Let Me Tell You This About That

A Spring Salad of Breath and Hope

• Jessica Bollinger • Season 1 • Episode 21

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Hess and Delbert welcome listeners to a cozy morning conversation. Delbert reflects on the start of daylight savings time amidst a picturesque scene of changing skies. Together, the hosts discuss a variety of topics, from the blooming signs of spring and their personal experiences with Lent, to the importance of breathwork and its calming effects on the mind and body. They share fond memories of their high school days at Sacred Heart, the excitement of supporting local basketball teams, and delve into the history and influence of inspiring women in their lives. Amid light-hearted banter and genuine connection, Hess and Delbert explore themes of growth, resilience, and the power of mindful breathing to navigate life's challenges. The episode closes with an uplifting poem celebrating the essence of breath and the promise of new beginnings.

Help my friend José wipe out the Stage 4 cancer in his body!
https://gofund.me/e6f61999

In addition to being a podcast host, Hess is also an LCSW--if you'd like to learn more about her work as a therapist, check it out at www.jessicabollinger.com

One of her mission's is for all of our lights to shine--when we see each other and allow ourself to be seen--and we can say to the person in front of us, There You Are! the world will be an amazing place!

Delbert is a realtor in Louisville, KY, and you can find her at Kentucky Select Properties

Her philanthropic work to continue her sister Carole and niece Meghan is Carole's Kitchen. Blessings in a Backpack helps feed the many hungry students in our schools.





Hess:

Hey, welcome. This is Hess and welcome to, let me tell you this about that.

Delbert:

Good morning. I'm again live from the green couch. It's Delbert and it's daylight savings time. I'm actually. up to a gloomy sky, but the sun's starting to come out. The sky is starting to turn a beautiful shade of grayish purple with some pink clouds. So you go. There's your description for the mor. I'll be the color commentary this morning.

Hess:

Yeah. And Delbert, I keep seeing more, more green hues out there. More green in the grass. It's we're moving on.

Delbert:

It's almost St. Patrick's Day. It's Lent, was just telling Hess I didn't give anything up for Lent. I'm just gonna try to be better. So I added some workout days to my hot works and the Highlands and I'm trying to be good, trying

Hess:

So you gave up. You gave up. Worry for Lent. Huh?

Delbert:

Yeah, the Pope always says to give up worry and fear and hatred. Anything that's bad for the universe. Give Forget about chocolate, give that up. And I've

Hess:

Right.

Delbert:

tried to do that. I think fear's a basic human thing, but I try to. Worry as little as possible and just look for the good. And I thought be a better person and add something. So I'm trying to do a little bit more hot yoga

Hess:

You did hot yoga three times this week. Did I hear that?

Delbert:

Actually there's all these different it's like cross training, it's not like CrossFit, but it you I did the hot blast three times and then I did yoga.

Hess:

Sweet. Sweet. Last night we sprang forward. So I was I got home pretty late last night. I went to Louisville to watch Sacred Heart and they won their district, the seventh region. Uh. Yeah. So now we go to the state tournament this coming week, and so I have my, I had my phone next to the bed and when I when I woke up this morning, just naturally, I reached my left hand over and I grabbed the phone to see what time it was.'cause usually I wake up pretty early and it was like seven 15.'cause my phone sprang forward. I thought, okay, rise and shine.

Delbert:

I know it's, I was like. Oh my gosh. I know you got home late last night from the game and I was like, wonder she's, I wasn't gonna text you until you, you texted me this morning.'cause that I know you probably sleep in just a little bit.

Hess:

And it.

Delbert:

game, Manuel Against Sacred Heart for the seventh Region Championship.

Hess:

Yeah, Manuel was a pretty fun team to play, but Sacred Heart, all the girls showed their talents and stayed with it and we won, and it's just. Just such a good team. The re Sacred Heart Valkries. In 1976, this is all part of our 60 year history, Delbert and I, is that we went to the same grade school and high school. So we went to Sacred Heart and All Girl Parochial High school in Louisville, and one of our players that was a freshman on our basketball team Donna Bender. Donna Moyer now, she became the coach and she's won that state tournament a lot. So we're going again this coming week.

Delbert:

Going to the state championship. If they win this year, it'll be five in a row, which breaks a record for any school, boys or girls school in Kentucky. never even won four in a row. Last year was historic. We were there in Lexington for that game, sitting with all the 1976 people. So fun. And I'm not gonna get to go to the championship game this year, Hess. I'm not come up and stay with you for the, for Friday night.

Hess:

Okay. Okay.

