Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life Podcast. I hope everybody is having a beautiful day. I hope the sun is shining. I hope the birds are singing. I hope the wind is at your back. I have a great show for you today. And let me just go ahead and jump right in here and introduce all of you to Eileen Aforzal. We're going to step into a conversation about courage, transformation, and the power of living fully expressed. Our guest Eileen is here to ask us questions that may feel uncomfortable, yet are utterly essential. Are you truly living a life you love? That's a big question we're going to get into. Eileen's journey from a life in medicine as an anesthesiologist to one of the vibrant self-expression is profound. For years, she helped people drift into sleep, but now her mission is about waking people up, awakening us to our potential, our dreams, and the passions we so often bury under fear and routine. Eileen's personal story shared in her memoir, The Courage to Shine, is one of breaking free from the constraints of fear and silence, finding her voice and empowering others to do the same. Through her coaching, speaking, and her inspiring get-up-and-go diaries, Eileen is helping thousands of people worldwide step out of the shadows and into a life that is purpose-driven, authentic, and alive with possibility. With wisdom forged in her own journey, she invites us to confront what's holding us back so we can finally blossom into who we are. Eileen, thank you so much for being here with me today. How's your day going? Day's going great so far. Beautiful autumn day here in the northwest of Ireland. Lots of dry leaves, which is lovely. Yeah. Isn't it interesting that here we are in the seasons of change and there's so much change happening and you have this message of change that's inspiring people on some levels. Maybe you could fill us in a little bit of a backstory about how you found your voice and how you came to embrace uncertainty and change. Well, I think you've given quite a concise intro there just at the beginning. I think you've almost said everything. and it did take me writing a book to join the dot step backwards you know I kind of find that you know sometimes you have to do that to get a good perspective on your life you start from where you are and you look back you think how did I get here right and notice really what were the you know turning points tipping points you know what were the sort of the little steps along the way so yeah you know um you know where do you start like day one But I suppose really what you're maybe asking was just the kind of the journey really of self-expression. I didn't use my voice very much when I was a child. I tried to use it, but I had a stammer. You call it a stutter. I had a stammer. And I thought the best way to not let people know about that was to say nothing. And if you didn't say anything, people thought you were normal. So I spent a lot of time looking like I was normal. But, you know, you kind of realize it's a very kind of a limited life because you don't get to say what it is you want to say no matter where. And obviously, you know, I would speak when I was relaxed and, you know, when it was kind of easy and there was people around me that I knew, but that was a very tiny comfort zone. And then anything outside of that, I'm really, you know, silence was the only option. So it took something to break out of that, definitely. And say, well, wait a minute, there's nobody going to extract the words from my throat. They took out my tonsils, but there's no one coming to get my words. and at some point kind of say well if I if it needs to be said and I really want to say it well nobody else is going to say it so give it a go so here I am yeah it's it's interesting to think about how how many of us myself included and I know so many people that live a life that we think we're supposed to live instead of living a life that's meaningful to us and that only comes when you find the courage to Embrace yourself and embrace your voice and stand up for what you believe in. But it seems kind of – for me, I found it difficult because the culture has all these preconceived notions of what we're supposed to be. It has these preconceived package ideas of what success are, of what relationships are. But that isn't really the case. That kind of seems to be a facade on some level. And it's hard to find yourself in these preconceived ideas and speak out. At least for me, did you find it – Did you find yourself influenced by these other people's ideas and other people's voices and this constant messaging around you? Well, there was certainly that and there was a way to fit into that, you know. So other people did other things like other people didn't do what I did. So even though we were in a, you know, a same society, then other people seemed to, you know, there was actors and singers and all sorts. But on the path that I was on, I was thinking, well, how did I how did I kind of wind up on this one? So, yes, I conformed, I suppose, really to what I felt was going to keep me kind of comfortable and safe and not be exposed. So, you know, other people obviously chose differently. But I think, you know, certainly my family encouraged me to speak. And why didn't I speak up? And I'm saying, no, I can't. And, you know, yes, I was clever. You know, I could pass exams. And somebody had told me the longest course in college was medicine. And I thought, well, I can hide in college for like seven years. That'll be handy. Now, nobody told me to go to college and hide there. I just thought that would be a good thing to do. And, you know, I kind of found anesthesia, which was kind of a very nice job for, you know, a quiet person like me. and all of my patients being asleep, for the most part. And I suppose, but just when I looked at other people and looked at other expressions in life, and I thought there's something missing over here with me. Like, I'm not having as much fun as I could be having. So I did actually, I was invited to an entrepreneur retreat once upon a time. And I wasn't an entrepreneur, I was a doctor. I said, I'm not an entrepreneur. But anyway, somebody had been noticing that, you know, I'd been working away on the diaries just, you know, quietly kind of behind the scenes and creating these books. And they said, did I want them, you know, global? And I thought, that'd be great, you know, global. So anyway, you know, I took myself off to Bali for a month and I got kind of to, play there as a kind of a different kind of a person than an anesthetist. So, you know, the whole world of kind of entrepreneurship and speaking and, you know, Facebook Live, all of these other things to expand the brand. And I thought, well, this is actually me. This is way more me. So I retired out of medicine. And this is kind of what I'm at now. So I just kind of felt... And then I really got into... What I was doing with the diaries was all around the power of words. And I thought, you know, so instead of putting people to