Grief Talk w/ Vonne Solis
As an Author, Angel Healing Practitioner and bereaved mom since 2005, through guest interviews and coaching, I share great content that is informative, inspiring and practical to help anyone who has suffered a loss, or other adversity, manage grief and heal. Topics focus on loss, grief advocacy, grief support, healing, personal growth and consciousness expansion for holistic wellbeing.
Grief Talk w/ Vonne Solis
114 What the Long Goodbye Taught Me About Living, Dying and Loving Again❤️🩹🕊️
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In this deeply authentic and informative conversation, Dr. Nicki J. Monti, psychotherapist, TV & Radio personality, therapist to the stars, world-renowned teacher, author and speaker shares the transformational lessons she learned during the 18-month goodbye as she cared for her husband, Konrad, through his battle with cancer. Drawing from her latest book and personal memoir, The Divine Traumedy of Nicki Joy, A True Grime Tale, she shares her greatest lessons that transformed her speaking directly to palliative caregivers navigating anticipatory grief, emotional exhaustion, and the quiet courage required to love someone to the end.
Dr. Nicki explores her belief that we die the way we live and how caregiving becomes a mirror, revealing our patterns, childhood wounds, and our capacity for presence. She reflects on the humbling necessity of asking for and receiving help, the sacred responsibility of providing closure with our loved ones, living and dying, and the profound love that can emerge in suffering.💛
Most powerfully, Dr. Nicki shares how walking beside death did not diminish her but instead, transformed her in her grief, as she reclaimed her organic voice, rediscovered joy, and allowed herself to love again.
This episode serves as a guide and companion for caregivers learning how to survive the long goodbye, while still choosing life for themselves.
#CaregiverSupport #AnticipatoryGrief #CaregiverBurnout #GriefHealing
#EndOfLifeCare
📣✨ ASK DR. NICKI — Follow-Up Episode
We’re recording a follow-up episode with Nicki J. Monti and this time we’re diving deeper into trauma patterns, imposter syndrome, generational conditioning and reclaiming your organic voice.
Dr. Nicki’s ready to answer your questions!
📢 🆕 Send a text on my new Fan Mail feature at the beginning of this episode’s show notes. Your question may be answered when Dr. Nicki and I record our next episode!
• Where do you feel stuck in a repeating trauma pattern?
• What feels hardest to say out loud?
• What part of your story are you ready to release?
Check out:
Dr. Nicki’s resources:
https://stucknomore.com
Vonne’s resources:
https://vonnesolis.com
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Dr. Nicki Monti 0:00
You know, again, I have so many parts of this that are interesting to me. And one of the things is I want to say about, let me just say this about death, and I'm very committed to this idea until somebody proves me wrong, which will be interesting, and then I'll shift. But I believe that we die the way we've lived. And I've walked or watched and witnessed and participated in a number of deaths along the way of my life, and several of them are in the book. And they have all just been brilliant teachers for me, the deathing piece. And I have yet to meet someone who did not die the way they lived.
Vonne Solis 0:50
This is the grief talk podcast with Vonne Solis helping you heal after loss and life's hardest hits. Today's guest is Dr. Nicki J. Monti, a private practice psychotherapist and world renowned teacher, group leader, speaker, television and radio personality and author of several books, including "Stuck in the Story No More! Breaking Down the Defenses That Define You and Bind You" and "Our Love Matters, Find it, Fix it or Let it Go!". She has long been internationally recognized, both privately and on reality TV, as therapist to the stars. Dr Nicki's main interest is identifying and learning how to dance with the patterns that guide our lives. She's known as a straight shooting teacher who truly believes that change is a matter of choice. Her just released book, "The Divine Traumedy of Nicki Joy, A True Grime Tale" is described as a gritty, witty, provocative, dark sex, drugs rock the boat, cautionary tale about how it's never too late to learn how to love and live.
Vonne Solis 1:54
Actually, audience, I just want to let you know, Nicki and I have just met on this podcast episode. I think we've clicked immediately. Nicki, I want you to pop in for my guests. This is Dr. Nicki Monti, and we have a jam-packed episode for you today. So pop in say hi to my audience.
Dr. Nicki Monti 2:12
Hi, hi. I'm so excited to be here. Yeah, you know, it's like already we're old friends so there you go.
Vonne Solis 2:18
Yes yes, yes. So, so just to confirm, Nicki, you're in LA and so you've been around that scene for really, really long time. Today, what we're going to be talking about is Nicki's latest book, which I love the title, The Divine Traumedy of Nicki Joy, A True Grime Tale. Come on. So I mean, I told, I told you that this was like reading like a movie for me. It was a page turner for me, but also audience, just jam-packed. Nicki is a psychotherapist, world renowned teacher, speaker, TV, radio personality. You have been a therapist to the stars, author. What more can you jam pack into that life of yours? And what you you've got a vibrant, beautiful personality, you can't help but love you from the get go. But here's, here's.
Dr. Nicki Monti 2:19
Not sure everybody's gonna agree with that.
Vonne Solis 2:35
Well, I did. I did, yeah, I did. And but here's what I really appreciated. Two things. One, as I said to you privately, I really, really, really appreciate you coming on my little indie, indie, independent podcast. My my work is passion, as I told as I told you.Purpose, and I keep going with it for messages because no matter how big, how small, I'm all about. If you hear something that helps to change your life and help you heal, then that's why I'm here, and I know it's why you're doing your work, and why all of my other guests do their work. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Dr. Nicki Monti 3:53
It's not, it's not a drop down for me to go on an indie podcast. The work is important. I'm not.
Vonne Solis 4:01
And I, and I appreciate that because one would look at maybe your your bio, and kind of go, which I did, ooh, wow. Why would she want to come and talk to me. Little old me. And so I have my own issues of, you know, feeling secure and confident. And that brings me to my second point. As a psychotherapist, just as who you are, I so appreciated you going so deep and vulnerable and raw in this book, and you laid it all out. And as you say, there's stories you didn't tell, but it's not about the stories as much as it is about you being so honest and truthful about your feelings and the struggles you've had loving yourself, and other things. I guess, developing confidence, whatever. You're going to talk about that. So the reason I thought your work was so important to come on Grief Talk is you have extensive experience, and we're here to talk about your long goodbye with your husband who passed away in remind me, was it 2022?
Dr. Nicki Monti 4:48
2020.
Vonne Solis 4:48
2020, and the 18 months. There was an intense 18-month period that you were by his side through his his cancer journey, and he eventually passed away. He was, you know, the love of your life, and you and
Dr. Nicki Monti 5:23
Not really.
Vonne Solis 5:24
He wasn't? He wasn't the love of your life?
Dr. Nicki Monti 5:26
No, I'm now with the love of my life.
Vonne Solis 5:28
Oh, you're with the love of your life, okay, but at the time, did you think you were?
Dr. Nicki Monti 5:31
Remember, because at the end, remember, that's my happy ending.
Vonne Solis 5:34
I know it's you're happy ending. Did you think he was the love of your life when you were with him?
Dr. Nicki Monti 5:39
I, I did not know. I was just, I was just looking at this piece again because I'm about in March to do a TEDx talk, which is, I'm super jazzed about and, you know, it's a big, it's a big platform. And I
Vonne Solis 5:57
Yes.
Dr. Nicki Monti 5:57
I'm going onto that platform and hoping that that'll lead to lots of other kinds of things too. But at the time, I did not know that I was capable of full commitment to love with a primary partner. I was capable of commitment to unconditional love with my clients.
Vonne Solis 6:24
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 6:24
But they're here. We do the thing, and then they're hello, goodbye and and I was very fervent and passionate about that. And I was and I thought love beautifully. But I did not feel love the way I believed other people felt it. And I thought, Oh, well, you know. You know, when we're sort of psycho-spiritual kind of people, and we've done all the things that you've done, and many, you know, the things that I've done in terms of seeking and working with, you know, multiverses and whatever we we have all kinds of language that gets us off the hook, right? And we will use that language. So, for instance, in my case, I told myself, you know, well, you know, that's just not my path. You know, that's just not my way, which is so nonsensical. I mean, first of all, you know, I love when people say I'm not on a path. I know I'm veering, but here we are already.
Vonne Solis 7:25
Yeah, no talk about that.
Dr. Nicki Monti 7:26
I know I'm not on a path. You know I'm not on my path, or I want to be on my path. You can't not be on your path. You're on the path you're on. When you're on it, then you can step over to a different path or whatever. But there's no such thing as not having somewhere to walk. You've got to walk on something. Either it's a lousy foundation or it's very fragile, or it's powerful, or it's whatever it is what is. Anyway, I told myself that because I had worked so hard on self-love and other love, and self-acceptance and other acceptance, and freedom from judgement and complaint and all the things which I was had gotten pretty good at, except when I wasn't. Which is, you know, always my way of saying things, because I think, you know, we are except when we're not. And so I, I loved Konrad as much as I was able to love a person who was in my bed and in my head at that time.
