Episode #4 - A Willingness To Be Stubborn: An Interview With Tricia Renzi

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Welcome to the podcast where relationships, confidence, and

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determination, all converge into an amazing, heartfelt experience.

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This is Speaking From The Heart.

Joshua: 00:00:11

Welcome back to episode number four of Speaking From the Heart.

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Today, we're going to be interviewing Tricia Renzi, who is with the

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United Cerebral Palsy Organization.

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She is a Rehabilitation Specialist, located in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania,

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and you're going to find that she has a very interesting story about how she

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has overcome the odds and that God has really helped to rescue and heal her

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from so many different obstacles that she has been through, and she's using those

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experiences right now, not only at her job, but also with some of the things

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that she's been going through as part of her overall development with helping

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others and seeing what her true version of herself is, and we'll get into that

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in a little bit with the episode, but I will say that this is probably one of

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those stories that when you are hearing it, think about how you can make an

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impact, whether it is something close to you with your family or your friends,

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or even just helping a complete stranger, but with that, let's get to the episode.

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All right.

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I am here with Tricia Renzi.

Joshua: 00:01:20

Tricia, welcome to the show.

Tricia: 00:01:24

Thank you.

Joshua: 00:01:25

I'm so glad to have you be here after all this time.

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I know that I've known you for a long time and then we kind of got

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separated with life experiences and now we're back here, we're interviewing.

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I'm really excited for this opportunity to just have you as a guest.

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So I want to just start out with a question that I have is, What have

Joshua: 00:01:47

you been up to the last few years?

Joshua: 00:01:49

What have you gotten yourself into?

Tricia: 00:01:52

Well, up until two and a half years ago, I had been fully

Tricia: 00:01:57

disabled, for, 13 years, from 2007, to 2019, I was on disability.

Tricia: 00:02:07

I used a cane and I was not fully able to move my right shoulder

Tricia: 00:02:15

because, I had brain surgery.

Joshua: 00:02:17

Wow.

Tricia: 00:02:18

And when they did my brain surgery, they cut around my right

Tricia: 00:02:21

ear, and when they cut around my right ear, they cut my tricep nerve, so I

Tricia: 00:02:27

wasn't able to fully move my shoulder because my tricep nerve was damaged.

Joshua: 00:02:33

Wow.

Joshua: 00:02:34

So-

Tricia: 00:02:34

So, because all these reasons I was unable to work.

Joshua: 00:02:38

Yeah, so when you were disabled and not being able to

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really walk around, tell me a little bit about how you handled that.

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How did you get through that, those sort of, those difficulties?

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Was there a resource you leaned on?

Joshua: 00:02:52

Was there a group of people that helped you out?

Joshua: 00:02:54

Just tell me a little bit about how you got through that time.

Tricia: 00:02:58

Yeah, it was honestly a very, very difficult time.

Tricia: 00:03:03

When I woke up from surgery, I was fully, paralyzed on my right hand side.

Tricia: 00:03:09

I couldn't move at all on my right hand side.

Tricia: 00:03:13

I was unable to do anything for myself for several months.

Tricia: 00:03:20

I was in long-term care facility, where they taught me how to swallow, walk,

Tricia: 00:03:30

and, be able to, do your everyday things that you don't think about:

Tricia: 00:03:35

brush your teeth, get dressed, anything.

Tricia: 00:03:39

I could not do any single thing for myself for several months.

Tricia: 00:03:44

So that was very difficult being from a fully abled bodied person one

Tricia: 00:03:50

day to a, like literally a complete involate, so that was very, very hard.

Tricia: 00:03:58

I think what really helped me a lot is when I was in the long-term care facility,

Tricia: 00:04:05

I was with different people in my similar situations, and I saw people completely

Tricia: 00:04:14

shut down and be unwilling to participate in their healing, and I decided, well,

Tricia: 00:04:22

I'm going to do whatever I can do.

Tricia: 00:04:27

I don't know what that looks like, because I wasn't able to do anything.

Joshua: 00:04:33

Yeah.

Joshua: 00:04:33

Oh, you, you were pretty much, you were pretty much not been able

Joshua: 00:04:37

to like just a, take any action whatsoever for yourself, essentially.

Tricia: 00:04:40

I couldn't, I couldn't do anything without help.

