When Holly Porter stares down the cavernous path of a life-altering illness, she does so with grit and a heart unyielding to despair. Her conversation with us is nothing short of a voyage through the tempest of her soul, where she confesses to the spiritual encounters that galvanized her will to live and the relentless pursuit of recovery from long COVID. Holly's narrative isn't just about survival; it's a revelation of how one can repurpose pain into entrepreneurial passion, shaping initiatives like a nonprofit dedicated to aiding long COVID sufferers and a software platform for retreat leaders.
Wrestling with the notion of a lung transplant and the spectre of pulmonary fibrosis, Holly lays bare the emotional labyrinth one navigates when health takes an unexpected detour. She speaks to the soul's resilience in the face of medical upheaval and the transformative role of supportive relationships that emerge as lifelines in times of cognitive fog and uncertainty. It's a candid look at the jagged edges of recovery and how a revised diagnosis can unexpectedly tilt the scales from despair to cautious optimism.
True empowerment, Holly suggests, sprouts from adversity—if we're brave enough to seize it. Her message to fellow long COVID survivors is one of solidarity and strength, emphasizing the significance of building memories and seeking knowledge in the vast expanses of the internet. 'Finding Holly' is an intimate chapter in her life where she invites listeners to connect with her multifaceted endeavours, reminding them that every stumble is an integral stride in the grand odyssey of life. Her story, shared on our platform, is a guidepost for those searching for light amidst the shadows of their own battles.
Find Holly at www.hollyporter.com
Remember, the strongest thing you can do for yourself is to ask for help.
Please help us grow by subscribing to the Lift OneSelf podcast and sharing it with others.
The podcast's intention is to dissolve the stigmas around Mental Health and create spaces of healing.
I appreciate you, the listener, for tuning in and my guest for sharing.
Our website
Https://.LiftOneself.com
Find more conversations on our Social Media pages
www.facebook.com/liftoneself
www.instagram.com/liftoneself
Music by prazkhanal
Remember to be kind to yourself.
When Holly Porter stares down the cavernous path of a life-altering illness, she does so with grit and a heart unyielding to despair. Her conversation with us is nothing short of a voyage through the tempest of her soul, where she confesses to the spiritual encounters that galvanized her will to live and the relentless pursuit of recovery from long COVID. Holly's narrative isn't just about survival; it's a revelation of how one can repurpose pain into entrepreneurial passion, shaping initiatives like a nonprofit dedicated to aiding long COVID sufferers and a software platform for retreat leaders.
Wrestling with the notion of a lung transplant and the spectre of pulmonary fibrosis, Holly lays bare the emotional labyrinth one navigates when health takes an unexpected detour. She speaks to the soul's resilience in the face of medical upheaval and the transformative role of supportive relationships that emerge as lifelines in times of cognitive fog and uncertainty. It's a candid look at the jagged edges of recovery and how a revised diagnosis can unexpectedly tilt the scales from despair to cautious optimism.
True empowerment, Holly suggests, sprouts from adversity—if we're brave enough to seize it. Her message to fellow long COVID survivors is one of solidarity and strength, emphasizing the significance of building memories and seeking knowledge in the vast expanses of the internet. 'Finding Holly' is an intimate chapter in her life where she invites listeners to connect with her multifaceted endeavours, reminding them that every stumble is an integral stride in the grand odyssey of life. Her story, shared on our platform, is a guidepost for those searching for light amidst the shadows of their own battles.
Find Holly at www.hollyporter.com
Remember, the strongest thing you can do for yourself is to ask for help.
Please help us grow by subscribing to the Lift OneSelf podcast and sharing it with others.
The podcast's intention is to dissolve the stigmas around Mental Health and create spaces of healing.
I appreciate you, the listener, for tuning in and my guest for sharing.
Our website
Https://.LiftOneself.com
Find more conversations on our Social Media pages
www.facebook.com/liftoneself
www.instagram.com/liftoneself
Music by prazkhanal
Remember to be kind to yourself.
Welcome to the Lift One Self podcast. Holly, I am so thankful you're here with me.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me Happy to be here.
