In this heartfelt episode, Sarah is joined by longtime client and friend Bonnie Brown, an educator, artist, and lifelong advocate for kindness and personal growth. Bonnie shares her powerful story of overcoming a difficult childhood, building a meaningful life through service, and finding joy in creativity and community.

Bonnie’s outlook is magnetic, and her life lessons are a reminder that purpose and connection matter at every age.

Interested in Bonnie’s book, Stress Management for Kids?

Reach out to her directly at Bonnibear@aol.com.

Well, hello and welcome to the lessons from your hairstylist podcast. I'm your host and hairstylist friend, Sarah Cruz. I am super excited today to bring on a really good friend of mine. She's a client of mine in the salon, known her for quite a few years now. And if you feel like smiling today and you want to be inspired, you just hang out here with us because we're going to have a conversation with Bonnie Brown. She's got

so many stories, so many things that she has done in her life. And she keeps it positive I wanted to have her come on because she's just somebody that feels so good to be around because of her mindset and the way that she approaches life It really is something that when you're around her, it's like magnetic.

It makes you feel good. You want to raise the bar for yourself. And that's what we're all about here at the podcast is these transformations that we make every day through tiny little actions. And that's the way that Bonnie lives her life. I'm excited for you to meet her.

Bonnie, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I'm so glad you're here because we have so much fun when we're in the salon together. We always laugh. Sometimes we make videos, we dance, we do silly things, but there have been things about your life that I've always been inspired by. And your story is one that

when you started out as a child, you know, had some difficulty in the things that you had to go through when you were growing up. And I think that the things that you've had to overcome in your life have really influenced the way that you live. And I just think that it's something that's so inspiring to others. So I'd love for you to just tell us a little bit about you, your background, and kind of what you're all about, your backstory.

Well, all right.

⁓ As you said, I know knew nothing about podcast. I heard the word but that was pretty well yet So when you asked me to come on podcast, I thought that would be fine I'll just get on talk for five minutes and leave. I had no idea there was Big long and ball thing and I had to tell my entire life history So so now I'm thinking, okay, this is going to be very interesting ⁓ So basically my early childhood was a great challenge probably the biggest challenge of

my life as I think about it. My mother was schizophrenic when I was born. We spent the first four years of my life mostly in an addict setting. When I was five, we went to live with my aunt for a year. And if my mother was schizophrenic, she was a bit partolar. So I had lots of odd experiences as a child. But interestingly enough, you have no comparable experience. So you think everybody

has the same life you do. So I thought probably every child would go to funeral homes and view dead bodies. And we would do this fairly often and I would go and look at these and I was just amazed because I thought, why do we go and see all these people sleeping in boxes with their good clothes on? Why don't they have their pajamas on? I was other way of being welterished by this experience. It never occurred to me that they were dead. I just thought they were sleeping. And I wondered if people

came and looked at me while I was sleeping. And so all these experiences I was trying to make sense of life. ⁓ so at age five my mother was sent to a mental institution.

entering a very strange place there would be these beautiful big brick buildings big green doors you would go up and knock on the door and somebody would come to the door and slide back three locks and you'd go into chaos people crying people laughing people yelling people everything so you know but that was my life and so I spent a lot of time trying to make sense of it all but as I grew older I became more aware

of what it was like. And so my teen years, I was very troubled and basically shut down a lot of the time. Did a lot of, I guess, I was just very aware that I was different than other, the other kids. And they talked about being grounded and I visualized them being tied to a stake in the backyard because at that point my aunt was very elderly and I felt responsible for caring for her.

And so, talking with my friends, when I asked them about what I was like in high school, I said, well, you were always terribly mature. So I did, I grew up really fast. And one of the things that happens when you grow up really fast and you don't have a real childhood is that you end up your whole life being in childhood mode, which is not a bad thing, actually, because you find ways to enjoy life. And when my son was growing up, I relived childhood with him.

and

we had the best time. In fact, at Christmas time, we'd be sitting on the floor playing with toys, he'd finally get so desasperated because I kept playing with his toys, he would say, Mother, don't you have to go and fix dinner? He just wanted to get rid of me. I just had a great time doing that. So I think I had a certain amount of resilience. ⁓

you

I did not believe the things I was told. My aunt told me I should never have been born, that I was not attractive, so I would probably be destined at best to be ⁓ a missionary in either China or Africa.

So she did not have high expectations for me, but somehow I didn't absorb that as real. I have this attitude, I guess I was kind of defiant, well, I'll show you, which I think is probably what saved me. If I had bought into everything that I was told about who I was, I think it would have been a very different life. But I've always had a sense of humor, and I always enjoyed laughing and being with people and doing things. So I made it through high

school somewhere rather went off to college for four years got a degree in elementary education and sociology and began teaching in an inner city school in Lansing Michigan and it was a challenge it was absolutely a challenge I remember when I did my student teaching the first day a little kid came up and kicked me and

I had no clue what I was supposed to do with this kid who was kicking me. By the time I reached the third week of teaching for sure, I knew exactly what to do because the kid comes up and kicks you. think you don't. You don't just accept that as, well, I guess I'm just a kicking bag here. then after four years there,

you

I decided to go to another school district, but in the meantime I decided to take a trip to Europe. So I went to Europe for eight weeks with a friend. We traveled all around and I

that she brought. had many adventures. Very exciting, very interesting. We were totally on our own. was great. When I came back, I thought, well, what do I want to do now? And I thought, I probably should get married. Even though my aunt had me convinced I never could get married. So I thought, okay, ⁓ I wonder how I go about doing that. So first I tried the bar scene. That didn't work at all. I was with this guy. ⁓

He was a policeman, essentially. we went back to his apartment and he kept dancing toward the bedroom and I kept dancing back to the living room and I thought, this is not working. This is just not working. So I found this, I

found this group at Peoples Church in Lansing and they met at night for potluck on Friday night. The man paid money, the ladies brought.

dishes to pass, which is pretty typical. So if I went the first time and I met an Oreo rug salesman that bored me to death, then I met a man who made bridges in Michigan and all over.

