Finding Your Identity After Ostomy Surgery

Many people with disabilities, chronic illness, or life-changing surgeries eventually ask the same question:

Who am I now?

When your body changes, your career changes, your relationships change, or your abilities change, it can feel like your entire identity disappears. In this episode of Rewired and Desired, we explore how values, character, self-love, and personal growth can help you rebuild a sense of self after major life transitions.

Trina shares how losing her health, career, confidence, and even aspects of her identity forced her to confront a deeper question about who she really was. Nicole shares the powerful results of a life-changing exercise: writing her own eulogy and discovering the values she wants to live by.

Together, we discuss:

✔️ Identity after disability and chronic illness
 ✔️ What happens when life strips away everything familiar
 ✔️ The difference between living from emotions versus values
 ✔️ Creating a personal constitution for difficult decisions
 ✔️ Boundaries, self-respect, and self-love
 ✔️ Personal growth after ostomy surgery
 ✔️ Spiritual perspectives on healing and transformation
 ✔️ Why confidence comes from within, not from appearance
 ✔️ Letting go of relationships with love instead of resentment

If you've ever wondered who you are after surgery, illness, trauma, or a major life transition, 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 0:06

Welcome everybody to Rewired and Desired, where intimacy, mindset, and disability intersect. My name is Nicole, and I'm your co-host. And I have the lovely Trina Ricketts, the intimate ostomate, as your secondary co-host. Today we are going to be asking a fundamental question. How do we know we are living by our values and characteristics? The character that we want to be and who we are in the world. So let you start it, Trina.

SPEAKER_04 0:39

Yes, I love it. I love it. This is so important because I think something that happens, especially after our surgeries, and it's changed our energy levels. It's changed maybe whether we can work or not, or do the job we used to do, or make love the way we used to make love. And we just we've changed a lot through our surgery. We often come out the other side saying, Who am I now? I don't even know who I am anymore. You know, I remember feeling that way and thinking, like, I used to think I was this go-getter mom that was like just, you know, had everything together. I was the woman with the clean house who was volunteering at my kids' school and you know that, and also like the stripper behind everyone's back. No one really knew I was living a double life, but I was like this, you know, cool, this cool mom that also like volunteered at my kids' school and everything. Um always had a clean house. And then and I always went dancing. I could I if you asked me who I was, I'd be like, I am like this dancing mom something rather, you know what I mean? And then I come out the other side and I could barely be a mother. I can't dance anymore. I have to give up my job, my volunteer positions, like everything's gone.

SPEAKER_03 1:48

And I literally stripped.

SPEAKER_04 1:50

Yeah, and my libido was gone at that time, and like I I'm suddenly like I don't know who I am anymore. Like, I really don't know. And and it makes you wonder like, who are you when everything is taken away from you?

SPEAKER_01 2:03

Yeah, you know, and you know what though, but that's like a it's it's so beautiful place, like looking back now, it's a beautiful place to be.

SPEAKER_04 2:13

Yeah, it is. It's like a blank canvas in a way. But it all like what it led where it led me is down this this kind of rabbit hole of trying to find out who am I when I'm not all the things I thought I was, you know, that were really to pertaining to like my health, honestly. Um, when you take the health away, when you take everything else away, who are you, right? Yeah, and so what I learned is that who we are is our character. And our character is based on how we live our values. And the reason I say how we live our values is because often we feel like we know what our values are. We're like, yeah, if someone asked me what my values are, I could just think of them and tell them. I don't I don't have to do like an inventory and figure it out. I I know what my values are. Um but we don't live our values all the time. We might know what our values are and have values, but we don't live them because in the moment to moment of our lives, we are just faced with these sudden decisions that we make based on our emotions. And when we are making decisions based on our emotions rather than our values, often our actions clash with who we really want to be. And so we might be like being moody when when we don't want people to see us as moody, or we might be being um like sucking the energy out of people's lives with our complaining and our misery and our sadness, but that's not who we are as a person. That's not our values, yeah, but it's become our character because we're not living in our values. And so the first thing to do is, and and I do this in my coaching program, is to do a value inventory, figure out what are our values, and then create a personal constitution based on your values. And that constitution is something I like to read it daily, especially when I first make it and when I first create it. And then when I'm faced with any kind of difficult decision or something where I don't know what to do, or an emotional um like situation that I'm like, I I don't like know how to handle this. If I look at my personal constitution, it will usually tell me what to do because my values are all set out in it, and I I can look at it and say, this is what I'm supposed to do. So, and I will get to examples when we get through this, and we'll try to move through this pretty quickly, but to provide some background, a really powerful way to figure out what your values are is to do a eulogy exercise where you write your own eulogy. So you imagine that five years from now you've died peacefully. It's not anything terrible. Okay. Now, obviously, none of us want to die in five years, but this is just a hypothetical Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

