Before we left the house, my brother said, can I come with you? And we said no, it's fine, it'll be fine. And I still remember he was standing on the upstairs banister and he said, can I get a pair of Jean's mom And she goes sure, and you know, we left the house and that was the last.
Time I.
Saw him, and I just.
Felt horrible about being the sibling that got to survive.
I felt like I couldn't save him.
I felt like I failed him.
Welcome to my Legacy. Before we begin today's episode, we want to let our listeners and viewers know that we will be discussing issues related to violence, suicide, and mental health. Some of the topics may be distressing. If you or someone you know is struggling, we encourage you to seek professional support. Resources like the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline dial nine eight eight or the crisis text hotline text home to seven four one seven four one are available twenty
four to seven. Please know that this conversation is for information purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Your well being is critically important. Please listen at your own pace, and please don't hesitate to take breaks or skip ahead of needed today, we have the privilege of sitting down with Nina Purewall, the international best selling author of Let That Shit Go. Nina's journey is one of extraordinary resilience, from profound loss to profound healing. She has taken life's
hardest moments and turned them into a legacy of helping others. Now, what makes our conversations on my legacy unexpected and unique is that we don't just hear from extraordinary individuals. We hear from the people who know them best, those who have walked alongside them in their journey. Nina, thanks so much for joining us, and can you introduce us to your plus one?
Absolutely, thank you so much for having us on. We are completely honored to be here, and I would like to introduce my plus one. This is Joe lions Rising. Joe and I have been good friends for over twenty years. We started out working together in data analytics, so we're both data geeks at heart. We have been on the journey together of going from corporate to social enterprise.
We're both authors, and we.
Are very passionate about mental health and wellness. Joe has a company that he founded called Data Gives Back, where he donates over twenty five percent of his earnings to an incredible organization call The Season Center for Grieving Children. But my intention of the plus one was to bring Joe on because he has an incredible story to tell and I want him to share his platform with everybody.
Benina, sincerely, we love you. We are inspired by your story. We're inspired by your determination. We're inspired by who you are, by what you've overcome, by what you put out in the world. And Joe, it's just awesome to have you here.
Nina, you faced a devastating loss as a teenager. In a real sense for me, I also faced a devastating loss of a father at a very early age, but one certainly that shaped the rest of your life. Can you share what you experienced and how years later you were able to choose forgiveness.
I can see you and hear you and empathize with being a child and traumatically losing a parent. And this is why Joe and I are also good friends, because Joe has gone through childhood trauma as well, and we've been each other's great buddies throughout, which.
Is so important.
At sixteen, my parents were going through a pretty tumultuous separation Actually, my mom wanted to leave my dad after twenty two years of started what started out as physical abuse and then you know a lot of psychological verbal abuse. And she kind of made a promise to herself when my brother was born that you know, when my son turns ten, if this behavior continues, I'm leaving. And sure enough he turned ten, and she said, I can't do
this anymore. This is nineteen ninety six, and so she served my dad with with divorce papers in December of ninety six, and it was six months of a lot of uncertainty, a lot of questionable behavior from my dad, a lot of inconsistency, and that culminated in him in May of nineteen ninety seven taking his own life life and also taking my brothers as well. And you know his it was premeditated and his plan was to take
mine too. He obviously wanted revenge and wanted to get back at my mom and take you know, her kids and himself, and he burnt the house down. I did see the crime scene after the bodies were taken out. It was very intense, and in that moment I really had had nowhere to go. It was the nineties and nobody was talking about mental health.
No one was talking.
About really you were either in the psychiatric ward in the hospital or you were quote unquote normal. And I did a lot of reflecting, and this is why I'm so passionate about mental health and specifically men and mental health is I always think back to if my dad had had the support that people have now with things have still gone that way. So I am just so grateful and lucky every single day to be here and to be alive.
Many years later.
I mean, I couldn't even grieve my brother in the beginning because I was so furious and angry with my dad. I had PTSD, I had survivor's guilt, and then I kind of numbed my pain and I repressed it, which I wouldn't recommend for anyone. But I went and got my business degree. I had a great career in sales and marketing. I was thriving and living life, and then my mom passed away and everything hit me all over again, the loss, the grief.
And suddenly I had this epiphany moment that.
I am holding on to all of this anger and resentment about what my dad did, and he's dead and gone, so it's not impacting him anymore.
Who was it impacting It's impacting me.
