Cancer: The Diagnosis That Stopped the Reinventing

Matt Gilhooly (00:00)
Tara spent decades becoming whoever a room needed her to be. She left Thailand at five years old, she built a dance career, then a fashion business, reinventing herself every time. Then cancer showed up and stopped all of it. Sitting at a kitchen table, she got the call. And somewhere in the middle of chemo brain and losing her memory, something strange happened. Fragments of her past started coming back. She couldn't stop writing them down. Six months later, she had a book. This is her LifeShift story.

Taira Soo (00:29)
And I remember this so vividly, Matt. We were at lunch, and in between bites, he reaches over and touches the lump, closes his eyes for a moment, he opens it back up and says,

It's cancer. Come see me Monday.

Matt Gilhooly (01:19)
Hello, my friends. Welcome to the Life Shift Podcast. I am here with Tara. Hello, Tara.

Taira Soo (01:25)
Hi Matt. How are you?

Matt Gilhooly (01:26)
Thank you f you know, I am surviving

the Florida summer. It's very hot here and I just stay inside for the next, I don't know, six months and just not leave the house.

Taira Soo (01:32)
Okay.

It works.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

Matt Gilhooly (01:42)
Well, thank you for wanting

to be a part of the Life Shift podcast. It has been something so special to me. And when I started it, I just didn't anticipate it being such a healing journey for myself to be able to talk to now over 275 people about these really important Life Shift moments in their lives. A lot of them

fairly traumatic and some of them really inspiring from the point of like I just woke up one day and I decided to change this about my life and I've just learned so much about myself and my own journey by hearing other people's stories. So y it's just really showing the power of storytelling to me and I'm so glad that you're gonna be part of it.

Taira Soo (02:25)
Thank you for having me. I think I think stories are are beautiful. You know, I think getting people together and and and sharing stories helps us feel not as alone. You know? It feels good.

Matt Gilhooly (02:35)
Yeah.

Yeah. I I think a lot of people I've talked to about these life shift moments, in those moments, it's really easy to feel alone and feel like I like how do I take the next step? Nobody understands how I'm feeling, even though you know like logically that other people have gone through something similar, the feeling of it is is very isolating a lot of times.

Taira Soo (02:59)
Yeah, for sure. And you know, I think it reminds us to have a little bit more compassion too. Cause I don't we never know what someone is caring. now more than ever.

Matt Gilhooly (03:04)
Do you think we need that?

Yes. Yeah, we do it's very cliche, but we do have a lot more in common than you know that that separates us. So anyway, before we get into your story, can you tell us who you are in twenty twenty six? Like how you show up in the world, how do you identify however you want to answer that is is good with me.

Taira Soo (03:13)
Yeah, it's true. Yeah.

Okay. well that answer has gotten simpler over time because I'm not carrying so many different versions of myself anymore. for a long time I was really very good at adapting. I had a different version of myself for different rooms, different people, different stages of life. it helped me survive.

But it made it really hard for me to know who I was underneath all of it. And then cancer interrupted it all. it stopped the cycle, the pattern, and it forced me to to ask. It stopped, it forced me to stop asking who I needed to be and finally ask who I'd been there, who I'd been all along.

that sounds crazy. You know, I I just for so long I thought my life was a series of reinventions. And yeah, I thought I was every you know, I would leave one behind and I'd be this new person every time life changed, I was someone new. I mean absol I mean, absolutely, I I've done it my whole life, you know. and then writing helped me create a little bit of distance.

Matt Gilhooly (04:20)
It doesn't.

Mm-hmm. He thought you were Madonna.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Which can have its own allure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Taira Soo (04:47)
to kind of to see my my life as a whole. And I was able to see that my life was a continuous story, wasn't separate in any way, which, you know, it's it's pretty obvious now, but at the time I felt like I was living different chapters. So today I show up with less proving and more purpose. I care more about what's

what's true than what's impressive. More about connection than perfection.

Matt Gilhooly (05:23)
Yeah, I love that.

Taira Soo (05:25)
I think of myself as a writer and storyteller. Not because I suddenly became one, but because I stopped talking myself out of it. I don't think I'm done becoming myself yet. I hope not. You know.

But yeah, I I definitely feel more at home in myself than I've ever had before.

Matt Gilhooly (05:43)
Yeah. I mean, that's beautiful. It's it's like self-permission

to just kind of explore and and build upon this this version of yourself. Whereas I can relate to that previous version that you describe of yourself and we'll get into your story, which you kind of gave away the life shift already. when when my mom died when I was eight, I didn't nobody had the tools. And so I didn't learn how to grieve, and so I

Taira Soo (06:02)
Sorry. I just could just went with it.

Matt Gilhooly (06:12)
push it away for 20 years. But in that whole period of time, I took on kind of a similar role to you, in which I had to be perfect for everyone in whatever. And it was because I was afraid that if I wasn't, my dad was going to leave or someone else was going to leave. Cause my mom left in my tiny eight-year-old brain. Right. And so I I at some point, I think in my 30s, I was finally like, okay, you got nothing to prove.

Taira Soo (06:31)
Yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (06:38)
But it's really hard to shake that. So I'm interested to hear your story and how, you know, how you were able to. And I know in some cases you were forced to and and look at yourself differently. So I'm really looking forward to your story because unfortunately, or maybe fortunately in some cases, your story, although unique to you, is something that a lot of people can relate to, you know, and what you went through. Yeah. So

Taira Soo (06:40)
It is really hard.

Matt Gilhooly (07:04)
I love for the guests to kind of paint the picture of that before version. So however far back you need to go to give us some context into your life, maybe you can kind of paint the picture of of who who you were before this life shift moment.

Taira Soo (07:19)
okay, well, I was someone that was always moving. I was always chasing the next opportunity, the next project, the next version of myself. I was really good at, like I said, adapting, becoming what was needed to be successful. I was always produ you know, I was always productive, always busy.

Matt Gilhooly (07:43)
How far back are we saying, like kid, like as a child?

