Mental Health, Trauma & Healing With Disability

Mental health does not exist in a separate room from disability, trauma, chronic illness, or intimacy. In this episode of Rewired and Desired, Trina Ricketts and Nicole Richards have an honest conversation about anxiety, depression, PTSD, emotional triggers, healing tools, and what it takes to rebuild yourself when life has cracked you wide open.

Nicole shares parts of her story she has never spoken publicly about before, including childhood trauma, abuse, hospitalization, and the diagnosis she has struggled to talk about. Together, Trina and Nicole explore how mental health can be shaped by disability, chronic stress, family history, medical trauma, and the stories we keep telling ourselves.

This episode also dives into what has actually helped them cope: self-awareness, repetitive self-talk, affirmations, boundaries, structure, spiritual tools, micro goals, and learning how to respond differently when life gets hard.

This is not a conversation built on perfection or toxic positivity. It is about responsibility, compassion, inner work, and the possibility of healing, even when you still have hard days.

If you live with an ostomy, chronic illness, disability, trauma history, or simply feel overwhelmed by the weight of life, this conversation is for you.

📌 Connect With Us
Trina Ricketts – The Intimate Ostomate
Website: intimateostomate.com
Instagram:   / intimateostomate 
Youtube:    / @intimateostomate 
Books, guides, coaching & resources
Coaching • Books / Guides • Resources • Intimacy Advocacy

Nicole Richards - Ostomy Innovations
Website: ostomyinnovations222.com
Instagram:   / ostomyinnovations 
Youtube:    / @ostomyinnovations222 
Coaching • Wellness • Disability advocacy • Ostomy Clothing

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Welcome to Rewired and Desired Podcast. I am your co-host, Trina Ricketts, and I'm here with my co-host, Nicole Richards. And today we are going to be talking about mental health. So I'm going to let Nicole just take it away.

SPEAKER_03 0:28

Well, this is one of those topics, mental health, and not just mental health with an ostomy, right? Because we talk about, you know, we like to be inclusive to like kind of like all disabilities, right? Because I think a lot of our stuff, you know, crosses paths. Um, when you're going through something physically, mental health just seems to inevitably come around full circle. And then I think also, you know, mental health triggers the physical health. So they trigger each other. And it's hard because when you have a chronic illness, you have a chronic condition that's always acting up, you know, and even when things are in control and are in remission and feel in control, you know, we still have these heightened sensitivities to our emotions or to outside experiences or to internal experiences that we haven't fixed or dealt with yet, um, which is everybody, right? We're not perfect, we're not Buddha or Jesus. We don't walk around totally like enlightened beings as much as we want to be. Um, but you know, we're humans. We're hit, you know, we're souls here on earth having this temporary human experience, which is this, you know, earth school, if you like to think of it that way. Um, and we're just we're constantly being bombarded with things, and uh it's like it's inevitable that we're gonna come around to feeling some sort of way.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

Yeah, suffering is the name of the game.

SPEAKER_03 2:04

Yeah, yes, yes, yes. Buddha talks about that, the suffering, right? And you know, we posted something, I guess. No, we didn't post it. Somebody posted in the Awesome E Body Positive group. Um, I forget what the actual question was, but does any who else suffers with anxiety or depression? The comments were, I mean, like, I haven't seen anything like it in a while. Um, the comments were really intense. Oh, with you know, 95% of the people saying that they are suffering. And um while some of them uh from my from like reading as much as I could and going through and scrolling and and doing uh once over on it, um I noticed that there is a lot of people suffering just from the ostomy, like having the ostomy and the anxiety, the fear around leaks and you know, those struggles and and the health struggles, but then also um just like already being diagnosed with past um you know, depression, anxiety, bipolar, whatever it is, right? So then you add that, and then now we have even more, right? We have even more situation, yeah, struggle, right? So I felt like this is a really good topic. Um, and I'm glad we're talking about it because um I come from a long line of mental health um in my family. Um it's pretty, pretty deep and pretty um, yeah, just really deep. And I kind of wanted to just wanted to open up about it because um hmm. Uh it's um it might it's gonna be a little hard, but I'm going to tell something that I've never told anybody here like out loud. Um what a diagnosis that I have. And um, and I wanna preface before I even get into it that I don't believe, I don't like the the labels. I think China and I have been very clear that we were people who don't, you know, we don't like the stigma and the boxes, and we like to kind of work outside the boxes and and we also know our place, but we also um feel that we have to share what we have to share with people because we we not that we're huge influencers or trying to be by any means, right, but we are people who have been given something, a stage, a a platform, uh, or the ability and the desire to help other people. And and we both um feel really strongly about that. And so I just kind of wanted to give you my quick background on like, you know, where I come from because I hope that other people can like relate, right? And so this isn't fully ostomy related, um, but it just it will give you that background because, like I said, there's so many people struggling from their past, but then there's people just like you know, struggling thinking about getting an ostomy and like thinking they couldn't live this like life anymore. And that just brings up, and you thought that? I was there. Did you see? I never I didn't think that, but I also stuffed it down, you know, because like you, like you, Trina, you talked about like in the last episode, how you know, being a mom and being a single mom and going through all these disease and illness, and and I was there too. And and so um I stuffed it down when I got an ostomy. I was like, boom, boom, boom, you know, I'm going, I'm going.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

But you have to as a mother, I think. Otherwise, you can't mother, you can't mother your children unless you be really freaking strong.

