Hey, humans. How's it going? Susan Ruth here.
Thanks for listening to another episode of Hey Human Podcast.
This is episode 376,
and I had a conversation with Kine Deok.
Kine lived the first 16 years of her life behind Russian occupied
East Germany, behind the Iron Curtain,
where every aspect of her life and every citizen was controlled by the
government. She immigrated to North America at 27.
She's a bestselling author and founder of Rock The Kitchen,
A lifestyle changing online experience,
cooking class for aspiring home cooks who want to gain more
confidence, creativity, and flavor building skills in the kitchen, unquote,
she faced seemingly insurmountable social, emotional, personal,
and economic hurdles growing up,
but never gave up and surpassed even her own wildest dreams for freedom and
success. Really incredible story. Fascinating woman. Lovely woman.
And shout out to our mutual friend Michelle,
who connected us. Yay, Missy, Michelle. All right,
check out hey human podcast.com for links.
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Look for my albums. All I ever wanted was everything Surfacing to breathe.
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You got this. All right, here we go.
Christine de Cook, welcome to Hey, human.
Thank you for having me. And.
We have a mutual friend and Michelle, who I adore and I miss very much.
Yeah, she,
I miss her too because they moved away and now we barely see each other, so.
Yeah, I know. Well.
Thank you for being here. I appreciate it. She told me about you, uh,
not too long ago and asked if I was interested in speaking with you.
And of course I said absolutely. Also any friend.
Of hers is a friend of mine as far as I'm concerned.
But you definitely have a fascinating story.
I'd love to just jump right into childhood. Tell me what childhood was like.
I grew up in Russian occupied East Germany, behind the Iron Curtain,
we used to say.
And that was actually quite a childhood because we were literally
cage in.
We were not able to do or say anything that wasn't approved by the government.
Life was marked by scarcity of literally the simplest things. And,
um, it was a tough childhood. I I all,
I remember Little East, you know, when people ask me to describe it,
I say, well, I describe it as gray. Everything was gray. Streets were gray.
Fruit was gray. The air was gray. Everything was gray.
There was no color in our life. So it was very challenging. And, you know,
we didn't have much of anything because we,
the government thought we didn't need much of anything we could, needed to work,
be work obese and do our job and basically
follow the rules and be a good citizen.
And then we would be rewarded with,
I don't know what we'd be rewarded with because we never got rewarded.
My mother did, never got rewarded. No, my sister did. Never got rewarded,
and I didn't. Now mind you,
we also were Christian in a country that formed on religion.
So being a Christian wasn't a good thing because we did
not join the pioneers.
We did not join anything political that was,
you know, seen as, yes, you're a good citizen, you follow the rules.
So we did not do any of this. So they, they let us feel that too, you know? So.
And if you didn't follow that, what would happen?
Well, basically you would feel the consequences, cons, consequences.
For me in school, like for my sister and I,
it was like we were excluded from everything that was going on.
Everybody else would go celebrate and have events and things to go to.
We would never be able to do that.
And my mom would feel it at work because she was excluded and from a lot of
things. So,
and the other thing too is we were excluded from like
simple things. For example, like moving,
being able to move to a different apartment because the apartment we were
living in was terrible. It was a dump.
And I remember my mom once applying to be able to move
and guess, so you have, first of all, you had to apply, right? I mean,
you had to apply.
And then I remember these two gentlemen coming on the door knocking,
and my mom opened up. Then they went into the apartment.
S stumped on the floor, said,
there's nothing wrong with with this apartment left. And that was it.
So we weren't moving anywhere.
And then I remember lines, lines everywhere. I mean,
after school it was my job to go to the bakery line up there at like
one 30 when the bakery opened at three o'clock to just
see whatever else was left from the morning.
Because they wouldn't sell fresh things in the afternoon.
They were just basically open in the morning while we had to go to school.
Right. And then they closed at one, open at three,
and whatever else was left you would be able to buy.
And I remember standing there from counting the people in front of
me, you know,
to see whether I would be able to touch one of those breads behind.
And I saw on the shelf or not. And sometimes I was,
sometimes I wasn't going to the butcher. It was the same everywhere.
So the butcher,
you would go and you would think they sell tiles because it was just empty
hooks. There was nothing there.
And then we saw lines forming up on the marketplace.
And my mom always gave us five German marks at the time. And she says,
whenever you see a line line up, whether you know what's being sold or not.
And then we would stand in the line. And I remember, so we would ask what's,
what's sale? What's, so the, you know,
would go to the front and then by the time we would come back, you would say,
you would hear whether it was apples or potatoes or whatever it was.
So that was my life lines conclusions from school,
not being able to move. Like our apartment, literally,
we didn't even have a toilet in the apartment.
We had to walk across the hallway, we used the washroom. And at night, that was,
that was challenging and scary for a little girl, right?
And then we had leave or not,
we had a community bath one for the entire house.
So we would have to note in the calendar when my mom
and I, when my mom was able to actually give the two girls a bath.
And that was usually Saturday afternoons.
But just the thought of everybody else using that
bathtub was disgusting, you know? Anyway, so that was my childhood.
It was, uh, pretty gray and pretty awful. And other than my mom,
as I said,
trying to make the best of it and really being loving and kind and trying her
hardest to give us moments of joy. There was,
there was nothing. How did you get out?
So we got out in 84.
There was five years before the wall came down.
