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 the podcast, you can go to buymeacoffee.com/loveandcompassion.

Gissele: Today, we’re talking about creating true community, and We’re talking to the Society for the Involvement of Good Neighbors, also known as SIGN, which has been operating in Yorkton, Saskatchewan, and surrounding communities for the past 57 years.

Gissele: The organization operates 23 supportive programs for individuals and families of all ages and employs over 120 staff. Its CEO, Andrew Sedley, has been with the organization for the past 15 years. Previous to his work with SIGN, he worked in the healthcare sector in mental health, addictions, and public health.

Gissele: He convocated from the University of Regina in 2006 with a bachelor’s degree in social work. And as a lifelong resident of Yorkton, Andrew recognizes the value of the [00:01:00] not-for-profit sector in building community and supporting individuals and families within the community. Please join me in welcoming Andrew.

Gissele: Hi, Andrew.

Andrew: Hello, so glad to join you today

Gissele: Oh, thank you so much for being on the podcast. I was recently at the Yorkton Film Festival, and I heard about your organization and how community has come together, and I just had to talk to you. I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit about how SIGN got started.

Andrew: in 1968, we had four local clergymen that had come together and they’d seen the needs in the community really wanted to develop something that could provide more than what the churches could provide at the time. They’d seen a lot of individuals and families that were struggling, and they sat down around a table, and they came up with this great idea of an organization that could serve the community needs, and we’re gonna call it Society for the Involvement of Good Neighbors because we know as good neighbors, we’re there for each other, we help out when needed, and support each other.

Andrew: And so they started from that conversation, [00:02:00] and in 1969, they opened their doors. And, the first executive director at the time was Elton Davidge, and he was a long time member of the United Church here in town. And so the very beginning of our organization started more faith-based but from then has moved on now to more of a funded through government and that sort of thing.

Andrew: But one thing that they always wanted to do, and I’m a huge history person, so when I got here 15 years ago, we have this room for archives, and they kept every single newspaper clipping and, and so just I read, I spent a week reading the history of this organization. And one of their first meetings the four clergymen had was they wanna have the finger on the pulse of the community. They wanna know what’s going on in our community and how can we support those individuals and families in need. And from 1969 when they opened their doors until today, that’s really what we want to focus on is making sure that we’re meeting the needs and supporting individuals and families that need those extra supports.

Andrew: [00:03:00] We’ve we’ve changed. I’m a lifelong resident of Yorkton, and so I’ve seen kinda how we’ve grown, we’ve diversified, and as in many communities across this country, we’re seeing a lot more needs and a lot more people in crisis and needing supports. And from the very humble beginnings of those fou

Ep. 103- Can We Truly Create a Community Where We All Care About One Another?

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.

Gissele: And if you’d like to support the podcast, you can go to buymeacoffee.com/loveandcompassion

Gissele: Are you struggling with an interracial relationship that other people don’t accept, or have you survived or are struggling with intense and traumatic family and relationship challenges, or if you’re just someone who has the courage to follow your dreams against all odds. Today, our guest is Annie Waxman, author of Accidental Rebel: My Story of Interracial Love and Loss.

Gissele: In the late 1960s, she was a young, white, and privileged high school cheerleader who accidentally fell in love with James, the Black star basketball player. This was a time of deep racial tension in the US, and especially in a small town in Kentucky where she lived.

Gissele: [00:01:00] Accidental Rebel is a memoir of the journey of their secret relationship, which, when dramatically discovered , changed her life, her family’s life, and the small Kentucky town forever . Please join me in welcoming Annie Waxman. Hi, Annie.

Annie: Hi there. Thank you for having me.

Gissele: Oh, thank you very much for being on the show.

Gissele: we’re talking about race relations. you would’ve thought that it was the 1960s, but I think people still struggle with those relationships. People still struggle with accepting different races, as we see with what’s happening in the US, and so I think this conversation continues to be unfortunately timely.

Gissele: I was wondering if you could, tell the audience a little bit about how you fell in love with a basketball player and how that impacted your family.

Annie: Okay. the story is about, race, shame that I was told that I was, giving towards the family and the [00:02:00] town.

Annie: And forgiveness. I think forgiveness is also what the story is about. And, trauma, young trauma. I was, a young girl, very popular in high school, and, I did something that, my parents did not agree with. I was with a Black guy, and,they did not know that I was with him. I was sneaking around, uh, initially, and then many years later, up in, well into my 20s, I was still sneaking around, from my family and from them knowing what was going on I never was raised to talk poorly about people or to make any derogatory comments about anyone.

