"Be Grateful For The Pain" with the Inspiring Tashina Dunham

What if the hardest season of your life became the one that finally taught you how to live? We sit down with Tashina Dunham to trace a path from a tough Wisconsin childhood and the grit of team sports to a divorce that demanded self-work, and a love story written in the shadow of terminal illness. This isn’t a highlight reel. It’s the real-time lessons of presence, faith, and self-worth learned the hard way and shared with uncommon honesty.

Tashina shows how sports can wire us for life’s fourth quarter: pushing through fatigue, trusting teammates, and playing the next play. She opens up about leaving a marriage to grow, then choosing to love a man whose prognosis forced radical clarity. The shift from frantic fixing to simply sitting together changed everything. In hospital corridors, she discovered a calm that looked like prayer and felt like breath, and a community that showed faith as warmth rather than judgment.

We explore the quiet tools that heal: meditation, sound baths, grounding in nature, gardening as ritual. We talk about looking strangers in the eye, calling the cashier by name, and turning off the loud news to meet the human next door. Tashina’s definition of a win is simple and powerful: a conversation where someone feels safe enough to tell their story. Along the way, she offers a mirror test for leadership and healing alike—being able to look at yourself and say, I’m proud of you.

If you’re craving resilience, spiritual calm, and the courage to be present, this conversation will meet you where you are. Listen, share with someone who needs hope, and tell us: what small act grounds you today? Subscribe, leave a review, and join us in choosing presence over panic.

Transcript

Opening And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome to the Bamboo Lab Podcast with your host, Peak Performance Coach Brian Bosley. Are you stuck on the hamster wheel of life, spinning and spinning, but not really moving forward? Are you ready to jump off and soar? Are you finally ready to sculpt your life? If so, you've landed in the right place. This podcast is created and broadcast just for you. All of you strivers, thrivers, and survivors out there. If you'd like to learn more about Brian and the Bamboo Lab, feel free to reach out to explore your true peak level at www.bamboollab3.com.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Welcome everyone to this week's episode of the Bamboo Lab Podcast. I am your host, Brian Bosley. Um the subscribers and listeners know, I sometimes do a bio before every interview. But this one I'm not going to. I'm just going to come out and say that this is my cousin we have on today. So today we have Tishina Dunham. And here's why I chose Tishina. I'm fairly active on social media because I post for the business and for the podcast. And so on Facebook, I do tend to judge people's headspace by the stuff they post. If they're posting a lot of political garbage one way or the other, if they're posting a lot of nasty stuff or negative comments about other people, or if they just post nothing but the meals they eat, those people tend to leave my feed pretty quickly. But over the last couple of years, Tashina's has really I've really noticed the posts she makes. And I get something out of every one of them. Sometimes they're long, sometimes they're short. And I do tend to read almost everyone that comes across my feed. And I'm just really impressed by her writing style in the way she tends to look at life. It has this has this gift to be able to communicate it in a way that anybody could understand it. So I reached out, I don't know, maybe two months ago and said, Hey, I'd love to have you on. And she was gracious enough to to do so. So without further ado, my lovely cousin Tishina, welcome to the Bamboo Lab Podcast.

SPEAKER_02 2:17

Wow. Well, thank you so much for having me. I'm I'm excited that you know my journey as hard as it was. I mean, a lot of people have hard journeys. I'm glad that, you know, I had I went I had to go through it to grow through it in order to, you know, help others. And I feel like ever since I was little, it was like something that I was destined to do. And I didn't know that I would have to go through a lot of stuff, but I feel like it has made me so much more empathetic to so many more people. So I am so excited to be on here.

SPEAKER_01 2:51

Well, I you know, I as we as you probably know, the subtitle of the podcast is Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Things. And and I I I can tell by what I've seen of you, and then getting a chance to, you know, have breakfast with you last last July in Wisconsin. You have this, you have a a very unique style with a little quirkiness wrapped into it, a little oddness. You know, very odd.

SPEAKER_02 3:17

Very odd. I think that's what makes me different.

Childhood, Sports, And Early Hardships

SPEAKER_01 3:21

It is. But it but there's a and I can't think of the word I'm looking for. There's a glow. I think that's the best word I can look, I can think of. There's a glow around you, and I think that that just comes through in how you communicate. Um so obviously I know a lot about you, but can you please tell, share with the audience a little bit about who you are, where you came from, you know, a little bit about your family, whatever you want to share to kind of get us started.

SPEAKER_02 3:43

Yeah. Okay, well, um, so uh my parents both um live in, you know, Wisconsin here. Uh grew up very poor, middle class, but I had two parents that, you know, were always, they always worked hard. They always show us the value of like, you know, making sure you show up to, you know, work and like, you know, you don't depend on others. You always just what you want is like something you have to go get. And, you know, they they worked really hard. Like my my mom still is, you know, out working at her age. And and so it was just a very hard, uh, hard working install installing and like my sister and I um I do have older siblings, but by the time, you know, we were old enough to actually like know things, they were already out of the house. So a lot of stuff that you know I talk about is a lot of just Mariah and I. But so I do have um, I do have Jessica, um, Dana. Um, I have a brother that I, you know, you know, I I pray for him every day. I do not really speak to him. Um his name is Justin. Um, and then I have Mariah and um my my sisters are my best friends. I don't know where I would be without them. And um we grew up, we played a lot of sports. Uh, you know, I it it was it was hard, like I'm not gonna lie. Um it was a lot of a lot of alcohol, a lot of um sexual abuse going on, and always thinking like, you know, like why like why me? You know, a lot of a lot of why me when it comes to like a lot of alcohol abuse, but you know, um, but you don't I didn't learn until further in life that, you know, not not not I guess I've heard this before, but people say like, you know, why me, why me, but like why not me? Like why am I different from everybody else? And I think that's like what what got me here today, that I that I couldn't be a victim of my life. I had to be a victor of it. And and yeah, that's that's a lot about my childhood. It's just like, and I and I and I say a lot of it like with sports, like you know, you you're in a game, you know, and times get hard. You got you gotta push through, like you gotta push through. And I just always, I always take my life today as like the sporting events that I that I always knew growing up, that always kept me out of trouble, that always kept me focused were these sports. And I just and I just always feel like no matter what life throws at me, like I can't give up. Like it's the fourth quarter. I'm not I'm not backing down now, you know?

SPEAKER_01 6:22

Well, yeah, your your family with you and Mariah and your girls and everything, it's really the sports have been an integral part of your life. You can see that.

SPEAKER_02 6:29

Yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 6:31

You know, when when my daughter Ashley was, oh my gosh, maybe three or four, you know, being a a dad, a single dad, I really didn't know what it would be like to raise a daughter, and I wanted to raise a strong, confident, you know, a respectful daughter. And I read a book called Reviving Ophelia, which was a really popular book back in the 90s. And the thing the author shared, it was about raising daughters, and and what they shared about in there was one of the best things you can do for your daughter is get her involved in sports. Um it's one of the best things for their confidence, it's the one of the best things to ward off rape or unwanted pregnancies because when you work, when you do physical sports, you are you are in you're in connection with your body, you see your body as yours because you're working it, you're training, you're performing, you're playing in the games. And so you they those women tend to have a better respect for their body, or at least an understanding that this does not belong to a man, it belongs to me. Right. And um I'm sure that paid off big dividends for your family.

