Manders Mindset

94: Confronting Family Secrets & Embracing True Identity with Jill Krzyanowicz AKA Margo Reilly

• Amanda Russo • Episode 94

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In this episode of Manders Mindset, Amanda speaks to Jill Krzyanowicz, a personal empowerment mentor, author, and former educator. Jill shares her incredible journey from overcoming a traumatic childhood filled with dysfunction, violence, and addiction to becoming an empowered, spiritually awakened woman. Her story of resilience, healing, and transformation will inspire anyone who has faced adversity. We explore the importance of breaking generational curses, uncovering painful family secrets, and the steps Jill took to reclaim her life, including her sobriety journey and the release of her two memoirs.

Jill also opens up about the moment she decided to seek the truth about her biological father, a discovery that led to a life-altering journey of self-discovery and healing. 

If you've ever struggled with family dynamics, addiction, or finding your true self, this episode is packed with powerful insights and tools to inspire your own transformation.

In this episode, you'll learn:

  • How Jill overcame a traumatic childhood of addiction, violence, and dysfunction, and the critical mindset shifts that supported her journey
  • The steps Jill took to uncover her truth and break free from painful family legacies
  • How to create new, positive rituals (e.g., journaling, meditation) to replace unhealthy habits and nurture growth
  • Why breaking generational curses starts with self-reflection and openness to the truth
  • Ways to identify and address any underlying family trauma that may impact your present
  • How to prioritize self-care practices, such as daily journaling, to promote personal healing and transformation

Episode Highlights:

  • [0:34] - Introduction to Jill Krzyanowicz From educator to empowerment mentor.
  • [2:32] - Jill reflects on her traumatic childhood and dysfunctional family.
  • [8:19] - How Jill's experiences shaped her desire to break free from family patterns.
  • [17:01] - Jill’s sobriety journey and how it led to her spiritual awakening.
  • [33:22] - Jill’s life-changing discovery about her biological father through a DNA test.
  • [48:57] - Jill on breaking generational curses and embracing the power of truth.
  • [53:56] - Jill’s upcoming memoir “When You Shake the Family Tree,” and how it delves deeper into her journey of self-discovery.


To Connect with Amanda:

To Connect with Jill and Her Resources:

  • Jill’s website: JustBeingJill.com
  • Pre-order Jill’s upcoming memoir, "When You Shake the Family Tree"
  • Check out her first book, "When the Apple Falls Far From the Tree" on Amazon

If you enjoyed today’s episode, don’t forget to subscribe, leave a 5-star rating, and share it with someone who might benefit from Jill’s powerful story. Remember, you're only one mindset shift away from shifting your life!

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Manders Mindset Podcast. Here you'll find both monologue and interviews of entrepreneurs, coaches, healers and a variety of other people when your host, Amanda Russo, will discuss her own mindset and perspective and her guest's mindset and perspective on the world around us. Manders and her guests will help explain to you how shifting your mindset will shift your life will help explain to you how shifting your mindset will shift your life.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to Amanda's Mindset, where we explore the power of shifting your mindset to shift your life. I'm your host, amanda Russo, and I am here today with a very special guest, jill Krasinowski. She was in public education for 25 years and she has now dedicated her use of her master's degree and teaching experience to become a personal empowerment mentor. Jill wrote her first memoir and it was published in 2022, entitled when the Apple Fell from the Tree, and it outlines a lifetime of adversity and the tools she used to make it to the other side of all of the adversity she faced, from growing up in a chaotic house of violence to cancer recovery, weight loss, surgery, a newly sober lifestyle, a spiritual thing. We're going to get into all of that and more, because Jill feels compelled to share all the gifts she's discovered on her path of personal growth.

Speaker 2:

She's the creator of the blog site JustBeingJillcom and she writes under the pen name, margot Riley. Jill's also recently completed a life coaching course and soon hopes to be assisting others with their own transformational journeys, and she's getting ready to release her second memoir, when you Shake the Family Tree, and that will be launching in December of 2024. And I am so excited to delve into that book and all of Jill's story. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Speaker 3:

Thank you for having me. I'm delighted to be here and be part of your community.

Speaker 2:

Of course. So I'd love if we could backtrack a little bit and you could lay the foundation for us a little bit about your upbringing childhood family dynamic.

Speaker 3:

Let's go back to the beginning. Let's just say that I was born and raised into quite the dysfunctional family Back in 1974, both of my parents were very big alcoholics. They were also very emotionally immature in that they had us kids when they were pretty young and really didn't know better themselves. You know, they were out working. We were often with babysitters and other caretakers and I really do not have any fond memories or can even really recall any memories of my mother and father when they were actually together and we were a family unit. Father, when they were actually together and we were a family unit, they were always arguing. They were very unhappy together.

Speaker 3:

My mother was not shy about displaying her disdain for my father. She was very cruel to him and she was a tough one to deal with as a mother and as a wife, I'm sure. So one of my very earliest childhood memories is actually of an incident where my father ended up lashing out at me in one of his drunken rages and he broke my leg and after a lot of therapeutic work now, as an adult, many years later, I now know that is the official time that I disassociated from my father. So we have had a strained relationship ever since that episode occurred, which was just before my fourth birthday. So my parents tried to stay together after that. But by the time I was six years old they were divorced. And little did I know that those days at home with my mother and father were going to be blissful compared to what was lurking around the corner, because my mother remarried to a literal monster, a man who brought domestic violence into our home to the point that my mother was pretty much beaten on a regular basis in front of us children. We saw things that no children should see. And all while this is going on. Of course drugs and alcohol are at the forefront of everything. My house was crazy. I had CPS in my school visiting me as a child frequently, and back then it wasn't heard of like it is today. So eventually my mother pretty much kicked my older brother and I out of the house and my little brother stayed and we went to live with my father.

Speaker 3:

Like I said, we had already had an estranged relationship to begin with, but he had remarried, he had four stepchildren living in the house and it was just really difficult to make the enmeshment of that family unit work. So I soon went to live with my grandmother, which is my paternal grandmother, so my dad's mom. Thank goodness, we were all very close with her and she was a wonderful grandmother and she was a constant in our lives. So when I was about 13 years old I went to live with her and soon after that I had a lot of falling out with my mother and father. I had a lot of falling out with my mother and father and I went and began the proceedings to legally emancipate myself from my parents. So I became a ward of the court at around 14 years old. My grandmother was named as my guardian and I did live with her and she was responsible for me. But my parents were no longer responsible for me and I wasn't tied to them in a parental way.

Speaker 3:

If you will, my memories of childhood are very sad. My parents, as I said, were raging alcoholics. There was a lot of violence. I did not have role models, for what does a mother and father look like? They were emotionally unavailable. So while I technically had shelter and food on the table, the neglect was profound in my house. Kids were to be seen and not heard. Nobody cared that. We were there witnessing and watching all of this stuff.

