Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele Taraba

Gissele Taraba
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  • Mental Health

Love and Compassion Podcast-Where Gissele talks with everyday exceptional people who have overcome adversities and have wisdom to share.

  1. 6d ago

    Ep. 105 – Want More Peace In The World? Try Unconditional Love

    TRANSCRIPT Gissele: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. Today, we’re talking about unconditional love in relationships, and my guest today is Adam Guzman-Puell. Gissele: who’s a holistic relationship counselor, coach, and existential therapist, and the author of the Amazon bestseller, Lessons on Love. Gissele: He draws on 20 years of apprenticeship in spiritual traditions from around the globe, including indigenous elders, Buddhist teachings, and yogic philosophy, integrating their wisdom with modern psychology to help couples and individuals build conscious, meaningful relationships rooted in the sacred. When he’s not working with clients, you’ll likely find him having fun with his son, Gissele: Arjuna and his wife, Adrienne, mentoring a young person or volunteering at a local permaculture garden in Bali, where he lives for the majority of the year. [00:01:00] Please join me in welcoming Adam. Hi, Adam. Adam: Hi, great to see you, Gissele. Pleasure to be here. Gissele: Oh, good to see you too. Thank you so much for being on the show. I’m so excited for our conversation, talking about, relationships and how challenging and also amazing and beautiful they can be, especially trying to unconditionally love people. Gissele: I was wondering if you could start by telling the audience a little bit about how you got started in this work. Adam: So gosh where to begin? I guess the journey of love is a, a journey of a lifetime. I think we all know that, right? But it’s, Adam: For me, one of the, opening doors, the big opening doors of, finding love started actually in my childhood, and we’re talking about unconditional love, right? Adam: This love and, I grew up with a little bit of a, a rough childhood. I was a little bit of a, a crazy teen, a little wild. Lots of some problems with the law and problems with drugs, alcohol. [00:02:00] And when I was 16, I was blessed to find the loving presence of an indigenous elder over on Algonquin territory in Ottawa, Canada. Adam: And she was a beautiful woman, and she had this power of just, one of the greatest gifts of love is being able to see somebody. To see past, who, the, the mud and the conditioning, and seeing through to the heart. So she saw past what society may have looked at “Oh, here’s this messed up kid who’s like this and like that,” and she saw me at my core, right? Adam: And so that was like, that allowed me to step into who I truly was, and that started the 20-year apprenticeship with, different indigenous elders, teachers through the p- process of meditation. And that was like the beginning of the opening of love and that’s… Yeah, that, that was the beginning of that part and, there’s other chapters and I’m sure we’ll get to those, but oh, yeah. Gissele: Yeah. [00:03:00] I love that story. And I also wanna point out how key what you just said is unconditional love is the ability to see people as their true essence, and from my perspective is the divine within them. And so if we could truly love people, we can see them beyond their flaws, beyond what they’re portraying, beyond that, the hurt behaviors. But it’s … it can feel difficult to do that when we ourselves probably don’t see ourselves that way. Gissele: Can you tell me a little bit about what you’ve learned from what are the, the core teachings from all of these different traditions about the importance of self-love in loving other people? Adam: Yeah. The importance of self-love is really… i’m gonna draw from the Gita now, and then I’m gonna weave it into the different Buddhist and indigenous teachings. But in the Gita, in the Bhagavad Gita they talk about the Self with a capital S- Self, right? It’s that [00:04:00] divine. Adam: You talked about the divine within us So when we really tap into that divine within ourselves, like who we actually are, you and me, we are souls. We are beautiful, we are whole, we are complete, and that is us in our essence. So the more that we connect with that essence within us that true essence of us, we are love itself, right? Adam: So the more that we are able to connect with that through different practices, whether it be meditation, whether it be through service, whether it be through just the simple act of taking care of yourself ’cause your body’s a temple, right? So those things help you get in touch with your essence, and then you’re more able to give that to the world around you, right? Adam: You– We all know that, we can’t give from an empty cup. So Adam: tap into the divine within us, and then we’re able to reflect the divine into other people. I just wanna tell just a fun, fun story that just happened to me yesterday evening, [00:05:00] and it wa- it’s a perfect example of what happens when we look at people in the divine. Adam: So the other day I w- I had to go get water. So in Bali, we have to get like liters of wa-water. We can’t actually like 20 liters at a time ’cause you can’t drink the drinking water here. So I went to go get water at the store, at the convenience store there, and at the convenience store, there’s a lot of builders around the area, and there, so there was this character that kind of looked a little shady. Adam: Like you could look, see, he looked a little shady and, of course, like my automatic schemata comes up that we’re programmed through from, and then there’s quick automatic judgments that I’m, that I made. And so that’s my little self looking at these, this scenario, looking at that, and then I bypass that with my conscious self, with my divine self, and it’s “This is a divine being here that’s looking at…” Adam: And I consciously said that in my head, and then I saw him at that. And amazingly, immediately when I did that, the man [00:06:00] got up and helped me pick up my water and then put it on my motorbike to drive away. It was like how my thoughts really truly influenced the situation around us. And there’s a lot of research in heart math, like how your, your heart actually puts out a frequency into the field and affects the vibration of other people’s hearts, and the same is true with our thoughts. Adam: That’s just a little quick story that I just thought about the that Gissele: Yeah, fantastic. Adam: Yeah Gissele: It actually reminded me of my own experience. So I was once at a Starbucks in downtown Toronto, ’cause I’m Canada, and I remember coming in and it was super busy. And so I’m doing the lineup, and I gotta get back to my meeting, and then somebody comes in, and the energy just feels off. Gissele: It just feels I don’t know. I felt like I just need to run away, but there are so many people and everything was blocked, and I thought, “Okay, so I can’t run away right now. It’s gonna look weird, and it’s blocked, so what can I do?” And the only thing that I could think to do in that moment is to [00:07:00] align to the essence of love, which meant, for me, just sending out loving thoughts to that being, to that person, and to the people all around. And I did not expect this. This was so weird. So the person then looked right at me, and they kinda had a weird expression, and they said, “I can’t be here.” And then they just left. Gissele: And some people kinda had a weird expression. The majority of people didn’t even notice. And that, to me, was the beginning of me understanding the transformative power of Gissele: love, just being able to see to hold the essence of love, in- including for that person. Gissele: I didn’t know what, what was up with them, but I just knew that I… if I held that energy for them, that maybe it could help ’cause I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t… Not expecting anything to happen, but it was really interesting to see that [00:08:00] immediate reaction to that energy that I was putting out there because I… Gissele: There was… That little s- little me was like, “Oh, I can’t just bolt out of here. It’d look weird,” right? So expecting that judgment. But, so thank you for sharing that story, Gissele: ’cause it, it reminded me. The other thing that really stuck out to me is just how often we do th- things from the little self. Gissele: I… Gissele: you’re right, and especially me as a woman, the way I was trained not to trust anyone, because of our family history of abuse. And so my little self always constantly goes first to, Danger. Danger. Who’s the th- what’s the potential danger?” But it takes practice, Gissele: and that’s what you were trying to say. Gissele: It takes real practice for us to see it and to bypass. Can you share a little bit about your journey to getting to that bypass? ‘Cause I can’t… I can only imagine that it must not have been just immediately. You don’t… Unless maybe that happened to you, that you became automatically enlightened. Gissele: But it’s been a minute for Gissele: me in terms of the journey of having to really shift from that little S. Adam: Yeah, I think, everyone [00:09:00] it is that takes time, and even if it just happens in an instant, if you believe in past lives, they’ve done the work before. Gissele: Yeah, Adam: right? Adam: Yeah. So for me yeah, it’s been, it’s similar. It’s been a long journey and I did many different practices for years of just it’s like I think, I did meditation different Vipassana meditation for years, different yogic meditations for years. Adam: Studying with indigenous ceremonies for years and like really apprenticing on the land. I’m not just like talking about a weekend retreat. It’s like literally in, in it. And how I look at it is like we’re polishing a diamond, right? There is it’s when you get a, a diamond

