Love and Inspiration in Life

Life of Love. Life of Love. Life of Love Life of Love. Hello, dear friends, and welcome to another episode of Life of Love, where we meet fantastic people who are dedicated to living a life of love and magic and inspiration, and today is no exception. I’m really excited to introduce Sammy Jo Farrens to the show. We’re introduced through a matching service for podcasting and it’s just been really great. I’ve read the manuscript of his book and it just came out. It’s called Broken Gratitude and it’s a legacy book. I mean, if you are interested real-life testimony of how to live at higher vibration, how to bring in magic, this is a book for you and it’s available on Barnes Noble right now. This will air several months after we record, but it’s out this summer, so we’re really Sammy Joe. Sammy, welcome to the show. Thanks for being here.

Sammy Jo Farrens: 1:03

Well, thank you so much for that introduction and thank you so much for having me today. So we’ve talked a little bit before the show and I’m just I’m blessed to have met you and now call you a friend, and I appreciate it.

Julie Hilsen: 1:21

Absolutely, I feel the same way. I mean, oh, my goodness, you have had quite a path, and just that, your story of your childhood, I just I would love for you to share. Not only that you have this book and that you’ve lived in this, you’ve lived in this idea that you are in control of your life and that there are ways to be present, to show up with integrity and grace and your mom has taught you that. But you not only write about it, but you live it. I mean, the way you show up, the way you keep showing up, it’s just, it’s admirable. So not only am I honored that you’re here, but I’m honored that we are in the same field, because when we resonate with like energy, it’s just a fantastic feeling. So I think that’s what’s coming through.

Sammy Jo Farrens: 2:16

Yeah, most definitely. The energy base I’m very big on it’s something that I can control is my energy, my flow, and I can also control that of who’s around me. You know it’s for me it’s something I adopted just a few years ago is I don’t allow negativity around me. Now does it happen? Yeah, Me, I put in 110% effort to change that energy and if I can’t, then I remove myself from it because that’s what I can control. So much stress and anxiety and depression and so many different things. If you really look at the root cause of most of it, it’s stuff that we don’t even control. Yeah, we allow it to control us and that’s just a choice I choose not to make. God gave, God said Sammy, you’re the gift and I’m giving you one big present, and that is the gift of choice, and so I choose not to.

Julie Hilsen: 3:30

You’re not going to be a victim and, like you, in your book you write about how your mom lived with these five principles and I would love for you I mean I would love for you to share your mom’s story of how she battled with polio and you know she wasn’t a victim of polio and then how these five things are cemented in your being, but also something you’re committed to sharing with other people. Let’s give the listeners a little backstory, because they haven’t had a chance to read and I don’t want to spoil the whole book for them, but just give them a little background of the powerful person your mom is and when was as a. You know, when you’re growing up.

