The Gift of Pain. Stay Bitter or Get Better? Change The Narrative. Be A Joy Starter.

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:13):
Cast up thing, little food for yourself life. Oh it's
pretty bad. Hey, it's pretty beautiful thing beautiful that for
a little more than it's exciting, said he. Your kick
in with four Thing.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
With Amy Brown, Happy Thursday.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
Four Things Amy Here, and my guest today is Rachel Barbeo.
And Rachel, you are a storyteller, you are an inspirational speaker,
You're a sportscaster, you're an author. I feel you out
all the street credit and you've worked with a lot
of people and I got lost on YouTube watching a
lot of your videos.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
They're very inspiring, and.

Speaker 3 (00:55):
We're going to get into what you are passionate about,
especially when it comes to cultivating joy, spreading joint and
seeing pain as a gift, which is often something we
talk about here a lot of my guests and even myself,
and just knowing that there's a bigger picture and sometimes
we can get lost in the pain, are stuck, yep,

(01:17):
lost inside of it, and you're stuck and you feel
like is there any way out of this? And I
think when we have hope that there can be meaning
to what we're going through. And so I'm glad that
you're going to walk us through some of that today.
But before we get into the things, I want to
talk about dopamine decor, because when you walked into my house,
you immediately mentioned that.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
I thought, well, this is interesting. People need to know
about this.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
Yeah. So I do a weekly newsletter every week and
I say it's a newsletter that actually makes you better,
and in it, I just do neat things. It might
be a recipe, it might be something I read, it
might be you know where I'm going, what I'm doing,
something that I've encountered. It's just it's interesting. Months. I
have five things, five things that I'm into this week.

(02:00):
And recently I found an article that talked about there's
a new kind of decor and it's called dopamine decor,
and it is not following any aesthetic other than what
pleases you, putting things in your house that please you.
So the colors, the things, you know, if you collect
coffee mugs or spoons or whatever, that might be right,

(02:21):
you decorate with those things that make you happy.

Speaker 3 (02:23):
I finally just started to pull my bedroom together. I
went through divorce last year and sort of started over,
Like everything came off the walls and we had a
divide assets.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
So he took the bed.

Speaker 3 (02:34):
And then started to get a new bed and then
it was a sort of a bed frame and a
mattress and some sheets for a while, and I felt
like my energy in there was like, augh, this doesn't
feel like a retreat, which our bedrooms should you feel
that way. It's finally starting to come together. Like I
hung some stuff a couple of weeks ago, got a
bed in. I just moved a rug in there, and

(02:55):
it's full of color. And my room before that was
very black and white, which that's fine. Yeah, that was
actually the energy of my whole home, or the vibe
was very neutrals, and I went through a difficult season,
and it seems as though if you start to go
through different parts of my house, there's a way more color.
Like I painted my living room green. It was one

(03:17):
of the first things I did now that you talk about.
That was something I needed and it's probably giving me
a little dopamine.

Speaker 1 (03:22):
Hit absolutely, And you know, I talk about her often
without mentioning her name, but there's a woman within my
organization that I work with, and she had an experience
where her husband came home and in the same vein
of what you're talking about, he came home and he said,
I want a divorce, like out of the blue. And
they've been married many years. And instead of laying down
and dying, she decided to take up paddling. She's like fifty.

(03:46):
She took up paddling. She never paddled in her life, Amy,
And she learned how to put a rack on the
top of her car, and she entered a race to
paddle across her entire state. She met new friends, and
she taught herself all these things. And what I told her,
I was like, Wow, way to bring you talk about
beauty from pain, beauty from ashes, way to not lay

(04:08):
down and die. And you're telling us, you're telling the world,
you know, the things that you've discovered after pain, you know.
And that's to me, that's very curious, because there is
so much to look forward to in the midst of
pain and after pain, and we can really we can
redefine ourselves if we want to.

Speaker 3 (04:25):
Well, that's a great way to segue into the gift
of pain. So I want you to share your personal
story with that.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
I wrote this book, and I started the book with
like this whole page of like all the crap I've
been through and I even said it where I can't
believe I just wrote this. I've never written this all
at one time, Like I feel like I need a breather.
You know, I've been through a lot. And I heard
Denzel Washington say the other day, I've not learned anything
from success. I've learned everything from pain, from being based

(04:55):
down in the mud, from being you know, abused or addicted,
or losing both my parents. I was telling you before
we started the show, you know, I was listening to
some of your stuff and your story and so I
mean I was in my hotel room going you, ooh, yeah,
I feel that, you know. I was like, oh, I
know her. You know, I don't even know her, but
I know her because it's a club that you don't

(05:16):
want to be in.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
Do you follow Heather McMahon at all?

Speaker 1 (05:19):
Then I knew I liked her, like I was drawn
to her energy. Is she is? She a sister that's
experienced a lot of she as.

Speaker 3 (05:26):
She lost her dad, and I don't know how she
started to bring everybody together through social media, but she
has the Dead Dad's Club.

Speaker 1 (05:35):
Oh wow.

Speaker 3 (05:35):
And some have their own opinion, yeah, and if it's
insensitive or not, and just since it's evolved because some
people haven't lost their dads, they've lost their mom, they've
lost both their parents. So now I think it's more
of like the Dead Parents Club. But I think it's
all in how you handle it, and everybody grieves in
their own way. And while I don't always engage in

(05:55):
all of the content she puts up regarding that, I
think it's I like it and I like of course,
she's a comedian, so she's gonna use jokes and levity
to get through something in humor.

Speaker 1 (06:06):
Humor is such a gift, Like I wish more people
would embrace humor. I've been with my husband seven years,
we've been married two years, and I want to find
the people that told everybody this lie that the first
two years like the were the honeymoon phase and the
best years, because that's a load of crap, like it's not,

(06:26):
at least in my case, and talking to more people.
But I say that to say is now after two years,
we're kind of settling in and we defuse a lot
of stuff with humor, especially him, where we used to
step in it and step in these landmines and now
he'll just be funny or dance or do something stupid,
and I can't be mad, you know. I'm like, okay,

(06:48):
like I get this. And you talk about the gift
of pain. Even before we were married, we split up twice,
and had we not split up those two times, we
wouldn't be married today, and I up with who it
was kind of mutual. Both times we were just toxic, sad. Again,
I so relate to your story. You also mentioned now

(07:08):
on what podcast it was you were doing, you were
talking about everything. A lot of things happened to you
at once.

Speaker 3 (07:13):
Yeah, three huge life events where I think if even
one of those things were to happen to someone, it
would be enough to.

Speaker 1 (07:22):
Take you out.

Speaker 2 (07:23):
Yeah, to take you out.

Speaker 3 (07:24):
And unfortunately for me, it was three things, and one
of those being my dad's death, and the other two
just involve other people and it's their story. So I
haven't been public and I don't know if one day
there'll be an opportunity to talk about because I do
think that would be helpful in a way for me.
That's also what helps pain, is sharing some of my

(07:45):
experience once I'm able, once I feel like and sometimes
it's in the moment, and sometimes it's well after it
just depends. I just say that because I think it's
important for us to consider everybody involved and not just
like try to say a story.

