Episode Eighteen: The Interview - Milo

It's hard to interview a fellow podcaster-especially one as indomitable as Milo! Listen in on our longer interview as Milo talks about itinerant life in her van, her dog Willie Nelson, and how deep healing sometimes happens with tears.

Transcript

You're going to notice that episode 18 is a little different.

And that's because I interviewed my good friend Milo.

She's a fellow podcaster.

She has her own podcast named Milo Talks.

It's basically a girl and her dog travel across the U.

S.

In their van,

And they have conversations with strangers.

One of my favorite episodes is called I Think I Have a Boyfriend.

And it's a charming story about a stranger Milo meets on an airplane,

The conversation that they have,

And what happens after that.

Check it out if you have the time.

At any rate,

It became clear quite quickly who was in charge of this interview.

And it definitely wasn't me.

Thank you so much for letting yourself be interviewed.

Did you get the email?

I did.

Okay.

Why are you making that face?

Oh,

My God.

Okay,

So here's what's funny.

Now you can see my face.

And I'm very expressive.

We were in a really great way.

So I read it and went,

Oh,

Yeah,

I don't.

Here's the problem.

It goes back to what you and I,

I mean,

What one of the how the whole podcast thing started was.

I posed the question to Jenny,

Do you even believe in miracles?

Do you believe that we're getting signs?

Do you believe right?

And the reason the question came up is because I don't know if I believe any of that anymore.

And it's like I really have been thinking about it because I read something else about your questions from somewhere else.

So I knew what you might be asking.

So when you sent the email,

I thought,

Well,

Maybe she's asking me something else.

But you didn't.

You asked me the same thing I had read before.

And I thought,

Oh,

Shoot,

You know,

I guess what I wanted to do is I wanted to hear I wanted to hear why you why after all the education,

After all the things you've been through,

The things you've seen and you are still a believer.

Why?

OK,

So this is really,

Really funny.

And it's you've totally flipped the interview around on me,

Which you're kind of devious and diabolical.

My favorite thing to say right now is,

OK,

So I live in a van.

I live in a van with my dog,

Willie Nelson.

Oh,

Gosh,

How do you describe this person?

I thankfully I don't have to do that very often.

Yeah,

I have no idea.

How would you describe me?

I mean,

One thing I would say is,

I mean,

You're a creative,

So you have your own podcast,

Milo Talks,

And it's about conversations with people that you're meeting on your van and on the road.

The other thing I would say is brave,

Intrepid,

Able to be a linear thinker as far as your job goes.

And then,

Of course,

You create you can break the rules to create art.

Basically,

You're a rule breaker.

OK,

I like that.

OK,

I like that.

I'm going to make that a bumper sticker.

I'm a rule.

I definitely don't conform.

But yet I'm not also some anarchist on the fringe of society.

But yeah,

I like that.

I'm a rule breaker.

So there's a story behind why I say this.

I don't think I told you this story when I started Seminary the first quarter.

They have you take like 700 question personality tests.

You know,

You have to answer all these questions.

It's to really suss out whether or not you pick the right program,

See if you're in the right program for graduate school.

And so I answer all these questions and the guy calls me.

He's been doing this for years and he goes,

You're in the wrong program.

And I was like,

What?

And he said,

You're supposed to be getting a masters of theology,

Not a masters of divinity.

And I said,

Well,

You know,

I really strongly feel compelled to get a masters of divinity.

There was no way I was going to let him talk me out of it.

And he said,

Okay,

Okay,

Well,

You know,

If you feel like this is what you're supposed to do,

Then that's fine.

He said,

Your results,

You know,

As far as who you are as a person,

You scored super high on artist.

That's who you are.

And I started laughing and I was like,

No,

That's ridiculous.

I don't even know what that means.

No.

And he said the second part of your personality,

The strongest is science and technology.

And I was like,

Well,

I did start reading science magazines when I was 13 and I love them.

So that makes sense.

But the best part was,

He said,

I've never seen this before in my life.

The computer has four quadrants of personality,

And it has this little flashing red light.

So while it's detailing and,

You know,

Kind of trying to figure out all the answers,

It's moving the little red light around all the quadrants for like who you are.

And he said,

You know,

It stopped analyzing all your answers.

And then it just like kept circling around and around.

And he said,

I've never seen.

And then it just settled right in the middle.

It couldn't figure out who you were.

And he said,

You either have no idea who you are or you can be whoever you want whenever you want to be that.

And so I thought,

You know,

The more positive interpretation is maybe,

But I can be whoever I want to be,

But I want to be because at this age,

If I don't know who I am,

I'm completely screwed.

He also told me,

He said,

You will not be able to live into who you're supposed to be in life until you learn to break the rules because you are like so far on wanting to be safe and not break rules.