  2. Jul 15

    Ep. 104 – How helping others can help us become happy when we are struggling

    TRANSCRIPT Gissele : [00:00:00] welcome to the Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content, and if you’d like to support the podcast, you can buymeacoffee.com/loveandcompassion. Today, we’re gonna be talking about finding happiness even in the most difficult moments. Gissele : Our guest today is Karen Olson, who is the founder of Family Promise, a national non-profit organization that helps homeless and low-income families. Today, the organization boasts more than 200 affiliates across the US, with more than 180,000 men, women, and children served each year. In her book Meant for More, Karen tells her story from tragedy in childhood to an adulthood full of compassion and service, which has made her stronger, healthier, and more fulfilled than ever before. Gissele : Many people seek happiness through acquiring material goods or achieving status, only to find a lack of fulfillment. With first-hand [00:01:00] testimonials from Karen and other volunteers, Meant for More is a call to action. When you reach out beyond yourself and seek to make a difference in the lives of others , happiness will catch up with you. Gissele : Please join me in welcoming Karen Olson. Hi, Karen. Karen: Gissele, thank you s- so much. I’m happy to be here. I’ve got a little cough today, so I have to clear my throat. Gissele : Thank you so much for being on the show. I was wondering if you could start by telling the audience a little bit about your childhood and how that led you to to choose a life of service. Karen: My childhood before I was 12 was very happy. Playing outside, going to the beach in the summer, swimming in Long Island Sound, and in the winter, skating on the pond on our street. And I just was happy-go-lucky, giggling and laughing all the time, having so much fun. I didn’t recognize that it was so happy until one day it [00:02:00] wasn’t. Karen: When I was 12, I experienced a very tragic and sudden loss. My mother committed suicide when I was just 12. She had been depressed, and she was seeing a doctor, and her marriage to my father wasn’t good, and but we had no idea she would commit suicide, but she did. And since I was so close to her and my dad was an alcoholic I just, it left a hole in my heart when she died. Karen: But that hole drove me to help others, ’cause I knew what hurt was, and I didn’t want anyone else to hurt. So I did various things. I volunteered at the ho- local hospital as a candy striper. I delivered flowers to people. And I played tennis with a man, young man across the street whose girlfriend left him, and he had cancer, [00:03:00] and he didn’t have long to live. Karen: But it just seemed natural to me to wanna reach out to others, something I was not aware of before I had lost my mother. But the loss of my mother encouraged me to reach out to others, and I think it’s that drive, that passion that drove me on to create Family Promise and help so many people Gissele : Now how did you specifically choose to help that population, the homelessness population, instead of like maybe some other organization? Gissele : Like why homelessness in particular? Karen: I started out giving sandwiches to people in New York City at Port Authority Bus Terminal. And actually, what led me there was I was on my way to a meeting in New York City. I was a consumer promotions manager. And I was about to pass [00:04:00] this woman who I had seen before. She was elderly. She sat on a crate outside of Grand Central Station, and she always looked down, like she was very depressed. Karen: And on this particular day, I decided I just couldn’t walk by her without offering something. So I ran across the street and got her a ham and cheese sandwich and an orange juice. And when I came back, she said, “Thank you. God bless you. Haven’t eaten anything since yesterday.” And with that, she took my hand in hers, and a connection was made. Karen: And from there, I began going into Port Authority Bus Terminal every other Sunday with my sons to give sandwiches, and we got to know people, like Lucille and Ar- Karen: Just as a way of lifting, lifting their spirits, and it certainly did. [00:05:00] But then I became curious about homeless people. In New Jersey, I had heard there were homeless people, but I didn’t see any. The thing about that is you don’t see homeless families. They try to stay out of sight. But I began volunteering in the city of Elizabeth at the Salvation Army in the soup kitchen, and there I met families who were working but homeless, and I thought, “How can that be? Karen: Does the religious community know?” Karen: After I met Millie, I told my two sons, were then 10 and 12, about Millie. And they said to me, “Mom, let’s go into the New York City and bring more sandwiches to people like Millie.” They had the open hearts of children. Yeah. They just wanted to do it. So we made 25 sandwiches and brought them in to Port Authority Bus Terminal, and [00:06:00] gave them to people who were sitting on the benches. Karen: And this was on a Sunday night. Essentially anybody sitting on a bench in the upper floor of Port Authority Bus Terminal was not waiting for their bus. They were simply homeless. And we got to meet people like Abe and Arthur. Arthur w- was a World War II veteran. Karen: When he opened his jacket, he had medals with- pinned inside his jacket, and he would tell war stories to my two sons, and he was like a grandfather figure, and then we met people like Lucille. On the good days, she would say, she was a first-grade teacher, and she’d say to my son, “Doug,” d- study hard. Karen: You don’t wanna end up like me in Port Authority Bus Terminal.” And on other days, when maybe she [00:07:00] was off her medication, I don’t know, but we were the CIA or the FBI, and she screamed at the top of her lungs, so the nicest thing we could do was just, just, leave her alone. That started my outreach to homeless people, and and I also invited them to my house for Thanksgiving dinner. Karen: Now the only thing about that is I, I– Three weeks before, I would go in and give them bus tickets in a little envelope with the invitation to come for Thanksgiving dinner. I didn’t think anything about it at the time, but my friend reminded me, Karen, you admit that you’re not a very good cook, and you’ve never cooked a Thanksgiving dinner.” Karen: But I don’t think about those things. I just kinda g- lead with my heart. And so we had eight people who were homeless [00:08:00] come to my house for Thanksgiving dinner: Arthur, Abe, Lucille, and John, and others. And it was just one of the nicest Thanksgiving dinner e- ever, because everybody talked about Thanksgivings past, and Karen: they were very appreciative of the dinner, and Gissele : I was just gonna comment on the fact that, most people would ignore people that are suffering. Most people would just pass by, not even notice. And one of the things that I think is beautiful about your story is that you’re willing you had been willing to notice the suffering of the woman who was there and was hungry. Gissele : You notice the suffering of the veteran, who we obviously have forgotten about because as a society, why aren’t we taking care of our veterans who’d fought for us? And also more importantly, you said something that is happening right now, which is many people are working, and they’re still not able to make ends meet, and they’re [00:09:00] experiencing an invisible suffering. Karen: Yes, an invisible suffering. That’s so true. Gissele : And to notice someone suffering. Sorry. Gissele : To notice someone suffering and to be willing to extend a hand because most people would not have invited them to, to their house. I probably would be one of those people that would be, like, afraid, who would be like, what if they steal something or what if something happens? What helped you get over that fear? Gissele : Or did you even not think about it? Did you just do it because you thought it was the right thing to do? I know that I have been very fear-based in the past, and that really has closed my heart and prevented me from being as truly compassionate as I want to be. Karen: It’s interesting. Karen: I, I saw you tear up at the thought of people suffering and no one reaching out. I reached that point of tearing up, but it drives me to just do something and not really think about it much. I have to say that I have very good instincts because- … Karen: I’m not gonna bring my children near people who are wild [00:10:00] or, you know- Yeah Karen: not on their medication or whatever. I know how to stay away from danger. But when I get to that point of sensing this deep injustice that, how can we allow so many people to lie on the streets, some without, y- enough clothing, hurting in bad weather how can we allow that to happen? Karen: That catapults me to try to do something. It’s like a reflex action. So- Yeah, that’s what drove me to start reaching out to people in New York City. And then from there, I wanted to find out what’s happening in my own community in New Jersey, and that’s when I began volunteering at a soup kitchen and a shelter, and that’s where I met families. Karen: And many of these families were working. The shelter was [00:11:00] full which it usually was. Not enough not enough beds for all that are needed. It’s hard because the minimum wage hasn’t been raised since 2009. It’s still at $7.25 per hour. Karen: state of the housing in the United States is that you can’t afford an a fair market two-bedroom rental with the wage you make. Most renting families below the poverty line now spend at least fifty percent of their income on housing. Karen: So along comes a car repair or something that needs to

  3. Jul 5

    Ep. 103- Can We Truly Create a Community Where We All Care About One Another?

