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Toni Reece: Mali, thank you so much for agreeing to do this interview with us today, and before we begin with the questions, can you introduce yourself?

Mali Phonpadith: Sure.  My name is Mali Phonpadith.  I actually have two businesses.  One is an insurance practice with Northwestern Mutual, where I do a lot of risk management strategies for individuals, families, and business owners, and the other business is Reflections Within, which basically takes my poetry and creates powerful prose for international images that my photographer/business partner takes throughout the world.

Toni: Okay.

Mali: We have a new greeting card line.

Toni: You do?  What is the greeting card line?

Mali: It’s Reflections Within greeting cards, high-end cards, with her powerful images and original prose by me.

Toni: Okay.  Thank you for that.

Mali: You’re welcome.

Toni: Mali, when you think about the work that you do — whether it’s the prose that you write or the work that you do, even personally — when you think about inspiration, who do you inspire and how do you do that?

Mali: For me personally, I like to think of inspiring one individual at a time, because I think each person truly makes a difference in the world, whether it’s one person’s world or the world as a whole.  And so when I think of the type of people I like to inspire, it’s those truly that have either walked similar paths or going through an experience that I have already walked through to support them.  So that could really relate to some of my personal experiences of loss — which I’ve had multiple in the span of the last six years — and just kind of helping people either through poetry or through discussions such as the types that I have with my life insurance clients or disability and long-term care, of all the things that could happen every day, and how to get people through those difficult times, not only financially but emotionally.

Toni: When you work with people and dealing with people just one individual at a time, how do you go about this?  How do you go about inspiring these people?

Mali: Well, it comes down to really just asking a lot of poignant questions, you know?  The way that I work is I always ask for favorable introductions and ask people to send me those extraordinary people in their lives that they care about; so once I sit in front of somebody, it’s really nice because the walls have already come down.  I’ve been kind of introduced in and really get to the heart of the matter.  What is it that motivates them?  What is it that inspires them?  What is it that they are scared or concerned about?  Just listen, really, to the things that matter most, and then be able to share my own personal experience or story, and it really comes down for me to empathy.

You know, being able to look at each other and say “Wow, that matters to you?  Well, that matters to me”, and “How can I support you to reach some of the things that you may not have thought were possible?”  And just really listening; truly, truly listening for the right emotions, the right words, the right — I guess in the spirit of sharing — how comfortable they are to reach some of the goals and live the life that they wish to live and protect the people that they love around them.

Toni: When you’re working with people like this — and again whether it’s professionally or personally and you’re dealing day-to-day — how do you think you might help people explore their own potential?

Mali: Asking those tough questions.  You know, people don’t like to talk about really deep heart-of-the-matter issues.  It’s not as easy when you’re kind of protecting yourself or protecting those around you, and I think being able to look at someone and say “It’s safe here.  I’m not coming from a place of judgment.  Some of the experiences or some of the fears you have, I own them myself.  Some of the paths that you have walked, I have walked too or am walking currently.”

And so for me I think it’s really just a matter of challenging them to be honest with themselves and then being able to verbalize that and say it out loud.  Because once you say it out loud, you know, people are listening.  The universe is listening, and it becomes more real.  And so taking the path to implement or to take the right steps to implement some of these goals becomes more real when you share them verbally and express them, and the hardest part is to do that; get to that point where you can say, “Okay, I can now articulate what it is that I want, what it is that I need” and now be able to ask for help to get there.

Toni: So exploring their potential is really the first place to start, is to get them to speak out loud what those deep heart matters are so that they can move forward with you.

Mali: Absolutely.  And in some cases to write them down because, as a writer myself, it’s easier for me to write my thoughts and my emotions down than sometimes it is to articulate.  But once it’s put out there from outside of your mind and your body and your spirit and onto either a piece of paper or onto the computer or verbally spoken, there is a slight shift in attitude that happens.  It’s almost like you have to step into your own purpose now, now that you’ve announced it.

Toni: When you are seeking inspiration for yourself, Mali, where do you go?  What do you need to be inspired?

