23 years ago, my life changed forever.

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Episode Transcript:

23 years ago, my life changed forever.

It was a regular Thursday, a beautiful September afternoon. In my part of the world it is oftentimes we have summer really, really late into the fall. And it was one of those days where you know, that summer is just hanging on. And you can feel the hot sun on you. And it feels so good, because you know, it's not gonna last much longer. It was an afternoon just like that. And I was standing in the kitchen, with toddlers holding on to my legs and Hidin between my legs. And my father walked in the door. And we had a conversation that changed my life forever. I'm gonna unpack it with you here today.

Welcome to unjaded. I'm your host, Vickie Dickson. This is a podcast with a human design spin on building the life, the relationships and the business that you were made for. Let's dive in.

So my dad was 52 when we had this conversation, and this is timely right now, because I have just celebrated my 52nd birthday. In fact, the day that I'm recording, this is my 52nd birthday. And when my dad turned 52, shortly after he turned 52, he was driving home from an appointment, and he had a stroke. And that was kind of the beginning of the decline. So he walked in to my home this beautiful September Thursday afternoon. And he looked at me, and he said, I've just been diagnosed with dementia. And it's going to be up to you to put me in the nursing home when it's time because your mother and your sister won't be able to handle it. Because they are too emotional. They were their feelings on their sleeves. You are the strong one. And he turned around and he walked out the door. And my life was one way before that conversation and a completely different way. After that conversation. It was truly the biggest pivotal moment of my life. A lot has happened in the last 23 years. But somewhere inside of me, I always held up this year 52 with a little bit of dread. I mean, we know the statistics, I know the statistics well, because I have dug down every rabbit hole on Alzheimer's and dementia. And if you have a parent who's diagnosed with early onset dementia, you're 50% more likely than the average person to be diagnosed. And if you have a grandparent, you're 50% more likely. And I have a grandparent on my maternal side and my dad on my paternal side. So this was always a big thing for me, I threw myself into Alzheimer's research, I volunteered at the Alzheimer's Society, I got really involved. I had my retail store at that time, and I did a lot of fundraising for the Alzheimer's Society. And I kind of allowed it to consume me. And I really expected him to fight. I wanted my dad to fight this, but he chose not to. And somewhere along the way, I've had to understand that that was his decision how he lived his life. As I've approached this birthday of mine, I have really been sitting with the fear of this not the fear from Me. But I keep saying to my husband, can you imagine how scary that would be? Can you imagine how sad you would be that you weren't going to see your grandkids? Can you imagine how angry you would be at all of the things that you were going to miss out on. And for some reason, all of this, like compassion and empathy has just like boiled up in me as I have approached my 52nd birthday. Before that it was I don't know, like, some blame for choosing to just not fight and choosing to just, you know, go with with the disease. And also some, you know, a dare I say, I don't want to say but almost pity, but not really that deep understanding of oh my god, what would this feel like? And maybe it's because I have grandchildren now that I can sit with it and go, Oh my gosh, how would that actually feel to have this, this diagnosis thrown at you. And you know, maybe you're listening to this and you're someone who has had a scary diagnosis or someone in your life has had a scary diagnosis. And I feel you I feel you in this. So before this conversation with my dad, if you can call it a conversation, this one way conversation before this conversation, I lived my entire life for tomorrow. I had all of the systems in place. Everything was about when I retire when I get older when I this one I that I was 29 at the time of that conversation, and I was completely living for retirement. And in that moment like I can't even explain to you how quickly it all changed for me it was just changed everything and no longer did I really think about the future. I mean, futuristic is my number one strength and StrengthsFinder I have a lot of vision in my human design chart. So I mean, I'm always have an eye to the future but it like I didn't stop myself living for the future and I became this purpose driven. wingnut. Basically, it was like, I had to find my purpose. No matter what it costs me.

I had to just find my purpose.

