Picking Up The Pieces From Childhood With Angela Legh

Howard Brown: 00:00:05

Hello, welcome to Shining Brightly your host

Howard Brown: 00:00:08

extraordinaire Howard Brown here today. What a great day. We are

Howard Brown: 00:00:11

so lucky. We have Angela Lee with us today. And we are going

Howard Brown: 00:00:16

to talk about emotional intelligence that matters. It's,

Howard Brown: 00:00:20

it's not a subject that you probably often think about. But

Howard Brown: 00:00:22

I think when you get finished with this session, you're gonna

Howard Brown: 00:00:25

find out that it's really needed and Angelo, welcome. Welcome.

Howard Brown: 00:00:29

How are you today?

Angela Legh: 00:00:30

Thank you so much, Howard. I am doing amazing. I am

Angela Legh: 00:00:33

just so happy. I'm happy to be here. I'm happy to talk to your

Angela Legh: 00:00:38

listeners and have a great chat with you.

Howard Brown: 00:00:40

I'm so thrilled and I'm here in sunny hot

Howard Brown: 00:00:44

Michigan and and you're in Taos, New Mexico? Probably lovely. A

Howard Brown: 00:00:47

little cooler. No. Cooler. Yeah. Excellent, excellent. Well,

Howard Brown: 00:00:52

we've chosen this emotional intelligence and why it matters.

Howard Brown: 00:00:55

It's really important. But I think we've got to give a little

Howard Brown: 00:00:57

bit of background. So I'm going to just do a short bio, and

Howard Brown: 00:01:00

you'll fill in some of this, but you had quite quite an

Howard Brown: 00:01:03

upbringing. And you had a dad who was an alcoholic, you call

Howard Brown: 00:01:07

your mother angelic, I want to learn more about that, with a

Howard Brown: 00:01:12

profound impact on you. And I think that the audience and the

Howard Brown: 00:01:18

listeners and viewers are going to want to know about behaviours

Howard Brown: 00:01:20

that that, you know, make you powerless, because I think

Howard Brown: 00:01:23

that's a very common theme in today's society. And, you know,

Howard Brown: 00:01:28

sticking staying in toxic relationships, Why'd it? Why

Howard Brown: 00:01:32

would someone do that, and people do that all the time. And

Howard Brown: 00:01:35

then you got you are in a big tragedy, the Tubbs wildfire in

Howard Brown: 00:01:39

Northern California, you lost your house, you lost everything,

Howard Brown: 00:01:43

you had to start from scratch.

Angela Legh: 00:01:45

Just the clothes on our back. That's it.

Howard Brown: 00:01:48

We're gonna go there, too. And then you talked

Howard Brown: 00:01:52

about relationships. And so with my book coming out with Shining

Howard Brown: 00:01:56

Brightly coming out, I have to tell you, I've had to examine

Howard Brown: 00:01:59

that too. I didn't have the wildfire. But I had another fire

Howard Brown: 00:02:02

in my life called stage four colorectal cancer. And the

Howard Brown: 00:02:06

emotional, physical, financial relationship toll that it took

Howard Brown: 00:02:13

was something that I do talk about in my book, but I want to

Howard Brown: 00:02:16

hear it from your point of view. And you've also written

Howard Brown: 00:02:20

children's books that are really helpful. We're gonna get to

Howard Brown: 00:02:22

that. So we got a juicy little segment here. So okay, don't

Howard Brown: 00:02:26

tell me. Where do you where do you want to start? Where what

Howard Brown: 00:02:27

part of your bio, do you want to start?

Angela Legh: 00:02:29

Oh, gosh, um, well, you asked about my mother. So

Angela Legh: 00:02:34

let's go to mom. Yeah, let's start with some shining

Angela Legh: 00:02:37

brightly. My mom, she I never heard her ever make a judgement

Angela Legh: 00:02:43

about anyone. She was able to accept people as they are. And

Angela Legh: 00:02:51

even though, you know, I know that my father was challenging

Angela Legh: 00:02:56

for her because she would get phone calls from us little kid's

Angela Legh: 00:03:01

complaining about what he was doing to us while she was at

Angela Legh: 00:03:06

work. And yet I have no recollection of her ever coming

Angela Legh: 00:03:14

down on him. She just did her best to up lift him and, and,

Angela Legh: 00:03:24

you know, hold him in a space of love as opposed to blame. And so

Angela Legh: 00:03:29

yes, she

Howard Brown: 00:03:30

was she too passive? It seems like she was

Howard Brown: 00:03:33

somewhat passive was Was he physically abusive? Or is he

Howard Brown: 00:03:36

just, it was anger management. And

Angela Legh: 00:03:39

it was, I call him a raging alcoholic. And his rage

Angela Legh: 00:03:46

was a huge thing in my young life, our young lives. He was

Angela Legh: 00:03:54

emotionally and physically. And it's possible. I don't know if

Angela Legh: 00:04:02

this happen. I have repressed it so much that I don't remember.

