In your Face Trauma: You are Stronger than your Circumstances
Mar 06, 2024Season 2Episode 8
Tina and Ann
This episode was inspired by a statement made in Kara Swisher's recent book, The Burn Book. Tina and Ann discuss how Trauma changed them for...wait for it...the better? How can that happen. Well, trauma is not what made them better, but their strength, determination and resilience changed trauma's path.
The two discuss how their trauma actually made them stronger and more determined. Ann realized that her creativity was born in the pain and isolation of her bedroom.. Tina learned how to hyperfocus to get through and overcome.
They two learned how that simple is good, family is everything and how to break the cycle. Ann learned one of life's most important lessons that got her through.
Join this twisty, curvy podcast and learn more of how Trauma shaped them and how they rose above their circumstances.
The Book A Loss that Lasts Forever by Kara Swisher is mentioned The Sinful Woman by Ann Kagarise is mentioned
A quote was used by William Martin from The Parent's Tao Te Ching
Quote: There is no timestamp on trauma. There isn't a formula that you can insert yourself into to get from horror to healed. Be patient. Take up space. Let your journey be the balm." Dawn Serra
A quote by Plutarch: "What we change inwardly will change outer reality.
This episode was inspired by a statement made in Kara Swisher's recent book, The Burn Book. Tina and Ann discuss how Trauma changed them for...wait for it...the better? How can that happen. Well, trauma is not what made them better, but their strength, determination and resilience changed trauma's path.
The two discuss how their trauma actually made them stronger and more determined. Ann realized that her creativity was born in the pain and isolation of her bedroom.. Tina learned how to hyperfocus to get through and overcome.
They two learned how that simple is good, family is everything and how to break the cycle. Ann learned one of life's most important lessons that got her through.
Join this twisty, curvy podcast and learn more of how Trauma shaped them and how they rose above their circumstances.
The Book A Loss that Lasts Forever by Kara Swisher is mentioned The Sinful Woman by Ann Kagarise is mentioned
A quote was used by William Martin from The Parent's Tao Te Ching
Quote: There is no timestamp on trauma. There isn't a formula that you can insert yourself into to get from horror to healed. Be patient. Take up space. Let your journey be the balm." Dawn Serra
A quote by Plutarch: "What we change inwardly will change outer reality.
Welcome to Real Talk with Tina and Ann. I am Tina and I am Ann. This week we are going to be talking about something a little different. As we continue our talk on traumas lens, we're going to put a little twist on it In your face trauma we are stronger than our circumstances.
Speaker 2:
You know I just absolutely love this. You know I was sparked recently because I'm reading this book by Kira Swisher and it's called the Burn Book and it's really good, by the way, and it's a little different. It's not a trauma, you know, focused book, but it's on tech and you know she's an insider in tech and she's talking about all this tech stuff and I really found it interesting. And then she put a little segment, a little about herself. Her dad died at a really young age and she was raised by her mom and her mom wasn't that great of a mom. You have to read it.
Speaker 2:
But she said the plus I got from being raised by a villain, and she mentions the things that were positive, that she got out of it. So I mean that was a completely different twist to me. I mean the positives of being raised by a villain. That really just struck me. That's a villain. Wow, Isn't that strong, that's powerful. Yeah, it's really strong. But what I got, the most important word was, I mean the positives that came out of that. And so she starts listing and first of all she mentions that it made her fast on her feet, which I instantly related to and I thought, wow, how profound this is. You know, here we are talking about this in a different way. I instantly started thinking of all the things that being raised with trauma, the things that being raised with pain, and I can tell you, I became who I am today because of the things that happened to me as a kid.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah absolutely, as we're talking about this. I you know, and I knew we were talking about this today, obviously, but even as we sit here now, it's just my mind is swirling with things and I totally agree. It was only last year that I realized, through my counselor, that some of what's been perceived as my greatest weaknesses can actually be my biggest strength.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, things happen to us, but we then take that path and we do what we want with it. She recently had an episode with Shardae Young on the podcast and she discussed with me this question do you think your path was chosen for you, or do you think you chose your path and I know, isn't that really an interesting concept and so I think that things happen to us and that's the part that our path was chosen for us. But then after that, that's when we kick in, and then we can choose our path and decide. You know, we get to a fork in the road and we can choose which side we want to go on.
