Where Resistance Softens and the Soul Begins to Rise

“Rewriting the Self: Candace Klein transformational Leadership”
Candace Sjogren is a proven leader with significant experience in GTM strategy, sales, corporate fundraising, business development and marketing.
 In 2012, Candace co-authored the legislation that became the JOBS Act, and recently published her first book, "Typhoon Honey, the only way out is through." This interview delves into her spiritual, emotional and diverse lifestyle. We discussed about “breaking open” moments. We speak about her differentiating between growth that is strategic and growth that is soul-level?
Other topics internal resistance, deep personal evolution often in people who are on the brink of transformation.
This episode goes deep. Candace’s life has completely shifted and up leveled over the course of the last year. She has transformed every aspect into her dream life, as she’s guided herself through her own unique growing body of work.
Since April she has stepped back from a job that wasn’t feeling aligned anymore… and she just accepted a new job that actually reflects her values. She has totally deepened in love in her marriage with her beautiful husband. . She wrote a book (coming out soon! Called “Polyagony” 😉) Klein?  Her newest book, "Polyagony:  The Art of Repair in Open Relationships"  link to bio www.polyagony.com?  Thank you!

This is one not miss!!!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Hey everybody, it's Mimi from Be Heard, Empower Yourself. And as usual, I like to keep my show varied with all kinds of topics. As my loyal listeners know, I can have anything on from the Akashic Records to spiritual beings to uh marketing, you know. So I try to cover it all, but it makes it fun. Makes it fun for me, and I hope it makes it fun for you. So today I have Candace Klein. Hi, Candace. How are you?

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Hello, I'm good, Mimi. Thanks so much for having me on your show.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

And uh Candace has just recently changed her name, and I can relate to that because when I wrote my first book, I wrote it under my maiden name, which was Tallow. And my first name is Marie, but I put Mimi because Mimi was the name I always wanted. What better time, you know. So and that's a cute looking in a comment. So Candace is a proven leader with significant experience in fundraising and business development and marketing. And in my crew, I have one part of my podcast and my YouTube show that we sometimes focus on business development and marketing, because I have a lot of authors, a lot of writers that found sense. And Candace, you have previously managed Boston Breakthrough Academy. An emotional intelligence leadership training academy. Interesting. Emotional intelligence. Okay. And in 2012, you co-authored the legislation that became the jobs act. Well, that's very impressive. And you recently published your first book, Typhoon Honey, the Only Way Out is through. I like that title.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

And that was uh an emotional intelligence-based book. So so yeah, tied to my leadership academy.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

I I love it because I'm with my husband 40 years, but he's my third husband. Oh, interesting. Okay. So I like that the only way out is through. No, it's like I'm such a good wife, they don't want to let me go. My way to get away from them. So anyway, you're a perfect fit for our show because you know I could tell you the sounds of humor because you're laughing at my jokes. So anyway, many uh leaders talk about breaking open moments. You're talking about break breaking through. So what was one moment that fundamentally shifted how you see yourself?

SPEAKER_00 3:11

Well, a few of them. And I the only thing I would just uh thank you so much, by the way, Mimi, for having me on your show. And and more recently, I have just published a book called Polyagony, which is all about repair and open relationships. And so so we're adding to adding to the book repertoire. But you asked about breakthrough moments. In order to tell a breakthrough moment, I think you have to start with a breakdown. And so I'll tell the story about what caused me to write this most recent book. So I have been in an open marriage my entire marriage. I've been married 11 years. I have a seven-year-old son, very happy. Uh, they were literally just in here with me and you a couple of minutes ago. And so we we've just had a non-traditional way of living that has worked really well for our family. As you mentioned, I used to run a leadership academy called Boston Breakthrough Academy, and two of my adult students, I graduated a thousand adults through that leadership academy, all mid to high-level executives. And two of the people who came through my leadership academy were husband and wife. And there was a severe domestic violence situation among this couple, and the wife did not survive. It was a just severe domestic violence situation. And there were three children involved. They had three kids under the age of six. And at the time, this was a couple of years ago, the attorneys for the children reached out to my husband and I and asked us if we would fight for custody of the kids because they didn't feel they were safe. And we did. We went to court and we fought for custody of these kids. And the judge ultimately ruled against us because we're in an open marriage. We had social workers and adoption agencies all talk about how amazing and loving our family is, how well-rounded our child is, how you know communicative we are, and like what a safe place this would be. And the judge ultimately ruled against us because we're polyamorous. And in that moment, you can go in one of two directions. You can choose to just go do what the courts say to do, go back and do things the way everybody else does them, or you can be an advocate. And I have chosen to be an advocate for non-traditional family structures. And that's why that's why I wrote my recent most recent book.

