UDSKRIFT 🔗
WEBVTT
00:12.419 --> 00:15.579
The phone rang that Monday and I picked up
00:16.079 --> 00:19.496
the receiver and the voice at the other end said, you have cancer,
00:19.770 --> 00:21.189
we want to book you for your surgery.
00:23.521 --> 00:26.065
I remember vividly when I hung up the phone,
00:27.267 --> 00:30.476
I said, thank you. I knew in my heart of hearts I was going to
00:30.976 --> 00:34.231
beat it. I was cancer-free in a year's time. Over the years,
00:34.263 --> 00:38.017
I've helped many people on their journey. Not bounce back, I say bounce
00:38.517 --> 00:38.595
forward.
00:55.908 --> 00:59.826
Not back? Because sometimes there is
01:00.179 --> 01:04.001
no going back. The job is done. The home is gone.
01:04.595 --> 01:07.100
The body you trusted has changed.
01:07.806 --> 01:11.435
And the person standing on the other side of it all— well,
01:11.820 --> 01:14.999
they've changed too. For Alexi Bracey,
01:15.353 --> 01:18.933
resilience isn't about pretending those things didn't
01:18.949 --> 01:22.295
happen. It was about deciding what
01:22.795 --> 01:23.643
she does with them now.
01:26.500 --> 01:30.406
Welcome, I'm Heather Holt, and this is Change
01:30.471 --> 01:33.925
Happened, Then What? Where change becomes
01:34.184 --> 01:37.572
the story. Today I'm going to introduce you
01:37.749 --> 01:41.911
to Alexi Bracey, who has had many seasons
01:42.024 --> 01:44.494
of change in her life— cancer,
01:44.995 --> 01:48.955
divorce, housing instability, Car accident,
01:49.339 --> 01:52.114
and a debilitating injury that ended her career.
01:53.044 --> 01:56.219
But when I talked with Alexi, I realized something.
01:56.957 --> 02:00.469
This isn't really a story about any one of those things.
02:01.528 --> 02:05.040
It's about what she kept doing afterwards.
02:05.793 --> 02:09.995
She kept finding ways to connect with people, sometimes with kindness,
02:10.524 --> 02:14.168
sometimes with food, and quite often— With a joke.
02:15.040 --> 02:17.735
Now, let's dive into Alexie's story.
02:24.052 --> 02:27.543
My parents were immigrants, so they didn't speak English.
02:27.753 --> 02:29.918
I didn't speak English until I started school.
02:30.752 --> 02:34.206
And, you know, we— they had immigrated to Canada after the
02:34.706 --> 02:38.448
war. You know, we had 3 or 4 families that
02:38.948 --> 02:42.499
we sort of chummed around with, so we certainly didn't have a huge network
02:42.999 --> 02:46.900
of community for support. And my mother was
02:47.400 --> 02:51.180
very much of a loner as well. So it was not a joint
02:51.680 --> 02:55.360
family. It was like everybody sort of did their own thing. I spent more time
02:55.860 --> 03:01.040
with my dad in the evenings because my mother worked evenings herself.
03:01.540 --> 03:04.780
And so, you know, he taught me how to appreciate the fine arts, whether it
03:05.280 --> 03:09.040
was music or— actually, he taught me how to dance the tango,
03:09.540 --> 03:13.080
believe
Load full transcript
it or not, in the kitchen when I was, I don't know, 12 years
03:13.580 --> 03:17.630
old, 14 years old, whatever, because he really likes music. And so I sort
03:18.130 --> 03:21.786
of would occupy myself, play by myself, because I was an only child.
03:21.884 --> 03:26.492
I didn't have any relatives. They were all behind communist
03:26.509 --> 03:28.810
bars on the other side of the world.
03:36.941 --> 03:40.383
There is something fantastical about that image,
03:41.126 --> 03:44.430
a little girl learning the tango with her dad in the kitchen.
03:45.106 --> 03:49.264
Because before resilience became a word Alexie would use
03:49.764 --> 03:52.991
to describe herself, there were already things being
03:53.087 --> 03:56.200
built: independence, curiosity,
03:56.794 --> 04:00.773
a drive, and the ability to make something
04:01.511 --> 04:03.662
out of whatever was available.