Speaker 1 (07:58):
But that's so respectful and being somebody who I study
people and I talk to people, and I train and
I do all these different things. I work like a
people ologist. If you like, that's so respectful of you.
And I noticed you said that before and now you
just said it again.

Speaker 3 (08:13):
Well, I reiterate it because sometimes I'll get notes like, oh, well,
you keep talking about this thing. You get and it's
not a lot of notes, but you know one email
or two that reference that. Then you start to think, oh, yeah,
I'm not giving them enough, or they need more for me,
or I'm holding out, or they think I'm just saying
something to be dramatic, and it's like, no, these are

(08:35):
three pretty terrible things. And I promise you if I
could sit down and tell them all because the people
that close to me they know. And it's like it
almost didn't seem real, and like, how is this happening
all at once?

Speaker 2 (08:44):
It all unfolded in a probably sixty day period, so
in the same two months, like boom boom boom, and
sort of just felt like every time I would sort
of even come up for air, I was like just getting.

Speaker 1 (08:56):
I call it the perfect storm of crap or you
could use other words either way. Indn'ert any word you
want to use.

Speaker 2 (09:02):
Uh yeah, perfect storm crap. It's really like, well, so
let's talk about your guys that you talk about. Yeah,
like what some of your perfect stormer crap that is
at the gift of pain for you?

Speaker 1 (09:10):
Yeah. So in twenty nineteen end of April, boyfriend and
I we break up. Who's now a husband. We break up.
It was mutual. He had come out of a divorce.
My mom was sick. We were long distance. I don't
necessarily think he had healed from that. I was grieving
my mother, you know, before she was even gone. Five
days later, my mom dies in my arms. My mom

(09:33):
and I also had a complicated childhood and then grew
up to be best friends, and so we were best
friends for the last seven years of her life. So
then she dies, and then not even thirty days later,
I found myself broke because I had been taking care
of her and I wasn't traveling and speaking. I was
taking care of her. I was, you know, financially taking

(09:53):
care of her, and I don't regret that whatsoever. As
a trigger warning, I always try to give that to
people when speaking about tough subjects. But at the time,
I was working for Sirius XM and I was doing
an early morning show, and I was used to doing
night shows, so I was having to get up super early.
In the second day of like five am shows, I
was sleep deprived. That was the straw that broke the
camel's back. And then I had I say this heartache

(10:16):
times too. You know, my heart was broken and my
heart was broken, and then you know, I had no
money and people say to hear voices. I didn't hear voices.
I heard one voice and it was like a snake
in my ear that said, you're pathetic, You're weak. You know,
you'll never keep anybody. Everybody leaves, and you're gonna lose
your house, and you're gonna you know, nobody's ever gonna
book you again. You're gonna be seen as a loser,

(10:38):
and you should just take yourself out of this world.
And I had never had those thoughts in my entire life.
And that's why it's one of the huge reasons why
I do what I do now, because very high functioning
people can have very quickly go to a negative place.
And there's people that are depressed over a long period
of time. And I was not depressed at that time.

(10:58):
It wasn't clinically depressed at that time. I would be
later after losing my mom. But I had never had
those thoughts amy, and it happened just like that, and
I didn't know what to do. I didn't have a
plan that night. I believed the lie that I couldn't
burden my family and friends. And now I have this,
this unwavering belief, and I tell people over and over
again that people would rather share your burdens and carry

(11:20):
your casket.

Speaker 2 (11:21):
Every time I say it, it's just oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:24):
And I didn't call anybody. And so this was happening
at three o'clock in the morning, and later on when
I began to talk about this my family and friends,
they cried to me. They were like, the fact that
you didn't feel like you could come to me breaks
my heart, like rips my heart open. So now what
I teach people is there's facts and there's feelings, and
feelings will very much lie to us. Feelings are fleeting,
feelings will lead us astray. They're important, but they will

(11:47):
also lead us astray. And so the fact was is
that I was precious and loved. I am precious and loved.
I have so many things to look forward to, you know,
my life force. I have things to do in this
world and my life life was worth living. But at
that moment I didn't think it, and I almost took
myself out of the world that night.

Speaker 3 (12:06):
Yeah, it makes me think data versus drama, and like
the facts versus that. But our feelings are emotions. When
they're in the driver's seat, they're very powerful and similar
to you. I think you had so much going on
that people didn't notice. You didn't even notice. And I
remember when someone started to question, well, someone my therapist.

(12:27):
I was like, I think you think you might be depressed.
I'm like, no, no, im work every day, I'm getting
everything done and I'm still doing everything I need to do.
And she's like, yeah, depressed, isn't just in your room
with the light sock get out of bed.

Speaker 1 (12:40):
Now?

Speaker 3 (12:40):
That is how some people are, absolutely, and I think
that's just how we envision it because of TV shows
or movies are just what we're told, but it can
look so different. And yeah, I had never had certain
thoughts either. I'm glad you shared that because I haven't
shared this much. I haven't shared this much, but I

(13:11):
can relate. Not in a like the voice of like
you're pathetic, you don't deserve to be here. It was
more of exhaustion and more of like I'd be driving
down the highway and it would be like if an
eighteen wheeler rams into me right now and just ends it,
all that is okay. And I kind of thought that
was a little bit normal because people just that I'm

(13:34):
not thinking of taking my life. But I was okay
if my life was taken.

Speaker 1 (13:39):
And when I.

Speaker 3 (13:40):
Shared that far with my therapist, she was like, and
I was like, well, everybody has those thoughts, right, So no,
everybody doesn't have those thoughts. And now she's right because
now I don't have those thoughts. So it is you
can go through different seasons of life. So that would
rather carry your burdens than carry your casket statement That
is very powerful.

Speaker 1 (13:58):
So what I didn't know that night, my business manager
has been with me a lot of years. He also
happens to be an AA sponsor. And what he taught
me and now I teach it all over the country.
I teach what I call them a mental health battle plan,
and it's find your three ride er dies. Like you're
three people that if you won the lottery, you'd call

(14:20):
them and you take them on a cruise to Mexico,
because you know, we all dream about like what we
would do if we won the lottery. Like for me,
I would pay off my like people's debts, you know,
Like so nobody had a debt, so they were just
like living, you know, footloose and fancy free. I wouldn't
necessarily give him money, but I'd cleared the slate form.
But they're the people that you would take to Mexico.
Right there are also the people that if you didn't

(14:40):
have anything but rama noodles and you wanted them to
come over and sit with you, they wouldn't care if
it was rama noodles or a file at and if
you were broken down the side of the road or
you needed something. And so you call these three people,
you text them, you call them whatever it is, and
you say, hey, listen, I'm ever happy and the greatest
thing happens to me, I'm gonna call you. But also
can versely, if the worst thing that happens to me

(15:03):
if I have bad thoughts, if I don't have any money,
if I have a flat tip, whatever, I'm gonna call you,
and you go ahead and let them know, and then
you teach them to go find their three people and
their three people. And what happens amy is it ripples
out like a ripple on a pond. Because I said
in the book there's a fine line between isolation and solitude.
I love solitude. I married a man who has four kids,

(15:25):
so I became a mom like overnight, and I love solitude.
But if I'm not careful and I'm not in a
good headspace, solitude can turn to isolation, and isolation is
where those negative thoughts begin to happen. And what we're
doing today is, even if you think about it's radically
important because we're we're letting other people know that high
functioning people have had these thoughts that hey, talk to somebody.