SPEAKER_02 7:30

Yes, yes. I feel like it did in a lot of ways. And it also what it did is like, you know, even when bad things were going on, when I got on that court and when I got on that field, like nothing, nothing else mattered. And I was able to like release any of like the outside world and just focus on my teammates and focus on the game. And I just feel like it took me to a whole different place mentally that would then be able to get me through my life today, you know, with the hardships that that you know ended up coming along further that that I didn't think that I was prepared for, but I didn't know that the building blocks were already set in place as a young girl to, you know, adolescence to now, you know, and I and yes, sports 100% like completely helps me through that of you know, locking in and and it it it is complete, like I look at it and it's like I don't I don't tell my children like you know, yes, you have to play sports, you have to play sports, but I think it was just like it was installed, it was kind of installed in them, like watching my sister, you know, we used to take Ellie when she was a baby to her games, you know, when Mariah was like either playing or she was coaching. And I think it just like instilled in them the younger girls and my son watched my daughter, you know, play it. And and like it, it makes me feel like, you know what, you guys will be okay in life, no matter what anything hands you, like you're gonna be okay because you've learned to lock in and like life, like who I it was an old football player that once said, I think it was the quarterback of like the Denver um Broncos, I can't remember, but he said, like, like sports get you ready for the game, but like the in in turn, like the game gets you ready for the big game, and that's life, yeah, you know, and and I and I and I agree with it. And it doesn't have to be sports, it can be like anything if you're if you're into drawing, and that drawing gets you zoned into what you're doing, like anything that can zone you into something and make you focused, I think gets you ready for the big game of life.

The Power Of Sports As Life Training

SPEAKER_01 9:33

Yeah, I think the you know the one thing about sports and anything, but sports is just much easier, it's much more visual for us to see it, but it's no different than if you're starting a construction company or starting a business or drawing or or trying to write a book or even just being a parent, that you're going to face a shit ton of resistance in life. Constantly resistance, always pounding down on us. And with sports, because you're in front of a crowd, you tend to learn, you you force yourself to overcome the resistance of fatigue or wanting to give up, or so you you push through it, and then when you get into real life, those resistances are still coming, but now you have this fortitude that's already been implanted inside your brainstem, and these have habits that will help you to get through over those resistances. And I think that's I know for me, if it wasn't for rugby in college, there's no way I don't know where I I I don't know what I'd be. I might be in jail or in the morgue by now. Um it just gives you a bit of you know, that was the first time for me I ever thought that I was good at something. And so that from there I could build on that, you know. And so I love it. So growing up, or maybe even today, who would you say has been a big inspiration for you?

SPEAKER_02 10:41

Well, you know, like I always thought when I was younger, if you would have asked me when I was like uh, you know, a middle school student, I would have been like right away like an athlete, you know. And my love for Larry Bird, you know, I I I don't even think it was ever like normal. Like in whatever girl, like young teenage girl, you know, Mariah, Mariah would tell you different. It would be like Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, you know, and here I am, like the big tall white guy, Larry Bird, you know, like I just I loved his like like he didn't quit. And I mean, he he just and in like like his quote of like, you know, you don't give up until the final buzzer has always like stuck with me through life. Like I will, I, I will like take that quote with me until like the final buzzer comes for me. And I just that would have been who I would have picked. And you know, as I got older, I that has totally changed. Like I look at my parents, I can, you know, we can all look at our parents and be like, oh, they failed here, they failed there. But my parents, you know, my parents were hard workers. And like I, they are my they are, they are like what I look to for like to be a hard worker in this world. Um, but you know, when I go past that, like I think of my aunts, like my aunt, my aunt Linda. Um, she was my best friend growing up. Like, I mean, I was with her all the time. She taught me like the the art of being outside and not wearing shoes and getting her hands dirty in the dirt and growing things and watching, you know, what they look like once summer came, all these beautiful flowers in her yard. And, you know, she would just take me places and and it was like I could I would show up there and like the way she would look at me was like pure love. Like I felt like such a love that we had for each other. And to this day I can see her, and it's like I just I love that lady so much, you know. And same thing with my my my Aunt Debbie, she was nothing but like um, she was your secret keeper. You could go there, tell her anything, and she wasn't gonna tell a soul on you. And like you, you need that person in your life. And my Aunt Brenda, she was the coolest, you know. Like when you think of a Native American lady of brown flowing hair and you know, hippie vibes in her house, and so many plants all over, and the smell of patchouli, you know, just going. I mean, she was she was the epitome of cool to me. Like I just I loved her, like I loved everything about her. And and then and then I go right to my sisters. I they they are like I look at each of them and each of um the things that have had happened in their life and how they overcome it. And I just I can't thank God enough that that's who he sent, you know, sent to me was my sisters. And I, you know, though those are the people that I look up to. It's not, it's not a person that I've never met. I mean, Larry Bird, yes, I will always love you, you know, call me if you if you're listening to this. But um I I'm so happy in my dad's side of the family. Like we didn't get to see them a lot, but the calmness that they had was like something that I every time we would go there for, you know, a holiday, like all of them were always just so calm. And I never understood it until I got older that a lot of them had religion, you know, that was like installed in them. And and and I feel like they were just they were so excited to see you and they made every second count. And those are my heroes. Those are my those are my pillars of strength today, and a lot of them are gone. But, you know, that's why I live. I live today to keep their legacy going.

SPEAKER_01 14:20

See, I think that's that's one of the first times I've heard that. You know, I hear a lot of mom and dad, obviously, or my mom or my dad, or our heroes, or my inspirations, and then somebody that's uh maybe an old teacher, coach, you know, some athlete, or like you said, with Larry Bird. You don't often see somebody list out like seven, eight people from their immediate family. You guys are very blessed because you all live within pretty close proximity, other than Mariah, but um now you guys all live and you know you can see each other on a on a more regular basis. So I think that's a good message for the audience out there is is sometimes we we can look in our inner circle and find the person that inspires us because if Michael Jordan is my hero, great. I can learn a lot about Michael Jordan and I can I can model some things off of him. But if my one of my heroes and role models and points of inspiration are literally three miles away or a phone call away, and I can recognize that, then I can go to them and be conscious about my learnings, what I what I want to learn from them and absolve absorb from them. So and and also the other side of that is think about how many people that are you're close to out there, that you know, physically close to, that you are an actual role model for, and you're an inspiration for wear that title, man. It's a lot of responsibility.

Heroes Found Inside The Family

SPEAKER_02 15:31

I know, and I think, and I think like when you when we idolize people that we really you know don't know, like you know, athletes and all that, we don't know that. Like I know the people in my inner circle, like I know the people that I talk to every day, and they don't fake who they are, they're wide open with who they are, and I appreciate that so much more in this life that you know when when the camera shut off or the game is over, I don't know who those people are. Right. But when it shuts off for the people I I'm with, I know that they who they are when you meet them are is exactly who they are behind closed doors.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

That's powerful. By the way, Larry Bird's first cousin lives in St. Ignis, you know.

SPEAKER_02 16:09

Oh gosh, I need to go knock on that door.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

He's he's my brother David's, they've been friends since they were like grade school, maybe kindergarten. Stevie Bird.

SPEAKER_02 16:19

I did not know that.

SPEAKER_01 16:19

Yeah, Stevie Bird. Looks just like Larry Bird, but he's not as tall.

SPEAKER_02 16:24

Oh gosh. Love him.

SPEAKER_01 16:27

Yeah, he's a he's a he was an asshole on the court. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:32

Yeah, so was I. So was I. I I copied everything. Like, like I always like people talk to me today and they're like, well, how were you as athlete? I was like, man, I would like to go back and like ask people because I think I was an asshole also. And I learned that from him, but it was like, it was like I was an asshole, but the minute the game was over, I'm over there shaking your hand, and I'm not being a like a disrespectful like person. But when I'm on, like when I'm there, man, I'm giving that coach, like, you know, I like I had great coaches, you know, growing up. I had you know, Coach Kuby Kuby, he was he was amazing to me. Coach Cronz, I had Coach Hoffman, I had like coaches that were, you know, that would like look at us and be like, you know, those people over there, they're they're they think they can beat you. Do you and they would and and I don't know, like a lot of times if they were telling us the truth or if it was just like a mental like thing, but like they had so much faith in us. Like, like all of the coaches I ever had had so much faith in me as a person that there is no like when people have put that faith in you, I don't think there's no stopping how hard I will work for you. And I think that's like with every, you know, I worked in a school and it was like if you know a kid doesn't have his parents that have, but if but if you plug in and you show up to his games or you show up to like, you know, things that matter, they're gonna work extra hard for you.