SPEAKER_01 5:17

You, you know, you hit on the head for me. You have to hit like sort of a bottom or sort of a a situation where you feel you're stuck, you can't go anywhere. Yeah, yeah. And with the three marriages, you know, the first one I would say was a I was too young. Okay. Normal reasons to get divorced, he was bad, only stayed in now a year and a half. Yeah. But the second marriage was very sick, it was out of a movie because when I divorced him, he would not recognize a divorce. And he stalked me. And he was physically abusive. He didn't pay child support, he didn't care if he starved. He would show up on a date. Now I'm a divorced woman, I am divorced. Okay. And he would show up and he would intimidate me and my date. So I never got a second date, of course. Who wants to date me with this guy? And I finally, I mean, I was at the point of murder, and I don't say that lightly, he had stalked me and waited for me to come home. I had been on a date, my kids were with my parents, he jumped out of the bushes and it was horrible. And when I called the police, now you have to realize this is 1977. And they really didn't care about women getting abused by their husbands. And a lot of women were dying. And this police officer came, and of course, the ex was gone. And when I told him what happened, he literally said to me, Go buy a gun. Next time it happens, shoot the bastard. I'm not making this up. I it's in my book, my first book, Raised Bible by Demons. And then he said to me, and if it happens outside the apartment, after you shoot him, drag him inside. This is a police officer telling me to do this, right? So I uh I had to do extreme things to get away from that man. I really didn't so I understand that, and then fast forward to when I was 41 and I had this wonderful husband that I'm with like 40 years, I hit a bottom emotionally, spiritually, physically, and realized I had something wrong, but I didn't know what it was, and found out it was alcoholism. Because all those years of trauma from my parents to the two exes and having chronic depression and not knowing it, I was submedicating. I was my own doctor. I was like, hey, some drop down ice, that'll come, yeah, that'll fix everything, you know. And I'm sober 35 years in May. Congratulations. Again, crisis, crisis, crisis, nowhere else to go, feeling like you're in a corner, you know. But then, but that I will say that doesn't happen for everybody. I thought about that the other day. That some women might uh be in the corner crying and not know what to do. Uh, and some people just some women, I'm talking women, that's my main subject usually. They just pull their pants up and get that resilience and get up and fight physically, emotionally, whatever they have to do is fight. And that's what we're talking about. But you have to get at a light bulb moment. Like, I'm not gonna get out of this. I'm not gonna, nothing's gonna change unless I do something drastic. That's right. That's right. I could tell by your face, you agree with it all.

SPEAKER_00 9:16

Yeah, I mean, and and that's actually, I mean, that's the the whole reason why I told you about the the turning point moment with that court case, because you know, most people would have just chosen to say, oh, you know what, the judge has a good point. Let me just go back and be monogamous. But for for me, and something I talk about in polyagony is that many people identify. It's like LGBTQ, right? People identify as as polyamorous. I do. It's a part of my my identity and who I am. And so so it was like, this is the wrong answer. This is the wrong answer. The the the courts ruled incorrectly in this instance. And I'm an attorney, I'm a licensed attorney. And I was like, if if I and I and I've changed federal laws before, like you mentioned, the Jobs Act. And so it's like, okay, if I want to see this changed, I have to do it myself.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

And so then on the children.

