Choosing to Overcome PTSD and Chronic Pain with A Smile with Lynn “Elikqitie” Smargis

Hi, hey, there lifter uppers. Gotta love Mondays, right? I'm Deb Krier, the co-host of cancer and comedy, where our mission is to heal cancer-impacted people through hope and humor, something we like to call turning the grim into a grin. Well, today we're going to have a fascinating conversation on cancer and comedy, because we're going to be talking about overcoming chronic pain and PTSD to have a career as a writer and a publisher with a smile as we talk with Lynn “Elikqitie” Smargis from right for you.me, well now here is the host of our cancer and comedy podcast, Dr Brad Miller.

Hey, Deb, it's great to be with you and all of our lift droppers, people who follow cancer and comedy. We love to be with you and to share life together, whatever you're facing. You know, cancer is one of those things that kind of eats us alive, and that could be all kinds of things, not just physical cancer. It can be emotional issues, it can be marital stuff, it can be mental health type of things. But we like to kind of focus in here about how people that have taken whatever life is thrown at kind of a bad thing and kind of turn it around to be something better in life. We like to crawl, and we like to have a dash of humor with that. It's why they call that kind of transform your life with hope and humor. And so we like to develop our community here at cancercomedy.com, so we really would like for people to join us, and this kind of mission that we have here to help to heal the world with hope and humor. And so, if people would like to, we'd really like for you to join us in our community at cancer comedy.com/follow and be a part of what we are about because we like to have some fun together. And Deb, one of the things I like to do is tell the dumb dad joke. Are you ready for one here? Here today.

I am ready. You know, I wait anxiously for these.

Oh, I know. But do you know, in my life, people don't know us, about me, but I used to have a fear of hurdles, hurdles. Yeah, I used to have a fear of hurdles, but I got over it. I got over it.

So cute. Cute. What?

Just one more here. Yesterday, I had the weird experience a clown held the door open for me. It was a nice gesture.

Cute. I love it. I love it. You know, I live for your bat, your bad dad jokes of the day.

Well, you're you're the one, you're the one.

Okay, it's me, just me, all by myself. But as you mentioned, we would love for you to be part of our cancer and comedy community, where together we crush cancer with a message of how to cope with hope and humor. Please follow cancer and comedy at cancerandcomedy.com/follow

Well today, Deb, I'm just thrilled here on our live presentation to have a great guest with us here today, who I've got to know her at pod fest. I think you met her at pod fest, uh, your year or so ago. And here is what I noticed about people. Sometimes, I notice the vibe I get from people, right? And if there's energy there, if there's a smile there, if there's a little bit of lift in the voice, that's the kind of thing that gets my attention. That's what got my attention with you, Deb, for instance, some energy and some life. And so I was able to have a have a get together and meet an incredible woman, the name of Lynn liquidy smart just at pod fest, and we struck up a conversation and found out that she's got some things in life that she's had to can overcome and deal with, but she still has a great smile on her face and a great attitude about her, and so she's our guest today. So Lynn, thank you for being with us here today on our conversation, and Thursday

Is with that great smile. I'm trying to get her in the middle of my screen here.

So, thank you guys so much for having me. I appreciate the opportunity to chat on your show today.

Well, that is fantastic. I'm going to get Deb in here too and get me on the Add is there we go. I just want Lynn to be the center of attention here for a little bit, on our screen, and

There is a cancer economy Smash.

Which person is under which shell? It's like the shell game.

Yeah, that's there you go. Okay, we're not gonna have any fun. I can tell that already.

Terrible thing. But hey, Lynn, thanks for being with us. And you know you have just incredible story. You are a publisher, author, a ghost writer, things like that, but you've had some some challenges in your life, and we, what I've found about you is you've got an incredible story to tell about how life has happened to you, and how you've kind of chosen not to let life dominate you, but to or let circumstances dominate you, but to kind of take some control of your life. So why don't you just share with us just a bit about your story? Lynn and then Deb and I will jump in here a little bit about your story of kind of what. Kind of some of the challenges you faced and where you're at now.

