Lady, oh, I'm not quite going live yet. There we go. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life Podcast. I hope everybody's day is going beautiful. I hope the sun is shining. I hope the birds are singing. I hope the wind is at your back. I'm going to get into the roots of resilience. I have with me today an incredible show who's had an extraordinary journey Today, we're honored to be joined by the one and only Diane Danvers Simmons, a true Renaissance woman and a powerhouse in every sense of the word. Diane's story is woven from a tapestry of remarkable experiences. Each one is vibrant as the next. From her days as an international advertising executive at just twenty seven, shaking up the corporate world with her bold creativity to her role as a fiercely devoted mother and co-parent to a beautifully blended family of four. Diane has mastered the art of thriving in every role she undertakes. But Diane is so much more than her titles. She's a world traveler, a Reiki master, and the visionary founder behind Own It, Feel It, Live It, a dynamic platform for women's empowerment. With her British wit, American spirit, and boundless courage, she's a storyteller who doesn't just tell it like it is, she elevates it, making every conversation a celebration of authenticity and strength. Her memoirs, articles, and keynote speeches resonate with humor, candor, and wisdom, shining a light on what it means to live fully, boldly, and unapologetically. So pour a cup of tea or something a little stronger if you're part of my audience and join us as we dive into the incredible life of Diane Danvers Simmons, where corporate gift meets soul, deep passion, and every chapter is a testament to the power of reinvention. Cheers to the unstoppable. Diane, thank you so much for being here today. How are you? I'm good and I'm just kind of breathing deeply after that really incredible introduction. Thank you. I want to get to know me now. Right? Yeah, yeah. And actually, I just want to throw in one other thing there. In writing the book, I really moved into taking the concept of Own It, Fit It, Live It and creating a podcast and some in-person workshops with my daughter. And that's called Mothers and Daughters Unfiltered. So I want to give my daughter a shout out there. Because as we'll get into when you go to the depths of your soul and start writing a story and looking at your own life and trigger points, that's when some of these ideas percolate. So I'm really looking forward to it, George. And thank you for inviting me onto your show. I'm excited you're here. I'm very fortunate to get to speak to lots of people who have overcome tremendous things that have happened in their life. And I can't shake the idea that so much of it is necessary. These incredible traumas that happen to us while happening, it's a nightmare. And it's, how am I going to get through this? Or maybe you lose someone along the way, or maybe you don't ever come out the same, but You know, maybe just a quick way to jump into this before we jump into the story. Is it necessary? Is it necessary to be broken in order to have the light shine through? You know, I think it's part of the human experience and whether we want to admit it, accept it, you know, it's very cliche, but it really does make us stronger. And unless we go through that human experience, we can't be human and we can't have empathy for anybody. and any situation. And that's really one of the reasons I wrote the book, because I would kind of tell my story just, and I won't give away anything right now, but I would share a little bit of it and people would go, but how come you've ended up normal or you've got a positive outlook or you seem to be happy? And I'm like, yeah, because you have to go through some form of hell to get to the other side. And I think I look at it as all these experience make up the individual and give me the strength to be the person I am today and to have overcome the challenges I did. I wouldn't have if I hadn't have gone through what I did. Yeah, it's well said. Thanks for sharing that. The book is titled My Mother Next Door, and it seems sort of ominous when you just read the title. I always think of Mommy Dearest when I start hearing his relationships. I'm like, oh no, what happened? But without giving away too much of the secret sauce, can we dance around the story a little bit? Maybe you could fill us in with a little bit of a backstory and sort of set a hook for everybody. Okay, so there is a reason it's simply called My Mother Next Door because she really was. Exactly one week after my sixteenth birthday, you know, I come home from school, long walk with my friends, doing the normal Monty Python silly walk because that's the area I grew up in, you know, pop in one of my sweets, pretending it was whatever the happiness pill or whatever it was at the time, but basically our Monty Python hats on, um, get home, jump on the counter for my normal cup of tea and banter at the end of the week. And my, I'm going to say this, my Irish Catholic mother who considered herself a heathen in the eyes of the Catholic church, which is another funny story because mother was incredibly funny and a realist. Um, And she looked at me and, you know, having a cup of tea, and she said to me, I'm leaving you and your father tomorrow. And I'm like, what? You know, come on, Mom, you're always threatening to leave. I know you're not going to leave. And she goes, I am. I said, well, when are you going to leave? And she goes, tomorrow. And I'm like, you know, where are you going to go? Next door. And I'm sitting there and of course, you know, typical teenager, disgust, don't believe it, off I go, meet my friends that night, think it's, you know, it's another one of mum's threats. But there's something in my gut that's churning where I have this sense that this is different. Anyway, as we did back then, this is all set in the kind of late seventies. I go to my Saturday morning job, come home, no radio, deathly silence, dark house, no one's there. I run in, look around downstairs, run upstairs, open the wardrobe, all of her clothes, her face creams, everything of hers is gone. No note, no number, nothing. What do I do? I go from the blue door, number forty nine to the green door, number forty seven, knock on the door and she opens and I look at her like, have you really done this? And she said, yeah, I'm done. You know, obviously she invited me in and we sat down again over another cup of tea as the British do. And she says, I'm done. I've given you and your father, sixteen years of my life. I'm done. You're big and ugly enough to take care of yourself, the dog and your father. And I want to get on with my life now. My mother was sixty. She had me very late in life. And that is part of the background story, which is really integral to the overall story because it begins to explain why people do the things they do. So she's sixteen. So I said to her, well, you know, you're sharing the house with three college guys. You know, are you going to live with these guys? And she's like, yes, absolutely. And so she'd moved next door with three hot college guys. And when I asked her the question, what does dad have to say about this? She said, nothing. I'm like, why? You know, I'm sure he's a man of little words, but I'm sure he said something. And she said, I haven't told him. So I said, well, who's going to tell him then? And she said, you are. So that's kind of