Life Lesson #5 - If Sally Sells Seashells, What Else Does She Do?

In this episode, you will be:

• Welcomed into a loving, kind, supportive community of Ordinarily Beautiful women and men who enjoy hearing a little inspiration each week.
• You will hear the amazing and powerful story of the Redwood Tree and how the trees support one another to ensure their growth and success in the forest; and how their survival skills can and should, mimic our own.
• You will listen to powerful personal triumph stories of other listeners as they share how their own experiences tie into the latest life lesson.
• In this excerpt read from the unpublished memoir, Life Lessons of an Ordinary Woman, written and read by the host Kim Farnes, you will hear how an oridinary woman chose to take some of her time and grace to help navigate and shape the life of the author. 
• You will be encouraged to share your own stories and Like, Follow and Share this podcast with others, who you would like to invite into this Ordinarily Beautiful Community. 

lifelessons.ordinarywoman@gmail.com   

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Good morning this morning, my ordinarily beautiful friends. I hope you had a great week. I want to thank you again so much for your continued support of this podcast. You're all a blessing to me, and I appreciate your belief in me, and I want you to know that your personal triumph stories that you send me are truly what keeps me going and inspire me each week. I heard an interesting and informative story recently about the giant redwood trees, and I wanted to share it. It made me think about our community here and how the intent of this podcast is to build a really strong and resilient network of women and men who by joining in support one another. The story shares that the giant redwoods are actually the tallest of all the trees on earth. They can stand up to 380 feet tall, yet their roots only go down 12 feet deep. That's the equivalent of the height of a large Christmas tree, the length of a conference table, or a standard recreational basketball hoop plus two inches. That's not very deep. The strength in the redwood, however, given that its roots are so shallow, is that it interlocks its roots with other redwood trees. Its roots can spread 50 feet out and interlock with many of its neighboring trees. So when storms come and winds blow, the weakest of the trees can still stand tall, relying on its neighboring trees for support. If winds and storms blow the other direction, the one that seemed weak before now becomes a strong one and holds up its neighbors. I like this story because it shows that no matter what the trees like us face, strength is found in unity, and even the tallest trees depend on a community of roots and friends to achieve their full potential. I think about the Redwoods often since I heard that story, and I hope you will too. I was happy to receive several inspirational stories from you this last week about the life lesson, just try T R Y from my unpublished memoir, Life Lessons of an Ordinary Woman, and I wanted to share parts of a couple of them. One is from Christy. She wrote, I listened to this podcast today after having a not so great softball game. I decided to play softball again at age 57 with our local team. I'm one of just a handful of girls playing with the predominantly male team, and they're very good players. So after I listened to your podcast, I reminded myself how far I've come since I first started playing. And although it can be intimidating, I still show up in TRY. Thanks, Christy. I'm super proud of you for stepping out of your comfort zone and trying new things. Trying new things can definitely be intimidating for sure, and it takes real courage like yours to do so. So keep us posted on how you and your team do as you continue playing, okay? Another listener shared her experience trying something new as well. Caroline wrote, I've been challenged to do things that have frightened me. Speaking, singing, confronting. One time early in my career, while temping in the IT department at an insurance company, I was challenged to compete in the Ted Brown lunchtime singing competition in downtown Tacoma, Washington. I was scared to death, but I did it. I didn't win, but I didn't embarrass myself or my company. As you pointed out in the podcast, I tried. I'll never regret it. Thanks for reminding us all to T R Y. Wow, Caroline, that's amazing. Singing and speaking publicly is definitely something that many of us struggle to do. I applaud you for being able to do that, and you bet you sounded amazing. People in the audience were lucky to get to hear you that day. Thanks for sharing your story and keep on sharing your gifts with others, even if it does feel hard sometimes. So I thought I would share today how I decide what lesson to share each week in my podcast. When I started to write my memoir last year, I came up with 13 of my life lessons that really impacted me. I of course had many more, but these 13 were pivotal for a variety of reasons and on a very profound scale. When I read your email letters, fan mail, and Facebook comments, I love them all, but there are always a few that signal in some way to me what my next life lesson should be. This one was very clear. Sometimes when we try new things and go out on a limb, not everyone is nice about it. Sometimes people are mean and dismissive and it hurts us, especially if those hurtful comments come from people that we care most deeply about. This life lesson, if Sally sells seashells, what else does she do? stems from that feeling of being bullied and how an ordinary, caring adult that didn't have to, stepped in for me and helped me find my own inner strength and develop boundaries at the same time. So here it goes. Life lesson number five. If Sally sells seashells, what else does she do? A misguided placement by my mom on the top of the hood of our family's wood-paneled green station wagon altered my life dramatically at two years old. My mom had placed me there as she was trying to get my three-year-old, squirming, and uncooperative sister into the car. In one fell swoop and with