Raising Wild Hearts
An inspirational show focused on growth from challenge and ideas to take the path less traveled. Ryann Watkin interviews experts and shares resources on education, creativity, nature, spirituality, mental health, relationships, self care, and more. Ryann is a passionate speaker, mom, wife, and educator who asks questions that provoke self-awareness, meaning, and purpose. Psychology, spirituality, family— and where they all intersect— is the heartbeat of Raising Wild Hearts.
Raising Wild Hearts
Mastering the Art of Active Listening for Deeper Connections and Growth With Deb Porter
Ever caught yourself simply waiting for your turn to speak rather than truly listening? Deb Porter from HOLD (Hearing Out Life Drama) joins us today for a profound conversation on the transformative power of active listening. We journey through the nuances of parenting, the intricacies of communication and so much more!
💕Learn More About Deb's Work at HOLD Here💕
If you feel inspired please consider sharing this episode with a friend, writing a 5⭐️ review or becoming a Raising Wild Hearts Member here!
So it's really important to reflect the feeling. So, especially if you're a mom and your child's coming to you and they've had a crappy day at school, let's say, they had something that came up that was really hard for them, was really, really unhappy, and you know that they're unhappy, and so you get them to start opening up. And a lot of moms want to just fix it and make it all better, but it's really the making sure that you reflect back to them. I hear this is what happened. This was the scenario you told me, and how did you feel about it? Really, was it this? And getting that affirmation, because it's really when that feeling is understood. That's when we feel heard and understood for sure.
Speaker 2:Welcome, revolutionary, to the Raising Wild Hearts podcast. I'm Ryan Watkin, educator, mom of three, rebel at heart and passionate soul, on a mission to empower and inspire you.
Speaker 2:Here we'll explore psychology, spirituality, parenthood and the intersection where they all come together. We'll discover how challenges can be fertile soil for growth and that even in the messy middle of motherhood, we can find magic in the mundane. Join me on my own personal journey as I talk to experts and share resources on education, creativity, self-care, family, culture and more. I believe we can change the world by starting at home, in our own minds and hearts, and that when we do, we'll be passing down the most important legacy there is healing, and so it is. Hello, welcome back to the Raising Wild Hearts podcast, super excited to share today's conversation with you. As always, today I am talking to Deb Porter. Deb is a professional listener and owner of HOLD H-O-L-D, which stands for Hearing Out Life Drama. Her organization helps individuals and business professionals improve their communication by teaching active listening skills, resulting in positive outcomes. Deb also provides a safe, non-judgmental space so that those who use holds confidential listening service gain clarity and find relief from overwhelming situations.
Speaker 2:I love this conversation because I think that listening is one of those profound yet simple acts that we can learn to do in our daily lives to improve our relationships and our life in general. So we talk about a ton in this conversation. I laugh, I cry and it's just a beautiful conversation. I talk about how I taught myself to listen in my 20s because my job I had to for my job how to be comfortable with silence. This is a big one, and we also talk about Deb's journey from seminary school to becoming a mother and creating a business centered around listening, all while listening to the guidance to follow her calling.
Speaker 2:Essentially, we talk about Deb's resistance to becoming a mother and what her therapist told her in response, which was very interesting and so true. And then we talk about also a few other things, but also the pendulum swing of parenting, so how we want to change the way we do things dramatically from the generations before us, and we talk about finding a little bit of more of that middle ground which is what Deb did with her children, and she says that her most meaningful accomplishment is that her children are beautiful humans in this world. Amen to that. So I'm super excited to share this conversation with you today. I think this is a revolutionary idea that Deb has created her super impactful business around. So let's dive in. Deb, welcome to the Raising Wild Hearts podcast.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for having me here, ryan, thank you, thank you, thank you, I'm excited.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm really excited too. This is a concept that we're gonna be talking about today is something that's really important for me. I learned how to listen self-taught. When I was in my 20s. I realized that I was a terrible listener, and so I started self-taught. When I was in my 20s, I realized I was a terrible listener, and so I started becoming self-aware of that, and so I learned to become a listener, and throughout the years, it's evolved in different ways and we'll get into a little bit of that.
Speaker 2:First, I want to preface this with it's a magical day. It's a Monday, it's a full solar eclipse today in the United States, and my conversations are always magical, but I have a feeling that this one is going to be extra magical, so I'm just putting it out there in the universe. It's going to be so good and I really hope. I want to just kind of shout out to everyone listening I, before we hit record and before I jumped on here, really said a prayer that this touches the hearts and minds of the people who need to hear it the most, and that what needs to come through will come through, and so I wanted to share that with you all because I love you and thank you for being here on the pod, and these conversations are like church for me. They're so sacred and so this is going to be it's going to be a good one.
