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Voice Within: A Storybook by Storytellers
This podcast narrates to you short stories, poems and letters from a collective of authors. It is a simple cup of tea in hand, or a long drive kind of moment, to truly immerse yourself in a tale or two. For the love of a good story!
Voice Within: A Storybook by Storytellers
Interview with Risa August: The Road Unpaved - Living Beyond Limits
When doctors dismiss your symptoms for seven years despite you knowing something is deeply wrong with your body, what do you do? For Risa, that medical journey led to a life-altering diagnosis of acromegaly – a rare condition caused by a pituitary tumor she affectionately named "Bubba."
The moment an endocrinologist finally validated her experience with four simple words – "you are not crazy" – marked the beginning of a profound transformation. Rather than allowing her diagnosis to define her limitations, Risa embarked on an extraordinary path of self-discovery, eventually cycling the Pacific Coast for six weeks just two years after completing radiation treatment.
Throughout our conversation, Risa reveals the contrasting aspects of her healing journey – from the woman in purple hoodie who could barely climb a hill to the defiant Wonder Woman who sewed her own costume for radiation treatments. These personas represent the universal struggle between surrender and perseverance that many face during profound adversity.
What truly shines through is how Risa channeled her experience into purpose, becoming an advocate who speaks at medical conferences to improve, and cultivate better knowledge doctor-patient relationships. Rather than harboring resentment toward the medical establishment that initially dismissed her, she chose collaboration to create meaningful change.
Risa's upcoming TED Talk on "how a single word can rebuild your life" further demonstrates her belief in the transformative power of language.
Perhaps most inspiring is Risa's evolved definition of adventure – finding that connection and community through simple things, and trying new things is where her heart is. Her journey reminds us that transformation doesn't happen overnight but emerges through daily choices and moments of breakthrough.
Ask yourself: What's holding you back? Is it your own limiting beliefs? What's one small step could you take today toward unleashing your authentic self?
Author of "The Road Unpaved - Border to Border with a Brain Tumor and a Bike"
CLICK HERE - FOR AUTHOR PAGE AND PURCHASING OPTIONS!
5-Star Readers' Favorite, Independent Press Award Winner, International Impact Book Awards Winner, Next Generation Indie Book Awards Winner, Regal Summit Book Award Winner, IAA William Shakespeare Finalist!
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hello Risa. How are you today?
Speaker 2:hi, simona, it's so good to see you. Good to see you take two, shall we?
Speaker 1:yes, just to let everyone know that we've had a few you know technical trials here and there. So we're doing it again after a week of meeting and things would probably sink in a lot more. I finished your book An Unpaved Road last week and I finished that book over four days and just had it as an audio speaking to me, and I really, really thoroughly enjoyed it and felt very much that I was a part of your journey thank you so much.
Speaker 1:That means so much to hear and uh, I just want to ask you straight up, um, who is rissa today?
Speaker 2:wow, we're diving right in. Yeah, who is she? I think she's still figuring some of that out, but she's also. Rissa has learned to let go a bit and surrender and learn to let go a bit and surrender and, um, and be open like, oh, I'm way more open today and so, yeah, it's still unfolding, but I would say Risa lives big and loves life and loves people and she can't wait to see what's next around the next corner.
Speaker 1:So would you say that you've put your Martha Stewart days perhaps for when it's needed, maybe for a party or another dinner, but not really like your whole life runs on this kind of need, which your book was just elaborating. It was one of the very important chapters that I found of who you were before you were diagnosed with acromegaly and you know, and which is a pituitary. It lives in the pituitary, it's a tumor that holds itself in the pituitary gland and we'll go deeper into that. But just saying that, that part of the book was very it hit a home for me in the sense of, like this needing for perfection, or this needing to seem like we have it all together, or controlling every factor that we have in our life, to feel a bit more secure in our lives. And I guess, yeah, which you named your tumor, bubba, uh, was there to and is constantly and constantly did test you throughout the whole journey, as your book explains. So. And where do you? Where is bubba now?
