#2 - Being Different

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

shannon, life, differences, sparkle, taught, sibling, noise, mom, faced, love, understand, trisha, embrace, sister, talk, balance, bump, path, normal

SPEAKERS

Trisha Barita

00:02

Hey there, I'm Trisha Barita. I'm a mother of twin girls, a wife, an entrepreneur, a psychology major, a lawyer, and a coach. With all these different roles in my life, in the past, I truly struggled with limiting beliefs in my ability to adequately juggle all these roles successfully, I often would be frustrated that time and again, I let my goals and dreams always take a backseat to everything else I was trying to do. And those dreams always seem to be on the horizon, just out of reach. Until I discovered tools and thought- work to help me tackle and learn to balance all of it.

00:45

Now, I don't let these titles define my limits. I define my balance in life, by how I choose to show up for myself every day. Am I perfect? Hell no, far from it. But I do work every day to believe in myself and to be present with whatever I experienced in this life. The Good, the Bad, and The really fucking ugly. to own my truth and own my thoughts. I created this podcast to talk about how that noise gets in the way of our goals as women. And now I help women and teach them tools to cut the overwhelm of noise in their life, preventing them from getting the balance they want. If you like this podcast and want to take my free course to get started on designing your balance, and saying 'fuck that noise,' go to Trishabarita.com/freecourse. Now let's get after it.

02:08

Hello, fabulous friends. So today I'm going to talk to you about my older sister, Shannon. And, well, some people in my life have definitely called her different. When she meets you, she may touch your face out of affection, especially if you have glasses. She loves the ocean, but not the idea of getting in the ocean. And sometimes music boxes make her cry, although I've never really understood why. Growing up she was my best friend. Less than two years apart, we were like two peas in a pod. We played for hours in the sandbox or any backyard imagination land that we could come up with. We fought over toys like siblings do. And growing up, she could talk very little, really not that much at all. But I didn't think much of it. She couldn't read. And when I was little I didn't think much of that either. She couldn't write. And again, I-- I didn't really think much of it. She didn't have great motor skills so sometimes she would bump into people. For instance, sometimes when we were at the grocery store with my mom, if she accidentally bumped into someone, I just briefly said to whomever, 'Whoops, sorry about that.'

03:28

And maybe you would say she's a little different. But different than what? And what the hell is normal anyway? And who the hell wants to be normal anyway? You know, I wasn't a clueless kiddo back then. At least I don't think so. I was just a happy kid playing with my sister. And I think my parents spent time raising me to not see anything really wrong with any differences between myself and my older sister Shannon--even if she couldn't run as fast as me or do some of the things I could do.

04:02

And while I may have had asked some questions, it really wasn't until this one incident when Shannon got to go bowling at school one day, and I didn't, that I really remember my parents trying to help me understand more about how Shannon's path in life, and perhaps her differences, would be different than mine. And what that means. I was maybe six or seven and I was jealous of Shannon. She was going to go bowling at school and I was like red-hot jealous like any sibling finding out their sibling gets to do something fun and they don't get to go. And and I said, you know, why does she get to do that and and I have to go, you know, to just a normal school and do reading and math and blah, blah, blah. And my mom tried to explain it to me, but I would not hear it.

04:54

And finally, you know, out of protest for Shannon getting to do something I didn't get to do I told my mom, 'Fine, I'll be like Shannon,' and decided to be like her by not speaking for a whole day. And my mom, well, she was really mad. I'm sure I lost privileges or toys, or something that day; I can't remember all the details. But finally, she sat down with me. And she said, 'You know, Shannon has cerebral palsy, Trisha.' And, and maybe they had told me that before. But well, I mean, I'm a kid, I really didn't understand what those complicated words meant. I didn't understand the gravity of a disabled child with a very serious brain injury. I didn't understand til my mom told me that day, 'Shannon is in a special program at school. And they do other things like bowling,' she said. Because Shannon was probably not ever going to be able to read like I could, or learn other things like me. And of course, I, you know, wanted to know more, and I asked questions, which they patiently tried to explain and answer. It started to sink in. She was different. But is she -- but to me, she was just my sister. And while she couldn't do some stuff, we still played, and I just never thought of her as that different. And after that day, I made a conscious effort to try and be more thoughtful but to still not treat her any differently. I still played with her day after day. And as I grew older, I proudly introduced her to all my friends. And if you're close to me in my life, you definitely know about Shannon because I love her very dearly.

06:38

I will never truly know what it's like to be Shannon. But I know what it's like to be her sister. And I find her to be a blessing in this world. She's taught me an understanding of love--the simple kind, where you just love someone. Without all the backstory and drama. She's taught me frustration--when not everything in this world is made to aid or help someone like her. And the deep frustration of not having a voice in so many ways. And she's taught me that different is beautiful. I respect and often remind myself that many times the difficulties she faces and the path for her life will be faced with different challenges than mine. And she's taught me kindness and empathy for others, and knowing that I truly do not know another person's struggles, or challenges they may have faced in their life. And not just with disability, but with all kinds of differences.

07:39

I say this because there's something to be learned about your own differences and what makes you different in this world. And there's something to be learned from having kindness and a respect for others paths as it compares to your own. You may not always know what to do with your differences from others. You may have an internal chatter that who you are in this life is not good enough. And that you not being like someone else because they look a certain way. Or they can do certain things. That somehow that makes you not as great. I know I've had those thoughts in the past and, well, that's just bullshit. I mean, you can't expect others to see how cool and beautiful it is to be different or cool it is to be you till you stop believing it's a problem to be different to begin with. And start embracing your rainbow-sparkle-unicorn self. And different can be fucking awesome. I'm not gonna lie that your differences in your life always make you feel amazing. I know mine haven't. Because there can be moments that it totally sucks sometimes--that things don't always go the way you expect them to go because of what makes you different. That other people tell you that the different parts about you will hold you back.

08:56

And that's okay when that happens. Because life isn't a bowl of the fucking marshmallows from Lucky Charms. It never has been and never will be. But know what you have control over. And that is simple. Start believing in how what makes you special--you different--that yhat's your secret ingredient. That's the fire behind you. That's your lightning in a bottle. And you change your thoughts to lean into that. That's all the good stuff.

09:28

And it's okay to recognize and lift others up in how they sparkle too. I'm lucky to have Shannon in my life, and I'm thankful for all the ways she's made me see life differently, to see other people's paths differently, to embrace my own differences from others. Even at times when I have seen those different qualities of my own as something that makes me feel 'less-than.' Just having Shannon in my life--every day she makes me strive to always think different, to lead with love and kindness for others and I think she's made me a different and better person for it. So go out there today and be different,  think different. Embrace the most different thing about you. Embrace your sparkle. Have a little party and do a little dance that we all aren't the same. I know I do. Now go get after it. You got this!

10:32

Hey, thanks for listening today. If you enjoyed this episode, and are a woman ready to say, 'Fuck that noise,' so you can start designing the balance in your life. Go take my free course to get started at TrishaBarita.com/freecourse. Now Have an awesome day and I'll see you next week.