S2E24: How I Recovered from Trauma: Finding My Ability

My name is Nicole. When people hear my story they are surprised that I was able to come out and find balance. I found balance because I was able to find gratitude and my hope anchor. The trauma still happened, my learning disability is still there but I have skills to deal with my life and I have knowledge on how to communicate with others. I believe we all are a piece of the puzzle and when we find our amazing selves we make up a beautiful picture.

Social media and contact information: https://thesevencandles.com/
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Podcast Transcript:

[00:00:00] Damaged Parents: Welcome back to the Relatively Damaged Podcast by Damaged Parents where smart. Insistent challenged people come to learn. Maybe just, maybe we're all a little bit damaged. Someone once told me it's safe to assume 50% of the people I meet are struggling and feel wounded in some way. I would venture to say it's closer to 100%.

Every one of us is either currently struggling or has struggled with something that made us feel less than like we aren't good enough. We aren't capable. We are relatively damaged. And that's what we're here to talk about. In my ongoing investigation of the damaged self, I want to better understand how others view their own challenges.

Maybe it's not so much about the damage, maybe it's about our perception and how we deal with it. There is a deep commitment to becoming who we are meant to be. How do you do that? How do you find balance after a damaging experience? My hero is the damaged person. The one who faces seemingly insurmountable odds to come out on the other side, whole.

Those who stared directly into the face of adversity with unyielding persistence to discover their purpose. These are the people who inspire me to be more fully me. Not in spite of my trials, but because of them. Let's hear from another hero. Today's topic includes sensitive material, which may not be appropriate for children.

This podcast is provided for informational purposes only, and is not intended as advice. The opinions expressed here were strictly those of the person who gave them. Today, we're going to talk with Nicole Shir. She has many roles in her life. Parent sister daughter step-daughter aunt. Partner and more. We'll talk about how she struggled with a learning disability and how she found health and healing let's talk

Welcome back to Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. Today, we have Nicole Shir here. She is an author of The Needs Language and The Needs Languages of Bringing Balance and Belonging in Parenting. Amazing author and great insights.

She grew up with a disability. She found balance through some tools that she's going to share with us today. She experienced a significant amount of trauma having a learning disability and just, gosh, an amazing woman is what I want to say. I mean, just an amazing person.

[00:02:34] Nicole Shir: Thank you very much. I just kinda got overtaken by what you just, said. So I was like I said, I became speechless there for a second. I was so sorry about that.

[00:02:46] Damaged Parents: Yeah. And for those of you that are regular listeners, you know, why generally have a short conversation ahead of time and her and I were just having. You know, Oh yeah, we need to work on this and we need to work on this and wouldn't it be great if this happened? And so we hope to get it. We definitely we'll get into that.

We don't just hope we will get into that, but you can find Nicole on Twitter her tag is @TheSevenCandles. She's also on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, and has a website. So https://TheSevenCandles.com, Nicole, thank you again for being here today and being willing to share your journey.

[00:03:20] Nicole Shir: I am super excited. My passion Is basically disability rights. I don't like to say disability because I like to call it capability. I um, recently what we were talking about a second ago was I was talking with a professor at Portland state and Portland state is an innovative college where they are very big on, minority and diversity and inclusion.

and I did my master's in industrial organizational psychology, which I like to say, you have to have a degree to say it or spell it. It's a big mouthful. And when we were talking and he says, it's about ability within context for capability within context. And that really stuck with me.

Cause I don't like the word ableism. And I really prefer that. And I'm going to give a quick story of what ability is within context. I have a learning disability and I was very fortunate that because , I had an aunt that had a seen disability. My mother was able to figure out in high school, back in the eighties, when this, you just didn't talk about learning disabilities except dyslexia, which I don't have.

She discovered that I had a learning disability, it was really challenging, to have this. So it was ability within context. Well, when I did my undergrad, my first time around, I flunked out of college and I just can't do tests cause it's auditory and visual processing, which basically means I misunderstand things and you don't know when it's gonna happen and it can be funny sometimes, you know, like you can go to the store and you buy a shirt and you accidentally hear that the foundation's going to the Trump foundation and you're like, this is a pride shirt.

