Realfoodology - Food Wisdom from My Mom: Nutrition, Seed Oils & Healing After Loss

Episode Date: September 30, 2025

269: My mom is finally on the podcast, and we have a lot to talk about. She has been one of the biggest influences in my personal nutrition journey, teaching me the power of whole foods from an early age. She is also one of the strongest people I know. Our family has survived so much, and my mom is sharing some of the lessons she’s learned from the hardship. It’s a beautiful, emotional and cathartic conversation - I hope you enjoy it.    Topics Discussed: → What timeless food lessons can Mama Swan teach us?  → How have eating habits and nutrition changed across generations? → Why did my mom know not to trust seed oils from day one (despite the hype)? → How can parents teach kids about food without triggering restrictions? → What are some strategies for healing from loss and hardship? Sponsored By: → Our Place | Upgrade to Our Place today! Visit www.fromourplace.com/REALFOODOLOGY and use code REALFOODOLOGY for 10% off sitewide. → BIOptimizers | For 15% off go to www.bioptimizers.com/realfoodology and use promo code REALFOODOLOGY. → Manukora | Go to www.manukora.com/REALFOODOLOGY to get $25 off the Starter Kit, which comes with an MGO 850+ Manuka Honey jar, 5 honey travel sticks, a wooden spoon, and a guidebook! → Paleovalley | Save at 15% at www.paleovalley.com/realfoodology and use code REALFOODOLOGY. → CURED | Subscribe for Night Caps today and never miss a solid night’s sleep.Get an exclusive 20%-off! Visit www.curednutrition.com/realfoodology and use code REALFOODOLOGY at checkout. → Vimergy | New customers can save 20% off their first order with the code REALFOODOLOGY20 at www.vimergy.com. Timestamps:  → 00:00:00 - Introduction  → 00:04:30 - Processed vs. Whole Foods   → 00:10:22 - Generational Differences: Cooking, Nutrition & Wellness  → 00:15:26 - Seed Oils & Italian Food Culture  → 00:23:20 - Food System Shifts: 1980s and 1990s  → 00:30:46 - Teaching Nutrition to Kids  → 00:37:45 - Death, Loss + Forgiveness  → 00:56:00 - Faith & Spirituality   → 01:00:30 - Advice for Dealing With Loss & Hardship  → 01:06:27 - Moving Forward After Trauma   Check Out Courtney:  →  LEAVE US A VOICE MESSAGE →  Check Out My new FREE Grocery Guide! →  @realfoodology →  www.realfoodology.com →  My Immune Supplement by 2x4 →  Air Dr Air Purifier →  AquaTru Water Filter →  EWG Tap Water Database Produced By: Drake Peterson

On today's episode of the Real Foodology podcast, people just fell into the rhythm and the flow of what was happening in our society, thinking that the food that they ate when they were 10 years old was the same that they're eating now when they're 25 or 30 and not realizing it had changed. Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of the Real Foodology podcast. Today's episode is a really special one. I've talked about this for years. My mom is joining me today. And I've been talking about my mom and my journey getting into healthy eating forever on this podcast. And I thought, why not hear from her, her philosophy and food and how she got to know all of the knowledge that she has around healthy eating? And I want to know what her parenting advice is around food and so much more.

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Thank you, Courtney. This is going to be also an emotional show because we're also going to talk about the loss of my siblings at some point. My mom has been such a strong woman throughout her life with just everything that we've been through. And I want everyone to hear from her how she, got through the terror of tragedies that happened in our family. But first and foremost, I want to talk about how did you start to understand nutrition so long ago? I've talked about

this a lot on the podcast. I have always been blown away by the fact that I'm an 80s kid. I grew up in the 80s. I was born in 84. So I grew up in a world of Dunkeroo's and Toaster Strudels and Pop-Tarts. And it was the height of it of all this ultra-processed foods that were coming out and nobody really knew how bad they were and you knew back then you were making stuff from scratch we barely ever ate out in fact i had never even really had fast food until i went to college like i had had it a couple times where how did you come how did you how did you how did you come up with that food philosophy i think part of it was innate um part of it was growing up in a household where my mother conscientious about what we ate, my mom. And I just remember as a child growing up when things like

Coca-Cola was introduced into our lives and things like that, we didn't know anything about it. But she was very careful about how much quantity, you know, what we did drink. It was a treat. so she would buy enough Coke for my brothers. I have three brothers. Did you? Yeah, with me, yeah. So there's four hungry kids in the house who, you know, would love that. And she just said, here's your Coke for the week.

And we got to pick and choose whatever day it was, but it was one Coke a week. Can you imagine? And now there's parents that are giving Coke. their kids every day. Every day. It's wild. Yeah. And, too, the Coca-Cola, we were talking about this earlier.

The Cokes that your mom was buying were smaller. We should have looked this up before we started recording. It doesn't really matter. But we do know they were smaller. There were maybe 8 to 10 ounces and they came in these little glass bottles. Right. So it was also a smaller quantity. So it was less sugar.

But it was real sugar. Exactly. I was going to say they were using the sugar. It was before the high-futost corn surplus. was introduced into our lives before all that. In fact, my mom had Coke syrup in the refrigerator for when we got nauseated or got sick. There was something about it.

