EP 49 Healing Through Friendship: Chronic Illness, Loss, and 44 Years of Sisterhood with Tori Moreno and Taryn Perry

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In this heartfelt and deeply inspiring episode of Girls Who Recover, I sit  down with lifelong best friends Tori Moreno and Taryn Perry, co-hosts of Healing with Traveling Treasures. Friends since the first day of kindergarten, these two women share a story of unbreakable sisterhood, radical resilience, and healing through connection, spirituality, and creativity.

Tori opens up about a lifetime of medical challenges—including asthma, COPD, chronic pancreatitis, epilepsy, breast cancer, diabetes, and a late diagnosis of cystic fibrosis—and how she continues to insist on joy, advocacy, and fully living her life. Her healing journey includes therapy, spiritual connection, self-advocacy in the medical system, and the transformative power of her relationships with her daughter and with Taryn.

Taryn shares her own story of recovery through profound loss—losing her mother, leaving a failing marriage, supporting a critically injured ex-husband, navigating a volatile family dynamic, and becoming a mother herself. Her healing unfolded through community, spirituality, and being welcomed into a faith space where she could grieve, pray, and reconnect with purpose.

This episode is a powerful reminder that healing happens through connection, courage, and love — and that it’s never too late to find your people.

Love Tori and Taryn as much as I do? Connect with them here:

Website / Podcast / Instagram

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Hey gorgeous.

I love you.

I'm so proud of you.

And I believe in your ability to create a life you absolutely love.

Transcript

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Welcome to the Girls Who Recover podcast with Dana Hunter Fradella, where incredible women just like you, go to transform life's biggest setbacks into your most powerful comebacks so that you can live a life you. Love. I'm your host, Dana Hunter Fradella, transformational coach and founder of Girls Who Recover, and my mission is to pull back the curtain on our mistakes, failures, shame and personal disasters, and light the way for how to use those to create your biggest and most gorgeous comebacks. Follow the show now. Grab your iced coffee and turn up the volume for girls who recover. Let's light it up. hello, gorgeous, and welcome back to another. Amazing episode of The Girls Who Recover Podcast. I'm your host, Dana Hunter f and today I have two gorgeous, brilliant, incredible guests to share with you. Welcome to the show, Tori Moreno and Taryn Perry. And they are best friends since the first day of kindergarten 44 years ago, and the hosts of the podcast Healing with Traveling Treasures, and I am so excited for you to hear their story. We just did a drop in where we opened our hearts and we invited hearts to tell the truth. So we never know what is gonna happen on the Girls Who Recover podcast. But I'm so grateful that you're here and I can't wait to hear about your story and more about healing with traveling treasures. Tori, you got the coin toss with the longest hair. You get to go first, my friend. Tell us a little bit about you and your story. Hi. So first of all, it's so nice to be here. Thank you so much, Dana, for having us. We are so excited to be here. So my story is I've had a lot of health issues my whole life. I was born with asthma. I spent my childhood in and out of hospitals. I was diagnosed with COPD at the age of 17 because of how often I would have pneumonia and bronchitis and collapsed lungs. I, as I got older, the asthma got a little better, but I continued with other health issues and my I think it was in my. Early 30, late twenties, early thirties. I started getting chronic pancreatitis started acute. I spent five years in and out of the hospital every three months. And then, it, it basically was chronic pancreatitis from then on. And then I was diagnosed with epilepsy in my forties and then breast cancer also in my forties. And I'm also a late diagnosis c cystic fibrosis. So I've got a lot of health issues that I've been dealing with and just moving along and doing my best to not let it hold me back. So that's mine. So how, so let me just make sure. How old were you when you were diagnosed with asthma? I was like I say, I was born with asthma and you were born. Okay. Yeah. So my whole childhood was revolved around asthma. And then COPD when you were 17, correct? Yeah. And then as you got older, you added on, I think thinking about it like an outfit, right? You got this new layer of pancreatitis which I just recently learned. Chronic means three months or more. Is that right? Basically, yeah. It means it's ongoing. So acute means it's like a one time thing or it happens here and there, but chronic means that you continue to have it for a long period of time, so Yes. And then in your forties, epilepsy and breast cancer and cystic fibrosis, correct? Correct. And so with all of these health issues, what, how are you working with those now? What does that look like now? Now I am I see a lot of specialists. I it's a joke that I have, that I'm collecting all the specialists. So I do, I have a lot of specialists that I have to go see. So I'm in and out of the doctor's office all the time. It's it's like my full-time job between scheduling appointments scheduling ride and accommodations because I live two and a half hours away from all my doctors. A lot of times I'm spending, one to four nights a week in Albuquerque where my doctors are. Where are you? Where do you live? I live in Fort Sumner, New Mexico, which is a teeny tiny town, literally out in the middle of nowhere. So it's a lot. It's a lot. I, like I say, I do my best to live my life around it and not let my health issues and my doctor's appointments hold me back from ha, living a happy life. I'm on a lot of medications, which is also challenging because it's not just pills. I have nebulizer treatments that I have to do. And I'm always having blood work and scans and things like that, so it is a lot. But yeah I, like I say, I, and I've always been this way where I don't want it to hold me back even as a child, I didn't. I didn't wanna not be able to go play outside with my friends, when I was in high school, I navigated as best I could. When I wasn't in the hospital, I was living my life. I was a, I was on the flag team at school, I was in orchestra. I was I would I was in the Girl Scouts. I would, I did as much as I could when I was in high school and beyond, I've raised four kids. I've always had animals and I've always, loved to travel. I used to take my kids on road trips all the time, and Taryn and I actually just went on a 6,000 mile trip. Road trip, so what? 6,000 miles. Wow. 6,000 miles, which was amazing. Yeah. I love this. And we're gonna come back to this. It sounds like the theme. Is you are living your life. You're determined to live your life around these things. Absolutely. Absolutely. I, I really advocate for those who do have chronic illnesses and just different challenges. You've got to stay positive and you have to look at the good things in your life and the positive things so that you can enjoy your life because it is possible. I love this. I this thing that you keep insisting on, which