SPEAKER_01 17:47

Yeah, 100%. All right. This is the million-dollar question that you answer it the way you want, my cousin. Okay. What um what would you see as one of the uh no, I'm I'm skipping that one for now. What has been one of the most difficult things you've gone through in life? Um and then how did you get through it?

Divorce, Self-Work, And Choosing Growth

Love Amid Terminal Illness

SPEAKER_02 18:08

Um, well, first uh I mean, like I like I would have to say like a my divorce, my my my divorce, it was it was spreading, you know, like I was taking like a family unit and I was and I had done at that point of like wanting the divorce, I I did so much soul searching for myself. And because you know, a lot of times people tell you like like self-work or doing things on your own is so selfish. But if you are not good in your own mind, you are not good for anybody. And I had to put aside the feelings of my ex-husband, and I had to like think like, is this good for me? Like, is this is this relationship growing me to the person that I need to be for my children, for you know, myself, for my family? Like, and I just I I remember one day just like sitting there and just being like, it's I I'm not growing, I'm not growing, I'm not growing in this environment. I'm not, you know, like I'm not everything my aunt taught me about gardening, I'm not doing in my life. And if I'm not doing that in my life, I'm not helping my ex-husband grow as a person. I'm not helping my children grow as a person. And the worst heartbreak that I had was telling him that, you know, I I had to leave. I had to leave for myself, I had to leave for my kids. And that was the hardest thing ever was, you know, having to tell him that and having to tell my kids that. And, you know, he nothing was ever perfect because I feel like it takes two people for things to fail. And we both failed. And but in the same breath, I feel like I released him and I released myself from you know him and everything so that he. Can grow and he is allowed to find the love that he deserves. And I we we don't always get along. Sometimes we try to most of the time for our kids, but I do nothing but pray that he finds exactly what he needs in this life. Because no matter what happens, we both have four children together. And if I wish bad upon him or I talk bad about him, I am not doing him any justice. And there's nothing that I want more than for the father of my kids to flourish. Because, man, if he flourishes, my son sees a man flourish. My daughters see what you know you can look for in a partner. And and so that was my biggest heartbreak for my kids, for for him, for you know, all of our family, because divorce is not not good. And then um left and built my like life up on my own, got my you know, my own house, got my got my own stuff, and I fell in love with um with a man. And I in my like everybody on the outside was looked at him and been like, oh my gosh, that was so quick. Like, how could you how could you have done that? But the thing that is so different in my case is the man that knocked on my door and asked for a date was also in a four-year battle with you know terminal colon cancer. And and when you have when when you have somebody that comes knocking on your door and it's like, hey, I know I'm sick, I know I got five years that the doctor's giving me and I'm on four, but like, would you go out with me? I if I if I didn't say yes at that point, I would have lived with regrets. And I promised myself the day that I was praying about, you know, what do I do out of my marriage that I would never live with regrets? And I said yes, and I think it was the biggest like healing, the start of my healing journey that I that I have ever like done. I said yes to somebody that that loved a little girl in me that like was lost when the sexual abuse started when I was younger. I fell in love with somebody that taught me strength. I fell in love with somebody that taught me the the art of communication and and and and I didn't have that growing up. I just thought, like, if you just kept it quiet, if you're just quiet and you don't say, hey, that hurt me, then you know you're you're not gonna fight and nobody wants to fight. And I the way he would stop a day and put everything aside and like just look at you and be like, you need to tell me what's wrong. Like this is a safe space, like what is going through your head? That changed every fiber of who I was. And and I'm I would walk into a room and I could tell that you know, he was like, he was so in love with me, and I was so in love with him. And I thought, you know, God, we put him in my place so that I could cure him, that I could make him better, and that I could, you know, keep him here for his, you know, his mom and his dad, for his sister and his brother and for his kids. Like people need him. This is this is a great human. Like you got him sick, but you know, like this could just be his testimony, you know, we could be, we could, we can, we can cure this. And uh I I don't think I slept, I don't think I ate. I think like my entire life revolved around how can I cure this human? And I, you know, there was nothing I wasn't gonna do to make him get better. And um we would go to the doctors all the time and we would hear bad news, but you know, I didn't cry, I didn't show like fear in front of him, even though he was sad. I just I got to work. Like, what can I do next? What can I do next? What what um apricot seed would go with, you know, what? And I I had a whole book together of everything that I thought, like maybe, maybe modern medicine isn't the way that it's supposed to be. And I need to go back to this and I need to go back to that. And in the art of staying so busy, like finally, you know, as the time got closer and closer for him, um, it was in January, uh, he looked at me and he was like, Stop. You're keeping yourself so busy that you're not like, you're not, you're not, you're not, you're not here with me because you're you're doing your research. And I was like sitting there, be like, what do you mean that I'm not here with you? I am here with you. I'm sitting here, I'm making you tea, I'm doing all this. And I was getting myself so tired that I was forgetting to live in the moment. And I have a dying man that's basically like snapping his you know fingers, being like, stop, like, like live here right now with me. And it was then when I decided that I was gonna like stop being the scientist in the kitchen, and I would just lay there in the bed with him and I would listen to his regrets, and I would listen to, you know, his life, his life story, and I would listen to everything as like a teaching for me, you know. And when it came down to the doctors telling us there's nothing more they could do with him, I didn't know what more to do. But I just remember sitting in those hospital rooms with his family and just remembering like how I was so panicked, but his parents were so patient. His parents were so calm. And it was like going back to my dad's family where there was that calm again. And I was like, why is everybody so calm? And I am just like livid, I'm angry right now. And and it was like no matter what we went through, his dad, his dad would, you know, come out in prayer, his dad would, you know, just bring God into the room. And I never knew who God was because I went to a church as a young kid and I walked in there and I never felt more judged in a place that tells you not to judge. I never felt so much more like, man, you know, I was sexually abused as a child. Like, and they tell you that, you know, if if you have sex before marriage, you're going to hell. So I'm already like, I'm already bad. I'm already gonna go to hell. I like I felt like there were so many things pointing fingers in your face that I never that I shunned it. I didn't want it to be a part of my life. I didn't want anything to do with it because I am not what these people need in their church. And so I stopped looking at it and I stopped begging for like God. I stopped praying, I stopped doing everything. And and in that quiet of hearing the doctor say, I can't do anything, you know, for you anymore. And I saw like the look on his face, all of a sudden I was like, it clicked on me. And I'm like, everybody that has God in their life or spirit or anything are the ones that are calm. They're not frantically like freaking out or doing anything. They're they're calm, they trust in whatever is gonna happen because God needs it to happen for a bigger reason that we don't understand here. And so I remember one night I Googled, you know, um, a non-denominational church around here, and the first one that like caught my eye was hope. And I was like, that's it. I'm hoping that this will save him. We're going there tomorrow. And I and I remember, you know, he was so fragile and well, he was, you know, had a little walker, and I and I parked him in the front of the church. And as we were driving up, everybody's waving in this church, and you know, I just it felt like such a peaceful place. And I sat him down and we were sitting there, and we're they we, you know, we get up and they have like the drums and they have like these people who are like there doing what they love. And and I looked at him because he couldn't stand, he was so weak, and he just looked at me with tears in his eyes, and he's like, I'm home. Like this is home to me. This feels like home. And from that point on, I mean, uh, he only had like three more weeks after that, but we would listen to it online and and that is like when you know, I thought, like, I I wanna, I wanna learn more about this, you know. And and it wasn't until like, you know, we the day before the day Paul passed away, um, we were in the bathroom because like, you know, I watched my I watched my aunts pass away. Like I, but there was like a time where they were like quiet, you know, they were quiet for such a long time in the morning that he passed away. We got up and he had to go to the bathroom and we walked in the bathroom, and I'll never forget that he looked at the walls and he was like, Don't you see it? And I was like, see what? And he was like, the walls. He's like, the flowers are coming out of it. Aren't they beautiful? I know how much you love flowers. And I just was like, uh, okay, yeah, it's beautiful. And then I remember he grabbed my, he grabbed my face and he just looked at me and he was like, Nobody would ever do this for somebody. And I was like, do what? And he was like, nobody would ever love a person that was dying. And I just thought, like, like what well, why not? Because I learned so much from you, like, I don't understand. And then he was like, you know, he just he just kept saying thank you. And he and he told me that he was gonna go lay in his bed and he was gonna go shut his eyes and he and he wasn't ever gonna open them again. And I was like, no, you know, like, no, like, are you tired? Do I need to give you something? And I remember he just looked at me and he said that remember that I will never leave you. And I was like, what do you mean? Like, I know you're not gonna leave me because you're just you're just gonna go take a nap. And he was like, no, he's like, I'm not. And then he just reminded me, he was like, I will never leave you. I will never leave you. And he said it like a couple more times, and I just, and that's exactly what he went and did. He went and he laid down and he shut his eyes and he just he never opened them again. And and it was the that was the first day where it was like a part of me that I that I thought I knew my whole life died, died that day. And I was like, you know, people the the funeral happens and there's people there and you're so busy, and and those days are those days are filled with so much going on that you don't really have the time to think about anything. But then the funeral gets over and people go back home and and you know, you just you sit there and like I remember laying on my bathroom floor one day, and I remember just being like, I I was there, you know, like I was I was at the lowest of the low, and I just thought like I failed so many people. I failed to him, I failed his kids, I failed his parents, I failed his siblings, and I he should be here. Like, what did I do wrong? And I remember just being like, I don't I don't want to be here anymore, you know? I don't wanna I finally found a love that I've been creating I didn't know I needed my whole life for for the little girl in me that gave up on herself and this person sh like like shined on that little girl and grew her into this this this human and and I failed him and I don't I don't I don't want to be here anymore and I remember just like thinking like just take me I don't care I don't care how you do it like I just want to go and I you know I got to that point and and all of a sudden I just like knew where like there was a gun in the house and I just I was like am I is this it like like should I go get it and I remember as I was laying there like this feeling came over me of utter warmness and it was like your time is not done yet your time is not done yet you know and instantly my phone was next to me and I called that hope church uh really late at night and a pastor called me back and he stayed on the phone with me that whole time and it and I just knew like a I had that church was meant to be put in my path for some reason and it was to heal me and I got into groups and I met they had they had me meet people that were you know in the same shoes as widowed as I was and and I had such a sense of community at that church because I don't think you need to go to church to find God. But what I found at that church was community. What I found are people that are that that glow so much love that when you get around them, you feel that glow, you feel that calmness, you feel that love. And losing Paul was the hardest thing in my life, but I've also flourished into somebody I don't think I would have been able to flourish in having if I had if I didn't go through all of that. And I feel like it has my life has taught me nothing but empathy for situations of other people that that I wouldn't have, I don't think any of us understand until you go through it. And I I I would do this life all over again, knowing where I would be today. And I that that that's the hardest thing that I ever had to go through.

