A Horse-Friend Cure to PTSD with Cheryl Eriksen

Join us in our latest episode as we dive deep into these topics with award-winning author and horse midwife, Cheryl Eriksen.

Mental health is something we take seriously, and we continue to shed light on this vital issue. In this episode, we pivot from book promotion to dissect the complexities of PTSD. Our conversation centers on the understanding that trauma isn't exclusive to the battlefield but can affect us all. We underscore the importance of recognizing symptoms, promoting open discussions about mental health, and understanding the impact of unaddressed trauma responses. Cheryl's personal journey with PTSD provides a poignant and invaluable perspective.

Rounding up, we touch on the topics of self-love, the hurdles of self-publishing, and the importance of good editing. Eriksen's transformation from trauma to a state of self-love is an inspiring testament to the power of a positive mindset. We pull back the curtains on the world of self-publishing, highlighting the value of creative control, and having a professional-looking book. To wrap up, we throw light on the indispensability of a good editor and provide strategies that could ease the editing process. Join us for this enlightening conversation with Cheryl Eriksen and let's explore this labyrinth together.

Find Cheryl’s books here:  https://www.amazon.com/stores/Cheryl-L.-Eriksen/author/B09JT2VMFJ
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➡️ Website:  http://www.followmefriendbook.com

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➡️ Goodreads  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/21926960.Cheryl_L_Eriksen

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome back everyone to the Writers Parish. We were guiding author and writer dreams to a perfect landing. Today we have with us a very special guest. We have with us Cheryl Erickson and we're going to talk to her about her two books Follow Me, friend and Healey. I've never been to me, sorry about that, but of course, first we have the housekeeping to get out of the way. We would love for you to go ahead and hit that like button, go ahead and subscribe and knock on that bell so you get notifications every time we have a new episode. You can follow us here on YouTube or whatever podcast platform you're listening to us, as well as on social media. We are on Facebook, instagram, tiktok X which used to be Twitter, and threads at Writers Parish. That is Writers Parish without an S. If you would like to get notified of new episodes every week in your email inbox, then please go to sendfoxcom, slash theWritersParishute and you can sign up to get an email alert every week with information about new episodes from the Writers Parishute. Of course, we would love to hear from you. You can reach out to us at theWritersParishutecom on our website or you can email us at infoattheWritersParishutecom and we would be happy to hear from you, but let's get on with the show. Of course, we always start the topic of the week. This week, as always with season two, we've been talking about reviews. We are starting to wind down and give you some useful tips about how to use those reviews. So today we're going to talk about using reviews in promotions.

Speaker 1: 1:45

I had an interesting talk with an author a few weeks back and she's like I've been listening to your podcast and you're talking about getting reviews and everything and about sharing reviews, and I tried doing that, but I'm not getting a good result. And my first question was well, you're talking about social media. And she said, yes, and I'm like so when you're posting on social media, are you just saying, hey, I got this amazing review, and then link to the review or post a review? And she's like, yes, and I'm like OK, then what is it that you expect? And she says well, I would like to get more book buyers and more reviews. And I'm like well, there's a problem here, because what you just did is made an announcement. I got a review. You didn't ask for anything. There was no call to action. So what would have been helpful if she had said hey, I got this amazing review. Have you read my book yet? Have you reviewed my book yet? Here's the link and here's the review. This would have been a call to action for anybody seeing that post to know that you are asking for people to purchase your book, for people to leave your reviews. Don't forget a call to action.

Speaker 1: 3:00

Also, there's many other ways to use your reviews in promotional material. Taking a line or two from a really good review to put in your printed material, to put on posts and banners that you have or anything else where you're promoting a book sale or an upcoming event, are also very helpful. They help people who may not have heard of your book, that may be just seeing a flyer on a lamppost or something on an event, to know a little bit more about your book. And the best way we know about books is reviews from other people. So don't forget using those few critical lines from your reviews Also. One last thing If you are getting a pre-reviews these are reviews before your book is released you can also include those in the front or back pages of your printed books or your ebooks as part of the interior files.

Speaker 1: 4:03

So don't forget that. Also, if you are doing an update or a new edition of your book. You can add those as an enticement. So don't forget. Don't forget to add those to your website, and in some cases, your website will even allow you to add a section for people to leave reviews of your book. So I hope these are helpful. Of course, there is so much more we could talk about, about using reviews for promotional material and for promotions themselves.

Speaker 1: 4:32

If you would like to know more about this subject or any of the subjects that we've covered here on the Writers Parachute, as always, please reach out to us. You can leave us a note in the comments on the show, wherever you're watching or listening. You can also reach out to us at info at thewritersparachutecom. We'd be happy to hear from you. But now let's get on with our show.

Speaker 1: 4:52

Of course, we are going to have a wonderful guest today. It is Cheryl Erickson. She's an author, horse midwife, student of equine behavior and a blogger. She has a series called Hope Horses and the Healing Collection. Her first book Follow Me Friend, a memoir of undiagnosed PTSD and the healing power of the horse-human relationship, and her new book I've Never Been to Me One Woman's Search for Purpose and the Horse that Showed Her the Way which we're going to talk about.

Speaker 1: 5:27

So Cheryl is a horse midwife, student of equine behavior and communication author, blogger and former equine assisted therapy facilitator, veterinary assistant and horse trainer. She has been involved in multiple areas of the horse industry for over 25 years. She's also the author of an award-winning memoir, follow Me Friend. It's a true story about her struggles with undiagnosed PTSD and the healing power she received through the special connection she shares with her mayor Forletta. I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that right, but we'll go on.

Speaker 1: 6:03

Cheryl's other creative endeavors include a blog, peace Horse Journey, which explores the concepts of horse-guided cell therapy and how equine behavior can be influenced by what the human brings to the relationship. She also writes a second blog, or for a second blog, the Spudermew Meyers blog, which dives into the stories and histories of model horses in her collection and the real horses they represent. She spends half the year working as a horse midwife, delivering foals and carry for mares and their newborns for various thoroughbred farms in central Kentucky. In the off-seventeen she focuses on her writing, book events and speaking engagements. She is currently just finishing up with the publishing of her second book, the Sequel to Follow Me Friend, which is I've never been to me this past June. Welcome to the Writers Parachute, cheryl, how are you today?

Speaker 2: 6:57

I'm wonderful.