Speaker 2:so some of bubba still remains um, he decided not to retire. I like to say so yeah, we're still taking it day by day, and it's really, it's a wonderful reminder to live now, not wait to live, live now. And I find myself still I still struggle with that perfectionist, I still, but I'm conscious of it. Let's say that I'm conscious of it, and and now I have kind of the wherewithal to ask the questions like do I need to be so rigid right now, or does this need to be perfect? And so I think I think Bubba is still as a reminder of that, of like what if you just lived right now and did whatever you needed to do right now?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a very important message for all of us, really, you know, all of us, really you know to just you know, it's no accident that I always ponder on the word presence and presence, you know, like wrapping consumerism, presence, material things, but also the presence of the now like it is. It truly is being in the moment is truly a present. It truly is being in the moment is truly a present, you know, and I always see that in a way. So I guess the play on taking us through your journey, of being on that six-week bike track as a now moment and then, perhaps, you know, going back to where it all you know, unravelled for you. So it took seven years of symptoms of the unknown, of not feeling very well, not feeling in your own body, until someone actually decided to look at or take an MRI, a brain scan. Is that correct?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, it was seven years of my own inner knowing that something was off in my body. I just knew something. I was always very conscious like health conscious and then eventually an athlete, and I knew something was off. And I kept taking it to multiple doctors and trying to research it myself and not finding any answers. And so it took severe, severe headaches for me to ask my doctor for an MRI and she told me no, um three times. And so the final time I I didn't ask why why?
Speaker 1:why are you saying no?
Speaker 2:She thought she said it was very dismissive. Oh well, you're probably overtraining or you're not drinking enough water, or there was just. She even said to me well, mris are expensive, so there's no need for you to get that done.
Speaker 1:I don't understand why a doctor would just mother you in a dismissive way. That surprises me quite a lot. Yeah, yes and and it's.
Speaker 2:It's very frustrating experience, especially because I was always someone who actually avoided doctors at all costs, yeah, but I knew like this was, this was I got finally got to a point seven years later where I was like something is seriously wrong and I was almost to the point like I just desperation. I was barely sleeping two hours a night because the headaches were so severe and that's definitely not dehydration I mean.
Speaker 1:And that's definitely not dehydration I mean yeah.
Speaker 2:But you start to think after like. You start to think you're crazy after a while, like maybe it is in my head, maybe my doctor's right, maybe, or you know, and I had put on so much weight for being an Ironman athlete and very rigid with my diet and she kept saying, I'm not worried, you're an athlete and I'm like, but no matter what I do, like, I keep gaining weight and so I really think people thought I was eating too much, like that I was lying about the food I was eating, and so I actually had a friend that talked me into going to Overeaters Anonymous because I think they thought I was in denial about what I was eating. So it was really frustrating. But after a while you start believing it. You start believing maybe I'm making all this up.
Speaker 1:Maybe they're right. This is unbelievable because what this triggers in me is this inner authority you know, like this, giving away our power constantly to what other people are telling you and it's like your body knows that something's not right. You know and it's your body telling you and it's like your body knows that something's not right. You know and and it's your body telling you. It's not you consciously saying, oh, there's something wrong. It's your body actually giving you all these symptoms.
Speaker 1:So I'm finding this really like, as I said, quite triggering because I hear lots of stories I know this not related, but it is related to the medical system around birthing. You know where a mother knows when the child was coming and everything or something's not right and the doctors dismiss or they think they know better, and it's like this, and then there's a real struggle afterwards for the mother, who's had quite a traumatic birth, to actually deal with the fact that they gave their power away and they knew better. So I mean I asked you this question last time is about if, if they said yes, or this doctor by the way, is this the same doctor that said to you that you're not crazy once the test came through? Different doctor, different doctor. Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the doctor that dismissed me after I demanded the MRI, I remember she was typing on her keyboard, shaking her head, and she's like, okay, I don't think you need one, shaking her head and she's like, okay, I don't think you need one. And and so a week later, after my MRI, I had an email from her that said you have an enlarged pituitary, go see an endocrinologist. And I had no idea what that meant and so, but I went on to see the endocrinologist and that's who basically affirmed and I'm going to start crying and acknowledged for the first time you're not crazy, this wasn't all made up. Yeah, and you have all these symptoms and I know why. And it was. It was huge relief and validation. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and I guess you know doctors are not allowed to apologize or say that they were wrong. But yeah, I mean, I guess that would have been a bit of a jam. She never did. Yeah, she never did.