So I told the guy who was dating at the time that,

And he made me sneak into a haunted pumpkin patch after hours and it completely rocked my world.

No,

No,

No,

You didn't do it.

Really?

You broke the rules by going into a pumpkin patch at night after hours.

I'm so ashamed.

I'm so ashamed.

There was always religion around always.

My parents dabbled with it.

I went to church.

I remember young trying to get this pinwheel because I remembered Psalm 23.

I'd get a pinwheel or something.

I remember muddling my way through it because I wanted the pinwheel.

I guess.

I remember having conversations with my cousins over dinosaurs and how did they exist if they weren't in the Bible and where were they.

And I remember having thoughts as a child about the church and religion that I was being raised around,

Not in,

But around.

Grandparents went to church.

God was not a foreign thing.

It was just there.

God was just part of everything.

We're supposed to love Jesus,

But it wasn't something that I was ever forced to bed.

It wasn't something shoved down my throat.

It was just there.

It was just there.

My cousins,

On the other hand,

Who I spent most of my weekends with,

They were very religious.

Every weekend,

Every weekend it was church.

So if I stayed with them,

It was a little bit more like,

Get with it.

We're going to pray now.

As an adult,

I tried it.

I was in the choir for a bit.

And then what very few people know about me is I actually lost my husband when I was 21 years old.

And I want to say that was a bit of a break for me because at that time I was singing in the church choir,

Feeling really good about it,

Going every weekend and then meet this man who I can't imagine my life without.

At age 20,

He was about to turn 23,

He is diagnosed with a rare bone cancer that takes his life.

So I pretty much snapped away from much religious,

God-loving thoughts at that point,

Probably for a long time.

For me personally,

I had a very,

And I would be amiss if I didn't at least say that at the beginning of 2019,

I made a decision to make myself healthy,

To get healthy because I was in bad relationships over and over again.

And I found that even if I had shifted my decision to be with this person and this person,

And that person was drastically different than this other person,

They were still failing.

And there was one common denominator,

One thread to all of them,

And it was me.

I was the thread.

So I knew whatever was happening,

Whatever,

To make these decisions that I was in these relationships that were really quite horrible on all different levels,

I needed to fix this.

So I made a promise in myself on 2019 to get well.

And part of that was therapy and like you talking it through.

And then the other part of it was I went to an acupuncturist of all strange things because my doctor wanted to put me on antidepressants and I didn't,

I was very depressed.

And I'd gone to a doctor,

Tears in my eyes,

Like for no reason,

Like I was literally sitting there going,

I have no reason to be sad.

I have no reason to be sad,

But when you feel sad and you know you shouldn't be sad and the world can tell you you shouldn't be sad,

That's just,

That's just,

That is depression.

And I was making myself get up every day.

I was still functioning,

But I didn't want to do the pills for those people who do them.

I,

I applaud you.

I just knew I couldn't have it.

I didn't want it in my life.

It's just,

I just didn't want to be tied to it.

I didn't want the side effects of it.

And I knew I could do it without the pills.

So I went,

I,

I ran into this woman,

Funny enough,

I just ran into her recently again and thanked her for this.

She told me about her acupuncturist.

I wrote the acupuncturist.

I said,

You do a depression.

She said,

Yes.

I said,

Okay,

I bought a package.

It was cheaper that way.

Session three,

She kept hitting this spot.

And every time she did,

I'm like,

Oh,

Whatever that is,

Like thinking about it brings tears to my eyes.

She would hit it.

And I would just go,

Oh,

That is really bad.

So she explained to me that that line was connected to maybe,

I don't remember,

In my lungs.

And I,

I have lung problems.

Bottom line is on that day,

I became very emotional.

She walked out of the room and I lost it.

Just needles.

So I'm,

I'm laying very still because I have needles,

Needles everywhere.

And I am sobbing.

I am so I am more than sobbing.

This is a,

This was a exorcism of sadness that I literally vomited up in the room emotionally.

I just opened my mouth as far as I could open it and just sadness.

And then I fell asleep.

She came back in however long and she checked on me.

And then she came back,

She took the nails out.

I didn't say anything.

I didn't tell her about it.

I just kind of wanted to kind of gather myself and just go sit in the car.

And I had a therapy appointment like right after that.

I mirrored the two so that I could do one and then the other when I was in town.

I want to just,

I'm so curious because when you talk about when the acupuncturist put the needle in,

You were pointing to the side of your neck almost behind your ear.

Is that,

Okay,

So I need to tell you something that's actually really fascinating.

You'll find this fascinating.

So my first visit with the Quirindera,

She directly went into that area and started massaging.