Taira Soo (07:46)
as a child, I was y I mean, I just throughout my life, as a child, my parents, my dad was a chef. And so they were always busy building, they were building multiple restaurants. So they put me in different activities. So I was always busy. I was always doing something. And the one thing that I I ended up being really good at was dance. And it was the one place where I didn't feel like I had to belong or fit in or try to change myself. I was just myself.

You know, so that was a beautiful thing. It became my language more before I had a voice. so yeah, I grew up feeling like I had to I measured myself with what I could accomplish, what I could produce, what I could become. And

Matt Gilhooly (08:28)
Із завив?

Taira Soo (08:33)
Well,

I no, I think it started when I was really young. It started really early. When we came to the States when I was five and went from Bangkok, Thailand. really?

Matt Gilhooly (08:38)
Okay. Okay. Where'd you come from? Okay. The hottest place I've ever been.

yes, it was so hot. It was May and it was so hot. Anyway, so you moved when you were five to the States to a little less hot.

Taira Soo (08:53)
Okay, that's hot. Yeah, you can't go in May. May is horrible. Up to this place.

To sort well, I went into the desert anyways, it was a small town. But I came here and I didn't speak the language. I didn't sound like anyone and I didn't look like anyone. And like most kids, w I wanted to belong.

Matt Gilhooly (09:15)
Mm-hmm.

Taira Soo (09:15)
know I wanted to fit in and I I didn't and when you're different you you pay attention you learn how to read a room you learn what's what's rewarded and what's not so I learn how that's when I learn how to adapt you know yeah so so since I was little I think and and then I just took that into every chapter of my life after that thinking

It was a strength at the time, you know. I thought that was my superpower. I could I could be anywhere. And

Matt Gilhooly (09:46)
Okay. So it was not adapting

out of fear necessarily throughout your life.

Taira Soo (09:52)
I think it

was adapting of I just wanted to be, I just wanted to belong. I wanted to be a part of something. I didn't want to be weird and awkward and you know, the outsider. So I believe that's when that's when it really started, you know. And then on top of that, my parents had a restaurant business. My sister, she's two years older than me, she went into the Air Force. I picked dance fashion.

you know, being an actress, then eventually writing. None of these n and there was no roadmap for what where I was going. So I think that played into as well, trying to prove yeah, trying to prove that it this unconventional path could be real. So I just was like one after another after another after another.

Matt Gilhooly (10:22)
Yeah, no.

Yeah. You gotta prove yourself.

Yeah. And when you were changing

and adapting, was this like was this out of necessity because you want you were trying something new or you were placed into a different quote unquote environment? Or was it like, Okay, I'm done with that persona, I'm jumping into this one and I have to adapt here?

Taira Soo (10:53)
I think I just was always curious. That was another thing. I I believe that once I did this and that you know, when you s when your values tied to what you do, at some point there's an expiration date. You know, I think you're in it for so long and then you're like, okay, well I think I've

Matt Gilhooly (10:56)
Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Taira Soo (11:12)
Hit my max here, I'm done. Now what's the next thing? And you're always look searching for what that next thing is. I think that's how it kind of all happened. I mean, I've, you know, and then so let me lead up to the cancer part. It's like, so this had been going on for so long. And I was just this was a couple years before my diagnosis, right? I was already going through a major life transition. I was winding down.

Matt Gilhooly (11:25)
Yeah, go for it, yeah.

Taira Soo (11:37)
my children's fashion business that I had built. It was like, okay, I'm done. And it's time to move on. It just wasn't fun anymore for me. I had done it for like ten, twelve years. and it was right before COVID. COVID didn't cause did wasn't the reason why I was shutting it down, but it definitely accelerated everything. and then the world was slowly opening up.

Matt Gilhooly (11:45)
Yeah. Wow.

Mm-hmm.

Taira Soo (11:58)
Right. And there was this collective exhale. People were getting back into their lives. They were planning, making plans, seeing what was next. And right around that time I found a lump. You know, and I I did what most people would do. Went to go see my doctor and she dismissed it pretty casually. don't panic, it's it's a cyst, it'll probably drain. Let's give it a few months.

So when someone gives you the least disruptive explanation, you kind of want to roll with that, right? So I stayed in that version of the story for a while. and then I had lunch with a friend of mine who was a kinesiologist. And I remember this so vividly, Matt. We were at lunch, and in between bites, he reaches over and touches the lump, closes his eyes for a moment, he opens it back up and says,

It's cancer. Come see me Monday. Right. And I'm like, what? I said, wait a minute. It was one of those things. we're just eating. And the crazy part, it didn't really, I didn't really react in any kind of I wasn't shocked. I we just kind of went back to eating. And I think Yeah. It was we Yeah. It was like he said it. And I think we both knew at that moment there was nothing we could do about it. So we finished our lunch.

Matt Gilhooly (12:57)
I was just eating.

Mm. Very matter of fact too. Like he just

I mean,

you could have fallen apart and panicked. I mean there's a lot of things you could have done, but it seems that you chose the right option.

Taira Soo (13:23)
Right. We just

we just continued about our day. And I but I think that happens. I think shock enters the room, right? Before your emotions do sometimes. And I think that's exactly what happened at that moment. so then after that I you know, then it came the tests, the scans and the ultrasounds and the biopsies and all of that began. And then when the nurse finally called to confirm that it was breast cancer.

Matt Gilhooly (13:28)
Yeah.

Taira Soo (13:50)
That lunch didn't feel that theoretical anymore. It was suspicion became reality. You know, I just sat there and I just remember sitting there and staring at the wall in completely dis it complete disbelief and just crying. I didn't know what to do. It was a phone call. I was sitting at my at my kitchen table and I was just staring at the wall like, what?

Matt Gilhooly (14:06)
And were you home? This was like a phone call that they gave you?

Yeah.

Right.

Taira Soo (14:16)
'Cause I barely got sick. I've never I was barely got sick. So cancer stepping into this was completely different world. You know, and it it felt extreme for someone who's never had to deal with anything. It felt like a second lockdown, to be honest with you, but it this time it was personal.

Matt Gilhooly (14:23)
Right.

