Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life Podcast with Nadia DeLacruz

Change Your Thoughts - Change Your Life podcast (nadiadelacruz.com)

The following podcast is part of the mind, body, spirit podcast network

1:21 Welcome to the Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life Podcast! I’m your host, Nadia De La Cruz, founder of the Wayne Dyer Wisdom Community. My guest this week is no stranger to adversity. He has overcome a hearing impairment, job loss, crippling anxiety after losing his wife to brain cancer in 2009 he was left to raise their young daughter as a single father. He is the author of Keep Those Feet Moving: A Widower’s 8-Step Guide to Coping with Grief and Thriving Against All Odds. AJ Coleman, thank you so much for joining me today.

AJ: “Great, thank you for having me. It’s great to be here.”

Nadia: “I appreciate you coming on for this conversation. You know when I heard about who you are and when I read your book, just hearing about some of the challenges you’ve faced with wisdom and grace which you speak about some of those things today, I knew that I wanted to have this conversation with you. And so often the most amazing people that I meet have been through the most difficulties. It seems to either break you or make you more compassionate, understanding, and more grounded. Or maybe it’s more like being broken open?”

AJ: “Yeah, it is. Many of us when we go through these challenging times, we don’t realize what we’re made of. We spend a lot of time looking back instead of looking forward, and those that really do well in the end is really just pushing themselves higher and using the support. Most often people have the tendency to go one of two ways, right? They can either go backwards or they can move forward. In my situation as a widower, as someone who has dealt with a hearing impairment, anxiety as a result from the hearing impairment my entire life- I only knew one direction and that was to keep moving forward and to keep those feet moving. And I’ve always believed that the more I keep moving, the more action that gets created and I’m able to overcome some of those setbacks. A lot of time, it’s just a mentality. It’s recognizing that some of these setbacks are temporary, and that you do have an opportunity to change, to take that setback and to present it forward for new beginnings.”

Nadia: Yeah, look for where your power is in every situation instead of just saying you know, “I’m a victim to life and this is what happened to me.” and sort of get lost in that space. Not to overlook the necessity and the power of grieving and facing our emotions and working through that. But that was something that I learned from Dr. Dire too was that you know, you always have a choice. There’s another way of looking at this. I spoke with another guest who said, “What if I had chosen this treat whatever tragedy comes into our life? Why would I have chosen this? And that’s a really difficult question to answer when our hearts are breaking or we’re terrified for what life has moving forward, but what that does is we’re looking for an opportunity for learning, we’re looking for an opportunity for growth, we’re looking for a way forward. It looks like you’ve been doing that for your whole life, really.”

AJ: I have, and when I was young I didn’t have the resources that are available today. I grew up in the eighties. I was born in the seventies so I say I grew up in the eighties because that’s when you start remembering. I don’t have a whole lot of memories from the seventies, but the resources today if I had them back then.. cause you talk about could things have been different? Would I have been a different individual? Would I be able to just overcome, and I really don’t know. I taught myself at very early age to move forward and whatever is thrown at me is on me. Something that I relied on my parent’s for (and they meant well), but they too were also uneducated in terms of how to deal with stress, anxiety, dealing with a child who has a hearing impairment that may need special needs to go through schooling. And in times of struggle, it was challenging. There were nights where I remember as a kid just questioning how do you something? Where do I turn to? But as I thought about it further, I always put myself in a position where I’m going to thrive. One of my greatest moments… when you’re hearing impaired you learn to read lips. I put myself in a position where I can look at somebody’s lips from across the way, read what they’re saying and interpret, but I also put myself in different situations of anticipation. If something’s coming from around the corner, I’m already prepared for it. I think about what something can happen, where something can happen, so if something were to happen, I’m prepared. When you’re in a situation where I have been, its the preparedness that helps us stay calm, tranquil. But when we get caught off guard, we panic and that’s where that sense of anxiety comes in.”

7:24 Nadia: “Yeah, if we’re all in our head, its doesn’t seem to go well. You either have to like make a decision and stay confident and this is the action I’m going to take moving forward or you need to move into that “heart space”, right? That you’re connected to your intuition and you know you can learn to feel safe in your body. But when we get stuck in our heads, it doesn’t go well. They say the mind is a wonderful servant and a terrible master. You know so many people experience anxiety today and I think it has to do with the kind of life that we’re living you know with social media and our smartphones and all of that but, I’d actually love to go back to what we were talking about first so…You were just three years old when you were diagnosed with a hearing impairment. And it’s interesting you talked about lying in bed as a child and not knowing where to go for information or what the answers were for how to resolve situations and it makes me think, I wonder if your parents were doing the same thing, you know? Especially at that time in the eighties there wasn’t, I mean the school systems really didn’t know what to do either. So how did the hearing impairment affect your relationships with other kids and those early years at school?”

