Welcome back to another episode of the Origination Point Podcast! In this episode, Bill is joined by author Rex Ogle to discuss hope and healing during these uncertain times. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and share!

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Origination Point Podcast Ft. Rex Ogle

I have a great guest that we’re going to be talking with. His name is Rex Ogle. Rex is out in LA. This show is wrapped around hope and healing. I’ve found folks from around the country. We’re talking about not only who they are, how they got to become who they are, and what their journey is, but also about how they are working through this new normal that has basically thrown everybody in the world into some level of emotional turmoil because everything’s changed. We’re going to jump right in and see where we go. Rex, welcome. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Who’s Rex Ogle?

I am a boy from Texas, or I guess not a boy anymore. I’m an adult. I grew up in a trailer in Texas. I always had a love of reading, so I made my way to New York City after college. I had a lot of dream jobs. I worked at Marvel Comics, DC Comics, Scholastic Books, and Little, Brown for Young Readers. I worked on everything from superhero comics to graphic novels to licensed books with Star Wars, Legos, Despicable Me, and Power Rangers.

Basically, I made a career out of working with the brands that I loved as a kid and as a young adult. In 2019, I decided to start writing full-time because that was what I always wanted to do. Now, I am writing full-time. I had a book, Free Lunch. It came out in September 2019. It’s been a whirlwind, but it’s been awesome.

Were you reading and writing as a young person, or did this just start recently? Tell us a little bit about your youth.

I’ve been writing my whole life. In 1st or 2nd grade, a teacher assigned us to write a one-page story, and I wrote twenty. I fully illustrated it, even though I’m not an artist now, about me and a monkey stealing a rocket ship and flying to outer space. There was such an overwhelming sense of accomplishment when I did that. Stories are vital to human existence. It’s our oldest pastime. We’ve been singing songs down through generations. Now, we have TV, film, video games, music, and all millions of ways to tell stories. It’s in my blood. It feels instinctive. When I sit down to write, time passes without me noticing. One minute, it will be 7:00 AM, the next, it will be 10:00 PM. I’ll be like, “I skipped eating.” It’s fulfilling.

I know you’re writing a lot about kids’ books. Tell us a little bit about that audience and what’s the connection to your own being that keeps you in that genre. There’s always a connection between what we do and who we are. I’m curious as to how you see that.

When I was younger, I wanted to be Anne Rice, Stephen King, or Chuck Palahniuk who wrote Fight Club. I wanted to be an adult author pushing boundaries and doing supernatural genre, lots of bad languages, sex, and violence. When I moved to New York, I was trying to write comic books. I segued into children’s books and found that I identified with that space.

I think in part because I’m a big kid myself. I still play with Legos. I like board games and video games. All my nieces and nephews think I’m the coolest because I know all the lyrics to the songs they like. I know what video games they’re playing. I’m able to have conversations with kids of pretty much any age because I’m a big kid myself.

Part of that probably comes from maybe some part of me being stunted because, in my childhood, there was a lot of violence. I retreated into stories, comic books, Star Wars, and building Legos. Now, as an adult, that’s still my coping mechanism, even with the quarantine and everything. After a long day of riding, there’s nothing I’d rather do than watch Star Wars or build a Lego castle. It’s a safe space for me. The great thing about that is I’m able to invoke that same authentic voice I had as a kid, which I guess makes it so that kids can read my books easier. Everyone’s like, “You do a good job of writing like a child.” I’m like, “That’s because I’m very immature.”

Growing up, what were your values and beliefs? What were you interested in? Did you get narratives growing up that propelled you to do this in terms of whether you’re a great writer or you’re a great author? I’m curious a little bit about your upbringing through everything that you’ve done.

I had a very strange sense of right and wrong because the violence was pretty intense. Every day, there was a fight and screaming. Every day, there was at least a threat of violence, if not actual, getting smacked, punched, bloody noses, or black eyes. I had my shoulder pulled out of my socket by my stepdad who was probably three times my size because I was a scrawny kid. I’m still not that big of a guy.

