Latest / Authentic Living / Creating Positivity in Uncertain Times with Resiliency Expert, Ana Tajder

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Creating Positivity in Uncertain Times with Resiliency Expert, Ana Tajder · Authentic Living

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Welcome to authentic living with Roxanne, a place where we have as conversations about
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things that really matter in our lives.
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And now here's your host, Roxanne Derhodge.
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Hi, everyone.
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It's Roxanne Derhodge of authentic living with Roxanne.
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Thanks again for tuning in.
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Today, I have Anna Tasia.
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Tighter.
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Tighter.
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The joke is always I'm always like, it's like Tiger with a v.
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Oh, tighter.
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That's probably good for your interviews, I'm sure.
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The second joke is I should have made married Tiger Woods, so he becomes Tiger Tiger.
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That's that's true.
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That would
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have been fun.
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So Anna's, had quite a different path.
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And as you know, I talk a lot about resilience.
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So she's been gracious to come on and be able to share her path.
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So I'll tell you a little bit about her.
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She was born in Zagreb Croatia, and her mom her mom was an actress and an artist, Nagoda
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Kaloper, and her father was in architect, Radivan, Tiger.
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Tiger.
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Tiger.
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I'm gonna look at so when bombs started to reach Zagreb in, 1991.
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She fled to Vienna where she graduated with an MBA collected lots of experience with
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diplomacy, marketing, and advertising.
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And her first novel is from Barbie to vibrator, which we'll talk a little bit, and we've talked
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a little bit about that when we had a little chat.
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And that was published in 2008 and in in Croatia in 2009 in Austria.
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And you'd then you went on to write Tito Land, and then this book was published in Austria in
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2012.
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In Austria and then probation 13.
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She got massive, media coverage and was nominated for several German awards and Croatia
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newspapers and magazines, and you're finishing up your PhD in psycholubs
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So psychology and media studies, yes, communication studies and and sociology.
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It's
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very exciting.
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So I'm not sure how you do that a little boy and do all the
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I'm not.
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Say it some pause now, Brooke said, no.
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No.
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No.
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We're not pretending to be super women.
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No.
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And she never gave up her passion for, ballet dancer, which I didn't know earlier, and she
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put you presently teach at, the New York City.
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I no.
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No.
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No.
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No.
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I don't.
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I I I wish I did.
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What I I decided to tart teaching.
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So I got certified at New York City ballet.
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They have an amazing program or used to have called the New York City ballet workout, which
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is a workout based on ballet.
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So I'm certified to teach that, but then life happened after I got my certification.
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I also met my husband.
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Life happened.
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I did not start teaching ever start teaching maybe I will one day.
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Well, it sounds like a fascinating program because, of course, with ballerinas, we know
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how much they things that they have to do and how they have to be aware of their body.
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So hence was the pivot, and then she's got married, to your husband's an American best
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selling author and screenwriter.
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Nick Kelvin, and you have a son.
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And what's your son's name?
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My son's name is Kai, and he's five and a half, and he's so fun and so amazing.
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I know every mama says that for that.
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And he's at an extra plate with dragons.
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So we might have a little bit of a visitor, but we will try our best see how we typically
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they're you're on she's on quarantine, and she's in Seattle, and everybody's working from
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home and, obviously, Kai is also home from school, and I know our since we've talked, last
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couple of days, we're we're getting our all our schools here are starting to, you know, have
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people home.
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So we're kinda catching up compared to Seattle now.
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So let's jump right in knowing that we Now your story is quite fascinating, kind of, and let's
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talk a little bit about your path and what led you to write your books.
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And, we'll also talk a little bit about her new podcast, which discusses the stories that, our
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moms have taught us.
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And, so you tell me tell me a little bit about, you know, your upbringing and kind of that,
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beginning of Instagram where you were exposed to to war.
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I was born and raised in Zagreb, and back then it was Yugoslavia.
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When Yugoslavia was a country that was, created out of 6 different republics.
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Which have, in the meantime, separated.
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So Yugoslavia was a very fascinating social experiment in the way that we had to learn to
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accept everybody as 1 and become and live with brothers and sisters with people who had
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religions, different languages, different writings.