(15:48):
Maybe while you have them, they're damaging. You know, it's
not normal to have these thoughts all the time. If
I was still having thoughts to kill myself, I would
be in some other progressive type of things therapy. You
know what I'm saying. And you're saying you don't have
the thoughts of the eighteen wheeler anymore. So I just
think this is really amazing where this is already going,
because there are people that are listening right now within

(16:09):
the sound of our voice, that have had these thoughts today.
And I tell people, take off the mask, find somebody
that you love, find one of those three writer dies,
and say, listen, I've been struggling with something lately. I've
had anxiety, I've had depression, I'm struggling in my marriage,
something's going on financially, whatever it is, find somebody you
trust and love and share that with them, right because

(16:31):
they would rather share your burdens and carry your casket.
And we are facing an absolute epidemic in this country
of suicide. And to me, I think there's actually two
kinds of suicide amy one is a literal death and
the other one's a slow death where you hide your
feelings and you smile in people's faces and tell them
how great you're doing, but you're dying inside.

Speaker 3 (16:52):
I know you know, mentioning you don't want to burden
anybody with your burdens, And the word that keeps coming
to mind right now as you're speaking me as shame.
And so sometimes you might be willing to have a
conversation with somebody you're not going to be a burden,
but just we'll say you're willing to be a burden.

Speaker 2 (17:08):
You're willing to share your burdens.

Speaker 3 (17:11):
But then if it's a topic that where there's shame
attached to it, then you maybe step back and say no, no, no,
I can't talk about it. So I think it's important
you have to hopefully find and have those people that
are going to have zero judgment no matter what. And
I think also if we realize we're one of those people,
like we need to have our three people, but we

(17:32):
were going to be somebody's personally a man.

Speaker 1 (17:34):
Amen, And so what.

Speaker 3 (17:35):
Advice do you have for being that person? Because I'm
just thinking through speaking of no judgment, just being a
listener and not trying to fix it.

Speaker 1 (17:44):
Yes, So I wish I could take credit for this,
but I cannot and I will not. But there is
this great little trick you can do when you're going
to sit down with somebody to have a deep conversation,
whether you're the listener or the talker, and it is
if you're the listener, you say, would you like for
me to listen, to listen or would you like for
me to listen to provide a solution? Save so many arguments,

(18:08):
so many misunderstandings. It's really great in marriage, but it's
great in anything. And so when somebody says, hey, I
want to sit down and will you listen, the other
thing is is you have two ears in one mouth
for a reason, shut up and listen, like truly listen.
I think one of the greatest things we can do
with our friends, with our family and life is listen
to people, not listen to respond. And I have to

(18:30):
catch myself. I'm a great listener when i'm you know,
and I want to be, but there are times where
my mind's already going, you know, like, oh what I'm
I going to say? How am I going to respond?
You know? But if you do that and you set
those kind of standards, and here's another big one is hey,
I've got some things that I really need to talk about.
Is this a good time for you or is there

(18:50):
a better time for you? So that's also talking to
the person that you're going to be sharing all of
this with, getting their permission to really go to them
something really heavy, Right, So you both enter into this
space with vulnerability, and you're you're both complicit, you know,
like you're open to to talk about these really heavy

(19:10):
things because I think sometimes if you're the person that's
about to share what's happening, and the other person's not
in the headspace, the other person's not ready for it.
They're not mentally prepared, they didn't eat that day so
they're angry, you know, or they're in a fight with
their whatever. We got to make sure that we're both
in that space as sacred as we can be to
be able to help carry each other's burdens.

Speaker 2 (19:31):
Yeah, I think that's gonna encourage it.

Speaker 3 (19:32):
Bandwidth, Like, yeah, to bandwid because I've I've not been
aware of that before. Sometimes when I've unloaded something on
a friend and I haven't checked in with them to
see because sometimes you know, if it's your bff, you
kind of get on the phone and you start going
off because maybe it's not a like, hey, I've it's
a I'm having these thoughts like that, I feel because
the more hey, can I have a sit down? But
sometimes we can just get on the phone and start.

Speaker 1 (19:54):
To own mode things absolutely and.

Speaker 3 (19:56):
Not take into consideration our bff's bandwidth at that moment,
and then kind of some resentment starts to stay out.

Speaker 1 (20:02):
There, and then we don't talk about it, and then
that resentment grows. I have a client I coach as well,
and she said she had a work person that will
call her all the time and would say just five minutes,
and so she'd get on the phone with her, and
she said, every time, Amy, it went thirty forty five minutes,
and the woman just kept on and on on and

(20:23):
was unloading on her. And I taught her, because I
teach on this topic, the boundaries are the greatest form
of soul care we could ever enact, right Like it's
respect for ourselves, it's respect for others. And so I
taught her to say to the lady, you know, hey,
I truly do have five minutes and that's all I have.
Or to say to the lady, Hey, I'd really love

(20:46):
to be that for you today, but I do not
have the emotional bandwidth for that today. I really wish
you the best. Here some other options, but I can't
do that for you today. And she was like, and
I was like, yeah, I can do it. I know.

Speaker 3 (21:00):
Saying that it like hearing that you can say that
and actually saying it to somebody all different.

Speaker 1 (21:06):
But I think it's hard.

Speaker 2 (21:07):
If we get used to doing that.

Speaker 3 (21:08):
And then also as the receiver, we see that as like,
oh wow, I respect the fact that you just said
that boundary with me, and I'm not going to take
it personally and I'm not gonna get my feelings hurt
because look at you taking care of you, Like, I'm
get more excited that thank you for doing that, So
that way we can continue with a healthy relationship.

Speaker 1 (21:28):
You're hard. Boundaries are hard. When you first lay down,
you feel selfish, you feel weird, you feel bossy. But
once you start to do that and honor yourself, it
teaches everybody else around you how to treat you and
also how to treat themselves.

Speaker 2 (21:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (21:43):
So another thing that comes with the gift of pain.
And you mentioned this in your book about.

Speaker 1 (21:50):
Being bitter.

Speaker 2 (21:52):
Or better, like you can stay bitter or you can
get better from it.

Speaker 1 (21:57):
Yeah. After my mom passed away, I would see this
is as raw and vulnerable as I can be. I
would see people's moms who beat cancer, and I was
so mad and so jealous and so angry that my
mom didn't beat it. I didn't like who I was,
you know, And I finally got to a point where
I looked in the mirror and I was like, God,
help me, Will you help me God, because I don't

(22:18):
want to be like this, you know. I want to
be cheering other people's moms who make it, you know,
like I want to be celebrating that. I don't want
to be that. I don't want to be a bitter beatty.
And through through God, through therapy, through my own hard
work and junk, I overcame that. Now when I see
mothers and daughters like, I just you know, drawn to them, like,
oh you're a mother daughter, Oh, you know, like and

(22:41):
like make myself the other daughter. Like I'm drawn very
drawn to maternal women. It doesn't matter what age you are, Like,
if you're a maternal woman, I'm like mathed to flame
because I'm very maternal. I had to go through it
firsthand and be bitter and be miserable to realize that
I did not want to be miserable for the rest
of my life life.