At the same time, they instilled in me a sense of value. When I was 6 or 7, my mom always taught me to open the door for women and give up my seat to someone on the bus if they were older or a woman. I’m having a hard time thinking, but there were definitely things that my parents drilled into me about what was right and wrong.

It’s funny because the man who taught me to ride a bike and how to swim the butterfly stroke is also the man who beat my mom and beat me, but then my mom also hit me. There were lessons that I took from them and lessons that I ignored. As for the writing, there were times when my mom was proud, but then there were more times that she would use it against me.

I’d be like, “I wrote a twenty-page story.” She’d be like, “You think you’re better than me now?” That wasn’t exactly helpful. At the same time, I look to external validation. I write essays for local things. I got published in the newspaper once or twice. I won some essay writing contests. I scored high on the writing portions of all my tests, so I got validations from other places than my parents.

What were some of the narratives that you grew up with about your sense of self and who Rex is as a young man?

I grew up thinking I was a monster. I still see a therapist once a week. That’s something that we’re dealing with now because I’ve always thought I was a monster. It probably explains why I love horror movies and why I wanted to write genre stuff because I always loved the bad guy. I felt like I identified with them. I thought bad people did bad things for good reasons.

Growing up, I think that was because, in my head, I was trying to explain the violence. I was trying to think I’m a bad person. I obviously deserve to be hit. I don’t know what I’ve done. I’m a seven-year-old kid. My mom blamed me for the death of my sister, which was a result of domestic violence. I grew up with this sense that I was a bad person through and through.

It’s funny because when in my twenties when I started writing and was trying to get published, I was sending my work out left and right, and rejection after rejection. Once I started working in publishing, I started being like, “Don’t just give me a form of rejection. Give me something I can work with. Give me constructive criticism. What am I doing wrong? What can I be doing better? Give me something I can work with.” They’re like, “You understand structure, character, and dialogue, but there’s absolutely no heart in this. There’s no emotion. There’s nothing to identify with, nothing that the reader can grab onto.”

I kept trying, but nothing was happening. The funny thing was, it wasn’t until I wrote Free Lunch, which is a memoir about everything that I was embarrassed about as a kid about the violence, being poor, and feeling less than everyone around me. Once I tapped into that and learned to write from my own experiences, rather than run away from it and be embarrassed or afraid of it, once I embraced it, I started getting published.

It’s because they could feel you in it. That was like you were getting into that deeper part of yourself that says, “This is real.” I have a similar story of growing up with violence in my home and having those narratives around a low sense of self-worth and not being validated. It took a long time to work through that, and it’s still something that I think about.

I know you do a lot with children’s books, and now you’re doing live readings. I’m curious about what your thoughts are. We have a whole generation of children who aren’t going to finish school from elementary all the way through high school. I know that creates a lot of angst and trauma. I wanted to get some of your thoughts on that. What do you think you’re doing that supports young people in their own growth?

It’s a crazy time. I can’t say that I understand completely what they’re going through because I’m not a kid. I don’t have kids. I have some nieces and nephews. I’m chatting with them, so I can only get what their experiences are like secondhand. I know that they’re missing their friends. I know that it’s weird to stay home. Some kids have reached out to me whose parents have to work, so they’re by themselves all day. They’re supposed to be self-teaching, self-regulating, and making sure they’re doing what they need to do, which boggles my mind because that’s a lot of pressure to put on a kid.

My heart goes out to them. The reason I’m doing this webcast now, Aiden Tyler, is because I wanted to do something where they have something once a week that they can tune into for one hour, hear their voices, chat with people, and know that A) They’re not alone. B) There is light at the end of the tunnel. C) They can stay hopeful and stay strong and there are things they can do to maintain their own self-positivity.

I’m writing this week to week. Every week, I write two chapters, and then I read it on Tuesdays. It’s funny because the thing is basically writing itself. I’m like, “What happened to me? What are my emotions? What am I feeling?” I also look at the chats that the kids send me. They’ll tell me, “My mom’s not working” or, “My dad is delivering pizzas because he can’t get Uber rides.”

