Speaker 1: I think what we have to ask ourselves is how
Speaker 1: do I live now so that I know I've lived
Speaker 1: my life well when I come to the end of it.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the one you feed throughout time. Great thinkers
Speaker 1: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes
Speaker 1: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
Speaker 1: think ring true, and yet for many of us, our
Speaker 1: thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf Y,
Speaker 1: thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is
Speaker 1: Reba Riley, a blogger from Pathos dot com, a speaker, artist,
Speaker 1: and healer. She's the author of Post Traumatic Church Syndrome,
Speaker 1: a memoir of humor and healing in thirty religions. Hiriba,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. Hey Eric, I'm so glad to
Speaker 1: be here. It's a pleasure to have you on. You
Speaker 1: are the author of a book called post Traumatic Church Syndrome,
Speaker 1: One Woman's Desperate, Funny and Healing Journey, which is a
Speaker 1: wonderful book, and we're going to talk about it in
Speaker 1: a moment. You're also a fellow Ohio and so we
Speaker 1: have met in person, even though we're not able to
Speaker 1: do this particular interview in person. So I'm looking forward
Speaker 1: to this. So thanks for being here. I'm so glad
Speaker 1: you go Bucks, Go Bucks, all right, my mom will
Speaker 1: be very happy to hear that. Let's let's start like
Speaker 1: we always do with the parable. There is a grandmother
Speaker 1: who's talking with her granddaughter. I'm changing it up on you,
Speaker 1: and she says, in life, there are two wolves inside
Speaker 1: of us that are always at battle. What is a
Speaker 1: good wolf which represents things like kindness and bravery and love,
Speaker 1: and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things
Speaker 1: like greed and hatred and fear. The granddaughter thinks about it.
Speaker 1: She stops and she looks up at her grandmother and
Speaker 1: she said, grandmother, which one wins? And the grandmother says,
Speaker 1: the one you feed. So I'd like to start off
Speaker 1: by asking you what that parable means to you in
Speaker 1: your life and in the work that you do. The
Speaker 1: great question which one is going to win? And we're
Speaker 1: always answering it, Eric always in the moment, We're always saying,
Speaker 1: which is going to win? Where am I going to
Speaker 1: put my energy? How am I going to live this moment?
Speaker 1: So that when I get to the end of this day,
Speaker 1: I know, you know, who did I feel today? Where
Speaker 1: did I put my energy? You know, when I think
Speaker 1: about this parable, I think about my work as a
Speaker 1: the chaplain in the office of Spiritual Care at a
Speaker 1: local hospital here in Cincinnati. And there's really nowhere more
Speaker 1: real in life than when you're near death. And I
Speaker 1: get the privilege of sitting with people who are evaluating
Speaker 1: their lives and often really working through what did I feed?
Speaker 1: And they approach it one of the ways a lot
Speaker 1: of times, and one will be that they're looking at
Speaker 1: everything that is amazing about their life and all of
Speaker 1: the good that they did, the people that they have
Speaker 1: around them, their family, their friends, even if they've lost
Speaker 1: their health. They're putting their energy into the recollecting, the recollecting,
Speaker 1: the recollecting of those memories um and all of the good.
Speaker 1: And then I have people who for whatever reason are
Speaker 1: not approaching it that way or are looking back over
Speaker 1: their lives and they're saying, I didn't live it the
Speaker 1: way that I wish that I had. I wish I
Speaker 1: had forgiven, I wish I had been this, I wish
Speaker 1: I had done that. And I get to see in
Speaker 1: very stark term terms the end life UM is the
Speaker 1: answer to that question. And so I think what we
Speaker 1: have to ask ourselves in this moment is how do
Speaker 1: I live now so that I know I've lived my
Speaker 1: life well when I come to the end of it.
Speaker 1: That's a beautiful way of saying it, and it is
Speaker 1: a clarifying perspective. There's nothing quite like imagining you're at
Speaker 1: the end and thinking about looking back and going, well,
Speaker 1: what did I do to help really clarify kind of
Speaker 1: what's important? Well, I think it's not just what's important,
Speaker 1: but also that you know what is the rich and
Speaker 1: full life and and and what what are those components
Speaker 1: so that we can choose them now? You know, if
Speaker 1: I want to get to the end of my life
Speaker 1: and say that I have lived UM, you know, with
Speaker 1: joy and kindness and UM and supported others and I
Speaker 1: need to do those things right now today there is
Speaker 1: only two. That's what it means to me. That is
Speaker 1: the answer to my essay question. Eric, nice work. You
Speaker 1: can turn that in after class. Thank you. So let's
Speaker 1: talk about your book now now you're you wrote your
Speaker 1: b a while ago. It is a really great book.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of listeners would really enjoy it.
Speaker 1: We've got a lot of people who come out of
Speaker 1: the Christian tradition somewhat damaged, and that's you refer to
Speaker 1: it as post traumatic church syndrome. So let's start there.
