Empowered Cricket, Memoir Writing and Healing Advocacy

Empowered Cricket, Memoir Writing, and Healing Advocacy with Lily Stephenson | Roundy’s Rants, Raves & Reviews

https://linktr.ee/worldcricketgirl

Host Tanya Roundy interviews Lily Stephenson about her projects and experiences, including winning an LDSPMA Spark award for her memoir What I Would Have Told You, which begins with letters to the son she placed for adoption and is being expanded with a second half focused on her family’s cricket journey. Lily explains how her son’s introduction to cricket in the U.S. led their family to England and Australia and inspired Empowered Cricket, a kinetic curriculum using cricket’s boundaries to teach personal voice, boundaries, and decision-making. They discuss challenges in modern scripted education, the importance of owning choices, and how trauma affects autonomy. Lily also shares advocacy for her daughter’s rare IDH1-related disorder, pursuing FDA-regulated RSM supplements and building social media outreach ahead of a June follow-up, ending with advice to listen for what God wants you to do and follow opportunities.

00:00 Meet the Host and Guest
00:43 Lily’s Many Projects
02:45 Empowered Cricket Origins
07:21 Cricket as Boundaries
11:05 Voice Responsibility and Trauma
15:18 Teaching Rants and Scripted Curricula
17:58 Writing the Adoption Memoir
23:15 Winning the Spark Award
27:40 Meeting Her In Line
29:07 Choosing Connection Over Awards
30:23 Seeing People Like She Did
31:25 Daughter’s Rare Diagnosis
33:11 RSMs And Healing Signals
35:47 Food Medicine And Frustrations
39:05 Getting Doctors To Say Yes
42:30 FDA Limits And Sharing Data
46:33 Spiritual Healing And Agency
51:04 Where To Follow Lily
53:10 Final Message And Farewell

In a world full of uncertainty, how does one cope with unbearable loss and pain? A Christmas tragedy finds Steve and Maria struggling to find hope. With the love and support of family and friends, will they find peace as they walk through the fire of Uncertainty?

momandpopsnaturals.com. Natural Ingredients for a Healthy Life!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Welcome, welcome everyone to Rowdy's Rants, Raves and Reviews. I am Tanya Roundy, your host tonight, and I get so excited. I get to rant with Lily Stevenson and have a great conversation about everything she's doing and explore the ideas and talk about all the things. She's got a lot of things going on, and I am so excited to talk about them with her. So, Lily, will you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you kind of do?

SPEAKER_01 0:31

Wow. Cause trouble mostly. I love it what I did. It's yeah, that's that is the personality that I came with. And I don't know. I just tend to find myself in the middle of things. And my friends will say, How did you get into the I don't know? So I'm an LDSP My S P L D S P M A Spark winner for my memoir, What I Would Have Told You. Um, actually finishing up the second piece, I had someone read it and said, Well, that's a really rubbish place to have it end. And I said, Well, that's kind of where I ended it. Like, yeah, but you should talk about this, you should talk about that. And I'm like, I guess I could. So, you know, I've been in my pajamas like three days in a row because there was no place to go, and I was writing anyway. So, you know, it does. I was inspired to create a curriculum that teaches personal voice and personal boundaries called Empowered Cricket. I left my house for a week, was gone for a year touring different countries and introducing the ideas and teaching and seeing, you know, what the reception was. I guess it's kind of like a year of market research that I didn't know I was embarking on. What else do I do? Yeah, I have I'm advocating for my daughter as a regenetic disorder for native therapies, as opposed to trying to create a drug to target the gene that's you know not behaving because the body knows how to heal itself. So looking at, well, what does it need to get the signal to be like, hey, but why are we doing this? And I don't know, I think right off the bat, oh, I love cats. Awesome. I have a lot of different social media um, I don't know, channels, I guess, talking about different things. And one of my TikTok is a lot about trauma healing in cats, not that they're necessarily together, but they're my my co-workers, as I like to say. So oftentimes there's just me and the cats sitting and doing what they do. So that's I'd say right now, that's what I got.

SPEAKER_00 2:25

So that that is a lot. I love it. I'm trauma healing in the cats. I definitely think the cats might be causing some of the trauma to be healing from. At least my husband would say that. Occasionally, they definitely caused a lot for my children growing up. We had stray cats that made their homes and would cause or have trauma, and it was just so much fun. Oh no. So I want to talk first. I was like, I I want to know the story. Okay, so world cricket girl, tell me.

SPEAKER_01 2:56

Yep. What the heck? Okay. So once upon a time, my son was introduced to the sport of cricket in the United States. They had um, it's like every other year they had an off day from school, and people from the community would come in and teach things. His teacher at the time was her parents owned an Italian restaurant, so that day he also learned how to make cannoli. But there was a guy who came in and what was he seven at the time, and he I mean he was five of six, right? So he just hadn't really he hadn't really found a sport and he learned cricket and he came in. Usually a mellow kid came in with this ball and said he was gonna play cricket. And I was like, Well, let's see, we're in the northern suburbs of Chicago. Don't know where that's gonna happen, mate. But we had a really good friend in the UK who we called up and he was just trying to explain cricket to him. And he's like, I've been playing cricket forever, mate. What are you talking about? I sent him a kit, and so then we found out that the closest club was two hours away in traffic. So we started on this journey. It took us to England, it took us to Australia, where we lived on and off for four years, which is where the inspiration for empowered cricket came, because the actual boundary of a cricket field is a boundary. And there are a lot of things that we can learn from protecting a cricket boundary and protecting our own. So the curriculum is all set up word and verbiage. We don't change the game at all, any. It's just, have you thought about this? Have you thought about that? And so as you're playing the game, you're reinforcing those thoughts, and it's I don't know, amazing. I mean, I'm a clever girl, which is why I say it's inspired. I'm a very clever girl, but man, I don't think I could have put that together. But I'm a teacher by trade. Uh, I graduated from Brigham New University back in the day, December of '96. But yeah, so I was certified to teach German and Spanish, and then I did my English degree, and then I got certified to teach non-native speakers.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