SPEAKER_00 10:03

Yeah. And on and on what was the best, because these children are now in foster care, they're now in foster care and they're in a much unhealthier environment. And so the point of all of this is non-traditional family structures are much more common today. So when 70% of marriages end in divorce, when 20% of the American adult public now identifies as non-monogamous, and it's a fast-growing subculture, there are so many different ways that a family can look now. You could you have sperm donors who aren't who aren't active in a child's life, but you have, you know, single parents who are very strong. And and like the fact that we are now still forcing, courts are forcing families to look a certain way, that is what needs to change.

SPEAKER_01 10:46

Yeah. I have had on a chance a transgender woman. I have a woman that identifies as neurodiverse. You know, I have all I've had men on the show too, don't get me wrong. Sure.

SPEAKER_00 11:01

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

Women are usually more interesting. But anyway, I don't want to be saying seem sexist, so I have a few men. But yeah, I and I, in my younger days, I'm very open-minded, still open-minded, and I didn't care what color, race, sex you were, or identify anything, but it was in the 60s, and some people did care. You know, so I had to deal with a lot of hiding friendships. Couldn't let my father know that I was on a date with a black man. Uh one via one ex-husband like full rage because I was sitting with a transestite who was in full drag, and we went to the ladies' room together. I thought nothing of it, nothing, it didn't even dawn on me. Nothing came in my mind about that. Yeah, you know, so I've always been like that. And now I see after all the fighting for equality, for color, for sex, for everything, women uh, and women especially. Oh my god, they're taking away our rights, and you're a lawyer. Joe versus Wade, is that I said I always say it wrong, always. Oh my god, I fought for that 60s and 70s, and they overturned it. I'm like, whoa, what's going on? Handmaid sale. I'm like really nervous. Yeah. So I'm glad to hear you have all those credentials and that you're trying to resist. So let me ask you this. Let me ask you about internet resistance. And you had to overcome that somehow. Did I read it have had to read that?

SPEAKER_00 13:04

Yeah, so so in in Polyagony, which is a trilogy, there's there's three books in in the series. There's the the foundation, the expansion, and the reckoning. So if you're you know in an existing marriage and you're wanting to open it up, there's there's like what do we need to think about? And then there's the expansion, like actually going on a date with another person. And then there's how do I talk about this with my friends and family? And then the reckoning is all about like all the things that can go wrong, you know, like all the sideways, like the paper cuts in the relationship and breaking up and all of that. But in the expansion, in that second book, we talk about coming out of the closet. And and I just recently, I've been I've been polyamorous now for almost 20 years. I just came out of the closet this past September publicly as a bisexual, queer, polyamorous woman. And there was significant backlash. So um from family, from people I hadn't seen in 20 years, who felt the need to tell me that, you know, God was frowning on me. And and it was like, you know, I this is this is who I am. I have been in the closet for I'm 45 years old for 45 years, and I'm finally feeling like this is the time for me to just be who I am publicly. So what I talk about in the book is one, really think about how you want to come out if you're wanting to come out of the closet, with whom, which with which populations. There's like, you know, really sheltering coming out of the closet with just the people who you know will be supportive. You have to think about if you're going to come out to your children, you know, that's a different set of conversations. And then if you want to come out with social media, and that's that's a completely different conversation. So, so every every step, I I've gone through all the steps and just did like the the big coming out of the closet in September. But but I I write about like things you need to think about and considerations that that that should be taken into account.

SPEAKER_01 14:56

Yeah. I grew up in a home again, 50s and 60s was my childhood and teenage years. And back then it was whatever happens in this house stays in this house. You don't talk about anything. And my father was an alcoholic and my mother was a narcissist. Like she I cannot remember one time that she hugged or kissed us. And if she hugged or kissed us, she kind of took it for a second, like it was awful. And then plus, she was like, And there were a lot of other things, but I grew up like that, and then I came into a little bit more freedom when I left home, and it was the 60s and 70s, so I had a lot of fun. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Made the mistake of getting married and ended all that. But I talked to 2020, it was really hard on me with the husband. I was a caretaker, my own health problems. I have an autoimmune, I have breast cancer, I have a few things. I do, I was told I have chronic depression. I've been on antidepressants for a very long time. And I knew I was getting depressed because I was being mean to my husband. And I'm very aware of I have self-awareness. I do I think I have very good self-awareness. Not all the time, but most of the time. So I got into help, get my help and everything. And my counselor advised me to write a book. And I said, I'm not a writer. And she said, You told me you wanted to be an English teacher when you were young, and your parents stopped you from that from going to college, which by the way, I ended up going to college with two little kids and no children.

