Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele Taraba

Gissele Taraba
  • 5.0 (3)
  • Mental Health

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

  1. 2d ago

    Ep. 115 – Loving Our Shadow Sides: Werewolves, Vampires and All Things Haunted

    TRANSCRIPT [00:00:00] Gissele: Before we start this very special Halloween episode, I wanted to share something that happened after we had done recording. In the interview Angel Morgan talks about how sometimes her haunted items can mess with things. And the interview went quite fine. We heard everything. There was no issues. And so I kinda forgot about it until I… it was time to retrieve her interview, and then my whole interview was recorded, but hers was only 19 seconds. And I got this warning from Descript that said that there was no audio. And but it seemed to have captured everything else. And so I was in a real panic because I’m like, “Oh, I wonder if this is the haunted item playing with us.” And so I email Morgan, and I say, “Hey, I only have 10 seconds of your interview. It seems to have caught everything from me, but for you there was nothing. maybe ’cause you took your device in and out, like your your headphones.” And she’s “I’ve done that many times. I don’t even know why that would be an issue.” And I said to her I just kept I- asking your item to [00:01:00] return it to please return it.” And she said, no wonder after we had left the interview, she could hear laughter from the item, that it had played some sort of joke, but I didn’t know what it was. Good news is that I kept asking for it to be returned, and I eventually found it As I dug into SquadCast at the back, sometimes it records backups. And so I have the full backup. But in, in the moment, it was very scary ’cause I only had seconds of it, and it was… I was very surprised ’cause that hadn’t happened to me before. Anyways, this interview is full of surprises and full of Halloween delight. Please enjoy. 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. If you’d like to support the podcast, you can go to buymeacoffee.com/loveandcompassion. Gissele: Today, we have a very special Halloween episode. We are talking about haunted items. We are talking about all things Halloween, vampires- Yes … [00:02:00] werewolves, everything. And I have a special guest today. She is back. She is back. With nearly three decades of experience, Angel Morgan is a seasoned media clairvoyant, animal communicator, and paranormal investigator. Gissele: Driven by a deep fascination with global cultures and history, her travels have taken her across the globe, uncovering the magic woven into the different cultures and the silent wisdom of the animal kingdom. Please join me in welcoming Angel Morgan. Hi. Angel Morgan: Hi. How are you? Hello, Gissele: hello. Gissele: Good. I’m so excited to have you back Gissele: on the show. I love talking to you. And today, it’s a very special episode because I get to share some of the some of my family history that’s a little bit quirky that has to do with haunted items. Angel Morgan: Love Gissele: it. And my mom and I, she’s over, and we were talking about this last night. And so just a w- a word to everyone and, you’re wondering how this fits with love and compassion. To be honest, I have not loved that shadow side. I has I’ve always been really scared of ghosts and [00:03:00] apparitions and, like- Yeah Gissele: not touching it with a 10-foot pole. And I think part of that fear really arose from some of the stuff my grandma would do when we were little kids. If I could- … share my story. Angel Morgan: Please. Gissele: So when we were little kids, and I’m so curious as to what your response will be and what you’re feeling about this. Gissele: So when we were little kidsMy grandma had a little house that housed a skull- Okay … and the skull had a veil on top, and it was a little house. A, a Angel Morgan: human skull? A human skull? Gissele: It was a human skull. Angel Morgan: Okay. All right. Gissele: Yes. And i- this is in Peru, so it’s not in Canada or North America- yeah Gissele: or anything. Angel Morgan: Which is very cultural. Gissele: Y- yes. And if we thought it was, like, fake. In the beginning, we were like, “Oh, it must be fake. It can’t…” Until one day, we decided to sneak in, open up the little door, and we saw an actual skull with a veil on. It was very freaky. And we asked my grandma and my mother about the history, and my uncle apparently had picked up the skull in a cemetery. Gissele: I don’t know why you would just pick up some random skull. ‘ Angel Morgan: [00:04:00] Cause it’s Gissele: cool. And- ‘ Angel Morgan: Cause it’s cool. O- okay. Why not? Gissele: Because it’s cool, yeah. So he takes it home, decides to make a little house of it. Gissele: And would actually… And he knew it was a woman. We had no idea how he knew it was a woman. And he would give it offerings, and this went from my uncle to my grandma, and from my grandma to the, my great-grandma to my grandma. And he would put, offerings on it. And when it came to my grandma’s house this is how we used to freak us out. So when it came to my grandma’s house, the neighbors would actually say that in the room where she was housed, at night sometimes there, there was a woman with a black veil who would look out the window, and they… Gissele: Everybody thought it was my great-grandma. My great-grandma wasn’t living with my grandma at the time. So it was… We thought it was the lady, right? And here’s the scarier part of the story. So my, my great-uncle, I guess you would call him, would, we used to put money and ask for wishes. Gissele: So he would say to [00:05:00] her- … “can I have this? Can I have that?” And the other. Yeah. And apparently according to the family, the wishes would come true. And and then he one day decided to steal from her. Ooh. He decided to steal the money. Yes. Oh. And so the story goes, and my mom 100% believes this, and she doesn’t believe in anything mystical. Angel Morgan: And she, and he… Wait, he stole from the skull? Gissele: He stole from the skull- Oh … all the money that he had asked as an offering. Bad move. Yes. Bad move. And so at night, I guess my mom must have been there when he was there. I guess he woke up screaming because he was getting pulled by the feet by her. Angel Morgan: Yeah. Gissele: And then the next day he put the money back. Angel Morgan: So here he invites this woman into his home. Says, “I will give you everything- … Angel Morgan: If you work with me.” Gissele: Yes. Angel Morgan: And then he steals from her. I’d be upset too. Gissele: Yeah. Angel Morgan: I would be upset too. So in many cultures- Offerings are very every day. That’s part of the culture. Angel Morgan: When [00:06:00] we are filming this, I have just come back from New Orleans, and if you go to even restaurants, certain restaurants, they have altars set up, and the altars… Yeah, the stores and the restaurants. There’s a place called Potions where it’s a vampire club, and there are two, one for travel and one for the god of the dogs, which is really interesting, Anubis. Angel Morgan: And so you can go and make your offering to wish for whatever you need to help f- help you in your life. Now, human skulls are a little bit different, okay? Because usually they use effigies, right? So statues of certain deities or what have in different cultures. But with skulls are unique because… Angel Morgan: or human skulls, or any skull, but human skulls, because without the jaw, it will enhance your abilities. But when you put the jaw on, you can now speak to the other side. And when you bring a skull into your home You are [00:07:00] asking it, I ask the skulls “Do you wanna work with me or do you want release? Angel Morgan: If you want release I’ma leave you there.” I usually ask- Yeah … when I find a skull, right? I find a skull and I go, “Okay, do you wanna come home with me or don’t you? If you come home with me, you can stay.” Or, “I’ll release you and I can at least have the skull ’cause it’s really cool.” Yeah. In this particular case, this is a cultural thing where in Peru they would even on my mesa, which is like a traveling altar which was given to me by medicine people in Peru, I have a crystal skull. Angel Morgan: I have a small crystal skull, and the skull is considered the gateway to the other world, where you can speak, you can… They’re the messengers. They take your messages to the gods. Oh. Yeah. So this is what he was doing. He was saying, “Here, I’m gonna give you money. I’m gonna give you candy. I’m gonna give you a cigar. Angel Morgan: I’m gonna give you stuff, and in return this is what I would like.” And what happens with the money, what happens with the stuff you put on the altar, the theory is that the spirit will take the [00:08:00] spirit of that thing, right? In Peru, in the Aztec culture, in the Mayan culture, the Toltecs, which was a very ancient culture, they believed everything had a spirit. Angel Morgan: So when we give offerings, when we do spirit dinners, right? We put a plate out of food for our ancestors when we eat. What’s happening is a spirit will come and take the spirit, the ghost will come and take the spirit of whatever that is, then you can do whatever you want. So in this particular case when he took the money, that’s insulting. Angel Morgan: ” Dude, I’m working for you and you’re stealing from me?” I’m surprised more didn’t happen. I’m surprised she forgave him. Gissele: Yeah, she did. Angel Morgan: She’s created a relationship with him, right? This is one of the things that we do. In New Orleans there’s this great paranormal team, and they go to three different locations. That’s all they do. They go to these three different locations with what they call an SLS camera, where it picks up

