Diane Gansauer shares her extraordinary journey of transformation from a successful but unfulfilling career in wildlife conservation to becoming a funeral celebrant and long-distance hiker, discovering her true purpose along the way.
• Leaving a 20-year executive career that looked perfect on paper but felt misaligned with her soul
• Receiving a divine opportunity to establish a celebrant program for North America’s largest funeral service provider
• Hiking 3,000 miles from Mexico to Canada over seven years, starting at age 61
• Finding deep spiritual connection in nature and seeing God’s presence in both the wilderness and in honoring lives at funerals
• Writing “The Waypoints” about the overlap between hiking lessons and insights from 400 memorial services
• Learning to travel light—physically, emotionally, and spiritually—by leaving behind what no longer serves
• Transitioning to being a “trail angel” who helps other hikers along their journey
• Recognizing that God often speaks through nature and uses pain as a catalyst for necessary change
• Understanding that our comfort zones are often actually “misery zones” we stay in out of fear
The Waypoints: From 400 Farewells and 3,000 Miles is available on Amazon and at independent bookstores.
Transcript:
Speaker 1:
If you’ve ever struggled with fear, doubt or worry and wondering what your true purpose was all about, then this podcast is for you. In this show, your host, sylvia Worsham, will interview elite experts and ordinary people that have created extraordinary lives. So here’s your host, sylvia Worsham.
Speaker 3:
Thank you hi hi, diane, can you hear me?
Speaker 2:
yes, I can am I? Is my volume all right?
Speaker 3:
yes, it’s perfect. I was just editing another episode I did many weeks ago and I was sitting there trying to mess with iMovie and it wouldn’t let me do what I needed to do. Oh, I was like holy spirit, please step in we’ve all been there, sylvia. It’s wrestling with technical details that are important but frustrating very, very frustrating, especially when you call yourself an like electronically challenged person. My husband’s like well, you also picked a Mac, you should have gone with that regular. I was like okay, we’re just not going to win right now.
Speaker 3:
I was reading over the way you answered Calendly, and that’s basically what I’m going to be doing in the interview. I’m going to start off with your story of transformation, where you can introduce yourself the way you really need to be introduced, since I don’t know you well. I just know based on what I’ve read and you can kind of share how you landed in the space you’re in now, whereas being an author of a book of how God, the Holy Spirit, kind of led you to go into nature through that major hike you did, and then also to help people with their celebration of life, which I think was beautiful Like when I first read it I was like yes. And I find it so interesting the timing of our interview because this week is the toughest week for me. It is the week right before my father has his first year of being gone.
Speaker 3:
And some of these interviews have really been very emotional because somehow his memory and his life have kind of weaved themselves into these interviews by how the guests have been discussing certain events in their life and it just my mind just went to my father’s upbringing, um. So I thought when I read yours I was like yep, celebration of life, and I was the one that wrote his eulogy and I was the one that did his um obituary the night he died.
Speaker 2:
It was just a lot Wow, and he’s my and the first year is that’s the major walk of grief.
Speaker 3:
Yes, it is. And so people were like my therapist yesterday, said you know how do you, how are you feeling? And I said right now I’m busy, but I don’t know how I’ll be on the 16th, which is on Monday, and he died on Father’s Day last year.
Speaker 2:
Oh, my, so when Father’s Day rolls around. There’s kind of a poignant beauty to that.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, because you know you’re going to think of him anyways. So why not on the day that represents him, right? The?
Speaker 2:
day that his time came to a close yeah, and he.
Speaker 3:
the interesting thing was he was born a day before mexican mother’s day, because he was mexican. So I found I found it so interesting that he chose like his body chose father’s day. I was like, wow, so day before mexican mother’s day and then the day of father’s Day. So I you know it’s interesting. It’s just interesting how things work. But so, going back to the interview, I’m going to ask the story of transformation first, and that way you can introduce yourself and then I’ll just weave in the other questions. Okay, as the flow permits, if there’s a space for me to come in and maybe add to what you’re saying, I will.
Speaker 2:
Oh, please do. Otherwise, in nervousness I’ll yammer on Sylvia. So I would love it if you chime in and ask questions.
Speaker 3:
Oh, I will, I’m always very, very curious in interviews. So that’s actually a good thing as a host and but sometimes I like to add to what you’re saying, to just kind of embellish it and maybe add another element to it as a life coach, and sometimes I don’t, sometimes I just allow your light to shine brightly because you’re saying something so beautiful and it’s touching my soul and I just don’t see a need for me to step in. But I will ask questions and I’ll weave the four questions that you answered on Calendly as best as possible, okay.
