Hello and welcome.

This is a Penny for Your Thoughts, a student-led podcast where we come together to talk about different perspectives on many different topics.

Hello guys, we’re back with another episode and today’s focus is going to be the stigma on timelines as being a university student.

My name is Penny, I am 27, I am a religious studies major, and I am graduating this fall.

And I am here with…

Michal!

My name is Michal, I am 50.

I’m a junior here at Cal State, transferred from BC.

What was the other thing we should express?

Your major.

Ah, that is a very important, why am I here at Cal State?

So I chose a double major, I am a psychology and religious studies major.

And the reason why I chose that is because I can’t see how you can understand somebody if you don’t know the base of where some of their thoughts are coming from.

And learning that all of us have some sort of religion that our thoughts are based from, I thought it made sense.

However, religious studies is not what I thought it was going to be.

I was going to ask, because I’m also a double major, but in English and religious studies.

And I actually just found out today, I don’t know if you know, but there is no master’s program in religious studies or philosophy.

And going off of what you had just said, I had said that is crazy to me because those majors here are so small.

And I said it bewilders my mind because that is like the base of why we think the way that we think and why we show up in the world the way that we show up.

How we see the world.

Yeah.

I speaking with some of the philosophy majors, which I absolutely love learning that psychology has a base with philosophy.

That alone, I thought, man, I need to take some more philosophy courses to see what that’s about.

And the biggest problem for me is I love learning.

Like I love learning.

Even when I’m struggling, I’m like, this is a lesson that I’m learning something from in every situation.

And so school for me is a little slice of heaven.

Yeah, it’s tough, but what isn’t worthy of your time that doesn’t have a little bit of that grit that you have to put in, like something handed to you, your brain.

We forget our brain that was given to you.

You came here with that.

Yet how much do we not utilize it?

Yeah.

And so learning for me is like, oh, my God, you’re going to teach me the cliff notes of what you have been spending your whole life doing.

I’m down.

And it comes from everywhere.

And it’s so cool that coming into a structured system that that is because there’s so many ways we can learn.

You get to choose your mentors in this life.

Whether it’s going to be a professor or going to do a trade where somebody just has 50 years of experience, you get to choose your mentor.

And so I took the step of choosing my mentors here at Cal State.

Absolutely love it.

Discovering my religious studies is not what I thought.

I have come to the point that I believe it should be at least one course in religious studies should be a requirement for your degree, because I am beginning to realize every foundational foundation that we’re learning in any field, whether it’s history, engineering, you name it, every section.

You need to understand that the world you are seeing, you’re the only one seeing it that way.

Yeah, that’s like one of the main things that we’re also taught, especially in philosophy and religious studies as well and in English in areas that are so versatile or diverse.

It’s the approach that you have to take.

And I think, well, I am curious of what your experience has been because this is your first semester here at Cal State.

Yeah, so is this your first religious studies class?

Yes.

And what were you expecting stepping into religious studies?

I was actually expecting to learn the in-depth history of the religion that I would be learning about.

Example is Buddhism.

I thought we were going to just look at Buddhism.

This is the base of it.

Here’s the foundation.

And this is where it’s branched.

This is why there’s so many.

However, you know, the history, that’s what we’re taught when we’re younger.

I mean, if you go back to your kinder years and your elementary and you go up through the ranks, there is a system to teach you how to learn.

Yeah.

Great.

I love it.

I love a good foundation and a good structure because I love the rules.

Show me how to get there.

Once I learn how to get there, you betcha, I’m going to figure out the loopholes.

I’m going to figure out how to learn this knowledge.

I mean, just to give you a heads up, I said, I want to do psychology and religious studies.

And they said, you’re going to be here till 2028.

I said, can I do it faster?

Yeah.

Not what will I be learning?

You see that different.

And so within that youth of education, we’re taught memorization.

We’re taught how to structure our day, how to do the aspects of it that will help us utilize our time in the best manner.

All the skills that are necessary to be a good university student.

But also, I think one of the things that I didn’t realize stepping into religious studies or even just as I mean, mainly religious studies.

Yeah.

Is the way that I don’t want to say, I mean, indoctrination in a way, not necessarily the skills that we’ve been taught, but the information that we’ve been taught in the ways of thinking that we’ve been taught.

And so especially in religious studies, it’s being able to step back and position yourself and to be able to understand so many different aspects of that time of whatever you’re studying.

Right.

So whether that’s like Christianity or Judaism or Buddhism or Hinduism or anything like that, even going into like literature, like English, like pieces of literature, things are like, well, in a modern day perspective, that’s terrible.

And we should never do that.

Talking about something that’s, you know, that we’ve seen or learned about.

Okay.

That’s not like normal.

Right.

Like, but if you go back and you, I guess, in a sense, compartmentalize and put yourself in that era and understand why this person wrote it this way or why they were doing what they were doing.

It makes sense, you know?

So it’s like understanding, not only like learning to understand why people are the way that they are today, but also how we got there and where we started, you know?

And I feel like that is a, that is a huge thing for me because especially like timelines, you know, like it goes into, you’re supposed to think like this, you know?

So are you talking more towards the norms?

Like these are our norms.

This is what you’re taught.

This is what we’re going to integrate.

And then if you go to another side of the world, you know, they’re totally different norms.

And if you don’t expand on your knowledge, if you don’t realize that the world, you, you’re the center of your world, fine and great, but there’s other people living here.

