Staying Small, Trauma & Questioning Normal with Debbie Harrell

Debbie Harrell grew up learning that the safest way to move through life was to stay quiet, responsible and unnoticed. In a home marked by emotional abuse and instability, she found refuge in school, work, friendships and the private space of her bedroom.

Those early lessons followed her into adulthood. Debbie began recognising familiar dynamics in her relationships, while continuing to rely on hard work, independence and being useful to others. A spontaneous move to Catalina Island eventually gave her something different: a close-knit community, a place to raise her children and a stronger sense of belonging.

However, a succession of events placed enormous pressure on that stability - loss, health and surviving the Route 91 mass shooting in Las Vegas.

At first, she continued doing what she had always done: working, caring for others and carrying on. It was only later, after meeting with a PTSD specialist and eventually taking medical leave, that she began to recognise how much trauma she had accumulated long before the shooting.

In this candid and often humorous conversation, Debbie discusses:

• Growing up with emotional abuse and learning to stay small
• Finding belonging and raising her children on Catalina Island
• Repeated relationship dynamics and the effects of earlier experiences
• Losing her mother and grieving what their relationship had never been
• Serious health complications during what she calls her “year of suck”
• Surviving the Route 91 mass shooting and its lasting effects
• Losing her cousin to alcohol addiction
• Recognising accumulated trauma and finally taking medical leave
• Rethinking work, productivity and identity during the pandemic
• Moving into coaching, podcasting and peer support
• Questioning accepted ideas of what is “normal”
• Using practical grounding tools for anxiety and negative self-talk

Debbie’s story is not defined by one traumatic event. It is about accumulation: how childhood experiences, relationships, grief, health, work and sudden crisis can build upon one another, and how their impact may only become clear years later.

It is also about community, humour and learning that continuing to function is not always the same as being well.

About Debbie Harrell: Debbie Harrell is a resilience and intentional living expert. As founder of New World Normal, she helps values-driven women break free from self-doubt and “shoulds” to design aligned lives that inspire change in the world around them.

Connect at: Podcast, FB Community, IG, Website

Transcript

Introduction

Regina Sayer 0:01

Thank you everybody for joining me for another episode of Wisdom Without the Guru with my guest this time from California, Debbie Harrell. I truly appreciate Debbie coming on the show because she is the epitome of somebody who has faced so many things and yet still keeps going. And I think that her story should truly give hope to people. The way that Debbie tells her story is one with candor and with humor. She shares her feelings and it is how she is dealing with what happened to her, the many things. And some of those many things include a mass shooting at Route 99. She shares what happened. She doesn't go into detail because it was very, very close to the anniversary of the shooting. And so we didn't want her to be triggered. So she superficially goes over it because I think it would be good for people to have an idea of what this kind of trauma is, especially for many people who are across the world who are not living in such a gun community as there is in the United States and who face this particular kind of tragedy. Yes, it's true in other parts of the world. There is other type of tragedy. This is the year of suck, as she calls it, and it is definitely the year of suck for her. So I hope that you'll listen and I hope that you'll go on her journey with her and hold her hand and hold your own hand or the hand of somebody you know who may be going through something similar, or not even similar, but who may be having things happen to them one right after the other. How do you deal with that? What do you do? How does it affect you? How does it show up later in life when you don't even expect it to? Has it happened to you? Do you know somebody going through that? I think this is an episode for you if it is. So sit back and listen. And if you like what you hear, please do share podcasts to somebody who you think can use it. Thank you, everybody. Enjoy the show.

Regina Sayer 2:03

Welcome back to another episode of Wisdom Without the Guru. I'm your host, Regina. As usual, before we start, I have a couple of questions that I'd like you listeners to reflect upon that are definitely pertinent to our guest story, and they may be as well to yours. Think about these. Have you ever adjusted your behavior to keep the peace or stay unnoticed? In other words, did you stay small? Where, if anywhere, have you felt most at ease and accepted? What role has community or lack of it played in your life? Have you ever had a stretch of times when challenges seem to pile on top of each other? Do you have any events in your life that have reshaped your sense of safety in the world? So my guest today is Debbie Harrell. From an early age, she learned to stay small and responsible in a home that wasn't always steady. By her teens, she was balancing school with long hours of work. She eventually moved to Catalina Island off the coast of California, and there found a close knit community, raised her children, and built a life that felt safer and more connected than what she'd known before. Her story also carries difficult chapters, loss, health struggles, and the trauma of a mass shooting that very few of us can even begin to relate to. Each of these moments tested her sense of stability and reshaped the way she thought about what it meant to keep going on. Today Debbie's life reflects both the weight of those experiences and the ways she's learned to carry them with intention. So join me to hear the story and to perhaps uncover what aspects of it are also reflected in your own life. So welcome to the show, Debbie. So nice to have you, finally.

Debbie Harrell 4:00

Right, with all the reschedules. Thanks for having me. Happy to be here.

Regina Sayer 4:04

First you had an issue, and then I got sick abruptly. That just went around and around in our household. My son got it, I got it, and then my husband got it.

Debbie Harrell 4:16

So one of the bonuses of living alone is I don't have to worry about sharing others' germs. I just get mine.

Regina Sayer 4:22

This is true. This is true. And I can't even say my son is a kid going to school and bringing home germs because he's 19 years old. He went out to the movie theater and brought them home. Anyhow, thank you for joining me. And you're joining from Southern California, correct?

Debbie Harrell 4:38

Correct.

Regina Sayer 4:38

Okay. So

Growing up as a latchkey child and learning to stay unnoticed

Regina Sayer 4:40

tell me about what it was like growing up as a latchkey kid in Southern California and what that was like and why that actually was happening. Because I think also when people say they're a latchkey kid, there's this misunderstanding in some ways, be it right or wrong, that, you know, parents just lock their um kids up in their home when they come home from school and that's it. But what are the reasons that that is done?

Debbie Harrell 5:09

Well, in my situation, my mom was a single mom, so she was at work. When I was younger, my cousin would be at home when I got there. But then once I was old enough to legally take care of myself, what is that, like 10, I think? I would come home, let myself in, have a snack, and then usually go directly outside to play with my friends. Completely unsupervised. I mean, other friends had moms that were in the homes, so we weren't necessarily completely if something catastrophic happened, there was a home we could probably go to. But for the most part, we were taking care of ourselves. And at the time, that seemed great. That was fun.

Regina Sayer 5:49

Okay. So on top of that, you were an only child and you were also living with your mom's boyfriend as well. So talk about that situation because that kind of like drives a lot of your story as well, because of how you had to sort of conform your personality to fit into that situation. So can you talk about that?

Debbie Harrell 6:08

Yeah, he was a consummate narcissistic misogynist. I refer to him as the villain of my story or the villain of my childhood because he really was. But he was also my father figure. I never met my biological father until I was 25, you know. So a lot of my childhood quote unquote stuff stems from him and my mom's relationship and the choices my mom made regarding him and me. Often it was perceived he was she was choosing him over me, and and a lot of times she was actually choosing him over me. As an adult, I can look back and I can understand why she was, because she was being abused by this man. She was being emotionally abused by him.

Regina Sayer 6:50

So did you sense that? Did were you aware of that?

Debbie Harrell 6:52

I was on the receiving end of it too as a child. So I didn't understand it as a child, but you know, being told on a daily basis to well, we were definitely it was definitely a household where children should be seen and not heard. That was a common phrase at the time. But I was told on a regular basis how I was ugly, nobody liked me, I would never amount to anything, you know. Really heartwarming messages to share with a child. Because a lot of the time we were alone, because he didn't work, he rarely had a he didn't hold a steady job. So my mom had a steady job. She was there eight to five, 52 weeks out of the year, rarely took vacation because we couldn't afford to vacation, because she was working so hard to take care of not only me, but him, because he couldn't hold a steady job. So there were a lot of times we were at home alone together. Looking back as an adult, I can and have done some of the work myself to recognize, like, oh, I could see what was happening to her. And I can hold space for both. I can recognize that I understand why she was making these choices and why it was happening that way. But it was also unhealthy and and caused harm to me.

Regina Sayer 7:55

So did you have any safe space that you could go to, or was there anybody else who was aware of what was happening who you could reach out to?

Debbie Harrell 8:04

There were people who were aware, like I was really good at adopting families, other families. So like my best friend, their family usually became my friend, who are my best friend at the period of time. And some parents were open to that, others not as much, because there was still a little s a lot of stigma around single moms and what their character might be, and so what my character might be as the offspring of said, you know, single mom, salacious, you know. But for the most part, I was a good kid because I was, you know, trying to stay safe at school. You know, I was a good student, so I got rewarded. And so I learned, okay, I behave this way, do all my work, school was easier for me. So I did get that, and that was a safe space. So school was a safe space, my friends' homes were a safe space. In my house, the safest space was my bedroom. So I was definitely the kid who when I was in the house, I was in my bedroom with the door shut with my own stuff. My mom recognized that, so she set me up pretty good that I could exist in there safely because a lot of it was, you know, stay quiet, fly under the radar. Like if he just forgets I'm here. I would often go in and out my bedroom window so that they wouldn't know. It wasn't necessarily I was sneaking out for the reasons people sneak out. I just didn't want him to remember that I existed. But I had my own television, I had my own phone back when we had those phones attached to the wall.

Regina Sayer 9:34

So what are those? I don't even have one of those anymore.

Debbie Harrell 9:38

Not many people do.

Regina Sayer 9:40

I know, it's crazy. Okay, so I just heard you say that you were a smart student and I guess you were putting all your efforts into school because no matter which effort you put in at home, it didn't matter. So how were things at school and also in terms of friendships as well? Did did your friends have any idea what was going on? Did you talk to them about it? What age were you when this was happening?

Debbie Harrell 10:03

Oh, all along. They got together when I was probably five or six, so kindergarten-ish, and all the way up until she passed away in 2017, she was with him. He would leave occasionally and have, you know, other girlfriends in other households, but they wouldn't put up with his baloney and they would send him packing and he'd come back to my mom. So yeah, he was around always.

Regina Sayer 10:23

But in terms of your friendships at school, did you ever I mean obviously as you got older and you were more able to talk about what was going on at school, did you ever talk about it amongst your friends?

Debbie Harrell 10:33

Yeah, my friends were were yeah, they were well aware and we avoided my house at all costs. And when we do, it was like, is he there? You know, like the walking on eggshells. Well, if we just go really quick to my room, you know.