And it was that moment that I realized my way out of this was forgiveness, not for him not to right his wrong, because when we forgive, we don't have to write wrongs, we don't have to make up, we don't have to be in a beautiful it's not a beautiful romantic period piece where you're I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I love you, I love you. It can be you can forgive someone who's no longer here. You can forgive someone who you don't want in your life anymore. And
that's what I did. I went on a two year journey to forgive him, because forgiveness is freedom for you. You are letting go of the resentment, you are letting go of the anger. And it's incredible what transpired in my life after I went through that journey.
Nina, before we get to that stage, I want to go back, because you and I have had extensive conversations on this, and I just want to say, on behalf of all of us. I'm getting choked up here just how sorry we are for the loss and the tragic nature of that loss. And I know you now look at that loss in a different way because because you also said something very powerful in so much that you had survived your's guild because you survived.
You know, before we left the house and my brother said can I come with you?
And we said no, it's fine, It'll be fine.
And I still remember he was standing on the upstairs banister and he said, can I get a par of Jean's mom? And she goes sure, and you know, we left the house and that was.
The last time I.
Saw him, and I just.
Felt horrible about being the sibling that got to survive.
I felt like I couldn't save him.
I felt like I failed him.
I mean, those last few moments played over and over and over again in my head. I just did twenty weeks of trauma healing a few years ago to address the crime scene.
But survivor's guilt is real.
You feel terrible for living every day when the person or someone you love so much didn't get the same opportunity.
And what is your advice? Because I'm sure that a lot of our listeners are experiencing that more than any of us even realize, and they may feel the same way, trapped and alone and feeling that survivor's guilt.
Well, the first thing I always say, now you know, working.
In mental health, is to feel those feelings, to feel the emotion. It's okay, it's healthy. But then you get to a point where you they they don't want you to feel that way that have passed.
When I think.
About what my brother would have wanted, or when I think about if the.
Roles were reversed, you wouldn't want me.
They don't want you to live the rest of your life wondering why or feeling terrible that.
They were in this situation.
They're they're in the light, They're they're happy, they're angels, they're looking down. You know, they're not suffering. And I think that was that was a big aha for me, is he's he's happy, and he's happy for me, and I feel him too, and you.
Know he's moved on and he's free.
We all struggled in that house growing up, and you know he's he's free.
And so my.
Advice would be to feel the fuels, to acknowledge you know where they are now, and then to also surround yourself, thirdly with people who who understand and to work through it. And I came across this organization called the Season Center for Grieving Children, which Joe donates back to, and you know where we are executive grief ambassadors now and that
honestly saved my life. The peer to peer support, and I highly recommend that if you're going through loss, you're going through tragedy or trauma, is to talk to people who are.
Going through something similar. And I was finally in.
A room where teens had gone through very traumatic loss and at sixteen, I mean, it's been so many years now, I still remember everybody's story and finally I felt at home. I felt I didn't feel misunderstood. I felt like everybody got what I was going through. But if you really do feel stuck, to get the help, because I have had many I still have therapists, grief counselors, psychologists helped me go through this thing called life that we are all trying to navigate.
Nina, thank you for sharing that with us. And the candor is besides, perhaps Martin, none of us can understand fully, but perhaps Joe, I know you also bring And I asked Nina why she invited you, and part of what she spoke about your incredible ambassadorship and also the fact that you have this unique bond that you and your youth experienced also this profound trauma, and would you share it with us so that people out there listening know
that they're also not alone, that others have experienced that journey, and especially if you can share with us some of the journey of healing.
Yeah, definitely.
Nina and I, now you know, on our forties, we joke we're grief buddies. I do think the universe brought us together. Even though we met twenty years ago, we continued to be on this grief journey and it kind of.
Gets stronger year by year.
But yeah, I did go through significant loss as a child in the nineteen eighties. I lost my dad to suicide when I was six years old. He had struggled with bipolar and depression. And then a couple years later, my mom was diagnosed with multiple scrosis and unfortunately she used succumb to depression herself, and she died by suicide
when I was ten. And you know, Nina and I didn't know that the first time we met, when we were doing market research and analytics, right, the first thing you say to each other when you're starting a new company are working, but I think it was at a house party you had had or something we had had, and somehow we started talking about this and it was like this instant magnetic force, like I have no idea what you went through, she doesn't know what I went through,
but we can like incredibly empathize with each other. And that's been our connection and friendship. And it's been this journey since then.