It was almost like a pharmaceutical thing to have in the refrigerator. You got a teaspoon of it when you were nauseated. Did it taste like Coke? Oh, yeah. Without the carbonation. Whoa. Just syrupy, strong. Hopefully it didn't have the cocaine in it.

It probably did. It probably did in portions because it was used medicinally that way. And I don't know the details of when all those things started changing or even when it started changing over to high fructose corn syrup because he just did it and never said anything. Yeah. So we never knew when that was changed over. We had no idea. And we had no idea to look at the ingredients. Well, I will never forget. I remember you flying out to Kansas City to stay with Mama, my grandma, my mom's mom, and you went through her pantry and you had to show her all of the foods that she had been buying, the brands that she'd been buying her whole life,

and you had to show her the ingredients and say, they've changed the ingredients. This is not the same ingredient list that you and I grew up with, and you've got to stop buying these mom because it's not good for you. And this is something that a lot of us in the health world have been talking about, for years is that they slowly started changing out the ingredients on these ingredient labels adding high fructous corn syrup. They were swapping sugar for high fructous corn syrup and adding hydrogenated oils, which we know are trans fats. And then finally, they intervened and made all the companies remove the trans fats, but now they've just replaced them with

mono and diglycerides, which we're seeing on food labels everywhere. But anyway, so I feel like your generation and your parents' generation, I mean, we all got screwed. But y'all got screwed in the way that no one said anything and they just started changing the ingredient labels and no one knew to even read the ingredient labels. Absolutely. We weren't, we never went to the store and read ingredient labels because it was basically just what it was. Yeah. And no, you know, there were never these lists, these, you know, what, three and four inch long list of ingredients of stuff. I will say some of that, I'm saying some pushback and I do think that some of this is true, is that some of it is that.

that food labeling, also the laws and regulations have changed over the years. And so companies weren't required to show certain ingredients on labels. I think that was also happening. But there is also a clear, we know for sure that they also were swapping on ingredients. I think sugar and swapping for high-fricted corn syrup is the easiest one to show. Or like swapping out the fats, no longer using tallow, no longer using olive oil and swapping it out for hydrogenated oils. Sunflower oil, canola oil, that kind of stuff. Those were like very obvious ones.

So what's interesting, and I think a lot of people feel this way in your generation, is how did you know have the wherewithal? Because I feel like a lot of your generation grew up with parents that were cooking full time in the house. And something happened between your generation and my generation where, well, not something. We do know is that the mom started going back. to work. Women largely left the home for the workforce, and I'm not here to debate whether or not that was a good thing. I think for many reasons it was a good thing, and then I think also society has suffered in many ways because of it. I'm a working, I will be a working mom. I own my own

business. I'm not here to like criticize that. It just is what it is. Women left the home. They had no longer had time to cook and started replacing home-cooked meals with ultra-processed convenience foods. Convenient foods. So how did you still stay on track? Was it because you left and you went and lived in Boulder? I attribute a lot of your food philosophy to moving to Boulder. Yes, absolutely.

Yeah, I learned a lot living in Boulder because there was a movement then was more macrobotic eating and things like that. But it was all based on, you know, eating. good organic food. We didn't, and we didn't have the plethora of the snacks and, you know, processed, packaged foods. That's kind of evolved over the last many, many years, but we didn't have access to that. I remember when I was living in Boulder, I got so convicted to just be a vegetarian, do a vegetarian diet.

and I remember we had no options we had beans we had rice we had cheese tofu yeah tofu and there wasn't the options that a vegetarian has today into eating in that lifestyle so eventually I stopped just because it was not a good thing for my body I started craving protein meats and things like that so phased out of that. But in that process, I learned a lot. Which is how to make your own food from scratch. Yeah, just to make your own food from scratch. And still, we didn't have the restaurant options out there, you know, to get food, to pick up food. We didn't have those options. That's another really big one, too. We just didn't have the option.

I was actually, I've heard y'all say this before, but I was blown away by this the other night. We were talking about this at the dinner table. And you and dad both said that when you guys were growing up, it was a big deal, like big deal to go out to dinner. Yeah. Everybody or an anniversary or a celebration. Yeah. Birthday anniversary or celebration. It was like a big deal.

Everyone dressed up. It was super exciting because it just, the culture of eating out at restaurants was not like it is today. Now, I mean, most people I know eat out multiple times a week. Yeah. Or every meal. or every meal. Yeah. I have a lot of friends that eat out every meal,

which is really wild to me. But I get it. I mean, we also live in such a fast-paced life now that just life has gotten exponentially faster since you guys grew up, and I think that plays a role as well. We've also been able to make these super cheap, convenient food-like products

that make it really easy to just drive-through a drive-through and pick up something or just heat something up in the microwave really quickly that you bought at the grocery store. But thankfully now people are starting to pay attention to the ingredient labels. But yeah, so I guess just growing up and living in that Boulder lifestyle when you were going to, or it was right after college, I guess, right? You just started to learn to pay attention more to what you were eating. Yeah, paid attention more because I grew up on fresh food.

Yeah. but so many of your generation did and I feel like so many of your generation got duped by all of this well I think people just fell into the rhythm and the flow of what was happening in our society yeah and you always had to eat and just not really paying attention thinking that the the food that they ate when they were 10 years old was the same that they're eating now when they're 25 or 30 and not realizing it had changed. Yeah, well, and that's where I think your innate, your innateness, or what's, it's not the right word,

your innate knowing to start looking and reading the ingredient labels, I think, helped you a lot. And I remember you told me this story, what did you say about when they started coming out with canola oil? When canola oil came out first, I also lived in Italy between, you know, around my mid-20s. So I learned a lot about food and beautiful farm stands and getting, and it was just, it was a feast to the eyes and it was just a cool lifestyle, I thought.

