Exploring Resilience and Healing with Shanna Forrestall

Apart from acting , shayna is passionate about storytelling and has created and produced a variety of content narrating , children's bedtime stories and mediation series . She's an advocate of so many things that touch home with me and my podcast communities , such as mental health awareness , autism , diversity and inclusion .

She's the passion of helping people create their own calm world .

It's absolutely shaped the work that I'm doing . It's absolutely shaped the work that I'm doing . It's absolutely shaped the work that I'm doing . It's absolutely shaped the work that I'm doing .

I'm saying all the things that little Sharon should have heard and did it and like , literally , those are the things I'm speaking to my own in your child , and that's why I started the children's doc .

The first one , why the girl became a cat , was to remind myself , one , I'm a cat , but two , I can be anything I want to be , and just reminding myself that , no , you can do this . And then more , see , lou was an artist . That's another one . It's very personal to me .

I always felt like my art wasn't good enough , because I wasn't a painter , I wasn't good at dancing , I wasn't good at certain things and other people were way better and I Wanted to make a statement that aren't is for art's sake , like sometimes it's just for you . It doesn't matter what it looks like , it matters the expression that you're able to give .

And and then Devin Delancey was a dreamer . Devin Delancey is about a little boy who dreams big things . He dreams that he can make people happy and he does these silly things and he meets a turtle and they make the movie . Other were a little rabbit laugh , and it's . It's about acceptance , it's about love .

It's about they meet a little pig who's smelly and everybody runs away from it , but Devin's , no .

I was feeling we could be friends and then he encouraged a little pig and then the pig leads a march and all the animals come back and follow the pig and it's like these are things that we are sometimes not being taught these days about just loving and bringing joy to the world and celebration and honoring yourself and all the things .

And so Every story is personal . And after I lost my husband and then going into menopause , I had six or eight months where I didn't sleep and it was terrible . It was terrible , and so I started to read bedtime stories , so all those things . Sing yourself to sleep , sing a sleepy time song where you make animals sound , put yourself to sleep .

There's four quo children , but they're also for me , because I'm her like cat and I will do those things . And then , like roly-poly , I work with a lot of young people in the autism spectrum and I was thinking about that and there , how they could get really sensory overload , and I was like , what would I do about it if I was the mother ?

What would I do ? And I was like , oh , you can cover your ears , you can cover your eyes , and I was like , oh , like a little roly-poly , you roll into a little ball and so really fully teaches them , if you're having sensory overload to go into your safe space , and so that these are literally principles that I feel like are good for adults and children .

They just happen to be packaged in a very sing-songy , sweet , soothing way so that we can use them to put ourselves down or rest or Relax or whatever it is that we need to do .

of the actual problem . I feel like society , we're just putting band-aids on things . Let's find this one man , and this one man hurt this one person , so he'll do X amount of time . Why did he hurt that person ? That does not justify what he did . It doesn't mean he should not be Sentenced to pay how he should in the eyes of the law .

But if we just set him right back out , if he's not at that core of the problem , then you've not done anything but put a band-aid on something .

And so when you're talking about and when I even mentioned Children and David , what I love about it is your stories are taking me back to that childhood where it is Making me think and it'll affect everyone differently , right , but it's taking me back to that childhood state of mind of where Certain things that I'm lacking or damaged or bruised on in my adult

life . It's taking me back to the core of that problem . Absolutely and I think that's what's so beautiful about it . I don't even know what's happening .

I wake up with panic attacks and I would be like I don't know who I am . I don't know who I am .

I don't know who I am and I didn't know who I was because my whole identity was in that , my community at that time , which turned their back on me because I left my husband , because he almost killed me , and it was like I lost my cat , my , my blanket , my flowers , like all the things that were around me that made me feel like , oh , this is Sharon's

home , and so I had to really struggle with that . What I found out was that home was me and home was where joy was and love was , and now I can establish home anywhere . But I had to learn that and that was a really hard , long lesson of Having

to walk that out . So that's little stories . They we see like little stories . They're really important principles that I don't feel like are taught in our society to help make us mature , growing , evolving , healing humans and that is super important . We have some new stuff coming out . This even it's pretty deep .

There's one called I was journey to the dragon named despair . I have that and I know to talk to you about because I Wrote that after I lost my husband and I literally was on a trip and I went to the beach and I said , if you ?

I just looked up this guy and I was like , if you don't talk to me today , if I don't find a way to To process Still of this despair , I don't know what I'm gonna do . I knew I wanted to walk in the water and breathe it . I just wanted to go where my husband was and I was in such despair and I sat down on that beach and I rode .