Speaker 3:
Do you have any questions or?
Speaker 2:
No, it’s just got to dive in sometimes. What I love about this is I can tell there’s a comfort level, certainly from you and I take it that means also from your audience about speaking on a spiritual level, and not everybody touches that, as you know. In podcasts yeah, Some of them are more traditional.
Speaker 3:
They avoid the topic because they think it’s a private topic. And our spirituality is not private at all. It’s an integral part of the fabric of our life and I’ve always known that and believed that, and so I’m very open about my faith with others, because I figure they’re very open about their non-faith, you know, and I’m not triggered by it, it doesn’t bother me, but I but I will add more about the love that I’ve received because I’ve been so close to the Holy spirit and he’s guided me out of, like, the darkest chapters of my life and and I want that for other people I don’t want to keep that to myself and I feel like I’m keeping it to myself if I don’t speak about the beauty of having a deeper relationship with him, you know, however they see him.
Speaker 3:
some people see him as a mom because they didn’t have a good influence of, of an earthly mother, and that’s what they’re seeking. I see him as a father because growing up, my father and I butted heads quite a bit, and so I’ve always just viewed him as an older brother, a big, you know, heavenly father, like somebody that I really wanted.
Speaker 2:
There’s a great insight to who I’m speaking with, so thank you thank you, I love it.
Speaker 3:
And let me just ask how do I pronounce your last name?
Speaker 2:
because oh, okay. So so think German Sylvia like sour, like sauerkraut, okay, okay, it’s, it’s. It’s. Some people say is it gone? No, it’s not gone.
Speaker 3:
Sour Gan Gan Sour, sour Gan sour.
Speaker 2:
And so I mean in the German, a gans is a goose, so somebody was raising goose way back when it’s my husband’s last name, probably him.
Speaker 3:
Well, we’re showing my husband’s last name. My maiden name is Villalobos and everybody always mispronounced it, mispronounced it Mispronounces that.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it’s really not that hard when you think of it as German, and everybody knows how to pronounce sauerkraut, so Gansauer. Okay, got it.
Speaker 3:
Thank you for breaking that down for me. I’m a linguist and so I always tell people you know, via lovus is not that hard, just think of the double L as a Y, and when you see it like that, then it’s really easy, you know. So, anyways, let’s get started. That way I know how much. Okay. So four minutes in, I’m just going to count us down. Hey, lightbringers, it’s Sylvia Worsham. Welcome to Released Out Revealed Purpose.
Speaker 3:
And today is Diane Gansauer, and she is someone that when I read her profile on Podmatch, I was blown away because, after having a very successful career, she decided to pivot above the age of 50. And we know, we all know, that once we turn 50 we’re kind of slowing down. Well, she didn’t. She actually sped up and God asked her to step into a new chapter of her life. She started hiking between I think it was the longest hike between Mexico and Canada. So she’s out in nature and she’s also been asked by God to go and help people create celebrational lives for their loved ones. And so she walked in that path for several years and then she ended up writing a book on her experiences. So, without further ado, diane, welcome. Thank you, it’s a pleasure to have you on.
Speaker 2:
Thank you, Sylvia. I’m delighted to be with you and your listeners and to dive into what that means to me releasing doubt and revealing purpose, or finding purpose. How would you like me to begin?
Speaker 3:
Well, for me it’s taking us back to that first act and then how God prompted you out that story of transformation that you shared with me story of transformation that you shared with me.
Speaker 2:
Okay, well, I had had a successful career for about 20 years at least 20 years in a completely different field than what I worked in most and continue to work in. So at this point in my life, I had been working in the land and wildlife conservation field, which gave me a great joy and sense of purpose. In the beginning, because I’ve always loved being out in nature, I love wildlife. I don’t know many people who don’t love those experiences in the wild, in nature, and I gave my heart and soul and effort to that for a long time and was doing well. In terms of, let’s say what it looks like on a resume, I rose to executive level. I was deputy director of a state agency in Colorado whose mission is to protect the outdoors and outdoor recreation parks, and it looked like a perfect fit, but it wasn’t. The more I had risen into an executive level position no surprise, probably to many of your listeners but that becomes more responsibility and that didn’t frighten me. But what I wasn’t so comfortable with was the political nature of that level of work. I’m talking about political with a small p. I wasn’t in state politics, but I was helping manage programs that involved a great deal of money. Back several years ago we were giving out over $10 million a year in grant programs and I oversaw those programs. The work was not a problem for me, but the political nature that gets connected to that much money was inevitable and I wasn’t particularly good at handling that. It also involved a lot of technical skill, data processing and analysis on the statistical level and analysis on the statistical level and whereas I have a business degree as part of my background so I could handle that work, it doesn’t bring joy to me. Thank goodness it does to some people. I’m not one of them. I was far more taken and satisfied with working with people, especially people who had an excellent wildlife habitat and that’s what we were trying to protect. So working with them on kind of a one-on-one or group level to protect God’s creation they might not have looked at it like that, but I do was joyful.
