Affirmations of a Bad Bitch

Forgiveness and Faith x Ken Guidroz

September 07, 2023 Tiona Thompson Season 1 Episode 67
Affirmations of a Bad Bitch
Forgiveness and Faith x Ken Guidroz
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

 Today, we feature Ken Guidroz, an author and former pastor, who speaks about how he reconnects with God outside of the walls of religion following his sons incarceration.    Ken discovered a profound connection with his son through the power of letter writing. This episode takes you on a rollercoaster journey of love, faith, and forgiveness as Ken navigated his son's incarceration.

Ken's story is not only about resilience and faith but also a testament to the importance of trusting one's gut feeling. We discuss his experiences with intuition and the divine, and the consequences he faced when he ignored his gut feelings. The episode reveals the beauty of spending time in nature and the intriguing thought experiment of God creating from nothing. It also touches on the significance of humility, and how it can lead to growth and a deeper understanding of our relationship with God. This episode is a must-listen for anyone seeking inspiration and guidance amidst adversity.

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Speaker 1:

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Speaker 2:

First of all, it's an honor to be a bad bitch. I have never been called that, ever. There's a first for everything. You're the first and I dig it. I love it. So thank you. No, it's great to be with you. I, yeah, I have kind of a compelling story. What happened to me in my life? Of course, I never thought I'd be telling this story, because when you're in the middle of hell you don't ever think about talking about it. But as I came out of hell, I started to realize that, wow, man, this is kind of amazing what's happened with me, and maybe you can help others. So you know my son. Actually, I have three boys, the youngest is 33.

Speaker 2:

And they all struggled with substances and you know I was a pastor and I had raised him where I just didn't ever expect that to happen. So things just went crazy and it was a wild 10 years of my life and their lives. And then, near the end of it, one of my sons killed a man tragically when he was high on heroin and went to prison. And the first at first it was, you know, I just, I was just, I didn't want to talk to.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, just because, yeah, you can imagine the hurt. Yeah, I'm sure.

Speaker 2:

But then over time we we had some breakthroughs, some amazing moments letters that I wrote to him, that he, the letters he wrote to me, started reading like crazy, you know, complex stuff like money, crystal and dust we have to keep crime and punishment, just some really cool stuff that just took his mind to a whole new place. And so, yeah, over time we just connected, like you would dream a father and son connect as he changed his life and and in me helping him, you know, kind of help me become a man again, and so I just I just discovered maybe a better word just to to get my own shit together and kind of come back to God, you know, because I really lost God in all this confusion and then he, yeah, so it was. It was this gorgeous, elegant thing that I felt like I had to write about.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, of course. So when you guys first started writing letters to each other, well, it wasn't right away, right when he went to prison. How long did it take for you guys to start communicating?

Speaker 2:

About a month after he was at LA County jail, which is a pretty notorious place, pretty challenging place to be just known here as county.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

About a month in he. It was the first visit between me and him just the two of us, and there was no one else in the waiting room or the visiting room. So you have a little stainless steel stool, you have a phone and there's big wall of glass right. He's on the other side of the glass, but nobody else was there.

Speaker 2:

Normally there's two or three other inmates with their families, but it was just me and him and he. He just I could tell something was happening just by his eyes. The way he walked in he was kind of red, a little bit red in his face. I thought has he been crying? And so he, you know, about 10 minutes into this call he just completely melts down, completely loses it and apologizes for killing Rod. He said that man's name for the first time. He apologized for making Valerie a widow, the man's wife. You know, he just completely I saw. I saw sobriety and humility that I hadn't seen in 10 minutes. I've seen him for 10 years. I mean, think about this you have a loved one and you haven't seen really the true them for 10 years. It's kind of wild.

Speaker 2:

When you see him again, you just kind of just all of a sudden yeah just all of a sudden, he just this new kid that I knew as a kid but now as a man he's 28 at the time, maybe 27, you know shows up and so, yeah, you know, as a dad, you're just like, oh my gosh. Now, weirdly, tiona, you know I, I went home that night. You think I would be like relieved. I actually got more mad at him.

