The Need for Honesty, Transparency, and Vulnerability

[INTRODUCTION]

[00:00:00] JW: Hello. Welcome to our show, Being F’ing Honest, and I'm Jennifer Wong.

[00:00:04] CR: And I'm Charity Rodriguez. We're going to be your host for, I don't know, about 20, 30 minutes, hopefully, every podcast, and we hope you enjoy what we bring to you. What are we bringing, Jennifer?

[00:00:17] JW: We are bringing honesty, transparency, a place for fun, a place to talk about things that aren't normally talked about, between normal everyday people.

[00:00:27] CR: Yes, normal everyday people. I can't guarantee that the stories won't be fantastical. But these are getting to be honest stories, honest sharing, honest reflections that we're going to share with each other. And hopefully, that will inspire you to be honest with yourself, your family, your friends, with your tribe.

[00:00:51] JW: Absolutely.

[EPISODE]

[00:00:54] CR: Hello, Jennifer.

[00:00:55] JW: Hello, Charity.

[00:00:56] CR: Alright, wow's it going?

[00:00:58] JW: Good. Good. Ready to begin.

[00:01:01] CR: How's your day going? What have you got going on?

[00:01:05] JW: Just a walk and work. Finishing up the stuff I didn't get done this week.

[00:01:11] CR: You sent me that beautiful picture of the sunset. That was so amazing. It was like, “Oh, I'm sitting here freezing in Austin.”

[00:01:24] JW: It has been beautiful.

[00:01:24] CR: I know. It was just like, “Oh my gosh, I just left that. Why did I leave that? What was I thinking?” Anyway. Alright, so here we are, we're getting ourselves ready to do our show, and do you want to talk about what we're doing? Like why we're doing it? What made us decide, “Hey, let's do a podcast.”

[00:01:47] JW: Well, okay, sure. Do you want to start?

[00:01:49] CR: Go. You go.

[00:01:51] JW: So, first of all, our common friend, my aunt, your friend, brought us together, because she heard us both separately talking about wanting to do a podcast. So, there must be something there. I wanted to do a podcast because I love to be out there sharing stories, sharing experience, strength and hope about things that I don't think are normally talked about in the media, in society. Just the general conversations of today. There are certain things that I think we need to dig deeper on, and have fun with.

[00:02:24] CR: There are. There are a lot of things we need to dig deeper with. And I agree, there are a lot of things that are portrayed in the media, that are portrayed in books, music, but we distance ourselves from them, like just everyday people distance themselves, because they're like, “Oh, they are writers, so of course, they are experts and knowledgeable with words. So, they're able to express.” That's them, like, “I can do that.” They listen to what is being said, but they're thinking of, “That’s a writer. I can't do that! That's a singer, a musician. I'm not that!” Or it's a movie, and there's some really hard-hitting things going on in the movie. But then it's, “Oh, but they're actors.” So, that moment to grab that spark off of those things is left when you leave the theater, when you turn off the music, when you put away the book, and you turn to whoever's in your life, right? And you just go back to whatever's going on.

[00:03:33] JW: Right. They're not normal everyday people.

[00:03:37] CR: Right. And there are a lot of things, and I know – okay, so we were talking about a pretty hard and heavy experience that we both had, and that was having to deal with dementia, having to deal with being caretakers, having to deal with dementia and caretaking for our parents, both of them being our fathers. It was pretty natural and very, like we just clicked very quickly on this topic. I don't know like how, why did we just go from, “Yeah, it was really sad and I’m grieving.” And we didn't just move on and go and leave it there. We just kept diving in and we just kept revealing and pulling back layers very quickly, for these experiences that just can be completely devastating and overwhelming for a lot of people.

[00:04:33] JW: Yes. And I think opening that conversation, we're all kind of ready for it. It's just sitting under the surface for all of us. We're all experiencing things that are difficult, hard, emotional, but we just keep pulling up our big girl pants and we just keep walking through each day with the to-do list and the things we got to do. But when we can take a moment and connect with somebody on a topic that we can both share, I think we're all waiting for that. We're all waiting for that honesty, we're waiting for that transparency, we're waiting for someone to be vulnerable.