And I I admit I was a little bit concerned when we went through this because I was like, I can't, I don't envision my like that's you know, because I'm all about the power of the mind, but now I get it because I've done it.

SPEAKER_04 5:16

Yeah, yeah. So it's an exercise, it's very hypothetical. We know we're not going to die, but we want to imagine that five years from now, and the reason it's five years from now is because we we can change from how we are today to how we are five years from now. And five years from now, if I passed away, what would my friend say about me at my funeral? What would my family member say about me at my funeral? And what would my coworker or business associate say about me at my funeral? And the exercise is to sit down and write those eulogies as if you are that person and to create a eulogy that this is what you would want them to say. So, not what they would actually say. So, like if your daughter's really pissed off at you, you don't want to write a eulogy from your daughter's perspective, like talking trash talking you. You want it to be about, um, you have to do this. There you go. I think even you do this, it's I don't know why it does this.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

It's this new camera thing. It's like a zoom in, zoom out thing.

SPEAKER_04 6:19

So, yeah, so you don't want to write like trash talking yourself. Uh, you want to write it as if over the next five years you and your daughter mend your relationship and you have an amazing relationship, and your daughter is delivering your eulogy at your funeral. What would you want your daughter to say? What would you want your friend or your family or your coworkers to say? And so Nicole has done this exercise, and I'm really excited to hear. I haven't heard the results of that experience for her yet, and we're gonna talk it out, and then we're gonna talk about how to create a personal constitution based on this exercise. What do you how was it, Nicole?

SPEAKER_01 6:58

So, so yeah, so so going back like a little bit, like I I know that pre-ostomy, I lived in my emotions, like you said. So I made all my decisions based on emotions, which meant that I wasn't living who my true character was. I wasn't. And um, it was that moment when, well, I should say that moment, it was a long moment um of years of that being stripped away, which I am so thankful for because it means that deep down my heart meant all these things that I wanted to be, but that I couldn't be them because I just lived in those emotions, right? And so um doing this really made me see that, you know, I am now on the way to becoming that person. Um we're never perfect and it's we're gonna keep, we're gonna have falls and get back down. Um but yeah, it was it was really, really eye-opening to see that that this is what I want people to say about me, and this is my character, and this is the true meaning of my heart, because um it's you know, it's questionable sometimes with people. We never really know people's true intentions, and um we only know what we're thinking and feeling, and so it's just yeah, it was it was just really eye-opening to um to know that I'm on I'm becoming that person. So it's awesome. So I'm so thankful and grateful for it. And I like I said, I was a little concerned. I'm like, I don't want to think about my dad. It's like I don't want to, I don't even want to go there, but um it wasn't even there. I I didn't even think that part of it. I just thought about me when I'm not here, what what that would be what would be said or what I what will be said, right? What will be said. So and and I kind of veered off a little bit from like what you the three people. So um I did what I did was I did um let me get into it. Uh I just want to tell you, I did friend. Bless you. Um, I did friend, and then I did advocacy partners, so people that I've like done advocacy work with, and then um I did a family, just family in general. I didn't like say specifically, just that this is what my family would say.