where the crux of the story begins. But within that, I give the context of my mother had divorced her first husband, already had two teenage children, an eighteen-year-old and a fifteen-year-old. My father's a widower with a fifteen-year-old, fourteen-year-old, sorry. And they're dating. They get pregnant with me. What do you do in nineteen sixty? You get married. But she was ready to start another life. And the story kind of goes from there and we'll get in. I know you have questions for me. I don't want to spill everything to begin with. Man, it brings up so many thoughts about responsibilities, expectations, you know, tacit agreements and mother daughter relationships, abandonment. Like I. All these things. And for a teenager, all that stuff had to be going through your mind. Like, what the heck is going on here? Like, what do you mean you're leaving? Aren't you supposed to be my mom? Aren't you supposed to, like, help me and be here for me? What do you mean I got to tell my dad? You're married to him. Why don't you tell him? Like, how did you deal with that? Like, right after you have that conversation inside the room, is your head just spinning? Or are you just like, okay, I'm a teenager. I'll just go do this stuff. You know, it's really interesting. You know, when you write a book, you really have to go to that quiet place. You have to, after you've gone and spoken to everyone, researched, tried to understand, spoken to siblings, spoken to family members, spoken to friends. I reached out to my high school friends and said, what was your perception of the time? But after you go through all of that, you have to have this quiet. And honestly, I still remember sitting in that front living room of hers, as if I was observing from the rafters. It was like I was out of my own body watching what was going on as if I was in some sort of Shakespearean play trying to work this out. But what I didn't understand or know at the time, my mother was clearly a narcissist. And so the way it's presented to you by someone with that personality is that, oh, yeah, I see why she's doing this. This is perfectly acceptable. This is normal. Yes, of course she needs her freedom. But you think about it, I'm also thinking, hang on, I'm the one that's meant to be running away from home, not you. I'm the I'm the sixteen year old here, not you. You're the sixty one year old. You got your numbers mixed up. So it was very strange, but I had always been, and I always believe we choose to be born into the families we're born into, and I chose to be born to my mother, and I say this in the book very openly, I chose to be born to my mother to toughen me up for this world. and to be enlightened in ways that people would find totally contradictory. Because she was like this, Horish, the fairies, gypsies, horoscopes, you name it. She took me to that realm, but then was very grounded and practical. So really interesting mix. But I went back, and I literally remember sitting at my stairs And it's interesting. It's actually, you relive that your body holds a lot of this. You relive it. And I can feel the emotion right now. My father was like my foundation, the solidness in my life. And this figure, this person that was like the strength, the backbone, the the person I could always trust. And so it was really one of those pivotal life-changing moments for me where my father walks in the house and I remember meeting him in the hallway and him saying to me, where's your mum, Diane? Where's your mother? Because the radio wasn't blasting. There were no smells coming out of the kitchen with the wonderful meals she would make. And I had to stand there and tell him she's left us dad. And of course he's confused. He's like, what do you mean? She's next door checking on her students and stuff like that. And I'm like, no, no, she's left us dad. And I remember him kind of slumping into my arms and we just hugged each other. And I said, we're going to be okay. We have each other. We're going to be fine. And I'm the child comforting the adult. And at that point, my role changed in the family. I'd always been the only one that spoke to everyone because there was always this mayhem going on around me. but it was where I knew I kind of had to take on this role of the keeper of the peace. I had to be the go-between and I had to try and work out how to be the vessel, I suppose, for both their emotions. So it was really heavy. It was really hard, but then again, you know when I think back I have to thank her and thank him for giving me the strength to be able to stand there and do that because I couldn't have done that if I didn't have that loving foundation where I'd been kind of given the freedom to really work things out for myself in life. You know, whether I fell down, the freedom to play in the woods, whatever that was. But that was a life in one of those moments. I'll never, ever forget. It will always be in me. And it was the moment I vowed never to do unto my own children what my mother did to me. because basically she left me to tidy up her mess. Is it generational? Did your mom have a horrible relationship with her mom? You know, I would never use the word horrible relationship. It sounds like a horrible relationship. It really wasn't. Like your parents abandoned you. That's horrible. Like clean up all my mess now. I'm sixty. I'm going to go live with these kids. I've done enough. Like that's so that's such a horrible. That's a horrible parent that does that. That's a horrible parent. It's maybe she taught you some skills, but that's horrible. It's a thoughtless parent. I'll go with that. I'll go with that. It's a selfish thoughtless parent. But, you know, it's interesting. And this is, again, a little bit of a story. Yeah, let's hear it. So I have always, I had a very good relationship with my mother up until that point. Very honest. um great relationship but I could see and this is where we forget children are so observant and so much smarter than any of us give them credit for I could see the um the the what would I call it the um the key triggers that led to her leaving. Um, and I talk about those in the book, but the last one had been, and we'll go into the others. The last one had been when she wanted to go back to work, she'd raised two children on her own. She'd lost two children in the second world war because of, you know, the war basically, um, them being killed in the war. Um, And then she made the choice to raise a child much later in life, that being me, when a lot of people wouldn't. And she... I'm kind of getting a little stuck here, but... I think, as I said, she was a great mother raising me. She made bad choices and she handled things badly. So I knew when she wanted to go back to work and my dad said, no, no wife of mine works. I can provide for my family. That that was the beginning of the end for them. And then you have this blended family around you where this sibling doesn't get on with her, the other sibling has friction with my father, and there's another sibling who my mother doesn't speak to, but my father is on her side. So there's all this stuff going on around. There's all these complexities. So I would call her an incredibly complex woman. And this is why, when you say she's a horrible mother, I had to write the book because people will look at it and go oh my god what a excuse my french italian whatever you want to call it but I was like you know what it's more complex life is so