So when I came back, you know, I'd been used to using olive oil exclusively, really good fresh farmers olive oils and so canola came out and i thought i know what olive oil is comes from olives what is canola oil what is where is it from i don't i don't know why it just inside of me just started questioning what is it i know what these different oils are peanut oil, so on and so forth, but where canola come from and what is it? And I just had this sense that it wasn't good. I don't know why. I just thought, if I don't know what it is, I'm not going to use it. I just find this really fascinating. And I don't know how this in particular helps people in the sense of like that you just had this innate

knowing. But I just find it really curious. And I think, well, I think your, experiences with your mom cooking everything from scratch and then living in Boulder and also living in Italy really shaped the way that you look at food. It's just point like what it is. Like you weren't just a part of the American culture that was going along with just everything that was coming out and being released. And so it only makes sense that I've been that way my whole life. Granted, when I was younger, which you love to tell this story, I had a really close girl. I had a really close girlfriend who would get Burger King and McDonald's multiple times a week. And, you know, when I was a kid, McDonald's, I don't know, I guess they still, I'm assuming they still do this, but they would

come out with these limited edition. Well, but they would come out with these limited edition toys, like when beanie babies were really big. It was like you collect all the beanie babies and I can't remember any of the other. I think they had like a Polly Pocket thing and I was obsessed with Polly Pocket. They would come out with these like limited edition toys. And I wanted those and then also I was jealous of my friend that was eating at Burger King multiple times a week. And it's ironic because I didn't even know how good I had it because then I was going home to this amazing home-cooked meal. Everything's made from scratch as like, I mean, I don't even know if organic was like a label when I was a kid, but it would basically have been like as organic

as possible. And it's just funny. And you said that I would fight you on it all the time, which I don't even remember what happened. All the time. Because your friends would show up with all these fun little toy pocket packets from, you know, the happy meals and whatever. And as a child, it's normal. You want that too. Yeah. Because they have them. And we used to have big bites, and it was really hard.

But I did stand my grand because I knew it just wasn't healthy food. It's not how you eat. You need a variety of foods to eat. and hamburger and french fries all the time wasn't going to cut it yeah well and now knowing what we know about all the preservatives and all the crop that they put in there too i mean it's just not it's not even remotely close to food it's just not food with all the additives in there and going back to my time in italy food was a celebration for the italians and it still is but i remember going to a friend's party for lunch on a Sunday and we literally sat at the table and ate all this beautiful

fresh foods and cheeses and meats and and it lasted like five or six hours almost going into another meal and but that was the Italian way and I thought that was so um what would be the word for it. It was a lifestyle that really appealed to me because it was fun and fellowship and people, somebody would pick up

a guitar. So for the Italians, food it was a real celebration. It wasn't just, you go pick up fast food and come sit and eat and then you're done and buy. Yeah. It was a celebration. And that to me was very

cool and appealing. and being around friends and talking and talking about the world and what was going on and just enjoying food in front of you. And it's a community too. And I, you know, everyone talks about this whenever they go to Europe. And also I see it with the Mexican culture too. So I'm married into a Mexican family. And it's a similar thing where, you know,

when we go to Mexico with his family, I mean, dinners are like four hours long. Yeah. because you just, you know, family is there and you're catching up and it's just celebration. Exactly. Exactly. And it's the same kind of thing when you go to Europe and I know it's sometimes even, I will say it sometimes drives me nuts. Because if you're like on a mission and I'm, that's a lot of my life is I feel like I'm on a mission. And you really need to get in and out and get a meal pretty quickly. Good luck because you're there for like four hours. if you try to speed it up.

Hector and I realized this on our honeymoon. It was so funny. They were in such a hurry to get us to order our food, and then we wouldn't see our waiter for like an hour when we wanted to check out. And it's just because everyone just sits there and, I mean, everyone around us was just like, like couples would have a full bottle of wine just to themselves

and they'd be there for four hours. And Hector and I would be like, oh, man, we've been trying to find our waiter for an hour just to like pay. Because they just don't, the culture over there is that you spend a lot of time eating. and conversing, and I talk about this all the time. I think health is so much more than just the food you eat. It's also the company that you keep.

It's the community that you have. It's the relationships that you foster, and it's all about being in community and socializing with other people. Well, and think about it, too. When you're sitting in that kind of atmosphere, you don't just slam your food down, pay for it, and leave. Yeah. And there's something to that, too, about,

eating in a way that it allows your body to kind of start processing and digesting, and you get full faster. Yeah. And so that's another aspect of it that's, I think, very important, too. Oh, yeah, the portions, too, are a big thing. Because even though you're spending four hours there at dinner, you're getting pretty small portions. I mean, there's, of course, you can keep ordering food, and you can, and people do. it's not to say that people don't overeat because my thought process is also like how do people not

