Inspired by Dr. Jennifer Heisz's book "Move the Body, Heal the Mind," we discuss how physical activity can be a powerful antidote to anxiety and depression Stories of remarkable persistence, like Bob Goff's relentless pursuit of his law school dreams, illustrate the importance of pushing past mental or physical blocks—whether rooted in fear, trauma, or past experiences.
The duo shares how they do not hear the word 'no' and just continue on their journey. Do you want excuses to be your path and allow life's blocks allow you to stop pursuing your dream or do you want to figure out another way there.
Through a heartfelt narrative, Ann shares the poignant experience of reconnecting with her brother Keith, only to face the heartbreak of his final words and the complexity of his passing. This chapter explores the yearning for deeper connections and how even indirect forms of validation, like Keith’s regular listenership to our podcast, can bring comfort. We reflect on our unique bond, the challenges of dealing with death, and the treasured memories that keep loved ones present in our lives. Join us for an episode filled with raw emotion, practical advice, and a reminder of the strength found in small, consistent steps forward.
Inspired by Dr. Jennifer Heisz's book "Move the Body, Heal the Mind," we discuss how physical activity can be a powerful antidote to anxiety and depression Stories of remarkable persistence, like Bob Goff's relentless pursuit of his law school dreams, illustrate the importance of pushing past mental or physical blocks—whether rooted in fear, trauma, or past experiences.
The duo shares how they do not hear the word 'no' and just continue on their journey. Do you want excuses to be your path and allow life's blocks allow you to stop pursuing your dream or do you want to figure out another way there.
Through a heartfelt narrative, Ann shares the poignant experience of reconnecting with her brother Keith, only to face the heartbreak of his final words and the complexity of his passing. This chapter explores the yearning for deeper connections and how even indirect forms of validation, like Keith’s regular listenership to our podcast, can bring comfort. We reflect on our unique bond, the challenges of dealing with death, and the treasured memories that keep loved ones present in our lives. Join us for an episode filled with raw emotion, practical advice, and a reminder of the strength found in small, consistent steps forward.
Welcome to Real Talk with Tina and Anne. I am Anne, and this is part two of Make Excuses or Make Adjustments. I really hope you get to listen to part one. If not, please go to Real Talk with Tina and Anne. On our website it's just realtalktinaannecom and you can get all of our episodes and you can join us each week anywhere you get your podcast. You can listen to us every Sunday morning at 11 am on wdjyfmcom out of Atlanta and online. You can also listen to us on Denver's radio station 92.9 and 89.3.
Speaker 1:
You can listen online at denveropenmediaorg and you can watch us on San Francisco's Pacifica Community Television on Comcast Channel 26 and 27 and online at Pacific Coast TV. You can also watch all of our episodes on YouTube at Real Talk with Tina and Anne. You can reach us on Facebook at Real Talk with Tina and Anne. You can reach us on Facebook at Real Talk with Tina and Anne and you can go catch all of our episodes. Like I said, at realtalktinaannecom, you can catch our monthly newsletters and you can also get special messages. All right, well, here is part two of make excuses or make adjustments. Like I said in another episode, if I am where I was three months ago or six months ago, you know. I'm going to figure out why and I'm going to move.
Speaker 2:
That's so good. Sitting leads to more stagnation. I love that. And then, equally so, moving leads to more movement. You know there's a book, yeah, oh, I like that. Yeah, you know there's a book, yeah.
Speaker 1:
Oh, I like that. Yeah, I mean, there's a book Move the Body, heal the Mind by Dr Jennifer Heisz H-E-I-S-Z. I'm not sure, but she is a neuroscientist who discusses research on how fitness and exercise can combat mental health conditions such as anxiety, dementia, ADHD and depression, and offers a plan for improving focus, creativity and sleep. She says that physical inactivity is the greatest risk factor contributing to dementia and anxiety. It's as much a factor as genetics and it says that exercise's anti-inflammatory properties makes it the most effective treatment strategy for those who are depressed and don't respond to antidepressants.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, she's not the only one that does that. There's so, so, so, so, so much research in people who are neuroscientists and sports scientists and you name it, who are right on board with this. And that's why I couldn't figure out because you know, with the disease that my mom has the early onset Alzheimer's why, as I know I'm in this pivotal decade of my forties why am I not wanting to move? That's so counter to who I am as being driven, and it turns out, the only obstacle in my way was me. I just needed to start, and now I'm moving and I want to move. So you're right, no sitting back, you can be tired and stagnant or you can get up and move. But you know, and and I'm not even doing like a ton I'm making sure that I walk a mile, a little over a mile, every morning. It's a start. You know, it's not anything huge and I get that, but it is a start and I think that's what counts, yeah.