Joshua: 00:04:43

Yeah.

Tricia: 00:04:44

So, yeah, that was a really hard place because I'm a very independent

Tricia: 00:04:48

person and I don't like to ask for help, and here I was forced to accept

Tricia: 00:04:55

help every single day for three months.

Tricia: 00:05:00

So yeah, it was very humbling experience, but like I'd say, no, I

Tricia: 00:05:06

just resolved myself in my head that, I was going to do whatever I could do.

Tricia: 00:05:13

I didn't, and again, I didn't know what that would look like, so, I was in the

Tricia: 00:05:19

long-term care facility for three months.

Tricia: 00:05:22

I graduated from a wheelchair to a walker and left the facility in a walker, and

Tricia: 00:05:30

then I lived in a duplex at a time, so that was fun, uh, trying to go up and

Tricia: 00:05:36

downstairs when a walker just doesn't really work, and then when you get

Tricia: 00:05:40

upstairs, you can't really go anywhere cuz you don't have the walker, so it

Tricia: 00:05:46

proved to be very frustrating, and then, so once I was home, they sent me to

Tricia: 00:05:53

physical therapy and it wasn't very long.

Tricia: 00:05:58

It seems like it was maybe four or five months that I was in physical

Tricia: 00:06:02

therapy, and then at a certain point the insurance says, okay, you're not making

Tricia: 00:06:08

any progress, we're gonna stop paying for physical therapy, but I was still

Tricia: 00:06:14

not able to do very much of anything.

Tricia: 00:06:17

I wasn't capable of going outside of my house by myself, and I wanted

Tricia: 00:06:23

to, I wanted to have some sort of life, like I didn't wanna be in

Tricia: 00:06:27

my house for the rest of my life.

Tricia: 00:06:29

So at the time I lived in New Cumberland and they have a little bus that senior

Tricia: 00:06:36

citizens and disabled people can use for a discounted rate, and so I would

Tricia: 00:06:41

go every day, or every other day, I would go to the gym and I actually paid

Tricia: 00:06:48

a, a physical, or what do you call it?

Joshua: 00:06:51

Kind of like a discounted fee for attending services that-

Tricia: 00:06:55

Yes.

Tricia: 00:06:56

You-

Joshua: 00:06:56

for rehabilitation purposes?

Tricia: 00:06:57

Yeah, I paid for a gym person to help train me to be able to be

Tricia: 00:07:03

strong enough to like open doors, because I couldn't open doors.

Joshua: 00:07:08

Wow.

Tricia: 00:07:08

You know, like on the outside world, like if you go to

Tricia: 00:07:11

a bank or even a gym, you know how those big heavy glass doors.

Joshua: 00:07:17

Yeah, I've had my battles with them and I've lost, yes.

Tricia: 00:07:21

I cannot, I cannot open them by myself, so I was like, well, if

Tricia: 00:07:25

I'm going to be out in the world, they have to be able to open the doors.

Tricia: 00:07:30

I paid for an additional three year, well, not three years full, I paid

Tricia: 00:07:34

for a year, and then I went on and used what they had taught me for

Tricia: 00:07:39

another two years before I was able to go back to at least I could drive

Tricia: 00:07:46

myself, I could go shopping by myself.

Tricia: 00:07:50

I was capable of doing just lead tasks, but I still wasn't anywhere

Tricia: 00:07:56

in the realm of being able to work.

Tricia: 00:07:59

That just wasn't on my horizon at the time.

Joshua: 00:08:03

When you were going through this time and you were relying on all

Joshua: 00:08:07

these people to kind of surround you and help you become really the best version

Joshua: 00:08:12

of yourself, as I've been mentioning about the mission of my business, my

Joshua: 00:08:16

listeners have been hearing a lot about that, but when you, when you are talking

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about just physically pushing yourself, were there times in your life that you

Joshua: 00:08:26

were, during that time I should say, that you were saying to yourself, "Man,

Joshua: 00:08:30

I don't know if I can keep doing this.

Joshua: 00:08:32

I don't know if there's really anything else I'm able to really do other

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than just listen to what this is."

