S3/E21-I'm Back

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Where Has Bruce Been?
After a three-year pause, Don’t Forget To Breathe returns with a raw and transparent look at the life-changing events that kept Bruce away from the mic. In this powerful relaunch, Bruce shares his journey through divorce, trauma, therapy, self-discovery, healing, and a new direction in life. It's a fresh chapter—honest, heartfelt, and rooted in the hope of moving forward together.

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Episode Transcript

Bruce (00:34):
Welcome to Don't Forget to Breathe.
I'm your host, Bruce Barker.
All right, we're kicking offseason three.
And yes, it's been a minute.
The last time I sat in thischair was in February 2022.
It is now July 2025.
A lot has happened during thattime.

(00:56):
And as I mentioned in thepreview, I'm going to let you
know what transpired and why thelong delay, hiatus, break,
whatever you want to call it.
I'm just going to kind of coverall of that with you.
Just need you to bear with me.
There's a lot that I'm going tothrow out there at you, but

(01:19):
just keep in mind that it's allrelated to grief, loss, trauma.
So it all kind of sews intogether, and I think you'll see
that as we go along.
So here's the outline of whatwe're going to talk about.
There was divorce.

(01:41):
There was a lot of intensivetherapy, shutting down a
business, starting a brand newcareer, spending time with other
parents who've lost childrenfrom a group standpoint,
facilitating groups as well.
A lot of growth, a lot ofhealing, and a lot of discovery

(02:07):
and a new outlook on everydaylife.
So let's dive in.
So after doing a season to wrapup, I could tell there was a
lot of uh things going on withme, and I was just getting in a
place where I didn't feel Icould be authentic.

(02:28):
And that's that's been thefocus and the main key with this
and and and hosting the podcastis to always be honest and
transparent and genuine andpresent.
And things were coming up justfrom um all the discussions and
topics in the conversations onthis podcast, and it brought up

(02:51):
some things and that needed tobe um dealt with.
Honestly, since uh 2010 when wegot married.
That's because of just where Iwas in in my grief journey and

(03:12):
my grief work, which my griefwork had been zero.
I had my strategies that leavewhat I've discussed before,
basically avoiding holidays as away of coping with the pain and
the sadness.
So it came up in the firstChristmas that I had with my new

(03:38):
family, thinking, you know, I'dI'd had four Christmases
without my daughter, and so wewere sitting around and uh the
boys were decorating the tree,playing, started playing
Christmas music, and I justlashed out and just you know,
just yelled to turn it off.

(03:58):
It it uh was such a visceralreaction to hearing holiday
music and the pain that I wasfeeling from it.
And I made the comment later Ididn't understand why that was
my reaction, because I hadalready I had had four

(04:19):
Christmases, and my wife said,actually, no, you haven't.
You avoided them, and this isyour first one.
So that kind of became a littlebit of a theme throughout the
marriage was reacting toreacting to my trauma, my grief,
my loss, basically reacting tosituations with anger as a way

(04:49):
of coping with the fear that Iwas feeling and the sadness.
And I created an atmosphere ofeggshells, basically.
So this was, you know, thiswent on and there was a lot of
there was still a lot of growthand a lot of help and a lot of

(05:10):
healing that was taking place,uh, but there was still a lot of
damage going on throughoutthose years.
Basically, one of the biggestthings was, you know, I was
never really, never acontrolling person in a
relationship.
And my reactions to things umcoming up certainly came across

(05:33):
that way.
So basically, to give you anexample, if my wife was going
somewhere, going to see someoneout in the mountains, and I knew
about how much time it wouldtake, and you know, typically
you make those little textmessages as it's um, you know,
hey, got here safe, you know,see you in a day or two,

(05:53):
whatever it is, you know,whatever the situation.
And when I wouldn't get thattext an hour late, two hours
late, or when the arrival timeshould have been, I immediately
jumped to worst case scenario.
I went from zero to worstinstantly, rather than have a