Mali: I do a lot of meditation.  I like alone time when things around me are spinning, so I will either take a long walk or I’ll journal.  And my channel has always been my writing, so when I’m frustrated or scared or thrilled about something and I don’t know what to do with my emotions, I’m always with a pad and paper or writing things out.

My biggest inspiration, though, comes from looking at the little things in my life that make me feel good and happy and make me feel safe and alive, and usually it’s things that surround my family.  That’s where I find the biggest inspiration is thinking about the life that my family has lived, my grandmother, my mother, all the things that my father has done to lead me to this place where I really understand that I have all that I need.  There are a lot of wants out there, but I have all that I need.

Toni: How do you get to that place?

Mali: Really, it’s sometimes tough, but I have to think about … Sometimes I even have to put it down on a list and write it out, but a lot of times it’s just thinking, “Okay, well right now my heart might be broken or my world might be really dark, and I may not feel like there’s a light at the end of the tunnel”, but I know that based on what I’ve seen and based on the people that are around me and what they’ve experienced, I kind of think about, well, things could always be worse.

And people are going through tough times out there all over the world, and it takes a lot of effort because a lot of times we get to that dark place.  We’re always thinking, “Woe is me.  Why does this happen to me?  How could this be, and why is my life so horrible?”  For me, when I get to that place, I don’t like staying there very long, because I know that in the big picture, there’s so many great things that I do have.

I have a gratitude log, and in that gratitude log — I usually do it at nighttime before I go to sleep — I pick a beautiful journal that represents me.  So when I look at it, I see myself or it resembles me somehow, and I go to it every night and I write down, before I got to sleep, three gifts of the day.  And that forces me to think of all the positives and only the positive things that has happened throughout the day or that I’ve been “given” throughout the day.  And so when I lay my head on the pillow and go to sleep, I’m left with only the positive thoughts of the day and I can kind of put the negative thoughts behind me, and that’s really helped me every day with that practice.  And when I have tough times, I can go to that gratitude log and remind myself of all the amazing things that I do have, because that’s the only thing that I’ll write down in that gratitude log.

Toni: Mali, when you’re seeking the inspiration — and you’ve provided many ways that you do that thought mediation, journaling, your gratitude log, those are great tools that you are going to be sharing with others as far as how you seek inspiration as well — how do you take these tools, or just what you do for yourself, and use them to help you explore your potential or other things that you may do or seek to continuously explore your own potential?

Mali: The biggest step for me, quite frankly, is sharing the things that I’m doing for myself which has been such a big transition in my mind.  Everything that I’ve done in the past has always been to help me through all of the things that I have got to go through, therapy.  My writing has always been something that has helped me release, and I put it in my dresser drawer.  But I realize that as I get older and with my life experiences that I’m not living and I’m not doing and I’m not exploring these “gifts” only for me.  I need to be able to share and perhaps help others get to a place where they can feel comfortable in their own skin with their own unique special talents or through their ways of channeling, and then express these feelings and explore their true potential by sharing, because it’s in the sharing where people know what you’re looking for or asking for help, which is such a big deal.

I have never really been good at that, and I’m practicing that every day by sharing and by posting some of my poetry and reading them at different opportunities and venues and having my friends come to read and share my work with others.  That’s really allowing me to step into my purpose, like I said earlier, you know, saying it out loud and putting it out there.  It’s forcing me to step into my purpose, because now I’m getting these wonderful notes or messages, whether through email or letters or even verbally, saying, “Mali, wow, by you sharing your processing and the way that you are getting to that better place through your difficult times, I actually want to share too, and I actually think this is the way for me to better express myself and release and heal.”  And so when I get that type of validation, it really is allowing me to see that wow, I really am stepping into my purpose and this is leading me to that true potential, you know, practicing the sharing and also practicing the asking for help.

Toni: Which, as you said, is not something that came natural to you.

Mali: No; it’s still not.

Toni: Oh my goodness … I like the way that you said that, and I wrote it down here, that as you explore your potential, the number one thing you said is the sharing and sharing what you need as far as also what you’re looking for so others can feel safe enough to ask the same.  But what I wrote down here as well is that you used to put your journal back in a drawer, but you’ve taken it out of the drawer, haven’t you?

Mali: I have.

