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Being Invisible is not Acceptable – a conversation with author and coach Sharon Rolph
16 Plays15 days ago
If you feel lonely more often than you feel connected to people, this episode of Rest and Recreation is for you.
Surviving childhood abuse made Sharon Rolph crave invisibility. Later in life she realised that invisibility didn’t really suit her.
In retirement Sharon Rolph discovered passions that led to her becoming a coach helping retired people enjoy a useful, seen and relevant life.
In this episode of Rest and Recreation, the work life balance podcast from Abeceder Sharon describes to host Michael Millward the abuse she endured as a pre-school child, and how this gave her a lifelong desire to be invisible.
Being invisible is, Sharon realised a lonely experience. Retirement gave Sharon the opportunity and the desire to overcome the need to be invisible and to live her authentic life.
In a frank conversation Sharon describes her on-going journey.
You can find more information about both Sharon and Michael at ABECEDER.co.uk
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Books by Sharon Rolph available from Amazon
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Transcript
Introduction and Host Details
00:00:05
Speaker
on zencastr Hello and welcome to Rest and Recreation, the work-life balance podcast from Abusida. I am your host, Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abusida.
Addressing Loneliness with Sharon Rolfe
00:00:19
Speaker
Today i am talking to Sharon Rolfe about loneliness and how to overcome it.
Zencastr Platform Promotion
00:00:25
Speaker
As the jingle at the start of this podcast says, rest and recreation is made on Zencastr because Zencastr is the all-in-one podcasting platform that really does make every stage of the podcast production process so easy.
00:00:42
Speaker
If you are or if you want to be a podcaster, give Zencastr a try. Use the link to zencastr.com in the description. It has a built-in discount.
00:00:53
Speaker
Now that I have told you how wonderful Zencaster is for making podcasts, we should make one. One that will be well worth listening to, liking, downloading and subscribing to, and perhaps even sharing with your friends, family and colleagues.
00:01:10
Speaker
As with every episode of Rest and Recreation, we will not be telling you what to think, but we are hoping to make you think. Loneliness is for many people a sensitive subject, so we would ask that you listen discreetly, and with concern for other people who may be able to overhear.
Guest Introduction: Sharon Rolfe
00:01:30
Speaker
Today's rest and recreation guest is Sharon Ralph. Sharon is the author of What Makes Your Heart Sing? A Fresh Hope Resource.
00:01:40
Speaker
It's well worth read and it's one that we have covered in an episode of one of our other podcasts, Fit For My Age. Sharon is based just north of Seattle in Washington State, USA.
00:01:53
Speaker
It's a place that I've flown over but never actually got out of an airplane
Ultimate Travel Club Promotion
00:01:59
Speaker
there. But if I ever do get that opportunity, I will make my travel arrangements with the Ultimate Travel Club because as a member of the Ultimate Travel Club, I get to pay trade prices on flights, hotels, trains, package holidays and so many other travel related purchases.
00:02:16
Speaker
Because I am one of the good guys, I have included a link in the description to the Ultimate Travel Club which has a built-in discount so that you can become a member and travel at trade prices as well.
00:02:28
Speaker
Now that I have paid some bills, it is time to make an episode of Rest and Recreation.
Sharon's Personal Journey and Coaching Career
00:02:34
Speaker
And it's great, really good to be welcoming back to the Abysseedah Podcasts ah Sharon Rolfe. Hello, Sharon.
00:02:42
Speaker
ah Thank you for having me, Michael. We're going to have a good conversation today, I'm sure. I am very sure we are, because you're a lady who is full of energy and concern for other people. So I think we're going to have a very good time and learn something very interesting. But before we do that, you know you've had such an interesting career in life. I wanted to you if you could just tell us a little bit about yourself.
00:03:08
Speaker
You know, we all know we're different. Well, I was different in that I skipped second grade. I liked learning even before I started school because mom would have me drill my brother and sister on their flashcards and I knew I'm better than they did when I started school and they were older. You're in America and second grade is a term that you would use in America, but what sort of age where you say when you skip second grade?