Yeah, so the one we're focusing on today is the PTSD and the chronic pain, and so they're actually intermingled. But before we get into that part, I wanted to just talk about, like, yeah, just basically, growing up, I had a very, very abusive mother from the age of two, so she started, like, physically, emotionally abusing me, and then she also sexually abused me at age five. And so being abused at that young in age, especially that type of abuse, really just rips your soul apart. You always feel unsafe. You don't know where to go to feel security, like I didn't know who to talk to about it or if I should talk about it. And you're so young at that point, your brain's not really developed to handle trauma like that. So, I ended up developing PTSD. And specifically likes PTSD, but we'll just say PTSD, because a lot of people know that term, and from the abuse, and it's not just from being abused one time. It's from being like, you know, abused multiple times over a very long period of time, until, basically, I mean, out of the house. I tried to move out of the house as fast as possible, so, but, you know, I ended up getting into an abusive relationship, because that was the pattern that I had, and I didn't realize the amount of the abuse that I had experienced until about 10 years ago, when more of my memory started coming back, and then I really had a lot more PTSD symptoms come in, because my your brain is very good at protecting yourself and keeping yourself safe. So, even though I was in that abusive environment, my brain was literally packing away memories in what I call these boxes. And so because you can't, it's very hard to live and function if you're constantly dealing with all the trauma. So your brain does a very good job of packing these things away and opening them up at a later time in your life when you do feel safe. And so that's what, exactly what happened to me and a lot of other people with PTSD, that's very common, that your brain just kind of pushes it aside for the moment when you're a kid, because you don't have the emotional capacity to deal with that, or the maturity to deal with that, and so as an adult, I do my brain just just decided one day to unpack all these things and be like, here's the gamut of things you have experienced as a child. And I had to deal with that. And that came along with literally having these, I call them emotional seizures, were basically I would be perfectly fine one minute, and the next minute I would be on the floor shaking. I couldn't respond to anybody. I was just, you know, it would be anywhere from like 10 minutes to an hour at first. And at first it was like almost every day. And then as I found a good psychologist to help me deal with the PTSD, it was like it happened less often, and now that really doesn't happen anymore, so, but it was, it was a process, and it's taken years and a lot of therapy and a therapy with a psychologist, I would say, if you have PTSD or chronic trauma in your life, like what we call Big T trauma. So there's big T trauma that is the chronic trauma that stays with you your whole life that you have to learn how to deal with and have tools to deal with. And then there's little tea traumas. So Neil deGrasse Tyson actually gave a really good example of this on his podcast. He lived in New York City during 911 and what. And then, you know, the day of 911, there were a lot of sirens and ambulance noises and things like that. And so for nine months afterward, every time he heard when you would tense up, and then he would relax because he realized, oh, it's not 911, and after nine months, that went away. So that's what's called acute trauma, where you have experienced trauma, but it has not physically rewired your brain with PTSD or complex PTSD. It actually physically rewires your brain so your brain is biologically not the same, and you can't ever get it back 100% you just have to. You need to learn tools, how to deal with it, and you need to learn how to trauma. And you can't release it all at once. I see these people come on like different commercials, like, oh, you can release your trauma in a week. I'm like, no, that's impossible. Because first of all, your brain's not going to let that happen because it needs, it feels like it needs to protect itself. And second of all, if you try to release all that trauma in a week, you would literally be in bed. You would not be able to function, period. It would be so overwhelming for you to release and try to deal with all of that heavy trauma at once. S,o I have learned tools to equip to quit. I put myself with tools. And have learned different things on like what to do, what not to do, like, how to work through the trauma and little pieces, so that it's not so overwhelming, not that it's not hard. It's still hard; it's just not so overwhelming that I can't function. So you have to learn what that is right for you, because my experience and what I do could, you know, obviously is good for me, but other people experience it differently, and so you can't, you can't judge people saying, like, oh, well, that person hasn't been to war. So it's not real trauma, which isn't true if you have trauma, if you have if you legitimately have PTSD. It doesn't matter if it's for more child abuse, like any other type of experience you have PTSD, you either have it or you do not. So that's one of the things that a lot of people. A common misnomer. It's like, oh, it's only real PTSD if you're a war veteran. But that's not true. You can have PTSD from many other different experiences, too. It depends on two things. One is the length and rapidity of the thing that happened to you. So if it's something that happened to you over time, over and over again, that sets you up for PTSD, or if it's something that is a very big trauma that's happened in a short period of time, too, and there's other things as well, like, and I'm not a psychologist, and I don't play one on my podcast, but that's just kind of one of the things that is a very big misnomer, that you had to have gone to war and seen more things to have actual PTSD, which is not true. So there's a lot of us out there who have PTSD from childhood abuse and from other different types of scenarios that we grew up in, and it's much easier to get PTSD before the age of 25 because around the age of 25 of course, it you know, it's not exactly on your 25th birthday, because we're also different, but around the age of 25 your brain matures to the point where you can handle more trauma and more heavier emotional things and situations, and so you're much less likely to get PTSD at the age of 25 and it's also perspective too, right? Like two people can go through the same experience, and one can be traumatized and one might not be traumatized. Like, at this point, I've dealt with so much trauma, I know I like I know what it feels like, and I know how to emotionally separate myself from it. So at this point, I'm much less likely to be traumatized because of what I've been practicing in the skill set that I have now. So I'm more aware of it, and I'm also, you know, it's, it's an ever going battle I practice every day. Yesterday, I was sitting and journaling for four hours, like still releasing more things that I have to release. So it's no. I don't feel like I'm ever going to get over it. Yeah,

Thank you for sharing, first of all, and just, I just want to say we're just feel with you a little bit about the trauma. Everybody has trauma to some degree, but not everybody has PTSD in the sense of that big T trauma that you mentioned there. And you mentioned at least two things that I want you to go just a little bit deeper with us on here land. And that is the box metaphor I'm interested in that you mentioned that, and then tools. You've you've said you've gained some tools to help you deal with PTSD, the main focus here, we're talking about here and your chronic pain, some other things, boxes, metaphors, and tools. Can you go with me there on those things? Yeah.