    TRANSCRIPT Gissele: [00:00:00] hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content, and if you’d like to support the podcast, you can go to buymeacoffee.com/loveandcompassion. Gissele: Today, we’re talking about creating true community, and We’re talking to the Society for the Involvement of Good Neighbors, also known as SIGN, which has been operating in Yorkton, Saskatchewan, and surrounding communities for the past 57 years. Gissele: The organization operates 23 supportive programs for individuals and families of all ages and employs over 120 staff. Its CEO, Andrew Sedley, has been with the organization for the past 15 years. Previous to his work with SIGN, he worked in the healthcare sector in mental health, addictions, and public health. Gissele: He convocated from the University of Regina in 2006 with a bachelor’s degree in social work. And as a lifelong resident of Yorkton, Andrew recognizes the value of the [00:01:00] not-for-profit sector in building community and supporting individuals and families within the community. Please join me in welcoming Andrew. Gissele: Hi, Andrew. Andrew: Hello, so glad to join you today Gissele: Oh, thank you so much for being on the podcast. I was recently at the Yorkton Film Festival, and I heard about your organization and how community has come together, and I just had to talk to you. I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit about how SIGN got started. Andrew: in 1968, we had four local clergymen that had come together and they’d seen the needs in the community really wanted to develop something that could provide more than what the churches could provide at the time. They’d seen a lot of individuals and families that were struggling, and they sat down around a table, and they came up with this great idea of an organization that could serve the community needs, and we’re gonna call it Society for the Involvement of Good Neighbors because we know as good neighbors, we’re there for each other, we help out when needed, and support each other. Andrew: And so they started from that conversation, [00:02:00] and in 1969, they opened their doors. And, the first executive director at the time was Elton Davidge, and he was a long time member of the United Church here in town. And so the very beginning of our organization started more faith-based but from then has moved on now to more of a funded through government and that sort of thing. Andrew: But one thing that they always wanted to do, and I’m a huge history person, so when I got here 15 years ago, we have this room for archives, and they kept every single newspaper clipping and, and so just I read, I spent a week reading the history of this organization. And one of their first meetings the four clergymen had was they wanna have the finger on the pulse of the community. They wanna know what’s going on in our community and how can we support those individuals and families in need. And from 1969 when they opened their doors until today, that’s really what we want to focus on is making sure that we’re meeting the needs and supporting individuals and families that need those extra supports. Andrew: [00:03:00] We’ve we’ve changed. I’m a lifelong resident of Yorkton, and so I’ve seen kinda how we’ve grown, we’ve diversified, and as in many communities across this country, we’re seeing a lot more needs and a lot more people in crisis and needing supports. And from the very humble beginnings of those four clergymen to where we are now, one thing that we wanted to keep always was what is the needs in our community? Andrew: How can we develop programs to support those needs? And kinda go from there. Andtheir first foray into providing supportive programs in Yorkton was a counseling program. And now we have counseling now, but back then when they started counseling, they had it over the radio. And so every Wednesday evening for an hour People would call in and talk about what’s going on in their lives, and guessing the whole community probably listened as well. So not very confidential off the start. Andrew: But, uh, Now, 57 years later, we’re still providing counseling. Andrew: It’s confidential, it’s free, it’s rapid, it’s when people need [00:04:00] it. But that was our first foray into supportive programs. And the other piece that this organization always wanted to work on was advocacy, and advocating for those in our community that need. And our first advocacy project that we did was back in the early nine- I think it was 1970, and it was advocating the city council to bring in crosswalks. So it was something where there was a young person that was hit on one of our main streets the members of Sign had heard, seen other communities that had crosswalks and advocated to city council to say, “Hey, let’s look at starting crosswalks.” So that was our very humble beginnings was looking at, providing a one-hour kinda counseling per week call-in show and advocacy for crosswalks. Andrew: And from there, like I say, we’ve just diversified and like you mentioned, 120 staff now that we’re providing supports to individuals. And last year alone, we’re just planning for our annual meeting and last year we had 8,123 unique individuals that accessed one of our [00:05:00] services. We’re a community of 17,000, and so Andrew: it’s amazing, The supports that we’re able to provide and where pe-people feel comfortable coming for supports because there’s always stigmatization and that sort of thing too. But we really want it to be that welcoming, open place for everyone to come and meet other people, have supports, that sort of thing as well. Gissele: This is so beautiful because, even from its very beginnings, it was based on true community caring and truly looking out for one another. Can you just say a little bit more about the kinds of services that you provide? And are they all funded by the government, or do you sometimes have to go above and beyond what the government envelope gives you? Andrew: As many nonprofits know across this country we do go above and beyond. So we do receive some funding for some of our programs through government, but we do provide a lot of extra supports and that sort of thing. So when I look at some of our programs that we offer, we provide programming from everywhere from prenatal up to our seniors. Andrew: We provide low-cost [00:06:00] transportation for seniors in the community to get out to medical appointments, go for groceries. Our drivers, what they’ll do is, yes, they take the individuals to the appointments, but they’ll walk them in, check them in, they’ll carry in their groceries. And the real focus of it is one, we wanna make sure people are getting to their appointments and that sort of thing. But what we’ve found is that a lot of some of our older folks in the community, their families moved away And, for them to still be feeling included in their community and that sort of thing, it’s us picking them up and getting them out to their seniors groups, activities and really building those relationships. Andrew: When I started 15 years ago, I wanted to spend a day with each program just to find out a little bit more. one of the programs I’ll always remember is our senior mobility program because I sat in the back seat and our drivers would come pick up the seniors, and they would start a conversation on the way to the doctor’s office. Andrew: The driver would walk them in, check them in, come back about an hour later. They’d pick them up once their appointment’s done, and they just continue [00:07:00] on the conversation. And the relationships that we’re able to build with our seniors and our drivers i- is so important and really reducing that isolation. As seniors, as they grow and if they’re in their own home still, they can become quite isolated, family’s not around. And yeah, it’s a transportation service, but what we’re really doing is really trying to reduce that isolation. And we hear from seniors all the time just how they’re so thankful to have us around to be able to even just to have conversations with and that sort of thing. Andrew: We, Some of our other programming we offer in-home family support, so going in, doing home visiting, working with families and parents ensuring, that parents have the skills that they need to raise healthy children. We work with individuals that have long-term mental illness doing job coaching and independent living supports ensuring they can live on their own and be independent. Uh, brain injury programs involving again independent living and ensuring that those individuals are able to have the supports they need [00:08:00] to be able to, go grocery shopping and budgeting and helping out with their apartment or their house or that sort of thing as well. A number of our other programs include family resource centers. So in a couple communities, we offer centers that families can come to, and there’s drop-in and play. There’s programmed activities we’ll have public health come in, uh, and do different s- activities with the parents. Mom and me yoga, dads bird birdhouse making cooking classes, those sort of things. And it’s really become a drop-in center for individuals that just, when you have a new baby it can be tough and, if everyone else is working and that sort of thing, y-you feel quite isolated. Andrew: So again, we have new moms, new dads coming together and meeting other new moms and new dads and just being able to network that way, but as well learning some really good tips and tricks on early childhood development and ensuring that we’re able to raise our kids the best that we can. We have a early learning center, which is a licensed [00:09:00] daycare facil

