Moving Grief and Trauma Out of the Body through Movement and Nature, Interview with Actress Nikki DeLoach

Ginny: Welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside podcast. I have a new a friend here today, Nikki DeLoach. Welcome. 

Nikki: Thank you so much for having me. I'm a real fan of what you do. 

Ginny: Oh, you're so sweet. I love that. So listen, we have a connection and I love connections. So Nikki DeLoach was on the Mickey Mouse Club. 

Nikki:That's correct. 

Ginny: So we didn't grow up having cable, so I didn't know much about the Mickey Mouse Club. But we are really good friends with Tony Luca's mom, Sally and his cousin, Cole. They're some of our best friends, Cole and his wife, Annie, and they're just these monster musicians, their whole family. So it was such a fun connection when you guys emailed about being on the podcast.

So, Nikki, you have got this long list of credentials, and I love people who have long lists of credentials because it's like you've just gone after life and made things happen. And I think that is so it's just inspiring and to have this full and wonderful. And so my list here, I'm going to hold it up because I'm not going to read it through. Look at that. Just take a minute. Wow. Give us some highlights. Tell us a little bit about yourself and give us the highlight reel here. 

Nikki:  Well, I'll start at the beginning and then just flash through. Yeah, I think one of the reasons I'm so drawn to what you do is I grew up in the south, in a really small town where I basically lived outdoors. All of the time. I had an incredible childhood. I had that childhood where you just had to be home by the time it got dark. I never really watched TV. I lived outside in the trees, with the animals getting filthy, muddy on four wheelers getting muddy. 

And I was completely an outdoor kid and I live in Los Angeles now, so it mixed with two kids. So I am thirsty for getting my boys outside and what you do inspires me so much. So that's where I was born and raised. At a young age I got Mickey Mouse Club. 

And by the way, if Sally Lucca, who we were talking about, we have that connection. Tony Lucca's, mom, she's one of those moms, especially when I met her. I was 12 when I first met her. So she's like the cool mom that you're like, Man, you just want to be around her. You just want to hang out. 

Ginny: The whole family is like that. Tony's Aunt Mary passed away maybe a year and a half ago, or maybe a year ago, and they had a celebration of life service this past summer, and I got to play the piano at it, which was such an incredible honor to be around that whole family. And they're just, you know, there's not many like them and you know, where everyone is talented and everyone is warm, you know, and everyone is loving and they make you feel like you're a part of them. You want to be a part of them. So there's something I've thought about so often, like, how can you emulate that kind of warmth? And it's so neat to hear that they've always been like that. 

Nikki:It's true. And Mickey Mouse Club was such a giant part of my life. I had done some kid stuff like kid movies and performances and stuff like that in commercials. But this was the first big thing, and it was a giant thing that I had and I was 12 and I moved to Florida with my grandmother and I was down there doing Mickey Mouse Club. And that was one of the coolest things that I've done in my career. 

Ginny: So talk to me about were you on a farm in Georgia? How do you go from a farm in Georgia, you know, to being on the Mickey Mouse Club? What's that path? 

Nikki:Well, I would say, you know, that wasn't as jarring to the system as it was when I moved to Los Angeles, you know, because in Orlando, it was four hours from my home. And so it was that going back and forth. I'm still a kid. So when we would wrap up on hiatus, I would go back into normal school and all of that. And I was really lucky because in my small town, nobody ever treated me any differently. Yeah, because I was on TV or kid movies and television. I was just Nikki. They always just treated me exactly the same, which was such a gift, and especially my parents, are you kidding me? It's chores on the weekends, cleaning their cars, cleaning the pool, picking up pine cones, raking, mowing, you know, so I really did have that. 

Ginny: Were you like a singer, a dancer, a performer from a young age? It's something that you loved, and it sort of spurred you on, and that's how you ended up, you know, being on the Mickey Mouse Club? 

Nikki: Oh, yeah, I loved it. Like, you know how some kids, you see the moms kind of pushing them out there to go out there, go out there. I was pushing myself.

My dad was in timber and trucking, and my mom was a teacher and an educator. And both of them were like, I don't know what to do with this child, like she wants to go and be a performer. But when I say that the small town, I mean, we had one traffic light. So, you know, we were kind of just winging it. But I knew from the time I was three years old what I wanted to do, and that sounds insane. But I think that some of us, we find what we want to do as we explore and we get curious about things, and then we look into things that, Oh no, I want to do this. Like as you get older, you know, I want to go to med school or I want to be an engineer. I was born knowing exactly what I wanted to do, and I think for me, it started with dancing and then it quickly shifted into singing. And then when I got on the Mickey Mouse Club, I had an opportunity to act and a whole other world came to life inside of me because what I realized is like besides dancing, which was my first love. 

You know, as idyllic as my childhood was, I also went through some really tough things, and dancing was my way of moving trauma or moving hurt or pain out of my body. And I instinctually knew how to do that as a child, which was really cool. I think about all that all the time with like, you know, our body talks to us all day long and because of the world that we live in now, we've been trained not to listen to it, but for centuries, you know, we had to listen to our body for survival.

