Breaking the Blocks
Hi!
Thanks for stopping by! Life is tough, and I think this podcast might offer you some relief. My aim? To inspire you to overcome some of your own blocks through the inspirational, honest, and at times, downright raw conversations with some wonderful guests, not huge celebrities, regular people like you and I. Let’s see how they have overcome the difficulties in their lives and offer you some advice and more importantly hope.
www.breakingtheblocks.com
Instagram @breakingtheblocks
Facebook @breakingtheblocks
YouTube @BreakingTheBlockspodcast
www.craftymonkies.com
www.rachelpierman.com
Breaking the Blocks
From Grief to Growth: Nicole Leth on Affirmations, Compassion, and Creative Healing
After experiencing the profound pain of losing a loved one to suicide, Nicole Leth discovered the power of affirmations as a lifeline to healing. Her journey from personal tragedy to creating My Affirmation Project is a testament to resilience and creativity. Nicole shares how she transformed her grief into a mission of compassion, spreading messages of self-love and hope through various mediums like graffiti, quilts, and billboards. Her story is a powerful reminder that even in the darkest times, creativity can light the way to healing.
Nicole's poignant reflections on navigating addiction and trauma with empathy invite listeners to consider the deep connections between personal struggles and creativity. She recounts her close relationship with her father, marked by shared experiences at AA meetings, which profoundly shaped her understanding of addiction. Through her candid storytelling, Nicole reveals how vulnerability and artistic expression can transform grief into a source of strength and connection.
In examining the complex dynamics of relationships affected by trauma and addiction, Nicole offers valuable insights into the importance of personal healing and understanding. She candidly discusses her experiences with partners facing similar struggles and the lessons learned about codependency and empathy. Nicole's journey explores the beauty of embracing compassion and self-care, reminding us all of the strength found in softness and vulnerability. Join us for this heartfelt conversation as we explore the transformative power of affirmations and the enduring impact of compassion in the face of life's challenges.
Foolow Nicole on Insta @myaffirmationproject
and her website is www.myaffirmationproject.com
Hello and welcome to another episode of Breaking the Blocks. I'm your host, rachel Pearman. My guest today is Nicole Leth from my Affirmation Project. If you go to her website, you'll read this statement I believe that compassion should be free and accessible to all humans. Wouldn't that be a wonderful place to live. It would be a great world if we were all compassionate and free and accessible.
Speaker 1:But so many of us are not. We're filled with rage or a lack of compassion, a lack of empathy. Maybe we feel like we aren't enough, we aren't lovable, we aren't strong enough, and this, of course, is mostly rooted in childhood trauma. Nicole wants to reverse this for us. She wants us to believe that we are enough, and so she goes out into the world and she leaves billboards and postcards and quilts with wonderful affirmations like you are human, you are lovable, you are strong, you are enough. But where does this drive come from? Well, in this episode you'll hear Nicole's own personal story, a story that sadly involves tragedy at a very young age, but you'll also hear how Nicole uses this to gain strength and has used it constantly in her life for many years to try and help others, while all at the same time, helping her to understand herself. So sit back and relax and remember, if you are listening to this podcast, you are human, you are lovable, you are strong and you are enough.
Speaker 1:So, hello, it's so nice to have you in my studio and for anybody who is not watching this, can I just tell anybody who's just listening Nicole is the smiliest person you could ever want. Looking at you in the camera, you radiate something, nicole. You radiate something, thank you, that's so nice. You do. You just, you know, you just meet someone and I mean, I've only just met you, but you, you just have something about you that just radiates out. It's just this amazing aura about you. So it's it's lovely to have you here today. You've already lightened my mood today just by looking at you and your beautiful smile, so thank you so much for joining me.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me, Rachel. I'm so excited to be here.
Speaker 1:Oh, you are welcome. So, nicole, the reason I brought you on to Breaking the Blocks today obviously this podcast is all about how people overcome challenges in their life, and I knew nothing about you and your challenges. I mean. Now I do, because you sent me a very short email outlining a couple of huge things that happened in your life, which we'll talk about.
Speaker 1:But the reason I brought you onto the podcast today is because I saw your Instagram account, my affirmation project, and I just saw the fact that you leave beautiful quilts around in various places and they have affirmations on them like you are worthy or you are not broken, or you deserve love, or things like that, and I just thought how amazing is that? Because I know how long it takes to make a quilt. So the fact that you make these things and you leave things out there and then I've delved further into you and actually it's gigantic what you do it's not just leaving quilts in various places, which is incredible. This is a much bigger project than I imagined and it's actually appearing to me that it's a life purpose of yours, isn't it, nicole? I just want to say thank you on behalf of anybody who's ever picked up one of your things, or seen one of your billboards, or received a postcard. I think it's incredible what you do, so let's talk about it.
Speaker 1:You started this in 2010, didn't you? So why and where did it all begin for you, nicole?
Speaker 2:Yes, so I like to say it unofficially started in 2010, because that's when I technically started doing this work. In 2010, I was 17 years old, I was a senior in high school, about to kind of like graduate and go out into the world, and it was that year that my dad actually ended up committing suicide after a long battle with addiction and mental illness, and this was something that totally altered the path of my childhood, and I feel as if my life, like I felt, like it turned me into an adult immediately when that happened, and I was 17. I did not know how to grieve, I did not know how to overcome something like losing a parent unexpectedly, and so the only thing that made sense is that I would. I'd have the, I had this journal and I would write all these, these things for myself, these affirmation or these statements of these words that I desperately wish somebody would say to me, these statements that reminded me that it was going to be okay, that I was strong, that pain wouldn't last forever.