  4. Jun 22

    Ep. 102 – Have We Really Changed? Love, Race, and the Prejudice We Still Refuse to Face

    TRANSCRIPT Gissele: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the Love and Compassion podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. Gissele: And if you’d like to support the podcast, you can go to buymeacoffee.com/loveandcompassion Gissele: Are you struggling with an interracial relationship that other people don’t accept, or have you survived or are struggling with intense and traumatic family and relationship challenges, or if you’re just someone who has the courage to follow your dreams against all odds. Today, our guest is Annie Waxman, author of Accidental Rebel: My Story of Interracial Love and Loss. Gissele: In the late 1960s, she was a young, white, and privileged high school cheerleader who accidentally fell in love with James, the Black star basketball player. This was a time of deep racial tension in the US, and especially in a small town in Kentucky where she lived. Gissele: [00:01:00] Accidental Rebel is a memoir of the journey of their secret relationship, which, when dramatically discovered , changed her life, her family’s life, and the small Kentucky town forever . Please join me in welcoming Annie Waxman. Hi, Annie. Annie: Hi there. Thank you for having me. Gissele: Oh, thank you very much for being on the show. Gissele: we’re talking about race relations. you would’ve thought that it was the 1960s, but I think people still struggle with those relationships. People still struggle with accepting different races, as we see with what’s happening in the US, and so I think this conversation continues to be unfortunately timely. Gissele: I was wondering if you could, tell the audience a little bit about how you fell in love with a basketball player and how that impacted your family. Annie: Okay. the story is about, race, shame that I was told that I was, giving towards the family and the [00:02:00] town. Annie: And forgiveness. I think forgiveness is also what the story is about. And, trauma, young trauma. I was, a young girl, very popular in high school, and, I did something that, my parents did not agree with. I was with a Black guy, and,they did not know that I was with him. I was sneaking around, uh, initially, and then many years later, up in, well into my 20s, I was still sneaking around, from my family and from them knowing what was going on I never was raised to talk poorly about people or to make any derogatory comments about anyone. Annie: so it was kind of shocking, when my father and my mother, reacted the way they did when [00:03:00] I was caught, really caught, with this Black guy. we had, gone in a car. I used to meet him in the cemetery, Annie: He would run through the back, and I would drive through the cemetery, and that’s how we would start meeting. Annie: rumors were starting to surface that I was seeing the basketball player. and I didn’t even tell my best friend about it, who was also a cheerleader. So that indicates that I knew that probably it was gonna be problematic for a lot of people So, my father, who was quite powerful and very well-known in the state, had Annie: Police cars following me. Mm-hmm. And, and they followed me to that area of town. and we had gone into a house there, and, we [00:04:00] were together. It was kinda the first time we’d been able to be together in actually a real location. though we do, did go down to an old stone church that was way out in the country at times and meet there. Annie: so my father was knocking at the door, and, um, I told James to run, because everybody was saying, “Your father’s out there,” you know. “I don’t know, he looks crazy.” And so long story short, I told James to run. He ran out the back door, and I gathered myself calmly and went and opened the door, and my father, threw me out of the house down the stairs, the concrete stairs. Annie: There must have been about 10 of them. Mm-hmm. And at that time, my father, who unfortunately was a [00:05:00] philanderer a bit, he and his girlfriend were with him, and she spit on me. And my father got me in the car and drove me home, where we lived in a very nice subdivision in that small town. And- Pulled me out of the car and said, “Tell your mother you’ve been with a,” the N-word, uh, which was used, you know, back then. Annie: So it, this is kind of the journey that I was on. I was 16, and a lot happened to me that evening, July 26th, 1969. And every year I think about that day and what happened to me, and that was 57 years ago. So I felt it was important to write this book and [00:06:00] get my story out there, and maybe it might, um, show some other interracial couples what other couples went through to maybe make it a little bit easier for them, though I’m not sure it’s really that easy at all still. Gissele: I was thinking about what you said in terms of, like my parents hadn’t really said anything until I was dating someone, right? Yes. And so I was thinking people don’t believe that they’re racist until, until somebody wants to join the family of maybe a different race and then that really kind of shows you how you really feel, right? Annie: Exactly. Gissele: Um, did, did James experience the same thing with his family in terms of him dating somebody white? Annie: Uh, no. now my father had out that he was gonna kill him. Oh, wow. So he hid out for, for quite a while. but his family did not have a problem with it As far as I can [00:07:00] really remember, I think that there were other, people in the Black community, older people- Mm-hmm Annie: that had a problem with it and thought that, you know, um, we should stick with our own kind, which was the term used. Mm-hmm. but, not like what my parents did. And that’s just a very small slice of the story of what happened to me. Um, and I don’t really know how far you want me to go with it Gissele: It’s as far as you wanna go. Gissele: I mean, it must have been really difficult for you to continue the relationship, ’cause obviously you continued it ’cause you ended up getting married. so take me to the next stage in terms of, what made you wanna continue forward? Was it your love? Was it just the need to prove everyone right, or was it maybe a little bit of both? Annie: It was a little bit of both, yes. You know, we’ll show you. Mm-hmm. You think we went through all of [00:08:00] that and it’s gonna end? And really the problem with that is that then I didn’t really, and he didn’t either, we didn’t really realize we weren’t really good partners together. Gissele: Mm, ’cause you were 16. Annie: I was 16. Gissele: Yeah. that’s young. Yeah … Annie: we forged on we were together about … we were, 30 when we, when we split up. it was very traumatic time. I had been put in a psychiatric ward for a week my father He shot at me with a gun. Annie: Oh. And I was being choked. And, uh, then, the whole town was coming together and coming to the house and telling me I’d shamed the family and shamed everyone, and my body was supposed to have been at the [00:09:00] funeral home. a small town, rumors can swirl, and- Mm-hmm … that’s really what was happening. Annie: But I was pretty popular. and he was as well. Uh, but not on the same outgoing, let’s say, level, you know? Gissele: Yeah, Gissele: I’m very sorry that you had to go through that. That must have been so difficult to feel like everyone’s against you, right? You were only 16. You were only following your heart, and had people not judged, it probably would have evolved as it would have had, right? Gissele: But people’s fears and their prejudices are, always make things worse. Exactly … Did you end up staying in Kentucky or did you end up going somewhere else- No … just because it was so- No … difficult, yeah? Annie: No, I did not end up staying. I was sent away to a Catholic boarding school for bad girls- Oh Annie: my senior year in high school. and unfortunately he had to stay. He could not leave. He was not of wealth or, or anything. [00:10:00] so he had to endure staying in the town. so I’m, have a lot of empathy for what he went through- Yeah … ending up with this white girl, with this, the dad and this, you know, to this day I have a lot of empathy for him. Gissele: so when you were sent to that home for girls-was it for your last year- Year … of high school? And then- My senior Annie: year in Gissele: high school. So then were you able to come home, and then Annie: I, then I came home. I, and I tried to, go away to college somewhere else. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Annie: And I didn’t get in, so I had to be in Kentucky. Gissele: Mm. Annie: Uh, but I, I got into the school furthest away from home. Gissele: Mm. Annie: so I was happy about that. I kinda hated my parents at that time. Annie: for what they did to me really. Gissele: How was your ex-husband’s family? did you spend any time with them? Were you- Annie: I only met [00:11:00] them once. Gissele: Even though Annie: you were married for a while? But you have to understand that we were secretive until- Yeah … we got married, and, um, and we were 26 years old. Annie: So my family didn’t know. We moved away. we were hiding out in an apartment in a way that, it was really- Wow. Gissele: That must have been tough, yeah. Annie: It was, um, and that’s when it, I got to the point where I can’t do this anymore. The secrecy was affecting me, and I just could not do it anymore. Annie: And so I just one day just told my parents I was with him. Gissele: Hmm. I Annie: didn’t- Couldn’t hide … so how long were Gissele: you married for? Annie: two years, and we lived together- we lived together 10 or 11 years. Gissele: Oh, okay. And you weren’t anywhere near his family. You moved away somewhere else ’cause you couldn’t Annie: be in the town. Annie: Yeah

  5. Jun 9

    Ep. 101 – Can Authenticity Help Us Create a More Loving and Inclusive World?