They took about two and a half hours of just crying , crying and I was like I said I'm gonna send this little girl on a journey and if wherever she ends up is where I am today and I didn't know where she was going , you know what I mean .

Yeah , she's like she better end up somewhere , because wherever she goes I'm going , because I can't keep running from this , I can't keep ignoring this , like I am in so much despair that I have to face it . And so she goes on this journey . She takes a journey and very deep people take . She goes into the mountains .

It's treacherous , she's scared , she's tired , but she ends up facing this dragon and you know it even has a song in it . That's imaginary language . The dragon sings in an imaginary language . Because I want people to literally put their own stuff on these stories . I didn't want to tell you what the song of the dragon was because I want you to feel it .

Does that make sense ? I didn't want to say , oh , it's this or this , because everybody's way out of despair is different . But once you learn it , you know what that song is in your heart and it resonates . It's hope . Right , you face despair and then , if you make it , it's because you're trying to hope . But hope is different .

It comes from different sources , it comes in different amounts , it comes in different times , and so what they find is this song that brings hope . But everybody's song is different , and so it's an interesting story . Now it was coming out this year and then there's so many fun things . Oh , I just wrote one that you're gonna know about . It's okay .

So I went to this fridge residency last year and I got to go and write . Jeff and I worked on a bunch of new stuff . So we have some really fun stuff coming out . We have a song called Penelope the Pretty Chicken , which has this amazing harmonica player on it , and then we wrote Annabelle , the One-Eyed Hinn . We wrote Clotette and the Chocolate Croissant .

So we have all this fun music coming out as well . But while I was there , I was working on oh gosh , oh , I met this artist and her name is Emmy . She's a really great artist and she's amazing . She showed me a picture of her Puggle .

She has a little Puggle and her Puggle is like the ugliest , cutest thing you've ever seen and it has a pet pin and the Puggle's name is Lola . Okay , so I've been wanting to write some stories to embrace our LGBTQ community and teach acceptance and things like this .

Lola the Princess Puggle has a reference to that and it's such a cute little story Like it's been churning for months and then all of us that I wrote it a couple weeks ago and she's illustrating it right now . But it's about Lola wants to be a princess and everybody tells her you can't be a princess because there are certain rules .

And she's oh no , no , please , anybody can be a princess . And it's about flying your own colors . And she knights her little piggy and then she says I'm royalty , and here's why .

If that inner child is screaming out like you need to spend time with it and it took me a long time to realize that was okay , I was like but I'm a grown man and I should not play , hide and go see , but if I want to pop out and absolutely Are you familiar with Madeline Lange . Yes .

Today , I do not have to give up being five and dancing in the rain . I do not have to give up hide and go see , get 11 . I do not have to give up falling in love like a 15 year old , like we get all of it , david . We get all of it . The only thing that takes it from us is us .

The only thing that says that I cannot play or I cannot live or I cannot do anything dance , be crazy . Whatever it is that I want to do is maybe I can literally do whatever I want because I'm an adult now and we forget that we have the privilege of being an adult . I have . If you all see a swing , you're going to find me on it .

Look , I'm not going to be right there beside you and ask the small kids out the way , like excuse me already needs to swing , because swinging is fun for me , it's like it lights up my child and I really think that , like you said , when we've gone through something traumatic , sometimes it's doubly important to go back to that child likeness where you can laugh

and you can giggle and you could have fun and you could . Last night my buddy and I were watching the fireflies and we were giggling like little children . I was like look at the , look at the , look at the look at the yeah yeah and he's like it was so simple , but it was like it brought me back to my childhood .

I've grown up in South Louisiana and sitting in the air and watching the fireflies and I just thought they were magic , Very us , you know . Yeah , I think it's usually important . I'm absolutely proponent of that . I think we should all play . I think we never play enough and I play as much as I can

, all day , every day .

I messaged Ellen and was like , hey , like Sheena's on the show I'm going to record . And I was like she has invited me to see her farm .

I was like we need to coordinate because you need a break and just come where we can have some wine or whatever and just chill out and relax and unwind and talk and just people with the same like interests just be together

. And she was like , oh my gosh , I would love that so much . Let me know how it all goes . So I can't wait to message her . But yeah , I met her and I was like so we have to go see Shayna together .

The other day , David , I was meditating on these rocks under this waterfall and this whole family of four comes by and I'm just like meditate , I'm like break out of my meditation , I'm like wave at him .

I would check that in my head and when I got older I'd be like I want to do what that woman was doing .

free . And then , of course , the next generation needs to know that fun doesn't end at 30 or 40 or 50 . It's a little play Like that's . Life's too short not to play .