Speaker 1: What did it mean to you? Well, post traumatic church
Speaker 1: syndrome to me was a way of putting some language
Speaker 1: to something that I didn't have a way to talk about.
Speaker 1: When I was dealing with it, I knew that I
Speaker 1: was having a spiritual crisis or maybe a dark knight
Speaker 1: of the soul or many other things. But it to
Speaker 1: me was the bottom fell out of my life. And
Speaker 1: when I walked away from religion and um and faith
Speaker 1: and God and all the center of myself everything was gone.
Speaker 1: And so my experience of it I termed post traumatic
Speaker 1: church syndrome. And it's the title of the book. Not
Speaker 1: because I talked necessarily about trauma. It's much more about healing.
Speaker 1: But because that title really speaks to people who've been
Speaker 1: through that experience, if they hear it, they you know,
Speaker 1: they may laugh, they may cry, but they know it's them.
Speaker 1: And so UM post Traumatic Church Syndrome is the story
Speaker 1: of my journey through my twenty ninth year when I
Speaker 1: was dealing with a chronic illness, and that illness, as
Speaker 1: it does for many people, UM, the illness forced me
Speaker 1: to face my my internal life and what I found
Speaker 1: that was very disappointing at the time was a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of anger, a whole bunch of bitterness. And I
Speaker 1: realized that if I didn't resolve my issues with my
Speaker 1: faith and my spirituality, that I would never be able
Speaker 1: to be at peace. And so I went on this
Speaker 1: really whacky, crazy journey through thirty religions before I turned thirty.
Speaker 1: And the book is the result of that journey of
Speaker 1: both physical and spiritual healing UM through those thirty religions.
Speaker 1: It is a wonderful book. The title describes it pretty well,
Speaker 1: being desperate, funny, and healing. It's all those things. Let's
Speaker 1: talk though, about what caused you after religion Having been
Speaker 1: this huge part of your life for so long? What
Speaker 1: caused you to walk away from it? The truth is
Speaker 1: Eric that I just realized that the life that I
Speaker 1: was experiencing was very gray, and all of the answers
Speaker 1: that I had been given were extremely black and white,
Speaker 1: and I couldn't reconcile those things. Um and this, you know,
Speaker 1: the sad part about the tradition that I grew up
Speaker 1: in was there wasn't any other option for connecting with
Speaker 1: God or spirituality period. Either it was this black and white,
Speaker 1: our truth is the only truth, or you weren't allowed
Speaker 1: to have a relationship with God or spirituality at all.
Speaker 1: And so when I talked about post traumatic church syndrome,
Speaker 1: I don't just talk about walking away from the church.
Speaker 1: I walked away from a huge part of myself. And
Speaker 1: that's the part that I was trying to heal through
Speaker 1: this journey thirty religions And how long were you sort
Speaker 1: of away? Would you say, like, how long was that
Speaker 1: period after you sort of had you know, death by
Speaker 1: a thousand cuts? But they're being sort of a final break. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and before you embarked on this project, who was the
Speaker 1: better part of a decade? It was the better part
Speaker 1: of a decade, So it was it was a while.
Speaker 1: In the book you describe you know, you you are
Speaker 1: dealing with this chronic illness, and you also visit thirty
Speaker 1: different religions, some of them being various denominations within Christianity
Speaker 1: and then others being well outside of that. As a
Speaker 1: result of that, what what was the I don't know
Speaker 1: if this is you in a fair question, but the
Speaker 1: biggest learning for you can you summarize it in a
Speaker 1: I know you wrote an entire book. It's gonna say,
Speaker 1: they're gonna have You're gonna have to read the book
Speaker 1: for that summary. You know. I can't summarize the whole
Speaker 1: book in one topic. But what I can say is
Speaker 1: what I believe in now, and I believe that love
Speaker 1: is bigger than everything. And not in a trite way.
Speaker 1: I mean that connecting with that internal love for yourself
Speaker 1: first and foremost, UM. Connecting with your love of however
Speaker 1: you would define spirituality some thing that is bigger than yourself,
Speaker 1: whether that is you would say God, or I say
Speaker 1: the God diverse, which is a God plus the universe UM,
Speaker 1: or you know, just the love of other people. UM.
Speaker 1: When you can really deeply connect with love that's bigger
Speaker 1: than all of the other things that we put between ourselves.
Speaker 1: It's bigger than it's bigger than um, you know, all
Speaker 1: of our differences. And at the bottom line, at the whole,
Speaker 1: you know, end of all of it. What do I
Speaker 1: believe in? I believe in love. I believe that in
Speaker 1: that force that is so powerful that it is um
Speaker 1: able to heal us and bring us together, um, both
Speaker 1: internally and externally. It's true and true. Yeah, why don't
Speaker 1: you tell us a story from the book that you
Speaker 1: know that that brings that concept home. Again. We're not
Speaker 1: going to get the whole thing, but I'm giving you
Speaker 1: an opportunity to just, you know, share a story or two.
