Episode 118
Rediscovering Your Inner Child: A Journey with Ann Mracek
Join Keith as he welcomes Ann Mracek, author of "Unpacking the Attic: A Path to Healing Your Inner Child." Ann shares her transformative journey of emptying her parents' home as they transitioned to assisted living, which triggered profound childhood memories and suppressed traumas. Through her vivid storytelling, she illustrates the power of retrospection in healing and reframing painful experiences, allowing for personal growth and emotional release. With insights on the significance of inclusivity and the impact of childhood programming on adult relationships, Ann emphasizes the importance of compassion and understanding in overcoming past wounds. Listeners will discover practical techniques for healing, including visualization and journaling, as Ann inspires them to embrace their own stories and repurpose old memories for a brighter future.
The conversation with Ann Mracekoffers a rich tapestry of insights into the healing journey that emerges from confronting one’s past. Ann, a talented author and music educator, discusses her newly published book, "Unpacking the Attic: A Path to Healing Your Inner Child," which chronicles her experiences while cleaning out her parents’ home. This seemingly mundane task turned into a profound emotional excavation, allowing her to revisit childhood memories that had been suppressed over the years. Through vivid storytelling, Ann captures the essence of her journey, revealing how each object she encountered served as a portal to her past, evoking memories that were both beautiful and painful.
Ann shares poignant reflections on her relationship with her grandfather, illustrating how childhood perceptions can distort our understanding of familial love. Her narrative highlights the internalization of rejection and abandonment, and how these feelings can echo throughout adulthood, often manifesting as fear and insecurity in relationships. By examining her past with a compassionate lens, Ann demonstrates that healing is not about erasing memories but rather about reframing them to foster understanding and growth. Her insights encourage listeners to recognize the complexity of their own childhood experiences and the importance of addressing them in order to move forward.
The episode also delves into practical strategies for healing, such as mindfulness and self-compassion practices, which Ann incorporates into her book. She emphasizes the need for individuals to unpack their emotional baggage and reflect on how their past shapes their current realities. Her ultimate message is one of hope and love, urging listeners to recognize their intrinsic worth and the value of their relationships. Ann's legacy is one of nurturing connections and fostering love, making this episode a powerful call to action for anyone seeking to heal their inner child and cultivate deeper understanding in their lives.
Takeaways:
- Ann Mracek emphasizes the importance of recognizing childhood traumas to heal as adults.
- The process of unpacking memories can lead to profound emotional healing and transformation.
- Storytelling serves as a powerful tool for reframing past experiences and promoting understanding.
- Mracek's relationship with her grandfather illustrates how childhood perceptions can impact adult feelings.
- Practicing compassion towards oneself can help in overcoming internalized negative beliefs from childhood.
- Engaging in mindfulness and creative expression can aid in the healing journey.
Links referenced in this episode:
Transcript
My guest today is Ann Mirachek.
Keith:She is the author of a newly released book, Unpacking the A path to healing your inner child.
Keith:Written in real time as she emptied her parents house and helped them transition to assisted living.
Keith:Told with humor and empathetic spirit, the vivid stories of her childhood were triggered by seeing the items brought out of the house for the last time.
Keith:Retrospection can be a powerful healing elixir.
Keith:She is the author of the of my best friends live in the woods, the Adventures of the Albert and on YouTube.
Keith:Each chapter teaches concepts, mindfulness and compassion, followed by discussion and questions to encourage conversation.
Keith:Ann was the director of Albia Rags belly Dance company.
Keith:She is the author of the children's book Friendship flies the sun, the Egyptian the ancient Egyptian legend of Sarab Badbeedo.
Keith: Founder of Marichek Studio in: Keith:Ann has a bachelor's and master's degree in music theory composition from the University of Kansas.
Keith:We welcome Ann to the podcast.
Keith:So Ann, welcome to the podcast.
Keith:How you doing today?
Ann Mirachek:I'm great.
