61. Balancing Life, Love, and Health With Dating Coach Keshia Rice

NOTE: This podcast was transcribed by an AI tool. Please forgive any typos or errors.

Keshia Rice

[00:00:00] Andrea: When I was talking to this week's guest after the podcast, we were reflecting on living a life outside of our diagnoses and how neither one of us really likes talking about the nuts and the bolts of what our illness is like on a daily basis. She mentions in the podcast that she intentionally doesn't talk about her medical journey in her business or on her website or on her social media because quote, it's the least interesting thing about me.
I love that so much. Keisha Rice embodies the live your life, not your diagnosis lifestyle. She does live with kidney disease. She was diagnosed in high school and went through three transplants. One doctor told her not to even bother with looking at college because she wouldn't live that long, but she has been so determined to prove her doctor wrong and a few degrees, a few Emmy nominations and a few of her own businesses later.
I say she's proved that Dr. Wrong tenfold. I can't wait for you to meet Keisha. She is a dating coach now, and in this episode we go deep into the world of relationships, not just romantic ones and how we can all get a little more connection in our lives. So please enjoy this week's episode and visit Andrea Hanson coaching.com for more on Keisha Rice resources we talk about in this show and transcripts from today's episode.
You can find that link in this episode description. Welcome to the Live Your Life, not Your Diagnosis podcast. I'm Andrea Hanson, author, motivational speaker, and master certified coach. When I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, I was told I would never reach my goals, but I did and I'm on a mission to prove that life with a chronic illness can still be expansive and quite remarkable.
Everyone has their own unique path. I'm talking to people living with a chronic illness that come from different backgrounds, have different points of view, and are achieving amazing life goals of all kinds to inspire you to achieve what you thought was impossible. These stories are raw, uncensored, and judgment free listener discretion is advised.
I'm here today with Keisha Rice. Keisha Rice is a dating coach, a hypnotherapist, and a two-time Emmy nominated journalist. As a coach, Keisha helps successful Christian women learn how to attract quality men without compromising their values, identity, or sanity. As the daughter, sister, and niece of preachers, Keisha understands what it's like as a Christian woman to balance conservative upbringing with modern hookup culture.
And like many women in the corporate world, Keisha knows the challenges of being ambitious while maintaining your femininity. Keisha, welcome.
[00:02:50] Keshia: Thank you for having me. I'm so excited.
[00:02:52] Andrea: I was reading through your website, looking through your Instagram, which by the way, there will be links to that.
It's a fantastic Instagram. Like there are so many really helpful. Videos and I mean so many things that are just one thing after another. I was like, oh my God, that's so good. Oh wait, that's so good. Holy cow. Like that's, I mean, some of the stuff you say is really, really good, but I was kind of struck by a few things when I was going through all of this.
Nber one, I have been out of the whole dating pool for 15 years. And after reading through it, I don't think much has
[00:03:29] Keshia: changed. You know, my grandmother used to always say, there's nothing new under the sun. And it's so true. Like clients come to me all the time, they're like, oh, you don't understand how it is anymore cuz you've been married for so long, by the way, I've been married for three years.
, and you just don't understand how these men are and, and what's it like with relationships and getting out here. And I'm like, jerks have always been jerks. Boundaries have always been boundaries. Standards have always been standards. Like, yes, there are some different ways of communicating now and because of the internet and, and everything.
And there's also a larger proliferation of not only dating coaches, but trashy pickup artists like Andrew Tate. So, yeah. Yeah, that's not, so, yeah, those are things, but how we handle them, how we create the life that we want to live, that hasn't changed.
[00:04:25] Andrea: Mm. Yeah, different generations have different ways that they communicate and different things that they value, and, and every generation is different.
But you're right, it's like jerks have always been jerks. It's just like a Gen X jerk is going to be maybe a little bit different than a millennial jerk, which is going to be a little bit different than a, a Gen Z jerk. But it's comforting. And a little bit of a bmer to see that not a whole lot has changed.
Something else I didn't see in looking just at your website and everything is much about your personal story, and I know that your diagnosis, I always say, I mean it's, it's in the title, right? Our life is not our Diagnosis, but I think it's interesting because. Your health journey and your diagnosis must have shaped a little bit of who you are and what your career goals are and what your dreams are.
[00:05:23] Keshia: Yeah, so the diagnosis that you're referring to, by the way, is I was diagnosed with kidney disease and I've had three kidney transplants. So for starters, I had that diagnosis when I was 17, 18 years old. But before that, when I was a kid, I had different health problems. You know, asthma was one of them. And I had some very negative doctors, so I had a doctor say that I wasn't going to live long enough to reach 18.
I was going to live long enough to graduate high school. I remember getting diagnosed with kidney disease and talking to my doctor because this was again my senior year of high school. And I remember saying something to him about college and everything and figuring out my college schedule and doctor's appointments and all that, and he was like, I don't know why you're going to college.
It's not like you're going to live long enough to graduate. So, you know, on one hand it made me, I would say it made me a little bit more ambitious because I definitely took the attitude of, screw you. I'm going to show you wrong. I remember the first time I was on dialysis, I was taking a full-time course load.
And going to these appointments and looking for internships and all of that. And I was like, you know what? I'm going to make sure I have a fulfilling life and, and that first of all, I'm going to live longer than they say. But also, you know, that was one of the things that when I first started dialysis that first time, it was smer between high school and college, and it was so depressing.
Like going to treatment and then just coming home and having nothing to do. I was like, I have to find a purpose. I have to find something to do because otherwise I was concerned that I wouldn't live very much longer, not because of the disease, but because of the depression and you know, the things that go along with being a very depressed person.
So, It was really important for me to like really set goals to give myself something to do, to have ambition. And then when you talk about relationships and me eventually becoming a dating coach, having to deal with those different trials, especially at a younger age, you really, really learn who your friends are.
You know, you really learn who cares about you. You really learn who says they're going to be down for you and who actually is. And I remember that was in high school. That was the biggest shock to me because I had a certain group of friends that I knew cared about me. But you know how it is when you're a teenager.
These friends weren't as quote unquote cool. So I didn't spend as much time with them, and I spent more time with like the friends who were a little bit cooler, more popular. And I was like, you know, these are my girls. We're going to be friends forever and all that. And as soon as I got sick, like, you know, the phone calls weren't as frequent.
You know, the time spent together wasn't as much. It was. I felt like I was a charity case, you know? And meanwhile, the friends that I wasn't as good to were the ones who ended up visiting me in the hospital. They ended up being the ones who like took the time. They were the ones who they were considerate.
Like if we went places, they would ask like, are you filling up to this? Are you tired? And all, you know, things like that. Mm-hmm. But they never made it always about me being sick. And I love them and still love them so much for that. These are people who I am still friends with more than a decade after high school, and it taught me so much about relationships just in, I always tell my clients that all relationships are related.
So when a woman comes to me and she has issues with her romantic relationships, she has issues with her family, friends. Coworkers, clients, all of that too. Just like we said earlier, there's nothing new under the sun. There's nothing new with relationships either. You know? You can't set boundaries with one group.
You can't set boundaries with the other. Yeah, it's
[00:09:35] Andrea: true. And I think it's a really, it's really common theme, especially with me talking to a lot of people who have all sorts of different. Health journeys, all sorts of different diagnoses and health issues, and, and them pushing on and creating, you know, the rest of their life, the common thing that almost every single person brings up.
Is relationships in some form. Either a relationship with their spouse, a relationship with friends, relationships, like you said, with friends that maybe didn't stick around so much after the diagnosis. Friends that came out of the woodwork and are now BFFs after the diagnosis. That was somewhat surprising.
It's, it is very much a common theme. Which is another reason why I'm so glad to talk to you is that what made you want to go into relationship coaching? Because at a very young age you were shown kind of a very deep understanding of relationships of all kinds.
[00:10:36] Keshia: It's kind of what made me run for it from it, to tell you the truth. I love it. So, I don't know if you, well, I'm sure you've, you've heard this phrase before, success leaves clues, right? Mm-hmm. So, you know, I've always been interested in communications. You know, I get bored and go back to school. So my first college degree is in journalism and.
I decided as a young child, like when I was four, that I wanted to go into journalism, and what I loved most about that was storytelling and learning about people and communicating and all. So I had this deep thing for relationship building to begin with. And then I'm a preacher's kid, so my parents.
Counseled other couples was one of the things that they did. And then also being a preacher's kid, I felt like I wasn't getting enough attention because you know, the church was so important. Mm-hmm. So much time and money and energy had to be dedicated to the church. So I started dating at a young age, got into a lot of bad relationships, but because of that, I had.
You know, I was 16, 17, and I had women who were in their thirties and forties at my church coming to me asking for dating advice. So that was, so all of that was happening very early. I still continue with my plan to go into journalism, and when I started coaching, I started helping women with careers. I started as like a career and life coach, and it was so important to me because the whole thing with the health, I was like, Going through that process and having people reject me and abandon me and all that, I was appreciative to the people who were there, but also that rejection kind of.
Put me in the mindset of like, okay, you only have yourself, you gotta do things for yourself. So I was like, that's how I was hammering things to women. Like, do you mm-hmm. Make sure that you're happy. Get the life that you want. Go get it yourself. No one's going to give it to you. And I started helping all of my clients with things and.