Speaker 2:And I started writing these, and then I would go out into the world and write them in public spaces, I would graffiti them on abandoned buildings, I would put them places and I didn't tell anyone that I was doing this. I was 17. I was still in high school. I was just going out on the weekends in my car doing this completely alone. But it was something about the act of writing something really vulnerable and then putting it in a public space that was really healing for me, because it was almost like I was soothing myself but also offering that compassion that I needed out into the world with the hopes that someone would benefit from it too. And so that's kind of the unofficial start of my art practice that I work on full time now.
Speaker 1:But can I just say age 17,. Nicole, my daughter, is 19. And she just moved to university. I'm amazed that this girl is surviving because she has had such a charmed little life really. You know, she's lucky enough to have had two parents around her the whole time and she's had a good start. But she's 19. And I still see her as a little baby really, even though she is a fully grown woman.
Speaker 1:And I remember at 19, where I was like I wasn't living at home, I'd had a troubled time, but I see her as this baby, so 17 years old, to have gone through something so tragic but then to be able to turn that into a positive. How quickly did you begin to go out and leave these affirmations which, as you say, might have been just some graffiti at that point, how quickly after your father had committed suicide, were you able to start doing these things? Because I find it astounding that you could even put any of that together so quickly. For me, I feel like it would have been something that would be happening now, because you're 31. Now I feel like now, at 31, you've started to go out and do these things, but at 17, when it was so raw, how quickly did you turn it around?
Speaker 2:It's a really good question and I'll answer in two parts because there's two different answers. It one answer is that, like, the idea came to me almost immediately, like I remember the morning that I woke up it was a Saturday morning and my mom told me what happened and I remember I, you know she left me in my bedroom and I was just screaming and crying, you know, kicking my mattress, pounding my fist into my mattress, and then this moment of calm came over me and I had never really felt anything like that. But it was just like, in the middle of all of the trauma and all of the shock and chaos, this calm came over me and this like idea, this statement, these words popped into my head and it said Nicole, you have to fight to create something beautiful out of that, out of this experience, because that's the only chance you're going to have to heal from this. And it was just, it was so weird, you know, like I'm 17, this like this thing pops into my head in this like probably most traumatic moment of my life.
Speaker 2:And it was like then, and there I made that promise to myself I, because I knew that that was my only option was to fight to create something beautiful out of this pain. And it was like something internal, intrinsically new within me that that was my chance at surviving. And so it was like that day that I just, you know, I found my notebook, I started writing, like it just felt like the only answer, and it probably took a few more weeks until I went out and started putting the things that I was writing out into the world. So it took, you know, it happened immediately that that kind of that promise to myself to try to create beauty in any way that I could, and that beauty ended up, you know, manifesting to be public a few weeks afterwards. You know, manifesting to be public a few weeks afterwards.
Speaker 1:I think that's just astounding. I do. I'm kind of speechless at it because I a few weeks because you said your father has struggled from, I think you said, did you say, addiction and mental illness? So did you have a relationship with your father or were you estranged from him?
Speaker 2:and then, as you said, you got the news from your mom so my dad and I were extremely close at the point in which he passed away. They were divorced, um, but that that was something that was pretty recent at that time in life. But him and I like when I talk about him and think about him like we we had this bond that was indescribable. Like my mom and I are very close, but in a different way, but my dad and I, it felt like we were designed the same way, like we felt the world the same way. We both were extremely sensitive, extremely emotional people, we both were creative and he was a writer. We just connected in this deep, intrinsic way.
Speaker 2:For that reason I really felt like my entire childhood we were like best friends and his struggle with addiction was something that took up almost the entirety of my childhood.
Speaker 2:And I feel like oftentimes I hear stories from other kids or people who had that experience and it was something that was maybe separate from them, it was hidden away, it was something going on behind the scenes while they were just kind of, you know, in their childhood, but for me it was something that was very ingrained.
Speaker 2:Like my parents never hid his addiction or his struggles. I was there for every part of it and if anything, like he brought me in and made me part, like I started going to AA meetings when I was 10, with him every single week, and I was going with him to these spaces of you know where addicts would meet to heal, and he would tell me about where he thought his addiction was coming from and I was just very integrated. So that meant that when he passed away, it was extremely hard on me because I felt like I was, you know, I was so integrated in the process of his struggles with addiction and mental health and I also felt like I deeply understood what it was like for him and so it made me. It made me so sad. It was, you know, the most heartbreaking thing.
Speaker 1:So you said he struggled with addiction. But it's interesting, then you were saying that he took you to meetings and he was talking about the healing process. Do you mind me asking what was the addiction? Was it alcohol? Was it drug abuse? What was it?
Speaker 2:So I I also want to say thank you for asking these questions because I love I'm so happy to talk about this because I think it's so important. But he was both an alcoholic and a drug addict and throughout my childhood I think anyone with a you know an experience of prolonged addiction. There's ups and downs. There were, you know, like one or two year chunks where he would be sober and I would like get to know that version of him, but then there would be, you know um similar periods where he was like deep in his addiction, like high or drunk and like struggling and like um.
