It’s officially been 4 years since the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. Recently, I stumbled upon studies showing that the pandemic qualifies as a “collective trauma,” where we’ve all experienced psychological distress together. But here’s the kicker: many people hesitate to admit they experienced trauma during the pandemic, perhaps because we downplay our struggles, comparing them to others’ experiences.
Beyond pandemics, we all have survival periods in life – those moments where we’re barely keeping our heads above water. Yet, sometimes, we hesitate to acknowledge just how hard things are.
This week’s guest, storyteller and doula Brandi Sellerz-Jackson, reminded me of the importance of recognizing when we’re merely surviving versus truly thriving. She spoke of thriving as a state of being characterized by awareness, ease, and compassionate self-exploration. It’s not just about existing—it’s about cultivating a life that’s rich with meaning and fulfillment, one that’s truly ours to savor.
About a few other things…
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TRANSCRIPT
Monica Packer: Brandy, welcome to About Progress.
Brandi Sellerz-Jackson: Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here.
Monica Packer: Well, I am too. It’s definitely a mutual feeling, and I’m really eager to discuss all that you have to share with us today. I just wanted to start though, by telling you, I’ve never heard the term life doula, but in reading more about you, it makes perfect sense for what you do.
So. Do you mind just starting with a little bit of an explanation on what a life doula is and how that’s something that you have come to do the work in and, and how you’ve labeled yourself?
Brandi Sellerz-Jackson: Yeah. When I think of the term life doula, I think of someone who helps people through the various labors of life.
Monica Packer: Um,
Brandi Sellerz-Jackson: we’re all giving birth to something. We’re all transitioning through something. We’re all laboring through something. And when I think of life, that’s kind of. The, the, the gig, you know, and it doesn’t just start or stop when we give birth to physical children. And so the term life doula came from a dear friend of mine who I write about in the book, Aisha Hasati.
Uh, we were talking I think one day and she said, wouldn’t it be great if there was like a life doula or a doula to like help us figure out life? And it just kind of stuck, you know, in my, the back of my mind. And during the pandemic, you know, it was really when I started, because I started off originally in birth and postpartum work.
I started getting these calls, um, because during the pandemic, I don’t know if you remember this, but birth and postpartum doulas were not allowed into the hospitals in certain cases. Yeah. Um, And so what I found was that just because a pandemic happens doesn’t mean that birth stop or postpartum stops or life stops.
I remember the first time that I got a call like this, it was from a dear friend of mine who said, Hey, I have this friend who’s really dealing and just life stuff. I wasn’t really quite sure what they needed because I was so used to showing up in person and, you know, BP or breastfeeding or whatever. But this person just needed guidance and needed to talk through things.
And that is kind of where it all started, to be honest. Just guiding people through the various transitions, you know, whether they were dealing with in laws or being first time parents and not really knowing how to navigate it. And instead of being there to help them, like, Oh, let me show you how to change a diaper or whatever.
It was more so, let me guide you and figuring out these feelings that you have. So that’s where it started.
Monica Packer: Man, I love hearing the backstory and I am personally so attracted to what you’re doing because like you said, we’re always giving birth to something. I feel like I’ve done a lot of healing in my life, but as I’ve been moving through your work, I’ve been recognizing different parts of myself that still need me to transition from staying stuck in that place to going to the other side.
And you talk about how that can only be a choice we make, you know, to be willing to, to actually move through the pain and do the work of that. And I want to talk to the people who are ready for that in many areas of their life and how that relates to the word thriving. Because we have been. Leaving a couple of years where I think many of us relate to the feeling of surviving and we’re ready to transition away from that and whether or not it has to do with the pandemic and maybe we all have these different periods where we’re like, I’ve been surviving and I’m ready to stop surviving.
I want to thrive. But, but this may seem so obvious to people, but it’s not to me. I, I would like to know more about what you think about why we’re so attracted to this whole concept of thriving and what that looks and feels like and why it’s different than just surviving.
Brandi Sellerz-Jackson: Yeah, I think we’re attracted to the idea of thriving because so many of us are, we’re, we, I can only describe it as so many of us have felt like we’ve been just
Monica Packer: doggy paddling.