overeat when they're sitting there for four hours but it is like you're getting kind of small bites you're talking a lot and so it's not always about necessarily like overeating and like you said I think often yeah it ends up being the opposite because you're not so focused on just getting the food in and then leaving yeah it's mindful and you know going back to this what we first started with when I started checking out labels, I think, for ingredients and going to the grocery store, which I have to admit, sometimes I'll find a brand and I'll trust it and then I don't. But I have to go back periodically and look back at ingredients because I know they sneak in and change and but with that being said when you when when you guys were

little i can't remember when the no fat low fat diet i remember thing came in when did that come in what what years it was in the 90s it was definitely like the early 90s um because i will never forget Libby, one of my mom's best friends, being obsessed with the snack wells. And I loved them as a kid. So I knew every time I went to the Golden's house that I would get the snack wells, devil cookies, and there were some other ones. So it was like devil cake cookies. And everyone thought that those were like healthy diet foods. Exactly. And that's when I think I really started honing in on ingredient labels and also for some reason again an innate reason i don't know what it's a gifting from god i i just it didn't make sense to me to remove all the fat out of out of the ingredients or food

or whatever it was supposed to be there and i started realizing well what are they replacing it with. Why does it taste so good? And it was sugar. I mean, beyond sugar of the amounts. Well, those, I would love to see it. Sorry, what you say. No, I just said that, it kind of shocked me because, again, I didn't know a lot about sugar and what it did to the body or whatever. I grew up eating, you know, regular old sugar when my mom made it. desserts or whatever but the high fructose corn syrup and all these things it just didn't make sense again i love adding honey to my morning coffee and if you're more of a matcha person i highly recommend adding honey to your matcha i think it really upgrades the taste of matcha and coffee personally i love

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Like, I don't even know, like, if it had been me in your shoes during that time when everything was changing. I don't know if I would have even seen it. I think I was gifted that innate knowing from you. So I don't even know if I would call it innate. I think it was gifted from you. And I didn't even fully really get it. I, at the time growing up, and I've shared about this a lot on the podcast, but at the time, I was often upset and felt like, I never felt, how do I describe it?

I never felt deprived. I never felt, like, deprived, but I just remember being annoyed and, like, kind of mad. I'm just being like, oh, why can't I have all this stuff that all my friends have? And then going over to, like, my friend Katie's house and just having, like, a free-for-all because they had all of that stuff in their pantry. And I will say, like, I'm actually, I've never actually asked you about this, and I'm curious about what you're thinking was around this.

Because you would sometimes buy me, sometimes you would buy me, like, toast or strudels. Sometimes you'd buy me like dunkeroo's. What was your like thinking behind that? Just not totally depriving you, but maybe treating it as a, you know, once in a while treat, not truly knowing the devastation of the ingredients. Yeah. You know. But, um, yeah. I mean, again, I didn't grow up eating Pop-Tarts. So I, you know, we had toast and butter and jelly or whatever. And it just didn't seem healthy. as a good, I'll need bread or something. It was literally giving kids dessert for breakfast.

Yeah, I mean, Pop-Tarts with sprinkles or what were those things? Oh, yeah, or the toaster strudels where you'd have that little icing pack and you'd, like, draw on the, oh my gosh, I was obsessed with those. I just loved those. I remember just loving those. It's just crazy. So what would be your advice? Because it's funny, I see this a lot on Instagram, and sometimes I'll get messages and

comments from people saying, it's just crazy. I'm just shaking my head. It's crazy. They get so mad because they say that your kid is going to develop an eating disorder and how dare you restrict them from eating any of this stuff. And there's so many parents struggling because I know parents want to do right by their kids. We have obesity exploding in young children. We have diabetes exploding in young children. We have cardiovascular disease, exploding. This is no longer a, oh, I don't want to hurt my kids' feelings or like, I don't want them to feel deprived at school issue. This is like a, no, you have to literally fight for your kid's life. Right. Because the first like 15, 18 years of their life, potentially, I'm not saying

they cannot, I'm not saying they can't turn the ship around. But in many instances, you are setting your kid up for life. You're setting up their eating habits for life. You're setting up their metabolism for life. What you do in those 18 years can have detrimental effects on them. So what is your advice to a parent struggling? Like you've said this earlier that I would fight you on this all the time. So what's your advice as far as like navigating this and how do parents say strong? What did you find worked? Oh, that's a tough one. I just would tell you that you would understand one day, I felt the value of eating the way we did. And it was hard because you were still a child. You still were in that whole realm of childhood and friends and

influenced by your friends and all that. But I just stood firm on it. And I knew that it was hard on our relationship, but I knew in the long run, it was, I was saving you in a way, saving you from bad health for, from, I don't know, does that make sense? I mean, it just, yeah, from being poisoned. Yeah, it was important to me. Yeah. Well, and unfortunately, I mean, again, I say this often, but we live in a time where you have to make a choice.

you no longer can go blindly through this. Like, you have to make a choice. And if you do not choose to pay attention to this stuff, you will either be, if you do not make time for your wellness, you will be forced into your illness. We are unfortunately living in a time or if you're not paying attention to this stuff, your hand will be forced in one direction.

And either way, it's hard. Either way, it's going to be hard fighting your kids. Yeah. And it's going to be hard navigating the grocery store and telling them that they can't go through the drive-through or it's going to be really hard because they're going to be obese and have diabetes before the time they're 18

and that's a really hard life. Yeah, and I find it kind of amazing that someone would say that you're depriving your children. You know? That, to me, you're depriving your children of good health in the long run.