Why how's that going to go to the Trump foundation? And it's triumph. And so it can be comical, but not when you're taking a test and you don't know you're going to misunderstand something. And so they don't have accommodations for that. However, when I did my master's, I did it in six months and because it was all essay and I had a reasonable accommodation to talk with my instructor to get clarification, and I was an honor roll student.

So that is what it means by ability within context. So it would be like a mobility thing. A person can't get into a building if they have a mobility issue, but they can get into a building. They can maybe walk up the steps, but they're able to get into the building if they have access. But that's for everyone.

Everybody has their own ability to do something or capability to do something within context. A two year old can't drive a car. Believe me, my brother tried to run the car into the church when he was two and did not work, back in the day everybody is about ability within context. And that's what we got to look at.

We got to get back to humanity and when we treat people with disabilities, as we're doing them a favor, I actually um, I need to share this story. I was in uh, a meetup and I was talking about some people about some of the things about. I have been invited to a, I did a proposal about employment and employers issues around disabilities.

And I'll, I'll come back to that about some statistics later. And I was talking to people and they thought that These are normal people. They thought that disabilities were people like autism Asperger's,

[00:06:35] Damaged Parents: Even those just really quick. Even those don't look a certain way. Like a lot of people, there's a girlfriend of mine who in her forties was finally diagnosed. And I would've never thought that there was autistic stuff going on there and actually I really didn't care because I, she was an amazing woman and sometimes I'd be a little confused about things, but that was okay.

I would go back and chat with her. You know what I'm saying?

[00:07:05] Nicole Shir: Exactly. But they thought it was more like these people that had disabilities that were just, mental health and, you know, and they said, my friend gave them a job, it was like,

they did him a favor and had to pay a minimum wage. And I about wanted to go up and say, and it costs them.

And, you know, and I said, There are people out there that are highly intelligent. It's not about doing people a favor. You have to understand. Disabilities are a wide range.

[00:07:32] Damaged Parents: Yeah, well, my sister works at a high school. She's an instructional assistant. And the interesting thing is she's working with a lot of very high, very smart, very high functioning people that are struggling. They just struggled because they don't have that capacity to learn in the way that we're willing to teach.

[00:07:55] Nicole Shir: My mom told me, she put me in a private school and they had started this pilot program for people that were like me. And we were doing better than the people that didn't need to be in that pilot program. And because we were embarrassing, the normal kids, they took it away cause they don't want to see us succeed and show them up. That's the kind of stuff we're talking about. So I'm sure your friend, before she was diagnosed, struggled in jobs

[00:08:22] Damaged Parents: yup.

[00:08:23] Nicole Shir: 'cause nobody. Everyone was like, why can't you be normal? Why can't you function? What's going on? Why can't you fit in the box? Because I don't fit in the box and we don't make allowances for that.

And that is why we have a two to three times higher unemployment rate for people with disabilities. Now, wait till I tell you this statistic. In 2015, one out of every four people, according to the CDC were diagnosed with people with disabilities. 2018, 5% went up 25% of our population, 25%. Now you think about that one fourth of our population are struggling two to three times higher unemployment rate.

And you tell me when all that unemployment, that $300 was going on and people were complaining that people didn't want to work. no, no. You don't get no, no, no. This is where I get irritated. If people with disabilities and I'm using this term broadly, because this is just the thing. If you research it, they are more loyal, more hard working What happens is, is, when they get their job there, they know this hard, they'll lose their job. They get bullied. I talked to a gal that um, she worked in the government and they had told her we, we misappropriated fund, this is a Glacier Park, we misappropriated the funds. You just don't let them know.

And if they have a mobility issue and scoot them away. Things like this are happening constantly. Horror stories. I remember working for a company and I told them I cannot work more than so many hours because of my disability, because I have a few other things. They start pushing it. I didn't want to disclose my disability cause I'm very private about that because people's judgment.

No, you don't. You're called a liar because I look normal. I can show you my test results of my learning disability. I redid it recently. Same thing. And they had two people call me and gang up on me, what the heck two people.

[00:10:27] Damaged Parents: Yeah,

[00:10:28] Nicole Shir: And when I've looked at colleges in the business department, do you know how limited they are?

in EEOC law. I wrote a paper about teachers. Do you know how much training they get regarding across the board to teach children regarding disabilities one class. And it's about the legalities about disabilities class.

