EP30: The Hidden Impact of ADHD, Stress & Emotional Overload | A Deep Conversation with Thurmon Thomas

Have you ever felt emotionally exhausted, disconnected in relationships, or stuck in survival mode without understanding why?

In this episode of the Irene Cares Podcast, we sit down with wellness coach, speaker, and systemic wellness expert Thurmon Thomas for a powerful conversation about emotional resilience, ADHD in relationships, mental wellness, and the connection between mind, body, and human connection.

Thurmon shares insights on:
✔️ Why ADHD can deeply affect communication and relationships
✔️ How emotional hardship shapes resilience and growth
✔️ Natural approaches to improving mental wellness and emotional balance
✔️ The role stress and nervous system overload play in daily life
✔️ How physical, emotional, and relational health are all connected
✔️ Practical tools for creating healthier patterns and stronger relationships

This episode is for anyone who has struggled with emotional overwhelm, relationship tension, anxiety, burnout, or simply trying to better understand themselves and the people they love.

Connect with Thurmon Thomas:
🌐 https://www.thurmonthomas.com/
📸 Instagram: @thurmonthomas
📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thurmonthomas

At Irene Cares, we believe healing begins with honest conversations, education, and community. Through IreneGPT.ai, we’re creating tools designed to help people gain clarity in difficult communication, recognize unhealthy patterns, and feel more empowered in their personal journeys.

🎧 Watch now on YouTube or listen on your favorite podcast platform.
💜 Be sure to like, subscribe, comment, and share this episode with someone who may need encouragement, insight, or hope today.

#MentalWellness #ADHD #EmotionalHealth #Resilience #IreneCares

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:07

And then like we just rugby here was a little different. There's a it's interesting 'cause I've never experienced what I experience here with some men. Like men like to kinda talk down to you as a woman and kind of treat you like like kind of put you in your place. Which I haven't really in Southern California it's not like that.

SPEAKER_04 0:29

I don't know if it's a cultural thing up here, but I think that there can be a little unhealthy.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

But I don't know, I like it happens and I notice it, but I don't give it like too much attention because like that doesn't bother me. Like that's a you problem, not a me problem. But it's just interesting to be like, oh I'm from a a place where there's a lot of people and a lot of different kinds of people, but I never really experienced that person. I I know there's always a some issue in your wherever you are that's like for that area, I guess, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:08

Culturally are you from southern California southern Utah?

SPEAKER_04 1:14

Basically, I've been here since you were born in Utah and you lived here your whole life.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

It's really pretty in St. George, we love it. I miss the beach. Yeah, but that's okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:29

Yeah, how do you not miss the beach? There is water though, so that's that's a safe second. You can go to a beach, several beaches, there's just no waves.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

Yeah, or salty air, or yeah, the training. Like the crashing of the waves is so like therapeutic for me because we used to go to the beach. I'd take my kids every summer. There was a group of us moms, and we'd all take our kids. And that was like the only time we saw each other was during the summer because during the school year we were all just busy doing things and we all lived kind of all over the place. But in the summer we would all get together, the kids would play, and we would have mommy time, and it was great.

SPEAKER_04 2:06

I love that.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

Yeah, it was really awesome. And the beach for me is just where I go to just refresh, I guess. And ground myself and feel like I can tackle the next busy day. That's great.

SPEAKER_04 2:24

Yep, I would I do wish we were a little closer to the beach. I love some beach time.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

My youngest just moved back to California. He lives with my mother-in-law. Because my father-in-law passed in January, so he he moved back there and she's like, You don't have to pay rent if you help me with yard work. And so he's like, Okay, grandma, I got you.

SPEAKER_04 2:44

Because rent and so cow is not well gas.

SPEAKER_00 2:46

He drives the F1, he has a lifted F150, so he's like, 150 bucks.

SPEAKER_04 2:55

100 bucks for half.

SPEAKER_00 2:56

That's crazy. Yeah, it's 200 bucks to fill his tank. But he's doing construction and so and he works for one of my broth two of my brothers.

SPEAKER_04 3:05

Oh great. So he'll make decent money and without you know, paying rent, he should be in good shape.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

I just bought him groceries though, because he's got a truck payment, he pays his insurance. Like we make our kids pay their bills, obviously, when they get past 18, but he has these things and so until he like he really gets a lot of work. I think he'll be busier in the summer. Like once summer actually hits down there. Yeah. So right now he's like, it's okay, Mom, I just don't eat. And I'm like, it's not okay.

SPEAKER_04 3:34

That's not okay. You gotta eat, dude.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

Like, here, here's your Walmart order, go pick it up.

SPEAKER_04 3:38

Yeah, good good luck getting by without food.

SPEAKER_00 3:41

I mean he'll eat, but he's he's like, I gotta pay for gas mom. Like, I know. Like it's it's adult life. Do you love it? He's like, no.

SPEAKER_04 3:53

Is he able to start making some friends out there?

SPEAKER_00 3:55

Yeah, he has all his old friends. He lives in the same area. Yeah, we've only lived here for six years, so yeah. I mean, granted, like this is he had a lot of friends here and too here too, but he's like, Mom, girls in Utah are weird. I want to go back to all right, go back, see what you can do. And he makes friends really easily because he's just my social butterfly. He just likes to be around people. He's like me. Like he likes to talk to people and be around people. And he's a good kid, so I don't have to worry about him getting into trouble. He's just very aware of what could happen if he puts himself in certain situations. So he's just to leave. It's not if he doesn't if he feels uncomfortable, he'll just have to leave. Makes me feel a little more at ease that he's that responsible at 19.

SPEAKER_04 5:00

My oldest turns tw turned 22 today. And she's actually in Croatia right now doing a study abroad. Um for BYU. It's awesome. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 5:15

She's having fun.

SPEAKER_04 5:16

She yeah, she's like, it's already, she's only been there a week now, and it's already, she's like, it's exceeded my expectations. It's a five-week thing.

SPEAKER_00 5:23

Yeah. Was she nervous to head out there like all by herself or does she have friends?

SPEAKER_04 5:27

There's a group that went, um, professors and 12 students. They're gonna go study. Actually, one of the places they're gonna go study is a is a community where the local government went in and murdered all the men, including the boys, to root out what they thought was a cultural threat religious-wise. So my daughter's team, this the researchers are gonna go and just kind of try to better understand how that's impacted the development and the community structure. There's literally no men.

SPEAKER_00 6:06

Like, I can't I can't even imagine because I'm one of those people that knows that we all have our roles and men do the infrastructure type roles.

SPEAKER_01 6:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:15

And women can, but it's not the same. Yeah, and it's gonna be a slower process and it's gonna be like there's a really cool balance, right?

SPEAKER_04 6:23

When it works together, like it's it's a beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 6:25

I mean, I just look at my home, like my first husband, loser. I'm gonna say that because it really is, he's still living the same life he lived like 20 something years, 30 years ago almost when we were together. And like I look at my husband and he's like not afraid to just pick up the slack. When I'm working a lot, yeah, because he he does this with us, he's about our whole tool. But when I'm working a lot and doing like podcasting and networking and all the other things that I do, I come home and dinner's made and our room is vacuumed, and he jumps in and does it. He just does what needs to be done because I'm doing other things, and it's just like in our home, it's taught our kids like this is a beautiful dance that we do. And sometimes it'll be mom home doing a lot of those things, and sometimes it will be dad home doing a lot of those things, but it's not like a his and her role, it's like a collective, like we work together so that we can all be successful.

SPEAKER_04 7:16

Do what needs to be done together. Yeah, love that. Great.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

Yeah, so I don't like this this whole feminism thing that's not even feminism to me, but and the toxic masculinity that people talk about, it's just all made up stuff to cause this divide and to cause people to not procreate, which is really sad. Super sad. And it's gonna be a problem, and I don't think people realize how big of a problem it could be when we mess everything up in people's heads, like saying a baby isn't alive, and those kinds of things that really are they hurt my soul, honestly. We have water, diet code, Dr. Pepper Zero.

SPEAKER_04 7:56

I wouldn't probably just some water would be great for me just to make sure I don't dry out.