much more complex than that and so did I have issue with her then yes of course I did But she moved next door. So she was still right there to help with things. And I saw her every day. But she really did give me the tools to be able to deal with any situation back to your first question. She gave me those tools. So back to the story of where I got to this part, the generational question. And I'm not making excuses for her because she did some horrible things. But people love in different ways and they show their love in different ways. So when my daughter was about seven to eighteen, first year in college, and my husband and I were going through our own issues. But when we were going through our issues, I actually sat down with my children and said, you know, Your father and I are clearly at this point where we're not getting on. There's a lot of things we need to sort out and dad's gonna move out for a little while, but understand the family stays intact. It's the structure that has changed. We will still have Sunday dinner together. We will still have holidays together, but we have to work this out and we're not doing a very good job of working out in the house together. So we're going to give each other space. And my husband and I are together now. So it was handled very differently. But still, daughter going off to college, she had a lot of turmoil, a lot of issue with this. And we've always been very, very close. We go on trips every year together. We spend time together. We talk about everything together. So I realized... our relationship was at that, again, pivotal point. And so we, I decided to go to Morocco, of all places, on this trip. And everyone's like, why are you going to Morocco? Didn't they just bomb Marrakech last year? And I'm like, yeah, but they could bomb anywhere. So you've got to keep living. But I wanted to take us out of our date. And I'm blessed that I can do that. But I'm a traveler. That's how I live my life. But I wanted to be in a totally different situation where we were hiking every day. We were doing yoga. We were meeting these different people. And the first night at the retreat we were at, I'm sitting around the table and there's about ten, eleven of us. Escape to Shape it was called. I'm looking and I'm thinking, oh my God, what have I got us into now? And the night before I had been really sick, really, really sick. And I'm up the next day, not the next day, a couple of days later, because I was that ill. And I'm sitting by the pool, resting. And I turned to this German lady who's on the trip. And I said, I'm sorry if I made such an awful sound. But, you know, I obviously had food poisoning or something. And I apologized. I kept everyone up all night. And she goes, well, we thought it was a horror movie, quite honestly. But she said, look at you. You've purged yourself for a new beginning. And I'm thinking, who is this woman? I don't even really know her. But at dinner that night, after dinner, people go to bed and there's four of us left. And she and her husband, who's a Turkish man, very unusual couple, turns out they're channelers. And she literally looks at me after dinner and says to me, you need to forgive your mother. I'm like, what? What? How would you know about my mother? I have forgiven my mother. She goes, no, you haven't. She said, you're still carrying it. You need to forgive your mother. And if you don't, your daughter will carry the burden and it will be carried for generations. And I thought about it and I was like, God, yeah, she is carrying this weight. She's carrying this responsibility for me. And we even did, she led it, a meditation with my daughter and I together where we both went back to being babies in our mother's arms. And I looked at her at the end of it, and she was back to the child that she still needed to be as a seventeen-year-old. And we talked about how she felt she needed to protect me or take care of me. She was taking on the role that I had taken on. So we, or I, realized I needed to change that generational pattern, in answer to your question. My mother's relationship with her mother, my mother grew up in a family of basically all boys, poor in Ireland, and her mother worked, so her grandmother brought her up. And my mother left at sixteen because she had no opportunity in Ireland, and she was made to leave school at fourteen to take care of her brothers. while her mother went out to work. And then it was under her mother's care in the Second World War that her first child died. So there were, even though my mother took care of her mother later in life, and she really admired and loved her mother, there were these patterns that had been formed that I needed to change. And I think I have, that was the purpose of writing the book. Thank you for sharing it. It's, it's interesting to get to hear how patterns can be changed forever. It's sounds to me becoming aware that there is a pattern. might be the first stage and then finding the courage to forgive I know that sounds like a weird thing to say find the courage to forgive but it's hard to forgive like especially when you've been wounded at a young age and that wound just festers and gets more and more the more you hold on to it like the more salt you pour into it and the bigger it gets and you make it like it almost becomes a it almost becomes an engine for moving forward. Like you channel that hate, you channel that anger, and that's what moves you forward on so many levels. It's, how did you, like, what was it? Like you needed to forgive your mom, but did you think to yourself, if I don't do this, my daughter has to do it and then I become a horrible person? Or like, what was the catalyst that made you do it? The catalyst really started with her doing what she did, the way she did it and making that vow at sixteen. I mean, I really did make that vow. And I also, I think part of that is looking at my life as more than me. It's not, as a mother, it is not just about me. I do impact my kids. I do impact my stepkids. I do impact other people. And that can be good or bad. So my thing has always been, and I've always said this to my kids, you can tell me, say absolutely anything to me. If something happens to you and something will, I promise you it will, you can come and tell me. You can call me any time of night and I will be there. But if you don't tell me, then I can't be there and I can't help you. And I will be cross. Excuse me. So I think it's the first act of being willing to listen and look at your children. And I've written about this in a few articles. Looking at your children as these people that you've brought into the world to hopefully... do some good in the world, but to also just have a good relationship with. I didn't bring them into the world to serve me and to be molded into what I want. They have to be their own person. And this is where the quandary of my mother comes in because my mother wanted me to be my own person. Maybe it's because she was a Gemini, who knows? She wanted me to be my own person. But on the other hand, she wanted to control that. But she could never control me. And that became more and more apparent. Now, her mother, her family could never control her, which that's good. I mean, I write about that in the beginning of the book. I thank the Dunphy women for their spirit and their independence and the fact that They were all unorthodox. They went against the norm and they did what they needed to do. You can