Contenders Wanted

Episode 29 - How the pain and sorrow of loss can transform us with Andi Thompson

November 01, 2021 Rob Cook / Andi Thompson Season 2 Episode 29
Contenders Wanted
Episode 29 - How the pain and sorrow of loss can transform us with Andi Thompson
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

Show Notes:

Have you ever lost a close loved one? Perhaps a parent, sibling, close grandparent, or friend. Was it painful? It likely was. And each of us has our own way of dealing with those inevitable pains of life. Some more healthy than others. But no matter how we deal with it, we have to deal with it. We can't just run and hide, we have to face the pain. On the show today I sit down with a woman who has not only had incredibly painful experiences in her own life loosing two children, but she shares how she had turned those experiences into a source of strength for her that she now uses to help and coach women going through the same things.

Andi and her amazing husband of almost 15 years are parents to 4 great kids and 2 angel babies. Andi has always loved people. With her bachelors degree, she was able to work as a Recreational Therapist until the kids came along. She says she got her business training by accidentally (and eventually intentionally) building a network marketing business. She fell in love with coaching her team members and furthered her training by becoming a Certified Life Coach through The Life Coach School. She is currently living in Austin, TX with her family and homeschooling her two 6th graders as they build a business together (@duoshelf). On the show today we discuss the following:

  • Who is Andi and what does she do (6:22)
  • Andi's experience in both Eastern and Western Germany (9:16)
  • Andi's story of losing a child (14:12)
  • Andi's advice on how to sit with and deal with pain (20:17)
  • Andi's perspective of what a relationship is (24:46)
  • What happens when we don't deal with pain (29:43)
  • How Andi deals personally with fear and failure (41:04)
  • What does it mean to her to be a Contender (46:34)



How to learn more about Andi:



Additional Books, Individuals, or Items Discuss in the show:



Contact the Host: rob@contenderswanted.com

Giveaway: We would really appreciate it if you were willing to leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. If you do that, screen shot it and send that screen shot to me at rob@contenderswanted.com with your name and the subject line "Review". If you do that, I'll send you a free Amazon gift card as a thank you and give you a shout out at the end of the next episode.

Rob Cook: All right, Andi Thompson, welcome to the. Thanks for having me. Are you kidding? I am really excited to have you on the show, Andi and I got connected a couple of months back, actually through another listener of the show, and then we connected had a conversation and she's just, she's awesome.

I think you listeners are going to love her and for many of you out there, I think you'll be able to connect with her story in many different ways. She is one of the few people that you'll meet out there that is willing to be vulnerable on a different level and it's something that I have come to appreciate how difficult that is as I have tried to get my name out there and grow the show.

So, Andi, thank you so much for coming on the show. Why don't you take a moment and introduce yourself and tell listeners a little bit about who it is that you are and what it is that you.

Andi Thompson: All right like you said, I'm Andi Thompson. I am a wife and mother of four. I have 11 year old twins, a six-year-old and a three-year-old.

And, I feel like this is actually a kind of interesting time to be doing an interview. Cause in some ways I've been transitioned, but for the last almost 11 years, I have had a network marketing team with doTERRA and love that, I love my team. I love what we've created together. And a few years ago I had just this realization that one of the things I love so much is coaching my team members like working through really difficult things and I wanted to become more effective at that.

[00:01:35] Not just shooting from the hip. And so I went to life coach school. So, in March of 2020, right in the middle of like super fun chaos is when I graduated from the life coach school and became a life coach. That was also the time when I got thrown into homeschooling something that I had not really anticipated at that era in my life.

[00:02:01] That's evolved to, um, to where I will have, at least my middle-schoolers at home with me this fall well, and my baby. And, um, so those are kind of the three big things that I'm about right now I've got my team. I love life coaching and, I've got some little budding entrepreneurs that, that I am going to be homeschooling in the fall.

[00:02:29] Rob Cook: I was gonna say, just before we got on this recording, you were telling me some of the stuff that you have planned for these homeschoolers. And you're not just doing the average homeschool mom homeschooling route year. You're having your kids start a business as a means to learn stuff. And I think that's really, really cool.