04:04.560 --> 04:09.069
So I guess that sort of became my strength. I would entertain myself,
04:09.230 --> 04:13.065
do little things. I was very driven. Like, I won— I sold
04:13.565 --> 04:16.981
the most donuts in school, in grade school. I sold the most chocolate
04:17.013 --> 04:20.141
bars in high school. And then I started A
04:20.285 --> 04:24.472
cake decorating course, and I started making cakes for people
04:24.972 --> 04:27.969
for birthdays, anniversaries, whatever, and Easter bunnies.
04:28.306 --> 04:31.754
And from my apartment— I worked at a hospital at
04:32.254 --> 04:36.182
the time, I was a lab technologist— I would rush home during coffee breaks
04:36.682 --> 04:39.903
or lunchtime to melt chocolate. And I made— through
04:40.031 --> 04:43.576
one Easter season, I used 500 pounds
04:44.076 --> 04:47.250
of chocolate working out of my kitchen in an apartment.
04:48.124 --> 04:51.288
I had employees from all over the hospital coming to see me in the lab
04:51.788 --> 04:56.281
to order their chocolate Easter bunnies. So it was— I sort of bounced around
04:56.458 --> 04:59.091
and just dabbled in stuff and, you know, food became really—
04:59.930 --> 05:01.077
500
05:01.222 --> 05:04.361
pounds of chocolate out of
05:04.861 --> 05:09.310
an apartment kitchen. I think it's fair to say Alexi
05:09.406 --> 05:12.611
didn't exactly ease her way into entrepreneurship.
05:13.847 --> 05:16.557
Food became important. Eventually,
05:16.974 --> 05:20.519
she would own a catering company and work professionally as a
05:21.019 --> 05:24.768
chef. But there were other changes along the way,
05:25.474 --> 05:27.623
including becoming a single mother.
05:39.907 --> 05:42.536
When I divorced with a 10-month daughter in tow,
05:43.290 --> 05:47.666
you know, I survived. I lived in another town
05:47.923 --> 05:50.953
and I had to commute to go to work to the city where I was.
05:51.209 --> 05:54.961
I just learned to bounce. I'd say probably somehow it was
05:55.137 --> 05:58.680
innate. If, you know, like I said before, if there is such
05:59.180 --> 06:02.287
a thing, I just never second-guessed myself.
06:02.671 --> 06:06.455
You know, sometimes, you know, there have been occasions where maybe
06:06.955 --> 06:10.014
I felt a little sorry for myself, but I always bounced back.
06:10.532 --> 06:10.985
At this
06:11.017 --> 06:14.511
point in Alexi's life, that was resilience.
06:15.142 --> 06:18.038
Keep moving, keep figuring out the next thing,
06:18.863 --> 06:22.135
and trust that somehow you will get through it.
06:22.892 --> 06:23.263
And then—
06:30.070 --> 06:30.151
The
06:30.651 --> 06:34.191
phone rang that Monday, and, uh, I picked up the receiver, and the
06:34.691 --> 06:38.091
voice at the other end said, you have cancer. We want to book you
06:38.108 --> 06:38.756
for your surgery.
06:41.184 --> 06:43.840
She was diagnosed with uterine cancer.
06:44.586 --> 06:48.474
She made her own decisions about how she wanted to respond
06:48.974 --> 06:52.200
to that diagnosis. Those decisions are part of
06:52.296 --> 06:56.291
Alexi's personal experience, but what matters to this
06:56.339 --> 06:59.769
story is what happened inside her when she
06:59.770 --> 07:01.243
heard those words.
07:03.331 --> 07:05.926
I remember vividly when I hung up the phone,
07:07.042 --> 07:10.424
And said, thank you. I knew in my heart of hearts I was gonna beat
07:10.924 --> 07:14.704
it. There was no way. I didn't know how, but that voice
07:15.040 --> 07:19.593
in my head said, you're gonna beat it. And so without medical intervention,
07:20.266 --> 07:23.792
a few lifestyle changes, I was cancer-free in a year's time.
07:24.514 --> 07:27.735
It was a no-brainer for me in that capacity.
07:27.800 --> 07:31.310
I never doubted myself once. I just knew I was gonna beat
07:31.810 --> 07:34.131
it. Over the years, I've helped many people on their journey.
07:34.918 --> 07:39.000
She didn't know how, but she had decided something
07:39.338 --> 07:42.826
about herself. She was going forward.
