Exceptional Healing Sparks Tammy Peterson’s Conversion (What Does Jordan Get?)

Peterson do you have any comments on the Nazi Presence at your protest yeah I don't like Nazis I am not an advocate of violence I'm speaking out the way I'm speaking out because I think this is a route to no violence you have no idea if I'm your enemy you have no idea about me you won't use my pronoun so I'm pretty sure you're my enemy yes well I know you.

Think that but I don't believe that using your pronouns is going to do you any good in the long run I think it'll do quite the contr so so what did life look like in the midst of all of that this sudden sort of rise to fame that that was happening to to Jordan Peterson at this point it happened in a moment Jordan came down in the morning and said.

That he could see deep trouble brewing and he felt that he had to say something publicly and I said why don't you just tell everybody let's see what happens and so that afternoon there were reporters in the kitchen and in their cars outside and we thought that would stop and it never stopped it was a very strange time because first of all I.

Became sick and and then I had this experience that was very religious and that was a moment of surrender that moment was my first moment of surrender I would say so by the time I was out of the hospital and Jordan was in the hospital my life was about surrendering and so I was surrendering to his troubles as well I know many people in.

My circle of acquaintances for whom Jordan himself has been quite instrumental in them actually opening the door to Faith do you get a sense of how he kind of make sense of all this from where he's standing I don't get a sense of it really but he's watching me but he's definitely watching watching me and he sees the changes that have come.

And he can't understand it well hello and welcome to the maybe God podcast I'm Justin bryley guest hosting this week's edition of the show uh this show inspires doubtful Believers and hopeful Skeptics to seek answers to their most challenging Faith questions through uplifting and Powerful storytelling my guest today is Tammy.

Peterson Tammy is host of the Tammy Peterson podcast which focuses on the divine feminine the dark and the light side of Womanhood practically and symbolically Tammy is married to Jordan Peterson the well-known Canadian psychologist and author who Rose to Global prominence in 2018 and whose YouTube channel and live lectures have.

Been watched and attended by millions Tammy's daughter Michaela is also a popular video and podcast host who helped Jordan himself through a Health crisis between 2019 to 2021 well in the midst of a roller coaster few years for her whole family has been tami's own stepping into Faith a journey that was really precipitated by her own Health.

Crisis in 2019 when she was given a terminal cancer diagnosis a rare and aggressive form of kidney cancer but earlier this year Tammy was received into the Catholic church at Easter cancer-free and today we'll be exploring uh tamy and her whole family's journey and the circumstances that have brought her to Faith so welcome along to the.

Show Tammy thanks very much Justin I'm happy to be here I I feel like this is very much a family affair in the past I've interviewed Jordan I've spoken to Michaela as well uh and now you it feels like like the whole family in some way is coming together in this way um You' you've had an amazing journey recently Tammy tell us about what happened dur.

Over Easter weekend you were received into the Catholic Church what what was that day like um what were your feelings what was that day like it was joyous really wonderful yeah um it was um for me I was very uh relaxed in accepting um I had made I had um surrendered already to the.

Inevitability of um entering into the church it wasn't wasn't my plan particularly it was a plan that came upon me and uh I was willing I was just willing to go with what seemed like the next right step until there I was uh receiving the rights to become a Catholic so is is that something you'd have ever.

Anticipated I don't know 10 or 15 years ago I don't think so I don't think so I was pretty self strong self-willed woman um I'd always been pretty much in control control of my life and making my decisions you know when we're small and young we get through life with.

Our with our childhood ideas of what is the best way to deal with the challenge that comes to us and if we don't have a personal relationship with God and maybe even if we do because we're children the the choices we make about how we're going to deal with things are childish in some way and if we don't uh update that.

Childish plan then uh that's how we go out into the world and so self-will was something that I you know discovered early on and that seemed to serve me well when I was young but eventually it just didn't serve me well anymore I mean was Faith ever part of the picture growing up were there any.

Influences upon you yes there were my grandmothers were uh both in the Protestant Church um my dad's grandmother played the piano in her church and um my other grandmother sang in the choir in her church and they went to church every Sunday in fact my grandma who played the piano traveled with a band once her husband had had a.

Stroke and was in the hospital at 83 she did did some traveling around Alberta playing the piano in a band that was faith-based that that came from the church so you know and my um my aunt my dad's sister she played with the Sweet Adelines which is a which is a b which is a group of women.

Who get together and sing and so her her faith was in and in and out of the church but so the church was always some part of my Dad's life and I was young in my family so I was five years younger than my youngest sister and eight years younger than my brother and there were three of them my brother and my two sisters and they remember I was.

Just talking to them actually because I don't remember of my parents being in church at all but my sister said that she remembers going to church that my dad took her to church and he was he h had her help collect the offerings in in the church and so he was there but by the time I came along he he was deep into curling and golf and real estate.

And insurance so he was deep into deep into the material world I would say he was deep into the material world and so my experience was more secondhand I I went to school I did I went to Sunday school but once my family left and you know we lived as Jordan did 400 miles north of the next major city and so when my siblings left home they they left.

Home and I saw them at Christmas and maybe Easter but some in the summer maybe but they were gone when they were gone and they left and I left the church yeah yeah yeah well it's it's a very similar story I'm sure to many people um I think who who perhaps there's been some background sort of relatives in in the faith but it just sort of slipped.

Away and and as you say it sounds like you kind of became a very self-reliant person and in a sense you didn't necessarily feel the need for for Faith or religion in your life but obviously that that did change quite dramatically in recent years now just before we talk about this Health crisis that precipitated this journey towards.