Vonne Solis 8:33
Okay.
Dr. Nicki Monti 8:34
And but what I, what I've discovered since, which is phenomenal and shocking is that there was, there was that other piece that was able to feel it in my body too. And I was, I've been very embodied for a long time.
Vonne Solis 8:53
I'm glad you said that. I'm glad you set the context for that because part of this talk, if we it'll work its way into it, I'm sure, is this notion of we think we've got the best we've got at the time, but we're denying ourselves so much, right? And so essentially, I, I want to get to the part so we know your happy ending in your book is that you you got your beautiful love story and whatever, but having Konrad in your life for the decades you did and then what you went through with him set you up to recognize that and embrace and actually manifest into your life what you currently are living.
Dr. Nicki Monti 9:42
Exactly.
Vonne Solis 9:43
And that's what you want to help the folks with.
Dr. Nicki Monti 9:45
That's correct.
Vonne Solis 9:46
Okay, so we got that, and so let's turn to it. Actually, I just want you to start where you kind of want to start. I know that you love talking about and are here to talk about the long goodbye. So if you want start with things about how that transformed you. And I do have an audience segment that's very interested in spousal death and support for them. And so if you want to just start, wherever you want to start, I'm here to just listen, Nicki.
Dr. Nicki Monti 10:19
Okay. The, you know, again, I have so many parts of this that are interesting to me. And one of the things is I want to say about, let me just say this about death, and I'm very committed to this idea until somebody proves me wrong, which will be interesting, and then I'll shift. But I believe that we die the way we've lived. And I've walked or watched and witnessed and participated in a number of deaths along the way of my life, and I put several of them are in the book, and they have all just been brilliant teachers for me, the deathing piece. And I have yet to meet someone who did not die the way they lived. The jubilant die jubilantly, so to speak with the pain and the you know, whatever.
Vonne Solis 11:19
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 11:19
The the complainers die complaining. The people who isolated and didn't let love in die alone or lonely, even if they're not alone. And it just is over and over, and it's been quite brilliant to watch. You know, the codependent people die worried about how everyone else is doing in the room. It's amazing. And I've seen this over and again. Konrad died exactly the way he lived. What was different was me in the experience. And by the way, he was much better at dying than I was at watching him die. He was much better. And and at the time I really, I did, found I couldn't, I didn't want to talk to people in my life about it, because I thought that I would go into total collapse. And you know, we started before covid, and then we were in covid, and so there was all those layers of fabulosity, you know, with regards to the medical profession during that time.
Vonne Solis 12:29
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 12:31
So that was interesting. But he, you know, he his, his actual death story, and, you know, and I start with it in the book. I give a glimpse of it, and then when it actually happened, I give a longer story about it. But, I mean, it's not a secret that is that was the impetus to write the book in the first place, was to deal somewhat with what was going on in me, but also to share about this, you know, what happens to the caregiver? What happens because the because the patient has one thing to do, which is to try to, in his case, to try to get better.
Vonne Solis 13:12
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 13:12
Right? And they have a very specific purpose. And there's so much powerlessness on the caregiver side. You know, there's just so much powerlessness. And...
Vonne Solis 13:24
A thought just a thought, just coming to me though Nicki on that. So when you just said it's the patient's job to get better, and my...
Dr. Nicki Monti 13:31
If that's what they want.
Vonne Solis 13:33
That was exactly what I was gonna say. And so doesn't that play a huge part of it too?
Dr. Nicki Monti 13:38
Absolutely.
Vonne Solis 13:39
When you're seeing and they just really want to allow themselves to transition, to get ready to transition to actually die?
Dr. Nicki Monti 13:46
Yeah, no, not Konrad. He was not that. He was...
Vonne Solis 13:46
So he was he a fighter, and he wanted...
Dr. Nicki Monti 13:52
Oh! Not only was he a fighter, but he was absolutely incapable of believing that he was going to die. He was like, you know, I remember just a few. I don't know if this was in the book or not, because, again, it's too many details.
Vonne Solis 14:07
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 14:07
I already questioned myself about how much detail there is in the dying process, you know, and in what happened right afterwards. And I really put that in. I cut a lot of it, but I put that in as much as is there, because I wanted to communicate that the caregiver is, you know, that it's not like, Oh, I'm just wonderful and I'm an angel in this process.
Vonne Solis 14:34
Oh, yeah, no.
Dr. Nicki Monti 14:35
And I've been a good person, so I'm a good person now, and I don't have any problem with it. And then he goes, and then we just do this funeral, and then it's on with life. It doesn't work that way. And and I was prepared. And this is the funny thing, you can't be prepared. I don't care how prepared you are for birth, it's a surprise. I don't care how prepared you are for death. It's a surprise.
Vonne Solis 14:58
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 14:58
I don't care how much you are prepared for a big shift, how hard you've worked for it, it's a surprise.
Vonne Solis 15:06
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 15:06
When I got to the other side of self-loathing and into self-love, I was, how did this happen? Oh, decades of hard work, okay, but still.
Vonne Solis 15:16
Here's a here's a question for you. And I have to just ask you personally, because again, you may have alluded to it in the book, but it's filled, jam-packed with so much and and you go back and forth. So I just want to clarify. How much self-loathing were you feeling still with your decades of work at the time you were going through this 18 months with Konrad, and did it shift?
Dr. Nicki Monti 15:40
Yeah, yeah. I wasn't feeling self-loathing. I just wasn't feeling, uh, like I was the angel at his side I should have been, you know. I would, I would confuse the illness with the man.
Vonne Solis 15:56
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 15:57
He was also, he had chemo brain at the same time he, you know, which is very foggy. He was, he had some dementia. He started having some, you know, delusions. And but the whole time it was, I mean, I think it was a month or something, so the last month when I said, Hey, honey, I'm thinking about selling your truck.
Vonne Solis 16:20
Yeah. I remember that part. Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 16:22
And he said, Well, I don't think so. That's not a good idea.
Vonne Solis 16:26
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 16:27
He up and,
Vonne Solis 16:28
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 16:29
Okay.
Vonne Solis 16:31
At this point was he becoming, I don't really want to use the word delusional, but like, just you say what you want to say, because I remember vividly that part in in the book. You saying that you wanted to sell it, and this was kind of near his dying, wasn't it? And so it was obvious that he was never going to drive the truck again.
Dr. Nicki Monti 16:54
It wasn't obvious to him.
Vonne Solis 16:56
That's why
Dr. Nicki Monti 16:57
He would have limerent moments and that was different. That was different where he would, you know, he had death visitations and things like that.
Vonne Solis 17:04
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 17:04
But I thought they were visitations. But, you know, the psyche prepares us for dying decades sometimes, but certainly years in advance, and we start to have these dying dreams. And you know, where people come and have conversations and that's kind of, that's kind of brilliant, but he didn't really, he did not really clock it that way. He wasn't, he was an exterior, you know, he was a historian.
Vonne Solis 17:31
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 17:31
As, you know, but not of his own life, and and he was interested in what was going on in the world, not inside himself. And so we were very different in that way. I was like, whatever, and I was all about the inside. So um
Vonne Solis 17:31
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 17:35
And then we met somewhere. Well, I met I met him.
Vonne Solis 17:53
You met him where you needed to meet him.
Dr. Nicki Monti 17:56
Where he needed, where I needed to meet him. But he was, that was one of the frustrations. So I was carrying, from my point of view, I was carrying this. Not only was I dealing with being the nurse I never wanted to be EVER in my life. I'm really needle, I'm very empathic, and I feel people's they describe their pain, and it goes through my body. But I'm also, I also just didn't, I'm needle-phobic. You know, it was never a good thing for me. So, but here I am, and you do what you what you're supposed to do. You have to do but, and I wanted to do it well. I wanted to be and, you know, I had a lot of frustration with him over the years, and so now I wanted to drop that, and I wanted to be fully present. And, you know, I was, except when I wasn't. And I had this brilliant friend that I talk about and a mentor in the book now.
Vonne Solis 18:50
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 18:51
She's, she's dead as well. A couple of years ago, she died, and she would that was her main thing in life. She'd been a psychotherapist a long, long time ago, but she was a high intuitive, high intuitive. And she was, you know, she could, she was far-seeing, and would see places she'd never been to and describe them absolutely. But she, well, that was her whole thing. Was walking people into death. They would call upon her to work with them and be and so they were transitioning beautifully. But anyway, I called her, and, you know, you read about this in the book. Her name was Carolyn Conger. She was, she was extraordinary, and she said, but also very practical in her way. And I said, I want to be better. I get mad at him, and I yell at him, and and then I feel terrible. And I want to, you know, and I'm going along at the time. I'm a good girl. And she's I said, but I want to be better. And she said, No, absolutely not. Be the, have the relationship you've always had. And what I heard her say by that was, live until he dies.