Yes. It's almost like child abuse. I agree. And so, I mean, I mean, kids, you know, parenting isn't easy in any aspect, any realm. You know, we talked the other night about boundaries. You know, children don't understand things that adults see because of what we've experienced in life and what we're trying to help them navigate through life safely in many different ways.

Not just food, but many different ways. Yeah. You know, would you tell your six-year-old, I mean, you're, you know, your three-year-old or whatever, yeah, go skateboard in the street when you know that's dangerous. I know. You know, allow them to do things in a relatively safe boundary area, but it also teaches them as they grow up boundaries of safety, boundaries of what's out there that keeps us.

navigating in a safe way. Yeah. Well, and anytime those parents come to me and they say that, I just say, well, I grew up under this and I turned out fine. Yeah, you didn't have food issues or... No, I mean, like I said, like I would beg you for McDonald's and stuff, but it never, again, it was not... I never felt like deprived.

Like when I went to friends' houses and I would have like the free-for-all, honestly, I would feel sick afterwards. And it was so funny that took me so long to equate that. And this is what I tell parents a lot, too, is start teaching your kids at a young age to start noticing when they eat those foods. So like, let's say that, because you're not going to completely avoid it. They're going to go to school. The schools are going to have it. They're going to go to birthday parties. The birthday parties are going to have it. When your kid comes home and they have a stomachache or they have a raging headache, then you can start saying, okay, well, let's go back and think about all the things that you ate today.

What did you eat today? Because eventually, they, they will start connecting the dots. And that's how I eventually really started to take my health in my own hands, where before it was kind of like, oh, mom's not letting me have this or whatever. And then when I went to college, started realizing, wait a second, this stuff tastes good in the moment, but oh, my God, I suffer afterwards. Like, I'm getting cystic acne. I'm gaining weight.

I feel like crap. I can't focus in school. And I just was starting to connect the dots. And then any time I would eat something like that, like go to Taco Bell afterwards would be like, oh my god i felt so sick after that so if you can teach your babies at a young age to equate okay when i eat that dyed nasty cupcake from the grocery store my tummy really hurts afterwards like if you can connect the dots for them then they will start avoiding those foods on their own because they don't want to feel bad right exactly and i think that that helps a lot okay i feel like

we covered all of the parenting stuff and the food stuff. Is there anything else that you would want to say any advice or any stories from growing up? I don't think so. I mean, and looking at ingredient labels and all those things was just, it evolved over the years. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it became easier as you got older because we could talk to you about those things, you and Morgan both. it's a process yeah it's just a process yeah so i have been thinking about this a lot we're going to make it a whole pivot right now into a different conversation um i've talked in depth throughout the years on the podcast about the losses that we've had in our family um with my little sister passing away when i was eight she was six and then my little brother passing away

when I was 21 and he was 11. I have been thinking about this. I've been thinking about this nonstop. So mom and I watched Charlie Kirk's Memorial on Sunday. And we watched Erica Kirk go up on stage and publicly in front of everyone forgive her, forgive the man that murdered her husband. And I kept thinking, I just have this memory of,

for those that don't know and didn't hear this, and this is going to be emotional. for my mom and I, but I think it's important to talk about. My sister was hit by a car on her bike, and that's ultimately what she passed away from. And I remember learning as a kid that you and dad decided not to persecute the person that hit her. You guys decided not to pursue any legal action. And I remember even being a kid in thinking, wow, I don't even know if I could do that. And everyone's been talking about.

this online the last couple days about Erica Kirk, everyone's saying, oh my God, I don't think that I could go up there and forgive the man that brutally murdered my husband. And everyone that knows is saying that the only type of person that could do that is someone who has Christ in their heart. And I feel like I just wanted, one, to acknowledge that everyone's talking about this amazing strength that Erica Kirk has. I also, see that in you. Yeah, it was a, I just, again, in my heart that, I know for a fact that this man saw Morgan and he was an elderly man, his wife was in a wheelchair in the front seat, but not strapped

in. So he made a quick conscious decision not to slam on the brakes because he knew it would throw his life into the woods to him. Did he tell you that? Yeah. He told dad and my dad went over after a few days after the accident and after she had passed. We just knew that it was the right thing to take.

do because what happens is you, when you don't forgive, you carry a bitterness and a resentment that does more damage than the damage that was already done. It's just the way of life. It's like gravity. Gravity is there, and we can't defy it. And that's just the way it is. and one thing I learned that was very important in the process of this was forgiving someone who has so wronged you doesn't make it okay

that it was okay that it happened has nothing to do with that What it does is just releases you from pain, bitterness, resentment. And it is, it cannot be tied up with emotions. Because when you tie it with emotions, you can't, you can't do it. You just can't fathom it. And so what you, what I found is, if I said with an act of my will, I don't like this, but with an act of my will, I choose to forgive. And over time, that pain and that sorrow, all that's wrapped up in that, goes away.

And that's what you want. Because you want to carry on life not being a bitter person or resentful person. And one thing I also learned in that process was, and I think you, wrote this in your notes, you have a choice to make. It's a hard choice, but you have a choice. There is no middle ground. You either forgive or you either get better or you get bitter. And I knew that I was not, that wasn't who I was.