do that, but you don't have to do that and injure people along the way. So that's the piece I had to change. I can be whatever I want, but I am not going to do it at the sacrifice of my family. And it's a really fine line. And I'll give you an example. My daughter and I had the podcast, Mothers and Daughters Unfiltered. We ran it for two years. Really successful, really wonderful. But it got to the point when my daughter and I were knocking heads. She's a strong personality, very smart, beautiful woman. And she came to, and we would have conversations and we'd get onto the podcast and business and blah, blah, blah. And she came to me in the end, she goes, mom, I love you more than anything and I would do anything for you, but I can't do this podcast anymore. I feel it's interfering with our relationship and I need you to be my mom. I need you to be my mom. I need you to be my friend. I don't want to be talking about this every time we talk. We have a relationship, a good one, and I don't want it to hurt that. And that's when I had to stand back and my ego had to go, oof, I've invested so much in this. We've been doing so well. But my relationship with my daughter is more important than any podcast. So that's where there are other ways we can, I can reach out. There's other ways maybe I can affect change or help other people. I don't have to do it through the podcast with her. So I can see where that trying to have control over someone's life had to be changed. And it's a, it, It goes beyond me and it's about them and their desires. I hope that answered the question. Yeah, no, absolutely. Did you ever get a chance to like talk to your mom, like, is your mom still alive? No, she died. You've got to remember, she was six, uh, forty-five when she had me. When you were sixteen. Did you ever get a chance to go back and talk to her about, like, all the things that had happened, or confront her, or forgive her face-to-face? Um, you know, it's interesting. I, we would talk about bits and pieces of it as we went. I mean, she did end up coming back into her life. Stayed in her own house, but she used to come and probably about a year and a half after she left clean, tidy. We even tried a holiday. We went on holiday together as a family, which I write about in the book, which it was to Israel. It was hysterical. Anyway, that's, you have to read about that trip. I, we did on and off and I had a period when I was in my late early thirties where I particularly late twenties, I couldn't actually go and see her without having a friend with me because she would irritate me so much. I was, that anger was there that I didn't know how to release. But when I was in America and I met with a medium and I was probably about thirty, thirty one, thirty, thirty one. I remember it vividly. And it was in California. And he said to me, you have to learn to trust in this life. And you have to forgive your mother. And again, this was an early, you have to forgive your mother. And he said, you don't have to do it face to face. Because I was very frustrated with her at the time. And I was living in America. Hey, why do you think I moved to America? One of the reasons to get away. Get the hell out of there. I didn't want to get caught in that web that was going on. And he said, but just do it in your heart. Do it from afar, sit and meditate on it. So I did. And that really, really helped. But when I really, and we never really talked in depth about her leaving dad. When she would start ranting about him, I would say, do not talk. say anything detrimental about my father, whether, you know, whatever your opinion is, you have that, but I don't. And I won't stay here and listen to you speak badly about him. But when she was dying, and I write about that in the book, the very end of the book is about basically when she was dying and she was going in and out of People say dementia, but I think she really was seeing the other side because she would talk. I'd be sitting on the bed in the hospital and she'd be going and saying, hey, oh my God, my hair isn't done. What have they done with my dentures, Diane? I look at this and look, there's Alec over there. Or so, oh, there's Tom, who was her first husband. Oh, look, oh, I don't want them to see. So she's having this like conversation of being here, not being here. But we talked and she admitted some things. And she said to me, I always knew you were the strong one and you could handle things. She said, but I've done terrible things to your sister, Mari, my eldest sister. But then Mari's done awful things back to her. They did have a horrible relationship. Mum was cruel to her, really cruel. Typical Irish mother, they make no bones about sons being the favourites. But, you know, I had enough love to go around, didn't bother me. We each had a different relationship. And that's the other thing we have to remember. We all have different relationships with our parents. Each sibling has a different relationship. But she was saying to me, oh, I've done terrible things to your sister. Do you think she'll ever forgive me? And I said, mom, yes, she has. She's here. She's the reason I'm here. She called me and I got on a plane to get here because of her. So she had those regrets, and she said, you know, what will happen to your brother? I'm so worried. I said, don't worry. He has a wife. He has children. He'll be fine. We'll take it. You can go, Mom. You can let go. And so it was like she needed permission to let go and that things were okay. But as I wrote this story, and I walked away from this book probably about three times. and you know I live in uh lake tahoe incline village um on the not on the lake but uh looking at the lake and I go down to the lake and saturday mornings I have coffee with this really interesting group of women who are all reiki masters and you know I have this really rich life I'd say of business spiritual side you know because we're living in the human condition we need to be able to experience all of it um And this one woman, Debbie, who reads cards, wonderful woman, she said to me as I was writing the book, she said, you know, and she didn't know anything about the book thing. She didn't really know me very well. She said, there's this woman in this tree behind you. And she goes, oh, my God, she's hysterical. And she started describing my mother. I know it sounds weird to people. And she said, but she says she's sorry. And she said, you need to write this story and she's okay with you writing this story, which kind of gave me permission. And then I went full steam ahead because this was a story I did not want to write. but I was clearly destined to. And every time I would tell a snippet, people would go, oh my God, they burst out laughing. And then they'd be embarrassed about laughing. And I began, no, no, it's okay. I laugh at it. I've actually written this book with a reverent humor, as well as pathos, because humor allows us to approach subjects and to take off the hard edges of subjects. And I used humor with my mother to survive her. So I would diffuse a situation as a kid with humor and she would appreciate that and she would laugh. But she was a strong Irish woman who went through a lot. And I think the other thing you have to think about, and this was, you talk about generational, She left Ireland to move to England for success and for a better life. I left England to move to America for career success and what I thought would be a