It was then I met this sweet little farm boy from Tennessee and he was just the nicest kind of sweetest, you know, so I like this guy. And so what happened was I was ready to go back and check again. I never was able to go back because he called me every Wednesday night and wanted me to do something on Friday night. what a surprise. What a surprise.

So we just had, we were married the following July and then

And that's Charlie.

yeah,

that's

Brown, Charlie Brown. Yes, that was Charlie.

Charlie

Brown.

Yes. So, know, we got married. I

when we were first married because I'd been left alone so much as a child and was totally, you know, and suddenly had this man glued to me all the time and I was really uncomfortable with

I was looking for every way I could think of. I remember staying in classes and doing all kinds of things because I wanted a little bit of privacy. We worked it all out. It was fine. But it was a real challenge initially to get the balance between private life and being part of a couple and how that all

My dad was in and out of my life as a child. He came maybe once a month, gave my aunt minimal money for us to live on with my older brother who was seven years older. But I never had a real relationship with him. So I remember after I married Charlie, I used to stand in the bathroom and watch him shave because I'd never seen a man shave before. I was fascinated. I thought, oh, this is how you do it. So there's a lot I had to learn about what it was to be a couple because I had no clue.

no clue whatsoever of what to do. So moving

I got married, five years later we had our little son Marshall.

was a handful, but he was a sweetheart. I always remember, my aunt was always surprised at my wife. First, she never could believe I'd get married. Then when we bought a home right after our little son was born, she thought, who would ever thought she would live in this lovely home in this neighborhood? She was just stunned. Then when we had Marshall, she came in and looked at the baby and said, I just, who would ever believe that you and Charlie could have a good looking baby? So she was just constantly

So at age four, mean, Marsha was hysterical. My aunt came to live with us when he was four years old. Well, this was a whole new chapter in our lives, believe me, because I had a certain obligation to care for her, but the two of them were just a trip. And somehow he knew all the triggers.

one day she said to him, what do think you want to be when you

And there was a long pause and then he looked at her. You have to realize my aunt was a teetotaler. was absolutely, she'd recite these long poems to me about the devil rumbling and all this kind of stuff. So Marshall said, you know, grandma thought about it a long time and I've decided I'm going to be an alcoholic. And she was like.

What the?

So she said, you're going to be what? And I said, Marshall, come quick. We've got to this thing done back here. So I don't know where on earth, I mean, he didn't watch that television. Where on earth he ever came up with that word was so far beyond anything I could ever imagine. But I thought, wow, from the Gibson. What words come out of the mouths of babes? It was the funniest thing. And they were always having disquibbles. But the thing is, she was very Victorian in her training, and she'd be really,

No.

as I was growing up, but as she got older she became a very different person.

And it was really hard for me because she wanted to be very affectionate, very loving, very caring, to hold on. And I had been through so much with her, with her meanness and anger and, you know, violence, really, that I, you know, really bothered me. It didn't matter to Marshall a bit. He didn't have my history, so he was fine. But I remember one day, and this is what sent me into therapy, was she said, you know, Marshall, if you do things like that, no one will ever love you.

And that triggered something in my mind that I had heard years before and I just went ballistic. I grabbed him and I said, the poor kid is thinking what the heck is going on? Because he's very loved and very cared about. I said, don't you ever think that in this life somebody is not going to love you. You will always be loved no matter what.

But I ended up in therapy after that, believe it not, because I realized how much I had internalized the message, you are not lovable unless you do certain things. And it's always about sacrifice. It always has to be something sacrificial. So,

So what do you think it was that

made you different that you didn't buy into all that messaging because you didn't have anybody else around that was countering those things. What do you think it was that in your mind made you think that's not true?

think some kids are born resilient. Some kids are much more, I have to take in everything they hear and see and believe. One of the things I credit with my being able to process all this in a positive way, ultimately, was a group called the Character Research Project, I have Union College connected. And it was

program run through the church and what Dr. Ligand had done was he combined religion with psychology and so the parents or parent in this case my aunt were required to attend classes and we went every Sunday and we had specific lessons that we learned for example we were to put a happy face and a sad face on the refrigerator and we were supposed to look at those and decide which one we wanted to be that

So we had a sense of, it gave us sense of control over our lives and what was happening. And we had a Can Do convention and ⁓ we all made puppet socks. Mine looked more like a...

baseball bat. it was a puppet that looked like a nurse because we were supposed to. And then we made, I made a cake and we all demonstrated what we could do. So there was a lot of focus. But the thing that impressed me most was every Sunday we would meet and discuss things. And there was somebody there who was writing down our every word.

And for some reason, that really got to me. That I was important enough that somebody would take the time to come once a week and listen to what I was saying and write it down. And sometimes I found myself deliberately talking kind of slowly, so she got every word. Because I thought, wow, this is pretty amazing.

While my aunt was pretty cold and Victorian-like, the teacher was very warm and kind. And so it was, ⁓ for me, that gave me some tools to use in understanding what was going on.

So eventually I came to realize, you know, this woman that would go to see you once a month and she can be sometimes wild and crazy and sometimes calm and sometimes make me dolls and sometimes not speak to me was what mental illness was. And I remember going to the library and looking up the word schizophrenia. So I told this was I could never tell anybody ever about my mother or where she was at. So we would go once a month and my aunt would always say I was sick or make up some excuse.

So I went to the library and snuck through those old fashioned card files until I found the word schizophrenia and went to the, got pulled out this big block and went through it and ran, ran, ran, ran. Well, what I discovered was a lot of the things that schizophrenics do, normal people do.

get my aunt just so enraged if she saw anything me doing that she thought reflected my mother. So for many years until I went into therapy, I rejected half of who I was because I couldn't be anything like my mother. If I sat in a rocking chair and walked, I couldn't do that because that was what my mother did. Or one of the reasons why she didn't like me looking in the mirror was she thought my mother developed illness,

because

she was vain and was attracted to her. And I think that's one of the reasons she told me I wasn't so good looking because, you know, she kept telling me, it's just so sad because your older sister is just so good looking. It's just a shame you're not like her. And I thought, well, I'm born ugly, so I guess what can I do? And I remember in third grade, consciously thinking, I may be ugly, but I don't have to be dumb.