Speaker 2:
But the job was increasingly technical and political and I grew increasingly unhappy with that. I was transferred but, let’s be honest, demoted to a different agency where I could work on a lower level but potentially more satisfying level on a lower level but potentially more satisfying level. That was okay for a while, but again I just to cut to the chase, didn’t feel like I was in the right place. I felt like a square peg in the round hole and just I asked God to make it obvious, because I was walking away from a career of more than 20 years. You don’t do that in the blink of an eye. I was also potentially facing a significant decrease in salary, and so I prayed about that and I said make this obvious, which, in God’s way, was to make it honestly painful. I think the Spirit knew that it had to be painful for me to walk away. I discussed this with my husband and God bless him said when was the last time you were happy in your job? And this poor man, of course, was living with my unhappiness, and that’s when I said it’s time for me to go.
Speaker 2:
A person who I knew from a distance, very, very wealthy man who owned a lot of property, much of it significant for wildlife. I had worked with his staff as they applied for funds to provide what was you know, it wasn’t for me, I was a facilitator of a process, but at least to help them through the process of putting what’s called conservation easements on their property. And when that was all completed, he knew that I had turned my attention to something completely different. It was a creative and satisfying outlet for me. I had taken training and just barely had begun to provide celebrations of life or funerals, memorial services for people.
Speaker 2:
He was the founder he since has passed away so he was the founder and Chief Executive Officer, and then Chairman of the Board, of the largest provider of funeral services and cemetery services in North America, which possibly means in the world. And he took me aside. He was Texan, very deep Texas accent, and he said Diane, what can I do to help you? And I felt like the Wizard of Oz who had asked not me, the Wizard, but I felt like the Munchkin whom the Wizard of Oz had I’m making this up, of course said how can I help you? And I remember calling on God at that moment in my just quietly, silently in my mind and saying, please, I cannot blow this moment and long story short.
Speaker 2:
He put me in touch with the executive leading the Denver market area in this enormous Fortune 200 company to begin the celebrant program for them, the ceremonies providing celebrations of life for people who in our country this is an increasing trend didn’t have clergy to call on, but wanted to celebrate the life of someone they loved who passed away.
Speaker 2:
I initiated that program at the end of 2013. It is one of the most successful funeral celebrant programs in the company, continuing to this day under other leadership as I gradually retired, and at this point I provide ceremonies primarily for people whose families I have worked with before. But that was a big pivot for me and I feel it was by God’s grace. What I haven’t mentioned is, yes, I’m also a long-distance hiker and some years ago reprecise 2017, I committed myself to hiking from Mexico to Canada. I was 61. I finished that at the age of 67, a few months or less than two months shy of turning 68. And I can answer questions about that because I feel like I might have been talking too long, but God’s presence was in that.
Speaker 2:
There was a lot of solo time. A third of those 3,000 plus miles I hiked by myself 1,000 with my oldest brother and 1,000 with other people and I did that as a transformation experience. This I knew would transform me and I made that choice on purpose to grow myself through connection to God and nature and hopefully to take that back to a deepening service in his name to other people. To serve other people. Wow, and that’s my story.
Speaker 3:
So let me just ask the most obvious question.
Speaker 2:
I know you hiked alone, so your husband throughout all this was the understanding of oh my gosh, I couldn’t have done it without not only his understanding but his and other family members support. Um, I did not walk those 3 000 miles all at once. I started in when I was 61, I finished when I was 67. And you need help to do that, one would think. One would think you need emotional support, you need patience from my dear husband, especially because I’m sure that he heard me talking about logistics far more than he really wanted to hear. He just knew from the get-go that it was a very important experience to me. It was also a piece of each summer. It wasn’t and I wasn’t gone for five months or one stretch or something like that or something like that and he engaged and he helped mail resupply boxes to me. He would drop me off at trailheads or pick me up at trailheads and that continued every summer for seven summers. When I finished and crossed over into Canada, I crossed over with my brother, mike, my oldest brother, and was met on the, and also with my daughter and son-in-law. And we crossed over into Canada and there was my husband greeting all of us and you know it was a big family celebration. So family was engaged, for sure.