Speaker 2:She never did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she never did, but potentially she could be looking at your case more closely next time saying, actually, you know, if a patient asks again for an MRI, just do the test. What's it going to hurt? You know, like at the end of the day it could be nothing, or it's better to know that there's nothing there, or if there's something there, Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And I guess this is your work at the moment, isn't it? This is your world at the moment. Like you're talking to the medical groups, are they associations or what do they look like in America?
Speaker 2:Yeah, or what do they look like in America? Yeah, so, so, yeah, this experience is what catapulted me into that, um, realm of work, uh, you know, and finding my voice for what felt like the first time. And so I now speak, um, at a lot of medical conferences, um, mostly endocrine, endocrine related, but um, and then sometimes I do some more like speak at nonprofit organization for organizations and such Um, and I also partner with a lot of, like pharmaceutical companies who are kind of invested, if you will, in the pituitary and endocrine realm of things, because it's got to change and we have to all do it together. I remember at first I was furious and I wanted to send scathing letters to any doctor that wouldn't hear me or listen to me. And then I realized, no, we all need to work together to make these changes, and so that's how my perspective shifted and so, yeah, so now I travel around hopefully planting the seeds of more co-active relationships with doctors, and I'm sure you do with your life.
Speaker 1:I mean the team that you had, the group that you cycled with in your book, the six weeks across the Pacific Coast, I think your light, or your struggle, or whatever however they perceived it as you know, and your moments of you know truth, stark truth. You know, with a lot of F-bombing, as we say here in Australia, to wake them up, to shake them up, to stop complaining about the small things of whether they're going to have a tent in this spot or they're going to sleep in this spot. You know and just enjoy the simple things you know. And, yeah, and one of the moments that really took me, because of what I do here at Voice Within and how I connect with people like you and all types of people that love to tell their story, is the donut moment, where you're with the crew and you guys are cycling on and then all of a sudden you've got who was it that was always beside you.
Speaker 2:It was the boss and Trucker MacGyver.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right, and you just go, I've just got to go there, let's just have a donut, you know.
Speaker 1:And then the conversation that you had with the person who was selling that donut gave you like this aha moment, and it's like it's that moment where you heard your own inner authority, you were drawn to something and it gave you one of those light moments of like this is really important, we all just need to be heard.
Speaker 1:It is really important and and it's something that at a young age I was dismissed, perhaps my personal journey, like being in a very loud Italian family, you know, children had to just obey, you know what was going on, you know, and a lot of the stuff was very dismissed. And that's probably why I do the work that I do is because I want to empower people the way that I have never felt empowered. But that donut moment really hit me, because that's where now you're doing your TED Talks and you're doing the conversations and you're talking to people that have the same diseases and you're letting them know that they're not crazy and that it is hard and it's not an easy journey but you do recover, you know, in a well, let's not say recover, I don't think that's the right word, but you do get through and you do become more powerful yeah, how to move forward?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, you do yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:so, um, what about your writing process? Now, this is your true story, and were you so? Was this something you decided when you were riding your bike? Or was this something that you decided later on? Because what are we looking now in years, between now, 2025, and your Pacific Coast ride?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that was three years ago, three, four years ago now.
Speaker 1:Only four years ago. Yeah, your Pacific Coast ride, and you've written a book already. Yes, that's phenomenal. Thank you, the tenacity continues.
Speaker 2:Well, you know it's I mean, I have my bucket list to thank for that, you know, and maybe Baba had a part of that but I, I've always wanted to write a book and and I would start and stop, and no, that's not good. And and this felt like the timing. It felt like the timing and the story that I wanted to share, and it all came together. Um, this was the time. So, so that's what I did.