Speaker 1: Readers that have come out of especially an evangelical background.
Speaker 1: UM will probably really resonate with my mother as a
Speaker 1: character in the book, because my mom was watching me
Speaker 1: walk through this journey of illness and then also to
Speaker 1: all these religions from her seat still in within evangelical Christianity. Okay,
Speaker 1: and so my poor mother, you know, thinks I am
Speaker 1: just going to Hell in a handbasket. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: one week I'm with the atheists, one week I'm with
Speaker 1: the I didn't even tell her about the witches. I
Speaker 1: knew that she would have a heart attack, you know,
Speaker 1: so I didn't. You know, So my poor mother, and
Speaker 1: she's trying to figure out, you know, how can I
Speaker 1: love Rebecca through this? And so I would say one
Speaker 1: story was when my mother came to a point in
Speaker 1: this journey in the book where she had an experience
Speaker 1: praying for me where she realized that her love was
Speaker 1: bigger than the differences that were between us, you know,
Speaker 1: whatever church I was visiting or whatever, that she is
Speaker 1: my mother, and that she trusts God with my heart
Speaker 1: and soul, and that she was able to love around
Speaker 1: those difference is and in her acceptance of that, even
Speaker 1: though we still don't agree on many things, we were
Speaker 1: able to love each other despite all of those things
Speaker 1: that were between us and still are between us. Because
Speaker 1: the bottom line is, it doesn't matter at the end
Speaker 1: of the day what I think about you know, X
Speaker 1: theology or why theology? Um, if I'm not loving my mother, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, if she's not loving me. And so that
Speaker 1: scene specifically where my mom was wrestling with my journey
Speaker 1: um and came to this understanding that, in her words,
Speaker 1: love is bigger than everything. Yes, that is a lovely
Speaker 1: section of the book when she does do that and
Speaker 1: and realizes that her God is big enough that she
Speaker 1: can trust you to him exactly. Yeah, and when she
Speaker 1: realized that, it was a big step in her faith
Speaker 1: personally of being able to let go. And then also,
Speaker 1: you know, for her to see in the past seven
Speaker 1: years the work that this journey has done in the world,
Speaker 1: you know, now that it's out in the book, and
Speaker 1: the healing that the story is bringing to other people
Speaker 1: has been a huge faith builder for her, which is
Speaker 1: just so interesting because quote unquote our faiths aren't exactly
Speaker 1: the same. But when it comes down to it, all
Speaker 1: of the religions that I went to, every single one,
Speaker 1: and even the ones that weren't religious, wherever I found
Speaker 1: love in my mind, I found God. And that was
Speaker 1: super surprising to me as a former evangelical. What do
Speaker 1: you mean God is in all these places? You know?
Speaker 1: When love was there, that was that was all that
Speaker 1: really mattered. Yeah. Yeah, it makes me think of Richard Rohor.
Speaker 1: His latest book is um The Universal Christ, and he
Speaker 1: sort of talks about that idea that you know, God
Speaker 1: is in everything, but he says a couple of different times.
Speaker 1: He says, basically, anything that's pulling you out of yourself
Speaker 1: towards others in a loving way is for all intents
Speaker 1: and purposes, acting as God in that moment. And I
Speaker 1: love that definition. And we can feel that, we can
Speaker 1: feel when we're being pulled up and out of ourselves, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, versus when we feel like we're collapsing into ourselves.
Speaker 1: You and I talked briefly a little bit about depression
Speaker 1: and how you know you and I are both certainly
Speaker 1: sufferers of that and and I've had some of it
Speaker 1: now um going on with me. And it is such
Speaker 1: a feeling of an internal collapsing inwards, this small, tight
Speaker 1: achy thing, whereas you know, love is this outflowing And
Speaker 1: so I agree with you about that idea that that
Speaker 1: where we find love, where I see it is where
Speaker 1: I tend to find the divine for me, such as
Speaker 1: it exists. You know, you asked me about a story.
Speaker 1: There's one other one that comes to mind for me.
Speaker 1: In my journey. I went to this church that I
Speaker 1: didn't agree and still you know, I didn't like what
Speaker 1: they were doing. I didn't I didn't agree with their
Speaker 1: worship style. I hated their doctrine at that time, and
Speaker 1: as chance or the God diverse or serendipity would have it,
Speaker 1: I also joined this exercise program, this boot camp, and
Speaker 1: it met at this church. I didn't know this when
Speaker 1: I signed up, and so I show up the first
Speaker 1: day and I'm literally doing like laps in this quote
Speaker 1: unquote sanctuary that was also a gymnasium, and I'm just
Speaker 1: getting more and more angry about thinking about how they
Speaker 1: treat people, and you know, what their what their theology
Speaker 1: says about this population or that population. And I remember
Speaker 1: I tripped a little bit over my shoelace and I
Speaker 1: almost fell into this table, and the table was this
Speaker 1: little girl who had leukemia and it was her picture,
Speaker 1: and they had the sign up sheet for her family,
Speaker 1: everything that they needed and Eric the margins were overflowing.
