Hoorf! Radical Care in a Late-Capitalist Heckscape

overcoming isolation in the chronic illness journey, with Annie Toro Lopez

• Elle Billing • Season 4 • Episode 7

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Guest Annie Toro Lopez, a food writer and transformational speaker, discusses her journey with lupus and Celiac disease. Elle and Annie connect over their shared experiences in education before changing careers. Annie emphasizes the importance of self-care, such as daily meditation and yoga. The conversation touches on the challenges of balancing health, work, and personal relationships, and the significance of being present in the moment. The conversation lingers on the need for human connection and overcoming isolation in the journey through chronic illness.

Links to Annie’s books and website, as well as all other resource links, are in the full show notes at hoorfpodcast.com

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Elle Billing:

Hi. My name is Elle Billing. I am a chronically ill queer femme, and I'm tired. I'm here this episode and every episode to dig at the roots of our collective fatigue, explore ways to direct our care in compassionate and sustainable ways, and to harness creative expression to heal ourselves and to heal our world. Welcome to Hoorf: radical care in a late capitalist heckscape. You my guest for this episode is Annie Toro Lopez. Annie Toro Lopez is an author, chef, and transformational speaker who teaches audiences how to thrive through life's challenges. While navigating a celiac diagnosis and profound personal loss during a national cooking competition, she proved how mindset and food can fundamentally transform health. A former teacher whose students achieve top rankings, Annie

authored Simply Gluten Free:

Real Ingredients For Everyday Life, and founded the Denver Area Women's Network, supporting 500-plus women through life's transitions. Welcome, Annie. Hi Annie. Welcome to Hoorf podcast,

Annie Toro Lopez:

Hello, Elle. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate being here, and I love what you're doing.

Elle Billing:

Oh, thank you. I'm really excited to chat with you today. Before we started, you gave me a little tour of where you are and

Annie Toro Lopez:

I did, I did, yeah,

Elle Billing:

I met your dog,

Annie Toro Lopez:

yeah, and my RV.

Elle Billing:

Oh, see, my dog is usually sitting behind me when I'm-- or near me-- when I'm recording. But my mom is getting ready down the hall, so she's like, on duty, like sitting outside the bathroom waiting for my mom. So she's not even in the room, and she usually is,

Annie Toro Lopez:

I find, like, if I do it here, where she, where she wants to be, it just sort of lights up behind me. Oh, yeah, it depends on the time of day, like when I'm doing, you know, it depends. But there, yeah, she's right here.

Elle Billing:

And it looks like your dog doesn't mind being on camera, where, as soon as my dog senses any sort of camera, she is blurry, like Sasquatch, and she ruins every photo. But she's so photogenic, she's so pretty, and she's just so cute, but she's like, No, I'm so embarrassed. Stop looking.

Annie Toro Lopez:

You know she's she's actually kind of the same way with the camera this far away, she's not as sensitive, but if I try to hold it, she just looks away. She's like, no public right now. Is what, we always laugh. We're like, no public right now.

Elle Billing:

Yeah, no public. I'm sure that works really well for her as a brand ambassador, right?

Annie Toro Lopez:

Right? Yes, exactly. She's a brand ambassador for a pet lab company. So

Elle Billing:

that's what you were saying, yeah.

Annie Toro Lopez:

So that's been fun when we were traveling. So I was out on a book tour for my cookbook.

Elle Billing:

Yeah, and we'll get into that in a little bit too. So, yeah, yeah.

Annie Toro Lopez:

So we were out on tour, and, oh, she just had a blast. She was like, such a hit everywhere. She, like, she had a lot of firsts, right? She went to, like, patios and restaurants and art museums, and it was a blast. It was so much fun.

Elle Billing:

Yeah, that's great. I have just a million pictures of my dog either sleeping or blurry, because those are, like, the only way they can get photos of her.

Annie Toro Lopez:

That's perfect.

Elle Billing:

All right, so I'm going to dive in here. Absolutely. How have you received care this week?