And so as a child, I very much knew that, oh, dance is how I move emotions through and out. And then it became acting in the same kind of thing happened to being able to like, I think for me, the thing about acting and storytelling in general that as a child, it hit me emotionally because I would watch whether it was a musical or a movie. I watched a lot of that with my grandmother. I spent the weekends with my grandmother and we would rent movies and watch them. It's so special and it would make me not feel alone if somebody else was going through something. 

So I thought, just storytelling in whatever capacity that is, whether it's through writing or art or podcasting or acting or dance. There's so many ways of telling a story, telling a story and the stories that we tell. It's like a living, breathing history of who we are. But not only that, you know, when we tell our story or we hear somebody else's story, we don't feel so alone in the world. We feel seen. We feel understood. We feel heard. And I think at the end of the day, that is the human condition. All we really want in life is to be seen and heard and understood. And that's what that's what the power of storytelling does. So I knew at a very young age that that's what I wanted to do, and I didn't know what it was going to look like. But yeah, that's what I wanted to do. 

Ginny: And it's interesting that you knew so young, and that's probably partially why your accomplishments sheet is so long now because you were driven.

We have a friend that's friends with Cole, which is Tony's cousin.  His name's Jason. And he talked about this a long time ago as a guitar player, and he talked about how, like, you know, the economy kind of like, you know, goes up and down. And he said, “I'll never be out of work because people always need to be entertained or want to be entertained.” Now that was an interesting feeling like, you know, to be an entertainer and like you said, to be able to provide these stories that people can enter into and relate to and connect to or just relief. 

We had a friend who lost their son tragically and she said the best gift that they got were movie tickets, because for a short period of time, they could go and sort of escape and find relief and sort of lose themselves in that storyline and that was really an interesting thing.

So you're an entertainer in so many different capacities. You have a movie that just came out too. 

Nikki: Yes. It was called “Taking the Reins” and it was a horse movie, obviously. It was kind of a dream come true for me because I love horses. I grew up riding horses and around horses. My grandfather was a real cowboy and loved land. His whole thing was land. And, you know, he found so much value in it and he would tell me all the time like this. This is where you put your money, you put your money into that land. And I know he was the wisest man. 

And yet then I had a dad who would take me out into the woods because he knew nature and trees. So he was in forestry and he would walk me through it and show me which bushes could be used to wash your hands or like, you know which trees you could eat off of and what you couldn't eat off of it, you know? 

Ginny: So taking the reins took you back to your childhood, I'm sure. 

Nikki: Exactly. It took me back to that. And it was a project that my producing and writing partner and I, we developed. We both starred in it and we both wrote, Did the last rewrite of it? So it was very near and dear in terms of a project that we had our hands all over. And we got to film it in Connecticut and every day just with horses, with the most magnificent horses in all the land. And you know, I was going through - It's hard to say the toughest time of my life, but I've had a lot of really tough times, but it was definitely next to, you know, open heart surgery with my youngest son who went through it three times. Yeah, but this was a different kind of painful. I was losing my dad.

Ginny: Very recently?

Nikki: July 27th.

Ginny: I'm so sorry. 

Nikki: Thank you so much. And I wrapped that movie on July 26. And you know, it was such divine timing because my thing was always, I wanted to be there with my dad to hold his hand. And, you know, he loved my movies and he loved when I did, you know, he loved watching me on TV. So that was a movie that I made. It was hard because I didn't want to go and I didn't want to leave him. And at the same time, I knew that my dad would tell me, You need to go and do it, and then I'm going to wait for you. And he did, and he waited for me. So it's a very special movie to me because I really made it with my family and my heart and my mind the whole time. And yeah, and you can see that on Hallmark. They re-air it all the time. But yeah, it was a really beautiful movie. 

Ginny: Well, you've talked about two really interesting topics here about healing and trying to heal yourself. And so one of the things you talked about was healing through movement and healing here through nature experiences or being around these horses. And I know a lot of people, maybe not a lot of people, but some people do a horse type of therapy or animal therapy. So are you comfortable sharing some of your hard, you know, your hard things and what has helped you move forward and and continues to help you move forward? 

Nikki:  Very, very comfortable with that. And it's one of the reasons I do this because, you know, after my first son and it's kind of where it began, because growing up in the south, especially as a young girl, you are taught it is better to be seen and not heard. So you were taught that your opinion does not matter, nor should it be spoken. You know, it is better to just put on some lipstick, put on a cute dress and show up and look pretty for people. And that was not who I was as a child. I was very vocal. I had a lot of questions and a lot of opinions, and it made me a very, very tough child and a part of the world where girls weren't supposed to be empowered, right? 

Ginny: Yeah, yeah. When you're playing in the mud, then you're not going to necessarily show up looking super pretty. 

Nikki: Never. I was the girl that before I even got to church, you know, I ripped off my pantyhose every single Sunday. But healing is something that I've been interested in my whole entire life, how do we heal? What does that look like? What are the many ways that we feel right? 