(06:15):
rational reaction.
Okay, could have stopped forgas, stopped for coffee, got
into a great conversation assoon as you got there.
I immediately jumped to rolledthe car off the side of a
mountain and is dead in a ditch.
And through later therapy anddiscovery, that's coming back to

(06:36):
I had received the mostunexpected, worst phone call
ever of what I thought wasimpossible.
So now everything becamepossible.
So after getting that callabout Kristen dying, anything
was possible, and I jumped tothat from fear, fear of losing

(07:00):
again.
And that created a lot ofdamage.
So, you know, kind of fastforward to 2020, after the
pandemic, basically there was alot of time we spent together,
um, as as probably all of youdid, where you're a little bit

(07:23):
isolated and you're spending alot of time together, and and
it's also a time that you'reprobably spending alone sometime
as well, which is allowing youto process thoughts and feelings
and actions.
And that's what I was doingduring that time from you know
not working every day, butdealing with the pandemic and

(07:46):
conversations.
And that's when I realized Ireally needed, I really needed
to get serious about therapy.
And so that's when I beganseeing a professional licensed
therapist in 2020.
And this continued, and one ofthe things, one of the results
of that is instead of writingdown what I was feeling and

(08:09):
thinking about grief, was Ilaunched the podcast so that I
spoke what I was feeling, andthat was the start of that.
So I knew that this therapy wasand and this additional grief
work was working.
Um because then the second tothe last Christmas that we were

(08:33):
together, I'd gone to grocerystore, and you know, when you go
in there during the holidayseason, there's those little
bags of pine cones that smelllike cinnamon and you know smell
like the holidays.
And prior to that, I would gothrough and just kind of be
repulsed by it and and you know,again, have a negative
reaction.
And in that Christmas, I smeltthose pine cones and thought,

(09:02):
huh, I'm gonna buy those, bringthem home.
So I did, I brought them home,and then family comes in later
and they're going, where did thepine cones come from?
And I said, I bought them.
And they're like, really?
And so it was certainly a shockto them.
So while I was healing, therewas a lot of damage that had

(09:27):
already been created by myreactions during the holidays.
So it was sort of a too manyeggshells type of environment.
So let's jump back into thetherapy that I mentioned.
Trying to get down to the rootof what was going on and some of

(09:53):
the things that were brought upagain that I mentioned in the
episodes uh in season two, itstarted bringing up some traumas
that were outside of the grief,but together were a pretty
volatile and lethal combination.
There's this wheel of emotions.

(10:15):
Um, if you've heard about it,that is awesome.
You should take a look.
If you haven't, you can look itup uh anywhere on the internet
and pull it up.
But basically, the emotionswheel gets down to the core
emotion and and breaks out intoall of these other descriptors

(10:37):
of how you're feeling.
So the wheel looks kind of likea piece of pizza, and it has
the center as your core emotionsof anger, disgust, sad, happy,
surprise, and fear, and then itfans out from there.
So it's basically like you'repeeling back layers from the
outside.

(10:57):
So in my case, anger was myreaction from fear.
And if you get a chance to lookat the emotion wheel, there's
one word that is in both fearand anger, the word insecure.
What that was for me was a fearof loss.

(11:22):
So a fear of losing again andhow it all tied in.
So there was an incident thatoccurred in the summer of 2021.
My wife at the time and I wewent up to visit some relatives.
There were a lot of peoplecoming to town, and we had a
camper trailer at the time.

(11:42):
Had set up the camper trailer,hadn't connected electricity or
anything like that.
She was going to stay and getthe camper set up, and I was up
at the house a little farther upthe property, just visiting
with uh with family.
So someone said, I thinkthere's some smoke back where
the camper is.
And I looked and I could see alittle bit, and I went, oh,

(12:03):
that's odd because I don't haveany power hooked up.
So I started a little jog downthere and then decided to pick
up the pace when I kept seeingthe smoke and realizing it is
coming from the trailer becausethe trailer is parked behind a
building.
And got there.
And so when I got there, I sawthe smoke coming out of the
trailer.