Speaker 1:

I can actually understand that because it's like you seeing that humanity from him makes it hard, probably, to be angry at him, exactly.

Speaker 2:

Well, I actually know it made it easier to be angry. Only because he was honest. I finally saw the real Lucas and it kind of gave me the license to be honest with myself and I and I was. I was like are you sure? I was like are you freaking kidding me? This has been going on for over 10 years, not just with him. But I just lost it. I journaled the next day and I wrote some things. I'm not going to tell you what they were.

Speaker 2:

Let it all out, because even you Tiona you couldn't handle the truth no, I'm just teasing you, but. But but then it recovered. We started writing. That was about when we started getting real with letters and calls. Calls were really short, but anyway. So, yeah, it started there and just slowly started to open up like a flower. And it was, you know, there was still a hearing, there was still a sentencing. So you know, he was, it was kind of hamstrung in his emotions until everything was cleared up. He got a 10 year sentence. You know what I mean? He kind of needed to get sentenced before he could relax enough to be himself and to start being real with me. And so, yeah, it took time, months, kind of, kind of, in a way, kind of years.

Speaker 1:

Mm-hmm, do you think if there would have been other people in that visiting area that day that he would have kind of opened up?

Speaker 2:

No, I don't think that ever would have happened.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's crazy. Kind of like some divine timing right there.

Speaker 2:

Oh my gosh, and that's how I looked at it. Yeah, it never, tiona, it never would have happened. And yet when it happened, it it was like you know, like a father who's been through what I've been through yes, I get, I get pissed at him afterwards More pissed, but in a way that, like that moment, will live with me forever. I will never forget his eyes pooling with tears and just after all that time he finally saw a real person, like a real man, getting real with himself. I don't know, it was like this. In some ways, it was the most perfect moment of all. The moments Was when I, when I finally have my son back.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's amazing. So how long do you guys still write letters?

Speaker 2:

Well, California has this very aggressive inmate reduction program. So if you commit a nonviolent crime and Lucas's crime was violent, he killed a man, but it was unintentional, right. So it's called manslaughter and not murder.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

So if it's, if it's redeemed by the court's nonviolent which his was you're able to take your your 10 year sentence and and you can. You go to meetings, you go to classes, you get a degree, an associate's degree in college, you do like there's 20 things, 30 things you can do. They're called milestone programs. You just keep doing them and it takes a month, six months, a year off your sentence. Okay. And so he whittled it down to three years so he's out now, yeah, this was 2016.

Speaker 2:

He got out in 2019. So, yeah, we wrote letters for three years. Especially the last 18 months was was hot and heavy. We just, you know, we got it kind of in this rhythm and then we got it out, and then we got it out, and then we got it out, and then we got it out, and then we got it out and then he started, you know, enjoying writing Almost like a creative outlet, you know. And then I started I was kind of the same thing. So, yeah, it was, and we saved him all. He saved all his. He has his in a box.

Speaker 2:

I have mine in a box.

Speaker 1:

You know, yeah, maybe one day we'll share them. So let's move audience and live music.

Speaker 2:

You know it's pretty amazing. It's pretty amazing. He lives five minutes from me. Yeah, he got married to a wonderful girl that I've known for 20 years. They have a son named thin. So you know he's a little toe headed kid, so it's pretty cool and all three of my boys and I are really close. Now, you know, if you had told me that it would be like it is now 10 years ago, I would have laughed at you. I said not a chance, it's completely gone to shit. Right, the whole family Like you said I'm hanging on with my wife.

Speaker 2:

I'm like, don't leave me, don't leave me, woman, and that you know the situation that you were put in brought you guys closer.

Speaker 1:

I'm sure it put a strain on you guys as well, but in the end Did that, you know, bring you guys closer together. You know we're together. We've been together 41 years as of last weekend, so it's pretty cool.

Speaker 2:

We have a group of friends. We have a group of friends. We have a group of friends. We have a group of friends. We have a group of friends. We have a group of friends. We have a group of friends. We have a group of friends, we have a group of friends, we have a group of friends. So it's pretty cool. We have a great, we have a great marriage. But, yeah, it was really tough on us. It was there were moments where, you know, I felt like she was enabling, she felt like it was an asshole, which I was, but I was exercising my asshole Right Too much.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you know, I wanted to kick ass, you wanted to lend money.