nothing more than a wiggle, I fell off the hood of the car and I was on the ground. As I held my head and screamed in pain, my mom reached for me immediately and felt the blood. There is no wound that bleeds more than a head wound, especially if it's bled from and come coming from your own child. So my mom was petrified and riddled with guilt and worry. I was rushed to the hospital, and after all the testing that the hospital had access to in 1972, it was determined that I had brain injuries, and my parents were told that those injuries would result in lifelong epileptic seizures. My mom had not had her stroke yet on the day I took the fall. I've been told that she and my dad argued about her burdensome mistake up until the point she lost her ability to talk and could no longer defend herself. During one massive grandma seizure when I was four, my tongue rolled back into my throat and I was unable to breathe. The doctors told my parents that it was like I had swallowed my tongue and I had to be incubated in an oxygen tent for almost a week. I was old enough at that age to be able to understand that I wanted to be back at home, but not old enough to be patient with the process. The fact that total isolation in the tent meant that I couldn't be touched or held until I was out of it was terrifying, lonely, and exceptionally confusing. I was put on a medication that we all called the little pill. I learned quickly that if I didn't take it, I would have what's called an epileptic aura right before I seized. Auras are often symptoms that cause intense fear, and mine was definitely that. I would hallucinate that big spiders were crawling all over me right before I would begin to seize. I would crawl up my dad's body screaming for him to please make them go away. A reason that to this day I still hate spiders. Also a reason I rarely forget to take the r rarely forgot to take the pill. Taking medications at school makes you different, as does the weight gain that came with my taking the med. Teachers did not understand what epilepsy was back then, so they were overly cautious and yelled at my classmates whenever they played too rough with me. So kids just tended to avoid me. In one unfortunate incident, I'd been wearing my Sears and Robux tough skin jeans as I was twirling on the bars during recess. The big, fat twirly bar that was the playground favorite, the one that always had the long line of kids waiting their turn to get on. It was raining, which wasn't a huge deal to us kids, but I dried my hands on those tough skin jeans, which dyed my hands blue, bright blue. The recess duty teacher thought that my blue dyed hands meant that I was having a seizure, and in her sweet, uninformed care for me called an ambulance and I was ushered away to the hospital. The emergency room doctor gave me soap at the sink and instructed me simply to wash the dye off my hands. I never did live that one down. The end result, however, of me swallowing my tongue that day was that my tongue muscles enlarged and made S's very hard for me to pronounce. Speech therapy to help rid me of my very profound lisp became part of my weekly school routine. Hey, snake, kids would say, whenever my speech therapist came to get me from class. It's time to go. I hated that they made sounds like a snake, and I hated I had to leave class. I liked the speech therapist that was assigned to me, however. She was younger than my teachers and always had a lot of bouncy energy when she walked and talked. Hey kiddo, she would say as we walked down the hall to the office. How has your day been so far? I liked that she asked me about my day. Growing up in the seventies and eighties, kids just didn't get asked that very often by adults. Well, maybe other kids did, I thought to myself, but I don't. So I would fill the empty hall during our walks with endless chatter of what I was watching on TV, what I had for breakfast, and whatever else I could think of to say. I'm not sure I gave her any time to respond to anything I said. Once I was seating seated in the chair in the small room near the principal's office, the door would click closed behind me. She would bring out the tool she used each time to help me get rid of my lisp, a jar of creepy creamy skippy peanut butter. I would open my mouth wide and she used a tongue depressor to put a glob of the peanut butter on the roof of my mouth. She didn't need to tell me what to say. I'd been doing it for a couple of years. She would just say with this smile, go ahead. Sally sells seashells at the seashore, I said, tongue placed on the roof of my mouth carefully on every S that I said. That phrase was repeated ad nauseum. I hated the sentence. I hated the peanut butter, but I hated getting teased more. On a Friday afternoon in December, I said, Sally sells seashells at the seashore in the small room. This time, however, I started to cry. My tears shook the energetic speech therapist. I'd been quiet on my walk down the hall, and now I was crying. I really caught her off guard. What's wrong, kiddo? she asked as she looked for the box of Kleenex. She found one in the corner of the room and stood up to get it. I just shook my head. I tried to lick the peanut butter off the roof of my mouth because it started to mix with the snot that was in the back of my throat and was starting to make me choke. What's wrong? she asked again. I just hate this, I said. I'd been teased that day by the one friend I thought I had. We were waiting in line to play Foursquare, and I had been lucky enough to be given an extra ball by the recessed duty teacher, and my friend wanted it. The ball they'd been playing with inside of the foursquare court had bounced away, and instead of retrieving it, my friend wanted the one I had. When I twisted away and hugged the ball tighter, she got mad. Give it to me, snake, she teased. I felt my face flush and the tears started to fall. Oh, did I make you sad? she continued. The other kids laughed and pointed at me. I dropped the red ball and ran off to the bathroom where I hid until the recess bell rang, and we had to line up at our classroom door. When our teacher let us in, I