(12:23):
Door was open.
I started to step inside.
And when I did that, I wentinto firefighter mode.
And I used to be a volunteerfirefighter.
Both my brothers are careerfirefighters, and there was this
instinctual action that I did,and it just kind of took over.

(12:46):
My wife was stepping out, Imoved her to the side and went
in and started peeling panelingoff the off the walls, trying to
get through to make sure thatthere was no fire in the walls,
that everything was out and thatit was cool.
And I didn't realize it at thetime, but there was this just

(13:08):
this wave of anger that had comeover me.
And it wasn't about there'sdamage to the camper.
It wasn't anything like that.
It was fear.
And it created a bit of anissue.
Okay, it created a giant issuewith my wife at the time who you
know had made the comment,well, yes, I'm okay.

(13:29):
Thanks for asking.
But I was I was working ontrauma brain.
That's how I was functioning.
That goes back to an incidentwhen I was a volunteer
firefighter.
It was when Kristen was three.
And I was in a small town doingthis.

(13:50):
There was a call for a uh ahouse that was on fire.
I was first on the scene.
The house was completelyinvolved.
Someone came up and said,There's kids inside.
And so as a result of the fire,um, there were two kids inside
that died, and we had to bringthem out, place them in the

(14:11):
ambulance, wait for the coroner.
And I happened to be thewitness for the coroner, and
those are just images insidethat ambulance that will always
stick with me.
Now I was able to call mybrothers after the fact, talk to

(14:35):
them.
They had experienced fatalitiesfrom a fire, but it was
something that I never gotprofessional help on.
So all of that just instantlypopped back up.
And part of it, the trigger forme was the smell of the smoke
from the camper, that burning.
It's a it's it's a differentsmell of something that's

(14:57):
burning that's not supposed tobe burning.
So not like a campfire oranything like that.
And it took me there.
So it was about protectingpeople, even though my actions
didn't come across that way.
So that caused a lot of damage.
And that was one of the thingsthat I worked on with my

(15:22):
therapist and had thesediscoveries, and that while
anger was my response, fear wasmy feeling, if that makes sense.
And if you've been in therapyor you are in therapy, then it
might.
So the last podcast wasrecorded in February 22.

(15:43):
Uh, my wife asked for a divorcelater that same month.
So basically, I mean, while Ihad been doing some really
serious therapy since 2020,healing and growing, uh it was
probably a little too late andtoo much damage done in the

(16:05):
marriage, and she had alreadystarted seeking you know safety
and happiness elsewhere, and Ijust wasn't aware.
So we we get a divorce thatsummer.
So as a result of creating thisenvironment of eggshells for

(16:25):
everyone out of fear of losingthem, I still lost them in the
divorce.
So that was my mass casualtyevent that I was the center of.
So when taking a break from thepodcast um to really focus on

(16:49):
the therapy, one of the thingsum that was discovered, well,
not discovered, that was broughtto the surface, peeling back
some layers, was just this uhrealization of sexual abuse that
I had experienced when I wassix, and how that had that

(17:14):
sexualization at that time, howthat affected my life after that
and my actions as well.
So there was what was needed tohappen was take a break from
the grief work, the grieftherapy, to focus on the trauma
work.
Doing both at the same time,very difficult.

(17:37):
And professional uh therapistswill recommend not doing that at
the same time.
You kind of have to open andclose two different files.
There was just layer afterlayer after layer peeled back,
and a lot of work done, and alot of healing done, and a lot

(17:59):
of clarity came from all ofthat.
It's been a lot of hard work.
So there's been hurtful andrewarding all at the same time.
Getting down to just all ofthose layers.

