Stephanie: Hello, Marina. Welcome to the podcast.

Marina: Hi, Stephanie. Thank you for having me.

Stephanie: It's so nice to have you. I met you and your podcast co host Fran through a previous guest of mine, Amy Tsai. Is that right? Do I remember that correctly?

Marina: That's right.

Stephanie: I love it. one of the things I tell my guests is that if you know anybody who would make for a great conversation, since you now have the best sense of what the podcast is about. So I was recently on your podcast and I'm going to have you and Fran both on this season. Very excited to mix that up like that.

Marina: Why don't we start where I love to start, which is tell me, what were the forces that shaped you into the person you were when we get to our midlife transition? So whether it was childhood or, early adulthood, you know, how did you get there?

Well, I grew up in south Africa, apartheid south Africa, which, is a big can of worms that can be opened. That's not my theme though. This awareness of injustice is definitely something that has been very strong in me ever since childhood. I grew up in a family that had a lot of issues and, I became a scapegoat in a narcissistic situation.

When I had my opportunity to move as far away as possible from South Africa, I grabbed it. And I was in a marriage that was almost a reflection of my childhood, where I was always in trouble, always screamed at, always, being made, felt that there's something wrong with me.

And so I moved to Canada when I was 32 years old. And after two years in a new country, new culture, new language, I had two young boys. I, I got divorced. And, that was a test of strength on many, many levels. So, grew up very religious, and that is not, something I ascribe to today, but it definitely had a big influence on me.

Stephanie: What religion was it?

Marina: Dutch Reformed Church, it's very big in South Africa.

Stephanie: Okay.

Marina: Very, extremely strict. Very regimented. Uh, Very strong on doctrine and, a very big role player in the justification of apartheid.

Stephanie: Ah, interesting. Okay. I did not know that. So how old were you when you got married your first time at you said you got divorced at 32, but were you very young when you got married?

Marina: Just before my 25th birthday, I got married. And,I was still with him for, a few weeks shy of our 10th anniversary, I left.

Stephanie: Okay. And so now you're 32, in a new country with two young children, on your own. What do the rest of your thirties look li ke? Or what do your mid thirties look like?

Marina: So, my first career after university was an opera singer. I was a professional opera singer in South Africa. Then I moved to Canada and now I'm in this difficult relationship. And the model of opera singing in South Africa, I had a full time job with benefits at an opera company. It was my job. While you're in production, on stage, you're already rehearsing for the next role. And you have two weeks holiday, but the rest of the time you sing every single day. You sing for ministers. You sing, big events. It was amazing. And that's very much the European system.

Move to Canada doesn't exist here. You freelance. So you have to audition. Move to whichever city the role is, if you're successful, and then be there for a while. Now in a marriage that is not working at all, and with young children, that was not working for me. So I ended up singing for the opera choir, but even that I quit when I got divorced. It just became difficult as a single mom to be away from the house in the evenings.

Now I have no work experience. I leave my marriage. I have absolutely no work experience. And I have to go on welfare. And that was like a slap in my face. Because I had nothing. I didn't have a resume. I did have some office jobs in South Africa, but it doesn't count in Canada. So I have to start from nothing. And I ended up getting a job at my kid's school.

My first job was a school bus driver. And then I, got a job at my kids school in the before and after school care program. I work myself up to become manager. I went back to school. I trained as a teacher assistant or educational assistant as they are call today. I did that. And then, there were so many underlying things, but it was a financial tremendous struggle. I really got to know poverty. I had to feed my kids from the food bank and I knew depression. I had absolutely, you know, couldn't believe this is what my life amounted to. I lived in a small apartment that I was so ashamed of. Second hand furniture, second hand clothing.

Stephanie: Mm hmm.

Marina: And yet I kept fighting.

But one thing that I wanted more than anything else, I wanted to be loved, which meant that I went into online dating, trying to find love in my thirties. I ended up in a relationship with a man, even though nothing about it can really be defined as a relationship. I think it was more a companionship with a man. And after two years and seven months, he dropped dead.

Stephanie: Oh.

Marina: And it was the shock of my life and that feeling of helplessness to watch him in a few days get really sick, to going into ICU, to giving his last breath.

Stephanie: Wow.

Marina: So this is from my thirties into my early forties.

Stephanie: Yeah. So you had a pretty strong history of not great romantic relationships.

Marina: Oh, Not at all.

Stephanie: Yeah, yeah. The the man who died was that a good relationship? No? Okay.

Marina: No, He had a lot of issues and, but he did not want to commit. I wanted commitment and he would always make these promises. And I think I dumped him about seven times and then he would beg me to come back, but it never was really a physical relationship. It was just a promise, spending time together, it was tough.