00:03:34
Speaker
Probably, oh, six a six or seven years old, yeah. Oh. right So you went straight into the class with the eight-year-olds, even though you would have been the youngest person in the class. even my graduating class. I was the youngest because of that. And I always was glad that I did skip. That that third grade was tough. i I was kind of feeling like I was lagging behind a little bit. But um i you know as the years went on, I was always glad I wasn't in the class behind me because I was more mature. my God.
00:04:15
Speaker
That's very important when you're eight years old. I was the only one in my family of five kids. was the middle of five. And I was the only one that went to college because I did enjoy learning. So I worked a year at a bank and then then went to college a year and then continued my education nights and weekends. But i worked in my first job was at a bank and then in college.
00:04:41
Speaker
IT career, and then eventually i put in 19 years at General Telephone, GTE. I never married, never had kids, and um by the time I retired, I also decided to start becoming a coach.
Living Authentically and Overcoming Invisibility
00:04:59
Speaker
That's when I really started living because was decided it was no longer okay to be invisible.
00:05:08
Speaker
And that's probably all this saved up energy that I'm using now in 77 years old. I would never thought you were 77. Nobody does.
00:05:20
Speaker
nobody does
00:05:24
Speaker
ah When you say were no longer invisible, you weren't going to be invisible anymore. why Why did you feel invisible? Well, Michael, i I wanted to be invisible from a very young age. You know, there's often trauma in our homes. And i um was asked at a preschool age to wash my dad in the bathroom. And it would be our little secret. and
00:05:58
Speaker
over the years, i i didn't have to do it a lot, but it it certainly felt wrong. And i i my older sister was a victim mainly. And I, thank heavens he keeps his hands off me with something i often thought. And I decided to be safe.
00:06:21
Speaker
I probably needed to be obedient, get good grades, don't rock the boat and be focused, head down, you know, kind of thing. And um so that i described myself a couple months ago as feeling very much tethered. it wasn't okay to be fully expressing Sharon all those years. I kind of learned it didn't, would make a difference anyway. you know nobody would listen to me I did convince my dad a couple times to let me go
00:07:00
Speaker
um to Seattle with some cousins and that was the only time I really felt listened to and you know when you when you don't feel listened to you it's easy to say why even why even try waste the breath yeah why Yeah. why yeah Why even try? If no one's listening, then why speak? if If being visible places you're in danger, then it's better to be invisible.
00:07:30
Speaker
So it was kind of sad. And the only other time I remember speaking up and changing somebody's mind was in high school. And we're trying to make a decision about what photography company we'd use for our senior pictures. I actually persuaded them to go with my ID, I guess. And So yeah, was never one debate or change somebody's mind, but I do remember that distinctly. What you're describing, there are some terrible aspects to it, and it's great that you can now describe yourself as a survivor of that and a successful survivor.
00:08:08
Speaker
The whole sort of thing, there is this idea that being invisible was desirable and safer, the thing that you aimed for, the thing that you wished for.
00:08:21
Speaker
What happened to change your mind about that? Why are you now so
From Invisibility to Influencer
00:08:25
Speaker
open? Why are you now on podcasts and and being a coach and helping other people? Well, Shirley, I always liked profiles that tell me, you know, how to understand myself and how I might be different than other people. And ah I filled out a profile um before I retired and the results came in the mail um just three, four days after I retired. And the thing called me an an influencer.
00:08:54
Speaker
What? You got this wrong. If anything was wrong, this is wrong. Where'd you get that from? And every now and then i would kind of like, well, maybe it's true, but I don't know.
00:09:09
Speaker
And then someplace later, I don't know how much later, somebody called me from New York City and said they heard that I had something to say, was worth listening to, and they wanted me to be their guest.
00:09:26
Speaker
Well, they charged me $1,500. Yeah.