Speaker 2:
And when it was all done. I will add this because I know that people might feel sorry for my husband and all of this. When it was done, I said okay, dear, it’s your turn. I knew he wasn’t going to go on a big hike, but where do you want to go? Let’s go on a trip together. And I promise he could have said antarctica. And I would have said, well, let me get my coat, let’s go. So we took a lengthy trip, three weeks in Europe afterwards, specifically Poland, which is a country he loves, but it could have been anywhere. He wanted to go to just renew our friendship.
Speaker 3:
Well, it’s important, but it’s also important to have that solitude in nature and, more importantly, with God, who guides us every step of our journey. Yes, we allow him to guide us every step of our journey. Not all of us invite him. I think when I’ve walked in in nature it has connected me more to him than in any other space inside my home.
Speaker 3:
I, over the summer, as my father was losing his battle battle, I was grateful that we had begun a project in my backyard to do a meditation corner so I could go outside to pray and meditate in nature. And there’s a beautiful garden behind me now and it’s a pergola and there’s it’s just peaceful and one of my good friends was kind enough to order one of those wind chimes with my father’s dates.
Speaker 2:
Oh, beautiful.
Speaker 3:
It’s hanging close to where I sit with my Bible and where I just sit there and talk to him when I’m having not so great day. Not so great day which has happened more often now than before because it’s only he’s about to turn a year of what?
Speaker 2:
I used to say graduating into heaven.
Speaker 3:
Yes, I’m familiar with that graduation grace yes and um, and he’s no longer in pain and I know he’s not in pain, and so I often talk to my father outside and I talk to God and I just ask God if you’d be so kind as to send my father in a dream when he thinks it’s appropriate for me to see my father. But I can relate so much to your story. Even though we’re very different people and we do very different things, even though we’re very different people and we do very different things, we both have that strong connection to God and to self.
Speaker 3:
And we’re very aware of what we need to do in order to step into that journey, even though we don’t see the path before us.
Speaker 2:
Right.
Speaker 2:
We still have the courage to step in there because he asked us to. I think nature is where many people who would say they’re not religious connect with God still. I say still because we live in such a jaded society where religion is concerned. That’s not everybody, but we know that that’s a lot of people, and yet I have found that they still connect to God somewhere, their spiritual side somewhere.
Speaker 2:
Look, I’ve done funerals, memorial services. When I say celebrations of life, those are just slightly less traditional and for me, are more centered on the person’s life story. That’s all I mean by that. And that story, if it included faith, then the service will include faith too, because that’s authentic to the person. Having interviewed that many families, which is well over 400 families by now, I can say that it is very rare not unheard of, but very rare where someone will say, look, I want no mention of God at all, I’m not a believer. The person passed away wasn’t a believer. That is very, very rare in my experience Nowanted, I’m in one part of the country.
Speaker 2:
I can’t comment on communities across the country, let alone across the world, but I have to say I mean it’s far more common for people to recognize a sacred element to life than not, and I’m glad to say that’s true.
Speaker 2:
And nature is still the touchstone and the connection for many people. They talk to God there, they feel the presence of the sacred and the holy there, they’re surrounded by creation. Even if they don’t use that word, they’re aware that there is something much bigger than their one soul, their one life, and it’s connected to where they are. Also, I just have to respond to your talking to dad and the presence of the wind chimes. That reminds you of your father. Good for you. I think too often we might forget to bring into our current life the lives and the spirit, the love and support of that cloud of witnesses that the Bible refers to, that we’re surrounded by the people who have passed over the horizon before us. They’re not behind us in the past, they’re ahead of us to where we’re going, and they’re still with us. I can’t pretend to understand in all the ways that they are, but I believe they are and I hear evidence that they are good for you.
Speaker 3:
I just wanted to say that, yeah, there’s a. There’s a story I’d like to share, as you were talking, because it does pertain to nature and my father’s passing. So the day he died was father’s day of last year and my husband was still in Austin with my young daughter, who was nine at the time, and they called me as he was passing away. He just passed away and the phone rang and it startled all of us in the in the bedroom because it was so loud, and I picked it up and and I said I can’t talk right now. Daddy just passed away and my, my daughter, was very upset because she hadn’t had a chance to say goodbye, but then I reminded her, I said no, you did. You came during spring break and while that grandpa was still conscious and you hugged him and you said goodbye and you were one of the last grandchildren to see him before he passed away.
