👋Hey beautiful humans,
We’re back with a story that’ll hit your heart, lift your spirit, and maybe make you say “hell yes” out loud.
🎧 This Week’s Episode:
From Pain to Purpose: How Dyan Finds Joy Living with Rheumatoid Arthritis
📅 Thursday, October 16th at 3 AM ET
At 22, Dyan woke up and couldn’t walk. The diagnosis? Rheumatoid arthritis — the kind that doesn’t go away.
Fifty years later, she’s still showing up, still laughing, still painting, and still giving the best damn hugs in town.
Her story isn’t about suffering. It’s about choosing joy, even when life deals you pain — literally.
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🔥 Special Shout-Out: Women Supporting Women
Light Your Story, Fuel Your Fire
Big love to Amy Nubson of Nufire Collective, who’s helping women rebrand from the inside out.
Her Rebrand You framework blends brand clarity with soul strategy — and her “Exploring Your Origin Story” workshop on August 20 is the perfect pre-fall reset.
🔗 Explore Nufire Collective:https://nufirecollective.com/
💬 Mental Health Quote of the Week
“You can do life miserably, or you can find ways around it — I’ll always choose joy.”
— Dyan
📝 Podcast Reflection Worksheet
Pause. Reflect. Breathe.
Use our Podcast Reflection Worksheet to capture what resonated most and what you’re ready to release.
✨ Turning reflection into action starts here:
👉 Podcast Worksheet _10_16_25_From Pain to Purpose- How Dyan Finds Joy Living with Rheumatoid Arthritis.pdf
🎧 Episode Spotlight
Some guests share their stories — and then there’s Dyan, who lives hers out loud.
At six years old, she was hit by a bus in New York City and somehow walked away. Decades later, she still calls it her first miracle. As a teen in the 60s, she was sharp, curious, and a little rebellious — diving headfirst into the chaos of the counterculture. “I wasn’t afraid to experience anything,” she laughs. And she means it. From cross-country road trips in a homemade camper to nights bartending in biker bars, Dyan’s lived a full, unfiltered life — one built on curiosity, humor, and a refusal to sit still.
Then came the diagnosis that changed everything. In her early twenties, after years of hiking, rafting, and living wildly in Arizona, she woke up one morning and couldn’t walk. The doctors said it was rheumatoid arthritis, a chronic autoimmune condition that would attack her joints for the rest of her life.
At first, she was furious. Then she got practical.
She learned to paint differently, to move differently, to be differently. Meditation became her lifeline — a practice she started at 16 and still swears by five decades later. “Even if you don’t feel like you’re doing it right, you’re doing it right if you do it,” she says.
Over the years, Dyan has adapted with grace, grit, and a lot of gallows humor. She jokes about her “bent elbows and witchy ways,” but her words cut deep: “You can either sit in misery, or you can find ways around it.”
This episode is a deep, funny, heart-squeezing exploration of what it means to live fully with pain — to let yourself rest without guilt, to advocate for your own body, and to laugh when everything hurts. She opens up about navigating family tension, finding her place in a small town that once judged her, and reclaiming her worth without anyone’s permission.
By the end, you’ll understand why G-Rex calls her “a pillar of the community” — not because she’s perfect, but because she’s real.
Dyan teaches us that joy isn’t naïve — it’s an act of rebellion.
🧩 From the Conversation
💬 The heartbeat of this episode
Dyan’s story reminds us that strength doesn’t always roar — sometimes it whispers, breathes, and paints through the pain. From being diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis in her twenties to living joyfully five decades later, her message is simple: you don’t have to love the hard stuff, but you can learn to live beautifully inside it.
🫂 A quote that stuck with us
“You can’t control what breaks, but you can control how you show up in the aftermath.”
— Dyan
🎙️ Real Talk from Us
“When Dyan said she’s been meditating since 16 and still believes in magic at 72? That blew me away. She’s living proof that your mindset is medicine.” – G-Rex
“She made me rethink what it means to ‘let go.’ It’s not giving up—it’s giving yourself permission to rest and still call that progress.” – Dirty Skittles
📓 Reflection Prompts to Sit With
• Where in your life are you fighting what you can’t change?
• What’s one small joy you’ve been overlooking because you’re too busy surviving?
• How might ‘letting go’ actually make space for healing?