SPEAKER_03 6:16

Right. But then it surfaces. So that's and that's my point. Like, um we we talk about these things or we don't, right? And so we talk about these things and we let them out, we start opening up, or we stuff them down when they come out later somehow. And they come out in different ways. They come out in anger and frustration and sadness and sickness and illness and all these things. And and so um I think that you know, people creating that awareness and starting to talk about this and bringing it up and more in conversations is so important. So um, so it's it's twofold. It's it's the past, you know, that you've already had, or it's, you know, your ostomy or your disability that adds to it or starts it because of the illness or or whatever. So I kind of just wanted to um, I kind of just wanted to, again, go going back, um, talk about my life growing up in in just very briefly. But so um I have some notes and I just I want to preface that it's it's not I'm not reading a script. I just I wanna I wanna be able to be clear. I have a problem with being clear, and part of mine is anxiety, right? I'm gonna talk about that. So um growing up for me, uh physical abuse, mental abuse was like there, right? My dad was bipolar, um, he was anxious, he was severely depressed. Um, my mom was anxious too, but she didn't let it be known, right? Like as a woman, you know, we're so busy, right, that we don't, we just we act like it doesn't matter because we're so busy taking care of everybody else. And my mom had to take care of my dad, you know. Um, but during points of my childhood, even though, you know, things would get so bad that, you know, we've had to leave the home. Um, we had to stay in hotels. Um, at one point during Christmas, we had to stay in a woman's shelter. Um, I don't think I stayed the whole time. I actually had a boyfriend at the time. You know, I was like 15. And so then I end up, this is the man I ended up having a child with. See, because it was that push. Like I was looking for something outside of me. So um early motherhood, right? Which I would never regret. My son's like so amazing. But um, but it was hard, you know, like most of our Christmases were spent, like literally the Christmas tree never stayed up, right? The Christmas tree always ended up on the ground with the bulbs thrown all around, right? Because, you know, my dad would get angry, and and that was that. Um, and so it there were times, there were also times where like my dad literally laid in the room for days at a time with a gun to his head. And so that was my childhood. And I saw the constant, you know, it was that constant fight or flight for me. Um, so then, you know, moving into my adult life, it was like my anxiety obviously is so intense, like I I it's better. I mean, I know I have my things, I have things under control, but it still shows up because like I'm super passionate. And I think that sometimes it's an intensity that looks very anxiety, and it is, it's triggered by anxiety, but it's also led me to be super passionate and um emotional and a little over the top sometimes. But I just it's it's just made me who I am in a sense, right? Like you can fix so much, but part of it just becomes who we are, you know, some of that anxiety and that depression or the childhood traumas and the adult childhood, you know, adult trauma. So then getting even into more in my adult life, like I ended up finding someone like my father. Um, and one point, um, this man did try to um, and I'm gonna use language for YouTube face, YouTube uh worthy or YouTube acceptable. And I'm gonna call it unaliving me. He tried to unalive me essentially.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

Um before this, didn't your dad unalive himself?

SPEAKER_03 10:44

He did, yeah. Yeah. And my dad, and that was um that was be so it was first it was this incident, and then it was um a couple years later that my dad did uh successfully unalive himself. So, so not only did you know you look at we look at our parents and we think, um, we're never gonna be like our parents, right? And in and to a point, I made sure that didn't happen. And one of those things was I will never there will, and this is where my passion and my anxiety comes in. No one will touch my kids. Like you will never touch my kids. Now I can get you know, there was a there's a couple times I tried to spank the kids when they were little, and then I realized I'm like, what am I doing? That doesn't do anything, and that's stupid. Why would I do that? My dad did that to us, but he did it, you know, bad. Like, I mean, there were times, I mean, there was a time even like we couldn't send my little brother to school because my dad had beat the crap out of him and he had bruises and all over and welds and stuff, but you know, that's not acceptable. And I would never um know one from that because I grew up in that environment, like no one was touching my kids. Um, but I still and in in in my ex did not touch my kids, but he because he wasn't a woman, he was a woman abuser, not a man, not a child abuser, right? There's a difference.

SPEAKER_00 12:21

There is. Well, some do both, and some only do one or the other.

SPEAKER_03 12:25

Exactly, exactly. And he and he wasn't. So I will give him that, but there was still there was still fit, there was still mental abuse there, you know, and my children still had to suffer at that, uh, with that, right? So we we do do, we try to do better as parents, and I know Trina and I have had that conversation, but there's still the mental health, right? And so um I obviously came down with anxiety, clearly depression, but it was also this is the part that I've never said to anybody, or even out loud. So to say it here is um kind of like I don't want to say hard for me, but I also don't want to, I don't want to stigmise stigmatize myself. But like like I mentioned earlier, Trina, um I don't believe in labels necessarily either. And so I was I was diagnosed with anx anxiety, depression, PTSD, but also borderline personality disorder.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

Oh wow, interesting. Yeah, I know a few people with that diagnosis, and you are very high functioning.