Mm
Brandi Sellerz-Jackson: hmm. Above water, like there’s here, not even above it, just like here in the deep end. I think so many of us have felt that and it isn’t even just the pandemic or these past few years, or it’s some, many of us have trauma before any of this. And so I think. And now we’re at a place where I think we’re beginning to look around and we’re seeing that this constant feeling of head barely above water, that that’s not life and that we deserve more than, and I think that’s really what it is, is that I think many of us are starting to demand more and know that we’re worthy of more.
I think that’s it. Yeah.
Monica Packer: Yeah. I think some of those times, sometimes it’s just. They’re feeling, I don’t want to feel this way anymore.
Brandi Sellerz-Jackson: I think that’s what it comes down to. I mean, for me, that was the big shift. You know, I started to look around and I was like, this feeling that I feel, this can’t be the norm, whatever that is.
This can’t be life as usual, you know? And so that then made me curious about what does it look like on the other side of it? What does it look like to heal and to be on the other side of it?
Monica Packer: And I think you have not only such amazing professional experience with helping other people do this, but you had to live it out yourself after a lifetime of chronic survival mode.
And I find I learn best from people when I know a bit more about their own story and what’s informed their work. So I was curious if you’d be willing to share a little bit about your history and your past and how that’s informed your work. Your own transition from living as a, a chronic survivor and then moving into a place where you feel like you’re able to thrive better in your life.
Brandi Sellerz-Jackson: I grew up in the South. I grew up in a very abusive home from my father. My mother was amazing, but my biological father was physically abusive toward my mother. So I grew up watching that, you know, from the time I could remember until she died. And it was, you know, you can imagine seeing that every day in your most formative years, it forms you, it molds you.
I wanted to believe that it wasn’t as bad as I remembered. I wanted to believe that because I believed that, that it was just, The way I was remembering it as an adult from a child’s POV. Oh, well, maybe it’s because the adults were big and scary. That’s what it was. It wasn’t that bad for me to actually sit with the fact that no, it was that bad.
Meant that I would then to do the work to heal it and then also to grieve it. And who wants to do that? Nobody wants to do that. Like nobody. No. You know, it wasn’t until my grandmother, her and I had a conversation because I, I interviewed her in the book for a section about rest. And I just was curious about how her generation and her mother’s generation viewed rest, my great grandmother.
And, you know, we talked about everything. She’s one of my favorite people. And she validated my childhood. I think it was around her 80, 80th birthday, I think. And I was like, you know, Grandma, I just want to say, you know, thank you. Your home was the place that I could, and she finished my sentence. She said, you could rest, you could feel safe.
And when she said that, it just broke something in me, broke something open where, told me that one, what I remembered as a child was real, that it wasn’t just that the adults were big and scary, that no, what you experienced was absolutely scary and it wasn’t okay. And so seeing that and sitting with that, it propelled me to go deeper, to understand that my way of survival, my survival tools is what I call them.
And in the book, it wasn’t just this thing that, Oh, that’s just how I am. I’m just very vigilant. I’m just very like, you know, aware. I’m just very anxious. I’m just very whatever. It’s not that. It’s that, that is a survival tool that I had to pick up because in my childhood I didn’t feel safe. And so I had to feel safe.
So this is what I used to feel safe. And the more I dug, the more I began to see, Oh, this is survival. That’s survival. Oh, thing right there. That should be right there. That also survival tool. Oh, and, and here’s the thing about survival. There’s something to be appreciated for it because. Many times it kept us here.
Yeah. It kept us safe. It did. It kept us safe. The times when it becomes a problem is in the here and now, when it no longer keeps us safe because we’re no longer in that same environment or we’re no longer that same person. We’re no longer that small child, you know? And so it, it really propelled me into digging and digging and digging and getting to the root of it.
Learning how I can adapt or push away from those things that I used to survive and get into actually living and thriving.
Monica Packer: It’s so interesting that you said you had to identify the ways that you were surviving, when I feel like a lot of us know what it feels like, but we don’t really recognize that that is what we are actually doing.
