#12 From Surviving to Thriving: Michelle Eich on Self-Care, Strength & Saying No

In this episode of Empowered Over 50, host Miriam Bulcher speaks with Michelle Eisch, who shares her incredible journey through multiple health challenges, including heart attacks, breast cancer, and the loss of her father. Michelle discusses how these experiences transformed her mindset from fear to empowerment, emphasizing the importance of living authentically and prioritizing self-care. She reflects on the emotional and physical challenges she faced, the support she received, and the lessons learned about gratitude and resilience. Michelle's story is a testament to the strength of the human spirit and the power of perspective in overcoming adversity. In this conversation, Michele shares her journey of navigating stress, self-care, and the importance of setting boundaries as a woman. She discusses the impact of stress on health, the challenge of saying no, and the guilt that often accompanies it. Michele emphasizes the need for women to prioritize their own well-being and authenticity, encouraging listeners to embrace their worth and take actionable steps towards self-care. The discussion highlights the transformative power of self-advocacy and the importance of living authentically to foster deeper connections with others.

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Transcript

Miriam Bulcher (00:00.67)
Welcome to today's episode of Empowered Over 50. So again, today I have another client here with me, Michelle Eich. She is absolutely incredible and she has gone through, you are probably, your jaw's gonna be hanging open when you hear the things that she has gone through. And she's here with me today. So Michelle, give us a little intro and tell us a little bit about you.

Michele (00:23.308)
Hey Miriam, well I enjoyed meeting you a couple years back when I came for a session. At that time I had had a couple of winamaker heart attacks and wanted to feel beautiful again and alive again. I was really spending a lot of my time in a fear-based mentality. I was afraid of everything because of that and so that really helped propel me past that barrier.

into living again. Not without fear, but living again. Right? So I was always, I always had those little niggleings of fear after that, but not like it was. And now I don't, I don't have any fear. I don't, live with zero, exactly zero fear at all times. Yeah.

Miriam Bulcher (01:00.533)
Yeah.

Miriam Bulcher (01:16.096)
That is absolutely incredible. so when I reached out to you via email, you had told me there was a whole slew of things because let's see, when I met you, I think that was in 2022, right? So that was about three years ago. Yes, yes. So give the listeners kind of a rundown because yes, you had those two wooden makers and you were, I love that you just gave that little snippet, but tell us what has happened since then because it's so pertinent to what we're gonna dive into.

Michele (01:27.159)
Yeah, that's changed.

Michele (01:43.095)
Yeah, so it would have been, let's see, August. I'm trying to put my timeline together, but it was within 11 months, that 11 months ending just this past November. So I was diagnosed with breast cancer. They luckily caught it early, but I did go through

the treatments for breast cancer, which is real hard on your body. A couple of days before that happened, I lost my dog. Now, if you're a dog lover, you kind of would understand that was pretty devastating having to do that two days before my surgery. And that was like sort of the cascade of events that started happening. So I dealt with the breast cancer.

throughout that fall and winter. And then I had what's called radiation recall, which means that the radiation burns reappear after they've healed, and they come back with a vengeance. So I had that happen. And that started with the thinking of, goodness, maybe this journey was too easy, and I just need more pain.

That happened shortly after that. I fell and broke a rib. Shortly after that, I got shingles. within,

months of that, I lost my father. So, I mean, at my age, this is the time where your parents are beginning to decline and, you know, this is on the horizon, right? So, but this was a little bit of a different circumstance where, you know, my father was my Superman. He was everything to me. And it was very quick and very unexpected. So it was a real shock to the system. And then naturally,

Michele (03:50.752)
you know, having to take care of my mom and walk her through all of those things. It didn't really give me very much time to mourn my father's loss because I was the strong one. And as women, I think we know that we take that role on as the strong one and take care of everybody else, but not take care of yourself. So that would have been at the end of February. And then my oldest son was getting married last summer.

And so one day I had just finished my master captain's certification with the Coast Guard and we had set a date to go shopping for a dress to wear to my son's wedding. And I was feeling pretty terrible that day, just kind of weak and just feeling kind of terrible. And I kept thinking that it's the radiation. It's, you know, all...

Cancer keeps on giving even after you're clean. It keeps on giving. Got home from dress shopping and had a...

