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Shelly Summers: We Move Forward
This transcript is of episode 15 which originally aired on February 20th 2023
Shelly Summers is the author of We Move Forward: Surviving and Healing Through Loss Divorce and Grief which just came out a couple weeks ago and immediately hit the Amazon Best Sellers list. We talk about helping people recover and move forward from trauma in their lives.
| So are you from Ogden? Did you grow up here? I did, I did grow up here. I, born and raised in Ogden. I grew up mostly on the east side, by, at the top of 25th Street. |
| And, went to, most of my elementary, middle school and then one year at Ogden High and then graduated from Weber High. But I got, a football coaching position and a history department head position at Weber High. And, Shelley was not the best student at Ogden High, so they figured I needed to be babysat. So did it work? |
| Did we do it? Well, you don’t necessarily want the vice principal catching you. Sloughing school and then say, I’m going to go tell your dad and then, you know. Yeah, that’s what did it. Yeah. Yeah. Let’s just say I didn’t date a lot either, because everybody’s scared of my dad. So. And so do you. I mean, you’re an author, but you have a career outside of being an author. |
| I, I have I have had so many hats in my life. I have been a licensed cosmetologist for 30 plus years. What do you do that? Where do you do that at? I actually have a salon in my house. Oh, in my home. I do. And every state I’ve lived in six different states. My ex husband was in agriculture, and so we’ve lived. |
| We had lived in Washington, Idaho, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, and, every place I lived, I got my cosmetology license there. Just, you know, as a back up kind of thing. And and when I got divorced, I actually did have a salon in my home there as well. Okay. So, yeah. And so, so when you say cosmetology, what kind of stuff is it that you specialize in? |
| Is it, hair? Nails? Yeah. That’s haircuts. Color. Yeah, all of it. Right. All of it. Yeah. But I, I when I, when I moved out here, I moved out, so I got divorced in 2018. It was pretty bad. It was pretty traumatic. And stayed a year in South Dakota to try and rebuild a relationship with my daughter. |
| And, in 2019, my dad, I got diagnosed with frontotemporal lobe dementia. And in the time between my ex-husband leaving and me moving out here, you know, I, I pretty much got locked out of the house and everything, so all of my hair salon stuff was sold, and so I needed a job, and I needed insurance, and so I actually went to go work at a local nursing facility, long term care facility. |
| And you know, just when you think you have a plan and then God yells plot twist. You know five years later I look back on all of that and go, oh, I really didn’t know what the plan was. But now I see what the plan was. And so I spent a year working in a long term care facility caring for elderly people, and understood, you know, their need for grief, help and just talking, just literally talking and, coming up on a year of me working there as when my dad got diagnosed and my mom said, you know, can you come out here to to Utah? |
| She goes, can you you come out here and help me? I’m an only child. So you know what? What else do you do but say, okay. And it was, you know, there was no win win situation for me. You know, my my youngest daughter, when my ex left, she went with him and we had a really strained relationship still kind of do. |
| And, and if I stayed out in South Dakota, my mom would be here taking care of my dad by herself. So that’s that’s how I ended up in Utah. That’s really how I ended up here. Oh, I see, because I do really want to, I really want to talk about your book. That sort of starts there where your it kind of starts there where your husband leaves. |
| But I wanted before I just wanted to kind of get a sense of like, were you always. Well, so like, the life coaching, was that something that was a part of your life before, you know, the events of the book and all of that? So I, I’ve been I’ve been an educator. This is when I started college, right after high school. |
| I went into education. I’m an only child of two retired schoolteachers in Utah. So it’s kind of like in my DNA. And I, I have had work also. Like I said, I’ve worn many hats. After I got, married in 1991, I kept going to school. I went I seriously, by the time I graduated with my degree, I had credits in five different colleges. |
| So but I actually do have a degree in child development, human development. And so understand ending life span and how humans develop and things like that. I’m an educator. I that’s really what I say. I, I’m not necessarily a coach, I’m an educator. So when it when it comes to, you know, I have had a life coach after I got divorced, I have gone to therapy after I got divorced. |