    TRANSCRIPT Gissele: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. And if you’d like to support the podcast, you can go to buymeacoffee.com/loveandcompassion. Today, we’re talking about authenticity, and Gissele: We’re talking to Alexander Kopelman, who’s a writer, social entrepreneur, advocate, and coach who has been devoted 40 years to advancing social justice and personal empowerment. As the founding president and CEO of Children’s Arts Guild, Kopelman helped create and grow a nonprofit organization that supports children in exploring and developing their authentic selves. Kopelman has authored and co-authored 10 books, including For Real!, helping children remain their authentic selves in a limiting world. He lives in New York City with his wife, daughter, and very small dog. Please join me in welcoming Alex. Hi, Alex. Alex: Hi, thanks very much for having me on.[00:01:00] Gissele: Oh, thank you so much for being on the show because this is such an important topic in terms of authenticity and how we can cultivate that in children. I was wondering if you could get started by telling the audience a little bit about how you got into this work. Alex: sure. It’s really, very much a life’s work and, very personal to me. I, grew up in the Soviet Union when there was still such a thing until I was 13 years old, and came to the United States as a refugee, not knowing any English. Um, and the process of, creating an identity as a teenager in a new language really gave me, I guess a glimpse into, how choiceful identity is and, the kinds of decisions we make as we, think about who we are, share who we are with other people, and, find our way in the world, and in the story that we tell ourselves about our own life [00:02:00] and, the people around us. Gissele: Yeah. Uh, you know, your story resonated so deeply with me because I had a very similar immigration experience. So my sister and I and our family came to Canada from Peru, and I came when I was 10. And I saw the journeys that my sister and I both took. So for me, I completely erased everything that was different ’cause it wasn’t popular to be Hispanic when I immigrated to Canada. Gissele: You know, now it’s, like, cool and… But when I immigrated, it was like, it was weird, or it was different. And I wanted so desperately to belong, I completely erased my culture. And my sister sort of took the other path, which was she actually held onto it so tightly, and I found that she had experienced bullying because it was different. Gissele: and so I so resonated with your story because it reminded me of my experience. And we do so much to wanna belong, right? It’s so ingrained in us to wanna belong, but to our own detriment. And it took me a long time for me to come back to that culture to [00:03:00] embrace those aspects of myself. were you able to keep aspects of your culture, or did you find that you completely, you know, 180 like I Alex: I had a similar,experience to yours. You know, people ask me, “Oh, do you still speak Russian?” And I do, but, you know, I have to, uh, preface it with that I speak Russian the way a 13-year-old speaks Russian. And, I made a choice.to me it was very much about either I could become fluent in English, which also equated in my mind to being, indistinguishable, that I would, I would not be standing out, which was very important. Alex: or I could hold onto some Russian and some Russian culture, and I went full on to being, uh, as fluent as I could be, as not Russian as I could be. there’s a backstory there because growing up Jewish in the Soviet Union, was, very much about being an [00:04:00] outsider. we were considered an ethnic minority. Alex: Um, we had, our ethnicity stamped in our passports. we stood out because we are dark, dark hair and dark skinned, and we were called names on the street by people who didn’t know us, for being Jewish. So there was a real sense of, the danger that goes with being an outsider. and then I arrived in the United States and I was suddenly a white guy. Alex: Um, and you know, I also didn’t speak English. my definition of being Jewish was very different from the definition of being Jewish here. Alex: so it continued this process of all the ways in which being, an outsider Was undesirable. So I went about trying to be as American as I could possibly be. Alex: and as I said, as indistinguishable as possible. Gissele: Yeah. Let’s talk about your path back to authenticity. [00:05:00] one of the things I noticed in general, when we try so hard to belong, we can sometimes violate our own values, our own humanity in the desperation just not to be different. What helped you come back to being more authentically yourself and actually wanna do work on authenticity? Alex: You know, it was coming to the realization sometime in my probably mid-20s that I was completely lost in my life. I had no idea who I was, what I wanted, how to want things, how to go about getting the things I wanted. Um, and part of what I identified at that point was that the– my relationship with being a man was a big aspect of that sense of being lost. Alex: I did not understand what it [00:06:00] meant to be a man. I, in many ways, felt ashamed of being a man, rejected, what I believed it meant. so I went about searching for that part of myself, where I could feel comfortable, in this fundamental way that I, I did not have a choice. I could not… Alex: so I, found, a men’s group through The Mankind Project, which is, now an international organization that sponsors Alex: men’s Alex: weekends around the world. Alex: Uh, there are now, I think, 20,000 men who’ve done one of those weekends, and what I found particularly useful was, the group that I was connected with after, the weekend. Alex: I’ve been a member of that group for 25 years, and that’s been transformative because it allowed me the safe space to think about, what my story was and how I felt about it, and to [00:07:00] see other men struggling with similar issues. And for us, really, the similar issues was just the fundamentals of feelings of, how difficult it is for us as men to experience and express basic feelings. Gissele: Mm, mm. I love that you said that, and it’s so fundamentally true. I think as a society, we’ve done such a huge disservice to our boys. I have one of each. I have a boy and a girl, and what I saw was a world that basically did not allow boys to engage in closeness without sexuality and,engage in dealing with difficult emotions that were beyond anger. And so if you limit the scope of which people can feel, I think you get what we see in the world, which is why I think your work is so important. And in particular, I think it’s important because the messaging that [00:08:00] I feel that children get in general is about belonging and conforming than it is about authenticity. Gissele: Can you talk a little bit about, how systems are impacting our children right now, especially our boys? Alex: Yeah. You know, I think We’re all trapped in this way of thinking about childhood and children that we’ve kind of evolved, and I think a lot of us recognize that it’s not working very well, and yet we don’t quite know what to do about it. I think that Alex: that conflict between belonging and authenticity is somehow baked into this conception of childhood, and it doesn’t have [00:09:00] to be. Belonging is a fundamental need. We are social creatures. We depend on others, not just in our childhood, but throughout our lives. Interdependence is just part of being human. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Alex: children and children’s development, it’s particularly important because in early childhood particularly, that developmental partner who serves as a mirror is critical to the way that we understand ourselves and ourselves in the world. And so if that mirror is distorted, if what we get from the mirror is the need to satisfy the adult’s needs rather than to listen to our own needs and satisfy those and ask for and have our needs met, that becomes a very difficult bind [00:10:00] for children to navigate. Alex: There was this lovely book that- helped me think about this, that I found probably 25 years ago, called “The Betrayal of the Self.” So the idea of, cutting off from parts of ourselves in order to get our needs met by others, can start very early, and it is very, very damaging to the way that we are in the world. Alex: And if you put the messaging of, gender socialization, of, expectations from society in general into the mix, what we learn to do is to listen to everything from outside of ourselves rather than our own inner voices. And if that continues, the inner voice gets pushed further and further down, and it is much more difficult to find. Alex: And it creates, conflict that is, um, [00:11:00] outside our field of vision, and, we begin to act on things that w-we don’t even understand where they’re coming from. so I think that’s fundamental, and a lot of that is, is also built into our systems. You know, our education system is a good example. Alex: And I’m referring to the one here in the States, but I think that education systems around the world have a common trait that we see children as raw material that is used to create the widgets that our economies need, right? we’re thinking more about what the labor force requirements are than about who are the human beings in our classrooms. Alex: And, you know, this is a vast generalization. There are wonderful schools that approach this stuff very differently, but for the most part, in general, we tend to treat children as incomplete human beings who are just on their way to [00:12:00] becoming human. And that’s a very strange message if y

