Writing Your Own Story: When the Fire Reveals What Matters

Matt Gilhooly (00:00)
There's a kind of loss that doesn't feel like loss. It feels like a door finally swinging open. For Lori, that moment came in the form of a fire, a neighbor's forgotten french fries, and a wall of diaries standing untouched in the smoke. Everything else was gone. But hundreds of volumes of her own handwriting were not. Lori shares how that fire became the strange, unplanned beginning of understanding who she actually was and how reading her own story as it belonged to someone else gave her back something she hadn't known she'd lost.

Laurie A Collister (00:29)
I had broken up with a fiancee, I had forsworn dating for a while so I could take care of myself. so there were a lot of I crashed my car like a month before. So there was a lot of destruction in my life.

that it was almost like God lit a match and like, and the finale will be to burn down your house. You know, like that'll be the perfect complete burning down of every aspect of your, of your life as it is.

Matt Gilhooly (00:59)
You're listening to the LifeShift Podcast. I'm your host, Matt Gilhoolie. This show is built around one simple idea, that sometimes a single moment can change how we see everything. Each week, I talk with someone about the moment that shifted their life and how they learned to live differently after it. These are not stories about having it all figured out. They are stories about what it looks like to keep going once the story changes. Thank you for being here. Here's today's story.

Matt Gilhooly (01:31)
Hello everyone, welcome to the LifeShift Podcast. I am here with Lori. Hello, Lori. Thank you. You know, I love doing this podcast and I look forward to doing this podcast. And at the same time as a creator, it is a lot of work on top of having the regular nine to five. So it's like one of these things where you're like, I'm tired, but now I'm gonna go get energized and do this. And then it's like the end of the night.

Laurie A Collister (01:35)
Hello Matt, how are you?

Matt Gilhooly (02:00)
when it's done. So that's how I am. How are you?

Laurie A Collister (02:04)
Very good, very well, thank you. I think I'm three hours before you, so it's only three o'clock my time, but six o'clock your time.

Matt Gilhooly (02:12)
Well, you have the rest of your evening to yourself. So I just want to say thank you for wanting to be a part of the Life Shift podcast. This has been a very unexpected journey for me over the last four plus years, being able to talk to people all around the world about these very specific, oftentimes, life shift moments from one second to the next. There is a clear before and after of the human. And I've heard so many different

life shift moment, so many different stories and experiences. Yet, what I've learned, and it sounds so cliche, but I've learned that there are so many similarities in the way that we feel about these moments, or, you know, how we process these moments. And it's just, it's been like this, this really beautiful thing of learning how powerful humanity is and how connected we are.

Laurie A Collister (03:09)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Gilhooly (03:09)
So thank you

for just wanting to be a part of this.

Laurie A Collister (03:12)
My pleasure.

Matt Gilhooly (03:13)
So before we get into your story, maybe you can, well definitely you can, tell us who Lori is in 2026. Like how do you show up in the world? How do you identify these days?

Laurie A Collister (03:23)
Okay, well, you I was a counselor for many years, 17 years, and now I'm a memoirist. I've published one memoir and now I'm publishing one next year. And so guess I'm also a caregiver. I'm caring for my 97-year-old mother, so do that as well. And so that's how I present in the world, I guess, as a caregiver and as a memoirist.

Matt Gilhooly (03:44)
That's awesome. Yeah, well, kudos to you too for showing up for your mom and caring. I'm sure that is challenging as well as probably a beautiful thing that you can and are doing for her.

Laurie A Collister (03:57)
Right. Well, yeah, I think it works for her and for me and for her giant dog, which is right next to me.

Matt Gilhooly (04:05)
Yeah, I think that is something that a lot of people are not made out for. And so I commend people that are able to do that, able to show up for people that need us and like the way that they maybe did for us when roles were reversed.

Laurie A Collister (04:11)
Mm-hmm.

Right, definitely. I can be the caregiver for just as many years as she cared for me, right?

Matt Gilhooly (04:28)
Exactly.

Well, congrats on your book and congrats on your upcoming book. I know that's no small feat either, How long was the journey to put together the first one?

Laurie A Collister (04:31)
Thank you. Yes, definitely.

About 14 years, because I I wrote it in a writing class and edited it and had a writing coach. But the second book only took two or three years. I'm getting...

Matt Gilhooly (04:43)
Okay.

Okay.

Well oiled machine now, right? Pretty soon you'll be cranking them out like James Patterson.

Laurie A Collister (04:54)
Right.

Right, yes, well, he's got a whole crew, I think, of the assembly line there.

Matt Gilhooly (05:00)
I think so. Yes.

So let's get into your story. Maybe you can paint the picture of your life leading up to the main pivotal moment that we're going to center today's conversation around fully understanding that we have many of them as we go through our lives.

Laurie A Collister (05:11)
Great.

Right, well, I I moved to LA in my early 30s, you know, thinking I needed more of a challenging, sophisticated environment. I was a freelance journalist and a writer in a publishing house, and then media relations and worked at a convent. And I had all these, yes, I worked at a Hindu convent for three or four years as a writer. And so I sort of had...