8:50 AJ: “I became aware of my hearing impairment; my earliest memory was when I went to preschool. I might have been about 4 years old where I was kind of plopped down with a group of kids and I knew and felt different because I had (what I believe) was the world’s largest hearing aid that was just booming out and other kids didn’t have that. And the great thing about kids at that age is they sort of accept everything and everybody. But as you grow older and start maturing a little bit kids start forming perceptions based on their family values and listening to things their friends say and when I got into kindergarten it was a little bit of a challenge. I attended an elementary school, and they had a little bit of a section off to the side for like a school for the deaf children. I often got confused where I was supposed to go because I wasn’t deaf, I had an impairment, but other kids kept saying why are you over there? I’ll never forget my father once telling me the story many years later is that I had trouble reading the teachers’ lips because they were turned on the chalkboard. At the time, we had chalkboards at the time (because you know it was the eighties, we had chalkboards in the eighties) and I couldn’t hear and I couldn’t read. And the principal did tell my father, “Well, maybe he should go to a different school and seek more/better accommodations than we could provide”. And my parents, to your point, because you want your child to be in the mainstream, you want your child to have that likeability and people talk. Where we grew up in the suburbs of Chicago is very affluent. It wasn’t recognized when you had a child with a disability or maybe even special needs. It wasn’t as accepted. I’m sure they struggled with their first-born needing. The technology never existed. The resources didn’t exist and that’s where the struggles are. And I don’t know if my parents today really understood what I went through. Nor did I understand.”

Nadia: “I’m sure they don’t.”

AJ: “I’m sure I didn’t understand what they went through as parents.”

Nadia: “Mhm.”

AJ: “You know kids today, as you continue to grow older… I think it’s gotten a lot tougher. Again, you may have more resources, but now you have social media. On the flipside you have more support groups, you have more organizations that are warm and accepting, but then the other again goes back to the pressure as a teenager. I don’t know how today would have been different tomorrow. All I can do is share my experiences and hopefully promote those in a similar situation as I was, and they maybe they can grow and learn, and overcome some of the hearing or a disability they have. I just realized, it’s actually pretty cool to have a disability in a sense, it’s cool to be different. It’s cool to be having those opportunities that maybe…I joke now that one of the great things about having a hearing disability is- I can’t hear the dog snoring at night.”

Nadia: (Laughs)

AJ: “Yeah, I didn’t even know the dog snored! Uh, but I was told, right? There are some advantages, but it also comes down to maturity here. At my age, at 48 years old, I’ve just hid from it my entire life until I wrote the book. It’s more open for me now to talk about it, and recognize that yes, it was a challenge. I struggled for acceptance, and there are times where I still struggle for acceptance. I’m a lot stronger today than I was last year, the year before embracing how far I’ve come.”

Nadia: “So, it’s interesting to me when you say you didn’t really share your struggles until you started working on the book. Wow! Like, that is a (laughs) that is a big HERE I AM! So what inspired the book or why did you write it now? What was it about now that you were ready to share it in a big way?”

13:43 AJ: “I’ve always believed that I wanted to write something for my daughter who when she was two months old, her mother was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and passed away a year later when she was one. I wanted to always leave something behind. Something she can cherish, something she can learn about who her dad was. Collectively with my thoughts, what I’ve gone through, I’ve shared a lot of things in my book that I hadn’t shared with anybody in terms of my disability, my struggle with anxiety, how I felt and what were the last few minutes I shared with my wife and what life was like being a single dad you know raising a daughter and it just became as I wrote more and more… I realized, it’s not really a book for her, it’s a book for me too. And coming to the realities and gaining closure on some of those what I call “insecurities” and just sharing about it. And to me it was a big step forward. Those who read about me and who know me and have an idea of me, they get to see me in a different perception because they didn’t even know what I went through. It was almost like a tale of two places, here I am and my past and people who knew me from my past and people who read the book say like “hey, that’s weird because I didn’t even know that about you!”

Nadia: “Yeah, we get to see your depth now, right? Whereas for years maybe it was only the surface that everyone got to see. And when you open up and make a choice to let people in, that takes courage. Bravo! Bravo, dad! Like to be inspired by your daughter, but actually she’s helping you heal. She’s helping you heal by being motivated to kind of process and open up. You know, we're only as sick as our secrets, not that these are secrets but like I feel like it opens us to connection and especially having come through this time in the pandemic, I think we find how important it was for us to be with friends and family and how important we are to each other and how short life is. Like if you didn’t know that already then this was a real opportunity to think about what’s most important. How old is your daughter now?”

AJ: “On a good day she’s sixteen.”

