Welcome to GenX Adulting and today we are welcoming Gina Rania better known as the GenX Reset Coach. Welcome, Gina. Hello, welcome, thank you for having me. We're thrilled to have you. Our first question is always, what year were you born? The best year that there was 1969. Gen X, true, true Gen X. Yeah. I was born in New Jersey in a small town called Atco Very, very small. And were your parents from there? No, my mom was from Chicago and she met my stepdad and she then moved in with him into this area which was very woodsy. I don't if you remember back in the day it was very very rural, woods everywhere and very very quiet. OK, so your mom and stepdad lived in Atco New Jersey. Is that what you're saying? So do you know how your mom and biological dad met? Yeah, my mom was from Chicago and she was punished. She was very bad in school. So my grandmother sent her to New Jersey to live with her aunt. And when she got to New Jersey, a few doors down, my dad lived. So they met each other that way. So then 20, maybe m 23, 24, very young. Then my mom went back to Chicago and my dad went with but It just wasn't she didn't want to they wanted to have kids and she didn't want to have them there There's a lot of chaos. She had a really big family and there was some stuff going on in the family So she came back to New Jersey and then that's when she had I'm the youngest of three So that's when she had my first sister OK, so did they get married in New Jersey or Chicago? When they went back to Chicago or were they married? OK, and so you have a sister and then um another sister or brother? OK, and are you the youngest? So they had three daughters and your dad's Italian. My mom and my dad are both Italian. So you're 100 % Italian. I mean, yeah, I guess if I did the DNA test, there might be some other things in there, but pretty much, yeah. I love the punishment of being banished to New Jersey. And I can say that because I'm from New Jersey, but I love that. You're terrible, you're going to New Jersey. That's awesome. That's actually hilarious. in Atco was there a lot of extended family? No, no, there wasn't. my mom and dad divorced early. I was only two. And my mother met my stepdad. then they, he didn't live there first, so let me take that back. They moved there together. I was probably about four or five at the time. So. when she met your stepdad and they got married? So you're in Atco with your sisters and your mom and dad. They divorced when you're two. What's the spacing between you and your older sisters? So uh two year, I have a middle sister, she's two years older than me. And then my oldest sister is three years older than me. So they're all Gen X. And then they got divorced. And when they got divorced, you said your mom went back to Chicago for a little bit or no, she stayed in Atco And when soon as my mom and dad divorced, my mother met my stepdad. And then they got together, they were together for a few years, and they got married, and then they moved to Atco Okay, so just help me. they you were in I'm sorry, I'm probably not following it. You were in Atco with your mom and dad. No. Okay. Where were they in Chicago? No, they were in New Jersey. So they had gotten married. They went to Chicago for a little while, didn't like it so much, came back. Then they decided to have children. So then they had my sister, then my other sister, and then me, but not in Atco Then they shortly got divorced because I was only two. And then my mother met my stepdad and then they moved to Atco. Sorry. where in Jersey did your mom and dad live before they got divorced? lived in Berlin. It's just another small town, maybe 20 minutes from Atco So when they divorced, did you and your sisters go with your mom for custody? And did your dad stay in Berlin? He stayed around, he didn't stay in Berlin, but he stayed local enough to, you know, every other weekend was with dad. So you had regular visits with him. He was still a fixture in your life. All right. Is Atco Berlin far? Maybe 20 minutes. But I only saw him every other weekend. Right, right. Okay, that makes sense. Yeah. I think back then, especially, know it seems like now people share half a week here, half a week there. It's more integrated, I guess, in some families. I was the same. Well, actually, I was summers and Christmas. But if my parents had lived in the same vicinity, I would have been every other. I think every other weekend was pretty normal where you went with the other parents. So at least for us Gen Xers. I think that's what it was. So then when your mom and stepdad married, they moved to Atco. Did he have kids? He had a daughter, but she was older and she didn't live with us. Okay, so you never really had a relationship with her? I did have a relationship with her, I think when I got older, um but not at first. I was young and she was probably 10 years older. So you know that huge gap when you're younger. So there wasn't a whole lot of interaction with her. If you were four or five, she would have been like middle school, high school age then, right? And probably was with her mom and with you guys probably every other weekend. Right? Yeah. Now, during those formative years in elementary school, uh middle school, did you play any sports or were you in any clubs or in music or art or anything? Not now. I wasn't. I wasn't. I was very shy. I was quiet. I didn't have a whole lot of friends in middle school. ah And I just kind of kept to myself. I think because my two older sisters always got in trouble. And I was afraid to get in trouble when I was younger. I don't know why. It was my biggest fear. I didn't want to get in trouble like they got in trouble. There was getting punished. My older sister was always having parties or going to parties and my middle sister was cut in school. And I just always had this anxiety and I just didn't want to get in trouble. So I just didn't do a whole lot. I was home a lot. Big time. And would you say you're probably in fight or flight, your nervous system a lot of the time with everything going on, like hypervigilant? yeah, since probably since I was five. Okay, since your mom and stepdad married. So when they got married, how was he with you girls? Did he um fully embrace you guys as his stepdaughters or was there conflict? Well, he did embrace us, but in some ways, you know, he embraced us, but he wasn't always nice. He had a drinking problem. So when he drank, he was a completely different person. When he wasn't drinking, he was fine. Was he the greatest stepdad? Not really. uh But we tolerated him because we had to, you know. And did he drink daily? Pretty much. Yeah. So my home environment always felt very unstable because you never knew what you were going to get. And when you have somebody with addiction or substance abuse, you know, you always live in that desperation of fear. How's he going to come home? How's it going to be tonight? You know, what's he going to do? What's he going to say? Because when he drank, he became very mean, you know, so. to your mom as well. to my mom, more to my mom than any of us. But because I was the youngest, I was home all the time. So I really got the brunt of them. Right, because your sisters would have been in more middle school, maybe, or end of elementary school, middle school when they first got married, right? And then they were going into those middle school, high school years. I'm sure as soon as they could just get out every day and be with friends or party or just their rebellion was their acting out was probably in some ways a result of. your home life, would assume that's typically how goes. I mean, obviously we all partied and had fun, but if it's on a chronic level and it's causing issues, there's a root cause. yeah. Well, I mean, I think my oldest sister, she was just at that age where, you know, Pat Benatar and Bruce Springsteen and the Kinks, you know, all that music was out. And I felt like she really had fun. She was just always like going out and living her best life. uh But because I was so young and I didn't have that social support, I really was home most of the time. So. up a good point as far as being young. You didn't have an outlet. You were there. yeah. So I could hear at the time, like remember the stone driveways? We had a stone driveway and I could hear the car pulling in on the stone driveway and I'd be like, oh no, they're home. And it would be, is he gonna be in a good mood or is he gonna be in a bad mood? Because he tended to pick on me because like I said, I was home. So yeah. So when you hear that sound now, if you ever have or since then, excuse me. Yes. So since then between then and throughout your adult years, has that sound triggered you instantly back to that space? that's excellent then. No, doesn't, well, I've done a lot of work. um I don't think that that really ever triggered me. I have other triggers, but that wasn't one of them. That wasn't one of them. tell, because I can hear that stone sound, uh could you tell when he came in if it was fast or an abrupt breaking what the mood was? Like, that resonate at all or is it just kind of blurry, I guess? No, I could just, I could just hear it. Like it just was like it's, you know, sometimes it was louder than other times. Yeah, you're right. If I think about it, sometimes it was louder than other times, you know, and I could even tell by the slamming of the door. Yeah, that's kind of where I was going, if there's some marker of, shit, here we go. And then you could hear the bickering when they first come in. I don't like go shit. I mean, there were times where I got up and I hid in my closet because I knew that he would come down the hallway and he would look in my room first. So I would get in the closet and then I'd hear him open the door and look and he wonder, Oh, she's not in here. Shut the door. And then I would get back in bed. And no one ever followed up to see where you were. No, I mean they figured I was out maybe I'd come home and listen we really did have that latch key you were out you come home well he you know he would check on me later well my mom would come in and check on me and then she knew that I was there but I'm gonna flash forward for you to today so this is how much trauma can really affect you even when you don't even think about it because my whole life I have never been able to sleep ever. It's been, I could be in the most lovely setting, I can be listening to meditative music, I could be looking at the ocean. Nothing can make me fall asleep. And I didn't really realize it until a year ago when I was doing a lot of my own work. That is my trigger because I was afraid to go to bed because I never knew what was going to happen. And I associated that my whole life to sleep. So whenever I get in bed, my body's like, this isn't safe for you. And your body does keep the score, it truly does. And so I figured it out and I was like, my gosh, that is why I can't sleep. My whole life, bed equaled fear. That's amazing. You just opened up something for me just now. I have to investigate this for myself because I go into fight or flight as soon as I lay down. And I had to work very hard on that, but I still have not conquered that at all. And it's the safety thing. That is so interesting. I never correlated my struggles with sleep. And this is before menopause. This is before all that. This has been a constant. I've never just laid down. Yeah, and people would tell me all the time, oh, do this. I went to the doctor. They were giving me antidepressants, and I didn't like the way they made me feel. They just gave me anti-anxiety. I have to take that. I'm like, that wasn't even working. So it was that embedded in me that, because that's how traumatized I was when I would go to bed. And I'd hear the stones. So for my whole life, sleep was always an issue, and I just could never understand it. And then it was like an aha, as Oprah says, an aha moment. I'm like, shit. So be... what, I'm sorry, go ahead. So, was there domestic violence? Not, he didn't hit us, he didn't touch us. He, I think he might've pushed my mom around. Yeah. you were just afraid the fear of going to sleep. Were you afraid something was going to happen to you or to your mom? Both. Because sometimes he would come in, my sisters are probably going to kill me for saying this, but sometimes he would come in and if he was mad, he would take my drawers and he'd empty them and he would just do all this crazy stuff, not to me, but in front of me. And you know, if my one sister, my middle sister, they never got along because she wasn't afraid to tell him off. So I would hear them fighting or I would hear him fighting with my mother. So I just was so afraid. I'd get in bed and I'd be like, my God. I would like daydream about, I wish this bed had some kind of thing where you can melt into the bed and no one could see you. You know, I just wanted to hide. So. I mean what he was doing was so it was towards you. It's a still a form of abuse That's creating that traumatic experience where he isn't laying hands on you But he's in your space and he's being abusive but with you creating that chaos because you didn't know What was gonna happen and that's the trauma right so that makes sense though and that's from the age of five and until when Until now, I'm 55. but how long was he involved in your life? My mom died early. She died at 51 of breast cancer. that was 20, my oldest son is 28, so that was 28 years ago. So they were married, they stayed married. So he was involved in your life consistently like that through elementary school, middle school and high school and did it ever, was it always at that level of erratic behavior? Yeah, was because he was a drinker. And he never, he kept drinking through all those years. And so even as you got older, did he still cross those boundaries? Did he still with you? I think as I got older, he knew that he couldn't. I think he kind of, he was getting older too, if you know what I mean. Sometimes they get older and they get a little bit laxed in their anger. So he wasn't as bad. But then I, you know, I had a boyfriend and I started, I wasn't home a lot. So that really got me away from it. So as you said in middle school, you were more to yourself and following the rules and just didn't want to get in trouble. That was probably a direct result of the chaos, obviously, at home and and not and seeing your sisters get in trouble. ah But then as you entered high school, did you get involved with any activities or come out of your shell a little more? Yeah, I still didn't do any sports, but I had a lot of friends and I started to go to parties and I started to do high school things and just hanging out and I had some high school boyfriends and the normal stuff. And then did your sisters go to go off to college when they graduated? no, no, they didn't. uh They moved out. But. in this in Atco where you guys were? in the surrounding area, a little bit more towards Philly. They went more towards Philly. Atco was very isolated. mean, even to get to a major highway was sometimes 15, 20, 25 minutes. they got out of there and they moved. They went out. So I was still left there alone. Did you, the three of you stay close though? Okay. all very close. And um when you were getting close to graduating, did you consider going to college? Was that on your plans? So how come you think they didn't and you did? um I don't know. I don't know. We had to work, you know, um especially because my stepdad really wasn't funding us in that way. He was providing the roof over our head, um you know, and my dad helped, but ultimately, you know, back when we were growing up, we didn't have that luxury. It was like, go get a job. I mean, I was 21. and I had my own car, which my dad did buy for me, but I was, I started out in retail. Retail was big back in the day, remember? I started out working at Payless Shoes and two years later I was managing it and making, back then I was making $40,000, which was a lot. Yeah, I had an American Express card. mean. I just was so responsible and just living. uh But I did go to college, but I only went two years. And after that, I just was about working and making money. I wasn't thinking long term. So, and in your home, because I feel like for some Gen Xers, they either grew up in a home where college was discussed and it was just expected you're going to do that and there's a plan for that or it wasn't. then those Gen Xers just were like, I'm going to go to work. So I think for you, it's interesting. You kind of had a hybrid approach. So the college must have come from inside of you because I'm assuming that wasn't discussed really in your home. Now it wasn't discussed at all, which I look back and I'm like, wow, I mean, my parents really didn't give me any real direction. Hey, why don't you do this? Or what are you interested in? I mean, they didn't. I I ended up going to college because my best friend, April, was said to me, hey, let's go to college and let's take volleyball. So we were like, yeah, we're gonna go to college and we'll play volleyball. But I did study psychology and I became obsessed with it. So, and I think. at home still through college or as soon as you were graduated? Okay, so you stayed and lived at home. For how long did you continue to live at home after graduating high school? So I went to college for a few years. worked, I probably stayed home for maybe another five years. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. were able to be paid for college, I assume for yourself. And then, your dad paid for your college. That's great. So probably living at home, you were able to save money. So what was the catalyst in helping you decide to move out? What was the catalyst that helped you decide to move out? Well, so I met my boyfriend and I went right from leaving my house and moved in with my boyfriend. And was he local, someone you knew from school or? I went to high school with his sister and he was a few years older. Okay. And this would be like your early 20s. Yeah, well, was 20, yeah, I was 23. And so, and he worked too, I assume. Yeah, I mean, he was a few years older and he was very much like an entrepreneur. had, I think he was only maybe 26 and he had a few pizzerias and he was, you know, he was doing his thing. He's Italian too. That's a big deal, though, in a town. Was that an Atco? So in a small town, if you have the local pizzeria, that's that's a goldmine. Friday night. Yeah. Did he own a home or was he in a home you moved into like his place? yeah, he had a condo. I moved in with him and then eventually we bought a house and I was 26 when I got pregnant with my first son. So we got married. Yeah. Okay, so this is your future husband that we were talking about, the boyfriend, yeah, your ex, but your boyfriend became your husband. All right. became your ex. Even then he became your ex. Okay, so how long did you guys live together before you got married? three years. Okay, and then you got married and had your first daughter? First boy. Okay, and how long were you guys married? You're welcome. Yeah. So we got married in 1996, and we split up in 2017. So I have a 28-year-old, a 27-year-old, so they're only 15 months apart. And then I have my boy. He's 23 today. Yeah, yeah. I was like, Anthony, I'm doing a podcast on your birthday. But he's back in New Jersey at LBI, partying with his friends. Yeah. nice. So 23 year old son, your 27 year old daughter. And then 28 year old son, had Irish twins close. And um how did the marriage, would you say that living under that chaos and that high pressure situation, the unpredictability of your home life through all of your formative years, all of them. Did that directly impact how you approached your marriage? Would you say? And in what ways? Well here's what happened. You either do one or the other. You marry somebody completely opposite or you wind up marrying one of your parents. So I wound up finding someone that was very similar to my stepdad minus the alcoholism. So it... Looking back, I would never say anything bad to my ex-husband, but it wasn't a good marriage at all. At all. But, but back then we stayed. That's what we did. I had kids. I was like, what am I going to do? You know, where am I going to go? I just always had this fear of I couldn't do it without them. So I stayed and I, I wasn't working. Well, I managed for the for the retail for a while. But when I got pregnant, I quit that. And then I started working for him because he owned, went into multiple different companies. So I started working in his office, doing his HR work, doing his hiring and doing all of that stuff. So I started doing that, but that was like maybe when my kids were like 10, 12 years old. So for the, I was a stay at home mom, yeah. um Do you think that you hung in... Like, when did the red flag start for you? When did you kind of know, okay, this isn't... um I really hate to say this, but I knew it early on. I did. And do you think you stayed mainly for your children? Um, I know that that's what we love to say that we stayed for the children and I did. But if I want to get real with myself, I stayed because I was afraid because I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to create a life without him because of the lifestyle that I had. didn't want to take my kids out of that. um Because if I were saying I I would have left for my children because I think that they would have been better off if I left and not been exposed to what I was exposed to as a child. So was the unpredictability there in their childhood as well? In the chaos? What you're describing though on the surface, it sounds like a dream, right? You're living in suburbia, you're a stay at home mom, you've got a few kids, your husband sounds like he, I'm sure he's making pretty good change. You guys probably had a nice lifestyle. Vacations probably, right? So yeah, I mean, that's hard because you're doing what you're supposed to do, quote unquote, right? Yeah. Checked out lot of the boxes. But behind the scenes, it sounds probably fairly chaotic, which I think is also common. And then your professional life was wrapped up into him, too. When you did go back to work, that was still wrapped up with him. Yeah, that was still wrapped up with him. um I think for both of us, both of us had emotion dysregulation because I had a lot of reactivity to him. I was very reactive, you know, so there was just a lot of that. And I probably should have left, you know, and taken my kids out of that. But Either way, mean, it's neither here nor there. mean, now it's, you know, my kids are fine. I mean, they all had to go to therapy and, you know, deal with things, you know. But that is what I talk about with my coaching because, you know, uh generational trauma is a real thing and it really does get passed down and it really does have an effect because I really didn't think I was doing anything wrong. I raised my kids the way that I was raised. So I thought that I was doing what we do, you know? A lot of it was, I don't know what it was like in your homes, but I think for you, Nicole, you might be able to relate. was a lot, you know, for me, it was like, you know, go in your room, go over there, go sit down. Never were our emotions exposed or was, did anybody say, how do you feel? What are you going through? You know, so we just wear this cape, I call it our Wonder Woman cape, where we have to put this cape on and pretend that we're super, we have the superpower and we're strong. And I used to really admire myself that, I'm so strong, but that really is just, it's false because it's not really who I am. And it doesn't let me be messy or soft or vulnerable because I have to be this person that everyone expects you to be. So when I was married, I was like, I should stay here because that's where I'm supposed to stay. People don't wanna hear, oh, you're getting divorced. Like people don't wanna hear that. Isn't that crazy? You said the Wonder Woman cape, uh because we're just supposed to be strong. I grew up thinking, um you the more you cook, the cleaner your house is, the more put together you are. um That's how that's what a woman should be. That's what you should do. And and give sacrificing yourself for your family. That's admirable. That's a quote unquote good woman. And Mm-hmm. doing all the laundry, doing all the things, bringing home the bacon and doing all the things. And um I think Gen X young girls especially were raised to think doing all the things is what we're supposed to be what we do. That's the sign of a good woman, which of course we were totally gaslit into believing because doing the, being a strong woman is honoring yourself first and when your needs. Right. yourself to be soft and relax and get out of fight or flight and heal. But no, no one talked to us about any of that. Just bury those feelings. And it's just funny because what's happening now at our age is because not only, Brian, he's probably like, boy, this is like. me. He's learned so much. The only thing I would say is, well, you didn't have models. It's not like your parents. Sure, your mom didn't do it. Your mom didn't do it. They fit into it. So I think it's interesting what you were saying around the generational trauma gets passed down. I think that's partly because of modeling, right? You have this model behavior that you just kind of follow. Well, what's interesting, I'm sorry. Go ahead, go ahead. OK. What's interesting is because I'll forget is that you said about our two backgrounds and Brian definitely had more of that traditional parents married, small town, New Jersey. Everything's great. But even for kids like that, those Gen X kids, no one helped them identify the emotions they were feeling. No one helped them if they were feeling anything, help them process it. So even for kids like that. a lot of stuff was ignored because those parents, didn't, across the board, whether your parents were dysfunctional and divorced or healthy, that level of emotional development was never presented to any Gen Xers. I mean, I'm sure there's someone out there, but they're such an anomaly, I think, compared to the rest of us. Yeah, and I think the biggest struggle is because I think the reason why Gen X is so special is because we are the bridge generation. We are right in between the boomers and the millennials. And we were raised by boomers who inherited the beliefs of the stoism and survival and their traditions and all of those things that that's how we were raised. Then the millennials came into the picture. and it's expression versus suppression. It's like, it's just a different world. And I feel like for us, we're living two different worlds. I'm trying to smooth over, you know, my father who has such, they're very stern in their beliefs. And my kids who were like, well, I don't want to go to that because, you know, it might hurt my feelings. So it's like, you know, you have that pull and I feel like we are like, just stuck in that and that is really really difficult. I know it's difficult for me because my kids because I think of the way they've grown up they've taught me a lot of things and my daughter definitely broke the generational curse because she won't allow anyone to speak to her in a disrespectful way. mean growing up you know we see it in the movies all the time shut up the soprano shut up go sit in your room I never want to see you again. Don't talk to me. Get out of here. So my kids were like, no, we don't. We're not doing that. oh very common with Gen Z, especially the Gen Zs, because we have have Gen Zs, we have Gen Zs. Two of our Gen Zs are 24 and 28, just like all three of yours are in their 20s. Now, the 28 is the last Gen Z. She calls them a zillennial. Zillennial. That micro generation, they're the last Gen Zs, but they're also zillennials because they kind of have a foot in the millennial world and a foot in the Gen Z world a little bit. Mm-hmm. So, um but they are amazing at setting boundaries and especially the Gen Z women. But I think Gen X parents have given that to them. think we listened. I think we honored when they came to us with something, we stopped and we said, tell me, what are you thinking? What are you feeling? Let's work this through instead of being shushed, pushed aside as you alluded to earlier, sent to their rooms. We gave, I think we gave them the space to create that for themselves. Yeah, I think we gave them the space oh because we wanted to do better as parents. But I think sometimes we overcorrected and we became hyper involved. And, you know, we did for them, even making doctor's appointments or feeling for them. You know, we did a lot of that. And I think that backfired on me, too, because now even in my kids are in their late 20s, they still expect me as a mom to do things. And I'm like, dudes, when I was your age, like, and they don't want to hear that, you know, but I'm like, when I was your age, I was, I was making my own dinners. I, you know, I was having kids. So, you know, it's, we're just, it's, we're the first generation to parent differently because we, this is tools that we, we didn't have. They weren't in the toolbox. We have new tools here. And I love how you call us the bridge because we are, we are dealing with that cutthroat, stern, stoic, this is how things are that our parents were like, or the boomers or the silent gens. And then our gen Z kids that are, you know, way more progressive in so many different ways, sometimes to fault. ah But for us managing our reactions and emotions and processing to both of those energies coming at us. It's just so Gen X that that would happen to us as well midlife where we're responsible now for absorbing both of these energies, processing it and then outputting a reaction. And it's it's different. It's that it's just when I think about the way that Gen X has carried since they were children all the way through till now, I just don't think people understand the utter strength that we have inside of us because it's never stopped. It's always been a grind. And in so many ways, it still is. Mm-hmm. you know, because we're finding now we're trying to find healing. And but that's a grind too. You know. Yeah. healing isn't... It takes uh a long time. You have to really sit with yourself. And I think it's such a noisy world now. And it's so easy to distract yourself. You can go and shop on Amazon. You can go look at social media. You can get caught up in Netflix. I mean, there's so many different things. that people do and I have a girlfriend who says to me all the time, you oh, I can't wait to get home and you know, get on the couch and I don't care if I don't see anybody for a week. And I said, Donna, that's not really who you are. That is your trauma talking because she isolates because that's just what her body wants to do because it doesn't want to deal with anything. So I said, you you have to try to find some things that you love to do, not. watching Netflix and we can get so caught up in that, you know, we can spend days on the couch, but it's just not healthy, you know, so, but people, but people just are just, I just see it all the time. People that I work with and it's like, what, what are you doing? What are your behaviors and what are your patterns, you know, and the patterns are what's really hurting us because people have developed patterns that just keep them safe. They're repeating, think GenX, like you said earlier, we were self-isolationists, right? We would self-isolate. And I think we continue, as you just said, to repeat that, whatever those coping mechanisms are, especially something like that, because that's not like abuse of alcohol or drugs or an eating disorder. That's not something that obviously you can either give up or fix. ah isolating yourself isn't as noticeable to others to pick up on. That's a coping mechanism that that person's using. You can just kind of disappear for a bit and everyone's, as you said, is so busy with their lives. People may not even notice that you've checked out for four days, you know, but I think that is also very Gen X. Yeah, yeah. I also feel like it's going in that direction where it's not just it is Gen X, but I feel like a lot of people do it. A lot of people are just going and just kind of self isolating and calling that normal. I mean, life is all about connection. And that's how we live and thrive from connection. And we're not getting real connection on social media or, you know, watching Netflix or doing any of that. It's gone. Like I feel like it's gone. It's sad. You know, I remember having, you know, when I lived in Jersey, every Thursday night I'd have a girls night. They always came over. We always got together. And now I feel like it's sad. I feel like everyone that I know is just so isolated or they're self-soothing. I'm sorry. Were you kind of the glue that kept that all going and once you left? Yeah. Yeah. wanted to get together. Now it's like, you know, go something like, hey, why don't you give me a call and we'll go to the movies and we'll go have a drink. Yeah, yeah, let's do it. That's in thin air. It never happens. So many people do that. I hear it all the time. How busy are we? Like, how busy? It's so funny you brought that up because I was texting with a good friend a couple of days ago and I said, you know, when do your kids go back to school? And her kids go back to school three weeks after my son. And so then we have a wedding. And so I was like, how does September 10th look? She's like, perfect. Let's put it down for lunch. And then I did get off when I was on texting because we don't get off the phone anymore. We're texting. I can't believe that we just scheduled something for almost two months out to go to lunch. But that's it, right? Because that's how busy, but I think social media, like you said, and phones and having 24 seven access to each other. Definitely with the younger generations, they're not as necessarily motivated to have to do as much face in person real life connection because they're getting that dopamine hit from the texting. yeah. media postings and all that. Would you say that's accurate? Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, as soon as you turn your phone on, it's a ding, right? Your dopamine. a lot of the younger generation talks about, you know, they're recharging their battery. Like you're saying they're not doing anything. They're rotting. My daughter calls it rotting. um But for days. And I think, you know, that could go into you've had too much stimulation. It's or they can't even if it's just to do. I've seen postings where young people have said, I did one thing. I went to a doctor's appointment. I'm not doing anything else for the next two days to recharge from that. It's like that overwhelming having to do real life stuff throws them off a little bit. you think that's anxiety induced behavior or just we're all just bombarded now with all types of chaos, right? When we grew up, you could argue things were more simple, right? It was there was less going on, right? Less noise. Go out, be home by dark. Now it's like as soon as you wake up, it's it's on unless you isolate. Because of the phones. Mm-hmm. we have a computer in our hands to plug into. Everyone's plugging in almost as soon as they wake up. It's not normal. No, it's not. it's, think in some aspect, when somebody asks you to go the doctor's, it's real connection. And I think people don't want to do that. Like I hear, I hear some of my son's conversations and, you know, with his other friends and I'm like, oh my God. It's just not, I don't feel like there's any depth to. their conversations. I don't feel like they have these real connections like we did, know, growing up, talking, you know, having your best friend, talking to your best friend about everything and thinking, you know, of ideas of how to get through things. And I don't hear that with the kids today. You know, it's like everyone's trying to impress everyone. And I just feel like there's no real substance there. You think it's more transactional? Yeah. It's ironic because we've tried so hard to raise our kids with open communication, with acknowledging their feelings, with helping them understand their feelings, helping them with emotional development. And yet society has handed them something to help them to completely disconnect. So Gen X tried so hard or is trying so hard to... help our children grow in this authentic space where they can express themselves, but then we're fighting society, helping our children disconnect from that. I never thought about that before. society's over here pulling them away. So, you know, we put the work in, the result is that that is where they're spending all their time. And they want to be like everybody else. So. The comparison is a thief of joy. I don't think it's ever been stronger as it currently is for kids and young adults as far as comparing their lives and feeling like failures for doing normal stuff like working, you know, nine to five, five days a week. You're 25 doing that and you may feel like you're failing because you're not in Italy on a Tuesday like the girl you see on social media. It's it's it's a excuse my French a mindfuck. Right. mm-hmm. like, am I succeeding in life? I'm not sure. When really you are. And it creates that self doubt. Constantly comparing. Yeah, constantly. I mean, I have to stay off social media because I'll do a post and then I'll go and I'll see someone else's post. And I'm like, my God, it looks way better than mine. And then I get into my brain and then I'm like, eh, maybe I'll delete mine. You know, it's like stay off because it's just, it really is. It's it's great for, I mean, we don't have no other way to market, you know? I mean, it's not like how it used to be. Yeah, big bullet, you know, big bulletin out on the highway. I mean, you know, it does give you that platform to advertise and do that. But there's so many other things there that just disturb me when I see like the young girls doing all of these things, trying to get followers. And it's just scary. it's warping also for young for boys and young men's minds when there's so much put out there as far as what young women and girls are putting out there and then what the boys and young men are expecting. But then you get into real life and it usually doesn't match up because everyone has a filter on. Everyone has done something to how they're looking in general. Let's be real. The young people do it. Yeah. And then in the dating world, people are showing up on dates and don't even look like how they think it's this one reality. And then when it meets actual reality, nothing matches up. No, and that's true across the board because I have a girlfriend who lives in the villages in Florida and they're in their 70s and she went out on a date, my girlfriend didn't, but her friend did and she went out on a date and the guy was like, you don't look like anything like your picture. And I was like, wow, they're picky in their 80s, they're picky? Yeah, you know what's crazy? That place is nuts. Well, that place is. We've done some stuff about situationships and we've had listeners comment saying, I'm dating in my 60s and I have men telling me they're not ready for anything serious. And it's like, well, are you what's happening? That's what are you waiting for? It's crazy that situationship culture has bled into Gen X and beyond. And it's like, really? OK, so that's a whole nother thing. But. Okay so after um you guys divorced because you had been working in his business, did you continue to work in his business? So did the kids go with you? Yeah, well, yeah, the kids went with me. My older two were kind of like on their way out anyway. My daughter went to West Virginia and my older son went to just a college. It was a four-year college over in New Jersey. It was called Rowan. I know if you ever heard of it. So they were in school, yeah. Did you ever go to Morgantown and party with her? No, and she hated it. She was only there for a year and she came back and she went to Temple. She went to Temple for her undergrad and then she went to uh Rutgers for her grad. Yeah. I think is right downtown Philly, right? Yeah, we were there. Yeah. West Virginia's party school. Yeah. Big. You know, it's huge, huge party school. So your youngest was with you basically as he finished what middle school, high school. OK. And did. Did he go to your exes like every other week, kind of like what you did? No, there was none of that. OK, so they were pretty much with you and that was. pretty, yeah, they were pretty much with me. So I'm on the heels of a divorce and starting a new job and I had a lot of trauma to unpack. I mean, I had so much going on and I was trying to be the stable one for my kids. And I had a girlfriend that was dying of cancer. I mean, I had so many things going on. was like, talk about fight or flight. I literally was in that probably for years. years. And there's also called, there's another step to that called the fawn stage where you just, you freeze and you just like completely shut down. So there were days where when I didn't have anything to do, I would just completely shut down. I would lay in my bed. I wouldn't get out. I wasn't depressed. I just felt like my body was like, you can't do anything else. You're not doing anything else. It wouldn't let me. And I would just veg out, watch TV, eat. Did you stay in the house that you guys had or did you get a new place? And what was your new job that you started? I started for a company, it was a national landscaping company and I worked in, I started out working in the compliance department and then I made it up to, uh I became the, um I worked in finance in the accounts receivable. I became accounts receivable host or whatever. So. you're working in this new environment with new people, um a new home, two of your kids have left for college, ah and your friend is dying of cancer. So that's a perfect storm right there, right? And then you're dealing with being divorced. then I'm dealing with being divorced. And somewhere in there, I was kind of like feeling sorry for myself. And then one day I woke up and I was like, uh-uh, not for another second. It's unacceptable. I'm not doing this. I'm not gonna be a victim. I'm going to live with intention and I'm gonna create the life that I've always wanted to have because we can. It doesn't matter how old we are. So it's like, fuck it, that's what I'm doing. And that is what I did. I changed my life after that. I changed everything about me. I let go of friends that were toxic. I started to change my mindset. I started to change the way I saw things. And I started to meditate and just do things that were beneficial to me growing. And I still don't sleep, though. But um I just... had to do it. was like, this is, know that there's more to me than this. And this is not who I'm, who I'm going to be. Just not me. How long were you in that traumatic state before that change happened? Would you say? Like five years. And then what was that's a long time because you probably would have been in fight or flight like many Gen Xers since you were four. And then and then it just revved up for those five years. No wonder that your body at times was like you're not getting up. Just stay down. Well, I mean, at 50, I had both my hips replaced. Yeah, both my hips replaced. One day, my hip hurt. I went to the doctor, and they said, it's bone on bone. You're not going to be able to walk. I couldn't even walk. It was just all of a sudden happened. um But they say that women carry their pain in their hips. So I don't have any. So yeah. their trauma in their hips. In fact, there's whole I'm sure you've heard about like yoga classes you can take just on your hips. And many women release so much emotion like cry and thought because it just you don't even know it's going to make someone cry right now because you it's right all the because so much think about it. We give life there. We accept male energy there. And then I think our trauma is just naturally there's so much going on in that part of our body. It's amazing. So you had this unexpected double hip replacement in the middle of all this. Yeah, had a, my first one was in March and then my second one was in September. Cause after the first one, then the second one. So I'm on a new hip and a bad hip. So it just wasn't working. I couldn't even walk. I was walking with a cane and I remember thinking, is this it for me? Is this my life? You know, so. How did you care for your sisters help you or your mom? How did you? How'd you? I'll tell you what I did. The second time I went and I hired a personal trainer and I got in excellent shape, went and got the surgery, walked out of the hospital with a cane with nothing, walked out and I was like, I need nobody. I'm not asking anybody for anything. I had my cape on. And I just thought I just this is the way it's got to go because the first one was in a bad experience And I think what happened and I think this is very true Because I had so much trauma in my body my recovery was awful My body was just my hip wasn't doing what it was supposed to be doing wasn't healing I was supposed to go to physical therapy I kept canceling and they were like you can't cancel you you have to be in here. We have to start moving I just couldn't do it I don't know why I felt exhausted. So I felt like my body was like, ah, and um it took me almost two weeks to get into physical therapy. So when I knew I had to get the second one, I was scared. I was like, I'm not doing that. So here's what I'm going to do instead. I'm to go get in shape. And it worked. It was I didn't think twice about it. And now I I'm getting ready to get my Pilates instructor license so I can move. My hips are like they're like brand new hips. Can't even tell. an epiphany or it doesn't sound like it was one event or a culmination where you kind of reach that fuck it, this isn't how it's gonna be, I'm gonna change, I'm not gonna feel sorry for myself, I'm not gonna be a victim. Was there one event that finally made that happen or is it just that culmination? I think it was a culmination. uh I just was done, you know? I just was done feeling the way that I was feeling. And I was like, this just isn't enough for me. This isn't who I am. I feel like I spent most of my life in this flight or fight and being scared. And you know, when you're in that, you can't grow mentally. That Maslow hierarchy of needs, it's like when you're over here with your shelter and... and you know finances and all of those things down here, self-awareness is way up here, you can't grow. So I wasn't able to do that because I was stuck down here and I was like no I know I know psychology I know it I knew what I had to do but I wasn't quite sure how to do it and the very first thing that I did was my mindset little things you know. because it's a lot of self doubt and a lot of I can't do it, I'm too old and just all these things you tell yourself because you want to stay there. Your body wants to stay where it's safe. Even if it's traumatized, it wants to stay there because that is where it knows that's where it wants to stay. So I was battling my brain. I was like, okay, but I'm doing this. I worked out my whole life. That was something that I always liked. I always was a clean eater. So I had those things going for me. So I went back to the gym. That's a focus, that's a really good focus to have. Went back to the gym, I was eating good, but the mental side, I just had to get right. And then menopause macked me in the head. Yeah. do you, when, when do you think perimenopause started? If you look back, cause I didn't know it was happening. I know now I look back and I'm like, Oh, okay. But did you know when perimenopause hit or was it just like what I went through where you didn't even know you were going through it? No, the only thing that I noticed was I gained some weight, but I wasn't chalking that up to perimenopause. I didn't really get a lot of physical symptoms when I, because I'm menopausal now, I really didn't get any symptoms. The only symptoms that I got were in my head, like I was getting depression and anxiety. And I couldn't deal with that. I, so I ended up going to a metabolic doctor and she put me on hormone replacement. I'm sorry, not a metabolic, a holistic doctor. and she put me on estrogen, progesterone, all three. I know you're on them too. And uh they saved my life. I was like, my God, I'm a different person. It makes you feel like yourself again. And you didn't realize you weren't. mean, I can say for myself, I went at least eight years of perimenopause where I was struggling my whole 40s. And I so wish I could go back to that person and say, get on HRT and almost everything will be fixed. Not everything, but it's that's one of the reasons I love that. us Gen X women talk about it as much as we can for the younger women and be like, when you're in 35, just start educating yourself even before then. But watch out for these things because these could be signs of perimenopause. You aren't necessarily to have depression. You might be perimenopausal. So and I was just realizing during that whole storm you were in, you were also probably going through perimenopause. So just add that fun in. yeah. And here's the statistics that I wanted to say because they're really bothersome, but it says Gen X has seen the highest increase in anxiety and depression diagnosis over the past decade. For number one, untreated trauma, childhood emotional neglect or instability. Number two, midlife awakening. symptoms emerge after years of suppression. And number three, chronic stress, compounding life pressures with minimal coping skills. Because on the next one, it says that we as Gen Xers don't seek professional help because of the stigma. Because we were raised, therapies taboo, you don't need it. Self-reliance programs were conditioned to suck it up. uh Lack of representation, wellness spaces. uh feel millennial focused. So it's more for the millennials and not us. So we're kind of like, and with all that, we also have our health. mean, you you get into your 50s, you're getting autoimmune, you're getting, you know, people are getting cancers and they're getting high blood pressure, high cholesterol. I mean, the list goes on and on. And so we really have a lot of things going on. And now this whole thing with gut balance, that's the whole new thing. You gotta get your gut balance, gotta get your gut balance. My girlfriend called me the other day, how do I get my cup balanced? Like, my gosh, it's like, you know, there's this. so much to get your gut balance. So much goes into it. But I am a big believer in happy gut, happy brain. I think they're connected. speaking personally, if my gut is good, I'm good. If my gut is off, I'm not good. I just read something. in a second. fact, we're and I'm sorry, I'm just gonna say this before I forget. Um, we're traveling at the end of August for a wedding in DC and I'm already thinking we're driving. Thankfully I'm going to pack all my celery juice, um, all the things I'm packing so that while I'm in DC, I can truly enjoy myself because traveling used to throw me completely off because I would get to the stop. I'd first night, you know, drink alcohol, eat the bad things. And then my gut was screwed the rest of the trip. Like shit the next trip for the whole trip. And it's almost like, why did I Why do do that? I just sabotaged how I feel on this vacation. So that's been my new challenges when we do travel. I want to stay consistent as much as possible. And if I'm going to go crazy the last night, eat the bad, bad stuff, or maybe have a couple of drinks or two or whatever, because then the next day I know it's just a travel day if I feel like crap, whatever, I don't ruin the whole vacation. But it's all related to my gut. uh 100%. I'm sorry. I was just going to say I read something the other day, researchers. are hypothesizing or theorizing that there's a sixth sense and it's your gut health. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I believe that. I believe that too. I don't like the fact that there's like things in there and, you know, they say that there's bugs and all of that stuff, you know, but, you know, that's really hard to clean up too, especially with our food. I don't even want to get into the whole food thing. I mean, that's a, you know, whole story in and of itself, but, you know, the foods that we eat and what we grew up with and... you know, there's these turbo cancers. My daughter got diagnosed with thyroid cancer a year ago. you know, and she is a, she's a therapist um and also very holistic. So when she first got diagnosed, she was like, I'm not getting surgery. And I was like, It's so crazy because I had no say because she's 27 and I'm like, what do you mean you're not getting the surgery? And the more I pressured her, then the more she pushed me away. So I was like, I have to bring this in and I have to stop projecting, let her live her life and just be supportive. So when I approached it that way, then she opened up and she ended up getting the surgery. but she waited a year because she wasn't ready. She was like, I don't wanna get my thyroid ripped out and I don't feel like being on medicine for the rest of my life. And because she's young, she doesn't understand cancer. mean, my mother died of it. My oldest sister has had breast cancer, thyroid cancer, and lymphoma. Wow. Geez. Oh my goodness. you I know a thing or two about how cancer works. I just had a friend who died from it. mean, thyroid cancer is very, the survival rates are very high. It's like 97%. And I knew she'd be okay, but I just wanted it out of her body. And. I can't imagine because as a parent to parenting adult children, I find one of the hardest challenges is standing back and letting them experience something that you kind of already know the end game of. You know the answer, you know the solution. And the more you push that, the more they rebel against that solution. And so you have to stop and let them learn it on their own. That's hard enough when it comes to something simple as buying a car or moving into an apartment or changing a job. cannot even imagine the utter. ah What's even the word just beyond stress, um just pain that had to have caused you to have to pull back as a mother when it came to your daughter's health, which was such a severe and such a severe state at that time. the strength that you had defined in yourself to be able to pull back and stop projecting. Not every mother could have done that. So I commend you on that and I thank God that it all worked out okay. I'm assuming is she okay? she's fine. She's fine. She's doing great. And, you know, I had to find a way to deal with it. And I don't know, there's this poem called The Children. It's an old poem. I've never heard of it. in the beginning, he says, you know, your children are not your children. They come. They're born through you, but they are not of you. And teach them the new way, not the old way, because the old way doesn't exist anymore. So like in reading the poem, I was like, you know, I can't spend my life trying to control somebody else and what they want to do, whether they're my kids or not, as much as I love them and they're my kids, but I had to let that go. Because if I didn't let that go, I'm harboring all of this pain and worry and that could make me sick and she wasn't worried. I was like, well, she's not worried, then I'm not going to worry about it. I'll worry about it when I have to worry about it. When she says to me one day, I'm not getting it at all. But she ended up getting it. there's so many times like your mindset, you have to shift your mindset a little bit and because otherwise your mind fucked. Seriously, you know. the strength as a parent. And I think I think that's underestimated. The strength is apparent to be able to do that. And I think that's truly it just is another example of unconditional, the unconditional love the parents show their their children, because you're you're in a painful, stressful state. And you said you figured out a way to just kind of let that go. That's work. Mm-hmm. and that's probably something that's fluid and has had to be worked on daily. It's not like you're like, I'm letting it go. OK, everything's fine now because you get re-triggered or something comes up and so you have to kind of be like, no, no, don't have that initial reaction. So that's a constant work in itself. Was this also during all the other stuff that was going on in your life? OK, OK. just got surgery in May. She lives in Austin, but she was getting surgery at MD Anderson in Houston. So I flew out and I was there for her surgery and all of that. And um she did great. She did amazing. And I can't believe how many sick people there are. mean, there was 75 people getting cancer surgeries at MD Anderson in the morning. You know, just everyone in the hospital has sickness. So I think that over all of this, you know, if we don't have our health, we've got nothing. And I think that that's another big thing. Like, you know, we're approaching older age and it's like, you know, things are just creeping up. You know, we kind of like stay, you guys look great. thank you. And again, I always I say to myself, I have to put so much work in just to look normal. You know, at this age, you know, because I have thyroid Hashimoto's and so that's a whole thing. then perimenopause, menopause, and then unpacking trauma and then just naturally aging. So but the multitude of things you have to do just so you your face and your body doesn't show all the things you're battling at this age, you know, just to look like a normal person. Yeah, and that's another reason why we're in hiding because it's like, you know, we're challenged right now because we don't have all of the noise. Everything's kind of gone away. The kids have gone away. Some people are going through divorces, whatever it may be, and you're kind of stuck with yourself. And now you're like, well, what do I want? What am I doing? What are my passions? You know, what is it that I want? You know, what do I want in my life? And some people are just like, you know what, I'm too tired. And um I'm good being the way that I am. And then there's people who are like, you know what, no, I won't change. I definitely want to, I have two quotes that I love. Hope is the only thing that's stronger than fear. And feel the fear and do it anyway. I say that all the time. Just feel the fear, do it anyway. Yeah, we've talked about this before, but they say as you age, the best thing you can do is be uncomfortable constantly for yourself, which is getting through fear. Right. ah But just do it. Just be uncomfortable because that's growth and that continues. That keeps you plugged into life. I feel like, you know, you're either going to thrive in the second half of your life or you're just going to kind of coast to the end. You got to keep living. You know, the whole fear thing is is living. You're embracing things, challenges, you're challenging yourself. So many people before us though have just waited to die. And we've talked a lot about this with other folks where I don't think that's our generation. I don't think it's part of our DNA or at least for a lot of us. Except for the ones you've referred to that maybe are so tired and feel so beaten down. And the idea of change and healing, they're beyond exhausted and they feel maybe they don't have the energy to heal or unpack, you know. I definitely think those GenXers exist. Yeah, definitely. you know, or a lot of people that I work with, don't, they come to me for one thing, thinking that it's that, but it's not. There's always something else underneath, you know, so. OK, so before we get to your coaching, um just to go back, you were working at this new business. You're going through this crazy time in your life with all the things. You wake up one day to make a decision to make a change in your life. What was the first step you did to take that change or make that change? step, let me go back. I was always the girlfriend that everyone calls for the therapy. So I was always that. I love that. It's like, I'm a leader. It's just who I am. I like to help people. So when it came time to help myself, I was like, eww. But the first thing that I had to do is first recognize what is no longer working for me. What's not working for me? And to really be real with yourself, you know? the job that I was at, wasn't happy. I wasn't happy with my friends. I felt like I wanted to be around not all of my friends, people more like me or, you know, I wanted to be inspired or I wanted to be around somebody that I was learning something from, you know. So I just started playing around with all these different things that I wanted. Put it up on the whiteboard and, you have your visions and and yeah, the first step was then recognizing what the hell do I want? And looking at my patterns, you look at your habits and what was I doing every day, know? Not getting up when I should. So, you know, one of the patterns I changed was every day I get up at 6 a.m. Doesn't matter what's going on in my life. I don't care if I'm drunk, I'm hungover, I'm getting up at 6 a.m. Because they say that, you know, the most successful people look at their habits because, you know, you lead yourself to discipline. So I started changing my habits and then embracing yourself. We don't do that. We're going and we're doing for other people and we don't think it's okay. We just don't think it's okay. We don't do it. No. we started to celebrate ourselves, we were like, you're getting a little too big for your britches. Yeah. We just had a guest on before. And that was her like uh last week. And she said that was the same. She was always told you're getting too big for your britches. And I think for you, it was you think who you are like your your northeast Jersey. You think who you are. That's what he grew up with. But it's they would temper us down as soon as we showed that. We were overconfident. You shouldn't be overconfident. You shouldn't be fooling yourself. So it makes sense that as you reach that midlife, you have to work at that, work them naturally. Yeah, yeah. And I really didn't know what I wanted because I really didn't know who I was. I was a mother, I'm a daughter, I'm a sister. You you're all these different roles that you're playing every day. You know, I feel like I'm in a movie and at the end of the movie, it's like, okay, this actor, I don't know what I'm doing. What do I want? You know, how am gonna live the rest of my life? What is it that I want? We can have anything we want. It's your mindset. You either have a fixed mindset or you have a growth mindset. And for a long time mine was fixed. But I became the growth mindset where it just was like going up and going up and going up and just getting there and getting to that point. an interest or a background in psychology, right? Did that start young? I think when you went to school to do volleyball, did you also take a couple psych classes and stuff? Yeah, I took abnormal psych, I took childhood psychology, I took general psychology, I took all the psychologies. But then I also got very in tune to like reading books about the mind and psychology. And I love Carl Jung and he does a lot of shadow work. uh you know, I just started getting obsessed with all that stuff. And believe me, I was aware of it, but it still doesn't, it doesn't mean that I can honestly fix things until you really... figure out what it is that's really bothering you and that's in your triggers. So you know what's wrong. When you get triggered, you got to look at your triggers because I've learned a lot, you know, it's a clear reflection of like what was going on, you know. figure that out though? was ah that on the whiteboard triggers? Or did it happen through living and then did you consciously say, okay, I need to recognize this as one of my triggers? what, because for lot of people, it's hard to recognize your trigger, you know. for me. um If we're talking and somebody says I'm stupid, even if they're being funny, it's trigger for me. Because in an old relationship, somebody used to call me that. And I didn't like it, and it made me feel a certain way. Did I know that when it was happening? No. But when I started doing the work and I started paying a attention to what triggers you I Could identify where that trigger actually came from So then I started identifying a lot of the triggers because I have a lot of them, you know I'm very reactive if I'm in a conversation somebody starts to get loud. I had to get loud Because it's a trigger because I feel like I have to protect myself now, you know So it's just a lot of awareness. You got to just pay attention to yourself That that's where the answers are You know, it's interesting, growing up in the Northeast, a lot of Italian people, a lot of Italian culture, and there's that uh stereotype of Italian people run kind of emotional and hot. How much of your experience was just like, hey, you need to chill out, you're being Italian, or not like that, but you know what I mean? It's more of uh a, maybe it's part of who you are type of thing. Part of, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, did you see the Sopranos? So like that is how normal Italian families talk to each other. I mean, my daughter watched it and she said, my God, triggers because of the way they're talking to their kids. And yeah, I mean, and that's what I'm saying. We talk about generational trauma because that was just something that was just part of how I grew up. But it almost gets dismissed. We're Italian, we're excited, we're emotional. But it's dismissing what you're really maybe experiencing. Yeah, yeah. bullshit. Because Irish people have tempers. So that's not fair. You have to be able to handle your emotions. And a lot of us can't, because we weren't taught. We weren't shown. So it's really hard for us. Well, you were, for guys. Let's talk about guys for a minute. I mean, you know, the Gen X guys, you guys are all like, no, you guys talk about anything, nothing. So you guys must be carrying a lot. Well, I find this fascinating. We've met fascinating people. We've talked about the trauma from Gen X and, you know, I've gone through life. I'm not going to say carefree, but I don't have any trauma. But then, you know, at end of the day, we all probably do. And it comes a different degree. She knows my trauma probably better than me, but in my mind, I have not. I'm good. What's interesting is that I think and he's an avoidant. think that a lot of Gen X men are avoidants ah because they weren't taught how to even deal with emotions or they didn't have modeled conflict resolution. ah And so any conflict puts them on the defense and they don't want to deal with that. Whatever happened at the root of their childhood that they're insecure about gets triggered. But then they have to be able to look at that and unpack that. I think it's it can be insidious and hidden to your point. They don't talk about anything or want to deal with anything. So it's it's almost like concrete in there. It's so buried that they think everything's fine. But then if you're married to someone like that or, you know, involved with someone like that, you know, their triggers, because when it's pattern behavior, when certain things happen, you're like, oh, that's a trigger. Mm-hmm. know probably where it came from, but they still they have to be ready to unpack that. I don't know you've noticed, if you go through our episodes, Brian's story is not up there yet. My story is that he's not ready yet. What's interesting, I think the reason I'm curious about your background in psychology, I have a psych degree. I have a BS in psychology, you know, bullshit. But I technically have a BS in psychology. And I think of that time, a lot of questions were answered. And I think that's what drew me to psychology. you know, Freud's the easy one, but a little awkward and weird, but I love Carl Jung. Before I forget to tell you, Modern Man in Search of a Soul. I don't know if you've ever read through that, but it's pretty good in terms of explaining how the world kind of works in the mind and how we fit in as into society as an individual. so I don't know if I've gone through therapy per se, but learning all of that stuff. you all the different psychologists and stuff, you you learn to be less hard on yourself, I guess, because you can start to rationalize, which is a defense mechanism, but it's also a great way to explain what you're experiencing, maybe what you're feeling, what's going on around the world and how you fit into it. It's a, that's why I was curious about your psych stuff, but I think I went through a lot of that. So I'm not too hard on myself. I'm not saying I'm not an asshole at times. or insensitive, you know, somehow we've made it this long with my bullshit, but uh yeah. He's good at self-reflection after the fact. I will say that and learning from it. And I find it, don't know this is true with all men at this age, but I feel like when they hit their 50 mark, they start to almost have like an enlightenment and actually start to appreciate their life. I don't know if it's a maturity jump or if it's maybe looking at their mortality. But I feel like in a lot of ways they start to actually look around and live more intentionally. I think it's our own version of protocols. Maybe. Probably. Because it's something I even ask guys my age. We had a guest on the other day who was a boomer and I asked him, when did you start to have this uh enlightenment or realization of, know, I don't know what it was, but something goes off in our heads where you start to ponder things. And maybe it's our own mortality. I have another friend who I So, you I'm almost the weird one now being like, when did that happen? Because I'm feeling like I can see things differently now. It's interesting you said, though, um the version of male menopause, because it's interesting for women, we stop giving a fuck. that menopause gives us that freedom to be like, I'm focus on myself. I'm done. But for them, it's almost the opposite. They've been like that. And now they're actually like, I almost like shit, I'm going to die soon. But like they start to appreciate and reckon, I don't know. I don't know what that is. But they definitely go through something. I think physiologically it's called andropause or something, right? I think it's like, hormonally, they go through something too. uh Well, I mean, they do lose testosterone and they do lose some of their hormones. Yes, you do. uh There is, so Karajan, one of my favorite quotes of his is, you make the unconscious conscious, you will direct your life and call it fate. And that is so important because A lot of us think like if they say, I hate asking for help. It could be pride or it could just be that you're vulnerable and you have some shame and guilt around it. Or if you say, I just don't like being alone. uh Maybe you've learned that you were at risk when you were around other people, so you stay to yourself. So bringing things to light, and that's what I'm trying to say around this whole thing, because you were saying you think you have some things to