00:09:31
Speaker
But what i I decided this might be a way to try some baby steps to see whether there was any truth to being an influencer. And I had, Michael, over the years, collected words of wisdom from books. When I'd come across a a great saying, I would...
00:09:57
Speaker
i wouldn't put it in a file, you know, and, and later I had been making these art blocks that that are kind of postcard size, and I was putting these words of wisdom on a fabric piece of art that I was making. So yeah, I, I,
00:10:17
Speaker
liked collecting wisdom. And that's, you know, people often like to hear that maybe, but they, they, I had no longer recorded the the session with them. And about three, four hours later, they called me back and said, yeah, you do have energy and, and you were,
00:10:34
Speaker
you know dynamic topics and all this. And and we' we'd like to encourage you to have your own podcast. They sent me a professional mic and helped me set it all up. And we recorded 24, 26 episodes.
00:10:51
Speaker
sessions on Spreaker platform, maximize retirement. And it was all about thinking outside the box. And I interviewed people that were in fact living their you know, later in life and were doing, um not fitting in the box, they were outside the box, doing like one of my first guests was a lady here in Seattle who did community service projects around the world and wound up feeding baby lions, um working in a baboon sanctuary and singing,
00:11:31
Speaker
two Chinese students in college students to help them practice English. And they, and she's saying, they asked her to sing the Beatles song. Imagine. Anyway, um, that, um, that was kind of fun interviewing other people and helping broadcast that there's more things to life than just sitting in a rocking chair.
00:11:57
Speaker
So, um, I don't remember where I was going with that, but anyway. It's how did you ah overcome your feelings of invisibility and the loneliness that that wanting to be invisible creates?
00:12:11
Speaker
Yeah. I felt it in the bottom of my gut, ah Michael, throughout my career. i I would keep my head down.
00:12:23
Speaker
i guess sometimes when we See things that others don't see. It makes it hard sometimes to fit in, too. You know, how many people do you know like wisdom or collect wisdom? That's pretty different.
Expressing Through Art in the Workplace
00:12:38
Speaker
But... um And I remember the day that I took some of my fabric art blocks into my boss's office. And I felt like I was sticking my head out. I was at Boeing, an airplane company. And where does art fit in there?
00:12:56
Speaker
You know, my knees weren't quite knocking, but pretty close. And I took in four or five of these art blocks with wisdom on it. One, for example, one of my favorites is worry is a misuse of imagination.
00:13:15
Speaker
When I left his office... That makes an awful lot of sense, Sharon. Oh, yeah. Doing your own thinking. yes Yeah. Yeah.
00:13:25
Speaker
So when I left his office, I was kind of amazed that he didn't laugh. He didn't poo-poo, you know, work... What do you think that has anything to do with what you're supposed to be doing?
00:13:40
Speaker
And he gave me license to see what I could do with it. What a gift. And it turned out that there, I don't remember if I knew this before I went in in his office or after, but I had heard that there was going to be a display event in the production floor and um three or four weeks, and I made up some special art blocks to talk that talked about trust because they they were trying to promote in this event our employee involvement groups where where you can help solve problems. That collective intelligence in a group setting empowers people to take problems solving down to the lowest level, I felt was my job.
00:14:31
Speaker
I did have some, some good conversations at that event by the fact that I had displaying these trust art block.
00:14:42
Speaker
um I blew them up into posters so people can see them from a distance, but a lot of people weren't that brave to talk about trust. So, oh, well, you know, we did it. And I figure we're always planting seed and I just planted some good seed that day, you know?
00:14:59
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Tell me about them, please. Well, ah one is vulnerability. And oftentimes, trust starts with being vulnerable. Brene Brown has a couple of definitions. Well, vulnerability, she describes as the willingness to show up and be seen without any guarantee of the outcome. Mm-hmm.
00:15:29
Speaker
And why I like that especially is because I invite magic to happen when I am vulnerable.