Speaker 1:Let's take a breath together. I'll ask you to close your eyes and, for the listeners, if you're able to close your eyes, if you're driving, just keep your eyes open, but you can still follow the prompts and just settle into your body and begin breathing in and out through your nose. If that's too difficult for you, then just do your mouth breathing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what you're gonna do is bring your awareness to watching your breath and just watch your breath go in and out, just drop into your body some more, allow the feeling and sensations to come up and just pass through you while staying with your breath. I'm gonna ask you, holly, to create an intention in your mind of what you wanna bring forth in the podcast and for the listeners. Let's get to have that intention and just to release it energetically into your body, into your energy, into your voice, into your mind, while still staying with your breath and having that intention released at your own time and your own pace. I'm gonna ask you to gently open your eyes. How's your heart doing Good? Tell the listeners a little bit more of who Holly Porter is.
Speaker 2:Good question. There's been lots of times in my life that I've struggled with that or that question, as probably all of us have. But I, first of all, I'm a mom, which I'm most proud of, and a wife and a daughter of God, and someone who wants people to maybe look up to. As far as I don't wanna make those mistakes. I wanna learn from what she's already been through and not make those mistakes, because there are people that have paid the price already. We don't have to go through all of the life challenges and mind games and things on our own. There's people there. Your podcast, for one, is something that if people are showing up on, they're learning. They will learn if they're open-minded right.
Speaker 1:Very much so. Can you let the listeners know what it is that you offer into the world? What are your services?
Speaker 2:Well, I've had 11 startup companies, so they've been all over the place and I changed businesses and companies. I usually had three or four at a time and I would as my kids were growing up, when they were little. I had a daycare, then I had a preschool, I had a salon and spa, a fundraising company when they were working in their sports activities and things. I'm a real estate broker still and I had a life-changing experience a couple years ago and that, while I was in a coma, basically got on a different path, got really shared with what I should be doing and starting a nonprofit. And I was just starting a software company which I've never had tech in my will house and I came up with this great idea and, honestly, no one has built what we're building. So it's coming in stages. It's been a two and a half year of progress and it just actually we just hit the light button on it this morning, so I'm real excited about it.
Speaker 2:So that's a retreat. That's really my moneymaker right, the nonprofit is my philanthropy and my heart. It's for people with long COVID, because that's me since my journey, and the other is a retreat leader software. So all things retreats. I almost couldn't believe it. I almost could blanket it and say event-wise, but we're focused on retreat venues hosting, booking and education, learning how to do retreat, so there's really just anything in that space they'll be able to find on the site.
Speaker 1:And I want to congratulate you, because anything that we put live, it's like putting our baby out there and it's like, oh my gosh, is it going to work, is it going to be scrutinized, is it going to have accomplishments?
Speaker 2:I'm not going to lie my gut's, like going oh, because you're right, it's been a lot of work and it's not perfect. And I'm like get over it. It's not perfect and we're phase one. We did phase zero, phase one. We still have two and three coming right as we raise more money for development. So, yeah, get over it, it's not perfect.
Speaker 1:And I always remember Jack Hanfield. You always have to shoot to be able to know where your aim is and to always adjust your aim. But if you never shoot, you'll never know where the aim is, and so a lot of people get frozen and stuck by not shooting because they want perfection where it's like no. You learn in the messiness. You learn in the errors. That's what learning is. It's not about getting all the answers right. It's about learning and discovering. What is it? How we manipulate this and everything else? Tell us more about what happened you know with this illness that you had I'm presuming that it was COVID that you contracted what that journey was and how you experienced it.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, I never thought I would get COVID. I was a really healthy person and I just like eh, whatever you know kind of blew it off. I went to a conference and I came back with the Delta version which is still, of all of them, still by the far worst. So I thought it fought it for about a week. We were living in a fifth well waiting for our house to close and I thought it there until I don't even remember that week hardly at all. I remember people bringing us and leaving food on the steps.
Speaker 2:My husband got it thanks to me a couple of days after I did it and I just remember intuitively waking up one morning and I couldn't breathe, and it was about four o'clock in the morning and it had been one week and I said get me to the ER. Like I feel like I have an elephant on my chest, I can't breathe. When I got there my oxygen was 63, which you know 100 is normal. I mean in the 90s is where they like you to stay. If you get under 90 with COVID, that's usually when they said get help. So it was 63. Within 30 minutes I was in the ICU in my own room, which, if you've ever been to the ER and know how long that process takes. That was a miracle in itself. And there are so many miracles happen, like I never had insurance until two months before I got sick and my bill was a million dollars. So that began my first day in the ICU of 70, and I was intubated twice and each time you literally had to sign while you're almost dying to have them intubate. You Like they didn't want any responsibility and I'm thinking in real estate that's calling signing under duress. How are you not under duress? I don't know how that would hold up, but anyway, I remember thinking that's dumb, like I'm going to sign my life away. But I also my sisters had to go to the hospital with me because my husband was not admitted in there because he had COVID.