We’re just surviving and we’re using survival tools. To help us stay just barely afloat and how it can, it can just feel so normal. It can just feel like, well, this is what my life is and this is who I am. Like you, like you shared. So if you could tell us a little bit more about what they can look for, what are some bigger ways that they are just surviving that they can then identify, Oh, there it is.
And there it is again. And there it is again. So that they can then move and transition into better thriving.
Brandi Sellerz-Jackson: Yeah. I think there’s a few. One, I say think about how it really makes you feel when you use this particular tool. Sure, it may, the initial trigger, right? It may do it, but really stop for a moment and ask yourself, how does this really make me feel?
For example, I really leaned into the fact that I’m adaptable. That I just. The flow. I go with the flow. That’s my superpower. Go with the flow.
Monica Packer: Mm-Hmm. . And for
Brandi Sellerz-Jackson: the longest, I was like, I fly by the seat of my pants. I I’m a flor, right? Mm-Hmm. to the point where when people, like my husband would say, oh, why don’t you, do you wanna make a list?
I would almost feel as if it were, it were sacrilegious as if he were trying to take. My survival tool away. And I was like, no, I don’t need that. Why would you say that? And he’s like, well, you know, I’m just interested to see how you would feel if you don’t constantly have to be adapting, adapting, adapting, adapting.
And the more I dug, I realized that when you are in an environment where it is abusive and you have to be aware of your surroundings to the degree that I had to, you become adapted to survive. You fly by the seat of your pants. to survive. You go with the flow to survive. And while it’s okay to be adaptable, I shouldn’t live in a constant state of adaptation.
Monica Packer: Yeah.
Brandi Sellerz-Jackson: That’s surviving. And so one day I remember, I remember just thinking, okay, let me just see what I, what do I really feel when I’m flying by the seat of my pants? Okay. What is it that I really feel? And when I sat with that, I realized that I feel the same feeling that I felt as a child in that situation, in that environment.
I feel on alert. I feel hyper aware. And it’s funny because that’s what trauma does. It’s even though it’s not the feeling that we like, it’s the feeling we’re used to. And so for me, it was a familiar feeling. I didn’t know what it felt like to not have to adapt. I didn’t know what it felt like to just.
actually know and plan what’s ahead. That felt scary to even think about, but this other feeling of hyper awareness felt familiar. So what I would say first is one, ask yourself, how does it make you really feel? And if it is a familiar feeling, dig into that, really ask yourself, if just because it’s familiar, is it good for me?
Does it make me feel good? Okay. Or is it just that it makes me feel safe, right? Yeah. And then, then moving into the thriving part of it, what is the opposite? And yes, while I may not be familiar with it, It actually might be the thing that is what I need. So I would say that, that’s the first thing. Some of the characteristics of survival tools I talk about is sabotage, obviously.
That’s a big one. Uh, you know, if you’ve experienced trauma or abandonment, you’ll cut things off before they cut you off. So nothing good happens. Things like that. Those are the thoughts that come into your mind. That’s a clear sign of. Survival. Another one I said was fear of being seen, which people would, would think, doesn’t everyone want to be seen?
But if you’ve experienced trauma, actually being seen feels very exposing and it feels very vulnerable. And when you’ve experienced that kind of trauma, that’s the last thing you want to be is vulnerable. So if you have a fear of being seen, if you, if you feel like you self sabotage quite a might want to do some digging.
For sure.
Monica Packer: So much of this is resonating with me and I’m realizing I’m experiencing other thoughts and feelings I wanted to bring up just in case other listeners are too. I’m listening to you and I’ve also been reading your book too and just realizing I didn’t know how good I had it as a kid. Like I didn’t experience the trauma you did.
And as I’m listening to you talk about survival mode and how so much of that was informed by your. Your traumatic childhood. I’m kind of talking myself out of being able to say that I’ve been in a survival mode when it wasn’t informed by a necessarily big T trauma. So can you walk through that for people who are like me and just trying to say, do I even actually not surviving because I didn’t have these hard things happen to me and I don’t.
I don’t deserve to just say I’m surviving when I’m, I shouldn’t be just surviving.
Brandi Sellerz-Jackson: Well, I, I say, I think of it this way. So while you may not have had the trauma that I had as a child, trauma is trauma. And the funny thing about trauma is that actually it’s defined by the person who experienced it. So that means that.