  6. Jun 4

    Ep. 100 – Choosing Love After the Unthinkable

    TRANSCRIPT Gissele: [00:00:00] Choosing love after the unthinkable. Gissele: Hello, and welcome to the Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. And we’d also like to take an opportunity to thank Yorkton Film Festival for voting our podcast Best Podcast Nonfiction for 2026, and Latin Fest Best Latin Podcast for 2026. Scarlett: Wow Gissele: Scarlett Lewis is the founder of Choose Love Movement, a non-for-profit whose programs have reached millions of children and educators across all 50 US states and 135 countries. Following the tragic loss of her son Jesse in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings, she developed award-winning programs that teach people of all ages essential life skills rooted in courage, gratitude, forgiveness, love, and compassion. Gissele: Scarlett is also the author of several books, including Nurturing Healing Love and From Sandy Hook to the World, and her work extends into schools, [00:01:00] homes, communities, foster care, corrections, and youth programs. Recognized with numerous honors and awards and featured by many major media outlets, she continues to speak internationally about the healing, resilience, and power of choosing love. Gissele: Please join me in welcoming Scarlett Lewis. Gissele: Hi, Scarlett. Scarlett: Hi. So happy to be here. Thank you. Gissele: Thank you so much for being on the show. Your story is so powerful. I was wondering if you could get started by letting the audience know for those who might not know about Sandy Hook, a little bit about Sandy Hook and what happened to your son, Jesse. Scarlett: Yes, absolutely. First of all, thank you so much for having me and introducing this to your audience. It’s really exciting. So on December 14th, 2012, so that was 13 years ago, my six-year-old son was murdered in his first grade classroom alongside 19 of his classmates and six educators in what is still the worst mass shooting in an elementary school in the US Scarlett: after that, [00:02:00] I realized that what happened was 100% preventable . I just knew that inherently, and it turns out that is accurate. And w- I decided that I would spend the rest of my life in search of how we can keep our kids safe and well. So that was the beginning of the Choose Love movement Gissele: When you say that you believe there was 100% preventable, what do you mean by that? Scarlett: I mean that in every case in every school shooting, there are always signs. and other people had feelings and saw issues that went unaddressed. And the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting is no different. There were signs and things that were happening along the way. Scarlett: One of the things that really bothered me personally in this situation in my own son’s murder, was that there was [00:03:00] never a motive assigned to that school shooting. And a lot of times if you follow these things there aren’t motives that are identified, and that really bothered me because I kept thinking, “If you don’t know why somebody is doing what they’re doing, how can you solve it?” Scarlett: And it turns out we haven’t. And so what I did was look at what was currently in place, and a lot of times in our current system, we are very reactive and we focus on the problems. So even in school shootings, if you look at the Department of Homeland Security’s Pathway to Violence, it starts with a grievance, and then it escalates up, ideation, preparation, a few other steps to the attack end. Scarlett: We’re very focused on the attack end with a billion-dollar industry that has grown up around active shooter drills and hardening schools. And I looked at that and I thought it’s [00:04:00] interesting that we do that for other things too, as, as well as mental health and substance abuse.” And I thought, “Wow, if you shifted part of your focus,” because that’s very important. Scarlett: There are fires. We do have to put them out. But if we shifted some of our time, energy, and resources to the grievance end to address in a proactive and preventative way the root cause of the suffering, th- then we actually can reduce that suffering and potentially stop not only school shootings, but substance abuse and mental illness and so many of the other society issues of despair And so that’s where I’ve really focused my efforts because I saw that not many people were doing that. Scarlett: That’s not traditionally in our methods. And although I will say, great news, it [00:05:00] is becoming more of a focus, and really because we’ve seen nothing else is working. When Jesse was murdered, I had lots of opportunity to speak on behalf of lots of different initiatives that were going on before my son’s murder, and I thought, “You know what? Scarlett: No thank you,” because those haven’t worked. They didn’t work for my son, as well as his shooter by the way. And flash forward 13 years, they’re not working now. So I think a lot is in addressing the root cause. And this is a simple concept, but simple isn’t easy. It does take effort, and it takes all of us. Scarlett: But you know what? We benefit as individuals as well as a society. We’re responsible for the world that we’re leaving our kids. And so this is actually a way that everyone can get involved to help create a safer, more peaceful, and loving [00:06:00] world Gissele: I love everything that you said. There’s so much to unpack. I think the first thing I thought about was the fact that in many systems, not just like you said when you deal with a school shooter, even with women and violence the police wait until something has actually happened in order to offer protection. Gissele: So we wait for something to occur and then react instead of being proactive. The other thing I thought about is the fact that like you mentioned, there’s a lot of invisible suffering that happens. And the school shooter, I think his name was Adam Lanza and and all these other children that are going through all of this suffering basically unnoticed ’cause there was lots of instances where that potential could have been stopped, but it wasn’t, Scarlett: Oh, Gissele, can I even make, can I mention something there? Gissele: yes, please do Scarlett: When you say that, that’s very profound because in my research I’ve also spoken to school shooters because I wanna ask them what I don’t think anyone else is asking, “How did [00:07:00] we fail you?” Gissele: Oof. Yeah. Scarlett: You’re a Gissele: And what was their answer? Scarlett: You’re a child, in essence, and you weren’t born a mass murderer So how did we fail you along the way? Scarlett: What were the needs that you had that weren’t met? And with all the conversations that I’ve had, I can boil it down to one thing. It’s that they didn’t feel seen. And if you think about it, that takes a bit of effort. Instead of saying as I walk by you, “Hey, Gissele, how you doing?” And walking right past, it means pausing. Scarlett: It means being present in the moment, looking at you, hopefully in the eyes, and saying an open-ended statement s- to make you realize that I see and value you. If we treated every interaction as a sacred occurrence, which it really is, it would change humanity. And I think this is so [00:08:00] important. What I’m talking about are not difficult things. Scarlett: They’re really actually very simple, and they’re also led by a message that my six-year-old son left on our kitchen chalkboard shortly before his murder that I found after, which profoundly changed my life and also informed everything that I’ve done every day since. Those three words are nurturing, healing love. Scarlett: Phonetically spelled, because he was in first grade and just learning to write. I didn’t walk around saying those words. He wasn’t learning it in school. I believe that it was a message that came through him. But I immediately recognized it as the solution, and we know through now decades of research that connection or lack thereof is at the root of almost all suffering, including school shootings, mental illness, [00:09:00] substance abuse. Scarlett: And there are things that we can do to facilitate connection and teaching kids these essential life skills is so vitally important. B- in essence, giving them an invisible tool belt that they can use for the rest of their life to be able to learn, grow, and be strengthened through painful events. Scarlett: Because we’re gonna be experiencing pain. That’s part of the human condition. Nobody escapes it. It’s something I have in common with every single listener out there. Physical, mental, and emotional pain, we’ve all had it. We’ve all had our hearts broken. Maybe just a little crack, maybe shattered like mine. Scarlett: But in actuality, that pain has a purpose. It’s there to help us grow. There’s a science behind that as well. And if we don’t know that, we fear pain [00:10:00] because nobody wants to be in pain. And we do everything that we can to resist and avoid or w- maybe even numb ourselves. Scarlett: But in reality, if we can raise kids that understand that pain has a purpose, that are present with those difficult feelings, which is getting harder and harder with cell phones that give us an immediate dopamine hit through scrolling. But if we can be present with it and get curious about what that pain is offering us and learn and grow from us, and then go through this formula that we’ve developed to let the painful parts go, but to bring forward that wisdom we benefit from it, believe it or not Gissele: Yeah. Absolutely. I wanted to mention the fact that there are many systems that we have, including the school system, that really doesn’t allow the getting to know each and every child. It’s like we have many sy

  7. May 27

    Ep. 99 – Is there a limit to a Mother’s Love?