Regina Sayer 10:45

You said that you were favored by teachers as well. So what were you doing at school that you were I mean, obviously I think you were doing you said you were doing sports as well?

Debbie Harrell 10:54

No, I played a little sports in high school, but I had to quit because he required I get a job.

Regina Sayer 10:59

Okay.

Debbie Harrell 10:59

And it didn't work, you know, school, work, and sports was a little challenging.

Working as a teenager, school and missed opportunities

Regina Sayer 11:04

Yeah. So let's move on to that because you said that um you started working when you were in high school. I mean, what age is that? I mean, what what age are you legally allowed to work in the States? I don't even know.

Debbie Harrell 11:15

I think it's 16. I think that's when you can get a per work bread. I think you can actually get one younger now. I'm not a hundred percent sure, but I believe I was right around 15 or 16 and he started putting the pressure on me to get a job.

Regina Sayer 11:28

Why?

Debbie Harrell 11:29

I don't know. Because he had such a strong work ethic. I don't know, because he wanted me to make money, so there was more money for him.

Regina Sayer 11:35

And your mom didn't intervene and say no, just keep up with your studies.

Debbie Harrell 11:38

No, my mom was also trying to fly under the radar and not encounter his wrath. No, she did not intervene.

Regina Sayer 11:44

Okay. So you started working doing what?

Debbie Harrell 11:47

I worked at this fun t-shirt shop in this little shopping center that was very geared towards tourism because where I grew up was basically the port of Los Angeles. So that's where all the cruise ships docked, and so a lot of the cruisers would shop in this little village. And I joke about the how much it reminds me of where this the town I ended up living in when I moved to Catalina Island, the town of Avalon is very similar to that little port.

Regina Sayer 12:14

So you got to meet a lot of people from different places.

Debbie Harrell 12:17

Yeah, but I was a kid, I you know, I was a teenager. I was more interested in the other teenagers working in the other shops, you know. We had the t-shirt shop, had the ice cream shop next door, the lemonade stand, you know. It was fun.

Regina Sayer 12:29

I'm laughing because I grew up in the Bahamas, as I told you before. So in Nassau, where all the cruise ships come in as well. And I actually worked on a cruise ship one summer and I used to do stuff like hand out pamphlets to the people who were getting off the cruise ships. And I remember one person asked me once, do you speak English here? I thought, are you kidding me? You don't even know where you're where you're going, the people, what language they speak. But the reason I asked you that question was for me growing up in the Bahamas, I always had all these different people from all over the world, my teachers, people coming on the cruise ships, tourists, and I always thought, oh, where do they live? That's cool. I want to go. So I wanted to get out of there as soon as I could and leave there. And uh yeah. Anyway, let's see. What are the other opportunities that you think you missed out on because you were working at such an early age?

Debbie Harrell 13:16

Yeah, the the opportunity to play sports or participate in any extracurricular activity. Part of it was financial and part of it was like I had to work. And then once I had the job, you know, I did enjoy having the money. I enjoyed the people I worked with, and it was now a safe space, right? It was out of the house. So I worked a lot. I worked as much as I could.

Regina Sayer 13:36

Did you have to hand over the money or could you keep it?

Debbie Harrell 13:39

No, I was just thinking about that. I'm like, no, I spent it all, I'm sure. I don't remember having a big savings at the end of high school. I'm sure part of it went to my mom. I don't have a really strong recollection of where all that money went, but it probably went a lot to me eating out, buying clothes, you know, typical teenage stuff.

Regina Sayer 13:58

Yeah, I was just curious because you said the what did you call him?

Debbie Harrell 14:02

The villain.

Regina Sayer 14:02

The villain. Yeah, I was about to say the monster. That's not it. The villain that he was the one who demanded you to have the job. So I was wondering if he demanded you also hand over your money as well.

Debbie Harrell 14:12

Yeah, I don't remember it was that obvious. I feel like I was just expected to pay for a lot more of my needs. And so that my mom had less financial responsibility toward me and probably could give him more.

Regina Sayer 14:25

How did that affect your studies at school, if at all?

Debbie Harrell 14:28

My studies were okay. I went in a few rebellious phases. School was pretty easy for me, but there was a a point at time where I like I didn't get one of the classes I needed. And so they put me in, it was like a more academically enriched English class, and they put me in the regular English class, and I felt so othered in there because the teacher was constantly looking to me to like help the other students, which was great. But I was I went to school in a pretty diverse high school. I had terrible self-esteem issues because of the home I grew up in. And the way she went about it, it really othered me. It made me feel othered. And then the kids just looked at me as like the awkward, nerdy, you know, and I just decided I just stopped going to that class. So I just never went to that class again. Obviously, I failed it. So then I had to make it up in summer school, right? And usually summer school is the place for the bad kids. But I loved the teacher that I had for English that that summer school, and it I was more challenged. And so I went through some rebellious phases of schools that did affect my grades, but all in all, school was pretty easy. My teachers liked me. I liked my teachers. I had a a good group of friends, but for the most part, I was the shy, awkward, scrawny white girl. I don't know.

Regina Sayer 15:47

And how did that play in your interactions with people when you say say you lacked confidence? I mean, how did that play out in your relationships with people?

Debbie Harrell 15:58

Yeah, in in general, I was still operating on that be seen and not heard, you know, like or trying to fly under the radar. I always sat in the back of the classroom, the back of any room I would go to, so I could, you know, be in the corner. Okay. Don't look at me. Like I'm still I still don't like that, like drawing attention to myself. It's really hard for me to speak up in a crowd, even when I know everybody.

Regina Sayer 16:20

All right. So you said that you applied to university, but you ended up just not being supported by your family and encouraged. So what happened with that?

Debbie Harrell 16:30

Yeah, I was accepted to a couple of the universities I applied to, all on my own, right? Nobody, I don't even remember a counselor at school helping me. I was just like, I love school, I love learning. Of course I want to go on. And I applied and then recognized how much it was gonna cost and what am I gonna do and how am I gonna get there and zero re uh support from my family. And so I decided, okay, I guess I'm not gonna do that. And I just ended up going to junior college, still working. But because I was now 18, I wanted out of the house as soon as I could. So I ended up moving in with friends and becoming a full-fledged adult as soon as I could.

Regina Sayer 17:10

So you studied general education and you had an interest in sciences, particularly marine biology. I don't know. That kind of fits for me with somebody growing up in California. It does be interesting in marine biology. But why that in particular? I mean, are you a big ocean person?

Debbie Harrell 17:26

Yeah, definitely. I've recognized that as I've gotten older, the idea of moving different places, right, because it's more affordable or you can have a, you know, different things that you can't have really in Southern California. And I always go back to, but there's no ocean there. I have gotten used to the idea of, oh, maybe if as long as there's a river or a lake nearby, some body of water, as long as I can look at and the sun can reflect off of it, I feel like they'll give me the same.

Regina Sayer 17:54

That's funny because I was recently watching something and it was just these crashing waves coming on the beach with cliffs, and I was thinking, oh my gosh, I haven't been near water in two years. I need to go. And me growing up on an island, can you imagine? You have to get a fix every now and then. And there's a couple of lakes around where I live, but it's not the same. Anyway, so you ended

Moving to Catalina Island

Regina Sayer 18:16

up moving to Catalina Island. So how did that whole thing happen? Because you went there and then you came back and then you went again for good.

Debbie Harrell 18:24

O h, yeah. I'm loving this whole this is your life uh

Regina Sayer 18:30

flow.

Debbie Harrell 18:34

Um, after school, I was going, I was working full-time, supporting myself because of course I moved out right away. I started dating a guy, we moved in together. I quickly realized that I was in the same relationship my mother was. I was like, I recognize this and I need to get out as soon as possible. Luckily, I had the realization. I still remember calling my mom and telling her, I can't believe I said the words to her, but like I that I didn't want to end up like her. She was very gracious about it. And she says, I don't want you to end up like me either, you know? So come home if you need to come home. And so that's what happened. I moved home. And not only did I move home into that toxic soup again, but now because I had moved out and moved to a whole different part of Southern California, my job was an hour and a half commute from my mom's house. So I did that. And then ironically, my ex's, the person I had moved out, one of his good friends was a girl, Jen. She's actually who helped me move out of the house. She's like, hey, let's go to Catalina Island for the weekend. You know, like you've you've been a lot going on. Let's go over there and have a fun weekend. I was like, that sounds great. Let's do it. I hadn't been to Catalina since I was a kid.

Regina Sayer 19:47

Explain exactly where Catalina Island is for people who don't know.

Debbie Harrell 19:50

It is a small island off of the coast of Southern California. It's 26 miles. There's actually a song, 26 miles across the sea. So it's about an hour boat ride these days. Back then it was closer to a two-hour boat road ride for the boat we could afford. But we came over, had a great weekend, and decided we were going to move back. It was in March. So it was spring. The island was gearing up for their summers. She had worked here the summer before, so she already had a contact. We put in our applications and were hired pretty much on the spot. So that was in March. And I moved back beginning of May. So I went home, packed up all my stuff, gave notice at my job, and moved to the island with pretty much nothing.

Regina Sayer 20:31

And what drew you to that island? I mean, it's small because you said that when the tourists aren't there, there's only something like 5,000 people.

Debbie Harrell 20:40

Yeah, they say the the year-round population is around 5,000. I suspect it's a little bit more than that, but it's a good guesstimate. I came that first weekend and we had the best time and met so many people and everyone was so nice. And it was it's it is. I've it's like a family. It's a very tight-knit community. Everybody knows everybody. That's not always appealing to everybody. To me at the time, it very much was. So I was like, yeah, I'll come back for the summer. We both moved back for the summer. I joke about it. She didn't even make it till the 4th of July, which is the big summer holiday in the United States. She ran screaming from the island and I never left. I'm here 35 years later.

Regina Sayer 21:20

You started to work in hospitality in the resort industry. So how did you integrate into that community and sort of get yourself into working for a job? Because when you think about it, you actually you've you found a job and you managed to stay there when it was off season, which, you know, doesn't always happen in places like that. So how did you manage that? Because that's miraculous.