Nadia: (Laughs)

AJ: “There’s some days I feel she acts much older. She definitely has a lot of great characteristics of me in terms of how like I think and how I operate. Right now her biggest motivation is to learn how to continue to learn how to drive and eventually get her driver’s license. We started her a little bit later with her birthdate and the maturity part. She definitely is out there pulling some fast ones on me. Taking a lot of what I do and turning it against me. If I may give a great example…I’ve always told her, (and this is part of my upbringing) don’t share with others unless they ask. When you’re getting information out of people just tell them what they need to know and if they want to know more, they’ll do follow-up questions. Let them assume. So it was about a year and a half ago, my daughter wanted to visit some camp friends in Colorado. We live in Chicago, and one of her friend’s mom was going to take them. We were going back and forth on the travel arrangements and at one point, the mom said to me, “ AJ, I don’t know if the boys have the same spring break as the girls!” and I’m like, “Wait a minute. Boys? What do you mean boys? She’s visiting camp friends!” So I went to my daughter and I said, “Zoey, walk me through this. I thought you were visiting camp friends?” She goes, “I am!” I said, “but the boys?” She’s like, “yeah!” I said, “but why didn’t you tell me?!” She said, “Dad, you didn’t ask. You assumed!” And right then and there, I realized how much of an influence I have on her and how she reacts to certain things. At that point, regardless of about how I feel about her going to Colorado… I’ve already committed to that. I had to let her go and trust her, right? It’s one of those things. That’s the connection. Despite our loss and her growing up without a mother-figure for most of her life, she and I share a very common, strong bond together. She is really been the primary influence on how I not only written that book, but coming out on podcasts today and just talking about-sharing some of the humor.”

When we talk about grief, a lot of times we talk about the loss, people are fixated on the why. I always like to think about the positive aspects. Everything happens for a reason. I understand today we may not like it. Something bigger than us all perhaps her mother’s legacy enabled us to be very close. Now, when she goes away to college in two years, I may have some different thoughts, but uh…”

Nadia: (Chuckles)

AJ: “It just means I’m doing my job well. It’s to educate her, to have her grow, and be a person of independence.”

20:20 Nadia: “Yeah giving her wings, strength, and it makes me think about my mother taught me to not blindly follow authority. So you know if a teacher tells you something or somebody who’s in charge and they tell you something and it doesn’t feel right. Like it’s okay to check in and question that. But then when I became a teenager and tried to question her, I think it backfired a little bit for her. Actually, it served me really well in my life because I feel like I’ve been more independent because of it and I’ve made up my own mind about things. It hasn’t always been an easy journey, but you know for better or worse, my mom did plant that seed of being independent. So I’m sure you’re planting seeds that might be growing some thorns right now, but I’m sure she’s going to be amazing. Can you tell me about her mom? Your wife, Cory? What was she like?”

AJ: “Cory is an angel. I’d never met somebody like her. I knew within meeting her for the first time that I was going to marry her. It was the vibe, it was the chemistry, everything. And I liked to believe, I’m very much a relaxed person, I’m very observant. I plan ahead so that I don’t get myself into a situation, and she was calmer than I am.”

Nadia: (Laughs)

21:53 AJ: “It took a lot to rattle her. Her strength came from within. She comes from a great family. People that she grew up with and cherished her. It really was a challenge when she was diagnosed with terminal cancer because we have somebody who’s so pure, somebody who’s so innocent and has such a zest for life and to have their lives cut short. It was tough. We had a couple of good years together before she got sick. Zoey again was born and two months later she got sick. It could be that when Zoey was born the cancer was impacting my wife, but really not at the point where it felt like it could be impacting the pregnancy you know, the delivery. But sometimes I think about what happens if we didn’t conceive when we did. And what if it was too late? Then maybe we would have been in a situation where others have had to choose right? Between mother and daughter or mom and son I can’t imagine being in that situation. Cory was an angel. I do my best to keep the legacy alive. I do my best to share some of the inspiration and there is a lot of the same characteristics that Zoey has. They walk the same. They look very similar. Some people who haven’t seen Zoey in many years and who know Cory think they look very similar and sometimes they do a double-take. I like to think she got the best of both qualities. But I will tell you that she and Cory, I mean they would have been the best of friends.”

Nadia: “Well, they are, right? But not here.”

AJ: “Yeah, I like to keep the legacy alive. Especially when Zoey was younger. When she would sort of challenge me for bedtimes. You know how kids want to stay up later and as parents we’re so exhausted we just want to lie down. She’d be like “daddy, it’s not time to go to bed. Can I stay up?” And then sometimes I would say “okay” and then like five minutes goes by and she would tell me it’s not time yet so I would say, “well, I think mommy wants you to go to bed.” And she would say “well, how do you know that?” and I would say well “I can feel it.” You know she looks up and would go “well, mommy wants me to stay up!” Well mommy wants you to go to sleep. So we would start down that like humor-type sort of thing but as we get older, I’ve always encouraged her to reach out spiritually to her mom. Tell her what her thoughts and her feelings are and it’s okay if she does it or if she does not. That’s for her, right? I’ve always tried to encourage the relationship. Even though she may not be here with us physically she is within our hearts, and she is around. And I do believe our loved ones still walk around among us, we just can’t see them we just have to look for little signs that point that say “aha, here I am! I’m looking right at you and you’re missing this.” And that’s something I really like to try and coach Zoey into believing- We are here, but there is an enormous great force that surrounds us.”

