Coming Back to Love: the podcast

Karen Walker Cohn (09:48.394)
Andrea, when you hear the title of this podcast, Coming Back to Love, Inspiring Stories on Shifting Perspectives, what story or experience from your life comes to mind?

Andrea @Cheydrea (10:04.25)
I'm going to refer to a recent experience where I went through a dark night of the soul and I didn't even know that was a thing until I found out it was. So it's also known as an existential crisis. And so once it was a two and a half year dark night of the soul, I had to unravel a lot

my life experiences, my childhood trauma, my belief systems, to really find out who I truly was. And once I came out of that, well, let me just back up, being in that dark place, I fell out of love with everyone and it was very scary. And so coming out of that, I had to choose to save my own life.

and then I had to choose love again, which I did know how to love very well. I carried a child-like love in me. I loved everyone very much. I had this big, vast love for people, for earth, for children, for humanity. But then once I was going through this existential crisis, losing that love and losing hope for life.

was scary to me and I wasn't sure if I could make it back. And so once I did come out of that, it was partially, well, it was a choice. It was a choice to say, I gotta get back to that love I once knew. And so I'm in the process now of redefining what coming back to love means for me so that I can get back to that childlike love.

Karen Walker Cohn (11:57.762)
Yeah. So where you say you're in the process of it, can you share a little bit about that process? Like, you know, where, I mean, I don't even know. Like I was gonna say, where in that process are you? And do you even know?

Andrea @Cheydrea (12:05.431)
Mm-hmm.

Andrea @Cheydrea (12:23.074)
So I wrote this little piece to help me put this together. So I wrote, once we find that hope, a rebirth happens because I lost all hope in that dark place. And so then when I found hope, a rebirth happened and then a healing began. So the healing begins and healing isn't just a one and done. It's a process, especially as you are, you know,

redefining things, redefining who am I and what do I want in my life and where do I find meaning and where do I find purpose. So when healing happens coming back to love becomes a choice of deep listening, curiosity to understand the other, non-judgment, deep presence and a newfound compassion towards oneself and humanity.

Karen Walker Cohn (12:56.199)
Yeah.

Andrea @Cheydrea (13:21.898)
And I always thought of myself as that person. I always was deeply present with people. I always felt I had compassion and non-judgment. I felt huge love for people. But as I examined my wounds through my poetry and through writing, I didn't have it as much as I thought I did. I didn't even know what self-compassion was. So I really couldn't have compassion for other people.

Karen Walker Cohn (13:50.898)
Wow.

Andrea @Cheydrea (13:51.03)
in the way that I thought I did. Because I didn't have it for myself, so how could I really have it for other people? I wasn't loving myself properly, so how could I love other people if I couldn't really love myself? I was judging myself, hating myself, critiquing myself, perfecting myself, so the truth was I really was expecting that of other people. So...

Karen Walker Cohn (13:59.537)
Right?

Karen Walker Cohn (14:19.663)
Right.

Andrea @Cheydrea (14:20.25)
I thought I loved people, you know, and the people that I did love unconditionally were my children. That was easy. That was easy for me. But, so, yeah. I hope that makes sense.

Karen Walker Cohn (14:26.395)
Right.

Karen Walker Cohn (14:35.302)
It does. You know what? I relate to that coming from a place of, you know, my core belief system being I'm not enough. So, you know, I judged everything from that lens, from that place of not enough. So I got into relationships that

Andrea @Cheydrea (14:43.452)
Mm-hmm.

Karen Walker Cohn (15:00.33)
would prove I'm not enough. You know, I got like, I said things about myself that like, I had this core belief and I was constantly

saying, doing, thinking, things, gathering evidence, I call it, to prove that, yeah, this core belief is correct. I am not enough. See? I can point to this, I can point to that. See? And so I relate to you from that place. I relate to exactly what it is you're saying. If I don't think I'm enough,

Andrea @Cheydrea (15:31.306)
Mm hmm.

Andrea @Cheydrea (15:37.07)
Mm-hmm.

Karen Walker Cohn (15:45.794)
you know, as much as same thing, loving, loving my kids, that part's easy. And I was saying to them, I was looking for all the places that was not enough in them as well. So, you know, change this part or dress this way or, you know, I remember my son saying to me when he oh, gosh, I think he might have been six years old. And we were getting ready to go to church.