And like I learned at a very young age, movement was such a big thing for moving trauma out of your body. And after I had my first son, I had extreme suicidal postpartum anxiety, and I am not a person who can actually take meds. A lot of women can take meds and it can kind of get them out of it. My body doesn't actually do well with them. I get really sick. I get sicker. So I really had to just, like, figure out how to get myself out of it in a natural way. And it was all about moving my body, getting that oxytocin and dopamine running through my body. And I would just start to come back alive every single day that I moved my body. And so it works. It really, really works. 

The other thing is like, I tell people all the time because that person that was born, he has a vestibular and proprioception issues. And for people that don't know, those are two simple systems that we never really talk about. We talk about our sight in our hearing and our smell and our taste in all of this, that these are two giant sense systems that are responsible for how we receive information through our body. And then the way in which we receive information through our body and then the other system actually tells our brain and our body what to do. 

So if you have a very, you know, like for Hudson, his proprioceptive vestibular issues were added like two percent. If you were saying like two out of two percent out of 100, right, so super, super immature sense systems and he would sit in a chair, right? But because this system was so underdeveloped, it wouldn't tell his brain, Well, this is how you sit in the chair. So he wouldn't be moving and flopping all around and everybody thought he had ADD or ADHD or was on autism or something like that. And I'm like, No, no, no, no, that doesn't feel right. So when we went and got him assessed, we figured that out. 

Ginny: I mean, I've read news articles about it that kids are falling out of their chairs and it is just happening more and more, and that those two systems that you brought up the vestibular and the proprioception that those are cornerstone. They are foundational. So everything else builds on those. And so if those are shaky, then you're going to have a hard time with the other ones.

Nikki: It's so true. Thank you for bringing that up. And the biggest part of it is regulation. So what I learned with my son and I always knew this as a kid because I lived outside that it was, you know, all came back to me. I got to get him outside. I got to get him in nature. 

We move and operate in this environment of technology and everything moves so fast. But the pace that we are actually supposed to be moving at is the pace of nature. So if you want to regulate your body, go and just literally stand next to a tree. And breathe. Tap or touch a tree and try to tap into the breath of nature, how it's moving. Listen to the birds. Get really present to what you're hearing, to what you're seeing, to what you're feeling. And within 90 seconds, boom, it's going to regulate your body. 

So for Hudson, it was all about getting him out in nature, and that was so healing to him, you know? And so it also reminded me as I moved through three heart surgeries with my son, right? What do I do in that moment? Oh gosh, I have to regulate my body. What do I do? I can move my body. I can get myself out of nature. You know, there's all of these tools in the toolbox that you can use at different times. 

And then when my dad passed, it was the same thing. I went up to Canada to do my Christmas movies. I had two movies going up there at the same time, one that I was starring in, another one that my writing partner and I wrote that I was not in. And I got up there and was by myself and I was away from my kids for the first time. I've never spent a chunk of time away from them like that. 

Because of COVID, I couldn't cross in and out of the border, right? And I knew it wasn't an accident that I was going to be up there by myself. I knew that for me. God, I'm a big person of faith that you could call, source or energy or universe whatever word you want to use. It's essentially the energy that connects all of us had put me there on purpose because I had to process this giant grief of losing my dad. 

And I have to tell you, for those first 10 days, I felt like an earthquake - like it was scary. Yeah, scary how much grief was coming up out of my body? It literally felt like an earthquake inside, and I thought to myself, Wait, I know what it feels like to move pain through my body, and yet I'm still scared. Wow. This is why people run from these feelings. This is why people drink their way out of it or drug their way out of it, or eat their way out of it. Or work so hard all the time and keep themselves so busy that they don't have to feel it because this is so hard and painful. And also, what I learned in that moment was like, Oh, we can trust our bodies, like where the pain is. 

We are, we think we're running away from the pain, but we're actually running away from the healing. It was this giant aha of like, Oh yes, this is why everyone in society is running. And also they're all running away from their healing because we haven't been taught that we can trust our bodies and we can listen. They're talking to us all the time. We're just not getting quiet enough to listen. 

So that was huge. 

Ginny:  This is powerful because, you know, anxiety disorders and anxiety in general are still on the rise. I had an interview recently with a man named Tom who wrote this book called Disconnected. He's so great. And he talked about how he was a school counselor for a long time. You know, they saw the same thing, same thing, same thing. And then right around when the iPhone came out, he said for the very first time, they started to see these anxiety disorders in middle school and high schoolers. And he said it was something that didn't exist before, didn't exist. And then he said, all of a sudden it was acquired attention deficit disorder. 

And so all of these big changes and and we're not really embracing what you learned from your childhood, you know? But that movement is healing and that nature is healing. And those are the things that kids are not doing and adults. But kids for sure are not doing. You know, the statistic is that kids are on screens for four to seven hours, but only outside in free play for four to seven minutes. Those are daily averages in America, so this is a whole different angle, Nikki. We talk about getting outside, you know, and it's going to help your cognition and it's going to help you emotionally. You know, it's going to help your social skills, but it can help you heal. 