Catholicism I'd love to just set it in The Wider context because as I say you you'd already been on quite a ride up to that point um you'd obviously been married for some time to to your childhood sweetheart um successful academic clinical psychologist but just you know by 2018 being experiencing this meteoric rise to.

Prominence his bestselling Book 12 rules for life his you know message about responsibility and identity and purpose and and the wisdom actually found in the Bible were were attracting thousands to to hit you know these sellout tours and uh and and auditoriums and so on so so what did life look like in the midst of all of that this sudden sort of rise to.

Fame that that was happening to to Jordan Peterson at this point well it definitely was sudden you know it happened in a day uh it happened in a moment Jordan came down in the morning and said that he you know was uh he was um he was he had real uh deep trouble he could see deep trouble brewing and he felt that he had to say something.

Publicly and I said well you know you've been talking to me about these problems for 30 years why don't you just tell everybody let's see what happens and so that afternoon I was home my my son was home and we were both on the phone and there were reporters in the kitchen in the in the study with my husband on the porch and.

In their cars outside and we thought oh I guess this is what happened and we thought that would stop and it never stopped and mostly it never stopped because Jordan had all of his videos documented and online so when people came to see what his dark past was like um they found out what it was like because it was all there and they.

Couldn't really say anything about it because everything was in black and white as they say which is now on video mostly and um I had just I had had some health troubles already I had arthritis in my thumbs and my knees and I had stopped doing my work I was a massage therapist for very many years and I stopped about six months before that.

Happened and so I was meditating at home on about what I might find myself doing but I wasn't rushing it I was thinking you know it's going to come what I should do but I don't know what that is and I noticed that my husband was very busy and I thought maybe I could help him and then it was it within that week I think that this happened and so I was.

At home and I was there I wasn't off doing other things so I could help him with the it was it was very overwhelming yeah and not not just logistically but of course they had uh the university had uh questioned his attendance there he still taught for another semester after that before he finally um retired but but it was it's.

Quite everything was up everything was up his um clinical practice you know should he continue to do that because he wasn't able to concentrate like he could before and so he didn't think that was fair to his clients and so there was a lot up in the air and because I was home I was able to be uh an ear for him I could I could.

Listen and I could and I could say yes and you know it something that we laugh about is he was quite distraught at everything it was It was kind of spooky because it felt like our house was going to be attacked maybe our windows were going to be broken yeah I think the only thing that happened was somebody pushed over our garbage cans one night and and.

Uh flipp me a bird and I just yelled God be with you because it's just like what are you gonna do in this situation yeah yeah extraord extraordinary stuff I mean you what you're referencing here is in a sense the the early kind of um sort of Rise of Jordan when he was protesting freedom of speech essentially in Canada and not being forced to to to.

Use pronouns and so on as would have kind of been come to law now that that was certainly I would say the Genesis of the way in which Jordan kind of became a bit of a cult figure you know um to to many people I I really began to engage with his work when I started to see his lectures on the Book of Genesis being shared quite widely online and I was.

Just stunned to see hundreds of people turning out for a good two or three hours of just an in-depth lecture on the Book of Genesis I thought goodness how many pastors would love to have that kind of thing going on in their church and attracting a demographic that is often missing actually in many churches interestingly and then I I had the.

Enormous privilege of of Hosting him in a conversation when he came to the UK on an early tour in 2018 to promote 12 rules for life opposite um atheist psychologist Susan Blackmore and and again I was so surprised to find Jordan although not a professing Christian um really speaking on behalf of the Christian.

Vision of of humanity and uh being made in God's image and so on so so he's always been a very very interesting person to me as as a Christian myself as someone who obviously is almost a profit from outside the church kind of reorienting people back towards the value of Christian faith in that way and and and then as far as I'm aware you've.

You've tried to as you say sort of be available and to to go with him on that Journey you've often I think traveled with him as he's obviously been able to now speak to hundreds of thousands of people around the world as well Tammy that's right I I traveled with him in 2018 and I also went to the Bible lectures and I couldn't believe every I.

Think it was Thursday night there would be people lined up down blocks and blocks of people every Thursday night to get into this theater and listen to him speak which was phenomenal and then I I went to um it was the same people every week too 13 weeks it was a it was a university class it was the 13 week class yeah it was he couldn't believe it.

He couldn't believe that and it was young men it was it wasn't just young men but it was virtually all young men that were there which was the same thing that happened when we went on 2018 and I sat in the crowd I went anonymously and I worked on Logistics with him to make sure that he was fed and uh got to the theater on time and.

Was rested and all of that so I I looked at how he was conducting his days so that his lecture would go well and so that was that was but I was wondering all the time what I was doing there but I was sitting in the class it was I was sitting in the the lecture and I talked to people sometimes if there were uh protesters outside I went and I talked.

To them too to see what it was that they were up and they were so confused right they were just so and we've seen that now what they're like but they were they were so confused they were grabbing on to something that was what was it it was uh that a driver in uh I think it was Vancouver had driven and mowed down some people and killed some people and they.

Had all their portraits up outside of the theater and they were upset about it and I thought yeah you know that's a terrible thing but what are you doing here and they couldn't put into words what they were doing there they were just outraged and so people are outraged by the by what's going on in the world but they don't know they don't know what.

To do with it and the ones had that had come in and listen to Jordan they're finding uh a way right they're finding a way to listen to him and to find some common sense in their lives and to find some you know what I found I found courage and strength and uh guidance when I after I spent my year with him about three qus the way through that.