And if you don’t take the time to understand that you are not the one and only.

Yeah.

And I think we’ve been raised like, like there are certain, like whether that’s like familiar, like, you know, like by family, you know, like when you’re raised in a certain environment in a certain religion and a certain, you know, political aspect.

When you step into university and you choose the majors that we’ve chosen, you know, or any major, I’m not sure, but like you’re, you’re forced to take a step back and look at the world around you and see how many different people there are.

And you may think that your way is the right way and it may be right for you, but to be able to understand that it’s not going to be the right way for other people is a major necessity when being a university student.

And I think that like really hit it for me, you know, I didn’t realize I was thinking the way that I was thinking or perceiving the way that I was perceiving things until I was put into a position that was like, well, that’s very like Western thinking.

Because, by the way, we totally skipped the background.

Oh, we just jumped in.

We knew that was a possibility, but I was just being raised in, you know, America and having like American culture, you know, like you perceive things through, you know, a Western perspective.

Yeah.

And it’s one of those that, okay, try being raised in American society, understanding that you don’t really have a voice within that society because not only are you what’s considered other, meaning Native American, you know, being labeled Mexican just because your Native American ancestors hiked in certain areas.

We got female.

We have, you know, the binaries.

Yes.

So we have all these wonderful labels that you get to learn about when you’re in college, what they mean, but you feel them before you get here.

Yeah.

And what I love about college is it allows you to ask, who am I?

What am I doing?

What am I listening to?

What am I being taught?

Yeah.

Am I wasting my time?

Am I wasting other people’s time?

Yeah.

Is any of it important?

Because, you know, like we spoke about already, I’m not, I’m not promised tomorrow.

I’m not even promised the end of this podcast.

Right.

So that realization that there’s, there’s no time.

There’s no, it’s, it’s the thought process of going through your head.

Where do you really want to be?

Who do you want to be?

I feel like, and that kind of brings me to a point of like this, this stigma on timelines, because I’m, when I started here, most, the majority of the people that I had met are 18 and like early 20s.

And when they found out that I was 27, it was like, what?

But the thing for me is I’m on my own timeline.

And the reason why in my journey and in my experience, the reason why I know what I want to do and where I want to go, even though I’m not grasping on that, because I understand I only have so much control.

Right.

But the more time that I spent in my early twenties, and I took that gap year, you know, and really dove deep and learned about myself and what I want to do, what I like, what I don’t like, maneuvering it.

You know, I moved out when I was 18, because I was curious about the world.

I wanted to experience, you know, what other people were experiencing.

So like, I’ve been around, you know, like I like, and my dad had told me, he was like, Oh, like, do you not have any regrets?

Because you could have stayed home.

And you could have finished your, your associate’s degree and then went straight into you could have had your bachelor’s by now and you could have had a career.

And I said, No, I don’t regret anything.

And he was surprised by that.

But it’s like, if I had done that, you know how many times I would have switched my major?

We don’t know, you know, but yeah, that is the thought process.

That was like, that’s my take on like, like the timeline here.

And also, I when I had first worked for the runner, okay, I was writing for the magazine.

And I did like a like a fashion article, right.

And Jay, my producer, he’s here with us right here.

He was doing the men’s fashion.

Angela, she’s younger.

Well, she had told me she was like, I need I think you two need to have a conversation because I think you’ll be able to understand each other better because you both are older.

Oh, like, I know she didn’t mean it like that.

Yeah, you know, but it’s just, that was like, like, it made you think?

Yeah.

But yeah, also, those are the types of connections that I like to have on campus, if that makes sense.

Like, like, I do seem to connect a little bit more with people who are older, rather than like an 18 year old on campus.

Okay.

Does that make sense?

It does.

It does.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What’s your experience been like on campus?

This experience?

So like, like we spoke earlier, this is this is my first time going through university.

I went, I’m transferred from BC.

And it’s my second time graduating from BC.

My first time I was in my early 20s when I was still playing ball.

I was a student athlete my whole life through since I was junior high.

And that’s a whole nother system.

Yeah, can you go into a little bit?

Define ball?

So I was a volleyball, basketball and softball.

Volleyball, I was an outside hitter.

Basketball, I was a guard and softball, I was center field, baby.

And what you can’t see, because I’m just speaking over the speaker here is I have one hand.

And the era I grew up in, it was still, you know, you figure 1975 was when they actually said, No, everybody gets to go to school.

So whether you had a learning disability, because learning disabilities, certain, certain definitions and certain labels, you didn’t, you didn’t get the funding to go to school.

And it sounds cruel when I say it, but if you were raised in that era, it would make sense.

I have five older sisters and amazing doctor.

When my mom had me, she said, he said, which his name was Dr. Cohen is amazing doctor here for Bakersfield.

He helped with hearing aids and how we hear within the ear.

He, he was definitely a pioneer, amazing doctor.

But he always told my mom, don’t, don’t allow anybody in the house to treat her any differently.

Amazing, because they didn’t if you saw a little kid with a ton of stuff looking like a pack mule, my sisters would keep piling stuff on and say, Okay, go take that to the house.

You know, they didn’t, they didn’t treat me any differently.

My dad struggled with it.

Yeah, until I was about seven, he still saw me as a handicap.

He I mean, it had its positive and negative and it’s it’s nothing.

He’s just from an older era than I was, you know, and his belief system is was definitely different than mine.

