Latest / Inchstones with Sarah | Autism Advocacy & Caregiver Stories / Choose The Hard with Meredith Hudson

Transcript

Choose The Hard with Meredith Hudson · Inchstones with Sarah | Autism Advocacy & Caregiver Stories

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Hi, everyone. Welcome to the Inch Stones podcast. I'm so pleased to have a dear old friend of mine who has gone through her own life transformation and chapters, and the connectivity that I found with her in our most recent life phase has been nothing but impactful to me, to say the least. So I have Meredith Hudson here, who has been in digital media for decades at this point. Right. And has evolved her own journey of her career path and her personal life path in so many ways and has leaned into evolving, which I believe is why you and I have reconnected in this middle life of ours, is that we've constantly chosen to evolve. So. Meredith, hi.
• 0:48
  Speaker B: Hi, Sarah. Thank you so much for having me.
• 0:50
  Speaker A: Oh, my gosh.
• 0:51
  Speaker B: This is awesome. I'm so excited to chat today.
• 0:54
  Speaker A: Tell everyone. Do your little quick. Your quick bio and why you feel right now where your two feet are, how you've landed here, and the overarching thing of choosing the hard thing to do.
• 1:07
  Speaker B: Yeah, I feel like I've chosen the hard thing, and I've also been in that circumstance where the hard thing has chosen me too, and I think that has really kind of paved my way. But, yeah, I grew up in Boston, Massachusetts. I lived most of my life there until college and I moved to New York. I've worked for the past 20 years in digital media sales.
• 1:27
  Speaker A: If you don't mind speaking to your journey of cancer in your 20s and how actually was a critical pivot point for you.
• 1:34
  Speaker B: Yeah. So I would say that was one of the most impactful things that happened in my life in. In my 20s. So kind of to give you a little preview. Before I was diagnosed with cancer, I was a really strong student athlete. I went to a great private school. I went to a great college. I played Division 1. I was very driven. I was very lucky. I had two parents who were incredibly supportive of whatever my dreams were. And I was always. You know, I think back then, I didn't even really realize I was choosing hard, but I was consistently putting myself in the path of what I thought would be the most challenging.
• 2:12
  Speaker A: Mm.
• 2:13
  Speaker B: The most physically demanding. I just loved it. And I was a high performer. I then graduated college. I moved to New York City, woke up with a lump on my neck one day, and the heart chose me. In. In that circumstance, I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma. I was only 22, and I went through, you know, six months to a year of treatment and just getting better. I just moved to New York City. I was going out with my friends all The I was finally making money, like, life was good. And this thing happened to me. And I don't mean to say it didn't rock my world. It completely rocked my world. But I also was still naive enough to just think it was like a little bump in the road and I was going to get over it. I was, again, very lucky, incredibly supportive family. What it did, though, was really shift my perspective on life. And while there are so many different types of cancer, going through any type of cancer is traumatic and is really hard. Tried really to just fill my days with things that were going to be to. To make me happy and to make me fulfilled and have a different appreciation for every single day that I got. Now, now I have two kids. And because it happened so early on, it was almost like a gift that I was given in a way. And I know it sounds so crazy to say that could be a gift, but it truly was because I now think these are the things I get to do because I went through that hard thing, came out on the other side. You know, life looks a little different when you go through something like that. I think there's something drastically different between how a. The information that we're exposed to now, the things that we know about development and about kids, and the way that we can even witness our kids and watch it. Right. Like, my mom wasn't watching everything that I was doing because she was working. I was in school. Like, Ellie got in someone else's car for the first time to drive from her high school soccer field to a friend's house for a pasta party. And I stood with my phone in my hand and watched her life360 drive in someone else's car. Right? Like, so we are experiencing what our kids are going through in a very different way than past generations.
• 4:34
  Speaker A: I think there was less emotional choice between parents and their kids decades ago. It was more this physical. I provide for you. I provide food, shelter, and experiences. But when it comes to the mental and moral, you just have to witness it and you to choose for yourself. And I think now we have these conversations and this ability to learn about our children in their development and be an active participant in their moral mental development, too. The choice of how we mother in this generation, I think is. I'm glad to mother in this generation. You know, I have the ability to watch and hover and hawk a little bit. But there's also a lot that we're able to do that are so different.