sleep with drugs, I thought, well, what about waking people up with words? Because it's always a conversation that kind of wakes you up. It's a conversation with somebody that encourages you or it's a conversation with someone that inspires you. And it's like, oh, gosh, you know, it's just like conversations. But somebody can say something and it can change your life. So I'm all for those kind of conversations. Yeah, it's wonderfully said. It seems to me change comes from one of two ways, whether it's inspiration or desperation. And I think most people find themselves in front of both of those animals at some point in time. Can you speak to that idea? I'm sure that there was when you spoke about stammering or when you spoke about hiding in college. That sounds like desperation to me on some level. exactly I think I think possibly inspiration possibly comes from a level of just desperation because yes you know it becomes certainly as you get older and you realize that well you know things aren't necessarily you're kind of doing all the right things you know in terms of you know, society, you're doing all the right things and you think you're kind of on this path, which should be leading somewhere. And then you kind of think, well, actually, I'm not there yet. It's like, when am I going to be there? And it's like, I'm still not there. And so at that point, maybe not that it's desperation, but it does assume a certain kind of resignation. And then somebody comes along and says something. And that's kind of inspiring. I think, oh, whereas had I not been quite so desperate, I might not have heard that little voice that said, why don't you try this? So not, you know, because you can sit out, you can sit out, you know, it's like, it's not a problem. You know, life was fine. I was quiet. It was fine. You know, I am technically, you know, successful. I had all of the trappings of success, but all I really kind of, when really somebody said it, what I got was missing was my voice, like my actual, what I felt was like, you know, stuff that I wanted to say. And I just didn't get around to saying it because I was just too scared to kind of, you know, open my mouth and say something. So I'd answer very briefly, very fast. I could speak really quickly and just to get the words out really fast. And whether you got them or not, that was like neither here nor there. But so, yeah, inspiration, I think, can come from a little bit of desperation. When you're desperate, maybe you're looking for inspiration. That's what I say. Yeah, that's well said. I'm curious if we look back to the life of an anesthesiologist, it must be... It must be, on some level, odd and fascinating to be putting people to sleep on some level. Because I would imagine the people you're seeing, even though the relationship you may have with them might be short-lived, you are talking with someone in a really vulnerable state. What is that relationship like between an anesthesiologist and the person they're working with? Oh, it's quite extraordinary, really. I suppose the first thing you realize is trust, that somebody is trusting. themselves their mother their child their partner you know they're trusting you to take care of them so it's a huge responsibility so I do get there's a big privilege in actually having that job and I did love it and you know I just and then there was that sense of like the miracle of it. It's like, you know, I had certain drugs and of course I had all my exams. I knew exactly how to, you know, I knew exactly what happened, but really, I used to say, really, really? What's actually like, how do I do this? How did these drugs do this? So, you know, we know more now maybe about, you know, about the brain now, but you know, my textbook, as I say, exam passing, and then the actual, you know, witnessing this, you know, just drifting off to sleep and drifting back and sometimes you know after three hours asleep the person waking up would continue the conversation that they had as they were drifting off to sleep as if the three hours had never happened and in that three hours something life-changing could potentially have happened so it was a very um it was a great career I loved it very interesting a privilege and you get to to interact with all you know from premature babies pre-babies you know pre-born babies you know from the labor ward you know all the way up to you know to um you know intensive care and you know elderly in theater and you know having their hip replaced and having new cataracts or something so it's always really that lovely sense that you're really really worth making it in some people's lives amazing Thank you for that. There's no doubt in my mind that you have made a big change in people's lives. In that particular exchange, I'm hearing the ideas of trust and awareness. And it seems to me like those could be the catalyst for profound change, whether it's a life-changing operation or whether it's getting the courage to shine on some level. Maybe we could stop and talk about awareness for a little bit because you are clearly an expert in awareness and fading into consciousness, fading out of consciousness, becoming a better version of yourself, maybe slipping back into a version of yourself. It feels like a tie. But can you give me your thoughts on awareness? Well, you know, there's obviously the practical awareness, you know, we're all aware, you know, we're aware of our surroundings. We're aware that we're awake. We're not aware of when we're asleep, but yeah, so there's kind of a general awareness, but sometimes we're not really fully aware maybe of, you know, maybe things that we say to people or how other people maybe are impacted around us or, you We're not necessarily aware of things outside of ourselves. If there is a distance, we can sort of separate ourselves. And yeah, maybe we're not always aware. Somebody said to me, the last person to see you walking into a room is you. So we're also always maybe not aware of how something might alter in a room when we walk in. You might notice if there's like silence or there's, oh, hello, she's arrived. But in general, we might not be aware of how, you know, How, as I say, it's very clear when people are asleep or awake, like in my job, awareness, you know, unawareness or conscious or unconscious. And yeah, but perhaps in our day to day lives, we're not fully aware, really, because we're not. We're just maybe not just a little bit more preoccupied with what goes on in our own heads. And maybe we're not even aware of how much goes on in there. That doesn't that doesn't really impact our outer lives. Yes, I think awareness is a very interesting concept. Yeah, I've heard it said that there's that part of your brain that's like the reticular activating system. And when you notice something new, if you get a new car, pretty soon you see that new car everywhere. If you buy a new sweater, pretty soon you realize a couple people have that sweater on and some stuff. And I'm curious, is it the same? Do you feel like it's