And one of the reasons why I'm so passionate about Joe sharing his story is because, as I said earlier, men in mental health.
Is critically important.
I have done so much research and just lived experience obviously of you know what happens when and traditionally, I know I'm generalizing here, but people who identify as men tend to not talk about their emotions as much and not go there. Women have a more supportive kind of network, and it's okay to meet up with a girlfriend and cry the whole time, and you know, it's just not as available for men. And so I really respect to
Joe for creating that space. And his book does talk about grief and trauma and depression and anxiety, and I think it's important that we acknowledge.
What we're going through well, Martin.
I admire how you've been so open from a young age to encourage men to share their stories, and how you've done it so powerfully and so brilliantly.
I wish our nation had addressed mental health thirty plus years ago, but I'm grateful that we as a society are working in that vein today. And I'm grateful for you sharing your story with our audience. And we don't know what kind of just the fact that you're able
to share is healing. You're putting out healing energy into the universe, and you know it is vitally needed throughout our nation and our world for our society to become a better place and maybe for a sick society to provide some medicine for itself.
And one of the things also that you both when you talk about forgiveness, I want to just also highlight what doctor King said about forgiveness, because one of the ways in which the civil rights movement and that they were able to continue on after your house is bombed, after you know, dogs are being sick on you after is that what that he he said is that you separate the evil.
Act from the individual.
That is also a way to forgive, because Nina, you're talking about you don't. You don't necess you don't forget, but you are able to and you don't say that what happened is okay. But what one thing that he taught is that we separate the act from the individual.
I love that.
That's so powerful, and I love that you both talk about love so much. And if we live from that place, I mean, we've seen the magic that's happened in the world.
We'll be back shortly with more of this inspiring conversation. H you're listening to my legacy. We're so glad you're spending part of your day with us.
You know, Joe and I know Nina's order shared this just a little bit early here. There's such a stigma around men opening up about mental health. How can we break that barrier?
It's a very valid point, Martin, and I can say personally, even for when you know here I am at ten years old, having lost both parents of suicide, trying to figure out the world and navigate that. It took me in many decades to feel comfortable to open up. And I now looking back, you know see that I needed those safe places like a season center, like these different places that exist today. I also feel grateful to Bill and now openly talk about it. But that took me
a long time. Took me to be in a very safe place. I have an incredible wife, two daughter's incredible friend. I'm in a very safe place and comfortable to do that now on an open platform.
So I think that we can just start small, right.
It can just be like one to one with a friend for men to I think we just need to get over this idea, and honestly, I think we need to learn from women how incredible powerful it is to cry. I cry in front of my daughters when I've had family members or friends pass away. I'm not going to just lock myself away or lock those feelings away. I'm
going to express them. And man is at every therapeutic So I think that to stop like repressing and slowly let it be because actually it's not weakness, it's incredible strength to be able to do that. So's the that's the remix. That's a flip that we need to change in our society.
What is the one thing you wish more men understood about their mental health and emotional well being?
I would say that without it, we don't have much.
Like we can put a lot of effort going to the gym, we can put a lot of effort into our physical appearance, our mental health is just as important, if not more important. And so you know, I kind of look at it like I go annually to do a physical I get checked in my mid forties now, so the other extra things we're getting checked.
For that should be the same for mental health.
It shouldn't feel like we're at a you know, a scale of nine to ten of a crisis.
No, it's ongoing maintenance.
We all, just society, especially men should be going to talk to someone.
And that could be different, right, depending on the specialist or whatnot.
But I think that getting over that fear of sharing is critical. So I think that making it more common, removing that stigma around sharing and getting help should be regular.
It's also on the men receiving the messages, to receive it without judgment, without shame, with love. That's a really important piece as well, to just feel that's where the safe, psychologically safe space comes from, and we want men to feel that in the presence of men.
Something you and I have talked about is the fact that trauma gets stuck in your nervous systems. Trauma gets stuck in your fascil system, in your fascia. At the end of the day, we have to get that trauma out of our bodies. How do we do that? How do we let that shit go?
I think with trauma we have to look at in the face. We have to peel it back and we have to unpack it. And it doesn't feel good. And you know, you go through those those of you who have been in therapy.
No, sometimes it gets worse before it gets better.
So I think with trauma, you know, the acknowledgment and getting the help. And I unfortunately, as incredible as my mom was, and I'll forever put around a pedestal for the person that she was.
