Rebuilding a Life After Decades of Caregiving and Grief
What begins as a life devoted to caregiving can, in midlife, evolve into a profound awakening toward intentional purpose. We are delighted to welcome best-selling author, speaker, and podcast host Debbie R. Weiss, who shares her extraordinary journey from decades as a family caregiver to reclaiming her life after profound loss. Hear how turning 50 was a catalyst for change, leading her to develop the “maybe I can” mindset and her signature “sprinkle effect”—a dynamic approach of taking small, intentional steps to navigate life’s toughest transitions and build true resilience. Debbie’s inspiring story, chronicled in her books On Second Thought…Maybe I Can and The Sprinkle Effect, is a powerful testament that it is absolutely never too late to redefine your path and create a more vibrant, fulfilling life.
IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL HEAR ABOUT THINGS LIKE:
- Childhood insecurities and limiting beliefs often lead to a life of people-pleasing and prioritizing others.
- Decades of family caregiving, even when purposeful, can result in profound burnout.
- A “turning point” moment in midlife can be a powerful catalyst to reclaim your life.
- Shift your mindset from “I can’t” to “maybe I can” by starting with one small, intentional step.
- Finding a personal creative focus is a vital act of self-preservation and a source of healing during intense grief.
- The “sprinkle effect” is a dynamic strategy to achieve sustainable transformation through small, intentional qualities like joy and discipline.
- The E + R = O formula shows that taking responsibility for your reaction to an event controls the outcome of your life.
- Build resilience by creating a “maybe I can list” of all the major adversities you have successfully overcome.
- Self-care is an imperative act, not a selfish one, necessary to show up as your best self for your family and yourself.
- Healing from pain is a continuous journey of learning to live with it, preventing it from controlling your life.
SOME QUESTIONS IRENE ASKS DEBBIE:
- Tell us about the set of beliefs you inherited from your upbringing that kept you living a life you didn’t love?
- What was that powerful turning point experience at 50 that took you to doing all this?
- You came upon a mindset shift that said, “maybe I can.” Tell us about maybe I can.
- Tell us about how your memoir, On Second Thought…Maybe I Can, came to be. All the things you did to write this book while your husband was dying. Tell us about all that.
- Please explain to us what it was like to infuse your life with purposeful growth and how you translate that to others.
- Talk to us about responsibility and how it is related to making these important choices in life.
- Why is healing a deeply personal journey where instead of moving through the pain, we learn to live with this in a way that doesn’t control us?
Grab a copy of Debbie’s book, The Sprinkle Effect Workbook: Practical Exercises and Thoughtful Prompts to Support Your Journey to a More Colorful and Fulfilling Life: https://bookshop.org/a/93249/9798991084703
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Rebuilding a Life After Decades of Caregiving and Grief
The Intro: Author, Speaker, and Caregiver Debbie R. Weiss
I could not be more delighted to have the pleasure of interviewing Debbie Weiss, a fellow New Jerseyan, who is joining me from Lebanon, New Jersey. Debbie is a Bestselling Author, Speaker, Podcast Host, and longtime family caregiver who has navigated profound loss and knows firsthand what it means to start over. After decades of prioritizing others, she embarked on her own journey of growth, discovering how a small shift could bring color, purpose, and fulfillment back into her life.
Through her two inspiring books titled On Second Thought…Maybe I Can, and The Sprinkle Effect, Debbie encourages women to take small, intentional steps towards a more vibrant, fulfilling life. Her books are a lifeline for those ready to stop drifting and start living with purpose. Her approachable style and actionable guidance to empower women in midlife to shape the stuff and start making positive changes one and time.
I’m looking forward to talking with Debbie about her extraordinary journey, shaped by over 40 years as a caregiver and profound personal loss, which led to her inspiring transformation in her life of renewed purpose. Debbie’s story powerfully echoes the mission of the show, whose inspiring role models have navigated life’s most difficult transitions and transformed their lives.
We’re also going to explore the powerful turning point Debbie experienced at age 50 that became a catalyst for change and uncover how Debbie turned adversity into empowerment by launching her own business, writing her two books and speaking. Debbie’s journey is a poignant reminder that it’s never too late to reclaim your future and make meaningful shifts even in the face of grief, loss and major life transitions. I could not agree more.
Debbie, a warm, heartfelt welcome to the show.
Thank you so much, Irene. Just like you said before we came on, I am blushing after listening to that whole story. I’m listening going, “Is that really me?”
From Insecure Childhood to Lifelong Weight Struggle
Feel free to use it. I always say I really like researching the people I’m interviewing because I want people to know how special you are, that they’re not just listening to a random opinion or whatever, that you really have expertise and that they can learn a lot from you. You have quite a story and there are parts of it that I can relate to about being a caregiver and all of that.
Let’s talk about the beginnings of Debbie. You had early childhood. I hear you were chubby, insecure and scared, and you spent your life doing what was expected of you and taking care of everyone but yourself. Tell us about the set of beliefs you inherited from the upbringing that kept you living a life you didn’t love. Tell us about little Debbie.