I don’t have the right or the place to be like, well, what trauma did you have? Just because trauma looks different. Me, you know, it, I don’t have that, right. It’s really what you define it as. And there’s levels, there are levels to it. And I will even say, I think many, many, many people have experienced some form of trauma, right?
However, it’s, it’s this weird thing of, I think also survival. Well, it’s not that.
Monica Packer: Yeah.
Brandi Sellerz-Jackson: It’s not that. I mean, I talked yourself out of it. Right. I did it. And I had a, I had a pretty traumatic childhood. I did it and it’s like, well, no one died because I would hear stories of people who experienced violence where they saw someone die.
And I’m like, well, I never saw anyone die. So it could have been that bad. So if I’m downplaying my trauma, anyone who’s listening to this, I’m sure you are too, but just because it doesn’t. Um, look like someone else’s. It doesn’t mean that you haven’t experienced it. And if you dig a little bit, you probably can find the little t’s, big t’s, medium t’s in there, sprinkled in there that you can define as trauma that you’re going to have to work through, for sure.
Monica Packer: You know, one of the most powerful sections to me was where you talked about how your trauma was created by a traumatized parent who was likely created by a traumatized parent and going back generations. And we do know the science between. In our generational trauma, and I, and while so much of that can be hard to name because, unfortunately, we don’t tend to have a full history.
Um, but what, what before us, even if we don’t think we’ve experienced or enough, I’m putting this in quotation marks, trauma to be allowed to say we’re in survival mode. We’re still informed by this long humanity, but you know, before us of surviving and we pick up on those survival techniques and I think we’re just going to go back to the first thing you said.
If you feel like you are barely keeping your nose above water, then you are in the survival place.
Brandi Sellerz-Jackson: Yes. Absolutely. So validate
Monica Packer: it.
Brandi Sellerz-Jackson: Absolutely. I mean, even just like, I mean, we look at it during childbirth, you have a parent who gave birth and they tell themselves that it wasn’t as bad as they thought it was because at least they got a healthy baby out of it.
Right? It’s like, it wasn’t that bad. But if you think about it, you have a parent who maybe had to do an emergency c section or a parent who has a child who then NICU immediately. Right. That’s
Monica Packer: traumatic. It’s fascinating because I have some kids with special needs, I told you before we were recording, and while we were doing a lot of intakes for them, they’re asking me about my pregnancy, my delivery, like they’re going back that far because it does have impact that we might not even know, that we might not even see.
Brandi Sellerz-Jackson: Absolutely. Absolutely. And it’s like, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard it. Well, You know, it, it, but I have a healthy baby, I have a healthy baby, I have a healthy, and it’s like, but what happened to you and what you experienced is real. So I, I think of it like that, you know, it’s everyone’s trauma looks different, but it’s up to you to define it.
And when you see it and you feel it, cause sometimes we feel it before we actually can say it out loud, feel it in your body. If you feel it in your heart, then so it is. It’s, it’s trauma.
Monica Packer: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for giving us that grace, but I just wanted to, to lean into that a little bit for those who are like, well, I guess I should just stop listening because I don’t qualify and you do.
And you brought up some signs, you know, so in your body and your heart, the feelings, what are some other things they can kind of just pick up and be like, okay, this is survival. This is another sign I’m just surviving.
Brandi Sellerz-Jackson: Yeah. I mean, I would say your first innate response is usually sometimes out of survival.
It’s almost animalistic. If we look out in the wild, if we see a lion eating antelope or whatever, we’re not like, lion, you need to be nicer while eating the antelope. You need to like be more gracious. No, that lion is trying to survive and eat.
Monica Packer: And
Brandi Sellerz-Jackson: I think it’s no different with us. Our survival is very animalistic.
It’s to keep us here. So I’ll usually, our first response from a trigger is usually we react. Yeah, it’s not really response. It’s usually, um, and I think there’s a lot of space to be held for it. You know, I mean, for me, it has been, when I look at people just out in the world and I see them reacting for, for worse, I have compassion because I look at them no different than the lion who’s eating the antelope.
