No Shrinking Violets
No Shrinking Violets is all about what it truly means for women to take up their space in the world – mind, body and spirit. Mary Rothwell, licensed therapist and certified integrative mental health practitioner, has seen women “stay small” and fit into the space in life that they have been conditioned to believe they deserve. Drawing on 35 years in the mental health field and from her perspective as a woman who was often told to "stay in your lane," Mary discusses how early experiences, society and sometimes our own limiting beliefs can convince us that living inside guardrails is the best -- or only -- option. She'll explore how to recognize our unique essential nature and how to use that to empower a new narrative.Through topics that span psychology, friendships, nature and even gut-brain health, Mary creates a space that is inspiring and authentic - where she celebrates the intuition and power of women who want to chart their own course and program their own GPS.
Mary's topics will include sleep and supplements and nutrition and how to live like a plant. (Yes, you read that right - the example of plants is often the most insightful path to knowing what we truly need to feel fulfilled). She’ll talk about setting boundaries, communicating, and relationships, and explore mental health and wellness: trauma and resilience, how our food impacts our mood and the power of simple daily habits. And so much more!
As a gardener, Mary knows that violets have been misjudged for centuries and are actually one of the most resilient and ecologically important plants in her native garden. Like violets, women are often underestimated, and they can even mistake their unique gifts for weaknesses. Join Mary to explore all the ways the vibrant and strong violet is an example for finding fulfillment in our own lives.
No Shrinking Violets
From Rejection to Reinvention: How One Woman Transformed Setbacks into a New Life
Thoughts or comments? Send us a text!
Kasey Lee shares her transformative journey from small-town English teacher to Director of Training and Development for the city of Chicago. Her story reveals how professional disappointment became the catalyst for complete reinvention, challenging limiting beliefs and embracing uncertainty.
• Moving from a town of 3,000 to a city of 3.6 million after being passed over for a promotion
• Overcoming the "bitter seed" of rejection by making a radical life change
• Applying to nearly 100 positions before landing the first city job
• Progressing through three job changes in three years, each representing career advancement
• Navigating hypersomnia (chronic sleepiness) while building a successful career
• Finding unexpected benefits in city living and community connection
• Recognizing that moving through limiting beliefs often requires taking action despite fear
Listen to yourself, trust your instincts, and don't be afraid to make changes even when they seem terrifying. As Kasey says, "I know I can do it because I did it."
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Welcome to No Shrinking Violets. I'm your host, Mary Rothwell, licensed therapist and certified integrative mental health practitioner. I've created a space where we celebrate the intuition and power of women who want to break free from limiting narratives. We'll explore all realms of wellness, what it means to take up space unapologetically, and how your essential nature is key to living life on your terms. It's time to own your space, trust your nature and flourish. Let's dive in. Hi and welcome to the show.
Mary:What would you do if you knew you could not fail? You've probably heard that before. Or life begins at the edge of your comfort zone, or a ship in the harbor is safe, but that's not what ships were built for. Of course, that last one has a wicked sentence structure, but you get the point.
Mary:We should not be afraid to push ourselves. Often, when we decide to take up our space, it involves discomfort. While the catchy, inspirational sayings are great to drop into a social media post, they can be eye rollers when we are actually pushing through something tough to get to the other side. Even when we know something is right, we have that sense of internal congruence. It is rarely, if ever, easy to grow into our true selves. Internal congruence, by the way, is when we just feel a little click, when something we think or want to do seems to slide into place in our hearts, when how we act is aligned with what we feel, even if it's scary. And that's what can be confusing. When we actually do want to step past our comfort zone or sail into uncharted waters, we can feel scared, heck, terrified. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. Our brains are wired to alert us to danger, but the difficult part of having our powerful, developed human brain is that many times it sends a false alarm.
Mary:Any change involves risk, right, but growth is change, and plants because y'all know I always go to plant examples get stronger when they need to withstand challenges as they grow, as they grow. For example, if you plant a tray of tomato seeds, you need to put those little seedlings outside for a week or so to experience the real world before you plant them in the ground. This is called hardening off, and it gives them the best chance to thrive. You should even gently brush your hand across them often, so they get used to yielding and bouncing back. And did you ever notice? It's the big, hard-trunked trees that blow over in the storm Saplings. Baby trees have trunks that are much more bendy so that they can withstand winds and rain as they grow.
Mary:Being resilient is the opposite of being rigid and, by the way, fear is usually a liar. So the key to making a change is to listen to your essential nature. What do you truly want for you? Not what makes sense to your best friend, susie, or what gets the most likes on socials, or especially what is the safest. It's your dang life, and only you know what you're truly capable of and what you want inside. So let's get to our episode for today, which is all about change and taking up your space, even when you are scared or part of you is whispering. But what if I can't do it?