Speaker 2:So, deb, you're a professional listener. Tell me how you came to that, maybe. Tell me. Tell us what is listening and why it's so important. I know that's a loaded question to start with, but give us like the basics.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, there was a lot there that you just asked me to do and my brain is still back on. Oh my gosh, I can't believe that you had that self-awareness in your twenties to understand that, that you needed to learn to listen. That's fantastic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So let me double click on that, let me expand on that so we can. Let's start by expanding on that Good, good call. So I was an admissions counselor for a college and I'd have people come in who were interested in pursuing a degree path and I realized and also it was part of the job was to listen. And I realized that all I wanted to do was I wanted to talk.
Speaker 2:My instinct was to fill the space with words, and so I would very subtly bite my tongue when I just like there'd be a pause and instead of needing to fill it, I would bite my tongue and kind of just invite this person who I was speaking to to expand on it. And now, with my kids, it looks like is there more? Because, like the kind of the nonviolent communication you know, one of those tips and tricks. So, yes, back then it was like necessary for my work, and now that I have three kids, they all have something they wanna say. So, yeah, I did have this self-awareness and it was tied to like my professional success too. So, and so, yeah, so let's start there.
Speaker 1:So, oh my gosh, if there are listeners thinking, do I need to bite my tongue? The answer is no, don't don't bite your tongue, don't hurt yourself. What I? What I really recommend, though, is to begin to get comfortable with that silence, and you can breathe into that, and, if you need to, you can count. That's often a really good give it. Give it some beats, you know, you can feel your heart almost in your chest and just breathe through it, and because, a lot of times, people are processing in that silence, there's a lot going on that we don't realize for the other person. So, okay, so you asked me about me.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I will answer Not avoiding truly, truly, I'm not so my journey actually started. I'll start in my twenties, because that's where you were. So I was in my twenties and I was really clear I wanted to help people and I was really clear that I was called to that. That was my calling and so I went to seminary. I graduated from the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary with Master Divinity Degree, a specialization in care and counseling, and I went to serve churches and that was all going really well for me.
Speaker 1:I liked that a lot, except that a family member came out to me about the same time that some church colleagues were being put on church trial because they had performed same-sex marriages and they were losing their ordination, they were losing their pensions, they were losing everything they had worked for. Most of them were in their fifties about where I'm at now and they were losing for they were. You know, most of them were in their fifties about where I'm at now and they had. They were losing everything. They were losing everything. It was devastating and I tried at that time to use my voice and say can't we please listen to each other? And I was basically told to take a seat. So I realized that the change was not going to happen quickly in the church, and um, and that, if my you know that, that my values were not the same, I wasn't. I wasn't in a place where I believe the same thing. I believe love is love, and so, about out about the time, about that time, my daughter was one, and so, um, yeah, um, when she was born, we discovered that my husband, um, had the same genetic condition that his two younger, or that his two siblings had died of. He had one sibling that was older than him and another that was younger and two sisters, and they both died. One was one and one was three. When she died, it was devastating for their family, and everybody told us when we were looking at the genetic counseling you can't possibly have it because you're alive, you're not dead. So, um, but then when I got pregnant, um, the insurance would of course then pay for the genetic testing to make sure, and we were looking for carrier status because you know it's possible, possibly genetic. We needed to find out.
Speaker 1:That's when we discovered that actually he did have that genetic condition, and so that was kind of an earth shattering moment for me, and so I remember, before we had our second child going into his geneticist that we had found and saying look, what can we expect here? Is there any way we can know what's going to happen? And he wants another child and I'm not sure that's a good idea. And the doctor said to me Deb, you can get hit by a bus tomorrow. How do you want to live your life? I was like, wow, okay, I can live in fear, I can live in hope. And it was a really clear message to me, and so I decided I was going to live in hope. And so we, you know, we moved on. We had our son, so we had two kids. They're now almost 19. Oh my God, and 24. Wow, you did it, I did it. That feels so good. That's my favorite part of my life. I did that, that's fantastic, that's amazing.
Speaker 2:I say it every time I talk to somebody with older kids and I'm like oh my gosh, you did it Cause I'm so in it. I say it every time I talk to somebody with older kids and I'm like oh my gosh, you did it because I'm so in it.
Speaker 2:I'm in it right now and you know, I have this like realization that one day I won't be in it and I'm going to miss the in it, and so, like, there's this strange like perspective shift that has to happen daily because I'm sure you miss a lot of parts about having littles. You know little kids and so it's yeah, that's interesting. I love that you mentioned the word calling, because here on my little notepad, wouldn't you know, I wrote the word life calling slash. Purpose because I looked at your website. Purpose because I looked at your website, I read about what you do and I really reflected on how healing conversation can be, like this platform that I have, these conversations that I have here. Some of them are massively healing for me, for the person I'm talking to and then, of course, for those listening.