Speaker 1: 6:58

Thank you, donna. Oh, you're very welcome. I'm glad to have you here. I have kind of broken in a little bit a little crack into the horse industry and I find it so fascinating. I think we all have that as a young girl, some passion for horses, and it's nice to be able to reconnect with that part of a life that sort of left behind. Mostly because of where I live, there's not a lot of availability of horses. I live more on the West Coast. In the more recent years I've kind of found a little niche where I can be a little more related to horses. But it's nice, it really is nice. I'm glad to have you here Now. Your second book I've Never Been to Me, which is One Moment's Search for Purpose and the Horse that Showed Her the Way. It's a sequel to the first one, follow Me Friend, and it was released this past June. So I want to know what inspired you to write these two books, which are very personal and poignant stories about your life.

Speaker 2: 8:04

The first one, Follow Me Friend, I wrote I wanted it to be the book that I wish I could have read when I was 20. And that's kind of how it started out, and I went through a lot of issues with what I didn't realize was PTSD when I was younger. It was behaviors that were connected to a trauma that I didn't remember and these behaviors didn't fit into this normal you know scale of what I consider to be normal behavior. So I thought there was something wrong with me. I thought I was crazy and I lived with that for years as a secret that I tried to hide from everybody. And it wasn't until much, much later, when I met my horse, Farletta, that I began to recover the memories of the original trauma and learned that I was actually suffering from PTSD and it wasn't crazy.

Speaker 2: 9:03

So that was the first book and that came out in fall of 21. And as I got that one out, it took a long time. So about 10 years had passed from when that book ended to where I was at that point and I realized how much had changed even since then. When I finished Follow Me Friend, I felt like I, you know, I understood the PTSD, I had it under control and everything was fine. And then I was retraumatized in an accident and all of a sudden it was back.

Speaker 2: 9:43

Everything came back, and I was really angry at first I was like no, no, I dealt with this, this is over. And of course it isn't, because PTSD is the gift that keeps on giving. It's not something that ever really goes away. It is something you learn to manage.

Speaker 2: 9:58

And so that's what the second book is about is that next stage of my journey, which actually moved me from a place of surviving to a place of thriving, where I could really learn about myself, to do that self-discovery, and all of that again was facilitated by my horse, farletta. She has an amazing ability to help me look inside myself and she touches those broken parts and brings them to the surface and, just, I don't want to use the word force because it's too strong, but she forces me to look at myself and deal with my stuff. And that is what this second book is about is how she led me from that place of I've come to the healing, to the continued healing and even really a spiritual journey of going inside and learning to love the person that I am, as I am not any of that hiding in the secrets and just taking those pieces of myself and showing the world this is me and then being okay with that. And that was hugely, hugely beneficial, and so that's what the second one is about. Is that part of the journey?

Speaker 1: 11:20

Right, and that's it. I don't have a horse. I would love to have one but I don't, and my husband would probably have a heart attack if I tried to climb on a horse anyway. But it's like I'm more of a cat lady and I do know that my cats which I don't like to call them pets because they feel like they're family members and they are so connected with me and when I feel like I'm struggling, they do encourage me and I think it's through their acceptance of me, flaws, words and awe and I just am somebody that they love, that they encourage me to kind of keep fighting forward, to keep being who I am, that that person is amazing and that maybe the world should see that person a little bit more, and I think that is so empowering, just to allow that relationship to happen and develop and be kind of that. I don't know how they do it, but these animals are so able to communicate with us without words in a much more powerful way.

Speaker 2: 12:39

Absolutely, yes, Very powerful, and they're just amazing in that ability to connect and communicate, and for me it's horses, for you it's cats, and for other people it's other animals or other things in the natural world. I think I don't think it's just horses or just animals even, but yeah, it's amazing.

Speaker 1: 13:01

Yeah, there's something in everybody's life that I think it's what they call that aha moment, where it just makes you stop in your tracks and go oh wait, this is what I should be doing, exactly, exactly. Whatever it is, I encourage you to be friended, you know, hang on to it and, you know, listen, because I think almost that they're like a vehicle for our inner voice to come through.

Speaker 1: 13:33

Yes, yes, I think they give us that security to be able to listen to what our true self wants, but it's so afraid to say, mm-hmm, yes, yeah. So in your first book, follow Me Friend, you revealed some very deep personal incidents about things that happened throughout your life, and I wanted to know what message you wanted readers to take away from that particular book.

Speaker 2: 14:06

That one, and I forgot to hold it up before, so I'm going to show it to you.

Speaker 2: 14:11

That's all right, there it is. But in Follow Me Friend, the message, the overarching message, I think, is it's almost maybe a call to action, not for necessarily even just the reader, but for the world at large to start talking about talking about mental health in a way that makes it a normal conversation. The biggest thing that was going on in that book is that I wasn't telling anybody what was going on, and if I had told somebody I could have saved myself a great deal of agony and difficulty. And the thing with things like depression and anxiety, which are symptoms of PTSD but also stand alone, is there's a lot of shame around those. Especially when I was a kid, growing up in the 80s and the 90s, and I suppose before that too, it was something that we were ashamed to talk about. And if you thought about suicide, that meant you were a terrible person and you were selfish. And it's not the way that these things need to be looked at.

Speaker 2: 15:25

We need to look at mental health issues as something that does happen. That's part of being human and something that we need to start talking to each other about. So that's you know, suicide is a symptom of depression and of anxiety. It's something that happens when we haven't dealt with you know what's going on. So when we don't talk about it, we lose more people, and that especially when now it's I'm sorry I was gonna, I'm going to pause this. I was gonna say it's suicide prevention month, but it won't be when we air this. So I don't know if you don't want me to say it, but now, that's perfectly fine.

Speaker 1: 16:10

I think the information should go out to the listeners regardless of what month it is.

Speaker 2: 16:15

Okay, all right. Well, we're coming out of suicide prevention month in September and it's so important that we realize the necessity of bringing awareness and removing that stigma of talking about what's going on. And the other thing that this book I think helps with is helping people to understand that PTSD is not something that only happens to our veterans. And while the veteran population definitely is dealing with PTSD, there are a lot of people who are suffering traumas and PTSD that don't think that they can have PTSD, because it's mostly because because they're not veterans. And I think, just recognizing, learning how to recognize some of those symptoms of PTSD and in yourself and possibly in others. I recommend this book to people who know someone with PTSD, to someone who may be suffering themselves, to someone who is a therapist, somebody who works in the healing services. But even beyond that, it's still, it's a story, you know, it's a story of hope and healing. So I guess I don't want to limit it to that, it to that crowd, you know, to that therapy window. But yeah, and I agree, with it.