Speaker 3:

Thankfully I had this grandmother, and that was also bittersweet, because when I went to live with my grandmother I was 14 years old, and a 14-year-old who has just lived through a rough life is not the kind of 14-year-old who's sitting at home reading books on the weekend. I was a little piss pot and my grandmother now had to switch from being my loving grandmother to my parental figure and I was sneaking out of the house at night and having fun with my friends and doing all those things that teenagers do, and you know I'm a bit regretful. That relationship had to turn, you know, kind of turn the corner into that dynamic, though she was still loving and very patient and I'm extremely grateful to have had her, and she did. You know she obviously supported my emancipation from my parents, even though that did in fact include her son. In hindsight I did not know why everybody signed off so easily. I got that answer just a few years ago, which we'll talk about a little bit further down the line, but to say that it was a horrific childhood is putting it mildly. It was a horrific childhood is putting it mildly. Luckily for me, that childhood fueled my wanting to be different than my family, which is why my first book was entitled when the Apple Falls Far from the Tree.

Speaker 3:

I'm not a religious person per se, but I am extremely spiritual. I know you consider that yourself as well. I believe that when I was a child and I was witnessing all of these heinous things happening in my home, I always just had a very innate inner knowing that this would not be my life. I didn't cry about it, I didn't worry about it. I just knew with certainty that I was not going to grow up and be like these people, that I would be different and it would be different, and I would never treat people or, you know, have a household that slowed in this way. So ultimately, that childhood is what set the trajectory for my adulthood, I guess.

Speaker 2:

You lived with your grandmother at 14 and from there, like, how was high school for you? College, where'd you go from?

Speaker 3:

living with your grandma. Well, high school turned out to, you know, I started kind of straightening out I hate to say that my friends and I we were mischievous and partied at quite a young age, in our early teens, so that by the time I got to high school or, excuse me, out of high school and into college, all of that was really out of my system. I didn't need it to. You know, like I was getting to college and all of these people were just now, you know, getting introduced to alcohol and things like that. I kind of had already done all of that in my early teens. So I was there and I meant business and I was serious about my classes. I wanted to be a teacher because in my early teens, so I was there and I meant business and I was serious about my classes.

Speaker 3:

I wanted to be a teacher because in my early childhood I had a teacher, Mr Messina, who took me under his wing when I was struggling with my family and it was the first time that I ever really felt seen and heard. He was very proactive with us children and in asking us what our opinion was on things and I really I just loved him in a almost in a fatherly kind of way, if you will like. I just loved the attention that he gave us and I knew from third grade on that I would grow up and become a teacher. So I went to college and I did great. I became a teacher. I actually got hired to work in the hometown district that I grew up in and Mr Messina was still at my elementary school when I got hired. He only had a year or two to go before he retired, but I actually got to become his colleague and I got to deliver his retirement speech so I could tell him how impactful his year you know that year with him in third grade was on me and how he was the reason that I wanted to grow up and become a teacher. So I'm still a teacher in that district, 25 years now, and I love that when I'm teaching these children.

Speaker 3:

We have a lot of needy, poverty stricken children in our district and I just remember that level of compassion he gave me when I was so out of place as a child and I try to do my best to provide that for the kids that are here. So I ended up marrying my high school sweetheart. We have been together forever, which is a wonderful thing, Thank goodness for him. He has been through it all with me. He knows a lot about my childhood. He knows all of the players in my life that have been in and out of my life. He knows see the dynamic of his family and what it should look like and how it's supposed to look, and forever grateful for those role models for sure.

Speaker 2:

That's awesome. I love how that came full circle for you with your teacher. You got to re-see him, be his colleague and tell the story and I yeah, I agree. Say that, right. No, I got shows reading that. I also just got to say that. The little spitfire in you when you talked about your least favorite teacher in that speech.

Speaker 3:

I was fracking up out loud reading and the greatest moments of my life was being able to deliver that speech. And so what Amanda is referring to is that when I delivered his speech that day, there was like 250 colleagues in that room, many of which who knew me personally or taught me as well, and when I delivered that speech, I said, ironically, the best teacher I ever had and the worst teacher I ever had are both in this room today, and like it was, like you know, skipping the record, like the room just fell silent and I definitely feel like the person who was responsible for being the worst teacher I ever had knew that I was speaking of her and I didn't feel bad for giving her that moment of time to reflect on. You know what you say and what you do around children sticks around forever.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, no, I think that's so true. It made me laugh in the moment, but it's so true Because you know it's like we don't know what these kids go home to and it's not their fault how they show up, like I've never been a teacher but I've worked in daycares before. In like preschool, you have the four or five-year-olds and you'll have kids who either don't come back with whatever the paperwork they're supposed to come back with or they don't come back with a coat to go outside with. You don't know the background of what they're going home to. You know, right, I do that there's so much that you don't see.

Speaker 3:

See, Well, and then you know you can look at somebody like me as well, who's successful on the circus right. I went through that adversity. I put myself through college and you know thousands and thousands of dollars in student loans which I just paid off my last payment at 50 years old this week Most gratifying moment ever. You know I'm going to go back and mention a few parts that we're missing right here, but all of this trajectory is exactly why I was like oh my God, I have to write a book. How can I go through all of this shit and not share it with the world? So I become a teacher in my hometown and then I start having the normal struggles of life. My husband and I are working hard. We're trying to make financial matters meet. I have children. My daughters came when I was still putting myself through grad school. So I was working full-time as a teacher, going to school at night, trying to raise my family.

Speaker 3:

Life was rough and baggage, if you will. From my past, which I never formally dealt with or had a therapist or did any real processing and healing through, I didn't understand how much of that compartmentalization of my childhood was actually impacting my adulthood. So, as you mentioned in reading my bio, I went through multiple weight loss journeys. I had weight loss surgery not once, but twice, because I would consider myself a food addict, Much like people have trouble with drugs, and such food is my substance of choice and food always has comforted me. So I've ballooned up and down in my weight my whole entire life. Thank God for modern technologies in the medical field, because I did get to have weight loss surgery and I had weight loss surgery a long time ago and I've, knock on wood, kept it off for a long time, with a little bit of fluctuation and resistance, but it's been a real journey and a real struggle. It's been a real journey and a real struggle and when I was doing really good with my food addiction, that's when I would turn to alcohol. So it was always one or the other I was feeding and numbing my emotions with food or I was doing it with alcohol.

