Finding Stillness In Facing Past Abuse, Cancer and Loss

Listening to Lisa's story you cannot help but to feel inspired and more connected to your own truth. Her purpose is to allow us all to discover a side of ourselves that we may have silenced long ago and to give us the space to understand that even when the cards continue to stack up against you, there is still a choice to be made. A choice between hope, gratitude and love or loss and despair. She is here to walk along side all of us so that we know that we can always find ourselves even in the hardest of times.

Lisa is one of the kindest and most inspirational guests we have had the pleasure of talking with and we hope you will enjoy!

You can learn more about her journey and work HERE  

Transcript

0:00

Who.

Alli 0:09

Welcome back to the Breaking Silence Podcast. I am so excited that you're able to join us here today. As always, take your time. When listening to these episodes, we know that the content can be a little bit difficult to process in large chunks. So do we need to do breathe through it? But I'm so excited that you are here because I'm joined with Lisa. Lisa is a writer, pilot, childhood trauma survivor and metastatic breast cancer fighter. To put it plainly, she's a force of resilience and passion. Her journey has been shaped by a series of challenges from surviving the shadows of childhood trauma to soaring through the skies as a pilot, but doesn't stop there. As a fighter of istic breast cancer, Lisa has proven time and time again that strength is in the most unexpected places. So Lisa, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Of course. So before we get into the ways that you work with folks and kind of process your story, do you mind just grounding us a little bit in your story and the journey that you've had from all the different sides of being a survivor?

Lisa 1:11

Yeah, sure. My story started at a very young age and, I don't think I actually understood what being resilient meant for most of my life., I think I was just in survival mode. Simply just trying to live through whatever I was going through at the time., And even some cases just stay alive. It usually wasn't a conscious thought to be resilient. And I. Often just wanted to, get through and move past whatever I was enduring at various times in my life. Once I was diagnosed with metastatic cancer, I feel like it was different from any other time in my life. A lot of the other things I went through,, maybe felt like an indirect threat to my life, but this was, a direct threat on my life. And it really. Caused a lot of change in my life for me to evaluate a lot of things. And I think it was only through this past year that I've actually learned how incredibly resilient I've been. I've just chosen to look back on my life and put all the pieces together. I'm writing a memoir and it's been really eye-opening. When I was going through. Each one of these things that happened at the time, they were just an individual thing that I was focused on, you know, getting through at that time. But sitting down and putting all of these events on a timeline and thinking about them in succession really made me realize everything that I've been through and how strong I've been, through it all. And, I didn't realize it. Through any of it at the time it just, I was simply surviving, I think.

Alli 2:55

I mean, abuse is a threat to our life. It's what it feels like. It's what it brings up inside of your body as you are like. If I don't do this properly, like I could die because it's the experience of losing all of your power, of losing every sense of self that is the trigger, right? That's the death part of it is, I've lost self and, but then on this other side, the physical attack on your body, did that. Did it feel different as you realized those differences did certain things show up differently for you, in holding space for those two truths? Yeah

Lisa 3:31

it felt differently that it was, this time of direct attack on my life. But also it was like I didn't have anybody to get angry at. Or, to blame anything on, you know, it was,, it is something that's still happening, which is different from, childhood sexual abuse. There's, a perpetrator, there's a person that caused pain, and I can put all of that somewhere. But, I think that's what's different about this time is that. There's no person that did this and I think that's why it was so different because when I was diagnosed with stage one, I always say I feel like I didn't get the message that time, and stage four deliver the message successfully., But with stage one, I just,, I did what I always did in hard times. How do I push through,, how do I get to the other end of this, the other side of this? And, for me that meant, getting back to flying and getting back to my life. When I was diagnosed the first time my wife was pregnant with our first son and. There was a lot going on. And so for me, it wasn't me thinking about anything other than I wasn't really thinking about any deep healing. I was figuring out how to keep my family afloat, get back to work and support everybody. And that's what I did the second time, with the stage four diagnosis. I was like, okay, I'm listening now. And. I have known my entire life that I have not faced a lot of things, a lot of traumas that happen. And so I started just really digging into all of it I got a therapist. I pretty much refused to do that for most of my life. And, just really started on a healing journey. It's caused me to be the happiest I've ever been in my life. And I've had to rehash a lot of things that were painful. I always say there's a gift in it because the way that I've dealt with everything up until this past year was how do I get through it? Just push through it and forget about it. I don't feel like I was truly living. I just was, I was still in survival mode. And now I feel like my perspective has shifted. I can see what's important and,, it's allowed me to heal. It's allowed, I'm still healing. And it's allowing me to help others. I feel like I've seen a lot, I've been through a lot, and I don't have all the answers, but. I feel like at least I can lend what I know and what I've seen and what I've been through to somebody else. And even if it just helps them to not feel alone in whatever they're going through, then that's to me a success that I've been able to help somebody.