Annie: so it was kind of shocking, when my father and my mother, reacted the way they did when [00:03:00] I was caught, really caught, with this Black guy. we had, gone in a car. I used to meet him in the cemetery,

Annie: He would run through the back, and I would drive through the cemetery, and that’s how we would start meeting.

Annie: rumors were starting to surface that I was seeing the basketball player. and I didn’t even tell my best friend about it, who was also a cheerleader. So that indicates that I knew that probably it was gonna be problematic for a lot of people So, my father, who was quite powerful and very well-known in the state, had

Annie: Police cars following me. Mm-hmm. And, and they followed me to that area of town. and we had gone into a house there, and, we [00:04:00] were together. It was kinda the first time we’d been able to be together in actually a real location. though we do, did go down to an old stone church that was way out in the country at times and meet there.

Annie: so my father was knockin

Ep. 102 – Have We Really Changed? Love, Race, and the Prejudice We Still Refuse to Face

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 the podcast, you can go to buymeacoffee.com/loveandcompassion. Today, we’re talking about authenticity, and

Gissele: We’re talking to Alexander Kopelman, who’s a writer, social entrepreneur, advocate, and coach who has been devoted 40 years to advancing social justice and personal empowerment. As the founding president and CEO of Children’s Arts Guild, Kopelman helped create and grow a nonprofit organization that supports children in exploring and developing their authentic selves. Kopelman has authored and co-authored 10 books, including For Real!, helping children remain their authentic selves in a limiting world. He lives in New York City with his wife, daughter, and very small dog. Please join me in welcoming Alex. Hi, Alex.

Alex: Hi, thanks very much for having me on.[00:01:00]

Gissele: Oh, thank you so much for being on the show because this is such an important topic in terms of authenticity and how we can cultivate that in children. I was wondering if you could get started by telling the audience a little bit about how you got into this work.

Alex: sure. It’s really, very much a life’s work and, very personal to me. I, grew up in the Soviet Union when there was still such a thing until I was 13 years old, and came to the United States as a refugee, not knowing any English. Um, and the process of, creating an identity as a teenager in a new language really gave me, I guess a glimpse into, how choiceful identity is and, the kinds of decisions we make as we, think about who we are, share who we are with other people, and, find our way in the world, and in the story that we tell ourselves about our own life [00:02:00] and, the people around us.

Gissele: Yeah. Uh, you know, your story resonated so deeply with me because I had a very similar immigration experience. So my sister and I and our family came to Canada from Peru, and I came when I was 10. And I saw the journeys that my sister and I both took. So for me, I completely erased everything that was different ’cause it wasn’t popular to be Hispanic when I immigrated to Canada.

Gissele: You know, now it’s, like, cool and… But when I immigrated, it was like, it was weird, or it was different. And I wanted so desperately to belong, I completely erased my culture. And my sister sort of took the other path, which was she actually held onto it so tightly, and I found that she had experienced bullying because it was different.

Gissele: and so I so resonated with your story because it reminded me of my experience. And we do so much to wanna belong, right? It’s so ingrained in us to wanna belong, but to our own detriment. And it took me a long time for me to come back to that culture to [00:03:00] embrace those aspects of myself. were you able to keep aspects of your culture, or did you find that you completely, you know, 180 like I

Alex: I had a similar,experience to yours. You know, people ask me, “Oh, do you still speak Russian?” And I do, but, you know, I have to, uh, preface it with that I speak Russian the way a 13-year-old speaks Russian. And, I made a choice.to me it was very much about either I could become fluent in English, which also equated in my mind to being, indistinguishable, that I would, I would not be standing out, which was very important.

Alex: or I could hold onto some Russian and some Russian culture, and I went full on to being, uh, as fluent as I could be, as

Ep. 101 – Can Authenticity Help Us Create a More Loving and Inclusive World?

TRANSCRIPT

Gissele: [00:00:00] Choosing love after the unthinkable.

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. And we’d also like to take an opportunity to thank Yorkton Film Festival for voting our podcast Best Podcast Nonfiction for 2026, and Latin Fest Best Latin Podcast for 2026.

Scarlett: Wow

Gissele: Scarlett Lewis is the founder of Choose Love Movement, a non-for-profit whose programs have reached millions of children and educators across all 50 US states and 135 countries. Following the tragic loss of her son Jesse in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings, she developed award-winning programs that teach people of all ages essential life skills rooted in courage, gratitude, forgiveness, love, and compassion.

