Wendi Jagerson: Why Practice Makes Better, Not Perfect
Wendi was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and MS. She didn't think she could get out of bed, but discovered baby steps which helped her move forward.
Listen as Wendi shares:
Pray--even if you don't feel like it
Building a storehouse of remembering
It's not "all or nothing." Do "small or something."
How walking saved her
Love people where they are and love yourself too
Toxic perfectionism
What to do when a spouse doesn't believe anymore
You can find Wendi on her blog: https://walkingwithwendi.blogspot.com
Wendi also talks about the power of Hilary Week's music. Here are links to Hilary's website and her Live All In subscription:
You can read the transcript of Wendi's interview here:
Wendi 0:03
There's a spiritual dynamic of depression that people don't always know about. It's almost as if there's like a force field around you where it's very hard to feel answers to prayer. It's very hard to feel the spirit, it's very hard to feel anything light, or good, or spiritual. That’s the most tragic part, I think, of depression is that the thing that can help most is sometimes the thing you can feel least.
Tamara Anderson 0:38
Welcome to Stories of Hope in Hard Times, the show that explores how people endure and even thrive in difficult times, all with God's help. I'm your host, Tamara K. Anderson. Join me on a journey to find inspiring stories of hope and wisdom learned in life's hardest moments.
My guest today grew up in Palmyra, New York. She has lived in Orem, Utah; Tallahassee, Florida; and Long Mount, Colorado. She's been married to her husband, John, for a quarter of a century. They are the parents of two adult children and grandparents to a very, very loved grandson. She enjoys walking and talking with friends and family, taking pictures in nature, and spending time with her grandson. I'm pleased to present Wendi Jagerson. Wendi, are you ready to share your story of hope?
Wendi 1:37
I am. Thank you.
Tamara Anderson 1:38
Wonderful. So Wendi was an amazing Tetris player when she was younger. This is a little known fact about her. Before we dive in, tell me how that has helped you in your adult life.
Wendi 1:57
Well, I don't know if anybody's played Tetris. There's all the different shapes that you have to fit in to a certain shape and it's timed and so it's under pressure anyway. When I try to put things in my closets, I have a good eye for where I could slide this in right here and make this fit. It kind of becomes a game for me when I organize closets and drawers to try to fit as many things in as neatly as possible.
Tamara Anderson 2:26
Oh, that is so fun. See, I was a Tetris player when I was younger. The only problem I learned is I could never play it right before bed or I would dream about it. I never thought about it with regards to organizing closets. But it's true. I'm also really good at packing a lot of stuff in a car, because I save evenings the same way.
Wendi 2:49
Same thing. Same skill set, I think.
Tamara Anderson 2:52
Oh my goodness. Oh, that is a fun little known fact to start with. Wendi, your life has been kind of crazy. Wendi has lived a very interesting life. She has struggled with clinical depression and has been diagnosed with bipolar two disorder, anxiety, and multiple sclerosis. So I think maybe the best way to start off is to talk about how these diagnoses have impacted your life, what they kept you from doing, and perhaps what baby steps you began taking to overcome some of these challenges.
Wendi 3:43
I think a lot of times we are born with predispositions. When it collides with life circumstances, a lot of times it does develop into something more clinical. I'm an oldest child, and a perfectionist. I babysat a lot. In our family, there were high expectations. I think balancing all of those expectations collided with a predisposition for the illness because no one else in my family struggles with it. At least not to a clinical degree.
I think when I was younger, I was always typically kind of “moody.” My parents are real positive people so they were like, “Can you just quit being so moody?” None of us understood what I was dealing with. Eighth grade was my really last good year and it was a really good year. I was valedictorian and went to all state band and voted most likely to succeed. But then in ninth grade, something shifted. I kind of felt it chemically shifting. It was just an odd feeling. I just became very depressed and my grades suffered and my social life suffered, and it just kind of turned into kind of a downward spiral into my young adulthood really.
I went on an LDS mission, and that was very, very difficult. You're with a companion or partner to do the work. So I was never alone. Oftentimes, you need alone time, away from people, to pull yourself back together. I never had that, but I always had prayer that helped me. When I came home from serving that mission, I was able to finally go to a psychologist and psychiatrist and was diagnosed. I realized that it wasn't all necessarily my fault. I wasn't just moody, that there was a reason for it. The medicine actually really helps. If you picture a roller coaster, the medicine kind of shaves off the top and bottom 10% of the roller coaster. It doesn't cure you, it doesn't fix you, but it makes it possible to live a more normal life like everybody else, within the range of maybe a normal, moody person. It just shaves off the almost impossible lows and highs and gives you a more workable range to deal with.
Bipolar two is different than bipolar one. Bipolar two has really heavy depression with just kind of slight elevated moods called mania. Whereas with bipolar one, the mania is very, very dangerous, and people can go on million dollar spending sprees or be hospitalized. That's not what I have. Bipolar two is just heavy on the depression with some elevated mood in between. It's just kind of unpredictable about when the swing will happen. Then there's some just very regular times in between.