[00:05:05] CR: Yes. That is true. Why were you vulnerable? Why were you vulnerable with me?

[00:05:14] JW: I think because I felt safe, right? Because there was a reciprocation of vulnerability. It's oftentimes because I have been in a lot of support groups, and if there's a person that does not share consistently, it makes you kind of feel like, “Oh, it might not be safe, because I don't know that person's story.” They haven't been brought into the circle. I don't know what they're doing here. Are they just judging? I have to be honest, that's what I'm wondering. Are they just judging my story? Are they coming to conclusions about who I am? But when there's this reciprocation of vulnerability, it seems like, “Oh, let's go. Oh, good, this is good, this is good.” And then the more that you become vulnerable, the deeper you can go and express the truth.

[00:06:01] CR: That’s true. So, you had mentioned support groups, and I have experience with support groups, but I, myself have not been in a support group. I'm always saying, I need a support group, I'm always saying, like, I should find a support group. But for me, having to find support groups for other members of my family is so exhaustive. I get so tired of, you know, you start with your story, you're telling that person, if it's therapy, or if it's in a group, and the group may not fit, right? I mean, it may not be a good fit. Like you said, you're not sure who these people are, and then you're like, “Never mind, I'm not going back to that.” Or if you're in therapy, it's, “Didn't click. The vibe wasn't there. They're not feeling me. They're not understanding what I'm trying to say. So, let's move on.” So, going through that for my family members, I then for myself, have not. I'm just like, “I'm good. I don't want to go through all that.”

[00:06:57] JW: I totally hear what you're saying and I agree with that, and it's very specific groups, that vibe with each of us. So, it can even be a great support group. But if it doesn't match your vibe, then it's not going to work. And I do want to say like, I don't mean for Being F’ing Honest to be a support group, but to actually just be a forum to create an environment where people can share or just tune into things that we may not be hearing about in our daily lives that can just spark a level of, “Oh, I hadn't thought of that before.” And then offering resources if available.

[00:07:34] CR: Yes. I agree. Yeah, I definitely want people to be able to see and experience what a safe space looks like, right? A space where there's no judgement, what an f’ing honest, conversation can look like. It doesn't have to be yelling. It doesn't have to be screaming. It doesn't have to be threatening, but it will be vulnerable, it will be transparent, and it could be strengthening and hopeful. As you had said earlier, so yeah.

[00:08:12] JW: I think it's interesting, because for you and I, I mean, we've known each other through the years, but we haven't been super vulnerable with each other. But at this period of time, maybe COVID, maybe age, who knows, right? Through experience and time, I mean, we can't deny that COVID has shifted our society, it shifted our world. And I think there's more that's coming to the surface for all of us to become more vulnerable about, because we had time in quarantine, we couldn't do the things we wanted to do, we couldn't distract the way we’re normally distracted. So, that stuff bubbles up and for you and I, it was like, boom, we just started talking and it was easy to be vulnerable, based on our reciprocation.

I hope that what happens here in this podcast is that our vulnerability, our energy, will create that for others. And even if they're not having the discussion with us, maybe to be more vulnerable with their friends, with their family, people they already know, sometimes that's the hardest.

[00:09:18] CR: That is the hardest. That is absolutely the hardest because yeah, we're talking to each other. I don't know that we're going to turn around to go to whoever just yet, but I do need to release and get some of this stuff off my chest and just talk about it honestly, and just be acknowledged for like, yes, that's a real thing. That's a real experience. That's a real emotion, and not just me making it up in my mind. That me, just being dramatic.

