Dawn Taylor|1/16/2023

Transcript:

Dawn Taylor: [00:00:09] Hey, hey, hey. Welcome to Taylor Way Talks. I am the host Dawn Taylor, the owner of The Taylor Way. And I am so excited to be here today with the intimidatingly amazing, yes, I use that word, Dr. Pamela Larde. She is a professor, coach, award winning author, business owner. Guys. She is the founder of the Academy of Creative Coaching. It is an institute of coaching. She is a director of education for the Institute of Coaching with Harvard Medical School. Guys, she is an amazing, kick ass, beautiful human being who I am honored to call a friend. And we're going to dive into a pretty cool topic today. She's a big believer in joy as a life strategy and we are going to dive into that and what it takes to find joy after a divorce. So stick around. I cannot wait. And yeah, you know, we're going to do it. We're going to have a fun giveaway at the end. So see you in a bit.

Dawn Taylor: [00:01:14] Welcome, Dr. Pamela. So let's dive right in. Tell us, what is it that you wish people talked about?

Pamela Larde: [00:01:21] Wow, I, I wish people had very real conversations about how hard it is to find your joy.

Dawn Taylor: [00:01:29] 100%.

Pamela Larde: [00:01:30] Yeah. I mean, we see people who are at the top of their game. We see the people that we admire. In my case, it's always been Oprah Winfrey, and while she does tell her story, we don't always hear about sort of the challenge and what it really means to find the joy. We know what it means to be traumatized and to have difficult times. But we don't always understand that journey in terms of how do people, though, actually claim joy after these traumatic and really difficult situations that really that we all live through in one way or another.

Dawn Taylor: [00:02:06] And we totally do. So let's dive into yours. What was your situation that you overcame that you had to fight to crawl up from to find your joy?

Pamela Larde: [00:02:19] Well, I mean, there's two major points in my life in which that was the case. And the first one when I was 18 or 19, 19, and pregnant. And I was the good girl. I was the church girl and my dad was the deacon. And we had Bible studies at our house. And I was even preaching to young women about abstinence.

Dawn Taylor: [00:02:41] We laugh because my brain, my brain is like, Oh, the shame.

Pamela Larde: [00:02:49] Oh, the shame, shame.

Dawn Taylor: [00:02:51] The shame that comes with that.

Pamela Larde: [00:02:53] Yes. And I was living it until the day that my mom pissed me off. I lived, I was literally dedicated to I'm going to wait till I get married, you know, And I was serious about it. My mom made me mad because she said, Oh, you're probably out there having sex anyway. And I wasn't. And I'm a Sagittarius, very stubborn and hardheaded. So I said that day, Well, I'm going to go have sex today. And I did. And I got pregnant that day.

Dawn Taylor: [00:03:21] Oh, okay, pause for a sec, so an entire pregnancy came out of a stubborn moment with your mom?

Pamela Larde: [00:03:30] Yes.

Dawn Taylor: [00:03:31] Can we just, like, stop on that for a sec, like, that's actually hilariously bad. That's sheer determination. Stubbornness right there. Like, No, Mom, you made me mad. So I'm not just going to go against everything I've believed for, like, 19 years, but I'm also going to get pregnant at the exact same time in a singular day. That's amazing. Sorry, I shouldn't be laughing, but it's like those moments we look back on. Right?

Pamela Larde: [00:04:00] Right. Well, you know, and it wasn't my intention to get pregnant. I thought, you know, it didn't even occur to me that that could happen, actually. So but little did I know I was with a guy who was a bit predatory. And it's actually against the law now in California. So I probably, I could have pressed charges, but he pretended to put on a condom and he did not. And I didn't know my body was ovulating that day. I didn't know what ovulation was.

Dawn Taylor: [00:04:30] And didn't know what it felt like to have sex with or without a condom.

Pamela Larde: [00:04:35] Exactly. I had no idea. And when it was over, I was looking for the condom. I couldn't find it in me. I couldn't find it anywhere. I panicked. He pretended he didn't know either. He admitted to me eight months later that he did that on purpose. So it is now against the law. It's called stealthing in California.

Dawn Taylor: [00:04:55] Wow.

Pamela Larde: [00:04:56] It's a form of rape. Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:04:59] Yeah. It should be. That's brutal.

Pamela Larde: [00:05:02] But the blessing is now 26 years old and he is an amazing...

Dawn Taylor: [00:05:08] Your kids are your blessing.

Pamela Larde: [00:05:09] Yes. Yes. He's amazing. 26 year old, amazing human being. And I'm grateful. So that was like the first, but going through those early years, the turmoil with my parents and trying to figure out my life and leaving home because I just couldn't deal with their, they were just overbearing is what I'm trying to say. They were very over, they had rules. I was a college student who was now with a baby. And but I was still trying to live my life. But they would have all these restrictions. So I left home and I went away to college. And so that was its own battle as well, trying to get through college as a single mom in a city I knew nothing about, but I had a few really good friends there. And so I ended up meeting who became my husband, probably within, I don't know, a few months of me moving there. And I, my thing was I need a father for this child. That was it. That's all I knew. My family, everybody's married. Everybody has a father and a mother in the house. So I was like, I have to as well. And so I was, my mission was to get married. And I did. I won.

Dawn Taylor: [00:06:32] Wow. But like, again, like when you stop and look at that, it's and we've talked about this so much on this podcast is the things we do, the things we believe, the things, everything from the way we handle our finances to the way you found a father for your child comes down to like what had been ingrained in us.

Pamela Larde: [00:06:55] Yes.

Dawn Taylor: [00:06:56] As kids, like it's what had been taught to us.