They’re just trying to survive with what they know and the tools that they have. They’re not going to say, Oh, let me tell you what’s happening. Most people don’t have that wherewithal. The majority of people, you know, unfortunately they’re just surviving, surviving. So usually it’s, you know, your first reaction a lot of times is out of survival.
That’s usually it.
Monica Packer: Yeah. I think that’s honestly what pointed to a major transition in my life like eight or nine years ago when I started my work was me realizing the way I was reacting was out of character. Yeah. And it was showing me I needed to do some deep work. Yeah. Yeah. To heal and to move past that.
It still comes out here and there, but you know, it’s not, it’s not like the, like it was before. So that’s, that’s a great thing to pay attention to. And again, from this place of compassion, I love how you model that for others, but also for yourself not to remove the blame. Like, Oh, that’s just, you know, it’s, it’s more like, okay, I’m going to accept that.
So this is what that says. Right. And I can move past it.
Brandi Sellerz-Jackson: Absolutely. Cause I think that’s the other part of it too. I think so often we get really down on ourselves. When, say for example, we’re doing this work and we’re like, all right, I’m thriving. I’m thriving. I’m thriving. And then we have a moment of survival.
Yeah. Oops. Out of the blue. And we then get so hard on ourselves. We get so down on ourselves. And we’re like, we’re not doing it right. And it’s like, no, again, Lion, out in the wild, eating an antelope, survival,
Monica Packer: you know,
Brandi Sellerz-Jackson: it’s gonna, it may come out until we start to, to do some work, but even then, I think that’s just part of the human experience too, where you might be thriving, thriving, thriving, but you might have moments where it’s like, and survival, that just, that just came out, and it’s okay.
Monica Packer: And expect it. Like, that’s part of just being human. I think it’s part of being
Brandi Sellerz-Jackson: human. I don’t know. I don’t know anyone that doesn’t have moments like that. I can’t think of any. I don’t know any, I’m not.
Monica Packer: Well, that makes me feel a lot better. You know, but I was thinking of this interview that we did last year with Elissa Blask Campbell.
She’s a children’s specialist, but we were talking about regulation, you know, and she said regulation, it’s more about the ease that you can transition between the states in your nervous system. It’s not, the goal is not to stay regulated all the time, it’s to be able to move Through the stages a little bit more smoothly.
And that helped me a lot because of this tendency of like, I know better. So why did I react or what, you know, that, that gives us the grace and, you know, speaking of that, like insistence that because we know better, we should do better, which means we need to do it perfectly. Not but let’s talk to the perfectionists here who are still working on this.
How do you see perfectionism as a survival tool? Because people are like, I want to be a perfectionist. It seems
Brandi Sellerz-Jackson: alluring and good thing. Perfection is for sure a survival tool. I think for me, that was my way for a very long time. My way of coping was to never rock the boat. It was to do everything, not just good enough, but perfectly.
Because if I do that, then everything will be okay. Those are the things that we tell ourselves that it’s going to be okay. I’m perfect. And, and, you know, that’s just not how life works. I’m perfect. You’re a human being, that’s what you are, not a human doing. The more I began to unlock the why and who is this really helping, this constant state of perfection, because you’ll never be perfect enough, let’s just be real.
You can’t top perfect. Yeah. So there, there’s that issue right there. So as soon as I did that, you know, it’s like, and I got to one up myself and I got to one up it. It’s a never ending cycle. It’s never ending. It’s a never ending cycle and it’s a never ending list. And so, the more I dug into, oh, okay, so the reason why I feel that I have to be perfect is because when I was a child, perfection kept me safe.
It didn’t rock the boat. It was one less thing that my mother had to worry about, one less thing that my family had to worry about if I just am perfect, right? I’m And the more I thought about that, again, it goes into, okay, but where am I now? Where am I now? I’m not the little girl. I am not in that environment anymore.
Perfection actually doesn’t free me. It shackles me. So what are we going to do here? What are we doing here? And the more I began to think about that, you know, that’s when I realized, like, I Okay. Thriving. What does thriving look like? Thriving looks like freeing myself from that because again, how does it make me feel?