Thinking about it, it’s like it’s so amazing. It doesn’t matter what age you are, when you put yourself back in those moments, you can still feel those feelings that you felt. As you said, I was a chubby little girl and I’ve actually had a lifelong weight struggle. I really have memories as early as preschool age of feeling judged and not good enough because of the way I looked.
It doesn't matter what age you are. When you put yourself back in those moments, you can still feel those feelings. Share on X
I have some stories, actually, I write about several of them in the memoir, about how difficult it was and how it wasn’t just kids bullying me, it was adults as well. I can’t tell you how many times I heard adults say to my parents, “She has such a pretty face,” and you know that they’re just not saying, “It’s such a shame that her body looks like that with that pretty face.” I don’t know if it’s a backhanded compliment.
I wasn’t related to you, but I’ve heard things like that also.
As a kid, when I felt like I was constantly being judged, I never wanted to put myself out there. I was extremely insecure and I just wanted to make everybody else happy. I didn’t feel like I was worthy because maybe I didn’t look the same as the other little girls. The thing I had going for me is that I was a good student. That was my lane. Anything else, when it wasn’t having to do with schoolwork, I was completely insecure, did not want to be seen.
My brother is four years younger than I am. Even honestly as old as like seventeen, I was still afraid to go into a store and ask a question or go into a store or fast food and order something. I would send my brother in and I was sending my brother in when he was 6 and I was 10. He never had a problem. He would go and do and talk to anyone.
That’s because he was the boy and he was perfect. Was that part of that?
Yeah, and he didn’t have a weight problem.
Was your weight problem because they were feeding you or just your body filled?
It wasn’t. My mother would always share this story that the pediatrician, when I was six months old, said, “She’s gaining weight too quickly. You have to switch her to skim milk.” Did I emotionally abuse food? Absolutely. Was I doing it at two? No, I don’t believe so.
You just inherited some genes.
Yeah. The thing was is that my immediate family, when I was growing up, not now that I’m older, but when I was growing up, my parents were both slim. My brother was a string bean and there was me that didn’t belong in this family. Each of my parents each had one sibling. Both of their siblings on both sides had weight problems. All my cousins had weight problems.
I was like, “I don’t belong in this family,” because these people that I’m living with, they don’t get it. They don’t know what it feels like, how horrible it is. My mother, since she didn’t struggle, didn’t really understand. She saw how unhappy I was. She’s taking me to Weight Watchers when I’m ten years old and not, I don’t want to say depriving me, but kind of. She would quietly cut a piece of cake for my brother and say, “Take it in the other room so your sister doesn’t see.”
Food like treats kind of food were hidden all over my house and they were hidden from me. If I found them, what would I do? I would take that box of cookies and I would say to myself, “I’m only going to eat a few,” and all of a sudden, there was only two left. I would put them back in the hiding spot and then the inquisition would come. “There are only two cookies left. Who ate these? Debbie, did you eat these?” I know now that they weren’t trying to shame me or make me feel bad about myself. They didn’t know how to help and they didn’t know what I was feeling.
In today’s world, maybe they would’ve seen someone to talk to a professional about how to deal with your feeling about it also, let alone talk to you about it. It was a different day and age, though some of us still have those experiences. I think more people are enlightened nowadays.
Yes, absolutely. Thank goodness.
40 Years of Caregiving: Finding Purpose in a Crisis
That was really hurting you. This message influenced you to hide behind caregiving. That was where you found a purpose and where you were needed, right?
Exactly. It’s funny because I don’t think I realized it then, but as you said in the intro, my father had a massive stroke the day after I graduated from high school. I was seventeen. Thankfully, he survived. He only just turned 46 like days before. It was out of left field back then, a 46-year-old having this kind of stroke.
He wasn’t overweight or anything, so where did that come from?
No, he had hypertension and cholesterol issues and all of that, but it was not a weight related, it was not a weight issue at all. My parents had been separated a few years earlier, and so I don’t think their marriage was in the best place at the time. My mom was only 39 and it was clear that he was going to be permanently disabled. His speech wasn’t really affected. It was the stroke was on the other side of the brain, but his personality changed and it became evident that he wasn’t going to be able to work and he wasn’t the same person. Basically, my mother decided to get divorced. That just shoved me in that role as caregiver.
She had to take care of him but she didn’t want to do it, right?
Yes.
It went on to you.
Yes. With my brother being four years younger, when I’m 17, he’s 13. He’s not caregiving. I didn’t have any idea what I was in for, but I was always daddy’s little girl. I just knew it was my mission, my responsibility to make sure that he was okay. He’s lived for 30 years. For 30 years, I was his caregiver. He lived in different, I guess what you would now call independent living facilities back then.