07:43.580 --> 07:47.428
And then life gave another test of exactly
07:47.493 --> 07:48.338
what that meant.
07:49.864 --> 07:51.001
When I was homeless,
07:51.880 --> 07:54.934
I ended up moving numerous times.
07:55.513 --> 07:59.050
I slept on couches for part of that.
07:59.532 --> 08:03.317
I, um, Didn't have wheels for part of that,
08:03.541 --> 08:04.968
which made it more challenging.
08:05.785 --> 08:06.330
Couches,
08:07.147 --> 08:10.289
uncertainty, not knowing where
08:10.369 --> 08:14.392
the next place would be. And eventually, a friend
08:14.616 --> 08:18.863
Alexia had known for more than 30 years offered her
08:19.363 --> 08:22.678
a place to stay. Well, sort of.
08:23.335 --> 08:26.797
You know, I didn't know from week to week where the next
08:27.297 --> 08:28.672
pillow was going to be that I was going to lay my head on.
08:29.426 --> 08:33.450
And then a friend invited me to stay at
08:33.950 --> 08:36.417
his place, sort of.
08:37.363 --> 08:40.634
He had a barn that had not been used in like 10
08:40.666 -->
08:43.777
years. He and his wife set up a tent in the barn.
08:44.354 --> 08:47.849
I slept on an air mattress, and I had no running water
08:48.122 --> 08:52.098
nor indoor plumbing. You know, it's— you know, the resilience
08:52.131 --> 08:55.241
sort of comes down a little bit to how much you will tolerate
08:55.658 --> 08:57.117
based on your self-worth. Mm-hmm.
08:57.566 --> 08:58.079
There it is.
08:58.705 --> 09:02.201
Not the cancer diagnosis, not 6 moves,
09:03.259 --> 09:06.242
not even sleeping in a tent inside a barn.
09:07.108 --> 09:10.219
The question underneath all of it was,
09:10.636 --> 09:14.453
how much are you willing to tolerate? And what
09:14.821 --> 09:18.029
does the answer say about what you believe you are
09:18.529 --> 09:18.558
worthy of?
09:19.151 --> 09:21.845
You know, I only stayed there a couple months. I had somebody else
09:21.861 --> 09:22.952
that rescued me out of there.
09:23.786 --> 09:25.054
That changes
09:25.086 --> 09:29.068
the meaning of resilience, because staying isn't
09:29.406 --> 09:33.902
always strength. Enduring one more thing isn't
09:34.062 --> 09:37.322
always strength. Sometimes resilience
09:37.835 --> 09:41.432
is leaving, and sometimes it's recognizing
09:41.769 --> 09:45.141
that surviving somewhere doesn't mean you have to
09:45.641 --> 09:49.556
keep living there. And she did leave, but She
09:50.056 --> 09:53.163
didn't want to carry everyone who had hurt her or disappointed
09:53.663 --> 09:54.141
her with her.
09:54.686 --> 09:57.203
You know, I mean, I don't have any ill feelings
09:57.251 --> 10:00.601
against anybody. I have forgiven everybody.
10:00.697 --> 10:04.256
That's really key in my life. But I feel
10:04.756 --> 10:08.953
sorry for them that they have to resort to such tactics,
10:10.155 --> 10:13.425
treating another human being in that fashion. But our world is
10:13.441 --> 10:16.823
filled with things like that. That's why I like to bring the joy and the
10:17.323 --> 10:21.462
happiness to people's lives. But we need the skills to To
10:21.544 --> 10:25.165
overcome, to not bounce back, I say bounce forward.
10:32.119 --> 10:36.192
Bounce forward.
10:36.885 --> 10:40.804
It keeps coming back to those 2 words because bouncing
10:40.917 --> 10:44.146
back assumes the goal is to return to
10:44.646 --> 10:48.193
where you started. Alexi doesn't believe that's the point.
10:49.167 --> 10:52.854
And eventually she had another reason not to look
10:52.870 --> 10:56.044
backward. Just as COVID was beginning,
10:56.557 --> 10:58.721
Alexi was in a car accident.
10:59.763 --> 11:03.146
The only thing I remember from the accident was my
11:03.915 --> 11:06.576
head sort of swirling back and forth like so.
11:07.538 --> 11:10.264
But I couldn't go to the hospital. I didn't want to go to the hospital
11:10.764 --> 11:14.287
because I had my 2 dogs with me. And so it impacted my balance.
