What Would You Say? - Part 3 - 10 More Reflections on Pivotal Moments

00:01
I'm Matt Gilhooly, and this is the Life Shift, candid conversations about the pivotal moments that have changed lives forever.

00:19
Hello, my friends. I'm Matt Gilhooly, and I'm the host of the Life Shift podcast. And I am the lucky one. I am the person that gets the opportunity to speak to all these amazing guests. And I'm forever humbled that everyone that has been on the show has trusted me with their story. And a lot of these stories are deeply personal. And a lot of them are tragic or have tragic moments in them. And I think what I love about the Life Shift podcast is

00:46
Sure, some of these events are really hard to hear and experience, but I do find that every episode ends in some kind of inspirational way of hope and what we've learned as humans through the experiences that we go through. I wanted to put together my third recap episode. And so last time I did this a couple months ago, I got a lot of good feedback and people left listening to this episode with inspiration. So I've collected.

01:15
the end of episode 61 to 70. And so if you are a regular listener of the Life Shift podcast, or if you've never listened, what I like to do at the end of the story is kind of ask my guests if they could go back to that person right before their Life Shift moment, what would they say? And for some people I ask for advice for people that are going through something similar. And sometimes I ask just a random question that's in the similar vein. And so this is one way that I get to hear

01:45
what someone would say to that person knowing full well it's not possible with the intention of anyone listening that might be going through something similar or similar experience. They have the opportunity to hear maybe some inspirational words or something that resonates with them so that they feel a little bit less alone in their experiences. I love putting these clips together they make me feel really good.

02:06
I just want to say thank you to those of you that have been listening. We I just recorded like my 93rd episode and I can't wait to continue sharing these stories. But for now, you're going to hear from Heather Taylor, Jenna Irving, Christie Ollinger, MC McDonald, John DiAgostini, Elizabeth Rosenberg, Larry sprung, Laurie Kesey, Laura Harless, and Robert Peter Paul. And all these people are going to share

02:34
what they would say to that person or any kind of advice that they can give. And I've put them together in this little clip for you. So I hope you leave this episode feeling inspired. If you'd like to support the show directly, I do have a Patreon and that's patreon.com forward slash the life shift podcast. And really what that does is there are a bunch of tears and you can win t-shirts and stickers and things like that. But it just helps offset the production cost because I'm the only one doing this show from the beginning to the end. And so.

03:01
It just helps me pay for some of the tools that I am using and upgrade hardware and just try to get the show out there. So thank you for any support that you might have. Just listening is support, sharing with your friends. If you like this episode, please share it with a friend and I would be so grateful of that. So thank you and I hope you enjoy listening to this recap episode of the responses to, if you could go back to that person right before your life shift moment, what would you say? I think it's like, it's okay to

03:30
Be who you are.

03:33
There's no shame in existing exactly how you are.

03:41
hard to sum it up. Just like, just live in joy. Just live in joy and, and just know everything will always work out no matter what. I'd like to think that past Christy would be receptive to future Christy's insights. And I think it could be as simple as saying, choose your life. I was very much a rule follower. And I think once I got a little bit of freedom.

04:11
in college would probably be the time where I would be most receptive to the idea that I had choices in my life and I could take actions and make my own decisions about what I was doing. I love that you asked this question. It's like one of my favorite parts of your podcast. I think that the thing that comes up whenever I think about myself in those moments is just like, Oh honey, like you're okay.

04:40
everything that you're feeling is okay and it's normal and none of it is going to take you out. And if you can just see this as a wave, let the wave hit you, you will get up again, and you will keep moving on. And the waves are coming from everywhere. And so sometimes they're going to come from behind you and knock you over. And that doesn't mean you're doing it wrong. Your job here is to figure out how to

05:09
keep standing up? No, no, there's nothing I could say, but I know that I would have.

05:19
basically extended, extended affection, just a hug, a pat on the back, just any sort of human contact. Because that moment to feel such a physical disconnect from your mother, the person who carried me into the planet, physicality in that way and the healing power of touch is certainly not something that's been lost on me over the years. So I know I wouldn't have at the time.

05:47
There's nothing I could have said to myself at the time, because I was deaf, but just a moment of safe man-to-man affection would have gone a long way. No. And I say that because I believe that everywhere we are on our journey is exactly where we're supposed to be. I don't believe when people say like, oh, I got off my path or I took a wrong turn. I just don't believe that to be true.

06:16
I believe that everything that happens to us was meant to happen to us for a reason, to learn a lesson that we needed to learn or to point us in a direction that we need to go. I don't necessarily believe that like we're destined and this is where fate is gonna push you, but I do believe that the choices that we make inform the next choice that we will make and the decisions that will lead us to where we will find joy and love and happiness.