Tamara Anderson 7:05
Those are good things to explain, because I think it's important that people understand what these things look like. Because sometimes people might have bipolar disorder and just not realize that they have it. From what I understand, it often goes undiagnosed. They'll be diagnosed with depression, instead of being bipolar, and the medication doesn't always line up the way it's supposed to.
Wendi 7:29
Absolutely true. Even afterward, we tried all different medicines, and the medicine that actually works for me, targets dopamine, whereas serotonin is what almost all the antidepressants target. Mine isn't a serotonin problem. Mine's a dopamine problem. So there’s only one medicine that helps with that, whereas all the other ones don't. So there's a trial and error also with medication.
Tamara Anderson 8:01
So what would you say about people who are struggling, maybe in trying to find the right medication to help control either depression or bipolar disorder? What advice would you give to someone who's struggling with that?
Wendi 8:16
Number one, be patient with yourself. It's so easy to get discouraged. There's a difference between psychologists and therapists. Psychiatrists prescribe medicine. Psychologists or therapists are more like talking things through and coping mechanisms and that kind of thing. So a psychiatrist is one that you would go to if you needed medicine, and they monitor that, but it is absolutely a trial and error. Even they will tell you that, because everybody's chemistry is different. So even if it looks like it would match up, sometimes it doesn't.
After I had my babies, we went through that. For 10 years, I probably did eight or nine of the regular SSRI medicines that target the serotonin, and they just made me sleepy and groggy. They didn't do anything for the depression, Maybe just a little bit, but not enough to matter. Whereas this other one that I take, it's always been helpful from the very beginning. Maybe I needed a time of darkness to understand more, to have more empathy for people who struggle even more than I do. I've often wondered that.
Tamara Anderson 9:31
What did your time of darkness teach you?
Wendi 9:36
Just to be prayerful, and to hang on to any light, any hope that I could manage to find. Also, to try to find people who were kind and patient and empathetic My husband is very much that. He's been my very best supporter through the whole thing. He's been front line with the hard stuff too. I found some friends that were just absolutely crucial. Walking and talking with them has made all the difference.
There's a spiritual dynamic of depression that people don't always know about. It's almost as if there's like a force field around you, where it's very hard to feel answers to prayer. It's very hard to feel the spirit, it's very hard to feel anything light, or good, or spiritual. That's the most tragic part, I think, of depression, is that the thing that can help most is sometimes the thing you can feel least. It's not that you're not worthy of those things. It's part of the illness. That's something really important that I think people should remember, is that it's not their fault if they don't feel like their prayers are going past the ceiling, or if they're not getting answers. Self love and patience are a really important aspect and one that I actually struggle with also.
Tamara Anderson 11:23
I have family members who struggle with this. So I've heard that kind of description before because they've had to describe it to me. I can't even imagine how hard that would be. You mentioned prayer being so important. How does prayer help you when you can't always feel the answers?
Wendi 11:48
I've always been a prayerful person. I am a big believer in Christ's grace. I have a lot of spiritual experiences in my storehouse that I draw from. That reminds me that I've had answers to prayers in the past. I've had spiritual experiences. I've had the light break through in the past. My husband always tells me this, “When you're in it, it's hard to remember that anything good ever happened, or that anything good could ever happen again.” My husband has just always been very good reminds me that we've been through this before and it ends. You're going to get through this, you just have to hang on. And he's right. The more I practice, the better and the easier it gets for me to pull out of it. The medicine helps.
I think, also built into a mental illness, you just develop habits. As you go through life and mental illness, I think there's a cluster of struggles that come with it. As you're healing from mental illness, you can change your habits and your coping mechanisms. That's what helps make the depressions, I believe, end a little quicker. It helps you to cope a little bit more in them.
As far as prayer, I've just always prayed, even when I don't feel like there's an answer. I've just always asked to feel that love or to just be able to hang on. There is so much more in store and I just need to be reminded of that. I asked for that a lot. Please help me to remember that it's gonna get better.
Tamara Anderson 13:38
I love that comment you made about having your storehouse of things that you remember. I think that is important. Remembering is a huge, huge word. It is hard when you're in the pits of despair to remember some of these things, like I have felt God's love before. I felt his arms around me. I've seen how he sent these angels into my life, whether it be your husband or your friends that you were talking about. You know that He's answered those prayers. Sometimes it is through people that you encounter here on Earth.
Wendi 14:14
I think it's often through people.
Tamara Anderson 14:16
You've mentioned coping techniques and habits. What are some of the coping techniques and habits that have helped you with mental illness?
Wendi 14:31
Well, the biggest one that I learned early on is both perfectionists and people who struggle with mental illness tend to have all or nothing, black or white thinking. Most of us can deal with that just as humans, but with depression it's all or nothing, black or white. That's actually why sometimes suicide feels like an answer because it feels like I either live and be miserable or die and find relief. That's the most dramatic one, all or nothing. So instead of all or nothing, I try to focus on small or something. As far as service goes, you can't help everybody with everything, but you can help someone with something. I can't do everything today, but I can do a couple of things. I can get in the shower, I can go on a walk. I can wipe off the counter, I could make my bed, I could practice the piano. I can do just a couple things if I can't do everything. That's been the biggest thing that's helped me, is small or something.
Tamara Anderson 15:50
That is beautiful. You found great help with walking. Why don't you talk me through that? Because that's been that's a very fun journey.
