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The Greatest Life Lesson a Mom Can Learn from Her Child with Shelley Buck & Kathy Curtis | EU 4334 min read

December 14, 2020

Can our children teach us valuable life lessons? How can we guide our children into their authentic selves simply by observing their behavior? Is this authenticity synonymous with their ‘light’? In this podcast episode, Veronica Cisneros speaks with Shelley Buck and Kathy Curtis about the greatest life lesson a mom can learn from her child. […]

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Can our children teach us valuable life lessons? How can we guide our children into their authentic selves simply by observing their behavior? Is this authenticity synonymous with their ‘light’?

In this podcast episode, Veronica Cisneros speaks with Shelley Buck and Kathy Curtis about the greatest life lesson a mom can learn from her child.

Meet Shelley Buck and Kathy Curtis

Shelley Buck was born into a creative family in the Midwest and moved to California after college to follow her dream of working for Disney. It was there she met and fell in love with her husband, Chris, who worked in animation. After they married and had their first child, Ryder, she stayed home to be a full-time mom to him and the two brothers who followed.

She is a storyteller and artist, which she expresses through her original jewelry at ShelRae Designs. When Ryder was diagnosed with cancer and the journey went to unimaginable places, she poured her heart into writing their story. Her lessons in parenting through these tribulations, combined with the power of Ryder’s larger-than-life spirit, offer profound messages for living in the light.

https://www.leaveyourlightonbook.com

Kathy Curtis moved into Shelley’s neighborhood when they were both 12 years old and in an instant, the lifelong friendship took root. She has worked as a healing artist and writer since 1991. Her programs support the transformation of grief, illness, and emotional barriers through creative expression. She is the author of Invisible Ink, a memoir about her own journey through grief. The unique writing process that brought her so much healing has since become a successful program, online and at various venues in the Midwest.

Kathy’s intimate connection to the Buck family, combined with her writing and healing background, made her the perfect person to partner with Shelley on the creation of this book.

Visit the website.

In This Podcast

Summary

  • Daily reminders
  • Is light synonymous with being unapologetic?
  • Shelley and Kathy’s advice to parents regarding allowing their children to flourish

Daily reminders

Shelley talks about how her son Ryder taught her how to be calmer with his own calm presence.

I was reminded by Ryder on a daily basis that I needed to be real, calm down, make room for him to be who he was. (Shelley Buck)

Shelley was caught between wanting to keep Ryder at home and “tether him down” for the sake of his health and his recovery, however she knew that she had to let him enjoy his freedom while he was a young man. She was trying to do everything she could, without really being able to do anything for him because that was his work, to lead his own life.

Is light synonymous with being unapologetic?

Ryder demanded that he do everything his own way, go through cancer his own way, take risks … I really believe Ryder helped himself to heal because he demanded that his journey through cancer never happened without him being fully embodied and in it in his own way. (Kathy Curtis)

Kathy discusses that your energy and your feelings about life are a factor in your light, feeling unapologetic, and they guide you in living authentically and shining. His light and lifeforce were given from a place of love.

Shelley and Kathy’s advice to parents regarding allowing their children to flourish

Shelley says to listen and watch them because they will lead you and tell you where they want to go and who they want to be. Parents need to get their own expectations for their children out of the way and encourage what lights them up.

Kathy goes on from Shelley’s point that when parents watch and take notice of their children, they can help to guide them in their decision making when their children are ever uncertain about which direction to move into.

Books mentioned in this episode

Useful links:

Meet Veronica Cisneros

Veronica Cisneros | Empowered And Unapologetic PodcastI’m a licensed therapist and women walk into my office every day stressed and disconnected. As a mom of three daughters, I want my girls to know who they are and feel confident about their future. I can’t think of a better way to help other women than by demonstrating an empowered and unapologetic life.

So I started  Empowered and Unapologetic to be a safe space for women to be vulnerable and change their lives for the better before she ever needs to see a therapist.

Whether you listen to the podcast, join the free Facebook communityjoin the VIP community, or attend our annual retreat,  you’re in the right place. Let’s do this together!

Thanks for listening!

Podcast Transcription

[VERONICA]:
Empowered and Unapologetic is part of the Practice of the Practice Podcast Network, a family of podcasts that changed the world. To hear other podcasts like the Bomb Mom podcast, Beta Male Revolution, or Imperfect Thriving, go to practiceofthepractice.com/network.