Speaker 1:
You know, getting back to the blocks that we encounter in our life and I have had many blocks that appear like just a straight out no, I don't take that no, and I just keep moving and changing course or figure out a different way, and I think you know that's a really good example of what you're talking about. A block should never stop you from what you want.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah, I think so too. Now, sometimes you know they say when a door closes, a window opens or another door opens, or however the saying goes you know, sometimes there might be a block for a reason we don't understand, and maybe, maybe it's for it is going to change your direction and you're, you're going to reach some other goal or some some but you don't stop but right you, you can't stop you, you got to keep moving.
Speaker 2:
I mean, think of all the times that people have been told no. And in in the book love does, there is a chapter. So each chapter, I think I've said before, is its own story, and one of the chapters talks about how, really about what we're saying. If I'm remembering it correctly, bob Goff wanted to be in a certain school to be a lawyer and he was told no, no, no, no, no. Well, he sat outside the dean's office for about eight hours one day and just sat there until he was given the time of day to make his case. And then he did and he got in, and so it's a really great, fascinating story about what we're talking about. That's amazing, yeah.
Speaker 1:
And about giving up. You know, going back to that cat, he was afraid to try. It's easier to stay stuck sometimes because risk is scary and the risk of failing can overpower not trying at all. I'm afraid the cat learned not to go near any stove because to him or her, whichever it was, you know they were all hot, they were all hot. So the more I think about this, it takes me back to that 11-year-old Ann who was at the top of her game and my dad died and I, for the next decades in my life, thought you know, I just felt that association between bad and that's, you know, success.
Speaker 2:
So this reminds me of someone that I love very, very dearly former pastor friend of mine. His 29-year-old son just passed away A sudden sickness. I don't even know if they completely know what had happened. They found him in his home and four days of not being able to use the restroom and his body was shutting down and then in the hospital he had a stroke and a heart attack. Oh my Immediately went into the ICU. They don't know why at all. The last update on maybe what happened no drugs, nothing like that. They thought maybe heavy metal toxicity was contributing in some way to it, but I have not heard what the final say was. But on Sunday his son had passed away at 29 years old and I know that it's rocked him and his family and my heart is just absolutely broken for them.
Speaker 2:
What he had said the other day just on his Facebook post is kind of about what we're talking about. He said his son really loved gardening and their garden looks like it is just withering away, overgrown, weedy, disgusting, because they haven't been able to move in a while, meaning do something with it because their son has been so sick. And they said they finally decided you know what? There is a time for grief, but there's also a time to still live, and so they went out and they weeded it and they picked the berries that were picked so that they didn't just become nothing, and it was really a heartbreaking illustration, I think, of what we're talking about here.
Speaker 2:
Sometimes it's hard to move, but you got to keep moving, and so I wrote to move.
Speaker 2:
But you got to keep moving, and so I wrote to him and I said a few things, and among them was that I used to wish and I don't know if I've ever shared this on the podcast before, but I used to wish if something. There's been several really big, major, heartbreaking things that have happened in my life and I know I'm not the only one. I mean in your life and so many of our listeners' lives and at times I've wished that the world would have stopped and just taken a moment to grieve with me. But if we all did that for everybody, all we would ever do is stand still, and you can't have that. So at the same time, it's a pain to heal it, as I've talked about many times, but it's also a good thing that the world doesn't stay stagnant, because we do need to move and life has to still go on, even with the pain. You have to learn to live with it, and so moving is just so, so important.
Speaker 1:
And you're right about that. I mean, it's just relearning how to live. I mean it's just a new season and it's like that little kid in me, that baby in me, that then I have. I learned how to walk. Now I have casts. So there was something heavy that was put on me, there was something that you know was created it to be harder for me to walk, but I figured it out. And then they take the casts off and my legs were completely different, and so then I had to learn again. But you know it's, it's that same process in every single day of our lives when things happen. You know, and we just have to. You know, when you and I started the podcast, we didn't know what we were doing.
Speaker 1:
When you and I you know, started in journalism or whatever. Whatever it is, you can just put insert whatever it is. You can just put insert whatever it is. You just have to what your, what your husband said, you have to use there or make adjustments that's right. That's right. That might be the title of this episode because I love it, he'll love it too I really love that and that is just perfect. I mean, I mean, you just got to keep moving. You just have to figure it out. If you keep moving, it will just right itself.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely In perfect progress. Just keep on moving in the right direction.
Speaker 1:
Life is like riding a bicycle To keep your balance, you must keep moving. I love that, and that's by Albert Einstein.
Speaker 2:
Well, he was a genius.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, he was, but it's true, if you quit pedaling, you're going to fall.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah, it's so true, he knew what he was talking about. So, friends, the big takeaway make excuses or you can make adjustments, but we would say keep moving forward in the right direction.