  2. Oct 18

    Ep. 114 – The Transformative Power of Kindness

    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 kindness, and we have Cindy Rowe with us, who is a speaker, trainer, and kindness ambassador dedicated to transforming workplace culture through the power of kindness and emotional intelligence. As the founder and CEO of Cindy Rowe LLC and the Be Kind Crew, she helps organizations strengthen employee engagement, resiliency, and trust by creating cultures rooted in compassion and connection. Gissele: Cindy draws from more than 15 years of leadership experience across corporate and entrepreneurial sectors to bridging gap between organizational performance and human wellbeing. She’s also the survival of a traumatic brain injury and [00:01:00] personal loss. Cindy uses her lived experience to illustrate the measurable impact of kindness on wellbeing, retention, and organizational success. Gissele: She’s also the host of the Kindness Advantage Podcast. Please join me in welcoming Cindy. Hi, Cindy. Cindy: Hi. Thank you so much for having me Gissele: Oh, thank you so much for being on the show. I’m so excited to chat with you. I was wondering if you could tell the audience a little bit about how you got started in this work. Cindy: Yeah. So it was about 12 years ago, and like most people, we have, a hard season of life and I was in a very, very dark spot. This moment in time seemed to drag on and on, and couldn’t figure out how to get out of this darkness. And I was seeing a therapist, I was doing all the things and getting out in nature and trying to meditate. Cindy: Still haven’t figured that one out yet. But it wasn’t until I reached out to a friend and just [00:02:00] shared with him, I was like, my life sucks and I really don’t know what to do about it.” What people didn’t see, on the outside I was very happy-go-lucky, put on a smiley face, but they didn’t see what was happening behind closed doors. Cindy: And, my marriage was crumbling and I was working in a very toxic work environment and just, seemed to compound every day. And when I vented to the friend, he suggested I do an act of kindness. And I don’t know about you, but if you ever had a bad day, like that’s not one thing you think about. And I was pretty bitter and I was like, “Why would I do an act of kindness? That seems really stupid.” And he very insistent and he said, when you do something kind for somebody else, it actually takes away from you focusing on your problems.” And I let that sit with me for a little bit. I was very skeptical and I was like, I’ve tried everything, so I might as well give this a try.” [00:03:00] And I did. And it was about three acts of kindness that it took me to feel a slight shift. I started to feel happy, which I hadn’t in a while, I thought, “There’s something to this.” And I was approaching my 40th birthday and I thought, it be great to celebrate such a milestone birthday by doing an act of kindness every day for my birthday month?” Cindy: And so I set out to do an act of kindness every day for my 40th birthday, and it completely transformed my life. and i- in the moment I started just to feel better and I wasn’t dwelling on all the negative things, and I started to be more positive. But what it, that activity did, it built this core value in me kindness that I didn’t have before, and it really helped me for more troubles to come as you mentioned in the [00:04:00] bio, but that I didn’t know it was happening. Cindy: But I started to realize the importance of these small acts of kindness, and they were seriously very small, like writing encouraging notes on sticky notes and them when I did my errands, or buying a scratch-off lottery ticket and taping it to a gas pump, buying flowers and dropping them off at the nursing home, filling the carts at Aldi with quarters. Cindy: Just things that I could do as I was living my life. And, yeah, I went from being that bitter, dark person to, a very positive, happy person within 31 days. And yeah, it– that’s the, the whole moment it started, and it has snowballed ever since, I should say. Gissele: Oh, that’s amazing. That’s so funny. As you were talking, I was remembering a near-death experience story that I had heard, and the woman was… You know how you do the… from their perspective, they do that life review, and one of the things that she had [00:05:00] experienced was that she was shown a small act of kindness she had done for someone else, and she was like, “Out of all the things I’ve done in my life, why would you show me this?” Gissele: And then they show her the fast-forward, and that small act of kindness had such a ripple effect on other people that the person that she had helped was now helping other people, and that had a huge ripple. And so we think the- these acts of kindness are so small and not extraordinary at all. Gissele: We think we have to be the Dalai Lama, but the truth of the matter is all of these things have such a ripple effect, right? Which is extraordinary. Cindy: Yeah. And I’ve, since then I’ve done a lot of researching on kindness, and I have found so many important things that just make those simple kind acts, like you said, the, the ripple effect. one study that shows that one kind act actually has the potential to reach 125 people in just one day. Gissele: Wow! Cindy: you don’t realize that when you’re holding open the door for somebody or saying hello and [00:06:00] smiling. you don’t understand the true impact that it actually has. And when you have that understanding, it literally is life-changing for everybody involved. Gissele: Yeah, for sure. And I also wanna mention that the reverse also has th- the, a ripple effect, right? When we express anger to someone else, and then that anger kind of passes, passes on. It’s almost like I don’t know. It’s like a, a fuse that kinda gets lit. And so when we have a negative experience with someone, that kinda has a ripple effect too. Gissele: So think about the choices that we’re making every day and the impact of those choices, which I think are really critical. I wanted to ask you, ’cause you said that the kindness process prepared you for the next stage of your experience. Can you talk a little bit about that? Cindy: Yeah. So built that core foundation of kindness and I wouldn’t say that I was unkind prior to that. I just don’t think it was really top of mind, a, a priority of mine. And so [00:07:00] having create that 31 days of birthday kindness that core value within me, I started to live differently and show up for people differently. my problems didn’t go away after those 31 days. They were still there, and I just handled them a little bit differently. But the, I think the cool part about kindness is it takes action, right? And you can see something, but if you don’t act upon it, it stays the same, right? Cindy: So I started to notice more opportunities to do kind things for people and for myself. And as I was going through the whole process, I was in a terrible marriage and we ended up, And I was at a, a job I hated. I ended up leaving that job starting my own business, which I still operate today. And then shortly thereafter, I for divorce, or we filed for divorce. It was a [00:08:00] mutual thing. And I had started to go down that slippery slope again, right? And started to feel the heaviness of life, and I remembered the 31 days that I did, and I’m like, ” I can’t do that every month.” Cindy: Let’s be realistic. Cindy: And, but what can I do to keep flexing that kindness muscle, because that’s really what it is, and just keep it top of mind. And so I decided that every Monday I was going to do a Make a Difference Monday. That’s what I call it. And I was gonna be very intentional with my kindness on Mondays, that would be a way that I could continue this newfound superpower of mine in a more reasonable way, right? Cindy: And I say that because I think I did kind things every day, but when you focus and try to be very intentional with kindness, it is different. And so every Monday I was very [00:09:00] focused on I’m gonna do something somebody, in an intentional way, and that has really helped me continue the whole journey of this kind lifestyle, I guess I would say. And As I continued down my story, my path, I didn’t realize what was gonna happen to me. We don’t know what the future ever brings us. And think in that moment, 12 years ago, life was preparing me for what was to come. And, we can always reflect back, right? Gissele: Yeah Cindy: the beauty part of life is the reflection of where you were and how far you’ve come. there was a reason I called that one person and vented to him. We were not close friends. We were we were in the same network marketing company, and we had a lot of common interests. He lived in C- Colorado, I lived in Illinois. So we had never– I’ve never met him in person.[00:10:00] Gissele: Oh, wow Cindy: yeah, I’ve never met him in person, but I felt like he would understand where I was coming from. And for him to give me that advice and then for me to take it, and then take it one step further and do the whole birthday… But he didn’t tell me to do 31 days of kindness. He just told me to do an act of kindness, right? That the pebble that started to roll. And shortly after I got divorced, I was in a in a meeting for one of my business clients, and I was headed to another business client meeting, and I was in a terrible car accident. Cindy: And this woman pulled out in front of me, T-boned me, or I T-boned her going 55, 60 miles an hour, the