Speaker 2:I feel as if I saw a lot of different elements and um different parts of the addiction, like both you you know, being clean for two years, like that was amazing. But then also seeing him like deep, deeply struggling and like actively using it, I it felt like the experience I had with his addiction really encompassed everything and throughout it all, I was going to the you know AA meetings with him and even, you know, when he was not sober, we were going, I was hearing him talk, I was listening to other people talk and I really feel like those are some of the most invaluable experiences of my life just having access to that as such a young person, and being able to see this human experience that we all are in and how everyone is trying their best and everyone deserves love and everyone deserves compassion too.
Speaker 1:Dr Gabor is an amazing. You'll have seen his work and he talks about addiction.
Speaker 1:And one thing that I absolutely love that he's bringing to the fore is that addiction comes from pain, and when we chastise people who are addicts, you know, and, as he says, when people end up locked in prisons, it's like these people have been suffering from pain and then they become, you know, addicted to something to try and numb the pain, and then we basically chastise them again and put them through more pain and blame them again and it's like where is the support, where is the help? Where is the consideration of what people are going through? At least now, as a society, we're becoming a bit more aware of why people are trying to numb their pain and why people become addicts. So I think it was amazing that your dad took you through all of those different areas of his life and you saw all those sides, which I guess is why maybe you have been able to access that side of you. That is, that's got full empathy for him.
Speaker 1:Because I think, from what I understand, there is a lady I know and her father committed suicide and she was left with anger guilt of why couldn't I have done more, but more anger of how could you have left me, because she was also a child, how could you have left me Feelings of resentment against that person? But I guess for you it was maybe different because your father was so open and honest and vulnerable with you and showed you his pain. So did that help you to not feel those feelings that naturally associated when someone takes their own life, because you feel angry at that person that they've done that to themselves and done it to you? Do you feel that, because you saw the sides of him and you felt his pain, that you were able to be more empathetic towards him?
Speaker 2:I do think so and, like when you were asking just a moment ago, you know, like, like how I was able to kind of tap into that proactive motion so quick after his death.
Speaker 2:I really do feel as if that it was those experiences of having empathy and like a deep understanding and access to his journey and understanding what it was like, what it was like. So, like, yes, I do feel like that progressed me on my grieving and healing process almost immediately, Like I was able to jump past, you know, some of those preliminary parts. However, it you know, like it's still it didn't spare me from everything. I still, even today, it's been I don't know how many years, let's see like 14 years. I still find myself feeling angry and then sad, and then, you know, I still find myself in it sometimes, which is so interesting because it's been so long, but I do. I do believe that those experiences having access and vulnerability and openness to his addiction helped contextualize it for me and, in a way, having access to it kind of gave me the tools I needed to survive before I even knew that I would need to survive even knew that I would need to survive.
Speaker 1:So quite often when a child has been around addiction I've read and certainly have experienced it with people. I know that then you know the child also has those tendencies to become addicts themselves. And particularly with your father committing suicide and with all of those feelings, once again, the first place you can reach to is something to numb that pain. So have you experienced in your 14 year journey any kind of addictions? Have you gone down that path yourself, or has seeing his pain stopped you from going down that path?
Speaker 2:That's a very good and important question, dad, in the ways that I saw him struggling that I became so scared of, you know, of drinking, of using drugs, of kind of of numbing with the things that he numbed with that, that it in that way it became.
Speaker 2:It helped me have a better relationship with those types of things because I was so afraid of becoming or struggling in the way that he struggled. But also, what I didn't expect was that, even though I feel as if I have a good relationship with drugs and drinking, I didn't expect that, like there would still be some weak elements in which I might have addictive tendencies which, over the last 14 years, it turns out relationships are the place in which some of those, those, those, those elements of myself activate. So for a lot of years I have had to really, really really do the work around relationships that I have. I have, you know, dated a lot of people who also turned out to be addicts, who also turned out to need me in a way that you should never need a partner. You know I've had to kind of work through relationship addictions and that was something I never expected would be a manifestation of having a parent who struggled with drugs and alcohol.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that is exactly what I was going to ask you, nicole. I was going to ask you if, in your adult life, you have tried to fix people. And you just answered that. And as, as you've learned, I'm sure, you can't fix anybody, can you? You can try, but you cannot. They have to do the work themselves. Uh, and I've been the same as you. I I've tried to fix people in years gone by, and it's a very hard lesson to learn, because you keep trying and trying and trying and eventually you go I can't. What am I doing this for? You're not doing the work yourself. So, yeah, I can see where that would, that would come from.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's been. You know, I still find myself learning, like I'm in the, you know, most beautiful relationship of my life now with my husband and I really, like I'm so grateful I got to the place in my healing journey where I could, you know, give myself permission to have a functional relationship. However, I still struggle with codependency, like even in friendships and stuff, like it's a constant thing, like figuring out how to not do someone else's work for them and to not take on too much or view love as an act of martyring yourself. It is a constant struggle. I'm trying to, you know, navigate this world with.
Speaker 1:Actually, can I just ask you about your relationship with Luke, Luke Haynes, Actually, can I just ask?
Speaker 2:you about your?
Speaker 1:relationship with Luke, luke Haynes, if anybody's wondering who is this fabulous husband and I don't want to delve too deeply because you know it's your personal life but you know Luke recently came out and said that he was diagnosed with autism and he hadn't realized he had been on that spectrum in his life, which I'm very keen to talk to him about as well. But how has that worked for you then with your relationship, because you just said that you've got this beautiful relationship with him?
