TRANSCRIPT

Gissele: Hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion podcast with Gissele

Gissele: We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for our amazing content. And if you’d like to support the podcast, you can buymeacoffee.com/loveandcompassion. Today we’re gonna be talking about how compassion can help us through the grieving process.

Gissele: And our guest today is Tony Stewart. He was a certified grief educator and author of the award-winning memoir, Carrying the Tiger, living with Cancer, dying with Grace, finding Joy while grieving,

Gissele: Tony and his late wife Lynn Kula painter, traveled extensively in India and Southeast Asia, staying in small hotels off the beaten track and eating delicious food with their fingers when cutlery wasn’t available.

Gissele: Hearing The Tiger is his first published book. Please join me in welcoming Tony. Hi Tony.

Tony: Hi Gissele Good morning, you. How

Gissele: are you? [00:01:00]

Tony: Thank you for that nice introduction. I am fine. And for those who’ve noticed, I’ve got a cat here who very much wants to be part of this discussion. Usually she’ll settle down now.

Gissele: Yeah.

Tony: Now that she’s, yeah, she’s more than welcome to be Perfect. Now she’s found my lap. Hopefully she’ll settle down.

Gissele: Beautiful. I want, ask you if you could share with the audience a little bit about how you became a grief counselor and author.

Tony: I would say it’s almost in the reverse order I studied.

Tony: To become a grief educator within the last year. It’s, the book is not informed by that. I wrote a book which has an extensive coverage of what happened when my wife died, and then of the grief that I journeyed through. And then the complexity of finding another relationship or finding myself in another relationship comparatively soon after my wife died, which was incredibly difficult for me.

Tony: I wrote that book. The book came out and I started to appear on podcasts to talk about it [00:02:00] and discovered that I found these conversations really interesting, and also that I knew about my grief, but I began to wonder whether my story was actually common and was I doing the world a service or a disservice?

Tony: It’s always a service to share your own story. Everyone’s story. Is their story and they’re real, and they’re real examples of things that happen. But I became really interested in what is this grief beast that I wrote so much about in my book? And what’s it like for other people and how can you help people who are grieving?

Tony: And so just less than a year ago, I took. An extensive course offered by David Kessler of grief.com. He’s one of the top experts in this field and became a certified grief educator. That’s not the same as a counselor. I’m not claiming to be a counselor, a therapist, a coach. Those require additional training that I don’t have, but I am available if anyone wants to just call me up and [00:03:00] talk.

Tony: I’m more than happy to help people to the extent that I can and listen and be there for people, and that’s what I try to do with that. I’m not trying to build a career for myself as a counselor, but I think it helps me understand, for example, when you ask me questions later in this conversation, I have both my own experience and also what I learned in the course sitting behind my answers.

Gissele: Be

Ep. 95 – Finding Joy During Our Most Difficult Moments

TRANSCRIPT

Gissele: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world.

Gissele: Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. If you’d like to support the podcast, you can go to buymeacoffee.com/love and compassion. Today we’re gonna be talking about immigration and the immigration experience, which is personally important to me ’cause I’m an immigrant. And our guest today is Andy Semotiuk, who is an author who has been published five times.

Gissele: So he has five books. He is a US and Canadian immigration Lawyer in practice law in Los Angeles for 10 years. Worked in New York for five and helped over 10,000 clients with various Legal problems. Andy is a former United Nations correspondent for the last 10 years.

Gissele: He has written for Forbes where his articles have been read by over 1 million readers. Previously, he served on the tribunal panel of the Canadian Human [00:01:00] Rights Commission. Past president of the Canada Ukraine Foundation. He is a distinguished Toastmaster and a communication expert. Please join me in welcoming Andy.

Gissele: Hi.

Andy: Hi. Nice to be with you. Thank you for having me on.

Gissele: Oh yes. Thank you for coming. This is a topic near and dear to my heart because I myself am an immigrant . I was wondering if you could tell the, the audience a little bit about your own history or your own experience with immigration and why you became interested in immigration law?

Andy: Yes, I can. I was born and raised in Edmonton, Alberta, but my parents were both immigrants from Ukraine. And for those who don’t know anything about Edmonton, it is a very distant, far north city, one of the top cities in, in the northern hemisphere. Very cold during the winter. It drops down to 50 below sometimes.