Toni: You’ve taken it out and you’ve published it in order to find your own sense of purpose.  That’s what I heard you say and that’s helping you to explore your own potential as well as probably feeling inspiration.

Mali: It actually is.  You know, it’s a total mind shift for me.  Before, I would just do it for me in the privacy of my own space and where I felt safe, usually late at night when I’m deeply moved by an experience, and I’ll just write it and then that will be it and I’ll put it away, and it really didn’t do much for me in terms of healing except that I just put it on a piece of paper.  But for whatever reason, when I started sharing it or reading it — I slowly started sharing it with friends, just reading it to them — and then when they were moved by it, they really encouraged me, like my ninth grade English teacher encouraged me to allow her to publish my first piece of work and it was actually selected to be published in a local amateur publication.

And so, it was in the sharing and putting it out of my dresser drawer and saying “Wow, I really just want to share this, let people know that this is what I experienced, and just see what happens.”  It was really a “see what happens” type of thing.  And now that I’ve shared so much through the years — and I have quite a few pieces internationally published and working on an upcoming book to release a collection of my work — there have been messages from my friends, my loved ones, and even strangers now that look forward to the next piece or that have been moved somehow, and I write about very difficult things.

I would not have shared that before.  I would have only shared the happy things, the things that were light and the things that were funny.  But now I realize that life is life and it is what it is, and in order for me to help myself heal and help others heal, I have to talk about the realness of my processing, whether it’s through my grieving process or through getting to a new phase in my life and discovering myself and where I want to go from here, to be able to share the truth behind what I’m experiencing.

That helps me not only get inspired to move forward and do more powerful things for myself, but it also has allowed me to see how much inspiration comes out of my sharing for others, and that’s important to me now.  If I can be of value to other people and inspire them to share as well or to even ask or seek for help or advice — even though it’s not directed  to me — but it triggered something inside of them that says “Wow, I’m in this place where she was, and I’d like to feel light again too.”

Toni: Mali, it really is amazing the information that you have shared in just this small snapshot of time, and I can see listening as well to you that with the sharing and trying to get to that good and happy safe place that you need to be, taking it — again using the analogy of taking it out of the drawer — really goes back to what you said as far as how you help others explore their potential not only in the personal work but in the professional work where you encourage people to say it out loud and to write it down and that helps them to explore their own potential.  So I really appreciate you coming to the table and allowing others to benefit and learn from this interview, and for that I thank you.

Mali: Thank you so much for your time, and I was my pleasure to share.  And I hope that I will continue to practice sharing.

Toni: I hope so as well, and I hope to talk to you again soon, Mali.  Thank you so very much.

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For more information about Mali Phonpadith:  www.reflectionswithin.com

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Toni Reece: Michele, thank you so much for agreeing to take part in this project; and before we begin with the questions, can you introduce yourself?

Michele Neff Hernandez: Absolutely.  Thank you, Toni, it’s a pleasure to be with you today.  My name is Michele Neff Hernandez.  I am the executive director of the Soaring Spirits Loss Foundation.  We are a nonprofit organization that creates a support network for people grieving the loss of someone they love.

Toni: Well, let’s go into the first question, Michele.  When you think about …  whether it’s through your organization or even personal inspiration, who do you think you inspire and how do you do that?

Michele: Currently, our mission at Soaring Spirits is to support people who are grieving someone they love as I said.  And the way that we reach out and, personally the way that I inspire people, I think, is to be willing to share my own personal grief story and the ways that it has changed my life both positively and negatively.  And so I am reaching out to them in hopes of opening my heart so that they will feel supported.  And sometimes the journey of grief makes you feel like you’re crazy, and it’s nice to know that other people have lived through those sort of circumstances and to be inspired to take the next step, even if it’s just a small step of getting out of bed today because, when you’re grieving, it’s hard work and that’s difficult to do sometimes.

Toni: Wow, that’s pretty powerful.  How do people find you?

Michele: Generally, they find us either through word of mouth or we have kind of thrown a wide web out through the World Wide Web, so we’re a nationally based organization; we have some international ties.  Often when you lose someone and you begin to discover that the grief process kind of tosses you around in the waves, you start to look for help.  And so most people I think find us either through someone who has been connected with us already or by searching through the internet.