Pamela Larde: [00:06:59] Yes, exactly. And that's, I was determined to reproduce or recreate what my parents had recreated in my life. So I got to do the same for my son. And even though there were tons and tons and tons of signs that this was not the right situation or a good situation, I just pressed forward anyway, thinking at some point he's going to figure it out and at some point I'm going to figure it out. But we'll just get married in the meantime.

Dawn Taylor: [00:07:27] I'm like, you and I both know the red flags right now. Yeah. People listening to this are like, Oh shit, that was me.

Pamela Larde: [00:07:35] I mean, and to be more specific, the red flags were things like, you know, so what drew me to him is that in the beginning, he immediately introduced me to his mother, his sister, his grandmother, three women that he absolutely adored in life. And I saw how he treated them. And I thought I could get treated like that if I become really important women in his life. And granted, I had just come out of a really toxic relationship with my son's father in which he, I mean, stealthing should tell you alone what kind of guy I was dealing with, right?

Dawn Taylor: [00:08:09] Totally.

Pamela Larde: [00:08:11] So I came out of that toxic relationship, and then this was the first guy I met. And, you know, everything looks wonderful with the next person you meet because they don't have the qualities, the same toxic qualities as the previous person.

Dawn Taylor: [00:08:26] They might have their own whole set.

Pamela Larde: [00:08:28] Yeah, they have their own toxic things. We don't pay attention to that because it's different than the previous person.

Dawn Taylor: [00:08:33] Yeah, I've heard this before with clients. Yeah, yeah.

Pamela Larde: [00:08:37] Yeah. I mean, he had a really, the previous guy had a very tumultuous relationship with his mother. It was horrible. It was horribly toxic. And then this next guy adores his mother and like, he has to be the one. So that was... But what I learned is that the love that he had for his sister, his mother, his grandmother, you know, he loves women. So.

Dawn Taylor: [00:09:06] I love that you're laughing about this.

Pamela Larde: [00:09:08] Yeah, it's just, so it didn't stop with them. He adored every woman on earth. And so when we were dating, it was maybe four months in that I found out that he was sleeping with another woman. And that became the theme of our relationship for the next 12 years. We got married six years after that first cheating incident and it never really stopped, but... As I get, you know, I'll pray, pray it out. I'll pray through it. I'll stay. I'll have faith. I will be a long hauler for this relationship.

Dawn Taylor: [00:09:43] Oh, if only I was better. It'll fix him.

Pamela Larde: [00:09:48] Yeah, exactly. So that did not last. And that led to my divorce, which, I think five years into the marriage, and that means that we had been together for a total of 11 years at that point. Five years into the marriage, I was ready to claw my way out. I just, I could not handle it. And it wasn't even just the infidelity, honestly. It was, for me, more of the, he has - I should say had because I think he's gotten better now, like he's a whole different person now. So the story I'm telling about him, it's like amazing. All my prayers finally worked for the current wife.

Dawn Taylor: [00:10:28] Congratulations. Thank you. On behalf of the current wife.

Pamela Larde: [00:10:33] Right. It's all good. But he did, he had temper issues and it was he was very difficult to talk to and all of those things. So I just felt silenced and like I was a whole other person. I couldn't be myself. And I just was suffocating in the relationship. And so I never felt good enough. I had aspirations, like I wanted, writing books and pursuing a PhD, all of those things that I really, he never really supported. So I just I had to get out of the marriage. But I had also sacrificed a lot of things to be in the marriage, moving all the way across the country to a state where I knew no one in the Midwest.

Dawn Taylor: [00:11:14] So where had you moved from? You were in California.

Pamela Larde: [00:11:16] California to Wisconsin. Totally different places.

Dawn Taylor: [00:11:21] Little bit of a change there.

Pamela Larde: [00:11:23] Yes. Yes. And taking my six year old son along on that journey. So that was a huge sacrifice to uproot him from what was home, you know. And I sold a house that I bought. So I had a son, graduated from college, immediately bought a house, got this great job, and I literally sold the house, moved to Wisconsin. And when I got there, I didn't know what he had for us, but he had this poorly maintained apartment in a basement where we didn't have any windows. The windows was like up on the top of the, you know, I'm moving out of my house in California and...

Dawn Taylor: [00:12:10] Oh, my goodness.

Pamela Larde: [00:12:11] And I'm like, what did I do? You know?

Dawn Taylor: [00:12:16] The things we do for love.

Pamela Larde: [00:12:18] Oh, my gosh.

Dawn Taylor: [00:12:19] That's it. The things we do for what we think is love.

Pamela Larde: [00:12:21] I was like, What? I don't know what to call that, but yes, yes. It was shortly after I moved there that again, there was a girlfriend that lived there. And apparently she said, Yeah, I knew all about you and I knew you were the priority. And so it began the moment I picked up and moved, you know, it was just, so I knew the whole time. I called the wedding off twice and, you know, but at some point, I just, I just went through with it. I am, as you may have figured out, I'm pretty hardheaded or determined and driven. Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:12:57] I don't know if anyone caught this. I don't know if anyone listening has figured this out yet.

Pamela Larde: [00:13:08] I'm going get--.

Dawn Taylor: [00:13:09] It's what I love about you. Yeah.

Pamela Larde: [00:13:11] I think the difference in now and then is that I have a better sense of of aligning what I want with what is healthy for me and what I actually need, you know, to maintain my, you know, to progress in life. So back then, it was just I want what I want. I don't care. I want what I want. And so, yeah, so I got what I want. I did, I got the marriage and but five years in - and I honestly don't know and I've had conversations with friends about this - what was the thing for me that clicked for me that made me say, I'm not doing this, I've done it for five years and I'm not doing this because we know people who have stayed 20 years or they wait till the kids grow up and, you know, and they maintain that.

