[00:00:00] Walter: The Hearts of Gold Podcast is brought to you by the Grow and Share Network, produced by off the Walter Media.
[00:00:11] Sheryl: Welcome to Hearts of Gold. Today we have Ripley with us. Hi Ripley.
[00:00:15] Ripley: Hi.
[00:00:17] Sheryl: Can you tell us about your Girl Scout Gold Award project?
[00:00:20] Ripley: I wrote a book, which sounds as crazy as it was. My book discusses the idea of being disabled in a community that only disabled if you actually have a visible disability.
[00:00:32] Mine was invisible. Specifically discusses my journey with multiple chronic illnesses, and then as a medical unicorn having over seven. Conditions that are classified as one in a million or rarer. And growing up with these throughout the public healthcare system and the public school system and some of the failures that happened within that, specifically around women.
[00:00:52] And the mental health aspect, one of the things I specifically focused on was the idea that I not only had to self-diagnose because I was misdiagnosed so many times with psychological issues such as anxiety or an eating disorder, things like that, but also the fact that. People who do receive a psychological misdiagnosis can take up to five times longer to be diagnosed with what’s actually going on.
[00:01:15] And discussing that journey and discussing kind of where and how as a community, but also as an individual, you can help yourself through that process. Or as a community member, you could help someone else who may be struggling with their health. So it specifically redefines the idea of what disability looks like or what it should look like.
[00:01:31] And then talks about ableism. Inside of the book and then inside of our community and what you as a teacher, a parent, a friend, a family member can do to help someone in your life who may be suffering. Since we know that almost half of suffer with one chronic illness, whether at level.
[00:01:50] Sheryl: Such an important topic because you truly don’t know what’s going on in someone’s life and you can’t always observe what’s really happening.
[00:02:00] Such a personal project. How did you have the confidence to share your experiences and create your book and your project out of that?
[00:02:11] Ripley: I had kept a journal, found my life and writer. I love writing, I’ve been writing my whole life. So the idea of writing a book was not actually the daunting piece.
[00:02:18] The daunting piece was the timeline I gave myself to do it because I did not actually receive inspiration, confidence enough to step into my Girl Scout gold award project until I was graduating high school. And so I gave myself 10 months to complete this project. But it was thanks to my professor in what my college creative writing class that I wrote a final project.
[00:02:37] It was. I think my final was like 27 pages, and it was like three times whatever our page count was supposed to be. And it was my journey of the surgery that I had had during that semester, and the fact that the surgery was one that quite literally saved my life, like I probably wouldn’t have made it to the end of the semester without it.
[00:02:53] And so I discussed about that, and in the process of sharing it at the end of the semester, my professor and all of my classmates were still on Zoom at that point. So the way she did it was we would send our projects in, we would get to skip a class period where they had like a discussion about it. And then the next class period when we came back, we got to be involved and then get feedback like through the camera and things like that.
[00:03:13] And so when I came back that next class period, after being able to send my piece out to be read and shared and things like that, everyone looked at me and went, why haven’t you written a book? And I went, What do you, what do you mean why haven’t, I written a book and I was like, who would care? And they’re like, oh my God, everyone would care.
[00:03:28] They’re like, not only is this story appalling and tragic, but it’s also beautiful and the fact that you’re still alive and there are people out there who do specialize in these things and do provide these resources. They’re like, people may know about this. People need to hear your story. And then the process of this whole conversation, I shared with them that this was only.
[00:03:47] One out of a bazillion other things that I’d been dealing with throughout the time and they were like, oh my God, no, you have to write a book. And so I went back through and I looked at all of the Girl Scout Gold Award like standards and what it’s to get a project and I write. I mean, that’s crazy to do in 10 months, but I could totally write a book.
[00:04:05] It fits the standards. And so that’s what I did. I came to the council and I went, so I wanna write a book. And they were like, you do know you’re technically no longer a Girl Scout in 10 months. And I was like, I know it sounds crazy, but just go with me on this one. And they went Okay. And said yes. And that was my confidence piece.
[00:04:22] Having the support from council to be like, I think you’re crazy. But if you think you can do it, okay. And then that professor who was truly like, no, the world, the world needs to hear this story. The world needs to understand some of the things that happen behind closed doors, you know, inside the human body where you can’t see it.