  3. Oct 6

    Ep. 113 – Creating Healthy Boundaries to Heal Ourselves and Our Lives

    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 gonna be talking about healthy boundaries, and Our guest today is Nina Tiara, a self-growth coach who helps women stop over-functioning, set healthy boundaries, and reconnect with themselves. Drawing on her own journey of healing and personal transformation, Nina brings a no-nonsense, honest perspective to personal growth. Her three pillars are processing emotions, understanding core programming, and creating healthy boundaries. Please join me in welcoming Nina. Hi, Nina. Nina: Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to share the wealth of information I have in my lived journey. Gissele: amazing. Thank you for being on the show. Can you tell the audience a little bit about how you got started in [00:01:00] this work? Nina: How did I get started? That’s interesting. I had an arranged marriage, and in that arranged marriage, actually, the arranged marriage had nothing to do it. It was just more stressful. What really happened was, as a child, I had a lot of programming. I didn’t have any boundaries in my life. I didn’t know how to process my emotions. they say a child, when they’re young, from age, I don’t know, from the day they’re born till seven, I think, the age is, they take on programming. So basically, my parents, whatever they knew, they passed it on to me. But me being a very sensitive nervous system, I absorbed it. I internalized it. And I didn’t have anybody to model anything different. My sister was younger, my brother came 10 years later. I didn’t have any cousins or anybody. That’s just the way it was in my environment at the time, okay, when I grew up. So then as I got older and when I got into a marriage at 21, I had more responsibilities. I ended up having a host of symptoms: depression, anxiety, insomnia stomach [00:02:00] issues. I had a lot of symptoms like that, and there’s a lot more I could go into. But I had a lot of symptoms that are coming up, and I was looking for help everywhere. I was going one modality to another. And then 2006, I met a woman who’s a woman’s health coach and naturopathic doctor, and I started working with her. And, she basically said a few things to me. You’ll become symptom-free. You’ll live the life you want. Your children become like you. You’ll find your soul purpose.” At the time, it was just … I was like, “I wanna get, work through these symptoms.” And what I thought was, like, maybe a few months’ journey ended up on a, from 2006, I would honestly say October 2025, I still remember it clearly what happened. Everything, like all the jigsaw puzzles just connected. I really started in tune with my emotions and having boundaries in October 2025. And that’s how I ended up finding my soul purpose after 20 years of work with her, healing myself, and that’s how I found a soul purpose to support [00:03:00] other women that are going through, And I still see it and no judgment ’cause I was there too once Most of us as women, we know how to feel, but we don’t know how to process emotion deeper. So I help women process their unprocessed emotions, feel them, and then I help them look at their core programming, ’cause that’s huge. Those in- two interact. And once we got that sorted out, then we can go deep into helping you create effective and healthy boundaries. All three of them connect together. Gissele: That’s beautiful. Thank you for sharing your journey. And I agree with you. Many of us that had programming from, parents that might have had their own intergenerational trauma and their own issues, and so we tend to hand that down. But the good news is we also tend to hand down compassion and love, and you can have that intergenerational health, which is important. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about how you recognized you did not have healthy boundaries. Oh. Because in this society, I think that we’ve been conditioned to [00:04:00] overgive, and so to not overgive may seem like an odd thing to do. How did you realize you didn’t have healthy boundaries, and what helped you shift ? Nina: So when I was doing the work with my practitioner, like I, I was already a very highly intuitive empath. I didn’t know this until I did my journey. So I was already thinking when things were happening, this isn’t right. They can’t treat me like this. But I didn’t know it was boundaries. And when I started, people can’t treat me like this, right? In general or the s- stuff that was happening in my life. And it wasn’t until I started on the healing journey, I realized through processing emotions and then doing, and looking at the patterns where it was all coming from, that I was really not taught anything about boundaries. It wasn’t… My family didn’t have it either. Basically, I was living on autopilot, and that was through shifting through my emotions, looking at my patterns. I realized that… And I used to think having boundaries was guilty and shameful. I can’t do this. W- but then I realized the way people were treating me people will take [00:05:00] advantage of you. I’m sorry to say this, but even your family. And there’s nothing, no shame or any guilt around it. And I learned that people were taking advantage of me for my kindness. I was an overgiver, and being an overgiver was a reason I had all these health issues because I was go go. There’s no way this nervous system, I call it, or body can take the amount of stress that I took. It’s a miracle as well because some of the things that were happening to me, like I was actually having mini seizures. I didn’t know this until later- Oh, wow … as I was healing. At night. Yeah. So now that I’ve healed, I notice that not feeling your emotions on a deep level and not connecting to your core programming, meaning patterns as well, where did it all come from? Can you understand boundaries? If I told you right away, and you’re coming as a client to me or a friend, “Hey, do you have boundaries?” They’re gonna look like They’re gonna be so dumbfounded because if they don’t know boundaries, if they haven’t done the other two steps, feeling their emotions and [00:06:00] looking at where it all came from, understanding their upbringing, their subconscious programming, they’re not gonna understand boundaries. So that’s when I realized that when I started doing the work that I was… All this stuff, I started connecting dots. I remember when my mentors taught me, told me to connect the dots. That was the hardest thing. I was like, “Connect the dots.” That took me a long time. And once I started connecting the dots and now I have simpler, more prompts and tools for my clients. I feel my mentors were very hard on me. Maybe that was my journey. But I know depending on where my client is, I want them to learn to process their own emotions, how to get to the boundary parts. But I found my mentors were very hard on me. Maybe that’s, that was my journey, right? But yeah, that’s how I realized that through my own healing journey, The way my stories had flowed, the things that happened in my life, I didn’t have any boundaries, and that’s why they happened Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. That’s very interesting. I wanted to go back on the the comment you made about [00:07:00] kindness. And I think it’s often a misconception that kindness is over-giving, and it is not. Because the kindest thing and the most compassionate thing you can do for yourself is have healthy boundaries. Because I don’t feel like other people want to violate our boundaries. They don’t wanna do hurtful things. They just do it out of ignorance or fear. And so the kindest and most compassionate thing you can do for yourself and others is have healthy boundaries. But we have been taught that over-giving is kindness. We have been taught that putting others first is kindness, and it is not. That’s why in the Bible… I think it’s in the Bible, they talk about love your neighbor as yourself, right? And so in order for us to be able to give to others, we have to be able to give to ourselves. Nina: 100%. And I actually had a aha moment, ’cause I visited somebody on the weekend that I hadn’t seen for over a year, connected to my past. And it was interesting. She brought up some stuff, and I said, “Wow.” She was absorbing that. So people were [00:08:00] seeing it because they had boundaries, or they just didn’t sit right with it. So she shared with me, like, when I was in that place, in that family, or in that system or environment, what her perspective was. I’m like, “Wow.” And so going back to kindness, I had to do more journaling that day when I got home. Actually, I was doing it last night. I was like, “Wow, do I be mean to this person and totally shut them out of my life because they are part of my life?” But I had already done this work, so that kindness part was healing myself further because this person is gonna be part of my life as long as I’m around, my children are around, and I will be connecting with them somewhere as I have grandchildren, all that. I f- I thought I had to heal that part of me, right? So yeah, the kindness is… Once you start loving yourself and you start feeling your emotion, you start understanding what happened to you it’s gonna take time. It’s not… Because first it’s gonna… It’s not gonna feel so good. I gotta be honest. This work does not feel too good. But it’s not a quick [00:09:00] fix. And, you’re nodding your head. You agree . It’s not a quick fix. I don’t… I remember when I was d

  4. Sep 23

    Ep. 112 – He Almost Became a School Shooter then Someone Saw Him. The Power of Being Seen.

