From Surviving to Thriving with Deanna McKellip

Have you ever heard the phrase, you can’t change anyone but yourself?

Different upbringings and life experiences give us each our own identity, but they also highlight the fact that we each learn different skills based on how our parents raised us. This can include survival skills. 

Deanna shares how the transformation of asking “why is this happening for me” instead of asking “why is this happening to me” became a life changing shift in radical self-responsibility, allowing her to feel empowered to seek the lesson instead of stuck in victim mentality mode.

Trigger Warning: We discuss Eating Disorders, cPTSD, and Suicidal Ideation in this episode

In this episode, you can expect Kara, Jack, and Deanna to talk about:

• What transformation means to Deanna and how she overcame cPTSD and an eating disorder to thrive in her business and life
• How your upbringing can influence your life, and how not everyone may grow up with the same tools for basic self-care. How to learn these lessons later in life.
• Why it’s important to listen to your body and be more intuitive, not only when it comes to eating but also living intentionally 
• The importance behind therapy in growth and how radical self-responsibility plays into it 

Want to watch it instead? Click here: https://youtu.be/SG6ypbBCnI8

About Deanna: Deanna is a woman in tech, and an entrepreneur of two successful businesses. She’s also the host of the popular podcast, Fragmenters. Fragmenters is a podcast that focuses on building up women in male dominated fields. Check her out on Instagram at @fragmenters and on Facebook at facebook.com/Fragmenters1

Sponsor: Optimized Career Solutions at www.optimizedcareersolutions.com  If you're ready for a transformation in your career, but not sure how to take that next step, we want you to learn the strategies and gain the support every high achiever needs to feel empowered in their career. Be confident in your job search and schedule your free consultation with Kara and Jack at https://getstarted.optimizedcareersolutions.com

About Kara: Kara is the CEO of Optimized Career Solutions, an Executive Career and Leadership Coach and a Forbes Contributor. She is a Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) who has spent her career as a Corporate Recruiting Leader, working closely with decision-makers. Throughout her career, Kara has personally reviewed over 300,000 resumes. Through her executive coaching programs, she has helped thousands of professionals land their dream jobs and has been responsible for negotiating over $10 million in salary increases over the last few years.

About Jack: Jack is the COO of Optimized Career Solutions, an Executive Career Coach, and comes from a life coaching, personal training, and philosophy background. As the Accountability and Mindset Coach in their coaching program, Jack is passionate about helping high achievers and leaders live impactful lives by shifting mindsets, gaining personal accountability, and achieving personal and professional wins that lead to major life transformations. As a high ticket sales closer, Jack has sold over $1M in high ticket sales in under 3 years.

Email – thedennisondownload@gmail.com

Website – https://optimizedcareersolutions.com/

Kara LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/karadennisonsphr/

Jack LinkedIn -https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackrdennison/ 

Instagram - @thedennisondownload

Tiktok - @karadennisonsphr

Transcript

we love to talk about transformation I know we talked a little bit about transformation on your podcast and

you've had an incredible life of just changing and rising from the ashes like

Phoenix and I'd love to hear what does transformation mean to you in your life

oof um well I'll be honest transformation is why I'm still here if I did not make

that transformation on a personal level I would not be here as of it's 2023 so

three years ago I had my exit plans

welcome back to the Denison download and the first episode of 2023 we hope you

all survive the holidays and welcome to the new year we are so excited to

introduce you to our first guest of the New Year Dina hi what's up hi hi

welcome we are so excited to have you here Dina Dina macalp is I probably said that

wrong please correct me if I did mckellip mckellip okay uh is amazing

Dina is not only a woman in Tech which is badass in and of itself but she is

also a podcast hope host she hosts the fragmentors podcast which is incredible

highlighting other women in male-dominated fields which is just oh chef's kiss amazing and she and her

husband are also entrepreneurs and amazingly they started their first

business and has since opened other businesses in the last couple of years so a lot of incredible transformations

in your life Dina I can't wait to dive in that's amazing thank you so much for being here thank you I know if anybody

wants to hear Cara over on fragmenters she shared her wisdom there too so just

saying absolutely so definitely go check out my uh episode at launch I think in October of last year right yes awesome

so we had a really really great uh conversation there so Dina

we love to talk about transformation I know we talked a little bit about transformation on your podcast and