Speaker 1: People were just signing up left and right, and I
Speaker 1: remember having this huge moment where I went, Oh, my gosh,
Speaker 1: this is what it's about. It doesn't matter what I
Speaker 1: what I think of what they're doing, because they're showing
Speaker 1: up for their community. They're being here with kindness and
Speaker 1: love for this family, and that set me free from
Speaker 1: the judgment of them you know, and in studying me
Speaker 1: free from the judgment, I realized, you know, if if
Speaker 1: love and forgiveness are going to start anywhere, where do
Speaker 1: they have to start? You know, they have to start
Speaker 1: with me. So if I'm judging people because they're judging me,
Speaker 1: it's just a vicious circle. And so being able to
Speaker 1: let go of that judgment and step back and allow
Speaker 1: people to take care of each other and themmunities that
Speaker 1: they're in um and and see that love that they
Speaker 1: have and recognize that and say, okay, there's the divinity there.
Speaker 1: It is is a really beautiful thing. Yes, And and
Speaker 1: I loved that story in the book also, and it
Speaker 1: is it is one of those things that is challenging
Speaker 1: to reconcile when we look at certain religions and and
Speaker 1: like you said, what they believe and and what appears
Speaker 1: to be in certain cases kind of hateful, you know,
Speaker 1: But then you look a little closer and you see
Speaker 1: that that love is there and that there is kindness
Speaker 1: and love. Now it tends to be limited to that community,
Speaker 1: and that's that's challenging, right, I think the broader the
Speaker 1: love is But but I do think it's helpful for
Speaker 1: me to see that, because it takes away the idea like, well,
Speaker 1: these people are uncarrying people, these people are monsters, these
Speaker 1: people because they're not at all. And and I I
Speaker 1: tend to believe the best way to get to know
Speaker 1: and understand somebody is to look for the good in them,
Speaker 1: and it's always there. And I love that story because
Speaker 1: it was so evident in that moment that like the
Speaker 1: outpouring of the of the people in this church to
Speaker 1: another person in the church was suffering, was overwhelming, and
Speaker 1: there it is. There's that that outward movement of love,
Speaker 1: the outward movement of love. Yeah. And you know, Eric,
Speaker 1: you know, when we think about the parable, I think
Speaker 1: that happens within communities too. It's not just internal whether
Speaker 1: you're feeding the good or quote unquote bad. You can
Speaker 1: see in communities how they are taking care of their
Speaker 1: own to the extent to which they are. And I
Speaker 1: think if you look again for that good like you can,
Speaker 1: you can more accurately assess um something than just the
Speaker 1: prejudicial element, like you were saying, like they're all like this,
Speaker 1: they're all like that. Well, just like I'm not all
Speaker 1: good or all bad, and you're not all good or
Speaker 1: all bad. That person isn't either, Um. And I think
Speaker 1: if we can come to see the humanity in each
Speaker 1: of us, that's where that love has to ben Yep, yep, totally.
Speaker 1: I'm in a eighteen month in her Faith spiritual Guidance
Speaker 1: program and it's very interesting because we are looking at
Speaker 1: all faiths, and you know, when you look underneath them all,
Speaker 1: it's not very hard to see very quickly what the
Speaker 1: core teaching is. Right. It all comes down to love
Speaker 1: one another yea, you know, love one another and and
Speaker 1: and love God such as it is or whatever that is,
Speaker 1: you know, But it's all that. It's all that basic
Speaker 1: idea again, that sort of outflowing versus interning. You know, Eric,
Speaker 1: I want to say love. I feel I can kind
Speaker 1: of get, you know, touchy feeling like it's it's squishy
Speaker 1: and whatever. What does that really mean? And for me,
Speaker 1: what I've found, not just in the journey through thirty religions,
Speaker 1: but also in my battle with depression which is ongoing, Um,
Speaker 1: is that kindness, the actual actions of kindness is what
Speaker 1: is basically, if love was to like roll up its
Speaker 1: sleeves and put on work boots, kindness is what would happen,
Speaker 1: kindness is the action. It's like the outflowing of of
Speaker 1: the um. It's the verb, the outflowing of that love.
Speaker 1: And so back to the story of that church that
Speaker 1: was taking care of that little girl and there and
Speaker 1: her family, if they just sat around and felt, oh,
Speaker 1: I feel so loving towards them, what's not helping anyone,
Speaker 1: you know. But with the kindness and the actual action
Speaker 1: and taking that and bringing you up and out, that
Speaker 1: is how you see it. It's love made visible is
Speaker 1: when you're actually really being kind That's what it is.
Speaker 1: And um and I have used us kindness actually to
Speaker 1: battle depression, which we can get into if we have
Speaker 1: if we have time. Um, But just the refocusing on
Speaker 1: it is there's so much power in it. Yes, and
Speaker 1: we do have time because that's what we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about now because that that is a very interesting concept.