SPEAKER_03 13:36

Thank you, thank you. Um, so with that being said, um, a lot of what they say borderline personality disorder is is um, and not to be confused with multiple personalities, that's not the same thing. Um, I only have one personality, it's it is all over the place, but it is one. Um, but um more it's a fear of abandonment. And I can say that for sure there's fear of abandonment, and I can say that exists, but it's also based off of all the experience of abandonment that I did have, you know. Um like I love my mother to death, but at the same time, you know, we we came second to everything else that was going on. Um, you know, the hugs and the and the loves and the kisses was more from my dad, who was physically and mentally abusive, but he also knew how to love and and tell us that he loves us. And my mom, not that she didn't say she loves us, but in not in the same way, you know, it was never that, it was a very standoffish type, right? And so, even like me as a mother, I didn't give my kids that kind of love that I wish I would have been able to give because I didn't know how. I do now, and I've been able to um really take that back, right? So then obviously, right, going into life even more, like I know I felt it in my in my stomach area, like the pain and the suffering and the the constant battle, right? Like throughout life, it was just it's always been a battle, always like it could never, like, you know, and it, but it wasn't until I literally started learning the things that I talk about in my coaching stuff and in my in my school course, which is the mind-body spirit and using those tools and and um speaking about like this and this platform and like talking about it that's really gotten me through. And so, you know, I just wanted to, I wanted to just I felt it's just so important to be open and honest, but also you know, we there's there's so many things that we that like mainstream tells, like what are the things that you can do to help anxiety and depression, right? So we talk about getting vitamin D or medicating or going to therapy and all these things, and those are all important for different parts of where you are in your stage of your journey. But for me, I had done all those things and I still knew there was pieces missing, right? And I think that's what this came came down to is in it, it was reclaiming my mental health and learning how to balance my emotions from all those things I learned, but no medication could really give me. And like I said, it that those are great, they work during that time, but like at some point, you know, there's have to do the inner work.

SPEAKER_01 16:57

You have to do the inner work, yes, you have to, you have to, and most people don't.

SPEAKER_03 17:02

Ah, and there's a time and a place to start the inner work, right? And I think that's so important because you're right, we can't live in this place over here forever. Those emotions, those stored limiting beliefs, all that that that those stories we were told all those years of how we are supposed to act, say, talk, walk, think, and be are just like right.

SPEAKER_01 17:33

Well what was the one main thing you did? Sorry. I don't know. I want you to talk.

SPEAKER_03 17:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:37

I just wanted to ask, what was the one main thing that you did out of everything that made the biggest difference for you, or was there one main thing?

SPEAKER_03 17:45

I mean, it was my spiritual awakening, one, but I think the like of the doing, of the doing is like the repetitive self-talk.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:00

The repetitive, and it's like, you know, people use this word, the fake it to make it stuff, and it it can feel like I'm telling myself stuff that I don't believe, and you're you're going to.

unknown 18:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:14

But I talk about this too, like, and we're gonna get further into this in my master class, and we we talk about in our master class, but we talk about um uh the awareness, we talk about like the repetitiveness, a repetitive um reading and writing and speaking it. But it I wouldn't talk about it if I didn't believe in it.

SPEAKER_01 18:35

I wouldn't because it worked for you. Because it worked, it worked for me too, dude.

SPEAKER_00 18:41

And there's so many people out there. People just don't believe me. I feel like I want to shake shake people sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 18:48

Like just simply get out of bed, spend an hour one day writing a list of who you want to be. I am this, I am this, I am this, and then read it, just read it every single day, you know?

SPEAKER_03 19:01

Like it's it works, it works, it does work, it works, and in in and it's you know, it the other thing that happens is and and this is um well, one, it's time consuming, it feels time consuming, right? It it and it doesn't have to be time consuming, but it takes it's over the course of time. This isn't something you just like, well, I'm gonna read these uh affirmations and now I'm gonna be like mysteriously healed. It's not, yeah, it does take time because it's really at first you don't believe it.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

At first you don't believe the things that you're saying or writing or thinking or trying to repeat to yourself. But over time, what will happen is in your day-to-day life, you'll say something like, I'm stupid. Oh my god, I'm so stupid. And then you'll be like, No, I'm not, I'm blah, blah, blah, blah, blah from my affirmation list. Yeah. And then you'll start to re-you know reprogram how you talk to yourself in your day-to-day life. And also when you repeat those things over and over, eventually you believe it because our subconscious actually just believes whatever we tell it repeatedly. And the repetition is the key.

SPEAKER_03 20:10

Yes. And because when you start to think positive or focus on the gratitude or focus on the good things, your reticular activating system starts to look for those things. So it's like it's like saying, I want a red sports car so bad. And then you go outside and you're driving down the street, or you're, you know, whatever, and all of a sudden you're seeing red sports cars everywhere. You're like, ah, the universe is showing me. Well, sure, the universe is showing you, but also your reticular activating system has been wired to start looking for those things.