Debbie Harrell 21:43

Because just like being a good student, I was a good employee. That's very good because yeah, I know I wanted to stay safe. And so I was a good employee. I was and that that is part of the island culture. It is a big party town, you know, people are having fun. And maybe a little bit too much fun and showing up to work doesn't happen as regularly as or as timely or punctually, I guess is the word I'm looking for. It was easy to be a good employee. The bar was pretty low. And guess also I was working for the company. You know, you've heard the term a company town. This is very much a company town, and I worked for the company, the island company. So they were big enough to absorb some year-round employees. Because I was a good employee, I got invited to stay, and I was so, you know, honored I stayed. And the problem is I didn't go back to school, but it all worked out.

Regina Sayer 22:37

Okay. And you never thought about following through with your marine biology interests?

Debbie Harrell 22:42

Yeah, I thought about it. It would be great, right? But I just got sucked into working and having fun with my friends and living my life and going to school, living on the island, especially at the time, because you just couldn't really do online stuff. The internet barely existed, right? So I did attempt to go back to school one or two classes a semester. It proved to be too much and it was too financially difficult as well. So it just kind of petered away. And then I got pregnant. Surprise.

Regina Sayer 23:11

That was my next question. So

Motherhood, co-parenting and raising children within a small community

Regina Sayer 23:13

you had two children with different fathers, and they were both unplanned.

Debbie Harrell 23:17

Yeah. I don't do things the traditional way I've learned.

Regina Sayer 23:21

But you didn't do it early. You still waited till you were, what, 26 and 30. So you waited till you live life a bit.

Debbie Harrell 23:29

Yeah. No, I was actually capable of being a decent parent.

Regina Sayer 23:34

So you had these two kids and raised them primarily as a single mom, but you still maintained uh friendly relationships with the fathers.

Debbie Harrell 23:43

Yeah. It was important to me, I think, because I grew up without a dad. It was important to me that my kids have relationships with their fathers and just to keep it easier, you know, it would be easier if we all get along than we all do still. And the fathers are on the island as well? One has moved off, but the other is literally two houses up from me.

Regina Sayer 24:05

Co-parenting was easy then.

Debbie Harrell 24:07

Oh, when we first split up, it was that partner definitely. I lived right next door to him. And there was a window from my house that was up against the stairway leading to his house. So a lot of times my daughter would go back and forth through the window.

Regina Sayer 24:22

And I guess because it's so small, I mean, we sort of have this phrase, a village raises the children, because you've got the same people, the characters who are there, I guess, year-round, and they all, I guess, help raise the kids.

Debbie Harrell 24:37

Yeah, because everybody knows everybody. And I can remember when my son was young, he was on a school outing. They were out walking on the street, and he did something. It wasn't like he was being bad. He was just being a little mischievous. And somebody saw that and told me about it. Like as I saw Daniel, he would blah, blah, blah. And so I went to Daniel that night and I was like, oh, and I relayed the story. I didn't say who told me. I just said and that was his first. He's like, How do you know that? I'm like, moms know everything. That was his first little lesson in like, everybody knows. So don't be a dork.

Regina Sayer 25:10

They didn't mind that. I mean, living in this very small, or they just didn't know any better.

Debbie Harrell 25:15

No, I think they actually love it. And they still do. I tried to move them off the island because I did try to do it the right way. I got married when my son was going into high school and we decided let's get you to the mainland into like a more challenging academic situation, you know? It didn't last. He did two years, and he's like, I really would like to move back to the island so I can be there for my senior year with my friends. Also recognizing that the relationship I'd gotten myself into had uh features that I recognized again. So that marriage didn't last. And my son moved back to the island, and then my daughter and I followed pretty quickly.

Regina Sayer 25:52

And this

Her son’s seizure diagnosis, relationships and early therapy

Regina Sayer 25:53

is the son you said that he was diagnosed with seizure disorder at the age of 14.

Debbie Harrell 25:58

Yes. That was uh it happened just a few weeks after we relocated to the mainland.

Regina Sayer 26:04

And I've written here to myself a note that says it's led to you going down a rabbit hole of doing research on nutrition. Why was that?

Debbie Harrell 26:12

I was fascinated with everything about the brain. It got me really into anything neurological. I read this book, uh, The Brain Gut Psychology. It's mainly about uh autism and ADHD, but they did have one section in there about seizure disorders. So I was like, hmm, this is interesting. And then of course, we're learning more about the ketogenic diet and other ways to work with seizures um and a diet.

Regina Sayer 26:40

And did you do that and did it work?

Debbie Harrell 26:42

No. My son, who was also a very good kid, very easygoing, I started kind of pushing him on the diet idea, and he snapped at me and he says, Unless you can guarantee 100% that I'm never gonna have another seizure, I'm not changing the way I eat. And that was his little teenage rebellious rebellion. And I'm like, you know what? I I can respect that. He'll he's gotta come to it in his own time. And luckily for him, his seizures were pretty well controlled with medication. I'm knocking on wood as I'm saying that. He hasn't had one and I think we gotta be getting up to two years. Maybe he's outgrown them, finally. Who knows? I also learned at that time that doctors don't know everything. They actually know very little. I mean, they know a lot more than we do, right? They've been in school for a long time, but they can't possibly know everything about every system in the human body. The human body is pretty darn complex.

Regina Sayer 27:39

Yeah, there was actually somebody else who I had on the show who she had seizures, and it turned out that later sh when she recognized that she had all this trauma that she had buried and sort of forgotten about because it was a it was abuse. And when she started to do that healing and realize and recognize all of that trauma, her seizures started to become less and less. So it's interesting correlation.

Debbie Harrell 28:10

No, I 100% don't doubt that. And it's one thing I've talked to my son about it several times. He tries to reassure me, but I feel a lot of guilt for the move, moving to the mainland, believing that that was likely just too stressful for his teenage brain and body to navigate that. So I believe the stress of the move contributed to him developing that seizure disorder. And your daughter was fine with the move? Well, yeah, she was she was in third grade, so like nine-ish. My son is very much like me. He's a Virgo consummate, like he likes order, he's quiet, he's more contemplative, where my daughter is just bubbly and loves to tell stories and can talk to anybody. She doesn't think she can. She'll be like, no, I can't. I'm like, oh my gosh, Madeline, you're so great at that, you know? So she acclimated to the move much easier than he did. And at that age, it's just easier to make friends when you're nine.

Regina Sayer 29:10

And did you ever question the fact that you keep sort of having these relationships that were reflecting that of your mother?

Debbie Harrell 29:17

Yeah. All of my stuff showing up in all of my relationships. Yeah, it's a thing. Yeah.

Regina Sayer 29:21

And did you ever talk to anybody about that or have any kind of therapy at that point?

Debbie Harrell 29:27

I went to therapy with my with my son's father, was the first time I went to therapy. We did couples therapy that went over like a lead balloon. And I saw her on my own for a while. But then, yes, I saw therapists throughout the years. I'm also, when I was young, some of the happy childhood memories I have were of going to the library. And I always, even at a young age, gravitated towards the self-help, personal development shelves. So I read a lot about different. Of course, I'm like, shoot, she's gonna ask me about a book, and I'm like, I can't think of any books right now.

Regina Sayer 30:04

I won't, I won't.

Debbie Harrell 30:05

I read all these books and I can't think of one of them. But so I read a lot.

Regina Sayer 30:09

It's the menopause, don't worry.

Debbie Harrell 30:11

Watched a lot of, I can remember being a kid watching Phil Donahue and you know, Oprah, and you learn a lot about just hearing other people's stories and like what she experienced is a lot like me, and they're saying that that is trauma. What's this? What what is that? I don't, I don't that, you know, because you know, I didn't always have a lot of money. I was working hard, but as we all know, the minimum wage isn't enough to sustain anybody, especially in Southern California. So I didn't have the extra money to go to a therapist most of my adult, young adult life.

Regina Sayer 30:44

All right.

The year of suck starts - loss, trauma, mass shooting, health and more

Regina Sayer 30:45

So let's move to the year 2017 to 2018, because that's what you call the year of suck.

Debbie Harrell 30:54

I've called it many things, so that is that is an accurate description.

Regina Sayer 30:58

It started off, I guess, with your mom.

Debbie Harrell 31:01

Yes. My mom was diagnosed with a form of leukemia. Of course, it's sad, devastating. I'm like, how can I help? Everything's fine, you know, Mike her, the villain. He's being so great. He's taking such good care of me. And I'm like, oh little suspect, but I'm so happy. That's great. I'm glad he's stepping up. She had been invited into a trial in Stanford, which is a prestigious school in the Bay Area. So that was hopeful and exciting. And then she got the flu and she ended up in the hospital. Um, I talked to her, she's in the hospital. they were going to discharge her because she was better. And then she was going up to Stanford a couple days after that. We had agreed I was going to come over and take her to Stanford because, oh, surprise, surprise, he wasn't being as helpful as she had originally said he was. So I was making plans to come over a couple days. She went home after the flu. And either because I believe he contributed to her passing because she ended up falling and hitting her head and had a brain contusion, or I don't I don't know the medical terminology at this point. Lost consciousness and never regained consciousness. So if he was supposed to be taking care of her, if he wasn't there and she fell, or even worse, he pushed her in some way, she fell. That was that. So he called me and I got on the first boat, got over there, but she never regained consciousness because they were never legally married, all the decisions were to me to decide. So yeah, I spent that day with her as she passed. And it was probably the first day I'd probably the first day I'd spent with her in years, maybe.

Regina Sayer 32:50

Yeah, because I was just gonna ask you, had you ever really, for lack of a better word, say reconciled or talked to her about, you know, your whole life and what was happening, or at that point were you really not very conscious still of what it had initiated in your own life?

Debbie Harrell 33:09

No, I didn't have exactly the words to know exactly how it had impacted my life. I just knew it wasn't good and it wasn't something I wanted my kids around. So it we did talk about it over the years. Like she knew what my feelings were and she understood. It doesn't make it any easier to think about mourning my mom, but then also mourning the relationship we never had. It's a whole different, a whole nother level to the impact of the loss. But no, yeah, it was when my my son was younger and I wanted to go do something and I needed a babysitter, and I remember taking him to see grandma because that would be fun, right? I had a great relationship with my grandma, but then I remember picking him up and he was there, the villain, and thinking like, shit, wait, am I allowed to I forgot to ask, am I allowed to potty mouth on your fine.

Regina Sayer 34:01

Okay, it's fine. You can potty mouth.