Speaker 2:I could have one person with me every 24 hours and relatively the first few days, maybe within the first couple even they knew intuitively they were really in tune with me. They knew that I needed someone there 24, seven, which is really strange because I'm super independent. Every fear, every. I never had anxiety. They start staying with me and I remember the nurses asking them are you sure she wasn't on medicine for anxiety Because it's really bad. And I think about it now and I'm like, well, let me take your oxygen away and let's see how you react.
Speaker 2:Right, I couldn't breathe, but my sisters had recorded things with my husband, like when the intubation, the decision to make. And honestly, I remember listening to that a few months ago and crying for myself because I knew that was pretty much my last resort, right, because I'm super natural healer. So I didn't really want to be intubated but I knew I couldn't breathe and I knew I couldn't keep going on and my organs would have started failing and so I agreed to do that. But we kind of all knew back then most people didn't come off. So for them to take me off and then turn around 24 hours they're like breathe at me again. I mean, when you get on a trach, that's usually a good sign. They take you out the ventilator. You're still on a ventilator, but you have a trach and anyway.
Speaker 2:So that was kind of my journey from there and I was in a coma a lot of the times. I lost all five senses, so most people would lose their taste and smell from COVID. So I didn't have any of that. But they would tie your hands to the bed so you wouldn't pull the ventilator out had no desire to do that, by the way. I was like, is it gonna be better? That's helping me breathe, but I can't touch anything. And then I'm already.
Speaker 2:I wear contacts and so I didn't have my glasses or contacts on while I was in there. I couldn't see who anyone was. Plus, they were all covered up so much because it was the ICU, so unless someone was about eight inches in front of my face, I only saw really their eyes. I couldn't really tell who anyone was. I couldn't see. And then the ventilator took like 90% of my hearing away. It sounded like the Charlie Brown teacher. Oh, oh, oh. You know how they have her talking in the background. You never come here where she says that's what everybody sounded like. So the fact that they put me in a coma most of the time was a miracle. Like I don't know. Mentally, I just that was a weird space to be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what did you discover? Were there any insights or were there any things that came up that you discovered more about yourself?
Speaker 2:Oh, I always knew I was a fighter, but it really showed me how much of a fighter I was, because there were so many days I prayed to die. It was not a fun place to be. And the defining moment do you want me to share, like the defining moment when I knew I'd live, of course. So I had lots of out of body experiences, I had a near death experience, but this particular one is what they call a spiritual transformational experience. And I had a cousin that had sent a text to my sisters and it was, she's, very spiritual. And she said I had this experience and I asked who all was there. And I want you to read this to Holly I wouldn't normally text it but I feel like she needs to hear it right now and it was basically that these people all came and were in there supporting me and there for me.
Speaker 2:And I remember getting back, put back in my coma, and I remember being really mad. I remember just like, kind of like, she's kind of like a sister, because the cousin, but she's like a sister. So you know how you get that little snotty. You know, well, I'm like, well, I'm the one suffering. How come she got that and I didn't. I mean that's not fair, you know. It was that kind of talk with God and that's not right. I'm suffering, you know, and my prayer was a lot of times look, if this is how it's gonna be, then take me out. Now I'm done. This is like not a good experience and if I'm supposed to live, then get me better. So that was really my talk.
Speaker 2:And right after that is when I had so I had my mom had passed away about a year and a half before and I had a lot of spiritual people tell me I mean like more than 10, that you know that your mom was on you're there with you a lot and yeah, she was on your right side. They always said she was on your right side. I'm like, yeah, she was, you're right, and it was great confirmation. That didn't think I was just like you know, dreaming it or whatever. But she came to me and you hear the people that talk about all these experiences where people say it's not your time to go back. You know, you hear that, everybody's heard that, but it's true, it really does happen. And she just basically said to me you know that it's not you need to go back, that it really isn't your time to be here and leave, so you need to go back to your body.
