TRANSCRIPT

[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. And if you’d like to support the podcast, you could go to buymeacoffee.com/loveandcompassion.

Gissele: Today we’re talking about spreading kindness towards other, and our guest today is Braidon Johnson. He was raised in a broken home, constantly moving back and forth between his parents and attending about 15 different schools between elementary and high school. With constant conflict and both of his parents struggling with severe substance abuse, he emancipated himself at 14 and moved into his first apartment.

Gissele: School was very difficult, and he eventually dropped out at grade 11 when he had his son, Miles. It wasn’t until his 30s that he was finally diagnosed with mobility issues and ADHD. About seven years ago, he lost his mother to an overdose. [00:01:00] Just before she passed, both she and her brother were in jail after getting in trouble together.

Gissele: He was faced with the impossible decision of having to choose which one to bail out, and he chose his brother. Not long after, his mother passed away, and he’s been living with the weight of that. It has been one of the hardest things he’s ever had to carry. But he also realized that setting good boundaries and separating himself from that cycle was necessary for him to heal and grow and become the person and father he is today. Over the past five years, he’s done deep work on mental health, off and on medication for anxiety and depression most of his life. But through personal work and education with the CMHA, he gained a real understanding of how trauma and mental health work. He has managed well without his medication for the past few years, although he still deals with physical mobility challenges.

Gissele: but that does not stop him from working hard in labor-intensive trades. [00:02:00] Over the years, he’s worked different jobs, gained extensive experience in construction and commercial kitchens. Around age 20, when things hit rock bottom, he found himself staying at a homeless shelter, eating food like powdered milk and plain Cheerios for breakfast and even lunch, and bland frozen foods.

Gissele: That pushed him to rebuild and eventually working his way up through the culinary industry to fine dining at Ruth’s Chris. Today, he’s an entrepreneur running a property maintenance and landscaping business, Four Seasons Makeover, as well as working in catering. Having lived through childhood trauma, personal struggles with substance abuse in his 20s, and housing instability He created the Kindness Project, which today, alongside with a team of 10 dedicated volunteers, serves home-cooked meals and distribute clothing every Sunday at Victoria Park, supporting around, uh, 100 unhoused individuals as well as [00:03:00] local seniors and families facing food insecurity. They’re not tied to any religion agenda, their focus is simply providing high-quality food, dignity, and compassion. Their organization started with a simple question: What if people were just kind? Please join me in welcoming Braidon Johnson. Hi, Braidon.

Braidon: Hi, thanks for having me. I really appreciate this opportunity

Gissele: Yeah, of course. And thank you for being on the show. I was wondering if you could tell the audience a little bit about how you started The Kindness Project?

Braidon: Yeah, definitely. So basically, I had moved to Brantford, and it was in December when things started getting really cold and there was a lot of snow. And I was kind of venturing

Ep. 111 – The Kindness Project: How One Man is Loving People One Meal At a Time

TRANSCRIPT

Gissele: [00:00:00] Welcome to our award-winning podcast, Love and Compassion Podcast with Gisele. 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: Today we’re talking about compassion and grief, and we’re talking to Maria Belanic, who is a bereaved mother, certified grief educator, and a coach who supports grieving parents discovering how love and loss can exist in the same breath.

Gissele: Her eldest sons , Stephan was diagnosed with an incurable blood cancer at 16. After an 11 year struggle he died. Six months later Maria’s dad also died. What followed was limbo. 10 years of trying to fix her grief pretending she was fine when she wasn’t.

Gissele: Today Maria guides other grieving parents to carry love and loss together without pretending that everything is okay. You don’t have to be fine. Hi, Maria. Thank you for being on the show Hi. [00:01:00]

Maria: Hi, Gisele. It’s such an honor to be on your show. Thank you.

Gissele: Thank you.

Gissele: Thank you very much. I was wondering if you could start telling the audience a little bit abouthow you guys found out about the diagnosis and how the journey led to you actually helping other grief parents.

Maria: Okay. The diagnosis was actually something that we hadn’t even expected.

Maria: As a teenager, he was 15, 16. He was having not so much health issues, but things that the doctors go, “Oh, it’s a growth spurt. It’s this and that.” They couldn’t really explain what was happening. And of course, they found out that one of his organs was larger than what they had thought of, so they sent him for tests and things like that.

Maria: And that’s when it came back that he had a blood cancer, and then they found out that it’s really quite rare ’cause it only affects men in their later years. And my son was the youngest that they had ever seen it, [00:02:00] and they had no idea what it entailed and where it was going, ’cause most people most men who had it died within two to three years.

