Join Dr. Thayne as he introduces listeners to the two editors and brains behind the beautiful and inspirational Not by Chance Yearbooks. They share the reason they chose the theme of "Preserve" for the third issue, and the stories of the traditions, memories, and relationships that are worth our efforts to preserve.
Join Dr. Thayne as he introduces listeners to the two editors and brains behind the beautiful and inspirational Not by Chance Yearbooks. They share the reason they chose the theme of "Preserve" for the third issue, and the stories of the traditions, memories, and relationships that are worth our efforts to preserve.
There are as many ways to parent as there are parents in this world. But there is one way to parent that wins every time. And that's doing it intentionally. This show is about helping things go right before they can go wrong. Each episode is chosen to help parents like you, who may be overwhelmed or uninspired, find the ideas and motivation to give their best efforts to the people in place that matters the most. I'm Dr. Tim, Thayne, author of the book and host of the podcast, not by chance, I believe that a family success and happiness is not by chance. So welcome to the podcast built especially for intentional families. Let's jump in. Hi, everyone. Thank you for joining me for this podcast, the very first one of 2022. And I've got a special edition for you today. And we're going to talk about the not by chance, yearbook, we're kicking off the next, the next version of that, we're going to share that with you. And I've got the two editors who are behind all of this with me today. And I'm really excited to share it with you, we've got three editions now. And this last one is really on preserving, preserving family, and preserving all kinds of things that matter the most. And let me give you a little peek of it here, here's here's the cover, you'll find that it's just full of beautiful pictures, lots of great design in here that's inspiring to look at just in that way. But then you get into the stories. And these are written by just normal people. These are not editors or writers, but they're, they're people who've had real experiences that we can all relate to. And, for me, I'm always excited when this comes out, because I'll crack it open start to read and go, we did this, this is amazing what we've pulled together. And so I'm really happy that I've got Roxanne Michelle here to tell you more about it. So I'm going to turn the time over to them. And I hope you enjoy and I invite you to, to get a copy of this book for yourself. I know my dad, we gave him one for my mom and dad for for Christmas. And he started reading it. And he said he couldn't put it down. And that's definitely been my experience with it. And I think what will happen is you read content like this, that it will inspire you at a deep level and help you to actually follow through with some of the maybe the work that that goes into family life and helping you to really be intentional, not just the How to choose but the inspiration behind it.
Roxanne Thayne:Well, we are excited to be here together today. Michelle and I work together every day. And it's been such a joy since she came to work with us at homeward bound. I'm excited to introduce Michelle Mulford because she is a lot of the energy behind the not by chance yearbook. And so great to have you, Michelle,
Michelle Mulford:thanks. I'm glad to be here.
Roxanne Thayne:Well, we are going to talk about this beautiful third issue of the book. But before we do, can we just do a little bit of flashback into the first issue, the second issue and how it's grown until we get into what we've done this time. And the third issue. So why don't you hold up and show the first issue there? And tell us a little bit about it.
Michelle Mulford:Okay, so this is our first issue. It's something that we're really proud of. Yeah, just the concept of it. I mean, there wasn't really anything out there like that for families we had. There's a lot of academic stuff and clinical stuff for families. But we really wanted something that spoke to the heart that helped parents just feel encouraged and inspired, during, you know, hard times that there were other families out there people that had gone through the same things that they were going through. And so it was really neat to kind of have all that in our heads and then to really make it happen. And it happened because of families like yours. And so yeah, we were really proud of that. I probably shouldn't say that. But
Roxanne Thayne:no, it's okay to be proud of it. It was a lot of work. I mean, we sat for days across from each other looking at pictures that we could use and talking about writers that we could use and we didn't use professional writers, we use real people. We had some professionals but they weren't professional writers. Maybe they were in the field of therapy, or schools education. But we but everybody was apparent and everybody was a member of a family. Yeah. And so that's why we felt like we could ask and say you're qualified we need you. Yeah, can you come and just write up this one experience and what what was kind of fun I think with getting a bunch of novices I should say is that we were able to say I remember a story you told me about blank. Do you Mind building that out a little bit more and sharing it and writing it. And people were very willing to share and be vulnerable and open. And especially when they saw the first one come out, I think then we had an example to show others. This is what it's going to look like. And it was exciting to be a part of such a movement, something that was so beautiful and, and really helpful. Like, you kind of don't want to write in it, because it's so pretty. But if you do the work and write, you're going to gain so much from each page. Yeah, so that was our first one. Let's talk about the second one. Yeah, so
Michelle Mulford:the second one. So having done it once before, and just seeing the reaction and the response that we got from that. We're so excited about that second one. And the connection, the theme for the second one was connection.