That was another thing that was very different. These places just did not exist as they do now. We were in Long Island and my mother couldn’t find a place in Long Island, so he wound up moving to New Jersey then I was far away from him. I was always trekking to New Jersey on the weekends. I was taking him to doctor’s appointments, paying his bills.
They had a place for him to be in New Jersey as opposed to Long Island.
At the time, yes, there was nothing in Long Island. Over the 30 years I had to, for money reasons, because money was an issue, my father, being that age, he didn’t have any great savings to draw from. Luckily, he had long-term disability and social security, but those two things were his only income. As time went on, they weren’t enough. That became a financial piece. Let’s just suffice it to say for 30 years, I dealt with a lot of different things.
You basically had no life. You basically were catering to him.
Let me just say, when I was in my early twenties, when it first all really came to be, it was a little bit empowering, yet scary. I didn’t realize that it made me feel good about myself because now, people were saying, “Look at what Debbie’s doing. Look at how she’s taking care of her dad and she’s sacrificing,” and all the things.
Also, looking back, it helped me to gain a little bit of confidence because even though I wouldn’t go in a store at that time and ask a question, I was not going to let that insecurity affect what my father needed. I had to get brave enough to question a doctor, to ask questions of people and advocate for him. Even if I was not comfortable advocating for myself, I was too uncomfortable with the idea that I was doing him a disservice. It helped me find my voice.
I can understand that. You were the fixer and the problem solver for yourself. What was that powerful turning point you experienced of age 50 and took you to 50 doing all this?
Yeah, it took me to 50. Let me just add a little more of the caregiving, is when I went through a ton of infertility struggle and six in vitro fertilization procedures.
When did you have time with all of this to meet your husband, by the way?
Yeah. My father would do and say some crazy stuff. He was a lot. I was very grateful that my husband was great about it. My brother, actually, when he grew up, he wound up moving away. My brother was never really hands-on, never involved. My husband would shave my father. He did everything for him. I’m very grateful that he was very understanding and caring.
When we did have our children at the age of two, my oldest was diagnosed on the autism spectrum and then soon later added ADHD, depression and anxiety. When he was first diagnosed, my dad was alive. My dad passed away when my oldest son was ten. It brought on another form of caregiving, very different from what I was dealing with my dad.
This, as a mom, when your child has any kind of problem, issue, whatever it is, especially as moms, we turn into mama bear. I had to fix him. That became my sole mission. With my dad, I learned a whole set of stuff, learning about Medicare and Medicaid when I’m in my twenties, when you don’t even know what social security is. Now I had to learn all about autism and all about the different modalities that were out there because, again, it was a different time than it is now. Thankfully, things have come so much further in that field with an awareness. In my case, they handed us a brochure and said, “Good luck.”
That is such a difficult situation.
Yeah, it was extremely difficult. Simultaneously, my dad’s health was declining, so it was all coming to a head at once.
It put a lot pressure, strain on your marriage, on your relationships, everything.
Everything because it was all about everyone else. Where I was running and where I was spending money, trying to do whatever I could to help my son and my business. I’m an insurance agent as well, and my husband and I worked together. That was good and bad that came along with that. Yes, then I’m worried about my customers, I’m worried about my team members, and I’m worried about my older son and then my younger son. What about him? Of course, my dad, and all the things and all the people except for yourself. I think so many women are like that. I don’t think that I am unique in that way at all. It’s just really the circumstances that all came together and started from an early age.
Turning 50: The Catalyst for Change and Burnout
Tell us about this catalyst for change. What happened? One day, you came to a point when you said, “Enough.”
Yes and no. I don’t remember it being like the heavens opening up and the angels singing. It’s not that kind of epiphany. It was like a slow burn epiphany. My dad passed away about a year or so before I turned 50. When I turned 50, he was already gone. I was at a place where I didn’t realize how burnt out I was. I was always so stressed. You looked at me cross-eyed and I was screaming at you, or my kids would say something and I responded in an inappropriate way because it was all of that brewing.
You were constantly being triggered.
Yes. I had physical manifestations of the stress. My eyes started twitching. I had heart palpitations. I didn’t realize what it was. I thought to myself, “I have so much to be grateful for. What’s wrong with you? You’re being like a spoiled brat. You live in a nice house, you’re so lucky to have your health. So many things that I’m so lucky to have.”
I think like that, it says to myself, “Not that I don’t deserve happiness, but look at how much you already have. How much more do you want?” When I turned 50, there was something about the number 50 that really hit me. I didn’t feel that way at 40. I didn’t even feel that way at 60. It was 50. These 50 years went so quickly. I saw my father die with tons of regret. I listened to my mother always talking about the things that she regretted. I thought, “If I were to die today, would I have regrets?” I said, “Yeah, I would.”
It wasn’t like I could say, “I always wanted to be a singer and I didn’t pursue that.” I didn’t have some specific thing in mind that I haven’t done, accomplished, or tried. None of that. I just knew something inside me says, “There just has to be more. There just has to be some purpose, something that makes my life feel more meaningful, more fulfilling.” I didn’t know what it was. My friends took me away for the weekend. When I turned 50, we went to Bermuda and I really protested and said, “I can’t leave my husband with the kids.”