Speaker 2:So I wonder how the two of you have navigated this beautiful relationship that you have, because you both have got in some way trauma or you know, the brain working in a different way because of your experiences or because of how you've been born in luke's case, you know one of the most beautiful parts about luke and i's relationship is, even though we have entirely different childhood experiences, we Our trauma sometimes feels the same Like we have the same source sore spots or tender places and it creates this awesome opportunity to navigate the world and view things in a very similar way. My relationship with Luke reminds me of the good parts of the relationship with my dad, in which I know that we're viewing things in the same way and we're feeling things in the same way because our tender places are the same. So when Luke had this moment of self discovery and got diagnosed with autism, it was this, I mean, incredibly beautiful moment, because so many experiences in his life that he couldn't figure out or couldn't couldn't place, they became very valid. He was like, oh, that's why that happened and it wasn't because I was a bad person or it wasn't because I was lesser than it was, because my brain chemistry is slightly different. It was this really beautiful moment of kind of reflection and healing.
Speaker 2:And then it also created this amazing new pathway in our relationship in which I knew how to be a better partner to him, because I knew the ways in which he would need support in a more informed way, and it made me feel incredibly empowered because I was able to understand more about him and I was able to see more clearly more of his tender spaces, seeing somebody and seeing their tender places and trying to love them in a way that will, you know, provide softness to some of those places. And so I'm not going to lie like there's been struggles. Obviously, as with any relationship, there's complications as you're figuring out the balance and you're figuring out how to support the best and when to be soft and when to be a strong support system. But his diagnosis really, really, really allowed this beautiful line in the sand in which we could progress forward with a new knowledge of who he was and the support that he needed, and it's, it feels like it led to this intense deepening of our relationship in a very beautiful way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's fantastic and you can kind of you can just sort of sense that from the two of you just in your, just on the. You know the social media aspect of it, how you work together. And there was, I have to say, there was a beautiful post. It really moved me. It really moved me and it was just after the election. It was the day after.
Speaker 1:Luke was just standing there I don't know if you were filming it, I'm sure that you were but he was just standing there with that quilt and he was tiny in the frame. So it was like this big world around him and he was tiny holding the frame. So it was like this big world around him and he was tiny holding this quilt that was just blowing in the wind and there was no music, there were no words, there were nothing. And on the quilt, I can't remember the affirmation, I think it was something like keep going or don't give up, or something. I think it was yeah, keep. Was it keep going? Yeah, keep going, keep going. And he just stood there holding this for a minute and it was. It just transfixed me and I thought how beautiful was that?
Speaker 1:Because there was a, a real poor, a really unpleasant feeling the next day after the election, particularly on on Instagram. Uh, there was a real low mood, I think, from many people. Obviously there were a lot of supporters who were very happy, but I think in the quilting community there seemed to be a really very low, dark place and it was just wonderful that this post came out saying keep going. I thought that was beautiful. So I think the two of you seem to have this very symbiotic relationship. So you've said obviously you're still on your healing journey when you go to dark places, because I'm sure, as you've said, you still have days where maybe you do feel angry, because we've said that your dad helped you to understand because of everything that he showed you. So when you do have those dark days and you have these feelings of anger, where is this coming from within you? What still needs to be healed within you on this healing journey?
Speaker 2:That is an incredibly awesome question and I truth, now I just feel hopeless. Sometimes A dark day for me means feeling hopeless, and that hopelessness feels like sometimes this life feels so long and complex and hard that I don't know if I'll make it out. And I know that that is a very universal feeling that we all experience. But when it hits me it hits me hard, and in those moments I feel so intrinsically connected to my dad and I feel like in those moments I begin to understand why he did what he did and that scares me and that makes me mad and it makes me so incredibly sad. And so I'm figuring out how to work through those, because I feel like my dad and I had have the same heart, which means we can feel these huge, huge peaks of love and joy and happiness. But I feel like anytime you feel those, you know your heart has the ability to feel those extreme highs. That also means it has the ability to feel these low lows and in a beautiful way, beautiful way, they contextualize each other. You really believe that because the low lows exist, the high highs can too.
Speaker 2:But I'm trying to figure out how to navigate those feelings of hopelessness and also just heal this part of me that's now coming up in the last few years. This part of my healing process and grieving my dad and grieving who he was in this world is I'm trying to figure out the differences between him and I, because we're bound together by this intensity in which we can feel all parts of this life, and I'm trying to create a boundary in which I can still appreciate that element of humanity and being a human, but also feel it in a safe way in which it doesn't it doesn't I don't know what I'm trying to say. I want to create a boundary in which I feel that, and so I think that's currently the the part of this healing journey that I'm on. If that answers the question yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I guess I I in my therapy many, many years ago. I did therapy for about five or six years and I got to that point where I just didn't want to go on anymore. The the world was too dark, it was too much, and I remember saying to my therapist I have days where I just don't think I want to be here anymore. And we talked about suicide and she said it was belief. It's not that people want to die, it's not that people don't want to be here anymore. It's that people can no longer take the level of pain that they're in. They want the pain to stop. It's not I don't want to be in this world. It's like I want this pain to stop and I want it to stop now. I can't take this pain anymore. What do you think was your dad's breaking point? Was there something that had happened just before he took his own life, or was it just that moment of I can't take this pain anymore?