Annie Toro Lopez:

I love that question, and it made me really think about receiving care. And it thought, it made me think about, like, where that where it comes from, and and the first thing that truly came to my mind was, was self care. Like I take care of myself daily. I meditate every day I had have a space I've created for myself that is in our unfinished basement, and I have a inflatable hot tub down there now in Colorado, let me, let me say, in Colorado, that's doable. And I recognize that there are probably places where it's very, very damp, or what, where it might that might not work. But here it's fine, because we're like, Bring on the moisture, right? Because it's so dry. Here it's so dry,

Elle Billing:

yeah,

Annie Toro Lopez:

I hung shower curtains around it that are like botanicals and very beautiful. And one of them is a tree, like a, you know? And sort of an impressionistic rainbow tree, and that's my focal point. And a lot, most of the time, not always, but it's but I meditate and I do yoga, and so that is like, that's not 100% daily, but it's a lot. It's a way that I protect my peace. It's a way that I ground myself and keep away the negative thoughts. I use music a lot. I use music for healing. I use music for meditation. Some of the meditations are guided, but not all of them, a lot of them are just my own. I love Yoga with Adrienne on YouTube because she's so loving, and she's so self loving, and she's taught me a lot about self care and self love. So that's something that I do for myself daily. I realized that's I'm really fortunate to be in this space and in my life that I can do that. And then I sort of listed it. I actually, after I read your question, I listed it, and really thought about who I receive outside of myself. And I thought, you know, my kids came for for dinner, and we had this, we had so much fun, and did some fire, we did a viral recipe. And my husband, who always supports me and like is working on my website, because he's just amazing that way, and does the things and and, and then I spoke to, I had a wonderful conversation with a former student I taught middle school, and she's now a close friend, and and we were even talking about doing some work together, which I'm so excited about, that was so affirming and loving and kind. And I have a a larger network that I've created, and we'll talk a little more about that later, but they're so loving and caring, and I actually didn't have the spoons, if you know what that means for an event,

Elle Billing:

yep.

Annie Toro Lopez:

And nobody judged. Nobody was it was no big deal. I mean, they let me know that I was missed, which is what you want in a relationship, right?

Elle Billing:

Yep.

Annie Toro Lopez:

So I actually gave that question a lot of thought. I really did. I really appreciated it, because it made me grateful, you know, when I wrote all that down and I thought, Wow, I'm, you know, I've been really isolated and lonely at times in my life, really isolated like and I don't feel that now. And what a wonderful, joyous thing. And I appreciated the question. Thank you

Elle Billing:

Well, thank you for your, thank you for answering. I used to be a teacher too, and I have those connections with with former students too, one who texts me almost daily. He's a, he's also an artist. And so he sends me pictures of his current projects, what he's working on. He asks for he's like, which one do you like better? What do you think of this? And recently, he's, he gifted me a gorgeous charcoal portrait of my dog, and it was just so beautiful. Like, to have that gift from him, and to have, yeah, to have that connection with a former student who just is, now, you know, a friend,

Annie Toro Lopez:

yeah? Isn't it amazing? Isn't it wonderful? And like, they're the people who like when you met them, they might have been struggling, and they weren't necessarily, you know, it's not that they were great students. It's not that they were, you know, it's that they, you know, have that just, you connected on that level then, right? then and there. What grade did you teach?

Elle Billing:

I had a very special job, I think. I worked at a school for the Deaf at a residential school, and so I was really involved in my students' lives, and it, and some of my students I had for many years. It's nice to have that continued relationship to keept up to date on their lives, and we can, like, bond over things like art, like, you know, I'm I'm an artist, that student's an artist, and we send texts and images, pictures of what we're working on. And it's nice to see him thriving in his art business now,

Annie Toro Lopez:

isn't it? and having those conversations about, you know, those connections that happen in in a classroom and in that kind of environment and as a teacher, and, yeah, I loved my students. I loved my kids. I couldn't I left with severe burnout. I had crazy burnout when I left,

Elle Billing:

yep, yep. Me too. I was really sick when I left.

Annie Toro Lopez:

Me too. How long were you? How long did you teach?

Elle Billing:

13 years. I didn't last very long.