[00:02:45] That's exciting. I think it'll be a great experience for them. I know that for me, school was awesome. I loved school. I love learning, but there's nothing like jumping in, in the real world and really seeing it. That's when you really start to accelerate your learning, that's for sure. Um, Sometimes I like to start off the interviews by asking questions that don't quite pertaining to exactly what we're going to, we're going to talk about long-term, but I think help listeners kind of come to know you a little bit better.

[00:03:15] And today is one of those days in the course of our conversation. I found out that Andi served, served a mission for her church for about a year and a half in Berlin, Germany, right after the fall of the Berlin Wall. So, Andi, I would love for you to tell us a little bit about what was that experience like being in Berlin right around the time of the fall of the wall.

[00:03:38] What was that experience like?

[00:03:39] Andi Thompson: Well, I, it actually backs up even further than that because I'm actually not that old. I was an exchange student when I was 13 years old in former Eastern Germany which. Like, if you want to go ahead and do the math, um, that was in 1996. So I mean, literally years after the wall fell down.

[00:04:01] So I got to live with a family who, was overcoming, what it was like to live in Communist Germany. And they, they were still driving a toboggan, which was that, that was like the, the car that you got on the list for 10 years before you could get it and, it would never pass an emissions test now they were tiny and got a dirty and they called them pressboard cars because they were like, they're not well-made. But it was a huge privilege to be able to drive one and they were still driving it when, when I lived with them. And so then fast forward, um, I was also able to go and serve as a missionary there in former Eastern Berlin and in other parts of Eastern Germany,

[00:04:57] Rob Cook: Well, I apologize then, then I got the timeline wrong there a little bit and my memory, but, um, wow. What was the contrast like between those who were in Eastern Berlin versus those who came across, who lived on the west side?

[00:05:12] Andi Thompson: Yeah, I actually didn't have very much exposure at all to, Western Berlin, until the very, very end of my time serving there and it was very different, but I also went, my dad was a flight attendant growing up and he also served a mission in Germany, so he speaks German. And so I, I had been to Germany lots of times, but more in the Western parts until this point. I just remember the thing that struck me the most like was that there was just this like slight thought process difference.

[00:05:51] Rob Cook: What do you mean?

[00:05:53] Andi Thompson: I remember the last week of my mission I went to the Western side of Berlin. And I remember there was just so much more talk of possibility and going and moving and traveling raising kids, bilingual, things like that. And I was like, wow. Like I just, I don't think that I've been exposed to a lot of that over the last year and a half, but that's not to say that people didn't have goals and hopes and dreams, but something about it just seemed bigger.

[00:06:22] And I've actually seen that in the states too, areas that I've lived here where something felt stuck about it. And then I, and I, when I moved to Austin, I was like, wow. From where I came from, they just see things a little bit bigger and a little bit with more potential.

[00:06:35] So it's not like it's unique to just Germany, but, um, but I definitely did notice that.

[00:06:43] Rob Cook: Yeah, well that idea of having a mindset that is a little bit more inclusive, a little more expansive, now that's a real thing, right. Because the way that we view the world and the way that we perceive the possibilities around us will dictate a lot of what we wind up eventually doing.

[00:06:59] So that,

[00:07:00] Andi Thompson: Becomes our reality for sure.

[00:07:01] Rob Cook: Yeah, exactly. And that's interesting that you tapped into that even as you're a teenager and young adult, that difference between those two groups. That's really cool.

[00:07:13] Well, Andi let's, let's jump into it a little bit here. I just, I think you have such a cool story and a cool perspective as a life coach that you are sharing with the world, and I'd love to kind of dive into it and unpack it a little bit. Correct me if I'm wrong here from my research, it, you approach being a life coach as a life coach, to, to women who have lost children. Is that correct?

[00:07:38] Andi Thompson: Yeah. Well, quite honestly, if I were to market to a specific group, that's who I would market to is, women who have lost babies.

[00:07:47] I, I found that people are just coming to me and I, I tend to just coach women and moms like that tends to be who, who I ended up coaching. When I first started out coaching, I realized like that was, there was a group of women that really had my heart because of where we had been and what, what a change in perspective can do for the rest of your life after you've been through something like that.