[00:10:49] Damaged Parents: So that class isn't even in that class, it's not about how do we help them. It's about safety and legal stuff, right? Do you know? I don't know. How to help change it. Right? Like even within the last weekend in my area, the homeless shelter opened up or not the, that I don't know what it's called.

It's where they help you with rent. And so you get Bouchers and things like that, so that you don't pay as much rent if you're homeless or disabled or et cetera, et cetera. And on their website. There was a you know, an instructional video on how to do this. And in the instructional video, if you're homeless, they tell you, well, you need to have an address.

How, and they have a disability on top of it. So thankfully someone I know, took this person in that needed this. And is helping them, but how many people don't have that And luckily that person recognizes the value that person has as a human, one of the neatest things as she is, what I'm told is she is so sweet and so loving.

And I just think about when we have employers. Wouldn't it be great to have somebody that came in that was sweet and loving every day that raised that frequency of love and acceptance in our workplaces when everybody else is getting stressed, wouldn't that be amazing? Well, think about what they could accomplish if they did that. There's value there.

[00:12:13] Nicole Shir: There is the problem again is lack of education. So for example, right now there's JAN job accommodation network. How many employers know about this? So one of the things we really need to be requirement, and this is over all minorities, because there are minority comments out there that are not okay.

It's I mean look at the #MeToo movement. You're old enough to know I mean, I watched Working Girl a couple of years ago, and I was appalled. That was the norm. And these comments are still being made. So Job Accommodation Network is a great resource and a lot of times they will work with employers, but they're limited.

One of the things that we need to be doing is unify as a community. We are divided. It is too much of a well. You don't really have something yours is a processing disorder. It's not like you're Helen Keller. You can still see, you can still hear,

and, you know, unification is going to get you way more. So one of the things that a lot of people don't know is when you raise the minimum wage. That affects people who are on social security. Cause I can only make $1,300 a month. You can't go to the employer and say, Hey, can you pay me less? You can't negotiate lower wage.

And if you're educated and you can't work more than so many hours a week, you can't make so much. So now you can't do anything. And so people who are needing to make more, it messes with that messes with your health benefits. So that's one problem. So there's all these issues and that's one of the reasons we need to unify.

The other thing that they've done to divide us is they were trying to pass a law in Oregon, that they would social security for blind people, for people with sight impairment, sometimes I'm old school. So sometimes as I'm still working on the lingo, people who have a sight impairment get more social security than other people. Why? So that causes division. Another thing is they were working on making it more people who were had a certain disability would get more accessibility to employment than others people well, that's not. Okay. So I talked to a woman in Minnesota that was working on a bill that 10% of employers would hire people with disabilities.

I think that should be a law in every single state. If one fourth of the population has a disability then we should have at least 10% of our employment required to hire disabilities because disabilities. hit every minority every age and every gender should be a requirement. And by law our government should require training for every company to go through EEOC every year. Because I am tired of the derogatory comments. People do not know, and they bully people with disabilities because they do not understand.

[00:14:59] Damaged Parents: Right. You know, I've actually had people, get, because I do talk and I read that you can just go get a job, and I'm like, my hands don't work and any accommodations at least in the state of California does not include a personal care or healthcare aid to come with me and do what I need my hands to do.

And I think that is frustrating also. I mean, there are many, many people with disabilities. I think that want to give back that want to participate, that, know there's some value there. And there's something intrinsically amazing about giving back to the community what has been so freely given to us, even if it's just life,

[00:15:42] Nicole Shir: Yeah,

Well, I mean, think about if you don't know when you're going to misunderstand something and you're given an assignment to do. And you misunderstood the whole assignment. You have to start all over again. How much is that going to cost the employer? And then if you want to ask for clarifying conversation, that can be, where are you going to fit in there?

You almost have to do your own thing. I signed up with VOC rehab. This is, so this is the other problem. Our government does not know how to work with people with disabilities. If you look up read stories, vocational rehabilitation is known for. And working with people with disabilities. They're the go-to they like to work, well, they got in trouble.