Vonne Solis 19:54
Oh, my God!
Dr. Nicki Monti 19:54
You don't pretend to be something that you're not, and it's not real. Be real with him. And so it funnily enough, as soon as she said that, I chilled out. I was less anxious and less angry and less complaining inside myself about it all, and I was really tired. I was running my practice. I had shifted to Zoom because of covid, which was a blessing for me.
Vonne Solis 20:21
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 20:22
And I was, you know, feet away from him at all times. And I was, I had, I didn't sleep for basically two years. And so I was very, I mean, you know, more or less. I was, it was, it was hard and all these extra people in my house, when I finally started allowing caregivers in, was I did the first leg his first cancer was throat cancer, and then I brought people in for the other cancers. It was just I couldn't. It was too much and it was right to bring people. So one of my great transformations, one of the great gifts he gave me in his dying process was the ability to really receive help. Really receive help because I had all my life been that "I got to do it myself", girl, and I'm going to make it all work, you know? And I did very well doing that, but it forbade commitment to deeper love. Yeah.
Vonne Solis 21:28
What you're saying, I just want to stop for a quick second. You've made two really, really good points that I also want to just really briefly say to the bereaved parent or anybody else bereaved audience, so have the relationship you had with them. In your case, it was with Konrad while he was, you know, getting ready to die. But also, we can beat ourselves up with all the things you just talked about mad at yourself as the living caregiver. So we can feel all those things when our child has died for years and decades. But when you read, when I read that in your book? Now, I had already started to kind of forgive myself, and I am a mom, but for years and years and years, I lost my daughter audience to suicide in 2005 when she was 22, I beat myself up for being such a bad mother, right? You can't have been a good mom if you know you lost a child to suicide. And so anyway, fast forward to what you said. I was like, Wait a minute. That's probably why she chose me as a mom and loved me as the mom, all the craziness? Like, I didn't do anything wrong. I was me. And so thank you. Thank you, Dr Nicki, because that was a huge, huge piece. And also for people watching this and and reading your book. Watching or listening to this and reading your book, where you give a lot of detail, be yourself. That is, it's a huge piece, and that's me living with bereavement since 2005 as a bereaved mom. So I really, really, really love that. And also I just wanted to say what a gift he gave you by being able to ask for help.
Dr. Nicki Monti 23:12
Yeah. That he that I was able to ask for help. I know. It was amazing. You know, the funny thing is, and I think it's I, I think it's a riot in its own way. You know, I find a lot of humour in the dark, but...
Vonne Solis 23:27
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 23:29
That you know talk about dying the way you lived, right?
Vonne Solis 23:33
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 23:33
Because I say this to young people, too. So I said, you know, if you want to be, I mean, what do you what do you want your death to look like? What do you want to be remembered for? I sometimes have people write their obituary and then work backwards towards what, towards what they say they want people to say about them, you know, when they die. Because it's you know, we don't, it's not automatic A, you know, age does not automatically bring wisdom.
Vonne Solis 24:04
No.
Dr. Nicki Monti 24:04
This is a misunderstanding. You have to seek wisdom. You know...
Vonne Solis 24:07
Agree.
Dr. Nicki Monti 24:08
it doesn't just land on you suddenly at a certain age.
Vonne Solis 24:11
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 24:11
But when, you know, Konrad woke up the morning of his death on the 26th and he said to the caregiver that was the our main person, and she was, you know, had become part of the family, basically, and she, she said, he said to her, this was in the morning. He said, I don't think I'm going to make it through the night. Don't tell Nicki. Okay. Like so Konrad. I know what he was doing. He thought he was and he always got this a little, you know, he really did always get this wrong. He wanted to protect me. He was the protect and serve guy. He was a warrior. He was to protect and serve. But he was always protecting me around things I didn't need protection around. So here's the protection path, and he was always walking right there beside and never quite (indecipherable) or as somebody likes to say he was throwing down capes where there were no puddles. I mean, just like, no, what do you mean? Don't tell Nicki. A, I'm gonna notice.
Vonne Solis 25:14
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 25:15
B.
Vonne Solis 25:17
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 25:18
Why would you rob me of this? You know, rather than being on my Zoom call with a client, being with you the whole time, you know. So when I went into him, and I said, I, you know, and she, she suffered, this woman, this character, her name is Debbie, and she suffered over. Do I tell Nikki? Do I honour the client? Do I, you know, what about my patient? What do I do? It's like, No, there's no doubt. So finally, she came in and she tells me, I need to tell you that. I said, fantastic. Thank you so much.
Vonne Solis 25:51
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 25:51
You understand come in is like, three minutes. We're it's not even a second away. This isn't like, I don't have a four winged house.
Vonne Solis 26:01
Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 26:02
And so.
Vonne Solis 26:03
I forget Nicki. Did, did you ever tell Konrad that Debbie told you? I don't think that you...
Dr. Nicki Monti 26:08
No. What I did was I went, I called my assistant, you know, who books my clients sometimes and all that. And I said, he's virtual, but he's been with me for 15 years. And I said, shut everything down. And it was a call he was waiting to hear. I said, shut everything down and he said, okay, got it. And so I went in, and I got in bed with Konrad. He was, you know, he had gone from 200 and I don't know, 40 pounds or 30 pounds to 80 pounds at that point. And so I got in and I, you know, we I would snuggle up to him for a little time each evening before I went up to bed and escaped into my,
Vonne Solis 26:08
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 26:08
upstairs room. But anyway, and I snuggled up and I said, I have good news and bad news, and they're the same news. And he said, What's that? I said, I'm going to be with you all day and all night. He said, Oh, and he gets this little smile, and he said, Oh, that is bad news.
Vonne Solis 27:04
Yeah, I remember reading that you said that. What a brilliant way. I'm hearing and tell me if you're actually delivering this as a message or not, or it's all a personal decision. But I personally would want to know, too. So if anyone's watching this or listening to this, and you know, are struggling and has a caregiver, and and your whoever is is passing, has said something like that, but don't tell them. I would, I would want to know, too.
Dr. Nicki Monti 27:31
Yeah.
Vonne Solis 27:31
Right?
Dr. Nicki Monti 27:32
Most people are not that aware. I mean, here's a guy who protested the whole time, and he's going to be driving his truck any minute, you know, and, and he was so perky with other people. And so I don't know even that people knew. I mean, I told them, you know, he is, yeah, you know, all along the way. But then it was also covid, so people were didn't want to come because they were in a thing, and they were there. He was so immune compromised. Anyway.
Vonne Solis 27:57
Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 27:58
So he didn't even have that many people who would come anyway, but he did. But they came.
Vonne Solis 28:04
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 28:04
So he, when he said that, and yes, that was, that was. And of course, I was, I was with him, but, and yet. And of course, I had a plan, because I'm not giving up. I am the do it all person, mm mm kind of, sort of, so I have plan. It's going to be this beautiful ending where I'm holding his hand and whispering.
Vonne Solis 28:28
The movie.
Dr. Nicki Monti 28:31
And, of course, and I dedicate all this time to him and and of course, he's as many as you know, many, many people do you know, their whole family will be there, and it's very common for everyone and finally, they manage, you know, like, oh, everybody's gonna go eat a quick bite. And because they say the patient sees dying they're only chance and da da da da da... and that's when they go, because they now want to be alone when they go. And there's no question that Konrad did not want me to see him. He thought it was protecting me to just go while I was out. I got up for what. two minutes to go get coffee and go to the bathroom.
Vonne Solis 29:19
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 29:19
And I came back, he was dead. And what was, what was great. Again, such a beautiful, such a purposeful ending he was getting. He had a shaved head, and so Debbie had this ritual every week. She'd shave it. So she was shaving his head and doing all the things. And she was rather busty, as am I. And so that way he loved that. And so, you know, everybody says he went the way he wanted to with a big-busted bonnie shaving his head, and he was purring when he went. And it's, that's what I'm saying, you know, and he was so kind through the whole end, you know, and, and he would, he was just, he was just really kind, then. And he had come from being very, very, he was a, he had a lot of rage in him, and he had a dreadful childhood, and so, and he, you know, he had finally gone to therapy. He was 20 years sober when I met him, but he wasn't sane. And so he he had, he ended up doing four years of therapy, but it was like a good beginning.
Vonne Solis 30:35
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 30:36
But it wasn't a cure so to speak. He wasn't really in management. But in this experience, there was a gentleness. He must have known the whole time. The other thing that I did, that I strongly recommend, is we had very different spiritual beliefs. He was raised a Catholic. He he left the Catholic church because they stopped doing the mass in in Latin. That's how Catholic he was.