you've had an incredible life of just changing and rising from the ashes like

Phoenix and I'd love to hear what does transformation mean to you in your life

um well I'll be honest transformation is why I'm still here if I did not make

that transformation on a personal level I would not be here as of it's 2023 so

three years ago I had my exit plan so okay it is life and death to me

that is obviously the far end of the spectrum transformation to me is

fun and exciting and I okay I'll start from the beginning

because when people hear that they're like oh what a sappy blah blah blah but it was fun and exciting though right

after so it's got to be wild go for it yes so at one point my

I'll explain how much I've transformed my husband wanted to throw me a surprise

party not with people but just do something as a surprise take me

somewhere experience new things which I absolutely love traveling and doing new things but I was having panic attacks

because I didn't know where we were going or what we were doing sure surprise and change was terrifying and

now it's fun and exciting so that's why for me it's such a huge pivotal thing

yeah and in order to get there obviously I had to go through a lot of different

things first and foremost 100 if you are struggling especially this time of year I get sad

the seasonal depression not just sad so especially this time of year after the

holidays you no longer have things looking forward to or if the holidays are rough it could see if you even

grayer colder and Bleaker so 100 therapy yeah it

even if you don't think you need it like you're like I don't know what I'm gonna talk about or I had a good childhood or

there's really nothing going on I'm just sad and it's ridiculous just go the

worst that's going to happen is you're gonna spend a few dollars on yourself talk to someone and decide it's not for you the best

that can happen is it can literally change your life for the better so that's number one and that is what

saved me I am now with my third therapist we are working on an eating disorder I realized I had that I didn't

know I could have because I was fat I'll be honest I did not know I could have it

and it might be my night night night thank you whatever that is

or just my lack of Education in it but I was talking on fragmenters to a health

and nutrition coach coach and afterwards we were talking about it I hired her worked with her I knew all the things

but I couldn't do it um really that's an eating disorder if you know what to do and you cannot for

the life of you follow it because you have some mine I have a trigger Warning

by the way a binge and restrictive cycle so I would restrict myself to the point

of starvation having like two to seven hundred calories a day until I couldn't

handle it anymore and then I do like three to five thousand in a couple days and just keep going back and forth

so that is an eating disorder and that is why I'm heavy I've come to find out

even though I knew what to do I exercise I do all the things that's it so this is

my latest adventure for transformation wow tell me a little bit

um well one how long have you been doing this the binging and the Restriction

thing and how did you and your therapist kind of work through that and just or how are you rather working through that

and describing it so it all starts back when I was in diapers

and I know it really does though I grew up in a

pretty tumultuous childhood situation there was drugs there was alcohol I

think the first time I got drunk was with my parents and I was eight years old so it was not your average Lifestyle

and with that came a lot of traumas and when you have people surrounded with

addiction you have issues I had food insecurities hygiene insecurities a lot

of other stuff but I didn't eat a lot and I couldn't and we couldn't well it wasn't afforded to us

so it started when I was young okay and then when I got a little older I'm curvy

when I was at my my lowest weight it was after I had my daughter I was 17 years

old I could only well I couldn't afford food so where I worked I got one free

side when I worked so I'd have a side of fries a day and that was it and I was in housekeeping so I worked my ass off

literally yeah so I was like so skinny you could see bones and I was a size 10.

so that's that's what I mean by curve yeah I'm just bigger but

that wasn't the thing in the 90s in the 90s what was the thing was you know

super skinny and so that's when the true

anorexia started and then I got to the point where I wasn't eating so much that

like my teeth were having issues and I was having skin issues so then it transformed to bulimia after I had my

daughter got into better working finished high school did all that I was able to eat more but I had never learned

a proper way of eating so I gotta say it it was forever wow

that's fast it's almost sorry to um

to keep going on to this but it's almost like you were never taught about it and so now is it almost a relearning

process 100 so what I did and you you brought up

something that I really I feel like I'm pretty good at explaining because

a lot of people think they know that not everyone has the same upbringing and that common sense you know but there is

a shared common sense and I can tell you there's not because like you said I didn't learn how to eat properly I mean

there were times I went to my grandmother's house or friends houses and I did experience you know like fresh

vegetables fresh fruits I didn't have that at home so I had experience with it but

know how to do it and everyone's like well of course you know how to eat but really you don't