Speaker 1:
It's funny, you mentioned choice because I was reading about the fatalistic approach, a fatalistic mindset, recently, and it's tied to depression. It's interesting because I believe, in large part, there is so much we don't have control over that we don't get a choice in. Okay, so, for example, who your parents are, your genetics, a lot of what happens to us in life, things like that. So I believe there's much we don't get to choose. So another word that is chosen for us. Yet I also think you're right and there are sometimes that we actually do get to make the choice.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, you know, when I look at who I am, I never think of myself as this abused or battered or you know. I don't relate it to my past. That's like a different person and I'm just not that person anymore. These are stories that happened, that's a fact, and I always say those things do not define me, but they made me who I am and that's strong.
Speaker 1:
I love the notion that we are not responsible for what happened to us trauma but we are responsible for healing ourselves. I never see myself as a victim. I don't like that. I let it feel me to overcome because I think just throughout my life, maybe part of its personality, some of it is absolutely trauma. That you know, kind of like what you said quick on your feet. I like a challenge as well. You know I will rise up to the challenge. I won't let it take me down. I will rise up and accomplish it.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I mean, I learned really young that I had to live this way. I mean I'm talking just about from birth and if I was going to survive I had to raise up and dig down to the depths of who I was at times and make it. And I'm, like I said, I'm talking baby. So if I was going to make it and I was a failure to thrive baby, so I learned really young if I was going to make it, I had to become stronger than my circumstances.
Speaker 2:
That's so good, it's beautiful and, you know, for some reason, even very young, like I said, I was able to make this for 10 family in my head and that got me through. It's really strange that I did that, but I've talked to Denise Bard, who also did this. She's been our guest co -host before and she also did the same thing to help her get through the what was going on in her household. So you know, I would pick chosen people either on TV or in my immediate world and I would act out this thing in my head and instead of sitting there eating my TV dinner every night because my mom had to work after my dad died, even at the age of 12, I was home alone most nights and I was a slatski kid that would come home and come in and my house and do the homework and eat by myself and I was told that I wasn't allowed to even talk on the phone with my friends and I was so afraid to lie to my mom that I just listened to her. I mean, I would not go against anything that she would say.
Speaker 2:
So it really caused this world of in in my four walls, I'd say of more isolation, and what happened was that I created my fantasy family in my head and it got me through. I was also sent to my room all the time when she was home because apparently I was this really bad kid and she constantly told me just go to your room and I would be there for hours and there was this you know world that I created in my bedroom. That was an outlet and I would spend hours drawing and reading and writing and I found this bubble of creativity where I was able to become who I am today and I really believe that I think I found that creative part of me in my pain by myself, in my room.
Speaker 1:
Pain, purpose and pain you know it totally. What you're talking about reminds me of Anne of Green Gables. She and Shirley came to mind immediately, and I think that so many others can relate to her too. She's just so relatable. She was in the depths of despair. She kept going. Her creativity, her fantasies and her mind, her writing, helped her keep safe and it fueled her to keep pushing forward, and I think that's something that we can all learn from, from that character.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I watched that show because you told me to I love Anne Shirley Cuthbert.
Speaker 1:
Oh my gosh, I so relate to her. I feel like she gets me, I get her and that's why Because it's the trauma, it's the sadness and it's the triumph at the end.
Speaker 2:
The survival. Yes, yes, I connected with it so much. I gotta be honest, though, I had to stop watching when her mom or aunt, or whoever it was, you know, took them, took her in, started getting sick. I couldn't take it. It was too hard for me to watch, so I had to stop.
Speaker 1:
But you're missing out on a great ending.
Speaker 2:
We're talking about Anne with an E.
Speaker 1:
Yes, anne, with an E, that's on. I think it was on Netflix, right.
