Episode Eighty-Five: The Byte - Jen Peer Rich

Jen is a survivor-not only of childhood cancer, but an alcoholic father and being institutionalized as well. The rage the unloved child feels has affected every part of her life. BUT! Listen in on how she's transformed herself and her world and give the word "resilience" another level of meaning.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 85 of Bite-Sized Blessings.

This week,

I interview Jen Peer Rich.

I interview a lot of guests who are resilient,

And that's resilient with a capital R.

Jen's resilience is at least 10 stories tall,

And she's absolute proof that humans are strong enough,

Brave enough,

And determined enough to rise up above all the trauma in their pasts.

Jen's a remarkable human being.

On her website,

She describes herself as a metamodern humanimal,

Reverend,

Artist,

Autoethnographer,

Scholar,

Author,

And speaker on a variety of research interests.

She has a BA from Athens State University and an MA in transpersonal psychology,

Ecopsychology from Naropa University.

She's also the author of three books,

So Be It,

Friends in Presence,

And the forthcoming book,

Which I'm so excited about,

The Alchemy of Being a House,

A memoir of intergenerational transformation.

And Jen is all about transformation,

Transformation and resilience,

And her story is astonishing.

I'd been wanting to meet this glorious individual for months,

And finally we found some time to sit down and have a conversation.

Jen is the perfect example of a human being that inspires me every day.

I hope this conversation does the same for you,

Reminds you and convinces you that human beings can survive anything.

So now,

Episode 85 of Bite-Sized Blessings.

My father,

As I mentioned,

Was an alcoholic,

And he was drunk driving with my brother and I in the car.

And I was,

We were on the way to pick up my mom from work.

And I was not in a car seat,

I was just,

It was in a Volkswagen Bug,

So the seatbelt was just sort of wrapped around me on the front seat,

And we got into an accident.

And that's when they found the tumor.

Now,

Growing up,

My dad always,

He called me his miracle child.

And when he would get really drunk,

He'd say,

I'm the reason you're alive,

Because I'm an alcoholic.

If I wasn't an alcoholic,

You wouldn't be alive.

.

So I like to talk about probably the most miraculous thing that has happened,

Although my life has been saturated in miracles.

The biggest miracle of my life was how my cancer was found.

My father,

As I mentioned,

Was an alcoholic,

And he was drunk driving with my brother and I in the car.

And I was,

We were on the way to pick up my mom from work.

And I was not in a car seat,

I was just,

It was in a Volkswagen Bug,

So the seatbelt was just sort of wrapped around me on the front seat,

And we got into an accident.

And that's when they found the tumor.

Now,

Growing up,

My dad always,

He called me his miracle child.

And when he would get really drunk,

He'd say,

I'm the reason you're alive,

Because I'm an alcoholic.

If I wasn't an alcoholic,

You wouldn't be alive.

And to experience that paradox of truth,

Of real truth,

As a young person was,

Well,

It tempered me for paradox,

Let's just say that.

And what was interesting is when I wrote the book and I was writing this scene about the car accident,

I read it to my mom and she said,

No,

No,

No,

That is not how it happened.

She says,

It wasn't at the accident that they took you to the hospital,

It was the next day at a well-baby appointment that I took you to the hospital,

And that's when they found the tumor and rushed you into emergency,

Into the box with,

You know,

With the sign and all of that.

So my whole life,

And I wrote this in the book,

It's funny how family lore kind of changes,

It's like the telephone game,

Right?

My dad always used this story as a way to take credit for my life,

And rightfully so,

It really did save my life.

I'm not sure that they would have found the cancer had it not been for that,

But it was very miraculous that that happened.

And so,

Yeah,

I think that something like that makes you very aware of the complexity of family dynamics,

And I really tried to capture that complexity in the book,

That both of my parents have really different stories about how that cancer was found.

I mean,

Obviously,

The accident was the catalyst for it being found,

Because,

You know,

It still wouldn't have been found either way,

But yeah,

I tried to maybe hold both sides of that.

Maybe my dad is right,

Maybe my mom is right,

And 49 years later,

It just kind of washes out in the history of story.

But nobody ever thinks of that or expects it to happen,

Let alone when you're pregnant,

You know,

And you're just going to have a.

.

.

You don't expect to get that message right after your baby's born,

Like three,

Four,

Five months after they've been born,

And I can't even imagine how devastating getting that message is for anyone.