Ann Mirachek:Thank you so much for having me, Keith.
Ann Mirachek:This is a delight.
Keith:It's a pleasure.
Keith:So I love to ask my guests, this is my favorite go to question, what's the best piece of advice you've ever received?
Ann Mirachek:Really?
Ann Mirachek:I think it's in all things.
Ann Mirachek:Ask yourself, how does this fit with my soul's purpose?
Ann Mirachek:And always be true to your own passion.
Keith:I love that.
Keith:And who told you that or where'd you get that from?
Ann Mirachek:Actually I got that from my angel.
Keith:That's so cool.
Ann Mirachek:My guardian angel.
Ann Mirachek:Yeah, in prayer.
Ann Mirachek:So yeah, love it.
Keith:I'm always curious for people like yourself, who are some people in your life who serve to inspire you or be a mentor for you?
Ann Mirachek:Well, the first, most obvious answer for that is my father.
Ann Mirachek:He, we had our challenges in our relationship, but nonetheless he taught me self reliance, resilience, creativity and so for that I am very grateful.
Ann Mirachek:And he, he spoke in, in the language of love, that is mostly on actions.
Ann Mirachek:He was a man of very few words, but his actions showed me his, his genuine love for me.
Keith:That's so cool.
Keith:So I'm curious, tell us about your emotional journey and how you experienced.
Keith:You talked about the emptying out your parents house and how it kind of led to, to the writing of the book.
Keith:Unpacking the attic.
Ann Mirachek:Yes.
Ann Mirachek:My parents announced that they were moving into an assisted living apartment in two weeks and they said they wanted me to empty their house.
Ann Mirachek:They thought I could do this in two weeks.
Ann Mirachek:Right.
Ann Mirachek:This was a three story, 6,000 square foot home that they had 56 years of accumulated junk in.
Ann Mirachek:So obviously the task was daunting and it took a lot longer than two weeks.
Ann Mirachek:But in the process of seeing the items from my childhood for the last time, it triggered a lot of forgotten childhood memories and quite frankly, some suppressed childhood trauma and brought to light some family relationships that really needed fixing.
Ann Mirachek:There were some broken relationship issues.
Ann Mirachek:And I decided to have the courage to look at these things with a very honest lens and to go back in time to allow myself to relive and remember and then heal and repurpose those memories so that I was no longer triggering and having the emotional response of the child, but reframing these memories into an adult context so that I could understand the complex emotional situations that were happening with the adults who were in the scenarios in these memories.
Ann Mirachek:Because, you know, as a child, you think that you're the causation of everything I can remember.
Ann Mirachek:Probably the most poignant memory for me was my grandfather's rejection.
Ann Mirachek:My paternal grandfather.
Ann Mirachek:And actually, I'll show you.
Ann Mirachek:I actually kept it.
Ann Mirachek:I have one of the items from my childhood.
Ann Mirachek:This was his pipe.
Keith:That's beautiful.
Ann Mirachek:It's a meerschaum.
Ann Mirachek:And when I smell it, it still faintly smells of cherrywood smoke.
Ann Mirachek:And I.
Ann Mirachek:You've probably experienced this so oftentimes a fragrance or a scent can really trigger a memory.
Ann Mirachek:And that's what happened to me when I found Pop's pipe.
Ann Mirachek:And I remember the only two words that he ever spoke to me was sit down.
Ann Mirachek:We would go to his two family flat to visit, and he lived upstairs.
Ann Mirachek:We'd walk in.
Ann Mirachek:I remember it was winter.
Ann Mirachek:We took off coats, and he pointed to that little red velvet chair and said, sit down.
Ann Mirachek:And then he and my parents went off into the kitchen.
Ann Mirachek:And I sat there for what seemed like an eternity.
Ann Mirachek:As a toddler, I could hear conversation.
Ann Mirachek:I could smell cooking.
Ann Mirachek:After dinner, he and my parents would come back out into that front room.