Letting Go Of Fixing And Living The Moment

SPEAKER_01 32:55

You know Up until this last 15 minutes, I I have I have felt bad for you for what you went through, and I have felt bad for Paul, even though I never got a chance to meet him. I've definitely followed his journey on Facebook. I have and I trust me, I'm not saying I'm wish you would I'm glad you went through that. I wish that tragedy you wouldn't have had to go through that, both of you. But instead of feeling bad for you after what you just shared, I actually I I envy you. Um because uh not s it's so rare that people, number one, find that that that depth of love that's not based on on some exterior external forces or factors or it you it was based on a reality. You guys were facing a reality of life and death and mortality the minute you started dating him. I mean, that's a really rare thing. So I mean to be able to feel feel that love that you both experienced, I think, is a blessing. But the other blessing is what a gift. You probably gave Paul the greatest year of his life, or the several months of his life, a year or so and what a way to go out and leave leave this part of our journey and go to the next. But also what he gave to you.

SPEAKER_02 34:08

And oh, he gave me he gave me so so much.

SPEAKER_01 34:11

That's such a blessing.

SPEAKER_02 34:13

It is, it is, because now, you know, before when you think like you loved people, and I like, you know, I thought I loved people, but loving doesn't mean showering anybody with gifts. Love doesn't mean, you know, that you have to like take them on vacation. Love means that you listen to them. Love means that you respect them. Love means that you, you know, together you two can go through anything. And that's you know, relationships with, you know, your significant others, that's relationships with your sisters or your brothers or you know, anything in life. Like, like be there, be in the moment of every it can be dinner that you're cooking, but be present in that moment because I feel like society now has us constantly on our phones and you know, like and all of that stuff. But the the most I've learned was from actually when you he like looked at me and was like, be in the moment, like stop trying to find a cure for me. Like, like I I'm okay. Like, I'm mad that this is what I'm facing. I'm mad that I have to leave you because I'm so happy. But like right now, I'm today, I'm okay. So stop worrying about that. And I think that that's just it. Like, so many of us are focused on, oh gosh, well, okay, I need to go to college and then like five years down the line, then this will happen and then this will happen. Like, don't worry about that. Don't worry about that. Worry about today, like getting through today. And I I feel like that's what Paul like taught me was just the utter, like how we keep ourselves so busy, and we don't need to be busy. We need to focus on the blessings that God puts in front of us today because he's in charge of our future. No matter what we do in this life, we he he has our past laid out. So why don't we? I've learned why don't I just trust in him rather than my own human ability that's not gonna get me far.

SPEAKER_01 36:02

Well, what is it? What is this saying that when we make plans, God laughs? Yeah, yeah, because it's so true.

Finding Faith, Calm, And Community

SPEAKER_02 36:08

It is, it is, and and and I feel like with like from Paul and his family, because his dad, you know, was a pastor, his mom was a pastor's wife. She taught, you know, at this at the the Sunday schools. And um, what I've learned from them is that like, you know, of course their son is gone. You know, I couldn't imagine, I have my children here, I couldn't imagine them seeing my son. But they have they cling on to the hope of what he promises us that this is not goodbye, this is not the end, you know, and and I know it's not the end, you know. I I know that. And so how can, you know, of course you grieve and you go through, you know, the process of that because, you know, February uh 26th will be, you know, three years that he's been gone. And I mean, it's still, it's always gonna be hard, but I know that I'm not living life for everybody here. I'm not living life to, you know, for yes, I love to like put my story out on Facebook and I love, but I'm not living my life for the likes. I'm living my life for what comes next. And and and God tells us 100% to love people, to, you know, forgive and love and like you know, don't want anything bad to happen to people because like that's for him to figure out. And it, and once I realize that I am not in control of this life, I'm in control of my actions that I do, I'm in control of everything else, but I am not in control of the future. Like people think you're in control, but you're really not. And the more that I'm just like, God, what you want to use me for today, I'm ready. You know, what you want me to, and every day I just wake up and that's what I tell them. Like, whatever you have in store for me today, I'm ready because I know, because you know, that day laying in that bathroom was the first time because I think that I kept myself so busy. I've had I had four kids, I was running around, I, you know, like working, and and I think that that with the lesson of Paul and the lesson of God coming to me at my darkest hour, that I need to stop being so busy. Like I need to, and and and and we all have to, we all have to work, but there's not like the there's 10 minutes in each day that you can stop and you know, like just ground yourself outside in the ground and you know, immerse yourself. You don't have to go to church. Like, no, all these years people say, like, oh well, you need to be in church on something. You do not, God is within all of us, He is, He is each, He's in each and every single one of us. But the way that we shine through God is like is how we live, you know. I go to church because I like to be surrounded by like-minded people that that love God and like put God first, and they they have a light to them, and that light that I'm a that I'm attracted to, and that's why I go to Hope Church and and I'm so thankful for that. And and I feel like that's why that's that that's why I live the way that I live right now, because I have full trust that he at one point when my time comes and I'm sitting out there will make me understand why I had to go through this life. But for now, I'm trusting, I'm trusting in something that I've never seen, but I have to, but I have to trust in it because I mean, at the darkest time and at the darkest time in my life when you know I didn't want to be here anymore, and you know, like evil was telling me, like, just go, just go. Like, you're right, things people will be better without you. But but that love that came from like the bottom of my feet up was like this love that you can't even describe. That I was like, this is God. This is God, this is God. And and now I just every time that I know that I'm going down a right path and I can feel that same feeling that I felt on that bathroom floor, I know that I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. And I'm just I'm so thankful that I don't have to depend on anything else but him.