Speaker 2:And as soon as she told me that I needed to fight and it's interesting, because that word I don't like, it just is such a negative fight, you know Well it changed it for me. And she said, when she said that I had all, so I had oh my gosh, there's so many people but I had all in white appeared my grandparents and they were all around, like maybe my age, you know, I remember them older, but grandparents, my favorite aunt, my grandbaby that had just passed away a couple or six months before this, my brother that passed away and his wife, like they all appeared and they started chanting fight, fight, fight. And every time they would say fight, another group of people would appear behind them. So then you know, my husband's there now, my kids are there, now my close friends are there, and it went on and on and on and there were so many people there.
Speaker 2:And now I know I mean I do know that there was people I didn't even know, and now I know those were the people that were on. I was on so many purveless and so many. I mean, no, I almost would tell you, nobody thought I was gonna make it right. And so all those people I felt and I saw and they, even though they were chanting fight, fight, like that was the defining moment that I knew I got this, I'm gonna. This is gonna suck, but I'm gonna get through this and we're gonna get out of here. And so that was, that was that experience.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now coming out of COVID. How has that journey been? Because it you know from what I hear from a lot of people, it disrupts what your previous life was and you're going into a new life. So what did that look like? What did the resilience look like? What did those conversations with God look like?
Speaker 2:Oh, you mean, while I was still in my coma.
Speaker 1:No, you made a decision to fight. So when you were out of the hospital, now coming into your personal life, how did that look like? Going through grieving the old Holly because the old Holly could do certain things. Now this new Holly had to learn how to adjust in this new body, new energy and relationship to it.
Speaker 2:Energy. Yeah Well, ok. So when you are that sick it takes a long time to get better. I remember it was a big thing when I could even hold my phone in the hospital and then when I went to the second hospital, I had a iPad that was on a stand-up case that you could lift up and it would hold up by itself Just to hold that it was so it weighed a million pounds. So then when I got out, the biggest struggle was probably the brain fog Like I never. I was walked in with no medication and I walked out with 12. I remember I'm a natural healer so that myself I could have never figured out that medication on my own. And when I needed to take it, like your brain is mush, and a lot of it was the COVID fog. A lot of it was probably the medications they had me on. I mean, you think about, I had everything, your name and I had it, and that probably caused a lot of my long COVID, I believe issues now so that it just was that baby steps I had.
Speaker 2:I begged them not to let me go into the third hospital and send me to my son's house because they had just built a house. It was all on one level. There was a bathroom and bedroom. I couldn't go to the bathroom by myself. I left on oxygen for months. I was on a walker. I mean, think about it when you're laying in bed. I lost 30 pounds in 70 days, so you're just all your muscles and everything's mush and you just have no strength, and so to gain that back, first I had to learn how to breathe and then swallow and then talk. I mean the therapy they make you do I just remember the Haiti that the most about the hospital. They made you stand up and it's like I can't even move my finger and you're going to make me stand up, but it just so. That process is just what I said a process and so that mental state that you need to get your mind in that. Ok, god saved me. He really did. I know that. What am I going to do about it and what am I going to do next?
Speaker 2:I mean, I literally I have so many diagnoses, if we want to say, since I got out of the hospital with my health. I could be on disability for any number of them, but I chose not to because I felt like in my mind that would limit me in getting better, right, I mean everybody. I know there's nothing wrong with that. I have a daughter who has this disability, a sister on disability. It's not. But for me, I did rural state. I could go sell one house and make what they would pay me in a whole year. So I felt like it would inhibit me to do that. But there were many times because, I mean, my income went to nothing. I didn't work for a long, long time but I had miracles with that. I'd had the biggest rural state sell just before I got sick and the biggest check I'd ever got. So it's like things just worked out and got us through.
Speaker 2:We were in the middle of buying our house we had. I woke up one morning and my gut said check your bank account. And I went and pulled it up and someone had done what they just say an account takeover. So we had 12 bank accounts and they had taken oh, they left me $4 in some of them, but all of them transferred the money into our personal account and then took it all and our down payment to our house was in there. So I was like what? We got it back, by the way, but we had to let the first house under contract go because they didn't know if I was going to live, so that had already that house was out of the question.