Miriam Bulcher (04:50.802)
Thank

Michele (04:58.771)
I just, my heart rate was going through the roof. My blood pressure was dropping. As a heart patient, I regularly monitor those things. So I thought, no, I'm having another heart attack. was all, the heart was going crazy and the blood sugar was going crazy. So I went into the hospital and within probably a half an hour of being in the emergency room, because they

brought me in with the ambulance, they realized that I was bleeding out, that I had suffered from severe blood loss, and it was life-threatening. So they began transfusing immediately, sent me up to the critical care unit, began what is like the worst four days of my life. I would rather give birth to

triplets in the breech position than that particular hospital stay. I really would. And that's telling you something. So they did test after test after test, couldn't figure it out. Finally, through the endoscopies and all of those things that they do, they discovered two different tumors in my stomach that they believed were cancer. And so that was pretty devastating.

Miriam Bulcher (06:01.877)
Yeah.

Michele (06:23.103)
to hear that at 1130 at night in your dark hospital room where you're resting. So went through a whole bunch more tests, and they told me that they needed to remove my stomach. So I dealt with that. We had a surgery set for August, and they do a lot to prepare you for that kind of surgery, because it's

It's basically like a five-year prognosis at that point and a whole other life. So what they do is they connect your esophagus to your small intestine. that's how they do that. Because every person I've said is like, how do you do that if you don't have a stomach? But at the last minute, my surgeon said to me, I'd like to take

one more look to develop my surgical plan if you would be okay with me doing one more endoscopy. And I said yes, of course, as long as you do the endoscopy. And the result of that was that he felt he could get that tumor out without removing the stomach. The tumor was sitting right at the esophageal junction, which is why it's inoperable other than taking it.

So they made an attempt to save my stomach, which involved 32 different surgeons, four robots. They did what's called a 360 degree surgery. His technique that he was trying did not work. He had never done it before, but he was going to try it. So he removed my stomach outside of my body, worked on it outside of my body, got all of the cancer.

Miriam Bulcher (08:04.768)
Mm-hmm.

Michele (08:19.209)
put it back in. So there's 31 surgeons and 12 observers. But he saved my stomach. He saved my stomach. He got both tumors out and all the cancer and saved my stomach. So that was just this past fall. So I'm just about, I think I'm at seven months clean. I just had a recent set of scans. I'm still clean for the breast.

Miriam Bulcher (08:24.992)
Wow.

Miriam Bulcher (08:29.405)
amazing.

Michele (08:48.562)
and the stomach, they're two completely unrelated cancers. Yeah, one doesn't have to do with the other. But that was an extraordinarily difficult surgery to go through and recover from because I was still hurting from my other cancer. Turns out it wasn't the heart. It was the stomach.

Miriam Bulcher (08:52.832)
well.

Miriam Bulcher (09:12.533)
Mm-hmm.

Miriam Bulcher (09:17.076)
Mm-hmm.

Michele (09:18.299)
It took them a long time to type it because it's extremely rare. And then there's four subcategories of that rare. And I'm in the fourth rarest category. So it took a while for them to figure out what is going on because they never see that. So yeah. I've spent, I would say, I would say, is where I really was able to start being physical again.

Miriam Bulcher (09:37.542)
my god.

Michele (09:45.545)
going for walks, expand my diet a little bit, start regaining my weight, which I have regained most of it. And I've been living differently than I ever have ever since.

Miriam Bulcher (10:01.928)
Yeah. my gosh. Let's tell me, let's go into like that emotional mindset journey of, you know, not only loss, but also like diagnosis after diagnosis after diagnosis, because, you know, it's very easy to get the, to take on this. well, maybe I'm not supposed to be here. You know what I mean? I feel like that would have been my, you know what I mean? Like you, probably walked down that path, right? Because you're like, why, why, why, right? Like,

Michele (10:03.506)
Yeah.

Michele (10:25.98)
Well, yeah. Why? Yeah. Why is this happening? And I kept thinking, my first thought was, what am I doing wrong? What did I do to deserve this? Right? I'm a good person. Always have been. I'm a very giving person. What did I do wrong? You know, in a past life or what's going on here? And what it really did was it opened sort of this Pandora's box of

looking at things through my own eyes to determine, how am I looking at things? That what am I missing? So it shifted from what did I do wrong to what am I missing? Because I'm being sent these messages from the universe, from God. You're not getting the message, Michelle. So we need to be louder. So one of the

big questions I had to ask myself is about that fear, that fear that I was carrying. And that was the big one that came back was, well, what are you afraid of exactly? Are you afraid of dying? And that kept coming back. No, no, I'm not afraid of dying. I believe I'm going to heaven, so I'm not afraid of dying.