It’s amazing in that sense. These kids are resilient, and they have a huge support system that you and I in our generation didn’t have because of the internet. As much as I hate to say that kids should hang out on the internet because there’s so much bad stuff, there’s also some good stuff. Teachers and librarians are amazing. They are coming together so quick, so hard, and so fast to put together new structures and new systems to support these kids who are at home.

It’s also a good time because things like the #MeToo Movement have given people like me the bravery to write about horrible and upsetting things. Now, it’s funny because my book came out, and it’s about being in the Free Lunch Program because we were poor and on welfare. There’s been all of this stuff in the news about free lunches and how kids shouldn’t have to pay for lunch. They shouldn’t be embarrassed at school.

Kids need food to get an education because if you’re hungry, you’re not learning and you’re not able to pay attention to anything except your stomach growling. It’s a really good time. As scary as it is, I do think that kids are going to be better for it in the long run because this is giving them flexibility and strength. Maybe it doesn’t look like that now, but we’re all going to move that.

Kids need food to get an education because if you're hungry, you're not learning and can't pay attention to anything except your stomach growling. Share on X

A lot of what I’m hearing and some of my own experiences is that we operate a lot out of shame, blame, and showing people how we’re not good enough, versus seeing the good in each other. As this pandemic continues to grow and we have this social distancing, it makes me think about how, in some ways, we’ve always done social distancing with people who are not part of our group or with people that we “don’t like or aren’t like us.”

It’s interesting to see the dichotomy of people who are supporting each other, who probably would’ve never even known each other about what we’re going through now. It makes me wonder about the impact and some of the things that have impacted you to support you in your own journey and growth.

Over the years of healing, because I’m still in the process, I’m not there yet. I’m always waiting to be Buddha any minute, I’m going to be happy, and I’m going to know peace and happiness 24/7. That’s not going to happen. I’m getting to a point where I’m no longer striving to be perfect or happy all the time. I’m striving to have a nice middle ground because I am prone to depression, panic attacks, and horrible anxiety.

Whether that’s genetic, a result of my childhood, or a mixture, who knows? There’s no litmus test for that. One of the things I started practicing when I lived in New York City was smiling. I read Thich Nhat Hạnh, my favorite writer. I read his books all the time. He’s always saying, “Smile.” In New York, I always practiced smiling, and I got into a habit of smiling at anyone on the sidewalk.

How was that in a place like New York where there are people rushing by you all the time?

Most of the time, it was nothing, but I did get some smiles back, and it was nice. It was weird because then I moved to Los Angeles. The people here in businesses like the barista at Starbucks and the cashiers at the grocery stores, everyone is super friendly. Everyone is smiling. When I’m walking my dog on my street every day, none of my neighbors smile. I smile at them, and I’m like, “Good morning.” They’re just awkward.

I will say that since the quarantine, people are going the opposite. People are either being ruder or nicer. More people are smiling and paying attention, rather than just passing people, ignoring them, and not acknowledging them. On the street, while I walk on the sidewalk or vice versa, people are definitely more aware of their surroundings.

It’s reading Thich Nhat Hạnh like, “Be aware.” That’s something I’m trying to practice, and I’ve been practicing well for the last few years. It’s being aware of every moment of your space. For years now, I can go into a grocery store and I’m always hyperaware of other people in their space. Now, other people are starting to be aware of that. It’s pretty interesting seeing people wake up a little bit out of their daily routines and actually pay attention to the world around them. Even if they’re probably doing it because they’re scared, at least they’re doing it.

As I was out walking around, people were acknowledging me as they were driving their cars. Before, nobody would wave to me from their car or do a head nod. That’s interesting. I’ve had that same experience where I would say hi and good morning to people, and they would barely even look at you. These are little niceties. That’s all they are.

I don’t know how we lost our ability to do that or what it is. At first, I thought it was because everybody either has an earbud going on or a conversation they have even when they’re out on a walk, so they can’t pay attention. I noticed fewer people these days are out walking on their phones and embraced in their technology because they’re usually with somebody who’s a family member. Those are the only or mostly people they can hang out with.