Speaker 2:And I just think that if we all listen to each other, like you inferred that there wouldn't be war, there wouldn't be arguments, there wouldn't be family drama, all the things, and on and on and on right. So one of my cornerstones is we can change the world by starting at home, and everything I want to see out in the world starts right here, in the four walls of my home, like where I'm at, and that's the good news and the bad news, because it's you know, to really hold space for the feedback that my children give me can be challenging sometimes, especially as they're getting older, and yet for me to be aware that these are their perspectives, like it's a game changer. I hope that they will grow knowing that you know, at least 80% of the time I was there to listen to them. So how do you consider, how do you view listening as just like this massive shift for people?
Speaker 1:It is a massive shift. It changes everything, Just as you described. It changes everything when you really start to listen to another person and understand where they're coming from. There's so much love that can then pour into that because you understand that they're another human just like you. They're learning, they're growing just like you, and it really does change because you're no longer trying to change them. You don't have to. You don't longer have to try to change. You don't have to change anybody. Just be in yourself and move from that and it's life altering. It really is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, one of the limiting beliefs I've grown up with is you have to be loud to be heard in our family, and I'm coming to that realization now because you know it's everybody's loud here in my house. Everybody's loud because there's, you know, three kids and there's two adults and there's a dog and it's just it can feel loud and I'm a little sensitive. I'm kind of like I'm a sensitive person and especially to noise, and so things are very loud and so I've been unpacking this like I have to be the yelliest, the loudest and like the rightest for everybody to like hear what I'm saying and it's, is that true?
Speaker 1:No, I, when my daughter was in Montessori, they taught the kids to go up to some. If they wanted someone's attention to go, gently lay their hand on them, on a shoulder or wherever if they, if your kids are a lot shorter just a touch a hand, and especially in the home. I mean, obviously at work, that's not going to be appropriate, but we're talking about a home here. So just a gentle hand, and it's so. And when everybody in our household we just embrace that in our family and we all started to do that for each other. And so, you know, because sometimes you're in the middle of something, and especially my husband and I are now divorced I don't think I said that yet.
Speaker 1:So that's another piece of the story. So that's another piece of the story. But that touching of the hand was really changed things, because no longer did people have to be loud, you don't have to be loud, it's just gentle, it's right there and I feel you One second, you know, and then being able to draw into that and then turning and being intentional, right there, right. So when they've asked through the hand, and so then now through here, I'm dialed in, I'm ready to listen.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I love that we have a rule and sometimes we break it. I break it too sometimes that we can't talk to each other from different rooms because we'll get in this thing where we're going, you know, shouting instructions and things from different rooms. And even this morning my daughter was going, mom, and I was like I literally can't hear you. I can hear you, but I can't hear you. And so I came out. I was like I always say if you can't see my eyes, most likely I can't hear you, you know. Came out, I was like I always say if you can't see my eyes, most likely I can't hear you. You know, cause she's, she's seven, so she, you know, I'm like so and she's like, oh, okay, and that makes so much sense. But I love the concept of the gentle, calm hand touch, like just, and then everybody's present in the moment talking about rules of the house.
Speaker 1:We had one rule, only one rule ever in our house, because all the rules folded into that one thing, and it was this respect each other. In our house, this one thing that we do is we respect each other, and so this thing that you just described, that would fall under the respect right. In order for me to really hear you and respect you and to honor what it is that you're saying to me, I need to be able to communicate with you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I love that. I love that. So I have a theory and I'm curious what the data says about it. I don't know if you have any opinion on this or any data even to back it up, but I have a theory that most people think that they're good listeners, but they're not 98%.
Speaker 1:I have a statistic 98% of people think that they are good listeners. And yet when Scientific American did a study I think it was, I don't have the number in front of me, but I think it was 66% of women, when asked a series of questions about what they just listened to, 66% got it right when it was meant to to. The questions were meant to be easy.
Speaker 1:it was they even skewed it so it'd be easy to remember. And men didn't even. I'm sorry, men, but men did even worse. If they're any guys listening, I'm so sorry, but they did even less at like 49 percent, 44 percent it wasn't good.
Speaker 2:Well, their brains aren't wired to multitask, so you know to to back up all the men like they. You know so, if men, so if they have anything else going on, I think that it's probably more challenging for them. But I can speak as a woman and I believe that and even I think I'm a good listener. I started in my 20s knowing that I needed to listen, practicing active listening, and still I can catch like falling back to the default, you know. So what would a conversation sound like with a family member, let's say a partner or a child, where we, as the person, maybe the mom I think most of us here are the moms as the mom, or the wife or the partner? How would we partner? What would the conversation be sounding like? What would a good conversation be of we're really actively listening? What are the components of that? Maybe?
Speaker 1:So it's really important to reflect the feeling. So, especially if you're a mom and your child's coming to you and they've had a crappy day at school, let's say, they had something that came up that was really hard for them, was really, really unhappy, and you know that they're unhappy, and so you get them to start opening up. And a lot of moms want to just fix it and make it all better, but it's really the making sure that you reflect back to them. I hear this is what happened. This was the scenario you told me, and how did you feel about it? Really, was it this? And getting that affirmation, because it's really when that feeling is understood. That's when we feel heard and understood for sure.
