INTRO
There are no trolls living under Jefferson Street Bridge in downtown Nashville. Here, there is only love in action. People like my guest today Sandi Griffin come to serve the homeless. Sandi and I talk about how her own struggles brought her to shift into a life with joy and purpose.
BUMPER
I am Tajci.
At 19 I was a superstar and I was lost inside. I left it all behind, switched continents and started all over. Years later I found myself lost again. This time in the American dream.
This is a story about awakening. About living the life you were created for. About going inward and discovering the joyous and purposeful person you and I are both meant to be.
This is “Waking Up In America.”
TAJCI
Sandi thank you so much being on our show!
SANDI
Thank you for inviting me! I’m excited.
TAJCI
Yes. Last year Matthew and I were in Nashville at the FilmCom and several people, learning about our show came to us and said: You have to interview Sandi Griffin”
SANDI
I paid them
(laugh)
TAJCI
And they did say “She is funny! And she will blow you away!” And then I followed your Facebook and I just ran into you at the Radiant Health Institute where you were giving your workshop and that’s how this works, doesn’t it?
SANDI
It is, it is!
TAJCI
All connected and we are all at the right place at the right time.
SANDI
I agree with you. Yea. It was thrilling to meet you!
TAJCI
And you are a certified life coach.
SANDI
I am. And a motivational speaker and a writer.
TAJCI
Yes! What motivates you to literally take care of homeless? To not just as a part of an organization or remotely, but literarily there, hand in hand?
SANDI
I grew up in a family of twelve kids and we grew up very poor. And my dad died when there were nine kids at home. And my mom always said… so many people helped us, and she said, when you grow up and you have anything extra, give back. And so, she’s been dead for thirty years this month but I can still hear her voice saying that. And so it was instilled in me at a young age to give back. And I went to Haiti after the earthquake, I went to Waveland, Mississippi after the floods and then, I started working with the homeless and I realized that I had so much love to give and all they wanted was to be loved. I mean, they want so little, and they appreciate so big!
TAJCI
How is what you do here affecting the world, what do you think?
SANDI
You know, I put stuff on Facebook and for a while there I really wondered if it was self serving, and then I realized that people all over the world are telling me that they are starting things because of what they see on Facebook. People that… a girl in St. Louis said that she used to walk across the street when she’d see a homeless, and now they had a homeless at their house for Thanksgiving. And his name is Mr. George and she carries a bag of food around and walks toward the homeless when she sees them to make sure that they have it. So I get this all the time, people that are saying… a girl from New Mexico said, I want to come and serve with you, I know I’m supposed to, so all these people that want to get to know how to love the homeless.
TAJCI
The world today seems to be filled with homeless people, displaced people, people in need, and there are many that want to help. And yet, many that say, I don’t even have resources, how do I help?
SANDI
I think people don’t realize that we need everything. We need people that have the resources, we need people that will go to the front line and serve. Some people can only stand behind tables and give out food because they are afraid to go on the other side the table. Personally, I like going down on the front line. There is something for everyone. There is administrative work for stuff like this… We keep track of everything that comes in, and everything that goes out. You have to realize what your gifts are, and when you realize what your gifts are it’s like, that’s what you are supposed to be bringing to the table as far as the homeless.
TAJCI
Yes, thank you so much for saying that. So tell me a little bit about your background that brought you to who you are and where you are today.