better life. And so I married an American. She married someone in Britain. I had my children in the country, in a new country. She had her children in a new country. So you begin to see those similarities and you then have to look at, What is it I need to fix in this? To me, it sounds like a, and I think about this with my own family and other people that I speak to, but it seems like an evolution of awareness. Like you had to go through those things. And like you said, you were given some exotic tools to fix complex problems, but being handed that tool at such a young age is... difficult to handle. You don't know how to handle a tool like that until you wheel it around a little bit. And as you get older, you're like, wow, this tool is pretty handy. I can really hurt people with it or I could use it to fix stuff, you know, but what's your take on evolution of awareness? Like it sounds like you shouldered a lot of the same sort of proclivities as your mother, but you wielded this tool in a different way. You were able to be more aware because of what happened to you. Is it an evolution of awareness? I think it's a couple of things. It is an evolution of awareness, which, and I'm making a note so I don't forget that, that you learn over life, over experience, over life. And it's accepting and admitting things. But what I had is, as a young child, I knew I was loved. I knew where my mother... her father was very hard on her, treated her like a second class citizen, which is why I think she was this fighting constantly for her identity and to be seen and heard. And she had a very loud voice. She needed to be seen. I mean, the nuns, She was sent down to the dungeons, literally, to wash boiling sheets. And she would tell me those stories because she was outspoken and had opinions. But she was shut down, shut down. I wasn't. So that's the first. And I say this particularly to men with daughters. A father figure is important. My father told, I mean, he was sixty when he had me. And I remember as a little girl him telling me, you are the greatest gift I could have possibly had late in life because now I get to see the world through a child's eyes again. It's made me young again. And so. He was strict and disciplined, but I knew, and I had boundaries. I mean, that's another thing is boundaries. I had to learn how to use boundaries with my mother. And I did a in-person workshop actually earlier this year in Rancho La Puerta, which is an amazing place down in Mexico with my daughter. We did it together. And we talk a lot about boundaries, because I have had to learn my boundaries with my own kids and learn how to respect those, where my mother didn't respect boundaries, didn't respect them. So I think in witnessing what I went through, that gave me a great perspective, whether I could deal with it or not at the time. I was very lucky that I had good friends Good, solid friends. And my story wasn't publicized or scrutinized. It was private. I mean, no one – I mean, we didn't have counselors at school or anything like that. So I remember one of my friends saying to me recently when I was writing the book, she said, oh, yeah, I knew your mom had left and moved next door, and I thought it was awfully strange, but, you know, we just – Kept calm and carried on, didn't we? And it was like, yeah, we did. We just kept going. And that was, I grew up in a different culture where we really did just keep going. And you joked about things. I joked about it. But I had my best friend, she's called Sophie in the book, but her name's Hazel. We're still friends. Funny enough, she moved to America as well. And I see her, you know, and we talk all the time. She's like a sister to me. Her family was my... saving grace. I was always there. I also had my brother's wife, who was amazing, my sister by my father, who was really grounding, and I could talk to her about it. But I think also because my mother was so vocal and open that nothing was a shock. I kind of knew what was going on. She probably, she told me too much actually. But I think the great awareness came really kind of mid, mid forties where I'd carried it, carried it. And she did something which just, I was visiting her with my kids. They were babies. And she said something, okay, I'm not going to say what it is because it's in the book. And it just put me over the edge. I came undone. And my husband said, you need to go and speak to a therapist, a specialist. So I was probably about forty, actually about forty. So I did. And I had three sessions and they were life changing. And therapist basically said to me, you don't have to protect your mother anymore. You can accept what she did to you was wrong and no one should expect a sixteen year old to carry that weight. And you can let go of that now and stop protecting her and telling everyone it was OK. It was not OK. And that was really freeing. I got a sense of why this, you know, therapists work. But, you know, I literally went for those few sessions and talked to friends, really close friends, and talked to my sisters at the time about what my mother had done. And so I was able to, you know, really digested again in a new way and let go of a lot of it. And then I probably in my late forties, I really, I studied with Deepak Chopra and did some deep dives into really understanding what I was still carrying. And writing the book was clearly cathartic. It really is. And I find it interesting, George, the more I talk about it, the more I learn. You know, so awareness, awareness is the absolute, and that's why I created Own It, Feel It, Live It. Own It is awareness, awareness. It's acceptance. It's awareness of what you've been through or what you're doing. Feel it is allowing yourself, which is what I hadn't done early on, allowing yourself to feel that in your body and to release it in whatever way you need to. And live it is, you know, clearly owning, feeling it, and then being able to move forward and, And I do write in the book, the epilogue actually is the purpose of forgiveness is to reestablish our humanity. And that's what it comes down to, awareness and forgiveness. And that's a Westmore quote. And you're right. I think forgiveness and awareness is, as you've said, the courage to accept that there really are things, there are people who, that are out of our control. I mean, they're simply out of our control. And it's normally not about us, it's about them. And that's why I put the backstory of my mother's life in so you can get a sense of why she did the things she did. She left home at sixteen. So to her, that was perfectly fine. But I'm a kid in school doing my O levels who has no idea how to clean a house or do any of that nonsense. And she leaves me flat on my face. So it was horrible the way she did it. I mean, it really was horrible what she did. But I think she personally, whether she ever admitted it, she felt that loss. And she knew her mistakes. But I think that the forgiveness, the other part of forgiveness is it allows us to move forward. And that's all we can do is keep moving forward and trying to do it each step with a little more awareness. of how we live this life it's a lot it's a lot to think about it experience has taught me that anger is a really big blockage for forgiveness You just mentioned your husband's like, you got to go see a counselor. That means that he was like, listen, Diane, you're carrying way too much burden here. This is affecting our family. You got to