A Heartfelt Quest for Balance in the Wake of Life's Storms - Episode 101
May 15, 2024Season 11Episode 101
Lift OneSelf
When life handed Kathleen Donnelly Israel a bouquet woven with love's vibrancy and loss's shadows, she embraced it with a faith that shines through our latest conversation on the Lift One Self podcast. This remarkable transformational breathing facilitator and author guides us through her powerful story of devotion as she recounts the journey alongside her late husband Ron during his battle with Parkinson's disease. With each breath, Kathleen's narrative unfolds, revealing the essence of resilience and the beauty of choosing love as a conscious decision, even in the wake of profound challenges. Her insights into the transformative potential of self-awareness and breathwork serve as a beacon for anyone navigating the stormy waters of trauma and caregiving.
As Kathleen opens her heart, I intertwine my tale of rediscovery, from sidelining a passion for fashion design to flourishing in the world of graphic design, only to have the embers of my first love rekindled later in life. Our stories merge, painting a portrait of the intricate dance between pursuing our ambitions and fostering a spectrum of interests. We unravel the complex threads of the nervous system, discussing its tendency to prioritize safety over authenticity and the emotional depth of caring for a loved one with a degenerative illness. Our episode is a heartfelt exploration of healing, acceptance, and the unwavering pursuit of balance and inner peace. Join us as we share these profound journeys, offering both solace and inspiration to those seeking to embrace life's unpredictable paths.
Remember, the strongest thing you can do for yourself is to ask for help. Please help us grow by subscribing to and sharing the Lift OneSelf podcast 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.
Remember, the strongest thing you can do for yourself is to ask for help. Please help us grow by subscribing to and sharing the Lift OneSelf podcast with others. The podcast intends to dissolve the stigmas around Mental Health and create healing spaces. I appreciate you, the listener, for tuning in and my guest for sharing.
When life handed Kathleen Donnelly Israel a bouquet woven with love's vibrancy and loss's shadows, she embraced it with a faith that shines through our latest conversation on the Lift One Self podcast. This remarkable transformational breathing facilitator and author guides us through her powerful story of devotion as she recounts the journey alongside her late husband Ron during his battle with Parkinson's disease. With each breath, Kathleen's narrative unfolds, revealing the essence of resilience and the beauty of choosing love as a conscious decision, even in the wake of profound challenges. Her insights into the transformative potential of self-awareness and breathwork serve as a beacon for anyone navigating the stormy waters of trauma and caregiving.
As Kathleen opens her heart, I intertwine my tale of rediscovery, from sidelining a passion for fashion design to flourishing in the world of graphic design, only to have the embers of my first love rekindled later in life. Our stories merge, painting a portrait of the intricate dance between pursuing our ambitions and fostering a spectrum of interests. We unravel the complex threads of the nervous system, discussing its tendency to prioritize safety over authenticity and the emotional depth of caring for a loved one with a degenerative illness. Our episode is a heartfelt exploration of healing, acceptance, and the unwavering pursuit of balance and inner peace. Join us as we share these profound journeys, offering both solace and inspiration to those seeking to embrace life's unpredictable paths.
Remember, the strongest thing you can do for yourself is to ask for help. Please help us grow by subscribing to and sharing the Lift OneSelf podcast 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.
Remember, the strongest thing you can do for yourself is to ask for help. Please help us grow by subscribing to and sharing the Lift OneSelf podcast with others. The podcast intends to dissolve the stigmas around Mental Health and create healing spaces. I appreciate you, the listener, for tuning in and my guest for sharing.
Welcome to the Lift One Self podcast, where we break mental health stigmas through conversations. I'm your host, nat Nat, and we dive into topics about trauma and how it impacts the nervous system. Yet we don't just leave you there. We share insights and tools of self-care, meditation and growth that help you be curious about your own biology. Your presence matters. Please like and subscribe to our podcast. Help our community grow. Let's get into this. Oh, and please remember to be kind to yourself. Welcome to the Lift One Self podcast, kathleen. I'm so thankful you're here with me so happy to be here, thank you.
Speaker 1:
Will you join me in a meditation?