Delbert:

If I'm invited, I just invited myself, ladies and gentlemen, to stay on the farm next weekend.

Hess:

Yeah, so I live in Lexington and that's 60 miles east of where Delbert is in Louisville. We get to play in Ru Arena.

Delbert:

Yeah, it's so fun and exciting and they play all the music. It's, yeah, it's super fun the way they put it on. They do a great job. They do a great job putting it on, but we were talking about it being international women's. was yesterday and month I think is March.

Hess:

Yes. This is women's History Month is March.

Delbert:

And we were talking about the women we admire. One of'em is Donna, the coaches Sacred Heart. My favorite teacher at Sacred Heart with Sister Rosemary and she introduced me to the love of government. I took government senior year and she. your 18th birthday, she'd give you a cupcake and a voter's registration card and she'd file it for you. So all you had to do is fill it out and she'd sing to you with your holding your little cupcake with a candle while you filled it out. And we had all these subscriptions to Newsweek and time, and a lot of times we'd just sit in class and read magazines and discuss the articles. It was like the best class. And I, I just loved her passion for, the United States and for government how much she loved this country. And so that's a, she's one of the people that I really admire.

Hess:

Did she really just give you an, did she really give you an automatic A, if you registered Democrat?

Delbert:

She, I felt like she did,'cause I wasn't a great student and I did register Democrat and I did get an a.

Hess:

Maybe you got an A.'cause you loved the class so much, you did well.

Delbert:

I don't know. That's the legend. There were a few people, she was just, Kentucky's a red state now, but back in the day it was a blue state. And as Catholics we. We were raised as one person put it to me to be good Southern Kennedy Catholic Democrats. And that is the way sister Rosemary admired JFK so much uh, that's where she was, where she was heading us to just be good Democrats who loved our country, good

Hess:

Right,

Delbert:

but you don't have to be a Democrat to love your country, but she just, she admired JFK so much that it tickled her when we would register Democrat for sure. Anyway. Who and the year that we were seniors Helen Reddy, I Am Woman, was the song. And it just seemed like the nuns just encouraged us to they were seeing it happen, that women were starting to go further and we, you could go to college to study more than being a teacher or a nurse, you or a secretary. It used to be your topics, it used to be your career path and. A lot of people in our class became doctors. I mean,

Hess:

Lawyers.

Delbert:

how much they encouraged us. Yes. And judges. There are more judges in Jefferson County from Heart than any other school. I.

Hess:

I felt like the atmosphere of an all girl high school that there was no competition about who was gonna be the leader. There was no gender bias towards that. So you were the head of Hundred Club or student council and. They really did instill that you could do anything that you wanted to do and you could be a leader.

Delbert:

Yes. Yes. I think they. It was the time and it was also the place, and it was just the teachers that were there and, just the whole vibe. Like I say, I love a vibe. The vibe at Sacred Heart then was just so beautiful. And I feel like our class was great at encouraging each other. And then the nuns were, the Ursuline sisters were encouraging us, and they could just see it was a moment in time.

Hess:

Even though we wore uniforms, we wore navy skirts and a bluest, which was a vest. We could also individuate, I wear, I'd wear construction boots or you could wear different color socks and you would put buttons on your wesketts or different color ribbons in your hair, blah, blah, blah.

Delbert:

You really could. We were allowed to express ourselves. I don't think they're as free to do that anymore. I think you have to wear the plain Navy and they don't have the wescott anymore. But, I had a pocket that I sewed inside my wescott for my cigarettes, if you can believe it. I took sewing class and that's what I did with my learned skills. I made a pocket inside my Wescott for my SIGs and,

Hess:

that's funny. That's funny. Springing forward, it's breathing in new life too. We're closer to springtime. And it's 29 degrees here on the farm. A little bit of frost tinge on the grass, but it's green, but we're pretty close to spring springing forward.

Delbert:

I have got three clumps of daffodils that are coming up now. I've been covering'em every night because as they poke their little heads out of the ground, all cute and yellow, uh, it's been freezing, so I hope I've saved them. I hope I've kept the breath of life in'em. But you're right. I texted Hess earlier this week and I, there's so many fear-based headlines in the newspaper, I guess always, but seems like there's a lot right now. People are worried prices are up and the war in the Ukraine. I just About breath? How about let's just breathe, let's just take a breath and springtime is a great time to get outside and take lots of deep breaths.

Hess:

So you've been covering up those daffodils every night and then you uncover'em in the morning

Delbert:

Yeah.

Hess:

Wow.