SPEAKER_00 16:53

That's a weird one. You go, girl. You go, girl.

SPEAKER_01 16:57

And and him coming on campus is a mess. So, anyway, long story short, I said, Oh, you're right. So I know vocabulary and grammar, and I have the story because it's my story, and I wrote this book. The backlash from this book, and I did not come out as a queer or bisexual or anything. Just the fact that I put everything that happened in my life out for the world to see my husband's family. Catholic, Irish, very strict, very provincial, were furious. We're furious. And some of them still are. And that amazes me. You know, I mean, it's my story. I made a point of they were in the background. My children were in the background. Wasn't their story, and I wasn't gonna very good job, and and I didn't make sex too explicit. I made it like a 1940s movie where the light went off and the door closed. I'm just saying it's like who are they to judge? I always think of the Bible, I'm not a big Bible person, but I do think of cast the first stone. Do you know that quotation? Yep. Who is without sin, let you cast the first stone. So you, honey, they have no right because there's nobody I know that doesn't have some sin or black spot on their wife. Am I right? Yep. That's right. So I totally relate to you in a different way, different circumstance, but it's kind of the same. And I one last thing I will say too, they're hard to run women. Yeah. Now the gays are having a real hard time. My friends that are gay are having a real hard time because they're taking away some of the states are taking away the right to marry, which they just gave them a few years ago, you know, and now they're taken aback. The women that could get the abortion, I mean it's pretty clear what's going on. And who's doing it? White men. And I say white men.

SPEAKER_00 19:18

I'm not it's interesting to hear you talk about this because I was in a conversation recently with a family member who didn't understand why I'm writing this book. I'm doing a TED talk in September on this topic, and so I'm very passionate about it. And and they were like, I, you know, I just don't get when the world is how it is right now, why you're so focused on this frivolous stuff. And my response was this is the way I'm creating safety in the world. I'm creating a conversation, I'm creating a broader conversation around the ways that we love each other. And the whole point of this is to make more people feel safe, particularly when we're in a world right now where so many of us feel unsafe. And like this is just my small way of making an impact. And and and that helps the person understand and we we we reached a better understanding as a result of conversation. But, you know, when when the rest of the world makes no sense, all that uh you or I or anyone who's listening to this podcast can do is to say, how can I make my small stake in the sand? Like you did when you were dealing with depression and wrote your book, or like I did as I'm dealing with this court decision and writing mine. You know, it's it's out of our pain, we create healing. And so, so my goal here, just as yours, I'm sure was, is to create healing for the world through the pain that I've experienced.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

And you're not being passive, you're being assert, you're not being passive and eating what they want you to eat and swallowing it. You're saying, believe that. I don't agree with that, and I'm only one tiny little person, but I could do something. And very exciting, I'm very proud of this. That book was published in 2021, and I'm still getting checks.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

That's awesome. Congratulations. It is.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

I mean, I'm talking$20, maybe, but I know lots of people that wrote books and didn't sell one because they didn't know how to market. I taught myself how to publish, market, do all of that. I now I'm real deep into the whole algorithm thing, which is like blows my mind. And my friends are like, How are you doing this? You're this age, and how I can't even use my phone. And I said, Because I'm teaching myself. You could be any age and teach yourself, you could be 80 and teach yourself how to do this, you know. But it's also about having a voice. Don't take my voice away. And you feel the same way. And that's what you're doing your whatever it is, no matter how small or big. One last this I have to tell you. Last month I had on my show. A man and his last name is Cunningham, David Cunningham, and he wrote a book about leaving a love footprint because we always talk about environmental issues and footprint or lathing. He is gay and has a gay husband. And he wrote this book about leaving a love footprint. He self-published, he got a whole bunch printed up for him, and he sent one to every member of Congress, including the president and vice president. And I said, Did anyone call you back? And he said, Two senators called two. I said, Well, that's two more than nothing. And now he's going to Washington and he's going to go to each and every office. Now, some people might say, He's crazy. What is he wasting his time? You and I don't think he's crazy, do we?