Speaker 2:So I believe that my dad hit his addiction and so many parts of his mental illness came from um child abuse that he suffered when he was a kid and it was never resolved. And I mean that was very much of the era that he was growing up in, you know, like the 60s and 70s, that was something like that was denied, there was not space to talk about it and you shove it down, down, down. So I very and I mean and this is stuff that he would communicate with me he was aware that this was where so many parts of his disease stemmed from too. So I do think that it was from that. And you know, when we have a hurt like that that gets unresolved, I think things start to compound and additional traumas begin to happen and it becomes very, very heavy dad there.
Speaker 1:I know nothing about him. I've never seen a photograph of him.
Speaker 2:I don't know his name, but I just feel like he was a beautiful soul that was just tormented, yeah, like just such a beautiful soul, but also extremely tormented, which is so sad. When you know someone that light and that beautiful and that vibrant has pain that is so big. Yeah, I sense that he was that beautiful and that vibrant has pain that is so big.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I sense that he was that beautiful soul because he let you in on his struggle. He, he desperately needed you to understand and maybe you know, nicole, maybe he knew how this was going to end for him. Maybe he knew that he was going to depart this world and it was going to be very, very difficult for you, and he wanted to let you in on why, why this was going to happen, why it was going to become too much one day, and he wanted you to somehow take that away, that this was nothing to do with you. This was to do with all of the torment and the suffering he was going through. So that is a beautiful gift that he gave to you, in a way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I you know what. I've thought about that so many times and that's where I'm at, too Like I really do believe that he knew he was going to leave the world in that way and that he was going to do it as a you know a young person. You know considerably, and I do believe everything that he was going to do it as a young person considerably, and I do believe everything that he showed me and everything that every experience he gave me and what he allowed me to have access to was a blessing in disguise, because he knew I would need that to survive and then to also continue to live in a beautiful way.
Speaker 1:I think you are almost soulmates in a way. I think we have so many soulmates in this world and they are mates for our soul. They are friends who teach us, and sometimes our soulmates can be very painful experiences. But people who are our soulmates can be very painful experiences. But people who are our soulmates are there to teach us lessons and to guide us, and something was guiding you, and I think it was your father was guiding you, so what he did has resulted in you now putting so much love and joy into the world, which is amazing amazing. But actually, in your email that you sent me, you went through then another very difficult experience because you said you've had a brain tumor. What's the prognosis? Are you okay? What's happening?
Speaker 2:I am okay as of right now. I am okay because, um, let's see, about nine months ago, I had brain surgery. Last February of 2024, um, which is amazing, and I'm feeling like the best I've ever felt. Now, however, um, I got diagnosed with my brain tumor in 2019. It was, uh, december 2019, so like a few months before COVID started, and for the last five years, I just was taking medication that was very intense. These like very intense tumor shrinking pills that completely alter your brain chemistry. They completely alter your personality. They give you short term memory loss, which was very, very challenging, and it was a very, very, very hard five years. Now I'm at the place where I finally got the surgery in February and I'm feeling better than I ever had and I feel like I'm picking up where I left off, with who I was when I was in my 20s, before all this happened.
Speaker 2:But it was an incredibly hard journey and, for the majority of it, nobody knew, except for, like, my very close friends and family, because I did not want it to be. I wanted to just continue on without people knowing. Because I didn't want it to be. I wanted to just continue on without people knowing because I didn't want it to define me. It felt like a way for me to take the power away from it and still try to create beauty out of pain. And, yeah, I can't believe that the surgery was like nine months ago. Now it feels like just yesterday and it feels like a lifetime all at once.
Speaker 1:This. You have this amazing bravery. I mean, I guess we've kind of talked about it, but I don't know where. Where does it come from? Inside of you? Because you know you've suffered this terrible thing in your life, with your father taking his own life, and then you have this brain tumor, and yet you still continue to march on and to want to put so much joy and love into the world. Where can you pinpoint? Where is this coming from? Where is this coming from?
Speaker 2:Every time I go through something hard, I have this moment where I remember that I've survived everything in my life so far, like every single thing, and I kind of take a moment to remember all of those things that I've survived and then I immediately feel brave because it it just, it just reminds me of both my strength but also the story that is mine.
Speaker 2:And you know, just realizing that every single thing I've survived matters and is real and it means something. And also I feel like every time, like for the with the tumor, for instance. It was when I got diagnosed and there were so many unknowns about what it would mean, like if it would be cancerous, you know what, what was happening. I was like maybe the most scared I've ever been in my life, but yet I knew that the things that I had experienced, with losing my dad, you know, like living a childhood in which I had to like be a parent to an addict, a lot of the time navigating all of this stuff, I felt so equipped. I didn't know what the future held, but I knew that I had the tools to do my best navigating it, and I really do believe that for me, that's what bravery looks like In our darkest moments.
Speaker 1:Look at what we have survived so far. If you have got through them to this point, then keep trying to get through them, because you have managed to this point. So just to keep going. I think that's so important, and I was looking at your my Affirmation website, which I think anybody should just pop on there and look at the billboards. If you have a down day, just open up that website and go to the billboard section and just read five or six and it will make you feel better, even just for a few moments.
Speaker 1:I said the other day on an Instagram post that you know, standing up and dancing for three minutes is not going to cure serious depression, but if it gives you three minutes of relief in a dreadful day, then do it. Put that radio on and throw yourself around the kitchen, uh, or whatever it is, and just dance to some music, get some energy. And I think it's the same thing with looking at your, your billboards and just looking at those affirmations. Um, so let me just look at this because I, I wrote, I, I wrote this down from your website and you've written on there. Um, I believe that compassion should be free and accessible to all humans. So tell me about that that you wrote. What does that mean to you?