Uh three ques no it was probably at the end of it cuz cuz I went on a walking tour with my sister to Croatian which was a wonderful thing to do for about 10 days and I had gone on a carnivore Diet before that so that I could walk in Croatia because my knees had been so bad and my daughter said her arthritis was getting better and I and I was just down.

To meat and lettuce by then so I just gave up the lettuce and within two weeks my knees started to loosen and I thought okay I don't know but let's go with this and so I went to Croatia and I walked with her for 10 days which was great because that was the end of really my private life by then and um I came back and I two weeks later I was sick and had.

A fever and my digestion was upset and then it didn't get better and I went to the doctor and he said maybe you have a parasite and I thought oh yeah that could be and he did a scan and it was an ultrasound and he saw a a shadow on my kidney and so then he thought oh well hm so then they uh I had to come back I think we'd gone to Ireland because now.

This was continuing this tour that that Jordan was on and so it was it was continuing and I had already decided that I was going to travel with him and so I was traveling with them and I came back had a biopsy and then went back on tour and they told me what I had was a a type of cancer renal cell carcinoma that grows a millimeter a year and that.

Doesn't kill people that I could have I should have the surgery done but it there was no rush and so in March of 200 and 19 was when I came back for surgery and we were finished the tour we'd gone to Australia I think we were supposed to go to uh South Africa we were maybe going to go to Southeast Asia but it seemed that I.

Had that I had waited long enough and it was time to go home and so we went home I had surgery and I was getting B for my surgery but then I got a pain in my back and I went told my doctor I had a pain in my back just kind of a vertical pain not just a pain in your low back but a pain that kind of uh went up and down and uh he called me into the.

Office soon after that myself and my husband and his hands were shaking and he was getting me to sign forms for another surgery because he said actually what we found when we looked at the biopsy more carefully was that you have something called a balini tumor and a bini tumor is very aggressive and we see that it's.

Gone into your lymph system and we need to get you back in surgery as soon as possible and uh I thought well um that's too bad that's too bad but these things happen to people and I it's conceivable it's conceivable that it's happening to me so I went home to tell my son and I told him and when I told him I saw uh deep grief in his eyes.

And you know when Jordan and I were told Jordan was sitting in the office the doctor was talking to both of us we were both receiving the news so there wasn't any I wasn't telling Jordan he already knew the first person I told was Julian and when I told him I saw that his mother was dying which was a whole different scenario.

Than that I was dying because I had always been in control of my life I could decide I could decide if I was going to uh accept this prognosis but when I looked at in his eyes I realized that I wasn't I wasn't alone that I was intricately involved with my son and my daughter who wasn't there and then.

And my and my sisters and my dad who was still alive my mom was had passed away but you know and there were friends and relatives and all of these people and I thought wait a minute I'm I'm just I don't know I it was wait a minute and then I could feel the weight of the world lift off my shoulders I didn't know what that was.

But it felt like the weight of the world as they say I didn't know what that was and it seemed really all of a sudden common sense for me to say to him you know Julian only God knows when I'm going to die the doctor he has an opinion and a medical opinion and but it's an opinion it's it's not a certainty only God knows when I'm going.

To die and so we're going to go ahead now with gratitude for each day that we have together and uh yeah it's I mean I I I'm interested in the fact that you kind of almost accepted that diagnosis with with a lot of kind of um equinity yourself obviously it was the moment you told juli and your son that that suddenly you realized actually I do.

Want to be there for him for the family and and also that you you you you turned in a sense to God um rather than your own ability you said actually this is in ultimately in God's hands but we're going to as you say be grateful for every for every I suppose that that is what that kind of diagnosis does it makes you feel how precious life is when.

You're suddenly confronted with a diagnosis that that potentially could cut that life short in that way absolutely absolutely and I think I think I'd had plenty of moments in my life to turn to God you know I I'd had other brushes with death in uh when I was a teenager and when I was a young woman I even saw my life flash before my.

Eyes on a ski hill once when I thought I was going to hit a rock on a way down a mountain but those those things they didn't uh they didn't make make me reflect at all really it had to be and and that's one thing I I think about mothers you know mothers who uh people women who become mothers you become mothers and something becomes more.

Important than you your your child becomes more important than you and that's this that's a step forward that's necessary for maturation and for the acceptance of God As the father and as the one and only who can uh decide how your day is going to go and I think that when I looked at my son it was that relationship that had.

First had me surrender I surrendered to my babies for sure yeah I I I you you you've used exactly the word I was thinking of the idea of surrender and I think a lot of people do when finally God makes an inroad in their life it is that that sense of surrender and there's a certain kind of peace and serenity that comes with that even in often very.

Troubling circumstances um now this this obviously was hugely challenging um you were um you you so you you were then in hospital for some time um tell us about the friend who started visiting you and and praying with you on a regular basis yeah so I went to the hospital and uh had the surgery I had the surgery and it seemed.

To it seemed to go fine we were very stressed the night night before but they said that they got everything and they took out my whole kidney and all the lymph on one side and I went home and started to get better but then a week later my feet started to swell and it looked like they hadn't uh cauterized all of the lymph and so my body fluids.

Were leaking into the interstitial spaces in my in my body and and filling filling me up with fluid so I was drowning and um I went back to the hospital and they put a tube in my side to drain the fluid they took nine lers of fluid off my body so it was substantial uh biggest thing they'd seen they hadn't seen somebody that filled up.