And I laughed because he married a woman that was so forward thinking and so intelligent, in the sense that she she believed didn’t matter male, women, male, female, you’re intelligent, didn’t didn’t matter.

She loved religion, which was interesting, because she used she was raised Catholic, shifted into Presbyterian, but before she chose where she shifted into, she didn’t fear other religions.

So she went to different synagogues, I mean, you name it, she wanted to know what it was about.

And with that history, I was fortunate to have a mom that didn’t mind questions.

And she was, you know, if we had Mormon friends, ask them about their religion, ask them why they’re doing this, you know, ask them, if you have a question, ask, there’s, there’s nothing wrong with that.

And of course, we can’t control how people perceive that.

But as far as raising a child with curiosity, that that’s the best thing you can do, let them ask, that’s when they’re interested, let them search.

And so coming into this world like that, I mean, what a great go at it.

I mean, I had a dad that his family was totally, you know, macho macho, I have uncles that didn’t even speak to us because we were women.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

So we have this separation of culture within my upbringing.

And I think my, my, I think my parents did a great job, all of my sisters, I literally looked up to them, because they were, they still are, I have, I have all of my sisters, and they all are so intelligent, like, not just, I don’t mean intelligent stuff, you know, in the sense that they’re, they’re well read, or they’re, you know, they’re intelligent.

Their intelligence spans with experience of lifetimes, like, I have a 12 year gap between me and my oldest sister.

So that’s a big gap coming down.

And it’s just beautiful the way they think.

And we don’t all have the same beliefs, we don’t have the same religions, even we don’t, we don’t have, we all have different educations.

And so my mom was really good about raising us that when we had an argument, which always happens, I mean, come on, yeah, you know how it is.

And instead of separating us, we were forced to stay in the same room together until we hashed out our beef until we came to an understanding and could speak to each other.

That’s what I feel religious studies helps with.

You know, so having that background, I, you know, that that’s what you think the rest of the world’s like, you don’t know how the rest of the world is bringing their kids up, raising them, what they’re learning.

And my mom was someone that would be considered more of a medicine woman or…

Like classic?

Yes, because she studied everything, philosophy, history, science.

I mean, she’s somebody that I looked at, and I thought, man, this is what happens when you have a powerful female raised in a time slot that her only job was to get married and have kids.

She would look at us and say, man, if they had a bodybuilding when I was younger, I would give it a try.

You know, that’s power, understanding that your mom wants you to go out and live.

So that’s kind of the base of my upbringing.

And we were always required to get in music or athletics.

Like you pick something.

You’re not just hanging out.

And large families, we were structured like military.

These are your chores.

This is when you do homework.

This is when you take a shower.

You know, there’s no way you could run a large household with one bathroom without schedules.

I can imagine.

Scheduling, I do great at.

It’s being easy and laid back, but I’m like, do what?

You said structure from the beginning.

I can do structure.

I know how that functions.

I know how that works.

And with the base of it, it’s the thought process that I can do anything.

I can do anything that is out there, even if I struggle with it, even if I don’t understand it, because I understand that through structure, anybody can do anything.

See, I like I have.

Like, I’m the same way, but I had like an opposite way of like learning that like it’s just me and my sister, and so there really wasn’t a super structure like like your experience was.

But my mom was very supportive because I’m very artistic and creative.

And I also like love to learn.

And I have such curiosity for the world around me.

So I always joke like I’m going to be going to school forever.

Like, there’s so many classes here that I want to take because I love learning.

I just want to like understand.

Yeah, so that yeah, I just had to make a connection there because it’s interesting how the backgrounds are different.

But we came to the same line.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I mean, all my sisters played sports.

They all played like all my sisters.

I have one sister in high school.

She was first chair for the violin.

Two of them played the clarinet.

One was in band.

Another one did drums.

Boy, was it fun listening to.

Yeah.

Another one was a flute.

Did you?

Yeah.

So I’m with you.

I’m with you.

I was gonna attempt.

Oh my gosh.

I attempted drums.

I attempted guitar.

I attempted piano, flute.

There’s something about musical instruments I just can’t do.

I stick to the books.

My sister, my sister, she plays the piano beautifully.

Right.

I have a nephew that taught himself and now he got a grant to get musical instruments because he just excels at it.

And this is where, you know, it’s neat to understand that everybody, everybody has a superpower.

It’s also your kryptonite, but it’s your superpower, right?

Yeah.

So I thought, listening to all my sisters, I told you the age gap, I’m going to play the violin.

That was my first instrument.

So my dad went down, we went to a leather shop and they created a harness so I can hold the bow.

It wasn’t, you can’t do that.

It’s like, we can figure this out.

That is a huge advantage because growing up and being a mentor, and I know I’m jumping, but I was amazed how many young individuals that were born with some sort of what we would consider a deformity, believed they could not.

Yeah.

And so, did not play like my sister at all, the violin, didn’t last long.

Went to the xylophone, didn’t last long.

I thought maybe just singing, that just takes my voice.

So, you know, I did that, but all my sisters played sports as well.

And I was always little going to, when I was in elementary, I would go to high school with them for afterschool because they’re my babysitters as well.

Parents are working.

And I discovered I’d be considered what is, if I say it right, a latchkey kid because my parents were both working.

They’re always somewhere.

Yeah.

When you learn that label later, you’re going, I’m a what?

So, always, all of my sisters have had a hand in raising me.

And so, being young, always going, I would shag balls, always watching.