Sammy Jo Farrens: 4:11

Yeah, well, mom was like you said. She had polio her whole life. She was pretty well restricted to a wheelchair and growing up, you know, you’re a kid, so you don’t notice that mom could be in a bad mood today. Mom could not, you know, not be feeling good today because of the polio, because of the being in a wheelchair, and I never really noticed that with her, like she was just always 100 percent, she was all giving. At one time she babysat 22 kids. Like I have two great legs and I’m never in my life going to babysit 22 kids, I’m not doing it. And for her it was the kids that even in babysitting him she did a lot of that for free, or for she babysit kids, you know, for 20 bucks for the week and we were poor, but for her that was, hey, if I can help out this other family, that’s what God blessed me to do today for this week. You know different things like that, so it was just, it was always about giving for her, and she would describe it as well if I’m not here, then who else is going to do this? And so I’ve got to be 100 percent present. I’ve got to be 100 percent giving at all times because who knows when somebody’s going to need it. And again, as a kid, you don’t, you know you’re a kid, you don’t pick up on all the adult. You know awesomeness that mom was giving out and you know that was literally just the way that she did us and it wasn’t just my lesson, it was that’s the way she taught my sister, cousins, the kids that she babysat, and then it would resonate over into I can look back now and it resonated over into those families because then we would see them going hey, Carolyn, that was my mom’s name. Hey, Carolyn, how can we help you? And her, being selfless, would oh no, we’re okay, you know, we’re good, we’re this, that. And people knew we weren’t, people knew that we were poorer in different things and so we’d just have food dishes show up on the porch and people would stop by in my way yard and just different things to help out in it. And that was mom’s way of just giving gratitude to the world was if you give it, you’re gonna receive it when she, before she, passed away again. I grew up with her my whole life and she passed away on a Tuesday but the follow the Friday before I got to spend the whole night with her and I really I think I learned more in that night about her than I did my whole time growing up with her, because we went really deep. She knew that she was getting ready to pass away and so it was kind of an open book. You know, sammy asked me questions and I’ll answer them. And I asked her. One was just if you could go back and start all over. I’m sure you’ve wished that. You know you wasn’t in a wheelchair and you didn’t have polio and you know, would you you’d go back and change all that, right, mom? And her answer shocked me because she said no. She said no, I wouldn’t change anything. She said if I go back and change, I’m not your mom, I’m not your sister’s mom, I’m not married. I don’t have this great life that I did. We were poor, we didn’t go on vacations, we went clothes shopping at the grocery store and that was a great life for her. That was amazing. She was like I was so blessed with this life. And then to turn around and she said I’d never changed my childhood. I got to do things that other kids never got to experience. She got to meet these because she spent a lot of time at Children’s Hospital. So she got to meet famous movie actors and movie stars and don’t quote me on this, but I’m pretty sure she got to meet the Beatles.

Julie Hilsen: 8:57

Wow.

Sammy Jo Farrens: 8:58

Like they come and they gave her a hug and if she doesn’t have polio and isn’t in the hospital, she doesn’t get that experience. And for her it was like, pfft, I lived an awesome, amazing life.

Julie Hilsen: 9:12

No, I’m not changing it, you know, and I think, the story about how her siblings were riding bicycles and they were sort of rubbing it in and your mom I think it was your mom, your grandmother, your mom’s mom said okay, I’m going to take you for ice cream, because you’re not allowed to treat someone like that.

Grateful and Self-Loving Life

Sammy Jo Farrens: 9:32

Yep, the boys were picking on her and grandma seen it. And then when grandma come out and busted the because she had three brothers, and when grandma come out and busted the boys because they were teasing her, they got all upset and whatever. And she said all right, well, you know, carolyn, come on, we’re going to go, we’re going to get ice cream. And well, of course, the boys, well, we’re sorry, we, you know, oh, we didn’t mean it. And grandma said nope, nope, that’s what you get. You know, you shouldn’t have been mean, you don’t treat people that way. And yeah, and that was, that was mom. I mean that’s.

Julie Hilsen: 10:10

And that was a story she remembered to tell you, because she lived in this lens of gratitude, this lens of I live in magic. I mean, she probably didn’t say she lived in magic, but she did, she trusted and she did her best and she put out her best. And then gifts came to her. And that’s how you show up, that’s how you receive your open, because you’re in an open heart and you’re giving and uh, Well, I love what you just said there, with the open heart, and I’ve never thought of that.

Sammy Jo Farrens: 10:44

Thank you so much for giving me that. I’ve never really thought of it that way. That was her, the open heart. It was always just how can I give, how can I help? And she had no expectations back. You know, and to me, that’s the way I wanna live and I strive each day to get more and more towards that that I give out a lot of words because I do speaking and do videos and different things like that. Now the book and it’s for me, it’s I’m giving that stuff away and I don’t expect anything back. I don’t expect, you know the book came out the other day. You know it got released and everything. And I was talking to another gentleman actually it was my preacher at my church and he said, yeah, we looked up your book, you know we were gonna order it and it’s that. Did you know it’s selling on eBay for twice the price? Now I don’t get nothing off of that. And my response was well, cool, I hope somebody’s making some money on it, because it’s as long as the message gets out. Now don’t get me wrong. I want to make money and I want to have a, you know, a financially nice life. But how many people in that moment would have said well, I got to find out who that is. They’re ripping me off, they’re stealing my stuff there. For me it was like good, I hope somebody else gets something out of it. You know, and I know I wouldn’t have that lesson without mom. You know, without her, that was her lesson. Well, good, I hope somebody else is doing good too.

