The GRP Update

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:00:00

trigger warning, the Resilience Project provides an open space for people to share their personal experiences. Some content in this podcast may include topics that you may find difficult, the listeners discretion is advised.

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:00:19

Hello friends, welcome to radical resilience, a weekly show where I Blair Kaplan Venables have inspirational conversations with people who have survived life's most challenging times. We all have the ability to be resilient and bounce forward from a difficult experience. And these conversations prove just that, get ready to dive into these life changing moments while strengthening your resilience muscle and getting raw and real. Hello, hello, and welcome back to another episode of radical resilience. It's me, Blair Kaplan Venables, and I'm here with my Griffey, girls co host, my sister, Roni, Mr. Reno, Alana Kaplan, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, Episode 70. Like, that's bananas.

Alana Kaplan: 00:01:11

It's crazy. That's wild.

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:01:13

Wow. Oh, and you know, it's so cool. Because like, when we launch this, like, you know, you never know how long a season is going to be or how long you're going to do. And sometimes people record 20 episodes, 13 episodes, take a break. We've just been trucking along. We've just been going. Because what started off as a, you know, passion project has turned into a global movement. So there's, there's no stopping now. So yeah, I think we're going to use this episode to just kind of give you a catch up on what's going on in the community. Because every day there's new, you know, new news, new progressions and exciting things that are happening. So, Alana, Alana, I'm gonna just Alana poured her heart and soul into what she's about to talk about. And I just want you guys listening out there to know this and to support it. Alana what what was it that you worked on?

Alana Kaplan: 00:02:11

As the mental health director who worked on the merch, mental health clinicians and therapists can also be designers and pour their passion into various things. This is where it came from. Grief is something that has been so stigmatized in the past are not known. stigmatized is not the right word, the right word would probably be under talked about and not really taboo. taboo, grief is taboo. That is the word. And it shouldn't be because it is something everyone is going to experience in their life. There's many types of grief, there is the typical grief of losing a loved one loved one who dies, the end of a relationship, moving loss of a job, there's grief for everything. And we don't talk about it enough. And it is a perfectly normal feeling that shows that you experience something that was really important to you or a relationship that was really important to you. And why like the you know how there's that saying, wear your heart on your sleeve, wear your grief on your sleeve, and by sleep wear your grief on your chest because that's exactly what I was gonna say. You're left on your on your chest on your back wherever you need to wear it, wear it. So I made some merch. And we have some people I would say our most popular one right now is our resilient def. But second popular would be our good grief shirts, which proceeds of the sweatshirt, not the t shirt. But this sweatshirt will go to Camp Aaron and the Aluna network, which is a camp for children who have lost someone important to them. And then we also have the dead parents society, which is the club that no one really wants to be in. But everyone probably will be in at some point. Blair and I are the CO presidents of the club, self appointed. But anyways, we also have some mugs and other stuff and it'd be so fantastic if you could just check out our website, maybe buy some merch, because this is what is helping us support and grow the global Resilience Project. So you can go to we'll put it in the show notes. HTTP

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:04:54

will Alana. Sorry sock is on our website.

Alana Kaplan: 00:04:59

Oh Yeah, go otherwise that's

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:05:01

what the HTTP like, what are you? I thought you were a millennial, you know better.

Alana Kaplan: 00:05:08

Sorry. It's been a day. Here we are. It's Wednesday.