So I can learn new things and I've read like crazy, read, read, read because I was left alone while my aunt was working. And so I read all kinds of books all the time. And so by the time I was in, for the fifth grade, I was reading at a much higher level, all kinds of things. That's why I was able to even find the word schizophrenia. But I was constantly trying to discover what was going on in my world and what was going on with

and getting more understanding of why we went to see this person. But it wasn't until high school that I finally told somebody, a guidance counselor I think, about my experiences with my mother and how I'd been there. And I remember us in junior high talking about mental illness and what the mental hospitals were like and how horrible they were.

and I would just slide down in my seat because I'm thinking, dear, I've been there. Every month I know so much, I can tell them so much, but I can't ever let anybody know.

And actually when I dated a boy in high school, he was next door and the two land ladies talked and she said, well, I really think you need to think about dating Bonnie because if it gets serious, you need to know that her mother was mentally ill. So you probably shouldn't be dating her. you know, word got around somehow or other. know, that's one of those things you just accept.

Yeah. Well, you.

I just think that it's so interesting that it was

like there was just something inside you that just was not going to settle for what it was that was being told to you. And I think that's something that other people see and they think, you know, how can I have a little bit of that? how can I adapt that mindset myself? I know mindset and...

stress management has been something that I think you said you had even taught about on the community college level. What are some techniques that you have for like managing stress and your mentality when you're faced with challenges like this? What do you think some of those techniques are that you used?

When I reached a certain stage in my life, I realized how much I had repressed and I needed to get some of this out. So I took a stress management course and I learned some techniques that one can use. One of the things I learned in that whole process is that we have ⁓ tapes constantly rotating around in our heads with negative messages.

received as children about who we are and what we are. And that can create enormous amounts of stress for us. ⁓

The theory is you're either born perfect or you're born imperfect and you can spend your life being a wreck because you're not perfect and trying to achieve perfection. So being who you are is absolutely critical to happiness and success and it takes many forms. There are some specific things you can do that will ameliorate your stress. One thing that we're very aware of is breathing and ⁓ the effects of breathing, taking deep breaths,

can do a counting breath where you breathe into a count of five, hold for a count of 10, breathe out for, and of course I don't want you gasping for breath. So you have to kind of modify that. You can do like four inhalations, eight holds, four inhalations out. If you do that, anything you do that focuses totally on your body and gets you out of your head is very effective in bringing down your stress level.

One advantage of being old is you don't have all these pressures all the time. When you're growing up and you have a business and you have kids and you have a husband and you have all these activities that you're trying to do, you're constantly feeling the pressure of...

of all that and you need to, there's a A,

methods and the first is, is there any way to totally avoid the stress? Hansa, you said avoid the alligators in your life. If there's people that you really can't stand, don't spend a lot of time being around them because that's not healthy for you. So that's the avoidance and there's a lot of ways to avoid things.

The second thing

is there any way to alter the circumstances to make them better, more agreeable? I frequently tell the story of a man who came to my class and he had just had a heart attack. And I said to him, what is the most stressful part of your week? And he said, every Sunday we go to see my mother several miles away in the car. I have three little boys. One little boy always threw up. wife always ends up with migraine headaches. We get there, we get the meal.

We go back home, my wife still has the headache, the little boy is still throwing up, and I said, how long have you been doing this? And he said, oh, maybe 10, 15 years. And I said, well, why you do something for me? I want you to go this week and tell her that you can't come anymore, that you need to do different arrangements.

some kind. And so he said, Well, you don't know how she's to handle that. She still looks forward to our visits. But I said, you know, for the sake of your health, you've got to do this. So he went and said, you know, Mom, I'm sorry, but we just can't keep doing this. And she said, Thank heavens I am so sick of cooking for you people every single Sunday. She didn't want I mean, everybody was doing things. And I see this over and over when we get into patterns. We don't think about it and how

So they had all kinds of ideas of meeting in the middle and you know getting fried chickens on place and there was a lot of different options that they never entertained because it was only this one alternative. ⁓

And then, so there's a void, alter, the last A is you have to accept, which is key to what I had to do when I was a child. But the B is become more resistant and change your perception. So by becoming more resistant, how do you do that? Through health, nutrition, diet, exercise, every way you can of taking care of yourself. And when I used to teach classes for young mothers,

I'd say, you know, you guys are just giving out, giving out, giving out, giving out all the time and you've got to find time to put something in. Inevitably when I look out at the crowd, every single mother would have tears in her eyes.

because they had not, know, they're so committed to their children and their husbands and their work that they don't think about, which, you know, is very touching. Children take a lot out of you. A lot of patience, a lot of time, a lot of energy and time. So, way back when, long ago before everything was over.

I would tell the mothers to throw a hundred pennies in the yard and go to the bathroom and just be by themselves for a while. By the time the kids got all the hundred pennies picked up, they would have had a little bit of time for themselves.

Unfortunately now, everybody has these video games and so kids are on them constantly. But I'm not sure that's such a good idea either

Mm-hmm.

and the C is change your perception. And that is not always easy, but that involves a little bit of work and a little bit of time. But so often I find people try so hard to other people's expectations of who they are and what they are. And so by changing your perception, I remember one young lady coming to me and saying, I am just a wreck. And she said, my mother-in-law is coming this next week, and she comes

and goes all over the house and looks at everything and complains about if there's dust on the top of the piano. And I said, well, you have to think about who owns that problem. I said, if she is so obsessed with that and her rag while she's looking, she can dust. If you recognize that you don't have to own everybody else's problems, it makes a tremendous difference in how you perceive what's going on in your world.

And I think you need to develop a sense of calmness and a sense of control over your own life and not let chaos overcome you.