Speaker 2:This one was a new one we had found. I call it our COVID house, because it's not normally what I would have picked, but at the time it's what we got and it just worked. So it was fine. But we were able to do that. And then, like an hour later, I went to my pulmonologist and all these doctors, they have no clue I mean no clue about COVID. I've been to two new ones that I had to do in the last week and they're both like oh, we've learned a lot from you today and I'm thinking why am I paying you the big bucks, right? They just don't even know. Back to my stories, ari digress.
Speaker 1:OK, you didn't. It's giving other people a relatability of the frustration when you have to advocate in a medical system, when they're not able to have the vulnerability of we don't know what we're doing, so we have to. You are our class right now. We're learning through your experiences and stuff like that and unfortunately, we may not have the remedies for you yet. We will work at it too, and I think that would be a totally different relationship with the medical field than you feeling like well, they come at like we know all the answers and we know this, and it's like but you're not listening to me or I have to advocate for things and you you're not letting me know that you really have no clue what you're doing right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and a big part of what I want to say right now is have an advocate, because this is what happened. I just lost all the money out of my accounts. They were an hour later. I show up with a pulmonologist. He turns around and looks at me. This is the first thing he said, not like how you doing, hi, whatever. First thing he says to me is we probably had to talk about getting you on a lung transplant list. And I'm like what, what, what are you talking about? Do you have the right file in front of you? And he's like yeah, I said I had COVID. And he goes yeah, but we have a diagnosis for you now. And I'm like OK, and he says you have pulmonary fibrosis and that's scarring on your lungs.
Speaker 2:I knew what cystic fibrosis was, but I'd never even heard of pulmonary fibrosis. I didn't even know what pulmonary was. Now I know what's to do with your lungs, right, I didn't know any of this because I was just never sick. So he basically, yeah, starts talking about that. I ended up changing pulmonologists. I just didn't like his bedside manner, I didn't. I just like give it to me straight, sure, but it's like what the heck? So I learned. I mean I started welting up in tears but I just lost all my money. I was in the middle of getting the house.
Speaker 1:You don't even need to lose your money to hear that you want to do a lung transplant on me, like whoa like one of those top five days you'll never forget.
Speaker 2:So I went home and I googled what it was. Don't ever do that, because you're dying if you Google. If you Google whatever you have, you're dying, right. So I was, yeah, and I'm alone in my fifth wheel sitting there going well, this sucks. I mean literally you know it's like OK, I said you had one to two years to live or you can get a lung transplant, which is worse than a heart transplant, I found out, and you might live 10 years. And I'm thinking, ok, so God gave me some things to do. I mean, I have less than 10 years to get done, get on it, right. And so that was kind of that story.
Speaker 2:But my thing is always have someone there with you, because the brain fog even now I still suffer with some when I have relapses that I miss the word. So like I'll pause sometimes and I'll be like I know the first letter and directions. I have a wheelchair. Luckily, google usually gets me in the right place, right when I need to go. But I mean, you kind of need to know where you're going. But I literally live on a corner house on a busy street and I drove by it at least twice, like my own house. I mean, it's just like you have no sense of direction. Stuff I go to every day. I can't remember do I turn on the street? I mean a lot of that's normal stuff, we all kind of go through, but it's like 10 times worse. So it's been interesting Life's differently, different.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no kidding, did you have to like? What did the second pulmonary specialists say? Like are they saying lung transplant or Well?
Speaker 2:she said, time will tell she's way more patient, gives me lots of time when we're in there. You know of our questions and stuff. So the second diagnosis I had I'm only doing this for educational purposes because honestly I don't like to even be attached to diagnosises, of course. Of course you know I mean so I'm happy to share anything. I just am saying that in my mind. I'm like, no, I don't have that, not in denial, but just like let's work with it right. I believe our bodies are made to heal. Yep, and I think a lot of our especially autoimmune things come because of our mental state, our physical state, our emotional state. I think we can create a lot of that. I mean, I know people that have things like that. Don't wanna sometimes look at it that way, but that's my belief. And she said the second diagnosis was rheumatoid arthritis and I was level two within three months out of the hospital. I mean, what it does? Covid catches anything you might have had on fire, and so like I didn't have anything wrong and also I have all these things wrong but they were probably sitting dormant in my body. I'd have frozen shoulder over the years and I'd had a bunion removed and my rheumatoid just said that's all part of it and so maybe it would never manifested and got worse. But now it did, so it also can affect. Rheumatoid is the most painful arthritis that there is and I'm sorry if anyone listening has it, because I get it. It's rough and a lot of people they just wanna throw you on all these medications and I tried a couple of different things but then it brought my immune system down and it's already down. So I was sick all the time and I was like this isn't living. I'd rather be in pain and living my life than sitting in bed all day, right. And so the rheumatoid arthritis can also affect your lungs. So that's where we're at now. It's, I mean, here we are a couple of years down the road.