Without you know I guess I maybe I was pretty healthy considering what had happened and my body was pretty resilient so I was able to my all my organs and everything were able to sustain what they were doing under duress like that so they took all the fluid off and took a lot of the duress away so then I.

Had a nurse come every day to drain a liter of fluid off I still wasn't comfortable after that though not at all but and I was told to eat no fat and that maybe the whole the leak in my li lymph because lymph filters out the fat and the fat really brings up all of the um all of the um nutrients that should be.

Discarded into the digestive system and expelled the the Fat's doing its job and the lymph helps the fat to do its job to keep us you know functioning and having our system clean and and uh mine was doing a good job of that but it got interrupted so they told me not to eat any fat give the lymph system a break and then maybe it would heal so that's.

What I was doing at home I was laying in bed really and eating nothing but vegetables and trying to get better But as time went by my uh Vital Signs started to um get less and less virent I was not holding up like I was and my son was with me and his daughter and they took my blood pressure a couple of times and they couldn't get.

My blood pressure and so then I went to the doctor and he put me back in the hospital again this time in emergency because I was they thought I was going to have a heart attack because that's what happens when your electrolytes go out of balance you know because it's potassium and calcium that are making the heart pump the the having the.

Electrolytes go back and forth and I didn't have enough electrolytes going back and forth so you're going to have a heart attack and so I uh went into the ICU and they you know put me on fluids and everything and tried to balance everything out and I kind of came to in the ICU realized how sick I was I was in.

There with a maybe about three other people and we each had a nurse and I thought oh this is intense what's happening here that's for sure and uh and then they put me in my own room and I thought that's probably not a good sign because they don't know what to do with me you know when you go to the hospital if you're with a lot of people.

That's a good sign that's a good sign just remember that when you think you'd like a lot of privacy you don't want any privacy because that means they're giving you a view because that's all they can offer right so it was around so I was in that room and uh I got an email from my friend Queenie and she asked if she.

Could come and visit and uh I said sure and she came with a couple of rosaries and a picture of the Virgin Mary with uh baby Jesus in an Asian form because Queenie is Asian and she left me this portrait and she said that these rosaries had been blessed by the pope and she asked me if I wanted to pray the rosary and I said yes which surprised.

Her because she didn't expect that she told me later and uh so she's thought that she'd pray me the rosary so so we went down to a nice part of the hospital that is called The Atrium and it is uh I don't know how many stories high four or five stories high with trees in it and benches to sit play anybody who could get there from the hospital rooms would.

Would go there because it was very much like being outside so it was a really lovely place to go and uh she would go there with me and she went there the first day and taught me the uh Joyful Mysteries and then she realized after that that she was going to have to teach me sorrowful mysteries because that was the.

Next day and I seemed so interested in it that she thought maybe she should come back and teach me that so she came back the next day to teach me the sorrowful Mysteries and that went very well too and so then she thought she better teach me the other two so she taught me the Luminous Mysteries and the Glorious Mysteries and by then it was.

Four days of her coming and it just started to be a uh a rhythm of things that she had never this was not in her mind to do it's just the way it worked out and so so she just continued to come and we just continued to pray and I spent with her I think at 10:00 in the morning I think I spent two hours so she she came with me and would pray with me.

For two hours every day and she saw how deeply I came into it right so she wasn't she wasn't G to say oh well I'm done it just didn't seem like the thing to do so this this carried on for quite some time praying Queenie praying the rosary with you um for those who and I include myself here Tammy are not very familiar with the rosary how does how is.

That distinct from perhaps any other kind of prayer that you might you might pray well first of all you have a set of beads right so you have these beads and they are I've been reading about the history of the Rosary so it's very cool history because it used to be uh 150 beads it was a lot of it was a lot of beads and and monks used it monks it was.

A prayer rope really essentially and it had nothing to do with uh the rosary at the beginning it was it was called the Maran uh um what's it called the Maran Maran I can't remember the last devotion I don't know okay so let's say the Maran devotion that's not exactly right but it's the Marian devotion and it was actually the the uh uh priest the the.

Monks in in France who decided that there was uh his he he was from the Dominicans there was a priest uh that took an interest in it and decided to and devoted himself more to understanding what it was about and uh and then the Bubonic plague came and they took it to England so it survived the plague and it came with the.

Dominicans and they ended up being the black Friars in England so they and they there was a there was another Monk in England who had been praying to Mother Mary before he went into the Seminary and he would pick a rose for each prayer for Mother Mary but when he went into the cemetery they wouldn't let him bring any roses in so he would.

Imagine imagine these roses with the rosary when he was praying and eventually his devotion and him associ associating it with roses they took the name the rosary so that that didn't happen until uh the 15th century I think it was something like the 15th century and so and and you know and then it's come to what it is.

Now but it's a very it has a very long history and although um and and each each of the Mysteries is a a gospel a gospel story and so it's a very it's kind of an interesting way to to go through the New Testament every morning and that is a good introduction to the Bible in a way you know I've showed the rosary to my little uh.

Grandchildren and they love the rosary and they are uh they're very interested in it they don't have any there's no skepticism there and there's no preconceived ideas of what it means to them they just think they just look at it and they're fascinated by it and I think they like when they're really.

Little they like the rhythm of the prayers because it is repetitive right it's it then maybe that's why a lot of people don't pick it up is because it's so repetitive but I did a lot of meditation and I started meditating when I left the church when I was 12 so I've I've been meditating for a very long time and so when I came to the rosary.