Andy: And I remember in my childhood days where I was going to school and [00:02:00] the temperature was something like 50 below. And, it was so cold that you could hear sap in the trees, cracking the trees from freezing when you were walking to school. And, it was a city in which you had to have a block heater to plug in your car at night in order to get it started in the morning.

Andy: That kind of a place, but. For raising young kids. It was a great city and I had a good childhood. Now, my parents came at different times to Canada. My father, my natural father came before world War ii in between the two wars as an immigrant, and my mother came after World War ii. And they met up in a sort of a strange way.

Andy: Basically my father when he came to Canada, he came married to another woman [00:03:00] and he had five children. And a six child was born on the way. And he came to a place called Park Court, Alberta, which is, 60 miles west of Edmonton and then 10 miles north. And the way you could describe it is

Andy: Park Court is not the end of the world, but you can almost see the end of the world from Park Court. It’s in the middle of nowhere.

Gissele: Oh, wow.

Andy: And when they arrived they. Started a homestead. He built a hut there, a house and et cetera. But one day while the mother, not my mother, but the mother of the children there, excuse me, she was cooking breakfast over a logs stove and she keeled over, she had terrible pain in the stomach.

Gissele: Wow.

Andy: And, so he ran out trying to get help to [00:04:00] get her to the hospital. There was nobody around. And so he got one of the kids to hit, hitch up the horses to the wagon, and they put her on the

Ep. 94 – Why Compassion is Needed in the Immigration Experience

TRANSCRIPT

Gissele: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele.

Gissele: We believe that loving compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. Today we’re talking about dignity and humanity within the prison system. And our guest is Fernando Murillo. Fernando Murillo is program manager for the palliative care initiative at the Humane Prison Hospice Project, where he trains incarcerated people to provide hospice and palliative care.

Gissele: for aging and dying peers. During his 24 years of incarceration, Fernando served as a pastoral care support worker in California’s only licensed prison hospice, and received end of life training from USC and uc Davis. He previously contributed to projects in California, Washington, and Norway focused on transforming prison culture and improving quality of life for both incarcerated [00:01:00] residents and correctional staff.

Gissele: Please join me in welcoming Fernando. Hi Fernando.

Fernando: Hello. Thank you for welcoming me. There’s not too many places on this planet that I’m welcoming, but thank you.

Gissele: Absolutely. I heard your story through a colleague of mine and I was really excited to talk to you. ‘Cause one of the things we focus on this podcast about is sharing compassionate and caring stories.

Gissele: I was wondering if you could share with the audience your own journey through incarceration and how that led you to become a leader in prison, hospice, and palliative care.

Fernando: Wow, that’s such a loaded question. Wow. So I spent approximately 24 years in prison.

Fernando: So my first 19 years I spent in some of the most harshest environments that the California prison system has to offer. These places are classified. One through four. Four being the highest level low, one being the lowest. I spent approximately 19 years in the highest levels of level four.

Fernando: Level fours have restricted movement, [00:02:00] limited amount of programming, limited access to family, and these prisons are typically located in some of the most rural areas in California. And just for context for folks listening when it comes to geography California is I believe the third largest state in the United States of America and area first in population with four approximately 40 million people.

Fernando: So when I say rural locations, they could be anywhere between 700 to four to 300 miles from location, or place of origin. I’m from the Bay Area in California. I’m living in San Francisco now, and it would be very difficult for not just my family, but. Other family members that would be traveling to visit their family members.

Fernando: So just a little context about like area and topography and distance. So yeah, spending the majority of my time in these locations, there was a limited access to anything that would help improve myself as a human being. So I would do a lot of self-learning self-educating [00:03:00] on this journey. And they were very perilous and difficult violent environments.

Fernando: So I, I spent from the age of 16 all the way till the age of 35 in these environments at the age of 35, I was lucky enough to be allowed to get transferred to a place called the California Medical Facility in Vacaville, which is located between the Bay Area and California and Sacramento. So it’s located in city centers and near coastal and valley communities.