And he said to me, mom, why do I have to look so perfect all the time? Like, why do I have to look so perfect? And that hit my heart. And I was like, no, you don't, you don't have to like, it just, I just like, why do, why do it? And I still didn't know at that time, but I just remember that his question really hit my heart.

Andrea @Cheydrea (16:30.886)
Yeah.

Andrea @Cheydrea (16:40.73)
And during this dark night, I keep calling it dark night, so as I unraveled, I was trying to unravel all of my beliefs, all of my experiences. I learned that a lot of that, which was surprising to me, but a lot of it came from religion. And so I had to deconstruct my entire religious belief system.

And I was a very loving, quiet, sort of just supportive, very active religious person, but I wasn't like, I think what they call an apologist. I was just, I was just a happy, joyful, how can I serve religious person on fire for Jesus. And then my deconstruction started about 15 years ago.

when I was working through a lot of physical pain that was trauma in my body that I didn't know. And so fast forward, I realized that a lot of these wounded beliefs I had about myself as a woman and the roles that I was playing as a woman, as a wife, as a mother, as a...

as a member of society had to do with the roles that were placed on me in my religious beliefs. So I had to discard of all of that and start from scratch and figure out what are my roles and what do I need to be doing and it determined that I don't need to be playing any roles. The only role that I need to play is the role of loving myself and finding passion for myself so that I could do the same for other people.

Karen Walker Cohn (18:24.186)
Yeah. Yes.

Yeah, so good. Yeah, I relate to you so much. So much. I'm also in that process, you know, deconstructing it just is really that, that's part of my coming back to love. That's part of why this podcast even exists. So I appreciate that. And is that part of why this book, The Poet's Playground exists?

Andrea @Cheydrea (18:49.166)
Mm.

Andrea @Cheydrea (18:58.926)
Well, the way it came about was I was in so much pain and I started writing. And then the writing started, then the pain showed up. And then the pain turned into a lot of like that darkness of just what's going on. Why is my writing, and I've said this on other podcasts, I've said this out loud many times, but my inner child came out and said, you need to get out of the way, I have some stuff I wanna say.

And so that's how the poetry started because my pain was so heavy and so ugly to me because what I was writing didn't seem okay for me to write. I was saying things that I had felt that I was carrying in my body that I wasn't speaking, that I wasn't giving words to, that I wasn't giving my voice to. I was just holding this pain and it was ruminating in my body and it was manifesting in physical

ailments. You know, I was diagnosed with all these conditions but I didn't ever subscribe to the allopathic healthcare system. I just kept exercising and taking care of my health and then found myself in a yoga studio and got three certifications and I was teaching yoga and I have a background in sports medicine as well so it was all physical. It was like I'm gonna just take care of myself physically. So then when I start writing and then my voice comes out

I'm like, oh, this is what they're talking about with the throat chakra, you know, using your voice. And it looked ugly to me. It didn't seem okay for me to say these things. And so that's, and then, and in order for me to digest my words, I had to extract the mess of my words into little pieces or excerpts, which then just intuitively and organically turned into poetry. And so now as I go down that.

Karen Walker Cohn (20:31.224)
Yeah.

Andrea @Cheydrea (20:55.246)
poetry life because I did a complete pivot. I threw in the towel to my job, my career, which it wasn't really a career, it was more of a save-a-dar or a service. I was just giving myself away. I wasn't making a lot of money, I was just giving myself away. So I decided I'm going to become a full-time writer, poet, artist, and now I totally understand poets. I mean, that's what they're doing. They're expressing themselves.

Karen Walker Cohn (21:23.217)
right?

Andrea @Cheydrea (21:23.714)
It's a daily act of self-expression and man does it feel good because you can just say what's in your body, in your heart, in your bones, in your blood. You're just saying it. You're feeling it. You're expressing it. That makes us human.

Karen Walker Cohn (21:39.958)
Yeah, so beautiful. Thank you. Thank you for that. The way you express it in this book is like

bravery, courage, authenticity. Those are the words that immediately come to mind from the first page that I read. And so thank you for putting this out there because I do understand that it wasn't necessarily going to be in these pages. Tell me about that.

Andrea @Cheydrea (22:12.264)
Yeah. So.

