Episode 37: Hope

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Well, hey, everybody, welcome to the 37th episode of Don’t lose your balance. My name is Mallory Durrick. So I had a different topic I was going to talk about today. And then of course, you know, I had the gratitude room with the others this morning on clubhouse, and we talked about hope. So I think I should talk about hope, because there was a lot to say. And the way I think we can talk about it here is for me to just first start off by reading what the prompt was, in which case, then you’ll have a little more context, just like I did last week, I think it helps. And I’ll say even if it doesn’t help for anybody who’s listening, I think it helps for me, because it then allows me to listen back and say, oh, yeah, that’s why I had this thought process. So the prompt was called laughing heart. And the little bit of a quote was, it’s your reaction to adversity, not adversity itself that determines how your life’s story will develop. That was said by Dieter F. Uchtdorf. The question was asked at the end of the story, what is the driver of hope in your life today? What do you hope to achieve hope to become hope to do this year? What are the sources of hope in your life today? You know, there was absolutely a time in my life when I can honestly say, I didn’t know. I wasn’t hopeful I was broken. I think I’ve made that evidently clear, and there’s no real need to rehash it, I will tell you that somewhere in the back of my mind, I must have felt hopeful to continue. There was no alternative. There’s a lot of things that I’m hopeful for now. And one that I think the biggest one that I can speak about is that I’m really hopeful that my life continues on the course that it’s on right now. I’m hopeful, because it’s working, I have taken time to improve my skill set, which I talk about a lot. I’m getting opportunities that I was hoping for in the past, and they’re now in front of me, I am doing things that keep me occupied, entertained and fulfilled. I know that a lot of people might look at my life. And I don’t know who these people are. But whoever might be saying, looking at my life, well, she can’t possibly be 100% fulfilled. And I’m not sure that everyone is 100% fulfilled. But I’m fulfilled enough and quite happy with my day to day routine. So what is a driver of hope in my life today? Well, it would be my work, because I really, truly enjoy doing what I do. The driver of hope in my life as it comes to my work is mostly a result of my creativity that gets to be explored. And I never really thought about it like that other than the fact that you know, work for me used to be mundane, and boring. And I didn’t want to get up in the morning on a Monday and go to work and do what I had to do, which was probably sales or work in an office. And since I’ve changed all of that for myself, I am in eternally grateful because I get up in the morning, not depressed or sad or angry, but happy and hopeful. I hope for more work more opportunity. The next question is what do you hope to achieve? I hope to achieve this sense of continued balance. What do I want to become? Well, I want to be better at what I do. I don’t know if I’m ever going to be as great a designer as some of the world class designers. I may never even be as good of a designer as some of the designers that I aspire to be but I can be as good as I can be. And when we were in the gratitude room, we talked about being you know, the best of ourselves, I guess, and my my bar that I set for myself is a Certain bar to be the very best I can be. And my very best may still be less than somebody else’s, not their ability, but their creativity, I guess is the best word, it may never be as good as them. But it will be maybe better than somebody else who’s still learning. And it certainly will be better than my last because I keep moving what we call moving that bar, not because it’s difficult to attain, but because once I achieve a certain goal, I want to be able to create a new goal. So if my new goal is to be better at learning a new skill with the technology that I’m using, or illustrating, or a new component of a website that I am designing, then I want to do that I

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want to continue to grow. So setting a new bar, and I kind of said this is somewhat dangerous only because when is it ever good enough? And maybe it’s never good enough? Maybe Maybe I’m looking at it as a negative that you shouldn’t keep moving that bar, yes, you should not keep moving that bar, you should keep the bar set high for yourself. And when you achieve it, be grateful for that, and then look at your life and say, Well, what can I hope to achieve next? And there’s nothing wrong with doing that? What do I hope for this year, you know, I have a trip coming up. And I want this trip to be a good one. Since the trip before this one was not a good one. It was a very sad one. It was a I guess it was the impetus for this podcast, to be honest with you. And I got really clear in the last year about what it is that I want for myself and what I want for others, not not necessarily how I’m going to script their narrative, but what I want for others as it relates to me, what are my expectations? What are their expectations? And how can I you know, fulfill those expectations to the best of my ability. I certainly don’t want to repeat any bad things that happened a year ago. And I can’t guarantee that that will or won’t happen, I can only say I’ll do my very best and hope for the very best that somebody else will also get. I don’t know how else to say this without being overly personal. You know, I find myself a little bit in conflict in that I can’t control anybody, obviously. So what can I control is my own reaction, my own reaction to the way things are, I hope that the year as we come out of this pandemic, and I say coming out of it because people are returning to the office and people are going to concerts traveling is an all time high. You know, you can fly on airplanes without masks. So the world is somewhat returning to not normal, it will never be normal again, it will be like like what we talked about that new normal. But with that change comes this apprehension on my part about how that will impact me my business, my future. And I don’t know what the future has in store for me. I’m hopeful that it’s all good. I’m hopeful that I’ll stay healthy. I’m working on weight control and exercise control. And I’m hopeful that my relationships will continue to prosper. I’m really in a good space. So it’s hard for me to talk about hope in any other way, then I hope things continue on the way things have been. But because things are changing again, because they are always changing. How will that impact me? Well, I hope it won’t be bad. I hope that I will continue to maintain this flow that I am enjoying. So the other question was, what are the sources of hope in your life

