Brad Miller 0:06
Welcome back to pathway to promise podcast with Dr. Brad Miller, where we are all about helping you overcome adversity in life in order to achieve success, or the promise life, peace, prosperity and purpose in our guest today has done just that. Her name is Stephanie Lee, and she is the author of South Paul a tale about a girl's imagination. And she has also published a talk tales and trivia podcast and has been a public speaker at podcast movement. Stephanie Welcome to pathway to promise

Stephanie Lee 0:42
thank you so much for having me.

Brad Miller 0:44
It is awesome to have you appreciate it is awesome to have you here Stephanie on on the podcast today. And and what we like to talk about here is people who have had some success in life by overcoming some adversity in their life for some situation, and shared a little bit about how you are a published author and as a public speaker and a podcast or a Tell me a little bit about I know part of this process has been you working out a process of overcoming some challenges and adversities in your life. Just tell us your story a little bit about what you've your situation and what you've done to overcome it.

Stephanie Lee 1:25
But my situation started when I was quite young, and I became a little my baby. And that if you don't know, it's a medicine that parents take to combat nausea when they are pregnant. So I had the stroke when I was a baby because of medicine that my mother took, and it created my nothing over use my right side of my body like everybody else, it actually looks like a stroke. And I've had to really go through my whole life with that being an issue for me, wasn't too much of an issue for me growing up because I had friends and you know, all that good stuff. I worked, I had boyfriends and other things. But I still had that underlying issue that created a little turmoil for me, it really was something that I could never talk to my parents about. Interesting because you have a certain disability and there was like this pink elephant in the room that nobody really wants to talk about. And I still really haven't sat down with my mother and father and had that big talk of what really happened because of their guilt, they feel tremendous guilt. And I have since gone on the line, I discovered that a lot of the some of my babies haven't talked to their parents about because of the guilt, they just a parents really feel terribly guilty, the children go through life and just do that didn't make it to life. You know, with that, a lot of unresolved a lot of unresolved matters though, in unresolved so

Brad Miller 3:07
that's not only the physical aspects of what you've dealt with, and whatever ramifications of come from your physical situation, but also that emotional, that family dynamic type of thing. It sounds like it's also had some impact in your adult life as well. And how you handle things. Thanks. Now,

Stephanie Lee 3:26
you're right. Yeah, you're right. You know, I always had friends in school, I always had what friends, everything is perfectly normal life. And then thank goodness, nobody had ever made fun of me or asked me what went on. I was really quite I've lived a quite a normal life. My parents are wonderful people. They just didn't really want to talk about what happened. me. I never. It's quite interesting. I never even thought about asking them.

Brad Miller 4:07
Is that something you thought about? It said something you thought about now, though, Sally, you did not really. Okay. You know,

Stephanie Lee 4:16
it's something that I just you just understood. No one said yes.

And even to this day, I still feel some kind of parents really are better off not telling me not talking about it, because it's going to hurt them. And I know there's hurt there because, you know, parents that just are wracked with guilt. When they, you know, ignore things and stuff. And I, I want to be compassionate, I want to be understanding person yet, there's a part of me that wants to know what happened. But there's a part of me that says, Well, if I knew, would that be any better? Would that make life better? I mean, it's still be

do the same person

outwardly, I've changed my thought about that. I change my thoughts about it. And I don't mind talking to people about it. But do you know that nobody asks me, even to this day, nobody has stopped and said, what really happened to you what happened, which I'm definitely blessed? Because I feel that I don't have an answer,

Brad Miller 5:30
I really been a part of your life all along here, you're done dynamic. You mentioned there about needing to know, or one not needing to know all the whole story from your parents. sounds similar, similar to some of the folks I've worked with, with adoption situations where some, you know, people have been adopted, some kids, when they get to adulthood were adopted some, you know, really, really want to know really badly about their origin story, right. And others are just pretty accepting that this is my son's situation. And I'm good was it in,