[00:04:37] So that was really, she was really my spark. And then the rest of the classmates I mean she was not the only one.
[00:04:41] Sheryl: How did you balance using the creative process that you need in order to write a book with maintaining all of the expectations and hitting all of the requirements of the Gold Award project?
[00:04:55] Ripley: The book was kind of the easiest part of that. It takes way more than 50 hours to write a book. So that was easy. I think I spent 50 hours alone on just editing. Like I spent 20 designing my cover, like, so the hours piece was easy. The sustainability portion had to do with how and where I chose to publish.
[00:05:13] And that was really dictated by the support that I was able to receive. It was one of my biggest challenges. Was the book writing. You have kind of your traditional route or your self-publishing route and your traditional route is you go to an agent, usually with an idea or like a finished first draft and they go, yeah, I love this.
[00:05:30] We’d love to contract with you and publish your book, and they help you edit, design market, and all of that. And that’s every traditional path is a little bit different, but that’s kind of the rough guidelines. Well, I can’t go to an agent. I can’t pay for anything in the Girl Scout Gold Award project.
[00:05:44] So that kind of immediately knocked it off the table though I entertained it going, would someone be willing to sponsor? Would I be able to find someone? We have some people that I’m aware of that I’m friends with who have like parents or friends who are publishers and things like that. So I talked to some of them and everyone kinda looked at me and went, No, it’s, it’s too expensive to do something like that.
[00:06:01] You know, it’s too expensive to edit a book. No one, no one’s gonna donate that time. And I talked to probably over 50 book editors who were both private or independently contracted. And then those InVigor publishing agencies and everyone’s like, I charge anywhere from 50 to 75 cents a word. And with the average book being over a hundred thousand words, there’s like, there’s no way I’m gonna do that for free.
[00:06:21] And so that was, that was kind of what determined it for me. I was like, well, I need to figure out how to do this on my own, you know, throughout the process. Even as I got closer to the end, I continued reaching out to people going, Hey, would you be willing to sponsor? Would you be willing to have fun this?
[00:06:31] And no one really was. So I took some graphic design courses and I learned how to design my own book cover. I use the Kindle Direct publishing source because Amazon is one of the biggest platforms that I could publish on and it ships internationally, which would allow me to not have to worry about those shipping costs independently after the fact.
[00:06:50] And it would allow me to keep that sustainability function of it on not only a national but international level. And so I worked with them and I had to design and format my own book. I designed and formatted my own cover and had to get that. Put into the Amazon program and then combine everything together.
[00:07:10] And then went through three different like iterations of like figuring out what I liked for the cover in a format and everything before I kind of finally pressed like the final, like submit. Yes. Ok. In the process of all this though, I learned, well, I learned how to edit. I’d been editing for years through school and stuff like that, but I had to go back through and edit my own book and my own work and things like that.
[00:07:30] And that was probably the hardest and most time consuming piece because consider I had 10 months, it probably took me about eight to write the whole thing and then going back through and editing. Most authors when they’re doing this, they take two to three, to five to seven months off, or even up to years before they go back through and reread their work.
[00:07:49] And so I went through immediately and was rereading my work. And so it was really hard not to change a bunch of things or try to rewrite it in that process. I had to really keep that creative process very structured. And even I’ve gone back through and I’ve seen, you know, months later and I was like, oh, that’s spelled wrong.
[00:08:06] Oh, well, and there’s actually a little segment, I think the last chapter, if I remember the last chapter segment, last chapter in my book, talks about the fact that this book was entirely, there was no money put into this book at any point. And so the fact that there are probably spelling and grammar errors due to the things like that and just talking about the fact that this book is imperfect, but the story in the world and things are imperfect and that’s ok.
[00:08:26] So that was probably the hardest part in keeping with the sustainability, was feeling like I could create a published, you know polished piece without needing a gazillion dollars in funding and being able to do it on my own. Are there future books in your future? My journey is obviously not complete.
[00:08:44] I’m still ill, I’m still fighting and things like that, and so I kinda discuss that in the book. I chose to call it Unicorns childhood because its, which for me was a very, The medical journey and then while I was in the book was a very nice like kind of finalized stopping point where there’s still a bunch of things that you don’t know as the reader and you don’t quite understand, you don’t have answers for, but at the same time it still open doors into, I was a much healthier person at 18.