So then what are you afraid of? And it came down to, I'm afraid of missing the people that I love. So the answer to that for me was to fully absorb everything about the people that I love, to feel filled by those experiences at all times. So that if I check out right now, there's nothing left unsaid, there's nothing left unfelt. It's a full.

Miriam Bulcher (12:00.256)
Mm-hmm.

Michele (12:21.251)
experience and I switched my thinking to

Michele (12:27.72)
Spend time, spend your time living your life exactly doing what you want to be doing. Don't think about what anybody expects of you, which as women, I think we do that. We try to rise to the expectation of our children, of our spouse, of our parents. So I shifted my thinking to, Michelle first, Michelle first. So.

And that's a difficult thing to do, to shift your thinking like that. And I sort of had the protection of people's opinions not altering too much because I'm sick with cancer. You really can't criticize me for that, right? So I had that little protection. And so I decided if I don't want to be doing it, I'm not going to be doing it, period, no compromise. And started.

living that way. And that has really changed everything. The fear sort of drove me through the recovery. But my fear had more to do with I don't want to feel bad anymore. I don't want to feel sick anymore. So I would do everything that I was supposed to be doing to fight to get better. And I didn't realize.

until then that I truly think I have a warrior spirit inside. I truly do. There's no other way to explain it. Like I am a warrior of a kind I didn't know. And I inspired people by that. I inspired the people around me by that. So I thought, OK, well, there's a gift that this cancer is giving. It's inspiring.

Miriam Bulcher (14:08.276)
Yeah.

Michele (14:22.904)
changing how I was thinking and changing how I was living, I believe, is why I'm able to do the things I'm able to do now, which is live a normal life largely. I have some dietary considerations. I have to watch my physical boundaries when I'm overdoing it. My body will tell me I've become very good at listening to all of the signs in my body and in my soul and spirit.

because stress really is not good for me. So I've become very good at that and I wish somebody would have taught me this when I was 20. You know, like it's too bad that something something so crazy has to happen for you to take stock like that. But in doing so, I was able to walk through the morning of losing my father, which I had not done. And there's a whole morning

Miriam Bulcher (15:02.431)
Hmm.

Michele (15:22.146)
about losing parts of your body and parts of your spirit. And you have to mourn that in order to step through it. But once you're on the other side of that...

Miriam Bulcher (15:32.543)
Mm-hmm.

Michele (15:36.963)
It's a way of living that I feel like everybody should be doing. I feel like everybody should be doing.

Miriam Bulcher (15:41.45)
Yeah.

Absolutely. So at what point in the process of diagnoses did you have a conversation with yourself about the fear? Do you feel like it was times where you were either in the hospital laid up or at home feeling ill or recovering or whatever it might have been? Like at what point through, you know what I mean, like the shingles and one thing after another, were you like, okay, we need to have like a timeout, like mental timeout conversation.

Michele (16:07.844)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know exactly when that happened actually that would have been after I got home from the hospital With the bleeding out episode Because I was I was actively dying in that situation and I knew it It was really the first time I had ever like cried out in the hospital somebody helped me I'm dying Because my blood was all moving to my core and I could feel it

It was absolutely awful. so coming through that with, I think I had 11 different transfusions, coming through that, coming home stabilized. I can remember I was sitting in my bed and I remember saying, I need to throw my hands up in the air.

don't have any control over this. I have no control. And that is where everything was stemming from was this effort to control the outcomes. And so when I learn to just surrender to the process and say, come what may, it's going to be OK. Even if I die right now, it's OK. And so that sort of

detaching from my own agenda, which was ingrained for 57 years, detaching from pre-living any experience, and detaching from this whole notion of earning or spending.

Michele (18:01.876)
Sorry, I got interrupted. It doesn't factor in the equation. It doesn't. It's about acceptance. And I can remember doing an exercise laying in bed where I was hurting everywhere. It's very painful. And I remember saying, does my knee hurt?

Miriam Bulcher (18:02.656)
It's all good.

Michele (18:30.613)
Then the answer came back, no. No, your knee doesn't hurt. So there's something to be thankful for. And it really started that small. And so it shifted my thinking into the positive, where everything had to be gratitude. Because I'm going through this process. I don't have any control. But I can control how I shift my inner thinking to gratitude and away from fear.

So I do that every day. I practice that every day. But that was the moment that I shifted my thinking away from why me, why me, why me? What can I do to change this? Why is this happening? It was sort of a throw your hands up in the air moment, honestly. Like it's going to be what it's going to be. I don't have that control. So universe, walk me through it. Just walk me through this.