They started asking me about relationships and I kept being like, I don't really do that. You know, I was like, but if I were in your position, this is how I would handle it. This is what I would do. And, uh, pretty soon I ended up becoming a dating and relationship coach into what you mentioned earlier. I. I don't mention my diagnoses very often on social media and very intentionally so, but I find it comes up a lot with my clients because, you know, some of them have heard it mentioned before and then come to me because they're like, I have no clue how to date with a chronic illness.
How to talk to people about that, how to have those conversations. But also, we all have struggles and. Some of us are unfortunate enough that our struggle manifest in a way that other people can see it, right? Like with an illness, and being able to navigate that, learn how to discuss that is something that most of us aren't taught.
So with my clients, it does often become a thing like, Hey, when I first got diagnosed with my illness and I had to. Set stronger boundaries because you know, now I really had to consider my energy and what I could do and what I couldn't do. Mm-hmm. And also mental health, like manifest in physical health too.
And I couldn't afford to take any more hits to the physical health. Right. Yeah. , so I had to get better at those things. I have that when I'm talking to my clients about like, Hey, you really do have to, you only have this one life. You only have this one body. And part of taking care of that body is making sure your mind is right, and part of making sure your mind is right is being very mindful of the people who are in your life and how you interact with them.
Yeah.
[00:14:40] Andrea: Something that you have a video on, and I loved it, is determining what level of relationship you should have with different people. And you use the analogy of the solar system, like is somebody Pluto or is somebody Mercury?
[00:14:56] Keshia: Yeah, and you know, this was something I really, really learned because you know, you learn things intellectually and then you learn things from personal experience
[00:15:07] Andrea: and they're very different a lot of times.
[00:15:11] Keshia: But the personal experience of that was when I first got sick, talking about like, In that video I said that, you know, you're the son. Some people in your life are are Mercury, some people are Pluto. Other people fall in between. And you have to use your discernment with what it is that you're willing to reveal to people, what it is that you're willing to tell others, and just even like how much time people are in your orbit and environment and see things.
Because I wasn't aware until I became aware of just like. People were spending time with me kind of like for clout, like they're the good person cuz they hung out with a sick girl or they know the gossip because they spent the day hanging out with me. I remember at one point I had to give myself an injection of a certain medication and.
I was hanging out with a friend all day. It wasn't really something I ever discussed. Like, I mean, how does that come up in conversation? Yeah. Excuse me. But like we spent the whole day together in that process I had to, you know, get myself the shot, so did it, went on about our day, we went shopping or whatever.
And it was a couple weeks later that like someone that I am not close to at all was asking me all these questions about that, and it was just like, really? Like when you're going through just different things in general. Like I know this podcast is about dealing with diagnoses and, and your health and all that, but just when you're going through like a tough time, you feel burnt out in your career or when you're going through family issues or issues with another friend or your, you know, Again, being a preacher's kid, I've had struggles over the years with like spirituality and what I believe and what I don't believe.
You have to be so careful about who is in your orbit because sometimes you're working through things on your own, you know, trying to figure out where you stand, how you feel, and other people will come in and blow up your spot. Yeah,
[00:17:22] Andrea: I think it was Brene Brown that said something that has always stayed with me, which is.
When she speaks to people, meaning when she's talking about speaking to her greater audience and her, you know, and her books and her students and all that, she speaks from the scar, not from the wound. And I think that we really do, I think especially when it's something as vulnerable as our health because.
A lot of times we don't even know, you know? I mean, we can have a good idea and a good hold on what's going on right now? We don't know what's going to go. And so it can be a very vulnerable thing to talk to somebody from the wound. Right? And like you say, kind of work things out and try to. To figure things out, and I think that person needs to have a reverence for that, and that needs to be our mercury.
That cannot be a Pluto. Right? Maybe we speak from the, the scar when we're talking to our Pluto, and I think that's a really, it's a really good way of looking at it.
[00:18:27] Keshia: Yeah. People talk so much about how there are some people who come into your life for a season. And they're not meant to be there forever.
Mm-hmm. But I think we often ignore that aspect, that there are people who are meant to be in our lives, but they're not meant to have such close access. Right. Or they're meant to have close access for a period of time, but at some point that maybe they need to be downgraded. And it's not a matter of.
Dismissing relationships and not appreciating people, but you really do have to be very intentional about your energy and what you allow into your environment.
[00:19:09] Andrea: So how did you deal with that when you were, I mean, you had been dating before your diagnosis, but after your diagnosis, I can imagine the dating took on maybe a little bit of a, a different vibe.
Maybe I'm wrong, maybe it didn't, but how was it for you to continue dating? After your diagnosis.
[00:19:27] Keshia: So you have to keep in mind that I was diagnosed around 17, 18, so I was young and db and
[00:19:35] Andrea: yes, God bless.
[00:19:39] Keshia: So at first I tried to be like, I would try to not talk about it period. And. You can get away with that to an extent, but again, in my case, if you remember me saying this, I had three kidney transplants.
So even after like transplant one, there was a period where I got sick again and then a period where I got sick again. And being in relationships, you know, I can think of a couple times where I tried to hide what was going on and then something happened where. I got forced into being like, Hey, this is the situation.
I even wrote one guy in particular who, as is this relationship ended because he was very codependent and, and clingy to begin with, but. We had an incident where he was already upset with me because he thought with my schedule, like I wasn't communicating with him enough and talking enough, and then I got really sick.
Landed in the hospital for a couple of days, ended up not talking to him for a couple of days in the process and the hell that erupted up it after I finally did call him. And then I had to be like, like my
[00:20:59] Andrea: jaw just dropped the hell of. I'd be like,
[00:21:01] Keshia: look, oh my gosh, I really was not trying to ignore you or ghost you.
I'm so sorry, but I, I legit was in the hospital and here's what's happening. So as I got older, there's a balance between vulnerability and oversharing. So, It wasn't ever like a first date conversation, but you know, after I talked to someone like a couple of times, I would say like, Hey, here's the thing. I have this diagnosis also, you know, I wouldn't say it in these exact words, but basically like, I'm also not a charity case.
I'm not, I'm not poor me, like I still. Work. I still do these things and I have limits, but I will also express to you what my limits are and I will let you know if, if I need a break, I will let you know if I'm tired or if I'm not feeling well. But don't treat me like a child, cuz I definitely attracted some men like that, who, who kind of wanted to be heroes and, and everything.
And, you know, I say that to, you know, women that I work with him because, you know, I, I have clients who have chronic illnesses and some of them do less than me. You know what I mean? Like, some of them are saying in, in, in wheelchairs or they're currently not working or things like that, and I let them know that you're still allowed to have dignity.
However that looks like for you, right? Mm-hmm. So it's important that when you have these conversations with dating partners, but also when you have these conversations with your friends, that you let them know, a, I'm not a child. I can express my limits. I can express when I need some rest time, when I need time to myself.
If I say that I want to go, that I want to be active, that I want to do stuff. You're allowed to be concerned, but you're not allowed to like, tell me what I can and can't do, right?
[00:23:01] Andrea: I think that takes a tremendous amount of confidence to be able to say that. I know when I first started, well, I mean when I, it's kind of like you, it's like I was dating before my diagnosis, but when I started dating after my diagnosis, it was a whole different ballgame.
And I know that I absolutely, especially in the very beginning, let my multiple sclerosis affect me, affect how I looked at my value as a contributing partner. I still sometimes have struggles with that. Thankfully, my husband is amazing, but it can be hard, and I know when I was dating before I met my now husband, I didn't always feel like I was coming in as like an equal partner, or I didn't always feel like I could tell people.
I mean, sometimes I wouldn't, sometimes I would kind of say like, you know what? This is not going to be the guy, so I'm just not even going to go there.
[00:23:59] Keshia: Like, let's just have fun and,
[00:24:01] Andrea: and not even figure it, you know, not even go into that conversation. But for the people that I was maybe more serious about, I, I wasn't quite sure how to say it.
And, I certainly didn't have that confidence to be able to say like, now listen, this is how you treat me. This is how it's going to be. How does somebody get confidence like that around, because I had confidence around my school. I had confidence around the career that I thought I was going to have. I had confidence around, you know, I was in graduate school, I had, I had certain confidence.
I just didn't have confidence in. The dating relationships like that was just thrown out of whack.
[00:24:39] Keshia: Yeah. For me it was. It was just always a matter of considered the alternative.
[00:24:43] Andrea: What do you mean?
[00:24:44] Keshia: The ideal life that I wanted to create it to create. I had a very clear idea of what that life looked like at a very clear idea of what I wanted my career.
To be like, what I wanted my family life to be like, what I wanted my relationships to be like. And once I was so clear on that vision that I could, you know, it sounds cliche, but when people talk about how they can, they can taste it. They, they can, they can just feel it. And once I was really into that and I was dating, I was like, the ideal relationship is with a man who respects me.
Who sees my intelligence, who sees my value, who sees my beauty despite the, the surgery scars and, and all of that stuff. And I, again, once I was so. Once I could feel that emotion and understand what that was going to be like, I was just like, I, I can't deal with a man who's not that right. I completely just did not have patience for anything that did not look like that.
And I was like, if I have to, I kind of got the attitude. It was like, if I have to hurt feelings than I do, because I, I know so, so much. I know so clearly that there's a man out there who respects me. There's a man out there who sees my worth and sees my value, and I want to make that clear that that's what I expect.
And if someone can't give that no hard feelings, completely understand, but also we're not going to work. Mm-hmm.