Maria: So to live with it for 11 years was actually something the doctors hadn’t seen

Gissele: And walk us through the process. So he fought for 11 years. That must have been really difficult for him and for you guys as well. And then at the end trying to grieve the loss of your son while at the same time trying to also grieve the loss of your dad.

Gissele: I’m wondering if you could share sort of what the journey was like? W- were there feelings of anger and frustration? And I know that as a parent myself, I love my children so much, as I’m sure you do too. It would have been really difficult for me to trust life, to trust God, source, universe。 and to try to understand such a significant loss as a parent.

Gissele: We always expect them to mourn us later on not expect [00:03:00] to bury your own children. So that’s probably one of the most difficult challenging concepts to get our heads around.

Maria: It is. It’s actually unimaginable to envision that your own child will die before you do, and it’s something that basically breaks the order of what we expect life to be.

Maria: And part of that, I always call the cancer journey became like a roller coaster that was our normal. It became part of our life. So after a while, you just… like the treatments, the tests, the hospital rooms, the crisis after crises became that cycle that you go, “Oh yeah, this is what life

Ep. 110 – Can Grief and Joy Co-Exist Together?

TRANSCRIPT

megan: [00:00:00]

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 more amazing content.

Gissele: Today, we’re

Gissele: gonna be talking about how to become more authentically ourselves

Gissele: and how to raise authentic children.

Gissele: And our

Gissele: guest today is Megan Fuccarelli,

Gissele: who’s a TEDx speaker, international bestselling author,

Gissele: and founder and CEO

Gissele: of Us Squared Consulting.

Gissele: Known as the authenticity

Gissele: amplifier, she helps leaders in organizations move beyond performative

Gissele: inclusion and into

Gissele: meaningful culture transformation.

Gissele: Through her

Gissele: care certification and metamorphosis framework, Megan empowers

Gissele: audiences to lead with authenticity,

Gissele: build trust, and create

Gissele: environments where people are seen,

Gissele: heard, welcome, and valued.

Gissele: Please join

Gissele: us in welcoming Megan. Hi, Megan.

megan: us

Gissele: Oh, I’m so excited to talk about this topic and to talk with you about [00:01:00] it. I was wondering if you could tell the audience a little bit about how you got started in this work.

[00:01:04] How Megan Got Started on This Work

megan: That is a loaded question. I will say that I originally went into my first chapter of my career was actually in the education system. I retired as a school superintendent, and what I learned in that environment was that our children are sponges for collecting everything around them, and they learn just as much from what we teach them out of books than they learn from the things we talk about and how we communicate with one another, and also what we don’t talk about.

megan: So when I left the education system, I wanted to lean into that a little bit more and have more honest, authentic conversation around who we are as people, and that’s what kind of drew me into this. It started as I was gonna own my job, maybe consulting with a couple school districts, and we just celebrated 10 years, and it has totally morphed into a much larger vision than even I could have held for myself.

megan: But I think the universe has a way of creating the [00:02:00] visions bigger than ourselves sometimes.

Gissele: Yeah. Yeah, definitely can agree with that.

Gissele: I was wondering if you could comment on whether or not the school system necessarily whether it reinforces or whether it detracts from us being authentically ourselves

[00:02:15] Do Schools Help or Hinder Authenticity?

megan: I think it depends on what school district or what school system you’re looking at. I think there are some schools who are able to model how to become more authentic, and at the same time, we have a lot of school systems who are detracting from that ability. I think it depends on who’s running the school district, who the teachers are.

megan: I think even in a very resolute school district who is very clear on guidelines that are almost detracting from that authentic

Ep. 109 – How to Be Authentically Ourselves Even With Difficult People

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 gonna be talking about true reconciliation. Our guest today is Celestin Gariyunka, who is a humanitarian and development professional with over 15 years experience in organizational leadership, humanitarian programming, refugee protection, access to justice, peace building, research, education, and partnership management.

Gissele: He currently serves as executive director of Prison Fellowship Rwanda, providing strategic leadership for programs in justice, rehabilitation and reintegration, refugee protection, MHPS, disability inclusion, mediation, and community development. He holds a master’s in in economics from the [00:01:00] Independent University of Kigali, a bachelor’s degree in mathematics education from the University of Rwanda, and financial management specialization certification from Cornell University, US.