Andrea @Cheydrea (22:16.618)
Yeah, I don't know how far in the book you've gotten, but if you've made it to the part where I wrote to my mother and father, dear father, dear father. I mean, it's hard for me to look back at that sometimes and see that, but I'm estranged from both of my parents. I didn't even have parents, so I don't even know why I say that. I was raised only by my mom, and I'm a second...

Karen Walker Cohn (22:28.73)
Yes.

Andrea @Cheydrea (22:45.086)
generation immigrant. So her and her family came over here from the world post-war. And so there was and my grandfather was in the war. So there was a lot of alcoholism and poverty. And as anyone knows or most people not most people but some people know that in a family with poverty post-war trauma and alcoholism nothing good can

Karen Walker Cohn (22:58.25)
Mm-hmm.

Andrea @Cheydrea (23:12.73)
can trickle down from that into the generations that come. And so I was a child of that and without a father. I ran the streets a lot. I did not have emotional or physical support in a lot of ways. There was just a lot of stuff that went on. And so that was where my writing started

forcing myself to face that and it was showing up in my relationships. I've been married for 30 years this year. My husband also brought his own trauma to the table and we were just replaying and reenacting what we learned in our childhoods as we tried to navigate this relationship. And the truth is we didn't know any better.

Karen Walker Cohn (23:53.042)
for sure.

Andrea @Cheydrea (24:11.57)
We were in survival mode. We had kids to raise. We were working. We were trying to just survive. And so once it all came to a head and I just, you know, started healing, I said, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this thing. I'm gonna suffer as long as I need to suffer to get through whatever needs to go on here and you can join me or not. And so, so yeah, we're on the other side of that.

Karen Walker Cohn (24:28.996)
right

Andrea @Cheydrea (24:39.622)
and to almost lose a marriage over someone healing is something in and of itself. Cause a lot of people don't make it through that.

Karen Walker Cohn (24:47.51)
Yeah, yeah, right here, you know, coming. I know exactly what you're saying, where you think like, you know, I used to say with my, well, with my ex is that I'm still kind of figuring out how to, what, like, because he's not my anything. How do I, you know, is, I used to say,

My prayer was, Oh God, change him. Oh God, change him. And I was just sharing this with someone earlier today. And when I heard back in my spirit, no, let's, you get to change. Let's change you. And I started healing and I started shifting. And in my mind, I was so excited about it because, oh, our marriage is going to, we're going to get to like, I'm going to shift. And that's the expectation I had in my mind. We're going to draw closer.

And in fact, it just, you know, I came home one day and he was gone. So, um, yeah, I can, I understand that. And, and, and I'm at a place now where I'm thankful because I'm step, I've stepped into this new relationship and everything that I've ever wanted. So I get that. And I appreciate you, you saying that.

Andrea @Cheydrea (26:07.19)
He couldn't ride that wave with you, and it's a harsh wave.

Karen Walker Cohn (26:10.318)
Mm. Yeah, yeah. And isn't that even. Personal development, character development, all this, the inner child work, all this. This is why.

I have found that my circle has shrunk. There's a lot of people that have, oh yeah, no, I don't want anything to do with this. You know, like you've shifted, you've changed. And then there's a lot of people also that are, you've shifted, you've changed and celebrating with you. So doing the work, whatever that the work ends up being for you, for me, for anyone listening.

Andrea @Cheydrea (26:34.634)
Yeah.

Andrea @Cheydrea (26:45.598)
Yeah.

Karen Walker Cohn (26:58.122)
it's going to shift the people that come in and out of your life. And that's a scary, that's a scary thing. It can be a scary thing. I know it was for me because I'm like, oh, how is that going to shift our relationship? Even even the work that I've been doing lately in the last year and a half, because I've had that experience in a past relationship. Oh, my gosh, if I keep growing.

And that could potentially wreck, like I brought that old stuff from the past into my relationship now. That could wreck the relationship I have with my husband now. And so I'm constantly looking inward and fighting that. Thank God he's like, nope, I'm in this. I'm riding this wave. Like you said, I'm riding this wave with you.

and we're doing this together. And so I feel like I have a level of security that I'd never had before. And the fact that you guys, like you said, 30 years, he's riding that wave with you. How?