Angela Legh: 00:04:07

But there is some question about whether there was sexual abuse

Angela Legh: 00:04:14

or not also, so you know, I'm not really going to go go there

Angela Legh: 00:04:20

too much. Yeah. He was just a very hurt man, who. I'm gonna

Angela Legh: 00:04:31

back it up to his childhood. My understanding of my father was

Angela Legh: 00:04:38

hugely opened up when my aunt said Jimmy was such a sensitive

Angela Legh: 00:04:44

child. Now, he was born in 1925. So if you can imagine in the

Angela Legh: 00:04:52

Depression, being a sensitive boy was not acceptable for to

Angela Legh: 00:04:59

anybody So his father tried to beat out of him his sensitivity.

Angela Legh: 00:05:08

He always knew that he never measured up in his father's

Angela Legh: 00:05:13

eyes, he was not good enough. So my father, no matter what he

Angela Legh: 00:05:20

did, it was not good enough. So he turned to alcohol to numb his

Angela Legh: 00:05:27

painful feelings, his painful feelings of not being worthy,

Angela Legh: 00:05:31

not not having his dad's love. And when he was drunk, his

Angela Legh: 00:05:40

behaviours caused his family to see him as not a good enough

Angela Legh: 00:05:46

dad. And so he just perpetrated that perpetuated that feeling

Angela Legh: 00:05:53

throughout his life, by his choice to numb the feeling with

Angela Legh: 00:06:00

alcohol. And if he had been able, if he knew the tools that

Angela Legh: 00:06:05

I now know about how to face a painful feeling, he could have

Angela Legh: 00:06:13

made tremendously different choices in his life.

Howard Brown: 00:06:17

I would say that he kept the cycle of his own

Howard Brown: 00:06:22

dad's treatment towards him, but but he came out when he was

Howard Brown: 00:06:25

numbed with being drunk. And he wasn't able to alcohol and

Howard Brown: 00:06:31

drugs, very powerful, wasn't able to heal himself. And he

Howard Brown: 00:06:35

perpetuated it and kept it and he passed it on. And that cycle

Howard Brown: 00:06:40

continued, and it affected you and your siblings and your mom

Howard Brown: 00:06:43

greatly. And thank you for one sharing so openly and raw. It's

Howard Brown: 00:06:49

your You're breaking my heart. But I like I'd like you to

Howard Brown: 00:06:53

continue on and see what lessons we can learn from, from this

Howard Brown: 00:06:56

harshness that you had to deal with as a little girl and

Howard Brown: 00:06:58

growing up.

Angela Legh: 00:07:02

You know, and I'm not alone. And there's lots of

Angela Legh: 00:07:06

people who have experienced really terrible things in their

Angela Legh: 00:07:11

youth. And one of the decisions I made when I was very young,

Angela Legh: 00:07:22

was the anger or rage is terrible. And it's a feeling

Angela Legh: 00:07:29

that I should not express and I, I judged everyone who ever

Angela Legh: 00:07:35

expressed anger. When you think about a little three or four

Angela Legh: 00:07:41

year old, on the receiving end of rage, you can see where they

Angela Legh: 00:07:47

get where a young child would get that idea, this isn't good,

Angela Legh: 00:07:52

this is really bad, I should never have this. But the

Angela Legh: 00:07:58

repression of my own anger led to some poor choices in my life.