06:43
So I don't think I would have wanted to intervene with that at all, because I don't think I'd actually be where I am meant to be today without that journey. Sometimes I have guests go back to that person, but it seems like you've kind of, your family, your parents have created this version of you since you were very little and you've just been able to move forward with it. So it's like not, you couldn't even give your younger self good advice because you're still doing it.

07:12
Yeah, I mean, listen, the name of my firm, Mitlin, is a combination of my wife's grandfather, Mitchell, MIT was to him. L-I-N is relevant to my mom, Linda. And we named the firm after them because my wife's grandfather was a New York City police officer, a veteran, just a really good guy. He was the type of guy that when the ice cream man came down the block, not because he was wealthy, but he got a lot of joy, would buy everybody ice cream.

07:42
My mom was tough as nails, human being, a warrior, just a real all around great person. I mean, to this day, people reach out to me on her birthday, my birthday, reminding me, on Mother's Day, reminding me of how great a human she was. So when we wanted to create this firm, we were like, you know what, why don't we use something that's meaningful and use something whose values...

08:09
really exemplify what we and who we want to be as a firm. So that's why we use their name. So I'm lucky because every day I come into my office, I come into my firm, I see the name there, I see the name in my email, and it reminds me and reinforces every day what I'm doing, why I'm doing it, and why I do what I do from a family perspective. And one of our core values here is client.

08:37
equals family equals team. We're all one family. If, you know, we want our clients, we call them families we serve. We want the people that work here, our stakeholders, and we want everybody feeling like we're one big team, one big family. And, you know, I'm reminded of it every day. So it's a blessing for me. And I'm very grateful for that. It probably wouldn't have helped then. Because the emotional pain was so great.

09:07
But you really do get over to the other side. And yes, you miss that person, my son, your mother, so desperately, but the pain is not anything like it was before. That was almost unbearable. And you do get through that. And I guess it does make you stronger, in a sense. You know, I don't know.

09:34
It does. I just, I just don't wish this on anyone at all. I would say just hang in there. You're going to get it. You can't really force somebody who's not ready to go on that journey because then it won't work and then they'll get discouraged and they won't, you know, it sometimes keeps them from trying again. So I would just tell her, hang in there. You got this. Find a way to love yourself as you are. The rest is going to come. And I think that just

10:03
loving myself is a huge thing. Being able to say that is something I wish I could have done a long time ago. It would have made the journey easier because then it would have met that I wouldn't have let all of that external stuff in. All of the comments and all of the media, I could have ignored that. Because a lot of times I think people go too far on the body positivity thinking that

10:31
If you're okay with who you are, if you love who you are, you don't want to change. And that's not how it is. If you love who you are, you're going to want the best for yourself. And that means when you're ready, you're going to want to get healthy and whatever healthy looks like for you. And so I think just being able to say, I love myself and believe it. That's the best advice I could have given myself when I was younger, because it would have.

10:58
I think it would have gotten me through to the point to where I was ready to go on that journey. That's really sweet. You know, I don't know if what I would say to him would totally be about everything I went through. I guess I would say two things. The first thing I would definitely say is something you learn when you're little anyway, but you don't fully accept. And maybe hearing it from my older self would help me is just be yourself unapologetically.

11:28
I used to not own the title of being in theater or being interested in things because I was nervous about being bullied. I would make fun of myself first and make people laugh before someone could make fun of me. I was always trying to make everybody my friend. And I think just telling myself it's okay to just be who you are, you don't need to put on anything extra would be helpful. And then the second thing in regards to my journey might be something my nanny always tells me, which is also really simple, but...

11:56
very comforting to me for some reason. It's just everything is all right in the end. If it's not all right, it isn't the end. I like that. And yeah, I mean, you might feel that even with your grief journey, closing the door, it's like, things are all right. I'm still here. And I guess that depends on your definition of all right. But yeah, just for some reason, that would be something I would say. Always choosing love. I talk about this in my podcast all the time, the two emotions.

12:25
at the end of the day, there's only love and fear. And I always try to choose love. And if I'm not in that, I'm like, why am I scared? And then I just ask myself a lot of questions, but I would give myself a lot of post-its. I would stick post-its of inspirational quotes onto my little body and walk away. Yeah. A lot of people, it's not really something you can answer. I think a lot of people are just like, they're gonna go through it and I would just give them a big hug. Yeah.

12:54
You just need to know that you're loved. And it sounds like the message you would give this little version of you is that exactly. Yeah. And you know what? If you're a little person that's scared and you see your older self come back and they're okay, you don't really need anything else. They appeared, they're there, they made it through. That's all you need to know. Right. And then you know that time travel is real and that's super cool. You hop in the DeLorean and you go wherever you want.

13:29
For more information, please visit www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com