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We have, we we had officially Cyrillic script and Latin script in in Yugoslavia we had 6
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different languages, I think 5 different, religions and very different, mentalities and
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cultures.
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So I thought it was fascinating that we I grew up in a country like that.
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It's very sad.
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It later fell apart because of these differences.
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Also because of the, you know, the fall of the communist system.
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But what's even more fascinating about Yugoslavia, Tito's Yugoslavia, Tito was the
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president of who led you with Slavia through the 2nd World War, fighting Germans, and, he
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was a communist.
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But very, very early on.
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I think 1948, he already, split with a solid block.
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He did not like the rigidity of that communist system.
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So Tito managed the impossible, which is to balance between east and west between
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capitalism and communism.
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Yugoslavia became a neutral country.
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So we had it was called nicknamed Tito's Communism.
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We we lived in communism, which was actually more a socialist socialism, Communism, which
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was open to the west and the borders were open.
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There was a little bit of a free market.
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People were allowed to have private businesses So so Tito try to balance between communism and
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capitalism.
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I write a lot about that in my book, and this I started writing Titoland when the financial
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crisis broke out in 2007 and everybody said, we, you know, capitalism obviously failing,
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communism failed.
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What do we do?
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Do we have an alternative?
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So that inspired me to write about my childhood in a country which was experimenting with this
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alternative between communism and capitalism, what really stroke me and was the point, I
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think, of Titoland was that we everybody was safe.
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Everybody had the house.
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Hold, I mean, a roof over their head.
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Everybody had a job.
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Schools were free.
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My ballet was free.
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You know, we had this privileges in a way of living in communism, we were allowed to travel
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outside, but we weren't rich.
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Nobody was rich.
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There was no luxury So there was enough for everybody, and that created a very interesting
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state of mind for people as a ride in Titoland.
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What it means creatively and for the well-being of people when they feel safe and taken care
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of.
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And what it means to learn for me to grow up in learning that luxury and abundance is not the
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most important thing.
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Safety is more being safe enough to create and live your own life and exert your potential,
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you know, is as I learned more important than any kind of luxury and you know, being rich
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and, you know,
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and and then you went from that space
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Unfortunately, my childhood was a little a little rough because My parents' marriage was
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not the smoothest, especially not in the last few years of them being together.
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They fought a lot, and it would get physical sometimes, but parallel to that.
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So when my father said when they when they separated and my father left, I was diagnosed
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with scoliosis.
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And it was immediately when they found it, it was very bad.
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The curvature of my spine was already so bad.
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They put me in in braces, big braces.
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So I spent many, many years wearing this metal, you know, the big braces that hold the whole
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torso up.
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And they were so painful.
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Sometimes I would have open wounds on my back.
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It was really and this is you wear this 24 hours a day, as a child, as a teenager, you're
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stigmatized, you know, you're walking around with this thing.
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I was a ballerina.
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My mom was a ballerina when she was a little girl in her mother as well.
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It was very difficult for me.
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I was still allowed to go to ballet classes, but it was very difficult somebody used to a
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lot of physical movement and freedom to be stuck in this thing and stigmatized.
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And then parallel to that, the country started falling apart.
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You know, the the communist bloc started falling apart and that directly influenced us
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with Yugoslavia, what happened was that suddenly, these nationalistic ideas, start
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coming coming up and, people who used to see that each other as brothers were suddenly
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covered their roots and their nationalistic ideas.
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And this basically exploded in 9 T90 in a very, very bloody, what developed into a very, very
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bloody war in the Balkans Balkans.
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Unfortunately, at the same time, my doctor decided that the back brace did not help.
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My spine was getting worse.
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And he decided I need surgery, which is the very, very extremely difficult surgery.
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They you I had to go to a hospital 2 weeks before, and they like, in medieval times, they
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were literally stretching my fine every day with extra weights for 2 weeks to then operate
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on me.
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And what they do on the on the table is they stretch the spine again, and then they they,
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put a metal road to keep it straight.
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But then in order to know that you are able that they didn't damage any nerves and that you
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are able to move consciously move your limbs in which they warned me about, they woke me up
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while I was open on the table.
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Oh my goodness.
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To ask me to move my my legs and my my arms.