um I didn't learn how to clean until I was 30 years old like when my boyfriend

when we first started getting serious and he came over and I was gonna clean I

pulled out a mop a sponge a gallon of bleach and Lysol wipes

and we're gonna clean the whole house and he was like where's your bucket where is your toilet cleaner I'm like I

don't I don't need any of that you put water in the sink and you put the mop in and he's like no you don't so like

literally to the bear what you think is bare minimum to yourself is not it really

and when I finally figured that out it really helps me in situations

personally it helps me with my kids especially because sometimes you're like

[ __ ] I told you 700 times but they have so many things you're learning

it helps put into perspective that it's not actually easily easy and it's

definitely helped me in my career moving up to I'm now in leadership so in

my career working with my peers especially since I kind of for a while had a chip on my shoulder because my

first experience in it was in a gold mine and that was just really frustrating to work with men so then I

had this chip on my shoulder and then I was just mean to men because of it but when I finally figured out that portion

that it's not just me that everyone else just because it's really common sense for me how to you know script HTML and

work with DNS and all of that stuff it has to be learned for someone else

yeah yeah and you had asked me something else and I just went on that tangent so what

was your original question I love it what I am really Gathering from this is that you know

it's eye-opening for me too because I think we all kind of walk around this

the world right with this assumed knowledge that everyone has this base

level knowledge right we all know how to walk talk eat right or Faith properties

whatever and it's really eye-opening to know and to to hear it and I appreciate

you sharing thank you that not every one of us has the same upbringing or has learned the

basics to the same level or to a different level or whatever as each

other and what's fascinating is I look at you Dina and I'm like wow I'm badass like holy crap like HTML scripting woman

in leadership entrepreneur like holy moly and to hear you say I didn't even really learn how to to clean properly or

the basic rules of of feeding right until I was older and

it's true when I think about my life too there are some of those basic things that I didn't learn that I was older but

I could I can rattle off all this other stuff and I make this joke all the time to Jack and to other people where I'm

like man I feel so smart and some stuff and so dumb and the other things right

but it really just truly is a a good reminder to us that

every person that we meet knows something we don't know but every person that we meet might not

know what we know too so it just goes back to being kind and and to remembering like you said when you're

teaching people are a leader you don't know what they don't know so sometimes that assumed knowledge might not be

there as well either yeah it definitely helps like I said helps at home with the

kids helps in my relationship with communication because we had two different upbringings for sure helps it work because there are

times I walk into a room and there's people who have 20 more years experience

than I do it's more rare now I'm now at 17 years so I'm getting up there but they have so

much more experience and I'll be talking to them about something and they're not getting it and I

am human and I just want to go oh my God are you kidding me you don't understand this but they're 30 some odd years of

experience is not anything like what I've experienced so it helps me calm

down and be like [ __ ] you couldn't even brush your teeth right you can be patient explaining this new process

so I want to ask this question when it comes to kind of transformation and and

things one of the things that I've been spending last year 2022 learning or

relearning is how to take care of myself because I like that self-care thing I feel like I

spent a lot of my life living in that survival mode right in that constant state of fight or flight or you know

there's other ones now like bonding whatever but I just tend to find that I'm now

re-learning how to calm my nervous system down and actually live in a

healthy life and a fulfilled life instead of that constant survival mode I

want to start switching my life into thriving instead of surviving and it almost seems like you're kind of transforming into that oh hey I don't

need to survive I I I've got it like I I can take care of myself this is great I'm not in that moment of

holy [ __ ] I don't know where my food's gonna come from I don't know if this is a place where I'm safe anymore I know

I'm safe now I can actually switch into thriving is that is that kind of where you've been a hundred percent so I told

you I had my strategy and plan figured out for 2020. well in 2019 I was in such

a bad place that I didn't think I'd make it to that cut off date so that's why I

entered therapy and um when I finally told my therapist hey

just so you know we just passed this date and that's why I went to you she was like what the she was just like

flabbergasted but that again that really shows you just

how much you could not know someone because my therapist knew all the things and had no clue where I was so another