Mary:Today I'm going to talk to my friend, Kasey Lee, one of the kindest, most genuine humans I know. I'm privileged to have her in my life. I met Kasey when we enrolled in the same PhD program. Little did we know then that we grew up less than half a mile from one another. As I got to know her, I was inspired by her sense of justice and care for humanity, her ability to see what was right and act on it, and not gonna lie her amazing baking ability. Kasey also loves both opera and women's pro sports, and she shares my passion for themes of gender socialization and support of women living fully and taking up their space in the world. She has truly been one of my most supportive friends in my own life journey. On a more professional note, casey has a degree in communications and two master's degrees. To give you an idea of her funky, cool mind, her master's thesis was on the unique language register of Central Pennsylvania race car drivers. Kasey, someday I must ask you how you came up with that. She is currently a PhD candidate working on her dissertation on male allyship behaviors in the workplace.
Mary:She was born and raised in the same small town as me and moved to Chicago, illinois, in 2021, where she currently resides with her husband, her cat Daisy and her dog Ollie. Just for the record, our little hometown currently has fewer than 3,000 people. Chicago has a population of over 3.6 million. Talk about change. Anyway, within three years of making the move to Chicago, Kasey changed jobs three times all promotions and is currently the Director of Training and Development for the entire city of Chicago. That means that she oversees training for 10 times the number of people that make up the entire town where we grew up. Today, we're going to talk about her journey and how she successfully overcame limiting narratives and false beliefs to cultivate a mindset of possibility and abundance. Welcome to No Shrinking Violets, Kasey. I've so been looking forward to our talk today,
Kasey:Thank you, Mary.
Kasey:I'm so excited to talk with you too.
Mary:So I wanted to talk to you today because, first, let's be honest you moved to Chicago and I miss your face. But beyond that selfish reason, as I said in the intro, I really want people to hear your story. So many of us don't think our story is remarkable, but when we take a step back and think about what we've accomplished, I think it really is remarkable. So first give us an idea what was happening in your life that created this fertile ground for the decision you made over the past few years?
Kasey:Sure. So so much of my life is so different now than what it was in 2021 and even in the few years leading up to 2021. And a lot of things just put me in the right place, I guess, to make this-risk girls that met before school once a week I want to say in 2017 or 2018. I can't remember. It's been a while and I started that program with the idea that I was on my way to becoming an administrator for my school district, and that would be, you know, the next step in my career path. I always wanted to have a PhD, always. I didn't always want to be a teacher that's something I just sort of fell into but I did always want a PhD, and so I wanted to make sure that whatever I studied was bigger than education, and so that's why I chose the administration and leadership studies program. But all of that to say that's what was happening in my life.
Kasey:When COVID happened, I was in the PhD program, wrapping up my coursework, and work had already been so challenging, being an English teacher who taught a lot of writing, intensive courses. I taught a course that got college credit for students at the local community college, and I was constantly grading. I felt like it was my responsibility to make sure that I was giving students a ton of writing feedback and always updating my lesson plans and always doing creative new thing, and it was draining me quite a bit. So once COVID happened, it just made things even harder and I just thought I think I'm ready to move into an administrator role where I could do more good and try to make teachers' lives better so that they didn't feel so stressed. And at the end of 2020, at the end of that school year, 2020, so summertime, june, july it became clear that there was going to be a position for a dean of students that opened up in my district and I was ready to apply for that role. I felt I was the right person. I already have I already had at the time, my administrator certification. I had a master's degree in I forget the exact title of it leadership for teaching and learning or something like that, but a master's of education that you would take if you were going to be a school administrator. So I felt you know, very competent and ready for this role obviously in a PhD program at the same time and I applied for that position and I thought you know I was the right person for the job. I was not selected for that position. There were two other people who had applied for that role and one of the other candidates for that position was another woman in my department who also was going through a principal program to get her certification Brilliant, high-functioning, type A personality, a lot like me. And the third applicant was a male teacher who also happened to be my best friend, but I wouldn't necessarily call him the most qualified person for the job. Job, but he did get that position.
Kasey:That experience devastated me. I knew my capability as English department chair for seven years. I knew what value I brought to that district and to the school and I knew the capability of the other two teachers in the running and it just shook my core. It was hard to navigate between knowing in my heart that I was the most qualified person for the job and then feeling like, well, I must not be because they didn't pick me. But at the same time I was just beginning my journey for my dissertation which, as you know, is on male allyship behaviors in the workplace, and I read so much about so many women being denied positions or, you know, not being able to move up. And it had been an intellectual pursuit up until then, and then, at that moment, it became my reality and so it was very hard not to assume or not to start believing. It must be that I'm not good enough. Like why? Why didn't I show them I was good enough? So it kind of planted. I describe it as my bitter seed. It planted a bitter seed and the school year started.