is enjoying your life No matter what. No matter what. We're going to doctor's appointments, we're taking medicine, we're not feeling well. We have a list of diagnoses, and yet we're still insisting on enjoy, enjoying life. Yes. And then in your advocacy. Inviting the friends that you're advocating for, to insist on seeing the positive, I imagine that's gotta be challenging. Absolutely. I have my days. I really do. Some days when I'm not feeling well I have, sometimes there's more than one day in a row, there might be a whole week in a row where, the fatigue just hits me so hard or the pain or whatever it is that I'm dealing with right then. And it is hard to get up some mornings, and some mornings I don't, I might just take a day or a couple days to take care of myself physically and mentally, and we have to do that. We have to do that. But, and there are times too, when I'm feeling down, I'm like, oh gosh, why? Why is there so much? Why is this so difficult? But you just have to, you have to give yourself a little bit of grace. You have to un, understand that not every day is gonna be a perfect day, especially when you have chronic illnesses. But you still, jump back up, jump into it as soon as you can and say, Hey, look, you know what, I've got these beautiful friends. I've got this beautiful family. I've got this beautiful environment. Anything that you look at, you can find, you can always find something positive to look at. The sunshine outside today, the butterfly that just flew past my window, just anything. Okay. We're coming back to you, Tori and tn. We're gonna come to you. I wonder if before you tell your story, you can tell a little bit of the story of Tori and Taran. I would love to actually. Okay. Dana, thank you so much for having us on your show. It's been so exciting to be here and to be interviewed by you. So Tori and I met the first day of kindergarten. And I was standing there and I saw her crying. She was clinging to her mommy and saying, I don't wanna go to school. And I went up to her and I took her by the hand and I said, come on, I'll be your friend. I'll be your friend. Let's go together. And so we did. And we have not let go of each other ever since then. Our birthdays are two days apart. Hers is October 30th and mine's November 1st. So it's on either side of Halloween. Wow. We are barreling up on our 50th birthday, so we're gonna turn a hundred pretty soon. Yes. I love this. We're turning a hundred Beautiful. Happy. That's a hundred years of happy experience. Happy. Exactly. And wisdom. And wisdom and, we are enjoying our friendship more now than ever. Like our 6,000 mile road trip that we took this summer was epic. We we went from Colorado, clear up to Maine, all the way down the east coast, down to Louisiana, up through Texas, back to Colorado, and we saw absolutely everything. We stayed in our friend's houses and cousins houses everywhere we went. We didn't have a single hotel room. Stay. We, we just had a heck of an adventure. It was awesome. We saw so much stuff, and it was just the two of us and a little puppy. We had our little three month old puppy with us little Tilly who just added a whole nother level of excitement to the trip. We had Where is Tilly? Is she around? Can you bring her on podcast? I can. Here in few minutes. She might chew. She, I bet she'll chew something. That's okay. Bring her anyway. Okay. She's noisy and rambunctious. Cute. She's constantly moving. Yeah. I love that. She's a doll baby. Yeah. Yeah, that kind of sums up our friendship a little bit. The other part of our friendship is that we have been through everything together, okay? The deaths of our parents, the illnesses, the births of our children, the weddings, the divorces, the arguments with our spouses, the, all those things. We've been there for each other. I saw her dad take his last breaths. She carried my mom out of the house. Like we just, we have been there for each other through all of this. The stories that you hear today we were together through a lot of it. Wow. I'm so grateful for my Tori. She's more like my sister than my friend. She's the sister that I chose. She's the, yeah, I love you too. I get along better with her than I do my sister. Oh yeah. I love this. That's the story of our country. Thank you Taryn. That is gorgeous. So friends, since the first day of kindergarten, I just wrote this down, I'll be your friend and like what a beautiful if you just had a t-shirt. I've been for some reason envisioning making t-shirts for girls who recover. But one of them needs to say, I'll be your friend. Yeah.'Cause who doesn't need to hear that from somebody? It's okay, I'll be your friend. You can sit. The other one is you can sit with us, you can sit with us. And then the other one is, I love you can you imagine walking down the street just like with you walk into a, some people I'll see these T-shirts and they're like, leave me alone. Or not people friendly or whatever. And I'm like, oh man. But what if somebody had a shirt that said, I love you. What kind of magic would that create? So I know you have your own business, so maybe you guys actually could do that shirt. I'll be your friend. Oh, that would be cute. That's good. Actually send me the affiliate link. Absolutely. Okay, Taryn, tell us about that. That's a gorgeous, that's a gorgeous conversation, which I we're gonna come back to. I'm just like, put a star. Let, tell me about your story though. This, the podcast is all about setback to come back and. Tori, your story is so special and powerful and so Taryn, tell us your story, my friend. I guess you asked me to come up with one of the most intense parts of my life and how I recovered from that. And so I'm gonna talk about the year 2008, which was when my mother died. I had been married for 15 years to Jeff at the time, and our relationship was definitely failing and the death of my mother and taking care of her through all of that. It definitely didn't help my marriage any. My mom died of breast cancer at 57 years old and she left behind my, I have three sisters. I have three younger sisters. I'm the oldest of four and my youngest si sister was only 14 when my mom died. My dad and I went through a lot of trouble after my mom passed away. He was. Completely out of control. And I had to put a restraining order against him. And then my ex-husband that I had just left after my mom passed away. So my mom passed away in 2008 in April. And I moved out of my house like at the end of April. And that, like within two weeks of me moving out, my ex-husband was nearly killed in a horrific car accident. He was on I 25 coming back from a job interview and he got sideswiped. He another van came over I 25, he hit that car, he got spun around and got hit in another head on accident. So his femur was broken. He was airlifted from I 25. It was really scary. And again we had broken up, but this is a man I was married to for 15 years, he's still my family. Yeah, he's still my, so I was there at the hospital trying to deal with that and, and then like about a, a few weeks after that I found out I was pregnant with my son Tristan. So everything happened all at one time. It was just like I, and I was facing motherhood without my mom. I was fighting with my dad. I almost lost my job because my dad was threatening me at work. It was just the hardest time in