Maybe I Can® with Debbie Weiss

Ep. 150: A Sprinkle Of Resilience

• Debbie Weiss • Episode 150

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This week’s episode of Maybe I Can hits close to home.

I share a story about my cousin Mindy — a woman who embodies strength, grace, and resilience even as life keeps throwing her curveballs. Through her journey (and my own reflections), I explore what it really means to get back up when life keeps knocking you down.

This isn’t about toxic positivity or pretending everything’s fine. It’s about allowing yourself to feel, to rest, and to remember that every challenge you face makes you stronger.

💬 In this episode, I talk about:

  • Why it’s okay to fall apart sometimes
  • How to start your own “Maybe I Can” list
  • A journal prompt to help you find your strength again

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SPEAKER_00:

Hello and welcome back to the Maybe I Can podcast. I'm your host, Debbie Weiss, and thank you so much for joining me today. So as I do every week, just before I hit record, I reflect back on my week and think about what's happened in my life, what do I want to share with you from what I've learned or what it reminds me of. And today the lesson doesn't come actually from something that happened in my own life. It comes from something that's happening currently in my cousin's life. It's all about what do you do when life gets you down? So let me give you a little backstory on my cousin Mindy. I'll start by saying she's 61 years old, and she has had so many different surgeries in her lifetime. She is healthy, but she seems to be having a lot of problems with her joints. She's already had both her knees replaced last year. She had a cervical fusion in her neck, and she's been having shoulder pain. So, long story short, she knew she needed to have a shoulder replacement, which is actually scheduled for November 4th. And soon after she found out she also needs a hip replacement. She is a go-getter. She has faced so much adversity, especially when it comes to these physical problems, that, yeah, she might get down, but she doesn't let anything hold her back. And so she actually did some wheeling and dealing with her doctors, because they're two different surgeons, because nowadays everybody has a specialty. So she asked the shoulder guy and the hip guy, can I do this close together? And so she actually has the one surgery scheduled for November 4th and the hip surgery scheduled for December 18th. Now, if you've been listening to my podcast, you know a few weeks ago I said that I thought that we were going to have to cancel our trip to California. And it was because of my cousin Mindy's knee. Because one day, the week before, she woke up and her knee was bothering her out of nowhere. She's had no problems since she had that particular knee replaced five years ago. And she wound up going to see the surgeon, who's also the same as the hip surgeon. And he said, No, it's a soft tissue thing. I'm going to give you this injection. And that's how we wound up going on the trip. However, on the trip, the injection didn't work. And her knee was really bothering her, and we had to get wheelchairs, but she's so brave and she's not a complainer, and she's tough. So you know that when she's hurting and you can see it on her face, that it's got to be pretty bad. But she really tries to not let it affect her and to affect the other people around her. Well, she comes to find out since we got back. She found out earlier this week, the week before her shoulder surgery, that it wasn't a soft tissue thing with her knee. There is a lot of bone loss, and quite frankly, I don't really understand, and we don't need to. The point is, she found out she needs to have knee revision surgery, which she needs to have before the hip. So the doctor said, okay, we'll swap the hip for the knee, and so shoulder November 4th, knee December 18th, hip afterwards. So, oh my goodness, you know, she was just saying to me earlier, she'd like to know the statistic of how many people need to have who haven't had like some kind of immediate, you know, accident, who need to have three different parts of their body replaced, you know, at one time. It's crazy. Now, if that weren't bad enough, so she got the news about the revision knee revision surgery, oh, I don't know, let's say four days ago? Well, yesterday, oh, so she gets the knee revision thing, and then they tell her, we need you to come in because we just have to aspirate to just make sure that your knee's not infected, even though the MRI doesn't look like it's infected. Okay. So she goes and does that, and that night she gets an email from the doctor saying the results regarding the infection are borderline. And if it is infected, we see that it will, whatever the numbers are, will grow over days. Well, let me just say, talk about life continually hitting you when you are down. She told me she sat in the ShopRite parking lot, which is where she was at the supermarket when she got