EP294: Health Blindsides - How Getting Rocked in The Most Vulnerable Way Can Change Your Legacy Forever

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Welcome to the Leadership Formula podcast where you will learn the secret sauce behind achieving massive success. I'm your host, Tracy o', Malley, multimillion dollar entrepreneur, your Enneagram expert, master performance coach and mom to millennials. Do you want deep, meaningful relationships, to wake up every day with purpose and make money doing something you love? Well, you've landed in the right place. Every week I will teach you how to get exactly what you want in life by strengthening your emotional intelligence. Using a combination of the Enneagram framework, live life coaching sessions, and real talk from yours truly, it's time to transform yourself into the ultimate leader of your life. Let's do this thing.

Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Leadership Formula podcast. I'm your host, Tracy o' Malley and it is Thanksgiving week and I know this time of year we get excited about, but it also brings up a lot of feelings, a lot of feelings. And depending on maybe what you were taught, told or modeled, how you deal with those feelings. Our tb. Right. And I know if you listen, you are probably into personal growth and wanting to up level your life. And although maybe you've even gone to events, listen to podcasts, hired coaches, taken courses to improve certain things in your life in the way that you deal with things. And there's no shame in that game. We're all human. But maybe you're not getting the traction you want. And I get it. It took me about 40 years to really get it and I started, you know, in air quotes, personal development 12 years before that. So just know that I get it. So this week to continue the series on blind sides and how they can actually be the very thing that help you prevail instead of being the thing that derails you, takes an elegance in understanding yourself and maybe even some other people. And last week I talked about financial blindsides and, and I've been through that. And this week I wanted kind of touch on maybe a health crisis as a blind side and that could be your own personal one or somebody that you love or care about, because I've experienced both. And I'm telling you, when you lose somebody suddenly, and I know for many of you this might be your first holiday season without somebody very, very close to you, somebody that you've lost in 2022 or the end of 2021, and you don't know how you're going to deal with without that person maybe at your table or in your life anymore here on earth. And it's hard, I'm not going to minimize that. That isn't hard. And I'm not going to say that they're in a better place and everything happens for a reason. Because when you're in that, that's the last thing you want to hear. Or even when it's yourself, right? Maybe you've been hit with a diagnosis or debilitating health stuff. I've been there. And when people are saying it'll get better, it get better. When you're living it, it does not feel like that. So I'm not going to be patronizing and say that any of those blind sides feel good. And when you're in it, hearing that does not help. I get it. I will say this though, that anything that should happen, we can turn into something beautiful. But usually it doesn't get turned into something beautiful till we take ourselves through our own little grieving process. And I'm not saying little to minimize it because it's an evolving, ever evolving grieving process. When it comes to a blind side in a loss of someone or like even if they haven't passed away, you know, they're still here on earth, but they're not the same person that you once loved. I, you know, I have a mom that's still alive that I really don't have much of a relationship anymore, you know, and it was a couple years ago, she was hit with a cancer diagnosis, but I can tell like her mind has already gone and she, she isn't the same person. Ten years ago my dad was hit with a 12 day cancer diagnosis and he went from being here on earth to gone in a matter of days. The closest person I've ever had in my life had six to seven month cancer diagnosis. And he went from being the strongest human I've ever known to a shell. And that's terrible. It's terrible to watch, it's terrible to come to terms with they're not going to be here earthside with us and how I've dealt with that. There are still times like I would die for five minutes with them. I really, really would. The beautiful thing that I believe about eternal life and you know, whatever your beliefs are, your beliefs are, it doesn't minimize that they're not here, that you can't get their hugs, their wisdom, their love, whatever it is that you miss most about them, there is beautiful healing that comes in the relationship that you carry on with them. And if you believe in a higher power, whether you call it God, the universe, a divine, whatever, all those relationships, they need maintenance, right? It's. Relationships are a give and take and effort and consistency put into them. And one of the beautiful gifts I have found with losing people suddenly and and without warning due to health stuff is that I can carry on their gifts and their wisdom through an after kind of life relationship with them. It doesn't take away the sadness