SPEAKER_01 20:47

It's like when you're pregnant. So now suddenly everyone you see is pregnant.

SPEAKER_03 20:51

Right. That too. That's too. Yeah, when my daughter was pregnant, all of a sudden everybody's pregnant. I'm like, why are there's women pregnant?

SPEAKER_00 20:57

Because we just don't notice other pregnant people until we're pregnant.

SPEAKER_03 21:01

Exactly. Exactly. So, yes, so these are all things like mental health and anxiety comes down to, of course, like I said, getting to that spot where you're ready. And you may not be ready yet. You may not. Maybe you're still at the point where you need the medication, or you need the therapy, or you need um, you know, one of those traditional type settings. But it, but there will come a time where the onion needs to be peeled in the layers, the layers, the layers, and they come off, and it is painful, and it and it does hurt.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

Liberating too, though. Liberating, too, yeah. It's a relief too.

SPEAKER_03 21:48

It's a relief. It's a relief, and you will start to see your world shift and your outside shift.

SPEAKER_01 21:56

And then it becomes easier to do because you can see the differences. It's making.

SPEAKER_03 22:01

Yep. And and you're still gonna have bad days. Like two days ago, I was I literally felt like I could feel it come back. But I also the difference was is not only was I already far aware of what I was feeling and why I was feeling it, and because that's one of the huge shifts that happens first is the awareness. You start to know why you're going through this because you've been through it before. And then you go to your tools, and now I have this tool, and I can use this tool to get through this. And then you can start looking at and saying, okay, I'm here right now, but I will not be by tomorrow or the next day. So I just have to get through right the right now. And it it's already easier. When I was in, um, I've actually also um put myself into like checked myself in. I don't know what like we used to call it checking yourself into the fourth floor. I think it was the fourth floor there. Uh, you know, we called it the loony bin or whatever. It's the derogatory term, right? But I checked myself in, I think two or three times I've been hospitalized for uh suicidal ideations, right? And um, I've never taken action, um, but I did know that I had to be safe. And in order to be safe for myself, I knew I needed help. Um the sad part was is no one would come to visit. Um, like as far as like family, didn't want to believe that because now my dad had already unalived himself, and um it was taboo, it's taboo still, like we're not done, we've got to talk about this right now. Like, we're not gonna talk about it. Like it's so unbelievable, right? Um, but but again, you know, if you're feeling that way, I encourage it because it did help me to go get away, essentially, right? I mean, it was not like being in a retreat or resort, but it's what I needed at that time, and that's okay. That's okay.

SPEAKER_01 24:18

That's okay, 100% you have to take care of yourself. I've put myself in the hospital before when I'm sick, just because I can't take care of myself anymore. Right. And I've got kids, and I know if I go to the hospital, then my ex will take care of the kids and someone will take care of me when I'm that sick. It's you know, this is in the past, but um, thankfully I haven't had that happen in many years now. Now I usually only go for like emergencies. Yeah, but you have had to do that. If I had been a single person or had someone who could take care of me, that would have been different. But I was just too sick to take care of myself, and it was a relief to have doctors and nurses take care of me, which normally I have major like anxiety with doctors and nurses, but when I was that sick, yeah, it it helped me. And you were that sick, you needed sick, you needed that help, you know.

SPEAKER_03 25:12

There was no one, there was no one to help. You know, my kids couldn't take care of me at that moment. Um, my family certainly wasn't going to.

SPEAKER_01 25:20

Yeah, sorry. I was gonna say, like, did do you find part of what helps you with controlling your BPD is that you have very structured, kind of scheduled life? Like, do you have a schedule every day? Like, I always try to encourage my kids, especially when they're struggling. Um, like you need a schedule. You need to get up, and I even some of my coaching clients like you need to get up at the same time every day and then eat at the same time every day. And yeah, and just I loosely base a schedule around at least these things so that your body can know what to expect. And then when you do have a bad day, you just go through the motions of your schedule, you know, at least I do the that stuff.

SPEAKER_03 26:04

Right. Yes. So for me, yes, I have a schedule to a point. Like I actually have, um, I wish I could grab it, but I what I do is I lay out, you know, the next three days and say, these are my goals to get these things done, which is quite a big list, but I'm also I'm severely high functioning versus what I was years ago. So the ADHD is also under control. And um, without the use of medications, thing, and and and so is um my anxiety depression. I don't, I'm unmedicated. Um yeah, exactly. I mean, this has been years. I actually found that I'm better off of those for me, you know, for me. That's how I feel. Um because I learned the tools. Because I've learned the tools. Yeah. Um, so yeah, I do find that structure, but oddly enough, Trina, you know what's weird is that I also thrive in an environment that I'm not like, okay, I've been here for six months, I'm ready fly the coup. Okay, I'm on. Like I'm a nomad. Like I being in one house, you need it in one party. In your life, I need the move, I need the constant, I need it. I so I I'm going home in June, um, and I'm gonna stay there, but until I'm ready to go somewhere else. I don't know when it'll be, but anyways, that helps me. So while there's a lot of structure, I'm like I thrive on the structure, um, staying very focused on what those goals are. Um, I like to also re uh say like micro goals. Like people like to, you know, think, okay, I gotta, I'm gonna lose 20 pounds. Well, wait, wait, let's roll it back a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 27:59

Lose one pound.