| And so having the knowledge that I do about how we develop has really helped me to know that, okay, we all get put in situations and the research that I’ve done since my divorce has helped me even better understand how we have to go through different progressions to get to the point of healing. So yeah, that’s and it just kind of the the life coaching here kind of really started to evolve after my dad passed away. |
| And my mom started her, started the grieving process, and she had just lost her dad. Yeah, before my dad did. And then four years before her mom passed away. So she really never had a chance to go through any of the stages because it was just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And she she’s not a person that shows emotion very well. |
| And so I had to get her to a point that, you know what, it’s okay if you scream and yell and swear and stomp your feet and you know all of those things, it’s okay. You know, that’s that’s what we’re supposed to do. That’s called feeling moms. |
| Well, and I’m a lot the same as you with that. You know, I like to try a lot of different jobs and just go for a lot of different things. And that was kind of my read of you, is that you kind of seem like that kind of person. So I think that’s what I was getting at. There’s just, you know, yeah, I, I didn’t I didn’t intentionally plan that. |
| I, I had and you know, way back when, when I first graduated from high school, I had planned on getting my degree in, in education. And I wanted an early childhood education. You know, birth to age eight. That’s where my passion was. And then, you know, I got married. Life happens. We moved a lot. I had three kids, you know, and every place we moved, it was a huge transition for them. |
| And so I just kind of like stuck with the the hair hair salon and being a hairstylist because it fit into my lifestyle with my kids and I, and I, I’ve always been an entrepreneur. Always, always, always. Well, and I saw some stuff I think maybe on your Instagram that was talking about the you know, I don’t I don’t remember if it said hair pissed or something about that hair stylist therapist and, and my wife’s a hair stylist and she gets a lot of that too, you know. |
| Is there something about being a hair stylist that makes it so that you can relate to people and help them? You know, they’re really it’s and it’s not necessarily being able to relate to people. It’s for one hour or, you know, however long you someone I have, I have never, ever I have worked one year in what I call assembly line haircutting places. |
| That was not for me. I, I’ve always had a salon where when I booked someone, I booked them by themselves because I feel like I want to get a chance to know that person and and truly, what I came to realize is I am really, really blessed that I get to be able to be a part of all of these different people’s lives. |
| Some of their firsts, like I’d give. I don’t know how many first haircuts I’ve given, you know, wedding days, prom hair. And I’ve also had two clients that when they got diagnosed with breast cancer, they had me come to the hospital and their hair was leaving on their terms. And so we cried and hugged each other and I shaved their heads. |
| And it was it was beautiful. And I, I truly do feel blessed for those experiences. And I feel like that has helped me be able to understand and connect with people in a, in a whole different way. Yeah, my I have friends that pre-date my wife and now they go to my wife for hair and she hears secrets, things about them that I never knew. |
| She’s in more contact with them now than I am, you know, it’s that. Yeah, yeah it is. And you know, and when you have if you do have a salon or any kind of business in your home, you know, where I, where I’m doing even online that like this, this is an exchange of energy, which is what we’re doing right now. |
| Anytime you have an exchange of energy where someone is coming into your home, you’re really, really that’s a sacred space. And you, you’re very careful about who does come in and out of your home. And so that’s the other reason. You know, I think part of the reason that I wanted to do this, this coaching so much to do is because, I actually have t shirts that say hair repost on it because when, when my husband and I by my I got remarried October of 2021. |
| So, but when we met, you know, he and I started talking about, you know, PTSD and trauma and things like that. And he’s like, you need to be a life coach. And I was like, I did enough just doing hair, you know? And and I had a girlfriend of mine, maybe a couple t shirts. Her post on it and but it it truly is. |
| And I feel like this, this space that I give people you, you, you, when you value it and you treasure it, they will as well. And so, like, are you currently accepting clients for cosmetology or the life coaching, any of that stuff? Both. Yeah. I’m not I’m not taking any more new hair clients. Because the ones that I have, they understand my message. |