So one of the things I realized when I started working with my psychologist, when I first found out at PTSD, is that I would put all of my bad memories in these boxes, and I would store them in these warehouses, which I pictured in my head, which I didn't know I had until I started working on all of this, and that was my brain's way of protecting me and keeping me safe. So I didn't have to deal with that trauma as a child, but as an adult, and I started opening up these boxes. I would literally picture myself going into a warehouse, opening up a box, and we usually have something black or dark inside it, and letting that go, and then putting that box over the side of I had a picture of these warehouses on a big cliff, and so I would throw the box over this cliff, and eventually burn the pile of boxes. And so I had this process where I would take things out and deal with them a few boxes at the time until I got to the point where I had emptied all the warehouses. And so that was one of my specific visualizations I used for myself to help me deal with all of these things that my brain had put aside. And some other tools that I use with my PTSD is like, one is, if I know I'm having a really bad day. I just, I just call people on my calendar and say, look like I have a migraine or whatever, right? And I can't; I can't meet today because I know that there's certain days I was just not able to function. Those are pretty rare right now. Like, usually, if I'm not able to function, it's more of more, one of something physical, but so but, but used to be I would not be able to function, like, maybe for a whole day. And on the days that are hard, I don't get many of them anymore because now, at this point, I've been working on it for almost 10 years. So I rarely get a day where I'm really stuck. It does happen sometimes. So when I do get a day where I'm more stuck, I have certain supplements I take with this supplement called hyperzine, a that I noticed is really good for anxiety, and it for me, it really helps me. And there's also been some studies shown, interestingly enough, that heparzine a may have some promise for like helping with dementia prevention. And one of the interesting things is people that have PTSD are more likely to have dementia later in life. It's one of those things like, and also, if you have lack of hearing and some other different things, diabetes sets you up for being a for being a candidate for dementia, and so that's another kind of reason why I want to get all this stuff kind of sorted out. Because I definitely don't; that's not how I want to end my life. So let's

Hit the pause there. You want to sort it out, so you don't want to end your life there, because that's a part of the theme we work on here at cancer and comedy. It's about how cancel those things that can eat you alive, whether it's PTSD or something else. But we want to live. We want to live to the fullest, to the end of our life, our physical life, whatever that is. But we want to live to the fullest and handle trauma, handling the drama that comes with that and other, whether it's physical pain or emotional pain. And is a part of that, part of that process. So Deb, I'd like you to jump in here, if you will, in the sense of you've had your own share of trauma and drama to deal with as well. Are you relating at all to what Lynn is sharing here to tell me,

I am to a very minor degree because what you went through is absolutely incredible, you know, and when I was first diagnosed and went through my very first cancer treatment, my first chemo, I ended up in septic shock, this far, this far from dying. I mean, the doctors were arguing about how fast it was going to be, and then I was in the hospital for seven weeks. And so my brain started compartmentalizing things to deal with all of that, right? And a big part of that was the pain. You know, people ask me, did it hurt? Well, I'm pretty sure it did, right? And I do remember bits and pieces of it, but it's funny because there are things where I am almost 10 years out from that, something will bring it back just like that, right? And I love that you talk about the fact that it's not poof, it's all gone. It's all better, you know, because that trauma is always there. And I tell people it's like, you know, you might have been told, Hey, your cancer is gone, but that shadow is always there behind us, and we're always kind of waiting for it to come back and pounce on us, but we can take steps to hopefully make sure that it's, you know, as you've been doing, you know, to make sure that it hopefully doesn't come back, or if it does, how are we going to deal with it? You know, maybe we've been healthier. Maybe, you know, we've been going to the doctor more, whatever, you know, all of those various things. But I think you know, it's exactly as you said. So many people assume that that trauma is the big T, but there's lots of trauma that we go through, and we have to give ourselves the grace to feel that and go through it rather than push it away. And I think that's, you know, I mean, I can't imagine being a child and going through what you went through. I would I would guess part of it was you didn't even know that wasn't normal, right? Because you were so young that it was, you know, almost like, well, doesn't everybody have this happen to him? And then to realize, no and, and then to realize that it was your mother who was doing this. I mean, that's just gonna, you know, it always, you know, bring up those things, you know, and, and, and all the feelings that are associated with that,