Stephanie Lee 6:00
right? That's what happened when I started writing the book. That's where it all changed. Because very, very bad relationship with a man I we dated for 10 years. And he was a really controlling person. And I knew that I couldn't move on, I could move ahead with my life. It was my life is changing. I was coming, more introspective. I was becoming more peaceful, but he was starting I wasn't, he wasn't serving me as a companion as a good person. He was really bringing me down, he was kind of dragging me down a little bit. So that's when I discovered podcasting. And I could do other things with my life. Besides my mundane life that I was leading with him, we we had definitely, you know, kind of relationship had kind of come to an end, per se, live separate lives, really. And so I needed something to do, that's when the podcast can suck to contribute came about. And I will tell you, it came about because I personally, as well as probably a lot of people that listen to my podcast, wanted something that it could just do for 1520 minutes, kick their feet up, and relax, sit, relax, listen, enjoy. That's like the whole crux of my podcast with just for 15 minutes, get away from the news from everything else that's going on in your life, and just talk about pop culture talk about things that are going on that are that are good and and so that really helped me a lot. And that's certainly for that moment. And, and, and right. And then the book came about, strangely enough, because my niece had mentioned my disability I realized that she found out about it through my sister, sir. And I'd never even talked about it. So I need to know more about my disability than I do.

Brad Miller 8:06
So they were they were curious they were they were curious with a question you about your, your disability,

Stephanie Lee 8:12
they didn't question me, they probably release my sister sat down with him one day and said, this is what's going on with Stephanie. And they had that nice chat, but I've never had the opportunity to have a nice chat with them. But it was my niece who

said something about my disability. And that is the impetus to write my book was that one moment and I said, You know, I should put my I should put my story into a book and I should make it so that it doesn't offend my parents who are definitely guilty but starts with a character that is, you know, pretty much normal and then something happens to them a cataclysmic situation on the weather, earthquake or something, right. And she has to fight her way back. But after the cataclysmic disaster she doesn't have beautiful right arm and she has limited us to her right leg. So it's kind of using my disability as the theme but her at that point, going to make steps to get her life back to where she's happy. And, you know, using imagination and using her

Brad Miller 9:37
and work Howard and her you know, her real strong will to have a life that is not to have a life that is good for has worked for her. So you been able to tell your story through through your in a very real way through the through the fictional story of lives. The character's name is Quinn, Dylan, is that right? In your book? Is that right? wondering who's the South Paul and it's kind of looks at life from below differently than maybe some others do. But it goes inward, her imagination in order to deal with life and deal with things. And that's right now,

Stephanie Lee 10:19
of course, there's a lot of similarity. And, you know, there are a lot of similarities because I feel that a writer is very, you know, personal because they've had a life and they've had things going on. And that, of course, it's going to show through, and they're writing because it's what they know, it's very personal. So and reading the book, there are a lot of similarities to what happened to me, I was sent to boarding school, and then I was sent to camp and really, my mother really was so guilt ridden. Having me really go places and do things outside the home made her feel guilty. It's kind of like what you say, when you say, you know, we don't hear from you. That's a good thing. You know, we know, we know, everything's good, kind of what happened. So a lot of things in the book, a lot of the stories in the book and what happened to me when I was in boarding school, and I was actually bullied, they call it bullying back then. But I was kind of bullied a lot in boarding school. And after three years, I went back to the public school system, and it was fine. But for that three year period, it was a very, very hard thing to me. Sometimes people I mentioned it in the book, sometimes people and you know, girls and boys young, you know, people, I'd say, Yeah, 16 or so they make they make fun and bully people that have less of an advantage that can't fight back. And they take advantage of that. That's what I want to mention, too. And so when Dylan has to face that, she has to face the strength of, Hey, you know, this is what's going on. And I'm not happy about it. And yet, I'm going to prove to myself and to everybody, I am going to be a success, that I am going to make it in this life, no matter what it takes. And so she starts to Yeah, so she starts to use her imagination, being creative, and an artistic way, right? And draw

scenarios that she wants

to have as she is, imagine, all these things going on that are perfect in her world. And slowly she's just seeing things get better, you know, things are better and better.