Have you ever thought, how did I manage to lose myself? Being a mom is so hard, especially when we’re feeling stressed and disconnected. We exhaust ourselves trying to create this perfect life for our family. You deserve to enjoy your marriage and your kids, without the stress perfectionism brings. I am going to teach you how to identify who you are, outside of all of the roles you play.

Hi, I’m Veronica Cisneros. I’m a wife, mother of three, and a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. I am on a mission to teach women just like you how to become empowered and unapologetic. Welcome to our girl gang.

[VERONICA]:
Welcome to Empowered and Unapologetic. I’m your host, Veronica Cisneros. Today’s guests are Shelley Buck and Kathy Curtis. Shelly Buck moved from the Midwest to California to follow her dream of working for Disney. When her first son Ryder at 22 was diagnosed with cancer, she began to write their story. Her lessons in parenting and the power of Ryder’s spirit offer profound messages for living in the light. Kathy Curtis and Shelly Buck have been lifelong friends. She has worked as a healing artist and writer since 1991. Her programs support the transformation of grief, illness and emotional barriers through creative expression. This unique writing process brings deep healing, and has become a successful program throughout the Midwest. Shelley and Kathy, thank you so much for joining me, this is a huge, huge blessing. Thank you.

[SHELLEY]:
Thank you.

[VERONICA]:
Absolutely. And Shelley, I have to say, your son Ryder, and reading your book, the story is so powerful, I swear, the minute I, the minute I was approached to do this interview, it left me in tears. And I’m not going to go too far into it, I’m going to allow you to share the story. But I just want to make sure I hit on that because I really admire, I admire not only your vulnerability, but your willingness to go ahead and share this story with us because it is a very, very powerful message. And Kathy, for you to co write this. I mean to be able, it just flows so well. So thank you both.

[KATHY]:
Thank you.

[SHELLEY]:
Thank you.

[VERONICA]:
So, if you can, start us off in sharing your story.

[SHELLEY]:
Well, Ryder was born an old soul, wise beyond his years, very calm, unlike my spirit, which is much more energetic. And he taught me from the very beginning that I needed to calm down. And he kept that he kept that lesson going. I mean, he was an infant in the crib, and would just recoil at my wild greeting in the morning, you know, when I would say, good morning, Ryder and he would just oh, you know, I had to learn to just to just calm it down with him. He had two brothers who followed him and they were other stories entirely, completely different. But with Ryder, I needed to chill, which is what he used to say to me when he got older. So do you want me to go on from there?

[VERONICA]:
Yeah.

[SHELLEY]:
Okay, um, Ryder was diagnosed with cancer when he was 22. At that point, I started writing in an online journal, CaringBridge, to keep everybody, friends and family appraised of what was going on. And he went through nine months of treatment and was declared clear. So we celebrated, he went to Bali that summer and spent a month studying music, he was a musician. And then, six months later, he was in an accident, hit by two cars as he walked home on the freeway, and that was the end of that part of the story. The journal continued for several more years until we decided to write a book and the book is Leave Your Light On, which is the name of the first song Ryder ever wrote. And it has been the theme of the book and the theme of my life, his entire life, and since his passing.

[VERONICA]:
So I think when you said, that’s the end, um, it leaves us with okay, end of chapter, how so? And it’s the fact that even though he was able to beat cancer, you know, and through him, you know, going into being a musician, what ultimately ended up taking his life was not the cancer, it was this tragic accident.

[SHELLEY]:
Right.

[VERONICA]:
While you were talking about Ryder, I was wondering why, while reading this book, my daughter Aubrey came up. And this isn’t in our questions and so I’m totally going off script, because it’s important. I’m not sure why my daughter, I call her my little porcupine, I’ll explain why in a minute. So, Aubrey kept on coming up for me. And it wasn’t, the light bulb didn’t go off. The light didn’t come on until right now, as you said, he had taught me patience. He had taught me how to calm down. And it’s interesting because, you know, I’m listening to, you know, some of the things you’ve shared and him being like, you know, coiling and, you know, doing this and it’s like, ah, that’s my porcupine. And I don’t know, I’m just now I’m even more excited because I can learn so much from this story. Because with my porcupine, I call her porcupine because since day one, she was sassy. I mean, she would look at everybody with attitude, I mean, people would always tell me like, why is she staring me down. She’s like, not even one. That’s just my porcupine. That is just my porcupine. That’s why I called her porcupine because she’s sassy. And I’m very, very quiet very, very, very to herself. So much love, so much love, that little girl. Oh my god.