Miriam Bulcher (19:28.66)
What do you feel like the journey has been like since you've done that? Do you feel like there have been like, you know, speed bumps that you've gone across that you're like, this is going to be a daily activity, right? Like were there things that you were like, hmm, you know, like this is maybe a little harder than I thought it was gonna be or here's some other, you know, mindset things that I kind of have to work through in order to be able to maintain my sanity and gratitude and just presentness.

Michele (19:56.318)
Yes, there have been some adjustments. they would appear to be small adjustments, but they become very big when you are the person in it. So the simplest things, like my husband saying, you look great, you feel great, let's go out to dinner. So where are we going out to dinner that I can eat?

Or six or seven of my girlfriends would be like, we're all having lunch at such and such a place. And I'm the girl that's at lunch with my own little water bottle, my own little pieces of chicken, and my own. So you're like the cancer girl, right? And that's a very difficult piece of the journey, where you sort of go backwards in your thinking into the illness mindset, where you're reminded of it.

Miriam Bulcher (20:51.658)
Mm.

Michele (20:53.66)
Like in talking to my husband, he's figured out like, okay, that's not a pleasurable activity for her anymore. That's not a fun activity for me to go out to eat because it wreaks havoc on my body. know, over seasoning, over salting, highly processed foods. You know, I've only got maybe two thirds of my stomach left. So it's difficult for me just even from a financial standpoint to pay $30 for a meal that I can have three bites of each thing.

Right? It just, seems so, can we think of something else to do? Right? So you end up with this spotlight on you, which I have gratitude for because I have the best support network in the world. I mean, the support of my female friends, my family, just sitting with me, chatting with me while I can't do anything but lay in bed and recover. That, that support group is amazing. But the flip side of that coin is that

Miriam Bulcher (21:24.405)
Yep.

Michele (21:53.979)
you feel like you're always the problem child, right? So you have to navigate the perception of yourself versus the perception that other people have of you. And that's a really big component of the whole healing process and the whole adversity of it is like, how do I flip that script so that it doesn't feel that way? you have, I don't know if that makes any sense. Flipping the script, there's a lot of that.

Miriam Bulcher (22:20.574)
Yeah, absolutely. Yes. Yeah, it sounds like, you have to when the challenges come in, especially in uncomfortable situations like that, right? Where it's like, yeah, I definitely don't want to add any more challenges to the group or the dynamic, but also I have to take care of myself. Right. Like, that's the number one priority. And so being able to face those challenges amidst like, well.

Michele (22:40.848)
Right.

Miriam Bulcher (22:46.878)
facing the challenges while also in the state of recovery is like extremely challenging in and of itself because not only are you battling, you know, physical, you know, exhaustion, fatigue, whatever it might be, other pains, you're also.

Michele (23:00.272)
All of them. All of them.

Miriam Bulcher (23:03.008)
Yeah, and lifestyle adjustments, food adjustments, you know what I mean? you're everything from your previous life as you knew it to now, while also dealing with these mindset, mental, you know, little exercises that you have to go through. It, how did you maintain? Do you feel like you discovered more of you, like the real authentic you in this process?

Michele (23:06.577)
Yeah.

Michele (23:17.448)
Right.

Michele (23:26.739)
100 % 100 % and think honestly We all know our authentic self inside Right. We I know that we all know that as women we know our authentic our authentic self our most authentic self We know our highest potential and we carry that around But it's usually the external Circumstances or barriers that prevent us from living to that fully

And I know that was the case with me. So I feel like my insides came outside finally in my life, right? Because I was able to verbalize the things that have always really been important to me, but the world doesn't always let you live that way, right? So cancer can be a gift. I know that navigating a lot of the

Miriam Bulcher (24:15.36)
Mm-hmm.

Michele (24:25.766)
fighting through it. I hesitate to use that word because I decided early on that I wasn't going to fight cancer. I did not want to be at war with my body. So I changed my languaging around that. That I was navigating a cancer journey, not fighting cancer. If there was any

Miriam Bulcher (24:38.89)
Mm-hmm.

Michele (24:50.982)
fight going on, it wasn't a war with my body, it was a war with my mind. To fight off, you know, old ways of thinking and to leave little vacancies in my mind that I could fill with the hopeful thinking. So, and that can be very, very simple. Everything from, I want to be alive for my children, I want to see them get married and have children, and that's a wish, not a fight.

Miriam Bulcher (25:06.826)
Mm-hmm.