Angela Legh: 00:08:06

And when we, when we disallow any emotion, whether we think of

Angela Legh: 00:08:15

it as good or bad, then we are denying a part of ourselves

Angela Legh: 00:08:22

because our emotions, our information, they're there,

Angela Legh: 00:08:28

they're there to alert us, Hey, we are having this problem, or

Angela Legh: 00:08:32

hey, we really liked this, their information and nothing more

Angela Legh: 00:08:37

their energy, the flow of an emotion has been biochemically

Angela Legh: 00:08:44

measured to be about 90 to 120 seconds. So when we allow the

Angela Legh: 00:08:52

flow of an emotion, instead of repressing it, pushing it away,

Angela Legh: 00:08:58

escaping it, it'll leave us really quickly. The problem is

Angela Legh: 00:09:06

that when we have really deep emotions, grief, anger, these

Angela Legh: 00:09:13

really overwhelming emotions, that there seems to be no way

Angela Legh: 00:09:19

out of them. You need to basically allow that emotion

Angela Legh: 00:09:27

every time it comes up. And that slowly unbuilt, that mountain of

Angela Legh: 00:09:34

feeling that you're experiencing. So before I go any

Angela Legh: 00:09:38

further I want to give the tool that allows this Yeah, because

Angela Legh: 00:09:44

it's really important. It what this does is disconnects your

Angela Legh: 00:09:52

mind from the emotion because when our mind becomes involved

Angela Legh: 00:09:58

in the emotion that extends the amount of time we feel the

Angela Legh: 00:10:04

emotion. I call it the story when the story is in the

Angela Legh: 00:10:08

emotion. It goes on for a long time. But when we can just

Angela Legh: 00:10:13

witness the feeling that's when it can flow and it can leave us.

Angela Legh: 00:10:20

So to witness a feeling, you feel it. You pay attention.

Angela Legh: 00:10:25

Where is it in my body? What? How strong? Is it? What does it

Angela Legh: 00:10:30

feel like? Does it feel like this black knot in my belly? Or

Angela Legh: 00:10:33

is it in my throat when, you know, just notice it? And then

Angela Legh: 00:10:39

name it? I am feeling sad, mad, happy, whatever. And then give

Angela Legh: 00:10:47

yourself permission. Allow the feeling that's it.

Howard Brown: 00:10:53

Too often. Yeah, too often, we just shout back

Howard Brown: 00:10:57

and let the anger build. I agree. I know from my

Howard Brown: 00:11:02

grandfather to my dad to me, especially when I was on

Howard Brown: 00:11:05

steroids. But that's not an excuse. Yeah, I have a temper.

Howard Brown: 00:11:10

You know, and it's not a temper with friends. It's a temper

Howard Brown: 00:11:13

within our family. We're really shows. And it's a discipline

Howard Brown: 00:11:23

that, you know, I have to work on, we'll have to work on

Howard Brown: 00:11:26

because we live in emotional roller coaster times. And we

Howard Brown: 00:11:30

started they started they in, in the 1920s. But there wasn't any

Howard Brown: 00:11:34

cell phones, there wasn't this digital information, the process

Howard Brown: 00:11:37

in two seconds flat and make a split second decision, we need

Howard Brown: 00:11:40

to slow it all down. So I think that those are very wise words

Howard Brown: 00:11:44

is to own it, and to name it. And I think it's really

Howard Brown: 00:11:49

important. So you've had you went on, unfortunately. And you

Howard Brown: 00:11:54

basically it says here that you what do you learn from you

Howard Brown: 00:11:58

married a man that actually their their main emotion was

Howard Brown: 00:12:01

anger, too. So you replicated the cycle? Is that true? I

Angela Legh: 00:12:04

did. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And worse yet, I judged

Angela Legh: 00:12:08

him for being angry. If you can imagine the toxic cycle dynamic

Angela Legh: 00:12:15

of that marriage, he would become angry, I judge him for

Angela Legh: 00:12:19

being angry, he'd get matter. And it was just a downhill toxic

Howard Brown: 00:12:24

cycle. But you stayed for 32 years in that

Howard Brown: 00:12:26

relationship?

Angela Legh: 00:12:27

I did. Yeah. And I this is in no way blaming,

Angela Legh: 00:12:34

because I don't believe in blame. I think I learned from my

Angela Legh: 00:12:41

mother that everyone deserves love. And I know that that's

Angela Legh: 00:12:49

what I kept saying, you know, hey, everyone deserves loves no

Angela Legh: 00:12:54

matter what their behaviour is. And, and so what I worked myself

Angela Legh: 00:13:02

into this corner, because I mean, every few years, I got the

Angela Legh: 00:13:08

idea that my life could be a lot better if I left the marriage.

Angela Legh: 00:13:15

But every time I had that thought, I thought I can't

Angela Legh: 00:13:18

leave, that would hurt him. And I can't be responsible for

Angela Legh: 00:13:22

hurting him. And it took the wildfire really, for me to wake

Angela Legh: 00:13:31

up to the reality that by stain. I was hurting him by judging him

Angela Legh: 00:13:38

every time he got married. I hurt myself too. And I

Howard Brown: 00:13:43

was hurting. Yeah, and you saw your mother do it.