SPEAKER_03 28:00

Let's lose one pound.

SPEAKER_01 28:02

Yeah, I'm gonna write a whole book. Well, why don't you write an outline?

SPEAKER_03 28:06

Yes, yes, yes. It's small steps, right? It's not like all big all at once. Because, like we were talking, these these um, the affirmations and the positive self-talk, it's not all at once. It's not all or nothing. It's gonna take it takes that time to really get those neurons to start responding to the positive self-talk, the reticular activating system. You are, yeah, yeah. The other thing people don't talk about uh in this is do you know a lot about chakras? The chakras?

SPEAKER_01 28:39

Really, a little bit, but not very much.

SPEAKER_03 28:42

So they talk so people I don't practice yoga. I wish I did. I'm not super like people probably think I do. I I I do, I have, but I'm not super, super into it. However, yoga does focus on like this the energy points in our body, and there's like seven main ones. But there's other, you know, the different different um, I don't say different ethnicities, different groups think of different that there's more, and there is there, I mean, there's a lot of them. There's like seven main ones in the body. Now, there's two main ones that I think I just never heard anyone talk about this, but there's two main ones that I think we need to focus on as one is a woman with an ostomy, and and the other men or women as an ostomy. So the sacral chakra. So we have the sacral chakra, which is just like a little bit below the belly, right? Okay, and um let me go back. Energy, these energy centers like our spinning wheels, right? So, so like everything is energy, right? Everything is energy. So when we have these energy points in the body, if you think about like anybody who's had a surgery, you know, whether it's like um a brain surgery or an abdominal surgery, you know, or at these different areas in the body, it's being cut open, it's being distorted, it's being the energy's been essentially mismanaged, mistaken out. And it by all means it needs to be because we needed these these surgeries, but nevertheless, there's that piece of us that ends up been broken, you know, for a while. So sacral chakra, um creativity, it's it centers around creativity, it centers around pleasure and sexuality and our emotions.

SPEAKER_01 30:43

I have a great sacral chakra.

SPEAKER_03 30:46

Yes, you fixed your sacral chakra, right? From all the wrongness that happened through you, because you've had so much of that, right? And I said if I think for women, that's the sacral chakra, sacral chakra is very important, especially when we've been through issues, women in general, but issues like we've had, you and I, right?

SPEAKER_01 31:10

The location of like the child birth experience and right, right. Where our womb begins and enopium tubes and all that stuff, right? Kind of down in that area. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:24

And and and I think, you know, I just I like to talk about it because I just don't think it's talked about, right? It's not talked about like like in in the spiritual community, chakras are are talked about, but like you know, in in like the health and thinking about being cut open and thinking about that energy center being depleted and needed to be restored, right? And so you know, there's different affirmations you can do around chakras, and so sacral chakra is I feel. So I like to think of like, okay, so most affirmations are like I am, I am, I am, I am, but the sacral is I feel so I feel joy, I feel desirable, I feel pleasure, right? So we're activating that by that affirmation.

SPEAKER_00 32:22

I love it.

SPEAKER_03 32:22

And then the solar plexus, the stomach area, so upper, upper abdomen also affected because like I know for me, my ostomy is kind of it's kind of between sacral and solar. Yours is too. And some are higher up, though. Like a lot of people are having ostomies higher. Have you noticed that?

SPEAKER_00 32:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:45

Okay. So solar plexus, stomach area, it is where our confidence, our personal power and our motivation can come. These are just a few things. This isn't like inclusive. So balance, it's the control. And the affirmation for this is I do. So I do love myself, I do feel confident, I do feel powerful.

SPEAKER_02 33:13

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_03 33:14

Those are just like a couple things to kind of think of when we think about outside of the box.

SPEAKER_01 33:20

No doubt. I love it. Outside of the box. What'd you say?

SPEAKER_03 33:25

The woo-woo stuff as well. Yeah. I'm gonna be woo-woo. And that's that that is a huge part of like what has helped me. And it's not because it's it's not a fantasy land. Like I can tell you it's it's it's a faith in God, and it's a faith in that. Um, even you go to an AA meeting. I've I've preface I'm not a I've never been actually been to an AA meeting. Um, I I don't have a drug and alcohol addiction, but I will say, I know AA, my dad was uh loved AA. Like, you know, rest in peace to my dad, but he loved L, he loved AA. And um they say um believing in something higher than yourself.