Julie Hilsen: 12:36

You know yeah, and such a blessing that you had that last night with her in the hospital because, you’re right, your child, your child eyes, your child experiences, you had those, but her coming back, you know, circling around at the end To cement those things, to highlight those things, and then you can go back. Oh yeah, I remember when she did that. I remember when I had that experience and she said that and it just Reinforced what her message was to you and and the fact that you’re dyslexic and you had a, you know, learning disability and as a child, and you decided I’m just gonna write this book, even though I have a learning disability and it’s hard. Right, like you, you didn’t write it with chat GBT, you wrote it from your heart.

Sammy Jo Farrens: 13:24

I tell you what, though, if I didn’t know more about chat no, that’s Now Right in the book. I tell you it was, it was fun, it was, it was an exciting experience. I’ve actually I’m gonna write a couple more. I’ve already got, you know, planned out. But I hear about so many because now I’m now a professional speaker and you know I speak in front of crowds and organizations and different things, and I hear so many people go, oh, yeah, I wrote a book. And I go, oh, and I you know what. What’s the book about? Why’d you write the book? You know different things, what’s? Because I’m a speaker. So it’s like in the speaking world, you, you write the book just for validation. Just so many and I’m not saying all of them, but there is a lot that they write a book just to say I wrote a book. And For me it was like I’m not writing a book just to say I wrote a book. I’m writing a book because I wanted to. When I say I want people to live a life of gratitude, that’s what I want. I want people to understand what that means and and to know that feeling, and it’s not just when you wake up in the morning and you do your gratitude journal, or or before you go to bed, you, you say what you’re grateful for during the day. It’s from the minute you get up till the minute you close your eyes to live that life and the power. I never knew how powerful this would be and man it. Just it amazes me and things happen in my life every day and I’m just amazed at how I can handle them now, compared to what I, what I used to be, what I used to do. You know Life’s gonna happen. It’s how you handle it.

Julie Hilsen: 15:21

I handle it and you live. I mean, and I’d love to quote the last line of your book. I think it’s the last line, you might have changed it but the gratitude is a gift. You are a gift. Therefore, gratitude equals you that’s right. So it comes, it comes all the way back, and I always, I always, preach this Sammy, I am like self-love. You’ve got to show up for yourself. You’ve got to accept yourself and not be critical of yourself, because that’s that’s the magic is is loving yourself first. It’s not love, isn’t something that you project or you receive. It’s something that’s in you that you decide to give.

Sammy Jo Farrens: 16:01

Oh yeah, yeah, that’s and it’s and it is, you know, writing the book. Before I wrote the book, I and I say I talk about this in the book I ask over 200 people the simple question of what are you grateful for? And there’s no wrong answers, there’s, and I would ask everybody on your podcast today this what are you grateful for? And that Two people out of over 200 said themselves. And again, there’s no wrong answer. But it was my kids and my family and my church and Great, those are great. I can only give a 100% of my love and gratitude and life to my kids. If I am a hundred percent, if I am totally engulfed and and know that it’s not selfish for me to put myself first, because if my cups full Now I can fill your cup up Now I can kill you right.

Julie Hilsen: 17:04

It’s a classic. You don’t see the gift that’s right in front of you. Like you are right in front of you, like you are Amazing. You’re awesome. You showed up today and and I appreciate that message to the audience you know that you know, be grateful for yourself. Show up with this gratitude because that’s your number one gift and when you come from that, everyone can accept themselves more because you’ve shown that, just like your mom lived, she lived her life Showing other people how to show up better, and she didn’t preach it, she just did it and then they mimicked her. They it like it was a ripple effect in your environment. She was doing things for people and then you guys received casseroles and and help with the house and you know it’s. It doesn’t have to be this big demonstration. Sometimes it’s just you living your best life. It ripples out to other people so they can live their best life. It’s not complicated.