Howard Brown: 00:13:46

And you stayed for for three decades. There is

Howard Brown: 00:13:50

accountability, that these other guys we're not upholding your

Howard Brown: 00:13:58

end of the bargain there as well.

Angela Legh: 00:14:00

That you know that's true. And I can see in

Angela Legh: 00:14:04

both cases, they were men carrying a lot of pain. Okay,

Angela Legh: 00:14:12

and hurt people hurt people. It's, you know, it's everybody.

Angela Legh: 00:14:18

Every time I say that people say yeah. And, and it's a truth when

Angela Legh: 00:14:25

we can you know, the bottom line is I love my ex husband. I love

Angela Legh: 00:14:34

him unconditionally. When I was there I could not because you

Angela Legh: 00:14:41

can't be unconditional in your love when you're the recipient

Angela Legh: 00:14:45

of rage and blame. When that when you're in that

Angela Legh: 00:14:51

circumstance, you have the condition that you're treated

Angela Legh: 00:14:56

better. Oh, there was no way For me to love him unconditionally,

Angela Legh: 00:15:01

scales

Howard Brown: 00:15:02

weren't balanced. I can see that. Again, I

Howard Brown: 00:15:05

obviously never met your father or this man, but it doesn't

Howard Brown: 00:15:09

sound like the scales were balanced. And so you're in this

Howard Brown: 00:15:14

long term relationship. And then devastation happens. This Tubbs

Howard Brown: 00:15:18

wildfire. Yeah. Let's let's talk about let's talk about losing

Howard Brown: 00:15:21

everything here.

Angela Legh: 00:15:23

You know, it's I went to bed that night 1010 30.

Angela Legh: 00:15:29

So it was October 8, ninth went to bed at 1030 on October 8, got

Angela Legh: 00:15:37

awakened by a phone call at 130 saying evacuate immediately

Angela Legh: 00:15:43

looked outside the entire hillside at 130 in the morning,

Angela Legh: 00:15:49

it should be black. But it was an orange glow. But worse yet,

Angela Legh: 00:15:54

there was this sound that stays with me. I still remember it.

Angela Legh: 00:16:02

It's that you know how noisy it is when there's a 65 mile an

Angela Legh: 00:16:08

hour wind. It's very noisy. When you add on top of that the roar

Angela Legh: 00:16:13

of a buyer it was there was like unworldly. This noise and I I

Angela Legh: 00:16:20

just shut the door and I ran downstairs and I said we got to

Angela Legh: 00:16:25

we have to leave right now. So 15 minutes later, we were out of

Angela Legh: 00:16:30

the house. I had grabbed the the photographs, the photo albums

Angela Legh: 00:16:37

because I knew of everything. Those were the least

Angela Legh: 00:16:42

replaceable. And we got the dog and we got out. At 2am we were

Angela Legh: 00:16:53

we were at my mother in law's house. And at 2am There was a

Angela Legh: 00:16:58

notification that they opened the it was the fire it the

Angela Legh: 00:17:09

headquarters where were all the people involved in safety would

Angela Legh: 00:17:13

report with this fire. And my job at the county at the time

Angela Legh: 00:17:20

was to be the health person at this agency in the fire ops

Angela Legh: 00:17:29

looking after the employees health making sure that they

Angela Legh: 00:17:32

were taking breaks, making sure that they got food, you know,

Angela Legh: 00:17:35

making, making sure that they were okay as they were trying to

Angela Legh: 00:17:39

do their work. So at 2am I said, we that we have to go to work.

Angela Legh: 00:17:46

And we left my mother in law's house and tried to drive to this

Angela Legh: 00:17:53

agency in the middle of town. But couldn't because there was

Angela Legh: 00:17:59

fire all around. So as we're driving there with fire on both

Angela Legh: 00:18:04

sides of the street, and we're driving through the fire. It was

Angela Legh: 00:18:10

a horrendous night. And the next morning we walked to our house

Angela Legh: 00:18:15

not sure if it was there. And it wasn't. It was. And this is the

Angela Legh: 00:18:22

part that like I just can't wrap my head around this. A 3000

Angela Legh: 00:18:28

square foot suburban home, you know, that had stood imposingly

Angela Legh: 00:18:35

on the street was now a two foot pile of ash. And all that was

Angela Legh: 00:18:40

left was Foundation. And this front stairs, brick stairs that

Angela Legh: 00:18:45

went up to the front door. So I had a stairway to heaven.