[00:08:12] Rob Cook: Yeah. And this kind of actually hearkens back to this idea of you, you share a level of vulnerability that is quite unique, and then this topic. So if you, if you don't mind me asking, if it's not too personal, would you perhaps be willing to share? You said you just referenced a second ago because of our story, what is your story that enables you to be able to connect with these women?

[00:08:36] Andi Thompson: So, our first pregnancy seemed like it was going great, right? Like seemed like everything was happening the way that it was supposed to. And we went in for a 10 week ultrasound. We went in for a 20 week ultrasound and my doctor I've not had one since then, but he also did a 30 week ultrasound routinely.

[00:08:54] And during that ultrasound, they found some physical abnormalities in our sweet baby. A baby that we had already named. A baby that we had like already picked out her bedding, like everything we're having a little girl and her name was going to be Addison. So we called her baby Addie and in that appointment, we found out that she had what was likely trisomy 18, a condition that's not compatible with life, at least not for long.

[00:09:25] And, so we, we did an amniocentesis to make sure that that's what was going on. And, shortly after that, I went into labor and so at around, 33 weeks was when I went into

[00:09:43] Rob Cook: So about seven weeks

[00:09:43] early, right?

[00:09:45] Andi Thompson: And, at this point in the pregnancy, I was feeling her moving and kicking and, so I was feeling her that day. And then, when, when I gave birth to her, she was no longer living. That was, it was one of the hardest days of my entire life. And for awhile, my world just fell apart. Understandably so, but in this process of learning how to deal with something that like, I had never like planned on this, my mom, she just got pregnant and had babies.

[00:10:22] Like that was like how it went. It never even occurred to me that this would be a part of my process until it was like, this was the kind of thing that happened to other people until it happened to me and so then you're forced to go through something that seems unimaginable.

[00:10:42] And in the process of going, going through that, I just, I F I felt led, led to do things that were beyond my like knowledge and wisdom. And, they, they weren't even like big earth-shattering things. Initially right after we lost this baby, we had a conversation with, I had a conversation with my husband, with my doctor and he suggested waiting a while, at least six months to a year before we got pregnant. Both for emotional healing and physical healing, because I'd grown a whole human. Right. And

[00:11:22] Rob Cook: You were almost full term. I mean, that's, yeah, it's a long ways.

[00:11:27] Andi Thompson: And, and it was also hard on my body in a lot of ways because of the physical abnormalities, like, I was almost as big with her as I was with my twins.

[00:11:35] Because she had produced a lot of amniotic fluid and so it was growing really, really fast. And, so that was just, it was just hard on my body and in other ways, too. We had talked about like, you know, like nine months seems like a good time to wait nine months before we got pregnant again. And I remember, like, that seemed really logical in the beginning. And then I just got obsessed. I got obsessed with wanting to have another baby right now. And, I just knew that I needed to redirect that effort into something else. And so I started training for triathlons and it wasn't something that like, I really like thought through all the way, but like, that was exactly what I needed.

[00:12:15] I needed a goal to work towards. I needed something to stretch me. And that there's, there's so much like evidence around like exercise and moving your body and endorphins. Like that was the perfect therapy, um, for me in that time. And there were so many other little tiny things like that. That I just, I felt led in my process of healing.

[00:12:38] At this point, I really do believe that like, we have to experience the hurt and the pain of loss, like at a very deep level. And then we also, we can experience complete healing from that loss. And I know that that sentiment, and then the idea isn't shared by everyone, but I, I really believe it.

[00:13:01] I believe that we can heal completely from the pain and the heartache that we experienced in this life.

[00:13:09] Rob Cook: First off. Thank you for sharing that. Um, my, my wife and I have had our own trials when it comes to having a family nothing quite like that, but I know that for her, just, me being the husband, watching my wife go through our trials, which is not the same as, as all to yours.

[00:13:42] I mean, it, it breaks my heart, right? Yeah. But I mean, what I was gonna say is it, it breaks my heart to watch my wife go through that. So I can only imagine both the pain that you were going through and what your husband likely felt as well. Being there with you in that. You said something interesting that you, you feel that we hall have to really feel that hurt to really heal eventually.