And and too, like

your your existence before that, it seems that you had always proved you could accomplish whatever you chose to do in that curiosity. And now you have this this thing that's slightly out of your control, right? Like this is no, not something you want to get good at. Yeah. You just yeah.

Taira Soo (14:52)
And not really curious about this. So I was like, I really don't No, I'm cool with this. Yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (15:00)
But that can be a big

shock for someone that is like always taken care of. Like were you very self you were independent and yeah, you could solve all the problems and now you're like, shit, I gotta give it to someone else.

Taira Soo (15:06)
it was very independent.

Yeah.

And so, you know, and this is the the wild part. So then I'm sitting there like, what do I do? I called this the guy, his name is Charles. I had just started dating him. We had been only dating like a month, but he happened to work in the medical field. So I called him and I said, I remember saying, Can you make this make sense? And he dropped everything and came to me and he took me out for ice cream.

I laugh every time I tell this story because my you know, because it's very sweet, number one. But my life had just been split into a before and an after. And there I was. I was completely gutted. I was terrified and I'm sitting there eating ice cream, trying to understand how the world looks exactly the same while everything else has come had completely changed. It was just a weird such a weird experience.

Matt Gilhooly (16:09)
'Cause your your life feels like like it's just halted to some kind of complete stop and then you look around and the world is everyone's continuing to enjoy their day and kids are enjoying their ice cream and ice cream still weirdly tastes good even though you just got this bad news and it's it's har I like when life stops you like that, it's it's very weird to try to pick back up and get like on the pace of the earth again.

Taira Soo (16:18)
Yeah, it was still moving.

Yeah. Yeah.

For sure. But I think they both those two things can coexist. I think there are ridiculous moments in our darkest times and funny moments. And I think that's kind of what's beautiful about it. But at that moment, although it was this shocking moment, it still felt it still felt abstract, you know, the idea of cancer, because I knew nothing about it. I didn't even know what to do next, you know? Like it was just that. It didn't really get real until I I would say the first day of treatment when I was watching that.

Matt Gilhooly (16:52)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Hmm. So it's like

Taira Soo (17:07)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Gilhooly (17:08)
you've had like you had like a couple series of of life shift moments. One in which your friend reached over and was like, It's cancer. So this like el this elevates something. It's like, I gotta think about this. Right. And then then you get the news, which for a lot of people is the moment, but life doesn't change until you technically start getting treatment, which is when you're like, that's the reality of it.

Taira Soo (17:19)
Yeah, it's been a combination of little moments that kind of

Matt Gilhooly (17:35)
Right? I would imagine.

Taira Soo (17:35)
Yeah, when you're

sitting and watching the medication, you know, and you got the and I did the ice cap, which is torturous to begin with. You know, and it's it's a it's a cold cap and you freeze your scalp so you can keep your hair. It was like the only thing that I felt like I had any control over. So I suffered through it. You know, and and which is crazy because when I in my dance career.

Matt Gilhooly (17:39)
And you start to feel certain ways and so so yeah.

I don't know anything about it. Tell me more.

Taira Soo (18:04)
Dance was my first career. I there was a period where I shaved my head and was working all the time. And that's when I gave my hair. It was not a big deal. But now here I am. I'm begging. Yeah, exactly. And begging to keep one strand of hair on my head. You know, to have any sense of control.

Matt Gilhooly (18:14)
But you chose that.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. 'Cause a previous life you just shaved it and that was your choice. So now you don't want other things, you don't want the universe taking your choices away. I get it. It's a it's a con it's also like we could look at it and say it's a control thing, but it's also a very powerful thing, right? I think that you can make these choices and you've been so confident up to the how old were you around this time period when you were diagnosed? Is this a bad question?

Taira Soo (18:28)
Right.

No. No.

I was forty nine.

No. No. Exactly. Can you believe that? So it took me till forty nine to really get to know who I was.

Matt Gilhooly (18:50)
You're not even forty nine now. How do you like how does that happen? yeah. So so

Well, that's okay. I've heard I've heard other stories of people in their sixties just discovering themselves. And but what I the point of asking your age is you had forty-nine years of living one way. The way of adapting, the way of of pleasing others, if you will, in a lot of cases, pleasing yourself as well, like with what your choice is and your curiosity. But that's a hard thing to like suddenly like, life is different, right?

Taira Soo (19:21)
Yeah.

lose it all. Like

n I wasn't I haven't been doing it right or I thought one way and it's completely the opposite.

Matt Gilhooly (19:31)
Yeah.

Yeah. What is that exploration like when you realize like you're different now?

Taira Soo (19:37)
Well, I

after well, treatment was just it was one of those things where I fought it for so long because I was trying to you know, I I I was trying to outwork it. I was trying to muscle it into something else, you know, to the point where I was just like I there was nothing I could do. I was forced into such a weird stillness, which I hadn't had in a long time, and then had to look at everything, and that's when I realized that

I had been constantly proving myself and always earning my worth and always doing the things where I was like, ew, wow. Wow, really? So now I can't do any of those things. So I had to really sit with myself and all those questions came up. It was like the first, the night after the first infusion when I was laying in bed. And it got really quiet. And I remember everything started surfacing.

Matt Gilhooly (20:31)
Mm.

Taira Soo (20:32)
the th everything that I had pushed aside for so long, all the pain, the regrets, the decisions I didn't pro I mean, everything Matt. And I was like, wow, this for a while. No. And I was like, wow, this is the beginning of a different kind of healing. It's not just a body. It's more, it's internal, it's emotional, it's everything. But it was so unexpected. I was like, where is this coming from? I mean, I was completely like, wow, there's cancer and now I gotta deal with this. Like, who am I?

Matt Gilhooly (20:40)
That you'd been out running for a while. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Taira Soo (21:00)
Those

were the questions, like what am I doing? I d

Matt Gilhooly (21:03)
Which is frightening

in itself, it can be overwhelming.

Taira Soo (21:07)
It was frightening. And then finally I had to just surrender to the reality of. I couldn't fight the reality of what was happening. And in that stillness, it was just like I just went along with everything. I was like, okay, I'm here. I guess I'm supposed to do this. So let's go. You know, now I'm like, okay, let's work this out. Okay, what a bring it. That's where I was at that point.