Michele (25:19.494)
So I would intention that. everything from that to I will be back in the water. That was a big determining thing that I was determined. Because you have to set up goals for your physical health and for your mental health. So I know that my body feels best in the water.

So I'm a rescue swimmer, snorkeler, and I take people here to swim with manatees. And I photograph them underwater and stuff. And when I'm in the water, my body, mind, and soul are all aligned, and I am in just perfect harmony with myself. So I know that that's a place I need to go to. So if I can go there in my mind while I'm laying in my bed hurting, I would do that.

or I would walk the Appalachian Trail with my eyes closed, laying in my bed. So visualization of what you're intentioning for your life was a big part of one of the parts of shifting that thinking around into the determination to live my life this way and never go back to that place that we all know, which is you know you're not living your most authentic self.

You know it, deep down. So I'll never be back there.

Miriam Bulcher (26:54.036)
Yeah, my gosh.

Michele (26:54.902)
Every day is a gift, so.

Miriam Bulcher (26:58.718)
Yeah.

Michele (26:59.128)
Every moment is a gift.

Miriam Bulcher (27:01.35)
Absolutely, absolutely. 100%. Let's talk about the stress aspect of things, because that is something I feel like, I mean, and I just feel like Western society has kind of programmed us women to be like, you know, go, go, go, go energizer bunnies. So how did you what did like in your lifestyle, other than the recovery aspects of, you know, physical recovery, did you have to change regarding the stress aspect of living? Was it more scheduling? Was it more mindset? Was it more

Michele (27:13.317)
Yeah.

Miriam Bulcher (27:31.234)
like having more boundaries, like what did it look like actually making that change? And I'm just thinking of the women listening thinking like, oh shoot, you know what I mean? Like, and this is why I wanted to have you come on here and talk about it because you know, stress creeps up and that's happened to me. Like, you know, you think you're doing a good job managing it until your body's like, hello, actually you're not. So talk about that.

Michele (27:39.482)
Yeah. Yeah.

Michele (27:48.592)
Yes, right. That is, I mean you couldn't have said it better, it's very true. Stress is a major factor in illness, okay, and I was told by the doctors, you know, stress does contribute especially to the type of endocrine cancer that I had. Notice I said had. I just got clean scans a week and a half ago, so I'm...

kind of celebrating that again. it's everything. It's scheduling. It's your mindset. And it's also truthfully loving yourself enough. Loving yourself enough. As women, we give love all the time. And we take the leftover scraps for self-care. So if you think about it, you're working, working, working, and you might have time to go get a manicure. well, I'll get it next week.

You're always last in the equation as a woman. Mothers do it. Daughters do it. We all do it. And self-advocacy oftentimes is perceived, either by ourselves or someone else, as selfishness. And then we feel selfish. But time management was one. Learning how to say no.

That's a difficult thing for women is learning to say, I'm not going be able to do that activity today, or I need to take a zero miles day. We're not accustomed to giving that gift to ourselves. And that's easy for me to say where I have cancer, and so the universe allows me those gifts. I get a lot of margin because of that. But if you're just a healthy woman doing her thing,

you don't necessarily get the validation that that's necessary for you. And so because of that, we don't take that time. We don't put ourselves first. And what I have learned is by putting yourself first and not just taking the leftover scraps of what you have left for yourself, by doing that, you actually become a bigger gift to others.

Michele (30:16.599)
You actually have so much more to give to your relationships, to yourself, to your jobs. You have so much more to give by pacing, scheduling, and saying yes to yourself and no to others when necessary. That is probably the biggest takeaway from all of this for me, because it's allowed me to keep that focus where it needs to be, not living in any kind of fear.

Like fear I might let somebody down. Fear I might get sick again. You see what I'm saying? I hope that makes sense because it makes sense to me.

Miriam Bulcher (30:54.376)
Yeah, no, it makes perfect sense. And I think that, you know, it's, it's one of those.

annoying reminders because doing that process of saying no to others or things or whatever it might be and saying yes to you is a very almost like contradictory feeling like in a lot of ways and you often don't see the return like right away when you are saying you know it's really tricky to to do the exercise over and over and over again when you're like shoot am i that FOMO that you know everything that you're mentioning is so and it can be a very visceral response right like

Thank

Michele (31:30.466)
Rest.