I’d love to chat with you about this idea of normal because everybody says, “When things go back to normal.” I’ve been listening to Eckhart Tolle. He talks about normal as being a process of practices, rituals, and things that individuals do that create their normal. He says that there’s not really what you would call a collective normal because it’s a bunch of individuals who are doing their own things, and their own things create normality.

I look at it from both the individual perspective and then if I think about what I see systemically or societally, I saw prior to this a country that was divided in a lot of ways, like race, sexual orientation, and religion. Not only divided but also set up in a way where leaders could demean other people without any accountability.

When I think about normal from a personal perspective, I’m excited to get back to being able to take a trip and see my grandkids or my kids who don’t live close by. When I think of normality on that bigger scale, I’m not really interested in going back to that divisiveness that identified us. When we think about education, I was talking to a teacher a while back.

They said, “It’s pretty amazing how, in two sentences, we got rid of state testing all over the country. If we go right back to state testing, even though it’s proven that it’s not had any different results on students’ academic or social achievement, then who’s benefiting from that?” I’m curious about your view of normal, some of the things that you’ve seen prior to this, and things like what you were talking about with the way that people engage on the street differently.

I hate the word normal. I try not to use the word hate, but growing up, my personal mantra was, “I want to be normal.” I felt so abnormal. There was poverty, violence, having a sibling die when I was young, and questioning what religion was and what God was. Growing up in the Bible Belt in Texas was not helpful. Even though I was only a quarter Latin, I guess I tanned really well. I would every once in a while say, “Ola. Gracias.” People were always like, “He’s another beaner.” Texas was pretty racist in the 80s when I was growing up.

There was always that sense of other. I was always not normal. Of course, I am gay. There were all these things that I had about me that made me feel not normal. Growing up, I desperately wanted to be normal. It took me my entire twenties to realize that there’s no such thing as normal. One person’s normal is not another person’s normal.

 

If you’re a Christian, then you think that being a Buddhist is not normal. If you’re a Buddhist, you might think being a Muslim’s not normal. Everyone is different from everyone else. For people to say, “That’s not normal,” none of us really have a common ground for what normalcy is. I would say the most normal thing is breathing, eating, and sleeping, but there are people who have sleep apnea and eating disorders. My normal is not someone else’s normal, and there is nothing that is 100% for everyone.

I like that things are being disrupted. It’s an interesting time. I hate that people are dying, sick, and scared, but it’s good that we’re shaking things up. Here in Los Angeles, it’s global warming because apparently it never rained before I moved here, but now it rains all the time. Six months out of the year, it’s raining. When it’s not, since the Coronavirus, the few hikes I’ve gone in, I’ve never seen the air cleaner. The sky is blue, and there’s no fog or pollution. If this is what the new normal is and if this is what’s disrupting the work system and people working from home five days a week, it’s great. I’m breathing better. It’s nice to disrupt normal.

I’m listening to this book for a second time. It’s called Normal Sucks. It’s by this guy who’s done all this research on normality. One of the things he talks about is even the whole premise of normal is based on a White Eurocentric male and female in terms of body image and all of the things. When they’re talking about normal from that perspective, they’re talking about a White male or a White female.

Even the idea of normality was created by the same group of people who holds the most power in this country. It’s an interesting connection to think about how even the word normal serves a certain group of people to where they can say, “We’re just normal. Meaning, you’re abnormal if you’re not like us.” It’s an interesting concept. Of all the things that people are sharing about how people are helping their neighbors, going shopping for the elders, and checking in on people, we didn’t do any of that before this.

If we go back to what was normal, then we go back to our own little individual life and don’t think about people who don’t have food, people that can’t go to the grocery store for whatever reason, or people who are just different. Look at what our leaders have called this pandemic, the China flu. Look at all of the racism and discrimination that is happening now towards people of a lot of Asian descent because you can’t look at someone and tell where they’re from.