SPEAKER_01 39:54

I love it. I you know, the thing that came to mind as you were talking is, you know, of all the gifts Paul gave. Gave you. And you gave him obviously during that time frame together. It seems like the biggest one is he expanded your capacity to love.

SPEAKER_02 40:09

Yes. Yes, a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_01 40:10

Not even just how you loved him, but also how you can love other people. And what a I mean, can't I you really can't fathom a better gift than that.

SPEAKER_02 40:18

No, you really can't.

SPEAKER_01 40:20

I mean I think if anybody could have a billion dollars or expand my capacity to love. Yeah, some people are gonna take the billion dollars, but the people who choose the the increase of capacity to love are gonna be much better off down the road. Yeah, it's not even that though, it's a sheen, it's almost like it's you know, you're cup you're you're feeling better because you're you're loving things more, you're being more present, you know, you're more aware of of the role models and the people who love you and are surround you, but then that has that triple effect on all those people. You know, it's that butterfly effect.

SPEAKER_02 40:54

Yes, because I think we go through life trying to change people. I mean, right now we're in the most craziest political climate in my lifetime. And I have learned that I have learned through this, like I'm not I can sit and we can sit and argue with people all we want to like listen to me or you know, like listen to me, listen to me. That is not going to change anything. What's going to change everything is how the way that you live. I can't. I've I have learned what I had to learn that as much as I wanted to feed Paul the right stuff, as much as I wanted to give him the right vitamins, as what as much as I wanted to do anything to change him, we are not in control of anybody else's journeys in this world. We can we can be helpers on their journeys, we can we can like sit and listen to them, but we are not going to, there's nothing that we can do to change anything for anybody. And so what I've learned is that just because I don't agree with somebody doesn't mean I need to go out there and argue with them or not talk to them or you know, whatever. I can meet them where they're at with grace, I can step away, and then I can pray for them. And whatever happens in their journeys after that, like is exactly what it's supposed to be. And but if I'm living my life the way that you know God needs me to live to about like live with it every day, it could be a light, just like Hope at Hope Church and all of these other people that go there that I've made connections with, just like they were for me, a light, I could be that for somebody else. And if you can change a girl like me, that when the moment I walked into church, I felt like I was gonna combust into fire and I was mad at God and I thought God was a mean, mean, mean thing, it can change anybody. Love can change anybody.

SPEAKER_01 42:41

Yeah, a lot of religions and churches have definitely made given God a bad name over the years.

SPEAKER_02 42:46

Yeah, yeah. And like, and you know, like do you like do I fear God? Yes, I fear him just like you do when you make your parent angry. But it's not like I know he's never gonna stop loving me.

SPEAKER_01 42:56

Right.

SPEAKER_02 42:57

But but I have to clean out my act. Like you, that's the joy about being a parent, is because then you can more you can understand God more, you know. And I mean, even if you're a parent of an animal and your animal makes you mad, you know, like whatever you like do, you know, whatever you're like taking care of, you learn the love that God has for you. We're not gonna be perfect, we're never gonna be perfect. But if you can, you know, that like little your little your little inner voice that kind of goes when you do something and you know it's wrong, if you're gossiping about somebody, if you're you know, like like drinking too much or you're not headed down the right path that you know that you feel is right for you, and you have that little uh like oh, like it makes you kind of feel like, oh, okay, I'm not doing something right. Listen to that. Like, listen to that like feeling of that, you know, that inner, like kind of like a little gut punch. And you know that then you have to back up, take two steps back to the side so that you can go forward. And I feel like that's been like my biggest lesson in life. Like, I know that I'm never gonna be perfect. Religion being finding God did not make me better than anybody else that didn't find God, but it's it's it's opened me up to feeling that feeling of that little gut punch and that little voice, like or that little tap on the shoulder, backing up two times because it's okay to take two steps back to the side and then go forward again and learn from that little that little feeling that you have inside of yourself. Because for years I didn't listen to that little feeling. I just kept saying, ugh, get over it, you know, like yeah, like I pushed it aside, I rushed it aside. That little like uh feeling to me is God telling me, like, no, that's not what I want you to be doing right now. And we all have it, we're all capable of he listening to it.

SPEAKER_01 44:40

Yeah, uh, you know, my journey with with God was very similar to yours, you know, growing I grew up Catholic, and then as soon as I got didn't have to go to church anymore, I stopped. And then for years I was atheist, and then I went to agnostic, just kind of like because I really don't know. I guess that's a being agnostic, and then probably 12 years ago, maybe probably more than that, probably right after Dawson was I got custody of Dawson, so maybe 20 years ago. I just started re I actually started researching like God and Christianity and and uh studied Roger Penrose, who's a one of the greatest minds of all time, um who was was actually an atheist at one time, and then just scientifically said that there can't be this universe could not be created by a chance. It's just not possible. And then just end further reading and still I still doubted it. Like I was I was trying to prove myself right as an agnostic or an atheist. And then I just it just was like, no, there the the the the proof, which is much science, a lot of scientific proof, um, but just the anecdotal experiences that people have shared with me and then I have experienced them since my faith has gotten stronger, it's like there's no doubt. Like it's not I don't even question it anymore. I I question some things, um, but the existence I don't I I don't I don't uh question. Um go ahead.