Speaker 1: And I, you know, tell me more. How do you
Speaker 1: use kindness to battle depression? Rad clear, Eric, I used
Speaker 1: it radically, So just a quick history because I haven't
Speaker 1: written about depression yet in any you know book or anything. Um.
Speaker 1: After my My Beautiful book came out, I was doing
Speaker 1: all this good work in the world and I got
Speaker 1: hit with a really life threatening, debilitating depression. And it's
Speaker 1: the thing that I am probably most proud of in
Speaker 1: my life is that I, um, with the help of others,
Speaker 1: save my own life because it was so dark, Eric,
Speaker 1: and so I have this huge passion for you know,
Speaker 1: talking about how I handled it. Um. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you ever handled depression how I. You know how
Speaker 1: I managed it, um and and and one of the
Speaker 1: ways was that I in conjunction with all of the
Speaker 1: other things. I mean, you know, you've got to see
Speaker 1: the doctors, you've got to do the therapy, like, you
Speaker 1: gotta do all that work. But I was still had
Speaker 1: no will to wake up in the morning because I
Speaker 1: had absolutely no purpose, Like why, what's the point? You know?
Speaker 1: And that's a very dark place that people, even people
Speaker 1: who aren't depressed understand, but people who are depressed to
Speaker 1: know exactly what I'm talking about, Like, even if maybe
Speaker 1: you're not actively suicidal, there's no reason to even do anything.
Speaker 1: And it's very very black and so um, what I
Speaker 1: decided was from the literature, it showed that that if
Speaker 1: you were kind, it was supposed to like lift your
Speaker 1: mood or something. And I was like, all right, well,
Speaker 1: whatever I'll try it, and I ended up it ended
Speaker 1: up being the difference maker for me between just barely
Speaker 1: surviving and being able to live again, because what I
Speaker 1: did was, I said, Okay, it doesn't matter how I
Speaker 1: feel about how I'm waking up in the morning or whatever.
Speaker 1: My goal today is that I'm going to make a
Speaker 1: difference for someone else in some small way at least.
Speaker 1: And that began to snowball, and I ended up doing
Speaker 1: this project, Eric, where I did five thousand random acts
Speaker 1: of kindness of a period about eighteen months, and that
Speaker 1: project gave me my life back because when you are
Speaker 1: able to get in touch with something that's bigger than yourself,
Speaker 1: because depression, as we talked about, it's like you're imploding.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're just closing in on yourself. And if
Speaker 1: you're able to pull up and out of that just
Speaker 1: enough to reach out to someone else to help them
Speaker 1: in some small way. I can't really explain what that
Speaker 1: alchemy is, but I know that it works because it
Speaker 1: gives back to you way more than you can possibly give.
Speaker 1: And so how I've used it now and you know,
Speaker 1: I did all this five thousand random acts of kindness,
Speaker 1: which I think you average out to like ten a
Speaker 1: day or something like that. It became like this lens
Speaker 1: that I was looking at the world through, so I
Speaker 1: wasn't waking up anywhere like there's no reason for me
Speaker 1: to live. It was like, Okay, there's at least a
Speaker 1: reason for me to help somebody else today. And um,
Speaker 1: and that actually turned into, like I said, you know,
Speaker 1: getting my right will to live back in my life back.
Speaker 1: And UM, I'm not going to say it's a this
Speaker 1: is not a simple thing, but it is. Um. It
Speaker 1: is doable. And I think a lot of times when
Speaker 1: you're in depression, you feel like there's nothing I can do,
Speaker 1: there's nothing, nothing, nothing I can do. Well, there is
Speaker 1: always something you can do, and that's something is to
Speaker 1: find somebody else who needs help and help them. Five
Speaker 1: thousand is a lot, and average of ten a day
Speaker 1: is a lot, So let's just start with one. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: well no, I'm not even I'm not even overwhelmed by
Speaker 1: the number of them so much as how you found
Speaker 1: them and what you chose, because I think that's at
Speaker 1: least for me. I kind of get stuck there sometimes
Speaker 1: I kind of just I'm going through my day and
Speaker 1: I've got this to do and that to do, and
Speaker 1: and you know, there are obvious examples for me of
Speaker 1: where I where I do that, but but finding the
Speaker 1: random part or the non obvious acts of kindness is
Speaker 1: always a little bit of a challenge. And so you know,
Speaker 1: tell me about some of the ones that that were
Speaker 1: your favorites to do or some some go twos that
Speaker 1: you would be able to pull out and go, oh boy,
Speaker 1: today's I don't I haven't got much today, but I
Speaker 1: can do this. I'm going to tell you a story
Speaker 1: Eric that I have not told on any other anything anywhere.
Speaker 1: So this year, so I went through the depression that
Speaker 1: I told you got the major depression several years ago,
Speaker 1: and recovered from that. Mostly it's still a challenge, but
Speaker 1: you know, I was really doing pretty well. And then
Speaker 1: within this last calendar year, I UM, I was pregnant
Speaker 1: twice and had two miscarriages. I'm sorry, thank you, UM.