SPEAKER_02 8:02

Can you grab two? Thank you, Skylar. So what about you? Are you almost ready, sir? I think we're ready. Sure. Oh, let me turn this down. It gives me some extra heat. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:15

I mean, we put these curtains up and they're thermal, so it helped a lot, but it gets warm in here. All right. We're live.

SPEAKER_02 9:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

Welcome to the Irene Cares podcast. Today we have with us Thurman Thomas, and he's a therapist. And well, I'll let him introduce himself and tell you all the things. So welcome, Thurman.

SPEAKER_04 9:38

Thank you. So glad to be here. Appreciate you having me.

SPEAKER_00 9:40

Oh, it's our pleasure.

SPEAKER_04 9:42

Yeah. So tell me what you want to know.

SPEAKER_00 9:44

So just start with a little bit of your background, like what you do, and then you can talk about your family, and then maybe talk about some of your experiences that kind of led you into what you do, because I know that that always is plays a role. Our experiences kind of help us get into what we really love to do. And it seems like you love your job.

SPEAKER_04 10:00

I do. I love what I do. I'm very passionate about the work I'm doing. Um, it's taken some twists and turns. And I'm but I'm really grateful where I'm at today.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

Well, that's where the growth happens, right?

SPEAKER_04 10:12

The twists and turns. Absolutely. Uh, so for when I was in high school, I'm gonna start way back there.

SPEAKER_00 10:18

Sure, sure.

SPEAKER_04 10:18

When I was in high school, I took my first class in psychology and just absolutely geeked out over it. I just loved that high school intro to psychology class just to understand to learn more about why people do what they do, why they think the way they think, why they act the way they act. So fascinating to me. So honestly, from that time on, I always had a desire to be in the field of psychology somehow. Um, and that was the plan. So after I graduated high school, I did a couple of years of school here at Dixie. Okay. That's Utah Tech. Utah Tech. Yeah, that was it was Dixie all the way through for me. So I'm gonna call it that. Um that was the plan. Then I ended up serving a mission, and after serving a mission for my church, we I I came home and got married, got back into school, and had kind of lost sight of that plan to be in the field of psychology. And I also have a really strong entrepreneurial spirit, so I love to create and through some business opportunities with my family, um, started a couple of businesses and and didn't finish beyond the two-year associate's degree at Dixie. Uh, just became a business person. Ended up having kids. I have six kids now and a son-in-law, so seven, I'm claiming him too.

SPEAKER_03 11:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 11:46

Um, after a few different businesses that were going well, and the most most successful there at the end, before I totally shifted gears in my career, was uh a digital signage marketing company. We actually had distribution all over the United States, and it was growing great, and it was an exciting business model, and everything everything was clicking. At this time where I kind of shifted gear and gears and pivoted. I had four kids, married, living the dream, nice house and on a cul-de-sac in a quiet neighborhood. Great job, a business that was growing, um, involvement with with family and the local community, but I just didn't feel really purposeful. Right. To go to bed at night and just think, yeah, something just doesn't feel right. It just doesn't feel like um fulfilling what I what I want to do.

SPEAKER_00 12:46

Yeah, like something wasn't there that you needed to feel.

SPEAKER_04 12:51

Yeah, you check the boxes, yeah. Right. So life was great, but there was certain internal values and purposes that I knew weren't in alignment. And it's not like I was doing anything weird or or wrong.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:07

Um, but I didn't feel like I was like you felt there was more for you. Something was missing.

SPEAKER_00 13:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:12

So um did a lot of soul searching with my then wife and myself and a lot of research and kind of rekindled this idea. Hey, what about psychology and therapy? And started researching schools and opportunities there. At the time, I I was 33, four kids, all the stuff. Um, only had an associate's degree and knew that I had a big road ahead of me if I was gonna get into that field. So, but because it felt right, jumped in and finished a bachelor's degree in psychology there at Dixie State, and then went on to get a master's degree in marriage and family therapy. And for the last, well, for about eight full years, that's what I did full-time. I sold the marketing company just just enough to kind of get out from underneath it and and move forward with the new vision. In the process of going back to school, we had two more kids, and life was busy and crazy and wonderful. And it, but there was energy in it because there was a vision of what was next and what was to come. So for about eight years then, I was full-time in uh mental health therapy, marriage and family therapy. Um helped grow a large counseling company and served as a as a clinical director and loved what I did and went through a tough, challenging period of time where my marriage fell apart. Um a lot of surprising, unexpected things happened. Uh I kind of lost myself.

SPEAKER_00 14:55

And explain that a little bit more. What do you mean you lost yourself? If if you're okay with that.

SPEAKER_04 15:02

Yeah, I think there's certain periods of time, like like here's what I would say. Marriage is hard for everybody, except for kind of the top 20%. And and it's not that it isn't hard for them too, they just they just thrive a little better. The rest of us, it can be a little tough. And there were there were some there were some years there at the end of the marriage where it just got sideways through behaviors and experiences, and I won't share details just out of respect. Um and unfortunately, like I got in such a low place. I did some stuff that I was just like, gosh dang it. You know, I just can't I look back and I think, man, how did it get here? Luckily, after and through the divorce and just kind of healing from those challenges, um, I ended up with my kids pretty much full-time because of the circumstances that were that were part of our divorce. Right. And boy, just realizing that, hey dude, you gotta figure this out.

SPEAKER_00 16:19

So I actually pretty much all you now. So yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:22

Gotta figure this, gotta figure this out. You got these beautiful children that you love and are responsible for, and that really woke me up and grounded me back to who I am and what my purpose is. Yeah, I ended up actually withdrawing from the clinical mental health world because of some of the circumstances surrounding the divorce and and my own kind of growth journey? Yeah, my own growth journey, my pivot.

SPEAKER_03 16:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:55

Um, and focused my attention clinically on what I call systemic wellness coaching. There's a couple of things that make that work for me. Number one is I can combine more of the biological health and wellness stuff with the mental well-being, relational stuff that I'd been doing for so many years. It's all totally connected. And I needed freedom in my schedule, I needed freedom in my time. I essentially took a full year off. And luckily, we had a home that we could sell and and a couple of the things that made that financially possible. I could just totally focus on rebuilding my model, my vision moving forward, and mostly focus on the kids and their health and healing.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

And so everybody takes the hit when a family gets broken apart, when parents divorce, everybody kind of takes the hit, and now it's a new normal. You all have to figure out how to navigate, right?

SPEAKER_04 17:53

So tough on everybody in the system. Everybody involved, there's gonna be some struggle and suffering and learning, and like you said, growth opportunities, but it can hit hard and it affects every personality in little different ways, and navigating all of that can be a challenge. And I'm just really grateful that I had the opportunity to connect with my kids the way that I did through that. It was the greatest blessing of the whole process.

SPEAKER_00 18:20

Well, being able to take that time off, I I feel like probably is the the most important thing you could have done in that situation. I feel incredibly grateful. Everybody's getting uprooted. And if you had to leave every single day and they're left there to like try to navigate their feelings and their emotions and their new situation, you know, like all of that had to be so hard for like I always think of kids because you know, they don't ask for some of the stuff that they have to go through. They don't ask for to have to like navigate certain things, but how beautiful that you could take that time to like really just be like, let's all just take a breath and figure this new normal out for ourselves.

SPEAKER_04 18:58

Yeah, it was a it was a true miracle for me, and I think for them too. Yeah. And given the circumstances, I feel like we've done a pretty good job of getting through this and and connecting, and I'm really, really excited about where we're at now.

SPEAKER_00 19:14

That's so beautiful.

SPEAKER_04 19:14

And I love what I do. I'm back into this wellness world full-time now. I I lecture and I'm a uh education director at a place called Movara Fitness Resort out in Ivans.

SPEAKER_03 19:27

Yeah, I've heard of that.

SPEAKER_04 19:28

And then I also have a private practice called Thomas Wellness where I meet with individuals and families and relationships and just kind of get to the core root of things that maybe are in the way of them succeeding in their wellness journey in any of those categories that I mentioned, biology, psychology, or the social aspect of life. Yeah, I love what I do. I love helping people find the stuff under the surface that maybe we're not always aware of. Yeah. And then have really good evidence-based things that I can coach them forward in to help them find a greater level of joy and wellness.

SPEAKER_00 20:05

So would you say let's go back to is it systemic wellness? Yeah. What's the definition of systemic wellness?