Wendi 16:02
When I came home, and when I was diagnosed, I was on medicine for a little while. I almost immediately started feeling better. This was when I was 23 or 24. My husband and I got married a year later. We had a honeymoon baby right off the bat. I had to go off the medicine, like cold turkey, and you're not supposed to do that, but I didn't know we were going to get pregnant. So I stopped immediately. We had our first baby, and then we had our son two and a half years later. While I was pregnant, and nursing and pregnant, I didn't take any medicine. I just tried to keep my life very simple. I did okay with that. My son was in the NICU, the newborn intensive care unit, for the first 10 days of his life. The other thing about bipolar is sleep deprivation is almost always the cause of a manic episode. Young moms are sleep deprived, but especially when I was discharged from the hospital, I don't even remember if I was able to hold my son. I was discharged and had to pump at home and then go to the hospital and be available to nurse. I didn’t have a room. We did that for seven days a week. I was sleep deprived. I was worried. That really kicked my depression into high gear.
Then we tried the medicine that had worked before and it didn't work. That kicked off the 10 years from my son was born in 1999 until 2010 of trying all these different medicines. I was only able to nurse him a couple months, and then I needed to stop and try to be on medicine. I just spent a lot of that time in bed. There were a couple years that I functioned pretty well. But I spent a lot of those years in bed. So in the end of 2010 I remember I was sitting on the side of my bed. I had some social anxiety. It was even hard for me to leave the house, and sometimes even hard for me to leave my bedroom. I was sitting on the side of my bed thinking I'm not actually doing anybody any good. I'm not doing any good for myself, my family, nobody. I just wish I didn't have to be here anymore. I wish I could just go. But I wasn't suicidal. So I'm like, okay, well, I can't die. So I'm going to have to learn how to live.
I remember specifically, I believe it was the Spirit or an answer to prayer that I that I was kind of prompted to start walking. I was scared to leave the house. So the prompting I had was to walk to destinations. We lived four blocks away from Harmon’s grocery store, so every day I would walk to Harmon’s for something like a gallon of milk or a head of lettuce. Just enough that I could carry it in a bag. I would mail letters in a nearby office complex or I would drop off or pick up library books. Costco was a three-mile walk so I would start picking up prescriptions. I would go anywhere I could where it wasn't something heavy that I could take or bring back. I walked destinations like that almost every day for about two years.
A good side effect there is that I was able to lose 45 pounds and keep it off. That was helpful in so many ways. It helped me feel better physically but also mentally. Walking is so good, especially in the sun. When there is no sun, I would especially want to go out and walk because I have a little bit of seasonal affective disorder. That happens in the winter. When you look outside, and you see the gray, it just seems so bleak is. If you go out in it, there's still some light, the sun is still shining. I especially went out when I didn't want to, when it was gray. That actually was probably the most helpful part was just to face all of that, all of those hard things, leaving the house on gray days. That's how walking played into it. I believe walking saved me.
Tamara Anderson 20:44
That is such a fascinating story. It's true, because walking does give you that natural high. Those wonderful endorphins that your body needs. It's like God gave you the right answer at the right time, just start walking. And since you were scared to go outside, pick a place.
Wendi 21:05
If you have a destination, you have your goal. Most of the time, I didn't really have to talk to people, maybe the checker. It was a way that I could just practice getting better. It built on itself.
Tamara Anderson 21:22
Wow. Now you didn't leave your social anxiety untouched. You also did something about that as well. It was like once you conquered one demon, you focused on the next one. Talk to me about your process of what you did to conquer your social anxiety.
Wendi 21:42
Well, could we talk a little bit about my family?
Tamara Anderson 21:45
Yes, let's do that.
Wendi 21:47
So just a little background on that. My husband and I, we actually met in the mission field when we were serving a mission for our church. Didn't really know each other out there, but came home at the same time. Our parents live five blocks away from each other, and they still do. That made it very easy for us to date when we got home. He was actually the one that helped me get medicine. We got engaged.
The blackness started, the darkness kind of closed in. He's the one that suggested I get medicine. We got married in 1995. I started walking at the end of 2010. In August of 2012, he told me that he just had never been able to actually believe in God. He had been given the advice to “fake it until you make it,” with the intent of making it not hypocritical. Just keep doing the good things and it'll come. He just felt like he had never had the spiritual experiences that everybody else talked about. I was starting to feel healthier, I started going to church and doing all the things and he just sat me down one day and just said, “I just I don't believe in anything I can't see. I haven't ever. I've tried and tried and tried.” That was a big blow for me. Because we had this in common. We'd raised our kids in our church with that belief, It really rocked my foundation. He told me he waited until I was healthy enough to handle it. That's like a compliment and a difficulty all in one.
Fast forward to about September 2013. I had spent the year incorporating habits. I would wake up and make my bed and then I would practice the piano and I would go out on my walk and I would wipe the counters. Flossing my teeth at night was the first habit that I started. These habits are the things that kind of helped me build stability and momentum in my life. September 2013, I had just been kind of mourning that year. It wasn't depression, it was a mourning. It was different because I continued to function. On September 4, I just prayed, “What more can I do? I just don't know what else I can do. I'm trying everything and it's not getting easier. I don't want to have an adversarial relationship with my husband. I want to be unified.”