that same sort of... awakening to awareness that allowed you to see your life differently? Like once you began to see yourself in this new light, did you always begin to see yourself that way? Was there an awareness there of like, Hey, this is kind of who I am. Once you went to Bali and you were like, this is who I am. Like, were you more aware of that? Who you were when you figured it out? Does that kind of make sense? Yeah, maybe there's a kind of a recognition somewhere, you know, that, you know, somewhere along the line when your brain was kind of, you know, developing, it sort of, it was going on a certain track, maybe. And then maybe it went off track. Yeah. And then you're kind of aware that you're sort of off track, but you're not quite sure. And then maybe when you get back on track, it's like, oh, this feels more, this feels more like it. This feels more like maybe, you know, I don't know whether that's your genetic or your inheritance or your legacy from, you know, earlier generations or whatever. Is it built into your DNA? Who knows? And then we thwarted ourselves, you know, and, you know, sometimes I have a, You know, I get a little bit, you know, I challenge the education system, which I think, you know, is a little bit more academically programming us than maybe could be just, you know, fostering. What's maybe a little bit more for the self-expression in ourselves. So I just feel that sometimes our schooling system kind of puts you on a certain track and then you either... succeed in that system or you don't succeed in that system which case people feel they're failed in that and then they feel that whereas you know there's so many other expressions in life and we've seen the one that's rewarded seems to be the one that comes through an academic program which is not actually true but sometimes on the on the um it kind of looks in the academic world anyway But then you see all the successes that people have when they're fully expressed and they're fully doing what they're really, really great at, what they love to do. They love their life. They love their business. They love their work. And then they seem to be, you know, really what I would call successful as opposed to sometimes you can be successful as society might see it, but not experience that whole, you know, whatever the experience of really being successful is in life. Yeah, it's a great point. But it does take courage, you know? And I think a big pitfall that myself and other people I know fall into is, you know, There's a lot of questions that come up when you want to be your authentic self, when you want to succeed at something that you love doing. What if you're responsible for other people? What if you hold yourself accountable to the expectations of others? There's these big questions that we really have to do some soul searching on to allow ourselves to find that courage to be successful. Can you speak to some of those ideas? What were some of the obstacles you had to overcome in order to find the courage to do it? What was that like? I think you sort of go back to fundamentals, you know, fundamentally, like what does it really kind of mean to be successful? You know, you know, we say, um, You know, when I look back, what I really wasn't successful at, I felt, was just, you know, interacting with people. Like, I was successful at reading. I was successful at passing exams. I was successful at doing all of those things. But I wasn't successful at, like, being popular. You know, I felt I didn't really have, you know, that many friends because, you know, and really, so even when you're small, there's kind of fundamentals. You just want to belong. Yeah. And it's maybe not that hard, but then when you start hiding that and pretending that you don't care whether people like you or not, or you don't care that, you know, then maybe that's some of the pretense. Whereas when you're authentically saying, what if I really, you know, can we be friends? Or just, I think maybe it's more simple than we make out. And certainly it takes courage to say that. You know, like I do say it in the book, a lot of my anger was directed at my mother. And, you know, kind of, you know, she would seem to be coaxing me, you know, to like speak properly and slow down and relax and be calm and all of those things where I'd be like completely the opposite. I'd be like, I can't. And, you know, we'd have these like really frustrating kind of arguments or whatever interactions. And then to kind of go back really and return and sort of say, look, I'm really sorry. That was so mean and horrible. You know, I wasn't mean and horrible, but when you're thirteen and you're fourteen and you're fifteen, you're frustrated and you think it's all your mother's fault somewhere. So sometimes it takes courage to go back and say, look, you know, I had I played my part. You know, I didn't I didn't slow down. I didn't relax. I didn't do all the things you advised me to do, which, you know, perhaps I could have done a little more patience. Probably not. Probably not. Sometimes I think it's all necessary. It's necessary, right? You have to go through that. Every step. Yeah. That's part of the journey. You have to get upset. And usually our parents take the brunt of it and They had their role in it too. I mean, it's difficult to go through life and become actualized and find the courage to do what you want to do because there's a million reasons not to. There's a million reasons to not do what you love. There's a million reasons to hide behind ideas like safety or security or all of these things. And the truth is maybe your ideas of success that you've given yourself are unrealistic expectations. Maybe this idea of success you have for yourself is unattainable. So you've just been chasing this. You've just been chasing your tail. It's tricky. It's tricky to figure out, you know, and that's where the courage comes in. Like you might fail, whatever that word kind of means. If we're on that, is it possible to fail? Is failure just practice? Or when I say failure, what do you think of? Well, it's a word, you know, we learned words in school, you know, failing was failing exams. That's the first time you learn a word. That's the first time I heard a word fail. And it was about failing an exam. And, you know, you don't really get the concept of failing in life or failing, you know, maybe you fail to, you know, I don't know, maybe you, I don't know, fell off your bicycle or you failed to get, you know, whatever it was. I don't know. There was different things, but it assumes a kind of a more significance as you go through life. And then you regard yourself, oh, am I a failure? You know, what does that mean? Am I a failure? And I said, well, I'm not a failure at this. I'm a failure at that. I'm a failure to, you know, I couldn't, I'm not very good in the kitchen. I'm not a great cook. I could cook up drug combinations of drugs for a really tasty anesthetic, but I'm not very good for a dinner party. So, you know, would I consider myself a