00:15:40
Speaker
You know, the map the the fact that I was vulnerable about telling it about my preschool event was experience was there might be people who are listening today who in fact needed to hear that story and know that they're feeling invisible might have had something to do with their own trauma and that they can be courageous and vulnerable to so to show up and be seen without any guarantee of the outcome because it might be in fact a miracle for someone else.
00:16:17
Speaker
So, and she... can Before you move on there, Sharon, going to ask you just to explain that a little bit more, please. Oh, yeah. Someone has is alone, what prefers to be alone, but it's not right for them, really, because it's not right for any of us. But they do that because of the trauma that they've had in the past.
00:16:40
Speaker
Being alone means you're not at risk anymore. Mm-hmm. But how do you had you capture that and sort park it and then enable someone to move forward to a state where they're not lonely so they can interact with other people?
Trust and Overcoming Trauma
00:16:58
Speaker
Because I imagine that a survivor of sexual abuse would not to be the someone who was comfortable with trusting other people.
00:17:09
Speaker
Yeah, I've learned ah quite a bit to respect trauma that others have been through. and there's a lot of us. I can't look at Michael and know what his traumatic experience was or maybe still is because it may be too, well, one, it it is invisible. It's inside. and And part of what's inside is what also holds us back.
00:17:39
Speaker
so the courage, uh, I started being courageous by taking baby steps. I'm actually on Instagram. I'm Sharon underscore queen of courage because, I've always had a strong sense of my own authenticity, even though I kept it quiet and, and, and knew that I was different, you know, all these years. But when i when I,
00:18:09
Speaker
decided that it was no longer um okay to be invisible, I started speaking up to people who actually might want to hear what I had to say. What a good feeling is that? And by the way, i throughout my career, I did often open the doors for others to be seen or heard. i It was not uncommon for me to call on somebody in a meeting that had been sitting there quiet and wondered, I'd call on them because I thought they might have something to say if I actually invited them.
00:18:51
Speaker
and And I always was delighted when I did because feeling seen and heard is priceless. Yes,
Vulnerability as Innovation
00:19:00
Speaker
yes. i like But it must have taken quite a lot of courage to push that door open.
00:19:07
Speaker
Well, here's another art block that I made with Brene Brown that has to do with the vulnerability and work. She describes vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation and creativity.
00:19:25
Speaker
And our so our offices, our careers need innovation and creativity to stay ahead of the competition.
00:19:36
Speaker
but if it the But the businesses also have to invite and create a safe place for that innovation and creativity to happen through people's vulnerability.
00:19:53
Speaker
So it sounds like a little bit we need to understand where our vulnerabilities are and be able to describe them before we can actually conquer them and move on. Yeah, when I realized that Innovation doesn't happen without people speaking up and sharing their perspectives. I mean, that's part of why the diversity factor has been so significant over the last 10 years or so diversity. In fact, how many times have you heard ah a preschooler, you know, somebody that's maybe just starting to walk or they're asking, you know, they're they're asking a lot of questions that three-year-olds are why, why, why? And um every now and then they'll pop up with a question that just blows your mind because they've got fresh eyes.
00:20:47
Speaker
But we often appreciated fresh eyes. So your being different was could be a really good thing.
Retirement and Untapped Potential
00:20:56
Speaker
Realizing that, I think, is probably a ah very big eye-opener as to what your potential might be.
00:21:02
Speaker
So I love potential. And I remember from about, I was about 14 when I kind of started looking around, i thought, I wonder where what where's my potential?
00:21:13
Speaker
ah where do you see it find it you know and then i throughout my career i would i would also be puzzled by what's everybody else's potential and i actually began to see all the free time we have in retirement as untapped potential some good things can come some amazing good things i'm sure can come out of are putting our collective intelligence together to solve problems that we can use our free time to work on because we've got experience and wisdom and and talent that collectively might solve amazing problems. But nobody's asking us to be engaged and challenging us to please help us solve this problem, you know? Yes.