Annie Toro Lopez:

I subbed for three-- I went back to school. I didn't get my degree till I was 41 and then, and I was actually, I was actually, at the time I was a volunteer firefighter, so I was serving on the fire department. And what one of the things I really loved about the being on the fire department was the training, like all the you know, the classroom work, and I did a lot of EMT, but I went back to school. It was my third try. The first time I went to school was right out of high school, right at 18, and as an English major, and then I went back, and then I got really sick, same thing, right? I got so sick, and I couldn't go I couldn't my doctor, like, I was pregnant, and my doctor, like, put me to bed. I had lupus. So. I left again and went back again. I got my degree in English, and then I taught middle school for 10 years, but I'd subbed for like, three, so I kind of, you know, I learned a lot. I love my kids. It was wonderful. It was amazing. I love that.

Elle Billing:

And I, and I've said many times, every single student was my favorite student.

Annie Toro Lopez:

I know right, like,

Elle Billing:

but like, Oh, they're my favorite. Well, every student's my favorite, but this student's my favorite for this reason. And this reason,

Annie Toro Lopez:

yeah,

Elle Billing:

I also taught English and reading, so

Annie Toro Lopez:

I love that. Yeah, yeah. And what grade? I'm sorry, would you what age

Elle Billing:

I taught every

Annie Toro Lopez:

you said that then, yes, yes,

Elle Billing:

it was at the school for the deaf. And so I did eight years in mixed grade elementary, where I taught at some point, every grade from first through fifth, and then moved me up to secondary, where I taught 6th through 12th. So in 13 years, I taught every grade from 1st through 12th, plus some super seniors who were like, 19 and 20.

Annie Toro Lopez:

Yeah, yeah. My sister ran a school in North Platte Nebraska that was called TLC, The Learning Center, and she worked with students who might have been super seniors as well, yeah, or other things, yeah, but she wanted them to, you know, yeah, get where they get where they needed to be. So, so that's what she did, yeah. And I taught in Aurora. I taught also, like you said, literacy, and I taught social studies too. So I was thinking, when you said that, I was thinking about the year that I taught seventh and eighth grade social studies. So I taught world history and US history over a period of about 1000 years.

Elle Billing:

That's a lot to cover.

Annie Toro Lopez:

I can't even, I can't even, I found I was, I was really lucky. I was like, we were Barnes and Noble one day, and we're at the clear out clearance books, right?

Elle Billing:

Yeah.

Annie Toro Lopez:

And I found this, like, I found this, like, world history, timeline, like it was this, it was just like, you know? And I was like, This is it? This is what I need. Oh my gosh. And we would read that, like driving, like my husband would drive, and I would read it out loud, so that I had some concept of, like, what I was even so much material, right? Yes. And he was like, he was so helpful, because he, you know, he's like, Oh yeah, well, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, Okay, well, I didn't know anything about anyway, but I, you know, I knew, like, I taught American history for years too, but oh gosh, when I was doing both, that was like, five preps, because I taught reading and writing and then social studies, seventh and eighth grade it was,

Elle Billing:

and that's how burnout happens,

Annie Toro Lopez:

exactly. And who has time for self care? Like, as if I could go downstairs and meditate and in my inflatable hot tub, come on grading, right? Like, who has time for themselves? that's so hard for on teachers. Right? Like, that's why we lose so many great teachers, is because they're so committed, and you can't sustain that. Like, nobody can. Nobody can sustain that

Elle Billing:

and I've, and I've said several times on this podcast, talking about my own burnout and illness, is that I think the the age of, like, the 30-year veteran teacher is over in a lot of ways.

Annie Toro Lopez:

Absolutely,

Elle Billing:

it's like, I burned out after 13 years, and like, every single teacher that I worked with had some kind of long term chronic illness that was stress related. And several, several teachers died from, like, cancer and stuff, and they but they were, like, working the whole time they were sick because they needed the insurance. Like, it is not the same field it was when we were going to school, absolutely. I was talking with a friend of mine who worked in a different department, who also no longer works there, and I said to her, did you ever feel, look back and feel like we were in an abusive relationship with our job?

Annie Toro Lopez:

Yes. Oh gosh, yes. We talk about that. Oh, and I had, my first years, I had a really horrible principal, and it really, it bled into the whole school, you know what I mean, like that, the attitudes and the bullying and the meanness and all of that. It really, it was insidious to the whole school.