Ann Mirachek:He would sit in his big green overstuffed chair, stare out the window and puff on this pipe filling the room with cherrywood smoke.
Ann Mirachek:And I would stare at him so intently and he would never look at me.
Ann Mirachek:And I interpreted that rejection as a toddler, as I'm a bad child.
Ann Mirachek:My pop.
Ann Mirachek:Pop doesn't love me, and I am undeserving of being loved.
Ann Mirachek:Well, re experiencing that now, remembering that memory as a.
Ann Mirachek:As an adult.
Ann Mirachek:I understand now that Pop was emotionally unavailable.
Ann Mirachek:I remember my mom saying that he really quit living the day his wife, my grandmother, died, she died very young.
Ann Mirachek:She died in her 50s of diabetes.
Ann Mirachek:And back in the day, there was no insulin treatment.
Ann Mirachek:And so I realized that it wasn't the fact that I was undeserving of being loved as a toddler.
Ann Mirachek:It was that he had shut down.
Ann Mirachek:He was not emotionally available.
Ann Mirachek:So.
Ann Mirachek:But as a child, I internalized that as it was my fault.
Ann Mirachek:I was bad.
Ann Mirachek:And if I could just be a better child, somehow he would.
Ann Mirachek:He would finally talk to me.
Ann Mirachek:And, you know, I took that all the way through adulthood.
Ann Mirachek:I'm a piano teacher, and I took students to perform Christmas carols at his nursing home years later, hoping that we would finally have that conversation.
Ann Mirachek:And, you know, he would listen to the first several performances, and then he would leave and go back into his room and wouldn't come out and wouldn't talk to me before the end of the performance.
Ann Mirachek:So we never had that conversation.
Ann Mirachek:And in re remembering and writing unpacking the attic, I remembered a trip my husband and I took to China.
Ann Mirachek:Now, stay with me.
Ann Mirachek:You'll.
Ann Mirachek:You'll see why China is important.
Ann Mirachek:And we were walking through Beijing, down through these alleyways, and there were tables and tables and tables set up of what looked to me like stacks of paper, doll things, pictures of houses and pictures of cars and pictures of washers and dryers and pictures of clothing.
Ann Mirachek:And I asked our tour guide, I said, well, do people buy these for the children to play with?
Ann Mirachek:Is this like paper dolls?
Ann Mirachek:And he was appalled.
Ann Mirachek:He's like, oh, heavens, no.
Ann Mirachek:Relatives buy these for their deceased.
Ann Mirachek:He said, in our religion, we believe that when an image of an item is preyed upon with intent with the deceased person in.
Ann Mirachek:In the prayer and then they're lit and burned, that the smoke rises to the spirit world and remanifests itself as that item as a gift to the deceased loved one.
Ann Mirachek:So I got to thinking on this, and I decided, you know, I'm going to write Pop a letter, even though he's been gone for years.
Ann Mirachek:And at first I wanted to write, oh, I'm so angry at you, and I want an apology.
Ann Mirachek:I really kind of wanted to yell at him, but the more I prayed on it and the more I thought about it, I ended up writing, I'm sorry you were broken, and we both deserve so much more.
Ann Mirachek:I'm sorry that you lost out on one of life's greatest gifts, and that's to laugh with your grandchild.
Ann Mirachek:But I forgive you.
Ann Mirachek:And I put that letter in a green ceramic bowl which represented his green overstuffed chair.
Ann Mirachek:And I lit it.
Ann Mirachek:And you know, as that smoke rose, I really felt released.
Ann Mirachek:I felt a compassion and a love for him that I had never felt.
Ann Mirachek:And I no longer associate now those feelings of rejection with him.
Ann Mirachek:I feel much more connected and much more loving toward him and much more compassionate.
Ann Mirachek:And I really came through this journey transformed.
Ann Mirachek:It really helped me to repurpose a lot of these old memories that were holding me back.