    TRANSCRIPT [00:00:00] Gissele: Are there limits to a mother’s love? Hello, and welcome to the Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Gissele: Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. And if you’d like to support our podcast, you can go to buymeacoffee.com/loveandcompassion. Gissele: Today, we’re talking with Sandra Cavanaugh is a creativity and communication specialist, transformational coach, consultant, keynote speaker, educator, podcast host, and best-selling author, as well as CEO of Spontaneous Brilliance , LLC. Sandra helps people step past the fear, frustration, and limiting beliefs to recognize and value their unique creative genius, discover their purpose and passion, take inspired action, and thrive as empowered conscious creators on the great stage of life. Gissele: Through decades of working with children with special needs, Sandra developed [00:01:00] her deep belief that everyone is brilliant. We have no shortage of brilliance in the world, just a reluctance to offer it and a resistance to accept it. And as a very proud mother of four remarkable daughters, Sandra’s personal journey as a mother has made her a fierce advocate for children in foster care, adoption, children’s mental health, FASD, autism, neurodiversity, LGBTQIA+ rights- Yes Gissele: and creativity in education. Please join me in welcoming Sandra. Hi, Sandra. Sandra: Hi. How are you? Gissele: Great, thank you. Gissele: Thank you so much for being on the show. I was wondering if you could start by telling the listeners a little bit about how you actually became an adoptive mother. Sandra: How I became an adoptive mother. Sandra: I gave birth to my oldest daughter almost 36 years ago. and that was a very difficult pregnancy. And even though she was[00:02:00] Born super healthy. It was something that I almost didn’t live through and couldn’t do a second time. So we were telling her from about the time that she was two that we would adopt a little sister for her. Sandra: And when she was 13 she came to us and went, “Hey, you guys if you don’t do that soon, I’m gonna be out of the house before you adopt.” And so we went through the process to set ourselves up for foster adoption. We were looking for one one girl, about seven was what we thought. and one day after we had put in our home study and gotten all prepared, I was looking at kids all over the country that were available for adoption, and I literally saw this girl. Sandra: There was only two paragraphs on the website thing, and there were these two paragraphs there, and she was sitting, in a photo shoot that they had set up for her, and she was nine. [00:03:00] And I saw her, and I just thought, ” Okay, I can read between the lines here enough to know that there’s other issues going on that they’re not mentioning, but I’m supposed to be this girl’s mom. Sandra: I’m this girl’s mom.” And I called my then husband and said, “Hey, y- you’ve gotta see this because this is it. This is her. I know she’s older than we thought. I don’t care. I’m supposed to be her mom.” And so we set out in the process, and just a couple of days later the social worker from there, which they’re not supposed to do, they’re supposed to call social worker to social worker, but instead they called me directly and said, “She has a biological half-sister that’s also just become available for adoption.” Sandra: These girls had been in foster care for two and a half years. And she’s four, and would you consider adopting two? And we were like okay, we’ll consider it. It’s not what we planned on.” But when I went home that night with the paperwork on the younger one, our daughter went, “We’re not going to bed [00:04:00] until you guys agree ’cause this is my sister. Sandra: We’re just not leaving this conversation till it’s done.” We went through what was a crazy fast and furious process that can only be called a series of coincidences and weird miracles, but those girls were in our home three months later, which is pretty unprecedented. And and then in Idaho which is where, We were living it… Sandra: they basically hold off for a year before they finalize a foster adoption. And so by the time that the adoption was finalized, we knew we were in for a rocky road. And my then husband really did not want to do it. The girls both had… By that point, I had gotten them both diagnosed with fetal alcohol syndrome. Gissele: And Brittany, the younger one, had neurological processing disorders. And Andy, we knew, had what we at the time thought were, was a severe form of RAD. She was [00:05:00] extremely manipulative, which is not rare in, kids adopted from foster care. But she had some issues that we were just starting to realize, and it was time to finalize the adoption. Sandra: And I was all in, and my husband at the time was really reluctant. But we did finalize the adoption and yeah, that was 22 years ago. Gissele: Wow. What made you wanna adopt older children? Traditionally people wanna adopt usually younger babies because they don’t want the conditioning or all the experiences that happen. Gissele: What made you decide for older kids? Sandra: I think part of it was our lifestyle at the time, and part of it was adopting a child that would be older and more in the, within the range of our older daughter Shelley’s, life that she was gonna be in the house for. Sandra: And so even… she and Brittany are 10 years apart, which was a good healthy span, but also [00:06:00] younger children they are… I just to be perfectly honest, I just couldn’t look at all those children that weren’t gonna be adopted. And even to this day, if you show me a group of kids that are in foster care, I have to talk myself out of adopting them- Yeah. Sandra: Yeah … because I just wanna love them. Gissele: Thank you for sharing that. Were you told that the children might be coming with some trauma? Sandra: No Gissele: Okay. No, ’cause I worked in the field of child welfare for many years and many of them have trauma. They can be diagnosed from ADHD, for all kinds of things, and especially kids that are older, and if they’ve only been in foster care for a short time, that there might be a lot of trauma that is completely missed. Sandra: Yeah, no. I learned after the fact that that social workers at the time were really prone to, and I assume they still do it now, they deliberately didn’t have them diagnosed because they didn’t want that to be a barrier to them being adopted. And, … when things got really dicey on this [00:07:00] end, which we haven’t even gotten to yet, but when things got really bad here, the social worker that had worked with us to get through the adoption on this end, the first thing she said to me was, “Throw them back in the system. Sandra: This is not what you signed on for. You need to terminate your parental rights right now. This is not what you signed on for.” And I was just appalled at that. and the second thing she said to me was, ” I realize that they did this probably with their eyes open, but all I can think of right now is how many kids I’ve put on a plane and just crossed my fingers and known that the parents didn’t know what they were in for.” Sandra: Gissele: Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Which is really unfair to the children, right? I, I don’t wanna judge social workers. I think it’s coming from a place of we want this, the home stability.” But I know of circumstances for sure where there was, like, parents who did not know the level of required care, and did end up returning. Gissele: So imagine you think you finally found a home. So it’s better [00:08:00] if you have that knowledge up front, and then are working actively on it, than to get surprised. And I’m just wondering if you could tell the audience when things started to get bad and then how it went from there? Sandra: Okay. Like I say, we’d been going for about a year. We knew that Andy was super manipulative. We Brittany was as ADHD as the day is long. She was bumping into everything everywhere. They both had, Real issues with lots of the executive functioning things, from the fetal alcohol syndrome. Sandra: So lying was the first thing out of their mouth even when there was no reason to lie . And I learned a lot about FAS in that year. but we knew that Andy had some psychiatric issues. And in fact thewe had taken them to what was then called the Pediatric Abilities Clinic here. Sandra: And so there were neuropsychologists and neurologists that examined the kids and gave them all their diagnoses. with Andy, we found that because of the [00:09:00] fetal alcohol syndrome, her brain actually, The human brain is only supposed to be five IQ points apart maximum, like the two sides of the brain and their IQ. Sandra: Hers are 20 points apart because with fetal alcohol, if one side of the brain at a certain developmental point is impacted, then one side of the body… she’s got moles on one side of her body and none on the other side. She’s got a- … a cowlick in her hair, and she’s got that side of her brain has a lower IQ by 20 points. Sandra: And the, it took m- quite a while for the neurologist to go, “Why did I not notice this before?” It’s one side of her body because skin, hair, and the brain develop at similar rates. And so that was a very interesting point. But anyway, I digress. But so we finalized the adoption in September, and then at Thanksgiving, by the point of Thanksgiving we had started to notice [00:10:00] that the guardrails were coming off for Andy. Sandra: Some of her behaviors that she’d been masking, she was letting them off. And so the girls were fighting more and more. and Brittany was showing up with bruises on her all the time. And she she was little, just ti

  8. May 19

    Ep. 98 – Are You Dealing with An Identity Crisis?