Speaker 1:

Right, that kind of stuff. I mean, you know, you can just imagine.

Speaker 2:

You can just imagine. You can just imagine, you can just imagine Exactly. And so do you turn on each other? Yeah, sometimes you feel like you do and you want to and and you just want to scream. You want, you know. But but we dealt with it differently. She, she, she hung with friends. She hung tight with friends. I kind of went solo. I just started doing a lot of hiking, got a camper, van, spent a lot of time in the mountains with my dog Mumford. We were in the mountains and I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to do. It was, it was opposite ways of handling it. But you know, when you're, when you're in a shit storm, I don't know you.

Speaker 1:

You just it's just survival mode.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yeah, you just like, like I. This ain't pretty.

Speaker 1:

This ain't right. I'm no example what? I said just trying to process what's happening.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I don't claim to have done it right. I don't claim to have done it. I don't claim to have done it. I don't claim to have done it.

Speaker 1:

I don't claim to have done it perfectly, but you know we made it.

Speaker 2:

Grey's Anatomy helped us. I love Grey's Anatomy. That was a big.

Speaker 2:

Come on the songs on Grey's Anatomy. Do they not send you the best on the planet? You know we would get together at night. We've watched some TV Greys and a bunch of other, you know, shows like that, I don't know. We pause the DVR and just talk, you know, and I would just say, did you hear what the paper the lawyer said about Lucas, or did you? You know the lawyer said this and it wasn't Sit down, you know, looking at each other talking most of the time, most of the time it was driving somewhere or watching Grey's Anatomy, and you know, pausing the DVR and just having a half hour talk about, oh crap, things were, or how great thing.

Speaker 2:

Whatever, lucas wrote me or any, wrote me a super cool letter or whatever. Right I, just because, tiona, might you know, I felt like I had kind of lost God. I'd lost my church. I wasn't going to church anymore, I couldn't even open the Bible. So I felt like I'd lost my religion, I'd lost my sons. I just couldn't. I just couldn't lose my wife, you know what I'm saying, it was like, okay, I'm going to be all alone in the world.

Speaker 2:

I, I that I don't, I I'm just not sure I can handle that right now, you know. And it's like, okay, don't leave me woman, and I'm not going to leave you. And I'm not trying to try not to be an asshole by my tongue.

Speaker 1:

Feeling with, feeling with it. How you could, yep?

Speaker 2:

And we did, we hung together, we, you know, we have a great marriage, we yeah. So yeah, we made it. And then I'll say yes, good, now.

Speaker 1:

Do you go to church now? Did you ever go back to church, or how's that situation?

Speaker 2:

It's. I'll be honest, it's hard, still Not with God. I made up with God. I never, I never cursed him, I never shook my fist at him. I just I'm the kind of guy that goes silent. I'm the kind of guy that goes silent. You know I, I'll just Crawl under the shade. You know I'll just crawl under the desk, as opposed to you. Know, this is something I did, this and you should have done it. I stopped me. I know Maybe that would be you, and I'm not even judging somebody who does that, it's just not me, I wasn't. So I crawled under the desk and during the worst times I was in the church. I was in the church. I was in the church Because a flood of memories would come back.

Speaker 2:

Right, I was a pastor. Right, I was the guy up there teaching all this great stuff. And and now I feel like I'm on the other end, right, I can't even open a Bible because of all the memories that come flooding. I can't even pray, hardly, hardly. I just I just feel like I'd feel patronized too. I just feel like, seriously, you're going to say that, really, you're going to say that, mr, you're going to be that sure that that person is going to pray and their cancer is going to go away. Seriously, come on, man, have at least a little levity, have at least a little humility in your preaching, mr Preacher. And again, I don't want to be that guy that judges everybody. Okay, I don't want to judge the preacher. Preacher can say what the preacher wants to say, but I couldn't hear it anymore. I just I don't know where I'm at today. I mean, I I'm great with God.

