I am Anna Siwold and this is Authentic Parenting,
A podcast about personal development in the context of parenting,
Where I explore how you can find more calm connection and join parenting through the process of self-discovery and inner growth with a trauma-informed lens.
This is a solo episode.
In 1988,
On December 7th,
A severe earthquake happened in my hometown,
And I lost everything.
As I always say,
I lost everything but found myself.
I was only 13 and my life was never the same.
Today,
I live in the United States.
I have a good life.
I am married.
I have a private practice.
I have this amazing podcast and the growing global,
International,
Awesome community of people and supporters.
And I am very happy.
I'm very content.
Today,
I want to share with you some of the major life lessons I have learned as a result of that experience.
Here we go.
A few years ago,
I was invited to be a guest on someone's podcast about resilience.
The host had asked me to write down some lessons that I learned through my life experience of surviving the earthquake in 1988.
That was a really great exercise because I had never thought about my life in that way.
I had never reflected back and said,
These are the 10 lessons that I have learned.
And when I sat down,
It all came together.
You know,
When we go through life,
Through difficult periods,
Through trauma,
Adversity,
Of course,
It's hard.
And in that moment,
We don't pose and say,
What are the lessons that I'm learning right now?
Many,
Many years later,
Only we can look back at our life and try to make sense and even summarize into lessons that we have learned.
So here we go.
I was a little girl,
A 13 year old,
Very innocent young girl when the earthquake happened in 1988 on December 7th.
My life turned upside down.
It was never the same.
I don't want to share,
You know,
The tragedy and the hardship that I went through.
If you would like to listen to the full story,
I was interviewed about that experience on the Grief Dreams podcast.
And it's a really good in-depth interview.
I released that interview on my own podcast since I wanted to share with my listeners my own story.
It's a pretty sad story.
So if you don't want to be depressed,
If you don't want to cry,
You can skip that episode.
But if you want to know who I am,
Where I come from and what's my story,
So you can definitely check out that episode.
It's called Overcoming Childhood Adversity.
So here we go.
I enumerated those life lessons somehow,
But of course they are in no particular order.
I have not looked at this list for a couple of years.
So the first lesson I have learned is every day is a gift.
Surely when you experience something like an earthquake,
A natural disaster,
When your world collapses and disappears in literally seconds,
And you find yourself alive,
Every day becomes a gift.
And today I live my life just like that,
Trying to enjoy life,
Celebrate life,
And truly view it as a gift.
Second lesson I have is possessions don't matter,
Own less.
This is a lesson that I live by every single day.
I have a simple lifestyle.
I have a simple wardrobe.
I own less,
Less stuff,
Less clutter.
Truly when you lose everything in a matter of seconds,
Possessions lose their value,
Their meaning.
So today I don't try to buy much and attach myself to things.
I don't strive to purchase a big house,
A mansion,
Have a yacht or an airplane.
I don't even dream about owning things like that.
I try to enjoy people,
Experiences,
And live pretty simply.
Deep gratitude.
That's the lesson number three that I have on my list.
Truly I have deep gratitude for everything,
For life,
For people,
For nature,
For sun,
For the moon,
For everything in life.
You know,
We have so much to be grateful for.
We take it for granted.
Life is unpredictable.
Of course,
That's a lesson you learn when you experience a natural disaster,
Right?
You can plan,
You can organize,
You can make decisions,
But you know what?
Life is truly unpredictable.
And so I learned to embrace that concept and go with the flow,
Embrace the what is,
Accept what is,
The reality,
And not fight with it.
I learned this from a young age and I think it has been serving me very well.
It's sort of this Buddhist Zen approach,
Which I never knew before,
Which I didn't know about as I grew older and I learned about other philosophies and particularly mindfulness,
Meditation,
Buddhism,
A little bit.
I learned those lessons early on through experiencing life.
There is nothing you can do.
You can't fight with reality.
You know,
You might as well accept what is because it brings so much peace and calmness instead of fighting with reality,
Wanting things to be a particular way,
Trying to gain control,
Which of course we know is an illusion.
You know,
We can't control people,
We can't control things,
We can't control circumstances.
And so I learned this lesson very early on and it has been truly life-changing.
Life is ephemeral.
Live to the fullest.
That's what I learned.
And I truly celebrate life,
The small ordinary everyday moments.
You know,
Life is so bright and rich and vivid for me when I am having a little spaghetti dinner with my family or when I'm just walking outside,
I truly,
Truly drop into the present moment and enjoy everything.
When I'm walking in nature,
I look at leaves,
At little twigs,
At stones,
At everything around me.
And I have this immense curiosity and joy when I experience life in nature.
And I'm very grateful for that.
I think this has happened as a result of my experience.
I have also learned to speak from the heart,
Say things to people,
The things that they need to hear,
Words of appreciation,
Compliments,
Words of love.
You know,
Why hold it inside?
It's hard to be vulnerable and open,
But it truly makes a big difference.
You connect with people on a much deeper level.
So it's been a gift for me to be able to speak from the heart.