Speaker 2:I mean one positive thing is the next cap scan that I had done. So pulmonary fibrosis, usually the scarring in your tissue and lungs. It usually just gets worse. I mean I hate to say it, but you pretty much end up suffocating to death, right? Not a good feeling. Losing my breath is how I'm going out. That's not what the agreement is, no, anyway. So that's what happens. Well, it gets either stays the same or it gets worse, and then that's how you end up dying. Well, the next six months later I had the cap scan and when she was reading it we were doing just a phone call. She was reading it and you could hear this long pause and she's like huh, she's like it's actually better. And I'm like hell, yeah, you should see what I've been doing to make myself well. And so Isaac's happy about that. And then the six months later it was the same. So it's not worse, so better is what I say, and I mean I'm a miracle that I'm alive now.
Speaker 2:I went to pulmonary rehab one day and that guy I was doing some testing and I said, hey, I have a question for you. I said why? Why is it, with COVID being what it is and so many people needing to recover, why are there only two of us in the pulmonary rehab program, which I knew about because they were doing special things and they kept canceling the classes? I don't know, because maybe there was only two of us and I knew the other guy. He kind of followed my. He was in the hospital just before me and had been intubated and almost died and she like calmly, pushes her still back and turned around, looks me right in the eyes and she said because they don't live to need it, and that I'm my heart to sing. And I thought, wow, how grateful I mean I'm here. How many didn't live. We all probably know somebody that died from COVID and I don't wanna waste today.
Speaker 2:I wanna make sure that I'm a blessing in people's life and my last two years out of it have been honestly as good, as a lot of things have happened and I listened and I started the company and the nonprofit that I was supposed to do was so many detours, so many heart wrenching detours in my life the last two years that I mean I've been married to my husband 22 years, but I have been married four times, I'm not afraid to admit that. So three divorces put together, almost dying. Nothing touched the emotional nightmare that I've lived the last two years, like I don't think anyone will ever understand how mentally taxing it has been, even though so many good things, like I said, have happened as well. All that put together didn't add up to what happened and what I lived through and just heart wrenching things, and they didn't end well. By the way. The fight, the fight there's that word again that I had to put up for some grandkids, and things didn't end well for my husband and I, and I had to walk away knowing that God sometimes makes the decision for us, because I would have never, never stopped fighting for my family ever. And so when that decision's made for you and you have to move on.
Speaker 2:I've dealt with a lot of grief. I've dealt with a lot of death in my life, but I don't know. I almost feel like and I'm sorry if this offends anyone I almost feel like grief is worse when you have to grieve somebody who's still living, because there's an end. When you know they die, you know you'll never see them and you know they can't make memories with them anymore. But when they are still alive and people maybe aren't letting you see them, or on a very limited basis, when you've practically waste them in your home heartbreaking so, that being said, and it's still emotional because again, they're family, right, they're my heart. Of course, I know I have a calling and I know what I'm doing is what I'm supposed to be doing. It's also I know I can't do that without the financial means, and so if I don't move forward and create the financial means, there's a lot of things I wanna do because of that situation and what happened, and I can't do that without money, and so it's not. My life's never really been about money, but now it's like if you wanna make that happen, then you need a lot of money to save. How many other kids can you save if you do this and so every day, that's kind of my why is get up and it's like, no, I feel like my grandkids had to.
Speaker 2:And I mean relationship. I'm talking about sibling relationships and children relationships. It's just everything was affected and you would think that when you almost die, that people would like pull you towards them. Oh, I want you closer, I want this relationship better, and it was the exact opposite. And that was time. We have eight children and that was tough. It was like wow, so it's a hard look at who I am, who I mean not really who they are, because it's not my place to judge who they are. I'm in charge of me. Sorry, that was like a long answer.