[00:09:08] I was no longer at in the active stages of dying basically at 18, without spoiling the book, I was much healthier. And so you have this kind of what feels like a really nice kind of conclusion or. I hate to call it a happy ending cuz the book is not by any means, like a happy ending sort of book, but a happier place or a healthier place.
[00:09:26] But obviously like I’m still fighting and things like that, you know. At this year alone, I’ve been through a surgery and I’m expected to go through two more sort of a thing. I do believe that continuing that story at some point is very important. I also do enjoy writing in other places. I have a couple of different literary publications through magazines and things like that.
[00:09:45] That I’ve done that are all kind of surrounding that medical side of things. So with poetry and then creative non-fiction, that’s kind of where I dabble in. I don’t enjoy much function, but that’s kind of what I enjoy with. But yes, I love writing and I would continue to write for the rest of my life probably.
[00:10:01] Sheryl: What’s a favorite story that’s come out of your gold award experience?
[00:10:05] Ripley: So the first time I went back in to look at sales and things like that and going, well, where have I sold to? How many have I sold? And it was. I wanna say it was like three months after the book was like published and my gold award was finalized.
[00:10:18] And I went back in and I didn’t see like the number of books sold right away, but I saw the number of countries reached and then my most popular country, and I had reached, I believe it was 19 countries, and my most popular was Germany. And I was like, well, that seems backwards. So I delved into this whole report thing and I had actually sold more copies of my books outside of the United States than inside of the United States, which I thought was.
[00:10:43] Just really interesting, especially like if you’re into like politics and things like that, the way the rest of the world views in the United States. I thought that that was really interesting that a book that’s specifically about like the failures of the American healthcare system was more popular outside of the place where it’s happening.
[00:10:58] And to me that was just funny on kind of a political or international level, going back in and realizing, I wanna say, I wanna say it was three months after I have to give you a number. I had sold just shy of almost 300 copies and I was like, I’ve done no marketing on this book. Like people have just found this on Amazon or I don’t know, you know, just Googled a unicorn’s childhood and it like, I had done no marketing at this point, like I had not gotten into that and started doing that and being able to see that even without that marketing and things like that, that my project was being sustainable and it was selling.
[00:11:34] So that was probably, I think, the coolest or most interesting story.
[00:11:38] Sheryl: Yeah. And people that aren’t in the book world may not realize that like 300 is like a gigantic number. It’s gigantic. So that is amazing. I
[00:11:51] Ripley: was expecting like maybe 50 at some point 300 was not. Anywhere in my realm of expectations.
[00:11:57] Sheryl: And like you said, you haven’t done marketing, you do have some social media where you have shared pieces. Can you tell us about your social media and what that has been like?
[00:12:07] Ripley: Technically, I’m not sure if I’m millennial or like the generation in between millennials or Gen Zs, but I’m very much a social media nerd.
[00:12:12] I love it. It’s fun. But I’m the one person who’s like, I know you’re supposed to post regularly to like get followers, but I post if, when I feel like it, and sometimes that means I’m posted for like eight months and people are really like, dude where’d you go? And I’m like, I just live. But so my social media, I have a good Reads profile because I am a massive reader.
[00:12:32] I mean, you’ve got books behind me, there’s more books on that side. And so that’s a really nice platform for me, and it’s simple and easy to track as well as it was really nice to be able to put my book on there and go, Hey guys, you’re interested. I have a book. You can read it. Most of my marketing slash educational stuff about my book or other information is done through
[00:12:50] my TikTok and then my Instagram page, which is where I, I just kind of, I mean, I post about normal stuff, but I also post about my health journey and things like that. So that has more like current updates outside of, you know, or past what the book talks about and things like that. As well as it talks about, I’m an equestrian and so I post, you know, cute photos of my pony and things like that on there.
[00:13:09] But my TikTok is mostly where I do it. Just every once in a while I talk about it or I’ll read like a small section of the book and be like, Hey, if this interests you, go pick up my book. I’m not a huge into the like, pushy side of promotions where you’ve got like a gazillion ads or it’s the same person doing the same thing every once in a while, like every, you know, other day or something.