11:14.496 --> 11:18.333
And 2 weeks later, I was working as a chef at a nursing
11:18.365 --> 11:22.380
home. And I fell and
11:22.880 --> 11:25.527
I broke my femur. So that ended my chef career.
11:26.217 --> 11:29.509
The career that had grown from cakes and chocolate in
11:29.525 --> 11:33.298
an apartment kitchen, the catering business she once
11:33.362 --> 11:35.691
thought she'd run until the cows came home,
11:36.911 --> 11:39.127
done, finished.
11:40.427 --> 11:44.420
And once again, she had to decide what forward
11:44.773 --> 11:49.071
looked like when going backwards wasn't available.
11:50.290 --> 11:53.433
Somebody was tapping me on the shoulder saying, enough as a chef,
11:53.513 --> 11:54.652
I've got something better for you.
11:55.502 --> 11:57.138
From my conversation with her,
11:57.667 --> 12:01.532
that is so Alexi. She doesn't
12:02.032 --> 12:05.557
spend much time asking why the old door closed.
12:06.169 --> 12:10.340
She starts looking around for the next door, and eventually
12:10.678 --> 12:13.882
the thing she had been doing almost instinctively
12:13.914 --> 12:18.555
for years became a part of that answer: making
12:18.910 --> 12:22.278
people smile. We'll be
12:22.294 --> 12:22.923
right back.
12:27.430 --> 12:31.629
Here's a little something from our friends at Pure Energy Apothecary.
12:32.567 --> 12:35.875
I don't know about you, but some days my idea of
12:36.375 --> 12:39.696
self-care is remembering to drink water before my third
12:39.729 --> 12:43.743
cup of coffee, because apparently coffee doesn't
12:44.243 --> 12:46.472
count as an entire wellness plan. Who knew?
12:47.660 --> 12:51.225
Pure Energy Apothecary is all about making a little more
12:51.370 --> 12:54.870
room for taking care of yourself without feeling
12:54.902 --> 12:57.990
like you need to reinvent your entire life By
12:58.023 --> 13:01.181
Tuesday. And they've got a little something
13:01.523 --> 13:05.551
just for you. Use code PURECHANGE for
13:06.051 --> 13:09.265
20% off your order at pureenergyvt.com.
13:11.440 --> 13:14.641
That's code PURECHANGE for 20% off
13:14.852 --> 13:18.086
your order, because taking care of
13:18.586 --> 13:22.546
yourself shouldn't have to be another thing on your already ridiculous to-do
13:22.613 --> 13:25.945
list. Now back to Alexi.
13:37.874 --> 13:41.004
Somewhere along the way, Alexi realized
13:41.116 --> 13:45.392
that one of the things she could give people didn't require
13:45.892 --> 13:48.798
a business or even that much time.
13:49.814 --> 13:52.623
Sometimes it was just a joke,
13:53.730 --> 13:57.630
and she traces some of that back to her years working at remote
13:57.662 --> 13:59.845
fishing lodges in northern Canada.
13:59.989 --> 14:01.048
When I worked at
14:01.548 --> 14:05.430
remote fishing lodges across northern Canada, I was at one lodge
14:05.606 --> 14:08.992
for 4 summers, and 90% of the
14:09.492 --> 14:12.924
guests were repeats. These fishermen were now bringing their
14:13.424 --> 14:17.018
grandsons, and so During dinnertime, I'm not
14:17.518
--> 14:21.562
going to talk to them about fishing, so I started telling jokes. And so when
14:21.915 --> 14:24.901
I came back the next year, they, they saw me and they said, Alexi,
14:24.966 --> 14:28.161
do you have jokes? So I started accumulating jokes,
14:28.257 --> 14:31.629
and everywhere I go, any opportunity I have just
14:32.129 --> 14:36.077
to put a smile on somebody's face, because, you know, laughter increases
14:36.125 --> 14:39.818
longevity, it lowers cortisol, it raises serotonin
14:40.318 --> 14:43.668
and dopamine. And everybody can use a bit of a joke no matter what you're
14:43.732 --> 14:44.245
going through.
14:44.855 --> 14:47.822
I had to ask her to give me one
14:48.322 --> 14:50.500
of those jokes, and here's what she shared.