So wow, that is so awesome. I I love that you've taken and I love it when they're just inspired to like take something that we never would think of and go with it, and stuff like this. And as a teacher too, I love being able to just give them tools and then go for that. Because that's like that's the best teaching, right? Is to just say, here's some tools. All right, we don't know what to do, let's go and discover together. Because obviously, um you probably didn't know anything about cricket either, did you?

SPEAKER_01 5:24

No, not so. Like I said, we had a really good mate, and he was, you know, I actually went out to visit him and I sat there and he was trying to teach me. And I'm like, I have no idea what you're doing. Exactly. But I watched Nicholas fall in love with cricket, and I fell in love with it, and then I found a much easier way to explain it. And because when you're detached from it, you don't grow up with it, you learn things from a different perspective, which I know is something else that we could talk about later with the excerpt from from the book. But to be able to say, Holly, no, it's okay. So oh, okay, then yeah, I'll have it. Okay, sorry, so I can interrupt this. You're good. I'm delayable. So it's it was just really cool. And so then I would actually explain cricket to people who have like played it a lot. And I remember this one woman from India, she looked at me, she said, I never really liked cricket, but the way you explained it, oh, I think it's interesting now.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

That is so incredible. I love that cricket is becoming because I watch a lot of British TV shows. I love and I'm end Indian. In fact, there's a whole Indian Bollywood show that I watched that's about a cricket game and Romeo Juliet and cricket. It was like oh wow, all combined into one story. Perfect. Well, no, and it's a Bollywood, so it's three hours long with music and dancing and cricket. And I never understood the cricket part, but I'm like, this is cool. I'm good with this, you know. But I'm gonna have to get your book now and go, okay, I need to understand cricket better.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

Well, well, the first half of the book, well, I'm writing the second half of the book is about the cricket. The first half of the book is about an angsty teen who gives up her son for adoption and the basically just how that you know played out through the 18 years that I was waiting to see if he was gonna show up on my doorstep or not. So that's the first half, which is why I ended it. And now you can end it there. Second half of life.

SPEAKER_00 7:17

Yeah, and I was like, oh, I'd love to get into that too, because and things, but of course, let's keep going with this whole cricket. So the curriculum for the cricket then teaches about what and what can what is it that you've made those parallels for that helps us?

SPEAKER_01 7:33

Well, it's the it's personal voice and personal boundaries because like when you're out on the cricket field, the issue is that cricket is a game of protecting and exploiting boundaries. That's the whole thing. And you've got the person who's delivering the ball sets up the field. So the person who's batting can see right away where the holes are and where you know, if the ball gets hit a certain way, they're gonna get out. If they can push the ball far away enough, and the companion can swap. If they get safely to the other side, it's a run. What they're looking for is a hole to the boundary. Because if the ball hits the boundary, it's a four. If it goes over, it's a six. And so it's a cat and mouse game. Oh. Every delivery. And so when you're in life, unfortunately, a lot of times there is that cat and mouse game. A lot of times you're in decisions where I mean, these players have to make instant decisions, and it's incredible what they can do with the bat. You've got a ball that's coming at you over 100 miles an hour. What do you can do with it? And there are some people who can kneel down and sweep it across. You can hit it behind you. The field's 360 degrees. So there's really a myriad of shots that can be played. But there are people who can deliver the ball by a guy by the name of Glenn McGraw could set the field on half. He could leave the other set wide open, and the batsman couldn't hit it over there because of how the ball is delivered. So it's just a lot of thinking. And sometimes we don't have a lot of time to think, but that's why we have decisions made beforehand. And as you get in those decisions, and as you make decisions more, then you're better decision-making. And so, like I said, it's just it's conversations about ideas of what are boundaries. So I think nowadays there's a tendency to believe that like boundaries are bad. But as parents, I think one of the first things that you realize is that boundaries actually kids want boundaries because they know then what that space is that they can move around in when there isn't anything and anything goes, it's very confusing. And I know there's some people who like, oh well, anything goes, that's just the way that things should be, and that's I don't know, complete freedom. It wrecks havoc on I think a lot of just the ability to make decisions because it doesn't seem like there's any place that you can just stop.

SPEAKER_00 10:07

So in long, that's kind of what it's about. I think it's so important too, because like you were saying, boundaries and parents and kids, it's I as a teacher and as a parent, I've found that yeah, they need that, they need it safety and they push that. I mean, we've got a one-year-old little grandson living with us, and he's starting to figure out okay, where can I go? How far can I go? Where is it gonna lead? And they need to know where those boundaries are and to push them and get the consequence so that they can feel that safety. But as anything goes out to that, and things that I see in a lot of society and in social media, the consequences actually are so much more restricting and lead to so much worse things. And I love that idea of planning ahead of like what are our choices, because we've thought them through and we're like, okay, if this happens, then there's this possibility and then there's this, and I can handle it. But you can't do that if you don't have that and use that time as a parent to teach them those things before they go outside the field. Right.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