Dawn Taylor: [00:13:53] Or they literally die in it.

Pamela Larde: [00:13:56] Literally, quite literally.

Dawn Taylor: [00:13:59] Like they'll stay until they actually die. Like they'll actually stay till death because they signed up for it.

Pamela Larde: [00:14:05] Yeah, I wrote that in my book 'Letters to the Broken Hearted'. I said I would have probably ended up being this woman in the hospital, too, because I had basically lived with clenched teeth and clenched fists and clenched everything. And I'm not even kidding literally for five years. And when I say clenched everything, I mean I was, what do you call it, constipated for five years. And I didn't associate it with the fact that I'm living with clenched everything. But I promise you, like as soon as I left, my butt, everything flowed. Like I was like, Oh, my gosh.

Dawn Taylor: [00:14:41] You had the greatest bowel movement of your life.

Pamela Larde: [00:14:44] Yes. Yes. Everything flowed and it hasn't stopped flowing since then. And that was 13 years ago. And I'm like, okay, so there is a huge connection between the levels of stress and anxiety and what you're holding on to and being willing to let go of those things. And it's like your body just responds accordingly.

Dawn Taylor: [00:15:07] Okay. Can we just, let's talk about that for a second. I literally had a conversation with a client this morning or with a friend of a client who, we were discussing this. There's a reason why there's books about like your body holds the score or whatever they are, like...

Pamela Larde: [00:15:23] Yes. The body keeps score.

Dawn Taylor: [00:15:25] 'Body Keeps Score', a great book. We'll link it in the show notes. But there is a reason why those things happen.

Pamela Larde: [00:15:30] Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:15:31] There is a reason why so many, I am such a firm believer that like all health issues that are happening, I mean, short of a broken bone, let's be honest, right? But like the majority of health issues, you not only need to see a doctor, but you need to like step back and be like, what's going on in my life?

Pamela Larde: [00:15:48] Absolutely. And that's why holistic doctors are so important. I mean, I think doctors, or I should say doctors who take holistic approaches, who are willing to sort of look at the whole picture, look at your life. I literally just changed my medical team for that reason. And if they were sponsoring me, I would say who they are and shout them out. But they are amazing because they do, they look at the whole picture from mental to physical to your bloodwork to how you're feeling on a day to day basis. And they account for all of those things and they won't give you just some sort of, Oh, you just you have high blood pressure. But what's going on that's leading to your high blood pressure, not just in what you're eating, but what else is going on in your life. They, it's, that's so important.

Dawn Taylor: [00:16:39] So let's fast forward a bit. You end up, you walk away, you get divorced. And I mean, obviously you walked away so life was perfect, right? You were just, you were so happy and filled with so much joy.

Pamela Larde: [00:16:54] Instantly.

Dawn Taylor: [00:16:55] Instantly. Isn't that how this works?

Pamela Larde: [00:16:58] Yeah, well, I have... And so what I had, what I walked away with, was probably... So my son by then was 10 or 11, so a decade of pain. A decade of trauma, starting with my son's father. And I skipped all through all the parts in which he has threatened to kill me, had threatened to kill himself, suicide, all of those things that a 19 year old is dealing with and then moving into meeting the perpetual cheater. So I had ten years of this stuff that I'm walking away with, and even though I literally left everything in the house, I left everything. I don't know what happened to my wedding dress, my ring, my clothes. I just left and I just, I was like, I'm starting, I'm just going to start new. And so I did have a moment of joy that night because I moved into my apartment. It was empty, but I danced in that living room and I, because I was like, I can't believe I did it. And I still tell, I don't know to this day - and I might need to do a study on it - but what makes people leave at five years instead of 20 years, what makes people leave to save their lives before it really does diminish to the point where you're just helpless. I don't know how and why I left at five years.

Dawn Taylor: [00:18:25] Tony Robbins, love him or hate him, makes a statement often where it's when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of the change. And that moment where I know for myself leaving things or walking away from relationships or changes that I've had to make in my life, it was like this officially hurts worse being in it, then what could possibly hurt walking away from it. And I mean a silly example, but I was dealing with severe health issues, debilitating pain. I'm talking like I was blacking out 3 to 5 times a day. I would find myself at the bottom of my stairs. I would find myself passing out in my bathroom floor, like I was in debilitating pain. And somebody recommended a way of eating to me. And I was like, Oh, I don't want to change my eating. But I literally, it was like sugar, dairy, gluten, alcohol free overnight, overnight. So like rapid shift, like grass fed, grass finished meat. Organic veggies, like all of a sudden there's like no lattes, there's no nothing. And when it came down to it, the pain of staying the same became greater than the change.

Pamela Larde: [00:19:43] Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:19:43] But it took, it took until that moment where I was actually writhing on my couch and screaming at my husband to kill me. Like literally like handing him a pillow and being like, Please, please, please. Because I was in such excruciating pain that that's what it took for me to finally go, I can make this change. And so I wonder if that's even part of it is there may have been a moment or a feeling or just a situation or something that came up. That's often what I see with clients when walking them through a divorce is a singular situation or a comment or something goes, No, I can't. I can't keep doing this because the pain of this is so hard and so bad and looking forward to what this could look like in two years, five years, ten years, 20 years. No, like that is more than I can handle. But being alone and starting from scratch and figuring out finances and figuring out all those things, like, Yeah, that seems easier right now. Yeah.