Sammy Jo Farrens: 18:01

No, and it really here’s how it starts, and this is the hardest part you allow yourself to be first, allow yourself and and with that allowance it’s forgive yourself for for your past, forgive yourself for whatever it is that you won’t allow yourself to be first, and and a lot. That has a lot to do with resentment and anger and and it’s always things from our past and it’s I’m gonna allow myself to forgive me for these past discresions because they’re done, they’re over. I can’t change them, I can’t go back and do anything about them, so I’m allow myself forgiveness for that and then I’m gonna allow myself to become more than I ever thought. And that that’s the life of gratitude. And with doing that, what actually happens is when you start allowing yourself other people around you. They Encompass that same mindset and they go well, okay, it’s really cool, I mean it’s. They see you doing it and now they want a piece of it and they go dang, what’s different about Julie? What’s different about Sammy? And well, I don’t know, she talks a lot about that gratitude stuff now and this and that.

Julie Hilsen: 19:22

Well, maybe I should check into that, you know, yeah, it all goes back to your, your precept of don’t allow negativity in. If you’re so full of this gratitude, the negativity has no space. Do you only have so much space around you at all time? So if you focus on what’s going right, what you’re grateful for, even when the negative negativity shows up, there’s just no space, there’s no room, yeah, and it doesn’t even and it’s like you even go through in your book the chart about you know things that you say that are negative, and how you could rephrase it in more of a positive affirmation, and that’s a really practical thing to do.

Sammy Jo Farrens: 20:03

Eliminate the word can’t. You can do anything. I’m five foot six, 200 pounds, 48 years old and with Julie’s help, I’m going to slam a basketball Cause. Julie’s got a ladder somewhere and that’s what we’re going to use to get me up there.

Julie Hilsen: 20:24

Or I can lower the hoop really well. There we go, I’ve got to slam my basketball hoop goes down, so you just come on over. We’ll just put it in the lower setting and we’ll yes, I’m in, I got it. It’s all camera angles we can do it.

Sammy Jo Farrens: 20:41

We’re going to need a lot of editing on this one. Oh my goodness, no it’s. You know, a big message I would give to people is understand that you deserve it. Oh, again, I go back to the allowance of it. Allow yourself to understand that you deserve it and you’re worth it. You know, so many of us we’re not sure what our actual self-worth is and we won’t allow ourselves to come first. Well, no, I got to put my kids first and I got to put you know this or that or whatever first, and it’s no. Allow yourself to be first because you’re worth it.

Julie Hilsen: 21:28

And it takes a lot of honesty to see, to see that you’re not putting yourself first, to see that you think you’re unworthy or that you deserve to be punished or have shame because of past things. It takes a lot of honesty to really look at those things and say, yeah, I didn’t make the choice that I’d make today, but I’m not there anymore. Like, every day is a chance to live the life of your dreams. So if you’re holding onto mistakes in the past, you’re not able to live the life of your dream.

Sammy Jo Farrens: 21:58

Yeah, no, no. It’s a very courageous thing to allow yourself to be first. It’s very courageous because it does. It takes a lot of strength mentally. You have to eliminate what you think people are gonna judge you on and you also have to eliminate judging yourself.

Julie Hilsen: 22:22

You know, and that’s and you have to be okay if it doesn’t go well, because if it fails it’s your fault, right Cause you were-. Like we said, God will give us a springboard to recover. So that’s part of the journey is, you know, get your springboard.

Sammy Jo Farrens: 22:44

I fell down many a times and I tell you what. My back might hurt a little bit, but I still get up and I keep going. So you know.

Finding Serenity and Gratitude

Julie Hilsen: 22:52

One of your chapters in your book is called Find your Control, yeah, and I wondered if you would give the audience some cliff notes or highlights on. You know well, your experience was your wife was really sick and you couldn’t control. You got her to the hospital as quickly as you could once you realized how dire the situation was. But the whole chapter was about you know you couldn’t control how you know the short doctor that they flew in or they flew her to to help her, that saved her life, that understood that her organs had twisted and that you know that that happened, but you couldn’t control. You couldn’t call him in and there was. You had to sort of release your control. But when you find your control like, can you give the audience some tips on how to know when they have control, when they can find it or when they need to just sit back and say I just have to see how this pans out and I’m just gonna trust it turns out in? the highest possible outcome. You know, because you know sometimes it’s a serenity prayer, right? Give me the courage to change the things I can and to accept the things I can’t. I know I’m misquoting the prayer, but I mean it comes back to that, right.