Miriam Bulcher (31:30.942)
Just outside pressure and outside expectation are so strong. They're so strong. And I mean, everyone under the sun, I think would agree that that is just, you know, it has like a chokehold on us as humans and social media just amplifies it a million times worse. So what you're saying about, you know, like you have to have these conversations with yourself over and over again, you have to take a look at your calendar over and over again, and you have to commit to you. And that is something that, I mean, I was very fortunate

Michele (31:43.213)
It

Miriam Bulcher (32:00.936)
my business, went through this process, but it's like, it is so hard. It is so hard to be, to choose you and your family and, and your own like little circle that you want to protect. Like it is so hard because there is, I feel like, and I'm not sure if you've experienced this, an element of loneliness because you are not participating in a lot of things that other people, know, whether it be the girls lunch, right? Like you mentioned, or just other, it could really be anything. And it's, it's very hard to remind yourself.

Michele (32:06.85)
It is. Yeah.

Michele (32:23.253)
Right. Yeah.

Miriam Bulcher (32:31.027)
that you are doing the right thing and that you are going to benefit from this. And it's extremely challenging, but worth it, absolutely.

Michele (32:33.237)
Yeah.

Michele (32:38.252)
It is. And you know, I've owned several businesses in my life. I've been very successful in everything that I've done. And as a business owner, you know that you're always working, right? You're always absorbing the stress, absorbing. You're a sponge, right? But because you're good at it, you keep doing it. And I explain this actually to my son, who's an airline pilot. I said to him, you have a very, very stressful job.

Right? You've got 300 souls on board that you're responsible for at 36,000 feet. That's a stressful job. And he's like, I'm so used to it. And I said to him, you know, just because you're really good at absorbing very high levels of stress, just because you're really good at it and you don't feel stressed out, doesn't mean you're not absorbing it. It's going in there. And your body will stop you. Your body will.

This what did, right? Your body will tell you. So why not work on that beforehand? And it is, you're right, there isn't an immediate reward for it. It's not like action-reaction. Because you can't see it necessarily. But it's there. It is there.

Miriam Bulcher (33:37.812)
Yeah, absolutely. Yes.

Miriam Bulcher (33:58.676)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it's like your body becomes a punching bag and you and a lot of people aren't fortunate to be able to catch it early on. And then you end up, you know, like hoping for the best and, know, but it's like, okay, well, and this is why, you know, I love this conversation because I'm really hoping that the women listening are like, okay, let's do it. Let's do an assessment, right? Like let's kind of sit down, give us give ourselves an intervention and, know, or just fight for yourself more, right? And be like, okay, am I am I saying yes enough to myself or do I need to be saying more?

Michele (34:06.765)
Mm-hmm.

Miriam Bulcher (34:30.344)
Do we need to be saying more? No, right to any to other things. And yeah, because it is like you said, the body is going to be the last. What do they call that? The last defense to, you know, all those things. And it's going to take the beating for it. You won't know until, you know, the very last symptom shows up and it's like, well, how much has happened? Right. Like now that the last symptom is showing up.

Michele (34:51.853)
Yeah. Right. That's very true. And I think that we do. Our bodies absorb everything and will manifest it in some kind of illness. Inflammation, anything. And one of the things that is helpful for me is to put a sense of humor to it. Like, I'm just over here collecting cancers till I learn my lesson. But there's

component in there too that I think women struggle with a lot which is guilt. I feel like women have this low-grade guilt always operating in the background feeling like you're letting somebody down, right? If you say no you automatically have this after-smack of low-grade guilt and that's a big one to overcome and I think for me

That for me, that was one of the bigger ones is the the guilt associated with someone needs you and you know, hey, can you come help me out quick with this? And it's a no. Right. That's hard because maybe that person has helped you many times. And today you're just not able to help them. But if you if you let people, they will respect that. We say yes, because we

We say, yes, I can help you because we're, we fear that we're going to let that person down, let's say. Well, you've just pre-lived the entire experience. But you'd be surprised if you say, gosh, I'm not going to be able to do that today. You'd be surprised that the person on the other end is simply just going to say, okay, well, let me call so and so if she, right, see if she can help me.

you'd be really surprised that that whole time you were feeling guilty and falling shy of someone's expectations, that never really existed. Right? You're just, you just are writing the story ahead of time. So that's, that's been one for me that, you know, that low grade guilt that's always operating. And I think a lot of women have that.

Miriam Bulcher (36:50.526)
Hmm.

Miriam Bulcher (36:54.548)
Yeah.

Miriam Bulcher (37:03.026)
Absolutely. love that you brought that up because it is absolutely it's like a hidden shadow that's like lurking right like over your shoulder and it and it does it eats up so much energy it adds to the stress you know your body does absorb it everything that you've mentioned and you know it's funny that you say that because I when I you know and I think I even type this in my email when I first reach out to you like you know if if you're not interested or it's not a good fit like no worries you know what I mean like I I feel obligated to give women permission to say no because I'm

Michele (37:09.193)
Yeah.