Kasey:The 2020-2021 school year started and just walking into the building, I was a different person and I told my husband like I can't work here anymore. I cannot walk down the hall and feel this way. And you know, I always told my students like you could do, you can always change your mind Like I taught seniors. For the most part, I love teaching seniors. They're at like the precipice of a new part of their lives and they're so excited. And many of them are very worried about choosing a major and picking a college or picking a tech school or what job they're going to do, and they have this limiting belief that, well, whatever I pick right now, when I'm 18 years old, that's what I'm going to be until I die. And I would always tell them like you can change your mind there's no rule, like no one is holding you to what you thought you wanted to be when you were 18 years old. That's crazy. So, but I wasn't giving myself that same space to say I could change my mind.
Kasey:Um, and there was a. It's funny that you started this episode saying the what if? What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail? That year there was a like tree that somebody had painted on the glass in the cafeteria and people put different like inspirational quotes on leaves that they stuck all over this tree and I had lunch duty and I would stare at this tree and one of the leaves was like what would you do if you couldn't fail? And I would be like not be here, I would leave, I would leave this and I would look at it every day. It's like, like you said, it's such a corny, inspirational quote, but I would look at it every day at lunch duty and be like, what am I doing? I have to do something else.
Kasey:So I did talk to my husband about like I've got to go, but how can I look for another job? I'm working myself to death teaching and grading, and then I've got my PhD work when I get home from work and it was 2020 to 2021, my school district was open every day. Students could choose to learn from home, but we were in person, and so everything I did I had to rework to figure out how to teach hybrid synchronously. So I had students that were calling in and they installed cameras in our classroom so that we could do like live video feeds to the kids that didn't come in, while also teaching the live students who were in front of us, and so I was also rewriting all of my plant.
Kasey:I was like there's no way I could possibly look for another job while I'm doing all of this, and my husband was struggling at work with some personality differences, with some of his colleagues as well, and he thought, okay, I'll look for a job. And so we started out by saying, well, where do we want to go? And I said, I don't care, it can be anywhere. Pick a place. And so that's sort of the first impetus that led to being in Chicago today.
Mary:Yeah, wow, you know, it's funny because that feeling of knowing that you are the best person for a job and not getting it, I can really relate. And it's funny because I can also relate to the feeling of like, in retrospect, many times I think, thank goodness I didn't get that, absolutely yeah. And at the time though, it can be so demoralizing, time though it can be so demoralizing. And I think the thing that some people really believe is that success is linear. And it's totally not linear.
Mary:And when we have things that happen where it really like I can't remember your exact words, but it shook you a lot to recognize that the person that was awarded the job wasn't the best person. And it's interesting too, because I talked recently to somebody who was struggling with a college decision decision and I said you understand that college admission decisions have a very large kind of chunk of subjectivity. You know, I think when we give someone else the power to make a decision for our future, it really is. We can really believe that, oh, I guess I wasn't the best and that's just patently false a lot of times. So you really had to move past what happened, because knowing where you ended up now it's like, oh my gosh, look what happened.
Mary:Because you didn't get what you wanted at the time, and I love that story. And I love that story. And you know the other thing they have almost 100% of the job, the parts of the job they need to feel like I can do 100% of this job, and I think for men it's typically like 65%. So we set a higher bar, I think, going in. And so, yes, that was obviously a very pivotal moment for you. So when you got to the point where you were like, all right, let's pull up stakes, I don't care where we go, how did you settle on Chicago?
Kasey:I think really having that bitter seed growing allowed me to say like I don't care. I'm definitely the kind of person when someone has hurt me or harmed me, I probably go too far in my reaction to like, well, I'll show them, I'll spite them, and that's not a healthy. I would not necessarily tell your listeners to embrace that attitude, but that's where I was at the time. I wouldn't say I'm there today as my husband started looking around for positions around the country.