Stephanie: I remember one of my friends once said to me, Marina, this is not love. Love cannot be this difficult. And that's true. That really stuck to me.

I have, a long history of not great romantic relationships myself. I was, fortunate that, there was no, major or large scale abuse in any of them. But yeah, I can relate to the string of terrible boyfriends and, wanting to be loved and, wanting to find, that good thing.

Do you remember your 40th birthday? What was that like?

Marina: I do. I do. I organized my own 40th birthday party, and I remember it. And, at that point, it was just really trying to find acceptance. And I had a lot of friends who came and I was in a very different relationship then again an online thing. And I just wanted to feel special but it's almost as if I always had to create something for myself to feel special. It didn't just happen. So it's yeah almost an anti climax.

Stephanie: Yeah. So you get out of this abusive relationship in your early forties and, and then what? I mean, this sounds, you know,

Marina: Well that was the turning point. That was the turning point. Yes. that was the big aha moment. And just to jump a little bit ahead, after that, after this aha moment and the work I've put in, I have won the man lottery. I am in the kind of marriage now that movies are made about. I want to choke up just thinking of that.

And so, yes, the night I called the police. I love to take a bath in the evenings. I was sitting in my bathtub crying, and I was thinking, why is this happening? Why is this happening to me? What am I doing wrong? Why am I, by lack of a better word, attracting this kind of man into my life? And it was this aha moment, as if I got answered in that moment. The light bulb went on, and I realized that whenever anybody mistreated my kids, I became like a roaring lion. I become strong. But when it applied to myself, I never had that strength. I would allow people to walk all over me, not just in relationships. In jobs, in, friendships. I was soft because I wanted to be liked. I wanted to be loved. And that night I realized the difference between me standing up for myself and me standing up for my children is because I love them so much.

I love them so much that if somebody would just look at them sideways, I would be on them and protect them. And that clicked for me, does that mean I don't love myself that much.

In religion, I learned, love your neighbor as you love yourself. But my interpretation was, love your neighbor. I never knew how to love myself. I was never taught how to love myself. I was never taught that I was good enough.

So that night started me on this journey of self discovery. I understood that all my life I was defined by other people, the way my family saw me, the way other relationships saw me. The way abusers saw me. Gaslighting, telling me I'm not good enough. I'm not skinny enough, I'm not pretty enough, I'm not smart enough. I'm not a good enough person. There's something wrong with me. And I lived to that.

But now it became time that I defined myself. And I had to find out who I am. So that night I decided I'm done with dating. That's not happening again. It, just didn't serve me. It was just not what I needed at that point. So I could easily walk away from that instead of, as in the past, compromise.

So I decided I'm going to spend time on me. So for two years, in a very big way, I isolated myself. I would go on walks alone, I would go to the gym alone, I would do things on my own. I would meditate. I would write music. I would sing when I'm alone, and I discovered who am I. I journaled a lot, and I would write down about, who am I? Who am I in my heart and my soul, not the version that my family or ex boyfriends or whoever else said I was. Or bullies in school. Who am I?

And then I realized, Hey, I really like who I am. I really like myself. I'm actually a very good person. I'm a very good friend. And I realized, Hey, you know what? I would love to have a friend like Marina in my life. And that was like such an eye opener. During that time, I also realized that, you know what? They got to a point where if I'm never in a relationship again, I would be just fine. I don't need anybody to complete me, but I realized that I really would love to have that companionship.

Stephanie: Mm hmm.

Marina: And then I thought, okay, now I know who I am, who would I love to have in my life? And I started to make lists. of the things that I wanted in a relationship.

Stephanie: What kinds of things were on your list?

Marina: I really wanted somebody with education, because that is my background. And I wanted somebody that could speak that language with me. I wanted somebody who had the same values me. I wanted somebody who would love me regardless of the physical.

Stephanie: Right.

Marina:

Because up until then, sex was so thrown in my face by men. And, and if I was not interested in that, they would dump me.

Stephanie: Right.

Marina: And I wanted somebody who would love me regardless of that. Where I have a relationship that's not just defined by the intimacy, but where the intimacy is almost just part of the language that we speak.

Stephanie: Right.

Marina: And I wanted somebody who would treat my children as his own. And so the list went on. It was a long list. And, I kept it close to me. I read it for a while. And then it's almost like I memorized it. I knew it so well. And then I kind of forgot about it. And during that time, my son made a friend in school. And they were really close. She's a girl and everybody thought they were dating, but they were not. They lived in our neighborhood. And eventually I got introduced by her dad and he was still married, so I'm not going to do that. That's not my style. He was very unhappy, and I became a friend to him and that was it. So I watched him. I walked that journey with him for two years. We were just friends. And during that two years, he actually got separated. I'd just been a really good friend to him and I would not allow myself to even think of, of becoming anything else until there was a shift where one day it was like, I don't know what happened, but it was like, Oh my gosh, what's going on here?