    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 compassion and mental health, and our guest today is Aaron Stark, who once came dangerously close to committing an act of violence as a teenager, but his life took a traumatic turn. in his viral open letter, I Was Almost a School Shooter, and the subsequent Gissele: TED Talk that brought national attention to his message of compassion and mental wellness. He’s been featured across media outlets and now speaking nationwide, including to schools, law enforcement, survivor groups, the FBI. Aaron works to help people reach those in deep crisis to remind them that they matter. Gissele: His mission, prevent future tragedies by sharing the power of connection and [00:01:00] hope. Please join me in welcoming Aaron. Hi, Aaron. Aaron: Hey, thank you for having me Gissele: Oh, thank you so much for being on the show. I would really love to hear a little bit about how you got to the point where you were so close to committing an act of violence. Gissele: I was wondering if you could share that with the audience. Aaron: Yeah. Yeah. I first off, thanks for having me on. And anybody listening, I know this gets pretty intense really fast, but I promise it ends in a very happy spot. I was raised in a very violent, aggressive, and criminal household. My first five years of life was kinda like a Stephen King movie. Aaron: My, My, birth father was the most vicious and violent person ever. Chased us across the country, and he was we basically were hunted for the first five years by one of the most abusive people you can imagine. And then after my mom left him, got with my stepdad, and it went from a Stephen King movie to more like Scarface. So it was crack cocaine and crime and stealing and robberies. We lived a very nomadic life, so I moved usually between Oregon and Colorado, bouncing between the states. And I went [00:02:00] between, to between 30 and 40 different schools. I was at a different school every couple of months, and I never attended a school from beginning to end of a school year, ever in my whole life. And along the way, my criminal family was extremely unstable. I have an older brother who’s two years older than I am, and he became the de facto man of the house. So he had to be… Like, when we’re seven and nine years old, and my parents are– we’re getting evicted because they’re drugged out and doing all their crime. And they’re at a bar, they’re not even there while we’re getting evicted. The, the sheriff’s are at our house throwing everything into the yard. My brother’s the one that has to, at nine years old, scramble to find us some place to be, and I am one of the things that he has to find some place to put. I am, I’m not useful . Aaron: He was a very gearhead kinda kid put stuff together, fix stuff. I had a lot of intellectual loves, so I loved books and music and studying science and history. I loved all that, but that wasn’t useful to the [00:03:00] crackheads when we’re getting evicted and things are breaking. My brother was more utilitarian. And so growing up, we adopted that identity. I became the burden. I became the thing that needed to be solved. I became the problem. And I was fat. I was dirty ’cause I didn’t have any clothes. I was smelly. And I really, early on, I’m talking three, 10, I wa- I Really internalized that something is wrong with me, that I’m the broken one, that I’m the thing that’s wrong. And I started, because I was always going to a new school, I would always have a different group of bullies at the different schools. And I developed this tactic that you’ve seen movies where the guy in j- goes to prison in the movie, and he goes up to the big tough guy, and you fight the big tough guy in prison so you can establish your Aaron: pecking order. I would do the reverse of that, only I would go to the most popular kid in school and insult myself to him to put, I kn- I know I’m at the bottom. You don’t have to beat me down to get me there. I know I belong at the bottom. And it… I just really internalized that [00:04:00] something was wrong with me, and this is all before even the age of 10. And by the time I’m 12, 13 years old, my parents, they are heavily in the grips of a crack binge, and I’ve started self-harming. I’ve started cutting myself really bad, and it started as a way to regulate the emotions. My life at that time, I describe like it’s like living in a mosh pit. If you’ve seen a big heavy metal concert, you see the big swirling mass of people slamming into each other. That’s what my life was like at the time. I didn’t really have any control over the damage and what I was doing. I just went along with the violence. And I knew that I was the broken one, so I started to insult myself more than anybody else could, which made me then also start being a bully to everybody else. Aaron: I w- I became really toxic, like ins- inward and outward. I just I was… My– Everything I was saying was reflecting the inward hatred that I had. I was becoming just a toxic little mean, angry, vicious kind of kid. And the [00:05:00] self-harm kind of would calm and regulate that at the beginning but it quickly spiraled into more serious self-harm. Aaron: I’m cutting myself deeper, more and more blood. And I became homeless around th- thirteen, fourteen years old. I couldn’t take living at home with the crackheads anymore. So I would bounce from friend’s house to friend’s house and kinda burn out relationships. And at first I’d be able to stay at a house for a week, and then I’d be able to stay there for a couple days. Aaron: But by the time I’m fourteen, fifteen years old, I can’t stay at my friend’s house for more than an hour or so ’cause if I stand up off the couch, his mom has to clean the residue of the stain that I’m leaving ’cause I’m so filthy and I’m so dirty. And I gathered a group along the way, around fifteen years old, of a group of kids that I called Disaster Groupies. They were a group of about fifteen or so kids that kinda lived vicariously through my darkness. My friend at the time, I was at, partying with this one buddy who his dad paid the rent at the house, and his dad bought all the food at the house, [00:06:00] but Dad didn’t live at the house. Dad was living with Dad’s girlfriend. So the house became like a teenage flophouse. And so this house became a bunch of depressed kids navigating depression without adult supervision, and it was like how far can they push us off the edge to see how far they would go. And I was kinda like a, a evil unicorn in a way. Like a piñata of pain. Aaron: Smack me and see what kind of stories can come out. Because I was, at this time, from about fourteen to sixteen, I’m living basically three lives at once, where for a– I’m 90% homeless because I’m living at this house, but m- all my stuff is still back at my mom’s house, but I can’t be there for any length of time because it turns into violence and anger and beatings and… So I’m only at that house like maybe an hour a day. So I go there, get my stuff, grab some stuff and recharge. And I had to get out because of the– I– Immediately there’d be violence. But in that hour, I’m reminded of how absolutely worthless I am and how nothing I am and how at the bottom of everything [00:07:00] I am and how I don’t belong anywhere. And then I go to this Disaster Groupie house, and I would kinda use that pain as a party favor. The more outlandish that my stories of abuse were, the more I could entertain these kids and where I could get some weird kind of social status that way And then for just a couple hours a day at the end, I’d go to what is the only good kid in this story this kid that I met when I was 12 and he was 10. Aaron: His name’s Mike. Remember, I’m gonna tell you a little bit about him now ’cause it’s a good point to bring him in. Mike, he lived at the opposite end of one of the blocks that we moved to one day. My parents had a habit of moving to the same neighborhoods multiple times. So we would go live on like a 10-block radius in Colorado, and then like another, like two town radius in Oregon, but like 30 places in each place, and so we, I was living like a block away from, or a couple blocks away from him, and we met at a comic book shop playing the original Mortal Kombat 1 video game in the arcade. See exactly when this is happening. And so we met, we bonded over deep [00:08:00] conversation and comic books. I had a love for superheroes, and I loved science, and so did he, and we just immediately bonded. Aaron: I went to his house, pretty much never left for a week. And so like I, whenever I was in Denver, his house was like my home base. I knew I had some place to be. I memorized his phone number. He lived the total polar opposite life that I had. He had a very well-off family, very well-to-do, very peaceful, lived in this big four-story house. They he would write a Christmas list and get the things on his Christmas list, which blew my mind. I didn’t even know you could do that. I, that was an amazing thing. And so he became like the good spot. So by the time I’m 14, 15 years old, I’m filling up my reservoir of hatred at my parents’ house, then using that, that pain to entertain everybody at this, this groupie house. Then for a little bit of time, I get to be a normal kid over at Mike’s house. But his mom was the one that had to clean the stain when I stood up off the couch, ’cause I was starting to leave residue. Couldn’t stay there anymore. And that’s k