unpack. It's like you have to think about the things that you do because we do them for a reason. And sometimes it's because of the fear that's hidden behind them. You know what I mean? And yeah, and it's just like, people would say, I'm just super independent. I have a girlfriend who says that all the time. And I know that she's an avoidant. And I know that she is independent. I will give her that. But I think she's very afraid to let anybody in because so many people have hurt her. So when we sit with the fact of, we're just like this, it's really not. We're not really like that. We're just being driven by the bad parts, our shadows and things that are just there, lurking around in our body. You have to read the book, The Body Keeps the Score. Okay, so you're like the third person who told me that I'm going to read that book. Is it like modern? Is it pretty new? Yeah, no, I definitely I'm to read that. So you were saying you were recognizing the things that trigger you. You also were figuring out what matters to you help trying to find who you are. Did you quit your job in the process because you said you didn't like your job? quit my job. Here's the funny part. I quit my job and I didn't like the industry. I moved here and I instantly got hired doing the same job. And I was sitting there and I was like, am I nuts? I literally typed the email, gave my two weeks, came home and I was like, I know what I want. I know what I'm meant to do. I'm going on my own journey. I'm doing what I have to do. And this is when I started my whole, I've been a coach probably since 2017. I used to work with women who were in narcissistically abused relationships. And that, was really heavy. um But I started out that way. um so, and then I went back to work. So I was doing it a little bit. And then when first moved here, I moved here a year ago. As soon as I, maybe September, October, I just started. preparing everything, doing my reset program. I started working with a book um coach who was helping me put it all together. I do all my stuff on TikTok. don't know. Instagram just doesn't like me for some reason. I can't get the algorithm, whatever. So I do all my stuff on TikTok. And I posted one day. I didn't know what to post. They say to post every day. So one day I was like, I don't feel like doing this. Usually I do my face. I talk. was like, I don't feel like talking. So I posted this random thing. the first, it was a carousel, how you slide through. And the first thing it said was, we are the first generation that are parenting without parenting tools. And it just got into what I was talking about and how it's changed and we have a different way of, it went viral. Mm. I can't believe that it went viral because it just wasn't something that I thought. But the overpour of people, there is such a community on TikTok of GenX. I don't know if you've ever been on there. Anybody that has their name, so it would be Gina Rania and a big red X, like everyone puts a red X. Everyone supports one another. I had over 2000 responses and I replied to every single one of them, but they all were in the same boat. Everyone was saying the same thing. They're drowning. They're sad. They feel like they don't know what to do. They feel lost. They feel like they don't have any communication with their kids now because of the way that they were raised. They raised their children that way and now their children don't like them because they don't like being raised like that. There was just so many things. It was so heartwarming and I was like, wow. I mean, there's so many people out there that are going through the very same similar thing. And I put it out there probably a month ago, and it's still, every day I get people coming in and commenting on it. And I was like, wow, I know that I'm going in the right direction because it's just something that's not talked about, you know? it's interesting because I always think about Gen Xers is I think there's those of us who raise kids the same way we were raised. And then there's those of us who wanted to break the cycle. So we raised our kids the opposite of how we were raised. And I think there's two camps there. And it's very interesting to see the relationships, each of those. sets have with their adult children. Are you finding that the ones who raise their kids the same way they were raised, is there more no contact or estrangement in that group, would you say? Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of that, you know. um And then, you know, listen, this isn't for everybody. Not everybody was raised with trauma. I love when people, it's like, it reminds me of like walking down the street and you look at somebody's house and you, you know, you go in and you make a comment. It's like nobody invited you. I mean, sometimes people come on and they're so mean and hateful. And I've had people say, I wasn't raised like that. You don't know what you're talking about. And I'm like, well, this isn't for you. I'm... reaching the audience that feels this because it's real. And, you know, a lot of millennials were coming in and saying, I don't talk to my mother anymore because she doesn't know how to act. I love her, but I'm not going to talk to her. And, you know, just so much of that and just so many Gen Xers, even boomers were chiming in and boomers like, well, we weren't given any tools either. And was like, I know, but I'm specifically saying there's such a Difference in the way that we were raised and now what we have with you know Millennials, it's totally different. You know, I mean Boomers raised us with tradition. We kept that we have that you know, we have the traditions and we have We do the right thing. That's just our generation even if we don't want to you know, we do the right thing We do what we have to do that's not so much as we pass it down going through the other generations They live for themselves Actually, I've never thought of it that way because the boomers I don't think did the right thing. I feel like our generation does actually for the most part. It feels like it. Well, when you say do the right thing, do you mean um as an example, caring for elderly parents who we don't want to care about, who we don't want to care for, who caused this trauma as opposed to going no contact? When you say Gen X does the right thing, are you saying traditionally doing the right thing? No matter how we feel, think that's what she's meaning. meant like recycling and taking notes, not littering. We try to not kill the planet too. But I think there's even Gen Xers though that don't. I think there's a group of Gen Xers that also are like, I'm not taking care of my elderly parent. I've got no content. I think there's a split. I do. think there's a split of... two sets and I'm really curious to see how the kids from the one side end up and the kids from the other side end up because they're coming from two different up means right. And the relationships those kids have with those parents. You know because I just like you we did put up something a short we're on tiktok to work on and it took just you know when we were first on instagram we were getting no love I don't know. really? couldn't and then one day we did and now we have it's we're doing good on there. But hang in there because we were like that and there was nothing and we're like, we're just never going to get it. And then one day we did and I don't know. But but with TikTok, we put something up that was about, you know, Gen Xers are kind of sandwiched between caring for children and then having to care for their elderly parents. Many times the ones who cause them trauma, whether intentionally or they weren't aware they were causing it. And we were flooded. And most of the comments were people saying they can go in a home and die on their own. I don't care. Yeah. It was so that's there too. yeah. But also GenX, mean, GenX holds the largest percentage of leadership in job roles. We have strong execution, independence, and we're very pragmatic. A lot of us are still working. A lot of us are still in these roles. There's 65 million of us. But again, I would take care of my dad in a minute. I love my dad. If he needed me, I'd be there. And partially because I feel as a daughter that is my role. As much as I try to live this life of, okay, I have to do what works for me, but he's my dad, so I would be there and I would definitely go help him. I don't know if I'd change his pants, but I would do what I had to do. But my sisters would too, so, but. think you guys are that example, Gen X, that like you said, we'll do the right thing. How we interpret the right thing to be, right? ah Because like my mom lives with us. I love my mom. We have a great relationship. But I had to go through some healing in order to for her to be able to live here and have to some very open conversations with her. And thankfully, she had the grace to want to listen and. acknowledge and so we had to work through some things so that she could live with us. But it was still doing the right thing having her live with us and we were going to do that either way. just I had to I didn't want to have to suffer. So I wanted to let's work through it so it can be an enjoyable experience. um So I wouldn't have been like and nothing nothing warranted me going no contact. Nothing happened in my childhood that would have made me. Like, wasn't, there wasn't domestic violence. I understand. We had people coming on that were saying, you know, my parents abused me and horrible things happened to these kids and now they're adults. I don't blame them for going no contact. You know, there's situations where it's like, I get it. You know, it's too deep. There's no, the way they're saving themselves is going no contact. And I completely understand. It's such a subjective thing, you know? But I think there's too, two sections. uh it's tough. really is. But I think that's part of healing to still care for them no matter what. Is that part of the healing? Is the forgiveness part of the healing? Or is it more of a detriment to put yourself back in that situation and getting re-triggered? I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. can't speak for a certain circumstance. um But I haven't had that with my father. If I did, um I don't know. Maybe I would stay away from him. If it triggered me and it made me feel sick inside, I would. I would definitely do that. Yeah, it's very circumstantial. you go no contact with your stepfather as soon as your mom passed away? So you had a relationship with him? I was, um, what do call that? Um, what do call that syndrome? when Stockholm Syndrome. uh I didn't. As a matter of fact, I watched his dog. He would call me and say, do you want to come over and watch my dog? And he died shortly after my mom died. He died maybe four years later. He got very sick. He had lung cancer, all these other issues. So he died. Yeah. also help? I don't really talk to her. um It just was one of those things where, know, if you don't have anything in common, it's just, you just kind of drift apart. um She did, she was the executor to his will. So I saw her for a little bit after he passed away, went to the viewing. But I mean, after that, I really, really don't see her that much, you know? Yeah. Well, see, I did the right thing. I wasn't on my healing journey yet. So if you were on your healing journey, do you think maybe you would have been one of those people that went no contact? You know what? just I'm not like that. You know, I don't feel like I feel like people do the best that they can. And, you know, I try to tell my kids that, you know, because sometimes like if they are upset about their father, like, look, he did the best that he could. I did the best that I could. That's all that we can do. I can only learn with the tools that I was given. So I try to give everybody a break with that. I mean, if somebody was beating me and, you know, left me in the basement in a cage, I mean, that's different. But I don't think that, I still think some, I did love him. He was my stepdad and I grew up in the house and there were some good times and he showed me how to mow the lawn. Of course I got paid for it, but I mean he showed me, we had a pool and was out of my friends over. So it was kind of like a very mixed thing. And the only time that he was really like that was when he was drunk. So I, I went to see him, he was on his deathbed. I went to see him in the hospital and I cried and I was like, you know, this is the man that I grew up with. so that's just my personality. I know a lot of people would have been like, I don't care. I would have left him. But I also have to live with that too. And I want to be peaceful in my old age. And I'm sure it still was conflicting in some levels, you even going through that and doing the right thing and being there. But subconsciously, there might have been still a little bit of conflict from leftover trauma, even though you're doing the right thing. I mean, just as a human being, you know, it's I would assume, you know, but it's still you can live with it. That's that's the thing. People need to do what they can live with themselves. it's true to my point earlier, you know, it's yeah, it's really what you can handle. But to this day, like I said, I still can't sleep and it's because of him. But you know, what am I going to do? Right. Right. So when you went uh started to become a coach for what you're doing now, did you take classes or because you were already certified? OK. the International Federal Coaching Federation. But then I went to HCI and I did a six month training where they, it's health and wellness. And I did that for six months and I loved it. I just loved it. was like, my God, I couldn't get enough of it. Just learning and so they offer at the end, they offer you like, you know, a wellness program and um like diet. And I wasn't interested in that. I knew what I wanted to do. I knew that I wanted to use my own system, which is my reset. It's acronyms, which stand for recognize, embrace, shift, empower, transformation. And that's my method that I go through with my clients that get us where we need to be. It's 12 week. But I also work one on one if somebody was like, hey, I just want to talk about one thing. The thing with, uh I'm starting to lose my mind at the end of this. Well, I was going to say, so at the end of this six months, you created your own healing, what would you call it? Did you go in with the program? Yeah. Did you know you were going to, did you come out with this or? no. So when I was going through it, I documented it all. And I wrote down what I was going through. And then I came up with this process. And I did do some beta testing on three of my girlfriends. um And I worked with it, you know, and made some tweaks to it. And it's just a program. Really, coaching is just coaching is not therapy. Coaching is assisting someone. If someone says, hey, you know, um I want to have a better relationship with my daughter, help. It's not like we're gonna dig deep and go into her childhood. We're gonna try to fix it through patterns and behavior and things that she's doing. And she holds herself accountable. And that's what coaching is, a lot of it is holding yourself accountable and me guiding you through that. So it's really, you know, what you want. this more, this is more geared towards women who are feeling like... emotionally drained, they feel like they're stuck in their life, they're feeling tired, they don't know why. You know, things like that where they just feel like, need a reset. Like, I don't know what's wrong, but I know something's wrong, but I need to understand what's going on. So are you finding that most of your clients are midlife, like 45 to 65? So that's, and that's where a lot of women are going through that, right? How much would you say it is tied to perimenopause and menopause? Well, anyone that's in between 46 and 55, I would say it's definitely tied to menopause. But that's like a lot of their moods and stuff. Do you feel being in that mental puzzle state though has um been a positive tool for them to want to do this reset, almost giving themselves permission because they're finally focusing on themselves and self prioritizing and not worrying about everybody else? Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And people are very controversial on the whole, you know, hormone replacement because in the beginning it was like, don't do it. Don't do a hormone replacement. My sister had breast cancer. My mom died of breast cancer. So I was told never to do hormone replacement until I started seeing a couple doctors. They were said, unless you actually had it, I am a risk, but unless I've actually had the cancer. I could do it. So I was like, you know what? It's my life. I'm willing to risk it so I have my mental health. And it's very low dose and it changed my life. You know, it really did. Is that part? So, okay, the acronym again. um Can you say it again what each letter stands for? So R is for recognize, and that's recognize what's no longer working for you. Then the E is for embrace, which is where you are without your shame now. So you're fully in your power and now you're okay with who you are and what you're doing. And then the S is for shifting your thoughts, which is your mindset, your habits, shifting all of that stuff. because you have to create new habits or there's no change possible. And then E is for empowering yourself, taking all that knowledge, empowering it, making it. It takes 66 to 90 days to create a habit. So any habit you have, now if you want to incorporate all of this new stuff in your life, it's like every day you have to do these things that you say you're gonna do, know, whatever habits people have. Some people wanna quit smoking. Some people don't wanna drink coffee in the morning. Some people wanna exercise, whatever it may be. And then all that, and then the final outcome is your transformation. So that's what my book is about too. It's 12 weeks. And you said in some cases you do one on one. So is the program a group studying? No, so the program is just one-on-one coaching with me. But I also offer other things. I also do one-on-one coaching. um I have a circle, a group circle, where that's everybody, where I just send out emails and I send out pep talks and little advice tips and stuff like that. So. someone comes to you and you kind of just alluded to this, it could be with anything, right? They're coming to you with something as simple as I don't want to drink coffee in the morning, it doesn't necessarily need to be. Okay, okay, so I'm having a midlife awakening, I'm having an identity crisis, I need guidance on help me transition into this next part of my life. Yes. Like for example, had one, I had a, how's it say patient, I had a client who is a hoarder. And you know, that's a lot of deep, not letting go of things. So, you know, we had to work through that and she had to let go of her stuff. You know, I had a, I had a person who was obsessed with shopping. filling the void, you know? So there's all different kinds of things. And there's people who are like, you know, I'm in a relationship. I don't know if I want to stay. I don't know if it's worth staying. um But I'm not going to tell her, don't stay in it. I'm going to show her, you know, what would it look like if you stayed? would it look like if you weren't in it? you dive deep into, you know, she already knows the answer. You kind of already know the answer. You just want somebody to tell you or you want somebody to walk you through it. feels like a fine line between therapy and coaching. I'm sitting here thinking, know, so I'm a hoarder. OK, you recognize that you're a hoarder, right? Embrace that and then shift to not being. I'm oversimplifying, obviously. Right. But that's that's the approach. Right. Interesting. yeah, so the approach is, well, why? Right? So why are you keeping all of these things? They don't know. They don't know because they're just obsessed with buying. You know, I mean, this girl's in credit card debt, all this stuff. There's stuff she doesn't even open. But it is very, it is very close to therapy. um But so. What I do is I have her look, okay, well, why are you doing it? And let's let go of some things. Let's take some of these things, let's start getting them out of the house. Let's start unpacking that. Let's start seeing how she can be by letting things go. What is it that you really don't wanna let go? Because that's really what behind the whole hoarding thing is. So you're guiding them like a coach, Yeah, she's like, know, after the 90 day, I want everything out of my house. This is what I want, know, blah, blah, blah, blah. There's no therapy involved. It's not like I'm, I'm not a certified therapist. It's just guiding her and giving her the tools to get where she needs to go. It's shifting into a transformed person. You're not cured per se. Getting her out of, yeah, out of her habits that she, you your habits are killing you, you know? Her mindset, getting her out of that mindset, helping her change her mind and seeing things in a different light, you know? that once you start, they, some of your clients go for therapy, but also maintain the coaching relationship? Some do, some do. Some want nothing to do with a therapist. know, some people don't want to sit down and talk about their past and be vulnerable and, you know, express how they're feeling. A lot of people say, look, this is what I want and I want to get there. So help me get there. So you're literally teaching them habits to get them out of their rut, to get them from point A to point B. There's always the risk they may fall back into point A if they don't deal with the reasons why they got there in the first place. But you're not there to deal with that. You're there to validate what's going on right now. You're in a very present state with them. Because like you just said, you're not going into their past and you're not concerned about their future unless they retain you again, you're in a very present state with your clients that we're dealing with what's going on for the next 12 weeks. That's what I'm hearing. Yeah. Yes. are you feeling? What are you sensing? You know? And as a result of you holding, helping them hold themselves accountable, I assume the hope is they will continue to hold themselves accountable once they're done working with you. The habits have been ingrained in there and maybe that whether that leads them to therapy or just they keep the habits going. Well, she's developing the habit through the coaching because like you're saying, the real time clock is 60 to 90 days. Right. I always say the hardest when you start working out, at least if you start again, I always say the The hardest day is day 15 because that's the beginning of your third week. And by the second week, kind of, you know, you're getting there. Day 15. Now you can get to day 90 or beyond. yeah. Well, it's funny you should say that because in coaching they teach you that, you know, people only can change in very, very small doses because it's too scary. You know, like I was saying earlier, your body is like rejecting it because you want to stay in this comfort zone. So you have to take small digestible pieces. And they say by the fourth session, it might be they try to get out of it or, you know, can we reschedule? Yeah. It's in the fourth session, the eighth and I think the 11th, where they say that that goes on this banter in their brain where they're second guessing it or, I don't know, because they're just so afraid to change. Yeah. that, what's the hardest phase, would you say? The first feels like it could be semi-easy because they've recognized I've got this problem. Second feels like, OK, I'm going to embrace that I'm going to go on a different path. But now the work starts, right? Yeah. that's the hard part where you have to cut out what's not working. You have to reset your mind. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Reset your mind. Look at things differently. And there's a lot of different tools that I use and books and stuff like that. it depends on, I could tell in the first week or two how extensive they're going to need what I think would work for them. how it would benefit them. And then, you know, there's clients that, you know, at the end of the 12 weeks, they were like, can we do four more weeks? I'm just not there yet. Like, it's like you're getting out of jail and you don't know whether or not, you know, you're gonna step backwards. So, yeah, but. hold them when you see them kind of slipping at a certain phase, how do you hold them accountable so they don't continue to cancel, cancel, cancel, so that you can continue um the success of the program with them? Well, so if they try to cancel, I slow up a little bit on the whole process. I just slow up and I give them some time. I haven't had anybody that's canceled. I've had them cancel once. After that, I'm like, this is your journey. I'm helping you get there. And I can help you get there, but you have to want to do it. And once they hear that, then they're like, you know what? Yeah. But they get afraid. I get afraid. I got afraid coming on here in the very beginning. I was like, I don't know. Even though I've done podcasts, I'm like, I don't know. I don't know what to say. What am gonna do? And it was just my brain. Your brain just does that, you know? It's... oh biggest challenge you've seen um with this age of women that are your clients? Is there one kind of commonality as far as one common challenge that you've seen among them? um... women who are going through divorce. because that's just a really bad spot to be in because you're in like a limbo and they're like, well, I just want to get through it. And it's really hard when it's raw and you're in the middle of that. And they don't know what's coming out on the other side, you know? And they don't know what their life is going to be like. And it's scary for them. So I think that definitely the women that are going through divorce. How do you help them um stay? How do you stay present with them in that space at that time? And then because you you you know that something's once you're done working with them, they're still going to have a long road ahead of them. What is the main thing you focus on for those 12 weeks? Knowing what kind of is that since you've gone through that, you kind of have an idea of the journey. What is the thing you you work on the most? oh where they want to see themselves in 12 weeks. Some of them aren't working, so they need help with trying to rebuild themselves, rebuild their resume, rebuild their career, to see if where they're going to wind up. They want to go back out into the workforce, and that's really hard to do at our age. Ageism is out there. People are already wanting, well, how can I find a new date? How do I go into that whole thing? m Some people are just, uh they just want a new life. I can't create a new life for them, but I can ask them, what kind of life do you want? Where do you see yourself? Because once you see yourself there, you're kind of already going there, and you're already gonna do it. And that is the manifestation of... A lot of people don't believe in manifestation, but I definitely do. And I think that when you're somewhere and you want to be somewhere else, you'll get there. You have to have the mindset. I mean, it's like, it's not just going to happen. You know, if you want a job that you go on LinkedIn and you see a job that you really want, you know, you have to see yourself there, see yourself sitting in the job position, but you also have to reach out to the right people, go through the HR manager and, know, do all the things, put yourself out there. And I think that it'll show up for you, you know, if it's yours. So. at the end of the sessions um to kind of let go of the client? Like you're in a way, you've helped them so much. You've seen this metamorphosis in 12 weeks, which is really not that long. That's a pretty quick amount of time. And then just to have to kind of let them go back out in the world, is that a challenge for you? It is for some. I also have this, I don't know if you've ever heard of Voxer, but it's a platform and it's like a little walkie talkie and I offer a Voxer support. So I have a lot of people that are like, know, I hate to disturb you, but right now I'm being triggered and I need to be talking to the trigger and you know, I'll Vox back and like that's all provided in my service. But afterwards, sometimes like somebody will Vox me and she'll say, oh, I was almost triggered, but I just want to tell you that I worked through it and I'm not triggered anymore. And it's just, it's so heartwarming. That's makes it worth it to me that I, that's my whole goal. I just want to help other people cause I've been there, you know, and I want to help other people and I want them to know that you can change. You can make the change in yourself. It's there. You can do it. So my shout out. is to all the women out there that are rebuilding and rebranding and reimagining their life. It's possible. How important um do you think it is for your clients to just simply feel seen? How many of your clients do you think, because we are talking about the GenX uh timeframe here, maybe are being seen for the first time by you, where you actually are the first person in their life that really is listening to them and seeing them and validating them and um their childhood and through the rest of their adult years. They weren't seen. They weren't acknowledged. Have you you witnessed that where you can tell? Yes. That's all they want. They want to be seen. They want to be heard. They want to tell their story. And I think through telling their story and having someone listen is really where the transition happens. You know? And when you hear it and you say it out loud, it's life changing. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure it's very powerful. I'm sure. What have you personally how has it personally changed you by working with your clients? I just, I love helping people. I love taking them from where they are and then taking them through the transition and seeing where they go and where they grow, you know, and get to the other side of it. You know, some people, there's some people out there I can't help. There's some people that need therapy that, know, that, you know, not every client's for me, em but the ones that I have, I just, love learning and teaching them. I love it. And do you also sometimes have moments where they teach you? Yeah. Yeah. m yeah. It's like a, you know, it's a give and take. Sometimes they'll say something. I'm like, huh, yeah, writing that down, you know, that's a good one. um But I really get myself prepared and I get myself prepared and I really, they take a survey and I really get to understand like, you know, where they're coming from. um If they've had therapy before, um you know, what... what is it they're trying to change, a little bit about the childhood, because we all know now that our childhood has everything to do with everything. But yeah, so, but there's been clients where I was like, don't think, you know, this is, I don't think we're gonna be good together. But there was only a few. not accept those clients? I just tell them that, know what, we're not gonna be a good fit. I can refer you to someone. Yeah. No. At first it was, but no, now, no, now it's just, and it's better for the client because they don't wanna work with me either. If I'm saying I'm not a good fit, then they're not gonna wanna work with me either. Yeah. almost feels self-evident. Yeah, probably. She feels obvious. So is it a community in that, people, do you stay in touch with your clients? Like is this reset community a place where you get back together with people or is there group meeting? You know what I'm trying to say? is it? Okay. my Reset Circle, I literally just started and all it is is a circle that you join and you get a newsletter every week and you get some tidbits about women, Gen X women, I'll give some articles, stuff like that. I'm gonna start incorporating like a workshop. So if I have 20 people in the circle, then everyone can log on and we do like a workshop together. I would love to be like have everyone and have. Every Gen X are up there giving their own little stories and stuff like that. I would love that, yeah. So for right now, it's newsletter, but right now it's just a newsletter and just, you know, just some prompts and some little journaling stuff and just easy stuff like that, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it would be remote. I'll invite you, Nicole, definitely. Yeah. Because I'll do a topic too, you know, I'll do a topic. Say I do a topic on, you know, I don't know, survival mode. because I feel like everyone's living in survival mode. We'll do a topic on survival mode and how to overcome it and what tools we can use to get over that and not feel like we're living in survival mode. Finding, yeah. about the book? So how is the book related to what you're doing? So my book is, it's called Gen X Reset, a guide to midlife reboot. So it's very similar to my coaching method, but it goes into detail about our generation, about what we've been challenged with. There's even, there's stuff in there for men, um you know, what men are going through. There's a lot of study cases that I've done and it's just all about like our generation. I freaking love our generation. I think like we're such a great generation. I feel like we're not connected enough. I wish there was like a Facebook that was just for Gen Xers and we could all be on there because there's so, you know, right now this is more of like a, you know, a psychology therapy type podcast we're doing, but I see so many fun things that Gen Xers do and. You know, they're always playing the music and they get the movies and they have all this fun stuff. And I'm like, we're so much fun. We're a great generation. Yeah, yeah. We should, we should have a Gen X convention. Oh my God, that would be, yeah, we should. It would be so much fun. You know what's remarkable? would be. What's remarkable to me is as a Gen Xer, our collective experience, how much we all have in common and no matter where you live, she grew up in Portland, we grew up in New Jersey. I can totally picture your town. But we have this collective conscious or experience. Shared experience. Shared experience. But what's interesting is when we were all going through these things. We didn't realize we all felt like it was only happening to us alone, felt very alone. And I think through social media, especially it has. I remember one of the first times I saw Gen X, they're talking on TikTok or Instagram or something. And they were what they were saying. I was like, they're describing my childhood. And I didn't realize that. And then there was more and more. it's like, wow, I wasn't the only one coming home at eight. when I was eight years old alone to an empty house, doing the dishes, getting to all these things that so many of us were doing that we thought we were the only one. So I found it to be incredibly validating. Just like at that age, I was like, wow, I wasn't alone. And I wish at the time you could go back and we could all have joined together then like a little game of support, you know. I don't feel like it's there anymore, you know? But I mean, like you're talking about through social media, we all kind of are getting glimpses of each other. uh but to get together in real life would be interesting to do like, you know, feels like a