25:42 Nadia: “I believe that. I believe that for sure. A lot of people know from listening to this podcast that I lost my dad. I’m coming up on the fifth anniversary of his passing and it’s been one of the most painful loss of my life. I definitely feel his presence, I really do feel like he’s here, I do you know communicate in that sort of “hey dad, how’s it going, or like this is what’s going on.” But I think he knows. My grandmother, she didn’t believe in life after death. She thought when you die, that’s it. And she lost her husband (my grandfather) um and she must have felt him. She was in Belgium and she spoke French so there was a bit of a language barrier between us, but she must have felt him because she said, “she believes in life after death now.”

AJ: “Oh, good!”

Nadia: “She lived almost 20 years after he passed on her own, so that’s been an interesting journey. You know those “what-if’s” that you talk about like did the pregnancy impact the growth of the cancer? You know there’s all these hormones in our bodies during pregnancy that can do that you know those “what-if’s” will destroy you, right?. And I’m sure along the way you’ve thought about what would Cory say about that. Something to important to consider is that well, that cancer might have come back anyway. Maybe it wouldn’t have been right then. Maybe it would have been a year later or two years later or whenever, but then Zoey wouldn’t be here, you know? I just feel like she would have no regrets, like this was her purpose. How do you feel about that now?”

AJ: “I mean I can’t imagine what she went through emotionally, physically, mentally, to really fully you know I know she would give everything for her daughter. And that was her purpose.”

Nadia: “She did, kind of.”

AJ:” Yeah she did. When Cory went through the surgery, (it was the recommendation of the neurosurgeon to go ahead) and we did not know what to expect. When she came out of that surgery, her personality was a littlebit different because of where the tumor sat. I never spoke about the unknown. I always believed we were going to beat the cancer despite what the doctors told me, what the prognosis was. I chose not to accept it, and part of it was my own grieving process at that time. She never once complained. I don’t even know if she knew what was truly going on because she never spoke about it. And knew. That’s courageous., Doctors said because of where the tumor was sitting that she would never walk or talk or have mobility on the right side of her body. I couldn’t phantom the thought of someone partially there but not there; the mental capacity of what she was dealing with. Thankfully we went through a very aggressive rehabilitation process. She was a trooper, it stretched her, it was like a seven-week program. She did learn to talk again! And she was able to communicate and have conversations with her daughter. I have some videos of everything where she was with her daughter talking. And those are the memories that we share together. But the courageousness up until the end even when she wasn’t feeling well and I took her to the hospital. I did not know that would be the last time she would not come home. I thought she was just going to have some fluid drained, maybe there were some areas that maybe needed medicine.

I’ll never forget, on May 16, 2009, I had slept at the hospital (Zoey was home with her grandparents, at the time she was only sixteen months old) and I said why don’t you bring her (Zoey) to the hospital? I never thought that it would be the last time that she (Cory) would have with her daughter. She (Cory) was happy, very excited to see her daughter. She gave her a kiss. My daughter was going out to have her lunch, so I stayed back for a second, and my wife fell asleep. And I take comfort and that’s why I’m able to speak openly about it today was that the last image my wife saw wasn’t me, it wasn’t any stranger. It was her daughter and I think that’s when she knew her life was complete, and I think that’s when she had given it all-back to what you had said. That is where her chapter came to an end.”

31:10 Nadia: “That’s so hard. Thank you for sharing that.”

~Commercial Break~

31:47 Nadia: “I remember what it was like in that postpartum period, (I have two kids) and two months I mean your world is still upside down. You’re not sleeping, there’s a lot of diapers, and everything’s different, your body is different… so when she first started showing like symptoms you didn’t know what was going on, right?”

AJ: “No, I mean it happened so quickly. I remember (of course I remember all the dates and the times) but it was March 7th, 2008. It was a Friday night; I came home from work, and we were hanging letters of Zoey’s name in her bedroom, and she (Cory) was having difficulty speaking all of a sudden. I thought she was just dehydrated; you know as a new mom. She’s not getting enough sleep you know you’re nursing, attending to the baby all the things that mom like to do. And I was like well, I don’t know, why don’t we go to the hospital? I took her downstairs, I had her write something because the way she was speaking was like I couldn’t make sense of anything and what I told her to write and what she wrote were completely different things. Again, we rushed to the hospital back to the hospital where Zoey was born and I’m thinking well, they have her blood tests from two months ago they can compare.”

Nadia: “We were just here!”