Kasey:I said you know, I don't care where we live really what had happened a few years leading up to this moment. So many people in my family had moved away, first after he graduated from college, and then some years went by and after we got married, my husband's family moved to Vermont and then to South Carolina. Then only my parents were left in my small town, right as you were saying that. We grew up in and they moved away to Alabama. I ended up moving back into the house I grew up in and they moved away to Alabama. I ended up moving back into my house. I grew up in and lived there with my husband until we moved. But we were the last people and so there wasn't anything keeping me there. But there wasn't any particular place to go either, because my family was all over the country, as was my husband, so it was like take your pick. As was my husband, so it was like take your pick. So he applied to all kinds of places. He had job offers in a number of places, as well as being near the end of the process where it seemed like he was going to get a job offer, but he hadn't heard anything yet. We had New York, delaware, atlanta and Chicago were sort of like the four big finalists. Now we're offering him positions, and so we were just sort of waiting to see, like, well, I guess we'll pick the one that offers the most money. And as he was going through that process, it turned out that most of them offered the same amount of money and it was like, well, what's a cool place to live? I guess Chicago. I think the job interested him a little more. It seemed more interesting and I was happy to go wherever.
Kasey:So my very first time in Chicago was the day we drove out here to find an apartment. So we had already decided we were moving here, sight unseen, um, and I was terrified. I mean terrified. I wanted to move, don't get me wrong. I was excited to start this new thing and to leave this part that had hurt me behind. But coming here to look for apartments and knowing no one and just showing up was so scary and we knew wherever we were going to be was going to be a small apartment and we had a whole house and a lifetime together of stuff collected, and so we sold a lot, we threw a lot away, we downsized to hardly anything, and that was very emotional.
Kasey:And then, coming out here to look for an apartment. We drove out on a long weekend I think it was Easter weekend 2021. And the very first thing we did when we got here I wanted to see Lake Michigan. I'd never seen any of the Great Lakes before and, like standing there and looking out at Lake Michigan, I was like, oh, it's beautiful, I can be here, I can do this.
Kasey:It was cold I mean, it was the end of April and it was cold still in Chicago and I thought, well, that's going to be different. But the trees were starting to bud and the lake was the prettiest color of aqua blue I'd ever seen. And, yeah, we said, okay, this will be our place. And then, after we looked at some apartments with some realtor I just picked, you know, randomly off the internet to take us around and look at places. You know, we chose an apartment. Our first apartment was in the neighborhood called West Loop. We sat in a park after looking at all of the different places and said, okay, well, which one do we want? And we chose our apartment and then drove all the way back home in a whirlwind weekend tour of Chicago.
Mary:Oh, my, oh, my gosh. That's a that is a great story. I knew parts of that. I never heard all the details, but it's funny because getting to know you through the PhD program, where you know you're together for hours at a time and you really you know I think you get to know each other in a different way than if you just like meet socially or in a job situation, because you're learning and you figure out people's strengths and their weaknesses. And one of the things that struck me is how hard you work and, having gotten a teaching degree in English, that's how I started my whole career. I never I only student taught, I never actually had my own classroom.
Mary:But you're right, when you really want people to improve something like writing, you feel like you have to give a lot of feedback and to do the job of teaching well. It's very, very difficult and, casey, you don't do anything, as my dad used to say, half-assed, I mean. I feel like you show up and I could tell you were exhausted. And so I have this theory that when life feels like you should be making a change, it starts by tapping you on the shoulder and then it might like nudge you with its elbow and then eventually it like smacks you across the head and I think for you, I think that job situation because you're also very loyal. So you were teaching in the same district where you grew up. You know small town, and I think you needed to have something. That was that difficult, almost like a betrayal right.
Kasey:Yes, yes.
Mary:And I think you needed something like that to say, okay, that it's enough's enough, let's just do it. And I'm glad you said you were terrified because you know have I saw you a little bit and people. She also gave me a lot of free stuff. I have her dining room table, by the way, in my house right now, but you know watching you on that part of your journey. So we grew up in kind of a rural area. You had a yard, you know, pretty quiet, and when you talked about your apartment and you have, you know you have your dog, ollie, and I'm like how are they going to do this? But never having really a doubt that you were going to do it, but you changed pretty much every single thing that could be changed with this move. I think it's interesting. Of course we have you and I have friends in common and there's one that I see a lot here back here in Pennsylvania and when we were talking about this promotion which, by the way, is so totally cool I remember weirdly feeling like, well, of course, casey became director of training and development for the entire city of Chicago a couple years after she moved there.
Mary:But then the other part of my brain was like wait, like our Casey is director of training and development for the entire city of Chicago, of training and development for the entire city of Chicago, and I really had to remind myself that that's an amazing accomplishment in the overall scheme of life. Because you know, when I think of it with you, of course, that would happen Like I had no doubt. But you know, we always have people in our lives. I think that we expect to achieve really cool things and you're one of those people. But when I look at it to me it's like, yeah, I can see totally why that would happen so quickly for you, but in that whole process, did you have to overcome something like a limiting belief in yourself to be able to inhabit this space ?