Nikki: That's right. It is. And I really and truly believe that we had just taken on. And I don't know if it's even conscious that we've done it as a society. The things that we value, I feel, are so skewed now. It's actually far more simple than we think it is, you know? Yeah, my son tells me what he needs, and it's our job to listen as parents right there. 

He came home. It was not this past Monday, but the Monday before that. And he had tutoring after school because again, proprioception/vestibular, he's doing really well. But you know, he's still struggling with some stuff. So we have the tutoring and we make that fun, all play based so that he feels like he's playing through all of that. He doesn't even realize that he's working on these same systems. So he had tutoring and then he had karate and karate because you're crossing your body, meridian and you're working on my building those neurons. And then he got home at like five thirty. It was time for bath and then dinner and he fell apart. He fell apart because he didn't get to go outside and play. 

Ginny: Their bodies know.

Nikki: Their bodies know and I was sitting there and instead of saying like, Well, buddy, you know, you got to go and do this and you got to go and do karate and instead of telling him that it didn't matter, what he needed to hear is, “Buddy, I'm so sorry. You're right. You need a chance to play every single day. You didn't get a chance to do that today. And I'm really sorry. And let me figure out a way in your schedule that we can make sure that you get that every single day.”

And so it's my job to listen to him because he's listening to his body. Yeah, and and, you know, in a way, it's been such a gift that he had these things as a child because, you know, for me, it, I was a kid who they diagnosed me at three years old, by the way, with ADHD. 

Ginny: I think that is what Tom was saying, that's how it was in the past, you know that those diagnoses happened at young ages, right? 

Nikki: Mm yes. And they put me on medicine, and then I was just a zombie in a corner. I wouldn't move. And my grandmother, who was a nurse, happened to come into the preschool and go, What? What? No, absolutely not. We are getting her off medicine. She is not going to take this stuff and we're going to get this child moving. And she put me into dance. 

Ginny: Wow. Well, there's so many layers to that, which is, first of all, I think that when things happen with our children, you know, no one has a perfect situation with their children. You know, they come in and you sort of think it's going to be perfect, but they're born and a lot of times there are issues, right?

Nikki: Right. 

Ginny: At the beginning these issues arise. And it's scary. And you question your ability to be able to deal with them and you feel grief for them.

But here you get this diagnosis at a young age and it was the starting point for your whole sheet of accomplishments.

I think the multigenerational piece there is so neat that your grandma had that influence in your life, that she was at the preschool. That is really fantastic and that there was an answer for you. You know, other things that helped. Not that I'm not against medication at all, but other things that helped besides that, you know, so there's that. 

Nikki: I have a hard time. It's very layered. I do have a hard time with meds only because as somebody who works for the Alzheimer's Association and has lost two people in my life to dementia, I know that some of these medications they've now been able to leak studies to Alzheimer's and dementia later on in life for an ADHD medication.

Ginny: Well, let's talk about that for one second, because there's this book that you may be familiar with called Smart Moves. Have you heard of it? 

Nikki: No. 

Ginny: So it's by a pediatric occupational therapist. So someone who's seeing this frontline of decline and skills. And the subtitle is Why Learning Is Not All in your head and the author is Carla Hannaford. She's a Ph.D.. I've never met her. I'm not like, personally connected with her. 

But in her book, she has this statistic, Nikki, where she says that elderly people who dance regularly have a 76 percent less chance of developing dementia. Elderly people who dance. And so it's interesting.

So what you just said made me really think, you know, could it be this lack of movement because you said you were on these medications and then you just sat in the corner? You know, when you really were a child that was meant to be moving, you know, if these medications are affecting our movement, you know, because she goes on to say that it's these complex movements that protect our brain function. It's really an interesting statistic. 76 percent less chance. It's humongous. I mean, that is a statistic that everyone should know. We should all be dancing, you know, and playing music. Playing a musical instrument is similar. You know, I think it's not quite as high, but playing a musical instrument, I think, is 69 percent less chance. So you know that there are things I feel like the theme of this whole conversation is that there are simple things that we can do to enhance and to protect our lives. 

Nikki: You nailed it, it's so true. And so for him, I was triggered, obviously when people started throwing words at me and medication for your child and all of this stuff. And listen, there are some kids, I'm sure that absolutely need it, and when it is necessary, parents have to do what they have to do. I was just really focused on trying to figure out a different way for him because I was given a different way by my grandmother. And, you know, for Hudson specifically, you know, we were able to find that we were able to lock into different things. I mean, over 50 percent of us are neurodiverse, which means that there actually is no quote unquote normal. In fact, to be world diverse is normal, right? 

Ginny: Yes.