Speaker 2:
It might. I think it is now it's on Apple, I think. But yeah, I mean, it's an amazing series and I truly I recommend it. But anyway, I also think that I understood pain so deeply, so young, that I really believe that it gave me such a heart for others and it gave me an empathy and this want to help others who are also in pain.
Speaker 1:
I think that's absolutely possible. Sometimes I think trauma can trigger empathy. I've seen it over and over again within my own family. If we choose to let the trauma change us for good, it can be a good thing.
Speaker 2:
Now I just want to share a really quick story about empathy, because it was super funny because my son he just and he is a very empathetic kid, by the way but we were talking about something and I said about well, how do you think your friend feels about that? And he's seven, by the way and he said, ma, you're talking about empathy and I don't have that. It was like the funniest seven and I'm like, wow, you even know the word empathy. But anyway, it was super funny.
Speaker 2:
But one of the things I did to get through was, unfortunately, I drank and I started drinking when I was 12 and it might have even been 11.
Speaker 2:
I was trying to think about that, but I drink all the way up until I ended up in treatment and after college I got into some other things but I had some scares and loved living and pretty much kept to just drinking. A lot of people around me did a lot of other things, but I mean, I spoke smoked pot a couple of times, but it really did. You know, just the fear of what it could do to you Just kept me from pretty much just drinking. So the thing I learned in this was, first of all, numbing was not the answer, because I lived numbing it only made things worse that honestly, finding healthier ways to get through the pain and feel all the feels was the best route to go. I didn't learn this until much later in life, but it made me cherish my feelings now and that the pain is okay because it is just part of the process. I mean, it took a while to get here, yeah.
Speaker 1:
So loss has taught me that you have to feel it to heal it. I now know that. I've known that now for a few years. I'm in a place so where I'm giving myself grace and space at this point in my life to profess, to just love myself right where I am. I think grace and space is an important part of anyone's journey.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it really is. I think we need more of that. I think one of the characteristics that most people I have met with a lot of trauma have in common we all have this in common, and you and me definitely fit under this that we learned very young how to be resilient. And I have had people say to me how do you handle all that? You handle? I mean there are days that I have nothing but chaos with my three kids and they all have had trauma and they're all autistic, they all have disabilities and I mean it is seriously whack-a-mole on my house and I mean it's a lot.
Speaker 2:
And I have this amazing thing about me and I really do believe that I learned this very young how to compartmentalize and deal with exactly what's in front of me and then just instantly move on. I mean, as soon as this is over, I just move on and I don't take it with me. I think if I held on to each little thing that happened throughout my day or throughout my life, it would just build up and I would just combust or something. I'm not sure I would blow up. I wouldn't be able to handle it. But I am really good at compartmentalizing, dealing with what's in front of me, and moving on I think that's so big.
Speaker 1:
I wish that I was so much better at that. I wish that honestly. I wish that everybody had that ability, because I think it would be so helpful in moving forward in so many different areas. I think that's amazing that you have that. I'm working hard at being better at doing that because I want to be able to let go and move past. Sometimes I can, but sometimes it just hangs on. Then, when it does, I start to think I wonder if that's something I need to be still processing, still working through. If it's like months long, is it something that is just in the back of your mind because it's stuck there, or is it really something that you need to deal with? So sometimes I get stuck in that scenario.
Speaker 1:
But I will talk about something I love about myself. It's my perceived weaknesses of one or two of them turned superpowers. This is how I describe them. I have the ability to hyper-focus and accept a challenge. I can block out everything to focus on the one thing that is most important and I will stay there until it's done. So blessing and a curse, truthfully. But I have learned to channel some of my greatest fears to propel me to push through and overcome. I really am learning and believing more and more about our perceived greatest challenges Really can be some of our greatest strengths.
Speaker 2:
That's amazing. I've seen you do that. You are really good at that. I think I do too. I mean, we can have a household an absolute crazy, and I'm just. I got my blinders on. I am focused. So yeah, I'm not sure where that comes from. I always thought it was my autism. I don't know.