God and Jesus mean everything to me. My husband means everything to me. It was just so hard for me to figure out how to even do this. How do I keep going anyway? The prompting came as words in my mind: “You need to know more people in the stake.” A stake is just a group of congregations in a geographic area. In Utah, it's just a few neighborhoods that are near each other. I thought, well, I need to know more people in my cul de sac and neighborhood. I don't even know the people across the street. I had just been walking, no people. I thought, how am I going to do that? The next day, I realized that there was going to be an adult religion class taught at the church. I decided to try it. It was a stake religion class. It was going to be people throughout the neighborhood. That was the wording of my prompting.
So I thought, I'm going to do that tomorrow. I’m going to go walking and I'm going to go to that class. The other thing I did differently the next morning on September 5 is that I walked my daughter to the bus stop. I decided for my walk I wouldn’t go to a destination. I decided to just walk around a track near our house that’s behind a cemetery. I noticed ahead of me, there were four ladies that were in our neighborhood or church congregation. They stopped at the base of where the path leads up to the cemetery. The cemetery has hills that you can walk up and down. They did that for good exercise. They waited at the base of that hill for me and invited me to come. I said, “No, no, I don't do people. I don't walk with people, I'm just walking alone.” These women were our clergy member’s wives. They’re probably the four most spiritual, kind people in our congregation. They didn't take no for an answer. I was like, Okay, I'll go. I will just listen to them. But they skillfully drew me into the conversation. I had another prompting that I needed to walk with these women.
Tamara Anderson 27:11
How did that make you feel, with the social anxiety?
Wendi 27:15
It occurred to me that these women live in my stake and my ward, or small congregation. That was my prompting. So I'm like, oh, I've just been given an answer to the prompting I had. Not only will I go to this class and meet people, but also I'll be able to walk with these amazing women. I'm not a morning person, and they walked at 7:20. That was very difficult but it really taught me a lot. The third day that week, we started walking and I asked if there were any women that they were worried about? Like, is there anybody that you think might need an extra visit or something? She told me about two of them, and I ended up visiting both of them in the following week. They actually happened to both have birthdays the following week. I look back and things couldn’t have been lined up more easily.
The first lady I visited, she is an older lady who didn't drive. One of the things we do in our churches, there are temples that are different than our weekly church congregations. She went to the temple to do that kind of worship and service every week, but couldn't drive. I was doing that as well, so I drove her there every week for two years. That was really neat, because it was something I was already doing and it was something that I could do. That was an easy way I could serve her.
The other woman was my age, but she also had children and a mother that lived there. They had a lot of problems. They had physical problems, emotional, spiritual, financial, just a lot of problems. I visited her and saw that they could use some help. I literally probably went over to their house probably almost every day of that year. There’s a quote that says, “First observe, then serve.” I would just look around and I would see Oh, they don't normally take out their garbage. So every time I went over, I would take out their garbage. Sometimes I would sweep. It taught me so much.
Those first two visits were so key to the rest of my healing and journey. Heavenly Father taught me exactly what I needed to do, by just showing me step by step with those two people. It just branched out from there. I felt very strongly that I needed to follow this prompting that I'd been given. I felt like it had come as an answer to prayer through the Holy Spirit. I just kind of would wait after church or after activities and try to talk with people, then it eventually got to where I would go through congregation list, and see if there were any names that popped out at me. I would call them or email them and ask if I could visit them.
Sometimes when I was out walking, I would even be drawn to a door and I would just knock on a door. I learned all those skills as a missionary. Even though that mission was the hardest thing I ever did, it taught me those skills. I feel like it was such a gift. Even though that was the hardest struggle it gave me skills for an opportunity 25 years later in my life. I could use those skills to bless people. At first it was all about me. It was all about conquering my social anxiety. I would even say that to people. The reason I'm here is because I'm trying to overcome social anxiety, would you just let me come in and talk to you and practice? I’m so transparent people just believed me.
That's what it was. Most people thought I was selling something. I think everyone was very surprised when it never came up in the conversation. It was really just about practicing getting to know people, making friends, and trying to make their lives better. I very soon realized that it wasn't about me. It was about other people. Over two years, I ended up visiting over 500 women all through Orem. I went as far south as Payson out to Eagle Mountain, and up to Layton. I visited old friends in those areas. It just became this amazing thing.
Because of that, I was strong enough and had enough courage that when my daughter graduated from high school, I went on a tour at Utah Valley University with her, and felt very strongly that I should go back to college. I only had seven credits, because school was so hard for me and so scary. My depression and anxiety would get in the way. Because of that, I was able to go back to college, and over four years gain an Associate’s degree. I continued my visiting. I would talk with professors afterwards and I would talk with students. I was led to many people that were depressed and anxious. I was able to help them. There were several who were dangerously depressed. I was able to walk and talk with them and really make a difference with them. I was able to make the most dear friends and Heavenly Father helped me to find my tribe, find my network. They're the most unlikely friends, we have nothing in common, literally, except for belief in Christ and wanting to be good people. I have these four or five friends that are just very dear to me. They helped me when I was having hard times as well. We continue to help each other. So that's how people came into the picture.