Elle Billing:

Yeah. So you mentioned how the first time that you tried to go to school, you ended up with with lupus, and so I, you know, one of the reasons I left education was because I was so ill. So each of both of us have, like a kind of an acquired chronic illness and like a division in our lives where it was like the time before and the time since, like, that demarcation line,

Annie Toro Lopez:

I agree.

Elle Billing:

Can you kind of walk us through, like, what that journey has been for you?

Annie Toro Lopez:

Absolutely, yeah, yeah, you know, again, speaking of isolation, right? So a lot of auto immune disease are very isolating because, and now it's so much, you know, having this, like having this podcast, and also, you know, I've been another podcast about autoimmune specifically, and it's huge to have you know what you do and and connecting people and allowing people to have, comprehend that they're not alone. This isn't just, you know, it's not just them, because. Yeah, you think it is right, like, it's, it's so it's hard to talk about, it's hard to like, nobody wants to hear about it all the time. And so having these outlets, I think, are so important. I was diagnosed with lupus when I was 22. I'm pretty sure that I had it from the time I was at least 18, probably before, but at this point in my life, then I had a doctor who was willing to listen and hear me, and cared enough to like pursue, and she, of course, because, you know, female doctors listen different. She said, I wrote, she, you know, she was like, Well, I had one thing after another after another. And I asked her, I said, Do you think that I'm a hypochondriac, right? I'm like, and she said, she was like, no, no. Because everything you come and you say, like, I've got this, or I've got this, it all checks out on like blood work. The strange part of it is it comes and goes. So I would have things like hypothyroidism, which doesn't come and go, it's right, not like an in and out kind of thing, and then later it was gone. And then I would have whatever. I'd have all I had so many different I can, it's been a long time.

Elle Billing:

I can so relate to that, yeah, feeling like a hypochondriac, like knowing, like, so strongly that something is not right.

Annie Toro Lopez:

something's not right. And she, so then I went in and I had ulcers on my legs, like they would come from the outside, it's from the inside, and work their way out. It was, that's how I can describe them, and they were horribly painful, and I could barely wear shoes. I was working as a vet tech at the time. I've worn a lot of hats. I don't say I've worn a lot of hats. I was working at a vet office, and it was like the end of the day, and I took off my shoes, and his wife was just like, What is wrong with your feet? And I was and of course, you know, we deny the power for the human brain, for denial is unbelievable. And so I was like, you know, doesn't everybody have just like,

Elle Billing:

No, doesn't everybody huh? No, I'm like, I'm not laughing at you, but I get it. And also, when you think you don't have any other choice but to power through.

Annie Toro Lopez:

Yeah

Elle Billing:

You just do it.

Annie Toro Lopez:

Yeah. So I was really fortunate, because she was going to a doctor gave me his name. He was, like, booked up, and so he had this brand new doctor in the office from Chicago. And so I got in to see her, well, she ended up being like, Denver's number one doctor for like, years in a row. She was amazing. I I had her for-- We were together for 25 years. We had our babies at the same time. I mean, she was amazing. She saved my life. So many times I could not even and I mean that not just not just physiologically, but she heard me, she listened. She didn't just brush me off.

Elle Billing:

I have a physical therapist that I feel that way. Yeah, he pulled me back from that edge when I was in so much pain and didn't think I was like, Is this the rest of my life, like, in this much pain? And he's like, No, we can do something about that. And he believed me when I said I'm in this much pain,

Unknown:

and feeling heard is, like, crucial, right? We have to feel heard. And women aren't heard, like, historically, right? Let's just not even go there. But so she diagnosed me. My ANA was like, I don't remember what it was exactly, but I know I remember her just being like, it's just like, I hear, I hear a lot "we've never seen this before," like my husband. I just laugh when we go somewhere and they like, we've never seen this before. I'm like, That's the story of my life. So I went to a rheumatologist, I got in Plaquenil, and I got on steroids, and I got on all the drugs, right? I don't even remember. It was a lot, and I was still like, so, so, so sick, and so this was well, and then I had two, I have two kids, and I remember them telling me that it was that, you know, they didn't advise me getting pregnant because it's in high risk pregnancy. What I didn't understand at all at the time, I just didn't comprehend. Is that an ANA? I don't know if your if your listeners are familiar, but it's an anti nuclear antibody. So your body, your immune system, is producing an antibody that attacks and kills the nucleus of your cells, which clearly they can't live without, and it can attack anything, right? So I had skin involvement, I've had kidney, I had lung collapse, I had pericarditis. I had, I mean, I can just,