Loss, Darkness, And Choosing To Stay

SPEAKER_02 46:01

Well, and I and like you know, I always tell myself too, like once you um you're in the room of somebody that's leaving this world, what what gets me is like a lot of times when I when I watch them, they take like their final breath, their final inhale. And like where are they exhaling to? Yeah, you know, and it's it's such a beautiful thing, you know. And and then you learn, like you can go through, like I went through therapy like after my divorce, and like that was really, really helpful for me until it stopped. And then when it stopped being like helpful for for me, when I felt like I needed to start charging the therapist, because I was like, wait a minute, you haven't been through like this, you know. I felt like, what do I do next? What do I do next? And I'm telling you, the the thing that has completely helped me through this are um like the sound healing, the grounding outside, the just outside in nature is like what God made. And so like, like I told you a million times, like you don't need to find God in a church. You really, really don't like it is spirit, it is like everything that he made that the artwork of outside is all of him. And you know, I have a girl that I went to high school with, her name is Angel, and she owns this um Earth Angel sound healing here. And uh the art of meditating, I have learned how to meditate and through this journey, you know, because before you're so busy. And now I go to her studio and like just learning meditation and the answers that you can find when you finally learn how to, you know, quiet your mind and meditate. And, you know, and I and I join these groups with my friend Lori. Um, she's the rustic healer. Both of these girls are in water zone here, and going to these groups and learning other people's journeys, sitting there quietly, sitting to listen, not sitting to respond and hearing, you know, other people's journeys in this this life. And, you know, they they are looking like when I when I was like grieving Paul, like I joined TikTok and I only joined TikTok because I wanted to see if other people are still living after their partner died. And I feel like when I go to these groups with Lori, um, like, is there somebody like me, you know, in their journey where they're just they're seeing like, has anybody survived the sexual abuses of the child? Has anybody survived, you know, a divorce? Has anybody survived losing their their loved ones? And and being able to be wide open with my journey and not having to cover anything up has been like, I hope that the people that have helped me, that the the the widows or you know, the people that like lost religion and like you know, lost the God and then found it. I hope that that that's what I'm living for because those people helped change my life and brought like that's why I'm still here today, is because of people that went through stuff and that are like, hey, like I'm still here and I'm not bitter and I'm not mean and I'm not angry, but I'm so freaking grateful. I'm grateful for the pain that has caused me to become so much better and so much empathetic for people's situation that I mean I I just I I don't know where I would be today if I didn't have to go through the stuff I would have gone through. I don't know if I would have been I can look in the mirror, Brian, now and it's so weird to say, but before you would look in the mirror and you would see shame. You know, I I took the the um sexual abuse as it was my fault because the men would tell me all the time, you're just so mature for your age. I was a kid, I was not mature, they knew how to groom and I but I would take that up on myself, like you're gross, you're disgusting, you're dirty. And I would look in that mirror and feel that, you know, I was living a life that wasn't authentically who God intended me to be, and I would didn't like who I looked in the mirror. Today I love being able to look in the mirror, knowing that I am doing my best to try to hear that little, like, you know, a little gut punch. And I look in that mirror and I'm like, I'm so proud of you. You know, I don't need, I don't need a person to tell me that I'm so proud of you. I can look in the mirror and tell myself, like I am so proud of you. And I, and I like that's not even like, you know, growing up we think that that's so conceited and it's so wrong. But like it isn't when you can look in that mirror and say that it is, I feel like I'm I might not be a millionaire and I'm okay with that. I might not, you know, be like on a TED talk, but hey, you know what? I'm on the bamboo lap. But you know, I I'm so proud of the person that I look in that mirror and look at today. And I don't I could be the poorest person in the world, I don't care, but I want to keep looking in that mirror every day and know I'm proud of you. I'm so proud of you.

SPEAKER_01 50:49

I you have just nailed it on the head. Um, you know, one of the things I've always thought, especially when I'm working with uh coaching leaders or talking with them, and they ask me what my definition of leadership is, and I always say it's to help increase the sense of self-worth of the people around you. It's it's that idea that to get them to the point where they can, and I don't say it this way, I'm gonna take, I'm gonna steal your phrase, that they can look in the mirror and say, I'm proud of you. Because a sense of self-worth is one of the greatest lacks we have in this world, is people don't have that. You know, they don't want to be alone. They don't want to be, and when they are alone, and I'm a good example of this, is where, you know, for the many times I've caught myself when I live because I've lived alone quite a bit. Um I'm listening to a book on tape or I'm listening to a podcast. You know, there's always a background noise. Um, it really wasn't until I started uh uh hiking and rucking on a consistent basis that I'm in nature, I'm in nature five or six days a week for at least an hour. And and a lot of times I have a book on tape or something because I like to, it's a good time, my mind is happy and I'm I'm absorbing good content. But when I turn it off and just stand in nature, or even if I'm home and just turn nothing on, and it's uncomfortable at times, but then you that's when you start to connect with yourself. And I think in our society, we're really when we're alone, we're still not alone. So we never get a chance to know ourselves. So how can we therefore find self-esteem and how therefore how can we look in the mirror and say, I'm proud of you? So sometimes it's just like you said, meditation, it it it's you know, sound healing, it's it's grounding, it's spending time in nature. Those are the things where we really have to stop and listen to what who we are and how we feel and what we're thinking.

Expanding The Capacity To Love

SPEAKER_02 52:26

Right. Exactly. And and and once you once you find that inner like being okay with who you are and forgiving your past and forgiving people, it doesn't mean you have to forget. You don't have to forget anything that's happened to you, but but you have to learn from it because if you if you don't learn from you know the things in life, then you're just like constantly repeating the bad stuff. But if you if you can learn and grow from it, yeah, I made mistakes. We're all gonna make mistakes in life. But if you can learn from it, if if it takes you having to go, you know, put your tail between your legs and saying sorry to somebody, then that's what you do. Because the more that you can keep moving forward in this life, the better it is because you're you're gonna keep taking two steps back, which is okay, but you're never gonna move to the side and go forward, you know? And I feel like that's that's like what we have to do and being being okay with being quiet, finding the art of meditation. And you know, like for me, it started as just going outside, starting like two minutes and starting to build a garden where in my garden is where I like, you know, make a little gate and then I make a little bench, and then I tell God, like, I'm ready, like I'm ready for you to come here and show me what you need to show me. And it can be hurtful that what you're showing me, you can show me the stuff that I'm not doing what you need me to do, but I need you to show me. And I and I and I need to be able to be okay if it's criticism to take it, you know, and and it's just it's a learning, it's learning from it's learning from yourself and learning from others, and you know, just it's it meditation, like gosh, and in in church, you know, and and I was my niece and I were just talking about this the other day, my niece Taylor, who, you know, if God could have given me like I love I love all my nephews and I love all my nieces, but when the when times were bad for me, my amazing niece packed up her child and came and lived with me to make sure that I was okay. And those are again the people that you want on your side. But we were just talking about this the other day that if I didn't go to therapy first through my divorce, and and and my therapist, he was amazing. And and I didn't think I'd want to go to a guy because I've always had bad, you know, guys. Like I didn't trust men. And um I was able to trust him. And he was not a person that was gonna sit there and feed me a line of bullshit and always be on my side. He looked at me and said, This is what you're doing wrong. Like you're feeling sorry for yourself. And it was so good to have somebody for me, you know. And again, I take it back to sports because you're like your coach isn't gonna lie to you if you're not doing a good job. And he wouldn't, he looked at me and he gave me my faults. You know, he told me, like, this is what's wrong. This is what you need to do. And if I didn't go through therapy, I don't think I would have been ready for my next steps. And my next steps was church and learning to bring God in and letting God tell me what I was doing wrong. And now, you know, with the church, now my next step is this art of meditation, it being okay for the silence, of sitting in the silence. Because in the silence, I I learn more from sitting in silence than I do from, you know, any other thing that I could listen to, a self-help book, like anything, like sitting in my own silence with my own spirit, with my own the spirit, the light of, you know, the light of you can call it God, you can call it whatever you want, but we all have this light. And I sit in that, sit with that light, and I just am so thankful that that I chose the road that I that I that I needed to go down this road of of forgiving, moving past and honoring, honoring the journey that he's brought me up to to this point. Like I honor every, I'm thankful for every single person, good or bad, that's come into my life because I can look in the mirror and know that I forgive them, but I am such a better human because of them, good or bad.

SPEAKER_01 56:31

Yeah. Well, we when I think when we go through traumatic experiences like that, we never come out the same. We either come out stronger or weaker, um, better or worse. And it depends on how you handle it, which really kind of I I'd love to ask you this question, because this is actually my favorite question to ask. And that is if if I were to come over to Wisconsin today with my time machine and you and I were to go back and maybe go back to that moment when you were a young girl being preyed upon sexually, um, but what would you, if you could sit down and talk to your younger self, what would you say?

SPEAKER_02 57:01

You know, I I I would always think what I would say, but I don't think I would say anything. I would hug her. I would hug her and I would like like that kind of hug that somebody gives you that that makes you feel like everything is gonna be okay. That kind of hug that that only like a person that like that knows your soul can hug you like, and I would just hug her and I would tell her that I love her. I think that's and that's that's exactly what I would tell her. I would hug her and say, I love you, and you are worthy.

SPEAKER_01 57:39

Wow, and yeah, simple and sweet.

SPEAKER_02 57:43

Yeah, that's all I need because in in a in a the the touch of somebody that loves you and that respects you, and I respect my younger self is so healing. Like we are forgetting that that to do that to people. We're forgetting to shake hands, we're forgetting how much how much a touch from somebody that you respect can can can help somebody in a day. You know, a simple tap on a shoulder, just just touch is is a huge thing. And I feel like that's that's what that little girl really needed, is somebody to hug her.