And right now it wasn’t, it didn’t dawn on me that maybe it’s not necessarily, you know, her wanting to, and not that I believe this entirely, but just kind of to sum this up. Maybe it’s not that she wants to necessarily pick a fight or she wants to be this person that that comes across as, you know, I don’t even, I don’t know, as sharp. I think from what you just shared, it’s more of taking this not a tiptoe approach, but this light footed understanding, relatable approach because anybody that meets Aubrey they fall in love with her. She can start any new school and all of a sudden have a whole bunch of friends. However, I think you just taught me something with it just starting about, about it being more of a like because I’m like, party in a box. You guys can’t see me, but this is me dancing. I’m like a party in a box, like loud and I don’t know, we’re gonna go farther into it but I just kind of want to share that revelation that just happened for me right now.

[KATHY]:
Can I make a comment here?

[VERONICA]:
Yes, please.

[KATHY]:
Okay, what that’s triggering for me is the idea that, you know, when Ryder was going through cancer, I mean, he protected his own light. He did that by going down in the lobby at midnight and doing Pilates. And he did that by dragging his chemo bag outdoors to play music under the stars. He did things that weren’t, you know, part of the protocol. He went hiking in the mountains after being in the hospital getting treatment for a week. He did a lot of things where he just pushed people back enough to keep his light on. And I can kind of hear in your daughter that her porcupine quills are protecting her light, so she can be who she needs to be.

[VERONICA]:
Yeah. Oh my gosh, I’m gonna cry right now.

[KATHY]:
Yeah. So,

[VERONICA]:
You know, it’s interesting that you say that. Because like I mentioned, Aubrey, everybody loves her. I mean, we had a fight when we were announcing godparents. There’s a little bit of a fight over Aubrey because, you know, we ended up having to have two godparents for, two women, two women for each child because there were two women that wanted to be Audrey’s godparents. And she’s just so dang lovable. And Aubrey has always been independent. Like, I remember going to, you know, I remember going to one of her classes, you know, parent teacher conference, and her teacher asked me, you know, what, you know, was going over, you know, Aubrey’s the top leader right now with reading. And it was this program that I didn’t even know existed, because most of the kids would bring the books home. Aubrey didn’t bring the books home, it was just done. And she was at the top of her class. So this is why I didn’t know about this program. You know, when she was little like, she couldn’t even walk, she was still in a car seat. She would walk around with this dictionary, she couldn’t read. She would walk around with a little dictionary, the little pocket Webster dictionaries.

[VERONICA]:
Whenever she’s feeling, I say dysregulated, but whenever she’s feeling, you know, an intense amount of emotion, she’ll work out in her room, like, looked up on YouTube workout routines, found somebody that she liked. Just does it. So when Kathy right now, when you shared that about Ryder, you know, taking his own time to go ahead and self regulate, taking his own time to calm himself down, and even process what’s going on. Oh, my gosh, that’s my porcupine. That’s my Aubrey.

[KATHY]:
There you go.

[VERONICA]:
Oh, my gosh. So you wrote this book about light, you know, and I wanted to ask, when did you first notice Ryder’s light? Like, how did that even come about?

[SHELLEY]:
Oh, he had a light about him from the very beginning. And it was this calm being that he was, so because he wasn’t expressing himself outwardly a lot, he wasn’t demonstrative, it came out in just this aura that he’s always had. And we talk about having conversations with him or deep conversations, especially around his own mortality. It was something that he came to in his own time, in his own way. It wasn’t something I could drag out of him. When we had conversations, and we did, and they were deep, it was because he initiated. And so this was when I would get a little bit of that light, the rest of the time, you know, he played his guitar, often sharing it, he’d play in the living room. But you know, oftentimes he’d just be out the door with his guitar, and I wouldn’t see him for hours, sometimes not until the next day.

[KATHY]:
Well, I was just gonna add on to that. I never really heard you call it his light. But you know, there’s a song that he wrote, Leave Your Light On, and then the way that he grew spiritually when he was going through cancer, and then, you know, the celebration of life event that they did after he passed, 1200 people showed up to this church. And Shelley and Chris were thinking maybe there’d be 300. But what happened is that they had little cards that people could write a story on, about how Ryder had impacted their life. And the stories were, many of them are in the book, because they did not know what Ryder was doing out in the world. They didn’t know the impact his spirit, his light was having on people. But the fact that he wrote this, the first song he wrote, was called Leave Your Light On and that became his mantra for life. And then when it came time to write his story, that was the key element is that this young man knew that in order to have a good life, you have to nurture your own inner well being, your own joy, your own light, so yeah.