SPEAKER_04 9:13

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 9:14

So yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:14

Um yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_01 9:18

Okay, so family. Um Nicole was many things to many people, but to us, she was home. She taught us that life isn't measured by what happens to us, but how we choose to respond to it. Even through hard bat hardships, setbacks, and uncertainty, she showed us what courage looked like. Not because she's fearless, was fearless, but because she continued forward despite her fears. She loved deeply and fiercely, she celebrated victories, carried us through struggles, and reminded us that we were capable of more than we believed. She taught us the importance of faith, perseverance, kindness, and personal responsibility. And eat and showed us that even when life changes unexpectedly, we can create beauty, purpose, and meaning. Nicole did not live a perfect life, but she lived an authentic one. She laughed, cared, and never stopped growing. She taught us that healing is a lifelong journey and that our greatest challenges can be our greatest gifts. Her legacy isn't what she accomplished accomplished, but who she helped us become. Her love continues through every lesson she taught, every life she touched, and all the inspiration she gave. We miss her deep deeply, but we we are forever grateful that she was part of our home.

SPEAKER_04 10:32

Oh, that just brings tears to my eyes. It's beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 10:36

Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 10:37

I love it. It opens up so beautifully, too.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

And I really like the friend one. I want to read that one because that one's more um about is it the friend one? Um yeah, the friend one. Okay. So Nicole uh lived lived exactly as she was meant to. No boundaries and out of the structure of society, which I love. Um, she did not always have certainty, but she chose faith. She did not always have answers, but she did seek truth. She didn't avoid the pain, but she transformed it into wisdom. She understood that life wasn't happening for her or to her, but was happening for her, which I just love and I've been living by that for a while now. Um, every challenge was an invitation to grow and the setbacks became lessons. Every ending was something new. She chose courage over comfort and authentic authenticity over approval. She chose service and resilience and learned that success wasn't measured by all the money, all the recognition, or all the achievements, but that her alignment and her values and her contribution to others. She became the woman she once dreamed of becoming because she believed in not perfection, but persistence. She trusted herself, she trusted her intuition and released what no longer served. Um, at the end of her life, she had no regrets about playing small and used her voice and shared her gifts with the people that surrounded her and embraced the adventure of becoming.

SPEAKER_04 12:12

Oh, that's so beautiful too. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

That's amazing. And then I made I had a little bit of like mistakes in there, so I was trying to read around it.

SPEAKER_04 12:20

But that was so good. Oh my gosh. And it's so true. Like, as your friend, I I can see myself saying like almost everything on there. That's amazing. If I could remember it all.

SPEAKER_01 12:33

Well, yeah, you know, I think the part is like the happening, like that's part of the spirituality part is like realizing that life is happening to uh for us and not to us. And that's a huge part of like that identity shift, I think, and like living in in your character is like um being humble. Um, you know, Jesus was humble, right? Jesus walked the earth and and um did it so gracefully and gratefully. And I've also, you know, like when you go to the dinner table or when you're at a at a family outing, I've learned to let other people go first, right? Because like why I I feel when I feel the need to jump in and take, take, take, it feels really inauthentic, right? Like I want people to feel happy, and it's not because they're going before me, but because it's just about having that. Well, we talked about it, that stoicism, you know, that like not that I'm stoic by any means, but you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_04 13:30

Like, I think you have quite a bit of stoicism in you, but yeah, I know, like not feeling like you need to compete with others to be first or yeah, get ahead, yeah. And being able to just go with the flow and you know give people the opportunity to speed ahead if they need to, and not feel like you need to judge or be faster or whatever. Yeah, it is it's nice when you can let go of that.

SPEAKER_03 13:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 13:57

You reminded me of something I saw on uh YouTube recently, Joe Dispenza talking about there are four levels of consciousness. Um, at the very lowest level, the ego level, we think that everything is happening to us. Um, and then at the next level, we start to think that um things are happening by us. Okay, we're working hard to make things happen. Um, and then the third level is when we become more spiritual and things are happening through us. And um, at the highest level, when you're feeling like very connected to everyone and everything and the universal source, the creative power that's within us and without us all, um, that you're working at the level of as me.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

I love that. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 14:51

I can't get it out of my head. I'm like, wow, that is so true. Like I can look back and see each part of my life as I went through those stages.

SPEAKER_01 15:01

I I can too. Um, I can too. And it's like, gosh, nowhere would I ever want to go back to stage stage one because that's victim mentality.