You know,

So kudos to your parents for.

.

.

I don't know the whole story,

But for making it through.

My mom,

My mom,

My dad was pretty absent.

He was drunk.

He was totally checked out,

But my mom,

Wow.

I mean,

What a powerhouse,

Right,

To do all that on her own.

She had to go to a.

.

.

She had to ride the city bus to the bank to get a loan for a new car,

Because the car was trashed.

And I write about this in the book.

Luckily,

She's sitting in the bank,

And she's thinking,

They're never going to give me a loan.

My dad had been in that same bank,

Basically draining out all our accounts.

So everybody in there knew.

My mom felt like what was going on in her life with my dad,

And the banker came out,

And it was a woman.

And she reached out her hand,

And my mom said she reminded her of springtime.

And it was a breath of fresh air to have somebody give her a hand up.

A loan for a car back in 1974 for a woman was a big deal.

And so we have these unexpected miracles that arise in great pain and great suffering that lift us up.

I always say the miracles are in the mud.

I'm convinced of it.

Music I do have one more thing I'd like to add,

And that is the miracle of my stepfather,

Lamar,

My blue-eyed healer,

Who entered into my life as I was being institutionalized as an adolescent.

So I was really mouthy,

And I had my own way of doing things,

And I was pretty sparky as an adolescent.

I didn't know about this guy that was coming into my life,

But he was the kind of person who healed with the very depths of his love.

He didn't try to heal anybody.

He just healed in how he loved us and how he held us.

My whole family,

My brother and I,

My brother had carried a tremendous amount of the pain that we had growing up.

We were all very wounded by my father.

And Lamar came into our life,

And he had a love of cooking.

And my mom never cooked.

We grew up on microwave dinners,

Breakfast,

Lunch,

And dinner.

Everything we could make was out of a microwave.

My mom never cooked.

And we were on our way to,

I was going to be dropped off at another institution,

A long-term care facility for troubled youth.

And Lamar had this big motor home,

And he took me shopping while we were on our way,

And he let me pick out what I wanted,

The boots that I wanted,

Which my mama would never let me do.

And we had about an hour before I was supposed to check into this place,

And mama was up front looking at maps ready to go on her way,

Dropped me off and be on their way in their happy new life.

And he started pulling out fruit,

And he sat it on the table in front of me and started cutting these pieces of fruit.

And I think that was the first time I'd ever really smelled a pineapple.

And the smell of the fruit just lit up that whole tiny space inside of his camper.

And I was just in awe.

I'd never seen somebody cut fruit like that and cut it so lovingly and offer it to me.

And it tasted,

I think I still can remember every bite of that plate of fruit salad.

And he really taught me so much in that moment about how to love people through food.

And I carry that now in my life still.

I love to cook.

And I think I tried to replicate that moment of being a squirrelly adolescent,

Being fed fruit salad for the first time in every meal that I cook.

And it's beautiful the way love travels through the years like that.

And hopefully maybe somebody I've made a meal for will pick that up and love people in the way they cook too.

Thank you so much for listening to Episode 85,

Where I got to interview the intriguing,

Unstoppable and resilient Jen Peer Rich.

She is many,

Many things,

But most especially right now,

She's an author trying to promote her upcoming book,

The Alchemy of Being a House,

A memoir of intergenerational transformation.

And as soon as it's released,

You'll find a link to buy the book under the episode show notes.

I need to thank Jen for sharing all of her stories with me.

And I need to thank the creators of the music used.

Alexander Nakarada,

Taiga Sound Productions,

Chilled Music,

Sasha End and Raphael Crots.

For complete attribution,

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

Com.

On the website,

You'll find links to books,

Music,

Artists and art I think will lift and inspire you.

Thank you for listening.

And here's my one request.

Be like Jen.

Be resilient.

Fall in love with your own mind.

Each one of us is unique and special and has gifts to bring the world.

We all need to do the necessary healing.

We've all suffered trauma.

But be like Jen.

Do that healing.

Fall in love with yourself.

And then?

Then you go out and you change the world.

See you next week for episode 86 of Bite-Sized Blessings.

Oh,

My fan girl on you for a minute.

I mean,

My wife and I were listening and we love your platform and we want to support you.

And we feel like you're just doing something really important.

And I love the music.

I love your choices.

I like where you split up conversations and then bring come back in again.

It's so intuitive and smart and clean.

And you I love it.

I love it.