[VERONICA]:
Absolutely.

[VERONICA]:
Hey, ladies, are you loving this episode? Because if you are, share it with your friends. In addition to that, I want to personally invite you into my private Facebook group, Empowered and Unapologetic. On this page, I want you to post what was your favorite episode, what lessons have you learned and what was your greatest takeaway on there? It’s an interactive page where you find women just like you, learning and growing.

[VERONICA]:
So this light, you know, and I’m only saying from my own experience, did it make it harder for you to parent, because I’m going to tell you right now, with my porcupine, I, and I’m a therapist. So I’m able to go ahead and sit with people, I’m able to go ahead and challenge them, I’m able to go ahead and resonate with that, you know, like all of these things, connect with them very quickly. And my Aubrey is almost kind of like an enigma. You know, it’s like this mystery, this unsolved mystery. And I’m starting to learn, especially right now with our conversation, that it’s not for me to solve. Even though that’s been my mission, I’m not gonna lie, if I’m just being completely honest. You know, even though it’s been a little bit of my mission as a mother, because I want to fix, you know, I know a lot of us run into that we want to fix, we want to change it. And so with Ryder going through, you know, his cancer treatment, with Ryder going through everything that he had endured, what was it like to parent him, because it kind of feels like you were in competition with his light?

[SHELLEY]:
Well, he was, like I said before, he was really unto himself. And so drawing him out was a challenge, I was always there to be engaging, and he was always there kind of pushing me back, going, you know, not now, mom. He could be exasperating. I mean, especially during the cancer, when we would, we spent a week together in the hospital, I was there every day. And then he would come home and recover for a couple of days on the couch. But then he was off and running. And I didn’t know where he was, I couldn’t get in touch with him half the time. And I knew that what he was doing was getting away from the reminder of cancer mom, and the cancer house, and just nurturing his own inner being, this light that he carried with him. So parenting him was a lot of a hands off kind of ordeal, where I had to follow his lead, because he was on a mission in his life, to just grow in his own way.

And I found that with my other two children too, the best thing I could do was back off and take a lesson from them and let them kind of lead where their passions fall or where their passions drew them. And the best thing I could do is just support them each in their own paths. And they determined those paths. Um, you know, as much as I tried to expose them to basketball, and soccer, and water polo, and music, and art, they found their own way into their life’s callings. They’re all now over 23 and Ryder was 23 when he passed. So all of my children are adults, and they have found their own way. But only by pushing me out of the picture to some degree, and getting me to honor who they really are, were they able to do that.

[VERONICA]:
So as you say that, me knowing that is 100% true, there’s still this fear. And I think that fear gets in the way of us being able to parent because we want to go ahead and protect our kids from everything that maybe we weren’t protected from, or maybe we weren’t shown. So we tend to go ahead and run into this, we tend to run into this dysfunctional pattern of I know best and it has to be done this way, follow this role, follow this path. And very rarely do we allow there to be some form of freedom. And again, most of the time, it’s, it’s because of fear. You know, we don’t want our kids to go ahead and step into, you know, you walk over there, you’re going to get hit, you know you’re going to get hit by that wall or you’re going to you know fall into that hole like you know, we we want to go ahead and constantly protect them. And even when they know that there’s a hole there, you know, sometimes our kids will look at us and purposely step in it.

But I say this because Ryder was fighting cancer, and I’m reading the book, you know, there was a moment I was reading and there’s a moment where Ryder wasn’t interested with all the research you have done with regards to his form of cancer. And then in addition to that, he didn’t want to discuss it, and that was it. And you being in his car, he would drown you out with music, you know, and so I’m wondering, you know, my dad ended up passing away from cancer. Matter of fact, right before Aubrey turned one, so that was 12 years ago. And I know what that battle looks like, my mom did the same thing trying to go ahead and, you know, Luis, you know, look at this, this and this, and you shouldn’t be eating this. And, you know, why are you drinking that, you know, and, you know how much sugar is in there, and all of those things. And my dad, it’s not that he didn’t care, but he was going to live his life the way he wanted to live it. And so as a mom, you know, as a mom, what was that like, to, I mean, reading the book, I know, it wasn’t an easy transition, where you step back and you say, okay, fine, I’m just gonna let you be, let you have it. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I know better. I know. I know better. What was that internal battle like? I’m not gonna say what was that fight like for Ryder, because I can understand it. But what was that battle like for you to go ahead and literally step back, and allow him to go ahead and live his life the way he wanted to?

