Hope Through Waking Up

Some mornings don’t feel like mornings at all, they feel like a weight. We start from that honest place and work our way toward something sturdier: hope that comes from waking up, not just physically, but emotionally, socially, and spiritually. When you’re tempted to pull the covers over your head, “waking up” can sound almost too simple. We make the case that it’s the only way forward: start where you are, do the next small thing, and show up anyway.

We talk about the bigger world, too the political climate, the cruelty that can feel impossible to metabolize, and the ways many of us have been able to look away until we couldn’t. We unpack privilege, the difference between empathy and understanding, and the sting of realizing how much we didn’t know. Along the way, we share the personal moments that widened our lens, from raising a brown-skinned child and noticing representation everywhere, to living overseas and seeing how entitlement shows up when you least expect it. It’s painful, but it’s clarifying.

From there, we move into what action can look like without burnout. We reflect on community rallies as places of connection and love, not just protest, and we talk about grief that never fully goes away and joy that can still be real beside it. Waking up can mean advocacy, volunteering, creating art, caring for kids, or simply helping the next being in front of you. If you’ve been searching for a grounded mental health perspective on resilience, social justice, community, and hope, this conversation is for you. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs it, and leave a review so more listeners can find the show.

Thanks for listening to Soul SiStories. We hope you follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Five-star ratings and reviews always help to spread our message of hope.
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Transcript

Welcome And The Core Idea

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Welcome to Soul Sisteries. Hey there. My sis and I just had a conversation that I, you know, I am feeling energized in ways I didn't think I would. We're talking about hope through waking up and what that means, whatever that means for you, for us it's showing up, doing the thing anyway. I was feeling not so great before we started talking. And now, I don't know, I'm resonating. It's feeling good, Sess. It works.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Yeah. Waking up does kind of like elevate the hope. So just grab a cup of tea or coffee, a soda, whatever you want, and wake up with us. Woo-hoo! Okay. Well, I am Diana and I'm here with my sister Donna on our Soul Sisteries as we talk today about hope through waking up. And uh what does that mean, waking up? And how do you kind of meet life wherever you are, even when uh you might want to just pull the covers over your head and not start the day?

SPEAKER_01 1:13

Absolutely. Even as you and I were sitting here chatting before we even hit record here, and I think we're both like feeling tired and we're talking over all of the challenges in life and this family member and that family member, our own lives and what's going on. And it it is enough to make you just want to throw in the towel, right? There's just um a lot. So what do you do? What do you do?

When Life Makes You Shut Down

SPEAKER_00 1:39

Right, right. And yeah, and it's you know, you you brought up family, and it is family, friends, all of that. And it's just the world, you know, our country globally, what's going on, and you know, not wanting to face things, but also knowing you have to face things. And and for me, it's that um, you know, I keep going back to like, seriously, I chose this lifetime. What the heck? You know, at what point do you tap out? But um uh I'm here for a reason. And so it is a matter of waking up and showing up.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

Yeah, absolutely. And isn't that just a big part of also you mentioned just the you know, what's going on in our world, what's going on in our country? That's a lot of the uh angst, the turmoil that so many are feeling is right now in the times that we're in, and what's happening is that everyone is being forced to see the realities going on. Whereas forever marginalized communities have been talking about and saying this is what's happening.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

Right.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

And many have been able to go about their business happily because they are not personally affected, right? Right. Um I as a woman have felt from the time I was a girl, felt the inequity of you know, women's roles and women's lives. And so I could speak to that, see that, squawk about that in ways that men in more recent times collectively are having to see. Hence, we are having this big pushback backlash. Oh, that's not happening, or oh no, men are the ones who are really um being pushed aside or what have you. Anyway, you know what I'm saying. That it's people have been saying this forever, but we are in circumstances now where every there's like no running and hiding, there's no space to go where you can just pretend these truths don't exist.