And it is , I think , one of the best ways to heal Because , like after I lost my husband here and just like shock and all this stuff , my two best friends were like in my house living with me and I remember it was like a couple of weeks out my Indian brother had made his dinner . I love Indian food .

He was trying to make me eat and we're sitting there and I'm trying to make myself eat and he started telling me stories about when he was a freshman in college and how he had come from India and all the guides who were trying to give him tips on how to pick up girls and it was the most horrible advice you've ever heard .

So he tells me stories and we just start dying laughing . And then I realized in the middle of that I was like I'm gonna be okay Because I can still laugh . Because , honestly , david , after the biggest traumatic events in my life , that's one of the things I would always be most scared of .

I was always scared that I would lose my innocence and my joy and that I would lose my child like this and that will terrify me . Because I was like I don't wanna live without that . I don't wanna live someone who's closed off and in fear and not able to laugh and giggle and play because of the trauma .

So my first goal was always like how do I get my kid back ? Because that's the part I love the most . She's the innocent one , she's the one before it . You know what I mean . Getting her back has always been where I'm like okay , I'm gonna do this , it's gonna be all right . Because , she's still here .

Shannon's still here giggling and she's still looking for the swing

and the slide . You know what I mean and I think I don't . I wanna help everybody do that . That's why I love writing the content that we're doing right now , because it just if it makes somebody have joy or it helps them to let go some deep breaths and let go some anxiety .

We just did one that's about to come out , called when thoughts that run , and it's about thoughts having to race in your mind and competing for who's gonna be there and you have to tell them no . And it helps the mind assume and go no . And we have a couple of new ones too , called one called Busy Bee . Good Night , busy Bee . It's so cute .

But as I'm learning you and developing a friendship with you and also seeing how you're doing all the things that I'm working on trying to do is so hopeful and so beautiful . And your gift to me things every day without even realizing that you're gifting that to me . So thank you for that .

This is just a visit to the dark place and tomorrow is a brand new day . Yeah , and it's really changed things for me to have that mindset .

You can , you should not be to get away , and I think these dark things , they will chase you until you pay attention . And I think even underneath there is love .

I think that our body and our mind want to heal and sometimes , when they won't let us go , it's because they're trying to bring us back to a place so that we can revisit something and move on , or they're trying to teach us something , or I don't know .

I think there's something important about getting yourself ready and facing it with the support that you need and looking at it with love . I asked my grief now , what do you need today ? What do you need ? And I've , I've grieved . I grieve in many ways . Some days it's burning something , writing something and burning it .

I've done things in the water dirt , salt baths . They're good for me to feel like I'm getting for some reason , like I feel like trauma gets stuck in my body , and so doing things like that helped me .

I think everybody needs to find their own personal rituals to to let go a little bit at a time of what your body and your mind are ready to let go of when it comes to trauma and pain . It's not a sudden recovery . We wish we could snap the finger and it was done . That is never the case .

It is a continuous walkabout , and so you can't just run or hide or pretend it's not there or oh hey , I'm over it . It's like you may be over the worst of it , but that those resonances . If we don't pay attention , we don't get the full lesson .

And the lesson is this we are resilient , rebounding , recreating individuals and that's what I've come to trust is oh , you want that to happen to me . I believe in an energetic exchange and I believe when something is taken from me , that means I am not just equal , I want interest . I want interest .

And so now , when something happens anything might car break down or something happened I go you know what ? Ok , we're dealing with this today , but where's my payout ?

Now I'm doing the work of healing men and help me creating community for them to find each other and find the friendships they need to talk , because I lost a bet who wasn't talking to anybody when ? Sure them right , and I don't ever want to lose another one . So now my goal is to impact a million men before I die . So did it cost something ?

Yes , but let me tell you something . I am looking for a return with interest . When I had people email me weird stuff , I feel like many weird things . They don't know how to deal with grief here . After it happened , I had a double . People email me .

We're like I know you'll never love again that deeply and blah , blah , blah and I'm like but excuse me , no , I expect to have many great loves like . I made a choice right away , that like I had lost something phenomenal . My husband was in love with my life . Oh , and I'm so compatible .

He's the kindest , gentlest , beautiful , most beautiful person I've ever known , and so to lose him was super traumatic . But I wasn't gonna sit there and go oh , I'll never find someone that good again . I'll never love again . No , immediately I was like , oh , you want to take the perfect test ?

That means Shana's gonna have an even better love , maybe more than work . You know what I mean . So I just encourage anyone who's listening to not let your past Dictate what you think is possible in your future . I spend a lot of time at night . I shut down early and I spent a lot of time listening to meditations and music and letting my mind go big .