So, during these impressionable times, that’s what I’m seeing.

And I don’t picture myself as different or other.

Right.

So, since junior high, I started with sports.

I excelled at volleyball.

And any time they told me I couldn’t do something, you can’t set.

I’m going to learn how to set.

One of my sisters is a setter and we’re going to spend every day after practice.

Yeah.

Sucks being around me because my sisters are like, I just want to go home.

That’s how I am.

I want to keep going.

I just took up boxing and I’m like, let’s go.

I’m just going to keep going.

And so, physicality’s natural at it.

It’s just an interesting fact that I only have one hand and I didn’t realize.

So, my, it’s almost like a second language and I never thought of it that way, but I have to, when I watch people do stuff, translate on how I would do it.

Yeah.

Got really good at it in volleyball, in all three sports.

Could have went to college for either one of them.

They were mainly looking at softball and volleyball for my scholarships.

Was offered D1 scholarships.

Wow.

Yes.

In my dream, I wanted to, yeah, I was like, yeah, but when you don’t have anybody helping you or guiding you, let me tell you, that sets you up for failure.

So, took a different route, messed up some scholarships, learned about rules of Division I and Division II, all the different aspects of it.

During this time, I also had met my honey, still with him, 29 years.

Congrats.

And it’s funny because I was never having kids, never getting married.

Well, don’t say never, never too many times.

I was going to say that sounds like me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, I always say, you don’t know what’s in store for you.

Wasn’t even looking for someone.

When I met him, it was like a magnet flipped.

So, life changed.

Had a love baby.

That’s what we call her.

She says, I’m a love child.

My parents, you know, I was in the wedding.

I’m like, yeah, you were.

So, have two kids during that time.

I did try to go back to school.

It was the toughest thing.

I went at BC.

I had already moved back.

I had moved away, came back, met my honey, all that good stuff.

Went back to school.

He’s so supportive.

Like, what do you need?

However, kudos to any mom that goes back to school because not only are you trying to nurture this being in a way that, I mean, your heart is on the outside of your body.

That’s the only way you can explain it.

And here I also was trying to make the time to go to school and learn what I needed to learn.

Didn’t happen.

It took me so long.

My son, he walked at my graduation from BC, my first round.

That’s so cute.

I hit pause.

I realized, no, they are my priority.

During this time, I realized I’m still capable.

I still have physicalities that I’m doing great at.

So, I got back into my volleyball.

And that’s mainly where I was getting scholarships from.

I was an outside hitter and everybody looks at me and is amazed, but I was blessed with being short all the way until my sophomore year.

My sophomore into junior year, I blossomed.

I grew.

But up until that point, I had to figure out how to play this sport.

And I wasn’t one that was going to go, oh, the tips of my finger barely go over.

My whole being was learning how to jump higher, jump faster, be quicker.

I didn’t even think about whether I could or couldn’t.

It was just like, I’m going to hit over that.

I’m going to block somebody.

That determination you feel when nobody has to teach you, you will go and seek it yourself.

That was what it was for me.

I’d be out in the middle of the night with my buddies.

And what people don’t realize, when I say buddies, literally, I played with guys.

And they were not nice.

If you got hit in the face, they’d say, get quicker.

So, I got extremely, yeah.

And let me tell you, guys and girls, they play a lot different.

And I was one of the only girls, there was only a handful of us, that were invited to go play with the guys because we were competing.

I’m hitting like them.

I’m jumping like them.

If I thought I couldn’t do something, I’m learning from them.

They’re teaching me tricks.

And I was fortunate that through this cycle of high school until now, I was fortunate to have so many top coaches.

I’ve had a U.S. Olympian coach teach me.

I’ve had coaches that were coaching professional athletes coach me.

They saw something within me, is what I’m going to assume.

Because again, when you’re in it, I didn’t think like that.

And I don’t think it was something that I just loved and I loved to do.

So, yeah, more laps, I don’t care.

If that’s what gets me to being better, I’m there.

And so every aspect of that sport, and every aspect I do learn, I want to know other positions, not just mine, so I understand where they’re coming from.

I understand what movements and it got to the point where it was like people thought I was psychic, but it had nothing to do with that.

I had fine tuned the perception of the body of my, I’m going to say the enemy, you know, because on the other side, you are watching their body, you’re watching their movements, you’re watching their eyes, because they can only do so much.

And once you discover somebody’s tics, we’re a creature of habits.

So, it had nothing to do with that.

It had everything to do with breaking down.

Yeah, later, because I thought I wanted to go into athletic psychology and being a psychologist for athletes, because every time you get injured, see what a lot of people don’t understand with sports, when you’re learning how to dive, when you’re learning how to fall, when you’re learning how to do these movements that you can get hurt.

And in the beginning, you do, you get knots on your hips, you get welts on your body.

Your coach is there teaching you how to do it in the least injured way.

And once you can master that and flow with your body, you now have controlled that aspect that shift into something new.

And now you have, okay, you dove for it, you got it, make it better.

So now you add the concept, okay, now anything I can reach, I can make better.

I can try to make it the best.

And then now the person, whoever you’re giving it to, whoever you’re sending it to, they now have a better foundation to create something even better.

You’re part of that.

And that’s what sports teaches you that the physicality, you’re not just learning how to move your body, you’re moving, you’re learning how to control the body, how to link your brain to the body, how to eliminate that burning feeling, because that’s not real, your body feels it, but in your mind, you know, you can keep going.