Brad Miller 12:57
So she Transform, transform her innovative in her life was really transformative to her outer life for her things that happened, right, it sounds like you in your case, you took the bold action of deciding to process is by writing the book and some things on this line. And that is had some impact in your life. So that's a bolt action that you took, what what did you learn about yourself, as you wrote the book, what did you How was is taking this action? How was it informative to your transformation

Stephanie Lee 13:27
was transformative. Because I was able to say, how I felt, you know, about life and about kind of holding back. So you'd

Brad Miller 13:37
you'd held back for a long, long time, and this was finally expressing yourself, is that right?

Stephanie Lee 13:42
Right. Yeah. And so I was finally able to say,

life isn't about how I look physically, you know, I can be, you know, funny and attractive and all these things, and it's not really a bad my arm, it's really about other things, I have so much more to offer than just that one thing. And it took me really until I was about 15 that and, you know, it sounds crazy. But I was living with this kind of underlying kind of rough time. And I completely could have just let it go, and, you know, lived a more and what you call, you know, quote unquote, normal life and a freeing life. But at 50, I chose to just move ahead and do like podcast and I was what I like to call ushered away from that relationship that was so bad, you know, you find that when a person doesn't serve you in a person doesn't see Neil need that person, your life, all of a sudden things work out, and that person's move from your life somehow. So that was a rough situation. But all of a sudden, this relationship I had for 10 years, all of a sudden, wasn't, didn't happen. And it was just all of a sudden, the pathway was clear. Well, you

Brad Miller 15:11
had a new path, yeah, a new path, you took some, you took some action, you took bold action, you started to write a book, he started doing a podcast, start processing things, and you had to change in your, in your relationship, all this happened. And it's because you decided to deal with your inner life. And so that's a, that's a great thing. So in that context of dealing with your inner life, I'm just wondering if, in this process, have you learned any kind of, you've been informed, are powered by any kind of understanding of a power greater than yourself or some spiritual realm, Francis coming from meditation or anything along this line, and tell us a bit of how that has power given you some strength?

Stephanie Lee 15:53
Well, that is actually what started the separation mental with my ex is that I was becoming more spiritual at that point. I was Andrew my podcast, which was, you know, new to him. And then I started really get into that inner

state of mind where I was very reflective about my life. And I, all of a sudden became this person. That was wonderful. I, I felt so free because I was writing this book, but I also felt like, I didn't hate people as much like the relationship I had. The whole crux of the relationship was, I think, everybody, I hate everybody, you know, that was, that was my exes.

And so that was like, really like you. And then all of a sudden, I had this podcast going on, and I had, you know, writing the book, and all of a sudden, someone said to me, people are good, you know, they're not evil people, you know, there are people in the world. So I started I started to have a different attitude towards towards people. And I started to feel love and acceptance. And that if, you know, if you want to have negative people in your life, it's because you think negative, right? If you want positive people, you know, a positive situation. And so I began to study that and really reflect on that. And I did meditation and I certainly am a spiritual person, my mom grew up a Christian scientists, which I kind of didn't really want to be, I don't really adhere to that. And so it was my mom who was a very, she is a very metaphysical person. And she has often said, because that I was, you know, so set that he had turned metaphysics just to, you know, to get quiet and peaceful within herself

Brad Miller 18:09
back a step you guys want to ask you. You've been talking about your spiritual connections and about meditation practices, things like David you also mentioned about how you know, you had that your meditative and your spiritual practice also changed your view of your relationships mean, you saw people have been basically better or good compared to a more of a negative viewpoint. Tell me a little bit about emotional connections with people have a positive nature that How does that feel you how does that connection with other people or, or emotions like love or care or generosity? How does that come into play here in terms of fueling your transformation?

Stephanie Lee 18:51
Well, I became a podcast and actor why my book, and then I was studying metaphysics, and my mom, Charlie, and metaphysics, she left Christian by filming an ethics which is something great, and all of a sudden, I started to see my world differently. I started to meditate and turn to look at the world differently. I started to appreciate the outside world, people that were in the outside world world, my attitude changed, it changed to an attitude of love, acceptance, and looking at, at people as just like myself, wanting to learn more at live on Earth, it's very peaceful, and have wonderful exchanges. And that they can, you know, give me certain gifts of, you know, love and, and I, I give that back. So, it's a very positive experience. And it really changed with my attitude of like, my, you...