[00:13:26] So I’m one of those. I throw it out occasionally. I think earlier this month I threw out that I was just shy of. I don’t remember what it was, but I was just shy of like another like hundred marker. I wanna say it was like five or 600. And I was like, Hey, if we could meet this by, you know, I think I said May 1st or whatever, let’s go for it.
[00:13:42] And just threw that out there and went. So people are interested, they wanna support a young up and coming author, we can do this. A lot of my promotional stuff comes from so I, I talk about writing a lot. I’m the, I’m one of the vice presidents or board members on our creative writing club at the college that I go to.
[00:14:00] And then I’m also a part of what’s called the Local Author Showcase here where I live. That gets held, it gets held like every six months. I’ll be attending as a guest for the first time in August, and then I’ll be actually attending as an author for the first time in November. And then they try to keep authors coming back like every so often, or just coming to events in general, even if you’re not one of the showcase members.
[00:14:20] I’m also part of a local author’s group that’s held out of our, like community libraries here. And so that allows, it’s a platform that basically lists us all and then provides like our contacts and social media for either young up and coming authors or student or students or anyone who wants to kind of reach out or is looking for another author, another person who’s been in the book world to kind of talk to and things like that.
[00:14:41] So that’s mostly social media-wise. What I do, I’m very quiet on it.
[00:14:46] Sheryl: For other Girl Scouts or anybody else watching or listening to this episode. What recommendations do you have for somebody that is perhaps interested in writing their own book? Where should they get started? How, what, where, what kind of contacts should they be looking for for support?
[00:15:04] You know, any thoughts around that?
[00:15:06] Ripley: If you’re a fiction writer, I feel like you can go a gazillion different ways. The one thing I’ve heard is. One of the, it’s called you have write, write writers or think write writers and write. Write writers are the people who just kind like word vomit onto the page and then go back through and fix everything and make sure the plot points work.
[00:15:20] Think right writers are the people who plan it out meticulously and like outline everything and define all your characters and figure out exactly where the story’s gonna go before they start writing everything. I am closer to the right, right writer than I am a think right writer. I don’t love planning.
[00:15:33] I’ve hated outlines. You know, when our professors have me hand an outline, like, here’s my three sentences I’m not doing anymore. Like, I don’t like this. But I do think it’s really important to at least understand where you want your story to go. Like, what do you want the point of your story to be? Like what is the message you’re trying to get across?
[00:15:49] And with that in mind not being a fiction writer myself or enjoying, you know, making up my own worlds and things like that. With the non-fiction side of writing, you want to make sure that whether or not you’re talking to a big audience or a little audience, that your audience is actually interested in what you’re talking about.
[00:16:06] So if you were, for example, writing a history book and you’re writing about, let’s say, Pearl Harbor but if you’re directing this, if you’re envisioning your audience as like high school students or something like that, don’t write your book like a textbook. That’s gonna be boring. Your audience is not going to be engaged.
[00:16:23] Your audience does not want to read another textbook about Pearl Harbor, but you could write your, write it as a story or find the ability to. Integrate the reader themselves into the events that happen at Pearl Harbor, and that would be really interesting for me. I was writing a story from the perspective of the ages at which I grew up in.
[00:16:44] So, you know, my first, you know, kind of that like first, second grade. The sentences are very simple. You make, I make jokes that are very like accustomed to what you would be hearing a second grader say. My focuses were very important on what a second grader would be thinking about, and as I aged at the book, those focuses changes and the writing gets more in depth and things change.
[00:17:02] My book is very much towards and dictated towards. Family members or adults who are under, who can understand all of those different levels of development throughout that age group who suffer with chronic illness, you very specified audience no matter what it is you’re writing. And even in a fiction story, I think this applies it well as well.
[00:17:22] You can’t write story about aliens. For an audience that only reads about cowboys, like they’re not going to be interested about your story, about aliens. Figure out who your audience is and write for that audience no matter what it is you’re writing. I say in general, that’s the biggest thing. If you’re talking about like the Girl Scout Gold Award Project, and if you’re looking to do it for that, do not give yourself 10 months.