Matt Gilhooly (21:11)
Mm.

What did you choose? Like w did you s go to like therapy? Did you like do certain things? Like what was what was your choice?

Taira Soo (21:36)
I worked with, I had an acupuncturist, I I worked with a Theta Healer, and I would spend like when we started working together, we would spend like literally, it would be like seven hours in one session. We were just peeling back everything, everything that was uncomfortable, everything that triggered me, we worked on. We peeled it back, we looked at it and we reframed it, you know, like it was just.

Matt Gilhooly (21:38)
Okay.

Taira Soo (21:57)
It was kind of amazing actually because there was things that I was like, wow, because I don't remember a lot of my childhood and that's probably a big the part of it. You know, I blocked out a lot of things. So there was a lot of things that surface that I was like, What? You know, I had no clue. So then after treatment, I had chemo brain for like years. I was in for two years. I mean, I still have glitchy brain.

But literally I my memory was gone. For two years, I was just like, what am I do is this what it's supposed to be? I could connect thoughts for a long time. I kept forgetting what I was doing, what I was saying. It was like I was being erased to be rebuilt. It was strange.

Matt Gilhooly (22:41)
Yeah, that's frightening

though. Was it frightening? Or did you like 'cause it's weird, you you probably knew something was up, right? Is that how you feel in that?

Taira Soo (22:51)
Something was

I was just like I guess this is what you go through. I just like is this what it is?

Matt Gilhooly (22:56)
But like, did you know?

I guess there's the part of me is like, do you know that you're not remembering? Like, okay. So 'cause like sometimes I mean, if some people don't know that they're missing those pieces, but if you're fully aware of who you are and you just realize that your brain is not functioning the same way, it's gotta be double weird. Okay.

Taira Soo (23:03)
Yes, I do.

Yeah, I was just really slow. Like everything wasn't

connecting as quick. And yeah, my boyfriend would be like, really concerned. You just said this and you don't remember. You put that over you don't remember. And I'm like, I don't. And then I just accepted. I said, I guess I'm just supposed to this is how it's gonna be. And then at some point

I think I was at I was I was at my hairdressers and and he was talking about lion's mane if I'll think all things and he goes I take lion's mane to help with you know my memory and all of that and I was like I was like okay let's let me try it so I tried it I think it was that that kind of helped but I started getting my memory back but it was coming back in fragments and it was coming at the weirdest times. Things that it was like fragments and lines and stories and bits of pieces from my past was coming up and I was like what is this so and it was like

weird it was like I was catching them. So I started writing them down to try to make sense of it, try to puzzle, you know, put the pieces of the puzzle together. And Matt, the weirdest thing, the when I started writing, I couldn't stop. It was like this purge, this obsessive thing. I I thought I would at first I was collecting pieces and then the pieces started connecting to each other. And then six months down the line

Matt Gilhooly (24:05)
Yeah. Hmm.

Taira Soo (24:32)
I had this book. That's weird. But it was like I couldn't sleep. I couldn't, my eyes were swollen, and I just could not stop writing. It was the weirdest thing. And then as I was writing, I was able to understand a lot of my past. It was like all these memories were coming back. It was strange. It was just the strangest thing. It really was.

Matt Gilhooly (24:50)
Yeah. This this

is gonna sound like a rude question, but I don't mean it in this way. Do you think like that that finding that writing and having that drive and passion, not only does it help with the healing part, but it's another thing that you can like it's almost like another thing you can chase and be good at. Was there was there that sense? Like the dance, like the fashion, all those other things. Was this a new version of that?

Taira Soo (25:16)
You know, I th I

thought I thought it was, but the crazy part, it wasn't, it wasn't that. I was just so intrigued by what was coming up that and it was coming up so fast that I was writing, writing, writing. Here's the crazy part, and this is why I say that, Matt, because when I finally finished, I was like, okay, I'm done. I had I was like, okay, now what do I do with it? I had a friend read it.

Matt Gilhooly (25:24)
Okay, fair. Okay.

Taira Soo (25:44)
And she might she read like four chapters and she gave me like two notes and I was like, Okay, cool, that's all I needed. And then I went in, I did I might have read it through once and then I didn't that was it. I didn't obsess over it like I normally would have. I didn't tear it up. I mean, it's really raw because I was writing it real time. I did I wasn't away from this whole situation to kind of understand it. I really was trying to figure it out, as you guys are probably gonna be reading it through to understand. You know, it's messy, it's raw, but it's real. It's

Matt Gilhooly (26:12)
Real.

Taira Soo (26:13)
realist I've ever been.

Matt Gilhooly (26:14)
Yeah. That's freeing. Was it freeing or scary? Cringy? Yeah.

Taira Soo (26:17)
It's bringing but it's also cringy 'cause it's a little cringy when you

put all your most embarrassing moments and I just wrote whatever needed to come out.

Matt Gilhooly (26:26)
But now they're out there. Like I feel like that's

the best part, is now they're no longer trapped in you. They're out.

Taira Soo (26:33)
Yeah, now they're

no that girl that did that crazy thing, like, Yeah, that's me but

Matt Gilhooly (26:38)
And it's out there. Now nothing to worry about, everyone knows. You know, like you know, I I can relate to that. I started probably mm seven, maybe maybe ten years ago now. I started just like unapologetically sharing, oversharing maybe. And what I found is that it was so helpful for me of all the things that I didn't share with people because I thought they were going to judge me in a certain way or I

Taira Soo (26:41)
Everyone knows.

Matt Gilhooly (27:06)
You know, like whatever. And nobody like people reacted to it, but like it wasn't scary as I thought it was going to be. And then also I would hear other people say, you know, like from especially being a guy and like have guys reach out and say, I can't believe you said that out loud, but I feel the same way. I would never tell anyone, like out loud. And you're like, this is the win. So I can imagine for you, yes, here's all the dirty here's all the dirty laundry of my life.

But also like it feels like that would be freeing, but I guess it could also be scary.