my life, and I know that I had to do a lot to crawl out of that hole and to come back to living life so that I could be a mom, so that's my major, the major time in my life when I really had to recover from something Tori's kind of constantly recovering. Let me just make sure I'm, I need to just take a deep breath and wrap my heart around this. 2008, which interestingly enough, is also like economic collapse for the country. I'm sure that hasn't escaped you. No. That your mom passes away has breast cancer, which I'm, I can only imagine. You just say like, how long was she navigating breast cancer before she passed away? My mother was diagnosed with stage four cancer, so even when they started fighting it with chemotherapy and all kinds of stuff, they never said that they were gonna be able to save her. So it was probably about two and a half or three years between diagnosis and death. Yeah. So fast. It was fast and it was horrible. She was miserable. She was really sick for a long time. And the chemotherapy was awful. The chemotherapy was worse than the cancer. Yeah. And you said your youngest sister was 14? Correct. How old were you at that time when she passed away? I was 33. So there's 18 years difference between myself and my youngest sister. In the meantime, your relationship with your husband, you said was failing and you guys broke up, and then in the middle of this, he's in a horrific car accident. And Oh, by the way, you're pregnant. But I was pregnant with, there was, I was pregnant like a couple months later. I think There was a little, there was a little distance in there.'cause the baby is my new husband's baby. Okay. So I was with him for three months. I tried for 10 years to get pregnant with the first husband, and it never happened. And then I moved out and within three months I was pregnant. And it was a surprise. I was not, I was so in, I was so overjoyed though. Like the kid that I got out of that pregnancy is amazing. And that was part of my recovery was having that baby Oh. And was watching your face. I know, that was a hard time for all of us, and I. When my mom passed away, we had a home funeral for her. We did everything ourselves at home. So we baked her and dressed her and kept her home. And Tori helped me with that. Tori helped me carry her out into the we drove her ourselves to the crematorium. Oh, Tori, that's what you meant when you said she carried your mom out After she passed away. Wow. So you're the sister Paul Bearer. Yeah. That's so powerful. Yeah. And so all of these transitions, can I just ask a really big question? What was that like for you? What was that like for you? For me, Tara, for you, Taran. It was life changing. Yeah. And it inspired me to think differently about. Everything, it was just that time in my life where all of a sudden everything just changed direction. I was married to one guy. I was, I had this wife, I had this, my mother and my family, and then my mother died and the whole family just flew apart. Everything just exploded. And my whole life has been incredibly different since that moment, yeah, it's just a huge transition. I lost my mom. I lost my husband, and I gained a baby, and I gained a new relationship and I gained a whole new outlook on life for sure. The other thing that I, we're gonna talk about how we recovered here pretty soon too that's the gist of my story of the, the tragic part. There's a lot of recovery after that and a lot of, healing that we did through the years. Let's go there since we're, this is a beautiful segue. Let's go straight because your business is called healing with traveling treasures. And so Tori, let's shift back to you. It seems like you are ongoing and ongoing healing. Is there something specific over the course of your, over the course of your life that's helped with healing from or with, or both? Yeah. Of the health conditions. And I just wanna send you so much love and compassion for, even if we were talking about one of those health issues, it would be a lot. I see you nodding Taryn's yes. And so tell us about your healing journey. So the biggest thing that has helped me and saved me. Many times is my daughter, my oldest daughter. I was 20 years old when she was born, and she has just been my absolute world since I found out she was coming to me. And so many times that I've wanted to give up or felt like I needed to give up, she's the one that's brought me out of that. The other part of it is my friendships, and specifically Taryn, Taryn has been by my side through all of this. And she's been there to, to encourage me and to root me on and and to comfort me. And, those two relationships are two of the most important relationships of my life. And. To this day, like my daughter, my oldest daughter, she she's the reason I moved to New Mexico. I was living in Jersey, but after my, even before my cancer diagnosis, she wanted me to move out to New Mexico with her. But once I got cancer, she was a lot more, she really wanted me to move out there so that she could help take care of me. And she's. Amazing. She's amazing. She's such a beautiful person inside and out, and she takes such good care of me. And she's on me about everything. Make sure you take your meds, make sure you do your physical therapy, make sure you do your n nbs, just everything. And she does things for me. When I moved out to New Mexico, her and her husband wouldn't let me lift a finger. But yeah, so she's been my rock throughout my whole life, even as a small child. She was just, she was my purpose in life. But yeah. And the, and Taryn, just, if I. She, her and I laugh so much, and I feel like laughter is always the best medicine, and her and I, we just can spend hours and hours on the phone just laughing and laughing till our, our stomachs hurt and our, our face hurts. And just, and I love her so much and I know that she loves me so much, and just that love alone is just enough to push a person through whatever heartache they're going through. So that love is the great alchemizer. And I'm hearing this theme in your life, Tori and in your life, Terran, where it's okay, part of the healing journey are these profound relationships that we have with women. Yes. Yeah. And that was part of the basis of our pod, our podcast, we have been through so much together, and then our 6,000 mile road trip is what sealed the deal for our podcast. We had 23 days in the car together and we were still friends and we still had stuff to talk about. We were still true. That's real deal friendship there, right? 