Speaker 2:

I read my Bible, I write a lot about what I think, and Lucas and I, in the last half of his incarceration, we read CS Lewis. We wrote a great book on evolution and God and how they can be compatible, how science doesn't necessarily negate God. You don't have to bury your head in the sand scientifically and logically to be a Christian, and that's always kind of been my jam. But it was Lucas's hurdle and he had to get over this. We read this great book, great book Anyway. So Lucas kind of learning and really coming to God, and for me it was coming back to God, yeah, maybe a new way. And I'm not saying that it's perfect, I'm not saying I'm a model for anybody, I'm not, but I love God. I just love thinking about him. I love reading about him. I love writing about him. I write a fair amount in the book about you know my own journey and how I kind of you know I had this moment in the Sierra, way up in the high of the mountains, about 10,000 feet.

Speaker 2:

You know it's this great moment. It is a great moment. It is just is what you dream about. But I'm not saying it's a model, but it's so. Am I? Am I super healthy? I probably not. You could probably diagnose me with all kinds of spiritual disorders.

Speaker 1:

I don't know what your spiritual like I, I would say I'm pretty open. I do say that I have a relationship with God, but I am not religious. I would say the relationship of God is more of just as love as just being, connectedness more rather than a singular you know man being. But I'm open and I love hearing, like other people's thoughts and their views and what they believe. I think it's also interesting. I like how you said you have to kind of, you know, dive into either science or religion. But I think you know two things can be true at once and yeah, so I love you know digging into both of those.

Speaker 2:

And I think that's a good question. One more thing about it. So for me, the spirituality is not just spirituality, it's Christian spiritual. In other words, it's. It's, at least to me. The way it's evolving now is it's yes, it's spirituality, but it's it's. It takes the Bible into account, tries to put it all together you know and also make room for the spirit.

Speaker 2:

You know, I think that sometimes religion, the four walls of religion, almost keep the spirit Not out but at bay, like contained, like control. Because we don't want this, you know, we don't want you saying that the spirit told you this, or that it's almost like religion gets afraid of God's spirit. Why, like, is God just silent and encased within this book, or is he alive today? To me, he's alive today, and so I'm trying to find out what that looks like. I do listen to my gut and I think God sometimes speaks to my gut. Just because you feel something doesn't make it true, I get that.

Speaker 2:

But you know what I'm saying. Like I want to be open to God's spirit, being able to lean into me today about something. Should I do this or should I do that? And praying about it and kind of just waiting to see what. You know where your gut goes, where your heart goes, and is that definitively God's spirit? I don't know, but I'm going to kind of lean into it and I'm going to say, yeah, maybe it is. I'm going to say I'm going to listen to it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I say I'm very spiritual but also I pray, you know, and I feel like I don't believe in coincidences Also. So you know, if you're praying, oh God, give me a sign or help me, give me this, blah, blah, blah, and then that thing happens. It's kind of like, oh okay, maybe I am being heard.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so I love that. What do you think? What kind of freedom have you gained by reconnecting with God outside of the walls of religion, or like what's what's different about it?

Speaker 2:

I, first of all, I absolutely love that question. Thank you, Love that question. I can read the Bible now without horse blinders on, without. Okay, I've got I mean, this is church and I've got these certain doctrines and these beliefs, you know, and just as somebody that was on that side and yet now still reads the Bible, it's this freeing, beautiful, beautiful. You use the word freedom, I love that word. It's freeing to just be able to read it and not feel like it's got to fit into something.

Speaker 2:

And I could get into specifics and I you know, maybe, maybe another time, but that that is one of the biggest things. And I think, secondly, what I just mentioned, that is this freedom that I now have, that God's spirit can do whatever the heck God spirits wants to do. In other words, it doesn't have to fit in my spiritual paradigm or religious paradigm. I can be open and I realize that you can be so open minded that your brain falls out. I get it, Don't? We get it?