I was not a bitter person and I was not going to let this tragedy ruin other lives. around me by being a bitter person. And it just sends you into this place where people don't even want to be around you if you're a bitter person. It's true. So you lose friendships. You lose so much a part of your life

that you go down this trail that makes it worse and worse and worse. Well, all it ultimately does is ruin life for you. Right, exactly. Because then you're just swimming in this pool of bitterness and anger. And like you said, when, you know, I wasn't super particularly spiritual person, but I knew enough in the forgiveness that Jesus has given us.

I mean, think about what he went through at Calvary, Calverton, sorry, my mouth's getting dry. he had to go through all that in the midst of all of our human horribleness and totally sacrifice to do that to do that sacrifice to forgive us so who are we not to forgive others and once you start practicing it even if someone cuts you off on the street or whatever and you want to feel that rage and you want to start getting mad and you just go Lord is forgive them they didn't

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Just visit Vemmerg.com. That's VIMERG. and use code real foodology 20 at checkout. What I've really noticed is just if people are no longer wanting to give anyone mercy. I mean, I get this almost daily just on my Instagram. If I just post something that someone disagrees with or I post something and, you know, it's a 60-second video and I didn't have time to get every single little nuance and oh, what about this? and, oh, people, you know, that need me to address this aspect of it. And then someone immediately just out the gates assumes ill-intent, and then they just come at me and attack me.

And it's like, how did we get to this place where a lot of society, because I don't want to categorize everyone in this box, but a lot of society is just out the gates already assuming malicious and ill intent. intent. And there's just this divisiveness of, oh, if you voted for this person, then automatically you're, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And I'm just going to put you in all of these boxes because I now have this preconceived notion about everything about a very complex person. You have no idea what their background is and how they grew up and where they came from and what hardships they've been through, what they've been through to get to the place that they're at.

we would all just extend mercy to one another. Just that in it of itself changes so much. Yeah. And then you're all of a sudden able to love easier. You're able to accept, well, that's their opinion. It's not my opinion, but that's okay. Yeah.

Well, I grew up in a time where it was totally fine to have differing opinions from people. In fact, like, we would, like, joke and laugh about it and be like, oh, like, oh, I can't believe you believe that. Whatever. Anyways, like, moving on, I mean, I remember I grew up in a time where, like, I didn't even know what side, quote-unquote, my friends even voted for.

I didn't even know who my friends were even voting for. Yeah. It's just, yeah, we really have gotten to a crazy point in society. And you're right. And to go back to that quote that you said, I actually have this in my notes because not only did we unfortunately lose my sister, but then we lost my brother 11 years later. And you sat me down afterwards and you told me, you looked me straight in my face and you said, you have a choice. And you can either get better or get bitter. And you are the only one that can make that choice. And if you are the only one that can make that choice. And if you are, you decide to be bitter about this. Or you know exactly what you did say is you said, you can either let this make you bitter or you can choose to not let it make you bitter.

It make you stronger. Yeah. Yeah, I remember sitting in our bedroom and I told you, I said, don't let this define your life. Don't let this define you. To, you have walked,

through at 21 years old more than most adults have experienced in their life. But don't take it as a weight on your shoulders, but use it for strength. Turn it around and use it for strength in your life to make you stronger. because there are certain things that are not controllable yeah beyond your control yeah i mean you can't you can only do the best you can but the cards you've been dealt with you just it's just a fact of life everyone has their stuff it's not a competition of who has more stuff

that they've dealt with everyone has shit that they have dealt with in their life painful things. My most painful day of my life is going to look very different than somebody else somebody else's most painful day of life. And we just have to recognize that living life is hard. And ultimately what you decide to do with that and the cards that you've been dealt is what will shape your life. Right. And you have a choice.

It's all about a choice. Yeah. People say, I can't help it, I can't help it. You can't. 100% you can. Yeah, even if you need to get help. Oh my gosh, of course. I spent most of my life in therapy growing up, and still, I mean, I've taken a break from it right now, but I've been in therapy pretty much almost my whole life trying

to work through this because I knew that this was big enough, big enough tragedies that I needed help navigating it. And I'm very happy to say that I never let it make me bitter. I think it, not even I think, I've talked about it, and I've done podcasts about this before, but it has affected me in ways that I was unaware of in my 20s and even my early 30s until I was able to start really unpacking it all and also just admitting to myself what I had been through

because it wasn't until my 30s that I really got honest with myself and said, oh my gosh, like holy fucking shit, sorry for my cussing, but like it, it was, was that sort of impact like oh my god what i went through was not normal the point of this podcast one was for i just wanted everyone to hear kind of where you were coming from as far as health and then also i wanted everyone to be able to witness how strong you are because what we went through was not normal and it was very hard and anytime i tell the story of my family everyone immediately goes oh my gosh your parents i can't even imagine how they got through that and they're like obviously

you too it was hard i mean we both um your dad and i figured out very early on what would separate a relationship because you think that you grieve together because they're your children but you grieve very differently at different times one person's up one person's down, the other person doesn't want to come back down because they've been down, they've been at, it's a crazy thing to recognize. But I think your dad and I made the decision that we were not going to have another tragedy by splitting up that we would, by God's grace, get through this and that he would help us through this. That's another anomaly about y'all's relationship or just about the tragedies that we've been through, the percentage of

parents that split up after losing one child are very, very high. And then you add in losing two children. By the statistics, it's virtually impossible to find a couple that's still together, and you guys are still together. And that is the relationship of God in our lives. And you. it was very important to dad and I to maintain a family relationship for you too because you mattered as much as Morgan and Gorman. I mean, how did you even get through all of that? God's help, truly.