Right. Well, and there's that sense of responsibility too. I can't tell you how often as a teacher I would get, well, and one of the conversations I had with one of my students, well, my friend made me go to the football game last night with her, and I said, Oh, I said, Did you not tell her no? Well, she made me, and I said, Okay, like I understand that, but there's there is so much of that it was someone else's fault. Like you are giving your autonomy to someone else, and as opposed to saying, you know what, I'm actually super busy tonight, I've got a lot of homework to do, and taking that responsibility for yourself, but if you know, or conversation is different, hey, yeah, I know I'm gonna get a late grade, I actually decided to go to the football game last night. That's great. Then you made that decision, yeah. And, you know, and it's like, congratulations. But there's somehow, and I don't know again where the idea came from of it's better if it's someone else's fault than somehow I'm not to blame. But then just like a lot of this reminds me of you know, the idea of then are we actually agents under ourselves? Are we actually speaking up? Which is one of the things in cricket, you have to let your partner know, right? Is it safe to run or not? And you have to yell that, and that's another thing that we focus on. Like you you yell, you know, yes, this is happening, no, this is not happening. And I've noticed a lot with the girls that I worked with is that they didn't yell, they didn't know how to yell. It was awkward to yell. The boys yelled all the time, it's like, but the girls didn't yell. And and I found that interesting. And then a lot of times when the boys would turn in things late, it'd be just like, you know, yeah, I didn't do it. But with the girls, it was like, well, there was 500 reasons why it didn't happen, and none of it was my fault.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

Of course not.

unknown 13:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:14

And so, but there is so much power in saying, you know what, I actually made a really bad decision and I won't do that again.

SPEAKER_02 13:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:25

Or, you know, I actually made a really great decision and I will do that again. Um when and when you come from a trauma-based background and those decisions are taken from you when you are little, and there are things that happen to you that you have no control over, that spills over into your decision-making process as an adult because you didn't have those things. You didn't want those things to happen, but you couldn't do anything about them, literally. Well, so then that kind of well, I guess I can't do anything about anything else then either. And so it takes a little bit to kind of undo that thinking and say, hey, wait a minute. Actually, you know what? I don't want to go with you. And it's okay. Like that means we can still be friends and everything is fine. It's just I don't want to do this right now. And it's okay to say that. And it's just so amazing to be able to say that. It is so amazing, it's just awesome.

SPEAKER_00 14:17

It's empowering. And so many as a teacher, I've noticed that too, that so many of them feel like they have to be obligated and their friends are gonna leave them, and they're afraid of losing whatever relationship or connection or anything else like that. And it it just boggles my mind how much they give up that res that that personal power in doing so. And I am like, hey, where's your voice? And where's your things? And so as a special debate coach, too, I am like always like, well, what do you think? Why do you think that? And in my English class, I'm like, well, why do you say that? What are you supporting? And I'm like always asking that why question to try and push that boundary to get them to hopefully take something with it. And but it is something I'm noticing a lot of too. And it's you're right, it's a lot of girls. And I'm not sure if it's social media, if it's always been this way or it is worse now. I don't know, but I love that you're that that there's a way to help to teach that. And yelling is a great thing sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 15:21

Well, and it's cool because well it's cool because the program's kinetic, and that's one of the I don't know, something that's just amazing about it. So as you're moving, as you're doing, you're reinforcing. Uh, I think a lot of times what is being taught now is it's very conceptual. And so if it's a concept you don't understand, and you're sitting there watching a video of two people talking and they're like, wow, isn't this great? And you're like, I've never done that before. I don't have somebody I would do that with, and I'm not comfortable doing that. It's yeah, I don't know, makes me sad.

unknown 15:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

I've covered for I'm I was mostly a long-term sub. So I would come in and I would teach, you know, I was like the grandparent of the classroom. I got to play with kids for three months and then I turned them back to their classroom teacher. Okay, but so I've taught a lot of different levels. I've taught a lot of different ages, and I've experienced a lot of different curriculums. And just, you know, recently, just the things that I've had to cover, I'm just like, man, I wouldn't show this in my classroom. I would not teach this way. You know, there's books now that elementary school teachers have to read out of a verbatim. Like talking about, you know.

SPEAKER_02 16:36

Not right.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

Yeah. No. Script. You know, we're gonna teach, yeah, we're gonna teach, you know, second graders about diphthongs, and let's use the proper word diphthong, and let's put the you know, little character out there and blah blah as opposed to why don't we read?

SPEAKER_00 16:52

Let's just read and go, look, do you know this specificity? What is this thing doing? What do we think? And why are we we what do we want to call it? Oh, there's a name for it. Should we check? Yeah, I mean, so many better, so much better ways to teach and explore, and yeah, it's frustrating sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 17:11

Yeah, it's like yeah, and this I can go on about for days, so we'll have to have another conversation. Oh we're gonna rant about this because she has a lot to rant about.

SPEAKER_00 17:21

That's okay. Um yes, I've got days and days of rant's not teaching right now.

SPEAKER_02 17:25

So I like that.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

And you as a self, I I slept for a while too, and that's when I realized I can't do elementary school.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

I'm like, nope. Yeah, I did it for a little while. Yeah, I'm certified in in high school, so me too, yeah. So yeah, yeah, there's a reason.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

I'm like, I was like, yeah, they're too, they're great. They're just so much energy, and I came home to my kids, and I'm like, I can't do both, and it's yeah, not gonna happen. Well, that's awesome. So you started off with was that the first thing you wrote then was your curriculum and things like this, or were you working kind of on your other no?