Taira Soo (27:41)
I mean, I is free. I mean, after I did it, it was a also, it took me a minute to catch up to it. Because I said, what do I do with this now? And I I kinda I think I went into why I wrote a book. I guess I need to share the story, you know. Like what else why did I why else would I do, you know, write this 412 pages of stuff. And then I said, okay, well then I kind of went into the designer mode.

Matt Gilhooly (27:46)
okay.

Taira Soo (28:07)
girl, right? 'Cause I said, Well then I let me hire desire and only put the book together make it really look pretty and then I guess I'll put it out there. So now what do I do? And I think I was kind of present, but I wasn't really present. It's like I think I sh didn't want to know too much of because I might have stopped myself. I don't know. But I said, Okay, I guess now we celebrate, right? It's my birthday, let's throw a party. So I threw a party, launched the book, had people come and kinda was present, kinda was not, but

I felt like I was doing it was purposeful, right? I felt like I was supposed to be doing exactly what I was doing, whether I was catching up to it or not. So

Matt Gilhooly (28:44)
Yeah. Thinking

thinking back on that event though, do you feel like you were performing for anyone like old version would have? Or did you feel more centered with yourself?

Taira Soo (28:55)
I was probably it was probably a mix of both because I kind of left myself because I you know, I had to make my speech and I was and I was terrified because I was I didn't qu I felt impot like an imposter, right? Because I wrote a book. I didn't have I didn't plan to write a book. Here I am, I got a I have a book and I didn't quite believe I was I I didn't quite believe that I was a writer yet because it wasn't a planned thing. So that's what was hard.

Matt Gilhooly (28:58)
Okay.

Interesting. You didn't set out to do it. Yeah. The universe just hap yeah. What did you learn about yourself in that process? 'Cause I feel like that can uncover a lot of things, but did you was there anything surprising that you learned about yourself in writing that?

Taira Soo (29:24)
You know, to to own it. I didn't set out to do it. It was never in the plans. It kind of found me.

Well, I think the surprising thing was the reinvention part. I thought I kept I would get rid of the old version and become someone new every time. And then when I looked back I like, I'm just I'm this it's all me, I'm the same person. 'Cause it was always weird. Every time I started a new career, I forgot about I would go into another world and it it was another bubble. I never saw the connection between the little girl who loves to tell stories and to the dancer who loves to perform into this. I just thought they were separate lives, which is weird to me. But

Matt Gilhooly (30:12)
You're in the moment though. It's I don't know. When you're younger too, I think when you jump from different things, you jump to the next thing and it almost feels like a restart. It almost feels like this is my I'll speak for myself. This is my opportunity to create this newer version of me in that exists in this world. And so I can see how that that can be like a separation or seem like one, but

Taira Soo (30:12)
That's kinda I don't know.

Matt Gilhooly (30:39)
Hard to abandon ourselves completely. I would imagine that thread of who we are and what's driving us is probably hopefully continuing. And and it sounds like this cancer diagnosis and going through the the treatment and everything that allowed you to shed some of the maybe the costumes that you were wearing and just kind of walk through the world just as you and not as you know.

Taira Soo (31:05)
Yeah,

definitely.

Matt Gilhooly (31:06)
The version

you think everyone wants to see of you.

Taira Soo (31:09)
Definitely, for sure. Yeah, it it stripped everything. I mean literally I could I'm not performing like I used to, but I'm also in entertainment. So I was rewarded for many years for my performing, you know, for putting the show on, all of that. So now it it's just it's just so

Matt Gilhooly (31:11)
Do you think

Where do you get

that value now?

Taira Soo (31:32)
Being honest, doing meaningful work, you know, really, being genuine and showing up. Even when I don't feel like I want to, I do. Because it feels purposeful. It really does. And I think you know, when the book came out, I would get messages from people saying, Thank you. I needed to hear that or thank you know, from men and women, wow, I didn't know that you went through that, but it really

Matt Gilhooly (31:41)
Yeah. Yeah.

Taira Soo (31:55)
taught or shown me something about myself. Like I I feel the same way. Wow, I didn't know you felt like that. So that was kind of cool to hear those moments. You know? So I

Matt Gilhooly (32:01)
Yeah. Yeah, because you look at them

and you're like, ooh, that that felt really tough. And now other people can relate to it. And it's like it's all worth it. And it brought you here, right? Like all the things that you chose to do and experience through your life now allows you and affords you this opportunity to reflect on and learn from and build from and create whatever version you want to be now. Which is

Taira Soo (32:09)
Yeah, I think so.

Well, and I think

it's really I really don't think I have control over a lot of things. I am just present and I l I listen to myself, I check in. Does this feel right? Great, let's continue this this way. Lead me, guide me. And I kind of go with that, you know.

Matt Gilhooly (32:29)
Yeah.

Yeah, that seems like so scary for me. Yeah, I'm a yeah, I'm a whatever, type six or something where you just like always have to have a plan and like you have to think about all the things that could go wrong and plan for all of them. Aquarius. I just I but I think a lot of it is not related to the sign or and those things. I think it's just from having a traumatic loss at a young age and not processing that.

Taira Soo (32:42)
Really?

no. What sign are you?

Okay.

Yeah. It's a lot to carry.

Matt Gilhooly (33:08)
For

20 plus years, you become like all the things that you were doing to save yourself and protect yourself, myself, snowballed into a very formed adult that was doing all these things and feeling this way. So a lot of it was really hard to shed. So I think of your story, and as as was it as easy as it sounds, the way you're describing it, to shed all of that for you? Or was

Were there pieces that you wanted to hold on to because they felt safer? Or was it just easy to be like

Taira Soo (33:43)
I mean i there was moments where it went back. I would go back and start doing a certain thing. Like like with my boyfriend when we started we started dating kinda backwards. We got right into it, right? We showed up where we were at that time. and then once I got the treatment

It was like, now what do we do? Like you know, there I I was I remember trying to flirt and be cute and all that and he was like and I was like, Okay, you know, we've been there, done that, it's stupid. But you fall back into of course. Of course you there's things that I I do, but I look at and I laugh about it, you know, 'cause it's silly. It's so unnecessary. It really is, half the time.