| The ones that I have now are the ones that I’ve had for quite a while. And they they know the situation with my mom because I’m also a full time caregiver for my mom. She had a stroke in July of last year and was affected on her right side. So now she’s finding another new normal. And so my hair clients understand that I only have so many days during the week where actually really only two days during a week where I am in my salon and then the the rest of my time is either is spent between being online with people and and taking care of my mom. |
| So and so what kind of services do you provide as far as the life coaching? Is it just like you do sessions with people you meet and just like like counseling it? Okay, so here’s here’s the cool thing about coaching. So coaching is it’s different than like therapy. And I wouldn’t call it counseling. It’s counseling likes to go, you know, a lot with, you know, what has happened to you to get you where you are. |
| What coaching does is I take a I’m right now I’m right now I’m, I’m working with women, especially women who are in midlife, who have gone through, you know, divorce or death of a spouse or are just now empty nesters and trying to figure out their new normal. And, you know, just all the different changes that being in this phase of life allows us, what I, what coaching does is I actually take the person where they are from, where they are right now, and then we go forward, we start working with, okay. |
| So let’s start with small attainable goals. You know, small attainable goals is like literally if you’ve if you’ve been divorced, it is literally get out of bed. It is. Let’s brush our teeth today. It is okay. We probably should get dressed because the the sweats that you’ve been wearing for three days stink. And so let’s make two small attainable goals. |
| You get out of bed, you get dressed and throw stuff in the laundry. You know, it’s it’s things like that. It’s like that’s what my book focuses on is like, it’s one. One of the things I noticed was that I, in a lot of the, the books that I read because I became a reader when all when let’s just call my life a shit show because that’s what it was. |
| I really hope your listeners don’t. That’s fine. They can take it. Because seriously, it became a shit show and I, I just became this reader. I was like, I need information, I’m a searcher. I’m a researcher. That’s what I do. It’s like, okay, I need to find a way to be better than the way I am now. And I read every. |
| But the thing I didn’t appreciate at that time, because I would get like 2 or 3 chapters in and it would just be preachy. It’s like, you have to do this, you have to do that. You have to, you know? And I’m like, no, I don’t have to do anything other than get up, get dressed, brush my teeth, go to work. |
| That was it. And what my book does is it takes people like, okay, you know what? Yep. I changed the title of the first chapter after my. But after my husband and I were talking. And because the literally the first chapter was, how in the hell is this my life? Because when you are first in the stages of trauma or divorce, or suddenly widowed or widower, you you are in shock. |
| It is shock and and it’s it’s not less. And if you have children, they’re in shock too. So you have to go, okay, here we are. Now what? And that’s where my book goes. It’s like, okay, this is what worked. And yet and you have to feel the feelings you have to go through, you know, the stages of grief. |
| And, and one of the biggest things that I came to believe and came to understand was, you know, your I have always believed until I went through all this, I thought, you know, we are, thinking, be late thinking beings who feel. Once I started going through all of this, I now see that we are feeling beings that think, |
| Because if you’ve ever been through a trauma, the trauma goes first. Your body has an innate sense to warn you of what’s off. And so in that first chapter, we talk about like, okay, what are you feeling? Why are you feeling it? And how do you change the feeling? And so it’s like once you can recognize that. |
| So basically in my book is it is a survival guide. It really is a survival guide to healing through loss, divorce and grief. So that’s and that’s what I love about. And so it really did come from like all of this kind of path that you’re on now sort of started with this trauma and all of this. Since then, it’s just kind of been you making that into a positive thing. |
| Yeah, it really, really has. Because when I say there’s a reason that the book is titled, We Move Forward, when. So I’ll just briefly give you a little when I was like, yeah, how I got left. So how I got left was and this is in the book too, is there is there is a journal entry from when I was in Cancun. |
| So January 14th of 2018, my ex and I were on a business trip of his in Cancun. We were in Cancun for ten days. It was wonderful. It was awesome. I came home, with a cold goddess, got sick on the plane. We got home on the 24th of January 2018 when I went to work the 25th and 26th and the 27th, which was a Saturday. |