SPEAKER_01 18:01

So, what happened with the book? We were in Australia, and I just had this, and like I said, there was a whole history of it, and I finally just said, you know what, I need to write this. And because one of the things one of my counselors had said, you know, did you ever write to him? And I never, again, using my voice, I didn't understand how I could write a letter to him. I didn't know how to address it because the name I gave him would be different, right? And so I didn't ever specifically ask, hey, if I wrote this kid a letter, how would I address it? You know, and so because of that, I never did. And so then as it got closer to him turning 18, I was like, maybe I should write a few things. And then it just kind of turned into, you know what? I will just because, and of course, my mom always used to say that the plumber had the leakiest pipes. Um, so since I love to write and I wrote for a very long time, when it came to this subject, I didn't at all. And I was like, well, I think, you know, if I were to tell him something, what would I tell him? And so that's so it's basically just letters that I would have written had I known, and then some narrative. I'd mentioned Tamara Mellon's book, and one of my mates, he's like, I read your book, and I think you should write it more like this. And I said, Well, hers was more of like a memoir, and mine was more literally like, well, here's a letter, here's a thought, here's a combining, you know, thing. It's very raw and not really refined. The second half is gonna be more of, I mean, there's still letters involved, but because it's kind of it's following the cricket saga and what happened. And of course, again, whilst I was traveling, I wrote letters home. I wrote emails home. I didn't get much of a response, and I stopped writing. And one of my mates is like, this is one of the most incredible stories in the world that has not been written by a writer. What are you doing? I'm like neglecting, but gratefully, like I have pictures on my phone. I'm like, oh, at this time I was here and this is what I was doing. Oh, I was here and this. So it isn't gonna be totally lost. I have my expense report. It's like, wow, this I spent so many weeks here, I spent so many weeks here, I spent three weeks here, and this is why blah blah blah. Right. Which I can recreate at some point, but but not right now. Not right now. Well, I'm writing, I'm doing a lot more intense journal writings right now. I'm in some conversations with other people about some other things that have, I know, how big can I be in regards to all of this. And so I'm hoping within the next couple of months I can actually say, Oh, and this is how it ends, so then I can actually finish it. Because when the woman I was talking to, she's like, Well, I think you should really write this. I said, and I get that. I said, However, I don't know how it ends. And so it's very hard to write a story when you're like, eh. Yeah, and there you go. They thank you for rereading. You go, so what happened? Oh, I don't know, I'm still living it, you know, like I can't tell you, I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_00 21:25

Right. And that's the and that's the hard part when you're writing a memoir, very different from like curriculum and how to and things like this.

SPEAKER_01 21:33

That's what I got.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

Yeah, you've got you're living through the experiences at the time and stuff like that. So you've had quite the journey and doing with that. I was gonna say, my husband was adopted as well. And it's been an interesting journey because he never wanted to know. And his parents, his mom told him when he was eight, but his dad was like never about it. Are you still there? I think I've lost. Steve. Okay. Oh, there you are. You're there? Yeah. Okay. All right. I thought I lost you for a second. Oh no. Your frame has frozen a little bit. And so I was just like, I'm saying. So my husband was adopted is adopted. And then he started doing DNA testing when we started having our kids because he wanted to know for health-wise and stuff like that. And then we got into genealog, he's big into genealogy and stuff like that. And he his we found his birth mother's family, but after she had died. And she never told her birth father or the birth father or anything else. And we just literally found that side of his family through genealogy and a dislike a third or fourth cousin that he finally connected with. And all of a sudden, the DNA is starting to get into ancestry. And we just found his birth father, but after his he just died. And so it's like all these connections. And it's funny to watch my husband going through this because we don't know where it's ending. You're right. He's like, we don't know where this is headed. And yet there's all these things going on. And I'm like, I'm gonna have to write his story one of these days because I know he won't us. But it's been quite a journey, it's for sure. And I can't imagine being a mom and trying to write that letter for the first time and doing that. I know you turned it in. So what was it like to win the Sparker Award with that? What was that journey like for you to put it in for all of that?

SPEAKER_01 23:29

Well, so my editor, Elise Argent, she's in the UK, and we were trying to figure out what to do with it because it was basically what happened was when I finished it in Australia, I actually just you know, just said, Well, here's all these letters. And then I said, Maybe I should put it more into a story. And so she helped me, and then she's like, Hey, I found this. What do you think? And I was like, Well, I don't know. And this was a conversation had on. Was it the clean podcast? They're so funny. I love the clean podcast. He's friends with me too. Oh, I love them, but it's just the idea of you know, the situation I was in is definitely, you know, I would you call it a clean topic. It's very messy, and there was a lot of messy things. There was a lot of messy relationships, there were a lot of messy words, there was a lot of it was just a big mess. And so, you know, and I still say that, you know, you need to share stories because I think if the reality of the world is it's definitely not quote unquote clean, just because we're all imperfect and horrible things happen. And I don't think those stories should stay in a rug or under the rug. I think it's a matter of how do you portray your stories, how do you tell it? What is your purpose? Right. And so that and that's what I told her. And she's like, well, here, I'll write a disclaimer so whoever reads it, you know, basically knows what is in there, and then they will have to decide because I was thinking, you know, LDS PMA, would they even read something like that because it's not, I don't know. I mean, if there's a lot of prayer, there's a lot of there's a lot of preaching. I tell you, there was a lot of prayer, there's a lot of meeting with my bishop, there was a lot of conversations with, you know, yeah, people who knew the gospel more than I did. And so I didn't know if based on that merit they would even accept it. And then I won. So I was like, wow, that's I'm excited that you know, even messy, I don't know, non-traditional whatever was still accepted as hey, this was fine literature and worthy of an award like that. And I thought, oh well, that's really cool. Thanks for that.