Matt Gilhooly (34:22)
But do you think this is always like confusing to me in life is like if you didn't do all those things before, do you think you can value the things now as much? You know, like if you weren't as aggressively chasing this, that or the other or being proving something or reinventing yourself so that you could fit in and people would, you know, like you or wanna be around you. Do you think all of that would feel like would

what you're doing now and being very present, would that feel as rewarding? Like if you're always this way?

Taira Soo (34:57)
If I was always that way or always this way.

Matt Gilhooly (34:58)
No, this way.

Yeah, like since you were a kid. Like, would it be I a part of me is like would I be talking to you right now and be open and sharing how screwed up my life was had I not lost my mom? Like I had to do all and screw up and make the dumbest decisions and use her death as a an excuse for good and bad things. And like I think if I didn't do all those stupid

Taira Soo (35:05)
I see what you're saying.

Right.

Matt Gilhooly (35:27)
things as a growing human right now wouldn't feel as valuable. Right now I wouldn't be open to conversations like this because I wouldn't have done it's in that other version of me, I wouldn't have done all those dumb things.

Taira Soo (35:38)
Yeah. I mean

Right, if it if it wasn't if I could choose a different teacher besides cancer, definitely I would. I because I don't, you know, can't I don't resist on anyone. It's brutal. but I think I you know, I would hope that I would be able to find this person. Although I can't deny that the who I've become and what cancer has ch how it has changed me as a person coming out on the other side of it. I would hope that I would be able to find this person.

Matt Gilhooly (35:49)
Yeah, well no, of course. Yeah.

Taira Soo (36:09)
you know, another way and be with you and have this conversation and have a different life shift. You know. Yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (36:12)
I guess I'm thinking yeah, I guess I'm I'm wondering if yeah. Well, we you've had many, I'm sure. I'm sure it's not

just, you know, the cancer moment. I'm sure there are many moments in your life that have turned you into a a different version of yourself or a a more evolved version or a devolved version in some instances for some people. But I I you know, I think about maybe it's it's this thought that always runs around in my head is that there are people out there

Taira Soo (36:32)
One of the Yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (36:40)
Probably not many, but there are a lot of people out there that haven't they've had a fairly level life. Maybe things are spoon fed to them or maybe they didn't have to fight for certain things. And I wonder about those people that haven't had the hard. Do they ever get to a place where they can value where they are now because they've never, you know, they had such an easy going.

I'm grateful for all the bumps because now everything feels right. But I don't know. It I don't know if it would feel right if the bumps didn't happen.

Taira Soo (37:18)
But I I'm wondering if you know, I I guess it's easy to look at but I think it's easy to look at someone and assume their life is great, right? But we can't really know what's underneath. The the fact that I just happened to have cancer, so you could tell I was sick, but you but underneath it was fear, was trying to, you know, figure out who I was. There was questions underneath, but you would never know. I don't know. You know, I think we look at people and we just assume that they're fine because on the outside

Matt Gilhooly (37:21)
Yeah, help me figure those words out.

Yeah. Fair.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's so rude of me.

Taira Soo (37:48)
That's okay, Matt. We're just correcting her.

Matt Gilhooly (37:50)
No, I think it's you're right, you're right, you're totally right. And I think that I don't know if you would have felt this way. I think I probably would have said, Yeah, everything's fine, even though subconsciously I was pushing everything down. And maybe on the surface I didn't think anything was wrong.

Taira Soo (38:06)
Yeah, maybe you don't know anything is wrong. But I know now it's getting really confusing. But I think we all do you think now here's the question, do you think that at some point in our lives we are faced with s you know, we're at a point where it's like we're like cancer or or a turning point, your life shift and then d do you think everyone has a life shift? I think everybody then they can just choose to s to not take it, right? To go left or right.

Matt Gilhooly (38:08)
Right. And then something cracks you open, you're like

Yeah.

Yeah. And I I think there's some that I th I I count myself lucky that I've made it here because I think and and you're I don't want to put words in your mouth, but there's a lot of people that if we are lucky enough, we're able to make the right choices to get us to where we are. But some people demons are bigger in certain sit situations and they go down different roads.

When they had the options, the same options, but some of us get lucky and we choose the the proper way. I it's curious when people like become this more evolved, like seemingly like everything feels great version of themselves, as you kind of describe. I'm sure you have your bad days and I'm sure that things go go wrong all the time. But when it feels like like I'm living my best

Taira Soo (39:19)
For sure.

Matt Gilhooly (39:26)
Purposeful life kind of vibe. I'm always curious if like we could get there when we were four and stay there. Or do we have to?

Bump into something.

There's no right answer. I'm just curious.

Taira Soo (39:37)
I think bump yeah, I'm

just trying to think. I'm I think bumping into something is where we check in. I think we're always being checked, you know, we always have to check in to see where at. I I don't think your life is just glorious.

Matt Gilhooly (39:42)
Yeah.

Fine, you can win. I wish it was,

but then I wouldn't wouldn't notice it. We wouldn't know if it was glorious. Yeah.

Taira Soo (39:54)
You would have a great conversation. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean

don't know.

Matt Gilhooly (39:58)
Well, we'll skip

this. So

Taira Soo (40:01)
I know we we would have to have a cocktail over this one. Right. There's no right answer.

Matt Gilhooly (40:03)
We would yeah. And then we'd just spin around in circles, which I guess is the point. I think

Right. And we're all living we're all doing the best we can. You know, even when we make bad choices, we think maybe at the time that is the right choice that we should be making. What would you say, you know, thinking of yourself and this version of yourself versus, you know, maybe the twenty five year old version of yourself? Like what is the biggest difference now in the way that you live your life compared to then?

Taira Soo (40:34)
It's quieter now. I think my I did find success. When I was twenty five everything was external. Now it's more internal.

Matt Gilhooly (40:35)
Okay.

Taira Soo (40:42)
I'm much calmer than I was before. I'm not so all over the place. At least I don't think I go on away. But I feel a little more grounded, you know, and in my body, which is, you know, which is interesting. But yeah. You know.

Matt Gilhooly (40:54)
Yeah.