SPEAKER_04 20:13

To define systemic wellness, the the basic idea here is that wellness isn't, you mentioned this already, wellness isn't just one thing. Right. A lot of times practitioners, uh health professionals become kind of myopic and they believe so much in the thing that they do. Whatever it is, or that they're good at, whatever they're good at, or whatever they're passionate about. They think, well, if everybody would just do this, then they would be well. And I thought I felt myself getting in kind of trapped into that category as well, as doing psychotherapy for years. You think, okay, if if I can help people with their mental health, everything else will improve. Now that may or may not be true, depending on what else is going on. And we might not even know that the mental health stuff is actually being caused by fill in the blanks. So systemic wellness takes an approach that says every person has these three core pillars, and there's more than that if you break them out, but to simplify three core pillars, they have a biology that needs to be tended to. What's going on inside of the body, the autonomic functioning, the immune system, the meta, the metabolic system, the cardiovascular, pulmonary, all the things that make us live, right? Nutrition, physical fitness, sleep, uh, genetic components, disease and disorder. So we got to look at that biology. The next category would be psychology. How does somebody process mentally their experience in life? Um, how do they manage and process emotions? What are their coping skills? What's their personality temperament, genetic temperament type? Um, who are They and how do they see and view the world? That's a huge component of wellness. Mindset's huge.

SPEAKER_03 22:07

Huge.

SPEAKER_04 22:07

And then there's this third component that I think really ties into well to what you're doing here. There's this social component that says, How do I relate? What are my relationships like? Family, friends, community, culture, intimacy, spirituality. That's a massive component of wellness. Because if those things are out of balance, good luck sleeping, good luck eating right, good luck processing emotions, right?

SPEAKER_00 22:35

It's hard to figure out anything else when that's disrupted for me too. Like I fully agree with that one because you just never know like how I think it's interesting as I've gotten older. Like I mentioned, I'm almost 50 years old. And so as you get older, you start to see things so differently. And when you start to realize, like, it's not just one area where we can be out of alignment, it can be all of these, but they're all connected, they're all intertwined in some way. Like we do things that give us something in return. Like the things we do repeatedly, we're getting something from that. That's why we keep doing that.

SPEAKER_01 23:09

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 23:10

So if you're doing something that's not really good for you, but you keep doing it, you are getting some benefit from it, like in your mind, right? But maybe other areas of your life are suffering because you're just you're just focused on that one thing. And I think that like addressing all of it, gosh, just in my own personal life, when I started to like make working out daily a like a true habit where if I don't do it, I I feel out of alignment. I have ADHD. Well, self-diagnosed, but I'm pretty sure that I have ADHD.

SPEAKER_03 23:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:43

And I can't think uh, I can't put my thoughts together in a really, really cohesive way if I don't get that morning workout in. I I notice a difference the rest of the day.

SPEAKER_03 23:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:55

Like say I had early morning stuff and I couldn't get there and I have to work out later in the day, it throws me off. It messes me up.

SPEAKER_04 24:02

Yeah. And I need that chemistry boost that you get from that exercise to put that those ADHD symptoms that are amazing to put them to good use.

SPEAKER_00 24:11

Oh yeah. And when you're a business owner, it's I feel like it's a superpower that I have this because I can totally I can do so much and my mind can process so much in such a short amount of time that I feel I do feel like it's a superpower. I've never medicated for it because I just that never felt right for me. Yeah. But I feel like the gym is like a medication for it for me.

SPEAKER_04 24:31

It absolutely is. What that does to the brain chemistry and it unlocks those ADHD superpowers, it's really fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 24:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:39

And that's kind of the beauty of what I why I love what I do is when somebody comes to me and says, hey, life just doesn't feel like it's firing the way it ought to. And I start with a really curious, geeky approach that's very assessment heavy at the beginning. We go through each one of those categories, biology, psychology, social. We say, okay, let's just look for patterns and cycles that make sense, where we can maybe see some red flags, and maybe we can see some areas of opportunity where we can unlock your true potential. And through that heavy assessment period, which could include things like personality testing, blood work, hormone levels, glucose testing, um, even body fat content and muscle mass, and then the social aspects and relational stuff and the mindset stuff, like it's just this comprehensive approach to say these are the opportunities for us. And sometimes we find things that have been totally overlooked, somebody's entire life.

SPEAKER_00 25:42

Yeah. I mean, even just like so I've noticed that as I've put myself in rooms with more high-achieving people, there's a lot more people there that have ADHD. It's very I can relate, we relate so much to a lot more people now because I'm finally finding the people that like think like I do and do things because of the same reasons that I do the things that I do.

SPEAKER_04 26:07

You get it.

SPEAKER_00 26:07

And it's like, oh my gosh, my whole life I've been looking for a room of people that get me. And I feel so seen when I'm in these spaces because the beliefs that they talk about, like belief in self and belief in dreams, and like you don't have to be on this 15-year timeline, you can shrink it down to five years. It's just all a matter of belief and what you're willing to do for it. And so when I'm in rooms like that, like it just invigorates me. And I feel so excited because I'm like, okay, I'm not the only one that feels like this. I'm not the only one that thinks like this. Like, there's just there's people out there that that get it, yeah, and that get it the way that I get it. And like that's empowering. It's so empowering because I don't I don't ever feel like I'm competing with anybody. I just feel like we're collaborating together to create something beautiful. Like, give me some of your knowledge, I'll give you what I know, and then see what we can do with that. Because that just that's what excites me is the growth that I get to experience because I'm willing to push myself past that comfort zone.

SPEAKER_04 27:04

I love the idea that that when you can connect and collaborate, you realize the tremendous opportunities that come with that type of brain.

SPEAKER_03 27:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 27:13

When unfortunately, a lot of times you go through elementary and then you get in, you feel pretty normal, and you get into like middle school, high school, and because of the way the model is built, I'm I'm getting clients, you know, that are in their 30s and 40s, and they're like, Yeah, I just kind of have felt like I haven't been smart my whole life. I've always struggled with communication, and I couldn't stay focused in class, and there's all these things, and they they develop this view of self that's broken, unintelligent, somehow flawed. In reality, right, there's this amazing superpower that just hasn't been appropriate um appropriately unlocked because we haven't looked at it through the right lens. Yeah, and when that shift can take place and you start to connect the dots and realize like, I can really fly with this. Yeah, that's beautiful. Yeah, I love that.

SPEAKER_00 28:06

I love how you put that because it really, it really is one of those things that gosh, I've experienced some of those thoughts for myself, and sometimes they still creep in. Yeah, but I I have enough evidence now that I know it's not true. Yeah, it's just it's just crazy how your mind will be like, but remember you believe this, and I'm like, not anymore. But it will still try to creep back in. I like I I attribute that to Satan trying to stop me from doing what I'm doing because I feel like Didi and I both feel like we are doing the Lord's work with what we're doing. We know we pray before every podcast, we pray before every meeting because we know that what we're doing is a very important work, and we know our hearts for people, we know our love for others, and we just want to see people pull themselves out and and know like you're not what happened to you, you're so much greater, and you can actually use that as a as a trampoline to get you where you want to be. Like you that can be a superpower.

SPEAKER_01 29:05

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 29:06

It's a sad thing, it's a hard thing, it's uh it can be very traumatic. But if if you look at it the proper way, you know, change the way that you see it, you can use that to be like, oh, this isn't such a negative thing that happened to me. Yeah, it hurt, it was hard, but I can actually use this as a positive and take myself to a better place.

SPEAKER_04 29:26

Reminds me of a quote that um my brother shared with me. Yesterday would have been his birthday. He passed away um tragically in a car accident, my oldest brother. And he went through a pretty tough rocky divorce there towards the end of his life. And he sent me a text one day. In the text, he I reached out to him to check in, hey, how you doing? And he very quickly turned it back around and said, But how are you doing? I'm proud of you. And at the end of this text, it said, God does not use those whom he does not also deeply wound.

SPEAKER_02 30:11

Through those difficult.

SPEAKER_01 30:16

Fall to your knees, excruciating painful experiences.

SPEAKER_04 30:23

You gain a sense of understanding and empathy that you couldn't attain without the challenges, and true emotional intelligence, true ownership, and accountability says how do I use these wounds to do good work, to do the Lord's work and to help others. And I'm impressed that you're doing this.