• 5:13
  Speaker B: I mean, I think there was always. There's never. There has never not been, I think, by good moms. This desire to hover and to watch and to wonder, am I doing. Am I giving them the best? Am I doing the right thing? Right. That has, you know, the tale as old as time, as moms wondering if they're doing it all right. I think what we have the benefit of now are podcasts like this, voices like this, exposure to more people who are doing things in different ways, and also very smart people who have been doing it much, much longer than we've been doing it. And every time I take my dog for a walk, I can put in a different parenting process right here from different people. Our moms didn't have this.
• 5:58
  Speaker A: Their mom didn't have that.
• 6:00
  Speaker B: Right. They were more stories passed down from mother to mother or friend to friend. And our world is just.
• 6:08
  Speaker A: It was more cultural. It was more cultural. Like, generational culture was such a thing of, you know, probably only two to three generations removed from us. You know, my grandmother, you know, a story that is told about her. Even Morgan would know this. My grandmother boycotted Mattel in the 60s or whenever Barbie came out. She was horrified with Barbie. Horrified. Wrote a letter to Mattel saying she will never buy Barbie for her daughters. You know, this is the 90s. And she got a letter back from Mattel, and it became this. This part of my grandmother's motherhood. I mean, it was almost like the stamp of who she was. Right. Was this boycott of Mattel. Those parts of her. I know she was more complex than that, but that became. Her motherhood was like being this Irish stoic. We're not gonna buy Mattel.
• 6:54
  Speaker B: No. You don't need a pink Barbie.
• 6:56
  Speaker A: But for us, we get to intake so much more and I think choose a little bit more of who we really be.
• 7:02
  Speaker B: Yeah. It's also harder in a sense, too. Like, I have decision paralysis all the time. I overthink things all the time because I have been exposed to little nuggets here and there across the Internet, across the podcast. Right. One of the things that I just keep going back to, and I definitely get this from my mom, who was raised two daughters with no parenting books, no parenting podcast, nothing like that. Right. Like, she just. You figure it out as you go. I get that from her that, like, figure it out as you go. We can do this. Just this, like, it's. It's. It'll happen the way it's going to happen. And sometimes you have to let go of that, like, information overload and just focus on what your gut is telling you.
• 7:55
  Speaker A: Speaking of that. Talk to me about your choice to go sober a couple years ago.
• 8:00
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 8:01
  Speaker A: And how I have recently, you know, I guess I'm still under 300 days, but talk to me about that. The choice of that Hard. Given that you started your career in finance, planning industry events that were booze cruises and, and luring young, you know, recent college graduates into a world of success and around successful people. How that has changed and evolved.
• 8:24
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean it was, I think I thought it was hard at the time. And now it's been over two years. I look back and I'm like, the hard part was living 40 years or whatever, 38 years of my life, being a high performing individual and also drinking. Like that was hard. Like I was, I was giving myself a. It was like a disability. Right? Like essentially, truly you were. You know, I was, I was just, I wasn't helping myself at all. In fact, I was doing something that was harming myself all that time. I. For me, it was another example of that. Well, I'm not just going to help this woman raise money to run a marathon. I'm going to actually do it myself. It like, it was like a badge of honor. And when I decided to stop drinking, my husband had already stopped a year before. He was such a great example to me of just. He was so happy, he felt so good, he looked so good. It, you know, just really changes so many different aspects of your, your world. I was like, okay, I'm really ready to do this. And then, you know, you get one day and you get two days and you get like a month. And I'm like, I just felt so badass. It was just, it stopped being hard for me. I never thought, even think about it anymore. Like, doesn't even cross my mind. But when it does come up in conversation and people are like, oh, that's so great. I feel proud. Like, it, it is like a badge of honor for me. It's just, you know, something that I saw as a challenge. It turned out to like, kind of lose that like, challenge aspect of it because my life just became so much better. It's something I hope again. You know, you and I talk a lot about the examples that we're setting. My kids are going to make their own decisions for themselves. I try not to preach like, you can't do this, you can't do this. That's the fastest to get someone to do something. You know that. But I hope that they can really see how happy, how free, how more patient. Like lots of things that just when I Kind of got rid of that toxic chemicals I was putting into my body. I became a happier person. It doesn't mean that all of life's problems go away, but I can deal with them in a different way that I was dealing with them when I was drinking wine or I grew up in a house.