Alli 6:16

Yeah, we can't survive anything being alone, and I think a lot of times, when you're talking kinda what I hear is. There was a sense of you had to be a hero. I think of pilots, maybe it's just my childhood kicking in when you're playing games as a kid and you're like, oh, I'm gonna be a pilot when I grow up. Or a doctor or vet. It has this certain feeling of hero occupation to it because you're

Lisa 6:43

mm-hmm.

Alli 6:44

Guiding us through the skies. Right. You're doing the unthinkable, you're flying. And that sense,, I feel like, was with you very deeply in. The first time it was like, it's fine. I've got it. I don't need to feel this, I don't need to think about it. I can still be the hero, I can be the champion for me, for my wife, for my family. And it sounds like the second time sort of stripped or what you're still battling through, stripped some of that away. Can you just talk about losing the sense of, I have to be a hero, or I have to take this on the chin? 'cause I think a lot of people do that and hold that to be their truth. Yeah, and I think,

Lisa 7:22

I've peeled back a lot of layers, digging into this, but,, therapy has certainly helped. You know, I've been carrying a lot of shame, a lot of guilt, and for everything my entire life. And this just added to it. And, it took my therapist saying, this is not your fault. You didn't cause this. Cracking into the childhood trauma. Like you were just a kid that wasn't your fault. And, the shame that surrounds it, it's not your shame. You didn't do this, somebody else did this. And then with cancer, I don't know why I had shame around it. It was like somebody clipped my wings when I got grounded the first time. And now again,, it's almost like embarrassing as a pilot that I'm not bulletproof,, I'm not a superhero. And that I can't fly. It's like that's what I do. And now I can't do it. I think stripping everything away has been. Painful at times, and uncomfortable. But I'm getting to a place where I'm finally comfortable with myself, and I am, I feel like I'm a better person for it. I feel like I'm a better partner to my wife. I'm a better parent to my kids,, and I'm finally living authentically. I felt being a pilot and at the company. I was working for, I mean, it's a male dominated industry, so that's a whole nother aspect of just trying to like, stay strong, you know, don't, quote unquote, act like a woman and have any emotions and, vulnerabilities. It's just gonna, put a target on you basically. Or, people aren't gonna trust your abilities. But yeah, it's been an uncomfortable journey, but the more that I go through it, the deeper I get into it,, the happier I am. I'm shedding years and years of just carrying all that guilt, all that shame,, and finally

Alli 9:24

being vulnerable. Yeah, I think that's such a common experience for people and we. Know it, but we don't wanna name it as shame or guilt. 'cause I think it feels, I don't know, maybe it sometimes feels childish to feel guilty or shame, that's so much of what we experience as kids. Like, don't do that, do this. Right. Just little shame nuggets or spread throughout our entire lives. And especially on the cancer side, it, and this is true of childhood trauma as well, but. Cancer, to me on the outside looking in is something that you can't control or change getting cancer. And I think similar to victim blaming rhetoric, sometimes we get the message of well, if you did this and if you did this, then you won't get cancer. And I think that's a thing we say to people that are assaulted too. Well, if you didn't do this and if you didn't go do this, and if you weren't wearing that, you wouldn't have been assaulted. There is still. This messaging, I think, on both of those things and what is your advice for navigating some of that as you've experienced them. Even if it's not like literally someone's like, Hey, you gave yourself cancer. But I think when you look things up or even read articles, there's sort of this tone in there that I read sometimes. Do you feel that? And how does that influence what you did experience?