Speaker 1: And I also had to have a surgery because of it.
Speaker 1: And it was just a tremendously dark time. And because
Speaker 1: I was pregnant, I got off the anti depressants and
Speaker 1: because of that all I ended up in as bad
Speaker 1: as a state as I had been like four years
Speaker 1: ago and I was set to talk about overcoming depression
Speaker 1: with kindness at a church and it was my thirty
Speaker 1: seventh birthday, and I realized I was this was It
Speaker 1: was like on a Wednesday, and I was like, I
Speaker 1: am going to have to either cancel this because I'm
Speaker 1: so deep in this depression, or I'm going to have
Speaker 1: to actually do it again, like really do it right
Speaker 1: now today. I've got to do it. Was one or
Speaker 1: the other. I mean, They're going to cancel it because
Speaker 1: I'm not living it, or I'm going to like literally
Speaker 1: practice what I'm about to preach. So what I did
Speaker 1: is I thought, who else in this vicinity in the
Speaker 1: city is struggling in the same ways that I am?
Speaker 1: And how am I feeling? I'm feeling so sad. I'm
Speaker 1: feeling a tremendous amount of grief. I am depressed, I
Speaker 1: am you know, broken, like my body is not working right,
Speaker 1: I'm angry. Who who else is feeling this way? And
Speaker 1: I thought of the hospital at the top of my
Speaker 1: hill that has thousands of people in it that are
Speaker 1: feeling that way, Okay, And so I thought, all right,
Speaker 1: so why don't I just go to the hospital. And
Speaker 1: I'm just going to write notes and I'm going to
Speaker 1: leave them around, just notes of encouragement, you know, quotes, um, whatever.
Speaker 1: And so I packed up my stationary, I walked up
Speaker 1: to the hospital and I, um, I just that's what
Speaker 1: I started doing. I had some posts. I put stuff
Speaker 1: in the in the bathrooms. I put like affirmations of um,
Speaker 1: you know, like prayers, like not not religious prayers, but
Speaker 1: just in places where people would find them. Because if
Speaker 1: you're in a hospital, you know, chances are you're either
Speaker 1: visiting someone and you're having a hard time, or your you,
Speaker 1: yourself are having a hard time. And so here I
Speaker 1: am being this like bandit of kindness, and remember I'm
Speaker 1: super depressing, very grief stricken, and I felt ridiculous. I
Speaker 1: was like, this is not working. I'm gonna have to
Speaker 1: cancel my speech. But then I found the chapel in
Speaker 1: the hospital and I walked in and I thought, oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, you know, anybody who's coming into this chapel
Speaker 1: to pray, they really need encouragement. So I sat there
Speaker 1: and I wrote these notes, and as I did it,
Speaker 1: Eric I felt this It's not that the pain left,
Speaker 1: the depression didn't walk away, but what did change was
Speaker 1: the energy because what I was doing, I was like,
Speaker 1: I refused to feel this fruitlessly. I will not feel fruitless.
Speaker 1: If I'm going to be in pain, I'm going to
Speaker 1: help somebody because of it. And so I sat there
Speaker 1: and I wrote these thirty notes, and with everyone it
Speaker 1: was like, I'm transforming this right now. I am taking
Speaker 1: this pain and I'm going to do something good in
Speaker 1: the world that wouldn't have existed if I was not
Speaker 1: in pain. And what I call that is the alchemy
Speaker 1: of kindness. It's like you take all of that energy
Speaker 1: and you've got to do something with it, so you
Speaker 1: can either self destruct or you can let it come
Speaker 1: out through your hands in your heart and do good
Speaker 1: in the world. It gets better. So I ended up
Speaker 1: as my being a bandit of kindness. That's how I
Speaker 1: ended up becoming a chaplain at the hospital, because I
Speaker 1: ended up talking with the chaplain about what this ridiculous
Speaker 1: thing I was doing writing all these cards, and that's
Speaker 1: how I ended up. So because of these, um, you
Speaker 1: know this the situation that I've been through this last year,
Speaker 1: I'm now sitting with people and and and holding space
Speaker 1: with them. And I never ever would have done that,
Speaker 1: and I am not one of those people who like
Speaker 1: God gives you stuff too so that you can become
Speaker 1: better or whatever. All I know is that whatever horrible
Speaker 1: thing is happening depression included, that there is a method
Speaker 1: to be able to take that and turn the energy
Speaker 1: out so that it isn't imploding, that it's going out
Speaker 1: in a good way instead. I love that. I love
Speaker 1: that idea. I don't believe either that we get things
Speaker 1: given to us as an opportunity to to grow or
Speaker 1: it's just not my personal belief system that things happen
Speaker 1: that way. But I am a pretty firm believer that
Speaker 1: pain is an opportunity. Pain is a d percent an opportunity.