Tamara Anderson 34:07
I'm sitting here, with tears in my eyes, just thinking how incredible it is that God can take broken people like you and like me, and help us when we're stuck. Just looking at our own problems. He says, “I want you to get to know other people.” It’s such an interesting process that by looking outside of your own problems, it just gives us perspective. What do you think it is that it does?
Wendi 34:42
Well, there's a quote that I read one time that says if you hold a pebble in front of your eye, that's all you can see, but if you toss it on the ground, you see it in perspective. You see that there's so much more to the picture than just this big pebble in front of your eye. I think that's part of it. I think, a lot of times, we as humans are a little bit selfish. It's important to look after ourselves. I think it's easy to get in our own heads. Then if you add mental illness on top of that, you're always just trying to figure out why am I feeling this way? I’ve just got to figure this out. It actually maybe causes you to go inward even more.
To look outward, it absolutely does that. It's like tossing the pebble on the ground. It's almost like a healthy distraction, to be able to look around and see. You don't have to look far to find somebody that's worse off than you. It really does put your problems in perspective. I just think of it as a healthy distraction. It just helps get you out of your head and out of your own life and into somebody else's. It always just feels good to connect with people, even people with social anxiety if you practice. It feels good to connect with others. We're not meant to be here alone. We're here to help each other. It’s counter intuitive, but when you're feeling bad, try to go out and help somebody else that feels bad. It truly is the thing that works the best.
Tamara Anderson 36:16
It was exactly what you needed at exactly the right time.
Wendi 36:22
Like you said, it’s baby steps. At first, I had to just practice leaving the house. Then two years later, that's when I started adding people. So Heavenly Father was very kind to me. Helped me all along the way.
Tamara Anderson 36:37
We are going to pause and take a quick break. When we get back, I'm going to have Wendi talk to us a little bit about loving people where they are.
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And we're back. I've been talking to Wendi Jacobson about her amazing coping techniques and strategies she's put in place dealing with bipolar issues, depression issues and social anxiety issues. It's just been baby steps. You employ one thing at a time. Let's talk a little bit about love. Because you have all sorts of people you have come to love. This is not only within your own family, people with different beliefs, but also people that you've reached out to and met throughout your neighborhood and community. So talk to me a little bit about loving people where they are.
Wendi 38:42
Well, it's what Jesus does, right? We read in the Bible that Jesus didn't just hang out with the elite. In fact, He hung out with people who really needed what he had to offer, people who really struggled in so many areas, and He met people where they're at. That is actually, I think, one of the definitions of grace, that we know as Christians. Loving people where they're at is, I believe, trying to love people, trying to see people a little more like Jesus sees them and being patient with others. A lot of times we can see that we’re doing the best we can. I really try to remember that. I think people wake up in the morning and they're trying to do the best they can. Most people don't get up and think, “How can I make life miserable for other people?” Mostly, we try to do the best we can.
A lot of times we fail miserably in many areas, but we're trying. My big mantra to myself is we're all doing the best we can. Just assume people are doing the best they can. That's a really easy way to love people where they're at because if you're expecting more than people can give it just kind of sets relationships and people up for failure. If you just take people as they are, as you meet them, as they are doing, that's really the healthiest way to live. To love me where I'm at is what I'm still practicing.
Tamara Anderson 40:17
Yes, because we need to include ourselves in that. You're in the process of writing a book, just for friends and family. I love that the title of your book. It is “Practice Makes Better: Perspective Shifts From a Recovering Perfectionist.” I love that you call yourself a recovering perfectionist, because often we expect perfection of ourselves. We're not perfect,
Wendi 40:46
No, and we never will be in this life. Christ is the only one that is perfect. If we ever do become perfect, it will be through His perfection. When we try to be perfect in this life, we're trying to do an impossible thing. It always sets us up for failure. A long time ago, I just started calling myself a failed perfectionist. That was kind of negative though, so I switched to recovering perfectionist. In my last paper of my Associate’s degree, I wrote on perfectionism. I talked about how to overcome perfectionism, and how to ease the pressure of perfectionism. In one article, I read that we're all in a different place in that path. I think there's a lot of people who are farther along that path, but I am walking it and doing my best.
Tamara Anderson 41:42
I love that you're a recovering perfectionist. I have those tendencies too. I think just the challenges of life have beaten me down so many times. I figured out my living room does not have to look perfect and my kitchen does not have to have the counters wiped off right now. That was so not me when I got married 20 some odd years ago. It was so not me. I was that same type of person that everything has to be clean and perfect. With two kids on the autism spectrum, I’ve learned it's not the most important thing.
Wendi 42:23
You do have to figure out your priorities. The term that I that I learned in my research was “toxic perfectionism.” A lot of women have it, but a lot of religious women especially struggle with toxic perfectionism, the kind of perfectionism that is detrimental. It's trying to do all things to a high level. No human can do all things to a high level. You can do some things really well. You can wipe your counters if that's one of the only things you're doing during the day, like I did back in my habits. But the more people you have in your life, the less you're going to have a clean house, the less you're going to have perfection. Because people are messy and time consuming and that’s as it should be.