SPEAKER_00 34:08

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 34:09

And you know, all addictions stem from mental health. Um, you know, um, we're trying to cover up something, we're trying to act like it doesn't exist and stuff it down. So um that was that was kind of what I wanted to say. Um and I just I think like people I think what I really want people to kind of understand the most out of this is like you really can get through it. And I will say this because I know I did and I've watched other people get through it. Um I just, you know, I find myself still having to use these skills. I find myself having to go back to sometimes square one, you know, and remind myself that I'm gonna be okay. Because it's so easy to fall back down and start focusing on the negativity and start rewiring our brains back to that old structure. Um, I also want to say that when I am feeling in the thick of it, sometimes it's just nice to turn on a podcast. And I hope that this podcast and this conversation and the conversations Trina and I have, and like last week with Trina and in her burnout and the feminine energy feeling, like these are all things like I want other people to be able to listen to us and say, Oh, that that's that's the message I needed today to get me through, you know. That's what I guess for my health.

SPEAKER_01 35:44

I listen to podcasts, audio books, I listen to um YouTube videos where people talk about their near-death experiences. Uh anything that's really spiritual or uplifting, I listen to like Christian music and I don't even go to church, but I listen, uh like I try to bring watch a happy, funny movies, like anything that's too heavy or too painful when I'm not feeling emotionally strong, I stay away from. And when even the people in my life who are really struggling, uh if if if they're really struggling and I'm really struggling, then I know I can't be that much of a help to them. And I try to keep my distance because I'll feel like we'll drown together. Yeah, you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:29

Well, and and and that's just it. Like you have to be careful with what you're putting into your vision because it, you know, people, music, uh, watching movies or being around people that drag you down or make you feel that way will also bring down, you know, your emotions, obviously. But it influences you so much in ways that you for you forget. You know, I don't watch scary movies anymore because I don't want that in my vision.

SPEAKER_01 37:01

Nope.

SPEAKER_03 37:01

It makes it create more of it out there in the world. Um but yeah, and I just I I never I don't want I don't want my pain and all my years of suffering to be somebody somebody. I don't I I want all that to help somebody else, right? And I I also think like like with my dad suffering, you know, he didn't have a lot of physical health issues, but he he had addiction and he had the bipolar and uh severe, like him, he was sexually abused as a child, he was mentally abused, like there's so much pain there. And I don't want that generational trauma that's been passed down to me. I I have to do something with it. Like that's that's why we're here. That's why Trina and I here, that's why we do what we do. Because we're not we can't let all of that just be for nothing, right?

SPEAKER_01 38:12

I try to look at each challenge as it comes as this helps me to to cope, as uh a test, you know, in a in a way, it's a test. How well do I cope with this challenge? And the more I've done like the inner work, like the repetitive um retraining of my subconscious uh visualization, um, writing, reading, listening to spiritual and uplifting and motivational things, and learning about stoicism, learning about tantra, like all kinds of things. All of that for me is um is how I help myself get to that point where when I'm faced with a challenge, I can draw from all of these schools of thought and all of these tools, as you as you referred to it earlier, are available to me to use to cope better with that situation. And if someone can scream in my face and I can calmly say, please don't talk to me that way, I'm not talking to you that way. Yeah, and I'd appreciate it if you don't talk to me that way. And if you keep doing that, then I'm gonna have to walk away or I'm gonna have to ask you to leave. Now I can do that. There's a time in my life when I wouldn't have been able to do that, I would have exploded, I would have made it worse. I would have like it would have been a thousand times worse. I would have been in a fist fight, even like you know, well, it makes us more humble, right? And like when you get control over your emotions to the point where other people's uh you know, chaos doesn't, even if it affects you, it doesn't destroy you, it doesn't take you down with them unl unless you let it. And that's the reason why I put space between myself and chaotic people because if I don't enough space, their chaos will eventually bring me down. 100% it's just like we have these. And that's not abandonment. That's not abandonment, that's that's boundaries and respect that the person has decided made these choices that have led to these decisions in their life, and they're never going to heal from it until they take responsibility for it. And if they can't take responsibility for it, then there's nothing I can do. Yeah, nothing. Yeah, yeah. I had to take responsibility for my own happiness, my own health, my own mental health, my own vision of who I am and my like who my character is. I had to take responsibility for all my mistakes and all my controlling behavior. And that was how I started to grow and how and now how when I am faced with challenges, which it's a part of life, life is a series of challenges, and depending on who you are and what your life is like, yeah, they can be devastating challenges. Yeah, or some people can have pretty skate through life pretty easy, you know. For sure, right? But pretty much I can guarantee anyone with an ostomy has been through a very difficult life challenge, if not multiple devastating life challenges. Yeah. And so we we can either grow from that or we can let it destroy us. Yeah. And if we look at it like every single challenge is a test of how well we can cope, then we'll try to cope better and better each time. But if we look at every challenge, every devastating challenge, as I can't go on anymore, I can't do this anymore, this is all the talk that your subconscious is going to believe in, you're gonna live in utter misery. And I've been there, so I know.

SPEAKER_03 42:02

Yeah, you know, and too, I wanted to say, like uh for people who are feeling alone, because um, for me, when I felt like abandoned by my family, which essentially that's kind of how it was, but it was kind of my greatest gift as well, because it forced me to have to sit with myself when I was safe, that is, like when I was finally safe to be in a space by myself and sit with myself. But it forced me to have to look at myself and look at all the ick of the person that I felt I was back then, because there were parts of me I wouldn't, I mean, there's a lot of me I would never want to be again. Um, but it it forces you to also sit with yourself and like re learn and re-love yourself. And it's easy when people are just gonna bail you out or of your situation or you know, bail you out of thinking about the emotions that you haven't got to sit with. That's enabling alone.