Pamela Larde: [00:20:50] That's so profound. And I think it has a lot to do with perception as well, because I wonder about people who, Oh my gosh, just leave. And I'm not a divorce advocate, but sometimes, you know, it's like leave. But I think that their perceived their perception is that leaving is going to be more painful than staying when in fact, that's not the case. It's just that fear of of the unknown.

Dawn Taylor: [00:21:17] It's the fear. So if you can get someone to face, I always have sat down and looked at clients at like, okay, so what is the worst thing that could happen? What is the absolute worst case scenario? What are all of your huge fears around this situation, whether it's leaving a business partner or leaving a relationship or leaving a job, it doesn't matter what it is, leaving a lifestyle, it doesn't matter. But when they can face all of those and be like, Oh, I could actually overcome all that. I have like a game plan in place mentally of how I could actually deal with that. All of a sudden, man, watch them walk.

Pamela Larde: [00:21:53] Well, you know, and and what also comes to mind, though, is putting yourself in the practice of major change moves, you know. So I think for me, when I was younger, I left the house when I was 19 with a baby because my parents were too overbearing. And then I started college and had to fight the college admissions people. Like, I promise you, I can do this. Let me in. I had to fight social services who said, No, we can't allow you to have government assistance while you're in college. You need to quit college and get a job. And I'm like, Are you crazy? Like, No, this is going to get me financially stable. I fought for that. I moved across the country to Wisconsin. So by then I guess I had already engaged in so many major life change initiatives for myself that maybe it wasn't such a foreign idea to just radically change my life once again. And maybe that's also in addition to what you're saying, is for people to challenge themselves to engage in major change so that if they ever have to do it to save their lives, they can.

Dawn Taylor: [00:22:57] Was part of it, too, though, is that this one you, when we're dealing with somebody else's emotional state and their boundaries, ethics, moral standards of who they are, it doesn't matter how stubborn we are, there's no guarantee of the win. Do you know what I mean? Where when your when you're dealing with government, when you're dealing with the school admissions and you're dealing with all of those things? I mean, let's be honest. You get stubborn enough and fight hard enough, they're actually going to let you get away with it just to shut you up and get you off their plate. Do you know what I mean? But in a marriage, in a marriage, it doesn't work that way.

Pamela Larde: [00:23:33] Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:23:35] And it's almost like there's this point where you just go like, I don't know if any amount of my stubbornness and fighting will actually make any change now.

Pamela Larde: [00:23:43] Yeah, because you're there, you're in there, and you all can just sit there and you're enclosed walls and have the same fight for 20, 30, 40 years.

Dawn Taylor: [00:23:53] 100%. And it doesn't change.

Pamela Larde: [00:23:56] And I believe that would have been, that would have been my life had I lived. I mean, we probably would have been married 19 years right now, I just can't imagine what I would be like, what my life would be like if I would have a life actually, you know, literally speaking.

Dawn Taylor: [00:24:15] 100% So you got out, you danced your butt off the first night.

Pamela Larde: [00:24:21] And that's where the dancing stopped.

Dawn Taylor: [00:24:23] I was going to say. And then life started.

Pamela Larde: [00:24:25] Yeah, life started. So that was my victorious moment. And one of the things that I do talk about with joy is that there's different expressions of joy, you know? So there's that momentary celebratory claim, seize the opportunity joy. And so that's what I did. But it doesn't mean that my life was at that point defined by joy or that it permeated throughout every aspect of my life. It was a moment and I am a believer. Claim those moments. Claim the moments because we always talk about, Oh, it's just fleeting, it doesn't mean anything. It means a lot. Celebrate yourself. And so that's what I did that night. But I also was about to embark on a journey of rebuilding my life. And of trying to redefine this relationship with a very bitter ex-husband-to-be who was like, How could you leave the family? How could you? You know? And we had a daughter by then. She was two years old at the time. Why would you do this? And I want my daughter and, you know, and so there were, there was this fear of what's going to happen. Is he going to fight for custody? Are we going to be able to do this co-parenting thing together? What is this going to look like? Wisconsin law says that if I left the state, if one parent leaves the state, the other parent has a right to the child as a full custody parent. But the money I was making in Wisconsin was not enough to sustain me being a single person. He brought in the bulk of the income, so I had to leave. And I did pursue another job. And I did get another job in Georgia, where I live now, that paid more than double of what I was making in Wisconsin. And so I had to humble myself and really kind of plead my case to him in terms of why it's better for our daughter and for my son and for the whole dynamic for me to be more financially stable. And because his job is an international company, they have headquarters here in Atlanta. So I'm like, just come here. Just, you know, let's just all uproot together. And I, and I knew that that was a very farfetched idea. I am a person of faith. And I believe that if you rise above the physical, what's going on today, and really in my, for my spiritual practice was praying about it, you know, and here is how I need to sort of stay focused and believe that change is going to come and then discipline myself to not do things that will thwart that change. Like fight with him and call him names and, you know, all those things, like it kept, my faith kept me in check in terms of here's what I need to do to do my part. And I know he's being a jerk right now, but he's angry and I'm going to allow him that room to be angry. I'm not going to engage in the anger and my prayer life, my, I was in church, I had spiritual mentors, all those things, and all of that kept me grounded enough to push through. And, you know, and he did, he did eventually he calmed down. We have gotten along for the last ten, 13, however many years as co-parents beautifully, but it didn't--

Dawn Taylor: [00:27:56] That's amazing--

Pamela Larde: [00:27:56] -- it took years. It took at least two years before it felt like a partnership. And then the years after that was just growth. So that was baseline partnership after two years. And then the growth began, you know, as co-parents after that. But that was a very difficult two years. If you think about how two people have been through a divorce and the anger that they must feel and the frustration and the disappointment, and now they have to figure out how to co-parent. And one parent wants to move out of state to take a job. I have seen so many divorced parents destroy opportunities to build partnerships with one another because they both are unwilling. And sometimes even when you have a willing party, the other party might still be incredibly difficult. But I was willing to take that risk and say, What if I just didn't engage him in shouting matches? What if I allowed him to be angry and just allowed him to say what he needed to say? And I remained the peacemaker no matter what. That wasn't easy.