Finding this n newer

version of yourself, this quieter, more centered kind of version of yourself, did your relationships with others change as you kind of fell into this? 'Cause I think as performing before, it can be easy to lose those

Taira Soo (41:14)
Yeah.

They did change, which was surprising. Some of them just disappeared overnight. Which is weird to me. I still it because it really broke my heart a little bit because I was like, Wow, really? Like that's it? Nothing? No e no convers they just simply disappeared. I just saw you the other day and now you're gone. Like there's no communication whatsoever. It's but it's because you can't explain it, right? And I guess you're not supposed to. I definitely

Matt Gilhooly (41:28)
Yeah.

Taira Soo (41:47)
I'm a little bit di you know, the how I go about my I'm a little bit different than I was before. I'm not so out there. Just different things. I'm happy staying home. It's like everything got little r really simple. Or is that age? I don't know. But I but I'm happy with the simple things.

Matt Gilhooly (42:02)
Yeah.

Yeah. I think I I you know, a lot of people will go th I just talked to someone yesterday about they ended up semi-adopting their sister and raising their sister from eight years old, and then their sister slash child was diagnosed with cancer and unfortunately passed from cancer like I think a hundred and fifty days later. And we were talking about how after that, like in that grief period.

when we're changing, when we're evolving, when we see life differently because of what's just occurred, how friendships, how just as you described, people disappear. And, you know, we're talking about like why? And it I think a lot of it stems with like, none of us are taught how to function when things get scary and uncomfortable. So they see you, they see you going through all these things, they see that you're starting to be different. They might feel

Like they don't belong anymore and so they disappear 'cause it's easier to do that than it is to kind of connect with you differently. Do you see do you see any of that making sense for other people or yeah.

Taira Soo (43:13)
Makes complete sense. That

makes complete sense. Yeah, I I just for a long time I was like, Did I do something? Because I always look at myself first. I don't ever look at you know, I always and I s I never really didn't do anything. I've just been here surviving.

Matt Gilhooly (43:20)
Right.

Yeah. Does it surface regrets?

Not the friendship specifically, but as you were kind of unpacking everything and and sitting with yourself and learning, did it surface regrets for you at all?

Taira Soo (43:41)
No, it was more sadness than anything. You know, I mean there was a lot of letting go of things, you know, my old fr my old identity and all that. So it was that with friends that don't, you know, there's certain people every season, right? Some just go away, but you hope that they don't because you've shared so many things together. There's there's friends that even, you know, I had dinner with a girlfriend the other day.

Matt Gilhooly (43:42)
Okay. Okay.

Taira Soo (44:05)
And it you could there's there's you could feel the shift, obviously, but she was like, Wow, you know, I knew about you, but now everyone knows about you, about everything about you. And I was like, So I I think there's also what I was feeling you know, there's judgments, of course, because you are never gonna where when did this writing thing come about? So there's a lot of those kind of things. And I'm like, I don't know. Literally, I just really I'm just here doing what I'm told. So there's a lot of questions.

I you know, not that they mean to, but of course i I would question it too. I'm like, What are you doing? Now you have a book.

Matt Gilhooly (44:37)
But I think,

yeah, but those questions probably come from their own insecurities or things that they've, you know, we we do this as humans. And I think the more we can be open about the messy parts and the things that like we wish, I don't know. I guess it all comes down to me thinking about that eight year old version of myself that just wished the people around me like could give me any sort of like helpful advice versus making me feel like I had to show everyone I was gonna be okay.

Taira Soo (44:43)
For sure.

Matt Gilhooly (45:07)
And you know, like had we been talking openly about like, this is this is death, this is the finality of it, this is what you're gonna go through. You're allowed to be sad, you're allowed to cry past two weeks, you know, like all the things that we just assume. I think it just makes the world better because we're giving permission to people to live as you are now. Like we're living in the moment where we're we're feeling calm, we're feeling centered with ourselves, we're letting the universe take us where it needs to take us.

versus instilling all this fear and like, we can't talk about that or we can't go this way. And it makes right and gets everything taboo. And then we assume these things that we need to perform for other people. So t all the way back to our original, you know, start of the conversation, talking about this power of story and why sharing your story, me having these conversations is like a a a wonderful step in the right direction. Right? Well, Ditto, I mean, I think

Taira Soo (45:41)
Or having to manage, right? Manage people.

God, it's incredible. What you're doing is incredible. It really is. I

Matt Gilhooly (46:07)
you know, by

Taira Soo (46:07)
mean

Matt Gilhooly (46:08)
your you spilled your guts in four hundred and something pages. And not only did it probably help you heal, but now imagine the people that are reading this and the butterfly effect that comes from them feeling healed. And then because they feel healed in some way, they act different around people. And then, you know, like it it just becomes a beautiful thing.

Taira Soo (46:30)
The shift, yeah, the shift. You know what's

yeah, you know what's really interesting. it felt like w when the book was done, it felt like I was finishing a sentence that had been left unfinished for a very long time. It was like one it felt this is it felt like one last assignment that I needed to complete before I could move on. Cause now I feel like I could put it down. That part of my life down, I don't have to carry anything because I feel like I worked it all out.

Matt Gilhooly (46:44)
Interesting.

Yeah.

Taira Soo (46:59)
I don't have carry any of that stuff with me into my next into this next phase.

Matt Gilhooly (47:03)
Yeah. But it doesn't but you're still the same thread. So it's like you just put down your luggage.

Taira Soo (47:08)
I'm still the same thread, but I've healed

Yeah, I I yes, I dropped the luggage. The little girls with me, the dancers with me, the the entrepreneur everybody's we're all here now and this is now we can have fun because there's nothing I don't I feel like there's less baggage, there's not a lot of things holding me back now. We're just gonna roll. There's nothing to prove, there's nothing to perform. Let's just have a good time.

Matt Gilhooly (47:13)
You moved in.

Nothing to prove.

I love that. Do you love that for yourself now?

Taira Soo (47:31)
Yeah. I love

that so much. I love it so much. It's it feels it's so freeing. And it's it's it's cool because I wake up like, okay, what's what are we doing today? What's happening? Anything.