Reach Out get therapy ask for help but when I went to her

first session she was like holy [ __ ] UFC PTSD and I

was like I can't have PTSD I never went to war you know I never did any of that so

cptsd is complex post-traumatic stress disorder and if you haven't heard

anything about it essentially it happens to people in my

in my life it's childhood trauma-induced but it can happen to

um like rape survivors domestic violence survivors kidnap survivors it's

something that it's traumas that are lived over and over for a certain amount

of time that actually rewires your brain yeah and so when I found this out first of

all I bald because I'd never had a reason I just was told I

was Germanic I was told that I was too much you know I I didn't know why so when I finally

saw it I was like oh my God there is help there's something for me I just

cried and it was really eye-opening but what we did was EMDR

because I was I'm PTSD I don't I don't remember the

numbers specifically but let's say it's out of a hundred you have

your triggers your I was like I'd had night terrors I'd wake up screaming you know all of the

different things that happen out of like a hundred I was in the 80s I was like

way up there had almost every symptom I was stressed the [ __ ] out

so we started EMDR which is I don't know the acronym I try to remember that one

just escapes me every time it's like I wrap it yeah it's like eye movement

rapid desensitive decent that word yeah

we get it yeah well yeah and essentially it's a way to work in a safe place with

your therapist to retrain those neural Pathways so that

you're not always expecting the worst like if I got in a slight argument with

my partner my nervous system felt like I was being punched in the face like there was no in

between I was either everything's fine and hunky-dory or I was being stabbed

yeah there was no a little tiny disagreement would send me spiraling

into deep depression so being able to work through that and first of all

knowing that it it wasn't my fault that I wasn't just

a dramatic [ __ ] like I'd always heard was so good getting on Prozac the right

dosage key um and then working through the EMDR I

think after a year and a half was when we did my final test and I'm in

remission okay so it never goes away those were super grooved in there they

can come back if I don't continuously take care of myself but it took about a year and a half of the MDR to get

through that then pandemic happened everybody's losing it

um trying to keep my head together trying to keep kids in school doing all the things that everyone had to do

um after that started feeling somewhat normal that's when I started my podcast and had that conversation with Kirsten

and was like oh there's there's a lot there's some more trauma there that I didn't even register and now I'm working

with I'm pretty woo I'm I'm just saying so talk therapy is

good and I do a little bit of it but like EMDR worked really well and now I'm doing ifs which is integrated family

systems and essentially it's it's a meditation based that's how I

would say that's not how they explain it but in my experience it's more of a meditation close your eyes get in the

zone go inside and then you interact with all the different parts of

you and your parts are your little toddler self that was hungry

or you know the fat kid in school that was made fun of and just try to make

yourself an integrated family yeah and it has

been that's how I've been working on my eating disorder yeah on the therapy and Wu side on the actual side on the not

actual but on the lived experience side initially I forced myself to have three

meals a day it was a must and let me tell you I

cried sometimes when I was eating because I did not want to I

tried to Purge and made myself stop so it was

that that's how heavily ingrained this was and I didn't even know it existed so

that was my initial after six months of eating three meals a day minimum you

know I could have snacks I could whatever um I gained a [ __ ] ton of weight obviously because I'd never done it

before but I got to where I didn't have the

Cravings to hurt myself anymore especially working with a therapist hurt myself as in restrict or eat to the

point where I'm miserable you know those were those were how I caused myself pain so working with the therapist doing the

regular eating now we're we're I'm learning how to listen to my body

like I've never had that hunger and I've never had that full I just when I had

food I ate it and when I didn't have food that was just

the way it was so now I'm finally learning to oh no I'm bored that's not hunger you

know why am I discom feeling discomfort oh that's hunger so I'm again something

that most people understand I'm relearning how to listen to what my body

is saying whether I'm hungry or not and working on the intuitive eating so that's that's where I'm at so far I love

that you know that brings me a lot the intuitive eating and listening to your

body it reminds me a lot of what Jack and I talk about which is kind of living intentionally

um when we were in South Florida and severely burnt out and stressed out it

was almost like um we were kind of at the whim of whatever

desire came along or whatever was there you know Starbucks or you know fast food

whatever and we gained a lot of weight mainly because we couldn't discern

between boredom or stress or we just ate and it was more a convenience thing and

more of a we weren't intentionally listening into what we needed or taking

care of ourselves because we were so just burn and taken you know all that

other stuff and so what I really loved about what you were saying is

one it's it sucks feeling so

um so burnt out and so stressed and having

the PTSD and the eating the disorder or the cpsdn eating disorder on top of that is tough and