SPEAKER_02 30:45

I have to have that perspective because of I I I agree wholeheartedly. I love what you just said, actually.

SPEAKER_00 30:54

Um I truly believe that I am where I am, that I had to experience what I had to experience because the Lord knows that my heart is so big that I'm gonna use it to help other people. He knows that I'm not, it's not in vain. It's not just for me. Yeah, it's because my love and my care for other people is so great. He knew that even though it felt like I was falling apart, he knew that I wouldn't have the strength to rebuild. I was raised by wonderful parents that always taught us the power of your thoughts and the power of your belief. My dad was a big, huge dreamer and believer, and he taught us dream big. Believe in yourself, and you can do whatever you want. Took me a while to like really understand that for myself.

SPEAKER_03 31:39

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 31:40

But now I feel unstoppable because of that deep core belief I have in myself, and the deep core belief I have in like fulfilling a purpose. And like, I truly feel like this is my purpose. It's like my kids were raised, and then Heavenly Father was like, here you go. It's gonna be a little rough, but you'll figure it.

SPEAKER_03 32:00

It's time.

SPEAKER_00 32:01

But he knew I just needed something. I was sitting at home and I was telling my husband, I'm like, I don't know what to do anymore. I'm not raising kids, I'm not homeschooling kids, I'm not like pouring into my children every single day. They're moving out. Yeah, I need something. And it just so happened that like he's like, I think you and Dee Dee would make a great like duo in this company. Like, Didi, Didi had this idea, she invited me in, we're partners, and we need you to help her. And I was like, Okay, like yeah, I'll help her out. And then it came around and she couldn't do the podcast, so is all me. So I had to start the podcast, and like, so there were things that like I just jumped in with both feet because I'm like, I have to. I don't know what I'm doing, but I'll figure it out because I always do, and and I think that when we start to see ourselves the way I say, the way that the Lord sees us, everything changes. Like I felt this huge shift when I started to just stop listening to the lies that showed up all the time, like you're not good enough. Well, who are you? You don't know enough, you don't, all of those things. And then my husband, because he's my wise old Al, he's like, but you've been through this and you did that, and you experienced this, and he's like, and you always made a change after each of those because you saw, like, I don't want to keep doing the same thing over and over again and being hurt over and over again. So what can I do to like take another step up the ladder to get closer to who I want to believe, who be, who I believe I can be, and to really find my purpose and self. And it's just it's so exciting to be uh an instrument in the Lord's hands to create something that I know is gonna bless so many people's lives. And with that being our purpose, I feel like we're unstoppable.

SPEAKER_04 33:47

Yeah, how can you go wrong? Yeah, and I think all of us battle those internal negative voices that want to hold us back and really right still the at yeah, absolutely. It doesn't it doesn't go away, you just learn how to push through it. The adversary started the slide at the very beginning. Hide from God, and he wants us to believe that we're unworthy of a good life, and if he can convince us that we're not enough, then we stop progressing. Yes, we play it small. The true definition of damning is stopping progress, right? And that's how he damns us as he plants those lies in our head that we're very happy to perpetuate. We he maybe whispers that to us, but we keep it going because guess what? The anxious part of our brain doesn't want us to do hard things, it wants us to keep it safe and small and stay in our little private, comfortable corner of the world.

SPEAKER_00 34:47

Comfort, that's the key word right there.

SPEAKER_04 34:49

That's right, because it sees discomfort as a threat to survival. The instinct of the natural man brain is to say, don't do the hard things because it might not work and that will hurt. And pain is our enemy.

SPEAKER_00 35:02

All lies, though.

SPEAKER_04 35:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:04

All lies, because the greatest growth I've ever experienced was through the darkest times of my life.

SPEAKER_04 35:11

Because you took ownership. Because instead of being a victim, you became an owner and said, now what? How do I use these experiences to move forward? How do I fail forward in these experiences? And this whole idea that that the anxious brain tries to keep us safe, keep us alive. In reality, that part of our brain and the lies of the adversary prevent life. They give us the very opposite thing that they think that it's that it's giving us.

SPEAKER_00 35:43

Is it like unfortunately, I don't suffer like extremely with anxiety. I'm really good at flipping anxiety around most of the time. I think that's because I don't know if I was born with this or if it was nurtured into me, but um, I I just always try to see like what what's the positive in this. Even in the in the worst, the worst times, I'm like, okay, what's the lesson? I'll learn it. I want to learn it fast.

SPEAKER_04 36:09

Can I hurry and learn this so that this trial can end, please?

SPEAKER_00 36:12

Because I I know I know I have to learn something. So sometimes it's hard to have patience when when it does have to take a while. Like right now, I'm experiencing something that's very hard. I can only control myself in this situation. I can't control anything else. And so even though I want to hurry through the lesson, I know that I need more time. And I've just decided I'm just gonna keep working on becoming a better version of myself every single day because that's all I can do, that's the only thing I can control. And in the end, I I know it's all gonna work out. It's just when you're walking it, when you're in the middle of it, when you're in the thick of it, it feels so heavy and hard. And you want to like try to control every aspect that's not you, and you can't, and and that's hard, that's hard for me as a doer. It's very hard for me to like not try to fix it myself, yeah. Because all I can fix is myself, I can't fix other people, I can't fix other situations, all I can fix is me. So just leaning into the growth part is kind of like my lifeline right now. There's some hard stuff, and when it comes up, it's it shakes me. And then sometimes that adversary language just shows up in my head telling me that it's my fault because I didn't do this, this, and this. But I know that I was everything I needed to be, and I did do everything I needed to do, and now I just get to continue that so that I can continue my growth so that when things turn around, I'm in a really good place, and I'm and I'm have this experience and this understanding and this growth that I experience so that I can just handle whatever comes next after that. And that's I mean, it's hard sometimes. It's really hard sometimes. Um, but I just I fully believe in just controlling what you control, and all that is is yourself.

SPEAKER_04 38:18

Yeah, it's incredibly challenging to be in a situation where it's so heavy and hard, yeah, and you realize all the bits and pieces that are contributing to the pain and the hardship, and it's natural to want to fix it so the pain can go away.

SPEAKER_00 38:35

Because I know how I know how I can fix it all. Yeah. If everyone would just listen to me. That's right. But I also know that that's taking away their growth, their agency, their you know, their experiences in all of this. Like I can't, I can't fix all of that because I'm taking away that growth for them.

SPEAKER_04 38:55

You can't rob them of their growth and regardless, it'd drive you crazy. So learning how to kind of surrender to this fact that you can only control, you can only control yourself. Yeah. How you show up, how you adjust and adapt and move forward. I'm sorry for the hardness. But I think I think you get it, like it's through the hardness that we really become.

SPEAKER_00 39:20

I can't help but think like think of God just going, it's okay. I got this is gonna be so good. Just wait. It's gonna be so good, just wait.

unknown 39:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:31

He's like, I know it's hard, but I'm here. Yeah, and just just keep doing what you're doing, and it's gonna, I promise you, it's gonna be beautiful. And I just because I'm a firm believer too, and like what you what you envision and what you focus on is what you see and what comes back to you. Absolutely. And so I'm putting all the good vibes out there, I'm putting all the prayers out there, I'm putting all the good energy out there, and I'm working on myself. Yeah, because all I can do is that. Yeah, and we are like I'm never complete. I never feel like I ever will be complete. I think that it's like one of those things where I get to work on myself every single day, and I every single day have an opportunity to grow because I would never get to the point where I'm fully grown. Right. I don't, it's not, it's not a there's no finish line.

SPEAKER_04 40:20

Yeah, yeah. The more you the more you learn, the more you realize there's a lot left to learn.

SPEAKER_00 40:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 40:26

And life continues to give us these amazing opportunities to learn and grow in new ways if you take ownership. I recently gave a talk to a a big group of single adults, 36 and older. It was about emotional resilience. And I broke it down into five steps, and the very first step that I talked about was this idea of ownership. We have to take ownership of our experience, what we do with these experiences that we're having, and instead of waiting around for other things, other people, other external forces to change for our own happiness, we instead say, What can I do to find peace and joy and maybe some happiness along the way too? Yeah, and that ownership is powerful. If we stay in this victim idea that, you know, everything's against me, the world's against me. I'm I'm I'm in this place where I've externalized all my power, given it up to other things, and you'll never be happy in that because you're letting everyone else decide for you. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 41:32

I don't I don't want I've met people that I don't want them to decide my happiness because they're not happy.