Fernando: Not only did this transfer enable me to have access to my family that could come and visit me but it enabled me to have access to e

Ep. 93 – Do Prisoners Deserve Compassion in Death? What One Man Saw, Will Change You

TRANSCRIPT

Aline: [00:00:00]

Gissele: Hello and welcome to the Loving Compassion Podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. Today we’re talking about the power of grief.

 with Alene c Davis, who’s a creative mentor and an akashic channel who walks alongside sensitive souls at the beginning of their remembering after a life-changing accident. In years of learning to live with central sensitivity syndrome, she now shares her experience as a guide through inner work and self-healing.

Gissele: Through her podcast, accepting your sensitivity and practices rooted in ritual and story, she offers a gentle invitation towards deeper remembering self-acceptance and authenticity. Please join me in welcoming Aline.

Gissele: Thank you. I so resonated with your story. So as I was mentioning before the recording, my dog passed away. It’ll be [00:01:00] November, it will be a year in November, and we had him till he was 13 and he was a Doberman shepherd.

Gissele: did I do everything I could have done? And I felt so. Guilty. And I did not expect that I, in the beginning, I didn’t even want a dog. I never had a dog growing up. And it was my husband who wanted a dog, but that dog became my dog. He was like my Velcro dog.

Aline: My baby girl passed. It was two weeks today. And lots of people would say, oh, two weeks,

Aline: She came back yesterday forever. Oh God. And this is my first recording of any kind. Without her, I mentioned to you a moment ago, I went live and read a poem afterwards, but actually doing a recording that it is to inspire and help people. This is my first one. And I asked if she can be here and help me.

Aline: we’d had a really gorgeous day. She was giving me signs anyway, and in the [00:02:00] morning something happened and I contacted my own vet and I said, please, can you come and see her?

Aline: And he didn’t have a car. And I said I don’t want to put her in the car because, I don’t want to disturb her. she had a little accident, let’s just put it that way. And then I, so I cleaned her up and we were lying on my bed. I had all my beautiful music on from my spiritual mentors, their incredible healing music, which she loves.

Aline: And we listened to, I was in a workshop with my mentors last year in Germany. We were listening to the whole the first half of that. And we both fell asleep. And then I woke up, she woke up, we stretched out and I was like, oh, this, oh, it just felt really normal. And then the vet messaged me and said, I don’t like the fact that she’s sleeping and that she, you think she’s got anemia?

Aline: You need to take her to another vet. And I was like, I don’t want to put her in the car.

Gissele: Yeah.

Aline: And then I jumped on the bandwagon of his fear rather than just stepping back and going, do you know what She’s comfortable, we are [00:03:00] in this space, this beautiful space. And I, at that point, I was feeling she was getting better because she was starting to walk.

Aline: She was at one end of the bed and she walked towards me and then just laid down next to me. Normally she was here. So we lay and like I said, we fell asleep together. And then we would always touch pauses. I’d always sing to her. And it didn’t matter where she was in the house, she would find me because she loved the vibration of singing.

Aline: So wherever I was, wherever she was, she could feel me singing and she’d be. Like 10

Ep. 92 – Are you grieving the loss of a pet? You are not alone with Aline C Davis

TRANSCRIPT

Gissele: [00:00:00]

Gissele: hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. Today we’re talking about extraordinary acts of forgiveness and love. Today’s guest is Abdul Munin.

Gissele: Sombat Jitmoud, an educator faith leader and father whose response to unimaginable loss stunned the world in a courtroom in Lexington, Kentucky. After his son was murdered, Dr. Jitmoud publicly forgave the man responsible, embracing him. In choosing mercy over vengeance, what could have been a moment of rage became a living testament to faith, courage, and radical compassion.

Gissele: Abdul Munin.

Gissele: Sombat Jitmoud, Was featured in the National Geographic documentary, the series, the Story of God with Morgan Freeman. Since then, he has traveled internationally speaking [00:01:00] across faith and cultures about forgiveness, healing, and the transformative power of love in the face of violence. Please join me in welcoming Sombat.

Gissele: Hello.

Abdul-Munin Sombat Jitmoud: Good morning from Thailand Gissele.

Abdul-Munin Sombat Jitmoud: my make-believe daughter of the century, 21st century. Thank you. Thank God so much, Allah Almighty, to give us a daughter that have been waiting for 75 years.