23 days. We still had stuff to talk about and we still loved each other and, and we still couldn't wait to see each other again. It was great. Yeah. Tori, let me ask you about the healing modalities that you've used. So forgive me for, forgive me if there, call me out if I'm totally off, but the difference in, in healing opportunities practitioners. Even the way that people look at healing between New Jersey and Santa Fe has to be. Pretty different, right? Do you have, oh yeah. What sorts of healing modalities have you used? So therapy has been really big for me. Counseling and it's been really, like for me, there have been times where I can't talk about what I'm going through because people tend to say things like, oh, we don't have to talk about that right now. Oh, let's talk about something more positive. But sometimes you just need to get it out. You need to talk about what you're going through and about the hard parts of it. And people don't always wanna hear that. But for me it's healing to be able to talk about it. And so that's why counseling has been big for me. The medication, the doctors, the way the doctors are with you I. I'm a real, also a real big advocate of advocating for yourself with doctors, because a lot of times doctors are very sterile. They don't all have great bedside manner. And so for me it's finding a good fit with your doctors and being able to advocate for yourself. And when the doctor says, no, you have to do this line, and you need to be able to be like, okay but what are my other options? Let's talk about other options. I wanna be, I wanna know. What my choices are, and I wanna make the choice because this is my body and this is my life. And so finding the doctors that allow you to do that is very important for your healing process as well. And just going through these health issues, if it were one or 10, different things that you're going through. You have to also, you're stacking, like for me specifically, you're stacking all these different ways of having to deal with these different illnesses and the medications and the therapies and. It can get very overwhelming, which again, is where counseling comes into play because the counselor can teach you how to navigate what you're going through. So those are some of the things that I've been through. And yes, changing doctors is really difficult for me because I've been to a lot of doctors throughout my life. And when I find a good doctor that I can really trust and feel good with, and then I have to change doctors. Whether it be's hard of insurance or because of moving, it's scary to me. It's scary because you don't know what you're gonna find. And I have so many times found, ended up with doctors that I can't work with because they're insistent that they know what's best. And they don't always know what's best. I that you say that Tori, because my, when my, I had three daughters and my OB, GYN was like I'm retiring. I was like if you you can't, I can't have any more kids if you retire. And you know what, I didn't have any anymore kids. I don't know. That was a subconscious thing, but I really was trying to go for five. But he, I said, I can't ever trust anyone else with the care. Yeah. It is. It's hard. It's, yes. Yes. Okay. So it sounds like you are a proponent of therapy, which I'm so happy that you are saying that because I think I, I think now that it's a little bit less, but still it's oh, I'm seeing a therapist. I'm like, good girl. Everybody needs a therapist. You shouldn't be walking around with no therapist that's like walking around with no undies. No, don't, you can do that for a little while, but you're gonna need to put'em on and something. Exactly. And I think that just being a human requires a team of healers. Just being a human, much less a human with some diagnoses, some medical diagnoses. And so I love that you are combining the healing modality of therapy, which it is its own healing modality with the. Insistence that you work with the right medical providers for you. Which requires, I imagine you knowing a bit about who you are. So how did you get there where you're like, I know who I am and I know what I want and you're it and you're not? I'll tell you what, so like I say, when I was a child, I had a lot of, I was in and out of the hospital a lot and especially as a teenager and I would have pneumonia, bronchitis, and a collapsed lung all at the same time. And I was always in the hospital for two weeks. I always had to have what's called a bronchoscopy to clear out my lungs and, re reopen them basically. And when I was when I had my daughter through my pregnancy, I had to cut off all my medication when I was pregnant with her. And my mom was terrified. She didn't know if I would make it through pregnancy because of my lung issues. But I had to cut off all my medication and throughout my pregnancy, I was healthier than I've ever been in my life, even to this day. But when I, when she was born and I was determined to breastfeed because I knew that was the best for her and I wanted to give her the best possible chance. And so I breastfed four months into it, I was sick and I knew before then, I knew I was getting sick. And but she was four months old. And I finally gave in and I said, mom, I gotta go to the hospital. And I'm in the hospital in the er. And I explained to the doctor, I said, you know what? I said, I have pneumonia, I have bronchitis, and my lung is collapsed. And he looks at me and he goes, what are you talking about? How would you know that? And I said, I know, because I've had it before, and he was talking to me also about my background, my medical background. And I said, I was diagnosed with COPD at 17. And he says, and mind you, I'm 20 years old. And he literally started to laugh at me out loud. And he said, girl, you do not have, you don't have any of that, and you certainly don't have COPD. He says, COPD is for 60-year-old farmers who smoked their whole lives. You don't have COPD. And he says, and as far as the pain in your lungs, he goes, all you have is pleurisy. And basically what that is the, your lung muscles are sore because of having to work so hard to breathe, right? Yeah. Yeah. And he, and that's something that, you know, as you start to breathe easier. It gets EAs, it gets better. And he tells me, he says, you just have pleurisy. And I said, no. I says, I've had pleurisy before too. I says, trust me, I know what I'm talking about. I've had all these things many times and I, and he was gonna just send me home. And I insisted on having an x-ray. And after arguing with me about this for a little while, he finally, he's okay, fine. I'm gonna give you your x-ray just to shut you up, and then you're going home. I said, okay. And he comes back in the room when he had the results and he had a a cardiac team with him. And they started putting monitors on me as he's apologizing inside out and upside down. He said, I'm so glad he did. I was like, this man better have apologized to you. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And I said to him, I said, you know what? I said, I don't wanna hear your apologies. I said, what I want is for you to never ever treat another patient the way you treated me. I said, you may have years and years of schooling, but I have years and years in my body of being you probably being in your body. I said, you hold on. I just wanna I just wanna hover. Can you say that one more time? Did easy to say it out loud? Say it again. You've had years and years of schooling, but I've had years and years in my body. This is my body, my life. Yeah. You don't know what I've been through. And you're, and this is also, and also that's, can we just agree all of us, that's straight badassery at age 20 as a young woman. Oh, yeah. With a male doctor 30 years ago to say I know about you and I know about me. And this is what I know about me. And to insist on that. Okay. Where did that come from? Where did that bravery badassery come from? My mom herself. She did not inherit that. She did not inherit that from her parents. Okay. Hold on. We have a disagreement. Hold on. I, Tori said my mom and Taryn said herself. So hold on Taryn, say more about