Andrea @Cheydrea (28:07.282)
I think that's a good question.

Karen Walker Cohn (28:15.09)
Gosh, the impact that must have on you two together, on your marriage, on your children. Yeah, share about that.

Andrea @Cheydrea (28:26.945)
Yeah, it's been interesting because we had a really, there's a lot of good memories when we were raising our kids. You know, I had the typical traditional family where uh my husband was gone a lot.

I did have a career, but this is common. I had a career, he had a career, I gave mine up because somebody had to take care of the kids. And it was me, because I'm the woman. And I know that's a strong statement, but I wanted to be present for them. And I didn't want them to be harmed due to my lack of presence. And also, I didn't want to repeat patterns.

So we moved away. And so really my intuition 20 years ago when we moved away from home and across the country was, and I write about that in my book. I don't know if you've, I don't even know what page that is but it's a very powerful page. And I'm like, I'm gonna, I gotta start over with a clean slate. So we had some really good times with our kids. There was a lot, but you know, we were in survival mode. And then we deconstructed as a family.

Karen Walker Cohn (29:37.7)
Yeah.

Andrea @Cheydrea (29:41.166)
Because at first, you know, I was, we were going to church, I was homeschooling, you know, we had all the religious t-shirts, you know, we were all, and then we deconstructed as a family. Now fast forward, you know, my son's 27, my daughter's 22, they have their significant others that they're dating. And our focus right now is to keep our family intact by having...

honest conversations, having hard conversations. And I think I said this recently, if anyone's not good, having a hard time, struggling, none of us are good. We all need to get skin in the game. We need to pay attention to each other. We need to invest time into each other. We need to support each other, not.

Karen Walker Cohn (30:25.519)
rate.

Karen Walker Cohn (30:29.208)
Yeah.

Karen Walker Cohn (30:36.367)
Yeah.

Andrea @Cheydrea (30:36.898)
gaslight each other and deny each other's daily experiences and be cruel to each other. There's no room for that in this group and we're not perfect but that is that's where we're at now. That that's my goal and I have a and I've always that's always been my goal but that's my deepest core passion is to create what it means to be a family that is

not just going through life, surviving, following the rules, following the systems, feeling the roles, but just a family that says, I'm here and I got you. And that we carve out time, energy, curiosity, all the things that we need to do in our relationships for each other and support each other.

Karen Walker Cohn (31:13.07)
right?

Karen Walker Cohn (31:32.335)
Yeah.

Andrea @Cheydrea (31:34.858)
And there's a lot less non-judgment for each other. And like you said with your son, I don't care if my kids are perfect. I don't want them to be perfect. Down to the craziest things like, should I wear this to the restaurant? Should I say this? Wear what you want, say what you want, do what you want. Not be unkind to people, but just, I love you no matter what. My daughter and I call each other, how greasy is your hair? I want to go to the dentist.

Karen Walker Cohn (31:53.072)
Right.

Right.

Yeah.

Andrea @Cheydrea (32:03.786)
Well, mine's pretty greasy. You want to go? Yeah, go. Not, well, you should really fix that or you should really change that. And my husband and I are working really hard on our relationship right now. The new version of our relationship, the relationship between two people, not mom and dad and Yeah.

Karen Walker Cohn (32:12.078)
Right.

Karen Walker Cohn (32:21.606)
Right. Rules. Yeah, two between two rules. Yeah, I like that. Wow. That's so good, Andrea. Oh my goodness. So if you could leave the listeners with one message today, what would it be?

Andrea @Cheydrea (32:42.55)
Wow. Uh, love yourself. I know that's such a, such a common statement, but, um, use your voice. Be honest. Be authentic. I used to think authenticity was honesty, just like speaking and saying whatever's on your mind, that was authenticity. Um, and I was authentic.

Karen Walker Cohn (33:08.52)
Right.

Andrea @Cheydrea (33:12.758)
lot you know but now I know after all this healing that authenticity is being 100% yourself. Believe what you believe, feel what you feel, say what needs to be said and if you walk into a room and you feel like you don't belong there because people aren't accepting you of who you are, turn around and walk out because for every time every time you lose someone by being your authentic self

you're gaining your self-worth. You're gaining, you're gaining.

you know, and you can fill in the blanks for me if you want to.