Speaker 3:

So what happened was my use of alcohol slowly started to progress, going from social to more doing it at home and hiding it and not admitting how much I was actually doing. One glass of wine at night turned into two glasses of wine at night. The two glasses of wine at night turned into a bottle. Next thing, you know it's a bottle and a half and things were starting to spiral. And, as I mentioned, my parents were both alcoholics. My mother actually drank herself to death at the age of 67. She's no longer with us of liver disease. My father was also a raging alcoholic but is like 30 years sober no-transcript to be around me when I drink, Whereas my mother was like psycho and scary when she drank.

Speaker 3:

I was the polar opposite, so I spent years telling myself I'm not going to be like her, it's not going to be a problem. Alcohol is never going to take over my life, but it did. Luckily, I recognized it. I got myself involved in an online 90-day sobriety journey, which is now five years. So this summer I celebrated five years alcohol-free Game changer. I wouldn't change that decision for anything.

Speaker 3:

I would say that opened my door to my spiritual awakening, which I basically described. It was always spiritual, so as a child I was very spiritual. I lost touch with all of that when I started numbing and drinking alcohol and forgetting about all of the issues and things I needed to deal with. But the second I got sober, everything came to the surface and it was like okay, here we go, we're going to deal with all the shit. It's time. And I thereafter got myself into therapy. I started writing my first book, which was extremely therapeutic. That spiritual awakening got me back in touch with that inner knowing and that little Jill inside and I started doing parts work with my therapist and giving that little child what they needed, going back and revisiting some of those major catastrophes and episodes in my life and talking and walking through them again and reminding myself that had nothing to do with me, and began the healing process which I'm still in today.

Speaker 2:

So what was it that made you decide you wanted to get sober from alcohol? The?

Speaker 3:

actual thing that did it was I. We had a neighborhood party and we have the backyard with like the pool and in the cabana and stuff, and all of the neighbors were over. We have a karaoke machine in the cabana, so we have a great time out there. Everybody's singing, we're lasting all night long. And my girls, who were teenagers at the time so five years ago, they were probably like like 17 and 21, I guess and the next day they were sending me video clips of my behavior and I was, you know, I was on the patio singing karaoke and having a grand old time.

Speaker 3:

But then, you know, that was followed with me crawling on my hands and knees up the steps to get in the house and then falling asleep and passing out on the kitchen floor. And in that moment, when I was watching that video, I was just like, oh my God, this is what my children are laughing about and sharing, and you know, for them it was cool, right, they were 21 and 17. And they're like oh my God, look at our mom. She's such a mess. And I have to keep in mind they don't have the reference point that I do with all of the bad things that happened around alcohol when I was a kid right, they really have only seen fun loving entertaining mom really have only seen fun loving entertaining mom. But I just knew in that moment that it was my job to show them that I could be as outgoing and just as much fun without alcohol as when I had it, and so that has been my mission ever since. I still like. I'm still the type of person, even without drinks, that can go somewhere and get on the dance floor and start dancing and request a song. That doesn't stop me. I've replaced that need to turn to a drink with other things meditation or yoga, nidra, or getting together and doing classes around spirituality with my friends, or going for a Reiki treatment. You know, I've replaced it with other tools, more natural tools and healthier tools, and I think that so many people started seeing the change and they started seeing the transformation. And then, of course, I'm getting all of these inboxes like what are you doing? Tell me about it. And that's kind of when I decided like, okay, I need to empower these people there Again, if all of these things in my life happened and I had this knowledge base and if I'm meant to share these tools, like what I did to get to the other side of how do you find the next step, how do you find the replacements for the things that are happening.

Speaker 3:

But I will say that writing the book was the biggest, absolute biggest therapeutic piece of the puzzle. Because once I got sober, that's when I started writing, that's when I had a clear enough head to say, okay, it's time to write the book. And I kind of just went back to the beginning and I started like a timeline trajectory of what big episodes do I remember? How were they epic, what came of it? And it has a common theme to the book that I just finished writing in that in the end it's just the reminder that nobody's coming to save us, that it's us. We're the person. We can't look outside of ourselves for that love and acceptance that it has to come from within. And the journey through writing my first book was exactly the same journey as writing my second book. Totally different stories, same need and theme running throughout both of them. So, yeah, it was really writing that book.

Speaker 3:

And I know not everybody's a writer. I'm not a writer. I mean, I'm a book teacher. I teach K2 reading skills, so I've never had any formal training as a writer. If you read my book as you did, it's very conversational. You feel like you're just having a talk with me. I don't use big vocabulary and words and things like that, I just basically tell the story, and the catharsis that came with getting that story out is just unbelievable for sure.

Speaker 2:

I love your reasoning for what made you get sober. You had a really powerful why to get sober. You had a really powerful why. You know, like so many people want these days, whether it's getting sober, it's starting a new whatever, but they don't have a strong enough why as to why they're doing it. Like what is the real reason behind it, like it's something bigger than you. I love that. And so you mentioned about finding replacements, and you mentioned now writing. You didn't start writing any of your book until you got sober.

Speaker 3:

Correct. Wow, I was about. Let's see, that book came out in 22 and I had written it for I guess I had been sober about six or seven months before I even ever made even an outline and started Googling like how to write a book, because of course I had no idea where I was going to turn. Damn, okay, wow, yeah. And you know, I suggest anybody who needs to do some healing or inner work consider writing, and not necessarily to publish out to the public like I did.

Speaker 3:

But I got to tell you that when I wrote that book and I was going through it, there would be so many times when I would go back to do some proofreading and I would read an excerpt or a chapter and I would be like who the hell wrote this?

Speaker 3:

I don't even remember saying those things because it literally is like it was like divine downloading, it was like inner wisdom I didn't know I had and writing helped me tap into that.

Speaker 3:

And you know there's a lot of horses out there and things that will tell you the same thing about writing. When you're writing, you know that first few minutes might be a little awkward, but once you force yourself to kind of get into journaling or just free writing or brain dumping or whatever you want to call it. I was amazed at what was flowing out of my mouth and what needed to flow out of my mouth, because when it was all in here I couldn't make sense of it when it was stuck in my head and in my body. But when I read it on the paper like third person, I was able to have so much more compassion and understanding for myself and for my parents and for anybody else who was a key player in the story of my life. And a lot of that has now come through as well through my second book, even in greater detail, I think.

Speaker 2:

Okay, yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. I love how you mentioned the third person, because I think that's a really great way. I've had other guests mention that, even if it's not a book, just getting it out of your head, like looking at it from almost as if it's not you reading this or viewing this life or viewing whatever it is like taking yourself apart from it. In terms of the book, I love that it was conversational, but I really loved you had quotes At the end of it. There was almost every single chapter I'm pretty sure it was every chapter there was a quote and I love that. It was a nice way to lay in the load and have a little break before you started the next one. I love that so much.