The help of my godly friends. Trusting God. I remember I was sitting in that chair right there. About a week after Corbyn had died and I said, I don't understand all this. Why? I don't understand. all this and you do you watched me stand in faith for him and i remember like it wasn't a megaphone but there was

a voice that said trust me i have a bigger and better plan that you can even imagine and so again i had to make a choice i had to decide that the god of the universe was going to help me somehow and I'm not going to understand this maybe ever or maybe many, many years later. But I had to just choose to trust. Do you have any understanding now or do you feel like you're going to get that understanding not in this lifetime?

I don't have the understanding yet. But there's something deep in my spirit that's like excitable because I think he said I have something for you that's above and beyond what you can imagine or hope for and so I had to just trust those words and when I get down and I start thinking about what our lives would have been how different they would have been with your sister here and brother

I just have to go back to God and said you told me to trust you and I'm going to trust you Yeah. Instead of going down that, again, that other trail that just says, this is not fair. I'll never forget. When I lived in Boulder, I went to, there's this really cool little place. I don't know if you ever got up there when you were living in Boulder, but it's called Gold Hill. And there's a cemetery there, and it's from the 1860s. And I remember walking through this sweet little cemetery and seeing seven, headstones of children within a year that this mother and father lost, within a year seven. And it impacted me so much that I thought, how in the world could someone go on?

How in the world did someone go on? And so I thought about that a lot after Morgan and Corvin had died. I thought about that. I thought she had it a lot worse. Yeah. Well, there's always someone that has something so much worse. No. Well, and in times of deep grief like that,

I think those kind of scenarios help you feel a little bit better, at least, you know, not that it, like, takes the pain away, but it at least helps. Yeah, you're not the only person in the world. Yeah, I mean, thank you for sharing all that, mom. Like I said, anytime I tell this story, I get back immediately from people, oh my gosh, your mom, your dad, I can't even think about it. And, of course, you know, they say that about me too,

but I always think about how much it's affected you guys. Because I think my personality is the type to be like, okay, I'm good. I've got me. I'm going to be okay. I know I'm going to be okay. And then I just think about the horrible tragedy that you and dad went through and it's like it just breaks me when I think about it.

And it's just no one, no one deserves it. Like no one deserves to live through tragedy like this. And then it's also so hard when you hear or when there's stories like this where it's just like, oh my gosh, this family, or they're just amazing people. Like you and dad are just amazing, really good people and to think that this has happened to you guys twice is really hard to fathom and for our earthly brains to even make sense of.

She will probably never hear this, but just because this just happened, and I feel like it's just timely about all of this with Erica Kirk. Like, I've just been thinking so much about her because of what we went through. Obviously, losing a husband is different than losing children, but at the end of the day, losing someone that you love that's in your family. deeply, is just a deep, deep, deep loss. What would be your advice if you ever met Erica Kirk or anyone listening maybe that is either going through this

or will go through this someday? What is your advice for getting through this? Well, first of all, I really believe you can't get through it without the Lord, the Lord's help and grace. First and foremost, and then there are the wonderful people that gather around you as friends, and you know the many, many friends that we've had through the years, that just have comforted us and supported us, and we're there for us. And then making those decisions not to be bitter, not to be unforgiving, not to be, that plays,

a huge role in it. One thing that I remember that helped me a lot was just getting down to real basic thankfulness. Thank you, Lord, that I have money, that I can go to the grocery store and buy food. Thank you that I have a car. Thank you that I have a house. And I have protection. And it helped me so much to kind of pull myself out of that pity, out of that place. because I had so many other blessings that I could lean on. And it really did help. I mean, down to even in a hot summer,

thank you, I have air conditioning. There are people that don't have air conditioning. I mean, it sounds really silly. I don't think it does. But it really helps in that just continually having a grateful attitude. despite something that's really bad that's happened. I do this all the time, and I do this all the time

and not even in scenarios where I've lost someone. It's like if I'm having a bad day. Yeah. Well, yeah. I'll talk to the Hector and I'll be like, thank you, God, that we have money to buy healthy groceries. Thank you, God, that we have a beautiful home. Thank you, God, that our parents are still alive.

Thank you, God, that we have amazing friends. Like, I just start listing off all the things that we do have that we're grateful for and that, And it makes you feel lifted. Yeah. You really are. Yeah, there's something about just being grateful despite bad circumstances.