[00:26:30] Andrea: And let's just tell it now. Let's just, yeah, let's just break it off now because I have no time to deal with that. Yeah, I, yeah, I think that's an interesting thought. I think to probably, to a certain extent, I was doing the same thing because I would, but I would judge very quickly, and I don't know if that's because I, probably because I still had.
Issues with my own, you know, valuing my own self and, and figuring out what the heck was going on with my MS and what that meant for my life. You know, you go through a whole identity shift, but. To a certain extent. I, like I said, I would very quickly judge people and be like, yep, nope, you're going to be, you know, you're going to be a season, you're not going to be, you're not going to be the lifetime.
And when I was ready to like find, be serious myself and like find someone and lock in, it was not long before I found my husband.
[00:27:26] Keshia: That's one of the things though, because marriage is a partnership. And it is about two people coming together to create something even better. Mm-hmm. When, mm-hmm. We have these diagnoses happen to us and, and we go through physical changes and mental changes and all of that.
Our self-esteem takes enough hits. So I need a partner who the two of us are working and building on improving. Our, our values of each other, you know, our esteem and how we feel about each other and how we feel about ourselves. And that was one of the things too, is that, you know, I say men because I'm a straight woman, right?
But people who feel this need to be with someone that, you know, they love that caregiver role when they love it a little too much is because it's their self-esteem. They feel like they need that to take care of someone to be made worthy. And someone who's leaning heavily into that is not working on their esteem and their issues.
So if they're not working on that, and I have this thing that's, I know going to cause me to take some hits, like it's just not a good match. We're going to be low self-esteem together. Yeah. Right. Yeah.
[00:28:51] Andrea: Right. Which is a fabulous relationship.
[00:28:56] Keshia: I
[00:28:56] Andrea: think it happens when. We've got all of these things going on with the confidence, with our diagnosis, and with just our lives.
And like you, I was diagnosed very young and so I was still just trying to, figuring out my life and who I was just in general. But then at the same time, it's like you've gotta be ready for, I wanted marriage. You talk about marriage, right? It doesn't have to be, you know, it can be a long-term partner, right?
It doesn't have to be, but be ready for that next level. Of relationship. And so you just have to be ready for that. And I think with that maybe comes that confidence. And it may have nothing to do with your diagnosis, maybe. Right. Maybe it's just a maturity or something that you're like, oh, okay. Yeah. I know for me it was, it was a maturity of saying like, now I want, I want something serious.
Like I'm, I'm tired. Of dating the guys that I've been dating and it's time for something a little more genuine and I, it kind of intersection happened where I was ready for something serious. I was ready to be more, a little bit more confident in my diagnosis. I was ready to, you know, I was ready as far as who I knew I was with my diagnosis.
It was kind of like this, like I said, this intersection that happens.
[00:30:11] Keshia: Yeah, I mean, I think where having a diagnosis comes. Into play is people talk all the time about how life is short, but when you're dealing with a chronic illness, you get very heavily reminded. Yes, yes. There are some people who are going to get those reminders and they fall into a place of hopelessness and that's very unfortunate.
But for some of us, There's something about that reality, like really having it hit home, that death is a thing that makes you be like, okay, life is short and screw anything that makes it not happy and not good. Like I don't know how long I'm going to be here. Yeah. So I'm going to make sure that. Drake said, I'm here for for a good time, not a long time.
I plan on being here for both a long and good time, but it's definitely going to be a good time. Yeah. .
[00:31:16] Andrea: What do you say? Cause I know there are people listening that are thinking, you know, that's great. Sounds fantastic. I'm just not there yet. Maybe they're still struggling with their own value, you know, seeing their own value or seeing their own value as far as what you can bring to a relationship and they want to date, maybe they're, you know, looking to get back into the dating pool or just starting to get into the dating pool and they are just not feeling it.
What can you say to help them get into maybe a, a different state of mind?
[00:31:50] Keshia: Yeah. It starts with having something in your life to talk about that's not being sick. So just in general, I tell all of my clients, regardless of what their health status is, if you want people to be interested in you, you need to be interesting.
Have a life. You know, have things to talk about, have stories to tell. One of my favorite things is, is travel. When my husband and I got engaged, I took off, I took like seven, eight different solo trips around the world. Came back and was like, okay, let's get married. Let's do this. I have so many interesting travel stories to tell, and when I, I was doing that before I met my husband.
So when I was dating, like that became one of the things that, you know, I used to stand out. I had all these great stories, and when you have a chronic illness, oftentimes one of the reasons why you fall into that really depressing cycle of everyone always talking about your illness. It's because that's all you have to talk about.
It becomes really easy to fall into that pattern of constant doctor's appointments. I feel tired, I'm going to lay and watch tv. It's just so easy to fall into that cycle, and I get that depending on what you're dealing with, you have different activity levels and, and all of that, but. One of the blessings of the pandemic was that online things became so much easier access, and it can be as simple as taking a cooking class, taking an art class, doing paint by nbers, reading more, learning something new.
I go back to school and, and collect degrees. But there are plenty of like, there are plenty of free online courses that you can take to learn things. Yeah. And doing that will. Make you more interesting, you know, give you things to talk about when you're meeting someone new, but it also improves your self-esteem and your confidence because instead of focusing on the things that you feel you can't do anymore, you're learning all these things about yourself and what you can do.
Yeah,
[00:34:21] Andrea: I mean, it, it makes our life more interesting when we're. Learning new things. Trying new things. My favorite thing is I, I love audio books and I always listen to audio books and podcasts and things when I'm hiking in the morning, and I just started listening to this new book and I was telling my husband, but I was like, oh my gosh, this is amazing.
You have to read this because X, Y, Z. And he talks about this and I mean, I, yeah, I get so excited about just, I mean, It's just an audiobook or a podcast or something. Interesting. And I think you're right, it, I think we don't talk about our chronic illness all the time because we think it's interesting and we want to talk about it all the time.
It's just that sometimes it just feels like it's our world and it can be so refreshing to get out of that and look at a world outside of that chronic illness. And like you said, it doesn't, regardless of what your ability is, There's always some kind of a way to start looking beyond. Yeah,
[00:35:24] Keshia: and you know, for me it also helped with, after having those transplants and everything, you know you have a transplant, you're put on anti-rejection meds and it comes with all sorts of side effects, weight gain, acne, changes to your hair, skin, all of that.
And I remember going through a period where I just felt ugly. Like, I just felt so unattractive. And one of the things that helped lift me out of that was yes, I will say, you know, there's nothing wrong with, with a little vanity. There's nothing wrong with the spa treatments and, and skin care and, and all of that and, and, you know, losing weight if you feel like you need to lose weight.
Nothing wrong with that, but I was doing all those things and those things. Didn't help as much. Not, not mentally. What really helped me was. I started finding things that I was interested in and passionate about, and I remember just talking to like guy friends of mine, not, you know, thinking anything was going to come of it because of course I look like Shrek, so like, no.
So I wasn't expecting like any man to find me attractive, and I remember like just having conversations and being so passionate about something. And realizing I'm holding his attention, he looks really interested in me, like, and it's, it's so true. Yeah. Like when you have that passion for life, that zest that is so attractive.
[00:37:12] Andrea: And I think that kind of, it almost takes the weight off a little bit. I, I think because a lot of times when we're, looking for a partner and we're looking for a serious relationship and, your attention can be so focused on what can I do to attract this?
But if you take the weight off of the other person being there at all, and just say, what, what can I do to interest myself? What can I do to make my life more interesting for my own good? Because there are so many valuable things that come from that just in ourselves and our own life.
And then it's, you know, getting a partner can be. A secondary thought, because like you said, it's like making yourself more interesting to yourself. You're going to naturally be more interesting to other people.
[00:38:03] Keshia: The partner is definitely the secondary benefit, the charity on top, but I do find it often, it's not uncommon for it to start that way for people to go on these journeys of.
They've been in crappy relationships. So they're like, okay, I want to do something different. I want to improve myself, see the therapist, see the coach so I can be in a healthy relationship. And once they do, they realize that the original crappy relationship is the one with themselves and then they sticks.
That one and everything else also turns around too. So, you know, I actually had this discussion with someone the other day. She was like, You know, I feel like you're so deep. I don't understand why you're a dating coach, cuz that's so shallow. And I was like, sweetie, you don't understand that when these women come to me for dating and to get a man, like, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm going to help them get a man.
Yeah. But most importantly, I'm going to help them love themselves. The dating strategy and all that is, is kind of like the packaging, but what we're really working on is having great relationships everywhere, including your own self-love and your own self-esteem.
[00:39:24] Andrea: I think it's really true and I, and it's something I think that we all know on some level, but it's kind of like what you said earlier, it's like knowing about it intellectually and actually putting it into practice and seeing it.
In action in our lives can be two totally different things.
[00:39:41] Keshia: Yeah. And I personally love working on relationships with other people because oftentimes we are too close to our own situations, and especially if you have a chronic illness. And you have those periods where you're really sick and you can't go anywhere, you can't do anything.
You have this tendency to get into your head and you know, this is why in addition to coaching, I also became certified as a hypnotherapist. Because your head is a scary place.
[00:40:17] Andrea: Yes, it can be. Yeah. An unmanaged mind is a very scary thing.