Speaker 3:
And that day they drove from Austin to South Texas, which is a good six and a half hours, maybe seven hours drive. They got there and so I was trying to get my daughter’s you know mind to kind of calm down, and so my parents had a swimming pool in the backyard and so I took her swimming and as we’re swimming, this bird was looking straight at me and it was perched on the the wall like the gate, and it just kept looking at me and almost like chirping at me. I thought my mind is playing tricks. I know it is like. This is just odd. All of a sudden the thing took flight. I was in the middle of the pool and it came so close to me and it opened up its wings, almost like wanting to embrace me. It was so bizarre.
Speaker 3:
It’s so weird it’s so beautiful, though, and so beautiful because I’m thinking maybe it was my father’s spirit, as he’s still lingering, it’s still the day he died and so he may be just around to say goodbye to me. And about, I’d say about a month ago I was walking my dog, as I often do twice a day in nature I don’t have phones on me or anything and this blue jay kept following me and I I thought okay, yes, it’s my mind again, it’s just messing with me and no, it just kept following me. Everywhere I went I was the same blue jay and it kept talking to me and all of a sudden, everything, just like I just started crying. I said Dad, is that you? Are you following me? And so I do think to what you’re saying. I think there’s a lot of truth to it. It’s hard to deny God’s presence in nature because it’s so perfect, and when we ask God to give us a moment with our loved ones because we’re missing them so much, I think those things end up happening.
Speaker 1:
That is so important.
Speaker 3:
And it’s so important to remember that they’re always with us. They’re never gone. You know, their legacy lives within us. When I look at my son’s face, I see my father. Sometimes when they say certain things, I remember, and so I know that they’re always there and you’re right. I do agree with you in that they are never far from us, ever, and the celebration of life is certainly a way to remember what their life meant to all of us.
Speaker 2:
Yes, it’s very, very important for us to acknowledge the lives that have affected us, the living as well. I think it’s important to say thank you to the people who’ve affected us, who are still among us, but when someone passes away, yes, their loved ones need that moment of moments, of acknowledging the importance of this life that you will and you are continuing to carry forward. Before I forget, I just have to comment on your asking for a sign. It’s the people who are open to that, who see them, those who have eyes to see, see and ears to hear, hear. And not everyone will interpret what you experienced, as I’m sure you know, in the same way. Well, that’s sad for them.
Speaker 3:
It’s sad for them because they’re missing out on a whole layer of life and peace because doesn’t that not bring you peace to know that your loved ones are always with you?
Speaker 2:
Are always with you.
Speaker 3:
They’re always with you. Whether you can see them or not, you can feel them, and it’s the same way with God. We may not be able to see him physically, but he’s there and we feel him. And that’s why I talk so much about my faith. It’s because I want for others to feel what I feel when I’ve asked him for help and he’s come through for me that’s understandable them.
Speaker 3:
You know it’s hard enough to journey through a life where so much negativity currently in the world. It’s very difficult to journey alone and to journey within our own understanding. What I love about my relationship with him is I know I can count on it, because when I reflected back and I don’t know if this happened when you wrote your book, but when I wrote my first book I was able to reflect back on those years that were the darkest years and I saw God’s hand in it all it’s when we look back it’s when we look back.
Speaker 3:
It’s not in the moment that we’re living it, because in the moment that we’re living it, we’re just a lot of us I’m not saying just me, but in in general, I’ve seen this people are just checking off boxes. Go go, go, go, go, live, live, live. Like there’s no enjoyment, there’s no being, there’s no slowing down. You slow down in nature because, yeah, you’re kind of grounds you in that way.
Speaker 3:
Yeah right, you’re very well put you’re feeling the ground beneath your feet and you have to, because if you don’t watch where you’re stepping, if you’re hiking, you can be in serious trouble. It brings you to like, acknowledge the magnificence of, of nature, right, it’s all around you. So, and I love that piece. I I found that to be so true when I reflected and I was in nature, I would take my little notebook, because God said oh, the download is going to start, so this was in 2020.
Speaker 2:
I love that term.
Speaker 3:
And I told my husband who’s also a very good, supportive husband, like yours I said I’m going to go out for a walk and I’m going to take a little notebook with me because I know those downloads are going to come in the least expected times. It’s going to be bad if I don’t have a notebook. And sure enough, I was out in nature, I was experiencing him and, all of a sudden, all the downloads started because, initially, when he said you need to write your first book, trust me, it’s time I thought to myself well, what am I going to write about? Like who am I to write a book?