sometimes, but there's something beautiful about the living legacy that moves on. You know, especially with my dad losing him 10 years ago. My kids were 14 and 15 at the time. And although they got a beautiful taste of Papa o' Malley's wisdom, they didn't really grasp at the time the magnitude of his wisdom or his gifts. Even though he was spicy, salty, Aries enneagram8 My dad was, because of the continuous tapping into his wisdom even though he's not here earthside anymore, not only do I get to benefit from it, my kids do too. Now it doesn't mean that we don't feel sadness or anger that they're gone and try to bargain to bring them back. And all the things like there are waves that come and go and that's the beautiful evolution of the emotional process. It really, really is. And grieving, I don't stay stuck in any one of the emotions. And this is the message here with any of the blind sides is we have to feel the things. Like for the longest time I could just live in anger or denial. Quite honestly, denial is a big one that I like to live in because it doesn't feel productive. I live in it because feeling sadness doesn't feel productive, right? But the more that I either lived in anger or denial, the more that these unsettling feelings and acceptance and transformation and the gift of legacy couldn't go on. So we have to feel the full scope and we don't have to lay and stay in any one of those feelings for too, too long when it comes to your own health. Blindside. It was about five and a half years ago now that literally my own funeral, I was planning my own funeral. There was health concerns that were coming, my brain was going, my body was breaking down. No explanation. 14 specialists couldn't figure it out. And it wasn't until I kind of put some connecting the dots and recognized that there was an autoimmune thing due to some breast implants. I had a savage beast called Lyme disease kind of hitting me. And you know, I went from being this radiant, vibrant, thriving, sharp, tenacious 40 year old to a crippled shell of a 45 year old pretty much in over the course of two and a half years. And when you're faced with your own mortality, it can be very scary. And as a single parent, you know, looking at my children like, I don't want to leave them yet. I don't want to leave them yet. And, you know, when I finally figured out what was going on, it wasn't just an easy fix. Take a pill. Here you go. I mean, I basically had to take my whole body back to ground zero and removed implants and wiped out my calendar for a year and financially drained my bank account of, you know, over $200,000 of. Of stuff. And when I was going through treatment to kind of get my body and brain back, I remember sitting next to a bunch of people that were given similar diagnosis. Some were faced with a cancer diagnosis. They were like stage four oncologists pretty much were like, yeah, we can't help you anymore. I remember some of them had the gift of what I'm about to share with you, and some of them really, like, took that diagnosis and allowed themselves to stay stuck in pain. Now, it's pretty sad to say that most of the people that I was in treatment with lost their lives. There's, like, two of us left, and some people went down the doom and gloom road. And I'm not judging anyone. Like, your process is your process. And then there was one woman. I'll never forget her. She was so beautiful. And she walked in and she was tall, and. And she got such a terrible diagnosis. Like, she's had three different cancers, all stage four, yet she walked into this room in this beautiful yellow dress and just smiling and happy. And even though she knew her days were numbered, she did. And she had many, many children. In fact, she was so excited because one of her sons was getting married and she was going to make it. Like, it's almost like she was putting. Enough, doing enough here. Like, she knew, like, God was calling her home, but she's like, I will dance with my son at my wedding. And she did. But it was shortly after that that. That her life here on earth was over. The point of this is we can choose at any moment to deliver whatever, to handle with whatever has been given to us. Whether, you know, like I talked about last week, a financial blindside, a health blindside. I'm not saying it's not scary. I don't think I've ever been more scared in my life than I was during that time. But we can use it, especially if we know that we're not going to make it here on Earth or people that we love. It's not our jobs to tell People, how to feel, how to grieve, how to process. I'm not here to tell anyone anything, but I'm going to just offer some wisdom. In my 50 years and experience in this area as somebody who's been on the sidelines for somebody that I love and also in the arena for myself, that the more that we can find the gifts and the beauty in it, like in 2017, I didn't think I was going to make it. So I was like, okay, I don't want to be in the sadness, even though I'm feeling sad because I might not be here for my kids. What do I want them to walk away with if I don't make it right? And it was love and legacy and wisdom that I can't take with me. When I was sitting bedside with my uncle the last months of his life, gaining as much of his wisdom and perspective on those that are exiting the earth, that is what I wanted to leave