SPEAKER_00 23:00

Well, no, as somebody who's I was a lobbyist for about 15 years and worked on federal and state legislation, it's all human connection. So good for him. And and also, that's also like what what I what I'm doing with Polyagony and my TED Talk is I'm I'm creating a new a different conversation. So he's just creating a new conversation, as am I. And honestly, right now, with the world being what it is, the world could use more love. I'll hear it. Right. And so so like what with with polyagony, what my my goal is is to create more love. We can that like I I I wholeheartedly do not believe in love scarcity, meaning, and like you have children, so you understand this. Like, even if as people who are monogamous, and I I write about this in my book, I say if you're monogamous, but you have more than one child, you knew before you ever had a child, oh my gosh, I couldn't possibly love anyone more than I love my partner, my spouse. And then you have a child and you're like, oh my God, my heart just expanded. And and look, I just feel completely overwhelmed with love for my child. And then you have a second child, and then you're like, oh, I have more love. It's not like there's a hundred units of love that have to be divided between your three people in your life. Love is abundant. Love is something that can be expanded, it can be grown, and it's something that can be shared much more freely. And that's that's really what I'm an advocate for with non-monogamy.

SPEAKER_01 24:22

There are two books I read after I got sober. And to me, they're very important books. One was the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, which I don't care if you're an alcoholic or not, go read that book because it has life lessons in there. It really does. And then I read A Course in Miracles. And I don't know if you ever heard of A Course in Miracles. I haven't. This woman was an atheist.

SPEAKER_02 24:52

An atheist.

SPEAKER_01 24:54

And one day, she I don't know how it came about, but she started she was like a scientist, she was brilliant. She started writing, and she wrote this book, but it wasn't her. Like she just says it wasn't my thoughts. The paper went to pen. Pen to paper. Well, I'm gonna tell you what, that's another book. So along the road, some people read both books like I did, and said they have the same message. There's really only two emotions love and fear. You cannot have love if you are afraid, and you cannot be afraid if you have love. Now that to me is very clear, and a lot of people have said that the two books have the same message, and I I they do. Now the guy that wrote the first book, AAA book, he was an alcoholic and he was a stockbroker in New York, very successful, you know, and when he got sober, he was dragging drunks off the street trying to get them sober. It worked. We tried a different approach. And this woman was a scientist, an atheist, and she now I'm not a holy roller, I'm not very religious, but some people would say, Oh, it's like the hand of God wrote the book. I don't know. Some her subconscious whatever freaky thing, but it came out to be very good. That's all that counts. But unusual things happen all the time. And you and I are the type of people that I think don't just walk by and don't pay attention. I think we walk and say, huh, that's unusual. I wonder what that means. Mm-hmm. All right, you had that in your mind, I could tell.

SPEAKER_00 26:53

The the thing that I look for in so so I I have a coaching business, I run retreats, I'm a corporate executive, and I have many employees. And what I'm always looking for is the shape of someone's heart. So, so what is it that would light them up? And I always I always joke with people that I'm the flashlight that you use to go find your own light switch. And so my goal is to help people find their own light switch, find the things that turn them on. Not not necessarily romantically or sexually, just in life, right? That's that's always been my goal is with my leadership academy. And so, so yeah, so I I I I hope that we can all look beyond what we see on the surface and look for what lights each other up.