Vonne Solis 31:02
Wow.
Dr. Nicki Monti 31:02
Ritually-oriented. And we really were in very different places, spiritually. So when, but we talked about death in the month, you know, the last six months certainly of our relationship. And he was very, I don't know what I would say, superficial in the way he could discuss things. He just would not go to certain places. He would go to it briefly, and then not do any really, dig deeper, deep. But I said to him, what do you what do you think hap, what do you think happens after we die? You know, and that's in the book. And he said, Well, I don't. He said, Well, I think, you know, people go to heaven, but I'm not going there. And I, you know, why not? Well, you know, because, and I don't think this ruins the book. You read it again and you hear it differently, right? But he said, Well, I've just done too many bad things. And I said, Well, you know, to me, you've lived a men's filled life, you know? I don't, you know, I don't think that that would be. He said, Well, maybe I'll go to purgatory. And I said what I believe. I said, I think we're in Purgatory. This is where we make our decisions about the good and bad of it all. How we're going to be or how we're going to greet our humanity, I think. And I don't know that I said it all that way at the time, but.
Vonne Solis 32:29
Yeah yeah. So for you, that's kind of what the opportunity was. Is you could change it. You can change your experience of transitioning, dying.
Dr. Nicki Monti 32:36
Yeah, or living and, yeah.
Vonne Solis 32:40
Yeah. Well, true, but I'm thinking, you know, what Nicki? I always think about, well, not always, but I live life like how I want to, I'll just say, be greeted at the pearly gates. I'm very spiritual so obviously I know that we transition, but I am of the belief we do have a life review, and I want it to be great. You know? I don't want any boxes unchecked. So that's how I live my life. So that's not what we're here to talk about, but what you're just saying.
Dr. Nicki Monti 33:10
But I'm not sure what great means.
Vonne Solis 33:12
Well, for me, what's great for me, which means having things not left unsaid. There's been too many deaths, so to take the higher road. To not choose conflict in my partnership. Not to keep working on myself for the other person, but to be the best I can be for me. So that's it. Like, that's what I mean.
Dr. Nicki Monti 33:31
Yeah, I agree.
Vonne Solis 33:31
And, and so but I don't want to be struggling with regrets on my deathbed.
Dr. Nicki Monti 33:35
Yeah.
Vonne Solis 33:36
Simply said if, if I should go on my deathbed. So.
Dr. Nicki Monti 33:40
Yeah. But the thing that I the thing that I was going towards is this conversation around bringing in people who were more on his conversation wavelength, so to speak, which is what I did. You know, there was a priest that started working with him, and he was just fantastic. I just dug this guy. And he was such a lovely and it was just (?). You know, it was really meant to be that this particular, I found him in the, you know, priest near me, kind of thing.
Vonne Solis 34:12
Wow.
Dr. Nicki Monti 34:13
It was, and he was so fantastic. It's, what do I know? You know, so I went to local I call contacted a local parish, but and he was brilliant, brilliant and perfect, and they laughed and they talked about them, whatever. And in the final analysis, I was part of that process. I began, I went and did a ritual with them that was not my ritual. It was it, but it became our ritual and and the same thing with Debbie. She was very Catholic, and so she had conversations with him that I was not going to have with him. It just wasn't going to happen because it wasn't my deal. Though we had some crossover beliefs, mostly, you know, it wasn't my specific, which is fine. But the point is, we looked death. I looked death in the eye with him, whether he liked it or not, you know?
Vonne Solis 35:08
What you're what you're saying again, is so important. So people out there listening. It's not, here's what I'm hearing, in a way. That the caregiving experience, his his your role as a caregiver, his role as the person who's dying, okay? It's not really about you, it's about him. And so for you to do that and bring him people to converse with. The priest and so on, because you couldn't give him that, but you're honouring that part of him. Your differences. I think that's brilliant. And I don't know how many people do that, honestly.
Dr. Nicki Monti 35:34
I don't know either, because, you know, to the end, we're like, think the way I think. Or not.
Vonne Solis 35:51
Okay, so actually, you know, so now I'm remembering that, that you've said that, and my brain has never thought of that before. But I will remember that, because if I ever found myself in that situation. It's not about me. It is to a point, but that has to be also about them.
Dr. Nicki Monti 36:06
But it really isn't, you know, and, and I, you know, and, and again, you know, Konrad was so grateful, in all the things in but it was, it was really hard. So meanwhile, he's 87 right? So he's got a little dementia happening. And here's, I'm watching this brilliant man, kind of, you know, cover when he can't remember things, as everybody does one way or the other. And so it's, it's, it was even there was a lot of, there was sadness. And I, I felt badly for him and but, and so I did all I could to stay stabilized. And one of the things I did, PS, and this is in the book, is that after the first cancer and the other cancers came in, we had this two months off, which looked like we were going back to business as usual, but it didn't because he had all these new cancers rush in.
Vonne Solis 36:58
Wow.
Dr. Nicki Monti 36:59
And one thing I did during that time is I reached out, and now here we are on Zoom here. Now all of my mentors, teachers and most trusted people are dead at this point, so at the point of this story. And so except for Carolyn, who was still alive in and but so I reached out online to find a what, I think what I looked up was spiritual therapist or something like that. And I found this amazing Englishman who's living in Spain, which only in the world today could that happen.
Vonne Solis 37:41
I looked him, I looked him up.
Dr. Nicki Monti 37:43
He's wonderful. He's so great. He really is. And he's doing a lot of work. He's got online courses, anyway, he's still, he's still fabulous. And he was fantastic.
Vonne Solis 37:55
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 37:55
He was, he was, he stood in truth and compassion simultaneously, which is quite the art.
Vonne Solis 38:02
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 38:02
And, and, so I was having help with that, you know.
Vonne Solis 38:07
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 38:07
That whole time as well for...
Vonne Solis 38:09
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 38:09
I think the better part of a year of that, 18 months, or maybe it was 10, I don't know, whatever.
Vonne Solis 38:16
Yeah. So I love that. I love that you took care of yourself.
Dr. Nicki Monti 38:19
Well, yeah, it was take care of myself, or there's going to be nobody here to take care of him, because I was a mess. And then the other thing that happened, because I have the gift of being able to work with other people who are in their struggles, or not really, most people, you know, I often know people come in and say, I'm struggling with anxiety. And I say, Well, what are you doing about the anxiety? No, no, I have it. I said, Well, that's not struggling. Struggling is an action. You're not taking any action towards it you're not struggling. You're just giving into it. But anyway, but so I I had in order to work with others during that time in the center of being, feeling so depleted and powerless and all the things we feel as caregivers, I was, I had to jump over those feelings in other in order to do really beautiful work. And I actually think my work soared during that experience.
Vonne Solis 39:21
Wow.
Dr. Nicki Monti 39:22
So soared in terms of flight, not in terms of pain.
Vonne Solis 39:26
Yeah, yeah, no, I got it, yeah, yeah for sure.
Dr. Nicki Monti 39:30
I just, words are important to me.
Vonne Solis 39:33
Soared, flew.
Dr. Nicki Monti 39:35
It had to, because if I was just, otherwise, everything would have derailed me. And then, then it's not about the the the client or the the receiver, it's about the giver. And that's not a good thing.
Vonne Solis 39:51
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 39:52
For anybody. And so I it was really an extraordinary, transformational period. The other thing that happened that, cause I do believe strongly, as you know in the book, is that we have exactly what we intend to have, whether we know it or not.
Vonne Solis 40:08
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 40:09
And if we don't know we intended this, the first thing to know is we have created this, or co-created anyway, with the Universe.
Vonne Solis 40:15
Totally agree. Totally agree.
Dr. Nicki Monti 40:18
So there was a point at which I decided, I mean, my house was just trashed. I had had so many terrible things, really, during, you know, rats. And...
Vonne Solis 40:31
Yeah, yeah, that was...
Dr. Nicki Monti 40:32
rats and things. And it was just like, oh, for the love of God. And, and it was interesting, because I had these rats, and the rats came when Konrad got sick, and they did not, I did not finally get completely rid of them until he was dying. I mean...
Vonne Solis 40:47
Yeah, that was you talk about that in the book, and how you ultimately had the garden all ripped up and the wall built and all that.
Dr. Nicki Monti 40:54
Yeah. Yeah.
Vonne Solis 40:55
But do you, here's a question for you. Do you think there? Well, what were the rats a metaphor for for you? Or were teaching you because following up on your creation, right?
Dr. Nicki Monti 41:09
Yeah.
Vonne Solis 41:10
Why would you create the rats?