Debbie Harrell 34:03

I'm like, yeah, that's right. I don't want my son in this house. Like, what am I thinking? This isn't good. So the I talked to my mom, I'm like, I'm just not really comfortable. So then from then on out, when she would come to the island and spend time with him. Yeah, that's how it was most of their younger childhood. Then as they got older, it got less and less. So yeah, right before she passed, we weren't really in each other's lives that regularly.

Regina Sayer 34:29

So was that the end of any of your dealings with the villain?

Debbie Harrell 34:32

You would think, right? No, I got a call. Gosh, it wasn't even a full year. No, it wasn't a full year after my mom passed from this woman claiming to be my dad's girlfriend. Because remember, I told you I finally did meet my biological father when I was uh 25, but he had already passed. So I was like, my my dad's dead and I know his wife. Like, what are you doing? Like, who is this trying to figure out what is going on? Like, I think you've got the wrong number. And then she said, Mike, and I'm like, oh, well, that's not my dad. And then I'm like, were you aware of my mom who just passed like eight months ago? And she's like, Oh yeah, I'm aware. I'm aware of her. I I said, Do you mind me asking how long you've been with him? And she said, 10 years. And I said, Coming again, were you aware of my mom? Oh, yes. So the story he had told her is that he stayed with my mom, who was an alcoholic, which is ridiculous. He was an alcoholic. He stayed with her because she was an alcoholic. So he stayed to take care of her so I wouldn't have to.

Regina Sayer 35:34

Wow.

Debbie Harrell 35:35

Right? This is what this woman's telling me. And I'm like, I mean, I was vibrating.

Regina Sayer 35:41

And for 10 years she believed that.

Debbie Harrell 35:43

Yeah, for 10 years. Uh, she's she still believes it. So the reason she was calling me is he was in a medically induced coma and needed some sort of procedure, but they needed authorization from a family member to proceed. So he needed some self-life-saving procedure. And I'm like, damn, I should have said I was his daughter. Missed opportunity. And I'm just like, sorry, I can't help you. I know very little about his family. He never talked about his family because I think they probably, I don't know, maybe they were abusive, and that's why he didn't talk about them. Or maybe they like, you know, go on, get out of here, because you are a problem. And he ended up getting the authorization from someone, or it got emergent enough that the hospital was able to proceed to save his life. But as far as I know, he is still alive.

Regina Sayer 36:33

All right. Let's just move on .

Debbie Harrell 36:35

Yeah That was a tangent. Yeah, that was a long t angent.

Regina Sayer 36:37

Because that is just too weird to even imagine that somebody is with somebody for 10 years and believes such a lie anyway.

Debbie Harrell 36:43

Yeah. Bonkers.

Regina Sayer 36:44

Yeah, I guess we put blinders on .

Debbie Harrell 36:46

He was good. He was manipulative, and I'm sure he was gaslighting and emotionally abusing her just like he did my mom.

Regina Sayer 36:53

All right. I don't know if this came next or if it was your cousin's death, but you said you were hemorrhaging.

Debbie Harrell 37:01

The time my mom got sick, I was also having my own medical issues, female issues where I uh was hemorrhaging, come to find out there was a fibroid. And so that was just right after my mom passed away. I went to get the fibroid removed. And she's like, hmm, because of course our medical system is so weird, but they can only do the procedure with a certain machine, and they can only use the machine in a certain way. And because of the size of the fibroid and the way the machine works, they were only able to get certain so much. So I was gonna have to get another procedure. But she got as much as she could. And I'm like, great. I had a trip to Europe planned in June. So she's like, we'll wait until you get back from Europe and then we'll do the other procedure then. Until then, I want you to take this birth control that will help thin the lining of your uterus. So when you come back and we do the ablation, it'll be more effective. Sounds great. Also recognizing the reason I have two kids is I could never take hormonal birth control. It made me either homicidal or suicidal. So like it did not work for my system. And I'm like, hmm, I wonder how it's gonna be taking this birth control. I only have to do it for a couple months. I'm much older now. I'll see how it goes. So I took the birth control and I'm still having issues. It was probably three days before we were leaving to Europe. It was my daughter's last day of school. She was looking for a pair of shorts. She had also had an ankle injury, so she was on crutches at the time. So I ran downstairs to help her find her shorts and proceeded to pass out in the middle of the dining room. That led to a trip to the hospital. They're like, your blood levels are way too low. That ended to a life flight getting flown to the mainland for emergency blood transfusions. And they were going to obviously do the ablation then. So me, I'm like, I've got a trip to Europe planned in two days. My doctor, God bless her. She she was the longest relationship of my life. And she's like, oh my gosh, Debbie. She's like, well, I can't tell you you can't go. And she's like, the only way you're gonna do it is if we can get you in scheduled for the first procedure. So her scheduler called me, who I'd known for years also. I'm like, all right, Jan, get me in first thing. I've got a flight to Europe tomorrow night. And so sure enough, she was able to get me in first thing. I had the ablation, I had all this brand new blood on board. I had so much energy. I'm like, let's go, we're going to Europe. So we went to Europe, landed in London, and we were walking down by the river, and there was a big theater poster for a production of the amazing bleeding woman.

Regina Sayer 39:47

No way.

Debbie Harrell 39:49

Oh my what the heck is that? So I of course took a picture of it and sent it to my my good friend, who was the nurse at the ER here on the island when I got taken up there that day. And I sent her, and we were trying to figure out if I couldn't go to Europe, if I could just let give her my trip. Anyways, so I sent her that poster. That was pretty funny. Um, so yeah, the year was full of so many lows and a lot of highs. Like, so that was that summer. Of course, the ablation didn't end up working either. I ended up having to get a hysterectomy a few months later at the end of summer, which also came with the bonus feature. I know we were talking about bonus features before we started recording, but that's what I dub all these fun things that happen when you age. They're my bonus features. But bonus feature to my hysterectomy is they sliced open my bladder. So I ended up going home with this fun catheter for two weeks, which I uh I uh actually got used to. It was kind of handy not having to get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom.

Regina Sayer 40:50

You're so positive.

Debbie Harrell 40:51

I like to go to concerts. I never had to wait in line. I literally could go um into the porta potty and use the urinal because I just had a little hose. Lots of benefits to having a catheter. But luckily, I got the catheter out right before what happened in October of 2017. Festival.

Surviving the Route 91 mass shooting

Debbie Harrell 41:13

Yes. Because I did, I went to other music festivals that summer because I do like concerts. Um but the end of summer I was going to one. I was supposed to go with friends, most of them decided last minute not to go. But since I already had tickets, I already had a place to stay, it was in Las Vegas. Maybe you all know where we're leading to the um country's largest mass shooting. In a country that's known for its mass shootings. I went to Las Vegas in well, it was the end of September for the Route 91 music festival.

Regina Sayer 41:45

I'm gonna ask you to talk about this because it is unimaginable to most people what you experienced. And it is unimaginable outside of the United States, I think, to a lot of people, because this type of gun community, or whatever you want to call it, that's happening in the States just does not happen in a lot of other countries. And, you know, where I'm in Europe, you know, you're not allowed to carry guns like that.

Debbie Harrell 42:13

Makes perfect sense to me.

Regina Sayer 42:16

So do you mind just talking about it a little bit and what happened? And you don't have to go into any graphic details, but you know, talk about yourself also and and what was going on in your head as this was happening.

Debbie Harrell 42:31

No, I recognize too, and ironically the rescheduling, rescheduling as we've now we're a week away from the anniversary. So knowing what I do about about trauma and anniversary dates, I'm going to proceed with caution because I don't want to get too activated myself.

Regina Sayer 42:52

Okay.

Debbie Harrell 42:52

I know how to take care of myself, but I also know this close to the anniversary date, revisiting it in too much detail is a a good chance of spinning me in ways that I I don't really want to be spun currently.

Regina Sayer 43:07

Okay. Well, just talk about it in ways that you feel comfortable.

Debbie Harrell 43:11

Yeah. So it was the music festival. It was fun. It was great. The highlight of that music festival is I finally got TSA TSA pre-check, which is a way to get through the line at the airport quicker here in the States. I had always resisted applying for it because you had to go to the airport and have an appointment. And I live on an island, that was too much work. But at the uh festival, they actually had a booth. So Friday night of the festival, I went and did that. And so it's the the highlight from that weekend. I mean, there were other highlights too. It was a lot of fun. I was there with a group of friends because as I said, my closer friends decided not to go. But being from an island, everybody knows everybody. So there were other people from the island going. So I just like, hey, I'm gonna hang out with you guys. And so that's what we did. It was great. It was fun. Ironically, I realized if I had been there with my other friends, we likely would have gone to the other side. So there's the stage and the catwalk, and there is what I would perceive as the person in the audience on the right hand of the stage and the left hand of the stage. We were standing on the left hand of the catwalk. But I probably shouldn't say this on the show either, but I'm going to. One of the members in our group, we had other friends on the other side of the catwalk, but one of the members from our group was having an affair with one of the people from over there. So obviously she couldn't take her husband over to that side. So it was like, no, we're staying on this side. Had I been with my other friends, we would have been on the other side. Unfortunately, the other side, what was dubbed the kill zone because that's where the most people were killed. And one of our friends from the other group, one of their friends, was actually killed. But what is it like? We're enjoying our concert, listening to music, dancing. At the time, I was in a group of eight couples and me. So is the ninth wheel. But everybody had dispersed. Like one of the couples had gone up to the rail because they wanted to be close. A couple of the other ones went and sat back at this little seating area because it was Sunday night. So they were tired. They wanted to sit down. And my friend and her husband, my friend had gone to the bathroom. So it was, I was hanging with her husband watching the show while she was at the bathroom. And we start hearing popping sounds. And we both joked about it being fireworks. Like, who's doing that? That's not very smart. And then of course he runs off stage and we're like, that's weird. And then of course they turn on the lights and we're like, okay, all this over fireworks, it seems a little dramatic. And then I see somebody running by and I see the look on their face, and I was like, those aren't fireworks. And so we both lay on the ground and I just look at him, I'm like, we got to go find his wife. So yeah, we ran to the bathrooms. And funny, because when I worked for the company, the island island company, one of my last corporate positions there was safety officer. So I was already a person who noticed exits and, you know, egress. And so when we had gone to the bathrooms the first day, I noticed that there was only one way in and out. And I'm like, well, that's not very safe. And the opening wasn't that big. And so I had already had this idea. I'm like, well, I could just climb over that back fence. Mind you, I just had a hysterectomy a few weeks before. I'd just gotten the catheter removed. And so that's where my brain went when we went to the bathrooms. We couldn't find her. I'm like, well, I'm certainly not going back out the entryway because that's where the shooting's happening. I'm going to climb over the fence. And my friend's husband was like, you are not climbing over that fence. And we proceeded to go out the entrance and just walk. And the strangest thing that I remember from that moment was the police were coming in, right? They had opened the fences, so they were big, gates opened. And you have the police with all their gear in their cars, and they're like going into the um the fairgrounds or the concert grounds. And we're just all walking around like nothing. We have nothing protecting us, nothing to hide behind. It was just so weird. Then it was just chaos. We were busy trying to find his wife, which is where we went. We heard from all of our friends. I checked in with my kids right away. Luckily, my son had just gotten off work and he was at his friend's house and they were watching TV, so they saw the news. So he's like, oh my God, thanks. My daughter just thought I had had too much to drink. And I was in the I love you, I love you, man, phase of the evening. Like I was just, you know, espousing my love for her for no reason at all. So she didn't know about the shooting until the morning, luckily. And people running around screaming all the things you imagine from a shooting. Then we spent the next few hours trying to locate his wife, whose phone had died. That's why one of my go-to trauma responses is my devices are always charged. If somebody is near, it bothers me. Also, I don't like to have responsibility for other people's stuff in group experiences like that. Because, and it's stupid, she left her bag with him and he forgot it. They fought about that, I think, for years. And I'm like, I don't want responsibilities for anybody's stuff because if I gotta go, I gotta go, and I don't want to hear about it, you know. So like, which is not like me because normally I'm like a helper. I want to help people, but that's just one thing that really makes me anxious. Like at the airport, when you leave your stuff with me, I want to do it because that's a kind, friendly thing to do. But the internal dialogue that is happening and the, you know, probably bilatical bilateral stimulation, the breathing, the counting my breaths, you know, like all the things I'm doing to regulate, to do something so silly as to watch my friend's luggage at the airport.