Speaker 1:
I would love to and for the listeners listening. In. A lot of times people are listening to this through a podcast and they're in their car. So when I ask Kathleen to close her eyes, I'll ask you not to do that part, because I want to keep you safe on the roads and others. Yet all the other prompts you're able to do and follow the guidance and take that pause for yourself. So, kathleen, I'll just ask you when you're ready to close your eyes and you're going to begin breathing in and out through your nose.
Speaker 1:
You're not going to try and control your breath. You're just going to bring your awareness to watching your breath go in and out through your nose. Become aware of how the breath is going in and out. There may be some sensations or feelings that are coming up in the body. It's okay, let them come up. You're safe to feel. You're safe to let go. While keeping your awareness on your breath, surrender the need to control, release the need to resist and just be. Be in the breath, drop into the now, drop into your body. Just continue staying focused on your breath. How's your heart doing?
Speaker 2:
oh, my oh, I, I feel really peaceful inside can you let the listeners know who kathleen is? Um. Let's see, I am um. I'm a widow. I um am a transformational breathing facilitator. I'm an author. I pray for peace, um, and I love god. I love God.
Speaker 1:
Beautiful, beautiful. You just mentioned that you're a widow. How recent did your partner transition?
Speaker 2:
It was five years ago in August.
Speaker 1:
Okay, so it's still fresh. Yeah, yeah, still fresh. Could you share about him and what that relationship looked like?
Speaker 2:
Well, we got married. I was 20 and he was 22. And we had five kids, sent them to private school, and so that's why we were poor, because we spent our money on our kids' education. Uh, we were a team couple for marriage encounters. So Ron and I, um, you know, after we got married, I, um I, ron was different. He wasn't as loving after we got married as he was before we got married, and so I was like worried about it. I thought, gee, maybe I should have married, let him marry somebody else. Maybe I shouldn't have said yes so quick, you know, because maybe somebody else would love him more and I, I just I felt really bad. And then we went on a marriage encounter and they told us that love is a decision. And I thought, oh, I can do that. And and it, it transformed Ron too. It made him really happy to be in a relationship with me. I guess maybe he just didn't know how to do it, you know. And so so he, yeah, that was a really good time for us. And we, we wrote our talks, and when you write talks, you learn stuff about each other and yourself. And so he did it and I did it, and and then we just had to find babysitters for our kids and go out and do the weekends for the marriage encounter. So that was anyway. That was hard but anyway. And then he was such an amazing person.
Speaker 2:
When our kids got into high school, we, our first daughter, we sent her. We decided to use our IRS check, you know, to send her to school. It was like $1,500. And that's how much I stayed for to go to early at peace. And so so we sent her there. And then, peter, it was time for him to go and we're like, well, we don't have two IRS checks.
Speaker 2:
So Ron actually himself decided that we were going to send him to private school too, in high school. And we were just like we don't know where the money's coming from. But he just decided to do that. Know where the money's coming from, but he just decided to do that. And the next day his boss had the phone systems for the state department in different countries and they gave him a 35% bonus and that was the money for the school. So it was basically had two kids in high school at the same time, pretty much from 1984 to 2001. And so that's where the money came from for that. So he was a very faithful man and a lot of people admired him. He was an athlete. He did the Tin man in Hawaii. Athlete, he, he did the tin man in Hawaii, okay, and, and he used to run marathons and, um, I actually ran the Honolulu marathon with him. He did it in three hours and, uh, I did it in five and a half hours, but you know, I was a finisher exactly, exactly in um his parkinson.
Speaker 2:
He decided to um embrace his disease, whereas I just wanted him to get better and so, so, anyway, I got to be his caregiver and how was that?
Speaker 2:
in the beginning it was hard because I was kind of, I wanted him to get better and I found cures for him and he wouldn't have anything to do with them. And it was hard for me and it was frustrating and I mean I thought in our old age would be riding our bicycles across France or something, because he was an an athlete and I always tried to keep up. But when he had that diagnosis I was like, well, I guess not, you know, and so right about when he became totally disabled. He was okay for a few years, then he became totally disabled. He was okay for a few years, then he became totally disabled. His doctor told him Ron, if you want her to take care of you, you're going to have to be really nice to her. So he started being really nice to me.
