The Truth About True Stories

Ep 11: Following a month of anxiety navigating finances and trying to stay calm in her end-of-summer search for work, a tectonic shift happened that brought about much change and a narrative shift.  It got Dori thinking about what is true and what is truth and how not conflating the difference takes an easy kind of discipline that she is still learning how to navigate.  Knowing the difference between an experience and her perception of it, she realizes, comes with the potential for powerful rewards.

This is the second-to-last episode of Season 1 of Life Changing with Dori Fern. Look for Episode 12 in a few weeks and, in the meantime, please do share this podcast, rate, and -- if you like -- review it where you can. 

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Transcript

Welcome to Life-Changing with Dori Fern, a podcast about the messy middle between when you hit pause and what comes next. I'm your host Dori Fern.

Listeners. Hello? It's Dori. Do you remember me? It's been a while. I know.

I had nothing to say. I thought for weeks, kind of just living my life and feeling like nothing was really happening. And I just can't emphasize how much that has changed in the past few days. I'll get to that, but first I wanted to say, thank you to those of you who reached out to me after the last episode to tell me your thoughts about T-Mobile. T-Mobile. If you're listening, you have fans here, there was overwhelming support and I will be making the switch. I have not done it yet, for reasons I won't bore you with, but I plan to next week. So feeling good about that. And a couple of folks had some opinions about whether or not I should cancel Headspace and they were good thoughts that I did not listen to and I'll tell you why.

Two friends, in particular, reached out and. why would you cancel this one friend? Because, you know, obviously it was something that I got a lot of value out of and the other, because she was just like, it's one-time charge and, and it matters to you. So why would you cancel it? It's really the things that are monthly or, you know, whatever that you should focus on.

But then I thought to myself, okay. But I do feel pretty much in control of. My meditation practice is such as it is, and I can meditate. I don't really need guidance to do it, and I can always sign up when I have some money. So I went to cancel it and guess what? I get a pop-up. And it says that they give me 50% off if I renewed right now.

It was like 30, some odd dollars. No problem. So I'm happy to report that Andy and I are still a hot item and this brings me to some things that he said, and some things that I've been thinking about, about the nature of the stories we tell and the truth of those things. And we talked about these things in my coaching as well.

What is true and what is truth? All these things are kind of coming together. And I'm thinking about the fact that, you know, on one hand, I'm a, I'm a professional storyteller. So it's literally my job to frame things and contextualize events and circumstances in a way that resonates and connects with people. 

But on a personal level, I'm starting to see that the stories that we tell ourselves, the way our ego kind of gets involved and perceives things can be limiting.

Being able to reflect at a high level, in other words, is a professional asset for me, but on a personal level, I'm starting to see that the stories that we tell ourselves, the way our ego kind of gets involved and perceives things can be limiting.

And in my case, you know, well, and I guess in other people's cases too, it can really stress you out. So. Let me give you an example. I was talking to my peer coach. We have in the coaching program, we have peer clients and peer coaches in a peer group. And, uh, in my peer coaching. 

I kind of wanted to talk about the fact that I'm on my phone way too much and feeling a lack of control over that. So that was what I thought I wanted to talk about. But

the events of this past week, which have been so many, you know, I went through, I don't know when was the last time, I guess it's about three weeks ago since my last episode would. And for two of those weeks, two plus of those weeks, it was kind of like same old, same old, and then just a whole bunch of things.

And this week in particular. First is that levs visa stamped, passport was supposed to come on Friday. Steve paid a lot of money to expedite it because of the timing of it. And. It was supposed to come by latest on Friday, didn't come Monday. It was supposed to come here. Ups said it had arrived.

They show the signature of my front desk person. And, uh, I'm trying a long story short this because who cares about these details? So it was lost and the front desk person said he didn't receive it. And ups said, well, we have evidence.

And so the first day or two was really like, you know, Steve is a very, he's a guy focused on the most important things to his credit. He's like, well, he needs his passport. And visa. And the most important thing is we gotta get him a new passport. So that was big cost too.

He starts putting that ball in motion about a day or two after because we didn't know what happened to this package.  so he starts doing that. There's a lot of texting back and forth, I'm talking to the building, I'm trying to get to the bottom of it.