go talk to somebody. And I don't want to pull too hard on the heartstrings, but so much of what you're saying appeals not only to my life, but so many people I know who have grown up in a family that was a broken home. or had an atrocity happen to it, whether it was abuse of some kind. But the anger, it sounds like well into your forties you used to have anger. Was there a point at which the anger became detrimental to you or your family? Or what was it that changed your relationship to anger to allow in forgiveness? You know, I never knew. I had any anger. I suppressed it. I suppressed it. So the anger showed up, as I said, in my late twenties to actually, no, probably mid twenties to And that anger was demonstrated by not being able to go see her on my own, always taking a friend, you know, partying really hard, work hard, party hard. Right, right. And then I didn't have any anger It was more, there was a sadness there. I actually didn't, there was never anger. I would never call it anger. It was kind of like a disappointment and a sadness. But it was also suppressed of I'm throwing that out, I'm blocking that. And it wasn't until she did this thing when I was forty and I literally walked out of her house. I'm not the type of person that blows up or gets angry. I'm Libra. But when I do, I do. I get really angry. But this wasn't that I was angry when my husband said, you need to go see someone. I was just like, I felt my world was falling apart. I felt like I was falling apart. And I needed to speak to someone about it and understand why. Anger, when I was writing the book, I'd be writing and one minute I would be laughing hysterically because I played old Monty Python stuff. I played songs from the era. I played, you know, Dave Allen, all these different things that kind of made me laugh. And then I would literally be in the room screaming at her, yelling, why did you, why did you do, why did you think that was okay? That's where that was released. I never, ever released it on anyone. And I honestly, I can honestly, honestly say I was never angry or knew if I was angry, let's put it that way, showed that I was more sad or irritated at times by her. I never allowed it to trickle into my life. And anger, probably the... I got on with my life and probably is one of the things that drove me in my career. I was very, very driven. I came here to America so I could get out of that, and I mentioned that earlier, out of that web of what I felt was so unproductive and unnecessary. And so I was able to move away from it, but it wasn't anger. It was more, I block you. I'm living my own life. You know, when she came over to help with my first child and she suggests things, I say, mother, don't tell me how to raise my kids. I know how to do that. So it was more that I put this wall up A block, because I have to protect myself. And that's what I did. So I was never angry. Actually, I can honestly say I was never angry until I was writing the book and then it kind of bubbled to the surface. But I look at pictures of when I was sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, and you see the sadness in my eyes. I can, I never knew that. I see the sadness that there's a real, and I think it, and I look tired. I look really tired, you know, but then I just got on with my own life and I write about this in the book. I'm not going to go into it much, but let's put it this way. I, my father died. when I was a few years later after she left, which was so hard. And I stayed in the house on my own, but my father goes, he got me out of that house. Yeah, I mean, she, oh God, I think you'll read the book, you'll see all the things she did, but it's really showing. We expect a lot of women, we expect a lot of mothers We expect them to be this perfect being, but no one can understand the situation and understand the story until we put ourselves in that person's shoes and understand where they came from. And that's a lot of what we did at the workshop at Rancho La Puerta this year, understanding what this person, what she went through, gives us greater compassion and empathy for their story and their situation. It sounds like an amazing workshop. And as we've progressed in the conversation, you had mentioned to like not only alternate states of awareness, but channeling or being a Reiki master. Have you or maybe some of the women in your group ever used psychedelics to find out ways to move through trauma and PTSD and explore alternatives in that direction? We haven't. But I have spoken to people who have actually I've gone blank on his name, Tony. He's at NYU. He's done a lot of work on psychedelics and end of life. And that was through the Nantucket Project I met him. And I found it really fascinating how, you know, it has helped people release or go very peacefully. But no, we, I don't know anyone who has, but as I said, I know this professor who was conducting a lot of safe environments and testing around it. Yeah. Well, now, you know, another person like it's such a phenomenal way for people to, you know, In the story that I've talked to you so far, it sounds to me that you were able to approach these very delicate situations that were very emotionally charged from a different perspective, almost a third-person point of view, where you can approach it without shame, without guilt. That's a huge part of getting past any sort of PTSD, traumas, self-mutilation, whether not physically, but when you're just in your head and you can't get past this stuff. It's so hard to move through these generational patterns unless, you can begin to view it without shame and guilt. These giant threshold guardians that are just like, do not pass. You must not go in this cave, you know, like, but yeah, I, I bring it up because it's so much of what you said is so psychedelic in so many ways. I, I had to ask, I'm like, I wonder if, if she's, she's been on this, but that being said, we, we got another, we got our question coming and I got a few stacked up over here because the conversation has been so amazing so far. So, um, Forgiveness is a strong theme in your story. Can you share what forgiveness feels like for you in this context? I guess we covered the second part, but can you share what forgiveness means to you now? Forgiveness for me, besides, as I've mentioned, allowing us to move forward without bitterness... It's like this, and again, I write about this in the book, it's like this new dawn for me. It really enables us to feel somewhat whole, grounded, and accepting with some sort of kind of empathy for what's going on in this crazy, crazy world. And it allows us, and I think this is maybe, and this is just something that's coming to me now, but it allows us to feel like, I know I have a choice. Yes. No one's telling me to do this. I'm telling me to do this. I feel, and this is interesting. I haven't written about this anywhere, but I, I, I think it is. Ultimately, all this comes down to our choice. Do you want to live your life as a curmudgeon and be bitter and allow this experience to haunt you? Or do you just want to get on with it and live the life you want to live? So whole. Makes me feel whole and in charge. That's a beautiful answer. It's taking back your authenticity. Yeah. And authenticity is so important to me. They wanted to make someone wanted to make a movie out of this at one point. And they sent me the outline, the treatment. And they changed. I mean, they basically turned it into a