SPEAKER_04 15:11

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 15:11

And that's where a lot of people live their whole lives is in victim mentality, even that's where the blame and the all that comes up. But anyways, I digress. Um, yeah, this this was such a such an eye-opening experience too, because like you said, you like to go back and read it, and I can see how important it is to go back. I'm all about lists and having my binder as well of all the things. And this is gonna be one of those very important things that I will read daily because it is, it's good to remind yourself, especially when you're gonna be going into a hard situation or a situation where you know, you're gonna be speaking to people or talking to people or engaging conversations that are gonna be hard or difficult. And so this is um one of those things, or making decisions or you know, with your children, anybody, right?

SPEAKER_04 15:57

Did you get further and did you create a constitution, a personal constitution based on your eulogy?

SPEAKER_01 16:03

I only did the I got to the point where I did the I am kind of statements, but I didn't put it together. I'm not done with the personal constitution part yet. That part I want your help with.

SPEAKER_04 16:14

Okay, cool. So yeah. We can do that the next. So just to give people an idea of what a personal constitution can look like. Now it can look like anything. If you're really creative, it could be a poem. If you are a songwriter, it could be a song. Um, if you like to write in paragraphs and be very detailed, it could be a very detailed manifesto, maybe. Um, I'm more of like a very to the point concise list type of person. And so that's how I created my personal constitution. So I'm gonna go and find it and share it with you. So my personal constitution is I let others be right. I keep my promises, I have hope and I preach hope. I help others advance in their goals. I do not take the emotional reactions of others personally. I forgive. I apologize when I hurt someone. I listen more than I speak. That's one I struggle with.

SPEAKER_02 17:21

That is hard.

SPEAKER_04 17:22

I make time for the people I love. I treat people with respect and dignity. I contribute to causes that I believe in passionately. I love with all my heart. I make time for my loved ones. So you can see I actually have that's the second time I've said that, but in a different way. And when I made my list, I didn't realize I did that twice, but it made me think, wow, that's really important to me. And at the time I didn't feel like I was making enough time for my loved ones. But since creating this personal constitution and reading it daily, now I do feel I spend the time with my loved ones that I have always wanted to. So it's amazing how it can change your life.

SPEAKER_03 17:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:00

The next one is my love is unconditional. And my boundaries are non-negotiable. I learn from my mistakes, I tell the truth, I stand up for others, I foster peace in my interactions, I embrace life gratefully and passionately, and I live for today. And so, like when you think about those, you can see how if I ran into like a situation where I didn't know what to do, those per the personal constitution could lead me. Like if it's something where um I'm feeling bad because somebody really wants me to do something, but I just really don't want to do it, and I go and I read my personal constitution and I see, you know, that I try to help others, but I also see that my boundaries are non-negotiable. And then I I would have to go with what works for me, right? And if I um if it's about something that someone's done and I'm holding on to resentment and I don't know how to handle this situation, I go in there and I see that my personal constitution is that I forgive and that I don't take the emotional reactions of others personally. So that would lead me how to react.

SPEAKER_01 19:10

Yeah, yeah. I noticed that up that you said the boundaries, and that's a good one to add in because it's not just about all the you know the butterflies and rainbow type words, but it's also the fact of no, like this is a non-negotiable, like I have to do.

SPEAKER_04 19:27

Being able to have boundaries.

SPEAKER_01 19:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:30

Having boundaries is so important, and I think it's one of the things we're supposed to learn in Earth school.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

Yeah, you know, yeah, I agree. I agree. So I agree. It's it's really hard, especially people who are empaths and uh want to, you know, not compete with people and and that thing. We feel like we have to give, especially as women, we feel like we have to give, give, give. And um we don't. We have to set you know firm boundaries for ourselves.

SPEAKER_04 19:57

Um everyone needs to set boundaries. Honestly, I think it's a big, it's a big issue. Almost every single one of my coaching clients have um areas that they don't maintain their boundaries. Um, even if it's like in a sexual encounter, you know, you know it's gonna hurt, but you want to just please your partner. That's a that's a boundary that you shouldn't be crossing. Yeah you know, or you really want to have sex and your partner's not in the mood, so you shame them. Yeah. Now you're crossing a boundary. You're you know what I mean? And there's just I think that there's learning healthy boundaries is one of the most important things we can do in our lives because otherwise, and I and like uh uh you were when you were just talking, it made me think about like how a lot of us who have been through health issues, part of the reason our physical bodies are in dis-ease is because of mental and emotional dis-ease. And that can be created a lot of the time because we're people pleasers.