Joshua: 00:08:37

Was there a point of just having to submit and just say, "If I just do this,

Joshua: 00:08:42

I'm going to be on a better place?", in other words, what is it that you

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have done to walk yourself through some of these tasks that you've had to

Joshua: 00:08:51

set forth in your life in order to get the energy and the commitment to just

Joshua: 00:08:57

keep going, especially with something as what you've described, a medical

Joshua: 00:09:01

condition that was really out of your control, it was something that you had

Joshua: 00:09:05

to pretty much set yourself into, right?

Tricia: 00:09:10

Right, so, I don't know if you know about this about me,

Tricia: 00:09:14

but I'm a very stubborn person.

Tricia: 00:09:18

The best way to tell me or get me to do something is tell me "I can't do it."

Tricia: 00:09:24

Say, "I can't do that.

Tricia: 00:09:26

Yes, I can.

Tricia: 00:09:26

I'll figure out a way to do it."

Tricia: 00:09:29

it might not look at like the way you do it.

Tricia: 00:09:31

I might have to do it a completely different way, but I'm very, very

Tricia: 00:09:35

stubborn, I guess, is a good quality to have if you're disabled, but,

Tricia: 00:09:42

yeah, of course, there were days where it's like, "What is the use?

Tricia: 00:09:47

Why am I putting myself through this is I'm not any closer to what

Tricia: 00:09:55

my life was", and I just came to the realization that life was dead.

Tricia: 00:10:01

That there was no going back and that I just, I had to, I

Tricia: 00:10:10

had to enjoy what life I had.

Joshua: 00:10:14

Hmm.

Tricia: 00:10:14

And my husband at the time and I started living life like this was

Tricia: 00:10:21

our last day, so we went on vacations, we went traveling, we weren't waiting

Tricia: 00:10:28

to retire to do things like we all went on trips almost every year;

Tricia: 00:10:34

went to Europe, which I don't really recommend to people who are disabled,

Tricia: 00:10:39

because they're not very handicapped friendly, but that didn't stop us.

Tricia: 00:10:44

I went to to Germany three different times and I've been all over the

Tricia: 00:10:50

US and I feel so blessed that I have see things that a lot of people

Tricia: 00:10:57

fully bodied having gotten to see.

Joshua: 00:11:02

I find that very fascinating because I had my first guest, Chris

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Hulse, who we were just talking about before that we started recording this

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show, talk a little bit about his own travels and how he has been able to

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make those really awesome connections with people themselves, so I'm curious

Joshua: 00:11:20

when you were going through that time where you thought, "This is it.

Joshua: 00:11:25

I have no other choice.

Joshua: 00:11:27

I really want to live life to the fullest", and you started to travel

Joshua: 00:11:31

across it sounds like you traveled a lot internationally, was there

Joshua: 00:11:34

particular people, maybe there was some particular interest or two that made

Joshua: 00:11:39

you think, "wow, I got to experience this just because my mindset changed"

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and or because of seeing this, my mindset has changed and here's why.

Joshua: 00:11:48

Was there something like that, was there a light bulb that kind of

Joshua: 00:11:51

switched on for you when you were going through those things and how has that

Joshua: 00:11:55

affected you even to how you are today?

Tricia: 00:11:58

Mm-hmm.

Tricia: 00:11:59

Well, I know that, like I said, when I was back in the long-term care facility,

Tricia: 00:12:06

one of my roommates had some sort of brain injury which is very similar

Tricia: 00:12:11

even though mine was medically, but I also conserved to be brain injured,

Tricia: 00:12:17

apparently her complete demeanor changed.

Tricia: 00:12:22

I don't know what she was before her brain injury, but she was just a very

Tricia: 00:12:27

unpleasant person in the nursing home, and she was one of those ones that

Tricia: 00:12:31

were unwilling to the point of biting and scratching and participating in

Tricia: 00:12:39

anything that would enhance her life.

Tricia: 00:12:43

She just didn't want anybody to help her do anything, and that really I decided

Tricia: 00:12:52

that I was going to do the most I could with what I had, and okay, maybe

Tricia: 00:13:00

I'll be in the wheelchair or dressing, like, or maybe I'll be using the walker

Tricia: 00:13:03

for the rest of my life, or maybe I'll use a cane for the rest of my life.

Tricia: 00:13:07

You know, I kept progressing, but I never knew, I'm going to continue

Tricia: 00:13:12

to be able to be more abled.