Regina Sayer 48:56

And is that since the shooting, or is that before?

Debbie Harrell 49:00

No, that wasn't before. That was definitely that's part of how it shows up, right? Trauma shows up in weird ways for everybody. It's everybody's different.

Regina Sayer 49:10

How many people died in that incident?

Debbie Harrell 49:12

I think the count was 58. I'm I'm certain several since then have taken their own lives.

Regina Sayer 49:19

Really?

Debbie Harrell 49:20

Oh yeah. I feel like there were some directly after who took their lives, and I'm sure since then there are more. I haven't researched that. It's an assumption. I feel like it's a pretty educated guess. I do also volunteer for what was called the Las Vegas Resiliency Center. It has since they've changed their name to Justice and Resilience in there now because a lot of these resiliency centers pop up after mass violence events, but then they're own they're short-lived. They only have funding for a certain period of time. But because this one was so big, they've managed to hold on to their funding and they're now a permanent organization and they help people not just from Route 91, but from other mass shooting survivors. So I work as a uh peer mentor, so I work with other people who have survived mass violence events to help them complement whatever therapy they're they're working on. Just I also am a life coach, so it it works well.

Regina Sayer 50:26

So obviously, yeah, we'll get to that because obviously you're not doing that without having done all the work on yourself first.

Debbie Harrell 50:32

Yes, yes. I didn't, it wasn't like November of 2017 that I was signing up to do that. Certainly not.

Regina Sayer 50:39

All right,

Losing her cousin and recognising accumulated trauma

Regina Sayer 50:40

thank you for sharing that. I know that was a bit difficult. All right, so then you had something else happened. Your cousin died as well.

Debbie Harrell 50:48

Yeah. Yeah. So after the shooting, I was dealing with my cousin who was my closest family member at the time. We talked a lot about my childhood as it was with my mom and her boyfriend. The rest of the family was challenging as well. I never really felt like I fit in until my little cousin came along. He was 10 years younger than me. But there was a fair amount of trauma happening in the other households of my families, of my cousins and and such. And so when he was 12, he called the police on his mom and got himself removed from the home. So he was raised in the foster system, which has its own trauma. So there was a period when I first had my son that my partner and I were trying to jump through the hoops to bring him to live with us. But there's just so much red tape and so many things that had to, and our housing, we just couldn't get it to pass. So when he was 18, as soon as he was aged out, he worked for the boat that brings people back and forth to the island. He was very connected to the island, and we were in each other's lives. And then he eventually moved to the island. But because of the life he had experienced, he had developed a very uh strong relationship with alcohol. That was his go-to coping mechanism. So he was an alcoholic. It was my mom's birthday. We'd all gotten together to celebrate my mom, who was kind of our memorial service as a family together. Um, and he told me that he had cancer. I was like, what? And so, of course, concerned, he had a girlfriend at the time that was supposedly going to doctor's appointment with him. And again, somebody else is taking care. I'm trying to intercede where I can. As the time went on, we realized it wasn't cancer. He wasn't dying from cancer. He was an alcoholic and he was drinking himself to death. The girlfriend moved away, so then I was able to be the emergency contact. So I got to understand a little bit better what was going on with him. And try as we may, he lost his battle with alcohol almost a year to the date of losing my mom. So my mom died April 28th of 2017, and he died May 1st, 2018. So that's why I call it the year of suck, because it was a 12-month container pretty much. And the weird thing is I used to get so annoyed with him after the shooting and before he passed, so it was a short period of time. But he would tell other people how much the shooting had changed me. And I'm like, it hasn't changed me. He's just saying that because I'm giving a hard time about his drinking. But the reality is, after he passed, I realized, yes, he was just annoyed that I was giving him a hard time about his drinking. But he was also right that the shooting has had changed me. I don't know how anybody can go through a traumatic experience like that or similar to that and not be impacted and changed in some way. I believe it is eventually it changed me for the better. That post-traumatic growth that people talk about.

Regina Sayer 53:53

Yeah, because you said that later that you met with a PTSD specialist and learned many normal life experiences are actually traumatic. What you are thinking is normal is actually traumatic.

Debbie Harrell 54:07

Yeah, that happened right after the the shooting. Our local hospital administrator, who had also been a survivor of an active shooter event, he knew exactly what we were going through because he had gone through it. So he right away got us together to talk about it. And then he brought a PTSD specialist over. That was another thing about the community, right? Like we come together, we experienced it together. So we were in it together. And the PTSD specialist was talking to us about things, the ways we might be feeling. And I was like, Yep, check, check, check. But I've been feeling this way for about 10 years. What's up with that? You know? So recognizing that a lot of the things we experience in our lives, our body processes as trauma.

Regina Sayer 54:47

And was that a shock to you to realize that you were carrying so much and for so long?

Debbie Harrell 54:52

I don't know if it was a shock, but it was definitely a aha. Like, oh yeah, like that feeling of all the pieces kind of fitting together. Like that makes a lot of sense. And eventually, after talking about it with my therapists, like, of course, yes, of course that is trauma. Yeah. That would be traumatic to your system.

Regina Sayer 55:11

So once you had sort of had that aha moment, what did you do about it?

Debbie Harrell 55:15

Oh, nothing. I went carried on with my life. I was fine. Everything's fine. Okay. Not a damn thing. I had to keep working. I had kids to take care of. Like I had shit to do. The dishes are piling up. Yes. I had to check all the boxes and do all the things I was supposed to be doing. And it wasn't until a couple years later that I realized, yeah, you're not really like all those things you're supposed to be doing, all those boxes you're checking, you are like barely checking them. I describe it as a slow stumble. Like when you're starting to fall and your feet are your top half is going faster than your bottom half, and you're about ready to do the face plant. I hadn't faceplanted yet, but I was very it was getting very close.

Regina Sayer 55:55

And then

Medical leave, productivity and the unexpected pause of 2020

Regina Sayer 55:56

you took medical leave in 2019 because you said a friend gave you almost permission and told you that she's taken leave for things that are even less than what you had experienced.

Debbie Harrell 56:07

Yeah, she said, I've taken time off for far less than what you've got going on. And I was like, taking time off? Wait, what? What's that? What is this you speak of? Mind you, I'd worked in HR, so I'd facilitated many leaves of absences for various reasons for lots of people. Why had I not given myself permission? I don't know. But I thank the stars that she said those words to me because then I'm like, yeah, maybe I should do that. And so talked to my doctor and I was like, that's not a bad idea. And got some time off work. And then, of course, that brings up all kinds of stuff when you're not working and you're supposedly working on yourself. Lots of time to think. Well, and like, who am I to take this, take this time? And especially in the States, a lot of our worth is tied to being productive members of society, being good employees, being the cogs in the machine that keeps Empire running. And so I was like, who am I? Like, what am I doing? Like, I've got to figure this out. I was like, let's figure this out because I got to get back to work. Come on, Debbie, figure it out. You got to get back to work. That was where I was at the beginning of 2020. Mind you, I then went on a very nice vacation to a music festival out of the country. That's when all the COVID stuff started to hit the fan. We were in actually the Dominican Republic, and they had a lot of European travelers there. Uh, there was a lot of Italian travelers. And remember when it was all first happening, Italy was one of the places that was hit. So the Dominican was talking about closing their airport and like starting to do these things. And we're like, wait a minute, are we gonna be able to get home? Like, what's going on? This is weird. Because we had been in this little bubble at an all-inclusive resort at this music festival, like not paying any attention to the world. Then we went and stayed at a till closer to the airport and we're watching the news and we're like, oh my goodness, what's going on? So yeah, it came back to that, and that's a whole nother layer of work. But now it's like we all are stuck at home and getting to know ourselves better. Ooh, and how does that feel? Does that feel comfortable? Feel uncomfortable, unsure, like uncertain? Hmm, this is strange. I don't know. I'm scared, I don't like this, all that stuff that was happening. But I had had a a couple month runway. So I was just starting to feel like, okay, this is okay. Like, why can't we live at this pace all the time? And then when everybody else was freaking out, I'm like, oh, it's okay. We could do this. It's gonna be all right. Just relax. You don't have to be doing and going all the time. You can be a human being. Just be. It's okay.