Elle Billing:

I mean, and that's why lupus is so such an insidious,

Annie Toro Lopez:

so hard,

Elle Billing:

illness is because it can, it can attack any body system,

Annie Toro Lopez:

exactly. And so what I really wasn't comprehending at the time was that it could also attack fetal tissue, right? Like, oh, oh, I had two pregnancies my doctor, who was wonderful, he was just like, he was like, no more kids, because it was so difficult, and they were both in the NICU and all of the things, right? And he's like, like, you have two beautiful children, and they need you and and that, I think that's when it I don't know why I was, I mean, I didn't, I guess I didn't hear what I didn't want to hear. That's how we are, and that, you know, learning to hear what I didn't want to hear. That came from mental health care, like going to therapy, you know, hearing the things, talking, the things, facing the demons, all those things, right? It really got to the point where, you know, seeing all these doctors all the time, especially through my pregnancies. I mean, I was at the doctor's office once a week minimum. Then I was on all these drugs, and I didn't know if I was sick because I knew the power of the drugs. I knew what I was on, and I didn't know if I was sick because, you know, of the drugs, I didn't know if I was sick because my body was telling me. I didn't know. I just didn't understand. And the question I kept asking myself was, how does this make sense in any way, shape or form, that my body is producing something that literally wants to kill me, like literally would shut me down, my heart, my lungs, whatever. And I really, really dug deep into what's happening in my body, like, and I learned a lot about mind-body connection. I learned a lot about like, long before, like, the Body Keeps the Score any of that, or or any of that. I really asked that question and myself, like, why is this happening? And, and that led me to therapy, a lot of things, not that wasn't the only thing. What directly led me to therapy was having my first baby and not being able to stop crying for two months. Like literally didn't stop. It's like this. So I was very fortunate that I had a physician's assistant. My obstetricians physician's assistant said, Well, you know, sometimes, you know, having a child can bring up, you know, past trauma or whatever. I'm sure she did not use the word trauma, even in those days, nobody recommended therapy in those days, right? I was so lucky.

Elle Billing:

Yeah

Annie Toro Lopez:

I was so lucky. So I had an amazing therapist, Carolyn Early, who is no longer, no longer alive, but she was wonderful and learned a lot about so many things, you know, and everything my own sexual abuse when I was a child and having my own, you know, facing down my demons is what I call it, bringing them to the light. We all have them, you know, the shame spiral, all those things, right? So she helped me so much with that and learning how to take control of the voice in my head that always told me whatever the messages are that you know are self loathing or self defeating, self limiting. And that was key. So it, it was that I also use visualization, which is scientifically proven to alter your body and body chemistry. And I had my own sort of like cartoon that ran in my head that was about a lot of things. It was about my immune system and and T cells and, and what was happening and and I would have conversations with my immune system, and I would say, look like, here's the deal, right? Like, like, if there's a virus or bacteria or like, it's cancer, then do your thing, but the vital organs and stuff, like, off limits. Like, no more stop. Like, this has to stop. And I would have this conversation in my mind with my immune system. And I think, you know, the combination of things, and certainly nutrition, like, we haven't even talked about that, but absolutely, nutrition was also so it was, it's not just one thing. It's not like, oh, I have this magic, you know, there's this magic thing, but it's, it's a combination of things. And one of those things, I think, is just learning that we are enough, right? Like, that's kind of said a lot, but gosh, I think it resonates, and that's why it's said a lot, right?

Elle Billing:

Like, well, like, it sounds like you took like you took care of your whole self,

Annie Toro Lopez:

my whole self

Elle Billing:

like you were taking care of your your mental health, your emotional health, your physical health,

Annie Toro Lopez:

exactly

Elle Billing:

seeing the connections between them. And I know from talking to other friends who have lupus that like stress management is such a huge part of staying in remission when, when that happens. You know, I have another friend who was in remission for like eight. Or nine years, and it was, like, stress that ended up causing a flare.