| I was soaking in the bathtub. I fell asleep and got out an hour and a half later and all of his clothes were gone. He was gone. My daughter was gone. The dog was gone. His office desk, his filing cabinets were gone. Everything was gone. And so the shock set in. I started shaking. I don’t know how long I didn’t eat, I really don’t. |
| So all of that. So that was that trauma, you know, and and I knew I could not stay in an angry space. I knew I could because I knew I would eat me alive. So, yes, all of all of this has come from that horrible, horrible thing. Yeah. And so that’s really how the book starts off. And then the rest of the book is sort of it’s just all of the things that you learned along the way, I suppose, as far as coping with that and, and trying to make it right, I guess. |
| Well, it’s and it’s to because that’s the thing that I learned, I had so many friends that were going through the same thing I was at. It was really, really odd how we were all going through the same thing, divorce in our, you know, 50s or late 40s and, and things like this. And, you know, had spent our adult lives being married. |
| So the book starts with what happened. And then I take it step by step because I went through, I went to, a divorce care support group in. And that’s actually what the program was called is divorce care and it’s nationwide. And went through two different sessions of this 13 week thing. And the first session that I went to, they had already started one of the 12 weeks of the first session I went to. |
| They started talking about loneliness. And I remember sitting there, tears streaming down my face, snot coming out of my nose, and I look up at the ceiling and I’m like, really? God, we’re really lonely. This so, you know, and I, I that I ended up getting to the end of that session and going, okay, look at how I am now as opposed to what I started. |
| I’ve learned some things and, and I what I learned was, for in order for you to move forward in life after you have gone through any kind of horrible situation, trauma, you have to forgive. And it’s not necessarily you have to. You don’t forget is Lord knows there there isn’t one ounce of forgetting, but you have to forget. |
| And it’s and it’s for yourself to move forward. And I was what we were I was watching a Ted talk. In, in one of these divorce support groups and it was about forgiveness. And the woman is a widow and she says, we don’t move on, we move forward. And the reason we don’t move on is because moving on lends itself to saying, okay, we’re just going to move on from what that was, just move on. |
| And I loved that when everybody would say, can’t you just move on? No, we don’t move on. And if we move on, that means that we’re not taking one lesson that we learned from all of that crap that we just went through and moving it into our life. Now so that we don’t repeat the same things and that we we’ve that we’ve grown. |
| That’s where growth comes from. Growth is the uncut stuff that nobody wants to talk about. Well, and I’m curious, I mean, speaking of growth, you know, I wonder how did it turn from you seeking support to you, providing support. You know what I mean? Like, like how does that transition happen with you? Well, I can tell you with all certainty, working in that long term care facility literally saved my life because what it did is I was serving other people, and I got out of my own way. |
| I got out of my own head, and I, I became I could see their gratitude. And it that filled me and I and I’ve always been a, you know, being an educator and working with little kids. You, you’ve you see the needs. There’s always a need, you know, and the glimmer in their eye the first time that they zip code or tissue or something, there’s always that know what that that fills your. |
| Well, when I became the person who needed to have their cup filled. Those people in that long term care facility, the residents, they would they would sit and listen to me and and the story that I tell about the pastor who was dying of cancer and had COPD and that I got to put, you know, put to bed every night and help him with dinner and all that. |
| When I one night when I went in there into his room to getting ready for bed, you know, and this is in the first stages of my divorce, you know, I bollig and I don’t know why, like, you know, those waves of emotion just hit you, and I would be crying and wiping away my tears and and he said, are you okay? |
| And I said, I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. And, and, he said, what’s wrong? And I said, well, you know, I thought I knew what God’s plan was for me, but apparently I don’t anymore. And, you know, him being a pastor, he he just sat there and he looked at me and he said, well, you know what? |