Speaker 3:

I'm so glad that you provided that feedback, because a lot of people felt that way. They said it was almost like a prelude to what was coming or a closure to what just happened, and I tried to do the exact same thing with this next book. I picked a quote that basically set the reader up for okay, here's where we're going with this. Yeah, thank you.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I loved it and it was almost not like a break, but like a little bit of a pause before you started the next. I loved it. I loved it so much and the font was different, it was bigger, it was cute. I loved every part of it. Where'd you get the idea to do the quotes like that? I've never seen a book like that.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I'm sure I was inspired by seeing it somewhere else, though I couldn't tell you exactly where. I think that I'm just a quotes kind of person, like if you look behind me, I have quotes and frames all around my house and I think they just speak to me. So I guess, I guess that was probably my motivation to do it.

Speaker 2:

I was just curious because all the time I'm like have you heard this quote? Somebody else say something. I'm like I have a quote for that or I've seen this meme that relates to that. I can send it to you. So I'm like, where did you get this idea? I relate and it's like I love this. Oh my gosh, I'm sitting through taking pictures of the book because I'm like I want to remember this quote. I loved it, I really did. It was, you know, a nice way because like it was heavy stuff. Obviously, you know everything you wrote and you know what you went through, but it was heavy stuff.

Speaker 3:

So it was almost like a nice way to take a little breather from it and then transition back into it, and that's how lots of people who did not necessarily have a trauma or a rough childhood said to me oh my God, that book was so inspiring. I just felt so educated and different and inspired when I finished reading it, just like about life and people in general. Of course, when I wrote it, I was writing it really to myself and to people who have also experienced childhood trauma, but I was amazed at the number of people who didn't have that context, that part of life, but also said, wow, I had a lot of takeaways from it. It was very inspirational. And again for the second book I tried to do that same thing where I'm taking something that is heavy and not so pleasant and is something you don't want to be part of your life, but it is.

Speaker 3:

And what can you do? What silver lining can you find in the mess? You know, I tell everybody, my mess is my message. There is no doubt that the universe has chosen me to share my mess with the world, to say you know, look at, I don't care what you've been through, you can get to the other side If you believe you have the power to be different and to change.

Speaker 3:

You know it's all comes down to our belief in ourself and I always just wanted more for myself. You know, and I'm not perfect. I'm not a perfect wife or mother by any means. But you know, a lot of times when I was a kid or even as an adult, people would make the remark to me well, your parents just didn't know better, your parents just didn't know better. Well, guess what? I didn't have freaking good role models. I didn't see anybody modeling love in front of me and I'm still able to, you know, portray that for my children and embody that so that my children can see what a husband and wife and a family unit looks like. So I have a hard time hanging my hat on that, saying you know they did the best they could, because in my opinion, a lot of people know they're doing wrong and they're making decisions selfishly. And you know, my opinion is, if you know you're not doing your best, then you better start trying harder.

Speaker 2:

No, I agree that's a tough feeling. They had a tough upbringing because my mother was wonderful to the same, but my father wasn't in my life most of my life and that was actually something he had said to me when he was then in my life. A little bit was that I didn't know about his childhood and I don't know what he went through and he didn't experience the type of love that I had growing up because, like, I had a lot of love for my mom and he doesn't know how to show love and it was something I really had. I still honestly have a hard time understanding like an innocent child, you know, like you can feel however you want to feel about your baby mama, about my mother, whatever you want to call her, when it comes to kids, I just there's just certain things, like even you mentioned in your book, like people would say to you oh well, it's still your mother like you. I don't get that like that. He's still your father. No, he's not. Yeah.

Speaker 3:

So that brings us right to this next point of this next book. So I write this book thinking like I mean I don't want to say that I was thinking, oh, I'm all healed and I'm all done with life's adversities. Okay, universe, I've had enough, leave me alone. But I write this book, I'm feeling good, no-transcript. So while it was in the hands of the publisher, I started taking an online course with Sherry Salata.

Speaker 3:

Sherry Salata is a woman who had been Oprah Winfrey's executive producer for years at Harpo Studios. She kind of took all of that knowledge and made a course for women middle-aged women to excavate all of the things that are inside and dig deep and find those little nuggets and jewels of things that you really want in life. It was journaling and coaching therapy all wrapped up in one, and I got involved in a journaling prompt that she was doing. Our course was over Zoom online and she made us do a journaling prompt. Bottom line we had to write down five things we would regret if we were to die tomorrow. We had five minutes to write it. We write down the five things. She stops the clock and she says to all of us now look at that paper and I want you to pick something on that paper, one of at that paper, and I want you to pick something on that paper, one of those five right now that you can do something about right now, when you get off this call with me, if you put on there that you want to go to Hawaii, you're going to get off this call with me and you're going to open a bank account and start saving for that trip. Like she just said, this is it? You pick one thing, you're going to have momentum on it right now. She just said this is it? You pick one thing? You're going to have momentum on it right now.

Speaker 3:

The very first thing that I wrote down was the one thing that I could in fact get a lot of momentum from, and it said I don't want to die without knowing if my father is really my father. And when I read that back to myself, I did not know that I felt that way. It just came out of me and it was time. Back when I was a child, my mother had told me something when she was very drunk. I was very little and we never spoke of it again, but it was stored in the back of my mind. It went to sleep for a long time because, like I said, life happened. I was in the thick of things, being my own mother and dealing with alcohol and dealing with my weight, and I tucked that little nugget away for literally decades. But when she died in 2021, for some reason, her death awakened that conversation that she had with me when I was a little girl and she basically told me she was mad at me and pissed and said something like your father's not your father anyway.

Speaker 3:

When I read that I didn't want to die without knowing my dad was my dad I immediately got off the call. I called up my older brother and I said hey, will you take an ancestry DNA test? I want to know if you and I are full siblings or half siblings. And at the time, that's all I wanted, because I knew my brother did, in fact, belong to my dad. He looked like him, they had so much in common. There was no denying that. And so my brother agrees we do the test.

Speaker 3:

And I never. I had no freaking idea what Ancestrycom could do Like I literally thought they were going to like send me a report that was like he's your brother or he's your half brother. That cut and dry. So when my results came back and it guided me to the site, the site said click here to see your DNA matches and I was like, wow, what the hell's this? So I click and all of my family members start populating and a family that I knew near and dear starts showing up, where all of my paternal stuff should be. And to make matters worse, this family was basically our next-door neighbors. So began the writing journey of my DNA discovery and learning who my real father was. When I learned that my brother was in fact my half-brother, suddenly that first book began to make a whole lot of sense.

Speaker 2:

Let's just say that and when did you do the DNA test? Mom passed in 2021. And yes, she passed in 2021.