AJ: “Yeah, and when the doctor we need to do a CAT scan I was like okay maybe she’s malnourished, maybe she’s this and you know when the test results came back, and they gave us the grim news I was like really? Where did this come from? We had no warning. I never thought in a million years. An everything happens for a reason, right? it’s always bigger or the book would have not been written. Zoey wouldn’t be who she is today. Cory’s legacy would not be what it is today. There are certain things while we miss and have voids in our lives there is always something of a reason. For those who are very spiritual like myself as I became over the years, is that I do belive that God would not put us in a position that we cannot handle. Everything is a test. If you pass the test, you move to the next level and things may get a little easier before your next challenge. But if you don’t pass the test, you stay in that same situtation or you stay in those same struggles until you pass that test. And that’s how I’ve come to that conclusion is how we got here today. Every setback that we’ve gone through I’m like okay, there’s some test that is involved. I need to figure out where to go, what to do and how to do it and once I pass it, you know I’m not saying our lives are like the Matrix or anything like that for those that believe in the spirituality of things it requires us to take a step back and breathe before we move forward.”

Nadia: “We are consistently reminded that we are stronger than we need to be. Feeling completely buried under the pains and the uncertainties of life to feeling so strong and being a beacon of light for others. And I think everybody has those highs and those lows. You wrote about many of them in your book and I just honor your openness to share that. Especially after hearing how long it took you to be open. So, was it right away that she went in for surgery or was there a period of time in between there?”

36:23 AJ: “It was quick. On March 7th, it was a Friday night, she was in surgery that Monday morning. The 10th of March. Could we have gone for a second opinion? Could we have consulted with and say well do we need to do surgery today? At the time, we were living in Scottsdale and Phoenix, Arizona. Her family was in Chicago. Could we maybe have come up to Chicago and done the surgery here? There are a lot of things, but at the time we relied on medical science and what the doctors were telling us. They told us it needed to be done immediately and the prep work began. I just, looking back and thinking all those scenarios. I mean I’m trying to juggle Cory, Zoey’s two months old and trying to figure out where she was going to go because that’s not a place for a newborn.”

Nadia: “Yeah.”

AJ: “We also had a dog, so it was like where is the dog going to go, right? And here I have my job, I have other things, and everything just came to a complete stop. I don’t know to this day how I got through that period of time. Some of it was blacked out, some of it I do have very vivid memories on. This is how we grow.”

Nadia: “You just have to put one foot in front of the other, right?”

AJ: “You have too. The saddest thing in life is when we look back with regret something we didn’t do, something we didn’t say. We didn’t try. We don’t realize how short our lives can be, and I don’t have to tell any of the listeners that either, right? They are all in tune. That’s why I believe you have to take advantage of what opportunities are given to you. We’re so quick to say no to everything, but if we say yes, we have the opportunity to experience something. If somebody were to say to us in our household, “Hey, it’s 8’oclock on a school night, let’s go get some ice cream!” I’m like yeah let’s do that, right and then all of a sudden, I’m putting Zoey down for bed at 9:30p.m. and she’s so full of a sugar high that I can’t get her to bed because she’s jumping off the bed and the walls, but these are great things, right?”

Nadia: “Yeah”

AJ: “You never know what is going to happen. I have a friend of mine who went to a funeral. Didn’t even want to go to a funeral. It was a sad occasion and he told me the story about how he met somebody at the funeral who was also grieving and they just got into conversation and what it led to was a job opportunity later on. And had he not gone because he didn’t’ want to or because the pain was so great, but he forced himself to go he might not have the lifestyle and the career he has today all because he took advantage of something even though we don’t want to. There is always something bigger. I try to teach people don’t be so quick to say no.”

Nadia: “Try to say yes.”

AJ: “It’s 10 o’clock at night and somebody wants to go to a bar and just chat about their day somebody might be there who knows maybe a celebrity or something and you get a part in a movie, right?”

Nadia: “That’s life. Say yes to life and you never know what’s going to happen, right?”

AJ: “I believe that, and it took me a long time as well. That was the beauty of writing this book. It really opened my eyes to new things where maybe I would have been closed-off, timid. Today, I’m still growing.”

Nadia: “But you’re reaching people and you’re reaching their heart, and your heart is open. So, it’s reciprocated, right? So, you’re probably also receiving in a way that you weren’t available to receive from before.”

AJ: “That’s true. Absolutely.”

Nadia: “There’s a quote in your book that really touched me. It says, “The night before the surgery it was quiet, just Cory and me. We talked, we laughed, and we cried. I quickly assembled a photo album of Zoey’s first two months to share, something I thought would brighten spirits. By then, it had been 48 hours since Cory’s slurring episode. She hadn’t had any since. It was the last night Cory and I were together as Cory and AJ.”

Nadia.” Is that because after the surgery, she had those changes from…?… yeah..”

AJ: “It was the last time we were just Cory and AJ as we were husband and wife when we fell in love because when the tumor sat on her frontal lobe it altered her speech, it altered her mood swings, it altered her personality. Things that she would laugh about or joke about, there was an absence that followed.”

Nadia: “Mhm.”

AJ: “I believe at that time it was the last time we were Cory and AJ.”