Roxanne Thayne:You know, we chose connection because we were in the middle of the pandemic. And we had actually chosen the theme the year before the pandemic started, we'd already started writing that. That's right. And it was
Michelle Mulford:like that January before everything hit in February and March. So yeah, how interesting that we would, that we would choose connection, but it was so needed for that
Roxanne Thayne:year. And there were so many ways to connect, that was what was interesting, you know, connection with each other connection with your heart connection with your animals connection with nature. I mean, there was so many ways that we could find strength and unity, in the middle of something that nobody had lived through. Nobody was alive in, you know, 1919 for the Spanish Influenza. So we were all learning at this time. So connection was interesting. I think that there was one article you and I were just talking about that was different than we had done this time. Do you want to talk about that mother and daughter article? Oh, yes.
Michelle Mulford:So in this this issue? Yeah, we we kind of had this idea of showing two different views of the same event, or same situation, or same experience. And so we had a mother and daughter kind of tell their own story, their own view of that same experience. And so yeah, that was really interesting and neat to see just the mother's feelings and what she was going through, and the hopes and dreams that she had for this daughter. And then the daughter that you know, her view of the mother just maybe being controlling or, or things like that, not really seeing the love that the that the mother had, but coming back around to, to understanding and really seeing that progression of their relationship and how that that grew. But seeing that from both sides, and then coming together at the end, that was really something unique and fun.
Roxanne Thayne:And you know, it was a step parent relationship, which makes it even more interesting. So I think that the audience can probably really understand the the power of those feelings of being Miss judged or hurt or pushed aside or whatever, and then coming around to really loving one another and that you can build that love in a blended family. I agree it was a really a wonderful thing. And what was kind of neat was that because we know those people personally, we have heard how that has redefined their relationship that they actually did that work to write for us. So we're going to put in a plug for anybody out there who wants to write, you can heal relationships, yes, you can. You can do it by writing for the not by chance in your book. So this year, we chose a theme of preserve, and what what was so fun about that is there are so many synonyms for Preserve. So as we were asking those who are writing narratives this year, and as we were working on writing prompts, and and quotes that we would use or whatever we use lots of synonyms. Can you remember what some of those were?
Michelle Mulford:Let's see. Some of them are like safeguard treasure.
Roxanne Thayne:Protect protect
Michelle Mulford:was one.
Roxanne Thayne:Yeah. So as we thought about that, we had one of our young adults that works with us. And we kind of started brainstorming because we want this to be something that young adults can enjoy as well and benefit from, we started to say, what do you feel from? From those words? What would you think that young adults want to read about? And that was actually one of the narratives that came from it was her experience in preserving her life with depression as she struggled with depression for years, and she related it to a Marvel movie, one division. And it was just so fun and so different. And that was a really unique thing. So we appreciate Sarah for her input there. But there's so much that we throw away in this society so much that is just it's garbage in the first place, but so much that it's just transitory. But it's really important for us to decide what is worthy of keeping what traditions, what relationships, what do we pour our energy into to protect, you can't protect everything and you can't keep everything so you have some decisions to make and you have some work to do. Do it.
Michelle Mulford:Yeah. Not to mention your writing. I mean, these stories are now preserved for, for these individuals that have written and experiences, I think we all have a lot of experiences every day that that are meaningful and that we can help others with. But we don't preserve them. We don't write them down. We don't learn from them. And so, yeah, even in spite of all the preserving, we also, you know, people have written stories and preserve those through this book.