Lisa 10:45

Yeah. I think there's a lot of pressure to. Do what other people want you to do when you have cancer. And even still, I get texts and emails from old coworkers and old friends, like, Hey, have you tried this? You should try this. I've heard it works, you know, it's a miracle drug. Or have you tried drinking this tea? And, it kind of makes you feel like, you've done something wrong. You're always doing something wrong. It's confusing. But I think what I have learned, I've been reading a lot of books and a lot of digging and I wanted to educate myself because I feel like when you educate yourself, it's empowering,, and you don't feel so lost and whatever other people say doesn't really get under your skin as much as well. And so I've just been going through a lot of trial and error, reading various books of people that have radical remission that somehow had stage three and four cancer that,, survived. And,, live to tell the story and not to say that there's any miracle, one thing that's a cure all, but it's interesting And, so I've kind of been taking pieces and parts from what I think. Are beneficial and,, fit my situation, to just kind of help build my treatment plan alongside my doctors. And it's funny, i've been to a few appointments where after I've read some books and changed my diet and just started changing a lot of things about what I was doing, they almost made me feel silly about it. Like, you have control over this and, almost telling me like, you might as well just give up. You're stage four. Like, they didn't say it directly, but that's how I felt. And, I feel like that's doctors treating patients that way is. Almost a sure way to kill somebody's positivity and hope. And I know they try to walk a fine line of being realistic and, not giving somebody some, false hope. But at the same time, something triggered in me that. I need to take control of this. I spent months just crying and feeling hopeless and at some point I was like, no, this is not who I am. This is not who I wanna be. This is not who I want my sons to see. And I can at least give myself a fighting shot and put 100% into it, whatever that means. Whatever I uncover, whatever I find, and I feel that's right for me. And then,. Hopefully in another 40 years, when I pass away, my sons will be like, wow, my mama was, a warrior and she gave it a hundred percent and I hope that's what I want them to see. I don't wanna leave anything on the table. And, so I think doing my own research and finding out what's worked. That's helped me

Alli 13:48

in

Lisa 13:48

many ways.

Alli 13:50

Yeah. I feel like we can say that like for childhood trauma too, of it's what works for you. And there, I think not having like hopelessness, I think it's hard, but balancing between, these are really dark and heavy things,. Sadness and depression and feeling alone and loss. These are all normal and common feelings and I think a lot of times we tend to talk about the hype side of being a survivor. I'm so strong, I'm amazing, I'm resilient., People wanna hear that, right? They don't necessarily wanna hear about how shitty it is to survive these things. And yeah, as you have learned to. Face this at times, hopelessness message with cancer. Have you been able to give some hope to that childhood side of you that I'm sure also received messages of hopelessness along the way?

Lisa 14:46

Yeah, I say all the time I don't know how I'm still alive and you know how I. Didn't end up in jail. It's, I think by sheer luck honestly. But I did, I went through years of just feeling hopeless, helpless, and,, didn't really care much. And I think I pushed limits because I didn't really care what happened to me and I just felt lost. And I was a kid, when I was sexually abused. It was from ages 10 to 14 and. I had issues with my father, like he wasn't really involved in my life. And, my mom was distracted by her marriage and other things, so I just,, I felt really alone and just, did the best with what I had, which wasn't much. And, I tried to be around my friends because I've. I didn't realize it, I guess what I was doing, but it was surviving because anytime I was by myself, I went into that dark place and I couldn't sit alone with my thoughts for more than a few minutes, or it would get bad quick. But anytime I was around my friends, they didn't know what was going on. I didn't tell anyone. I told my best friend after it had stopped happening. But at the time, I was the class clown. And so what. I was probably the last person that they would think were, was going through that. Just because I would act around, my friends and when I was in front of people. But, yeah, that darkness is awful and especially as a kid if you don't have somebody to help you work through it. There was a lot of times where. When I was alone in my room, I would push limits and get grounded for a couple of months at a time, and that was like my worst nightmare. I was in my room by myself for, a couple months at a time sometimes, and I would get to the point where, I wanted to take my own life and, really what I needed, I just needed to be around people. I needed to be around my friends. And all of that would just kind of go away, at least for the moment. But my therapist that I have now has helped me work through a lot. Kind of talking to that little girl that went through all that stuff and,, helping me realize that's in the past it happened and you're safe now and kind of putting my arm around her saying like, I got you. I'm protecting you now. And, now that I have two kids, two boys, that's one of my fears for them is, that they may go through something like that. So I think sometimes that darkness still wants to peek in other ways now. And, sometimes can really. Give me a negative view of the world and I try to pull myself out of that. Like, not everything is bad. Not everybody is bad. And, I certainly don't wanna, be overprotective of them, not let them enjoy their life. I'm still learning, still learning how to deal with