yeah. Well, I did know, actually, at the age of five, I knew this was not right, like I knew the way she was treating me was not normal, because I never heard any of my friends talking about it, right? And I could feel like this is not okay, right? Like, yeah, as a kid, you know what's right, right? Yeah. And, like you said, with trauma, Dad, like you, it's always there in the end. And so one of the. I just picked up this awesome book. It's called mind, your body, and it's from Lori. I think her last name is Sparks. I can't remember her name is Lori. Anyway, she talks about that fear, and how living in that fear, if you don't let it go, and you're constantly thinking about what's going to happen to me next, can actually make the physical pains in your body worse. So it's that mind-body connection, right? Your trauma response, your physical trauma response. And so that's one of the things I'm working on now, because all I feel like a lot of my chronic pain like it does have a basis. I do have autoimmune and some other things, but I feel like my PTSD definitely makes it worse. And I because I can tell, because when I'm feeling not good in my head, my body feels worse, which makes sense, right? Because, like, when we're all tense, you get a stress headache.

You know, it's a stress headache, right? Yeah, and then your suggestion is off and all of that, right?

But it all is a choice, and that's what a lot of people don't realize. Some people have been through trauma, say, like, oh, I can't do that. It's like, okay, but you're choosing not to deal with it because it is scary and it is hard and it's not pleasant. But my choice was based on, do I want to live the rest of my life being a victim and a prisoner to what my mom did to me, or do I want to live the rest of my life as myself and take off all those layers that she had placed on me so that I can be my best self? And so I chose the latter, because I did not want to be the victim for the rest of my life. And some people don't choose that, and I understand why, because I've been through the work, but I will say it is way better to do the work and come out on another side, and feel like you have that freedom than to be stuck in those loops. Because now, when I go back and see, I can see it in other people. I can see behaviors in other people that I used to do. And it might not be exact behavior, but I'm like, I used to do that because of blah blah blah. I used to do that because of blah, blah, blah, so I can see that behavior in other people, and it's a choice. It really is a choice of like, are you going to decide to move forward in life with these things, or are you going to decide to work on yourself so that as you move forward in life, you can be feel more fulfilled and feel that you have that freedom?

Well, then let's talk, then a little bit about the choices you have made. Then. You chose, and both myself, as a former pastor, I know Deb has his fears too, where we've seen people who have spiraled down and they have ended up in they've lost, you know, they've chosen a spiraling situation of demise, and you've chosen something different. You've chosen a life of you mentioned earlier how you sit down a journal for four hours, things like that. You've chosen life as a writer, a ghost writer, publisher. Kind of, is this a part of the process that do you work through now to kind of give yourself some choices that give you more purpose and direction in life, or tell us a little bit about how that evolved for you?

Yeah. So basically, I, you know, I had to make the choice, like, to go to a psychologist to do that work. Also one of the choices I make during the day is, like, sometimes, if I'm had, like, I have a hard day. And actually, to refer back to what you said, Deb, is like, all of a sudden, something pops up in your head, and you're like, oh my gosh. And I try to do, one of the tools I use is I try to avoid, like, if I know it's a bad like, a horror movie, right, that has torture season, right? Even, listen, you just, I don't want all those things, right? Exactly. Look, if I know something's gonna trigger me, I try to avoid it. But like you said, Dad, there's things like, you could be walking in a beautiful park and all of a sudden your mind's like, hey, right now's a good time that we're gonna do. It happens whenever you pop up, and I call that pulling the rug out from underneath you because it's completely unexpected, and it just sidelines you. So in that case, I know I now have to stop, and I have to, like, just sit down wherever I'm at and just wait and think about okay and acknowledge it. Say, like, okay, right? I know this is here. I know this is scary, but like, either I'm gonna deal with it at that minute and I can just process it out, or I'm gonna say I acknowledge it, and what I do is I actually picture myself on a bench and picture whatever the issue is sitting on a bench next to me. I'm like, I would like you to sit here, and I'm going to deal with you later and talk to it as if it's a person because that helps me deal with it without being over emotional. Because if I get I know, if I get emotionally entangled in whatever that is sitting next to me, it's going to emotionally and physically drain me. And I do not want that to happen. I want to deal with this on my own terms, not on the memories terms, right?

You know? And of course, ignoring something is the worst that we can do. It's totally understandable, right? Because we don't want to grow, right?

Ignoring it is like planting a seed and expecting it not to grow.

I'm going to plan what presents it actually does grow, right?