SPEAKER_04 41:38

Sorry, but you don't get to decide how I feel to you.

SPEAKER_00 41:41

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 41:42

What you do impacts how I feel, but what I do next is on me, and I choose to move through it and find peace.

SPEAKER_00 41:49

Yeah, because I it just goes back to that thing, because a lot of times when when people are getting divorced from somebody who's been horrible to them, they they feel victimized already, but they kind of lean into that a little bit. Because for some reason, maybe they're getting something from it. Again, my brain doesn't really work like that. I've had my own struggles with that in the past, but like at this point in time, I don't let anything hijack my happiness because my peace and happiness once you've lived a chaotic life, you just want to hold on to that peace and happiness, and nothing anybody says or does. Like maybe for a moment it might, I might hurt get my feelings hurt. I might feel a certain way about something somebody says to me or towards me. Yeah. But I'm real easy, really easily able to just kind of switch it up and just be like, well, that's their opinion. That's not really truth. So it's okay for you to still continue the way that you you believe yourself to be. That doesn't have to be a part of you. Absolutely. What they said or did.

SPEAKER_04 42:49

I think that's an important point to bring up is that I think it would be naive to say that the the things other people do don't affect us. That just isn't true. That's naive.

SPEAKER_00 42:59

No matter how how healed you are.

SPEAKER_04 43:02

Yeah, yeah. And I I think it it sets us up for failure, disappointment in self when we say, Well, gosh, why is that affecting me so much? Because you're a human being. Yeah. Because at our core, the deepest desire we have is connection. Our greatest fear is isolation and disconnection. So when there's other people in our lives that in that that are that are intentionally or not harming us, it is going to create difficult emotions.

SPEAKER_01 43:33

The victim says, Well, it's their fault.

SPEAKER_04 43:38

It's always going to be this way. How do I move forward with this going on in my life? An owner says, That hurt. But I'm not going to stay here in this hurt. I'm going to take ownership of what I can change and control and move forward through this. But never in that do we say it's not okay. Like you're not. Allowed to let people hurt you because they're gonna and we're gonna hurt ourselves to our own mistakes and missteps. And so this process of forgiveness, let's let that go and move forward. Not to say it was okay what happened, to say I'm not gonna carry that baggage anymore. Let go of the judgment and the resentment because that's not serving me. What happened wasn't okay. Whether I did it or they did it, forgiveness says, I need to move forward now. Yeah. Let go, take ownership of what I can do next to find peace and happiness. And I think you've touched on something that's the highest level of this self-efficacy journey is how do I serve other people with the experiences that I've had.

SPEAKER_00 44:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:46

That's powerful.

SPEAKER_00 44:48

Yeah, because I've also learned from talking to a lot of different mostly women will open up to me, but when they find out what I do, I get to hear a little bit of their story. And there's a lot of people that have been hurt by others. Yeah. To a deep level.

SPEAKER_01 45:06

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 45:06

The statistics are staggering.

SPEAKER_00 45:08

And you always feel isolated when it's you. Like you don't realize that there's other people out there that have experienced what you're experiencing. Especially if it's like you're just learning about what you're going through, what you're experiencing. You don't I mean, maybe you might tell a friend or your mom or a sister. Maybe. And then if you do, they don't quite understand because they think, well, it's just words, and you're like, but when I hear the same thing about myself, day after day after day after day after day, about how horrible I am, or I'm not good enough, or this or that, for whatever reason, I I'm like, okay, I I I guess I gotta take that because this is the person that's supposed to love me, so they must be telling me the truth.

SPEAKER_04 45:46

It programs your brain, it really does.

SPEAKER_00 45:48

And then your nervous system gets hijacked, and then you feel like a crazy person sometimes. And I don't think that people who haven't experienced it or or maybe somebody who hasn't like really looked into it as a therapist or somebody like that, like it's hard to understand the deep level that psychological abuse has on a person's whole whole person mind, body, soul, spirit even. And I was fortunate to have a mother that that was very wise. And when I left she said, You need to forgive him. I was like, No, he doesn't deserve forgiveness. She's like, You're not doing it for him.

unknown 46:33

Right.

SPEAKER_00 46:34

Because he doesn't know you're mad still. He doesn't know you're hurt, he doesn't know you cry at night, he doesn't and he probably doesn't care. She's like, he probably doesn't care. So you're giving him a power that you can quickly and easily take back. And I sat with that for a little while, and it took me some processing and some understanding and thinking, and then I got to the point where I could forgive him. My whole life changed after that.

SPEAKER_01 47:04

Freedom.

SPEAKER_00 47:04

Yeah. Because she was right. I was giving him a power he didn't even know he had, but I was giving it to him. The past him, the the whatever I was giving it to him, and once I could do that, that was the first step. And then for me the next step was learning to love myself. I dated a couple other people. Things would come up, and I was like, What am I doing?

unknown 47:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:31

So then I decided. Love you.

SPEAKER_01 47:41

Yeah, start there.

SPEAKER_00 47:42

And I and I just went really deep inside and I just really started. Actually, when I met my husband, I said, Look, buddy, you're sweet and all, but I'm not dating anybody. Uh I'm working on me.

unknown 47:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:53

So we could be cool, we can be friends, let's hang out. But that's as far as I want to take it. Well, he got bold and asked me on a date, and then I was like, Oh gosh, I'm gonna marry this guy, and that kind of freaked me out because I never felt that way on a first date.

SPEAKER_03 48:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:09

But for some reason, just that first date, and just really getting a peek into who he was, and he wasn't afraid to be a little emotional about some experiences that we had in common that like really connected us. And I was like, Huh, okay, well, I love me, and this feels like a compliment to me, so maybe this'll work. And now, 26 years later, here we are, and it and it worked, it worked, but it was that intuition that you screamed, he's the one. And like you said, marriage is hard, and it hasn't always been rainbows and butterflies and perfect, yeah. But we've both been willing to work and work on ourselves to be better for us and each other, and it's just like the older we get, the more beautiful everything gets. And like we're like, our kids are leaving, but we have each other, at least we like each other.

SPEAKER_04 49:02

We still know and like each other. This is good, yeah, yeah. I love that that you had a tender, bold mom who could come in and challenge your belief about what forgiveness meant.

SPEAKER_03 49:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 49:15

And that you took the time to be curious about that and lean into it.

SPEAKER_03 49:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 49:20

And then you realize that, hey, if I'm gonna attract the right kind of person, I need to kind of love myself.

SPEAKER_03 49:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 49:27

Because nobody's gonna love you at a level as deep as you can love yourself. It's just we'll kind of put up with about as much abuse as we're willing to give ourselves. And once we realize, hey, the more I love myself, the more I'm gonna attract other people that will reciprocate that love. Yeah. Powerful. I think forgiveness is hard for a lot of people because maybe some cultural misstep in the way that it's taught. You remember as a little kid, like you maybe you're fighting with a sibling, and mom finds out, and it's like, you need to go apologize, and then they go apologize. Sorry, whether they mean it or not, it's irrelevant. It's just something I have to do, say sorry. And then the other person's taught to say, It's okay.

SPEAKER_02 50:13

I forgive you.

SPEAKER_01 50:14

Yeah, I forgive you, it's okay. No, it isn't. It's not okay. When somebody mistreats you, that isn't okay.

SPEAKER_04 50:25

When somebody's manipulative and abusive and toxic in a relationship that causes psychological, physical, spiritual, all the damage that can be created by an abusive person. Forgiveness doesn't mean that we have to say that's okay because it is not okay. Sometimes we hesitate to forgive because we maybe carry this belief that we have to just be like okay with it. I think the other reason that people have a hard time with forgiveness is because there's a belief that if I forgive, I have to continue to allow you in my life. I have to accept you as you are and keep you in my life because otherwise I haven't truly forgiven you. That isn't true. Forgiveness doesn't mean you have to continue in toxic relationships. One of my greatest heroes, Jeffrey R. Holland, talked about that. He said, That's not what it means. It doesn't mean you have to continue in abusive relationships. And so when we realize what forgiveness actually is, a gift to self, a release of the pain and resentment and judgment and all the yucky stuff that's holding us back, whether it was ourself or others who caused the pain, forgiveness is a beautiful thing that totally frees us to move forward unhinged from that past pain.