made my way quickly to my seat. I did not look up until a speech therapist came to get me. I don't want to do this anymore, I said to her. That was only partially true. I wanted to lose my lisp. I liked spending this one-on-one time with this lady that seemed to really like me and listen to me, but I was tired of being teased. I went into full detail about what had happened during recess. She listened and handed me another Kleenex when I needed one. I'm sorry that happened to you, she said, as she put her hand gently on mine. But she went on, do you know what Sally did after she sold all of those seashells at the seashore? No, I said gruffly. She worked hard and sold enough seashells to buy herself a big house, a fancy car, and crushed life, and eventually the beaches who made her cry. She didn't say beaches, though. She said the actual B word, the B word that adults would say when they were mad sometimes. My dad explained to me once when I heard him say it that the B word meant a female dog, but I never heard anyone use it anywhere near a girl dog, so I wasn't sure if he was telling me the truth. But my speech therapist said it, the actual big B word. She put her hand over her mouth to stifle her giggle. My eyes were wide, and I wondered if teachers were allowed to talk like that. Oh, she went on, life is hard sometimes. Unfortunately you're going to get hurt, sometimes by the people you like the best. As she said this she sat up straighter in her chair. But you know what you get to do, she asked. I shook my head now. You get to decide how your story ends and who is in it, just like Sally did. I looked at her and smiled. It was a nice thought that I had never had before. Life was hard. This woman was telling me that I would get to make my own decisions and my own way in life. I liked that thought. Now she said as she leaned back up to the table, you ready for more peanut butter? I nodded yes. This wasn't just a one and done conversation with my speech therapist. After this conversation on that Friday afternoon, she became willing to spend some of our speech therapy time each week for check-ins with me, not just on my progress with my Lisp, but on the progress I was making in my life. She would often help me find ways to talk to people who were hurting my feelings, and even explain that it was okay and necessary to have boundaries in my life. I'm certain she knew that I couldn't have had these types of conversations at home, so she stepped in and stepped up in a really big way, and I'm forever grateful for the time she took to help me navigate those lessons and those people in my life. We continued to meet weekly until I moved on to junior high. Kids these days correct me and tell me it's called middle school now, and peaches are called folders, and math is now called Common Core, but none of that makes any sense to me. But on our last session she brought in a little gold mesh bag tied at the top with a blue ribbon. I told her my favorite color was blue. It had a strong smell to it, but I couldn't quite place it. She smiled at me as she told me to open it. Inside the bag were a couple of sandy seashells. I thought you might like those, she said. I didn't look up at her because I was crying a little. She reached out and put her hand on mine as she told me, Go crush your life, kid. You got this. I wish that I had kept those seashells somewhere safe, but I didn't. I put my softball glove and bat on my dresser one day after practice and it broke them. I heard the crunch. Although I don't have the shells physically in my possession, the memory stays. I think of her often when I visit any beach and when I stand up for myself. I also think of her when I eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and when I navigate saying anything successfully with an S when I talk. In preparing for this episode, I dove into what it means to stand up for yourself and create boundaries. I can rattle off what it means to me personally and how I do it, but I wondered how Google would explain it. To stand up for yourself, it says, means to confidently and respectfully advocate for yourself, your needs, and your beliefs. It involves saying no to unreasonable requests that you feel you need to say yes to. Standing up for yourself matters because it builds your self-esteem and helps you realize that you have worth. That speech therapist helped me see my own worth, and I was able to talk to my friend about the way she treated me that day on the playground, and she apologized, and we were okay. We did continue to have moments and times where we disagreed or said hurtful things to each other, but we said something sooner and apologized quicker and are still friends to this day. I did unfortunately have my own mild stroke a little over a year ago now. I'm grateful and blessed that it wasn't as bad as my mom's, but it did bring back my lisp in ways that I almost let silence me. I'm lucky to be surrounded by great friends and supportive family, like the redwood trees are, and that I have a TRY attitude thanks to my mom, grandma, and sister. These things have kept me going as I work hard to rebuild that tongue muscle and my facial muscles again. Even though I hear the Lisp loud and clear on these podcasts, I'm still proud of who I am today and what I'm trying to do. I would love to hear your stories about who your speech therapist person was or is in life. Who inspired you to stand up for yourself and taught you to create boundaries? How do you feel when you say no when asked to do something when everything in you says just say yes again? Also, do you feel like you're in a redwood forest supported by others? Who are they and how do they support you? I love reading all of your stories and truly do appreciate your support of me in this podcast. You can email me at lifelessons.ordinarywoman at gmail.com or reach me by clicking on the fan mail button on these podcast hosting sites. Also, please like, follow, and share this podcast with those you would like to have join our amazingly ordinarily beautiful community. Until next week, remember that I love you and your presence is a present to those around you.