But I'm glad that you brought up the pandemic because that is one thing, I think why I feel ready now to like, “Yeah, let's go. Let's do this. I'm just start talking.” It was because your life kind of flashed before you really quick. It's the pandemic like, we were shut down, all of these hopes and dreams and aspirations that we had, suddenly were like, gone in a minute. I forever was like, “I'm going to travel the world. I'm going to go see everything.” But kept pushing it off year after year after year. And now, it's like, well, even if the pandemic lifts for us, it may not lift for another country. I could be all like, “Yeah, I'm ready.” And then they're like, “No, you're not going anywhere. Go back.” So now, it's like, “You know what? No, it’s time. Whatever I need to do, whatever I feel I need, I'm just going to do it. I'm going to do it right now.”

[00:10:45] JW: Yes. That's kind of a benefit. Life is short, is what is came to me. Life is short. But what was interesting with the quarantine and the pandemic was, it was hard to create a compelling future, because it's so uncertain, like you said. I may even be ready to go, but the other country may not be ready to go. So, I think a lack of a compelling future, also brought this insight. Well, what do I really want? What do I really need? What's really important? Oh, my God, look at all these blocks I have that are telling – the stories. I can't even do this. So why bother? I can't even do that. So very interesting. And I think we bumped up against our own stuff.

[00:11:32] CR: I don't think that we have wild and crazy, super unrealistic expectations. I'm not sitting here going, “You know what? I can do anything and I'm going to be the President of the United States. Let me get on that now.” No. I'm just trying to get through life. I'm just trying to be as open and as honest and as present as possible. And open, not letting fear dominate my life. 

I think that for so long, fear dominated my life. All of my decisions, all of my actions, a lot of my actions were because of fear. Fear for myself, fear for my family, my husband, my children, and you want to keep everybody safe, you want to keep yourself safe. And emotionally, you want to keep yourself – you’re all shielded off, and let's just keep ourselves in our little safe place.

But after this pandemic, it's like, “No, I don't want that anymore. I don’t want to be in a little safe space. I want out. Let me just take it and run out on the streets.” Okay, I'm not going to do that. But it's like, you need connection, we need connection. You see how desperate people have gotten being cooped up, and being isolated. And they're willing now to do all sorts of wild and crazy things, just so that they can see your face, hear your voice in real life, get a hug. So, it's like, “Okay, yeah, that's something. That's a real thing.”

[00:13:17] JW: That is real. That is so real. And it's like, what's important? What's really important? What is really important? Especially with this awareness that life is so uncertain. So, what is important?

[00:13:29] CR: All right, so Jennifer, give us your background. What's your story? How did you get here?

[00:13:36] JW: Oh, goodness, let me do the CliffsNotes version. I've been on a path of self-discovery like nobody's business. In fact, my friends always say that nobody they know works harder than you do, and it's not necessarily a compliment. So, I guess my story started in 2006, when I had a health crisis. And I was in the hospital for four days, and nobody knew what it was. And then the doctor came into the room and said, “You're lucky to be alive. You had an inflammation or a stroke in your brainstem, and two more millimeters, and you'd been dead.” I remember being in the hospital room at two in the morning or one in the morning, when they came just thinking, “Oh, my god, I almost died?” And then it was like, “Well, I didn't, so hell yeah. Let's go!” Okay, that was my wake-up call.

And I laid in that hospital, they never really figured out what it was, but I didn't feel good. And I was like, three quarters of my body had paresthesia. So, I couldn't drive and they didn't know what it was. And it just sent me on this whole road of holistic health and self-discovery because what happened was, they did the MRI with contrast, and they found all these things on my brain, in my brainstem. I left that office saying, “I'm going to heal this. I don't even know what it is, but I'm going to heal this.” Immediately, two weeks later, I went and got a hypnosis certification. I spent, I think, six weeks getting certified. I started doing self-hypnosis and meditation. And I started realizing how much stress was in my life. I went through a horrible divorce. And then, at the time, my ex-husband got remarried and told my daughter that I wasn't her mom anymore. I mean, I was under a tremendous amount of stress, and I wasn't managing, and I didn't even think I had stress until this happened.