Tamara Anderson 43:13
So let me ask you this, because I think one of the things that people also struggle with is that love of self, and you've mentioned that a couple of times, what have been perhaps the most important things that you've done to be able to learn to love yourself?
Wendi 43:32
I'm still just doing baby steps on this one. This has been my final frontier. I was watching my daughter try to help her baby son fall asleep at eight months. You can do sleep training where you put them in the crib and they cry, and then you go in at intervals. Anyway, I was watching my daughter on the monitor. He was just beside himself screaming and she was just looking down at him and kind of stroking his hair. Then she was going to go back out. This was about a month ago. In that moment, I realized that I know how to self-criticize, but I have never learned how to self-comfort. I just have never learned how to do it. I know how to do it for other people. I really know how to be empathetic for other people. I've just been really harsh with myself as a perfectionist and mental illness, I think, adds to that. I just feel like self-compassion is something I want to try to work on the rest of my life.
I work with a life coach and she talks about having your own back. If you don't have your own back when life is going down, who else is going to lift you up and encourage you? It has to come from us first. In the Bible, we love God. We love others. We love ourselves. It's all love. That's going to be a lifelong challenge, I think, that I'm going to continue to work on. As we learn to do it with other people, loving them where they're at, I think we can practice envisioning “What would I say to my friend in this circumstance” and try to apply that to us. I'm still not doing that as well as I would like, but practice makes better.
Tamara Anderson 45:26
Yes, it does. I love that, “practice makes better.” One of the things we have not delved into at all is multiple sclerosis. Because you didn't have enough on your plate. No, bless you, my dear. So first of all, what is multiple sclerosis? I have not interviewed anybody that has multiple sclerosis, so just educate me and my listeners a little bit about what Multiple Sclerosis is, and what this obstacle has meant for you.
Wendi 46:03
I'll just do it real non-technical. So if you envision a vacuum cord, there's the metal wires on the inside with rubber on the outside? Well, if you nick a vacuum cord just right, it'll put a little divot in it. You can sometimes see the wiring underneath. I don't know if you've ever had that happen. If you think of your spinal cord, and the covering around your brain, it's called the myelin sheath. It's like the rubber around that vacuum cord. The electric current on the inside is like your spinal cord in your brain. Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease. Autoimmune means your body attacks itself. As it attacks, it causes lesions, or scleroses is the medical term. Multiple Sclerosis means there are multiple lesions on your brain and on your spinal cord. If it goes deep enough then it affects the way the nerves pass along information. It interrupts that, so then it ends up causing numbness and tingling and other things.
My lesion is on the myelin sheath on the outside of the T nine disk my spinal cord. I remember probably the first episode I had was when I was pregnant with my daughter. I had my legs tingle so bad that in the last month, my husband would just hold my legs on his lap while we would watch movies to just distract me. I think that was probably the first episode. I was diagnosed in January of 2013. All through 2012, I had multiple MRIs. Finally, our deductible was met. Nobody could ever figure out what was wrong. I had numbness and tingling on my right side from my ribs, where the T nine is, all the way to my toes. So that whole right side of my body tingles and is numb from time to time. It's different all the time. It makes me limp. Sometimes it's a little bit in my left leg as well.
MS is diagnosed with a spinal tap. There's lots of illnesses that can mimic it, like lupus. They have to find the lesion first. So when they did the fifth set of MRIs, they do them with and without contrast. You're in the tube for like two hours. They finally found the lesion with the contrast. It had always been there but the doctors always thought it was and “artifact.” An artifact is like interference in the film. They had been there all along, but they weren't able to see it clearly. That was in December of 2012. In January 2013, I had the spinal tap. When you get a spinal tap, there's a certain kind of protein with a very long name that they’re looking for. I had a high level of those proteins. They found that and it was confirmed.
So you have to remember the timeline. August of 2012 is when my husband told me he didn't believe anymore. This MS business was all happening in 2012, all these MRIs and then January 2013 was when I was diagnosed and then September of 2013 is when I had the prompting to get to know more people. So that was a lot happening in those two years. I really do believe that if I hadn't started walking when I did that the combination of my husband not believing and MS, I may never have gotten out of bed. Life may have just been too much for me. I just thank God every day that he helped me to learn to walk. When I walk, it does help with my bipolar, but also with MS. Any walking you do helps anything in your body. It also is kind of uncomfortable for my MS though. So I have to wear very tight, thick skinny jeans, and extremely expensive sneakers. And if I wear those sneakers and my thick, thick skinny jeans, then I don't limp. I can walk pretty well.
We had to move out of our four level split home in 2016 because it got to the point where I had to kind of pull myself up the bannister. I just had this weakness. I had weakness in my leg. Even though I was walking all the time, I was in good shape, but I just couldn't do stairs. My husband built us a main level living house. It was built with really wide areas for a future wheelchair. A lot of people do end up in a wheelchair. Some people lose their mobility. Some people lose sight. Some people even lose control of their bladder. But so far for me, it's just that numbness on that one side and it wakes me up at night and that kind of thing. But it's very doable. I believe walking is part of the reason it's so doable.