what you mean. I don't think, I love your mother. She's a beautiful woman. Yeah. But I don't think she has the strength or the badass ery that you have. I think she would have. Maybe sometimes she does, but Oh, she does. Yeah, she does. My mom. See, that's the thing too, is I've seen my mom advocate for us. When I was growing up there, there were times that we were in doctor's offices and you know how doctors are, they're on this schedule. And so they come in and they're like, okay, let's hurry up and get this done so I can get to the next patient. And I've been in doctor's offices with her before as a child where she is stopped them and said, Hey, this is our appointment. You are gonna, sit down and you're gonna listen to what we have to say, and if you don't have time for us, we'll get a new doctor. And that's where it came from. My mom would advocate for me growing up. And so as I was, growing and watching her do that, I, in that moment I was like, yeah, this is my body, not yours. I don't care what you think, this is me. And so that is what gave me the strength at that moment to do what I needed to do. And then, that's so good to hear. That's how I'm really glad that you feel that way about your mom, that she was helping you through that stuff and really fight. Oh yeah, she definitely did. I was sick my whole childhood and my mom was the one that was there for me. My mom spent, she would be up all night long with me having asthma attacks and comforting me and helping me breathe and, so she knew what I was going through and she would advocate for me in doctor's offices. And so that's how I learned how to advocate for myself. But that moment in that er, when I was able to bring that up in myself, I never thought I could do that before then. But that day when I was able to do that, I learned how to advocate for myself that day. And from then on, that's what I've done. And I've advocated for other people too, so it's beautiful too. I just think about, I'm a sassy bitch, so whenever I'm out with my girls, they see what it looks like to advocate, because I'm not holding back absolutely not. We're not gonna do that. Yes, we're gonna do that. Yes, you will treat teaching people how to treat me and us, and there's so much power for yourself and self-advocacy, but then every other woman in the room watched you do that and you probably have the butterfly effect. And have I'm, it sounds like you, of course you have, because you're advocating for other others as i'm wondering, what I'm wondering about this, it's a lot, so a significant number of health diagnoses. Has anybody ever, or have you ever gotten curious about holy shit, this is a lot it's a lot. How are, if the things are connected, if they're connected to anything else, have you had that conversation with anybody? I'll you what? Yeah. So I, as I've gone through my life and each different diagnosis that I've gotten, and there's been others besides the ones I listed too. I also have diabetes. I grew up, my whole life I've had, this is maybe a little TMI, but I had diarrhea like every day of my life. Yeah, that's common. And yeah. And it was horrible. But once I got my CF diagnosis and I started researching what that meant. I realized that the cystic fibrosis is what caused a lot of my issues throughout my life. It caused the diarrhea, it's the reason for my pancreatitis, it's my diabetes. It's the reason for so many things that I've gone through throughout my life. And, it really made my life make sense. If I had gotten that diagnosis at a as a child, then number one, I would've known that all of those things were connected. But number two, they would've been able to diagnose the cystic fibrosis and therefore, I wouldn't have had as many issues for as long as I've had. So the medication that I'm now on for my cystic fibrosis, I no longer have diarrhea every day, which is a miracle to me. My diabetes, it's easier for me to manage my diabetes because of the cystic fibrosis side of it. And the doctors you were able to underlie, identify that sort of underlying right root cause for that. Have you, do you, have you tried any other modality, like holistic sort of mind, body, spirit? There's so much out there. I'm just curious if you pursued other healing modalities. You know what, yeah. To a point. To a point, I probably could do a lot more of it. But number one for me is the positive thinking and the the talking to the universe and, putting out there what I want to get back, when I'm having a hard day, I tell the universe, okay, you know what? Tomorrow's gonna be a better day. Let's just flush this out for today and we'll get through today, and then we'll, tomorrow's gonna be a better day. So I talk to the universe a lot, but I've also tried, like essential oils and I've tried healthier eating and, like one of the things when I first got my cancer diagnosis was the SAP tea. I did that. Can you tell me what that is? So it's sour sauce is a, is it's, I think it's like a tropical fruit type thing. And so the tea that they make from it, and my, actually my younger sister was the one that did the research on that one for me. And she said that what she saw, what she found out was that drinking sour soft tea every day helps to shrink the tumor. And she said that it helps what did she say? It was like something like 10,000 times better than chemo. Wow. Yeah. And so I was like, you know what? I'm gonna do that. Let's do it. Let's do it. I have, I wanna just mirror back for you because I'm just, I feel like we could really talk about we get to be here for hours. Oh yeah. And, but I want to. Tell you what I'm noticing, because in my back of my head I'm like this, she's gotta have some sort of spiritual connection because nobody on their own, with their own human willpower could have possibly walked through the things that you've walked through in life and look as gorgeous and brilliant and very, glowing as you do now. So what's your secret? And often it is, normally these conversations come out as oh, you have a relationship with the universe, of course yes. Yes to that. And the other thing I wanted to say that you mentioned that I just wanna like shout from the rooftops, and it's a new part of my personal development experience, is the value of feeling our feelings. So yes, we look for the positive, and yes, we're grateful, and yes, we enjoy life. And yes and yes. I did that for a really long time and I thought, then that means I can't ever feel sad or ever feel angry or ever feel sorrow or ever feel rage. So a lot of that got shoved down in my body and then it started showing up like anxiety. And what it really was this, one of my teachers, Emily Fletcher, she quotes a Lakota elder who forgive me, I'm gonna misquote him, but it's, he says. All of humanity's suffering is a result of millions of unceded tears. And so what that meant to me was all of these emotions that we've suppressed as women specifically, right? I'm not here to talk with men. I'm no, I have a. I know that they're suppressing their emotions too, but as women, it's I'm gonna get to that feeling of sadness later, right after I deal with my mom dying, or my dad raging, or my this, I'm gonna get to my feelings later, or I'm just gonna shove them so down that I hope that they'll just go away so I can pretend like everything's hope. Fine. And but what I heard you say