Speaker 2 (23:00):
Because that's pretty painful. Let's be stuck in the pain.
Like yeah, bitter Betty, bitter Betty. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (23:07):
I had similar feelings, especially yeah, having lost my mom
and my dad. Sometimes I think of people that have
both of their parents, or maybe even just one. I'm like, oh,
there's so many times I want to like pick up
the phone and call my parents and I can't, and
I can get all worked up about it. But also,

(23:27):
you know, we know, as a lot of people have
said in their own way, you know, comparison is the
thief of joyce, and you start to compare what other
people have, this is what you don't. I just don't
want to keep doing that to myself. But I had
have all those thoughts in the beginning. I don't feel
like I have them that much anymore. But as much
work as you do, it's weird sometimes how your brain
will remember thoughts. You go right back to where you were,

(23:50):
and you're like, well, shoot, I've done all this work,
and here I am again.

Speaker 2 (23:53):
But I guess you recover faster.

Speaker 1 (23:55):
Yeah. How long was it between your dad and your mom?

Speaker 3 (23:58):
My mom curiosity in twenty fourteen and my dad in
twenty twenty one, So there's quite the gap, was it
twenty twenty one?

Speaker 1 (24:08):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (24:08):
Twenty twenty one?

Speaker 3 (24:09):
Yea, as everybody says, twenty twenty twenty three, it's like,
who even knows what happened during COVID. He didn't die
from COVID, but I do think that isolation contributed to
his deterioration because he was an assisted living home and
I was waiting for the vaccine to come out to
move him in with me. And actually this room that

(24:30):
we're in right now, I turned into his bedroom. Actually
this room that we're in right now, I turned into
his bedroom. That's why there's a cab Wino sign right there.
My dad would always say, oh, anything you'd tell him like.

Speaker 2 (24:53):
He'd be like, oh, ca we No.

Speaker 3 (24:54):
I'd be like, oh, you know, doing a podcast interview today,
and I'll tell him about I'd.

Speaker 2 (24:58):
Be like, oh, cab WEO. I hope it goes well.
But he was here one night and he made it here.
It was very weak. He fell.

Speaker 3 (25:07):
I had a little baby monitor in here, and I
heard it in my room and then I looked at
the monitor and he was on the ground. So I
came in and got him and then tried to take
him to the bathroom and he fell in the hallway
right there by the front door, and we just called
nine one one and the ambulance came to get him,
and he got in and he'd gone to the hospital before,
so I just kind of waved, like I'll pick you
up later because COVID they would let me go. And

(25:28):
then they called the next day and my husband had
taken the call, and when I got up and walked
in the kitchen, he was like, your dad's on life support,
like he can't and I was.

Speaker 2 (25:37):
Like what wait, what what?

Speaker 3 (25:39):
And my siblings flew in and we had to make
the decision to remove him from life support. But it
was one of those weird things where he held on.
That was what was interesting. He held on to have
one night here with his daughter, and I'm sure he
would have loved to see all the family, but I'm
the one that happened to live here, yeah, and with
his grandkids. And then he was able to be like, Okay,

(26:02):
his body is going to shut down now.

Speaker 2 (26:04):
So that was fascinating to me. And I don't know
what just maybe go off on that.

Speaker 3 (26:07):
It's it's more of the fascinating of what our bodies
are capable of and what they when, how the time
is right. And then he was able to go. And
then speaking of joy and joy in your home. I
hated this room. I hated even this house just because
so many terrible things were happening here. Yes, and my
sister came in and redecorated it and made it happy again.

Speaker 2 (26:31):
And now I like hanging out in here. I'll even
work in here.

Speaker 3 (26:34):
And I was thinking about even just selling my house
because I couldn't take it. But we revamped, and now
I have that dopamine decort.

Speaker 2 (26:41):
Yeah, like you were talking about.

Speaker 1 (26:43):
And you know, this is like Rachel's unabridged version of faith.
But I lost my dad in twenty fourteen and then
my mom in twenty nineteen. But I had said to
a friend of mine who's a football coach, he had
had devastating loss. He's lost his wife to cancer's son
committed suicide. This was a while back. And I said, oh,
you know, I think our loved ones are all around.
And he said, actually, Rachel, I don't think that. He said,

(27:04):
I think they're too busy in heaven. So I think
they're too busy praising God. They're too busy in heaven.
But I think that every once in a while, like
God lets some like rent a car. You know, my
mom like wanted this little like VW bug when she
never got it. So I feel like she goes to
like the Heavenly rental, you know, department, and like gets
the bug and comes down and gets to visit, you know,

(27:25):
and and then my dad too, and then goes back,
you know. And so maybe your dad comes and sees
this and smile.

Speaker 2 (27:33):
Oh he does I have a bird feeder? He's a
blue jay.

Speaker 1 (27:35):
Oh yeah, my mom's a redbird. A cardinal?

Speaker 2 (27:38):
Yeah, okay, mine mine too.

Speaker 1 (27:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (27:40):
Well, and that's only because literally the morning my mom died,
there was a cardinal that appeared right outside the window
as we were laying there with her.

Speaker 2 (27:46):
This is gonna be weird, but not. I mean if
people have experienced this. But did you lay with your
mom for a while?

Speaker 3 (27:49):
Yes, so to me and my sister and are like,
we kind of looked at each other at one point,
We're like, she's dead.

Speaker 2 (27:53):
Yeah, we're still laying here holding like this. We're like
on this twin sized bed, laying with.

Speaker 1 (27:58):
He did you figure this out? Death? But really, my
mother's death reinforce this. It is not if we're gonna die,
it's win. And it has given me this like crazy
life force to to live with everything I have, like
to to love to live, to go for it, to
be audacious, to like live my life in such a

(28:18):
way that you know, I'm making the most of if
I had sixty years or six days. Right when my
mom passed, I recognized, for like the first time, that
body was just a shell, like her soul was gone.
I couldn't see it, but I felt it leave the room.
And her body was there for a couple of hours
to the to the and I hate to be morbid,

(28:39):
but it's the truth that till the coroner got there, and.

Speaker 2 (28:41):
Yes, they come in there like excuse me, you ready,
and when they had their little stretcher thing and you're like, oh, I.

Speaker 1 (28:47):
Guess, oh wow, you know, and I'm like, oh wow.
And so she was just my mom was like in
the living room for hours. And to be honest with you,
you know, we didn't know what to do. Like we
were we were drinking wine on the back porch, you know,
like we're like, oh my god, okay, like we're just
trying to cope of what's happening here. All these things
are happening. But I recognize that. I'll say, Okay, this

(29:08):
is just a suit. Your soul is your soul. And
she was gone, and something else crazy that happened. When
she was going. I laid with her and she was
not really conscious, but I laid with her and I
whispered in her ear because the hospice nurse told me
that the hearing is the last to go, and just
as God brings the body together, he lets it slowly

(29:31):
shut down like an engine. And so I whispered in
her ear and I said, Mommy, it's okay, go ahead,
I'll be okay, and amy one tear fell down her
and I just lost it. Three minutes later she was gone,
oh yeah, right.