failure at that? Not really. Somebody else is much better at it. They enjoy doing it. If I really want to do it, I'm sure I could get good at it. You know, so... Yeah, I'm not sure where our notions of failure come from. But I do think that I think exploring yourself, exploring that, the journey that you make yourself, you know, talking about awareness or that courage, it is to actually, you know, just sit down and say, look, am I where I want to be? Like, really? And where am I? Really? And how did I get here? if I keep going the way I'm going where am I going so that just sit down that takes a bit of courage to actually go and do that that's why I say writing it writing writing a memoir and joining the dots backwards is a very therapeutic exercise yeah yeah did you how was that process for you was it did you feel as if something was writing through you or some people have different ways to express the way they write but what what is yours No, it was, again, I never thought I was going to write a book. It never occurred to me to write a book. But, you know, every so often I would, you know, say a little bit about myself or about my life or where I was. And then somebody said, oh, you should write a book. I thought, really? He said, oh, that might help somebody. I said, really? Okay. I suppose my whole life has been about helping in some way. Yeah. So it did take me thirteen years to write it, believe it or not. It never really meant to see the light of day, you know. But I said, look, I said I would do it. I promised this person I would write this book. And I suppose I just, when I started it, it was kind of all over the shop. And then I said to somebody that I was writing it and they said, you know, did I want some help? They happened to be a book writing person. I said, oh, yes, please. So somebody took it and sort of said, well, what are you trying to say? And what's your message? And what's all this thing? So you go through the process of it. So that was like the first iteration. And then, you know, maybe somebody else would say, and then you can't think, oh, that's kind of interesting. I should do that. So I was always trying to turn it around to see, would it actually benefit a reader? Like it's all very well writing it from a writer's point of view, but I never even really considered myself a writer. And I was just somebody who was just writing this story of my life because somebody thought it would be a good idea. And so here I am. So, yes, it kind of came through time and time. And anyway, apparently it's got it's getting some good feedback. So I'm pleased that somebody somewhere might be getting some value from reading it. It's a struggle. It's a struggle. No, I didn't feel it was channeled. And I go, this was easy. No, this wasn't easy. This took a lot of, and it takes more than one person. I think you do need somebody, a coach or a mentor or some other writing person who can cast a cold eye and produce a better product. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I think that that's probably true in most aspects of life. It's more life with our view. But if you have someone riding next to you or a team of people that will be honest with you, you can get a way better perspective of what's on the road or coming down the road or what you just ran over on some level. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's like life, you know, it's always good to be in a dialogue with somebody, you know, give your perspective. Yeah. You can have your own view, which can be very, you know, very, very sensible as far as you're concerned. And then somebody else can hear it and say, really? Is that really what you think? Like, really? Have you thought a bit more about that? Yeah. Yeah. It makes me be it makes me thankful for all the people that want to argue with me, because how else would you know what you know, unless you had someone to challenge your point? Right. It would be so boring if we all thought the same thing. It would just be like, yep, this is it. It's kind of funny to think about. Yeah. And in a good robust conversation with somebody, you hear yourself saying stuff that you wouldn't otherwise. So you do need to be kind of willing to have those kind of robust conversations where you can find out, again, it's your own expression, that your own self-expression, that you're willing. And that takes courage sometimes. Sometimes you might not be popular. Because you can say something that maybe, you know, you'd say, God, did I say that? And then somebody else, did you say that? And you think, oh, yes, I said that. And oh, yes, you said that. So now you have to kind of own the fact that you said it. Why did I say that? Well, actually, I believe that. So that's kind of my view and that's kind of what I see. And then somebody else can see it differently. And they think, well, actually, that's just because you're standing over there and I'm standing over here. And from where I'm looking at it, that's how it looks. And from where you're looking at it, that's how it looks. So, you know. There you go. So is the world. There's nine billion of us, nearly. Yeah, children are the best for that. Like sometimes you're like, oh my gosh, that's what I sound like. That's me. I sound like that. Whoa, I better curve this thing right here, you know, on some level. And it's a great way to establish patterns. Like you can really begin to see your patterns of thought in the language you use if you're willing to take an honest look at it. And I'm sure that must have happened in the writing process for you. Well, yes, it's really interesting. Sometimes I might be writing something, and I think it's all very kind of new and fresh. I'm writing this, and I'm writing this. And then, actually, I might find a blog or something that I wrote maybe two years ago, and it's the same. And I think, oh, it's like, oh, it's not that much different. So yeah, you could kind of, you know, I think really, we don't really veer so much from ourselves. You know, we have our patterns, like you said, we have our thought patterns and we have different kinds of conversations or thoughts we've had over time, but they kind of become pretty much kind of who we are. And then, you know, they can come out and we think, here's me thinking, oh, it's brand new. And it's like, oh no, it's not. I wrote about this before. That's a blog I did like three years ago. That's why Google is interesting. We have our cyber footprint. We'll never be forgotten. Yeah. Once upon a time, people would forget. Yeah. It's interesting, though. Like, the... the role of the storyteller, you know, we can look back to the oral traditions of like the Greek tragedies or, you know, all these different myths that come to us from all different parts of the world. And so much of our story is intertwined into those stories on some level. If you were to look at your story as a mythology, what would it be most closely aligned to you think? Yeah. That's a really hard question. I have no idea. We're storytellers here in Ireland, you