Dr. Nicki Monti 41:12
Well, first of all, there was synchronicity, you know, which I think is a really important concept. You know, people say, oh, you know, it's just coincidence. Well, coincidences, two incidences happen at the same time. It doesn't mean there's no purpose in it. There's purpose in it. So in a more elegant way, we call it synchronicity. And synchronicity is a conversation about, to me, is a conversation about the Universe reflecting the collaboration that we have with it. And that it, there is a there is a procedure, a plan, a map, a diagram. We don't know it. We don't we don't have the we're too small to know it. But there is one. And so and a reflection of ourselves. So if we're surrounded by complainers, guess what? We got to look at the complainer in us. If we're surrounded by kindness, we get to look at the kindness in us, whatever. But so the rats were, for me, the the metaphor of the of the kind of the the dirty stuff that was unrecognized. That remained unrecognized in me, in us, in our relationship. The the the challenges that were kind of hidden in the dark and nibbling it away at us. And, and so well in whatever estrangements and whatever, hesitations and all of that, and they were just and they're, they're an instinctual part in a lot of ways, because they operate instinctually, right? You know where they're going, how they're getting in, they get in. They're tenacious. Rats are so tenacious. Unbelievably. Yeah, yeah. It was really, it was really, really interesting and horrible. I mean, horrible.
Vonne Solis 43:06
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 43:06
Rats. You know, who wants a house of rats? No.
Vonne Solis 43:09
Right.
Dr. Nicki Monti 43:10
I think maybe there's someone somewhere, and probably they're not eever going to be my best friend. But anyway, so, but, but this was going on, but how did we get on to that?
Vonne Solis 43:21
Well, I just, we were just talking about that, but that, that's a little bit of an aside, but you can read all about that in Nicki's book about the rats, because what the things you know.
Dr. Nicki Monti 43:30
And how things reflect us and and all. Oh, I know. So at one point, I was like, this house is a mess. I mean, everything is just horrifying. Also, Konrad was a hoarder, so that was not helpful. He called it collecting.
Vonne Solis 43:46
Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 43:47
He wasn't collecting it's hoarding.
Vonne Solis 43:49
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 43:49
And so we had a garage floor to ceiling filled with junk. So anyway, I said, I've got to everything's been ripped up. I have no this. I financially just, you know, this is killing me, because I had a long term-care policy, but it didn't kick in for five months, and it was all out. Everything was out of pocket. So finally, I was getting myself financially more, a little more on my feet, and I really wanted, as I said, I again, I looked up psych spiritual muralist, you know? And in LA, there's people. There's so many beautiful artists in LA. And I found this fellow. He was so perfect for me, and he came in to do this mural in the backyard.
Vonne Solis 44:39
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 44:40
And it was, it took forever because he would just work with me on Saturdays, because I was, you know, he was kind of,
Vonne Solis 44:48
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 44:48
we, we, you know, had a great spiritual romance, and we just did that, and I knew him, and he knew me, and so he was, you know, doing important, really important, very wealthy people and me.
Vonne Solis 45:05
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 45:06
I've been very blessed that way. So, but he was doing it slowly, and he was doing all these, it's a it's a beautiful mural. It's got all the, you know, symbology. But it was just Debbie, he and I were there when Konrad died. Just the three of us. And he was in the garden, you know, and I went out and I said, he's gone.
Vonne Solis 45:27
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 45:27
And he said, it's sad. And then he went back to work.
Vonne Solis 45:33
Yeah. I remember you writing that. And I really believe, I really believe that I've read years, decades ago, that, you know, we we have different exit points that we can choose, and the one that we do choose, it is of our making. So the people who need to be there are there. But I also kind of think when people are transitioning, I haven't, I did a stint. I was just going to tell you a palliative for a couple months, about a year after my daughter died, and it was the most beautiful, beautiful time I spent with this lady who was in her 80s and dying of cancer. I was a care worker. And I wasn't there the day she died, because the family got rid of me because they were literally had a lawyer hold her hand to change her will, and I couldn't go back after that. They fired me because I didn't call the family on it, but I just said, you know, you're making things difficult for her, because I could sense I was with her 12 hours a day. Anyway, but that it is a beautiful process to actually, I think it's a gift. I've talked to people who've had people like their moms and that die in their arms, and it was beautiful.
Dr. Nicki Monti 46:47
Beautiful. around right? So, right? I think it was right before this or right after this, a client of mine, very close relationship with her mother. She, her mother died. She was singing to her. She had they had the music on, and she's singing to her mother, and her mother died in her arms. And I was like, Get out of my face. I'm so jealous, right? You know to each their own. And it was a beautiful thing. And that's but that's rare.
Vonne Solis 47:24
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 47:24
I think.
Vonne Solis 47:25
Like we, like we got to say goodbye a few years ago to my husband's brother-in-law and my husband's brother, so my brother-in-law, and, you know, and it too, was really special. The moments that the whole rest of the family left the room, and it was just my husband and I in there and, and I thought to myself, well, what am I gonna? What am I gonna? I wasn't that close to him, but how what do I want to do? So, you know what? I just stroked his face, and he looked at me and, and I don't even know if his eyes were open, to be honest, but I knew he felt it, and it was just really special energy. And we're so grateful we had that time. Anyway, you can't stop death, right? Nicki? You can't.
Dr. Nicki Monti 48:04
You can't stop it.
Vonne Solis 48:05
You can't stop it. So make it what you can. So...
Dr. Nicki Monti 48:10
I do, I do want to say, and let me say this to everybody in your listening audience.
Vonne Solis 48:15
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 48:16
And maybe the sound will go out beyond even your listening audience, which is, do closure constantly. Do closure with the 45 year olds in your life. Do closure with the 22 year olds. Do closure constantly. Not like oh yee yee yee. But I mean, oh, you know, I was just thinking about this great time we had together when we did such and such. You're so great at that fishing thing, or you're so great. I love going to movies with you. Whatever it is, do it constantly. Because when somebody dies and there's all these things unsaid, it is very hard to let go.
Vonne Solis 49:00
I know.
Dr. Nicki Monti 49:00
It's very hard, and we have a responsibility, I think, to let go of the dead. This holding on that people do is not healthy for us, and it's not healthy for the dead, believe it or not, I think.
Vonne Solis 49:14
Yeah, no, I think so.
Dr. Nicki Monti 49:15
You know, it's the we everybody gets to go on, and it doesn't mean we forget them because we go on.
Vonne Solis 49:23
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 49:24
It's not a forgetting of them. It's a holding precious, what you know, how they live in our heart or in, you know, and remembering when we were mad and remembering that they weren't perfect. This idealizing of people after they die, makes me nutty. You know, these these services, and there's less of that now than there used to be. These services where everybody's presented as this flawless person. If they were flawless, they weren't human. And
Vonne Solis 49:52
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 49:53
I want to celebrate their humanity.
Vonne Solis 49:55
Yeah. Again, I'm going to take from this, you know. Remember who we were before they go, and remember who they were before they went. And be real. Be real. I just want to say, like I've had a relationship with my daughter in the after world the whole time she's been gone, and it's very physical. I have now physical manifestations from her. And I'm starting to talk about it more, but since July, she's been calling me on my AirTag. And so, literally, she phones me. And I'm actually working with someone else, and she'll be coming my show, who deals a lot with she channels Einstein, actually, and that opened my world up when I had a reading with her, but I was ready for that communication. So I do just want to, are you?
Dr. Nicki Monti 50:44
Do you hear her voice, or do you have a knowing?
Vonne Solis 50:48
What? What do you mean? Like?
Dr. Nicki Monti 50:50
When she contacts, you do you hear her voice?
Vonne Solis 50:52
oh, I just know it's her.
Vonne Solis 50:53
No, I don't hear her voice. You have no, it's her, because she calls me only at special times. So her death anniversary, her Angel anniversary. Actually, it was her birthday and my mom's Angel anniversary last week. On the Monday and the Wednesday, and she called me on the Tuesday. And it's to the point I missed the and it's a very special ring. There is no ring tone for it. And I thought I caught the last little ding, and that would have been about the 13th time she's called since last July, and I missed it, and I was holding the thing in my hand, and she called back. It's to the point I will actually show it to my husband, and he'll just say, Hi Tris. You know.
Dr. Nicki Monti 51:34
Say hi for me.
Vonne Solis 51:35
Yeah. Well, he's it's right there. So there've been enough manifestations of actual calls, but we have had a relationship since the hours she died. Passed. And that's why it's hard for me sometimes to say dead, because physically, they're dead, but they do live on. And we're not talking about that here today, but just for anyone out there who may want to listen to this, or, you know, really want to hear from them, or thinks they are hearing from them. They are. And so I actually want to ask you, was this a relationship? Did you have? Do you have an ongoing relationship with Konrad in the afterlife?
Dr. Nicki Monti 52:12
I do not. I, I am very much that person in life. And I think as you are in life again, you're going to be like that. We live in pattern. And I don't think that pattern just ends, because somebody dies right. And I am a person who has been throughout my life, this thing ends and this thing starts. And I'm not in I'm in the information of the old experience, but I'm not in the old experience.
