๏ปฟ22nd Nov 2022 AMPstigator Season Three Episode 42: The Gal-pal TELL-ALL Part Two
With Guests Dr. Joyce William & Keli รlvarez
[00:00:00] < Intro >
Lauren: This is AMPstigator. A podcast founded on purpose, but focused on the path to get there, experience is the best teacher. And in this season of AMPstigator, we're going all in on female perspective of women and wisdom. As we answer one specific question; What's the lesson here? You'll hear from my best girlfriends and favorite female collaborators. As we share deeply about what we're here to learn and teach, as we guide other women to purpose.
Welcome back to AMPstigator. I'm releasing this episode two days before Thanksgiving. So for the 97% of you who listen in the U.S. you know what this week's about. But for those of you listening in Spain, Singapore, Germany, Kenya, and all the other countries taping AMPstigator content every week. This week is about giving thanks, about being grateful. And two people I'm grateful for are the women you're about to hear in this episode.
Earlier this season, I interviewed two of my best friends here in Nashville. They've been huge supporters of this podcast, and I finally talked them into being interviewed on it. So it was a big deal. I released the first part of our conversation back in September. If you didn't listen to that one, it is episode 32, and we really focus on building deep female friendships and just how critical those are.
But the second part of this conversation, takes a much deeper and a different turn. And we took a bathroom break midway, and when I came back, my two friends, Dr. Joyce Williams and Keli รlvarez. Had made a plan to start asking me the questions. And if you've been listening through my back catalog you know from my first two seasons, the first 24 or so episodes, I asked every guest the same series of questions.
It was a game I called best time, worst time. And I would ask everybody, "When was the best time in your life?"
"What was the worst time of your life?"
"Turning point?"
"Greatest moment of clarity?"
"Things you find yourself saying?" Yada. And a few other questions, too. So my two girlfriends started asking me some of those questions. And in the last few months, I've had people reach out and they've asked me, "Lauren, when are you going to tell your story?"
"We want you to answer some of these questions."
"I want that, give it to us." So I heard you, and this is the start of that. And I lay out some pretty deep stuff about my worst time. I, honestly, thought about cutting it, but I decided to keep it in because that's what this is all about. We do authenticity here. We do truth here. We lay it all out. I mean, this is a form of therapy, so you're really getting something here in this next hour.
And since season three is all about lessons, one of my friends also asks me about my lesson. The one I'm consistently learning over and over, which is - What got you here isn't why you're here. And I'm going to explain more about what that lesson means, and how it's fleshed out in my own life three times now. And you'll see how AMPstigator even has been a result of that lesson.
Now, in this episode, we share the advice that we would give to our younger selves. That's a fun part. We also talk through all-girl exclusivity, and one of my friend's Keli question is that, if we're making the right choices with some of the things that we do.
And then we also encourage each other not to wish life away, even the worst times have lessons. And make sure you listen to the end, because my girlfriends ask whether I would ever put my husband on this podcast. And I'm realizing, in this moment, I never really talk about him on here. But if you want to know about him, you'll get some of the inside scoop in the final five or so minutes of this episode.
Plus, I share a bigger theory I have about spouses and partners, and what you can learn about your friends just by getting to know who they've chosen to spend their life with. And I will say this was a fun recording to relive. Because we recorded it, on a Friday, in August, we were drinking bubbles, we were having a good time.
I had just gotten out of the hospital a few days earlier. And at the time, none of us could have known that three days later I would go back into the hospital. For what turned out to be my third extended hospitalization for an exceedingly rare complication from an emergency appendectomy.
Now, if you don't know that story, go back, listen to episode 31, it's called At What Cost. It'll spell out the entire life-changing month I had in August, and what I learned from some pretty sudden and severe health issues.
But I'm excited to share part two of this amazing conversation. This episode that's focused on deep friendship and self-evolution.
[00:04:53] < Music >
Let's get started.
Keli: Well, we were just talking about how much we love your podcast.
Lauren: Thank you.
Keli: And we were thinking about all of the seasons, all the episodes that we've listened to. And you ask your guests a couple of recurring questions. And, so, we were going to ask you; best time?
Lauren: Oh, for as much pain as I'm in right now, I would say now. There was a time that I would've said college was actually my best time, because for a long time it was my best time. But is in that life, there's always pleasure mixed with pain. I would still say college was an excellent time. Stakes were super low, and that's the first foray into really learning about who you are and just learning about yourself, so I loved college.
I went to Florida State and was in a sorority. And I'm obsessed with women, you guys. I'm just obsessed with women. And, so, being in that all-girl environment all the time was just so amazing. But then fast-forward to this space that I've been in in the last year and year and a half.
It's like I've been on an express train through personal development and a personal evolution, and I have loved that. And even in the last month of real, traumatic health issues, and hospitalizations, and everything like that.
I think even in that, even in that pain, and even in that trauma, I have found myself saying, "This is what I need right now to evolve. This is what I need." Which I look at and say, "This makes me an even more evolved person. That I could find the gift even in the greatest struggle."
Keli: Do you think it's your ability to see the lesson at hand? Instead of looking at it as a resentment. Like you have a health issue, it's taking you away from the things you love to do.
Lauren: Yes, I've had to cancel episodes, I've had to cancel stuff.
Keli: Yes, all these things. Instead of looking at that as resentment of, "This is happening to me." You're looking at it as, "What is this teaching me?"
Lauren: Yes, I keep saying-
Keli: Yes, you told me, "I look for what's the gift every day?" Who is the gift?
Lauren: Yes. What's the gift here?