Howard Brown: 00:18:51

You did and so you Wow. I mean that's a lot to

Howard Brown: 00:18:55

throw at anyone. And so you you have to kind of figure out

Howard Brown: 00:19:02

what's next. And that's not easy. So what's next?

Angela Legh: 00:19:06

Well, I have such a recollection of going into

Angela Legh: 00:19:12

WalMart, all the shopping centres are closed, everything's

Angela Legh: 00:19:16

closed but Walmart was open. I needed shoes. I needed

Angela Legh: 00:19:22

toothpaste I needed, you know, makeup, hairbrush, everything

Angela Legh: 00:19:27

you need to go to work the next day and I at one point I look up

Angela Legh: 00:19:33

from the cart, but then I'm pushing and all around the store

Angela Legh: 00:19:37

are people buying the same things I am because there were

Angela Legh: 00:19:41

5000 homes burned. And so it was you know, they talk about

Angela Legh: 00:19:47

pulling the rug out from under you. I imagine that's a little

Angela Legh: 00:19:51

bit like the day you get a cancer diagnosis. It's like your

Angela Legh: 00:19:55

whole world goes upside down. That's for sure. Yeah.

Howard Brown: 00:20:00

So how did this change your life?

Angela Legh: 00:20:02

Ah, well, when I lost everything, except the

Angela Legh: 00:20:10

relationship I had, I was forced to look at the relationship in a

Angela Legh: 00:20:16

way that I had not previously. Because, you know, what I really

Angela Legh: 00:20:22

learned is that possessions are all replaceable, they don't

Angela Legh: 00:20:26

matter, people matter. And so it was an act of self love. The

Angela Legh: 00:20:36

first time I ever truly put myself first, but six months

Angela Legh: 00:20:42

after the fire, I left my husband. And it was the hardest

Angela Legh: 00:20:49

decision I ever made, because I don't want to hurt anybody. But

Angela Legh: 00:20:58

I also recognise that by stain, I was hurting him.

Howard Brown: 00:21:07

I appreciate that. It's so you, you're gonna then

Howard Brown: 00:21:11

you know, you've now focused your work on, you know, you've

Howard Brown: 00:21:18

dealt with your dad with alcoholism, and you've lost you

Howard Brown: 00:21:22

lost all your possessions. And now you're you're basically I

Howard Brown: 00:21:26

call it putting Humpty Dumpty back together again, I've had a

Howard Brown: 00:21:30

couple different times, but many people do. And, but this time,

Howard Brown: 00:21:33

your new version of Angela is going to come come forward. And

Howard Brown: 00:21:40

you decided to focus your work on children and emotions. How

Howard Brown: 00:21:44

did you decide? How did you come to that?

Angela Legh: 00:21:47

You know, many of my, my father's life decisions,

Angela Legh: 00:21:52

and my life decisions, were based on emotions. And I

Angela Legh: 00:22:00

understood that, you know, this line generational line of trauma

Angela Legh: 00:22:07

and abuse that was woven through my family, the history, I

Angela Legh: 00:22:15

understood that that was all connected to painful feelings,

Angela Legh: 00:22:20

that in the case of my father, he tried to escape, you cannot

Angela Legh: 00:22:27

escape painful feelings, they follow you. They're like

Angela Legh: 00:22:31

magnetically charged to you, and they just stick. So having the

Angela Legh: 00:22:37

tool knowing how to witness your feeling. It's like gaining

Angela Legh: 00:22:46

freedom from the prison that you create when you try to escape

Angela Legh: 00:22:52

your feelings. And people don't really get that. If you look at

Angela Legh: 00:22:58

my father, he started drinking as a young man. And he had to

Angela Legh: 00:23:04

drink more and more and more and more in order to numb those

Angela Legh: 00:23:09

feelings. He died an alcoholic on Skid Row. You know, this was

Angela Legh: 00:23:17

not a good life that he had. But that is a prison that he chose

Angela Legh: 00:23:27

that he built for himself. Unfortunately, he didn't, you

Angela Legh: 00:23:34

know, nobody talked about the importance of emotions and the

Angela Legh: 00:23:38

importance of knowing how to deal with your emotions. When he

Angela Legh: 00:23:43

was a kid, that was not taught. When I was a kid, it was not

Angela Legh: 00:23:48

taught. And fortunately, it's starting to be taught because

Angela Legh: 00:23:54

many schools now have SEL, which is social emotional learning.