Tamara Anderson 51:43
Wow, that's amazing. So let me ask you this, what advice would you give to someone who has a spouse like yours, who decides they don't believe anymore? What have you done to keep your marriage successful, and happy, and joy filled when you're married to someone who is not a believer?
Wendi 52:05
Well, it's not easy. I'm not going to tell you it's an easy thing. It's been one of the most difficult things in my life. I've had eight years to practice. Practice makes better. I'm telling you, that's my mantra. My husband is the best person I know. He was in the beginning, and he still is. A lot of times when people hear the word atheist, they think of a militant, kind of bad person. I believe most atheists, at least the, the brand that my husband and son are is they feel like if this life is it, if there's nothing after this life, then they're going to make this life count. They're going to try to be the best person they can be. They're going to try to make life just as good as they can for other people. They're giving and loving. That's the case with my husband. He's the most loving, kind person I know. He has been so patient with me with my bipolar and with MS.
When I was in bed, he had to shoulder a lot of the household duties. I think about that a lot. He has stood by me through all this, so of course I can stand by him in something that's a struggle. It’s not a struggle for him, he has decided. It’s something that's a struggle for me. I can absolutely stand by him because he has stood by me. So there's that. Just remembering that everybody's trying the best they can. One of the things I believe in is the Atonement of Christ.
There’s another principle, which is agency, or the freedom to choose. I believe they're absolutely connected. You can't have freedom to choose without the blessing of the Atonement of Christ to improve when you make mistakes. I remind myself of that a lot. I don't want to inhibit other people's agency, people are going to choose. They have already made their choice. My children don't believe either, they already made their choice. I can either fight against it and make them and me miserable, or I can accept that they have made their choice. I can love them where they're at. It's not condoning it.
A lot of people are like, “Oh, I can't accept them because then it's condoning what they're doing.” It's not. They're doing it, people are going to do whatever they're going to do. They're going to choose and so for me, that really is what helps me with my family. What helps me with other people is just remembering that people are all on their own journey. We're all walking back to God in our own way and in our own time and if you don't believe in God, we're still on our journey. I just feel like we can't judge each other. We can't judge ourselves, but we really can't judge each other because we're all doing the best we can. We're all at different levels.
When I struggle and make mistakes, sometimes those really are the times I learned the most. I hate that. It does seem that we learn the most in struggles. I really do believe that everybody learns at the level and at the speed that they're going to learn. They're going to make the choices. I just love them where they're at. I remember that they let me choose to, they support, they don't criticize me because I still want to believe and I still want to be actively involved in a church. They try very hard not to do that. I would like to extend the same courtesy to them. That's kind of the way I handle it. I just remember that God loves them just as much as he loves me, probably more. He wants to reach out to all of us. I think that God loves people who don't love him.
Tamara Anderson 56:04
I completely agree. Oh, that's beautiful.
Wendi 56:08
He’s perfect. So I’m just trying in my own, tiny, little way to practice doing it how he does.
Tamara Anderson 56:13
Oh, you're such a great example of that. Now, let me ask you this, Wendi, is there a favorite verse of scripture that has become meaningful to you through all of your ups and downs of life?
Wendi 56:30
Philippians 4:13.
Tamara Anderson 56:43
“I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me.” Tell me why that's a favorite. That's actually my mantra, so I resonate with that so much.
Wendi 56:54
It's bite size. It's a very easy one to remember. For me, that one has been so powerful, because when I was anxious and depressed, I couldn't do things on my own strength. I had to depend on Him. I feel like I did things that were superhuman for me. I shouldn't have been able to do those things. Very few people visit 500 women, even completely healthy extroverts. The things that I've been able to do are completely impossible for me to do in my own strength. I just am so grateful for Christ’s strength. If I can yoke myself to him, He can pull me along. He can stand by my side and help me. That's why with overcoming anxiety and depression that has been my saving verse.
Tamara Anderson 57:45
I love that. The other one is in Proverbs 3:5-6. “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.” Why is that one meaningful to you?
Wendi 58:00
I have a ceramic, decorative anchor that says, “Anchored.” It has that Proverbs verse on it. I have it at the base of my office, like down by the baseboard, like an anchor. I don't understand the situation with my family not choosing to believe. I don't understand it, because we started out on the same wavelength. Now, it's completely different. Because I don't understand, and I can't see the future, I just have to trust Heavenly Father that He understands. He sees the whole picture. He sees it all. I believe in the long game. I think God plays the long game, and I want to try to play the long game. I believe that we'll all end up where we're comfortable. He wouldn't want it any other way. I just trust in Him. I trust that He's a perfect parent, and He knows how to do this a lot better than I do.
Tamara Anderson 59:03
Thank goodness.
Wendi 59:04
I just try to trust Him. That's why that one matters a lot to me. When I don't understand things, when I’m so confused and don't know the next step, I just pray and try to follow what He tells me. Now, you mentioned that as far as resources go, you've mentioned Hillary weeks.
Tamara Anderson 59:23
Now, you mentioned that as far as resources go, you've mentioned Hillary Weeks. She's an inspirational Christian singer. Tell me what her music has done and how it has helped you through all of your struggles.