SPEAKER_01 27:33

I think so too. And this is a great conversation, by the way. I don't I I love it because you know I do this, I go totally off topic, but then it comes out to be better. So we did talk a little bit about spirituality because I was just talking about where I am with that. And I was born Catholic, and I think anybody born into any organized religion is in trouble. Because, you know, from the time you're born to you know, to the time you're like maybe in grammar school, like these people have complete mind control over you, and whatever they say is gospel. Yes, I meant the pun. You know, they say it, mommy and daddy, it must be true. So I grew up Catholic, so everything the Catholic Church and my parents told me was that was it, you know. And when I got divorced the first time, they told me, Oh, you got divorced, you can't get communion anymore, you can't go for holy communion, you can't get the sacred wafer. I was like, but I'm not the one that cheated. He cheated adultery, thou shalt not, you know, covet another man's woman, that's adultery. Why am I getting kicked out? I was so devastated. And I went to this cathedral downtown, big church where nobody would know anybody, it was so big, and I went in a confessional box. I was like 22 years old. I told the priest this, and he said, What the heck with that? He said, You come to this church anytime you want, and you walk up to the railing and you receive holy communion. And if anybody that knows you sees you doing it and says anything, you tell them, come talk to Monsignor. I love that, you know, because he stood up to his own religion and said, No, that's wrong. Okay. And I bring that up because I had no religion, I had nothing. And that's part of why I fell into the self-medication of alcoholism because I had nothing. And when I got sober, I had to get sober first, and AA was my religion for a long time. And I was very good at it. I was a sponsor, I had every leadership role in the agency that you could have. But then things happened, and then I found true spirituality, and it doesn't matter if if you're worshiping Buddhism or whatever, I found what I feel is true spirituality, and again, guess what it is? Love, it's love, and the spiritual community I'm in is based on love, you know, and nothing else. And it doesn't have a covenant or a list of rules or anything. And where are you with the spirituality?

SPEAKER_00 30:44

Yeah, it's it's interesting that you asked this. I've I've been doing a number of interviews around the launch of polyagony, and the question of spirituality and religion comes up in every single interview, which is interesting. I wouldn't expect that, but I I've had time to think about it. I do not consider myself religious because you're telling stories of your life. I'll tell a story of mine. When I was 20 years old, I was excommunicated from my church for sleeping with the pastor's son. No, I was engaged to him. We were engaged to be married at the time. And so I was actually very proud of myself. They said, we want you to apologize, you know, and repent for your sins in front of the church. And I was like, I'm proud of myself. I was waiting until I was engaged to be married. I'm 20 years old, like, I'm proud of myself. And so I was I was voted out of the church. And so I wouldn't consider myself a church going person, but I do consider myself quite spiritual. And and you know what, what I what I have have learned is there was a time in 2013 that I went trekking in Nepal and I and I I hiked all day, trekked all day with a a woman who was teaching me about her religion and the and she was talking talking to me about how we've we've lived many lives. And she said, you know, we always come back and we come back and and and and our and our job is to learn a lesson or teach a lesson or both. And she said, if you meet someone, if you come into contact with someone and you feel like, wow, I feel a real connection with this person, you've met them before, you've met them in a previous life. And your job now is to identify like what the lesson is for the two of you to learn from each other. And and so, like what I see in in how I live my life, whether it's in my marriage or with raising my child, if it is how I relate it as I wrote this book, I look at every person I meet is a lesson in my past for from my past or for my future in all the different lives that we will lead. So whether you believe in heaven or hell or whatever you, you know, that I do firmly believe in a higher power. I'm also eight years sober from alcohol. So I I absolutely believe in my higher power. And I believe that every person I come into contact with, there's a lesson. There's a lesson from my past or for my future that I am meant to learn. And and I'm and I'm going to explore that, that lesson with each of them.