Speaker 3:
At the time, I was a stay at home mom and I had been at well, actually, I had gotten out of retirement. He took me out of retirement in 2017. And, um, I had been in medical sales before then top performer for Pfizer and then stay-at-home parent. My daughter was three and he said you need to become a speaker, coach and trainer with the John Maxwell team. This was in 17. I did that for a little bit and then, in 2020, he’s like okay, it’s time for you to write your book. And I’m like thinking what am I?
Speaker 2:
going to write about.
Speaker 3:
And he said don’t you worry about that, I will figure that out for you. How about that? And that’s the kind of relationship we have. We go back and forth.
Speaker 3:
And so, all of a sudden, all these images started to flood my mind and that’s how the Holy Spirit communicates with me. And I started to hear back how women would ask me how did you get the life that I want? And so I thought, oh, there must be something to this. And, sure enough, it started to download and by the time I turned around, it was a self-published book in 2021. And then I started collaborating in books because he said you’re going to, you’re going to master this, because then you’re going to write the second edition to this thing in the true voice that I need you to write it in. And, sure enough, last year, the second edition of the first book got released and it did very well, and it was done in the three voices. One voice was in fear coming out of the first act. Once I moved through that journey out of darkness, I stepped into joy, where I learned how to be authentically me and take myself out on dates and really get to know myself again and get to know what my true purpose was.
Speaker 1:
It’s beautiful.
Speaker 3:
And then the last chapters focus a lot on, which is the stage I’m in right now is full surrender to him and to his will and then full submission to my marriage, which is submission to me, was a very hot topic growing up, because I come from the Mexican culture and, as you understand the Mexican culture can be, there’s a lot of male chauvinism you know in it and my father was very dominant and my mom looked very submissive to me growing up, but behind closed doors they were equal partners.
Speaker 3:
We just never saw that as kids. So I remember just feeling like I’m never going to be submissive to my husband, so I’m never going to be like my mom, and God was like it’s a very different view. I need you to understand that submission is actually a very beautiful thing. You’re viewing it through a different lens, kind of like you were talking about. Some people can view certain things through a lens right their wounds, really. That’s why they’re viewing it like that. When you heal those wounds and you allow God to transform your life like you did, then you can see it in his light and the way he sees it. And so I started to see marriage in the way he sees it. And now I’m in a whole different stage in my life and in my marriage, which I’m very grateful for. But it came after going through this journey that wasn’t necessarily um an easy path, like if he would have shown me long ago what I was gonna trudge through, I don’t think I would have done it.
Speaker 2:
So I’m glad he kind of kept that to himself well, I mean, we have an example of jesus didn’t want to go what he went through, what he was about to go through either. He said please take this away. You know, so you know if our brother Christ can say that we have leeway to say I don’t want to go through this. I think that’s so human and honest Right and a choice right love yes, yes it’s not just a feeling.
Speaker 3:
And I think, as human beings, when we say, oh, love is a feeling, love is a feeling. Yes, it’s a feeling, but it’s also a choice. And if you look at that moment where he’s praying in the garden before he gets arrested, he is praying please get me out of this, because I don’t want to go through the suffering. But then what does he do?
Speaker 2:
he goes through this he goes through it and accepts that it is finished.
Speaker 3:
I’m done like and you see that moment in his mind, like as he’s. You know, please forgive them so they know not what they say or do, but he’s so open and so receiving of the father of his will, you know, and how glorious yeah, I started to write down a few notes.
Speaker 2:
You know I’m almost 70 years old to keep up with you, sylvia. I’m afraid I’ll forget something so you’re recording diane no, but I also just to respond.
Speaker 2:
A few minutes ago you said something about going. I think you said something about going by ourselves through something, and I saw a lot. I know a lot of hikers who want to do this whole hike by themselves for bragging rights and I just like, well, okay, but okay, but why? I mean, we are social beings. We need each other.
Speaker 2:
I, one of the one of the wonderful experiences I’ve had and in hiking, but also in my professional life was in listening to people or listening to nature as well. It’s like I didn’t want to feel all by myself in this world, toughing it out. That’s kind of an egotistical attitude, in my opinion, to think that you have to prove yourself. You know, if you pull back from our beautiful blue and green planet, each of us is really pretty small. Yes, you know, I think it’s much better to go down the path, enjoying the people we’re sharing it with and loving each other, than to say I did it my way. You know, I got there all by myself. No, I didn’t get there all by myself, in not only the hike but elsewhere. And the other thing I wanted to comment on is getting rid of the emotional weight we carry. I’m blessed that God gave me the metaphor of walking on a trail, because if you’re a backpacker you can’t lug your whole household with you. You have to pare down and get to know what you really need and what you don’t. And you leave behind what you don’t need. And part of a transformation involves leaving behind what needs to be left behind, and I was glad to be given the metaphor of that in a really long backpacking trip, because I didn’t end that trip the way I began. I knew it was going to change me. What was literally on my back was different. I don’t carry the same things. I try to practice not carrying what I don’t need to carry, and by that I’m meaning emotionally or mentally or in any other way. And that was by God’s presence, that’s, by the practice of being prayerful every day about how should I be this day, what does God have in mind for me this day? Knowing there will be some surprises and adjusting to that. I’m glad also that and you’ve mentioned your book, so that gives me freedom to mention that.