[00:14:09] Um,

[00:14:13] but for a lot of people, that pain is scary and a lot of times we run away. And we try and sooth that with other things. What would you recommend that people do to help them? I don't want to quite say embrace the pain, but, um, no, there is to sit with it and allow it to work through you and heal you.

[00:14:42] Andi Thompson: I think that what people actually are afraid of is, is resisting the pain that, um, that as, I mean, just emotions can be painful.

[00:14:57] When they're very intense, um, they can be painful, but, we make it even more painful by trying to push against it by, by trying to fight against this, this pain that is a natural and. Normal and very human part of our earthly existence. And, so when, when we can relax into it and, sometimes that just means like deep breaths and noticing the sensations that happen in our body.

[00:15:28] I didn't understand this back then, but now as a life coach and having worked with so many clients, understanding that when we can actually focus on a physical level of what we're experiencing, where is it in my body, take a deep breath, close your eyes and feel.

[00:15:47] Right now, like, it just feels like, like this crushing feeling on my chest. Right? Like as an example of, of describing, so describe to yourself, like, what is it that I'm experiencing? And it totally makes sense that I would resist against that, that I would think that this is going to kill me because I was like crushing on my chest.

[00:16:10] But it's not actually crushing my chest. It's not actually going to kill me. I can be here with this for as long as I need to be. Because when you allow that when you, when you be with your emotions for as long as they need to be there, what ends up happening is that they're kind of like, they're kind of like a fire that's burning and that eventually it'll burn itself out.

[00:16:39] The, the problem is, is when we get in a rush to get through it, when we get in a rush or when we try to push against it, or, when we start fueling it with thoughts, like this shouldn't have happened and something went wrong, in that instance, we're literally putting wood on this proverbial fire of like, okay, well, let's just keep it burning.

[00:17:00] Let's like, make it even more painful than it needs to be, but the pain of loss, like, like you'll feel it and, and it, and it can come in waves too. But not being afraid of, of that emotion. And I've found that relaxing into the physical sensation of the emotion helps me to get through it as opposed to spinning in my head about it.

[00:17:27] Rob Cook: Yeah. I think that's actually really wise advice. As you were talking. I realized that I've seen that principle applied, uh, in other areas of my life, not necessarily loss related. I'm a very intense guy. And if you ask my wife, I feel a lot of whatever emotion I feel, I feel it really intense and I have found when I feel angry or frustrated, the best way for me to handle it is to step back, see it objectively, let it kind of burn out like you're saying and recognize where in my body am I feeling tense where my feeling tight, where do I, what do I need to loosen up and let go of so that it can work its way through me.

[00:18:09] So not the same emotion, but the same principle being applied to help us kind of work through it. And I think that's a, that's a great point. Our physical bodies, I believe are one of our greatest tools for change, for progress, for development. If we can learn to use them. So you, you've also shared Andi that you have had some interesting insights that have come to you about relationships, beyond the pain and the suffering aspect of losing someone, which is

[00:18:49] that, that like your perspective for sure.

[00:18:52] Of course. But would you perhaps mind sharing, what a relationship is to you? Cause you, you shared how this loss of your little girl changed your perspective around what a relationship is and perhaps how we can use that to deepen our current relationships.

[00:19:09] Andi Thompson: Yeah.

[00:19:15] Um, so. It was at one point that I realized that even though Addie was gone from this physical existence, that I have, that, that I could still have a relationship with her, that on a, on a spiritual and an emotional level, we have an important relationship. And that, I feel connected to her. Like she was inside of me for seven months. Like, I, I know her know for a while that I knew her, but I know her and. That the same thing is actually kind of true in, in our relationships, whether people are physically here or they've, they've passed away or they're on the other side of the country or they're being a jerk right now.

[00:20:18] Like we get to choose what our relationship is with them, because our relationships, they really actually happen in our mind. So, we talked about how I went on this epic road trip with my kids and I got to see so many friends and family members that I haven't seen in years. Um, met up with some friends that like it's been years and, in my mind, like we're still great friends and like, maybe they don't think about me except for when I reach out to them.