Wendi 59:35
She's been writing music for 20 years. I've been listening to her ever since 1993. She's produced 12 CDs. The last three have charted on the Billboard Christian charts like in the top 10. She's really good. She's not just inspirational, she's amazingly talented. Anyway, she's a really good person, too. I've met her a couple times. Her life and her music, it's very grace and Christ centered. It's also very positive. It talks about how you have the power within you to overcome hard things. There's one song called “Brave.” That was kind of like my theme song. It’s essentially about going out and meeting the day basically being brave. I listened to that every day before I went out visiting. There's a lot of songs that are like that. The CD is called “Every Step.” So while I was walking every step, that CD was just my soundtrack.
The next one was called, “Say Love,” and it's from 2013. It's all about loving people where they're at. It’s really all about grace. The one in 2016 is called “Love Your Life.” It’s very much about just really loving where you're at, and loving the things you've been given. Now she has a subscription service that started in 2019. She has a new song that she releases on the first day of the month. She also gives you the lyrics and the piano music. I also have her artwork all over my office. There's card sized ones, and there's 5x7 and I've got like 40 of them as a reminder that God's in control and that I can do hard things. So that's why I love her. That subscription is I think less than $50 a year, it's not very much. You can find that at liveallintoday.com. There's also an app, the Live All In app, and you have all of her songs that are just on the app, and they have the artwork behind them. She's really done an amazing job. She does not pay me but I am her biggest fan. I actually owe, besides Jesus, I owe my life to her basically, because she was she was the one that helped me through my journey. So very grateful to her.
Tamara Anderson 1:02:29
I’m getting all teary again.
Wendi 1:02:30
That's my plug for her. There's nothing else that’s just so uplifting.
Tamara Anderson 1:02:37
Thank you. Now Wendi, there's going to be people that are just so touched by all the stories and the wisdom that you've shared, that they're going to want to connect with you. What is the best way for them to connect with you?
Wendi 1:02:52
Well, back in 2017, I made little business cards, but they're not business cards. They're what I do cards. They say Walking with Wendi. I handed them out to my friends and family. My blog is walkingwithwendi.blogspot.com. It's Wendi with an i. The blog is called Wend your Way. At first it was just the accountability tool I used to write the first draft of my book. I wrote it in six weeks, so it's just kind of slapped on there. There's a lot of Hilary Weeks lyrics and it's my journey. Since then I've refined and everything. I've put a few other positive things on there. I'm not a famous person. That’s a place that people could just leave a comment or their email or whatever. That's how people could get ahold me.
Tamara Anderson 1:03:45
Thank you. That's perfect. Oh, my goodness. Well, Wendi, you have been so generous with sharing such personal stories, and giving out such amazing bits of wisdom of things you've learned along the way. I just can't thank you enough for being willing to share your baby steps of courage that have taken you from basically being completely incapacitated to influencing so many people for good. So thank you. Thank you for being willing to share.
Wendi 1:04:23
Thank you. Can I just say one more thing?
Tamara Anderson 1:04:25
Absolutely.
Wendi 1:04:27
You and I have talked about this the last six week., I've been in a very, very deep depression. We've all been through COVID. I did not expect that depression to ever happen again, but it is part of my illness. It's just very interesting. We've talked about this. The day that you asked me to be on this podcast, I finally just had broken and I've surfaced from this depression. In the book and on my journey in the blog, I talk a lot about my recovery. I don't talk a lot about the darkness, but this reminded me again about the darkness. We're never done with the struggles we have. They suck. Sometimes they circle around again as we use the skills and the gifts He gives us so we can overcome them and be okay within them.
So I just wanted to say that I'm just so grateful that Heavenly Father helped me surface again in just the right timing. It's not all rosy. I've overcome so much. But there's always things to overcome, and there's always things to even sometimes relearn. So I just wanted to say that, just so people don't think, oh, she's just figured it out. I have not. It's a process. It's absolutely a process. So I just needed to say that, just so that people didn't think I had it all figured out. I seriously don't.
Tamara Anderson 1:05:53
None of us do, my dear. Hopefully, Wendi sharing her steps along her journey of life will inspire you to take a baby step in your own direction. So, Wendi, thanks again for sharing your story. It has inspired me so very much. And I know it will have a ripple effect to help others as well. So thank you.
Hey, thanks so much for listening to today's show. I know that there are many of you out there that are going through a hard time and I hope you found things that have been useful today, as you listen to the podcast. If you would like to access the show notes from today's podcast, visit my website. That is storiesofhopepodcast.com. That is where you'll find favorite quotes from today's episode, and shareable memes. Those are fun because you can share them with your friends on social media. You will also find the links mentioned throughout today's episode, so you don't have to remember what those were, and also all the tips that were shared. Sometimes tips are shared so much throughout an episode you forget and wonder what were those great things? So go to the show notes, storiesofhopepodcast.com to look up these fantastic resources. You know, if someone kept coming to mind during today's episode, perhaps that means that you should share this with them. Maybe there was a story shared or a tip that they really, really need to hear. So go ahead and share this episode with them. May God bless you, especially if you're struggling, with hope to carry on and with the strength to keep going when things get tough. Remember to walk with Christ and He will help bear that burden. Above all else, remember God loves you.