I'm the one talking to ups, cuz this is the kind of thing I do. If Steve is, let's get the passport, cuz that's the most important thing, which true.  I am the person who is indignant, that nobody did their job properly. And that a lot of money was spent and promises were made and they were not kept.

I'm busy dealing with ups. I'm dealing with all those things. I'm getting lots of texts. This is all right before this peer coaching session.  in addition to that, I'm getting incessant calls from my dad.

Monday of this week  Lev and I went to visit him and lev has never been to see him in the nursing home. And he asks him how he likes it. And my dad says, I hate it. I don't like anything about it. Now, of course, when he was at home, all he wanted was to go to a nursing home so he could have meals with other people. But anyway, the last, at the very end of his.

in his apartment. He had a full-time aide, a young woman with a daughter who would actually come to his apartment, which, you know, isn't technically allowed, but, you know, pandemic, she was having trouble with childcare. So she would bring her kid. My dad liked the kid, so it was enjoyable for him. Anyway, when.

Goes to the ER, right before he goes into the nursing home for some issue with his leg, uh, they find out that he has COVID. He has he's completely asymptomatic. He was asymptomatic the entire time, but he has COVID. So, you know, it seems pretty clear that he got it from the aid, cuz she was the only person who he was around.

So my dad brings this up to live. And now the last time Lev has seen my dad we all went out to a pizza place near where he lived in the Bronx with the aid and the daughter, me and Lev, and my dad. And so my dad says, you know, that the aide gave him COVID and Lev says, well, the kid was cute, you know, just making kind of a quip about her daughter.

And my dad kind of looks a little confused and I say, you know, at the pizza place, cuz I can see he's not quite connecting the dots as to why love saying this, but my dad doesn't hear very well. And as my brother says,  he doesn't hear and he doesn't listen. So put those two things together. Later on that evening, he calls me and leaves me his message saying that he doesn't understand how Lev knows the aide's daughter. Who's six, I should just say. Does Lev have a relationship with the aide and how he, so, anyway, he's very confused, but I'm not gonna deal with this at this point.

So in the morning I call, he doesn't answer his cell phone. I leave him a message.  So now we. Where I started this story, long story, sorry, where I'm a, I'm on the call with the peer coach. And the only reason I even have my phone on is because of the visa and wanting to make sure ups isn't gonna call or whatever.

So my dad.  he's calling me back and I know that he has not listened to this message cuz he never listens to his messages where I remind him about the pizza place and that sort of thing. Anyway, I'm getting one call after another, from my dad and the conversation with the peer coach is just about my complete anxiety at this moment.

Cuz I'm getting texted from all ends about the visa I'm dealing with. My dad calls me incessantly and I'm just getting really stressed out and we talk about it. We talk about that, you know, what does that look like for me? And for me, when I get that feeling of there's all this shit coming at me, I think the word I used was defensive.

Like I just, I don't know how to walk away. So my, I, I kind of attack it, whatever it is that's coming at me. And it leads me to be kind of an asshole to people. You know, where, where I get short with people when they're doing that, even though.  when my dad's calling me, he doesn't know that I'm getting texts about the visa.

He doesn't know I'm on another call. Neither does my ex-husband or my son know that I am like, none of, no one knows this. It is totally within my, within my power to walk away from things. But I don't tend to do that. I tend to let myself get overwhelmed. And then I push back on these things.

So we talked about it and I shut off my phone, but that was the first thing I did. And we talked about how I was going to respond to my dad. Typically I would call him back and it would be kind of short with him and he would say whatever he says, and I would just kind of sneer at it.

But I decide that my goal is to just listen to my dad, not talk at him, not respond to him anymore than I need to, but calmly. Explain what happened and you know, here, I don't know. And also, I don't know, is he gonna be mad at me that I haven't picked up the phone?

Cuz that was kind of a pattern with my dad. So anyway, that call ends. I call my dad . And he starts by telling me how the phones at the nursing home are really messed up or the, the connections are messed up and he, he couldn't, he didn't get the message right away and yada, yada. I tell him the story about the pizza place and everything, and he is talking to me like, he's not hearing what I'm saying.

So I say, dad, are you hearing me? And, and I I'm calm. I am staying calm.

And the upshot is that my dad doesn't remember that we went out for pizza and this is not that long ago. He does not remember this day in question at all.   I'm listening, I'm not sneering at him for talking over me or whatever he is doing.