Speaker 2:So I, the belief for me that compassion should be free is like one of my biggest values and it, you know, it traces back to so many of these experiences that I've had the experiences in the circles of an AA meeting, the experiences being a human in the world, seeing people talking to people I I feel like where we're at in in the world right now.
Speaker 2:So many people want to profit off of compassion. There are big companies who put compassionate statements on t-shirts and they want you to buy it and they profit off of it. Or they'll use compassionate statements as part of their ad campaign and they make you feel like you're only deserving of compassion if you subscribe to what they're offering or if you give them money and it's so conditional. And I believe with my entire heart that love should be unconditional and that unconditional love and unconditional compassion are the only things that will save the world and help every single person in it. Therefore, I believe that compassion should be free, it should be offered up without any strings attached, because compassion is enough, and so there should just be more compassion for compassion's sake.
Speaker 1:Yeah you're right. I think compassion, empathy, two really important words. But, nicole, I am going to put this to you again. You just said there you know that the world should have unconditional love, but actually you need to have some boundaries in place, and that's what you said, that you've been trying to learn with yourself is putting those boundaries in place. So, when you're going out and you're, you know, spreading all of this wonderful joy and love and compassion, and you're spreading all of this wonderful joy and love and compassion, is there a boundary you need to keep in place with it, because there's a danger that you putting all of this out there is not having those boundaries in place.
Speaker 1:It's almost like what we were saying at the beginning about codependency, about overgiving, about trying to fix people. So where is the line for you? Because that's a really important line for you, isn't it To not do what you did as a kid, when you had to be the parent to the adult? So you're going out now and trying to help the world, how do you make sure that boundary stays in place for you and that it doesn't become a people pleasing thing? Or you're giving, giving, giving, because this makes you feel better, because this is what you did as a child.
Speaker 2:So for me it's all about reciprocity. It's about giving what I can, but also giving to myself those same things. Every single public expression of my art is very boundaried and contained and thought out, always involves an element of self-care. There is no way that I can create the work that I do without looking inward and honoring myself first, because it comes from this real place, like, if you recall, like this entire thing started, because it made me feel better when I was hurting, and so in so many ways, sharing in this way, putting anonymous statements of compassion into the world, heals me and I feel as if I've tapped into this thing. That is very, very symbiotic, meaning I can offer compassion to the world and at the same time I'm offering compassion to myself. And also it's all about balance.
Speaker 2:Like I plan out these public expressions of my work and then I also am sure to fill myself up and to give myself some space to not be creating output for a period of time, but for a period of time. So I try to balance these big public projects with periods of introspection, periods of writing and creating work just for myself, because it was something I really wanted to be mindful of, especially when I took this project kind of full time in 2019, I was like okay, nicole, we can't make this like a codependent offering of love to the world. Hey, nicole, we can't make this like a codependent offering of love to the world. Like this has to be boundaried and there has to be reciprocal compassion here in order to make this sustainable and in order to make it true compassion. Like. True compassion is not something that takes away from the giver. It's something that makes both the giver and the receiver feel connected or feel replenished in some way.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's good. I'm glad to hear that. I'm glad to hear that and I believe you. I believe in what you're saying. That's really good that you give yourself time. So when you have those introspective periods and you give yourself time, what do you do? What sort of creative things do you do, and how does that creative spark or that creative journey that you take yourself on help you? How does it heal you?
Speaker 2:When I am taking that time for myself. I really like to be a witness to the world, because that is the place where I find healing. I love going on long drives. I love having really deep and curious conversations with people in the world, whether I know them or not. I like reading books about real people in the world. I like watching movies about real people in the world. I like listening to podcasts about real people in the world. I am so incredibly inspired and invigorated by real people in the world.
Speaker 2:I also like to be quiet sometimes, you know when I'm really needing to look in and recharge, like I'll just, I'll just stay in the house for days on end. I'll sit in a room. I'll just, I'll just stay in the house for days on end. I'll sit in a room. I'll just like really relish in these moments of not being perceived and not needing to create output and not needing to make poetry or create something beautiful, like just being is very, very, very healing for me and I'm still learning how to give myself permission to just be. It is very, very challenging, but I think I'm getting better at it and when I do have the ability to just be, it makes me feel amazing do you ever judge yourself?
Speaker 1:Nicole? I remember my uh stepson. Actually he, I mean, he's 30 now, but he was about 12 and he was in the car and he was listening to a conversation that myself and my husband were having and he said to me you two are so judgy. I remember going we are not judgmental. And I've learned that I was the biggest judgmental person out there, and it came from trauma, it came from bitterness, it came from anger, it came from like, why has this all happened to me? And I would look at other people and go you've got it all together, and, of course, no one has it together, but I was one of the biggest judgmental people. But I think also, yeah, judging myself as well, like comparing myself to people, things like that. So what about you? Do you ever judge yourself? Because you sound like you know how to be kind to yourself. So do you judge yourself?
Speaker 2:oh, absolutely. I mean, I do feel as if it is impossible to live a human existence in which you don't, at some times, succumb to self-judgment. However I have, I feel as if I'm getting a lot better with self-judgment, and I've started doing this thing. Anytime I'm being harsh on myself or I'm judging myself, I stop and I try to figure out whose voice it is, because it's never my own voice. It's always somebody from the past who you know I have trauma. It's always just a person or an experience that caused trauma and that is where the voice is coming from, and so that has been really healing for me. Anytime I experienced those, those voices of judgment that really want you to believe that it's your own voice. It's not your own voice, and that's been very good for me to stop.