SANDI
Well you know, I went to Waveland, Mississippi from Chicago, I was living in Chicago and when the hurricane came I went to Waveland, Mississippi. And they told me, we had a big closed tent with Willow Creek and they said, the first day when we are setting up, they said, go behind by the clothes or the shoes, or behind some station. And they came up to me and they said, we want you to keep doing what you were doing. I said, I just came in, I was out there talking to people. And they said, yea. I said, you want me to talk to people? Won’t other people get jealous? They said, no that’s your gift, other people don’t want to do it. Well, I got there and I had gone through an ugly divorce, but they all are and all the voices in my head that all the years of him telling me what I wasn’t or what I was that I wasn’t, and all of a sudden I got there and I realized standing there, this is who I am! I have a great sense of humor, I can love on these people, I can give to them, I can pray with them and all of a sudden it all came together. I remember standing there with all these people thinking I’m finding out who I am just like they are. I felt like I lost everything, they lost all their physical stuff. I lost myself and right then I went, I’m home! This is who I am
TAJCI
What you just brought up, that need to be heard, that need to be validated, in that moment… Because I think that is the healing part
SANDI
It is. And then of course, then you meet the homeless and when they say to me, oh you don’t understand, it’s like, oh my Gosh, try me! I’ve been through a lot.
TAJCI
So, talk about what you’ve been through and what now you bring into the ministry and when you speak, and in your books, and in your coaching.
SANDI
Well, I grew up in a family of twelve kids, there were actually 14 in seventeen years, two died. My parents died at 57 and 58 years old, my mom from a mad cow disease and because of that I went through a really unhealthy divorce. I was a thirty year compulsive overeater and a three time cancer survivor.
TAJCI
So, overeating disorder. Tell me about that!
SANDI
You know what? When I was seven years old, we were told my dad had two more years to live. When I was 10, I had a paper route that went down to eleven of us kids and my sister was, like twelve months older than me. And when my dad, we are told he was going to die, we had to be real quiet in the house. We couldn’t fight, we couldn’t do anything like that. My mom would say, go and work things out of the system before you come back into the house, in other words, bury things. So in turn my sister and I would go and we’d take the money that we made from the paper route and we’d stop at this “Coborn’s” grocery store in St. Cloud, MN and we’d eat all of our profits to the point where we could hardly function any more.
TAJCI
The overeating was the way to take care of…
SANDI
Yes so what happens is that I want to feel like someone’s taking care of me because my mom was taking care of my dad now, and with his bad heart, and so I had to tell myself, in a crazy way that I was being taken care of, that I was taking care of myself. So this overeating went on for thirty years.
TAJCI
And out of that mess, you end up in a marriage that, what is it now doing to you and your self-esteem and your sense of who you are?
SANDI
When somebody is putting on you what you aren’t and you are buying it because supposedly they love you, and then all of a sudden I would find reasons to go to the grocery store that I had to get something because I needed a bag of candy, or candy bar..
TAJCI
Tell me a little bit more about what do you mean by lies, ’cause I know a lot of my viewers will recognize this if you bring up what kind of lie?
SANDI
Some of the lies that are told is… a lot of times we are told that we don’t sound educated, don’t talk to someone that’s in corporate because you won’t sound educated and you’ll sound really dumb, or you are lower class, like the hords that walk the street, and people start believing that stuff.
TAJCI
Yes, really people don’t realize how hard it is to get out of that and come into the what we call your truth of who you are.
SANDI
Well when you’re tired, or when you… things aren’t going in your life like you want them to, all of a sudden all the lies come back thinking, you know what? They are right! What made me think I was different? And then I go back to that place in Waveland, Mississippi with the tent there, where 125 of us slept and nothing else around there, the refrigerators in the trees, cars there, people that said they couldn’t even find a peace of clothing that was theirs, and all of a sudden I went, Oh my Gosh, I found out who I am here. There weren’t birds, there weren’t insects…. everything was gone, we had to wear gloves, we had to wear masks, you know, because they didn’t know what was there, and here, standing there like that loving on people, I found myself.
TAJCI
We’ll talk about more of that moment when Sandi found herself when we come back.
This episode has been brought to you by Doing Good, a 501c3 non-profit organization which tells the real stories by real people who are making a difference through volunteering. Find out more online @DoingGoodTV or the website, DoingGood.TV.
TAJCI
Sandi, so you are at the moment where you said you found yourself right there with these people who had lost everything. Tell me how it felt.