Speaker 3 (29:48):
It's beautiful when you can release them and say it's okay,
it's time to go, because selfishly we want to. I
remember my sister and I are saying a similar or thing,
and how powerful I think that was for us too,
in our pay during that time of like that permission,

(30:10):
just go, because it's also us surrendering and being like, okay,
we're ready for this, We're going to face it. Because
I think even with hospice, I had zero experience with
hospice before my mom was on it, and I just
didn't understand that that really meant it's final. I still
thought in Austin. There's this hospice house called the Christopher
House and you can go there. But my mom ultimately

(30:32):
wanted to be at home or my sister's house, so
we transferred her. But even while we're at Christopher House,
my soner are walking around trying to be like, okay,
well so what about when she bounces back like I didn't.
But hospice also can last one day, one minute, or
one year or multiple years.

Speaker 2 (30:51):
Yes, And I.

Speaker 3 (30:53):
Just found that fascinating. And some people, if you haven't
experienced it, you don't know what you don't know. So
I'll just I just want to like prepare you for that. Yeah,
it's preparing them for the end of life in the
most comfortable way possible with no medical intervention that's going
to save their life.

Speaker 1 (31:10):
You know.

Speaker 3 (31:10):
They gave me a little pamphlet and everything, and my
sister and I open up the pamphlet and they're like
stages of death, Like why are they? And it's like, also,
did the phases we go through in the denial and
the you know, and yes they may not be conscious,
but keep talking to them, singing to them, play.

Speaker 1 (31:28):
Their favorite music. We played Beaches. We love the movie Beaches.
So I played Beaches in her Ear like the whole soundtrack.

Speaker 3 (31:33):
Yeah, my story with my dad's playlist. My sister made
a whole playlist while he was on life support and
we had.

Speaker 2 (31:41):
It running and we didn't know for sure when you
unplug him.

Speaker 3 (31:44):
Speaking of time, it could be three minutes, it could
be three hours, yes, And it was on shuffle Dolly
Parton and now I can't think of the guy's name
right now, and that's going to drive me crazy.

Speaker 2 (31:55):
There was Jesus. It's the song they sing.

Speaker 1 (31:58):
Wasn't Kenny, was it?

Speaker 2 (31:59):
No, it's not kidding. It's a newer song.

Speaker 3 (32:01):
And right when the doctor says he's gone, it's the
end of the song and Dolly is saying the line
and she goes, and there was Jesus.

Speaker 2 (32:11):
And it was so heavenly.

Speaker 3 (32:14):
And the very next song that came on after that
was Amarilla by Morning by George Strait, and that was
my dad's two stepping song, and it was such a
visual for us, his kids that know that, and we've
all danced to Amarilla by Morning with him, and he
was too stepping his way into heaven and it was
so precious. I feel like God really gave us that gift.

(32:35):
Everyone has a different little experience when it's happening. But
also you and I am sitting here thinking about us
having those moments because there's some people where just that
reminder of we don't know how much time we have
left and we don't know how it's going to happen.

Speaker 2 (32:47):
Ye, did you ever have that?

Speaker 3 (32:49):
Oh, I want to kind of go through this because
cancer is well, but you still get that time or
would you rather be like a quick instant like you
get a phone call and not that that's a yeah,
I'm not saying that's awesome question at all, but I
think again, it's like comparing how it happens.

Speaker 2 (33:05):
It's sucky either way.

Speaker 1 (33:06):
It's sucky either way. I heard something the other day
that was so powerful. And I was speaking in a
women's Christian women's halfway house last night and sharing my
testimony and I shared this and by the way, these
women are like, it's like four hundred women coming out
of drugs, jail, prostitution, abandonment that are like raw like crunk.
For Jesus, like it is like aunt scale of one
to tenants at fifteen. But I told him, I said,

(33:28):
I saw this recently. It doesn't matter if you drowned
in two feet of water or twenty feet of water.
You still drowned, you know. So trauma's trauma, and we
do this comparison thing. Well, mine's not as bad. They
have it worse. No, you went through your trauma, and
the first step is recognizing and acknowledging that you've gone
through trauma. What is it? Sit with your pain? You know,

(33:49):
therapy is great. I tell people lots some of us
you need therapy, medication, and Jesus, you know like you
may need lots of things. I know I have in
the past and currently, but I don't know because I
think for me, I had ten months my dad was
like that, and I had a lot of guilt because
I wasn't who I am today, and I was way

(34:10):
too self involved and way too important, and I didn't
spend time with them, and I wasn't a good daughter.
So I had a lot of guilt and I.

Speaker 2 (34:16):
Here, you weren't a good daughter.

Speaker 1 (34:17):
I didn't spend time with them. I was self absorbed.
He lived in Alabama. I lived in Georgia, and you know,
the most three five hours away from him. I barely
went to see him. I was his only daughter. He
adopted me when I was eighteen months old, and so
he died alone, and I had a ton of guilt
abround that amy. And there's this book called The Body
Keeps the Score and I'm like fascinated by this book,

(34:41):
and my friend Melanie Reese is a therapist, and she
recommended it. It basically says that a lot of our
what ails us is trauma trapped inside of us, like
our long term chronic issues. I'll save you all the
gory details, but I had like these large weeping eczema
spots after my dad passed away that would like pop up.
It was on television. It was gray and ashen, and

(35:02):
we couldn't figure out what's going on. And I was
sitting in this doctor's office. We'd had all these tests
and this woman sits across from the lobby for me.
She goes, why are you keeping it in? And I'm like,
excuse me? And I don't know if she was an angel,
I don't know what she was, but she was like,
why are you keeping it in? And she saw me.
I don't know if she was gifted. I don't know
any of those things. And not long after that, I

(35:23):
started going to a therapist, and what do you know,
these spots cleared up because I began to talk about
the immense guilt that I felt for not being a
good daughter and my dad dying alone.

Speaker 2 (35:34):
Yeah, it was manifesting.

Speaker 1 (35:35):
It was manifesting You're gonna come out.

Speaker 3 (35:38):
Yeah, and sometimes it manifests in other ways that it
isn't a visual.

Speaker 2 (35:42):
That body keeps scores. Such a great book, but it's
a lot.

Speaker 3 (35:46):
I found that I have the actual copies, so I
could read it in underline.

Speaker 2 (35:50):
But it's very scientific and it can be overwhelming. So
also you can download it on audible and have the
audio to go with it. Yea, because that helped I need.

Speaker 1 (36:00):
That's the kind of learner I am. I need to
hear it and then either write it or underline it
or you know, like I need to needs to come
to me multiple ways, if it's like a, if it's
scientific or a harder topic, Hearing it and then writing
it at the same time helps me.

Speaker 2 (36:14):
And so you eventually, Scott passed that guilt that you felt.

Speaker 1 (36:17):
Yeah, and now I.

Speaker 2 (36:18):
Can teach forgive yourself.