Speaker 1: 17:41

It's like, you know, for so many years we've treated, you know, mental struggles. I don't always like to say it's mental illness, because I think a lot of times it's just mental struggles. We treat it as a problem rather than a health issue. You know that's exactly that needs to be treated, the same thing that we would treat a sore throat or cancer. You know it's something that may require, you know, short term treatment or long term treatment, or maybe something that we have to live with for the rest of our lives.

Speaker 1: 18:16

It is health, whether it is your physical body or your mental and emotional health. It is health and we need to recognize it that way and we need to talk openly, talk about it. You know people don't have any problems saying you know, hey, I have cancer, but somebody's saying I have PTSD. They're fearful of that reaction and we shouldn't be that way. And and I agree, you know, sometimes PTSD has kind of been code word for veteran, but you're right, it happens to anybody. It's a post traumatic stress which basically means you're trying to suppress something that happened in your past that you don't want to deal with.

Speaker 2: 18:59

And even to that you're not capable of dealing with at the time. Right is even a better way to put that. You know if and the other thing I like to express is that it doesn't have to be like a big, huge. You know, I've been to war, I had, you know, years and years of abuse kind of a thing. It can be a single incident that can set up that traumatic experience and that PTSD. And I think I guess I say that is.

Speaker 2: 19:28

I've had people say Well, you know, my trauma wasn't that big or I don't know why I have PTSD, because it wasn't that big of a deal and it doesn't matter if it felt like a big deal or if it was a big deal or if other people will think it was a big thing, it only matters and how it affects you, and one of the things that I did a lot of was minimizing everything my symptoms, everything a lot of just oh, it wasn't a big deal, it wasn't a big deal. And by saying that, it invalidates what I'm experiencing, and I can't ever move to a place of healing if I continually invalidate and minimize what is happening. So I think that's a really important point.

Speaker 1: 20:10

Yeah, I mean, I had a. You know, I had a situation happen to me where my husband was driving and we were involved in a multi vehicle accident and someone did not survive. Now, I was not the driver, you know, and I didn't know this person, but because I was not driving, I was more of an observer. I saw, more probably than the people who were just trying to, you know, control their vehicles and what was going on around them. And you know, for weeks and months after that, I was terrified to get into a vehicle and I couldn't figure it out. It's like I'd been riding and driving in vehicles for my whole entire life. It's like it just seems so odd, and it was. I was having panic attacks trying to get back into that vehicle, to the point that my husband sold the car because I just could not get in the car. And, you know, we just couldn't figure out what was going on with this and I finally went and talked to a therapist and she said you have PTSD. And it never occurred to me that just witnessing something like that caused me to have PTSD.

Speaker 1: 21:25

And you're right, and you do tend to minimize it, thinking oh well, you know, maybe something else triggered it and I'm just making mountains out of molehills kind of thing, and it really kind of woke me up to the fact that we do always tend to minimize not only things of that nature but anything around mental health. I think we start with mental health being something to minimize and then, when it affects us or makes us different from those around us, we start minimizing it to kind of, you know, fit in. So I think I think that's something that we have to try and retrain ourselves to think about. You know, I'm just as important and what I'm going through, you know, needs the attention that it deserves. It needs to not be just swept under the rug or scoffed off is not important, because it doesn't matter whether or not in the world. It's important. It's important to you Exactly.

Speaker 2: 22:29

Exactly. And the sooner you're able to deal with it and work with it, the easier it will be to stop that pattern. Because that trauma response, that that reaction like you not wanting to get into the car and not really understanding why that's a trauma response, and every time you experience that you are ingraining that response deeper into your, into your brain, into yourself. So the more that you do that without you know, like in my case we're just kept happening for years and years and years and years and years and years and years to come is really difficult to undo.

Speaker 2: 23:05

But I guess the reason I say that is if something traumatic happens to somebody who's listening, for example, and they catch themselves doing that sort of thing, go talk to somebody right away. The sooner you can deal with that and move past it, the less likely you are to get stuck in that pattern that is so difficult to get out of.

Speaker 1: 23:30

And even at that, like I said, it only went on for a few months, but even at that, you know, it took me a while to get past it and I really wish that I had known the first time it happened to go do something about it. Because, again, what happens is each time you push it down, as you said, you're re-engraining it, but you're also making it a bigger issue. So I would start having the panic attack earlier, or I'd start having the stress earlier. It was like not trying to get in the car, it was like anybody wanted me to go somewhere.

Speaker 1: 24:00

Yes, you know or picking up the car keys, or seeing the car keys or, you know, or even just my husband leaving in the car. It's like it was very strange the associations and connections that my brain made. What you know, what most people would just think is, you know, simple, everyday occurrence, you know being involved.

Speaker 2: 24:25

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 24:26

You know, in a car accident, but it's like I never know how our brain is going to react to things, which is why I think it's. It's fascinating and I did love reading your books. Now you talk about trauma and amnesia and or memory loss, and you don't want to find that I read a lot of memoirs. It's like that sort of stuff is kind of glossed over as side effects to PTSD and you don't shy away from it, which I appreciate that, and I want to know why you felt like these uncomfortable moments were integral to telling your story.

Speaker 2: 25:00

Yeah, I'm not. I find when I write I'm definitely not a gloss over kind of person, but I think to me it's important to feel, I guess, what I felt, to help people understand. But as far as the you know the memory loss, for me, the trauma happened when I was seven and I did not remember it until I was 30, 31, I believe it started coming back. So, you know, when something traumatic happens, especially to someone who's young, who's that young, the brain needs to figure out how to deal with it so that the child can continue to survive. And because I didn't tell anybody, there was nobody that helped me process, obviously, and the best way to continue to survive was to basically pretend it didn't happen.

Speaker 2: 25:54

And that wasn't necessarily a conscious decision that I made. It's just what my brain did to protect me. I wasn't equipped to deal with what happened to me when it happened. And so that's where that loss, that memory loss, comes from is. The body just pushes it away.

Speaker 2: 26:13

The brain, the body and I say the body because memories are not just stored in the brain, they're stored in your cells and in your body, and some of what I experienced before I knew what was going on were actually physical reactions that didn't make sense to me, you know, to being in proximity to a male that I didn't know, or having a very innocent touch kind of a thing, that those things that they didn't make sense to me, that I would react the way that I did, or that I was terrified to be alone with a man. I mean, I knew that that didn't make sense but I couldn't understand why, and so that just kind of put that into that list of things that meant there was something wrong with me and continued on from there. But yeah, the brain is such a fascinating thing.