totally awkward. think it'd be wild. It would just be weird. have to get somebody for music from our time that would play. And what do mean? We're all just in this whole area and everyone's just kind of like hanging out and dancing. And hey, we could play whistle ball. We can play kickball. Yeah, everything Gen X, you know? Have moved. John Hughes movies playing have all the old foods that we used to eat that you can't even find anymore, I think. So, ah no, it's something that'd be really, really cool because I think there is a shared experience. There is a connection. And I especially think as we've hit midlife and we're all kind of looking around and So many of us are on a healing journey that I think we can find some humor now in some of the stuff we went through. We can put it in its place, you know, unweight ourselves of that heaviness. That's not even a word, but kind of unpack it and just live with things much easier, which helps us go into the next. Because I think most of us plan on living like we're still living. That's the beginning for so many of us. when um I went to Florida and I went to the villages, we're not living. They're living, okay? They're in their 80s and they're not going to doctor's appointments or sitting home. These people, I stayed there for five days. And my girlfriend, she's in early 60s. She took me out every night. I couldn't even keep up with her. We were going to... watch music live every night, we're drinking, we're going to restaurants. We were in the development, it took 45 minutes in the development to get to a restaurant. That's how big this place is. And I... we've driven past it. oh Not hundreds of times, but a bunch of times, right? Going up to Tallahassee or whatever. And it just keeps growing. Yeah, it's massive now. It's massive. And the story behind it's incredible, but it just, they're living. These people are out all day long. I was like, we're not living. Like I'm home, we're watching Netflix and we're numbing out, you know? They're over there living. So it's like. brings me to a question. Have you found that with working with your clients that a commonality is uh being functional alcoholics? A lot of Gen X women have been functional alcoholics through their life. Not in any of my clients. Okay, because I like just the wine every night, a couple of glasses of wine every night, having a few then drinking on Friday and Saturday, that type of thing. My question is what constitutes an alcoholic? In my mind, and when I'm using, probably should have put quotes, functional alcoholic, because I'm not certified in anything. ah But in my mind, drinking every day. think that's your, I was a functional alcoholic. I've talked about it on the podcast where, because alcohol doesn't leave your system for 72 hours. I know that probably for a good, ugh. 15 years of my life, there were very few days that there was no alcohol in my system. Because even if the last time I drank on a Sunday, maybe I didn't drink Monday, Tuesday, I probably drank again on Wednesday. But I know I was doing it to cope with life and numb things. Keeping alcohol in my system, yeah. But usually it wasn't just one, two, know, glass of wine. Then I'd pour another glass think it goes from a glass to where you're dusting off a bottle. I definitely got easily easily get close to it, but not I would get to where my body was wanting that glass of wine. Like there was like a time in the night where it's like I'm going to have that glass of wine almost like it's time to have that cigarette. You're not drinking it up. That itch. That itch. So in my mind that you're touching into functional. I was still functioning. There was a period that I was drinking enough. I'm not talking about getting drunk, but I'm keeping it in my system enough where I didn't realize I was waking up slightly hungover every day until I stopped drinking regularly and I was waking up normal. And I was like, my God, I was hungover a lot. Even if it's subtle hangover, just that heaviness, that tiredness, that not totally awake, you know, not a killer hangover like you were out partying the night before. But I just thought I was tired. And then I realized I was a little hungover. I was feeling the effects of the alcohol. So and I know I had many friends during that time that were doing the same as me. Or if we did anything, so the park, youth sports, anything, going to the movies, anything, alcohol was involved. There was nothing we did where it wasn't like, yeah, bottle wine or bring this or bring that. There was never a time, I can say that, where we did anything where we didn't have alcohol with us. And so, and I think for a lot of us, was just dealing and coping with life, with bearing things, keeping things numb, functioning, raising kids, all of that. So that's I was wondering, you know. an escape. I mean, I know for myself, you know, I don't drink every day, but when I do drink, like I will drink scotch on the rocks. And I might have to, and I mean, that's strong. But you know, you just, what are you gonna do? We gotta do something. I mean, there's gotta be something. But no, haven't really dealt with anybody that, or at least to my knowledge, had something. didn't bring that to light as part of the issue. Yeah. No, and I still have drinks on like I call them special occasions like the 4th of July or I save it for that for my health just because I feel like such crap. Even if I have two glasses of wine, I feel like crap the next day or I do like whiskey, any alcohol. Some people are like drink tequila, drink vodka. It does not matter what it is. I feel it the next day. Usually for two days I can feel it. I blow it. I get bloated. So I have to look ahead and think, okay, is it worth the way I'm gonna feel afterwards? And then I make a conscious decision. It is worth it. I know I'm gonna feel like shit tomorrow. I'm okay with that, because it's worth it for tonight. But it's a... It is, it's horrible. Yeah, but who cares? I'm willing to risk it. I'm like, I'm gonna go have a drink. What the heck, you know? I mean, we gotta have some fun. know, I know. And I think it also depends on how you react to it all that. Have you ever had Brothers Bond whiskey? It's really good. I know you said you drank scotch, but this is really smooth. Oceans is very good. Oceans is good too. Yeah. Oceans. Yeah. Yeah. Basil Hayden rye is really good. It's not even top shelf, but it's really, really good rye. I love it. Yeah, yeah. have a bar in our house. Do you have a total wine? yeah. So all that's there. Check out Brothers Bond. Do you watch the Vampire Diaries? Have you ever watched the Vampire Diaries, like with your daughter or anything? You would know. So the guys from the Vampire Diaries, the two actors started this company called Brothers Bond because in the show they're brothers. And it's like forty dollars a bottle. It's nothing. So we picked it up. My daughter likes Vampire Diaries. brought it home. It's probably one of our favorite. It's so smooth. It's dangerous because it is so smooth. can easily. It's so good. The bottle pretty stuff. You're in total wine. It's worth it. You know, brother's bond and oceans. Oceans is more expensive. It's good, but it's about 90 bucks. Yeah. And what's the other one? It starts with the bee. That used to buy a lot. Not the bookers. No, that's good. We said it wrong. I'll think of it. It was the one where you can say it one way or another. They have a bunch of different ones at Total Wine. So that's a Scotch belt. Yeah. Yeah. Well, she drinks. Yeah. Think of that one. It's Balvin. Balvin. Balvin is good. So, that's the irony. We have a bar in our house and it's really great because like when the kids are over holidays, all that we play around it. And whenever we have anything, people sit around it. We have a whole whiskey Scotch section. So it's not that we're anti-alcohol in any way. It's just for us to stay healthy. I haven't drank in 120 days. Talk about a yeah. Yeah. I just feel like shit. It's that thing. It's like I just noticed my hangovers got progressively longer and worse. It's like you have a drink on a Saturday. Right, and you're out on Sunday. can't do nothing. Yeah, you got to reclaim it back on Sunday. So now you're, you know, you're feeling it till Wednesday and it's like, oh, I feel like. start doing, I wish it worked for me because I would do it instead. I wish gummies worked for me, because I would just take some gummies. But they make me paranoid. Same. But if I, I, they make me overthink everything. I sit in, I have analysis and I just think about my life. You got to small and work up to it. You really do. My brain, no, they didn't give me the smallest dose. My brain gets so weird. I'm like, oh no, what's the shelf life on this? Because I'm gonna wig out if I have to deal with this for two more hours. have to just go for the ride and then when you're done you're like, okay. He says this every time like everyone reacts different. I almost wonder if that's a Gen X thing too. It's like I think if boomers did it they don't care because they don't have any worries. They're like we did everything fine. I don't care. But all of us Gen Xers are so worried about everything. But that's where the gum is. cape. Yeah. us, it makes us more like worried. Like I'm like, am I a good enough mother? Did I do everything right? I go down to the hole. You still have to be productive on a gummy. It's actually we can't allow ourselves to just be okay. So try mushrooms then try the psilocybin. That's like the whole mother. I heard it all. I'm willing. I am willing. If I have a few drinks, I'm like, okay, I know that tomorrow I'm going to be like, it's just not going to be, I'm going to, there's not going to have, nothing's going on for me that next day, but it's worth it. That's what I mean is like making that decision. Like, okay, I know I'm out. so it's where you're going to say I'm willing to try a gummy after a few drinks. And I was like, that's not the move. Yeah, no, no, there's no way that'd be crazy. I just think it's it depends on how your mind goes. But he has uh kind of an addictive personality so that if he has one martini, he's having four. Okay, yeah. where also I think him stopping is just that's the problem. love martinis. What's that? I feel great. I really do. Like I don't sleep enough. You guys are talking about sleeping. I don't sleep for shit. But without drinking, I wake up and after some grogginess, I feel good. I'm OK. If I was drinking because the. The booze messes with your sugars, right? It throws you off your metabolic activities completely out of whack. Talk about gut health, right? The alcohol, it destroys your gut and all the whole biome in there. I feel great, actually. It's amazing. Yeah, it's the longest you've gone. I probably will never drink again. Maybe I will, maybe it won't. Who knows? It's not a big deal whether I do or I don't. But he does enjoy his pen. Yeah. So let's be clear, know, like he. Yeah, yeah. Like when we go on a night walk, he has his pen and so he still has his his things. Because I can relate to what you're saying. You got to have something and you kind of do, you know, it's there's times like just on a random Saturday, I'll be like, I'm to have a couple of glasses of wine. Like, so I'll do it like when I'm feeling I want to have some wine. And you know what? I enjoy it. Mm-hmm. it. I uh enjoy the whole experience. Like if my daughter wants to have a glass of wine, I'm having a glass of wine. So I'm still living. But I was a daily drinker and I knew I'm not going to be a healthy 80 year old if I keep doing this. I'm just not my body's going to. I'm already fighting thyroid disease and Hashimoto's and all that. I'm already fighting things. So I need to help my body somewhere. But it's interesting you talked about, first of all, you don't look like you don't sleep. You look great. So the lack of sleep is not showing up physically. I that. um Yeah. So do you have anything that's worked for you? Are you still completely struggling with lack of sleep? Well, sometimes I take magnesium. and I take progesterone, which will, okay, so I take that, I take three milligrams, I take three pills of magnesium. That's what it says on the bottle. And I might sleep, I might not. It really depends on my body, excuse me. How much progesterone? Are doing 100 or 200? Okay, so you're doing 200. Yeah. And then the magnesium And it still doesn't knock you completely out. Uh-uh, uh-uh. a progesterone, the magnesium, and not sleep. Wide awake. Yeah, my mind will just, it goes everywhere. That's what I, that's, they're my only options. the magnesium and the progesterone. Okay, yeah. Those are your options. then, and but you still are finding that it's in your mind is still going racing, racing, and you just, can't let go. this is what's really weird. And I think it's hereditary, because my older son, he complains about the same thing. I can start to fall asleep. And the minute that my brain realizes that it's going to sleep, it wakes up. It's like now all of a sudden I'm thinking about things I have to go shopping for. Did I call my aunt back? What should I do with the food that's downstairs? I'll get up. I'll go downstairs. I'll hang out for a little while. Then I'll try to come back to bed. It is. really, really bad. Has it always been like that where as soon as you start to go to sleep, it brings you up? So it's not just a perimenopause menopause thing. This has been something you did to get worse through menopause. no, now that I'm on the hormone replacement, think that I used to get anxiety over it, but I don't anymore. Um, so I feel like I'm calm. I go to bed and like, well, we'll see if I go to sleep. It's my mind and it goes back to my childhood where I really, what I really need is CV. Like I need that, what do they call that type of, uh, therapy? No, no, that EM that, Yeah, like I need some, cognitive behavioral therapy. I need that where I need to like, it's a seven week program. You do it all day long and you do all of this repetitive stuff and you find like, I have to find, it's very hard to do. don't feel like, they say you should go through and build up like a little routine that you do every night before you go to bed. TV's off. your room's a certain temperature, you wear a certain pajama, your bed's a certain way, your pillow's a certain way, you turn on your meditative music, you get yourself into this, and then you do that every night. Like I said, habits take 60 to 90 days to form. And eventually, your brain will do it. And I tried it. And by day 100, I still was like, this isn't working for me. So. therapy, are you talking about tapping or matrix re-imprinting or EMDR? Are you talking about that, like where you do something physical as you're thinking about a past thing that happened? behavioral therapy is more like just like working with someone and you try to figure out like all these different, like what's going on and then working on like what's triggering it and working on the triggers and all of that. Which I'm very clear what my trigger is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. it's getting new tools from the therapist, basically. So is that something on your bucket list? I mean, it's there. don't know how, you know. I think I'm so used to it now that, you know, my dad doesn't sleep either. He says the same thing. He's like, I can't sleep. I'm up all night. And my oldest son says the same thing. But he just started taking something. He went to a nutritionist and they gave him something. I have to figure out what it is. It said it was helping him. Now, you know when I do sleep, when I do sleep, this is when I do sleep, if I do have like a scotch or two, I'll sleep. for like, until your sugar spikes. And you know, when you get that surge in the middle of the night and you're like, your cortisol and everything's happening. Yeah. partly why I stopped drinking because if I did have a drink even at six o'clock in the evening or whatever that would be considered still wake up at three in the morning and be like wide awake. Feeling like shit but wide And sometimes with anxiety like anxiety or alcohol induced anxiety and then you're and then I'm overthinking all those things you said but now I'm in a cold sweat doing it so it's like fun that's fun. it's the worst. this cold feeling and you just, anxiety. anxiety. Oh, yeah, yeah. It's the worst. Well, what you were describing, the cognitive behavioral approach, right? The room temperatures, right? All those things. It feels like that would create anxiety. What if the room temperature drifted? if all that... Something's off in the routine. Now you're hyper-focused on that. Totally. Yeah, totally. It's like I have to associate sleep with bed and only come in the bedroom when I'm going to sleep, you know, and just all those things, you know. doom scroll? Like do you go on your phone before bed? Same. It's the worst. And I even wear, I wear reading glasses because I'm old. I need to order them in my prescription so I haven't. So I have these funky big orange, like orange glasses. I put them over my, I look great. I look amazing. And so I have that. This is of course after I've taken my progesterone, you know, I've done my skincare routine so I don't look like a crypt keeper. You know, I've done all the things. It takes me an hour like everyone else probably. And I put magnesium on my magnesium lotion on my feet and the temperature. And so I do all the right things. And then I get in bed. I go on my phone. I throw it all. But I feel like it's my enjoyment time where I just can relax. And I love TikTok. I do. I love it. I call it TikTok at university. I learn so much. Yeah. And um I'm not going on for the podcast or anything. I'm going on for my own enjoyment. And so don't want to give that up. That's like my time. And