There just has to be more, some kind of purpose that makes my life feel more meaningful and fulfilling. Share on X
They insisted. From the moment we met at the airport, we just started laughing. When they would ask me, “What do you want to do for dinner,” It was almost like I was looking over my shoulder, like, “Is someone asking me what I want? I have no idea what I want.” We had a conversation that turned a little heavy of what are our goals and dreams for the rest of our lives? I could say what they were for my kids, but not for myself personally.
In that moment, I realized nothing’s going to change. No fairy godmother is coming down and waving her magic wand and saying, “Here you go, Debbie. Here’s your new life.” If something had to change, it had to be from me. I didn’t know how, I didn’t know what, I didn’t know anything, but I just knew that if I remained complacent and just went along with the things that life were throwing at me and wasn’t more proactive, the next 50 years would be gone in a minute. There I would be that person saying, “How did this happen?”
Also, “I have lots of regret,” right?
Yes.
The Power of “Maybe I Can”: A Mindset Shift
You came upon a mindset shift that said, “Maybe I can,” which changed your life. Tell us about that.
When I came back from the trip and I said, “Something’s got to give,” where do I start? I knew at that point, it had to be my weight because I was 100 pounds overweight then. That had definitely grown into that number because of the stress, because then, I was using food as my emotional outlet. I thought to myself, “Over the years, I have gained and lost over 1,000 pounds,” as so many people who struggle with lifelong weight problems had. “I’ve got to do something different. What am I going to do differently?” In the past, what I’ve done, clearly, I might have lost the weight, but then I gained it back, so that’s not success. I said, “I’m going back to Weight Watchers for the umpteenth time, but I’m going to do something a little different.”
I am not going to go and say, “I need to lose 25 pounds in 3 months, or by the summer or by my birthday. Otherwise, I’m a failure.” I’m just going to go and I’m going to just do one little thing. I decided I’m just going to go to the meetings. I’m not going to care about how much I eat or exercise. I’m just showing up. That’s it. That is my one goal. That’s all I did for a couple of months. I showed up, I probably gained 3 or 4 pounds in that 3-month period. I felt proud of myself because I did what I set out to do.
You’re doing something for you. This time, you were doing it for you.
Yes. Something shifts when you’re older. Early on it, it’s like, “I don’t feel good about myself in my clothes.” It’s all about your looks. When you’re in your 50s, you’re like, “I want to live a long life.” It turns more about health. Anyhow, I just continued on that path and three and a half years later, I had lost 90 pounds. Now, three and a half years, that’s a long time when you want to feel like that weight should be gone right away. With those slow changes, that’s when the mindset started to shift. The biggest a-ha there was, this is not a diet. If you want to live a long life, if you want to be healthy, you are not going off this. You have to figure out what works for you in the long-term.
It doesn’t mean you’re not going to eat ice cream and pizza and all the things that you love again, but you’re not going to eat them every day and you’re not going to eat them in quantity and all this stuff. Over time, where I always felt since it was 50 years of weight struggle that I had never been able to get past, it was always, “I can’t do that.” Everything in my life up to that point, it could have been the smallest thing. It could have been, “Do you want to learn how to knit?” “I can’t knit. No, I can’t knit. I’m not creative. I don’t have a creative bone in my body.” My first answer was always, “I can’t do that.” Now I know that I thought that was keeping me safe.
I was afraid. I was afraid of failing. I was afraid of looking dumb because I was afraid of being judged because I didn’t feel good enough, all the things. I stayed in my safe little box, but where was that getting me? If I stopped after I said I can’t and waited a few beats, that’s where the on second thought, “Wait a second, why not? Maybe I can. How do I know? I’ll never know unless I try. If I don’t try, I’m going to stay in this little box and my life’s going to continue on the same exact path that it’s been on.” Over the past decade, I’ve learned that when I say maybe I can, and then yes, I can, and I give it a try, sometimes I fail, but even failing feels good because I can look back and say, “That wasn’t for you. Now you know and look at you. You tried.
Even failing feels good because we can look back and say, 'Okay, that wasn't for me.' But now, we know. Share on X
Writing a Memoir in the Face of Adversity
At least you walked in. I was grieving tremendously. It was after the car accident. A therapist said to me, “I want you just to go in. Do you want me to eat by yourself at a restroom?’ I said, “I can’t do that. I’ve always done everything with my husband. I can’t do that.” She said, “I want you to go in. I want you to sit at the table, even if you have to bring a book, and if you can’t handle it, you can always walk out but you need to walk in that door and start.” That’s what you were doing. “Maybe I can, maybe I can walk through that door.”