Nikki: So that's what the statistics would say.So how can I as a mother, how can I talk to him and teach him that he has to listen to his body and have a strong relationship with his body? So what Hudson and I do, which is really cool, is, you know, he will come to me sometimes and he will say, Mom, I'm feeling anxiety now. You know, he's eight now, but he's been doing this since he was six. And I will literally have the conversation where I'll say, Well, where do you feel it in your body? And he can sit there and say to me, I feel it in my chest or I feel it in my throat and I'll say, Well, what does it feel like right in your throat? And he'll very specifically be able to describe to me that it feels like he's choking, like somebody has their hand around his throat and is tightening into the throat. So then we go through, OK, well, let's what do you think would make that feel better? What do you think would make that part of your body? Like, just relax a little bit and sometimes it's breathing into it. And sometimes he says, I need to just run around and, you know, maybe I just need to lay down. Maybe, you know, but it's teaching him. It's asking the questions so that he begins to learn how to be in charge or not in charge, but be in a good relationship, a healthy relationship with his body, listening to it because later in life, this is what really gets us in trouble when we don't listen to our body. 

Women - oh, I have a pain. I have this, but I'm going to ignore it because I'm so busy. The next thing we know, we're in the doctor's office. It's cancer, right? But even at a younger age, it's “I'm having anxiety, but I'm going to ignore it.” And what does that turn into some type of like, you know, overwhelm that a child will feel where they're not able to focus, they're not able to feel joy? 

Our bodies are talking to us constantly. Oh, at 16, when you're with a group of friends and they're drinking and your gut, and it's something that's like, this feels really scary, this feels really scary. But I guess everybody's doing it. So if you haven't learned that a really young age to listen to your body and trust what your body is telling you, it is hard in those moments to go, well, I'm just going to ignore. I'm just going to ignore my body. But if you have learned how to do that, you are highly attuned to what your body is saying and much more likely to go, Hey, you guys, I'm just going to like, I'm just going to head out, you know, I'm just going to go home like, I'm tired. So it actually affects everything that you do for the rest of your life.

Ginny: Yeah, it sure does. Well, so tell us, Nikki, you’re in L.A., right? You're no longer on a farm in Georgia. So tell us in L.A., because this is a big question that people ask, you know, how are you getting nature experiences in the city? 

Nikki: Yes, it's really hard. I have to say it's so hard. We do get out of the city as much as we can. You know, COVID was awful for everyone. We were very privileged inside of COVID. I call that out because my husband and I were both able to work from home. Yeah, we were able to pay our bills. We were able to travel all over the country. We couldn't fly because my youngest, because of his heart stuff, is very compromised. But we drove all over the country. 

I mean, the saddest thing. I think the hardest thing for me during COVID is I couldn't get to my dad, not for a real like almost a year. I just couldn't get to him because the numbers, especially in the south, were so bad and I couldn't take Bennett into a place where, you know, people weren't loving the mask and so I had to be super, super, super careful with him. But the second that it was safe and my family was vaccinated as I was vaccinated, we rented an RV and we drove across the country and we probably did twenty five thousand miles. We drove to Georgia several times. We stopped everywhere - Grand Canyon. I mean, I think we ended up driving to Utah like five different times. Oh gosh, it's incredible. We did White Sands, New Mexico. We stopped everywhere all over this country. We also drove up, I did two movies in Canada. We drove up to Canada, so we went through Portland and Washington and all of that we got to Canada. Then we drove across Canada to Winnipeg for another movie. We drove back downtown and everybody is like, I cannot believe that you guys drove the two children and a dog. And I would say, was it a lot harder? Yes. But what we learned as a family is we need to be in a place where we are outside. 

So right now we are in Los Angeles. We got a couple more years here before we go find a big farm somewhere and set up camp because that's what my boys want. They're very honest. Like Hudson will go to the farm in Georgia or the Grand Canyon or wherever, and he'll go, this is what I'm talking about. 

Ginny: He's like your grandpa.

Nikki: He knows he is my grandpa. I tell him all the time and I'm so sad that you know my, my, your great grandpa, my grandpa passed before you are able to spend time with him because they are, you know, they are so similar. And so Hudson means son of Hugh and Hugh. That was my grandfather, Hugh Mac Thompson. So he's actually even named after my grandfather, and he certainly has his spirit. 

So for us, we try to get out of the city as much as possible. There's a lot of beautiful places to visit in California where you can like pop out. You can go to Lake Arrowhead, you can go to Idlewild. There's a lot of really beautiful hikes. You can just go and be on the beach. We go to the beach as much as possible. We try to get out to get outside and get the boys fishing and camping. We love to go camping. That's a big thing with the boys. Turn off those cell phones and just get out there and like wake up and go to sleep with the stars, you know, under the stars. It is highly important to our mental health, for sure. 

Ginny: [00:42:56] Yeah. So those are some great suggestions. It's like things that are local things that are further away. You can camp, you know, and it's about just framing your life that way, right? And saying these are the things that you know are important to us and we know that our mental health needs them. And so you go, that's really awesome. 

And, you know, nature is everywhere. Scott Sampson has it in his book. I say this a lot, but he's got a quote in his book. It's called How to Raise a Wild Child, and he says nature is coming up through the cracks in the sidewalk. And you know, we can find fascination anywhere in the city, in the country. You know, you walk around the block and you know, you see the clouds. I mean, there's still so much nature that can affect us. 