Dawn Taylor: [00:29:04] Oh, hell no. Do you think part of that, and my husband and I had this conversation recently, right? And we've been together 26 years and married for 22 and doing good. But we had this conversation because we've had friends and associates and people that we know going through divorce right now. And the one common denominator is one person has like sat on it for a long period of time and hasn't said anything, hasn't spoken out, their frustrations, their anger, whatever, because in the past, maybe it wasn't taken. And then they surprise the partner by being like, Oh, yeah, by the way, heads up, I'm out.

Pamela Larde: [00:29:45] That was me. I was that party. Yes.

Dawn Taylor: [00:29:48] And which, in turn - and the reason why we'd had this conversation is - he's like, if you are ever even like, like the split second, your brain even goes to, like, I could actually see myself divorcing you, he's like, Can you say something so that at least I have, like, an opportunity to change or an opportunity to participate in this? And I mean, we kind of laughed about it, but legitimately, in a divorce, typically there is one person who's, they've already pre grieved, they have done, they've been angry, they've gone through all of those processes.

Pamela Larde: [00:30:22] Yes.

Dawn Taylor: [00:30:23] To such a high level that they surprise their partner, they surprised or exposed, and that person doesn't know how to keep up. And so often, and people listening like I recommend if you're the person that did the surprise I'm not saying that's right or wrong, but like if you're the surprisor in the situation, do everything in your power to give them the grace to be allowed those emotions.

Pamela Larde: [00:30:50] Yeah, because they're going to need time.

Dawn Taylor: [00:30:52] Because they do, like they need so much time to process everything that you've already been processing for so long.

Pamela Larde: [00:30:59] Exactly. And to think, Well, I've been asking for this and that, and they haven't listened or I have been saying that I need this and they haven't listened. That doesn't mean that they understand that you are on the road to divorce. Not at all.

Dawn Taylor: [00:31:13] Not at all. Often they're like, Yeah, well, I knew they were frustrated, but.

Pamela Larde: [00:31:17] Yeah, exactly. And I, I wonder... I knew, I was gonna say, how long did I know I was on the verge of divorce before I announced it? It was probably three months, but I know that the whole entire relationship was, Oh, my gosh, what did I do? Like, but at three months, that's when I knew definitively, Yep, this is it. Because it was too much. It was. I mean, it was, it was a 19 year old who lived across the street who said she wanted to be our nanny. And they had this whole sneaky relationship going on for a year.

Dawn Taylor: [00:31:49] Oh, my.

Pamela Larde: [00:31:50] Gosh. You mean while we were in therapy? You know, so, like, so what's going to work then? If this isn't working, what is going to work? And so--

Dawn Taylor: [00:32:00] Yeah.

Pamela Larde: [00:32:01] It was, so that was kind of like what you mentioned, kind of a last straw kind of situation where for me it instantly clicked and I instantly, my light for him instantly went out after that situation. And I was, I knew then.

Dawn Taylor: [00:32:16] So how did you find your joy? And let's, let's define that. So often people don't understand the difference between like joy and happy. And I've always described it as - and tell me you think different because girl, you brilliant, like I'm just going to go out there like, you guys all need to know this woman. She's amazing. But I've always talked about like happiness is something that often comes from things or from people because it's something that can be given to you, but it can be taken away. Somebody can be like, Wow, you're beautiful. And you're like, Oh, that makes me so happy. And then just as fast they could be like You're gross.

Pamela Larde: [00:32:53] You got a little thing on your you know, where did that come from?

Dawn Taylor: [00:32:56] Right? And like, instantly, like, as fast as you can imagine, your happy is gone, where joy is an internal thing and joy is something that isn't as affected by extenuating circumstances.

Pamela Larde: [00:33:10] Right. And it's so beautifully said. I mean, and it's, the other piece to that is happiness is it's insatiable. You need more, you need more, you need more.

Dawn Taylor: [00:33:20] It's like a drug.

Pamela Larde: [00:33:21] Yeah, it's like a drug. And it's not bad, but it's not sustainable. And so we have to understand, Yes, enjoy your moments of happiness. Grasp those, you know, embrace them. Yeah. Understand that these moments of happiness are not sustainable. That you need something deeper that's going to help you thrive. And joy isn't just about I feel good. Joy - and one of the coins that I termed around joy is joy resilience - joy is actually one of those things that enables you to overcome different difficult things that we go through.

Dawn Taylor: [00:34:01] That's beautiful.

Pamela Larde: [00:34:02] It's the thing that really sort of allowed me, it was my barometer. It was the thing that allowed me to leave my marriage because there was no joy there. And I remember, I know what it feels like. And this is one of the benefits that I have because of how I was raised and one of the privileges I have. So I realize everybody doesn't have this, but I do know what it feels like to be loved by a man. My dad was just all in, every game, You're pretty. You're so good at what you're doing. You're smart. And I heard that all the time. So to get into a marriage in which I never heard anything like that, in fact, I would say, How come you never compliment me? How come you never say that I look beautiful? And his response was, Beautiful is not even a word in my vocabulary. Like, I don't even use that word. And I'm like, Oh.

Dawn Taylor: [00:34:49] You're like, I bet your girlfriend hears that. That's what I would have gone, you know?

