Embracing the Journey: Finding Strength and Trust in Life's Processes

Ever faced a moment so challenging it felt like your world was splintering? 

This week, I take you on a journey, sharing the vulnerable tale of my personal struggles and the unexpected parallel between reviving my damaged hair with a peptide treatment, all while patiently mending the fabrics of my life.

Join me in a candid conversation about the power of trusting in greater plans and finding solace in the wisdom gained through our battles. Let's bolster each other's courage to heed life's calls to action, even when the path is uncharted. So, come along and let's step into this Monday with newfound inspiration to trust our processes and make every moment count.

www.daphnewalter.com

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:07

Hello, my amazing friends, and welcome to a new Monday. Isn't it pretty cool how this day comes around every single week. Just yesterday, at church, a friend walked up to me and she had actually asked if I had a good week last week, and I was honest and I told her no, no, I had not. She looked at me and she smiled and she said well, isn't it a good thing that a new one starts tomorrow? Just reminds us of how blessed that we really are. Hey, so if this is your first time tuning in to one of my episodes, let me introduce myself.

Speaker 1: 0:43

My name is Daphne Walter. I am a mom, a wife, a business owner and, recently, someone who has fallen down to her knees and is looking up for all the answers, and that is why I decided today to talk about trusting the process. Now, if you follow basketball, you might already know this, but the NBA team, the Philadelphia 76ers they have a slogan, and it's trust the process, and they coined this slogan during a rough patch that the team was having, and for them, it basically means things may look bad now, but we have a plan in place to make it better. So to say that these last few months have been hard. It's an understatement. There's just a lot of things that are going on and if there's one thing that you're going to learn about me, I don't sugarcoat stuff. In fact, part of my mission is to walk through the darkness. It's heavy right now, I'm just going to say, and so my mission, like I said, it's to walk through the darkness so I can be the light for those that are walking besides me. And when I say that times have been just a little bit challenging lately, I'm talking. It's putting some major stress on my body, like my period is somewhere on vacation. I don't know where she went or when she's coming back.

Speaker 1: 2:14

And my hair, oh, good gracious I am. You know when you look in the mirror sometimes and you go through a phase and you're just not happy with how you look, and I know this is just so superficial. But right now my hair it's doing something. I don't know what it is. It is dry, it is breaking off and again, I know it's the stress that my body is going through. But about two months ago I'm at the hair salon and I'm talking to my hairdresser about it because it's even baffling her Every time I go in it's just like little pieces of my hair are just missing. You know, it's just like breaking off. I got this, this mushroom top, like I only short little pieces of hair on the top of my head. So anyways, long story short, I need help. And so I'm talking to my hairdresser and I'm like I think I need to go buy that Ola Plex, because I remember years and years and years ago, I had a really bad experience at a hair salon and I needed Ola Plex. It was like the magic that was going to save my hair. And my hairdresser says you know, ola Plex is great, but she was recommending a product that she felt was even better. She said this product will work the very first time you use it. It is amazing and it's called K, as in like Kite K18.

Speaker 1: 3:35

And how it works it's? It's a peptide that places amino acids, which are the building blocks of our hair. It places amino acids directly into the structure of the hair. So this amino acid goes in directly to the broken bonds and it starts just healing and strengthening and softening the hair. In order for this to happen, you have to activate it. So you have to squirt some pumps into your hand, you have to rub it and activate it, and you know it's activated when it turns white and you leave it in your hair for four minutes and I don't know why four minutes is the magic number. I actually went and looked it up at the website like why four, not five, not three, not 10, why four? And there's nothing that explains why four is the number. Maybe this is right at the time that the amino acids I don't know it takes to absorb into the hair. I do not know the science behind it, but anyways, where I'm going is you have to trust the process and leave it in for four minutes or else you break the healing process. It's not gonna work. Your hair is not gonna heal if you don't do what it says to do.

Speaker 1: 4:47

So she's telling me about this product and I'm sold, I'm like okay, and so I go home, I go online and I order it and when it comes, I read the instructions and it says shampoo your hair only, do not use conditioner. Towel dry. Do one to three pumps, depending on length of your hair, damage of your hair, things like that. Rub it in your hands until it's activated and then leave on for four minutes and after the four minutes you can style as usual, you can add product, you blow dry, you do whatever. Okay, so everything sounds good.