The whole meditation came to me very easily and it seemed good to me right off and so when I when I spent my time with Queenie and she was very good you know she told me uh how to pray it so we would share the prayer where she would pray the half first half would say the Lord's Prayer and I would pray the next half of the Lord's Prayer and she would.

Pray the first half of the Hail Mary and I would pray the second half of the H Hail Mary and uh that was the way that we went through the whole Rosary was together but at the at the beginning of each Mystery she would tell me the story that went along with that mystery and um you know for the joyous mystery that's the enunciation and the and uh you know.

Mary's story of of uh humility and so one way that you can uh pray the rosary is to imagine what the story is and then imagine what the um what what one of the virtues might be that comes out of that story and for the first one well it would be humility and so then we would pray so I would pray on humility when Queenie prayed with me she'd just say.

Who do you want to pray for right and so we would choose someone to pray for and it started out being my family members mostly that I was praying for and I still have people I pray for my sister's very sick so that's heavy on my heart she's gone to Mana she's only 69 she's in a nursing home it's very sad but my other sister has taken care of.

Her through these last few years so you know it's as good as it can be and she's a peaceful person so that's also amazing so I prayed for all of those people and my dad was dying and of course I couldn't see him so it was sad so I cried just like this I cried for two hours and uh eventually the the uh prayers became more um I'd pray for my.

Dad but I'd pray for all old people or I'd pray for my sister I'd pray for all sick people or pray for my son and I'd pray for all Young Fathers I guess he wasn't a father then but I'd pray for all babies and you know so I just I'd pray for particular people but then I would universalize it and so my prayers have grown and changed over the years.

And you know Queenie went I left the hospital and she didn't see me anymore she said she came back weeks and weeks later and I was still praying the rosary and she was quite surprised because I kept doing it it was uh comforting yeah absolutely thank you for sharing that and and you're welcome it's and thank you for your being so candid with you.

Know the the ongoing prayers that you're praying for people who are who are very much still in the midst of of challenging times um I mean your health I I suppose was there was still a big question mark over where this was all heading for you yeah there was there was I've heard an interesting story that you actually sort of.

Prophesied almost when you would be out of the woods to to Jordan do you want to just tell us about that sure well you know Jordan wasn't feeling very well he was he should have been in a hospital probably although I doubt that because they keep people with his kind of trouble they just keep putting you on drugs and that's not the right way to do.

It got to take them off the drugs but um whenever I'd go to pray the rosary I'd come back he'd be sleeping in my hospital bed so I think that was a sign he should have been in the hospital because he was there with me as much as he could have been you know he was always there with me that's for sure or you have to ask me the question again I.

Can't remember well it was really what happened you you sort of almost prophesied yeah oh yeah your your own healing to Jordan right but I was so I was watching Jordan I was seeing how much he suffered and uh that was heavy on my heart and I think that that so I don't know I thought if I could say.

Something that would be uh comforting to him that might be helpful and so I just said what seemed reasonable I said you know you know I've had surgery the cancer is gone I just have this leak that is keeping me in the hospital and they can't find the leak but I think that you know things will be solved by the time uh we have our.

Anniversary in in August that's what I think and so I'm hopeful you know so that I wanted to give him some hope that this wasn't something that was just going to be forever and that that he had not he had no he was going to have no life because it was uh all consuming it was all consuming it was he was he was still managing to write some.

But you know it was my my son had gone off to Ireland for a holiday with his wife and then he got a call oh your mom's back in the hospital and so they came came home and it was you know it was pretty dire the whole time for about however many months that I was sick for everyone to carry on with their lives so I wanted to give Jordan some hope and.

That seemed like a reasonable thing to say and so that's what I said and and it turned out that it was actually on the date of your anniversary that you received the kind of the old clear effectively um just just quickly yeah tell us what happened there yeah so I was uh in the hospital they were looking for this leak they couldn't find it I.

Had gone down to the States to uh to where they thought I they could surely find this leak and I went to this Hospital in h Philadelphia and I met uh Max Max itkin who was uh he was a good doctor and he and he had done his work he was from I think he was from Russia if he wasn't from Russia.

The fellow who had started the full Interventional Radiology was from Russia and he and uh he had actually I think he pretended to be a Frenchman but he was actually a Russian because he wanted to marry some woman I think that was why he did that but anyway so this doctor told me what was going to happen that he was going to.

Come and so and but he told me he was going to find it and but if it didn't if he didn't find it the first day and the first day they were just going to put needles in my belly with the a do that they had put in with poppy seedoil and they were just going to look for the leak through uh a screen because they had MRI guided um visualization which we.

Didn't have in Canada so he assured me he was going to find this leak but if he didn't find it that day so there was a small possibility he wouldn't find it the next day they would or the next in the next week they would come and do something a little more invasive and then eventually I would go home and I would have some sort of contraption that.

Put me back together he's going to put me back together he assured me of that and so the day of the surgery he didn't show up he didn't show up so I was all ready but there had been a storm and a tree had come down and hit his car and he couldn't make it to the hospital in time so I think I came I came in there and that's when another surgeon came in.

And told me all about Max hikin and his history because what we can do with this patients he's sitting there waiting so he told me a story for an hour about his back the the surgeon's background and eventually he arrived and he arrived and I went into surgery and I came out and they hadn't found the leak they hadn't found the leak and so.

They put me back in the uh in the room and they told me to eat This na I hadn't eaten in five weeks because IID had eventually ID had food right into my heart uh to keep me nourished and that actually helped me to really be with it because before that I wasn't very with it uh and so when I went down there they.