Speaker 2:
Yes, I wrote a book too, and that’s what I wrote about. I wrote, as you did, the story that only you could write, only you. I wrote a story I think I was meant to write and only I could, and that was this overlap between what I was learning from God in nature as a long distance hiker. As a long distance hiker, hanging in there and being willing to change, and, as usual, change is painful.
Speaker 2:
Hiking that distance was painful, but there were lessons overlapping from the lives that I was listening to, the stories about these celebrations of life, these memorial gatherings, almost all of which were for people I had not known but through that work, got to know them, through their families, and God’s light was in each one of those lives, even if they were messy lives. You know what I mean by that Not necessarily always gorgeous, because none of us are always gorgeous, not necessarily always gorgeous, because none of us are always gorgeous, as a matter of fact, too rarely gorgeous. I could see God in that life and that’s what I had the honor of seeking out and honoring was the light in each of those lives. And that’s what I wrote about was the overlap between that and what I was learning on the trail. And those became the waypoints, which is what the book is called, the waypoints guiding, guiding us down the trail, down the line down our path.
Speaker 3:
I was going to ask you the title, but now you gave it to us.
Speaker 2:
So that’s awesome, it’s, it’s it’s called, and now that you’ve heard my story, you’ll know what the subtitle means. It’s called the waypoints from. You’ve heard my story, you’ll know what the subtitle means. It’s called the Waypoints from 400 Farewells and 3,000 Miles Wow.
Speaker 3:
Yes, of course, because you did mention it at the interview. So, yes, where could we find your book, diane, if we wanted to buy a copy of it?
Speaker 2:
Well, it is on Amazon, of course, and all the major online book retailers. You can also go to your local independent bookstore, which I know many of us like to support, and ask them to order it. Again, the waypoints from 400 Farewells and 3,000 Miles. You’d have to give them that whole name and my name in order for them to find it, but truly, I tried to make it as available as I possibly could anywhere.
Speaker 3:
That’s awesome. No, no, that’s incredible Because, when I mean, I remember that first journey of writing it I didn’t know any of that and I learned Me either. Collaborated on multiple books, and I just paid attention to the people that knew how to do it right, and so, then, the second launch was a lot more effective than the first one.
Speaker 2:
Yes, I’m not sure. If I have, God bless you. I’m not sure. I have a second book in me, Sylvia. But I learned a lot from the first one.
Speaker 3:
Well, the first one can really take everything out of us. But it’s not really up to us. It’s up to God to kind of guide us into that space, and if there’s no other book, there’s no other book and that is the book, right? And there’s tons of lessons in it. You don’t have to have it’s kind of like that significance piece. You were talking about that ego trip that some people take on these hikes. If it’s ego driven, it’s not God’s will really.
Speaker 2:
It’s not God’s will.
Speaker 3:
Especially if your ego is one that is operating from scarcity instead of abundance, from Christ. And I see that I can tell when it’s my modeling kind of talking to me or it’s it’s God telling me okay, this is, this is your next step. I feel it in my soul, in my heart space, and he shows up very differently for me when he wants me to do something in particular. I don’t know if it’s the same for you.
Speaker 2:
Do you feel it in your heart space or I feel a tug on me that there’s something I’m supposed to do that is hard to put into words, but you just know you’re not going to have any peace until you go to do it, and sometimes you don’t know what the it is. But you have to turn your heart in a direction that says I’m willing, here we go and you reveal yes, you know, I’m listening as best I can. That takes intention.
Speaker 3:
You know that takes intention, intention, discipline to to do yes day. But when you don’t feel like it because sometimes you don’t sometimes grief can in. In my case, grief can overcome me. Or I was so exhausted two days ago I could not wrap my head around anything else and I kept telling my husband I’m doing my supplements, I’m doing all the things I need to do and I’m exhausted.