Speaker 2:Because we'll hear them say and I do this too sometimes you know, we want to see our kids happy, and so to see our kids suffering or unhappy, we're going like you know, it's like one of our limbs being cut off or like burned. You know we don't want to see these people, who we love so immensely, like in pain. And so you know, so-and-so will go like Susie said she hated me and da-da-da, and will go like Susie said she hated me and da-da-da. And oh honey, susie doesn't hate you. You're amazing, hun. Oh no, you're great, you're la-la-la. And we want to. You know, go like no, you're fabulous. And what our kids want to hear is like oh man, susie said she hates you. How did that feel? You seem like you're really sad about it. You know, if they're not quite able to pick it out, the feeling, and so the more we do that with them, then what do we do, Deb? Then? Then what happens for our kids? What are they then learning as we're modeling this for them?
Speaker 1:They. They learn how to do it in their own lives, which is even better. That's. That's the goal, right Is they get to grow up. It's like my kids do it. They go out and they do it in the real world. My kids do it. For me now it's the most marvelous. The other day, my daughter actually did. We were, we were texting and I I just asked for her help and she she did exactly that. For me, it feels so good when you're able to be in the world like that and show up for other people. It's fantastic, and not just that I raised her to be there for me, that's not at all it, but she's there for a lot of people, all the people that she interacts with, and my son too. He's fabulous. It's really, really great. They're grounded individuals who are happy, and that's how people who teach active listening to their kids. That's what you'll raise, too, for sure.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 2:So at what point in your motherhood journey were you like okay, I need to kind of go a little bit of the path less traveled, so to speak.
Speaker 2:Because I think, if you hear, one of the things that breaks my heart is like being in Target and like hearing parents like speak to their kids, like we as a collective you know I'm not really necessarily owning up to this for myself, but we are as a collective and as a society speaking to our kids like they're our pets or like our dogs, like commanding them, barking at them, like sometimes if you hear parents out and about in the way they speak to their kids, it's just, it's heartbreaking and maybe I hear that you know from my own like healing and just like coming to terms and not judging this parent because perhaps they are doing the best they can. But and so when we hear the way we treat children as a society, it's like oof. And so how did you know to do it like a little different? Your child went to a Montessori school. You said that like, was it like this big shift? Or you always knew you were going to do it that way?
Speaker 1:So well when I was young. That's not how my parents did it, and so I made a pretty large decision when I was little that I wanted to learn how to be different, that I wanted it to be different. In fact, I wrote in an article, I think, out there in the big world about a time when I was seven and my parents had an argument in the big big world. Um, about a time when I was seven and my parents had a an argument in the car and road rage erupted from the parent that was driving and we were going 123 miles an hour over hills and it was terrifying and I was, and and they just miss each other. I like I could see where the communication at seven I already saw it as I was like, but you're not hearing each other and you don't need to be upset because you know just didn't quite connect. And so I knew really young that I wanted to. I didn't know how to do it, I didn't, I didn't understand exactly, you know, but I knew it could be different and you know, and I could see that listening was a part of it. I could always see that and so, yeah, so there was a lot of intention then, when my kids were born, to do it differently. And actually at the time when I got pregnant with our daughter, I already told you a bit about my husband's genetic issue. We hadn't intended to have kids. Because of that, I got pregnant anyway and I was in therapy at the time and I was like I'm not really sure I want to have this child, I'm not sure I could be a good mom, I'm not sure that this is really what I want, and really struggled in that. And the therapist said to me at the time she will be gift to you and nothing has ever been more true in my life that that is a hundred percent true and I'm so glad I listened to her and heard what she said to me then because that was very powerful.
Speaker 1:Even more, there's what I learned from her. Her name was Lenora. She's very influential in my life. She talked about the pendulum and how we tend to swing one way or the other with our own parenting. So I had this experience that was way over here as a child and my challenge was then going to be to not swing way over here and overcorrect. She's like what you're going to want to do. Deb is just like a beautiful clock that swings nice and steady in the middle. That's what you're going for when you raise your kids. And so, yeah, I watched a lot of other people with their kids. I watched a lot. I watched everyone with their kids and I just started to take oh, I like how that mom did that and I love how this mom did that, and this was, oh, wasn't that beautiful? And I just really paid attention to my environment and tried to decide how to be different for myself.
Speaker 2:Wow. So you're seven years old and you know you have this, knowing like that was your gift perhaps. Or I mean, can you confirm? Can you confirm that, that suspicion that I have, that that's like your gift, like you were here to do this work, like I knew that at 19,.
Speaker 1:At 19 it was the clarity. At seven I didn't have the clarity at 17. I was just a terrified little kid in the back of the car, but by the time I was 19,. Yes, I knew that it was. My purpose in life was to be someone that helped people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I find it so fascinating that when we're kids we have this even though we don't have the clarity, the language, the education, the money, the independence to be able to live out our life purpose, yet that there are so many breadcrumbs along the way and so when we look back it's like, oh yeah, of course that was you know, of course that was it.