Speaker 1: 5:20

So I do my shower, I shampoo my hair, towel, dry, pump, pump. You know, the time I had a little bit longer hair. I just cut my hair short a couple of weeks ago, shorter and so you know I had three pumps. I'm like I'm dousing my hair, right, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, just, I'm gonna heal it. So I do the Maximum of Three Pumps and I rub it in my hands and I'm waiting for it to turn white and it doesn't. It just looks really greasy and I'm like this doesn't seem right. So I apply it to my hair and I'm like maybe I need more Pump, pump, pump, rub, rub, rub, apply it. I think I did about like a total of maybe I don't know seven pumps and this bottle. I bought this smaller bottle so you could buy like a small bottle and then a little bit bigger bottle, and the small bottle alone is like $30. And the little bit bigger bottle, which is still a small bottle, is like $80. So I'm like, let me just see, you know, try before I buy a little bit. So I only bought the small bottle.

Speaker 1: 6:22

So here I go through probably like half of it in the very first time, cause I'm like this isn't working, like why isn't it working? And in the instructions it says that you can do this every time you shampoo your hair. For, like the first, I don't know, like four to six times or something, and then you sparingly, so every few times that you shampoo, you should apply the product. So I, I don't know, I do this probably like four different shampoos, so over you know like a week and a half, cause I wash my hair by every other day and still it's. I don't know. I don't know if I'm noticing a difference or what's going on.

Speaker 1: 6:59

So I send a text to my hairdresser, like, am I doing it wrong? I mean, I even confessed to her I didn't buy it off of Sephora, I bought it off of Amazon. Did I get a lemon product? Like sometimes you buy things online and it's like I don't know, expired or whatever, right. So I'm like, am I not? What's going on? So she sends me a YouTube video of like hey, dummy, this is how you use it. And in the video you can clearly see it turns white in the girl's hands and I heard her say you just have to keep rubbing it right. So I'm like, okay, I got to trust the process, that if I just keep doing this it's gonna work.

Speaker 1: 7:44

So I buy a new bottle, cause I'm out by this time and my daughter, my 17 year old, she wants to do it using her hair too. So I go out to Sephora and I buy two bottles, you know, one for me and one for her. And well, I did use some of the old bottle. I don't want to say that, cause it's not that that was a bunk bottle, but I did buy new bottles. But anyways, long story short, pump, pump, pump. Okay, I'm rubbing. I'm like, not still greasy? So I tap, keep rubbing. I just keep hearing her in the video like, keep rubbing. So I just keep rubbing and literally, as I'm saying in my mind, keep rubbing. It magically, like appears my hands are like white, I mean so white and I'm like, oh my gosh, like this duh dummy, like this really works. It became so white like I have brown hair. When I put it on like the top of my head it looked like, looked like I took a shower and white out Like, oh, this, this is how it works.

Speaker 1: 8:48

I'm supposed to trust the process. Well, obviously trust the instructions too. But anyways, when you're going through something that you don't understand, you're gonna find yourself asking why is this happening to me? How did I get here? We just talked about this at church yesterday this exact same thing. And at the time that you're going through something, you have so many different emotions. You're confused, you're worried and all you wanna do is fix it right. You wanna fix what's wrong so that you don't have to deal with what you're dealing with or go through this painful phase that you're in Now.

Speaker 1: 9:32

A time in my life when I really really had to lean into a prayer and trusting the process was a little over nine years ago, when my husband and I separated for six months. I talked about this before on a previous episode. It wasn't something that we had planned for. It's not like we had been talking about separating and then this was a trial. No, this came out of the blue like overnight, went to bed, woke up the next day and he's packing a bag and moving out of the house. So of course, there's lots of questions, there's lots of sadness and confusion and worry and I just back then I did not understand any of it. I didn't know why it was happening and it just.