Yeah, and I can already see some people saying, well, what about the people that don't have a house and they don't have the money for that? I still believe that in any sort of circumstances that you're in in life, you can find things that you're grateful for that you have. Something. Yeah. Then that's what lifts them up. I mean, even I think about, you know,

when I see people walking down the street with a grocery cart and all their things in it, and if they could just be grateful, they had the grocery cart, you just start there, you know, or someone that does give them $5 or what, just start there. It's so low. It's so low. It seems so little, but it really does work. And you're grateful for even the tiniest of thing. Yeah. Well, you hear all these amazing stories of inspiration of people that, you know, pulled themselves out of poverty, pulled themselves out of horrible living situations,

like, you know, insert any sort of horrible thing in that. and they often talk about how in those beginning stages of trying to pull themselves out of that stuff what they just started doing is just making note of all the things that they did have that they were grateful for even if it was just one single thing right exactly there's just one single thing just start there and then start working towards building other things that you can have that you're grateful for and a lot of people use that mentality

to pull themselves out of really horrible living situations it's true and it's really scriptural really i mean it's it's just thanking god for even the smallest of things and what he starts turning around for you when you're just grateful for the slightest smallest thing yeah yeah well and i think that's perspective helps you it just it changes around your whole demeanor and it was kind of like what we were talking about earlier where it has it can have this like whole ripple effect on your life because if you can just change your demeanor around and focus on the things that you do

have and focus on the good it will continue your brain will like trick you into only finding the good things and then you just you become a magnet and you attract more and more of that exactly it's a practice it really is practice gratefulness yeah well i got through all my questions is there anything else that you wanted people to know i guess how proud we are of you thanks mom we've worked really hard and all this secret you made it choice to get better and to get our relationships better because none of us understood the pain that we were experiencing and it's like I told you in that one session when we were talking with therapists I say Courtney we were not we were not a what do they call it today a family

that's what's the word for it for what for a family that's like just joined into broken or like a broken family yeah but there's a word that they use for it today well the essential thing is is that we dysfunctional that's the word I wanted to use yeah we were not a dysfunctional family we were a family in crisis and it's huge difference between those two things and I think you are the catalyst to break open a lot of those things things to expose them and bring them because I think you started understanding things that you didn't quite understand when we went through the therapy processes. And so I just see that like a flower, a tight bud that we've all been in protecting ourselves,

but now it's starting to open up and we're able to smell the beauty, we're ever to see the beauty. we're, you know, it's still a process, but I think we've come a long way. Oh, yeah. And I think you were the catalyst. Well, and I've talked about this on the podcast, because I've talked a lot about just my journey of discovering, like I said earlier, that I think the biggest thing for me was waking up one day and being like, oh, my God, but I went through was not normal. Yeah.

And then it was from that, I started going, okay. okay, I need to get like some serious, just like, I need help in unpacking this. I started seeking out therapists that specifically had, that worked specifically with people that had been through pretty significant trauma. And it just took me down this road of really massive healing. And I've said this before and I'll say it again. I don't think that I'll ever fully be healed from what I went through. And I don't say that as this like I'm holding on to something or like a badge of honor.

I just think it's, I think actually R.K. Jr. said it really beautifully about the loss of his brother. When he lost his brother, his mom, he asked his mom, does the pain of this ever go away? And she said, she said there will always be this hole. And it's your responsibility to build things around that and build your life around it. And essentially just saying, like, the pain of it will never go away. The trauma of it, unfortunately, will never go away. But we can build a beautiful life around it and make the whole smaller and smaller and build beautiful, amazing things around it so that the whole is not just gaping. Right. And that's very much how I feel about it. It'll never go away. I'll never not cry thinking about the fact that I would have had a sister that's two years behind me, living life with me and having, yeah, just having that kind of relationship.

And brother, too. An interesting fact is that I don't think my brother would have ever been here if we had not lost my sister. Do you think? Maybe, yeah. Yeah. Which doesn't take away the fact of his life or anything. That wasn't, that was not my point.

It was just that sometimes people ask, well, why do you talk so much about your sister? And I just, the way that I, I just talk about them very differently. Because, one, I don't, we wouldn't have my brother, had we not had the tragedy of my sister. And then also with my brother, he was born with complications. and so he just, he was living a very hard life. And so in many ways, it was a relief on us for him that he passed.

It was very hard on us. But there was a relief because he was never living a normal life. And in fact, every day small little things were a massive struggle for him. So there was a relief in the sense that, he was no longer suffering. So they were just two very different scenarios. In relationships because of just what it was. Yeah, because we couldn't talk to him.

We couldn't have a really connecting deep relationship with him. We had more of like a spiritual relationship with him. And it's not to say that it wasn't as painful and that his life had no meaning. That's not at all what we're saying. It's just different. No. Not at all. It was just different. Well, Mom, thank you so much for coming on.

was really special. I've been wanting to bring you on for years. I know. It was really cool that we got to do this. Very cool. Thank you, honey. I love you. I love you, too. Thank you so much for listening to The Real Foodology Podcast. This is a Wellness Loud production produced by Drake Peterson and mixed by Mike Fry. Theme song is by Georgie. You can watch the full video version of this podcast inside the Spotify app or on YouTube. As always, you can leave us a voicemail by clicking the link in our bio. And if you like this episode, please rate and review on your podcast app. For more shows by my team, go to wellnessloud.com. See you next time. The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only.

It is not a substitute for individual medical and mental health advice and doesn't constitute a provider-patient relationship. I am a nutritionist, but I am not your nutritionist. As always, talk to your doctor or your health team first. If you struggle with bloating gas, constipation, digestive issues, yeast overgrowth, well, you may already know about Digest This. It's the podcast hosted by me, Bethany Cameron, also known as Little Sipper on Instagram. I dive into gut health, nutrition, the food industry, and drawing from my own experience. I break down what's good, what's bad, and what's the best for your gut, your skin, and so much more. I even offer gut-friendly recipes. New episodes every Monday and Wednesday produced by Wellness Loud.