Speaker 1:
I know it's so interesting because there's so much. I'm like is it part trauma? Is it part genetic? Is it part I'm a first born and it could be all of that it could be all.
Speaker 2:
I don't know. I also learned how to rely on myself that if I want fulfillment, if I want anything, I have to go for it, and I don't wait for someone else to fill it for me. I just get it myself.
Speaker 1:
Absolutely. This is me too. That's going back to sometimes being the first born. I don't know if that's part of that trait or quirk, or a mix of trauma or related to personality, and sometimes I wonder if these things that we're talking about are learned throughout life as coping mechanisms or defense mechanisms. I just kind of think.
Speaker 1:
I wonder what category they kind of fall under. So, for example, I have never liked group projects, never, ever, ever, because I don't like relying on anyone but myself. I know my capabilities and it seems inevitable that someone always in the group you can't count on and I hate that.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
So I don't know what that ties into. I mean, I've always been fiercely independent and my last born has that trait of mine as well, at a very, very young age, and I'm not at all bothered by it. I think it's fantastic because, like you, I won't wait. I make the moves.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and when it comes to the group thing, one of the things that you know, for some reason and I never really saw this about myself I never took the head of a project.
Speaker 2:
I never was the leader. I was always the quiet one, the follower, in school. But after I have become the head coach and swimming of a 100 plus team and then I worked myself up at the battered woman's shelter as just a victim's advocate in a very short period of time, as the director of the battered woman's shelter, and then after I found myself at a school and I ended up being an assistant director at the school, maybe there's something about this leadership quality that has come to be able to being able to bring a team of people together and work together. So you know, it's become a really good strength of mine, and I'm not really sure where that came from, but it could be from everything that I've been through. So I always kind of chalk it up to some of that. Another beautiful thing that has come out of all of that was that I learned that simple is good and I am thrilled with simple. I don't need all the frills. I'm so grateful for the most basic of things and I never take them for granted.
Speaker 1:
Ah, simple really is more. I can totally relate to my core. I am a simple girl from my close to what makes me happy consistently? If you ever were to look in my gratitude journal so often, my three good things from the day. Just simple little things, such as the sunshine or a conversation I had with a cashier. Simple, it's not like, oh, I bought a car today, you know, or something big and grand. I, you know, I found a four leaf clover, or I spotted beautiful flower, or I took this awesome picture of my kids, or it's always something you know or laughter. Just I'm all the simple. Little things really are big to me Simple life is so good.
Speaker 1:
I learned a long time ago from my husband's grandma to appreciate the simple things, the ordinary things and you know she always said that winter was a good time of rest and appreciate the ordinary days because that means everyone's healthy, there's nothing wrong. And I really started to lean into that and I've loved it ever since. I have a great framed quote in our kitchen. It's by William Martin and it's from the parents To-Ti Ching, and it says do not ask your children to strive for extraordinary lives. Such striving may seem admirable, but it is a way of foolishness. Help them instead to find the wonder and the marvel of an ordinary life. Show them the joy of tasting tomatoes, apples and pears. Show them how to cry when pets and people die. Show them the infinite pleasure in the touch of a hand and make the ordinary come alive for them. The extraordinary will take care of itself. And I read that every day in my kitchen and there's so much of that that I do really, really well. And especially the teaching my children how to cry when pets and people die. Well, we've got that covered, I can assure you that.
Speaker 1:
And the simple joys just in touch. My middle son is very touchy and it brings him great comfort. Just a hug. So he'll hug me probably and this is no exaggeration 50 times a day and I'll try to. You know, just give him gentle touch on the back or a little rub, or a hug too, or just a kiss on the forehead. You know the simple joy of touch and you know and marveling at. We always go strawberry picking and sometimes we pick blue, and sometimes we pick blueberries and apples and to eat it right from the orchard. And those really are core memories, simple things. One of my kids' favorite memories of all time during winter was a few years ago. Our neighbor came over and made us an igloo. I called and had pizza delivered to the igloo. That was their favorite thing ever. Simple A pizza delivered to an igloo.