Speaker 2:

That's not me. I'm trying not to, that's not to be me, but but I don't want to limit God. I don't want to have this preconceived place where he can work and another place where he's not going to work. I'm sorry, I just feels very constraining and limiting. So to have now a greater openness and this greater, that the field is bigger, I don't know just feels pretty awesome to me. Yeah, I mean, even I was in the mountains last weekend and I was doing this hike and I don't know. You know how it is when you get really high and you're above tree line and all these cool things start happening.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, pretty cool, and I'm very lucky, I get, I get up to the mountains quite a bit, but in some I'm very lucky. But you know, when you, when you come to these insights and I was hiking down, I was, I don't know, maybe an hour and a half down and I, just my mind was so on fire with just the way the universe was made and how why, would God even create matter out of no matter? You know what I mean?

Speaker 1:

I think it's just really crazy thoughts that I know. You know I've made the other stuff. Yeah, okay, yeah.

Speaker 2:

So you know this idea of a non material being, if you think about God as complete. So there's no gravity, there's no matter, there's no energy. There's energy, you know, but there's no time, even time I mean, yeah, time's man made.

Speaker 2:

Timelessness is very difficult but beautiful concept to think about. So you bet that entity creating what you and I live in matter gravity, right, like why. So sitting here, having this just thought experiment that is so fun and so enlivening and so worshipful and so I don't know, just magnificent, like in the religious world, I just didn't have those, didn't have any of those. So now to have those kind of thoughts to write about it to, can I digress for just a second? Yes, so I met this young kid is 20, I don't know how old you are 25. 25, he's 25, berkeley graduate young kid.

Speaker 2:

We were right at the trailhead of a mountain called Elmacha and it was just the two of us. It's a very remote spot and he is reading Dostoevsky's the Brothers Karamazov very dense book. So he's got all these spiritual questions I've got. I'm this guy that used to be a pastor and is now writing this new book, right, so we get this connection. I thought it would never happen, never go anywhere. This is two years ago. He writes me this letter just this week asking about God. And you know what do you think it? Does faith and reason go together? And I'm wrestling with these things? So I, you know, I started this pen pal thing with this kid your age sorry, young person your age and he just has these great questions about God and it's these kind of things that I don't know is so fun and fascinating to wrestle with and think about. I forgot what your question was even, but you know this is the stuff I'm enjoying right now.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, I love that too. And, like you said, out hiking and you're just having all these, you know, you feel like you're in a movie, you know whatever Exactly, for me it's like if, like, I think God is just pure love and you said God is, you know, exists in the realm of nothing, which is where everything can be created, so to me it's like what is it to be of love if you can't experience love? And you know so? God is in nature, god is in the wind, everything interacting together is God to me. And I think it's so fun to have those conversations with people who think other things, you know, as long as they're not like oh well, you're wrong and you're whatever, you're a hippie.

Speaker 2:

So yeah, no. I do too, and I love hearing what you're saying and I think it is. You know, one of the things I think is most important is humility. I think it's the driver In churches. I don't see a lot of it. I see a lot of religious arrogance but also on the other side, people that gain an opinion and then just set it in concrete.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

I don't know. I think it's, it's a little arrogant to do In me. I want to stay humble. I'm not saying I'm right, I just want to stay humble. I'm 63. I may have 20, 30 years left. I still want to stay humble and to be malleable, to be convinceable, to just be open minded to what, the ways that God is going to work, the things that I read about God that's text from people that are smarter than me. Right, and I think the Bible is one of the best texts out there, but it's not the only text that's that has wisdom.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

And I think a lot of texts do, and I think it's important that we, above all, even in our relationships and just how we live, even with ourselves, that we be, that we stay humble and that we not solidify and things and get so rigid that I don't know, we just become just unopened and when I think we stop growing, we become that way.

Speaker 1:

I agree. You are like, so set in your ways and then you won't even listen or even consider anything else. What advice do you have for people trying to find God or trying to better understand their relationship or how they view God, whether that's religious or not?

Speaker 2:

I would say to me it comes down to. The thing I just mentioned is that it's kind of the umbrella the humility is have is try to be humble. It's hard for us to be humble. It's hard in relationships. Someone disses you right, you're an asshole.

Speaker 1:

I'm a being an asshole.