Pamela Larde: [00:34:57] So it was just like, you know, the other thing was hand-holding. Physical touch is one of my love languages. And he would never do the hand-holding thing. But I always saw my mom and dad holding hands. So I had this foundation of what experiences of joy that I had growing up as a child and the absence of that that I experienced in my marriage. And it was the joy that I experienced as a childhood that really sort of translated into a resilient joy in my marriage that made me say, I need to find that joy, I need to find that. And it allowed me to be resilient over the challenges that I faced in my marriage, enough to give me the fuel to move into a better situation in my life. So joy is functional. It's not just a feeling. It's not just, you know, a version of happiness that comes from within. It is that, but it's also a life strategy. It's also your art ethos, the way that we characterize ourselves in life. How do you even approach life? I either approach life by engaging in other people's trauma with the fighting and the arguing, or I see past what they're bringing me and I understand that they're in pain. And I, because I'm not there with them, I yeah, I've had pain, but my life isn't characterized by pain. My life is characterized by joy. So I see it right away. The disconnect like, oh, okay, I see where they're coming from. And I can have compassion and empathy for what they're going through without having to get pulled into what they're experiencing. So it's yeah, it's a life strategy. It's a protective factor. It's a lens for how we see and approach the world.

Dawn Taylor: [00:36:49] Just amazing. So we're going to we'll put a link to your book in the show notes so people can find you and all your social media and all those things. But for people listening, one of my big things on this podcast is like tangible ways to start, tangible ways to like start that journey or to start going in the right direction or the direction that they're choosing. What are some easy ways, or a couple simple strategies you could give people, to start to build that joy or find that joy for themselves?

Pamela Larde: [00:37:19] Yeah, and I, I still live those strategies 13 years later. Two really important ones that come to mind right away, and I do talk about these strategies more specifically in the book. If I had the book, I'd be like, it's these. But the two that come to mind right away for me is getting physically active, exercise. So I found ways to just stay active. And it wasn't necessarily for a goal, like I'm going to lose 20 pounds, or I'm going to do this, because that puts more pressure on you. You know?

Dawn Taylor: [00:37:51] Oh and it also turns it into a negative so often in our brains.

Pamela Larde: [00:37:54] Yes, Yes. But so to do it just for the sole purpose of getting your body moving, wherever you've been the clenched fists and the clenched innards, the clenched teeth, you're loosening all of that up. You're enabling yourself, just your body, the freedom of movement. And there's just something about that freedom of movement that it just changes you from the inside out. So the unexpected result of that was that I acquired the most amazing body I had ever had in life at that time. But it wasn't necessarily my goal. It just happened because I dove in so deeply, into just I'm going to run every day, I'm going to, and I just was so committed to what I... It just felt so good in my body to be able to do that. And so everybody has a different thing. It might not be running for everybody.

Dawn Taylor: [00:38:52] Even just like a dance party in your kitchen, like put on your favorite songs and dance.

Pamela Larde: [00:38:57] Just move. Yeah. And so for me, it's been walking lately. It's been yoga. Yoga, oh, my gosh. I just adopted yoga in the last few months. But yeah. So whatever it takes, move your body. So that's one. The other one for me was to tap more deeply into my spirituality. And again, like I mentioned, it allows you to rise above the physicality of everything that's going on. And if we, thank God I didn't get divorced in this time. So for those of you who are going through those things, it's a hard time right now. The world is just--

Dawn Taylor: [00:39:33] Oh, it is so black and white and so hard.

Pamela Larde: [00:39:37] So, and so I, I went through during a different time, but I was able to sort of rise above all of the things, the physicality of all the things, that were going on in the world and to really focus more on what's going on internally with me, my healing and then what my hopes are for the future. So it wasn't that I abandoned the modern day, but it allowed me not to just get so steeped in the modern day that that's all I saw. And I think spirituality does that for us. And so we have a lot of different ways to engage in our spirituality. So it depends on what works for you. For me, I probably overdid it. I was in church every day and, because there was like regular service and then there was Bible study and there was women's groups and I mean, there was always, there was something every day. So I just dove all the way in for what I needed at that time. At this point in my life, my spirituality looks very different after COVID. I haven't been in church since COVID, but I'm very, I am still very connected, just as connected as I was back then. Different strategy, same results. So I believe firmly that there's a lot of different ways to tap into our spirituality. And so those two were major for me. But I'll add the third one, which was what I now call, I didn't know when I wrote the book, but now that I'm writing Joyfully Single, which isn't out yet, so, you know, but there's this concept that I've talked about called Communities of Joy. Build your Communities of Joy. And that was essential for me. I had people that I made sure I had in my life and I curated it. So it doesn't mean I had them already.

Dawn Taylor: [00:41:19] Okay. Talk about the curating for a second. We often don't give the power that we should to what we're surrounding ourselves with and how it affects us.

Pamela Larde: [00:41:32] Yeah, yeah. We think that what's around us are, is really what our options are.

Dawn Taylor: [00:41:38] No, we have to curate, like I'm talking from your social media feeds, to what you're reading, to what you're watching, to what you're eating, to your friends in your life. All of it. Every single thing.

Pamela Larde: [00:41:50] Yes, with intention. One of the people that I have been following very closely is Dr. Marisa Franco, and she, her whole entire research line is around how adults can build friendships. Because with adulthood, we have more challenges doing that, because we are, I mean, when we were kids and even in college, we have these communities that are built in for us and all we have to do is engage with those people. As adults we're isolated in a lot of ways, and especially now after COVID.