Speaker 1: 27:11

I actually studied quite a bit on this. You know emotional trauma and abuse and stuff that happens to young children and part of it is is the brain doesn't? The child does not understand what is happening and so the only way they can make sense of it is to tell themselves a story to comfort themselves. And often the story is oh, I just dreamed of that didn't really happen, it was all make believe. But, as you said, that's the part of their brain and the memory portion. But the rest of the body knows it happened and it's having those reactions. But again, they're in conflict with each other because the brain has developed or accepted this story to protect the child from.

Speaker 1: 28:05

You know the trauma of the moment, but unfortunately what happens is, if it never gets dealt with, it just keeps becoming, you know, a bigger story. You know I had one person say to me and they're like well, you know, think of it as a lie. You know, when you tell a lie, you know, to one person, they're usually pretty simple, but the more people you have to tell it and the more you repeat it, the bigger the lie has to become. And the same thing with a traumatized child when they're telling themselves a story. Each time it's kind of nudged against, where you know you're alone with a person that you're not comfortable with or something happens that you can't explain. Then the mind has to make that story bigger To keep hidden what it's trying to hide.

Speaker 1: 28:56

So, yeah, it's fascinating that our minds and our brains can work in that fashion and almost divorce themselves from the you know, the physical aspects of ourselves which I think is a lot of what mental health is is where we're not in alignment with our physical and emotional and mental aspects of our body. It's like they're out of a line for some reason, usually associated with some sort of trauma that kind of threw them in different directions, so to speak. Yeah, so I noticed that you, you know, you take a deep dive into the emotional and physical aspects of what happened to you and the toll that they have. And I'm going to ask this question and it's going to sound like I'm an idiot, but I do know the answer, but I would like for you to share it with our audience. I want to know why you felt this was such an important message to come across in your first book and in the second book a little bit.

Speaker 2: 30:13

I'm sorry, pause a second. I caught the question. Which part of it is that you thought that? Could you ask it again?

Speaker 1: 30:21

Sure, I can ask that question again, sure. So I know that in your book you take a deep dive into the emotional and physical aspects of the things that happen to you and the toll that they have on a person. And I know I sound like an idiot when I'm asking this question, but I'm going to ask it anyway because I want you to share with the audience. Why was that so important to include in your book's message?

Speaker 2: 30:46

I think that that aspect because it's all part of the package it wasn't just the disruptive thoughts. There was physical reactions to what was happening and there was also physical punishment to myself, self-inflicted which another thing that I was always very ashamed of I couldn't let anyone know, but I learned later is part of it the person who's traumatized. A lot of times you'll get a lot of anger, and the anger can be externally expressed towards other people or internally expressed onto yourself, which is how mine was expressed. So a lot of just a concept, that self-loathing which we all have, that inner voice, that inner monologue, that we talk to ourselves, and that's a totally natural thing.

Speaker 2: 31:47

And my inner monologue got really, really mean and vicious and just really got out of control. And that was actually part of a coping mechanism going back to being traumatized as a child. One of the things a child of that age believes about the world is that everything that happens is because of something that they did. And that's normal. That's a normal part of your brain development. But when you're traumatized at that time then it means you will think, or it can mean that you think, that what happened to you is because of something that you did. So what that mean inner voice which I eventually named mean Cheryl became was kind of a perpetuation of that, like everything is your fault. So if you weren't so stupid or so whatever, then these things that happened to you wouldn't happen and it just became a cycle over and over and over again.

Speaker 2: 32:51

And I think sharing that so openly is important, because part of the point of the book was to help people recognize in themselves and in someone they love these things that I had tried to hide for so long that I realize now a lot of people are experiencing and have experienced, and it's part of the whole package and so if I don't talk about things that I experienced, then I don't feel like I'm really helping as much as I could. So I didn't want to pull any punches, I guess hold anything back and I tried not to be like really I don't want people to think that if they read this, the whole thing is just about horrible things in trauma and terrible. And there is, it's in there and obviously is, as is some description of the abuse, although it's not a lot of the book. But I always tell people to be gentle with themselves when they're reading it. But it's there, but it's not only think that's there, but it was important to express.

Speaker 1: 34:04

Right.

Speaker 1: 34:04

Well, and I think the book makes such an impact because of the dichotomy between what you experienced, what you were living through, and this gentle creature who was guiding you through it with such care and such love that it made it easier to read, quite frankly.

Speaker 1: 34:32

I think it made it easier to understand where and how this journey worked for you, and I do love that about it because I think a lot of times when people are dealing with PTSD long-held PTSD, short-held PTSD whatever position you're in, I think a lot of times the animal therapy really does play a huge part, because you can only listen to somebody talk about a problem for so long. It's like pretty soon. You're just like you're turning that out, because I've already said that to myself 100 times over. It's like I already know this, but there's something about the care and feeding and interaction with an animal that pulls you out of your depths of despair and lets you actually look at it objectively and see where you're not really working on it, where you could do better, where you can change, what you can think differently and accept. And I don't know how they do it, I just know that they do.

Speaker 2: 35:54

Yeah, yeah, that's exactly. And, of course, the why Farletta was such an important part of the story is her ability to recognize those things and figure out a way to point it out. And for her it was behavior, and that is actually normal with horses. That's how they communicate is through their behavior, and a lot of what she did her behaviors would have been considered negative and in the traditional ways of training, where we use a lot of pressure and negative reinforcement, she would have been punished instead of listened to. But because I loved her so much and I understood that what she was doing was a behavior change for her, the way she was acting towards me was different than how she had acted before.

Speaker 2: 36:47

That, as things got worse for me, as I tried harder and harder to suppress this inner dialogue and this shame and all of this fear, she changed in the way she responded to me and it was my need to figure out what was going on with her that got me, as you say, out of myself, out of my head enough to start learning what was going on and to get help, and while I still think it's very me to go to a therapist because my horse and I weren't getting along the way I thought we should.

Speaker 2: 37:24

Not because of all these things that I've got going on and all this stuff in my head. No, it's because I was sad that my horse and I didn't have the same relationship we used to have, but that was what it was that caused me to go and get help, and that became a pattern with Farletta. Every time things weren't being addressed and I wasn't addressing by myself, a behavior change on her part would often get me to look at, hey, what is going on with me? And there was always something I would work on and then she would get better.