SANDI
You know what, it feels free. It almost feels like you shed a skin. It’s like when people say things to you and you used to believe them, you hesitate then and think , oh no, just wait and you go back to the place that you found yourself and think I remember what that’s like, I am free! And I’m not going to own that any more. And it’s really funny how when you get to the point where somebody emailed something to me yesterday, they texted something to me and it was pretty cruel. And I thought who are they talking about, I read and thought, that’s not me. I’m sorry but I’m not owning that, you know? So you get to the point when you really find yourself, when you’re really who you are supposed to be, that you quit owning what other people say. It’s when you are out in the world doing what’s not you, you are wearing a coat that doesn’t fit, you make it fit, but it’s not comfortable that you own everything. Because you loose yourself, you don’t know who you are.
TAJCI
Right! It’s interesting this dynamic of you loose yourself, you feel like you have nothing because you are not yourself, and yet that moment of awakening feels like you are even shedding that what you have. That to me says total surrender.
SANDI
It is! It’s just so empowering! Because before when people said things and you believed them, now you are like, no I know who I am. I know.
TAJCI
And connect that for me with the spiritual.
SANDI
Oh my gosh, the spiritual… you know what? I couldn’t do anything without my spiritual life. I mean it’s like every single answer comes from above. Everything. And a lot of it doesn’t make sense at all. And that’s why a lot of people ask me about, you know when I make decisions when… how do you know when to take someone into your house, like a homeless person to your house, it’s like, I don’t do that. I am told. God will tell me, you know what? This person… and I’m like, Okay, I don’t get it but I’m doing it…
TAJCI
In the moment of awakening, we experience the surrender, yes… and it connects us to who we are in this larger picture.
SANDI
Oh yes!
TAJCI
And some will identify the connection with God, connection with the divine force, with all life, all creation, with each other. And would you say that that awakening then helps you to recognize that in the other?
SANDI
You quit trying to control things. Because I would write down what I was doing all day and this time I’ll do this, this and this and if it didn’t happen, then you would get frustrated. Now it’s like, you know what? That wasn’t supposed to happen. And all of a sudden you have a peace that, you know what? for some unknown reason that stuff wasn’t supposed to happen. So really anything that happens now is like, okay that’s what was supposed to happen at the time, that wasn’t supposed to work out.
TAJCI
What helped you to get out of the grief, the whatever you were going through after the divorce, or to heal from eating disorder, because even as, and my viewers will know what I’m talking about, ’cause we’ve explored these awakening moments of many guests here on the show. It’s one thing to awaken and then you have to put something into action, to actually get away, out of your patterns, to actually be able to leave that coat away and not put it on again.
SANDI
I agree. I think that the most important thing that I found out is taking my thoughts captive. Because when things came in, I would… if you don’t replace the tapes in your head, then you keep replaying the same thing. It’s like if you’re going down the road and a car pulls in front of you and you start yelling at them, I always say now, if somebody does… no matter what they do…oh that poor person, we must, we have to pray for them. Someone in their family must be in a hospital. I say it every time, my girls say it now. So we’ve replaced the tapes, so now what happens is, you feel like eating and right away I’ve got different tapes. It’s never more than three lines. It’s usually one or two. Then all of a sudden I’ll put something in my head is that… and then the one with food is that nothing tastes as good as feeling… as looking good feels. And so right away you put in your head so, it’s like when you are ready to grab for something, it’s like, ok, that’s been replaced. So you have to kind of, replace and take your thoughts captive.
TAJCI
Keep that awareness up.
SANDI
Oh you have to keep the awareness. Yea, and if you don’t keep the awareness up, if you’re tired, if you’re lonely, if you’re any of those things, you awareness just goes out the door and you want to give into it. And right away you have to become alert again, going, okay, I have to become aware that this is happening. Awareness is everything.
TAJCI
And yet, you brought it up: when you’re tired, when we are exhausted, when we are hungry, when we are going through everyday stress. I think we live, we accept it, this ‘normal stress’ as ‘normal’. Which is not normal, we don’t take time to heal from even ordinary grief, ordinary sadness.