The reason why we got out is because of the politic, politic happenings.
Back in the day, like 1977, there was the housing,
the housing key declaration that reflected human rights
across, uh, all border for people across all borders. So,
and it has become like very challenging, uh, for the German,
um, democratic republics to keep people in.
And there was a whole bunch of happenings,
which I don't have to explain right now,
but my mom basically had applied to be able to lose the country.
And so she must have applied in 79, but took,
because it took five years for that application to come
together. And then they called us.
And the only reason why we even had a telephone is because my mom worked in the
hospital as an X-ray technician. People usually did not have a telephone.
The only reason we did is because she worked and she needed to be called and be
able to be called. So they called us,
gave us 24 hour notice to get the heck out of the country.
And that wasn't possible because my sister at the time,
she was already in Berlin studying. So my mother asked like,
did she bagged government? People's like,
you have to give me 48 hours because I have to get a hold of my other daughter.
And so that was pretty, that was all just punishment,
right?
And then I remember where we were each leaving with two suitcases and
we were going to the train station.
They took away our identity and we had nothing to our name.
Like we were nobody.
They took away everything that would identify who we are.
When they put us,
they had machine guns and german shepherds and put us in that
train because we were now told, um, Raiders or,
uh, what do they call these people? Um, I don't remember what we,
we had a specific name, .
Basically we were trading us leaving the country.
So until the last moment of us being in that
country, we were, they literally treated like shit.
But because of the political happenings,
we were able to leave five years before the wall came down.
And that has changed the trajectory of our lives.
So I'm so grateful that that happened, even though it wasn't devi easily at all,
was 16. Yeah.
But it,
it was challenging because now I was going from a
socialist country to a capitalist country,
which the school system was completely different. And when we had to leave,
it was in, in March, in the middle of March, well, I was in grade 10,
so I couldn't even finish my regular school, school and graduate from school.
They didn't care. So now I had to finish school in a different
system and completely turned my world upside down because I wasn't
prepared for that.
I had had no clue how to handle all this. Right.
It was amazing to be free,
but that freedom came with a whole bunch of complications because I didn't know
how to handle it.
Where did you go? Was it Canada?
Oh, we were actually going to, uh, west Germany first. I lived in,
in West Germany,
like in Hamburg for about 16,
um, 11 years before I immigrated to Canada. Yeah.
When, when you first got to West Germany from East Germany, uh, what was the,
how did people from West Germany feel about folks from East Germany coming in?
Were they welcoming? Did they No.
Not really. No. And especially, I came, my,
we came from what's called bia,
which is very on the Czechoslovakian border.
So the accent we had was horrible.
And Hamburg is actually in the very north of Germany,
so they speak high German, you know,
like how the English speak proper English.
So the people in Hamburg speak very high, proper German.
And the teacher in school, believe it or not, told me,
Hey girl, you either speak proper German or you just shut.
So we were in school. Now,
I was not welcomed first of all because I was an Aussie,
that's what they called us. Well, Aussie from a a Germany,
east Germany is Aus Germany in, in Germany.
So you are just an Aussie, and then by the, by the way, you don't talk properly,
so you're whatever. So that was very challenging, very challenging.
And I think the biggest challenge, Susan, was
the system. So we were free now,
and with that comes free thinking and free doing and free whatever,
right? So I remember in school we were sitting in,
in a class and the teacher was telling us, you know,
we were going over a storyline of something,
and then the home homework or the assignment was to go home and write
a, write an episode for it, or like a,
your own thoughts or your own whatever, you know.
So I came home and I was crying, and my mom was saying, Hey girl,
what's happening? I said, well, they want me to write my,
they want me to write an an, an essay. It's like,
I don't even know how to do this. It is like,
they want me to have an opinion. I have no opinion,
because we were just trained to be robots to
basically repeat after me. And as better,
we were repeating as better notes. We were done in school. Well,
in, in the rest German world, there was no repeating, there was,
give me your thoughts, give me your opinion, give me
whatever. And I wasn't able to do this took me a long time.
So I tried many, many nights because I was so,
so overwhelmed and I didn't know how to handle it all.
How do you feel about your identity at this point?
Uh, how, and then how did you come to find your identity?
And because I believe in a society like East Germany or North Korea or
any of these places, your identity is one thing,
and that is to appreciate the leader and follow the party line.
How does one find one's identity through all of that?
You know, it's, it's very hard actually. It's not, it's,
it's a long, a long way. It, it does, it's not happening overnight.
And I think the best example I can give you is when I had my first
moment of going through college.
So now I would go through college because that was what you would do next.
I mean, now I had the opportunity to actually go to higher education,
which in East Germany I didn't have. So I thought, well, I'm gonna do this,
even though I wasn't the best learner and the best student, but I thought, wow,
it's a great opportunity. I'm gonna take it, right?
So I would go and I would do it, but it wasn't super easy.
And one day I remember, uh, of coming home and telling my mom,
because I was living with her, I couldn't afford my own, you know,
apartment. I had no car. I had used the brain,
I had to work while going to university. There was all sorts of things.
But I came home one day and I said to my mom, you know,
I'm gonna take some time off to find myself.
And she said, you wanna do what? I said, well find myself.
A lot of people do this my age. And she says, what does it even mean? Like,
is there anything lost? Or you have lost your face, your body parts.