Nikki: I was just about to bring that up. The other thing that we're very big on that I do is just practicing present presence wherever we're going to for the riding their little scooters on the sidewalks. It's like if you see a little mushroom thing growing out of the tree, you know, stop and go, Whoa, look at this boys. Come over here and look at their face like, look how that's growing out of the tree, how cool is that? Or, you know, just pointing it out all the time because like you said, you know, we can't always just go, Hey, this weekend we're going, we're going to go to Moab, go ahead. Yeah, no, it's not feasible if you live in the city, but you can also grow plants, even if it's just a little tiny garden just having their hand in. You can even 

Ginny: You can even have that inside, you know, you can actually see nature inside. And I think it does the same. I mean, you have, you know, natural things on the inside of your home that you can touch and smell and see and they grow. And yeah, those things are healing. I was just going 

With COVID, we couldn't go into the waiting room for orthodontist appointments. And so for this time period, and so we go to the orthodontist and I've got five kids, you know, so I'm like, OK, well, I've got these two little girls, but you know, what am I supposed to do with them during this orthodontist appointment? And so we would sit in the parking lot, you know, on the sidewalk and and when you stop and you just sit and it's just complete concrete. There's all sorts of nature. There's ants that are carrying little pieces of crackers. And there are birds that have made nests on the side of the building. And there were so many things to watch just sitting in the parking lot. So many things about nature. And all of those things help. They help with eyesight and they help with attention span.

Let's talk about one more topic before we wrap up that about your dad that you brought up earlier. At the very beginning, that piqued my interest. And you said he would go into the woods and he knew all this information. You know, this one could be used for soap and it piqued my interest because I think a lot of times we look at nature time as frivolous, I think, as a society. But being outside offers us an avenue to learn. And just as expansive amount of information, especially for kids that are interested in that. And so I'm I'd love to hear just a little bit more about your dad and sort of the things that he did and the things he knew. And I think other people would love to hear about that, too. I would imagine there's people that are listening that have kids that are really interested in the trees and they see the differences in the leaves.

Nikki: So yeah, I love that. Oh, he is one of my favorite topics. I was lucky enough to have the greatest dad on the planet. My dad wasn't. It's so interesting because. You know, these things that we think kids really care about, the toys and the gifts and the this and that. My dad wasn't really into that. You know, he didn't really buy stuff for us or like and nor did we ever miss it, actually. We weren't kids that got a lot of gifts throughout the year. We got a few things for our birthday and then Christmases were always really nice. But like, you know, we didn't have a lot of money growing up.

And my favorite memories are from being outside as a kid, and a lot of that comes from my dad and my dad was the most present human being I've ever ever known. You were in my car with him and he was like, he was so present that he would forget to pick us up from school or forget to buy the school bus. So present, he would forget what he was doing, and then I would call him and say, Dad, you forgot us. We have to go to school and we go, Oh gosh! And get in the car. And he'd be coming in on two wheels to get us and then take us to school because he was just that present wherever he was. 

And so that was something that I picked up on. And now I think about all the time with him. As you look back and lose somebody, you're thinking of all the memories and everything they taught you and all the gifts that they gave to you. I mean, we would be riding down the road and my dad would point out the trees and say, Here's the cool thing about those trees and I think the other thing about that is like, you get this connection to something that is much bigger than you and you form this beautiful relationship with you. For me, I always find it really interesting, especially coming from a place in the world where most everyone associates themselves, like with a church or as Christian or something like that. And but that's the connection of protecting Mother Earth is not there. Right? 

You know, we talk about climate change and they go, Oh, whatever, that doesn't exist. And I'm like, OK, well, let's put that aside, even if it doesn't exist, right? If God created the heavens and the Earth right and we were placed here to be of service in the world, it doesn't just mean being of service to other human beings. It also means protecting this beautiful planet that God gave us, right? 

Ginny: Yeah, I know it's really interesting. There's another book by Joel Salatin, and I don't know if that's how you say his name. He's a farmer in the Shenandoah Valley, and in his book is called The Marvelous Pigness of Pigs, which is a just a really funny title. But it talks about the kind of the glory of every individual thing, like it's marvelous and then he talks about how there's this redemptive power. He talks about his farmland. I think that it goes generations back and how they were able to do things through manure and through turning the waters different ways and restoring the land. You know, this thing that maybe didn't grow anything and they were able to do these things? So then we've thought about that a little bit. We just started doing some farming and about how, you know, by planting these wild flowers and the bees get to come in there. There is a lot that we can impact in small ways.

Nikki: One hundred percent and my dad infused that into everything. Yeah, every single thing. The marvel of how nature works and you know, and how we are all creative. We are all these like divine divine beings that were created on purpose for purpose and everything has a purpose. And you know, we would talk about that with certain flowers or bushes or certain trees and. 

You usually ask which one of your favorite childhood outdoor members, but you know, I will go ahead and throw it out for me. One of my favorite childhood memories. I mean, I had all of my favorite childhood memories are outdoors, like, truly like. But one of my very, very, very favorites was my - I had come home. I had flown. I think I was living in Los Angeles. I'd come back to visit my family, and my dad always would come home early from work if I was home and he comes inside. He changes his clothes and he picks up buckets and he goes, You want to go pick some peanuts. He lived on the farm like he loved it. His mother died at ninety seven and up until she was ninety three or four, she was in her garden, out planting rice. 