Speaker 2:
So that was nice. And he wasn't a mean person, he was a happy person, I'd say. He embraced his disease. So that was lovely to be caring for a person who is a happy person.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, he was a happy person. Yeah, in our conversation before we started recording, you had mentioned that you had to do some inner work with yourself because of childhood trauma and emotional trauma that you experienced. Are you willing to share with the listeners what that looked like and what the process of healing that looked like like?
Speaker 2:
and what the process of healing that look like. Yes, my, my dad was a hurting person and he was an alcoholic, rageaholic, child molester actually, and so I had a lot to heal from, and I wish I had done it when I was young. I could have had a happier life. That would have been nice, and my children, you know, would have had a happy mom too. But anyway, I didn't know what to do, and so when I started taking care of Ron, I had to be home, and so I just went online and there was this guy, darius Barizunda, and he would have healers on his show. It was just an audio, I think I don't remember. Anyway, if it meant something to me, the healer, I would buy their program and I would do the work, and then it would be not interesting anymore, and then I just felt like God was sending me another person and I would buy their work and do their. You know, do the work like sleep tapes and you know doing booklets of you know answering questions, and you know just all kinds of stuff I did. I think the first two one was Donna Eden, and then there was Rika Zimmerman and Norm Shealy and just a lot of healers that I, I, I used their work to heal, and so that was good.
Speaker 2:
And and uh, also, I, um, I learned transformational breathing when I was a child. I had bronchitis and pneumonia twice a year. Every year on christmas and my birthday, I was ill and um, and so, uh, I learned, I, like, when my daughter was I mean, I was pregnant with my daughter I got pneumonia again and my doctor took pity on me and sent me to what's it called biofeedback and breathing, and I learned how I could control my stress with my breathing, and so I never was sick again after that, because it was because I wasn't breathing correctly, because I was traumat. I think I was 50 years old.
Speaker 2:
I came across the transformational breathing people and I just thought, yeah, me, I need to do that. And so I, I asked Ron well, I kind of bullied Ron into doing it. I said I know this is going to be a growing experience for me and I don't want to grow past you. Will you do this with me? And he said yes. And also, we had a teenage boy at the time too, and our last child, and he did it too. So he's 16 years old and the three of us were transformational breathing facilitators and yeah, that was really good. It's really good so, and through that I learned the Ho'oponopono, which was a really powerful healing technique for me.
Speaker 1:
Okay the forgiveness. You wrote a book about it. I take it.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, you know, after, while I was taking care of Ron, my girlfriend went on the Camino Santiago de Compostela, and she shared it on Facebook with all her friends. And there I was taking care of Ron and I was reading about it and I just realized that she was doing something very special for herself. And I thought you know what, when Ron's done with his disease, I'm going to walk the Camino. And so that's what I did. And so when I got home, I thought well, it's time to write the book I wanted to write about my healing, so I could share that with people, because it was so good and I wanted to share it.
Speaker 2:
And then I got kind of like, oh, I don't know how to be teachy. And so I remembered I told all those things, all those healing things, to people on the Camino. You meet people and they tell you their story and you're like, oh, I know how to, I know what you can do about that type of thing. And so I ended up writing my book about walking the Camino and telling people my healing stories. So that's what the book's about, and a lot of people don't even notice the healing parts and some people find it very healing for themselves. So it all depends on what people need. I guess that's what they get out of it.
Speaker 2:
It's about my adventures. It's about my adventures on the Camino and the people I met and how I talked to them and told them my healing stories. What's the title of the book? Healing stories? What's the title of the book? It's Wisdom on the Camino a spiritual journey sharing forgiveness and possibilities to inspire the rest of your life. By Kathleen Donnelly, Israel.
Speaker 1:
Okay, and I take it that it can be found on Amazon or in other platforms it can be found on Amazon or in other platforms.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so you. Yeah, it's on Amazon. No, no other platforms. I just published on Amazon. I went to a self-publishing school and they taught us how to write the book and publish it, and I did exactly what they said. And it's on Amazon and you got it done, I did. Congratulations, thank you, and so if you get it on Kindle, make sure you either read it or page through it, because I get paid per page. It's like if you don't read it, I don't get any money.
Speaker 1:
Okay, so it's one of those. Yeah, yeah, that's how they self-pub you can.
Speaker 2:
you can order the physical book too, and so yeah.