You quite put well together. What's going on? She says,
I suggest you look in the mirror and see what you need to find. You know?
And she says, if you wanna find yourself, you can do this later in life,
but not under my roof and the story. So I went,
I remember I went to the,
the bathroom and looked in the mirror and I was looking to see
what I was finding, what I was wanting to find, right?
And it was interesting because
all these challenges,
everything was so overwhelming all these past years that I just
wanted to find a way out. I just wanted to take a break. I don't want,
I didn't wanna stink. I did, I just wanted to,
I needed just to be like nothing for a moment, right? Because,
and then this little voice in my head, of course, the gremlins we have saying,
well, you can't do all this. It's way too complicated. Yes, you're free,
but you are not born for this.
So that voice telling me all these things, like,
I'm not good enough for whatever, so wanting to shut me down.
So I'm looking in this mirror and I'm thinking, well, you know what it,
the reason why I wanna find myself is because I don't really want to,
because there's nothing wrong with me. I just wanna escape from the challenges.
And if I say I can't,
I would've been easier than saying I can because it would've allowed me to quit
and just move off. Right?
So that was my first moment actually where I thought, you know what?
There is more in you than that little
voice that tells you you are nobody,
just because you always been told you are nobody. Right?
I was always been told I'm nobody. You're just a puppet.
And that you adopt that thinking, right? And even though I was free,
I was still in that mindset of being a puppet.
And so looking at that mirror and hearing that
voice talking to me, and then I decided, you know what? I'm not a puppet.
I can do better than this. I am now free. And I.
Stop this mindsets of I can,
and I will do whatever it takes to take my life and my own hand and to push
through all these obstacles to make something out of my life.
I have now an opportunity and I'm just, it's challenging,
but I'm gonna do what it takes to move on.
And that's when I started to actually become cine,
more stepping out of this puppet being and becoming more of
the person that I am today. That was my start, I would say.
Hmm. When you look around the landscape of America,
do you get nervous of what's happening today with such
derive communi communities and communication? Does it,
does it trigger you at all?
It does because there is so much, you know, I mean,
we're all brutalized by so many things that come our way,
right? And all these demands of who to be, what to do,
um, where to go, all these things. And some, I,
I think there are so many of us are overwhelmed,
and then they feel stuck because they lose clarity, they lose confidence,
they lose, um, their path because we, you know,
then we look at others and there's this competition thinking we have,
or we need to be like these other people, or we need to do this,
or we need to have that, or whatever. So it, I think it's very,
it is frightening a little bit to stay strong
and follow your path and know what you want to do,
and not give into society as to how they want us to be
and see and how they want us, you know, to yeah.
Lead our life and, you know, keep that confidence. It's,
it's, it's a challenge every day. And you gotta really focus on,
on being strong and not falling in the trap of yeah.
What others of, of all these things that surround us, right?
What happens, well, to that point too, is that I think that there are,
there are some indications, there are many indications at this point that.
The.
Politicians are trying to control the populace.
That kind of thing makes me very nervous.
And I was born and raised in a free country,
but it,
it does seem that at least some of the state's leaders are determined to take
so many rights away.
Yeah, it's frightening. It is.
And especially coming from a country or growing up in a country where that we
had no rights, you know,
it is actually very frightening to see that we would maybe go more and more in
that direction.
Mm-hmm. .
Yeah.
History repeats. What facilitated your move to Canada?
So actually, I got to Vancouver, British Columbia.
And what facilitated my move was a sad,
sad story because I married my prince charming,
the man I fell in love with when I was 18 years old.
I married him when I was 24,
knowing that there was an elephant in the room.
But me being young and thinking, oh, we can,
and now finding my voice and finding my, I can and I will attitude, I thought,
oh, okay, I can deal with the elephant in the room,
which was him having a gambling problem.
I knew that.
And the pastor in our church didn't even wanna marry us because he said,
guys,
that needs to be dealt with because it can be dramatic to your marriage.
Well, I thought, well, we were together for six years.
I really wanted to marry the guy. And, uh, so to make a long story short,
obviously we couldn't deal with the elephant in the room.
And I tried way more than him because when a gambler, you know,
I don't know what triggers the fact when you actually think you have a gambling
problem, uh, maybe there is a number of an amount of money.
I don't know what it is, but you know,
that you have to gamble away in order to sink. You're a gambler.
He never thought of him as a gambler yet. He gambled away everything we had.
One day I came home, there was no tv, next thing the camera was missing.
It was always things like this. And, you know, we were young and I was in love,
truly. And so I would go to these, uh, discovery, self discovery,
uh, recovery sessions, and I would learn about the issue of gambling,
what goes on in the head. I tried everything. And we,
I would try to get him to counseling, but nothing worked.
And I was just afraid being so young, it's like, well, we wanna build a family.
We wanna grow all together. And I saw no, um,
no hope, because nothing changed over the years.
And so I just, I made this very,
very hard decision to leave the man I truly loved. But as I have,
there is no way this is gonna work. Because if you don't wanna work on yourself,
I cannot change you.
I learned early on that the change can only come from the person within
you can support, you can encourage, you can be there,
but you cannot change a person. Uh,
not the person's value or principles they live by.
And if they don't wanna change, he wasn't ready at the time,
and I just had to accept it. So long story short,
we go to the courthouse, getting the worst.