with my kids. I will say this. Earlier this year, I was having some concerns. Early in 2022, I was having some concerns, and there was some stuff happening in my body that made me a little nervous. And it's interesting because I am a power through it typically kind of girl. But these experiences of watching blindsides happen to those that I love, experiencing my own. Five years earlier, instead of just powering through in denial, I took proactive action and, you know, got MRIs and CAT scans and heart testing and all sorts of things that I never would have done. And, you know, I had to kind of deal with the thoughts, my old conditioning, believing that maybe I was being a hypochondriac or, you know, making something out of nothing. Right. And I had to really, really navigate that and reframe it, because I do want to be here and actually being strong and taking action and taking care of our health. It's so super important. You have to honor the vessel. And even in honoring the vessel, it doesn't guarantee that nothing is going to happen. But it's what we do with what happens, that is what matters. And I remember sharing with my kids that I was concerned earlier in the year. How I delivered that message to my enneagram2 daughter was very different than how I delivered it to my enneagram2son. But it was a beautiful learning moment that. And here's the other thing. The people that I've lost in my life, some of them could have prevented some of this and could have taken different action to maybe not end up where they were, right? Still no judgment. But I learned a lot from watching that. And I, you know, when I was processing my anger for them leaving, it was like if, if I was ever faced with that, how would I respond differently? Right? No judging, you know, because you don't get it till you get it right. And it's usually in losing someone or facing your own mortality that you really understand some of your coping mechanism mechanisms when it comes to uncertainty with health. And this denial that I had and anger and powering through was not the answer. I saw how that played out for the two most important men in my life before, you know, so take care of the vessel. Take care of the vessel. Do what you need to do. We live in a weird time where, you know, the healthcare crisis is no joke. Be your own best advocate. Unfortunately, like the readily available medical system isn't great no matter where you live, it seems. It's a business and it sucks. And I wish it was different, but, you know, what we can do here on earth is honor the vessel as best as possible. And you know, for most of my life, I treated my health and my body like it was only for the outside to see. You know, everything that I did for the body, the way that I ate, the way that I moved, it was all for aesthetic reasons, quite honestly. It wasn't for longevity and this vivacious kind of thriving that I do live today. And the beautiful gift that came from my own health blindside was understanding the nervous system, somatic healing, also honoring the vessel in a way, the hormones, and I'm not just talking about like my age ones, my 50 year old hormones, I'm talking about cortisol and your adrenal hormones. All of that plays into all of this. And when dealing with a blind side, our hormones take on new life. And it's such a beautiful gift that I got. I wouldn't wish what I went through on any, on anyone. I really, really wouldn't wish it because it sucks when you get blindsided with that and, and it's painful and it's expensive and it's scary and it's disruptive and all the things, but the gifts that I chose to get from it, not just my own stuff, but watching my dad and my uncle specifically have their life taken too soon so that I can move forward in a different way and at 50 years old be thriving physically like I never have before. Even with the earlier in the year, my concerns, those were all clear. There was some things, but nothing that wasn't figureoutable. All of the specialists that I went and saw, I Think I saw a total of five different specialists earlier in the year, and all of them commended me for being proactive because they see a lot of people that wait too long. Don't wait. Take care of your body. Honor it. Honor it. Not for a physical outcome. It's so weird that any of the workouts or movement that I do today has nothing to do with what I want the outside to look like. But out on the outside, I feel more confident than I've ever felt in my life because I know that it's coming from a place of honor. So what's the point of this episode, right? You know, I talk about blindsides, and as we are about to celebrate Thanksgiving, I know your heart might be sad. I know maybe you're looking back at 2022 with unmet goals or. Or maybe your whole perspective has changed because you've lost something or someone or your own kind of vitality and you don't know how to give back because you're in the fear of it, or you're in the anger of it, or like me, you might be in the denial phase of it. Whatever it is. I want you to take an honest, loving, honorable look at where you're at and how you can turn some of life's most unexpected, scary things into something beautiful. I know that we don't want to believe that horrible, unfair things happen for a reason. It doesn't make sense. We can't make sense of it. And we can turn something