Annie Toro Lopez:

And it's hard, because when you have these autoimmune when you're sick all the time, it's hard to work right, right?

Elle Billing:

And like, illness itself is stressful, and being able to manage that makes a big difference in in the severity of it for sure,

Annie Toro Lopez:

and I, and I think that, you know, it's, it's important to always keep in mind that, like my experience, I know isn't everyone's experience, and that I've had a lot of, I've been fortunate in a lot of ways that I I've been able to maintain myself. And I know that you know part of part of the catch 22 is that if you can't work, you don't have health care, and if you don't have health care, you can't take care of yourself, and if you can't take care of yourself, it's hard to work.

Elle Billing:

Yeah, it's a beast.

Annie Toro Lopez:

That's a tough one. I mean, it's and that's in the society in which we live.

Elle Billing:

Unfortunately, yeah, I mean, our our society is disabling and it generates chronic illness like

Annie Toro Lopez:

precisely.

Elle Billing:

I know you mentioned nutrition, and earlier you showed me your your cookbook. I have a lot of food restrictions because of my various illnesses, and I've had to accommodate and sort of adapt my diet on the on the fly, as I've gone over the last dozen years or so. But I'm kind of shooting from the hip just like, oh, I can't have this anymore. I guess I'll change it this way. But you have you're a chef, right? That's one of your many hats,

Annie Toro Lopez:

yes, yes. That's one of my many hats, yeah. And so you have

Elle Billing:

a different background than me, and so when you were diagnosed also with celiac disease, you were able to adapt to that as well.

Annie Toro Lopez:

So just to be clear, I am not a formally trained chef. I've lived all of my life around food professionals. I was raised in a household of food professionals. My uncle had restaurants, and in fact, he was the one who's like, don't, don't, don't do this. Don't go into this field. Don't own a restaurant. Don't

Elle Billing:

if you want to manage your stress, don't go into

Annie Toro Lopez:

exactly! well, I always tell my friends like, I love the Costco business center there. If there's a business center in your city, go there, because nobody's ever there, it's always empty. I know Costco empty. I like to go and look at all the restaurant supply stuff, and I just drool, right? I want that, but I recognize the difficulty of the restaurant business. Let's just put it that way.

Elle Billing:

You'd rather continue to enjoy cooking than have to-- Yeah,

Annie Toro Lopez:

it's so much yeah. And I'm, I love what I get to do, because as a food writer. So I'm a, I'm a food writer. My reviews on Google have, like, 1.3 million views. I think great, top 10 Google reviewer for eateries. And I write, you know, I've done various food articles and, you know, food related things. This is my, this is my second cookbook. So mostly I'm a food writer.

Elle Billing:

Okay,

Annie Toro Lopez:

my mom had a had a deli. I grew up in such a food culture. I grew up in Nebraska, where, you know, an area where, like, you went outside and you bought, you know, picked vegetables, you bought them and you cook them.

Elle Billing:

Yeah, I'm in North Dakota. My cooking knowledge comes from growing up with a grandma who cooked everything, you know.

Annie Toro Lopez:

So my family, my parents, were born and raised in New Jersey and then relocated to Nebraska, and they had would have these huge dinner parties, and they would compete with each other. So we did elaborate cooking growing up, and my mother was such a food enthusiast that she always had food TV on in the background. So I grew up with Julia Child and Jacques Pepin and, you know, the Galloping Gourmet and all of those things, and America's Test Kitchen was always on in the background. And it still is. We still are completely food obsessed. So I'm, I'm a home chef. I'm but and I feel I've pretty much, you know, pretty well proven myself. Cooking in commercial kitchens has been really fun. I've been doing that more now. So that's what I was saying. So I get to do kind of all the fun stuff of like a restaurant. So I get to go into restaurants, and I've been hosted by restaurants and beauty, you know, the rebel rise, gluten free bistro bakery in Omaha, and then morganas, she's a legendary pastry chef in in Missouri. So that's been kind of the best of both worlds. I get to kind of do the best of both worlds. Yeah. When I was diagnosed with celiac, I was really, really sick, like not able to get off the couch, sick for a long time, a long time. And from about the time I left teaching, it took 10 years to diagnose, and finally I was demanding the diagnosis. So I was diagnosed by biopsy, because I was like, I need to know what this is. So that was the spring of 2023 and my dearest lifelong friend died of pancreatic cancer, and then six days later, my sister died of a fall, and three weeks later, I was in first place in a national cooking competition hosted by Chef Carla Hall to benefit the James Beard Foundation. And I was diagnosed with celiac I really was just flattened, like, I don't know how else to say it. I literally couldn't lift my head off the pillow, like, emotionally flattened, and I was in a particularly bad day, and I posted in a celiac group, and someone said, Hey, you might like this group of senior women. And it was nice, but I was still really lonely, and I really needed connection. So from that group, which is from a national, was a national retirement organization, I formed a Denver group, which, at the time, was named for that that group, but we are now independent. We don't a part of any other larger group. But I founded the group, and I decided, you know, I thought there's a loneliness epidemic, right? Like, kind of that silent epidemic that was here before covid, before the whole pandemic, and now is worse,

Elle Billing:

yes, yes.

Annie Toro Lopez:

And so I was really lonely. I was just super lonely, and my people were gone and and I had this celiac diagnosis, and my best friend was a she was a nurse, so she was who I would have called and said, Tell me about them. And, of course, my sister, my sister, so I was really lonely, and my and my marriage was not in a good place at the time either. It's a much better place now, but it wasn't then. So I formed this group, and I just, I put it out there, and I just set up a coffee, and I decided I wanted to do it because I had celiac and I was just learning to navigate this. And I didn't know, like, I'm learning to eat out, I'm learning all the things that go with it. And I didn't feel like any I could expect anyone else to do, like, due diligence in like, you know, calling ahead to a restaurant or whatever. And so I was like, it's fine, like, I'll just set it up. So I was consistent. I was consistent, and I set something up for every, you know, I picked one day a week. But we're at different times, fairly consistent times. Now it's been two years, but different places, different locations. So we go to coffee shops and we go to restaurants and we go and then we I try to do two, two coffees, one lunch and one outing that isn't too expensive or free a month, because, you know, a lot of seniors live on a tight budget, and it's getting harder because everything's so expensive. And I decided to do it once a once a week instead of once a month, because to alleviate loneliness, you have to have a point of entry. You can't have the point of entry too, too difficult. And if I do it once a month, then if you miss one, it's eight weeks between connection, yeah. So I really felt like it was important to do once a week, so I did it by myself for quite a while. And at first, you know, it'd be two or three of us, and we talked about this not too long ago. I don't think we ever had one where, like, no it was just one person, or no one showed up ever. But sometimes it would be too now it's 12 or 15. We had 150 people overnight, like almost overnight when I put this out there, and now we're about 500 and growing.

Elle Billing:

Wow.

Annie Toro Lopez:

So the Denver area Women's Network, and it's just, you know, we call ourselves DAWN. And it's, it's a great group, and it's, we've really made true connections and real friendships and people who care about each other, we have each other's back. I mean, it's, I'll tell you what, I'm an introvert. I'm a writer, right? I'm kind of a loner. Like, let's be real. I live in the middle of nowhere in Colorado, like, I don't think you can see out my window, but I live in five and a half acres in the middle of nowhere, so I've never been a big joiner, like I've never been a part of a big group that's a group, but it's delightful. It's delightful. And it's been, it's been a lot of support, you know, I mean, and I've told them before too, I was like, Well, I mean, I did this because I needed it, yep, and I'm so glad that it also feeds other people, right, that it helps other people. And we've really, very deliberately stayed agenda less. We have no we get together for friendship. It's a friendship group because we've had a couple such. You know, where? Some people have wanted to bring their agenda to the group. We need a place now more than ever, to feel at peace, to feel connected, to feel like heard, and to have someone say, so how's your granddaughter's baseball game? And it's sort of like I think it was Winston Churchill who said during World War Two, if we don't protect art, if we don't protect music, if we don't protect that sort of connection, what are we fighting for? This is what we protect. This is what's we have to protect. And that's the connection and the lovingness and the kindness that we can show to each other and ourselves, right like to show to ourselves and back to self care, right? That's all part of self care. Then you can show up, yeah, when you have that to draw from, yeah.