Alli 17:49

it. Yeah. There's that piece of, generational trauma or putting our. Stuff onto people. So many folks in my life have that fear, even if it's from, I don't wanna give them my body image issues, or I don't wanna pass along to my kid this thing that lives inside of me that I'm working on, but it's not complete, and how do you look at that process of addressing generational trauma for many ways, and also with the fact that. Loss is at least a conversation. I'm sure you all have to some extent in your life, in your family of that. Fighting through like cancer kind of puts this perspective of, we're fighting and we're getting through and we have to talk about things now that like we can't wait. It's like this, you can't necessarily wait 30 years to address this generational trauma or make these things. I'm assuming some immediacy comes up in those moments.

Lisa 18:50

I've said that this has been a gift,, because I feel like a lot of people don't get this opportunity. Some people, die in a car crash or, just very quickly or whatever their case may be. They don't get the chance to have a wake up call,, that allows them to reflect and look back and sort of face these things. I have. And so that's been a gift for me in this awful situation is that,, it's highlighted what's important. It's, allowed my wife and I to have open conversations and, we've gotten closer again over this. Yeah, I mean, it's an awful situation, but it's also caused me to in, not really a morbid way, but just think about death and, it's funny that we all tiptoe around it because we're all gonna die. We're all right. You know, nobody on this planet is gonna live forever unless some cool new technology comes out, but, it's allowed me to get comfortable with that again, hopefully way before my time. But, I've had time to process it and think about it and be okay. Yeah. And start clearing these things outta my life so that whenever it is my time, I'm okay. Yeah. I've healed and. Mission accomplished kind of thing, right?

Alli 20:21

So much of life to me and why we're called breaking silence is because it's about talking about things, or at least inviting people into conversations to say, we don't have to continue to let this live in darkness. And I think death is one of those things, right? Abuse, death, trauma, addiction, depression, all these like things we just don't wanna Yeah. Talk about, think about, we shove them away, however. They're probably a part of everyone's life in some capacity and touch you in some way. And there's this isolation that we do by putting these conversations aside. And have you felt a little bit of the isolation and having to talk about this taboo, I'm putting that in air quotes, topic of death, and how do you look at that with your kids and how do you look at that with your wife and how do you look at that for you, as this conversation? His desk really trying to be silenced so much of the time. Yeah.

Lisa 21:18

My son, my youngest son, his birthday is actually today, he's turning one today. Oh,

Alli 21:22

happy birthday.