Speaker 2:

You want to raise it, I'll be more of it. Right? That's just human nature. It's hard to be humble, so humility is the umbrella. And then I would say ask, seek and knock. Ask God, seek the texts, and then knock on people's door and see what they think. To me, if you do those three things ask, seek, knock I mean it's gonna reveal what's out there for you, and then what you do with that's up to you. I could tell you what you should do with it. You don't care.

Speaker 2:

You're not gonna listen to that. I'll tell you, maybe, what that has resulted in me. I'm telling you right now right, my asking, seeking and knocking has resulted in what you just heard. It's not set in stone, it's the 63 year old Ken. This can be different at 64. But to me, asking, seeking and knocking with humility, that's it To me, that's, if you do that with God, which to me is the greatest thing in their life, it will affect your relationships, it will affect your own psyche, it'll affect your own mental health. To me, it'll affect everything and that's why I think it's paramount. If you ask, seek and knock with humility, I don't know, that's to me, that's it. That's the answer.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I love that. Thank you so much. Is there anything else that you would like to add to the conversation?

Speaker 2:

Well, I would you say that your audience. I've listened to your stuff and I love you, I love this podcast. Is your audience, your comparable age? Is it just all over the place Is?

Speaker 1:

it, I would say 20 to 35.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, can I close with one thing.

Speaker 1:

Yes, of course.

Speaker 2:

What did I learn about being a parent? You know? And again, if somebody could look at me as a parent, could you say man, you screwed up. Why would I listen to one word? You said no.

Speaker 1:

I don't think that.

Speaker 2:

But in some ways, those of us that have been hit the hardest, maybe we have a little more wisdom than maybe some of them haven't.

Speaker 1:

But anyway, I don't want to get into that.

Speaker 2:

What's the one thing I learned? The one thing I learned was that I should follow my gut. Your intuition yes, my intuition. Now when you're parenting with another woman. You got to follow your collective gut.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Did you educate your gut with podcasts? Yes, I did that. Should you educate it with books? Sure. Should you ask, seek and Knock so that you have a smarter gut? Sure. But where I blew it with my sons and when, in high school, my eldest was around sophomore junior year, when things tipped and they went from us being a solid family to us being a family that experienced almost 15 years of challenges was when I didn't listen to my gut. I gave into the pressure from my senior pastor. I gave into the pressure I felt from other parents in the church. I just didn't do what I believed I should do. I had parented really trying to listen to my sons, trying to not be the asshole parent trying to listen, and I had a really, I think, pretty incredible relationship with all three of them. But then, teona, I did blow it. I did listen to others and violate my gut, and there was actually a tipping point.

Speaker 2:

I talked about it in my book, where it just all blew up. So I think in parenting, your gut is super important. But I even think in your own life, relationships, decisions that you have to make, getting advice and inputs all important. But I don't know. I think for you you have your own personality, you have your own history that's made you the person that you are, and only you know that, like only you can filter all that stuff through your brain and your heart to say this person's right for me, or that relationship is just not serving you or whatever it is right, Whatever decision you make.

Speaker 2:

I think you have to learn to quiet the noise, educate your gut and then finally listen to your gut and it will guide you well.

Speaker 1:

I love that. That kind of brings the whole conversation full circle to but trusting your intuition and you know your intuition is kind of a connection to the divine, to God, you could say so trusting yourself and knowing you can handle whatever comes your way, I love that. Thank you so much for coming on, ken. This was so fun. I had a great time.

Speaker 2:

Awesome, I did too, and I love what you're doing and you're absolutely welcome. Thank you for asking great questions.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much. You guys. I will have Ken's book and all of his social media, everything else linked down below, and, ken, if you would like to repeat after me, we will say our affirmations now. I am strong.

Speaker 2:

I am strong.

Speaker 1:

I am kind.

Speaker 2:

I am very kind.

Speaker 1:

I am loved.

Speaker 2:

I am love.

Speaker 1:

And I send love.

Speaker 2:

And I send love.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, thank you, Tiana.

Father-Son Breakthrough
Rediscovering Love and Forgiveness in Adversity
Navigating Faith and Challenges
Understanding God With Open-Mindedness and Humility
Trust Your Gut in Parenting