Speaker 2: 38:02

And it just repeated over and over to the point where anytime her behavior changed, I'd be like what did I just bring into the barn with me? And usually I could find something and I would talk to her about it or I would physically try to let it go. But just being aware of it made her more comfortable, and I think that was her whole goal was to help me figure out how to function outside of my head instead of into my heart, instead of just stuck up here all the time.

Speaker 1: 38:37

Right, and I think animals are way more sensitive to our emotions than we give them credit for. I mean, they can sense a mood change much faster than you'll even recognize that. You had a mood change and I had one vet tell me that animals feel the weight of our emotions. Yes, yeah, and so that's why they're so quick to respond. Whether it's positive or negatively, they're going to respond because, for the most part, animals are used to things being set in a pattern. They're used to habits and regular schedules and stuff like that, and even our emotions. So when they step out of the ordinary, they're on alert and it's almost a danger response for them, because it's not that they're fearful for themselves, they're fearful for you, the person that they're attached to. Yeah, and they want you to fix whatever that is.

Speaker 2: 39:46

And yeah, that's exactly it. They deal in energy and they communicate with energy, especially horses, and I suppose it probably is the case with all animals. I'm just so much more familiar with horses and how they communicate with their energy. But if you ever watch a herd of horses in the wild, if there's a predator in the area, they don't all throw their heads up and whinny at each other and make a bunch of noise and run off. They just start walking away as a collective, as a group. Nobody says anything, they just move, and I believe in energy exchange among them. That communication goes through without verbalizing, without all these dramatic things that we do to talk. We're always flapping our hands around and we're yelling and we're jumping up and down and the horses are over here, like why are you so loud? And I think, yeah, it's just yeah.

Speaker 1: 40:44

For animals. It's like the stillness speaks so much louder to them. Yes, yeah, Stillness generally indicates there's a problem.

Speaker 2: 40:56

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 40:57

And it should, with most humans do, because we're very active, we're kind of mobile and talking and doing things all the time and it's like in that moment of stillness we should recognize that there's some danger.

Speaker 2: 41:10

Yeah, but we've had it trained out of us, right, Because that's not quote unquote normal and the same thing can be done with our animals. You'll see again. Going back to horses, that behavior that Farletta was exhibiting easily could have been trained out of her through a negative reinforcement, through punishment, and that happens with horses all the time.

Speaker 2: 41:32

And they just stop reacting and they get. You know, some people call them bomb proof. A lot of them are just inside themselves, you know, and it's just really interesting how we suppress that in ourselves and then in our animals and which almost begs the question are we creating PTSD in our animals? That is a whole other thing, and I do think that there are plenty of animals out there that are holding trauma and struggling with that, and that's a whole other conversation we could have.

Speaker 1: 42:06

Yes, I'm sure. I'm sure, and I don't want to get too off track. So you also have two blogs that we mentioned at the top, called Peace Horse Journey and Sputter Mew Briers, so can you tell us a little bit about what they talk about and how they differ from each other?

Speaker 2: 42:25

Yes, Peace Horse Journey is about horse guided self discovery and it started out as, actually, what it's turned into was this book the second one I've never been to me and I started looking at and exploring that relationship with Farletta and the different behaviors as she got older. She started struggling with her health some and her behavior changed a lot and she was kind of going back and forth and some of it was her health and some of it was me and that is what started me on that spiritual journey. So I write a lot in the blog about different things that Farletta's taught me along this journey and I also explore other aspects of mental health and I have explored grief and different things like that, and so that one's kind of a very personal journey. And the other one, sputter Mew Briers, is a blog about brier horse models, which I have an extensive collection, being a horse lover.

Speaker 2: 43:35

I've had him ever since I was a kid and I love research and I love history, and so I started researching the history of some of the models in my collection. A lot of them are based on famous horses and I started writing stories telling the history of the models or of the horse that the model is after, and so a lot of people who are really into horses like that blog and people who are into model horses really like the blog. Because there's so much, I go into that deep dive and really uncover all these things we wish we knew. So, yeah, it's really fun to write All right. Well, that's awesome.

Speaker 1: 44:11

I would have never thought about somebody writing a blog talking about the history behind different models and you're talking about kind of crass crafted statuettes or a model of a horse that is sometimes a collector's item, sometimes considered a toy. I know it's like I know horses. Somebody says that's not a toy. It's not a toy.

Speaker 2: 44:38

No, yeah, I mean technically they are, but no, they're not. They can be.

Speaker 1: 44:43

I think they were concepted for that idea, but they quickly became a collector item.

Speaker 2: 44:49

They did and the plastic pony. People are just we're all nuts when it comes to our horses.

Speaker 1: 44:55

So Well, that's great. So if there's a horse lover in you, you wanna know more about these models. Go check out either one of hers and I encourage you to go grab her two books. They are amazing. So I know that as an author and a writer, you've had your problems and obstacles and challenges that you've struggled with in trying to write and publish your book, and I wanna know which one was the most surprising to you.

Speaker 2: 45:24

Which book?

Speaker 1: 45:25

Well, which challenge, obstacle or issue getting your books done.

Speaker 2: 45:31

I think that's hard to answer. I would say from where I started, from when I first started writing and I had no idea what I was doing. I just started throwing words at the paper which is a great way to start, by the way Just start writing, and there was no organization. I didn't know what was going on. I had that idea at that time that I would find a publisher without that much difficulty and get it published, and I think a lot of people still kind of follow that route or think that, which is fine. But what I discovered as I started putting my story out there you know I got the whole proposal together and all those things you're supposed to do was very organized marketing plan, all that stuff, and I would get these very gentle rejections. You know like wow, this is great, we're not really, it's not going to fit, kind of a thing. You know just people saying nice things and I honestly I didn't send that many out. I think I did maybe five, which is nothing for anybody who's looking at putting your book out there. Five proposals is nothing. But what happened to me is every time I put it out there I would get that rejection. And because it was such an intensely personal story. It felt like a rejection of my life and it's like here's my story, this is me, my life, in a book. Oh, you don't want that? Oh, okay. So it would stop me from trying and I would put the whole project away for like six or eight months or whatever, because I just couldn't look at it again and it was going to take forever to get it published that way. And so, after having a really bad experience with what ended up being a scam hybrid press, I said forget it, I can do this.