We were sitting there holding hands because we were loving each other,
getting divorced. It's crazy. And then afterwards,
we kept on seeing each other even. So we had split and had separate apartments.
And at one time I said,
this can't go on because I need to move on.
So I was sitting in the bus going to work, and I'm looking in the newspaper,
and I saw an ad in the paper, Vancouver Island,
come to see the whales and fish, get some fishing done,
and da da da in exchange for some work.
And I thought to myself, that's probably just one of those scam things, right?
This is not happening. Anyway, my curiosity got ahold of me,
and I called the number, and lo and behold, I was a real person.
The lady who I'm still friend with today, she says,
my brother immigrated to Canada and he lives on Tofino on Vancouver Island,
and he is building a house. And in Canada, they have what's called woofers,
like people who could go and work for a period of time for free room and board.
And I said, well, hey, here I am. I need to get away for a while. So she says,
well, you know, I don't know,
because he's looking for guys helping with building a house.
And I said, well, I may be a woman, but I can work like a guy. Why don't I,
I I talk to him and see. So anyways,
I talked to him and he gave me the benefit of the doubt, said, okay, girl,
if you really need a break, come on. And so I befriended the family.
I stayed there for six weeks, came back the following year for eight weeks,
and then I decided, you know,
this is my opportunity to start all over again to build a new
life, because I loved British Columbia, the country, it's so beautiful.
Now, mind you, I couldn't speak English at the time.
So because we learned Russian in school, remember Russia occupied these Germany,
Germany. So I thought, anybody thought I was crazy. It's like,
you are gonna do what? Sell your house,
quit your job and go somewhere where you can't even speak the language.
And I said, I can and I will.
So that attitude has helped me,
was basically started to become my lifelong companion in everything I did,
and in every challenge I overcame.
So that is basically how I came to, um,
to Canada. So, because after two years of going to visit, I decided,
you know, I'll just gonna sell everything and make a move. And I did,
which was another challenge, because now I had to climb down the ladder.
In the meantime, I had become a social educator, graduated from university,
but I, in order for me to immigrate, there was only one way.
I, I wasn't gonna marry anybody. I didn't have a million dollar to my name.
And there was another way of, oh, there was another way of how you could, oh,
family first grade, I didn't have any family there.
So all these three avenues did not apply to me.
The only other avenue was become a live in caregiver for two years,
and after that you could become a permanent resident.
So I went that route,
but I encountered a whole bunch of new struggles because
my image of being a live-in caregiver,
and what I have heard how this all works is that you're gonna be part of the
family and it's all gonna be nice,
and this and that. It wasn't at all.
So it was a drama story for me because the family I call selfish in
my book that I published ,
were very selfish and treated me with the utmost disrespect.
And it was just a challenge day after day.
So it was a hard way for me to immigrate. And believe me,
there were days when I felt I'm gonna pack my shit up
and go back home because I cannot take it anymore.
And then what I did, guess what, every time that happened, went to the bathroom,
threw them water in my face, and looked in that mirror and said,
I can. And I will. I did not give up everything to just give in. Now I'm gonna
give my best, and I'm just work through this time.
And I'm glad I did because I wouldn't sit here today talking to you if I had
given in and went home. So yes, that was my story, immigrating to Canada,
we lived there for a little while, and then, uh,
through other happenings in my life, I immigrated to the States. So,
uh, but yeah, I was, uh, able to basically start my life.
And you're in Bellingham now?
Not quite anymore, because my now husband , he likes to move around.
And since we are getting along super well and have a great relationship,
I kind of keep on following him,
which means I constantly have to reinvent myself because
I can't keep on doing the business I'm doing. Because if we're moving,
I gotta always try to, yeah.
So it's one of my jobs to reinventing myself, ,
I'm a traveler. Um, what do you say of travelers, of,
of life's many paths, whatever you wanna say. In the summer months,
we live in Westport, which is Washington, and then in the winter months,
we live in the Florida Keys.
Ah, . I go to Key West quite a lot for the songwriter festival.
Yeah, yeah. So you would know Big Pine key,
because you have to travel through there.
Wow. What a fascinating start.
When did you start to feel really grounded, or do you yet.
? Uh, yes and no. I feel very grounded
in the way of who I am today, what I've become.
I feel very, you know,
I know who I am and what I'm able of and capable of doing.
So I feel very grounded in that respect. In regards to, you know,
all these moving around all the time. I mean, I love traveling,
but sometimes I wake up in the morning and I, I don't even know where I am.
And right now we are even, even my husband and I, sometimes we wonder, are we,
do we, are we residents here? Are we residents there?
Where are we actually residing? So that is kind of like a little bit,
we're floating in the air right now. I feel pretty, pretty, you know,
solid and stand feel. I, I stand on solid ground,
which has taken me a long time over all my life,
pushing through challenges, coming out on , on the other side,
getting stronger with all these experiences and never giving up,
always giving your best. And, um, yeah,
and pushing through, through fear and discomfort.
How did you meet your husband?
I met my husband through work because, um,
he was a mortgage broker and I was a real estate agent.
So we had done some business together, and we were going through,
I was actually going through a second divorce here,
which is a whole nother story, the story of my life, I guess .
Um, and he was going through a divorce,
and when we both found each other single again
and knowing already through work, and we liked each other,
so we started going out together. And from there, here we are.