is in therapy and then I recommend a breath work and swamping and journaling, but really feeling the grief and feeling the sorrow, feeling the rage of that's some fucked up shit. You walk through, Tori, I hope that you're giving yourself space to really rage out or grief out or whatever is necessary. Oh, absolutely. And also live in the middle of your own life and enjoy what is the butterfly and that, and I just can't help but get riled up about that because I'm done with us feeling oh toxic positivity, we're just gonna spiritually bypass the suffering. That until we insist on feeling and advocating for our own feelings, we're never gonna heal. Like I say, I, like I say, I have my bad days and when I, what I mean by that is, I may feel. Horrible about what I'm going through one day, I will lay there and I will cry my eyes out, and I will, I'll do the, oh my God, what next? What next? Because that's what always has on in my mind is with all these different diagnosis and all these hospital stays and all these, everything that comes up is through, throughout my life. I'm like, oh, geez, what next? What else could I possibly, have health wise and, so I do that a lot and I, I tell people too, when I come across people who are having a hard time and what they're going through, I always tell them, look, you can call me. I'll call you and you can cry on the phone with me. You can vent on the phone with me. You can laugh on the phone with me, whatever it is that you need. To help you get through this moment, I am there for you a hundred percent. And that's with my tarn. I know that I can call her and if I need to cry and yell and scream and about what I'm going through right now or how I'm feeling, I can, she'll be there to listen to me and to let me scream and cry and yell. She'll let me snot on her shoulder if I need to. There's true sisterhood right there, my friend and she'll, anyway. Yeah. And I, she's, let me snot on her shoulder though. She hates that. Oh God, no. No. Snot here. Not for you. Okay, so this is perfect. We're gonna, we're gonna un gracefully segue to you tn, but I just wanna love on you, Tori, and honor you for creating your own healing path and connection with women that you love. Your daughter is your healer. This is interesting. We could probably have a whole separate conversation. Let's break this down. Daughter is healer, right? Because it sounds like when she was growing, you were healed. Which was growing in your body, she served as a healer for you. Absolutely. Which is not, that's not surprising for me because when our bodies are set up to, to be of service in that way, I don't love the, that phrase, but that's what we're doing. We're a service to humanity by repopulating the earth we are then. Exactly. Thank you. Perfect. Yes. We're vessels. We're being vessels. And this creation of new life, which is unique to women is it serves as a healer. It does. And you mentioned breastfeeding and then you also mentioned now she also is a part of your healer. She is your, a healer in your life. And oh, there's so much juicy goodness here about the healing connections between women. About snot on shoulder, which is a symbol for, I'm gonna get real with my feelings and be brave enough to share them. And then the last thing with you, Tori, is you are using all of this to serve others, to be a light in the community, to be a shoulder for the woman who needs to have her experience and to say, you're not alone. I understand. I love you. And we got this. So it's this whole beautiful spectrum of friendship and love and sisterhood and authenticity of, Ugh, I can't get enough of this. Terran. So Tori's been very involved in a group that's called The Breast Ease. Which is a big organization that supports women going through breast and gynecological cancer. And it's a big, huge community. And Tori did a lot of work supporting them, raising money to help people go to a special camp that they have, and has really done a lot to support other women going through breast cancer herself. So I think that's been part of Tori's healing journey too is sharing that what she knows with other people and supporting them. And she reaches out and says, I'll be your friend. I'll be your friend through this cancer thing, which absolutely. Oh, I love both of you so much. Taryn. Let's ping back to you and tell us about your recovery journey. So in the midst of total life chaos, please share your healing path and how you moved through to and through that. During the time that my mother was dying. I was working for hospice. In fact, Tori was working at the same hospice that I was working at. And so we were coworkers and we had nurses and doctors and Tori and I are Bath girls. We were CNAs, so it was our job to help people bathe and things like that. But my hospice team was actually taking care of my mother. So it was all dear friends of ours that were in and out of my mom's house, taking care of her. And my team knew the dynamic with my dad, knew that my dad was he's Irish German. He's. He takes a lot of things and turns it into anger. And so he was being a big jerk a lot of times, and my coworkers saw me go through all of that during the time that my mom was dying. And w. One of the things that I learned from working in hospice, one of the most powerful things is that at the end of life, if you have some kind of faith to lean on, it doesn't matter if you are a Buddhist or a Christian or Jewish or whatever, if you have some kind of faith to lean on at the end of life, it is so much easier to get through. There's something to do when there's nothing else to do than pray, so hold on. I need you to say that again. Better. There's something to do when there's nothing else. Lemme say it to do better. No. I want you to say it just like you said it, it came through loud and clear. I just want us to hover there because it's so potent. Giving yourself a place to a spiritual outlet makes it easier at the end of life, so having something to lean on, having something to do when there's nothing else to do but pray, yeah. The people who know how to pray or that have some idea of how to pray are the ones that do better. And so I learned that. And then here I was, my mom had died and I was pregnant and I'd been through all this stuff with my husband and my new husband's mother invited me to come to church with them. And I had been anti-Christian my whole life. I was raised Episcopalian, or I was raised I was raised really agnostic. My parents never went to church, ever. And so I resisted going to church at all. And then my mother-in-law invited me to come and listen to the music. And I said, okay, fine, I'll come listen to the music. And so we're sitting in the very back of the church. And of course the song that plays is sometimes I feel like a Motherless Child. Do you know that song? Wow. Yes, I do. I was bawling my eyeballs out. I was just, I was doing the ugly cry. The universe is tricky. Terrace. She'll get you whenever you're willing. I was doing the ugly cry. I was sobbing and I was sitting in the back of the pew and the ladies sitting around me, they all just held my hand. They let me cry. Nobody said, oh, don't cry. They let me cry. And nobody thumped a bible at me. And nobody told me, this is the only way that you can believe. And the rector that met me remembered my name the first time she met