this email, and she sobbed for 20 minutes. Because if in fact her knee is infected, she cannot have the shoulder surgery next week. That's clearly a tongue twister for me, shoulder surgery. She can't have it next week. And we long vision, and again, you know, this is not big world problems, but we have a big trip planned on in June. And when you're looking at this timeline of all of these surgeries, you know, there's no sense in going on a big trip when you're in physical pain or you can't walk or you can't move your arm or whatever it is. And so that's why she's really hot on getting them all done as quickly as possible. But now this just throws yet another monkey wrench into the whole scenario. And what can I say? Wish I could find the words to say that would make her feel better. But I don't have them. Because you know what? It freaking sucks. I don't know how else to say it. It is horrible. She just keeps getting hit one thing at a time, one thing after another. And let me just say that her neck fusion was less than a year ago. So we're talking about getting a ridiculous amount of bad news, not to mention living in the pain, not being able to sleep, having it affect and seep into every aspect of your life. She's usually so great at thinking about other people, and she's just off her game. I forget I asked her something the other day, and she said, I'm so sorry. I am just not myself. You say hello, and she starts crying. And I get it. You know, we all have different seasons in our lives where life just gets you down, and sometimes it just feels like the quote-unquote hits just keep on coming. And every time that you try to get up again, boom, something else smacks you over the head and drives you back down to the ground. And it's an awful feeling. And in that moment, it's so easy to lose ourselves in that feeling of despair. I think it's okay. I think it's necessary to actually feel all those feelings because personally, I have to say, I think that sometimes throughout my life, I didn't feel the feelings. I stuffed it down. I stuffed the feelings down overeating or focusing on something else and not let me feel the feels. You know what? She has every right to sit there and sob. I can't blame her one bit. She needs to feel that way. We all need to give ourselves permission to feel those emotions. So when I got on the phone with her earlier and I told her, today I am going to use you as an example, or you inspired me to record this podcast that I'm gonna record. And she chuckled and she said, Oh gosh, you're gonna like put some positive spin on it. And she was, you know, half joking. And I said, yes and no. I mean, there is nothing that I can say that makes me feel positive. I'm not into what is it, that toxic positivity. Oh, but don't worry, it's great, it'll all be okay. Look on the bright side. In this situation, nobody wants to hear that. And even though I do believe in the end it will all be okay, that's not what you want to hear when you're feeling that way. I totally, totally get that. So I was telling her that I was going to pull out my sprinkle of resilience cards from my new sprinkle effects card deck. And I don't think she was up for me reading them to her right now, but I'd like to share the first sprinkle card. And if you're not familiar, you haven't heard any of my other posts or podcasts, the sprinkle effect card deck contains the 17 sprinkles that are in my sprinkle book, things like courage, positivity, and the one I'm going to talk about today, which is a sprinkle of resilience. And for each sprinkle, there are three separate cards a quote, an affirmation, and a journal prompt. So the quote for a sprinkle of resilience is that you are capable of more than you think. Every challenge you overcome helps you not just survive, but thrive. Now I want you to reflect on that. Even if you're not in a place, or hopefully you're not in a place right now where life really has you down, but even if you are, I want you to reflect back on previous struggles that you have faced in your life, and think about what came out of those struggles. Is it something that you learned? Was it a new direction or a new start to something that you never would have discovered if you hadn't gone through those struggles? Something, usually, when we look back at our past struggles, we can always connect the dots to say, oh, so that's what that struggle that taught me. This was the lesson. And that's why I created what I call the maybe I can list. So in my notes app on my phone, but you can write it down too, anyway, that works for you, that you're gonna have it handy. And I wrote down, and actually, now that I'm talking, let me get it, because I will read to you some of them that I wrote. So you can see what I'm talking about. And obviously, these are personal things that happened to me in my life, struggles, times when life really got me down, and how I was eventually able to get through them and survive and continue to thrive. Okay. So I have down. This is 1985 and 1986. Bobby, who