Speaker 1:And who and who suggested the now and then, the parallel worlds, and who suggested the now and then, the parallel worlds.
Speaker 2:I well I knew I wanted short chapters. I've read a couple books with the short chapters and I love, I love, I love being able to read something quickly, like on the way out the door, and then I could put it down and head on, head on down the road and then come back and pick it up. I could put it down and head on down the road and then come back and pick it up, but I worked with an editor because I couldn't get out of my own way.
Speaker 1:Yes, the rereading and the re-editing and the missing things. You end up missing things all the time.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, and the way my manuscript was written, the second draft, I was like trying to convey to her like this is how I want it to be. And so she came back with it was either two or three structure ideas, yes, and I was like that's the one, that's exactly the one. Well at least someone listened to you this time and dismissed.
Speaker 1:Yes, and how long did it take to write for you?
Speaker 2:I'd say it took about two years. It started off pretty slow. About two years it started off pretty slow, but then once I like once I just was all in.
Speaker 1:I was all in and I got it done rather quickly, so it sounds it sounds very much like your character in the perseverance um, yeah, because you've, you've struggled, struggled a lot, and it's in the book. It's not like I'm saying this, as you know, just coming and saying, oh, you've struggled a lot, because I personally have not experienced my body being in such a state, or have I experienced or have I witnessed somebody that's experienced in that state. So for me, I can't speak. Sometimes people are like, oh, you, poor thing, and and, but that doesn't really. That isn't, that's not empathy. I feel like that's more like anyway, we're not. I don't even know what the word is for it because I don't want to feel like I'm patronising the situation or think I know more than the situation.
Speaker 1:But after reading your book which is probably if you meet Risa and you're inspired by Risa's story, you read the book to understand that a journey doesn't come from like overnight, you know, especially a transformative journey. It doesn't come overnight, or a creative journey. It doesn't come overnight. It comes with daily doubts, daily struggles, with daily doubts, daily struggles, and particularly what I've witnessed in yourself is that you did go through these two characters, which is the person who had to give in to radiation and do this damage to your body. You know that you were anxious about, prior to doing that, going into the radiation. And so this character I feel is the purple hoodie with the grey sweatpants, who you know your partner at the time is it Michael? Is it Michael's name? Jake? Sorry, I can't remember the name.
Speaker 1:After a week, jake, your partner, your husband at the time, was trying to take you out and you just knew that your body couldn't get back up the hill. And then you have this lady who's going into radiation with Wonder Woman costumes that you, apparently, I found out last week, which was a bit of a surprise that you sewed yourself. And so you've got these two, like you've got this, and we have this in us, we have this. We have these people that within us that want to give up, don't believe in ourselves, have doubt. And then the other person's like hey, you know what? Like I'm not standing for this, get up, get on your bike, literally, and do it, you know, kind of thing. So I found that humanness of the experience really enjoyable to read as a book, as a true story.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Thank you so much because I think my goal wasn't to talk about biking or having some crazy life altering disease. It was more like we, what we all can understand is adversity and difficult and challenging times, and that's something we can all understand, even if it's different in different ways. So my goal was to speak to adversity and how you know how that and the impacts of that, and be as real as I am, as the person I am as the person I am.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which is like. What I also found is that Bubba was a little bit of your bully, your antagonist, as you mentioned, and Wonder Woman was the person who just said, hey, you know I'm going to do this anyway. You know I don't. And Bubba was just constantly like you can't do that. No, you're not going to do that. You know, always bringing you down and well, considering where Baba was actually placed, around this whole area of vision and sight and intuitive powers, it makes total sense. And your control center. It makes total sense that this is wrapped around one of the most, uh, important parts of like our, do you like our knowing and our doing and our being so and you, just, you just got dressed up in tutus and tiaras and you just went look, you know you're there, I know you're there, but I'm still going to do. And you did. And you went on a six-week bike trip. How many months or years after radiation?
Speaker 2:It was scheduled for one year after surgery and radiation, and then the pandemic came, so I had to postpone it another year. So two years later. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So have you done many other bike rides since I have, I have, I have.