14:50.805 --> 14:52.088
Billy Graham gets off
14:52.588 --> 14:56.017
the plane after his speaking tour, and his limo driver
14:56.517 --> 14:59.384
is waiting to take him home. And so he says to the limo driver,
14:59.465 --> 15:02.977
he says, you know, I've never driven a limo before. Do you think I could
15:03.477 --> 15:06.745
drive it for a while? And the driver says, yeah, no problem.
15:06.810 --> 15:10.710
So the children get in the limo, they're bombing down the highway, and Billy's
15:11.210 --> 15:14.710
doing 50, 60, and 70. Well, lo and behold, a state
15:15.210 --> 15:19.190
trooper spots him, stops the car, and when he approaches the car and Billy
15:19.690 --> 15:23.510
rolls the windows down, he does a double take and he says, excuse me for
15:24.010 --> 15:27.630
a minute. And so he goes back to his cruiser, he calls his
15:28.130 --> 15:32.070
supervisor, and he says, you know, there's always different circumstances on when
15:32.570 --> 15:34.986
we give tickets, and I've got this I'm here with this really important person and
15:35.403 --> 15:39.051
I don't know what to do. And the supervisor says, so is it
15:39.099 --> 15:43.262
a dignitary? He says, no, more important. He says, is it the president?
15:43.359 --> 15:46.646
He says, no, more important. He says, well then who is it? He says,
15:47.065 --> 15:49.567
well, I think it's Jesus because Billy Graham is his chauffeur.
15:52.807 --> 15:56.598
Okay, I laughed, which I suppose proves
15:56.630 --> 16:00.030
her point. Underneath Alexi's jokes is
16:00.530 --> 16:04.227
something Much more serious. She pays attention
16:04.727 --> 16:08.586
to people— the person holding the door, the stranger
16:08.634 --> 16:13.569
walking by, the neighbor in the hallway— someone
16:13.906 --> 16:17.335
who might need one small moment of
16:17.367 --> 16:21.181
connection. And sometimes she never knows
16:21.598 --> 16:25.251
what that moment did until one day while
16:25.300 --> 16:26.389
walking her dogs.
16:27.530 --> 16:29.763
And I noticed a young man standing
16:29.779 --> 16:33.909
on the corner having a cigarette. He had come from the Philippines
16:33.957 --> 16:37.798
to look after his brother who was suffering from cancer. I
became sort of
16:37.894 --> 16:41.124
like his Canadian aunt. And then one day he said to me that
16:41.624 --> 16:45.029
his brother had passed and would I come to the funeral reception.
16:45.462 --> 16:48.998
And so when I arrived at the funeral home, there were about 30
16:49.498 --> 16:52.982
Filipino women kneeling in the chapel. I made
16:53.014 --> 16:56.242
my way up to my friend, and he explained that they were
16:56.467 --> 17:00.401
waiting to make arrangements to ship the body back to the Philippines so
17:00.465 --> 17:04.111
their mother could be there for burial. So we exchanged a few words
17:04.255 --> 17:07.499
and I left. Several weeks later, I'm walking down the street
17:08.816 --> 17:12.092
and a young Filipino woman approaches me and she says,
17:12.910 --> 17:15.544
were you at so-and-so's funeral a few weeks ago? I said,
17:16.218 --> 17:17.632
yes, I was. She says—
17:17.648 --> 17:19.350
You have no idea.
17:20.665 --> 17:24.395
How much your presence there impacted
17:24.895 --> 17:25.275
our community.
17:27.556 --> 17:28.418
It's something I
17:28.450 --> 17:32.029
will take to my grave. It so touched my heart.
17:33.852 --> 17:37.531
Like I said, you never know how some small act can
17:38.031 --> 17:40.648
really make a profound impact on someone.
17:41.548 --> 17:42.512
Alexi hadn't
17:43.012 --> 17:46.515
gone there to make an impact. She went because somebody she knew
17:46.824 --> 17:49.469
was grieving. And she showed up.
17:50.498 --> 17:54.627
That's all. And someone remembered.
17:55.495 --> 17:59.736
Maybe that's part of what happened after everything Alexi
17:59.849 --> 18:03.452
has survived. The big things taught her to
18:03.484 --> 18:05.795
pay attention to the small ones.
18:12.518 --> 18:16.372
Today she lives in a senior community, she'll tell you pretty
18:16.436 --> 18:19.841
quickly that retirement isn't exactly her style.
