you know, but if I don't do this, I could possibly just die in this misery and never know if I could have made it and done something that really was congruent with the intention that I want to live my life by.

I just want to live intentionally.

So brought up in a deeply observant Jewish Orthodox household with a certain reverence for her family's history, Shelley Tegelski embraced the traditions and teachings and practices of her faith, even spending summers in Jerusalem with family, then heading off to college and then grad school, she pursued a master's in international affairs, then began building this powerhouse career in business along with the family.

But along the way, she found herself really starting to question the rules and assumptions by which she lived.

And the more she did, the more the walls began to come tumbling down.

At 27, diagnosed with a chronic disease that left her temporarily blind, she knew a different narrative needed to be set in motion.

And Shelley began to embrace her then years long exploration of Eastern traditions and practices, growing largely out of Tibetan Buddhism, and started really the process of reclaiming and reimagining her life on her terms.

A process that would eventually lead her away from a 20 year career at the highest levels of business and into the world of advocacy, activism and self care, though as you learn, advocacy and a deep exploration of the heart and mind, they've always been a part of the world.

And she always began teaching meditation to a few friends on the beach on Sunday mornings and each time more people started showing up they were inviting friends and then they would invite friends until her Sunday meditation on the beach, grew into hundreds of people and a community of more than 15,000 people that called themselves the sand tribe.

Her promise and her invitation, no barrier to entry, all are welcome. And this fierce devotion to elevating others, it led her to post a simple form online in the early days of the pandemic in March of 2020, connecting those in need with those who wanted help.

That form went wildly viral, becoming a global mutual aid movement that eventually became called the pandemic of love that has now generated more than 60 million dollars in mutual aid, matched over 2 million people and served as a bridge to see the humanity in others at a time we need that more than ever.

And shelly shared much of this journey in her powerful new book, Sit Down to Rise Up. So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields and this is Good Life Project.

It's so good to be able to hang out with you. There are so many things I want to explore with you. I was just moving through your Instagram recently. And there's a story that you shared there that kind of just like stopped me in my tracks, which is a little bit of a magical thinking story, but it was also so deeply moving and powerful about your father and love's passing and something.

That happened shortly after it. Would you share that story?

Yeah, I'd love to. I'd love to.

So my father in law, his name is Zenon Tegelski. He grew up in Chicago to a Polish family who immigrated to the US. He was born here. His father died when he was pretty young. He's the oldest of six children.

And he always hated the name Zenon, which apparently is a popular name or was in the 1930s in Poland, but never a name that like we ever met anybody also having that name, you know, here in the US.

And he just hated being bullied for his name. So he changed his name to Chuck, like when people ask him what's your name, you would say my name's Chuck. But later on in life, he really started to embrace that name and we started to call him big zen, you know, for short.

And I think it was perfect in terms of his personality as well. And I had a very close relationship with him. I always used to joke with my husband, but there's some truth to it. I used to tell him that I fell in love with his dad before I fell in love with him.

And my father and I was just really the most decent human being that I've ever met in my life. And I know, like I don't even know if decent cuts it, but like that is the word that always sticks out in my mind because he was just such a good person and such a good soul.

And I always felt so comfortable with him and like I had known him for many, many lifetimes. And here we were, you know, converging again and we met again.

And, you know, unfortunately, my father in law had Louis body dementia, which was misdiagnosed as Parkinson's originally.

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