| God gives everyone free will. God has no more control over this than you do. Doesn’t make it wrong, doesn’t make it right. It just it’s just sometimes shitty things happen. And I was like, well, okay. So yeah. So it turned so me, I think it was always kind of, you know, like, I don’t feel like I’m necessarily a coach. |
| I just feel like I’m educating. I feel like I’m just educating other women that you can get through that tunnel that’s really, really dark. And that light that’s at the end of the tunnel. Light that bitch up yourself and walk through it. Right? Right. A lot of people just need some support or like a cheerleader, that kind of thing. |
| Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. That’s what that’s what I’m. I’m I’m ever I am the biggest cheerleader. You. So the toughest part of your story, is, is with your child like that. I can only imagine. I’m sure it’s the most difficult part for you. And. Sorry. So, What am I even trying to ask you? |
| You know, I feel like there’s probably a lot of uncertainty that came with that and a lot of, like, desperation to control that in a way. And like, I mean, I can just. So. I mean, are you are you comfortable talking about that a little bit? Just what that experience was like? No, I, I can, I can she still she still lives in, in South Dakota. |
| She’s on her own now. I, we really don’t have a great relationship. She was 14. And when all of this happened and, I don’t know, 114 year old girl who likes their mom. Really? And, my kids growing up, I didn’t know that I had been suffering from generalized anxiety disorder my entire life. Like, since I was ten. |
| I remember the exact moment that I started feeling it. And, so all of my anxiety just start to compound as my kids got older and we moved more and more and, you know, and when you’re in an abusive and emotionally abusive or mentally abusive, relationship, you don’t know that you’re in an emotionally abusive relationship. And I didn’t I didn’t realize it until I got out of it. |
| And I did realize the gaslighting that was going on behind my back. And so when the, I’m not really sure how the conversation between the, my ex-husband and my daughter came about for them to leave, all I know is that they did that morning and, the hardest lesson I had to learn was to give up control. |
| I had to give up control that I would never get to see her because I didn’t. I spent a year in South Dakota trying to rebuild a relationship, and it didn’t happen. And so, you know, I just but like I said, again, there really wasn’t a win win situation with me moving out here. And so I’ve I’ve seen her once or twice since then. |
| I did go out for her graduation and so it’s it is what it is. And, you know, time time doesn’t heal wounds, but it’s really good at helping you learn to absorb them. Well. And it was just crazy to me reading that because my brother went through something so similar where he, he got a divorce and he just thought everything they kind of had some agreements about how it was going to be. |
| And then once he left, his daughter was just never talking to him, and he had no idea why. And part of what was so difficult is that she was a teenage girl. And teenage girls have this, you know, like a lot of times it’s best to just give them space. And so there’s this real struggle that we had like, you know, how do you go about it? |
| But then, like you say, over time, it’s not like, you know, there’s ever a good time to start. Like, you’re just hoping that some teenage girl eventually wants more parenting in their life or something. Well, I, she does have, she and my oldest daughter have. They have contact. They talk. My son, my son was actually when all of this went down, my son was actually on a mission in Arizona. |
| So he came home and his entire world had been blown apart. So he’s he’s had a struggle, you know, and, he, he and I talked and he’s learned he’s an adult now. And that’s the other thing, too, is all three of my children are adults now. The parenting is done. And whether or not this was this was the hardest thing for me to realize was whether or not they want to have a relationship with me and get to know me as I am right now. |
| All I can do is be the best version of myself that I can be right now, and continue to do that and continue to reach out when I feel I need to. And their response has, I don’t take it personally, I really don’t. It’s this is this is what I feel I need to do and I’m doing it. |
| I’m being authentic with myself and how they respond. That’s that’s on them. So yeah, she’s it’s she’s 20. Well, she’ll be 20 and it’s, you know, I remember being 20. Yeah. I knew absolutely everything. And when I left Utah, I was 22. And I gave a big double middle finger to Utah. I’d said I’d never come back right. |
| And never say never. Well, so talk to me about then. I mean, you you’ve self-published this book. Talk to me about deciding to publish a book and do it yourself. How did how did that all come about? Well, I, I actually, I did hire a publisher. Suzanne Suzanna Perez is she owns creative, publishing company. |