It doesn’t feel good to have this ongoing list. It doesn’t feel good to have to do everything perfect. It doesn’t feel good. I don’t know anyone who says, Oh, when I put myself in a rut of constantly perfecting myself and perfecting and perfecting and perfecting, it doesn’t feel good.
Monica Packer: Yeah.
Brandi Sellerz-Jackson: So it’s like, what’s the alternative?
The alternative is to let, let it go. Let it go. Good is, good is enough. It’s enough. You are enough.
Monica Packer: Thank you for sharing that. I, I’m curious to know now, like what about your life right now and one, what thriving is looking like for you in this present day so listeners can know what they’re working towards because like you said, it’s going to get messy as you’re digging into all this.
But what’s on the other side, not that you’re gonna arrive and then you’re done, but what’s it like for you right now? And as part of that, what you do to cultivate joy intentionally as part of your life?
Brandi Sellerz-Jackson: Yeah, I think I agree with you. Yeah, there’s no arrival. I think thriving is awareness of that. There is no arrival.
That it just is. And there’s a constant doing of work. There’s a constant curiosity. There’s a constant digging. There’s a lot of, you know, I always say too, there’s resting in there too, because sometimes you need rest from doing work. You need to rest. You can’t constantly be doing the work, doing the work.
You need to take a moment to do nothing. For me, thriving is awareness of that, first and foremost. It’s ease. It’s ease. It’s awareness that I’m enough. It’s also unlearning the lies. And the myths that I told myself to feel safe, to feel held that actually don’t serve me anymore. Thriving looks like paying attention to your thoughts.
So looking into the hitchhiker thoughts, which I define as, you know, those thoughts that just kind of come into your car because, you know, you saw that Lifetime movie. And now your day is just like ruined because you think you’re going to get abducted, you know? Yeah. Right? I know this. Yeah, I know. They suck you in and it’s just like, I’m scared of everyone now.
Thank you, Lifetime. Thank you. I think thriving is paying attention to those thoughts. Okay. This is a hitchhiker thought. This is the thought that was influenced by this. Okay. I can let this out in my car. Uh, the passenger thoughts, being aware of those, those are the thoughts that we picked up during our childhood, during our upbringing.
That might’ve served us then, but no longer aligned with us now that we’re adults, so we can let them out of our car. It’s knowing that we’re in the driver’s seat of our lives. We are the cultivator of our joy. That’s the other thing I think thriving also is becoming the CEO of our own joy and happiness that, you know, everyone, our kids, our partners, our dogs, our friends, they are the icing, but we are the cake.
Yeah. It is reminding ourselves that we are the most delicious cake ever. I think it’s knowing that. It’s knowing that we are the CEO of our happiness. I think a lot of our survival, it’s really ingrained in looking outward that something is going to save us. Something, someone, somewhere is going to save us.
And really we are our own rescue. We are our own saviors. We are our own anchor. And so I think it’s grabbing a hold of all of those ideas that we are the ones that we’ve been waiting for this entire time.
Monica Packer: I love that thriving isn’t just complacency either. For some reason, I just thought like thriving would be like, Oh, you just really relax, you know?
And no, for you, I just, I’m going to repeat some of the words that I pulled out of what you just said. It’s awareness. It’s ease. It’s compassion. It’s unlearning. It’s ownership. It’s moving inward. And thriving takes work. So much work. It takes work. So why is it, why is it still worth it then? Because I mean, to me, I know I can see it in front of me with you.
Like I can see why. But can you just spell it out for people?
Brandi Sellerz-Jackson: Why is it worth the work? What’s the alternative? That’s really what it comes down to. I mean, again, you can stay in the deep end, the water over your head, holding your breath. You can do that. And you’ve been doing that. So you can do it. Yeah. You prove it.
You can do it. However, how does it make you feel? We have this life. And for me, I just got to a point where I, I didn’t want to continue to feel as if I am holding the line for someone else, continue to feel like that. And that’s what I felt like good things would happen. And I couldn’t really savor them.
I couldn’t really lean into them because again, again, survival. And I, I really didn’t like that. I, I, I began to feel that life is juicier than this. Yeah. It really is. It’s more delectable. It’s mine. It’s mine. And I shouldn’t, and I don’t like using that word, but really I shouldn’t feel that I am in this house just collecting packages, waiting for whoever to show up.