Speaker 1:No, no. Thank you for your vulnerability. Thank you for allowing us to enter into that sensitive place, that sensitive wound, and expressing what it looks like for having grief with people that are living. It's a conversation that isn't really heard much. It's mostly you grieve about somebody that's no longer here. Yet there is grief with people that are still living that you're no longer in contact with, in relationship with. So thank you for allowing that space for us to enter into that and sharing that. My heart goes out to you.
Speaker 1:It's not easy to share our stories and be as vulnerable as you have been right now, so it's a tremendous gift that you just allowed us to have and see what resilience really looks like and how you said, like the path we would like. You said we would think that everything is so everybody's appreciating and gratitude and bring it in, and it's like what the heck kind of disruption was this? That everything is going totally opposite than what I thought it was supposed to look like, and how these things are dismantling and how am I supposed to navigate through that? Yeah, right now, go ahead.
Speaker 2:No, no, go ahead. A solution. I don't know how to work out because it still hasn't happened yet, but I decided I mean, we have eight kids, so they're all adults and married and have 17 grandkids now, and I decided Mother State has been rough the last couple of years, but last year in particular, when it hurt more than any other time because a lot of this was going on and I felt like that I said it's ruined for me forever. Why I have to be ruined for me forever. Yeah, it was a sucky time.
Speaker 2:So I one day, just a few weeks ago, woke up with an idea that you know what I'd be. First, I was like I'm gonna be gone out of town on Mother's Day, I'm gonna be doing something super fun, doing some self-care, whatever, because I felt like it's gonna be a really emotional day. And I decided no, I've got there's seven, counting my daughters and my daughter-in-law is there seven moms and I thought you know they're all moms. So I put together these cute little personal retreat bags where you know just like, find girly stuff, and of course they're pink pink headbands, pink facings, but face mask, lotion, tapstick and all the girly stuff and I just decided I'm gonna hand, write them each a note letting them know how much I appreciate them, you know, pick out their good things about them and talk about them, and I mean they're good mothers, all of them are good mothers.
Speaker 2:And it's Mother's Day and I just decided, you know, to heal my heart. I'm not gonna be attached to any of that outcome. You know, I'm gonna make sure they get it a couple of days before Mother's Day and then whatever happens happens and I'm just gonna let it be. And I feel like that's gonna be super killing for me. I even my husband. When I told him I was gonna do it, he said well, they're not your mother. Why would you do that? You know and he's not a negative person, by the way, so he knows how bad I was hurt. And I said because they're mothers and they're good mothers and I appreciate that they are good mothers to my grandkids.
Speaker 1:So you know beautiful, there's another heart one. Yeah, what a beautiful gift of celebrating what you know the role of Mother, and showing that appreciation, even despite all, like you're doing alchemy right now, you're taking the impurities and you're turning it into gold. You're making that decision. You're not allowing your feelings to control the wheel, to wanna escape and isolate. You are actually taking control of validating your motions. Yeah, it sucks, yet this is how we wanna show up and that is the work, cause it's so easy to allow our feelings to take over the driver, and I'm gonna go make it feel good and make them regret or make it feel whatever, where it's like no, no, no, no, no, validate that this hurts. Yet how can I show up in a way that is rewarding and feels fulfilling? And what a beautiful gift it is, cause a lot of mothers aren't appreciated of just being showed like I see you and I appreciate the work that you're doing and that's a beautiful gift you're giving yourself to give to others of repairing that wound.
Speaker 2:Yeah, whether it does with them is not for me to right, let's just let it go.
Speaker 2:It's funny how they say I mean, I'm a speaker, I've spoke for years and it's like they always say don't speak in front of an audience until you're through it, but when it's your heart, do you really get through it? I mean, if you're a robot, maybe, and you're not an emotional, it's interesting how I cried every day those last two years when that was going on every day and I'm not a crier, look at me now and that's changed for me. I think I just felt things at a deeper level. I was always like don't let him see cry, don't let him see cry. You know, I mean, my husband could probably tell you on one hand in 22 years how many times he saw me cry before the last two years. So it's okay, it's just we gotta no, I'll probably never get all the way through it. I'll just look at the yeah, it's showing me different ways to handle it right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's different pangs and you know it's discoveries. What would you have? What is a message for the listeners that you know experience COVID, that can hear your message or even just can relate to the message of the pain of grieving people that are living? What is a message you wanna leave with them to empower them to keep moving forward?