Matt Gilhooly (05:33)
convent.

That's Wow. Don't hear that.

Laurie A Collister (05:41)
like my life was in five or six year increments where I would sort of change my hat and change my career. I wasn't the kind who had one career at 16 and did it at 66. So I had various careers. that was sort of where I was at. I was living in Santa Monica. And then there was the pivotal moment that I guess we'll. OK.

Matt Gilhooly (06:00)
Well, don't don't Yeah, don't jump into it yet. I'm very curious about

the before even all that like, was your upbringing very? Were you someone that was always changing and trying different things and being adventurous, if you will, in that way, because it feels like so many of us are brought up thinking like we need to pick our career right now and we need to stick with it.

Laurie A Collister (06:07)
Right.

Right.

Right. think that definitely I, but all my career, was sort of like a secrets firm, farming secrets, but each career had that one commonality. So it wasn't like I was, you know, like a pharmacist one month and I was, you know, a ditch jigger the next month. Every career I had as a market analyst, as an investigative journalist, we're all having to do with unearthing secrets.

Matt Gilhooly (06:38)
I'm right.

Laurie A Collister (06:50)
And including at the convent where I was sort of unearthing secrets about the spiritual realm surrounded by Hindu nuns. So that was the commonality. And that's why it worked so well with the memoir, which is really about finding the secrets of your life and weaving them together into a whole that tells you something about yourself and also to your audience.

Matt Gilhooly (07:12)
What did what drew you to uncovering secrets? there like I'm not trying to dig into your childhood, but at the same time, it's really, I often feel like a lot of the things I do now are because of the things that happened to me or the well, in my case, losing my mom at eight, change my life in it. It's the way that I approach things because of that experience.

Laurie A Collister (07:16)
You know.

Right.

Yes, I think, you know, it's interesting to look at what a child is doing with their free time, because I think it tells something a lot about what you will become as an adult. And, you know, I got a little instamatic camera when I was eight and that the kind that the flashbulb hits you when you it burst, that kind of thing. And I would instead of taking pictures that were pretty or about my family, I would take pictures and study them as if I could find the secrets that were frozen in that moment. And so there was that kind of

being a little detective even as an eight year old. What can I learn about this person when they're frozen in time? I think hasn't left me and it's just taken a lot of different professional forms.

Matt Gilhooly (08:13)
Yeah,

sounds like a thread of curiosity is definitely always question. Were you the kid that was like, why, why, why?

Laurie A Collister (08:19)
I think so, yeah. Right,

yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (08:25)
Well, take us on. You said you moved to LA in your 30s, you said? Okay.

Laurie A Collister (08:29)
Yes, in my early 30s, like

32, 33, and got a job at a publishing house as a copy editor. so there was definitely a sense of a career ending and a new one beginning like with writing about as a journalist, I didn't feel like I was effectuating change in the world. I was just writing about something. I wasn't being a growth catalyst.

That's why it went into media relations where I used writing in all these nonprofit situations where I was generating change with what I was writing about. So I worked at the school district and the convent and I worked at Hilton Foundation. So I was using my writing as a way to be of service to others. there was that, so every job has had like a little component that the other job didn't have. That's what caused me to move on.

Matt Gilhooly (09:20)
Yeah. you're, you've, you've moved into a place where you're now using your skill and your curiosity and all these things to affect change. So, so where does that take you?

Laurie A Collister (09:33)
Well, interesting. mean, this for this first memoir, I think is sort of like my practice book. I mean, it shows me shows the reader how you can kind of how did I find my secret contract, my calling, eventually, as I meandered through these many careers. And so I'm hoping my reader can do the same with their life. I use journals as as the tool to discover that. But for the viewer or reader, maybe something else. But think

Matt Gilhooly (09:39)
you

Laurie A Collister (10:01)
As the world's becoming more chaotic, people are trying to find their ballast, their reason they were born. And that's what my first book is about.

Matt Gilhooly (10:09)
Yeah. So what was it? What was your life shift moment? Like, it sounds like you're very curious beforehand. What triggered you?

Laurie A Collister (10:16)
Right.

Well, you know, I was in living in Santa Monica and my neighbor neglected her French fries and burned out her house and mine too, you know, and everything burned except my tall shelf of 300 volumes of diaries. And so I felt like God was saying, you know, I spared these in the fire for a reason, which was you read about your life and, and learn something about them. So

There was many things were burned, not the diary. So that was sort of the life ship moment.

Matt Gilhooly (10:47)
That's, that's,

yeah, so walking into what one would assume would be huge devastation, which I'm sure it was at the same time. Yet this was like this beam of light standing there in the room of like, your story is still here, because those are all your diaries, right? Like this. So that's a, there's some metaphor that happens there with of that you're still standing essentially.

Laurie A Collister (11:06)
They were all my diaries, yes. Written it, yeah.

Yes, right. Yeah, that there's, there's this cache that you not have information about you that you fail to really capitalize on that you need to now. And so I began to read one volume every night, you know, and to see, looking at myself sort of like a character in a novel, like how is this character changing or not? the challenges? Are they moving her into a better direction? So

Matt Gilhooly (11:16)
and preserved.

