, all the Maya speaks

(01:06:50):
to you. Like I told you, I finally got my
act together on my share platforms, so make sure you
do that as well. But get social x, Instagram, face Book,
the whole nine yards right there, Maya speaks to you.
It's all good stuff, all right, everybody. That's it for
this episode. And you know I always end it with
my saying that people kind of scratch their heads and
go hmmm. Until next time. Everyone, Remember your present becomes

(01:07:15):
your past and your future is no more. I stole
that from Pearl Jam. It's not me, So make the
most of every day. Everybody, be well, stay safe. And
of course you're all my listeners, so I think you're
all absolutely amazing. I will see you all next Saturday.
Help a good one, chiao.

Speaker 2 (01:07:37):
Whether you're on the go or listening on your cell phone, tablet,
or laptop, you can find the show and the iTunes,
Google and iHeartRadio platforms.

Speaker 3 (01:07:46):
The respect. I believe this is going to be our
finest hour.

Speaker 2 (01:07:49):
Just search Maya my ambition, your ambition, and get ready
to be inspired and motivated to harness your ambition.