Yeah? Because every experience you have currently in present is going to feed that seed and that soil, it's going to water, fertilize it, and it's good, and then you're going to explode, and it's going to become something horribly big that you have to deal with later on. That's going to be worse. So you're better off dealing with it when you notice it. And that's also part of it too, is knowing to be aware of it, right? If you're not even aware of what you're doing, which I wasn't for years because I didn't understand what was going on, if you're not even aware of it, you can't be you can't take it on. You can't say, Hey, I'm going to tackle this problem, or I'm going to, you know, work through this. So the first thing is to be aware. And that's where a good psychologist or a good professional mental health provider comes in, is to look at you from the outside and be like, Hey, are you aware of XYZ, right?

You know. And one of the things, and I tell people, you know, we often think we we can't. We shouldn't. It's bad to ask for help. And I tell people, sometimes it is the strongest thing you can do is to ask for help, and whether that's with a mental health therapist, Pastor, whoever it is, maybe it's just your best friend or you're talking to your cat, right? But you know it is so it is. It is very empowering. It is the strongest thing we can do to admit, hey, we need help.

Yeah? Well, none of us got here without help, right? I mean, you can't go through life without having help, whether you know it or not. Like there has been, like, everything we use has been put together by other people, right? So, like, our computers, our kitchen cabinets or whatever. So, I mean, if you say, Hey, I don't need help from anybody, then you have to get rid of everything you've ever owned by someone already made that.

Well, that's all awesome. And then, we make to get help, and then to do something with value in our life that can be helpful to other people. And I think it's part of what you're doing here now, and I've been landing you, you you help. You've crafted your own story here, in many ways, and then you also help other people craft their stories. What do you and that means you're dealing with human emotions so and you've all you've mentioned already about how you kind of have to apartmentalize or put in boxes, some things and some things of this. But as you work with people, as it goes, rider and other things like that, helping them craft their emotions. How do you kind of navigate that protect your own emotions? Or how do you help them to draw out their emotions? You see, when I'm going with this, how do you your story is so intense that you mentioned some things are triggered, but you're working with people to tell their stories. So just go with me through that there for just a minute. How about crafting stories with emotional boundaries and navigating that type of thing?

Yeah, well, just writing a book, in and of itself, is very emotional for people, right? Because they're pouring their heart and soul into it. So just are off the bat, people are very emotional about and I understand that because I've written my own books. But as a writer, I'm much less emotionally connected to my books, because most of my books are just kind of generallyself-helpp,nonfictionn, and they're they're not bad. It's just that I know this is a work I'm putting out into the world. It may or may not be accepted, and I'm okay with that, but that's me. Everybody's not there. And so I know a lot of my clients are new to writing books. They're new. They have never been an author, so they have not gone through the process. So my job, my meat, most of my job, is book coaching. I walk people through the self-publishing process and help them, like, overcome imposter syndrome or help them overcome their fears about book publishing. Give them realistic expectation to be like this is typically what happens if more happens. That's awesome, but this is typically what you're going to expect, and then just walking through the process and helping them get their book published and on Amazon and having an actual physical copy in their hand. So I remember the first time I did that with my book over five years ago, and it was so exciting, and I cried. I was just very overwhelmed with joy because I was so excited I published my first book. So that's the first aspect of emotional bringing the emotional component into publishing. The second one is writing memoirs, right? Because right now, I'm writing two memoirs for two different people, another person who also PSD. So I can relate to that. Just really trying to capture people's voice when I'm writing their book, because everybody's voice is so different, and not changing it, like making it very professionally written, but professionally written in their voice, so that when people read it and they talk to them, there's not a discrepancy. Be like, that doesn't sound like the person that's in the book. So that's another thing. And yes, my clients do get very emotional, especially my one. I'm writing a memoir for right now because he is very, he's very excited, and he wants to, you know, get his book out, and all that stuff, which I totally understand. The things I have to tell people is, they're like, I want to put this book in my book, and this is my book, and this I'm like, okay, sit down, do an outline, right? Like, let's back up and let's let's use the tools. And then what I tell people is, if you have an idea that's not in your outline, we can write it down and possibly put it somewhere else. But people do get overwhelmed. Be like, what should I put in my book? Right? Should I put this in my book? Should I put that in my book? Like, what? And I tell people, you need to know what the focus of your book is and what the purpose is. And you have to everything that you put in your book has to be put in with that intention. Now, is everything you originally put in your book going to be in the finished work? No, because we go through and edit it, and sometimes people add stuff or take stuff away, but just really trying to keep people focused and their eye on the ball and their eye on the goal, so to speak, of like, what is the purpose of this book? And make sure all the content that is in it, like backs that purpose and doesn't go off on a sidetrack. I mean, and too much, like, right? You're gonna have a story that sidetracks a little, and that's fine, but you don't want to go so sidetrack. People are like, Okay, what is this book about? Yeah, my job is to keep people on track.