Keli: Yes.
Lauren: And I've been asking here, in these last few weeks, "What's the lesson here?" And I don't know. I mean, I think that's the beauty of life, you just keep learning a little bit at a time. And I think there is something to seeking, though, in the same way we've talked about seeking friendship.
There's something to seeking meaning. As humans, we are meaning making machines. We want things to make sense, and I am certainly guilty of that. Gladly guilty. I want to know what's the connection here? And I don't count anything out. Even if it's what is the divine connection here or what's the simplest answer?
What's the most complex answer? I want to know all of it. But, yes, I do think there's a deeper lesson here, in this current, very present moment for me. These health issues have caused a major reevaluation for me. Where I am now looking at my life differently.
And I think when you start to put yourself after any event, if you even so much as glance at the spectrum of life and death, when something puts you on that spectrum. Anywhere on that spectrum, it is a point for reevaluation.
Keli: Yes.
Lauren: And I believe I've just been given a gift, as traumatic as it's been, of being put on that spectrum again of reevaluation. And, so, why is it the best time of my life right now? It's because more than anything, I value evolution. I value learning. I value understanding, and changing, and the dynamism of life, and that's what I'm in.
Joyce: And it's cool because I feel like you were forced into this introspection at this moment in your life. Where you had this post-traumatic growth, and this is a field that I'm super interested in.
Lauren: Yes, it's a huge. That's a real thing.
Joyce: Where like everyone already talks about post-traumatic stress, and the negative aspects of trauma. But the fact that so many people will take a traumatic experience and evolve from it, and grow from it, and see it like, "This was supposed to happen to me."
And something therapy has taught me is radical acceptance. And I was very much like, "No, I don't just accept whatever." But going into it more and diving deep into it more, and the fact that you are supposed to be exactly where you are.
Lauren: You're not on your wrong path, you're on the right path.
Joyce: Yes, all the decisions that you made brought you here, and that's for a good reason.
And to accept that and be like, "Yes, this is where I'm supposed to be. This is happening to me for some reason and we're going to figure it out, and we're going to move forward, and we're going to grow." And it's amazing, I think. It's amazing.
Keli: I think the negative side is we might develop negative coping skills. When we are not in realization that we're going through something hard or we're not able to because the stress is too big. But the beauty of what you've been working on, even before this, was that you've radically accepted where you are and what you want in life. And something like this happens and it's hard. It's hard and terrible.
Lauren: Really hard, and it's hard on everyone. It's not just hard on me, it's hard on my family.
Keli: Yes, but you're like, "Okay, I radically accept that I can't change the fact that I've had this happen to me. My body did this, I'm here in the hospital. What can I do? Where can I be from here?" And it's beautiful, man, and it's like I didn't stop and think about how traumatic it was for you. Also knowing that you don't like being in the hospital. Not that anybody likes being in the hospital. But you don't like to be-
Lauren: Who wants to be in the hospital? Sorry, Joyce, Joyce likes being in the hospital.
Keli: Those sort of things are not congruent, like seeing blood is not easy for you.
Lauren: I have a physical, visceral response. It's not something I can control; I actually pass out very easily.
Keli: My next question, what's the worst time for you? Could have been this moment. Could have been right now, being in the hospital for nine days.
Lauren: I mean, it's been bad, and I think it's been the realization that-
Joyce: [Inaudible 00:11:11] for you girl.
Keli: Yes, we are.
Lauren: Thank you. That parallel paths can happen, and this is what I mean. In the last year or two, I've had multiple friends, I can think of three specifically, who at the exact same time have had the most incredible professional year of their life. And then their personal life has gone to hell, these per these parallel paths.
And, you guys, on the day that I started having abdominal pain, literally, hours before the abdominal pain started, I had just gotten a promotion at the television station. And, so, that's actually the record player that keeps playing in my mind is like what's the lesson here?
What's really the lesson here? On the same day, I'm not upset about it, but I could be very angry, and resentful, and feel very victimized by the fact that, "This is what I've been working my entire career for."
And then, "But why am I out of work for three weeks, or four weeks, or whatever." And it ends up being, "God help me, I can go back soon for all of this stuff." At this point I've asked 24 people that question - when was the worst time in your life? And it's something that I have thought about a lot. It's the reason I put it in that lineup of questions because I think about it a lot.
I know the worst times in my life. But in the last few months I've began to reevaluate that. Because I've made a conscious choice of seeing those times as gifts. Because it is what's gotten me to this point, and then to this point, and then this point. But there were a couple of times, just briefly. There was a point in my twenties where my family did not think I was supposed to marry the person I've married. That was an incredibly excruciating time.
Joyce: Yes.
Lauren: And it continued to be until I finally started feeling actively pursuing forgiveness in that. But I held onto that hurt for about 10 years.
Keli: Oh, wow, so you pursuing forgiveness of them? You pursued forgiveness?
Lauren: Yes, we continued life as if things didn't happen. But I always harbored deep pain and resentment from that time. That was a terrible time, in my mid-twenties. And then at 30 and 33, I'm 37 now. At 30 and 33 I had two other health issues, at the birth of my daughter and then the birth of my son.
I had traumatic birth from my daughter that the doctor actually told me, "If we'd have waited to do this emergency C-section 15 minutes, you wouldn't have left the hospital with a child. You would've left the hospital without a child because we'd waited too late, if you would've left at all."
And, so, again, being put on that spectrum of life or death, and I never dealt with that trauma. And then 33 similar thing happened, hard delivery and then being re-hospitalized five days later. Once, again, almost dying, truly, not melodrama.