Delbert:

Because I'm crazy like that. I could tell you a story about a Pointsettia my Aunt Katie gave me, but we don't have

Hess:

Here's. Here's a shout out. Shout. Here's a shout out to Aunt Katie all. She listens to all of our podcasts, and early on we did a podcast.'cause Aunt Katie that's Delberts spirit sister. Really? She was your aunt but not too much older than you. And Aunt Katie played basketball back early on in the parochial schools, and she talks about what it was like then.

Delbert:

Yes, she Academy, which is closed now, but that's where my mom and her sisters went to school. Was downtown and aunt Katie, I remember for whatever reason, I have memories really early in my childhood, and I remember I have a memory of sitting in that gym watching her play. I felt like both my parents took me, but I guess it was just my mom because, Katie told us that men weren't allowed in the gym. So her daddy, my papa, to stand in the doorway. And

Hess:

That's wild. That's wild.

Delbert:

Yeah, because you were talking about Valley High School last night was packed.

Hess:

Yeah. Okay. So breath, you all Breath is so important. It's and when we take a deep breath, it activates our vagus nerve. And Delbert, I'm gonna educate you about the vagus nerve right now. Okay?

Delbert:

I am ready. I'm ready to

Hess:

So it's from the word vagabond. And vagabond, means kinda long. It's the longest nerve of our body. The vagus nerve is, it wraps around our stomach it goes up around our throat. It wraps around our heart. It goes up to our brain, and we have an autonomic nervous system, and the parasympathetic helps us. The parasympathetic part of that, you have the sympathetic and the parasympathetic. The parasympathetic helps us calm and relax. Slow our heart rate. And when we take a deep breath in, I'm doing that right now. Take a deep breath in through your nose, exhale through your mouth. You activate your vagus nerve and your body can relax. So it's very helpful to, to, if you're starting to feel anxious or get that fear that Delbert says is in the headlines. It's very helpful to calm your body by breathing, taking those deep breaths in and releasing

Delbert:

And if you think

Hess:

I

Delbert:

all the places that it connects, it really is a bridge to your mind and your body, right?

Hess:

Oh, for sure.

Delbert:

awakens everything inside of you, and kind. It's like a reset button, right? If you're feeling or stressed out. I always tell my kids, take a deep breath. I don't know if that's a southern saying or if that's just a saying, but I always say, take a deep breath now, and really you take three though, and it really does reset your mind Body at the same time. So it's that beautiful, wonderful bridge and also just centers us and gives us a new, fresh, calm.

Hess:

For sure all that. Delbert, I've got this boat. It's a trailerable trawler, so it's a big piece of boat to haul up the road. One of the reasons I got this boat. Is I grew up on the Ohio River. That's a crisscross in Delbert and I's life. Both of our dads had boats on the Ohio River on LO in Louisville. And I'm pulling this boat. I can drive this boat. I can pull this boat.'cause we have the trucks from the farm. I can pull the boat anywhere I wanna go. So I know the boat's not sinking because it's out in my driveway. But anyway, when I'm pulling this boat down the road, it's 24 feet. It's got living quarters and all that in it. Twin engines, when I'm pulling the boat down the road, it's pretty big to pull and I'll look in my side mirror and I'll see these big semis'cause I don't ever go over 60 miles an hour pulling this boat. Don't need to, don't want to. I'll look in my left mirror, I'll see some semis getting ready to pass me and I'll start to feel a little bit anxious. And I just take a deep breath in and release it out, and then the truck just goes right past and it's just, it just really helps me so much when I'm in that spot of anxiety pulling that boat down the road.

Delbert:

Because we're going to the water, because we love the feeling the, of how fresh the air is around the water. To breathe right.

Hess:

Yeah, tell me more about it's easier to breathe when there's, when you're at the water.

Delbert:

There's increased ions is the science I guess of it. but also the water, the moisture in the air is it helps relax your lungs. It makes it easier to breathe. And it being, and that's why being at the beach or being at the lake or the wherever it is, the body of water, it naturally relaxes you. And I was just saying to Hess, I think, we're attracted to that feeling, right? That peacefulness of being near the water, having, unconsciously we're breathing easier. We have that relaxed breathing where the water's helping us breathe almost, right? Just like the way when you jump in and you float and you're weightless and it's just, for me, that's like a, I tell my kids when summer comes, I keep a raft and a bag in my car, and if I have a bad day, I'll go to Lakeside and just lay on a raft for even 45 minutes. And just feel weightless and just breathe, and people think that's so funny. I'll go in the bathroom and change back into my work clothes and dry my hair, and fix my makeup back and go back to work. But that is, that's just the break that I need. And, on that list of things to, of self care, things that you always see one, one of the first ones is, take a shower or a bath. Because even in the shower we have that relaxed breathing, but it is the ions. And I think too, it's the, just the invigoration of that water and that air just, it just revives us. It's like being baptized.