Gissele: thank you so much. Thank you for being on the show and for the incredible message that your act has done.

Gissele: I was wondering if you could tell the audience a little bit about the loss of your son and how you came to be in the courtroom that day.

Abdul-Munin Sombat Jitmoud: Yes. I like to go back to, when I marry righteous wife, her name Linda.

Abdul-Munin Sombat Jitmoud: her father from Greece and her mother [00:02:00] are from Germany, so she born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. I came from Thailand from further of my higher education and I earned all of my degree, bachelor degree, master degree, EDS degree and doctorate degree in one of the university. I met this young lady, she’s also the minister of the Christian Church and she feel sorry for me for, she said Sombat, you are so nice person.

Abdul-Munin Sombat Jitmoud: And you, talk so much about God because, at that time I was reading the Holy Quran is my friend, because as a foreign student, you don’t have many friend quickly. So the friend I have on my life is I, I read the holy [00:03:00] Quran, the word of God Almighty. And then she said that I feel sorry for you, that you are such a nice person.

Abdul-Munin Sombat Jitmoud: You are very kind and you’re very helpful to me as a college friend. But, I’m sorry to tell you that you will go to hell fire. She said, I said, Linda, why you said that? We just met and become good friend, college friend because you don’t believe in Jesus Christ our Savior. So as a Muslim from Thailand, Buddhist society, I start to share my faith for a few words because we just first met, we just met a few days.

Abdul-Munin Sombat Jitmoud: She said, Linda, actually as a Muslim, I believe in Jesus Christ, but not as God or Son of God. I believe Jesus Christ is one of the great prophet of Allah who came before Muhammad over [00:04:00] five, 500 years. She was stunned that I believe in Jesus Christ.

Abdul-Munin Sombat Jitmoud: After that, we didn’t see each other. for some time she went to the bookstore and start, reading the Holy, holy Book of Islam, quran in English. She, because she tried to find a mistake in holy, to come and convince me that you see

Ep. 91 – Would you forgive your son’s killer? How one man got beyond revenge.

TRANSCRIPT

Gissele: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. And if you’d like to support this podcast, don’t forget to buy us a coffee at, buymeacoffee.com/loveandcompassion

Gissele: Today we’re talking about relationships and my guests today are

Gissele: Zeke and Terry Mead, who are empty nesters, midlife adventure travelers from the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021. After 25 years of marriage and nearly getting divorced, they accidentally rebooted their relationship and embarked on a new set of adventures.

Gissele: Embracing their differences in challenging themselves to grow individually and as a couple on a daily basis. They couldn’t be more different, but they have a long history, a solid foundation, and a steadfast commitment to making it work as they travel and explore the world mostly together. Please join me in [00:01:00] welcoming Zeke and Terry Mead.

Gissele: Hi.

Terry: Hi.

Gissele: Hello. Welcome to the show. I was wondering if you wanted to tell the listeners a little bit about how you actually met.

Zeke: Terry is the one who usually does it so . Go ahead.

Terry: Yeah, usually I do. we’ve known each other for 45 years. We, yeah, we both grew up in the San Francisco Bay area and when we were in elementary school, there was the gifted and talented education program gate.

Terry: And all of the kids who are part of gate converged at the same school once a month, twice a month for enrichment activities. And I have an identical twin sister. And one month we showed up at a school. Zeke remembers meeting us. I don’t really remember meeting him. But a couple years later, we all went to the same junior high school.

Terry: And so we were in the same classes. And in the eighth grade we went together. For about six weeks. I dumped him. That makes for a better [00:02:00] story if I say that. And then we were friends through high school and if you want the full origin story, we went to different colleges. We dated when we were 21.

Terry: I dumped him again. We dated again when we were 24. I dumped him again and then we were 25. I made a list of everything that I wanted in a man for the rest of my life. And Zeke met all the criteria, except he was essentially the boy next door that I dumped three times. So then we were skiing when we were about 25 and had a little bit too much wine that night.

Terry: And I just said this needs to be the last time and either we’re going to get married or friendship has to be over ’cause we just can’t keep doing this. And 14 months later, we were married.

Gissele: what kept you holding on there? Zeke?