Speaker 2: 47:15

I took the reins and I decided to self publish and I started learning about it and I found what that gave me was I mean, besides the part where I have to foot the bill myself to get it published, I had complete creative control, which you don't necessarily have when you're traditionally published, like for me, this book. Actually, both of them, but this one especially had to have this name, had to have this horse on the cover, and I wanted the painting done by the person who did it. These were important to my story in a way that no publisher could understand. You know, the first thing one of the people I talked to said is that I should change the name. No, no, that's the name. I knew the name before I even wrote the book. That is the name of the book and I can see their point, you know, because it doesn't necessarily look like it looks like a horse book. It kind of is. It's also a book about trauma. It's a mental health book, it's you know.

Speaker 2: 48:10

So I put me with some challenges because I had to do it my way, but I think it was really important and that became important for the second book to. Again, it had to be the right picture in the right title. They were both really important to me and so I self published the second one also. My, then I had the experience and you know I and I highly recommend this I had a professionally edited.

Speaker 2: 48:37

I have the cover design done professionally and I have it professionally formatted. I didn't want it to not look like it had been traditionally published. I know not everybody can afford that. I would say as a recommendation, anyone who's going to self publish, as much as you can possibly afford to get those things in there. And that was really important to getting your story told. But that was what I did is just to kind of take the reins and get those things done and that was important to me as I go forward with less personal projects. You know, my next book books. I will possibly try traditional publishing again I'm not sure Just because I kind of like the creative control and all that. It's just you know, it's harder to get your books out there if they're self published, so it's kind of all the crap. Should I spend enormous amount of time with marketing and promotion and keeping social media is up to date and blogging and all of these things that are part of selling books?

Speaker 2: 49:48

even if it doesn't look like it and I'm it's overwhelming, and that would probably be one of the most surprising is just how much of that stuff I have to do and how the results that I get from that aren't necessarily as much as I wish they were.

Speaker 1: 50:08

No, and I thank you for sharing that with you and it's. You know this is something that is really difficult for someone like myself to get this point across, and I think you've made the point very clearly. It's yes, as a self published author, you're going to have more creative control over what goes into your book and how it's. It's, but also you're you're the captain of the ship. I mean, you were. You're the person that lets people know about it. You're also the person that gets media. That you know. If you want to go on an interview or on a podcast or have it a press release put out, or get an interview or on a magazine or a newspaper or, you know, doing all your social media, you're responsible for all of that and unfortunately, even with traditional publishing, we're seeing more and more that burden go back to the authors and writers. You know it's. It is one of those things and you know most people don't understand. It's like I try to tell new authors. It's like sit down and make yourself a budget what you can realistically spend to, you know, to produce this book, because that's going to help you. You know it's like you know if you want to add all these color illustrations and diagrams in there. Well, that's going to more than double the cost of your book, depending on the length. You know if you're doing a children's book, it's like. You know they're shorter, there's less. You know cost involved in that. So, yes, you can go with the added cost. But if it's a longer book that's going to be a problem. So you need to know that size matters. You know it's like there are standard sizes to books but not everybody understands that. If you want to go with an odd size, you certainly can, but it may end up costing you more.

Speaker 1: 51:50

And, as you talked about, you know, having professional editing I think is one of the most misunderstood aspects of writing and publishing a book. You know editors are not just checking punctuation and grammar, they're checking for so much more in a book. They're checking for continuity, for readability, for language. They're they're going to be challenging the author on things that they're saying, whether they're clear, you know to the reader and somebody who is not knowledgeable, or if they are challenging something. Because the worst thing that for me as an editor and coach, as somebody goes here can you add my book and I see a line in their book and I know I can see into the future without being clairvoyant, that at some point in some time they're going to be out of book signing and they're going to be standing up there talking about their book and somebody in the back is going to go.

Speaker 1: 52:47

You know, I'm paid 427, you said, and they better have an answer for it. So my job as an editor is to challenge him on that. You know, before the books published, because that's the point when they can change it or fix it or, you know, foreshadow it or explain it more detail or more fully, because once the books published, to really hard to put that genie back in the bottle. You know, yeah, there's. There's nothing worse than finding new readers who are discouraged at reading your work because it was poorly edited.

Speaker 2: 53:28

Yes, that's a big deal because you, a lot of people will not look at self published books for that reason, because they assume that it's going to be, you know, not edited correctly or proper, just poorly edited. And you know a lot of things that I found when my first book was edited is, you know, my punctuation and that started stuff, my spelling really pretty solid, but just some things with, you know, keeping the story going a few places where I get you know, especially when it's a personal story and I'm writing about my dog and and your editors. Like you know, this is a really sweet story but it's not really moving your story along. You know and I, that first book going through that editing process was hugely educational for me to the point where the second book I was able to present to the editor much, much cleaner.

Speaker 2: 54:18

I could actually hear my editor while I was writing the second book and now she would say to do this, this and this, and I'd go and change the sentence because I had learned from her. You know she understands the style. You know the Chicago style manual. Because my background was mental health, I learned to write a P style, which is different, so it's helpful to have that. Now I'm learning more about Chicago style, but it just it made the second book go so much more smoothly and also need less editing. So I think it's valuable, if you have a good editor, to realize that you can learn. You know this is a learning opportunity that will help you present better books.

Speaker 1: 55:01

Right and you know, and sometimes what we do is, you know, sometimes the information may not always be better offered in chronological order. You know you may want to pull a story out of its chronological order and offer it earlier or later, you know, for impact. That's something else an editor does. But I will give you in the audience a huge tip that I tell all of my clients, whether they are for coaching or publishing or as an editing client. I tell them the best thing where you can do for yourself before you send your book to an editor is read it out loud to yourself. It is amazing the things that your ears will hear, that your eyes will never see, and all the clunky sentences and the word jumbles that we find from the thesaurus.

Speaker 1: 55:57

Yes well sound, create crazy, and it's like and it's a good exercise to, because at some point in time you're going to be asked to read an excerpt of your book and the worst thing you can do as an author is get up there and, in you know, be tongue tied and twisted over saying your own words.

Speaker 2: 56:15

Yes, yes, I will even add to that I've done the reading out loud. I also recommend reading it backwards and because it makes you look at it differently. But on this last book, what was super helpful is on my word program they had like a read function which is like a robotic voice. There's no, you know, inflection or anything but, boy, I caught a lot of things like even just like a repeated word that your eyes will skim over, like it would be reading. It would go the, the, and I'm like what do you mean? The the? You know, sure enough, there's two, does there? So, yeah, it's, it's interesting. You learn a lot.

Speaker 1: 56:50

Well, yeah, and here's the thing is I do notice that when I go to critique groups and people are reading, you know, just portions of their book, they will actually insert words that are actually not there, because they know what they mean and they just are reading and they just automatically insert the words and you're just like wait, that word was actually not there. Can you put that word in there? That made much more sense.