Privilege And A Painful Awakening

SPEAKER_00 4:00

Yeah, you know, I think um for a lot of my life, I could put my head in the sand if I wanted to. I mean, clearly there were things in life that affected me personally and that I had to deal with. I'm uh those things I don't know that I put my head in the sand. But things went on in the world. I mean, I will be the first to admit I did not pay attention to the what was going on um in another state, let alone another country. I didn't, I mean, I I remember the the first time I I took a feminist theory class and I thought, yeah, I don't know if this really all affects me. It's it's it's other out, you know, it belonged out there maybe. Um, because I I could just turn off the news, because I could just look the other way, because I could just focus on my schooling or my friends or my work. And um and I go back to 2020. I mean, the year before when things started rolling, and then 2020 where the whole world just kind of stopped, and yeah, um, and there was no longer this like, oh, it's somewhere else, it's not affecting me sort of thing. Um, it felt like over the last few years we had some more forward movement, and then, you know, um, boy, was it 24 when things kind of break again, at least, you know, how I feel. I know everybody in the US doesn't feel that way. Um, and I have a lot of friends and family that are like, well, you just can't think about that. You just have to, you know, don't look at social media, don't watch the news, don't read the papers, don't, you know, just go about your day. And there's some value in that in moments. I think in moments I have to do that. But I also don't think that is like meeting the world head on. And it, that's not waking up. That's sleeping through my existence. And I guess I'm not really willing to do that in what I call the second half of my life. I tell my kids my life is only half over. I'm just I'm just entering the second half now. So I'm not willing to do that now.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

Yeah, and uh and as you're talking, you know, I'm very aware of our lifetime of white privilege and what that means. You know, and there are ways in which, as a white person in this world could tune out, shut out, because not personally affected. For whatever reasons, I don't have any more ability to do that. I always looked at myself as being very socially minded, very open-minded. And I probably have shared this before, but it was such an awakening to me when I adopted my second son, who is a gorgeously brown-skinned individual, and raising my beautiful baby, so many things became apparent to me that I really did not know prior to having him in my life. And the example I always give, and it's like a seemingly silly and small thing, but it's a big thing, was suddenly I was aware of all the blue-eyed cartoon characters. Why do they all have blue eyes? Most people in this world have brown eyes. What is the thing? About what the heck? And the um it's something that seems so small and insignificant, but it's not. It speaks volumes, right? And that's just, you know, the the tip of something massive.

Embarrassment Abroad And Loving Home

SPEAKER_00 7:42

Yeah, yeah. You know, and and that's interesting because I could think back, you know, I I do think I was socially minded. I think my my schooling encouraged that. I mean, we certainly had, I think it was a required class in high school on social justice. Oh, yeah. I I got to spend a year overseas in an international school. Um, I certainly, while I didn't necessarily understand oppression, except for for being a female, um, I, you know, like you mentioned, the white privilege, I I didn't really understand it, but I empathized with it, which is a different thing. Um but there's something today that I get it, and there's something like it's painful to just to recognize to recognize all the things that I heard of and that I had empathy for, that I thought was um a minority, like I thought it happened rarely or infrequently, not daily and not everywhere to those not everywhere. And then, and and I I may have shared, I know I've shared this with you, and I may have shared this in our conversations here before, that when I lived overseas, I was embarrassed to say I was American. And I mean, I I I wanted to say I was Canadian when people asked where I was from, but I didn't know anything about Canada. In my very small mind, I didn't know what it meant to be anywhere else in the United States except California. And um, so I knew what is it that made you embarrassed? Yeah. So I felt like, again, I went to an international school, and the people, even the Americans at my international school, were amazing. They were beautiful. But I ran into Americans from other schools and in my life that just were so egocentric and demanding and expected doors to open for them and to people for people to stop and be amazed that they were American. I remember one experience being in a department store, which was I mean, I was floored, just the beauty in the department store, the customer service, how beautiful they wrapped everything just meticulously. It was just absolutely amazing. And I remember the person with me yelling in English at the salesperson because they weren't speaking English in a Japanese department store. And this person yelling at them and using profanity as they yelled at them and wanted them to speak English. And I remember just thinking, what is this world that we actually think that one that that's a lap that that you could have that mentality and think that it's okay to talk to somebody like that? And you're in their world, they're just letting you be part of it, and that we responded like that. Um, I think also I was embarrassed, and I grew up in private schools that were college prep schools, and I felt like I was not prepared at all for the education system I walked into at all. Um and I I am proud, I'm a proud American. I love my country. Do I love the administration? No. Do I love what's happening in my country? No. But I do love my country still. And I want to believe in the principles on which it was founded, right? Correct. Correct. And I can't believe that our country is so cruel and hateful. And and uh waking up in my 50s to really pay attention to what we were founded on and what our true history is and what's really happened in the last 250 years in this country is just yeah.