Tell us about how this led to your memoir and all the things that you did to be able to write a memoir called On Second Thought…Maybe I Can, which we wrote the rules and designed a life that finally fits for you, which is amazing. You call that one small ship, one bold decision, one sprinkle at a time. You wrote this book while your husband was dying. Tell us about all that.
I started that journey around the age of 50, and I have taken a lot of steps that led me down a lot of different paths. As I said, some worked out, some didn’t. When I got to the point where I realized I had a message to share that could help people, it was like, “How am I going to do that? How am I going to share this message? Am I going to stand in my roof out here in New Jersey and everybody’s going to hear me?”
Yeah, right. Exactly. Screaming, “Listen to me.” You’ve got to listen to the whispers. I was really tuned in. It seemed like it kept coming up. People kept saying, “You need to write a book.” I said, “Write a book? I don’t know how to write a book. I’m a math girl. I am a numbers girl. That’s where I excel. Not with words. That’s not my jam.”
What do you do? Do you open up a notebook and say, “My book,” and just start writing? I had it in my head, but I really didn’t think that I could do it or would do it. One day, I was listening to a podcast, a podcast I didn’t always tune into, and they were interviewing a woman who helped first-time authors get their stories out there. I was listening, and I really liked her from listening to her. I said, “Okay, you’re at least going to contact her and see what she’s all about.” I did. I really connected with her. She made me feel good that I had a story to share because I wasn’t really sure that I had a story that would be impactful.
She validated you.
Yes, exactly. She did. She said, “I am starting a small group coaching session for people who want to get their stories out there, the first-time authors.” I was so scared because I had so many limiting beliefs around this, but I was contemplating it and I was just about to sign up. Out of the blue, my husband received a terminal cancer diagnosis. For about three years prior to that, he had been suffering from various, both physical and mental illnesses. He actually had, just six weeks earlier, gotten out of a hospitalization for depression. He was doing so well. This came out of the blue.
Talk about pulling the rug out.
Just when he had come through the depression and was hopeful, this happens. After the diagnosis, I was speaking to a therapist, I was seeing a therapist at the time, and I said, “I’m even embarrassed to be mentioning this, but I was thinking about this course, but obviously this is not the right time to do it. I don’t know what’s going to happen. Family first and all of the things.”
She said, “I disagree with you. This is the perfect time.” I thought she was crazy, honestly. I said, “What do you mean the perfect time? I don’t know. Will he be hospitalized?” I have all the unknowns. I was nervous. What if I can’t show up to the group one week? What if there’s homework and I don’t do the homework? There’s my little A student coming back into life. She said, “Who cares?” I thought, “I guess,” so I did it.
Talk about a mindset shift.
Unbelievable. The first month or two, it was a struggle because it was difficult for me. It was difficult for me to understand how this works. I had so many questions. Once I had at least a roadmap of what I was going to do and the stories that I was going to share, then I was very intentional about every day, scheduling some time to write.
Whether it was before he woke up, whether we were, he was in the hospital and I brought my computer and my stuff with me. When he was sleeping or went down for a test, I wrote in the hospital. If he was home, whatever. Sometimes it didn’t work, but most of the time it did. Sometimes it was for ten minutes and others for an hour. I have to say that even though the writing process was difficult, I looked forward to that time.
A lot of it has to do with word count. When I got to like 10,000 words, it was the first time that I thought, “Maybe I can finish this book,” because even when I started, I thought, “Yeah, my goal is to finish this at the end of the course.” I was really thinking, “That’s not happening.” When I got to that point, I started believing, and then it really became my focus. It saved me because she was exactly right. It was something just for me that took me out of the horribly difficult time that all of us were living through. When he died, I was three chapters shy of finishing.
The “Sprinkle Effect” for Purposeful Growth
You got to a second book, The Sprinkle Effect. What transpired to bring you to number two? That obviously is a reflection on you because it’s about a dynamic and uplifting approach. Personal transformation, right?
The Sprinkle Effect: A Guide to Creating a More Colorful and Fulfilling Life
Yes. One of the things that I learned taking the course is I had to figure out what is the first book going to be? What genre? I learned really the difference between a memoir and a biography and a self-help book. I made a conscious decision that my first book would have no self-help anything. It literally is a compilation of stories that together make one inspirational story. After that came out, people said, “That’s great, but what the heck did you do? How did you make that transformation?” I said, “Okay.” That’s when I said I have to write a second book that tells people what I did. That’s where The Sprinkle Effect came in.
Please explain to us what it was like to have a life of purposeful growth and enhancing qualities like resilience, courage, and discipline that made your challenges more manageable, all new behaviors on your part, instead of allowing routine, which your life is spoken routine to shape your days. Explain to us that and how you translate that to others.
It was hard actually to realize when people said to me, “What did you do?” Sometimes you’re doing it and you don’t have that clarity of, “What did I really do?” When I looked back, it wasn’t one thing. It was a compilation of all different things. In the book, there are fifteen different sprinkles. There are things like a sprinkle of belief, of mindset, of discipline, resilience, joy, all of the things.