Speaker 2:I rode across northern Spain last year on the Camino de Santiago, and as much as I would have loved to walk the Camino.
Speaker 1:You can ride on the Camino, mm-hmm. Is there a different track than the actual walking track?
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm. Is there a different track than the actual walking track? Most, there's a road that pretty much parallels the walking trail and most cyclists take the road.
Speaker 1:I learned the hard way.
Speaker 2:I didn't know that at first. So I started off on the trail. I physically can't walk that far anymore, so that's why I chose to bike it. So you went on your own, did you? I did, yes, and it challenged me on every level imaginable the food, the language, the people, my body, losing my phone, which had my maps, you know, like everything I mean, I was humbled in every way you can imagine on that trip.
Speaker 1:Well, what do you? I mean, there are some really beautiful golden nuggets within your bike journey of realising who you are outside of the marriage and outside of trying to be something for the external world. I think you truly got to know who you really were because you had so many beautiful moments come to you to say this is what you're meant to be doing, this is your character. This is how people respond to you. So how do you feel? What were potentially your gifts on this Camino ride?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, I think again, like, yeah, I really think I I forgot who I was along the way, or maybe I lost pieces of my old self and and I I think what the Camino reminded me of is that that continues to unfold and it's ever changing. I think I was still trying to be this amazing hardcore ride, my bike solo journey 500 miles, and it wasn't fun. Journey 500 miles and, and it wasn't fun, and what I like, what I learned, it's like not fun anymore. I want to be in connection in community and, and if I do another bike ride, I want to have friends to go with and I don't think it needs to be that hard for me anymore. Like I mean, it just wipes me out. Now that's my reality and so so it just and those might seem like silly things, but I'm just-.
Speaker 1:No, it's not, no, don't. That is. That is very powerful, that we don't have to do everything alone, we don't need to struggle, we need to be connected.
Speaker 1:We do absolutely yeah yeah it brings a tear to my eye actually, because a lot of people are feeling it within my own community of friends and storytellers and, um, and you will read the stories you know that are coming out, but it is about connection, Don't know where it got lost along the way. I don't like you know I'm not going to get too philosophical because I get crazy on the philosophical side. I go on little tangents, but I don't like the whole this and them them, us kind of conversation which I do pull up with my friends because I say at the end of the day, you're creating the narrative, At the end of the day, you're making them us. You know you've just created a story. Whatever you decide to speak and believe it actually, you know you'll witness that throughout the heart, you know, and as a collective consciousness.
Speaker 1:I feel just to use this word that gets used a lot around communities of trying to bring collaborative projects together, doing things together. It has been a narrative that's been very strong and it's like but then we end up self-isolating and then we end up proving that we, because it's easier to control our emotions, our thoughts, our belief systems, our environment by doing it on your own, Because no one is triggering you, no one is questioning you, no one is and you don't need to receive help because help looks like disruption, like it. Also, you know it's an emotional regulation thing. You know not being able to emotionally regulate when someone comes out of nowhere and says why don't we do it this way, and it's like hold on, that wasn't the plan. You know.
Speaker 2:Right, it's wrong. It takes the control away, just like you said. It like disrupts the plan. And it also like if you're someone who battles like trust issues, you're like I don't, why do you want to help me? Yeah, you know, you've got an agenda. You want something from me. Like you know, you've got an agenda.
Speaker 1:You, you want something from me, you know and it's like these are.
Speaker 1:These are internal blockages that are very difficult to break down, yes, but you know, and lots people I like to be comfortable physically, so these kind of struggles, that people like you that get out there and just persevere and feel the discomfort. You may come to these humbling moments quicker, whereas I, for example, I'm a bit more of an observer. I like to sit back and have a cup of tea and maybe someone else could teach me what it feels like to be uncomfortable, and then I can just narrate it because I would. You know, I aspire to all these things, but one day I'll probably have to do something to shake it up a bit. But I'm not going to put it out there.
