Dean Owens and Kasey Parsons

Dean (D) and Kasey (K) share why they wanted to participate in today’s interview.

K shares more about her kids and husband.

K talks about Optimistic Elephant, the yoga business that she started. K says she started the business right as the COVID-19 pandemic started. She says the business lasted two years before she decided to shut the location down.

D talks about his daughters and becoming a grandfather for the first time. He says his whole family lives in Wichita. D discusses his day job and all the entrepreneurial activities he enjoys. K talks about learning that she doesn’t need to monetize all of her hobbies.

K tells D about her husband. She says that she and her husband are very different and there are times where they can come to an understanding and other times when they can’t. K says she often feels like the odd man out in her family.

K says more about her spiritual background. She says she was raised by a single father who described himself as an “independent believer.” K says her father never baptized her or her siblings because he wanted them to make their own decisions when it came to faith. K describes her current spiritual beliefs. She says she believes in God and Jesus but disagrees with a lot of stances from churches.

K and D discuss the similarities and cross-roads of yoga and more traditional religions. They compare meditation to prayer. D says his peace comes from reading scripture and reflecting and meditating on what he’s read.

D shares more about his religious path. He says as a teenager he was partying a lot. D says he met his wife at a party and she started hammering him about going to church. D says he started going and eventually asked Jesus into his heart.

D says his dad and mom adopted four kids in their sixties. He says his mom was killed which left his dad to be a single dad to four kids in his seventies. D talks about how the children’s lives unfolded and the obstacles they faced.

K says she was nineteen months old when she lost her mother. She says her mother died while giving birth to her younger brother at thirty-one years old. K talks about her relationship with the women her father later remarried. K says she and her dad are close.

D shares more about his mother. He says his mom and his dad both got their master’s degree in their sixties. D explains the horrible tragedy of his mother’s death. D says his mother was a servant who always wanted to help people.

D talks about how he has coped with the tragedy of his mother’s death. He says that sin is sin. He elaborates how he thinks about forgiveness.

K says for a long time she really wanted her husband to explain certain beliefs he has about Jesus not accepting her. She says had to see her part in the situation and learn to not take things personally.