So, it was a big wake up call. And then that sent me on holistic health and doing all these things. I think I went back three months later, they redid the MRI and everything was cleared up. Western Medicine said, “Well, that's a fluke. We have no idea what happened.” And I was like, “What happened was I did acupuncture. I started meditating. I looked at my stress. I changed my lifestyle, my food.” In my opinion, that helped. Does it work for everybody? No. But that was my journey, and it really sent me into this self-discovery. I just feel like, if I had heard somebody's story, I may have felt more comforted in my journey. That's how I'm here. I like sharing my story. I like sharing my experience, strength and hope, with the intention that maybe somebody will get a little comfort out of it, or new direction or clarity that they've been seeking. I don't know, whatever it is, in the highest good.

[00:16:20] CR: Oh, wow. That is amazing. Okay, I'm just totally freaked out by how similar stories are.

[00:16:30] JW: Well, Charity, tell me about you.

[00:16:32] CR: I know. I know. Because, I mean, I had mentioned the pandemic and that was one thing going on. But I had just gotten diagnosed last year, with having osteoporosis of the spine. It completely came out of the blue. It came out of nowhere. I was feeling perfectly fine. There was nothing that made me go, “Oh, let me go to the doctor and get this checked out.” It was just, you know, you hit your 50s, and then they start telling you all these exams are available to you. And they were offering a bone density. Actually, my doctor was like, “No, you're in great health. Your numbers are all great. You don't need that.” But I was like, “Well, my insurance is paying for this. Let's go.” And I like to have a basis. I'm like, “What's your baseline of operation?” That's a very important thing for me.

So, I was like, “Let's just get that one on the book, so we know where we're at with it, and then we'll move on.” I did the test. I didn't think anything of it. But then my doctor sends to be this email, like, “We need to talk immediately. Call me. Just let them know. I’m available.” I jokingly was like, “Whoa, this would be really serious.” I'm like talking to my husband, because she wants to talk to me. She never wants to talk to me. She's always just like, “Here's the information, go have a good day. Take two aspirin and whatever.”

I talked to her and she wanted to Zoom. She didn't want to email back and forth. And she was like, “Okay, here are your numbers. They're not good. This says that you have X, Y and Z, and that you have osteoporosis of the spine. Your spine could collapse on you at any moment.” That's how bad my bone density was, that the fear was that just me standing, sitting, bending, could fracture or break my spine. I was like, “What are you talking about?”

[00:18:33] JW: Oh my gosh.

[00:18:34] CR: But at the same time, I was also like, this lady's being really dramatic. Because I'm fine. I'm fine. I kept telling myself I'm fine. But the more and more thinking about that is like, if I break my spine, like if I break my back, I'm kind of done for. I'm not a sedentary person. I'm moving around. I'm hiking, I’m biking, I'm walking, I'm jumping, I'm exercising, I'm like, go, go, go. If I cannot move, I think that would be the death of me. It really, really would.

I just was like, “Nope, this is not going to fly.” And in the media and everywhere, they're talking about mental health and self-care, and I'm a person that just pushes through. I know that. I know that about myself. I just push through the pain. I push through the trauma. I push through the drama. I just push through and keep going. And it was really, really hard. I was working. I have a job to go in and go, “I need to stop. I need to stop everything. I need to stop this job. I need to stop everything that I'm doing. And I need to step back and I need to take care of myself.” I mean, I was in tears. I was scared and not so much because my back's going to break but because I was stopping. I've never stopped. I’m not a stop person. That's just not in my DNA. I come from a Latin background, identify as Afro Latina. And my last name is Rodriguez. In my family, when you do something, that you push through, you’re big and really strong, it's like, “Yes, you have Rodriguez in you.” That's what it is.

At that moment, I did not feel like a Rodriguez. I was having to not be a Rodriguez. I was having to admit weakness, kind of failure, kind of like, “I can’t do this. I just can't, because I’m scared. I don't want to break my back.” I was thinking, if my parents were here now, how would I convince them that this is okay, like, I have to do this? Because you just didn't do that in my families.