Speaker 1:
Thank you for listening and we will see you next time. I'm adding this to our podcast because right after we taped that particular episode, that particular episode, the brother that I spoke about, who sent me the email saying that I reminding me of how I learned to walk three times and how I was always very determined and how I never gave up Well, those ended up being the last words he ever said to me. Well, those ended up being the last words he ever said to me, and I find that really interesting that those were his last words to me and I will carry those words forever. I very much appreciate that email. I mean, my brother was one who never failed listening to every single one of our episodes and was all about it, so supportive. And it's interesting because this is a man who chose not to be in our family's life for most of his life and you know, I can't get in his head. I can't figure out why he did it, and I'm going to be spending some time in the next weeks being able to talk to some people who knew him and I hope to learn more about him, because I didn't know that much about him. I knew him as a little baby. And then I knew him, as you know, an 11-year-old kid whose dad had passed away and he came home for that funeral. And then I learned about him in my 40s when my mom passed away and he came home for that. We had different moms, but then, you know, I had to purposefully and intentionally make it a point to reach out to him, find him and make him a part of my life, and he was a part of my life and my younger kids' lives for the last few years, and I'm really glad that we did that, that he would come for a week at a time. It means the world to me that we got to spend that time and I find it really interesting that that was how we ended that he sent me that email and you know, another thing that happened was that he told me he loved me, like a few weeks before he passed away. I find it interesting those things happen, you know, and that was the first time he had ever said that to me. You know, when I found out that he had passed away and I know anybody that's ever dealt with this and, honestly, this is the first time I've ever dealt with something to this extent because you know, the adults in the room always handled it and I figured out that I am the only the oldest living relative in my immediate family, minus my husband and my friend who lives with us. But other than that, I mean I'm talking mom, dad and brother and I'm the last one standing and it's kind of a scary time. He never had any family, no wife, no kids, so I was his living, his closest living relative. So they started.
Speaker 1:
I started getting phone calls from medical examiner and, you know, the police, who investigated his passing at home, because that's just something that happens when you pass away at home and he had fallen a few days before and they thought that, you know, I think that they wanted to rule that out. They wanted to rule everything else out other than natural causes, but then it ended up being just natural causes. But you know, it's a really scary thing to realize that you're it. And I think it started to really hit me when I started getting all these messages from people and they wanted things from me that I was like, wait a second. In fact, I found out about this when I was on vacation in Florida, wasn't even home. I got the phone call from his roommates that he had passed. You know I needed a minute to get home process, figure this out and what needed to happen first. Second, and this is where this whole entire thing leads me right here, I felt the weight of all of it In this podcast. This is so amazing how our podcasts always kind of are parallel with other things that happen in our lives, or right before something happens in our and Tina's life and my life. But, of course, we were all in a state of shock and the only way for me to do this was just to keep moving and we just talked about that.
Speaker 1:
I remember sitting there, I was waiting for the. I was waiting for the medical examiner's grief counselor to call me back which, by the way, if she's listening to this, that's funny. Call me back, um, because now it's been over a week. But she called me, she gave me all these options and it was really overwhelming. And she said one of the things that you could do is donate his body to science. Now, this is a doctor who was a chiropractor, but I mean, he had medical books upon medical books and he had. He was autistic for sure. Not, he did not lead with his feelings, he led with his brain and everything was very analytical. And I was like, oh my gosh, that would be perfect, I'll just donate his body to science, because I personally didn't have the money to pay for a funeral. And I was like, okay, I mean, I could see him up there going. Yes, you know, he would be all about it, and uh.
Speaker 1:
So then I waited like three days. I called again. She said that she would direct me in the right, in the right direction for, um, how to make these phone calls, who to call and everything. So I waited and finally, and with his roommates, I could feel the frustration on their end as well, and finally I just said to myself I'm just going to start doing this. So my friend and I, we just started looking up places to donate science in this state that he had passed away, and so we found out, called the first one. They said sorry, but we don't take people that had been autopsied. And that was only because they needed to find out how, why he passed away at home. And then the second place said sorry, we don't take anybody past five days of being deceased. Well, if I would have maybe acted a day sooner, we would have been able to meet that deadline.
Speaker 1:
But it just goes back to. You know that I was waiting for that phone call and the heaviness during that waiting period was waiting for that phone call and the heaviness during that waiting period was just getting worse and worse. I mean, I cannot tell you how the weight got worse and worse and harder and harder, heavier and heavier the longer that I sat in this. I didn't know what to do. I didn't even know the first thing to do, so I went from there to just starting to Google crematoriums. One popped up. I just called him, that's it. I just start talking to this man and I just start telling him my situation. He was so wonderful to me, he was exactly what I needed at that moment and he's who we went with. But I just started moving. That is the key.