SPEAKER_01 32:50

I never thought that we would have this much in common with really, yeah. I am totally, I just uh did my Akashic records with someone. They uh went into it for me because I didn't know how to do it. And I had six lives. The funny part, I did it on my podcast. She said, You want to do it live and everybody to hear? And I said, Yes, because that's how I am. Yeah, I got it all out there. And she said, your first life was 200 AD, and you were a female gladiator. That was it. I said, That you don't have to go any farther. I believe you. I believe I was a gladiator in 2008, my yeah. So we went into that and then we talked about spiritual guides. And you know, in the Catholic religion, they talk about having guardian angels. They say you have a guardian angel. So I said, spiritual guide, guardian angel. How much of a jump is that? You know? Oh I can believe that, you know. So like I'm very open to a lot of those things because I believe that you do come back.

SPEAKER_00 34:05

And and also, and also, like I I had I had a second son named August, and he only survived for four days. So he he was born very early, 22 weeks. I'm grateful that we had the four days with him. This necklace that I wear represents him, this little moon. Um, I say that my son Ivor is my son and and August is my moon. But the point is, you know, I had a mom coach who was helping helping me to you know raise my children the best I could. And and she's she called me before I was pregnant. And before I knew I was pregnant, she called me and she said, You're pregnant. And I said, What? And she said, I just wanted to let you know you're pregnant. And she said, and I she said, I want I want you to know that your son picked you because you're slutty. She he picked you because you are so like flamboyant and so out loud and so out there. And so he was only with us for four days. It was such a powerful experience. But what's interesting is I feel his presence constantly. I feel him with me all the time. And I feel him like hugging me and being like, Mom, you got this, you go. And so I'm I believe not only do we have like past and present and future lives, but also believe that our spirits are constantly around us. Like my son is definitely with me all the time.

SPEAKER_01 35:14

Yeah, uh, people talk about it all the time and they have their own versions of what they think. And I always say, nobody actually knows what they think, but what I would like to believe is that yeah, I'm gonna be wandering around and looking down and seeing what my kids and grandkids are doing or and maybe intervening at some times, like in the background. Yeah, I want to I want to believe that. I don't want to believe it's burned to dust, you know. And what I believe is important because that puts your life in that direction. If you want to be a very at 77 to have had two terrible marriages, an awful childhood, all these diseases and body parts that they have no original parts can't they're either removed or replaced. I'm not kidding. In fact, I just released a book Anatomy of an Alien. It's about me because every time I go to the doctor for anything, he'd say, Oh yeah, you have a hernia, but it's it's it's different, it's not like anything I've ever seen. So like every time we'd leave a doctor, and that would happen every time, every time you never saw something like that, or you're a little different, or your things in a little different place. And I'd leave and I'd say to my husband, I'm an alien. I'm an alien. And when they would go in to do surgery, same thing. So I wrote that book, and you're gonna like this. It's a medical, paranormal mystery because what it does is all my medical stuff, but it also talks about starseeds. I don't know if you have a star seeds. Oh, we were started.

SPEAKER_00 37:08

I pull I pull starseed cards every day.

SPEAKER_01 37:10

Yeah, there you go. Am I a starseed? Here's some of the things that I went through that starseeds have this happen to them too. So that's the paranormal. The medical is all the stuff that's happened to me. I have pictures in the book of all my surgeries. And the mystery at the end is am I a starseed?

SPEAKER_00 37:36

Neat. Well, something uh two two things that you just said that I think are important for your listeners, particularly as we're talking about about like the topic of the yeah. So there's a book called Stranger from a Strange Land. I don't know if you've ever heard of it, but it okay, so it's it's a it's a fiction book and it was written in the 80s, but it's about a an alien named Valentine who comes to Planet Earth and essentially is here to like teach us earthlings about ourselves. Um, he ends up he ends up being outcasted, and it's a it's just an interesting book. But the thing that he's outcasted for is for teaching the topic of free love. And and you know, it's just like the tree, uh the tree-hugging hippie perspective. But you'll get a kick out of it because of the book you've written, because of the book I've written.