SPEAKER_01 43:06

Yeah. That's enabling, right?

SPEAKER_03 43:10

It's enabling. And now I'm almost at the point I feel to myself, it's almost kind of scary how independent I am. Like, I mean, I could sit in the desert for weeks and not talk to anybody and be completely fine. But but um, that's not always healthy either, right?

SPEAKER_00 43:26

You do have to have human connection if you all need human connection, but force myself to have human contact connection, but I know it's important, so I do.

SPEAKER_03 43:34

Yeah, yes, exactly. Um yeah, there's just there's so much.

SPEAKER_01 43:39

I mean, I feel like this is this is one of those topics like mental health and the human condition, you know, is and this is also like an argument for why we need to let people cope with their own problems, like when when in when they're not ready to help themselves, yeah. Stepping away is actually giving To them because it forces them to have no one to blame anymore. So whenever I left like an abusive relationship, I knew that I wasn't abandoning this broken person because I did feel like that as well. Right. But I wasn't really abandoning them. I was giving them one less person to blame for all of their problems. And when you take yourself out of the equation and people who are struggling are really left alone, then they have to decide, okay, now I have no one to blame anymore. So what what who can I blame? Well, I only have me left to blame. So if I'm still miserable, then the problem could probably be me.

unknown 44:43

You know?

SPEAKER_03 44:44

Yeah. Oh gosh, yes. I remember that day almost. I was oh when you know, do you ever think back and it's a little nostalgic to think of where you were and um that transformative moment when you went, oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 45:01

And it's like it's like you realize where you've been going wrong. And you even feel kind of like ashamed, yeah. But you also feel really empowered because now you know what needs to be done. Yes. To fix it.

SPEAKER_03 45:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:21

It's a life is amazing, right? It's it's beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 45:25

Was it was it a book or a person or something that kind of did that for you? Or what what for me it was a book? It was.

SPEAKER_03 45:32

It was a seven. I hate admitting it right now because allegedly oh gosh. Okay. It's the seven spiritual laws of success. Oh, cool. And it's a be it's a great book. I want to preface that um he was named in the Epstein Files, but not, I don't think it was Oh, Deepak Chopra? Deepak Chopra. But it wasn't in the sense I don't think there was much contents to it or context to it. However, if he if he was, it was a different part of his life, like for sure. Now, the reason I suggest this book though is it did, it changed my life. Like I remember I was sitting, oh gosh, I was sitting in the bathroom in the garage in a cold Minnesota winter, had the the heater on. I was chain smoking a pack of cigarettes, and I was just reading, reading, reading, reading and having those aha moments of nice. And it did, it changed, it changed my life.

SPEAKER_01 46:34

It was a book for me too. It was um There's a Spiritual Solution for Every Problem by Dr. Wayne Dyer.

SPEAKER_03 46:42

Okay, Wayne Dyer's good.

SPEAKER_01 46:43

Oh, he's so good. And actually, he used to do like um spiritual conferences and stuff, I believe, with Deepak Chopra. Like I oh yeah, I don't know like what degree of whatever you know he has with the whole Epstein thing. I know that a lot of people like to also just erase a person because all the good a person has done because they've also done bad. And I don't really agree with that. Um I mean, we don't know what he did or didn't do, but even if like he was friends with someone he knew was a pervert, I'm not going to say that that means everything he ever said is bullshit. You know what I mean? It doesn't, it doesn't because there's a lot of things I've done in my life, not obviously hurting children or anything like that, but uh there's things I've done in my life that if some people knew they might just it might erase every good thing I've ever done to them. Right, you know, exactly. And things I am not proud of that, you know, from my past when I was young and so glad they didn't have phone cameras back then.

SPEAKER_03 47:46

I know, or even as much social media as they have right now. I know I don't know how children grow up in this, you know.

SPEAKER_01 47:54

Or even when people are in, and this this goes along with the whole mental health thing too. Like people who are in abusive relationships, a lot of people stay in those relationships because the person isn't all bad. It's not like uh our our abusers are never just one-dimensional characters with all bad characteristics. They they have their good, they have the the stuff we that we fell in love with or that we love about them. Um, and every human being has the capacity to be many good things and many bad things at the same time, you know.

SPEAKER_03 48:29

So that's that I love that you said that because I think I always when I meet people I have like every intention that this person's a great person until they prove me wrong for something, right? But that's looked at as being naive, which I just know that I can't be naive because I've been through too much to be naive. So so yeah, I I I give I love I like that you make that point because yeah, we're gonna two things on what you just said.