Laurie A Collister (11:41)
it was really telling to look at myself from the outside looking in, my gosh, look at this character and she's suffering or she's succeeding and learning something about myself in that process.

Matt Gilhooly (11:54)
Yeah, how far back did these diaries go?

Laurie A Collister (11:57)
it's from the age of 18, you know, I started when I was 18. so now I write one volume a month, but back then it was, you know, less volumes, but and, you know, I just wrote everything in, but it was like seeing a jigsaw puzzle with tiny little pieces that needed to be put together into a whole. couldn't, each of the diary entries were fascinating, but they needed to be assembled. And that's what the memoir was about was taking these

Matt Gilhooly (11:59)
Okay.

Laurie A Collister (12:23)
thousands of pieces and trying to understand what the story was meant to be told by these little jigsaw pieces.

Matt Gilhooly (12:31)
Yeah, as you start, I guess the first question I have is had you intended to do this before that fire? Or were you just journaling and, know, putting your thoughts together? Just maybe someday you'll look at them.

Laurie A Collister (12:38)
not at all.

Yeah, I think I never never occurred to me to use them to write a memoir to excavate them as if they were archaeological relics that needed to be unearthed to learn from. It was more like a venting place to vent or, you know, like, I'm upset, you know, write about it. So it was more like a healing thing than a Yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (13:07)
Which makes it even more interesting, I would imagine, because there wasn't the intent of let me document all this so that someday I can use it to put together a book. This is more raw, I would imagine, than maybe.

Laurie A Collister (13:21)
Yeah, you're

right. was less less of formula. It was just the raw feelings and thoughts that had no purpose than exorcism of them. So in that regard, it's good because it wasn't like I had a pre plan in mind for what. So there's a you're right, a freshness, a rawness about

Matt Gilhooly (13:30)
Right.

Mm-hmm.

Were there big surprises to you reading back your own story?

Laurie A Collister (13:47)
Think so. mean, a lot of people, you know, chastise me because I didn't do the traditional route of having 2.2 children and getting married and all that. And so I felt a lot of shame about that. But when I was reading my diaries, I thought, my gosh, look at this woman. You know, I have these, I'm very exploratory. I've, I've had earned three college degrees. I go to psychic college. I work at a convent. There were, it was like, I was looking at myself. Okay.

Yeah, I didn't do the 2.2 children thing, but I have other qualities instead, you know. So I didn't have as much self-hatred after reading the diaries. I had more of an appreciation of what I brought to the table.

Matt Gilhooly (14:29)
Yeah. So you would say going into it, you assumed that shame that society puts on us for not following whatever path we think society wants us to follow. And now this allowed you to see yourself differently.

Laurie A Collister (14:42)
Right.

Yeah, it did. It was like, I wasn't having to look at myself through the lens of another person. I could see myself through my own lens. there was a my goodness, things about me that no other person said, but I said about myself in my diary. So it was like therapy in that regard, in the sense that the therapist theoretically can look at you with fresh eyes. I could do that with my journal.

Matt Gilhooly (15:11)
Yeah.

And I would imagine too, there's probably cringe, cringy moments reading that.

Laurie A Collister (15:17)
Definitely,

very much so. Like, my gosh, how could that happen?

Matt Gilhooly (15:21)
Why did I do that? Yes.

But it's so it's, it's, there's something really beautiful about that, though, because you can see in a moment of time, how you reacted to something and how you've changed over these years of if that were to happen again, that's not how you would approach that. And wow, look how much I grew and all the things that you can learn about just being a human and we're never going to be perfect. Right?

Laurie A Collister (15:48)
Right. Yeah. Just all the red flags that people waved at me that I neglected to notice because, well, I wanted to make the relationship work or I wanted to be married and so I got the red flags, you that sort of thing. And and watching it as if I were just an disinterested viewer. I'm like, come on, notice that. And but at the time I didn't notice it.

Matt Gilhooly (16:11)
Yeah.

So when you let's go back into like your story, besides the the journal piece, like as you were living, were you were you pulled to all these different things? Were you forcing yourself into certain things to like get uncomfortable? Were you pushing against the system? Was that was there any of that like, or was this kind of just a happenstance journey that you went on? Which is a very rude question, but

Laurie A Collister (16:17)
Mm-hmm.

I it was happenstance.

I think I would really yearn for connection and, and, so I was trying to find it in, you know, meditation and journaling. There are all these ways I was connecting, maybe because I didn't feel I had that deep connection with a husband or children. So I had to find that connection in some other way. And, you know, I was working at home alone for five years and I had to have this whole two hour.

Matt Gilhooly (16:42)
Okay.

Laurie A Collister (17:05)
regime before I woke up so I could feel connected and not so lonely that I couldn't do my job at home. So I had a whole curriculum of what to do to feel connected. Well, was journaling for an hour, meditating 30 minutes, psychic exercises, you name it.

Matt Gilhooly (17:13)
Right.

like self care and things like that, right?

Wow.