Ann Mirachek:And sometimes you don't even realize why you feel inadequate or why you feel unlovable until you allow yourself the courage to re.
Ann Mirachek:Experience the original trauma and then to try to understand with compassion toward the people that were in the scenario what was really happening in an adult perspective.
Keith:I love that, that story too.
Keith:I've heard a lot of people who focus on healing from the perspective of the inner child.
Keith:Tell us more about that approach in your book.
Ann Mirachek:Yes, it.
Ann Mirachek:It's interesting because I found that a lot of times problems in even our adult relationships may stem from a programming from childhood.
Ann Mirachek:And you may not even be aware of the relationship of those things at first.
Ann Mirachek:For example, I have a wonderful relationship.
Ann Mirachek:Richard and I have been together over 30 years.
Ann Mirachek:You know, I hope for another hundred it will never be enough.
Ann Mirachek:But early on in our marriage, I was constantly traumatized that he was going to leave me, that he would abandon me.
Ann Mirachek:And anytime he was working late, I would seize up with fear.
Ann Mirachek:And in the process of.
Ann Mirachek:And he was never for no reason.
Ann Mirachek:I mean, he never, he never gave me an actual cause to feel this way.
Ann Mirachek:But it kept coming back, kept coming back.
Ann Mirachek:He's going to leave me.
Ann Mirachek:He's going to abandon me.
Ann Mirachek:Well, in the process of riding, unpacking the attic, one of the things that I did remember was being strapped into a car seat in the back seat, and my parents having horrible arguments in the front seat, yelling at each other.
Ann Mirachek:Dad in road rage, really driving irresponsibly, recklessly.
Ann Mirachek:And at one point at a stoplight, my mom opened the door, got out, slammed the door and walked off.
Ann Mirachek:And I'm a tiny child sitting in the back seat, completely forgotten about.
Ann Mirachek:And I'm seeing my mother leaving and I don't know that she's ever coming back.
Ann Mirachek:And I also know that my father has never been a caregiver for me.
Ann Mirachek:When I was tiny, it was always my mom.
Ann Mirachek:And so I'm sitting there feeling completely abandoned, forgotten.
Ann Mirachek:And that tear of abandonment, I realized was being re.
Ann Mirachek:Triggered.
Ann Mirachek:And so once I remembered the situation and allowed myself to understand, that was then.
Ann Mirachek:This is now different people in the scenario, I am safe now, I am loved, I'm protected.
Ann Mirachek:All of that evaporated.
Ann Mirachek:It went away.
Ann Mirachek:And so now when Richard Wirt's late or for some reason we're separated, I don't have that anxiety and that trauma of he's not coming back.
Ann Mirachek:I.
Ann Mirachek:I trust him completely and I know he's coming back and it's it.
Ann Mirachek:And it was never a matter of trusting him to begin with.
Ann Mirachek:It was just that those.
Ann Mirachek:That old feeling of abandonment kept re.
Ann Mirachek:Triggering, kept coming back, and now I've released it, it's gone.
Ann Mirachek:So there are times when I think, even if you don't realize what is causing the trauma, so much of it, I think, comes from childhood that we really need to examine and move forward from and heal.
Keith:Another one of your focuses in your book is unpacking those memories.
Keith:And that is, of course, metaphorically, meaning dealing with those past memories.
Ann Mirachek:Yes.
Keith:And looking at them, examine them from a new perspective.
Keith:So.
Ann Mirachek:Right.
Keith:And you use storytelling, and I love storytelling.
Keith:I do it a lot when I preach too.
Ann Mirachek:Yes, yes.
Keith:Storytelling is very powerful.
Keith:How do you incorporate storytelling as a useful tool in healing those unpacked memories?
Ann Mirachek:So let me tell you another story.
Ann Mirachek:How would that be to start?
Keith:That'd be great.
Ann Mirachek:So I was never very good at gym.
Ann Mirachek:At gym, you know, P.E.