hangover. And I was like, no, no, I'm not disrespecting everyone in my family just to make a dime. Forget it. I will be in control of this if anyone makes it. So yeah, authenticity. That's so awesome. We have Lucy from Florida and she says, you grew up navigating a very uncomfortable family dynamic. How did this impact the way you defined family and relationships in your own life? Well, interestingly, Lucy, I married a man who had two children to begin with. Imagine that. imagine um which is not always easy it's not easy particularly when then you have your own two children so for me it became about and this is the big crux of it when you go into a blended family or you create your own blended family it's not the children's fault It's nothing to do with the children. It's the adults who are the problem. So my thing has always been where I saw my mother pit everyone against each other, my belief is you have to try and make everyone feel included and part of something. And it doesn't mean it's gonna be easy. But it's kind of like, you have to be the big kid in this. And also, you have to have respect for yourself and your own value. And never feel like, allow someone to treat you with disrespect. disrespect and as if you're not part of this new dynamic that you've created it's like how do you all fit into this new dynamic and honestly just simple communication is important I mean in my blended family we've had some major blowouts I mean major But, and sometimes we've had to do our space and then come back. But what we've had to do is be willing to sit down in a room and just hash it out. And it's important to tell, I mean, tell people in a way that maybe they can understand without hitting them over the head, that something hurts. You know, you hurt me, or I don't understand why, or, You know, it's, again, it comes down to this thing of we lose, you know, we can't live in sound bites. We can't live without being committed to something and knowing that some things are going to be really, really hard. And it's whether you're willing to stick with it or not. And commitment is something that is part of that. So blended families are not easy. They're not easy. But, you know, for me it's also been all the kids just calling each other brothers and sisters, bringing them together on traditional holidays, being there for, you know, each other at key times. And just trying to listen, but not pretending to be perfect because we're not. And no martyrs. Can't deal with a martyr. Yeah. Sounds like the keys to living a life worth living is communication, but those tools are hard to come by unless you're given to them as a young individual, right? Like no one, at least I was never sat down and been like, okay, these are the effective keys for communication. Here's how you talk about your feelings, you know, try not to use too much sarcasm. You know, like we have all these defense mechanisms instead of keys to communication on something. It gets really hard to, Conversation alone and words fail sometimes. They do. But, you know, my thing is I've always been that, for a non-traditionalist, traditionalist about sitting down around the dinner table. So, you know, and that's how I was brought up. That's how I brought up my kids. We sit around the dinner table together or whether it's, you know, dinner at night. when they were little or now when we get together or Christmas, whatever celebration, but just, we just have general dinners together or cook together. And it's, it's not so much saying these are the skills you need. It's more having an open conversation and it's the modeling. It's, it's really more about modeling and having and being there and talking rather than saying, This is what you have to do. Here are the three keys to success. You know, it's like when I get asked to written certain articles and they want, we want these six points to blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, oh my God, it's more than six points. Can I give you twenty five and give you twenty five essays instead? But again, it's modeling. It's talking. It's I mean, I really feel for parents these days with, you know, everyone on their cell phones or whatever. I never allow cell phones, never have, never will allow cell phones around a dinner table. When we're together, the cell phones are, you know, in your pocket, on your chair, wherever it is, but they're not on the table. So it is, and it's... Even to the point if... Because we're not going to be perfect either. I even remember my son, when he was little, yelling at him. I remember it was on the landing of our house when we lived in New Jersey. And I was telling him off about something and raising my voice. And he looked at me. He was three. He looked at me and he went, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah. And I went, what are you doing? Why are you yelling at me? And he goes... stop yelling at me, mommy. I'm yelling at you. Like you're yelling at me. Cause I don't know what you're saying. Talk to me. This was a three-year-old and I thought, oh my God, you've taught me a lesson. And, but it's again, that's kind of, I learned, okay, I've got to try and, and yeah. And if I do yell, if I do get mad, it's saying, Hey, you know, maybe I'm sorry. I said it that way. What I was really trying to say was, And that's part of the awareness. But I can do that more as an adult. I mean, I couldn't have written this book when I was twenty. And that's just a realization, a fact of life, that the more experience you have in living in this world, hopefully we get a little better instead of a little worse. Yeah. On some level, it seems like listening to the stories and talking with you, I can almost envision like a rite of passage when I see the way in which the relationship happened with your mom. And then I go onto your website and I can see the podcast with you and your daughter. And I get to hear some of the stories between the way you share wisdom with your kids. And then just this last comment about You know, maybe we are spiraling up in like a helical matter as we're moving through this thing on some level. I guess if you pan back, can you see that picture? Do you think that that's kind of what's happening right here is not only an evolution in awareness, but like there is this slow, gradual move upwards of communication and empathy and understanding and becoming something better. I do. I do. And I think, you know, we're so focused on, in our society on youth and we're forgetting the beauty of aging and the kind of, you know, I always just, we always talk about, oh, that older person, you know, they have so much wisdom or why do young kids, grandkids get on so well with their grandparents? you know? And again, you know, that's just something that I, and I think about that and you ask why I was able to maybe see things because my father was that. I was really growing up with my grandfather. Right. Yep. Who wasn't going through the struggles of being a forty-year-old parent. Middle-aged guy. Yeah. You know? He'd lived life. He was going through the experience of being a sixteen, you know, my nieces and nephews are my age, you know, so I'm nearer their age than I am any of my siblings. So I think that is, that's a beautiful way of looking at it. And it's, you know, it kind of gives some real hope and kind of intrigue and just, hey, that's a good thing to look forward to. Maybe we get a little wiser. Maybe things get a little better. Maybe