Yeah. Well, I mean, we all find our ways to feel that connection. I think that's really important to say out loud. I think that we have to find those things that are our comfort, our grounding or whatever we want to call it. I'm really curious about what your life was like the week before the fire. Like, what was your, what did you, who were you then?

Laurie A Collister (17:41)
Mm-hmm.

Mm hmm. Well, interesting. The week before the fire, I had broken up with a fiancee, I had forsworn dating for a while so I could take care of myself. I was just enjoying my home in Santa Monica and I quit working at the convent. so there were a lot of I crashed my car like a month before. So there was a lot of destruction in my life.

that it was almost like God lit a match and like, and the finale will be to burn down your house. You know, like that'll be the perfect complete burning down of every aspect of your, of your life as it is. So I didn't go ahead.

Matt Gilhooly (18:27)
It sounds like it.

Yeah. Did you have,

I was gonna say, did you have, and I felt this before in my life, but did you have this sense of like, or this inkling of knowing like you needed to burn it all down to start anew in some way? Like, no? Okay. Okay. It just happened. It was just a lot of, a lot of things falling apart, for good in some instances and...

Laurie A Collister (18:49)
I don't think I had that level of insight, no. I was just trying to cope.

Mm-hmm

Matt Gilhooly (19:02)
allowing you to find the base and then they were like, okay, well, let's the universe was like, why don't we give you one last test and then we'll show you what really matters because what really matters is what's left, which if we're looking at it here, it's you, right? Right. It was you. then like manifestations of you through your journals or through your diaries that you had. think that's really interesting because

Laurie A Collister (19:17)
Right, right, yeah. That's all that was left, right. Left standing.

Matt Gilhooly (19:30)
I think a lot of people have felt that way. everything, did it feel like things were a little out of control in that month before?

Laurie A Collister (19:36)
They did, they

felt like I didn't have a leg to stand on, like I was in a house with rotted floorboards wherever I stepped, my foot went through the floorboards.

Matt Gilhooly (19:40)
Mm.

Yeah. And then did you, when you saw that your books were standing, I'm sure the whole thing was a big shock, but eventually did it feel more calm? Like, did you have a different feeling about yourself as you started reading those or?

Laurie A Collister (20:01)
Well,

I mean, it was fascinating, like reading a novel that you can hardly wait to find out what happens next. so I think it was like a like a little gift after the destruction of here is your pathway out of the destruction volume by volume and.

Yeah, I moved in with my brother. It's that's in the book. It was sort of this wild and crazy Hollywood bachelor. And so all of a sudden, overnight through no effort of my own, my life took a great turn. mean, turn, excuse me, that was a good one.

Matt Gilhooly (20:41)
Yeah, no, I mean, I think it's interesting when life hands us things that... Because you could take... You could have seen it and go, ugh, you know, like, it's just my books. Why couldn't have this... Why didn't this survive the fire?

Laurie A Collister (20:57)
Right. I mean, it's interesting. Everyone said, I'm so sorry, Laurie, for your loss. The insurance agent, my parents are so sorry. And I'm like, you know what, I'm not sorry. Sorry, it all because it was like, I just want to walk away from my life and start fresh.

Matt Gilhooly (21:07)
Mm.

Yeah. And did you? Did you feel like you did?

Laurie A Collister (21:14)
And did I,

and I did everything in my life. Every single aspect of my life changed overnight because I moved in with my brother. So I was still living alone. was living with the wild and crazy Hollywood bachelor with his mini dogs and I started a new career. And so everything became really good quickly. Yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (21:35)
Really? And

did it kind of slough off some of the loneliness that you were feeling and some of the self-hatred and all the pieces that we somehow bring along like baggage?

Laurie A Collister (21:46)
Definitely, I didn't realize how much bandwidth living alone took up until I lived with my brother and I didn't have to deal with isolation. I didn't really get that until I lived with him. all of a sudden I had 500 volts more of energy to apply to my life to reinvent myself, energy that I had not had before.

Matt Gilhooly (22:09)
Yeah. Do you remember that first time that you like looked at yourself and you were like, I feel different.

Laurie A Collister (22:17)
Well, it's interesting. My friend said, Laurie, have you had some work done in LA? That's people say that a lot. Have you had work done? Cause everyone has plastic surgery in LA. But I said, no, I'll tell you what the work I've had done is. It's what's known as happiness. That's the work I've had done. And so my whole face changed shape and my skin changed. And, and, so I could tell that as my mother said, skin doesn't lie. My skin changed. So I could tell I was on the right path.

Matt Gilhooly (22:22)
All right.

Mmm.

Yeah.

And it's interesting that you found happiness, even though you were with yourself before, that was a loneliness, but now you're with yourself in a different way and you find happiness, which is so interesting how things can just kind of flip on a dime because of certain circumstances or we see something differently and then that creates a snowball effect.

Laurie A Collister (23:10)
Yes,

definitely. mean, it was a gift. A lot of people when there's a big life shift, they're like, Oh, I want things to go back the way they were. I really yearn for the way things were before, instead of saying, you know what, this is an opportunity to go open the door. It fresh and quickly. And that's what the way I've you had to write.