SPEAKER_01 58:16

When you think about that, you think about how much children are hugged. You know, like my grandkids, my kids, you know, even me, um, when I was a kid, you know, we're hugged so often. And then when we get to be adults, we're I mean, I I I think you need like six hugs a day or something, or four or some number to maintain good mental health. I mean, I don't know. Uh I don't get maybe on average a hug a day, and that's because I see my my kids or my grandkids, and and uh I but they're not it's not a consistent thing every day. So the correlating that though, when you look at I and I don't know these numbers, I forget, but it's something like the average adult smiles or laughs like eight to ten times a day, where the average child smiles or laughs three hundred and some times a day. And there's got to be a correlation there. We're hugged more as children, we laugh and smile more. We're hugged less as adults and we smile and laugh a lot less. I mean dramatically less less, not even in the same ballpark.

Presence Over Plans And Trust In God

SPEAKER_02 59:10

Yes. And and and and and you're and you're right. And even if like in today's world, people like you know, I've worked with a lot of children with autism, and I know touch isn't really their thing. But even like a simple smile, when I was walking through those hospital rooms and it felt like like a tunnel, and I was in a tunnel, there were these the the smallest of people, you know, like the people that don't get paid shit out of hospital, these the CNAs, the the um, like there was a janitor that I'll never forget on like one of my hardest days. And all he did was simply sit there with me. He sat there with me, he listened to me cry, and he just like he he like he listened. And then when I would see him in that hallways on that same day, he would just like give me this smile. And that's all I needed. That's all I needed was like human interaction. Like when you're walking through places, get off your damn. Phone, put the phone down. But look, look ahead because that smile in those darkest of days of that janitor at that hospital or the CNA that just like would look at me, tilt your head, and just give me this like warm smile, changed my entire day. You know, and and that's what we gotta do. Like, we need to stop with the distractions and like always made me live in the moment, live in the moment. You're passing somebody, put your phone down and live in the moment, smile at them because you don't know what they're going through.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:29

It it's so true. I think it's just that that idea of practicing random acts of kindness, because I think we think of practic like, oh, I gotta go stop and help shovel somebody shovel their driveway, or it's that's not that's a form of most of the things we can do are simple and they're free. It is the smile, it's holding a door, it's calling the the the cashier at the gat grocery store by their name, it's just little things like that, making eye contact with people, and and you just don't know. You really just don't ever know what they're going through. And I I know I've asked, um, I've been working really hard because I've kind of for many, many years, would just walk through life and I could go to a store, I could go to a mall and come back and say, I didn't see one person, even though the mall was packed, or wherever I was, I was just singularly focused. And now being in the last probably eight to ten years of practicing just being conscious of the little acts of kindness. And and you know, sometimes and I've had experiences in the last four or five months where I've asked the you know, somebody's kind of you know, you know uh Meyer or Walmart and the cashier is kind of rude, they're not making eye contact. And before I would just close my mouth and just like just get out of there, and now I say, How's your day going? And usually you get you get a small answer, it's going okay. I'll get off in an hour, or I just got here, you know. So but every once in a while somebody say, you know, not real well. And if you just say, look, is there anything that you want to share? And not um not often, but on a rare occasion, somebody will just, you know, this is what I experience, you know. I'm going through the holidays alone right now, or you know, or something. You know, they'll talk about that and have a little conversation and make just brighten their day and say at the end, God bless you, or I hope things go well, I'll be thinking of you praying for you, and you're worthy, or something like that. It's just amazing, the little things that can make a big difference.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:17

It is, it is. And you know, the the the world is trying to drive us apart right now, the world is trying to separate us, but we are controlled, we are in control of our our own lane, right? We're like, I told you, we are in control of our own lane. Shut the phones off, shut the news off. And I feel like there's a song that happened right before COVID, and I am a Willie Nelson fan. I love me, Willie Nelson. And he there's a song that him and his son saying, and it was like during the COVID, and it's like, turn off the fucking news and build a garden. And in that, you know, get your vegetables and then with those vegetables, take them to your neighbor and talk to them. Because as the world is driving us apart with politics and everything else, like you actually learn that like my old neighbor that probably didn't vote in this the same way that I did, and probably like thinks of you know things differently than I do. If I just like go talk to him and I give him some of the stuff from my garden, yeah, maybe his world will soften up a little. Maybe I can learn something from him. But if I keep listening to the news, it's gonna make me hate my neighbor. And that's not what we're supposed to do because it in the teachings of that Bible, we are to love the neighbor. And if I keep listening to the news, if I keep going on social media, I am going to hate him. And I can't let this technology, this phone that's in our hand, drive me from what I know God needs us to do.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:42

Right. Well, I mean, I I believe I believe the greatest uh enemy to mankind right now is is the corporate mass media, whether it's Fox or CNN or somewhere in between. They're they're they're equally they're equally bad in our psyche and our connection. I I take I ne I never w I haven't watched news in I don't even know how many years. I just couldn't probably was during COVID.

Meditation, Nature, And Healing Practices

SPEAKER_02 1:04:04

Right. But I hate to say this too. I really hate to say this, but take take a neighbor, you know, that like I I I've asked all my neighbors because I am like one of those weird people, like never in my world, never in like if you would have asked me at like 25, Tishina, are you a church person? I would have been like, hell no. Like, I am not one of those people that you're gonna find my butt in a church on Sunday. Here I am now, the greeter out waving you in to my church. And I am asking these people, I know that you go to this church, but could you open your eyes and just like come to mine? Like just feel the difference. And if you don't like it, then you don't go back to your church on next Sunday. But like opening people up to come in, like just seeing like, and I'm open to come, like I love learning about other people's religions. Like, I it doesn't mean that I'm going to go turn that way, but the more I know about people, the more like the conversations can be so much more educated than just like angry, like, oh, you shouldn't be a Jehovah's Witness. But if I go and I and I and I attend one of their churches and I see why they can like it, we can have now an intellectual conversation because we both were able to go. And you know, like like what are they the Boo Bradley? You know, you don't know what anybody's going through. You don't know what anybody's religion is, you don't know unless you know you wear their shoes. I want to wear people's shoes. I want to see what they're going through. I want to be empathetic. I want to, I want to learn who you are because I care enough to learn who you are. And once you can start doing that, man, I feel like you're you just you you you change as a person and you can change others as a person and you can understand people more. And I and I and I love learning people. And some people I learn a lot from them and I take that into my day-to-day world. Some people I learn that I don't really need to be around them, but I can pray for them. Doesn't mean I need to go talk bad about them. And and that's like something I have to tell myself every day because I'm human and I falter and you know, then I get angry at somebody, but then you know, take my two steps back, move to the side and go forward. And I and I just I I pray for people that are hurting. I pray for people that are angry and they're bitter because they they haven't they haven't like got that voice yet that's been allowed. They didn't go through anything yet that put that put that voice loud. You know, we sadly lost like, you know, my cousin to um suicide not that long ago. And it's like, you know, you you you just wonder, like, you know, did were you did you speak up? And then, you know, you have you tell people I lost my cousin to suicide, and right away they're like, oh, well, they're going to hell. And I was like, I, you know, I don't, I don't think so because I I I was there, I was him. And, you know, it just we we both ended differently, but I can empathize where he was because I was there. And and in me getting to that point, I can now empathize with people. And when people like say things about people that go out that way, have you been there? You know, and I think that that's what I am as sad and as hard as this life has been at times. I'm grateful because like I can't judge that person because I was there, so I know.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:20