I will never forget my husband asking the doctor, after I'd been re-hospitalized because I felt something was wrong. And he said, "Hey, if we wouldn't have called tonight. If we wouldn't have come into the hospital, what would've happened?" And she goes, "Oh, heart attack, stroke, death." Just like that, and he wasn't even prepared for the magnitude of what we had just avoided again.
And, so, then I think, for me, these health issues, even right now, it's not even think I know. Like this recent hospitalization, for me, has been bringing all of that back up, the things I never dealt with.
Keli: I mean, physically your body is remembering what you've been through.
Lauren: Oh, yes, the body keeps the score.
Keli: For sure.
Lauren: Like a well-known novel, not novel well-known work in the nonfiction space. But, yes, the worst time in my life it's those times, of deep evaluation. Deep evaluation. Being evaluated on have I chosen the right life partner? Actually being questioned about whether I've chosen the right life partner. Of course I have. But being questioned on that I wasn't-
Keli: By the people that you love.
Lauren: By people I love, I wasn't emotionally ready for that. I wasn't evolved enough to handle that.
Joyce: Yes.
Lauren: Now I am, and now I'm also able to forgive.
Keli: That's beautiful.
Lauren: I'm sorry, those are really long questions.
Joyce: That's why we asked them.
Lauren: Best time and worst time.
Keli: That's why we asked.
Joyce: What do you find yourself telling yourself? I don't know if I phrased that right. You know what I mean.
Lauren: You mean what do I find myself saying a lot lately?
Keli: Yes.
Joyce: Yes.
Lauren: In the last 48 hours, there's a lead up to these three words, I have always prided myself on being able to do all of it. Like I was saying, "I can do everything."
I am a have your cake and eat it to person. I believe fiercely that I can have everything I want. If I can work hard enough or if I believe enough. If I do everything right, if my mindset is right, if my diet is right, if my mind is right, my health is right, I can do it all. And I am capable of all, I demonstrate every day, to myself, that I can do it all. But in the last 48, 72 hours, I have begun saying to myself, "Yes, you can do it all, at what cost?"
So the words I'm saying to myself, right now, are words of deep evaluation - at what cost? And it seems, in the present moment, the cost is my physical health. And, so, I'm reevaluating what needs to go. Not so much that what needs to be spun off, but more of like "Hey, where can I get support?"
Keli: Yes.
Lauren: "What in my day can be something that I can ask someone else for help?" Which is my Achilles' heel of always feeling this is a moment of deep self-reflection, of like this is infringing on my identity of myself.
Keli: It's a historic.
Joyce: Yes.
Lauren: I have evolved as a person who does it and doesn't need help.
Keli: Yes.
Lauren: And, so, that is the evolution I'm being called to make now. Which is this realization of at what cost. "Yes, you can do it. So stop taking so much pride in it because now you see the cost of doing it all."
Keli: Yes.
Joyce: Yes.
Lauren: This is the next phase of my personal evolution.
Keli: Yes.
Lauren: Did you expect that? Did you expect all of that?
Keli: I think it's beautiful, because I talk to you a lot-
Lauren: But you're like [Crosstalk 00:18:51]
Keli: But I think it's beautiful. Texting you in the hospital, hearing you talk, you were in extreme pain it was concerning. You went home and were still in such pain that it was like, "Oh, I don't think that's normal."
Lauren: This is not right.
Keli: And to see you being like, "I know that there's a lesson here." I was like, "Wow, she's really connected with her source, and her purpose." And making this moment, which is really hard, finding the gift that's in there. Which I think is really hard when you're physically not feeling great.
Lauren: Yes.
Keli: Yes.
Lauren: I don't know, I just like things to mean more.
Keli: Yes.
Joyce: Well, what other questions do you have? What other questions are there?
Keli: I was thinking about if you're leaning towards the lessons that you're learning, oops, obviously, you just talked about worst time. You just explained what you're doing. But is there a lesson that you're like this is the lesson that I'm trying or that I'm continually learning? Like what's your pattern? What's the lesson that you, always, are, "Okay, here it is."
Lauren: The reoccurring lesson in my life and, again, this is the benefit of being 37. I think this is the first time in my life where I've started listening to music and going, "That came out 20 years ago." I think I've got enough life experience now where I'm finally seeing patterns.
And I realize the lesson that I learn, over and over again, is what got you here isn't why you're here. This is a deep lesson I learned at 19. I learned at 28. I learned right after I turned 36, and it's over and over again.
So let me tell you the background for what this means. I think about this a lot. So when I was 19, I was at Florida State. I went to school for musical theater. I was a musical theater major. I sang, and danced, and acted and did all of that.
Keli: Prove it, I'm just kidding [Crosstalk 00:21:00] sing for us.
Lauren: So I was there and my life was great. But the whole reason I was there was musical theater, nothing about it was working out. Nothing about it vibed. I didn't get along with any of the people in my major classes. Nothing about it was right. Like when you just feel you're like, "God." nothing, it just feels icky. Not because they were icky, it's just it wasn't right for me.
And, so, I was in this real weird space as a 19-year-old, and going, "I don't know what to do." I knew, deeply, I knew I was supposed to be at the school that I had chosen. I knew I was supposed to be there, and I had to just trust. I had to, finally, get to this point of, like, "Okay, I know I'm supposed to be here. Why I'm here isn't working out?"
And then I just had this feeling of like, "What got you here isn't why you're here." And I changed my major to communication because I just didn't know what else to major in. I took my very first class, in that new major, and it was a television broadcast class.