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:05:13

Yeah, if you want to buy the shirt, just go to our website, the global resilience project.com and hit shop. And a lot of did such a good job. We have crewnecks we have t shirts, we have hats, we have mugs, I'm about to go on a trip, and I need some warm weather clothes. So we're going to be adding some things to the store. Because of course, I'm going to wear the merch while I'm traveling in, you know, Vegas or Africa or Croatia. So Alanna did a great job. So you know, there's something there for everyone. Whether it's a mug with just our logo, or you know, dead parents society, the club that no one wants to join shirts, and everything in between when you purchase that you're supporting our movement. As a reminder, like this isn't a registered non for profit. It's a for profit, but it has not been profitable. I've been funding this. I've been funding it from my business. So Ilana, you did such a good job in the shirts and the hats. And so I'm excited to see what else we actually had a funny idea. Last time we were together about our next merch drop. So if you've lost, I want to leave this with you. Think about the last text that you got from that person. Okay. So on that note, with merch, I'm really like, excited because you know, we started designing this when it was winter. But now we're going into summer. And you know, I have a big trip coming up. We donated money to help fund a children's center in Ghana. And I'm actually heading over there to check it out. And to lead workshops on resilience. And so of course, I want to wear our merge and like, you know, these decked out as possible. But a crewneck right now in Ghana is probably not the best thing since it's like 3540 degrees Celsius. So but I'm really excited for that trip, that trips coming up, and I'm gonna be documenting it on both my personal and the global Resilience Project, social media, it's gonna be really epic. And yeah, I don't know, I think, you know, Lana and I are just in a new season, like, you know, we've passed that grief, we've passed the one year mark of our dad dying, and a two year mark of our mom dying. And I don't know about you, but like, I'm starting to feel like the new version of myself. Like, I'm fine. I'm able to find peace in my day. And I don't know Atlanta, like, how are you feeling?

Alana Kaplan: 00:07:27

Yeah, I'm feeling. I don't want to say better, because I don't think that's an accurate word. I'm feeling. Yeah. And I don't want to say I'm feeling like a new version of myself, either. I'm just feeling like an evolved.

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:07:46

Like, Caveman evolves. Yeah, she uses a fork and knife.

Alana Kaplan: 00:07:51

Yeah. And I visit the website at http. I basic. Yeah. Like, there's that image. We've shared it before. I've like someone growing around their grief. And that's exactly how I feel like, they feel like I still have my grief few moments. I still have many grief moments. And I can get up and go on with my day. So I'm feeling I'm feeling okay. That's good.

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:08:24

You know, we're so it's funny, because Alana and I different time zones, different schedules, you know, and to plan to record together, you know, I'm in BC, and she's in Manitoba, and I look forward to doing more in person with her because that was really fun. But just talking about griefing moments, I was just finishing Daisy Jones in the six and I was like, bawling my eyes out. I'm like, I actually stopped it. I was like, I can't stop crying. Because like, of what was happening in the very last episode, in the last 10 minutes, I was like, Oh, I was like, oh, there's a grief trigger, trigger. Trigger. Is it still called a trigger? A Grief trigger. So yeah, we got some cool things going on in this, this world of ours. You know, a couple years ago, four years ago, when this started this journey. I never thought I'd be saying I'm a resilience thought leader, or that we're starting a global movement. Like we just started this whole project as a way to honor the story of me and my father, and you know, our journey of his addiction, my forgiveness and our resilience. And so with it becoming a global movement, I think it's really cool to see all the things that have happened, Alana, what's something that you that you really love about the evolution of this.

Alana Kaplan: 00:09:35

Okay, well, there's a few things that I love about sorry, guys, I just have to share phrase phrase now with us. The evolution of the global Resilience Project, what I'm loving is the reach. At the beginning, we were contacting and reaching other people and looking ourselves, like who do we think would be a good fit, and that people are coming to us. And I love that. And I mean, of course, I love the merch. But I love the evolution of the discussion. Like, obviously, there was some anticipatory grief when this started because we knew our dad was palliative. But it's, but it's also I feel like I think it's safe to say that the global Resilience Project has become a safe space for the big feelings that people don't really want to share, talk about, like, like grief, like, sadness, and other other big feelings.