Took that out and they gave me again non-fat food but they told me that in five days they were going to cut me open and look and I thought oh that's terrible because the lymph system is like a spider web in your body and I mean to see that to see that is well you're again it's uh surgeons must I can't I just can't imagine having that.

Kind of job and the pressure that you're under and the guidance that you must need from God because good lord it's uh impossible work impossible work yeah and I knew it was impossible work obviously it was impossible work because I hadn't been able to find this leak for now had been you know two months and nobody had been able to find this leak in my system.

And I and so I was doing all right I was they gave me a place to eat outside and just outside the room there was a nice little place to eat and I was doing all right and my family was there again they had come my son and his wife were there and my uh mother-in-law and uh my my sister-in-law and her kids and my husband so they were all there and they.

Had team Tammy t-shirts that they made it was very nice my my sister-in-law Bonnie she's a nurse and she's worked with people who are very sick so she knows how to be with people who are very sick and and bring like make keep them she posted she posted prayers on my wall of uh people who'd send prayers she put got colored pencils and and I looked at.

Them and it was good you know it was good anyway um it was about four days it' been four days and I knew that this surgery was coming and I thought oh geez and I thought well they told me the one way that they could tell if the lymph was um closed or if it was working properly or not because I didn't know I had this.

Bag still of fluid on my side they said if there's something that looks like fat so it's cloudy that means that there's still uh a leak and it's leaking into this bag and and so it's still leaking so if you ate some fat then we'd have an idea that it was still leaking so I thought well I'm going to I'm not going to wait for them to tell me went to eat.

So bad I'm going to just eat so I I ordered something and I can't remember I think it might have been eggs that I ate um and I looked in the little bag afterwards and I didn't see anything and I thought well you know I don't know but I I did what I could do I ate the fat and that was the test and okay it's a fat challenge but the next morning I was.

Sitting outside and uh the nurse and the and one of the uh interns came and he told they told me that I was going to have to do a fat Challenge and I said oh well I did one last night and they said oh uh let's see the bag I said okay and so I lifted it up and it was clear and for some reason they believed me that I'd eaten something the night before but.

They did they believed me and they said oh well if the bag is clear and you ate a fatty meal then the hole is closed like there's not it's not open anymore and so as far as we're concerned we don't have to do anything more uh you're you're healed oh and so they had me go back in the hospital and I took out the IV and the you know everything that I.

Was attached to and a half an hour later I was out of the hospital and I went back to the Airbnb with my family and uh when I got there we realized that it was August 19th and that was our anniversary and none of us had been paying that close attention to what what day it was how extraordinary.

Yeah what what it's an amazing Story I mean this was obviously very much part of the background to why you ultimately have been received into the Catholic Church Tammy and yeah maybe you know because Jordan can't even he can't even explain it which is hard on his um logic it's hard on his logic yeah when.

You saw Tammy's new found faith and now her conversion to the Catholic Church her deepened faith deepened faith she had faith of of a courageous sort before that she certainly had faith in the truth but how have you seen a change in her oh she's got deeper that's for sure she's um she has more faith in herself which has enabled her to attempt things.

That she had forbidden herself before many things she she's speaking publicly she's which she wouldn't have done before although she may have liked to even though she would have hidden that from herself that desire people hide even their desire to have their light shine much less the light they.

Hide that from themselves that's lack of faith they're afraid that if they admitted to the ambition and pursuit it it would come to not she's less troubled in her soul that's a good way of putting it she's recovered that state of childhood that Christ Associates with.

The kingdom and that's a remarkable thing to see because I also knew her as a child and so I can actually see that reemerge and that's quite the bloody miracle that is you obviously been willing to see the hand of God in in some of these things these coincidences and so on even even.

In very challenging times you've you've I I suspect in all honesty that all that prayer has has really made a difference not just to your physical state but also to the way I think you approach God I I I often think that that prayer itself often gives you a different perspective on life it forces you to stop looking at your own troubles and and to focus on a.

Much bigger picture and and and so on to put yourself out of the the frame so much and I how how did your family react to your increasing interest in in Catholicism in in taking Faith seriously in that way well I think that they saw quite a change in me once I began to practice prayer and I think it is a practice and I think that's what makes.

It uh necessary is is it's a practice and you practice the things you know when I when I was sick and Jordan was sick and we were very sick and didn't see each others for about two years when we came back together uh I didn't know whether we still it everything had changed so much.

Because we had both really been through the ringer and and uh didn't know whether our marriage still made sense but the things that we' practiced were the things that survived you know and one of the things we practiced was having dates together and so we decided one day to have a date even though he was still very sick but we we didn't.

Have to say well how do we do that and where are we going to do that we didn't have to do that because we'd already done that for 30 years it's like oh yeah you know go light some candles I'll go have a shower put on something nice and we'll meet and we danced and it did and it was okay you know it was okay we had a moment together that was kind of.

Normal and we thought oh okay so our relationship survived and that's why you practice prayer that's why I practice prayer and so when people when my family sees me doing these things they see the outcome of it my husband has seen the outcome of it my son and my daughter I don't ask them how I've changed they tell me Mom you've changed your um.

Uh you're a delight to be around really yeah yeah absolutely I mean the the proof is in the pudding as they say uh it's the fruits it's the fruit by their fruits you shall know them and and in that sense the you know it's one thing to say I'm a Christian or I practice prayer but.

Obviously it's once people see the the real change in people's lives that that that makes the difference I mean you've already referenced that Jordan Peterson himself was going through some extraordinary health challenges um this really came hot on the heels of your own diagnosis as you say he was already you know obviously suffering even at the.