Speaker 1:It's not your own voice, and that's been very good for me to stop zoom out, try to figure out whose voice it is and then just look at my true self and realize that I'm doing okay. I mean, I read on your website about your. You've certainly gone through a dark night of the soul I think probably several times. But when we are in a period of growth and we're going down a new road and we're going down a change, our ego is the voice that we hear, because that ego voice says no, no, no, no, no, let's just stay where we are.
Speaker 1:It's so cozy here, we know what it's like here, it's comfortable and, in a way, you have to listen to that voice and then just go. I'm listening to you, but I'm not going to follow what you're saying. And you have to understand where that voice is coming from. It's trying to keep you what it feels to be in a safe place, but it's not. And it's the same as you were just saying there about. You have to listen to which voice is talking to you and, as you say, voices from the past, voices from family members, etc.
Speaker 1:Yeah exactly what has been a really unexpected thing that has come from your Affirmation Project. Has there been anything that has happened along the way, or maybe even just how it's growing? But what's been an unexpected and positive thing that's come from creating this affirmation project?
Speaker 2:oh, okay, I'll again. I'll have two answers. The first one it's not as much so unexpected, but the feedback that I receive um from people, and and sometimes this is inadvertent feedback, because so much of my work is anonymous that people never know that it's me doing this but I will at times get feedback in strange ways, which is always amazing and unexpected. I've received and had opportunities to connect with people in the realist and raw, most raw examples Like I would never have imagined that this art practice that I created in order to survive would be something that helps other people survive and stay on this planet, would be something that helps other people survive and stay on this planet. And so conversations that I have with people in which experiences like that are shared are, I mean, so meaningful in a way that I don't even have language to explain that yet.
Speaker 2:And another way in which this project or my work has brought about unexpected experiences. It sounds cliche, but it's really just led me back to myself. I mean, I started it as a way to survive and then all this life happened. 14 years of life happened. I did all these things. I loved all these people. I had all this heartbreak. I built businesses and went to art school and learned to sew and started a clothing company, and then I was writing and then I was speaking, like all of this life happened.
Speaker 2:And for so long I felt like it didn't make sense and it was just all these fragments that didn't fit together and in so many ways I felt like I was all these fragments that didn't fit together. In so many ways I felt like I was all these fragments that didn't fit together. And then this project, in a weird way, grabbed all those fragments and at this point, in which I've been working on it for well over a decade, I'm realizing it's making all those fragments make sense and I'm using the skills that I learned when I had a clothing company. I'm using my writing, I'm using my design, I'm using the skills that I learned when I, you know, had a clothing company. I'm using, like my writing, I'm using my design, I'm using speaking, I'm all these things. It's just. It's just showing me that there's no wasted experiences and I didn't expect that an art practice or at least this affirmation work I do would necessarily do that for me, and so that has been a very amazing and unexpected thing that I've been really realizing within the last few months.
Speaker 1:And where would you like to see it going? What's the aim of it in the end? Because I don't think. I don't get the sense that for you it's about. Oh, I want to be a multinational company and sell t-shirts for $36. It's not that at all. So where would you like to see it going?
Speaker 2:I think about that question a lot and I usually say I just want it to keep growing and that will be enough for me. But I think the real answer is that I just don't want there to be an end and I want to keep working and I want to keep, you know, putting compassion into public spaces in bigger or more unique or more proactive ways, but also I want to just keep creating in these real and raw ways that I need to in order to survive and I want to keep sharing those. And if that begins to look like sharing longer pieces of writing publicly, or if that means writing a book, or if that means painting and starting to do more abstract and colorful iterations of this work, I want the project to grow with me and obviously I would love for it to reach more people or bring me to places of deeper intimacy with both the world and myself. Um, I think that's the realist answer I have today about where I want this to go.
Speaker 1:I think you'll get all that. I think it will just keep because it's it's such, it's such a force of good that you're putting out there into the world. And I think if you are authentic I think authenticity is magnetic I think that if you're authentic, you'll find your people, they'll find you, it will grow. It will grow. You know, I think so many. As you said so many times, if people are doing things to just try and make money, often those things will just peter out or things will go wrong. But I think with what you're doing, it really is coming from an absolutely heartfelt place and I think it will just continue to grow.
Speaker 1:What change would you like to see? Hang on, I'll say that again. What change would you like to see in the world, nicole, from your viewpoint of where we are now as a society? For anybody who doesn't know, pluto is going into Aquarius, so we're entering into a new, a whole new cycle until, I think, 2045. So this is supposed to be an era now of where we have learned our lessons and now we start working together as a collective. This is what's supposed to be happening. So that's what I'd like to see happen. I'd like to see more softness in the world and less judgment and more compassion. I'm guessing you feel the same, but is there anything else? What would you like to see in the world?
Speaker 2:A few things. I really believe in this idea of softness, and I believe that softness is actually the real strength, and so I would love for the world to start to have this understanding that their ability to be vulnerable and permeable to life's experiences is where their real strength and resilience will lie. That looks like unconditional love, that looks like compassion and that looks like believing that you deserve healthy compassion because we accept the love we think we deserve. And if you think you deserve good love, that means you'll allow yourself to be loved in healthy ways, and that also means that you'll love the entire world in powerful ways. And that's when love and healing becomes inevitable. And it all starts with softness, vulnerability, permeability to this life, to the experiences, feeling it, healing it, letting it move through you, and at the end, all that's left is love, and I believe that that's what I want. That's what I want for the world.