Angela Legh: 00:24:00

And, you know, I really see my books as a adjunct to an SEL

Angela Legh: 00:24:09

programme because through story, we can take in information that

Angela Legh: 00:24:18

we will not take in through lecture. So, when children

Angela Legh: 00:24:26

either have their parents read the book, my books to them, or

Angela Legh: 00:24:31

when the children read the bugs, they might recognise themselves

Angela Legh: 00:24:39

in some of the story. And they might have like, oh, well, I

Angela Legh: 00:24:44

never considered looking at it that way. And so it just might

Angela Legh: 00:24:49

open there, expand their awareness of, you know, there's

Angela Legh: 00:24:53

a different way that we can look at things that doesn't make us a

Angela Legh: 00:24:59

big them. And it's stepping out of that victim energies, you

Angela Legh: 00:25:05

know another very empowering thing that we can do. When I was

Angela Legh: 00:25:11

married, I was the victim of that relationship. And there's a

Angela Legh: 00:25:20

very powerful energetic triangle. So victim persecutor

Angela Legh: 00:25:28

rescuer. And we go through that triangle, when when we're in

Angela Legh: 00:25:36

victim energy being on any leg of that triangle means you're in

Angela Legh: 00:25:40

victim energy. So, for example, my husband would yell at me, I'd

Angela Legh: 00:25:49

yell back. So first, I'm the victim, then I'm the persecutor.

Angela Legh: 00:25:54

And then next day, I would try and save us by, by coming up

Angela Legh: 00:25:59

with a way that maybe we could not be that destructive to each

Angela Legh: 00:26:04

other. And, and so I just played in that triangle of energy. And

Angela Legh: 00:26:12

it was only when I quit blaming him for his behaviour, and

Angela Legh: 00:26:19

understood that if I'm being triggered by his behaviour, it's

Angela Legh: 00:26:27

not him. That's the problem. It's me. Because I have within

Angela Legh: 00:26:33

some reaction, reactive energy that is responsive to this

Angela Legh: 00:26:38

behaviour. And so once I had that realisation, taking radical

Angela Legh: 00:26:47

responsibility for my reactiveness plucked me right

Angela Legh: 00:26:54

out of that victim energy. Once we take responsibility, we're

Angela Legh: 00:27:00

not victims. Once we take responsibility, we have the

Angela Legh: 00:27:06

power to create whatever change we want, if I am reactive,

Angela Legh: 00:27:12

because I have this energy, maybe based on something my

Angela Legh: 00:27:15

father said to me when I was little, then I can use tools to

Angela Legh: 00:27:23

heal that part of me. So that I'm not reactive anymore. And

Angela Legh: 00:27:30

now I'm empowered. I'm not anybody's victim.

Howard Brown: 00:27:34

So I, this is one of my more serious podcasts. I

Howard Brown: 00:27:39

mean, this one, we're talking about raw motion here, we're

Howard Brown: 00:27:42

talking about your real life experience. And it's it's raw

Howard Brown: 00:27:47

and heartfelt. For those that might be wondering, the Bella

Howard Brown: 00:27:50

Santini Chronicles are is the name of the series of books you

Howard Brown: 00:27:54

have to do. And you have a third one on the way, what was the

Howard Brown: 00:27:58

first one we did that we did that focus on?

Angela Legh: 00:28:00

So the first book of this series is really

Angela Legh: 00:28:03

introducing the whole concept and the characters. And I would

Angela Legh: 00:28:09

say that theme of that one is really about knowing how to feel

Angela Legh: 00:28:15

your emotions. And one of the chapters, Bella the main

Angela Legh: 00:28:20

character and one of her compatriots, and up in an

Angela Legh: 00:28:24

alternate dimension, that is peopled by emotions. And so the

Angela Legh: 00:28:30

discussions that they have about how to get through these heavy

Angela Legh: 00:28:35

emotions that they're experiencing, in order to

Angela Legh: 00:28:39

achieve their goal of getting a relic retrieving a relic. They,

Angela Legh: 00:28:49

the discussions are very informative, but it's not a

Angela Legh: 00:28:53

lecture are telling kids how to do it. It's a character saying,

Angela Legh: 00:28:58

hey, you know, this breathwork pattern really helps keep you

Angela Legh: 00:29:03

calm. Or, or, Hey, have you heard of EFT tapping? It's a way

Angela Legh: 00:29:10

to manage your emotions. And so through these character

Angela Legh: 00:29:16

discussions, the kids can absorb this information and it's, I

Angela Legh: 00:29:24

call it edutainment.