Karen Walker Cohn (33:53.282)
for me it was confidence. A trust for myself. Like all those things. Yeah.

Andrea @Cheydrea (33:57.647)
Yeah. Self-trust, self-sovereignty. I wasn't doing that and I didn't realize that. I was shrinking and just kind of navigating, you know, oh I'll say when I go into this room I'll say that and when I go into this room I'll be that and I'll be quiet over here, you know, and it's like no I'm just gonna work and that's my goal too besides that all the family stuff is I want to be absolutely authentic in every way, shape, and form.

Karen Walker Cohn (34:10.384)
Yes.

Andrea @Cheydrea (34:25.054)
or form and just not worry about if I'm going to lose someone because yeah and that's new for me.

Karen Walker Cohn (34:31.226)
I agreed. Yeah.

Me too, me too, absolutely. And I think it's probably something that we really connected on and something that attracted us to one another. Like, yeah, I love how like, and your authenticity just shines through in this book. And I just, I'm gonna bring this up because I'm feeling it. And what the same, what I thought

authenticity was it's just like blah here's all my junk and stuff and let me just like spew that all over you so that is not authenticity the root of authenticity in from my perspective is love and it comes from a place of love kindness so if it's not helpful for me to say

something even though I'm feeling like oh I really want to say that you still get to judge I still get to judge is this helpful is this me spewing is this coming from ego like or is this real authenticity and I'm learning how to discern that learning about myself because it's I'm in a new place in my life and I see things with fresh eyes

And there's a lot of things that I used to say and call it authentic that didn't need to be said. It was just unkind. It's really what it, it was just unkind and I thought it was authenticity. So I'm saying that I'm realizing, you had mentioned this earlier about, you said it a couple of times about your voice, finding your voice. This is something that is so important to me and you had brought up the throat.

Karen Walker Cohn (36:31.266)
chakra. Even now, Andrea, I have this lump in my throat because this is a new thing for me to find my voice. And even my body, you had talked about the physicality of, you know, these emotions that you hold onto and which end up being diagnosed as some type of

Andrea @Cheydrea (36:32.448)
Mm-hmm.

Karen Walker Cohn (36:57.466)
Generally what I, mine has been around autoimmune and we hold on or I hold on to these emotions. And even now, I just wanna share with the listeners, even now as I'm speaking, I have this lump in my throat. And you see me on camera drinking water. I feel like, like dry here. My body is still getting used to finding my voice.

It is now like I'm reprogramming my thoughts and it's reprogramming my body and I'm going to, I'm so excited for the time where the like, and I don't know if it's ever going to come, where this lump is not there. I don't have to overcome that. So I do, I am really curious about where, what you were sharing about that when, as you, the words came out on the page and this inner child work

What shifts have you seen in the physical?

Andrea @Cheydrea (37:58.23)
Well, because I have, I've spent, I started being a chronic fitness person at age 17. And so I have had, and without going through a timeline, and I've taken care of myself nutritionally because of what I went to school for and stuff, but where my body was failing was I had a pelvic floor collapse in my 30s.

mid-30s and when I started yoga I learned that that's a mother wound because it's in the pelvis. But then the health care system diagnosed me with all these things like a thyroid disorder and depression and anxiety and all these things which I dismissed and then just exercised myself through them. But the grief, the trauma and the wounds that I was carrying from my childhood just managed.

It manifested into depression and I had a lot of depression that I was hiding and I wasn't speaking on it because one I believed that there was something wrong with me and my family made me to believe there was something wrong with me because if I would speak on my depression it was it was gaslit, it was denied, it was not allowed, it was you don't speak on your pain, you get over it, you move on,

So it was depression and depression results in a lot of things. So perfectionism and things like that. So when I wrote this book, I decided not just, it's not just emotional in the form of I'm sad, feel sorry for me. It's more of like my anger came out.

Karen Walker Cohn (39:47.814)
Yeah.

Andrea @Cheydrea (39:48.378)
my frustration, my beliefs, the things that I was peeling apart and saying, I'm not okay with this. And I don't know if you're okay, but I was going to try to find, like I wrote on a page, God is a woman. I don't know if you've

Karen Walker Cohn (40:06.232)
Tell me what page?

Andrea @Cheydrea (40:08.301)
um, 200.