Nadia: “That’s tough. You’ve been through a lot. And Zoey wouldn’t even remember her mother except for what you’ve taught her. So it must just be like a different experience for her because for her it’s like stories and it’s like where she comes from but she didn’t experience the loss, right? She probably experiences the loss when there are things she would like to share with her mom, right? But it’s so different for you. To hear you talk about the decisions you had to make along the way. I mean those are impossible decisions! So of course we are going off of what the professionals are recommending. I do want to believe everything happens for a reason and I do absolutely believe that there is something to learn from every experience and sometimes the more difficult, the more painful, the more we are broken open and it brings us into the truth of who we are and it reminds us that we are eternal beings that we are spiritual in nature having a human experience and this is actually the part that’s temporary. But while we are here, it is so important that we connect with one another. There are so many oh I don’t know maybe 8 billion people on the planet now maybe more we’re growing pretty fast ! It’s so easy to feel disconnected and I think our most personal stories are our most universal ones. So, um yeah, I feel you.”

AJ: “And it is. Being a single parent, I’ve learned to have so much more respect for moms, and the hard work that they go through each and every day. Trying to balance work-home life and trying to do all the great things that moms do. And I could never replicate that for Zoey. I think some areas in terms of empathy I try to do the mom-daughter type things like taking the daughter to go do their nails. But for us, it was like I’m going to- you’re going to sit in the chair and I’m going to sit in the waiting room and deal with all the fumes. For her, it was great she was getting her nails done and getting all this other stuff and unfortunately it wasn’t the same connection that she would have. Usually, it’s the mom sitting next to the daughter, or the daughter is sitting on her lap. There’s a lot of intermittent feelings and experiences that go into that type of activity. Taking her to birthday parties and just listening to some of the mom gossips… I would just come out of those with headaches.”

Nadia: Laughing

45:13 AJ: “Appalled at some of the personal things that were disclosed and I’m trying not the listen but at the same time the parent waiting area especially when the kids are young there’s not a whole lot of space and I knew who didn’t like who and which kid had issues with this kid and which person’s having an affair and this is not something for dads, right? There were times where we did feel like we were excluded from the communities, right? It wasn’t the same as moms and daughters getting together and doing things if Zoey was invited, she’d have to come with dad and sometimes the male/female dynamic might change things and just look awkward. Zoey knew early on that her home life was different than some of her peers. She did miss out on certain playdates and activities because of that. We were blessed in preschool there was a group of moms that befriended us and understood, and they sort of helped take Zoey under their wings a little bit and helped do their best to include. But you know we had some heartaches when we enrolled her into different programs with the preschool and 1st grade and even into middle school and high school. I’d always tell them, she’s (Zoey) very sensitive about the loss of her mother. So in a sense of like when you create a project for Mother’s Day, that’s always like the worst. I remember early on when we were in preschool that said Zoey exhibited hostile behavior and I said “Okay?” and they said, “You’re going to have to come and pick her up.” So, I said okay, and went to pick her up and when I get there, I wanted to know like what the facts are and what happened. So, they explained they were making things for Mother’s Day and Zoey sat there and the teacher said, “Zoey, why aren’t you making anything for your mom?” And Zoey shot back angrily, “My mom’s dead. Now what do you want me to do?” And because of the policy with exhibiting hostile behavior the parent has to come. I spoke to the administrative team and said, “Look, it’s written in the application. It’s written on her profile. We’re asking teachers to understand are who the kids are. We’ve been with them for the whole year!”

Nadia: “Yeah.They should know!”

AJ: “You would think. It was a challenge. We would get into that. And I’ll never forget when I was enrolling her into grade school into kindergarten and the application for enrollment as a parent, are you single, are you married, are you divorced?”

Nadia: “That was it.”

AJ: “And that was it and I didn’t know what to check. Of course, this was online at the time, and I couldn’t move forward so I had to call the office and I’m like “I don’t know what to pick!” and they said to just say I was either you know single or divorced and I’m like no, no no that’s not how it is. I’m a widower, right? There is a different thought process involved and how I can complete the paperwork with the sensitivity being the child through this. It’s been a lot of a growing experience through this, but she and I have a lot of great times together, we laugh, we do things, but I’ve done my best. I’m not perfect. Through my time as a single dad, I’ve learned, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for moms out there. It is not easy work and I applaud them for all their accomplishments so thank you, moms.”

49:29 Nadia: “And thank you, dads. I think both parents are so important. No matter the dymanic of your family you know families take on so many different forms. You know having two people raising a child they both bring something diffreent to thte equation. Like you said having a hearing impairment made you feel different and having hearing aids made you feel when you were in preschool was like wait, nobody else is wearing these so I think when we’re going through that how do I compare to my peers which happens through childhood and early adolescence anything that sets you apart is an opportunity for growth but it can be such a source of pain and confusion and conflict and its like how come I’m not like everyone else and it can be the biggest or the littlest thing. Of course, your daughter is going to face things and you face things. Some things are bigger for some people that for other people but honestly you brought a level of understanding and compassion and flexibility to her life to help guide her through that. Think about the strengths she is building in her life by knowing herself and by knowing how to speak up for herself even when the teachers aren’t too happy about it. Maybe the delivery could use some work, but she’s got that fire in her and I’m sure you are really proud.”