Howard Brown: 00:29:28

You're so you're telling stories that kids can

Howard Brown: 00:29:31

absorb or parents can read that are teaching some serious

Howard Brown: 00:29:35

lessons but they don't they'll take it you know if their ages

Howard Brown: 00:29:38

34567 where they're not, you know, ready or grounded to take

Howard Brown: 00:29:42

on the seriousness of it, but you're giving them some lessons

Howard Brown: 00:29:46

and they're able to then understand it. If they can

Howard Brown: 00:29:48

recognise you know, certain situations if they're being

Howard Brown: 00:29:51

yelled at or they're being hit or abused. They can understand

Howard Brown: 00:29:57

maybe and deal with it, but also hopefully tell Someone so that

Howard Brown: 00:30:01

they can get helped. So, so do you. You know, you've been

Howard Brown: 00:30:06

through a lot. But you're I would say that you you're, you

Howard Brown: 00:30:10

know, the embodiment of emotional resilience, I actually

Howard Brown: 00:30:13

like to say that I'm resilience to hope. Because I'm growing on

Howard Brown: 00:30:18

that path. And I like to focus on positivity and, but I don't

Howard Brown: 00:30:23

ignore the world around us. We are in a difficult world, there

Howard Brown: 00:30:26

is a lot of negativity. It's all in a blink of an eyelash, we

Howard Brown: 00:30:29

had, you know, the shooting in the Chicago parade, going to a

Howard Brown: 00:30:32

fourth of July parade, not even safe anymore going to school,

Howard Brown: 00:30:36

right? There's, there's a war there's, there's stuff going on,

Howard Brown: 00:30:40

that's just messy. And it's all in a blink of an eyelash. And

Howard Brown: 00:30:43

it's I fear for the kids today that are growing up digital. You

Howard Brown: 00:30:47

know, I have a daughter who's 20. So she's, she's growing up

Howard Brown: 00:30:50

digital. And it's the amazing the amount of emotional

Howard Brown: 00:30:55

complexity coming out of COVID. And I'm coming out of cancer and

Howard Brown: 00:30:59

COVID, my wife, my caregiver, cancer and COVID. And, and we're

Howard Brown: 00:31:03

trying to put our pieces back together again. And I want to

Howard Brown: 00:31:07

ask you a final question before we'll share some information how

Howard Brown: 00:31:09

to get back in touch with you. But so you have seemed to kind

Howard Brown: 00:31:13

of clearly now it says, you know, what, what do you want to

Howard Brown: 00:31:18

embody and now in your lifetime, and you've chosen a really

Howard Brown: 00:31:22

interesting path now that you want to share with others and

Howard Brown: 00:31:27

not go through what you went through. And I'll just relate

Howard Brown: 00:31:30

that to you is that, in my story, I tell people to get

Howard Brown: 00:31:34

screened for colon cancer. If you go get screened, we it's

Howard Brown: 00:31:39

called cologuard, which is poop in a cup and into a lab, or you

Howard Brown: 00:31:42

get a colonoscopy, you can save yourself and prep prep for

Howard Brown: 00:31:45

that's not fun, you cleanse yourself out. But I don't want

Howard Brown: 00:31:49

anyone to have to go through the chemotherapy, the surgeries,

Howard Brown: 00:31:52

radiation, the side effects that I had to go through, you can

Howard Brown: 00:31:56

avoid that by getting your colonoscopy which takes 20

Howard Brown: 00:31:58

minutes you wake up typically they tell you you don't come

Howard Brown: 00:32:00

back for five years. And you're on your way. So I see that

Howard Brown: 00:32:04

you're trying to save, save people. Right on that. That's

Howard Brown: 00:32:08

what your one on one body in this lifetime.

Angela Legh: 00:32:10

Yeah. It's interesting, because there's

Angela Legh: 00:32:14

that save, which is part of the victim triangle.

Howard Brown: 00:32:20

Tell me when

Angela Legh: 00:32:22

I say I, I plant seeds, emotional intelligence.

Angela Legh: 00:32:28

And what I figured out, you know, you mentioned the school

Angela Legh: 00:32:31

shooting, or it wasn't a school shooting in the Fourth of July

Angela Legh: 00:32:36

shoot. In Chicago. Tomorrow, I'm talking on six seconds.org

Angela Legh: 00:32:42

network about how to help kids who have experienced that kind

Angela Legh: 00:32:47

of trauma. And most of my work is done in in the prevention of

Angela Legh: 00:32:56

that kind of trauma. Because what I believe if every kid is

Angela Legh: 00:33:02

taught self love, and emotional intelligence, then they're going

Angela Legh: 00:33:09

to be free of all of these horrible things, suicides,

Angela Legh: 00:33:16

substance abuse, alcohol abuse, self harming behaviour, over

Angela Legh: 00:33:22

eating. All of those are driven by painful emotion as our school

Angela Legh: 00:33:28

shootings. And when we can teach our children self love, and

Angela Legh: 00:33:37

emotion, emotional intelligence, the world is going to change.