Speaker 1 (36:20):
Forgive myself, and now I can teach other people how
to I heard you again, just really I feel like
a stalker saying this and this podcast, but whatever podcast
it was you were on, it was great and you
were talking about the end of it. Write the recipes,
you know, take pictures. And I feel like it's like
my duty in life to teach people that you know,

(36:41):
that do have their parents and do have their loved ones.
I'm like, gracious, get in the pictures, mama, I don't
care what you look like. You think you look like
in the bathing suit, you know. I was just talking
to a friend of mine who they're all down a
family at the beach. I said, be where your feet are,
make memories, write it down, take pictures, you know, have
your inside jokes, like live your life, you know, wiggle

(37:02):
your toes and live your life and be where your
feet are. And so I feel like it's now my
duty through all this loss to help other people, if
they've faced it already or if they haven't faced it yet.
And the people that look at me and go, I
cannot imagine what it's like to lose both your mom
and your dad at such a young age.

Speaker 3 (37:20):
Yeah, I like that, be where your feet are, and
the recipe thing is for real, Like they got to
write that stuff down and now stuff is digital. I
feel like a lot of people these ways. Okay, you
can like preserve it that way. Like our parents and
their parents, they were writing stuff on index cards and
then putting it somewhere and then you have to find it.
And my mom had this cheesecake recipe and we.

Speaker 2 (37:40):
Found one index card.

Speaker 3 (37:43):
Yeah, and then she must have had a second index
card where there's a couple other things, and it was
Judy's cheesecake, Like it was her specific recipe.

Speaker 2 (37:49):
And I know that cheesecake might be like cheesecake, but
it's not.

Speaker 1 (37:51):
It's not.

Speaker 2 (37:52):
She had her concoction.

Speaker 3 (37:53):
And then my dad was an amazing cook, and but
he just was all in his brain and so it's like, God,
I really want to make Christopher and I got to
figure that out, yeah, because it's this amazing dish my
dad would make. And now it was not written down
anywhere to my knowledge. I want to talk about change,

(38:20):
the narrative and the movement behind that.

Speaker 1 (38:24):
It was born out of a really dark time in
college football. I had just moved to Nashville, and I
was doing shows at the Batman Building at the Serious Studios,
and I remember doing shows and I would prep because
I was a woman in a man's world. So I
would prep before any show two three hours beforehand. You know,
I was reading, prepping, pulling stats, all of those things,

(38:46):
because if I made a mistake, it wasn't as easily
forgivable as it was a man. Just that's what it
is in certain roles in sports. A lot of people
don't believe that women, you know, in sports talk radio
need to necessarily be in that role. And so that
summer was really dark. There was domestic violence, sexual violence,
coaches getting in trouble. It was left and right, negative, negative,

(39:07):
negative news. And I was just audacious enough amy to
believe that I could affect change. And so I came
up with this curriculum. And I kind of laugh and
tell people this like it wasn't a curriculum. It was
a two page Google doc, like don't don't curse the
days of small beginnings. People were like, oh, well, I'm
not ready yet, I don't have the thing, I'm not prepared,

(39:28):
I'm not educating enough. No, just start, just start, just start.
It was a two page freaking Google doc about what
sets your soul on fire? And if you think you
were only born for sports what a shame that was
in my inexperienced domestic violence and that's all it was.
And I thought I was going to take it into
high schools. And a friend of mine who was Nick

(39:48):
Saban's right hand man, he was like his headman psychologist
for twenty three years. He was also a friend of mine,
and he said, oh, by the way, Jimbo Fisher wants
you in an FSU to do this talk. And I'm like,
what what? And I remember being with my mom and
stepdad out in Jackson home. We were jumping up and
down and screaming. We were so excited because I had
never put two into together, even though I was a

(40:09):
college football reporter, that I would take this talk. It
wasn't even a movement then into colleges, but that's what
I did in August of twenty sixteen, and I talked
about purpose, passion, platform, mine, experience of domestic violence, and
then what makes your heart beat faster outside of sports?
And then I say I blinked, But there was so

(40:30):
much more to that. But in seven years, I've now
worked with eighty colleges, many of them multiple times. I
work with both kings and queens. I think that there's
a king or queen inside of every single one of us.
I also now talk about mental health what happened to
me in my dark Knight of the Soul. I talk
about joy, interpersonal relationships, finding what sets your soul on fire.
And now it's spread out to corporations, halfway houses. I've

(40:52):
been into maximum security prisons, corporations, the NFL, law enforcement,
high schools K through five, wherever they will have me, yeah,
I will go wow.

Speaker 3 (41:01):
And it started with that two page Google dots. Yes,
it's changing the narrative.

Speaker 2 (41:05):
Dot org.

Speaker 1 (41:05):
I'm changing the narrative dot org. I'm yeah. I made
it declarative because there was like a lot of changing
the narratives and I was like, okay, wait, let's step
I'm changing the narrative. I'm going to change my narrative,
you know.

Speaker 3 (41:17):
Yeah, So even when you're typing it in, it's one
of those subconscious things too, that's happening every time you
type in, I'm changing the narrative on anything.

Speaker 1 (41:26):
On generational curses that have you know, messed with your
family for ten generations back. You know, I teach people
this too. A lot of times we're talking about the
things that we don't want to repeat generationally. But there
are also wonderful things conversely that your grandma's grandma's grandma's
grandma had that you have, that have been passed down

(41:47):
to you. And there are things as much that I
don't want to repeat, but there are things that I
want to keep going and I want to pass down
to my kids, right that were beautiful. And I also
think about to a lot what my grandma's grandma's grandma's
grandma either wasn't allowed to accomplish, or the dreams she
never got to accomplish, the things that never came to pass.
And so every time I do something new, or I

(42:10):
hit a goal or I achieved something, I think about
all my ancestors, all these generations ago, and what they
wanted to do. And then I'm an extension of them
and in some way helping them rest peacefully if you will.

Speaker 2 (42:25):
Oh, I love that. Yeah, And I'm sure with all those,
I mean, it's going to keep My test car was
those athletes.

Speaker 3 (42:30):
Gosh, I mean, I can't imagine thinking like, if you're
this gifted superstar at something and then having the narrative
in your mind that that's all you're worse.

Speaker 1 (42:38):
Yeah, and how many times I encountered them. I remember
I was at Tennessee speaking years ago, and so I
stay afterwards. So I'll stay an hour, two hours, three hours.
I'll stay in the building till every last one wants
to talk to me. I even started doing something during
the pandemic where I gave out my phone number and
no one has ever abused it. But I knew during
the pandemic I didn't want people to have to go

(43:00):
through social media to get me because I have had
middle of the night suicide phone calls and they're all alive.
We got them help, we got them immediate help, and
then we got long term care for them. But I
had a player stand in front of me and I
told him that. I said, baby, if you think you
were only born to play football, what a shame that is.
And he's like tall, you know, and I'm built close
to the ground, and you could see the tears right

(43:21):
on the edge of his eyes. And he said, Miss Rachel,
where I come from, I was taught, I'm only as
good as how well I can throw a football or
catch a football. That's my whole worth. And I said, baby,
I said, and I put my hand on his chest,
and I was like, You're worth so much more. All
of a sudden, those tears come over his eyes and
then I'm crying and he's crying, and it was like