Yeah, it's so hard anyway, to partner with a person,
given all the trauma of your life,
I would imagine it would be that much more difficult too,
because in a world growing up where you have to do what everyone tells
you, and you finally break free from that,
and suddenly you have dominion over your body and your mind,
and your soul and your destiny,
it must be very confusing and complicated to partner with someone else.
And, you know,
where in the partnership will that lead you if part of
your past makes where you are in your present that
much more amplified?
Yeah, I mean, that's a good question. Uh, Susan, um, for me,
you know, I got in my second to, to go there.
I got in my second marriage because I met my second
husband. He was a widower with two small children,
and I met him through a variety of events that le led
up. And, um, I started helping him. It wasn't someone high,
I don't think. We fell highly in love with each other. We liked each other,
and we were became good friends, right? And, uh,
so my values,
my lifelong values are driven by the needs of others.
And so when we got together seeing him with these
two children,
and they were all struggling because the mom had passed away from cancer.
So I was getting into this relationship
because I liked him, but mainly because he needed some help. And I thought,
well, I can be that person.
And the children were perceived as very difficult
and had a lot of nannies that all ran away. And I thought, well,
this can be helped with some persistency, some love.
They need some consistent, you know, being there for them, yada, da, da da.
So I got in that relationship through basically what I've just mentioned.
What I didn't realize is that I actually got myself into a relationship with a
narcissist because he did not show that behavior at all at the
beginning. And we've had good times, and I was there helping out,
uh, really from the bottom of my heart. And one major,
one major contributor to my decision to actually stay and not leave
after, you know, years of challenging times,
was the fact that, you know, I have,
I believe in God and I believe in, you know, things are meant to be,
and he's guiding my life the way, you know.
So when I was sitting in the airplane on
November 28th, 1996 to immigrate to Canada,
that very day was the day the mom of the children passed away.
So when I learned that later, seven, eight years later, I thought, well,
maybe I was in that plane not knowing that I would become the mom of these
children, you know? So anyway, so that was my intention of my, my whole,
how we got together. And again, we had great times,
but over the time I learned that
he was actually very, uh,
dominating and dictating and kept us in the cage. So all of a sudden I felt,
gosh, I just got myself on another cage I was in before. And now,
because he did not value any friends, no friendship,
no people other than the four of us.
I wasn't allowed even to go shopping without him. I mean, literally,
I was always, I was always tapped, kept, kept. So,
and as more as I started to help him in his business, and, you know,
that's how I became a real estate agent, because he was a real estate agent.
But as more as I got involved and as more as he,
as more as his personality came to shine every day, Moore,
and it was more dominating and more dominating,
and guess what happened to me is I turned smaller and smaller and back
into that puppet I used to be back in the days because I was always
told what to do and what not to do.
And that was dramatic because literally I didn't even,
you, you become so small that you don't even recognize it.
Other people, my friends, from when I was caregiving back,
some other people I met, I had a conversation with them and they were shocked.
They actually called my mom. She says, you have to take,
get to Christine out of there. What is happening to her? She's not,
she's not herself anymore. She's like, I don't know what she is.
So that whole relationship, I learned that
if you don't have the same values, and I I'm passing this now onto all my,
you know, to my children and whatnot, if you don't have the same values,
then your,
then your thoughts and your feelings and your actions are
going in different directions and conflict arises all the stinking time,
and you can't consol, you cannot solve that conflict.
When your values don't align and you can't back to my first marriage,
you cannot change someone's values or principles they live by.
So that was my big second aha moment of
this is not working, and I'm getting smaller by the minute.
So I had to literally one day use my,
all my strength and m get up in the morning again, throw water in my face,
tell myself I can, and I will leave this relationship,
which was super challenging because leaving a narcissist is not without
consequences. And going back to your question today,
I mean, this relationship I have now in our,
our by our marriage works so well is because we have the same values.
We value everything when we have the same interests and
everything. That's why there's harmony, there's harmony, there's fun,
there's enjoyment. It's long lasting.
So I learned this that yeah,
you can't force something,
but the problem is you don't know this often when you go into a relationship,
right? You get to learn it over time.
Then the question is whether to do something once you learn,
you know, whether to do something or just stick in it,
because against society, there is shame, guilt,
everything that gets put on you when you leave a relationship or get married
twice, being a Christian, right? In my family was drama
and there was fingers pointed. But then I start to myself, well,
those people don't live in my relationships.
They don't know what's going on because I don't go and pronounce it and put it
on billboards, right? But it's hard,
it's hard to break free from these situations because
again, society is, uh, telling us we should be good citizens. We should be,
you know, perfect partners. We're colleagues,
perfect everything. And if we're not,
then we take that Shelton game on us, right? Humans, am I right?
humans, humans. I tell you,
I just recently talking another very, I don't know if you've heard that.
I went to New York just three weeks ago to give a speech,
uh, at this, uh, speak freedom event.
And I was, uh, invited there. I wasn't, I didn't apply or anything.
I was invited to be one of the 10 speakers.
And so I thought, speak freedom, what can I speak about?
And it brought,
it was probably one of the most challenges I've ever
encountered in my life that I spoke about.
And you remember, my father abandoned my mother,
sister and I when I was not even a year old. I forgot,
maybe I didn't mention that. But that's basically, that's what happened.
That's why it was just me and my mother, because my father abandoned us.
And it was bad enough to grow up as a child in the country that we
were living at with all the challenges,
but without a strong person and father on your side,
it was even harder. And, you know, believe it or not, but there is,
having no father affects a lot of decisions you make.