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And I have to tell you this is one of the most traumatic, you know, knowing that you are open.
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Like, it it was but they woke me up.
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I moved my legs and arms.
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I can still move my legs and arms.
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You currently can move quite well from the logs.
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Okay.
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And then I went through a very difficult, recovery, which they didn't tell me ahead of
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times where I was stuck in a cast whole body cast for 6 months, and then I still had to wear
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another back brace, a metal back brace for another 6 months.
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But what I'm very proud of is a year after the surgery, once I got rid of the back brace, I
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think even with the back brace, I was slowly allowed to go back to dancing.
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And a year or a year and a half after my surgery, I was back on stage with my with my
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metal rod in my back, I was very lucky that my ballet teacher who was choreographing our
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performances was aware and very supportive of my recovery and my limitations with my back.
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And I spent a year a year before the war broke out between my surgery and the war, dancing in
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a very beautiful piece on stage about the ocean.
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It was a very beautiful piece, and these were some of the happiest moments of my life.
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To have battled with all of it and be on stage with my the latest from my ballet group and you
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know, receive that love from the audience that was a big that was amazing.
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And then, unfortunately,
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So the support from your mother through that, like, dad was was that involved?
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Was he there?
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No.
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My father in the meantime moved to Oce Vienna.
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And he was very busy building his career in Vienna, Austria.
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My mother was there, and she was amazing.
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My mother was always, I mean, my mom and I were like, twin sisters.
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I am an only child.
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She lost her parents where she was very, very young.
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Mhmm.
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So I think in me, she created the family that she missed.
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And we always had crazy close relationship.
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We were best friends and sisters, and, she was incredibly supportive of me always.
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But now I'm learning now that I'm looking back at our life and and her life, I'm writing a
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book about her and lessons I learned from her.
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What was interesting is that she did manage while giving me this endless love and support.
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She did manage to keep herself herself.
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You know, she she never clunked to me in a way.
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She she hid her friends and herself and her career, she somehow managed to never create a
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sick dependence You know what I mean?
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Uh-uh.
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Like, animesh kind of situation.
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She somehow was able to, allow you love you unconditionally, it sounds like, but to also
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not get enmeshed where even though she didn't you're an only child, she could let still out,
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allow you to be or evolve into who you needed to be.
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Who I need and she allowed herself to be who she needed to.
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Right.
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Now as a mother, I see how important it you know, that that in a way, it's easier.
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It is and isn't easy, but there's a trick of slipping into motherhood where you just
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disappear and you become the big mother.
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Right.
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It was very for me, what I'm learning now and trying to figure out now is exactly this
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balance between giving unconditional love and support, but still being your own person, you
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know, be still not being dependent on this child and and this relationship and and being
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your own.
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Your own person with your own life and your own career and your own, you know?
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So culturally, you you talked about something very interesting.
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You said, that, Instagram at that time, you know, there was that that internal space of
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safety, the culture, the internal space, that was something that was quite different,
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obviously, to democracy, which is so different.
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It's so capitalistic, which is is is very, you know, you it's eye to eye and the impact on
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that.
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So that whole element of safety, how do they kind of play out in your life?
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Because I'm gonna assume that that space created something that maybe say someone like
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myself who grew up in democracy It might be a bit remiss for someone like me.
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How do you think that kind of played out with you?
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You know, with me, what happened then I think is what what is also important because then
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this war broke out and And it was a war, you know, and we had the first arid in in Zagreb,
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and we had to hide in our basements listening to these fighter jets flying above our heads,
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we were already confronted with images of war and the other parts of Croatia for a few months
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We knew what it meant.
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We knew what a bloodbath meant.
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You know, what destroyed buildings meant.
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And, it was extremely scary and stressful.
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Now at that stage, my father, as I mentioned, was already in Vienna, I was sitting in the
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basement.
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I was so scared.
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I had very serious heart populations, and and I had I was uncontrollably shaking from fear.
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And my mom got worried about my health.
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And when the errands stopped, we managed to to take the last train to also it was a bizarre
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experience because the whole city was still in in in dark.
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We were in a blackout and we escaped.
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We just pack the most necessary things and took this last train to to Vienna and arrived to
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Vienna thinking this is only going to last a few days.