Because it's very easy, even more so than when I was younger, now to get overcome with chaos because it's coming at us from all directions. It's the internet, it's social media, it's people on the phone, it's people meeting in the, you know, and there's all this anger and talk back and forth and rage and disgust, you know, that's very, very challenging. So to find that middle ground within yourself.

is essentially very important and just be able to step back and reflect. And if you can just imagine yourself as acting on a stage and what your actions are gonna be based on if you were on a stage watching that picture of yourself, there's always a part of you that's behind the camera.

looking out on what's happening. If you can access that part, you all of a sudden think, wow, that was just silly. Why on earth did I fret over that? Because you're, you know, and so you're able to back away from it. So I think that's a real key part of being able to change your perception and think of things differently makes a huge difference in how you handle the stress in your life.

So maybe just stopping and doing the breathing exercise for a second, just taking a moment, doing the breathing exercise, that always helps me as well. And then sort of viewing it as more of like a viewer, watching yourself as like the actor on the stage and taking a different wider lens perspective and looking at it from a different angle. that is something that actually works for me as well. And so I think that's really

good advice because it is easy to get overwhelmed with all the chaos that things going on. And that's part of mental strength and mental health, is being able to call upon those techniques that you need in order to keep yourself centered and calm

so that things feel manageable. Besides your mental health, what are some things that you do to keep yourself in good physical shape? what would you tell The generations behind you are really important that you've always practiced

Well, I think one of the things that impressed me when I was very young in my 20s and I was teaching elementary school in the first grade, we had a teacher who developed colorectal cancer and ultimately died. And I talked to her just before she died and she said, know, Bonnie, I never appreciated my health until I lost it. ⁓

And that impressed me some way. So I've always been, I've always tried to be health conscious on some level, not to the point of hopefully being neurotic, but I always tried to eat reasonably healthy. Back when I was in school, we didn't have teams that played sports. I probably would have been on one, but you know, we went to gym and we did calisthenics and we pushed against the wall and we, you know, did all

random stuff, play leapfrog, but it wasn't exactly what one would consider being athletically challenged on any level. So when Marshall was young I began running and jogging and so I ran and so I entered a five cave race and at my age lo and behold I got a fourth place medal. Well my son was so impressed that his mother won his medal. He's big time in the sports all the time but so that's

encouraged

me so I ran for quite a long time and then I decided I was going to do a half marathon when I was 70. I mean I left I realized I left out a hole. just now that I'm 83 you know every decade is a little more challenging so I walked and ran the marathon and unfortunately

ended up having to have an operation because the insides of me kind of fell out in the process of this endless walking and running. So I thought, well, maybe this isn't such a good idea. So I decided.

to know.

mean, I do jog myself. don't like maybe I need to rethink that practice.

you

Well, you can do a little bit of it, but I was quite surprised. at any rate, I did the marathon. I have to marathon, not the forward one, I have one.

and feel very accomplished at that age. So I've always been interested, then I got into why in dancing, which I absolutely loved, as you well know, Sarah, because I was teaching you some of my dance moves. Unfortunately, that class has ended. ⁓ I think each generation, you have to reinvent yourself in terms of how you're going to stay physically fit and healthy. And the thing you have to realize when you reach my age is anything can happen at any day.

day at any time, it will make a tremendous difference in what you're able to do physically.

So you have to work to keep doing what you're doing as best you can, even though you're feeling tired or exhausted or like you don't have time or something else. And it's also good to remember you can fit in little bits of exercise during the day. I love to garden, so I'm out there. But when I'm gardening, I'm not meeting my 10,000 steps, heaven forbid. So I'm getting better and not getting so caught up in meeting particular number of steps or

or

anything like that. I'm much more into trying to be physically active as I can. But I think you need to start early on, in 30s and 40s, and begin to do things. And also watch your diet. And I happen to be a vegetarian. Don't advocate it for everybody. Lots of people like meat, and meat is good for them. Didn't happen to be good for me. So that's why I decided I do eat salmon. And everybody knows I eat salmon. guess every place we go, there are

serving a salmon or at least me. it's, but for me that felt right and I'm you know not advocating it for everybody. was just what was right for me. So physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally, four wheels on the car. When one of those is gone, the car doesn't run well.

As we get older, the other thing that happens is our bodies don't work as well as we would like them to. We're like old cars, know, parts fall off and fall out.

So you have to you're constantly in some state of repair. Well, you don't have to talk about that I mean it just it just is what it is when you're home. That's just what happens. So you just when you wake up in the morning, you're just glad you woke up and So all these things you have to think about you balance. It's a constant thing of balancing your life What's important? What doesn't matter what's important? What doesn't matter?

I used to tell my parents, when you get into these things with your kids, ⁓ will it matter five years from now? If they decide to paint themselves purple and scream into the night, does it matter five years from now? No, it's just a stage they're going through. Other things do matter. What's your value system? What's important to you?

You have to define that in your own head. What really matters to you? What makes a difference? ⁓

people find

what their why or what their value system is? mean, it's like sometimes people don't, maybe people don't feel completely content or they don't, or they feel like there's just something that, you know, doesn't sit right with them. How do people find their value system? How did you find your value system?

I knew on some level that I wanted to help people. Helping people was very important to me. That was the thing that mattered. Now how was I going to go about doing that?

I loved the kids when I was teaching, but I was bogged down with all the administrative stuff. It was just very distressing to have to deal with all those other things that didn't really pertain. ⁓ One night, I spoke to the adults in the class about doing, I can't remember what it was about now, some topic. I thought, I really like this. Working with adults is really, I don't have to worry about discipline.

about when it's time to feed them the milk and crackers, all that stuff. and so that changed the trajectory because I decided after our son was born and got a little older, that's when I began working. ⁓ I got my master's degree in

education and psychology. And so I was tending to lean in that direction anyway. So I taught stress management for a while. And then I became a consultant and delved into some other personal growth things. Ultimately wrote a book.

stress busters for kids, parent's guide to helping, and teacher's guide to helping kids cope with stress. So my mindset has always been how can I help other people? Well when I was in Washington DC, it took me five years, but I ultimately became not only a stress management consultant, but I went all over Washington DC, Maryland, and Virginia teaching classes in stress management.

meeting with all kinds of groups and ⁓ the CIA and the State Department. It was kind of an ego trip to be honest with you, it really was. I would go into these rooms with all these doctors and maybe sitting around a table writing my every word down. And I'm thinking, really, really? This room is bigger than the room I grew up in. So, you know.

theme in your life where people are writing all your words down.