So that’s learning, even in where we’re here at Cal State.

I mean, everybody knows the growing pains, you feel it, it’s the same process.

Those are the things that I like, is seeing what is this process and what is the pain involved in it, because there’s a lesson there.

And the quicker you can learn that lesson, the quicker you can get to the next lesson.

That is 100% accurate, because that’s how I move through life in all aspects.

I don’t think that things are happening to me and for me, so there’s no good or bad experience.

Everything that just happens, I literally, I don’t take it personally.

Sometimes it’s hard, because we’re human.

And that’s the experience you signed up for anyway, right?

Exactly.

So I’m always thinking, what is this teaching me?

And I’m curious, how did you decide to go into religious studies?

You said you graduated from BC twice, and you got your associates.

What made you, and I know there’s a time span in between that, but what made you really choose?

What moment in your life was like, I’m going to do this?

I learned later, I went through a cycle, what’s called a dream killer.

Very depressing, very sad.

I got an injury, I was going back a hair.

Having the two kids, I knew how to train, and I had already been in this arena with the body and training it for so long that, like I told you earlier, I had shifted into being a personal trainer, and I wasn’t just a personal trainer.

And these are certificates I still have, which makes me laugh, because like we talked about earlier, when you see somebody that’s older, you forget.

This isn’t where their life started.

They were somebody else before you met them.

Same thing with a mom.

You will never truly know your mom.

She was somebody else before she had you.

And so with that journey of sports, I realized I still have the knowledge, I still have the capabilities, so I started training.

I started training myself for beach volleyball, because that was somewhere I was going to go to a D1 school, play for the Olympics, and then become a professional volleyball player.

That was my path.

I didn’t even think I needed another path, because this is a done deal.

This is my life.

And as life is doing what it does, it gives you all of these doors that are all open.

We don’t see them all, because you have to be in the right mindset to see all of the options you really have.

During this time, I trained myself.

I gained a certificate, because hey, it goes hand-in-hand.

People are asking me to train them as well.

What a great way to make some money to support, because it’s expensive.

You’ve got to pay for tournaments, you’ve got to pay for equipment, you have to pay for travel, because we don’t have a beach here.

Weekends, every weekend I’m going down south, sometimes during the week, to train with my partners.

It’s a thing.

And at this point in time, you have your kids as well.

I have my two kids, I have a husband, and I’m home-schooled.

You’re home-schooled?

I home-schooled my kids.

Oh, you home-schooled your kids.

Let’s put that on top.

I don’t always think of what if it doesn’t.

I’m usually going, I could do that.

The drive and the ambition here is unmatched.

Steal your power, steal your kryptonite, because where does rest come in?

Where does my well-being come in?

100%.

During this time, I had obstacle course athletes, triathletes, so I am trained in sports pilates, sports yoga, MMA conditioning coaching, bodybuilding, physique models, injury prevention, range of motion.

Michal, this is crazy.

Strength training, speed and agility, because people don’t realize, women and men, when they’re younger, you need to train them different on how they land and how they jump, because our bones alone and hips, the way we’re made, are different.

With all these questions, I just kept moving forward, and I’m somebody that I love learning, and as people ask me questions, I would go down the rabbit hole.

I’ll figure it out for you.

And the next thing I know, they’re giving me a certificate, because I was curious.

I even have my, I am, a lot of people don’t know this either, is I am a master of cannabis.

Master of cannabis?

Yes, that entails that I know how to grow it, I know how to harvest, I know how to prevent the bugs, but it goes deeper than that.

I have a surface level of understanding of how it affects the body, how it’s shrinking tumors, how certain combinations of your CBDs, CBNs, and these certain, you know, I can go into so much detail, because I love the science of it, you can mend bones.

So, you know, a lot of people don’t even realize that the U.S. government has like an 800 acre of cannabis growing, and there are people that get mailed 30 joints a day for the last 30 years of how it’s affecting them.

You know, the U.S. government has a Nobel Prize dealing with the healing properties of it.

Okay, so this is a course I decided to take, because I was curious, going back to that dream killer, gaining all these certificates, helping so many people, and I absolutely loved it, because the way I taught was not do this, do that, I don’t care what you do, here’s the knowledge.

You do what you want with it.

I will give you the strategies, I will support you, I will be the best workout buddy ever, but what a lot of people don’t realize is there’s a mentality in it, your mental health, and that link was missing.

I would go through, and I ended up becoming a life coach, again, certificates, and going, hey, what is this about, because I’m understanding that it isn’t just about the food, it isn’t just about them struggling with why they’re having these habits.

And I discovered, hey, did you know that science is proving that these people are understanding how to chemically create this bag of chip to make sure you eat the whole bag and you always come back for it.

It’s not your fault.

What you need to understand is we need to replace that with a different thought process.

So, going into that, really, it changed my thought process as well, which I already felt this way, but until you see the science behind it, before you see the real, this is true, you don’t want to teach it, or I didn’t.

I like being able to give you substantial information.

Yes, you do with what you want.

Here’s how to be happier.

Here’s how to speak to yourself.

I’m not going to talk about something if I don’t know what I’m talking about.

I’m okay with saying, I don’t know.

It’s the same.

And I think that’s something that needs to be taught.

Yes.

Also, in class, because we’ve had a conversation out of class as well, I do not care how many questions I ask, what type of questions I ask, because I’m here to learn.