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We'll go back but it lasted for a few years.
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It got even bloodier and worse.
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And I basically, at age of seventeen, absolutely unexpectedly, literally from one day
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to the other, had to build a new life in a city in a country where I did not speak language.
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I didn't speak German.
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And, basically, I I built a life out of a suitcase.
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A year or 2 years after the very horrible back surgery that I went through.
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So, you know, the this feeling of safety in my for me personally is I, unfortunately, through
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experiences I had in my life, I can only say what I've learned in my life is that life is
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full of can be full of surprises some people.
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Some people's life are just like this.
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It's amazing.
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I talk to my friends, you know, 6 months after my son was born, my husband got diagnosed with
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cancer for the second time and had to go into horrible, horrible chemotherapy.
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And these things happened in my life you know, and then I talked to my friends, and some of my
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friends are like, this is incredible.
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What you've experienced in my life is like this.
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Like, and they're like, I tried changing something, nothing ever happens.
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So I've learned for myself that we have to create that feeling of safety and a safe life
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for ourselves, which for me means not striving towards unnecessary things.
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Being happy creating a life that's safe in a sense.
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I have my roof over my head.
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I can pay my bills.
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I have the basic things that make me happy and that I need the rest of the energy instead of
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trying to accomplish.
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I don't know what in in in earn millions, I'm going to invest into creating what makes me
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happy because I know that things can happen, you know, bad things can happen.
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Can happen at any time and, it's important to to to enjoy the moment.
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So some of that mindset, I would say, started obviously based on where you grew up.
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You had a bit of uncertainty, obviously, with your parents, you had a strong mother that gave
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you some core fundamentals and but she also allowed you to grow into becoming who you
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needed to be.
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Obviously, in somebody that is very creative, that writes, obviously, you danced and, you
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know, lucky.
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1 of the nice privilege in it must have felt like a feat when you got out of a year of being
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incapacitated and and being able to.
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I mean, it's kind of like a reverse, I would think, you know, to be able to.
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A lot of pain, but but I over come dead and it was amazing.
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It was really.
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Yeah.
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So and I I go back to again, you know, that whole concept like you with your PhD and
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thinking about that in the western world or philosophy or mindset that there there's always
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that striving, that striving
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or Yeah.
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You know, I'm gonna do I'm gonna achieve this.
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So I'm gonna make this $1,000,000 this.
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So I'm gonna and there's always that look ahead.
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And then it sounds like some of the things that you've experienced it's made you in loss, and
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I'm gonna use the word loss, it's made you more present, which is such a case.
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Right?
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So you'll often talk to people and I talk to people you know, in my practice or in kind of
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corporate, you know, North America that when they go through major loss, and they're at that
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hypercritical time, then they become mindful.
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And it sounds like that's something that's learned fortunate or unfortunately, I'm gonna
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say fortunately to recognize that, you know, the the accoutrements of everything outside of
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us really, you know, what what are they?
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If you'd if you're not able to kind of be internal and enjoy some of the basic things.
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I'm I'm trying here is an example.
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You know, I'm trying to find what makes me truly happy?
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What what is it?
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And and it sounds cliche, but we often think, oh, if my book was a best seller, I would be so
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happy.
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It's not, you know, it me a lot of work to fear to accept that what makes me happy sitting down
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and writing the book.
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And and but to be fair, also having people read it and talk to me.
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I love the dialogue.
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I love this idea that what I've created and what made me so happy through the creative
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process is has reached somebody and that and especially entering into dialogue with this
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somebody.
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I've learned to accept that it's not being famous, a famous author, or having a best
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seller.
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It's this process.
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You know, I'm trying to pinpoint what what is it that really fulfills me and make me happy.
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Same thing with external things.
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Of course, you think a palace would, I'd love to live in a palace, you know.
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But then I just bought a tiny little apartment back home in Vienna, and, I'm gonna turn that
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into a palace.
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You know what I mean?
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I'm gonna make this space into something that's gonna make me happy no matter how big or
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expensive or cheap or whatever it is.
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I think this is what I'm trying to learn is
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So it's about it's about the process.
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It's not about the endpoint, which is really what we see a lot of people.