Time you going through your own thing um what merge was that there was a sort of um addiction to um unwitting addiction to uh anti-anxiety medication that that um really was it really forced him out of any kind of public role for I I suppose the best half best part of a year and a half to nearly two years actually yeah um and um and that itself.

Obviously must have been incredibly difficult for the family I mean it it must have felt like everything was sort of after this extraordinary explosion onto the public stage suddenly everything was sort of collapsing around you there were there were all these challenges and so on how did you deal with that yourself um how did the whole.

Family deal with that I mean do you see God's hand in any way in in all of these ups and downs that the family has gone through in the last several years no I think I always see God's hand in everything now but um I had I had I had been practicing it was very strange right it was a very strange time because first of all I.

Became sick and and then I had this experience that was very religious when I felt the way of the world leave me and and I felt filled with love really and peace um and that was a moment of uh surrender that moment was my first moment of surrender I would say and so but then there were many moments of surrender as.

I went through my illness and so by the time I was out of the hospital and Jordan was in the hospital uh my life was about surrendering and so I was surrendering to his troubles as well and he knew that and so did my family know that and so whenever they talked to me then it was I I was just you know God's will.

Will bring us through this however it we need to uh however it comes out it's not it's not in our hands and so I think that that was there was a lot of struggle right there was a lot of struggle but I wasn't struggling I wasn't struggling at all and I wasn't struggling for Jordan either I was I had.

Accepted that he was that he had h a cross to bear you know it was it was so complicated right because I'd gone to back to eating meat in January and then by by uh October that year I was diagnosed with cancer at the beginning and Jordan had gone on the carnivore diet not that long after me but when when he went on the carnivore diet he.

Had been on anti-depressants for years and years and years and years right from the from the time we moved to Toronto he was on them and we went on them when my daughter was in grade two or three so a very long time ago my daughter's 31 right so long time and um he went off those anti- uh.

Depressants too quickly and that destabilized him in a in a way that uh it it kind of I guess makes your BL brain inflamed and so then it's more reactive to and so he ate something that his system couldn't tolerate and his brain was so reactive that it made him very very very very.

Anxious and and unable to sleep and he had to go back to University and teach and so he went to the doctor for something to help him sleep and to control this anxiety that was so overwhelming really he was just laying in bed he was not able to do anything and he need he felt he needed to go back to work and so he's even but I don't.

Think he realized and when none of us realized that he'd gone off the anti-depressants too quickly and so really that was the thing and then and then he took uh another psych drug which obviously calmed down his brain but in the aftermath of this uh uh.

Neurological uh trauma that he continued to have neurological traumas with these psych drugs that the doctors kept giving him over the months you know so it was it was very complicated along with how it began and then how it and then how it played out and so yes he he definitely had a lot of trouble but it didn't really start with the Beno daer Pines it.

Started with the anti-depressants yeah been on for a very long time it obviously been a long a long history and story there and in a way people have to be aware of that because people are on these drugs they have to be you have to go off of those drugs over very many months under a doctor's care just a tiny little bit of at a time cuz your brain.

You can't you know the brain GE wi you know you could you C you have to encase it in bone it's so delicate you have to be careful with it yeah yeah I I mean eventually he did come through that and I I I I remember listening and watching some of the early kind of videos that he did just as he was.

Beginning to emerge again from from that really really difficult period where he he was sort of having to come off and um and kind of learn to just function again really um uh this was in early 2021 and I know that that Michaela was very involved in in helping him in that Journey um I mean as he has emerged from that and obviously gone back into public.

Life uh and and as your family in a sense has again been exposed to all of that sort of um I suppose inevitably a a lot of um Fame criticism that comes with it um and everything else how how the fact that you are now where you are how has that changed the way I suppose your family deals with that do do does does faith figure much I suppose.

In the in the Peterson family now when it comes to the way you just approach life together having been through this this extraordinary few years well I I had plans to uh enter into the Catholic church at Easter and so a couple of weeks before my daughter Michaela called me and said that she was going to be.

Baptized and she was going to be baptized on the same day that I was going to be confirmed into the church and I thought wow that's that's a that's a prayer for me that's answered you know when I was when the kids were very very young I wanted to baptize the kids and Jordan wasn't interested in it and I didn't persist and I so I didn't baptize.

Them but it was always something that was heavy on my heart that I hadn't baptized my kids but I would Overjoyed that Michaela was was going to enter the church so yes it's changed things you know Michaela used to say to me you know I'm not I tell her stories about and I I see miracles in my life every day because I pray the rosary I try to get.

Myself in the morning so that if there's anything on my mind that I've given it to God as soon as I wake up and so that I'm ready for whatever challenges God has going to give me for the day and so um and now and then I'd have challenges and work out in ways that I hadn't looked at because I'm uh I'm pausing and waiting.

For the way things are supposed to be rather than imposing my will you know and I'd call Michaela and tell her these stores and she'd say Mom I'm not I'm not there yet and I'd say well that's okay I just want to tell you what's going on in my life and then eventually she she called me and she said yeah I uh I think something's happened to me and yeah and.

Uh so she now baptized and really trying very hard to uh have God's will give her the guidance that she needs to and it and the thing is um our family is definitely in the public eye and so if we're going to be of service uh this is the best way to do it I think so I'm I'm I'm all in as far as this goes yeah I mean we' talked about.