So, I did it. I stopped and I did what you did. I was like, “Okay, let's go meditation.” Because I'm also not a – I like western medicine, I believe in it. But I'm not totally sipping the Cool Aide of yes, just throw everything at me, and there's still this, “You're like trying to get me addicted to something.” That’s what it is. And if I get addicted to this drug, are you going to be there helping me get up? No. You're going to give me another drug to counteract that. It sounds like, uh-uh. What do I need to take? I research that. Okay, I need to take this one pill. The rest of it, I don’t need that. I'm going to do this with exercise. I'm going to do this with meditation. I cut out meat from my diet. I cut out sugary drinks. I was just like, clean, healthy organic eating, exercising, listening, and then looking at my stress. I had to examine stress and face that, and like you said, I didn't think I was under a lot of stress. But I was. I was under a lot of stress that I was just eating and swallowing and just holding it back. I was just like, just take a deep breath, push on through. Take a deep breath, push on through. So, yeah, there you go.

[00:22:19] JW: Wow. So, how is it now? How are you now?

[00:22:22] CR: I'm doing good. I have to go back in, at this point, like four months. They won't test me beforehand. I’m like, “Please test me again.” And she's like, “No, we got to wait.” But I also had, or I have rheumatoid arthritis, which I was pushing to do that. But after I stopped with the meat and the vegetarian, the drinking water and all of that stuff, all of those symptoms went away.

[00:22:50] JW: Oh, my goodness. That’s wonderful.

[00:22:51] CR: I haven’t had an episode. I have not had one episode. It's there. I know, I have the kind that's there, it's not going to go away. But I kept having all of these episodes where my fingers weren't moving. They were inflamed. Like they would get swollen. It was moving to my feet. At one point, I thought I was going to die. I actually thought I was going to die. But I haven't had one episode. So, that was something that came by like, I'm sitting here treating this osteoporosis stuff, and then it's like, “Oh, by the way, your rheumatoid arthritis.” That came back good. I had some blood work done. Those numbers were low.

[00:23:27] JW: Amazing.

[00:23:30] CR: So, I’m like, “Okay.”

[00:23:31] JW: Amazing. It sounds like both of us needed to be stopped. I feel like the universe just said, “Boom, you're done.” I was like, put in the hospital and you were told you're going to break your back. 

[00:23:44] CR: And I didn’t want to go to the hospital. I have a fear of hospital. 

[00:23:47] JW: So, did I. I was like, “What am I doing here? I got to get out.” So, it was like, we will be stopped. And the good news is that we listened. We took heed to the message. I think being stopped, because I've been stopped prior to that and I just kept going, like, you had said. I got this. I can't even move my hands. I thought I was going to die. Just keep going, right?

[00:24:11] CR: Yeah. Just keep going. That's just what you do. I think, “Oh, do I think I’m a martyr? Do I have to, like die for this?” It's like, no, life keeps going. It just keeps going. And if you stop a lot of stuff, you know, it's like the domino effect. If you stop, it affects a lot of things. And it's not like I try to set myself up to be the master domino, it's just, stuff happens, man, and you got to deal with it, and you got to keep going to get people where they need to be to get yourself where you need to be.

[00:24:47] JW: Right. And that's part of being a woman in the society, because – we can do a whole episode on that. But I think that just –

[00:24:56] CR: And we will.

[00:24:57] JW: – knowing that that's in our DNA. So, I felt the same way too. I mean, I was a single mom when this went down, and I remember thinking, I can't even drive my kid to school. What's going to happen? Is she going to be taken away from me? Because it was a really ugly divorce. So, I was really even more stressed. But what I noticed is over time when I kept taking care of myself, the dominoes did fall, and life was still okay. It's almost narcissistic of me to think that I was holding everybody's lives in balance. Who am I? Do I have a shirt that says God on the front, and Jennifer on the back? Oh, my goodness, I had to let go of those things that I thought were all weighed on me, because I was out probably three months.