Elle Billing:

So one last question,

Annie Toro Lopez:

sure.

Elle Billing:

And I mean, you kind of ended on a little bit of a profound note anyway, so maybe you already answered it, but maybe you didn't. What is one true thing that you have learned from this whole journey and experience with chronic illness and writing your cookbooks, and all of the things we've talked about today.

Annie Toro Lopez:

Thank you. That's a that's a really good question, and I appreciate it. I it's, I didn't have to think about it, I didn't have to think about it, and it's been one of the hardest lessons, for sure, like, really, really difficult for me. I think it's a hard lesson for all of us, but really being in the here and now, the power of not allowing our feelings about the past, the lens that we look through from the past to color where we are in the here and now in this moment, or to allow the anxiety about the future, and there's plenty of that we know to creep in where you can't focus on what's In front of you. And I used to think that that was a way to avoid but what I learned once I practiced it, and it took practice for sure, and I I still get anxious about things that are happening around us, and I'm better about the past. The past is gone. I can't influence it. I can't change it. I can't do anything about it so, and that's not easy. That's hard. It's really hard. It really is, you know, you have things that it doesn't mean that you're not justified in the feelings that you have. What I learned is that being in the moment means that it's type of forgiveness, I guess, in a way, right? I'm forgiving myself. I'm forgiving the past. And what I what I learned was forgiving others, or forgiving the past isn't about the forgiven. It's about the Forgiver. It's about letting go of that stuff. You know, I said that my husband, I weren't weren't in a good place, and we're in a much better place. Now, part of what I learned was when he's doing things for me, or he's trying to connect or trying to, you know, in the way that he knows how, rather than looking at him and thinking, Well, you know, you didn't do this, or you didn't do this, or or I'm resenting, whatever. Because, you know, we all have resentments against each other. When you live with someone like there's no perfection there. So being able to let that go, and being able to just say, like, I'm just going to look at you in the here and now I'm like, in this moment, and what you're saying and what you're doing and what you're what you're offering from the place where you've learned, I've learned, we're not those people anymore. That helped my relationship a lot, because he didn't feel the pressure and he didn't feel the resentment behind my eyes. Resentment is hard to hide, yeah, and all of that, like I understanding being here and now, you know, having this conversation with you and being fully present with you, I'm not thinking about anything else. I just, I just want to be present with you. The saying my husband and I talk about it, when you're washing dishes, wash dishes.

Elle Billing:

Yeah, thank you.

Annie Toro Lopez:

Yeah, absolutely, thank you. I appreciate the questions very much, and I appreciate your having me here.

Elle Billing:

Yeah, thanks for being here.

Annie Toro Lopez:

Yeah,

Elle Billing:

When you're washing dishes; wash the dishes.

Annie Toro Lopez:

That's right,

Elle Billing:

yeah. And it's usually when I'm doing those kind of chores that my mind wanders the most,

Annie Toro Lopez:

absolutely, yeah, and that's not bad either. Like, it's sort of like, it's sort of like the creativity of boredom, right?

Elle Billing:

Like, that's absolutely, yeah, and that's usually what I'm doing when I'm doing chores

Annie Toro Lopez:

Absolutely,

Elle Billing:

no, I totally, I totally get what you mean.

Annie Toro Lopez:

I think that there is a presence of mind of being in the moment and experiencing what's happening in front of us, and especially and the culture that we live in now that is so other focused, and that's just the culture. I'm not judged. That's not a judgment. I'm just like, oh yeah. So yeah, this is what's happening. But yeah, you know, we're very other focused, and I think that being in the moment is is really valuable.

Elle Billing:

Thank you.

Annie Toro Lopez:

Yeah, absolutely.

Elle Billing:

Thank you for joining us on this episode of Hoorf. to get the complete show notes and all the links mentioned on today's episode, or to get a full transcript of the episode, visit HoorfPodcast.com Join the Blessed Herd of St

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