[00:40:23] Keshia: You know, sometimes we get so wrapped up in ourselves. And I get it. I don't think it's, it's, it's selfish When you go through something traatic and being diagnosed with a chronic illness is traatic.
Pulling into yourself and, and kind of closing corners around yourself is a protective thing, so I totally understand that. But oftentimes, when we really work on our relationships with others in those other people, We get triggered, we see things in them, and then it helps us reflect back with like, oh, okay, this is something that, like, I've been so caught up in my own world, I didn't realize that like over time I've become less patient and I need to work on that.
Or I, I'm getting mad at this friend because she's such an amazing person and she treats herself like crap and she's never taken care of herself. And it's like, oh, seeing the way she treats herself, I'm realizing. I'm not doing a great job with my self-care either. Right. So there's so much benefit to honing our relationships with the people in our
[00:41:34] Andrea: orbit.
And I'm going to, I'm going to butcher it, but it's something that I saw on your Instagram. You were talking about how you need to be in relationships. So not just romantic, but you know, general relationships in order to work on yourself. No,
[00:41:48] Keshia: I was, I was going to say one of the, one of the biggest things that I help.
Women with is healing the, the generational traas and, and those unhealthy generational patterns. And so often women come to me and they're like, there's no way I'm going to be in a healthy relationship because I'm so screwed up. And because my parents screwed me up so badly, they did a nber on me. And, and the truth is, is that one, in a way we can, we can blame parents, but once you become an adult, you have to take accountability.
And two, yes, you do need to kind of start your healing on your own because you have to learn what these patterns are you. You have to understand what it is that you really want and need in a relationship. But if I tell you, Andrea, you really need to set some boundaries. You need to set more boundaries if you're never in relationship with other people.
How are you going to practice setting those boundaries?
[00:42:51] Andrea: So true. It's so true. I mean, it's not until we start doing things that kind of, those rough edges Yeah. Show themselves and then we can know either through the fact that I truly believe that the world is. Yeah, is like a mirror. And kind of going back to what you were saying before, it's like we kind of see things and then all of a sudden it's like, oh wait, I do that too.
It's like anything, right? I mean let's say you're learning how to, I don't know. Like say you're learning how to play basketball, I don't know. Yeah. Cuz I have basketball in the mind right now. But you don't know until you start playing that oh, you know what, I actually, I am not great at the three point I need to practice that.
I thought I would be better at the layups, but. You know what? I need to practice that. It's the same thing, right? Ooh, I'm not really so good at following through on those boundaries. But you don't necessarily know that you're right. Like until you start doing it,
[00:43:44] Keshia: even sometimes you just need another voice around you to help you.
Understand certain things. So the pandemic was a rough time for all of us. And I I say was covid is still a thing, just not as, as present in our everyday lives as it was right at the peak of it. So, you know, middle of 2020, that was happening. And I'm sure you also remember George Floyd was killed.
And Yep. I remember being at home with my husband because, you know, lockdown, we couldn't go anywhere and I remember just being in a funk and I was already coaching at this point, so I understood emotional intelligence and naming your emotions and, and being able to put them in their proper place and everything.
But I just kept. Remember feeling down and not understanding what it was, and all of these things were coming up. Like technically my health was in the best that it been at that point, but I remember having worries about like going back on dialysis and, and things like that. Just all these different things were coming up and I was like, what the hell is wrong with me?
Like, am I going insane? And I remember. My husband saying something like I, I said something to him. He was like, geez, why are you so angry? And I was like, I'm not angry. And he's like, yes you are. You're angry. And I was like, I'm not angry. What is your problem? Right.
[00:45:34] Andrea: I'm not. You are.
[00:45:37] Keshia: And I remember like, he gave me a hug and he was like, okay. He was like, I, I think you just, I think you need a moment. You, you need some time. Just go down, lay down for, for a moment. And I did thinking like all the time, what's his problem? Right? And I remember just laying in bed and then I just started crying.
So hard I could not stop. And he, he came in and like, he was just, he was quiet. He gave me a hug and all that, but he didn't talk. And it was because of him that I realized the emotion that I felt was rage. And I had never felt that emotion before. Or at least I had never felt that degree, that intensity.
And. I started thinking of all the things that I was raging about. Again, with George Floyd. I'm a black woman, so, so there's that. The pandemic, the fact that I had spent years dealing with this chronic illness and people, it seemed to me were not taking this virus seriously and putting people's health at risk, just like all of these things were filling me with rage, and it wasn't until.
Having someone around who was kind of patient with me, and he was like, I don't know what you're dealing with. And, and apparently you don't know what you're dealing with either, but there's something like, like having that was so important.
[00:47:13] Andrea: Absolutely. It's, it's having someone reflect it back to you in, and sometimes it, it's reflected back in, in that way, which is like, look, I don't know what's going on, but something's going on.
Sometimes you're with a coach or someone like that who can reflect back exactly what's going on, but it really does help, like you said, get out of your head and kind of see it from a different perspective. And it can help you. It can really help you to process things and see things maybe in a different light, see things in a way that you never would've thought, especially when it's something new.
Like you said, like rage on that level. And you're right. It's it being in another relationship and it didn't have to be romantic, right? It could be family, it could be friends, it could be whoever it is. But being in relationships like that really help us gain self-awareness.
[00:48:07] Keshia: Yeah. Back to what we were talking about earlier, romantic or not, there needs to be a person in your life who is Mercury.
[00:48:13] Andrea: Yeah. I think it's a basic han need. Yeah. Is that connection? So if there's somebody listening, and I think we all go through moments of this, uh, or periods of this in our lives, who's thinking, I don't have a mercury. Right now, what are some steps that they can take? We talked about maybe, you know, getting more interested in, in different things, but what are, even if it's not like a romantic relationship that they're looking for, sometimes, I mean, friendships are hard.
You know, as you get older, it can be so hard to make new friends. What are some steps that people can take to maybe find that Mercury?
[00:48:54] Keshia: Yeah, so I think you do have to be proactive about building community. So yeah, I mentioned finding new interests and new hobbies. Doing that is great for dating, but it's also great for meeting friends.
Right. And then finding community in volunteer work. If you are a person of faith, you know, so you're, you're a Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, whatever, finding a faith community where you live is, is very helpful. Online fors are a great place. Yeah. I can think of friends that I am friends with this person because we were in the same.
Facebook group and we joked about the same things within the group and then took it offline. So you never know how those things are going to be formed. But in the meantime, I think the key to finding new friends is the same as the key to finding new romantic partners. I always tell my clients to make a list of what it is that they want to need in relationship, what their ideal partner's like.
Make that same list for your ideal friends and be open to that. I mentioned when I first got sick, there were people who I didn't consider to be as close friends because frankly I wasn't that great to them and they became closer friends. Right. And sometimes that's the case too. There are people in your circle who you may not be as close to, but you realize like, hey, I do have like a fair nber of things in common with this person.
Let me make more of an effort to talk to them more often and just no expectations, but let's see how it goes. If, if I make the effort to say, call them once a week, will they reciprocate that? Will we find that we have some more closeness? If we don't, it's cool. I, I worked on practicing my communication skills, you know, I still got something out of it.
So doing that and also working on that relationship with yourself. I absolutely hate journaling, but I recommend it to all my clients because I do it myself. And as much as I hate to journal, whenever I do it, I learn new insights about myself. I get certain. Feelings off my chest. I'm better able to articulate how I'm feeling to my parents or my husband or a friend.
So I understand the power of it. You know, I understand the power of. Meditation, learning how to be alone with yourself, because when you do those things, you're better able to communicate with others. You have more of a peace. Your energy is better. So yeah, work on the relationship with yourself, but also be intentional about how you're going to build more community around you as well.
[00:51:45] Andrea: Fantastic. Keisha, I could talk to you for another three hours. I, I can't believe we've already been talking for an hour. I will have links to everything so people can find you in the show notes, but quickly tell people where they can find you. Cause I know there are people listening that are like, I gotta get in touch with her immediately.
[00:52:04] Keshia: Yeah. So it's actually really easy. My name is, My first name is spelled K e s h i A, so Keisha Rice, like the food, and my website is keisha rice.com and I'm on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube at Keisha Rice.
[00:52:21] Andrea: Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for coming on, being so open and sharing so much about relationships and how to navigate them, and just dropping so many amazing tips and tools and things that people I know can start working on right
[00:52:40] Keshia: now.
Thank you for having me. I really enjoyed it.
[00:52:44] Andrea: If you like the show, don't be shy. Please give us a five star rating and review. Follow us on Apple Podcast, Amazon music, or wherever you're listening right now. To see complete show notes and resources mentioned in this episode, visit Andrea Hanson coaching.com.
Thank
you for joining me, and until next
time, take care.

00:00:00 - Andrea W Hanson
Doing this podcast is one of my favorite things to do right now. And this week's guest is a prime example of why Sarah Bowser is the self proclaimed weird nerdy mom. And I love it.
00:00:13 - Andrea W Hanson
I immediately wanted to talk to her.