And I’m not going to put the…

I don’t want to put it as an age thing, but I do think I feel… because I’ve always been comfortable with talking.

I think it’s just my personality, because I love learning and because I want to know.

But I’ve never been shy to ask questions or to go to my professors or to go over and beyond and participate.

I don’t care if I seem wrong, if I use the wrong terminology.

I’m not scared of being perceived because I don’t care.

You’re grounded in who you are.

You’re very comfortable.

And that would also have a kind of a base of your mom nurturing you to be the artist you are.

Very much did.

She let me…

I was a very weird child.

You still are.

I am.

I know.

Why would I say what?

But that’s also why I love fashion.

When I was growing up, she would let me dye my hair and I wore tutus and suspenders and rainbow-colored socks.

I got crazy as fashion in eighth grade as my senior superlative.

So she definitely nurtured me in feeling like it’s okay to be who I am.

And so I think that’s why I feel so passionate about the way society puts stigmas on other people or puts norms on other people, whether that’s societal beauty standards or timelines, because the first step is being comfortable in yourself.

Because how are you going to know what you want to do, where you want to go, if you are too busy looking at what someone is expecting you to be, what someone thinks you should be?

And I think that’s a huge epidemic that needs to be fixed.

And that, honestly, for me, begins with self-love.

When you genuinely start to love yourself and you’re not scared of being perceived, you’re going to look and perceive your life completely different.

True, true.

But loving yourself, people forget it’s also that dark side, as Carl Jung would like to say, the shadow.

Me too.

But we forget that the best way I can explain to people to understand that concept is, you already know you should love yourself.

We already know how to do it.

We already know what we do that prevents us from fully loving and accepting ourselves.

And questions we need to say that when you hear in your head is, would you talk to your best friend like that?

Would you speak to your most cherished being like that?

And once you discover the answer is a definite no, now imagine that you are doing it to yourself.

But even tenfold, you’re taking that beautiful little being and you’re abusing it.

You are putting it in a dark, we’ll say closet, and locking it in and saying, you’re not worthy to come out.

And this is where you get those actions where you go, where did that come from?

Because that is you.

And it’s one of the hardest things you can work on loving yourself.

Because even to this day, I still have to remind myself, was I being loving to myself?

Because you cannot be in a relationship, you cannot be complete, you cannot be whole, you cannot help anyone in any way if you cannot love all of yourself.

That was one of my favorite and most hardest things.

And I’ve had conversations with some very close people to me, and they’re scared of doing that work because it requires a sense of vulnerability.

And when I say I have gone to the depths of my shadows, and now I’m able to see certain emotions that rise, and I’m able to be able to decipher, oh, this is eight-year-old me.

Or this is 18-year-old me.

Like this anger that I’m feeling, that I’m being triggered, that’s 18-year-old me.

And that’s my job as 27-year-old me to reassure 18-year-old me that everything is fine, there is no need to react like that anymore.

I let her feel.

I let 7-year-old me feel.

But there is no – and I went through a phase where I was very cruel to myself, and I would punish myself.

I would never – and it wasn’t until I started learning about Inner Child and Shadow Work and Carl Jung that I would never harm myself again because I would be harming 6-year-old me, 9-year-old me, 18-year-old me.

Absolutely not.

It is my job and my duty.

And I think with that comes the ability to honestly understand unconditional love for other people and also to not take things personally because you understand that they also have that aspect of themselves, whether they’re aware of it or not.

For example, if somebody tells me that they think I’m ugly, am I going to take it personally?

No.

Why?

Because I’m secure.

I love myself.

I know that I’m not.

But I’m not going to be angry at them.

I’m not going to get mad at them because rather I see that that’s a deeper issue of insecurity, and it’s a lack of self-love, and it’s sad because I don’t want that person to feel like that.

And I feel like that shows up in so many different ways of people projecting, and this is why I say there’s a huge epidemic of lack of self-love, and that is why we have so much hate.

Well, if you also think about, though, that a lot of people don’t even understand what conditional love is.

They don’t even know they’re living in conditional love.

It took me, I think, I was married 15, 20 years before I realized I was giving unconditional love.

But I did not understand, I did not believe I deserved unconditional love.

I personally put conditions on how I received the love.

And so you have that section that you have to be aware of.

And then, I mean, because even having any sort of expectations.

Expectations is a condition.

Expectations, I always say, like, expectations will lead you to disappointment.

Because, and also, that’s not unconditional love.

If you’re giving to wanting to receive, that’s not unconditional love.

But I totally understand, because the past, I think, like two or three years, I’ve been practicing unconditional love.

And the hardest thing for me is asking for help, because I am super, I’m hyper-independent.

And I’m not even going to get into my childhood.

I am hyper-independent.

Yeah, I’m there with you.

Yeah, it’s, it’s difficult, because I’m like, in my head, I’m like, well, really, I have, you know, it’s, it’s, I’m autonomous, like, I have my own agency, and I’m the only one that’s in control of my life.

Some person can tell me this, some person can tell me that.

But at the end of the day, I make those choices.

So in my head, I’m like, what can you genuinely do for me that I can’t do for myself?

Because I have to figure that out.

It’s inside of me.

So I really struggle with opening up or asking for help.

But I am all for being there for other people.

Yeah, it’s that moment that you have to keep telling yourself, I’m worthy of it.

I’m worthy of this.