They can move around a late nineties, early two thousands because they were handing out money and not properly vetting people. The other thing is they have this attitude that people with disabilities aren't supposed to fail. Well, we're going to fail two to three times higher because. we need to figure it out a little bit different.

And if you don't have a good way of figuring out how our disabilities work and what we're going to need for accommodations, we're going to fail even more. So I have a high failure rate. Part of it also is I had a lot of PTSD and I had to do a lot of retraining. With social skills because of the PTSD.

I'm satanic ritual abuse survivor on top of it. So, you know, I've got a learning disability, sensory issues and a satanic ritual abuse survivor. So I just spend a lot of time and I didn't get help. Because they didn't know how to work with that back in the day called a liar. So I just spend, most of my time, I got some help retraining myself.

So it took a little longer than the average, you know, zebra. I like to give an all animals equal opportunity. And so they don't like failure rates. They like to work with people who have had jobs for, 20 years. So recently I put together my own business. I've shown success rate.

I said, I need help putting this business plan together to show you I can be successful. And this is after they be rated me and I, showed them over and over again, definitions of what an IO is, all these things can't figure it out. After I put this plan together, did all this work with the website, everything they came back with.

You don't have enough experience. Now I want to share something. I put together a proposal for a society without a PhD. People who put these proposals together are in grad school, working on a PhD or have their PhD. And I got accepted. I put it together knowing nobody reaching out to everyone and I'm not experienced enough and they didn't give me any help.

And when I, turned in the proposal, it was after I'd done all the work they came back with, you don't have enough experience. They were expecting me to fail. They set up for failure now that's the government agency that's supposed to be helping people to get jobs. So if they can't help you.

To be successful and they can't set people up. How do we expect our workforce to understand us when even the government that's supposed to be helping people with individuals? And this is a common thing you can read article after article, after article in multiple states.

[00:18:51] Damaged Parents: Yeah, and I think there's also a bias there too. For instance, I believe it was in The End of Bias by Nordell, where it talks about men are, judged on what they believe that can be future performance and women are judged on past performance, not what they think they're capable of.

Which so there's not only that, that, you know what you're talking about. There's also this other bias that most people aren't even aware that they have.

[00:19:20] Nicole Shir: There's actually an amazing article is, was given by another professor at PSU. It's called the three M's, menstruation maternity and menopause And how women are not given equity around this, in the workplace. And it's true. I mean, how many women are judged because they need a fan for menopause or you know what I mean?

I'm going to get a little blunt here. I mean, you can't tell him I'm blunt. I mean, we bleed in the workplace. We have cramps in the workplace and I've had situations and I've talked to other women. This is about capability and we're talking about capability. You need to go change your tampon and you're told no, you can't use the bathroom.

What are you going to do? Bleed on the floor.

[00:20:00] Damaged Parents: or get toxic shock.

[00:20:02] Nicole Shir: Yeah. they get mad at you for bleeding on the floor. Come on let's deal with the elephant in the room. This is the deal of capability. A man walks in with a bunch of pictures of babies. He's a family man, woman walks in with babies.

She's going to be a problem because she's going to have to take time off work. Let's deal with the stereo-tism let's deal with the bias. I mean, this let's deal with this in the UK, there was an article about a bunch of women who got let go because they were going through menopause. So I'm tired of these kinds of things, because guess what?

I am smart. I am a good worker. I'm a smart worker. I can do amazing things. I've got talents beyond belief. I mean, I've just given you resources talked about unification and what needs to happen is we need to see the capability within context. Put my talents where they go and let's work together to create change, because guess what studies show innovation.

If you put people together from different cultures, backgrounds, races, and genders, your innovation goes through the roof. When you make things all about the white male, your innovation goes.

[00:21:12] Damaged Parents: Well, any of those you could take, and if you only include one group, then the innovation decreases because there's not that difference of opinion. And I think in today's world, I mean, if we look into politics and things like that, that there is this not willingness to see the other side?

I just recently posted a thought, noticing differences is smart noticing similarities is wise. And I think that's what you're asking us to do is notice those similarities, notice the value that that brings, and actually in some ways, notice the differences for the tremendous value they can bring.