know, we just tell stories, you know, and, uh, I don't know, I suppose stories are just various things that happened. You know, we probably didn't, I don't know, look for messages in stories. It was just how somebody illustrated a point. So if you have a point, maybe there'll be a story about it. But now we have the story and now we're trying to find... We're looking at it from the other way around because I suppose storytelling has become so, you know, we're now kind of analysing, I suppose, a little bit more, you know, how important the story is. But, you know, when we were reading... I mean, I was reading stories from the Bible once upon a time. And, you know, there were just kind of there were there were little stories that try to illustrate a small point, as in maybe humanize a point and make it relevant to a person. But then you could have stories about pets and stories about birds and stories about trees and all sorts of things. So it's hard to know where stories fit in. As for my own story, I have no idea where it would fit into any kind of pattern or mythology or whatever. Somebody sometime might say it in a hundred years' time and say, oh, there's a story about that. Yeah. I don't have to wait for the ending. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Inspiring, I would imagine, is probably something that comes to mind. And I think that's the one thing that we can all hope for is that we live a life that on some level could inspire others or better yet could give a tool to somebody else. Maybe in all of our stories, I like to think this, I think that in all of our stories, there's a lesson for someone else to learn if they're willing to take the time to listen or read the story that you put out there. And if you think about it from that angle, I think that kind of, way of looking at your life as a story, looking at yourself as the main character in a novel is a kind of a good way to see yourself through life because that gives you the options to be like, okay, I'm the hero in this story, or I'm the protagonist in this story, or, you know, however you want to put yourself into that story, you can begin to live your life in a more artful way I think in a in a third person or in a story-like setting is there a particular way that like when you look at your life do you see yourself as a character in a novel or you know how do you what's your what's your philosophy on life when it comes to living a life worth living oh well I'm definitely a character in a novel except it's not a novel it's a memoir yeah right it could just as easily be a novel you know it could just as easily be but it's actually all true but yes oh look at I used to always fantasize if I was going to give myself an ideal career when I was little I mean Shirley Temple was my you know she was my kind of guru and I wanted to be in every movie that she was in because she had like multiple lives and I wanted to be in all of them and then I thought oh being an actress that'd be a great way to live like all these multiple great lives and they were all stories I mean there were stories that somebody wrote But then somebody actor comes along and they get, you know, they get, they get to play this character. So, yeah, you know, I think we're all, we all have that. We all have that capacity. And I suppose you get in a book as well. You kind of, you write your own story. There's nobody else coming along. I'm not reading somebody else's script. I promise you it's my script. Yeah. So I get to be the author. And as I say, I get to be the author and director and the actor. in the story of my life. So I suppose really if everybody, you know, I think I really alluded to that in the book. It's like we all have that. Somebody said once, we're the hand, the chisel, and the stone. I like that. And, you know, we are. We're kind of, you know, we're carving our own David masterpiece out of a lump of concrete. Nobody else is doing it for us. Okay, we've emerged into planet Earth in human form And we've a lot of capacities, but Yeah, I think, you know, we can create ourselves as we wish. You know, there are people doing all sorts of things in all sorts of places, all walks of life. And any one of them is probably open to us if we see it and think, God, if it's possible for that human being, maybe it's possible for this human being. And then it takes like courage. I'm not going to go and, you know, live in Papua New Guinea or somewhere. But I could. If I really wanted to, I'm sure I could. And, you know, people have done extraordinary things. And there the story is looking, gosh, you know, look what they did. And whether it's a novel or not, because even a novel, some person has written it. So it was in their imagination anyway. And, you know, somebody will come along and maybe, you know, Tom Cruise or somebody will play the actor in the movie. So it all gets kind of, it can be all, yes, I think we're all capable of being great actors in great movies if we write a great script. yeah yeah I do too I and I you know I come back to this idea of courage and and having the ability to believe in yourself to translate your vision into reality I get to talk to lots of people and I know that you do some consulting on the side I'm wondering have you ever it seems to me a big stumbling block to courage is sometimes like shame and guilt Have you ever had to work with someone or maybe in your life you have come up against these two guardians of despair, of shame and guilt? What's your thoughts about shame and guilt and how do you move past it? Well, look, I think it's part of the human condition as well, you know, and maybe not even human. You know, I have a cocker spaniel. She often looks very guilty. Yeah. It's like, we do know when we have something to be guilty about, you know? Right. But I think as we grow up, if we look at the source of some of the guilt, then, and really be a little bit dispassionate about it, and look back and say, well, look, it was appropriate. Like, I was very ashamed of having a stammer. And then I was very guilty of... about blaming my mother, you know. But when I kind of look back at it and think, well, wait a minute, you know, okay, I was, you know, I was seven or eight, you know, they were all, you know, mocking me. It was okay to be ashamed of that. But I'm not ashamed now that I had a stammer then. It kind of made me into who I am now. So I have to kind of really be grateful, I suppose, in a way, because I wouldn't have this kind of life now if I hadn't had that life then. And the same with my mother, had I not kind of really kind of reconciled and sort of look, you know, gosh, you know, I really was guilty of that. I really need to apologize for that. That was something that I, you know, not like it's a crime or anything, but really it wasn't something that I would admire about myself. So to go back and acknowledge that and sort of say, look, I'm guilty of that. I'm sorry, you know, and I won't do it again and then move on. So I think there is that sense of really locating