And I made a lot of bad decisions in my life,
but I managed better than my sister.
She actually crushed her emotionally when he left us,
which sadly had a trickle down effect onto her children.
And today I see my nieces suffering,
which just tears me apart, right? It tears me apart.
And so I developed this hate and resentment towards my
father all these years. And when I was, I,
my sick teenager and early in my twenties, twenties, I always said,
if I ever meet him,
I'm gonna blow up a storm and I'm gonna tell him whatever, you know,
I had it all in me as to what I'm gonna say and do and how I'm gonna blame him
and all these things. I had so much hate for this person.
So when he showed up 45 years later, Susan,
in all of a sudden wanting to be part of my life because he recognized I exist,
and he sent me a letter, I was like, dumbfounded. Like, what do you want?
What part of my life? And I was so just simply forgive you. Like,
that's not happening, right?
So going back to this New York speech Freedom talk,
I thought this would be a good
way for me to talk through what happened when I
actually went on this pilgrimage of finding and mastering
forgiveness, which when you asked me earlier, are you,
do you know who you are? Or do you feel grounded? I feel grounded today.
And that wa was the reason why I was a even able to get on this pilgrimage,
because in my twenties, I would've never done it.
I would just told them to screw you and do whatever, right?
Sorry for the language. Um,
so because my values have changed and I now wanna live an
amazing life, achieve my goal, strive and be happy,
and it is my passion and purpose to empower others to do the same,
I had to find a way to forgive him,
because you can't inspire and empower others without not walking the talk,
right?
So I had to figure it out based on my values, not on the past.
That made me so resentful. And so that is, uh,
what I talked about in New York. And it's, uh, it was actually, uh,
very freeing because, um,
what happens is when you carry that hate and resentment,
it actually changes your personality. You know,
we always talk about forgiveness and you know,
forgiveness is hard and this and that, and yes, and forgiveness is actually,
you know, it is an act of kindness towards another person,
but actually it's also an act of kindness to yourself because you
get rid of the baggage that's holding you hostage, right?
And so when I went on this pilgrimage that is now 10 years ago,
it truly changed my life. The.
Pilgrimage to your father.
Yes. To, on that pilgrimage, to find forgiveness for him,
which was a long journey, believe me. And it was a hard journey, and it put,
it put me, it took everything off me.
But I learned by going deep into my psyche, soul,
mind and spirit,
that carrying that hate and resentment with me was the root from it
affected my, my whole being.
And it affected actually how who I want to become
now being this, you know, being a coach. I, I, uh,
studied for, uh, became an energy leadership coach, uh, some years ago.
And so now I wanna be that person who is understanding, who is compassionate,
non-judgmental, kind, all those things.
But it's tough to be that when you carry hidden anger and resentment
with you. So that was, uh, quite a, quite a moment of truth there for me.
Um,
but I'm glad I went on the pilgrimage because it not only changed my life and
the way I think I,
I turned even into a better version of myself. But I also,
um, I did not deprive myself of amazing times we have today
because we came together and we have some amazing times. I mean,
I can't say I love him over to the moon, but we have some great times together,
and that is something that I,
I would've not been able to accomplish in my earlier years.
Did he give you a reason for leaving? And if he didn't,
did you need one?
Very good question. He, I know the reason for leaving,
he didn't have to give it to me.
I knew from upfront because my parents had a bakery,
and my mom worked so hard that, uh,
she needed some additional help. And my grandparents at the time helped out,
and they actually looked for an additional helper. And then my father ran,
actually ended up running off with the helper,
which literally my grandparents took that grief into their grave.
It was sad, very, very sad.
So I know the reason I didn't need another reason for him.
What he always says today is like, well, I had no, uh,
what does he say? I have to, because he says that in, in German,
and I have to translate in English. Like, no,
what's the word for it? Basically, he was a coward or something, right? He was,
I I was a coward. I I should have I all these things. Well, well,
you didn't, right? And then the reason for, it's like, but why,
why did you never, I mean, I, I understand the reason why you left,
but we were your children. Leaving your wife is one thing,
but abandoning your children, it's a different story. Why did you do that?
Right? I mean,
we were there and my auntie sometimes because everybody would come together,
my whole family, his family actually, because on my mom's side,
there was no family. They were all dead. So his family came together,
and when my auntie walked on the street with us in the little cart,
he would walk across on the other side and turned around and not see us
on purpose. And I said to him,
so why would you not even notice us and come over and say hi? And he,
his excuse was always, well, his new relationship,
the lady was too dominant and told him that you have a new family
now. That family is no longer in existence. You stay here or you go back.
Well, and he decided to stay, and that's why he never
sought any contact until I was 45,
because the only reason why he did guess what,
the lady passed and now he was free again to do
what he wanted to do. So now he reached out. But yeah, that was a,
a very interesting time in my life to really deal with that.
Did you flip a switch and just decide, all right,
I'm gonna go on this pilgrimage of sorts,
be what really was the catalyst?
Because if you had this hate for him and he
reaches out to you and tries to contact you,
I imagine that took some soul searching for you as well.
It didn't just happen overnight, like, okay, yeah, sure, I'll go talk to you.
Especially caring. Oh, no, all that baggage. What do you think was the,
the definitive catalyst to decide to follow through?