(18:21):
I guess, you know, maybe thebest way that I could describe
it would be when you knowthere's all these things that
are inside you, right?
So you know that you've got tothrow up.
That's my analogy.
So I hate throwing up, and Iwill put it off as long as I
can, and maybe that's the samewith many or most of you know

(18:45):
you need to throw up, but youjust hate doing it.
And you and it just sits thereand you hang on to it and you
hang on to it, and you'remiserable during that time until
you throw up.
And throwing up, terrible,awful.
But after it's done, and allthose toxins and all that

(19:06):
stuff's out of your system, andyou're you're sitting there on
the bathroom floor, and there'sa sense of relief.
There's a sense of you feel alittle bit better almost
instantly, and maybe you need tothrow up again.
And when that's all done, thefeeling that you have inside of

(19:30):
all of that bad stuff being outis a really good feeling.
And as much as I I hatethrowing up, and yeah, I still
avoid that when I can, eventhough in my mind I know I
should just go ahead and do it.
Um, once I do, it's the sameevery time, just feeling better

(19:52):
after.
So that's kind of how I woulddescribe this hard work of
therapy and and and even traumatherapy.
Get the toxins out, and thenthe healing can actually begin.
So in the fall, after thedivorce, there was a faith-based

(20:15):
men's retreat that a closefriend had told me about that he
had gone to.
And I decided, okay, I'm gonnaI'll do that.
It was literally called on aWednesday, said there's an
opening on Thursday, come.
So I did.
And that was life-changing,that was impactful.
We broke into small groups, andthose guys that were in my in

(20:41):
my group, which are my soulbrothers, we will be forever
bonded with the work that we didon trauma and things that we we
have experienced in our lives,and the actions and reactions uh
that that had caused.

(21:02):
So we did a lot of work onthat, um, came out of that
again, just just with a achanged perspective.
And one of the biggest thingswas for me was living just
living a life of surrender andgratitude.
And my business that I had, um,I just it had just been a

(21:25):
struggle um since COVID.
And, you know, many of youunderstand that.
And I was just, I was like, Ineed to get out of this.
And trying to find an exitstrategy.
And again, just kind ofsurrendering, and and and that
was the thing, that was the keyfor me that I learned um with

(21:47):
this, uh, with some of thethings that I did with this
intensive um uh retreat, wasliving in a place of surrender
and gratitude, which is how Ilive now.
And I just surrendered to, youknow, what do you want?
What's gonna happen here?
And had a friend post somethingon LinkedIn about a particular

(22:13):
airline that was was hiring.
And I I'd known um thisgentleman, he was a fellow
lacrosse coach from yearsbefore.
Um, so I'd known him forprobably 20 years and and knew
he worked for this airline, butum didn't really know what he
did.
And so he posted this, and Ithought, well, okay, I'm just
gonna reach out.
So I I you know I call him andand I say, So, how does a

(22:34):
61-year-old guy with zeroairline experience get in?
And he's like, Oh, no, no, no.
Um, you've got all thisoperational background from
having your own business.
You've been in the amusementparks for a number of years,
you've got hospitality.
He said, I think there'sdefinitely a fit.
And so um that was on aThursday.

(22:55):
I sent a resume to him.
He goes, 'Cause he said, I'lljust float it.
And that was on Thursday.
And then on Friday, I got acall from a recruiter from that
airline, and that changed mypath and opened up an entirely
new career in airline managementthat I do now and that I

(23:17):
absolutely love.
You know, if someone had toldme three years ago, five years
ago, whatever, 10 years ago,that that's what I would be
doing and this is where I wouldbe right now, there would have
been no way.
There's just no way I couldn'twrap my mind around it.
Yet, because of that surrender,here I am.
And as people have told me, um,it's hard for me to say, but I

(23:42):
guess it's true.
But as people have told me,Bruce, you're living your best
life.
And while it might not lookthat way on paper, that is
what's going on.
And a lot of that certainly isattributed to that surrender and
gratitude, but also a lot ofwork, a lot of hard work with my

(24:03):
therapist, with just even as afacilitator working with other
groups of parents who haveexperienced this unimaginable
event and what I learned fromthem.
So when it comes to thetherapy, I can tell you from a

(24:27):
guy's side that it, you know, werun away from it.
Or if we have to face somethinglike that, you know, we may go
through the motions sometimes,but we're not really doing the
work.
And and that's this feeling ofjust trying to prevent being
vulnerable.
Um I'll use um a footballanalogy for this.