00:00:14 - Andrea W Hanson
When I read that, and she hasn't always been able to proudly say that she's nerdy and weird. For a long time, she did not let her nerdy flag fly. She had some issues getting her hashimoto's diagnosis and felt a lot of uncertainty and anxiety and even had some suicide ideation while she was learning to deal with her chronic illness. But along with finding help for her hashimoto's, she also started to embrace her creativity and let herself well, be herself. And now she helps other women embrace themselves, cultivate self love, and create a crucial sense of belonging. Sarah is so full of love and acceptance. She makes you feel like everything about you is accepted and celebrated. She even got me talking about a personal fascination of mine that I don't talk about much in the professional realm, and it felt so good to discuss it openly with her. So please enjoy this week's episode and visit Andrea Hanson Coaching, LLC for more on Sarah Bowser resources that we talk about in the show and transcripts from today's episode. And you can find that link in the episode description. Welcome to the Live Your life, not Your Diagnosis podcast. I'm Andrea Hansen, author, motivational speaker, and master certified coach. When I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, I was told I would never reach my goals. But I did. And I'm on a mission to prove that life with a chronic illness can still be expansive and quite remarkable. Everyone has their own unique path. I'm talking to people living with a chronic illness that come from different backgrounds, have different points of view, and are achieving amazing life goals of all kinds to inspire you to achieve what you thought was impossible. These stories are raw, uncensored, and judgment free. Listener discretion is advised.
00:02:11 - Andrea W Hanson
I am here with Sarah Bowser. Sarah Bowser is that weird nerdy mom, the one who always struggled with belonging, with finding her place in the world. After struggling with anxiety, an autoimmune diagnosis, and suicidal ideation, she found her way back to solid ground. Putting together her own system for finding her true self, cultivating self love and self belonging, she now helps the other weird nerdy women do the same for their own lives. Sarah, welcome. Hi.
00:02:44 - Sarah Bowser
Thank you so much for having me.
00:02:45 - Andrea W Hanson
Thank you so much for coming on. I have so many questions. I love everything about this. I love everything about this. When we were talking, all I saw was weird nerdy mom. And I'm like, yes.
00:03:00 - Sarah Bowser
There's two words that describe me. Weird and nerdy are the two words I know.
00:03:05 - Andrea W Hanson
Yeah, well, and it's so funny because I immediately identified as kind of a weird nerdy person and a weird nerdy child. Growing up even. Oh, yeah, totally identified with that. So tell me, how do you describe yourself? What makes you weird and nerdy?
00:03:23 - Sarah Bowser
Well, it goes back to childhood, for sure. I was always the one with the weird tastes. I was the one that liked all of the weird things compared to my peers. So fifth grade, while all my friends were listening to the Backstreet Boys and then Sync and all of the popular boy band type stuff while I listened to those too, I was the one listening and dressing up like Kiss.
00:03:51 - Andrea W Hanson
Oh, my God, I love it.
00:03:55 - Sarah Bowser
I liked all of the music that everybody in my class thought was weird. So I was listening to Kiss to Queen to Sticks to the Beatles to all. And as I got older and got into high school, I found peers that had those same interests, the same TV interests, all that kind of stuff. But I would always read the different books. And everybody else everyone else was always reading the young adult fiction and I was over in the corner reading murder mysteries and yes, all of this just stuff that you wouldn't necessarily think like a fifth, 6th grader towards high school. Yeah, it's more normal to have those weird interests, but you don't see that with younger kids. So I was always labeled like the freak or the weird one or just I was shy because I didn't fit with the other kids. And I kind of just kept progressing as I got older too. So, like well, yeah, I found some groups where my interests and everything kind of aligned. I was still trying to kind of not be the weird, nerdy one, so I was trying to fit in. So I wasn't ostracized in those friend groups. I went to a Andrea Hanson Coaching, LLC college while I'm listening in the library reading books about all of these different spiritualities getting looks shot at me by the nuns.
00:05:22 - Andrea W Hanson
That sounds terrifying.
00:05:24 - Sarah Bowser
It was.
00:05:27 - Andrea W Hanson
I totally understand. It's a weird time, especially, like you said, it starts when you're younger and you start to look at different things and experiments and everything is new and amazing and finding something that lights you up. Like, I was the same way I found at I think I was in fifth grade when I saw my first horror movie. And I loved it. I just loved it. I mean, I just thought it was amazing. That really started my lifelong love of horror. And even to this day, not a lot of people are into they're into true crime. Yeah, but horror is a totally different situation.
00:06:04 - Sarah Bowser
Totally different. Totally different, right.
00:06:07 - Andrea W Hanson
With its own different subgroups. And it's such a weird like, people are like, oh, really? Oh, my God. Yeah. And I do remember even in middle school really liking it and people being like because people with something like that, not everyone likes it, but some people are completely repelled by it.
00:06:27 - Sarah Bowser
Right?
00:06:28 - Andrea W Hanson
And so me loving something that other people are like, I can't watch it. I'm like, Is something wrong? Is it weird?
00:06:35 - Sarah Bowser
Right? Because you start to have the other kids and other peers looking at you like, what is she doing? So you start to have that feeling of, is there something wrong with me? Is this really that weird? I like different music. Is it weird that I watch different movies? Is it weird?
00:06:52 - Andrea W Hanson
Yeah, it can play with your self confidence.
00:06:55 - Sarah Bowser
I think it does, yeah, because you're sitting here thinking, I just want to be me. I want to be happy in my skin. I want to be able to just shout from the rooftops, this is what I like. This is what I want to share with my friends. And I don't want to be worried that people are going to think that I'm crazy and obsessive because I want to have all these conversations about all these deep fiends from Lord of the Rings or other different.
00:07:23 - Andrea W Hanson
Yeah. It does make you kind of feel like you don't have that group, because sometimes it's not like finding somebody who has that same interest is like an immediate friend.
00:07:36 - Sarah Bowser
Right.
00:07:36 - Andrea W Hanson
They've got to have that Venn diagram where it's like, you got to know my interest, but you also have to be really cool. And I like you.
00:07:44 - Sarah Bowser
There has to be that sense of, okay, I can find community here. Yeah, we have same interests, but there still has to be that connection. So through a lot of my time growing up, yeah, I had these groups of friends in high school and in college where we had the same interests, but it was never really, oh, I fit. Oh, I've been granted that belonging, that I want to feel like I belong, but it was never really there. So it was like that balance of, all right, I can really just throw this out there and just be who I am, or if I want to belong somewhere, I have to start to mute who I am.
00:08:28 - Andrea W Hanson
Which one did you find yourself doing?
00:08:30 - Sarah Bowser
I was muting more than anything else, I would let myself express myself, my true love. In some ways, I was very proud of myself. For my wedding, I just let it all out, be nerded out. Like, I had a TARDIS card box, we had fortune tellers with quotes from different fantasy books and stuff like that. And it was nice to kind of throw that out there and have it out there and be like, this is who I am. But then there was also the areas of the wedding where, okay, we're going to keep it a little bit traditional, too, where maybe I would want to nerd out a little bit more. But it was still at least one aspect where in my adult life where I was able to like, I can do it. I can be me. But then it was like, as soon as it was over. It was like, okay, the event is over. I'm not center stage anymore. I don't have to put myself out there. I can come back into my little permit hole and just continue to morph who I am to fit whoever I'm with, and that way I can still belong and not be shunned or feel like I'm being shunned.
00:09:35 - Andrea W Hanson
Yeah, that's such an interesting way of putting it. Like morphing yourself to kind of fit into the different friends or the different people that you're in front of.
00:09:47 - Sarah Bowser
Absolutely. Yeah. Because your subconscious can always tell, like, oh, if I put this piece of myself out there, they're going to think this. And whether they think that or not is in reality is irrelevant because in your perception, in your head, you're thinking, they will never accept me for who I am if I put this piece of myself out there. So I have to twist this piece and put it out in this form. That way, from my brain's perception, they will grant me the belonging into that group.
00:10:15 - Andrea W Hanson
Yeah.
00:10:16 - Sarah Bowser
It's a perception more than a reality because we don't know what anybody else is thinking. It's just we're afraid. We're afraid because we've been maybe mocked or made fun of in our youth, so that stays with us. So we're like, all right, I got to keep it back and just show them what they want to see or what we think they want to see.
00:10:36 - Andrea W Hanson
And it's such an interesting place to.
00:10:37 - Andrea W Hanson
Be in because it's like, on one sense, we're like master manipulators. Right. Like we're manipulating ourselves because we know what we think and what we want to put out there. But then we're holding it back and muting ourselves or trying to change what we're saying in order for somebody else. Which, again, like, you have no idea what they're thinking. But we think we know what they're thinking and we want to manipulate what it is that they're going to think about us.
00:11:04 - Sarah Bowser
Right.
00:11:04 - Andrea W Hanson
So it's like we're manipulating ourselves. We're trying to manipulate another person in some kind of a sense. It's so exhausting.
00:11:14 - Sarah Bowser
It's extremely exhausting because at the end of the day, you're like, all right, I belonged today. I fit in with the group today. But then you get home and you're like, who am I? You get home and you're like, I'm putting this image out there, and I'm getting this belonging that I thought that I've always wanted. But I don't know who I am anymore because I've stuffed myself so far down in order to be what I think everybody else wants me to be, that I don't know where to look to actually feel that happiness that my true self would feel if it was allowed to breathe.
00:11:50 - Andrea W Hanson
I think that's so fascinating because it affects not just us and how we feel and our confidence, our self love and all of that, but it also affects all the other parts of our world, our relationships, what we do, the career path, and it also affects things like our health.
00:12:12 - Sarah Bowser
Oh, yeah, it does.
00:12:14 - Andrea W Hanson
So how do you feel like this? Because you talk about how getting diagnosed with Hashimoto's was pretty difficult.