Speaker 1: And I came home from the hospital the other day after, um,
Speaker 1: you know, just getting this privilege just that with some
Speaker 1: people who were really struggling, and I said to my husband,
Speaker 1: I I can't believe that this is what happened because
Speaker 1: of these miscarriages, Like I just am in awe that
Speaker 1: because I was willing to say, I am it's so hurt.
Speaker 1: I'm so broken right out. Who can I help that
Speaker 1: I get to do that work and and be with
Speaker 1: those people, Like it's just it's beautiful. And so my
Speaker 1: encouragement to anyone who is walking through something that's really
Speaker 1: dark right now is number one. I wasn't just there.
Speaker 1: I'm still there some days, you know, but what you
Speaker 1: But my encouragement is to reach out with that pain
Speaker 1: and make it into something beautiful. I mean, put out
Speaker 1: into the world something that wouldn't exist if that pain
Speaker 1: didn't exist, because that's how you can turn it around. Actually,
Speaker 1: I'm going to read a paragraph from your book because
Speaker 1: this is a perfect time to do it, and I
Speaker 1: thought it was a beautiful paragraph. So I'm gonna read
Speaker 1: this paragraph for your book and then we'll see where
Speaker 1: we go from there. This is why being broken is
Speaker 1: so beautiful. Being broken means you have cracks for love
Speaker 1: and light to shine through, gaps for the God diverse
Speaker 1: to burrow and bloom, space to move from the person
Speaker 1: you were to the person you will become. Being broken
Speaker 1: means healing can find you, and hope can gosh forth
Speaker 1: like a geyser, flooding every part of you until you
Speaker 1: can see why the breaking was necessary in the first
Speaker 1: place to give birth to you. So I rested my
Speaker 1: healed spirit and broken body in this deep pool of hope,
Speaker 1: choosing to be thankful for both what I had and
Speaker 1: what I lacked, because real victories, real victories happen in weakness,
Speaker 1: where strength is closer than your very next breath. M hmm.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for reading that. You know, it's
Speaker 1: what no one tells you about writing a memoir is
Speaker 1: sometimes you're like, did I really write that? Because it's
Speaker 1: so true and that is exactly what I experienced, just
Speaker 1: you know, this year when I was so broken and
Speaker 1: so depressed and in this state of complete weakness and
Speaker 1: brokenness at the hospital. And and it's the same principle
Speaker 1: that that's where the growth, that's where it is, that's
Speaker 1: where it all is is. Um, this potential for beauty,
Speaker 1: not that the brokenness itself is, but that you know,
Speaker 1: we forget that a breakthrough requires a break and I
Speaker 1: have to always remind myself that that, yes, yeah, I
Speaker 1: may be broken, but that's the beginning. Right When you're
Speaker 1: in a lot of pain, sometimes there's nothing worse than
Speaker 1: somebody telling you like this is a growth experience. You're like, uh,
Speaker 1: screw you. Um, And yet I do find deep in
Speaker 1: pain that even if I can hold onto that a
Speaker 1: little bit, it's helpful. Right if I can give a
Speaker 1: little bit of even if I don't know quite how,
Speaker 1: but that like this is gonna transform in some way,
Speaker 1: that can be enough to hold onto just to know
Speaker 1: like that's again, it's not a way out. And sometimes
Speaker 1: it's really annoying to hear, but I almost always find
Speaker 1: it also hopeful. I think it depends on the level
Speaker 1: of darkness that you're in, because it can go either
Speaker 1: way for me. UM. But one thing I can say
Speaker 1: that I can always tell myself, and I'd love to
Speaker 1: share this with our audience, is UM that in that brokenness,
Speaker 1: whatever you're doing, you're still breathing, you're still walking around,
Speaker 1: you're still doing your dishes, you're still taking care of
Speaker 1: whatever it is that you have to take care of. UM,
Speaker 1: that it's really brave to do those things. A lot
Speaker 1: of times I can't hold on to like this, I'm
Speaker 1: going to grow from this or whatever. All I can
Speaker 1: think about is like this moment and to and to
Speaker 1: remind myself that I'm being really brave right now, because
Speaker 1: this is really hard and throughout especially this last year
Speaker 1: of going through the miscarriages and the depression. UM, what
Speaker 1: I said to myself over and over and over and over.
Speaker 1: Is I am encouraging, I am encouraging. I'm not just surviving.
Speaker 1: I am being very brave right now and I'm encouraging, um.