[00:17:43] Please give yourself more time. It’s totally doable. I call it the Impossible project because that’s what everyone else called it. And yes, I did it. It was very possible. I mean, the whole thing, I’m impossible spells I’m possible or that whole phrase, but. It’s not the best way to do it, and you’re going to limit and dictate your creativity and your levels of expression by doing something like that.
[00:18:04] If writing a book is what you’re interested and find something you’re passionate about and start as early as you can, you don’t necessarily have to get, you can start writing a book before you get things approved by council, because that would allow you to come to council with a much better plan. Then, Hey, I think I wanna do this.
[00:18:19] And I’m sure, depending on the councils, they’re much more inclined to approve projects like that. So that would definitely be my advice for book writing in general, and then for any of my Girl Scouts or fellow girl scouts who are thinking of writing a book, it’s totally doable. Don’t do it in 10 months though.
[00:18:32] I’m telling you from experience, it’s not a good idea.
[00:18:36] Sheryl: We often hear about writer’s block. I don’t know if you’ve experienced that. Can you share some some tips and tricks on how when you are in writing and trying to get your creative juices flowing, what do you do to to get into that groove?
[00:18:54] Ripley: I don’t love calling it writer’s block cause that makes it feel like there’s like literally like physically something that’s stopping you and in’ all reality, it’s usually not writer’s block, at least in my personal experience, is a lack of motivation or a lack of desire.
[00:19:08] And it could be that you just don’t like where you are in the book or that, you know, for me, like personally, my book was very hard to process through because I was going back through a lot of traumatic times in my event. And so going, yeah, but I don’t really wanna cry today. Like, I don’t wanna spend my day with headaches
[00:19:21] cause I was crying while writing all morning was very much where my writer’s blog came from and going, that’s a, that’s a, that’s a mental, you know, perspective on this and you don’t have to do it this way. I know there’s a couple different great methods out there that I’ve used. I know the Pomadora method.
[00:19:37] Is great. You set yourself, give yourself your timeframe, and then you reward yourself afterwards, whether it be with a break or ice cream or whatever works for you. And that’s super great, especially if you’re just lacking like the motivation or not super interested in. Like writing at the time or you’re like, yeah, but I’m so busy or I’m tired.
[00:19:55] That’s great. Cause you could, you can give yourself 10 minutes and go, I’m just going to write straight for these 10 minutes. And whether or not you delete it later is totally up to you. But there’s also, and I don’t remember who this one was by, but I’ve seen it a couple of different places was give yourself the option and do nothing else.
[00:20:11] Put your, put your computer down, put your paper down, whatever it is you write on and sit there. You can sit there and do nothing. Or you can write. This method’s really great if you’re not writing because you just don’t want to, or you’re, you know, being lazy or you’re just like, yeah, but I could play my phone or I could watch a movie or this, that other thing, especially if you’re on a timeline or a deadline, and this works great for essays too, is giving yourself an option and just going, Nope, I am going to sit here and do nothing until I do what it is I need to do.
[00:20:39] And that one was great for me. The other thing I would say for writer’s walk or that whole concept of not wanting to write and I did this one personally and it’s again, that a habit. And whether that’s a time period or something like that, I set a goal of a thousand words a day for quite a while.
[00:20:54] And that doesn’t sound like a lot until you look at it on a page. And then that’s quite a bit of writing. And so I don’t care if I did that first thing in the morning when I got up or if I was doing it 10 o’clock at night, but within 1 24 hour period, I had to write. I had to write a thousand words and that was like my goal and my habit.
[00:21:08] I didn’t set a time, I did it when I could. There were days when I sat in class and I wrote, because that’s when inspiration struck an author that I really like. Her name’s Anne Lamont. She wrote a book, bird by Bird. It’s basically like a guide to creative writing, and I’m totally gonna like screw up her like analysis to this.
[00:21:23] But she basically called writers block the idea of like a toddler not wanting to eat their broccoli. It’s not that they don’t wanna eat their broccoli, it’s that they know by throwing a fit they may or may not get out of it. And so they’re going to, and if you think of it like that and you basically then call yourself a toddler, it’s really easy to go, okay, I’m just acting out.