Speaker 3:

And we did it in the summer of 2021. So we did the test in July. I got the results in August of 2021. So, turns out, my dad's best friend at the time was born and raised next door to him. So my grandmother, who took care of me, who raised me, who is mentioned in my first book, is not actually my biological grandmother. That was a very tough blow for me to come to terms with. Turns out, her best friend next door is my grandmother. That was a very tough blow for me to come to terms with. Turns out, her best friend next door is my grandmother. Wow, yes, so my dad's friend and buddy and pal, who lived next door, obviously had an affair with my mother back in the day in 1974. And I'm a product of that. And how did you feel? Yeah, well, let's just say I'm still going through the feels.

Speaker 3:

I wrote the book. When you Shake the Family Tree for anybody else who goes through a DNA discovery, we call people like me NPE, which stands for not parent expected, and the mind fuckery that comes with such a revelation is something I still deal with on a literal daily basis. And if and when anybody takes the time to read that book because it's just a fascinating story. The way all of these puzzle pieces go together, you'll see that you know. One chapter I'm completely fine in accepting and forgiving, and then the next chapter I'm on a downhill spiral, cursing everybody the hell out, for there's twists and turns. And I learned that there were in fact people who knew this from my birth on. You know people who might have been secret keepers.

Speaker 3:

This is very hard for me to process and understand, but I also want to give a shout out to the fact that this book is very much about breaking generational curses, because in the book I uncover this happening multiple times in my family Lies and deceit from one generation to the next.

Speaker 3:

And I made a conscious decision to be a cycle breaker and say it stops here. We are not going to continue to harbor the lies. It is what it is. Yes, it sucks, yes, it happened 50 years ago, but it happened and we are going to process and heal it now because I do not want my children carrying on into the next generation not knowing their real roots, not knowing who they really are. You know, I went through a cancer journey, as you mentioned, and it was a very rare cancer and we were doing a lot of detective work behind that. And I think, like you know, my parents were both alive and privy to my cancer journey, and to think that nobody was like, well, wait a minute, this might be a good time to tell her what we really know.

Speaker 2:

That's difficult. And now, how? In terms of timing, how soon were you diagnosed and going through cancer to when you did the test? The ancestry?

Speaker 3:

My cancer journey is. It's been a while since I had cancer, so that was 10. I celebrated 10 years cancer-free this summer, five years sober, 10 years cancer-free and three years since I found out who I really am. Okay, yeah, so that book took, uh, two and a half years to write as well. I wrote it very much while I was in the thick of things, meaning reaching out to the biological family members and people involved in such and it's very raw, it's very emotional, it's not necessarily a happy ending, if you will, and I hope that it will help other people who come across these types of discoveries maybe learn to navigate what it's going to be like to be on that roller coaster ride. That it will help other people who come across these types of discoveries maybe learn to navigate what it's going to be like to be on that roller coaster ride and be prepared for the ups and downs that come with trying to meet a new family, especially middle age. Most people don't find out until later in life.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I've been crazy. Now did you get to meet your real dad I did.

Speaker 3:

I did and I won't give too much information. It is in the book. I talk very detailed about what that encounter was like, as well as what has transpired since that day to the present day, to now, what's going on. And again, I'm still very much in the thick of it and I hate to say it, but I think there will probably be a third book, because this book is kind of like a cliffhanger, in that I'm like, okay, here's where we are people and this is what happened and this is what transpired, and all I can do is wait for the universe to play the cards and see where they all fall and what this all means for me, because I'm very much still figuring it out.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I'm sure. And now the man who I'm just trying to get a picture of everything, the man who was raised as your dad but wasn't your dad, was he still alive when you uncovered this?

Speaker 3:

He is still alive and we have been estranged since 2020, about a year before my mother died and, as I mentioned, with me getting emancipated as a child. There have been, you know, we have been in contact for a couple of years and then out of contact for a few years. It's been that way my whole entire life. So we have not spoken and seen each other since 2020. Life so we have not spoken and seen each other since 2020. And he lives, you know, right here in this area.

Speaker 3:

He is aware of my discovery. He is not happy about my discovery and I hope that when he and or my biological father, I hope that both of them will take the time to read my story to get it from my perspective. You know there's a lot of shame and icky feelings from, obviously, when it occurred 50 years ago, but I hope that my book can shed a light from all perspectives. I do talk about what it must be like for them to have had to have lived with this lie, or my biological father not knowing, and my raised father knowing, but keeping the secret and resenting me secretly all these years because he knew I wasn't his daughter. You know Like I think about what could have happened if he had just told me the truth so many years ago, instead of keeping that angst inside of him. Yeah, yeah, we'll see what it brings yeah, yeah, we'll see what it brings.

Speaker 2:

You mentioned about breaking generational curses and about how the lies have been going on and to see have been going on for generations. I have dealt with that within my own family and even being lied to about not knowing who my father was, him not being involved, all this different stuff with that. Why do you think like deceit and lies? I feel like it shows up a lot in some aspect of family dynamic.

Speaker 3:

For sure. And when I think about I mean let's just antiquate it to health when I think about my mother and her sister both dying. My mother drank herself to death. Her sister also drank herself to death by drinking at 62. Watching somebody die from liver cirrhosis is a horrific thing to witness. It's an ugly disease and it's a long, lengthy, painful death. And it was absolutely awful to watch my aunt die and we all thought that maybe that would be the thing that would help my mother to clean up her act. But she didn't. And then, several years later, the same exact death happened for her.

Speaker 3:

And to go back to when I decided to quit drinking, I really think, like in my mind's eye, that I thought to myself like I future flashed oh my God, if I keep going on this trajectory, that's just going to be me too. And if I go on that trajectory, my daughters are going to see that as a way of life and it's probably going to be their trajectory as well. If we take that back to my DNA, and I think these secrets make us sick, they were sick and they were alcoholics because they were hiding things that had happened to them, that they to my DNA, and I think these secrets make us sick. You know they were sick and they were alcoholics because they were hiding things that had happened to them that they never spoke about. You know, later learned that there was sexual abuse and things like that that were involved in my mother's childhood, which explains a whole lot. I mean, she was mentally ill. I know she was mentally ill and I have compassion and forgiveness for the fact that she couldn't be my mother, because she simply didn't know how to love people, because she was just so detached from herself and everybody else. But on the same token, you can just see that generational repeating between her parents and then the way she acted, the way my maternal grandparents were, and then the way that she acted. And then I just made that conscious decision that it has to be different. I have to do it differently if I want it to be differently.