[00:20:54] But. I love feeling like we're great friends and that's, it might be a delusion, but I like that delusion. I like living there and it was so fun to, to meet up with them. But like when you really break it down, like that's where all of our relationships live is in our own minds.

[00:21:17] Rob Cook: Yeah. That's a really good point.

[00:21:19] I think we, we as human beings, default, I think more often than not to this idea of external things in impacting me, like my relationships are determined by what other people are doing, but more often than not, it's the exact opposite. We have more control over our relationships, over our emotions, over our actions.

[00:21:45] Then we likely give them credit for right. We have the ability to say I'm going to have a good relationship with someone. Even if they may not reciprocate, right. Or maybe your friends haven't reached out for a while, but you can still have a great relationship in your mind with them still stay connected to them, still care about them.

[00:22:04] Still reach out every once in a while. You can have a great relationship, um, with that,

[00:22:10] Andi Thompson: how it is like, like I tend to be the one who reaches out. Like, I'm pretty sure I would, I would say 98% of the time. Cause maybe someone's reached out, before, but like I am always the one that reaches out to like, I'm thinking of these specific long time ago, friends and I'm sure they're crazy about me and I am sure they love me as much as I love them.

[00:22:32] Um, that is a better experience for me. Maybe I'm wrong, but it's not my job to know what their what's happening in their head.

[00:22:41] Rob Cook: No, I, I love this principle because I'm actually the same way. I feel like I'm constantly the one reaching out, whether it's roommates or in college. When I served a mission, I wrote letters to my siblings and stuff.

[00:22:53] And like, you just don't get as much back that's. Okay. Because it's about how do you feel? What is your perspective of those people? Do you love them? Well then what do you want to do to make sure that you have that strong relationship? And I think that's very, that's a very empowering principle. If you actually accept that, instead of saying, well, it's all up to other people, giving me what I need and what I want in my life.

[00:23:14] You say, no, I know what I want. I need it. I'm going to go make that happen. Whether that's, I'm going to be the one to reach out, I'm going to be the one to make the effort here. Can it be tiring sometimes, of course. But at the end of the day, I know what I need and I'm not going to rely on other people to give me what I need.

[00:23:32] I'm going to go try and make it possible.

[00:23:34] Andi Thompson: Yeah.

[00:23:36] Rob Cook: Yeah, I love that. Great, great principle. Well thank you for sharing these insights and sharing your story a bit with us, Andi that, that it got a little heavier than our normal topics there, but I think that's an important place to go is to allow the heaviness of life at times, to be here with us and just be present because life isn't all sunshine and rainbows and learning to see it, recognize it and be with it is a powerful tool to help us

[00:24:08] Andi Thompson: also, because what happens on the other end of that, if we don't like it's kind of sad and scary and dangerous, like the emotions are going to be there, whether we allow them and process through them or not.

[00:24:25] And, if we stuffed them down, if we don't acknowledge them, we're going to have the other side of that experience. And so it, it feels big and scary. But it really is so beautiful.

[00:24:42] Rob Cook: What is that other side of that experience you talk about that is big and scary. If we don't allow ourselves to, to process those feelings?

[00:24:52] Andi Thompson: Well you talk about your body, right? And how, like you experienced things so big and that you can feel it in your body. That doesn't just like, go nowhere. Okay. Just the other day I had an experience where I had my, I was trying to do a favor for a friend who was working and I was like, bring your kids over or I'll come get your kids.

[00:25:13] They can swim in my pool. It'll be so fun. So she's at work. I've got her kids, one of her kids slips and falls, gouges, his leg, cuts it down to the muscle. I have to take him to the ER while his mom's at work. We can't get ahold of her. She ended up meeting us there but he needed stitches.

[00:25:31] They had to stitch his muscle closed and his, like, this was so sad. Like I went out to my pool and on the rock where he fell, it was like a rock, waterfall. So he slipped and fell on that. And, there was still like hairs on the rock. It was a bad cut and it was kind of a lot and I like held it together.