I want to dream big that way , no matter what great thing happens , I'm not surprised by greatness . I want it , and I want it not just for me , but for my friends and my family . And what's cool is we've all started doing this together .

Now everyone's experiencing these beautiful things because our minds are open to joy and to hope and to Big , wonderful things happening . So whoever you are today and wherever you're at , I want you to know that I believe for you that you could have Wonderful things Better than you've ever had . You might have lost a great love . Guess what ?

You can find a better one and , if nothing else , you can learn to love yourself more deeply , because that is a gift that no one can take , and I've dealt with a lot of people post natural disaster , and that's another reason home is important to me . Home is not a place and it is not even a person . Home is something you create .

It is a confidence in the fact that it's going to be okay and that , wherever I am , I deserve to be there . I have the right to be there and I have a right to have joy in peace , and I'm gonna look to always create that for myself and others . We have a right to home , all of us and that's not a place .

No , and he wants to become something like that , then no one can take it , nothing can take it , because if my house burns down , I still have home . Home is her community absolutely Absolutely build it back . Believe for it to come back even greater . Whatever you've lost , your innocence even , can come back . Joy , all of it can come back .

Just give yourself time and take care of yourself Just take care of yourself , and let your loved ones do that too .

I don't like to say that something is Greater than or that . I will never have this again , like , instead of saying something is better than or greater than , I try to use the word different . But , yeah , like if something that God forbid happened to my partner . He is the greatest love of my life right now . If something happened , I will love again .

It's not that I love him less or that I love this person more , it's just that it's different . Yeah , there's no comparison but her .

My stepfather About I think we're coming up on on the tenth year had ended his own life , and I will say that I used to think suicide was selfish and unloving and negative things , and until it hit home , and then when at home I was like I I had this all wrong it made me realize that sometimes people get to this dark place that only that they feel and

they think the only way out is this , and it's usually . I can't speak for every situation , but at least in my situation it was for they thought they were doing what was best , that's what they could do .

It really changed my mindset on things and so , if you don't mind , could you tell us your and whatever you want to share , but would you mind to give us your opinion or thoughts on that ?

Crushed because I had spent so much of my life in unhealthy relationships , being abused , mistreated and all the things to finally find someone , why I had six years of perfect joy and peace for this person . It was my best friend and I wanted to live in dynamics to him long old life .

So when he disappeared suddenly and this was without warning and no one suspected anything or knew anything I knew right away . I was like I have to set some truths in my mind , and those truths were pretty clear . One was that I couldn't have done anything to stop it or say you to that . I had to give him permission to

make that choice . If I thought that choice , I would spend my life in a battle that I could win , because it was oak People that run in grace and they fight the truth . Some of his people did that , so add that in there . But they some people .

Just they run in loops and they try to write something it's already done or that's out of their control , and I knew that if I spent energy doing that , I wouldn't have the energy I needed to recover , to get well and to move on . So I just had to come to some point where I was like I give you permission to make that choice , even though I hate it .

That's how it started . I have to make myself say it , and then it got easier towards , like I give you permission to make the choice you felt like you needed to make , even though it cost me a lot . And today I say thank you for sharing your life with me . I give you permission to leave when you need to , even though I miss you every moment .

But that's what keeps me from spiraling into darkness is giving permission , because we don't understand each other's journey and we never will . And I think there's something important about giving grace , about just giving grace and going . That's where you were .

You made , maybe what was the best choice , and I don't like it at all , but you've made the best choice you could in that moment and I give you permission to have me there so that we can all move forward .

So I met you at a live event through some podcaster a big podcast production show where we'll go into more detail in a few minutes , but I just so much film .

I just fell in love with you and on the way home , I had like a three hour drive by myself and so I was like finding different things to listen to and I came across full men and I was like , wait , no one told me that she was also a singer-dancer songwriter , like you forgot about that and the IMDB and I fell in love with that song .

Then , a week or so ago , and then , of course , again today I was listening to , but I came across an interview that you had done where you actually explained the backstory and I had to step away and take a walk and but it wasn't one of those like PDFO , sorry , kind of thing .

Of course there was that sorrow about it , but there was also that , oh my God , she has this and she got to experience this and you had to take the good with the bad kind of thing . But the good's always winning and I think that is . I think this song and the story behind it is just one of those really cool realizations Can you tell us ?

I used the allegory of these colored moons and then he's he was my silver moon . He was my beautiful , perfect silver moon . But what's interesting about that song is it wasn't till I got to the end that I figured out the whole . I started writing about the moons . A lot of times I get the book first , now that I actually know what song writing is .