Speaker 3:

And in my dad that raised me's family there were lots of secrets about illegitimate. I mean I don't like to use that word but people relate to it when I say that. You know what it means. In my raised father's family that had occurred and been covered up multiple times and I was like, oh my God, my poor dad has agreed to keep a secret that has probably eaten him alive his whole entire life. I can't even imagine what it must feel like to keep that secret, knowing, you know, and the resentment you know. There were lots of verbal resentments like oh, you know, I had to pay child support for you and I didn't even want to. I mean, I didn't even realize when those things were being said to me as a child. That's why because innately, he knew that I was not even his daughter. That's why my parents allowed me to emancipate myself, because neither one of them really felt responsible for me.

Speaker 3:

Anyway, you know, if you don't fix those things that don't get talked about, those things that people push under the rugs or those things that people box up in a pretty little box and tuck away like, oh, we're just never going to talk about that and it's just going to magically go away, I promise you it's going to resurface.

Speaker 3:

And if you're somebody out there who is actually knows of a case like this, where you're with you know, because how many people find out? And then they find out, oh, their aunts knew and their cousins knew and everybody knew. But then this happens all the time and then they're furious that these people thought it was their jobs to be the keepers Something so important. Everybody deserves to know who they really are. You know, nobody has the right not my raised dad, not my biological dad, nobody has the right to keep that information from you. Yes, they may be an awful person and they're pretending or thinking that they're keeping us from something we shouldn't know about or that we don't want to see, but that's our decision to make. It's not theirs.

Speaker 2:

I related to a lot of what you said about the aunts and uncles and everybody that knew and didn't say anything. My situation is a little different because it wasn't having the father that wasn't after him, but for the longest time it was. You just don't have a dad and it was just like the elephant in the family. Nobody knew why, nobody talked about it. I was just the cousin and the kid that didn't have a father and it wasn't until I was 12 and I was like physically, biologically, a man had to be involved here and I learned that in health, like, sitting in the Catholic school I'm learning this, like physically, like somebody's involved. And then it was like it turned to.

Speaker 2:

My mom didn't know who it was and everybody agreed with her and you know my grandma was the only one that was like look, it's not my place to tell you, it's not my secret to break at 12 for you to know. Obviously she knows who he is. I hope she'll tell you one day and you know so like. I really relate to that, like why these people think it's their secret to tell you have a right to know who you are, where you come from. I compare myself all the time to kids who are adopted, which I know it's very different, but it's the simple matter of a fact that I'm more Polish than I even realize, which is not that it even matters, but that's an interesting fact to know.

Speaker 3:

I'm so glad you said that because I tried to downplay my thing too. Like, okay, you know, this is pretty crazy shit. I found out my dad's not my dad and like the guy who lived next door the whole time is. But when I started joining communities on Facebook and reading books and memoirs of other people who went through this, it is exactly like an adoption story. You are blindsided. You are no longer the person you thought you were. You are literally somebody else.

Speaker 3:

The second you find out, and I'm sure, like when you met your father, just like when I sat down and met my father I just sat there and was digging, Like I didn't even have to dig. This man looks like my twin and I'm sitting there thinking, holy shit, no wonder my raised father couldn't even look at me. I'm this guy's twin. I must have haunted him his whole freaking life by having the features of the man who was responsible for my conception. You know, and you know hearing stories like you said turns out I'm Irish. I'm way more Irish than I am Polish, but I thought I was, you know, more Polish. But those are things that are important for us to know. I mean, it's our DNA, it's our coding. We deserve to know it.

Speaker 2:

No, literally, and even like in your instance with the cancer, like who knows if you knew, like actual DNA, actual blood, like how to treat it, like what might work to treat it, like I don't know medical stuff. But you got it.

Speaker 3:

What if I needed a transplant for something and like my family would have been great donors, except that I was connected to the wrong family? Actually, you know what I mean? Like just crazy things like that. You know, and that's my message in my book is that you know that and that's my message in my book is that if you're harboring family secrets and lies and you're taking it to the grave, you are consciously passing it on to the next generation to heal, because if it doesn't come out in the wash while you're alive, it will after your death.

Speaker 3:

And is that what you want people to be rehashing and trying to figure out once you're gone? Or do you want to make amends and bring peace to the situation and you know it's not always peaceful. Like you know, there are some people who go to try to meet their biological families and they close the door and are like, get out of here, I don't want anything to do with you. And there are people who go to their families adopted or, in my case you know, npe and they're embracing and open and come on in. There's room for all of us here, you know. So you know it's a 50-50 crapshoot, unfortunately when you've opened Andorra's box. But I will never regret doing it and I hope that people will enjoy reading that second book just as much too, because it is just as dramatic and crazy and rollercoastery as the first one.

Speaker 2:

I love how you said you'll never regret doing it, though. I completely agree. Honestly, do you regret the ancestry test? I was going to say you probably don't. I don't regret mine. Mine was so random when I found out, when I was 18, who he was. He lived a three minute drive away from where I live. Yeah, it was crazy, and it wasn't until years later that I kind of let it go and I reached out to him. But I still don't have the regret. Everybody was like you shouldn't have done it this way. You should have told people. Because I didn't tell anybody. I don't even know what made me suddenly decide. Now is the time. It was a random Tuesday. I found his number on Google. I called it Star 67, 67 and that was it.

Speaker 3:

I knew I couldn't innate or internally, I must've known not to do it while my mother was still alive, because she was so dramatic she would have made it about her and it would have been this big, explosive thing. I truly believe everything happens when it's supposed to. And I didn't have the tools. Like what? If I had found that out when I was still heavily drinking and not in my best condition and best self, it would have been a totally different approach. I probably would have lit some people up and handled myself very unprofessionally. But because I had all the tools under my belt of sobriety and I knew how to regulate and calm myself and to see things from multiple perspectives, I was ready to open that box and to heal it and to face it for sure.

Speaker 2:

Wow, that's an interesting way to look at it. I never thought about that in terms of you know, I think if I would have tried to reach out to my father years prior, I wouldn't have been able to handle the mental aspects of it like that. I wouldn't have been able to handle the mental aspects of it Like that. The first month was great. It was like I had handpicked my own dad from a magazine.

Speaker 3:

And the honeymoon period. Yeah, I had one of those, two went away oh my God, I can't believe.

Speaker 2:

You just said that I used to have this joke with my friends where I was like I feel like I'm almost dating my father, like I'm looking forward to this. Good morning, amanda, tech. Like.

Speaker 3:

I'm excited for it. My heart would flutter I would see the notification and I would almost feel guilty for getting so excited about something. And that's what it felt like Not like an extramarital affair, but it felt what we were doing was so crazy and fresh and exciting and then when it stopped, it was like a breakup, basically.

Speaker 2:

It sucked. Yes, okay, I am so glad that you relate to this because people have been like Amanda it's kind of weird that you think you dated your father. I'm like that's not what I'm saying. I know exactly what you're saying. Yes, because you get used to like that, that new, exciting thrill Is that something you've had?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so all that's in there. You'll have to give it a read. I think you'll appreciate it, especially since you have a somewhat similar story there with the absent father figure.