00:12:23 - Sarah Bowser
It was extremely difficult. So with everything that went on through my youth and growing up and getting married and all of this, the whole stuffing everything in and down led to me having anxiety and depression for the majority of my life. So it's kind of like that the kindling that's just kind of like sitting there in the background that ever present. It's always there. So then my husband and I got pregnant with our daughter, had my daughter had the postpartum depression, had all of that, those struggles. And on top of dealing with a newborn baby postpartum depression, my normal anxiety and depression, that is just always there. I was dealing with no matter what I did, I would follow all of the trendy things to lose the baby weight, to get back into shape. My hair was falling out. I would brush my hair like normal and just like, clumps, I would be pulling off the brush. My nails were brittle and breaking. I felt like I needed to itch myself out of my skin just to feel any kind of relief. And it finally got to the point where I went to my doctor and I needed some kind of solution, like, this is what's happening. And all they heard was, I wanted to lose weight. It's like, I'm having all of these things. And they just were like, well, are you just asking us for a weight loss pill? No, I'm not asking for a weight loss pill. I am asking for you to help me figure out what's going on. Which led to, okay, well, run some thyroid tests. And I got one piece of generic blood work, and I got an ultrasound. And the blood work was at the very high edge of the normal range for TSH, which isn't a great indicator of thyroid function to begin with. And then the ultrasound came back with an abnormal nodule that the radiologist was like, oh, this should probably be tested further. But my primary was like, oh, you have a nodule. We're not going to do anything. We'll just keep an eye on it. And I'm, like, thinking to myself, this report is saying they use the words abnormal, and based on the measurements, this is not small. We should look into this further. And just the way that it played out, like, I ended up switching primary care doctors. I got myself an endocrinologist because I'm like, I'm not messing around with this because there's a lot of instances of cancer in my family. I'm like, I'm not going to take a risk. They're telling me there's an abnormal growth on my thyroid. I want to look into it. So the new endocrinology, I had the endocrinologist. I was like, all right. He's giving me all the blood work that I think I'm going to need. We're doing a biopsy. It's going to be great. My daughter's almost a year old at this point, so my husband and I are like, okay, we're going to get this figured out. We can start trying for baby number two because we're thinking like, all right, it took us four years to get pregnant the first time. We don't want to have a huge age gap between our kids if we don't have to. So let's start trying now. So get all the tests run. My husband and I are like, all right, we're planning for our future. And I'm sitting at work one day, I'm out in the field on a job and sitting in just this shabby little city hall, just trying to train someone, do my job. And I get this phone call, 830 in the morning from my endocrinologist, and he's like, Good news, it's not cancer. I'm like, okay. Awesome. This is great. Not cancer. And then he's like, you have hashimoto's? Basically, your thyroid is shutting down, attacking itself. Not much we can really do for it. I'll see you in, like, six months to a year. Oh, by the way, if you get pregnant, you'll most likely have a miscarriage.
00:16:02 - Andrea W Hanson
My jaw just dropped.
00:16:03 - Sarah Bowser
Yeah. I'm sitting in this conference room with someone that I'm trying to train, sitting there thinking, after everything that he had just said, I wish it was cancer, because then I'd at least have a game plan. Okay, I know, okay, this is what it is. Chemo, radiation, surgery, something. There would be a game plan. This isn't getting a diagnosis, but then being told, just be prepared to feel like this for the rest of your life. It's like, no.
00:16:34 - Andrea W Hanson
Yeah.
00:16:34 - Sarah Bowser
So I had an appointment with my primary care doctor not long after that, and I was sharing with her, and I was like, this is what he says. I'm struggling with this. I'm having a hard time. And she basically looked at me and was just like, I don't get what the big deal is. It's basically just hypothyroidism. I don't get why you're so worked up about it. I'm like, I'm being told that my thyroid is attacking itself, that it's just going to keep shutting down, that these symptoms aren't going to go away, that if I got pregnant, I'd have a miscarriage. You don't think that that's something that's going to cause some feelings? That there are feelings there there's devastation and depression and just this sense of what just happened to my life?
00:17:28 - Andrea W Hanson
Yeah, that's amazing. That she's like, I don't see the big deal.
00:17:32 - Sarah Bowser
I don't know. Yeah, go talk to a therapist or something. Was basically, like, the gist of it. And I'm just like, oh, my gosh.
00:17:41 - Andrea W Hanson
Oh, my gosh.
00:17:42 - Sarah Bowser
Yeah. It took me calling my endocrinologist Bawling on a Saturday for him to finally call back during the week. And say, like, all right, we'll put you on thyroid medication, and I'll see you in a couple of weeks. I'm like, okay. Like, cool, I guess meds to keep me where I'm at, but not like, we're not going to come up with a game plan to do anything else. Yeah, it was insane.
00:18:07 - Andrea W Hanson
That is insane, and it's insane, but it's sadly not unique.
00:18:12 - Sarah Bowser
No, it's not uncommon at all. It's really not like the fact that the first doctors first went straight to like, oh, you just want to lose weight. It's like no, a woman's goal in life is not to just lose weight. A woman's goal in life is thank you. To be healthy and to be happy and to be able to function in a way we can participate in life to its fullest extent. My goal is not to look like the airbrushed Photoshopped models on the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition or whatever it is. I just want to be healthy. I want to have energy to play with my kids. I want to have energy to do the things that I want to do. If I'm overweight, so be it. But as long as I'm healthy, that's the goal. Just to live a happy, healthy life.
00:18:59 - Andrea W Hanson
You really hit on it where a lot of times when you're dealing and this is really with any relationship, it can be a relationship with your doctor, with anybody. But it really shows how somebody's assumptions about what somebody else is thinking, what somebody else's motives are, is so important because their assumptions about what you wanted was so off. And when you're dealing with something like doctors, it's like time is money.
00:19:32 - Sarah Bowser
Really?
00:19:33 - Andrea W Hanson
When you're talking to them, yeah.
00:19:35 - Sarah Bowser
If it's not within that 15 minutes that they'll talk to you, after they make you wait an hour past your appointment time, it's like yeah.
00:19:43 - Andrea W Hanson
And so if 15 minutes or twelve of those minutes are them talking to someone, it's like sometimes I remember when I was at various times, I actually just went through a health event last year where it's like, you feel like you're talking to someone and they're not even really talking to you. It's like, who are you talking to? Because you're not talking to me, because I don't feel like you even are acknowledging.
00:20:04 - Sarah Bowser
Right. They're just putting their notes in the computer as you're talking at them, and they're just like it's like, okay, but can you look at me and listen to me and actually absorb the stuff that I'm telling you?
00:20:18 - Andrea W Hanson
Yeah. It's very frustrating, and I think, obviously, not all doctors are like this, but this is why I always say, like, look, if you feel like you're in a doctor, especially doctor relationship, really any relationship that's like this, move on, right? Call somebody else.
00:20:33 - Sarah Bowser
They work for us.
00:20:34 - Andrea W Hanson
That's right.
00:20:35 - Sarah Bowser
We hire them to be our doctors. And as someone with anxiety, it's taking a long time to get to that point where if they're not getting me what I need, if they're not listening to me, like, all right, I'm not here to spare their feelings. I'm going to find a doctor who's going to listen to what I have going on and listen to my symptoms and help me come up with a game plan and a solution. I'm not going to sit and stay with a support system that's not actually supporting me. I'm going to look for someone who's actually going to be there and like, all right, let's try this. Let's try this. Let's try this. Yeah.
00:21:12 - Andrea W Hanson
So is that what you did?
00:21:13 - Sarah Bowser
Eventually, yeah. It took me a while. It took me a while because, like I said, my anxiety was just so high where I'm thinking like, this is what they told me. I can't question the doctor. I can't question this is what it is. I've already switched doctors once. My insurance isn't going to let me switch again. Are they going to tell me anything different? It turned into this giant spiral where for the next couple of months after getting the diagnosis and everything, where it was just like, I can't do this. I don't have the energy to do this. I'm exhausted all the time. My daughter's not getting what she needs from me. My husband's not getting what he needs from me. My work is suffering because I'm just like, in this spiral all the time. And eventually it just got to that point, whereas they would all just probably be better off without me. My husband would be able to find a wife who could actually function. My daughter barely a year old. She wouldn't remember me anyway. She'd be able to have a mom who could actually function and play with her and do all this stuff. Getting to that point where it's like, all right, what's the point? And we had a 4 July we have this annual 4 July party in our neighborhood where it's this big neighborhood bash with a neighborhood parade and this big block party, basically. And it's always in our backyard, in our neighbor's backyards. And we had put our daughter to bed, had the monitor outside with us, and she had started crying. So both my husband and I went up to her room to try to calm her down. And I don't know what was the final push for me to say something, but I'm standing there cradling her in my arms, trying to get her to sleep. And I just looked up at my husband and I was like, I think you guys would be better off if I just wasn't here. In my head, I was thinking, like, terrified to admit it because I'm thinking, he's going to agree with me. He's in all this stuff. And I'm like, he looked at me and he was just like, if you weren't here, we would lose everything. And I'm just like that was kind of the moment where the switch came, and it was like, all right, I'm going to do this. I'm going to come out of the spiral. I'm going to figure it out. I'm going to get my life back. I'm going to get energy back. I'm going to get healthy again. And then it became like, all right, give me all of the books. Give me all of the books on hashimoto's. Give me all of the research online. Give me everything. And then it just became the trial and error of finding what worked and coming into finding a health coach and a functional medicine coach and just finding the support system and the people that would actually take more than 15 minutes every three to six months to listen to what I had going on and help me come up with that roadmap to get back to being healthy again.