I left that three-hour, one-day-a-week course, and I was like, "This is what I'm doing with my life. I'm going into television; this is what I'm here to do." That was the first time I learned that lesson: "What got me here isn't why I'm here."
I learned it again at 28. But the more consequential time that I've learned it was 36, in January of 2021, I'd just turned 36. No easy way to say it, I got a demotion at the television station. Which was really shocking and disconcerting for me, and it's what led to this entire new phase of evolution that I've been in. And it led to the creation of AMPstigator.
The reevaluation of everything that I really held dear and thought was important, and it just led to all of this beautiful stuff. But it was in that time of reevaluation, again, understanding, "Hey, what got me here to Nashville isn't actually why I'm here."
Joyce: Wow.
Lauren: Why I'm here is to start this project. To start AMPstigator. Why I'm here is to have these conversations. To bring about change and this intense way of embracing the evolution. Embracing what we were, but also embracing who we are and who we intend to become. In that open-palmed way that we learn in yoga.
In that open-palmed way of like, "I don't know what's coming, but I will allow whatever it is to happen." So that's the lesson I learn over and over again. And I know everybody has a different lesson. Which is why I just felt like there needed to be this revisioning for season three, of like "What's the lesson?"
So it's like the question I keep asking you guys. It's like, "Well what's the lesson here?" Because 39-year-old you and 36-year-old you, can teach 32-year-old you something else.
Keli: For sure. Oh, my gosh.
Lauren: And I don't know what it is about those mid to late thirties. It's a time of express train of personal growth. So what is it that you need to tell your younger self? And actually maybe that's the question I ask you now. Which is, I'll start with you Joyce, what does 39-year-old Joyce need to tell 32-year-old Joyce, even?"
Joyce: So this is interesting because going on the cusp of 40, I feel like there's a lot of reflection on the past 40 years, and the coming 40 years, and what that means to me, and how I have evolved? And, for sure, the first 30, 35 years of Joyce was very much like, "I need to experience things, and you can tell me everything that you want until you turn blue in the face. But it doesn't matter until I experience it."
To the chagrin of my parents. You know what I mean? And Lord, I put them through all of it and I was just very stubborn, and hardheaded, like, "I'm going to do all the things."
Lauren: And when your mom said, "Don't ever go into healthcare. Don't be a doctor." And you're like, "Watch this."
Joyce: Really, "You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to be a doctor." And karma is kicking me in the face as Charlie does all the same things to me. But this part of my life has been very much a, "I'm going to go and do, and figure it out myself." And kind of the same.
Literally, in the past couple of years I've been more open and attuned to those around me. Who have had similar experiences and are sharing experiences with me. And I say to myself, "I don't need to experience all the things.
Lauren: I don't need that hurt.
Joyce: Why do I need to torture myself when people around me are saying things, and teaching me things, so that I can avoid that and I don't have to waste time doing these things." And I can grow from their experiences, and it goes back to this whole thing of we're not islands. We're not meant to be singular people. We need community. We need others; girlfriends, boyfriends, community, the world.
Keli: We, literally, do nothing alone.
Lauren: Yes, we can't, we're not meant to be alone.
Keli: No, the chairs we are sitting on someone else made, that's simple. You know what I mean? We really depend on-
Joyce: We are supported by other people. And just sucking down my pride and saying, "I will lean on you. I will lean on your experience and I will grow from it." And it's not a bad thing I think that is, as I make the leap into my 40s, I think that is what I'm taking with me. Where I have these connections with people, I grow because of you guys. And this is an environment where I'm enriched, and I can move forward and because of these experiences.
Because of the experiences of the encounters I have with other people in my life, I'm using that and not in a negative way. I'm growing from it and becoming a better person because of it. And it just makes me want to have more and more connections with people.
Keli: And, thus, enriching everyone else's life because you do.
Joyce: I mean, it goes both ways.
Keli: Yes, sure.
Joyce: And I, truly, believe there's something that you learn from everyone that you encounter. And whether that's a super close girlfriend, or a patient I have in the hospital, or their family member.
There's something I can gain from them and there's something that I hope that they gain from me, but at the very least I will grow because of them. And these connections are important, and these are connections that gets us through life.
Lauren: Yes.
Keli: Yes, truly.
Lauren: What about you Keli? What would you tell your 32-year-old self?
Keli: Oh, wow.
Lauren: If your 32-year-old self would even listen?
Keli: She wouldn't. Hmm, on the spot. You'd think I would be thinking about it while listening to you, but I was engrossed in what you were saying.
Joyce: You were so involved in the conversation.
Keli: I think I would probably have to... the thing I know the best and the thing I've done, probably, the longest in my life is running. And it's something that I do just for myself, I've done it for a long time.
But it's really is, for me, for my mental health, it's great physically, but it's also for my mental health. And the thing I've learned the most in marathon training, I think that a lot of marathoners say is, "Run the mile you're in." And I think it's so applicable to my life. As in, if you think about running 26 miles at mile one? Wow.
Lauren: Oh God.
Keli: It's just a lot. Especially, not even mile one, mile one you might be like, "I can do this, I can do anything." Mile 15, you might be, "Oh, wait, I have nine more miles, 9.2 to be exact, that's a lot." You're tired. And I think if you just focus on where you are, one foot in front of the other, run the mile you're in, there's only so much you can do. There's only so much you can see into the future.
And I think, for me, focusing on the present moment, like, "This is my life right now. The muck, the hard, the imperfect, the messy, this is my life." There are precious moments. I mean, my life right now is in between two homes. I'd have no idea where any of my-
Lauren: In two states.