Regina Sayer 58:42

You stopped working. I would imagine the whole island must have just shut down.

Debbie Harrell 58:46

We had, you know, frontline employees. We had our grocery store, our hospital restaurants that stayed open and did takeout, delivery. It was another time where it was really nice to see that community coming together. I know we weren't supposed to be out hiking, but I would go out hiking, and it was really cool to see families out enjoying the trails that you know never had the time to do that. Because to live here, especially working in the service industry, most people have to work several jobs to just survive. So here now they have time off, they could actually go for a hike with their kids. And were your kids on the island at that time? Well, yeah, I was a happy mama bear. Like both of my kids were home. Of course, my daughter was in Iowa but got sent home. My son was home. His significant other, now wife, lived with us. So if their relationship survived the pandemic, living with his mom and they're now married.

Regina Sayer 59:42

And you said that during that time you participated in every free coaching program you can find.

Debbie Harrell 59:48

Yes. Because I was that lifelong learner. I like to learn. I loved, if I had gotten my degree, I have no doubt it would have been in psych psychology somehow. Because I'm just fascinated by what makes us do what we do, how we become who we are, what makes us tick. I'm just fascinated by all that.

Regina Sayer 1:00:04

But how did you get turned on to coaching in particular?

Debbie Harrell 1:00:06

All through 2017, I was listening to a podcast called Don't Keep Your Day Job. A little foreshadowing of, but like, so hmm, was I happy in my current job? I don't think so. So I was listening to that podcast, and so I followed that, the woman who hosted the podcast, a woman named Kathy Heller. So I was following her on socials, and so an ad came up for this free thing she was doing. I was like, oh, that sounds fun. Got time, I'll check it out. And then, of course, it was a live launch to offer her group coaching program, which was all about creating a creative business online. So she had done other coaching cohorts about helping people create creative businesses because that's what her podcast was essentially about. Like, so then she did this online version. It was called Made to Do This. And I'm not saying it was instantaneous or automatic or it did everything for me that I needed it to, but it gave me exactly what I needed to get started down the path that I'm still on today, really, the entrepreneurial path. It was also because when I was a kid, somewhere along probably teen years, I'd heard a someone was talking about a study that if your parents are employees, like they work for a corporation, you're whatever exponentially more likely to be an employee. And if your parents were entrepreneurs or business owners, you're more likely to follow their path, which makes sense. So in my brain, I'm like, oh, my mom was an employee. I'm just gonna be an employee. I'm always gonna be an employee. So I never even contemplated what it would be like to build something for myself until 2020. And I was like, yeah, I've done a lot for a lot of other people. Why can't I do something for myself?

Regina Sayer 1:01:53

That's crazy. I don't like that philosophy. That kind of boxes you in.

Debbie Harrell 1:01:57

The study that I heard? Yeah. Yeah. And the fact that I heard it and just took it in as such fact, which isn't like me.

Regina Sayer 1:02:06

Yeah, I don't know. Sometimes I think about these studies. You know, they what proportion of the billions of people on this planet do they actually include in these studies? Anyway, I could feel myself getting irritated already at being this idea of all these studies that box people in because of these small findings that they have. They don't do them on different cultures, they don't do them on different ethnicities, they don't do them on different countries, whatever.

Debbie Harrell 1:02:32

Well, yeah, and the other things that play into it. Like it could be the privilege of it. Like if your parent is a successful business owner, chances are you might be a little more affluent than my mom who's busting her butt or some corporation who's paying her just enough to keep her there, you know? And so, yeah, this other person might have more opportunity to explore. They also might have a bigger safety net. Like I knew if I didn't take care of myself, my mom wasn't gonna be able to take care of me. Like I had to take care of myself. So, of course, I'm gonna do something that's secure and stable. If I take a risk and lose everything, what's gonna happen? I'm gonna be on the street. I have no safety net.

Regina Sayer 1:03:10

Yeah. But then COVID sort of gave you the little push and the door opening to consider otherwise, which I think it did for a lot of people, actually.

Debbie Harrell 1:03:18

Right, because our basic needs were being met, right? We were getting a little bit of money to support ourselves, enough to support ourselves, and we had the time and space to like, I say get to know ourselves again because I feel like so much of our lives, especially here in the States, we're like checking the boxes, doing the things on autopilot, especially with social media. You're looking around at what everybody else has got, like, oh, I want that too. Why are you spending so much just because somebody else has it? It's just annoying. But it's also our human nature. So how do we disrupt that?

Regina Sayer 1:03:51

Yeah, I know there were a lot of people who did not handle that time in COVID and they were going stir crazy because people were not used to sitting with themselves. And because there were many people who were by themselves as well, they couldn't handle it. Well, yeah, and it was depression, I think, that came out of that.

Debbie Harrell 1:04:07

There definitely was. Like, and I recognize that my COVID experience was a lot different than other people's. I had a really good, positive COVID experience, and I know there are a lot of people who didn't. It was a scary, lonely time, and it was a scary time, and it was traumatic. People lost people. I was fortunate enough not to lose anybody. Of course, I had already lost most of my family. So yeah, it was definitely a time of contrast. A lot of good things were happening and a lot of horrible things were happening.

Regina Sayer 1:04:37

Yeah.

Debbie Harrell 1:04:38

I think that was also part of my getting comfortable with that idea of holding two ideas at the same time. Like the fact that my mom did the best she could and it did harm to me. There is, especially in time in history we're living in, there is every day something traumatic and scary in the news. And also there are beautiful things happening every day. You know, like it happened, it's life isn't black and white. Black or white, it's black and white, and a million shades of gray, right?

Regina Sayer 1:05:07

My husband likes to watch the Belgian news here, one particular channel, because it's the one that has the least amount of horrible things on it. I mean, it does tell you what's going on, but it always ends it on like a positive note. It always shows like some beautiful part of the country or something fun that's happening, or or something that's uplifting. And so that's the reason I asked him once, why do you watch this news? You know, why don't you watch the BBC or something or whatever we get over here? And he says, no, this is the reason why I like to watch it.

Debbie Harrell 1:05:37

Yeah, and I think that's important. And it's part of my messaging is like making sure that you're taking care of yourself so you can stay informed. But that also includes how are you being informed? Is it informing you or is it traumatizing you?

Regina Sayer 1:05:52

Yeah. Okay. So COVID happened, and then you actually ended up with no job afterwards.

Debbie Harrell 1:06:00

Yeah.

Losing her job, starting a podcast and learning to use her voice

Debbie Harrell 1:06:01

It was challenging, but it was it was a blessing in disguise. Like I said at the beginning, I was like, I gotta figure this stuff out so I can get back to work. Not recognizing that the situation I was in at work, I was no longer working for the island company. I had moved to small business was not a super healthy work environment. The reality is I realized I'm just building somebody else's dream. I'm making somebody else rich with my labor. Why don't why don't I try and see if there's something I can do for myself and my family?

Regina Sayer 1:06:33

And what you just did you decide to do after you stopped working?

Debbie Harrell 1:06:37

Right. Yeah. It just it was very, it just faded away, right? I was gone on the leave, the pandemic happened. I think I text my boss, like, my job's probably gone, right? Yep. Okay, that's good. And I did something I'd never done before. I just winged it. I was a pretty good planner. Like I always had that, you know, five-year plan. Not saying it ever went exactly as planned, but I at least had an idea of what I was gonna do. I always knew I had been an employee for years, so I knew when my paycheck was showing up. So I decided to go out on my own. And it was scary but exciting. And so that's what I've been doing ever since.

Regina Sayer 1:07:15

Is that when you decided to start taking the coaching?

Debbie Harrell 1:07:19

Yeah, and yeah, when I was in that group coaching, you know, I had so many ideas. But the beginning, when I first started, I I'm like, I want to start a podcast called New World Normal and talk about this idea of normal. At the beginning, I was I wanted to normalize things that I wanted to see normal, or I feel like a majority of us want to see normal. But when I really started playing with the word normal, I realized, hmm, it's kind of problematic, right? Because when we think of one thing as normal, then this other thing is not normal or less than. And why can't it just be different? Like I think about uh neurotypical or neurodivergent. A lot of times neurotypical is seen as normal or better, and neurodivergent is is less than. And I'm like, it's just different. It's not the reason we think that neurotypical is better is because it fits into the system that we've created better. But what if it's the system that's less than and not the neurodivergent person, right? So that's where I'm at now, just more questioning norms, questioning uh personal norms and systemic norms. So, anyways, I had the idea for the podcast in 2020. Right. But remember, I am someone that is grown up to be seen and not heard. So who am I to use my voice? So that was the idea at the beginning of the program. And then through the program, now that I've given myself to be a business owner and an entrepreneur, I came up with all sorts of ideas that I chased during that 12-week period in that course. I was like, Yeah, I'll do this and I'll do that. And I start setting up this business and then oh no, no, I'm gonna do this. And I start setting up this so I wasted a lot of time chasing other business ideas until I got back to the end and I'm like, no, I think I just want to do the podcast. So, okay, I'm gonna do a podcast. This is terrifying. How do I do this? Who am I to do this? Use my voice. All the things came up. I feel I don't know who

Regina Sayer 1:09:17

I can empathize with what you're saying. I really can. I see some some similarities in my doing this podcast and what you're saying.

Debbie Harrell 1:09:26

Well, and also they say becoming an entrepreneur is the best therapy you'll ever have because you've got to work through a lot of your shit to put yourself out there. The easiest way is to use social media, and so you really have to be present and perceived constantly, which is still uncomfortable for me. So, yeah, surprise, surprise, I did not start the podcast right away. I started working on it. One of the things we did early on in that program was go to the people in our lives that were closest to us that we could trust that would be honest with us and ask them, what do you think I'm good at? What are things that you would come to me for? So I did that early on. And I got things like, you're really good at looking at a problem from all directions. I go to you when I need a less biased, I'm like, I can't be non-biased, none of us can. So the the things that were my friends were saying very much led to the idea of coaching. But again, I'm like, oh, that sounds really scary. Who am I to do that? So I'm like, of course, I can't do that. So I had this idea to go along with the podcast. I was going to do a thing called intentional apparel. It was soft clothes for hard times, but it was just a clothing line that had like inspirational sayings on it and stuff. But that wasn't really what I wanted to do because I didn't want to sell stuff. I tend to lean towards eco-friendly and environmental. Like there's already enough stuff. If I sell stuff, I want to make sure my shirts are produced in a factory where people are being treated kind and being paid fairly. So, like starting out, I don't know, that was a lot. I couldn't, I couldn't do that. So I kept going and going. And then it

Peer mentoring, group therapy and the trauma carried before the shooting

Debbie Harrell 1:11:05

was a the year later in 2021, that's when the Route 91 people reached out. They're like looking for volunteers to train to be a peer mentor. This is the on-site group? No, this was Route 91, the Las Vegas Resiliency Center.