Gissele: Scarlett is also the author of several books, including Nurturing Healing Love and From Sandy Hook to the World, and her work extends into schools, [00:01:00] homes, communities, foster care, corrections, and youth programs. Recognized with numerous honors and awards and featured by many major media outlets, she continues to speak internationally about the healing, resilience, and power of choosing love.

Gissele: Please join me in welcoming Scarlett Lewis.

Gissele: Hi, Scarlett.

Scarlett: Hi. So happy to be here. Thank you.

Gissele: Thank you so much for being on the show. Your story is so powerful. I was wondering if you could get started by letting the audience know for those who might not know about Sandy Hook, a little bit about Sandy Hook and what happened to your son, Jesse.

Scarlett: Yes, absolutely. First of all, thank you so much for having me and introducing this to your audience. It’s really exciting. So on December 14th, 2012, so that was 13 years ago, my six-year-old son was murdered in his first grade classroom alongside 19 of his classmates and six educators in what is still the worst mass shooting in an elementary school in the US

Scarlett: after that, [00:02:00] I realized that what happened was 100% preventable . I just knew that inherently, and it turns out that is accurate. And w- I decided that I would spend the rest of my life in search of how we can keep our kids safe and well. So that was the beginning of the Choose Love movement

Gissele: When you say that you believe there was 100% preventable, what do you mean by that?

Scarlett: I mean that in every case in every school shooting, there are always signs. and other people had feelings and saw issues that went unaddressed. And the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting is no different. There were signs and things that were happening along the way.

Scarlett: One of the things that really bothered me personally in this situation in my own son’s murder, was that there was [00:03:00] never a motive assigned to that school shooting. And a lot of times if you follow these things there aren’t motives that are identified, and that really bothered me because I kept thinking, “If you don’t know why somebody is doing what they’re doing, how can you solve it?”

Scarlett: And it turns out we haven’t. And so what I did was look at what was currently in place, and a lot of times in our current system, we are very reactive and we focus on the problems. So even in school shootings, if you look at the Department of Homeland Security’s Pathway to Violence, it starts with a grievance, and then it escalates up, ideation, preparation, a few other steps to t

Ep. 100 – Choosing Love After the Unthinkable

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00]

Gissele: Are there limits to a mother’s love? 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 our podcast, you can go to buymeacoffee.com/loveandcompassion.

Gissele: Today, we’re talking with Sandra Cavanaugh is a creativity and communication specialist, transformational coach, consultant, keynote speaker, educator, podcast host, and best-selling author, as well as CEO of Spontaneous Brilliance , LLC. Sandra helps people step past the fear, frustration, and limiting beliefs to recognize and value their unique creative genius, discover their purpose and passion, take inspired action, and thrive as empowered conscious creators on the great stage of life.

Gissele: Through decades of working with children with special needs, Sandra developed [00:01:00] her deep belief that everyone is brilliant. We have no shortage of brilliance in the world, just a reluctance to offer it and a resistance to accept it. And as a very proud mother of four remarkable daughters, Sandra’s personal journey as a mother has made her a fierce advocate for children in foster care, adoption, children’s mental health, FASD, autism, neurodiversity, LGBTQIA+ rights- Yes

Gissele: and creativity in education. Please join me in welcoming Sandra. Hi, Sandra.

Sandra: Hi. How are you?

Gissele: Great, thank you.

Gissele: Thank you so much for being on the show. I was wondering if you could start by telling the listeners a little bit about how you actually became an adoptive mother.

Sandra: How I became an adoptive mother.

Sandra: I gave birth to my oldest daughter almost 36 years ago. and that was a very difficult pregnancy. And even though she was[00:02:00] Born super healthy. It was something that I almost didn’t live through and couldn’t do a second time. So we were telling her from about the time that she was two that we would adopt a little sister for her.

Sandra: And when she was 13 she came to us and went, “Hey, you guys if you don’t do that soon, I’m gonna be out of the house before you adopt.” And so we went through the process to set ourselves up for foster adoption. We were looking for one one girl, about seven was what we thought. and one day after we had put in our home study and gotten all prepared, I was looking at kids all over the country that were available for adoption, and I literally saw this girl.

Sandra: There was only two paragraphs on the website thing, and there were these two paragraphs there, and she was sitting, in a photo shoot that they had set up for her, and she was nine. [00:03:00] And I saw her, and I just thought, ” Okay, I can read between the lines here enough to know that there’s other issues going on that they’re not mentioning, but I’m supposed to be this girl’s mom.