Roxanne Thayne:That's right. Well, do you mind if I put you on the spot? And have you show and share your story? So no, that's fine. This is the cover. First of all, I just wanted to show this because it was so perfect for what we really wanted to do. And, you know, the purpose of a lighthouse, of course, is to preserve the sailors and to preserve the boats and the ships that are coming in to shore from being on the ocean. And whether it's stormy or not, it can get dark and every family, whether you're in the midst of really hard hardships with a child their struggles or in your marriage relationship, or whatever it is, there's still times that you're in the doldrums and it's just dead, and you need some energy, and you need some focus, and you need some Oh, I can do that. And that's what you get by reading other people's stories or some of these prompts and writing things that we have in here. But I wanted Michelle to share her story, because I just think it's so beautiful and touching it. It came from a hardship. Yeah.
Michelle Mulford:Oh, thank you. Yeah. So my story. Yeah,
Roxanne Thayne:I show the picture while you're okay. Yeah, so
Michelle Mulford:last May, my nephew was killed in a car accident. And previous to that I had been, you know, taking walks through our neighborhood and going through our, we have this really beautiful cemetery just right by my home. And so, yeah, so I take walks almost every day through there and had noticed, you know, it's just a really peaceful place. But I had noticed occasionally as I'd gone through, people put these little trinkets or fun little things on people's graves that and I was kind of curious about those, I mean, you'd see things like a ceramic frog, or a can of Pepsi, or fun little, you know, teddy bears or football or things like that. And so as I was going on my walks, I started to wander and look at different graves and, and really get curious about this and would stop and think I wonder what these things mean. I, you know, I'm sure there's some sort of connection between the individual who put it there and the person that's passed on, but really started to think about that. And, and then when my nephew passed away in May I, it really made me think about him and and, you know, what would I put on his grave? But also my life? And what, what would somebody put on my grave? What would symbolize my connection with someone else? And I hope it would be something good and something positive. But But yeah, these things obviously symbolize, maybe an event or an experience that this individual had, that these two individuals had together. And so I wrote that, but that was kind of my narrative. This year, just writing about we really need to think about how we're living our lives and, and what what would be your symbol, what would people choose as your symbol and,
Roxanne Thayne:and the title is symbols of you. Right, which I think is beautiful. One, one of the stories that was very special, was written by a woman who was dying of cancer. And actually, yesterday, we watched we're at her funeral. And it was wonderful. I'm, I'm going to show the picture of her article. It was actually read at her funeral. It's called Live like there's no tomorrow, holding tight to what matters most. And what's kind of great is this picture is really her. We don't normally use pictures of the real people in here. But in this issue we we did, and these live like there's no tomorrow is truly something that sums up her life. And when it was read, everybody was just tearful, because it was words coming from her about how to live your life, this beautiful woman at age 50, losing her life to cancer, leaving behind a blended family of nine children who love her desperately. And it was just a light that went out for all of us. But we are so grateful that her words came to us yesterday, yeah, to remind us and it's now preserved for her. So talk about preserve, and
Michelle Mulford:for her family, right? Yeah. So tell us about yours. Roxanne. Tell us about your article. Well,
Roxanne Thayne:you know, I preserve you use that word a lot when you're saying I need to preserve some sanity here and I often use Michelle as my sounding board to say I think I'm losing my mind. So, one of the the, the story that I shared was called beating retreat. And beating retreat is actually the name of a, a ceremony done in England in London, to commemorate when the British were at war, back in the day, when it was a gentlemanly thing to do, they would actually beat their drums, and they would retreat and everybody in the city would know the fighting was over for the day. And everybody could sleep and rest, and they would pick up the fray in the morning. And so you go to Buckingham Palace, or wherever it was, I don't remember. But I was there when I was 14. And we watched this beading retreat military parade, where they played all of these wonderful, rousing military tunes. And Queen Elizabeth rode out on her horse, and it was just beautiful. But as I think about beating retreat, how many times do we do that in our lives? I mean, yeah, we fall into bed dead. But how many times do we actually symbolize everybody, I'm taking a retreat now. So that I can rest I can plan, I can get ready for the morning. And I think that this is a perfect time to be talking about this this year, that at the beginning of the new year, that you need to take time to plan to retreat to rest, and you will become so creative, you will have so much insight and inspiration, if you will take some time. So I talk about one of my retreats that I took for writing, my sister has a little cabin about 45 minutes from here. And so I just talk about what I do to make those retreats really meaningful and productive. And how I come back a much happier, more engaged mother and co worker after I've had one of those. So that's what it was about.