Toni: Michele, when you’re working with people and you’re inspiring them by sharing your own story and opening up your heart and working with these people who are coming to you in need, do you also believe that you might help them explore potential as well?

Michele: I do.  I think the hardest thing about grief is trying to figure out what tomorrow looks like and then taking that one step further, believing that tomorrow can still be a good day.  And so what we really try to do is start to help people recreate their lives; because a lot of times when you lose something so precious, you have to redefine yourself.

And when you’re in the midst of grieving a loss, you’re not necessarily inspired to step forward and really think about what you still have left ahead of you.  And so we encourage people to really start to think about what they want their lives to be like and how they can honor the people they have lost by living their life to the fullest.

Toni: Can you share some examples of how you do that?

Michele: Personally, this foundation is a huge step in that direction for me.  My husband was hit and killed while he was riding his bicycle.  He was 39 years old — I was 35 — and really, my world just flipped upside down.  And so, I really needed to find a way to make his death mean more than just an accident.  And being able to reach out to other people and support them as they recreate their lives has really started giving me a map for my own in terms of being able to step forward and tell people this is how I live every day, this is how I get out of bed, this is how I take care of my kids.  And in doing so, I have discovered so many amazing people doing amazing things for others  just out of the goodness of their heart because they know what the pain of losing someone is like and they would like to help someone by giving them a hand when they’re in that situation.

Toni: And so that’s how the methodology … Are there tools that you use when you’re working with others to help them step forward?

Michele: The first thing we do is speak from a personal perspective.  We are not therapists; we don’t offer psychiatric help of any kind.  Really what we offer is a peer-based support.  And so we want people to understand that we have lived through something similar to what they’ve lived through, and this is how we personally did it.  So it’s really about sharing stories, and it’s about making sure that people know that there are others like them out there.

Because sometimes grief is such an isolating experience, you feel like “I’m definitely the only one,” even though mentally you know that’s not possible.  In your heart, you feel like “I’m the only one who’s living this.  Everyone else feels great when the sun came up today, and I’m wondering why it’s still coming up when the person that I love just died.”  And so, we really want, as a peer-based community, to be able to reach out and say “I felt that way too, but guess what, you know, four years later I’m happy to see the sun again.”

Toni: So your how you explore the potential of moving forward is really by providing that safe, trusting community.

Michele: Absolutely.  And a place where you know you can grieve.  It’s okay to grieve, and it’s still okay to look forward to tomorrow as well, and sometimes that’s hard to do.

Toni: Michele, when you look at your own inspiration and at times needing inspiration, what do you do?  What do you look for in  order to be inspired yourself?

Michele: I have been blessed with so many stories of people who have deeply loved someone, and often when you think about grief, you think about only the loss, but there’s also the gift that was in people’s lives.  And so I’m regularly inspired by the way people have loved each other and the way that we take care of each other and the way that other people will reach out when someone is in need.  And so, you know, I’ll go along my day providing a variety of resources for people and then being able to watch them give back and being able to see them reach out, and the willingness and the openness with which they share their stories with me regularly inspires me to keep going.

Toni: Are there any particular tools at times that you reach for as well?  I mean, I can imagine the inspiration that you receive from other people’s stories and the gifts that you receive in that way … Are there other sorts of outlets that you go to personally in order to seek inspiration or other, I don’t know, other things that you might do … taking a walk or nature that you find inspiring?

Michele: Actually, I really am very active and I love to run, and so I try to do two things.  One, you know — as a single parent now — it’s easy to work, work, work and not take that time for yourself, and so I really have been working hard at life/work balance and trying to keep my kids the focus, but at the same time be able to take time for myself so that I have something to give back.  And running is really an outlet for me in that way, as well as trying to read books that are not grief related, because it’s very easy to get sucked into it.  Grief is a 24/7 job and so to be able to say to myself, okay, I need to go outside.  I need to read a book that doesn’t have anything to do with what I do, and spend some quality time with my family; that’s just fun.

Toni: So it’s really looking for that fun.

Michele: Right, and managing that balance which, you know, sometimes it’s easy to go overboard in the work area.