Tricia: 00:13:15

It wasn't until two and a half years ago that I no longer needed the cane because

Tricia: 00:13:21

God healed a lot of the issues that I had, which led me to be able to return to work.

Tricia: 00:13:27

I didn't know that was my future, I thought, I would be using a

Tricia: 00:13:31

cane for the rest of my life, but I was perfectly okay with that.

Tricia: 00:13:35

I was glad not to be in the wheelchair.

Tricia: 00:13:38

I was glad not to be laying in the bed and not being able to do anything

Tricia: 00:13:42

for myself, so, yes, it was hard.

Tricia: 00:13:48

Yes, I definitely had discouragement and it seems now like it was so quick.

Tricia: 00:13:57

It's such a short time, like three, like you say, three years now three

Tricia: 00:14:04

years doesn't seem like a big chunk of time, but back then three years was a

Tricia: 00:14:10

long, long time and now that I am two years since back into being, more fully

Tricia: 00:14:19

abled, the 14 years of being disabled feels far removed, and that was only

Tricia: 00:14:26

like two and a half years ago, you know-

Joshua: 00:14:29

It sounds, yeah, it sounds like time has gone by a lot quicker

Joshua: 00:14:34

than what, what it had been like before where it was going really slow, right?

Tricia: 00:14:39

Mm-hmm.

Tricia: 00:14:40

Yeah.

Joshua: 00:14:40

I'm curious when you were talking about just some of the people

Joshua: 00:14:44

that you've interacted with, so like you were just mentioning about how

Joshua: 00:14:48

someone just had this very pessimistic view and then you, in turn, had

Joshua: 00:14:53

a completely different view of "I'm stubborn and that is empowerment for me."

Joshua: 00:14:57

How do you turn something that some people say, " You shouldn't be stubborn",

Joshua: 00:15:01

because I hear that in the personal and professional world a lot of time about,

Joshua: 00:15:05

you should be open to new ideas, you should be able to change your group think,

Joshua: 00:15:09

how do you use that stubbornness to help you realize that you need to learn new

Joshua: 00:15:14

skills or do new life skills, because obviously you've had to change some of the

Joshua: 00:15:20

things that you were doing before, because you said like in the past that the same

Joshua: 00:15:24

things that you were doing in the past were not going to work now that you have

Joshua: 00:15:28

this condition or what you were trying to do to heal, so how do you overcome that?

Joshua: 00:15:33

What are your strategies with, with that?

Tricia: 00:15:36

Well, I think each one of us, I just use stubbornness because my mom

Tricia: 00:15:42

used to tell me I'm stubborn headed.

Tricia: 00:15:45

I think all of us have that want or need to persist, to have a good life,

Tricia: 00:15:54

to have joy in our life, and how do you accomplish that and, so I was

Tricia: 00:16:03

very determined that, okay, maybe this is the best health I'm going to have.

Tricia: 00:16:13

Okay, what can I do at this?

Tricia: 00:16:16

What am I able to do?

Tricia: 00:16:18

Not what I couldn't do.

Tricia: 00:16:20

What am I able to do?

Tricia: 00:16:21

Can I try this?

Tricia: 00:16:23

Maybe I'll fail, but I can try this.

Tricia: 00:16:26

Okay, maybe I can adapt it this way, and I think it also helped that I'm a gamer.

Tricia: 00:16:31

I love to play games, so I would look at everything as a game and how could

Tricia: 00:16:39

I play this game or beat this game to move forward, to get better at

Tricia: 00:16:46

it, all these like kind of facets of my personality that God gave me, this

Tricia: 00:16:52

ability to, to look at every obstacle and be like, okay, I cannot do this.

Tricia: 00:17:00

It's not possible, but maybe I can go around or maybe I can go up or

Tricia: 00:17:06

maybe under, or there's some other way that I can still at be at my goal,

Tricia: 00:17:14

even though I can't do this particular step, I can still reach my goal.

Tricia: 00:17:19

How do I do that?

Tricia: 00:17:21

So I would rethink of different ways to do and I would go hiking and not

Tricia: 00:17:31

like a flat terrain, you know, hike.

Tricia: 00:17:36

They would have branches and stumps and rocks and things.

Tricia: 00:17:40

I had help, I had physical assistance.