Ann Mirachek:i was always the last one picked for the basketball team, you know, this sort of thing.
Ann Mirachek:But excuse me, but the one thing I was good at was gymnastics.
Ann Mirachek:And I have a memory of being literally upside down in a handstand on the parallel bars when the bell rang.
Ann Mirachek:And the cafeteria was adjoining the gymnasium, and there were three big doors that opened and a horde of little grade school boys came charging into the gymnasium, one of them crashing into the apparatus.
Ann Mirachek:And I crashed to the floor, my left knee hitting the apparatus screw on the way down and then landing in the 2 inch space between the mats.
Ann Mirachek:And I blacked out.
Ann Mirachek:When I came to, that knee was the size of a grapefruit, which was quite impressive on that scrawny little leg at the time.
Ann Mirachek:And for some reason that I simply do not remember, I had to take the late bus home, which I'd never done before.
Ann Mirachek:Now, on a normal day, the bus would drop me off at the end of my driveway.
Ann Mirachek:And so I thought, well, I can just scoot on my rear if I need to up to the front door from there.
Ann Mirachek:Right.
Ann Mirachek:But the late bus followed a different routine, and it went about five blocks past my neighborhood, let alone past my driveway.
Ann Mirachek:And I was in A panic, because I really couldn't walk.
Ann Mirachek:The knee just really did not want to support my weight.
Ann Mirachek:It was very painful.
Ann Mirachek:And I tried to explain to the bus driver, and he basically just said, this is the route.
Ann Mirachek:Get off the bus.
Ann Mirachek:So I'm stranded, and I really cannot walk more than two or three steps.
Ann Mirachek:I am in a lot of pain.
Ann Mirachek:And this is before cell phones, mind you.
Ann Mirachek:So I was really stranded, and I really wasn't even sure where I was at this point.
Ann Mirachek:Looking around, I didn't know this neighborhood or this area.
Ann Mirachek:I'm a little child, right?
Ann Mirachek:And I began to wonder if my parents would drive the streets looking for me like a lost dog.
Ann Mirachek:I was really lost.
Ann Mirachek:And I prayed and I said, I need help.
Ann Mirachek:I don't know how to get home.
Ann Mirachek:And when I opened my eyes, there was a very old blue car in front of me.
Ann Mirachek:And the door swung open, and it had a radiant white interior.
Ann Mirachek:And this beautiful young lady leaned over and said, ann, get in the car.
Ann Mirachek:I'll drive you home.
Ann Mirachek:Now, I knew better than to get in a stranger's car, right?
Ann Mirachek:But I felt completely washed over with love and safety.
Ann Mirachek:And I got in, and she drove me straight to my home without a single word to each other.
Ann Mirachek:It was if she knew everything there was to know about me.
Ann Mirachek:And we just sat together, knowing.
Ann Mirachek:And she drove me right to the end of my driveway.
Ann Mirachek:And I got out, and I turned around to glance back at the house.
Ann Mirachek:And then I turned back to thank her and the car, and she had vanished.
Ann Mirachek:They were just gone.
Ann Mirachek:Now, if.
Ann Mirachek:If it had been an actual car that had sped away, she'd have had to go at 5,000 miles an hour for me to not see her.
Ann Mirachek:Our house was at the bottom of a long hill.
Ann Mirachek:So the car just simply vanished.
Ann Mirachek:And I did exactly what Plan A had been all along.
Ann Mirachek:I scooted to the front door, and the doorbell on the old house was several steps off to the right.
Ann Mirachek:And I was like, oh, now I gotta walk to the doorbell.
Ann Mirachek:And I looked at it and I thought, I wish it would just ring.
Ann Mirachek:And, you know, it did.
Ann Mirachek:And it felt like my angel was still there and winking at me.
Ann Mirachek:And so, anytime now, the feelings of being inadequate, being unloved, any traumatic negative programming that I have that resurfaces, all I have to do is remember that I was so loved that even an angel would come and rescue me.