SANDI
We are planning to wearing the mask the rest of their life, so their discomfort becomes their comfort level.
TAJCI
Yes!
SANDI
And it’s what they know. And they don’t realize that once that comes out they feel like they’ve lost a hundred pounds… it’s almost like your heart just opens up and starts ‘aaahhh!’ singing…
TAJCI
living, beating, flowing
SANDI
Oh, you can’t wait to get up in the morning and everything’s exciting
TAJCI
You become alive!
SANDI
Oh it’s so exciting! And a lot of times you are not even aware that you are just living, you are not alive. Because that’s the norm.
TAJCI
Yes… when we come back we’ll talk about keeping that perfect picture and we are going to talk about the power of the red nose.
This episode has been brought to you by Doing Good, a 501c3 non-profit organization which tells the real stories by real people who are making a difference through volunteering. Find out more online @DoingGoodTV or the website, DoingGood.TV.
TAJCI
I was attending your workshop by Radiant Health Institute and you were doing a presentation on finding your story. And I loved, there were two parts I just loved. And one was about, and I’m passionate about this, wearing that mask that makes us look ‘perfect.’ You know it’s our Facebook.
SANDI
It’s our Facebook face, I call it. We put on our Facebook face.
TAJCI
It’s our Instagram filtered beautiful life. And when we look at each other, there is absence of what we all have – pain, hurt, sadness, brokenness. Tell me about it.
SANDI
I think what makes people authentic though is the brokenness. It’s the pain, and I have gotten to the point where it’s funny because when you take someone’s picture and they say, don’t put it on the Facebook, let me look at it first. So people will say to me, they’ll take pictures saying, do you want to look at the pictures, it’s like, no, that’s what I look like, you know. So it really doesn’t bother me, because that’s what I look like.
I had a homeless guy that lived with me and she said, when he died, and I saw it on Facebook, and you put a picture of you, I had my girls take pictures of me right after as I was grieving, and I put them on there and I thought, how dare you do that, then I realized you got to my soul ’cause I’ve covered up my pain every time someone died, and it reached down and grabbed that out. And she said, every time you came back from California, went to his room for the first time and grieved through it, she said, I grieved for every single person and she said because you allowed me to grieve and feel things.
TAJCI
You know, if we open up and we show our pain, we allow each other to connect on that level, we become real, we become heard, we feel heard and validated, we know we are not alone. We don’t get into these lies, something is wrong with me because I feel this way, because look, I have this beautiful life.
SANDI
Right, right. Another thing too is I think that we fall under “busy” and “fine.” Those two words, when you ask people how they are, it’s always busy or fine. And you know, fine means I’m on route and I’m saying it automatically, and busy to me has come to mean, I’m running. I’m busy. I’m running. I don’t take time, I don’t find out who I am, I don’t rest, I’m busy. And I had a meeting with someone once, and we sat down and I said, So how are you, and he said, I know that you are busy, Sandi, but there is no one busier than me. And I thought, so, I know you are running a lot of times, but there is no one that runs from life more than me. That’s how I interpreted it. Is I don’t take the time. If you take the time to get everything done, why don’t you take the time to rest in yourself, and be comfortable?
TAJCI
Yes! It comes back to that self-care.
SANDI
It does come back to self care.
TAJCI
Yes, and what we perceive as self-care as opposed to what really it is.
SANDI
You know people will say to me, I see, on Facebook, you are gone almost every night. What they don’t realize is my days and nights are flipped from most people. I’m alone every morning. That’s my alone time, that’s my meditating time, that’s the time I go for walks, that’s all of that time. And so at night, when other people are coming home and they are resting, I’ve done that in the morning. That’s always my time. But I have to have that, because if I get going, about the middle day, afternoon, I feel just a check in my spirit saying, you are not connected to yourself. You are out there for everybody else, but not for yourself.