Speaker 1:But I just feel, like your journey, this book, that won't hit home to many people, like the needing to get out there and do what you need to do in order to feel alive. You know, to feel, you know alive. I don't think that I think, just talking to you and having conversations with you, it's starting to hit home that that could be an underlying current in your book as well. But the main thing that I find about your book is the, as you said, is this self-belief, you know, these transformations of believing in oneself, that things aren't always easy, that you know you. There are things that need to be done, and especially when you're battling with a potentially fatal and not very researched um. I don't want to call it a disease, but would you call it a disease?
Speaker 2:I mean, I do have a disease that's a product of the tumor, so some people call it a hormone disorder, but that doesn't land right either. So mostly, yeah, disease is the word. And it's very destructive, um uh yeah, but you learn how to live with it you learn how to move a ted talk next week.
Speaker 1:Is that right, and is it next week?
Speaker 2:two weeks from saturday yeah so where's the ted talk at?
Speaker 1:it's going to be in philadelphia, pennsylvania, okay okay, so we'll have to stay tuned for that.
Speaker 2:Okay, and what are you speaking about? I'm speaking about, um, like the power of language and words, and the title of my talk is um how a single word can rebuild your life.
Speaker 1:Holy dooly girl here in Australia. I believe that too. That is awesome. I look forward to that. Oh, like I mean sound. Sound and movement. The vibration of sound of a word and the movement that carries you through life like body movement. That's like the most powerful tools that we have as humans.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and there's research to back it.
Speaker 1:I know, and, like I, just I am obsessed with dancers and I'm obsessed with singers and storytellers and storytellers and because of their power of these, the frequency of the sound, you know, and also that movement, it's just we're amazing, us humans, and you are, like, one of those people that show that transformation is amazing, no matter how hard it is.
Speaker 2:It's possible. It's possible and it looks different for everyone. It might not. You know, when I told you about what the Camino taught me about maybe I don't have to do things so hard anymore. Or, like, I started taking, like, improv classes and indoor skydiving and Bollywood dance and I took an aerialist silk class and um, uh, I've started appreciating theater more, and you know so, um, hip hop dance, all kinds of things. So good, hip hop, yeah, yes, and you know so.
Speaker 1:Hip-hop dance all kinds of things so good hip-hop.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yes, and so it can look many ways and it doesn't have to be this massive big thing.
Speaker 1:No, it is so like, it's so simple, like it really is. It really is. I mean, oh man, I just I gave up so many years ago on, you know, I just do what enlivens and don't judge others what they decide to do that enlivens them, and just keep it simple. I mean, mine is just very much about food, what I eat, where I get my food from, what I consume like including screen, all this kind of stuff. It's very simple. For me, it's very basic, my life is very basic, but, however, I thrive on connection and community. It's just one of those things.
Speaker 2:And that's actually powerful, like I had a friend recently say. So when's your next big bike adventure? And I said well, I'm thinking of going to Europe and biking over there. I said, but I've actually had some amazing adventures just going to farmer's markets, like not even riding my bike there.
Speaker 1:Oh, go to farmer's markets.
Speaker 2:I, like you said, like I feel so enlivened. Like you said, like I feel so enlivened, like I just there's so much joy in seeing others' creativity or their work they're proud of, and so those have been my wonderful and beautiful adventures is just tapping into community, and so there's a lot.
Speaker 1:That's beautiful, I love it. I mean you have to. There's some basic stuff there. That's beautiful, I love it, I mean you have to. There's some basic stuff there. It's like coming back to basics in order to live a very humble, yet healthy and nourishing life. We all need food every day. We need clothing because we love it. You know it's just we love to.
Speaker 1:You know, feel we need shelter. You know we need to feel home within and we need to feel a sense of safety as well, and whatever things are attached to those things that create it to become complicated. You know, whether food is controlled in some way or we're not honoring the food that we eat, you know we're eating things that are not good for our body, that create disease, or we have really horrible interrelationships in a home environment that create unsafety because of old patterns. These are just what it's all about. We all have our bits and pieces that create us to challenge parts of ourselves that really need to come back to just simplicity of quiet, quietude, simplicity of love, simplicity of heartfelt moments. I just, I can't. I can't stress about it enough. We're going quite deep this time because I feel like we're both a little bit more relaxed, but it really. It really is something that not only adversity, but you know, we've all had adversity in some way or form that's really made us really scared, you know. And that fear and what makes me proud to have connected with you and you've entrusted me with your book is that it's just, it's all possible, it's all like it's all possible. You know, yeah, I think I'm going to cry, but anyway, yeah. So, just to finish off, I still have that imagery and that imagery in my head in the book where all the fear came in.