  5. Sep 15

    Ep. 111 – The Kindness Project: How One Man is Loving People One Meal At a Time

    TRANSCRIPT [00:00:00] 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 if you’d like to support the podcast, you could go to buymeacoffee.com/loveandcompassion. Gissele: Today we’re talking about spreading kindness towards other, and our guest today is Braidon Johnson. He was raised in a broken home, constantly moving back and forth between his parents and attending about 15 different schools between elementary and high school. With constant conflict and both of his parents struggling with severe substance abuse, he emancipated himself at 14 and moved into his first apartment. Gissele: School was very difficult, and he eventually dropped out at grade 11 when he had his son, Miles. It wasn’t until his 30s that he was finally diagnosed with mobility issues and ADHD. About seven years ago, he lost his mother to an overdose. [00:01:00] Just before she passed, both she and her brother were in jail after getting in trouble together. Gissele: He was faced with the impossible decision of having to choose which one to bail out, and he chose his brother. Not long after, his mother passed away, and he’s been living with the weight of that. It has been one of the hardest things he’s ever had to carry. But he also realized that setting good boundaries and separating himself from that cycle was necessary for him to heal and grow and become the person and father he is today. Over the past five years, he’s done deep work on mental health, off and on medication for anxiety and depression most of his life. But through personal work and education with the CMHA, he gained a real understanding of how trauma and mental health work. He has managed well without his medication for the past few years, although he still deals with physical mobility challenges. Gissele: but that does not stop him from working hard in labor-intensive trades. [00:02:00] Over the years, he’s worked different jobs, gained extensive experience in construction and commercial kitchens. Around age 20, when things hit rock bottom, he found himself staying at a homeless shelter, eating food like powdered milk and plain Cheerios for breakfast and even lunch, and bland frozen foods. Gissele: That pushed him to rebuild and eventually working his way up through the culinary industry to fine dining at Ruth’s Chris. Today, he’s an entrepreneur running a property maintenance and landscaping business, Four Seasons Makeover, as well as working in catering. Having lived through childhood trauma, personal struggles with substance abuse in his 20s, and housing instability He created the Kindness Project, which today, alongside with a team of 10 dedicated volunteers, serves home-cooked meals and distribute clothing every Sunday at Victoria Park, supporting around, uh, 100 unhoused individuals as well as [00:03:00] local seniors and families facing food insecurity. They’re not tied to any religion agenda, their focus is simply providing high-quality food, dignity, and compassion. Their organization started with a simple question: What if people were just kind? Please join me in welcoming Braidon Johnson. Hi, Braidon. Braidon: Hi, thanks for having me. I really appreciate this opportunity Gissele: Yeah, of course. And thank you for being on the show. I was wondering if you could tell the audience a little bit about how you started The Kindness Project? Braidon: Yeah, definitely. So basically, I had moved to Brantford, and it was in December when things started getting really cold and there was a lot of snow. And I was kind of venturing around downtown, and I noticed there was a lot of people who were struggling on the streets. And so it kinda sparked an, a thought in my mind that maybe I could go out and, uh, hand out some Christmas dinner to [00:04:00] people in need. Braidon: And so my girlfriend and I, we went out and set up a little table, and within a few minutes, people started lining up and kinda asking, like, “What are you guys doing? Why are you doing this?” And I just told them, just out of the kindness of my heart, I just wanted to give back to the community. And everybody was extremely happy, and the meals went really quickly. Braidon: And I noticed, okay, this is something that is definitely needed in the area. And so I decided maybe I’ll start coming back and doing it every week. And really quickly, we started growing with volunteers. we had a few at first, and then it kinda blew up with, tons of people in the community asking if they could get involved, um, asking if they could donate, clothing and food. Braidon: And so it kind of, uh, really sparked a flame in other people’s hearts as well. everybody kinda knows about the issues, and so we kinda all work together to make a difference in the community Gissele: and that’s such a beautiful thing to do and such an amazing [00:05:00] way of giving back in the community. Do you feel that it was your experience in the homeless shelter that really motivated you to not just see the suffering and just ignore it or feel bad about it? Because many people will see that suffering, will see that people have food insecurity, but they don’t move towards the action of actually helping someone. Braidon: Yeah, honestly, when I was staying in the homeless shelter, I never really imagined being able to be in this position to give back. I’d seen posters on the walls of people who were a part of that shelter and who donated, and I thought to myself, “Maybe one day I could be someone like that.” but when I was going through it, it never really crossed my mind to be able to actually do it. Braidon: it was always a really faraway dream. and because of the things I was going through, just honestly, it never occurred to me that I’d be in this position to be able to give back. And, I realized recently it doesn’t take so much money and so much, other than, like, compassion and love. Braidon: [00:06:00] that’s all you really need to be able to give back. And so just being a middleman and realizing that there’s so much food waste out there in the world, if I’m just someone who’s able to take up the time and the resources to get involved, then it can really make a difference just simply by just being available and being willing to try Gissele: are you able to share your experience of how you were able to get yourself out of the homeless shelter? Because there might be people who might be struggling right now who, who would see your story as inspirational. So is there anything that you can share about that experience? Braidon: Yeah. Honestly, it is hard to get out of a homeless shelter, um, when you’re trying to apply for jobs especially. and like social assistance, they don’t help you as much when you’re in a shelter. So I honestly, I fibbed on my resume and I said I had a house, and I was able to get a job pretty quickly in a kitchen, and it was part-time hours at first, but as soon as I got in there and they seen that I was willing to work [00:07:00] hard, I was able to kind of build my way up and, uh, went from just a, a small position to being a lot more appreciated and with lots of hours and lots of opportunities Gissele: That’s wonderful. Can you talk a little bit about the mindset that you need to have in order for you to… Because It can do a lot to your mental health to be in a situation when you feel like you have no resources and have nowhere to go. Can you talk a little bit about maybe some of the thinking that you had to have in order for you to move forward with applying to jobs and move forward with, wanting to get yourself out of the shelter? Braidon: Yeah. So at first, before I was in a shelter, I was kinda couch hopping, to friends’ houses and some family that would allow me to stay. But it was honestly my mentality that ended me up in the homeless shelters because I had a very poor me mentality and, it wasn’t until I finally decided, okay, it’s up to me, it’s my responsibility, I kinda have to start from ground zero in [00:08:00] order to build my way up, and just living off the backs of others, it doesn’t get you anywhere. Braidon: It really takes that push to actually get out and apply for jobs and try and build your way up in the world. so it took a while for me to get through it, but luckily the counselors that were available at the shelter, they were really helpful. And at first I was just wanting to keep to myself and I didn’t really want to talk to other people about what I was going through. Braidon: But it was when I started to open up that I realized that everybody has their struggles and everybody’s kinda going through something. And so it just takes that a little bit of motivation from others and a lot of motivation from yourself to just really get to the grind and just try your best Gissele: Yeah,and I wanna applaud the fact that it takes a lot of, courage to be vulnerable, because I can imagine there must be a lot of shame and guilt that happens [00:09:00] when you are living in a shelter and you, have a history of childhood trauma, to be able to be vulnerable and put yourself out there and say, “Here’s my situation. Gissele: Who can help me?” I think it must have been challenge. what helped you have that courage to be able to reach out to people for support? Braidon: Well, when I was growing up, like really young, like five or six years old, everybody would say, like, “What do you wanna be when you’re older?” And one of the things was I would always say a psychiatrist. but growing up, I started to realize that psychiatrists aren’t free, and they’re more so for prescribing medication. Braidon: But one thing I never connected with was counselors. And so finally kind of getting over that idea that people aren’t always gon

  6. Sep 5

    Ep. 110 – Can Grief and Joy Co-Exist Together?