SPEAKER_00 26:02

Yeah, no, I to me, I think that's the best kind of literature because there's like life isn't. I mean, it life, and that that's the gospel too. I mean, is that we can take this mess and God can make purpose out of it, right? That we can transform and that we can have these beautiful things happen that are not always perfect because whatever that means. Right. And I think that to me is so wonderful that they recognized that your story was that beauty and that the gospel is so much that raw, messy part of life. I love what the apostle that made the analogy of the church being a hospital is that's yeah, we're all sick and we're all needing the doctor's help. And we're not there. You don't go if you're and we're all needing it. We're not none of us are well, none of us are whole and healed all the way yet. God light.

SPEAKER_01 27:04

No, that's why we're here. When I was there getting the the award, it was interesting. I had again just how things happen. I had the old schedule, so my daughter was working and she was gonna come up. And so, you know, I was looking at you know, times, blah blah blah. I'm like, okay, this is when this will happen, so when this will happen. Well, then Sister Yi was the evening keynote speaker, and then she said if anybody wanted to meet her, that you know, she'd be available. Well, of course, everyone wanted to meet her. I think the woman was there for like three hours. Like every I was one of the last person. Were you there? Okay. We were the last back of the line. Well, they did the announcement of the awards then. So I was in line to meet her, so I didn't even say because I was under the impression it was at a different time, but then had I done it over again, I would have because like she just hugged me and I just said, you know what? Like, I thought I was just gonna cry. Like, I love you so much, and yeah, and it was so good. She's like, tell me about you. I'm like, we don't have that kind of time.

SPEAKER_00 28:19

That was the most beautiful moment. I actually went home and I wasn't doing my podcast until this last year, so it's been so I wish I'd been at that time because I would have loved to just talk about this. But I we stood in that line. My husband was with me, and my editor, friend, author with me, and we just stood there. And the woman was literally, she wasn't just shaking hands and giving hugs, she was one on one ministering, and I was like, this is exactly that way. She was so modeling it, and she didn't say, Okay, I have to leave now or anything. No, she waited until everyone, and yeah, she was three hours there or something like that. It was the yeah, my husband and I didn't get any food. The last of the food was there, and we're like going in some food left over, but I would rather have went there with her. She was beautiful, she is such a so but incredible to get your award, even though you didn't get to get your get your award.

SPEAKER_01 29:17

I know at the end I was like, oh wait, there's a certificate. I'm like, oh, so then I actually sent it to Annalise. I'm like, look, there it is, it's official. I know, so oh my gide on. Yeah, it's just I know, I just think it's funny, you know, because I thought about it. It's like, okay, you know, I could have gone up there to get the recognition, but I wanted to stay and I wanted to just tell her just how much I appreciated her words and her spirit, and I love her talks and her perspective on life. And she's she's just someone to connect with. And I just I appreciate that about her. I love that about her.

SPEAKER_00 29:54

Yeah, it was it was it was if we our spirits all knew each other and she was letting it happen and recognize it. And yeah, her talk before that and her conference talk about messing at the painting. I mean, talk about the perfect metaphor for your book, right? That something better came out of it, the right things came out afterwards when we let God into what's going on and and everything that way. And uh, such an incredible. I I'm glad we have something we can talk about and blonde over. That was such oh gosh, yeah, that that moment. I it's still it's a bad thing.

SPEAKER_01 30:28

When she looked at you right in the eye, yeah, like she was taking you in when she met you, and it was just like, oh wow, this is cool.

SPEAKER_00 30:39

I've I've always strived to like see people and do things, but since that experience, I've even tried harder to like really and it's hard because I have such social anxiety sometimes, and the introvert in me is like, I'm just gonna know. But I've I've I've worked on really trying to like acknowledge and do that eye contact and really just be present for people as for example. It's yeah, incredible. Yeah, well that leads us to what are you doing now with your things and and I know you're like working with some multicultural stuff and all these things. What are you taking and besides working on the second half of this story that you're living at this point in time? What else are you working on to help bring light and all these things to the world?

SPEAKER_01 31:28

Well, what we are, I mean, the big thing that I spent most of the day doing today is my daughter's a rare genetic disorder. And it's interesting because they it's an IDH1 variation, which basically it causes the IDH1 gene just like when it goes awry, causes tumors and they can become cancerous. There are several syndromes and disorders that that have an IDH1 mutation. And so originally they diagnosed her with Mefuchi syndrome, but she didn't have the larger lesions, and she only on top of it all, she only has 25% mutations, so they only appear in her left hand. So it's boy, that's really weird. It's like, yes, it is. And so she spent the first couple of years, no one knew what it was, and she we were in Australia, and they the person who read it said, well, it could potentially be Mufuchi's, but it's so rare, how could it be? Well, then when they took the biopsy out of one of the weird growths that she had, they tested it and it was positive for that particular gene mutation. So it just kind of depends on which school. If you look for the outward manifestations, they would say, Well, no, it's not true Mufuchi's because it's not large bulbs, but it's caused by the gene. So if you look more at the gene, then they're like, well, it's part of it all. And so it can be. At any rate, so we have found a native therapy called RSMs, and we pushed probably for about a year. We've been working with her doctors over nationwide to say, hey, could she try this? When the last time we were in there in November, there was this some weird drug they wanted to put her on that like she'd have to have blood tests every month because it's really strong and blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, that sounds great. Could she try this? And so she's as of this morning, she's decided she wants to start basically some social media channels to talk about, you know, why she thinks it's a good idea and other people who are going through similar things, that they should try these RSMs because your body knows how to heal itself. Basically, the analogy is that you know, kind of like with our with the podcast, how like I froze and there wasn't the right signal. If you don't have the right signal, things don't work, right? I've uh the analogy was if you've got basically a massive fire across the street, but you're in a dead zone, it doesn't matter if it's taking up 10 miles. If you don't have a signal, you can't call the fire department to come take care of it.