Speaker 1:Now that we're talking about fear, where your world was was really it was out of control, like it was not, it was no more in your control.
Speaker 1:However, the power of just on a segue, like on the side here, the power of knowing that finally, you're not crazy, that would have been really powerful, yes, that would have been really powerful.
Speaker 1:Finally, that would have been like you being able to have a little bit more control over your body. And then the journey after that. But you have this image of you putting this problem, this issue, this disease, this finding in a box and putting it on a higher shelf that you don't want to see it again in a box and putting it on a higher shelf, that you don't want to see it again. But now what I feel is like you've brought that box down, you've opened it up, you've shined the gems, you've got rid of the rocks and you're really, really starting to. Well, I'm not saying you're really starting, that, it's not my, I don't know you that well, I can't say that. But I I sense that you're really starting to savor this part of your journey now, from that fear in the book, from that journey in the book to to now, in this moment of who you are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say so. I used to pride myself in compartmentalizing all my feelings and I used to think I was tough and self-reliant and that was noble in some way. And now I've opened up, I've, I've opened up that box, that container, and she's out, she's unleashed, and some people love her and some people don't like her at all, and that's okay. I don't know Not everybody likes everybody.
Speaker 1:I mean do you like? My mom says do you like everybody? And I'm like no, I don't actually, that's so great yeah, and it's okay.
Speaker 1:It's okay. Oh, I am so honoured to have taken you twice having a conversation with you in this short timeframe, and we will be working with each other because you've submitted a letter to Bubba that I am very honoured to publish in the third edition of Voice Within. But this really is not about that. It's really about getting to know you and having the opportunity to read your book and yeah, and then you're just going out and talking and doing it and yeah, if there's anything you would like to wrap up with in your wisdom, please honor us with those power of words that you have.
Speaker 2:oh my goodness, no pressure. Yeah, I would say, you know, ask yourself what's holding you back, and is it yourself, you know, is it your own limiting beliefs? And what's one thing you can do right now, in this moment, to take a step toward unleashing yourself.
Speaker 1:And you know, because, again, it doesn't happen overnight, it's a process, it is, though and just just to also mention that you do not only do you do coaching, but you do gestalt therapy. Yeah, so you are a therapist who.
Speaker 2:I'm not a licensed. I'm not a licensed therapist. Okay, you're training at the moment are you?
Speaker 1:I'm a certified practitioner. You're certified practitioner, yeah, so you do have clients, though I do yes, yeah yeah, so people can come to you and all over the world, I'm assuming because you've got these devices now.
Speaker 2:Yes, Virtually I've. Yes, I love working with people who are ready to to move forward and to stop um letting those constraints hold them back, and so I love exploring that with my clients.
Speaker 1:And the Gestalt therapy. I remember you mentioned that it is because I know a few people who are Gestalt therapists, so that and I hadn't heard it this way it's a co-active therapy?
Speaker 2:yes, it's. Yeah, it's very co-active and experiential, so it's not typically like talk therapy and and I can't even really put it into words for you um, except that it's non-traditional and, um and again, the client gets to share in the journey. It's not about me telling them what to do or what they should do, or um.
Speaker 1:It's about how do we do this together and how do I support you in your journey as you move forward can I just challenge this non-traditional therapy that you mentioned, because I feel that, having experienced different therapies over time, um, I think that it it's it that it is even the traditional therapy. Whatever has to come out comes out for the client and there is a bit of a prescriptive like, oh, we're going to go through your family history. You know your mom, your dad and you know the Freudian kind of you know bringing those. You know your mom, your dad and you know the Freudian kind of you know bringing his psychology into it.