Terry: Insanity.

Zeke: Yeah. When you are 10, 12, 13 years old and you start to develop these relationships with people, you are [00:03:00] your conscious, gloms onto just interesting, specific, different characteristics.

Zeke: And Terry was always someone that was just this person that I was always drawn to. And so whenever our planets would circle back around and come in alignment, it would all be like, okay, so I’m attracted to this person, and let’s see what this is all about this time.

Zeke: And then the counter to that, the joke is Terry’s ability to evaluate things at 25 obviously wasn’t very good.

Terry: I was playing the long game. Really? I was playing

Gissele:

Ep. 90 – A Second Chance at Love: Compassion, Separation, and Reuniting as Partners and Parents with Zeke and Terry

TRANSCRIPT

Robertson: [00:00:00]

Gissele: Hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world.

Gissele: Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. And if you’d like to support the podcast, please go to buy me a coffee.com/love and compassion. Today we’re talking about how to become a more compassionate civilization in light of the world’s most recent events. Robertson Work is a nonfiction author, social ecological activist, and former UNDP policy advisor on decentralized government, NYU Wagner, graduate School of Public Service, professor of Innovative Leadership and Institute of Cultural Affairs, country Director, conducting community organizational and leadership initiatives.

Gissele: He has worked in over 50 countries for over 50 years and is founder of the Compassionate Civilization Collaborative. He has five published books and has [00:01:00] contributed to another 13. His most well-known book is a Compassionate Civilization. Every week he publishes an essay on Compassionate Conversations on Substack.

Gissele: Please join me in welcoming Robertson work. Hi Robertson.

Robertson: Hi Giselle. How are you?

Gissele: I’m good. How about yourself?

Robertson: I’m good, thank you. I here in the Southern United States. I’m glad you’re in wonderful Canada.

Robertson: great admiration for your country.

Gissele: Ah, thank you. Thank you.

Gissele: I wanted to talk about your book. I got a copy of it and it was written in 2017, but as I was reading it, I really found myself listening to things that were almost prophetic that seemed to be happening right now. What compelled you to write Compassionate Civilizations at this moment in history.

Robertson: Yes. Thank You you so much, and thank you for inviting me to talk with you today.

Robertson: And I wanna say I’m so touched by the wonderful work of the Matri Center for Love [00:02:00] and Compassion. I have enjoyed looking at your website and listening to your podcast and hearing Pema Chodron speak about self-love. If it’s okay, I’d like to start with a few moments of mindful breathing

Gissele: Yes, definitely.

Robertson: okay. I invite everyone to become aware of your breathing, being aware of breathing in and breathing out. Breathing in the here and in the now. Breathing in love. Breathing in gratitude. I have arrived. I am home. I’m solid. I am free breathing in, breathing out here now.

Robertson: Love [00:03:00] gratitude. Arrived home solid free. Okay. And to your question, after working in local communities and organizations around the world with the Institute of Cultural Affairs and doing program and policy work with UNDP and teaching grad school at NYU Wagner, I felt called to articulate a motivating vision for how to embody and catalyze a compassionate civilization.

Robertson: So each of us can embody, even now, even here, we can embody and catalyze a compassionate civilization in this very present moment. We don’t have to wait, you know, 50 years, a hundred years, a thousand years. we can embody it in the here and the now. So I was increasingly aware of climate change, climate disasters, [00:04:00] the rise of oligarchic, fascism, and of course the UN’s sustainable development goals.

Robertson: I also had been studying the engaged Buddhism of Thich Nhat Hahn for many years, and practicing mindfulness and compassionate action. As you know, compassion is act

Ep. 89 – Creating a more compassionate civilization from our current state of fear with Robertson Work

TRANSCRIPT

Gissele: [00:00:00] was Luther King jr. right? Does love have the power to turn an enemy into a friend. We’re creating an inspiring documentary called Courage to Love The Power of Compassion, which explores extraordinary stories of those who have chosen to do the unthinkable, love and forgive even those who are deeply hurtful.

Gissele: Through their journeys, we will uncover the profound impact of forgiveness and love, not only on those offering it, but also receiving it. In addition, we’ll hear from experts who will explore where the love and compassion are part of our human nature, and how we can bridge divides with those we disagree with.