Speaker 2:So that's something I think about for my kids all the time is trying to be a mirror for them in you know, their beautiful qualities, and sometimes I miss the mark, as we all do. You know, the other day my daughter and I one of my daughters we had a conflict and I got just, you know, really frustrated and I said, and you and I like listed off three things that just like really bugged me and just was really bad choices that she made that day, and I just was like and I could hear myself and I was like so frustrated and then, after like a few minutes of really like 20, 30 minutes, whatever, later I went you know, I'm not like speaking the good into her, I'm not like cause you know, 98% of what she did that day was beautiful and good and great choices and, you know, lovely and creative and compassionate and I picked out the two percent of of the mess-ups that she made and I said I'm gonna cry, that's okay go ahead.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's all right, you're safe.
Speaker 2:I go. You know, I told you earlier all these things that really frustrated me and I forgot the good and I'm so sorry and she just, she just melted into me. It's exactly what she needed to hear. Yeah, oh, and I'm like if we could all just do that, if we could all just like put our egos aside and go like you're amazing.
Speaker 2:So picking out, you know, these, these gifts that our kids have, and just noticing and observing. I mean, I feel like so much of our role as parents is just like observing these, these I want to call them creatures, but these humans they're creatures kind of these humans, like you know, blossoming right before our eyes. It's like it's such an honor and a privilege to be able to do it. So maybe what's your thought on that? Like how we can witness our kids grow into their gifts, because, you know, perhaps we have more awareness than the generation. Well for sure, we have more awareness than the generation who raised us, right? So, as this aware generation, how do we see our kids acknowledge what's good in them and help them grow that?
Speaker 1:You did, you modeled it for her. You just showed her. Look, everybody's human and I'm sorry that I pointed this out. I mean you told her and you did it. You're doing it. You're doing it, ryan, you're doing it right now and that's fantastic, absolutely. I think again, this pendulum, we think we have to get it right all the time. We don't. It's okay to mess up. It's okay to have these painful experiences where there's time to bring it back and bring healing and bring love. We have the gift of memory. I believe we have the gift of memory so that we can say remember when I did this thing, I wish I had done this thing and I see how. I think I believe that's really why we have that gift of memory no-transcript.
Speaker 2:Wow, okay, so let's, I kind of want to double click on that a little bit. If we, if we, can talk about memories and diving into perhaps repairing with our own parents, repairing with our partners, repairing with our kids in a way that involves that active listening piece, what's your take on that?
Speaker 1:So that just brought me to when my dad was actually dying. We were, he was in Iowa and I had flown to be with my family and there was a moment when he was in the hospital and it was he and I, and I think my mom might've been in the room and he looked at me and he said, deb, I'm so sorry. And I didn't think I was ever going to hear him say that ever. And he said Deb, I'm so sorry, oh wow. And I wasn't in a. I'll be really honest, I wasn't in a place yet where I could just take that in.
Speaker 2:It'd been a lot of years.
Speaker 1:I mean, we'd had a lot of stuff filled up and I all I was able to say back to him was thank you for that, thank you. I was able to say thank you for that and I meant that I couldn't just say I forgive you, because I couldn't just do it all. I wanted to, I wanted to, but I wasn't expecting to hear it. And then here we were and it was. You know, this big messy moment. It was a big messy moment of full of love. Was this big messy moment full of love? And it was okay. And there were more big messy moments full of love, as you know, as he really was dying and as family members came in to say goodbye. And there were family members that just started literally like effusely crying and embarrassed about it. And I said to my family in that time is this, is what love looks like? This is what love looks like.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Wow. So I took us deep. I hope everybody's okay, but yeah, love looks messy. Love looks messy Like Ryan you know telling her kid hey, you know I messed up, I'm sorry. Love looks like you know somebody being on their deathbed and saying you know, I'm sorry. That's what love looks like.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's not like in the movies where there's like this montage of you being like, oh, I'm healed, like you know, in the sappy music. It's not like that. It's, you know, I'm sure, years after that processing those words and processing the memories and the emotions and everything. I'm glad you brought us to that place because you know, if we don't have our finger on the pulse of death, I'm not sure that we can truly live. And while that can be, perhaps you know, maybe that's the ultimate fear that we all share is like the fear of death.
Speaker 2:Maybe I'm assuming from my own experience and so knowing that this is very temporary, like and living out the best, I'm sure I'm sure your dad wished he could say that 10, 20 years earlier, you earlier. I'm assuming that there's some part of him that got so clear towards the end and just really felt like he needed to clean up that that's late and what a gift to have been able to do it 20 years earlier and spend the time with you and really like dive more into that. I love that you mentioned that. It's messy it's one of the words I use all the time Like we're in, I'm in this like messy, middle kind of a place and maybe we never get out of the messy middle, maybe it's never actually neat and clean like where it's aspiring to be Right.