Speaker 1:
Okay, order that that you, with this awareness right now, you go back to your 18 year old self and you're able to tell your 18 year old self three words to carry her through the journey. What would those words be?
Speaker 2:
Oh, let's see, I want to say I don't know you can use this one word or three words Don't take advice. Say that again Do what you're, don't take advice. Do what you think you're called to do. Oh yeah, can you explain why what you think you're called to do? Oh yeah, can you explain why? Because I I always loved to sew and I made my own clothes and I loved drawing and I wanted to be a fashion designer. And my mother, my mother asked me what I wanted to do with my life and I told that's what I told her, and she told me that I better think of something else, because not very many people get to be fashion designers, and so she thought I should think of something else. So I decided to be a graphic designer, and I am a very creative person and graphic design, whereas it's creative, you have to not make any mistakes, and I'm not that kind of person. So if you make a mistake, you better not print it Right. So that was that was really hard for me being a graphic designer. Yeah.
Speaker 1:
That's very true.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah. And there was this lady, she's clairvoyant or something and she said, okay, well, if any, if you, if you buy my book, then I will give you a reading. And so I thought, okay, well, I bought her book with 16 bucks or something. And then she, I had my reading, like two months later, you know, 15 minutes at two o'clock in the afternoon on certain day type of thing. And so she, you know, put on her clairvoyant cap and she said I see a lady and she's got a basket of clothing and she's holding it up and looking at me questioningly. And she said what does that mean to you? And I said I think I was supposed to be a fashion designer, you know. And she said, well, is there anything you can do about that now? And I had been taking classes at adult education. There's, our adult education has fashion classes.
Speaker 2:
So I took fashion classes, yeah, good for you.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, you've connected back into your dream.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah. So I might have a clothing line someday, who knows? But right now I'm writing my second book, so I'm not doing that. Yeah, you can do a little bit of both. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. You know, when I get on doing something, I just really focus on it, but I kind of need balance, I think. So I think I need to get into that doing more than one thing.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, a little bit of end in both, not just one or the other. Yeah, you know, trauma puts the nervous system into hypervigilance. So then you get into hyper focus and then when you're trying to achieve something or get something done, there's a reward system. So you just only see that and you over obsess on it and don't know how to open up the space of put it down and go into something else and allow yourself to have play which can feel very threatening in the system because of the way the nervous system was shaped. So that's why it's so important that once we do our inner work and we're recognizing the trauma it's really recognizing yourself of what your wounds are and what triggers, so that you can bring safety back inside your body, because that's all your nervous system is looking for is safety. And so if you have a narrative that doesn't isn't matching up with what's going on in the external, then you get into that fight or flight and freeze or fawn the four F's, so it's and it's. You know it's a dysregulated nervous system. So using those tools to regulate yourself and soothe and bring safety back, it's really important.
Speaker 1:
And you know, with my clients I tell them a lot of times. You know, the big buzzword is being authentic and I'm going to be my true self and authentic and it's like, yeah, we all want that. Yet if the nervous system has to make a choice between authentic and safety, it will always choose safety. So sometimes you'll wonder why didn't I say something to somebody, or why did I allow them to do this and not do something, or why didn't I make the choice or whatever there is, and it's like, well, look at the context. Did you feel safe? Safe? And if you didn't feel safe, then you're not able to be authentic. So it's really learning to have a language and recognizing that shame and guilt or that inner critic that speaks. Those are defense mechanisms of the nervous system trying to cut you off from feeling any emotions or vulnerability because it feels like a threat.
Speaker 1:
So to re-engage in these things, it's a process and it's work. It's warrior work that I tell people and even though outside people may not see, but internally what you have to process and go through it will feel like a marathon that you're having to feel and when that system is feeling like there's a threat, you know the constriction and the darkness and trying to open yourself back up. It needs tools and really that language of safety so good on you of you know finding all these different healers, different modalities that would help you to like find out about yourself and to go through that kind of trauma of you know, trying to understand, like, okay, this was a, my father, a separate human being, yet I came through that. So the identity that gets all kind of blurred misconceptions about yourself and relationships and people, and to recreate new definitions.