Gissele: If you’d like to support our film, please go to www M-A-I-T-R-E-C-E-N-T-R e.com/documentary. It’s mitre center.com/documentary Hello and welcome to The Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. [00:01:00] Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. Today we’re talking about self-compassion in teenagers. And my guest is Dr.

Gissele: Karen Bluth, who’s an associate professor emerita at the University of North Carolina, where she studies how mindful self-compassion improves the mental health of teens and young adults. She’s the author of five books for teens and caregivers, including The Self-Compassion Workbook for Teens and Mindful Self-Compassion for Teens in Schools.

Gissele: In addition, she’s a 2022 recipient of the Inaugural Mind and Life Foundation Award for Public Communication of Contemplative Research. Yay. As a mindfulness practitioner for over 45 years, a mindfulness teacher and an educator with over 18 years of classroom teaching experience, Dr. Bluth frequently gives, talks conducts workshops, and teaches classes in self-compassion in educational and community settings and trains [00:02:00] teachers in mindful self-compassion for teens internationally.

Gissele: Please join me in welcoming Dr. Karen Bluth. Hi, Karen.

Karen: Hi. It’s well. It’s my pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me.

Gissele: Oh, thank you so much for coming. I think this is a topic that it’s definitely needs to be discussed, and as a mother of two teens, I know the need for self-compassion. I was wondering if you could tell the audience a little bit about how you got started in this work.

Karen: Sure. Well it really takes me back to my teen years. I was in high school, it, I was a senior in high school. It was 1975 and I needed. A topic for an independent study project that I had to do for my English class. and it was due the next day. I was driving down the road. I didn’t have my topic of course.

Karen: I was driving down the road and outta the corner of my eye, I saw a sign that said something about meditation. Tm at that ti at that time it was transcendental meditation. It still [00:03:00] is actually, but I remembered hearing something about meditation in a different class in my social studies class. And there was something about it when we talked about it in that social studies class that resonated with me.

Karen: And I remember thinking, Hmm, that makes sense. So when I saw that sign out of the corner of my eye, I thought, oh, well, let me check this out. So I pulled in. It was this old house I remember, and I went in and I picked up some brochures about transcendental meditation. And talked to the people there and they said, well if you want to be initiated, and I think that was the word they used, come back Saturday at 10 o’clock, I think they said, bring flowers and a piece of fruit.

Karen: So it s

Ep. 88 – Helping Teens Be Kinder to Themselves: Support That Actually Works with Karen Bluth

Gissele: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to The Loving Compassion Podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. Today

Gissele: we’re talking about coming back together after estrangement, and I have my good friend, Iona Sky, who is a globally recognized social worker, consultant, and educator whose work is rooted in compassion and systemic change. For over two decades, they’ve helped organizations transform policies and cultures through equity, inclusion and accessibility strategies.

Gissele: Iona inspires leaders and students alike to see compassion, not just as a value, but as a powerful tool for justice. Please join me in welcoming my good friend. Hi Iona.

Iona: Hi Gissele. Thank you for having me here.

Gissele: Oh, you to be a part

Iona: of this.

Gissele: Thank you for being on the show and I’m so grateful to be able to chat with you.

Gissele: I mean, you and I have worked together for many years in the field of child welfare and [00:01:00] we did as we were talking off camera, we did some transformative work around the voices of children and the voices of families and how to work in more empathetic and compassionate ways. You were talking a little bit in your story about estrangement that happened between yourself and your parents, ’cause you’re part of the LBTQ community .

Gissele: I was wondering if you could share a little bit about Helped you make the decision to come back together

Iona: Mm-hmm. Thank you for that question. When people see me and my my mother now, my dad passed nine years ago you know, I think they would, they would be very surprised to hear perhaps that, we did not have any contact for seven years and that that was purely based on, who I am as a person, my sexual orientation, and what my parents’ journey in understanding and what their story was.

Iona: So seven [00:02:00] years of no contact and I got married, my partner had a son, all of these things. And it was actually at my brother’s engagement party. When I was invited, I went by myself and I saw my parents and from across the room after seven years and I looked at them and I, wow.