Speaker 1: 57:16

Yes, yeah, definitely so yes the, the, the reading is good and if you're not using word, you can also pull in like different sections of your book into Google translate and have an actual, different voice read it to you. I don't recommend that. That's a little more time consuming. I do appreciate that they are. They are adding the, the voice, talk back or speak back to you. In a lot of these were processing programs because it is helpful especially for that use. I don't recommend that use it or recommend it for people to use if they're stuck, like they're trying to move to the next chapter and they're kind of stuck and they're just like I'm sure where to go next. It's like, well, you know, have the computer read that last chapter to you, you'll know where to go after that.

Speaker 2: 58:03

Definitely yeah.

Speaker 1: 58:05

Alright. Well, I also want to know that you are now working as a midwife. We're in that season where you're still working as a midwife and getting ready to switch over into your promotion season. So you know, how does that change your perspective about things that happened in your past?

Speaker 2: 58:29

I'm going to back up the falling season. The horse midwife is January to June.

Speaker 1: 58:36

See, I'm off here.

Speaker 2: 58:38

So I spend my summers which is what I've done this last summer is promoting a lot of promoting, traveling around, doing book readings and talks and signings and whatever else I can think of podcasts, etc, etc. To get the book promoted. And that's how I like to spend my off season. In my falling season as a horse midwife delivering foals. That goes January to June for us in the northern hemisphere and that is just. It's like a whole other thing but it's interesting. As somebody who loves horses, you know I enjoy delivering the foals.

Speaker 2: 59:23

But what I really enjoy is the time spent with the mayors and the observation and getting to know them and recognizing when their behavior changes. That's a big part of knowing when the mayor is going to fall. A lot of them will do such subtle things. You know like they like to stand. Usually they have a lot of different spots and they're going to stand. Usually they have a favorite spot in their stall and one day I'll go in and the mayor will be standing in a different spot and to me that's a sign something is changing with her. You know I'm going to watch her even closer and they might be as simple as holding their head differently.

Speaker 2: 59:56

You know I used to to joke with the other falling people that you know the mayor's got a funny look on her face. You know I think she's getting close and you know we. That's a joke for us because we know that we see that, but the people, you know the management who's there during the day, they don't necessarily see that and I think we're nuts if we say that. So just that that observation part I really enjoy and the it's very different contrast between the two pieces. So it's it makes it fun and interesting for me.

Speaker 1: 1:00:31

How do you feel like that's changed your perspective, all these things that you're doing now on on your past? I think that it's cheap.

Speaker 2: 1:00:46

I'm not sure how to answer that. I will say that I am doing what I want to do in the way that I want to do it, and that is different than even me a couple years ago, where I, you know, that was part of that discovery of how I wanted to embrace and respect and love myself and you know, I had gotten into a pattern of of going into work for people who didn't appreciate, necessarily, and respect and and we're really good at using my dislike of myself to get me to do that. I'm sorry, I don't want to talk about that.

Speaker 2: 1:01:30

I think we're gonna have to edit that out and backup. I kind of got on the wrong track. I'm trying to think how I want to answer that.

Speaker 1: 1:01:43

Well, I was hoping you would say something about you know how maybe you're, you know, a little more subtle, a little more happy, you know, kind of leave a positive spin on things.

Speaker 2: 1:01:55

Definitely, and yeah, so I will say that doing what I love in a way that I love to do. It is what's happening now and is very important, and it's not something that I would have allowed for myself back, when I was in that state of of being traumatized, of having, you know, living under the thumb of the PTSD instead of learning how to deal with it, and into that place where I just didn't love and respect myself. And so those are the things that are quite a lot different now, and even just in the last couple of years in my life, is how I not only am loving how I'm living life, but loving and respecting who I am, and that's just a big change for me, and so that's a big deal, something we should celebrate.

Speaker 1: 1:02:53

Absolutely, and, of course, we're so happy that you have made it to the other side and that you are thriving. Now, instead of surviving, I want to know what keeps you motivated.

Speaker 2: 1:03:07

Think reaching for that next thing and knowing that I can go there. You know, one of the things I think I had to embrace is that keeping that positive mindset and that belief that I can accomplish the things that I want to accomplish. And it may not look exactly the way that I thought it would, but if I keep that one foot in front of the other with that knowledge that I'm going to reach my goals, it makes it that much better going forward, and I apologize.

Speaker 1: 1:03:49

I lost my train of thought again.

Speaker 2: 1:03:52

Did I answer the question?

Speaker 1: 1:03:53

Oh, you did an amazing job with the question.

Speaker 2: 1:03:58

You're perfectly fine. So yeah, gave her editing.

Speaker 1: 1:04:05

All right. So here on season two of the writer's parachute, we've been focusing on reviews, so we're going to kind of put you on the spot and we're going to ask you to review one of your books.

Speaker 2: 1:04:19

Oh, you met review. That is on the spot, so I'm going to review my second book. I've never been to me and it is an honest, authentic look at yourself and the way that how we feel about ourselves and interact with each other affects the world around us.

Speaker 1: 1:04:52

Awesome. I'm going to give that a five star review. The reason we are putting our guests on the spot here on season two is we want you to know our audience, our listeners, that it's just that easy. Now, it's never easy to write a review about something so very personal as a book that you've written, but here we are doing that and they're doing amazing jobs of giving us these wonderful reviews of their own books. So it's really is that easy.

Speaker 1: 1:05:21

It's your opinion about what you think of the book, what you liked about the book, what you didn't like about the book, who you might recommend it to, who you think would enjoy or love the book. So next time you read a book, next time you buy a book, don't forget to leave a review. This is one of the few ways authors get feedback from the readers. It's also how we are found and discovered by new readers. It's also how we get recommended to readers of other books. The higher ranking you get from reviews will also help you in getting recommendations from readers of other similar books. So don't forget to write a review. You can always go back to the retailer where you purchased your book. If you can't remember where you purchased the book. You can always go to Goodreads and leave a review. So I want to encourage you guys to go out and grab a copy of both of her books Follow me, friend, and I've never been to me will have the links to those in the show notes for you. But, more importantly, read the book. Go leave Cheryl a review of one or both of the books. She will be so excited. And don't forget to share that on social media and go ahead and tag the author. They will be so thrilled that you did so.

Speaker 1: 1:06:42

I have a couple of more questions for you, just simple ones. So where can we find your books? What retailers?