was my high school boyfriend, and we got engaged after I graduated from college, I found out that he was cheating on me and he broke up with me. And simultaneously, I was living with my best friend, and she and I were not getting along. And my mother married a man by the name of Dick, who was just let's say, the name fit. And all while this is going on, I was very worried about my brother who was living at home with my mother and Dick and having a difficult time, and my dad, who was just years from having the stroke and my parents getting divorced. I'll tell you, that was a time where I for sure thought, I will never survive this. I will never survive this. It was like my boyfriend, my mother, my best friend, my father, like the rug had pulled, been pulled out from under my feet. Everything that I knew in my life that was stable became unstable, or my relationships were severed or changed. It was unimaginable. I kind of can say it's a little bit similar to what Mindy's going through now. One thing happened, and then it was like, okay, and then the next thing and the next thing. It's like, what else can happen when you're afraid to even pose that question? Another one that's on here is when I started my insurance agency and I inherited customers from a retired agent. And in three weeks, I had, oh, approximately 500 people call and yell at me for stealing their business from another agent, which is not what happened. They just didn't understand. And 500 people left me. Boy, that was another one. I was crying. I was crying day and night and wanted to go back home to Long Island because we had moved to New Jersey to open up this insurance agency and just crawl back in my comfort of being an accountant and stopping. Now, in both cases and all the other things that are listed here, I talked about my infertility journey, talked about when my father was dying, of course, when I became a widow, when I talking about some tough times with my father and having him move, and you know, you get the idea. I want you to do the same because here it is. It's right on my phone. And every time that I'm reminded or I'm feeling like life has really got me down, I open this up. Now, what did all these things teach me? In the moment, was I all sunny and positive and said, I can get through this. No. Now, did I handle it differently when in 1985 and 1986 when I was in my 20s, compared to how I was even when I opened my insurance agency? I think I was in my early 30s. And then each stage, right? Then when my father was dying, when Gary was dying, all the things, not like it gets easier, but in a way, you start to know that you can get through this tough time. Because you've seen how you've gotten through so many difficult things in your life. And if you place yourself back, your headspace, how was I feeling at the time, and remind yourself how you really felt like the world was coming to an end. And then you see how, well, it wasn't, and eventually the sun came out. It helps you have a little bit of hope and give yourself a little bit of grace the next time that you're going through something so hard. And here's the thing: you should not feel any sense of guilt or shame that you are struggling, that you do feel down. I would encourage you to take the time to rest, have some quiet time, binge watch TV, I don't care, whatever it takes you to just decompress, give yourself the space to do that. I think the difficulty is moving past that stage. You know, you're not going to grow stronger by pretending that you're not hurting. You're hurting, and that's normal. So once you allow yourself to feel you give yourself some grace, you gotta get to a point where you start to take small baby steps to remind yourself, I'm still here, I'm still living, I can keep going. Whether it is talking to a friend, just getting out of bed, taking a walk, something that says, Hey, I'm still here and I'm still moving forward. Now is a good time. On the Sprinkle of Resilience affirmation card, the affirmation says, every challenge I face makes me stronger. And the thing that I like about the all the affirmation cards, and one of the ways that I use them is when I pick whatever sprinkle I need that day, I keep this card with me. Whether I put it on my desk near my computer, if you put it in your purse, you might never take it out. You've got to be able to have it in front of you so that you're reminded all day long. Every challenge I face makes me stronger. If you're looking for resilience today, that's just a reminder. Throughout the day, you just glance at it, read it. Now you're telling yourself every challenge I face makes me stronger. Maybe that reminds you to add to your maybe I can list or read your maybe I can list. Whatever it is, but it's a great reminder, whatever sprinkle that you need today. Say it out loud. Say every challenge I face makes me stronger. You're not denying the hard stuff, you're remembering you've faced it before and reminding yourself how you've made it through 100% of those challenges, right? Sometimes