| She is a book coach. And it was the most amazing experience. She she is the person that I will go to because I know there’s there’s at least two more books in my head. But she’s the person I’ll go to again and again. She was easy to work with. She had the editors, she had the graphic designer who did the, the cover, and it was the had formatting people. |
| So basically my job was to get that first draft out of my head on the paper. And then from there, we just started. And honestly, I don’t I’ll tell you the truth, I probably shouldn’t tell anybody this, but. So I signed the contract. The the first contract I signed was in July, right after my mom had her stroke, because I think I went into panic mode and, like, oh my gosh, what am I going to do with the rest of my life? |
| Love? And, I signed the contract with Susannah at the end of July, and I was supposed to be done in January, and the book launch was supposed to be done in January. So October I have only the introduction written of the book, and I freaked out and I got an extension on the book, and she said, December 15th is the last day you have to have this done. |
| December 15th. So. Thanksgiving weekend. |
| Once I once I figured it out because this book’s started out in a completely different way, like each chapter was going to be one of the people, each person’s story. That’s how the book was initially planned out for me. And I just I got to the point where I was I wrote Tim’s story, I wrote Vicky’s story, I wrote LJ story, I wrote all their stories. |
| And then I got to the point where my story was going to be the last story, and I couldn’t do it, and I couldn’t do it because there were things in there that I would need to say that I wasn’t going to say, just for my kids sake, you know, just because of that. And so I’m laying there before Thanksgiving, thinking of this really does need to be a survival guide. |
| This really so what is this survival guide? And in my head I’m thinking of it. And this book was literally born on Thanksgiving. And I sat down and I wrote it in three weeks and it was edited and done before the end of January. Wow. So yeah, it’s it’s like it, it needed to come out the how this started when I, when I got divorced, I, I went back to school and I was finishing finishing my degree and I thought if I ever do finish my master’s because I was going and I was still going into education, I was going to do counseling. |
| But if I ever finish my master’s, this was going to be my thesis. This book was about women surviving trauma and abuse. Yeah. So, yeah. And so, it just barely released. Right? Yeah. Released last a week ago tomorrow. So night. Yeah. And it hit bestseller status for the first day. Very nice. And it’s it’s available on Amazon on Kindle. |
| Other places people can find it on your website. On my website, I have a link to go directly to Amazon. If people want to, just email me, I can send and I can take payments online. Shelly summers.com. And I can send them an autographed assigned edition if they like. Nice. And are you, like, any kind of events or anything? |
| Well, I’m going to be on good things Utah next Tuesday in the second hour. And no, I’m, I’m available for all speaking gigs. Great. So, no, I, I’ve actually reached out to quite a few of the divorce care, organizations at different churches that are that house that because I really that that is, I, I sponsored a table at the ICC gala here in Ogden. |
| I’m just I really want to give back to the community that supported me. And, you know, there’s there’s so many people and so many women that get the. Not even women. Men, I mean, hi, the whole trial last summer, you know, men are victims of abuse as well. And currently I’m working with women, but I will eventually open up my coaching practice to helping men as well. |
| Do you ever do any, like, public engagements, public speaking presentations? I would love to. I would love to. That is really that kind of I’ve done I do I’ve done trainings, with adults and at conferences and stuff, you know, centered around education and early childhood education. But I would absolutely love to do speaking engagements. And so how what’s the best way for people to get in touch with you for, for that or, you know, I’ve, I’ve got so my website is Shelly Summers. |
| Com and on Instagram I’m Shelly Summers. So just the, at the end actually servers up on Instagram and on Facebook. I am Shelly Summers Anderson. So yeah. And then my email is hello at Shelly summers.com and, and tell me the name of the book one more time. It’s called We Move Forward Surviving and Healing Through Loss, divorce and grief. |
| Okay. Great. Thank you Shelly. Really appreciate it. Well you’re welcome. Thank you so much I appreciate that and good luck with everything. I hope it’s all going great for you. So far, so good. Good. Great. Thank you for reaching out. It was great talking to you. Thanks you to see it. Okay. Bye bye. |
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