Speaker 2: 1:06:52

The are currently available on Amazon, and I do have them both enrolled in the Kindle limited program Yep.

Speaker 2: 1:07:05

And you can request them at your library and you can request them from your local bookstore because they can be found through them If you ask. And you can also buy them on my website and that is follow me, friend, bookcom. Or you can also just search by my name, cheryl Erickson dot com. It'll take you to the same place. So those are the places, or you can look at me or look for me in one of the places that I like to go to do book signings. So I hope to do more and more of those all over.

Speaker 1: 1:07:41

Okay, great. Well, again, we'll have links to everything in the show notes, including her website, for you. Also, where can readers follow you if they want to follow you on social media? What platforms?

Speaker 2: 1:07:55

I am definitely on Facebook. You can friend me at Cheryl L Erickson or you can go to my path of the Peace Horse page on Facebook, and actually there's a sputter move writer page there too. So if you go to Peace Horse journey dot com, that'll take you to my blog and sputter move writers will take you to my other blog. And as far as the rest of social media, I plan on doing better with that, but currently I'm not there. I have a love well, mostly hate relationship with the rest of those, so but I'm working on it.

Speaker 1: 1:08:36

I'm working on it, so yeah well, I think we all have that. It's just I just tell people you have to recognize as them as being tools to to reach your readers in your audience and just not get caught up in all of the other nonsense that goes on.

Speaker 1: 1:08:54

Like yes, you're not there to be involved in that conversation. You're just there to use the tool as it is, so so we have that. We have the information about connecting with your blogs. Were there any upcoming events or anything else they can download from your website or anything else that you would like to share?

Speaker 2: 1:09:14

Yes, if anybody is in Illinois area Black Hawk College East campus, which is a place that I graduated from when I went to horse school they are having me on September 26 at seven o'clock in their library for a book talk and signing. That is in Galva, illinois. And if you are in Ohio or if you travel to the Quarter Horse Congress, I will be there the 14th, 15th and 16th that weekend to do book signing that day. Those days, I should say, I'll have lots of books available there and I would love to see people and talk to people. And then, if you're in Kentucky, the Louisville Book Festival November 9th sorry, 10th, 9th, 10th, gosh, I'm terrible at dates. Anyway, 9th, 10th, 11th in that area in downtown Louisville is a really great place. There will be tons of authors there and lots of books to buy, and I will be there too.

Speaker 1: 1:10:19

All right, awesome. We'll be sure to go ahead and list all of those events for you. Was there anything else that you wanted to say or include before we go jump over to our tip of the week?

Speaker 2: 1:10:30

I think that's going to be it for me. I appreciate this opportunity and I thank you in advance, everybody, for your wonderful reviews.

Speaker 1: 1:10:40

Oh, amazing, thank you. So we're going to go ahead and jump over for our tip of the week, and one thing that Cheryl and I talked about was vulnerability and a little bit of fear, but also learning the process. So let's talk about the first two a little bit and then we'll get into learning the process. And so vulnerability and fear always comes into play, especially when I talk to authors writing memoirs or personal stories, and it is one of the very real aspects of when somebody says writing is like opening a vein and bleeding on a page. When you're talking about your own personal life, your own personal life history and some of the things that have happened to you or that you've been through, it's very traumatizing and it does bring up the vulnerability and the fear, and that is a natural process. You are opening your innermost thoughts, feelings, emotions and experiences to the world and hoping that they're not going to shred you and I would say 99% of the time that's going to be experienced. People are going to receive your words and your stories in the vein of you're sharing it with them and you're being vulnerable to tell the story. Now there's a few people that are going to be outliers and you can't do anything about them. They're going to be mean, no matter what you say or do or don't do. So I would say, just ignore them and don't worry about them. They'll take care of themselves, and karma is much faster than we are. So that's my opinion on it. But I also want to remind you that oftentimes, when we are fearful or we are feeling vulnerable or we're feeling self doubt, is when we are closest to achieving something good, because, let's face it, if you're failing miserably, you're not worried about it. You don't feel the self doubt because you're just not doing well. It's only when you're succeeding, when you're doing well, when you've almost reached the summit, that the self doubt, the self criticism, the vulnerability, the fear, the defeat they all come into play. So next time that creeps into your psyche when you're working on your book, push it aside and go. Yes, I know I'm winning, leave me alone.

Speaker 1: 1:13:03

The other thing we want to talk about, cheryl mentioned about learning the process, getting from point A to point B, and what we're talking about point A is having the idea for a book and point B being holding that actual finished book in your hands. There are so many paths to getting a book from idea to an actual book in hand. There are so many ways you can approach it. There are so many ways that you can follow the path to get you there, and they all end in the same place. However, there are many rabbit trails to go down and off the track from.

Speaker 1: 1:13:42

So what I would say is go ahead and spend the money or the invest the time to learn about the correct steps in getting your book written and getting your book edited and getting your book ready for publication, and then about marketing and promotion. Those are kind of the five main keys that you're going to want to worry about as they become. You can also hire book coaches, advisors or speak to other authors, talk to people who are knowledgeable in, but the only thing I'm going to say about that is take their advice with a grain of salt, because while their advice may not be the best for you, they may not understand why your book is different from theirs or why your path is different from theirs, simply because your book is different from theirs. So a lot of times, general advice works really good. Specific advice, you may want to seek somebody who has the knowledge that can direct you correctly, which would be a book coach or a publisher or something of that nature to help you through the process.

Speaker 1: 1:15:00

It is a learning curve. I hear this over and over again with new authors or like I don't understand why it's taking me so long to write my first book. Well, the reason is because you're getting an education. You're getting an almost four-year degree in the matter of writing and publishing your book. It is a very daunting, exciting, thrilling education that you will get through the process. Some of it will be good, some of it will be crazy, some of it will be interesting, but you will get there. Give yourself grace, give yourself time and know that your journey does not match anyone else's. It is yours alone and you will get there in the end and we applaud you for every step you take.

Speaker 1: 1:15:49

That's it for us here on the Writers Parachute. Of course, we could talk so much more about everything we've covered here. If you'd like to reach out to us, please do at info at thewritersparachutecom or leave us a comment after the show here. Also, I want to say thank you for Cheryl for being here with us today and sharing with us her story and her books. I encourage you to go out and grab your copy and don't forget to leave a review. As always, I am so grateful and thankful to be the host here on the Writers Parachute, guiding author and writer dreams to perfect landing, and I hope that you find this a safe space for you to land your dreams as well. Until next time, have a great week. We'll see you again. Bye.