Speaker 2:
That's so awesome Super cute.
Speaker 1:
So it's just yeah, simple. Simple is so good.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I was thinking of strawberry picking actually when you were talking about this, and we went to the strawberry orchard and they picked, you know well, strawberries and blueberries and just berries, and those are the things that I think now. You know, my kids are in horseback riding and things like that. These are the things that they really do remember the most. When we went to Tennessee, we went to the most simplest things. It was hiking through, you know, the forest there, going through the mountains and seeing the deer and the bear and you know that kind of stuff, those it really is.
Speaker 2:
It's the simple things that those kind of memories last forever, absolutely. You know, I learned also that family is everything and nothing else really matters when I come down to it, and I learned that I want my family close and I want to do nothing but love on them. I learned how not to do it very young and the models that I had, the examples, taught me all the wrong ways of doing it and I watched and I always knew that what was being done was wrong and I would never be like them.
Speaker 1:
I love what you said that family is most important, and I would add that family doesn't always have to be blood, because I am adopted and I think that's really brought to the forefront that sometimes this is going back to what we were originally talking about choice. I have been fortunate enough to get to choose some of my family or perceived family, and I'm so grateful for that. I am also grateful that I can break the cycle of trauma for my kids. I do believe every child deserves to be loved and cared for and not traumatized. When we lost our baby boy in 2018, it showed me the very thing that you just talked about. It brings to the forefront the things that matter most and that's what it did for me, and it showed me its family and its simplicity.
Speaker 1:
I did have great role models in this area. Growing up, my mom was so, so, so great at caring for others and loving and showing me that you're always to be there for family, and it's amazing because she was not shown those things as a young girl. She was not shown and told the love that she was able to give and say to me, and I just know that I get my strength in this area for my mom. That's beautiful. Yeah, she, the epitome of love. My mom's name would be next to it, and you are too.
Speaker 2:
You, you, really you showed me. Yeah, you're an amazing mom and an amazing friend, by the way.
Speaker 1:
Thank you, and I do feel the same about you too. I'm not just saying that, so anyone listening going, oh my gosh, no, it's true, it's true. And if you don't have your people, if you don't have your village, this is a good reminder to get one. You know you need the family in your life.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I mean, I did the same thing, tina. I created my own family that were not blood. I was adopted too and and I've always had that mentality of I've always had, you know, people that I really look to, that have gotten me through, so that's really important. Another thing I learned was to look beyond my circumstances at the time and see the hope in the horizon, to know that my circumstances were temporary, no matter how permanent that it seemed and there were times that it did seem pretty permanent. I learned that pretty young. I always knew that, even though I was told that I had pretty significant disabilities, that I could not be stuck and move on and I decided that I was not going to stay there. I mean that was really important to me that, no matter what, I was going to figure it out and move forward, don't tell me that I would not have the cognitive ability to graduate high school because that just made me dig down and get a master's degree.
Speaker 1:
Right.
Speaker 2:
So the only thing that that took me a lifetime to get over was my dad's death and in the Burn book that I was talking about with Keras, by Keras Wisher, she talks about losing her dad so young and she wrote this book and I want to read it called the Lost that Last Forever, because that's for kids who have lost their parents very young, because you lose half your world. But it gave me a sense of loss that is special, in a sense that I understand what true loss is and what it really means.
Speaker 1:
I think that's the one thing about loss Sometimes it really tenderizes your heart and helps us see things and feel things differently.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I also learned to look for beauty in the chaos. There was always chaos in my life and after my dad died and my mom took the two of us on this, I say God forsaken six-week trip away from all everything that had happened. And it was really interesting because she just whisked us to a different place every day because I think she was running from her own demons. I mean, when I look back at it, I think she was. She had done some pretty horrific things, having hurt my sister so severely, with her ending up back in the system, and that she, I think, was just running. And I'm not sure, but that's my guess.
Speaker 2:
But while we were on this trip of chaos, we went to the Grand Canyon, the Painted Desert, the Petrified Forest and I got into the beauty of what was around me and I found travel was a place of fascination and escape.