Tricia: 00:17:42

I wouldn't have been able to do it myself, but with assistance, I was

Tricia: 00:17:48

able to overcome a lot of obstacles.

Tricia: 00:17:53

So sometimes, even those of us are not great, asking for help, just look for

Tricia: 00:18:00

somebody who's willing, or even some people tell sweet people just offer you

Tricia: 00:18:05

help and you don't feel like you need it, maybe just be like, put it in the back of

Tricia: 00:18:10

your mind, oh, that person knows how to do this; maybe that will help me someday.

Tricia: 00:18:14

I'll just remember that, oh, this person experienced something

Tricia: 00:18:19

very similar, maybe I could talk to them and that would help me.

Joshua: 00:18:25

I'm really curious to ask you this now because you bring

Joshua: 00:18:29

up so many good things about what you have done to overcome.

Joshua: 00:18:34

I want you to just put yourself in a moment when you were finding out that

Joshua: 00:18:38

you needed to have the surgery to get healed and you had to put yourself

Joshua: 00:18:44

back into your shoes of, "Man, I don't know if this is, I'm going to be able

Joshua: 00:18:48

to get through this or not", I just want you to envision that for a moment.

Joshua: 00:18:52

What would you say to somebody when they get that devastating news about something

Joshua: 00:18:58

that might have been traumatic, and looking back at that time knowing that

Joshua: 00:19:05

there were probably a lot of things going through your mind as to how am I going

Joshua: 00:19:09

to overcome this, and how am I going to get through what I'm going through?

Joshua: 00:19:14

What would you say to someone that is listening to something to this for the

Joshua: 00:19:19

first time and they're listening to this podcast, they might have something

Joshua: 00:19:22

that they're going through traumatically that they just learned about.

Joshua: 00:19:26

What would be your best advice to them?

Joshua: 00:19:27

The one thing that you would say that would help them grieve or to get through

Joshua: 00:19:34

what they're going through in order to be productive or stubborn to use your

Joshua: 00:19:38

word in a good way, to overcome that.

Joshua: 00:19:42

What would you say to them?

Tricia: 00:19:46

I know it be, it's very difficult, but you have to hold on to whatever

Tricia: 00:19:54

little glimmer of hope that you can see.

Tricia: 00:19:58

It might not be very bright that every doctor in the world might

Tricia: 00:20:02

tell you you're never going to walk again; you have stage four cancer.

Tricia: 00:20:09

You, you know you're gonna die tomorrow.

Tricia: 00:20:13

Whatever horrible thing doctors normally have coming out of their mouths is you

Tricia: 00:20:23

just have to believe that there's hope.

Tricia: 00:20:27

Every doctor in their right mind seeing me three years ago, and then I

Tricia: 00:20:33

know this is true, would've told you that there's no way that nerves can

Tricia: 00:20:40

regenerate after being dead for 14 years.

Tricia: 00:20:44

I'm not sure what the correct diagnosis is, but the dizziness that I had

Tricia: 00:20:49

constantly just overnight went away after 14 years, like there's no medical reason

Tricia: 00:21:00

why I should be walking without a cane, without dizziness, without pain with

Tricia: 00:21:09

all, all the nerve damage that I had from the surgery and from the tumor that was

Tricia: 00:21:16

in my brain stem, crushing my nerves.

Tricia: 00:21:21

It is just hope.

Tricia: 00:21:22

It is just clinging onto that hope like you're drowning

Tricia: 00:21:26

and it's your life preserver.

Tricia: 00:21:30

There's no boats in sight, but you just hold onto it hoping a boat will come by.

Joshua: 00:21:37

Wow.

Joshua: 00:21:38

A boat that comes by.

Joshua: 00:21:40

I think that we all have boats that are stationed ready to go, while some boats

Joshua: 00:21:45

are mostly stocked up and they're ready to set sail, there's others that have already

Joshua: 00:21:50

set sail and you're waiting for 'them to come back so that they could come pick

Joshua: 00:21:54

you up, and that's such a, that's such a beautiful analogy too that sometimes that

Joshua: 00:21:59

boat, although you're waiting for it, is going to come back and it sounds like

Joshua: 00:22:03

it definitely has for you, which we're getting closer to the end of our time and

Joshua: 00:22:07

I just want to give you an opportunity to share a little bit about what you do

Joshua: 00:22:11

because I've already told the listeners this but I'm just curious if you could

Joshua: 00:22:15

elaborate on what you do specifically, because I think it's such worthwhile

Joshua: 00:22:19

work that you do, and is there anything that listeners can do to help support

Joshua: 00:22:25

what you're doing or just the group in general that you work for right now?