SPEAKER_00 34:00

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 34:01

And so, you know, our bodies, electricity, if there's not a signal going somewhere and we're all individuals, right? We all fall apart individually. I know how I fall apart, she knows how she falls apart. And so it's like we can get that signal back. How will that help? But we don't know. There hasn't been enough scientific studies on it. So she's basically just gonna start, you know, talking to different, you know, Richine autoimmune. Hey, have you guys heard about this? Go, because we personally do not have the billions of dollars to do the research on it. But each of these organizations they are spending much money to try and figure it out. It's like, well, okay, well, here is a FDA-regulated supplement. Why don't you throw that in the mix and see what it does? And we're not saying it's gonna do anything because we don't know, but you guys could find out. You could let your community know. So her right, so her follow-up's gonna be in June. And that's the big thing. We're very excited. There'll be seven months of supplementing, and and we'll see. And it's literally we don't know what will happen, but we're very positive something good will happen. Uh, she's been consistent, and that the only thing that she's changed is that I mean it's hard, it's not like a true study because there wasn't also, but they're using all of her tests as basically benchmark, and then they'll just redo them and see if anything changes. So I don't know, like that's been and that'll be the next thing for a little while. I've done some copywriting marketing courses, and you know, so we have to look at her social media and who is her audience, and what stories does she want to tell on what you know what channels and blah blah blah loss. So it'll be a good time. That'll be yeah, so that'll be the next thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:50

Well, as someone who is also suffering from autoimmune issues and stuff like this, I will tell you, I I'm also into all like all these natural things. What can I be looking at that the body is missing and stuff like that too? Because RSMs exactly, yeah. And like, what is it because there's it's like all these medicines, they treat symptoms, they maybe take cover things, but they don't actually treat that root issue, right? And as someone who is like, I want to feel better, not just treating and doing this, right?

SPEAKER_01 36:24

There is a difference between surviving and thriving, and that was because I started supplementing RSMs, and in six weeks I had 30 years of food issues, they were gone, and I was like, Oh, that's pretty cool. Eight weeks chronic pain gone. Yeah, it's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 36:46

Even just changing the way we eat sometimes. I mean, all of the chemical things in our food is always going to be and I'd always been raised because we say we were gardening and stuff growing up, and we were always eating, but you know, over the years things have changed and stuff. But my husband and I have definitely gone back to a better diet since his heart surgery a couple of years ago, but it's made a difference. Even just changing a little bit of that has already made some huge differences in our lives. And one of my friends, she's also LDS PMA person. Um, she's done this whole like medicine anthology of like natural, all the natural medicines and stuff like that. And it's like this big, old, huge book, encyclopedia of everything.

SPEAKER_01 37:26

And I'm like, Oh wow, cool.

SPEAKER_00 37:28

Yeah, I know. And then she's broken them up into small groups with like books that people can just take and manage them, little pieces, but it just those things that we've got all around us, but yet we're pushed on by society and all the FDA and the government, everyone. Oh, take a chemical version of what's natural.

SPEAKER_01 37:48

And it's not helping. It's so hard. Well, and then too, with food. I was talking with a mate of mine, then you know, just the idea of what is going on in the food industry, you know, because it's to make money, you know, it's not to feed the population anymore, it's how much money can I get? And so you have to like read everything, you know, and GMOs and you know, what are they putting on it? And you know, it's just you kind of want to go and get, I don't know, 200 acres out somewhere and just make sure you know what it is that you're eating. Like it's sad to say that, but it's just kind of what it's coming down to.

SPEAKER_00 38:27

Well, I say my parents they live an hour from us and they garden and so we've canned and done a lot of things. We have a local butcher and we go get and we know what's going from their farm and what they're feeding into our table. And the couple of times we've gotten meat from the store, it's like just the look of it's different, let alone the taste and what it does. And yeah, it's huge with those. And I love that we're starting to head in the right direction with some of the things that are changing, but I wish we could get more out there. But I love what your daughter's doing and saying, hey, let's try this and do this. They don't let us do that in the medicine world. They're like, no, you must do this. So I'm glad you're gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_01 39:08

Well, and that's right, and that's the thing. And that was one of the reasons why they wanted to hold off. It's like, well, you know, it's fairly new technology. Like her primary doctor said that when things get studied in, you know, in universities and start doing, you know, different studies, etc. etc., that information takes 15 to 20 years to then get to the mainstream. Uh, and so that's when we started looking at her what her issue was. And so redox signaling and nrf2 were our keywords that we're looking at in Google Scholar. And in February of 25, there was a study done in Korea that said basically upregulated NRF2 had a positive effect on IDH1 mutations. And I printed out that study, and I took it to her appointment, and I said, here, do this. It's like this supplement has been proven to upregulate NRF2. Can we please try it? And it's a description. Okay. No, it's not, and you can't be allergic to it because your body makes it, and you there's no toxicity because your body makes it, and there's no medication interactions because your body makes them. It's like, can we please try it?

SPEAKER_00 40:32

Can we please just do what's already going on and just needs more and to help, right? And I find that so interesting sometimes in the United States. They want so much control over everything, but there's people doing studies and there's things that have worked for centuries in other cultures, like Asian cultures, especially and stuff like this, have so many things that we know work, but we have to do all these. I'm like, dude, why don't we just go back to like, hey, you know, tumor's great for inflammation. Let's just take some tumor egg. Let's try it. Let's just try something that might be more beneficial.