Little sprinkles of different qualities, different ideas that you add into your life one at a time, so that it’s not overwhelming. It grows to be something colorful and fulfilling. I think that every day, I know every day now, when I wake up, it is a completely different feeling than I used to feel. Before, it was like on the hamster wheel. What do I have to do today? I got to go to work. I might have to go food shopping. I have laundry to do. You flop on the couch and binge something until you fall asleep and get up and do it again.
Now, even though I still go to work and I still have the food shop and I still have to do all the things, I have something else to look forward to. I am now deciding how I want my days to look. I am now deciding what people I see, what direction I want to go in. I am the captain of my ship. As you said before, it really is that I think that the analogy to me, or what I can envision an image in my mind, it’s just drifting. You’re in a boat and you’re just drifting and you’re letting the current take you wherever it might take you.
You get to decide how your days will look, what people see, and what direction to go. You are the captain of your ship. Share on X
That’s what I was doing before, because before, my father had a stroke. That’s the current moving in one direction. This is what I need to do and then this happened and this happened. I felt that I had no choice. I felt that since these difficult things happened in my life, that determined the outcome of my life. Poor me. This happened and this happened.
We can all say poor me. They’re all different things that happened, but that’s life. It happens to all of us. I was not taking any responsibility. I was just letting that current take me. Instead of me saying, “This happened. Am I going to let that drown me? Am I going to let that throw me off course?” I really want to be clear, I didn’t know the course. I still don’t know exactly what the course is. I am just following the little nudges that I’m getting.
Step by step.
That’s it. Little sprinkles at a time.
I know that you also created a workbook, especially for those navigating grief or major life transitions because it inspires inspiration. It offers inspiration and practical tools to rediscover purpose, reclaim joy, and take empowered steps to tell us about the sprinkle effect of the book, which guides women to embrace life’s possibilities. I have to tell you, I personally know so many women who could use this. As with you, they’re stuck in their routine and there’s no light coming through to them.
I have to say, I was one of those people who would read a self-help book, personal development book, and then at the end of the chapter, ask you these questions or have you do these activities. I’d be like, “I don’t need to do that. Let me just go on to chapter 3 and 4 and 5 and I’m going to skip that stuff.” It would say, “Write it down.” I’d be like, “Let me just think about the answer. That’s good.” I’d rush on.
I must harp on this in the book, that that was such a big mistake. Anybody who’s just going to read The Sprinkle Effect or any book like that that comes with the activities and the exercises, you’re doing yourself a disservice because you’re reading it for a reason. You want what you learn to actually impact you and help you make that change in whatever area you want to make that change.
It’s not going to happen just by reading and you have to do the work. I never understood what does this do, the “work” that people talk about? The work is really looking within. At the end of each chapter, I have activities and a journal prompt. The workbook is really, honestly just taking those activities and journal prompts and putting them all in one place.
Anytime I did take the time to do an activity, I’d grab a random piece of paper or a notebook over here, and then two days later, I wouldn’t remember. This is putting it all in one cohesive place that you have it to look back on, to remind yourself of what you were thinking, what you said you were going to do, that kind of thing. You can use it as your own roadmap because my roadmap isn’t your roadmap and so on and so forth. You’ve got to create your own. You only do it by taking the time to tap into yourself.
My roadmap isn't your roadmap. You've got to create your own, and you only do it by taking the time to tap into yourself. Share on X
Taking Responsibility: You Hold the Steering Wheel in Life
As I listen to you, I keep hearing, and I feel like the words keep moving, like what you’re doing. You’re inspiring them not to become complacent. You’re helping people not to become complacent and become conscious to really think about what am I doing with my life, which is so important. Another important thing you talk about, which I really love, is about taking responsibility for recognizing that each of us holds this theory wheel in our life’s journey. I love that you put it this way, It is more of what we’re talking about connected to navigating life’s ups and downs with confidence and purpose. Talk to us about responsibility and how it’s related to making these important choices in life, which we’re talking about conscious choices to move forward.
Exactly. I didn’t know that I was living in what’s called a victim mentality. When I heard that and I heard the definition and I was honest, because this is the hardest part. It’s hard to look in the mirror and say, “I think I have been playing the victim,” because on the outside I wasn’t. I was never a Debbie Downer. Even through everything. I would typically show up as an upbeat, happy person to then me think that I was a victim, but I did. I thought I was a victim.
I’ll share with you what really, for me made the change because sometimes you have to hear somebody explain things so many different ways. You never know what’s going to resonate with you. What resonated with me was when I learned this formula from Jack Canfield’s The Success Principles, E plus R equals O. As I said, I’m a math girl, so I like formulas. E is the Event, R is your Reaction, and O is the Outcome.