Lisa 21:23

Yeah. Thank you. My oldest son just turned five, so,, I'm still trying to think of. How to approach things with him. And we've, talked to him about cancer, on his level mm-hmm. And what it means, in a very basic sense. He overhears things,, he knows I have doctor's appointments and I come home,, with a bandaid from an IV or whatever it may be, hospital band. So he's smart enough to pick up on something. So we try to keep things on his level, what we talk to him about, and as things arise, how do we want to approach this together? I think, my comfort with. Death in general,, is different than my wife's and, I can't make her be comfortable with it. Sure., So it's, sort of been a piece of my own journey to get comfortable with it and just be open about how I see it and, how I feel about it. And, I think that's something that. Individually people have to come to on their own. Mm-hmm. Obviously it's not something you can force on somebody to be comfortable with a loved one dying or just the, talking of death. Sure. But yeah, the conversations have certainly changed over the last year. But it's really,, for the most part been me on a journey just coming to terms with things for me. And, I think at first I was really timid to talk about any of these things, but I did it once just a little bit to a friend and it was like, wow, that. Felt good to get that out. And that friend that was actually like very receptive and was like, oh my God, thank you so much for talking to me about that. This happened to me. I was like, oh wow. Like just sharing that little bit with somebody. It's an instant connection that allowed her to open up and her to heal a little bit. And so the more I did it, the more I realized that this is helping people. It's helping me too. It's helping me heal. But it's also helping others. So little by little, as uncomfortable as it was, I just started talking about all of these uncomfortable things more and more. And,, the feedback and the outreach that I've gotten from it has been awesome. And I'm hoping that when my book is done, it's gonna have that same effect and, hopefully help somebody. There's a lot of. Ugliness and darkness in that book, but I hope that they also see the light too in it. Yeah. And,, yeah, it's hard stuff to talk about, but I feel like somebody's gotta start somewhere and why not be me? What do I have to lose at this point? Yeah. And I told my brother that, he. I can't remember what it was, but he asked me if I was scared and I was like, I'm not scared of much anymore. After you hear stage four, there's not really a whole lot to be afraid of anymore. Just go big, go bold, what do you have to lose?

Alli 24:21

Yeah. It kinda, I'm sure it re, it reframes some things that are in life that maybe. Like writing a book, maybe that's been there for you, and it's like, Hey, why not? You know, let's just go forward. Let's just take the steps to make it happen and see what happens. Because you wanna do it. It's about that for you. It's not necessarily about becoming a New York Times bestseller. All those things are great and lovely, but to do it for you is the most important thing. We can do in this life, right? And not compare it or put it in, a space of accolades. And I think that's sometimes what holds us back is I have to be successful in order to do instead of

Lisa 25:04

Just

Alli 25:04

do

Lisa 25:04

it.

Alli 25:05

You know,

Lisa 25:06

I've done that. I feel like I've done that my whole life. Everything that I did I to be attached to successful or I wouldn't do it. I was scared to do it if I didn't know that I could. Do it 100% and be good at it. I didn't wanna do it. And I was afraid of failure always. I think that's something that I've been able to shed more and more. And, I never thought of myself as a creative person, but the more. Healing. I do. And the more I talk about these things, I'm realizing I'm a very creative person. We're all creative, but sometimes it's suppressed because when we're trying to be successful, that tamps all that down, it goes against, you know, keeping an open mind and, letting your creativity flow., Because sometimes there's no mark of success on creativity. It's just creative. But yeah, the book was 100% for me. And I think a secondary benefit would be if it helps somebody that picks it up and reads it one day. And I've been saying for years I wanted to write a book, and I think part of me was scared to do it because it would involve me facing all these things that happened and I wasn't ready to do that yet. So I kept shoving it down saying, oh, I don't have time to do that. I don't have time to do that. But when I got grounded. After the stage four diagnosis, I had a lot of time on my hands. And, the more I healed and the more I faced things, I'm like, I can do this and I will do this. And exactly what you said, this is for me, this is part of my healing journey. And yeah, hopefully it can help somebody along the way.

Alli 26:44

Yeah. And that's, a process you're in, in general, right? People can reach out to you and, you can coach them through difficult moments and you kind of have framed your mindset in a very teachable way. Can you just share a little bit about that and the work that you are doing with individuals and folks that are feeling maybe stuck or lost in shame or whatever they might be carrying?

Lisa 27:07

Yeah, I'm still developing a lot of stuff and just trying to figure out, I think. It's a case by case thing. You know, everybody needs something different. And, I have so many stories and different traumas and different stories of whether it be success or resilience or whatever it is, or wrapped into my entire story that I feel like. Tidbits of that can help different people with different things. I've learned a lot from becoming a pilot and being a pilot. And so it's still a work in progress and I think it, it might always be, and,, it'll always be what an individual needs and what I can do, what I can offer them,, to help. Whatever their situation is, whether it be cancer or they, experience sexual abuse, or if they're just,, struggling through life, with having confidence issues. I learned a lot when I, in, my, flight training years in a male dominated field. So I think there's a lot of nuggets that I can give to people. In D ways, but I feel like, purpose is really important and,, I didn't really know what my purpose was. And I would say for my entire life, in my job, I was also the assistant chief pilot. Aside from my flying role, I had office duties and. It allowed me to help mentor pilots and it allowed me to mentor, girls who are coming up in aviation or minorities, that were struggling to try to break in and,, figure out a way to, to get it done. But I learned stuff all through that,, I think is helping me now, help other people and I just wanna feel like that's my true purpose in life and, I'm just really starting to connect with it and, I feel like for so long I ignored purpose because I was so focused on success and so focused on a path that I had to be successful. I had to make so much money, I had to have a status and, now again, I'm much happier. I'm following. What my life was meant for and,, I hope that I can continue helping people for a long time.