Matt Gilhooly (23:29)
Mm Because you had to. Yeah,

you were I mean, first of all, you had to find a place to live, right? So you found your you know, you moved in with your brother. And sometimes just the change of scenery and location can help someone break out of you know, the habits and the things that we assume because I will tell you having had depressive moments in my life. Through grief losing my mom. It's so much easier to stay in that.

Laurie A Collister (23:36)
My brother right my brother's bachelor pad right

Matt Gilhooly (23:58)
sense for me at least like if I'm feeling down, it's so much easier for me to just embrace that put on sad music, turn off the lights, you know, like it's so much easier to be there than it is to move into happiness knowing full well that I can get there. It's a lot of work. Did you feel that it was a lot of work?

Laurie A Collister (24:15)
Yeah,

yeah, I will, it just seemed kind of effortless. But I, I mean, I realized that I gotten so accustomed to loneliness and depression that it became my status quo. And I didn't really know I felt I didn't even know I felt it, you know, was just that's the way it was. And until it stopped being that way. And then

So I think you're right. There's a tendency to gravitate toward the familiar, which often is not the best instead of gravitating toward something really fresh and different that may be scary, but is better for you. Yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (24:47)
Yeah, but

then you found this happiness, which you just said was kind of effortless for you. And that must feel really different and weird, but also wonderful to be in that state.

Laurie A Collister (24:51)
Mm-hmm.

Right. It was almost like I didn't have to do anything. It's like the universe did it for me and that there was that oddness of usually everyone says you've got to work for change and pull yourself up by your bookstrap straps. But I didn't have to do that. It was instant. It was just a

Matt Gilhooly (25:06)
She were like.

It's like all you need is a neighbor to cook her fries for too long. And you get this. But I mean, let's be fair, you, you put in a lot of work, like it's as much as we want to say it was effortless, you still have to make those choices, you still have to choose to look at those books, right to choose to be curious about who you were, who you are, who you were becoming, you know, so there's a lot of work there.

Laurie A Collister (25:41)
There is a lot of work. It demands an openness and curiosity that some people have, some maybe not, because to change, you really have to be open to something that's scarily odd and outside your bandwidth and outside your safety zone. And that can be a hard step.

Matt Gilhooly (26:03)
So you're reading, you set a volume every night, okay. So you're reading these, you're learning about yourself, you're cringing at certain moments, you're smiling, you're laughing at other moments, you probably had some ridiculous moments mixed in there. At what point in reading your story did you say, okay, now I'm gonna share my story with the world? Because that's a big leap, right?

Laurie A Collister (26:06)
A per night, right? Yeah.

Well, you know, I was in a writing know, I had to write a story every week. And, and I'm like, my gosh, I was working full time and I didn't have a lot of time to think. And I'm like, why don't you go to your journals and, write about a romance, you know? And so each week it was a romance. And finally, after a year of writing class, I had like 50 romances and my publishing house that I eventually went with said, you really need to weave this

outside romance, can be romance can be part of it, but we need your spiritual journey, your career journey, your financial journey, and then it'll make a whole book. So I had to learn how to do the arc of change and have me as a character and learn how to form a book. And that was good to, to force me to look at my arc of change over a 20 year, 20 year period. How did I change? Or did I, you know,

Matt Gilhooly (27:25)
Yeah.

Did you? Yes.

Laurie A Collister (27:28)
I

did, but there was, it was a lot of wheel spinning for sure. mean, you know, cause I was like trying to find the one and my perfect, you know, perfect spirit soulmate. it was just, you know, one very cinematic romance after another, which is in the book. I realized that when I was reading these books, that there were many people guiding me toward where I should go.

they were my soulmates in the sense of not being my husband, but being people who showed me what my soul really needed. So I called them my soulmates and they were all saying, you know, Laurie, you really are good with words as a counselor, as a writer and healing people. And that's where you really need to be going. And multiple people said that, whether they be boyfriends or teachers or, so as I was reading these,

volumes, you saw the theme repeated, but I wasn't acting on that theme. I wasn't acting on what they said to me. So that was where the aha moment came was, okay, here's your secret contract, but are you following it? If not, how could you?

Matt Gilhooly (28:35)
Yeah. But so these are all in your journals. Now you're putting your is it was it nerve wracking to put your personal stories out to the world? Or was that a calling for you that like, you know, your story can help other people? Like, what was that like? Because you have this period of loneliness, right? Like you felt lonely seems like the the antithesis of that is sharing your story with the world.

Laurie A Collister (29:04)
Right.

Well, it's interesting, I started researching the whole process of journaling and Professor Penny Baker, who's a University of Texas Austin professor, what former psychology professor said that he studied journaling and about how confessing even the darkest deepest secrets is incredibly healing. And he actually did a blood test on people who doing polygraphs. And as they shared their truth, their they

their white blood cell count changed in a good way. so he saw that confessing even though the ugly, the good, the bad, the ugly, that it was incredibly healing. so I looked at writing my memoir like that, that yeah, my uncle and uncle Mike in Columbus might be embarrassed about what he's reading, but nonetheless, over embarrassment is less than what I think the value of sharing it.