Toni: It certainly is.  When you’re looking at taking that break for yourself and doing the work/life balance routine which we all tread so lightly on, how do you continue to explore your own potential?

Michele: I think in addition to working through the foundation and setting goals for what we would like to achieve going forward in terms of creating the support network that’s national, I also like to take a creative outlet for myself and work on my own writing and my own … sort of defining myself again.  Because I’m still very much in the process — as are all the people that I work with every day — of redefining myself as a single person; you know, as a single parent and as a person who now has learned the lessons that grief taught.  And I have to say those are really powerful lessons about what’s important, about how much time I spend working, about whether or not I’m taking care of myself and why.

And so I think that there’s always this continual redefinition that goes on for me personally about where are my priorities and how do I define them.  And so I think there’s a challenge for me to continually look for what is next for me personally, what is next for the organization, and what is next for us as a family, and trying to keep all of those balls juggling.  That requires management, but it also requires being present, and so I really personally work on being present.

Toni: Can you help me understand that last statement a little bit more?

Michele: What I mean by being present is that it’s very easy for me to think about the next thing.  If I’m planning for myself, it’s easy to have a back burner thing going on for the foundation.  If I’m with my kids, it’s easy to be tempted to check that email that I hear beeping on my Blackberry.  And so I’ve worked …  Recently, my focus has been to try to be present in whatever I’m doing so that I give my best to whatever’s in front of me; and then when it’s time to close that down, move on to the next thing and give my best to that.  I try not to multitask as much as I tend to.

Toni: Being present, do you think that that also will help you as far as being inspired?

Michele: Absolutely.  Because if you are able to be present, then you’re 100% in whatever it is that you’re doing.  Like I said, I’m often inspired by the stories that people tell me.  If I’m busy doing three things while I’m listening to a story, obviously I’m not going to get the full impact.  And that is the same with my kids.  If one of them comes home to tell me a story — I mean you know, they’re a regular source of inspiration in the ways that they grow and the things that they experience and what they observe — and if I’m too busy checking email, answering a phone call or whatever I’m doing and listening to them at the same time, I’m missing out on the opportunity to be inspired by the moment that I have with them.

Toni: I would imagine that that inspiration that you give to others as far as helping to inspire them to step forward may have also, I would imagine, translated into your own children as well.

Michele: Absolutely.  And I will say also that it is a continual balance, because you will find yourself pulled in so many directions.  And so sometimes they are irritated by the fact that I have a job that requires, you know, it can go at any time; you know, people reach out to me at all different times.  And you know, you can imagine that if you’re grieving, sometimes 3 a.m. is really the time.  Not that I answer email at 3 a.m., but I have been known to answer it very late into the night because I want people to know that someone hears them, and I understand — having been there — how powerful it is when you get that response.

And so balancing that, you know, continues to be a challenge.  But it continues to bring out the inspiration in my kids in terms of being able to see what giving back can do and how you can give back, and they’ve learned lessons from grief as well.  And I’ve watched them reach out to their friends in a different way because of the lessons that they’ve learned.

Toni: So what I’m hearing during this interview is that when  you’ve got to the point here where you talked about learning just recently to be present, how that can be a double-edged sword for you because it also … being present helps you to stay inspired and to be inspiring, but it also costs you as far as time.

Michele: Exactly.

Toni: And what a balance that is on that work/life balance; but it is the most powerful thing for you to be present for those who need your organization but also to be present for those who need you in the house, and yourself.

Michele: And I think, you know, people who reach out to inspire others often are givers and they want to give, give, give — which is a wonderful thing — but you end up giving to the very bottom of what you have left if you don’t take the time to be present and fill up.

Toni: And that’s absolutely the message for this interview based on everything that you have shared on your story — through how you got to where you are, how you help others, and how you’re trying to help yourself in the process and your family.  You have shared an amazing amount of wealth in this 15 minutes, and for that I thank you so very much for being part of this project and also for the work that you’re doing.  So thank you again, very, very much, Michele, for taking part in the Get Inspired! Project, and I wish you and your project well.

Michele: Thank you so much, Toni.   It was absolutely a pleasure.

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For more information about Michele Neff Hernandez:  www.sslf.org, www.widowsbond.com

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