Keli: ...in two states, I have no idea where my stuff is. I'm moving in with my in-laws, it's a whole another episode.
Joyce: The dream.
Keli: The dream. So there's just a lot going on and I just want to make sure that I run the mile that I'm in. This is the moment. There is preciousness in all of this and I don't want to miss it. I'm done wishing certain things in life and parts of my life away. I want to run the mile I'm in.
Lauren: Well, I love that you say that. People don't realize that there have been points in your life that you want to wish away. I think about your second pregnancy, and you were hospitalized however many times during your pregnancy for the first 20 weeks of your pregnancy.
Keli: During Covid.
Lauren: During Covid because, good lord, you couldn't even keep water down.
Keli: No.
Lauren: I mean, gosh, morning sickness doesn't even cover it. You lost 10 pounds in your first half of pregnancy because you were-
Keli: 15, in the first three weeks.
Lauren: And I just spent a handful of days in the hospital and my heart, now, just feels so grieved for people who have extended hospital stays. And I think of you, how many days you were like, "I can't go on anymore."
Keli: I mean that lesson right there-
Lauren: Don't you want to wish it away?
Keli: Oh, I did every moment of every day, during that time, I didn't think it was ever going to get better. I had multiple times where I was like, "I will feel this forever. I will never eat again. I will throw up 17 times a day, every day, for the rest of my life." It felt-
Lauren: Insurmountable, it sounds.
Keli: Yes, it sounds like hyperbole, but I literally thought I was going to die. I could not drink water and I was growing a baby, and this is a baby that we did IVF to have, I wanted it more than anything. And when I was going through that, I remember thinking it's sometimes hard to relate to someone who is in the midst of addiction. You think, "You're throwing your life away. You are throwing all these people or whatever."
Keli: But I have felt so bad in those moments. That as hard as it is to admit now, when I have a precious almost-two-year-old who I would die for, literally. That I was asking God to take it away. I was like, "I would do anything to stop this. If you could give me a drug to stop this feeling."
And I think it gave me maybe for my future therapy practice, it gave me the perspective of there are people that are suffering like that every day. And by the grace of God I got through it and I started feeling better, and everything worked out fine and I feel great now.
But, yes, run the mile you're in. It was a definitely everyday practice of like, "Hopefully, tomorrow will be better." And you can only be in the moment that you are right now, and lean on the resources that you have in the moment.
Lauren: Yes.
Keli: Yes, it was not fun.
Joyce: Something I listened to this morning, actually, it was if you picture the past, present, and future is a continuum and like a film strip. And you are in the screen that you're in and this is your present.
Everything is already written. So no matter what you do the future will be the future, and the past is already the past, obviously. But if you are in the mile that you're in. In that screen that you're in, just be there, be present, be mindful, and have that moment. And then the future will be the future, it's just a matter of the radical acceptance because it's going to be what it is.
Keli: Well, I think the hardest part of being in that was thinking that it was never going to end. And that future thought of like, "I can't do this forever." Really hindered me from being like "Okay, well, today I'm feeling this way and tomorrow could be different."
It took a long time, for me, to even accept that tomorrow could be different. And once I really did, I had to, I think from physical exhaustion be like, "All right, well, whatever." You know what I mean? This might be my plight or it might not be.
It was like things started changing, maybe just biology of the situation changed. But I had a really happy second half of my pregnancy, so things got better, kind of, happy second half of the pregnancy.
Lauren: You got to the end of yourself, didn't you? And you did have to accept it and allow it. I feel like, too, it's so easy to think that things will never change, when you're in the thick of a situation that it just is never going to change.
I think that's the ultimate, if you can know change is always happening. Good times end. Bad times also end, and I am super guilty of wishing times away. The first year of each child's life was like, "Oh, gosh." Especially my second. I moved to a new city, started a new job, after having life-threatening complications postpartum.
It was a lot, all at once, and I don't, honestly, remember anything from my second first year of life. I just don't remember any of it because there was so much stress happening all at the same time, and I wished so much of that away. Same with the third, I wished so much of his first year of life away just because it was just so hard.
And I know, for me, that battling that, of knowing that we, as humans, desperately, want hard things to end. We don't want to experience the hard. So it is that, my question to you, is that the ultimate evolution of realizing the seasonality of life. Wishing away the hard and not fully examining the lesson that can come from it.
Keli: And it's also, or at least a practice for me, is sometimes being in difficult times feels more comfortable to me. To the point where when I'm experiencing joy it feels scary.
Lauren: Oh, you're like, "I can't experience this fully-"
Keli: It's like foreboding joy. I'm like, "Ooh, the shoe is going to drop at any moment and I'm going to be back in the depths." It's almost just I should just stay in the depths because it's easier for me to deal with those things.
And I've really had to practice, like "No, there's joy to be found every day." And by thinking that the joy is going to end and never experiencing joy, I mean, what kind of life is that? The change will happen. The pendulum will swing. But it's okay, you're going to experience both sides of it, and neither one will last.
Lauren: What do you think, Joyce?
Joyce: I think I've just, and I feel a lot of my girlfriends hate me for it, that I've been very much a, "This too shall pass. Everything-happens-for-a-reason type person. Where the script is written, and bad things are going to happen good things are going to happen. And we can't appreciate the good unless we have the bad.
And I think that's just how I've lived a lot of my life. And I see a lot of bad things that aren't, necessarily, personal but it puts things in perspective, for me, where I see people losing loved ones every day.