The event plus the way you react equals your outcome. I didn’t know there was an R. I just thought my husband died. This sucks. I’m not saying that that was a good thing. I’m not saying that my reaction is to just say, “No big deal,” but I have a choice then what I want that outcome to be. Do I want to allow the fact that I became a widow at 59 to chart the course for the rest of my life? Do I want to sit with that sadness or that victim mentality like, “Why me? I look at my friends, they still have their husbands. I never wanted this to be me. Why is this happening to me?”
Even though, of course those are normal reactions and feelings, and they shouldn’t be avoided, they should be felt, but it doesn’t mean that that’s all there is for the rest of my life. That’s where the R comes in. If I don’t take responsibility for how I react and for my actions, then the outcome, I have no control over.
Building Resilience & The Importance of Self-Care
You go back to the old place. There’s another word that I want to talk to you about. It’s called resilience. You talk about that, too, which is so important. Not enough people have it. I have a favorite expression called the only thing in life that doesn’t change is everything changes. Resilience is the ability to adapt and recover from adversity, stress, or significant life changes. You personally built resilience after your husband transitioned. Talk to us about how resilience requires us to put ourselves first. That’s a whole big new concept, putting yourself first and the additional ways you can build resilience.
When I look back, I think my life experience helped build resilience. I think that happens in all of us because we all have faced adversity. I can go back to being three years old and feeling that was adversity. I think over time, just naturally, we become more resilient. One of the things that I learned to do was to create what I call a maybe I can list. I have it in the notes app in my phone. I went back and made a list of all the things that I thought I could never survive. I remind myself I was engaged when I was 21 and he cheated on me. I remember I thought, “I’ll never get past this,” but you know what I did? I got past it when my father had the stroke.
Even the smaller disappointments were things that were difficult to navigate. You start making a list and it reminds you of all the times that you thought that you would never be able to move on, you would never get past this, but you did. Anytime that you feel that it’s too much, you go back and you open that app or that piece of paper and read it and remind yourself that you are resilient. You can do this. You’ve done it before and you can continue to do it.
You are enough.
I think for me, so many times, even with the maybe I can, my mindset was always, “If that person can do it, why not me? Why not?” That spurs me. I can even think back to being so scared to giving birth the first time. It was like, “This is going to be awful.” You hear all the horror stories. It wasn’t pleasant. I’m not saying that it was, but I thought to myself, “Billions of women have survived this before me. I can do it too.” I think that is the idea of what you are doing is showing people, “Yes, I’ve been through the worst, but I got through it and I’m getting through it and you can too.” I think that those things are very helpful.
I think with the resilience piece and self-care, when you realize it’s not selfish, it’s okay. Not only is it not selfish, it’s imperative because going back to when my life was spinning out of control with my father and my son, I wasn’t taking care of myself and I was not showing up as my best self to my family, to those I was caring for. As I said, I was a ball of stress and I was blowing up and screaming and what good is that?
What you become, what you’re talking about, you’re a marvelous role model. When you talk about The Sprinkle Effect, that you talk about the different things that you’re suggesting they do, you’ve done it and you’re a tremendous role model for it. You can’t do this and be scared all the way because it was true.
It doesn’t mean that you don’t miss your loved one or that you wish things were different before whatever that trauma was. They’re not. Someday, even though it’s hard to see in that moment, you’re going to look back and say, “It changed me.” You want to have it change you in a positive way. It doesn’t mean you would want your husband to die again. God forbid you don’t want this car accident to happen. Of course not, but it did. Now you have a choice how you move forward after that moment.
Someday, even though it's hard to see in that moment, you're going to look back and say, “it changed me.” Share on X
The mindset.
It’s all in your head.
Healing and Living with Pain That Doesn’t Control You
Deb, also, tell me, please, why you say the healing is a deeply personal journey, where instead of moving through the pain, we learn to live with it in a way that doesn’t control us? That is a lot of good guidance for people. Do you want to talk about that? We all have pain.
We all have pain, especially with grief, you’re never over it. It just changes. It hits you at times that you think you’re fine. The smallest thing, it doesn’t matter. A look, a song, a picture, a memory, whatever it is. I think that the idea that I’ve gotten through the worst in those moments in the beginning when you’re in shock, when you’re in that real initial state of grief and it just feels like your life will never be normal again and it won’t be. It won’t be the same normal that it was. It will always change.
I know for me, I didn’t realize that oftentimes, I wasn’t allowing myself to feel the feelings. Pain hurts. There’s where the emotional eating came from. There’s where the better to stuff it down, not feel the things. When I realized it’s okay to feel the things, it’s imperative to feel the things because otherwise, you are not healing. You are just staying stuck. The healing doesn’t stop.
Actually, when you say learn to live with the pain in a way that it doesn’t control us, if you don’t heal, it’s going to control you and your life. What is the famous Debbie Weiss tip for finding joy in life?
Talking to you. Honestly, it is. I am always amazed, of course, that I wrote books, it still blows my mind. Two, if I think about who I was, when I started doing this, when I started speaking professionally or speaking on podcasts, doing all the things, my mother and my brother were like, “You have got to be kidding me. If anybody knew who you used to be that you have now become this person who’s putting yourself out there, who’s doesn’t shut up.”