TAJCI
And my viewers will say, but Sandi, I have five children, I have their schools, I have homework, I have dishes, I have work, I have to work two jobs to pay my bills.
SANDI
Okay, I was coaching someone and she had three jobs. And the thing with her, she wanted her kids to have a nice home, but she’s never home. Never. And so I looked at that, going, you have to look at the pay off going, do I really want all that my kids involved in everything, do I want all that nice stuff? My mother who had all these kids, I remember one time, we didn’t have a dishwasher or anything, her saying, come on out. We are doing wheel barrow races… where you held someone’s legs and they went on the ground and you race. And I said, but I have to do dishes. She said, they’ll wait. They’ll stay. And I remember thinking, how often do we say, oh no, that has to get done. We have the schedule as opposed to stopping and saying, let’s leave it. And so I think when you’re saying we’ve all this stuff, I have to work, I have to get my kids homework, I have to take them to this, what you’re saying to your kids is, this is what your life is going to be like.
TAJCI
Because that’s what looks good on Facebook.
SANDI
It does look good on Facebook.
TAJCI
And it looks just like my neighbor’s. That’s what we compare.
SANDI
And you are modeling that for your kids, saying, when you get older you will be so strapped for time that you’re not going to have time for yourself. And that’s when you need to stop and say, you know what? Let’s leave everything. I’ve homework. It will get done later and we need time. And you look them in the eye and all of a sudden what you’ve told them is, the stuff of the world is any more important than you and I sitting here eye to eye.
TAJCI
Yes.
SANDI
And I think that that has to be a real… you have to real aware and make a conscious decision.
TAJCI
Yes, back to the awareness and awakening. Awaken to that. And finally the thing that I just, it just really reminded me of the importance of joy and fun and just… why not? The power of the red nose! So you had us put these on!
SANDI
I see people from fifteen years ago and they walk up to me and still go like this…
TAJCI
So, we should have done the whole interview like this, except it makes me sound…
SANDI
There is a way to do it
TAJCI
Oh, I’m doing it wrong!
SANDI
If you put it up like that you can breathe.
TAJCI
Oh, ok. Now I can breathe. Oh good.
SANDI
There is an art to the red nose.
TAJCI
So tell me about these
SANDI
You know what, I don’t even know where I started them, but I just know that I carry them in my car, and you see a lady yelling at her kids in her car, you get to a red light, you put it on, you look over, the lady starts laughing, the kids start laughing, it’s like 18 cents, I buy them 4-8 dozen at a time. And it’s like you take this 18 cent nose and all of a sudden, things change.
TAJCI
Yes, it makes someone else’s day, it also takes you out of your comfort zone, makes you look a little silly, and say, you know, I don’t have to always be this…
SANDI
Okay, so let’s be serious.
TAJCI
Yes… let’s be serious. Do you ever go serve homeless with the red nose on?
SANDI
Yea, all the time!
TAJCI
Do they like it?
SANDI
Oh my gosh, all the time! Yea. A lot of them have them. Yea.
TAJCI
Oh great.
SANDI
Some of them sell newspapers with them. Sure!
TAJCI
You know, the funny part, the sad part is that, I don’t even need this, because every time I get really emotional, my nose gets really red.
SANDI
Oh, so you have a natural one!
TAJCI
Thank you Sandi.
SANDI
Thank you
TAJCI
Thank you so much for what you do, but more so for who you are.
SANDI
Thank you
TAJCI
And now ladies and gentlemen, coming to you live from Nashville, the best show in town underneath the Jefferson Street Bridge. We have the “Trespassers” which is Shamus and Skyler.
MUSIC
by The Trespassers (Shamus & Skyler)
TAJCI
I hope you are waking up to live your life with joy and purpose. Visit us at WakingUpinAmerica.net where we have lot more stories of people like Sandi who will help you to inspire you and activate you to make that shift in your life. Thank you very much. We’ll see you next time!