Speaker 1:Oh, I think it's so wonderful. Wouldn't it be amazing if that could happen, nicole? Let's keep pushing for that. You keep doing what you're doing. I'll could happen, nicole. Let's keep pushing for that. You keep doing what you're doing. I'll keep doing these podcasts. Let's keep spreading that word. Let's be open and vulnerable people. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it together. So, nicole, do you feel your dad is walking alongside you? Yes, every single day.
Speaker 2:I feel him with me every single day. Yeah, I feel him with me Every single day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think he's there. I think he's definitely there. I think he's helping to guide you, but he would be so proud of you. He would be so proud of you and I'm sure that that would in some way ease some pain within him to know that you'd gone on to be exactly who you are when you leave this land, which hopefully will be in many, many, many, many, many years, because we'll have loads more billboards and postcards and quilts from you and, I'm sure, books along the way and, hopefully, big talks and all sorts of amazing things. How would you like people to remember you?
Speaker 2:Wow, I've never been asked that question before. I would like to be remembered, or I hope that I could offer. I want to create spaces in the world and be a person that helps people feel seen, known and understood, and I hope that that would be the way that I, or what I create, can be remembered as something that allowed people to feel seen, known and deeply understood, no matter what they were going through, even if it was just for a moment in their lives.
Speaker 1:And what is the thing that you have come to understand most about people? Oh, this is a deep question. This is a difficult one, but is there anything on your journey in the last few years that you think, yeah, I understand that now about people?
Speaker 2:I mean. What I know to be true about people is that the thing that binds us all together is the experience of pain. That is something that we all will feel and all have felt, and that is something that we all will feel and all have felt. And anytime I'm around, sitting in a crowd of people, people I don't know, I'm so overcome by the fact that everyone in that room at that moment in time, at that point, has survived every single thing in their life so far, and those things were probably complex and beautiful and heartbreaking and poetic, all at the same time. And we're all in that room breathing the same air, and the thing that we have in common is that we have felt pain and we have survived it, and I think, throughout it all, we just want to know that we are not alone in that experience, and so that's what I think that I have learned about people.
Speaker 1:Okay, I don't know what else to say. I mean, if anybody's listened to this podcast, they will know that I'm never speechless. I'm kind of speechless. I'm speechless that you in this interview, nicole, you have lived up to everything I thought you would be and more. You've said so many beautiful, poetic things, but also you've said such real things. And you've said so many things that I know people will have listened to this episode today and just sat back and gone. Wow, I never looked at it that way. Or, yes, that's absolutely right.
Speaker 1:Like you, you say that every single person is experiencing pain or has experienced pain. It binds us all together and that's why I started this podcast, because I wanted people to know that they're not alone. It's really weird. I've just got a glass of water in front of me and you know there's the light is reflecting through it and I could just see this little white love heart. I wish I could take a photo. It's bizarre. That's amazing. I'm going to have to take my phone down at the end of this and I'll post it on Instagram. It's like a white love heart. That's you. You've created a love heart in my glass of water.
Speaker 2:Oh, I love that.
Speaker 1:You're amazing, nicole, you really are. I Amazing, nicole, you really are. I think it is about seeing the love, like I just have in that glass, but it is about seeing the love and the joy around and just being compassionate with each other and not judging each other, and, as I say, particularly in these times, and yeah, it's, it's. It is a tough world that we live in and we have to remain soft, as you said, yes.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely, and thank you so much for this. You know all the conversation, the questions, everything. This was an invigorating conversation.
Speaker 1:Oh, thank you Nicole. Well, I could go on for another four hours but we'd both be exhausted. But you know, I hope we talk again. I mean, you're always welcome back on the podcast. You know, come back in a year and let's see where your Affirmation Project has taken us. I'll put all the details in the description so everybody can find you. Let's see where this journey takes you. I'm intrigued. I love that. I hope that it just takes you to all the places that you wanted to, but I hope that it sweeps a lot of people up along the way and takes them on a fantastic journey as well, because we need to raise our vibration as a collective. We need to come together, because we've been so fragmented for so many years and arguing with each other and we need to lose the anger. So you're amazing, nicole. You're absolutely amazing, and thank you so much for spending the time with me today.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. Thank you for all your questions. Those are probably the best questions I've ever gotten in a podcast or interview. So thank you, thank you so much. I deeply appreciate this.
Speaker 1:You are welcome Sending you much love Just before you go.
Speaker 1:Lovely listener, can I ask you a favour If you have a friend who you think would enjoy listening to this podcast, would you mind please telling them about it?
Speaker 1:It helps me to spread the word and you never know, they might get a life lesson out of it or, at the very least, just have a lovely 40 minutes of relaxing time for themselves.
Speaker 1:The second thing to say is that if you have enjoyed this, it would really help me if you would give me a little quick like or a comment. Help me if you would give me a little quick like or a comment, especially if you're listening on one of the podcast platforms. It just means that when anybody lands on the page, they can see that people have reviewed it, they've liked it, enjoyed it and got something out of it. So if you wouldn't mind leaving me a review, that would be amazing. And the final thing to say is that if you are a business and you're thinking how do I get my message out there, well, you could do it on this podcast. All you have to do is reach out to me, rachel, at breakingtheblockscom. The details are below in the box. Thank you so much to everybody for listening and enjoying and saying the lovely things that you're saying.