Sandra: I’m this girl’s mom.” And I called my then husband and said, “Hey, y- you’ve gotta see this because this is it. This is her. I know she’s older than we thought. I don’t care. I’m supposed to be her mom.” And so we set out in the process, and just a couple of days later the social worker from there, which they’re not supposed to do, they’re supposed to call social worker to social worker, but instead they called me directly and said, “She has a biological half-sister that’s also just become available for adoption.”

Sandra:</

Ep. 99 Is there a limit to a Mother’s Love?

TRANSCRIPT

Gissele: [00:00:00]

Gissele: Have you lost trust in yourself? 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 our podcast, please buy me a coffee at buymeacoffee.com/loveandcompassion.

Gissele: Today, we’re talking about trusting ourselves, and our guest today is Natasha Ramlall, who works with high-functioning capable women who feel the ground crackling beneath them after a difficult life transition. As an embodied integration coach, she reflects the somatic mapping required to heal, expand, and evolve from an identity rupture, and navigate the space between who you were and who you are becoming.

Gissele: Please join me in welcoming Natasha. Hi, Natasha.

Tasha: Hi, Gissele. How are you? Good.

Gissele: Great, thank you very much. Thank you for being on the show.

Gissele: Just thank you, and I’ve really been looking forward to this [00:01:00] conversation, so yeah.

Gissele: I was wondering if you could tell the audience a little bit about how you got started in this work.

Tasha: It’s such an interesting question because tracing that path, it’s, I always feel like I’m getting it a bit wrong, because it’s certainly not linear, that’s for sure. But I do identify with that- that nudge telling you that something in your life is off. And it started off, a little bit quieter, quiet enough that I could shove it aside in favor of familiarity and convenience and ease and comfort.

Tasha: But it just kept getting louder. And eventually, I reached a point where I really felt like I needed to take a big step and change something. And, I’d already been very deeply [00:02:00] exploring the self-improvement world and, a lot of self-study, a lot of readings and seminars and workshops and podcasts and all the different things.

Tasha: And I was fascinated and really drawn into everything that I was learning about the body-mind system. And eventually, I was led to coaching and I, started that, that certification, a dual certification in life and health coaching. And that really opened something up inside of me.

Tasha: But as most people who go into coach training come to realize, it’s really just a foundation for a much greater and more specific way for each of us to understand our own experience and what we’re here to contribute to the collective. And so from there, I was [00:03:00] led into various other disciplines.

Tasha: One of my favorite offerings is Around Embodied Dance, which is something that I offer in my local community and it’s become a really special and sacred practice for me both as a participant and as a facilitator. And also various forms of breathwork. And then I really came face to face with the limitations of doing healing work from that cognitive sort of behavioral coaching lens.

Tasha: And not to invalidate cognitive behavioral coaching because I think it’s incredibly powerful and that there’s a lot to be gained from reframing and, attending to our mindset and understanding the world through a new lens. But for people who are really in the thick of [00:04:00] making a significant change in their life they usually reach a point where that’s just not enough.

Tasha: And so the additional training I have thrown myself into is embodiment, and I took some intensive training in embodied processing. And so from all of those different things I’ve crafted what I feel I’m h

Ep. 98 – Are You Dealing with An Identity Crisis?

TRANSCRIPT

Gissele: [00:00:00] 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 more amazing content. And if you’d like to support our podcast, you can go to buymeacoffee.com/loveandcompassion. Today, we’re gonna be talking about the power of surrender, and we’re talking with Darryl Ditmer.

Gissele: After a humble and often tumultuous beginning to his life, Darryl Ditmer was confronted with a crossroads at the age of 19. Now having found success in many areas of life, Darryl has committed himself to helping others do the same through his coaching, his books, interactions, and how he chooses to show up in his world every day.

Gissele: Darryl lives with his wife, Christina, in the mountains of north Georgia, where a quieter life reinforces the same truths he teaches. Please join me in welcoming Darryl. Hi, Darryl.

Daryl: Hello. Thanks so much, Gissele. I appreciate you having me on.

Gissele: Yes, of [00:01:00] course. I was wondering if you could start by telling the audience a little bit about some of your beginnings and some of the struggles, and what the pivotal point was for you.

Daryl: Sure. I was born in the Midwest, and actually in Detroit, in Michigan. And my dad was a mechanic, and my mom took care of us kids and the household and it was I guess a… It was just really normal for… At that time and in that place, it was just normal. Every… I thought every kid’s dad worked at either GM, Ford, or Chrysler, because it was Detroit, and either that or they were a farmer.