SPEAKER_01 51:49

Powerful.

SPEAKER_00 51:50

Yeah, and it's it's one of those things that I'll never stop telling, especially our audience, is you're worth it. You're worth you forgiving someone, you're worth that. Figure out what forgiveness looks like for you.

unknown 52:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:06

Because we all kind of experience it in a different way. But like for me, it was just it was this big like forgiveness isn't for him, it is for me. It was this big under like it was an aha moment for me when my mom said it that way. To if you forgive, that frees you. Because right now you're being held back by this anger and resentment and whatever it looks like towards this person, where when you can just be free of all of that, you get to truly experience joy and happiness again because you're not burdened by this thing in the back of your mind that you have to remember that you hate this person, you don't want you like you don't want good for them, and you don't forgive them and you're mad at them, or whatever all the words are. It's just for me, it's so liberating. It is to just be free from that and know that look, I can live a beautiful life and never have to think about what happened to me again, really.

SPEAKER_04 53:00

I I think the a third maybe component that sometimes we forget and misunderstand about forgiveness is that we think that it maybe it's a once and done thing. Well, I forgave them, so I just need to be okay now. Sometimes forgiveness is a daily thing, and sometimes those pains creep back in and those old feelings of resentment re-enter our bodies and minds. To wake up every day saying, I'm gonna choose to forgive today. There's a really cool book called The Traveler's Gift by Andy Andrews. I mentioned my brother who passed away. He had every one of his students read it. And in that book, it teaches a principle. It's a historical fiction where this guy meets Abraham Lincoln in the past, and Abraham Lincoln teaches him the process of forgiveness. It's really cool. Highly recommend the book. It says every day I wake up with a forgiving spirit. Because as those pains creep back in, those resentments, the anger, the sadness, as it creeps back in to remember that you don't have to hold on to that. This idea that I've forgiven and I'm done with it, I think also sets itself up for failure to say, okay, it's creeping back in. I need to let that go again, I need to forgive again.

SPEAKER_03 54:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 54:14

And maybe for most of us, maybe this is just me, but I don't think so. The hardest one to forgive is ourselves.

SPEAKER_00 54:23

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 54:24

Because we know better, right?

SPEAKER_00 54:26

We're so critical of ourselves because we know what we know. And if we're not following all the things that we know, because there's a for me, there's a difference between knowing and then fully understanding and grasping the whole concept.

unknown 54:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:38

So I might know something, but I don't know it. Yeah. That makes sense. Like it's it's like I'm still learning the bits and pieces of the nuances of that thing sometimes. And so it's the thing that's so exciting to me is that I've learned from myself that you can get to a point where things will come up and things will happen, and and you can see it from the other perspective, the other person's side.

unknown 55:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:05

So somebody else might say or do something, and honestly, my heart will hurt sometimes for them. Like, oh man, they must be so hurt that they would think that that was a good thing to say to somebody or that was a good thing to do to somebody. Because you only do those kind of things when you hurt.

SPEAKER_03 55:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:19

Because sometimes, like, it's the whole hurt people, hurt people thing. Yeah. But like I've found myself being empathetic towards people who might be mean or angry or you know it's coming from something. Because the pain that they have. Because I've I I haven't always been perfect. I used to say and do things that that I kind of wish I could have taken back now. But I know where I was when I was doing those things.

unknown 55:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:45

And not that I'm perfect and healed, but I'm I'm still a work in progress, but I I can I can take that that step back and really think about like, I wonder why that person, I wonder what that person has experienced that they thought that that was a good thing to say.

SPEAKER_02 56:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:04

And that feels very different from the resentment and anger that I used to hold to compassion and empathy for somebody's state that would do certain things to somebody.

SPEAKER_04 56:17

I think I think there may be something to that whole saying, love your enemies.

SPEAKER_03 56:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 56:23

And understand that all behavior makes sense. There's reason they're acting this way, that they're wounded in some way that's causing them to show up in this fight mechanism to protect themselves. And most often it's not intentional.

SPEAKER_00 56:37

Oh.

SPEAKER_04 56:37

It's reactionary.

SPEAKER_00 56:38

Yeah. And it it feels like they've experienced something to a level where they can't let go of this hurt that they project because it's not safe. And somewhere inside, it's not safe for them to be kind. It's not safe for them to be vulnerable. It's not safe. So somewhere inside of it. It's not safe. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 56:58

Accept all the things that would help them move past it.

SPEAKER_03 57:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 57:01

There's something in the way. In the work, you mentioned something that kind of triggered some thought for me. That it wasn't that you didn't know. There's just something lacking, maybe some wisdom in the knowledge. Yeah. But I found in the work that I do, right? I can stand up and give two or three lectures a week, and I'm saying things that I know. The majority of the people in the audience that I'm speaking to, they already know. They've heard this before. And the clients that come to my office that have for the last nine years. It isn't a lack of knowledge usually that prevents people from growth and change. There's something else in the way, typically. Sometimes it's biology, sometimes it's just not the right chemistry to give your brain the capacity to follow through on the knowledge. Sometimes it's a sleep issue. Sometimes it's a relational wound that hasn't been healed. That's that's hard to convince your brain to push through because it thinks it's protecting you. There's all these reasons why, even though we have the knowledge, it's difficult for us to move forward sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 58:04

It's almost like knowledge and understanding. And it's like that link between the two that sometimes is missing. Like the understanding isn't fully there. Like you know, we don't fully understand. Because once you know and understand, I think that's like almost the full circle.

SPEAKER_04 58:21

Absolutely. There's an analogy I give. And you mentioned before we kind of started recording how how fitness has become this passion for you, this thing that's helped you just succeed and fly and heal in so many ways.

SPEAKER_00 58:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 58:35

Um, I'm gonna can I tie something together that kind of just came out about that?

SPEAKER_00 58:39

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 58:40

Understand how these two things are connected knowledge and physical wellness. Here's the analogy. Are you a race car person? You ever watch like NASCAR?

SPEAKER_00 58:50

Yeah, my father-in-law loved NASCAR, so we'd watch a lot when we were in there.

SPEAKER_04 58:54

Can you name like one of the best race car drivers?

SPEAKER_00 58:56

Dale Earnhardt Jr.

SPEAKER_04 58:58

Okay, we'll go with Dale Earnhardt Jr. It is it safe to say that he had tremendous knowledge of how to drive that car. Yeah, he had the knowledge, he had the he had all the knowledge and experience and talent, capacity to get that car around the track faster than just about everybody on earth.

SPEAKER_03 59:20

Right.

SPEAKER_04 59:21

He had all the capacity, he knew it.

SPEAKER_01 59:24

What if he had bad fuel in the car?

SPEAKER_04 59:29

I don't care how much you know.

SPEAKER_02 59:31

Right.

SPEAKER_04 59:31

If your body isn't well, and the body means the brain too, if the chemistry, the fuel that's inside of us isn't good fuel or is insufficient, it doesn't matter how much you know or how much talent you have or ability or willpower, you can't drive a car with no fuel in it. I've loved that component of understanding that, hey, like I know you get it. You're so hard on yourself because even though you understand it, you can't, you're having a hard time following through with this knowledge. Let's make sure you got the right fuel in the tank. And for some people, just tweaking a few things, whether it's exercise, nutrition, perhaps some supplementation to give their body the right fuel, it's like all of a sudden, I not just know now, I actually can do this.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:20

It's so cool.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:22

And oftentimes overlooked. I would do therapy with people for years and years, and and they could they could give the same knowledge to somebody else. They knew it. Something was holding them back. And as soon as we figured out the fuel, and I had my own experience with that.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:40

Like a floodgate.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:41

A floodgate, like they became empowered, like the gym empowers you to put you the ADHD symptoms to work as a superpower. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:50

Helps them all connect and go.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:54