Speaker 1:I think where it gets less messy is when we allow ourselves to just be happy, when we allow ourselves to just that's. Where it gets less messy is when we allow ourselves to just be happy, when we allow ourselves to just. That's when it gets. That's the best part. You know, and my dad was a very funny man. He was.
Speaker 1:He's a great everybody in the community. I mean he's a great guy. I mean he had some things and he had some things because his parents had some things and he wasn't. You know it was not a gentle upbringing for him and you know it was about 20 years earlier. You know that he actually had started to talk to me some of about some of those things and that's probably the only reason I was able to receive his, his apology eventually, because I understood that all of those things for him came out of all of that, out of all of that. So it's been a real intention in my life to break some of those cycles, to intentionally say you know, I want to live like this with my family and I want to be like this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so good. So I I want to like stay in this deep place. It's just so good. And also I have like some practical and tactical questions, because I know you run an organization, I know that you know you, so will you explain to us like what your organization does, Because I have an idea, but obviously you're going to tell me better what you do.
Speaker 1:So it's funny, we were at death. So I was actually working at a funeral home, and I was working at a funeral home and they decided they were changing their compensation package, and so that's why I ended up leaving, because I love the job. I would have stayed there forever. It was very satisfying for me. I loved helping people, especially in that time of their life. I was very good at it, to be honest. I liked it. And ultimately, when they changed the compensation package, I was folding my laundry one day, listening to myself, and I had been reading a book by Napoleon Hill, and one of the chapters in there is imagination.
Speaker 1:I always got in a lot of trouble when I was a kid for imagining things. I was like, all right, I'm just going to play with this imagination thing and I'm not going to get in trouble now folding laundry in my home, like if I just imagine what I want to be like and what I want to do, if I can do anything with my life right now, what is it that I want to do? And what came is what if I listen? What if I just listen? What if I listen? What if I just listen? And so that was on April 9th, which, yeah, that was on April 9th of 2021 when that happened.
Speaker 1:And the very next day I reached out to Linda, my now business partner, and I said to her hey, I have this idea. You want to come build this thing with me. The original idea was simply to listen to people. So, say, a family, friend or a coworker is too close to the problem and can't see around it with you, or, worse, they are the problem. That's what the original vision was to be someplace where people could vent and get it off their chest and move on. Because once we're able to feel heard, once we're able to have that validation of that emotion coming back to us, just like we talked about with your children Once that happens, people, can you know, just like a kid goes skipping off and they're good in their day again. That's what it's like when we're big people too, and so that's what I wanted to give people. And um, that's how the the vision started. And so the business was. We decided we call it hold hearing out life drama. We decided we call it hold hearing out life drama. And um, yeah, so um, and then, um, as I was networking and talking to people about the business to try to grow the business, people were like oh my God, deb, I want to be like you. How? How do you do that? I want to learn how to do that. And I realized I can teach people how to do this. I can. I know how to do that. I can teach people how to do what I do. It's not, that's not hard for me. I know how to do that. And so, um, linda and I said, okay, let's, let's develop some educational pieces to this. And so we wrote some courses. Um, and there's a creative, peaceful home. It's a really short mini course. That's um 30 bucks. That's on our website and we have listen your Way to Deeper Connections. That's built out a lot deeper. And Listen your Way to Deeper Connections. That's also for the mom who wants to learn how to do what I do. And I teach all of that in the course.
Speaker 1:And then, as we were continuing on, I was really interestingly starting to hear people in business say I need to know how to do this in my business too. And people are at work. If you think about it, where do people spend so much of their time? The adults are at work. So what if I help them at work in their businesses? And then they brought it home and into their life and I was like, oh, we can make an even bigger impact. And so, hold a Business Solutions came about, and so lots of ideas, really fast and furious. And so, um, listen, your way to increase sales, um uh, is out now. We launched that in November and I'm currently writing as as today. As of today, um uh, of course, for customer service and also for managers.
Speaker 2:So Amazing, every customer service rep and every manager needs this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then after I finished all those and I have a whole bunch of other. I have this whole life cycle listening. I have this whole idea of life cycle listening. So I hope I got to have to live a long time yet because I'm 52. I have all these ideas. I have to have some time to write it all out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, my gosh. So I love just getting back to the beginning of your story, that you're like listening to yourself in, like what do I want? If I can create my life to look any way I want, what's the life I most desire, what's my dream job? And I'm going to make it. And that was almost three years to the day, three years to the day ago when you did that that's amazing because today's April 8th as we're recording this.