Michele (37:14.997)
Yes, it does.

Michele (37:29.66)
me.

Miriam Bulcher (37:32.882)
I'm like, it's really not a big deal. don't, you know, I don't want you to feel obligated. I don't want this to be like, you know, you have to say yes to something. And I find myself incorporating that into like almost every request that I make because I don't want to put that guilt and that pressure on somebody else because I'm like, if it's not meant to be, it's not meant to be. Like something else will work itself out, right? And because yeah, mean, you're 100 % on the mark with that whole, you know, and there's so many other elements too, you know.

Michele (37:54.111)
Right.

Miriam Bulcher (38:02.786)
like feeling a sense of shame because maybe you've said no a lot of times in a row and you know, like there are so many levels of navigating putting yourself first at the end of the day.

Michele (38:07.595)
Yeah.

Michele (38:13.255)
Very much so and one of the things that happens Which I don't it's low-grade. You know it's low-grade and sustained I think in a lot of women's lives, which is if you are motivated by the fear of letting somebody down and the guilt of Saying no if that's your motivation, and then you go do that thing anyway You've got a scene of resentment

And that resentment grows, but it's not really resentment against that other person. It's resentment against yourself because you dishonored yourself. So that's a really important piece that kind of plays into the most authentic selves that we have. And so it sort of has this cascading effect.

Miriam Bulcher (38:46.186)
Yep.

Michele (39:06.259)
If you're not pivoting from your most authentic self and being true to your own feelings, needs, framework, desires, if you don't do that, it doesn't go on someone else. It goes back to you. If I do this because you asked me to and I'm not in the mood and I'm just like, OK, it's only five minutes, those accumulate. And they accumulate in the form of little seeds of resentment. And they're generally not.

Miriam Bulcher (39:18.782)
Mm-hmm.

Miriam Bulcher (39:26.846)
you.

Michele (39:33.886)
You may think that they're directed toward the person demanding of you, but they're not. They're demanded, they're pointed right back to yourself.

Miriam Bulcher (39:41.664)
And then you sit there wondering like, well, how come nobody really pays any attention to me or like wants to, you know, help me or whatever. And then it's like, well, you got to, you got to do those things before somebody else can, you know, like you have to set the standard in order for the rest of the world to follow and the rest of your circle to follow. And it is, yeah, like you suffer the consequences of your own actions, which is a hard conversation to navigate. Like it's very hard to say, shoot.

Michele (39:54.42)
You too.

Michele (40:03.091)
You do. Especially with yourself, especially navigating that conversation with yourself. So those are the aspects that when you wake up looking at, is my life over? And if it is, how do I live my remaining days? How do I want to feel in my remaining days? Who do I want to love?

Miriam Bulcher (40:11.508)
Yes. Very uncomfortable.

Michele (40:31.882)
Who do I want to support? Who do I want in my circle? How do I want to spend my time exactly? And what is my bucket list? I can remember writing, will I live to finish this tube of toothpaste?

Miriam Bulcher (40:54.485)
Yeah.

Michele (40:55.581)
You know, but now that I know that my prognosis is really good, I wonder why wasn't I doing this before? Why wasn't I doing this before? Why wasn't I living to my full joy, my full potential, my most authentic unapologetically? Why wasn't I doing that? You know, and I got, I got hit over the head with a hammer.

Miriam Bulcher (41:05.802)
Mm-hmm.

Michele (41:22.825)
to wake me up and I wish there was a way that I could impart that information to other women and tell them, do you know what? Take the time and go do the thing. Go do the thing. Your best self is what everybody wants. So you navigate to your best self. Your way. Because you're

Miriam Bulcher (41:36.032)
Hmm.

Miriam Bulcher (41:47.422)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Michele (41:49.723)
You're effectively going to be loving the people around you more because of that. They don't want less of you. They want more of you. So give them more. That's how you do it.

Miriam Bulcher (42:02.079)
What you said also made me think of, are we being inherently, not inherently, passively resistant to more positive emotion? Because when you were saying, how am I going to choose to live out the rest of my days, there was a very clear abundance of positive emotion, love, joy, gratitude, all of those things. And it makes me question, why are we so resistant to that? Just in our day-to-day living. I think that life can very,

especially and I feel like our society has a tendency to veer more negative. it's like, you know, and again, I'm hoping to the one that are listening are like, okay, well, if anything, like this is the call to action, right? That you were saying like, I wish I would have known this, right? Like, let's let the positive emotions lead and let's let them guide us to like, okay, what are our desires? What are our, you know, yeah, like, let, mm-hmm.