Well, as I said, you know, my values have changed over the ti over time.
And I wanted to truly, you know,
my mission in life now is to help others to overcome challenges and
live a, a happy and fulfilled life.
And I cannot do this when I actually hold grudges
or basically not walk my own talk.
But did you know that in the moment,
because that sounded like an arc of your life that came after the forgiveness of
your father? Was it one?
Oh, it actually, it, it was, when I decided to go on that pilgrimage, I thought,
okay, well I need to figure this out because my values have changed,
and now I really wanna be that, uh, what do you call it,
that idol or whatever. Like, I wanna,
I wanna be who I am touting to be. Yeah, I get that. Yes. And,
and so I said, well, it wasn't an overnight thing.
It took me months and months and months, right? Yeah. Did it,
I guess for my own sake, thinking of like basically opening up,
going a path thing where it takes me Yeah.
Seeing a path to see where it takes me. And it took me happily,
gratefully on, uh,
an amazing journey where I learned so much
and, uh, where I learned to master forgiveness. Because one thing, Susan,
forgiveness is not a light switch. You don't just forgive and move on.
It is a long journey, and it's a daily practice,
and I have to continue to practice it daily because when I have those days,
when I talk to my nieces and I see them
dramatized in their lives, immediately my father comes up again, right?
Because I see him being the root of all the suffering.
So I have to literally go back on those days and find my daily
steps of what, what's helping me to forgive. I have a whole routine, uh,
that I kind of came up with. And so it is, no, it is a journey.
It's not just a one-time thing. It's, it is a lot live long journey.
Did he seek out your sister as well? He did.
And that's another story. He, they met each other when, uh,
she was 20 so much, much earlier. And she,
you know, she, she thought he was the best,
best thing that happened to her in life, you know? So she was like, oh my gosh.
She, she put him up on the golden plate or whatever. And,
but what happened is he kept on
abandoning her over and over again. So for, for example,
she was pregnant and he said, oh yeah, you can come and, uh, visit us.
So she, we were already living in Hamburg.
She was traveling with a toddler five, six hours by train.
And when she arrived, so excited to be with her dad,
who meant everything to her, you know, he wouldn't even open the door.
He would not even open the door, let her strand there. And I was so furious,
and I always told her like, why do you keep on trying this relationship?
He doesn't want anything to do with us. And, you know,
that made me even hate him further and further. And that's,
that's not the only time that happened, but she was, and I don't know why,
maybe her need for that father figure or whatever it was,
she was complete to this day,
she's trying to have this relationship
that is not there. I mean, my relationship with him is,
you know, I, I forgave him and I, I call him dad now, which took ,
took a long, long time,
but it's not a relationship of true daughter father. Right? It's not,
and she always was seeking that. And that, I guess, broke, kept on breaking her,
because when he kept on abandoning her, it crushed her more and more and more.
And that's,
and it flew fueled my hate and my resentment more each time I got to know about
it. Right. Oh, it was, I tell you, it was, it's a,
it's a big thing in our family.
And that it creates generational trauma as you spoke to,
that her children are affected by it.
Yes, totally. And then my nieces,
especially my niece, I love them. I, I love them all the same,
but the reason why I have a special relationship with her is because when I was
still living in Germany and my sister had her second child,
and she could not handle it at all because of, you know,
she was in psychological treatments and whatnot. So I take on,
took on that girl, and I took her everywhere with me. I literally, I mean,
she wasn't my child, but she was right.
So that's why we have a very special bond.
And she now is going through so much drama herself because she never,
my sister was not able to keep relationships. So my niece grew up without
a warm, loving, caring home.
So now she has all these dramas in her life, and it just continues.
And when I talk to her,
it just breaks my heart and I really have to compose myself
and try, you know,
find that compassion and that non-judgment and that love and
understanding every single day when I'm phasing these
dramas that are still there, they don't go away.
Yeah. When did you decide to write your book?
Um, I've decided to write my book in 2000.
And when was the pandemic? 20? Yes. Or 19, yeah, 20.
Right.
Depends on who you ask. Whenever it, let's say 2020 .
Whenever it started, because my, now hus, my husband and I, so we actually had,
uh, decided, you know, one of his adventures seeking things.
He, uh, is a boat captain since 84, even though he was also a mortgage broker,
but he wanted to, uh, always be a captain under his own charter yacht.
So one day he came home and said, let's do this. And I was like,
I went just, I studied, I went to coaching school,
I building my coaching business. He says, well, you can do that later, you know,
let's see if, and I thought, oh, well, you know, I love boating.
I love the adventures on the water. So it's not like he forced me by any means,
you know? But we decided it would be a good thing to do. So we did.
And we worked for an entire year to, we purchased the boat, a big charter yard,
70 feet, and we renovated it seven days a week,
12 hours a day. We put our heart and soul and money in that thing,
only to find out that covid shut us down when we were ready to go.
Mm-hmm. . And then was the question, what now? So I decided, well,
I gotta keep myself occupied somehow.
And I keep on encountering these challenges and having to find new ways
constantly to push through and overcome. So,
and many of my friends said, well,
you should really write a book about these experiences,
because they're all so fascinating in so many ways. And I said, well,
I guess I can and I will. And even though I had my doubts, because again,
English is not my sec is my first language.