Regina Sayer 1:11:21

Yeah, okay, okay. So it's a different group.

Debbie Harrell 1:11:23

They were looking for volunteers. And at the same time, I had been researching because I had come to terms with, okay, I'm gonna do this life coaching thing. So I had been researching schools or organizations to train with, and I had just finally selected one. Oh, what do you know? It starts around the same time as this resiliency center training. So I'm doing these concurrently, and then also the resiliency center is saying, we have an opportunity for Route 91 survivors to go to On-Site, which is a therapeutic center. At the time they were just in Tennessee. Now they have a campus in California as well. But they do lots of different therapeutic programs, but they had one designed specifically for mass shooting survivors. I believe it was a relative of one of the Columbine survivors who ended up committing suicide. It's not uncommon for people to take the trauma from the shooting, you know, survive the shooting, but then that trauma ends up getting them in the end because they take their own lives. So I think it was her brother who inspired her to start this program with On-Site. And it was a 100% scholarship. And again, those messages of who are you to take up this space? Your experience wasn't that bad. You didn't get shot. None of your friends got shot. Who are you? Luckily, I'd been in a lot more therapy since then. So I was like, you know what? I'm just gonna fill out the application and see what happens. And I was accepted. And I got to go spend four days in Tennessee doing group therapy, which I'd never done. And it was hands down one of the best experiences, most impactful experiences of my life. And it just contributed to the training I was already getting, right? I'm in life coaching school and training to be a peer mentor. So that period of my life was pretty intense therapeutically and learning about myself and the idea of helping other people and how to do that safely, but also brings up a lot of your stuff. So it's not like I'm going to hang my shingle immediately. I thought I was, but no, you're not ready. You need to process all this stuff you've just gone through. Mind you, I did start the podcast around that time. So I was putting out podcast episodes. So I'd started to get a little braver. But then, yeah, I didn't actually start really coaching coaching until 22. And then I did my first group coaching program in 23. And then life has just been lifing since then. And um, I'm anxious to get back to that group program because I think it's pretty cool.

Regina Sayer 1:13:54

Go back to the on-site program. It was four days in Tennessee. You said there were group therapy. So, how did you feel during that time? And what were some of the key findings that you determined after that? I mean, I'm sure that there were some pretty eye-opening things that came out of that.

Debbie Harrell 1:14:10

Well, yeah, one of the biggest ones is we were all this particular cohort of this program, program was called Triumph Over Tragedy. We were all Route 91 survivors. So we were all pretty bonded right from the get-go, which was nice. The one thing I noticed was that even though we were all there for the same reason, what we were all working on, and I can only speak for my group, and uh, but I think it was true for most of the groups, nobody was working on the trauma of the shooting. Everybody was working on all the stuff that they had before the shooting. Because when we walked into that festival, we all had our baggage, like the shit we'd been carrying from our childhood, our abusive or questionable relationships, our lived experience, which isn't always rainbows and sunshine, right? We all had something that we brought in with us. And when we left with the added trauma of the shooting, all that other stuff wasn't gone. It was still there, which is a little bit what I experienced when I met with the PTSD specialist, right? I I got that there's other stuff in my life that I obviously need to deal with. So it was interesting seeing that everybody was working on their own stuff. It wasn't it wasn't about the shooting at all. We talked in group one time about the shooting, maybe about a half hour. And then the rest we were we were processing other stuff.

Regina Sayer 1:15:26

That's interesting. I mean, I can think to my own experience when I in my early 20s, I went to a psychologist, and I won't get into the details of why I did that. But I went into it thinking, okay, this is the reason that I'm going in here. And then I remember I was, I don't know, it was maybe three months later coming out and thinking, whoa, I didn't realize that I had all this stuff going on with my mother. And that's what came out of it. I the reason I went in there had absolutely nothing to do with my mother. But the main realization that I came out with was some of the things that my mother was doing. And she wasn't a bad person or anything. She was doing it, you know, unwittingly. And it was causing so much grief in my life. So it's we think it's one thing, then come to find out it's it's something else. But it's one small like tangent that pokes another place and makes it sensitive. It's really interesting how all these things are so intricately woven in our lives and how they affect each other without us even realizing it. It's always amazing to find that.

Debbie Harrell 1:16:29

And how that emotional is also affecting the physical, like it's all so intricate and complex.

Regina Sayer 1:16:36

Yeah, I was uh I did a recording recently with somebody who um she had grown up in at a time when the Czech Republic was becoming the Czech Republic. And um, of course, she had been through all that kind of unrest and there was a lot of stuff going on, unrest in the country. And she said when September 11th happened, it brought up all this other trauma in her. And oh my god, I had to stop the recording because I was living in Reston, Virginia, which is not far from DC when September 11th happened, and it brought up that without me even realizing it. And it's all these years later. I mean, and I always say, oh, you know, oh, there's a plane flying over low. And I realized at that point that I still, when a plane flies low over me, I sit and I think, why is that plane so low? What what's going on? Years and years ago, I was really surprised. I mean, I was literally crying - I had to stop the podcast.

Debbie Harrell 1:17:32

Yeah, no, it's in there. It's in there. Like I had the experience the other day because I recognized we were getting close. At the time I didn't recognize, I wasn't thinking about the anniversary date. But there were um sirens. And I'm usually okay with sirens if they go one way, but when they start doing the back and forth, because that's what I heard that night, was the back and the forth, and the helicopters. So if you get a helicopter and a siren, and I will start to feel myself, you know, start to rise up. I had that experience at work the other day because the ambulances were going back and forth because it was a busy day and it was I live on I work on a busy corner. So yeah, it's in there and it comes out whether we're ready for it or not.

Regina Sayer 1:18:08

And that's why when you said, you know, you wanted to be careful about when you what what you were talking about what happened in in the shooting, that I was very conscious of that because I was very conscious of what came up in myself at that time when somebody else was talking about something. All right. Let's go into the fact that you continue to have

Autoimmune illness, further health challenges and making space to heal

Regina Sayer 1:18:27

some health issues. You had a torn retina, and that you've had some issues with your eyes all the way up until the time we were supposed to do the first podcast, the originally scheduled podcast.

Debbie Harrell 1:18:36

My eyes have just been an issue this year, but I did um I started having issues, autoimmune issues. I was diagnosed with Hashimoto's in 2021. Finally, because I was having all these weird symptoms, and of course the doctor's like, you're fine, everything's fine, all of your labs look great. I'm like, no, there is something wrong. And that's thyroid, right? Yes, it can be, but because my thyroid was functioning fine, right? My panels were fine, I pushed her to test me for Hashimoto's because I had had a functional doctor. Because when I first went out on medical leave, I was curious, like, is there something physically wrong with me, or am I just, you know, is it just mental and emotional? And so I went to this functional medicine doctor and she's like, Well, you're borderline Hashimoto's, which I don't know how you can be borderline. I didn't know enough about it at the time. I was having weird joint pain issues, and I'm like, Can you just test me for Hashimoto's? And she's like, You don't have Hashimoto's, but okay, I'll test you. She humored me, thank goodness, because I did have the antibody, the TPO is the marker for that. But my thyroid was functioning. So her message to me was, well, your thyroid's working fine, and there's really nothing we can do until that stops working right. So it was basically go home and get sicker, and then when your thyroid stops working, we'll medicate you. And I'm like, yeah, I don't think I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna figure something else out. So that was another rabbit hole of, you know, in my son's diagnosis, I was all into neurology and nutrition. And then, of course, autoimmune, there's a lot of overlap with lifestyle and nutrition. So I put myself on a strict anti-inflammatory diet. I was trying to walk, I was learning how to regulate my nervous system, which went along with all the other work I was doing. And so I still have Hashimoto's, but all my symptoms are gone for now.

Regina Sayer 1:20:21

Good, excellent. Good job.

Debbie Harrell 1:20:23

Yes, yay.

Regina Sayer 1:20:24

All right. Are you now coaching?

Debbie Harrell 1:20:26

I do coach. I have a few people in my membership that I've been working with for years. But what happened in 2023, I'd been working on this group coaching program. I really like the idea of a group coaching program. Number one, you're doing work in community, which I feel is very important. Number two, you can do it in a way that's more accessible. Like all those years, I didn't have access to coaching or therapy because I didn't have the money. And I know that currently economic times are tough for a lot of people. And I would like to be able to work in a way that supports me, but also keeps my work accessible. So I really want to do group coaching. So I did, I created a program. I ran it in fall of 2023. It was great. The people that went through it got had a good experience. I learned a lot. I had all these plans for how I was going to improve it and relaunch it in early 2024. Well, life had other plans for me in 2024. I got an eviction notice from my landlord. In itself, doesn't sound like, yes, that is horrible but manageable, right? I just have to move. Well, mind you, I don't really have a reliable income source that I can put on paper for a future landlord. And I live in a resort town where there are next to none year-round housing. So it took me six months to find a place and then another six months to probably settle in and process. So 2024 was a wash. 2025, that's the year. I'm gonna do it. And you lost your dog as well. Yes. Then 2025 ended up having to say goodbye to my dog, which was much harder. Now you're gonna make me to cry. That was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. I had that happen, and then literally four days later, I say I broke my eye from all the crying. I ended up losing vision in my left eye, went to the hospital. They're like, we can't tell. They flew me over town. And he's like, Yeah, it's torn and your retina's torn in a few places, but we'll just treat it with laser and you'll be fine. Or you should be fine. Well, that was torture. Laser in the eyeball was not fun. They thought they fixed it. I it didn't fix. So it started at the beginning of June and just it was mid-August that it finally detached. So I had to get emergency eye surgery. And I am what, nine weeks post eight weeks post-surgery right now, and still have a gas bubble in my eye. Needless to say, I had been focused on myself and healing this year. So I did not do any group coaching program. And I actually just came to the realization, because I kept thinking, I'll just do it in the fall. I'll just do it in the fall. I'm like, Debbie, you don't have the bandwidth to lead a group right now. At least not at the level I want to do it. And I'm like, but I've got to do something. Like I've got, not just for myself financially, but I feel like we're at a pretty crazy time in history. And I feel like one way I can show up and help is through my work, helping people learn how to reconnect to themselves, learn how to regulate their nervous system. Because the world is batshit crazy. I'm gonna do a mini like boot camp program called Resilience in a bat shit crazy world to try and help people learn how they can take care of themselves and remain engaged and informed.