You mentioned purpose there, and I think it's so important for all those to have a purpose. But there's other there's different things have a purpose that is helpful than kind of just regurgitating, you know, just, I sometimes call the bleeding all the place when we we need to process and get stuff out, and that's for a therapist, or that's for something else, in that kind of a way, in order to be helpful to other people, we have to have some focus and some purpose. We need to interject our emotions and things of that nature. But I love the way you could help people to craft do to do that. And I want to ask about some specific aspect of this that I think may be helpful to our audience here. You know, I know you, as I mentioned in our introduction, you're energetic person with a just a very beautiful vibe about you that just shows some joy in your life. So what role do you think choosing to have some humor in life, or choosing to see some things on a positive side? What role does that play, both in some transformation in your own life, but also how you may help others process their story? And we're talking here about, you know, what role does humor or having a brighter outlook have in all this?

Yeah, no, I love the US that Brad, because that's so important. One of the things, another tool in my toolkit that also help is being Buddhist, because Buddhism, if some people think of it as a religion, and it actually isn't, because there's no deity that you worship, but really it's a set of life principles to go by that help you deal with the emotional stressors of everyday life. And it doesn't matter if it was 2000 years ago or today; those principles still apply. So one of them is basically, like, with ruminating. Like, don't ruminate and think about things over and over again, because it makes you it basically it's in Buddhism. I can't remember the term for it, but basically, what it means is it brings you down emotionally, right? So, like, I can say, hey, this happened to me. Yes, it was bad, but I'm not going to sit here and think about it every day. I'm going to live my life in the present, and I'm going to live that as I choose, right? And so that's where the humor and comedy and things like that come in. It's like, I'm choosing to live in the present. I'm choosing not to live with. Uh, that like the stress of whatever it is, and we can, and we can do that on a daily basis, right? Like, you hit your toe on something, and it hurts. You can sit the rest of the day thinking, Man, this day was horrible because I hit my toe on the bed, and the rest of the day it just hurt. Or you could think, wow, you know, that really hurt. I'm going to move on with my day. I have these things planned, and it's really great. It's really your mindset and your perspective and your outlook that got you to where you're going in the day. And that also is a choice, and that also can make your life great. It can make your life good. It can make your life so-so or can make your life feel horrible, depending on how you frame it in your own head, like we are our worst own enemies, right? So depending on frame, whatever it is that's going on in your head makes your day how it is. And of course, you know there are things that can make it worse and can make it more challenging and can make it feel bad, and it is okay to feel bad when things go wrong, but you don't want to hold on to that feeling because that only eats away at you. So, having that joy and that comedy relief helps to deal with those things that aren't so great during your day.

Now, you get that weight from the past. If you let it, it'll just weigh you down. You make a choice for your present. You know, I'm able to, hey, I stubbed my Toad the other day. I had to go to the hospital on a tow truck, so it was kind of bad that way.

So sorry, people who appreciate dad jokes.

Sometimes they're just there. They just gotta, gotta come out.

So I feel like, yeah, I hate it, though. I, for some reason, just find this completely funny.

Well, you're, you're, you're the one. You and Deb are the two. There we go. But Deb, what's your thoughts about this, about choosing to kind of see things, as Lynn has shared here, and so the Buddhist things and things like that, choosing to share their to see life from a positive perspective, right?

You know, I think we need to acknowledge, hey, that sucks, right? Because, again, if we're ignoring that it was bad, then, you know, but, but then we do choose, okay, how am I going to deal with this? And sometimes it's, you know, we, we do get cranky and grumpy, and I have people that tell me, Oh, you're always so happy. I'm like, yeah, just ask my husband. But, but, yeah, you know, we, we do all of that. It's part of life, you know. But we can choose. are we going to be the sad sack, or are we going to, you know, be happy now, you know, we're not wanting to be Pollyanna, right? Which is ignoring that there's something bad going on, but we don't have to let it bring us down. You know, I tell people, I don't watch the news. I know what's going on in the world, but I don't need to be so caught up into it that that's all I think about, you know. And I figure if something big happens, somebody will tell me, but yeah, you know, it's just, I can, I can go along and not have to deal with all of that. I know it's there. I know that al, it's, it's what's going to happen is going to happen. And so I'm going to continue to live my life the way it is. But it is. It is a choice as to how we're doing that. But it does bring me I have a question about the choice you made for your company name. So you say unicorn public. Your company is a unicorn publishing company, and you are a unicorn ghost writer. Now I tell people I'm a unicorn because I'm a blue, hot, blue-eyed redhead, which is less than 1% of the population, you know, and so that makes me a unicorn. But tell us why you named your company that.