[00:21:43] I really need to do this. So but at the same time, with that in mind, don’t force yourself if all you’re gonna do is write something that you hate or you’re genuinely like having a bad day or something like that where you need a break. Cuz you’ve been writing a thousand words straight for three months.
[00:21:58] Then you also need to respect that and take a break. And I think that comes to a balance where you have to learn what, for me is an excuse. And what for me is a genuine need. And I think in a while, like there were definitely days where I worked through a day that I needed to have taken a break and I wrote really, really bad stuff that day.
[00:22:14] And there were definitely days where I gave myself a break when I was really just. You know, being lazy or trying to get myself out of work because I wanted to do something else, or I saw something else that was more fun than writing.
[00:22:25] Sheryl: Thinking about the subject of your book, what can you share with the audience on invisible disabilities and how we can support people or even recognize that somebody may need support in one way or another, and identifying what that support may be?
[00:22:45] Ripley: As a bystander and you’re not gonna know everyone’s story, things like that. I think the statement don’t judge a book by its cover is very true and it’s very true to humans. We live in a lot of what’s basically called like a me first society today. You know, I wanna do this first. I wanna drive faster.
[00:22:58] I wanna get into the door first. I wanna be there first, first in line, things like that. Taking and having the ability to step back and recognize that the person in front of you in line may actually need to be there before you do or you don’t need to speed, or things like that, I think are kind of that first step in being able to slow down and not judge other people.
[00:23:16] But on top of that, then. Also people who either you know, have a, you know, have a service dog or have something that allows them to be visible, whether it be cane or wheelchair or something like that. Trading those people just as you would treat anyone else. Walking on the street is one of the biggest pieces of it.
[00:23:31] Those people are not different because of that mobility device or a medical device or anything like that. They aren’t any different. They’re still humans. They still bleed red. Still the same kind of person. So they may have different experiences than you do and experience the world differently, but you shouldn’t treat them any different.
[00:23:49] With that in mind, if you personally know someone who’s suffering with a chronic illness, whether they’re invisible or visible, one of the biggest things you can do to help. Present, prevent yourself from being prejudiced or stereotyped towards them is educating yourself about the disability. And whether that be by asking them questions.
[00:24:07] Most people like myself who are ill or have issues like that are usually pretty willing to share about what would help them or things like that. Or even just to educate people about the illness if asked. But this isn’t true standardly, but most people are because that’s one of the best ways that we can then, Get help, but let’s just say you’ve got, you know, a person with a ptsd.
[00:24:27] Cause that’s a really real disability and it can be very disabling for some people. Educating yourself and understanding what might be triggers for that person or might what might cause them to have an episode or to have a flashback or to go into a higher state of panic or anxiety are really, really good because then you can respectfully, whether, let’s say it’s a word trigger and a conversation, try to avoid that.
[00:24:48] Or let’s say that for them, they don’t like doing the dishwasher because of the noises it makes and that triggers it for them. Then you can maybe do the dishwasher when they’re not around you or you don’t do that for them. Let’s say they live independently, but your friend, you come over and do it for them so they don’t have to.
[00:25:03] Educating yourself on that person’s specific issues are one of the biggest ways you can do that. And in reality, that education, then knowing that most of us know at least one person with a chronic illness, whether it be disabling or not, can help you in the long run because likelihood is on the street.
[00:25:18] You’re gonna run into someone else who has a similar or another issue like that. And not having that prejudice towards someone that you know can help you not be prejudiced towards them. So that’s one of the biggest pieces is just. The education around it and being open and honest, not only has someone like me to talk about it and to share with people what it is that helps you, but also as the recipient of that, to actually accept and then retain that knowledge and act on it.
[00:25:42] You know, you can have as much knowledge in the world, but if you don’t act on it and use it, you’re not actually gonna be beneficial about it. And so things like that as well as just with that, don’t make assumptions. That’s like the biggest thing for anyone. You know, one of the things we see a lot is that someone with a service dog has usually like a seizure disorder or is blind.
[00:26:03] That’s something that you see a lot. Not everyone with a service dog has seizures, nor is blind people in wheelchairs. Not everyone in wheelchair can’t walk. A lot of people in wheelchairs can walk. And things like this. So just because someone wears a brace, nine days outta 10 doesn’t mean that they’re suddenly cured when they’re not wearing the brace on the tech day, you know, and so not assuming that someone has to use their medical device 24 7 or that someone has something because they have some certain medical device or thing like that.