And she said on both sides of the neck in that area,

When you suffer trauma in your life,

When someone slights you or insults you or when you're a kid,

If you're bullied or if someone makes fun of your dress or you lose your job,

Each one of those is a trauma of sorts.

And in the Quirindera world,

They're called sustos.

And she told me that every trauma that you suffer in your life is stored right there in the neck where you are pointing to,

Where the acupuncturist was working on you.

I think I'm so charmed by your story of meeting the gentleman on the airplane because that was such a synchronistic,

Unexpected,

Really kind of fun thing.

You guys have this conversation that was so organic and so,

I don't know,

It was just charming.

It was really wonderful.

And you got to meet someone else,

Which I find one of the most exciting things about life is meeting the stranger and then having a great conversation.

And it's so satisfying.

And so,

I think the reason I love that podcast of yours is because it completely reminds me of what I love.

That was one of them that I shared.

I mean,

That was one.

They're like those love stories on the Hallmark Channel,

But mine never end quite the way you think they're going to.

Like the man on the plane.

It's been since,

Last time I heard from him,

He was helping with the testing for COVID and overworked,

Overwhelmed medical student in New Orleans.

I hope he's doing well,

But I mean,

I haven't,

It was a moment,

Right?

It was a moment not to be forever.

And that's okay.

I mean,

Believe me,

That's okay.

Cause I had that moment,

But I've had lots of moments like that,

Honestly.

Amazing moments where I go,

Whoa,

Is this being filmed?

Because this is pretty amazing.

But yes,

It's those moments I also live for.

I'm excited for them.

I can't wait to have them,

Not just with attractive men on planes,

But just people,

Like you said,

Just random,

The randomness of the encounter.

And you never know who you're actually meeting and what their story is.

And you also don't know what gift they're going to give you.

And so,

I mean,

One of the things,

When I was listening to your podcast on your conversation with the gentleman on the plane,

I thought,

Oh my God,

This was this whole thing,

This whole conversation,

This whole encounter was a miracle.

I mean,

It was the magic of the universe bringing these two people together.

And I think if you've had many of these encounters,

You have been blessed with magic so much because these encounters are life-giving.

They are life-giving,

They're life inspiring.

They make you want to wake up the next day thinking,

Oh my gosh,

Who am I going to meet today?

What kind of adventure am I going to have?

And I think the excitement of that encounter,

The conversation,

The gift you get from the other person,

Those are all,

I consider all of those the magic of the universe,

Like all of the threads of the universe coming together so that you can have this experience.

I like that.

I like that.

And they are gifts.

I mean,

Yeah,

All of them.

I don't always walk away from any of those feeling like that was a gift.

But when time has passed and I'm maybe not feeling so emotionally charged over it,

I can say,

Yeah,

The gift was the laugh,

The smile,

The feeling,

That what if that happens in your gut and your heart sometimes,

Like is this something?

Which is what that whole thing was.

Like,

What is this going to be?

What is this?

What is possible?

What's possible?

But sometimes,

Like I said,

It's just the moment and I'm trying to just appreciate that.

It was just the moment.

So you have a choice.

You can either be a ray of light,

Walk in spirit,

Live in spirit,

Feel in spirit.

I'm kind of pointing at you when I do that on the Zoom thing.

And let that rush over and splash on people.

Or you can be full of disease and negativity,

And you can let that fill you up and spill over onto people around you.

The choice is yours.

And then our other choice is to either be around the person who's splashing us with goodness or the person who's splashing us with their negativity.

So these are all of our choices.

I'm trying not to let anything upset me these days because I've worked so hard,

And I'm just being happy.

But I'll tell you,

I choose to walk and roll in life with people who are exuding that thing that I want.

I would rather be next to the person who just is constantly happy,

Like my dog.

He wakes up happy every day.

He greets people like he has missed them his entire life.

Like,

Where have you been?

I love you so much.

I want to be like my dog every day.

That's my goal.

And that's it.

That's episode 18 of Bite Size Blessings,

The podcast all about the magic and spirit that surrounds us,

If only we open our eyes to it.

And whether you are a fan of the podcast,

Or you're a fan of the show today,

Or the longer interviews,

We're grateful you're here.

I need to thank the lovely and creative Milo from the podcast,

Milo Talks,

And also my friend,

I need to thank her for being vulnerable and coming on the show today.

I also need to thank the creators of music used Frank Schroeder,

Kevin MacLeod,

Brian Holt's Moog,

Chilled Music,

And Michael Hellman.

For complete attribution,

Please see the Bite Size Blessings website at bite-sized-blessings.

Com.

On the website,

You'll find links to other people,

Books,

And music I think will lift and inspire you to go out and live your best life.

Thank you for listening.

And here's my one request.

Be like Milo and never pass up the chance to talk to strangers.