into. So hard, into something very, very beautiful. This is how we break generational patterns. This is how we change cycles. This is how we change our DNA. There's a book called Dirty Jeans Out Dr. Lynch, I believe, is the name of the author. When I was going through my health crisis five years ago, I read that book. And, you know, there were some things that came up in my health stuff that I was like, wait a second, like, if this is a DNA mutation, how come it didn't come up before? And I recognized in reading this beautiful book that we can change the way our DNA is expressed and how that goes with, like, the enneagram, right? Like, we can't change our DNA that we were born with, but we can change how it gets expressed. Your enneagram type and me being at 8, how I would have handled this, you know, 15 years ago versus, you know, this last decade. Like, I'm still an 8. I was an 8 then, I'm an 8 now. But how I deal with it and how I express my eightness and dealing with a blind Side like, our health can absolutely change. Go get that book, Dirty Jeans. It's pretty powerful. You may not be open to it and that's okay. Like I said 15 years ago, I probably would have been like, that's bullshit. But, you know, this is the beautiful gift in your own perspective shifting. When you are faced with a blind side like health and understanding how you deal with the blind side, a lot of that can be helped in getting to maybe a healthier place where you don't feel so all over the place with your emotions and how you deal with things like we have emotions and we need to feel all of them. But regulating our emotions is really, really key, especially if you're facing your own health crisis. Sometimes our emotional deregulation makes our health stuff even worse. And I gotta say, the Enneagram has really, really helped me. Even when I'm afraid, even when I know that I'm about to lose somebody that I love, even when, you know, at 50 years old, my body doesn't do what it always did and I have to adjust. Understanding the Enneagram and how to integrate that and how to regulate my emotions really keeps things in check and allows me to make magic and beauty out of some hard things. If you don't know your Enneagram type or you're not sure of it, 65 to 70% of you are mistyped on the Enneagram. I have an amazing opportunity for you to be typed properly. And it doesn't require you at this point now having to sit in front of me, which, although, you know, I know some of you would like that, but some of you are like, yeah, hell no, you scare me. Or maybe you don't have the time or resources to do that. And I totally understand. So I've been working on something for the last decade to be able to bring you a typing process that I feel really, really great about. And in doing that, I have created blueprints for each Enneagram type and your subtype. So I've talked at length on episodes prior about the instinctual response to life. And when we're talking about blindsides, that instinctual response can really drastically change how your Enneagram type gets expressed. And in these 75 page blueprints that you get with my typing assessment, you understand what your instinctual response is. And this, this might help you make a lot more sense and allow you to integrate this information so you can emotionally regulate yourself. Even in your lifetime's biggest, scariest blindsides that that may come your way. It's truly a gift. It doesn't take away the hurt, the sadness, the pain, the anger, the, you know, all the feelings, but it allows you to move through them at least this wave and then the next wave and the next wave. Because it' is not a box we check. None of this life is a box we check. You know, there's layers to all of this, and understanding and integrating the Enneagram into your life will allow you to handle all the things that life presents you with with elegance, with grace, with love, with compassion, with empathy and honor. And honor is the most beautiful part. And that is the gift of the Enneagram is being able to look at yourself and move through your life with honor. And also look through the lens at other people with the same kind of compassion and honor as well. Even those that really piss you off or trigger you. You can go to Tracy O' Malley.com the work with me section. Your Enneagram blueprints are available and I'm running a special this week of Thanksgiving. You can use the code THANKFUL22 to get 20 off your Enneagram type blueprint. As always, I'm super super grateful for you. I'm thank that you come here week after week to gain whatever wisdom and knowledge I have to pass on to you. I want to pay it forward. And if you are hurting this Thanksgiving holiday season, I just want you to know that I love you, I care about you, I'm here for you and it'd be my honor to help guide you through so that you can move forward and move through life's hardest things. As always, I love you. We'll talk soon.

I'm so happy you enjoyed the Leadership Formula podcast. Please help us spread the word about this show by sharing it with a friend and leaving a written Apple podcast review. If you have any follow up questions to this episode, you can DM me directly on Instagram at traceyomalley. You can also find additional resources resources on my website@tracy oalley.com I'm excited to lead you into the next level of your life.