[00:21:53] Nicole Shir: Yes. And when I said the white man, I did not mean anything against white male. I meant the systematic thing that we've been having for so long. I mean, there are some amazing white men out there. I'm talking about that whole systematic

[00:22:08] Damaged Parents: Well, and that's what we've been talking about for the last year or so. Right. That's been a big thing in our communities and, things like that. Now I'm thinking you've got some ideas on steps that people can take. from the disability community, outside the disability, anyone who is interested in supporting this type of movements, steps they can take to help.

[00:22:30] Nicole Shir: So in every state, there is, there's a couple of things, in our state, which is called DRO Disability Rights, Oregon. Every state has a disability rights every state has an independent living resource. Every state has a vocational rehabilitation. I personally believe that and every state has a governor and your politicians.

We first need to figure out ways to unify and you need to figure out how to unify around your, I would suggest contacting your disability rights, your independent living resources . The independent limited resources in your state they'll have like one That's appointed by the governor. I believe that will oversee in the state.

And they have a National SILC Committee for I don't have the resource off the top of my head, but they do have a I think it's NCIL, which is a committee that will. I know the one that I belong to works through Washington and they're putting stuff together to try and get the state legislative to change.

And Biden's been trying to work on some things regarding disability rights and healthcare and employment, but we need to unify. We need, I personally believe two things. We need to require employers to have EEOC training regarding. Humanity laws, just in general, having a 10 minute break in four hours is asinine.

People can not function in that. People cannot go to the bathroom. They can not stay hydrated. It affects our health. And when you do not take care of good retention, it costs companies money. Actually that's the number one cost that effects companies. And when you interview for a company, I've loved these companies that go, you know, these cost centers, I may have to go to the bathroom and other than in four hours, well, we, can't have that.

Well, then you go I'm not the employee for you. You know what I mean? Come on. You want me to talk on the phone? Not drink water, huh?

[00:24:27] Damaged Parents: That's hard. Yeah.

[00:24:28] Nicole Shir: And so, I mean, we need to have better loss. 10 minutes is not okay. Half hour lunch that you don't get paid for. And you really study show that you need to get up every hour and just move to some degree, even if it's a couple stretches by your, your, desk.

We need to have, especially in stressful jobs, uh, psychologist or psychiatrist, or someone there that is able to have a check-in, we need to have more care in the workplace. It will. Actually benefit the employer from the aspect of, if you have self care, your employees will stay healthier. Your employees will stay happier and happiness in the workplace shows

not only does it show that you'll have better retention, which shows you'll save money which shows you'll have innovation which shows you'll make more money. We need to get this out there. So we need to unify as people with abilities. I going to say abilities within context. We need to be the leaders in this.

We need to be the ones that are the leaders. We can be the leaders. We can be the leaders of change. If you look at the ADA that was in the nineties, and if you have a capital crawl there was a little girl who crawled on the capital steps and she created change. She was a little girl who created change.

We have the ability to create change EEOC loss. Every year a company is required to create change regarding that, laws, just in general, for humanity. We need to do that. We need to figure out a way in all of our states and it needs to be across the board, and laws around social security. This whole, we can't make more than 1300 a month is a load of crap.

We have got to take that cap off and make it more about hours. Not about money, but about hours because when you put a cap on money, you're always going to have someone in poverty

[00:26:19] Damaged Parents: And with poverty comes stress, inability to think higher likelihoods of abuse. there's so much and if you're under a tremendous amount of stress, how can you even expect yourself to make good decisions sometimes because then especially with poverty, it comes from that desperation mindset.

But the other point I wanted to make and what I really think what I hear you saying is we need to bring more heart more love.

[00:26:45] Nicole Shir: Yeah. More passion, More love. towards each other on top of that. And I'm not talking, mushy I'm talking we're care towards each other more understanding. I do not under, I understand pain cause I have some pain issues because of the trauma and that's, I don't understand mobility issues. I don't. And the other thing we need to do the 10% of United of the whole, every for employment minds about employment because employment will create

sustainability in life. But we need to have compassion. I saw the ADA law. My aunt grew up around the time of probably the civil rights. And my grandpa was a teacher. He was on the cover of life magazine in 1958 around teaching, which was a big deal.