Matt Gilhooly (47:36)
I bet.

Right. And like do you are you pretty

spontaneous? Are you a spontaneous person? Okay. Okay. So you're not like I woke up and I wanna go climb a mountain and you just go do it?

Taira Soo (47:47)
I can be not I I go back and forth.

I mean I do.

I I I do wanna travel more. I will I mean if you say let's go to Japan, I'll be like, Let's do it, we'll go. I love Japan. But yeah, I love to travel. I love to explore. Well, we're gonna take my parents back to Bangkok, but we go in December. So

Matt Gilhooly (48:00)
Yeah.

Don't go back to Bangkok in May. It's too hot.

That's smart. I literally

had like salt crystals forming on my forehead. Like I was so dehydrated. It was it was because it was cheap or something and I wasn't working at the time. And I went for two weeks. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Two weeks. Two weeks. This for everyone. If you're gonna travel during like right before the pandemic, so sorry. But I went two weeks to Thailand. We went to Bangkok, Chiang Mai, and Phuket, and like 12 days, I think.

Taira Soo (48:17)
my god, it's awful. Why would you go in May?

probably 'cause no one was going.

Okay.

Matt Gilhooly (48:39)
or so? I spent twenty six hundred dollars total. That includes the flight, hotels, multiple flights actually, all massages, all the things that come with with going on a vacation. You can't go

Taira Soo (48:42)
Wow. Yeah.

my gosh, when I was

last you can't go wrong, I'm sorry, I totally cut you off. But yeah, I had a massage for two hours for thirteen. How do you relax in that massage if you're paying thirteen times? It just

Matt Gilhooly (49:01)
yeah, with tip you're like, here's twenty. You know, like yeah, it's

it's pretty crazy and and but you know, it sounds like you can do those things now and not, you know, just do whatever you want and kinda live the life that that you don't have to prove to anyone.

Taira Soo (49:15)
Yes, and I'm so excited. I really am. I'm very grateful that I'm grateful that I'm still here, but I to grateful that I have that opportunity.

Matt Gilhooly (49:22)
Yeah. If if you could go back to a younger version of yourself, maybe, you know, someone that is putting down that or maybe the version of you that was kind of settling the children's fashion line that you had and everything. Is there anything like current twenty twenty six you'd want to say to her about what she's about to go through?

Taira Soo (49:42)
Ha ha.

Gosh.

I would tell her I would probably just hold her first. And then I would say, you know,

You're about to go through the hardest thing that you've ever had to face, but you also don't know yet how strong you are.

there will be fear, lots of fear, there'll be grief. There'll be days when you wake up and you're angry, confused, and you don't you may not be able to see what's next. I think I would also tell her that she doesn't have to carry it alone.

Because at that point I was doing everything on my own. And I felt like that was strength, right? So I would tell her that, that, you know, and that's what cancer showed me, that strength is can also look like letting people love you and care for you and be there. I would tell her that.

You may be f you may feel like you're losing something, but this is not the whole story. That there is joy still and there is more purpose. And that there's a beautiful life waiting for you on the other side. And you're gonna meet parts of yourself that you never knew you needed. And yeah, that's what I would tell her.

Matt Gilhooly (51:09)
What do you think

what do you think that version would say to you after you said all that? What are you talking about? I'm just closing this business. Yeah. It's so but isn't that a beautiful exercise to think about like what we actually needed at those moments? And you know, it's I most people when I ask them a similar question, it's it's

Taira Soo (51:15)
Yeah, right. Yeah, stop acting crazy. Calm down.

Yes.

Matt Gilhooly (51:36)
what the first thing you said was I would just give them a hug or just sit with them for a little bit and let them know that everything was gonna be okay. And that's basically what you just said in in a more writer like way. That everything, you know No, I think it was beautiful. And I I I'm glad that you found this space and you found this freedom to just be unapologetically you and not have to prove anything to everyone else.

Taira Soo (51:39)
Yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (52:03)
If if people are listening to your story now, they definitely want to check out your book. They wanna find you, get in your circle, reach out to you and tell you how much a part of your story or something we talked about today reached them where they needed it. What like what's the best way to find you, get in your orbit?

Taira Soo (52:20)
I have all my links and everything, events and and social links and all of that on my website. It's called split and split and type dot com. Or you can find me on socials Terasu or Terasu Author. I believe we have a couple of those pages up somewhere. But if you go to my website you'll be able to find it.

Matt Gilhooly (52:40)
That's perfect.

We'll put in some of the links in the show notes so people can easily reach it. I I because we've talked so much about the power of story, I really encourage people, if they hear or they feel compelled to reach out to anybody after hearing their story, do it. Because there's so much power in sharing your story for the first time or letting someone know how it connected to you. Things are a lot messier in my head, and then when I get them out, they're

Taira Soo (53:05)
Yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (53:09)
everything kind of makes a little bit more sense. So I really encourage people that maybe they're holding on to something and something that you said sparked something for them and they want to reach out to you. Yeah. So please do that, everyone. And thank you for just going on this journey and letting me talk in circles in that certain part of our our episode, you know?

Taira Soo (53:18)
Hope so. I hope so.

I was talking in circles too, so it was fun. Thank you so much for having me.

Matt Gilhooly (53:32)
Yeah.

Well, I I really appreciate it. Every story that I get to hear heals a little part of me that I didn't know needed to be healed. And so I just take these with me and and now I am the lucky one. I get to listen to all these stories and partake in these stories and think about the younger version of me that was afraid to ask questions because what if I asked the wrong question? And it's fine. Everything goes on, right? If you ask the wrong question, at least you know.

Taira Soo (54:00)
Yeah, yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (54:02)
So I appreciate you going

Taira Soo (54:03)
What is that?

Matt Gilhooly (54:04)
on this journey with me in this particular way. I appreciate everyone listening. Here we are, 275 plus episodes. Thank you. and I will be back. I will be back in a couple days with a brand new episode. Thank you so much for being a part of this.

Taira Soo (54:10)
Thank you. Yes. congratulations. Yay.

Thank you.