Speaker 1:
It's a lot of worrier work and it's not just a snap of a finger. It takes a willingness and then there becomes ease, but it's, it's like simple, but it's not easy to access these things and especially when life is going on in real time. So it's. It's a lot of work that you had to go through and to caretake your husband that was an athlete and then be diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. That is grieving a person that's still here because the person that he was was no longer. And now how do I adjust with this new person? And, like you said, you had such an expectation. I want him to get better where there wasn't the ability to have acceptance of the right now and who he was.
Speaker 2:
And that's exactly right. He wanted me to accept him the way he was and I wanted to heal him, and it didn't work. It didn't work and I had to give in.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, it's difficult, because who wouldn't want a healthy partner, who wouldn't want any of their family members or friends in a healthy state? And it's like, okay, how do I suspend these, these expectations, these thoughts and also the fear of losing somebody? Because that's the real thing that you have to face is that you are afraid of losing something, so you're trying to create something that will make it better and still be not a threat and not hit that vulnerable space of the loss and the fear. So a lot of inner work that you've had to navigate through. So thank you, and thank you for using the alchemy of taking those impurities and turning them into gold for other people.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it was. Yeah, I just it had to come, come out. It had to come out and it was such a gift to me that was. One of the gifts of being a caregiver was that I had to stay home and so I just went online and, you know, did my healing. And also another gift that I thought of for my caregiving was that I got to be the well one and he had to be the sick one. If you're going to do till death, do us part. Somebody is going to be taking care of somebody at some time, and so I felt the. I feel gratitude for that, that. I got to be the well one, yeah.
Speaker 1:
Where can the listeners find you, Kathleen?
Speaker 2:
The website wisdomonthecaminocom and I'm Kathleen at wisdomonthec Caminocom and if you go on there, I have a. I have a page for my teachings and so you can read those. They're free. And then for my, my readers I have, if you open the book and you look on the page across from the table of contents, it says read this first. And so I made a website with a.
Speaker 2:
You know galleries and portfolios of my pictures from my trip and so you can see the pictures while you read the book. You have to double opt in. I'm sorry, it's just the way the world is now. And my my friends told me that I should put my pictures in the book. So I shared my pictures on Facebook from with my friends while I was over there and then I just thought well, it will cost the book will cost 50 bucks if I put the pictures in there. So that's why I made the website, so that my readers can see my pictures, because my pictures kind of informed what I wrote. They kind of jogged my memory about what was going on, and so the pictures are in the book. I mean that you know the mental picture.
Speaker 1:
So that's my gift, yeah, and it sounds like a very interactive way with the book, because we're visual beings, so that, yeah, you can use your imagination, but if you've never been to the Camino, you're just going to create something. But to see the visual that you have and then see the story that you've created, it really just taps into all the senses in a more profound way. So, and great way of being innovative, of well, let me find a way that is cost efficient, cause I want people to really read the book. I don't want to limit the readers, yet I also need to earn some money off of these books too, so, you know, doing a win-win situation.
Speaker 2:
I wanted to ask I want to ask everybody if you book leave a review too, because I would love to read what you thought about the book. That would make me happy.
Speaker 1:
Yes, please leave those reviews. They really help to promote the book and also, like she just said it, it helps the author to get that feedback, to hear what it brought forth in the other person, because there's times that you know, you think the person would know, but they have no idea. Everybody experiences it much differently, so that becomes a gift for the author. So please leave those reviews for her, please.
Speaker 2:
Thank you.
Speaker 1:
Thank you for being a guest, kathleen. I really appreciated this conversation and I appreciate you sharing the vulnerable parts of your story and, like I said, doing the alchemy of taking those impurities and turning them into gold and sharing them with people. It is so appreciated to have your light in the world.
Speaker 2:
Thank you, dear.
Speaker 1:
Remember to be kind to yourself. I agree, hey, you made it all the way here. I appreciate you and your time. If you found value in this conversation, please share it out. If there was somebody that popped into your mind, take action and share it out with them. It possibly may not be them that will benefit. It's that they know somebody that will benefit from listening to this conversation. So please take action and share out the podcast. You can find us on social media on Facebook, instagram and TikTok under Lift One Self, and if you want to inquire about the work that I do and the services that I provide to people, come over on my website, come into a discovery, call LiftOneSelfcom. Until next time, please remember to be kind and gentle with yourself. You matter.