Not that I was always a talker, but that was behind closed doors. The people who knew me well, certainly not in public kind of thing. Just that realization that through doing something that’s scary because it was super scary when I started speaking and writing and all. There’s a lot of stuff in both those books that are almost shameful and very embarrassing and was very difficult for me to put out there because of that fear of being judged. I told myself, “I’m doing it to help other people.”
The fact that you’ve gotten to this place.
Yes, because of it. I’m going on too long about this but I’ve just got to tell you one thing. When I was writing the memoir, I have this shameful money story that nobody, I mean, my closest friends and family had no idea. Nobody knew. It was something I lived with for years. I didn’t put it in the book and one day I don’t remember what I was doing. It might have been something like meditating or something like that.
It came to me. I have to tell my whole truth because if my goal is to help other people, to help other people see themselves in my story, to know that it’s okay that we all make mistakes, that we’ve all done things that we’re not proud of. If I don’t share what I’m not proud of, this painful mistake, then I’m not being authentic. I’m not being 100% authentic. I’m only being authentic sharing the stuff I’m okay sharing.
You can’t be a full role model unless you admit your stuff and tell them if I know you’re struggling with this, but I’ve been here too. Look at where I came to. The other thing you talked about is that starting a gratitude practice such as joy. Do you want to talk with people about that?
Cultivating Gratitude and a Joyful Future: Final Thoughts
Yeah. That’s one of my favorite things actually to talk about because when I first started this journey and I would hear all these things about a gratitude practice and I thought, “This is ridiculous. This is really something that people made up. It sounds really good. Of course I’m grateful for my family and my dog and my house, my job, like all the things. What is this practice? Every day, I’m just going to say I’m thankful for all these things and this is going to change my life?” I literally thought it was nonsense.
A friend of mine sent me a gratitude journal as a gift. I was so irritated because I thought, “Look at this dumb thing. Now I’m going to have to do this because she was nice enough to send me the journal. She’s going to ask me.” In the journal every morning, it would ask like five different questions. One of the things is what are you grateful for? Every day, I would write the same thing. Every day I’m thinking, “This is dumb. This is doing nothing. I’m writing the same darn thing. I must be doing it wrong. It doesn’t work for me.”
One day, I was walking my dog, as I always do, and something made me look up in the sky and I noticed how blue the sky was and I thought, “Is it always that blue or did I just not notice?” I got excited and I thought, “Tomorrow morning, I have something new to write in my journal. I am going to write about this beautiful sky.” Things like that started happening.
All of a sudden it was subconscious. I was not looking for it because by 11:00 in the morning, I forgot about the gratitude journal and I started paying more attention to all the things that were in my life the whole time. There was a girl at Walgreens, because I was always going to get medication for my husband. Every other day I was there and we would always chat. We shared a Fitbit challenge.
I walked out and realized, “How lucky am I? I love seeing this woman and it’s so nice that I’m part of the community.” I noticed the trees and all the things that were there. That is when it hit me what this whole gratitude thing was all about because we’re so stuck in our routine and our day-to-day in the stressors and all the things, it’s like you can’t pick your head up. This helps you stop and appreciate and live in the present moment. Realize how much in your life and going on around you that you really have to be grateful for. It changes who you are because it literally does make you a more joyful person.
It absolutely does bring you so much joy. It is so wonderful that you’re talking about that. Debbie, in closing, I want to thank you for sharing your inspiring story and offering all of us a framework to help others thrive through life’s challenges. I could not agree more that it’s never too late to take control of your future, claiming your joy and creating meaningful change, even in the face of grief, loss and made your transitions. Girl, you are doing it. It’s so terrific that you are and that your role model for this. My heartfelt thank you for joining me on the show. I truly wish you many blessings.
Thank you so much, Irene. It’s been an absolute pleasure and the same to you.
Thank you.
Guest’s Links:
- Debbie R. Weiss
- On Second Thought…Maybe I Can
- The Sprinkle Effect
- The Sprinkle Effect Workbook: Practical Exercises and Thoughtful Prompts to Support Your Journey to a More Colorful and Fulfilling Life
- Connect with Debbie Weiss on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube and Pinterest
Book mentioned in the episode
About Debbie Weiss
Debbie Weiss is a best-selling author, podcast host, speaker, and long-time family caregiver who knows what it’s like to start over. From running her own business to navigating deep loss, she’s learned how to rewrite her story—and now helps others do the same. Through her books On Second Thought…Maybe I Can and The Sprinkle Effect, she inspires women to take small steps toward a more colorful, fulfilling life.
Is there anything in particular that you would like to focus on in the interview?
I’d like to focus on the idea that, regardless of our age or circumstances, we always have the power to change our lives. It’s never too late to take control of our future and make meaningful shifts, even in the face of grief or major life transitions.