Speaker 1:But I think gestalt therapy or the therapies that are more about the client, like you explained it so well, like you've got particular tools and questions in your toolkit as a therapist and you know when to use them, but you don't push onto them to get a result. You're more inclined to observe and witness where they're at and let the revelations come out for themselves. So to mask it or to say or to name it as nontraditional sounds like that. It's an alternative. But I feel like these therapies and you can say that you can have an opinion to that, but it's like, I feel like it's where we're at now.
Speaker 1:Like psychologically, as a human race, we actually need to have a conversation and have someone just prompt a few questions to bring out the right things and not prescribe us into believing oh, you have, you know this mental disorder and I'm going to prescribe you for it. You know, because you're manifesting or exhibiting these traits, you know, like did I just go on a tangent?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I think I follow. You know, most people I've encountered when they hear therapy, they think you're sitting in a room face to face with a therapist who is kind of looking down on you and basically diagnosing you with this label and um, and I, when I hear people who who go to therapy, I mean I have people who say I've been going to therapy for 10 years and they're proud of it and some of these alternative modalities maybe non-traditional isn't the right word, I don't know but some of these alternative modalities are like, wait a minute, we don't want you to have to come back and simply naming this trauma you've had or simply naming these experiences that impacted you isn't enough. I think it was even Marianne Williamson who said that being aware of our traumas or our past is, is, that's not what heals us. It's, you know, it's believed that a lot of this is trapped in ourselves. So how do we get that out? How do we release it? And so, and how?
Speaker 1:does that get released? How does that get? How have you witnessed it to be?
Speaker 2:released. Well, I think it's different per individual. Um, you, ha, you have, like I can speak for me in my own journey Um, because I had mastered again, I was proud of it, I mastered compartmentalizing my emotions. I never cried, ever cried. Um, I thought it was like I said, it was a badge of honor and it took me. A part of my training was four in-person week-long intense training workshops. So one month of intense in-person training workshops and part of that is working through your own stuff, so to speak. And it took me until the fourth training to actually start crying and it was a sniffle, it was just like some weeping and I, it was so profound for me, I, to me, that was the biggest release I had ever felt in my life. And now I cry all the time and I don't hold on to my emotions, right Like oceans, you know oceans of emotions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, and I feel like that's, you know, part of me holding onto my emotions for so long could be the reason I have a pituitary tumor at my control center of my body, you know. So I'm not here to convince anyone. Either way, I'm a strong believer that you'll find what works for you, you'll find what aligns with you, and I'm all for that. I'm, I will, I will support you as as much as I possibly can when you find what, what's right for you.
Speaker 1:So Awesome, risa, absolute pleasure. So, um, we can find your book on Amazon in bookstores which you've taken as well. Maybe we can have some links attached to this. You know podcast and thank you for being my first international podcast from over there. Over there because you know, I used to be on a local radio, so it was very local-based, but now it's. You know, it's really such a pleasure to be able to meet radio. So it was very local based, but now it's.
Speaker 2:You know, it's really such a pleasure to be able to meet you yes, thank you, simona, and I wish I met you when I lived there. Oh, did you live in australia? I did, yes, I lived um just north of adelaide. Um, I was working for a private boys I think you call them colleges, we would just say school and they had an environmental center just north of Adelaide and so I worked out of there and it felt very isolating. So I always got very excited to go into Adelaide.
Speaker 1:And I would have traveled. Did you do WOMAD in Adelaide when you were there?
Speaker 2:I didn't do WOMAD, no, but I had thought about it. I had thought about it and I did a little bit of traveling on your East Coast and I wish I had more time and finances when I lived there to do more traveling, but I really, I really, really. I mean it was a phenomenal experience. Oh, wonderful.
Speaker 1:Thank you, it was so wonderful to connect with you. Yeah, so wonderful. Thank you, thank you and, um, all the best with your endeavors and we will be in touch. Anyway, we'll be talking for the whole year now with the book with the voice within publication. So I'm just going to log out, thank you, thank you.