Then I was just writing and I was writing more about the moons , but it wasn't until the end of the song . I didn't know how it was gonna and then at the end I realized when I wrote . But I found out that is actually the most important thing of the song is finding out that we're our own son .

I've chosen to be a son and to shine , even though I've had dark days and we could all choose that . It's a choice . It's a choice to continue to take the risk to love . And here's the thing who are we to think that it's ? It's so funny because we were like , oh , the relationship ended .

Well , every relationship in is just when or how either you break up or someone died . Like it's going to end . Josh , I talk about that a lot . It's like we're talking about deconstructing relationships right now . We're like we should understand that every relationship is going to end and we should go in going preparing for the future .

I want to leave you better than I found you , whether that's today , next week , a year from now , 10 years from now or 50 years from now . Like my grandparents , at some point I'm going to have to leave you physically , and when I do , I want to leave you better than I found you . That should be the mantra of our heart .

Yeah , so I'm writing to something that happened after I lost him . I had written that one song that I know is a song , and then I just got for a living .

I wrote 13 songs in six months and I don't know if you got to hear next to me , but next to me is the song that I wrote for my husband and everyone like him who's going through rough times , and I did a version with Hindi in it that I hope you get a chance to listen to , and the man who sings on it is my Indian brother , who really rescued me after

I lost my husband . He literally moved into my house and stayed there for weeks until I made him leave and his family just supported me in ways I can't even describe , and that it's a beautiful song , and his mother even does a poem in it about love lasting forever and like it's a beautiful song next to me .

And then Alone With Me is another one that I think will resonate with people .

Alone With Me is about really falling in love with yourself , about taking the time to step away for everything that would call you and sit with yourself and sit with your own love and remember who you are and why you matter , and really ground yourself in that trick before you go out face the world again . Again , my songs are the same as my stories .

I'm just trying to get to the core of humanity , my own humanity , and then share that in hopes that someone else will relate to it , because how many times have I listened to songs that got me through the day ? or saltating and made me weak . I just went to Sean Stunky's show in Chicago and , like , his art just resonates in my soul .

I can't even describe how it resonates and I just I love artists and I love what we do and I love that we have all these beautiful art forms at our fingertips to express , to feel , to process and then to celebrate . So , yeah , I would encourage everyone out there you don't have to be great at something to do it .

You don't have to be like this great poet to write poetry . You don't have to sing . Well , to sing , just sing , just dance Like sometimes I just dance or I don't . I don't know what the heck I'm doing , but sometimes you just need to move or you need to use your voice . You need to open up your voice and let some of that out .

Sometimes it might be just like yell or scream or whatever , but let yourself experience what it's like to be free and to break up that old energy so that you can let new energy in , because , trust me , your mind and your body are wanting to heal . They want to heal . That's .

We humans are resilient , we're amazingly resilient , and we just have to keep continuing to make the space for it . And that's what art does . That's why I love it so much , absolutely .

Marsh on stage sitting across from Shayna Banana and if Shayna Banana from Louisiana , you know , you know , I'm from Louisiana .

I'm next year because I love your vibrant spirit , I love resilient , overcoming people and I just felt it in you and like I cannot wait to get you knowing better and just hang out like you said , come to the bar .

So and then when she brought , came up to you and Joshua , or what you all were in front of , but she went to introduce us in my head I was like David , you know who she is , be cool , be calm , be collected , don't cry .

Because I guess so , because , like I love true crime , I love Southern fried homicide , and I was sitting across from Samaritan and and then , within a couple of years , god bless your heart honey . There it is . And again , if and if you don't you know , yeah .

I listened to your show and I heard you laughing and I heard your guests laughing . I heard you all laughing together . Then I started laughing too and realize that you're like . My motto has naturally , organically , became there's life after trauma , because that was something that it took me a minute to realize .

And then , once I did , once I , you had made a comment of that first time that you laughed , and I remember everything , all the way down to what I was wearing , where I was the first time I laughed after my trauma , and I thought you know what ? I'm still here , it is still inside here .

I caught myself and I was like , cause , at first you kind of almost even want to be real guilty , because you're like , wait a minute , we're forgetting what's happening , we're here because of , and then I was like , no , this is how I remember Shayna , this is how I remember that I'm human . Not be told David is still be here .

No the best thing we could do is continue to allow ourselves to feel .

There's lots of cool stuff coming up and I just I want to keep supporting you whenever I can do this work , and all of your listeners and just everybody . Let's just keep doing this together .

Let's keep laughing , let's keep telling our stories , let's keep growing and sharing ideas for healing , because we all need it and it's absolutely it's a working , it's a working .