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You know, when you see any and, I mean, you've been you've lived in LA and I'm sure I've seen
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I just saw one of your posts about your mother-in-law and what she who was she was
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around?
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And I just shared, that her mother-in-law was, the personal assistants, and I to, the Rolling
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Stones, and she was next to big jaguaranda pitcher.
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So you've been around and, obviously, your husband the same.
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Right?
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And you've lived there, so you understand that world.
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And, you know, it's always I'm always going back to the basics when we think of when we
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have the losses of these famous people that are, you know, they have everything.
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They have all the materialistic pinnacles.
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And then then you hear their inner worlds and, you know, incongruents.
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You know?
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We've we've lived we lived in Los Angeles for 8 years or 9 years, and we were in the middle of
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the the the industry.
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And we were lucky through my husband's work to be really immersed into the thing and mingle
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with some of those people.
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I've never seen so many unhappy people anywhere else.
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Not unhappy like like actively unhappy or unhappy, but they are everybody's racing for
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something.
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I can stay in the racing for something that they're not really aware of, you know, why and
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what, and this is so important.
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And then this whole industry is just a big battlefield of this people racing for
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something.
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And even when they reach when they reach it, they learn that it's not it.
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You know?
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It's it's it's not it.
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Of course.
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And, you know, and I and I think that's that's the world that I live in around mental
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resilience.
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Right?
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Like, you know, what's the prize?
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Like, is the prize over there, or is it really right here?
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Right?
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But that's the question I'm posing.
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Do I care about being the best selling author and sitting on opera show, you know, and being
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more to millions of people, or do I care about creating my writing my book and sharing it with
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people and talking to people about it and, you know, touching people in some way and and
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entering a dialogue with them.
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I think for me personally, that kind of illustrates it the best.
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Well, it's the in intrinsic for this versus the extrinsic, right, because, unfortunately, I
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think we're in that world and we're in that tempo, that digital economy.
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We're getting caught up with how, you know, like they say how many likes and, you know,
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even people talking about being, staying at home now and guess what?
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You know, people are talking about how am I gonna cope, right, because they're because
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they're gonna be isolated and and then what what's gonna happen to the digital explosion
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then?
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Are we are we really are we gonna be maxing out because we wanna connect, or is it just because
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we're bored?
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You know, because how many people are so accustomed to being at that tempo where they
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don't have to tag to stop and to think really would it should be a reflective kind of nice
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time, but I think it will be interesting to see how people just from what I'm seeing being
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posted that peep a lot of people are gonna have a tough time with it.
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I know.
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But maybe it's gonna be healthy for us.
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It's definitely going to be healthy for planet.
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It's amazing seeing those maps of China, the pollution maps.
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We we'll definitely do a service to the planet right now when staying at home and cutting our
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productivity.
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But I think it will give us a chance to to turn inwards and and face ourselves in our lives and
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be like, okay.
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If I don't have all this distraction, who am I?
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What am I?
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What?
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What's fun for me?
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You know, who are these people I'll live with?
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Okay.
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I like them now.
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I'm not so sure.
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10 minutes.
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I've been 6 weeks.
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Let's talk a little bit about the creativity that came from this whole process.
26:17
You've written, and I wanna talk a little bit about the first book because and and I know
26:22
it's it's Now it's I don't know if it's translated into English and tino land.
26:26
So let's talk because I always go back to, you know, and all the things that I talk about in
26:31
anticity, whether I'm talking to a front end person that's wanting to get more connected to,
26:37
you know, CEOs.
26:38
At the end of the day, it's our responsibility to look internally because without that
26:43
internal space, it's kinda hard to impact change, you know, because we're so, like, to
26:48
the point of We're so disconnected that we're just kinda like robots and we're going after
26:53
the the next thing and the next thing, versus kind of going internally.
26:57
Well, that almost killed me.
26:59
I told you about my my experience with burnout because, funnily enough, growing up with my 2
27:04
artists parents, I decided that I will not be penniless and, decided to study marketing
27:12
management and then do my MBA.
27:15
To the big shock of my parents because I grew up in this creative environment, and everybody
27:20
always expected for me to, you know, enter that field.
27:25
And I did that.
27:26
And I I worked in diplomacy for 4 years, and then I started building a corporate career,
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which actually went very, very well.