Michelle Mulford:That's yeah, I really enjoyed your article. And that's something that's really important to do. I think as moms, that's the last thing that, you know, we're the last person that we take care of. And, but
Roxanne Thayne:and you know, dads too, I mean, I'm constantly telling Tim, get up to my sister's cabin, and take a few days away, you need to get away. And I think he's starting to understand that I've told him, that's how I get my books written, I have to be away and not distracted. I also need to do a better job of keeping my mouth shut. So I'm not constantly interrupting his flow. Yeah,
Michelle Mulford:I really enjoyed yours, Roxanne. I mean, I hadn't heard of that before. That must have been a really neat scene in England to see to see that. And then yeah, I really
Roxanne Thayne:enjoy jars. Well, let's talk for just a second about some of the prompts that we have in here. That one of my favorites is called just a spoonful of sugar. And you worked on this one, talking about how you can keep some sweetness in your relationships. So do you want to just share one of your favorite points out of let's see, we have 1234567 points which one was your favorite? I've had to keep some sweetness in a relationship by exhibiting some virtues like patience, forgiveness, open mindedness, praise,
Michelle Mulford:cash, there's several I think, but you know, I really like believe in yourself and others. It's always good to have a positive attitude and never helps when you just get discouraged and down on others, especially in hard situations. Sometimes we give up hope. And we just think, Oh, this is never gonna work. Or I'm never going to be able to do this, or I'm not a good mom, or my son or daughter just aren't getting it. But I think you can really turn a situation around hard situation around by by just believing in yourself, having faith in yourself getting back up trying again. But also in others. I think people can sense that if you're, you know, a parent and you're, you're positive and you know, it's okay, just try again, we can do this. That energy really feeds growth and positivity. So I think that's really important to remember, just believe in yourself, believe in your kids.
Roxanne Thayne:Mm hmm. Well, I have to say that my favorite is work at solving emotional problems before practical problems. I think that so many times we're trying to fix the grades. We're trying to clean the room. We're trying to say you shouldn't talk to me that way. And we need to look at the underlying problem. Yeah, and and address that first. And so that was a great reminder. And then the last one you have here is think of a conflict you had recently with a family member and how it applying these principles have changed the outcome. I mean, we have a full page for you to write on that. Yeah. Because I think you're gonna see a lot of ways that you could have sweetened that experience. Yeah. So what was one of your favorite things that we did in this book?
Michelle Mulford:As far as a list, yeah, less
Roxanne Thayne:you know, or readers really contributed a lot. Something that
Michelle Mulford:just kind of little fun thing that we started to do. We didn't do this an issue one but we did it an issue too and Three are these little cards, these little pass long cards. These are really fun because, you know, it's just a simple, quick way for you to connect to someone, either your child or your neighbor or a family member. But these are really fun, because we've kind of made it easy for you to just you could either cut these out of your issue, or you can go on not by chance.com, and you can print them. But this year, just little fun little cards for you to either, you know, if somebody had a death or a heart experience. Also, if somebody's sick Get well soon, or, you know, taking a plate of cookies over just a note to let you know, I'm thinking of you, and then maybe a new neighbor, somebody moved in, you can bring something over with this fun little card. But I don't know, I really like these, something that's easy and quick, something you can do to just reach out.
Roxanne Thayne:I think you mentioned lists and lists is one of our favorite things to do. Because we get to use our readers and we get to use our social media followers. Yeah. And the list that we created this year was 55 books that inspire and it says, Here, sometimes the best wisdom can come from books, they can help us see things differently. And the lessons we learned from them can stick with us long after we've read the last page. Here's the list of books suggested by our readers that teaches valuable life lessons through their stories. And it was so interesting to see which ones popped up several times and you think, Oh, is that? You know, high school English curriculum? Is that why that's showing up? Or do people remember that as a great story, their teachers or parents read to them back in the day? Some of them like How to Win Friends and Influence People are just classics. I mean, they should always be on the list.