And by then he was free to date again. And then he started to throw these hints my way. And then one day I said to him, okay, we need to have a chat. What is this? And he said to me, I'm in love with you. And I could, for the first time, feel the freedom to express that as well. And the rest is history.

After that, it didn't take very long for us to move in together. We have a blended family. All the kids ended up living with us, mine as well as his, all the animals. We have two dogs and a cat. And we're still in the same house. Three of our kids are married or engaged and We have a grandchild now and, yeah, it's been amazing.

Well, I did tell you that it was tested because, after five years together, I was diagnosed with breast cancer

Stephanie: Mm hmm.

Marina: and had a mastectomy. And, this man loves me. It was during that time that we decided to get married. We were just, living together at that point. It was just so beautiful.

We got married in this house. Best wedding ever. We had a birthday party for him. We invited everybody for a birthday party, but they did not know they showed up for a wedding. So we had a surprise wedding. And yes, todayI cannot even begin to describe you how beautiful my life is.

I'm grateful for the journey I traveled.

Stephanie: Wow. That's quite a story. I can also relate with you, on finding your husband because I always say that my husband was my reward for doing all the work that I did. I want to talk a little bit about the two years that you spent on your own and I want to dig into how did you go about developing a relationship with yourself? And, I use that specifically because usually we get into a relationship before we fall in love. If we go all the way back to that night in the bathtub, when you realized you didn't love yourself, that's not a switch, you just flip. I've talked to many people on the podcast who have admitted that they realized they didn't love themselves. And I think there's lots of people out there who, if they went and checked in with themselves, they would realize that they never even thought of it. Right. They never even bothered to engage in that line of thinking. So I want you to talk a little bit more about the things that you did to develop a relationship with yourself. And then how did you know you were falling in love with yourself?

Marina: That is such a beautiful question. And I think the first thing was to stop distracting myself from spending time with myself. Up until then, I would, whenever my kids had to go to their father, I would find something to do that was not really sitting with myself and finding out who I am. And I had to sit with myself, and that included not watching TV. Not reading a book, but was sitting with myself journaling, analyzing my thoughts, analyzing my values, who am I?

One of the exercises I've done was to, write an obituary for myself. And it was a difficult thing to do, so what are my good points? Discover them. What are my boundaries? Discover them. Be honest about it. Be honest with myself and really take that time. I cannot even describe to you how many journals I've worked through during those two years because I would write and write and write. And I would just write essays on subjects. When thoughts come up in my mind, I would write it down.

I also started to ask for help. Before that incident in the bathtub, I,I met somebody through work who always had these beautifully positive quotes. And I reached out to him. I said, your quote stuck with me. Where did you get it from? And he steered me in the direction of somebody who was almost like a guru who helped me tremendously.

And, when I first went to see that person, he said to me, it's as if somebody could see me for the first time. But I think that's the one thing that I missed in childhood, and in all my previous relationships. I felt I'm not seen. I'm misrepresented. I'm invisible. But I had to unlock that within myself.

I had to start to see me so that I'm not invisible to other people anymore. And that was so important. While I was blind to who I really am, I was blind for everybody else, not just me. But the moment I saw, wow, this is who I am and recognize that, I became visible to other people and the right people. There are always people that will not see me for who I am and that's okay. But the right people could see me.

Stephanie: That's so interesting, Marina, because you've just added layer on to something that I did. Go all the way back to the beginning, you and I talked about this on your podcast, but my 40 Drinks Project, when I turned 40, one of the things I talk about in how that project changed my life was that, people were reflecting back to me things about myself. They were telling me stories about me or our time together and they were telling me things that a lot of times I didn't know, or maybe I had forgotten or didn't bother to notice. So the way that you just said that it's so interesting because I did begin to see myself through the way I usually describe it as much more positive eyes than. You know, we're also self critical. And friends and family were reflecting back to me this, really lovely person. So I started to see that person and it's so interesting because I always describe that the reason I knew that my life had changed that year was because I did meet, my husband. Or I met Patrick who would ultimately become my husband. And I always say that he would not have been attracted to the person that I was a couple of years earlier. I was just a little too wild and crazy. And, didn't have an off button. And so I just love the layer of, the facet you've just added to that, to that whole experience for me all these years later about seeing yourself in a certain way.

Marina: Yeah. So all these little things really added to that.