That level of discrimination has continued to grow. What do you think we need to do to shift and continue this disruption into being more relational and more oriented toward taking care of our community? I’ve even seen people giving their friends and neighbors toilet paper because they don’t have any. What are your thoughts?

I’ve always told my friends they’re not allowed to go hungry because there were times when I had to skip meals when I was younger just because I didn’t have money. I’ve reached out to all my friends because I have a lot of friends who are waiters, flight attendants, or people who have lost their jobs and people who aren’t working.

I’m like, “You don’t get to go hungry as long as you know me. If I have to go to the store and buy you a box of ramen and some carrots, let me know, and I’m happy to. I’ll drop it off on your doorstep.” That’s one thing that, for me, is important. That’s on a friend basis or a societal basis. I think about all the kids out there, and everyone’s like, “Let’s shift to an online schooling program.” All the kids are like, “I don’t have a computer. I don’t have a phone. I don’t have Wi-Fi. How does that work?”

We should be more like Denmark. We need national healthcare. We also need a system where every kid has a laptop. If most kids are doing work on computers, then every kid should be able to do work on computers. Not just at school, they should be able to have a laptop that they take home. We’re moving towards such a technologically motivated society.

If every kid gets a Social Security Number, then every kid should also get a laptop. I’m not saying that every kid should have access to YouTube and all the terrible things on the internet. There’s got to be a way that every kid can be made a little more equal. If the divide was big when I was a kid in the ’80s, I can’t imagine what the divide is like now.

We have these celebrities who are giving us their, “Hang in there” speeches from their compounds in Montana with their five-star chef living in residence and there are three nannies. That’s not my experience, and that’s not a lot of people’s experience. It’s a lot easier to feel like you’re doing great when you have a giant backyard, a pool, and a ten-bedroom house, but not everyone has that. I hate saying things that are unlikely, but I wish there was a way to shrink the divide between those who have so much and those who have so little.

A friend just sent me a link to Drake’s apartment. I like Drake’s music. Drake is a very talented performing music artist. I’m a huge fan. They were showing me his mansion in Toronto. It blows my mind all the space for one person. He has an entire two-story closet full of Louis Vuitton purses for his future wife. I’m like, “That’s great and amazing,” but think of what you could have done with that money.

How many kids could you help out with that money? That’s a lot of money. I’m thinking of like, “How can you help other people with that?” If we were all willing to help our neighbors and help strangers, I just feel like the world would be a better place. I don’t know how to do that other than national healthcare and computers for all.

If we were all willing to help our neighbors and help strangers, the world would be a better place. Share on X

It’s challenging because people have a choice. I saw the CEO of Twitter donated about 27% of his total wealth to a charity that he’s been running behind the scenes. The total is about $1 billion or something like that, and it’s 27% of his wealth. Even with that, it means he still has $4 billion or $5 billion left. He’s doing that to support people who don’t have things. How are you managing through the Coronavirus? I know that you were traveling a lot prior to this and hitting the library conference circuits to get your books out there. How has the coronavirus impacted you and your lifestyle?

It didn’t impact me as much as I’m sure it’s impacting everyone else. My travel all got mixed, which is fine because I’m a very anxious traveler. I was willing to travel to school visits and library conferences, but the idea of staying home and doing it virtually makes me so happy. I’m definitely more introverted than extroverted, although maybe I’m 50/50, but I love staying home, so that’s good.

That said, being forced to stay home is very different than choosing to stay home. Usually, I take my laptop and write at the public library in the afternoons. That’s no longer an option. Going out to lunch or dinner with my friends was no longer an option. Being able to go hiking at the local Runyon Canyon is something that I do 2 or 3 times a week with my dog just for fresh air. I can’t do that now because that’s closed.

My gym’s closed. I’m not a super fitness nerd, but for me, it’s going to the gym for twenty minutes a day to either jog for a few minutes or lift some weights, and I’m talking twenty pounds. I’m not very strong. It feels good to get out of the house, be around people with music playing, and get the heart going. I don’t have any of those outlets, and because it’s been raining, I can’t even go jogging.