And that might be why, how the governor of the state of Oregon found them. Her name was Barbara Roberts, an innovative woman, this amazing woman. And she had a child like my aunt come back. Then they called her mentally retarded. And they told my grandma that my aunt was a curse. My aunt would come home and sit in a puddle of urine because she was made fun of, there was no place for people like my aunt.

And they were telling me the story of my aunt. and she, They took her out of school. My grandma worked really hard with her and she spoke and you know what I mean? Back then they didn't, they didn't have that. And so Barbara made homes for people like my aunt and my aunt went and lived in Salem. She had a job, she had a community, she worked, she was happy.

She lived a long life. That's what we all want. We all want community. And when you say to someone. Because your disability doesn't fit. You're not disabled enough. You don't have community. And I remember because I didn't have a seen disability. I wasn't bad enough. And then people would call me a liar and I couldn't fit in.

And then with the trauma, I never could fully accept my disability. I could never fully accept. Because it couldn't fit in where the normal people did and I couldn't learn, and I was smart and, you know, I tested as a freshmen high school, freshman level college, and then I couldn't be disabled enough. Yeah, I can't fit in this group because I've only met one person who has

auditory and visual processing in my life. And that was this last year, I think, 50 years old, one person there's nobody out there like me.

[00:29:10] Damaged Parents: Or that you know of like that, maybe that, that, because it's such an internal thing, no one walks around saying I have this challenge. I have this challenge, although I think in some ways it might be nice.

[00:29:24] Nicole Shir: And so then you're so alone, you have shame you have shoulds, you're always should-ing on yourself and because the community has not been welcoming and the world's not welcoming, where do you go?

[00:29:36] Damaged Parents: it's, it can be so lonely And the disability in and of itself is lonely.

[00:29:42] Nicole Shir: yeah. Depressing shameful, lonely. And our society is cruel. I mean, I want to just slap so many people when COVID hit. Oh, I'm going to be isolated for say six months. You know what? I was isolated for how many years come on, guys. You can't handle six months.

[00:30:03] Damaged Parents: I was so grateful. Because finally, so many more people understood me. I was like, oh. and some people would say to me, wow, I had no idea how hard this is, to feel cut off, to feel, not included, to feel distanced from the world. I mean, for me as a person with disabilities, COVID opened up and now I I can talk on the computer with other people.

 It's a normal thing. I can, people are like, wow, you have this, this valuable insight, and that was not going to happen before. It just wasn't it wasn't, it took COVID to really set up. Because I think we have a long way to go, but to set up these things that are actually a lot more inclusive.

The other thing I wanted to point out, cause I know we're getting, we're talking for a while, is that it? At least in my county, there's a disability advisory commission. So look and see in the area that you live in, I'm talking to the listener. You know what it is or how you can have an impact on what's happening in the world.

Like out here we were working on the mental health board was putting together recommendations for the alternative to 9 1 1. Right. And thankfully, they didn't come to the disability advisory commission and ask for input. We actually went there and said, we think you might be missing a part of this.

do you mind if we include some recommendations? And so I think sometimes it's just being a little bit more forward in a loving way and saying we have some input and we care not just about ourselves but the community, because every single person I know struggles with something. And if they don't, I think they're a psychopath, but they just don't want to tell me.

Right. But I mean, I think we're here to learn and struggle.

[00:32:01] Nicole Shir: Yeah.

[00:32:01] Damaged Parents: So why not unify in that endeavor

[00:32:04] Nicole Shir: Exactly. And I think, some of the biggest movements, like the guy who started, I can't remember his name started the IRL movement, the independent living movement. He just started it. And I think maybe it's just putting a blog out there or a social media and the women's movement was a woman in #MeToo.

Me too. And just starting something and not making it about a particular thing just saying we need 10% disabilities. If you identify and having a disability 10%, EEOC we need better laws regarding breaks, whatever your passion is, go for It And don't stop I mean, if it's one little thing, it's one little thing.

I was in the bathroom at the airport. This is, this was this cute little story. This just happened recently. There's this little girl next to me. And I was waiting to wash my hands and some girl couldn't get her hands. So she had to walk next to her mom, her mom's helping her. And I looked at her and I said, I said, can I come next to you?