Lauren: Literally, in your job you lose people.
Joyce: Yes, and it's hard. I think about mortality a lot because of it, and it sounds very gruesome to people who don't, but it's just real life. We are not here forever and every day is a gift, and I live that or I try to live that.
And, so, when bad things happen, I try my best to take it in stride. I I don't think I wish them away because of that fact that I don't think I would appreciate all the good without the bad.
Lauren: Yes.
Joyce: And I don't know if I just am able to spin the bad things, in such a way that everything's a blessing. Because you do get those moments of like with the bad things, how do you evolve, and how do you grow, and how do you have that growth from it? And I'm saying this now, at 39, but could I do that when things were horrible in my teens, and the angst of my twenties? No. But I've evolved, I think.
Lauren: Yes, well, that's the gift of age. The gift of age is perspective.
Joyce: Yes.
Lauren: Climbing to the mountain top, seeing the range. I think you have a different perspective on life than most people, just by virtue of your job. I mean, I remember just even being in the hospital and you dropping by, at the end of your shift. Joyce is an overnight ICU doctor so she works 7:00 PM to 7:00 AM.
So you coming at the end of your shift to check on me while I was in the hospital, and it was just the weight of the world that was on you. And I don't know, there's something about it and I just asked you, I said, "Joyce, did you lose someone last night?"
And she was like, "Yes."
And, certainly, through Covid which, God knows, it decimated your industry, so many nurses left. I'm sure there's plenty of doctors, too, who were like, "I don't care how much time I spend in school, I can't anymore."
But I wonder what you see, as the difference, between your outlook on life? Because you're with people, all the time, who are in this, for this example, in regular population versus the population of people who are in a healthcare field that deal with deathssome regularity. So what is the difference that you see, just day-to-day, that you think you take, you treat differently, or see differently than just maybe me and Keli?
Joyce: I think just there so many people come in and are like, "The patient was fine until today. Until they got to the hospital." Just this out of the blue, their world's crumble, literally, crumble and are changed forever. And the fact that this could be me, you know what I mean?
This could be me. This could be my loved one. And the whole try to live every day to its fullest. Before I go to work I say, "I love you to everyone in the house." Because, God forbid, I don't make it to work.
I'm always thinking about worst case scenarios and trying to live that when I'm off, I'm off and I'm present. And trying not to be on my phone when my kids are around, and asking me to play a board game or whatever. And it's just like-
Keli: You embody that.
Joyce: I'm trying.
Keli: For sure, when I mean that you're cool, calm, and collected, I think that's what you embody. It's this appreciation for the preciousness of life, yes, 100%.
Lauren: And present moment.
Keli: Present moment. I think not to be clichรฉ, again, but the Bible verse I think of. I grew up super southerner worship but it's like, "We are merely moving shadows, and all our busy rushings into nothing."
And it's so true, we can get caught up in the minutiae of, "We got to do this, and we got to do that, and my hair, whatever." And I think you embody the opposite of we got this. I'm going to be in this moment, right now, and appreciate exactly where we're at.
Lauren: And I wonder if that, too, the way you're defining that. I wonder if that's liberation and is that what we're all here to do?
Keli: Yes.
Lauren: And I don't think we're all here to do that. But I think those of us who are seeking higher purpose, higher meaning. Of like me asking this, "What's the lesson here?"
"Let me look at the cogs, what's going on here?"
"I can't keep spinning this same, damn, wheel my whole life. There's got to be more to this." And I'm wondering if by asking those questions, or seeing that bigger picture, or seeing even the strings of the marionette. Is the goal, then, liberation from that plight of humanness? I don't know, I feel like I should have another bottle of wine to ask a question so vast.
Joyce: But I do think there's something to, everyone is here for a reason. Everyone has a purpose. And when you find out that purpose, you get that warm and fuzzy feeling. I don't think I'm good at a lot of things. But I do think I'm good at certain aspects of my job and I feel like everyone needs to find what that is. And when you're in your 30s it's hard to be like, "But I've been on this track-"
Lauren: Starting a family. When you're starting a family and doing all of that, it's hard.
Joyce: Yes, "I've been on this track and this is what I'm supposed to do, I can't change gears right now." And it's like, "Well, no." But if you're not getting the warm and fuzzies you can, because you still have half your life in front of you. You know what I mean?
And to put it in that perspective, and to have that liberation of find what feels good and find what gives you that feeling. Because you have a purpose and go find it, it's never too late.
Keli: Lauren, can I pivot?
Lauren: Yes.
Keli: So you guys have-
Lauren: First of all, you don't have to ask me permission.
Keli: I have been thinking about this and it's something I'm like, "Man, I can't believe I've never asked you." But you went to an all-girls high school. All-girl middle school too?
Joyce: No.
Keli: All-girl high school. You were in a sorority.
Lauren: Me? Yes.
Keli: Yes, Lauren was in a sorority. Joyce all-girl high school. Those things are both very foreign to me. I grew up, obviously, I went to-
Joyce: Jock?
Keli: Kind of, in that realm, my mom was an all-American basketball player. I was around.
Lauren: Yes, like she played in another country, played basketball in another country.
Keli: Yes, my dad is a baseball coach. I'm around dudes all the time.
Lauren: It's exhausting.
Keli: Oh, yes, but it's also a different connection with women. I have great girlfriends from high school and everything, but they were also sports-minded. I would say my friends are great because they hold me accountable and they're a little tough with me. But I didn't have the experience of an all-girls school or a sorority. And, to be honest, until probably now judged it. I would've judged sorority as, "Oh, they're paying to have friends."