Speaker 2:
And I found my passion for travel, for learning about different things and history and the things that occurred in different places, and I see a place or visit and I find myself researching everything about it. I mean, that's my thing, I'm just like Googling, I want to know everything about it and I still feel myself, as this 12-year-old on this trip interested in the world, and I was standing in the middle of just beauty. And you know, I really I think one of the biggest gifts that I can give my kids and I think that I am doing that is that they are having this fascination for travel and learning and experiencing the world too. I mean, I think it's just there's just so much out there for us to experience. So now I still don't know why we were on the run. I mean, I have my idea, but my interest in other places was sparked.
Speaker 1:
I've long had an interest in traveling as well, wanting to go far away, learning about other cultures and places. It's just something that's always taken my mind off of some things that may have been going on in life and, interestingly, my go-to reaction is I'm a runner. I want to run from whatever problems. Yeah, I'm definitely a runner.
Speaker 2:
but, as the saying goes, there's always a rainbow after the storm, and I know that you have to face it head on, you know another thing that I learned was I also loved the beauty in nature and I can just sit in all of the trees and the beauty that God made my chaos made me love, peace.
Speaker 1:
I have always loved camping and nature and hiking. I've done it my whole entire life. Being outside makes me feel free and it's something I really value highly. Nature is different every day and so it offers such a peace and a beauty and you know you go out one day and you might see something, and the next day you don't, and you know seasons change and it's just so beautiful. It's always something that's made my heart sing. I have long said that I could live in a tent on the beach and I did just that last July. That simple life. You know. I went on my amazing hiking adventure in Hawaii and absolutely loved it. Felt so alive, so at peace, just free. I don't know. Nature comforts me. I love the sounds, I love the smells. I just love all of its beauty all of it.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it centers me.
Speaker 2:
I guess that's a good way of saying that. You know. I also have to say that one of the biggest things that trauma did for me was brought me to my knees, and I have had people very close to me who have gone through the same thing. They will say to me how in the world, with what you went through, how can you still believe in God? And my thing was always you know, with everything that's going on, how can I not believe in Him? I have to hold on to Him. That is when I have needed Him the most.
Speaker 1:
Until my mom's sickness I could have agreed with everything that you said. With everything that's happened to me in my life, I've been able to handle over time with God and not be angry at Him or have doubts. But the suffering of my mom, someone I love so dearly, has made me question everything I know the Bible says in this world we will have trouble. I get that. I don't think I will ever understand why such suffering like what my mom and many others with Alzheimer's early onset is experiencing and it is suffering for her and for us with this dreaded disease mentally. I'll never understand why something like that is allowed by a quote. Loving God. That's where the disconnect is for me.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and I think that there's seasons for that, tina. I mean, there is absolutely nothing wrong for you to feel that way during this time, and there's some tough questions, and when I get in front of God one day, it'll be like why did this happen? And that's some of the stuff that you, I'm sure, will bring forth to God at some point. Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:
Oh yeah, and I think that's why I'm giving myself so much grace and space in this season. I just need to breathe, I need to. I'm desperate to find the answer to that, and I haven't found it through any of my counseling, you know, and counselors and former pastor have told me that they don't have the answer, and so I think that I'm on this journey and eventually I'll find it. That's my hope anyway.
Speaker 2:
Those are great. I think these are God questions that we can't, we don't have the answer to, because the only one that can answer this is God. So you know, I mean these are very heartfelt, deep, soul searching questions, right, right, you know my faith got me through some of the hardest times, even before I knew him, because I mean, I was not raised with God, we were not regular churchgoers. Now I had gone here and there to a youth group when they were doing fun things, but I don't even really remember it being about God, it was just about the activity. Remember getting a Bible from that church and just turning the pages on a book, and I wasn't really even able to read at that time, but I just remember turning the pages in the book and feeling that connection with God, I guess. But I guess I didn't even really realize at that time that it was God.