Speaker 3:
And I talked to a really good friend of mine from the church yesterday. I had lunch with her and she said, oh, it was a full moon, and when it’s a full moon like that, are us the light warriors are going to be pulled into its nature, kind of like me. It’s the different realms and there could be spiritual warfare coming into play too. If you’re someone that is is doing god’s work and god’s will it, you know the enemy will come in and and try to attack and if and he tries various different ploys and if it doesn’t work, then he goes after your, your energy level, and I thought that’s a, that’s a new way he’s attacking that makes sense but it makes sense, because then it takes me out of his will because I’m exhausted and I can’t do the podcast interviews and I don’t want to, or I don’t want to promote the book.
Speaker 3:
And the book talks extensively about turning towards him during times of major change, during turning points, which is when God is using change to shift your direction, giving you that opportunity to say do I really want to stay here where I’m not happy which is what happened to you or do I want to shift into the direction that he’s guiding me in? And I always say look at, look at changes in opportunity that God has given you, instead of oh my gosh, this is not fun it’s scary or whatever.
Speaker 3:
Whatever the case may be, or I’m just going to stay here because, like what did my husband say the other day and made so much sense when you stretch yourself out of your comfort zone, he goes they should not call it comfort zone, they should call it misery zone, because that’s where you’re miserable. So stretch yourself out of your misery zone, step out of there. And I thought that’s genius, because we are miserable in that space, you were miserable in that and he made it painful for you to step out of there.
Speaker 3:
He made it painful enough for me in 2012. And I talked to him about this later. I said, okay, you, you, you went a little overboard with the painful part, but it but. Then he came back to me and he said would you have moved otherwise? You know, and the truth is I wouldn’t. I would have stayed exactly where I was at in corporate had I not had a near-death experience in 2012. And I had pulmonary embolisms and that was extremely painful. You can’t breathe without it feeling like 50 knives are piercing your chest. You don’t want to breathe, let me put it that way. But I did have a conversation with him afterwards. Like you know, next time, don’t be so dramatic. He goes. I’m dramatic, you’re dramatic, you need drama to get you out of there. So I find it so beautiful the conversation we have had, because you have touched a lot on the wisdom that you imparted with your story. The purpose do you see yourself continuing to help hikers? Is that what you’re working?
Speaker 2:
on. Yes, I’m probably in a smaller kind of transition now because I am approaching 70 years old. I don’t want to be the person that has to have a helicopter in to rescue them from the trail. I don’t want to be unrealistic. I’m a dreamer? Obviously I am, but I don’t want to get myself or other people in a dangerous situation. So I have been going more in the direction of trail angling. So I’m providing assistance to other hikers, long distance hikers that term is not one I made up.
Speaker 2:
A trail angel is someone who provides assistance to long distance hikers. By assistance, it could be transportation into town to get resupply and do their laundry and go back. It could be food it often is it could be water, and I’ve been in all of those roles. And I have to say, um, the year after I completed the trail, I devoted the next summer to being a trail angel, and I mean going the length of the trail again, where I could access the trail, which I knew very well by then, where I could access it, where people would be coming out at a road where I knew they needed help. I knew because I had been in their boots and I went from New Mexico across the border into Canada. I did the whole length of the trail. The people I met and the assistance I was able to provide was so satisfying.
Speaker 2:
And was God in it? Yes, I was in two situations where I rescued people. I can’t, for privacy reasons, I’m not going to go into detail, but I was in the right place at the right time with a vehicle that was needed and nobody else knew where they were. That’s God. Someone else will look at that and say, well, it’s not a nice coincidence. I don’t see it that way. So God is continuing to show me what to do and where to go and where to be.
Speaker 3:
That’s amazing, diane, and thank you so much for joining us on Release. Don’t Reveal Purpose Any last minute comments you want to say to the listeners purpose Any last minute comments you want to say to the listeners.
Speaker 2:
Just thank you for the opportunity. I think we each have a story and the fact that there are people like you that will want to hear mine. I’m humbled and grateful, Thank you.
Speaker 3:
Oh, thank you. I felt the Holy Spirit in the entire conversation. I know this is meant for someone on the other side who will gain so much knowledge just from your wisdom, diane. So thank you for being here with us and for the rest of you, remember Matthew 5.14, be the light. Have a wonderful week, stay safe. Bye now, bye.
Speaker 1:
So that’s it for today’s episode of release doubt reveal purpose. Head on over itunes or wherever you listen and subscribe to the show. One lucky listener every single week who posts a review on itunes will win a chance in the grand prize drawing to win a 25 000 private vip day with sylvia worship herself. Be sure to head on over to sylviaworsham.com and pick up a free copy of Sylvia’s gift and join us on the next episode.