SPEAKER_01 38:20

It's gonna do another show. We have to do another because the set, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:25

The second the second thing that you mentioned that I think is really important for your listeners, you've mentioned this a few times about your childhood and your marriages. And this is something I spend a lot of time talking about in the foundation of my book, Polyagony, and that is jealousy, FOMO, insecurity. None of it actually has to do with your partner. It all has to do with your own attachment wounds from your childhood. And so if we could actually take the time to understand what happened, what went wrong in our childhood with an alcoholic father and a narcissistic mother, or with parents who were divorced in my instance, or with abuse or molestation or anything else that you're dealing with from your childhood, that is going to keep showing up and repeating itself over and over and over in your romantic relationships later in life, unless you can go back to the source and heal those wounds from your childhood. And so I'm even teaching a workshop this Wednesday night on attachment healing for that reason, because I think as adults, we focus so little on actually healing our wounds from childhood, which could help us so much with the relationships that we have today.

SPEAKER_01 39:25

I have been doing counseling since I got sober. I have been doing group counseling, individual, inpatient. Yeah. I actually went away three times. One was of course to get sober. The second one was because I gained 50 pounds. When you step drinking, then you pick up the sugar. And the third was family of origin issues. And my first, second one, second one, my husband said, Are you gonna be going away every couple years? And I said, If I have to, because what you just said is what I had to work on. I had to go away. And the book, the first book I wrote, a lot of people on my side of the family did not like what I said about my mother. And my mother tried to abort me. Oh wow, and she wrote that down in a journal that she knew I was going to inherit after she died. Wow. So in my last book, I put, I think that's when the starseed entered my body and saved my life. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:36

But I can believe anything I want. And you can well, I I believe that I am a starseed and that I am on this planet to do good in the world. And I also believe that my son is a starseed as well. And we're here for to do Yeah, that's what we're here for, to leave the world in a better place than we found it, to heal hearts, to bring people together. Yeah, yeah. And I so I honor you, Mimi, for doing this podcast and for continuing to write your books. I honor you as a woman who's been a trailblazer and someone who's kind of led the way for the for me and the next generation to follow in your footsteps and for continuing to have these open conversations on different perspectives and different walks of life, because I think that's that's where the true healing lives right now in this world, is where we can love each other even if we don't understand each other.

SPEAKER_01 41:22

Before we leave each other for the moment, because you're never gonna leave me. I'm gonna feel we've met each other in a previous life for sure. We were besties. One is where can I find the TED Talk?

SPEAKER_00 41:34

Like, I don't do everything, everything that everything about Canvas you can find at polyagony.com. So P O L Y A G O N Y dot com, and that will be my workshops, my my free workshops, my retreats, the book, the TED talk, it's all in one place. Spell that P-O-L-Y A-G-O-N-Y, polyagony.com.

SPEAKER_01 41:59

Yes. And then the other thing was was I gonna ask for an arms gonna ask for something else and I forgot. Okay. I'm gonna what uh do you have any? You have a website?

SPEAKER_00 42:10

It's polyagony.com. So everything is yeah, that's that what that's the website. It's all, yep, it's all there. Okay, and your books are on Amazon? They are, and you can go to polyagony.com to to find all of them.

SPEAKER_01 42:24

And with the name change, would I type in Candace Klein? Klein, K-L-E-I-N, that's right.

SPEAKER_00 42:32

I also I also have done a full YouTube reading of my book series. So if you'd rather listen, you can go to um you can look up Candace Klein on YouTube and you can see a full reading of the book as well.

SPEAKER_01 42:42

Yeah, all my podcasts are also on YouTube. And I tell people when I'm telling giving my cards and everything, I said, look, you think I look good? Go watch me on YouTube. I don't know why, but I look even better.

SPEAKER_00 42:56

Gotta appreciate Zoom editing or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 42:59

This is wonderful. Thank you. Thank you, Mimi. I hope you will consider coming back.

SPEAKER_00 43:04

I would love to. I'd be honored to. There were so many topics that came out.

SPEAKER_01 43:08

Yeah. Well, everyone, you had to love this one. And if you didn't, something wrong with you, because this was fabulous. All right. Thanks again, Gandhi.

SPEAKER_00 43:19

Thank you, Mimi. Have a great weekend. Bye bye.