SPEAKER_01 41:08

Well, the thing that was really cool with Rebecca was when she was talking with her doctor, she said, Look, I could do this without your permission. I'm gonna be honest, but I want it documented because if something changes, I want to be able to tell people that I've done this and I know I'm one kid, and I'm, you know, this isn't even official, whatever. But I want it to be known that there was a positive effect. Because if all of a sudden I come in to you one day and you're like, oh wow, things are better. Oh, well, I did this, then like there's no doubt, it's less. Right. It's like, and this is why I'm waiting for you to say yes. And that's when he was not like, okay, that's fine. He's very cool, very patient man. We appreciate him.

SPEAKER_00 41:56

So yeah, finding the right doctor is definitely key. I will say that too.

SPEAKER_01 42:00

Yeah. So it's like yeah, it's like, well, then I guess we'll just you know wait till June. So it's very exciting. I know, watch the space.

SPEAKER_00 42:09

So much fun. Uh yeah, watch the space. And if you guys want to come back on and talk about what we found and talk about the love that would be awesome to hear what this journey is going because I'm so in into that kind of stuff, but you know, and making sure it's we all need it and need to find ways to help our bodies and make it through well and help each other, you know.

SPEAKER_01 42:31

That was the one thing. One of the coolest things, his name, oh my gosh, last name is D'Angelo. He started the Champs One Foundation. So that's the issue that one of his kids has. And he said, We need to get the information out of closed Facebook groups and out so that we can talk about it. The problem is, we're gonna put that in quotes, is there is the FDA. Now, I understand, like I went to this drug basically creation symposium. So you're taking a lot of chemicals and you're hoping something works. Yes, absolutely, we need to make sure that you know that these things are safe, you know, because it's not natural, it's not native, we're playing, you know, with things. However, because things have changed and now it's very strict, like if the FDA were to prove X, then you know, from a supplement, they would take it off the market, put it in a box and say, okay, you can only use this for X. And but we're you know, we're all different, we all heal at different times, our bodies and different spots in life. And so, you know, who's to say like eating better?

unknown 43:45

Right?

SPEAKER_01 43:46

I don't know if I went to a muscle nutrition response therapist to just see how muscles reacted to foods, and that was really cool. Um, and then you know, combining different, you know, concentrated foods. And then your body starts healing itself. Crazy. That's great. Now, you know, I don't, like I said, I don't have a rare genetic disorder. I had a whole bunch of autoimmune issues that were basically sorted out because of how foods were paired for the first month and then supplementing RSMs. And that was it.

SPEAKER_02 44:22

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 44:23

Wow. Yeah. You know, why is that bad?

SPEAKER_00 44:27

And why would they have to regulate that for us? Because it's food. We just need to figure out and we need to do more studies on how we can pair the right foods and the right things for the right people in the right ways to help us, you know. Well, and yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:41

And there's a lot, I was gonna say, and there's a lot of people who've already studied that, you know, and then there's a lot of different ways. And I don't know, I don't know the validity of all the ways. I mean, there's a lot of books, you know. I remember the one that was eating right for your blood type. I remember talking to somebody else about something else, and you know, anyone will tell you anything, and I think that's where you have to figure out where your body is in its journey and what it needs. And it's not saying that other things are wrong. It's I wonder what is gonna work best for me again, because we're all individuals, yeah. And you know, and it's cool. I don't know, it's just it just proves fascinating.

SPEAKER_00 45:26

God's work with us each individually as unique human beings as well.

SPEAKER_01 45:31

Oh amen, yeah, verily, yeah. Oh no, for sure. Absolutely, it's it's awesome, it's a miracle, it's frustrating because you're like you're like, why, you know, and even if you know you have two people who have the same issues, they may take one person may take longer to heal from it than the other because there are maybe 10 other things going wrong that they don't even know, you know, like it's yeah, oh, it's a good time. So, yeah, so it's been quite a journey. Like we've been to several different hospitals trying to get different ideas, and it was kind of cool because we started nationwide, then we ended up at a couple hospitals in Texas, then we ended up at Mayo, and then we came back to nationwide, and and our doctor was very interested to find out well, what did you learn? What you know, and he was literally looking over, and I'm like, Okay, well, at this doctor, we had this, and he was looking at my notes and he was writing them down, so he was very excited, and you love that, you know, like can we all be nerdy together for just a minute, right?

SPEAKER_00 46:35

I love it. I was just thinking that we were saying about that and all of these things, and I was just like, man, this is also an allegory for our spiritual journey, too. We're each individuals are each healing at our own journey, we're each having to find what works for us. Even the atonement isn't a one-size-fits-all application, it's finding how we go through that together and what part works when and where and how for each of us in that healing spiritually as much as it is physically. And I was like, oh, wow.