And my dad was loving the Earth, and so he picks up the buckets because you want to go pick some peanuts and. So we get in the car. You know, you put James Taylor on, he had a Jeep Wrangler, so it was, you know, you could hear the music in and we go over to the field where the peanuts were planted and he just keeps James Taylor on and you could see the sky and I love this in South Georgia. You could feel when the rain is coming, you know, you could sense when the rain was coming, your body. Everybody knew, everybody knows. And you know, you could kind of look up and go, It's coming. 

And my dad, he did that to both of us kind of looks out from there, like to think about the rain. So we just kept picking and listening. We didn't talk about anything. There was nothing we talked about. We just both sang and listened to music and hummed along and put our hands in the dirt and picked up the peanuts. For those that don't know they grow underground on these little bushes. And sure enough, before before we could even get done picking everything the skies opened up and the rain just came pouring down on us and we just started running and jumped in the jeep and the rain was just pouring down and we were laughing so hard and trying to get back to the house because it's like, I don't know if you've been in the south when it rains, I mean it's so simple, right? It's such a simple memory. Nothing giant happened. 

But I can literally, to this day, can esthetically I can still feel that dirt, the cold dirt on my fingers. I can smell the rain. I know exactly what my dad was wearing. I could hear the buckets going into the back of the truck. That's the kind of presence that we need. 

Yeah, and we don't get that right, we don't get that, but with my dad, it was always like, wow, he was. And I just feel like I talk about Jesus a lot and why I love Jesus so much. And I tell people like, Listen, you don't even have to believe in the Bible, or even if the Bible like for people who don't believe in it, I'll say, look, even if it wasn't real, even if the Bible is just a whole made up thing, let's just say that right? If that's your theory, I still want to be Jesus. Yeah, I still want to be the guy who, like, went to where there was need.

Ginny: Interesting because I well, I posted last night just on Instagram because I had heard the speaker earlier this fall, and I - same thing, you know, it's like the Bible has applicable things and has plans for us, whether you're a Bible believer or not. But the speaker talked about the verses where Martha and Mary were with Jesus, and this is just really making me think about it. 

And Martha was doing, doing, doing. And Mary was hanging out with Jesus, and it sounded like this scene in my home where Martha says to Jesus, “Mary is not helping,” you know? And it specifically says, “tell her to help more” and I'm like, This is like my kids, like they're taking out the garbage and they're like, Well, that kid's not helping. I'm like, This is like right out of my home. 

And Jesus responds and says, “Mary has chosen the better thing. And what she has chosen will not be taken from her.” And so this speaker was talking about that. That phrase “and it will not be taken from her.” Like these memories that we have and these times when we choose relationship over doing and we choose to be present over running around that those will not be taken from us. And you have so eloquently given the best example because you said you have this memory. And you remember all of it. 

Nikki: And it was. That was my dad. He lived. He was the living embodiment of how Jesus lived his life. And so what a gift. You know, so that's the thing. You know, my dad died at sixty six years old from a neurodegenerative disease. It's a very rare and aggressive form of dementia. And he was 66, and he was so young. But I got, you know, forty two years of a man who lived his life like that. 

Ginny: Yeah, yeah, what a gift. 

Nikki: What a gift. And the way that I want to show up in my own life. It makes me emotional for my children. Yeah, it's one day when I pass. I want them to be able to say that my mom taught me what was the most important in life, and the most important is social connection. We've been in relationship with other living, breathing things, and that extends beyond even human beings. It extends into nature. 

Ginny: That's right. It sure does. Nikki, this has been just so delightful and so inspiring, and I cannot wait for people to hear this. It's coming out in November, right before Thanksgiving. It's going to be the perfect time. Just before we wrap up, if people want to find you what I want to know about the two movies that are coming out and right. Yeah, so tell us about that. 

Nikki: So I have two movies coming out. Both of them Christmas. One of them is called “Five More Minutes” and you can catch that on Hallmark November 20, I believe. And it is a love letter to my dad. The movie is about grief. It is based on a Scotty McCreery song. He's a country music singer who wrote a song called Five More Minutes after his grandfather passed about wanting to spend five more minutes with his grandfather and the movie. The movie, really, you know, some people were like, Oh, do you think you're going to be able to handle going to do this right now and something inside again, listening to your body? My body told me, you have to go do this movie, and I am so glad I did, because what it reminded us of and what I learned with my dad.

You know, especially with dementia, that I am going to say this because there are people listening who have loved ones who are dealing with this. Yeah, I heard over and over and over and over again. “They're not there, Nikki. They're not there. He's not there. He doesn't know who you are.” You know, I heard this over and over again as I was panicked to try to get back to him. “He doesn't know who you are, Nikki. It doesn't matter. Doesn't matter.”