    TRANSCRIPT Gissele: [00:00:00] Welcome to our award-winning podcast, Love and Compassion Podcast with Gisele. 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: Today we’re talking about compassion and grief, and we’re talking to Maria Belanic, who is a bereaved mother, certified grief educator, and a coach who supports grieving parents discovering how love and loss can exist in the same breath. Gissele: Her eldest sons , Stephan was diagnosed with an incurable blood cancer at 16. After an 11 year struggle he died. Six months later Maria’s dad also died. What followed was limbo. 10 years of trying to fix her grief pretending she was fine when she wasn’t. Gissele: Today Maria guides other grieving parents to carry love and loss together without pretending that everything is okay. You don’t have to be fine. Hi, Maria. Thank you for being on the show Hi. [00:01:00] Maria: Hi, Gisele. It’s such an honor to be on your show. Thank you. Gissele: Thank you. Gissele: Thank you very much. I was wondering if you could start telling the audience a little bit abouthow you guys found out about the diagnosis and how the journey led to you actually helping other grief parents. Maria: Okay. The diagnosis was actually something that we hadn’t even expected. Maria: As a teenager, he was 15, 16. He was having not so much health issues, but things that the doctors go, “Oh, it’s a growth spurt. It’s this and that.” They couldn’t really explain what was happening. And of course, they found out that one of his organs was larger than what they had thought of, so they sent him for tests and things like that. Maria: And that’s when it came back that he had a blood cancer, and then they found out that it’s really quite rare ’cause it only affects men in their later years. And my son was the youngest that they had ever seen it, [00:02:00] and they had no idea what it entailed and where it was going, ’cause most people most men who had it died within two to three years. Maria: So to live with it for 11 years was actually something the doctors hadn’t seen Gissele: And walk us through the process. So he fought for 11 years. That must have been really difficult for him and for you guys as well. And then at the end trying to grieve the loss of your son while at the same time trying to also grieve the loss of your dad. Gissele: I’m wondering if you could share sort of what the journey was like? W- were there feelings of anger and frustration? And I know that as a parent myself, I love my children so much, as I’m sure you do too. It would have been really difficult for me to trust life, to trust God, source, universe。 and to try to understand such a significant loss as a parent. Gissele: We always expect them to mourn us later on not expect [00:03:00] to bury your own children. So that’s probably one of the most difficult challenging concepts to get our heads around. Maria: It is. It’s actually unimaginable to envision that your own child will die before you do, and it’s something that basically breaks the order of what we expect life to be. Maria: And part of that, I always call the cancer journey became like a roller coaster that was our normal. It became part of our life. So after a while, you just… like the treatments, the tests, the hospital rooms, the crisis after crises became that cycle that you go, “Oh yeah, this is what life is all about” aspect. Maria: So I didn’t even envision anything about the cancer and kinda went, “This is what it’s going to be,” always. Yet, there’s that underlying of bracing of, is what’s gonna [00:04:00] happen next? And you’re constantly bracing for the crises cons– And sometimes it’s not even the crises. In Stefan case, even a common cold like vomiting could kill him. Maria: And so part of that was there’s this tension, this stress that is layered on, and it just… I guess you don’t notice it anymore because you’re living in it. And so what you’re really doing is surviving without really a plan except how do we get through this day? How do we get through this crisis? And that’s what the focus is on. Maria: And when he did die, ’cause it changed to acute myeloid leukemia when he was 27, and when he did die, it was a shock Even though I was told that he was going to die cause he was given 24 hours to live, and he actually lived for three months afterwards. And I always go, “That was probably because I had asked the [00:05:00] doctors not to tell him that he was dying.” Maria: I… And my sort of estimate was like no one really h- needs to hear those words. We I always go even in Stefan’s life, even with everything that he had gone through and experienced, he had become a registered massage therapist. So he, yeah, in his life, he was still striving. Because in our minds it was like, “Yeah, we’re just going to live with it.” Maria: I had changed the verbiage around cancer to say condition. So we had become used to this blood condition which it was like, “Oh yeah, this is what life’s g- always going to be. Doesn’t matter how old you are, this is what…” And so that’s what the attitude was. And it kept him moving forward into what do you want to do with your life? Maria: And so when the doctors had told me that, and I had to watch him [00:06:00] slowly, slowly get weaker and weaker within those three months. And I’m sure even Stefan knew what was happening. And it wasn’t that we were ignoring it. I just feel why do we need to verbalize something? I am a firm believer of until it’s your last breath, why take hope away from anyone? Gissele: Yeah, I definitely can agree with that. I’ve never shared anything on this podcast before aboutmy family’s experience. But both my cousins the children of one of my aunts died of cancer. Gissele: and I remember one of the things that my aunt had said to me was that, so he– So it was a boy and a girl my cousin Rosella and my cousin Robert. They both died at different times. Rosella died first, then he did. And and I remember her saying to me that he had gone to his appointment, and then I think he ended up being hospitalized after that appointment. Gissele: But he was planning on coming home. he had all of these things that he was planning to do in his agenda or his [00:07:00] calendar of things, and he never got a chance to do them. And so it’s … As you were talking about the fact that he was starting to… He was building this life where, he as a registered massage therapist and so on. Maria: There’s all these sort of interruptions about, I guess life had other plans. I don’t even know. But it really can feel quite shocking to, to imagine that the person is there, and then that the person is not. What helped you manage your grief?It didn’t happen all at once. I always go, “I lost 10 years of my life after Stefan died.” I lived in a blur basically where I was functioning on autopilot. But underneath it all, I was numb, I was empty, I was disorientated. And there’s a point where we can pretend that we’re fine, that we can do all the things that are expected. Maria: Like we can work, we can function But we’re not fully present [00:08:00] in life, and I know that I did things like I did fundraisers on Stefan’s behalf for his legacy. I, I was working. All of these things were automatic. And yet if someone were to say, “How is your grief?” I really don’t remember anything because everything seems a blur. Maria: Life became this before and after. Before Stefan died, which in some ways seemed like a fairy tale. Was it a life that I had lived? Right? It just seemed like it belonged to another world, and I was living in this twilight zone. Not knowing what was gonna happen, afraid that this was going to be my forever, living in this pain. Maria: And of course all I heard from other people was, “When are you getting back to normal? Why are you still stuck?” All of these things I think felt like an assault to me, and that just [00:09:00] caused more of a retreat, and almost reclusive behavior where you don’t want to go out. You just do what you can do, but you don’t wanna be around anyone. Maria: And it’s also that aspect of thinking, “What’s wrong with me?” And part of that is always go, there’s we have our own gremlins that have these voices that will say, “If you were smarter, you would have found a cure. If you were worthy, Stefan wouldn’t have died.” So all of this kept playing in my mind, keeping me awake, plus what people had said, and you’re kinda like, “What is wrong with me?” Maria: And the more we feel unworthy and something is wrong with us, A, we try to fix it or we go deeper into ourselves, and that’s why I say the 10 years of my life were a blur Until one day when I was looking in the mirror, really a f- not recognizing who I was, and [00:10:00] looking at basically the two options. This fear that this is my forever. Maria: We all see that those movies where we see the person who’s grieving and people are going, “Oh, that poor person.” They were fine beforehand, and then when their child died, look at them now aspect scary person. Or the other option was healing, and we use the word healing as if, we have a broken bone and it heals. Maria: And even with a broken bone, even the healing is never really the same as before the break. And so I viewed healing as almost forgetting. How could I forget my son? How could I move on and almost never… like he was existing beforehand. And those two were a struggle between my heart and my head, and the whisper that came to me was, “What if grief [00:11:00] stayed?” Maria: And that seemed to offer me a third option, and that’s where I recognized that the grief and the love coexist, where I didn’t have to forget