SPEAKER_03 20:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:57

You know, I find a lot of people with really serious health conditions, they they just want to make everything better all the time for everyone else. Yeah, and it's like uh, you know, it they they don't want to be a burden. We, I should say we. Yeah, we don't want to be a burden. We don't we want to make sure everything's okay for everyone else, and we're we're we we lean in the direction of people pleasers, and that affects our health, you know. Yeah, yeah, and that's I mean, that's one of the things my health taught me because I I got to the point where I had to say no all the time, and I got so good at it that now I can say no.

unknown 21:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

You know, this this lines up a lot with um uh Dwayne and I are gonna do a Facebook Live in our live with ostomy bag um uh group group.

SPEAKER_04 21:43

Sorry.

SPEAKER_01 21:44

Words, words, um, and um I was thinking about how um we're gonna be specifically talking about like what your ostomy has taught you that you wouldn't learn in life. And it's so like this kind of along with it because I think back to what my ostomy taught me was it was around the same time that my boob popped and like you know it's like I was shedding the ego but not just the ego of the mind the ego of like the actual ego that everybody thinks that you have like the looks and the the body and the the image right and that had to like get away from me but in order for me to step into my purpose you know in order for me to remember who I am and that I like worrying about what's just going on here the the little things that happen and work and life and family and drama and friends and all this stuff really isn't that important. It's about how we live our lives and how we you know go forward and who we help and and and how we you know navigate life here on earth while you know maintaining like into that spirituality and not worrying so much about all that other stuff. And it's we we still want to look nice and we still want to have nice things don't get me wrong but they're secondary to who we are not primary to who we are.

SPEAKER_04 23:13

Yeah coming from the adult entertainment industry and like making money off my body and then I had like this perfect stomach and a little cute belly button. I even had a tattoo on my stomach that's now completely destroyed. And I felt so confident about my body and like had that completely taken away uh all in one fell swoop and then rebuilt it and now I have a bag I am like 15 pounds heavier than I was I have no belly button scars cellulite like I'm getting older I got wrinkles you know what I mean like I do I've got the things that are happening to my body and I actually feel more sexy and more confident now than I ever have. And that is how I know that it's a mindset thing that's in the mind. It's not about our bodies because when I had the perfect body I still had I was less confident than I am now.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

Yeah yeah I agree I I was um I was actually scrolling through pictures when I was making a video and I got to a picture of me where I was like damn you are hot I was thinking to myself but then I was like but you were also not happy with yourself had no like like when I think back to just even just a couple years ago when I started my business and like how personal development and entrepreneurship are like go hand in hand I was like holy crap I have so much to work on. So then you minus deduct another seven years from that when I was looking my best and I was afraid you know yeah I may have been had some college degrees and did some things but it was nowhere near like the where I'm at now.

SPEAKER_04 24:55

Yeah I mean back then I was still kicking the door behind my partner when they walked out angry and yeah and um you know blaming everyone for my yes my own pain and my own shame and my own unhappiness and yeah it's a huge difference from that little scrappy little bitch I used to be and people say to me no no Trina you've always been sweet and I'm like I remembered being not so sweet. And I of course it would only be in situations with people who were also probably not being very sweet to me. It was usually a reaction to someone's action. So yeah I wasn't like this horrible person that went around bullying and starting problems. It was usually like I said a reaction to an action but it still would turn me into this like scary bitch you know same same I I call it my ghetto side I'd be like my ghetto side you know and I'd be like mm-mm I'd be all yeah like the hood in me would come out and I'd be ready to to fight if I even you know yeah I know even for years after I stopped um stripping uh whenever I was in a situation where I felt intimidated or in insecure I would reach in and I would pull out stripper Trina well stripper Annie my name was Anna Stripper Annie I would pull out stripper Annie I'd be like okay you right now just feel like you used to feel when you were working in the club and then I would get that feeling it would give me confidence and I would walk in and that was you know that was like second level right first it was to me that's by me. That's where I'm like okay I'm going to make myself feel confident I'm going to psych myself up I'm going to do this I'm gonna do that you know when I got to through me then I didn't need to pump myself up anymore because I didn't need to convince myself that I was worthy going into a situation. I went into situations knowing I'm worthy.