Karen Walker Cohn (40:20.175)
Yes. Okay.

Andrea @Cheydrea (40:22.382)
I mean, when you say God is a woman out loud, that angers people. Yeah, and I was like, I'm saying this and I don't care. It's not like I'm attacking anyone. I'm not being violent. If we can say God is a man, why can't we say God is a woman? There's no harm in that. And I said, I found my worth and this time I decided to fall madly in love with me, not him.

Karen Walker Cohn (40:26.551)
Oh my gosh.

Karen Walker Cohn (40:45.998)
Yeah.

Andrea @Cheydrea (40:49.11)
So I refer to God as her. That makes me feel better. You know, and I wrote, I mean, this is the deconstruction section. My soul is not for sale. It is not for bargaining or debate. Vultures are always circling. Page 191.

Karen Walker Cohn (41:09.41)
Yeah, wow.

Andrea @Cheydrea (41:10.962)
And then 189, spiritual predator, someone who tries to manipulate your spiritual journey, bypass your pain with scripture and prayer, and control the outcome of your soul.

Karen Walker Cohn (41:24.802)
Yeah.

Andrea @Cheydrea (41:25.098)
I mean, this was, I was angry. I was, I was like, I'm gonna say what I'm thinking and I'm gonna put it on the page. And then I was gonna burn it and I never burned it. And then the fact that I actually published it, you wanna talk about fear. I mean, I was having an anxiety attack trying to, because I'm like, what's gonna happen? Well, you know what happened is, I have had so many messages and texts from people telling me,

Karen Walker Cohn (41:31.65)
Yeah. Yep.

Karen Walker Cohn (41:42.147)
right?

Yep.

Andrea @Cheydrea (41:53.75)
Oh my gosh, you are saying everything that I've ever felt. I've gotten texts from therapists telling me they're giving my book to their patients who are chronically depressed and suicidal. I got one the other day and they're sharing my book with these people because people feel these things but they're afraid to say them. And so I said them to save my own life and my why.

Karen Walker Cohn (41:57.579)
right.

Karen Walker Cohn (42:06.223)
Right.

Karen Walker Cohn (42:14.16)
Yes.

Andrea @Cheydrea (42:19.798)
was and still is and always has been to give people hope and save people's lives by saying what needs to be said. And you can do that without harming people. I mean, I just said all those things and I wasn't calling anyone any names or saying hateful things. I was just saying, you know what? Here's how I feel.

Karen Walker Cohn (42:26.939)
Yes.

Karen Walker Cohn (42:30.449)
Yeah.

Karen Walker Cohn (42:40.262)
Here's it. Yeah. And I love that because and I've said this before on other podcasts, if you read God is a woman and you feel some kind of way, I use the word trigger. If that's a trigger for you, well, you better send Andrea a message saying, thank you. Thank you. Because something is coming up in you for the purposes of healing.

So Andrea, the fact that you stepped into this book and said a lot of things that, I mean, I haven't, to be fully transparent, I know I've said this to you, but fully transparent to the listeners, I haven't gone through the whole book yet. I just got it two days ago. And I'm like, holy smokes. Like there's a lot of stuff that, the way you have worded it is,

so healing and I get to look at, oh okay, what is my perspective on that? Can I, and this is why I say at the beginning of this recording, is that step into the podcast, step into listening with beginner's mindset and from a place of curiosity because that's where the learning comes from. If you're stepping in going, oh I know all this already,

There's nothing for you to learn and what's the point? Like, you know it all. You know it all, so thank you. Thank you for sharing these words and give it, and permissioning others to do the same. That's what I'm hearing when people are sending you texts and sending you, you know, and having you on their podcast is because you are giving people permission to do exactly what you did.

find healing from it.

Andrea @Cheydrea (44:41.162)
Yeah, use your voice and start with writing if you have to and make a mess and make a big mess and then make a bigger mess and then keep making mess and then you'll it's very transformative.

Karen Walker Cohn (44:43.643)
Yeah.

Karen Walker Cohn (44:58.762)
It is. So thank you. Thank you for doing what you have done and what you're doing and what you're going to do. I'm glad that you are here and that you were able to share this message.

Andrea @Cheydrea (45:11.582)
And I appreciate you having me on here and letting me share my story and my stuff.