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today? It’s a good one, right? I’d say work. My work is a great source of hope because like I want to continue on the course but I also want to achieve greatness in my talents and really tap into those another source for me in my life today would be my relationship. My relationships with my parents are really good. My sister really good. My siblings really good. My kids some Yeah, I’m hoping they’re good. I look at my relationship with the kids to be okay, more so with my daughter less so with my son, only because he kind of keeps to himself a lot. And I very rarely talk about him. And because of that it is what it is and I can’t really change it. Now with my daughter. It’s a little bit different because I’m a little more involved in her life, not the way I thought I would be, as let’s say a grandmother but definitely hopeful that she looks at me as somebody who’s less like a person that messed up a mother that messed up and more like a mother that is on a really good journey for growth. And I know that’s hard for Children will look at their parents but in a positive way. But the problem is, it’s easy for children to look at their parents in that negative way. Like, if you don’t fulfill whatever expectations they have of you for you, then you’re kind of like this. I don’t know, fucked up parent, but I don’t expect my children to look at me as anything other than what they look at me as, but I don’t want this ugly narrative that they may have. And I don’t know what they have. This is my perception. This is never a conversation I’ve had with them. And they are free to share their own perspective of this. But I have this perception that my children look at me as just some kind of complete failure as a parent. And to be perfectly honest, I was not a complete failure, did I make a whole lot of mistakes? Yes, mostly damaging myself,