Speaker 2:It'll come out in May, but wow, that is so cool. So nothing drives me more bonkers than I'm sure you said. People can relate to this. When, you like, work with a company and you know they're selling you something, you're working with a salesperson but they're not actually understanding what you need or want and then yet they're still trying to push you the sale and you're like I thought I said that this wasn't a fit, like you know, in a roundabout way, because we're talking and we're like verbally processing, you know, the ideas around this product or service that they're trying to sell us and they're not actually hearing what we're saying. Because if they were hearing what they were saying, they would know that it's not a fit, or that I'm just in my own head, in my own way, and they have to like get across this objection piece, right? So every salesperson should take your course, for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I help people with exactly those problems. That's what the course is all about, yep.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's amazing. And then create a peaceful home. Obviously, I love the sound of that for all the mamas here. I think that would be a good next step. If you love Deb's work, like I do, so we will obviously link everything down in the show notes so you can find Deb and more about what she does. So creating a peaceful home. Let's double click on that a little bit and then I'm going to start to wrap up and ask you the questions that I ask everybody at the end of the podcast but what is a peaceful home to you? And then, what's maybe just a little takeaway? We talked about mirroring the feelings, but what's a little takeaway we can bring with us to creating a peaceful home?
Speaker 1:So a peaceful home to me is relaxed, it's calm, it's um a place where there's content and satisfaction and moments of joy. They, the moments of joy, easily peek through. Um, that's what a peaceful home is to me. Um for sure, Um, and then one more time the second part of the question. I was so wrapped up in that Totally, and I one more time the second part of the question, yeah.
Speaker 2:Totally, and I love that definition of it the peaks of joy through. I love that, just a way that we can create that, because we're the creators of our home. We're the creators of our environment. So how do we set up our environment for more joy, more calm, more relaxation?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's. It takes intention. That's what it is. It's intention it's. It's deciding that that's what you want to create and then working to set setting about to create it. That's what it is. Yeah, it's deciding that you're going to be someone who works on emotional regulation and recognizes then when you're not, and takes the steps to understand that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so good, and I also love the hand on the body, the calm hand. Okay, let me see if I've got any more questions, because I feel like I had one that slipped from my consciousness. Is there anything you want to add that I didn't ask you? Let's do that, and then I'll jump into my questions at the end.
Speaker 1:Oh, raising Wild Hearts just the name of the podcast. It evokes for me that time when my kids were, you know, because kids are loud. That's like if you think about what you were when you were little, you were probably also loud. But just allowing them to have that loud in an appropriate place, so let's take the loud outside, or let's, because I'm also sensitive like you.
Speaker 1:I had a lot of trouble with the sound and it was also a very large problem when my husband was ill because his blood sugar would drop anytime the intensity got big in the house, with anger or any kind of feeling, any emotion, it was very difficult to live with. Anytime the emotion got big, his blood sugar would drop and it was a whole thing. And so allowing that space and time for that loud to be there, you know, like putting on the music and, you know, dancing it out or doing, um, just letting those, letting them be wild hearts, because that is what they are. I love the title of this podcast so much and and you for what you're bringing, uh, through it, brian, it's really good thank you so much, deb.
Speaker 2:So one more thing that I thought of to ask or to just chat on for a minute, is that I call myself a verbal processor and I don't know where I got this term from probably a podcast many moons ago. So when I have an issue or I have a problem, or I have a problem or I have a big feeling, the best way for me to get it out and understand it and solve it is to talk about it. And so, you know, in the beginning of my husband and I's marriage, he'd like jump to like the fixer, like he's a good fixer, he wants to fix all the problems he can. He's like I can tinker this problem for you, babe, like no worries, and I'm like I don't need you to fix it.
Speaker 2:I just need you to listen. And so now he'll be like do you need advice or do you need me to just listen, do you need to just vent? And I'm like, and 99% of the time I just need to vent because it's how I organize it in my head, the time I just need to vent because it's how I organize it in my head. So what other tips do you have for myself and or my husband, who's like living with this verbal process or who's constantly needing to talk about things? What's your take on all that?
Speaker 1:I'm so happy he figured out the question, because that is like the one thing if I can teach the world you know when somebody goes and I don't know what to do If you just ask the question. Did you just need somebody to hold that with you or did you really want someone to solve the problem with you really asking that question? So kudos to your husband that he got that figured out. Bravo, bravo, absolutely, and so that's really key.
Speaker 1:You, I have pitfalls of listening in in the courses and, um, that's one of the ones that I talk about. It is the main one, obviously, that most people fall into, but it's. There's another one I want to just bring to light here, cause we kind of touched on it, and that is um, you know, like sweeping it under the rug, right? Um, that, oh, it's, you're fine, it doesn't matter, you're, you know, everything's really all good. That's not listening, and what we really want to do is make sure that we're hearing the feeling that somebody is presenting to us and raising that mirror, just like you said, to reflect it back and say you know, this is what I hear you saying, is that right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, love that. Okay, and one more thing. I just thought of it Unsolicited advice. Tell me your your more thing. I just thought of it, unsolicited advice. Tell me your feelings on unsolicited advice, deb, because I can tell you mine, but I want to hear yours.