(43:43):
the light bulb. I got to help the light bulb
go off in his soul that he was worth more
than his physical athletic gifts. And I feel like I'm
a gajillionaire, you know, because the work that I get
to do, I say, people are my currency. Therefore I'm
a billionaire, Like I get to do this every day.
And the work that I do all these colleges, I
don't speak and leave. I create relationships. So one of

(44:06):
the most beautiful pictures for my wedding is one of
my Kings getting my husband ready for our wedding, like
was at our wedding. I've been to my kings and
queen's weddings. I've seen babies be born, I've gotten birth
announcements and wedding and Miss Rachel, how are you I
meet my mom? I have moms of athletes. I spoke
to serving my movement like that's they were like, we heard,

(44:27):
we heard what you did. I had a mother call
me one time and she said, I've been asking my
son to get therapy for years. She said, I heard
you spoke to his team last night. Whatever you said,
he walked down the hallway the next day and checked
himself into therapy. And I was like, oh my gosh,
I said, it takes a village, you know, I said
to that mom, it takes a village, And sometimes it
just takes someone outside of your parents telling you something

(44:51):
that reinforces everything that your parents told you and you.

Speaker 2 (44:53):
Go get help.

Speaker 3 (44:54):
What advice do you have for parents that want to
encourage their kids, Like you want kids to know that
they're worthy and we're all doing our best, but sometimes
we might put emphasis on something that maybe isn't as important,
like sports or a grade that they get or expo
z and then we get hyper focused on it and

(45:15):
some of it's not we're not meaning to, but somehow
along the way, we have given them a narrative or
they've created one based on what we've said that that's
all their worth. Like, so what can we be doing
as parents to avoid that?

Speaker 1 (45:30):
Such a great question, by the way, and it's have deep,
meaningful conversations. I'm a real big fan of bringing it
back to the dinner table or having conversations, and I
think having deep, meaningful conversations of just saying, hey, you
know what, I'm really proud of you when you give
your all in soccer. But I also want you to
know I'm super proud of who you are as a

(45:50):
human I'm proud of how kind you are, how loving
you are to people, how smart you are, how perceptive
you are. You know all of these things and just
re enforcing over and over again, Hey, I love you.
I'm proud of you for that. But I'm proud of
you as a human being. I'm proud of your soul.
I'm proud of your mind and your heart. And I
had a television producer tell me one time. He was like,

(46:13):
have so much energy that you know when you when
you feel like you look stupid, that's when you have
the right amount of energy. I think it's the same
way with parenting. Keep saying it until you feel stupid,
Like keep saying it. You can't tell your kids enough
and also showing them. But you can't tell your kids
enough that they are when they do something kind. When
I see my daughter, you know, reach out to somebody,

(46:35):
or she's in the kindness club, or sit with somebody,
who's you know, who's not popular. I tell her all
the time, I say, you have a pretty outside, but
your soul is prettier. I'm proud of your pretty soul.
And so I think it's really reminding and reinforcing till
it feels stupid to our kids that while you're proud
of their effort in this certain area, you're proud of

(46:55):
who they are as a human being above all.

Speaker 2 (46:57):
Okay, thank you for that. I feel like that's helpful advice.

Speaker 3 (47:00):
As parents, we have so much that we're trying to
write and think of the oftentimes some of the stuff
that takes work and intention. You know, sometimes you're like, Okay,
I'm exhausted and you're exhausted.

Speaker 2 (47:13):
We got to up that energy.

Speaker 1 (47:15):
I mean, and here's the other thing. And you know this,
like I'm just doing on the job training, you know.
Like I've been with my husband, like I said, seven
years this year, but married too. So I very quickly
became a mom. And I had two things. I think. One,
when you mess up, I am a huge proponent. As
soon as I mess up, if I'm sassy, if I'm short,
if i'm anything, I will text my kids and I

(47:36):
will say I'm so sorry about that. And my youngest
daughter was like, oh, it's okay. I said, no, it's not, Libby.
I was too key to you when you came out
of practice. I was very short with you. You were just
asking where the car was, and I said, I'm sorry.
I said, it's not okay. So the one thing is
apologizing and verbally apologizing to our children when we are
having bad days. And the second thing for me is

(47:59):
they are watching what we do. If we're not taking
care of ourselves, if we have no boundaries, if we
let people walk all over us, if we are pacific,
whatever our thing is, whatever the stuff that's not healthy
that we're doing, they're picking it up. They're picking it up.
And so they're also picking up the good stuff. And
I was going through drive through and my oldest daughter

(48:19):
one time, and I am that person. My mom was
this way, like if I think somebody has beautiful eyes,
I'm gonna stop and tell them if I think red
looks good on you're in the grocery store and be like,
I love you in that red shirt, you know, like
I just that's just who I am. My mom was
that way, My grandmother was that way. So she's watched
me do this or seven years since she's known me.
And we were in the drive through and she says,

(48:40):
you know, there was this girl at school and she
wore her hair differently and I was like, oh, okay,
and she said, and you know how like you always
go back and tell people stuff and I said yeah,
and I was trying to play it cool and she goes.
I told her how pretty her hair looked because I
could tell that she had been wearing it differently. And
I was like, you know, it's like dying and the
driver's and she was like, yeah, you know, just was

(49:02):
nice to her like you are to people. And I
mean I lost it.

Speaker 2 (49:06):
It's a perfect example if they're paying attention.

Speaker 1 (49:08):
They're paying attention and all of it.

Speaker 2 (49:10):
My mom was that way.

Speaker 3 (49:12):
And I sometimes don't speak up and I should more.
I'm like, oh your nail color or oh that's scarf.
That's how my mom. That's part of like with her.
When she would be an MD Anderson getting treatment, she
would always talk to people in the elevator and she
would always talk to people in the waiting room. Yeah,
complimenting something. That was her way of spreading joy. And

(49:33):
you have your button on your cute little ones. So
tracks it think and it's a hashtag joy starter, So
let's talk about that and a QR code.

Speaker 2 (49:41):
Very yeah, this is the future. Love it.

Speaker 1 (49:45):
Your mom was a joy starter. She somebody who notices joy,
spreads joy and his joy. There's plenty of times in
my life where I'm not joyful, but I feel like
God will send people that are joyful in that moment
to lift me up or to remind me, like you
know you, I don't know. There's this meme ount there.
It's a basketball game. The guy's got his head hung
and the teammate comes next to him and puts his
chin up, you know. And I feel like there are

(50:07):
people like that in the world. And that's what I'm
I wrote about it in the book. At the end
of each chapter and relentless joy have something called a joystart,
and it's like a jump start for your car, but
a joy start for your soul. So instead of waiting
to the end to have these like have it be
like a work book. At the end of each chapter,
it's asking you questions. And then I fought for amy.

(50:29):
I fought for blank space in the back of the book.
So people like could really mark up this book and
like write in the book and like see themselves and
not wait for the end of the book. They could
actually do the work after each chapter. And then I
created a club called the Joystarters Club.

Speaker 2 (50:44):
I love that.

Speaker 3 (50:45):
Well, chapter five is the Gift of Pain, Yeah, since
that's what we were talking about a minute ago, and yeah,
the joystart at the end of that chapter, Like, you're
just some questions to ask yourself, Yeah, what have I
been through that could possibly help others?