Election Shock And Moral Courage

SPEAKER_01 11:54

It's um eye-opening and painful. And I'm ashamed of I'm ashamed of what I didn't know. As forward thinking and as broad-minded as I thought myself to be, yes, I'm ashamed at how much I didn't know. And what like like you were speaking of, I thought we were further ahead than we've proven to be. And I thought we were more aware, and I thought more was being done, and I really didn't know the breadth of machinations going on to keep this very gross, very ugly status quo alive and well. Sickening. It's sickening. So here we we came together, we're like, okay, hope through waking up. How are you waking up when this is so? So I was I was visiting you at the election. I remember being out with you and voting day, and I've done my mail-in ballot and um having so much hope at the election because it felt like there was just such a swelling of everything we love and believe in in this country, right? Yeah. Felt like it was really rising up. Yeah. And then I remember just the sickening feeling waking up the next day to where we were and where we were headed. And I'm not gonna mince words. That man in the White House and his whole regime are dark and ugly and filled with their own narcissistic depravity. That's the reality. Yeah, and I'm not playing around on that.

SPEAKER_00 13:43

Yeah, and and so and I think that is that that whole idea of waking up starts there because it was um, I mean, obviously waking up before that, but in my mind right now, just that okay, I can go within, I can shut my door, I can stay inside, I can focus on myself and my own goals and everything I need in this life and my kids' safety and my pet safety, and you know, just focus there. But for years, for some reason, and I don't know quite why, I've got my own little ideas on it. I've been pulled to reading autobiography specifically of people who lived or didn't live through um World War II and the Holocaust. And um I just always said, like, what would I have done if I lived then? How would I have responded? Would I have been somebody that risked my life to take you out of that building and get you on a boat or a train and get you into another country? Would I have hid you in my attic space? Would I have brought you food when you had none? And I I think I would have. I want to hope that I would have. So, in all of this craziness, I could turn off my social media and I can turn off the news and I could skip the rallies and I can watch a sitcom from the 80s and just keep myself isolated and pretend it doesn't exist. But I have to wake up to what's happening and I have to show up for myself and others and the world that I want to create. And this isn't it.

The Hope Inside Showing Up

SPEAKER_01 15:31

And the miracle of the showing up. So let's take that to the next step. Because yeah, it's work, and yeah, there's the pull to just close the blinds, shut it out, and do whatever to pretend it's not there. But in the showing up and joining others of like mind who are doing the work, who are speaking the truth, and who are demonstrating love, fellowship, connection, there's so much potent like healing and strength and power and beauty and resonance in that. I mean, any rally, and I've been to all but one, and I still feel sick that I've missed one. Like it's not okay that I missed that one. And there were reasons for it, but I'm still like defending it. I've been to every other rally there is. And um gratefully, joyfully, and every time, my God, I am just filled with so much hope. Yes, so much hope that this is the reality, yeah, right, of who we are, and and both things are true. We are also that dark ickiness, and we are also this bright love and connection. Yeah, both of these things are true for humanity, they exist side by side, and we're always that choice. And so for me, the the waking up and just doing it is choosing to be a part of the light.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

And that's it. You know what I think? I think love and light has always been bigger and stronger, but maybe not louder. And that darkness built, and there was maybe some complacency in knowing that that wasn't real, like the reality is that love and light exists, and the reality is people are good, and the reality is people show up for each other, and the reality is we help each other whether we know you or not, and and I love you whether I know you or not. That all of that is reality, but that darkness built and got so loud and overbearing that it did require, does require us to show up.

SPEAKER_01 17:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:53

And and to not shut up. Like, believe me, I I want to shut up. I I want all of this behind me so that I don't feel the need to share things on social media, to scream things, you know, to make posters. To I would love to live in a world where there is no need for any of that. But until then, I will keep waking up and doing the footwork. That that's it, right? The waking up just really does mean just that. Like you have to just start. Yeah. Wherever your day is, whether you wake up at five in the morning or 10 in the morning or two in the afternoon, you have to wake up and start doing something. And it it goes to this uh political climate, it goes to dealing with our grief and loss, it goes to dealing with tragedy, it goes to dealing with, you know, I don't know, financial problems, yeah, too much work, too, too a list that's too long. Um, it all starts with waking up because if you don't wake up, none of that changes.