Because I, I try to be very careful cause trauma-informed in all of this. Yes. And yeah, it can be hard to wash your hands. Can't reach things. She, yeah. And she had yellow skirt on will puffy, and I asked you want to be a ballerina? She's like, yeah, I could purple ballerina or yellow. Nope yellow. Cause she's got yellow

you know, I said, oh, okay. I said, well, what kind of music? And she answered Barbie music. Oh, what kind of Barbies do you like? Oh I like, I like a dark Barbies. Oh. I said, do you have a Rosa Parks Barbie? No. I said, do you know who Rosa parks is? She's yes, now she's about three or four. So I don't know if she was a Rose Parks, but you know how little kids can be.

I said, well, you know, Rosa Parks was a woman in history who did some amazing things. And you know, women have done some amazing things throughout history. And, you need to get one of those dolls, cause they're very important and we need to do things and we have more opportunities as women than we've ever had, and you can do amazing things.

And there are more seven-year-old millionaires than there ever happened. And we have more opportunities than we've ever had in our history. We do amazing things. And that's what it's about is about when you have a desire or you have a passion or an ability, whether it's starting a podcast, like you've done Angela, is that relatively damaged.

Whether it's getting the word out that way. However that seed is, and you may fall flat on your face and you may start something else. You may do something else. I mean, I put my seven candles down and went back to school. I've got to go back and finish my degree. I flunked out I'm going to do it.

I put vision board and, you know, started all over again. It doesn't matter. You got to go and do what's passionate and it doesn't matter. Someone tried to take that away and say, you couldn't do it. You can, you may have to revamp it. And that is the biggest thing is it will happen, but it's got to have that good intention has got to have that impact

[00:35:06] Damaged Parents: It has to be grounded in values, I think is what you're saying. It's gotta be something that you value, especially I think with disability, I think with everyone really, but when you're facing a significant amount of challenges, if it's not, if it's not cemented in value, it just goes to the wayside because it's too hard

[00:35:25] Nicole Shir: and, the people will come around if you believe, and you will allow the people to come around. I've blocked people from coming around because of the damage I felt in my life because of the loneliness, because I haven't felt worthy. It's not deserved. In my opinion, it's worthy because it's that value is that worth, like you said, and it's allowing it say, how do these doors open?

How do I move? And how do I work with that passion? And my passion came because I was having a hard time finding jobs. People didn't want to work with me because they didn't know how to work with me. And, mine's simple Mine is so, I mean, they're little, itty-bitty little things here and there and it just the lack of compassion, and I had to retrain myself, literally I would walk in a room and people would turn the other way because the trauma had been so bad and with the other issues. and so I just encourage people one don't compete who's the bigger victim. I mean, really? Do you really want to be a better, bigger victim than someone else?

I mean, you want to wear a badge that says I'm a bigger victim. Why? Really, so find out ways to support each other unify and grow and create change, because like I just brought up Rosa Parks, she did something so amazing. I mean, wow. Mother Teresa. Wow. Martin Luther King. And I'm going to give one Nicole-ism.

This is one of my favorite Nicole-isms. We never celebrate Martin Luther King mom, day Martin Luther King dad day. But if it wasn't for their parents, they wouldn't have impacted and changed the world they did. You don't know that one word you may speak into that person's life that may change the world or transform the world to something better.

[00:37:16] Damaged Parents: oh, what a great closing to our conversation. I'm so glad I got to have you on the show today, Oh, one more thing.

[00:37:24] Nicole Shir: Remember that if that's the only thing you remember from today, remember that your words are powerful and what you say impact other people. Remember that story of that little girl and remember you may say something to someone that can change the world for it to be better.

[00:37:45] Damaged Parents: Oh, gosh, Nicole Shir author of The Needs, Language, Bringing Balance and Belonging in Dating and The Needs Languages Bringing Balance and Belonging in Parenting, you can find Nicole on https://TheSevenCandles.com, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. Thank you so much for being here.

[00:38:05] Nicole Shir: Thank you for having me. This was awesome. I'm really passionate about this.

[00:38:09] Damaged Parents: Yes, me too.

 We've really enjoyed talking to Nicole about how she learned about ability within context. We especially liked when she spoke about really making a difference in this world. To night with other damaged people, connect with us on Instagram. Look for damaged parents. We'll be here next week still relatively damaged see you then