SPEAKER_01 26:50

Yeah and and that's so such a huge difference you know do you feel like um time essentially like with all these experiences as you move through more and more and you know more and more that it's faster to get to the next me too. So I'm just realizing even from uh I'm even seeing changes from a month ago to be back like it it's easy to go back and look years ago and say this is where I was but uh from all these this self-work I'm like going back and saying oh just a month ago I would have experienced it this way and now I'm experiencing it this way.

SPEAKER_04 27:25

Oh man I mean I spent nine years in a relationship with someone who was very unhealthy with serious addiction issues and yet I was absolutely ecstatically happy for most of that nine years because I was in a I was at a level where I felt so just good within myself and who I am and and I could let go of the stupid shit and and get over that and and be grateful for the good that was in the relationship. And now I would never put up with that relationship. Yeah yeah same even I even though I know it was I wouldn't I wouldn't like erase it I wouldn't want to like not have had it happen because I was amazing and I I enjoyed so much of it but I've moved to a a newer level of what I deserve in life and what I'm willing to accept you know and just how you respond to them as well like it was so it's so easy like you said to respond with you know with um you know any type of criticism like for me criticism was like oh it felt like you were eating me away inside and now I'm like okay I can handle that criticism or the correction or whatever it is.

SPEAKER_01 28:37

But yeah yeah this is a powerful exercise um I mean the whole course that I'm doing with you is powerful because yes like this visualization thing is like literally helping me get understand what I actually do want and helping me sift and sort right to get there and now and then I'm just seeing the things already start to like happen um and like the little clues right it's it's like you get little clues from the universe here you go here you go I'm gonna give you a little bit of what you're thinking and feeling and what you want and the visualization is really pushing me to that.

SPEAKER_04 29:15

So I know I mean this is why I love it so much. It's like once people start doing the work especially the visualization uh exercise uh but they start having wins they start yeah like things start to change in their lives and then they're and then they become addicted to it like me and you and once you're once you're addicted to it then that's it you just like you said it just you you you grow faster and faster and faster and and uh and like you we were talking about you know um not taking things personally when people are angry or whatever you know and like the last relationship I was in even though um it was there were lots of messed up things in it that a lot of people would you know turn into this big regret and oh my god why was I with that person yeah but I never did that and when I broke up when we broke up I was able to let go with love and that was something that I would never I was never able to do in any of my previous relationships. That was the first time I was ever be able to like walk away when I still loved the person but I knew that I couldn't keep going on because it was becoming too toxic. In other relationships before that I would wait till I hated the person. Yeah yeah yeah and then what what are the values there? What are my values when I'm fighting with someone every day until I hate them and then breaking up with them I'm not living my in my values whereas in the relationship that was wasn't great wasn't the best ever but I was grateful I was living in my values and I let go with love because I wanted to live in my values and my values are unconditional love forgiveness and not taking things personally.

SPEAKER_01 30:51

Yeah. And in that you're setting boundaries as well yes exactly not staying in the relationship so I I was listening to a podcast I don't know if I listened to the rest of it I think this morning and she's a little out there um spiritually and channels and that kind of thing um which you know most people probably aren't familiar with but you know she channels channels in goes up to another dimension and channels people who have passed or other you know being spiritual energies to give her knowledge and that she shares with people. Exactly comes back here sits in front of the the the camera and tells us and one of the things that she shared was that um when it all boils down in the end and judgment day comes what really matters is that we love ourselves.

SPEAKER_04 31:44

Wow yes that is probably the most difficult thing any of us has to try and learn.

SPEAKER_01 31:50

But I think this constitution and like going through some of these practices show us that we have the potential like if we're not feeling that we are these things that we want to be in the end these are all acts of self-love because they're all qualities of the person that we are trying to be and that we we probably are we're just not connected with yet right you wouldn't be feeling these things if they weren't feeling and seeking you yeah I love that I love that um what you said like all of the things in your personal constitution are actually acts of self-love having boundaries forgiving others everything it's all like if I look at my list I could go through and see that every single part of it is really about loving myself because I'll love myself more if I'm living in my value.