you can feel a lot of different ways about yourself right and what I loved about your story is that you made a

decision one of you had made one decision and then you made another decision which was to get help and to

tell um your therapist and the overarching theme that I'm getting

from your story is that it's never too bad there's always ways

to get help right from therapy to edmr to IFS I've done NLP right to tapping to

we actually just recorded an episode about using your tools right and there's so many tools to help even if it's just

a minuscule amount those Middle School amounts day by day add up and they can do massive amounts

of things like reprogramming right really detrimental programming that you

have gained throughout your year you can act or your years right you can actually be reprogrammed to have a healthier

better more fulfilling life and to get you out of that survival mode and it's There's Hope out there so anyone who's

listening uh to do the story and you're feeling that way or you've had any of those experiences or something similar

don't do it alone I can't help get therapy get someone who can

um who can listen and to work with you through this for sure right and you are worth someone's time

yeah that was one thing I told myself all the time but you are worth the time

it doesn't just that's it you're worth it it

whatever you are telling yourself or it's not you it's it's that part of you

that says it but whatever it's saying it's a [ __ ] liar and you are worth it

and it doesn't matter who you reach out to you will be

you you can get better yeah I love that let's take a quick break I want to read

our little ad and then I want to come back and I want to hear you go through a couple of years of some

tough work and I want to kind of hear the other side of it and how we're using some of our transformation and all the

stuff that you're doing so let's take a quick break and uh we'll be right back

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all right we are with Dina overall badass she is a woman in Tech a leader

woman in Tech she's also an entrepreneur she's the host of the fragmenters podcast and she shared at the top of

this episode her transformation overcoming cptsd and an eating disorder

Dina I want to hear how have you used and you did share a

little bit um at the beginning how you use some of your transformations to help in your job but I want to hear a little bit more

about some of the other I'm not going to say passion projects because these are Big projects your your

business and your your podcast how have you used your transformations to help

transform some of the other lives that you've you've touched you've been around so

that your employees I'd love to kind of hear a little bit about what you're

doing and where you're going well it always starts at home

so at home I am a much better mother than I was to my

kids because confrontation was so awful for me that included with my kids

so I had a couple spoiled little turds [Music]

I'll admit it it was I was always

and then when I was single there was only a good cop so it it got kind of

rough and what I've learned is that I was not teaching them the life lessons they need to be adults if you have a kid

and you just give them give and give and give and you see them fall and you go and catch

them and you make sure they never fall or you pick them up and then you carry

them around for the next two years I'm talking metaphorically my 14 year old is

five inches taller than me so I'm not physically carrying him but you get what I'm saying yeah um

they will not be able to cope with their life because they've not learned at the

ages that they're supposed to how to deal with conflict and how to

fight urges and all of that stuff so I've been able to before they were in

adulthood and I [ __ ] them too royally seriously it's everyone 's worth

nightmare but I've been able to adjust that and help them more into being

better people for themselves and everyone around them so that's first and foremost

um my husband tells me all the time he's a better man because he's with me and I

feel the same for him we have strengthened our bond and our

communication so much I I'm telling you even if you just go to therapy and you're like I don't need this but I need

to learn how to communicate just interacting with them and knowing how to

ask questions better helps your relationships it just does it

I learned how to make everything me

so instead of saying you're being a dick saying when you said this I felt like

you were being a dick it's totally different the way it

impacts even though you say the same thing I get it I get it yeah

so it's definitely helped in that regard he actually is now in therapy because he

was always like I don't I didn't have a bad childhood I didn't I don't know what to talk about now and after seeing me go

from wanting to do the deed to now this you

know super confident I mean not perfect obviously but I'm

super confident in myself I take care of myself every day in some regard journaling working out you can see I get

my nails done that's one of the things that I do just for me I dress better I

do makeup when I want to not because I feel like I have to or I don't you know

he's seen all this he's like I think I'll give it a shot and he's already

feeling different because of going so that's interesting

yeah that actually happened for Jack too do you want to share yeah that was uh exactly what happened I kind of watched

you going through therapy when we got together it was never something I ever felt I needed we had similar

conversations about childhood and kind of talked about how I felt my childhood was good and I never looked back on

anything negatively but what I really realized that once I kind of got over

myself and just tried it was that I I didn't have a lot of the tools like

you said Dina that you're trying to teach your kids so that they can be well good well-rounded adults and I didn't