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I don’t know what damage I actually did to them. Because I look at these kids. And I say, Well, they did pretty good. And I’m thinking they can have done that all on their own meaning they had a good mother for a period of time, and they had a good father for a period of time. And then like normal children who grow up into adulthood, they turned out to be pretty decent adults, well, parenting had to have come into play. I don’t think that they did this all by themselves, I cannot take any real responsibility for their success that’s on them. Which also means that I can’t take any responsibility for their failure, just like my parents can’t do that we get to a point in our lives where no matter how we were brought up, and these children of mine were brought up in a very wonderful environment, they are fulfilled, they are fulfilling their lives, they are responsible and respectful, and well mannered young people and adults. And I hope that that continues as they continue to grow. I mean, certainly, I was not a mess until about my I don’t know, mid mid to late 30s. And that impacts. And if everybody, it impacted my children, it impacted my family members, my parents, my sister, it impacted me, you know, and I get it. But I’m trying very hard to change this sort of narrative that everybody has in their mind about all this stuff that I went through. And much of what I’m sharing right now has a lot to do with how I feel, not how they articulate it to me. So I’m really hopeful. Since we’re talking about hope, I am really hopeful that I can somehow get out of this negative narrative that I have in my head about the way I am as a person and as a parent as a mother. Because it’s not like anybody’s sitting here pointing fingers and assigning blame, I’m a certain way because my mother was, it’s just this thing about me, maybe it’s a perfectionist issue that I have with myself that I just didn’t deliver. And I don’t know if that’s true. You know, I look at my life right now. And I’m home alone all the time. And I’m not unhappy about it. Let me just make that very clear. It may be very unsettling for somebody else to live their lives like that. And they might look at themselves home alone as a failure. And yet, I look at it as a huge win a huge success, because I’m creative, and I’m doing all these things. And I’m not selling anybody on it. I’m I’m legit feeling this way. I’m sleeping well, I’m sober, I’m fulfilled. And yet I find that I still battle a little bit on how this could possibly work. And you know, what’s even more difficult? If this works? If I’m fulfilled all by myself, how can I possibly let anybody else in I don’t know if I can, because that sort of kind of challenges and disrupts this level of balance that I have, you know, for me, obviously, for me, this balance came when I got really truthful about who I was and what I needed and what I wanted. And also, when I think about the driving force of hope in my life, it’s balance, I need the balance, I need to not feel too drained and overwhelmed. I need to be able to set definitive boundaries for myself, and I love with somebody shared in the room today about boundaries, they said, boundaries are not punishments, you know, boundaries are just boundaries. They’re lines that you, you know, draw. If you look at a map, they said, you know, you put this line on the map and a boundary is how to, let’s say it’s a state and another state come together at that line. And in my head, I visually say, well, if I’m on one side of the line, and I crossed the other side of the line, I’m in a new state. Well, to me that that just means I’m going from point A to point B and that line is in the middle. So when I talked about the boundary They said, well, it’s not a punishment, and having those boundaries which I had never had before. And I know I talked about boundaries in the past, they really helped put some perspective in my life. I never thought that I didn’t have them. I was always very, you know, free to share whatever was on my mind, except when I was afraid that it might impact the relationship. And I never vocalize, not really did I vocalize these are the way things need to be for me in order for me to feel happy and successful, not because I’m asking somebody else to make them better for me, but because I couldn’t vocalize that, how could they know it. And I think that defining those boundaries and saying, This is what I want, and what I need, which I had never done before, you know, now that you know how to say that, or you know how to get clear, even if you don’t vocalize it, if you’re clear in your own mind with it, then somebody else can make a choice to say, I’m okay with those lines, or I’m okay with that, that perspective that you want to live your life that way. So I’m gonna live my life this way. And if we can coexist together even better. Fortunately, I’m in a position where I don’t really have to do that. And I’m really kind of grateful for that there’s this level of peace that has come over me because I only have to actually worry. Like, I know, we worry about other people. But I don’t have to worry, I’m not responsible for making somebody else happy. I’m not responsible for fulfilling somebody else’s needs. I’m only doing that for myself. And I don’t know, but maybe it’s is a long time coming. I’m hopeful that I can continue this not just because it’s working for me. But this balance of my life is something that I never actually understood. The year is a quarter over here we are in the in spring we got through winter bow we’re getting getting into the beginnings of spring and spring is this opportunity for all kinds of fresh new things. You know, the trees are in bloom, the flowers are coming up, things are going from cold and dark to bright and colorful. And I’m very hopeful that this spring is prosperous, I’m on a different kind of a health journey I’ve removed. If you can believe this, I’ve removed fruit from my diet because it’s loaded in sugar. And I’m starting to feel a little bit differently about my body about my mental capacity in a more positive way. Even though it was positive before I’m now even more aware of that I am looking to be even more creative. I’m thinking about going on an art retreat this summer, which is a little scary for me because I don’t feel like I’m as good of an artist. I’m not a professional artists. I’m a creative, but I’m not a professional artist. And I’m thinking to myself, What am I? What would I do with all these art people around me? Who are so much better than me? And then I have to remember Oh, no, no, no, no, you don’t compare yourself to other people. So I’m hopeful that that is something I might explore, and actually go do. I’m in a position financially where I can actually afford to do it. And that is a very fulfilling thing for me. You know, I’m probably one of the rare people who found quarantine to be an opportunity to grow. And I was hopeful. in quarantine. Certainly, when I first started, like everybody else, I think I had one client, and then I lost them. Then I had no clients and I had no money. And I had a huge amount of debt. And somewhere along the line. That all changed in two years. So if anybody here is listening, and they think that their life is never gonna get better, or it’s impossible to come out of the things that I’ve gone through, when you look back at the 36 episodes of this, of whether it was infidelity, drug addiction, alcoholism, poverty, no one thing I never actually gave up, I may have not have felt it was possible. And I maybe in the back of my mind always felt a little hopeful. And if I felt a little hopeful, then I didn’t give up and I kept going I kept moving forward. And it’s not like a light switch that you get to turn on. And you go from one end of the spectrum to the other in a in a matter of a second but you stay hopeful. Like I stayed hopeful. Somewhere in the back of my mind. I stayed hopeful because by not giving up and I kept moving forward. I kept putting one foot in front of the other. If I was suffering and pain, I grieved and I mourn whatever loss that might have been and I acknowledge that pain yet I did come out of it. And I know that if I can do it, anybody can. There are certain things people will have to do in order to do that if you have to give up alcohol because it’s not working for you and for your life and those around you give it up if you need to start exercising more because you know it’s better for you then start doing it. If you want to do something in your career or in a job, start listening to podcasts, start watching YouTube and start educating yourself because if you have a little hope and you do a little bit of the things that are required to do you can keep on going set those goals for yourself.

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I hope it works for you because it worked for me and I hope it continues for me. Okay, well if you like this or any other episode of Don’t lose your balance. You can share it you can download it, you can even write me a review. You can also follow me I have two handles on Instagram. One is Mallory underscore Durrick. And the other is Don’t lose your balance. M Sc That’s Mary Sam. David, I also have a website. That’s don’t lose your balance.com I hope today tomorrow and always you don’t lose your balance and I look forward to hearing how you didn’t lose your balance along your life’s journey and I’ll see you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Hi, I am Mallory Durrick. I am a creative. A Marketing Strategist and Web Designer with a small and modest boutique Marketing Agency living in the suburbs of Philadelphia. I am the creator and narrator of this podcast, Don’t Lose Your Balance. This is a culmination of decades of self-help books, countless doctors, numerous hospitals, including rehabs. Once a wife, now divorced, a mother, a grandmother and an addict in recovery. These are things that I am and have experienced.

I’m sharing it all. Baring it all. Hoping to help others; not lose their balance.