Matt Gilhooly (29:59)
Yeah. Well, I mean, there is so much power in storytelling, which you learned through the diaries, but then being a witness to your own story by reading them is probably a whole other thing. And then rewrite, not free writing, but like using them to write something new is a whole other layer that a lot of people don't experience. Like, what did, what did you learn about yourself in the actual writing of that?

Laurie A Collister (30:11)
Yeah.

well, you know, I had to study a story structure and it's interesting because it's as a psychologist, you, you start out and you have all these challenges and obstacles and the arc of change is overcoming them. And then you're transformed at the end of the book. And so I had to, by writing the memoir, have to see and articulate, well, how did you transform and, and where are you now that you weren't at the beginning? So the story structure forced me to.

look at my arc of change, like a novelist or, or a psychologist. And that was the advantage of writing the memoir.

Matt Gilhooly (31:04)
Yeah, is there any imposter syndrome that comes with that? For you?

Laurie A Collister (31:08)
Meaning like,

meaning, I am not worthy of writing the story.

Matt Gilhooly (31:13)
or my

story isn't, it doesn't fit the arc that I need and I'm pushing something. Like I feel like that's how I would feel.

Laurie A Collister (31:21)
Jimmy hooking.

you mean like forcing things into to fit the structure? Yeah, some people have asked that, like, did you really have that, you know, did you really replace the marital vow with the sacred vow and not entirely I still am open to relationships, but it did give me a sense of having a purpose beyond being a wife and mother like, well, what is your purpose and beyond career, but you know, what is your purpose in life? And so

Matt Gilhooly (31:26)
Yeah.

Laurie A Collister (31:49)
It gave me a ballast, something that as opposed to constantly searching for the marital vow and not quite finding it and being in a state of lack and sadness because of that, you know.

Matt Gilhooly (32:01)
Yeah,

yeah, it's I just think of myself and I know for my journey that like, sure, there's arcs. Sure, there, I don't, but I think I would probably feel like I was faking something in my story. And, you know, maybe it's not true, but that's just me doubting that it's good enough. Like my story is good enough for the world. So that's where that question came from.

Laurie A Collister (32:28)
I see.

Okay. I think. Yeah, well, you know, I've been getting feedback because my book just came out a few weeks ago and, and people say, my gosh, it you know, it's like a, you know, like a thriller, you know, your life is like a thriller. And I can't believe how odd the people were met. And so I'm getting validation from my readers that, you know, your life was a thriller, you know, it was like an adventure story. And so

Matt Gilhooly (32:31)
My own insecurities. They come along with it.

Mm-hmm.

Laurie A Collister (32:57)
It may not have fit the American template of what a woman should become, but it was my own template.

Matt Gilhooly (33:06)
We throw that template away who needs that anymore. I think

Laurie A Collister (33:09)
I'm

right, it's kind of old fashioned, you can tell by age by that.

Matt Gilhooly (33:12)
It's,

it certainly is. And I think there are a lot of things that we have assumed as society that we should be like for me, with a dead mom, as a boy, it was very much clear that I only had a certain time period in which I was allowed to cry or be sad, right? There were certain things I wasn't allowed to miss her because if I mentioned that to anyone, then I was weak or not, not well. And then I had to be perfect because then I thought

I wasn't perfect that my dad was going to leave because my mom left because my eight year old brain sees death as leaving all of that. But society keeps that those guardrails on right? Like no one was actually now they would probably. But back in the 80s and 90s, they weren't they were like, Yeah, you're right. Keep all that under wraps. That's nobody's business but your own. And now I think people will be like, How are you feeling? You know, like

Laurie A Collister (34:04)
Right.

Yes.

Matt Gilhooly (34:07)
you are a wounded soul. so I, know, 20 years of me going through that form this version of me, which I am grateful for. But I could have saved myself from all of that. My story would be less interesting, but you know.

Laurie A Collister (34:18)
Yeah, a lot of pain.

Yes, right. So you adjusted to that in a way that maybe was painful as opposed to maybe having a therapist.

Matt Gilhooly (34:29)
But it's all about,

I I probably had a school counselor or something that didn't really know how to help me at that point either. But it's all the idea of the template. Like I pulled out the template of Kid with a Dead Mom, you know, and like I followed that template because that's what we had and the expectations of me were built on what I thought society wanted for me, just as you did. As a woman in society, these were the things that you thought society needed you to do.

I

think we're finding out more as we learn about the people around us, especially through the life shift and all the people I get to talk to. I can't tell you many of these people followed some kind of template. We, but I can tell you that a lot of them thought they had to follow a particular template, but they, but when they found themselves, they realized it wasn't a template. And so it's very similar to your story of like, you finally came to maybe peace with the fact that, that your story is different and that's okay.

Laurie A Collister (35:14)
Interesting, yeah.

Mm hmm. Right. That I had to create my own paradigm because the paradigm I did attempt to follow failed me terribly. And I think right now in our world, there's a huge amount of template changing a lot of paradigm, whether it's the labor market, the economy, capitalism. It's there's a huge amount of shift. And so I don't feel so badly that I'm not like everyone else because the world doesn't seem that functional right now. So I'm.