Speaker 1: And I hope that that helps somebody out there, because
Speaker 1: sometimes there's really not a lot that you can hang
Speaker 1: on too. But that is one truth, that is if
Speaker 1: you are still breathing and you are still doing whatever
Speaker 1: it is you're doing, that you're being very brave. Let's
Speaker 1: talk a little bit more about that idea of couraging,
Speaker 1: which is I'm assuming brave as a verb. Yeah, brave
Speaker 1: as a verb. Um. And it's kind of like we
Speaker 1: talked about, you know how kindness is like love is
Speaker 1: like the verb of love. UM. To me, encouraging is
Speaker 1: that it's that active being brave. And you know, we
Speaker 1: think of courage a lot of times, and with like
Speaker 1: the big ce courage and somebody that's you know, on
Speaker 1: a battlefield, or someone that's saving a life or someone
Speaker 1: that's filling the blank and that is absolutely courageous. And
Speaker 1: this does not take away from that, but I'm talking
Speaker 1: about courage with a little cea that everyday actions that
Speaker 1: it takes to walk through the hardest times in your life.
Speaker 1: So you know, when no one tells you about your
Speaker 1: life falling apart, is that you know you still have
Speaker 1: to wake up the next morning, and you still have
Speaker 1: to put your feet on the floor, and you gotta
Speaker 1: put on your shoes, and you have to take care
Speaker 1: of your children, or the dog still needs watch. There
Speaker 1: are a million things that happen in the midst of
Speaker 1: that brokenness that requires some action. And when we're in it,
Speaker 1: we're doing these things and we're just looking in the mirror,
Speaker 1: just feeling like a failure and feeling just to complete despair.
Speaker 1: And when we look back from the future at this time,
Speaker 1: at the broken time, we're able to look back and go, oh,
Speaker 1: my gosh, I was so brave that I kept going
Speaker 1: And so my, I guess what. I what I hope
Speaker 1: people can hold on too. If you're in that dark place,
Speaker 1: if you're in grief, if you're depression, it's illness, whatever
Speaker 1: it is that you're you're walking out your courage in
Speaker 1: the moment that's when you need it is to be
Speaker 1: able to look at yourself and be like, I don't
Speaker 1: feel brave, but I am brave right now. Um. And
Speaker 1: you know I learned this not just from the depression Eric,
Speaker 1: but also you know, from walking through chronic illness for
Speaker 1: a decade, because I look back now and I'm like,
Speaker 1: how did I survive that? How did I keep going
Speaker 1: to the doctors? How how did I do that? And
Speaker 1: that's actually where this encouraging idea came from, because when
Speaker 1: the book came out, all these women would come up
Speaker 1: to me and hug me and say I was so brave,
Speaker 1: and I would look around and go, what who you know?
Speaker 1: And it took the future, It took the you know,
Speaker 1: the lens of the future to be able to look
Speaker 1: back and say, oh, my gosh, I was couraging so
Speaker 1: hard when I was showing up to those churches and
Speaker 1: and I was trying to work out my spirituality, and
Speaker 1: I was showing up to those doctors trying to figure
Speaker 1: out what's wrong with me. It just was so brave.
Speaker 1: And I don't want to ever just count my own
Speaker 1: bravery again when I'm broken, and I don't want other
Speaker 1: people to dis count their bravery either. I think that's beautiful.
Speaker 1: And I think we do tend to discount a lot
Speaker 1: of what we do in life because we compare it
Speaker 1: against some grand ideal. And I think that in in
Speaker 1: most lives, there are so many moments of bravery, of kindness,
Speaker 1: of decency, of love, of sacrifice woven into any life.
Speaker 1: That and that most of us just don't appreciated about
Speaker 1: ourselves because we're either focused on the moments were not
Speaker 1: that way, or we're thinking we have to do something
Speaker 1: grand for it to matter. You know, I think life
Speaker 1: is full of gravel and glitter vote things, and oftentimes
Speaker 1: it's it's like what are you what are you collecting?
Speaker 1: You know, what are you holding on too? Because you
Speaker 1: get both every day and you are both every day
Speaker 1: and it's like which one. Oh, that's kind of like
Speaker 1: the parable Eric. That brings this full circle and is
Speaker 1: a great place for us to wrap up this conversation.
Speaker 1: You and I are going to continue in a post
Speaker 1: show conversation and listeners. If you want to hear that,
Speaker 1: you can go to one you feed dot net slash
Speaker 1: joint and you can become a member of our community
Speaker 1: get the joy of supporting the show here post show
Speaker 1: conversations and other great things like ad free episodes. Reva,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for coming on and I really
Speaker 1: appreciate you sharing everything you did. Oh, thank you and
Speaker 1: thank you to everyone who's listening. I'm just sending you
Speaker 1: the biggest love and hug through the microphone. Wonderful, keepencouraging, encouraging,
Speaker 1: all right bye, Just a reminder to check out Omega's
Speaker 1: wonderful new podcast, Dropping In. It's like attending Omega, which
Speaker 1: is one of the world's leading places to help people learn,
Speaker 1: grow and get inspired. Longtime public radio journalist Karen Michael
Speaker 1: is there and she is sitting down with these great
Speaker 1: teachers and giving you a little access to their courses
Speaker 1: and also getting inside their minds by doing intimate interviews.
Speaker 1: So again, I highly recommend checking out Omega's new podcast,
Speaker 1: Dropping In. It's available on Apple Podcasts and most popular
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