I do get tired eventually and then turn it off, put on my white noise and silence myself. It's like, yes. I do too. Mine's brown noise. Yeah. Yeah. It's golden. the difference? I've done rain. No, mine is, it's like through Apple. So it's like there, it's literally called brown noise, but then I've done rain. Okay. the difference between brown and white? The frequency, think. the frequency of it. So yeah, but my brown noise always turns into music and all of a sudden, like halfway through it, the rain will get real loud and it wakes me up and I'm like, what the hell? And it's like, oh my God, this thing's, you know. Yeah. that cuz every time it thunders I'm like looking around so sometimes I'll have it he can't hear out of his left ear so I'm like but then sometimes he'll hear it randomly and he'll be like what is that and I've had it on for like 10 years I'm like it's the brown noise I've been on but go to sleep now but I can't that's the thing I can't That is that. Do you think that we want to sleep? We want to. It's just. So and then when I do get sleep, I'm like, I wish I could feel like this every day. So but I it got worse for me through perimenopause and menopause. And through my 40s, I was also still drinking daily. So I was waking up at 3am when the sugar was it was just a mess. It was. So you don't drink at all now? only special occasions. like I said, but no during no, it's there has to be a thing and I'm like, okay, I'm going to drink for that. And other than that, um no, because I it's a part of just trying to get sleep, be healthy, you'll wake up, work out, do all I can't function like that unless like I said earlier in the episode, you do all the things just to look normal and feel normal. have to give up things and work harder on things just to feel like how you did when you were 30 almost or try to at least, you know, so that's part of it for me. I can't have it in my life any more than what I already have it or else it affects all the other things I'm doing. So it sucks because there's so many times I just want to pour a whiskey, you know. jealous of people that don't have that problem. That can sleep and, and you know, they can drink and yeah, I can have three drinks and go to bed and I don't wake up till the next morning. I'm like, what, what planet are you from? Yeah. they get up and just roll like a bunny. Yeah. Out the door or whatever. Now, have you found with your kids, because now they're all adults, have they come to you or are you seeing things that you could help them with, but you aren't going to them? But have they come to you to get some advice or some guidance on certain things through their life yet? I gotta tell you, I'm really proud of my kids. With my daughter being a psychologist, she gives me advice. And she's really good at it. um My oldest son is getting into PA school, so he's into the whole science end. So he also is very, has very much wisdom, and he doesn't ask me. I mean, he might call me and say, how do you cook this? um But as far as coaching and stuff like that, there's none of that. They don't need me. My young guest, him and I kind of work together because he has a lot of reactivity. He gets very triggered. And I try to help him go through, have him understand what he's feeling, why he's feeling it. Because sometimes he gets anxiety, so I help him. I mean, it's not awful, but you know, it's a little bit of a struggle for him. I think when he's got a lot going on, he's at college, he's the, you he's the president of his paternity and um he's just always got people coming at him and he's very social. And I think when he gets a lot of, you know, that going, he's like, my gosh, I like, he'll come home. said, I just need to stay in the house and just be away from everybody. But no, my kids have done great, honestly, for what they've been given. I can't believe the outcome. they really, you know, they did themselves, they did themselves proud for sure. Yeah. had to do with their relationship with you and you guiding them and being there to have that authentic relationship with them and letting them be themselves, judgment free. is the key. And I think because I see so many of us as parents, you know, I my dad did it to me and my daughter, I never thought she'd go into that. And I said, you know, when she wanted to go to college, I said, well, go for this, you know, I wanted her to do something. was telling my oldest son, I wanted him to be a, the hell is it? A uh reporter, I wanted him to go into like reporting. And he was like, why would I want to do that? I'm like, because I want you to do. you know, they didn't listen to me, but. um The lesson that I've learned through my own kids is, like I said earlier, you just have to let them be who they are. And they'll like you more. They'll respect you more. Absolutely. think, again, I go back to, think it's so admirable, your ability to step back at one of the hardest times, I would assume it would have been to step back as a parent during your daughter's cancer fight. And I just think that's something people should take note of is even in the depths of that fear for your child, you were able to rise above that and give her what she needed, which was you needed to step back. I just, again, I think that's... I don't know if I could have done that. And I don't know if a lot of people could have. So I think that's just something I know listeners can take away. Because if you can do it in that experience, you should do it in all the experiences as they're tackling life because only good things result from it. Yeah. Yeah. My dad would call me and he'd say, did Nina get the surgery? I was like, no, dad. He's like, why not? Tell her to get the surgery. I was like, dad, it doesn't work like that. It doesn't work like that. Because I tried it. Go ahead. I was just going say, did you evolve into that or has that been more of a theme you've had with the kids for, I don't know, the last 20 years or so? Well, with this, I had to evolve into it because this was a whole different bag of tricks. Because not only was it in her thyroid, but it had spread to like lymph nodes. So I was literally like, I couldn't even eat for a long time because, you know, she just didn't want to go through the system. And she's like, I'm going to try to heal myself. And, you know, and I'm like sinking lower and lower. And I'm like, oh, You know, no. So she got diagnosed in May of, not this May, last May. And we went to Philly and we went to Jefferson. They're just good hospitals in Philly. They mapped out the whole thing and then she was going to get the surgery in October. And then October rolled around. And she lives in Austin, so October rolled around and she called me and she said, I'm not going to get the surgery. I was like, OK. uh What's your postponement date? She's like, I don't have one. I was like, okay. She's like, don't get all over me. You know, I know you're worried, I understand, but you gotta let me do my thing. I was like, okay, I will let you do your thing. But as the months went on, I'm thinking, is it gonna travel? Usually thyroid cancer goes downward, but it was going upward. So I was a mess. I was calling my girlfriends. And then I was like, I had to sit with it. And I was like, I have to make peace with this right now because I can't let this dictate my life, stress me out, put me on the stress bus, I call it, and constantly be worried. So I called her and I said, you know, this is what I want and I know you're not going to do it, but I want to tell you what your risks are and I will do whatever you want me to do. I'll support you in the best way that I can. And that's it. So she was like, thank you. And then how long between that and when she decided to get the surgery? well, a year later because she got the surgery in May. Okay, so for but you didn't know she was going to do that for a full year. That's wow. I can't imagine. I cannot imagine. she told me in April, what she was doing though, she was going and getting ultrasounds and stuff, but that really didn't mean anything. They were like, yeah, it's still there. uh But she told me in April, she said, I'm gonna get the surgery in May. I said, are you going to be sure? you gonna cancel it? And she was like, no, I'm gonna get the surgery. So she went, she got all her pre-work done and everything. And so I flew out to, to Houston and it was eight hours and they took 18 lymph nodes out of her neck and her thyroid. yeah, that's pretty massive. She recovered, I couldn't believe the recovery. She was laughing, she got up and she was just, But she's a big social, she's a big influencer on Instagram. She has over 200 followers and she has, she. She does a lot of coaching like I do, but she does more therapy. um But, uh you know, she put her story on there and she puts her story on there and you know, she's like, now that she's done it, she said that she's happy that she did it. for a while there, I was like, I don't know if she's gonna do it. Like some people say, no, not doing it, not doing it. But thyroid cancer isn't chemo or radiation, it's surgery and then you take a pill, a radioactive iodine pill. Yeah. that attacks any of the tissue that's left. So she kind of got a lucky cancer, you know? contained compared to others for sure. Yeah, but both of my sisters had thyroid cancer and two of my cousins had thyroid cancer. So I don't know if I missed the gene and she got it. I mean, who knows? But they say that these turbo cancers are out there and all these young kids are getting breast cancer, colon cancers, and thyroid cancers. Colon mostly because of the food and the gut biome. Yes. No, it's so scary. All of it is. I'm so glad she's OK. And again, I can't imagine what you went through. And I commend you on being able to sit with that and find a place for that. And you created a space for yourself for that. So um that had to be one of the most challenging moments of your life, I would assume. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. glad I assume you tapped into your program. Right? tapped into my program. I tapped into my scotch. Yeah, yeah. Well, before I ask my last question, I have a question. OK, I have a question about your program. um By the way, I think it sounds cool. I'm excited. I don't. Is the book out yet or you're? No, no, the book is not going to probably be out till the end of the year or January because my book advisor is telling me that she's like, you don't want to put your book out. It'll because November will probably be when we can be done with it. But she said, you don't want to put it out at end of the year because the holidays and all that make it January. So. So you definitely have to let us know when you come out. We'll go it out there. But my question is, the program, you say, I think you took notes and it was part of your own journey, right? And how far back, that going all the way back through your whole life? Just you as a person digging deep and coming up with that? And you developed that, I think, based on your own, say, recovery, or your own experience, right? Does that kind of make sense so far? Yeah, I mean, it's based on my own experience. I mean, I can do any program. I can just say, hey, I'm a Gen X coach and, you know, let's go through this. I made this reset program because when I started looking at the healing, the recognizing, the embracing, the shifting, the, you know, empowering and the transformation, like I wanted that all to be like part of the process. So when somebody is going through it, they're like, okay, we're recognizing, let's recognize what this is. I think over my whole life, I've always navigated some kind of therapy to friends and I've done things with friends and I've did a lot of therapy in small ways. And I know it works and I know what people need and want. And if they're okay and they want to do the change, then I know that I can get them there. So. what's cool about it is it is based on your personal experience and it's not just like I'm going to go read some Freud and some Young and some Skinner and Pavlov and come up with this kind of a psychobabble approach, right? Because there's a lot of that, that your competition in some ways, right? This is more of an authentic, genuine, real life experience program that's developed over time. yeah, no, it's It's authentic. Yeah, it's authentic. I like it. It makes a lot of sense. Yeah, thank you. And I love, you know, like I said, I love, um I mean, the book is gonna be, it is called The Reset and it is a guide to midlife reboot. I think that's the correct term for us, a reboot. Remember when computers first came out? But it also has a lot to do with GenX. There was a quiz in the beginning to see if you qualify for the reset or if you need the reset. um But yeah, it's really just about finding our balance and people want to be heard and they haven't been heard for a long time, especially Gen X women. And listen, and I love the men too. I don't know that the men would want to do the reset, but my writer always says to me, well, do we want to throw men in there? Because why is it always about the girl? And I was like, well, because I think women are more in tune and they want to do that. You know, men are, you know, men don't really, they're not interested. They're good. I think it's weird though, like we were talking about earlier, once you hit 50 where something's happening over here, where you start thinking slow down or whatever. So you might have something there. the men? Yeah, for the men. Well, but also what you're touching on as far as, you know, putting everyone before ourselves and the grind. much of that is female based. The role we accepted, we were led to buy into. and do in the home and all the things we've done as mothers, as wives, as women that we thought was the right way to do things, which was uh compromising ourselves in the whole process. So think that's a very Gen X female experience versus a male experience because they were living more the traditional male experience, which wasn't as sacrificial of themselves, guess, if I think. I agree. And there's so many people that I talk to, even not people that I coach, just women in general. I talked to women, they're like, well, no one's going to mess with me because I'll kill you because I'm strong. And I used to say that all the time too. I'm like, I'm never going to say I'm strong again because it leaves such interpretation that I have to be this person. I don't want to be that person anymore. I want to be that. Yeah. Now, I think there's strength in honoring ourselves and having our soft era and our feminine era. I think that's strong. Yeah, I think that's strong, though. And you're right. Like we were led to believe the stronger you are, the better of a woman you are. But as a result, you were denying everything was going on with yourself. So and that's also a defense mechanism. I'm strong, don't need... Absolutely. Yes, GenX doing that and disconnecting. That's another one of our great tools. ah Okay, my last question is always, where do you see yourself in five years? I see myself um taking off with my program, maybe writing another book. um And I'd like to travel and I would love to do workshops and speak. I just signed up to try to get on a TED Talk. I would love to get my voice out there and get it out there to Gen X women and just remind everybody that we're still here and we can still change our lives. It's not midlife crisis. We gotta get rid of that word. Awakening. Midlife awakening. Yeah, I think that's I like the workshop and the speaking tour. can see that. And I think, you know, if if a thing comes for a GenX convention, count us in. that would be great to see. well, again, we can't thank you so much for sharing this. I know. keep seeing a like go up. What is that? I don't know. That's Riverside. don't know. Yeah. When you talk, though, like the frame comes in saying you're talking. No, no, no. She sees a light like a thumbs up. a light. Yeah. Yeah. It's a Riverside thing. Sometimes when I'm editing, it'll come up. I'm like, oh, yeah, just ignore it. It's not going to be in the final thing. Thank you guys for having me on your show. I appreciate it. I had such a great time. Call me back whenever. We'll talk about more fun things, I promise. no, we can even dive deeper in, you know, if you as you're moving forward on this journey with your program, you know, if there's an aspect of it you want to dive deeper into, we'd love to have you back on and we can, know, even if it doesn't have to be as long as this, even if it's an hour, diving into that one, we're always open for that. So, you know, reach out to us and let us know for sure. And I have one last thing. Yes. how do people get in touch with you? It's a virtual world and how do they get in touch with you to, for you to help them coach them. Well, I have my own website, which is ginarania.com I'm on Instagram. I'm on TikTok. I'm on Facebook. I'm on LinkedIn. I mean, I'm on all socials. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. the YouTube description Podcast description if you're listening on Apple Spotify or one of the others just look at the description all the links will be in there Yes, and of course we will be posting shorts on our socials and we'll tag Gina Absolutely. So again the Gen X reset coach. I love Yes, yeah, yeah for sure and making me famous on the podcast. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. all of our listeners, we welcome all your questions and comments. And if you have any questions or comments for Gina, we will definitely make sure that she's aware of them so she can get back to you. So feel free to leave any questions or anything under our socials for her and we'll make sure she's aware of that. And um again, you can leave any for us as well. And we will see you next time. Bye.