Lauren: Oh, girl, and I was the Panhellenic President. I was the president of all the sororities, so I was the biggest sorority girl.
Keli: And I would've said about an all-girls school, I roll, of course, you know what I mean? And until I met people who were actually in all-girls school and I'm like one of my favorite people, she was the same. She was the head of, same as you, very...
I was like, "Oh, maybe, my perspective of this is different. And I just think there is a group of girls who look at that as exclusivity. As like, "This is not available to everyone. You have to be a certain caliber person to be in that, those groups."
And I would say maybe I thought the same about myself, "I would never be accepted." What would you say to someone who had that mentality of like, "Oh, Keli, you could have been at a sorority. It feels like impossible.
Lauren: Oh, my God, you'd have been the social chair.
Keli: It felt like, "Oh, my God, no, these women will never accept who I am."
Lauren: Well that was the benefit of going to it. There were 40,000 people at Florida State. So can you, honestly, tell me that out of 40,000 people you're not going to find a friend? The Greek life setting at Florida State was huge. I mean, there were, at least for the Panhellenic sororities that I was the president of, there were 15. So you've got 150 or so people times 15 sororities.
You can't tell me that, out of 15 groups, that there would be a group that you didn't vibe with. That was the thing, it's the first opportunity to follow your heart and find people that you really got along with.
Don't get me wrong, there were certainly groups of women that I did not get along with. That were totally into just party. Like, "Don't I look great?" This was right before Instagram came out. But I've heard that college life's, post Instagram, is not what it was.
I think more, "Why did I do a sorority?" I don't know, I was the first person in my family ever to do a sorority. So it was highly judged within my own family.
Keli: Oh, it was?
Lauren: Yes, highly judged. My parents were like, "What?"
And my brother and sister were exactly like you. Like, "You're paying for your friends." I think it was more-
Keli: That's jealousy, I would say.
Lauren: I don't know. Here's the truth of it, I was a fish out of water growing up. I did not have really friends, which sounds funny. I would win awards, that would be voted on by people. So I did make an impact around my school, but I never felt I belonged. I never had good friends. I never had anything that growing up.
And, so, when I went to college and I was like, "Well, what the heck? I'm just going to rush and see what happens." To find a group of women who were, equally, as intelligent, equally, as interested in the pursuing depth, but then also willing to have a ton of fun. I'm like, "I'm here for that. That's what I'm here for." And, so, some of my dearest friends, still, are my friends from college because that's where I found them. And I'm forever grateful for sorority for that.
Keli: It's like there's a structure for seeking out community. That's probably a better way, for me, to put it all in perspective. My question is, should I start a sorority in New Jersey?
Lauren: I will be your founding member. I'll be your secretary, President Keli.
Joyce: Well, I think it's funny, too, because I really went to this high school because my sister did, and she's five years older than me, and I just did it. Our public schools weren't good. And, so, it was just like-
Lauren: This is where you're going.
Joyce: ...a natural transition. And I went from a small elementary school to a slightly larger high school, that was all girls. And I came out my personality just flourished. We were only 83 kids in my graduating class, so it was small.
But there was something for everyone. We had jocks, we had the smart kids, we had the eccentric kids, we had everything. And I felt like you could find your niche wherever, and I mean it was cliquey. But that's high school I think.
Keli: Oh, for sure.
Joyce: But I felt like I just came into my own and found my crew. Some of us went to the Boston area together, maintained our ties, and whatever 20 years later, as old as that I feel. You know what I mean?
Lauren: "This is how we do it."
Joyce: We're still together.
Lauren: I feel all these songs are coming back now.
Joyce: And it's not just that we're still friends because we went to high school together. We've gone through these shared experiences. We've had kids together. Our kids are the same age. And we've had those real moments where we're like, "No, this is what motherhood is, this is what marriage is, and don't listen to the hype this is the real deal." And that's normal, that's not.
And breaking it down and being real with each other, and just having that vibes that stuck. And I've been thankful to have found it, and have found it in college, and have found it in my thirties. I've just been so blessed that I've had these experiences.
But I don't know if I didn't have that experience in high school, to have the confidence that I have now. If I would've had the courage to be, "Hey, let me take those rocks out of your knee." You know what I mean?
Lauren: Let's be friends.
Joyce: Yes.
Keli: Well, I agree you both exude a confidence that is contagious and admirable. And I was thinking, "Would you guys want the same for your daughters?" Would you want them to go into a sorority? It was a good experience.
Lauren: I had a great time.
Keli: Yes.
Joyce: Yes, I definitely am pulled more towards the all-girl things like all-girl camps. And I love that vibe for my daughters to grow their confidence if I feel they're lacking. One of my daughters isn't really lacking so I'm like, "She'll be fine."
Lauren: She's the boss.
Joyce: But I do feel like it doesn't hurt. And kids growing up these days, I feel like it's a whole different beast than us growing up-
Keli: Yes.
Joyce: And I'll take all the confidence [Inaudible 00:50:20] I can get.
Keli: I agree.
Lauren: And that's what's funny. It's like, "Yes, things are different, but that human need hasn't changed." We've evolved, as a species, over thousands and thousands of years. So you can't tell me that the advent of technology or the advent of social media, is going to change us to the point that our needs change.
Our needs don't change; we are not meant to be alone. We need, as women, we need other women. We need other women. Whether we want to admit it or not, there are points in our lives where we have to have other women.