Daryl: And that was kinda how it went. So in and around the cities and suburbs was one sort of way of life, and then out in the country was another way of life. But… So my dad was a pretty tough guy. He was he was a Korean War veteran Just a big, tough, strong dude.

Daryl: And not an unfair guy but very, discipline-oriented, that sort of thing and that’s how I grew up. And I must say that my [00:02:00] mom was probably in many ways- A little tougher than my dad, and the reason I say that is because she had a difficult, a very difficult upbringing, and had some really difficult things happen to her, some very traumatic things.

Daryl: So that is from whence I came and a lot was expected of me as a young person in terms of grades, in terms of sports. And I believe as I look back that my parents were trying to live through us kids, and my dad was very sports oriented. My brother and sister did not embrace sports and my mom was all about manners and grades and, how we’re looking out there in the world.

Daryl: And so that to me was a lot of pressure. I felt a lot of pressure to perform, and I felt a lot of pressure to do well in all these areas that were expected of me and however that fit into my beginning of the drinking and the drugging career is how it fit. I don’t [00:03:00] blame, I don’t have animosity looking backwards, anything like that.

Daryl: It’s just it became my life. And so I started drinking and doing drugs, and it was a fairly quick slope that I was heading down. It started at 13 and it progressed and the thing that progressed is me becoming someone other than I was raised to be. I became a completely different person.

Daryl: I was… I became a liar, a cheater and a thief and, just did things that were not cool, not good things and that started to grate on my soul. It truly did, on my heart, on my soul, on my mind because I couldn’t get out of it. I didn’t know exactly what was wrong, but I co

Ep. 97 – Can Surrender Help Us Heal Our Lives?

TRANSCRIPT

Angel: [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, you can go to buymeacoffee.com/loveandcompassion. Today we’re talking about forgiveness and the ancestors. And our guest today is Angel Morgan, who is a globally known media psychic, animal communicator who works with ceremony she has been on her path and walked the realms for almost 30 years and considers herself the voice of the ancestors.

Gissele: Although Angel has her own private practice where she works with individuals and families, she loves being on stage and on the air where she knows she can reach so many to bring through messages of love and hope from their ancestors from across cultures worldwide . Please join me in welcoming Angel .

Gissele: Hi.

Angel: Hello. I’m so excited to be here.

Gissele: I’m so excited to be chatting with you as well. Oh, I’m so excited. it’s 2026. It’s there’s some exciting [00:01:00] things happening.

Angel: There

Gissele: are, was wondering if you could start by telling the audience a little bit about how you got into this work.

Angel: Sure. It was completely accidental. Of course there’s no such thing, but I I was a nonbeliever and I was the kind of person that really felt there had to be a limit to everything. And I happened on this wonderful little store in New Market Ontario, where I decided I was going to get my very first reading.

Angel: And at that point I was actually in theater and I, was in the last cuts of shop festival, Stratford. This was my thing. And she said, but you’re gonna be doing this with your life. And I thought there was a waste of money. And within six weeks of that, I had started having experiences and that led me right back to that store where I ended up getting a job and being there for nine and a half years.

Angel: And in that time too, I actually ended up in Guatemala. And in Guatemala they told me that I was going to [00:02:00] be speaking with animals. And again, it was like, oh, you people are on crack. This is not happening. And I came back to Canada where I’m from and I ended up at this healing center where everybody was signing these binders.

Angel: And I thought, ah, you know what? I’ll sign a binder. And I didn’t know what I was signing. And the week later I got an email and the email said, don’t forget, you have an animal communications course coming up. And I’m like. I’m sorry, what? And my friend said, are you going? And I said, absolutely not. And she goes, yes, you are.

Angel: And she dragged me. So I actually went to disprove it, to debunk it. And by the end of the by the end of the session, I was more than convinced. And within, again, six to eight weeks of that, I was working professionally as an animal communicator at that little store. And it was just a phenomenal experience.

Angel: And it has been for the last 30 years, and I’ve been working with humans as well as animals. And it’s been an exciting adventure, especially in [00:03:00] closure, and helping people, because my work very specifically, not that I’m solely a medium, I’m a realm walker, so I can do many things in the psychic realms.

Angel: But I love working with animals and humans to find closure with those who’ve crossed over because we don’t sometimes get that oppor

Ep. 96 – Beyond Death: Forgiving our Ancestors and Healing Our Lives

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

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

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