So I named my company that because I am one of the few writers that can write up to 10,000 words a day. So most people, most writers, write between two maybe five on a good day, and I can write up to 10 when I get in that flow state, which is pretty often. I've actually crafted my writing skills. I can just literally sit down and write and write and write. I mean, I've written one time I was on a cruise, and it was a transatlantic cruise, so we had like, four or five days at sea, and there was five days at sea. I actually rewrote a second edition of my book. I put it on a Word document, took it off of Google, and so I can write really fast, which a lot of other ghostwriters can't put out content that fast. So that's why I call myself the unicorn ghost writer.

I love it. Very cool.

That's it. And also, what there's a little bit of magic with that that my granddaughters, that's their thing. They have unicorns over their rooms and stuff animals, and they just think it's magic. So they're, they're, they're, they're, there you go, Blitz. Oh, there you There you go. That's got to be your, your, your thing, right? My, my granddaughters would, yeah, would, would love that. I want to go take something else you shared with me at another conversation we had that I think I would like to at least touch on here, because you mentioned how you had, really to say the least, a challenging environment growing up with your parents, and yet, in one point in life, you spent some time as a caretaker for both of them, or at least in some role. As they both suffer from cancer. Can you tell me a little bit about that experience and how that sorted itself out?

Yeah, so my mom first got diagnosed with breast cancer, and she came home and said she had breast cancer, and she never led a healthy lifestyle, like she was morbidly obese, she ate unhealthy food, she never exercised. She would literally come home from work and sit for eight hours in the chair and just watch TV. That was not me. I was like, athletic kid. I played soccer, I did dance growing up, so I was always moving. And I think part of that probably was just getting out of my house because I try to avoid my house as much as possible. But the other part of that is all of that exercise and movement feels good, like it helps you do, like, get rid of whatever's in your head, right? Like running, like running does that, but I can't run right now because of my back, so I'm hoping to resolve that so I can start running again. But to get back to your question, can you repeat the question? Brad, sorry, well, in my head.

I just knew that you had a challenging life, to say the least, with your mom and dad, and you end up being some sort of a caretaker role, and they both had cancer, and that not everybody, not everybody can do that. And I just wonder how you navigated some of that because a lot of our listeners and are dealing with cancer, maybe they have cancer, or maybe they're a caretaker of someone who's cancer, and sometimes that just puts roles in awkward places. Could you speak to that?

So So growing up, my mom was the abuser, and my dad would physically, like, hit me a lot, and that was pretty common in the 70s, but I would say he would definitely on the side of you So, but the role of my dad growing up was he was the one who was protecting my mom. He was not saying anything. He wasn't really helping me. I think he knew something was going on, but he never, like, said, Hey, you're not you can't do that like to my mom, right? So, so I had that, that dynamic growing up, and then my mom, so going back, my mom first got cancer, and then my dad came down with cancer. My mom, I believe, was in remission when my dad was diagnosed with cancer, and then my dad's went into remission. My mom's came back, and she passed away, and then his came back, and then he passed away. So they passed they had cancer. They both had cancer. I was taking care of them for about a six-year time span. I had two my kids were small at the time. They were about six, five and eight when they were first diagnosed, and so, so my kids were small, I was taking care of them. I'm an only child, so I had no siblings to rely on. My husband at the time was not supportive, and so what I did was enlist the help of all my friends to take care of them. And at the time, I knew about the physical abuse. I knew about the emotional abuse when I was taking care of them, I didn't know about the sexual abuse until after, years after my parents passed away. So I did not even get to engage my mom and say, Hey, this happened. I just remembered this happened. We need to sit down and have a talk. So that's something I have to deal with as an adult. Later in life, not being able to talk to my mom about the abuse, so I was taking care of them. I remember this one moment in particular where growing up like I never, ever, like my mom didn't hug me. She wasn't; she wasn't motherly at all. She was, if you could have an anti synthesis of a mother. It was my mom. I mean, she was the Italian you couldn't cook too, which is a whole another story. So anyway, I remember one day I was over, and this was when both my parents had had cancer at some point, and I was taking care of them, and we actually they had an in law suite apartment above our garage, and so I would just literally walk across the driveway and take care of them, which was really great, like, I didn't have to drive places, like they were right there. So we had a walkie-talkie in between our houses, a walkie-talkie system. So if they need anything, they could just hit the walkie-talkie. At that time, I was a stay-at-home mom, and I was going to school full time to get my bachelor's degree, so I was not specifically working outside of the house. I did have class, though, and I had homework and things like that. So anyway, I remember this one night. I went over and I made them dinner. I made sure they had everything, and I was literally, it's like one of those. I call them slow motion moments, so like, you never forget it. And I'm walking over, I remember reaching my hand over and smelling the dinner in the background. And I was just about to turn the doorknob to their door to walk out of their apartment, and my mom says, Lynn, I love you. And I stopped, and I was just like, I literally think that was the only time in my entire life I ever heard my mother tell me she loved me, and that was a week before she died. Wow. Wow.