the source of shame and guilt and then bringing yourself into the present time and saying, look. you know this is you know it's it's not necessarily appropriate to be ashamed now or guilty now of something that happened in the past so you do have to come to terms with it on a certain level but um anyway that's my experience so you know, it's, and yes, I mean, people do deal with, deal with that. And there are ways of, as I say, coming to terms with your view of yourself and giving yourself permission to forgive. I think forgiveness is the source of everything, every freedom in life. And at some point we have to forgive ourselves for misdemeanors in an earlier, in earlier years. Yeah, that's, thank you. That's well said. I, I think that, um, And that takes courage, too. It takes courage to get to a spot where you realize that you can forgive yourself, because sometimes that those particular forces become fuel to drive us forward. And we've reached back and used this fuel for so long. We don't want to let go of them like this is the reason I can always turn back to that. Yeah. Yeah. But it's kind of, I think it was one of Nelson Mandela's quotes, you know, like if I didn't forgive my jailers from leaving prison, I would forever be their prisoner. So we do want freedom in life. We do need to let go of some of those earlier resentments or earlier regrets and then just, you know, forgive it all. You know, we might as well. Yeah. We'll be a long time dead. We might as well do it while we're alive. Yeah, that's, it's well said. I, you know, when I, sometimes I feel as if when I, when I get to talk to you and I get to see so many people who have lived a life where they're coming out and telling their story about things they've done well, things they could have done better, but shining a light, like on the way you're able to shine a light on your stammer and speak so freely about shame and guilt and change and courage. I feel like hopefully we're getting to a point where we're seeing this new rite of passage, where we're seeing people that have lived a full life begin passing down their wisdom to the next generation so they can use it. Is that something that you feel your book is doing? And if so, how can we get more people to do that? Well, as I say, when the pupil is ready, the teacher appears. So we can teach a lot and you can share a lot, but the pupil has to be ready. And I'm not sure young people are particularly interested in what grey-haired people have to say or write. You never know. But I suppose my work with the diaries and journals, I have a particularly fondness for the young persons. And it's, you know, there are lots of kind of sayings that have been said over the years and they kind of seep in sort of by osmosis, but it's not so much telling people anything. It's like having people be either ready or open to listening. And like you said, unless there's some level of desperation, maybe the inspiration is falls on deaf ears, you know? So you do have to maybe wait for the time to arrive. It's all about timing in life too. And yeah. But everybody is, you know, if you're just kind of on the lookout for things that might contribute to your life, that's what I say. Sometimes we resist contribution. We kind of say, no, we don't want that. No, we don't want that. No, we don't want that. And I think, well, maybe it could be interesting or maybe it could be a benefit. Just kind of when the pupil is ready. Yeah, I like that saying. What about intention? You know, when we think about what we intend to do, like when you look back at the book or maybe even something from your life, what role does intention play in finding a better way for yourself? Well, intention is pretty important. We're not always aware of our intentions. I think I'll go back to awareness. You know, we might have, you know, we might have Anyway, we're just not always aware of our intentions. Our intentions may be subconscious or they may be conscious. So certainly, you know, bringing attention and intention, you know, I think there's a saying about that, but it does, you know, it allows you certainly to be focused and really hope that, you know, your intention is fulfilled, you know. And then a lot of the times we're upset in life when what we've intended, you know, didn't happen or, you know, was thwarted in some way. And then we think, well, you know, were we really intentional about it? Like, really? Did we do everything? Like, really? Were we intentional or were we sort of intentional? We really intended to do it, but, you know, not really. Something else got in the way. So, yes, you know, intention is very important. But as I say, are we always aware of our intentions? I certainly wasn't aware of my intention to write a book. I didn't even really have an intention to write a book. I just wrote a book. But now I have an intention that people maybe hear a bit more about it and perhaps read it. And my intention would be that they would get some value from it, yes. But that's up to the reader. Yeah. Did you have a... When I do the podcast or when I talk to a lot of other people, sometimes people mention that you should be aware of your audience when you're writing something. And when you're going to put out a message, it's imperative to understand your audience. But that seems in contrast with when the pupil is ready, the teacher will show up. Like that seems sort of like a paradox there. My opinion is that the message gets out to the people that need it, that want to listen, that are there. They're going to find it. But if you write for a specific audience, sometimes it feels like you're losing authenticity because you're trying to do it in a performative way when you look for a certain type of audience. What are your thoughts on on like that particular sort of paradox? Yeah, I agree with that. Look, people write for all sorts of different reasons. They write different kinds of books for different reasons and for different audiences. Right. Again, I'm probably back to self-expression. Like I wrote a book really for, not for myself. I mean, I'm not considering I wrote it for myself, but I wrote it because number one, somebody asked me to and said it would be a good idea. I have to go back to that. Otherwise it would never have occurred to me. And then number two, then it is about self-expression and it really is saying what it is that you want to say and the way that you say it. And, you know, with luck, with serendipity, it would fall into the hands or the ears of somebody who will get the value that you want to give. You know, we can't change the world, you know, but you can change maybe one person at a time, one reader. It could just be one sentence in the book. You never know, but at least it's your self-expression. You've written it down. It's authentic to you. Whereas when you're trying to be very, you know, focused on who you want to influence, well, that's really hard because, you know, the world is a big place. So like you said, I think the person who needs to hear it will hear