00:22:07
Speaker
Yeah, so having purpose in and using your potential after retiring, I think is just, I intend to impact 10% of the two living from their internal assets. There's things about them that their education is invisible. Their talent is invisible. What they value is invisible. But I describe my course, Discover Your Spark Rekindled Your Joy, as a way to describe your soul. What's the unique, in fact, the I want to bring out the best in people. And that course is is a powerful process to do a research profile on yourself.
00:22:56
Speaker
Because when you're living from what matters to you, It feels a little bit like heaven on earth.
Authenticity and Self-Knowledge
00:23:05
Speaker
Why? Why does it feel that way? Because it's your authenticity.
00:23:11
Speaker
It's your true self. Who asks you, who are you at your best? I mean, I started asking a meetup group that when I was still doing my coursework.
00:23:23
Speaker
They all kind of look like deer in the headlights. When I found out all my internal assets and values and hot buttons and wrapped it up into a metaphor, my metaphor sounds like this.
00:23:38
Speaker
I am precious jewel of wisdom. i am colorful collaborator and motivator. I'm tranquil, authentic, and pure inspirer.
00:23:52
Speaker
I light fires. I want everybody to know who they are at their best on the inside because that authenticity takes you through the flow, effortless flow, but also through the deep waters because it's inside of you and it motivates you.
00:24:12
Speaker
Thanks for asking. So when people talk about loneliness, very often people say, oh, well, the solution is to get out more, take yourself off to this place, to that place.
00:24:23
Speaker
What you're saying, think, which is very interesting, is that the solution to loneliness starts by looking inwards and examining yourself so that you can then mix effectively with people who've got the same sort of interests as yourself. Yeah. And, you know, I recently connected the dots about when I know myself at my best, I can now confidently and assuredly defend myself to not in comparison to others, but know where I fit in the picture of work or family or whatever. yes And since
00:25:06
Speaker
AI is becoming so threatening to jobs. Stand up to AI and say, i know my contribution and my talents, and i don't think AI can be innovative yet anyway, but we're all unique like a fingerprint, and that uniqueness is priceless. Very
Closing Remarks and Call to Action
00:25:28
Speaker
much so. This time today with you, Sharon, has been priceless. I know you're going off to do some volunteering now, but really do appreciate the time that you've spent with me. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. Let's do it again, Michael. Oh, yes. I am Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abbasida. And in this episode of Rest and Recreation, I have been having a conversation with Sharon Rolfe, the author of What Makes Your Heart Sing, Fresh Hope Resource.
00:25:56
Speaker
You can find out more about both of us by using the links in the description. At Rest and Recreation, we believe in living healthy lives. An important part of staying healthy is knowing the risks early. That is why we recommend the health test from York Test, especially the annual health test.
00:26:15
Speaker
The annual health test from York Test provides an assessment of 39 different health markers, including cholesterol, diabetes, various vitamin levels, organ functions, that the list goes on.
00:26:28
Speaker
The annual health test itself is conducted by an experienced phlebotomist who will complete a full blood draw at your home or workplace. Hospital standard tests are then carried out in UKAS accredited and CQC compliant laboratories.
00:26:43
Speaker
You can access your easy to understand results and guidance to help you make effective lifestyle changes anytime by your secure personal wellness hub account. There is a link and a discount code in the description.
00:26:56
Speaker
I am sure that you will have enjoyed listening to this episode of Rest and Recreation as much as Sharon and I have enjoyed making it. So please give it a like and download it so you can listen anytime, anywhere. To make sure you don't miss out on future episodes, please subscribe.
00:27:14
Speaker
Also, please share the link with your friends, your family and your work colleagues. Remember, the aim of all the podcasts produced by Abusida is not to tell you what to think, but we do hope to have made you think.
00:27:26
Speaker
Until the next episode of Rest and Recreation, thank you for listening and goodbye.