    TRANSCRIPT Gissele: [00:00:00] Gissele: Have you lost trust in yourself? Hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. And if you’d like to support our podcast, please buy me a coffee at buymeacoffee.com/loveandcompassion. Gissele: Today, we’re talking about trusting ourselves, and our guest today is Natasha Ramlall, who works with high-functioning capable women who feel the ground crackling beneath them after a difficult life transition. As an embodied integration coach, she reflects the somatic mapping required to heal, expand, and evolve from an identity rupture, and navigate the space between who you were and who you are becoming. Gissele: Please join me in welcoming Natasha. Hi, Natasha. Tasha: Hi, Gissele. How are you? Good. Gissele: Great, thank you very much. Thank you for being on the show. Gissele: Just thank you, and I’ve really been looking forward to this [00:01:00] conversation, so yeah. Gissele: I was wondering if you could tell the audience a little bit about how you got started in this work. Tasha: It’s such an interesting question because tracing that path, it’s, I always feel like I’m getting it a bit wrong, because it’s certainly not linear, that’s for sure. But I do identify with that- that nudge telling you that something in your life is off. And it started off, a little bit quieter, quiet enough that I could shove it aside in favor of familiarity and convenience and ease and comfort. Tasha: But it just kept getting louder. And eventually, I reached a point where I really felt like I needed to take a big step and change something. And, I’d already been very deeply [00:02:00] exploring the self-improvement world and, a lot of self-study, a lot of readings and seminars and workshops and podcasts and all the different things. Tasha: And I was fascinated and really drawn into everything that I was learning about the body-mind system. And eventually, I was led to coaching and I, started that, that certification, a dual certification in life and health coaching. And that really opened something up inside of me. Tasha: But as most people who go into coach training come to realize, it’s really just a foundation for a much greater and more specific way for each of us to understand our own experience and what we’re here to contribute to the collective. And so from there, I was [00:03:00] led into various other disciplines. Tasha: One of my favorite offerings is Around Embodied Dance, which is something that I offer in my local community and it’s become a really special and sacred practice for me both as a participant and as a facilitator. And also various forms of breathwork. And then I really came face to face with the limitations of doing healing work from that cognitive sort of behavioral coaching lens. Tasha: And not to invalidate cognitive behavioral coaching because I think it’s incredibly powerful and that there’s a lot to be gained from reframing and, attending to our mindset and understanding the world through a new lens. But for people who are really in the thick of [00:04:00] making a significant change in their life they usually reach a point where that’s just not enough. Tasha: And so the additional training I have thrown myself into is embodiment, and I took some intensive training in embodied processing. And so from all of those different things I’ve crafted what I feel I’m here to contribute and the ways that I’m here to be of service which is bringing all of those different parts of the human experience into our own evolution and our own allowing the unfolding of what it is that we’re here to be doing with this beautiful, miraculous experience that we’ve been gifted. Tasha: So that was a very long answer. I hope it actually answered what you were asking initially. Gissele: Yeah. Gissele: Absolutely. Yeah, I felt the same situation. I don’t… i’m sure we’ve talked about this before, and I’ve talked about this on this podcast before, that, [00:05:00] like my childhood dream was to work in child welfare, and when I started working there, I thought I was gonna live and die in child welfare. Gissele: And then I got a nudging to do something else, which is the things that I’m doing here. Like working on this podcast and then, working on a documentary. And I definitely had what you were talking about in terms of an identity crisis because in my previous world when I had a quote, unquote, “secure job,” I was very good at what I did. Gissele: Very good. And I was very capable. I knew how to do it. I have two masters. I’m very educated. And so I was already trained. To me, I can do that stuff with my eyes closed. But stepping into this new environment of being a business woman and trying to drum up business and then trying to figure out, what exactly am I supposed to be doing? Gissele: ‘Cause it felt like the guidance was just one step, but there’s just take this step or take this step and there was no clear direction in terms of, like, where am I going? And so I definitely felt that. And it’s still lingering on in terms of feeling [00:06:00] that I don’t know what I’m doing. Gissele: And it feels so uncomfortable to not really fully be in that space where you feel autonomy or you feel control. So what are the things that you find in terms of when people go through thattransition that helps them get through to the other side? Tasha: That’s such a great question, and I think a lot of what you just shared really hits the nail on the head in terms of coming from a place where you are very hyper-capable at what you do. And, the women that end up coming into my realm tend to be very high-functioning, very self-aware. So it’s really a huge thing to do to leave that secure, familiar identity in favor of something that, as you so perfectly named, total uncertainty, and really diving [00:07:00] into this sort of lack of clarity and guessing, and in some ways it feels like we’re starting from scratch. Tasha: And yet I think that the reason that we take that leap is because there’s a deeper knowing that there’s more in this experience. There’s more that we’re meant to be feeling. There’s more that we’re meant to be doing. And so what I find is that, we’re taught that changes and transitions are an external thing, right? Tasha: The circumstances change, and so we simply need to get on top of managing those external circumstances and then things fall into place, and we step into this new stage or this new phase or this change that has been initiated. But what I’m here to scream [00:08:00] from the top of the mountain is that the external stuff is only a tiny fraction, and what’s really the juicy and important and essential part is the internal transition. Tasha: What’s happening within us when we are stepping away from something that feels like a profile of who we are at our deepest level, and recognizing that all along that’s only been a mix of story and relationships and emotion and things that are not really the essence of who we are, but one expression of who we are, and that it’s okay to move into a new expression, And unfortunately, that internal [00:09:00] transition is not an easy thing to do, which you alluded to as well in your own journey, and I can relate in my own journey as well. Tasha: We have to really go through the labor pains of birthing this new expression of ourselves into the world. And if there are any humans on here who have gone through the process of giving birth, labor pains are no joke. And so sometimes that will look like, more of a fight/flight level of response and reactivity where we’re busily trying to be over-productive and get things happening and get things in place, and it’s really masculine energy fueled. Tasha: And this idea that I can force my certainty into place so I can get out of this uncomfortable feeling of not knowing what this is supposed to look like. And [00:10:00] because that’s just not a healthy, balanced way to be in alignment with a new expression of us, eventually that’s not gonna, that’s not gonna hold. Tasha: And then what will often happen is a period of sort of immobilization where we fall into this sort of dorsal vagal shutdown of the nervous system where we are exhausted, and disorganized, and not productive. And it feels like you can’t even recognize the woman in the mirror because the person that you used to be, that very high functioning, hyper capable woman just, she seems to have left the building. Tasha: And that is incredibly disorienting, especially for women who in the past have identified with being so capable and so high functioning. Tasha: And so I think the most [00:11:00] important place to begin is to name that’s not a personal failure. It’s not a character flaw. It’s a biological imperative when we are going through a massive transition, like the ones that often accompany, a midlife awakening or a relationship ending like a divorce, or a job collapse, or a health scare, or a chronic diagnosis. Tasha: These are really big life changing things. Grief, loss, losing a person that has been central to our life. Giving ourselves permission to be in that sort of uncertain, mucky place where we don’t recognize ourselves, as you’ve named, is deeply uncomfortable. Deeply uncomfortable. But part of that is the judgment and that inner critic that’s telling us, that we’re broken, that we are [00:12:00] failing, that we are weak, And if we can replace that inner critic with a more loving, graceful, patient voice that recognizes this is all part of the process, and that it’s okay to be in this messy place. There’s William Bridges, I believe his name is, refers to it as the the neutral zone or the void , which is that,

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Love and Compassion Podcast-Where Gissele talks with everyday exceptional people who have overcome adversities and have wisdom to share.

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