it. And really, that's just, yeah, we can certainly help to maybe put it out there and reach more people. I suppose now, today's world, it is very noisy out there. And I'm sure there are wonderful books out there. And if I could read them, they'd make a huge difference for me. But I may never even know about them. So, you know, how much effort does one person make? You know, as I said, not everybody. So I'm just, you know, it's luck or it's serendipity or whatever it is that has it fall into the hands or the ears of the person that you really get benefit from. Just enjoy it. You don't even need to get benefit from it. Yeah, I like that. It's sometimes when we create these ideas of writing for an audience or I guess on some level, it's necessary to set the stage for the life you want to live. Like you have to set up these ideas in your mind or move out on the path. Here we go. We've got our first question coming in, Eileen, coming in from New Jersey here. This is from Clint. He says, if you had to confront the truth that you may have lived parts of your life just to please others to avoid discomfort, how would you begin to reclaim it as yours? Well, it was good to admit it first. I think, oh, God, you know, did I, right? I mean, okay, so, you know, well, I'm still here. Do I want to do anything about it or not? So, you know, you could always like tomorrow's a new day. You know, I've known, you know, people who decided to go live in another country, you know, and they've done that. Like people have decided to get married, get divorced, have a baby. I mean, people make decisions. It takes courage to make decisions and it takes courage to change the pattern of a lifetime. But people do it. And as long as you're alive, you can do these things. Now, whether you're willing to do them or not, it's entirely, that's another matter. But for most of us, we can. And I love the saying that says we're free to choose. We're just not free from the consequences of our choice. So our choices have consequences, but we're still free to choose. So, you know, if we have, you know, if there's some frustration or some upset or something that you want to change or something to do differently, now's a good time. Because no matter when you're going to do it, it's going to be now. It just happens to be now, now. Now. Yes. There's no time like the present and what better time? Yeah. The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The next best time is now. Yeah. Yeah. It's it blows my mind. So in your book, you talk about waking up to our own potential. What does that look like for you? Is there a version of you you've been avoiding waking up to because you're because you fear who you'll need to become? No, I can't say. I was going to answer that question. I'm actually, I'm putting the finishing touches to my next book, which is called Embrace the Edge. Life is bigger when you say yes. So I've just found myself saying yes to very unusual things recently. And I'm actually really just enjoying opportunities that are opening up that I never would have expected. You know, I ended up like last month delivering, you know, leadership training in Uganda to people. to women in university and it was like I never I never knew that was somebody was going to ask me if I would do that and I kind of thought well okay so it's like I I don't know you know the next opportunity there's very little that I say um not that I say no to I mean I don't say no to every I don't say yes to everything excuse me yeah there are things that I say no to but in things in terms of that are going to be like interesting in life or something new that I could learn and like That could be really interesting. That could be exciting. That could be an adventure. How can I make that work? What would I have to do to make that work? Because that's something I really want to do. And so, yeah, I kind of know that doesn't really seem to be anything. I'm quite happy to kind of observe, see where I'm going to be in like, you know, three years, five years. I know there's goals and all that kind of thing. I don't really have, you know, particularly set goals like I have to do X, Y and Z. But I'm you never know what invitation is going to come up. That's going to say it's going to be new. And I think, oh, I'd like to be free to accept that one, you know, and do that. So that's me. I have the luxury of being retired, let's face it. But even declaring myself as a writer, that was kind of a challenge. I never really said I was a writer before. And then I said, actually, no, I'm a writer because I've written a book. I'm actually a writer. So that's given me a whole other, here I end up being on podcasts about a book that I would never have done had I not written a book. So, you know, life just unfolds if you let it in these ways, if you kind of stay true to really what it is that you really like to do. That's great advice. And it brings up this idea of sometimes people can really get stuck or weighed down with the idea of uncertainty. Like this, oh, I don't know what's going to happen. What if I do that? And then you get stuck there sometimes. But you've alluded to saying yes to things that are interesting to sort of be an anecdote. Maybe you could talk a little bit more about your relationship with uncertainty and how people may work through that if they find themselves getting stuck. Well, the world is uncertain. It just is uncertain. I mean, there's nothing certain about it. There's nothing certain. Okay, the sun will come up tomorrow, we hope, and it will go down in the evening, and that's about it. But really, we think that there's certainty. And then we've become very accustomed to thinking that we can predict with certainty what's going to happen. Now, we can predict with a certain degree of certainty what's going to happen if we keep doing the same thing that we're going to do. So we predict what's uncertain. I could predict with certainty that I could walk from here to the shop. You know, I could walk a different way. I could decide to go to a different shop. I could take an uncertain route. I could take a whole new route and be, you know, it's like I could go to a different shop and I would be very uncertain as to whether, you know, I could find what I wanted in there. So I think, you know, I think, as I say, we could give ourselves a little bit more freedom around uncertainty and be not as threatened by it and be a little bit more curious about it. And that might make, you know, this passage through life a little, you know, it's not certain. None of it is. I don't think it's certain. I mean, certain things are certain. But as they say, the one thing that's certain in life is it's uncertain. I feel like there should be. a series of great events just as likely as there may be a series of bad events, but yet we put so much focus on like the, the poor events that could happen. Like why can't these great things happen just as much as these bad things can happen. If you focus on those great happy accidents that happen, like if you take a different path to the shop, who knows what kind of beautiful things you can see, who knows what lies before you, if you're willing to take a chance and take that different route. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And that's where the courage is, you know? Yes. If you're afraid something is going to happen, you're going to stop yourself because you're afraid it's going to happen. You're afraid the worst thing is going to happen. What's the worst that can happen? Like, really? So that's the fear. It takes a bit of courage just to kind of, well, let me see what's going to happen. Let's see what's on that new route. I wonder what, you know, somebody else could, you know, it's like, I think we can live a little bit more in uncertainty and wonder we might have a little more, you know, and stuff happens. I've been around the medical world for a long time. I know stuff happens and I know, you know, accidents happen, disease happens, you know, illness, it happens. We have to just deal with it when it happens. But until then we can, you know, live with a little bit more confidence, I think. Yeah. Yeah. I've, I wish that we, on some level, I was talking to a friend of mine the other day, and this is sort of an epistemological question, but he's like, George, it's the fear of death that causes everybody. Everyone's just afraid of dying. That's why we have all these problems out here, George. I know it's kind of a big sort of a question out there, but do we in the Western world have a problem like fearing death, you think? Is that what leads to so many people maybe not living a life that's meaningful or fulfilling? I don't know. I, you know, I don't know. I personally don't have a fear of death. Right. You know, I would have a greater fear of, well, you know, let's say, you know, died at thirty, buried at ninety. No, I don't. There's aspects of us that die and that's the problem. So I think it's like it's the aspects of our own self-expression, our own joy. If that dies, then that's more to be feared than actual death. you know bodily death I mean that's when we're gone talk about awareness I mean there's we're gone right we might leave upsetting people afterwards but we're not here to be upset but the fact that we can live kind of upset because we're afraid of taking chances or we're afraid of you know, uncertainty, then something else dies. And that's, that's kind of sad, you know, because maybe we kill it off ourselves and really don't do that. Yeah. The amputation of the human spirit on some level, you can see it, you can see it sometimes. And you can see it, other people killing off in other people as well, you know, people, you know, they kind of, and we, you know, younger people or children, you see that kind of resentful streak, you know? So I say, try not to do that. Encourage people. Try to blow on the embers of that internal fire, make them see how beautiful they are. What's possible. What's around that corner. I don't know. Let's go figure it out. Exactly. Yeah. Take all that childhood innocence and all that childhood exploration before somebody said, Oh, you shouldn't do that. I feel like there's a force out there. Here's an interesting question that I ask to people sometimes. I'm curious to get your opinion. Sometimes in life, we feel like something is pushing us, and sometimes we feel like something is pulling us. Does that happen to you, or do you feel more pulled than pushed? Any thoughts on that? I don't really. I don't feel neither pulled nor pushed. I I think we're always kind of looking, no, we're not looking ahead. We're sort of looking ahead a little bit because we're designed that way. We've eyes that look out. So we are looking ahead. But then we're always kind of a little bit pulled back by things that we think we know or things that have happened in the past and the fears. So even though we're programmed to look out, and listen outward, our little brains have connected and trapped a little bit. I think as Rumi says, be pulled by what you love, not driven by what you fear. Even to notice that or be aware of that, allow yourself to be pulled a little bit by your vision or your you know, kind of wonder for the future and maybe not so much driven by things that you fear and let that go a little bit and lighten up a little bit and see, could we, could we look, you know, look out and think and, you know, all these things like vision boards, you know, I'm a big fan of those and just romanticizing and think what could be, what could be, what could be. Yeah. I don't know if anybody said it more beautiful than the Sufi poets. They really had a way with words that makes you feel, wow, this is amazing and beautiful. Obviously, they inspired you. Who are some of your other inspirations that sometimes you turn to? Yeah. well over years of compiling the diaries, you know, I would be, but I really, you know, interesting people. I mean, we see like Helen Keller, Helen Keller was blind, deaf and dumb, you know, she was an amazing person. So I would quote her, you know, um, someone like Nelson Mandela, you know, Gandhi, um, Yeah, Rumi, some of the philosophers, Einstein, Aristotle, Camus. I'll find, you know, it's like if I find the sentence that I think is a sentence that will inspire or empower or encourage somebody, it's the sentence that I like. You know, because I do say in the book, I locked myself into a life with my own sentence. My sentence was, you can shoot me, you can jail me, but you cannot make me speak. That's not a good life sentence. Yeah. Better to get another empowering sentence or a sentence that will actually light you up. So we can all choose our sentences. I've written a whole book. There's thousands of sentences in there. Yeah, I love it. Eileen, we have charged through an hour and it felt like two minutes. You know, I've always find that to be an amazing mark of a conversation. And I feel like we just kind of scratched the surface of it. But before I land the plane here, where can people find you? What do you have coming up and what are you excited about? Well, they can find me. My book, The Courage to Shine, is on Amazon. My website is eileenforrester.com. My Brace the Edge should be out, hopefully, next spring. And I have a new set of cards, deckable, on deckable called Pocket Pearls. My pearls of wisdom and pocket power. So, yeah, that's where you can find me. So my website or Amazon. So ladies and gentlemen, hang on briefly afterwards. Elaine, I still want to talk to you for just a moment. But to everybody within the sound of my voice, please go down to the show notes. Check out the website. Check out the new book, Courage to Shine. Be ready for the new book coming out. And reach out to Dr. Eileen if our conversation resonated with you. She's an incredible individual with a lot of life experience. And she's here to help. So do yourself a favor and reach out if you feel compelled to. And to everybody who spent some time hanging out with us today, thank you so much for your time. That's all we got. Aloha.