I think we have a lot of different purposes as we go through our life. I think at different stages we have different ways of being we have different maybe ways that we realize our purpose through our career or who our family or through our contribution to the world and it changes over time. But the thing about our purpose that I've learned since discovering human design is that our purpose is really who we are here to be. It has nothing to do with what we are doing at that moment, what we are doing in our career, what we are doing in our business, what we are doing in volunteer work, any of those things, it has everything to do with how we show up in our lives, for ourselves and for others in our lives, and maybe for strangers, depending on the impact you're here to have. But it has everything to do with whom we are actually being. And that has been a huge gift of understanding my human design has been okay, I know what drives me, I know what I'm here to do. And I know who I'm here to be. So then all of these things that come up in life, I can use those experiences to build further towards my purpose to build deeper into my purpose. And you can do that with your human design too. So rather than continually searching for your purpose, as if it's something that's outside of you, let's begin to look at purpose as just the way that we move through life. That is the gift that your human design brings you. This isn't going to be a super long episode. Because I've been very careful, I hope to walk the line of not using this as therapy just as the backstory because I know that I have talked with you about it off and on. If you're a regular listener of the podcast, I know that you've heard bits and pieces of this story. And I know that if you're following along with my life, you may know bits of bout how difficult this birthday has been for me to process and I love birthdays, they are my favorite thing. But this one has had an edge to it. This one has had you know, and we have to remember that we have traumas that are stored in ourselves. And as much of the work that we do, it's still there in ourselves, right cellular memory is a thing. And this is a big one. For me. It's a really big one. And I needed over the course of this past week longer than week. But over the course of this past week, it's been pretty intense. I needed to allow myself to sit in it. And I needed to allow myself to understand that it was okay to have all of this stuff coming up around this birthday. And only natural. And that's another gift that my human design has given me is the ability to be able to go into my emotions, because if you remember, in my conversation with my dad, his conversation with me, he said, your mother and your sister are the emotional ones, you are able to handle this. You're the strong one. But you know what? I'm the emotional one. When you look at our human designs, I'm the emotional one. And they are the ones who are open or undefined emotionally. So we got it backwards, just like you've heard me say a bazillion times on this podcast, we get it backwards in society. You know, so many times we raise emotional children, at least we did back in my day, we raise emotional children to be unemotional, we teach them that their emotions are wrong, that they feel too much. And then the people who are undefined emotionally, they're the dramatic ones. And they're the ones that are amplifying all of the emotions. And they're the ones that have the space for all of these emotions, but they're not even theirs. It's so crazy. So another gift in your human design is really understanding your own emotional intelligence, really being able to dig into how you are meant to show up in the world emotionally. Are you here as a beacon as a guide, as someone who offers wisdom for others, emotional wisdom for others? Or are you here to actually feel the feels. So when you're ready to really dig into your human design so that you can find your purpose and that you can find out how you're really here to be and give yourself permission to be the way that you're here to be, you know, so many times we make our gifts, the things that we think are wrong with us. And I love to get in a room with you, and really unpack, oh, my gosh, you have so many gifts, these are the things that you are here to do. This is who you're actually here to be. And just because you've been told for your whole life, that it's something that's wrong with you, doesn't make it wrong with you. Let's get you living on purpose, every single day of your life, because none of us are here for a whole long time. That is something else that I've been sitting with in this last week or so is we've also experienced a death in the family. And I am sitting there and I'm going whoa, that it really is short. It really is short. So wouldn't it be so much better if we all just allowed ourselves to be who we're here to be and forget the rest. That's what I'm on a mission to accomplish. And I'm on a mission to help you accomplish it too. So the link is in the show notes. If you want to book your human design reading that is the very best place to start. I would love to get in the room with you and help you to find your purpose and live it every day. Thank you so much for being here, through the good, the bad, the ugly, the education about human design, the inspiration, all of the things I appreciate you and I hope that you stay on jaded whatever life throws at you. I hope that you stay unjaded.