Speaker 1:
The helplessness came too, because here I am, I'm two, two states away. I'm not where he is. The roommates, his body, everything else, the medical examiner, the investigator, they're all in the same state. I'm two states away and here I am trying to make decisions, make calls and how, banks and free-reasing accounts, and you're trying to make the best decisions for the deceased on the wishes that they would want and he never left anything for us. This is a really great lesson for anybody who has not done that Don't pass away and not have all that stuff in place. If we would have known his wishes, he didn't have any wishes anywhere, any wishes anywhere.
Speaker 1:
The roommates had to search for paperwork to help me in deciding very important things, and even social security numbers or birth certificates and things like that. I mean. Having everything in order is so important to the people that are left behind, because I can tell you what, what they're not thinking. They don't even know what to do first. So get a will, put papers in order, tell people what you want, tell the people around you what you want and make it legal if you can. One of the first things I did after I adopted my kids was you know, got everything in order and you're doing everybody a favor by doing that favor by doing that.
Speaker 1:
The other part of this is going back to the moving. Just do. The more I did, the more the weight came off and I could literally feel the heaviness. Leave me, the heaviness, leave me. The more I sat, the heavier it got, the more I felt like I couldn't do anything. The more I did, the less it felt and the more I was able to handle it. One of the other things that was a part of this that was weighing so heavily on me was my littles. You know, I've got two older kids and three little kids. My three littles were pretty close to their Uncle Keith. They have been through so much already.
Speaker 1:
I wanted them to enjoy the rest of their vacation. I didn't want to tell them on vacation, I knew that for sure. I had had that association with my dad passing away and great things. And you know, uh, something great and something tragic happened at the same time and that stayed with me for such a long time. So I was like I'm gonna let them, let them enjoy, I'm going to let you know. I contacted some of my cousins and different things like that, but, you know, started to talk about it whenever they weren't around, to try to process what I needed to do when I did get back, but never with an air shot of them.
Speaker 1:
And then, you know, the days went by when, after we got home and I was doing all of this, I wanted everything in place. I did not want the complication of telling them to, I just wanted them to enjoy. I didn't. You know, every single time that you have something tragic happen, that part of your life is never able to be brought back, you can't, you can never get it back again. And I just wanted him to still be alive in their eyes. I guess wanted him to still be alive in their eyes. I guess I didn't want them to have that yet. I wanted that spirit of them to still have them, for him to still be alive. Maybe it was kind of still my way of not permanently having him gone.
Speaker 1:
You know, it's really strange because not very many people have been in my life all of my life. Just about I was adopted, but since I was adopted, not very many. I mean, he was the longest living person that has known me my entire life and had all the stories, and that's not there anymore. So it's not just the loss of the person sometimes and that's the biggest loss, but it's not always that's. It's the stories, it's the memories. It's the biggest loss, but it's not always it's the stories, it's the memories, it's what could be.
Speaker 1:
You know, the idea of him. There was never a time in my life where I did not hold on to the idea of him. I still have his pictures hung up in my house when he was younger, One of him holding me as a baby. I still have a book that he gave me when I was a baby and he signed it. Your brother, keith, you know. Those are the kind of things that I've held on to, tangible things, because I wanted, because I wanted, I longed for a relationship with him that he was not giving me.
Speaker 1:
And it's interesting because his roommates shared with me that he was not that person that they knew. The absent person that our family knew. He was this really amazing loving man, that nobody that, every single person that met him, they just loved him because of how great of a person he was and he had so many friends. It's kind of weird to hear that the person that you knew had a completely different life and was giving to others what you always wanted but were never able to get from them. And you know, what's weird is that he really did try in the end. He really honestly tried in the end to give us his absolute what best, the best brother that he could possibly be or the best uncle For so many lessons that I got out of this, and it's just been one week since he's passed away, when I'm doing this Just one week. You know it's interesting doing this just one week, you know it's interesting.
Speaker 1:
But lots of times I can see sometimes not everybody that watches or listens to the podcasts in areas that they live, and every single week I could see that his city would come up as one of the people who listened to the podcast. It was just my way of always. Every week I would look for his city to come up. It was my way of him like visiting me. I don't know I knew he heard me, he validated me, me. I don't know, I knew he heard me, he validated me, and then I would get the email or the text saying, you know, some messages to me about what he had heard and that was really amazing to me. It was like a part of our relationship that I longed for was being fulfilled.
Speaker 1:
But the week before he had passed away, he had fallen and I noticed that he didn't listen and I was like, oh well, that's strange and were. We had really amazing numbers from Nielsen, and so you know, I told my brother, I texted him that our numbers were really good for the first winter of being on the radio, never heard back. Now I know why I'm going to miss, just knowing that it's like he's on the other side of the podcast and I'm talking. He's on the other side of that phone in a way, and he's messaging me back. So, keith, I love you, I love the idea of you my entire life and I'm very thankful and grateful that you were my brother in a really weird way, even though you were as absent as you were In my mind, you were always there and I'm going to miss that. I'm going to miss that.