Joy That Lives With Grief

SPEAKER_01 19:04

Yeah. Yeah. And and what you and I were talking about earlier, too, and just speaking about kind of that duality exists even so. So you wake up and you start wherever you are, you do that little thing and you are part of the healing, part of the solution, part of proactivity, part of love, what whatever it is, whatever word you want to put on it, that exists and resonates, but it doesn't obliterate. No, it doesn't obliterate the the darkness, the heaviness, the, or we're talking just the world of grief. Grief exists, and where there is great loss, there is tremendous grief, and it is there always. It's not going away, it's not getting over it. It's now I'm through the grief and now I am free, right? But it is learning to live side by side with it and waking up to joy, waking up to the experience of life that now lives side by side with the grief. It doesn't eradicate it, but it does have its own resonance. And I would even contend there's something profound about it in its um connection to and it's it's parallel with with the with the deep grief. There's something living in joy side by side with that that makes it even sweeter, yeah, more potent, yeah, deeper, more expansive. Something truly beautiful about it.

Rallies And The Long Fight

SPEAKER_00 20:36

Yeah. You you had brought up the rallies, and that's you know, my town uh since I moved here, I've had a rally every Saturday. They haven't stopped. Um love that a couple towns over, they've been going for six or seven years every Saturday, rain or shine, snow, freezing cold, they're out there every Saturday. Um, they've been doing this for a long time. And why I go to rallies, I don't know people call them protests, but I think it's less about protesting and more about love. So yeah, it's rallying up the love, rallying up the connection. Exactly. And I go there because there's insanity and I want the insanity to stop and I want the love to shine. And so there is this heaviness, which is the reason that I go. But when I show up and I see hundreds of people that I don't know, yeah, and we are all there with the same goal, different reasons, but the same goal and all ages, from the little tiny toddler who's there running amok to the you know, 90-year-old in a wheelchair who still has their sign. Yeah. It's just, I mean, how can you not have hope? And and I I gosh, I don't know. I I guess I I remember you fighting, you know, for women's rights. I guess that would have been like 70s even, but certainly through the 80s.

SPEAKER_01 22:09

It was when the ERA was the thing.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

That was a move forward. Yeah. I remember you got your membership card. And that was the organization of women, you know. Yes. And I think that our mom fought for women's rights. And I think that my grandmother was in the work. She was breaking those glass ceilings. Yes. Right. Yes. But so were our grandmothers and our great-grandmothers. Yes. And the fact that there's anybody in my generation, any living generation that wouldn't want to propel that forward and strive for true equality and equal rights, not just for men and women, but all genders, all people.

SPEAKER_01 23:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:02

Regardless of age, color, language.

SPEAKER_01 23:07

Yeah. Yeah. All people are created equal. The human rights belong to everyone. Right. Right? There's no question here. And the second we start putting up but not this, and if this, and you know, then we take those rights from everyone. And so that is that's the baseness of humanity that exists, right? Is that pull to me, me, me, and mine, and only a more for me, and screw you, and like that exists in human beings. That exists. It will always exist in human beings, but also the whole Mr. Rogers, look for the hero, right? And the selflessness and the uh heroics and the showing up even when you're putting yourself at risk, uh, you know, Dr. King, the the call to something more, something bigger, and the connection that also exists in us all as well.

Small Acts That Heal The World

SPEAKER_00 24:15

You said connection, and that's you know, our our other piece of us getting together and having these chats. We talk about connection and ways to connect, and and we're soul sisteries, uh, and there's this belief that our soul is greater than this body we're in. And when you think of that soul connection and our histories, I mean, we are all souls. That's that's all we are. And then to say that one soul is better than another, or one gets more than the other, or because you're created in this body versus that body and this color versus versus that body. Yeah, like what the heck? It's just yeah. I know I'm I feel like I'm babbling and and you're in that sense, you're making perfect sense. Yeah, it's just it's heavy, it's so heavy. I feel I I go back to 2020 and my deep grief for the world, but also for my own family. And there was this piece of, but I knew the world was okay. And now it's this deep grief and this deep sadness, and not knowing, not knowing today that the world is okay, trusting that the world is gonna be okay because good always wins, love always wins. Yes, but it's getting through all of this, and what is the cost, and how many people have to be hurt, and how many people have to die, and how many people have to lose hope. Right. And um, I want to continue to hold people up and to to show up in the world.