Two, two, well, there’s actually more, there’s three, but the concept that I love is that is the only freedom we really have is you get to choose.

Yeah, you get you can’t choose how other people react to even what’s coming out of your mouth, even if it’s offensive, because the only person it’s technically offensive to is the one who took it in offensively.

And with that being said, you also have to review is, yeah, if I took this in as an offense, why?

What did it hit within my heart?

And instead, we have a teachings in our society that we look out where we say, we give an excuse, no matter which way you spin it, it’s an excuse.

We do it to ourselves, we do it to society, we even do it, you know, we have excuses like crazy, and we don’t even realize it, the verbiage we’re using the our vocabulary, you know, whatever you want to call it is you have an excuse for everything that is happening in your life.

The power of choice allows you to say, wait, I don’t, I get to choose on not chasing that thought, I get to choose on not nurturing that thought, I get to choose on how I perceive the world.

Yeah, wait a minute, how long has this been happening?

Right.

And that’s what’s kind of cool.

When you begin to do self work.

And I’m going to go backwards, because how I told you, I went through that dream killer, I had to go to therapy to discover this.

I had no idea I was thinking I’m coping, I, and more things surface during this time, because it was the first time I didn’t know.

Yeah, I didn’t know where I was going.

I didn’t know what I was doing.

I didn’t even know if I wanted to learn anymore.

And I have doctors telling me, hey, by the way, get your stuff ready.

You’re heading out, man.

You know, you’re you might not live through this.

So all of this was coming at me once.

And then the conscious awareness that I have raised my children incorrectly.

And I don’t mean like, everybody, but I mean, literally, like, I put some beliefs that my parents instilled in me.

And I thought that’s, that was right.

And I did what most parents, I’m going to see when they asked me my advice, like, how do your kids like my kids still hang out with me, we go skateboarding, I’m learning how to hacky sack, I go mountain biking, I live with my kids.

Like, they call, I’m doing great, Mom.

And I have friends at my age, how do you do that?

What do you mean, how do I do that?

I spent time with them, I listened to them.

And during this dream killer stage that I went through, I discovered that I needed to let them know, there’s some things I taught you that are incorrect.

I don’t know how to unteach it.

But that’s something you’re an adult, you know, even if they weren’t, but at the time, they were an adult.

And I said, I applaud you for that.

Because that’s, that’s some a lot of awareness.

And not a lot of, not a lot of children get that from their parents.

Because yeah, yeah, I tell my friends, I’m like, I stood up and said, I did some things wrong.

But at the same time, I did not tell you, I did not even teach you that I was the all knowing, I’ve discovered you, as children, we do it ourselves.

We put our kids, our parents on pedestals.

And that’s why we get issues with them when we’re older, right.

But I hit a point where I realized, I want to have a relationship with my kids, I want to be with them, I want to, you know, let them know that whatever I’ve learned, here’s some cliff notes, here’s some ways to get there without the growing pains I went through, I have this knowledge, I’m going to share with you, and I’m not trying to hurt you.

Yeah, I’m not out to get you.

And that’s something we hit a stage, all of us do it.

It’s just part of being human, where your parents, you think they’re out to get you.

And some of them are, don’t get me wrong.

There are those cases, but most of the time, if you have a parent coming to you saying, I’ve, I’ve made mistakes.

I’m human.

Yeah, I want to grow with you.

And I want to change our relationship.

And granted, we were close already, but we were separating.

And you know, that thought and this is in all relationships, if you’re not growing together, you’re growing apart.

And there’s nothing wrong with that.

Because we forget, just because it’s not now doesn’t mean it’s not forever.

Right?

Like that.

That’s not how life works.

It’s just not right now.

Yeah.

And so spending five years of learning how to really love myself, it was a really tough time because I separated from my family.

And this is something why I feel back in the day, we sent our children off, like on a quest on a journey, because you get this label under your parents, under your family, they treat you a certain way.

And that’s your role.

Yeah.

And there’s nothing wrong with the role because raising kids, everybody needs to feel some sort of a role, you need a role in life.

Yes, you need this.

You know, what am I supposed to be doing here?

However, we hit a certain point where we’re supposed to, you said at 18, you want to know what’s out there in the world.

We need to find a spot to where you can disconnect from who you were, in order to become who you are.

Yeah.

So when you talk about age, and coming back to school, I have a 96 year old aunt that up until 85, she was still snowmobiling, she rides her bike around a huge lake, she’s very active.

And I don’t know when that shifted of, well, actually, I have an idea, going through a couple of classes that I believe, in our society, a lot of parents and a lot of kids, they not only don’t speak of death, they don’t know how to.

Right.

And something that I discovered in one of my classes last year at BC was, a lot of the fellow students, they thought they were going to die at 45, 50.

Yeah.

I’m looking around at them, and I’m like, I’m way past what you guys already think, you know, I, but then they were surprised because here, back then, I was skateboarding through campus, I’m, I’m living, like, to me, being like, to me, because, again, what people forget is your mind is healthy, you don’t feel old.

Yeah, it’s just a number after you hit all those key points, 2130.

It’s just a number, you’re not see, I mean, some people will sit and obsess about it.

But you have to remember, all you’re doing is obsessing on something that technically doesn’t isn’t real.

It isn’t real.

It’s only real in your head, everything in your head.

It’s just your imagination.

Yeah, that’s why I’m like, it’s, it’s so important to do what you love when you love it.