  7. Aug 28

    Ep. 109 – How to Be Authentically Ourselves Even With Difficult People

    TRANSCRIPT megan: [00:00:00] Gissele: Hello, and welcome to the Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. 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: Today, we’re Gissele: gonna be talking about how to become more authentically ourselves Gissele: and how to raise authentic children. Gissele: And our Gissele: guest today is Megan Fuccarelli, Gissele: who’s a TEDx speaker, international bestselling author, Gissele: and founder and CEO Gissele: of Us Squared Consulting. Gissele: Known as the authenticity Gissele: amplifier, she helps leaders in organizations move beyond performative Gissele: inclusion and into Gissele: meaningful culture transformation. Gissele: Through her Gissele: care certification and metamorphosis framework, Megan empowers Gissele: audiences to lead with authenticity, Gissele: build trust, and create Gissele: environments where people are seen, Gissele: heard, welcome, and valued. Gissele: Please join Gissele: us in welcoming Megan. Hi, Megan. megan: us Gissele: Oh, I’m so excited to talk about this topic and to talk with you about [00:01:00] it. I was wondering if you could tell the audience a little bit about how you got started in this work. [00:01:04] How Megan Got Started on This Work megan: That is a loaded question. I will say that I originally went into my first chapter of my career was actually in the education system. I retired as a school superintendent, and what I learned in that environment was that our children are sponges for collecting everything around them, and they learn just as much from what we teach them out of books than they learn from the things we talk about and how we communicate with one another, and also what we don’t talk about. megan: So when I left the education system, I wanted to lean into that a little bit more and have more honest, authentic conversation around who we are as people, and that’s what kind of drew me into this. It started as I was gonna own my job, maybe consulting with a couple school districts, and we just celebrated 10 years, and it has totally morphed into a much larger vision than even I could have held for myself. megan: But I think the universe has a way of creating the [00:02:00] visions bigger than ourselves sometimes. Gissele: Yeah. Yeah, definitely can agree with that. Gissele: I was wondering if you could comment on whether or not the school system necessarily whether it reinforces or whether it detracts from us being authentically ourselves [00:02:15] Do Schools Help or Hinder Authenticity? megan: I think it depends on what school district or what school system you’re looking at. I think there are some schools who are able to model how to become more authentic, and at the same time, we have a lot of school systems who are detracting from that ability. I think it depends on who’s running the school district, who the teachers are. megan: I think even in a very resolute school district who is very clear on guidelines that are almost detracting from that authenticity, you still have teachers who are those beacons for authenticity within their schools. So I don’t think there is an absolute that there is a school or a school system that is 100% on board with authenticity. megan: I think as a whole we detract from that, but there are beacons of [00:03:00] excellence in all systems. [00:03:01] Why People Shame Others for Being Authentic Gissele: I love that ‘Cause when I think about authenticity and when I think about even my own journey , I can see how We’ve co-created this society that really doesn’t enable us to be authentically ourselves. Gissele: It’s like, no, not like that, right? Gissele: Everybody always says, “Oh, be yourself.” And then when we’re being ourselves, we’re like, “No, don’t. Not like that.” Don’t do that.” I was just wondering what your thoughts were. megan: Yeah, I think one of the things that’s really interesting is we say that, like you just said, right? Come be yourself. But if we push back against someone for being themselves, oftentime it’s because there’s something that they’re doing that reminds me of something within ourselves that’s unhealed, right? megan: So if, for example, you say, “I want you to be yourself,” and they come to you and say, “I am dating someone of the same gender,” and you’re like, “Oh, no, no, no. Don’t tell me that. That’s TMI, too much information,” oftentimes there’s something unhealed within ourselves about that. Not that your own sexuality is in question, but maybe you have unhealed [00:04:00] trauma from a family member who exposed or a friend who exposed prior. megan: Why is that so difficult to receive? So again, I say to people, if you are pushing back against someone else’s authenticity, do a deep dive into what that’s exposing for yourself about who you are, because it has more to do with you and less to do with them if you’re not willing to receive them. Gissele: And I think that’s the reason why people make those comments that you kind of wonder why they do. if somebody’s, showing a picture of themselves and they’re not conventionally beautiful, like somebody will be like, “Oh, you look fat,” or, “You look old.” And I always wonder, like, why would anyone take the time out to do that? Gissele: But I think what you’re getting at is really, there’s something about them that’s being triggered that they need to go and check that person. And so yeah, I think this … You’re making a really important point. megan: And we Gissele: Ja megan: right? Like, people who are larger or might not have the societally perceived beautiful body type, and they’re wearing a swimsuit or they’re wearing a dress, and people will come in with, “Well, they shouldn’t wear that,” or, “You shouldn’t wear that.” megan: And I think [00:05:00] internally that person has heard that phrase before, and they’re like, “Well, if I heard that phrase wearing what I was wearing, then you need to hear that phrase ’cause of what you’re wearing.” And it’s just that unhealed trauma that circulates. It doesn’t have to be generational trauma within your family. megan: It can also be societal generational trauma of hearing it over and over that you internalize it. Gissele: Yeah, definitely. Gissele: can you talk a little bit about how we can start to tap in and really understand what authenticity means, especially for ourselves? [00:05:29] Receiving Authenticity megan: Yeah. You mentioned The Authenticity Amplifier, and that’s the name that I go by in a lot of the work that I do. And it’s not about amplifying authenticity of individuals, because I think we cannot teach someone how to be authentic. What we do, though, is we help organizations and people create environments where the people they interact with can feel free to be their authentic self. megan: So it’s about helping people receive the authenticity of others rather than helping become, helping people become more authentic in themselves. So it’s [00:06:00] about receiving that authenticity, and I think as we look at a society, especially in our current day, it’s so divided and so divisive with how we communicate with one another. megan: It’s if someone has a different opinion or a differing viewpoint, it becomes, “Oh, I’m not going to speak with them,” or, “I’m not going to talk to them,” or, “They’re wrong and I’m right.” And if we really want to amplify authenticity, we have to be willing to listen to people who might have different viewpoints, knowing that we can learn from one another, and that the most honest sign of authenticity is whether people feel comfortable being their true self in your presence Gissele: Yeah. I, yeah, for sure. I completely agree with that. I was wondering if you had ever gone through a journey yourself in finding your way back to authenticity. I know that I have, and I’m happy to talk about my, my journey and just fumbling through trying to be more authentically myself and what that means. [00:06:52] Finding Her Way Back To Authenticity megan: Yeah, and I have to say this, it is a constant journey. There are moments almost on a daily basis that I say, “Ooh, could I [00:07:00] have handled that differently?” So I must say that, yes, I have those stories of realizing when I wasn’t authentic and how I can transition or how I can pivot for the next time. And it’s an ongoing process. megan: I would say probably one of the most poignant times was when I was interviewing for a position, I was recently divorced and pregnant. I was not showing that I was pregnant, but I was pregnant. I knew I was pregnant, and I still… I did not have a wedding ring on because I was divorced. However, I kept my wedding ring in my glove box in my car, and before I would go into interviews, I would go into the glove box, take out the ring, and slip it on my wedding finger. megan: Because I wasn’t ready, I knew that if this position turned into my next position, I would eventually have to tell them that I was pregnant. In my head, I was worried, “Oh, wait, if I’m not married, what are the stories that they’re gonna tell themselves? Like, how are you pregnant and you’re divorced?” All of [00:08:00] those worries of how society would view me were running through my head, and I remember that I would slip on my wedding ring, and I would always feel some kinda way doing that. megan: Am I living a lie? Am I not telling my truth? Am I not being my authentic self? And I knew the answer to that, and there was also something in my head saying, “But I really want this job.” And there was something telling me that if I was authentic, then I wouldn’t have gotten the job. I remember doing that, and then I’d