Speaker 2:

I am so excited to read that. Oh my gosh, and when's that going to be out? December?

Speaker 3:

December 12th is my actual launch date. By the time that you post this podcast in the fall, I'm sure that the pre-orders will already be live. So if anybody goes to my website at justbeingjillcom, all the links to get the books on Amazon and pre-order it are there and I hope people will take the time to give that a read and check out the first one too. The first one is obviously when the apple falls far from the tree, and that's outlining the differences between me and my family and how I came to rise above the mess that I was raised in. And then the second book, called when you Shake the Family Tree, is all about learning my DNA surprise and how I navigated those waters and started making sense of all of my life, written under my pen name, margot Riley, of course. Oh, we didn't talk about that. So just real quick, margot Riley.

Speaker 3:

I chose that because when I first wrote the first memoir I knew I was going to be talking about very sensitive material and you know, obviously people are still around here and I didn't want to use real names, not for anonymity. Everybody knows that Jill Krasinovich is Margot Riley. It was more just out of respect. So I researched Irish names since I found out I was newly Irish and Margot means grit, which comes from the name Margaret or Pearl, but Pearls come from grit and I always thought of myself as a gritty person.

Speaker 3:

And then Riley means courageousness and I thought that it took a lot of courage to come out with my story. So that is how Margot Riley was born, and at first I was kind of sad that it wasn't my name on the front of a book, since it's my story. But then I quickly realized that Margot Riley was truly my alter ego. My whole life. She's the girl who got me through some serious shit and I started to embrace her more and more and now I know that she is the spokesperson and the advocate and the writer and the speaker at me. So Margot Riley was born.

Speaker 2:

I love that. And now you say you were newly found Irish. Did you have any Irish in you before?

Speaker 3:

Well, I knew there was maybe like a little bit, but like we never celebrated oh, we're Irish people I mean there might have been a smidgen of it and now I'm 60, so it's like, wow, this is just crazy right yeah.

Speaker 2:

So like I was 25, everything before my mom's french, polish, irish and italian, my father's 100 polish, wow, yeah. So I have 50, yeah, wow, and I never knew that that is so fascinating, well we have a lot of.

Speaker 3:

We have a lot of polish heritage in this house, because obviously I'm married into a polish family and so we have all the polish things going on here. I love that heritage, too, turns out in polish and irish, so I'm just embracing the both of them.

Speaker 2:

I love that embracing the both of them. I love that. Embracing the both of it, I love it. Well, thank you so much, jo. This has been amazing. I would absolutely love to have you back on the podcast once the new book is out, if you are up for that down the line.

Speaker 3:

Oh, I would love it. I can tell you everybody's reactions and how everybody handled it, hitting the stores and the shelves and the online world. Absolutely, I appreciate you talking about it and I really am blessed that you can relate. I mean, I'm not happy that you can, but it's nice that you can relate to bits and pieces of it. And I think, amanda, one of the biggest things is that there are so many people out there that are going to listen to this episode, that are going to relate. So thank you to people like you who take your time to put these podcasts out there, let people like me talk about it and share my things, like my book, because this is how I got through sobriety and weight loss journeys and all of the things by turning to podcasts and books and other people who are two steps ahead of me on the journey that I can follow along behind. So I appreciate your time and energy.

Speaker 2:

Oh, of course, I appreciate yours too and I appreciate you sharing your story. You know, even though a lot of us don't have the same exact and as difficult of an upbringing, a lot of us have these little similarities and these little nuggets. Like I relate to this part and I'm sure somebody might relate to even the family secrets. A lot of us have got those family secrets, even if it's not your full identity, maybe it was something else. Like I have a half brother. He had no clue for 35 years. He had a half sister and, like he told me, his dream came Sibling. You know, we don't know who else might be relating to it into these little ways, you know. So I love that. That's one of the things I love about getting to podcast. So I appreciate you so much. Thank you for having me. Yeah, of course, and where can the listeners connect with you? They can get your book, but how can they get in touch with you?

Speaker 3:

Well, anybody is welcome to contact me. I am on Facebook. If you look up Margot Riley, you usually will default to my Jill Krasinovich account there. It's very public. The easiest way is to go to my website, justbeingjillcom, and if you go there, not only is there a tab for my books but all of my social is there as well. I encourage anybody who's interested go to my website and sign up. In my subscription thing. I do not inundate people and send a lot of stuff. I'm not super active on there except when I'm getting ready to launch a book. But you will get the first chapter to my first book as a sneak peek if anybody wants to read it to see if maybe it's for them or something they might be interested in. If you give me your email, you get that emailed right to you as a thank you for signing up. You get to read the first chapter and as soon as the second book is ready to go to pre-sale I will switch out the chapter so that you're actually getting the chapter to the new book Awesome.

Speaker 2:

Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Have you heard of a man named Jay Shetty?

Speaker 3:

Yes, I have. I followed him back in the beginning of my transformation. I mean I've really followed him quite loyally of my transformation.

Speaker 2:

I mean I've really followed him quite loyally. Yeah, I love him, I'm a big fan, and he's got a podcast called On Purpose and he ends his podcast with two segments and I take them and end mine with it as well. I think the questions are great. The first segment is called the Many Sides to Us, and there's five questions. Sides to us, and there's five questions. Okay, number one what is one word someone who was meeting you for the first time would use to describe you as?

Speaker 3:

Inspirational.

Speaker 2:

Number two what is one word that someone who knows you extremely well would use to describe you as Bold, Inspirational? What is one word that if someone didn't like you or agree with your mindset would use?

Speaker 3:

to describe you Outspoken. She's outspoken.

Speaker 2:

What is one word that you're embodying right now?

Speaker 3:

Inner peace. Okay, now the words together.

Speaker 2:

I know the second segment is the five, and these can be answered in a sentence what is the best advice you've heard or received?

Speaker 3:

Trust your intuition. It always knows the way. Why is that the best advice? Because I believe that in our core, we all know the answers to everything and we go looking for external sources and validation throughout life, in so many areas and facets of our lives, when really what we need to do is take the time to turn within and understand that it's all there, it's all predetermined, it's all knowing and we hold the answers that we're seeking.

Speaker 2:

Number two what is the worst advice you've heard or received?

Speaker 3:

Just have a couple, it won't hurt you.

Speaker 2:

Number three what is something that you used to value that you no longer value?

Speaker 3:

Having lots of friends and family. Before it was more about quantity, now it's more about quality.

Speaker 2:

I like that. Answer, number four if you could describe what you would want your legacy to be, as if someone was reading it, what would you want it to say?