And to also hold on to your dreams and not let like, you have to do this at this time, and this at this time, and that at that time.

And then you are, you can retire and do all that.

And like, like you said, we don’t know if we have tomorrow.

And it was so hard for my, of course, my parents accepted it that I wanted to travel abroad.

And I traveled, I do solo.

Because if we’re gonna bring in, you know, the aspects of danger and all the things that could happen, I’m sorry, but I need to live my life.

If you’re constantly worrying about how you’re going to go out, you’re not living, you’re not experiencing anything.

And I, no matter what age I’m at, to me, I don’t view aging as something like scary.

To me, I’m like, oh, another year, what am I gonna learn?

Yeah, this is what I learned.

I’m excited.

I always say when I turn 30, I’m gonna be like Jennifer Gardner, 30, flirty.

You know, like, oh, I went, I’m sorry, go ahead.

No, like, just like you said, like, death isn’t necessarily talked about a lot.

And I think in our society, it’s not necessarily, I don’t want to bring like capitalism in, but like, we’re, we’re producing, we’re keeping it going.

And that means people settling for things that maybe they don’t love or aren’t passionate about.

But because, you know, You’re taught it’ll pay the bills.

Yeah.

And it’s like a, it’s like an up and down thing.

But I think for me, like, I’m going to be able to sustain myself financially.

Will it be minimally depending on what my passion and what I love?

Absolutely.

Because happiness is more important to me than how much I’m making personally.

Yeah.

I just want to be happy.

I just had, I just want to love my life.

One of my daughter’s friends, we were talking and she wants to go in environmentalist.

And the problem that she was facing is, what job could I get if I did that?

Instead of realizing, don’t chase the money.

Chase what’s in your heart.

And that’s hard because we’re not taught that.

We’re not even taught how to grieve.

Think about that.

We’re, yeah.

Yeah, we’re not.

We’re not taught a lot of things.

And so when people are telling us we need to do this, we need to do that, we need to do that, but we’re not taught the basic, I don’t know, emotions on how to navigate, manage and understand.

This vehicle you’re in, because the whole point that you’re here is connect this vehicle.

You’ve got a body, you’ve got a brain, but the mind is different than the brain.

That voice that’s saying do this or do that.

Is that really you?

How does this work?

Because you’re not here forever.

And the sooner you can understand that there are ways to live a happy, whole life.

What I mean is it’s how you perceive it.

Does that promise you’re not going to have injury?

Does that promise you’re not going to have pain?

No, that’s a whole part of the experience.

But how you are coping, how you are dealing, or how you are perceiving, that’s going to make a difference on the quality of life you are living.

100%.

Yeah, I keep going back to it.

Do you have any advice for people who may struggle with that?

Because I feel like you have to be honest with yourself and you have to be able to self-reflect.

What would you say for the listeners out there if they’re struggling in any way of being perceived or feeling like they have to be on a timeline?

If that’s from society or that’s from their family or they feel like they have to do this thing or that thing rather than do what they love, what would you say to them?

What advice would I give somebody who is struggling with…

I guess like authenticity.

I think I could give you steps to get there.

A lot of people forget, there’s some great writers out there and I’m trying to think of his name, and you’ll see this in multiple writings because David Hawkins is one of my favorites on understanding triggers and reactions and how we’re perceiving.

But I think if you really want to start on the journey of learning how to love yourself, would be first, let’s listen to how you’re speaking to yourself.

That’s a good one.

I read, and I’m trying to think of his name, LaCruz, and a lot of people know it, it’s The Four Agreements.

Wait, I have that book, I recommend.

If you follow his first step, you don’t even have to read the whole book, but on square one of discovering where you’re sitting on your mental health, where you’re sitting on how you’re perceiving the world, where you’re sitting on your confidence and self-esteem, start with square one and it’s being impeccable with your word.

And when he states, be impeccable with your word, we’re talking about, let’s look in first, don’t worry about what’s coming out of your mouth yet.

Let’s hear what you’re saying because I was already an adult when I realized I wasn’t stupid, why would I ever believe that?

So anything we tell ourselves repeatedly, you’re going to believe, whether it’s perceived good or bad, and that’s something else, our perception of good and bad, but we understand the difference between kindness and love, the kindness and love we give ourselves, and when we’re being mean.

We learned that when we were children, we knew the first time somebody said something and it hurt our feelings what that felt like.

So are you doing that to yourself?

How impeccable are you being with your words?

I love that.

I think with that being said, if you’re listening and you’re dealing with this type of stuff, have some self-compassion and some grace for yourself first and foremost.

And like Michal said, read The Four Agreements.

I have read it.

I recommend it.

It’s amazing.

Thank you so much.

I can’t believe it’s already been an hour.

We talk all day in class.

We could talk for hours.

Yes, and especially when you hit a certain age, you’ve lost and gained friends.

You know that statement, I’ve forgotten more than you have learned.

I never understood that until I got older and I realized, oh my gosh, as soon as you think you’ve learned something, you realize you’re just a little peon.

You know a grain of sand of what this world is.

Yeah, just when I think I know enough or I step into something, I’m like, wow, I know nothing.

Yeah, which is why it should always be okay to say, I don’t know.

And you can learn at any time, any place, any age.

Do not stop learning.

Do not stop trying.

And just know failure is how you succeed.

And I will fall on my face so many times and do not care how I am perceived.

Yay!

Thank you, Michal.

It was amazing.

Thank you, Paige.