27:34
But this was obviously so foreign to me and and me personally, but also my upbringing and and
27:39
just my nature.
27:41
That after 11 years of that, in spite of it being very successful I burned out, I really
27:47
had a very, very serious case of Bernard, both psychological and physical, and luckily, that
27:57
stage I already started writing my book without knowing I'm writing a book.
28:00
I just started writing stories.
28:03
And it it it was very hard.
28:08
When I started writing the book and realized this is becoming more than just putting some
28:12
notes on paper, I've learned what it means to be creatively fulfilled or what it means to be
28:18
fulfilled with work you do.
28:20
It doesn't have to be creative.
28:21
It could be may you know, you could be a doctor and go into operation room and be like, this is
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it.
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I've learned finally what it means to be fulfilled with your work.
28:32
And for me, it was clear that I have to resign.
28:35
Otherwise, I knew if I go back, I will it it would crash me both physically and and
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psychologically, I took the gap and said, okay, I'm quitting, and I want to turn this into my
28:48
profession.
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I was lucky enough.
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My writing was born under a lucky star, and I always say my writing found me.
28:56
I didn't find it literally found me.
29:00
So it guided me.
29:01
You know, things just and this is what all the spiritual things tell you when you're when
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you're on the right path, doors will just open.
29:08
Doors were just opened things miracles were happening.
29:11
Doors were opening.
29:12
People were celebrating my work.
29:15
I discovered what the creative outlet means.
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And what I unintentionally discovered was that how you can touch other people with your
29:25
stories, how you can help other people unintentionally.
29:28
You put your story out there, and suddenly writer, readers write emails and come back to
29:35
you and say how much that helped them in this world.
29:37
They are totally unexpectedly, and that that was it's one of the most beautiful parts of my
29:43
work.
29:44
And, you know, it's it's it's interesting, right?
29:47
Cause, likewise, when I wrote mine, I really didn't have a space other than I thought, okay.
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I've, you know, I've done the corporate bit now.
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And, you know, it was it was pretty tough at the end.
29:59
And, you know, as as most corporate environments are, and then I decide, well, what
30:03
do I do now?
30:05
And I had written in grad school.
30:07
I've done a lot of business writing.
30:09
I'd really never the thought of writing a book, unlike you though, Anna, I didn't grow up in a
30:13
creative.
30:13
I grew up in a business family.
30:15
And so I was the opposite.
30:17
And and then out of nowhere, this whole thing about, what do I do?
30:21
Well, I talk to people about how they relate, and I'm a relationship person.
30:26
And I could see whether it was somebody that had just been, been a victim to a crime or a
30:31
CEO at a a senior executive level, that really were in that arena of relationships.
30:37
And, well, that's where I've lived my world.
30:39
And that's where it came about.
30:41
And I thought, well, maybe I'll just kinda write about that.
30:44
Not thinking of anything.
30:46
And then to your point, when you get the feedback about people saying, you know, I read
30:50
this.
30:51
And then, you know, what it inspired me to do is go out and, you know, you know, I always
30:58
wanted a career in, ness, but I was always afraid because I was a bigger woman, and I
31:03
never thought I could.
31:04
And, you know, there were so many things that helped me back.
31:07
And then I went out and I started it, and then I I can't believe because, you know, I read a
31:12
bit of your story that that inspired me to go out and do this.
31:15
I just thought you should know.
31:17
You know what I mean?
31:18
Yeah.
31:18
Yeah.
31:19
And I'm like, wow.
31:20
Right?
31:20
You don't know to your point when you're doing that.
31:23
But I think that inner creativity Yeah.
31:25
Because it's coming from a deep space inspires people because so many people can relate to
31:29
what you're writing about.
31:30
Yes.
31:30
Right?
31:31
Yep.
31:32
So
31:33
tell us about the podcast because I think
31:35
this is We see about the podcast, and then I have to go see one of the heroes is doing.
31:39
He's probably created a drag he's playing with dragons in the next room.
31:42
So let's talk really quickly about the podcast.
31:44
And then, and then we'll wrap up, and we'll talk a little bit about where people could
31:48
catch, you know, kinda hold of it.