• 10:46
  Speaker A: And now in being sober and with someone who is sober as well and feel like there is no upside to it, there is literally no upside. And feeling like I've come back to myself and who I am, in some ways, that was one of the major reasons to quit alcohol. Like, why would I want to change who I am? And I go through some hard, emotional things, but that's okay. Like, that's okay. I need to unearth some things, and alcohol is not going to do it.
• 11:13
  Speaker B: And I know that for lots of people, there is that stress of how this changes my social life. Going through and doing those hard things, like, it's kind of going back to do a hard thing. See that you're still standing and surviving after it once you do it. And you start to stack up those wins of doing a hard thing. And then, like, getting through it, you're like, it becomes easier and easier, becomes.
• 11:36
  Speaker A: This, like, free luxury. That's what I always keep saying. It's like, it's such a luxury. Yes, it's a hard thing to choose, and yet it's free. It's a free luxury to be able to do all the things that make Sarah. Sarah and Mare. Like John Mayer does this one interview. I'm sure you've seen it. He said, when I chose to go sober, it does lower the level. You realize this is kind of boring, kind of like, all right, it's kind of flat, and then it just slowly starts to rise. Those are the inch zone markers for me that it gets easier and easier. You can align more and more, get to. To sort of a plateau, and then you start to rise even above that. Yeah, I think that it does it turn on a light switch to what you're able to do as a fully functioning human. Like, wow, I've marginalized myself. No, I can do really hard things. And I wake up the next day and my success rate of staying alive is 100% right. That's why I always say to myself, I mean, the most guttural, hard days of the early diagnosis of Mac and Millie, and just thinking that, like, my life is over, like, this is my life now as I know it, the trajectory I want to be on is over. And yet I still woke up again and I still was able to choose Joy. It's just a diagnosis that changes life. It reminds me day to day I'm still here and I'm healthy and I am more myself than I probably would have been had I not had children with a life path altering diagnosis. I don't, I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you today.
• 12:58
  Speaker B: We know that there are so many things I wouldn't have done if I hadn't gone through that. And I'll give you, like the first. It happened so quickly for me too. So I, you know, so many people reached out when they found out that I was sick and going through what I was going through. And one woman in particular, I didn't know her in college, but through a friend of a friend, she found out that I would, that, you know, I was going through treatment for Hodgkin's lymphoma. And she happened to be running for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. She was raising money for them to run the Chicago Marathon. And she reached out to me and she said, you know, I heard about your story. We were, I don't think we were classmates. We just happened to be at school at the same time. Would you mind if I put your name on my shirt and ran in your honor? And I was like, started crying. I was like, first of all, so amazing. This was still like seven or eight months, like before the marathon were to take place. And I was just finishing my treatment and I was like, that's super cool and absolutely you can. But what if I also ran the marathon too? Like, what, what if I could? And this is like how it works and how it started working. I was like, what if I could beat cancer and marathon, like within a year? And the entire time I was running, I was saying to myself, and this is something I say to myself still every day. And I know you feel this too. It's the. Sometimes this sucks, this hurts. But I get to do this. I do this to do this. And every single step of that marathon. And it took me a very long time, that first one I ran. And I enjoyed every sing single second of it because it was so much better than sitting in that chair doing that hard thing. I was like, well, this, this is hard, but this is nothing compared to that and having that perspective in my life. I mean, every single day since that day, I sat in a chair getting chemo, had that kind of has been my thought process. Like, yeah, hard, but I get to do it. I'm choosing to do it.
• 14:53
  Speaker A: Yeah, I think no and yeah, like, no one would choose at 22 to get a diagnosis like that. And I always say no one is signing up going, you know what? I want two kids with non speaking autism. And then when it's thrust your way, the perspective that it gives you, what then you get to do makes things that are hard yet positive seem like a gosh, I mean, yeah, I get to do that now. Holy, holy crap. I mean, no one on their deathbed says, you know, I really, I really shouldn't have taken the time to invest.
• 15:24
  Speaker B: In myself such a. An intentional thing in everyday life in doing these hard things. I mean, you and I both have experiences that were thrust upon us that we didn't choose. And some people don't get that. And that's great if you're going through a life where you haven't had those hardships yet and you're so very blessed. However, that's why I feel like, you know, one thing I want, I'm very intentional about with my kids and with extreme prejudice.
• 15:55
  Speaker A: Don't want that glass of wine anymore.