Joshua: 00:22:29

I'll give you a few minutes to go ahead and do that.

Tricia: 00:22:32

Yeah, it is really a privilege for me to work at United

Tricia: 00:22:37

Cerebral Palsy and I worked at the one in Central Pennsylvania;

Tricia: 00:22:42

there's several all over the country.

Tricia: 00:22:44

I get to work with people with different disabilities, some mental, some physical,

Tricia: 00:22:50

some both, and I get the privilege to spend the day with them taking them out

Tricia: 00:22:57

into the community, helping them learn and become, on a name to name basis with

Tricia: 00:23:04

people in their community that they would not necessarily have the opportunity

Tricia: 00:23:08

or skills to do so on their own.

Tricia: 00:23:12

I take them out.

Tricia: 00:23:15

We go bowling, we go shopping, we go to the library and people, because we go

Tricia: 00:23:20

there every week, know them by name and address them by name and they know their

Tricia: 00:23:27

names and it's just a beautiful thing to see people opening up and letting them

Tricia: 00:23:36

even just slightly into their lives.

Tricia: 00:23:40

Someone who looks and acts different than themselves in a perfectly natural way.

Joshua: 00:23:50

I'm just curious when you are working with those clients that come

Joshua: 00:23:54

in through the organization and they are working specifically with you because

Joshua: 00:23:59

they're assigned to you and you get to take them to all these places, is there

Joshua: 00:24:04

something that they say to you, you don't have to be specific or mention

Joshua: 00:24:07

names, I'm sure there's confidentiality-

Tricia: 00:24:08

mm-hmm.

Joshua: 00:24:09

With that.

Tricia: 00:24:09

Mm-hmm.

Joshua: 00:24:09

But, have you heard a consistent thing from all of those individuals that

Joshua: 00:24:14

maybe gives you a sign of hope that even something that is as terrible as

Joshua: 00:24:20

cerebral palsy can be and debilitating.

Joshua: 00:24:23

Is there something that you've heard that kind of gives you that warm feeling?

Tricia: 00:24:29

It's so funny because I really haven't been working

Tricia: 00:24:32

there a very long time.

Tricia: 00:24:34

This coming August will be my one year there, but even in the short period

Tricia: 00:24:39

of time, the people that I work with, I've seen in that, just that short

Tricia: 00:24:44

little window of them opening up to me, sharing things with me, telling me

Tricia: 00:24:52

they trust me, and that just, I can't even explain how good that makes me

Tricia: 00:25:01

feel, and I think that we really connect in a lot of ways, because I've shared

Tricia: 00:25:06

with these people that hey, I was disabled and technically still disabled.

Tricia: 00:25:12

I'm just able to work now and I just have this really unique connection with

Tricia: 00:25:20

them because I can show them that just because you're disabled, we not be able

Tricia: 00:25:26

to do a certain thing a certain way that that doesn't mean we cannot do it.

Joshua: 00:25:30

Mm-hmm.

Tricia: 00:25:31

You just have to, you tell me what you wanna do and

Tricia: 00:25:33

we'll figure out a way to do it.

Joshua: 00:25:37

Just transversing the different qualities and trying to find what that

Joshua: 00:25:42

niche is is always half of it in terms of getting that person to feel a lot

Joshua: 00:25:47

better about themselves, and I'm glad that there's champions like you and

Joshua: 00:25:51

this world, Tricia, that are willing to help so many people, even despite

Joshua: 00:25:56

all the difficulties that you have.

Joshua: 00:25:58

You definitely have a great story that you've shared today with us and my

Joshua: 00:26:03

listeners about the importance of not only the word perseverance, because I'm

Joshua: 00:26:08

going to replace that now with the word stubborn with what you said, but I think

Joshua: 00:26:13

that is so important to just be able to connect with people with what their

Joshua: 00:26:18

situation is where they're going through and being able to help uplift them, and

Joshua: 00:26:23

it doesn't have to be just the typical run of the mill conversation that you have.