So I feel putting our daughters in these situations where they have other women, and we're pushing them into friendships with other girls. I think that just lays the groundwork for something that feels like home later because there is a point where there is need.
Keli: It's maybe more important now than ever, to have the outside of social media connection with real women, with real girls, that they see.
Lauren: Yes, and, then, what are we, as parents, if we're not modeling behavior? There's plenty of things we model that we don't realize we're modeling. That's the hardest part is realizing we're teaching them bad stuff all the time, and just are unaware of it because everybody's experience is different.
We are who we are, and we were given the children we were given. Their experience is going to be what it is, so help us God., we're just going to do the best we can. But there are things we can model knowingly, we can, knowingly, model the life-giving properties of deep female friendship.
Keli: Yes.
Joyce: And I love that, I got my strong female girlfriend starting at 14. My oldest is starting to have these friendships when she was three or four, and I don't have friends that old. And I love that she's growing with these girls.
And to see her, and I feel like I'm learning so much from her. Because she'll read things about Ruth Bader Ginsburg or these women from the past, and it's like, "Well, why was she the only girl in her law school?"
And the fact that she doesn't see limits, and there's no bounds for her. And I'm like, "Yes, girl, get it." And all these things, being surrounded by these strong girls and she is woke. I'm like, "Girl".
Lauren: That's the joy of motherhood, though, isn't it? To realize that your children can be more than you.
Joyce: Yes.
Keli: Yes.
Lauren: That each of us stand on the shoulders of the person before us. That I can be more than my mom. That my daughter can be more than me. And I think that is why we, as women, we give everything when we have a child. You give your body to have this other person, and then you give everything, their entire lives, so that they can have more, be more, do more, impact more than you.
Keli: Yes.
Lauren: I mean it's just a beautiful life cycle, it's just part of it. It's part of it. But that's also the evolution of the life of a woman. That's part of what it is, it's realizing that it's not all about you. It is about who you impact, and who you take with you, and who's your crew?
Joyce: Yes.
Lauren: Who's your crew and who helps you get to the next phase?
Girls, I love you. I love you very much.
Keli: Love you too.
Joyce: Love you too.
Lauren: Keli, you're not allowed to leave.
Keli: No, I'm not. Full denial, that's where I like to stay.
Lauren: We should have had another bottle. I only had one. I sent Blake to the store for wine and he only brought me the one. I was like, "You didn't bring...?" Okay, it's fine.
Keli: Are you going to have Blake on the show ever?
Lauren: Probably not, he's definitely terrified of like-
Joyce: What if you had a group setting?
Lauren: He's quiet, he would never speak in a group. My husband, I mean, I'm not even going to say the opposite of me because he's not the opposite. But I do have this theory that you can't really know a person, until you know the person they've chosen to be with.
Keli: Interesting.
Lauren: Yes, I feel like that really intensely because-
Keli: Tell us what you mean by this in your relationship.
Lauren: Yes, so when you meet someone, you just meet their representative. When you get to know someone really well, you can see some of their flaws, and strengths, and weaknesses, some of them.
But you don't get the fuller spectrum of strengths and weaknesses until you meet their spouse or partner. Because who we choose to be with is, ideally, a balance of us. They balance us. So you won't know my weaknesses until you either know me well and or know my husband. Because you see who he is and then you go, "Oh, I understand Lauren so much more fully now."
Joyce: Interesting.
Keli: That's so interesting.
Lauren: So what is Blake? The deep, deep roots of this old strong tree, unmovable, unwavering. But I'm like here, there, and everywhere.
Keli: All those branches.
Joyce: The leaves in the wind.
Lauren: Well, I'm the leaves in the wind and I'm susceptible to the season, that's just what it is. So that's the example of me. So will Blake ever be on? Maybe, if I give him a six-pack first, and then say, "Sit down." He gets really nervous; he would never do anything on camera. So I'd have to tell him, "These don't work, they're just props." These cameras don't work they're props.
Joyce: Just don't tell him when they start.
Lauren: Yes, don't tell him. Just sit down, I'll tell you when we're recording.
Joyce: I just need to make sure the lighting is working.
Lauren: Yes, lighting, yes, exactly. Thank you, for doing this, really.
Joyce: Thank you, love.
Keli: Thank you, this is awesome. I loved it. We should have little ones do this, I think it'd be so funny.
Lauren: Oh, my gosh.
[00:56:25] < Music >
Lauren: Since we recorded this episode, our good friend Keli did move to New Jersey. So we communicate a lot on our group text chain. If you listen to the first part of that episode, we call our text chain the tattoo crew. So there's still a lot going on in that text chain.
It was also, partly, while listening back to this episode was so bittersweet because it did feel we were together again. It was tinged with a little bit of sadness, I'll be honest. But because we have the holiday coming, I'll be focused on my gratitude for those two women.
But also my gratitude for you, I mean, you listen to this podcast every single week. You press Play, you read my emails, you comment on my Instagram posts on my favorite episode clips. You're consuming the content and you're who I'm doing this for. So I'm grateful for that.
[00:57:12] < Outro >
[00:56:15] Coming up next week, my final interview episode of 2022. You're going to meet my trademark attorney, yes, literally, the woman who got my trademarks for AMPstigator, and she'll definitely have you laughing.
She shares why she left traditional law and really carved a path for herself and for creatives. And I just love how she's living with purpose in helping other women protect their purpose too. I hope you take time, this week, to find the things you're grateful for. I encourage you to shine your light, lead with your heart, and live life purposefully.
I'm Lauren Lowrey and this is AMPstigator.
[00:57:50] < Music >