That's annoying me that he's anxious about this, that this loss of memory about something that I'm telling him happened. The long story short is that at the end of the call, he says, again, he goes back to blaming the phone at the nursing home and the problems with the phone. And this is his way of, understandably comforting himself, that there is some reason outside of his own mind, failing him for this loss of a memory. And what I feel afterwards is, is something I don't usually feel about for my dad, which is empathy. You know, I felt, I felt his sadness.

It wasn't anger on my part or on his.  I completely changed the way this interaction happened because I paused. And that's the thing that when I push back when I get defensive that I'm not pausing. And I  wish that I had had this top of mind a few weeks ago with my daughter, because without going into the details there, because there are too many it's personal, it's her story.

And I don't really want to, but to say I expected her to say something. There's a question, whether I didn't hear something that was said. Um, but what I'm trying to communicate to you here is that I stewed, you know, I didn't just experience this thing and then let it go.

 The next morning, it was very late at night when this.  or didn't happen and the next morning I woke up and I just kind of stewed and I put context, put some ego, you know, and the recipe just failed. Right? I had decided it wasn't a good idea to bring it up and it was not a good idea.

But then she was snippy with me and I pushed back. I did that thing and I brought it up and she pushed back harder. Cuz my kid, she is fierce when she feels like I am pushing and doing that thing, she pushes harder and the end results were not good. So you.  I wish that I had let go of that story that I had told myself, because the truth that happened, the actual events and experience that happened, you know, were not good.  

So truth. Yeah. Trump, what is truth? We all kind of get that, right? Like that there is truth. There is science. There is a fact there are things that happen, but all of us,  in less grotesque ways.  say things are true because we have infused our ego into them and decided that that's , that that's the way things are and, and not honoring the fact that we can choose to be in the moment.

Have an experience with something and without pushing, without forcing, without doing something, just let it go. And here's where I'm gonna, I'm gonna quote Andy, can't use the ego to get rid of the. Of course, we need identity and ego to exist and relate, but recognizing how much importance and energy we invest in it.

And knowing that the actual experience itself is what really matters. As I understand it, we don't have to force meaning around something because something inside of us tells us that it has that meaning we can choose for that experience to really just.

A thing that happened and have a lightness about it and let it go. And so that's where I am at.

Here's the other thing that I was doing yesterday. I volunteer for this community fridge near me, which just to give you a little bit of a recap of what a community fridge is.  A community fridge. They've existed for a while, but they got very popular in 2020 with the pandemic.  They are these public refrigerators that exist,  usually outside of an organization that hosted or a building, whoever is willing to pay for the electricity of that fridge and, whether it's just neighbor.

Bringing food or more concerted efforts by volunteers to connect with other organizations and food businesses to get food, and then deliver it to the fridge. anyone can come, anyone comes, takes the food. There's no line, there's no rules. It's really just, take what you need, leave what you can help as you can.

That's our motto. The community fridge near me is very robust , in the sense that a lot of food goes into it daily, you know, produce deliveries of some prepared meals from food businesses .

And there's about five of us now that are, you know, pretty active. Two of our volunteers are total superstars, two women, uh, from the neighborhood. Well, one who I think was born and raised in the neighborhood, a younger woman. And then the other is woman, probably a bit older than me, born in the Caribbean, but has lived here for a long time.  I think it's fair to say that daily, there is food delivered to that fridge and sometimes more than once a day.  I was doing that for a while. It's very, self-regulated like, it's not a formal organization. Around March, I kind of decided that I was getting a little burnt out by doing the food deliveries. So I said I would be the social media manager.

Whatever that means. I do the Instagram in particular. And I'm the one who will also post on the very active neighborhood Facebook group here asking for donations for the Venmos of these two women. Gas prices are high and they are just picking up an incredible amount of food.

And then recently the fridge was on its last leg and we decided to start a GoFundMe. So I start the GoFundMe and I promote it and in 24 hours raised more than the $1,500 that we had set.

At that time, the fridge we thought could be fixed, turns out it was not gonna be able to be fixed. It died a couple of weeks ago and we've been trying to raise money, you know? Well, both looking for donations from some organization of an industrial-sized commercial fridge, because it's just a lot.