And I said to myself, well, who am I to write a book? You know,
who am I? Then I said, well, who am I not right? Who am I not? And so, yeah,
that's how this book was first basically through the pandemic and us
being shut down and yeah. So now it's out in the world,
break loose and fly. Yes.
Break loose and fly 10 practical tools for mastering life's challenges
and creating a life you love. Code a subline there, I guess my pub, you know,
the publishers always say, well, you can, what does it mean break loose and fly?
Right? It can mean so many things. So anyways, that's the topline .
I'm a big fan of parenthetical. So it's all good. And Rock The Kitchen Show,
what is that about? Rock The Kitchen is just another passion of mine. So,
because we were going on these adventure charters and all of a sudden
I had to reinvent myself to be first made in chef to cuisine on this
boat because we actually traveled for a year and we had guests. And I,
I'm such a perfectionist that I came up with this why I needed to
have present these amazing meals all day long. It was crazy.
So I came up this five course menu and I started to
go to culinary school and,
and I had already gone through several culinary adventures in our trips through
Europe. I've been to Paris and Spain and Germany,
but I went to culinary school in Vancouver for a bootcamp.
And so I learned so much. I mean, I considered myself to be a good cook,
but going through this, uh, being the chef to cuisine,
I really had a rise up to the occasion, right?
And so I did everything I can to just become better in the kitchen.
And now, I mean,
everybody who always comes for dinners and lunches and whatnot say, oh my gosh,
this is amazing how to do, how to do.
And so I love helping others overcome challenges
and why not have that being a part of my business?
Because why do people don't cook? Why do people have no time?
Why do people think it's complicated or why there's obstacles in the kitchen?
And I thought, well,
I can just use that as a side hustle because I love cooking and I love
teaching people the techniques and the methods because
following recipes doesn't teach you anything.
It doesn't give you the confidence and the clarity and the flavor building
skills. So I decided, hey, I just,
that's one of my passions, and I will see where it takes me,
what guides me through my life. Susan. There's the,
the principle that guides me through my life is always follow your highest
excitement, keeping a positive mindset, no matter the outcome.
So I decided, hey, I'm gonna try this. And I'm calling it Rock the Kitchen.
And I'm keeping a positive mindset, you know,
whether that takes me places or not is not the question.
I am just having fun with it right now.
So I created my first class and I think it can
be fabulous helping others to, you know, gain more confidence,
have more fun, maybe discover their inner know cook.
I don't know. So that's how Rock the Kitchen was born. So that's my side hustle,
.
I love it. I'm curious, did you ever,
in your travels go back to where you grew up?
Have you gone back to see where you had been?
Yes, a few times. Taken pictures.
Could not believe that her hands from 55 years
were still on the windows. The windows seriously unbelievable.
But in the meantime,
because things have changed so much,
and I mean, one thing is East Germany, in my opinion,
will always be behind and will take generations for them to catch up.
But nowadays,
you actually see paint on the walls on the exterior of the
homes, because we had no paint. Everything was gray, right? But now,
so the house I grew up actually has paint and a painted entry door,
I couldn't believe it, it was blue or something. It's like, wow,
I have to take a picture of myself in front of this house.
And a lot of things have changed, you know, there's more, yeah, the, the,
they're,
they're really truly trying to catch up and make it,
you know, put things back together. But I think it will take a long,
long time until you won't see the differences.
What a life you've led and are continuing to lead. It's,
it's really something you have a, a lot of metal
in you.
Yeah. I developed a lot of, you know,
tools that helped me to stay on my path and, uh, to,
and I never stop learning and growing. I never stop.
I always educate or surround myself with people who have done what I wanna
do and learn from them and,
and see how it can become even a better version of myself and
what I'm doing right now. So that doesn't mean I'm doing this tomorrow.
So many people ask me, well, how can you switch so many times?
And you guys are moving all the times, aren't you becoming unstable? It's like,
no. I mean, that makes life interesting. I, I love it. I mean, to a degree,
right? I mean, I don't like to wake up and not know where I am.
So that's But overall, I think it keeps life interesting.
And at the end, life is a journey, right? Life is a journey.
And for me, you know, and it's an up and down,
it's a bit of a roller rollercoaster sometimes,
but just enjoying the journey is what I do.
And I would,
I encourage others and try to help others to enjoy the journey of
life because we're literally at the end, Susan, we're only given one life.
That's it.
We have one time chance right now to make the best of our lives.
And it,
it breaks my heart when I see that some people are giving up because they feel
stuck or they will feel, you know,
depressed or there are so many of us, they feel that way.
And I wish I could shake , shake them and say, come on,
let's do this together. Let's, there's more out there for you than just that.
You know? And I've been there, I've been in so many situations, but I,
I now know how to get out of them quicker and not linger in my victim
mode as I used to. I have some, you know,
strategies that help me to just get out of it quicker and uh,
just move on. I'm not saying I never go down that rabbit hole. I do,
but I get out of it. I know how to move. Crawl out of the hole again.
Yeah. Tell people how they might find you.
They can find me. Uh, break loose and fly.com.
So that's my website.
Break loose and fly.com and whoever is interested in the kitchen,
it's rock the kitchen.net. It's not.com, it's dot net.
That's perfect. Thank you so much for telling me your story. It's fascinating.
And what a rollercoaster. Oh my gosh.
Yeah. Thanks for having me. It was, uh, it was great talking to you, Susan.
Thank.
You for listening everybody. Bye.
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