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:10:42

I love that. Yeah, the safe space for the big feelings. I love that it's funny, I feel like I've used all my big feelings up and I'm just replenishing it. But all my big feelings have been within the container of this global Resilience Project. And it is what it's been like the hammock to my sadness. Not my banana hammock, but my sad hammock. So we got some cool stuff happening. If you follow me on social media, you'll know like, our community's gonna be on an Amazon Prime TV show, we are featured in a new series. I'm just waiting for confirmation when it's coming out. But I got word that it might be as early as June. Now, don't hold me to this. But I heard summer, I heard June. So in it, in anticipation for that there's a lot of work going on behind the scenes. And you know, you have not asked for it, but we know you want it. So we're building it. And we're working on building a membership community a very low barrier to entry entry, where you pay a little bit of money each month, you can come and go as you please, where we provide weekly meetings and lessons and trainings and we take this safe space this hammock and hold you in it in more than we can offer just with this podcast, and through our books and our you know, social media and everything else we do. It's a place for us to gather and connect. So I'm really excited about that. We've just started building that out. And we're working on corporate training, too. So if you're listening to this, and you want some resilience training in your organization, if you're an HR, or you're a manager, I know you all your corporations out there, you have budgets for personal and professional development, we would love to bring our program to your team. You know, Alanna is our mental health director, she is literally she's a therapist, she is qualified. And my background, you know, not only my motivational speaker and my background in PR, but my background is that everyone died. And I had to be really fucking resilient the last couple of years. And what's really cool is that the book with Alanna, mentioning that people are starting to come to us, my network has been growing. And so what's really cool is that there's some people in our book that are just so supportive of our movement. And one of those people, they've invited us to meet Atlanta and the global Resilience Project to be in the Emmys gifting lounge. And what this means is in September, Alanna and I are going to LA and before the Emmys there's all these different events. And there's a spa experience gifting lounge where it's invite only for celebrities and media, and we're gonna be there with our book. And like promoting the movement and promoting what we're doing and talking to the these famous people who have big networks, and this these media, the media people, the people of the media. And, you know, my goal, our goal is just to help people be more resilient. That is that's a very simple, it's a very simple goal of mine. And I want to empower people and I want to empower 88 million people in the next two and a bit years. And I think I'm gonna hit it with Amazon prime thing, but we're doing cool stuff. So if you see an opportunity where you can bring the global Resilience Project into your world if you want us to come speak or you want to do a partnership, we're open like we are here for you. We are here we are experimenting, we're doing you know we're building a ship. Well, we say a letter we're building a plane while we fly it because sometimes that's when the best things are created. Another thing that is really cool is that what was I going to talk about? I forgot what am I forgetting? What else do we

Alana Kaplan: 00:14:03

you alluded to? You're gonna trip when talking about the merch, but I don't know. Okay, yeah. But you're gonna be doing there on top of like, supporting the funding of it. What else? Okay, well, okay,

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:14:16

so I'm actually going on a four week trip and it's a bit more than four weeks. And so for those of you who don't know me, I'm I'm no longer a 19 year old backpacker. And when I plan this trip, it got a little intense because I'm part of a different professional groups. So I'm meeting my one of my groups in Croatia. And Alanna decided when we decided we should go on a trip. So Alanna is coming to meet me at the end of my business trip and Croatia. And then I saw there was another business trip, another business group meeting in Uganda. And it was a really cool opportunity. It's been on my bucket list to trek with the gorillas. And so when this came to be in the timing, I just was like, oh, like that's right before Croatia. I'll go I'm already over there. But over there like I Haven't looked at I mean, I think the pandemic broke my brain, I should have looked at a map, no regrets, no regrets. But then, when I've been working with God's way, who is my my friend in Ghana, who funded this Children's Center from impact experience, he's the one who has his vision. And we funded the rent for this building. We have to talking and I was like, why don't I go to Ghana, before I go to Uganda, and long story short, this is become a very big trip. But I'm excited. I'll be in Ghana, for about a week, I'm going to do some sightseeing. But I'm going to be speaking about resilience and about social media to different groups, different school groups of different ages, which I'm really excited about, we're going to be doing a grand opening of the Children's Center there. But they still need a lot of stuff donated God's way has a GoFundMe, and I'll put that link in the show notes. So if you're listening and you want to help, every dollar counts, I'm going to be packing suitcases as much as I can bring with school supplies and stuff they need. And there's also a full list on I think it might be on the GoFundMe, but if not, I'll include it but they need this, they need supplies. And I think shipping from North America is very difficult to gone, especially things like laptops and whatnot. So, you know, if you're listening and you want to help, whether it's $5, or $10, or 100, whatever it might be, you know, feel free to step up. And like if not, it doesn't matter, that's okay, we are going to be documenting we as in Me, myself, and I, I'll be documenting this entire thing on both my personal and the global resilience social media, because, you know, we're making a difference in a lot of people's lives, this children's center is going to help keep about 1600 kids, you know, out of the streets and out of you know, working in the marijuana fields. And it's it seems like it's a fairly poor community. And, you know, I don't really have much to say about the details because I'm not there yet. And I'm going to bring my microphone with me so I can possibly even record on the road and give updates because I think that would be really cool. Lana's making a face You think that'd be cool.