Kasey:Absolutely, You're
Kasey:Yes, when we first moved here, well, first of all, obviously, my husband had the job. I didn't have a job. I finished teaching. I think my last day at work was June 9th. We drove to Chicago on June 10th, of course you did, and so I had no job. I'm very near to the end of the school year.
Kasey:I threw out a couple of applications from Pennsylvania to Chicago, but I wasn't searching seriously because I was still teaching and, you know, wrapping up my life in that part of the country, and so when we first moved, my job was to find a job. I had a little cushion because I was teaching. You could choose. I don't know if people know this, but if you're a teacher, you can choose to either be paid the year, the months that you work so 10 months a year you get paid or you can choose to have it spread out to 12 months. I always chose the 12 month option to make it easier to budget things, and so I knew, even though I my last day at work was June 9th.
Kasey:I would continue to get paid through the end of August. So I was like, okay, I have to find a job by the end of August or things are going to be a little tight. I would say, moving here with my husband having a job, it was a good paying job, but it was not a great paying job. We were moving here because it was a change, not because it was going to make us millions. It was not like that. I was going to need to find work, no doubt.
Mary:And Kasey, it's much more expensive to live there, I would guess, right.
Kasey:Yes, though in some ways it's cheaper and I'll get to that. But I'll tell you about these limiting beliefs first. So when I arrived here, all I did was apply to jobs. I knew I wanted to stay in public service or nonprofit work. It's just in my heart. I did not want to go back to teaching unless I absolutely had to. That was going to be the last thing that I would do. I really wanted to work for the Chicago Park District or I really wanted to work for the Art Institute of Chicago. There's so many universities here with research centers. So I was like I will do research for University of Chicago, for University of Illinois at Chicago, for Northwestern I don't care, I will do these things and it doesn't have to pay a lot. I just want to do work that matters. That I feel like is important.
Kasey:And in June, July and August I applied to nearly 100 positions and I was not getting any calls. It started to feel like maybe the people back home who didn't promote me were right. Maybe I'm not as smart or competent or as good as I thought I was, and I won't lie. I started to feel depressed. I was so happy to be in Chicago. I loved the city. I loved being here, but the day to day I was just like, what am I going to do? I have to contribute, I can't live like this. I mean, I wasn't waking up until noon one in the afternoon. If it weren't for the dog, if it weren't for having to take Ollie out for a walk, I don't know that I would have gotten up and taken a shower some days because I was just so depressed and telling myself you're not as smart as you thought you were. I guess You're not as good as you thought you were.
Kasey:And in August I finally got an interview with the city of Chicago's Office of Inspector General. For listeners who don't know what inspector generals do, it's a really important job. They look for waste, fraud and corruption in government in sort of two ways you have investigators who do the tracking, the bad guys type stuff, and then you have auditors who you know, look at programs and finances and things. And in the PhD program that we had started together, I took courses in program evaluation, which looks at the you know qualities of programs and whether or not those programs are meeting what they claim to do. Well, that's auditing work. So that's the position I'd applied for and I had an interview and I got a second round interview where I interviewed with the inspector general himself and they hired me to be an auditor.
Kasey:The title was program analyst or performance analyst for the city of Chicago. This is like an entry-level job in that department, but I was thrilled. I was thrilled to just have work and work that I thought was really important and meaningful. And as I was there, it became clear to me relatively quickly that this is an entry-level position and I can do more, which is not to discount. I worked with amazing people there who also they all could do more. They're choosing to do this work, which is not to discount. I worked with amazing people there who also they all could do more. They're choosing to do this work because they care about it and I have a lot of respect for them. But I had done that already. I spent 14 years of my life saying I'm going to do this because it's important to me and I care about helping my community. And now it was time to say I think I can do more. I'm not going to wait right for a promotion that doesn't come Now.
Kasey:I did get promoted while I was there to senior performance analyst. I was there a little under two years I want to say a year and a half maybe and there was a position for a professional development manager at the Chicago Park District. And from when I first learned about Chicago and what kind of jobs were here, I thought the park district was a really cool place to be. They do a lot of programming for young people very similar to education in some ways. You know the city of Chicago really cares about parks. There are over 600 park locations in the city of Chicago. All of the lakefront land is public land owned by the park district. So I applied for that position and got that position and there same thing I kind of started out just doing the work every day. So as a professional development manager I oversaw training and professional development for the staff there.