00:23:54 - Andrea W Hanson
Is that where you feel right now?
00:23:55 - Sarah Bowser
Yeah. I worked with my functional medicine coach for about a year and a half, and while we're not working actively together anymore, I have that map that I can follow, that path that I can follow on my journey to, like, okay, I can maintain where I'm at now, and I can feel energy. Like, when I started working with my coach, all I wanted was to be able to have dance parties in my living room with my four and two year old. That's all that I wanted to do. They love music. They love dancing. I just wanted to be able to get off the couch and have the energy to dance with them. And we do that now. We put Kiss videos on. We put Bon Jovi videos on on YouTube, and we're all just, like, dancing around the living room singing. And it's amazing.
00:24:38 - Andrea W Hanson
I love it.
00:24:39 - Sarah Bowser
Yeah.
00:24:40 - Andrea W Hanson
I love that you're still listening to Kiss and you're indoctrinating your kids.
00:24:46 - Sarah Bowser
Listening to Kiss. I showed my daughter rock and Roll all Night, the music video from 1973.
00:24:52 - Andrea W Hanson
Oh, no. What do they think?
00:24:54 - Sarah Bowser
She now asks me on The Daily if I can get my eyeliner out and do her makeup like Jean Simmons.
00:24:59 - Andrea W Hanson
That's amazing. That's amazing. Because Kiss, it's like I liked the music, but as a kid, I remember seeing I just have this I'm the youngest, so I was exposed to things way past, like, what I should be exposed to as the youngest in the family often is. And I remember seeing I don't know what the video was, but seeing one of their boots. I'm not even sure who it was.
00:25:21 - Sarah Bowser
But they have a boot, probably jeans with the demon boots.
00:25:24 - Andrea W Hanson
Yes, with, like, the teeth. Terrified. Terrified. Although it probably planted that seed, because not long afterwards, I saw another is.
00:25:34 - Sarah Bowser
When you get into horror.
00:25:35 - Andrea W Hanson
Yeah, I saw a horror movie that I was, again, way too young to.
00:25:38 - Sarah Bowser
See, but that's okay.
00:25:39 - Andrea W Hanson
And I loved it.
00:25:40 - Sarah Bowser
I was like, this is amazing.
00:25:41 - Andrea W Hanson
I'm so scared. But I actually love that feeling. So I bet if I traced that seed back, it would be Jean Simmons boots.
00:25:50 - Sarah Bowser
I love it. I'm already being asked, like, have you ordered my Jean Simmons Halloween costume yet? And like, we're going to wait a few more months. That way I don't order it now and you don't grow out of it.
00:26:01 - Andrea W Hanson
Oh, my gosh.
00:26:02 - Sarah Bowser
But I love it. Yeah. She is like the spitting image of me in looks and in personality. So it's amazing to watch and it's amazing to think, too. I now know the ways that I can support her so that she doesn't feel the same need to hide herself the way that I did. And that's not like a dig at my parents or anything. Like, my parents were amazing and they supported me with all of it. It was more like I didn't the societal pressures that come down, I know now, having lived, that how to help my daughter. All right, we can do this. We can thrive. You can be who you are and not you can still find where you belong.
00:26:43 - Andrea W Hanson
I have to think that in and of itself is pretty healing.
00:26:46 - Sarah Bowser
Yeah, it is. It's amazing because I was like 4th, 5th grade when I got introduced to Kiss and started that journey. And she's four, almost five years old. She's like five years ahead of the schedule, and she is owning it. And it's amazing to watch.
00:27:02 - Andrea W Hanson
Love it. She's ahead of schedule.
00:27:04 - Sarah Bowser
Oh, she's very ahead of schedule, and I'm very proud of her.
00:27:09 - Andrea W Hanson
That is amazing. So talk to me about when you started thinking, okay, I'm feeling better with healing and with getting a plan, working with various people to help you figure out your own map, as you say, which I think is such a great way of saying it. When did you feel like you were ready to start kind of looking forward and saying, like, okay, maybe I'm going to help other people?
00:27:40 - Sarah Bowser
Yeah. So the pandemic was kind of a lot of, like the triggering points for me. I'm sure pandemic has been a triggering point for a lot of people with things changing and just the way that society has changed as a result of it. And I think at the end of the tail end of 2020 is when I started working with my functional medicine coach. 2020 was also when I had my son. And then I had a friendship that just kind of imploded out of nowhere with no warning, where it was kind of that seed. It was like the proverbial switch with the suicidal ideation and the switch slipping with my discussion and my admission to my husband. The end of this friendship just kind of was like that switch that was like, oh, I really have been burying myself so far down just to try to please other people, that the minute I start to show myself, this friendship just completely cut off. Ghosted that was it.
00:28:39 - Andrea W Hanson
Isn't that fascinating how that happens?
00:28:41 - Sarah Bowser
Yeah, I have my two kids. I have the family. I'm on my health journey. I'm getting there as we're doing the health, like the physical health roadmap to get my body and my brain back to functioning. It was also like soul roadmap, too, at the same time, to be like, all right, these are my actual values. This is who I am at my core. This is what I like. I do really like this thing. I do really like that thing. Oh, this sounds interesting. I'm going to experiment with this over there. And it turned into this, okay, I'm just going to keep experimenting and trying things. And it was soul searching and health searching all at the same time on the same path. So as I'm following this physical gravel path through the woods to finding my health again, I'm following the stars and the navigation up there to find my spiritual path and my soul path at the same time. So it's kind of like coming out of that and like, I know who I am again, and I know how I got here. So many other people, so many other weird, nerdy women like me who have been shoving down their love of Kiss and Lord of the Rings and all Doctor Who for years and years and years can just be like, all right, this is who I am, world. If you're with me, the people that I belong with will come. And you'll attract your tribe and you'll create the garden where you're meant to just sit and take it all in.
00:30:11 - Andrea W Hanson
I love how you say that. I think it's interesting because, I don't know, I almost feel like those things are so connected. It's like your health, but also, like, really what you're describing is just living your truth. And when we're not living our truth, there's a certain amount of agitation and resistance and stress that goes with that. And when you have that, it's real. It's not just some situation out in the ether. It's something that's happening in our body and it is working against creating health. Right? And so it's like, really, when we are finding that health, it's almost essential to find that truth, live that truth, accept it, honor it, and it can be really, really hard. And I'm not saying that you can't get healthy if you don't do that, but it can almost be like the gas and the brake doing those both at the same time, and it can really hinder it. But it can also be a very vulnerable, scary place to be where you're trying to figure out your health, where it's like, oh, my gosh. I mean, I remember I felt like my body was an alien when I was first really diagnosed and really like, that year or so, obviously before. It's very intimidating and at the same time having to figure out like, oh, gosh, I haven't really been living my life the way I want to and I haven't been embracing those values. It can be really daunting, but I do think that whole thing is just a packaged deal.
00:31:42 - Sarah Bowser
Yeah, it's learning how to take stock of, okay, I was changing myself this way to fit into this person's values. But when I think about it, when I think about you take a scenario that you were in with a friend where maybe things just seemed off, and you want to take that scenario and just think, like, okay, in a perfect world where I could just answer this scenario or react to this situation in a way that is safe and just my ultimate gut feeling. How would I react? How did I actually react in real life? And then kind of like comparing those two and thinking like, okay, this reaction over here, the ideal world reaction, this is what feels right. This over here does not feel right. I feel like I'm letting myself down. I'm letting the world down for not reacting the way that was the truth and the positive for me. And then learning, okay, kind of doing that for a few different scenarios or situations throughout your life, whether it's on your own, with friends, with family, with work, and just kind of like, okay, looking for those themes in those reactions and in those scenarios and like, okay, I can see the different themes and the different values that are popping up. And then you can be like, okay, this is kind of like the roadmap, the beacon out in the distance to kind of like, okay, this is like the foundation or the structure, the pillars of what's holding up my true identity. Let's start to kind of experiment a little bit and find like, all right, what's making all this stuff around the pillars and around those words turn me into the weird nerdy person that I am.
00:33:20 - Andrea W Hanson
Yeah, I love it. No, it is. I mean, it's very visual too, right? And it's so funny, because as you were talking, I was thinking that I talked to a lot of people who have chronic illness, and one of the themes that many, many people say, and you actually have said it here is that after diagnosis, and sometimes it takes a couple of years, but after diagnosis, it's almost like we're stepping into this new identity. I think it is tempting to say it's because we have this diagnosis and we're trying to figure out who we are with a diagnosis, which is very true. But I think it's also this idea of having a diagnosis or even like I don't want to say that this doesn't happen if you don't get a diagnosis. Right, because some people don't get an actual diagnosis. It happens when we realize that there is something truly different going on with our bodies and we need to adjust and we need to honor it and figure out what's going on but in doing that, we start number one saying, okay, who am I now that I have this diagnosis? Or I now have this health condition? But at the same time, I think, like we said, it's like those things are connected to let's find our truth. Life's too short. Why am I messing around with this? And as we do that, we tend to cut off friendships or change relationships. And that's something that happens a lot, and I think it can be changed. I mean, I think it's interesting that we're having this discussion because a lot of times people say, well, I got diagnosed and then my friends went away. But I think if you look at it on that deeper level, it's like.