SPEAKER_01 26:00

And you are, and you are so so I heard once somebody say, like, how would you heal the world? And you like put toddlers in charge. Right. Because toddlers are in charge. Nobody goes hungry and take my food out of my mouth, right? Everybody's gonna have everything they need, bring all the lost dogs home, do like toddlers. That's just we're just gonna let doesn't matter what you look like, um, hug and kisses for you, and love, love, love, love, love. And so being your big sister by a few years, and you say you hope to think that you you would like to think that this is who you would have been back in the day. I know that's who you were. You were definitely that little girl who, like every old person in the neighborhood with your friend, you'd be walking home from school with the maple man because you just wanted to keep him company along the way. Like that is absolutely where your heart is. And of course, you had this calling to be in the work that you do as a clinician and training as clinicians for the healing of the world. That is absolutely your heart. And I know that that's my answer too to the ills of the world. You know, this other part of my life where I do a lot of volunteer work in theater, in community theater. I teach children, I direct theater, I teach classes. That is my conscious answer to the ills of the world that are overwhelming me and make me not want to wake up. What can I do directly? I'm gonna go love those kids. I'm gonna go love the kids. I'm gonna hold them up, I'm gonna give them opportunity and a place to find themselves and also theater magical. Talk about connections. You gotta talk with each other, you gotta work with each other, you gotta cooperate, shared common goal, all for good. I mean, the arts are so healing for us all. Anyway, that was a big, that was a big old thing to say, no, this exists in you, it exists in me. And that's what we're doing, that's what we're talking about when we say wake up, you gotta wake up and just do a thing. Do a thing, show up in whatever way.

SPEAKER_00 28:10

Yeah, and you know what? It doesn't it, I mean, it sounds like we're saying, oh, you have to wake up politically and and as an advocate. And that's not all what I mean about waking up and and finding hope. It it it could be hope, I mean, just hope in your life, hope in that career you're trying to create, that relationship you're hoping for, the your parenting, your your job, your finances, whatever, it really is just that waking up allows you to take that next step. If you don't wake up, there's no steps, right? You can sleep through life, that's fine. But waking up to whatever it is that is the world you are trying to create, whether it's the world for humanity or that world for yourself, that space for yourself, it all begins with waking up.

SPEAKER_01 29:02

And it's always better. It's always better. We can see again and again and again, right? When you're making that choice for humanity, you in turn are help but be blessed. You can't help but be. It is the natural consequence of it. And so why wouldn't we all just live in that space?

SPEAKER_00 29:25

And I I can remember being a student and you know, learning about altruism and you know, selfishness and all these things. I'm like, well, how could I ever, ever be altruistic? Because doesn't it all come down to like I'm so selfish because I just want to feel good. And if I help more people, I just feel better. I mean, that is the truth of it. But and I could wallow in my pity. But when I can step out of that and help somebody else out, that lifts me up.

SPEAKER_01 29:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:58

Yeah. And it and it doesn't matter if it's the dog, it's the squirrel that needs water outside, it's the person who doesn't have food, it's the you know, the shelter that needs dog food, you know, whatever it is, just doing something just is the showing up and waking up. It's that just makes me feel better. And you yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the hope through. Right. Yeah. Wake up. Wake up. And I and then to age my children, I the thing I heard was, wake up, Jeff, from the wiggles. So, so if you're a wiggles family, but it it is exactly it, don't sleep. Yes, don't don't sleep through your life. You don't sleep.

Closing Thanks And How To Connect

SPEAKER_01 30:49

Yeah, yeah. There we go. That's what we have to say. Seems so simple, right? And in some ways, so Pollyanna, but it's yes, it is the bottom line truth. Yeah, I don't know a lot, and it is one, it is one thing I know. It is one thing I know. The only way through is the waking up. Yep. And the showing up. Yep. So here's to you all. Let's all wake up, whatever that means for you. Much joy and love to you all. Hope through. It's happening. Thanks for joining us today on Soul Sistries. And thanks for sharing stories with us. We'd love to hear your stories as well and keep the conversation going, absolutely keeping the hope going. So we're really hopeful that you'll connect with our guests as well who have great stories to share. Go ahead and follow them in various social media platforms or live venues, wherever it is that they're performing and uh sharing what they do.

SPEAKER_00 31:52

We would love to have you follow us on all of our social media platforms, subscribe and rate, as that will help us get our message of hope out to others.

SPEAKER_01 32:01

Thanks for listening to Soul Sisters.