[SHELLEY]:
I was at my wit’s end. We did everything around the house that we possibly could to protect him. We watched the dogs, we cleaned the house, we filled the refrigerator, we got rid of the pesticides and the toxic cleaners and we got purified water, we did everything we could think of to make the house organic, and safe, and healthy for him. And he demanded, you know, blended shakes with just organic material, fruits and vegetables, and that’s how he wanted to eat. And then he would come in the house with a bag of fast food and a milkshake. And, you know, I knew darn well that this was not good for him, I’d done the research, I knew he couldn’t be eating a lot of sugar. And yet, I bit my tongue, I bit my tongue a lot. When I had to impart some knowledge from the doctors or the nurses, I did it in a measured way. And I kind of felt for a time when he would be receptive. Sometimes I’d catch him at the kitchen island when he was eating and just not really preoccupied with anything other than what was right in front of him. And I could slip a little bit of information in there, or, you know, before I’d go to bed at night, remember, we have an appointment at eight o’clock in the morning, you’ll have to be up early. But a lot of times, he just waved me off, you know, so I had to be very, very measured about my communications. And sharing the information was critical but he didn’t, he didn’t want to know about it, until he did. And then he would ask or eventually, during his treatment, he said, I want to know everything about what’s going on in my body and with my treatments so that I can write about it. And that was a turning point. But that came about seven months into a nine month ordeal.

[VERONICA]:
Shelly, you said you did everything. This is when the therapist in me comes out. You did everything to go ahead and make sure that house was organic as possible. No pesticides, you know, maybe limited sugar, everything organic. However, what did you guys do collectively as a family to make you, yourselves organic? You, yourselves vulnerable, open and authentic?

[SHELLEY]:
Hmm. Well, I was reminded by Ryder on a daily basis that I needed to be real, calm down, make room for him to be who he was. Um, I can’t say it affected the rest of the family as much. My husband was working overtime on Frozen. And so he would show up at the hospital around eight o’clock at night. And that was when he would get a little bit of time with Ryder, but the other two, my second son Woody was away at college. And so he was not a factor in the household. But my youngest son, Reed, was an absolute storm and he required more of my attention because I think Ryder was getting so much of it. I mean, he was at an age, he was about 15. So he needed driving, he needed feeding, he needed someone keeping track of his schedule, and his friends. And he did that in a very demonstrative way. He was never quiet, he was always a little tornado. So I was stretched pretty thin just keeping up with Reed, and then keeping calm and invisible as much as possible around Ryder.

[VERONICA]:
Yeah. I like the word that you used, invisible. Now knowing what you know, would you still be invisible? Because it kind of feels, it kind of feels this way. I mean, they’re all in. Or I’m still here, however, I’m taking more of this complete step back and I’m withdrawing. And I don’t think that’s what you meant by being invisible. Can you provide us with more clarity what you mean by that, because it kind of sounds like from what I know about you, it kind of sounds like I allowed Ryder to take the lead. And even though I was scared out of my mind, realizing that this was his path, this was his cancer. And he knows I’m here to support him 100%, he knows that we’re doing everything to go ahead and have the best doctors, the best care. And so at this point, I have to allow not only the professionals but I also have to allow my son to go ahead and take this journey.

[SHELLEY]:
Yes, I had to lengthen the leash on Ryder even though I wanted to yank him back and keep him tethered to the couch.

[VERONICA]:
Oh, yeah. Oh, God. Yeah.

[SHELLEY]:
Turn on the TV and let him watch whatever he wanted. I had to say goodbye to him at the door. And will you be home for dinner was the most that I could get out of my mouth. You know? Where are you going? That was almost overstepping my boundaries. Um, so not just lengthening the leash, but dropping the leash. I mean, there were times when he went away, didn’t come back until the next day. I would find, you know, he showed me the pictures on his phone. He was supposed to be a couple of hours away camping with the wolves and he came home with pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge on his phone. Now that’s five or six hours north of where we live in Los Angeles. So I asked him about it. And he chuckled and said, yeah, I was gonna tell you, it’s not very far north, you know? Like, okay, so this just was a reminder that my position in his life was definitely sidelined. I was watching from the bleachers, cheering him on, doing everything I could, but without really being able to do anything.