[00:25:51] I knew I needed to hold it together for him and in the process, like I was just holding it and I, and I ended up losing my voice over the next two days. And maybe it's not correlated, maybe it's not connected, but I, I think that if I had allowed myself to really process through the emotions of the day, instead of just going on with my day, I had to come home and make my kids dinner and get them to sports.

[00:26:19] And like, like life went on. Right. But I was feeling so much of a burden for my friend and what she was going through and then for this poor boy, and, and I think that it showed up in my body and maybe that's a crazy idea, but. But it has to go somewhere. But then on the other side, I have also seen people who instead of like having that like intense, intense, physical experience, that years and years down the road, after experiencing loss that they're still experiencing that loss.

[00:26:55] So instead of allowing that intense pain to move through them and be a healing process that they just carry it with them forever, and I noticed this when I, I was about a year out from having like a second trimester miscarriage. So we had Addie and then we in between a couple of our kids, we had, a miscarriage and I was about a year out.

[00:27:27] Going into that. I knew it wasn't going to be easy, but I also knew that the healing was going to be complete. So I just, I just went in to that healing process, knowing that, that it would be complete. And, I remember talking to someone who had lost a baby around the same time that I had, lost Blaze.

[00:27:49] Um, and, and it was a similar story of miscarriage and, and everything. And she was still carrying so much hurt and heartache and pain. And, and I remember just having an experience of stepping back from that and being like, that's the gift. Like I don't, I don't have to carry that. And It doesn't have to be heavy for that long.

[00:28:16] And it's not that she was doing anything wrong. She was doing the best that she knew how, but, that motivated me to want to share and help more women going through what we had been through because it's, it's not necessarily intuitive to lean in to the hurt and the pain and the heartache like that.

[00:28:37] Rob Cook: I think, as you were talking, this actually made me think, I think this applies to loss in all areas. Even beyond like losing a child. Right. My grandfather passed away right before I was born and my grandfather was like my dad's best friend, and I think as, as guys, we might tend to this idea of just not processing it.

[00:29:02] Cause we gotta be strong. We gotta be the man. Right. And you gotta be the dad who can handle it. Quote unquote and so I'm not saying, I don't think my dad's processed that I I'm, I'm sure he has at this point and everything, but I, I wouldn't be surprised if my dad, because he was very much a man's man kind of guy maybe learned this lesson as well.

[00:29:22] Eventually that I have to just process it. I have to sit there and just be with it. Because I know that even as a kid, my dad still talks so fondly of his dad and the pain of losing him is still there that I can see sometimes for him and I think that this, this idea that you have to, if you don't process it, you will continue to carry it.

[00:29:45] You have to allow it to be there, for that real healing to come. I think that's, that's incredibly powerful. Oh. But

[00:29:52] Andi Thompson: Not because you're in a hurry to get rid of it. Like no, as long as it needs to be

[00:29:57] Rob Cook: there. Yeah. And, and, and it doesn't mean that you're gonna like miss the person any less or love them any less.

[00:30:03] It's just, you will be able to let go of the burden, make your burdens light, right. To, to borrow a scriptural phrase. You allow your self to give the heaviness away.

[00:30:19] Andi Thompson: So it's funny. Cause I actually like in my head, I was like, I think that we'll probably talk about, overcoming failure on this call. I even in my head, I hadn't planned on going here and this deep and this real, but.

[00:30:36] One of the best pieces of advice that I was given, right after we lost Addie was from my dad. And, and he just said, he's like, Andi it's, it's okay to be really, really, really sad. And then when you're good and ready, it's going to be okay to be really happy again too. And

[00:30:57] Rob Cook: That's a good point.

[00:30:57] Andi Thompson: I can't tell you how many clients I've worked with, who have, have tried to stay in the sadness because of what that would mean about their relationship with their baby or their mother or whoever they had lost, that, that they can't be happy because of this loss.

[00:31:19] Rob Cook: They feel guilty almost if they're happy.

[00:31:23] Andi Thompson: And, um, so working through that and understanding that there's, there's no correlation between. Misery and love like that. Yeah. Like we have to experience that hurt and that pain, but we don't have to stay miserable just because we loved someone. We can continue that relationship with them. Continue in love with them and be really happy.