That’s impacted me in that sense, but I’m functioning better. My depression and anxiety have pretty much vanished since all this started. This is because I grew up in a household where I was living in a constant battleground. I never knew when Obama was going to go off. I was always jumpy. Now that everyone is jumpy, I’m like, “Now you all get it. Now I feel fine.” I’m fine right now. I’m enjoying it for the most part.

A lot of that free will, like we took a drive to the coast and knew that we couldn’t walk, so we literally drove and looked out sea, isn’t that pretty? All of the beaches are closed in Oregon, so we couldn’t do that. For me, a lot of my work slowed down and they had postponed it because it’s a lot of face-to-face, so now I’m figuring out how to do things more with the internet and webinars.

I don’t mind being at home. I work from home already, so it was different, yet I can’t stop thinking about a young couple that was on the news that just had a baby. They both work in the restaurant industry. Now, they’re jobless and are trying to get unemployment and can’t even get through on the phone lines.

The effect in terms of people’s psyche and trauma is going to be pretty big as we start to move through this. How do you look at your own level of self-care and healing now that you can’t do all the things that you like to do for fresh air or things like that? I’m trying to get some ideas from folks about, “What do you do when you think about depression or trauma to self-care and heal?”

It’s funny because as you were talking, it made me realize that this may be the first time in my life that I feel privileged. I feel like I am lucky. I don’t have a job, but I am financially okay because I’ve been working for twenty years to become a writer. Now, I’m a writer and I have enough books under contract that I’m fine for the next few years. For the last two years since I quit my job and started writing full-time, I’ve made it a goal of mine to not freak out every day about, “I don’t know where my next paycheck is coming from.” I’ve started to get into that mindset. It’s funny because it’s almost like the last two years were a preamble to this.

First, I want to say how grateful and lucky I feel that I am able to work from home and not feel stressed because I have two of my best friends who live a few buildings down. Both left because they’re both waiters and the restaurant’s closed. They both went to their families and are staying with their families because they don’t have money for food. That’s scary.

I can’t imagine having kids and having a family to support. I don’t have anyone but me, my dog, and my husband. We’re both working from home, but we’re both fine. It’s scary to think that there are so many people who are going through trauma. It’s even scary to think that I grew up around domestic violence. I always look forward to going to school, work, or getting away from the house. Now, these people are trapped 24/7 with that. It’s like living in a pressure cooker. If you live with someone who’s known to hitting you, they’re probably hitting you because they’re stressed about money and now they don’t have any money, and you’re home with them all the time.

What do you do to take care of yourself?

What I’ve been doing is I’m writing every day. I’m also giving myself permission to not have to work because I’m writing seven days a week. I was like, “I don’t want to work on stuff under contract. I’m going to work on something that isn’t under contract and everyone keeps rejecting.” I’m writing it because I love it. It makes me feel good to write it. It’s science fiction. It’s like Harry Potter with robots. If it doesn’t get published, it’s fine because I’m writing it for me.

I’m doing that for my enjoyment. I’ve taken up running again. I hate running, but honestly, it’s the only exercise I can do now because I’m not good at watching videos or looking at my phone and doing exercise. I tried doing lunges, and it messed up my knees, so I’m doing a light jog. I’m also eating as much candy as I want, which is not healthy, but it makes me feel better. Also, I’m making sure to take some time for myself each day. I’m like, “I want to read a book. I want to read a comic book. I’m going to take a break and watch this stupid TV show for an hour.” I’m giving myself permission to take breaks when I need them.

 

It doesn’t seem like a lot, but I spent six hours building Legos. I was like, “I’m just going to build Legos tonight. I’m not going to work. I’m not going to watch TV. I’m not going to make dinner. I’m going to order a pizza and Legos or something on Disney+.” Getting in touch with that kid inside of me and making sure that he’s taken care of helps take care of this whole thing.

I did see that the puzzle industry is booming now. It’s like 200% more people are ordering and putting together puzzles. There are some industries that are benefiting from this time.