Alana Kaplan: 00:17:03

That would be cool. Yeah, you're gonna be not backpacking, but

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:17:10

you're planning to soar. And what Lana, Lana and I are going to be together so I mean, I think it'd be really cool to, to pod. But anyways, I'm gonna be documenting it I'm gonna you know, so if you want to be a part of this, you want to help out? Let's do it. You could donate, you can reach out to me and see what else you know they need. And I think that might be it right now for the for the updates, which is huge, because we have merch, oh, the most important thing of all, we're still accepting stories for book number two. Do you have a story of resilience? Have you overcome a challenge? Have you ever wanted to share your story in a published book, our first book launched in June of 2022, and became an international bestseller. Our next book is going to be bigger and who already has tons more press. And we are for the next couple of months accepting applications for the book. Every day, we're getting more and more people interested in setting up meetings with me booking their spots. So if you are curious about what it would look like for you to share your story of resilience in our published book, and you want to be a co author, I'll put a link below in the show notes you can reach out to me personally, and if you know Alanna, reach out to Lana and she'll put you in touch with me. But, you know, we believe every story deserves to get told and hearing your story might help someone go through something similar. And sharing your story is scientifically proven to help you heal. So if you want to be part of this global movement, in that capacity, we would love to share your story, we would be honored to hold space for you and share your story with our community. And when you are in our book, you also get to be a guest on this very podcast. And there's a whole bunch of other beautiful things that come with being a part of our co author collective. So we want to invite you to, you know, explore that because every story deserves to get told and this might be the right time for you. And you don't have to write a novel, you don't have to be professional, you only have up to like five to 700 words, you write it and we have a team of editors and graphic designers that puts it all together for you. You just need to show up and be you and tell your story. And we do the rest. We do the rest so I think that might be it for all the episodes 70 updates What do you think SR oni

Alana Kaplan: 00:19:24

I think that's it so I want to I'm just it's it's wild to think that in two months time the global like yes the global Resilience Project has stories from all over the world but like we as the global Resilience Project will be you'll be on will be on like three continents and Amazon Prime Amazon Prime. West Africa, East Africa, Europe, North America have an Amazon Prime, and Amazon Prime.

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:20:03

On a different note, I'm going to end this with a story and I saw it today and it was so beautiful in Atlanta. I don't know if you'd be open to it, but I think you liked my story. But I saw on Tik Tok the Father, this father lost their daughter and they put a bunch of these windmills. These are they called windmills, like wind captures, like the things you stick in the ground. And when the wind comes that like twirl, that spins. Yeah. And he just showed this video and I looked at a bunch of videos where he walks up and nothing spinning. And as soon as he walks up, and there's no wind, they all start spinning, and it's his daughter. And it's the energy of his daughter and I just got it like, I liked it so much that I shared it from Tiktok to my story, because it really hit me in the fields especially because our whole family is buried in the same row with the same synagogue like literally on both sides of our family. I thought you were gonna say especially because our whole family's dead will almost that were alive. So I thought like next time I'm in Winnipeg, and I might be there the summer or fall well for sure in the fall, but I want to get some of those little wind shiny things and put them at mums spot and see what happens and maybe even at dads because I think it'd be really cool if you know if something happened if not, at least it looks really pretty but you know, I do believe that there's you know, the people who leave this planet are still around us in their energy and you know, I feel mum and dad and Dave and everyone the whole brigade. I feel I feel energy I don't feel alone and I feel their presence and support. Lana's typing something but I think on that note the blog aid. Yeah, that is the Blair gate. I have like a whole team of angels. But on that note, I think we should wrap up because we're just kind of dragging on so thank you for tuning in to another episode of radical resilience. Grief. McGough segment talked about dead things alive things, everything in between. We're doing some really cool stuff. Keep an eye out for announcements on our community that we're building, it's going to be super cool. And it's going to provide a lot of resources and a hub for people who need support and resilience mental health professionals and everyone in between. And soon as I know when we're going to be on prime, I will make sure you know and without further ado, just know that it is okay to not be okay. Let us be that lighthouse in a storm. Just know that you are not alone. You are not alone. You have us and you are resilient.