31:50
And anywhere else that they could buy the books?
31:53
So, I already talked about my mom who was my best friend and my sister and my partner in
32:01
life.
32:03
My big biggest coach in life and and Finn My my best friend and I concluded how hard it is now
32:10
that I've lost my mom, how hard it is to become your own coach and your own cheerleader at the
32:15
same time, which my mom was.
32:19
I lost my mom very, very surprisingly to cancer 3 3 years ago.
32:26
And, 2 years of well, I'm sorry, I'm confused about times, but last spring, I sat down and
32:37
decided to make notes out of lessons she taught me.
32:41
I suddenly got this panic feeling that I'm going to forget everything she told me and
32:46
everything she taught me.
32:48
So I sat down and started writing these just as not, you know, things my mama told me, and then
32:53
that developed into lessons I've learned from her.
32:55
So I started writing a book, which was meant to be lessons she taught me, but I think it's
33:01
becoming her biography through the lessons she she taught me.
33:04
She was an amazing woman.
33:06
She had 2 very successful careers.
33:08
She was, celebrated award winning movie extras, a beautiful, beautiful woman celebrated for her
33:16
beauty as well.
33:17
In the same time, she was she finished Academy of, fine arts, and she was, just as equally
33:25
celebrated and awarded visual artists and graphic designer.
33:27
She had 2 parallel couriers while doing that still in the seventies, she would fly to
33:33
Africa, bring bring food and medication to hungry children personally.
33:37
You know, she was created a foundation and was she was always a very loud feminist.
33:43
She was always a very strong activist.
33:46
She was an amazing woman.
33:49
What really inspired me was that I went the age of sixty three, she created or made her own
33:57
first art movie, which she directed wrote and made by herself, which suddenly started winning
34:03
awards, and she got invited to movie festival, film festivals, and now it's a it's it's part
34:10
of the, museum for contemporary art and zagreb.
34:15
So even at the end of her life, at the age of sixty, she again reinvented herself and started
34:21
something new, which became So I thought her life, I I would love to give her life and her
34:28
lessons to other women, young, young, and not so young.
34:32
As inspiration.
34:33
You know?
34:34
So I started writing this book and then talking to my friends about the book, it was
34:38
interesting how they always started thinking and talking about what they've learned from
34:44
their mothers.
34:45
And then I realized how we never really articulate this.
34:50
We never think and articulate.
34:52
What did my mother teach me, or what did she not teach me?
34:54
Which is very interesting for me.
34:56
I always ask my guests, what were of any of the lessons in your life that you had to learn
35:01
yourself because your mother was not able to teach you for this reason or either.
35:06
So the whole idea of the podcast just happened very suddenly spontaneously, like all the best
35:11
things.
35:12
And I decided to interview women from all over the world, which is very to me as I'm so so
35:18
international and don't have a real, a real I don't know what to call it root or not root,
35:26
but, you know, I interview women from everywhere in in the world.
35:32
From different backgrounds, ages, professions, very different situations about their mothers.
35:39
So we talk about their mothers' lives any lessons that matters taught them or we're not
35:44
able to teach them.
35:46
I love the idea in the beginning when I just came out with it.
35:49
Now I've recorded 14 interviews, and I have to tell you whatever new interview I've been more
35:54
excited and loved with it.
35:56
It's it's a beautiful topic.
35:58
And and and the women so happy and grateful they can share the mothers in that way and give
36:05
something of their mothers to the world, you know, So it's a very exciting project.
36:11
It's called Thank you, Mama, and I'm just about to launch it.
36:15
It can be found on my website at tighter.com, or I'm still waiting for Apple Podcasts to
36:23
launch it, but it's basically in the process of being able to found everywhere where people is
36:27
to to podcasts?
36:30
Well, you know, I I just, it it's it's such an amazing thing because you think of all the
36:34
stories never really kind of put it together.
36:36
That way, it's like kinda like sitting around with your girlfriends, having some hors
36:40
d'oeuvres and a glass of wine, and the things that you talk about.
36:42
And, really, it sounds more like that kind of gathering where we talk about a lot of things.
36:47
It sounds like that's what the podcast will bring.
36:49
Yeah.
36:50
So so, Anna, thanks so much.