Dawn Taylor: [00:42:24] Oh gosh. Yes

Pamela Larde: [00:42:25] Prior to COVID, all we had were our coworkers.

Dawn Taylor: [00:42:28] You know what's hilarious? I'm literally recording a podcast next week on, with a man, on how hard it is to find friends as an adult.

Pamela Larde: [00:42:37] It's so true. So, okay, so I'm talking about this, but I should... How do you curate? So the curation part for me came with joining like the weirdest groups, like Bunko. I don't know if anybody's heard of Bunko.

Dawn Taylor: [00:42:51] No. What is this thing?

Pamela Larde: [00:42:53] I honestly can't even tell you. I don't remember. It was 13 years ago. And how do I not remember? All I know is one of my friends said there's a group of women who play bunko every Thursday, game with me, and I was like, Sure. And so I did. I joined her and we went to Bunko every Thursday. And it's so sad because I don't remember the game. All I remember is the fellowship.

Dawn Taylor: [00:43:14] That is so funny.

Pamela Larde: [00:43:16] I remember that we baked cookies together and we did all these things that I never would have thought of doing. We had a wine bottle night where we would cover up the bottles of wine so we wouldn't know what it is and we would try them and do a competition about who bought the best bottle of wine. So but it put me into, it immersed me into a community. I did pole dancing, so I'm going to church on Saturday and then I'm pole dancing, or going to church on Sunday, pole dancing on, you know. But there was the pole dancing class, and there's a combination of women. Some were college girls and others were women like myself, like, Hey, I'm fresh out of divorce. Others were married women who were like, Hey, I want to impress my husband. Yeah, it was really cool.

Dawn Taylor: [00:44:01] Oh, that is so funny.

Pamela Larde: [00:44:02] Yeah. And so there was a lot of different ways. I, there is a website that I don't even know exists anymore. It might, but meetup.com. When I left Wisconsin and moved to Atlanta, I looked for people who had similar interests. I looked for book groups, writing groups. I joined a science, a sci-fi fantasy science writing group, and I still have the sci-fi fantasy book kind of outlines that I want to write, but it was so cool to be in here with this room of people I never would have been engaging with otherwise, because they're just not in my circles. And so you have to be intentional about how you're going to drop yourself into a new space of people. And some will work out beautifully and others just may not be your match. It's okay. You just move on and you, but you keep being intentional about curating those communities of joy.

Dawn Taylor: [00:44:57] Which is so beautiful. It's, I think that we get so caught in the weeds of life. We get so caught in how hard it is in the moment that we stop realizing how much control we actually still have.

Pamela Larde: [00:45:13] Yes.

Dawn Taylor: [00:45:14] So while we're out of control in our marriage, we're out of control with our health, or we have all these other things that are totally out of our control in the moment, we kind of curl up and die instead of realizing that like, no, no, no... We still actually have things in our lives that we are in control of, that we can fix or curate or treat different or make beautiful and healthy. And I know I said to someone this last winter while I was going through my health stuff, I mean, you and I had been chatting and you knew my whole world was kind of falling apart for a bit. And in the middle of that, someone was like, Oh, what are you doing tonight? And I was like, Oh, I'm going to binge watch this silly, ridiculous show on Netflix. And they're like, Why? They're like, That's so lame. And I was like, Because it's going to make me laugh and it's going to make me happy and I'm going to fall asleep with a smile on my face, not thinking about the trauma of having had IVs for that long today.

Pamela Larde: [00:46:09] Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:46:10] And people were like, Oh, okay. And it was from what I wore to how I did my hair or my makeup, to the earrings in my ears. Like, I'm talking like everything in my world was like, I'm not listening to it unless it brings me joy right now. I am not eating it if it is not bringing my body nutrition and joy right now, I am not doing that thing because society has told me I should or I have to or people are pressuring me, because in that moment when everything felt so out of control, that's what I got to control, right?

Pamela Larde: [00:46:48] Exactly. We get to control our joy. We can't always control our happiness because it depends on what's being brought to us. But we can control our joy.

Dawn Taylor: [00:46:59] 100% and we can filter the happiness thing. Like in those moments, I didn't phone people that made me grumpy. I didn't hang out with people that sucked the life out of me. I didn't, I didn't watch all the gross murder shows that cause my brain to go dark. Right? Like, it's, we have so much more control than we realize.

Pamela Larde: [00:47:24] Absolutely.

Dawn Taylor: [00:47:25] And I just want to inspire anyone listening to this before we jump into the fun little questions to get to know you better, I just want to inspire anyone who's listening to this to realize that, like, you are worth more than your circumstances.

Pamela Larde: [00:47:39] Absolutely.

Dawn Taylor: [00:47:40] And you can overcome so much more than you could ever imagine. Face the horrible, face the worst case scenario. Come up with an action plan of how to deal with it. And then take the steps.

Pamela Larde: [00:47:52] Absolutely. Take care of you.

Dawn Taylor: [00:47:54] Because it's no one else's job.

Pamela Larde: [00:47:56] Yeah. And you rise into better circumstances, you know? Yeah. It's beautiful.

Dawn Taylor: [00:48:01] Oh, this is so fun. I know you and I could talk all day on this. We totally could. But let's do just some fun, silly questions. So I know you personally. I know you are like a massive travel junkie, like, trip a month. What is, what are a few of the favorite places you've ever traveled?

Pamela Larde: [00:48:24] Costa Rica. Hands down.

Dawn Taylor: [00:48:27] That's your place?

Pamela Larde: [00:48:29] Yeah. That's new for me. And it was the first time I had been there in July. And the level of peace I felt when my feet hit the ground was like, What is this place?

Dawn Taylor: [00:48:42] It's amazing.