🌱 Gentle Reminder
You don’t need to be pain-free to be peaceful.
Joy can coexist with the hard stuff — if you let it.
🎙️ Meet Our Guest — Dyan
There’s something magnetic about Dyan. Maybe it’s her mischievous grin, her unapologetic humor, or the fact that she radiates peace even while her body aches from decades of rheumatoid arthritis. She’ll tell you straight up: life isn’t fair — but it’s still damn beautiful.
Born in New York City and raised between there and Connecticut, Dyan grew up surrounded by the buzz of big-city life and the calm of country summers. By sixteen, she was already pushing boundaries, exploring consciousness, and learning how to see the world differently. “I’ve always believed in magic,” she says. “Just because I can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not real.”
Her path hasn’t been easy — it’s been alive.
She’s been a waitress, bartender, short-order cook, editor, whitewater rafter, and artist. She’s been the woman behind the bar breaking up biker fights with a baseball bat (true story), the twenty-something who hit the road in a camper she built herself, and the grandmother figure who now teaches chair yoga at her local library. She’s lived through trauma, miracles, loss, and laughter — and still shows up with curiosity instead of bitterness.
At 22, when rheumatoid arthritis hit like a freight train, Dyan refused to let it shrink her world. Instead, she carved out a new one. Over time, she’s turned pain into wisdom and physical limitation into a masterclass on presence. Her artwork reflects that — intuitive, abstract, soulful — the kind of pieces that make you feel before you think.
What makes Dyan unforgettable isn’t that she’s endured pain; it’s how she’s transformed it. She speaks about self-advocacy and acceptance with the kind of grounded humor only someone who’s been there can deliver. She reminds people to rest without guilt, to listen when their body whispers “enough,” and to find joy wherever they can — even if it’s just in a good hug, a strong cup of coffee, or a watercolor sunset.
Dyan doesn’t just talk about resilience; she embodies it.
She is proof that healing and humor can coexist, that rebellion can look like gentleness, and that belief in magic — in yourself, in others, in life — might be the strongest medicine of all.
Socials: None shared — she’s too busy living in the real world 😉
🌟 Key Takeaways
✔ Joy isn’t the absence of pain — it’s the refusal to surrender to it.
✔ “Let that shit go” might actually be the secret to peace.
✔ You’re allowed to rest; the to-do list will still be there tomorrow.
✔ Meditation doesn’t have to be perfect — showing up is enough.
✔ Self-advocacy matters: know your body, your meds, your limits.
✅ Actionable Steps
• Try Dyan’s “box breathing”: in for 4, hold 4, out for 4 — repeat 3x.
• Write down one thing you can control today — and one thing you’ll release.
• Schedule 5 minutes of quiet. No app. No playlist. Just breathe.
• Hug someone you love — Dyan would insist.
• Reframe your next bad day: “What’s the magic in this mess?”
💬 Listener Engagement
What part of Dyan’s story hit home for you — the pain, the magic, the “fuck it, I’m still here” energy?
Hit reply — we love reading your reflections.
Or tag us on Instagram → @grex_and_dirtyskittles
⭐ Subscribe, Rate & Review
Love what we’re doing? Help keep these conversations alive by leaving a quick review:
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Every review helps us bring more real stories — and more healing laughs — your way.
💜 Closing Remarks
Some stories stay with you because they make you think.
Dyan’s stays because it makes you feel.
She reminds us that healing isn’t about fixing what’s broken — it’s about learning to live fully inside what’s still working. That laughter still counts even when it hurts. That rest isn’t weakness; it’s wisdom. That joy isn’t something that happens after the pain — it’s what keeps us alive through it.
If you’ve been fighting your body, your mind, or just the world lately, take a breath. You don’t have to be okay to be worthy. You don’t have to be healed to be happy. You just have to keep showing up for yourself, one messy, magical day at a time.
So this week, try it Dyan’s way:
✨ Let go of the thing you can’t fix.
✨ Laugh at something small and stupid.
✨ Find one moment that feels good — and let it matter.
Because joy, as Dyan proves, isn’t denial.
It’s defiance. 💫
With love (and a little rebellion),
G-Rex & Dirty Skittles 💜🧠
Hosts, Sh!t That Goes On In Our Heads
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G-Rex & Dirty Skittles
It's ok to be not ok, just make sure you're talking to someone
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