00:34:52 - Sarah Bowser
Well, did they go away because you.
00:34:53 - Andrea W Hanson
Got diagnosed or did you got diagnosed and then start really living your truth? And maybe those friends that weren't aligned with your truth were going to drop off anyway. Maybe that's what it is, right?
00:35:05 - Sarah Bowser
Because with my diagnosis, at the beginning, it was like, just one more thing that made me different, one more thing that made me weird, one more thing that made me not fit in with everybody around me. It was like, all right, now I have to try to balance actually trying to get healthy and all the weird stairs when I change what I'm eating or what I'm doing or all this kind of stuff. As you're experimenting with the physical stuff to try to find what's going to bring you health again, and you're experimenting with the soul stuff to try to find, okay, who am I as a person? You're finding these things can start to mesh. And when you're finding the things that help you physically, whether it's going for a walk, going for a hike, eating the right foods, or finding the foods that are beneficial to you, or that your gut just doesn't like. You start to realize, like, oh, hey, I used to like this or doing this when I was younger. Or, hey, this triggered this memory for me. That kind of reminds me of this thing over here that I used to like. And then the pieces start to come back up to the surface, and you start, like you said, finding who you really are. And then as you find yourself, friendships, family, relationships, all that kind of stuff are going to evolve. And the ones that evolve with you are the ones that are truly people that are meant to be in your tribe. And we don't have to ask them for belonging. It's kind of like we're creating our own belonging by being who we are because we're putting our authentic self out there and we're kind of attracting the people who have those same values, who have those same interests, who have that same view or outlook on life of. Hey, we can be us and we can be just. Not every flower in the garden has to be the exact same thing. You want to have all of those different colors and shapes and sizes and everything. That's what makes it visually beautiful and that's what makes us beautiful. And that's what makes a true community of belonging, is just showing our true colors and just being ourselves.
00:37:06 - Andrea W Hanson
I love it. And I also find that when we are stepping into that true color, that area of ourselves, and are accepting of that right. Because part of this is like, we're not accepting ourselves, which is why we're not letting us.
00:37:20 - Sarah Bowser
Right, absolutely.
00:37:21 - Andrea W Hanson
Fly that freak flag of what we like. When we become more accepting of ourselves, it's always a mirror. We become more accepting of other people.
00:37:30 - Sarah Bowser
Yeah, absolutely. We will begin to see the true self of the other person that you're looking at those perceptions of what we used to think of, oh, this person's going to be thinking this about me, or that, or they're not going to want me to be this way. As we're accepting who we are, we're also seeing like, oh, those perceptions were the result of all the work that I did to bury myself. They don't actually think that. They just want to be them. And by being me, I can help them be comfortable in being themselves. And then it's just this beautiful cycle of everyone just opening up and finding what works and what they like.
00:38:09 - Andrea W Hanson
Yeah. I always love finding I call them wizard of Oz moments, where you realize, like, it was me all along.
00:38:18 - Sarah Bowser
Yeah.
00:38:19 - Andrea W Hanson
Because and it's like me thinking that other people don't like me or whatever. And it's like, you know what?
00:38:25 - Sarah Bowser
Some people don't. Right.
00:38:26 - Andrea W Hanson
There's always going to be like, a third of the people aren't going to like you, a third of the people are going to like you, and a.
00:38:31 - Sarah Bowser
Third of the people are not going.
00:38:32 - Andrea W Hanson
To care one way or the other.
00:38:33 - Sarah Bowser
Right.
00:38:34 - Andrea W Hanson
But whenever we start putting that on somebody else, it's really about us and our own self judgment. And once that comes away, we realize like, oh, it was me all along.
00:38:43 - Sarah Bowser
It was all here. Yeah, exactly. Absolutely.
00:38:47 - Andrea W Hanson
So for people listening and they're thinking, I love this, and how can I step into how can I find my truth? What are some things that they can start doing to help? Because not everybody I mean, sometimes you can look back and say, like, oh, yeah, I did this in childhood, and I know this is kind of I've abandoned that and I'm going to come back to it.
00:39:08 - Sarah Bowser
But sometimes it's like you don't really know, right, because you varied it so far.
00:39:15 - Andrea W Hanson
You'Ve buried it so far. Or maybe you just never had that chance to really express yourself. Or maybe for me, I had some pretty crippling lack of confidence for a big part of my childhood. So even if I did like something, I didn't even let myself start it because I was so scared of what it would look like or if I would be ostracized or whatever it was, right, so for people who were like, I just don't even know where to start, what do they do?
00:39:42 - Sarah Bowser
One of the things that really helped me on as I was starting my own journey was like a visualization or like a guided meditation between YouTube and a bunch of free apps out there. There are so many places where you can find guided meditations and I typically went for ones that were more not just guided breathing or anything like that. It was more like kind of taking you through some kind of visualization of either what you want the future to be or just different scenarios or even something sometimes in the past. And I would kind of just go through those and it took a lot to get at the beginning. I'm just kind of like, I can't imagine this stuff. I have a great imagination, but it always goes to the worst case scenario. I can't imagine positive good things like what is this? The more you do it, the more that you can start to get your brain to train and kind of flip to like, okay, maybe I can think of something neutral, maybe it doesn't have to be the worst case scenario, it can just be something neutral. And then as you go through, you just get better and better at all, right, I can actually think of something good happening, I can see myself in a positive way, all that kind of stuff. And then I kind of went from there into Affirmations and stuff like that, where not necessarily saying like, I am amazing and I am great and I can do this. It was more like, again, kind of stepping my way up. One of the things that I learned from a really amazing mentor was you can give yourself permission first if you can't get to be I am strong and confident and worthy, you can start with I give myself permission to believe that I am strong, confident and worthy. And then you can slowly kind of work your way up to okay, I can give myself permission to believe this, or I can give myself permission to be this. And then it can be like I am this. And I'm not necessarily at the I am stage for a lot of things still, but it's an amazing way to just kind of jolting yourself out of a place where you've been stuck for decades in your head, where just like, don't open those curtains. I don't want the light to come through. You're not going to undo a lifetime's worth of shoving yourself down overnight. It's going to take time. So it's finding the ways that are kind of build you up and help you take those incremental steps to get out of where you are, to get to where you want to be. The visualization, guided meditations and affirmations were huge. And then from there, it was kind of working up to looking at the different scenarios that I've been through in my life to think, all right, perfect world, how I really reacted, and then kind of going into my core values from there, and then just, all right, let's experiment. Let's find all the stuff that I actually love.
00:42:36 - Andrea W Hanson
Yeah, I think it's one of those things that I always describe it where it's like you're taking baby steps and you're being very, very gentle, but at the same time, that doesn't mean that it's going to take 20 years. Right. It takes some time. But if you are gentle and tread lightly, especially in the beginning as you're trying to wiggle yourself out and get yourself unstuck, the faster and faster it's going to go. And then sometimes there's all sorts of facets of your life that you work on this kind of stuff with, but sometimes it's like you just have a.
00:43:08 - Sarah Bowser
Moment where you look up and you.
00:43:09 - Andrea W Hanson
Realize, oh, my God, I just said XYZ without even worrying about it. I can't believe I just sent that email. I can't believe I just published that. And you realize, like, three months ago, I never would have done it.
00:43:19 - Sarah Bowser
Exactly. Yeah, because it's like and everybody is different, so everyone's timeline is going to be different. There's no wrong timeline for this kind of work and this kind of process for me. By the time I got my head in gear to actually like, all right, I'm going to do the work, it was towards the end of 2020. And then it took me about a year and a half to really get myself to the point where I was like, all right, I'm putting myself out there to the point where I got published in a couple of books. I'm now writing books, which has always been like a childhood dream, even if they never get published. I'm writing and I'm fulfilling something that I've always wanted to do, whether it's just for me or if it's something that will go out in the world. I'm dancing with my kids in the living room. I'm enjoying all these different things that I never thought I'd have the energy to enjoy again. And yeah, it took me a year and a half. It might take someone else a couple of months, it could take someone else longer than a year and a half. But there's no wrong timeline. The timeline, it's up to you, and it's up to your comfort level and how safe you feel taking whichever side step you're taking at that point in time, depending on the map that you have and how clear the path in front of you looks.
00:44:35 - Andrea W Hanson
That's so well said. So well said. Well, thank you so, so much. I'm going to have all of your information in the show notes where people can get you, but just for people who don't go to the show notes because I understand. Tell people just quickly where they can find you.
00:44:54 - Sarah Bowser
Yes, I'm on Instagram at that weird nerdy mom. And then I have a website. Thatwearnerdymom.com perfect.
00:45:04 - Andrea W Hanson
I love it when all the handles line up.
00:45:06 - Sarah Bowser
I know.
00:45:08 - Andrea W Hanson
Well, Sarah, thank you so much. I really enjoy talking to you and I know people are going to get so much out of this.
00:45:14 - Sarah Bowser
Thank you so much for having me on. I appreciate it. This has been great.
00:45:19 - Andrea W Hanson
If you like the show, don't be shy. Please give us a five star rating and review. Follow us on Apple podcast, Amazon Music or wherever you're listening right now. To see complete show notes and resources mentioned in this episode, visit Andrea Hanson Coaching, LLC. Thank you for joining me. And until next time, take care.