[00:31:53] Rob Cook: Yeah. I, I think if you, if you have a great relationship with someone who you, you lose want you to be happy eventually. It's okay to process the pains It's okay to hurt. But at the end of the day, don't feel guilty. They love you still, you know, let their love come back to you, you know? And, and it's okay. Yeah.

[00:32:17] It's okay to mourn at the loss of those that we love, but have joy in the fact that we'll see them again in one way or another. Yeah. Um, one last thought I had, well, while we were talking, you talked about this idea of if we don't process it, it manifests itself in our bodies. In other ways you shared this idea of like losing your voice.

[00:32:41] Well, as you're talking, I was reminded, we talk in our country about this idea of chronic stress levels and the impact of chronic stress on our bodies over time. Well, that is just another manifestation of this exact same principle. Right? You talk about it in the context of loss, doctors, talk about it in the context of stress and it can have long standing implications for your health from a cardio perspective.

[00:33:13] Heart cardiac, ugh, what's the word I'm looking for? Thank you. From a cardiovascular perspective, um, it can have a huge impact on your relationships and all sorts of different areas of your life. If you don't handle the stress properly and you can think of loss as just another stressful situation in a way.

[00:33:32] Andi Thompson: Right. And we've become really accustomed to like understanding the connection in, in stress. Yeah. Like stress can cause an ulcer, like stress can cause a headache, right? Like we've, we've just like come to see that as truth. but like, it goes beyond that and there's um, a great book. I shouldn't have even brought it up called the body, keeps the score, talks about, trauma and how it, like if you don't deal with it, it'll show up in your body potentially in auto-immune diseases or all sorts of other things that the body is going to keep the score, whether we're consciously aware of it or not.

[00:34:11] And so, to say that we can just move on without processing things. We totally can. There just might be ramifications.

[00:34:20] Rob Cook: Yeah. Yeah. I like that. I'm going to leave a link to that in the show notes. The body keeps the score because I know that it's definitely a principle in a lot of other areas of our lives and it's one that we should become more aware of so that we can process things appropriately.

[00:34:36] Well, Andi, you, you mentioned earlier that you thought we were going to talk a little bit about, failure and confidence and all that sort of stuff. And I recognize that we, we are almost coming to the end of our time. So I do want to ask you one question around that. And then one last question, then we end all of our conversations with, and so as I was doing my research and I was speaking to this, listener who recommended you, they described you as someone who has a can-do attitude.

[00:35:03] But then you've also shared that you don't feel like you're a very confident person, which I think anyone who's listened to this conversation would beg to differ. But have you always kind of had this positive attitude about life, and if not, how, how do you deal with, uh, failure and fear and all these other areas that people seem to think that you just handle with grace and ease?

[00:35:28] Andi Thompson: Oh, interesting. So, I do think that I have back to the confidence thing, I've had to grow in my confidence and I used to think that that failure was meant that something had gone wrong, but by being an entrepreneur and doing things and messing up and having it fall apart, and then having it go really well sometimes too.

[00:35:52] I've come to realize that that it's not just that it was okay that things got messed up along the way. Like that is the process messing up, is the process doing it wrong and doing it wrong and doing it wrong and then figuring out how to do it. Right. That's it, like, I feel like our, our system, our school system teaches you want an a, but like you don't like, you just want to do it, be okay with doing it wrong.

[00:36:22] Like, I'm sure that you go back and listen to your previous podcast episodes. And you're like, oh, I could have done. But like, you couldn't have done it better, except for, by doing it and getting better in the process. And that is what we do. And so I think that there, that there was this natural idea in me that was like, yeah, like I want to do big things, but I don't think that I had any idea of how much.

[00:36:52] Th that would hurt along the way, because you do crappy work before you do good work and that just learning and growing through that, setting big goals and realizing in the process that by setting big goals, it means that I'm going to fall down and scrape my knee and get back up again. I don't think that that was natural to me because that hurts and I don't like hurting.

[00:37:20] And now, now I know that like that that's the process.