Keith:Wow, that's cool.
Ann Mirachek:And so I believe that, you know, our Lord, our God is compassionate, especially the lost kids.
Ann Mirachek:But it remembering that has made a profound Change in my spirit, because I do feel treasured and I do feel loved.
Ann Mirachek:And I related that story to my husband years ago, and he was like, yeah, sure, right.
Ann Mirachek:So my second angel.
Ann Mirachek:My husband and I experienced together, and my second angel found my car keys, and my husband got to experience that with me.
Ann Mirachek:I was meeting him for lunch and in a hurry.
Ann Mirachek:And I apparently had dropped my keys when I was putting my money in the meter, but didn't realize.
Ann Mirachek:Realize it.
Ann Mirachek:And I met him at Blueberry Hill, which is a famous restaurant here in St.
Ann Mirachek:Louis.
Ann Mirachek:It's where Chuck Berry used to perform.
Keith:Oh, yeah.
Ann Mirachek:Every Wednesday night.
Ann Mirachek:Fantastic.
Ann Mirachek:And it's like an old house.
Ann Mirachek:And each room has, like, a theme.
Ann Mirachek:And it's an old windy.
Ann Mirachek:Like, you have to go downstairs and then around the corners and back.
Ann Mirachek:And they walked us, which felt like through 80 rooms to the very back room in the very back booth.
Ann Mirachek:Now, why that's important.
Ann Mirachek:So we're sitting there, finally having lunch and finally got our order in, and suddenly we felt this presence.
Ann Mirachek:And we looked up, and here was this magnificent black band with dreadlocks all the way to his waist in the most fabulously bright colored African print shirt you'd ever like.
Ann Mirachek:Oranges and yellows and reds and.
Ann Mirachek:Which is fabulous.
Ann Mirachek:And in this beautiful, sonorous baritone voice, he says, did you drop your car keys?
Ann Mirachek:And I looked at him, I looked at Richard.
Ann Mirachek:I said, well, I don't think so.
Ann Mirachek:And he laughed, and he handed me my car keys, and he said, ann, you dropped your car keys?
Ann Mirachek:And I was shocked.
Ann Mirachek:Sure enough, my car keys, right.
Ann Mirachek:My husband's aghast.
Ann Mirachek:And I reached into my purse and I was going to grab out a $20bill to give him to thank him.
Ann Mirachek:And I looked down and I looked up, and he was gone.
Ann Mirachek:He had vanished.
Ann Mirachek:And my husband jumped up because he wanted to run.
Ann Mirachek:And he thought, well, maybe he just had already walked out of the room.
Ann Mirachek:And Rich ran all the way back through all of those winding rooms, all the way through the restaurant and even outside, and looked up and down the street.
Ann Mirachek:He had just vanished.
Ann Mirachek:And so it was an experience that both of us then got to have together of understanding that, yes, there is.
Ann Mirachek:There are angels, there are compassionate beings that watch over us when we're stupid, which is helpful.
Ann Mirachek:Can we drop our car keys?
Ann Mirachek:But at the time that would have been if someone else had picked those up, they could have driven away.
Ann Mirachek:And I had my house keys and all my addresses and my planner, my book planner, and everything was in the car.
Ann Mirachek:We could have lost Everything had I not been rescued in that circumstance.
Ann Mirachek:So another story from unpacking the attic.
Ann Mirachek:But yes, I have repurposed many of those old memories and self doubts with understanding that the universe, the God, whatever your name is that you know, the divine creator, he's there, he's present and he will send an angel to rescue you.
Keith:Oh, that's cool.
Keith:Your book offers a lot of techniques to support healing such as visualization, exercising, journaling, self compassion practices.
Keith:Tell us kind of how your book, because your book has a lot of chapters in it and they're kind of short.
Ann Mirachek:70.
Keith:Yes, short, easy to read chapters.
Keith:Tell us kind of how you use, utilized us to say, integrate those techniques in the various stories you use in your book and how your book is laid out.