Kasey:But I wasn't the head of that department, right? I had a boss that I reported to and it became clear to me anyway that I was like I could probably be doing what my boss is doing. Then I had big ideas about things, but I don't know how long I would have had to wait to be promoted, to move up in that department and, like I said, I was kind of feeling like I didn't want to wait anymore. I had waited, I had done my waiting and now was my time to climb up the ladder to a position where I felt like I belonged. And so I feel like I have moved through those feelings right.
Kasey:I started my Chicago feeling like like I couldn't do anything, but I moved through it by doing it right, like I did the work, and then that's the evidence to yourself that you can do it, because you're doing it. I was at parks about a year and three months before I saw the position for the city needing the director of training and development. So I have a team now and I oversee the training, the compliance training right, like those you know once a year don't sexually harass people, kind of stuff. But then also we're doing work with professional development to help people become better managers and leaders, developing a lot of new things I'm really excited about and it feels really great, you know, to wake up every morning and I have my city hall ID badge and I take the train downtown and check in with police officers that support the building and protect the building and take the elevator up to the 11th floor and go into my office and think like look what you're doing, you're doing it right, I know I can do it because I did it. So I think that's really the lesson for a lot of people who get stuck in limiting beliefs or imposter syndrome. Right, it's like just do it, and that's the evidence to yourself that you can do it.
Kasey:And I think that both my husband and my mother would always say you should just apply for the thing. They have always encouraged me to take on things that I thought were bigger than or that I wasn't ready for yet. Maybe I should have listened to that sooner in my life. But, yeah, just apply for the thing. You'll know when you tap out they call it the Peter principle or something when you rise to your level of your incompetence. I don't think I don't want to go that far, but I'm very happy with the, with where I am now and the. You know the difference that I can make with my team. It's pretty great.
Mary:Yeah Well, there's so many cool themes in just that answer you gave. So the one thing that strikes me is you are open to whatever and I know it started with discouragement. You know, when you said, hey, we're just pulling up stakes, I don't care where we go, it was kind of like that throwing up your hands and, you know, crossing your arms and stomping your foot and saying I'm not putting up with this. You know which? I love that mental image. But I think when you're growing, I think being open to whatever happens is where the fertile ground is. There's a lot of beauty in that openness and you know, you have obviously a very supportive partnership with your husband and that's a source of strength and I think you support each other.
Mary:But I think within that, you had to do your own work and sharing that level of depression. Again, it's very natural when you want to create change in the world and I think you are a change agent I think doing work that impacts people is very important to you and when you don't have a sense of contribution, you know you want to do this work. That's important and again, anytime it's like a job situation you're a little bit dependent on other people to select that resume and give you a chance. And I want to normalize feeling that sense of discouragement. You can go in with, you know, the best mood in the world and the most optimism and when things don't go according to your time schedule, for one thing, but also you wanted to be contributing right financially to your marriage and your life situation. So it can get very heavy and you know that sense of purpose can sort of flicker, you know, like a bad light bulb. But once you are put on a track and you were put on a track and you took that opportunity even if you knew well, this might not quite be up to the level of my real skill, but again you got on the track and then you started to build back that, I think, sense of confidence, because I never worked with you in a work environment, but I'm pretty sure that people would recognize your competence pretty quickly. Work environment, but I'm pretty sure that people would recognize your competence pretty quickly. So normalizing all of that, that being open, you know you're going to have setbacks and figuring out. You know how do you push through that and for you partly it was the dog, and I know that was a joke, but it's not really a joke, right, because someone's counting on you. So all of those are such really cool themes and I was going to ask you more about the dissertation, like getting into that whole thing. But I feel like you answered a lot of that and so I'm going to take a little bit of a side road here.
Mary:We're going to go kind of veer into a different aspect of your life and the accomplishments that you've had.
Mary:I had an episode recently where I talked to another close friend of mine about her journey with autoimmune disease, and I know that you have a health issue that severely affects your ability to get restful sleep, which you know.
Mary:For me, as somebody in menopause, I can totally relate.
Mary:But also I know that this situation for you is much, much different, and I'm bringing this up for a couple reasons.
Mary:And first it's because I know myself I am so impatient with my own body when I experience any issue that keeps me from doing what I want when I want, and I have so much respect and I honestly a bit of all for anyone who finds a way to navigate something that is chronic. And I feel like for you you give this appearance of an indomitable spirit and I know that you know that doesn't mean that behind the scenes it's always easy, but I don't think that you factor this situation for you into the impressiveness of your accomplishments, and that's not surprising. But I think it's important for people to hear this part of your story because I think so often we can find reasons to not do something right. There's always a reason not to, and then we can feel safe, right, and we can feel maybe a little relieved. But we might, and often do, eventually wonder what. If so, can you share a little bit about how dealing with this challenge for you has impacted maybe this journey or just generally your sense of accomplishment or purpose?