Iona: And I. I remember looking at them and seeing how they had aged in seven years. And in my heart, I was sad that I didn’t get to be a part of that experience. And I thought to myself, I miss them and I don’t wanna continue in this way. And so I went and gave them a hug and said Hi. And then I went and sat with my sister, and, we didn’t really talk, I don’t [00:03:00] think much that day.

Iona: And then it was a series of really slow steps my brother’s wedding. Slowly starting to communicate via email. And then because my parents they weren’t living in Canada at that time for for periods of time. And so I decided to go and see them and spend some time back home after I separated from my ex-wife because I needed to go back home and just get rooted again.

Iona: Mm. And, and I remember being very nervous. ’cause I’m like, whew, okay, how’s this gonna go? Right? Yeah. ’cause not only have I not seen them, you know, I haven’t been home for a long time. And I saw them at the airport and it was like old times. you know, my family,

Iona: We don’t talk about emotions, [00:04:00] we don’t talk about this kind of stuff, right? Mm-hmm. And, but we show, so for me it’s been learning especially with my son, talk about emotions, those kinds of things. We show us reactions, right? And s

Ep. 87 – GBTQ+ Family Estrangement: How Healing and Forgiveness Bring Us Back Together with Iona Sky

TRANSCRIPT

Gissele: Hello, and welcome to the Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. Today we’re talking with Rashi Nayar, and she’s on a mission to shift humanity from lower states of consciousness to higher states of consciousness.

Gissele: I’m so, so excited to talk to her today. We’re gonna have a great conversation and she’s gonna do a practice with me. Maybe you can tag along as well. So welcome Rashi. Hi

Gissele: Rashi.

Rashi: Hi Gissele.

Rashi: I’m so honored to be here with you.

Gissele: Oh, thank you so much for being on the show. I’m really looking forward to it.

Gissele: What led you to be on this mission to increase the consciousness of humanity?

Rashi: My own path to increasing my own consciousness, you know, to operate from higher states of consciousness, which is peace, joy, and love. You know, these are actually who we are and we explore that more as we go along.

Rashi: But I was very depressed for 18 years of my life, you know, since [00:01:00] 2007 when I lost my dog and in a car accident. And that was the first time I had experienced unconditional love that way, you know, someone loved me for who I am, not for, I had to prove myself or I had to perform. I had to be someone.

Rashi: I could just be whatever. And he loved me that way, right? And it’s very beautiful to get that type of love from someone in that way. And when I lost him, he was only two years old and he met with a car accident and he died in my arms. But that was like it was like an opening. And it was like my heart broke for the very first time.

Rashi: I had never experienced something like that before and I was grieving, but that was the first time I started asking questions like, who am I? Why am I here? What’s our true purpose? What is God? What is enlightenment? You know, all of that. Because what my soul was longing for was to connect back to that unconditional love that I had experienced from him.

Rashi: But I didn’t know, [00:02:00] I was always looking outside, you know, outside myself. And I entered toxic relationships because I thought that other people were gonna give that to me. I was very disappointed and I was very depressed. I wasn’t chronically depressed. I was depressed, but I was also living in a low, low grade anxiety for a very, like, very long time until 2025.

Rashi: This year when I lost another family member, I lost my aunt to ms. So that episode really shook me to the core and it forced me to sit in stillness with just with myself. Like no more reading books, no more going outwards, right? Because that’s what I always did. I would go to a spiritual retreat.

Rashi: I would, you know, go outwards, read books, do therapies, you know, do coaching. I did a lot of work, technically a lot of healing work, and maybe that was required, but. Nothing really significantly changed. You know, I was still the same. I was [00:03:00] still living with low grade anxiety and I was still the same. And but this time I went inwards and I connected with the part of myself that is infinite, that is peaceful, that is love.

Rashi: And I realized that everything that I thought about myself or the identity that was caring was actually not who I truly was or not, or not who I am. The identities or the masks that I was wearing, you know, the mom, the entrepreneur, and the aunt and the friend, all of those were really masks and identities that I was carrying.

Ep. 86 – Loving All Aspects of Ourselves with Rashi Nayar

Love and Compassion Podcast-Where Gissele talks with everyday exceptional people
who have overcome adversities and have wisdom to share.

Gissele Taraba

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