Speaker 1:No, thank you, no, thank you, no, thank you. That's my thing. On unsolicited advice, when my husband was sick and so many people wanted to help and I got so much unsolicited, have you tried this? Have you done this? And, honestly, all I just really wanted was somebody to hold space and to just hear me. And people didn't know how. You know, they didn't know how, without getting pulled off of their center. They were so overwhelmed by my emotions that they couldn't hold onto themselves. And so this is another thing that I work on teaching in the course. It's another one of those listening mistakes. We've now covered three of the main ones. So if you've listened to this, good job, keep going. You might not need the course. No, just kidding, but yeah, really powerful to know that when you're listening to somebody, holding on and being calm within yourself is the number one thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, so that's big, because you said something people don't know how to listen without getting off of their center. I don't know exactly what you said, but that is so true because I think we're kind of like codependent as a society, like if somebody's, like you know, drowning in this hole of grief, we like start crying and they're like wait, this wasn't about you, this is about me. I'm grieving, you're not grieving, and so just like to like just to bear witness to somebody without letting their emotions kind of like seep through. I think it's such a I mean, what a life skill. What if we taught kids how to listen just to somebody else's? Anything? It would be just a game changer, which is kind of how we started the conversation. It would literally probably change the world.
Speaker 1:Change the world. That's what I'm all about. Changing the world, that's it. That's what I want to do. Yes, yes indeed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, you're doing it, Deb. I love it. We're going to link up to all of your courses and your website and all your socials in the show notes, but where else can you send people to learn more about? Where do you want us to follow you? Where's the number one spot?
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm on all the platforms actually, so pick your favorite and go there. I'm on Instagram, I'm on Facebook, I'm on Pinterest, I'm on YouTube. So, wherever you're at, I'm on TikTok. Wherever you're at, I'm at. Pick your favorite pick your favorite.
Speaker 2:Go there. So pick your favorite and go to it's hold. Right, You're under Deb Porter or you're under hold Hearing Out Life.
Speaker 1:Drama.
Speaker 2:Hearing Out Life Drama Hearing.
Speaker 1:Out Life Drama Yep.
Speaker 2:All right Perfect.
Speaker 1:Pinterest. Pinterest is hold listener, and I think YouTube might also be Hold Listener Anyway.
Speaker 2:yeah we're there, okay cool, and you've got all those on your site too, so we can get-.
Speaker 1:Yeah, at the bottom of the site.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep, I saw that. Okay, perfect, so we will link everything up. So go find and follow Deb's work. If you know that you need to learn how to listen better, just like I do, seek course. Yes, you're a lovely resource. Thank you so much for this work that you're doing in the world. Thank you so much for following the calling. I think it would have been easy to not follow the calling too. Some of us ignore it for so long. And so lucky that you found yours at 19 and you decided like this is it, and that you've kept pursuing those dreams and those visions and not settling for a former version of yourself that wasn't aligned in what you were doing and wasn't aligned with your values. You said this isn't right, this isn't right for me, this isn't right for the world. I'm going to go create something that is right. So the ripple effect is real and you're touching so many minds and hearts and I. Ripple effect is real and you're just. You're touching so many minds and hearts and I really appreciate the work that you're doing.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for being open and vulnerable throughout this podcast, ryan. I think the fact that we both did that, I think I hope people find value in it because it was. You're beautiful and I just really want to share that with you. I'm so excited. I'm so excited for your kids and so excited what they're going to bring in the world as they grow Really good.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you so much. I love a good cry on an interview and it's like one of the things I've been saying lately is like you know what? I'm just going to go like deeper Cause sometimes I have a tendency to like stay surface and this is like very much like a networking activity for me. It's like expanding my network, to talk to someone and putting your work out there and it's like this really cool like way to have an intro conversation with somebody and get to know somebody. And I've been committing myself in these like past couple of weeks to like dive deeper and get a little more real and get a little more vulnerable.
Speaker 2:I'm taking like a couple bricks down from the wall I've built up. So I appreciate you in being able to hold that space, because you're very much a calm presence, a safe presence, Like you said immediately. You're safe, you know, because sometimes we don't have that tendency to feel safe when we show our true nature. So just what a gift you are to the world. And I could talk to you all day, but let's wrap up with the three questions that I ask everybody at the end of the podcast, and the first one is what's bringing you joy today?
Speaker 1:Well, the song in my head when I woke up this morning is don't worry, be happy. That's it. So that's what I'm going to do. I'm not going to, I'm not going to worry, I'm just going to be happy.
Speaker 2:So that's it, Love it. What, if anything? Are you reading right?
Speaker 1:now. Ah, At the moment I haven't been reading. At the moment I've been listening to a lot of Abraham Hicks on YouTube. I don't know if you're familiar, but I'm an Abraham fan and so I'm really deep into that work, and what it's changing in my world is good.
Speaker 2:Amazing.
Speaker 1:And then the last question I have for you, deb, is who or what has taught you the most? Well, her name was already mentioned, lenora. She died actually on my birthday almost six years ago, almost seven years ago, and she helped me so much yeah.
Speaker 2:Amazing. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you, ryan. Yeah, it was so fun, thank you.