me. And so I started going back. I started going back and I started learning a little bit more about, about religion. And I learned how to pray and I, and when my son was born, so I was 33 and when my son was born, I finally decided to be baptized. And I still don't. I still don't subscribe to every single thing in the Christian religion, but I know that there are a lot of good parts to it, and I take all those good parts and integrate it into my life. And I'm so glad that I had that chance. And that was really healing to me at that time to have a community to lean on, to know that my new mother-in-law who had, she'd also known me since 1998 we were not new to each other, but the relationship was new and she was accepting me that way. And to feel accepted and to feel loved by strangers practically, was really neat for me. And that helped me a lot tremendously. So I can't help but notice, again, like the power of a woman. Connecting. Loving and inviting. She didn't force you, she didn't berate you. She was like, Hey come hear the music. It's so beautiful. And then through that song, she introduced you to a new relationship with, I'm gonna use the word God. God, whatever you use. Okay. Yes. With God. So we've got universe got and in that, it sounds like your healing journey began. What did you realize? What was different about, so you've had this experience of people, this also happened to me. I just wanna shout out to the. When I first decided to go back to church, I too had a big problem with religion. A really big problem. That's a different story. Note that down, dad. I'm gonna do a podcast episode on that. But I wanted my girls to have a relationship with God, and I was like, I can't be the one, I have to take'em around. People who know how to do God better than me. So I took him to a church. That's how my fault too. I immediately had another, they kept asking me to be the, they kept asking me to be the leader of the youth group. And I was like, I don't, I need to be led right now. That's what I was saying. I'm like, I've never even cracked the Bible open right now. I'm not the one. And then I immediately had my third baby and those people showed up. I just been a member. I was even a member yet I just attended the church. And they showed up like a parade with gifts, with food, with. And I was like, yay, okay. Sign me up, whatever this is, sign me up. I'm in. Because they showed up like love. Which it sounds like your. You do for each other, first of all, and then also your mother-in-law did for you in the invitation to this new spiritual community. That is a big deal. My director at our church is also female, and so I heard you say that. I was like, she did she amazing. She did extra points for that spot. She's incredible. She's leading a big church. She's got, 150 people that come every Sunday or whatever. And and she has become one of my best friends too. We had babies at the same time. And so that, that Rector and I are really good friends. I have a good friend that's a priest. Thank God. What does the relationship with God look like for you? What does it look like in your healing? I'm just looking at my notes like, okay, so lost Mom, you're the oldest of four, which is, being the oldest of four. I just wanna acknowledge that's trauma in and of itself. And then having a dad who was not coping well and then having a, an ex-husband who was almost killed. And then a new, having a new husband and then new, then making a new baby, and then making a new life. And can you talk a little bit about the healing power of that new relationship with either God or the church and ha if that's been a through line, through that particular part of the journey and then the rest of your life? It definitely has. I have stopped going to church regularly, but I was going for a while. We were singing in the choir and we were really involved for a long time. And and now it's just this place that I know in my heart and in my head is always there and I can always go if and when I need it. But I haven't been going a whole lot recently, but I feel like I just I added God to my collection of deities too. I already had a lot of goddesses and a lot of other, higher power. I'm sorry, can I just sound like Dana? Don't say this. I have to though. I'm like, okay. So November 30th and Nov, I'm sorry. October 30th and November 1st. So you must be witches. You have to We're to be okay. I knew it. Absolutely. We're on either side of Halloween. We absolutely, I was like, but can we talk about you being witches for a minute? That's a different episode. Listen, I am gonna, I'm gonna invite you back if you wanna talk about that. I'm having a whole month series of witches, of witch conversations. Excellent. It sounds like we have 10 more episodes in us. Yes. But for the sake of, for the sake of time it sounds like your spiritual connection. Because religion and spirituality are not the same. Correct. They can be ha happening at the same time. But they're absolutely not the same. Which is why I was able to, the first 10 years of my sobriety, have a relationship with the creator of the universe, the spirit. Sometimes I call her Dolly Parton, like it didn't care what I called her, but never stepped foot into a church.'cause I was still mad. But when I worked through that healing, I was able to return gently to church where I also access the spirit of the universe. But I didn't have to go to church to get it. I just appreciate the, honestly, I'm laughing. I'm like, I love the music. Taran. I love that music. I'm with you. I'm with you. But that's why they do It helps. It helps me feel God. Yeah. So you got, you both are so amazing. Can you, as we close out. Can you talk a little bit about your new business and the theme, the impact that your friendship has had on your life? I know that's a really big question with two heads, but I trust you. Go for it. Sorry. Can I first say the, that's one thing that I forgot to mention when we were talking about what I used to heal prayer is how, has always been a big thing for me as well. And not just praying for myself, but also to thank God, because I grew up Catholic. I don't practice. I, I've expanded my thought process on that, but I don't necessarily go to church anymore, but I do pray a lot and my biggest thing is thanking him for everything. The good, the bad, and the ugly, and that's always been a really big part for me is thanking him. So that's part of my healing as well connection with the spirit and gratitude as the great healers. Ugh, I love this. Yeah. Okay, so let's close out. Talk a little bit about what the, your friendship has meant to you, and then your dreams for your business healing with traveling treasures. I'll tell you what, like I've said my friendship with Taryn has been my whole life. It's been a part of my life, my whole life, and she means the absolute world to me and I can't imagine living my life without her in it not for any part of it. And I know that we're gonna grow old together and we're gonna continue to have so much fun together and we're gonna continue to support each other through everything that life brings us. And our. Our business. It started out with crafts. With crafts'cause we're both very big crafters. I make jewelry. That's my biggest thing right now and has been for quite a while. I love making jewelry and it's soothing