Speaker 2 (51:00):
What gift could.

Speaker 3 (51:00):
Come from my pain? Am I currently choosing to become
better or better? And who are my three writer dies?
And so, yeah, you spoke on a lot of those,
and I think that those are important questions since that
was sort of a big topic of our chat today.
These are questions people can go answer, go journal about prompts.

(51:21):
They're awesome prompts. And then it says, here, what's stopping
me from telling my writer dies, telling them now who
they are and maybe even buying them this book, which
it's called Relentless Joy, finding freedom, passion and happiness even
when you have to fight for it.

Speaker 2 (51:37):
And I think that's true. It's such a good word fight.
It's like, yes, it's.

Speaker 3 (51:40):
A fight sometimes, But I think too, you're not ignoring
any of the hard stuff or the pain sometimes where
people get tripped up. Well, yeah, okay, easy for you
to say choose joy or whatever. But yeah, okay, no,
you already said you're not joyful all the time. You're
not claiming to be this positive, amazing, happy gola person
all the time. But it is something you're going to

(52:02):
go down swinging for amen.

Speaker 1 (52:04):
Yeah. I was terrified to write this book, Amy, because like,
inside of it, I talk about my own addiction. I
talk about losing my parents, I talk about abuse, I
talk about choosing purity before my marriage. I talk about
a lot of things. And I was really terrified, but
I felt called to do it. I knew that there

(52:24):
would be somebody that would resonate with this book and
need to see it, need to read it, need and go.
I see myself in your book. I went through trying
to get a book deal before this, a couple of
years ago. It didn't happen.

Speaker 3 (52:37):
I feel like that's another part of your story, is
being told no or having to be patient yes, and
knowing that you have this inside of you and you
want it to get out there. But you didn't give up. Yeah,
And so that's an encouragement in it self.

Speaker 1 (52:51):
You know. I'm going to say this for everybody who's
listening to this, and I think a lot of people
will resonate. Nothing really has ever come easy to me
in my life. I haven't been handed things. Nothing's ever
come easy. I was a woman in a man's field.
I had to hustle, claw survive, work my butt off,

(53:12):
you know, to be respected, like I said, half as much,
and achieve the things that I achieved. Nothing has ever
come easy in my life. I waited for my husband.
I married him later in life. I mean, everything for
me has been a waiting game, and I've endured some
of the hardest things that the person can go through,
but yet I'm still standing. And so that's my message
to people, is if I've been through what I've been

(53:33):
through and can still find joy, you can find joy too,
you know. And that's why I keep going back. I
mentioned a couple of times, and I wrote about it
in the book. To the Love Ladies Center is you know,
I've been going there for ten years, and I go
there to tell these women that there is beauty for
your ashes. There is beauty on the other side of addiction,
and that there is hope and there is joy and
there is peace. And I know what the world's telling

(53:55):
you is that you're used up and dirty and too
far gone. But God doesn't tell you that. And there's
so much hope and so much to live for.

Speaker 2 (54:03):
Do you have a gratitude practice?

Speaker 1 (54:05):
I just pray a lot. I'm not a religious person.
I'm super relationship oriented with God. And people are like, oh, no,
you're religious, and no, I just really love Jesus. I'm like,
if you've been where I've been, like all the things
I've been through, I.

Speaker 2 (54:19):
Just some more. If it's just a conversation, it's a conversation.
But if you're thankful, oh yeah, intentional about that? Yeah,
I just don't know if you know you have your
journaling prompts, if you were one that wrote them down.

Speaker 1 (54:29):
I do write stuff down, and I teach people to
write write your life down. Because we get a little
bit away from a miracle, a gift, a little thing,
the way your child smiles at you or hugs you
while you're cooking, or whatever it is right that felt
so good in that moment. We get two days down
the road, a day down the run and we forget it.
I do teach people to write it down because you

(54:52):
talked about it earlier. If we're not careful, we're going
to give our children a cell phone when we die.
Think about that.

Speaker 3 (54:59):
Okay, So we'll do four things gratitude now to wrap
everything up. And I feel like it's a fun way
to also get to know our guests and what they're into.
So we are very specific four things gratitude. Sometimes I
just do whatever you're thankful for, big or small. But
I'd like to know a book, a TV show, a food.

Speaker 2 (55:16):
Or drink, and what's the other one?

Speaker 3 (55:18):
Oh oh, an Instagram follow I forgot the fourth one
we were going to do because I haven't done it
this way in a while. But I do like getting
to know people in this way.

Speaker 1 (55:25):
Okay, all right, So I just finished this. This is
a book. I posted something. It was a graphic and
it said remember that book that ruined it for all
other books, and somebody posted this underneath it. I went
and got it. Get ready. It's going to rock your world.
That's my gift to you.

Speaker 2 (55:41):
It's called Go as a River, Go as a River,
Go as a River.

Speaker 1 (55:44):
Set in Colorado, read Yes, it's a bestseller already going
to be made a movie. Finished it last night. When
I finished a book, I pad it and love it
like I physically loved the book.

Speaker 2 (55:54):
Is it a novel or a novel?

Speaker 1 (55:57):
Okay, it's a novel, right and the guilt did age?

Speaker 2 (56:00):
Oh? I love that?

Speaker 1 (56:01):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (56:02):
Is it back?

Speaker 1 (56:04):
Have you seen season two?

Speaker 2 (56:05):
I don't think so.

Speaker 1 (56:06):
There's a whole season two. There's a whole season two.

Speaker 3 (56:10):
You just wait, Okay, okerfect, you're saying, my day, and
then what do we got?

Speaker 2 (56:14):
We'll do?

Speaker 3 (56:15):
Well, let's go and do the Instagram follow since I
keep forgetting that one my.

Speaker 1 (56:18):
Favorite one recently, and I know her. Her name is
Crystal Archie and she lives here in Nashville and her
husband used to play in the NFL. But she does
a lot of like aid work in Africa. And then
she also has a business. But her and her husband
do these like funny reels, so they do funny reels
and then she has like faith based stuff. But Crystal
is a great follow. You should check her out.

Speaker 2 (56:37):
She brings joy. She brings joy, Yeah, and then a
food or drink that you are thankful for.

Speaker 1 (56:42):
Yeah that I'm this is gonna sound funny. I went
to retreat here a couple of months ago and these ladies,
it was a women's retreat I was speaking at, and
these ladies introduced me to this drink called a French
seventy five. Have you ever had this? No? What is it?
It's champagne, either jen or vodka and like lemon and
like some juice, but it tastes like this lemony like,

(57:04):
almost like a lemon drop. But then it's got gin
and champagne in it. And it's an old school drink
like it's like from the forties or fifties, like a
very fancy drinks. Try it next time you're out.

Speaker 3 (57:15):
Okay, well, thank you so much for your time, Rachel.
I'll link your book in the show notes and all
of your info of where people can find you websites,
social medias and whatnot. Relentless Joy.

Speaker 2 (57:26):
That's the book. So cute.

Speaker 1 (57:28):
Thank you,

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}The Gift of Pain. Stay Bitter or Get Better? Change The Narrative. Be A Joy Starter.