AJ: “I am proud.”

Nadia: “Having been through all these years of navigating because really two months old and then a year later or twelve months or fourteen months or whoever long later was so quick right? (After your daughter’s birth) Now you’re on your own to raise this child. You’ve experienced grief in one of the worst ways I think, it’s our partner and our life partner and we kind of have everything in front of us. What advice can you offer, or would you offer to someone who is going through grief right now? Particularly after losing a spouse but I think it translates to a lot of loss.

51:48 AJ: “There’s no blueprint. The best advice I can give to those is to understand where you are. I like to use the why and where principle. A lot of people like to equate why and how, but when we’re in the why principle aspect we are asking ourselves, “Why did this happen?” “Why me?” “Why this person?” “Why did this have to be like this, I dont understand.” Where the “where principle” which ties in with the Keep Those Feet Moving action, is about where are you going. “Where are you going? “Where am I going to get the help that I need?” “Where am I going to go to get my source of strength?” And the longer that we stay fixated on the why, the longer the grieving process can go. And there is a misconception that people believe that if you only grieve for a short period of time, you might not have loved that person.”

Nadia: “Oh no (Sighs with understanding.)”

AJ: “Grief isn’t measured in time, it’s measured in how legacy is carried on and the sooner you can get to that “where aspect”, the sooner you are getting places. Your loved ones are always going to be with you. They are always going to be with you spiritually, be in your hearts. It’s okay to mourn, it’s okay to miss them, it’s okay to greive, but you can’t take that entire grief and turn it into a lifetime. As a parent, when you have children you need to stay strong. You can break down in your private moments, that is okay. But with your children you want to be that source of strength because they are guiding you. Other people, family members, friends who may be in grief as well, they are looking to you to lead because you’re the closest contact to your loved one. The stronger that you are, you are carrying them through. It’s not to say that you don’t miss that individual, that you don’t miss. It’s how you carry yourself and when you look back years later, you’re going to look back with appreciation just how far you’ve come but you’ll be healthier. You’ll be spiritually connected with your loved one because you understand. You’re still living you life and you’re still living your life together. I go on vacation, I still think Cory is with me. I still talk to her frequently sometimes scratching my head because I can’t hear her or see her. I’m looking for signs. The key is when you are in grief, it is okay to eventually you will start to move forward, you’ll start to grow. There are other things out there that you will start to cherish. You’ll never stop loving that person.”

Nadia: “You’ve got to live while you’re here because they say life is short. Where to go, right? So if you have that love for that person but you are not able to demonstrate it then you’re not able to communicate it, you’re not able to do things for them. Did you have a chance to channel through that love? Was it for your daughter?”

AJ: “Everything was through my daughter. She was my source of strength to get through some of the tough time. Understanding that I had to be a role model for her. If she wasn’t with me; let’s just say she was never born it would be a greater road toward recovery because I have something to live for. I have to live for her, and I have to live for Cory’s legacy. Whether she agrees with me or not is another story.

Nadia: “She’s sixteen. She’s never going to agree with you, give it a few years.” (jokingly laughs)

AJ: “I don’t think she has grasped the enormity of what this book has done. She has not read the book. She knows it’s there, and she knows it’s about her. But she’s not ready, and I’m not going to force her. You know at some point in her life she’ll understand my dad jokes.”

Nadia: (Laughs) “Well, you know when we get to our twenties, I think so the teenage years feel like we want to move forward and in our own way and not necessarily do what our parents say or what our parents did. I feel like at a certain point, we turn around and go like hey my family is so important to me, and we start to make sense of what they do for us. I’m sure there will come a day where she appreciates what you have done for her. She understands the journey that you opened yourself to put pen to paper for this. She will benefit from having this from her dad. Fathers and daughters have a very special bond. Now you did eventually remarry so how did that impact the family dynamic?

AJ: “I did.” A blended the family is not the same as a traditional family because you have different siblings and you have a different biological step so there is a lot of growing pains from there. I decided to get remarried again thinking about my daughter. She came to me one day and said, “Dad, I need a mom. I need somebody who can help me through some of these things.” And she got a little bit more granular with telling me that I have no idea what I’m doing as a dad with some things that little girls need. But it got me thinking, this is not about just me. I never thought that I would remarry, it’s also about her (Zoey). And my current wife, Tracy, I’ve known her my entire life. We’ve confided with each other as single parents to help each other during times in need. We formed a barrier of trust between us. I would lean on her for support and vice versa. Zoey grew very attached to her early on and started thinking, yeah it would be cool to do all the things that we’ve been thinking and can’t do with dad. She could get her nails done or curl her hair. Her favorite is to do a French braid and I still can’t do a French braid today.”