Vonne Solis 52:47
Yeah, I can see that.
Dr. Nicki Monti 52:48
Yep, It just doesn't. And even, you know, people would ask me that right away, you know, is he with you? No. And the thing is that also I don't, I, I don't, they don't come to me in dreams, which has always annoyed me. I mean, I will go, I've, you know, many people have died and and then I remember, right, very somebody was very, very close to died, and he immediately showed up, supposedly. I don't really believe her, but he showed up in the dream of this chickie he was with for briefly, and she had all this stuff about him. I'm like, Dude, you know, one little visit. How would it hurt? And but I it just doesn't. I've now had that, my mother, my thing, Konrad. Other people I've known, and I've, you know, had a lot of dying, like, I said, and no, no. I'm just not, that's just not part of my thing. And I, I accept that as
Vonne Solis 53:53
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 53:53
as a truth.
Vonne Solis 53:54
Well, not every, not everybody needs to have that or wants that relationship. I don't have my mom come to me. I don't have my dad come to me. Like, she was the important relationship, but she is my guiding light through this incarnation.
Dr. Nicki Monti 54:06
That's terrific.
Vonne Solis 54:07
To teach me, you know, the things I need to learn and pass on, so I feel very, very blessed. Okay, moving on. Nicki, is there anything else you want to say about that 18 days? Because I did want to go into a couple of questions for you. Years, years, I'm sorry. Did I say days? Sorry.
Dr. Nicki Monti 54:25
It's okay.
Vonne Solis 54:27
I did want to, but I did want to sort of say what I got out of it, in in reading your book and in listening to you that that marriage, that partnership, was pivotal to take you where you are today.
Dr. Nicki Monti 54:40
Absolutely.
Vonne Solis 54:40
Which we're going to be talking about, because a large part about what you, I think we're here to learn, if you say this was about love and learning it for yourself and how powerful it is. You say it is the most powerful force in the universe, and it's so if that was one of your major lessons you put for yourself, if you believe in lessons, but came here to experience and then pass on as a major teacher of that right now. And so I'm hearing that it kind of came to you, to a head, if you will, most powerfully, through losing Konrad. Through going through that journey and losing Konrad for what you had with him. And in your case, you're super lucky. I mean, lucky to have found your true love.
Dr. Nicki Monti 55:33
Yeah. that's fulfilled my true love, because I said I was...
Vonne Solis 55:37
You wanted that.
Dr. Nicki Monti 55:38
because I prepared for that well.
Vonne Solis 55:40
Prepared.
Dr. Nicki Monti 55:40
You know.
Vonne Solis 55:41
So did you want it? You prepared? So that must mean you wanted it, right?
Dr. Nicki Monti 55:45
Yes, but I mean, I'm and I'm prepared for real. So.
Vonne Solis 55:49
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 55:52
I was on a date with the when I, you know, I dated briefly before I met Tom between, you know, when I started dating again, and it had been a minute, obviously, since I've been on the market, nothing had changed, right?
Vonne Solis 56:05
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 56:05
Everything was still the same, but I had changed. So anyway, I was out with this guy, a very nice fellow, and he said to me on our first date, because he had been dating for a while, and you know, of a certain age, it's just different when you start dating again.
Vonne Solis 56:22
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 56:23
So he said, so did you want to get married again? Now remember, I was married three times, so it's like, you know.
Vonne Solis 56:29
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 56:30
And so he said, Do you want to get married again? And I said, I don't know. And then I heard myself say, I do know I want one more great love. And that so that came out of me, and I often discover myself through what comes, you know, out of my mouth. So, and the thing is that I had opened so much to vulnerability and accessibility and learning. Learning that asking for help and allowing it and accepting it. Intuitive faculties, which had been very well developed when I was young, and I, you know, and then developed very formally with a teacher. But my intuitive, I was on fire. I mean, on fire I was in such a level of intuition. Not it, not where I am right now. I'm intuitive, like, in a normal way for me. But I was, like, I was a full, full out.
Vonne Solis 57:31
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 57:31
And so that had happened during this. I just has I was just all heart and soul and intuition and all of that. And but what Konrad had given me, and what I knew he was giving me the whole time was, was absolute and complete love.
Vonne Solis 57:52
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 57:53
And I was, you know, I was his world. And it's, it is a double-edged sword to be someone's whole world is a double- edged sword. It's a...
Vonne Solis 58:01
Yes.
Dr. Nicki Monti 58:02
wonderful thing, because I certainly didn't get that from my family, but, and so that piece got really healed for me, that, Oh, I could deserve this, maybe.
Vonne Solis 58:11
Yes.
Dr. Nicki Monti 58:11
And without working so hard and trying to people-please and making everybody feel good...
Vonne Solis 58:17
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 58:17
in all of the things I was doing.
Vonne Solis 58:18
Yes.
Dr. Nicki Monti 58:21
However, just, he just gave it to me right off the bat. I mean, for him, I was it, and he knew it the instant he met me.
Vonne Solis 58:28
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 58:29
And, and so well, I mean, maybe he loved us, loved me enough for both of us, you know, kind of, but it really, that did really shift me. We had a lot of other issues. And a lot of you know it was. It was not an easy marriage at all, and not a real partnership in a way, for me. For him, it was. But...
Vonne Solis 58:54
You're saying something really important right there, too. Just there are people out there, and I'm going to say a lot of people out there that what you just said, it was a full partnership for him, but not for you.
Dr. Nicki Monti 59:08
That's right. I had a lot of things that I I imagined and hoped partnership would be, but you see, I wasn't allowing that anyway. That being said, there were things he just could not give me.
Vonne Solis 59:23
Exactly.
Dr. Nicki Monti 59:24
Very secretive.
Vonne Solis 59:25
Yeah. And I was just gonna sit here and go, Yeah, but it's not always about just us. And so then you said that, and that's so true. And so I think, and we're going to talk about this, because that shift to opening yourself to love, because love is like, I mean, just you have to be so vulnerable, right? So open and ooh. And and I, we're not here to talk about your early beginnings, but you had quite the beginning, basically feeling abandoned and literally abandoned by your parents at a very young age. And folks get the book to read all about that. But would you say um Nicki that like, people are really afraid. So, like, I want to ask, what I want to say one thing, too. Like this business of Konrad being able to love you so much and you not being able to receive that, despite all the differences and the problems and this that the other. He wasn't the right partner for you to obviously share this full, complete, two-way street like you have now with your current partner. So it's a wonderful thing you're experiencing. And I'm going to wager that not a lot of people experience it.
Dr. Nicki Monti 1:00:31
I don't know. I don't know.
Vonne Solis 1:00:33
I don't think so.
Dr. Nicki Monti 1:00:34
Not because my job (indecipherable). The people who are experiencing it are not sitting on my couch, you know?
Vonne Solis 1:00:39
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 1:00:40
And, you know, people out people who are not sitting on my couch, a lot of them don't tell the truth about not experiencing it. So, yeah.
Vonne Solis 1:00:48
Right. But have
Dr. Nicki Monti 1:00:48
Not many people say that.
Vonne Solis 1:00:49
Yes, but having said that.
Dr. Nicki Monti 1:00:49
Yes, I agree. I agree.
Vonne Solis 1:00:54
Your incarnation is going full circle for you to struggle, struggle, struggle, struggle. Come and learn, learn, learn, learn. And Konrad's the big, the big platform to learn, well person, partnership, to learn, learn and other things and learn, learn, learn, learn, and then, bam, you get rewarded.
Dr. Nicki Monti 1:01:10
That's what it feels like. It feels like, and I hate to live. I'm not, you know, I don't, but the punishment reward system doesn't work as a thought for me.
Vonne Solis 1:01:20
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 1:01:21
Because it's too...
Vonne Solis 1:01:22
That's the term I used, but you manifested it.
Dr. Nicki Monti 1:01:26
And I have even said that though.
Vonne Solis 1:01:28
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 1:01:28
Oh, this is my reward after all the sordid things.
Vonne Solis 1:01:32
PhD, you passed your PhD.
Dr. Nicki Monti 1:01:34
Yeah, yeah, I passed it.
Vonne Solis 1:01:38
We come learning these life lessons, and then we're in our school, and then we are in our high school, and then we go to get our college, and then our masters, and then our PhD. If you do it all right, and get all your lessons and everything you should be manifesting what you really want.