Speaker 1: 10:17

It took me a couple years later to really look back and reflect that there was something really not good about the marriage. Like I didn't see it then and had this pitfall or whatever you wanna call it separation had not happened, it probably would have got worse and to the point that it wouldn't have been reconcilable. I probably didn't even say that word right. But fortunately it was just a six month separation and with us doing the hard work together, making the intentional effort to be together, we came back stronger than we ever were. I mean, again, it's been over nine years and I feel like our marriage. These days we can honestly say that we've been through it.

Speaker 1: 11:08

But what I'm going through right now, the season that I'm in my life right now, it feels like once again, like I'm a failure. It feels like loss. It feels like somewhere that I've been before and it's not relationship wise, like husband and I are okay. It's just that feeling of knowing that this is a low, low point, right, like you have bad days, but this is just something that is in the valley, low, I don't even know how to explain it. But because I have been through this before and I've learned to trust the process before and I've learned that, even though I don't understand sometimes what's happening, that there is a plan in place for me. I have a little bit more confidence right now Because I know I have to do what I need to do and that's trusting this process. I know the drill and I'll wait Because I know, just like the 76ers, that things may look bad right now, but there is a plan in place to make it better.

Speaker 1: 12:26

And sometimes it takes something spinning out of control for us to spin out of control so that when we stop spinning, so that when you know we're planted where we are, we're pointing in the direction that we should be going. And if you're going through a difficult time, like me right now, first, I want you to know that I love you. Second, I want you to know that I'm praying for you and third, I want you to know that God will never lead you to a place that isn't for your greater good, even when it looks ugly, even when it looks messy and even when it feels super painful. We tend to get frantic over the things that are happening to us because we obsess over the results in our lives when they don't line up to our expectations. This does not serve you, my friend. When we become impatient and try to take control, we end up adding more stress to our lives. We run the risk of hurting ourselves or other people. We often set ourselves back even further because we're still not ending up where we're supposed to be. We'll take ourselves where we feel that we need to go, but not necessarily where we're supposed to be going, which then doesn't allow yourself the growth that's necessary to come out of this challenge. And then what happens? You end up repeating the same mistakes, the habits or behaviors that led you here.

Speaker 1: 14:05

The definition of process means a series of actions or steps taken, and sometimes that means doing nothing but trusting and being patient. But there are some actions that you can do during the meantime, during the process, and let me share some of those with you. The first one is focus on what you can control how you show up, you're added towards your attitude, towards the situation yourself, the other people involved. You can control that. You might not be able to control what's going on, but you can control your behavior to it. Next, embrace a growth mindset. Ask yourself what can you learn from this experience, what personal development can cure you to the other side of this.

Speaker 1: 15:01

And then I want you to practice non-zero days and this is actually a term I just recently learned, and, just like all of that, what a non-zero day means is you go a day without doing nothing, because sometimes, when we feel ourselves, like you know, in a challenge or a difficult situation, yes, we want to trust the process, but that doesn't mean that we just sit back and do absolutely nothing. Now you might have a rest day or so. You know that's that's warranted, but I want you to try to do at least one productive thing a day, no matter how small it is. That will help with either the challenge itself or the people being affected by it, even if that doesn't include you. And then I want you to find the lesson in each failure. Remind yourself that you are not a failure. Even if there's something wrong, there's nothing wrong with you. There are going to be things that happen beyond our control, but at the end of the day, what's the lesson that you need to take away from it? Also, stay motivated and reduce stress. You guys know I'm a fitness coach, so I'm always going to preach the importance of moving your body and fueling your body with the right foods, because you will be so amazed how much more positive that your mindset is and how less stressed about the situation is when you're taking care of yourself.

Speaker 1: 16:35

Keep a gratitude journal. Now, this isn't one of my regular practices. I know this is something that a lot of people talk about, but believe me, even if I'm not writing it down, I'm always declaring my gratitude, and when you do that, it helps tremendously, because we often have to remind ourselves of how blessed that we truly are. I mean, as upside down as things feel in my life right now, I am grateful for every breath that I take, for a new week, for this Monday. Just a couple weeks ago, a friend of mine back in California she lost her life in a car accident. They were driving home on a Saturday night from a crab feed. She didn't get to see a new Monday. And just this morning I was reading a post on Facebook from an old friend. They used to live above us when we lived in Santa Monica and she did a post and I had no idea how I missed this. She did a post how they're coming up on five months of the passing of her 13 year old boy that died from an accidental fentanyl overdose Now, if that doesn't put my petty problems into perspective, I'm not sure what does and then learn from the best.