18:20.547 --> 18:23.711
She still speaks, mentors, and she still writes.
18:24.787 --> 18:28.015
Most of all, she still leaves little pieces of
18:28.515 --> 18:32.126
herself around the building, and sometimes quite
18:32.335 --> 18:32.720
literally.
18:33.218 --> 18:35.724
They all know I'm the person that tells jokes,
18:35.948 --> 18:39.337
you know, and so when they see me, okay, you know, Alexie, what's your joke
18:39.837 --> 18:43.171
for today? And You know, sometimes I'll post a quote
18:43.251 --> 18:46.521
on the board in the foyer, and it's always
18:46.553 --> 18:49.936
something to do with kindness or gratitude or,
18:50.224 --> 18:53.687
you know, something motivational. And they all know it's from me.
18:54.633 --> 18:58.304
You can never really know the true impact you have on those around
18:58.400 --> 19:01.895
you. You never know how much someone needed that smile
19:02.023 --> 19:05.935
you gave them. You never know how much your kindness turned someone's
19:06.435 --> 19:09.898
life around. You never know how much someone needed that
19:09.946 --> 19:13.572
long hug or deep talk. So don't wait to be
19:14.072 --> 19:18.112
kind, just be kind, because you never know how much someone
19:18.208 --> 19:21.738
needs it. So, you know, I'm dropping little things like this,
19:22.299 --> 19:26.070
you know, whether it was for Valentine's Day or for Christmas or
19:26.570 --> 19:29.904
Easter, like these little posters. Or, you know, I also make these
19:30.000 --> 19:33.065
heart-shaped bite-sized chocolate macaroon and the
19:33.565 --> 19:36.885
other one is a cashew truffle. I've got a little sticker that says Happiness Matters.
19:37.062 --> 19:40.528
So I'm always doing like these little things everywhere I go,
19:41.010 --> 19:45.102
and people know me for these certain little things. That doesn't necessarily mean they
19:45.167 --> 19:48.088
comment on it, but they'll,
19:48.152 --> 19:51.330
they'll give me a smile and I know they appreciate it. Not everybody,
19:51.586 --> 19:52.245
but that's okay.
19:52.806 --> 19:55.759
Not everybody, but that's
19:56.259 --> 19:59.772
okay. Maybe That's another piece of bouncing forward
19:59.804 --> 20:03.784
too. You stop needing every person to respond.
20:04.890 --> 20:08.492
Stop measuring the value of what you give by whether somebody
20:08.992 --> 20:12.548
applauds. You give it because it reflects who
20:13.145 --> 20:13.824
you've become.
20:15.490 --> 20:16.923
Yeah, I still, I'm, you know,
20:17.035 --> 20:20.884
speaking on stages and doing a little bit of mentoring. And then
20:21.705 --> 20:25.838
I have several newsletters that I publish on Social
20:26.338 --> 20:30.431
media pretty much every day. And I'm looking to start
20:30.931 --> 20:35.314
a women's group for support because my work is
20:35.814 --> 20:38.831
really heart-focused. You know, it's— yeah, I still like what I'm doing.
20:39.570 --> 20:43.665
You know, I'd like to speak more. And, you know, because I approach resilience
20:43.826 --> 20:46.862
from an emotional standpoint, not a scientific background.
20:46.958 --> 20:49.993
You know, it's— I've lived it. I've walked it. I've seen it.
20:50.893 --> 20:53.799
I've lived it. I've walked it. I've seen it.
20:55.068 --> 20:58.295
There is a difference between telling someone that life will
20:58.795 --> 21:02.245
be okay and sitting across from someone who has had to find
21:02.309 --> 21:05.280
out what okay means more than once.
21:06.307 --> 21:09.198
Alexi doesn't have the same life she started with.
21:09.920 --> 21:13.485
Not the same career. She isn't even living where she
21:13.533 --> 21:16.937
once imagined she would. She's been sick,
21:17.482 --> 21:21.249
Lost stability, and has had to start over
21:21.749 --> 21:25.818
again more than once. But listen to what she talks about
21:26.318 --> 21:28.784
now. A joke, a note,
21:29.890 --> 21:32.920
a chocolate, showing up for a friend.