Alli 29:40

Absolutely. We started this conversation talking about resiliency, I have a love hate with the word resiliency. Just as somebody that was called that many times in my life and never felt it, and I understand the context of that word, but as I hear you talk, there's so much compassion and kindness to yourself that's like, yes, that resilience piece is maybe the motivator, but I feel like there's this other thing over here that is this like stillness and compassion, and kindness element. Do you feel like you hold those things simultaneously? Do you feel like they act in tandem and help connect you to certain experiences differently?

Lisa 30:22

Yeah, I think, for so long I've always had,, a compassionate side, but I think I've tamped it down because I've always carried so much pain and suffering that like I didn't know how to deal with it and I couldn't really take on other people, so I just stayed to myself. And, would almost get uncomfortable if somebody else was going through something because I wouldn't know how to fix it. And it's like the whole thing of when you're in an airplane and something goes wrong, put your own mask on first. Now that I've done that mm-hmm. Finally,, it's allowed me to be more compassionate and not turn away from it. When somebody needs help, I run to it now and, it makes me feel better to be able to help people and, yeah, I think I needed to go on my own healing journey before I could help anybody else before I had anything to offer, because for so long it was just survive and, keep yourself alive. How are you gonna help somebody else when you can't help yourself? And, yeah, I think now I'm in that place where. I can help others just because I've been on my own healing journey. And like I have, I feel the same way about the word resilience. It's like I didn't, I never knew I was being resilient. I was just trying to stay alive. You know? I was just trying to survive,, whatever it was I was going through. So, yeah. I hear you. When you have, a love hate relationship with the word, I feel the same way. It's,, yes. But also, I feel like it's. Kind of takes away, what we went through, And some of the impact of what we actually dealt with. We weren't resilient because we had to,

Alli 32:01

you know, it's like what

Lisa 32:02

other

Alli 32:02

choices you have. Right. Exactly. And I think there's ways to, you know, from that not having a choice, feeling comes so many lessons and I feel like that's what you're. Really diving into and wanting to share with so many people. And that is such a gift and I hope that people take that in and feel it and learn as much as they possibly can for the knowledge you have to share. And I will add a link in the description,, to your website. And also as the memoir comes out, please let us know. We'll share that out as well., Before we kind of wrap things up, is there anything else. You want our audience to know or you wanna share in general?

Lisa 32:43

I would say that, you're not alone. Whatever you're going through, somebody else has gone through it, is going through it and sometimes we walk next to each other silent and we never know what somebody else is going through. So also be kind to others and,. If you can be that light in somebody's life, be it, and sometimes it just simply takes saying hello to a stranger on the street or complimenting, I like your shoes, and we never know what somebody else is going through. And that one little thing could brighten their day and, they could be on the edge of, doing something terrible. But that one thing that you said or did for them. Could change at all. So I would say just be kind and, that also means be kind to yourself the same advice you would give your friend. You should take it for yourself when you're going through hard times. We only can do our best with what we have at the time. And I used to carry around a lot of guilt for things that I've done in my past that when I didn't know better when I was trying to survive. But we have to forgive ourselves for things and we were just doing the best that we could do with what we knew at the time.

Alli 34:00

Yeah, that's so powerful. It's the little things. I think a lot of times we want it to be something grand and it's usually just this simple little moment or word or act and it can and does make such a huge difference. So thanks for sharing that. That's very powerful. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for being on the podcast. It's been amazing to talk with you and hear a little bit about your story, and I hope we get to continue to share your incredible message. And, thanks everybody for joining us, and we'll talk to you next time. Bye everybody.