Speaker 1: 17:57

Find someone, or the people who have walked through this darkness before you, that can offer up some encouraging advice, or just reach out and give you an embracing hug and tell you that it's going to be okay. I remember when my husband and I were separated, there was a girl. Her and I had only met in person, I think, one time, and we're friends on Facebook Like to this day, years and years and years later. But I remember when we separated she sent me a Facebook message and she said you will be okay. I tear up almost every time I say that, thinking about all these years later, because I'm like the fact that someone who I barely knew took the time to send me that message and I don't know if she realizes how much that that simple statement has carried me through for so many years. So find those people.

Speaker 1: 18:56

And then, speaking of finding those people there, one actually let me take a step back when I was writing this episode it's Monday, obviously. I'm writing this episode and we have a girl that comes over and her name is Jessica and she comes over Mondays and Fridays and helps around with the house and this morning I was just sharing with her a little bit of everything that's going on and just some eventful events, if you wanna call it, from last week, just personal challenges I'm having, from just parenting and company challenges, just like I said earlier, just things are just heavy right now. So I get done writing this podcast and she had just left the house and usually when she leaves cause I always lock myself in my office if I'm home I'll get up when she leaves and I'll kinda walk around the house and stretch my legs and things like that, and I walk into my bedroom and on my nightstand there's this note from her and it says "'God will make this trial a blessing. Though it sends me to my knees, though my tears flow like a river, yet in him there's sweet relief. There's no need to get discouraged, there's no need to talk to feet. God will make this trial a blessing, and the whole wide world will see".

Speaker 1: 20:29

So when I talk about getting good people on your side, that's one of my last minute tips that I wanted to insert here is get you good friends, get you someone like a Jill or a Jessica. But the last thing this was my last tip that I was actually gonna share with you before I kinda did that last minute insert was "'Remember the great things take time. The reason that we have challenges that come before us is to make us better". That's what a challenge is, I mean. Think about if you joined a weight loss challenge, or like a monthly book challenge. The end goal of a challenge is for you to be different than when you got started.

Speaker 1: 21:12

So, like I mentioned earlier, we may not understand what it is or why it's happening to us, but there's nothing wrong with God's timing, and I don't know about you, but I'm actually happy that someone else way more powerful than me, is in control, or else I would really be messing things up like on the daily. So, whether it feels like it or not, there is a plan in place. Just keep reminding yourself that Things are always, they're always working in motion, even if we can't see what's happening. So this is your permission I want you to let go of the things that you cannot control. I'm gonna keep trusting the process and I'm gonna allow myself this downtime just to be humble, to take in any lesson or teaching that I'm supposed to, because, ironically, all in the midst of the turmoil and everything that's been going on, there have been some beautiful moments pop up.

Speaker 1: 22:16

Recently, I have received answers that I've been searching for for years. It's like when one door closes, another one opens. When something feels like it's falling apart in one area, just magically it comes together in other areas, and that's the hope that I have, and that's what I look forward to every single day is what's next to come. Friends, I'm going to be here every week for now on. I need this.

Speaker 1: 22:48

This is my healing process during the trusting process, if you wanna call it that, and although it feels a little uncomfortable thinking about doing a podcast every single week, this is what I've been led to do during this time, and if I have one final, final piece of advice for you, it's not to ignore when you've been called to do something In the midst of trusting the process. You're gonna get signs, you're gonna feel things, you're gonna hear things, you're gonna absorb things, and I don't want you to ignore those. This is the epitome of what trusting the process is all about. It's doing what you're told to do, even if it looks uncomfortable or feels uncomfortable, or even if your map looks a little bit different than his. Okay, that's it for my Monday. I hope you guys have an amazing day. Thank you for sharing your time with me today. I'll see you next week, alsaccom.