Speaker 2:Yeah well, our nonprofit is called Adventure Bucket Wish Foundation and that's we help people with long COVID, create memories, create experiences that they wouldn't normally have, along with creating awareness. The biggest part, the biggest message I wanna say with people that had COVID there was a can I do it with the story? I don't know. So one of my guests on my podcast that had long COVID. She was in the hospital for months. She had a baby while she was in there. So she goes in 38 weeks pregnant. It's they do an emergency C C section, take the baby. She never saw the baby for three months and then the last month she was in the hospital she finally got to see her first baby.
Speaker 2:By the way, husband had COVID. So that was her story. The husband got COVID at the same time. He never had any symptoms, nothing. He didn't get sick, nothing but test positive for COVID. But he has long COVID so he has all the fatigue issues. There's 200 symptoms attached to having COVID and a lot of people just don't even. There's 65 million people that are documented that have long COVID but there's so many that don't even know it.
Speaker 2:I think all I'm watching cancer. I have had melanoma cancer now twice in two years and I just think all these things catch on fire in your body. But a lot of people aren't relating oh, I didn't have that before COVID. Maybe it's connected and I think they just don't realize that. And so if you're hearing me and you're hearing that, maybe check that out because that's a possibility that it could be COVID related, where you're getting things now and I think it's just learning to accept that life might look different for you when we have these challenges and we have these adversity things come up. It's how brave are you gonna be? How much resiliency are you going to have to a situation and think about? I mean, it's such a hard. It shouldn't be hard, but it is. It's a challenging question to ask yourself Like who do I wanna be seen as? If you've got, if things have changed in your life, no matter what the situation is COVID or whatever and there's always gonna be sticks and stones thrown at us, right, but who are you gonna be in the end? Are you gonna stand up or are you gonna let it knock you down? And what does that look like for you?
Speaker 2:And if you need help, youtube University you can learn anything you want for free. There's hope out there. If, for free, you can get any knowledge that you really need for free and you look for it, just search, I get help. Listen more podcasts like yours. It's out there. Just get the help that you need. But you also have to recognize that you need the help A lot of people just don't. They're stuck in that victim mentality and they don't know how to get out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm gonna bring you into a reflective question. I'm gonna ask you to bring your awareness now to your 18-year-old self, and you're able to tell your 18-year-old self three things to carry you through the journey to now. What would those three words be?
Speaker 2:They're five words. It's going to be a journey. That's what's coming up for me. That's fine, hang on tight. There's my three. Hang on tight, okay okay.
Speaker 1:Where can the listeners find you?
Speaker 2:Well, my email is holly at holliportercom, and I'm on Facebook under holly and porter. I'm on all social media, my website, hollyportercom, so you can look for me there. And, yeah, we'd love to have. If you know anyone with long COVID, we are always looking for guests on our podcast for that for my philanthropy business. And retreatrnrcom is our brand new one. You wanna go learn about events and learn about how to do retreats. There's just all kinds of things on there for retreat leaders, so love you to check that out. And there's a place I think you can ask for help and we'd love feedback because it's not.
Speaker 1:It's not the perfect site we want, but, right, airbnb had to start somewhere too, so that's where we are Exactly, and I'm very proud of you launching and having the courage to do that for yourself and adjusting as you go on, as we can always see, everything's gonna be messy, but we have to start from somewhere and we just grow by that way and it's having the confidence that you know what. We can deal with the messiness, we can deal with the adversity and just find the solutions and just keep going on and being in the intention. Talking about intention, are you willing to share what the intention was for the podcast?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was filling and creating peace.
Speaker 1:I hope people felt that, did you feel that?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you. It was a great way to start. You're welcome, you're welcome. So I wanna thank you for everything that you were contributing in the world and sharing your vulnerability today, sharing your light, and I'm very thankful you're on this side of love, still kicking and laughing and dancing and enjoying life, and also allowing yourself to have the space to cry, to get angry and feel the array of all your emotions, while being human and still finding the courage to still keep moving forward. So thank you for being a guest and please remember to be kind to yourself.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.