Sometimes I believe she.
Was diagnosed with als because you know, she never actually cried about my brother. She was, you know, she was eternally happy. But there's a bit of toxic positivity. There was a bit of spiritual bypassing. They call it, you know, good vibes only. It's not like that. Life is not good vibes only. We can't always be good vibes only. So just being brutally honest with where we are and kind of parallel pathing your life. You got to live, You got to move forward. That's something the Season Center
taught me. You know, you got to pick up. No one's going to pick up the pieces for you. You got to do it and you got to move forward. But the healing part also picking up, you know, the trauma and the pieces that are, yeah, left inside of you because until you bring them. We have a saying in the book, you can't let that shit go unless you bring that shit to surface. And that's what you need to do with the traumas, bring into surface and move through it.
But the fact, in the Western medicine context, so many times we've separated out physical health and mental health, and just what a crime to humanity that is, in my opinion, because so many of the challenges that we see in this world, and so many the disconnection stems from ourselves because we have that physical disconnection from our spiritual disconnection. And you and I've had these conversations about this, and you keep your spiritual health very much at the forefront.
You clean and cleanse your spiritual engagement on an ongoing basis because the work you do, which is Martin does this is so hard and so challenging.
You know, I worked for many years monitoring the klu Klux Klan and Neil Nazis and skin hits. And when I did that work, I had a picture on my wall to quote by Bill Hooks this say we must never become like that which we're fighting against.
It was one of my north stars. And I feel that.
In order to show up fully in love that we are talking about, we have to first put on that within ourselves even before we leave our home. You know, has to be a continual process. It's a continual commitment for me in how we go about just living our lives.
And Joe, this is such a powerful conversation, and I know that some of our listeners will be both inspired and to say what is the truth? Some will be triggered, and some it was going to bring forth some of the trauma and some of what people have repressed themselves.
And so for those individuals who are looking for help, we will have in our show notes, both on the app and on the video resources that are available from your own books of course, the two of you to the organizations that can be available for those who are
looking for help. I'd be reminiscent, and to just quickly point out, in addition to the great resources of our incredible authors who are with us here today, the Body keep Score, of course, one of the seminal works about the physical connection on trauma, you know, being married to a psychologist, I'm going to put out some of the great things that you know, whether it's the Hoffman process, looking at some of the childhood trauma, you know, Nina
Joyce you nodding your head, some of the great work that they do, cognitive behavioral therapy for people who are looking for help, seeing some of the great trauma supports out there. And I know, Andrea, there's something really important that you want to share.
And I think it's also important for us all to highlight too that these resources will also include free resources, because we understand that everyone you know may not can afford some you know, their different you know, modalities or different ways to address all of this. But what we firmly believe is that that should not be a barrier
to mental health. So we really want to make sure that our listeners know that they are free resources that they could also look into that will be listed as resources.
You know, when it ask to you One of the people that you and I have spoken about extensively is doctor Gobor Matte, of course, somebody who is one of the world's leading experts on trauma. You've read his books. What have you learned from doctor Gobor Mate.
I don't think we understand as a society what trauma. We're just starting to understand what it means and all the types of trauma that's out there.
The way that he acknowledges whether it's trauma as.
A society, or whether it's trauma as women, or whether it's you know, trauma we keep in our body.
Follow him on Instagram, follow him on socials.
He is constantly posting about, you know, the podcast interviews he's doing, or little segments of his keynotes, and he has really taught me.
About really what trauma is, because.
I think everybody's gone through trauma to some degree, so understanding and acknowledging whether it's you know, when you were a child and how you were raised, or you know, in a relationship, the kinds of trauma that shows up, or as a child as a parent.
So he has really brought a lot of rigor to.
The definition of trauma, and I think identif find what it is.
And it was really hard for me to move on.
I felt like I was walking the halls as the murder suicide girl.
I couldn't sit through a class.
I went from a straight A student to not being able to focus. And if you've read Oprah and doctor Bruce Perry's book on What Happened to You, you will understand that trauma impacts the brain. I just thought I was dumb all of a sudden, and so to have that validation of you know, actually your brain doesn't function as it used to, it was very frustrating.
I couldn't focus, I couldn't retain anything. I couldn't do well in school.
I was going to highlight too.