And today that is probably one of the biggest defining methods that I use in my practice as a hypnotherapist. I do take my clients, like we call it the upgrade. Once we deal with all these horrible things happening to them. I guide them through a process of seeing themselves. And I don't care what your religion or your spiritual belief is, but if I can get you to a place where you can really see your soul. Who did you come into this life as? Can you see that? Can you find yourself? Can you feel that absolute love that we all are? Can you see yourself through the eyes of love? Can you see the way you were intended to be? Beside that unlocking for a lot of women, I work predominantly with women, the ability to see their purpose. It also is just a different way of seeing themselves. And to me, that is a tremendous gift. The ability to truly see yourself.

And you know, life happens, Stephanie. You ask about my childhood, what contributed to me becoming so discontent in my30s, 40s, to end up in, such an abusive relationship. I believe everything that happens with us, put a mask on. That's not really us. It's who we believe we have to be to please other people. Or that narrative that other people tell stories about us, which in my family, as a scapegoat, it was always, what did Marina do? It was always, Marina said this, Marina didn't do that, Marina was always in trouble. And I felt so guilty for just being alive.

I felt guilty I didn't have the freedom to express myself because every single time I tried to be truthful and express myself, my words were turned around, twisted around and used as a rod against me.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Marina: And I had to get over that, that narrative about myself, so that all these masks that I started to wear all my life, I had to get rid of them. I had to find my true identity

Stephanie: Yeah,

Marina: It's a gift.

Stephanie: The other thing that I've been learning in the last couple of years, as I've had so many of these conversations is that, the things that happened to us in childhood, the experiences that we have in childhood really do leave marks on us. Very, very deep marks on us and they create, we create patterns of behavior that we think will keep us safe, that we think will make us okay. Maybe they did make us safe in that situation. Maybewe had to respond to a parent in a certain way in order to create a stable environment.

But then when we grow up, those things don't go away because for most of us, we have internalized them so deeply, we don't even know we do them. And so those are the kinds of things that end up creating these patterns.It's so interesting, you know, I'm one of those people who grew up in the,two parent, middle class, everything was pretty darn good kind of family. And yet it's taken me until my late forties, early fifties to realize some of these patterns that I have, that are not serving me as an adult. So, for so many people who are starting to notice things in their thirties or forties about themselves or their patterns or how they're behaving or the things they don't like, you know, a lot of it is going back to the beginning and figuring out, what habits did I create that are rippling down the line and creating this behavior.

Marina: You know, it's so interesting and this is why I absolutely am in love with the work I do because unraveling all of this and understanding why it happened and where it comes from. When you are a child, and let's imagine for a moment, you have a loving mother and father, and every single day they tell you, you are the most beautiful girl, you're a gift to us, we love you. Then you go to school, and suddenly somebody at the school say, you're ugly. And a seed gets planted, like a weed inside your head. Oh my gosh, I'm actually ugly. And then something else happened. You're a teenager, you fall in love with a person and, and then when you try to reach out to this person to maybe connect, the person say, Nah, no thank you. And your immediate interpretation is it's because I'm ugly because that seed was sown.

And then something else happened. And again, your mind goes to, Oh, I cannot have that because I'm ugly. So that's how a belief is formed. And in the end, it's just, a misbelief. It's not really the truth.

Stephanie: Right.

Marina: And so when we do this work and you can go back and you can see why did that person tell you that? It's because that's the way they felt about themselves. It's only a reflection of their own reality. And maybe it was jealousy on you but you didn't even know what that meant until that seed was planted within you. And now you're in your forties and you still feel ugly. You still feel you're not good enough.

Stephanie: And your whole life, even though your parents were those wonderful, supportive people, you were able to discount what they were saying to you because, well, they have to say that they're my parent.

Marina: Right.

Stephanie: Right? So this external person, ended up with so much more power than the daily affirmation. You were getting at home it. Like you said, it's a weed. It's a seed that just got sewn.

Marina: Right. It is. And if you think of your brain as a computer, and the way you think about yourself, there are certain definitions of depression, but one of the most significant one is thoughts that you have about yourself. If you constantly think negatively about yourself, it will morph into full blown depression.

So, where does those thoughts come from? We are not born with them. Now, you may have an abusive parent. You may be a parent who tells you, well, I never should have had you. You may have had somebody who said, you are a mistake. And that parent may have said that out of his or her own hurt and their own deficits, but you take it literally. And I see this daily. Now start to add to that, like the example of the, you're ugly. It's a very innocent one. It's not as toxic as sexual abuse. It's not as toxic as many other layers of horrible things that can happen with you as a child. But a lot of our issues in our 40s is definitely because of the beliefs and perceptions and sometimes the things that happen to us.