Hess:

Your mom used to say, take a deep breath and shake it off.

Delbert:

Doty used to say, yeah, shake it off. Take a deep breath. Now I don't tell my kids to shake it off because annoyed me as a child. Say take a deep breath'cause I want'em to relax. But I also feel like, back then I. You, you weren't allowed to have your feelings, they just wanted you to brush it off, shake it off and now I'm like maybe I wanna feel that way for a little bit. It's like that line from Tootsie when Sandy says, am gonna feel this way as long as I wanna feel this way. And it's yeah, you just wanna feel this way. Until you don't feel this way and you wanna let you know, be able to live in it for a minute. You don't wanna hang on to it too long. But yeah, I don't tell my kids to shake it off

Hess:

Our emotions are the language of our body. We gotta listen to them and then we can use it to guide us to do whatever we need to do next.

Delbert:

Yeah, if I feel like they're holding on too long, I will say, let go. Try to let go.

Hess:

Exhale it. Exhale it.

Delbert:

let it go out into the universe. It's not serving you any longer. and that's a swimming lesson too, right? When my dad grew up, people just threw their kids into the water. And my dad, even though he was very gruff, he loved the water and he wanted us to all be good swimmers. So he'd say, I'm not gonna let go. I'm not gonna let go. And I remember that, that he was like, I'm here. letting go until you're ready. And then, you'd get your, you'd get your confidence up and you'd let go and swim to the edge, uh.

Hess:

I heard a, Hey folks, we jump around a lot. I jump around a lot. I heard this really cool analogy yesterday about letting go. Where when we start to ride our bike, we want that arm around our waist, right? And hold and holding the handlebars The handlebars. And then maybe it can go to holding our shoulders, and then it can go to maybe just holding the back of the seat and then all of a sudden we're, and riding the, the the two wheeled bike by ourselves.

Delbert:

And what a metaphor for life. Yeah. What a metaphor for life. All of that is, just holding on just the right amount and knowing when to let go. Always get it right, but we try.

Hess:

The feeling before you jump in the water. What's the water gonna be? What's the temperature? And then letting go and going ahead and jumping.

Delbert:

And then you got old enough that you were like, Hey, you know what, I'm gonna stick my toe in there and see. So I'm not so shocked, that my heart beats faster when I'm around water. And I didn't discover that until I was an adult that I get so excited about the water, just that I'm gonna get to look at it. When I drive along River Road here in Louisville, Kentucky my heart gets happy and I it beats a little bit faster and I'm like, oh my gosh, am so connected to that water.

Hess:

That's wild. That's wild. So you're feeling it you're present what your body feels.

Delbert:

and I know I'll not even be conscious of it. I'll just be on my way somewhere and if I can go down River Road, I do just'cause I love that. I love the scenery and yeah

Hess:

maybe just having the swim bag in the back of your car makes you feel better just having it there.

Delbert:

It does, and it lets me know I can take a break if I need to. Yeah. And that's why I love Summer so much. And I get excited when my memberships come in my email. I'm like, oh, it's almost that time, it's time to

Hess:

Yeah. Love that. I love that. I love that. I just took a deep breath, folks. You might hear me take a deep breath Quite often during our podcast it's always good to realign yourself.

Delbert:

Absolutely. And I was telling Hess before we started, I was just reading a little bit about breathing and I'm like, I know she knows the science of it, but I was just trying to. Read about it so I could utilize it more. I did not realize that it helped with mental health issues. I didn't realize it helped with stress, anxiety and OCD, I didn't realize that those were tools, but I guess, I don't know, has, in your practice

Hess:

that vagus nerve

Delbert:

you

Hess:

activating it.

Delbert:

activate that vagus nerve.

Hess:

Because like I say, it wraps around your stomach, your heart, your throat. And that's why if we're talking about something difficult, when I'm talking about something that's hard for me my throat, my, my voice will get scratchy. My words kinda get a little bit hoarse. That's'cause the vagus nerves wrapped around my throat.

Delbert:

Oh wow. Okay.

Hess:

That's why it helps with all that stuff that you just talked about,

Delbert:

And when? When you're stressed, sometimes you hold your breath a little bit. I don't know what the natural, why we do that'cause it's not good.