SPEAKER_01 49:01

One is there's been science um studies done to determine like why do people, even in like the CIA, get fooled by deceitful characters. And as humans, we actually default to belief. And the reason we default to belief is because if we defaulted to disbelief, our society would basically fall apart. We need cooperation and trust in each other to have a functioning society, and so that's one part of it. And I think the other part of it is when you start to heal like you and I have, you start to open your heart a little more to people because they can't hurt you as easily, I think. You know, because like we we'll see this person is broke when someone does something really fed up. We we don't go like, oh my god, what did I do to deserve this? Um, or how could you know was it me? We don't internalize it. Yeah, we we go, whoa, that person is dealing with some demons. Yeah, yeah. We've been there, we give them the responsibility for their own issues and we've got to be.

SPEAKER_03 50:12

Because we've been through and we know, yeah. And like we it healed our heart chakra.

SPEAKER_01 50:17

Yeah, and we want to live happy lives, and we know that if we live lives of constantly being suspicious, then we can't be happy. Like in my last relationship, my partner lied to me a lot. He had addiction, he cheated on me. Um, I could have spent all of my relationship with him being suspicious of everything he did, and I would have been miserable. Yeah. But we had fun together, we laughed together, he always came home every night, you know, we were best friends, and I was willing to just believe that he was being faithful to me and go with the flow and know that if he is unfaithful, eventually I'll find out and I'll deal with it then. But I'm not gonna live my life worrying about it. And that's that's part of my healing process and my growth, is that I could get to that point where I've I would just choose peace of mind over being suspicious of someone, you know?

SPEAKER_03 51:13

Yeah, yeah. And and we're both still healing, right? We're both still healing. The healing, I don't think ever, I don't think the healing ever goes away. We're gonna constantly be healing.

SPEAKER_01 51:24

Well, I believe in, like you said, earth schools and multiple lives and reincarnations and soul, a soul journey. And I believe that each time we are incarnated into our human lives, it's all about growth. It's all about learning and growing and begin becoming better at recognizing what's really going on when people are lashing out in pain and not taking it personally, not taking it on ourselves, but also setting boundaries. This is all things that we learn and we evolve. And then in the next life, we say, Okay, you know what I haven't learned yet? I need to learn this. So I'm gonna have these experiences that will help me to learn it. And guess what? Easy life doesn't teach you much. So anyone, if if if what I believe is true, then anyone with an ostomy chose to go through these difficult times for a reason. It's to learn something. Yeah, yeah, that's beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 52:28

Beautiful. What a beautiful conversation. I loved this one. It is so needed. And um, like I said, I'm seeing seeing the themes kind of play out this week um around that, and I'm glad that we could talk about it and be open and honest, and and thankful um that I can share something that I've never shared because um that's really vulnerable for me. But um I think that's that's again what you and I do, right? It's about being vulnerable to help other people share their vulnerabilities. Because that's that is the healing, right? That's part of the healing.

SPEAKER_01 53:05

So I'm really, really proud of you that you felt safe enough and comfortable enough, thanks to all the work self-work and inner work you've done, to come to a point where you can share that on a public podcast. And I know that people watching will will feel relieved that they're not the only ones with these other issues. Yeah. Ostomy is just one of our issues. We we are complex humans. We don't, we we we aren't like in a box of, oh my god, I have an ostomy. We have relationships that are great, relationships that suck. We have other health issues, we have backgrounds like difficult childhoods, like what you explained today. And and I can relate to a lot of what you went through. Um, so we we come to this ostomy situation with complex trauma and complex baggage and issues that it all is baggage, literally. Yeah, baggage, literally baggage, and it all interrelates with each other and creates, and that's how our issues are not maybe so similar because we each have different life experiences. But the good thing is, and this is what I also feel about physical health. Um, there's what there's like one solution to healing physical health, and there's one solution to healing mental health. The one solution for physical health is like to make the body your temple. Stop putting shit in and only put good stuff in. And then obviously, because we're at this point, sometimes we still need to get our surgeries and shit done. Yeah, exactly. And then the one way to heal our mental health is with repetitive. I like I don't like saying the word positive anymore because people just hate hearing that word. I know, I hate it. But just like affirmations of who you want to be instead of affirmations of who you think you are.

SPEAKER_03 54:58

Yes, so much because it's so possible.

SPEAKER_01 55:02

And that's the only thing that works. Our subconscious beliefs are everything about our mental health, yeah, everything, yeah, and and our physical life and our physical experiences obviously impact it. Yeah, I mean, my mental health goes when I'm when I'm sick, I'm just like, oh right, exactly. I got the tools, and start using them when I'm in those and the tools that we want to help people with.

SPEAKER_03 55:28

So don't be afraid to reach out to us because I just master class. Yes, come to the master class. We'll be talking about it more. Yes. Thank you, Trina.

SPEAKER_01 55:41

Oh, actually, this will be on after our master class, but we'll be doing another master class.

SPEAKER_03 55:46

That's okay. Yeah. That's right. That's right. We already discussed that. See, I already forgot too. So yeah.

SPEAKER_05 55:53

Okay, so maybe the ADHD still needs a little something, but uh I have no excuse.

SPEAKER_01 56:03

Well, I love you. Thank you for being vulnerable today. I love you too. And it's really amazing to know you a little better and to understand why you do the work you do.

SPEAKER_05 56:15

Thank you. Same to you. Same to you. Thank you. Till next time.