Joshua: 00:26:28

It can be with all kinds of activities.

Joshua: 00:26:31

I really think that is enlightening, and Tricia, I want to say thank you so much

Joshua: 00:26:36

for being a guest on Speaking From The Heart, and I hope that you continue to be

Joshua: 00:26:42

the light in the world that so many other people need to have, especially in these

Joshua: 00:26:47

very difficult times, especially a lot of people are going through, whether that

Joshua: 00:26:51

is what you have been going through too.

Joshua: 00:26:54

So thank you so much.

Joshua: 00:26:57

What a great interview with Tricia and I know that for her work that she does in

Joshua: 00:27:01

the community with the United Cerebral Palsy Organization, I'm going to throw

Joshua: 00:27:05

a link into the show notes if you have any interest in volunteering or doing any

Joshua: 00:27:10

sort of monetary donation to them as they continue to do great work with people

Joshua: 00:27:16

like Tricia in the organization helping others be able to find and get some stable

Joshua: 00:27:21

footing, especially with such a terrible disease that cerebral palsy can be.

Joshua: 00:27:27

I just want to recap a couple things that Tricia said during this episode that

Joshua: 00:27:31

really helped me to focus on what I even learned from listening to her in this

Joshua: 00:27:38

sort of conversation that we had, and one of the things that we were talking

Joshua: 00:27:42

about after this recording ended was about having brief eye contact and just being

Joshua: 00:27:48

able to acknowledge the person that you are dealing with, and I think that is so

Joshua: 00:27:53

important in this world that we're living in, especially as some of us are returning

Joshua: 00:27:59

from a post COVID world, and we're also trying to facilitate relationships with

Joshua: 00:28:04

people that we are working with and what we're trying to do to help each other

Joshua: 00:28:09

become not only just the best version of ourselves, which I try to do, but

Joshua: 00:28:14

I also want to see people be able to unlock something that maybe has been

Joshua: 00:28:19

lying dormant, and the very basic thing that each and every one of us can do is

Joshua: 00:28:24

simply start to have that conversation.

Joshua: 00:28:27

I think in Tricia's case with having such a traumatic brain injury and having

Joshua: 00:28:31

surgery done, which impaired her sort or feeling that she had, I think that

Joshua: 00:28:37

it was really hard for her for a period of time to accept that, and I got that

Joshua: 00:28:41

feeling during the interview, but what really sealed the deal for me was the fact

Joshua: 00:28:46

that when she started to talk about not just the stubbornness, which I replaced

Joshua: 00:28:50

at the end with perseverance, I started to see some of the light bulbs turn on

Joshua: 00:28:55

for her as to what she's been able to do for not just the last few years, but

Joshua: 00:29:01

what I have projected in my own life as being the course that we set for

Joshua: 00:29:07

ourselves, and I love the analogy of the boat because we all have boats that we

Joshua: 00:29:12

get into that are different shapes and sizes, and they might be big boats, they

Joshua: 00:29:18

might be medium sized boats, they might be small boats, might be little things

Joshua: 00:29:22

that you have to row yourself, but we all start somewhere when it comes to

Joshua: 00:29:26

that journey, and I think Tricia's boat was very small to begin with, but as she

Joshua: 00:29:32

started to see what the possibilities are with just working through what she had

Joshua: 00:29:37

to deal with, with getting that physical therapy and relearning some of the basic

Joshua: 00:29:40

things that she has been able to do in her life, I think it started to really

Joshua: 00:29:44

piece together the importance of not just being a stubborn person anymore, but being

Joshua: 00:29:50

able to realize that she has a gift that she can share with others, which she's

Joshua: 00:29:54

able to do now with her current work.

Joshua: 00:29:57

I love the fact that when she started to see this happen, the big shift happened

Joshua: 00:30:02

with traveling and getting more involved and using games as a way to help cope

Joshua: 00:30:09

with some of those situations, and I think it's an important lesson that for all of

Joshua: 00:30:13

us, we need to find ways in which we are coping and why are we are able to find

Joshua: 00:30:19

some of those niches that help us to grow and facilitate some of the conversation

Joshua: 00:30:24

that we have, not only with others, but even with ourselves, because the internal

Joshua: 00:30:28

dialogue that we have, especially when it comes to overcoming barriers to success,

Joshua: 00:30:35

often start with understanding what those barriers are in the first place.