we feel we have stuff to share that could be useful. I mean, that's why my daughter and I started Mothers and Daughters Unfiltered, so we could have this intergenerational exchange. of ideas and how we look at things versus how they're looking at things. And maybe we can meet in the middle and help each other. God, Natalie, I wish you would do this again with me. Yeah, I love it. I think that there's something to be said about intergenerational living and the wisdom of life. They still do it elsewhere. I mean, that trip I spoke about in Morocco, which was so impactful for my daughter and I, they live intergenerationally. Yeah. Yeah. I heard a funny quote that said, the reason why grandkids and grandparents get along so well is because they have a common enemy. I love that. I'm going to make a plaque for that and give it to my kids. Do it. Totally. That's the Christmas present. That is. It's so good. But yeah, it's tough to be. And if you look at the way in the Western world, we've kind of moved into this. We've moved away from that, the intergenerational living. And it's so hard to try and be a mother or a father who is all things, who's a taxi driver, a coach, a mentor, a leader, a homework doer. It's a band coach. You know, it's like It's so impossible to be all of these things and still feel successful in your own life. Like you are this trailblazer. Like it's such a myth. It's such a myth. And I think it's so damaging to family units when you could, maybe when you can't have grandparents around that have a whole nother aspect that have this, you know, encyclopedia of a life lived that have this wealth of experience and are willing to help out you and your kid. Like, I wish we would turn more towards that. And it could be really well for family units and therapy and like just a break from the whole rat race that we find ourselves in today. I wholeheartedly agree. It's actually my cousin, Mike, who I mentioned at the beginning of the book. Yeah. He's doing that with his own. He and his wife are doing that with their own daughter and their own grandkid. And you know what? everyone is having is is they're all enjoying it they're all prospering yeah you know it's it's what families used to do and you're right that it could be so much less stressful for for women in particular I mean yeah of course I I ultimately gave up my career because I I couldn't be going into Manhattan and traveling all over the country and my husband doing the same and trying to have a relationship with my kids. I had no family nearby. So it didn't work, which is why I stepped back. But it was a right decision for us. But if, you know, you had family around, I don't. Well, my mom actually helped my brother a lot with his kids. So I saw it there. She did. She actually did much better with that. So, yeah, it's I think you're absolutely right. Yeah, it's I'm very thankful and hopeful for the times that we're in, because I not only how heartfelt the book that you wrote is. But I do see this sort of vein of optimism in there when people are going and willing to talk about these difficult things in their life, but not just talk about those, but explain why they were necessary and explain why Because this thing happened, I will never do this. Or because this happened, now I have this tool. Or because I have this, I've taken these new lenses and seen the world differently. But I see it as a part of the world moving up in a way that is spiritual and beautiful and powerful. I've, I think it's wonderful, Diane. I'm super stoked. And I think I'm hopeful that everybody within the sound of our voice here will go down to the show notes, check out your website, check out the podcast, check out the book, reach out to you. You're an incredible individual who's got book and discovery goals on their website. So they can reach out to you if they have some questions and stuff. But before I, before you've been very gracious with your time, I was hoping that maybe you could tell people where they can find you, what you have coming up and what you're excited about. Okay, well, here is the book, so when you look for it, you know what it looks like. You can see the two houses and My Mother Next Door. You can, obviously Amazon, you can order it. It is available in print, digital, and there is an audio book too, which you can get on all the platforms. And you can also go to your bookstores and order My Mother Next Door. It would make a great Christmas gift. And it's really been interesting when we did our workshop at Rancho La Puerta, which I hope we do another one there and elsewhere, which you can certainly contact me about. It's a four part workshop. It's a great book. for you and your own mom to have conversations I saw mothers learning things about their own mothers I saw the daughters finding out things about their mothers they never knew and it explained so much to them so that's the beauty of it um you can find me at mothers and daughters unfiltered.com um honestly right now I am um enjoying being on podcasts about the book it's like the book actually was launched in november and it's having this rebirth so it must be needed in the world right now I'm also an artist, which is Diane Danvers Simmons art, which I'm painting and I'm finding that is an incredible way of expressing and letting go of things as well. I think you'll find some interesting podcasts on our website and you'll find more about the book, more about me, even though you've probably heard enough about me right now. And there is my contact information as well of how to reach me. And I'm just very grateful to you, George, for inviting me on the show and for such an intriguing and lovely conversation. I think we could sit here for weeks. And, you know, there are many articles that I've written for different publications. You'll see a whole section on media and articles. um different articles that different magazines have written about the book and the story but I I I just hope um that you take away from this and what I try to do in writing this book is we always need to be willing to look at a story through a fresh lens be willing to put ourselves into someone else's shoes and you know it's it's really about letting go of things that are just not serving you anymore and understanding that we can't solve every problem, that there are other people's problems. All we can do is try and help and be there and make changes with our own families and think about the impact we have on them and people around us and how we can keep trying to shine some sort of light in this world. So that's it. It's pink. It's not the mother next door. It's my mother next door. My mother next door. My mother next door. And you'll recognize the pink cover. And if you do, please leave. Rate and reviews are great on Amazon. And I think Barnes & Noble, there's lots of different sites. You'll see. Yeah, absolutely. Well, hang on briefly afterwards, Diane. I had an absolute blast in this conversation. Thank you for opening up and sharing so many, so much of the story that is. I am open for book clubs as well. I do join people on zoom for book clubs. Very nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, go down to the show notes, check it all out. I hope you have a beautiful day. This book makes a fantastic Christmas gift or a Thanksgiving gift, if you're so willing. And that's all we have for today, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you have a beautiful day. Aloha.