[VERONICA]:
What did you learn from that?

[SHELLEY]:
I learned more of who Ryder is, and was. I learned that I had a place in his life that was not right by his side, attached at the hip. I needed to, again, pull back, center myself, do what I could, which is what led me to writing. I wrote a lot while he was going through treatment because that was my catharsis, it was my therapy. It was where I could do my research. And none of it had to involve him directly. But it was good for me.

[VERONICA]:
I think we tend to lose sight of that, especially when our children are going through something. We lose sight of how we need to take care of ourselves. And a good amount of, you know, the feeling fatigued, the feeling overwhelmed, that stress, not intentionally doing it, but we tend to go ahead and in some ways, put that on our kids. And again, it’s completely unintentional. However, I’ve noticed when I’m stressed out, if I’m not practicing any form of self care, or if I’m not doing anything to calm myself down, I will be very, very quick to just snap or you know, out of frustration, especially in times when I know something’s going on with my kids. You know, there’s this heightened level of frustration because I want to protect them from getting hurt. So I could only imagine when Ryder was going through this and then him being so I don’t want to say resistant because he wasn’t, it was just him being him. It could be looked at that way. Could be positioned that way. But that’s ultimately not what he was doing. He was living his life unapologetically. And I think with that, there is that internal battle, that mommy battle, that mama bear that literally has to realize that it is a leash. And our kids aren’t animals, you know, our kids are human beings. So I love that you use that word, leash.

So I want to ask you this other question. So he ends up being, you mentioned your husband was working on Frozen. So when you say, I know, but the audience doesn’t know, when you say Frozen, you’re actually talking about the movie, Frozen. You’re not telling me that he was working with ice, right?

[SHELLEY]:
Right.

[VERONICA]:
Ryder ended up becoming a character in the movie Frozen 2. How did that happen?

[SHELLEY]:
Well, Ryder passed away exactly one month before the first Frozen was released. And when Frozen 2 went into production, Chris’s co director suggested they name a character after him, which of course, Chris thought was lovely, and tried to keep it from me as a surprise. But I eventually found out before the movie was released, but there was this chill, romantic, lovely character, and he embodied Ryder’s spirit. So they named him Ryder, and there’s actually a song that Ryder was instrumental in inspiring, called The Next Right Thing, which is, it’s a beautiful song in Frozen 2. And so he had a part, he had a pretty substantial part in inspiring that film.

[VERONICA]:
Absolutely. All in line with his life, all in line with his light. And, you know, it’s so crazy how much our kids can teach us. And, you know, him being so young, I don’t want to call him a baby, you know, because obviously, he was an adult, but very, very young, 23. You know, and, you know, Kathy mentioned, you guys expected 300 and there were so much more than 300 people that attended, attended his celebration of life. I want to go ahead and go into is the word light, another word for empowered and unapologetic? And if so, how?

[SHELLEY]:
I’m gonna let you take this, Kathy.

[VERONICA]:
Oh, I seen Kathy’s lights, or her eyes light up when I asked this question.

[KATHY]:
Well, it’s a good one. Because I’m going to kind of dovetail back to what you were talking about when, you know, Ryder demanding that he do everything his own way, and go through cancer his own way, and take risks that Shelley, you know, terrified her. I remember witnessing that and thinking, oh, my God, you know, the courage that it took for her and not to mention the fortitude because she is a bull in a china shop, normally, and so having her pullback and be visible, you know, that took a lot of willpower on her part, a lot of love. But I really believe Ryder helped himself to heal, because he demanded that his journey to cancer never happened without him being fully embodied and in it in his own way. Like I think that empowerment, that unapologetic empowerment, fed his body in all the right ways. I mean, I don’t have any proof of that. But I believe that your energy and your feelings about life really factor in, or can in that kind of a journey. So I think you’re absolutely right, that the light that we carry is feeling empowered and not apologizing for being who we are in life.