Sammy Jo Farrens: 24:13

For me again to allow yourself to live this life of gratitude and put yourself first. It really is. It’s to understand what do you control in your life and what don’t you. You know, control. What we think of a lot of times is what’s all encompassing around us right, but the reality is like right now I’m sitting in my office. I have no control over the weather today, but I can be grateful for whatever it is. You know, I can understand that I have no control over my electric being on right now or being on this computer. I actually have no control over that. If the electric goes off right now, for whatever reason, I can get mad, I can throw a fit, I can cuss and scream and holler, and I still don’t control it. So why would I allow that into my presence If the electric went off right now? Well, you know what Julie’s going to call me back later, or I’ll call her back later and we’ll continue to have a great life Because it wasn’t that bad, it wasn’t that crazy. My neighbor this is a perfect example of what we control, what we don’t, and how gratitude plays a huge part in it. My neighbor came over about three weeks ago. 6 am in the morning he said, Sammy, my car won’t start. Could you give me a jump? I said, yeah, that’s fine, I go out and we’re walking to his car and I’m like, dude, you got to be at work here in just a little bit, right? He said, yeah, he said I already called my boss. He’s all mad. I told him I’m going to be late. You know this mad. And then he said this. He said but Sammy, look at that sunrise, look at how beautiful this is. In that moment I was so proud because I talked to him a lot about gratitude and, you know, putting yourself first. In that moment I was so proud that he didn’t control his car. The car wouldn’t start. Okay, I’m not going to get mad. I’m not going to allow that to ruin my day. I’m not going to allow that to ruin my week. He didn’t control his boss being mad. Hey boss, sorry, be mad, but I can’t control this. So, again, he didn’t allow that to ruin his day. He took control of the one thing he could, and that was seeing a beautiful sunrise, seeing something that made his day great. That’s what we do. What do you really control In times of the worst thing happening in your life? If you can stop in just a moment and just look and go what do I control and what don’t I? And let me focus on what I can control Now. That in itself is a life changer. So I would invite everybody to even in nothing has to be bad going on, but just as you’re sitting listening to this, whether you’re driving, whether you’re sitting at home, whatever you’re doing, stop what you’re doing right there in that moment and really think about, in this moment, even, what do I have control over and what don’t I, and then just kind of phase that throughout your day and weeks and stuff, and you’ll start seeing that, hmm, these things here, okay, this is what. And what you’ll find is is what you have control over, is what’ll get better once you start focusing on it.

The Power of Gratitude and Choice

Julie Hilsen: 28:09

I adore it. I think that’s a great sentiment to end on, because it’s just perfect. I just encourage everyone go cherish what you’re controlling, go honor, honor your blessings. There’s many more and a lot of times are right, right, freaking in front of your face.

Sammy Jo Farrens: 28:30

Yeah, yeah, they are and it’s you know again, you get, it’s so powerful. You get to make that choice. It’s up to you.

Julie Hilsen: 28:40

Yeah, it keeps you out of worry, it keeps you out of stress because it’s right you’re present, you’re right here, you’re okay. If you weren’t okay, you’d be transitioning to the other place, and you’re not, because you’re breathing. Yeah, yeah, oh see, I mean well, I hope you have a great rest of your day and congratulations on your book. I’m celebrating it. It’s a hard. It’s a hard thing to produce. I equate it to having a baby.

Sammy Jo Farrens: 29:09

Oh, what Well, I’ll tell you what I’m not going to equate that I have no control over the baby thing. He burned it. No, I appreciate it.

Julie Hilsen: 29:22

Well, I’ve had two babies and I’m going to say it had different levels of pain, but it was still quite a problem.

Sammy Jo Farrens: 29:31

There we go. I’m going to tell my wife that we’ll see how that works out.

Julie Hilsen: 29:35

I don’t know.

Sammy Jo Farrens: 29:38

Well, Julie, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.

Julie Hilsen: 29:41

Thank you, thank you and thank you for being a friend. Yes, yes.

Sammy Jo Farrens: 29:45

Same, vice versa, or whatever, same deal. I look forward to talking to you more in the future, even.

Julie Hilsen: 29:54

Yes, anytime.