Matt Gilhooly (35:56)
Well, and dare I say

that you might be in a big community of people just like yourself, just of different ages and different, know, like lots of people are choosing this path that you felt, you know, that you're pulled on and that you didn't, know, they're not fulfilling whatever they're just fulfilling what they just want to live. get for most of us, we know we don't know if we get more than one alive over here. So I haven't experienced more than one that I know of.

So why

not live it the way we want to? And that doesn't include that loneliness and the sadness that both of us have gone through in our lives. And, you know, here we are showing up and now you have your story. One, your story can inspire you to continue and do what you need to do and live your life in the way that feels most aligned. But now people can read your story, not necessarily follow your path, but be inspired by different parts of your path.

or the different

things that you leaned into. Do you feel that power right now that your book is out into the world?

Laurie A Collister (36:59)
I'm trying

to feel that power. You know that because I was a counselor for 17 years, which is very direct to helping another person across the desk from you. And so a memoir, the direct help is not as clear, but the motivation is still there to heal with words, be it as a counselor or as a memoirist. hearing back from people had helped to see what impact I've had on my readers.

So I just think that, you know, think Oprah once said, you know, writing your memoir is way better than therapy. And I think I agree with that. Yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (37:32)
Do agree? Yeah,

I mean, I think, I think there is, I have gone to therapy and I found it very helpful. And I have found in my thirties, I found the breakthrough with the therapist that I needed that kind of cleared the way for me to heal. But there is something about hearing someone else's story just by hearing

something validates your own experience that then inspires you because you feel validated to move into the new step on your own. Whereas in a therapist, there's a lot of unpacking with intention, right? There's a lot of like, you should think about it like that. Whereas discovering it on your own, there's so I feel like there's so much power in that to move forward. And so the the butterfly or effect of people reading your

your memoir feeling changed, then they act differently show up in the world differently, which then someone else witnesses that and create, you know, like, there's so much that can come from your memoir, and you'll never know, which is also kind of beautiful in its own way.

Laurie A Collister (38:40)
Right, the butterfly effect, right?

Just say, yeah, I think the agency of writing your own story, it gives you a sense that, I can address my own problems on my own without paying $250 an hour. And also you get, you journal, you have an immediate transcript of your therapy session that you can read from years for years to come. So it does give you a sense of, you know what, maybe you have the answers to your own problems yourself and.

Let's try that and see how that works.

Matt Gilhooly (39:20)
Did you feel closer when you finished it? Did you feel like a complete or did you feel like this is a to be continued? Like how does how did you look upon your life as you finished the memoir piece? Because it sometimes kind of feels like a an end.

Laurie A Collister (39:35)
Well, interesting, you should ask because I began my second memoir on the very day that I ended my first memoir. So I just that's coming out in July of 2027, where I actually put into action my sacred contract heal with words. So the second book is about what happened with that, you know, what became of me and did it work?

Matt Gilhooly (39:54)
That's awesome.

What do you feel like,

do you feel, how do you feel today? I know we talked about it briefly, but like, how do you feel about you, yourself, your life, what you're doing these, like today?

Laurie A Collister (40:10)
I feel like I'm now that I'm not having to like adapt to abuse of boss or, or coworkers that could ghost my emails or that I'm more clear about what I want and what I'm willing to put up with. So my boundaries are clear. I'm not as willing to accommodate like I used to. So as I'm dig myself more clearly in my memoirs, I have more of a sense of who I am.

and what I accept and what I don't and what behavior I will accept and what I won't. And so there's a more of a, I'm more of a less amorphous, I'm more of a clear character.

Matt Gilhooly (40:46)
Yeah.

Yeah, that must be freeing in its own way.

Laurie A Collister (40:52)
It is I mean, in the past, I think I accommodated because I was so needed to win friends and influence people and whatever you need, I'll do it for you. And it became kind of a not a doormat. But I let's say not a doormat so much as a sidelined person that I was just playing second fiddle to everyone around me, as opposed to, you know, being a main character, hanging out with another main character. And I so I'm not a

a sidekick anymore.

Matt Gilhooly (41:22)
Yeah, I love that. mean, could we all get there as soon as possible in our lives to feel that? But also, you might not feel this way had you not played the role that you played for so long, right?

Laurie A Collister (41:29)
Right.

to see the contrast, right? That's true.

Matt Gilhooly (41:39)
Right? Like, I don't

know, had I not like, for me, losing a parent was very hard. It was very sudden. Obviously, it was an accident. And had I not had that kind of experience, like I wouldn't have realized how important it was to have a different experience when my grandmother was dying, like the contrast of losing someone slowly to a disease versus losing someone where I couldn't say anything didn't know anything. Like there was such a

a contrast there. Whereas if my mom

hadn't died, and then my like, it feels like everything would have been different. So there is something about that comparison piece that comes along with it. But I don't want to, you know, I am who I am, because of all the things I went through, you are who you are, because of all the things you went through, whether we want to, whether whether we want to admit that or not. How, how does, how does being a caregiver now change you?

Laurie A Collister (42:28)
Right. Yes, that's for sure.