Speaker 3:

I would want it to say that Jill was somebody who never settled and always persevered through everything and looked to find a better way to exist, to share, to live, to love and, just overall, persevere through all the things that life has for us. Because I've come to conclude that my chapters are not ending. There will always be a chapter, and learning to embrace that is basically the answer to life. Knowing that you're not getting the lull, you're not getting the calm, you will continue to have to climb the mountain.

Speaker 2:

If you could create one law in the world that everyone had to follow, what would it be? And I want to know why.

Speaker 3:

Speak kindly to yourself, because we are our own worst critics and the way that we talk to ourselves is awful at most times, the way that we beat ourselves up and judge ourselves, and I think that is why we project onto others with judgment and opinions, because we have problems with ourselves. So if we could just all follow the rule of talking politely, kindly and lovingly to ourselves, then we would innately do that to the world around us as well.

Speaker 2:

That's a good point. I like that. Now I have one more question. This is from me, not from Jay Shetty, but can you share with us some of the resources that you utilize daily or consistently to remain successful, remain grounded in your life.

Speaker 3:

Sure, journaling pretty much every day and it looks different. Some days I will do an actual journal entry, some days I will use a prompt, like that's in a journal prompt book that I get. Some days I'll just do a brain dump, but journaling is definitely it. I also do a daily planner. I believe that your day has to be set up by you ahead of time and I know a lot of people are like, oh, I'm not that kind of person, but that's why people have these days that they can't stand when they get to the end of them, because you have to have a scope and sequence for what the day is going to look like. If you can visualize it in your mind eye that this and this is what's going to happen, then you're more apt to have that and that happen. So I'm also a big planner.

Speaker 3:

Essential oils are quintessential in my life. I have essentials oils going right now. Not everybody is somebody who needs the olfactory thing going, but I am very much stimulated by smells and I have different ones for calming and I have different ones that I put in when I'm going to be doing writing and I need to be motivated. So those have been an excellent resource for me Overall, I think the biggest one is community. I go to my yoga nidra and there's ladies there that are at the class every time, and so I've had a rapport with those ladies and I count on them to be in that same energy space that I am.

Speaker 3:

I tried some more holistic approaches, such as Reiki and acupuncture and things I was never open to before in my life, and when I started trying these modalities I was like, oh my goodness, this is wonderful, but really just anything that involves community. We think that we can go it alone and that we need to do it alone and nobody can do it the way that we do it. But the bottom line is we are pack animals innately and we need to be connected and we need to be part of the path and we all need our people and it doesn't have to be the same people for everything. You know my spiritual journey. A lot of my very best friends are not spiritual like I am, so when I want to be with my spiritual people, I go to a different community of people to spend my time. So you know there's people out there. Go find your people, get into the groove, find your people, and that connection is what everybody needs.

Speaker 2:

I love that. Well, thank you so much.

Speaker 3:

I really appreciate it. Oh, I love it. Thank you Anytime and I'll let you know once the book is out into the world. I appreciate you letting me put a plug in here for it, and I hope some people will find it helpful in their life as well. Thank you letting me put a plug in here for it.

Speaker 2:

And I hope some people will find it helpful in their life as well. Thank you, yeah, absolutely, and now no pressure whatsoever, but I do like to always throw it back to the guests. Any final words you want to share with the listener, any words of wisdom?

Speaker 3:

Just keep tuning in. I think that some of the best wisdom I find is in following and listening to others, because, like you said, there's always a gem or a nugget hidden. Keep these helpful things in your ear, because this is what has been one of the biggest game changers for me.

Speaker 2:

I love that, thank you, thank you, guys, for tuning in to another episode of Mander's Mindset. Hey guys, mander's here with a few key takeaways for y'all to keep in mind from my impactful conversation with Jill. First, jill's story is one of incredible resilience. Jill shared how she grew up in a home filled with dysfunction, trauma and violence, but despite all of that, she made a conscious decision to step away from the destructive patterns of her family. She had a determination to live differently and raise her children differently, so that everything from then on would be different within her family lineage. And it serves as a reminder to all of us that we have the power to choose. We have the power to choose whatever path we want, no matter where we come from, we can choose what road we go down. We also touched on the power of truth and healing, and Jill's story revealed how deep family secrets, like finding out your biological father isn't who you thought it was, can weigh on us very heavily for years. But Jill reminded us that telling the truth, no matter how painful it can be, is the key to breaking generational curses and finding real freedom. It is a hard but necessary step of personal growth. Another important takeaway is around family obligations. Takeaway is around family obligations. Jill and I touched upon how it's very difficult for us when people will say things like that's still your dad or that's still your family, because we both agreed that just because someone is blood related to you doesn't mean they have the right to hurt you and you shouldn't keep toxic relationships in your life just because they are blood-related to you. Family bonds should never come at the expense of your mental well-being. Jill also shared how she's been sober for years and one of the things that really helped her maintain her sobriety is replacing it with other things in her life, whether that was yoga, nidra, whether that was Reiki or journaling and Jill really emphasized journaling. Journaling has been a daily practice of Jill's and something she really recommends, because writing can be a really powerful way to release emotions, gain clarity, heal from past traumas and release anything that is withheld in our body that we might not even realize is still pent up in our body. It allows us the ability to get these thoughts, feelings, emotions out of the body and onto a piece of paper.

Speaker 2:

Lastly, jill spoke about a pivotal moment in her life when she was asked in a workshop if she were to die tomorrow. What five things would she regret the most? And one of her biggest regrets was not knowing whether her father was her father or not, and that gave her the courage to take bold action. And it's a great reminder for all of us to not wait. If there is something holding you back, a truth you need to uncover, now's the time to take that step.

Speaker 2:

None of us are guaranteed tomorrow. You guys know I say this all the time, so, whatever that thing is, I encourage you to reflect on that. Set a timer for five minutes and think of five things that you would regret if you were to die tomorrow. If you're feeling really bold, send me a message and tell me what those five things are. I'd love to encourage you to take the next bold action that you can take to start making traction on one of those five things Because, as you guys know, we're here and we're not in.

Speaker 2:

None of us are guaranteed to wake up tomorrow. So if you didn't, what would you regret? What would you regret If there's something holding you back or something you really feel like you want to do? What's stopping you? It's time to shift your mindset, shift your life and take the action. Thank you guys for tuning in to another episode of Mander's Mindset, and I hope this helps you be able to let go of something in your life that isn't serving you and step into a truth that you know it's time for you to step into. Thanks guys, until next time. In case no one told you today, I'm proud of you, I'm rooting for you and you got this, as always. If you enjoyed the show, I would really appreciate it if you would leave me a five star rating, leave a review and share it with anyone you think would benefit from this. And don't forget you are only one mindset. Shift away from shifting your life. Thanks guys, until next time.

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