21:33.930 --> 21:36.367
Small things, portable things,
21:37.521 --> 21:41.304
things you can still give when life has taken some
21:41.448 --> 21:42.731
of the bigger things away.
21:49.224 --> 21:52.453
Maybe becoming the light doesn't always look
21:52.744 --> 21:54.746
like some enormous transformation.
21:55.660 --> 21:59.121
Maybe it's just deciding sometimes
21:59.637 --> 22:03.388
that whatever happened to you will not be the only
22:03.421 --> 22:05.893
thing you hand to the next person.
22:07.001 --> 22:10.538
So I asked Alexi before we wrapped up our conversation,
22:11.326 --> 22:12.817
What keeps you smiling today?
22:13.570 --> 22:14.836
Sharing a joke with somebody.
22:15.589 --> 22:19.563
Well, that answer could not possibly be more Alexi.
22:20.861 --> 22:24.691
And I asked her if she had one piece of wisdom to give to
22:24.707 --> 22:26.566
everybody listening, what would it be?
22:26.950 --> 22:28.024
Start every single
22:28.524 --> 22:31.774
day with a self-hug. Absolutely very important.
22:32.415 --> 22:33.216
Very important.
22:33.857 --> 22:35.908
Because I was a little curious
22:36.005 --> 22:40.324
to know Whether she meant that literally or metaphorically,
22:41.062 --> 22:41.721
I asked her.
22:41.865 --> 22:45.335
Look at yourself in the mirror if you can, and cross
22:45.835 --> 22:49.013
your arms, cross your shoulders, make eye contact,
22:49.414 --> 22:53.413
and say to yourself whatever your favorite affirmation is.
22:54.634 --> 22:57.910
Alexi, thank you for sharing your story with us
22:58.344 --> 23:01.765
and reminding us that resilience doesn't always
23:01.797 --> 23:05.261
have to look heroic. Sometimes it's getting up
23:05.761 --> 23:09.027
again, walking away from something you never should
23:09.527 --> 23:12.953
have had to tolerate, or finding a new purpose when
23:13.001 --> 23:15.116
the old one is no longer available.
23:16.366 --> 23:20.212
And sometimes it's as simple as making a stranger
23:20.712 --> 23:24.058
laugh. You can learn more about Alexi and find
23:24.558 --> 23:28.929
the resources connected to her story at changehappenedpodcast.com.
23:29.507 --> 23:33.665
And don't forget to follow
23:33.841 --> 23:37.003
the show so you don't miss this Friday's Smile Drop
23:37.389 --> 23:41.706
or next Tuesday's episode, Beyond Everything Is
23:41.722 --> 23:45.382
Love, where we'll hear about the moment that changed
23:45.559 --> 23:46.056
her life.
23:46.602 --> 23:49.235
So may the rest of your day bring smiles to your face and
23:49.267 --> 23:49.957
joy to your heart.
23:59.138 --> 24:02.749
I keep thinking about that woman who stopped Alexei on the
24:03.249 --> 24:06.681
street. She had gone to a funeral, paid her respects,
24:06.826 --> 24:09.987
and gone home. And as far as she knew,
24:10.758 --> 24:14.722
that was the end of it. But someone had noticed.
24:15.123 --> 24:17.755
Someone remembered. And weeks later,
24:18.381 --> 24:21.816
that person made sure she knew that simply being
24:21.848 --> 24:25.765
there had mattered. Most of us will probably never
24:26.265 --> 24:29.684
get that conversation. We'll hold a door, we'll send a text,
24:30.198 --> 24:34.213
make somebody laugh, or sit beside someone when there isn't anything useful
24:34.713 --> 24:38.613
to say. And we'll probably never know what happened after
24:39.113 --> 24:42.146
we walked away. But do we really need to know?
24:43.109 --> 24:47.108
Alexi calls it bouncing forward, and maybe part of that is realizing
24:47.381 --> 24:51.958
we don't have to wait until our own lives are
24:52.458 --> 24:54.062
completely put back together before we have something worth giving.
24:57.160 --> 25:00.950
Change Happened, Then What? is written, edited, and produced by
25:01.450 --> 25:04.883
me, Heather Holt, at Holt Hill Studios, with supervision
25:05.301 --> 25:09.805
and multiple interruptions from Waylon and
25:10.368 --> 25:13.490
Dalton. Until next week, change happened,
25:14.294 --> 25:14.868
then what?