Dr. Nicki Monti 1:01:53
But you know, here's a here's an interesting piece. I think it's interesting. So there's only one thing that Tom and I are cross swords with. I mean, we're very, we have very, we're we're different of course. We're different because he's, you know, he's a researcher, he likes, he was a lawyer, and he's very, but he said, but there's only one thing where we cross swords. And it is unfortunate, and I, apparently do, I have not enough management over this particular piece, which is about technology. So he always tries to help me, like, get these podcasts set type of things. And invariably, because I switched computers and facilities and whatever, I just get it wrong. And when I get it wrong, in this particular case, I get frustrated. And no matter how lovely I try to be about it, my energetic reads, you know, it's not. And then he feels blamed, I'll say it that way. I'm not sure if that's quite the right word, and then he gets hurt. We're very open. We're emotionally honest with each other, which is the difference. And we take our own rap always, always.
Vonne Solis 1:03:10
Oh, that's good.
Dr. Nicki Monti 1:03:11
Part of this, always.
Vonne Solis 1:03:11
That's good.
Dr. Nicki Monti 1:03:13
Always, and that is fantastic. And in this case, I, you know, sometimes we have to figure out. So he said to me today, because I had a thing before this, and I just could not get it. I couldn't get on. It was TV, so there was, like, No, we couldn't even. But, I mean, I did what I did, and it was just, you know, I just wanted it to be right. And I tried. He said, Well, here's okay, this really hurts. And so what I'm going to do is I'm gonna make a commitment that I will not help you on the computer unless it's the day before.
Vonne Solis 1:03:47
Okay.
Dr. Nicki Monti 1:03:48
So that whatever happens, we have plenty of time. We can figure it out. If we don't figure it out, we don't figure it out, so.
Vonne Solis 1:03:54
Okay, yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 1:03:56
And we had to figure it out. But I in that moment this stuff comes into me, like, I'm gonna screw this up and it's gonna be terrible.
Vonne Solis 1:04:06
Yeah. I never really, let's move into that a little bit. You never really get rid of who you really are inside, you know.
Dr. Nicki Monti 1:04:14
Yeah, well, I would say it differently. I think we are our organic voice. Let's like, I've been talking a lot about what I call the, oh no, you. Let's go to the imposter syndrome, right? So, so many people feel the imposter syndrome. I'm gonna go and I'm gonna do this thing. People are gonna see I really don't know as much as I they think I know because I'm the expert, and they're gonna ask me this. But in general, people have this sense of imposter syndrome a lot. And I finally came to the conclusion this coming year, this last year, that we feel like imposters because we are mostly and the way we're imposters is not the way people think of it. It's not about facts and figures. It's about the fact that we were born with this organic voice. And it's a it's a true voice. It's an unselfconscious voice. You know, we have a baby in in our life, now a grandchild, and it's the that baby doesn't care anything about what we think. That baby is crying for things and giggling for things and peeing when he wants, and doing all this stuff and telling us he's hungry, and he's put off. You know, it's all exciting, and he's (indecipherable) about the whole business. He's not thinking about us, and he has no self -consciousness.
Vonne Solis 1:05:35
Right.
Dr. Nicki Monti 1:05:35
We lose that voice at some point. Lose it sooner than later or later than sooner, depending upon what's going on in our house, in our community, around the globe, all of those things that are impressive on us and impressing. And so we lose that. So the further we are away from our organic voice, the more of an imposter we will go through the world being. We will have to make it and fake it, right?
Vonne Solis 1:06:05
Okay.
Dr. Nicki Monti 1:06:06
We will have to convince and and control. We will have to do all those things in service of me getting you to think a certain way about me, you know, as opposed to me being interested in who you are. So, so the closer we get to the organic voice, the less of an imposter we'll feel. I do not have imposter syndrome at this point in my life.
Vonne Solis 1:06:28
Right.
Dr. Nicki Monti 1:06:29
I just don't.
Vonne Solis 1:06:29
Me either. So what?
Dr. Nicki Monti 1:06:30
I never did.
Vonne Solis 1:06:32
Yeah, yeah, and you're seeing me. I'm going to go to the kitchen and go to, you know, for a tea, and then out with my sister this afternoon. I'm going to, I'm going to be the same person.
Dr. Nicki Monti 1:06:41
Right.
Vonne Solis 1:06:41
And I know you are so, but I've never heard it expressed as an organic voice, and I do love that. And this really ties in as we move through this to emotional inheritance and and time does not heal all wounds, which a lot of people think. No. You've got to, it's what you're doing with the time, dudes.
Dr. Nicki Monti 1:07:00
Awesome.
Vonne Solis 1:07:01
But, but this organic voice, I just want to talk about that a little bit more, because I think, when I read your book, I was always mindful of the little girl in you. Always. And just knowing, so there's a little girl in me who grew up with a lot of trauma. A mom that tried to commit suicide five or six times by the time, well I shouldn't say, commit.
Dr. Nicki Monti 1:07:27
No.
Vonne Solis 1:07:28
Tried to end her life by suicide five or six times by the time I was 10 and I was third of four kids. That's a lot of trauma that never got dealt with. And but that I wasn't here to struggle with that in this incarnation. You know? I, that wasn't the thing, so I always just put it away. But that would have done like you being abandoned. You were sent off to boarding school at what eight years old was it? Seven?
Dr. Nicki Monti 1:07:51
Under seven. I was under seven. Second grade.
Vonne Solis 1:07:54
And I might say to you, but I will say this with just, you know, pretending the mass masses, Well, who mass the mainstream would go, who would send their kid to boarding school at seven? In fact, I, you know oh the rich and the wealthy. Well, that's the same thing, you know. Who would do that? But then no judgement, no judgement, just wow. And then, and I love how we can go outside of ourselves and kind of look at our life and go, Why did I choose that? Wow. What an interesting pattern. And then you would see yourself as this little girl and, you know, and all those. But when you're talking about the organic voice, I think that's what I'm trying to say. That, does that organic voice, it's made up of everything we are as that innocent little being that comes here. And, yes, gets corrupted and sidetracked in many, many different ways. But if it never really leaves us, Nicki, and that purity is there, right? That innocence that we want to take care of, which is, I think, how we heal, you can speak to that. How do we, do we just keep returning to that? Do we stay mindful of that? Like, how do we stay connected to the organic voice?
Dr. Nicki Monti 1:08:59
Okay, so first of all, let me start backwards and go, or at the end and go backwards. I think that, yes, the Wounded Child at various ages is always inside. We have all these different aspects inside of us. Some pretty much only in that way. So we have all these parts. They're all living inside of us. We're, you know, we're saints and we're sinners, we're whores and we're celibates or whatever. So we have all these different parts, and we certainly have all these different ages of development inside of us, and some of them are more wounded than others. We also have the nurturing mother inside of us. We also have the abandoning mother inside of us. Everybody has that, whether they because when we get kicked out of paradise and you know, the umbilical cord is cut, you know that feels like abandonment no matter who you ar or what how great life is about to be for you. But anyway, we all have these, these, these pieces inside of us, and I think it's our continuing responsibility to recognize when those get poked. When something comes up and fear kicks in. Immediately, the fear kicks in, right? We don't maybe recognize it as fear, but that's what it is. We A, great back to the drawing board on what we've not eased and soothed and creamed and and ministered to, right? B, we have a responsibility to call upon the nurturing parent in us, or the nurturing, wise teacher. Whatever it is...
Vonne Solis 1:10:43
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 1:10:43
for an individual to be with that wounding.
Vonne Solis 1:10:47
Okay.
Dr. Nicki Monti 1:10:48
So we don't just ignore it and push it down or under the rug or anything, because that doesn't work.
Vonne Solis 1:10:52
No.
Dr. Nicki Monti 1:10:53
We go in and we say, Oh, baby, I see, Wow, you got scared for a minute, didn't you? You got scared for a minute. I understand. I understand that was a scary moment, but you know what? Nothing's happening. I got you. I got you guys. I'm here.
Vonne Solis 1:11:08
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 1:11:09
And so we're we're continuously responsible, rather than being mad at so and so or blaming that person for not taking care of us. How dare he or she. We take care of ourselves, and that's not cutting off care. That's recognizing that we have, that we're all the people all the time, and that we have the power to go towards parts of ourself and accept them, appreciate them, and ease their pain.
Vonne Solis 1:11:40
Hm hmm. I love that. I love that. I'm going to remember that. Let's, let's talk briefly here, Nicki, just about emotional inheritance. I really love how you say and this is just a nod to it. I mean, it's people need to go much deeper into it, for goodness sakes. But I want to say that I haven't heard of it referred to as emotional inheritance. Just like generational wealth gets passed on? So does emotional inheritance. What do we need to be aware of when we think about emotional inheritance?