Kasey:Sure. So I have something called hypersomnia, which just means that you're really sleepy all the time, is basically the outcome of it. You know they do the sleep tests and they can see your brain waves and all that kind of stuff. But for your listeners I'll just generally say it means you're very sleepy all the time and it's not improved by well. If you just get a better night's sleep, then when you wake up you wouldn't be so sleepy. No, it doesn't fix it, so you're just tired a lot.
Kasey:There's a couple of ways that I think it's sort of impacted my life and how I've dealt with it. Certainly when I was young it's always been there, right, so I don't really know any other way of existing. When I wake up in the morning, I am exhausted. I could immediately go back to sleep. This morning I set the alarm for 6.30. It went off at 6.30. I turned it off and I got up at 6.45, and I turned it off and it went off at 7, and I turned it off and finally I got in the shower at like 7.20 because I'm off of work today and I needed to take the cat to the vet at 8. And I was like what's the last possible moment that I could do that. So for a lot of my life I was resetting the alarm over and over and over again and sometimes sleeping through it, missing things because of that. So I can say today, you know, I'm very thankful that I have a husband who is very supportive and makes sure that I get out of bed in the morning, that I don't, you know, lose my job because I overslept. So that makes a huge difference in my life.
Kasey:But growing up I didn't know I had this. I was not diagnosed with it until I was like 32 or something. I didn't know I had this. I was not diagnosed with it until I was like 32 or something. So for most of my life, when I was lazing about, the assumption was either well, you're being lazy or you're just being a kid, right, like teenagers already sleep late, etc. It was not really a concern.
Kasey:But my family, my parents, just had the expectation that you do what needs to be done. They were not cruel by any means. They were very supportive parents. But the way that I was raised was like it doesn't matter what's going on, you have to get the thing done right. If you're sick or whatever's happening, well, you have homework that's due whenever you have to get it done. If you have to go to work, you have to go to work. The expectation was you do what needs to be done, and so I didn't even know it was the thing I had. I was just like, well, I'm tired, but you got to do the thing you have to do.
Kasey:And well, like I said, I was struggling to the point where, if I were not married to someone who made sure I got up, I'm not sure that I would get up. Like I had had a few cases when I was single where I overslept and I just didn't go into work. Like I would wake up at 11 and be like, oh my God, what happened. There were some times when I started driving to the beginning of the PhD program after school, after work. At school, I mean, I would get in the car to drive to our classes and I would have to pull over on the side of the road and take a nap. I had had that before. I had dated someone that lived in Maryland. I lived in Pennsylvania. It was like an hour and a half to two hours to drive to see him and when I was driving there I would have to stop and take a nap, or I would have to call him and be like you have to talk to me on the phone or I'm going to crash my car.
Kasey:But I never pieced together that this was a disorder. I just thought like, well, I need to get better sleep next time, I guess. So once I had the diagnosis, it made a huge difference. I don't take anything for it. There's not a lot they can do for it. They can prescribe things like Ritalin, but I currently don't take anything for it.
Kasey:But one thing that my doctor at the time said was like you need to give yourself permission to just do what you need to do to get through. Like you need to give yourself permission to just do what you need to do to get through. So I would carry a lot of guilt and shame about needing to nap and I felt terrible about it and that kind of gave me the space to be like nope, I have to take a nap because this is a diagnosed disorder. That's not just me being lazy. The doctor says I have to take a nap, so I'm going to take one. So just kind of having the permission to take care of what I needed to take care of has helped a lot and I know I said it a bunch of times now but also just having someone that makes sure that I get up, you know, those two things make it happen. You, just you do what needs to be done.
Mary:Yeah Well, and I never heard you. First of all, let me stop. I never knew that you had to take a nap on the way to class and I mean, I was exhausted, I didn't have that to sit through those night, those evening classes. Sometimes it's like, oh my God, but I never knew that you needed to do that. I never heard you make excuses or complain. It was just sort of this is the way it is. I'm not surprised about that sense of shame, because I've said this often, especially with women, we have this idea of we should be able to push through because, look, everybody else is doing it. And so part of my point here is it's to me it was like Casey's doing it, like I didn't know you were dealing with that, and I think we need to normalize, first of all, that you rest when you need to, even without a diagnosis, and I think that, again, that isn't that sort of the typical thing. Okay, well, now I'm validated, right, it validates my needs. That's sort of the typical thing, okay well now I'm validated.