know how to process the emotions that I was feeling I would just kind of compartmentalize and push them down and

move on yep and I got really good at it I think a lot of

men are good at compartmentalizing too oh yeah I think we're we're probably some of the best at it and so

um just because we're not necessarily told that we're allowed to process emotions or given ways to do it healthily so

typically what you see men doing processing emotions that goes to anger it goes to rage it goes to these bursts

these outbursts because they they hold it into the point where they can't anymore and then unfortunately that's

what happens and that for me I noticed was coming out in

probably more passive aggressive ways I was probably a little bit more passive aggressive in the sense that I was feeling something didn't know how to

process how I was feeling and so instead of saying what I was feeling I would just

be crappy to the people around me you've been in that for over a year now and it's been wildly helpful how about

for for your man so he's only been for a couple months but already there's a transformation

he's still in the beginning stages so it's still

really rough for him but I know where he's at thankfully I've lived it so I'm

a little bit more patient not as patient as I should be I still I'll try the I

know you're hurting right now and blah blah and then after the second or third I'm like no you can't talk to me like this I know

you're hurting but no so I'm not perfect but it's it's already helping and

we communicated really well before but now like I said you start learning the

instead of use you have eyes and it's helping even more and his major issue is

the same Jack and I think it is fed into our boys and men way too much that you

should not show your more emotions you don't want to be a [ __ ] you don't wanna you know you know want to throw like a

girl you don't want to cry like a girl you don't want to be like a girl it's just you're surrounded by it so I'm so

glad you were able to get into it and feel better too yeah it's it's been

awesome it's been very helpful and I tell all my friends anybody who's dealing with something hey maybe this is

something you want to try I I don't uh necessarily think it's for everybody um because I've done it in the past and

it didn't work for me then but also you have to be in the right place you have to be willing to work on yourself you

have to be willing to think past that thought of no everything's fine I'm good

right that surface level mindset that we're all taught to to kind of put out there uh kind of when we go to high

school right well you mentioned Dina is that you know your husband's in that that

tough spot right like therapy is not going to be oh great I had a I had a session and look I'm Healed everything's

great I feel amazing it's the tough work it's the hey are you willing to scratch

the surface and go underneath and see maybe what is going on why you're

reacting sometimes like that to sometimes benign things that maybe other

people don't react that way why why are you reacting that way right and it does it gets tougher sometimes before it gets

better and to Jack's point you have to be willing and ready to do that work or Jack to your other point is maybe that

first therapist wasn't for you sometimes you have to feel comfortable in that container and if you're not try another

therapist you don't have to go with the first one it's like dating you know yeah for sure and you will not hurt their

feelings I've talked to I'm on my third third yeah so three therapists you know and it you're not breaking up with them

they're not gonna be I mean you are important but they're not going to be devastated and heartbroken if you say

hey I'm not really getting anything anymore I'm gonna go to someone else it's it's kind of like it's kind of like

rehab yeah you know they want you to leave and never see you again not

because they don't like you but because then you've healed and you've succeeded or you're on to the next step yeah so

definitely be willing to break up with your therapist but another thing that I had to do was

and I think it's part of what Jack was saying is radical self-responsibility

I growing up the way I did was a victim and I was a victim things that I

experienced no one should have to experience but when you're a victim for so long you

get a victim mentality and that means it's always someone else's fault and I

lived my life like that for a long time everything happened to me everything was

against me you know even good things something bad was gonna happen afterwards because I was always going to

be a victim because I always was and when I was able to have radical

self-responsibility and I don't mean to say if you were raped

it was your fault that is not self-responsibility what it is is acknowledging this horrible terrible

thing happened to me and I am responsible to get past it

that's what it is and when I was able to process that

and realize that once you hit a certain age your childhood your parents aren't to blame

anymore because you have the responsibility to learn what you weren't

taught when you were younger so once I was able to do that that's when you can

scratch through the surface and that's when you can say yes this was horrible awful but

I'll use work again work is way easier to talk about than like some of the other stuff so