  8. Aug 22

    Ep. 108 – Can Enemies Live Together? How One Organization Is Creating True Lasting Peace

    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 gonna be talking about true reconciliation. Our guest today is Celestin Gariyunka, who is a humanitarian and development professional with over 15 years experience in organizational leadership, humanitarian programming, refugee protection, access to justice, peace building, research, education, and partnership management. Gissele: He currently serves as executive director of Prison Fellowship Rwanda, providing strategic leadership for programs in justice, rehabilitation and reintegration, refugee protection, MHPS, disability inclusion, mediation, and community development. He holds a master’s in in economics from the [00:01:00] Independent University of Kigali, a bachelor’s degree in mathematics education from the University of Rwanda, and financial management specialization certification from Cornell University, US. Gissele: Celestin joined Prison Fellowship Rwanda in 2020 as a community-based protection officer and field coordinator, and he became head of programs in 2022. Please join me in welcoming Celestin. Hey. Hello. Celestin: Hello. How are you? Gissele: I’m good. I’m so excited to speak to you. I love the reconciliation work that you guys are doing over there, and especially in a world that feels so, so divided. Gissele: Yeah. It’s such an important conversation to have. I was wondering if you could tell the audience a little bit about how y- the organization got started. Celestin: Thank you so much, Gissele. It’s an honor to be here, and we thank you for creating a platform that reminds everyone that love and compassion are not simply beautiful words . But they are powerful [00:02:00] forces that can transform individuals, families, communities, and even countries. Celestin: I’m delighted to share the journey of Prison Fellowship Rwanda and what we have learned about healing, reconciliation, and peace building with more than thirty-two years in Rwanda. Our organization Prison Fellowship Rwanda, to understand it well, I think we need to understand or to remember Rwanda’s history. Celestin: As many of you knows, after the nineteen ninety-four genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, our country was left deeply wounded with more than a million people killed in just one hundred days, with m- families that were torn apart and communities were divided. The, the prisons became very much overcrowded, and millions of people carried visible and invisible wounds. Celestin: [00:03:00] So in nineteen ninety-five, one year after the genocide the Prison Fellowship Rwanda was established because we believed rebuilding Rwanda requires more than rebuilding roads and institutions. It requires also rebuilding hearts, relationship, and hope. And our first work as Prison Fellowship Rwanda was to enter into prisons, preach hope, encourage repentancy, pray with inmates, and remind them that although they had committed terrible crimes, they had not lost their human dignity or their potential to change. Celestin: So over time, we learned that spiritual transformation is essential, but also it’s it’s not only one part of the journey. So we established other programs like emotional healing, restorative justice, [00:04:00] restoring relationships between offenders and and victims, practical skills, and even community mediation. Celestin: So from there, our organization has grown from a, a group of of pastors that do prison evangelism to a full operation organization of almost one hundred full-time staff today. And we run many programs, including mental health and psychosocial support legal aid, youth development, livelihood programs, and community reconciliation one of the remarkable activity was what we call Reconciliation Village Program that we started in 2003 where we built houses for genocide f- survivors and genocide perpetrators that that requested forgiveness [00:05:00] and and they were forgiven, and we put their families together in what we call reconciliation villages. Celestin: So that, those are places where genocide survivors and former perpetrators, they voluntarily live together after truth, accountability, after remorse and forgiveness. And now that is the organization we are talking about. Yeah. Thank you so much. Gissele: Yeah. Beautiful. Let’s talk about the work that you do regarding prison reform. Gissele: Can you describe what you do to help prisoners change for the better? Celestin: It’s not easy. Yeah. And what I can say is that Even by the go- the government has changed the name. Here in Rwanda we don’t call prisons, we call correctional facility because- … there is a philosophy that prisons were established in the past with one vision, to punish people. Celestin: But our [00:06:00] orientation today is rehabilitation. So we do this by integrating all programs that that re-restore the human dignity, that restore the relationship, that build the true person that we want, the, the true citizen that we want to be or Celestin: to… we want to make in the future. So when we say prison reform, at Prison Fellowship Rwanda, we believe every person is more than the worst decision they have ever made. We know that justice is important, but people must accept responsibility for the crimes they committed. And accountability at, and transformation can exist together. Celestin: It’s not holding someone accountable of the crimes, but also helping them to be transformed. So our rehabilitation program, it’s holistic. So it begins with evangelism, helping people to rediscover [00:07:00] hope, purpose, to repent, and to re- to restore their moral responsibility. And from there we provide restorative justice. Celestin: We provide trauma healing and mental health support to those inmates. We provide life skills and family restoration, including also education and vocational training. And we also support livelihood programs so that a person undergoing those, all those services of correction services, get a, a holistic rehabilitation, but also be well prepared for integration back to the community. Celestin: So unless those deeper wounds are addressed, changing behavior becomes much more difficult. And that is we, what we say by experience. Unless the inner part of the person that made him to commit [00:08:00] such crimes is changed. So we… You can’t say that this one committed genocide, killed 100 people. Celestin: He was imprisoned 15 or 20 years, but without other programs that can transform him, so he will go out with the same mindset, the same behavior. So our program is to make sure that prisons Or correctional facility are place, are space for transformation, for healing, for life skills, for family restoration, for reintegration, a holistic reintegration program. Celestin: And we often- … said that rehabilitation is not simply preparing someone to leave the correctional facility. It’s preparing someone to return home as a responsible father, as a responsible mother, as a responsible neighbor or citizen, as an element for [00:09:00] peace building, not a troublemaker as as many people think. Gissele: And that’s what I love about your organization because the focus is one of true rehabilitation, right? Gissele: In many ways Rwanda is ahead of its time in terms of not viewing prison as a punishment, but rather as a stepping stone towards transformation, and so I think that’s really essential. Gissele: Yeah. How do you bring victims and perpetrators together in reconciliation in a way that perhaps honors also the fact that the, the victims have been harmed by the perpetrators? Yeah. So how do you bring them in reconciliation- Yeah … in a way that’s safe and supportive for both sides? Celestin: Yeah. I think this is this is the most delicate and perhaps the most inspiring part of our work. Celestin: Reconciliation- … is something that never forced. In Rwanda we had a very terrible experience. Rwanda, we are one community. We have one culture. We speak one language. [00:10:00] But- One circumstance in 1994, one big part of the majority of Rwandans took arms and killed the other part of Rwandans. In 100 days, three months, killed almost… Celestin: Even more because we are still discovering bodies of people killed in the genocide. More than a million people killed in, in, in 100 days. It’s terrible. But after that, we experienced that reconciliation, it doesn’t limit. It doesn’t have limits. Every crime, every situation, reconciliation, you have seen that it is something possible and can be done everywhere. Celestin: So You we have never forced someone to reconcile to another one. We have seen that forgiveness cannot be [00:11:00] demanded. Even trust, building trust cannot be rushed. It’s something that begins with truths, with a process. Through restorative justice programs we put offenders in a place and they learn. Celestin: And offenders acknowledge responsibility without finding excuses and understand the human impact of the harm they caused. That is, it’s Celestin: a long process, but that is the main target, to make sure that the offenders, they are put in a position to understand and acknowledge the responsibility and even the, the human impact they caused. But also we prepare the victims. The victims receive trauma healing, counseling, and psychosocial support before even thinking of any dialogue or meeting with the perpetrators, the offenders. Celestin: So we use several [00:12:00] complementary approach Among them we have what we call social therapy. It’s an approach that we developed that were developed by psychologists that helps small groups to rebuild tru

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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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