And we’re all different, and the very things that, you know, he would push Shelley back to make more room for that light that he needed to shine. And so, you know, after his passing, and finding out the incredible impact he had on people, people who were thinking about suicide, people who, you know, just were really feeling lost in life, Ryder had grown so much spiritually during his cancer that he was like a walking guru. But he was an ordinary one. So he wasn’t just, you know, [unclear] guy. He had a personality. But he just, he was all that. And that light is so multi dimensional and it was so given from a place of love that you could not help but be affected by him.

[VERONICA]:
Yeah, I love that. So I always ask these two questions and I’m going to shift it a little bit, because I think it’s important, I think our listeners need to hear it too. I’m going to ask, what would you recommend for a mom to do right now with basically her approach towards her kids? Like, what one tip would you give her with being able to accept her kid for who they are, and who they’re not, not trying to change them?

[SHELLEY]:
I would say, listen, and watch them. They will lead you, they will definitely tell you where they want to go, and who they want to be. And we need to get our own ideas of what that might be out of the way. I mean, we can keep our dreams in our heads to ourselves. But really, the child will determine what will make them happiest in the world. If you allow them to follow their own bliss, their interests, what lights them up, that’s the greatest gift you can give any child.

[VERONICA]:
Absolutely.

[KATHY]:
I want to add on to that too.

[VERONICA]:
Yes, please, Kathy.

[KATHY]:
Ryder, at one point when he was just entering early adulthood, didn’t know what to do with his life. And Shelley, who had been watching him, and seeing that music lift that child up more than anything ever had, he walked around with a guitar strapped on his back all the time, just you know, because she had been watching, she was able to help him see himself in a time that he felt really like, he probably felt like, well, what should I be doing? But instead, she said, look in the mirror. And that gave him permission to continue being himself and loving what he loved. And then actually building on that for his future, which he did.

[VERONICA]:
Bingo. And, you know, I love that you guys both share that. As moms, we want to make sure everything’s going to be okay. It’s basically trusting that everything we’re teaching them is going to lead them in the right direction. However, it’s going to be their path. And it’s their path because of the love and the support that we’ve provided them. So it’s not that we’re entirely stepping back, and we’re no use to them. It’s on the contrary, we are of great use, as long as we believe in them. And we trust their ability to go out and pursue the dreams that they were ultimately created to do. Ryder was created to provide us with this very, very important lesson, turn the light on, make sure that we recognize that it is possible, you know, it’s not something that, it’s not something that needs to be done for us, we can do it ourselves. And there’s so much value, and there’s so much value and purpose in that. So thank you both. Where can we find you, on social media, websites, where can we find you, and how can we buy this book?

[SHELLEY]:
Amazon and Barnes & Noble carry the book, you can go to RyderBuckMusic.com and find more of his videos, his pictures and links to the book. But you can go directly to Amazon or your local bookstore and order it. It’s called Leave Your Light On and yeah, you can find it there. Ryder Buck Music is R-Y-D-E-R.

[VERONICA]:
Okay, awesome. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining me, this has been amazing. It’s taught me so much, seriously.

[SHELLEY]:
Well, thank you, Veronica. Yeah.

[KATHY]:
[Unclear] lovely.

[VERONICA]:
What’s up, ladies? Just want to let you guys know that your ratings and reviews for this podcast are greatly appreciated. If you love this podcast, please go to iTunes right now and rate and review. Thank you, guys.

Many women lose their own identity in the shadow of being a mom and a wife. We are a community of women who support each other. We leave perfectionism behind to become empowered and unapologetic. I know you’re ready for the next steps. If you want to become empowered and unapologetic, get my free course, Unapologetically Me over at empoweredandunapologetic.com/course.

This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. This is given with the understanding that neither the host, Practice of the Practice, or the guests, are providing legal, mental health, or other professional information. If you need a professional, you should find one.

Did you enjoy this podcast? Feel free to share this podcast on social media! You can also leave a review of the Empowered and Unapologetic Podcast on iTunes and subscribe!

Empowered and Unapologetic is part of the Practice of the Practice Podcast Network, a network of podcasts seeking to help you thrive, imperfectly. To hear other podcasts like the Bomb Mom Podcast, Imperfect Thriving, or Beta Male Revolution, go to practiceofthepractice.com/network.

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I’m Veronica, your new Boss MOM Mentor with no filter and no BS. 

I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, women’s coach, course creator, and retreat host. Married for OVER 20 years, raising three girls, and the host of the Empowered and Unapologetic podcast. 

Enough about me… 

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