No, I am the owner. I live here. These are my packages. These are my gifts. These are mine. Like I need to sit in that. And so I would say, you know, yes, it’s work, but the alternative is literally living a life that isn’t yours, living a life that you don’t feel ownership in. And what is that? There’s so many theories about what happens afterward, you know, after we’re all gone.
But say, for example, pure example only. This is it. Say, for example, this is it. This is the only Haram, you know, there is no such thing as whatever our beliefs are, right? What a waste. Like really, if you think about that, and that for me was the heartbreaking part of it. What a waste that we’re not savoring it.
And I believe that that is our gift to ourselves, our gift to whoever we believe in. It’s our gift to our children to savor it, like really sit in it and savor it. Again, we have choices, but stay in the water flailing or do some work and it doesn’t feel good. I would love to sit here and say, it’s so amazing.
The best thing ever. It’s like Disneyland. No, it’s not. It’s not fun. I’ve never heard anyone, including myself say, man, the work is so much fun. If they say that they’re lying. It’s not. Um, but I can tell you as someone who was in survival mode to someone who is, I like to believe thriving. It’s worth it, because when I look back at that girl there, who was terrified to let go of.
Her tools, her survival tools. I feel for her and I feel compassion for her and I feel sorry for her. I feel sorry that she had to do all that. She had to accumulate all of those tools just to feel safe. That’s really sad. That’s horrible. And I grieve for her. Yeah. What’s the alternative? I wish I had a more exciting answer.
Monica Packer: No, no, definitely. I am one of those people that like, I just like to know. And because that, that way when you’re moving through it. And you experience pain or frustration, or you’re getting back in that survival, you’re slipping back in those survival tools again, then you can know, Oh, I’m not doing it wrong.
This is the way it’s supposed to be. And that means I’m doing it right. And I feel like Brandy, one of the biggest life lessons I I’ve learned is that life will rarely present you with good and hard choices. Like, like you get to choose between. A good and easy side or a hard and difficult side, but it’s.
It’s in the choosing of which hard you’re going to embrace that changes everything.
Brandi Sellerz-Jackson: Yeah. Yeah. Hard is hard. So it’s like, uh, it’s funny. We actually talk about it in our house. It’s like hard now or later, which one we want. It’s all hard work.
Monica Packer: Yeah. And I just want to say if they, if they want to lean in more and I hope they do, I’m going to hold up your book here.
It’s beautiful. It’s on thriving. I love the artwork on your cover. This is, I think, part memoir, part guide. Yes. Help you move through your own transition and to work through the hard that’s going to come with the labor that you’re going to be in as you, as you move through it. What do you want people to know about on thriving your book?
Brandi Sellerz-Jackson: Hmm. It’s exactly that the way you described it is partly my story because I do believe that sharing our stories, it helps people to understand that they’re not alone. Um, Okay. Yeah, they’re not alone. They’re not alone. Um, and then also too, that, you know, I, I wanted people to know that this is something that I’ve lived.
This isn’t something that I’m just telling you to do, but this is something that I actually did. And so far, so good. So far it’s working. It’s real good. I’d say real good. Yeah. I think it’s
Monica Packer: working.
Brandi Sellerz-Jackson: It’s a guide as well. I hope it’s something that they can pull out from time to time. We’ll see. Mm hmm. At that.
Hey, if you’re having a moment of grief, if you’re experiencing being othered, whatever, that you’re able to pull it out and feel a little less alone, but then also that I’m, that we’re all there with you. We’re all sifting through it together.
Monica Packer: Yeah. Well, it’s so beautifully written. I mean, truly, it’s a, it’s a work of art and we’ll link to it in the show notes.
Brandy, this has been a really amazing chat for me. Thank you so much for your willingness to be here, but also your willingness to go deep to write this book. I’m sure it was extremely hard work. It paid off and it’s already having the effect that you were hoping it would. Um, it’s starting right here with me and with my community as well.
So thank you. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you. Okay, I’ll stop the recording here. You were so fun.