And I'm going to tell you this. I'm going to share one little story, and I know, I know we're going a little long, but when I first saw him, when I first saw him and drove across country and I hadn't got to see him a year drove across country and I'm sitting in front of him and I'm trying to open up this Little Debbie cake for him. He loves Debbie cakes. And he was and I and I'm like, I'm going to see if he knows me, I'm going to see. So I said, Dad, look at my hands. I was like, first of all, I go, Do you know me? And he looks at me trying to figure out she's trying to place a name. Yeah, he's trying to say the next right, but he can't get, you know, he was he was almost he didn't have words at this point in the disease, like his speech had been taken away from him almost completely. And so he's looking at me and I said, Look at my hands, look at my hands. I have your exact hands. He takes his finger and he starts to trace the outside and the inside of my hands and my palms. And then he puts his hand up and he puts mine right next to it. So we're like comparing our hands and he looks at that. He looks up at me, a smile crosses his face, and I think, you know who I am, don't you? And he shakes his head. Yeah. 

Two weeks later, two weeks later, I'm having to say goodbye. We have to drive back across the country. I am falling apart, I don't know how to say goodbye to him. I don't want to say goodbye to him. I'm sobbing. He gets me in the truck, shut the door. And then before I turn on the car, he takes the palm of his hand and he presses it up against the window of the car and I put my thumb on the other side of that window and he looks at me dead in the eyes, and he nods for a man who can't remember something that happens five seconds or 10 seconds before. But two weeks later, he remembered that connection. That's the soul.

Ginny: Yep, that is the soul. 

Nikki: So when you think that somebody is out of it and they do not know? Let me tell you, you connect deeper. Their bodies go deeper because their body knows. So this movie, Five More Minutes, is about the soul connection and how, even after they pass, they never really leave you and you are connected in a soul level for the rest of your life. So if anybody's hungry for that November 20th on Hallmark, 

Ginny: I’m going to have a movie night. 

Nikki: And then if anybody else is hungry for something that's, you know, we developed it and we wrote it for Hallmark. It's called “Christmas for Keeps,” and it's a different movie that I'm not in. It's these kids. They're on the precipice of 30, and they lose someone that's important to them in their life for the first time. It's like that first shock of losing somebody. That's really important. And they all come home to celebrate this beloved teacher. We wanted to do a love letter to teachers after the year that they've had. I loved the purpose behind all of these. So we want to create a story that really honored people, these teachers and people in our lives that are some of them, our greatest inspirations and helped mold us to become the people that we are. So it's really a love letter to teachers, and it's called “Christmas for Keeps” and that one comes out, I think it's December 18th.

Ginny: Our best friends had a Hallmark movie filmed in their home like a couple of years ago. It’s called “Miracle on Christmas.” It's just like a super random thing that they were going to be out of town for a while and they put their house up on Airbnb, and it was like the house that fit the movie. And so they actually had two films filmed in their home. I think everything is leading me to watch Hallmark movies. 

Well before we part, you have so much going on with different organizations and spokespersons, where can people find more about you and beyond the acting? You know, I mean, co-founder of the blog What We Are, I mean - this list is extensive. Spokesperson for Alzheimer's and so much more...

Nikki: The acting and writing and producing the stuff, that's my job. I love it. It's an awesome job, but really and truly, it is a way for me to just raise money and awareness for causes that I love. Like that is the portal that I get to do the things that I'm really passionate about, which is helping people. 

Children's Hospital of Los Angeles If you're interested in children and the health of children or anything about Alzheimer's and dementia, you can follow me on Instagram, where I put up a lot of stuff about it. There's a lot of talks that I've had with the doctors. Follow me on Instagram there. And then you can also, I talk to a lot of people who DM me and say my mom or my grandmother, my dad or my child was diagnosed with this and we will talk. I will say, like, where do you live? What's the heart defect? OK? Would you be able to get to Los Angeles to be able to go to Children's Hospital Los Angeles because it's one of the top three children's hospitals in the world? I mean, the country is also the best, in my opinion. You know, I'm a board member there. So like, of course, but they've also saved my child three times. So I know what they do and I know the heart in which they do it. So if you're interested in any of those things and especially if you're for Alzheimer's and dementia, I'm having to walk to end Alzheimer's. OK, a big L.A. walk is November six. However, you can walk from anywhere in the country and if you're and if you want to come and go to my. And click on my link trade, you can sign up to walk with me from wherever you are. And it's such a cool, beautiful thing to do. I love doing walks because you get outside, 

Nikki: You move your trauma, you get the whole family involved and friends. I mean, I have, you know, people that walk all over the country and we face time and we Instagram and we post pictures. Oh, so celebrate together. 

Ginny: What a way to connect, right? 

Nikki: Such a cool way to connect in that. I believe, like, I don't love social media, but I choose to use social media in a way that is positive and actually a connective tissue for all of us who are going through. Whether it's hard things are good things or, you know, whether we're celebrating or grieving, like, that's the way that I choose to use it. And so go to my Instagram and come and find everything there. 

Ginny: Nikki, thank you. And I’ll tell Sally Lucca, we had a conversation. 

Nikki: Give her a big hug.

Ginny: I will. I will. Nikki, thank you. And I can't wait to connect again in the 

Nikki: Me too. Thank you so much. Bye.