Well, it's interesting. mean, the more I'm able to, you know, write and keep that part of my life going, the more I'm able to, you know, weather the slings and arrows of caring for someone who's older. And so, but if I neglect my journaling and meditation, and my memoirs, then I become a little bit more, more affected. And so I really, it's a real lesson for me that as long as I keep my own foundation, I can be a good caregiver.

because I have my own thing and I can care for it. So I guess the more I sink into my writing and spiritual practice, the more firm my foundation is. And so I'm not batted back and forth by the slings and arrows of caregiving.

Matt Gilhooly (43:23)
Yeah, it's I mean, it's really just another example of that whole put your oxygen mask on first. Right? Like, I mean, it's so cliche, but so many of us, for lots of our lives, don't put that on first. And we don't realize that if like, we're good, we're gonna be better for the people around us. We just sacrifice everything.

Laurie A Collister (43:31)
right. Yes. Right.

Mm-hmm, right. can't be good. Right.

If the caregivers are not caring for themselves, what good are they? You know, they become just a mess. right. And lot of people don't know how to, they can care for someone else, but don't have a clue about how to care for their own selves. But that is, that's a larder, right?

Matt Gilhooly (44:01)
Yeah, a lot harder.

Now, now I love that if if if this version of you could bump into the version of you about to see the destruction of your house as you you hadn't seen your books left. Is there anything that you would want to tell to that Lori walking up to your house?

Laurie A Collister (44:15)
Mmm.

I think I would say, you know what, you're, you know, you've got everything you need, you don't need that the fiance, you don't need the car, the condo, you've got it all right here inside you. And be proud of that and take advantage of it to pull yourself into the new dimension that you don't need all the accoutrements that our society says you

Matt Gilhooly (44:45)
Yeah. Do you think she would have listened?

Laurie A Collister (44:52)
Maybe. don't know. I think it's one of those things you've got to learn on the ground.

Matt Gilhooly (44:53)
Yeah.

I agree.

I agree. These are silly questions. These aren't things that we can do, but it's always interesting to see how we care for those other versions of ourselves.

Laurie A Collister (45:07)
Interesting. Yeah. Writing a letter to your younger self. What would you say to her or him? Yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (45:13)
Yeah, I've done that. It was very interesting. Yeah. Yeah, it was. There's a lot of care and compassion for that kid who took the world on because he thought he had to and I was like, man, if I could just tell him to be a kid, it's okay, you know, but can't do it. But so if people want to like, get your book, they want to learn more about you, they want to connect with you, they want to tell you how your story

Laurie A Collister (45:15)
you you have OK.

Mm-hmm.

Matt Gilhooly (45:42)
affected them or validated their own experiences like what's the best way to find you get in your orbit?

Laurie A Collister (45:49)
Well, you I'm on Amazon and you can just type in my name, Laurie Colister, or the name of the book, which is a different kind of vow. Or I have a website, LaurieColister.com. And I have a contact thing where you can, you know, write a little note to me and send it to me. So those are the two ways. Laurie Colister, I guess my name is on the front of your, okay.

Matt Gilhooly (46:11)
Yep.

Yep. And we'll put those links easy in the show notes in the description. So people will be able to just click on them. And I encourage people to check out your your books, but I also encourage people to connect. And because I know how much power there is when someone shares something with someone else for the first time or tells someone else, hey, this is how your story

Laurie A Collister (46:16)
Okay, okay good

Matt Gilhooly (46:36)
connects with mine, you know, like there's something powerful about telling your story or saying it out loud or writing it for the first time. And there are a lot of people holding on to those things and they don't need to. can, things are a lot messier in my head. And when I put them on paper or write them out, everything kind of sorts itself out and feels more palatable. I'd imagine it happens to other people too. So selfishly, I'm asking people to reach out to you and let you know how either this conversation or your book.

Laurie A Collister (46:54)
Yes.

Definitely.

Matt Gilhooly (47:05)
and your story affected them and look out for your next book next year as well. So I just appreciate you coming on this conversation ride with me and being willing to answer sometimes silly questions that pop into this curious 45 year old mind.

Laurie A Collister (47:11)
you.

What was it? Pleasure, Matt, and you asked excellent questions.

Matt Gilhooly (47:27)
Well, you can tell me what you really think when we're done recording here, but I do appreciate you.

It's such a pleasure to be able to learn about people in this way instead of, know, reading is great, but to be able to have these conversations, I kind of picture the life shift is if someone listening is kind of eavesdropping on two strangers that are now friends because they've had this more intimate type conversation. So thanks for coming on this ride with

Laurie A Collister (47:55)
well, thank you so much for having me. Such a pleasure.

Matt Gilhooly (47:57)
And

well, will, I send that back to you as well. And I will say thank you and I'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Thanks again.

Matt Gilhooly (48:06)
Thank you for listening to the Life Shift Podcast. If you wanna learn more, go to www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com.

There you can check out all the different episodes. You can check out the blog, some of the reviews for the podcast and the Life Shift journal. Links are there so you can purchase your own copy, whether in digital or print format. Thanks again.