SPEAKER_01 47:05

Yeah, well, and it's all about agency. I mean, if that's anything that I've learned or has been beaten into my head quite often, is that it's all about offering, right? Because you know, the Lord gives us opportunities, and we can take those opportunities, we can embrace those opportunities, or we cannot. And then there's a lot of people who are under the impression that if it's like if it's meant to be, it'll happen. I don't agree with that. Sometimes well, but it's not even that because it's like there's been a couple of times where there have been situations that I've seen that there were opportunities right there, and the individual decided that wasn't something they wanted to choose. And that doesn't mean that, oh, that immediately didn't happen. No, that meant you didn't choose it, you know, like that's it. And then I was having a deep so one of my very best friends lives in Luxembourg, and we leave each other messages on messenger. So, like, if you know, if she's on the train or if I'm, you know, whatever driving, we'll listen to him. And, you know, it's just the idea of Elder Raspberry has a talk by divine design. And I just think I love that talk, but I just it's almost like that there's some very complicated chess board on there, and we're all there. And he brings people into our lives. And based on our agency, you know, it's like I could almost literally like hear chess piece moving out of the way. Okay, that opportunity wasn't taken. Okay, now we'll, you know, now these circumstances, as opposed to had that opportunity been taken, this is a path you'd be in on. When we're all like, I don't know, being all waxing philosophical, and you know, what does that really mean? And it likes it very, just very nerd. I mean, what do you do when you're, you know, sitting on a train or you have an hour car ride? It's like, I'm you know when you're doing those messengers, it's like you're talking to yourself, right? Or you know eventually at some point it'll be listened to, but you're imagining you're having this conversation with yourself, you know, it's like, well, then you could think about this and lunch.

SPEAKER_00 49:12

Little mini rants, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:14

Yeah, and then and what would that look like, you know? And that was our big conversation. What would if you can it's almost like the final four, okay? You know, NCAA March Man at the time, you know, what happens if you actually picked path A the whole time? Where would you actually end up? You know, I feel like I'm kind of on path double Q or triple Q, you know, like Lord's like, need more letters. Because I think, you know, it's there's very few who really understand when opportunities, and I don't mean like, you know, they don't necessarily have to be educational or wealth or relationship, or you know, it could just be the opportunity to help someone. And if you don't, what are the consequences for the people that you don't help? What if there's a prompting that you're given and you don't act on it? What is the outcome of that? And a lot of times we don't know, but the people on the other end, whatever it was that was, you know, that we could have done to help, then there's that, you know, that there's the sins of commission and the sins of omission. And I think it's just it's learning how to, I don't know, really let God into our lives so that we can be useful, uh, not only to others, but then I think we'll also be doing ourselves a favor because of the learning and the growth that we'll have. And I know it's very uncomfortable and it's horrible, but that is why we're here.

SPEAKER_00 50:47

That's why we signed up for it, right? And we said yes. So we took that opportunity, and now we just need to take the rest. And exactly. Exactly. Oh my gosh, it has been so awesome. And I didn't realize that the time has gone because it's been so awesome. Where can we find you, your work, follow you on this path and this journey, and being be a part of this?

SPEAKER_01 51:14

Oh my gosh, if you just go to Link Tree and go to World Cricket Girl, all of my links are there because I've had, you know, I've had some pretty interesting interviews, sports-wise, I said clean podcast, you know, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, all this stuff is there. So you just pop on in RSMs are there, try them, please. Yeah, it's all good. And then, yeah, if you ever want to talk about anything, I would love to come back and talk to you about anything.

SPEAKER_00 51:43

Yeah, you're like, we're feeling the need to talk. Yeah, you let me know too if you're like, I need to talk to Tanya again. Let's do it.

SPEAKER_01 51:49

I love it. We need to meet up. That's so cool for sure.

SPEAKER_00 51:53

One of these days, we will. Are you gonna come out to LDSPM again? That's or do you make it out, or just did it for Spark?

SPEAKER_01 52:01

It depends. Yeah, I did it for Spark. You know what? I tend to not know what I'm doing from day to day. And in fact, we had family council once. I think my oldest, I think he was about 12. He's like, Mom, I have a question. I'm like, Yeah, what? He's like, Why do we do this? Why do we have family council? Why do we plan anything? Because as soon as we plan something, it isn't going anyway. I'm like, so so why do we do it? And I said, Well, we kind of kind of have a base jump. At least let the Lord know this is where we're planning, this is where we're starting today. And he's like, whatever. Okay, so and that's kind of it. I've my life was going one way, it drastically changed a couple weekends ago. And so I was like, Welp, I guess I'm doing this now. And then I had a couple of promptings, like, or I guess I'm doing this now, which is when I talked to Rebecca and she's like, Yeah, you know what? I think I think I want to do the social media stuff. I'm like, all right, then I guess I'm doing this now. Had you asked me last week what I was doing, it wouldn't have been totally different. So, you know what? Yeah, we just I very much roll.

SPEAKER_00 52:58

I love the rolling. And if you ever find yourself out here, definitely let's get out here and connect in Utah. And I'll if I ever get out to I will, but otherwise, let's meet here. Let's drink some. Oh, yeah, let's have some fun. For sure.

SPEAKER_01 53:11

I love it.

SPEAKER_00 53:11

I love it. What is your final message? I always ask my guests what they would like to say as something that they want to leave us with to go away with. So, what it would be your message to us today?

SPEAKER_01 53:22

Just take a listen and see what God wants you to do tomorrow.

SPEAKER_00 53:26

I like it.

SPEAKER_01 53:29

Because it may be vastly different than what you're planning. And just roll with it. See where it takes you. Give him a chance.

SPEAKER_00 53:38

Definitely give him a chance.

SPEAKER_01 53:40

Give him a chance.

SPEAKER_00 53:42

I love that. Thank you so much. Lily, it has been such an honor to meet you and a pleasure to have this chat. Everyone, go follow Lily, get her work, follow what is going on, learn about cricket, and to yell a little bit and a lot. And check out and follow her so you can keep a track of where these RSMs are going and what we can do to help each other and ourselves. Know you're loved, and we'll see you next time on Ramdi's Raves and Reviews.