So, it was like, “Well, everything's still going. I don't know how, but life is still going.” And oh, my gosh, you know, what else happened? Was I started asking for help and I had support. I mean, it was hard. I mean, I had, when I say help, it was like, I think I asked one person, but that one person was more than I'd ever asked before. I just couldn't ask for help. So, then it makes me a big victim, right? I think I'm in charge of all this stuff and I can't ask for help. How am I going to even survive this?

I mean, there was a lot, I think that came for me, I don't want to speak for you, but being just cut off at the knees and like, you're done. You're done. See what happens. And maybe the pandemic was like that, for a lot of people. They lost their jobs, they lost their communities, maybe. They lost family members. They were cut off at the knees. Now, what are you going to do without these things that you've always had? Or ways you've always been? And it's like, I don't know. I don't know.

[00:26:41] CR: Yeah, that is tough. That is tough. To see things that you've had lost, right? Do you go back and try to recover them, to recoup that? Or do you go forward? Where do you go? What's the path? Is it moving forward? Is that going to bring you joy, security, financial stability? Or do you go back and try to hold on and grab what you lost? You have to move one way or the other. You have to do something.

[00:27:14] JW: Well, the three A's I learned, and I really appreciate them, and that they've been a big part of when I have that decision, like do I act? The first one is awareness. I just have to become aware of what's going on with me, aware of my situation. I have to really look at it. Because normally, something happens, and I just keep moving. I was never aware of what was going on. And then there's a process and then I get to acceptance, like just saying, “Okay, this happened. This is where I'm at. This is all I can do.” The acceptance piece is so big for me.

And then after that, I can move into action. But my normal MO is to feel something, don't be aware of it, don't accept it, just move into action. So, it's like shooting out my energy and just leaking all over the place in all these actions that are not going to create any solid grounded outcome. I mean, not that I want to get into outcomes. But my goodness, if I'm not even aware of how I'm feeling, what I'm going through, how I'm affected, and I don't accept that to be true, how can I make a good decision? It's all just reactionary instead of responding.

[00:28:27] CR: It is. It's a knee jerk reaction. We're just reacting to whatever. And yeah, we don't know. We're just like, “Oh, you got hurt. Here you go. Boom.” And you just move on. But you're not asking, well, why and what happened? You weren't observing. You weren't watching, you're just reacting.

[00:28:43] JW: Yeah. And reaction creates more reactions, and there’s the dominoes.

[00:28:50] CR: Okay. Wow, we have a lot going on. We have so much going on. That is a lot. I think that's really good.

[00:29:01] JW: I know. The universe is like, there are no mistakes.

[00:29:09] CR: There aren't. But you know what, okay. There are no mistakes, but at the same time, because followed by that, a lot of people will say, there's a reason for everything. I don't know about that. I don't like that line. I don't like that there's a reason for everything. I don't know. I don't know that there is a reason for everything. I don't know. And so, that's why I'm just throwing that one out there if case that one's your thing, go like, “There's a reason, Charity.” I’m like, “I don’t know.” Because I've seen a lot of stuff that's like, “Really? What was the reason for that? What is the point of that?” Maybe it wasn't for me to see. Maybe it was for somebody else.

[00:29:48] JW: Right. So, for me, it's like I do believe that there's a consciousness in everything we do. I do believe that. Will we know what it is? No. I don't think all I always know the reason for things. I really don't. I don't think I'll know. And then some things I don't know for 20 years. It's like, “Oh, that's what happened.” So, I agree on one level, like something has just happened. I don't need to dwell on them. I don't need to go over them all the time. I think my new way of thinking is, if there is, I'll be shown. If there is something to it, I'll be shown maybe later. But I'm with you. I think that somethings just don't all have a reason.

[00:30:31] CR: All right. Thanks for being with us. Appreciate you joining and we hope you come back.

[00:30:40] JW: Yes. Thank you for sharing your time and energy with us. Blessings!

[00:30:45] CR: Blessings to all!

[END]