Gissele: Celestin joined Prison Fellowship Rwanda in 2020 as a community-based protection officer and field coordinator, and he became head of programs in 2022. Please join me in welcoming Celestin. Hey. Hello.

Celestin: Hello. How are you?

Gissele: I’m good. I’m so excited to speak to you. I love the reconciliation work that you guys are doing over there, and especially in a world that feels so, so divided.

Gissele: Yeah. It’s such an important conversation to have. I was wondering if you could tell the audience a little bit about how y- the organization got started.

Celestin: Thank you so much, Gissele. It’s an honor to be here, and we thank you for creating a platform that reminds everyone that love and compassion are not simply beautiful words . But they are powerful [00:02:00] forces that can transform individuals, families, communities, and even countries.

Celestin: I’m delighted to share the journey of Prison Fellowship Rwanda and what we have learned about healing, reconciliation, and peace building with more than thirty-two years in Rwanda. Our organization Prison Fellowship Rwanda, to understand it well, I think we need to understand or to remember Rwanda’s history.

Celestin: As many of you knows, after the nineteen ninety-four genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, our country was left deeply wounded with more than a million people killed in just one hundred days, with m- families that were torn apart and communities were divided. The, the prisons became very much overcrowded, and millions of people carried visible and invisible wounds.

Celestin: [00:03:00] So in nineteen ninety-five, one year after the genocide the Prison Fellowship Rwanda was established because we believed rebuilding Rwanda requires more than rebuilding roads and institutions. It requires also rebuilding hearts, relationship, and hope. And our first work as Prison Fellowship Rwanda was to enter into prisons, preach hope, encourage repentancy, pray with inmates, and remind them that although they had committed terrible crimes, they had not lost their human dignity or their potential to change.

Celestin: So over time, we learned that spiritual transformation is essential, but also it’s it’s not only one part of the journey. So we established other programs like emotional healing, restorative justice, [00:04:00] restoring relationships between offenders and and victims, practical skills, and even community mediation.

Ep. 108 – Can Enemies Live Together? How One Organization Is Creating True Lasting Peace

TRANSCRIPT

Caroline: [00:00:00] 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 people pleasing, and I have Carolyn Jos, who is a PhD in molecular pathophysiology. She’s a researcher with vast experiencein health and wellbeing in autism. But most importantly, she’s a 47-year-old single mom of two teenagers. She’s lived through death, separation, her own son’s autism diagnosis, illness, burnout, career dreams collapsing, financial insecurity, and the feeling of being a stranger everywhere she goes. And yet people describe her as easygoing, fun to be around, always smiling, strong, and hardworking. From her own words, she says that most of her life she tried to please everyone, her husband, her parents, her employers, her colleagues, her friends, because she thought that she was a natural pleaser. [00:01:00] She said yes to everything, believing that it was helping. Underneath, she had a deep need for love, safety, and belonging. Please join me in welcoming Carolyn. Hi,

Caroline: Hi, Gissele. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me

Gissele: Yeah, for sure. I, when I heard your story, I really wanted to talk to you ’cause there were elements of the story that I really resonated with. I wanted to start by asking you, where do you think you learned that people-pleasing was the way to get more attention and love?

Caroline: That’s a good question . It’s hard to tell. I guess it was when I was pretty young. I have an older sister, she’s three years older than me, and she had some mental issues pretty early on, and it was tough for my parents, and my parents had rough times at that point too because they weren’t employed and they were struggling financially.

Caroline: So I used to hide , I used to be the one that for each of my parents would have no concerns. I was doing good at school, I was pretty easygoing [00:02:00] and I, yeah, I had no trouble at all. So I started k- I make myself a bit small and say yes to anything because I didn’t want to add to their burden already.

Gissele: So I guess that’s when it started, Yeah, and that’s often very common, right? With children when there’s one sibling that is suffering, the other one usually doesn’t want to add on to the suffering and, but also at the same time then is saying, “My needs are not as important as other siblings’ needs,” right? Which we internalize that messaging.

Gissele: We do internalize it because you don’t even realize it that you have some unmet needs. You just, you think that’s, it’s what you get, and you don’t think about it really

Gissele: Yeah, and you tend to derive value from taking care of other people’s needs, in particular your parents, right? Especially if you know that they are not coping well. But that’s not really the role of a child.

Caroline: Shouldn’t be.

Gissele: Have the emotional girth, yeah to take care of your parents’ needs when you’re just learning how to take care of your own needs, right?