to me. And she does a lot of crafts too. She does crochet, she does polymer clay, she does flowers. She does all sorts of stuff too. And so we decided that we were gonna, create this website where we can, display our crafts and sell them and that type of thing. And then we went on this giant journey that was very, also very healing. That whole journey. We learned a lot about each other and ourselves and the world. And it was a very healing process to go through that trip. And so that's when we decided to do the podcast. So our business is combining the podcast, the healing parts and the travel and everything like that with our crafts. And one of the things that we do is. We feature our crafts like we do a newsletter, and so we'll feature our crafts. And for instance we had interviewed an amazing woman that we've known since childhood about books that she's written. And her son actually committed suicide. And so I made a bracelet for suicide prevention awareness. And Taryn made a corsage for the same purpose. And we've put that out. And I also made a bracelet and earing set for my friend Lizzie, who we lost in August of metastatic breast cancer. And so we're doing that too. We're combining everything, we, we interview people and then we are trying to incorporate. Other things into that. And so we just want to grow our business, both the podcast and the crafting that we do to help others heal. Yeah. If that makes sense. Some of the crafts that Tori did are breast cancer related and the, some of the money that she made from that she gave to the breasteses. And same with our little corsages in our jewelry that we're making those, they're the little earrings that she made. So turquoise and purple are suicide awareness colors. That's why we chose these. I also donated to it's the the Alliance for Suicide Prevention Awareness of Larimer County is where I sent$5 for each sale, the sale of each set to, to them. So I was able to send a lump payment to them last, the last month. Wow. So we're hoping to give back to the people that are giving us the interviews and and give back to the organizations that matter to them. We also, we'll put your, we'll put your shop link and then also. You can, we can do a link to the organizations that you're supporting as well in the show notes, right? That would be works. Yeah. We do that each each episode we try to put out links that are helpful for other people too that are relevant to the show. Whether it be suicide prevention or breast cancer or it, other things like what was it? Wounded Warriors. We, we like to put out helpful links like that. Resources Heal Healers, healing the world, and then. In doing so we ourselves are healed. Have you had that experience? Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Same. Same. Same. Okay. Taryn, close us out. Friendship, your business, your dreams for the world, and then we'll have to schedule, we'll have to schedule another episode with the three of us, and maybe even one for one-on-one for each of us. I have so many more questions. Absolutely. My dreams for the world are that we can solve some of these problems, quit killing each other and have a lot more fun. I have, so I think if we were doing that last thing, we would solve the first two. Just this is personal opinion, so we have a little bit more fun. We'll be less we, I traveling more and spending more time with our cousins and friends, then we wouldn't have time to fight. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think so. Yeah, I'm very much, I'm gonna add like having more, I'm just gonna add like having more sex on there too, like that's just me. Oh, absolutely. Adding my personal spice. Okay. Yes. Sex step. People are not trying to kill each other. I'm with you right there. That's for a different episode. Maybe the one where we talk about which is, and so what about, can you say, Taryn, what the friendship has meant for you on your end? The friendship has meant the world to me. This is somebody who has helped me through everything in my life, and I've helped her through things too. And I just can't imagine life without her. And I'm so incredibly grateful for all of the women in my life. For all of my other mothers and my other sisters and but this one is my shining star. She's my re as they would say in Spanish Re she's my friend, my sister, my companion. And I wish that every woman in the world had that kind of friendship. We all need that. We all need that. I do too. And I love you both so much. I'm wondering for the listener who's oh man, I don't have a best friend since kindergarten. And so I feel behind, or I feel like that's not, its not too late possible for me. Yeah. Late. It's not too late say to her's. Everyone's sitting out there waiting for someone to come up to them and say, I'll be your friend. T-shirt idea, yes. So like my little girls have at their school, there's a bench for if you want to have some alone time, you sit on that bench. But if like you actually wanna sit down and talk to a friend or wanna play with somebody, then you go on the find a friend bench and then someone scoops you up and talks to you and. So I love that. Can we have that in life? Please? Can we have a fun? I'll be your friend, bitch. Okay. Adults need that too. We're gonna have a coat, a T-shirt. We need more. That's, girls who recover and healing with traveling treasures and will be your friend on the back. I love you. I love you. Yes. Tori and Taryn, it has been such a beautiful treasure to spend this time with you. I know the girls who recover listeners are already as infatuated with you as I am, and I can't wait to have you back for more conversations around healing and witchcraft and spirituality and all sorts of things. So I'm so grateful for you and if you will open your heart and receive this. From mine. I love you both. I'm so proud of you and I believe in your ability to create a healing whole, beautiful life that you love, so that you can shine bright for others. Thanks for being on Girls Who Recover, my Friends. Thanks for having us. Oh, whoa. Did you just feel what I felt? There is a whole lot of that and more to help you create miracles in your life. On upcoming episodes of the Girls Who Recover a podcast now ranked in the top 5% of podcasts globally. If you've built a strong recovery foundation and you're feeling ready to break through life's glass ceilings, let's make it happen together. In the show notes, you'll find a link to book a free one-on-one conversation with me and in that conversation. We'll get clear on what next level success even looks like for your life. We'll create some powerfully aligned goals and a plan. We're gonna talk about the big thing holding you back, and you will walk away with a roadmap for how to create a life you are obsessed with. Because hear this from me, my friend. You deserve. Success and freedom and the full identity of a woman who knows what she's capable of and who she is. And I wanna help you get there. So book your free call in the notes. And if you love this episode, follow us five stars, write a review, share it with your best friend, share it with your mom. And in case you haven't heard it today, I love you. I'm so proud of you, and I believe in your ability to create a gorgeous life. You are madly in love with starting. Right now and I'll see you in the next episode, blah.