Lego is sold out. I’ve back-ordered several items that I’m like, “I’ll buy this.” It’s back-ordered until April, May, or June.

What are you hopeful for? I don’t even know if we’re in the middle of this in our country, or towards the beginning, or the end. It seems like nobody really knows. Knowing that at some point, we’ll have worked through this, what gives you hope? What are some things you’re hopeful for in terms of change and the dynamics of how we interact with each other, or just our social network?

I’m hopeful that we all come out of this more appreciative and more aware. Also, when we see our friends in a couple of months or weeks, think about how good that first hug’s going to feel. It’s going to be a long hug, and it’s going to be a warm embrace. Hopefully, the sun’s out because it’s going to be summer. We won’t take those things for granted. That’s the appreciative factor for awareness.

I hope people keep being aware, not just of being six feet away from each other, by that, I mean giving each other space, but also smiling and giving our employees the chance to work from home a few days a week. We don’t need to be in the office every day. We don’t need to skunk up our air quality with driving. I hope that more people realize, “I should stay in touch with my friends better. I should take more time for myself. I should definitely exercise.” It’s that awareness of coming out of this and being aware of how our lives are made better by the quarantine, and then how we can keep making our lives better after the quarantine.

We moved out to Portland from Denver. It’s interesting how I have this new appreciation for the friends that I had in Denver that I didn’t have when I was there and could see them every day. I’m hopeful that for those people who aren’t in a domestic violence type of situation, that can grow. For those folks that are there, there are some ways for them to get support and help also.

There have been days if I was really honest where I wasn’t very hopeful, where I just thought, “This is the crap. It’s not going to get any better. I don’t know how I’m going to work through it.” For me, I had to feel all those things deeply before I could move through them instead of saying, “No, don’t feel that way.”

That’s another element of self-care and being hopeful. It’s just to sit with whatever the emotion is that’s coming up because it’s not going to go away until you do that. I’m hopeful, too, that we can realize the benefit of our shared humanity because what we’ve seen is that we’re connected to this whole world and everything that happens around it, not just the country that we live in. Anything else you want to share close out with or make sure the world reads?

Earlier, I said my mantra as a kid was, “I wish I was normal.” I would say that my mantra now as an adult is, “Where there’s conflict, there’s growth.” I don’t know where I heard that. It was somewhere in college. Maybe a yoga teacher said it and it stuck with me because it’s so true. It took me a long time to fully embrace and understand that when bad things are happening, we can let them upset us or treat them as a learning experience.

That’s all life is. It’s one learning experience after another. All the bad things that come at us, we just have to roll with them. Yes, I’m doing pretty amazing during my quarantine days, but I’d say there’s once a week when I’m pretty down. The other day, I got some bad news from a family member that shook me. It was bad. For half a day, I just walked around the house like a zombie.

I reminded myself, “Feel what you need to feel.” I started crying. I cried for three hours and let myself feel it. It’s true what you said. We have to get in touch with ourselves. People are probably hating this quarantine because it’s forcing everyone to slow down and reevaluate not just themselves but their homes. What does home mean to each of us?

I know a lot of people who let their houses be a mess, but it’s nice to live in a clean house. It’s nice to respect our space. If we take that and expand it, this planet is our space, and our neighbors are the people that we live with. We need to take care of each other. We need to embrace not only ourselves but everyone around us. We need to make our home and our planet livable.

We need to take care of each other. We need to embrace not only ourselves but everyone around us. We need to make our home and our planet livable. Share on X

That is great hope. We’re going to end it there. I would share with you that we continue to make our planet livable and continue to create connections. I want to appreciate you for coming on and joining our show. We’ve been talking to Rex Ogle, a famous children’s author that if you haven’t heard of, you’ll see him because he’s traveling all over the country once this is done. You can google him and watch him read books to young people because he’s all over that one too. Thank you. Rex, thanks for bringing your heart, your hope, and your healing. We’ll talk again.

Take care.

 

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