Regina Sayer 1:23:38

And that's in person or online?

Debbie Harrell 1:23:40

It'll be online. And I want to do it in a boot camp format because I didn't want to do a long drawn-out thing because I think people need the information like now. I think it needs to be learned quickly. And so what's a format I can deliver quickly and effectively and impactfully? I wanted to help people, not just doing this to make a few bucks. So I've come up with a pretty cool bootcamp format that I'm hopeful hoping other people like. I'm pretty excited about it. And then I'll be more in a better mind, right? Because I'll be working on my own resilience alongside of all my clients for the rest of the year. And then next year I'm gonna relaunch my group coaching program.

Regina Sayer 1:24:19

So you don't do one-on-one? You don't take individuals.

Debbie Harrell 1:24:22

I will, but I haven't because how much I'd have to charge somebody, like I'm not comfortable in that space right now. And I haven't had the energy to market myself in that way. I have it up on my website if someone were to click it, but you know, I'm not sending anybody there. I'm sending more people to my free community. Like I'm doing a lot of free stuff right now because I feel like people need places to connect and recognize that there's a lot of good people in the world that want to do good things. And I'm getting started on my podcast again, because I think that's a lot of it too, like hearing other people's stories about how they're doing work to try and help the collective. And yeah, we do a book club, which is all online. I want to get back to hosting other people. Like I'll do workshops in my free community, but also I host other people, whether it's something about personal development or some creative outlet or self-awareness building. I always say it's like self-help at the intersection of social issues.

Regina Sayer 1:25:18

It sounds interesting. It sounds very collaborative as well.

Debbie Harrell 1:25:22

Well, and I think a lot of it is taken separately. Like you need to work on yourself, but you can do all the work on yourself. But if the system you're living in is broken, it's not going to be super effective.

Regina Sayer 1:25:33

If

Questioning normal, practical self-regulation and staying engaged

Regina Sayer 1:25:34

somebody were to contact you and be in one of these groups, what is the kind of coaching that somebody would be looking for in this type of group setting? What is it that you're offering exactly the type of coaching?

Debbie Harrell 1:25:46

My coaching and my my program and where I like to help people is questioning all those norms in their life, all the shoulds and the have-to's. I'm really big on helping people align goals with their actual values because I find a lot of times people have these ideas of what kind of life they want to live or what kind of world they want to live in. But the things they're doing every day are completely disconnected from those doing this every day, but you want to go that way. Like maybe if we try and do things that kind of point more that direction. Or you have people that have ideas of wanting to live in a greener, more eco-friendly world, and yet they're doing things on autopilot, like grabbing the case of water bottles at the grocery store every week. It's like, well, why are you buying all that plastic and putting more plastic in the world if you claim to care about the environment? Decide, do you care about the environment or really is that just not that important to you?

Regina Sayer 1:26:39

It sounds very practical.

Debbie Harrell 1:26:41

I'd like to keep it practical, accessible, things you can actually implement in your life. I'm really big on self-care practices or rituals that are as small as possible so that you could actually do them.

Regina Sayer 1:26:53

Can you share something like that that somebody who's listening might be able to try out?

Debbie Harrell 1:26:57

Yeah, it's funny because I had thought about sharing another thing, but I feel like the small bite size, they're like little mini meditations. And I want to say I first got introduced to these ideas. Gosh, what is the name of the book? Something (Positive) intelligence, not emotional intelligence, practical intelligence. I think the author's name is Shirzad (Shirzad Chamine) something. He has these little mini meditations that are based on the senses. And so you can do it anywhere just to bring you back to center and uh a little more grounded. So, like you can do it where you're rubbing your fingers and you're just focusing on that sensation. So you can literally do that anywhere. I often couple it with the bilateral stimulation because right when you're moving bilaterally, people do like this. That's a very calming thing to do, but it's also it looks strange, right? You're out in public doing this. But if you're rubbing your legs at a meeting on Zoom, you can rub your legs. You can rub the seam of your pants and focus on that sensation. He teaches it as a form of when you're in the negative self talk spiral to bring you back to like, okay, that's Not helpful. Let's get back to what I really need to be focused on. Another one he talks, so hearing would be, okay, I'm going to listen to something really close to me. I have ear earbuds in right now, so obviously I'm listening to you. But if I didn't have them in, I can listen to you, and then I can be like, I'm going to focus on the most distant sound I can hear. It's easier when you're outdoors, right? Because you can hear something far away, or like you can isolate a sound, like, oh, I can hear that one bird in that tree and focus on that sound. You can do the same thing with distance, which is a good uh eye exercise, right? I'm looking at the computer. I'm looking at something far away. But it's just ways to bring you back to the present moment and regulate if you're feeling a little anxious. And it's really in easy to incorporate into anything you're doing. Like so many people here are like, I don't have time to meditate. What do you mean meditate? I don't have time for that. But you do have time for some a practice like that. Like you can do it anytime. You can do it while you're standing in line at the grocery store. You can, you know, do it at a work meeting. No one's gonna know.

Regina Sayer 1:29:01

That's mainly to sort of help calm you down if you're in a moment of anxiety or stress.

Debbie Harrell 1:29:07

I think anxiety and stress, like I said, he teaches it for the the negative mental self-talk, which I know I struggled with, still struggle with. So I use it at times like that. Anytime you feel like you're anxious, spiraling is a another way people dis describe it. Although I think spiraling gets bad rap. Like I think we are all spiraling all the time, and that's okay. Life is cyclical. We're all spinning, but we're expanding and we're growing in that spiral.

Regina Sayer 1:29:35

So all right. So given everything that's happened to you and everything that you've discovered about yourself, all of these realizations that you have had, and also the coaching that you've gone through, gone through, excuse me. Can you just leave listeners with some advice that you feel is probably the most pertinent in this crazy world, as you call it, that we are in all experiencing now?

Debbie Harrell 1:30:01

Well, it uh you always pops up when people want advice. It's like my favorite advice is from Dory on finding Nemo. Just keep swimming. But I would also offer because we are seem to be in a I don't know if it's unique. People say these kind of things happen all the time throughout history. It just feels extra, is to figure out how to take care of yourself so you can stay in the game. I'm not the coach that's going to tell you, just ignore the news. It's too stressful. I'm going to say, yes, take breaks, find sources that don't traumatize you, but also learn how to take care of yourself so you can stay informed and engaged because we're all in this together, right? The entire planet. We all need to stay in it in order to build something better.

Regina Sayer 1:30:49

So Yeah, escapeeism isn't working.

Debbie Harrell 1:30:52

No, we can't all fly off to a tropical destination because then the problem's just gonna come with us.

Regina Sayer 1:30:57

If anybody wants to connect with you, how can they do that?

Debbie Harrell 1:31:00

So I've been hanging out on Instagram a little bit more, actually spruced up my LinkedIn profile, been trying to show up there more because it seems like there's more real people on LinkedIn. And then my podcast new episodes are gonna start, but there's 45 previous episodes. People can start listening to those and get an idea of what I'm up to. Yeah, or join my community, the free community on Facebook. It's on Facebook for now. It will find a better home at some point. We're getting ready to start up our book club again.

Regina Sayer 1:31:31

So, what is the name of the group on Facebook?

Debbie Harrell 1:31:33

It's the question normal community.

Regina Sayer 1:31:36

And the name of your podcast.

Debbie Harrell 1:31:37

New World Normal.

Regina Sayer 1:31:38

Okay. So I will put the links in the show notes here so people can connect with you. So any final closing words that you have?

Debbie Harrell 1:31:47

No, this was great. I probably shared more than I have on any other podcast. So it feels a little uncomfortable. It might be a little sweaty, but it was fun.

Regina Sayer 1:31:56

You've been rubbing your thighs the whole time.

Debbie Harrell 1:31:58

Anything comes up, I have my therapy appointment next week, so we're good.

Regina Sayer 1:32:02

All right. Well, it's been fun and it's been interesting. And thank you for sharing some things that I'm sure were a bit difficult to share as well. So thank you for that.

Debbie Harrell 1:32:13

Thanks for what you do. I love the idea of Wisdom Without The Guru. Because we all have wisdom. We all.

Regina Sayer 1:32:20

Yeah, that's how I really, really feel that we all have it. And I'll just share one thing before we close that there's this old idea of bartering, you know, or you sort of, you know, you provide a meal for somebody and then they provide a service for you. And I always sort of try to encourage that with people because it's this type of sharing that you can give to people. And people always think, oh, well, I have nothing to share. I have nothing to share. And I think, well, you've got your own inner inner wisdom from your own experience to share, whether or not somebody else, you know, accepts it or not, or is resonating with it doesn't matter. But everybody has that. I mean, even a five-year-old has that.

Debbie Harrell 1:33:04

They've got some kind of wisdom, lived up to that five years of age. Well, and the important part about sharing the stories is we recognize, like, oh, like that happened to me, or I felt like that once upon a time. Or, you know, we we recognize each other in other people's stories, and that brings us together and helps us remember that we're all in this together.

Regina Sayer 1:33:25

Definitely. Definitely. Well, thank you for being a guest. I'm not sure what you're doing for the anniversary of the shooting, but I hope that you will keep yourself in a good state of mind.

Debbie Harrell 1:33:38

I will do my best. I'll have something planned to.

Regina Sayer 1:33:42

All right. Listeners, thank you for tuning in. And I know it's been a lengthy one, but I think that you have probably picked up on a lot of things. But I think that'll be it for now because it's time for my dinner

Debbie Harrell 1:33:55

and my breakfast.

Regina Sayer 1:33:56

Oh, yeah, that's right. Totally different sides of the world. Anyway, so wherever you are in this beautiful world, I wish you a wonderful day, night, midday, whatever it is for you. And until the next time, bye, everybody.