How it also provides that understanding also leads to healing in our world. One of the things that I'm fascinated by is, you know, I remember a study. There's a group that worked in Boston that looked at the impact that poverty has on young people's brains. To your point, I think, Nina, I think you said it earlier. When you go through trauma, it literally impacts your brain, and
they are now finding this with science. And so then when you say traditional things like okay, well, in order to you know, get out of poverty.
You know, you write your goals, you do.
That, but those things, if you're not addressing the physically, what's even happening in someone's brain, or understanding that that brain, their different parts that are wired differently because of the trauma.
Even that will help not only.
Individuals, but that understanding and will also I think bring a sense of healing to a lot of the things that we see in the world.
Absolutely, I had a pivotal moment with a university professor a few years ago. She wanted to do a fireside chat on mental health.
And I was shocked.
Because I'm going to be honest here and say, I know you're all scholars, But after I barely kind of I grazed through my degree and I thought, what does a university professor want to do, you know, talking to me?
And I had told her, you know, when I was in university, it was a few years after the.
Incident, and I would sit through lecture and leave and have no idea what the lecture was about. And you know, I did some testing after and how it affected my memory.
Just so much of your brain.
Is focused on that, and you know, we had this zoom call before the chat, you know, this was years later, and she looked at me through the screen and said, the fact that you got out of bed and you put your clothes on, and you got your backpack ready and you showed up to class is an absolute miracle. And it was such a validating moment for me. And
I want everybody to acknowledge who's gone through trauma. It's okay if you're not operating with hiring all cylinders and crazy career and God, it's okay that you have gone through things and you're not functioning as maybe you were.
Give yourself grace and compassion for that. Can I ask a question to Andrea and Martin.
You have seen so much trauma, you've experienced it, you know, with with racism or even patriarchy with women. What inside of you keeps you going to fight this fight with love?
So?
You know, as a as a child, it was seeing you know, love and action through my father, my mother, my grandfather as a pastor, you know, my aunts and uncles, and it was fortunately the environment for me. I don't know how I would have been had I not been exposed to this method to navigate through so much change, but it was a physical example of what Dad did and what Mom did many years after after Dad. So if it didn't have examples, I said, I can't say
that I would have maintain and sustained hope. But it was reinforcing situations and experiences and understand that you know, you can never give up. You have to always and really it sort of a decision. It's an intention. The intention is and no matter what happens every day, we have to intend to deposit positiveness within the world. So that's just who I chosen to be, and it reinforces itself. It's like what you all are sharing today on this podcast.
I can't imagine how many people are going to be helped because you chose to show up and show up in a way that is helpful to what someone is going through right this moment.
For me, it was I talked about earlier having that quote and being mindful that of who I am being and showing up in the world and that we will never eliminate hate or fear by bringing more of that into the world. And one of the things that I've been leaning on more and more is that quote of Gandhi when he says that when he despairs.
He thinks about.
That throughout history looks like tyranny and murderers would prevail, But when you really think about it, the way of love and truth and beauty has always prevailed over those things. We say a lot that, you know, the movement for humanity, the civil rights movement, is a movement of faith. It always looked impossible until it was done. And so that remembrance of it, that the fact that I understand that it is all of us, this is our time, and that collective long march in humanity. And what am I
going to do with my time? Am I going to feed the flames of more fear and division and chaos? Or am I going to feed the flames of peace and justice and love? Am I going to feed the flames of Martin? Luther King Junior credits Scott King and Gandhi and Mother Teresa and Nelson Mandela and also remembering as a woman, remembering my.
Power, our power.
I think sometimes we look around and we feel powerless when the reality is that we're powerful, and and you know, and to follow up on that, Nina, you know, we've talked a lot, and I'm so glad that we've had the conversation about men's mental health because it's incredibly important.
But I do want to ask on the other side that you know, women, as women are often expected to carry the emotional labor and their relationships and in families, So how do you navigate that balance between supporting others but also protecting your own well being, your own mental health.
I make the time for it.
I schedule time for self love and self care. And I also say that self love starts up here. We can go to all the spot a's, or spend time on the golf burs or be with girlfriends, but how are we talking to ourself?
How is that import in there?
What is it saying so constantly being aware of what's going on up here? And you know you talked about going to the gym, and we can't stop that mental.
Health awareness because we go to the gym for.
Six months and we get the six pack, and it doesn't stay if we stop going.
So in the same way, constantly.
Checking in and even budgeting a little bit for self love and well being and mental health.
And it's not something I.