Pamela Larde: [00:48:44] Yeah. And it was maintained the whole time, even driving on the roads. Peace. And I'm like, There's nobody honking. There's nobody on my tail. It was just, just so peaceful and... Yeah, so definitely I'm just going to just put Costa Rica on the top of the list. Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:49:03] Like, that's the one and only is just Costa Rica. Describe yourself in one sentence.

Pamela Larde: [00:49:11] I am joyful. I know that sounds very cliché and corny, but I'm joyful.

Dawn Taylor: [00:49:17] You are? What is something you spend a silly amount of money on other than travel?

Pamela Larde: [00:49:24] I was gonna say travel.

Dawn Taylor: [00:49:27] We know this.

Pamela Larde: [00:49:28] Ok. Amazon stuff.

Dawn Taylor: [00:49:31] Do you have a thing? Do you like a thing you buy a lot of?

Pamela Larde: [00:49:35] That's a really good question because it's just a hodgepodge.

Dawn Taylor: [00:49:41] I spend a silly amount of money on original art. That's one of mine. And Lego sets, it's a problem. Oh, girl. Yeah, it's a problem.

Pamela Larde: [00:49:52] For me, it just has to be travel. It's, you know, I'll tell you why it's silly, because it's not just like, Oh, she's going on a trip. No, I've become bougie with my travel, so I am going to not just get a regular hotel. No, I'm going to get an Airbnb with all the things and it's just me. I'm like, in this four bedroom Airbnb and just, you know.

Dawn Taylor: [00:50:18] So it's travel, travel's your thing.

Pamela Larde: [00:50:20] The flights, I am like, I got to go first class. Now that I can. When I first started this travel thing, I would have to find $30 flights so I can afford to do it. Now I'm like, I'm going to fly first class. That's like a ridiculous amount of money. So I don't do purses or shoes or, it's the travel. That's where I splurge.

Dawn Taylor: [00:50:40] That is amazing. What is one purchase you've made for $100 or less that has incredibly impacted your life in the last little bit?

Pamela Larde: [00:50:52] I want to say this Fitbit, because it really, it helps me pay attention to how much I'm moving and how much I'm sedentary. And I don't like to just be sitting. And sometimes when I have days where I'm not paying attention, I can just sit. Because I'm a writer, I can sit all day. I can do eight hour writing sessions without getting off the couch or out of the chair or wherever I am. And so this helps me realize, Get up.

Dawn Taylor: [00:51:28] It's a problem.

Pamela Larde: [00:51:29] Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:51:32] What is - two more - what is an unusual habit? Or just like, a weird, absurd thing that you love?

Pamela Larde: [00:51:42] Oh, I don't know. People do say I'm weird and quirky. I do, with my writing - this might work - I can't do too much creative work at home. I have to go somewhere. So I am known for sitting at bars with either my laptop or my journal. And I'm writing and I'm at the bar and everybody else is flirting and doing their things. And I'm sitting there writing and it's a great conversation starter because I often get approached and people often wonder, how do you even focus? But for some reason, all the energy of the people, I don't know. It just, it gives me energy in my writing.

Dawn Taylor: [00:52:20] Hey, I love that because I'm the same. I cannot write at home. I can't write in Edmonton where I live. I have to go somewhere where all of my other senses are so distracted and feeling out of control.

Pamela Larde: [00:52:34] Yes.

Dawn Taylor: [00:52:35] It's like my brain is busy enough with all that, that everything else can just flow and I'm good.

Pamela Larde: [00:52:40] That explains it well, because I don't know why that works for me so well, but it does.

Dawn Taylor: [00:52:45] It's because I lose total control. I lose total control of being able to filter what I'm writing in that moment because my brain is so focused on everything else. It's like it opens up the other side. Like the logic side of my brain is focused on stay safe and alive, right? It's like the emotional side of my brain, The artist side of my brain can be like, Oh, I'm writing a book. This is good, right? That's what it is for me.

Pamela Larde: [00:53:12] It's true. I mean, I have to think about that because, yeah, I just, if I'm in a quiet room like this, I'm going to go to sleep. I don't know. I'm just not gonna write.

Dawn Taylor: [00:53:20] Because then you're like, But in the bar it makes sense to my brain because I'm like, No, you're listening to all the other conversations and the noise and the music and the sights and the smells and like everything. So all your senses are going.

Pamela Larde: [00:53:31] Yes.

Dawn Taylor: [00:53:32] And I think I know the answer to this one. But if you could live anywhere in the world, no holds barred, money doesn't matter, kids, nothing. Where would you live?

Pamela Larde: [00:53:41] Right now it's Costa Rica. Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:53:44] I was like, I don't even need to ask.

Pamela Larde: [00:53:46] I've been kind of like, even researching specific areas, and right now it's Escazu, Costa Rica and I haven't been there yet, but I'm going to try to spend a month there next next year. And so I think it's Escazu.

Dawn Taylor: [00:53:58] Nice. I love that so much.

Pamela Larde: [00:54:01] Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:54:02] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here today with us. It was such a blast to hang out and talk and dive into joy and how people can find that coming out of a rough situation. And really, it's any situation, whether it's the end of a job, end of a marriage, whatever it is, whatever it is, but how to find that again? So if you want to find Dr. Pamela, she is all over the place. Check the show notes on my website, TheTaylorWay.ca. You can find all of her links to where to get her books, her website, her coaching school, all of it. So you can track her down and see what she's up to and please support her in what she's doing, and order those books because she's outstanding. If you love this episode today, please leave a review on Apple or Spotify - wow, my words - podcasts and we will see you again in a couple weeks. Thank you so much.

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