• 15:57
  Speaker B: Yeah, exactly like that. To me, it's like such a turn off now. I'm like, no, I. That, yeah, it would just like undermine all of the greatness that's going on. Kevin calls it like the greatest life hack. He's like, you know, we just kind of sit on the couch. We're very boring now. But like, we'll just like, he'll just look at me and say, like, isn't it the best life hack that we just don't drink? Like, we as much as we don't think about drinking, so we don't want to. We do appreciate often how good it feels because we don't. I will say that it's something we talk about a lot. We'll say like, you have to. How great is it right now? Like, how great do you feel right now? Like, we just feel good. And he's like, the best life hack was to just. And. And how also easy is it to subtract something. Like the life hack really wasn't like going out and doing hard. Like, I know the act is hard, but it's just that we stopped doing one thing and it's been just. Just had such, such an impact on everything that we do. And I say we because it has really just been the journey of the two of us, like stopping. But it's life hack. It just, I mean, all thematically ties back to the hardest things have the most positive, lasting impact. And you know, I think about just the things that I do now, Would I have chose to do them if I hadn't stopped drinking two years ago? Like, I have these ideas and I just want. I've started my coaching business, I started my bag company. Like, I, I, I have all of these things that I do because I have so much energy. I feel really good, and so I do them. And I think it was a hard choice at one point. Like, I chose the hard. I'm not going to drink anymore. I really would like to change my life and I get to reap the benefits right now. And I think some people, if they could just choose that hard, would make so many other things in their life so much easier. But it's that seeing it as, as the hard decision to make of not drinking, I think is, yeah, I don't.
• 17:57
  Speaker A: Have as much fear of failure in general because it's like, well, I can just try something else. It. There's all these things that you never would realize come because of that choice. There's no alternative. Right. Like, nothing could make me go back.
• 18:11
  Speaker B: Nothing can make me go back. Nothing sounds less attractive to me. But it's also because I, like, I have really found myself. I think that was like, a big piece of it for me. Like, I change. I feel like I changed so much for the better. And yeah, I mean, I think just having such a supportive partner too, who, you know, Kevin wasn't drinking. It's something we do together. It's kind of like our badge of honor. We're, when the two of us are together, we're like, we just, we feel good. And it was that, like, thank God, every day that we made that decision to stop.
• 18:44
  Speaker A: And you bring your whole self. I always think about that. It's like, you bring your whole self. There's no representative being put into any relationship anymore. No representative.
• 18:53
  Speaker B: And I hope that the kids see that you don't need anything other than yourself to be the best version of yourself, that you don't need anything to change you, to help you, help those conversations, those college parties. Like, you can have just as much fun, in fact, more fun and be yourself without it.
• 19:12
  Speaker A: One of the coolest thing about autism is that they literally, Mac and me literally do not care what anyone thinks of them. Like, they only know how to be themselves.
• 19:21
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 19:21
  Speaker A: Full stop. And that was such an aha moment for me years ago. If I'm choosing to, to allow them to be the best versions of themselves and guide them, why would I not do the same for myself? That makes that, that in itself, like, no one should trust me, then. If I'm doing it for my kids, I'm doing it for myself. I mean, no one should ever listen to me. No one should ever follow me. No one should ever. No, I need to become the best version of who I'm meant to be. Unfortunately, I have societal conditioning. They don't. You know, 10, 20 years down the line. Yeah, it'll be hard, and at the same time, it won't be anything more than they actually are. So with that, do you have any final thoughts at all of choosing the hard thing?
• 20:02
  Speaker B: From the moment you told me about Inchtone and that just the phrase and the concept of it just resonated so deeply with me because it's not about, you know, doing things that other people expect that you should do on a certain time, you know, certain timeline or done a certain way. It's like these small moments where you're getting those wins, you're stacking them up, and you're feeling so good about yourself. Like, personally, I've gone through so many of those. Some things people wouldn't call milestones. Probably things that people. Other people wouldn't even celebrate because they were, like, hard things. Right. But for me, they were very deliberate, very intentional. You know, as I'm raising two amazing daughters, it's so imperative that we're every single piece of progress we have. Zela is recognized because even from daughter to daughter, Right. They don't look the same.
• 20:55
  Speaker A: I'm so proud of you. And we have seen different versions of Sarah and Meredith, but it's really wonderful to see where we are now, and I'm proud to know you.
• 21:03
  Speaker B: I'm proud to know you, too. I'm so happy to be on your podcast and just be your friend.