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:21

And and I just I pray that, you know, I I don't want people to go through like shit because it sucks and it's hard. And it, you know, I'm 39 years old and I feel like you know, three years ago is my finally like learning it, like learning this life, and it took, you know, hurting people and it took, you know, pain. But in the meantime, like I feel I feel light and I feel like I feel like you can come to my house and and I will love you and I will forgive you. It doesn't mean that I'm gonna have you over all the time, but but I will forgive you because I have to. And it doesn't mean I have to forget, but I have to forgive you and I have to pray for you. And if and if we come into a a room and you're and you like like my vibe clashes with yours, I'm leaving. I'm not gonna make a scene, I'm not gonna be a bully, but I'm gonna leave there praying for you. Because in the end, I want nothing but love for everybody. Because once you get the kind of love that changed my life with Paul, once you in and it wasn't just, you know, like the being a mother, like having Ellie for the first time, having my son and my and my twins changed me in a way, like it it helped me in a way of learning like there are these people that were that were given to me by God that I get to just love and that will, you know, that that I that I am so thankful that I have my four kids. I they have changed my life in ways that I that is just being a parent is just it's such a blessing. But loving a partner and is is also a different a different kind of love. I don't love all my children in the same way. I love them for each thing that you know that we bring to each other's lives. And loving Paul is also different in a way that brought something to my life that has forever made me grateful. The way that Paul lived his life and the way that he died has completely changed me. And it was such an honor to meet Paul. It was such an honor to live with Paul. And it was an honor to watch Paul go into the next phase of whatever happens, you know, heaven or you know, his journeys, I I'm forever changed. And if you can't be in a relationship with anybody that doesn't make you feel like you're blessed, whether it's good or bad, you're never gonna learn from it. You know, you're never gonna grow from it.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:44

Well, the gift you guys gave each other, I mean, after an hour or so of talking to you, it's a so much more obvious to me. I I'd never I knew I could tell you guys deeply loved each other. There was no doubt. That just shined through. But just hearing the story is just a completely different level than I expected. And I want to thank you for that and thank Paul. And I want to honor Paul by dedicating this podcast to to the life he lived here on Earth and the lessons he left with with people now who he never even knew who he was until this moment. And that's beautiful. That's a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:21

Yes, thank you so much for having me. And I'm not done yet. I am don't you up here? Yeah, let's party.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:30

Well, I the question I would ask you, we have two more questions. So the next one is right now, you know, you're 39, you've you've your journey has just continued to expand in life or internally and externally. What is a win for you? When you say today this was a success, what's what makes you say that was a win?

SPEAKER_02 1:10:51

Um what makes me that's a good question. I think that what makes it a win for me in a day is knowing that I had got to go in, like, you know, go talk to somebody. And like that that the conversation was so beautiful, and I got to meet somebody and and like within this, like like stepping out of my comfort zone and going and talking to a stranger, whether like I love talking to strangers, I love talking to people. And and strangers are even like a more of a gift to me than like people that I know, but like going and talking to like a random homeless person on the street, learning their story and being able to like learn something from them and then like praying with them at the end is a win for me. If somebody is willing to tell me their story and open up to me because they feel that I'm a safe person, that's a win to me.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:42

Oh, that's that's that's awesome. Um I'm just trying to write that down. I'm trying to capture that lesson. So bear with me just a minute. All right, this is my last question. So this is a question that kind of just catches anything I might have missed. Is there any question that I didn't ask that you wish I would have, or is there any final message you want to leave with the bamboo pack?

Self-Worth, Silence, And Looking In The Mirror

SPEAKER_02 1:12:03

Get off your phones. Get off your phones, live in live in the moments. Um, give yourself, you know, get up five minutes, get up ten minutes earlier, um, sit in the quiet and be thankful for you know the good and the bad, because either which way it is, it's going to be a learning lesson for you. But the the the more quiet you can bring into your life, the more that it will change you. And and love your love your people, man. Like love your people, take time for the strangers, and don't let the negative of anything separate you from the good, because the good outweighs the bad by far. And if we just take time to be able to learn from each other, this world will become a beautiful place.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:55

You know, I just gotta say this to you, and I want to say this on air, not off air. Um, you know, when I reached out to you, I I was excited to have you on, but you know, I I didn't know how this was gonna go. You're the only second family member I think I've had on here. Dawson was on here, I think he was on here too on two different podcasts. Of course, I'm gonna get my daughter on, I'm gonna get my hopefully get my mom on in the future. But um, you just never know. This may have been I don't know, 160 episodes, 157 episodes we've done, something like that. At least in the top five, for the most empowering. I don't want to say educational, because it sounds like but it that's a good word. Inspiring, or just more there was a there's just a lot of depth to what you said, a lot of transparency, vulnerability, and authenticity. And that's a really rare gift to Sheena to be able to have that, but then also to share it. You know, to strangers now. I don't know how many, you know, a lot of people will listen to this next week. And uh that's a gift. And in the I I sat here with goosebumps, I sat here with tears. I literally have a whole page of notes, and actually I stopped taking notes a long time ago on my podcast. I take little notes, but I just couldn't stop writing. And a lot of the writing I put on here were direct quotes you said. Um, you know, go through this to go to to grow through it. I'm grateful for the pain. I mean, whoa, I want to wear other people's shoes. I mean, through all these very empowering quotes that you shit said, I can promise you there are a lot of people listening to this right now, or at least next week, but as they're listening to this, they are getting a shit ton from what you shared.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:41

Yes, and and like and I and I and I love that. And it like like I am not a person that's gonna hide, like I'm on social media, I'm not on there as much because I just had to let it go right now. But I I check in. And if and if somebody listening to this has nobody to talk to, like I am open. Message me, do whatever you have to. If you're going through something and you feel alone, you are never alone. And if you feel like you can't reach out to anybody, I beg you to find me on social media. My name is Tashina Dunham, even on there, message me and I will listen. I will listen, I will pray for you. If you don't want to talk about it and you just want to somebody to pray for it, bring it to me. And I and I know, Brian, you're the same way. Like, we're willing. Like, don't ever think you're alone in this world because I know that like we will be there for people, and that's and that's a promise. Like, I people were there for me when I needed them the most. My, you know, my family, my niece, my my nephews, my church, my my people, my soul tribes have been there. And if you don't feel like you have a soul tribe, man, reach out because I will I will be part of your soul tribe.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:49

That's beautiful. You know, I I want to this is the first time I've ever said this to anybody. It's been an honor to have you on the show. But after this last hour and 15 minutes, I can honestly say there I am so honored and proud to share you with my family. Like you are my family. Like, you know, you're not a stranger, you're not a client, you're not a bro an author that I brought on. It's just I'm just more and more proud and honored to say she's part of my family. So, man, thank you for coming on, man. It was this was an amazing, amazing content and lessons you shared. And I appreciate and love your authenticity. So thanks for being such an amazing guest on the show.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:27

Oh, thank you. And and um, I can't wait. Like, I'm so appreciative. I'm so glad that this is like where your life has, your journeys have brought you. And you're and by just by doing this stuff, like you're giving people hope that you know, think that this is it, that I'm not good enough. But by having such a a and a rainbow of people on your show, let everybody know that there is somebody that went through what you had to go through. And and by you broadcasting this with me and all of the other people that you have broadcasted with, you are changing lives and and you are giving other people like me at one time that didn't think they have hope. You're giving us hope. So I'm so grateful for you.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:09

Thank you. I love you, cousin.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:11

I love you too.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:12

You stay on.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:14

Okay, everybody, I want to thank everybody for tuning in. Um, I know this this episode is going to go, it's gonna go deep, and it's gonna go um wide and deep for a lot of you. Um I'm gonna leave with a quote that is posted on Toshina's Facebook. Um it's by Maya Angelo, and she says, Hate, it has caused a lot of problems in the world, but has not solved one yet. I'm gonna leave it at that. Uh everybody, see you next week. In the meantime, please get out there and strive to give and be your best. Show love and respect to others and yourself, and please live intentionally and purposely. I appreciate each and every one of you. Until next time.