Joshua: 00:30:40

It's almost like going through Alcoholics Anonymous, where you have to understand

Joshua: 00:30:44

first what the problem is and acknowledge that you have the problem so that you

Joshua: 00:30:48

can continue to go through the several steps that that program has, and I really

Joshua: 00:30:53

think that this lesson is universal and not just the way that you might

Joshua: 00:30:59

lead your life, whether that is a God filled life, which Tricia's life is, or

Joshua: 00:31:04

whether that is filled with possibilities that you even have for yourself.

Joshua: 00:31:08

It's about not just looking at what the construct is in your current life, but

Joshua: 00:31:13

also looking at the bigger picture, and I think that she really expressed that

Joshua: 00:31:17

well towards the end of the interview that we had and just sharing with us that

Joshua: 00:31:22

even in this world, when we are going through that persistence and trying to

Joshua: 00:31:27

give ourselves that ability to do that, she mentioned about we thinking the

Joshua: 00:31:31

ways that we do things, and she used the analogy of hiking, and I really

Joshua: 00:31:36

think that for all of us, we are always gonna start out with the basic path.

Joshua: 00:31:41

In the basic path, there's nothing wrong with doing that.

Joshua: 00:31:44

It actually creates ways in which we can grow and facilitate getting

Joshua: 00:31:48

to that medium difficulty hike to then that extremely difficult hike.

Joshua: 00:31:53

All the good hikers in the world are starting somewhere, and that's the same

Joshua: 00:31:57

thing, of when you're wearing the shoes of those sort of aspects happening in

Joshua: 00:32:03

your life, whether that is disappointment or guilt or frustration with a certain

Joshua: 00:32:07

coworker or a boss, or even a significant other, it's all about stopping and

Joshua: 00:32:13

saying, what is it that you want to do that will help me become not only

Joshua: 00:32:19

better at what I need to say and do, but how I can move my mindset forward?

Joshua: 00:32:25

If someone out there is struggling with that, know that there's a boat that's

Joshua: 00:32:30

going to be waiting for you, and it's not about just helping others which you can

Joshua: 00:32:36

do right away with even just helping out the United Cerebral Palsy Organization

Joshua: 00:32:41

or even just a local volunteer bank that is located in your community, but

Joshua: 00:32:47

I think that if you are willing to just see what those possibilities are with

Joshua: 00:32:52

those boats that are anchored right next to you, even if you're not even

Joshua: 00:32:55

aware of them, getting that awareness and being able to shore up what you want

Joshua: 00:33:00

to do in your life, you can start to make progress in the right direction.

Joshua: 00:33:05

That direction is totally up to you, whether that is

Joshua: 00:33:08

right, whether that is wrong.

Joshua: 00:33:11

What it's about in life is about experimentation and being able to

Joshua: 00:33:14

do the things that are necessary so that you have a completely different

Joshua: 00:33:19

mindset, and as long as you're able to do that, you're able to accomplish so

Joshua: 00:33:24

many different things that will help you become not just the best version

Joshua: 00:33:28

of yourselves, but helping you to take it to the next level to help you

Joshua: 00:33:33

see what is out there, and if you're able to do that with somebody; Great!

Joshua: 00:33:38

Do that.

Joshua: 00:33:39

Make that something that's important and try to take steps in which you're

Joshua: 00:33:43

able to help yourself see that bigger picture, and there's nothing wrong with

Joshua: 00:33:48

having the time spent on just the small things so that you get to that point.

Joshua: 00:33:54

If you look at Tricia's journey and how long it took her to get to this point, it

Joshua: 00:33:58

took her 13 years plus then some to feel like she can get back on her footing.

Joshua: 00:34:05

It doesn't matter how long it takes, it's about what your willingness is.

Joshua: 00:34:09

The ability to see what is ahead of you and not letting go of it, no

Joshua: 00:34:15

matter how hard or how difficult it can be, and I hope that Tricia's story

Joshua: 00:34:19

today brings some influence for you.

Joshua: 00:34:22

Thanks for listening to episode number four of Speaking From

Joshua: 00:34:25

The Heart, and I look forward to hearing from your heart very soon.

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