I was having an issue with a co-worker he was misogynist is probably still he

retired so I'm not sure but it was really hard to work with him he would

not listen to me he would talk down to me and he was he was a really nice guy he was

just fed this his entire life and that's how he was so I got to the point where I didn't

work with him unless I absolutely had to and when I went in I had a fortress

around me not even barriers I came in already on the offense offense and

defense came in with a biting tongue and

once I started therapy and healing and it went from

getting myself you know bathing and living again and I started seeing around

I walked into that and heard my tone and was like oh [ __ ] I

am part of the problem like this isn't him this

that may have been how it started but after two years of working with him

I have ached the song like I see how I responded like this and he became more

and I became more and we just can't work together and I had to humble myself

forgive myself for sure because that that's where I get stuck a lot but

forgive myself for doing it and saying okay that was me it doesn't have to be me and the next interaction I had he was

a total dick and I was nice as can be and I was like it's because you were a [ __ ] before you gotta get past it the

second time same reaction the third time we worked pretty well together so he had

to realize that it was happening so even if someone is a huge jerk to you

some of it could be you and you have to to look at yourself

and be like how am I hurting this situation sometimes they're just an [ __ ] you

know sometimes you're doing absolutely nothing wrong but 99 of the time I found

a way that I could change and at least no for myself that I've done everything

to make this situation easy I love that I I think that's such a perfect place to wrap up self or radical

self-responsibility is such a huge thing for Jack and I I think

um that victim mentality was something that was brought up to me in therapy as well

um and it's really easy to fall into that victim mentality right because [ __ ]

happens like let's be real I mean especially over the last couple of years with the pandemic and all this other

stuff it's very easy to fall into the why me why me right and

I've seen people live that way I also live that way for a very long time and like my dad dying or I was also date

raped and things like that too and what Dina is saying is those things

are going to happen right life is going to happen and that doesn't mean that you're not a victim of things happening

to you what she's saying is it is then your responsibility to determine what are you going to do after that right

because we've all heard the saying you can't change anyone else but yourself right

you know and that for instance my date rape right I could and I did spend a

couple of years being afraid of men not dating um holding myself up in my apartment uh

not going out with friends really not liking myself right and that was a choice that I did but I lost years off

of my life off of my social life off of my self-confidence and it wasn't until I

flipped it around and became radically self-responsible for my actions to not

let that control who I was moving forward my confidence Etc and I decided

to work through that with therapy Etc and all that other stuff I decided to become responsible for how I was going

to move forward from that and heal from that so what Dina is really saying is when things happen to you you get a

choice you get to either let that thing Define you or you get to become empowered and move

from that learn from it heal from it Etc absolutely I I like to I'm just gonna

get in here for one more second yeah how I reframed it is nothing

ever happens to me anymore it happens for me so if something's bad is

happening yeah if something bad is happening to me I have to sit back and be like what is

the lesson I'm supposed to learn yeah what is it's happening for me to learn

something to better myself now what is it when you're in the throes of it when you have someone dying

it's really hard to do and sometimes you just have to come back to it when you're at a better place but when I start

getting that victim mentality why is this happening to me why does this always happen to me blah blah blah life

is horrible I know something's happening for me to really dig down and figure out how to

change and transform I guess I love that I can grow from it yeah we

just did an episode a couple weeks ago about the win or learn mentality it's it's hey if you're feeling why is this

happening to me if you can't get to the why is this happening for me yet the

question in between was what can I learn from this right and I really like that a

lot um because everything's a lesson that I think really is so Dina thank you so

much for coming on oh my gosh and for telling your story I can I can already tell that this is going to help a lot of

people and um I hope so it was eye-opening for me for sure is there any final parting words that you would like

to share with our listeners um I really think that was I can't pick

myself for a listen but it's happening for you not to you so I don't think so

but if you like hearing ladies and male dominated Fields you can always listen

to fragmenters absolutely so where can you find Dina online she is the host the

amazing host of the fragmenters podcast um she is on every podcasting uh place

that you can basically find the fragmenters podcast right oh yeah um she's also on Instagram on Facebook

so check out the fragmenters podcast on those as well if you are in Idaho where

can you find her yep I'm in Idaho Falls I mean

technically a suburb but whatever it's Idaho Falls so we're in East Idaho we

sell wine barrels with mcilman's just saying they're used wine barrels or you can get dry cleaning done at Teton

cleaners amazing amazing she is about us thank you so much for coming on uh for

our listeners we are on Instagram at the Denison download on Facebook that doesn't download podcast uh check us out

on all major podcast streaming sites and from our family to yours have a great rest of your week