You know, I think what's incredible is that you even took care of them. Many people would have said you're on your own. Oh my, and so the fact that you did that shows how strong you are. You know, I mentioned, excuse me, that my mother passed away last year, and now she was very healthy for the most part, until, right? I mean, like she was fine one day and gone the next. But I also knew that if and when the time came to be a caregiver, that was not going to work for she and I, you know, we could do five days together at Christmas, and that was about the most we could do. But, you know, and so that was going to be a challenge to have to figure now, she had other people who. Care for. And certainly we could have had people come in and things like that. But it was, it was, you know, and there's part of me that thinks, you know, why couldn't I do that? But for both of our own sanity, I knew it was, it would not have worked. And, but, yeah. I mean, it just, it's, it's amazing and incredible, and it really does show your strength of character that you could take care of them.

Yeah. I mean, it was definitely wasn't easy. Yeah, it definitely was easy. And the part of that is, too, is I knew if I didn't take care of them, nobody would, and I didn't want my children to see that too, right? And so I was like, okay, well, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna do it because there's no one else available to do it. And I took responsibility on myself. And again, at the time, I didn't know about the sexual abuse part, and I think the dynamic would have been a lot different had I known that too. Yeah, right.

But yeah, in any case, you gave your mom and your dad a gift, and then your mom gave you a gift of saying, I love you. And even though it may have been a long time coming. It is certainly a memorable one. It's, as you said, a slow-motion moment. And so let's begin the transition, and we'll land the plane here in just a minute here or two. But let's talk about what you do for others. You know you do for others. You help them to ride, you help them to do process their own stories. I'd like you to put it in these terms first, and I'd like you to talk about specifically what you do. Tell us about a person you've worked with, who you've helped that you've seen some or some sort of a transformation, or some sort of a cool moment that's happened for somebody that you've worked with, that you've helped them to navigate, either writing or something like this. Tell me a story that in that regard,

there's so many just like, I guess one recently is that I'm helping one of my clients do a non fiction book, and she was like, literally said, like, there's no way I could have done this without you, because just getting people past the fear of writing books, right, or the fear of like, is my book Good enough? Like, that's really where my specialty lies is, is not just in the writing, but helping people get past that fear and helping people walking through with confidence, right? Not just like, Oh, I'm publishing this book. I have no idea what I'm doing, but I'm publishing this book, and I know this is what I'm doing. This is my plan moving forward. So I love giving people that confidence. And confidence really just comes from the knowledge and wisdom of knowing what you're doing is what what the next journey is not either next right step for someone else, but it's the right step for you. And so knowing that you're taking that right step and you're confident in that step is really what I love to give people

Good well, then tell us a little bit more you've chosen that transformation towards a little bit more about if somebody wanted to work with you, or learn more about your company and the things that you are all about. Tell us about how that would work and how they might make a connection with you and learn a little bit more about what what you offer.

Yeah, so they can go to my website, which is www.writeforyou.me. So it's not.com. It's not me, so it's W, R, i, t, e, f, O, R, Y, o, u, dot, M, E. If you go there, you can hit me on my contact form. I also have a discovery call link there, so you can click on that, and then you can get a free, complimentary discovery call to see if we're a good fit. Because I tell everybody, whatever ghostwriter you choose, make sure you're a good personality fit, because they're going to be your best friend for the next year.

Just primarily nonfiction, right?

Yep, I write all nonfiction, and also I do some poetry too. So if anybody has a book of actually working talking to someone right now who has a poetry book that I may be working with.

Well, awesome, awesome. Well, Deb, anything else you want to share or ask about before we you know?

I, like I said, I'm just incredibly impressed with everything that you have gone through and come out of it as a unicorn, you know? And maybe that's it, too, is those unicorns are those bright, shining examples to everybody of magic, right? Like, like Brad was saying about his granddaughters and and so, yeah, just very impressed with everything. Can't wait to hopefully I'll be at the podcast next year and see you again.

Oh, absolutely, yeah.

Well, it's been a pleasure having you with us again. And one of the things I'll just share with is that something important quality that I look for in people and try to share myself, is, is authenticity, and it's a term. It gets thrown around quite a bit these days, but it's real, and people being authentic. And certainly, Lynn “Elikqitie” Smargis is an incredibly genuine and authentic person, and I don't hear the day in other ways you've shared, you know, from some pretty deep emotional stuff and been a little bit vulnerable. And I just want to say thank you for doing that and for sharing it with our cancer comedy audience because we like to offer a hope is we have two elements that we all are important to us, hope and humor. Hope with with with humor and and that. What you you bring to us, but just want to we'll put all the context and all the websites and so on and all the links in our website, cancer comedy.com, and we just thank you for being our guest today. Her name Lynn “Elikqitie” Smargis from writeforyou.me. And unicorn publishing, thank you for being our guest today on cancer and comedy.