Realized I needed to do till very recently, till really writing about it, I thought I got to start walking the walk, and it is so important for women in today's world because we tend to constantly feel guilty when we take time out for ourselves to in fact do that, because then we can serve the world that much.
That are you know, if.
Our cup is not full, our love is going to come from a place of exhaustion, of expectation, of obligation. So we want to fill our cup and we want our love to come from the cup.
Runneth over the overflow, overflow. I love it, and so do you have.
Is there a particular boundary that you've had to that you established in your own personal life to protect yourself and your mental health?
Meditation.
Meditation is really my self care and it's the way for me to plug in, if you will, to source to truth to love every day. I can't say I do it every single day, but it is really like
brushing my teeth part of my routine. And most recently I've said to myself and I'm telling my girlfriends, intentionally do something once a month, whether that's you know, a somatic healing session, whether that's a little massage, or whether that you know, sacrifice the dinner out or the drinks and just have a little budget maybe one hundred bucks a month for self care or even you know, like I said, wake up and listen to a self care podcast.
So the boundary is really it's the overall boundary is making sure that I'm not depleting and I'm not depleted.
More of this inspiring and powerful conversation after the break.
Now back to my legacy.
You both have daughters, if I'm not mistaken, I've got two girls as well, who I just absolutely love in a door, and I wanted to ask you, having conversations around mental health with your kids is really hard, and opening up that space is sometimes also really hard. How do we do it? How do we embrace this conversation with young ones and with teenagers? What tips or suggestions do you guys have.
I can start with the little because Joe has a little and a teenager, so he can speak to the.
Teen tween phase, which I'm terrified for.
But I think it's just not even sometimes this explicitly saying take care of your mental health.
I think it's because they're.
Little so acknowledging their emotions, which is something I mean I can speak for myself, especially having immigrant parents.
Ever talked about emotions growing up, like it would be.
Like four hour explosive fight, brother and I hiding in the room, and then next morning like when you want for breakfast, would you like some cereal old? You know, So mental health wasn't even talked about acknowledged. So one thing with my daughter is every day when she comes from home from school, we talk about it. We talk about, you know, was there any bullying incidents? Is what happened? How did you feel? How do you feel about what's
going on? Things happening in the family. So holding the space and making it a very psychologically safe space for children, I think as they're little. And then of course there's practical applications like you know, mindfulness cards and yoga cards and having a space in your home where you know, the calming center, so to speak.
But I think, you know, to.
Start out as parents, it's really acknowledging their mental health. And you know, I read somewhere that kids problems maybe may seem small.
To us, but that's their biggest problem for them.
So if someone stole an a raser and that's their biggest problem, and we're saying it's just an eraser, they're gonna learn that we're not acknowledging what's going on.
And so it's really important wherever they're arrived to hold space.
Nina. I love that. I actually want to repeat that one more time because as a parent, that really resonated with me, that idea that even if it seems small, that's the world of the child that's so important, So acknowledging it from that perspective, I love that tangible advice.
One of the things that I've learned as a parent is that to ask myself, does does she need a lecture or love? Actually I even do that with my husband.
You know, because sometimes sometimes.
They just want, you know that they just need to be loved, to see, to be seen, to be heard. There are sometimes that there they need. You know that there might be you know, there's time for instruction, and the wisdom is in knowing, you know, you know which applies when Nina, what is.
One value you want to pass down to your daughter?
That is such.
A big question, and I would say for her to honor herself, for her to show up authentically every step of the way, and to be unapologetic about it, especially growing up as a woman in today's world, is to just own who she is, my mom who is no longer with us. She passed away ten years ago. This year taught me everything about life. I mean, talk about legacy. It's why I do what I do. I share this story all the time. As she worked for a big bank. She was a bank executive, and she had one more
year to retire. She had twenty five years of the bank. She lived twenty four, one more year to retire, and most people would just work that year and say, Okay, now I'm retired, I'm going to live my life. But this one her course came up at the ashram and she said, I'm going to take a year sabbatical before
her one last year to retirement. And she did that and we came back from the course, and in those months she started limping around, and before we knew it, she was diagnosed with als or lou Garrick's And I kept thinking, Thank goodness, she sees the day and did what she felt was important in that moment, because otherwise her last year of health would have been working for the bank. And in the years that she was sick, she had about two years from her diagnosis to her passing.