36:51
I know we have to wrap up So for everyone, I guess my message, my what I'm hearing here is
36:56
that we all have that creative space.
37:00
Right?
37:00
And it it, you know, just it doesn't take an, like, to Anna's point, life is full and it will
37:05
keep bringing things our way.
37:07
That you can in slowing and maybe taking this opportunity that so many people are being
37:11
quarantined now, not to look at it as a penance of some sort and how I'm gonna get it get
37:16
through this, but to to really welcome the opportunity to take the time, to really spend
37:22
time quietly, not not be binging on certain things just to distract yourself, but take it
37:27
to the opportunity to write a little bit or to maybe, do activities that you always think.
37:31
I'm gonna I'm gonna do this when I have the time.
37:35
Take the time.
37:36
Spend the time.
37:37
Find that space and see what comes.
37:38
And you never know what's gonna come.
37:40
Because we often don't slow down long enough to be able to, get to that space.
37:46
But do you know who works in?
37:47
I I'm sorry to interrupt you, but That's okay.
37:49
I'm what what I like because people who are creative are blessed by having this creative
37:57
outlet and having a and talent.
37:59
There are people who don't, you know, in in putting stress on people by saying, the the
38:06
blessing is in creativity.
38:09
I think what people what's the point is to find what makes you clear next, you know, because
38:15
the point is to become a happy person so you just give happiness to the world.
38:20
If it is sitting in your garden and watching birds, Go do it.
38:25
You know?
38:26
Yes.
38:26
This is, you know, or if, again, if you're the the terrier and you like working with animals,
38:32
and this is what may to a happy person, go do it.
38:35
If it's just going out and taking a walk, you know, looking at clouds, this is one of my
38:40
favorite things in the world to do.
38:42
I I think because I do have plenty of friends who are like you're lucky that you found
38:47
writing because I don't have I wish I could find something that fulfills me creative it
38:52
doesn't find something that fulfills you, that just fulfills you and makes you a happy person
38:58
go do that.
38:58
You know?
38:59
Swinging.
39:00
What whatever it is.
39:02
Yeah.
39:02
It's just just it doesn't have to
39:04
be besides happiness.
39:05
Right.
39:05
Figure it out.
39:06
Like, what's what's what's that?
39:08
What's gonna make me happy.
39:09
Some people love to bake.
39:10
I would I can't bake, but I I appreciate that some people are so creative in so many
39:15
different ways.
39:16
So so your points just Find that space.
39:19
Find that activity.
39:20
Whatever it is, find it, and do it because it makes you happy.
39:25
And when you're happy, make everybody Everybody else happy.
39:29
Right?
39:29
And you're gonna find that out because you're gonna be stuck with them for quite a long bit
39:33
there without the structure.
39:34
So and I Next again, we her website will be in the show notes, and also the ability to, linked
39:43
to the podcast will be there also.
39:45
And, you know, the words of wisdom I'm getting is, You never know when something difficult
39:52
happens, it affords us a space to be able to reflect and go internally.
39:58
So now, again, because of where we are in 2020 with what we're experiencing, that space is
40:04
coming to us.
40:04
Maybe not in a way that we want it to be given, but it is a space utilize that space, figure it
40:09
out, whatever's gonna make you happy, do a little bit more of it, and enjoy that time.
40:13
So again, Anna, thanks so much.
40:15
And hopefully, hopefully, he he's not been up
40:19
to too many.
40:21
It's a gentle break leak.
40:22
My husband was allowed to make his phone call.
40:24
He's working in the other room or like he's earphones.
40:27
So, again, thanks everybody.
40:28
If you're needing any more, information on resilience, you can reach me at Derhodge com,
40:34
and I'm an keynote speaker, a coach, and a consultant.
40:37
Take care.
40:38
We'll talk to
40:39
you soon.
40:40
Okay.
40:40
Bye bye.
40:42
Thanks for tuning in to authentic living with Roxanne, creating the space for positive,
40:47
healthy change.
40:49
Roxanne is a keynote speaker psychotherapist and coach to work with Roxanne, visit
40:55
rocksandurhaj.com/blueprint.
40:59
We'll see you next time.
41:01
On authentic living with Roxanne.