Mary:Right, it validates my needs and I actually did. I think it was episode three maybe, and the whole thing was about rest, because I talk so often about nature and you know, I started this episode talking about trees and right now, you know, I'm in Pennsylvania, there are no leaves on the trees because, guess what, they're resting and we don't look at the trees and be like, oh my God, they're so lazy, they like drop their leaves. And you know, and anything you know, I talked about bears hibernating. We don't never think of bears as being lazy because they sleep for several months. We all need to rest and you know, for you it just it makes things it sounds like that much harder because we need to be rested and alert to do a lot of things during the day. So the reason one of the reasons again that I wanted people to hear that part of your story is I know that you and you and I initially talked about this.
Mary:You dismissed it. You're like I don't really think that's an important thread here, talked about this, you dismissed it. You're like I don't really think that's an important thread here and it's like, oh, but it is because you know that's kind of the whole thing, you're like, well, that's not really important, I just deal with it. Yeah, you do. And that's where that importance comes in that if someone achieves something and they're looking at everybody else and like, well, I should be doing better, but I'm actually happy where I am, that's okay.
Mary:If you have a friend that has four children and you just want one child, that's okay. You know, whatever we decide to do and we feel comfortable, and not that we're ascribing to a limiting belief, but just truly, this is the life that I want. This is where I feel comfortable, that's okay. And I think that that for you to validate just that part of your story that you didn't say, well, I'm never going to be able to do this high level job because I'm just tired all the time, you just like put that there as part of the story, but that's only one part of the story, it is not a main plot line. Does that make sense?
Kasey:That made me think of the fact that so much about American pop culture, television, advertising, whatever there's like. Well, you have to have a house with a yard, you know, and two cars and a picket fence and all that stuff, and I had that. My husband and I have lived in three houses together, I think, all of which had yards and two cars and the like standard suburban looking living though we were a little more rural, I guess, and moving to Chicago, and, yes, things like the rent, you know, and we did eventually buy a condo, right, that costs more than it did in small town Pennsylvania, but we have one car and I never drive it, we take the train or the bus, uh, so that's cheaper, right? Um, everybody in my condo building we all pay in together to have wi-fi for the whole building, so it's cheaper.
Kasey:Like there's just all these kinds of things that make city living different and and kind of nice that you don't see, because that's not what's like sold to you by television and pop culture and everything, and I've really come to enjoy that and I feel like man, more people need to know. I mean, most people live in cities, right, like, if you look at, you know, population centers, that's where people live, but that's not the culture, doesn't reflect that, it doesn't celebrate it the way it does to say like, well, I have a house in my own land and all of this stuff and I've really enjoyed getting the experience of living in the city. It reminds me of growing up and watching Sesame Street I'm sure you know.
Kasey:I love that image. That's great. That show was designed for children that lived in cities. Right, they wanted to give city living children the experience of what preschool was like if they didn't have the opportunity to go to preschool. And so everybody grows up watching Sesame Street. But it takes place in a city and you knew everybody on your block and you went to the same market and you know all the different things on Sesame Street.
Kasey:And now that's my experience. Everything I need is like within a block of my house. And what's not to love about that? You know I go to the same coffee shop to get an iced tea pretty much every day and they know who I am. That's very predictable. I think if I didn't go for a week, they'd probably call the police and be like we don't know where she is. Yeah, so it's just interesting. I guess I was thinking as you were talking about. You know what the expectations are for ourselves. The expectation of how we are supposed to live our lives isn't necessarily true either. There are lots of ways to live your life.
Mary:I think that's a great reframe of city living, because it is especially to somebody that grew up in a very rural area, like us. Oh, it's the scary city and it's dirty and it's noisy and we tend to focus on the things we wouldn't want in that situation. But this goes, this sort of goes back to your being open. You know you didn't put those barriers up like, oh, you know, I don't know, I'm not. I mean, I'm sure you had a few, maybe, yeah, like, maybe worried about having some misgivings, but you still had that, you know, sense of being open to it. And those are great points.
Mary:And you know the other thing that you and I have talked about, which I'm not going to lie where I live now, very jealous of the fact that you can have such a buffet of cuisines. You're so lucky I have, like, pizza and, you know, a sub and whatever, but no, I think that's a great reframe. So I'm glad that you circled back on that and kind of looking at the clock, of course we've talked for almost an hour and I have loved our time and I want to thank you so much for taking the time today to talk with me.
Kasey:My pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Mary:Yes, it's been great and I want to thank everybody for listening. I would love if you would do a review or follow the show to make sure you don't miss a thing, and I would also love to hear your thoughts. So if you have anything you want to comment about, or you can actually text me directly there's a link above the show notes and until next time, go out and be the amazing, resilient, vibrant violet that you are. Thank you.