the hardest part of life are the ones that really are shaping us the most. They're refining our patience and our faith and our ability to adapt. I want you right now to think of something. If you're driving, you don't have to write it down. Think of something that what once felt impossible to you, but now you find it manageable. That is resilience in action. And that's how I know that you have it in you. I remember when Sam, my oldest, was diagnosed with PDD NOS, which is pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified, which they don't have that diagnosis anymore. It's basically autism spectrum disorder. And he was diagnosed when he was two. And it was looking back, probably the most devastating time of my life, right? I mean, if you're a parent, you know what it feels like when something's wrong with your child and everything was unknown, every single thing. They handed me a pamphlet and said, good luck to you. But now here we are 20, almost 23 years later, he'll be 25 in March. And something good came out of it for both he and I, and I think all of us. That was really a lesson in resilience and really a lesson for me to show me that even if I have zero idea, because I had zero idea how to move forward. There, and nowadays, let me just say, there's a bazillion more ways than there was 23 years ago. There's so many ways to educate yourself. There are so many ways out there now to connect with other people who have been in similar circumstances that can help mentor you. There are so many different possibilities and paths, and every kid is different, and you just don't know what they'll respond to. But you just keep trying. And it showed me how tough I am, how resilient I am, how fierce I can be when I believe in something so strongly, because at that point I was a person who didn't speak up much, felt very uncomfortable speaking up, going against the grain, or challenging authority figures. But I turned into a tough mama bear because this was my child. And not only did it teach me resilience, but it really showed me what I was capable of, what I was capable of doing for someone else, right? And the impact that my words and my actions can have on other people's lives. Now, would I have come to that conclusion if this wasn't the case? I don't know. Maybe in another time, it doesn't matter. Now I can look back, especially because now I feel like Sam might be maturing a little bit later than his peers, but I am so, so pleased to say that at this point, I don't think he's ever been at such a high point in life. And I really do see a path forward for him. And I'm super, super excited about that. And I couldn't, I'm gonna cry, I couldn't be prouder of him and the man that he's becoming. It's unbelievable. Resilience doesn't erase pain, it just helps you grow from it. It's not something you do on your own. It's sometimes the bravest thing you can do is ask for help or simply say, I'm not okay right now. When we share our struggles with each other, we remind ourselves that we're all still learning how to stand back up when we are time and time again knocked down. Now, even though Mindy, if you're listening, you might be annoyed because this might sound a little sunny, but it's true. We need to remember that no storm lasts forever. Every difficult chapter, it eventually gives way to a new one. Sometimes softer, sometimes stronger, but always different, right? We're evolving, we're learning, and things are changing. You might not see it now. Typically, you don't see it, right? When you're in the thick of it, you don't see it. But remember, one day you'll look back and you'll realize how far you've come and how much strength you had all along. So, as I get ready to close, I'm going to read the journal prompt card to you from the Sprinkle of Resilience. And I'd like you to take a few moments to open up to a blank page of paper and answer this question. When I feel like giving up, what helps me keep going? Maybe it's a person, maybe it's a purpose or a dream or a belief that this hard moment won't last. Whatever it is, write it down. Journaling through and answering that question, I can literally 100% guarantee if you sit down and you take the time to journal about it and write it out, you are gonna walk away feeling better. So if you're feeling low today, just focus on one small thing, very small thing, that reminds you you are still moving forward. Say the affirmation out loud, read it to yourself, write the answer to your journal prompt, whatever helps for you to reconnect to your inner strength. You have gotten through every hard day so far, and you'll get through this one too. Mindy, I'm talking to you, and I am talking to you as well. Keep going because I know that you are so much stronger than you think. You have got this. I am sending so much love and encouragement to you. I'll love talking to you, and I will see you next week.

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Debbie Weiss

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