Stephanie: And it does seem to be at that time of our lives, the years around our 40th birthday, 35 to 45, it does seem that that is the time when we are ready and able to start uncovering these things. And we see things in our lives that aren't working, or that aren't making us happier, that we're not fulfilled or they're not what we want, or we're not where we thought we'd be. Or we get where we thought we were going and we realize, is this all there is, right? There's all of this stuff swirling around at this time of, of life. And that's what causes the investigation, the curiosity, the, uncovering of, why do I keep making these decisions?

Why do I keep ending up in crappy jobs or in toxic workplaces or, with friends who, you know, gaslight me Whatever pattern it is, you finally start to notice it and realize that you don't like it. And so that begins the unraveling. Right.

The 40s is probably the stage, I'm 56 now, so it's been a while. But it's been in my life and what I see in my clients, it's the, it's the time where you start to question everything. You are now not a young person anymore, but you're not old and your body starts to change. Perimenopausal for women. Everything starts to change. Also, you see your kids growing up. Suddenly they don't need you as much as they used to. And you feel that lack of purpose. Or on the other hand, you haven't had kids yet. And so now it's time to make the decision.

Marina:

Yes.

Stephanie: because time is running out on that. So if you haven't had kids in your 20s or 30s, now you're saying. Do I, do I want to have kids? Because if I do, I got to get on it. Right. So yeah, there's these really heavy, meaningful things that are happening, you know, in our minds and our hearts.

Marina: You know, also if you have been, you know, 40 years old and you've been working for 20 years and you only have 20 more years left to work and you are still not where you want to be in a career, You start to question yourself. And you start to wonder, are you in the right place? I see this so many times. So to me, the forties is really that bridge between just living life and then suddenly come to a screeching halt and questioning the life you've livedto make sure that the rest of it is not going to be making the same mistakes.

Stephanie: Right. And one of the reasons that that happens, and I cite this book over and over again. It's, sort of underlies my thesis for the whole podcast. The book is called Passages and, Gail Sheehy, the author talks about first adulthood and second adulthood. And on our first adulthood, that's when we rely on external authorities. We rely on the expertise, the authority, the recommendations of people outside us who know better, who are older and wiser, and they know better than us. And that's our parents. It's our bosses. It's society at large. It's the supposed to use and the shoulds. And so it's right around this period of time, this age, 40, plus or minus, that you start to realize. Like you said, you've worked for 20 years, you have 20 left, you've had your kids, they're moving on, or you're deciding to have kids. You realize, I have experience as an adult, I have, you know, 15, 20 years of experience as an adult. And now those things that you're telling me that I should do, they don't align with what I want or who I want to be. So I start making decisions for myself. And I hear it in your story as well. I mean, starting from the night in the bathtub of, you know, I don't want this to be my story anymore. And I'm tired of playing this part or this role that I've played for, in your case, going back to childhood. So we start to ownership. We take control. We really step into our agency around what we want for our lives and for the second half of our lives.

Marina: You know, I've heard up until that point, many people would tell me, well, you teach people how to treat you. But it was only then that I took ownership of that, that I realized, yes, I protected my kids, like I said. I would not let people treat them in a certain way. I remember my youngest son, just before that was bullied in middle school and I could not believe it. And I showed up at school like a roaring lion because I was not going to take that. But I had to learn to become that to me, set up my boundaries. What will I allow and what will I not allow in my life? And you know, that's stretched far beyond just relationships. In workplaces, I mean, everything changed after my cancer diagnosis. Andthat was another big aha moment for me to realize that life is really vulnerable. And at that point, I think I took my physical body for granted and I just lived. And I, I would eat all the wrong foods and not care. I was quite overweight then, so had to take ownership of that and put boundaries in place for that because physically, mentally, emotionally, how do I live the best version of myself with all the time that I've left?

Stephanie: Right. Well, it sounds like you are living the best version of your life now. You know, you've finally won the, the man lottery and you have this relationship that is fulfilling to you and you know, in sickness and in health, right? You feel stable and solid and loved and seen. Those are wonderful things. Those are really wonderful things. Marina, I'm so thrilled that your story has a happy ending. Most of them do. Once we get through the messy middle, it's only in the messy middle that we feel like our story is a mess. But once we get out the other side, once we learn our lessons and come through, most of these stories do have truly very happy endings.

So, I'm thrilled for yours. And I just want to thank you for being here on the podcast and sharing your story.

Marina: Well, I really appreciate that and thank you for having this beautiful conversation on this topic. I think it's much needed and much appreciated.

Stephanie: Thank you.