⁓ you know, and then I became the first woman president of the Vienna Optimist Club with all these men. And again, we had all these men around listening to me and I this is pretty cool. I like this. And then, yeah, the Chamber of Commerce. And so I would go to give these lectures and people that's in the front row and they say, ⁓ yeah, I've heard of her.

doesn't surprise me.

You know, I heard she wrote a book and I'm thinking, wow. And then I would go to these things and there'd be all this parking lot full of cars and I'd drive around and drive around and some guy would pull in front of me and park and I think, you idiot, I'm the one speaking. If you don't let me park, you're gonna go in there and sit and wait. So I I was just ignoring the wind. I know it, I know it, but it was annoying. But I finally found it.

He didn't know who you were, Pawnee. He did not know who you were.

you

Anyway, I was enjoying this life. I loved going all over the place and doing the kinds of things I did. It was exciting and I felt very much like I was doing great work, if you will. So then my husband ultimately lost his job. He was an actuary and everything was downsizing and it was just crazy. So then we moved to Tennessee. Well, every time I move it's kind of been like dying. You reinvent yourself all over again.

But this time I was totally confounded because I was used to, I guess, seeing myself in the light of this person who everybody knew in the town and approached me and asked me questions and did all this kind of thing. And so suddenly there I am just, you know.

So I kept trying to search for big meaningful things I could do. One day I read a book by Ram Dass called How Can I Help? And it talked about, I didn't read the whole book actually. I just looked at that title and I thought, that's interesting. That's interesting. How can I help?

And what I think I developed as a philosophy is at any given point in time in your life, you may not be able to do great things in big ways, but you can do small, meaningful things every day that may make a difference in somebody's life. So this has been my philosophy since I've been retired. So every day in the morning, I ask myself after I...

say what I'm grateful for that day, my four or five things, you know, who can I help today? Sometimes the answers appear. It may be as simple as sending a card to somebody you know who's sick or giving a call to somebody you know who's down. But sometimes my experiences come to me, unbidden, with somebody who I feel needs me. But everything I do in my life is geared toward relating to the person that I'm with at that moment in time.

So if you want to know about the histories of the people in the publics, just ask me. I'll tell you about the lady whose mother died and she had to go to the funeral, but she really didn't feel bad about it because her mother didn't raise her and they had a very difficult relationship. I I can tell you about the two Turkish young men who put the grocers in my car from Walmart.

and what they love about the food in their country and how they call me Grandma Bonnie and I always give them a hug after they put the things in my car. trying to be a loving presence in other people's lives is very important to me. And you know, that is what keeps me healthy and going is that sense of purpose.

And when I read about people that are our age, just miserable and unhappy, and one thing I have to say, and I think it's critical, is your health. If you lose your health in any way, that redefines who you are. But I'm hoping, I'm hoping that each day that I can try and make a difference in somebody's life, either by you doing something as simple as smiling at them, that that might make a difference. It might change how they see themselves and their lives.

you

Hmm.

I'm sure someone will think, who is that nutty lady waving away at me? I don't know her. And yet, you know, maybe it makes a difference. Maybe it doesn't. I don't know. just...

think it does

make a difference. it's never wrong to err on the side of kindness towards people. And I will say, you you've made a big impact on me and our friendship has been

really valuable to me. I've learned a lot. I've learned a lot right here that I didn't even know about you in the years that we've spent cutting your hair. And so it's fascinating to me. I think that when you

I from a place of how can I help someone else? I think it is hard to be unhappy in certain ways. I know that everybody has a lot going on and there are things that are very difficult to be dealing with in people's lives. once I heard someone say if somebody feels disconnected from others or they're lonely or they're not happy, find a way to help somebody.

If you can help somebody, you'll have a connection with someone because of course somebody is going to want to connect with you if you're helping them, you know, so you're going to get love back. going to get that feedback as well. And I love that part about you You were talking about sending a card and I do have to bring this up. Not only are you an author, an educator,

a teacher, a mentor, a parent, all of these, amazing things. You're also an artist and I would be remiss if I didn't bring up your beautiful Christmas cards that I look forward to every year. You send a Christmas card every year with your artwork on it. And the theme is Christmas in Happy Valley. Happy Valley is your imaginary town that you

came up with and your cards, I have a few of them here, are a different scene of Christmas in Happy Valley. And these are in no particular year order because Bonnie, you have got to put the date, the year inside of these cards so we know what year goes with what because now they're all out of order. But these are beautiful. These are your own artwork. And I look forward to this Christmas card.

every year and there's a message inside this one is donovan and daisy enjoying christmas in happy valley i love that with two little two little donkeys or mules i'm not sure so cute snowy scene and then you have christmas in the hills of happy valley little kids ice skating there i love it

And you have a message, may the peace and joy and love that descends on happy Valley each Christmas descend on your home during the beautiful holiday season. Love Bonnie and Charlie. There is another message, which I love care deeply, give freely, think kindly, act gently and be at peace with the world. This is the spirit of Christmas. This is the spirit of love.

So I just had to share these Christmas cards with everyone because they are my favorite Christmas card that I get every year and that in and of itself, your art and these Christmas cards that you send, just cards that you would just send in general, but I look forward to the Christmas cards every year. cause it's something that comes specifically from you. And to me, that's an act of kindness and I love those.

Tell me a little bit about how you started with your artwork.

I'm not sure you want to hear this. For some odd reason.

yeah, we've got all day.

so what happened was, sometimes your influence is in such strange ways. For some odd reason, I think it was probably in my early 50s, 60s, I got curious about mediums, people, know, that tell you what your life is going to be like, or what's going to happen, or what has happened, or can get you in touch with people that have lived before or something. So I thought, you know,

some of my friends were telling me they'd been to this medium and I got really curious. So I went to the medium and she had a lot of interesting things to say. But one of the things she said was, you have the hands of an artist. And I thought, hmm, I have the hands of an artist. Do I have the hands of an artist? I'm not sure I have the hands of an artist. What do the hands of the artist look like? So I thought, well, maybe I'll just dip into it a little bit and see.