Community fridges are small and that works for other areas, but this is just such a hub for the neighborhood so lots of people in the neighborhood were really rooting for us to get this fridge. A few days ago, we got a line on a homeless shelter that had posted that they had an industrial fridge that they wanted to give away to an organization and everyone tagged me and I got in touch and I'm like scrambling.

It turns out that they needed picked up pretty quickly. We have to find a mover cuz they are in east orange, New Jersey, right. Bordering Newark. And then  I find out. No, it's not as soon as possible. It's actually, by the end of this weekend, it has to be gone because they have an something else they have to put in that space.

I said to our volunteer group, I feel like I'm in this extreme reality show where it's really hard to begin with, but then they keep throwing  more challenges at you. And what you're trying to win is full bellies, I guess, is the, is the reward  and then just to add to that, the end of this weekend in this neighborhood, which is known as Little Caribbean. This weekend, Labor day weekend is also the west Indian day parade, which is the largest. I'm pretty sure it's the largest parade in the country and it has not happened since the pandemic.

Two years, no parade first parade in, in a while, everything here closes down on Sunday and Monday, everything will be blockade, and one will not be able to get anywhere. Even Saturday is a bit tricky. So by end of this weekend, it means basically Saturday morning, we gotta get this Ridge or it's not happening.

So I am scrambling. I am spending all of my time. One of our volunteers knows of a couple of guys who have moved fridges before, but they have other jobs and they can only do it after hours and they're not responding to her. Then I find another mover and they were gonna be available.

Oh. And by the way, of course, it's the first of the month. So movers are busy holiday weekend, labor day. I find one mover and I'm psyched, but then it's gonna probably well over a thousand dollars to do this. One of the volunteers was like, this is not a new fridge. We don't get a warranty. We haven't seen the fridge. So to spend all that money on a mover just seems like not a good idea. So that made a lot of sense. And then the fridge repair guy from the cafe.  where that fridge is housed outside of puts me in touch with this guy, Mr. Ross, who delivers refrigerators for restaurants and other food businesses. He knows moving fridges, like the back of his hand. Anyway, get in touch with him. Long story short in a number of hours. Well, let's see, what time is it now? It is, oh my God.

It is currently as I'm recording this, it is 10:04 AM on Friday and he should be at the homeless shelter to pick up this fridge right now. So I should probably check my messages to make sure nobody's trying to reach me, but that's happening too. So.  has been a big thing.

And then

I think I have work. Well before I tell you about that, let me also say that I'm waiting to hear, and I should hear today or before the end of the weekend, whether I have my first coaching client. That was really wild, cuz I responded to a social media ad for a copywriter and I got an email saying we have the copywriter, but I'd love to hear more about your coaching services.

So that was a lovely and pleasant surprise. And we will see what happens with that. I am very pleased with the work that I have done to make that happen and feeling really good. This person is kind of a great match for me and my expertise, even beyond the coaching. So super excited for that to possibly happen.

And by the way, this was yesterday that like, well, it wasn't yesterday. It was, it was last week that this kind of started and yesterday where we had an official call about this. And then also yesterday,  I had my second interview about work of the sort that I have done for most of my career that I'm experienced at, for this six-month maternity leave backfill role, doing content strategy for someone who I really like. Like, I really like this person who runs this team that needs this help. It all just has fallen into place so far. We don't have the signed anything because, you know, I guess waiting for just final budget or maybe have to talk with somebody else.

But the conversation I had with this person yesterday was just like,  so glad you're interested. We just talked, we kind of aligned and it didn't feel like we'll get back to you after I talked to 10 more people, because they actually have to fill this pretty quickly. It was kind of like so great. This is excellent looking forward.

So it feels like it's gonna happen.

And that's where I'm at.

when I said last time that I felt like I was at that, that part of the story where the bad guys coming after me.

I didn't beat the bad guy. I just walked away. And here I am.  

 I have one more episode planned for this season. It's gonna be something a little different. Until next time I'm Dori Fern and you are listening to Life-Changing with Dori Fern follow. Rate review, if you've liked what you've heard and please do share with people. 

And thank you to all of you who have reached out to say that you get it, you appreciate what I'm trying to do in my weird little podcast. And I'll talk to you soon. Bye.