Hess:

Not good to hyperventilate or hypoventilate. They both cause a stress reaction in your body.

Delbert:

So now I'm gonna, I'm gonna tell people this about eighth grade. When we were in eighth grade, we were doing these breathing things where we would pass out for a minute. I don't know what it did. It gave you like a little bit of a high. And we would get, we'd go down in the valley'cause our school was. Up on this hill, but you had to go down a hill and up the hill and we, and there was a little creek with a weeping willow, and we'd say, let's go down in the valley. We'd go down there and we'd get in a big circle and we'd do this breathing game. And then we got in trouble, like on the third day that we were doing it, sister Maria noticed that we were doing it and she stopped it.

Hess:

Yeah. It was just a short phase of our time.

Delbert:

Yes, we're hoping we didn't do any permanent brain damage, but it was an eighth grade thing. But how powerful your breathing is that slow you down. It can speed you up. It can calm stress. It can calm your anxiety, and there's so many different breath. Remember when we went on the boat and we did that whole breathing exercise?

Hess:

Oh yeah,

Delbert:

was a.

Hess:

that, yeah. Yeah. This doing that for about 30 minutes.

Delbert:

Woo.

Hess:

message. Your breath the number of breaths you take a minute. A minute, Delbert, that's one of our vital signs for life. So just breathing, it's such a dang miracle because you're breathing in oxygenated air and it's going down to those little, all the way down into your lungs, to those alveoli. That's a word I like to say, alveoli. And then in exchanges with carbon dioxide, and then we exhale the carbon dioxide, and there's a balance between the oxygen and the carbon dioxide in our body. It's all this homeostasis stuff that's just a miracle going on in every split microsecond of our being. Right now, as you're listening to this, that's happening right now in your body, it's a miracle.

Delbert:

That

Hess:

All kinds of miracles.

Delbert:

So lucky to be on this earth in this moment, in this universe being alive.

Hess:

Yeah. Use your breath to balance yourself, use your breath to like I'm at the basketball game right now, last night. And what happens if the game's going too fast or outta control? They take a time out and the team comes back together and people can catch the breath and then they can refocus. So taking the time. Thinking about your breath.

Delbert:

You know what this podcast is

Hess:

What's this podcast, Delbert? Lemme tell you this about that.

Delbert:

A spring salad. It's a spring salad. We're just have a lot of topics'cause so much is going on. It's the end of basketball season and March Madness and it's lt and it's how

Hess:

Women's History Month.

Delbert:

History Month It's just for me when everything starts blooming and we feel so alive, it's a rebirth. And it's time to

Hess:

All of those hard headlines. That could be like the winter. And now we're gonna go into spring into aliveness, because we're not gonna be dormant. We're gonna speak up, we're gonna say what we don't like. We're gonna make phone calls. We're going to show up with signs. If we need to show up with signs and go into our groups and use our voice. Use our breath. Use our voice. So spring, let's spring into it. Delbert, let's go.

Delbert:

Let's go. Let's go everybody. time. It's time to wake up and feel alive and. Breathe in

Hess:

Yeah.

Delbert:

spring air go out and make it an awesome week. Take that deep breath in and feel the fullness of your existence

Hess:

Yeah.

Delbert:

Yeah.

Hess:

Hey, do you have a, you've been doing little poems at the end. Did you find one?

Delbert:

Oh, a quote. You know what? I don't think I have a quote for today. I am just gonna say it's a spring salad kind of day.

Hess:

I got a poem I can read.

Delbert:

Do you have a poem all.

Hess:

All right. This is a poem by Dr. Mark ROWE. This is called titled Soul. Oh, so breath. So breath. Okay, Soul breath. May the breath of your soul be your wisdom guide. May the beacon of your soul bring respite inside. May you bring presence to all that you do may care and compassion be that which is you. May you have the gift of wisdom in staying awake. May each dawn bring new promise not to forsake. Dusk, find you grateful for the helter skelter. May night bring serenity and security of shelter as day turns to night and months turn to year. May this passing of time bring you no fear. Each day you toil as life's depth. Take their toll, may love and light bring breath to your soul. So let's keep breathing. Let's go.

Delbert:

That's a

Hess:

and love.

Delbert:

that has, that's a good one. Peace and love everybody. We hope that you enjoyed our spring salad.

Hess:

Yes. Yes. Peace and love. Make it a good day. Go out and be breathe and bring joy to everybody around you.

Delbert:

We love you friends.