Well, I have never seen myself as an artist. I see myself as a hobbyist. I started taking lessons at the rec center and beginning to just do painting. But I kept trying to do landscapes and making a tree look like a tree. And I was forcing myself into things that didn't feel right for me. ⁓ And one...

One day I started to replicate a picture that I'd taken in Greece when I was visiting there, of a street scene. And what I realized as I worked on that picture was how much I loved doing the little detail work, the little...

bushel baskets with the apples in them and that kind of thing. So I'm like, you know, I really like miniaturizing things, pictures. So I wanted to go in that direction. My teacher didn't always feel like it was in the direction I should be going. She kept trying to correct my trees because she kept saying that the branches are too thick. Well, she was right, but they were my trees and that was the way I just made my trees. So my trees have always been too thick, I guess, but that's okay. That's who I am.

So

basically, any artistic, anything you do with art, whether it's painting or drawing or music or whatever, I feel is very essential to your well-being. So I do what works for me. And some people probably think I'm very vain because I have some of the pictures you showed all up and down my hole.

And just going down that hallway and seeing those pictures gives me a sense of peace and calmness of being in a place where people are happy, you know, people are at peace. So that's what I wanted to create. And so what was inside me came out in these little drawings, which is folk art. isn't, you know, I never would pretend to be an artist. I'm just a person who draws, drawing what's inside of me and makes me feel ⁓ at peace, really.

because I like the thoughts of these kids skating around and going up and down the hills and the people all, know, the man who some people thought looked like Santa Claus delivering the Christmas tree and this wife out waiting for him with her hands in the air. You know, it's a nice...

Yeah.

peaceful place to be. You can't do it artistically, just visualize it in your mind. Think of a place where you can go, or where you've been, where it feels supremely peaceful. Your body will react to that vision of whatever it is you see. So if you go to that place and just use your all senses, your eyes, your ears, you know, your hearing.

Yeah.

touch or taste, everything in that place, your body thinks you're there essentially. So when I imagine Happy Valley, I can see myself there. So that's the origins of those cards.

Yeah.

And I love that because when I look at Happy Valley, it reminds me of a little town where I, when I was little in New York called Spencerport, looks like the village of Spencerport. And we had, it was very much the same sort of vibe. This kind of reminds me of being a little kid, you know, all the little neighborhood kids. And it was, it was very...

A very nostalgic feeling. really, I think that's one of the things that draws me to Happy Valley was because it is a happy place. And it's just fun to see these and kind of go there in your mind. Only one of the things that you have going on, You have another thing that you have started, which is called Food for Thought.

I want you to tell us about that because giving a part of yourself and conceptualizing things and sharing it with others is so important. And food for thought is something that you conceptualized and you are in essence sharing that with other people. You've created a group for people to become

involved with what's going on in the world And this group that you've established encourages other people to be engaged and do their homework and come to the table and discussion. you've got connection with other people. You've got, you've got

thoughts and ideas flowing. And so tell me a little bit about Food for Thought.

So a friend and I started this and the reason we did was we realized that in many groups that we're in the conversation usually is very light. It revolves around what paint should I paint my living room wall with, where do I get my nails done.

⁓ And all that is part of the community, and I'm not criticizing that at all, it's just for the two of us at Lock Depth. And so we talked together about wanting to start a program, particularly because in our environment right now, there's so much friction and anger and hostility going on around.

issues and we thought it was important to address that in what was happening and how to address it in a successful way. So ⁓ we always start out with a lunch together so we can get to know each other and talk. We try to limit it to 12 although sometimes it goes to 14.

My friend is an absolute goldmine of history. She's absolutely wonderful in remembering a lot of histories of countries all over the world. So she's been a huge resource in this program, as well as organizing where we're going to have it, what kind of foods we're going to have, what we're all going to bring.

great resource for all of that. So the do-it-us together decided that we would start this once a month called Food for Thought. And we've, you know, fooled around a little bit beginning just trying to find our way. But what's involved, what has evolved out of that is this group of 12 women that meet every month. We pick a topic each month. ⁓

Next month it's going to be on tariffs, but we've talked about everything from gun control to assisted suicide to ⁓ all manner of things, poverty in the cities, endlessly. What does it involve from all that?

is that we meet once a month. Each person speaks for five minutes about the topic uninterruptedly. I should back up a little bit and tell you the week before we meet, I send out from five to eight questions about the topic. They then research that topic and they try very hard to get independent places to do their research from.

other words, they're not just going to a TV program or something to get their information. They're very careful to try and get balanced information about what we're talking about. Then they each have five minutes. I time them when their time is up and go to the next person. So it takes about a full hour to go around and each of them share. And this group, I'm so impressed with them because they do such good research and they come in with charts and graphs and clearly they put a lot of time, effort, and thought

to what they're saying, how they're saying it. After that, we have a general discussion. It's not the idea that we're going to attack one another. I mention we have Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. But we listen to each other, and if we have questions, we try to talk to each other about the questions we have and the subject in general. And we're always quite amazed at how close to the center all of us come. ⁓ It isn't like we're way out in one direction or other.

kind of have agreements about certain things and what we think should be done. I think there's a lot more of that in the country than we know, instead of us being so polarized. I would love to see this program replicated throughout the country. We have lots and lots of book clubs, but you don't hear many.

programs being started about dialoguing with one another in a peaceful setting about issues that matter. So this has become so valuable to me. It matters so much.

that we, and it's been so, so satisfying because sometimes I think we feel so helpless. mean, all this chaos going on around us and how do we deal with it? How do we focus on what matters? And so they, and sometimes they share personal stories of how things have impacted their lives. It's a very deeply personal experience to hear some of them talk. And I always go away being very inspired and impressed frankly by the wisdom

of the group and how much thought they put into the topics each month. it's just so, what we focus on is so important. I do often think about this, husband of a friend of mine was actually convinced that we were gonna end up in some kind of a civil war or some kind of a war.