[00:26:31] What is in your future, hopefully graduation next year with college? But I’d love to keep writing and love to keep talking about this. I think my. Project, you know, despite the fact that it’s, you know, overdone completed, can still go a lot of places. I still actively talk about it. You know, post about it, you know, one day it would be great for news or media outlets to get involved in, you know, something like this.
[00:26:57] Whether it be my project or another girl’s project down the road and be able to help share things like that. So I’d love at some point to get it professionally edited, but, you know, funding maybe eventually that’ll come.
[00:27:07] Sheryl: What else would you like to share with the audience?
[00:27:09] Ripley: I would say recognize those around you that help you, and that can be both in positive and negative ways.
[00:27:15] I know for me, one of my biggest motivating factors was my mom, who’s also my troop leader, but she was also my caretaker through growing up and things like that. And so being able to recognize everything that she had done for me throughout the book was a really big point. In my life and in my, my growth personally.
[00:27:32] But along with that, I also took the time after I wrote the book to reach out to the people in the book who were very positive influences in my life and go, thank you for this, that, or the other thing, or write them a thank you note or to the, the surgeon who ended up saving my life. He knows I’m very grateful to him, but I sent him a card that kind of explained this and then I gave him a copy of the book and he went
[00:27:54] I don’t think you know how much this meant, but I wanted you to know that what you did is out there, but also saying thank you to the people that were not necessarily positive influences. One of the pieces that I talk about at the end of the book was the ability to let go of all of the people who hurt me through the medical system and a lot of the abuse and the gaslighting that I received.
[00:28:13] And then also with. The people in my life who were unsupportive, and I can mention the fourth grade teacher that gets talked about who was very unsupportive and very harmful to my health and development at that time. The students who bullied me because I was different growing up and things like that, those were all people who well at the time were super negative, were very fundamental in creating who I am as a person and the things that I’ve been through.
[00:28:37] While they were bad, you know, to an extent, they also, you know, changed and greet you. And while you can grieve those things and. Not be happy about that. My ability to kind of put down the book after it was done and go, I’m letting go of all of the harm that these people caused me. And I’m okay with that.
[00:28:53] And I thank them for everything that they did for me because without them, I wouldn’t have had a book to write. Is one of the biggest pieces because that thank you side goes both ways to those who supported you and those who didn’t. But being able to recognize that and whether you do something like, you know, choose to let it go or write a thank you note or something like that.
[00:29:10] Being able to acknowledge that independent, I think is a big piece of that Girl Scout project, especially for projects that I’m a very involved team. I think that’s super important.
[00:29:20] Sheryl: How do you make your s’mores?
[00:29:22] Ripley: I don’t actually eat s’mores. I am gluten free and I don’t like chocolate, so I like to take my marshmallow though and put it on the little poker stick and then shove it into the hottest section of the fire until it catches on fire and then I let it burn until it’s all black and then I just eat it like that.
[00:29:40] I’m one of the weird people who chars my marshmallow. I was like, if I had to, I do have like gluten free. Animal crackers I could use, but I think Honeymaid needs to get on the whole like making a gluten-free graham cracker. Cause their stuff is so good.
[00:29:53] Sheryl: Yeah. Now, now that you say that, I’m surprised that they haven’t done that.
[00:29:57] Ripley: You’re absolutely right. Well, Oreos did and they’re made by like the same Nabisco company or something. I’m like, guys, come on.
[00:30:03] Sheryl: Well thanks for joining me today.
[00:30:05] Ripley: Thank you.
[00:30:06] Sheryl: Make sure to click follow or subscribe so you always know when new episodes are released. Power your passion and conquer your challenges.
[00:30:16] Walter: Thank you for listening. If you’d like to be on the show to share your story of how you earned your gold award, reach out and send an email to growandshare@outlook.com. Be sure to catch up on our previous shows on any of your favorite podcasting platforms, as well as view the full video versions at youtube.com/SherylMrobinson.
[00:30:38] Thanks again for listening and we’ll see you next time.