Your faith you mentioned a little bit about about Michaela's journey I I know many people in my circle of acquaintances for whom Jordan himself has been quite instrumental in them actually opening the door to Faith many people for whom he's kind of opened up the whole idea of faith and religion allowed them to take it seriously again.

People who perhaps were very persuaded at one time by the Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris's you know sort of dismissing faith and so on um obviously see Jordan approaches it very much through a psychological lens and through that jungian kind of framework and so on when he's talking about the value of the Bible and and so on um what do you get a.

Sense of how he kind of makes sense of all this from where he's standing um I don't get it I don't get a sense of it really I don't I don't get a sense of it I he's got a great understanding of it he knows the stories uh he's getting so he knows the stories very well and understands what they mean which is really helpful it's so helpful his.

Interpretations of the stories is like yeah yeah that's what that means I get it now and that's why people are listening to him is because they do get it now um and uh his story and his journey that's Jordan's Journey and uh he'll Enlighten us as it happens and I I don't have any more information than anybody else does I'm but he's watching.

Me but he's definitely watching me and uh and he sees the changes that have come and he can't understand it and so and so he knows what it is uh he's seen it now yeah very closeand so we'll see what happens I I know that his next book is we who wrestle with God and I I just feel like there is obviously a wrestling going on there but it's a wrestling that.

Is fascinatingly I think God is using in remarkable ways um in all kinds of unusual surprising ways um so I've personally been you know in a sense Overjoyed to see the way in which so many people have benefited from that um my I I published a book last year Tammy called the surprising Rebirth of belief in God um it it features actually.

Jordan quite a bit in it um because I do feel like with the waning of the kind of very skeptical new atheist approach there has been a kind of a Reawakening of a sense that people are looking for meaning and purpose and identity there's there's this meaning crisis a lot of people talking about in our culture um do you do you sense I don't know and.

Your story again just again was another story where I've just been hearing so many people you know intelligent 21st century people who are suddenly bumping into God unexpectedly I just wondered whether you've been noticing that yourself in in any way recently um yes I I defin I had a young woman come to church she messaged me on.

Instagram and she asked asked me if I was going to church and I told her I was and I told her where I was going and when I'd be there and she came and uh she said she was a Catholic she hadn't been to church in six years uh young a young woman in her early 20s and uh she only sat with me I told her I was going an hour ahead.

Because I was going to pray before mass and I didn't know where she was in the church but she was there and she said that was the first time in seven years that she has been somewhere and sat somewhere and felt at peace and so she came and sat with me during the mass and um she was she.

Was present and she was open to experiencing what she had forgot was there or never really personally experienced what was there but she was definitely experiencing then and that that was really that was really lovely to see and so I've I've heard these stories from different people but that was one that was that I was really there.

For and uh I was very grateful to be there yeah that's that's a lovely story I know that you also obviously hear from lots of people through the podcast that you run the video channel and so on do you do you get a sense that I don't know among Millennials those gen Z there is there is a A Renewed interest then in in a spiritual Dimension to life in.

Trying to find something Beyond just the the material well this woman was young and I imagine she's one of many because these these things don't happen one at a time even even my you know the thing that I went through although it was unusual um it's not um other people are going through.

These things as well at the same time as I am and even Jordan's but Jordan's going through now people are going through what he's gone through so they're they're finding understanding but through that understanding they're finding surrender and I we need surrender in this world.

Right now you know traveling around I can see that the people that come to see Jordan they're in better shape than they were in 2018 you know the the young men who came back in our first tour they came by themselves usually and uh and they were their stories were uh sad most of them but now they are um usually coming with a partner or their.

Or their parents are with them and they're telling us stories of years of putting themselves back together right and and so they look good the crowds look good and and they're all dressed really nicely and they're coming together in celebration really and and uh it's beautiful you know when I go out on stage really I thank them for being.

For coming for taking the time out to listen to my husband because he's got something to say to them and uh I thank well I just thank the theater people and our security and everybody and then I bring Jordan out on stage and they are they're so grateful to be there and to listen and this uh this book it's all scripture yeah it's all scripture yeah.

So that's good as far as I'm concerned I don't know where it's going and why it's there exactly except for uh it's necessary I know it's necessary and if Jordan has to be the one to talk about it well then so be it but yeah so I don't know what that means for us but I do know what it means for the world I know it means that there has to be a.

Rebirth there has to be there's too many people gone astray now and it's dangerous it's dangerous well look uh it's been a very hopeful surprising conversation with you Tammy I really appreciate the time you've given and and just the the openness and honesty with which you've shared your journey and pleasure and all.

Of the the ups and downs of it um I'm just yeah very hopeful as well I I think one of the reasons why you know just just this is my personal opinion one of the reasons why Jordan has connected with so many people is because he feels real um he just kind of wears his heart on his sleeve when he.

Gets on stage uh and I also sense that with you and the whole family Dynamic there's just a sense that we're watching something really real not kind of packaged and sort of made perfect and you're all on a journey you're all kind of working out what this means for yourselves but it's I think this gives a lot of people hope that there's there's.

Kind of hope for kind of their lives for their their messy kind of you know unscripted Journeys that actually God can do something um inscripted because it's not up to us to write the story yeah that's the adventure in it Jordan says but it's true that this isn't an adventure our lives and if you if you let that happen.

All sorts of unexpected things are going to happen and it's going to be remarkable well bless you thank you so much for sharing some of your journey with us uh for being my guest on the show today uh if you want more about Tammy I'll make sure there are Links of course from today's show where you can find her podcast and more resources.

Besides but for now thank you so much for being with me Tammy thank you

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