Hmm.

and he spent endless dollars and money on guns and ammunition and food supplies and everything he would need to prepare to defend himself against some mythical enemy and would talk to his friends endlessly and was, you know, obsessed with it. And he died of COVID.

No.

So

I was thinking, you know, he spent all these years of his life so focused on what might happen. Think of the good he could have done with the amount of money he spent on endless boxes of ammunition and endless guns, purchases of guns, which are not cheap, by the way, and huge supplies of food. And ⁓ I found it very sad. I found it very sad because...

If you focus on what you can do to make the world better, it makes a very different feeling inside of you. He was working out of a place of fear and anxiety and worry and just a lot of tension and anger and all that was filling his body all the time. It's not a place to go if you want to feel peaceful. They found that very sad. ⁓

Thank you.

Right.

Yeah.

So

these folks are working in, you know, possibly the things they might do in their lives to make a difference in some of these situations. And they try and speak up and speak out. Sometimes they want to speak up and speak out more than it's appropriate. When we first started the group, it kind of got a little dicey. So, but you know, they're just terrific, just a great group of women.

That's why there's rules.

there's so much positivity and there's there's so much that comes out of creativity, whether it's creative outlets such as, you know, artwork, but also in creative thinking and working to see what options are out there to make life better. It's a much more constructive and productive way of spending your time. And if somebody wanted to replicate that type of

idea or group into their own community? I mean, how could somebody do that?

Well, basically what the two of us did, we belong to a group called the Newcomers Club of Williamson County. And so we just decided that we were going to offer this as an option. And we didn't know when we started out how this would turn out. We had no clue. Well, Williamson County Newcomers Club invites anybody in our community or beyond.

How did you find your members?

who are interested to come once a month to program. But we also have multiple activities going on. All kinds of games, Gnasta, Mahjong, Bridge, everything. You name it. And so we decided to offer this as an activity for the Newcomers Club, which we held because we have a group of close to 200 members.

and we knew we would appeal to some. Now we didn't know when we started what we were gonna get because it was, you know, a pretty politically charged atmosphere. But we, you know, I'm just bowled away every time we meet by these people and their thinking and the effort they put into the subject matter and the thoughtfulness is just amazing. So what I would suggest if any group, if you want to start a group,

to develop a group of maybe neighbors, maybe just neighbors, invite them to come in and have a discussion about something.

My friend always wants it to be around food and I think she might be right because if you eat, it kind of brings people together a little bit more and it's more relaxing than just launching into these subjects that are pretty deep some of the time.

I mean, it's amazing that these emotionally charged subjects, this group has stayed so consistently productive, respectful. It's been going on for several years now, I know. I said it was new, it's not. It's, we've had this one a couple of years at least.

trying to figure out the other day. was in the two and a two and a half or maybe three years we've done it.

Yeah, and it's just

taken off and been fantastic and it's been a huge success. And I feel that there are people who would love to be able to have discussions like this without the fear of there being some sort of big altercation because politics and subjects like these that you're talking about can spark big feelings in people and

It could get out of hand, but you have guidelines and rules in place so that every everything stays everybody's voice is heard and that the discussion stays respectful and productive.

but you and I, I think, could probably talk all day. to keep it reined in a little bit, we're gonna go on to our last and final segment, which is called Cut It or Keep It. So Cut It or Keep It is a segment that we do at the end of each podcast, which is a take on basically my decision as a hairstylist each day when I see my clients to cut this hair or to keep it. Is the hair...

Too dead, not worth keeping? we cut it off or do we treat it and keep it? So I'm gonna ask Bonnie of concepts and see what she has to say about them. Would she cut them, would she keep them? So first off, we haven't talked much about it, but we've touched on it a little bit.

Cut it or keep it, social media.

Cut. Cut.

Would you like to expand on that? Just a little bit.

You know,

these are more questions. There are some parts of social media that are valuable and as long as it's kept within bounds, it can be effective. But when it becomes overdone and people are obsessed and the challenges with young people, with the bullying on social media, these kinds of things, it's gotten way overboard. We've gotten kids now.

thing that just amazed me, even in the neighborhood, is when I talk to kids or try to engage with them, walking down the... They don't even look at me. They may say hi, but they're looking in another direction. There's no eye contact. They don't know how to relate to people, and they really struggle. So there's been a lot of that. That's why I had to hesitate. But if it was a total choice, I'd say, well, let's just cut it and go back to the time when we all just interacted personally. ⁓

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

So I can see some advantages. I didn't, you that's a long answer to a short question, but when you look at those two, ⁓ I lean on the size of covenant.

All right, So education has changed a lot over the years. And so I'm gonna ask you cut it or keep it, digital learning.

Again, I think we have to be balanced. I'm worried that maybe, I think a certain amount of it may be quite effective, but if it's overdone, I think it again creates problems very similar to social media. We need interaction with one another as human beings. It's very essential. So if a child is just sitting in front of computer all day, that's not a healthy way to learn and grow.

become a productive person.

Agreed.

So

Keep it, cut it, cut it or keep it.

⁓ Is it so hard to be so...

I

be in the middle, so I tend to stay... cut it.

my gosh, my goodness, so you have experience in education you have experience with mental health issues and I know that you talked about the importance of going to therapy and how important that was to you one of the things that I spoke with my actual therapist about on one of our podcast episodes was the fact that it's it's it's kind of too bad that we don't incorporate ⁓

mental health education into the mainstream school system. So cut it or keep it. Would you have mental health and education as a standard?

Yes. So I do have a story, but we may not have time.

Yeah. Agreed. Keep it. If we had it, we'd keep it.

go ahead and tell the story. We got all day. Not really all day, but tell the story.

When I taught kindergarten,

we had a group called Magic Circle and we encouraged kids when they came in in the morning to say things that they liked about each other and to talk about feelings and emotions and those kinds of things. Now this was a little bitty class of kindergartners and they were so responsive to that.