Nadia: “Those are tough.” (Chuckling in agreement)

AJ: “She can do that, right? It got to a point, moving things forward and it was not easy to get there. It took me a long time to date. I felt…. Cory and I never talked about the unknown. We never talked about the what-if and the if something were to happen to us because we were young. We were only 31 and 32 years old at the time, and understanding that like is it okay if I move on after you pass and date? I felt such tremendous guilt. I felt like I was cheating. I felt like I never got that blessing. It was incredibly difficult and I had to go talk to somebody as a professional to work through that. It took many years for me to say its okay. So yes, I’ve today I’ve gotten remarried, still figuring things out. There are still challenges we have with stepchildren, different philosophy with how we raise our children and sometimes unfortunately our household is still siloed where Tracy’s two girls will run to her for everything, and Zoey still runs to me. Still operating …tracks. We make it work. There is a lot of emphasis on communication. One of the areas I really stress and light. If you are dating someone who is a widower there are some different dynamics in play. Having someone to understand that we will always love our loved one and I will always love Cory. Tracy understood that. And it takes a strong individual to recognize that you can love multiple people you can love. And that’s how that trust is formed. When you are divorced, it is a different dynamic a lot of times you might not even want to mention your exes name, you might have some choice words, but you know the marriage dissolved painfully. You know when you have a passing, it’s a different type of pain so having that companion that understands you does make things a lot easier. And I will tell you that I get myself caught when I say something like “Hey, I remember when we went here that one time!” and Tracy will be like “Uhhh, no we didn’t.” and I’ll be like “We did.” and she’ll go, “First wife!” and I’m like uhhooohh.”

Nadia: Whoops! (light chuckle)

AJ: “But it’s part of the humor and again that’s where that trust is really important. So for those that like myself who say I’m never going to get married again…Life happens. Things come through and in my heart of hearts, I know that Cory would have wanted me to move on. I just struggled wihtout that permission base. Zoey, if you talked to her today she would tell you that she struggled with not having her mom around but she is okay to go ahead to head with some of the mood swings. As a dad, I have no idea what some of this stuff means. We do every day work hard on the relationships. It’s not easy especially during a holiday season where you’ve got like different families who are still very close with Cory’s parents. We see them often. We keep the relationship for Zoey to be with them and they struggle too with their loss. So, when the holidays come it’s like I’ve got three different families to figure out where to spend the time and everyone is volleying for the time slot that they want and why does that person get that time slot and you know, why can’t…”

Nadia: Laughing

AJ: “Maybe you guys can split up? Again, there are always challenges, but this is who we are. Someone once asked me would you ever go back and change anything. And I thought long and hard about that. It would be like the butterfly effect-if you change one thing, what would happen in the future?”

Nadia: “Yeah.”

AJ: “And I don’t think we can change. Where we can change is how we perceive things and how we Keep Those Feet Moving.”

Nadia: “Keep Those Feet Moving. In your book you said, ‘I want to be remembered as someone who knows he was blessed for all that he has and not what he has lost, someone who fully appreciates the opportunities given to him over the years knowing that he made the very best of them.’ What are you most grateful for in your life today?”

AJ: “So much. From a career to living life to the fullest. One of the primary reasons I get up is being a role model, helping others overcome their challenges in life and that to me is more exciting, it’s fulfilling. I want to give back, it’s not just about me anymore. It’s about bringing those value-added thoughts and ideas into inspiration. That is what I am most proud of today. Looking back, I’ll look back on my entire life when I can’t give back anymore.”

Nadia: “You are busy living it right now.”

AJ: “That’s when I’ll know my time has passed and I’m very busy looking back at it reasons to smile and say look what I’ve done. A lot of people doubted me my entire life on what I could do, people are surprised. But the people that aren’t surprised, that’s me. I’ve taken on a lot of support with family and friends along the way and sometimes I just get lucky too. I make my own luck.”

Nadia: “Bravo!”

AJ: “I do, and I want to give the best I can to others. So, they can turn around and pass the knowledge on.”

Nadia: “So what’s the best way for people to reach you and get ahold of your book?”

AJ: “Best place is to go to keepthosefeetmoving.com website you can purchase the book directly from the blog. You can also go to Amazon and get the book through there. Search Keep Those Feet Moving by AJ Coleman purchase either the book or the eBook for those that like the digital copy and you can always reach out to me, my email address is on my website. I’m more than happy to correspond and provide any sort of guidance that I can. Thank you for this wonderful opportunity!”

Nadia: “Thank you so much for spending this time with me and for opening your heart and your life to all of us. You are an inspiration and you know you exude such a warmth. This has been a real pleasure for me.”

AJ: “Thank you.”

Nadia: For all of our listeners follow Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life and take care of yourself. Namaste.

Nadia Delacruz is the founder of the Wayne Dyer Wisdom Community 

Special thanks to Nadia Delacruz, our host of the Podcast Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life, for this episode featuring author AJ Coleman.

To learn more about Nadia Delacruz and the Wayne Dyer Wisdom Community visit: About Nadia Delacruz

For more podcast episodes: Change Your Thoughts - Change Your Life podcast (nadiadelacruz.com)