My own my own experience with that was I got to a place where I was just incredibly unmotivated in life. Like I felt flat, lethargic, confused, irritable. I didn't feel well. That's not my personality. My personality is like, hey, let's go win the day. Woo! Maybe obnoxious sometimes, but but it I just didn't feel that. I knew something was off. And I knew how to do the right things to feel better. But I couldn't get myself to do it. The knowledge wasn't enough. I started to go to doctors, and the first doctor said, I think it's depression. Let's give you some antidepressants. And I said, I don't think that's it. Can you do some blood work for me? Did some blood work. Everything looks normal. What about these? These numbers, like I get it, they're in the normal range, but they seem really low. Could that possibly be affecting me? As long as you're in the normal range, you're fine. So I found another doctor. And I found another doctor. And finally, the third doctor was able to do some testing to find that I had an autoimmune disorder. It was attacking my thyroid. And even though I was in these normal ranges, they were not functional for me.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:11

And see that even though I had the knowledge, I didn't have the right fuel in the tank. Once I got the right fuel, I was back, baby. Like I was back. I was myself again. And I started to create and function and and excel in the things that I did. I think sometimes we are hard on ourselves for reasons that are truly structural and fixable.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:35

And I love that part of what I do.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:37

Yeah. I that that's fascinating to me too, because I I I fully believe I'm one of those people that I try everything before I will take a prescription. I want to look at all the other avenues first, just because I know that God has created so much for us to use on this earth that will only benefit us and not harm us. And I think sometimes pharmaceuticals can be harmful. Like it's almost like you have to weigh it out. Like, is it worth the risk of me taking this prescription to get this tiny benefit? Is there another way? That's the way my brain works. I always want to seek out every natural way first. Absolutely. I love that.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:18

And go ahead. Sometimes the bonfire of symptoms is so big.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:24

That that heavier, heavier hitting stuff might be necessary.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:29

Just to kind of get it to the manageable place.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:31

You may need a fire hose for a minute. One thing I love about the pharmaceutical world, and there's a lot of things we could say that I don't love.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:38

Don't get me wrong. Because sometimes I think, you know, it just creates this this this spider web of other confounding issues. But I love that they can do genetic testing now and kind of narrow things down to say, hey, we have a pretty good idea based on your genetic coding.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:57

The best fit for you. So anybody that's considering medication, I would first say, hey, let's I I recommend you go get the genetic testing done.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:06

Because sometimes that fire is so big, it's like the medicine can get us to a place where we can use the natural garden hoses of life to manage and maintain the tough symptoms. But for most of us, most of us, there are natural solutions to our challenges. For most of us, it can be found in the foods we eat and the way we move our bodies. The fire's a little bigger. Sometimes we need a little bit more oomph. Maybe we need some supplementation. Maybe we need some other uh treatment options. Yeah. But finding in nature what we need is really powerful.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:43

I love that. Yeah, because I I feel more connected when I'm using something natural because I just feel like I can't like that intuition that I just rely so heavily on will tell me. Like, I just check in and go, is this right? Does this feel right? Do I feel better taking what whatever supplement or like I like to use essential oils or whatever it might be that's natural? Like, is this really like doing what's best for me right now? Like a couple years ago, I had really low iron, so I was tired all the time. And I'm like, why am I so tired? I'm working out, I'm eating good. Like, it's that same thing you were just talking about. Doing all the stuff. Something was broken, something was missing. Yeah. And I started taking beef organ supplements for my iron levels. And it like within a couple of months, I felt like I'm like, people think that when you when you're in your 40s, you're so tired. I'm like, I don't feel tired anymore. I feel all this energy, like it like made everything just like a bright light for me. I didn't realize this component was I think it had been missing for a while. I think my iron had been low for a while. Oh, it had been because I was just running on caffeine sometimes or like just things that I knew weren't good for me, but I was just trying to like make it through the day. That four o'clock slump, that like afternoon crash. And I like. Once I figured out that component, boom, boom.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:04

You were back, baby.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:06

I was so back.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:07

Love it.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:08

But it was just, it was just, I had to like go and and get this blood work done. And then they said you have one step down the the hallway to diab pre-diabetes or something. And I like it's the same thing for you. Like they have these parameters, but I don't, I just don't think there's one size fits all. The genetic thing is a huge thing. I have a friend that does genetic testing. Um Riptide Helix is her company, and she's here in St. George. And she she we were just kind of talking about it one day, and the things that she shared with me, I was like, oh my gosh, I need to do that. That's not that's the next thing on my list because I really want to understand how everything's working. And as I age, I want to just optimize as much as I can because I want to be a grandma on the floor with my grandkids that I can get back up by myself. Yeah, and I want to run around with them and I want to go and do things. I don't want my physical body that I didn't take care of to hold me back. I don't want my kids to have to like take care of me because I didn't take care of myself. There's a lot of reasons why I do that, but the biggest one is I love feeling so good and I love having energy.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:16

And I get to control that now. It's the it's this weird thing where the more you work out, the more energy you have, which counterintuitive, right? People don't quite understand that, but as long as you're fueling properly and you're getting those good workouts in, it literally like I can go all day. I don't like I'm good. I don't need caffeine in the afternoon anymore. I just go. You can go, and it just feels so amazing.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:40

So amazing. We live in a really wonderful time where there's so much knowledge and information literally in our at our fingertips. Literally at our fingertips, and taking ownership and saying, Hey, what knowledge bank is out there that can help me be curious about my own stuff? Yeah, you discover, oh my goodness, like I'm just low in iron.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:06

That was it.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:07

Easy.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:08

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:08

That one shift.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:09

And I had already been working out. I think you're doing all these other things. Three years ago, I did I started the 75 hard challenge, mostly because COVID happened and I was sitting at a desk all day and I gained some weight. And I was just like, I just got winded walking up the stairs. I was an athlete in high school. I've always been pretty like active, and I just like it was just like an eye-opener. And then I was like, okay, I'm gonna go for a run. I went to go for a run, and I couldn't even make it half a block before I was like like dying. It just like so shocking to me that I gotten that far into like my like unhealthy body. And so I read the book, and a year later I started. This is why I made an excuse. Oh, this is coming up. I don't want to miss out on that. This is coming up, I don't want it to interrupt that. There's never a good time.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:59

We're really good at creatively avoiding the hard stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:03

The stuff I knew I needed to do, but there was that like something was missing a whole year later. Nothing had improved and a year had gone by. Yeah. And on a Wednesday, I was like, I'm starting today. Not waiting for Monday. Today's the day. I'm starting today.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:17

Right now.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:18

And then I went 105 days straight. Awesome. Two workouts a day, a gallon of water a day, reading a book that helped me every single day. Like I just went through the list every single day, and I did it every single day. And it wasn't easy. And there were days I cried and my husband would motivate me. And there were days where I'd cry and my husband would motivate me. But he's like, Look, you're this far. Just keep going. You got this. Like, so amazing to have such a wonderful cheerleader every day that sees the work that I'm doing, knows what my goal is, and just pushes me. So the most like like I never felt like he was telling me I was fat. I never, it was never that. It was just like you made this commitment to yourself. You need to follow it. Like, come on, you got this. And it's so beautiful to have somebody encourage you. And it's so awesome to teach yourself what you're capable of. That's what I learned. That's the biggest lesson I learned is I can do hard things. That's right. I can do really hard things for a really long time, too. Through my birthday, I think I hit my anniversary even. But it was just like, it's okay. It's okay that I'm doing these hard things with life happening in the background because that's what it's gonna take. And ever since then, I showed myself. I actually learned, I had dabbled in weightlifting like growing up, but I learned from that instance. I love lifting weights. Like it just makes it like it's my time. I put my headphones on. I don't care who else is around at the gym because I'm just locked in and I'm just doing this for me. And it's something now that I it's a way that I show up to serve myself every morning that in turn gives me the clarity that I need to do the job that I do, the work that I do.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:54

Oh, the benefits of strength training are infinite.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:58

And as you get older, you hear like, oh, if you lift heavy weights, you won't get brittle bones. And I'm like, awesome. What else?

SPEAKER_03 1:11:05

What else?