Gissele: And so I think [00:03:00] that’s where difficulties arise. I wanted to

Gissele: read something that you had said to me, which is “No matter how hard I worked, I was never given the same opportunity as those who challenged, complained, or behaved poorly. I watch many of them climb the ladder effortlessly with resumes far thinner than mine, keep devoted partners while being constantly oppositional, or act like divas an

Ep. 107 – No More Hiding: Being Authentic and Stopping People Pleasing

TRANSCRIPT

[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 peace and love with Barbara With. She is an international peace activist, award-winning author, publisher, psychic channel, and composer and performer, and co-founder of Conflict Revolution: World Peace One Person at a Time, Starting with Self. Love: A Revolutionary Way to Resolve Conflicts of the Psyche as a Pathway to World Peace based on her work channeling the angels and Albert Einstein. She has authored six nonfiction books on metaphysics, including Imagining Einstein: Essays on M-Theory, World Peace, and the Science of Compassion. Barbara teaches and trains conflict revolution in the classroom and on Zoom, and is currently on a world peace tour, [00:01:00] calling out for the participation of the willing for a worldwide nonviolent action to end the age of war, starting with the self. Please join me in welcoming Barbara. Hi, Barbara.

Barbara With: Oh, hi. Thank you so much for having me. Good to see you again

Gissele : Thank you so much for being on the show. It’s such an important time talking about conflict and talking about division and peace. I was wondering if you could get started by telling the audience how you actually came to do this work.

Barbara With: In a nutshell, I started out actually on a path of music. I started writing music when I was 12, and I went out on the road and rock and roll when I was 17 for 20 years, and that was really my focus. But alongside, these things kept happening. For example, I had a friend whose mother was a channel, and this is back in 1970, so we didn’t call her a channel, but he said, “Come and see what my mom does.”

Barbara With: And so she said that she was an [00:02:00] antenna,

Barbara With: She would light a candle. She had this beautiful picture of Jesus, and she didn’t remember anything she said. And while some of it was predictive so much of it, looking back now, I was, I would say is about self-love. How to love myself. I came from a very traumatized background and, so I saw her for probably 10 years, and when I auto- I was automatic writing spontaneously one day, writing a letter to my friend, telling her how bad it was that she made judgments. And suddenly this beautiful information was coming through my hands that I had not anticipated to say, and because I have my work with Unis, I knew what it was, but I was still very surprised.

Barbara With: And when I asked, “Who are you?” They said, “You can… We are sound So because I had been [00:03:00] working with music for so long, I thought, “Great sound.” And that’s how I became a channel. In 1993 , I wanted to do groups and see what this voice of this antenna had to say to groups of people. And long story short two women in particular were sent to me by God, Theresa and Kim, and they came for readings, and they were like no one I had ever read for.

Barbara With: They were very, “What does this mean? And what does this mean? And what does this mean?” And they’d follow me around to my gigs, and finally it was like, “Here’s the group.” So we started organizing groups in our living room. We’d tape them and transcribe them. And when they asked, “Who are you?” The answer was, “You can call us angels.”

Barbara With: And these angels said they had this theory, if humans would resolve conflict in this way that they were theorizing, the byproduct would be world peace.

Barbara With:</

Ep. 106 – Can Self Compassion Help Us Create A Better World?

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. Today, we’re talking about unconditional love in relationships, and my guest today is Adam Guzman-Puell.

Gissele: who’s a holistic relationship counselor, coach, and existential therapist, and the author of the Amazon bestseller, Lessons on Love.

Gissele: He draws on 20 years of apprenticeship in spiritual traditions from around the globe, including indigenous elders, Buddhist teachings, and yogic philosophy, integrating their wisdom with modern psychology to help couples and individuals build conscious, meaningful relationships rooted in the sacred. When he’s not working with clients, you’ll likely find him having fun with his son,

Gissele: Arjuna and his wife, Adrienne, mentoring a young person or volunteering at a local permaculture garden in Bali, where he lives for the majority of the year. [00:01:00] Please join me in welcoming Adam. Hi, Adam.

Adam: Hi, great to see you, Gissele. Pleasure to be here.

Gissele: Oh, good to see you too. Thank you so much for being on the show. I’m so excited for our conversation, talking about, relationships and how challenging and also amazing and beautiful they can be, especially trying to unconditionally love people.

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

Adam: So gosh where to begin? I guess the journey of love is a, a journey of a lifetime. I think we all know that, right? But it’s,

Adam: For me, one of the, opening doors, the big opening doors of, finding love started actually in my childhood, and we’re talking about unconditional love, right?