(24:50):
So like we're we know we've gotto go in and do this hard work
and we're gonna go into battle.
So we're gonna put on thehelmet, we're gonna put on the
pads, we tape it up, and we getready to face our opponent,
which basically is real emotionand trauma and loss and grief
and sadness.
So if we get pounded by it,we're protected, so to speak.

(25:10):
But that's not really doing thework.
What's really involved isallowing ourselves to be
vulnerable, which would be morelike rugby.
No pads, and you feel all thehard hits, and sometimes you
just get knocked on your ass inthe process, but it's getting
the work done.
And so now I've I've done a lotof work.

(25:32):
I'm I started doing, as I uh,as I may mentioned, um, earlier,
I uh facilitate a dad's groupwith a nonprofit in northern
Colorado.
Um, been doing that um, youknow, probably close to three
years, um, where we just meetand we're in a safe space, and
they um um the guys just kind ofshare their stories and what

(25:55):
they're feeling and strugglesand and successes, and
everyone's got a very unique anddifferent path um and a
different experience.
And again, all of it with ourum walking together toward
healing.
Um and recently I alsofacilitate a small group here in
Denver with uh with parents,and um again, same thing, safe

(26:21):
place.
You're like-minded in the inthe way of that you get each
other and you and you're notalone.
So that's where the workoutside of my career, um outside
my new career, that's where thefocus has been, and and a lot
of healing.
So a lot of work healing fromthe divorce, healing from

(26:43):
continued healing from traumasthat affected even my ability to
uh heal and grow from the grieffrom the loss of my daughter.
So just in a in a muchdifferent, much better place
now, and really feeling like Iwas ready to relaunch.

(27:03):
I was ready to do this, andthen just talking with a lot of
people, a lot of friends, a lotof other parents, you know, that
I know.
And, you know, this is wherethat idea came of having them
share their stories.
And so basically it's a likeI'm facilitating a one-on-one.
So we're just havingconversations, letting them
share their unique stories thatI believe will resonate with

(27:27):
someone somewhere, you know, asI discovered from one of the
retreats I hosted for dads oftwo dads that had almost
identical stories and oppositeregrets, and were able, you
know, they're able to connectand talk about why one had the

(27:48):
regret he did, and the other hadthe regret he did, and they
were just opposite.
I won't get into into detailson that because that's their
story, and and if that'ssomething that that one of them
wants to share at some point,then we'll do that.
So that's what's happeninggoing forward.
That's where I've been, andhere's where I am now.

(28:11):
Um so I'll also make a way foryou to reach out and connect
with me and let me know if youwant to share your story.
There's a way to do this.
You don't have to be um herewith me.
We can do this remotely.
And if you um if you just wantto get that out, and sometimes
just talking about it helps.

(28:33):
Saying things out loud help.
So I will offer my emailaddress, um, because I have a
new email address that's reallydedicated just to this type of
work, um, so that I'm easy tofind.
And, you know, feel free toreach out and say, hey, this
resonates with me, or you know,I want to come share my story.

(28:57):
And then as these, you know, asthe different parents come on
um and share theirs, you know,each one so far has said that
they're willing for someone toreach out to them.
So then it will, you know, soit'll be you'll contact me and
then I'll put you in contact.
I'm not gonna, we won't puttheir contact information out in
the podcast.
But if there's someone inparticular that you want to

(29:18):
reach out to, contact me andthen I'll connect the two of
you.
So I hope you find thisupcoming season and seasons
ahead helpful.
And if you have any questionsabout anything that's gone on
that you want to know, pleasejust reach out and let me know.
Okay, so here's that emailaddress.

(29:39):
Really easy.
So it's Bruce.barker61 atyahoo.com.
So br-u-c-e.br six one atyahoo.com.
Feel free to reach out uh withany questions, comments, and how
I can help.
So until next time, thanks forlistening.