Ann Mirachek:Yes.
Ann Mirachek:So I think a lot of times when you have a memory, you have to look at it and ask yourself, what can I take from this that's positive?
Ann Mirachek:There are five basic traumas from childhood that I think everyone experiences.
Ann Mirachek:We talked about rejection with Pop's pipe.
Ann Mirachek:We talked about abandonment.
Ann Mirachek:There's also humiliation, injustice and betrayal.
Ann Mirachek:And for example, my family used to celebrate Christmas really at together, the whole extended family at Christmas Eve at my aunt's house, my father's older sister, and she had five children that were decades older than me.
Ann Mirachek:And then there was me, my only child.
Ann Mirachek:And then there were their children who were infants.
Ann Mirachek:So I had no cousins that were my generation.
Ann Mirachek:I was, I was in the gap.
Ann Mirachek:And everyone would have Christmas dinner and the older ones would be talking with themselves.
Ann Mirachek:And then of course there were infants and I was really alone.
Ann Mirachek:I really had no, no one to interact with that they, they didn't want to be bothered with the little kid.
Ann Mirachek:And I couldn't obviously interact with an infant.
Ann Mirachek:So there I was.
Ann Mirachek:And the big highlight of the evening for everyone else was to go into the next room and dive into the pile of wrapped presents.
Ann Mirachek:And my aunt would have presents for all of her children and all of their children.
Ann Mirachek:And there was never a present with my name on it because I wasn't one of her children or her grandchildren.
Ann Mirachek:So I would always retreat to the back of the room and study the painting of the flamenco dancer that she had on the wall in the back room and entertain myself dreaming about paintings I would accumulate from my own wall someday in my own travels.
Ann Mirachek:That was Mike's gate.
Ann Mirachek:But I began to understand that my gift was really understanding that inclusiveness is so, so important.
Ann Mirachek:So my gift was lasting.
Ann Mirachek:All of the presents that were unwrapped from under that tree have all been outgrown or broken or thrown out.
Ann Mirachek:And yet mine remains.
Ann Mirachek:And to this day, I understand how very important it is to be inclusive of everyone to say, I see you and I value you.
Ann Mirachek:And anytime I have invited anyone to my home over the holidays, I always have a wrap gift for them with their name on it.
Ann Mirachek:And this is not about gift giving as much as it is really about feeling like you are a valued, included member of the group.
Ann Mirachek:So my thing that I do is I make ceramic Christmas tree ornaments and it takes two kiln firings, it takes weeks to do, and I paint in glaze the name of the recipient and the the year on the back of each one so that when they open their gift, they know that it was something that I made specifically for them.
Ann Mirachek:It was not a last minute thought.
Ann Mirachek:It was for them.
Ann Mirachek:It was started weeks and weeks ago.
Ann Mirachek:And it says to them, I'm valuing you.
Ann Mirachek:I am giving you my time and creative energy and I have planned for you to be here and you're important to me.
Keith:That's so critical because sometimes that I remember some Christmases too where we weren't included.
Keith:And it is devastating, especially if you're younger, to process that you just feel and to go with your passive, with your grandfather too.
Keith:I mean, those all kind of play into a childhood memory of am I important?
Keith:Am I valued?
Keith:Am I right?
Keith:Highly favored.
Ann Mirachek:So yeah, I was always alone, only child, no cousins my own age, parents that were in a very challenged, aggressively fighting relationship and father that was gone a lot.
Ann Mirachek:So it was difficult.
Ann Mirachek:And I really feel like all the way through that experience of my childhood, it was really my, my angels that were with me.
Ann Mirachek:It was that presence that I felt with me.
Ann Mirachek:And I think that was really my emotional go to.
Ann Mirachek:And my savior all the way through was understanding that there, there is a higher presence.
Ann Mirachek:And I wasn't alone spiritually, I wasn't alone emotionally, even though I found myself in these challenging circumstances.