Michele (42:45.544)
Yep.

Michele (42:56.008)
100%. Yep, 100%. Do it now. Do it now. There's no need to wait. There's no

Miriam Bulcher (43:02.228)
Yeah. Yeah, because at the end of the day, all, time isn't guaranteed. Ever.

Michele (43:08.826)
It is, it isn't. right? I beat two cancers and two heart attacks and shingles and a broken rib and all of these things. I beat all of these things. I could get hit by a bus tomorrow. Right? Don't wait. Don't wait for all of these things to, for that to be your reason. Let your reason be you. You're worth it.

You're worth it. And I think it's a uniquely female thing that women go through about self-worth. And they often see that as a reflection coming from outside forces. But when you can kind of flip that script and figure out what am I worth to myself? What is my life about? What is my legacy going to be about? It always comes back.

that you want to be more of you, not less of you. So if I, you know, if I could, if I could speak to a million women right now, I would say to them, do it now. Take baby steps, do it now. It could be as simple as every day you have 15 minutes where you sit alone in your special place and meditate or pray or just breathe or be.

quiet, whatever it is you need, you have to give that to yourself every day. And it starts like that and it builds from there. And when you become your most authentic self, you're not selfish. You're actually giving more of you to the world that needs you.

Miriam Bulcher (44:58.333)
Absolutely.

Michele (44:58.649)
And I don't know what that resistance is. I don't know, but I do think that that does exist, Miriam. I really do. There is that low-grade resistance to that. Because I think the perception is, that makes me selfish. But it doesn't. It really has the opposite effect.

Miriam Bulcher (45:12.522)
Yeah. Absolutely.

Miriam Bulcher (45:18.154)
Yep.

I totally agree. And I think that, you know, if anything, this is a reminder to all the women that are listening, like, just try it, if anything, like, just try it. Keep keep track, though, because it really is. I found when I started doing it, it was like, whoa. And I find keeping track of it really helped to be able to maintain that, especially when you start feeling like after the umpteenth time of somebody asking you if you want to go out and you have to say no again, you know, like having that track little notebook of like, OK, this is what I gained from all of these interactions.

Michele (45:20.327)
Yeah.

Michele (45:39.035)
Yes.

Michele (45:44.635)
Right.

Miriam Bulcher (45:49.732)
in which I fought for myself, right? It just, you can see how your life really transforms and how, especially to those that are closest to you.

Michele (45:55.458)
It does. And the people around you transform. The people around you, they're getting more of you because they're getting more of your authentic self. If you say, I can't do that, you'll find that the people who truly love you and want you in their life, they don't see that as a problem. They very quickly just pivot and go, well, how about we do this? No problem. No problem.

You know, my husband sends me a text every once in a while, not every day, but every once in a while, and it just says, what have you done for yourself today?

Miriam Bulcher (46:33.747)
I love that.

Michele (46:34.726)
Because he doesn't want to see me backslide into, because I take care of my mom and I do a lot. So he doesn't want to see me backslide into that other way of thinking. So he'll say, what have you done for yourself today? And that's my stop moment. And it could be something really simple, really simple like, I got that closet organized that I really wanted to do or you know what I'm saying? It's very important. And I would say to all women start now, even if you have to start small.

Miriam Bulcher (46:41.632)
Mm-hmm.

Michele (47:03.33)
it will have the exact opposite effect that you think it'll have or fear it will have. It has exact opposite effects.

Miriam Bulcher (47:09.024)
Hmm.

Yeah.

my gosh, incredible. Well, thank you so much for sharing. feel like that is incredible. And I'm so grateful for you and for your journey and for being able to share this because again, like you said, you know, to be able to have this kind of information earlier on. I advocate as many, you know, women of all ages to listen to that, you know, every episode because it's like I there's so much in here that I'm like, if I if I even had a little bit of that when I was like 21, my gosh, like how drastically would you know the time

Michele (47:39.63)
Right. Yeah.

Miriam Bulcher (47:42.602)
have changed and my life experience have changed and it would have just been so much richer. So I am so thankful for you being willing to share.

Michele (47:46.907)
Right.

thank you for having me. Anytime.

Miriam Bulcher (47:52.416)
Awesome, great. We can still chat. I'm just gonna stop the recording here.