SPEAKER_04 32:45

Yes. Yeah yeah and I know like days when my kids need me and I'm so exhausted and I have so much work to catch up on and I wish that they could just handle their lives on their own you know but then I go back and my personal constitution is that you know I want to really make time for my loved ones. And and I do that and I'm so glad I did every single time I never re wish oh no I wish I would have done the work I needed to do on the computer instead of being there for my kid. Exactly what I mean like it's just it's just amazing right and like and we could also use that as a boundary maybe I do need to set some boundaries with my children who knows right but that used to be it used to be the opposite I used to be like mummy's busy mummy's busy mummy's busy yeah now mummy stops what she's doing and spends that time with yeah children you know yeah yeah yeah yeah you can look at it you could look at it both ways but I I totally yeah but that's good really you gotta just figure out what is your value specifically what is the value you want to live up to the most and for me it is being there for my family. And um when you said that what is the one thing that it boils down to that matters the most when we're moving to the other side um I thought you were gonna say it's how we make others feel and I know that is important but I totally like how we make others feel is also is dependent on how well how we feel about ourselves.

SPEAKER_01 34:13

Well it is and and we're all actually one yes it's we all are one we're all God's children.

SPEAKER_04 34:21

As me the level of as me as yes exactly because you know you always know if someone is lashing out at you or criticizing you or passive passive aggressively trying to you know bring you down that person is doing that because they're unhappy within themselves. It's a projection of their own inner feelings.

SPEAKER_01 34:44

Yep had an experience just like this yesterday with my ex wow and and and it wasn't even a conversation he and I were having it was a conversation through my son and he's exactly what he was doing. But see I know him based on the the experiences I've had and so I can see it but it nevertheless it it got me he tried it it got to me it yeah I know right they are the triggers the worst triggers our biggest teachers are our worst triggers yes so you know but it's all good because we're like I said we aren't gonna be perfect but again if we have that self-love self-love is going to be loving everybody else anyways it's just it's that's what it boils down to.

SPEAKER_04 35:21

And forgiving ourselves when we're not perfect. Yeah I have to do that I have to just forgive myself and let it go. Don't keep thinking about it. Don't keep stressing why did I say that why did I do that? What was I thinking but just forgive myself and let it go. Yeah I should put that in my constitution I forgive myself because I think I said I forgive others I should have I forgive myself in there.

SPEAKER_01 35:44

See that is a good yeah yeah that's that act of self-love it is nice I loved I love talking about this today and I love your your eulogies uh they were so beautiful they really do reflect you thank you I appreciate that I you know and here's one other thing I like to say because I think part of this part of um part of being I think where we're at is like also recognizing like we said we're not perfect but um one thing that we learn is um that as we grow the less we know so I've heard this from somewhere else but that's really something I I think I go back to think too often is like the more I grow the re the more I realize that I don't know that much because I'm still learning so much. And can you imagine just how much more learning we have like we have so much more growing to do.

SPEAKER_04 36:32

I know yeah yeah so that tells you when someone is 100% sure of something they probably have some more growing to do. True true if I tell you that this is the truth don't always listen you guys oh my god we're confusing people now but this is the nature of life question everything and yeah anyway I hope everybody who is has watched to this point is um is going to try out that eulogy exercise and if you want me to take you by the hand and walk you through the whole program.

SPEAKER_01 37:10

Yes see Trina because let me tell you it's been a blessing and especially at this time of my life like it came perfectly and I'd pay a lot of money for that course. I'm just saying I love it.

SPEAKER_04 37:26

Yes and I feel the same way about you every I actually feel like I get a counseling session every time we do a podcast it's amazing because I learned so much from you I love it and I do too it's a blessing.

SPEAKER_01 37:40

Best friends forever heck yeah and just wait to you see what's coming yeah I know I was like should we say anything I'm so excited no and I think we still leave them in wonder right we still leave them in wonder they don't know yet but just know that something's coming something's coming we've we're working together on something really special they're like what is going on behind the scenes we've never even met in public okay yeah you mean in person I mean in person or public or public we met in a coffee shop no yeah no no not yet soon to be right so all right y'all we're out thank you for listening and next week we will choose another topic probably on a win unless we come up with something great in the meantime and if you have any suggestions for topics let us know and check out our website and follow our channel and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 38:45

All right