SPEAKER_00 1:11:06

Lifting heavy weights helps your brain. I got that one. I get that one every day. What else? Like, I just love learning about all the other benefits that I don't even know that are there for that. It's something that I won't ever stop talking about because I think it's highly underrated for people, especially as you heal too. Yeah, to be able to give yourself the gift of a promise you kept to yourself, you made and kept to yourself every single day. Because it's just daily, it's one thing a day that you do for you, and you never regret going to the gym on the day you didn't want to go.

unknown 1:11:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:40

The trick is going when you don't feel like it.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:44

And guess what? Nobody feels like it right when you wake up in the morning. That's normal because you want to keep doing what you've been doing. Yeah. What am I motivated to do? Stay in bed. But if you have purpose in it, you have those reasons, your internal kind of motivators that say, I need the energy, I want the energy, I want to feel good, I want to show up for my people better. So I'm gonna go to the gym even though I don't feel like it. But you're right, like nobody ever gets there and be like, Well, this was a waste. You know, you feel great, then your motivation level increases and you get all the benefits. It's powerful. And going back to that idea of control, it's something you can control. No matter how chaotic life is, no matter how sideways and wonky the world could be, your personal or the whole world, I can go do that. Yeah. I can I can do that. Yeah, I'm in charge of that. And I'm in charge of what I do when I'm there, how I show up.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:42

And my family knows too. They know, okay, mom's gonna work out before she does anything. And I've I've this past weekend I went to this event and I learned I got to hear some awesome people speak on business and stuff, and I learned some really there's just a couple things that were really glaring to me. Um, I learned a lot, but these there's a few things. One of them was if you decide to do something, don't try to redecide when it's time to do. Like if you decide I'm gonna get up at 6 30 in the morning now, because I've been getting up later, like 7 38, going to the gym, but it pushes my day back.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:14

So I decided I need to get up earlier because that will serve me. I'll have a more time. I won't feel as rushed when I'm going to do the podcast. I'll have time to go to the gym, take a shower, get ready, like all those things, and not feel like rushed because I've I don't like feeling rushed. And so um I decided I'm getting up at 6 30. Then Monday comes, and and I don't set an alarm, but I naturally wake up every day about 6 15 to 6 45. So I was giving myself that grace because for me, it I want my body to just wake up because that's time to wake up. Sure. And so I woke up on time, I let myself lay in bed for five minutes, and then I got up. So I decided, and then in the moment when I was at my low, and I could have decided not to, I was like, no, it's time to do, it's not time to decide. We already did the decide, now it's time to do. And so, just like for me, just having that in my mind, like I decided, so now it's time to do that.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:07

I don't need to make this decision again. I'm just gonna do it.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:10

Do yeah, and it it kind of I just love these little mini shifts that you get when you get to listen to really inspiring people say things to you. I don't know if you know who Trevor Cali is, he's a local guy, he he owns um real business owners. That's the event I went to. Okay, but he's on a mission to to break the Guinness Book of World Records for consecutive half marathons. I have heard of him.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:34

Yes, I've heard about that.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:35

He's awesome. I had him on my podcast um a couple months ago, and but he's the one that said that. And I'm like, this is the guy that gets up at 4 a.m. every day and run and runs 13 and a half miles and has for 400 and something days up to this point, right? Crazy. The record's been broken twice since he started. Wow, and so he he's like he was here, and then somebody pushed the finish line. And he said at first it kind of messed him up in his head because he was on the he was counting the days, and then he realized, no, I want to be the record, whatever it looks like by the time I get there. I just gotta keep going. I'm trying to prove to myself. He's like, I like friction in my life, so I create my own friction so that I can feel like I'm accomplishing something every single day. Growth and the resistance, right? My friction's the gym, so I don't need to run 13 months. Yeah. But but it's inspirational to see somebody who pushes themselves so hard, but then has a beautiful perspective on it. He's like, I'm doing this for me, I'm trying to make myself better every single day, and this is the thing right now. And he says now he just messages the next person that beats it, he messages and says, Thanks for beating the last record, but I'm about to beat you. And he keeps going, you know. That's just like so cool, kind of where he is in his head. But I it's just I love being around people like that that inspire you to just think outside the box, kind of think bigger, believe bigger in your ability.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:55

Sometimes real growth happens when we decide to change the tribe. Surround ourselves with people that we want to be more like that will motivate and inspire us, and we can do the same for them. Oh, yeah. Sometimes that means setting hard boundaries with members of the old tribe. Yeah, and that can be really challenging.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:13

But you're right, it's so empowering to connect with the right people to help you in your journey and to help them and theirs. Yeah, so powerful.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:22

I mean, people who are high achievers are are the kind of people I love listening to because I like learning from your mistakes. What did you what did you do wrong? I don't want to do it. Yeah, I don't really want to do it. I want to learn from your mistakes. I used to have to like do it myself. So for some reason, I thought, oh, I'll just figure this out myself.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:39

And then one of those that's hey, the stove is hot, honey. But is it really?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:44

I know it's hot, but I just want to feel it.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:46

Let's see.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:48

But it it's it's so beautiful that we get to learn from each other. I think community is so important. But your community has to be the right community, like you just said, like you have to find the right people to surround yourself with. I've I've made a goal too since starting this business. I want to put myself in rooms where I feel uplifted and I can uplift other people because they're willing, we're, you know, we're willing to learn from each other. That's where I feel like the most growth happened is when I put myself around people who are doing better than me. Because like you wouldn't take fitness advice from somebody who weighs 300 pounds. So why would you take business advice from someone who is scraping by? Yeah, right, right. And so we have a mentor, and that's the first thing he said is don't take advice from someone who you'd never change places with.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:35

Great. I love that.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:36

Or who's doing worse than you are.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:39

Maybe as a way for us to kind of tie a few things together. Um we started a conversation about the the deep, heavy emotions in life. And we kind of jumped around a few wonderful places from then to now with this idea of community. One thing that I've learned that I really hold passionately in my in my core schema, my belief system is that it's in the hard things, in the difficult emotions, the challenging, gut-wrenching, fall to your knees moments that provide us with the greatest opportunities in life to connect with other people. You think back in your life, you say, okay, when did I feel the deepest connections with other people? When did I really lockstep and get in harmony with other people? It's always around big emotions.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:36

Always. Yeah. The hard ones and the good ones. Emotions. We're taught maybe as kids to kind of like shove them away, suppress or dismiss them. In reality, the emotions create the connection that binds us together as brothers and sisters, as family, as community. Surrounding yourself with people who can connect in those hard and wonderful emotions. Yeah. Is how we find a good healthy tribe. I lo I love it. I love the idea of in the hard we become and we connect and we learn. Yeah. Now what?

SPEAKER_00 1:19:15

Yeah. And and I I love vulnerable people because I get to see their true self. And I just love people. I really truly love people. I think I get that from my father. Sure. My dad was the kind of man that could talk to anybody. And if somebody was having a hard time, he always chose to try and lift him.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:36

I love that. And what a legacy.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:40

He was an amazing man. He he passed away about seven years ago. And I think about him every day and I feel him near me. I know he's proud of me because I'm doing something that he would have done. Because he just wanted to make sure everybody was always okay. He was this big man, but he was just had this like big teddy bear heart. And he just loved people so deeply. I mean, there were times where you know he would leave to go help somebody because he knew they needed him at that moment, in whatever it was. I mean, when he was very financially successful, he would help other people financially because he's like, I don't I don't necessarily need it back. I just know that they need it and I have it.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:22

I love that you recognize that who he is and that his legacy gets to live on through you and everybody else that he impacted.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:30

All of his 13 children.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:32

13 children. Thank you so much for the opportunity to come and yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:37

Well, thank you so much for being here. This experience this. This has been wonderful. And I I just I really appreciate your perspective on things. I think it's just really awesome for us to share with people like this could be a thought you have, this could be a belief that you have, because it starts with that before we can ever make a change. It starts with us first believing that it's possible before it ever can come to fruition in our life. And I love that. And I I I again I'm so grateful that you came here and it it's been a wonderful conversation. And just keep doing what you do because I know that you're blessing so many people's lives because of your passion. I see how much you care, and I think that's wonderful.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:21

Same to you.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:22

Thank you.

unknown 1:21:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:23

And we're just so grateful that Thomas could come here today and or Thurman Thomas. Thurman Thomas.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:30

I've got one of those kind of two last name things going. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:33

Flip it back and forth, right? Um here at Irene Cares, we want you to feel supported and loved. And give us a follow so that you can be up to date when our community opens up. We're creating a beautiful community where you can feel loved and supported on your healing journey. And thank you again for tuning in. God bless.