Adam: This love and, I grew up with a little bit of a, a rough childhood. I was a little bit of a, a crazy teen, a little wild. Lots of some problems with the law and problems with drugs, alcohol. [00:02:00] And when I was 16, I was blessed to find the loving presence of an indigenous elder over on Algonquin territory in Ottawa, Canada.

Adam: And she was a beautiful woman, and she had this power of just, one of the greatest gifts of love is being able to see somebody. To see past, who, the, the mud and the conditioning, and seeing through to the heart. So she saw past what society may have looked at “Oh, here’s this messed up kid who’s like this and like that,” and she saw me at my core, right?

Adam: And so that was like, that allowed me to step into who I truly was, and that started the 20-year apprenticeship with, different indigenous elders, teachers through the p- process of meditation. And that was like the beginning of the opening of love and that’s… Yeah, that, that was the beginning of that part and, there’s other chapters and I’m sure we’ll get to those, but oh, yeah.

Gissele: Yeah. [00:03:00] I love that story. And I also wanna point out how key what you just said is unconditional love is the ability to see people as their true essence, and from my perspective is the divine within them. And so if we could truly love people, we can see them beyond their flaws, beyond what they’re portraying, beyond that, the hurt behaviors. But it’s … it can feel difficult to do that when we ourselves probably don’t see ourselves that way.

Gissele: Can you tell me a little bit about what you’ve learned from what are the, the core teachings from all of these different trad

Ep. 105 – Want More Peace In The World? Try Unconditional Love

TRANSCRIPT

Gissele : [00:00:00] 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 buymeacoffee.com/loveandcompassion. Today, we’re gonna be talking about finding happiness even in the most difficult moments.

Gissele : Our guest today is Karen Olson, who is the founder of Family Promise, a national non-profit organization that helps homeless and low-income families. Today, the organization boasts more than 200 affiliates across the US, with more than 180,000 men, women, and children served each year. In her book Meant for More, Karen tells her story from tragedy in childhood to an adulthood full of compassion and service, which has made her stronger, healthier, and more fulfilled than ever before.

Gissele : Many people seek happiness through acquiring material goods or achieving status, only to find a lack of fulfillment. With first-hand [00:01:00] testimonials from Karen and other volunteers, Meant for More is a call to action. When you reach out beyond yourself and seek to make a difference in the lives of others , happiness will catch up with you.

Gissele : Please join me in welcoming Karen Olson. Hi, Karen.

Karen: Gissele, thank you s- so much. I’m happy to be here. I’ve got a little cough today, so I have to clear my throat.

Gissele : Thank you so much for being on the show. I was wondering if you could start by telling the audience a little bit about your childhood and how that led you to to choose a life of service.

Karen: My childhood before I was 12 was very happy. Playing outside, going to the beach in the summer, swimming in Long Island Sound, and in the winter, skating on the pond on our street. And I just was happy-go-lucky, giggling and laughing all the time, having so much fun. I didn’t recognize that it was so happy until one day it [00:02:00] wasn’t.

Karen: When I was 12, I experienced a very tragic and sudden loss. My mother committed suicide when I was just 12. She had been depressed, and she was seeing a doctor, and her marriage to my father wasn’t good, and but we had no idea she would commit suicide, but she did. And since I was so close to her and my dad was an alcoholic I just, it left a hole in my heart when she died.

Karen: But that hole drove me to help others, ’cause I knew what hurt was, and I didn’t want anyone else to hurt. So I did various things. I volunteered at the ho- local hospital as a candy striper. I delivered flowers to people. And I played tennis with a man, young man across the street whose girlfriend left him, and he had cancer, [00:03:00] and he didn’t have long to live.

Karen: But it just seemed natural to me to wanna reach out to others, something I was not aware of before I had lost my mother. But the loss of my mother encouraged me to reach out to others, and I think it’s that drive, that passion that drove me on to create Family Promise and help so many people

Gissele : Now how did you specifically choose to help that population, the homelessness population, instead of like maybe some other organization?

Gissele : Like why homelessness in particular?

Karen: I started out giving sandwiches to people in New York City at Port Authority Bus Terminal. And actually, what led me there was I was on my way to a meeting in New York City. I was a consumer promotions manager. And I was about to pass [00:04:00] this woman who I had seen before. She was elderly. She sat on a crate outside of Grand Central Station,

Ep. 104 – How helping others can help us become happy when we are struggling

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

Love and Compassion Podcast-Where Gissele talks with everyday exceptional people
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