Dr. Nicki Monti 1:12:13
Yeah, I have three things that I think I actually made up, which it's not that I made up the concept, it's just that I made up the terminology, which is the only thing that changes. Otherwise, we all know the same stuff. Emotional inheritance is, is one of mine. Emotional dysmorphia is another. That is not being able to see our beauty and our magnificence as it really is, and thinking we're bad. We're discussing it as
Vonne Solis 1:12:39
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 1:12:39
irresponosible. And an emotional blackouts. Which is where we, it's like a drug, it's like an alcohol blackout, except it's emotional, and we lose pieces of our life that way. In other parlance, it's called dissociation. But anyway, okay, emotional inheritance. So we have, I think not only patterning, you know, children learn three ways, by example, by example, by example. But we have not only patterning that we see, but I think there's emotional experiences that come down into the blood and bones of us from both sides. The matriarchy and the patriarchy of us as it comes down from the great, great, great, great, great grandparents and all of that going all the way back. So emotional inheritance can include certain cultural inheritances that's been, you know, I talk about, I'm in Burbank, California. So I work with a lot of Armenians who flowed in from Glendale, and they really, whether they know it or not, when I meet with them, I can feel the the generations of fear around being taken over by yet another country because they were, you know, they were taken over so many times, so things like that. So there's big stories that come down into us. You know, the person who says, My great grandmother, or my grandmother died in the Holocaust, you know, or was in the Holocaust, but survived, and they're still talking about it three generations later. About the experience in their body when certain things happen, you see? And it's not even if they weren't even talked about that much in the home. You know, it just comes down to so we all have this culturally.
Vonne Solis 1:14:26
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 1:14:26
Different cultural things. And then there's the emotional thing. So it's very interesting that your mother, I forget how you changed it, but anyway, tried to commit suicide, or...
Vonne Solis 1:14:39
Well, yeah, attempting to die because, you know.
Dr. Nicki Monti 1:14:42
To die, yeah, yeah, yeah, there you go. Attempted to die so many times, and then your daughter succeeded. Now, is that irrelevant? I don't think it is.
Vonne Solis 1:14:52
No, it is not.
Dr. Nicki Monti 1:14:53
I think it, I think that's a part of her emotional inheritance. It just is in our blood and bones. And and there may be a soul piece too.
Vonne Solis 1:15:03
Yeah, I was gonna say, yeah, there's this. We're not gonna talk about that, but there's, I've done some work on soul, soul groups and stuff like that, yeah, and whatever. Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 1:15:04
You still recognize, isn't it funny? My so and so was so, I never really knew my grandmother, but she was so blah blah and or people will say you you're so much like your grandmother, but I never even met my grandma. I saw her twice in my life. Doesn't matter. You're so much like her. How did that happen?
Vonne Solis 1:15:31
Yeah, yeah. But this, but the like trauma and cultural trauma, generational trauma, this can be passed down to us.
Dr. Nicki Monti 1:15:39
Absolutely.
Vonne Solis 1:15:41
And it's just to be aware folks that what you're experiencing, or, you know, there could be connections to anything passed down through the generations, living, as you say, in our blood and bones. And just to be aware that, well, do you think that actually contributes to a lot of for lack of a better expression, mental health challenges?
Dr. Nicki Monti 1:16:08
Yes. I was just going to say one of the things is, and this, I start with the parents on this right? So a lot of times, we'll take the messages, both stated and covertly passed on from our parents, and we'll take them deep inside of us, the maxims and the things that that we heard them say or that we watched them do. And we'll take them down, and by the time they get into us for a while, they morph into our voice, supposedly telling us the truth. And it's not us. And we feel is that so one of the first things is to find out what's yours and what's theirs. So you can let go of what's theirs, because we have enough of our own.
Vonne Solis 1:16:49
That's true.
Dr. Nicki Monti 1:16:50
From the grandparents and the great grand all that too. What what was theirs that I have decided, somehow, somewhere in me, has decided that I must carry this? It goes all the way down through however many generations, and I need to carry this belief, for instance, of limited supply. There's a limited supply of love and money, you know, friendship and whatever. While my mother didn't seem to have that, but my grandmother lived it. Ha. Limited supply, or you can never trust such and such. How did that get down into my system? And so and how have I perpetuated? This is the important part. What have I perpetuated? Ideas, feelings, thoughts, doings that were not even mine? But how am I perpetuating them? Because that's the first place to go. How do I stop perpetuating old stuck ideas that don't, shouldn't, and they don't benefit me and they ought not to belong to me anymore.
Vonne Solis 1:17:53
Yeah. So moving to wrap this up, because we could talk forever, and like I said, there's so much jam-packed in your book, but you it's filled with just stuff like this. What you're talking about that make you think about your own experience and stuff. So, but I wanted to just so again, in that, it's recognizing, and I don't think you can talk about this at length today because of the time. So, Nicki, we know that we want to come back and continue a conversation built kind of on what you're just talking about now, with this emotional inheritance and and inheriting trauma and so that that, but we've both agreed that that's a separate episode. And we're both aiming to absolutely do a Part Two to this, where we can dive a little bit deeper into those parts. So for the audience today, we just wanted to give you an introduction, really, to Nicki's story about caregiving, all the things she learned that her former husband and third husband - possibly to be a fourth. We're not sure yet, but I'll just say it - was, was the great teacher for Nicki to experience the full love that she wanted to manifest in her life and now lives. So there's a lot in the book, and I feel we just sort of touched like the tip of the iceberg here in talking about this stuff.
Vonne Solis 1:19:16
So to round this out, though, I, I and this does kind of go to a nice conclusion for the caregiving piece. Supporting someone through the transitioning, death process. What you need to do to take care of yourself in that to not lose sight of yourself. Also to honour the relationship for what it really is. Not make it something that's angelic when it really wasn't, you know. So be mad at a person's illness and you know, all of the things you've talked about here. But I would just like to end this episode Nicki with and this is really important. You know, why? You say that we need to say the things we're afraid to talk. About and this kind of, this kind of, we really have to do a Part Two, because we have to go through all the trauma and all the other stuff and all of the defensiveness that you say is the number one block to intimacy so we can experience full love. And that is an episode all on its own. But for today, rounding it out is there just a couple things you want to say to encourage people to really say the things you really need to say, and that's part of the closure piece you talked about earlier.
Dr. Nicki Monti 1:20:33
Well, so, so let me say a couple of things. First of all, since we're going to do a second episode, at least, who knows, we'll maybe talk to each other for the rest of our lives. But the the I would encourage listeners, as you listen to this, to, you know, throw some questions in your comments, and maybe we can answer them, when we come back. So that would be very cool. Second of all, the book is a lot funnier than we are when we're talking about the book. I mean, at least I'm told it's funny because here's my here's my perspective. Take the work seriously. The work of change, the work of love, the work of connection, the work of parenting, the work of partnering. Take the work seriously and take yourself lightly. Because if you drag yourself through your life (whining), who's going to do that. I mean, no. So there's a lot of laughter that wants to be included amongst the tears, because all the feelings are relevant to change. All the feelings are relevant to change. So, and I would say for most people give yourself more credit than you're giving yourself now. Oh, that's too hard. I can't do it. Sure you can.
Vonne Solis 1:22:07
Yeah
Dr. Nicki Monti 1:22:07
Sure you can.
Vonne Solis 1:22:08
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 1:22:09
And also, courage is asked for. Now, courage is moving forward in the face of fear. It's not just, you know, if there's no fear, it's not called courage. It's just called moving so.
Vonne Solis 1:22:18
Oh okay, I like that.
Dr. Nicki Monti 1:22:21
Courage is moving forward in the face of fear. So, you know, and what is the worst thing that could happen if you look the dragon in the eye?
Vonne Solis 1:22:29
Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Monti 1:22:30
What is the worst? As it turns out, you know, when we look the dragon in the eye, the fire really does go away. There might be a moment of fire, but not much, because we step into our power. And power is in telling the truth about yourself. Telling the truth about ourselves, is not about blaming the universe or others. Power is about claiming responsibility for our choices. And again, it's not about blaming even ourselves. It's just about claiming responsibility. So that requires truth-telling, and we are getting so far away from truth these days in the world. It is fake everything. It's really hard, but you know, be bold. Be brave. Be powerful. Use your voice. Stand up. Stop being small and and take the risk. Because I can promise you, money back guarantee on this free podcast, but I can promise you, you will be well served. You're gonna have a life you can't even imagine, because, you know, our life is way beyond our imaginations. We're limited by our assumptions and our histories.
Vonne Solis 1:23:43
And what a great way to end this one. So I really we are gonna schedule a Part Two, because we're gonna pick up on that right where you right where you said that. Limited by our assumptions.
Vonne Solis 1:23:53
So Nicki, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for spending this time with me.
Dr. Nicki Monti 1:23:57
Oh, what a pleasure.
Vonne Solis 1:23:59
You fed the audience lots of stuff to at least get them thinking about lots of different things, and there's so much more to come. So audience, stay tuned, and I'll let you know when we're going to do a Part Two on this, and hopefully that'll be really really soon. So thanks again, Nicki, Okay.
Dr. Nicki Monti 1:24:15
Thank you so much.