Michelle Mulford:Yeah, that's a good book. Yeah, I am Malala. That's a that's a great book, just really inspirational and overcoming difficult things and trial. And so yeah, all of these books super good to be able to either read yourself or share with your kids.
Roxanne Thayne:You know, this woman who passed away yesterday, she, her kids told a story about how there was a boy's bedroom in a girl's bedroom with a doorway between them. And that she is to sit with her back up against the door jamb, and read to them all kinds of books. And they said that must have been the most uncomfortable place in the whole house to sit. But she felt so passionately about reading to her children, that she made that happen and how much they love that one treasured image of their mother. Yeah, sacrificing her comfort, to educate them. Well, and that's it's a really, you know, if
Michelle Mulford:you're having conflict between you and a child, it's a really non aggressive way to connect with your children. I've been reading to my kids, my boys at night, and I've been surprised at how that strengthened and deepened our connection. And I'm not saying anything, I'm not lecturing, I'm just reading a book to them. I'm just spending time with them. And, and so yeah, right now we're reading Matilda, and it's, that's a funny book. It's really, really kind of an interesting book, Roald Dahl is a, my kids love him. But, but yeah, it's just a fun way few minutes every day that we can connect with each
Roxanne Thayne:other. And if I can put it in a plug for audiobooks, too, don't feel like you have to do all the work. If you're together as a family in a car, or in a living room. I know, I know, you are probably struggling like we do in our home with everybody off on their devices in their own spaces. And you have to have something that draws everybody in. And I'd say one of our favorite audio books we ever listened to was Tarzan. And another favorite was a a condensed version, of course of Les Miserables. And it has built such strength as a family. There's one liners, we can talk about it, we can talk about where we were when the book ended. This year, we actually listened as a family, we had a couple of road trips, and we listened to Boys in the Boat, which is fabulous. Oh my goodness, good. I think about it all the time. It's I'm trying a rowing machine. Not doing very well.
Michelle Mulford:I'm thinking okay, you gotta step it up. Well,
Roxanne Thayne:I think that, you know, just in closing, what we wanted to do in this podcast was, first of all introduce you to what the yearbook is some of the treasures that are inside of it, but also to invite you to be a part of it next year. And so Michelle, do you want to announce what our theme is for the next issue? I mean, of course, we want everybody to go get this and you can get this on not by chance, calm. You can order your copy there. We're very excited with the response we've had we send it out to professionals in treatment programs in the field, we got a very sweet email back saying can we order 50 for our families that our treatment program because they have lots of curriculum to hand out, but they don't have the inspiration and what a beautiful gift to give your families to encourage them to do their work at home while their child is doing work in the treatment field, or for the rest of us who don't have a kid in treatment at the moment to just find that inspiration. So Michelle, you want to talk about the
Michelle Mulford:the next issue. Yes So, so next year, we thought, really after a lot of thought and thinking about you, as families and parents, grandparents, we, we just really are inspired by the concept of home coming home. And so that's going to be our theme for next year, whether it's, you know, coming back to a physical place, or whether it's returning to yourself and coming back home again, but also maybe returning to the basics returned to those foundational things that that really strengthen us in our lives. So, right,
Roxanne Thayne:I think that, you know, a lot of people feel like, Oh, you're in an adolescent treatment field. So it must be about a child coming home from a treatment program, what that's like, you know, the reunion. That's just a very, very small part of it. I talked to one woman who said, I thought about writing about coming home to my husband, and our relationship, like, there were some rocky times and we had to come home to each other. And so anyway, I don't want to give away what's going to happen by the end of next year, because we want you to enjoy this year and preserving your most important relationships. I just want to end with a quote that 10 says, and it has it here in the beginning of the book, and it says, we naturally safeguard what we treasure. family relationships, then should receive our best efforts to either maintain them or to reclaim them. So let's just end with that. Okay, thanks so much, everybody for joining us. We hope you enjoy the yearbook.
Dr. Tim Thayne:Parents, your time is valuable, and I'm grateful you spent some of it with us. What you're intentionally doing in your home life is inspiring and unmatched in its importance in long term effects. Ask yourself, What am I going to do because of what I've learned today?