Speaker 2:
But my trauma, more than anything, was written on the pages of my book, the Sinful Woman, that you can get on Amazon, you know, for the plug, shameless plug, yeah yeah. But I learned so young in my trauma about what is important and I learned that judgment is not the way I had so many people, so many people think that they knew me and my behaviors, but they knew an acting out from what was happening to me, but they didn't know me. You know, I recently heard someone say no, that's not true, that's your narrative about me, but that's not true and I absolutely loved that. I just know that I should sit down with people and get to know them where they are, instead of judge from their actions or what I think that they are, and we need to not base anybody on a moment in time. That's what I've learned.
Speaker 1:
So I need to share a funny story about that. When I first met my husband, we were in college and we went to a friend's house from high school an apartment and he happened to know her. So we go there, we meet for the first time. You know, just as fate or luck, whatever you want to call it, serendipity, I don't know yeah, we're at this. I guess you could call it a party, but it wasn't like maybe what you're thinking of in terms of party, just a couple of people at an apartment hanging out and I.
Speaker 1:
Why he ever wanted anything to do with me after this first night is probably really only God, because I would have walked away from me if I were him.
Speaker 1:
But he had on like baggy shorts, okay, and he had on this big chain cross necklace that hung down pretty low and he has curly hair like a little afro. And I was sitting next to him and I said to him I looked over at him, I mean I thought he was cute, yes, and I looked over him and I said what, are you some kind of drug dealer or something? And he was like why do you say that? And I was like look at your baggy pants or your baggy shorts and this big chain necklace. And he just laughed and I'm like I'm probably right, I judged him just by those two things and it couldn't have been farther from the truth. Oh my gosh, my husband is the most straight and narrow guy you'll ever meet, so it was really funny. He taught me in that moment don't judge a book by its cover, like you need to get to know someone before you try to think of what they are, who they are or what they're not. Do you know what I mean? He taught me so much in that moment.
Speaker 2:
When I went into AA I got to tell you the best people, the most kind, loving, meet you where you are non-judgmental people.
Speaker 2:
Baggy shorts and big chains, are in like the, you know, in the jails when I work at the jail, are at the AA and NA meetings and in places like that, because they know what it's like to be out there and hurt and broken and have nothing and you know, they're just real and they meet everybody in their realness and that's what I love. But where I have not found it is in the church and places like that. So judgment is rampant in a lot of places and I think that the people that have really been through a lot Really, I mean, they get it.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I think you're absolutely right, Tina. We normally end with a quote. Would you like to end with one?
Speaker 1:
How about two? I couldn't pick. Okay, I'm going to leave us with two, but I am going to say I thought you had some great ones today, towards the end of the podcast in particular, so go back and write some of those down. They were so, so good, so I'll leave you with these two. There is no time stamp on trauma. There isn't a formula that you can insert yourself into to get from horror to healed. Be patient, take up space, let your journey be the bomb. And that's a quote by Dawn Sarah, and I love that because I think that's where I am right now. I'm being patient, I'm taking up space, I'm letting my journey be the bomb.
Speaker 2:
I 100% have lived that. There's been times in my life where I would say my life is made of chapters and I think that is right for all of us or and I always say mile markers, but I mean everything that we've gone through or that you will go through in life is getting you to where you need to be. So there is no time stamp on the healing of the trauma.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, as long as you get to the healing, absolutely, the goal is healing, however long it takes.
Speaker 2:
However long it takes.
Speaker 1:
The other quote I wanted to leave you with is from Plutarch, and it says what we change inwardly will change outer reality.
Speaker 2:
I mean that's everything, and it's that fake it till you make it thing mentality, you know, and I've had to do that a million times. I mean I can't tell you how many times I'm just faking it and I don't even know what I'm doing, or you know when things are crazy.
Speaker 2:
Well you're doing it well and things are crazy on the inside, but I'm just that's where it has to start. You really do have to change your insides to start going through the motions and eventually the outside catches up. I really do believe that. Thank you for joining us on Real Talk with Tina and Ann.
Speaker 1:
Our hope is this inspires you to change your perspective and rewrite your story for yourself and future generations. You are strong enough to do it.