Angela Legh: 00:33:44

Can you imagine what these adults how brilliant adults

Angela Legh: 00:33:49

they'll be? Because they're not going to be emotionally

Angela Legh: 00:33:53

triggered by behaviour there, they're going to have the tools

Angela Legh: 00:33:58

to deal with it. They're not going to one of the things I

Angela Legh: 00:34:03

posted after the last school shooting is that no child who

Angela Legh: 00:34:09

has self love would purposely choose to harm another. And no

Angela Legh: 00:34:16

child with emotional intelligence would plot and plan

Angela Legh: 00:34:21

and execute that kind of thing. So I honestly I believe deep in

Angela Legh: 00:34:29

my heart that these two things are more important than most of

Angela Legh: 00:34:37

the things that are taught in school. And we need to create

Angela Legh: 00:34:44

this within our world so that kids can grow up in a safer

Angela Legh: 00:34:51

environment.

Howard Brown: 00:34:53

Amen to that. I mean, I'm on Team Angela because

Howard Brown: 00:34:55

I'm going around speaking about resilience to hope and

Howard Brown: 00:35:00

Inspiration and accountability and authenticity and values. And

Howard Brown: 00:35:03

I, that value of self love needs to be felt and needs to needs to

Howard Brown: 00:35:10

be taught to our children because we'll make the world a

Howard Brown: 00:35:12

better place together. I do want to actually just say that if you

Howard Brown: 00:35:16

are, you know, listening and you're coping with stress, or

Howard Brown: 00:35:19

any type of issues, please get help. There's there's hotlines,

Howard Brown: 00:35:25

the national suicide prevention hotline, it's an English and

Howard Brown: 00:35:28

Spanish, get get help, really make that call, get yourself

Howard Brown: 00:35:33

help. And because the world is a tough place, and I hope you'll

Howard Brown: 00:35:38

do that, this has been a really, this is this is not easy issues

Howard Brown: 00:35:44

to talk about, either. So I'm glad you came, Angela, how can

Howard Brown: 00:35:48

someone get in touch with you get your books and, and explore

Howard Brown: 00:35:53

this further with you because you are, you know, self

Howard Brown: 00:35:58

development mentor, but you're also you've experienced life

Howard Brown: 00:36:02

and, and had some harshness and real tough stuff coming your

Howard Brown: 00:36:05

way. And you're, you're trying to ask spread this love and, and

Howard Brown: 00:36:09

spread the emotional seeds of resilience. So I decided to get

Howard Brown: 00:36:13

in touch with you.

Angela Legh: 00:36:15

My website, which is Angela Legh, Angela L E G

Angela Legh: 00:36:20

H.com. And I do want to just add on to what you said about

Angela Legh: 00:36:27

getting help because everything single person matters. Every

Angela Legh: 00:36:34

single person is a unique soul that brings to Earth their own

Angela Legh: 00:36:41

special gifts. And if you're feeling like you don't matter if

Angela Legh: 00:36:48

you are feeling like this, everything's too hard and you

Angela Legh: 00:36:54

you need to get out of it. Please take a moment and feel

Angela Legh: 00:37:01

your own heart and know that you are love. And then call the into

Angela Legh: 00:37:08

because there are people there who want want you to survive.

Angela Legh: 00:37:15

They they want to have you in this world and you need to know

Angela Legh: 00:37:23

that there are people like that.

Howard Brown: 00:37:27

Thanks for reinforcing that. So this this

Howard Brown: 00:37:30

is this is serious business today. Angela, you have Shining

Howard Brown: 00:37:34

Brightly with us. Thank you for coming and sharing your story.

Howard Brown: 00:37:38

It's raw. It's tough, but you are here to help others and we

Howard Brown: 00:37:43

are we are certainly thankful and grateful for you to come on

Howard Brown: 00:37:47

today and I'll share this with with my network. Everyone needs

Howard Brown: 00:37:51

to hear the message. And I know that since I know you're you

Howard Brown: 00:37:55

know, Richard, he you are his angel and you're now an angel to

Howard Brown: 00:37:59

the Shining Bright the world as well. Being here today,