Keith:Right, so what, what key lessons do you hope readers take away from picking up unpacking the Attic?
Ann Mirachek:Well, I think it's going to encourage you to look at your own childhood through a different lens.
Ann Mirachek:So oftentimes we.
Ann Mirachek:What's the saying?
Ann Mirachek:If someone delivers a box of snakes to your front door, don't sign for it.
Ann Mirachek:So I had, I had internalized and signed for a lot of negative programming that I was carrying forward with me that were not serving me well.
Ann Mirachek:And so even though my stories are very specific to my circumstance, all of us have experienced These general things, these feelings of being betrayed or injustice or being humiliated.
Ann Mirachek:And so I think it shows you a path.
Ann Mirachek:It shows you a way to reframe and to repurpose these memories and to take value from what you you can to understand that now you are safe, now you can protect yourself, now you can write and manifest your own reality moving forward.
Ann Mirachek:Whereas as a child you don't have those understandings and you are completely relying on someone else for your safety and for your well being and for your next meal.
Ann Mirachek:But as an adult, we can be empowered and we can let go of these old programmings that no longer serve us.
Ann Mirachek:I lit candles, I prayed.
Ann Mirachek:I had long, deep conversations with the people that are currently in my life, like my husband and my child, my grandchildren.
Ann Mirachek:I have so much an understanding of how fleeting and how valuable those relationships are.
Ann Mirachek:For example, Pop not talking to me has made it one of my greatest passions to spend time and quality time and interaction with my own two grandchildren.
Ann Mirachek:So in a way he gifted me with, with an understanding of how valuable that time is and how valuable that relationship is so that now I do laugh with my grandchildren.
Ann Mirachek:And I will give them the understanding of they have a grandparent that loves them dearly and they are truly valued and included and wanted and rejoiced in.
Ann Mirachek:So sometimes even a negative experience in your own childhood you can repurpose to move forward and embedder or enhance your current relationships.
Keith:Wow.
Keith:That's powerful.
Keith:I love to ask my guests this question.
Keith:This is my one of my second favorite question.
Keith:What do you want your legacy to be?
Ann Mirachek:Love.
Ann Mirachek:Love.
Ann Mirachek:Yeah.
Ann Mirachek:I want people that read the book to understand how loving our God is and how beautiful your soul is.
Ann Mirachek:We are all loved.
Ann Mirachek:We are all beautiful, divine, divinely created beings and we need to give the grace to ourselves, to love ourselves and to value those that are in our life now.
Ann Mirachek:They're gifts and those relationships are something we should nurture and treasure.
Keith:That's great.
Keith:So your book is now out Unpack in the Attic.
Keith:Where can listeners find your book?
Keith:I'm looking on an Amazon as we speak.
Keith:Now you have five reviews, all five star things like beautifully crafted journey through memory.
Keith:Engaging.
Keith:Wow.
Keith:A must read.
Keith:So people are really digging this book that you have.
Keith:So where can they find it?
Ann Mirachek:Just Amazon and what you have to do because it's a brand new release, it's not going to just come up automatically in their feed.
Ann Mirachek:It takes a while for their algorithms to do that.
Ann Mirachek:So just type in either unpacking the attic and it'll pop or type in Ann Maracek either way and you'll find it that like that.
Ann Mirachek:And also, you can engage with me.
Ann Mirachek:You can go to my office website.
Ann Mirachek:It's annmaraczik.com well, Ann, thanks so much.
Keith:For taking this time to share with me and the audience a little bit about your story, your journey.
Keith:You were a wonderful storyteller.
Keith:May people pick this book up.
Keith:We encourage our listeners also to go to Amazon, leave a review for Ann.
Keith:I hope the book get more views and algorithms will help it shoot up the charts.
Keith:So blessings on the work that you're doing.
Ann Mirachek:Thank you so much.
Ann Mirachek:Thank you.
Ann Mirachek:I really appreciate.