I was very pleased with what was going on with that. The social worker initiated it in the classroom and was doing very well. One of the mothers went to the school board and said that I was teaching witchcraft. ⁓ I have no idea because I guess it was called magic circle. She thought it was something to do with witchcraft. She never had set in on it. So the board nicks the whole thing. It was just the end of it.

down.

So, you know, this is kind of you go forward and go back, go forward and go back. you know, so, yeah, it's a little tricky. It's a little tricky teaching men on him. Some parents get very threatened.

Yeah. Yeah.

If we could just teach children how some of the tools that you talk about just to be able to manage mental health a little bit better with all of the bullying and things so forth that you were talking about as well.

Cut it or keep it. Gentle parenting. This is the current parenting trend where parents are extremely gentle.

in their upbringing of their children. What do you say?

So,

definitely cut it.

The opposite of gentle is really harsh and I don't approve of that either. But I think children, one, love boundaries. They love to know that there are limits. They need to realize that there are consequences for behavior. I don't think you have to be violent, but I think you do have to have consequences and that you do have to become assertive and...

consistent in telling them what's expected. You can talk about family values, you value in your family. It takes a lot of talking and a lot of patience to raise children. And it's easier to just say, do what I say, or just do whatever you want, honey, I'm fine with that. ⁓ Neither thing works. An example of when my little boy was four, he was supposed to go to a party.

and he didn't want to wear his shoes and I told him he had to wear his shoes. So I took his shoes and threw them in the bushes. And I said, well, you know, we just have to wait until you get your shoes out of the bushes and put them on before we go to party. Well, he held out long enough that he ended up not being able to go to party. Natural consequences. I didn't yell, scream, holler, go berserk. I just made a statement. So that's very different than just do what you want, honey. If you want to go to the party, we're...

doesn't matter yada yada yada. So there's a point in gentle parenting where you can get in a lot of trouble because you have to begin training when these little kids are one, two, three years old. You can't suddenly wait until they're seven and say, wait a minute, why is this kid totally out of control?

And I don't think they're comfortable with it. I really don't. They want guidance. There's a whole difference between authoritarian parenting where you're just saying, what I say and do it now and end the discussion. And being an active parent, which is what I approve of.

which is active parenting, which is giving them values, giving them ideas. We spent a lot of time doing volunteer activities when my son was young. So we got the feeling there are people that don't have what we have, which made him very thoughtful about people. And to this day, when he grows something, he goes out on the street and finds a homeless person and gives it to them.

You

So ⁓ you were asking earlier how do you find values? Well, you pass them down from one generation to the next. What matters to you is going to matter to your child.

Right. Yeah.

what you say about natural consequences and active parenting rather than gentle parenting. All right, next, government funding for community support systems. I know you've been involved volunteering a lot for different community enrichment programs. You do a lot of that. What about government funding for these types of systems and programs?

I think they're absolutely essential. think that that's what makes, I've often said that, I remember a psychologist class that I took at Michigan State University, one of her comments that stuck with me forever is when a country or a civilization begins to fail, they cease curing for the very young and the very old. And many of these government programs fund programs for the very young and the very old.

And if we destroy those, we're literally taking our country apart because ⁓ help is needed. Help is needed on both ends. We need to help our children. We need to help our elderly people much older than I am, clearly. So, no, I think...

You're still so young.

I think it's absolutely essential that we fund these programs because without them what we do is we become so into ourselves and into money and you know there's a lot of this going on today where it's all about the money all the time.

And I think we have to look at what our value system is and what matters. So are we willing to pay taxes to take care of our old people? Are we willing to pay taxes to take care of our children and our babies? Yeah, no, I would definitely keep it.

And kind of on the back of that, mandatory service learning, which is the idea that requires students to participate in community services as a part of their education.

Definitely keep it. Again, I think it's very healthy, very healthy to do that kind of thing.

Yeah.

This summer I'm starting the reading under the tree in the backyard. I have these little kids come and we read a story and talk about it and eat a snack. So I encourage the older children to come to be mentors. I feel like they're part of the process of helping. And so I think it's really essential that we raise children to help have this sense of being mentors and helpers and these kinds of things.

Yeah, I think it's important to teach people from an early age to make that something that's just a part of life. ⁓ Our last one, one that you said you didn't want to talk about but I got to ask you, what about teen slang words? You told me you said I'll talk about anything but teen slang words so I imagine you're gonna cut it.

The other day you were doing something with one of your coworkers and asking them, you know, and then I thought, gee, I know, I'm too regular with that. But then I thought, dear, if she starts asking me about teen slang, I will be totally lost. I do not. So I was very bummed.

Yes!

Well,

you know what, we're gonna do a part two coming up and she's gonna ask me, so I was asking her, now she's gonna ask me about Gen X ⁓ words and concepts which I'm sure I will not do as well, so that's coming up.

Well, I think

that's fine for teens to have their own language. Yeah, it's just fine. I don't have a problem with that in the world. I just don't have any need for it.

You just didn't want me to ask you what they were. I was just picking at you. I love joking with you. I love the laughs that we have when you always come into the salon. I love hearing your stories, everything from the groups that you have going to your enormous Easter egg hunt that you have every year for the neighborhood children to the reading library that you have and all of the...

Right.

You know, all of the many countless things that you're involved in. I just think that it is so inspiring. I love hearing about it. I knew that it would be interesting to the listener. And so I'm so glad I had a chance to have you on and that we had an opportunity to spend this time together. Thank you so much, Bonnie, for coming on and spending this time with me. I can't wait to see you in the salon next.

Your hair looks good. Your hair still looks good. You're probably be due for a trim in, you know, so many weeks, but.

made a special effort to call my just for you. I think it's fine. Yeah, life can be fun if you let it be. You can choose the life you want to live. And I think that I've loved our conversation today. It's been great fun. I appreciate it.

⁓ my goodness.

So fun, so fun. Well, we'll have to do it again. Thank you so much for coming on. I will see you soon. And thank you all for joining us here on the Lessons From Your Hair Sightless podcast. Take care. I will see you on the next one.