[00:37:26] Rob Cook: You do crappy work before good work should just like be plastered on everyone's wall. Right. You're going to do crappy work before you do good work. That's just the process. Um, and you know, I guess it's kind of all ties back into kind of what we were talking about before you, you have to embrace the pain of the crappy work of the failure, embrace the pain and work through it.

[00:37:48] Cause it's only through going through it that you can then get to the other side where you're doing the good work or that you find healing and hope and happiness. Again, that's just the circle of life. That is the process of growing in life.

[00:38:02] Andi Thompson: I think that theme of this call is, is I think that the theme of this podcast is that like emotion is a part of the process.

[00:38:15] And we can get really good at experiencing all of the emotion that life has to offer us the hurt and the pain and the joy and the contentment, we can, we can have the whole human experience and that we don't have to brace against the parts that we think are undesirable because that's not the whole human experience.

[00:38:41] Rob Cook: I think in the incorrect me, I might be speaking way I turn here, but I know that there are some Eastern faiths that have this idea that, of just acceptance, right. Acceptance of life, acceptance of anything that comes. And it is through that, that you reach that state of peace that we're all kind of searching for.

[00:39:00] And I think that's it. That just goes right along with what you're saying right here. It's that, that is the human experience is feeling all of those things, not pushing against the undesirable things, embracing them, accepting them, letting them come through us and finding that greater joy and peace and happiness on the other side.

[00:39:17] Andi Thompson: And I think that one last story illustrates this, and that is one of my clients. She had these big dreams of taking her family in an RV and going and exploring and moving out to the country. And I asked her, what's holding you back from this. What's holding you back from living this dream.

[00:39:35] That's in your heart. And she's like, I'm just, I'm just afraid that it's not going to go. How I planned. And I was like, what if you could know a hundred percent that it's not going to go, how you planned it? Like a hundred percent. Yeah. We have to have a plan and it's not going to go that way and it's going to be okay.

[00:39:58] We're going to figure it out along the way. We have to have a plan to get started, but a hundred percent, it's not going to go exactly how we planned it. It does not mean that something's gone wrong

[00:40:09] Rob Cook: It doesn't mean it's not worthwhile in doing,

[00:40:11] Andi Thompson: yeah. And that's the, that's the negative emotion that we get to embrace the part that's like, oh, this is not what I'd anticipated.

[00:40:21] Rob Cook: Yes. Who hasn't been there. Right. For sure. All right. Well, Andi, I mean, I have, I have really enjoyed this. Um, I think this is been wonderful.

[00:40:32] Andi Thompson: Thank you so much for having me.

[00:40:33] Rob Cook: All right. Are you kidding? This is great. I would like to end with one last quick question and then give you the opportunity to tell listeners how they can find more about you and get ahold of you if you're willing to share that.

[00:40:47] So our last question, we ask every single person who comes on the show, just because I love hearing the different perspectives that everyone brings to this question, and that is what does it mean to you to be a contender?

[00:40:59] Andi Thompson: So good to be all in for all of it, the whole experience, the part that hurts the part that's fun, the part that feels good, the part where you win and the part where you lose to be all in.

[00:41:19] Rob Cook: I love that you can't be a contender without being willing to risk it all and being all in. Right. I like that a lot. I really liked that. Well, Andi, with. Please tell us how they can get to know you, they can connect with you and, even become a client of yours. Yeah.

[00:41:38] Andi Thompson: Um, my website is, Heysweetmama.com.

[00:41:42] And if, you know, want to just drop your email, you can get all of the updates that I have. And I also do free, initial coaching sessions. And so if you click on the work with me tab, if I just have one session with you, we're going to do some amazing work. If you want to work with me further, that's an option too.

[00:42:05] Rob Cook: Well, we'll definitely have a link to that in the show notes. Andi, thank you so much for coming on the show. Really enjoyed this.

[00:42:12] Andi Thompson: Thank you for what you do.

Who is Andi and what does she do
Andi's experience in both Eastern and Western Germany
Andi's story of losing a child
Andi's advice on how to sit with and deal with pain
Andi's perspective of what a relationship is
What happens when we don't deal with pain
How Andi deals personally with fear and failure
What does it mean to Andi to be a Contender
How to contact Andi
My thoughts on handling pain