People still talk about how she'd be in her wheelchair and they'd come over and she would say, how are you and what is going on with you? And she always just thought about others, literally until the day she died. And I shared this with you Mark when we were talking earlier, that she left me birthday cards and letters and letters for my daughter before I was even pregnant.
She didn't even know I was pregnant, and she was leaving these letters with a best friend of mine, And so I have access to her wisdom, you know, beyond her her physical life, and you know, she just she made such incredible strides despite the fact that she was ill, and really lived to her fullest till her last day.
Nina, I'm just struck because you know, all of our stories are unique, but it's always so amazing to me of how much all of so many of us have in common. For me, my mother passed away five years ago, and like your mother, she was just this light. And you know, I know from personal experience how complex that situation is. You know, mother and daughter as your parent is transitioning, you know, going from being a caretaker to just you know, preparing yourself, trying to prepare your your
your children. I think for me, you know, we were I was in the room and my mom took her last breath, and there was something so powerful to be with this magnificent human that gave birth to me at the time that she was exiting this world. Is there anything in particular that you feel would be helpful to any of our listeners who right now it's going on that path of apparent transition.
Thank you for sharing that. It's a beautiful story. And I too was there when she took her last breath, and it is quite a moment when the person who brought you into this world is leaving this world.
It's really full circle. And I would say the biggest.
Thing I've learned is that they're actually not gone there very much.
And I'm sure you've experience this too, Andrea. They're here, they're just not in physical form.
But I would say, you know their essence, their spirit becomes you.
They're so much of your heart.
And practically, I'd say there's some tough conversations to have as a parent is transitioning. And one thing my mom and I learned was, let's not make this last year just about those tough conversations about wheelchairs and medication and what you need to do, you know, every month, and the hospitals, and let's make sure we're still talking about life, and we're still talking about love and spirituality and the meaning of life.
And as she transitioned.
Now it's been ten years, I still till this day get little signs from her all the time, and it's like I'm talking to her. I'm like, yes, Mom, I can hear. Yeah, yeah, you know, and I'm validating. But you know, even though it feels I'm not denying the grave loss and the lack of physical presence and how much it hurts to not get that phone call or not feel that hug. But if you really feel them in your heart, you'll hear them.
And I love too that you talked about how she left things even for her her grandchildren, you know, for your for your child, because I'm also reminded me think about signs. And you know, a lot of the first time that a lot of people were introduced to our daughter was when she spoke at the March for Our Lives rally, which she did without any prior warning, literally
two hours before she was on the stage. But what's interesting is that a week before that and I wanted to make sure like she wasn't when we went, she wasn't preparing to speak, you know, but she got the phone call two hours before.
But a week before.
That, she had a dream about Martin's parents, and in that dream even her grandfather took her up some stairs and then he was talking to her. And so it almost felt like at this moment when his grandchild was being introduced to the world and she was, you know, going forward in her her destiny, he ate, in some manner was there. And not only that coach because he you know, in the dreams, he talked to her and kind of coached her. So they are still a part of who we are.
And it takes such courage to come onto this global conversation and to share your story, which you've done with rawness, with love, with humility, with emotion, and with wisdom. Joe on behalf of is a fellow male. I want to say thank you for having the courage and having the courage to get up and stand up and talk about these traumas and encourage other men to talk about the traumas.
Joe, I just want to echo marks words a gratitude this entire group. But what I think you added that was so powerful is we first have to have the courage to bring it up. And it's only when we have the courage to bring it up, to face it, to have those difficult moments like we had today with you. With that rawness, that vulnerability, that courage, can we truly
let it go. And so to our listeners who have the trauma in their life that they're facing to have the courage to face to have the courage to work through it and have courage to let that shit go.
Thank you so much for having us on and give the opportunity to continue to talk about our stories.
Thank you so much. Thank you for having us on. We were pretty emotional when we got the call.
And I also want to congratulate you. I've known Craig of course my entire life and of course his entire life as he's my brother, and in the forty plus years that Craig has been on this earth, this is the first time I've ever heard him use the shit word and swear, so congratulations. It's actually the first time since I was probably six or seven years old, I've actually ever used a word of preventity.
Yes, my wife was teasing me She's like, you canna introduce this book. You can say this book, bleep it yourself.
So that book that Let that Shit Go has taken us in terms of healing trauma, of course, and we love the book, but has also now brought us closer together as brothers because I've been trying to get him to squear his entire life. So congratulations.
So I guess that's a win. I mean for your kids, maybe off, but Fred.
Thank you for joining us.
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